

Momentary Haze

Copyright 2019 Bill Bice

Published by Bill Bice at Smashwords

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# Content

Huntsville Alabama 1977

Eleven years earlier

The Missing years

California

Homecoming

About the author

What others are saying

#

Huntsville Alabama 1977

I will never leave my bedroom again. It is my sanctuary. A cocoon of seclusion, where apathy comforts the wicked. The soft, hypnotic glow of the revolving 'Davy Crockett' lamp fizzles reality into a magical elixir of Raspberry donuts and Pepto Bismol. Here, the filthy pillow, drenched in the salve of drool, invites solace. Soothes the migraines, the fear, the tremors. Downstairs, Mildred slumps at the kitchen table quoting bible verses. She is certain I am destined for Hell, unaware I am already there.

In the dregs of night, the slender demon, attired in dads' bowling shirt, sharpens the serpent's tooth. Savoring the Mason jar. A demented appetite whetted by the silvery, young flesh marinating in a pint of 'Early Times' bourbon.

The stench of regret. An ancient tombstone in the graveyard of my spirit, saturated with tangled, strangled weeds. I shudder when baseball cleats grate across asphalt. When billiard balls skim across green felt and 'Surfer Girl' reverberates from a jukebox. Bloody Mary's invoke bloody bibles, smoldering firecrackers recall Remington rifles. Paralyzed by orange shag carpet moist with crimson milk, lathered in mayonnaise. I am doomed to endure the horrific resurrection of that June afternoon. Years wasted in perpetual deception, evading the consequences. Distractions only postponed my inevitable demise-numbing diversions—a momentary haze. I was thirteen-years old when I killed Tony 'Tater' Ruminello.

Eleven Years Earlier

It is a typical, muggy, June afternoon. The actual temperature does not matter. Southerners ignore the blistering heat. Today, though, even squirrels seek relief from the unbearable humidity. Would have been a hundred and ten in the shade, if there had been any. Boner Park was as dry and dusty as an October wheat field and, depending on the wind, if there had been any. The parking lot transformed into a virtual dust storm as spectators arrived for the Saturday afternoon games. The rampant rumors favoring The Rollins air-conditioning Astro's beating my Peoples' National Bank Dodgers. Not that I cared. It would be my final little league baseball game.

That we had lost our eight previous games was of no concern. I'm not sure why I even tried out for the fucking team, other than my dad threatened to whip my ass if I didn't. He claimed my participation would make a man out of me. Well, in that case, I thought, he should go out for the damn team.

The concrete bleachers crawled with free-loading spectators sucking the sweet juice from the paper of a strawberry freeze. Loaded adults ('Dullies') fanned themselves with limp, folded newspapers, attempting to maintain consciousness. Mothers struggled with warped baby strollers. Fathers perused the comic strips in the 'Huntsville Times', dreading mowing the lawn or repairing the leaking faucet after the game. Unaware and unashamed of their pearly white thighs, due to short pants worn exclusively on the weekend. They relished showing off, scowling at the ground when their boys missed a play. Glowering at the umpire when he did the same. A few men attended the game solely to purview the slender, tender ass of Frank Collins' pretty wife. And, at least one pervert enjoyed the sinewy figure of Frank Collins himself.

A chain-link fence separated the playing field from the bleachers. High above the fence, behind Home plate, loomed a 'pillbox', constructed with donated lumber. There, Melvin the maniac broadcast the play-by-play, introduced players and, before every inning, announced the latest sale on pork chops at 'Hembreys' grocery.

"Attention, puh-leez...puhleez, can I have yore attention?" The maniac would scream into a two-dollar microphone, pointing toward the fence. "You kids wid dem bikes up again the fence over thar...remove um this minute...I reepeeet...you kids..."

"Melvin, leave them kids alone, they ain'ta harmin' nothin'," someone would grumble.

When Mel would peek out the pillbox to see who was admonishing him, the microphone squealed like the brakes of a twenty-year old garbage truck.

"AAAAAAIIIIIIGGGGGHH...Mr. Boner said we liable for any ax-eee-dence. Attention, you kids...AAAAAIIIIIIEEEE."

As bikes were moved away from the fence, assorted flustered grunts reverberated from the bleachers. "Dang, Melvin, what's a matter with you, you beat everthang...unh, unh, unh."

Gathered at home plate, the coaches wiped the sweat from their reddened necks and shared the players rosters. The umpire, a one-armed insurance agent and weekend alcoholic named Lefty, slunk into the dugout and sipped from a paper cup, much to the chagrin of the spectators. But, no one else wanted the job. Finished with his pregame ritual, he'd scrunch the cup, relieve himself behind the dugout, then demand a few baseballs from the sardine-faced 'bat boy'.

Today, the scorching heat requires foam coolers crammed with Schlitz, Double Colas and baby formula.

I could feel the intense disdain from the crowd as I hauled my fat ass out to the pitcher's mound. It's a wonder somebody didn't assassinate me. Plant a bomb in my jock strap or something. Hell, I concurred. I preferred to hang out at the concession stand, stuff myself with greasy corn dogs slathered in gooey mustard. Adored French fries drenched in pepper sauce.

I didn't want to be here. I hated the game. The Competition. The rules. The expectation of winning.

Day-dreaming my sole desire. I revert to the past, when the streets in my neighborhood were clouds of dust. Before the endless assault of mind-fucks and groove-killers sucked me dry. Before today. June Second, 1966.

I longed for tranquil hours. Cradling a tennis ball in my glove as a Piper Cub soared...no...floated across the bluesy sky. Mingling with fluffy clouds that resembled kernels of popcorn.

I cherished the mound in my backyard, the green grass trampled to death from the soles of my tennis shoes. There, I'd pitch the dirty, yellow rubber ball against the side of the garage. Painting the white slats of wood with crescent-shapes of brown. Decorating the wall in a tableau of mud-colored amoeba. Sometimes, it ricochets from a warped slab, forcing me to dodge a dogwood to retrieve the pop fly. Once in a blue moon, I'll miss the entire wall, but it doesn't matter. I'm not here to practice pitching. I'm here to contemplate. Most afternoons, I sit in the brown patch of dirt and knot dandelions or drown tiny ant hills with spit.

Addicted to loneliness, I cherish solitude. I abhor useless conversation. It prevents me from pondering the important questions. Why can't I eat a whole pizza by myself? Why is it a sin to masturbate to the photo of the bikini-clad girls depicted on the cover of my 'Thunderball' album or ejaculate in a 'Playboy' centerfold? Why does the water fountain at the Trailways bus station in Birmingham have 'white only' taped to it? Why did old man Blalock on Cedarhill Street like that little girl so much? Why would he hang himself with the girl's underwear?

My contemplation of such matters consumed me. More puzzling was that a reasonable explanation evaded me. Then, I'd resort to flinging my ball and hope that Mildred did not over-cook tonight's salmon patties.

The game seemed to last forever. Tired and hungry, I prayed for an earthquake, deluge, anything that would end this boring, pathetic contest. If the apocalypse dawned, they might end it in the top of the fourth. Spectators bellowed and hollered. Lives were at stake in the outcome of this farce. My attention diverted when an uncoordinated tyke busted his lip slamming into a lamp post. As 'Lefty' wiped the blood from the screaming runt's face, I became nauseous. Damming one nostril of the runts bulbous nose, he encouraged the kid to snort snot out of the other.

My name was on the roster only because the other pitcher was on summer vacation.

As usual, my prayers were not answered, no hurricane or meteor shower. Finally, after eons of drudgery, the top of the ninth arrived. The game tied at two. My bat. Staggering from the dugout, a teammate pointed to the outfield. "Hey, Pan, ain't that your dad?"

Sure enough, my old man leaned against the aluminum chain-link fence. His bronzed and hairy forearms atop the railing. Left hoof snarled in a link. Flossing his teeth with an instrument of convenience; a match, a blade of grass, a machete.

"BATTER UP!" Lefty snarls.

I faked obligatory practice swings. Batting left-handed, dad lurked behind me, out of sight. Miracle.

"C'mon, Pan, eye on the ball," Coach Musilio instructed.

I scan the gray marbled limestone quarry behind 'Boner' field. Where, once, the voluptuous green, forested mountain had stood majestic. These days, it was gutted, raped, disfigured for eternity. Nothing but a charred, jagged hole in the land. Like a humongous ice cream scoop had dipped into the lush vegetation. All that remained were shards of crushed rock, forever welded to the red Alabama clay.

Dad rarely attended my games. I preferred he didn't. He'd forced me to play a game that I had no interest in whatsoever. I didn't want little-league baseball to make a man out of me.

I could feel his presence, his gawking at me. Wanting me to make Him proud.

"STRIKE ONE!" Lefty grunted.

"C'mon, Pan, wait for the right one," Coach implored, trying to boost my confidence.

'It's amazing, how, after months of tossing a tennis ball against the side of the garage, it retained such resiliency. The utter trivialities of life depressed me, but I NEVER wanted to quit slinging that ball, Ever! If heaven really did exist, I was already there−pitching a ball against the side of the garage..."

"STRIKE TWO!"

`...I'd slam those slats all night, if I'd had enough light. Wonder if they make fluorescent tennis balls?"

The opposing pitcher winded up like he was Whitey Ford.

'...It felt so great to snare a pop fly as it headed for the Dogwood.'

"STRIKE THREE! YOU'RE OUT, SON! INNING OVER."

The bat had never left my meaty shoulder. I wobbled back to the dugout. A redneck from the bleachers yelled, '...Cain't hit the ball if you don't swing at it!" What he wanted to say, was, 'you might have hit the damn thing if you weren't so fucking fat and lazy and didn't weigh more than the whole goddamn baseball team combined!'

Coach pity-touched my shoulder. "Can't hit 'um all, son. Get out there and give me three quick outs."

A couple of ugly girls in pigtails and braces were playing catch by the refreshment stand. I turned to Coach Moose. "I don't wanna pitch no more," I mumbled.

"Timmy," Coach said, "go out there and pitch for Panther, son." God, I hope Coach Moose had a great life. He whispered, "Panther, son, your daddy wants you...better go see what he wants, dodger."

Sometimes, a second lasts forever, and forever later I was staring at the gut of a six-foot-three slab of human granite. His untrimmed, ashen-gray eyebrows furrowed. His 'cow-shit' brown eyes drilling a hole in mine. His muscle-roped forearms folded. A stray curl of hair, reminiscent of Rock Hudson or Andy Griffith, pasted to his glistening forehead. My dad, the 'Curse of the Roman Empire' condensed into one rogue auctioneer. The King of whup-ass.

"Panther Burn, what in the hell is wrong with you?" His words the same timbre, like a gong in the bowels of hell. "Get your ass out there on that field, now!" He extricated the machete from his stiffened lips. I imagined his face on Mount Rushmore. Better yet, chiseled into the limestone quarry. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Dad. Perfect. "...I mean it buddy boy, get out there before I have to come in there and drag you to the mound."

Dads were tyrants in those days. Life required Competition, losing no option. My pristine tears bled like liquid pearls, more from humiliation than the verbal abuse hurled upon me. I lowered my baseball cap to hide the clinched crease in my forehead, more angry than anxious. I frowned at dad's folded arms, his eyes like melted glass.

I strolled to the dugout. "I'll pitch," I frowned at coach, hobbling to the clay mound. Timmy, relieved, raced back to the dugout. A distorted 'All my Lovin', by the Beatles, strained from the inadequate public-address system (You had to give Melvin credit, at least he liked the Beatles).

I tossed a few warm-up pitches while the infielders passed the ball around. My dirty cheek lines of clean streaks where the tears had fallen. I threw the first pitch with eyes closed. The ball flew eight feet over the batter's head and slammed into the top of the pillbox. Melvin ducked and the crowd 'wooed'.

Coach screamed, "Settle down out there!" Larry, my catcher, darted to the mound punching his mitt, smiling. "Hey man, woulda been a strike if the guy was thirty feet tall." He spit. "Hey, man, that chick in the orange shorts by the light-pole ain't wearin' no bra." I didn't care. He jogged back and crouched behind home plate.

My infield began 'chattering', 'Hey batta, batta, batta cain't hit." I finally stopped crying, tired of acting like a baby.

My next pitch flailed over the pillbox! Coach signaled for us to settle down with a downward motion of his palms, like patting a pygmy on the head. An idiot from the peanut gallery taunted the team. "C'mon guys, tighten up! CONCENTRATE!"

The next batter was Chris (Swifty) Jones. A behemoth with gleaming braces and 'Beatle' haircut. He slammed the ball over the center field fence. I watched it dent the bumper of a purple Dodge Dart. Our center fielder immediately plopped to the ground, spread-eagle in disgust. A chorus of groans echoed through 'Boner' field. Jones crossed second base and grinned, "Never hit a home run off a baby before."

The scoreboard read 2-3. Melvin seemed thrilled. "'Swifty' Jones SLAMS one over the fence. Wow, what a shot! Well, that'll do it, folks. Final score, 'Peoples National two, 'Rollin's Air, three. Now don't forget, 'Hembreys' pork chops, jest twenty-seven cents a pound, be sure to tell 'um Mel sent cha."

I slumped to the dugout as Dullies gathered their empty coolers and headed home in disgust. I couldn't wait to do the same. I flung my glove against a water cooler, pretending to be angry with my performance on the mound. My best friend, Zooma West, pat me on the shoulder. "Don't sweat it, man, son of a bitch got lucky. I'm fixin' to go over there and whip his fuckin' ass. You OK?" Stealing the baseball from my glove, he heaved it toward the home-run King, missing his mop-topped head by inches.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I demurred, peering over Zooma's shoulder. Dad had left the premises.

"Hey! You!" Coach yelled, approaching us. "Son, what do you think you're doin'? You almost hit that boy. Panther, I don't know who your friend is, and don't care, but I don't ever want to see him on this field again. I will not tolerate un-sportsmanship on my watch, no matter who it is. Understand?"

Zooma, dressed in black jeans and wearing a satin blue puffy sleeved shirt, glared at coach. A star shaped medallion hung around his neck. Covering his eyes were his ever-present sunglasses. Safe to say Zooma West wasn't interested in anything organized, sports or otherwise.

I waited for my penance, studied the dirt. "...Well, any how's, you boys played a good game, here's a dollar, go get 'cha a coke."

We rambled off the field as players for the next game tossed a ball around. 'Lefty' sipped from a paper cup and blew his nose. I bought a couple dogs from the refreshment stand and a large suicide (a mixture of coke, seven-up, orange, whatever). My teammate, Tater, downplayed the loss. "Hey Pan, wanna come over? Folks went to the lake for the weekend and I know where dad keeps his skin-flicks hidden."

Beat going home. I grabbed my bike. Zooma strolled by.

"Hey, thanks." I said.

"For what?" he replied. "...Hell, I missed the beady-eyed fucker."

Zooma West uttered the word 'fuck' more than a porn film director. In those days, I didn't curse. I'd heard dad say the word once when he'd jammed his knuckles with a tire iron. But to hear a boy my age say 'fuck' was impressive. I wouldn't use the word until I was old enough to do the word. I reckoned my Catholic upbringing was to blame. But I liked it, the word, precisely because it infuriated the 'Dullies'.

Zooma existed in a unique space and it was difficult to get invited there. But this was a rare opportunity to invite him. "Hey, Zoom, we're headed over to 'Tate's house—shoot pool, watch a skin flick. Wanna come?"

"Naw, man, house chores to do."

"Housechores!" I screamed, forgetting I was castigating a boy not afraid to say 'fuck' in front of adults. Someone who would hurl a baseball at the head of a kid four times his size.

"Kiddin', man..." Zooma replied. "Let's go."

Like homeless tap-dancers, Tater and I clanked down Mastin Lake road in our cleats. Took our time. Here, at the front end of the weekend, we had time. Tater lit an 'Old Gold' by flicking the match with his front tooth, then, inhaling, he said, "Another one down the drain." His acute acne chiseled across his jaw like greasy rice.

"Yeah...like the Roto-Rooter man!" I laughed, feeling better, a friend among friends. Zooma spit and sang the advertising jingle, '...and away go troubles down the drain." Tater chuckled and coughed at the same time. "Hey, you hear Bridget Bardot is missing at sea? Lucky for her, she got rescued by a fisherman who mistook her tits for a buoy!" he joked, howling like a drunk monkey.

"Barrel of laughs, crater face, stop with the shitty jokes or we're gonna split our guts," I said.

The 'split-level', rust-colored brick house was typical to the neighborhood. The front yard void of tricycles, baby pools and jump-ropes, 'Tater' being an only child. Mr. Ruminello kept the grass mowed and the hedges trimmed. The basketball goal above the garage had never experienced a game of horse—the net a virgin, the rim shiny orange, the backboard nary a smudge. Entering the garage, Tater informed Zooma that smoking in the house was forbidden. Then he had a conniption fit because my cleats were marking up the linoleum. I had never seen a cleaner kitchen. Every potholder in its rightful place. A bowl of plastic apples and bananas arranged in a ceramic bowl on the table. A magnetic photograph of Bear Bryant and Joe Namath clung to the refrigerator. We removed our forbidden foot-ware, then followed Tater into a room that was colder than the artic zone. But, after spending the afternoon inhaling dust and sweating like a Tijuana whore, it was delightful. Zooma, who contained less fat than a strip of bacon, complained about the chill and wanted to lower the thermostat but was over-ruled. The dark wood-panels, low light and frigid air gave the room a gloomy ambience, like the bowels of a mine shaft. The walls decorated with framed photos of JFK, Bear Bryant and several diplomas. Littering a shelf above the stone fireplace were countless bowling trophies. Propped against a wall was a mahogany gun cabinet with tear-drop shaped crystal handles. But what really impressed me was the huge Brunswick billiard table. I fondled a cue-stick as Tater turned on the television, then immediately muted it as some idiot warbled "Ho Ho Ho, Green Giant".

"Anybody hungry?" 'Tater' asked, removing a 'Beach Boys' album from its sleeve. He didn't wait for an answer. "...Well, then, somebody, namely you, scud-face, better go in there and fix us something," he grumbled, nodding at me. "...Hey, Zoom, you gotta see something," he said, placing the album on the turntable and flicking a switch.

An empty bottle of Windex, a vial of gun oil, an oil-stained t-shirt, several rifle cartridges and an empty bottle of Dr. Pepper cluttered the countertop of the gun cabinet. When Tater removed a rifle from the cabinet, it made me uneasy. "Thought you said we were gonna watch your dad's skin-flicks?" I said.

"In a minute Pan."

'...do you love me...do you surfer girl...'

"Whatever,' I replied. "...so what'cha got to eat in this dump?" I asked, aiming a yellow ball at a corner pocket.

"You can eat ME!" Tater replied.

'...hey there little surfer girl...'

I headed toward the spotless kitchen.

"Nice huh?" Tater smiled, cradling the rifle. "Dad got it last week. Winchester 64 30-30 lever action. Like the cowboys used. Roy Rogers and John Wayne. Hey Pan?" He yelled, cocking the lever. When I turned, he aimed the rifle at me and pulled the trigger. Thank god it wasn't loaded.

"Lemme see it," Zooma commanded. "Are those the bullets for it?" He asked, eyeing the cartridges on the countertop.

"I don't know Zooma, I guess they are. Dad gets mad if I even get close to his things."

"Where's the mustard?" I yelled from the kitchen.

"Prob'ly in the fridge, man!" Tater retorted.

"Naw it ain't!"

"Unh. Here, hang on to it 'til I get back," Tater said, retiring to the kitchen.

"Damn, Panther Burn, I ain't yo mama," he grumbled, foraging among tartar sauce and ketchup and malt vinegar. Five minutes later, we returned to the den with a huge pyramid of sandwiches; Pastrami, ham, sweet pickles, lettuce and tomato, gobs of mayo and mustard. Clutched under my arm was a huge bag of potato chips. Zooma was aiming the rifle at the front window. I set the platter down on a smoked glass coffee table.

"Couldn't find no napkins." I said, licking the succulent mess of mayo and Italian salad dressing from my fingers. Smearing my greasy hand along the pant leg of my dirty, canary yellow baseball uniform.

'...surfer girl surfer girl...'

I grabbed another triangle to go with my other three.

"Nice, huh?" Tater enthused. "Check out the pearl inlay."

A nice rifle, I guessed, never having seen a real one before. The previous Christmas, I'd received a pop-gun– Davy Crockett model. I'd stashed it in my closet. Guns frightened me in those days, they don't anymore.

"You gonna eat?" I asked Zooma, hoping to deflect his interest in the rifle. He glared at me like my nose was breeding cockroaches.

"Panther Burn, I've handled guns since I was knee-high to a grasshopper..." he replied, frowning, angry I would even broach the subject.

"Let Panther see it..." 'Tater' said.

"Naw..." I cooed. "...anyway, what 'bout those movies?"

"Aw, hell, Panther," Tater said, irritated. "...Ain't gonna bite ya, don't be a pussy, man. Here, Zooma, let me have it..."

I'd hoped he was about to return it to the rack...if he had...

When Tater implied that I had been afraid to hold the damn gun, it embarrassed me, especially in Zooma's presence. So, quick as a whip, as Zooma was handing the rifle over to Tater, I lunged for it. Time to prove I was worthy of being in their prestigious company.

I grabbed the rifle. It slipped.

A cursed memory. The ear-shattering blast. The sparkling explosion of maroon and gray. It happened so fast, yet, so excruciatingly slow. Tater crumpled to the floor. Fragments of plaster, beige confetti, drifted from the ceiling like summer snow. Sulfuric clouds bloomed acrid dust. The smoldering barrel a wisp of bluish smoke. The hearth splattered with blood. Eerie rain-colored, seared flesh shrouded in a swirling vapor. The freezing room, a den of congealed waste. His ring finger a ghoulish twitch. Then, still. Still. Crimson sludge seeps into the crevice caused by the brunt of walnut stock. Slivers of lime and pickles drip from bowling trophies. Atop an end table, the family bible and framed photographs drenched with the guts of the familiar. Dark hues, the texture of wet potato chips and soft cheese. Purplish lobes like pig intestines. Prickly shards of skull illuminated by the sheen of the television screen. Beside the dog-eared bible, a silver tray of sandwiches saturated with the brain of my best friend.

'....do you love me, do you surfer girl...surfer girl...surfer girl...'

The vile, repugnant odor of burning hair, of old pennies, ammonia, soiled underwear and spoiled milk. I shudder, my hands tremble, my stomach turns, delirious disgust, bewilderment. Mystified Stupor. The stench of gelatinous flesh. A deep moaning, baying, crawling from the core of my being. The empty cartridge, proving my guilt, inches from my sock. My palms straddle my ears—the blast still detonating. A slimy, foreign substance glued to my cheek, the texture of burnt bacon, a fragment of pastrami, a sliver of tongue, a scorched earlobe.

'...do my crying and my sighing, laugh at yesterdaaay...'

What to do, who to call, how to proceed. The muted television. Astaire and Roger's waltz across a ballroom floor, both attired in tuxedos.

Zooma vomits into the blood-smeared hearth, still holding his half-eaten sandwich, lettuce oozing from the reddish, slimy bread. I abandon him. My own distress insurmountable.

I don't know how much time passed, but someone wrapped me in a blanket and guided me down the driveway. I wanted my bike, someone said I could get it later. I crawled inside my bed and hid my shame for the rest of my miserable life.

*

I presumed it was the following day. I was too distressed to know, or care. Mildred huddled over my bed like a vulture. "You need to go to church, Panther. Get dressed."

"No," I replied. I wouldn't leave my room today, or ever again. Vein-throbbing, eye-numbing, flame-throwing migraines would plague me for decades, requiring a prescription of total darkness, silence and movement.

The phone rang. From the kitchen she yelled. "Panther Burn, that was the police. They want to talk to you. Their coming here at two. Get a shower and use soap. I'll be back by then. Your father waiting for you—he's in the garage."

I waited until Mildred backed the Rambler out of the driveway, then went to the kitchen. I was chugging a carton of chocolate milk when there was a knock on the kitchen window.

"Hey man, we need to talk," Zooma whispered through the screen. I met him outside on the patio.

Earlier that morning, the cops had interrogated him. Now, he wanted to interrogate me. As he remembered it, after the gun went off, I slumped in the couch and stuffed my face in a pillow, shaking, rocking back and forth, moaning. While he dialed 911, I sat dazed on the front porch. He claimed he was holding the rifle when it fired. He was lying. For reasons I would not understand until years later, Zooma had rearranged the facts. To my lifelong detriment, I agreed to concur with his version. That day, I became a pathetic, fat, neurotic coward. "Ok, Zooma, if you say so."

An hour later, when the Police arrived, Zooma was long gone.

"Mister Trust, this is Officer Bennett, I'm Sargent Grady. We need to ask you a few questions about yesterday."

Dad and Mildred teetered on the edge of the blue velvet couch holding hands. As the cops questioned me, I studied the carpet. I lied to save myself.

A long time passed before Zooma ever mentioned the 'incident' again. But, in a small town, rumors are a malignancy. Some believed Zooma should go to prison for murder, or, at least the D-home or 'Bryce's' (the mental hospital down in Tuscaloosa). Some hoped he would do the world a favor and kill himself. But Zooma was not charged with anything except stupidity, recklessness and dereliction of common sense.

I hadn't the...well...the guts to ask Zooma why he had shouldered the blame. The next week, the Ruminellos sold their house to a rocket scientist relocating from Seattle. The incident was recorded as an unfortunate accident (HPD was furious at Mr. Ruminello for not locking the gun cabinet in the first place).

But, the 'what-ifs' would forever assault me. What if we had slurped a bowl of chili instead of grease-laden sandwiches? What if we had watched the porn film? What if we'd won the baseball game and hung out at the ballpark? What if Zooma had beaned Swifty on the head with the baseball and was arrested? What if I'd never been fucking born? The 'what ifs' were many and the more I reflected on them, the less sense they made. What had happened, happened. Tater was dead—would be forever. In a sense, I died that day. I didn't give a fuck anymore. I would never win another baseball game and didn't care. What if we had done one thing different that Saturday, would it have changed the outcome? Can fate be fooled, or is Due Course set in concrete? Are the crosswinds of Destiny inevitable? I don't know. But on that June afternoon, when the Rollins' Astro's beat the Peoples National Bank Dodgers, life as I knew it, was over. I'm so sorry, Tater. So, very sorry.

*

Mildred's deplorable rendition of 'Oh, what a beautiful morning" awakened me. Sunlight penetrated my darkened room like a poisonous harpoon. It shone at a perfect angle to my bloodshot eyes and made me nauseous. A damn chirping blackbird outside my window drove me insane. My descent into hell had begun. At the breakfast table I snared three flies with my bare hand. But set them free. Mildred accused me of not preparing 'judiciously' enough for the Visitation. The funeral home had kept Tater on ice for several days, until the investigation ended. Tony Senior was reprimanded for the loaded gun and paid a fine. Police officials assured him that we would live with the tragedy for the rest of their lives—that should be penance enough. They had no idea. Tomorrow, the ravaged corpse would rest for eternity. I only wanted to return to my cocoon. I ripped Taters' obituary from the 'Huntsville Times' and read it until I became catatonic.

Butter melted into scorched French toast as I attempted to make sense (or nonsense) of the trivial words.

'Tony 'Tater' Ruminello, age 13, died (murdered) Saturday, June 2. He was preceded in death by a grumpy spinster aunt, Eula Mae, who committed suicide over a large gambling debt. Survived by parents, Anthony and Victoria, and another unraveled Aunt Mona (Tater once caught her masturbating another woman), who lived on a Mississippi River Barge. Visitation at Gooiihans Funeral home, 'sevenish'. Be there or be square. Internment (drop him in the hole and fill it up−unleaded) at noon, Wednesday. Donations to the Huntsville Little League Association would be appreciated (or go play bingo, suck a pickle, screw a duck, whatever).

I shoved the plate of sopping toast away. Time to attend the viewing. I made a loose knot in my navy-blue tie. Hell, I'd received more interesting 'write-ups' when I'd pitched a terrible game; 'Panther Burn Trust was the losing pitcher last night in the game against the 'U-NEEDAHOMES' Pirates. He gave up fourteen hits, made three costly errors and struck out all four times at bat in the losing cause.' Hell, I could no more tie a knot than I could divide pi. I had clipped a plastic factory-made tie to my collar when Mildred entered the room. "Here, honey, let me help you. My, you look sharp. Going to be OK?"

"I don't wanna be a pallbearer." I pouted. The Funeral director had phoned Mildred and volunteered me to haul Tater's coffin to his grave. Mildred had said yes before she'd asked me. The woman enjoyed dishing out penance.

"Well, Tony would've wanted it. Ya'll were best friends."

"Tater...not Tony," I corrected. "Anyway, Zoomas' my best friend."

Fuck. Her honey-flavored disposition was sickening.

From the den downstairs, disembodied voices. "If Nicklaus woulda birdied five, he woulda saved par on the front nine..." (If Oswald had gotten stomach cramps on a November afternoon in Dallas...if Lincoln had hated plays...if I had gone home after the game...)

Ah, my friend, dumped into a dirt hole, because his brain splattered the room with fallow shades of maroon and gray. And, as the world burns, dad and a neighbor extrapolate the strategies of a golfer.

"What does a pallbearer do?" I asked, studying my reflection. She fiddled with my imitation leather belt.

"Well, you and Tony's...uh...Taters' other friends help carry the...uh...casket from the church to the...hearse. Then, when you get to the grave site, you carry the rema...uh, carry Tater to his final resting place."

A hell of a way to be remembered...remains. Due Course in the cycle of our lives. From the moment of initial breath, we are remains.

My blue and gold paisley tie formed a perfect triangle in the crotch of my throat.

Mildred dropped me off at Gooiihans. I loiter in front of the gaudy, faux-antebellum funeral home and inform Mildred I would find a way home. She reminded me to be respectful. What did she think I would do, shit on the carpet? Outside the mortuary, lounging in feeble wicker chairs, three old geezers sucked on nicotine sticks. Spit yellowed mucus toward a hibiscus. The temperature inside the funeral parlor had a wind-chill factor of minus ten. Wished I'd have worn my army jacket instead of this gaudy, plaid sport coat. My brown penny loafers were strangling my feet and I felt the onset of another migraine. Coach Moose, surrounded by three or four of my teammates, grieved beside a frail, thin woman in a sleek, black dress. Coach approached. Lucky for me, some idiot accosted him, wanting to know if his idiot son was college material. I was relieved. What could Coach say? I didn't need words of wisdom, or worse, pity. Nothing could change the circumstances. I loved Coach for leaving me alone. Bathed children, dressed in Sunday's finest, drooled as mothers tied their shoelaces. That the little rug-bugs were here at all infuriated me. A shortage of 'whipper-snapper-sitters', I presumed.

The vulgar scent of colorful funeral wreaths was proof enough burial traditions were a farce. These picked flowers would die like the rest of us. I supposed bingo parlor games had been forfeited so that the bereaved could afford these drooping weeds. Doug Collins, my team-mate, skated over.

"He's in there," he pointed. Dullie's, dressed in attire more suitable for weddings and other morbid occasions, lingered at the entrance to parlor one. An easel with tiny, white pin letters welcomed me to Tater's last roundup.

John Hickey, Walter Whatshisname and girlfriend, Leslie Loser, shot up to me like I'd won the lottery.

"What was it like, Panther? I heard Zooma laughed after he shot Tater. Did he really eat his brains!" Leslie asked, her ice-cold hand gripping mine.

"Was his head blowed plum off?" Walter asked, eyes ablaze.

"Don't remember," I said, straightening my perfect tie. I felt like ripping the damn thing from my neck and strangling these imbeciles with it.

"But it must have been horrible, just horrible!" Fake despair.

"It WAS bad," I replied and moved toward the parlor. "Is he...uh, in there?" I nodded, gorging my cold, fat and numb hands into the silk lined pockets of my sport coat.

"Well, yeah...sort of," Whatshisname said, smirking. I felt like killing him. "Had to close the lid 'cos there ain't much left." Correct, Walter. I had first-hand knowledge. The gruesome threesome exited the funeral home with grins on their gutless faces. Then Leslie re-entered, winked at me and said, "We're goin' to Patsy's for refreshments if you wanna come." I glared at her.

"You don't have to be such a turd, Panther," she replied, tossing her long brunette hair over her shoulder.

I, Moses', Dullie's the sea, parting as I made my way into parlor number one. The room about as comfortable as a confessional at St. Mary's. Cigarette smoke drifted in the still, dank air. I felt the mocking gaze of heavy-lidded eyes, no doubt reddened and swollen, furious that I'd had the guts to even show up. Photographs of Tater were arranged on a small table. I hovered over the table as a wreck of a woman, eighty pounds if soaking wet, hustled up to me. A dishcloth dangled from her wrinkled, purple-blotched hand. Her perfume so obnoxious it overpowered the fragrance of the flower arrangements. I held my breath as she asked, "And who might you be?"—her voice like the big bad wolf badgering 'red riding hood'. "I want to meet all Tony's friends."

"Jesus! Woman, Tater ain't got no friends, or didn't you realize he's the headless one stuffed in the box over there!" I thought. I wanted to slap her stinking road-mapped mug. Felt like smearing her Coca-Cola red lipstick over her bulbous cheeks. Bits of beige cake had lodged between her gum and manufactured teeth—her smile like a demented cheetah. A rope of fake pearls the size of marbles tugged at her throat. Her neck blanched, sheer, like the skin of an onion, outlined with dark blue, tangled veins. Long, sinewy bones trembled when she spoke. Her useless breasts like ropes of cheap bologna. Her white high heels scuffed with splotches of what appeared to be turnip greens.

"I'm Panther," I sulked. 'Panther Burn Trust. Me and Ta...Tony played on the same baseball team." Then I thought; '...hell, woman, ain't none of your damn business. I won't ever see your old hag again long as I live, or you live, and you'll probably live FOREVER! (seconds)"

"Fine," she said. "I know ya'll must miss him." The ropes of bologna pressed against my shoulder. I felt dizzy from her perfume—she must have taken a bath in it. The entire room was nothing but a garden in a garbage dump.

"He's over here," she whispered, clutching my elbow and guiding me to the rear of the parlor. Haunting, eerie organ music drifted from the ceiling. A man with an amazing likeness to Humphrey Bogart gazed into space. I turned from Bogie as she huddled me into a smaller room, and there, the sacred altar. Perched upon it was the gleaming, gray coffin, lid closed. Atop the coffin, a floral arrangement in the likeness of an airplane, the casket being the runway. For a split second, I thought I was in the wrong parlor. Good God, Tater had no interest in airplanes. When 'Bogie' began a hacking cough, four attendees exited the parlor in disgust. I moved a formidable distance from the phlegm infused, tumor infested old goat. Sick of lilies, carnations and rose-madder, lavender and periwinkle.

"It's heartfelt, isn't it? The flowers, cards, tokens of sympathy." Her breath told of countless gargles of Listerine. Endless years of dental malpractice. Her coffee stained and cola maimed false teeth fascinated me.

"You're welcome to stay as long as you like, Panther," she said. "What an unusual name you have there." She nodded to a corner. "Oh, Tony's parents. Take your time, honey. I'll inform them of your arrival."

"Look, you toothless wonder, leave me alone!" I wanted to scream but didn't. '...I don't want to see his parents.... don't you realize I was there...You bitch," I wanted to strangle the bitch, but wouldn't. I needed to get the helloutofthere. Cola-maimed meandered among the flowers, admiring the petals, reading condolences. For some reason, the casket brought back a memory of Tater and me going to Camp Tekawitha for a week one summer. We were both in the same Boy Scout Troop. My goal for the week, four merit badges; metallurgy, bicycling, swimming, and canoeing. Taters goal was swimming and canoeing. I earned one. Tater, none. To earn the swimming badge, I had to swim a mile down the Tennessee River. A canoe hauled ten of us out to deep water, where we jumped, or were pushed in. Twenty yards downstream, I noticed the boat wasn't following me. As I tread the cool, black water, I saw an Eagle scout drag Tater from the water. 'Aw, c'mon, kid, cramps are for pussies', he taunted Tater. As I drowned, they pulled up alongside shouting 'keep swimming lard ass.' Tater, spread-eagle in the canoe, panted, his acne glistened. The following day, he quit the scouts before breakfast and went home. I earned my swimming badge, my first and last merit, but, in protest, refused to sew the damn thing to my sash. Three months later, I was forced to resign for refusing to cut my hair. Appropriate hair length, as described in scouts' regulations, was not allowed to touch the collar. I demanded to know if regulations also required Eagle Scouts to belittle and destroy a boy's confidence.

Today, Tater's ghost awaits freedom. Glaring at the layers of steel, bronze, a purple airplane and a can of insect repellent, I wanted to cry. Cowards cry, why can't I?

I exited the parlor, searching for a restroom. Catching me off guard, Tater's father cornered me, his eyelids rimmed in red, jaw slack. He was beat.

"Hello, Panther...glad you could come. Son, could I speak with you outside for a moment?"

My heart dropped to my knees. I brushed my Beatle bangs with a cold hand, "yes sir."

We strolled past the old buzzard's lounging on the front porch, swatting at mosquitoes. Out in the parking lot a dog urinated on the tires of a beat-up Ford pickup.

"So, how ya doin'?"

"OK I guess, Mister Ruminello."

"Panther, son, what exactly happened? Can you tell me?" His plea heartbreaking.

I relayed the truth according to Zooma West. Oh, what a Coward I was...am. "Yes, Mr. Ruminello, it was a terrible accident. Zooma was handing the gun back to Tony when it ...well...it just went off. Happened so fast. It's all a blur..." I lied. Fortunately, I had to pee again—good excuse to get away from Mr. Ruminello.

Needing to be alone, I walked home. That evening, I phoned Zooma's house. His mother, Thizzie, answered.

"Zooma plan on going to the funeral tomorrow?" I queried. He wasn't asked to be a pallbearer and, if he wasn't going to be one, neither was I.

"Uh, no, Panther, he' gone to Birmingham to visit his grandmother. Are you OK?"

"I reckon...well, tell Zooma I called, goodbye, Mrs. West."

"Bye, Pan. And, I'm so sorry."

I demanded Mildred make a phone call and get me off the hook. She turned a cheek to her bible.

I didn't attend the funeral. Some cross-eyed, bow-legged, flat-chested girl who spent her time writing love-letters to Ringo Starr was the sixth pallbearer. I had planned to bury the Mason jar containing Tater's remains beside his grave. But I never would. For the next sixteen years, the jar would stay hidden in my bedroom closet. It would have stayed there until the end of time if Zooma hadn't found it. The jar would change the course of our lives forever.

I heard it was a nice funeral, whatever that meant. I laid in bed and listened to the Second Beatles album until I journeyed into never ever land. That night, I dreamed of the stinking, scuffed woman at the funeral parlor. She rammed a Coke bottle up my rectum while I stuffed her vagina with withered gardenias.

A week later, I rode my bike over to Tater's grave. Rows and rows of limp, plastic bouquets and wet, dead flowers littered the cemetery. Engraved on his tombstone, in swirling script.

Anthony (Tater) Ruminello

'1954- 1966'

That's All, Folks! Amateur artists, no doubt stoned/drunk, had scrawled 'RIP' and depicted full-figured women in magic marker on the white speckled granite. Six or seven empty cans of 'Budweiser' and limp yellowed 'Cheetos' were strewn about the plot. Cigarette butts sculpted into a crude mound. Slipped under a cake of moist mud, I noticed a wilted sheet of soiled paper. I removed it from the tilled ground.

'Whippoorwill shares its bleeding leaves

A Glorious Autumn and yet we grieve'

The words melted with the gathering dew. Blue ink faded into the moist paper the way soft pillows swallow gentle tears. I replaced the mush in the mud and wondered if he'd ever make a second visit?

So, Zooma West took the fall for me. I am the one who grabbed the rifle. It had slipped from my hand. If Tater hadn't called me 'pussy'...hell...Tater had caused his own demise—and the rifle? I could blame Mr. Ruminello, but Tater should have had enough sense to see if it was loaded. Yeah, there's enough blame to go around—sure— get down to it, it's not my fault—hell no. I was the scapegoat. Perhaps Zooma believes it was his fault. I doubt it. But why wasn't he there in the days, months and years after the fact, when I'd needed some reassurance. When I needed someone to say "it wasn't all your fault. Accidents happen. Sure, you're a dumb-ass—but time goes on—shit happens. We all fuck up sooner or later."

We had shared the life-altering moment and we had survived (somewhat). Had experienced futility at its core. And, though it may be human nature to forgive, how does one suppress the regurgitation of guilt and cowardice? If that one incident had been my sole misfortune, time might have healed the pain and sorrow. Unfortunately, not long after Tater's demise, I would again drift into the dismal abyss. But not before I met my co-conspirator, Zooma West.

*

1963 was a rewarding year for the cotton farmers. Their fertile fields purchased by developers and turned into a subdivision named Katherine Acres. The constant buzz of chain saws and the incessant pounding of hammers cursed night and day. Middle-class dwellings constructed overnight in that northwest corner of Huntsville, Alabama. Dividing one of those acres was a dead-end street called Reynolds Circle. A habitat where a nine-year old boy could dally on the porch and daydream as bulldozers and tractors levelled the fields. Where every week a new family unloaded a truckload of furniture. When those soon-to-be neighbors would introduce me to their pretty daughters, or, to a son who owned a decent record player. My neighborhood would evolve into a utopian paradise, where violence did not exist, and no serious wife beatings occurred. No burglaries or sodomy (well, who would know?), or wife swapping (to my knowledge). No fiery crosses, swastikas, or antiwar yearning. Endless supplies of Early Times and Jim Beam, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Falstaf beer. The summer perfume of burning charcoal and sizzling steaks. The street alive with greasy burgers wafting from rusted-out grills permeating the warm evening breeze. Even the sour odor of drifting pesticide, sprayed from the nozzles of mosquito trucks, evoked a sense of well-being.

But there was a sinister, subtle undertow that crawled in the belly of our quaint neighborhood. There were adults (Dullies) who prayed the 'kuhlids' wouldn't 'move in and devalue their property'. They need not worry—no poor, black folks could afford the double story split-levels.

Vietnam War protesters torching American flags and ingesting draft cards were a thousand miles away. 'Krushef' lovers could go to hell. Stringy haired, greasy hippies high on dope were giving decent folks a bad name and if they didn't appreciate America, they could hijack a plane to Cuba and kiss Castro's ass. Yes, the first amendment guaranteed free speech, but they ought not be threat'nin President Johnson, it was 'un'merican'. Poor Mr. Conner, over on Sycamore street, knocked up his own daughter, but Conner received the Silver Star in the Second War. And, by the way, the 'nigra' woman in her new Cadillac? Betcha' a dime to a dollar she gets a gov'ment check ev'ry week. And the damn mayor oughta do somethin' 'bout them white trailer-trash on Dupont Street.' And ole Sargent Grady, a lifetime member of the John Birch society, gives a pint of blood to the Red Cross ev'ry month (and a blow job to a youngster named Zooma every week).

There was the shaggy-haired hippie from Syracuse who shagged at his uncles' house on Cedarhill Lane and painted flowers on mailboxes for two dollars. There was Amos, the congenial black man who sold vegetables from the back of his wagon and traded bailing wire for pan-fried apple pies and turnips for a tin of tobacco. His mule, Jadie, would grin when I'd feed him an orange. Rollie Humphrey burned his draft card but still found a date to the Knights of Columbus Christmas dance. But the time would come when the Binford Court 'Nigra' couldn't afford to drive her Cadillac no mo'. But the white trash rented whiter trailers. When an earthquake rattled California, six families set bags of clothes on their doorstep, salvaged by the Salvation Army.

November 22, 1963. Neighbors wept as Walter Cronkite dabbed his eyes and relayed the tragic news (in black and white) that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was dead. No question, school would opt to close for this momentous, grisly occasion. 'Dullie' Ed Sullivan and jolly Hoss Cartwright existed in a corner of our den—gray and grainy humanoids that paralyzed our emotions an hour at a time.

One afternoon, I sat cross-legged on the floor, igniting a flame under a test tube containing a yellowish, sulfuric powder. The pamphlet included in my shiny red chemistry set described this molecular reaction as 'creating a rotten egg'. My mother, Mildred, wrestled with an ironing board. On the 'black and white, a man with a craggy face argued with a haggard, shady looking nurse. Amid the stench of smudged sulfur and the comforting aroma of warm starch, came an aggressive knock on the front door. I, the mad scientist, raced to the 'living' room and opened it.

"Good afternoon, is the woman of the house in?"

"Mom!" I screamed, my 'cow-shit-brown' eyes staring at the strange figure. He was tall and skinny, wearing creased, maroon slacks so loose, I couldn't tell if he had any legs. He wore a black velour shirt and a red and gold paisley tie. Gold, miniature ship anchors were sewn to his dark blue blazer. Wrapped around his tanned face were sunglasses that looked like wasp-eyes. Certainly, his coal black hair had never befriended a comb. He isn't smiling, nor am I.

"MOM!" I screamed louder, wondering if this monstrosity might kidnap me, force me to his lair and eat me alive. When I turned toward the den, Mildred was hovering behind my shoulder, a statue smelling of starch.

"Yes? Can I help you, young man?" she smiled at the Wasp, injecting a bobby-pin into her hair that was the color of onion soup.

"Good afternoon, Mam...uh."

"Call me Milly!" Mildred replied.

"Yes 'mam. Good afternoon. My name is Zooma West. I am nine years old and live down the street. Would you be interested in buying a subscription to 'TV Guide'?"

My head swiveled toward mom, then back to this funny looking twerp. He continued. "I will deliver a copy every Friday for sixty-five cents a month."

Lifting her brow, she placed a deft hand on my tense shoulder. I knew what she was thinking. Entrepreneurship.

"Oh!" she said. "You must be the new family that just moved in down the street. Of course, I'll subscribe, welcome to the neighborhood. When do I pay you?"

"You can pay in advance or when I deliver it every Friday."

"Will you take a check?"

"Yes 'mam. Make it out to 'TV Guide'."

His charm was irritating, his accent strange. He didn't speak like other kids in the neighborhood. His voice was deep, like a radio announcer, and had no perceptible accent. In the years to come, his speech migrated to where few sentences were uttered, and none completed. As though he expected humanity to read his mind. For Zooma, conversation wasted time.

"Well come on in and I'll write you a check, won't take but a jiffy. Pan, introduce yourself. I'll be right back."

I slumped from the threshold. I could have squashed him with my big toe.

"What's that smell?" he frowned.

"What kind of name is Zooma?" I sulked, knowing I would pay later for his salesmanship. I would seek my revenge early. A spooky character, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had a 'voodoo' doll stuffed in his pocket, stabbing his finger into my brain. Mildred returned. "Here you are, uh . . . I'm sorry, what is your name again?"

"Zooma. Zooma West!" he shouted, spooking me.

"Ok, Zooma West, here's your check," she smiled.

"Could you please fill this out?" He countered, handing Mildred a sheet of school notebook paper. Typed in uneven columns with crooked letters, the words 'name, address, phone number, and signature', each followed by a crippled semicolon. He folded the check and slipped it inside the pocket of his blazer.

"When do I receive my first copy?" Mildred asked.

"A fortnight," he said, twisting his wasp head toward me.

"Fine. Well, my ironing awaits, come again. Panther needs a boy his own age to play with. That chemistry business has got to go," she chuckled. She swayed into the den to watch the next episode of 'As the World Burns'.

He turned to leave. "Raw Eggs," I said.

"What?"

"Raw Eggs . . ." I repeated. ' . . .My phone number. Spell it out on the phone."

"Raw eggs," he repeated, as if he currently had one in his throat. He marched down the driveway adjusting his shades. Scrawling something in a notebook.

My life changed the day I met Zooma West. I studied his figure as he strolled across the street to his next victim. With long, black hair and dark waspy shades, he looked as if he'd dipped his head in squid excrement. Since that autumn of '63, I suspect Zooma West has spent a fortune on sunglasses (from the money saved on haircuts). Our house rarely perused the 'TV Guide'—no real need for it since we only received four channels. Hell, I could flip through those in three seconds.

The following Saturday, I'd gone with Mildred to 'Hembreys' grocery store, only a block away. There, in the frozen section, she 'bumped' head-on into Zooma, who was pushing his mother's grocery cart. Mildred welcomed her to the neighborhood. Thizzie thanked her and had tossed a few 'Swanson's Salisbury Steak' TV Dinners in her cart when I blurted out, "What kinda name is Zooma?"

The two 'Dullies' chuckled, Thizzie at the question, mine from embarrassment. Zooma, donning shades and wearing a paisley shirt with a hundred buttons, buried his tiny hands in his pockets (putting another curse on me).

"Well, honey, I'll tell you," Thizzie cooed. She was slender and firm-figured, her skin the texture of a pear, lipstick the shade of Santa's waistcoat. "When Zooma turned three, we gave him a tricycle for Christmas, he rode that thing from dawn to dusk. One morning, he started screaming 'ZOOMuh . . . ZOOMuh . . . ' riding circles around the patio. It took. Now, it feels strange calling him by his given name, Johnny. But he's a good boy, most of the time. You must be the young man that lives up the street." Her smile imploded my soul. So, I had made an impression on the waspy salesman.

"He dresses funny," I frowned, confident in my perception. Mildred sighed.

"Panther, be quiet." I loved to embarrass her. "Sorry," she apologized to Thizzie.

"Well, I guess my son does have a unique sense of fashion. We humor him, his father and I. Hope it's only a phase he's going through," she giggled. Her dimpled cheeks like tiny scoops of butterscotch pudding.

"He's weird," I blurted out.

"Come on, Panther Burn, I need to get supper started. Nice to meet you, Thizzie," Mildred sighed, pinching my flab of shoulder. On the way home Mildred said, "Panther Burn, your name is not exactly common. It would be nice if you showed a shred of discipline with your attire."

For the next nineteen years, I would idolize the wasp. He was different...special. I had a lot of questions for him, and, near the end, there would be more questions than I thought were possible. RAW EGGS indeed.

* * *

I turned fourteen in April of '68. Not the worst scenario, too young to be shipped off to Vietnam, too lazy to march in anti-war demonstration. I lived in blissful ignorance of the 'Black Panthers', the 'Symbionese Liberators', Timothy Leary or Abbie Hoffman—never heard of the 'SDS, 'Chicago Seven', Huey Long, or Angela Davis. I wouldn't know a 'Yippie' from a guppy. Hayden, Hoffman and Rubin a bunch of wild-eyed, Yankee agitators. I thought the Chicago 7 was a jazz group. When Cronkite recounted the race riots in Newark and Detroit, I read 'Archie' comic books. The Nightly News bored me. Hell, I didn't even know where Newark was!

I dreamed of San Francisco, plunging a daisy in my ear and mingling with the hippie set. But, I realized, by the time I arrived, the petals would have wilted—the dandelion-dusted chicks a libelous rumor—free sex on the corner of 'Haight-Ashbury' a scandalous lie. I surfed behind the wave of 'cool' and never caught up. I smoked cloves when most smoked pot, smoked pot when my peers dropped acid. Kesey, Garcia, and Joplin were fictional characters in a foreign movie. Morrison's a cafeteria. Ginsberg a spice in Mildred's kitchen cabinet.

When, from the corner of our fake wood-paneled den, Uncle Walter fed us dreadful images of Vietnam carnage, of race riots and church bombings in Birmingham and Chicago and dead Kennedy's and student uprisings at Columbia University and Kent State, I thumbed through a 'TV Guide', circling my favorite shows in a halo of green ink; 'Hullabaloo', 'Shindig", 'Twilight Zone', 'American Bandstand', the 'Beatles' cartoon.

The 'White Only' and 'No Colored' signs at the bus station and corner cafes were strange, stupid signs that didn't make sense. Why was the water colored white? Could colored water hurt me? What color was it?

I was not sheltered from World events. I didn't give a damn. John Glenn bored me and so what if Alan Shepard launched a golf ball across the gray lunar landscape. I had my own world to conquer. Certain demons demanded my utmost attention (my latest nightmare involved a one-eared, one-eyed dwarf slicing into my stomach with a Ginsu knife. With the opposite end, he spooned out my innards and fed them to me).

In April 1968, I displayed a black cloth around my bicep, along with other freaks, when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. I wore it in respect for a flamboyant 'Negro' who was only trying to settle the score. But Freedom of Speech was limited in the neighborhood. One racist deemed James Earl Ray a martyr, a hero. I despised confrontation, so I stashed the armband in my sock before going home

It had been two years since Tater had died. Since then, Mildred had warned me to stay away from Zooma, believing he exerted a negative influence. So, I'd flop around the house in my pajamas and pig out in front of the television. Eventually, she relented and allowed the delinquent to visit a couple of weekends a month. I owned a fantastic album collection (my hundred to his two) and had unlimited access to my father's cartons of cigarettes (dad bought them by the gross—he wouldn't miss a pack or two). Mildred disapproved of teen smoking and would not allow Zooma to smoke in the house. We'd wait until the folks retired for the night, then he'd linger at my bedroom window and exhale through the open space.

One night, after devouring day-old spaghetti, sequestered in my bedroom, we were enjoying an eight-track tape of the 'Hollies', waiting for the syncopated rhythm of my parents obnoxious snoring. Sneaking down the stairs and out the patio door, we entered the late-night delights that neighborhood streets could provide. Not expecting anything earth−shattering, we slouched on a curb, far from the bright streetlamp. Zooma smoked and expounded on his theory that the Universe existed in the big toe of a Black man. That if the man ever stepped on a nail, civilization would cease to exist.

He had opened a fresh pack of smokes when I noticed the ancient, rust-brown Plymouth. It crawled from a stop sign two blocks away. Behind the wheel was Possum, a strange, reptilian, dark-shadowed man. No idea of his age, where he came from or retired to. (Once, I'd seen the old Plymouth parked in the rear of the dilapidated 'Highway 72' Motel. It a cheap, flea-infested, 'blood on the sheet' hideaway, where seven-fifty a night yielded a squeaky, dirty mattress, a dripping, rancid shower and a bedside table covered in black mold. I'd stayed there once, after running away from home. I had inserted a dime in the coke machine when Possum scurried by. I asked for the time and he replied, 'piss off, you overgrown cyst').

Possum enjoyed prowling the neighborhood between one and four in the morning. His skull was angular, melded to a disjointed scowl above his dark, feral sunglasses. No neck to speak of. His long, skinny arms like oversized toothpicks. Consistently wore a black, short-sleeved t-shirt. His shoulder-length, black, stringy hair slicked back from his greenish forehead with axle grease. A fragmented 'Fu-Manchu' goatee, the texture of vomited spinach, dangled from his cone-shaped chin. He slithered through the night, searching for things forbidden, initiated in the nocturnal. But, if Possum presented a danger to society, or to himself, I assumed he'd be in jail or 'Bryce's Hospital', the 'crazy' house down in Tuscaloosa. Since he hadn't been committed, I deduced he was merely a weird, scruffy little pervert who enjoyed jerking off in front of little girls, or little boys, or anything. Then again, could be he was only lonesome, needing diversion. I could relate.

Curious, we decided to follow him. He glided through the intersection, head low behind the steering wheel. Staring through the spokes of the steering wheel. Had he turned to look he wouldn't have seen us because the token juvenile delinquent of the neighborhood, Bobby Bales, had shot out the streetlight with his BB gun. We dodged parked cars and garbage cans as he creeped down the street in his rusty, old Plymouth.

Out of the blue it emerged, "Hey..." said with a low, raspy whisper. It was Vanessa Turner, the freaky, high school dropout. She had the lips of a bison and her breasts could have fed a family of six. She wore a sleeveless army jacket and no bra. Her crooked teeth yellowed pebbles. Rust colored strands of unkempt hair streaked across her hollowed cheeks. Tight snatches of hair, resembling 'brillo' pads, framed her armpits. Her mud-encrusted bell-bottomed jeans were filthy and frayed at the cuff. She leaned against the stop sign. Her spindly back propped against the silver pole. A multi-colored cloth necklace imprisoned between her mountainous cleavage.

"What's up?" I ask.

"Bored stiff," she slurred, offering me a whiff from a tube of 'Elmers' glue.

The Plymouth crawled through another intersection.

"What a weirdo," Van said, noticing the Possum. '...He parks on Monte Sano and watches faggots screw."

"Let's go, Zoom," I said.

"Where ya'll goin'?" Vanessa asked.

"Nowhere."

"Can I go?"

I searched Zooma, he shrugged. "I guess so," I replied.

"Bum one?" she asked. Zooma gave her a cigarette.

We darted across fence-less yards, hiding behind Juniper bushes and Dogwood trees. At last, the Plymouth stopped at 'Boner' field. It was the first time I'd returned since 'Tater' had died. The baseball field pitch dark, but the concrete bleachers glowed like rectangular ghosts. The bases were removed, but a full moon illuminated the white tile of home plate, sunk flush in the earth. Hounds bayed in the distance and trees rustled in the woods behind the third base dugout. Two consecutive shooting stars blazed across the night sky, vanishing at the speed of life. We snuck behind a billboard propped against the chain link fence in right field. Peering through the links, we observed Possum easing the Plymouth into the dirt-gravel parking area. He killed the engine and extinguished the headlights.

"What's he doin?" I asked, peering through chain-links.

"Prob'ly 'beatin' off," Vanessa said, sniffing the tube.

"Let's get closer," Zooma said.

"Hail no!" Vanessa whispered. Moments later, Possum cranked up the Plymouth and switched on the headlights. He headed down a gravel road toward the limestone quarry.

I gazed upon the field and recalled Taters final game. Him fielding a ball and overthrowing first base where it hit the opposing coach in the testicles. Recalled him in the batter's box, spitting into the wind, splattering his uniform with wintergreen saliva.

Zooma searched the sky for Mars, Vanessa sniffed glue.

"I'm hot," She complained, removing her army jacket and filthy T-shirt. Astonished by the disproportionate size of her breasts, I felt sheer disgust. She waddled to the first base dugout, dropped her bell-bottoms, squat and urinated. In the eerie silence, she flung her jeans to the ground. Her mammoth breasts whipped her navel as she flung her matted hair over her shoulder. When she lifted a corrosive nipple to her lips and sucked, I glanced at Zooma. Atlas shrugged.

Leaning against a support, she splayed her legs. "Comeere and let me kiss you," she cooed, glaring at me.

She tugged at my imitation leather belt and I imagined this was why the 'Chastity Belt' was invented. I almost wished I was wearing one. A large birthmark, like a pat of melted butter, encased her left nipple. When she nudged my lips, she tasted of nicotine and turpentine. She brushed a strand of hair from her eye, stooped, unfastened my belt, unzipped my britches, and slid them to my knees. Easing me backward, I took baby steps until I lost my balance and stumbled against the cool, rough concrete seat. Her scent resembled decomposed seaweed.

"Relax," she demanded, not smiling, uptight. Swaths of tangled, oily hair swabbed her hollow cheeks and she spread her lips to caress my erection. At that exact moment, a car door slammed, startling me. I ejaculated.

"Un Uh...don't do that!" she implored, slurping the foam of my passion. "Damn," she frowned, "all for nuthin'...what's wrong with you?" She didn't wait for my answer.

"Next," she demanded, curling her finger at Zooma. I became absorbed in self-pity, my jeans at my ankles—my limp penis jellied kielbasa. I sulked, my first sexual interlude a monumental failure. She tugged at Zooma until he dropped to the ground. He was implored to fondle (more like rearrange) her dripping, sweaty breast. She moaned, thrusting her paper-clipped hips into Zooma, fumbling with his jeans. I swatted at mosquitoes and studied the perimeter of the ballpark, hoping for another chance at redemption. Struggling to remove Zoomas' jeans, she hummed. 'Umm...shem la ve...of cum ma sherie'. Sounded like French, and I hate to admit it, but her voice was so sexy, it didn't take long to regain an erection. Zooma and Vanessa embraced like a bolt and nut. Their four hairy armpits and four unshaven legs reminiscent of anorexic wrestlers from Rutler's junior varsity.

From the blackness a focused ray of light. I figured it was folks returning home after a night of bowling. It wasn't.

"It's Possum!" I whispered. Zooma and Van disengaged, I yanked my britches up and hauled ass toward the outfield. Zooma and the naked glue-sniffer fell in line behind me. My heart raced. I only stopped when my lungs gave up. The thin, neck-less, sun-glassed rodent leaned against the hood. His greasy, black hair gleaming from a shard of moonlight. Without warning, Vanessa sprint toward the bleachers.

"Hey! Zooma, what in the hell is she doin'?"

"Said she lost her necklace. I told her we'd find it later. Crazy bitch didn't wanna wait. You see her anywhere?"

"No."

We waited a minute or two. A rogue cloud blocked the moon. Zooma lit a cigarette. "Damn it. Well, we better go find her. Damn."

Halfway to the bleachers, the Plymouth began spitting dust and gravel, then peeled across the parking lot.

"Where'd she go? With him? She said she knew him, didn't she?"

"I don't remember."

"We better go tell somebody what happened!" I said, assuming control.

"Jesus. Man, it's the middle of the night. We ain't even supposed to be here, much less having sex and sniffin' glue and shit. Hell, she'll be fine. Wasn't screaming bloody murder or anything. I don't think he'd do anything weird," Zooma said, trying to convince himself.

That was the night I began to smoke. Boner field, April 26, 1968. I bummed one from Zooma. I was coughing my lungs up when a field rat dashed across the pitcher's mound, rounded first base and galloped into the outfield.

In the rising sun, hounds bayed and a milk truck with screeching brakes made its morning rounds. Zooma snatched a quart of chocolate milk from a front porch and we didn't stop running until we arrived at another porch...mine. Wiped sweat from our cheeks with T-shirts and slurped water from a lime-green garden hose. I felt drunk, nauseous from the nicotine. We huddled on the stoop and smoked until the light from a neighbor's kitchen announced a new day.

Dawn found me exhausted and frightened. I urinated on my jeans instead of the juniper bush at the side of the house. We smoked one last cigarette before lurching like thieves up the stairs to my bedroom. Zooma donned the headphones and listened to a Chad and Jeremy album. I tossed and turned for hours before sleep recognized me.

Around noon, Mildred needed noodles. Zooma had long gone.

Not a lucid soul ever questioned us about the disappearance of Vanessa Hardin. Why would they? Zooma and I never suspected the worse. We were certain she'd turn up eventually, like an old bedroom slipper. Her friends believed she'd 'run away'. Carrie Leaderman said she was a 'dope fiend'. A freak who spread her hairy legs for anyone with a dick or a tube of glue. Some believed she had moved to a commune in California. Stringing beads with hippie's in Frisco. Sticking needles in her hairy armpits, smoking cloves and ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms. It was plausible she was working in a glue factory.

Vans' parents concurred by their silence. She'd recently threatened to run away, they informed HPD. Three days later, an item in the 'Huntsville Times', page four.

Local Girl Missing

'Vanesa Hardin, 14, of 1603 Jamestown Road did not return home Friday night and is reported missing, according to HPD. When questioned, Mr. Jim and Judy Hardin said their daughter was depressed and had threatened to run away several times in recent weeks. Authorities believe she may have friends in California. Police continue to investigate this matter. Anyone with information is requested to contact the Huntsville Police Department. No foul play is suspected.'

They didn't even have the decency to spell her name correctly.

*

A month after Vanessa Hardin's disappearance, Odell Mavern, a traveling salesman, awoke to a rustling noise outside his room at the 'Hiway 72' motel. Peering out his window, he noticed a man loitering in the parking lot. When the man approached Odell's automobile, the salesman became suspicious. Assuming the man was contemplating the theft of his cutlery samples, Odell confronted him. A scuffle ensued and, on May 29, 1968, Mr. Mavern shot Possum through the navel. An investigation concluded that Possum had been urinating in the bush in front of Odell's automobile. Possum died with his zipper down and his sunglasses on. Odell was charged with second-degree manslaughter and received seven years at Holman State Prison in Atmore, Alabama. Possum's remains were never claimed.

*

Shortly after Possum's death, dad forced me to undergo my first haircut in a year. My tears had dried by the time I reached Gus's barber Shop. Gus was a man of the world. Bought his cologne from Atlanta. Craved the sweetest chocolates from Mobile. Claimed to have the best country music record collection this side of Nashville. When I entered the shop, Gus frowned at me like I had leprosy. If he hadn't known my parents, he might have sliced me into pieces. I buried myself in a tattered couch as he carried on a conversation with a sheriff's deputy.

"Dem hippies' havin' their selves a hell of a party," Gus drawled. "You know don't none a dem gals wear brassiers nowadays, don't 'cha?" He aimed his scissors at a newspaper rack while giving Billy Ray a little off the sides.

"Hear they don't warsh none, either" replied Billy Ray, gnawing on a toothpick. He brushed a stray hair from his shoulder.

"Well, they gone need a bath tonight, what with that sloppy mess they foragin' in," Gus laughed.

"What 'chu mean?"

The Barber again pointed at the rack with his scissors. "It's right thar in that Yankee commie paper, Billy Ray, somewhere's round New York. Hell, they's having babies in a cow pasture, gettin' nekid in a pond and smokin' marywanna right out in the open. Sho would like to be there tho'. I wouldn't mind gittin' me sum uh that hippie pussy."

I glanced at the rack next to the Dr. Pepper machine. On top of the rack was a newspaper.

"Did you hear the one 'bout..." Gus began, then glanced at me before whispering into Billy Rays' ear. Billy Ray laughed so hard his toothpick fell to the floor. I eased myself from the sofa to look at the newspaper. Gus said, "Go on, son, ain't nothin' in there you ain't seen. Then agin, they might be." Billy Ray howled at the joke.

The 'New York Times' was reporting on some place called 'Woodstock'.

I read the article to myself. 'The dreams of marijuana and rock music that drew 300,000 fans and hippies to the Catskills had little more sanity than the impulses that drive the lemmings to march to their deaths in the sea. They ended in a nightmare of mud and stagnation that paralyzed Sullivan County for a whole weekend. What kind of culture is it that can produce so colossal a mess..."

"All right, son, I'm ready," Gus frowned. Billy Ray stuffed his nose into a wrinkled handkerchief.

"Ya'll found the Hardin girl yet?" Gus asked the Deputy. I thought he was asking me. Billy Ray pocketed his handkerchief, then turned to his barber.

"Not 'chet, Gus, what's the damage?" he asked, fondling his wallet.

"Six bits. Gitcha one a them razzberry centers for ya go Billy Ray, they come all the way from Pensacola. So, did cha knower?" Gus asked me, shaking out a towel.

"No sir," I lied.

"Ole Jimmy Hardins' little girl. I've knowd the bunch since Jimmy served time for sellin' bad whiskey. Hell, ain't none of dem Hardins any count. Betcha a dolla she was sellin' it. If you know what I mean," Gus said, sharpening his straight razor with a belt of sandpaper. He secured a towel around my neck and I prayed he wouldn't strangle me with it.

"Ain't seen you in a while. Guess its jest them dead ends again, huh?" he asked.

"Yes sir," I replied.

"Well then, this oughta take 'bout thirty seconds. Beats the shit outta me why you young uns today wanna look like a damn girl. Why dontche let me give ya a real cut son, dont'che wanna be respectable? Look how much better Elvis looked after he joined the army. Course he never did shoot nobody."

As he wrestled with my tangled hair, I suppressed the amused and psychotic spark that ignited from the bowels of my consciousness. And I realize—'the colossal mess this culture had produced was none other than...me'.

* * *

In the sixties, unlike other sections of the country, it was relatively safe to hitchhike in Alabama. Although, certain destinations required the relevant attire. For example, if I needed to travel through Limestone county, I'd tuck my hair under my cap and wear a sleeveless t-shirt emblazoned with a Confederate flag. I could spit with the best of those Klansman or John Bircher's. Agree that the Jews, niggers and communists were destroying the country. But hitchhiking was the only way to get somewhere if one didn't have a car, or friends. I had neither.

Somewhat discouraging was my thumb's propensity to attract homosexuals. Seemed they came out of the closet whenever I was on the road. Square-headed perverts who wanted to take a detour to the next dead-end street. 'No, man, I'm on my way to the health department...'

They were polite, asking to suck or fondle my penis. One man, a Sergeant, offered me twenty dollars! In the 'Sexy Sixties', homosexual assault was an innocent, harmless frivolity. A perverted interlude. Few, if any, torsos were sliced into beef jerky. My young liver would not marinate in 'A-1' steak sauce—my tender, bulbous thigh bone would, most likely, not be sharpened into a fancy letter opener or corrugated ashtray.

In April of 1969, Zooma asked me to meet him at 'Hembrey's' grocery after school. I had severed our relationship after Vanessa Hardin's disappearance. I carried a big fat chip on my even fatter shoulder. My silence became his penance. Of course, both of us were cowards—neither had reported Vanessa's abduction. Soon, the chip began to dissolve. It seemed so long ago. She probably had gone to California, hairy armpits and all. But Zooma West was here, in the flesh, and I needed him the way a wino needs his grape.

From 'Hembry's', we bicycled to 'Grizzard (rhymes with lizard) Lane', half a mile from my house. Surrounded by lonely cotton fields, loomed the ancient, abandoned Grizzard House (named after the old codger who built the abode late in the previous century). There, in the middle of an 'S' curve, sat the splendid corpse in its Confederate glory. Its rotting, brown-timbered Doric columns leaned to the left. The sinister 'going, going, 'Gone with the Wind' atmosphere made it difficult to imagine its succulent grandeur in the days when John Hunt founded 'Huntsville' in the late 1800's.

As fine slivers of Wisconsin cheddar are to gelatinous globs of pasteurized Velveeta, so the 1869 Grizzard house was to the shanties surrounding it. But, today, in 1969, the structure evoked classic 'haunted house'. Many believed Mister Grizzard continued to haunt the place. The 'hallelujah-white' paint had long faded and peeled—the foul dwelling now inhabited by contented termites and burrowing squirrels. But the most destructive varmints in the antiquated structure were the homeless winos. They'd gather the remnants of the outhouse for their campfires. Warm their rusty, dreary memories of better days. Beneath the high-tiered ceiling of the former dining room, a fireplace, constructed with rocks gathered from the Elk River, was stoked more with cheap bottles of Thunderbird than from the rickety kitchen shutters and busted floor- boards. The ragged stone above the hearth scorched, imbedded with the black ash of a thousand cigarettes. Cracked, egg-yolk yellow plaster dangled from the once decorative archways. Chalk-pink, faded wallpaper crept from ignored walls and disintegrated to the touch. The rotten floors gave up her dead; discarded wine bottles, flattened 'Schlitz' and 'Budweiser' cans. Filtered butts and shells of dime store candles—stiff, petrified condoms, relics of eruptions and erections; corroded, dog-eared stacks of Hustler magazines and shredded Huntsville newspapers. A brown lumpy mattress, its springs sprung, lay in the center of the room, saturated with crusty, degenerative semen, splotched with blood from ill-fitted tampons and booze induced piss. Scattered throughout the twelve large rooms were threadbare jeans, shredded flannel shirts and decayed blankets. The entire abode a mess of discarded junk—sordid history.

Slinging our bikes to the ground, I follow Zooma through a battered old door. From the living room, he leads me down a dark hall and into the kitchen. The stained, rancid brown porcelain sink stained with countless spiders and ruthless cockroaches. Off the kitchen we come to 'his room', he says, claimed by 'squatter rights'. A chartreuse, purple-paisley blanket hung over the doorway. He explains how 'temporary' boarders (lovers, thugs, and thieves), wrapped in filthy blankets and 'bobby-pinned' flannel shirts, become hostile and threaten his sovereignty. But, given a cigarette, espouse the glorious lies of their younger days. Hopes and dreams squandered and foundered.

Behind the paisley blanket, sharpened bicycle spokes reinforce a padlocked screen door. Dangling from his neck, he grabs a shiny key and unlocks the door. Rusted, sharpened daggers dare my step as I enter the room. Holes in the floor stuffed with old newspapers. He lights four candles, assuring me, 'his home is mine', and bows at the waist. His black pupils the color of these words. I search for things crawling, movement of sinister shadow, but realize slithering creatures produce no cast. I seek deadened pupils, florescent in the dark, cowering in the unlit. In the candle shine, Zooma goes to a window and removes a bedspread from bent nails. Late afternoon sun light filters through the dirt-caked window, casting a somber, yellow glow. Flickering candles cast light on the gray, dust shrouded words; 'Magnavox', 'RCA', 'Westinghouse'. Stacked on the mattress a stack of records, two 'rod and reels', and a 'Singer' sewing machine still in the box.

No one could convince me that Zooma was a thief. Though he did not have a regular job, he did earn money mowing lawns and returning coke bottles for deposit. A few dollars for singing Hank Williams songs at a Texaco Grand Opening. But this expensive bounty? No way. Zooma never worked anywhere long enough to accumulate these goodies. And why would he want a sewing machine? This was stolen merchandise. Had to be.

He plopped down on an orange milk crate, poured a brown liquid into a 'Dixie' cup from a mason jar and handed it to me. Poured himself a taste and nudged his cup to mine. The noxious brew tasted like iodine. The candle flame brightened and, I took the opportunity to inventory his fortress. Taped to one wall above a lumpy mattress were flop-eared 'Playboy' centerfolds. Below a useless light switch hung a postcard of a stiff cowboy lying face down in the sun-smeared desert. Vultures feasted on his gooey, rotting flesh. On the opposite wall, a poster of Cassius Clay sneering into the forehead of Howard Cosell—beside it a large photo of a 'Coca-Cola' can. Another displayed a lighthouse with golden waves lapping at the jagged coastal cliffs below.

I glance at the take. "Zooma, you ain't got no job. Where'd you get this stuff?"

"Chill, my man, make yourself at home, have another drink."

I scoot the 'Winchester' to the side and plop down beside the sewing machine. I am now an accomplice, a thief among another, Dixie cup resting on my knee. The room reeked of stale beer, burnt tobacco and canned mushrooms. I stared at a 'Playboy' centerfold taped to the wall. The left breast of Miss May was saturated with beige mold spores, marching in formation down the wall to the mattress in a double flank attack. I bum a smoke from Zooma, but the stench was unbearable. I needed to cough, but don't. Coughing while smoking reveals utter ignorance when roaming the caustic avenues life has to offer, this room being one.

Technically older than Zooma, by three months, he acted older. He exudes mystery like that of a decrepit ancient monk. But here in the Old 'Grizzard' house, I am impressed by the confident manner in his walk, like a peacock in heat. The way his words run together like a Boston marathon of deep-decibel-monosyllables. Zoomas' dialect isn't marinated in turnip-greens. While Zooma spoke as Gable—I spoke as Gomer. His voice smooth, deep, sensuous. Mine lathered in buttermilk.

''Sergeant Grady owes me these things,'' he says, lighting a cigarette.

I perused the cardboard boxes; a nineteen-inch B&W 'Magnavox', antennae included; an 'am-fm' alarm clock. Cartons of various candy bars.

Zooma West is Napoleon after the March on Russia. Scaling the precipice of disaster, falling from the cliff to the doomed.

He continued. ''I let him lick me, he gives me what I want,'' Zooma says, invading the milky circle of a smoke ring with his index finger. I didn't think I heard what I thought he'd said. He extinguished his cigarette into a silver, tarnished sardine tin. He poured another shot from the smoky brown mason jar.

"You let Sargent Grady suck your dick?'' I asked, my words beginning to slur.

"Well, hell, how else? Look, man, he came to see me when Tater got...when Tater died. Couple of days later, we drank some beer and had a picnic on the Overlook..." He chuckled. "...Smallest one I've ever been to, me, him and a bucket of 'Colonel Sanders'. See something you want? It's yours. Can't leave it here and can't take it home. Not the rod and reel, though, an old wino friend called dibs on it."

I stuffed candy bars in my pocket and told Zooma I had to mow the lawn. Yanked my 'Schwinn' from the dirt. By the time I said, 'holy shit', the haunted house had disappeared from my rear-view mirror.

The following afternoon, Zooma recounted his sordid affair with Sergeant Grady. The details made me sick. It was the fifteenth anniversary of my ordinary and unsolicited birth.

The previous Friday, 9:30 P.M: Zooma lingers at the dumpster behind Hembrey's waiting for Sargent Grady.

10:00: Sarge, dressed in 'civies', picks Zooma up. They arrive at a paved overlook atop Monte Sano Mountain. A dark, secluded 'lover's lane', where suburbanites savor more than the sunset. Sipping from a mason jar full of rank, corn whiskey, the mash drips from Sarge's double chin like a petite waterfall.

10:15: Zooma rolls a joint from his ever-present nickel bag. Sarge shoves an 8-Track of Kitty Wells into the cassette player.

10:20: Sarge glides his meaty hand over Zoomas' skinny thigh as Zooma glances out the window and unzips his jeans. He doesn't wear under-clothes—less distraction makes for better transaction.

10:25: Without further ado, Sarge swallows Zoomas' erection. Moaning, pleading like a man possessed, stroking himself. Begging Zooma to 'give me all you got'. Slurping his quarry as 'Kitty' distorts the tiny speakers. When Sergeant Grady insists on inserting his fat, middle finger inside Zoomas' anus, Zooma slaps the back of his head, "no way Sarge..." he instructs, "...or I'll mutiny your bounty." He then spreads his legs, then closes them, teasing the anxious cocksucker silly.

10:32: Sarge jerks and twists and yanks his own penis. Whacking himself, begging Zooma not to 'spit too soon'. Zooma replies, 'quit your fucking moaning'.

10:34: Zooma ejaculates and Sarge follows the leader, gasping in perverted frenzy. But Sarge is not satisfied and goes down on Zooma yet again.

"Guns empty..." Zooma mumbles, grabbing Sarge by the hair, admonishing him to get back behind the wheel. Another sip of moonshine, another toke. The transaction half resolved.

11:10: Sarge returns Zooma to Hembrey's grocery. Zooma transfers a case of 'Baby Ruth' candy bars, three eight-track recorders and a carton of 'Marlboros' from Grady's trunk to a large backpack. They lean against the side of Sarge's car. Negotiating the 'quid' for the next tryst. Zooma agrees to allow the Sarge to penetrate his anus. But only after Sarge delivers the title to a 1964 Ford Fairlane.

It never got that far. 'Sarge' was 'busted' three days later. (The mother of an eight-year-old boy wanted to know who had given her son a brand new 'etch-a-sketch').

Found in 'Sarges' glove compartment were incriminating Polaroids of nude children. Sucking, among other things, cherry lollipops. Sarge went to prison for a long time.

I never visited the Grizzard house again. Shocked by Zooma's perversion, I soon got over it. I knew there were worse things that could happen to a boy. What interested me was his motive. Did he do it for the money? The excitement? The danger? Was it an emotional response to Tater's demise and Vanessa's disappearance? I concluded that the entire repugnant affair was a byproduct of the crosswinds. But it was more. For, when the Circus was in town, Zooma West became the Clown.

* * *

"My little runt can finally vote," Mildred enthused. I devoured my six-egg cheese and mustard omelet. The twenty-sixth amendment to the Constitution took effect today, June 30, 1971. Giving eighteen-year old peasants like me the right to vote. What a joke. Politicians were numb-nutted, chicken-livered psychopaths. I lumbered to the front porch and thumbed the pages of a 'Song Hits' magazine. Feeling thirsty (too much salt in the omelet), I sucked water from a hosepipe. The neighborhood brats began shouting. "AMBLANCE...AMBLANCE!"

That's when I saw sleek, black and shiny hearse, lurking up the street. Swirling, ominous clouds of smoke trailing behind. When it stopped in front of my house, the brats gawked as if Santa Claus had exposed his penis. As the car door opened, it begged for a dose of WD-40. Pled even louder when it closed.

Zooma emerged. Dressed in a brown fedora, brown pants with vertical green stripes and a purple velour blouse with puffed sleeves. He looked like Mark Lindsay, Thomas Jefferson and Errol Flynn all rolled into one demented hippie. Thick, black sideburns measured his jaw. Patent leather 'Beatle' boots swallowed his bony ankles. The cool water from the garden hose formed a shallow pool in the driveway.

He flashed the tykes a two-fingered 'V' shaped peace sign and removed his bug-eyed sunglasses. I dropped the hose. The youngsters grabbed it and showered one another until I told them to go swallow some rocks. They skipped away like gleeful gypsies.

"Where in the hell did you get that thing?" I asked, wondering where he'd been the last few months. Across the street, the 'Roths' peeked from the breech of a window curtain. Mr. Birchfield, who lived at the top of the Circle, adjacent to the Widow Boove, cruised by in his Olds. His toupee gleaming, hands focused on the steering wheel. He passed the monstrous hearse, then sped up and almost decapitated Mr. and Mrs. Bernaskis' Dalmatian.

"How come an innocent hearse freaks everybody out?" he queried. '...I've only managed to give one girl a ride and had to promise her a banana split to do that."

We both appraised the carriage—he for pleasure, me from disbelief.

"It's different, man, where did you get it?"

'Browns, man, stole it..." he said, stuffing a stick of red licorice between his lips. "Cruising Jordan Lane one day and there she was, grazing in a pasture. Undertaker said he'd take two. As is. Deal of a lifetime, Pan. The UT told me sixty-two was the last year they used that much chrome. They bought a new one, then set this baby out to smother weeds."

Chrome? Oh yes. The grill, headlight rims, front and rear bumpers. Gleaming strips along the side, above the window frames. Sleek, pointed 'shark-fins' soared a foot beyond the rear bumper. Spectacular. A sight to behold. Magnificent artistry.

Brown's Funeral Home was the name of Huntsville's depository for those of ebony persuasion.

"C'mon, man," Zooma ordered, adjusting his fedora in the garage window. A couple of the brats wanted to go for a spin.

"Gotta die first," Zooma replied.

Though the voluptuous Cadillac radiated elegance, I still didn't want to ride in it. Hell, I didn't even want to sit in the damn thing. But I needed to 'catch up'. Gather the intellectual litter from the winding roads traversing the landscape of Zooma's psyche.

"Where we goin'?" I asked, glancing up, down Reynolds Circle.

"Probably to hell. Does it matter 'Cap'n Jack'?"

"Hang on," I said, scooting up the porch steps to retrieve my beret, a disguise in case I saw someone I knew. My blue beret and dark, feral shades made me look like an obese Fidel Castro. Since Reynolds Circle was a dead-end street, we had to maneuver three driveways to turn the hearse around. During the tenuous procedure, neighbors gawked from half-assed manicured lawns, arms folded, brows creased. Perplexed by this strange intrusion into their middle-class serenity. Ghosts or any other ethereal vibrations were negligible. As the odor of scalded motor oil seared my nostrils, Zooma lit two cigarettes at the same time and handed one to me. I drew, exhaled and waved at the nosy neighbors like Miss America in the Rose Bowl parade. The Baileys returned my salute as pleasant suburbanites do, but they were not smiling. Since the accelerator pedal had no spring, Zooma manually slid the tip of his boot behind the pedal, then pulled it back while applying the brake. How he calculated the driveways without mangling rose bushes, garbage cans, and mailboxes was beyond me. We finally arrived at the stop sign, then turned left. I removed my beret and stuffed it on the dash below a sepia stained, plastic skull dangling from the rear-view mirror. Minutes later, we reached 'Calvary Street', the lifeline of the projects. The heart and soul of Black Huntsville, five miles from my house. In 1971, the area was years from being overrun with 'crackheads', gangsters and jailbirds. A decade would pass before the scourge of 'AIDS' entered the mindset of the community.

Except for a few winos, harmless pimps and petty thieves, Calvary Hills was Huntsville's version of 'Ebony Mayberry'. For the middle class, black and white, it was not the most popular place to visit, especially at night. But Zooma and I had gone there often. It was where he'd rehearse with a band, pick up or drop off a musician, cop a nickel bag.

"Where we goin'?" I asked.

"State store, where else?"

The state of Alabama regulated Liquor sales. Huntsville had two 'ABC' stores. "What, you forgot the way?" I asked.

"Takin' a shortcut," he said.

We cruised down Calvary Street where an elderly, black man struggled with a lawnmower. The hearse dusted the street with oil fumes until Zooma stopped in front of the old man's yard. Spindly and bowlegged, the man wore a large, sweat-stained straw hat. Cursing the sputtering mower over a patch of dirt as fine brown powder spewed into the street. He stopped and glowered at us. His hands were knotty and swollen. Forearms engraved with thick wired tendons. The rough, stretched flesh of his neck defined his lifelong servitude to menial, unskilled labor. His face a patchwork of brown and beige, as if it had been scalded with corrosive bleach. Here was a man who hadn't worked an easy day in his life—an exhausted man who did not deny his fate. His skull didn't move as his solemn, downcast eyes veered to the hearse. His bulbous, lower lip jutted out. He glanced at us before returning to his business, shaking his head with dismay.

"Zoom, what you fixin' to do?"

"Hell, Pan, old codger'll get a kick out of this. It'll be the rage at the supper table tonight."

Zooma shifted the monstrosity into 'park'. Vaporous, stinking fumes hovered outside my window, stalking me.

Zooma meandered to the rear of the carnivorous wagon and opened the door. It swung outward with an ominous, continuous squeak, like the chamber doors of a Gothic castle. I lowered myself deeper into the black leather seat. Searched the rear-view mirror for cops, thugs, or worse, acquaintances. Zooma, graced the rear door. He raised his right arm, pointed his index finger at the man, flipped his palm and curled his index finger in a 'come-hither' fashion, beckoning the bewildered old soul. With his other hand, he removed his fedora and bowed in one fluid movement. Fred Astaire beckoning Ginger Rogers. I sunk deeper. The man unhinged his long, thick fingers from the mower. Hooked a thumb (resembling a deformed cucumber), through a suspender in his oily overalls. I read his lips. "You damn fool," he spit, shaking his head.

"Ah Ha! Not ready, huh?" Zooma stated. "Stubbornness a commendable trait among the elderly. I shall return when you might be, shall we say, more accommodating."

Zooma returned the fedora atop his head and closed the squeaking door as I played with the radio dial. We were about to depart the scene, when; 'bbbbrrrfftft'... I look to my right and there, like a big spider web, a crack in the window.

"Damn! Zooma, that old fucker is assaulting us. He broke the window."

"Spry little sumbitch, ain't he? Aw hell, Panther, mower prob'ly spit it out. It's cool."

"LOOK-OUT!" I screamed. 'He's got another one!"

We crashed into a gray rubber garbage can as a dirt clod slammed into the side window. I looked back at the old codger. He saluted me with his middle finger. Spanked his butt and winked.

The hearse emitted strange, cosmic vibrations. Discombobulated quarks and random atoms floated about with no place to go. Behind me a lone seat. Puzzling. I wondered who, or why, anyone would want to sit there. Beside the seat was a console laden with a patch of five or six control switches. Engraved in one knob were the words 'air conditioning' (for the living and the dead, I presumed). Two thick windows, made to slide open, if necessary, divided the casket area from the cab. The glass partition could open, or close, to include, or seclude, the unfortunate bastard who had the courage to occupy that lonely rear seat. Deep blue velour curtains covered the side windows. The casket area lined with remnants of ocher-colored shag-carpet. Velvet pleated curtains draped the rear window. A round, wooden TVA cable spool, upholstered in teal shag, was a cocktail bar. Two holes in the spool contained stereo speakers. A rectangular door was latched with a pearl teardrop handle. Alongside the bar lay a thin mattress, where an acoustic guitar sat between two dirty pillows. Along with shabby blue-jeans and wrinkled flannel shirts were strewn dozens of floppy hats, sunglasses and crushed Budweiser cans. An unopened package of condoms was stuffed partway beneath the mattress.

On the way to the liquor store, Zooma rehashed his recent excursion to Panama City Beach. Said he'd gone there to work, but I knew better. Zooma was the perpetual 'beach bum'. His idea of manual labor included loitering at the penny arcades, swigging ice-cold draft beer (thanks to his fake ID, long sideburns and five o'clock shadow), sucking the salty meat from raw oysters, tanning himself on sugar white beaches, roaming the 'Miracle Strip' amusement park, strumming his guitar, smoking weed, and stroking chicks.

THAT'S the Zooma I knew and loved. Hell, I wanted to do those things myself! But I had other issues. Years before earning my swimming merit badge, I planned to move to the beach. Wanted to be a lifeguard. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to swim. When I was seven, I jumped into the deep end of the pool at the Aquatic Club. Would have drowned if a nun having a virgin Mary hadn't heard me screaming).

The trip to the beach set Zooma back eighty dollars—most of it for gas and the six quarts of oil the hearse required. Birmingham, a hundred miles south, found him stalled in a traffic jam. Rush hour, bumper to bumper. Due to the accelerator malfunction, he didn't have time to retract the pedal before stomping the brakes, crunching the gear into neutral, retracting the pedal, then returning to drive and pushing the pedal, etc. So, he disengaged the ignition and left the hearse in the middle of the highway. Dim-witted idiots honked their dumb idiot horns. Disgruntled 'Dullies' shook clenched fists and called him a draft-dodging communist. After a couple of smokes, he continued his trek south. Three o'clock the next morning, he coasted into the lot of a 'Phillips 66' located on the beach highway. The station closed. Dead tired, he climbed to the rear of the hearse, closed the velvet curtains and gave thanks to 'Merry Droppins'. Mary, the matronly girl who had sewn the curtains. A month earlier, while masturbating in the woods, he became infected with poison ivy. Two days later, Mary performed oral sex on him, and then she became infected. Pitching a bottle of ointment, she screamed. 'Not only did her mouth burn with the fire of a thousand hell's, but while masturbating, she had infected her vagina. Now, it itched worse than her mouth'. Their only relief was to scratch one another. It came to be that both his swollen, poisoned cock and her burning, itching mouth were ultimately soothed.

We pulled into the parking lot of the State Liquor Store. Located on the poor side of town, situated only two miles from our side. Zooma veered the hearse between the skinny, filthy impoverished winos. Unemployed black men who'd sell their soul to George Wallace for one more sip of gin. They'd linger on the curb by the entrance, heads tilted in a drunken stupor, clutching a brown paper sack, their sodden demeanor lacking any prospects, but full of good intentions (Yeah, s'pose to lay brick las week but it sho come a rain...got's me a job in thamonin' over in Triana, jes need a decent tater tonite, spayuhkwata'?). From the curb, they'd accost the patrons. Spare change in the name of fair game.

I (with fake I.D.) entered the store in search of a bottle of 'Boones' Farm'. Zooma swung open the creaky rear door. With fedora in hand, he ushered the wicked willing into the hearse like a barker at a carnival.

"No sense in a scarin' them folks," the cashier admonished me, glaring at Zooma. But I knew the bony straggler. He was a highschool drop-out who couldn't whip a three-year old.

"Hell, they already half dead," I replied. '...how much?"

Once home, we acquired the lotus position in the back of the hearse. Passed the bottle of wine back and forth and smoked 'Kool' filters to the butts.

Zooma West believed conversation a waste of time. A momentary diversion, irrelevant. He would not discuss 'Tater' or Vanessa. He'd rather contemplate the living than lie about the dead. We both lived as sinners and as sinners we would die; why be saints when the proof was in the pudding? Zooma and I would never be close—his fault, not mine. Although he would desert me in a couple of years, and though it would be his loss, it would also be mine. But before he finished with Huntsville, we would have a few more times together and I wanted to make the best of them.

* * *

The golden-haired, hippie girl in a white flowing robe caressed a bouquet of pink daffodils. For the moment, she is at peace, inserting the flowers into the ominous barrel of a rifle. The Ohio National Guard has mustered at Kent State University. Seconds later, the camera pans to a marbled stairway, where the dead and wounded are scattered about. Hell has broken loose on a campus of higher learning. Before the massacre, The President of the United States had called the students 'bum's'. I believed protesting anything to be a waste of energy.

As rifled flowers wilted on May 7, 1970, the city began excavation for a new soccer field in what had been a cow pasture. Sucking on a cigar, Buford Whatley noticed what appeared to be an old, faded soccer ball buried in the red clay beneath his feet. Using his leather glove, he attempted to pry the orb from the ground. It split like a cracked egg. Agitated insects scrambled across the discolored, brackish teeth. Dropping the skull to the ground, he radioed his supervisor, Mr. Nolan. a whiskey drinking, rebel-rousing 'redneck' who had never missed a meat and three.

"Wonder who it was?" Buford said to the dirt, re-lighting his cigar.

"Don't rightly know, but it's been here awhile," Mr. Nolan replied.

Buford nudged the skull with the toe of his boot, like he was checking the tires of a new car.

Fifteen minutes later, a beer-bellied policeman strolled over. He wore dark sunglasses and licked an orange pop-sickle.

"Alton," Buford said.

"Nolan. Buford. How ya'll? What 'cha got here?" Alton said, sucking his sickle.

"You tell me," Mr. Nolan replied.

The three men frowned at the ground, as if deciding where to plant the cucumbers this spring. The Buddha-bellied cop squat to the dirt. Studied the distended skull with the tip of the pop-sickle stick. He swept his sleeve across his thick, sweaty forehead.

"I cain't say fer sure. Hmm...what's this?" Alton said, lifting a decomposing cloth with his stick. A rusted medallion dangled from the chain. He stood, making the requisite grunts and groans. Turned to Mr. Nolan, spit, and announced, "Fellars, if I ain't mistaken, we done found the little Hardin gal."

'Who?" asked Buford.

"Hardin. Went missin' few year back. Went in the books as a runway...lot of um were doin' it in them days. Evidently, she didn't get too far."

"Oh yeah, I remember. Her daddy boot-legged didn't he? Never liked that ole sumbitch...well...whatcha gone do 'bout it?" Buford asked the cop.

"Reckon where the rest of the bones is at?"

"Bufe, I got un-solveds runnin' out my ears? I mean, Jesus H...Bufe...this is all I need rat now...Lemme put it this way. Gal's been dead awile. I'm sorry 'bout it, but the dee-partment ain't hired the manpower to pursue this thing. Hell, Buford, ya'll didn't pass that tax thing last year, so, I ain't gotta tell you resources have gone to shit. Don't blame me..."

"Listen fellas," Buford said. "Supper's waitin'. Alton, if you don't need me anymore, I'm goin' home."

"Go on Bufe, tell the wife I said hi." Alton replied.

"Well, hell," Mr. Nolan said. "I gotta run too. Alton, listen, don't worry yourself to death 'bout this, let it go. Aint much you can do about it, anyway."

"Guess I need to write a report tho, jest in case," Alton said. "Shit...I hope this don't roost up a bunch a do gooders. Reckon Ima gone have to notify the cur'ner. Go on, I'll see ya at Mullins Fridee, hope them taters ain't lumpy like yestadee."

And so, Vanessa Hardin had not run away to California. Had never left Huntsville. Buried less than a mile from home. Her glue-encrusted spores gathered no moss.

The case would never be solved, officially.

In the school lunchroom, I approached Zooma.

"I can't believe it man. They found Vanessa. Possum cut her fuckin' head off!" I said.

"I heard. Guess we shoulda done something, Pan, but it's too late, now, Possums dead," Zooma replied.

"Yeah. But she said she knew the pervert, said he'd bought her beer, didn't she? I mean, she didn't scream or nothin', did she? Did YOU hear her scream?"

"Shit man, been a long time. I figured he was a pyscho," Zooma sighed. Two lovers at the next table sipped from a single carton of milk through two straws. I pushed my tray across the table.

From his sock, Zooma produced a cellophane packet of marijuana and 'zigzag' rolling papers. He rolled a reefer on the lunchroom table between two trays piled high with rolls and macaroni. We spent the day getting high as the Empire State Building. Zooma and I closed the case that afternoon. I searched for Van's picture in the high school annual, but there was none. Just as well, I suppose. Vanessas' picture would have made me recall what I needed to forget.

* * *

For a time, Zooma and I went separate ways. Each reminded the other of the tragedies we shared. The evolution of our friendship drifted. The brotherhood we enjoyed as children migrated to a couple of teenagers absorbed in self-preservation. But, in the years before the days of death, nothing could have pried us apart. Not even two different schools.

I attended St. Mary's Catholic elementary. No Democracy here. The coarse hands and plastic twelve-inch rulers of the Sisters of Mercy made it clear. By the time I finished eighth grade I would have learned something. These absolute dictators would punish even minor infractions. From eight in the morning until three in the afternoon (except for recess and lunch), we (twenty-three of us) were confined to one room. Our desks constructed so that the tabletop and metal chair were connected. Sturdy, but uncomfortable. The first day of school, I decided to show the nuns who was boss. Using my legs as leverage, I leaned backwards in my desk. Without warning, I crashed to the floor, spilling my pencils, books and a Dixie cup of orange juice. Spread eagle, gazing at the ceiling, I heard the 'swhoosh' of Sister Marian's starched, black, heavy 'habit'. A clear, plastic ruler clutched in her hand. She scowled with reddened, chipmunk-like jowls. Grabbing my collar, she rapped my knuckles with the twelve-inch bayonet. I became the scapegoat. But I never fell backwards in my desk again. I would subscribe to Jesus and Mary, the Angel Gabriel. I'd sweat over fractions and multiplication tables. In the shade of her ominous, black, habit, I would never learn about 'French' kissing and 'hickies'.

Strange. I don't remember Sister Marian informing me that Thomas Jefferson had been a slave owner. Don't recall the history book informing me that President Lincoln, initially, wasn't interested in freeing the slaves. Had no idea that the Vatican had assisted the Nazis. Or, that Father McCloskey of St. Francis parish enjoyed oral sex with an altar boy in the vestibule before mass. They didn't tell me Father Malthen was screwing a parishioner. That he sired a child with her. I learned birds of a feather flock together. That a cock in the hand was worth two in the bush—that bees in the hive toil for the Queen Mother. How could I not howl when Sister Mo pronounced the planet Uranus as 'your anus'?

One day, a classmate asked Sister Marian to write down the last name of every student. Her father needed to know if there were any unauthorized Jews enrolled in our class. Weird. I didn't realize a person's religious affiliation was determined by their last name.

We of the Catholic faith subscribed to a set of rules and were expected not to diverge from that dogma. No room for experimentation. The penalties were excessive for even minor transgressions. Our lives planned and planed out. Told what to eat on Fridays and what to abstain on Sundays. We didn't consume much of anything during Lent except boiled fish skektons. Resurrection Sunday included deviled eggs. Forced to confess venial sins and, God help us if we confessed a MORTAL dalliance. Even uttering the word 'fuck' might be grounds for Excommunication. That, my friend, was worse than Death! The seriousness of sins calibrated by the number of 'Hail Mary's and 'Our Fathers' recited in weekly confessionals. Penance. First Communion as important as the day of our birth. I memorized indecipherable words of Latin for the repose of my soul. When I passed by the church, any Catholic church, on foot or in automobile, I was required to make the sign of the cross. Anointing my meaty shoulders and sweating forehead with trembling hands. In my counting fingers, rosary beads fondled tight. On the wall in our living room, beige and cracked palm fronds were nudged behind the upper right corner of a golden frame. Shimmering in the frame a holograph of Jesus. His sacred heart bleeding forgiveness for all penitent sinners. We Catholics did not protest when the 'Church' proclaimed suicide, divorce, and homosexuality a sin. We were told birth control and premarital sex were intolerable. Do not masturbate and God forbid, do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Utter the word fuck, cocksucker or bullshit, may heaven help you. Because God is listening. And if you say 'damn' without meaning a device to retain flowing water; if you say 'hell' without meaning the penance for an unrepentant life, then you will reap what you sow. The devil in my catechism book looks as though he hasn't been laid in a month of Sundays—quite obvious he doesn't take any shit—displease him and he will stab you in the eye with his barbed pitchfork—fuck with him and you will be forever damned to stoke the scorched abyss with your blackened soul.

But I would not change my schooling at St. Mary's for all the communion wafers in the world. Imperative to begin life with a set of directions; lessons to guide one's life. My Catholic upbringing instilled qualities with which to compare other philosophies. A horizontal learning curve. But I needed to soar vertically. I did not want to be a puppet, a marionette. Strings yanked by the traditions of an ancient, fallible faction. 'Vertical Drift' transported one upward toward enlightenment, implied due course. VD would, hopefully, teach me that Birth control and suicide and homosexuality were personal choices. If God created a world where millions starve to death, where millions die in the name of religion and, if He isn't going to do anything about it, then I will say fuck and 'son of a bitch' and Goddamn until my fuckin', cocksuckin' throat freezes up. And if God creates parents who incinerate their children by stuffing them into the kitchen oven; and if God delivers us children who decapitate their grandmother; and if He installs the earth with Hitler and Mussolini, Oswald and Chapman, then I'll masturbate until my penis falls off. I'll eat meat on Friday. I will kill myself if that is my desire. If I forsake religion to free me from its bounds; if I find it necessary to discover another guide in my quest for spiritual intercourse, then, by the unalienable right as a feeble, sentient human being, I will search for it by god, and one more or less suicide, Hitler, penis-flogger, pornographic movie or chicken-fucker will not stop, deter, or defer me.

But I do not hate the years I spent at St. Mary's. I loved them. I loved the soothing smell of homemade rolls baking in the Convent's ovens—the aroma of melting butter drifting through our classroom from the kitchen next door—the hard raindrops of Autumn pelting the ground as they swoop from the brown and orange leaves of the gigantic Oak tree outside my classroom window. I relished Janet Guzman's perfume on the way to the chalkboard to dissect a sentence; the sugary glaze of a Krispy Kreme doughnut during our fifteen-minute recess on Friday morning. I cherished the moment we recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Then, I could face the back of the room and enjoy the gorgeous ass of Candace Maloney. I executed my patrol boy duties with diligence. Displaying my sash and stopping cars with the palm of my hand. My heart would swell as Candice admired my authoritarian demeanor. I could hardly wait until, after a lunch of Salisbury steak and peas and carrots, hominy and three cartons of chocolate milk, Jeffrey Fama and I would play paper football on the lunchroom table. I loved the routine of limited responsibility. Breakfast (after I'd dressed in the school uniform of green pants, fake tie, plaid jacket, white shirt and socks). The bell ringing for lunch. Home for 'Gilligan' reruns and salmon patties. Before bedtime, homework and oatmeal cookies, Beatle records and Archie comic books. And finally, sleep. Glorious sleep.

The 'Sisters of Mercy' assured me, in many dictates and knuckle thrashings, that a productive member of society follows the curriculum set down through the teachings of the Catholic Church and St. Mary's school. They were the Sisters of Mercy, but I assure you, no mercy was forthcoming. Especially if my brain zoomed off track. I would answer to the split-hooved himself if I didn't memorize my multiplication tables or my 'ABC's'. If I failed to point out Ireland or the Vatican on the colorful, plastic globe; If I could not recite the name of the current Pope (John); or was unable to dissect a compound sentence, God Help Me. There would be hell to pay, literally.

Sister Marian must have thought me the clumsiest boy in Huntsville. I was always dropping my pencil to steal glimpses of the smooth thighs of Janet Guzman (Queen Janet crossed her legs that left nothing to the imagination). I always knew the day would come to reimburse Satan for my indiscretions. Yet I still have an acute fetish for plaid woolen green skirts, white cotton panties, big buttoned suspenders and knee-high socks.

In any case, whatever school Zooma West attended would have made no difference. He was more intelligent than anyone I knew, including 'Dullies'. He pursued the ideology of vertical drift. Moving forward more beneficial than drifting sideways.

Many mornings, when Mildred would drive me to school, we'd pass Zooma. He'd be trudging down Pulaski Pike, on his way to Davis Hills, the local public school, approximately a mile away. Mildred thought it shameful his parents made him walk, but it seemed like a hell of an adventure for an eleven, twelve-year old kid. If she were not running late, Mildred would pull the car beside him and offer a ride, but he always refused.

One afternoon, bored with television and tired of annihilating my toy army soldiers, I set up my telescope to have a better view of Cindy Jarvis. She was sunbathing in her backyard. Zooma called, wanted to borrow the scope so he could study Mars at perigee (in orbit closest to earth). He made calculated attempts to locate Mars, but my telescope was so cheap, I deduced it was best used to spy on earthbound bodies. The following day, we ogled Cindy's heavenly body as she smoothed lotion over her breasts and read a Cosmopolitan magazine with a photo of Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fischer on the cover.

Sometimes, after my daily chores, I 'd walk down the street to Zoomas' house. More often, he'd walk up to mine. Secluded in my bedroom, we'd listen to albums and eight tracks and munch on peanut butter cookies. Once, I went to his house to help him work on a strobe light. He had removed two leaves from a portable fan and stashed a bulb behind it. I'd arrange his 'Playboy' magazines in chronological order. Books of every description littered the nooks and corners of his room. I'd see the covers of Moby Dick and Lust for Life and assume they were good old escapades of unnatural sex and instant gratification. I was paging through the book, curious about the size of Moby's dick, when Zooma informed me that the novel was not about penises and fornication, but about a mammal with an over-sized ego. His attempts to interest me in the 'Grapes of Wrath, Tender is the Night, Green Hills of Africa, of Mice and Men were in vain. I was much more interested in the Archie's and Mad and Playboy magazines. In those days, reading was what bored, four-eyed people did.

One afternoon, lounging in his bedroom, I was licking my lips, dreaming of the salmon patties Mildred had planned for supper, when Zooma informed me that the key to everlasting happiness was in the pages of the book he held in his hand. "Panther Burn," he said, "if I want to climb Mount Everest or fly to Mars or examine the Titanic, I don't even have to leave my bedroom. It's all right here," he said, pointing to the cover. "I undressed Veronica Lake last night. Tonight, I'm thinking Thelma Lou or Gidget, ain't decided yet. Tomorrow night, I will coat Cindy Chaney's ass with pancake syrup. Hell, man, I can do anything. Move to Mayberry or visit Willoughby. Fight at Gettysburg or flirt with Mrs. Lincoln at Ford's Theater. Dine with Copernicus. No limit, man. Meditate with Buddha under the Banyan tree or die on the cross next to Christ. If I wanted, I could starve to death at Andersonville or burn to death at Hiroshima. Do you realize what this means?"

"Whoa, slow down Zooma. I ain't following."

"This book! 'The Interpretation of Dreams'. Listen, Panther, the universe is only how we perceive it. It only exists in our mind!" he dabbed at the side of his head. "So, if life is perception, then our mind doesn't comprehend what is real and what isn't. If I convince my mind to believe the dream is real, and realize I am dreaming. Think of the possibilities of lucid dreams."

"Lucid dreams," I repeated. "Sounds complicated."

"It ain't. But you gotta devote to the idea. Will you?"

"Yeah, what the hell, sure, I've always wanted to make it with Julie Barnes," I joked.

"Dig it. First, we gotta train your brain. Simplicity is the key. Say you want to dream about Julie. Well, I want you to imagine nothing but her. Study the TV Guide with her pic on the cover—the one hangin' on your wall. Image making love to her. Not fantasizing, not imagining, but imaging. Now, shit's gonna cloud your brain. You know, school, Dullies, all that bullshit. But imaging her is the key. With me so far?"

"Kinda..."

"Cool. Now...you'll need a facilitator."

"A what?"

"A planned event which enters your dream, a signal to unlock your unconscious. Dreams seem unreal because, when you awake, you separate what you believe is real from what you believe is not. But, if you are conscious while you are dreaming, the mind cannot detect the difference. Dreaming awake and being awake become the same experience."

Outside his bedroom window, calliope music. The ice-cream man. Attired in his sparkling white coat. His truck painted with smiling orange cream-sickles and goofy-eyed yellow banana pops. He will not wait long to part kids from their money. I'd give my right arm for a fudge-sickle.

"So, you want to screw the Mod Squad girl, right?" continued Zooma. "OK. Start this minute. I mean it. Lodge her hard, pink nipples in the lobes of your brain. Finger her dirty-blonde, long hair. Remember, she parts in the middle. Smooth the crease in her forehead. Details are crucial, man. Now, for a facilitator, use mine. A Blue Sun. Constantly remind yourself. When a Blue Sun appears in your dream, it's the signal you are dreaming. But listen, and this is fuckin' important, do not wake yourself up. Remain calm. Then, after a while, one night, a bright Blue Sun will appear, and you will realize you are dreaming. That is when you direct the sequence. Screw Julie or climb the Himalayas, walk to the Moon or jam with the Beatles. But you must prepare yourself. If you want to climb Everest or ride in the motorcade with Kennedy, you must become the mountain, become the limosine. Become Julie's lips. Details. I promise you, when you awaken from that dimension, you will be sweating and satisfied, Maybe incredibly sad. If you feast in your dream you will not eat for a week. Tour Mars, you will be starving when you return. And, believe me, if you have sex, your sheets will be soaked. The emotions you experience when awake imbed your dreams. It's incredible, Panther. But, listen, man, I advise you not to go to Antietam or Auschwitz, it could be dangerous. In dreams, the mind and body perceive no different reality. It's possible you could die. When I crawled into Harry Houdini's spirit it freaked me out so much I crapped in the bed. Man, this is powerful shit." Zooma rolled another joint.

Since I hadn't heard of Antietam or Auschwitz, I doubted I'd ever go there. I had no desire to crawl into a spirit, dreaming or not. I glanced out the window. Unfortunately, the ice cream truck had turned a corner. So much for my fudge-sickle.

"Well, I guess it won't hurt to try it," I said, watching a neighbor empty a bag of charcoal into the bowl of a grill. "Listen, Zoom, I gotta go, we're havin' salmon patties and they ain't no good cold."

"Do not procrastinate, Panther, I'm telling you, man. Live your dreams. Remember, a Blue Sun. Let me know how it comes out," he said, laughing as he emphasized the word 'comes'. Procrastinate? What in the hell does that mean? Julie Barnes and a Blue Sun. Sounds like fun. Make love to a boatload of voluptuous women. Seduce Elizabeth Montgomery and converse with Mark Lindsay and Bette Davis. Play with the Beatles at Candlestick Park. Fight with Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. Impregnate Lucille Ball and sleep with all the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. But all that would come later. I loathe cold salmon.

* * *

In time, I learned to anticipate Zooma's mood. When those moods turned dark, I evaded his company. As the years dragged on, we would correspond only when he felt like it. Zooma West was a consummate brooder, he relished his lonely soul. I considered myself lucky to spend any time with him, back then. Later, at Rutler High, we'd nod at one another in the halls like farmers going to market. Our harvests yielded different crops. We entered a contemplative truce. Zooma became a solitary miner. He needed to find the gold before he grew senile. Lest he forget where the mountain stood. In retrospect, I should have cornered his ass. Beat the living hell out of him. How could he be so indifferent? Life, Death, money, love, sex. None of those meant a damn thing. How could anyone be so cool? Why hadn't he introduced me to his girlfriends. Why wasn't I good enough to play in his band? What made Zooma tick? I needed to know his secrets, his take. I wanted to peruse the map containing his approach, believing it might condone my own. I wanted to understand why he hadn't spent his life in regret mourning the death of our friend. We had survived while Tater had died. And Vanessa? By God, he was right there with me when she disappeared.

* * *

In the fall of '68, I enrolled as a freshman at Rutler High School. Mildred suggested I join the school band. I wanted to be a drummer. But Mr. Hankley, the Band Director, was a tuba short, so he convinced me to learn that instrument. Said he needed someone meaty enough to handle the cumbersome thing. I was terrible, and, yet, a neighborhood band asked me to join. I had to learn six songs by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. It was torture. Our first rehearsal, the drummer, didn't show. Since his drums were already set up, I banged on them and never stopped. He sold his cheap set of Slingerlands to me for fifty dollars. My goal was to join a real rock and roll band. My motive? To linger in the shadow of cool people, like Zooma West.

Rutler High School was a monolithic nightmare. Built in the shape of the Pentagon. Divided into three separate 'sections' of green, blue, and yellow. The 'yellow' section was my hangout. A place where 'freaky long-hairs' stayed 'stoned' most of the time. Decked out in patched bell-bottoms, leather-fringed, marijuana leaf-embroidered jean jackets and t-shirts with Twiggy's image. Platoons of filthy green army fatigues, wooden sandals and Nehru jackets. Fake gold medallions, cheap sunglasses and walking sticks. In this shady conclave, head-banded characters 'bogarted' joints, stuck pins in Placidyl's and traded an 'RJS' for a 714. Medicine cabinets from Huntsville to Gurley stocked with more Valium (mother's little helper) than liver pills. Students who had been expelled or had 'dropped out' and/or were on parole all piddled about the yellow section. They had nothing else to do and didn't mind selling a nickel bag of pot for three dollars, even though there was only three dollars' worth of reefer in the bag to begin with. The 'yellow' section ruled my world. There, I could bum a smoke, take a quick hit from a joint floating around and mingle with guys that had girlfriends who wore tight leather miniskirts, skimpy halter tops, blue jeans with holes in the ass, and no bras. No sport slacks and letter jackets here. Two years later, when Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin died (I forget which), we mourned by wearing black armbands, smoking 'doobies', guzzling 'Boone's Farm' strawberry wine and strumming air guitars to 'Purple Haze' or 'Piece of my Heart'. The faculty demanded we remove the armbands, assuming we were conspiring with the 'Black Panthers' to overthrow the school. The yellow section provided safe harbor to hipsters. Allowed to smoke on premises, most freaks did. I hacked a pack a day. God only knows how many cigarettes were wasted, because, when the bell rang to change class, half-smoked cigarettes were tossed to the ground, hammered to oblivion by wooden clogs or untied army boots. The yellow section was home to the schools' finest; the potheads, dope-dealers, rock & rollers, the flower-power hippies and the Picasso-Max-Van-Gogh wannabees; 'bikers', delinquents and dropouts who didn't give a damn. Misfits postponing the pursuit of dreary, worldly things. From long days and longer nights of total excess, stoned and hungover students found the concrete benches in the yellow section a good place to 'crash'. Now and then, the Vice-Principal, Mr. Straughn, would make a sweep, rounding up the roustabouts. Swinging a slick, knotty slab of pine in his port stained hand. Ninety percent of the students paddled in 1972, I'm proud to say, were yellow section refugees. A red, oblong tattoo on a white, shaggy ass denoted a badge of honor. And, although the paddling burned like hell, it was an initiation we aspired to.

Directly opposite, was The Blue section. A conglomerate of athletes, cheerleaders, and the all-leg dance team. Where bulging muscles and short sleeved shirts were the norm. Where the scrumptious thighs of cheerleaders in miniskirts teased those of us who didn't wear a letter jacket. Comprised of weightlifting, clean cut, white, ball players (a token black or two if they were popular, funny and skilled) and the good-looking Dixie Deb dance squad. None of whom had ever heard of Jack Kerouac or Miles Davis.

Then, there was the 'Green' section. Reserved for compromising Blacks and future Mathematicians, Brain surgeons, and newspaper editors. The library was their heaven on earth. The Intellectual Faction. Honor students, nerds, geeks and 'straights' who lugged heavy books from class to class. Didn't smoke, drink or fuck. CHERISHED learning. Kept their nose to the grindstone. Licking leaves of pages with index fingers. Mesmerized by logistical mono-poly-transient bio-rhythmic quad-equations, quantum leaps, and the infinite division of pi.

The Black Faction spoke for itself. They moved from section to section. Searching for a place to belong, be accepted. If they wanted to smoke a joint, play ball or receive an education, they were welcome to do that. But an underlying racial tension existed. Soon, the school would be forced to quell daily, ugly riots.

It was the first day of class, 1968, when a jaw-less jerk named Wallace Strunk (with his black horn-rimmed glasses he resembled the actor Wally Cox) intercepted me in the hall. He informed me all incoming freshmen had to be initiated. As his cohorts smirked, he laid a penny on the floor. Threatened violence if I didn't push that penny down the hall with my nose. When I refused, the slinky bastard chuckled and said, 'surely you jest, get on the floor lard-ass.' Naïve and stupid, I obeyed. I hadn't known any thugs at St. Mary's Catholic school. I knew every student by their first and last names (including Stanowicz and Feldstein). But, here, thrust into a jungle with several thousand discombobulated, overgrown infants, I was forced to deal with a few scum-sucking-snot-nosed maniacs.

Zooma happened to be strolling by when he spotted me. Sprawled on the floor, face down in the hall, like an obese crocodile, nudging a coin across the floor with my nose. Strunk, the smirking lard ass, and a dozen or so others hovered over me, howling like drunken hyenas. I had nudged the damn coin a few inches when...

"Panther Burn, what are you doing?" Zooma said, crouching over me.

"What does it look like he's doin'?" Strunk replied.

"Get up, man," Zooma ordered.

"He cain't quit 'til that penny gits to that locker over yonder," Strunk nodded.

Zooma sauntered over to Wally, cool as a cucumber. He thrust his left forearm below Wally's chin and pushed him backwards until Strunk's head lodged into a locker. Books and spiral notebooks splattered across the hall. The spectators, already late for class, scattered. Sitting on the floor, like Humpty Dumpty, I wiped my dirty hands across my jeans, teary-eyed from embarrassment. Glanced at Wally. His cheeks crimson. His glasses lopsided across his face. A trickle of blood in the corner of his eye. He attempted to speak but found it impossible as his windpipe had melded to the rear of his skinny neck. The scumbag slid down the side of a locker. His back propped up against it, legs splayed. As Zooma slammed the ole boy's head into the locker, Wally's mouth popped open. It was hilarious. That's when Mr. Straughn, the Vice-principal, turned the corner. As Zooma removed his fist from the throat of the goon, I attempted to explain to Vice what had happened. While he listened to my explanation, Zooma slammed his elbow into Wally's cheek once more for good measure.

"C'mon, West. Let's go," Mr. Straughn ordered Zooma, nodding toward the Principal's office. Wallace sat rumpled on the floor, leaning against a locker, adjusting his glasses. I followed Zooma and Mr. Straughn.

"What's your name, son?"

"Panther Burn Trust."

"Well, Mr. Trust, I suggest you get to class."

"It's not his fault, Mr. . . ."

"Ain't gonna tell you again."

I strode by the locker as the shit-ball, still propped against the locker, flipped me a middle finger. "Fuck you, fat ass," he growled. His busted horn rims dangled between his fingers. From then on, whenever I'd pass Strunk in the hall, he would glare at me through those horn-rimmed glasses. "Watch your back, tub of lard," he'd mumble.

Zooma received twenty paddles. Suspended for a week. Four-eyes developed a nice scar above his left cheek forever. I would never deal with Wallace Strunk again, but, unfortunately, Zooma would.

* * *

Spring, 1972. The Riots. We were the Rutler Rebels. Our mascot was a Confederate Soldier clutching a copper pistol in one hand, rebel flag in the other. Friday night football games would find white arms waving the Confederate flag. 'Dixie' sung at pep rallies. Well, hell, what else would they sing? What else would they wave? A collective middle finger? Some did.

I only attended one pep rally and never went to a football game. The competitive nature of sport was boring, athletics were irrelevant. What I deemed important was the Beatles, 'Easy Rider' and 'Playboy' magazine.

It wasn't long before the rebel flag and its Civil War memorabilia signified the stigma of oppression to the Black students. They believed the flag an endorsement of Slavery. Zooma wrote a letter to Wallace Strunk, now the editor of our school newspaper, the 'Stars and Bars', saying 'he had not owned a slave in a month of Sundays and would not endorse something which didn't presently exist'. Hell, Cindy Gooba DATED a black guy, for god's sake, and he sure as hell didn't look oppressed. Nothing incites a good riot like perpetual boredom. The Confederate flag and its dubious associations with slavery ignited the spark and perpetrated the riots. Demons unleashed. Tough white trash and fervent black radicals squared off in corridors of hate, ignorance and bigotry. Fistfights, like acute acne, popped up out of nowhere. Angry rednecks and boastful blacks argued over who traversed what part of what hall. Confederate flags sewn to gray denim jackets. Stashed in the back pockets of tattered blue jeans, stilettos hungered. Waiting to be sprung into deliberate sin. One delirious afternoon, I defended a black friend named Tommy Battle. I'd had to twist a little wimp's arm until he howled because he'd asked Tommy if 'nigger pussy was pink'. A crazy time. An ignorant one. After the incident with the wimp, the school rent-a-cop frisked me. Found my stiletto and made me break it into six easy pieces. 'You think you're tough, toting a knife?" he scowled. "Why don't cha pull it on me?".

Rent a cop said he 'oughta' have me arrested. Not for possession of the illegal six-inch blade, but for 'hanging out' with 'dem coons'. Said I should be 'hangin' um' instead. Many students, faculty, and parents thought the yellow section was sympathetic to the 'Black Cause'. The fact is, we were. But I wasn't intimidated by the disruptive 'White or Black Faction'. My concerns of racial equality were not of a sympathetic nature. I negated any faction in general principle.

*

Confused, adrift in a world not worth a fuck. I engaged in the embryonic stages of thoughts and ideas separated from, and devoid of, this wicked, cruel rock. I existed in rampant, emotional turmoil. I required diversion. Zooma West's band provided a perfect distraction.

They called themselves 'Intergrated Soul'. T.C. Battle played drums, a clean-cut guy with smooth ebony skin, no Afro or mustache. The first black guy I knew who dated a white girl. He couldn't dribble a basketball and despised 'Chitlins'. Couldn't dance. To him, 'Black Power' denoted the local Utility Company. He'd had more important concerns, and, with a white girlfriend in 1972 Alabama, I concurred. T.C. knew more words than Webster. His sentences littered with words such as compunction, derivative, supercilious. I hadn't a clue what he said most of the time. Claimed to be a direct descendant of Sergeant William Carney of Company C, 54th Massachusetts. Born in slavery but earning the Medal of Honor during the attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, in February of 1863.

Paul Orandilaton played bass. He lived in a room rented from a lady over in the Calvary Hills area. A large, muscular fellow with an Afro like a space helmet. When he played, his 'fro' bounced from side to side, like the junk inside a lava lamp. And he loved to 'box', invoking 'Ali' this and 'Sugar Ray' that. On April 4, 1968, Zooma and Paul had copped a nickel bag from a dude named Ezell who lived in the projects. While sharing a joint in Paul's tenement, they heard the radio announcement of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. Paul slammed the wall so hard it made a hole in the plaster (broke his hand in four places, wore a cast for months).

It was not a good time for white folks to be in the projects. So, Zooma hid in Paul's bedroom for three nights, smoking grass and listening to Sly Stone and Al Green, before he felt safe to venture outside. On the fourth day, under the cover of a sad mourning, Zooma scurried out of 'Calvary Hills' like a four-eyed rat. Paul would stay stoned the rest of his life.

Larry 'T-bone' Robinson, the group's lead vocalist, loved the ladies and they adored him. His delicate, creamy voice marinated in hot, southern sex. Six-two with mocha-brown skin and straight, slicked-back, chemically enhanced hair. His brown sloe-eyes gave him the appearance of a Chicago Mobster, aka a black Al Capone.

T.C. worked himself into a lather demanding they spell 'integrate' correctly. Paul, however, wouldn't change the spelling. They gigged at the 'Ebony' club, American Legion, and 'The Outer Limits'. All black nightclubs, segregated by choice, not dictum. Zooma played guitar and, most of the time, he was the only Caucasian in the clubs. One New Years' eve, I went with him and we made two. Two grains of salt in a sea of pepper. No one ever bothered me at these venues. They figured that if I had the balls to walk through the entrance, then I ought to be damn well left alone. Skin-color has never impressed me.

The glutton of despair consumed more than a few dysfunctional psychopaths at Rutler High. When the walls of prejudice crashed upon the halls of learning, Zooma and his band of brothers strolled through its wake without a scratch. There were Bomb threats. Cindy Gooba's tires were slashed. Rebel flags torched in the parking lot. Swat teams initiated. Vile graffiti scrawled across cars and toilet stalls. 'Go back to Afrikkka', 'rape a nigger tonight', 'KKK—love it or we'll hang yure black ass'. But Zooma West and the 'Intergrated Soul' kept on playing. 'Cold Sweat', 'Papas got a Brand New Bag', and 'I Feel Good" performed unfettered. Zooma was in a unique position to examine both sides of this paradigm. The white supremacists saw him as a long haired, dope smoking, hearse driving 'geetar' player who didn't know any better—the black revolutionaries saw him as goddamned crazy enough to play with a bunch of brothers.

Sitting in a booth at 'Shoneys', awaiting our 'Big Boy' cheeseburgers, Zooma asked, "You realize the problem, don't you?"

"Problem?" I replied.

"The riots. To the young white kids, it is ONLY a flag, to the young black kids, it is NOT ONLY a flag. To the old white men, it is their ANCESTRY, and to the old black men, it is THEIR ancestry."

I finished my 'Big Boy' and ordered another.

In May of our senior year, Theo Mileowski, our class president, asked Zooma if the Integrated Soul would consider performing at the final senior assembly. It would be farewell and good riddance to the class of 1972.

Eight hundred students would graduate from Rutler that year. It was the largest senior class in the state of Alabama. The rumors were rampant. Would the Blacks boycott? Would the Whites? The previous day, a few irate Blacks had burned a rebel flag out by the running track. This morning the scent of revenge permeated the classrooms. The pendulum of ignorance swayed from side to side. Tension bubbled like molten lava beneath the cracked surface of rising anxiety.

The band gathered at the all-purpose basketball gym to prepare for the show. Its 'roadies' (including me) excused from class for half a day. Naturally, many students wanted to be a roadie. I managed to extricate a few enchanted souls from the claw of History, English, and Algebra class. Mark Haefs, Richard Malone, and Danny Gilliam convinced their teachers the band couldn't perform without them. The stage, eye-level to the basketball goal, stood at one end of the gym. A huge beige curtain with hundreds of folds divided the stage from center court. On the east and west side of the court were portable, accordion-like bleachers. In less than an hour, we had the equipment raring to go.

Zooma and Paul tuned their instruments. The band decided on the songs they would play. T.C. requisitioned an R.C. Cola in a mode of horripilation (I found one in his backpack). Students crowded in. Within minutes, hundreds of voices bounced off the walls. A lone banner in green magic marker welcomed the 'Class of '72'.

'BBBOOOOMMMmmmmm!' The implosion of a thousand angry gods. I thought a bomb had exploded. There were horrific screams as students dashed toward the exit. It was only T.C. pounding his bass drum through the public-address system. I had set the volume level too high. The crowd returned to their seats whistling and making 'wolf calls'. Zooma later said he'd found the explosion ENLIGHTENING, said it was interesting how 'a bomb made fools of us all'. The principal, Homer Shim, thought it a gunshot and hid behind a stairwell.

"Let's get on with this shindig!" Theo said, motioning for me to draw the curtain. Tidbits of applause, catcalls and whistles.

"Atta Boy, Homer!" someone screamed. T.C. requested another R.C. I grabbed one and set it on the floor beside his drum throne.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, students and faculty..." Theo announced into Zooma's microphone.

"ATTA BOY! THEO!"

"...I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for coming. This will be the last general assembly for the class of Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-Two." Scattered applause, gleeful cheers, random 'boos', the broth simmering. "...As we are aware...we have had our trials and tribulations this year..." More moans, no applause, distant sighs. '...But I believe, here at the end of this trying school year...the class of seventy-two will be remembered as one, when called upon to resolve our differences...worked unselfishly and tirelessly to renew our common goal...to be a productive member of society and to our fellow man...regardless of our own particular race...creed...or color...."

"ATTA BOY THEO!" someone yelled.

"SHUT UP! YOU MORON!" another responded a few bleachers away.

"...After graduation, we will, most of us, go our separate way in the real world. I suggest we take the lessons we have learned and continue to learn. So that we can make this planet a better place for ourselves, our families, and the entire human race. Thank you."

Sporadic applause drifted from the bleachers.

"LET THE BAND PLAY!"

"...So, let's listen to some music. As most of you know, Zooma West has been a student here since the alphabet became twenty-five letters!"

"TWENTY-SIX!" an intellectual shouted.

"IS THAT YOUR IQ?" someone else blasted.

'...So, I thought it would be nice to have his band play a couple of tunes for ya'll in appreciation to the seniors here at Rutler High..."

In appreciation? I wondered what the hell he meant. Geez, we'd had a riot the week before, even the S.W.A.T. team was authorized. It was amazing the school hadn't burned to the ground. "...So, put your hands together, and join me, in welcoming the 'Integrated Soul' band." Moderate applause. The polished basketball court reflected the gym lights like a gigantic mirror. On both sides of the floor, not a seat to be had, center court devoid of students. In the twenty rows of bleachers to my right, five or six hundred white students middled about, in accordance with their clique. Across center court rows and rows of black students. T.C. chewed the inside of his lip before counting, 'One...two...three...four.' The band began with an instrumental called 'Soul Sacrifice', 'Santana's Woodstock Anthem. It would be incorrect to say the band did a perfect rendition of the song, but all's well that feels well. It received a smattering of applause.

"ATTA BOY ZOOMA!"

I wanted to kill the son of a bitch who kept screaming that shit. Next, they performed 'Ohio' by CSN&Y, it appropriate for the times. Larry, in his Eddie Kendrick's glory; '...Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming...we're finally on our own..." His falsetto skimmed the roof of the gym. It was an outstanding performance, but to little acclaim. Next, the band performed 'Revival', an Allman Brothers song. Again, Larry the Mobster did the vocal, singing '...people can you feel it, love is everywhere....'. Sensational. The applause enthusiastic but brief. The students, it seemed, were simply glad to be excused from class.

"ATTA BOY HUBERT!"

HUBERT! Who the hell was HUBERT? A few white kids screamed requests, "JAMES GANG! CREAM, LOUIE LOUIE...WIPE OUT!" On stage, the guys were enjoying themselves. Zooma swayed, his squid-shit-black hair gathering sweat. Homer tapped his Florsheim loafers to the beat. Before the next song Zooma spoke. "Hey ya'll?" His voice echoing through the gym. A lone 'far out, man' reverberated from a stoned yellow section refugee.

'...Uh..." Zooma stuttered. "I'd like to thank Theo and Mr. Shim for lettin' us play. We had fun. At least Mr. Lewdner will see I'm not completely wasting my life..." (Mr. Lewdner was Zoomas' Biology teacher). "We're gonna play one more before we get outta here.'" Scattered 'boos', another 'ATTA BOY LUTHER!", Homer cringed. I had to love the shrunken old principal for not implementing a mass paddling. Zooma continued. "It's by the Temptations, called 'Just my Imagination'" A murmur in the restless herd. As Zooma started the smooth, mellow guitar 'riff', a few black students began to sway in their seats. One couple began slow dancing in the bleachers. Homer furrowed his brow, then relaxed. Relieved to be shed of this troublesome class of misfits and lawbreakers.

The intro harmony, 'ooh...ooh...ohh...' Then, '...Each day through my window I watch her as she passes by...' What? Zooma is singing! Three black guys in a band and the lone white one singing the lead on a TEMPTATIONS song. The slow dancers stopped in their tracks. The swaying ceased. "...I say to myself, you're such a lucky guy..." What happened next rocked my senses. The sway of black students resumed. Afros began to bob through the dank locker-room air. Now, five black couples slow-danced. '...To have a girl like her....'

"Sing the song, Cracker!"

'...Is surely a dream come true...out of all the fellas in the world...she belongs to me..." followed by three-part harmonies. '...But it was just my imagination...runnin away with me..." Then, a chorus of the loudest voices I'd ever heard. Resembled the Mormon tabernacle choir, but more soulful. '...Soon we will marry, and have a family, oh yeah...' In the White section, a cool resignation. Students rumbled in the bleachers. Potheads slump in their 'highness'. A lone balloon, caught in the rafters, deflates and sifts to the floor. A tall, rail-thin black guy with legs like pogo sticks jaunts to the basketball court holding a large 'fro-comb'. Falling to his knees he slides across center court scanning the rafters with his eyes. Two black girls rush to join him, hands clasped in fervent adulation. They call his name, Eddie, and plead for mercy. Then, two overweight, large-busted white girls scramble to the fray. One of the girls tackles Eddie around his skinny thigh. I thought, "Oh shit."

Eddie's comb is his microphone—he mimes the words as Zooma sings, '...Every night on my knees I pray..."

I dared not look at Homer. More girls from both sides of the gym hover around Eddie. Bended on one knee, he belts into his 'fro-comb' like James Brown. 'Dear Lord, hear my plea...don't ever let another take her love from me or I would surely die..." This was getting serious. T.C. inhales the dramatic overture. 'Her love is heavenly...when her arms enfold me..." A skinny white girl, wearing an Indian headband, embraces Eddie. 'I hear a tender rhapsody...but in reality...she doesn't even know me..." Eddie smiles and tenderly removes the girls bony arm and wiggles his index finger back and forth, implying, no...no...no. She gushes and pouts, then resumes frolicking with the ten or eleven other girls. When Eddie bows to the black students, they scream approval, jostling one another. And when he swivels his narrow hips toward the white bleachers and bows, the ovation echoes across the court—applause, like ocean waves pounding the shore before fading away. The next wave melding into the previous. Liquid Fabric. Jubilation Unleashed. I wondered how the year might have turned out if we'd had this assembly at the beginning of the school year. Eddie, the consummate showman, finally returned to his seat. He tucks his micro-comb' into his 'do'. A dozen females tug at him. Three Caucasian Beauties from the 'dance team' continue to strut and sway at center court. I had no idea they could dance like that.

'...But it was just my imagination ...runnin' away with me...yes it was just my imagination...." The band sang the last line in slow harmony, without music. '...Runnin' away with meeee..." The cheers and ovation gave me a case of horripilation. Homers' fragile body quivered like a headless rooster. Theo folded himself in a chair with his head in his hands. Relieved.

So, yes, there were two riots that week. One almost destroyed us—the other freed us.

"Thanks for letting us play!" Zooma beamed into the microphone. He unplugged his guitar and wandered off the stage. Me and two other roadies jumped from the stage into a group of new-found fans. Theo strode to the microphone.

"Thank you, class of '72."

Nobody cared. "...That concludes our final assembly. Good luck to all of you...and I wish to thank..."

The senior class filed from the gym in gorgeous disarray. Mauled by his fellow classmates, Eddie traded high-fives, hugs and Black Panther salutes. The 'dance-team' wiped sweat from their perfect foreheads at center court. Pocket mirrors and lipstick absent. Black and white students exited the gym singing 'My Girl', employing ballpoint pens as microphones. Homer strolled up to Zooma, congratulated him and told him to get back to class when he could. We 'roadies' spent our sweet time loading the equipment. Then hung out at the yellow section for the rest of the day. Bathing in praise and getting high from the smoke of a dozen 'spliffs'.

It was the first and last time I ever saw the dropouts, hippies, athletes, intellectuals, and Blacks in total harmony. They exited in peace. Together. It would not be the government, the propaganda, the peace slogans or the manifestos—not the church, books, or films that brought us together. It was the MUSIC.

Zooma faces the west end of the yellow section, writing on the beige brick wall with a black magic marker. I peer over his shoulder. Curious how he would feel on this wondrous occasion. His music had soothed the savagery of the ignorant if only for an hour. I read Zooma's scrawl.

Monday gave her some roses

stole from the general store

Tuesday made her some pink lemonade

Wednesday wanted some more

Zooma. What a Bird.

* * *

In May, I graduated from Rutler High School. Barely. Homework, I felt, was for lock-kneed peasants who had nothing better to do. I don't remember taking one textbook home during my entire four years. St. Mary's Parochial had provided a great education. Shutting my locker one final time, I stuffed a garbage bag with candy wrappers and drummer magazines. Tossed paper clips, a jock strap and stale McDonald's French-fries in the garbage. I would not miss anyone or anything. Bored with life, I struggled to find a reason to keep pretending I was enjoying it. I was miserable. Burned out. But the classroom had kept me off the streets and out of Mildred's way. I narrowly escaped repeating my senior year. I'd failed Biology (required to dissect a frog—I quit—the odor of formaldehyde sickened me). But Mr. Lewdner, had been convinced I wouldn't last another year. He gave me a 'D' instead of the requisite 'F'. I'd wanted to quit high school in my sophomore year, but the Madre and Padre failed to see my logic. I was sick of the eight to three fiasco, tired of waiting for the next dreadful thing to happen. School was a waste of time for me and my teachers. For some idiotic reason, I enrolled in ROTC—the slush pile for dysfunctional misfits who might be viable bait for recruitment into the armed services. Forced to wear a khaki brown soldier uniform, twirl a wooden rifle and salute the higher ranks, I went AWOL. Ordered to get a haircut and lose weight, I refused and was dishonorably discharged a week later.

After a month in Spanish class (to meet mucho caliente 'senoritas'), I had learned mui porquito (very little). Earned an 'incomplete'; mui malo (very bad) in the course. Then, I took auto mechanics and learned how to change spark plugs and disconnect a water pump. Once, adjusting the timing on a GTO, utilizing a psychedelic strobe light, I forgot to unplug the cord. That night my friends garage burnt down. We towed the scorched wreck to an abandoned field across the Tennessee state line and buried the license plate in an old creek bed.

When Zooma felt affable and unselfish, he and I would spend hours at 'Crows' pool hall. Old Crow would notify us when impending doom seemed apparent. He despised truant officer's as much as we did. When they'd forage the pool room for uncompliant students, we'd hide in the bowling alley next door. When the officer came looking for us there, we'd scramble to the Krystal hamburger joint to smoke and drink coffee. Zooma spent most of his senior year at 'Crows'. Rarely would I see him roaming the halls of Rutler. We had grown apart, but I understood—two too many tragic episodes. On occasion, we'd rack a few balls and things would be like before. Then, after an hour or two, he'd wander off and it would be months before I'd see him again.

The day after graduation, I was pawning my high school ring when a man offered me a job at 'Ginneys' shoe store in The Mall. Seemed like decent work, ogling the tanned legs and dainty feet of the pretty girls. As she perused the shelves for acceptable footwear, I'd attempt to determine her actual shoe size. Vain, independent women denied my assistance, commanding me to deliver a size much smaller than required. When a cute girl (and if their mother was absent), needed service, I flirted with aplomb. If she wasn't wearing panties, the transaction devolved from a shoe size to a phone number. I'd pretend to ascertain precise measurements of her ankles, insteps, toes and calves, discreet in my visual liberties. When I'd recommend a measurement of her thighs, the transaction ceased to be amusing. One night before closing, a fastidious woman named Martha became permissive with the properties of her pubic package. She enjoyed tickling my crotch with her painted toenails. Lifting her blouse above her breast. Touching the exact spot where a rabid bat had assaulted her in '61.

That night, Harold, the manager, discovered Martha and I hiding out in the lady's restroom. I was counting her freckles with my tongue.

"Oh, Hi, Harold," she blushed, her nipples like pink bullets. "Have I ever showed you where that bat bit me?"

I was fired (she and Harold married a month later). Next, I sold Cutco cutlery door to door. By then, I owned a '64 marshmallow white Ford Fairlane (I had to sell it for spare junk a month later. I had poured oil in the radiator instead of the engine). Ditching the Fairlane, I purchased a '61 puke-green, Ford Falcon – a rusted old carcass with four flat tires, a busted window, and a sawed-off steering wheel. But the radio worked. 'Cutco' was a division of 'Wearever' aluminum products. I spent four days in a cheap motel room while the district manager trained me in the art of door to door salesmanship. Authorized as a Cutco salesman (my membership card proved it), they loaned me a large suitcase of samples, crammed with spatula's, spoons and paring knives. I'd inform potential customers that the handles of the knives, eggbeaters, spatulas, and soup ladles, each constructed with polyurethane (or some word with multiple syllables) were made with the same materials as bowling balls. The blades would never, ever need sharpening (Decades later the cutlery is as sharp as the day Mildred borrowed them and never paid me). My spiel initiated the moment the housewife opened the door. Usually, she'd allow me to finish talking before smiling and saying she wasn't interested 'today'. My spiel began; 'Good afternoon Mam, my name is Panther Burn Trust, the local representative of Cutco cutlery. May have a moment of your time? I want to show you a product that will dramatically shorten your day." Within a day it had devolved to; "Hey, wanna buy some knives?" A natural salesman, I was not. My samples were heavy and bulky and, I hated to wear a suit and tie. Usually, I would slump in a booth at Shoney's and harass the waitress. I sold my last paring knife to a woman in curlers named Penny Neklace and forever gave up the ghost of Willie Loman.

* * *

I adore storms. Rain corresponds with dreariness. The sound of gushing water comforts me. I had sliced bananas, dumped them into a bowl of milk and was listening to 'I Want My Baby Back' (a song about a fellow that loved his dead girlfriend so much, he climbed into the coffin with her) when Mildred called me to the phone. It was Zooma, inviting me to Tuscaloosa, home of the Alabama 'Crimson Tide'. The following day, I gassed up the Falcon and drove to T-town. Why Zooma even applied to college is beyond me. He could have been college material (if he'd changed his attitude). It was the idea of attending college, he desired. He needed the empirical process of higher learning (at least for a semester). One semester would be all he required (if Thizzie would have known, she wouldn't have paid for it). In his estimation, the college diploma as a destination implied Due Course for the unenlightened. To most college students, he ascertained, the framed paper was what mattered, not the learning. What was important were the contacts made, not the dissection of Madame Bovary or the relevance of the Middle East. A diploma looked great on a resume, it being the pre-preliminary interview. In his estimation, The University was meant for peasants, a future spouse. A den of dope smokers and beer chuggers.

Speaking of higher education, Paul, the bass player for Intergrated Soul, attended Alabama A & M and played with a group of musicians who would later become the Commodores. He pursued a degree in Public Relations. Retired as a groundskeeper for a golf course. T.C. moved to Tennessee and earned a degree in English composition. He writes technical manuals for IBM. Larry the mobster bought a gas station in Huntsville. He would marry and divorce the same woman three times. Our principal, Homer Shim, died in his sleep the following April. It's possible the class of '72, voted most likely to raise the blood pressure of every living soul in Huntsville, had been an accomplice to his expiration. Eddie, voted senior class president in 1974, died from AIDS in 1986.

Three hours southwest of Huntsville lies the quaint, antebellum city of Tuscaloosa (T-Town). Home to the Alabama Crimson Tide, it provides a get-away for thousands of wide-eyed and bushy tailed students—a viable excuse to become promiscuous and, if inclined, become an alcoholic. The sleepy, rustic old town populated with decrepit old houses, gargantuan old trees, and grouchy old curmudgeons with dusty old diplomas. I parked the Falcon between two large cracks in the street. Triple-checked the hand-scrawled numbers. This was it. An old, converted garage leaning to the right, behind an old house that leaned to the left. Zooma's abode.

Through a dusty, cracked window, I saw Zooma, bent at the waist. He was surveying the interior of an ancient oven. I tapped on the window and entered unabated.

"Be with ya in a minute," he said, his head inside the oven.

"Hey, man, I gotta pee. Where's the toilet?" I asked, inspecting the one-room abode.

"Piss in the shower, Pan, the toilets fucked up."

I aimed at the crack in the yellowed cement and watered the weeds that sprung through the cracks. "Man, you're wastin' a lotta water in here," I said. The faucet's drip like a liquid heartbeat. "All it needs is a damn washer or screw or somethin'."

I zipped and returned to the main room, which was the only room. Sat my fat ass on what pretended to be his 'bed'—a sheet of L-shaped plywood nailed to the wall. It creaked once before coming unhinged. I dropped to the floor in an unceremonious heap. I apologized. He replied he was 'in the process' of redecorating anyway.

"Panther, did you know, when in peril, a dog and a seagull utter the same bark?"

What? Was he baking a dog in the oven? Seagull? Both? I gathered shards of plywood, contemplating his absurd statement, when something flew above my head. It zoomed across the room, bounced off the brown wall and landed flush on Zoomas forehead. To this day, I've not encountered a larger cockroach. The goddamned thing had thin, translucent wings that fluttered like a butterfly. As the black, blood-curdling insect darted across Zooma's cheek, he thrashed his head about like a ragdoll. Flicking his hair like a madman. The roach initiated a triple somersault that was Mark Spitz worthy. Splat to the floor with a thud, then scurried underneath the grill of a buzzing refrigerator like it was Mario Andretti.

"Jesus...that was a big one..." Zooma said. "You hungry, Pan? Pot pies almost ready."

I nodded 'no', anxious to get the hell out of there, fast.

"Aw hell, Pan, 'twernt nothin' but a little bitty ole bug," he said, switching off the oven.

I tried to come up with a good excuse to leave, though I'm sure Zooma expected me to stay the night. I was dreaming of Dreamland ribs, when I noticed a girl standing outside on the steps, staring at me through the open kitchen door. Clad in short, fringed cutoff jeans and a sky-blue halter-top. Her frizzy black hair fell below her shoulder. Her dazzling, liquid-white smile made me dizzy. Zooma appeared upset with this turn of event. He notched his finger through the belt-loop of her tight shorts and led her into the room. She was gorgeous, her lips like slivers of a June tomato, silver eyes with a speck of lime. The crotch of her shorts formed a perfect inverted triangle. Zooma introduced her as Louise. Asked if she was hungry. I searched for airborne cockroaches. Five minutes later, a soft knock. Zooma pushed aside a towel taped across the door. When he opened it I couldn't believe my eyes—another pair of identical cutoff jeans. A girl more luscious than Louise. Her teal high-heels made her taller than Zooma—her complexion clear as Canadian spring water. Her miniscule breasts concealed in a pink lace blouse tied in a knot above her navel, flush against the countless freckles of her breast. Lodged between her slight cleavage was a silver necklace containing two charms. She carried a brown leather satchel. I sensed initial uneasiness when she realized Louise was present. Soon enough, they became cordial. Lou flipped through a Billboard magazine and for an instant, I believed I was the one who had 'crashed' the party. But I felt great, who wouldn't? It was sheer satori gazing at these two gorgeous models of feminine pulchritude.

"Panther, this is Fresca . . . she hails from Iceland...," Zooma said. I melted, mesmerized, returning her 'hello' with an asinine nod. "...I got beer, water and half a 'Dr. Pepper" Zooma exclaimed, "There's pot pies in the oven if anybody's got the munchies."

Lou sat cross-legged on the dusty floor turning pages, unaware, or unconcerned with the cockroaches that were devouring her scent. I was sure she'd been here before. Both girls had. They were too comfortable.

"What you got for music in this dump?" I asked, trying to sound cool. There was no stereo or radio in sight. Caps hung from nails. 'ABC Sports', 'Panama City Beach', 'Can Do Tree Service'. Billboard magazines, a flop-eared 'Penthouse', a few books lying in a spider-webbed corner. 'The Green Hills of Africa', 'The Last Picture Show', 'On the Road'. In another corner an electric fan buzzed. I picked up an acoustic guitar with half the strings missing. Lou said, "Hey, what happened to your bed?"

Zooma winked at me. "Cheap nails," he replied. Lou flung the Billboard aside, rearranging decomposed flies trapped in a spider web. From the ceiling hung a light bulb that was peeling like the leaves of a blue onion.

"Why's that light got blue shit on it?" I asked. Zooma frowned at me like I was an imbecile.

"Well Panthuuuurr. I needed atmosphere and blue is cool. Soooo, I dipped it in paint. Problem is, the heat from the bulb melted the paint. Wouldn't believe how bad it stunk when that happened!"

"Why don't you just buy a blue bulb?" Fresca asked, shrugging her soft, whipped cream shoulders. "Hey, anybody want to trip?" She said, unfolding a tiny square of aluminum foil.

"That what I think it is, Missy?" Zooma asked, raising his brow.

"Yep. Got it from my professor," she replied, the tiny slip of paper between her fingernail.

"It's Mickey!" she exclaimed. Zooma flinched at me, surmising, correctly, that I'd never taken LSD before. He lit a yellow candle that smelled like burning shoelaces (I had smoked a shoelace, but that's another story). He jammed the candle into an empty bottle of Chablis as Fresca retrieved a razor blade from her bag. Dissecting the square into four equal pieces, she served the tin platter to Zooma. He grabbed a fragment with his fingernail and passed the tray to Lou.

"No thanks," she said, her face scrunched.

"Aw, c'mon." Zooma said. "It ain't gonna hurt you."

"I said no!"

"Whoa, don't get 'cher panties in a wad. Here ya go, Pan. Lay it on your tongue and let it dissolve," Zooma instructed.

I studied the remaining three morsels. Sure enough, a facsimile of the famous mouse. His white gloved hand outstretched, a deviousness etched in his face. '...ep on truckin' scrawled across his belly. I placed the tiny leg on my tongue like a communion wafer.

We were like horny Buddha's, cross-legged on the dirty floor facing one another. Zooma tossed a deck of cards on my lap.

(For no good reason, a memory intercedes). When I was twelve, me and two other boys on the baseball team spent the night at Bobby G's house. We were celebrating his birthday. After his parents went to bed, Bobby suggested we masturbate together. He claimed to be an expert in the nuances of the delicate procedure. Bobby G illustrated by dropping his pants and stroking his penis like he was milking a cow. I was amazed at the transformation. Bobby extinguished the lights to the sound of zippers and belts and moans and groans. I fondled my fragile shaft, and, in utter amazement, felt it inflate like a bicycle tire. The sensation intense. I thrust my torso forward to accommodate the pleasure. Without warning, the lights flickered on. The other three perverts, clothed, began howling at my fisted pecker. "Is that all you got Panther Burn? Sheeiitt, that shriveled pickle wouldn't fill a plum!" They hooted. Embarrassed, I finished off two more family-sized jars of pickled eggs).

I shuffled the deck and asked Fresca if she knew how to play 'Hearts'. She frowned, "I guess."

From memory to fantasy. She guides my finger to her swollen nipple. I savor the goose bumps, the soft flesh of her freckled shoulder. I taste the roundness of her navel, the blessing between her legs and the arch of her delicate foot. I witness the eternal sweetness of her quivering, crimson lips. My tongue marinating in mango-flavored gloss. Her breath salty, thick.

"Hey." Fresca quips, interrupting my mindless feast.

In a dark crook, entangled in a corner of the room, Zooma and Lou nestle in folds of lust. Her legs spread eagle, his fingers teasing her, the heaving of chest and breast. I wanted to watch, but something was quelling my indulgence. In a trickle, drops of creamy blood revolve around my head, encircling my right ear. The flickering candle jitterbugs and steals the oxygen. Miniature sparklers explode beneath my fingernails.

"You OK?" Fresca whispers. I attempt to process her question, then re-focus on the room. "Yeah...I guess so," I reply.

"Yeah, this is guud shit," she purrs, her lips melting into her perfect face.

"I've never done acid before."

"Don't worry, Panther. Relax and let it take you down the smooth. Don't think negative things. Don't worry. I'll help you along the way."

My legs disengage. Bits of information ricochet from one atomic particle to the next. A randomness cavorting between galaxies. Zooma and Lou measure the ceiling with thumbs touching, like a movie director. Instinctively, I move to the kitchen, gather my legs and crawl beneath the dirty sink. I lend my ear to the wall. The vibration a conversation. My body shrinks to a millimeter, the sink expands to a cavern.

"Panther?" Fresca asks, looming over me like a skyscraper. I place my ear flush to the wall, face to face with Lucifer, the winged cockroach. Its delicate, bedroom eyes, a sophisticated vampire, enveloping me with wild wonder—inching forward—tickling my lips with her glorious antennae. Translucent wings fluttering, whispering. She sulks and pouts, glaring at me with animus, her red eyes congealed in swirling pustules. Glowering, she scurries under the refrigerator. Following her advance, I detect the source of the cosmos. It pings beneath the grill. Atoms and neutrons and quarks and creeps—an incestuous skirmish over sovereignty. It is beyond my perception, beyond my capabilities, to appease any of them.

"Panther, come back into the den, I want to talk to you."

"OK," I stammer in surrender. In the den, the candle breathes its final breath.

"You all right?" she asks.

I glared at her throat.

She fingered a tiny vial. "This might interest you. It's volcanic dust from a region in Southeastern Iceland. When a volcano erupts under a glacier, it produces black sand called Sandur. The resulting floods are jokulhlaups. As the water recedes, this fine ash is what remains. And this, obviously, is a compass," she explained, fingering the other charm.

"Oh."

"Panther, I want to turn you on."

"You've already done that."

"No, I mean I want to read your aura..."

Somewhat familiar with auras, I didn't realize they could be read.

"I have the ability to manipulate them.'

"Manipulate?"

Fresca removed her necklace. In the dying candlelight, she twisted the tiny compass in her fingers.

"Panther, do you know what an aura is?"

"Well, yeah, it's a bunch of colors around a person, energy, I guess.'

"Not only a person. All energy produces color, and those colors reveal characteristics. For example, a sky-blue aura denotes serenity. Whereas green represents balance. Yellow indicates intelligence, violet reflects spirituality. Transparent colors are preferable to murky or dark ones, true. My concern is the energy emanating from you. Your aura is the manifestation of your vibration. It is malleable, although, temporary. What I do is perform an adjustment."

"Do I need one?"

"We all do. Energy is cause and effect. While I can manipulate the effects, I cannot manipulate the cause. Panther, not only do we need an adjustment, we deserve one. Your life is the result of repression, stowed in your memory since you were born, before you were born. Repressions absorb the subconscious, but, are, no doubt, manifested in every moment.

"I haven't repressed anything," I lied.

"We'll see."

"Energy is a magnet, with opposite poles at each end of your body. Atomic particles attach to certain areas in a way a magnet picks up metal. Some of these particles are not beneficial and must, from time to time, be altered. The ionized particles will disrupt your energy, causing an extreme malfunction in your psyche. Suppression and repression are the result of one thing, perception. If you are on a train and another train passes you, how can you be sure which train is moving? Panther, what we perceive is what we believe. We understand what is, by what is not. I am told I was born in 1954, well, that would be incorrect. The calendar separating B.C. from A.D. is off by at least seven years. Perhaps as many as eight or nine. The modern calendar wasn't changed until the Sixth century. Panther, that is seven hundred years after Christ died. The whole concept of time is a fallacy, all because some Roman monk decided to roll the dice and guess when A.D. began. We live within the constructs of whim."

As Fresca rambled on, my brain crept into the creases of her luscious lips. Her liquid tongue invited me to mount her immediately.

"So, you ready?" She asked.

I shrugged.

"I must have complete darkness and stillness. You must remain quiet."

I glanced across the room, Zooma was picking at his teeth.

"You gonna hypnotize me?" I asked Fresca.

"No,' she said, "you'll be aware. But I must be able to concentrate, so please don't say or do anything until I'm finished. It shouldn't take long, depending..."

"Depending on what?"

"Oh, you will be fine. Remember, no talking."

She darkened the candle and the room turned black. Hordes of supersonic orbs thundered through the multidimensional fissures in my brain. Her scent of cinnamon melded with the extinguished candle. "Panther, I want you to sit still, clasp your hands together and be quiet, Ok? Comfortable?"

I tried to concentrate as she had instructed, but my mind interlocked with her sweet breath. Zooma and Lou lay still, like ocean waves on a balmy night. The LSD made me feel as if I were floating on the horizon of a black hole, with energy and darkness and seizing every pore. She emptied the vial of volcanic ash into her hands and rubbed them together. "Close your eyes, Panther," she whispered.

She dusted my forehead with sprinkles of luminescent ash. I felt the tiny grains drift upon my nose.

"My rings are ionized. They will attract or repel certain misplaced particles." She removed the rings from her fingers, framed my face with both hands, then my chest and stomach. Her rings danced upon my lap. She waved her soft hands an inch above my thighs. My head exploded in utter bliss. She glanced at my crotch. A genital chaos prevailed. She uttered some foreign word, then continued waving and manipulating my aura. Too soon, she said, "Ok, Panther, I'm done."

"Well? How long do I have?"

"I'd say about six inches," she giggled, staring at my crotch.

"Oh yeah, well, couldn't help that, but I mean my aura, it wasn't black or anything?"

"Not quite, Panther, but...I must say, it will take more than one session, I'm afraid," she said. "I suppose I shouldn't leave you like that." she cooed, glaring at my hardened shaft.

"Well, hell, if you must Fresca, don't leave the poor slob stiff," Zooma mumbled from across the room.

"I gotta go, Zooma, can't be late for Calc again," Lou said, using Zooma's shoulder as a crutch.

"Wait up, Lou, I'll walk with you," Fresca said, "...give me a minute to finish up here."

"Hurry," Lou said, grabbing her clothes and purse before entering the bathroom. Zooma lit a smoke.

"I can't let you inside me, but, if you want, I'll feel you with my mouth," Fresca whispered in my ear. I was tripping out of my mind. She unzipped me and by the time her tongue had encroached the garden of my crotch, it was too late. I ejaculated. She whispered 'oh!', then 'Wow!' then, 'That was fast!'. Shit, I hadn't even had the chance to exhale.

"You ready?" Lou asked, exiting the bathroom.

"Yeah," Fresca replied. She gathered her clothes and necklace. Tossed the empty vial and compass in her purse, saying, "Panther, you exude heavy vibes. Your repressions loom large and your energy is non-productive. I did what I could and, I hope it will help. Only you can change your perceptions and I hope you do, for your own sake...It was nice to meet you, even though, well, you know...'

"Yeah," I said, staring at the floor.

"Guud. Well, maybe we can get together again, sometime."

"Ya'll wanna pot pie to take with you?" Zooma asked the girls as they headed toward the door.

"Nooo, thank you!" they said in unison, jetting out the door, giggling.

In the dark recesses of the room, among the rush of a Tuscaloosa breeze, I sulk on the floor. Overcome with lust, my mind ablaze with a dose of Lysergic Diethylamide. Among abandoned playing cards, overloaded ashtrays, solidified streams of candle wax and the pungent aroma of dying semen, sat a loser. Among a mosaic of melancholic memories and chicken pot pies I smoldered. A fat, lazy fucker like me didn't get many chances to seduce a goddess. In fact, if not for Zooma West, I would never have met a goddess in the first place. Hours later the acid began to mellow and Zooma and I dragged our sorry asses to 'Poseys', the local meat and three. I loaded my plate with country fried steak, baked squash, pintos, two portions of fried green tomatoes and three glasses of sweet tea. I buttered a biscuit—stuffed the whole damn thing in my mouth and pointed my aura-tainted finger at the salt and pepper shakers.

"Zooma, man, I'm in love. Did you invite her over for my sake?"

Zooma soaked cornbread in his turnip broth. "Well, Pan, to tell you the truth, I had no idea either one was coming."

"You doin' both of them?"

"Whatcha mean?"

"You know."

"No, Panther Burn, I am not, as you say, doin' um. Fresca is a good friend."

"Didn't look that way to me. So, you don't mind if I call on her?

"She's married, Pan."

"What?" I set my fork down.

"You heard me. She's, well, not married, yet, uh . . . engaged, I guess is the term."

"You're kiddin' me."

"No, Pan, I wish. All right, what the fuck, yeah, I fool around with them but not the way you think. OK?"

"Oh? So, they come over, play cards, drop acid and shit, then everybody gets naked and you don't do nothin'? Give me a break, Zooma."

"Well, that's exactly what happens. They like to party, I guess. No law against it, is there? Besides, Fresca digs that aura shit. She's helped me."

"I bet," I said. "...Damn." I stirred pintos with my fork.

"What?"

"Well, I thought I'd finally found someone I could . . .well, dig, and then, my luck she's engaged."

"You'll find another, Pan."

"Not like her," I said, pouring an ounce of sugar in my fourth refill of iced tea. And I never would.

Three hours later, I returned to Huntsville. Three months later, Fresca married a pharmacist from Auburn (They divorced in 1982, when Frescas' husband went to prison for dispensing narcotics illegally, forging prescriptions. He served fifteen at Atmore). In 1984, I saw Lou at a Huntsville Wal-Mart. She married a bowling alley. Fresca returned to Iceland, but Lou kept in touch for a year or so. When I asked if she knew Fresca's last name, she wrote down 'Yggdrasill'.

I would always cherish the hours I'd spent at Zooma's abode. Holed up in a dilapidated, remodeled garage, rife with pestilence and lust and dust. I find myself wondering if I loved Fresca for coming into my life, or whether I hated her for the same reason. I have never gotten over her. My perception and repression and suppression would return, none the worse for wear. My hopelessness resumed as quick as it takes to eat a bowl of beans and greens. When Fresca had kissed me, the dregs of life had dissipated for a while. Now, life would resume kicking my ass. I would move out of my parent's house. But, oh, how jealous I'd become of Zooma. The good life came to him without him even caring, whatever his approach was, was working. It was Time to develop my own trajectory. The next day, my Falcon blew a gasket.

* * *

It was gross, the way his upper lip glistened with sweat. The sickening angle of his drooping jowls, like a homeless puppy. They labeled him a criminal and evicted the misfit from the White House. Nixon's 'Hitleresque' salute from the gangplank of the Presidential helicopter was his Final Farewell to the country he'd betrayed. I was baking blueberry muffins when my stoic father flung a National Geographic at the television, screaming about the ex-president being a 'no good, crooked, unnatural son of a bitch'. The new president, Gerald Ford, would later pardon Nixon, saying the country needed to heal. Twenty-five men were knitting socks in a federal prison for their involvement in the Watergate fiasco. Dad demanded it be twenty-six.

Days earlier, I'd stuffed myself silly at 'Posey's in Tuscaloosa. Now, I needed to get on with life. So, I slouched on the couch and devoured anchovy and olive pizzas and watched Peter Lorre movies. During my daily doldrums, I longed for the excitement Zooma brought into my dreary life. But I could not rely on him. Mildred detested my lounging around the house in pajamas. I too became sick of it. My penchant for nicotine enraged her—she raved and ranted and locked me out of the house whenever I lit a cigarette (even though my father could smoke wherever he wanted). One night, during a 'Jack Benny' special, Mildred decreed I find a job or move out. I perused the want ads in the 'Times' and the next day applied for a position at BCI electronics.

BCI manufactured coin separators and circuit boards. My job was to fill orders sent down from the lackeys in other parts of the plant. Dumping a few thousand screws, nuts, capacitors, sensors, etc. into a metal plate, I'd then add or remove a few until they matched the weight required. Ten thousand bolts might weigh eleven point three pounds and fourteen ounces. 'BCI' paid me $1.65 an hour. With the four paychecks I'd managed to hoard, I rented a flea-infested trailer for sixty-five bucks a month. And, though I loved Mildred's pot roast and banana pudding, her culinary feasts couldn't hold a candle to my potted meat sandwiches and burnt Vienna sausages.

I found a job playing drums in a band called 'Correan Dean and 'Queens Court'. They performed at a nightclub on South Parkway. The 'Bunny Club' was a hunting ground for the lonely. Where senile hares slurped Manhattans and extolled the virtues of 'Mary Kay' products. A six-tiered crystal chandelier that hadn't been cleaned since Al Capone nibbled his mama's teat hung from a cracked ceiling. 'Correan paid me seventy-five dollars for working three nights. Between the BCI gig and the Bunny Club, I earned enough to buy an 'eggshell' white '69 VW van. I bought it from a bug-eyed Mexican beekeeper who was knee walking drunk in a pub called 'Finnegans'. He scrawled the bill of sale on a napkin picturing a green, psychotic leprechaun.

I flea-bombed the trailer twice, but the persistent, bloodsucking varmints survived. Adding to my misery was a chronic bout of diarrhea and a constant migraine.

One hungover morning, I stumbled to the bathroom to brush the vomit from my mouth. Fumbling with the tube of toothpaste, I was horrified to see the blood-crazed eyes of a gloating cockroach staring back at me.

I had not replaced the cap on the toothpaste the previous night. The sparkling mint flavored Pepsodent must have been a sumptuous sight for the starving bastard. It scurried up my arm and across my shoulder. Finally flopping to the floor and landing upside down—its tiny legs clawing at air. Its liquid tongue gasping for breath. I rammed an 'Elvis' towel on top of the creature as it screeched in terror. Somehow, it managed to evade capture. For the rest of my sentence in that trailer, it lurked behind the toilet tank, seething with a scent of peppermint. I'd be lying if I said I tossed the tube in the garbage. I held the tube under scalding water for exactly three minutes, hoping that would decimate any microscopic germs of tainted roach saliva. I never encountered the Demon roach again, but the fleas multiplied faster than Bobby Fischer.

Later that afternoon, a well-fed female named Siggy Rawlins strolled by. She and her daddy lived in the lot across from mine. I called her 'Flicka' (not to her face) due to her elongated cheekbones, drawn out jaws, huge teeth and round, dark eyes—a horse's-head if there ever was one. I happened to have a six-pack of Milwaukee' Finest.

Adhering to my goal of getting my shit together, I'd enrolled in a film course at Calhoun Junior College. I bought an eight-millimeter movie camera from a pawn shop. A week later, I dropped the class but retained the camera, loaded with Kodak film. I invited 'Flicka' to pop a top on a cold one. She lit a Vantage and plopped herself on my 'Goodwill' sofa.

"Siggy...hon...I'm in a jam," I frowned. "I got a film project due in a couple days and ain't done it yet. How 'bout you mod'lin' for me?" I handed her another Pabst Blue Ribbon. "All you need to do is dance for the camera." I slipped a cassette of the 'Ohio Players' into the eight-track player. She chugged her beer and fiddled with a pink hair curler. "OK," I said. "Stand up, relax and get into the music." She shrugged her meaty shoulders and meandered from the sofa. "Look toward the camera!" I implored. "Sway them gorgeous hips. This is a great song, ain't it?"

Siggy wasn't ugly (horses are beautiful) and she could dance, but she would never be 'Queen of the Dairy King'. She swigged her beer and swayed her hips side to side like a jogging elephant. "Good, now turn around," I directed, raising the volume. '...pour some water on me...'. With her backside to the lens, she wiggled her bountiful butt. I felt the trailer shift. In one long gulp, she finished her beer. I got a fantastic 180 degree shot of her smacking her lips into the lens. Even her pink, knotted curlers added a sense of sexual impropriety. Her front teeth were out of line and her lips curled of an evil 'Elvis'. As she danced, I detected the repugnant odor of a forty-year-old single wide trailer. Organic sludge. But I didn't mind. In fact, my crotch began to swell.

The camera whirred as 'Flicka' fondled her hilly, languid breasts. Her fingers nipping at their ash-colored buds.

"OK, honey, great, now, off with your halter," I directed. She tugged at the tight, blue, cotton top with huge orange polka dots. It was my ticket to paradise—or as close as I would get to it today. The 'Ohio Players' grooved on 'Skin Tight' as the camera purred. Using a special lens, facilitated by a metal pin, I zoomed in on her as she loosened the front knot of her halter. Zoomed out as she swung it round and round above her head. From a full body shot I cut to an extreme close-up of her right nipple. It looked like a coffee stain gone mad.

I'd asked her to drop her shorts, when, there was a knock at the door. I peeked from a slit in the curtain, camera in hand. Lo and behold, Zooma West. I hadn't seen him in months. Atop his head was a ball cap with the word 'Nixon'. Dressed in a white, sleeveless T-shirt, black jeans and scuffed Beatle Boots.

"Holy shit, man. Just in time!" I exclaimed, expecting him to be surprised when he saw the half-naked lady in my trailer. He swaggered into the room as though debauchery was his middle name.

"Damn, Pan, you Hugh Hefner?"

"School project," I answered, kneeling on the filthy beige carpet, framing the gorge between Flicka's breasts. I was proud of my work, wanted him to think I did this sort of thing every day.

"Dig," Zooma said. "...Need any help?"

'Flicka' snatched Zooma's hand and thrust it between her legs.

"Whooahh..." Zooma responded. With her other paw, she grabbed the ass of his jeans. I handed him a beer. She tucked her hand under his 'T-shirt', the words 'Give War a Chance' scrawled on the front. I zoomed in on the word 'war' as her fingers made the letters undulate in my lens.

"Zooma, off with your civvies," I ordered, shuffling to the sofa for a different camera angle. "Yours too, Fli...uh...Sig."

"Good," I enthused. "Real good! Ok...yeah....help him Siggy..." Due to her cellulolytic roadblocks, she had difficulty removing her shorts. Zooma assisted her and soon both were naked in my dirty den of iniquity. My 'Studio el Lusto'. Zooma swiped a Vantage from the coffee table. 'Flicka' groped for his nipple with her toad-like tongue. I prayed my film wouldn't run out. "Oh yeah...far out...ya'll lay down...there you go...look him in the eye Fli...Siggy...kiss him...dibble with his cock...Sig, look at me...now, back at him...poke him like a lizard...lower...little more...dig it...oh yeah...stroke him, honey...let me get a good closeup...now you're talkin' ...faster...faster...your great sugar...go down on him...pretend he's a bowl of nanner puddin'...move your curlers back...little more....little more...oh yeah...you're a smooth operator...nibble faster sugar pie...beautiful...hey, your curlers still in the way shug...the camera loves you!...straddle him baby...Zoom...lay down and enjoy it man...let her do the work...Sig I wantcha to get mean...ride him sweet-cake...you're at the rodeo...buck it baby...forget about the curlers...come on sugar lips...put your hands on his butt...why don't you ditch the cig...Zooma...spank her...guide her son...oh yeah...you ain't nuthin but a hound dog...ride captain ride...sweet baby James...Sig, you don't happen to speak French do ya....don't worry 'bout your beer, baby...woooeeeeeee...ya'll something else...Zooma... mount her from behind...look out Sig, you're fixin' to burn Zoomas balls with that cigarette..."

'Flicka' was panting like a spear-chugging anorexic. Zooma lit another smoke. Just another day in Paradise. The trailer felt like a sauna. Chests drenched in the sweat of the other. Out of nowhere came another rap on the door. Bam...Bam...Bam.

"Yeah?" I screamed, annoyed at the infernal intruder. "Siggy in thar?" the voice was loud, gruff, there was a hint of trailer-trash accent, but not angry.

"Who wants to know?" Siggy gasped.

"Siggy," the voice resumed, '...Peter wants to know if you wanna go to the Dawg House!" The 'Dawg House' was a local greasy spoon within walking distance. I spoke up. "Siggy, you wanna go to the Dawg House?" She shook her head 'yes', slurping Zooma. I hollered to the faceless voice, "Yeah! She'll be there in a minute!"

My film expired as I was filming them on top of the kitchen table. I didn't mention that triviality. Siggy lifted herself from Zooma like a cowpoke dismounting a donkey.

"Got another beer?" she asked, tying a knot in her halter top.

"Can we do it again tomorrow?" I said. We'd lose the camera.

"Maybe," she said, lighting another Vantage, adjusting her mammoth breasts. "But I gotta doctor's appointment at two."

She forced her fat-encrusted loins into her plaid shorts. Scratched her lower back, then the scruff of her neck. Those goddamn fleas. By the time I closed the door, I had decided on the title of my movie. "Heavy on the Gravy." But I would never appreciate my toil. I had no idea how to get it developed. They'd arrest me for making a porn movie if I attempted to have it developed at Walgreens. I told Zooma my quandary. He said he knew a guy, had his own darkroom. I gave him the camera with the film still inside.

'Flicka' threatened to kill me as I had not informed her of the flea infestation. Two days later, I quit my day job at 'BCI' Electronics (One day job too many). Same day, they fired Correan from the 'Bunny Club'. Her lesbian lover, Corky, had threatened to whip some debutantes' ass. The following day, some thug stole my drums from my van. That night, Zooma, inundated with flea bites, said Flicka had given him the 'crabs'. The following day, the rear-axle on my van broke. I ditched it in the Tennessee River. Decided to repair and modify the Falcon. My girth overwhelmed the automobile, so I removed the steering wheel and replaced it with one from a go-cart. Then I removed the bolts from the front seat and repositioned it a foot further back. My sentence at the trailer park had come to an end. Later, a quick trip to Memphis would be my single departure from Huntsville. In the meantime, I returned to my parent's house on Reynolds Circle. Once again, Zooma disappeared into the ether.

* * *

When dad invited me to be his gopher, I should have accepted. But why would I want to spend four hours dragging a nine-iron across a fairway, searching for errant balls? It was enough to wobble from the den to the kitchen. Instead, Mildred coerced me into attending a droll 'Tupperware' party; my reward, a double banana split. What she really had in mind was introducing me to the hostesses' daughter (hoping to get me married off and out of the house). Course, being in the shape I was in, even dogs ignored me. As Mildred steered the Rambler down Jordan Lane, I was dreaming of strawberries and whipped cream. In the parking lot of a 'Krystal Hamburger' joint, a '64 white, Ford 'Fairlane' raced across the pavement. Some idiot atop the hood. His long arms, like flailing wings, pierced the scorched night. He surfed the hood as if it were the last wave of the day. His shoulder-length, black hair framed his tanned, immaculate face. He waltzed in the summer wind, cigarette dangling from his perfect lips. His emaciated figure jostled by the onslaught of the delirious sunset. Unconcerned with the end of yet another southern day in Huntsville, Alabama.

I gazed out the window as Mildred harped on and on—warning me about the consequences of embarrassing her at the Tupperware party. I felt trapped. That moment, as the Fairlane zipped across the parking lot and out of sight, I envied Zooma West more than ever. He, the consummate young Turk, unfettered with the nuances of a sedentary existence. Female, finance, fame and famine not priorities for this hopeless romantic. That night, I could not know if he was drunk, happy, sad, or oblivious. What I did ascertain is, he was fucking crazy. I chuckled out loud. Wondered if he'd ever managed to rid himself of the fleas and the crabs. Both maladies acquired in my humble abode within the time it takes to lose an erection.

It had been nine years since Tater had died. Five since the discovery of Vanessa's skull.

Zooma believed that free will was nonnegotiable. His course directed by the circumstances of his choosing. He believed the effect of any cause could be reversed. No predetermination, no excuse for not changing any moment, at any time, at any place. That was the core, the essence of Zooma West. He had allowed the Sarge to molest him. Tater's choice to remove the rifle from the cabinet. Vanessas' prerogative to retrieve her necklace. Possums' choice to murder and dismember her. We live and die by choice, by chance. There is no viable reason to feel guilt or remorse. In his mind, viability was the cousin of empathy.

I disagreed. Trapped in the malevolent crosswinds, there is nothing I can change. No choice. My Future dictated by the Original Crosswind. Bound by Due Course. I could no more have refrained from vomiting my banana split on that pudgy girl's blouse even if I'd wanted to. Preordained she would never become my wife. She'd curse my pathetic soul until her last tuna casserole went to Tupperware heaven.

Seven arduous years would pass before I saw Zooma again. But that was fine, for it was my time to shine. To surf. To let my hair down. To unearth a reason to live. I will consume intoxicates to the brim. Shred my delicate emotions, split my spirit. In the coming years, I will befriend carbon monoxide. It will guide me home, and I don't need the crazy, fucking lunatic, Zooma West, confusing my motives. When we meet again, two tortured minds will become one troubled particle. One dysfunctional singularity of discombobulated quarks. The crosswinds are a fickle bunch, they enjoy surprising us.

A paragraph in a novel. 'As women and children begged a young man of Japanese descent to vacate his place in the lifeboat, the mighty Titantic sunk. Ostracized from society for the rest of his life, he lived to be eighty years old. When he died, not a soul attended his funeral, save the undertaker.'

What happened to this coward? Did he regret his decision to be one of the 700 survivors on the morning of April 16 1912. Did he, on a cold Tuesday, wish to join the ships watery grave? I need to know how his life panned out. I need to understand the lies cowards share. I need to know how much penance is required. Will a lifetime be enough?

1977 drew the line. The year Zooma moved to California—the year I lost my mind.

Before the line, I'd smelled the rose, in '77, I bled from its thorn. Before, I feared the rat, now, I consume its heart. Before, the reds, blues and greens, now, fallow amber and burnt sienna. After the line, I went insane, whether by luck, choice, or consequence.

Zooma West would gut the flesh of emotion, wallow in its marrow until he became the marrow. Not woven into the fabric of social relevance. Nor spit from the jaws of perpetual martyrdom. Not immersed in the watery soup of mediocrity. He would avail himself to every event which crossed his path—search wide and long and dark, unmasking hypocrisy. Cloaked in futile innocence. Zooma West would endure. Like the fiery winds of the Santa Ana blistering the roaming dunes of Death Valley. Those who roam cleanse the brutal elements. The gradual transformation in life is nothing but Due Course. A hallucination. An eternity of effects directed by a single cause. The recounting of Zoomas' 'missing years' is my story. My memory of what happened. Before the surly, malevolent crosswinds cauterized our approach—before Due Course reared its ugly head. Before it trampled upon the sordid machinations of two disenchanted spirits.

THE MISSING YEARS

In August of '77, Zooma West headed west. California beckoned. Five years would pass before I saw him again. The joy of suffering in peace is underestimated. Yes, we had blood on our hands, Zooma and I. Living cowards, sole witnesses to the demise of Tater and Vanessa. Unfortunately, with Zooma's departure, I inherited the burden of our past indiscretions. Now, time became the enemy. Idle time. A slave to reflection and regret. Failure's ghost haunted me. My Future a distant, discarded vapor, unconcerned with tomorrow. The present only a rehashing of the past. My failures more relevant and time-structured than the vaporous unknown. I dwelled in them.

Lying in bed one night, seduced by a bowl of boiled peanuts, I recalled a previous conversation with Zooma. A Blue Sun. Lucid dreaming. Living life without leaving my room. The Mod Squad was my favorite television program. I was in love with Julie Barnes, the hippie cop with dishwater-blonde hair, long slender legs and sexy pout. Tough and brave and street wise. I removed Julie's cohorts, Linc and Pete, from the cover of TV Guide (featuring the Mod Squad). From a stack of teen magazines, I ripped out eight by ten glossies of Julie. Following Zoomas' protocol, I arranged the photographs on my bedroom floor. I fingered her smooth, bronze cheek and brushed her dirty blonde hair. I fondled her earlobe, smelled her breasts, soothed her thigh with my tongue. I imagined her sprawled on a sugar-white beach. Naked and alone drenched in the salty, undulating ocean waves. Her legs straddling me. Her saturated hair tickling my meaty shoulder. I swell in her delight. She whispers, 'Panther, paaanther, paaaaantheerrrrr...'. We come together—genitals warmed in the rippling Gulf. This I re-cycle throughout the night. During my breakfast of pizza and chicken legs. I taped her photo to a liter of coke and fuck her as I wash the car and mow the lawn. My toothbrush is her labia, my pillow her hips. I staple her eight by ten to the ceiling above my bed. Under the quilt, confident my lover will fulfill my fantasy.

But she does not come. Not this night nor the following. When I wasn't fantasizing (which was rare), I programmed myself. I contemplated a Blue Sun thousands of times and stroked Julie's thighs thousands more. But nothing happened. Sure, I'd dreamt—a talking tomato, a six-legged toad, a severed torso made of bowling pins—but, no Julie. No orgasmic drone. No ocean. No Blue Sun. Then, six weeks later, she appeared in the distance. I begged her to come closer and she pouted. She did not budge. I stretched my arm and touched her cheek. It dissolved into a quivering vibration of diffused pixels, out of focus. Her lips a montage of orange and red rectangles, convoluted and disproportionate. I removed my hand and her perfect lips disappeared. When I awoke, I was beyond frustrated, realizing I had not deciphered my facilitator. Had not achieved lucidity. Could not rearrange my dream. Why dream if I didn't realize I was dreaming? I needed to perfect an ability to call upon my facilitator. I became obsessed, every waking moment consumed with a Blue Sun. Julie, the grass and the garbage would have to wait. I could hear the seams of my sanity rip apart...

California

A haven for nude sunbathers, 'Blacks Beach' is a sandy ribbon of paradise. Secluded from the bustling highways and suburbanites of San Diego. Located beneath high, overhanging cliffs, nestled among scattered pockets of Royal Palm trees.

Slumming on this beach, dressed solely in gray socks. Zooma West.

High above him, someone is screaming. "THE KING IS DEAD! THE KING IS DEAD!" Floating in the tropic breeze. Black sand the destination. Rectangles of bright orange, blue, and pink, foreign to blue sky, descend. The kite like a reptilian bird. Landing at the edge of the silver-tipped waves. A bearded, naked man unhooks cords of nylon rope from a leather harness. Drags the large nylon wings toward Zooma. His penis dangles in the breeze like an unfettered buoy.

"Hey, man, I just heard. Elvis croaked," the human kite said. He trudged up the trail back to the top of the overhanging cliffs.

"Who cares. He was an old fart and fat as a pig," came the reply. Zooma shuddered at the words. Uttered from the young lady sunning beside him. Carving miniature dunes in the black sand with her toes. Her shoulder length, tobacco colored hair a mess. Her shoulders sprinkled with acne. Gruesome traces of cellulite disfigured her upper thighs. Her buttocks her best attribute.

Zooma attempted to light a cigarette, but it was impossible in the ocean wind. He lodged the cigarette behind his ear. Rearranged the crumpled T-shirt he was using for a pillow. Two gorgeous, naked girls strolled down to the water's edge hand in hand, then French-kissed for five minutes. This was the California Zooma had hoped it would be.

"What, you don't like Elvis?" he asked the young girl. Her name was Angel.

A week earlier, Zooma had read 'Elvis; What Happened', authored by his bodyguards, the 'Memphis Mafia'. According to the book, The King was a mere mortal, a man who mined the diamonds only to have the mine crush him. A man deserted by his muse, destroyed by his myth. Betrayed by his manager, Colonel Tom Parker (an illegal Dutch immigrant by the name of Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk). Parker had accrued success as a carnival barker. Charging rubes a nickel to watch a rooster dance on a round tabletop. Unknown to the paying audience, an electric plate, hot enough to roast the rooster's claws, was hidden under the tablecloth. Hence, dancing feet. Years later, Parker retained the hot plate. Only now, Elvis was the Rooster. If happiness had been affordable, Elvis would have bought it. It was beyond his grasp. Unfortunately, the same traits that brought Elvis success would lead to his demise. Elvis could not be 'Elvis' until he died, until his DNA was limited. Disillusion the dust upon jewels, contentment the absence of desire. Apathy begets sadness because happiness is beyond one's grasp. But what a silly word. 'Happy'. Frivolous even in its pronunciation. Happy.

Now, The King is gone. This time, the King had really left the building.

Two days before the Kings demise, Zooma sat in the rear section of a 'Continental Trailways'. He was dozing when the bus stopped at a diner on Route 66 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After the passengers finished their meal, the bus driver announced that the bus had 'lost' reverse gear. He asked for volunteers to help push it backwards so that he would be able to exit the diner's parking lot. It was then that the sixteen-year old girl tapped Zooma's shoulder. "Hi,' she cooed. "Uh, can you help us move the bus?"

"Move the bus?" Zooma dabbed his eyes. Studied his dour reflection in the window. Several male passengers, one of whom was a gorgeous transvestite smoking a cigar, were straining at the front of the vehicle. Soon enough, the engine's drone lured Zooma into a state of restless slumber.

It was after midnight when he awakened to the sweet, pungent aroma of pepperoni and diesel fumes. Puzzled to see the young girl sleeping beside him, wrapped in a tattered blanket. Flasks of headlights bounced from glass to chrome. Penetrating the black night in sporadic quips of white. Across the aisle sat an unshaven, scruffy, snoring hobo. Zooma was lighting a cigarette when the girl awoke.

"Hi," she whispered. "I thought you'd be more comfortable with a blanket. It's so damn cold in here." She lay a hollowed cheek upon Zoomas' shoulder and placed her hand upon his thigh. Strands of her hair tickled his earlobe. Then, without warning and undercover, she began to massage Zooma's crotch. The hobo sounds like a runaway train. Aware of the possibilities, Zooma allows Angel to tug at his jeans. Loosening her khaki brown shorts, she slides her beige panties to her knees. Zooma guides her smooth buttocks upon his lap. Facing the front of the bus, she tilts her bottom atop Zoomas' tensed thigh and guides his erection to its natural place. Together they enjoy a unified rhythm. Immersed in a delicious flow of moist liquidity. Bumps and fragmented cracks in the highway make the sexual tension treacherous. She grips Zoomas' kneecaps. Her ponytail gags him. Resembling human bumper cars, they crash into one another, then retreat and resume. He nips at her shoulder blades, her lithe breasts in both hands. The silhouette of a woman with a bee-hive hairdo staggers toward them, aiming for the restroom. Angel is at her zenith, playing her symphony—a fine orchestra rising and falling to the whim of the conductor. The conductor is she. Zooma whispers. "Someone's coming!"

"I know, baby," Angel pants. "Please...for god's sake...wait on me!"

"No! I mean someone's coming up the aisle...be still...hold on a sec..."

The woman staggers in the darkness and bumps into an armrest. Regaining her footing, she continues down the aisle. The drone of the engine a grateful muffler for Angels' involuntary moans. When the driver veers the bus, attempting to avoid something in the middle of the highway, Zooma shudders. Contemplating anything but orgasm. Howard Cosell...Tiny Tim...'the capital of Alabama is Montgomery, the capital of Arizona is...'

With the woman ensconced in the restroom, Angel resumes her shuddering. A convulsion of spasms. Her fingernails imprinted on Zoomas' knees. Her warm lotion seeping into his crotch amid the snore of the hobo, the bumps in the highway, the drone of the engine, the flashes of laser-light, and the fury of a flushing toilet. His knees bleed as her fingernails dig. When he can hold it no longer, he surrenders in silent agony. She seems pleased. Her scarred shoulders relax. Satiated, she removes herself from Zoomas' lap.

With her seduction concluded, Angel staggers to her seat in the front of the bus. When Zooma glances at the 'hobo' he detects a crooked grin. Had the wino faked sleep the entire time? Well, it didn't matter now. Zooma appraises the midnight landscape, out here in the desert of...Where? Texas? New Mexico? Saguaro cacti lurched like hitchhikers along the side of the highway. Silent in this barren land. Mannequins of the Desert. The real nowhere man.

And so, it began, Zooma West was free of Alabama. Exculpated from the tragedies. A new beginning. Until this moment, his thumb had been the implement employed for more than simply hitch-hiking. Now, after copulating in a 'Continental Trailways', it was his penis that had accomplished its most relevant mission. No longer a virgin, he could now soar to new, exciting heights. Zooma West had been initiated into the sacred brotherhood of sordid sex. Plodding along Route 66, somewhere outside the city of Tucumcari, New Mexico, Zooma West felt alive for the first time in years. Funny how lust forced strangers to reveal themselves.

"Wanna hang out at the beach when we get to San Diego?" Angel asked as they crossed the California border.

"Sure," Zooma replied, glancing at the hobo across the aisle. The unwashed man smiled at Zooma...and winked.

And Elvis was Dead. Long Love the King!

*

They spent the day frolicking along 'Blacks Beach', swimming and enjoying the gliders. Hopping a city bus, they arrived in downtown San Diego. There, Zooma stumbled upon a motel that resembled a 40'ish Mardi-Gras float. In what passed for a lobby, a cross-eyed, drooling derelict slouched on a tattered sofa, contemplating his navel. When Zooma laid a ten-dollar bill on the counter, the evil-eyed desk clerk frowned. "We have a policy, sir. No women allowed after five."

"What?"

Copulation between heterosexuals was taboo in this creepy, dank motel. After rendering a series of curses, Zooma rented a room. Escorting Angel to the nearest drugstore, he purchased Vaseline, shoe polish, an eyebrow pencil and a San Diego 'Padres' baseball cap. In the restroom, he slicked Angel's hair with the Vaseline and bundled it under the cap. With the pencil he drew sideburns and a commendable mustache. He stuffed a wad of tissue in her crotch and dressed her in one of his flannel shirts. For good measure, he blackened a front tooth with shoe polish. Now, she would blend in with the other trash staying in the 'Van Vieseldick'.

The room was an undersized dump. A ceiling fan had lost a blade. Propped against the was a tan, press-board dresser, containing one drawer. Not a mirror in sight. A bare light bulb dangled from the ceiling like a hangman's noose. The scent of rotting wood and bacterial odor permeated the atmosphere. It screamed of venereal disease, the result of devious fornication among the homosexual set. The mattress was a holding tank for crusted blood, semen, and acrid sweat. A mosaic of defecation from the bowels of derelicts and 'peter munchers' too lazy to walk down the hall to the 'community' bathroom. The temperature in the cramped room ideal for the proliferation of syphilis and gonorrhea. The rusted springs in the bed warped from the infinite humping, sucking, and beatings of countless men. The sole window in the room nailed shut, the color of mashed peas. Most of the paint had peeled away, and not ten feet from the window stood the wall of the building next door. In the alley between the two edifices, cardboard sheds had been constructed, boxes littered with empty wine, beer, and whiskey bottles. A mongrel dog was trapped in an overturned grocery cart. Sickly 'winos' propped against the wall and sipped from brown paper sacks. Wrinkled ponchos and faded army jackets swallowed their diseased, distended skeletal fixtures. When Zooma waved at one of the derelicts, the skinny wino flung an empty bottle at him, but it missed by twenty feet.

It was well after midnight when a loud, metallic sound emanated from the door of room 'H'.

Zooma peeled the door open.

"What is she here! No woman allowed. Must leave!" The man screamed. It was the hotel manager, Caesar, a short, bald, one-armed man of Indian or Mexican descent. His belly told of countless burritos. His thick, rank toenails, cracked and yellowed. His black, coarse hair disheveled. His beard a bouquet of rusty nails.

Zooma, his cheek imprinted with mattress, glared at the Mex-Indian.

"Leave now. Must go!"

"OK, man, hang on a minute. I don't see why...."

"Guest tell me 'dis morning. Hear loud, bang-bang noise last night. Scream of woman. Must go. No shower for lady. Men only for bathroom."

The community bathroom. One on each of three floors. Three toilets and two shower stalls.

"How 'bout if I stand guard while she takes a shower?" Zooma asked.

"No. Absolutely no. No allowed. Must go."

Angel shrouded her scrawny shoulders with a faded, stringy blanket. Her jowls streaked with eyebrow pencil. Hair a glob of grease. She hid behind Zooma's shoulder. "You mean I can't even take a lousy pee?" she asked the one-armed intruder, his vacant sleeve held in place with a safety pin.

"Guest complain. Some leave. No good for business. I must escort you from hotel. Must go or I call authorities."

"Calm down, man. Can we at least get dressed?" Zooma asked.

"Hurry. And no shower."

"Yeah, yeah." Zooma said, slamming the metal door.

They exited the lobby to the pungent odor of curry. The drooling man masturbated on the couch. For breakfast, they found a quaint Italian restaurant called 'Giatannos'. After pizza, they decided to visit Tijuana, Mexico.

They hailed a cab to the border. Flashed a guard their driver's license and crossed into Mexico. Dozens of antique taxis proffered their services. In fact, every automobile was of 1950's vintage. Tijuana was dusty, godforsaken. A lively town, where more tourists than natives crowded the dingy, narrow alleys. Where leather-skinned sombrero-clad Mexicans slumped on street corners and mumbled to themselves. Carcasses of chickens, duck, and wild dog hung from twine, priced according to poundage. Down a crooked alley they strolled. A short, pudgy man with a handlebar mustache accosted them.

"Tequila a la Casa! Amigo! Come see my beautiful girls. Es mucho pouche'."

Declining the offer, they pressed on. Passed several more Cantina's with dim tables lit with red candles that appeared to float in midair. Jolly, fat Senoritas, wearing horrendous pink eye shadow, hovered outside. Not a full set of teeth between them. Angel purchased a miniature bottle of 'Rojo' mescal tequila, and a cheap sombrero made of straw. She dared Zooma to eat the inch long, puffy, dead worm that swirled around the bottom of the bottle. Zooma bought a cigar. They devoured ten-cent tacos and sipped Mexican beer at a sidewalk café. At another sleazy bar, a man barked, "Como Estas' amigo, senora, Bienvidious, es El Palacio!" Hand in hand, they entered.

"Muchas gratias!" the barker smiled. He guided them through a beaded curtain of turquoise. They inched across the checker-board tiled floor until acclimating to the darkness. A smiling, obese Mexican woman welcomed them. "Follow me, Senor," she said in well-rehearsed English. Once seated, the woman lit a candle. Its flame tossing long shadows across the ancient parquet floor. Old candle wax melded into the once-white linen tablecloth. A waitress, dressed in a multicolored floral blouse, took their order. Her skin like brown sugar. She complimented Angel's greasy hair. From another room, someone tuned an acoustic guitar. The hum and drum of a window fan whirred at the far end of the bar. Zooma counted two other people in the room, not American. Concerned with nothing but keeping their glasses full. Zooma smoked his cheap cigar. Angel rearranged her sombrero as the guitarist entered the room. The musician wore a purple sombrero decorated with gold embroidered Dragons. His shaggy beard protruded like an electrocuted porcupine. Half a dozen pictures adorned the adobe walls. Velvet Elvis guarding Graceland, his sad eyes lined in mascara. Handsome matadors and angry bulls. A seductive Virgin Mary caressing the dull amber heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. Seductive bare-breasted, sloe-eyed Spanish Women. The waitress returned with beer, tequila, and a stained plate with slices of juicy lemons and sour limes. She placed a flat dish of salt on the table. "Mas?" she asked.

"No mas," Angel answered, '...gracias. Uh...cuanto es?"

"For you, senora, de la casa, no cost."

"Nothing?" Angel replied. "Muchas gratias..."

Needing to use the facilities, Zooma followed a glow-in-the-dark line of arrows taped to the floor leading to the toilet. Inside, a young mustachioed man with a bolero tie offered him a rolled up weed he identified as 'Acapulco Gold'. When Zooma returned to the table, he was much higher than when he'd left. Angel conversed with the barker. Another bottle of tequila decorated the table.

"Que Pasa!" the barker extended his hand. "How you, Zuumah..." he said.

"Tolerable," Zooma replied.

"Ah, Zuumah! And me as well, enjoy Zuumah, another drink for you and your senorita, Angel. So pretty...you will excuse me, I resume duty outside.

"Buenos noches," he bowed, leaving the table and heading for the entrance.

"That means..."

"Yeah, yeah," replied Zooma, lighting a smoke, pointing at the bottle of tequila. '...who bought that?"

The 'Van Veiseldick'' Hotel incident, the tequila and the 'gold' had taken their toll. Three more beers were served. An hour and too many shots later, Zoomas' stomach rumbled in the way lava boils, awaiting eruption. The charming rendition of 'Spanish Eyes' was a comforting diversion, but not enough. When the door opened to allow more customers, it was late afternoon.

"You ready to split, baby?" Zooma stammered.

"Uh, well, no, baaabee."

"What? C'mon, I'm ready to go...don't feel sa hot," he stuttered, dropping his cigar to the floor where it continued to smolder.

"You can go if you want. I'm going to stay. Manuel has offered me a job."

"Who?"

"The man that was sitting here."

Zooma tried to comprehend her words. "Wh...what?"

Angel sighed. "Listen, Zooma. I should have mentioned it before and I guess now is not the time, but...well...I ain't ashamed to say it, but...well, I'm a prostitute. My mother has a brothel in Ely, where I grew up. Dad lives in Amarillo. He worked the silver mines and now he's dying. I went to visit see him once more before...." she said, tears forming at the edge of her sad, green eyes. Wet emeralds. She continued, '...Zooma, I guess there's no other way to tell you, but, well, I've been a prostitute since I turned twelve. Hey, don't be mad. Manuel said I could do well down here. A white girl can earn five hundred a week...I can't turn that kind of cash down. Seems like a nice man, I ain't afraid of him. I'm sorry, Zooma."

Zooma folded his arms, surprised, confused with the confession. The room began spinning. "I can't let you do it,' he slurred. "...ain't gonna allow you do it!" He attempted to lift himself from the table but stumbled to the floor beside the cigar.

"You can't tell me what to do," she said. Zooma, crouched on one knee, lost whatever composure remained.

"You mean to tell me you're staying here in this dump? You can't trust that man! You've only known him for an hour. I can't let you! Let's go, this ain't no place..."

When Manuel attempted to help him regain his footing, Zooma swung at him with a left jab. Immediately, a hard fist crushed into Zooma's cheek and he dropped to the floor again. Four men, resembling pregnant apes, carried him out of the bar to a wooden bench next to a burrito stand. The last Zooma remembered before passing out was a pack of dirty, brown Chihuahua's gagging on his ankles. An old, toothless woman kicked at the dogs until they scooted on down the darkened alley.

* * *

"West! Zooma West. That you? I don't believe it. Wake up man. What in the hell happened to you? Appears you were in a bullfight and the Bull won."

The words like daggers stabbing Zooma's brain. He felt as bad as he looked. His cheek imprinted with chunks of corn husk. Dried blood congealed at his lip. His left eye was swollen like a peach pit. His only consolation was a bit of shade he received from a metallic statue of a caballero busting a bronco.

"West! Hey...wake up, dude..."

After a few dozen blinks, Zooma was able to focus on a pair of tan loafers and sock-less ankles.

"You look like shit," Loafers said. Zooma staggered beyond a patch of brown grass. There he vomited and might have cracked a rib. He opened his swollen eye, but the sunlight seared his brain like a metal-beam, so he closed it again. After answering a few pointless questions from the border guards, they reentered their home country. Hailing a cab, they arrived in downtown San Diego and located a bench in Balboa Park. Zooma braced his aching skull with 'Loafer's' backpack.

"West, there is no valid reason to eat pepper," Loafers stated. "It will not digest and has no nutritional value whatsoever. I quit using it years ago. No meat either. I'm a vegetarian, fish, fruit."

"Great," Zooma mumbled, peeking through his good eye and finally recognizing the intruder. Chester Loop. An ex-Rutler High star athlete, 'Loopy' lettered in football and baseball. They had shared an English class. Both had eyes set on the best-looking cheerleader, Gayle Crosswhite.

But Zooma hadn't had a chance. He refused to compete for a girl. Besides, it was taboo for Cheerleaders to associate with long haired, dope smoking, guitar players. Communists. Subscribed to the 'Daily Worker' instead of attending pep rallies and football games.

Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road' had persuaded Chester to 'hitchhike' from Key West to San Diego. In Diego, he decided to visit Tijuana. And the time-space continuum (crosswinds) brought him to Zooma. Coincidence a stubborn, sometimes fortunate bedfellow.

Zooma fished a cigarette butt from the ground. He fumbled in his pocket for a match. Loopy, chomping an apple, sat down beside him.

"Who kicked the shit out of you?"

"Long story," Zooma said, massaging his cheek.

"I got expelled from UT, so I have plenty of time."

Zooma sighed. His ribs, eye, and two-thirds of his anatomy were useless. "Came to California, met a girl on a bus, went to Tijuana, she stayed. Got my ass kicked by a couple of apes and my ankles chewed off by a couple chihuahua's. Then, you come along. End of story."

"Far out," Chester replied. A chunk of apple made his cheek bulge like a Nordic rat. '...Those things'll kill ya," he said, pointing at Zoomas' cigarette with his pinky finger.

"I need sleep, man," Zooma said.

They straggled past the 'Strand' theater, where Bruce Lees' 'Enter the Dragon' played 7-24-365. Loitering in a corner grocery, Loopy sipped V-8 juice and lectured Zooma on the ill-effects of nicotine. Zooma paid for a night at the 'Van Veiseldick' with a five-dollar food stamp he'd found in the street. Loopy paid in cash. The Mex-Indian didn't say a word. He did think it strange that the men required two separate rooms. After long, hot, separate showers, they returned to Zoomas' room.

"Lookin for work?" Zooma asked.

"Doin' what?"

"The slobbering idiot in the lobby said their hiring painters. 'Bout three blocks from here."

"When do I start?"

"In the mornin', round six. Right now, I gotta crash, man," Zooma yawned.

Zooma West was sleeping like a baby, when a soft knock awakened him. Not the damn manager again, he thought. He peered through the tiny 'peephole', it caulked with chewing gum. Naked, he opened the door as far as the chain would allow.

"Hey man, sorry to wake you, but I left my wallet in here, or else lost it in the lobby. Mind if I look around?" Chester whispered.

"Why do you need it now? Ok, sure, hang on." Unable to remember the location of the light switch, Zooma closed the door and unhooked the chain. Chester, in boxer shorts, entered but made no attempt to locate the switch. Exhausted, Zooma returned to bed and immediately returned to sleep. Chester beamed his miniature flashlight across the contours of Zooma's bed covers. He moved a cheap, plastic chair to the edge of the bed, not believing his good fortune. Since high school, Zooma was his fantasy. He had kept his sexual orientation private. No one knew he favored the hairier set. Except Gayle. Their relationship had foundered the minute she discovered the Chippendale calendar under the front seat of his Corvette. She promised not to divulge his sordid secret. Upon graduation, she became an airline ticket agent. He immersed himself in a stealthy pool of erected penis. Chester wasn't certain that Zooma was gay, but who knew anymore? He was aware that Zooma and Sarge had engaged in a sexual relationship, because he had gone to bed with the old queer. Sarge had relished rehashing his quaint interludes with the shaggy guitar player.

Well, how would one know if one didn't try? Chester slid his hand under the bed cover. Zoomas' bare thigh felt smooth as a pear.

What the hell is happening? Is this a dream? Nightmare? Is Rutler High's star football player, the conqueror of Pigtail Gayle, feeling him up? Loopy Queer? Jesus Christ. A bold son of a bitch he was, coming in here under false pretenses. Wallet my ass. Zooma knew he wasn't a match. Chester outweighed him by a hundred pounds and was triple the muscles. What if this guy proved to be a violent, insane sadist? A serial killer. Hell, he hadn't seen the guy in five or six years. But what the hell could he do? If he tried to resist, he wouldn't get far. Plus, he still ached from the beating in Tijuana.

He was amazed, distraught and disgusted. An erection was forthcoming. Jesus H. Christ.

With his football-gripping hand, Loopy began to stroke Zooma. To Zooma's shocking disbelief and unmitigated horror, he enjoyed the play, could not deny it. It felt good. Still, he stifled a moan of pleasure. He wondered how far this charade might go. No! Absolutely not. He would not allow Chester to have intercourse with him. But what if this crazy fucker raped him? Some athletes became athletes because they needed to evaporate the anger from themselves. Sex was a major outlet for a frustrated, pressurized competitor. Well, sooner or later, a conclusion was imminent. Zooma pretended to awaken to the foreplay. "What's up?" He asked.

"Looks like you are," Chester whispered, stroking his prey tighter.

"What are you doin' man?"

"Feel good?"

"Well...uh...damn Loop...I didn't know you were...uh...."

"Queer? Honey, I'll do anybody, but don't worry, man, I'm not gonna hurt you. Lemme suck you. Promise you'll feel better. Please?"

Zooma couldn't believe it. Yes, he had allowed the Sarge to fellate him. But that had been for the money. Payment for televisions, sewing machines and candy bars. He had never enjoyed it. Or had he? No, hell no. Strictly a financial consideration. And tonight, a man his own age, someone he'd known for years, was begging him for sex. Chester lifted the beige covers, then, got on his knees, as if praying, and licked Zoomas' thigh. For Zooma, another emotional fuse had been lit. And it dawned on him. He was following through on a promise made long ago. Zooma would absolve and resolve every emotion possible, long before those same emotions sucker punched him. Zooma forced Chester's face deep into his crotch. Wanted to hear him gag on his hardened flesh. When Chester took Zoomas' hand and guided it to his own erection, Zooma resisted. Again, Chester piloted Zoomas' small hand, and this time, Zooma acquiesced. It was the first time he had ever touched another man's cock, much less stroked it. Sarge had never required mutual masturbation. Loopy began to moan. Zooma removed his hand. Chester pleaded like a two-year old. 'Please, man, pleeaassee...come on...nobody'll ever know."

Zooma complained that his ribs were hurting from the beating and unable to continue. One lie was enough.

"Go with the flow, man," Chester mumbled through a mouthful of flesh. Zooma conceded. Inching his fingers upward in a spiral motion. Repeating the process until he was certain he'd turned queer.

Zooma pondered the next course. The thought didn't please him. No way he would suck or fuck the guy. A rape or a murder would occur in this shitty old room tonight if Chester entertained any thought of anal activity. Then, a flash of brilliance. Zooma closed his eyes. Pretended that Lou, his friend from Tuscaloosa, was fondling him, licking him, salivating on his stomach. Her brunette curls drenched by a pool of warm water. Her luscious lips curled around his hardened shaft. Golden flesh sweeping his tanned nipples. It worked. He came with such brutal force into 'her' mouth that 'she' choked and coughed. He forced 'Lou's' head into his belly. Then, dosed by reality. Chester groaned at the edge of the bed. Ejaculating in violent spasm. He lapped semen from Zooma like a Ugandan cheetah. The sordid tryst concluded, Zooma faced the boarded-up window. Loopy stashed his limber member inside his boxer shorts. He retrieved his penlight, then headed for the door. Under the cover of darkness, he murmured, "...see ya in the mornin', buddy."

Early Morning, Zooma's ribs were on the mend. He and Chester, peeling an orange, formed a single line on the sidewalk outside an ancient building two blocks from the Van Veiseldick. Alongside were other desperados. A much-too-energetic foreman paraded up and down the line in silence as the men held arms out, palms up.

"What's goin' on?" Zooma asked the derelict beside him.

"Checking for tracks. Needle marks. Foreman don't want no Horse-play."

The foreman sent two 'dopers' home, or wherever they stayed, most likely in the alley behind 'Van Veiseldicks'. That morning, Zooma and Chester' painted empty offices. Mesmerized at the perfect view of the Coronado Bridge across the bay. Its' baby blue splendor and magnificent curvature a testament to the art of modern architecture. Loopy quit after lunch and didn't return. Zooma earned twenty-eight dollars. Evening, they enjoyed dinner at 'Giatannos' and shared a bottle of Chablis. Zooma ordered spaghetti and meat balls, Chester enjoyed the artichoke and cucumber salad.

"So, where you headed from here?" Zooma asked, hoping to avoid any conversation concerning the previous night. He would never deny having a homosexual session with Chester. But Buddha would fart in the public square before he would ever discuss the matter. Five years later, on Labor Day weekend, 1982, Buddha farted in the public square.

"On my way to San Fran, my man. City by the Bay. Then on to Tahoe to visit my aunt. Ought to go with me, we can stay with her," Chester said, sucking on a circle of cucumber. "Be there this time tomorrow if we catch good rides. You can come if you want."

Zooma had tired of 'Dayglo'. Needed to forget about Tijuana and whores. Never wanted to smell curry or the 'Van Veiseldick' hotel again. Out in the street, droplets of water splashed the windshields of parked cars. "Never rains in California, my ass," he grumbled.

"Say what, Shug?"

"These meat balls are hard," Zooma said, then wishing he hadn't.

The jester chuckled. He licked the bleu-cheese salad dressing that glazed the cleft of his red-bearded chin.

* * *

While Zooma spent his nights with Angels and Football players, I spent mine in livid dreams of sex with psychopaths and singing tomato plants. I was slipping deeper into the abyss. For eight long months, I'd attempted to dream of Peggy Lipton, aka Julie Barnes. But, to my consternation, she always evaporated into pixels the moment I touched her one-dimensional breast. Making love to her was like screwing cardboard. Sure, I might penetrate the pixels and even achieve orgasm, but, then what? Would I fuck cardboard the rest of my life?

Six months into my lucid experiment, I'd made progress. I'd encountered a Blue Sun but was so astounded, I awoke and couldn't return to sleep. I felt an obligation to recall the horrific death of Tony Ruminello. Much as I tried, I could not rid my brain of the pictures etched into the boneyard of my memory. The only tangible possession I'd kept of Tater was the Mason jar hidden on a shelf in my closet. I'd thought about using the disgusting remnant as a facilitator. But could not bring myself to stare at the relic. I'd hoped, that, if I could become lucid, I could change the course of events in my brain. My mind would relieve me of the entire goddamn incident. So, I recalled the baseball game on that infamous Saturday afternoon. Going to Tater's house. I'd hum the melody of 'Surfer Girl'. Consume greasy mayonnaise sandwiches until they were coming out of my ears. I studied photos of rifles from a 'Sears' catalog. For weeks, I thought of nothing else. But my brain became over-taxed, overloaded. The emotions exacted a heavy toll. And what if I did become lucid? Then what? Would I convince the guys to go to my house instead of Tater's? Would I dispose of the sandwich fixings in the Frigidaire? Would I challenge Tater to a game of pool? Would I dry my hands of greasy mayonnaise? In the end, even if I could have changed the outcome, the dream would forever end the same. I was responsible for Tater's death. My attempt at perfecting lucid dreaming was in vain. I relinquished the prospect of existing in the nocturnal. Bad memories exhausted me.

* * *

Peeling a black, over-ripened banana, Zooma West leans against a rock wall in a park on the west side of the San Francisco bay in California. Gawking at the 'Orange Monster', better known as the 'Golden Gate' bridge. Two days earlier, he had painted office buildings in San Diego. Admired the Coronado Bridge soaring through the sky like a ribbon of azure. Chester and his Bleu Cheese laden beard had bid farewell. He moved on to Lake Tahoe to visit his aunt, leaving her phone number with Zooma.

Zooma had seen enough 'DayGlo' Diego. He needed a change of scenery. Scrawling 'SAN FRAN' on a white poster board and taping it to his tattered brown suitcase, he walked to the entrance ramp of Interstate 5 North and extended his thumb. His rides were educational; a man who made ashtrays from elephant dung; a lady married to a double amputee; a Hispanic couple who owned a mortuary in Bakersfield (they'd met George Burns in a hotel hair salon, circa '64)—a couple of gay Marines; a transsexual from Simi Valley and an archeologist on her way to Castroville (the artichoke capital of the world).

San Francisco, the 'City by the Bay'. Home of the hippie. Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. The embryo of the counterculture. The residence of the Revolution. Zooma hitched a ride to Chinatown from a B-movie producer who had directed a film based on churning humans into cat food. Chinatown was a culture-shock—a city unto itself, bathed in thousands of tiny, twinkling, Christmas lights. Dried duck and petrified rodents hung from the foyers of Chinese markets. Firecrackers echoed through the narrow alleys like toy pop guns. Embroidered dragons spit fire from the silk of blue and red kimonos. Nehru jackets and satin pajamas pinned to wooden racks outside open-fronted boutiques. Pickled octopus and fresh squid, bamboo shoots stuffed with steamed brown rice. Smoked hens, baked armadillos, Chilean sea bass, shark fin soup and roasted chestnuts. The multitude of elderly folks overwhelmed him. Zooma felt energized by the endless enthusiasm of the Asian people.

He made his way to the 'red light' district (an area called the Tenderloin), on South Market Street, where actor, George C. Scott, was shooting a scene for a movie entitled 'Hardcore'. He happened into a porn shop. There, like the dressing rooms in J.C. Penny's, were a dozen cubicles. Private accommodations for the horny. Ejaculating to a 'twenty-five cent sex film. Shelves stocked with plastic molded vaginas, three pronged dildos (where did the third prong go?). Inflatable, flesh-colored sex partners with deep pockets simulating the mouth and anal orifices. Opened wide in a perpetual 'Oh', trimmed in luscious pink. The dolls' eyes and nose outlined in black. Devoid of hair or ears. Breasts like tiny Indian 'tee-pees'. Nipples rose madder. Countless amenities. Vibrators made of foam, rubber, plastic, steel. Battery and hand operated. Eight-millimeter porn films for $4.95. Glossy magazines depicting the immortal art of Sadomasochism. Flossy covers adorned with muscle bound blindfolded studs engaged in various acts of penetration. Group orgies with faces blacked out or buried in the land of lust. On sale, an item called the 'Penetraitor', long and white, huge and black, purple and transparent, straight and narrow, curved and double and triple pronged. It promised 'Orgasms Galore!'

Zooma entered the one-person cubicle through a thick black curtain. His Beatle boots sticking to the floor from countless layers of ejaculate. Depositing a quarter, he watched a forty-year old stripper emerge from darkness. No audio. She squeezes her languid breasts and inserts a finger into her mouth before the screen turns black. Another quarter. Another tease. In the next scene, she lifts her bra, still no nipple. Again, black screen. Out a dollar and the starlet had not even removed her bra. It cost Zooma twenty bits before he was able to appraise her pubic area. Another ten to witness a fake orgasm from the nasty, old harlot. From the cubicle beside him, a low grunt. Another pervert ejaculating on the glass partition. Having seen enough, Zooma exits the sex store. He languishes on a street corner and devours a 'Nathan's hot dog. Strangers surround him, oblivious to his existence. Taxi drivers overuse obnoxious horns. Men and boys stroll down Lombard Street at midnight, grabbing ass with limp wrists. He blushes at drop-dead gorgeous, titillating women who were men. He gushes at gorgeous, high-heeled women who were women. He cruises Haight-Ashbury Street. Daydreams of the Sixties and Kerouac, Garcia and Hunter S. Thompson. He gawks at the black leather miniskirts of prostitutes, glittering in the night. Blonde hair colored from a bottle. Cheeks pock-marked with acute, adolescent acne. Endless cleavage no doubt sending countless businessmen to their knees. He pities the drug addicts propped against rusted stairwells. He wishes he could afford to spare a dime for the hopeless beggars. He avoids the fashionable pimps. Adores the long-lost hippies still living in the far-out Sixties. Long, sleek, limousines and horse drawn carriages make way to endless parties and pharmaceutical conventions. He cruises Fisherman's Wharf. Spits on Lombard and rides the streetcar 'F' line uptown to Market Street. He marvels at the Trans-America skyscraper. Smokes on the steps of the dilapidated Fillmore West and enjoys an eggroll and sour pickles. Santana had performed there the previous night. He hikes across the Golden Gate Bridge, from where despondent, free falling souls had leaped to their death. Swept into the Pacific. Pathetic, damned souls, nothing to live or die for. He inhales the Orange Monster and recalls the Birdman of Alcatraz. Once across the Bridge, Zooma discovers a rotting, discarded blanket. Covering his tired, chilled bones, he leans against a wall of cemented rock. The City lights dance in a shroud of fog, like flickering coals under a thin layer of frost. Soon, it retreats into the sewer of darkness.

"Young man! Young man! Could I implore you to stand over there, with the city behind you?" The words. high-pitched, awaken him. His neck stiff from the awkward angle of fitful sleep. The morning smelled of spoiled sardines. The Golden Gate hovered like a metallic dinosaur. A busload of sightseers crowded the landing overlooking the bay. Zooma propped himself up against the rock wall and peeled another banana. An elderly woman strolled up.

On any other day, she would exude elegance. This moment, her green and blue plaid 'Bermuda' shorts prevented any sophistication. She carried a Kodak camera in her wrinkled hand. Thin fingers warped by diamonds. Zooma tugged at his blanket, then wandered over to a brick edifice, ten feet away. The skyscrapers came into view as the smog dissipated. Their windows reflecting the early morning sun. The woman snapped a photograph of Zooma, snug in his blanket. His shaggy, unwashed hair hiding the banana. He resembled Pocahontas.

"Is this where you live?" the elderly woman asked.

"Uh, no. I crashed here last night."

"Oh my...are you hurt?"

"No," Zooma chuckled, "...I mean, this is where I slept."

"Oh dear, I thought you meant you were in a car accident. Well, I assumed you lived here in the park, you know...homeless. Forgive me," she said, heading toward the bus. She paused, fumbled through the pocket of her Bermuda shorts and produced a five-dollar bill. When she gave the bill to Zooma, he thanked the old woman. She nodded, embarrassed, then returned to the bus, Kodak in hand. He wished he'd lied and told her he did live here. Better yet if he'd informed her of his intention to jump from the bridge. The folks back in Wichita would have loved that.

The tour bus exited the park, as did Zooma. Lake Tahoe loomed some two hundred miles east. His cash, from the painting job, plus the pity 'fiver' the old lady had given him, would purchase a bus ticket. At least, Tahoe would be a shower, a couch and a decent meal. Across the Golden Gate he hiked. The shabby blanket drooped over his shoulder, dragging his tattered suitcase. He located the Greyhound bus station downtown. Bought a one-way ticket to South Lake Tahoe, California.

He missed his connection in Sacramento. The next bus for Tahoe was not until the following morning. Exhausted, he attempted to sleep in the orange plastic molded seat in the bus station. Resting his head on the Sacramento Bee, he tossed and turned until his torso morphed into the orange chair. His head ached, his stomach cramped, and the left side of his face resembled a dehydrated pickle. At eight-seventeen in the morning, he boarded the east bound bus.

Lake Tahoe was 191 square miles of pristine blue water. 6,225 feet above sea level. 1,645 feet deep. 71 miles of sandy shoreline. Nestled in the High Sierra Mountains, surrounded by Ponderosa pines, it was luxurious enough to accommodate the 1962 Winter Olympics. South Lake Tahoe splits the border between California and Nevada. On the Nevada side of the emerald lake are four major casinos, The 'Sahara', 'Harrahs', 'Barney's', and 'Harveys'. A few miles north, the 'Cal-Neva' Lodge. Where Marilyn Monroe partied with Sinatra (who once part-owned the Cal-Neva). Where the mobster Sam Giacanna and the Kennedys' partied. Until J. Edgar Hoover put an end to that nonsense.

In the casinos slot machines jingle. The restaurants have five stars. Patrons enjoy star-studded productions in the elegant showrooms. Snow-ski in the winter and water-ski in the summer. The deep, blue cratered lake, drunk from melted snow, is the centerpiece of this quaint but thriving community. From the California side, Highway 50 is the major artery.

Zooma arrived at the Tahoe terminal in the afternoon. The high altitude required his lungs to acclimatize to the crisp, mountain-high oxygen. The thin atmosphere made his brain swim in delirious confusion.

He phoned Chester's aunt, a Miss Diaberto. Yes, she said, Chester had indeed come to Tahoe. But he left due to an offer of an apprenticeship to George Lucas as an assistant cameraman (bullshit, I thought). She did permit Zooma to use her sofa until he found something more accommodating. He appreciated it, he said, but had noticed a campground on the outskirts. He thumbed down highway 50 until he arrived at the 'Bear Hug'. Two dollars a night allowed him full use of the communal toilet and shower. He dropped his suitcase in a corner of the bunker and removed his clothes. Stepped into the shower and directed the water nozzle to the nape of his neck. Thirty minutes later, the grit, grime and Loopy's semen was washed away by the ice cold water of Lake Tahoe.

Now that he was here, he wasn't sure what to do next. Angel had discarded him in Tijuana and the jester had trekked to Hollywood. After freshening up, he'd asked the camp manager to store his belongings for the day. Then he walked to 'Dennys', ordered a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. He envied the water skiers in wet suits, skimming across the mirrored water. Watched children balanced on black inner tubes as houseboats swayed offshore. Gawked at speedboats roaring across the lake like aqua-lions as merry pranksters slugged beer and sunbathers roasted in the mile-high paradise. The sky and the lake intermingled in a rhapsody of darkened turquoise.

Having never been inside a casino, he hiked two miles until he arrived at the 'Sahara Tahoe'.

Boisterous Asians crowded around a craps table as hookers shook the dice for them. Zooma found a quarter on the blue-orange plush carpet, plunked it in a slot machine and lost.

Acquiring directions to the employee entrance, he made his way through a corridor. In a small office, a cute Filipino girl with blonde hair languished behind the counter. Yes, she knew of an opening in the time-keeping office. Graveyard shift. Zooma would report at midnight. He couldn't know then, that the job would last three years. Or, that they would be the best years of Zooma Wests' insatiable life.

*

Late one night in the early seventies, secluded from the chaotic world around us, Zooma and I retreated to my upstairs bedroom. My folks were spending the weekend at the cabin on the shores of Lake Guntersville. My room was hippie-heaven; undulating lava lamp, ultraviolet light. Glow-in-the-Dark posters of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and the Grateful Dead. Green and violet paisley curtains and strobe light. Zooma, wearing a Mark Lindsey puffed-sleeved lace blouse, had rigged my stereo with two sets of headphones. That way, we could listen to an album together, but separately. Apple wine in one hand, a joint in the other, we leaned against my bed. Outside the window, a glorious sprinkling of orange-fireflies.

When 'Across the Universe' ended, Zooma played it again. And again. Two hours later, it was still playing. The song transported Zooma to another dimension. Its melody an elixir. Lake Tahoe would become Zoomas' medicinal tonic. It cured a malady in his spirit. There, he found the only peace he would ever find.

* * *

It would be admirable of me to confirm that, while Zooma sunbathed on a beach in California, I had earned a degree in economics. Soon to be appointed the ambassador to Mexico. But the truth was, from November 1977, until December 1979, I sold doughnuts. And even that menial employment wore me plumb out. I had no need for a calendar, discarded my wristwatch. Ambition was not a word I embraced. Entrepreneurship relegated to the garbage dump. Pride removed from my vocabulary. 'Gregarious' would never define my obituary.

After an excruciating shift at Mister Donut, I'd dredge home. Deposit my fat ass into the lumpy sofa and fondle day old pastries. I'd slump on the couch in a stupor. Glare at old movies, smoke cigarettes, fart in the wind and sulk. Fondle my nuts and suffer infomercials. My parents believed I would never move out of their house, never amount to a hill of rocks. I concurred. I hadn't heard from Zooma in over a year, and I guess you could say my parents had not heard from me either. Mildred and I would languish in front of the television most days. I'd leave for work a few minutes before midnight. On my days off, I'd hibernate in my bedroom and play with my toys. Mildred had grown sick and tired of me and did her best to ignore my trivial pursuits. She'd given up castigating me for the doughnut crumbs I'd spill on the couch or the half-emptied glass of spoiled milk I'd use for an ashtray. She surrendered to my excessive ranting; when the batteries on the remote gave out or when we were out of 'Fruit Loops' or 'Pop Tarts'. I'd bitch like a whore when she'd trash the 'TV Guide' before it expired. I'd swear like a sailor when ants invaded my vanilla cremes. I'd complain for days when my Zippo was out of butane or when she'd ask me to clean up my room. The continuous stupidities of society imploded my tolerance level—the loud, obnoxious, droll weight-loss commercials interrupting the late, late movies—the dishwasher consuming all the hot water—the less than foot long chili dogs from 'Mullins'— the screeching toilet that needed fixing— ketchup stains on my favorite socks— beer not cold enough, pizza not hot enough—chili dogs not long enough and stupid commercials not short enough; bed pillows too hard and dishes not hard enough. Too much of one thing, not enough of the other. I'd had enough. Tired of the memory. When Possum abducted Vanessa, I'd stood there, a lump of flesh, a coward. I'd shot Tater point blank and inhaled his smoldering brains. On occasion, I exhume enough energy to participate in societal foibles. I laughed when Jack Nicholson called an invisible baseball game. Cried when Christopher Walken ran out of empty chambers in a Vietnamese dungeon. I'd even managed to form a few opinions. I thought it appropriate when a firing squad executed Gary Gilmore in Utah. Thought it ridiculous when Three Mile Island melted down. When President Carter pardoned the fucking draft evaders, I thought it a sham. When Vietnam War protestors received 12 million dollars from the government, I thought the bloody cash should burn on the graves at Arlington. After twenty-five of Nixon's Watergate cohorts received prison sentences, Nixon himself was pardoned. Twenty-six should have been incarcerated. Twenty-seven if you included Ford himself. But those thoughts were only lazy, smoldering daydreams. And so, I plopped on the couch, cursed the world, and ate whatever I could hold in my fat, fucking, thieving hands. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches, liver and onions fried in bacon grease. Cherry pies dipped in chocolate syrup. Triple cheeseburger pizzas, macaroni and cheese mixed with three cans of tuna topped with graham crackers. Six-cheese lasagna baked under a blanket of a dozen buttermilk biscuits. Other than picking raisins from a glazed doughnut, popping the top on a can of beer or swatting at flies, active participation in society was a foreign concept. I didn't understand the language. Not in the mood for two-way communication, conversation the dialogue of peasants. I, a recluse, a social outcast. No need, nor desire, to drink from the assorted conversational wells which distracted, contaminated and poisoned me. Times I considered leaving it behind, but I believed in Karmic proportion. I believed a lack of ambition would deliver my penance for previous indiscretions. My penance complete, I hoped the good things I'd done rewarded with the quid pro quo. Of course, the good things I'd done were only the result of the bad things not done. I'd never intentionally hurt anyone. Hadn't stolen a man's goods, or his wife. Didn't relish treating people like dirt, didn't search for the incompetence in people. Gave sinners the benefit of the doubt. Assisted old ladies with their groceries. Opened paralyzed veteran's car doors. Hadn't shot a dog, spanked a child or raped a woman. Hardly ever said the word 'goddamn' and never said the word 'Nigger'. I deserved payment for those 'Nevers'. Or so I thought. For three and a half years, night after grueling night, I wondered how much penance was required before the benevolent crosswinds avenged me. With nothing better to do, I continued to breath, eat and excrete. And I kept cashing my meager paycheck of one hundred and twenty-three dollars a week. Five tedious nights a week, I greeted the insomniacs with doses of caffeine. I'd satiate the lonely, the wicked and the lost. Tray upon tray of every flour inspired concoction known to bakers; deep-fried dough oozing globs of cherry, raspberry, coconut, and chocolate jam. Candy-sprinkled vanilla cremes. Peanut butter doughnuts slathered in warm pecan glaze- angel food cake dipped in caramel. All served with unlimited refills of hot, foggy coffee. Of course, I was negotiating. I'd provide the drunk, the stoned, and the weary with limitless cups of java and clean ashtrays. They, in return, would entertain me with their own stories, which might or might not be true. For example, in trade for a raspberry crème and a cup of joe, an elderly man with a handlebar mustache would recite the alphabet backwards and count to forty in Latin. For two glazed hotties, Mobar Litzer would extol the virtues of Hitler, Sarte, and de Sade. Dr. Special excoriated the novelist Richard Yates for wasting his life with alcohol and self-pity. When he tired of Yates, he'd renounce F. Scott Fitzgerald, then be-little Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda, for staying married to the sodden lunatic. For 20 percent off a brake job, I'd allow Vernon to spike his coffee with the cheap Brandy stashed in his 'Bear' Bryant Hounds-tooth jacket. Unlimited hot chocolate for Zack allowed me a peek at the latest Hustler Magazine. I'd turned down dates with Slim, Blackie, Willie, or Scully, but did set up a date between two of them. A cross-dressing dentist enlightened me with photographs of his wife fucking a Shetland pony. I brewed an extra pot for him. Every Wednesday, an auto mechanic would plop a huge ring of keys on the counter and gave me one chance to guess the exact number. There was the weird ole psycho, Lester Stampley. He reminded me of the old HeeHaw television character, String Bean. Six-four, thin as a flagpole, wore the same red and black flannel shirt tucked into his well-starched overalls. His face gleamed, as if waxed with floor polish. His fingers long and thin, knuckles like rotten Brussel sprouts. Lester would slouch at the end of the counter and point to the coffee maker. After two refills, he'd wash his fingers in the coffee and dry each finger with a napkin. After swallowing the paper, he'd remove a can of Butterfull Shoestring Potato Sticks from his overalls and dump the skinny, salty sticks onto a napkin. He'd count them, one by one, and enter the number in a notebook. I'd dispose of the greasy sticks as he drummed his temple with a forefinger. Then he'd watch the clock above the cash register until the hands made a perfect 'L'. At three o'clock, he'd place the notebook between the dog-eared pages of an old Bible. He'd fold a dollar three ways. Bless himself and kiss his fingers. Drawing an 'X' on the bottom of his left shoe, he'd call me a poor bastard and stoop out the door. Lester was a fruitcake and a freak, but he didn't care. After a month or so of watching this ritual, I asked Lester what in the hell he was doing. He glowered at the top of the counter, frowned, then said, 'Follow me, poor bastard." I had no customers, so I did. Standing behind the donut dumpster, he pointed to a large sheet of corrugated tin, it illuminated by a neon sign promoting Alan's used cars. Lester pointed to the sheet and pounded his temple. My cue to lift the tin. There, under a dirty blanket, were hundreds of what looked to be cigarette filters. Lester, mumbling, licked his fingers and drummed his head.

"Lester, what's all that?"

He thrust his bible at me. I studied the thin, crooked sticks. No doubt, and they could be nothing else but human fingers.

"I gotta go, Lester," I stammered. My hands were trembling as I re-entered the doughnut shop. Two men in painter's caps leaned against the counter. I set the bible, coffee pot and two porcelain cups on the counter. Reverting to the manager's office, I tried to decide what to do about the skinless, amputated digits. I should have called the cops, but then realized I had become a witness to something evil, and I wanted no part. I wanted to go home and forget I'd ever met the psycho. I phoned Calvin, the manager. Demanded he get someone down here in a hurry or he wouldn't have any doughnuts left. He cursed me until I hung up the phone. I told the painters they could have all the fuckin' coffee and doughnuts they wanted if they would watch the shop until Calvin arrived. "Yeah..." a painter said, then pointed toward the counter, "...but what the hell is this?" A page of Lester's bible was bookmarked by loose sheets of paper containing pencil sketches of men attired in white collars and frocks. The priests engaged in various positions of perversion. Huge, ugly cocks wrapped in whips and hoofs and vaginas. I grabbed the bible and raced from the shop. Hopped into the Falcon and returned to the bone yard. Lester had disappeared as had the bones. Potato Sticks filled the gulley. I dropped the bible and got the hell out of there.

I didn't sleep that night, nor the next, nor the next. The fifty pounds of weight I'd gained eating free doughnuts increased by ten over the next two months. I never returned to Mister Donut. I have no idea how Lester collected those hundreds of finger bones. I presumed he'd performed the amputations himself. I wondered how many folks in town had to dial a telephone with their toe. Over the course of a few months, news articles began to appear. Motel operators were complaining to the Huntsville Police Department. Guests were threatening to sue because the Gideon bibles in their rooms contained explicit caricatures of priests engaged in acts of sadistic sexual torture, including the dismemberment of female genitals and anal cavities. A year or so later, I noticed a photograph of Lester in the 'Times'. The Bone Collector had married a woman from Alabaster named Elsie. She was a homely, balding woman, employed at a local hair salon, where she performed manicures.

Now unemployed, I spent my days taking antibiotics for a severe gastric infection. Forbidden to mix alcohol with the medication, I did anyway. It was the alcohol that cured me. The family Doctor ordered me to lose weight. In retaliation, I added another thirty pounds to my bloated body. Still, I could lift the rear end of my Falcon off the ground. If I had wanted to.

* * *

Employed by the 'Sahara' casino, Zooma, began his new job as 'Timekeeper'. He worked the 'graveyard' shift from ten at night until six in the morning. It was an easy job. He'd sit behind a large countertop. When an employee arrived for work, he'd extract the employee's timecard from a large rotating wheel, insert the card into the time clock and return it to the wheel.

The routine nature of the job allowed him to memorize the names of most of the employees; cooks, housekeepers, twenty-one dealers and cocktail waitresses; the engineers, plumbers and Keno 'runners'. Soon enough, employees felt free to call from home, or the bar, saying they had 'forgotten' to 'check in, or out, or both'. Zooma was happy to provide a valuable service, 'punching' them in or out himself. Of course, a tip would be forthcoming. Five or six dollars. If he was lucky, a peck on the cheek from a grateful cocktail waitress.

The bartenders gave him free drink 'tokens'. The pit bosses 'comped' the gargantuan buffet. Grateful Chefs delivered shrimp cocktail and filet-mignon to the time-office.

Zooma would fall in love, or lust, a hundred times a shift. Night after glorious night, dozens of gorgeous girls strolled by his counter. Waitress'es would slip him a beer or a shot of tequila on their break. On occasion, a cocktail waitress would change into her outfit behind the huge rotating wheel.

And the Stars came out at night. Rosanne Cash (Johnny's daughter), Mike Stone (the man who had stolen Priscilla from Elvis). Bill Cosby. Raquel Welch. Sammy Davis Senior. Dom Deluise. Rich Little and Englebert Humperdink. Since they entered the showroom by way of the employee entrance, he'd met them all.

He introduced himself to an incoherent Brian Wilson as the spaced out 'Beach Boy' gazed at the ceiling searching for God only knows what. He listened to Christopher Cross perform songs from his Grammy-winning 'Sailing' album. One October night, Cher strolled down the hallway. Stuffed in tight jeans and wearing no makeup, she could have passed for a 'Waffle House' waitress. Bewitched, he gawked at Elizabeth Montgomery enjoying a Ricky Nelson concert.

Though impressed with the charming celebrities, it would be a cocktail waitress who swept Zooma West into the enchanted abyss. The mere sight of her sapphire blue eyes induced the fluttering of dancing butterflies. Painfully shy, she would approach the counter with face lowered. Even on hot nights, her skimpy waitress uniform hidden beneath a long cloak. Her breasts were like delicate tea candles and her skinny bottom would have fit into a pie-plate. Her legs long and silky. Her muscled calves taut from serving obnoxious gamblers five nights a week. Her sky-high Scandinavian cheeks pink rosebuds, her aquiline nose sleek and narrow. Her lustrous skin aglow like harbor lights at daybreak. She strolled the halls of the 'Sahara' as if she needed to be somewhere important. Yet uninclined to ever arrive. Deliberate, quiet strides. Thick, brown eyebrows. Her frizzy blonde hair bouncing in rhythm with her gait. Her deliberate, pouty lips like Spring buttercups.

Surprisingly, Zooma did not advertise himself to this goddess. Self-promotion diminished the pleasure of instantaneous romance. This philosophy would be his most profound regret. For months, he would dream of her, afraid to say anything other than 'hello' or 'goodnight'. In his delirious fever, the entire Universe existed for this goddess named Lynne. Yet, he could not express his feeling, for fear of the most damning kind, Rejection. Do not jeopardize the few moments spent with her. Do not ask her to dinner or a movie, or whatever people did on dates these days, and run the risk. No, a simple word with incalculable consequences. No. The 'sorry, I have a boyfriend', the 'let's just be friends'. Words that would have devastated him. Would he risk it? Should he? A year passed before he exhumed the courage to ask her out to dinner. He practiced his invitation standing before a mirror. He wrote the words he hoped would compel her to say yes. 'Yes' would complete his life. He had never been so anxious. It wasn't like him to be nervous. Rejection would be devastating. He arrived at work an hour early. This would be the night. He trembled in his Beatle Boots. He slugged a shot of whiskey to calm his nerves. He couldn't understand why he felt this way. He had another shot of whiskey and chain-smoked. Studied the clock. It was time. His blood numb, he waited for her to stroll through the employee entrance.

After countless 'hellos', 'goodnights', and 'how ya doin', the time had come. He needed to further the relationship, before it diminished like an extinguished sparkler. The trivial conversations had mechanized, dwindled to a vanishing static, there was nothing more to say. The least common denominator of salutations had defined their relationship. Now, any moment she would enter the office and each time the door opened, Zooma felt a warm rush. At ten of eight, she still hadn't showed. He double-checked her timecard. Yes, she had been scheduled. Other waitresses began arriving. He smoked one cigarette after another. Where was she? It was five after eight when a waitress, running late, zoomed by the office.

"Will you get it for me, baby? I had a flat and I'm late as shit," she quipped, racing by the counter.

Zooma nodded and yelled, "Lynne working tonight?"

"I heard she quit," the waitress blurted.

Quit? What do you mean 'Quit? This was the night! It couldn't end like this. But it did. He never saw her again. Years later, he would learn that Lynne had been carried across the threshold by a man who owned a horse ranch in Hawaii.

Zooma never got over it. He had missed his chance. He had risked it all and fate had betrayed him.

And who can know how she felt? I suppose she could have invited Zooma to dinner. But she didn't. Both wallowed in the beast of rejection. Mirror images—Soul mates, two ships passing in the dead of night. Two shortsighted captains. Each failing to recognize the possibilities of the other, and themselves. Unfortunately, two shining lights need not the luminosity of the other. Neither would concede the idiocy of pride. A milli-second of rejection falls well short of a lifetime of 'yes'. After her departure, Zooma's nights in the time-office became a blur. Punching cards and answering phones. Her absence did not make his heart grow fonder. He would never risk loving anyone again. The valve closed. Fire extinguished.

In compensation, he traded his passion for Lynne by having sex with anyone. During the next two years, he dined with two Rosa's and four Kathy's, savored dishes of Dianes' and a portfolio of Patty's. He joined a band, Al's Garage, and played a few gigs with them. Opportunities to get drunk, stoned and laid. But Lynne would always saturate his being, his existence. He supplanted her absence by bedding a considerable percentage of Lake Tahoe's fairer sex. He seduced them in their campgrounds and astride their billiard tables. Soaked in their hot-tubs and bathtubs. Under the table of their favorite bars and in the backseat of their foreign cars. But in the dregs of night, sulking in his rented abode, a single regret. 'Tater' Ruminello.

On a Monday night in December 1980, Zooma handed Hoeseph Trouchon's his paycheck. An employee ran down the hall. "Some asshole just shot John Lennon!"

"What?" Hoeseph yelled at the runner.

"The Beatle, man! Lennon's been shot!"

Sick joke, Zooma thought, attempting to decipher the meaning of those words. 'Lennon's been shot'. Who in hell would want to shoot John Lennon? Only the week before, he'd read an article in Esquire magazine. The Beatle had been living a full and simple life. Baking bread and changing diapers on his and Yoko's beautiful boy, Sean. John had only recently returned to the recording studio to confirm his contentment.

Zooma entered the employees' cafeteria. A group of stunned employees gathered around the television.

"...This just in," the horn-rimmed glass-eyed reporter said. "Ex-Beatle John Lennon. Slain tonight. Moments ago, he was shot in front of this apartment building, the Dakota. It is here, where he and Yoko, his wife and Sean, his son, have resided for some years. Apparently, Mr. Lennon was assassinated by a deranged fan. Word is, the suspect is in custody. Further information is unavailable. I repeat... former Beatle and peace activist John Lennon was shot and killed tonight outside his home..."

The reporter, wearing a crooked toupee, stood before a Gothic-styled building. Behind him, a New York City cop wept. Shocked and disbelieving fans displayed photos and album covers of John and the Beatles.

The cafeteria reverberated with gasps and sighs. Some didn't know, or care, about John Lennon and continued to eat their green salads and bean burritos. Zooma's face dissolved into a pale shell, his brain hovered outside his body. The tragic news unraveled a single thread at a time.

A demented loser, with nothing better to do, had murdered, in the coldest of blood, the most prolific man in recent history. Electric pulses clogged Zooma's throat. Breath would not fill his lungs. He felt faint and his legs would not support him. He slumped in a plastic chair for a moment. He tossed a platter of rolls across the room, screaming. "Son of a Bitch! ...son of a mother fuckin' cocksuckin' Bitch! Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!" he cried.

Lennon's murder had punctured the cyst. Confirmed the futility and pierced the emotional tumor that infested Zooma West. Where, once, 'all we needed was love', all Zooma needed was a gun and directions to the New York City Police Department. Retribution. Sure, he would trade a life sentence in return for disposing of the scum-infested maggot that had murdered his hero. Convulsing in anger and disbelief and sadness, Zooma returned to the time office. Unable and unwilling to stop the stream of tears. The radio on the boss' desk behind the time-card wheel played, "jai guru deva, om... Nothins' gonna change my world... nothin's gonna change my world...' Zooma slumped on the floor as the radio played 'Across the Universe. When it next played 'You're Gonna Lose That Girl,' Zooma West's youth evaporated. The Dream was over. Forever (Forever). If John Lennon could not live a decent, peaceful, happy life, then how in the fuck could he? If Lennon didn't have enough sense to beware of the demented strangers that lurked, then how in the world could he? The Beatles had delivered us a cool drink of clear water; John Lennon force-fed us a double shot of Angostura. Lennon had been the lubricant for Zooma's corroded valves.

Two days after that tragic night in December of 1980, Zooma West awoke thirsty. A cool drink of clear water did not satisfy. He required the bitters, bitters beget truth. "I'm so sorry Panther...it was all my fault," he whispered.

Zooma West would leave Lake Tahoe. But the lingering memory of the 'Sahara', the love of Lynne, and the murder of Lennon would affect him forever. For three glorious years, Lake Tahoe had encapsulated the best and the worst of life. He would move on, and the crosswinds would follow. Unfortunately, he was not aware of sinister, malevolent clouds that awaited him.

* * *

The final Saturday afternoon of 1979 found me perched on the couch like a stuffed pepper. Slurping a bottle of Pepto Bismol, watching reruns of 'Mission Impossible'. My parents had decided to dine at a new Italian restaurant, so, tonight I'd have the house to myself. I felt down in the dumps, melancholic, the way I always felt. I had no interest in finding another job since I'd quit 'Mister Donut'. My guts were eating me alive and I grew tired of everybody telling me what to do. Tonight, I wasn't in the mood for any shit. Dad was angry with me because I wouldn't help him change the oil in the Rambler. Mildred upset I hadn't moved the clothes from the washer to the dryer. I ventured to the refrigerator. Gulped milk straight from the jug. Mildred entered.

"How many times have I told you not to drink from the carton," she quipped, fiddling with a basket of apples.

"There's so many germs in this damn house, a few more ain't gone make no difference," I replied.

"I'm getting sick of your attitude."

I emptied the carton and tossed it on the counter.

"That's not the garbage, young man. I'm tired of having to pick up after you. You should be ashamed for not going out there and helping your father," she said, agitated with my daily itinerary. I fell into the couch and downed swigs of Pepto. Miscalculating the direction of entry, the Pepto splattered my t-shirt. I didn't care. It simply melded with all the other stains.

"Father Simon said good manners and obedience to your elders will get you as close to the heavenly gates as will a pure, holy life."

"Fuck Father Simon and the goddamn pearly gates!" I shouted, flinging the pink bottle to the floor.

"What did you say?" she whispered, eyebrows perked, shoulders drooped- full of piety. I retreated from the couch. Aiming for my bedroom, she grabbed my flabby arm and slapped me five or six times.

"Don't you ever, ever use those words in this house! How dare you use profanity to describe a man of God. How dare you! I've had it, Panther, I want you out of here. Get out of this house. Now!"

I didn't say a word, nor did I give her the pleasure of gloating as I rubbed my red-splotched whipping board. From that moment on, my mother became Mildred. I stalked up the stairs and packed a suitcase with jeans, T-shirts, underwear and three bags of 'Fritos'. As I pranced out the door, Mildred prayed on the couch, her face buried in clasped hands. I strolled down the carport, 'accidentally' kicking my fathers' pearly white legs, bent at a sissified angle underneath the Rambler.

"Damn, Pan," dad said from beneath the automobile. "Cain't you see I'm under here? Hand me the five-eight wrench over there by the filter..."

"Which one's the five-eight." I mumbled.

"The one that says five-eight on the handle."

There. I'd helped him. I wondered where to go. Hadn't seen Zooma in years. Had no friends. Decided to drive the Falcon to the 'Krystal Hamburger' joint (where I'd last seen Zooma surfing the hood).

I loaded my tray with half a dozen burgers, three fries, a bowl of chili, and two chocolate shakes. A man asked if I wanted to work. "Hell no," I replied. He said if I'd unload a couple of hundred boxes of Styrofoam plates from a truck, he'd pay me thirty dollars. "Not in this lifetime," I replied.

The 'Dullies' would be dining out, so I returned home. Mildred was going to pay for making me angry. In the kitchen, I emptied the cabinets. Cream of wheat, pancake mix, syrup, sugar, peas and carrots, chili beans, pasta and potato chips. Piled it high on the counter. Then, with the patience of Job, I delivered my revenge. Next, I entered the den and continued. Then, off to the upstairs bathroom and my parent's bedroom. Tonight, returning from the restaurant, my folks would venture into Hell. Using a black magic marker, I had scrawled the word 'FUCK' above the brand name of every item I could find. In the kitchen, Mildred would prepare breakfast with Fuck Aunt Jemima pancakes dribbled with Fuck Log Cabin syrup. She'd sip her Fuck Folger's coffee with Fuck Domino sugar. Spread Fuck Lay's potato chips on top of Fuck Hormel chili and pour Fuck Heinz ketchup over Fuck Thrifty Maid peas and carrots. When she staggered into the den, she could watch the Fuck Admiral television or listen to the Fuck RCA stereo while perusing the Fuck TV Guide and the Fuck Good Housekeeping magazine—she would wash her face with Fuck Dial soap and wash her hair with Fuck Breck shampoo. Brush her saintly teeth with Fuck Pepsodent and rinse her godly mouth with Fuck Listerine. Then, in bed, she could read her Fuck National Geographic and Fuck National Enquirer as dad used his Fuck Zippo lighter to smoke his Fuck Pall Mall cigarette.

My extravagant, genius-at-play made me hungry again. I returned to Krystal, happy with my brilliant, creative artwork. I'd ordered a few more Krystal burgers and a shake, when an old codger walked in and said there had been a 'heck of a wreck over yonder...'

*

Two months before I graduated, fellow classmates Troy and Trey Crowder, the crewcut, evil, twin sons of Elmer Roy and Faye Lynne, were expelled for coming to school drunk. The twins topped the scale at four hundred pounds, each. Hell, they were fatter than I ever hoped to be. A rumor surfaced that Elmer had severed a man's head back in '61. HPD did find the victim's wallet in a beehive on Crowders' rural farm, but it was never proven the old man had committed the crime. Arrested three times for 'moonshining' the previous year, it didn't stop Elmer from cooking the mash. He and his dysfunctional sons preferred dirty overalls and long-johns. Their ramshackle house had no indoor plumbing. The vile odor of excrement detected blocks away. For income, they sold honey from their hundred or so hives. They raised a few farm animals, goats, chickens, a hog or two. The morning the 'heck of a wreck' happened, the twins were seen swigging from a washtub of corn whiskey. By late afternoon, they'd both passed out cold. Unfortunately, one of their goats kept sipping from the basin.

I finished my meal at 'Krystal' and reluctantly returned home. I hoped the folks were still sipping Chablis, ensconced in a booth at La Familias.' A confrontation at this point would prove deadly. I phoned the YMCA and the homeless shelter, inquiring if they had room for one more. I knew that when Mildred appraised my artwork, she'd banish me forever. So be it, hell, I'd live in my car. I grabbed a few more toiletry items, a couple of audio cassettes, and a fifth of Jack Daniels. As I was digging quarters from a jar of spare change, the phone rang.

"Oh Panther, honey. I just heard. Maureen Carruth called. I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do?" asked Widow Boove, my wicked, spying neighbor.

"Mrs. Boove, what are you talking about? I'm busy."

"No one has contacted you, yet? The police I mean...your parents?"

"They're eating out."

"Oh no. Panther. I'll be right over."

I met the weeping Widow at the front door. After a minute or two, sick of her babbling, I insisted she go home. She glared at me as I slammed the door. Later that evening, I would learn what had happened from the cops. My folks had never made it to La Familias. Minutes before the accident, a Mister Coggins had loaded his pickup truck with grain from Hardins' Feed Supply. He noticed a goat wobbling and staggering in the middle of the road. He returned to the store and notified Mr. Hardin. They both rushed out in time to watch my father swerve around the displaced animal and lose control of the Rambler. It swerved off the road and crashed head-on into an abandoned fruit and vegetable stand. My father's face became a permanent fixture in the windshield. Ejected from the car, Mildred landed in a pile of wooden tomato stakes. Two of the sharp spikes rendered her nothing but a memory. It happened in front of WEUP radio station, 1250 on your radio dial, 10,000 watts of Black Power, 'We is Up'. Another witness, quoted in the 'Times', said, '...it looked like the dadburn goat was drunk. Staggerin' along the road, head a floppin', knees a buckin'. Heck of a note to get killed over a galldang' loaded goat...'

The inebriated animal was later discovered stiff as board, splayed across a ditch. The consensus of the neighborhood rumor mill was that the old goat died from a heart attack.

Widow Boove told me she'd be happy to assist with the arrangements. I replied there would be no arrangements, no funeral, nor any service. I would have their remains cremated. It wasn't that I didn't love my parents. I didn't have the energy to go through the hoop. I wouldn't know any of the mourners who would attend the services. And I didn't need their sympathy. Their apologies and 'if there's anything I can do' wouldn't bring my parents back. I wanted to be left alone, to deal with the tragedy in my own way. I wanted to grieve by myself, with myself. But the Widow trumped me. She handled the funeral arrangements, then wrote me a long letter (I have not read it to this day). Never spoke to me again. Father Simon (Fuck Father Simon) was appalled at my absence and my actions, or rather, inaction. Thizzie, Zoomas' mother, bless her, sent a card expressing her condolences. Said I was welcome to call on her anytime. The person I really needed was AWOL. Later, I realized he was out west, in a place called Lake Tahoe. I felt pitiful. Sorry I had argued with Mildred. Sorry I hadn't helped my dad change the oil. sorry I hadn't put the clothes in the dryer and sorry I gulped milk from the jug. Sorry I'd said Fuck Father Simon and sorry they'd died. Most of all I was sorry for myself.

I dealt with the bankers and the insurance man, the real estate goons and bill collectors, the scam artists and the ambulance chasers, the church people and the sad people. I dealt with the 'Dullies' until I didn't have to deal with them anymore. I collected on the double indemnity life insurance, paid off the mortgage and made sure the bills were up to date. I fondled my new Barretta nine-millimeter in front of the ambulance chasers and scam artists and, was not afraid to use it. The sad folks felt sorry for me and the happy (what a silly, stupid word) folks realized my grief could not be satiated. The church people prayed for me. Mister Donut delivered a couple dozen assorted cremes. Now, I didn't have to do a damn thing. And I didn't.

* * *

The years spent amidst the majestic mountains of Lake Tahoe were Zooma Wests' finest. But it would be temporary. Due Course required recession. The good life had accrued interest, an IOU, payable on demand. A sordid transaction was forthcoming. He would never recoup his losses. Unfortunately, the benevolent crosswinds were about to steer him off course. His ship soon to implode on the rocky shores of eternal regret.

With the better portion of a thousand dollars, earned from working at the 'Sahara Tahoe', Zooma purchased a 1971 Easter purple Volkswagen Beetle from a short order cook at Denny's restaurant.

He bathed in the frigid waters of Lake Tahoe. Warmed his bones sunning on a boulder above the 'timber-line', where the altitude so high the Evergreens refused to grow.

Three hours later, he cruised through the barren, hostile environment of Central Nevada. Home to roaming coyotes. Cacti loom like bandits and mesquite trees refuse to sway in the caked, acrid desert. Heading South, down the two-lane blacktop of highway 95, Las Vegas his destination.

Lake Tahoe had allowed Zooma to fall in love and satiate his lust. Lynne sudden departure would haunt him the rest of his days. Soon, he would haunt the same streets as Elvis and Bugsy, Sinatra and Dino. Sin City a Utopian wilderness. The consummate 'call of the wild' where the casinos never closed. Timepieces useless. Windows non-existent.

The Sierra Mountains shadowed him through Carson City, Silver Springs and a ghost town called Fallon. A sunset of succulent oranges and stewed tomatoes. Day turned to night. In the distance, a halo of light above a town called Tonopah.

The lonesome highway. Haunted by the hallowed ghosts of singing cowboys. The wandering souls of lost gold miners, apparitions of cool springs only darkened dunes. Prickly Saguaro attend the desert like Roman sentries. Zooma shared the blacktop. Among the Yucca, the mesquite, and flattened reptiles. The roaming buzzards, wolves and scorpions. The terrain anything but a wasteland—a boneyard for the Defiled, where the roaming spirits of wise guys seek revenge.

Surrounded in darkness, to Zooma's horror, the Bug begins to decelerate. The speedometer needle tracking left. Sixty . . . fifty-eight . . . fifty-five. Zooma stomps the accelerator. Forty-five. The oil light blinks an ominous red. Forty-two. The black night interspersed with thin white lines. Thirty-nine mph...twenty-five. The rear-view mirror dark. No-not here. Not now . . . ten mph . . . Devil-bowel black . . . eight . . . he turns the steering wheel...the tires graze asphalt. The engine dies to the sound of sizzling steaks and the odor of gasoline. He checks the gas gauge. Plenty. In the rearview. Approaching headlights. 'VRROOMMMMMMM! Eighteen wheels swerve to the left, horn blaring.

Slamming the steering wheel. "Son of a Bitch! Son of a piece of motherfucking Shit!" The engine has committed suicide. Miles away, a halo of light. The steaming, desert vapor hovers above a city. The Bug's headlights dim, then fade completely. Zooma has no choice. Forced to hike to the shimmering town. Something flutters in his face. A moth or bat or the abrogated. He gathers his guitar and suitcase. The halo of Tonopah light years away. The ocean of star above him sizzles in Cosmic grease, like billions of rhinestones fried in bacon fat. In the distance two spheres, like the eyes of a cartoon monster, zoom toward him. A stampede of roaring Diesel horses, eighty, ninety miles an hour, kicking up sand and grit.

An hour later, his fingers are numb from lugging his suitcase. He staggers into a gambling hall, the 'Silver Slipper', where card dealers don red kerchiefs and stained, floppy 'ten-gallon' Stetsons. Four ceiling fans, connected to one main 'pulley' system, hardly displace the smoke. The armrest of the bar shined from decades of greasy forearms. Zooma ordered ham and eggs from a hard-boiled man with a red garter strapped around his bicep. After breakfast, he purchased a bus ticket. Loitered outside on a bench made from one of Marshall Dillon's wagon wheels. A bowlegged cowboy enters the casino through its free-swinging doors. Its rusty hinges squeak like a fire-bellied toad. Pepper bearded geezers, old enough to have toiled in the gold mines eighty years before, curse 'one arm bandit's'.

Two hours later, the Greyhound entered the gates of 'Sin City'. Billboards advertised 'wedding chapels', 'sex shops' and a 'porn theater'. Cheap 99 cent breakfasts and two-dollar steak dinners at the Horseshoe Casino. At the terminal, he gathered his luggage and slithered into streets littered with gangly prostitutes, homeless 'winos'. 'Bermuda-short' tourists bought cheap souvenirs. Glib honeymooners, gay divorcees, sour homosexuals, trolling transsexuals, tawdry transvestites. Rumbling Harley's and gleaming Rolls Royce's. An Elvis impersonator croons a grueling rendition of 'My Way'. A bilingual interrogator tried to sell him a fake diamond ring. The entire city wrapped in a pretty ribbon of neon, arranged under a shifty tree of gambling fever. Downtown Vegas, the redheaded stepchild. Ignored by the major players combing the modernized 'Strip' a few miles east.

Zooma breakfasts on eggs Benedict ($2.99) at the 'Fremont'. Won three dollars playing Roulette at the 'Golden Nugget'. A two-dollar steak at the 'Horseshoe'. He ventures into an adult theater called the 'Pussycat'. The sheer darkness ideal for perverts wishing to remain anonymous. Flickering on the screen, a film entitled "The Devil's Third Horn'. From the side walls, Gothic sconces with protruding tongues glared at him. The gray carpet threadbare. He could feel the parquet floor beneath his feet. A woman in a slinky, black minidress slinked down the aisle. In the flickering light, she approached Zooma.

"Is this seat taken?" she asked. Her breath smelled of moldy almonds. Her dark eyes sunk deep. Her thin lips painted the color of a battlefield in which only the defeated remained. She was much older than Zooma, as much as twenty years. Her wrinkled neck betrayed her attempt at appearing young. She had once been beautiful, Zooma deduced. Her smile retained a certain grace, but the ravages of time and hard luck had reduced the old woman to a worn, weary harlot.

"I need a favor," she whispered. Her capped teeth glowed in the iridescent theater.

"What?"

"Well, if you don't mind, I'm gonna pretend to give you a blow job."

"Pretend?"

Before even sitting beside Zooma, the woman had surmised he was bereft of money. He was disheveled, needed a haircut and a bath. But he appeared to be harmless. He would be her rube, her shill. Bait. Zooma shrugged his shoulders. He was game.

She glanced around the theatre, then kneeling before Zooma, lowered her lips to Zoomas' lap. She bobbed and nudged his crotch with her nose. On the screen a woman, wearing black thongs and dressed as a 'witch', whipped a balding 'devil' with a fake horn. After two or three minutes, bobbing for Zooma's apples, the woman thanked him. She applied a fresh, shiny coat of red to her wrinkled lips and lit a cigarette. The final credits were rolling on the silver screen as Zooma passed a wiry man with shaggy goatee and wire-rimmed glasses. He mustered a foul groan. 'War paint' had her face buried in the man's crotch.

Outside the theatre, under the bright neon lights of Vegas, shady vendors hawked turquoise rings, tin bracelets, and cheap wrist watches. Pondering his next move, Zooma entered a lounge at the corner of 'Sahara Boulevard' and 'Eastern Street'. The 'Peace Pipe'' was no different from a thousand other bars. The front door, tinted black, listed the hours of operation and issued the warning, 'no shirt, no shoes, no service'. An elderly man, wearing a black eye-patch and leaned against a pool table. An L-shaped bar ran the length of the establishment. Slot machines held up a far wall. Adjacent to the bar was a triangular shaped bandstand. Its back wall a strangled mess of spaghetti-like strands of aluminum foil, tangled and knotted. In front of the stage, a small checkerboard dance floor. It discolored with dried chewing gum and dark scuff marks. Surrounding the dance floor were round, Formica tables with red candles and plastic, Nevada-shaped ashtrays. The 'Yule-Tide' season was months away, yet, 'I'll be Home for Christmas' played on the rainbow-colored jukebox. On the stage, a guitar leaned against an amplifier. Zooma sauntered over and studied the instrument, then returned to the bar. 'Eye-patch' flirted with a waitress. "Honey, you wanna play in this kitchen, you gotta kiss the cook," she said to the old geezer.

"You the new geetar boy?" The waitress asked Zooma.

"No," Zooma responded. 'Just passing through."

'Eye-patch' busted a rack. The waitress strolled over. "What can I get you, honey?" she asked.

"Anything cold."

After the Christmas song, 'Skeeter' Davis' eulogized the 'End of the World'.

"Our band's always changin' members," she said. "Guess I figured you're the newest one." Pouring an amber-colored liquid into a frosted mug, she said, "Names Angie. There you go. Two bucks." Zooma gave her three. Keep the change.

"I like your beard," she said.

Zooma hadn't shaved in weeks. His black beard, streaked with silver, thick as Bermuda grass.

'CRACK'! 'Eye-patch' broke a triangle of balls. The cue-ball flew from the pool table. Rolled across the floor bouncing against a table leg. Zooma flashed to 1966—when Panther Burn had rolled a ball across the billiard table as Tater removed the rifle from the cabinet.
"What kind of music you like?" Angie asked.

"Oh, old rock, Beatles, Stones, sixties stuff..."

"You aren't one of those Van Halen types, I hope," Angie said. Eye-patch walked over and retrieved the cue-ball. "Morty, keep your balls where they belong," she laughed.

'Who?" Zooma asked the pretty waitress.

"You never heard of them? Thank God. The manager, that's her over there by the phone, she hates that loud shit...upsets the regulars. The band is ok, I guess. Start at eight. I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you play with 'um. They're always looking for fresh blood, that is, if your still here."

"I ain't got a guitar. Had to pawn it."

Angie's hair was the shade of onyx and tied into a ponytail. Her high cheekbones gave her eyes a hollow look. A round, dark mole, like an 'm & m', dotted her right temple. Her wrinkled hands belied her true age of thirty-six. She'd conceived two children, ten and eight, but they lived elsewhere. She wore a white leather-fringed blouse, no bra. A short, teal skirt gripped her tight, round bottom. She professed to be 'half' Navajo.

"Might as well," Zooma said.

"Great! Slow today. I could use the company," she said and brought Zooma another beer.

Later that night, Zooma, high as the Georgia sun in July, joined the band to sing a forgetful rendition of 'Lookin' for Love' (in all the wrong places), an old urban cowboy song. After the song, Eye-patch requested that the band take a break. A fight ensued and the band decided to quit for the night. They thanked Zooma for 'sitting in' and shared a bottle of tequila. As the minutes dragged on, Zooma's equilibrium began to falter.

"Where you staying?" Angie asked.

"Kinda winging it," Zooma replied.

"I have a comfortable couch, if you want."

Completing her shift, they reverted to Angie's Corvette.

"Good shit, man, here," she said, offering Zooma, a pocket mirror streaked with lines of what looked to be baby powder.

Zoomas' head reeled, dizzy from the booze. He'd never snorted cocaine.

"Here, take the middle straw..." she instructed, swabbing her gums with the powder. "...Believe me, you'll feel a lot better."

Zooma grabbed the short, red-striped straw. Angie instructed him—apply pressure to one nostril and sniff the powder into the other. Fast. Zooma appraised the two-inch long and pinkish parallel lines. He inhaled the powder and gagged.

"First time?"

Zooma nodded.

"Do the other one, hon."

Immediately, he did feel better. His nasal passages and throat comfortably numb, the taste of burnt marshmallow. Soon, he wasn't dog-drunk anymore, had lost the urge to vomit. The euphoric rush of rich, red blood gushed to his brain like a tropic wind.

"Open your mouth, shug," Angie smiled, dipping her finger into a pouch. She rubbed the cocaine over his gums, then leaned over the seat and slid her tongue between her lips. The phosphoric letters and numbers on the Corvette's dashboard undulated. From a neon sign, intermissions of energetic frequencies vibrated in a quantum dance. Vegas lights pulsed in a feeding frenzy. The cocaine entered his bloodstream in a passionate freefall. Zooma, enchanted by the contour of Angie's cheekbones, gazed into her sloe-bedroom eyes. She removed a flower-shaped swath of cloth from her 'ponytail'. Spread her mane like a peacock. They did another 'bump' of the coke. Higher and Higher. They cruised the 'Strip', home to the upper-crust, the high-rollers. Mammoth marquees announced shows; Sammy Davis Jr., Don Rickles, Kenny and Dolly, Elvis impersonators (no Lennon), Buddy Hackett and Wayne Newton.

After the sight-seeing tour, they arrived at her quaint house on a quiet street off Boulder Highway. For the next nine months, Zooma enjoyed candle-lit baths and sexual, golden showers. She adored anal sex in the local cemetery. Performing oral sex on Zooma as they cruised the Vegas Strip was mandatory. As she worked her shift at the 'Peace Pipe, Zooma relaxed in the hot tub and recuperated from the night before for the night to come. She would arrive home at three in the morning. They'd feast on spaghetti with Portabello mushrooms and purple onions, or a crock of chili with jalapenos, black olives and shredded blue cheese. Weekends, they'd grill pineapple and bacon burgers. Once or twice a week, he'd go to the Peace Pipe and linger at the bar before retreating to the restroom for a snort of coke. One delightful morning, she presented Zooma with a Fender Stratocaster. It was a right−handed guitar, so he'd had to adjust the strings. Sometimes, he'd jam with the band of the week. But he grew weary of the boring, country music and all-night binges and soon, stopped going altogether. He'd grope around Angie's house, soak in the 'hot-tub'. Read 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', 'The Last Picture Show', 'This side of Paradise', and, 'On the Road'. Wait until Angie returned to order a pizza. Evenings spent making love, sipping wine. More sex, more coke. At last, they'd enter the dead zone. Time for the cemetery ass fucking.

One night, Angie lowered the volume on an episode of the 'Twilight Zone' where a man with a watch freezes the world in its tracks. (A Kind of a Stopwatch)

"Zooma, I've asked a friend to come over tomorrow night. I think we should, well, add a little spice to our relationship," she cooed, tickling his thick, silver-tinged beard.

"Is the spice a he or a she?" Zooma asked with raised eyebrows.

"A she, silly cracker."

"Well hell," Zooma West smiled, "I guess I'm staying at least one more night."

...The man breaks the Stopwatch. When the timepiece shatters, motion ceases forever, except him, who becomes the sole sentient being in the Universe...

The following afternoon, gloating under sheets of cascading, warm water, Zooma relishes the night to come. Pulsating liquid rains down like rays of hot spikes. In the shower, standing in ankle deep water, he notices the drain clogged with thick clumps of black hair, like a spider web. Staring into the large mirror above the sink, he slicks his mane from his forehead, mortified at how much it had receded. Jesus. He didn't believe he would begin to lose it this soon, only twenty-six. Fuck. Snatching a mirror from the bathroom counter, he held it above the crown of his head and aimed it toward the large mirror on the wall. There, in the reflection, a round, empty space the size of a tennis ball, a fucking full moon in a field of black grass. He couldn't believe the ghastly, sickening sight. His long, jet-black hair had always defined him. He remembered feeling sorry for Chuck Swifert, who was only in the ninth grade when his follicles had disappeared into thin air. He wanted to break the mirror. He needed a shot and a line of 'Peruvian' cocaine. And the follicles fell . . . and fell, and with them, his self-esteem. His distress escalated with every strand that slivered down the aluminum drain. Depressed, Zooma grabbed his 'Steel Wheels' cap (from a Stones concert the week before) and pulled it snug over his scalp. Angie thought he was being silly and, her nonchalant attitude made him angrier. After Angie left for work, Zooma got 'knee-walkin' drunk and felt the need to jam, required a diversion. He lugged his guitar to the bar, then, when Angie retired to the restroom, he scavenged her purse until he found her stash. The initial snort of cocaine was always the best, as was the first beer of the day, or the first cup of coffee. Cocaine made itself at home. It brought out the best in Zooma West. He'd inhale the powder and the guitar would soar to the Highest Heaven. His deliberate fingers controlled by alien ghosts—the 'Blue Ping Aliens' guiding his nimble fingers over the voluptuous body of the Stratocaster. For those few moments, he'd forget about Angel the prostitute and Chester the fag. His guilt over Vanessa and Tater would subside. He'd bury his love of Lynne and the loss of Lennon. He would forget his fucking hair, or lack thereof. The Blue-Ping alien seduced. He ignored the bartenders, waitresses and barflies. How he wished he could find this solace without the cocaine. But the transcendental plane had reverted into the alley ways of his subconscious. Faded into the eternal realm. The cocaine fast-tracked GOD. He didn't want the feeling to end.

But, then, a note falters and his fingers cramp. The vibe self-destructs, the connection with the Blue Ping's severed. His focus diminishes, evaporates. He struggles with a chord, the fingering, the ominous fret board. He thinks of notes instead of feeling them. A hitch in his Groove. The attendance of bone and flesh. The 'blue-pings' have left the building, forever in retreat and nobody feels like playing anymore. The string will not bend, a common fly nestles upon his nose. Its hungry, oval eyes gloat at him, wings fluttering. He hallucinates. Stone-faced gargoyles glare at him. A white family bible awaits its bloody fate. He wastes a life with what he cradles—the Stratocaster, the Remington.

Home now. Angie's house. Zooma stares out the window. A mountain man, down the street, hurls a work-boot at a paranoid chip-monk. Knocking it senseless, draining the brain of the rodent with a claw hammer. The concrete bleeds crimson. Zooma lifts the deceased from the hot pavement. Buries the carcass in an aluminum vault, a garbage can stuffed with pizza boxes, empty vodka bottles, tampons and strands of hair bundled in tissue paper. Though Zooma West abhorred the thought of plotting the future, of planning for it. He felt the direction he was going was ill-informed. But as bad as it seemed, it was about to get worse...much worse. Angie's friend was due to join them within the hour.

* * *

Months after my parents had died, I was scraping dried cereal from the bottom of a bowl with my filthy fingernail. From the radio in the den, I listened. The opening chord (G-7 with an added ninth and a suspended fourth). A feeling long forgotten. The key that had once opened a door. 'A Hard Days' Night'

A feeling, dormant for so many years, rose within me and tickled my heart. As it had in '64, the song lit a fuse, if only for two minutes and twenty-eight seconds. Lennon and McCartney's pure, perfect harmonies. The pounding bass line. The song regurgitated repressed memories. Only twice in my life had I experienced a feeling so magical, so euphoric. The first time I heard the Beatle's 'A Hard Day's Night', it changed my perspective. It freed me. It transcended the expectations that society required of me. It was exhilarating. The second time was when I'd fallen in love with Fresca down in Tuscaloosa. It was the standard by which I'd compare all other feelings, and that was the downside. Once I realized there was the capacity to achieve utter bliss, be it from a girl or a song, I desired to sustain it. Anything less than that euphoric bliss was not acceptable. But desire is hope and hope is faith and believing the future held any promise was a hopeless exercise in futility. And it occurred to me I hadn't achieved anything in my pathetic life. If that bliss was so important, why hadn't I utilized the means necessary to assure providence of such an endeavor? Now, in my mid-twenties, that glorious feeling of invincibility eluded me. The Butterflies had not jitterbugged in years. The guttural voice of John in the intro, '...It's been a hard days' night and I been workin' like a dawg'—the two-part harmony with Paul on 'tight, tight yeah'. The intro, a solitary chord. A definitive statement. Yet, the combination of notes a question and an answer, untethered, imploring me. Pursue the bliss. It admonished and challenged me, authorized me to find my own course, or curse, for better or worse. Where had I gone wrong?

My depression wasn't initiated by my parent's death (I was sad and miserable long before), Zoomas' departure from Huntsville had not greatly accelerated my despair. I had been melancholic for decades. I despised the intricacies and silly customs of daily life. The useless drudgery, the constructs erected in the name of tradition. Blind alleys paved in the name of progress, entrenched in the time wasted and space unclaimed. A hypocritical society, confusing nature with Truth. I cannot tolerate this heresy as I venture into the middle years. I endure discomfort, loathe confrontation, and, although hypocrisy is convenient and consoling, I do not understand why a man works (hates) the same job for thirty years, only to reap his reward in the guise of a modest check or an engraved punch bowl. The man a seal, groping for handouts of fish at the end of a hoop trick. "Dullies' trade life to sustain. But, when the end is near and the children are fed. When diplomas are framed and careers retired, the old man is spent. Thirty years working a job he despised, as if expecting to procure a second life by which he'd then be able to do the things he wished he'd done in the first.

Before Tater's killing, I'd had a reasonable childhood. I don't ever remember feeling bored. Always tasks to keep me occupied. Always food in the Frigidaire, air conditioning in the summer, electric blanket in the winter. I had my record albums and my chemistry set. I enjoyed Sea Hunt, I Spy and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Collected Archie comic books and could afford a 'Milky Way' at 'Hembreys' grocery store. When the urge struck, I banged on my drums. Then, after I'd killed Tater, I experienced an expedient, evolutionary process and the struggle ensued. Failure washed upon me like a terminal virus. I had struggled, I believed, to keep from becoming a lifetime member of The Least Common Denominator Society. The LCDS. That sector of society which exists to galvanize and seduce humans into a mindless state. Forcing them into a hypnotic trance, guiding them down the path with the least obstacles. The Least Resistance. The Least Trouble.

The LCDS encroached upon me, encouraged me to graze within the herd—required an hour a week in church on Sunday—advised watching the ubiquitous screenings of Tuesday through Friday night 'Movies of the Week' on NBC, CBS and ABC, and the fifteen boring minutes of Nightly, Frightly News. The generic, 'canned' Muzak in the same outlay of malls and convenience stores ingrained. I gorged on the interchangeable, bland hamburger and French fry. I digested the monotonous rhetoric and demonstrative demagoguery of the dual political 'party's'. Purified drivel, the music rendered, magazines read, movies screened—the same car polish, same peanut butter, Six cylinders. K and Wal-Mart. Shredit-Credit-Shed-it. Welcome to LCDS. Same. Same. Same. Don't be different, it demanded. We will condemn your rebelliousness, we will ostracize you, we will rape you. We will consume and regurgitate you. We will force you to push a penny across the floor with your fucking nose. The American Way. Capitalism refined. The spit and grime. Layered beneath the finest shine. Buffed into gray luster, spliced together in a pillar of slime. I found myself a dues-paying member and I didn't like it. My life had evolved into an unconscious transfusion of the bland, the normal, the bored. The Way! For the Whole family (or someone you love).

In 1980, after a life of bathing in the watered-down, zombie laden LCDS, it was time I raised the temperature. I decided to fuck the LCDS. I may have gone insane.

On May 18, bulging clouds drifted across America and cloaked Huntsville, Alabama, in grayish brown ash. Mount St. Helens had erupted in Washington State. The atmospheric jet stream gobbled it up. Transported the thick dust across the Plains. It sprayed the volcanic excrement over the city like a blanket, as if a cosmic vacuum cleaner had exploded. The aftermath found me clad in my dirty white and tight underwear, painting my ash covered front lawn a gorgeous shade of deep purple. Oblivious to the consternation of my abhorrent neighbors, I smeared the Falcon with Fuck Peter Pan peanut butter. Sprinkled Fuck Martha White self-rising flour over the entire sculpture. I brought my green bottle of Wasabi sauce to 'Chou Fungs' and poured the whole goddamn bottle into the sweet and sour soup at the buffet table. I painted my face with Fuck A-1 sauce and sang 'Mammy' to the shoppers in the mall. I picketed the parking lot of 'Shoneys' holding a handmade sign that read 'Homos Suck'. I molded three pounds of hamburger to my head and begged recruitment into the United States Marine Corps. Galloped into Hembrey's and asked the butcher for a haircut. I felt it imperative to rebel against the grain of the 'sane'. I defended my position as an advocate for the dismemberment of the LCDS. But it did not give up its dead. Its grip romanced me. My genitals chained and sold into slavery. My abhorrence with the nature of precedence and tradition prevented me from any casual conversation, thereby precluding me from moving beyond the first sentence with anyone I'd meet, including any girls with whom I maintained a casual interest. I slumped in my doctors' office, with patients in wait, and chain smoked until the room became a cloud of carcinogenic particles. Told the receptionist to go to hell when she threatened to have me arrested. The night Richard Pryor turned into a blow torch from free-basing cocaine, I painted the words 'FUCK GOD' on the side of my Falcon in large block letters. The following morning, the local Episcopal minister sent police officers to my home. They threatened to jail me, so, I changed the lettering to 'SUCK BOD'. I'd hired a gorgeous, black girl (a cashier at the M & J supermarket) to sway in my lap as I cruised the streets of Huntsville in a rented T-Bird convertible. But when I arrived at her apartment dressed in a bed sheet with KKK scrawled on it, she called the cops. I spent a night in jail. I hired a local Transvestite named Kenneth to perform fellatio on me at a hockey game at the Civic Center. He/she backed out when her/his boyfriend/girlfriend became infected with a sexual disease. I wanted to be Outrageous, out of the loop, a lone, rabid wolf. But I must admit, I feared the consequences of my actions, and the LCDS would be ruthless in its retribution. The effect of such nonconformist behavior mortified me, but I misbehaved regardless. I did not care for incarceration. Hated to be reprimanded or subjugated by my fellow card-carrying members of the society. I had to make a stand. I wanted the entire world, or at least my neighborhood, to understand my proclivity toward uniqueness. But fear of castigation remained a deep, dreaded secret, well-stocked in my brain, cast into the darkest bowel of my dissonant and chaotic mind. I equated being unstable with coolness. When young, I'd wanted to experience the lightness, the euphoria, the magic that Zooma possessed. It was a known scientific fact that energy does not die (in my case, it hibernated). Then, I'd shot Tater, and encountered a hitch in my groove. Relegated to the Horizontal Drift. A pulse of inactivity forty-four and a half degrees below the space-time continuum. My synapses decided it was time for a vacation. In my warped mind, I receded from a four-dimensional mind into a psychopathic trance. The height, width, and length of life ceased to exist. Longitude, Latitude, and Altitude dissolved into ATTITUDE.

I became a quiet assassin, in dark suit and skinny tie, white shirt and patent leather loafers. Strolling the neighborhood at night with a 007 Mattel toy-gun attached to my belt. Its black, phallic silencer ready for the hit. I hid in the dumpster behind 'Hembreys', 'TOP SECRET' scrawled on the side of my briefcase in red tape and shot folks in the parking lot. I scouted the streets at midnight from the roof of my house. Conversing through my toy walkie-talkie, transmitting mysterious information to Illya Kuryakin. The neighbors shut their curtains and locked their doors and hid the children. I contacted my associate and informed him of a double agent named Ricky Suggs (he lived on Cedar Hill, one street over). At three in the morning, I phoned a Rudolph Suggs (one of three Suggs in the phone book) and informed the lady on the other end that her son was in possession of stolen secret government documents. She replied she had no son named Ricky, but her husband's brother was a federal Marshall, and if I ever phoned there again, I would suffer the consequences. I demanded an apology, she refused, and a week later she received her first copy of 'Hustler' magazine.

I'd always wanted to be a Disc Jockey at WVOV, 1000 on your radio dial, a trillion watts of Beatle music percolating the ether. The studio was in the middle of a cotton field. Dressed in an orange leisure suit and spit-shined shoes, I informed the Dee Jay, Mark Stanley, that I'd been hired to read the noon day weather report at five minutes before the hour. When I claimed to the next Dick Clark, he had the nerve to tell me I was already a dick. In unmitigated audacity, he demanded I lose my Southern accent. Said I talked like Gomer Pyle. I persuaded him to allow me to announce the daily 'hog report', but that was all. Said I had to learn how to e-nunce-eate. OK Penis-head. I'd try it. But, listen, I'm nervous with you in the booth. Could you stand outside? I'd appreciate it. Well, no, he replied, he'd have to stay in the booth with me, station policy, uh...what is your name again? "Paul Harvey," I replied.

"Who hired you?"

"Listen, man, my dad's fixin' to buy this station."

"Ok, but remember, Paul, talk fast but e-nun-see-ate!" he said, perplexed.

Annunciate? Sure, Marcus. The 'farm report', one page of percentages and stock quotes for hog livers and bologna bulls. In sixty seconds, I would be LIVE and 'ON THE AIR'. Then, Mark did a foolish thing. He visited the coffee station outside the studio. I slammed and locked the door. Removed the needle from the turntable playing Thunderclap Newman's 'Something in the Air' (call out the instigator...cos there's something in the air...we got to get together sooner or later). I tapped the microphone with my fingers, and, sure enough, my charming voice rung loud and clear through a pair of huge headphones. I was 'On the Air'. I stuffed a finger in my ear like I'd seen announcers do, then spit into the microphone, "Afternoon, you bloodsuckers! This is yer farm report. Brought to you, courtesy of Pee Bees gun and tackle out there on Winchester road. The DJ here, Mark Stanley, told me the P.B. Stands for 'Protestant Bastard'. He said he'd been screwing PB's wife, that Jew bitch, and that her boy, Hitler's bastard son, is a queer and delights in shoveling boiled carrots in his Uncle Peter's butt. Hog bellies are down. The corn is wiltin'. No volcanic rain in sight. The cow-poke known as 'Pickled Peaches' is screwing his neighbor's chickens. Page two. Where did sissy farmer Davis get them scratches on his arms. He ain't no goat farmer for nothin'. Listen, folks, I gotta tell ya. If'n you ever want a supreme lickin', well, Mark, the noon DJ here at WVOV, be glad to give it to ya, free of charge in the rear...of the station. He'll give you a trillion watts of something you won't ever forget."

Mark slammed a broomstick at the locked door. His red, flushed, angry face seethed through a square window. Fiery blue pupils bulged from its eye sockets. His non-southern accent cursing me. The roaring veins in his red-neck tight ropes of furor. In the soundproof room. I read his lips. 'Motherfucker, Goddamn sonofabitchin' cocksucker, I'm gonna kill you', 'piece of shit'.

Then, he screamed so loud, the words pierced the soundproof window. "Are you FUCKING INSANE??!!"

I had to reply. "Am I fucking insane? Why in the wuurrlllld would I be insane, Marcus. Yeah, I'm a bit dis-shoveled. Is it because my eyes cross at forty-five-degrees and I'm peeing on your lousy floor at this moment. I mean, do I look insane? Was John the Baptist insane? Ok, Mighty Mark, you think I'm insane, huh? Okie dokie. Well, fucker, do I stuff my two-year-old in a 400-degree oven and bake her like a Christmas turkey? Did I blow up a bunch of girls singing church hymns? Did I murder a bunch a people from a tower in Texas? Am I the one who forces my cock up a pony's ass or march around town in a white cotton sheet hangin' black folk? You think I'm insane? I'm not crazy, morphoditey Mark, you are. You are all fucking insane. Well, shit, I am a little weird, but, what the hell." I resumed my diatribe, 'Ok, folks, that's the size of it. Remember, P.B. Gun and tackle shop. For all your perverted and butt-stuffered needs. This is Paul Harvey...Good day. Now," I turned toward Mark. "What was that about e-nunce-shi-a-shen?" I screamed as Mark busted down the door with a metal hat rack.

My black eyes didn't heal for a month. To this day, I sport a nasty scar above my lip, and shards of Thunderclap Newman continue to embed my left nostril. My accent continues to be full of turnips and grits. P.B. sued the station, eventually owned it and turned it into a gospel station. Mark was fired, attended St. Bernard's College in Cullman, Alabama, and became a Catholic Priest. His sister married Pee Bee, they moved to New Jersey, bought a farm and raised llamas. The FCC investigated the fiasco. When they demanded a tape recording of the incident, it had disappeared into the ether.

Next, I decreed myself a Black Belt in Karate. From an army surplus store, I purchased a white Karate belt and dyed it black. Discovered a white pair of cotton pajamas in my father's closet. I entered the Dojo on Jordan Lane like I owned the place. Assumed a Karate stance like James Coburn had done in the movie 'In Like Flint'. I chopped the air with my meaty Ginsu-like hands. Attempted to kick my feet into the air but could only raise them to my ankles. I crouched and shouted, 'HIIIaaaaahhHHHH' and 'oooooocccchhhhiiii'. The students were not impressed, arms folded, frowning, telling me I shouldn't be there and was in big trouble. An attractive, young 'white belt' practiced her forms, so I sauntered over, asked her to grip a plank of wood, and was about to demonstrate how to break the plank in half with my deadly hand, when, from a back room, a Junior instructor bounced across the mat screaming 'what in the hell do you think you're doin'?'.

"Search me," I replied. He demanded I 'spar' with him, considered an honor to fight a 'Black Belt' instructor. Turned out the gorgeous 'white belt' was his girlfriend. He threw me in directions I'd not realized my body could or would turn. He flipped me to the mat so hard photons clouded my senses—said if he ever caught me in this or any other Dojo again, he would turn my fuckin' ankle into a third eye. I soaked in a bathtub filled with strawberry soda until my dream of becoming James Coburn vanished into Kung-Fu thin-air. What I wanted I could not have. In my desire to be the drummer for a Rock and Roll band, I'd failed. I thought I'd had talent because people I didn't know (and didn't realize how drunk they were) had complimented my ability. Motivated, I practiced constantly. Although friends and non-musicians admired my ability, I realized 'real' musicians didn't. I became obsessed with the need for acceptance, credibility. When it didn't happen, it was devastating. Rejected and ignored by my peers. My perceived talent, my worth, reduced to beating a 'TV Guide' with a couple of Marlboro cigarettes. The more I'd practice, the more frustrated. The more musicians I'd meet, the more inferior I'd feel. My self-esteem eroded. I trashed my drumsticks and used my floor tom as an ashcan, my cymbal as a pizza pan. My approach dissolved into a miasma of shattered compasses. With my dream of playing professionally melting, I hid my drums in the bedroom closet to hibernate with spiders and rogue coat hangers. I exorcised them from my sordid life. Ignored televised concerts. Refrained from nightclubs where bands performed. Cursed by fate, miserable in my seclusion, I retracted from reality like a docile turtle. Retreated to my hard shell. There I stayed, until Monday night, December eighth, 1980.

That night, I needed to beat the shit out of something. Bored, listless, apathetic—the byproducts of lunacy, I finger-banged on a TV Guide. When beads of sweat broke on my forehead, I took a pause for the cause to slurp from a bowl of buttermilk and cornbread. I turned up the volume of the televised football game. Had mashed the bread with my fork when I heard the inimitable voice of Howard Cosell. "An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC news in New York City. John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West Side of New York City, the most famous perhaps of all the Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead on arrival..."

Howard's voice, tinged with anger and despair, relayed this unbearable news while grown men played a child's game. Time and light and place evaporated. This news was blasphemy of unbearable proportion. It was as someone had slammed a frozen bag of ice against my jaw. I fell into a gutter of nothingness, sucked into a Black Hole of despair. I crawled from the sofa to the telephone, then back again. Grit my teeth and sobbed. Desperate, I needed to grieve with Zooma. Lennon was our hero. I tumbled through the abyss and the memories of the past year surged within me like the clunking wheels of a freight train.

I sobbed until the bullet of remorse sprayed into my organs. Like an electric shock, I remembered the condolences for my parents. The dozens of sympathy cards. The countless Valium ingested. I remembered unplugging the telephone, not answering the door, and slicing my lip on a can of Fuck 'Campbells' Tomato soup—the plethora of rolled up newspapers strewn across the front yard like maggots; nailing the curtains to the wall; shooting out the house lights with a pellet gun; torching hundreds of photographs I'd piled in the bathtub and smoking three cartons of 'Kool's in three days. Recalled a neighbor mowing the knee-high grass in my backyard. Recoiled at not showering or shaving for weeks. I remembered how the mailbox leaned and wouldn't shut for the clutter; the dozens of putrid floral arrangements rotting on the front porch; the pinkish tissue paper clinging to the large Magnolia tree in my front yard like wet, dead leaves (where it continues to rot), compliments of young pranksters. I remembered watching punks scribble my driveway with chalk; 'Dick & Pussy sittin' in a tree, then comes Asshole & that makes three...'.

The backyard was covered with the excrement of dogs, cats, and rabbits. The carcass of a crow tangled in the azalea bush (where it remains). How useless I'd become, like one sock or glove, a lamp without a bulb, candle without a wick. I'd trashed or broken most of the appliances and fixtures in the house. The hunter green carpets caked brown with tobacco and gray volcanic ash. Floors streaked yellow with piss, littered with rogue black olives and shriveled mushrooms. The dishwasher home to a new species of fungi. Howard Cosell could tell me nothing more and there was nothing more he could tell me. John Lennon dead—that was all I needed to know. I moped about the den, wearing threads of pajamas not washed in years.

I glared at the ashtray on the end table. Underneath it was Mildred's ancient, flop-eared Fuck 'Good Housekeeping' magazine. That's irony. Me and 'Good Housekeeping'. I warmed my brain with shots of 'George Dickel'. Spit in the carpeted mosaic of cigarette ashes, burns and butts.

In my drunken, catatonic sphere, I noticed it beneath Mildred's magazine. How long had it been there? He hadn't been to my house in years. Strange I hadn't seen it before. On the cover of the book were a couple of strange looking degenerates (one a mutant frog) swerving through a psychedelic desert. I flipped to the inside cover to see the letter 'Z'.

I continued reading. '...We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold...and suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas...'

'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' by Hunter S. Thompson. I propped on the sofa and read the entire novel by candlelight.

I finished the novel and felt an embryonic bliss enfold me from parts unknown. Beside the monster (call it a telephone—for me it is the patio doorstop), lay a yellow pencil. I lit a smoke and scribbled on a rectangular envelope declaring I may have won 'Ten Million Dollars!!!' in the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.

I recall cursing the empty bottle of whiskey before passing out. The next morning, brown spittle oozed from my lips. The end-table candle had melted into a mound of plasma. I brewed a pot of 'Dantes' Inferno' (a name I used for my homemade hangover remedy; Tabasco, four lemons, spicy brown mustard, celery salt, horseradish and a splash of V-8 juice), then returned to the couch and read what I'd scrawled on the envelope...

"...Do the next thing...do the NEXT thing...The Lost generation we were, fleeing to San Francisco with flowers in our crotch...lust in our marrow...multicolored beads, Mardi Graw Hell...peace scorched naked skin... tie-died panties, bellbottomed breeches, fragmented hopes of making love, fucking war...Hendrix, rabbits in white, and people were strange... sicadelic summer, wise young prophets of pussy, parsley, rose and mary and sage. Golden rods, incense and peppermint, suns of flowers leap from pleat of ------(this word I haven't deciphered) robe, innocent sighs melancholy with herbs, B. C. romantic pilgrims from wicked streets, possibilities. Cloudlust and Starburst conjure and provoke, with a twinge of spiritual quarter note. I. The Child Summer. Summer of Love. Do the next thing...Do the NEXT thing.

Hell, I had never been to San Francisco, or Mardi Gras. Thirteen years old during the 'Summer of Love', I didn't know shit about Vietnam or Making Love. Had no use for a dime or a diamond. But, as I scoured the words, it occurred to me that I'd done something besides piss from the second story window of my bedroom; something besides dialing the last seven digits of my social security number to see who would answer; something besides catching flies and pulverizing roaches in the Fuck Hamilton Beach blender. I had written something other than my grocery list.

In the dregs of that December, hungover morning, it hit me like a frozen rope of pig-iron. I was no secret agent, karate expert, or disc jockey, not even a fucking drummer. Lo and Behold, I was a writer! And the reason I knew this was because...It is the ULTIMATE DIVERSION. The chaos and strife, the fear of a purposeless life—the realm of my existence reduced to my pen, my tablet, my words— mixed, blended and set in paper concrete, creating a world no one could destroy, ever. Action that didn't require assimilation, a solitary expression. If I wanted. To write. Incomplete sentences. so. be. it. If I didn't want verbs or wanted split infinitives (whatever they were) or a CAPITAL letter or, a, comma, or, if, I wanted to spell wurds different from Webstur's, I was free to do so. !dluoc I sdrawkcab etirw ot detnaw I fi. And not a damn thing the Least Common Denominator Society could do. Then and there, among my maddening bouts of agitation, among the dried carcasses of roaches and multi-layered spider webs, among the mottled green skins of month-old oranges, the petrified corn flakes, the ceramic bowls of congealed tomato soup, the urine drenched floors, foot-high grass, countless yellowed newspapers, foul smelling flowers, mounds of dehydrated mushrooms, I wrote. Early mornings, late nights. In the car, at Mullins drive in and Hembrey's grocery; at stop lights, on envelopes, grocery receipts, paper bags, toilet rolls, album covers, dollar bills, and matchbooks. My palms my tablet, my words, my life, my thrill, my strife, scrawled across scraps of garbage. I wrote until my thumb and forefinger were numb, until my knees and feet begged for blood. The garbage man, tuna fish, the 'Grizzard House', the Sixties, the Seventies, the 'Beatles', Manson, little league baseball, death, funerals, sex with women, men, children, the animate and inanimate. Love, lust and Trust. Talking tomato plants, Lawnmower assassins. Sentence here, paragraph there. I had rented Paradise without completely imploding. Most of my scribbling concerned Zooma West. He had always transfixed me. I wanted to be him. Transcend my moronic life by living through him. And so, I wrote Zooma's life for him, with him. His experiences became mine—his loves and losses, his trials and miles—his passion and his fashion. The thrillers and the fillers. Due Course. Writing would become my savior, my approach. I hoped.

* * *

When ugliness cries, beauty lies.

"She lacks self-confidence, Zooma. I need you to help me lift her spirit." Angie said, painting her face. From the stereo, Lennon's 'Yer Blues' snarled. '...Yes I'm lonely, wanna diiiee!' Earlier, Angie's friend had called, saying she would be late in arriving. Fine, that gave them time to visit the liquor store.

"Why?" Zooma asked, sitting in the passenger seat of the Corvette, sniffing a line of cocaine.

"Because I need some fucking help!"

"No. I mean, why doesn't she have any confidence?"

"Well, she's, uh, somewhat homely, I guess you could say."

"What do you mean 'homely'?"

"Go easy on her. I'm hoping tonight might boost her self-esteem."

"What does she look like?" Zooma asked, smearing his gums with the white powder.

Returning home, Angie almost collided with a bearded man wearing five overcoats. He pushed an overburdened shopping cart full of useless junk.

"She's here. There's her bike. Be nice, Zooma."

Angie parked the Corvette in the driveway. Slouching in the doorway was a figure covered with a dark, battered shawl. Atop her head was a wrinkled canvas hat that resembled regurgitated liver and onions. Two front teeth sprout from her lips at forty-five degrees. An upper lip intertwined with a deformed nostril like that of a sow. Her eyes were grotesque, set wide apart, so that she might see behind her without turning. Her jaw line was pock-marked, eyebrows penciled in. Zooma was mortified.

"Ellen, this is Zooma. Zooma, Ellen."

"Hey," Zooma mumbled to the ground, disgusted that Angie would do this to him.

"Ooomah," Ellen said. Her strange, wide-spread eyes searched the ground. The word oozed from her grisly mouth like pigeon excrement. Zooma could not ascertain whether she was smiling or grimacing.

"Well, guys and dolls, who needs a drink?" Angie asked, unlocking the front door.

"DOLLS. DOLLS? Holy Fucking Christ! Yeah, I'm gonna need a drink. There's not enough liquor in this house for what I need. I'm going to drink until I drift into unconsciousness. I'll be so drunk in an hour I couldn't get it up if Ann Margret walked through the door wearing a strap-on dildo. God help me, I've just met the daughter of Beezulbub," Zooma thought.

Angie high-tailed it to the bar before Zooma could strangle her. Martini, extra dry for Ellen, Tom Collins for her, and a triple shot of Absolute for Zooma. Ellen perched on the edge of the beige sofa. Her hoof-like feet covered with frazzled, pink socks; plastic sandals decorated with blue teddy bears. Her white denim shorts, unbuttoned, were cuffed an inch above her scaly knees, revealing a repulsive coat of vile, brown fur woven across her bulbous, unshaven legs. Angie delivered Ellen's drink to the sofa. Zooma slugged another shot. Ellen sipped her Martini. Her teeth knocked against the glass like a pair of dice. Gin seeped into her cratered cheek, then dripped to her denim shorts. What a homely fucking loser, Zooma thought, lighting a cigarette. Ellen's large breasts drooped in conjunction with her roving, lazy eyes. One west, one east. With a razor blade, Angie drew six lines of cocaine on a mirror. If her scowl was any indication, she'd have no trouble using the Gillette on Zoomas' throat.

"So, what did you do today, Ellen?" Angie asked, slicing the lines.

"I ook I og oo uh et," she said.

"Christ!" Zooma thought, 'what the fuck did she say?" Angie read his mind and said, "You took your dog to the vet? Is it sick?"

If looks could kill, Zooma would be dead. Ellen nodded. The condition of her mouth and teeth made it impossible for her to pronounce clearly.

"You should have gone to a fucking DENTIST instead of the Vet!" Zooma thought.

He rolled a joint, confident in his decision not to engage in the 'menage a trois'. But he realized he could not abstain without making the Navaho a raving lunatic. Snorting a line of coke, he wondered what this night entail, but, for sure, he hadn't expected this. To have sex with this hideous creature, delivered straight from hell, would be hell. Of course, it was possible that Ellen could be a monster in bed. Perhaps, a better lover than Angie, but he couldn't take that chance, it was the cocaine talking. Best to let demented thoughts lie. He needed a bit of Cosmic intervention, but the 'Blue Pings' had long left the building.

"Whea oo fom, ooma?" Ellen asked, grimacing, the gin loosening her contorted tongue. Zooma frowned at Angie as if to say, 'what did she say?'

"Zoomas' from Alabama, can't you tell by his accent?" Angie said. '...He sounds exactly like President Carter," she laughed.

"I don't sound anything like him," Zooma replied. 'Alabamians don't talk like Georgians...Hiii yaauull!" he screamed, in an exaggerated southern drawl, slow as molasses. '...I is Jema Cawta, and I is yo Presdent. Ya'll come to Jawga and git ya some a them thar p-nuts and tellum Jema sentcha! Take yo shoes off. Ya'll come back now, heah?"

Angie and Ellen chuckled at his portrayal.

"Hey!" Angie interrupted, '...John Belushi OD'd today in Hollywood."

"Ooo...?" Ellen asked.

Between the three of them, they emptied three quarts of vodka, half a liter of gin and three grams of cocaine. Smoked half a dozen joints and devoured four dozen raw oysters. Zooma surrendered to the agony like a battered pup. He hoped the threesome would be quick and painless. As the girls shared a joint, Zooma managed to attract Angie's attention with a fake cough. He motioned to the bedroom as if to say, 'let's get it over with'.

"Wanna go to the bedroom?" Angie asked Ellen, taking the hint.

"Yeah," Zooma interrupted. 'Ya'll go on, I'll be in there in a second, gonna have one more." He raised an empty glass.

"How 'bout it, Ellen?" Angie repeated.

"Uh...I ont hink so," Ellen said, glaring at the shag orange carpet.

"Plop Plop Fizz Fizz, oh what a relief it is," Zooma mumbled, glancing at Angie. But before she returned his glance, he pretended to search for something on the counter.

"But why not, Ellen, you said you wanted to...uh..."

"I id...fore I ot here...now I ust on't feel ike it. Oooma 'ont like me."

Angie frowned, glaring at Zooma. "Oh, honey, that's not true, is it Zooma?" She said with clenched teeth, stabbing Zooma with her pitch-forked eyes, unblinking.

"Naw, Ellen, I don't...your, uh, a ni... you're fine."

"El, come with me and you'll feel better," Angie smiled.

"Ot uunite, mayee sum uh er time."

'Well, Zooma,' he thought, 'you've done it now. You'll be lucky to ever get laid in this house again." But he felt terrible. He hadn't intended to hurt Ellen's feelings (he had), but she'd sensed his horror. For sure, Angie would 'cut him off' for a week or two, possibly, forever. "Nah, Ellen, you're all right, your cool, I...uh...uh." He couldn't find the words.

"O, it's ok, ooma. I'm axly oozd to it, butee is only kin deep, but ugly oes aa the a to the bone." Her words suddenly became clearer, the pronunciation more distinct, a metamorphosis of sorts. Zooma couldn't believe the change. She continued, '...A guy ook me to is partment one ight, he real drunk. Uh, next morning, he left uh partment, leave a note say I leave befo my stink attwact rats. And it was his house...I o I a monster, ut I can't help it. I orn dis way. I break irrors in my home. It akes ee sick. I ust want to die," she said, staring at the carpet.

"Oh, Ellen," Angie said, showered in pity. Zooma was transfixed at Ellen's vocal transformation. Must be the booze or the coke. Perhaps the cocaine had allowed her tongue, or deformed lips, or both, to e-nunce-cee-ate without any decipherable handicap. Ellen continued, '...I appreciate you, Ange. When I first met you, you were real and treated me fine, though I knew my looks sickened you. From eyes comes the heart. Zooma you're nice, but I fr....fr...frightened you. You tolerate me, and the drugs help. Still, please don't force me to do something I...d...don't want t...t...to do."

"Ellen, we would never force you to do..." Angie said, embracing Ellen, her flaring nostrils aimed at the beast slumped against the bar.

Zooma shrugged.

"...You didn't hurt me, ooma, you...dis..appointed me. I still remember when I first saw you walk into the Pipe. You were so ood-looking. I would have died if you had asked me to d...dance. You didn't notice me, but why should you? I hide in shadows, where I elong...a st...stupid dream. But when you and Angie got together...' She glanced out a window, '...One dance. It's all I ever wanted. I don't want to live no more. No one will ever want me. I'm a twenty-five-year old leper. Tonight was my first...d...date. Ever."

Bored with her self-pity, Zooma said, "Why don't you go see a fucking doctor, then, or a specialist?"

"Zooma!" screamed Angie.

'Jesus Christ!' thought Zooma. 'Ellen was drunker than a skunk. This pathetic diatribe rankled his nerves.' He poured another shot as Angie staggered toward the bathroom. Then, she turned to Ellen, "Honey, I'm shit-faced. I'm so sorry 'bout tonight... I didn't mean any harm, I promise. Let me go throw up and then we'll have another drink, play some music and chat, Ok?"

Angie entered the bathroom without a reply. She returned a few minutes later, her mind changed. "I'm going to bed. Ellen, you crash in the guest room, it's right next to the bathroom. I turned on the nightlight. Zooma, you get the chair. Good night."

"Well, fuck," Zooma muttered, tilting the bottle of vodka to his lips. He staggered to the leather, earth-worm colored recliner. Wondered what his penance would entail. Ellen lumbered from the sofa to the bar. Emptied the vodka bottle in two gulps. Her teeth rattling the rim like ballpoint pins tapping a porcelain vase. The last thing Zooma remembered, before retiring from the conscious world, was the slam of a bedroom door. Angie the Navaho was furious, and she wanted him to know it.

Around noon, Zooma awakened to Angie's hysterical screaming. His shoulder almost ripped from its socket.

"I'm sorry, Ange," he grumbled, apologizing for the previous night while he still had the chance.

"Something's wrong!" she cried. "Get your ass up and help me!"

"What do you mean . . . what's going on?" he stated, trying to focus.

"911 is on the way!"

"91 who?"

"Ellen won't wake up, Zooma, goddamn it. Oh, my God!"

Zooma staggered into the kitchen. Ellen lay spread-eagle on the floor. Her legs bent at hideous angles; her blouse and denim shorts twisted around her bloated waist. A puddle of urine pooled under her buttocks. Her face shrouded by the canvas hat. Strands of her copper colored hair yanked from her head. Black eyeshadow streaked her left cheek. An arm folded underneath her grotesque figure. In her right hand was a sheet of folded paper. An ambulance, siren wailing, came to a halt in the driveway. Angie, wearing a blue thong, dashed to her bedroom. She returned to the kitchen wearing an oversized T-shirt. Three paramedics, transporting little television monitors and wires and hoses, charged through the door,

"Get out of the way! Out of the way!" A paramedic ordered, as the other two began to perform their respective duties. Controlled chaos.

"Sir, you need to go in the other room," a medic directed Zooma.

"What's wrong with her?" Angie pleaded.

"Miss, leave this room. NOW!"

The paramedics inserted plugs into electrical outlets and attached wires to Ellen's arm. She lay there like a bag of spoiled, lumpy potatoes. One of the men clipped a tiny bracelet from Ellen's arm. Zooma retreated to the sofa and glanced at the paper he had snatched from Ellen's hand—the words scrawled in the penmanship of a second grader, '...Dear pretty little one, I wanted to tell you last night, but lost my nerve so I'm writing this letter. When I saw you at the pipe last Tuesday, you were kinda busy and talking to some boy.' Zooma glanced toward the kitchen. There on the kitchen floor lay Ellen's rogue sandal with a tiny, pink sock beside it. The medics hovered over her like buzzards. '...I love the way you play the gatar. I didn't know you were Angies boyfriend until lots later. I almost said hello to you once when you were playing pool, but I got scared. '

"SHE'S GOIN FAST . . . BP . . . MONITOR PAULIE . . . I NEED IV ASAP . . . HERE . . . HERE . . . C'MON HONEY . . . HANG ON. . . THERE . . . HOLD ON . . . HANG WITH US GODDAMNIT!"

'...oh yeah, I'm sorry about last night . . . I got to drunk . . . I never drink that much... '

"GET THE STRETCHER IN HERE . . . BP PAULIE . . . WE'RE LOSING HER . . . DAMMIT . . . PUT THAT . . . NO FORGET IT... BRING IT OVER HERE . . . WHO LIVES HERE? ...WE GOT PROBLEMS!"

'...you don't remember, but right before you fell asleep last night, I told you I liked you a lot and you said, 'we all have crosses to bear'. You were so right . . .'

"YOU THE TENANT HERE? ...WHAT IS THIS WOMAN'S NAME . . . HOW MUCH SHE HAD TO DRINK? ...AND DON'T TELL ME THAT'S BABY POWDER ON THE TABLE. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? ...UMPH . . . C'MON PAULIE, LET'S GET HER OUTTA HERE!"

'...well, my pretty little one, I'll be gone in the morning, before you wake up. I don't want to be no trouble with you and Angie, but I can't take it. If you go to the pipe tonight, maybe I'll see you there. Hope your not mad at me...'

"I NEED INFORMATION. . .ARE YOU THE TENANT SIR? ANSWER ME GODDAMMIT! ...DO YOU LIVE HERE? WHOSE HOUSE IS THIS? ...WE"VE GOT TO TRANSPORT THIS LADY ASAP...SHE'S IN TROUBLE."

Zooma West didn't acknowledge the questions. Angie gave them the information. Yes, Ellen had consumed quite a few drinks, yes, they'd done drugs, no, they didn't know she was a diabetic.

He folded Ellen's note. Wept as the paramedics hauled the stretcher to the ambulance. Her canvas hat abandoned on the floor. Her deformity, at long last, ceased to torment her. Her withered face covered with a tangled web of life-sustaining tubes. The kitchen door remained ajar as the broiling Vegas heat sliced through white lace curtains. Zooma retrieved Ellen's teddy bear sandal and placed it on the table. He folded Ellen's letter and tucked it beneath the sandal, then grabbed his backpack. He exited the open door as Angie sobbed in the den. He strode past the mailbox at the end of the driveway, leaving his suitcase and guitar in the house. He wanted to get as far away as he could. He wallowed down a trail of remorse, not knowing where to go. His blue suede boots soiled by a decomposing chip-monk. The maggot-infested carcass splayed in the gutter. He passed the over-burdened, junk-filled grocery cart unblinking.

Three days later, Zooma West cowered in a telephone booth outside a Walgreen's Drug store in Amarillo, Texas. Angie's tone was amiable, but precise. Ellen had slipped into a diabetic coma caused from a combination of her medication and her indiscriminate consumption of alcohol and cocaine. She died that night. Angie donated Zoomas' guitar, his suitcase and its contents to the Salvation Army. Demanded Zooma never contact her again. As he hung up the phone, Zooma wept as never before, free-falling into the abyss. It was time to go home.

* * *

Six days and a three-hundred dollar fine. Penance for my behavior at WVOV. By the time the cops arrived at the radio station, I leaned against the Falcon, devouring a slice of week-old pizza I'd found in the glove compartment. Marcus wanted me arrested for breaking and entering, but I pled down to disturbing the peace. The tapes of my tirade were burned. Marcus was in enough trouble as it was for even allowing me into the booth. Jail was survivable—I was comfortable in solitary confinement—my psyche imprisoned for years. Although I must admit jail lacked a few sanitary items. When I demanded a large recliner, a 'Terry's' pizza and a refrigerator, Billy, the jailer, snickered. The picture on my television was fuzzy. I bitched and moaned over the meager portions of beans and rice. When they would not render me a pen and paper, I threatened to bomb the courthouse and sue the county. My prison-pink uniform was twenty sizes to small. The constant clanging of metal and sickening odor of bleach drove me mad. It was three in the morning when I got a hankering to sing 'Working in a Coal Mine'. Crooned it until Billy the jailer threatened to sew my lips to my ankles. My antics must have worked as I was released after only three nights. Relieved to return to the sanctity of my homely zoo. The minute I entered my humble abode, I stripped naked and masturbated to a photo of Julie Barnes. Still not satisfied, I consumed a gallon of peach ice-cream. Now I could resume my Ultimate Diversion.

Instinct memory battlefield regret. My words concealed, contradicted, and converted me, but they never failed me. I detest the drill burrowing into the decay. Yet, find comfort inventing epithets that convey my disgust at the stench of regurgitated sardines on my dentist's breath. The written word expresses my horror at the motel manager who reeks of overcooked curry.

When a pervert at the Hilton offers to buy me a drink, do I refuse? I shudder at his rotten odor. His nagging cough in the final stage of tuberculosis. Repeating four times ten in a minute how he hates queers. Should I shake his hand, again and again? Thank him for the drink, and immediately proceed to wash myself of contagion? Have I stooped to patronizing degenerates? Existing in the lower echelons he is nothing if not scum. Should I murder him? Put him out of his fucking misery? Buy him another drink to soothe the pain of four broken ribs caused by a driver who didn't see him crossing the street? Will I follow him home to smoke a joint, or does he want to suck my cock? A lonely, pathetic man, intent on fertilizing a graveyard. The epitome of neglect and despair—no more chances—a hopeless, disappointed soul. Has his disease infected me? Did the crosswinds demand it? Have I a death wish? This scrawny man desires my pity. Requires it. And I comply. His death later tonight is but a swish in my life, a quick, intoxicated moment soon forgotten. He is of no consequence, for I have my own demons to exercise. I wish him Death without Pain. Misery conquers failure. Failure is my fate. Only these black, consecutive words will outlast the repulsive stench of my rotting marrow.

I was not groomed to write. I am DOOMED to conjure. To remain sane. In the beginning, I harbored no desire for anyone to read my words—detested fame and fortune, the anointed or appointed. Then, one day, Smiley, the 'bug man', sprayed my house for roaches. From the kitchen, he laughed at something I had written about a motherless kitten. I guessed his guffaw was a better response than total indifference. But it terrified me, for, at that moment, it mattered not what I wrote but what he read. Fodder for the reader. Smiley and I bartered with one another, as he needed the twenty bucks and I needed dead roaches. Both of us getting what we needed. But it's funny. No matter how much I wrote, nor the number of demons I conversed with or traversed upon, my sadness continued. Unabated. Depression trumped any hope of salvation.

Regret consumes my every breath. Hard to stay afloat when the boats got a hole. I relished self-pity. Comforted in it. Deserved it. It lurked in the shadows and implored; drink another margarita, debase another postman, devour another pizza, recall another regret. It whispered, you should have never left Fresca's side, you should have never gone to Tony Ruminellos'; never taken Vanessa to Boner field. Should have called the police. Should have paid attention to your teeth and stop eating like a fuckin' pig. Should have practiced the drums more and should have...well...the list is endless. My pathetic whispers chained me to bed for weeks. The more I wrote, the louder the whispers, the tighter the chains. I'm twenty-eight years old—a lot of holes in this boat. I tread the murky waters of regret until the sheer number of them drag me under. But I continued to write. '...God is a Big Black Toe. Be not the center of attention, be attentive to your Center. Bird captures snake, man devours bird, the serpent's tooth is sharpened. 'If Ida known it'd be like this, Ida got drunk a whole lot sooner...' I've notebooks full of silly, shitty 'ditties'. Pages and pages of the philosophical, the incomprehensible. Dozens of yellow legal pads extrapolating the ideology of Communism, Buddhism, Catholicism, sadism, atheism, orgasm, jism. I invented Pantherism. My philosophy espoused no personal philosophy, other than what I would eat, drink and smoke. I cursed everyone and everything. I didn't give a fuck. The benevolent crosswinds had not intervened in my behalf. I was the greedy boy at the county fair, refusing to climb atop the greased flagpole for the twenty-dollar bill at the top. I sulked on the ground, bemoaning my failure as nine other boys climbed atop the shoulders of one another. I was not the tenth boy who retrieves the twenty-dollar bill, makes change and dispenses two dollars each to the others. Greed, the name of the game. I snatched what I could. The thought didn't enter my mind that the more shoulders I climb, the less reach I need. I didn't need more shoulders. Compromise not in my vocabulary.

Until my parent's death, I'd managed to sustain myself by working a job which didn't invite introspection. My ideological framework evolved from the river of existentialism. I would succeed, or fail, on my own terms, and I would not owe anyone for either. I wanted the whole twenty. I became lazy, apathetic and disenchanted. The idea of wasting my approach by dealing with the useless drivel of social interaction sickened me. I loathe consciousness. I'd hoped the gaudiness of my approach would bathe me in self-sustenance. Instead, it extinguished the flame of my dreams and mocked my definition of success. On rare occasions, when a pretty girl smiled at me, or when I heard a Beatle song, the coals of youthful fires would reignite. And, for a while, the fire sizzled. Then the flood returns, and the rain of regret drizzles my spirit. Over the course of many years, my hopes and wishes evolved into Confusion. What I thought a master plan for success and contentment evolved into an atrocious recipe of degenerative goulash. I rose above the mundane, uninteresting, unintelligible, flat-topped 'Dullies'—they sickened me. I soared above the trivial pursuits of boring zombies. There would be no wife, no white picket fence. No two and a half kids, two car garages or dinners at five. No begging for blow jobs. No eight to four, no boss, no IRS, CPA, GYN, or RSVP. No monthly bill from J.C. Penny, no dog food or Gerber mush, one toothbrush, one load of laundry, eggs cooked my way. The hot water tank full. I'd watch Harry Dean Stanton and Peter Lorre all night, sleep until noon or go to bed at noon. Drink until drunk. Pass out in the backseat of the Falcon. Gloat at pussy in strip joints. Listen to the Beatles instead of Streisand. Pick my nose and fart in bed. Masturbate in the living room and come on the carpet. Allow milk to spoil watch bread turn green. Irrigate the mold living on the shower curtain; start an ant farm in the garbage disposal; count the burns and semen stains in the mattress; keep my beer and liquor in the medicine cabinet; wear the same underwear for a week; hang from the cheap chandelier in the 'living room'. Blood on the towel's, come in the carpet, spit in the eye. Some idiot has said that a writer must experience life. Well, hell, anybody who lives experiences life. What a writer must learn to do is prepare coffee. Huntsville, Alabama has always been my home. I have never left. Sure, I'd gone to the occasional family reunion down in the country. But when Colonel Sanders and Wal-Mart potato salad replaced fresh-shucked corn and just-picked greens, I never attended another.

I decided I needed to go SOMEWHERE. For no other reason than to satisfy some jerks' opinion that a writer needed to SEE places. My destinations outside Alabama emanated from Mildred's travel magazines. From the sordid confines of my tormented mind. In the winter of 1981, I moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Withdrew two thousand dollars from my checking account. Updated the bills, disconnected the television cable, telephone, and electricity. I advanced Kevin, a neighbor, a hundred dollars to collect my mail twice a week.

I was homesick the second I pulled out of my driveway. What was I doing? I had no plan, no interest in challenging my emotions. Though I hadn't seen Zooma in years and had no idea where he roamed, I was still trying to impress the roving lunatic. Diving head-first into the unknown. Tempting fate, allowing the chips to scatter where they may. Zooma had done his entire life. Cruising down Highway 72 West, I realized what a terrible mistake I had made. But Memphis was a music town. I could start a band. Unfortunately, my confidence had dwindled to the point where I hadn't even packed my damn drums. I planned to give the city a year.

I rented a room at the 'Guard Your Life' motel on Lamar Avenue, miles from Beale Street, where I'd wanted to stay. But the rates were reasonable (sixteen dollars a night). I was struggling with a jar of peanut butter, when, outside my window, a naked, black man began arguing with a teenage girl. The girl was reneging on a two-dollar blow job. When she stormed from his room with his cash, the syphilitic bastard went apeshit. After the police hauled the man to jail, I brushed my teeth and got the hell out of there. The following night, I stayed at the 'you don't-want-to-stay-here' motel. It was only three street-corner prostitutes from the 'Guard-Your-Life'. One hundred, twenty-five dollars a week. At no extra charge was a shit-stained mattress and a moldy microwave laden with dried mouse turds. Yellow-flaked plaster drooped from the ceiling like the flags of the United Nations.

Though I didn't need to work, I felt energetic. Loitering at the coke machine, an old, bedraggled black man offered me a job. Way too early the following morning, donning heavy leather gloves and yielding a hammer, he directed me to a huge mound of loose bricks. A monolithic anthill, previously the foundation of a skating rink. I was instructed to ascertain whether a brick was intact, chipped or cracked. I'd fling inferior bricks into a corresponding pile. Then, one by one, chip the melded chunks of hard, gray concrete from the salvageable ones. Many times, my aim would be off, and I'd ruin a perfectly good brick, rendering it useless. My thumb resembled a purple turnip. In three days, I became a 'forty brick a day' man. At ten cents a brick, I'd take home four dollars. By noon I'd be sweating like a Pamplona bull. The old black codger who had offered me the job (Moondog) rented the room next to mine. He was friendly enough, though his appearance frightening. His left eye congealed in a mess of cloudy, milky pus; his wrinkled, black skin resembled the leathery flesh of a Rhino. As we chipped bricks, I'd ask him questions, but he'd shrug me off saying, 'boy, yo tongue's too loose'. He spoke like his tongue was made of gravel. My inquiries persisted. I reckoned he figured I wouldn't shut up until he answered.

As a toddler, Ellis (named after the Island), had swiped snuff from his mother's tin and got so sick he'd stayed in bed for a week. The brand of the pungent tobacco: Moondog.

Cavorting to the brick pile the following morning, I'd brought along my spiral notebook. "What's dat?" he croaked, dabbing his milky eye with a wad of tissue.

"Uh, well, I was hoping, you wouldn't mind if I wrote down a few things."

"Un huh...like what?"

"Well, like how Memphis used to be—back in the old days."

Moondog grunted. "Uh huh...so's you fishin' for stories."

"Well, yes, sir. I mean, ever met anybody famous?"

Moondog glanced at me from his pile, and for the first time since I'd met him, he smiled. His mouth contained an orthodontist's nightmare. What few teeth remained in his bald vein-mapped skull were corn-meal yellow. Stained with little brown curves that looked like pubic hairs.

"Alright, den, what ye wants ta know?"

"Whatever you want to tell me."

"Uh huh." He grunted. When we quit for the day, I had filled three pages. Scribbled across the top of page one. 'Ignorance is bliss'.

Once I got him to talking, he wouldn't shut up. Moondog's paternal great-grandfather, Amos, had been a Georgia slave. He'd had an affair with the Mayfield Plantation owner's wife. The woman, Dog's grandmother, branded for life, hung herself from a second story balcony. His maternal grandfather had escaped slavery by following the Underground Railroad. Found work in a Chicago stockyard, married Harriet Beecher Stowe's cousin and sired eleven children. He succumbed to the 1918 Flu pandemic. Moondog's father, Jacob Terrace, served in the Spanish American war, got in the ring with Jack Johnson. Drank whiskey with Teddy Roosevelt. Lost a leg while working on the Indiana railroads. Jacob married Anna Belle Washington in 1928; she a distant cousin of George Washington Carver. Jacob perished in the great flood of Greenville, Mississippi. Moondog was born in Robinsonville, Mississippi on Black Tuesday, 1929. In '31, he and his mother, Anna Belle, ventured to Alabama to protest the trial of the 'Scottsboro Boys'—nine black men accused (later vindicated) of raping a white woman. They would settle in Memphis where Anna Belle found work singing in a jukejoint. She supplemented her income by servicing traveling salesmen in their rooms at Mitchells Hotel, located at the corner of Beale and Hernando.

Moondog remembered peering through the window of Morris Lippmans Hardware Store. He watched grown men weep when Jesse Owens won four Gold medals at the Berlin Olympics in '36. He recalled, along with thousands of other proud Negroes, storming the streets when Joe Lewis knocked out heavyweight champion Max Baer. He'd clung to his mother as she sung with 'Howlin' Wolf on stage at the Flamingo Room. He picked at a cherry pie as she shared a bed-time story with Robert Johnson, the young Bluesman who had sold his soul to the devil at the Crossroads of Highway 61 and 49. Anna Belle would mend a hole in W.C. Handy's trousers and read W.E.B. Du Bois by candlelight. One desperate night, she crouched in a cold alley and stabbed a needle into her vein. In the throes of the horse, someone beat her to death with the fat end of a saxophone. The bloody and dented instrument later found clogging a Memphis sewer. Moondog carried his mother's ravaged corpse to the backseat of a '39 Ford. Clothed her in a raincoat and buried her on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi. He would become proficient in the instrument that had killed his mother and start a band called the Moonglows. They combed the flats of Arkansas in search of juke-joints. In the Delta, they fermented blackberries and hand-rolled Camels. Seduced lonely old women, and, if fortunate, the women's daughters.

During a one-night stand in the snowy winter of '47, Moondog impregnated one of those daughters. Eight months later, she escaped to California with son in tow. Twenty-one years later, a newspaper article revealed the identity of the limo driver who had driven the Beatles to meet Elvis in Bel Air, California, in '65. Two years after that, the limo driver would receive the Purple Heart for his heroism in the jungles of Vietnam. The hero? Alonzo Terrace, the splitting image of his father. Moondog was so proud of his son.

In the early Fifties, Moondog was hired to sweep floors at Taylor's Café on Union Street. There, he met Sam Phillips, founder of the Memphis Recording Service. Before long, Ellis was sweeping the floors there. He would shine The Howlin' Wolf's shoes and roll cigarettes for Mister Sam. Run errands for Ike Turner and Little Milton and Junior Parker and Johnny Ace and Rufus Thomas and T-Bone Walker. And he, Moondog Terrace, was as talented as the rest of them. He'd beg for a recording session at Phillip's place and plead with the owner of Hi Records on South Lauderdale. He'd drag his horn to Stax Records. Mention his friends, Sonny Boy, and Memphis Minnie and Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt and Bukka White. At t Black Swan Records, he'd jam with Alberta Hunter and Bessie Smith and Blind Lemon Jefferson. And man, the applause he'd receive at the Stanley Club between Union and Beale. He'd get standing ovations, free whiskey, and grilled cheese sandwiches. 'Boy, I am the Delta' he'd tell me.

The following morning, I arrived early at the brick pile with two steaming cups of 7-11 coffee. "Was Elvis ever around when you worked for Sam?"

Moondog sighed. "Well, suh, dat boy culla blind. He stay in dem gov'ment projects longer'n most black folk, dressed 'bout as raggedy too. But, dat boy could sho swing."

"You actually met him?"

"Boy, what you talkin' bout, I's use to butta flap jacks for he and Mister Sam, yassuh, 'bout two, three nights a week. Mista Elvis liked his bacon burnt. Kitchen be so smoky, I'd hafta open ever window in the place. Fetch my broom and swoosh it out before peoples complain. But Mista Elvis laff, be concern'd 'bouts' my welfauh. His daddy give me five hundert dollar bonus in sitty-seben."

"You cooked for Elvis, and Sam?"

"Yassuh. Sho did."

"How'd you meet him?"

"Shoot, boy, I knowed the Presley boy 'fore Mister Sam. Fact, Elvis asked me if he can trust Mista Sam."

"What was Sun Records like in those days?"

"Well suh, back then theys call it the Memphis Re-cordin' Service. I's recall when they haul them prisoners in. They gone sing, and theys so many po-lice, most folks thought the guv'nuh come to town. One boy, pot washa, he figuhs they a comin' for him and bout ripped the hinges getting' outta dat back doh."

That week, Moondog kept chipping away at bricks and I kept chippin' away at him. I became enthralled with this man's history. To hell with a lousy brick. I'd plant my fat ass on the pile and write. We were paid by the brick, not by the hour, so if I chipped ten bricks, well, that would be a dollar more than I had when I started. Hell, I didn't need the money, I needed a best seller.

"You ain't gone git no dolla today, boy, you don't start hittin' brick," he'd say to me at least twice a day.

"Damn, Moondog, you knew Elvis before he got famous? Ain't many people done that."

"I reckon's not."

"Heck, you should write a book."

"Cain't reads nor writes. 'Sides, ain't no prize awaitin'. Didn't nobody have no money in dem days, we's jes getting by. Most folks doin' no better'un me. Dat fella, Mister Jerry Lee sleep in his car, I give him a biscuit or two when I could. Theys' a raggedy bunch in dose days, Carl, Mista Cash, Wolf. This town ain't like it use ta be, back in dem days."

"So, why didn't you make a record?"

"What say I didn't? 'Sides, theys things c'mence ta happenin' made mo' sense."

Over the next few days, I couldn't get Moondog to shut up—he talked faster than I could write. I bought a battery-operated cassette recorder and balanced it atop the brick pile. Nights when I'd return to my motel room, I'd transcribe the tape. Scribbling in my notebook, I only took breaks to rehearse my acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1960, Moondog boycotted 'F. W. Woolworths'—Negroes forbidden to sit at the counter. He seated himself and was arrested. He'd joined the 'Freedom Riders' in Birmingham to support the desegregation of public facilities. Beaten with a steel pipe by a bunch of thugs, the police were notified. They assaulted him again. Arrested in Montgomery for protesting the trials of the original 11 Freedom Riders. He'd become friends with Percy Julian, the chemist who would lay the foundation for the birth control pill and the syntheses of cortisone, isolating specific molecules from the African Calabar bean and the Mexican yam. Julian had over one hundred patents, the first Black American inducted to the National Academy of Science. The only inductee whose home was blown to bits by a couple of ignorant racists.

Moondog stood proud when Mr. James Meredith became the first Black student to enroll (after four previous attempts) at the University of Mississippi in 1962. In '63, three days after Elizabeth Taylor made a million dollars playing Cleopatra, Ellis prayed for Medgar Evers, gunned down for no other reason than having black skin. Moondog sobbed when Addie Mae and Cynthia and Carole and Denise, dressed in their Sunday finest, were dismembered by a bomb at a church in downtown Birmingham. Two months later, he wept when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. In September of '64, for the first time in his life, he pissed on a white man's toilet at the Anniston bus depot. In '65, he marched from Selma to Montgomery, rallying for the right of Blacks to vote—a hideous scar on his shoulder proved it. And when his own people burned down more than 200 community businesses in Watts, he felt disgusted and ashamed. Rejoiced days later attending 'Wattstax', listening to Isaac Hayes and Rufus Thomas. Mavis Staples demanded 'Respect Yourself', put your hand over your mouth when you cough. And in '67, when Muhammad Ali refused to fight the Viet Cong (they had never called him 'nigger'), he couldn't imagine such courage.

He'd applauded when the Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the first World Football Championship in 1967. That same year, 9,419 Americans died in Viet Nam. His son, Terrace, among the dead. He sobbed when another Kennedy was murdered in cold blood in the kitchen of the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles. On April 4, 1968, he scowled in the parking lot of the Lorraine Motel as the blood of Martin Luther King Jr. rained down from a balcony not quite high enough. He'd told me, "your people walked on the Moon. You had your Woodstock. But you also had My Lai and Kent State. Your share their disgrace; Chicago Seven, Pentagon Papers and Watergate, your Lester Maddox and George Wallace. But we had success—Hank Aaron and Richard Pryor and Thurgood Marshall. New York City declared October 29 Muhammad Ali Day. Yet, four months earlier, someone shot Martin Luther King Jr.'s mother to death as she played the organ during church service. So boy," he said. "Does all that Evil make us even? We square?"

*

In the dim light of my motel room, night after night, I transcribed my notes from cassettes. I'd grown fond of Moondog. He'd lived a life like few others. Had touched the eye of the hurricane, participated in the storm itself. In telling his story, though, I felt I needed to verify his story. Needed an objective opinion. It was a cool, breezy Friday. I boarded a bus. Destination Beale Street. Devoured three racks of ribs at the 'Blues City Café'. Introduced myself to the bar-b-que master. A leathered, perspiring old man awash in a cloud of hickory smoke. Asked if he was acquainted with a man called Moondog. He couldn't remember, but the name sounded familiar. I strolled up and down Beale, asking every chef, bartender and musician over the age of sixty the same question. I got nothing, but drunk. A couple of winos, shivering under a cardboard box, said they knew him, but come to find out, they'd thought I'd said 'Coondog'. By the time The Beale Street Bums had bummed my last cigarette, I hadn't found one solitary son-of-a-bitch who had ever heard of Ellis 'Moondog' Terrace. Much less knew him. I stalked Beale Street like a buzzard. By early Sunday morning, I felt like I'd been whipped with the fat end of a banjo. I slumped on a bench in the park overlooking the Mississippi. Bummed a cigar from authentic 'Memphians'. Proud, black, men, withered and weathered, blue-gummed and gray-bearded, clutching brown paper sacks. Interested only in the way it 'used to be'. Before W.C. Handy and Muddy Waters left town to find fortune in St. Louis or Chicago. Back when Memphis had been a port of call; when the streets were crawling with outlaws and Riverboat gamblers; where more whores were available than deckhands. They spoke of 'guitar mans' sent to prison to die. Recalled one cohort who had 'run off wid a white woman', never to be seen again. They'd ramble on about Charlie Burse and the Memphis Jug' Band; about the 'real' Delta blues musicians like Walter 'Furry' Lewis and Jim Jackson; and old Boss Crump, the mayor of Memphis for forty long years, who kept the liquor pouring during Prohibition; how the Memphian prostitutes got prettier around Christmas time and thieves became bolder. The 'Old Beale' street. The 'REAL BEALE'. Mama Bell Thornton, Son House, and Rufus Thomas. But I needed information on 'Moondog', and I wasn't getting it. I wanted someone to stroll up and say, "You dat fella askin' 'bout 'Moondawg? Well, suh, I's there when the Dawg set fire to the Taylor place. Yassa, dat bacon grease ever'where," or, "I seen dem Alabama po-lice beat Dawg to a pulp with they billy clubs," or, "yeah, I 'member ole dog, he the one whipped them he-bitches with that dang horn a his. Sho did, went on a cheap wine binge and beat three man's wid his sack'fone−yassa. their broke jaws held together with the dang strings from a geetar."

But nobody knew nothing. I visited the library and perused Memphis history books. No Moondog. No Ellis Terrace.

Monday morning, I intended to find out why. I didn't say a word when I got to the brick pit. Didn't say a word during our lunch break.

"Cat gotcha tongue?" Moondog asked, munching his tuna sandwich.

I cleared my throat. "You didn't know Elvis; didn't march from Selma to Montgomery; never met Sam Phillips or Howlin' Wolf. And you weren't at the Lorraine motel on April fourth, 1968, were you?"

With his good eye, he pondered me for a moment, then wearily sipped his coffee. "No, boy."

"Then why? Why did you tell me all that stuff?"

"You're writing a book, ain't you?"

"Yeah, but I wanted the truth! Not a bunch of lies!"

"Lies widen the eye of the beholden."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Means you wanted it to be true."

"But it wasn't!"

"No, boy."

"Then, what is. I mean, what's happened to your voice?"

Moondog no longer talked as if he'd hadn't completed fourth grade, he no longer used words like dat and dem and dose.

"Most things are not what they seem..." He replied in a low, gruff voice. He chipped a brick and a fragment ricocheted off my cheek. I wiped the blood as he continued. "You needed authentication if you were going to epitomize an ignorant Blues man. So, I became your perception of how an old, ignorant, black, hard-working man should speak. Mister Panther, mine is not a compelling story. So, you want the truth?"

I wasn't sure. Embarrassed and numb, I was an idiot, taken in by this damn old fool, sitting here on a pile of old busted bricks. I was the butt of a joke. A damn fool. Somehow, his phony history had made me the phony.

"No, Moondog, or whatever your name is, you've duped me enough. I appreciate the time you've wasted on me. Hope you got a kick out of it."

But, then, I thought, how did this man know so much? I mean, he tossed out dates and places and names impossible to remember without, at least, contemplating these events. No doubt, the man was quite intelligent.

"No, boy, I didn't get a kick out it, as you say. And, yes, my name is Ellis Terrace. Born in 1939, in a neck of woods called Greenville, deep in the heart of the Magnolia state. I'm an orphan who served fifty years as a janitor at the Piggly Wiggly. And when I wasn't working, I was dabbling in the library. No, never met Elvis Presley or Sam Phillips or Percy Julian or BB King. Never joined the Freedom Riders. Wasn't near the Lorraine Motel on the fourth of April and didn't work at Taylors Café. My grandfather slaved, but I never knew daddy. He died before I was born. I didn't meet Robert Johnson and have never traveled to Scottsboro, Alabama. I did piss on a white man's' toilet and have this scar to prove it." He turned his head to the side; the scar looked like a lightning bolt) "But I'll tell you this. I've never been prouder of being a Black Man. Proud of my brothers James Meredith and Medger Evers. I shed many tears when those little girls died. When John and Bobby Kennedy were murdered, my heart broke. I was disgusted when my fellow black brothers destroyed their own community at Watts, but I stood fervent when Muhammad Ali fought for his beliefs. Yes, I listened as Bart Starr and Ray Nitschke won the first World Championship Game. Amazed when Neil Armstrong made a footprint in the Moon. Yes, I despised Lester Maddox and George Wallace with every fiber of my soul, but I idolized Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron and Thurgood Marshall. They kept me alive, boy." Ellis dabbed at his eye with a tissue.

I shivered. Uncertain if the cold, brisk wind was making me uncomfortable, or whether my shakes had been induced from the gravity of his speech. I grabbed a brick. Moondog grunted and continued, "...I commend your endeavor. Mister Trust, you deserve the truth. Tomorrow, you will get it." He tossed a cracked brick into a pile. I felt more embarrassed and ashamed of myself than ever. I wished I hadn't called him on his lies. I wanted to pack my bags and leave the crummy motel, but the price of his lesson deserved one more day. He would relay his truth—I would listen. My head was aching, sleep could not come fast enough. Two hours later, a knocking at my door.

"Boy, come over here," Ellis ordered, motioning me with his milky eye. He returned to his room. I tossed a flannel shirt over my torso, grabbed my smokes and entered his room. Ellis sat in a plastic chair at an oval table, his huge, brick-chipping palm fondling a cup. In the soft light, his jaw sagged, as if his skull was being pulled to the floor by a magnet. He wiped milky drool from his eye with a pink tissue. "Come in, boy, sit down, something I want to show you." His room littered with hundreds of books. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Kubla Khan, The Quiet American, Artificial Paradises.

"Remember I told you I worked at the Piggly Wiggly?"

"Yeah."

He placed the small pad on the table. "Open it."

I turned to the first page of an AmSouth bankbook. Five lines from the top, 112,425.54.

"What's this?"

"My worldly reward. Fifty years mopping floors and cleaning toilets and chipping bricks. One hundred, twelve thousand, four hundred, twenty-five dollars and fifty-four cents."

"Wow. Lotta money."

"Is it boy? What should I do with it?" He snatched a tissue. "...Will it buy me Paul Robeson's talent, the confidence of Fredrick Douglas? Thurgood Marshall's intellect? Henry Aaron's strength? The humility of Rosa Parks, perseverance of Dred Scott? The humility of Billie Holliday? Will my money buy Belafonte's voice? Scott Joplin's hands? Jesse Owens legs?"

I stared at his huge, flat, bare feet, like bear paws. His toenails resembled tree bark. Transfixed by his presence, I was embarrassed. I hadn't a clue who these folks were. He was slinging names at me like hotcakes. I had no interest in sports or politics or history. Ignoring my ignorance, he chuckled, then, shouted. "Look at me boy!" His bloodshot eyes inches away, his sour breath washing over me. "Do you even know the meaning of Charm? of Courage? Perseverance? Have you never listened to Duke Ellington or Nat King Cole? Ray Charles or Miles Davis? Have you never heard of James Meredith, Jackie Robinson or George Washington Carver? Does the name Emmett Till, mean anything to you?" He sighed, then relinquished his hold on my shirt. "Will those greenbacks guarantee my freedom, son? Will they afford me more time, deliver peace of mind? Boy, can this buy my Redemption? Allow me to live another day? Recover my Dignity? Ensure my Immortality? ...Well? Answer me!" He demanded, startling me. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to cry. He nudged at the bankbook. "...These numbers provide a single consolation, Comfort. It is all I need, my sole desire...tell me boy, what is your passion? What is your sadness? Let me tell you about mine..."

I needed to smoke but had left my cigarettes in my room.

He continued. "...In the morning, I have coffee among the alley-cats behind Woolworth's, because I am not allowed to sit at the counter with white men. When I'm done, the white woman uses a napkin to grab my tainted cup and slings it into a cardboard box labelled 'Niger cups', spelled with a single 'g' mind you. So, who's ignorant? Afternoon, like any ten-year old, I teeter at the edge of the public pool, and when I test the water with my toe, the pool is immediately vacated. The man threatens to lynch me as they drain the pool, now contaminated by a Negro savage. A little girl hollers 'niggers' ain't allowed in here, this is a 'Public Pool'. On the way home, I slither to the back of the bus and hide. But they find me, strip me naked, twist my arms and bind my legs. A boy coats my genitals with white paint. I gag as they force me to swallow laxative, shouting 'drink up nigger', howling like hyenas. Boy, do I look like a circus monkey? Then, in the middle of the night, mama awakens to flaming torches and burning cross—a crack of gunfire. My guts churn in the black and sickening night as angry ghosts dressed in sheets holler, 'we gonna get all you niggers!'. And mama's crying and I'm shaking and the whole damn world is burning. In the morning, I retire to the privy, trembling, my fear reflected in the blade of a butcher knife. What looks back at me? Something sub-human. Soul-less. At last, I am convinced. I am a Nigger."

He said the word 'am' with such force, such despair, I thought he might whip the living hell out of me. Then he lowered his voice and continued; "...and the next day, I go to Woolworths. On the cardboard box, above the words 'Niger cups', some ignorant fool has scrawled 'durty', with a 'u'. At the swimming hole they erect a sign—'No coons allowed'. When I huddle to the back of the bus a white girl asks, 'did you have a nice shit this mornin, silly nigger?' That night, KKK scrawled across the front porch. A co'cola bottle bust my bedroom window. The kerosene inside it scorches my legs. That is when I lost consciousness.'

I stare at the wads of white and pink tissue littering the table between us.

'Then, during the endless, sufferable days and the longer, sleepless nights, I read the Emancipation Proclamation. Listen to the 'Maple Leaf Rag'. I whoop when Henry Aaron hit his 715th and memorize the Dred Scott decision. And the trough swells with redemptive waters. I am revitalized, if only for a moment. A blessed reprieve, until the splintered hooves stomp upon me. Until the serpent's tongue sharpens once again."

A single, wet pearl of tear. "Go now, boy, go find your own sadness. I haven't enough for the both of us."

"Sorry, Moondog."

"Apologies will not break the cycle, son."

The following morning, I packed the Falcon with my meager belongings. Returned to Huntsville with chapped hands, sore elbows and pierced cheeks. So much for traveling the world, savoring the experiences, learning to be a writer. Now, my destination; to burrow into the recesses of my demoralized mind. Even there, I loathed the journey. What I did not tell Moondog was, I didn't have to find my sadness, it had found me. What he meant was; I should not hide my sadness, should not shroud my misery. When I finally arrived home, I slept for seventy-two hours. Even that was not enough.

HOMECOMING

1982

Tuesday August 31, (National Weather Service -NWS) A Tropical Depression, traveling Westward over the Atlantic Ocean reaches tropical storm status at 12:00 P.M. (CATS) Noon today. Tropical storm Chris, 20 miles East-Southeast of Key West continues moving West- Northwest at a forward speed of 10 MPH—Winds extend up to 200 miles from the storm center—warnings remain in effect from the Florida Keys inland to the Coastal peninsula. The storm expected to intensify as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico.

Poisoning by carbon monoxide is one of the most common types of gas poisoning. When carbon monoxide is inhaled, it contacts the blood and combines with hemoglobin. Since carbon monoxide combines more with hemoglobin than does oxygen, it takes the place of oxygen in the erythrocytes, and the tissues are thus deprived of their normal oxygen supply. Death from asphyxia results if a large enough quantity of carbon monoxide is inhaled. The symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are dizziness, headache, weakness, shortness of breath, possible nausea, then unconsciousness. The skin and mucous membranes become cherry red in color.' -Miller-Keane Medical Dictionary

My excursion to Memphis had depressed me more than ever. I had failed, would forever fail. Nothing but a useless blob of fat and lazy. Would never get any better—Doomed. Every reasonable scenario envisioned resulted in failure. I lacked motivation. Nothing inspired me. My spirit warped beyond recognition. I didn't give a damn. There was consolation in hibernating. Although the rampant accumulation of bedsores caused concern. With the onset of starvation, it became necessary for me to delay my continuing slumber. I entered the kitchen. Had shoved the accumulated mail from the table to the floor when I noticed the stack of identical envelopes. There were twenty. All with the same return address; 'Silver City Towing- Tonopah, Nevada'. Addressed to Johnny West c/o Panther Burn Trust. Inside were invoices; a twenty-five-dollar towing cost, plus two-dollars per day storage fee for a 1971 Volkswagon. The total amount came to almost five hundred bucks. Well, some days were better than others. Evidently, Zooma had encountered some sort of setback somewhere in Nevada. Needed me to bail him out. Needed me. For once, he was depending on me to resolve his problem. Too late, buddy. When I'd needed help where the fuck were you? I never heard your words of wisdom when I was drowning in life's cesspool. I felt giddy. You're on your own, Zooma. See you in the funny papers. I tossed the envelopes in the garbage. With renewed fervor, collected a few dirty clothes and headed for the laundromat.

I was transferring clothes from the washer to the dryer, when, outside, a cop, sitting in his patrol car, chatted with a ratty teenage girl. She was dressed in a pair of tattered 'cut off' jeans. I fantasized being those jeans. As the cop veered from the lot in hot pursuit of a lawbreaker, the girl reentered the laundromat. She gathered her wet clothes, stuffed them into a dryer and inserted two quarters. When she passed me, I inhaled the scent of this luscious creature. She skipped outside to use the payphone. I sauntered over to the dryer, where her clothes were tumbling. Outside, at the phone booth, she fumbles with a pack of cigarettes, I take advantage of the situation. With a quick yank, I open the dryer and fish around. Grabbing a pair of pink panties, I wrap them around my fingers.

"Hey, man, you gotta light?" the girl asks. My stomach turns. I have been ambushed. She has caught me clutching a pair of her panties. "Hey!" she yells. "What are you doing? Those're mine! You creep. Gimme those," She screamed, snatching them from my hand. "Fat pervert. I'm gonna call the cops."

I fumbled around in my pocket for a lighter and handed it over—a peace offering as it were. She lit her cigarette and kept my lighter.

"I'll give you ten dollars for 'um," I said.

"Twenty," she replied.

"How much for the cut-offs?"

"Fifty."

"How much for everything?"

I slipped her a hundred-dollar bill. Tossed my laundry in Kroger sack. Bolted from the laundromat like Fred Astaire. My jowls ensconced in pink.

Driving home from the Laundromat, I considered crossing the median and crashing head-on into a garbage truck.

I fumble with the key to my house, my hands independent of my brain. I'm so tired. Washed-up. How could I be so pathetic? Returning to my cocoon, I turned the bedroom window fan to high. At that point, my only consolation was to copulate with the pink panties purchased from that luscious, young entrepreneur.

Bleak, lonely and drunk, I gnash at the seams, molars buried in pink threads and again, I am assaulted. The screaming Beast heartless, terrifying. I pitched the cunning bastard to the backyard patio. Thirty minutes later, the obnoxious intruder slithered its way into my trembling fist. I don't know how it got there. I curse the pathetic soul of whoever invented the goddamn thing. The telephone bent on driving me mad. It haunts and sulks until it devours my tranquility. The plastic leech, a demonic hiss. A ringing from the bowels of hell. I howl into the black, telephonic monster. "Whaaatttt!"

"Hey."

"Who is this...what do you want?" I scream. But I knew. "Zooma?"

"No man, the Easter Witch. You sound drunk, are you?"

"Not any more...where are you?" I ask, fumbling in a graveyard of ashes and butts for a remnant of cigarette.

"Don't matter. You still on Reynolds I see."

"Yeah, ain't moved since Hitler cooked a Jew."

From his end, brakes screeched. "Zoom?"

"I'm on my way. Gotta go..."

"Hey, Zoom. You got some mail here. It's from somewh..."

Line died. Damn. Drunk with surprise, I stuffed the sofa for hours. Out of the blue, after five wasted, fruitless, endless years, Zooma West, the enchanted son of a dreamer, had telephoned. He was coming home. I couldn't surmise if it was good timing or bad. But premonitions always invoked the past.

* * *

Labor Day Weekend, 1982. I'd planned to stay a year in Memphis, but, after only two weeks, retreated to the dregs of my den. This morning, I convinced some little runt to mow the yard. Paid Kevin the balance of the hundred dollars I owed for collecting my mail. The rest of the day, I slouched on the couch in my underwear. Slathered four slices of bologna with cold bacon dressing. Chugged cheap wine from a Dixie cup and watched 'Teenagers from Outer Space' (an ancient B-movie where the soundtrack was scored before the script was ever written). As the final credits rolled, I retreat to my bed. Regurgitate a distorted fantasy, dreaming of ghosts that shouldn't exist. Consumed by regressive psychosis, manic depression, delusions of paranoia. All the shit that makes life so worthwhile. Best bet to evaporate into the abyss. Regret reigns.

Still, I was glad to have known Moondog. He'd embraced the futility of life, the hopelessness. He had confronted his sadness and persevered. My despair was born within a genetic code. The Universal Baker had overcooked my psychic cake. The moment has arrived. Time to Re-Locate. I have no choice but to end this chasm of inexplicable misery.

Enveloped in lukewarm viscosity, I enter my cocoon. My dilated pupils like melted chocolate trail shooting stars. My altitude an eerie calm—the sweet lacquer of drizzling mist. Fingertips stretch across the damp, gray asphalt. The road a path of Braille. The creeping fog seeps among weaving reeds; to calm, to soothe this tar-tapered road; this chocolate cocoon. A crimson emulsion of scalded, rusted water, liquid rubber. Hoses, like demented serpents, slithering from dull, aluminum cubes. Bluish slime, reptile vomit, reflecting the abyss of a million galaxies...water droplets from a busted radiator scald my cheek...a disc of moon, the communion wafer, scorches my tongue...the car headlights...unable to move...so warm...the silky lather of the Milky Way...Johnny Mathis...chances are...the moment you're near me....it is the Hearse...no... over here...HEEEEEYYYYYY.

There is never enough hot water for my bloated body, so I am forced to shower until the hot runs cold. I cower inside a large cotton towel and pour myself a bowl of 'Frosted Flakes'. Spooning flakes, sulking in my rocking chair, I attempt to interpret my dream. But that requires introspection. I need to prepare for Zoomas' arrival. The telephone conversation, what little there was, had caught me by surprise. Although his somber monotonic voice and dry humor hadn't changed, I sensed a bit of sludge under the bridge. A hole in his boat, an underlying sadness, gloom.

*

The impending arrival of Zooma West sealed my fate. His timing impeccable. He deserves to find me slumped behind the steering wheel of the Falcon. I'd considered submerging myself in the tub and slicing an artery—that would disgust him—but I was afraid he would leave me there. I will humor him— there will be no bloody mess to clean. His coming is a major inconvenience, but it will be a comfort to see the old dreamer. I need to know if he'd found what he was searching for.

Since that afternoon in 1964, when he'd sold Mildred a TV Guide subscription and I'd first laid eyes on him, he'd enraptured me. Although Zooma rose above the maddening crowd, he remained the center of it. I was drawn into his orbit.

We'd had good times; the Saturday afternoon 'kick ball' games, sharing whiskey at the 'Grizzard' house, 'hitchhiking' to Panama City Beach and hanging out at the penny arcade. Performing for the glorious Senior assembly at Rutler, when his band, 'Intergrated Soul', had quelled the racial tension that taunted the city like a rabid rat. The trips to the State Liquor store in his Cadillac Hearse.

I don't know why I had been so adamant about not leaving Huntsville. Don't understand why I relished isolation. The malevolent Crosswinds followed me like a magnetic shadow. I'd never had a girlfriend. Twenty-eight years old and I remain a Virgin. I am not required to work. Father and Mildred resolved that trivial matter. Writing is a diversion, a band-aid for an amputated dream. I lounge around this old house, screen crummy movies and devour pizzas by the case. Swig cheap liquor by the quart. My septic throat is a tank of nicotine. I pay what few bills I owe. Bounce on the couch as minutes beget hours. I haven't swept the floor in years.

I don't know when my despair began to torment me. I've consumed herbal roots and purchased audio tapes. Fake remedies for mindless wanderers. I am not clinically depressed. I am thoroughly depressed. I've fucking had it. I loathe the idea of feeling sorry for myself, it is the worse part of this lonesome journey. I curse those that have the unmitigated gall to feel so good when I hurt so bad. I'm sickened by the cheerfulness of people, performing the mundane, trivial tasks day after day. I vomit at their unbridled contentment. I wish to return to the age of six, begin again. But what age would have prevented my present dilemma? Dysfunctional long before my parents died, my depression inhabits an endless, bottomless gutter. Not one fiber of my ego remains intact. I should have married Fresca, made children and moved to her beloved Iceland for the remainder of my catastrophic life. But I didn't have the guts, and, now, strength of character evades me.

Why didn't I follow my dreams? I had no reason, other than the excuses for NOT following them. I'm apathetic, demoralized, too goddamn lazy to pursue anything except a Budweiser and chocolate covered cherries. An absence of passion chained me to a hostile corner and, I must accord the adequate punishment. Self-impose my penalty. Ingest my karma.

I will relish the time I have with Zooma. Will he be the Zooma of my youth? His incessant roaming had denied confirmation of my life. There must be an excruciating vigor in emancipation. Was his thirst quenched? I don't know but, living in solitary confinement did not satiate mine.

Zooma defined happiness (what a stupid, fucked up word) as having something to look forward to. I wouldn't know happiness if it crawled up my ass. I'd grown tired of trying to find the perfect woman, a woman, any woman. Grown weary of my ignorance, of not playing in a good band, of constant failure at my futile attempts to write a novel. Sick of lying in bed, awakening; cooking for one, bathing, opening the mailbox; masturbating to pink panties. Typing this fucking paragraph. I can't wait until Zooma comes home, but I can't wait until he leaves.

'Mathis...Chocolate embryo. With a mouthful of frosted flakes, I try to decipher my weird dream. Does another decide my time of death? Have the arrogant, brutal Crosswinds sent me this Premonition? Oh yeah, great, now you want to get involved! Lead me on like a tantalizing Hussy.

I rinse my cereal bowl, fill my Dixie cup with purple Gatorade, then masturbate on the carpet. I lay drained on the filthy threads. Hope misery had found her. Wonder if she still enjoyed LSD. Still manipulated Aura's with a stupid compass and glacial dust.

I should buy some sandwich shit. Coronas and Coors, a jug of Southern Comfort and Jack Daniels. I'll rearrange the bookshelf with 'cool' titles. He'll see I wasn't the dumb ass he thought I was. I hope he doesn't ask me to reveal the plot of any of them. I'd become so apathetic I didn't even read anymore. Back in the day, Zooma would read two or three books every week. He'd carried Hunter S. Thompson's 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' in his back pocket for a year. Then I'd found it under Mildred's Fuck 'Good Housekeeping' magazine, thus beginning my tenuous diversion into the field of the damned. I transplanted porcelain ducks and dolphins from the bookshelves to a closet, then wiped at the rings of dust that encircled the useless trinkets. I studied the titles of dads and Mildred's books. 'Physics of Internal Combustion', 'You can make your own Pottery', 'Recipes from an Irish Maiden', 'One Day at a Time, The Role of Jesus in Your Life'. In the rear of the den closet I stacked book upon book; the lives of Saints Peter, Paul, and Mary, a tome on the 'Reformation', 'The Power and the Glory'. I re-stacked the bookshelf with 'To Kill a Mockingbird', 'The Grapes of Wrath' and 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'.

*

Wednesday Night

I'm not ecstatic about my impending re-location. But I am relieved to have made the decision final. Suicide has been described as a selfish act. A Supreme act of inflated ego. But suicide is not subject to emotional barter. My emotions had dissipated, morphed into a different dimension. For me to alter my plan would be akin to screwing a plum. For selfishness to exist, there must be a party of at least two. There is only me. My parents are dead, killed, indirectly, by a drunken goat. I have no wife, children, aunts or uncles, brothers or sisters. So, no, I am not selfish. There are worse traits than narcissism.

Some believe suicide to be an act of cowardice. But a coward to what? If I had been a coward, I'd killed myself twenty years ago. Hell, I've existed in this screwed up, sorry excuse of a world for twenty-eight miserable years. Haggling head-on with this overrated idea of satisfaction, this consummation of irreversible bedlam. Today, I will compose my obituary, will. Script a re-location notation to Zooma, explaining my decision. But, if I have no interest in social interaction, then why should I explain anything? Fuck if I know.

Obituary

TRUST, PANTHER BURN (1954-1982) died during the Labor Day weekend (so what if the foolish coward took the easy way out?). Although he was only twenty-eight, he felt like a hundred. A saint of self-indulgence, the fat fucker once ate four large pizzas at a single sitting. Survived by no one except his plastic blow-up doll known as Penny with whom he enjoyed a loving, intimate relationship. A large dose of carbon monoxide appears to be the culprit. A lifelong peasant of Huntsville, Alabama, the pig-fart graduated from Rutler High School in 1972. Known to have nudged a coin down the hallway with his nose. Never married—a virgin until the night he entered his Falcon and let the motor run in a closed garage. Fooled around with the drums but wasn't worth a damn. Aspired to be a writer, but only learned how to make a decent cup of coffee. What remains of him will be incinerated (so, but so what). The ton of ash will be swept out with a large snow shovel, along with the other garbage. If anyone gives a damn, donate to the Huntsville Little League Assn. Thank you for a life of broken, sharpened glass, then kiss my rosy red petrified ass.

Last Will and Testament

I, Panther Burn Trust, not of sound mind and somewhat insane, do hereby write my last wishes. KISS. MY. ASS. Dated Wed. Sept. 1, 1982. a. d.

Re-location Note (to be taped to Falcon)

Hey Zoom. Like an old man once said, 'I used to be able to keep it up all night, now it takes me all night to get it up'. I'm Exhausted, man. Time to join The Infinite Singularity. If anyone understands, you will. Take what books or albums or anything you want—don't eat the Frosted flakes (full of roaches). You need to contact Silver City Towing. Later, Panther.

*

(Thursday, September 2, 1982) (NWS) Tropical Storm Chris 6:00 (CDT) A.M. Severe storms are forecast for the Labor Day weekend, due to the Tropical Disturbance, heading north from the Gulf of Mexico. The forward speed is 30 MPH to the West-Northwest Direction Landfall appears imminent near Gulfport, Mississippi.

A slight breeze stirred the leaves. I opened the windows, not for the annual Fall cleaning, but because of the unbearable stench. I was slurping my third strawberry Margarita when...

'... She wore baloo velvet...da da da...' emanated from the front porch.

I peered from the front window and there he was, standing on my doorstep. He crooned the first line of Bobby Vintons' 'Blue Velvet' over and over. Evidently, it was the only line he knew by heart. Zooma West was home at last.

I'd decided the Beatles 'White Album' an appropriate welcome for our first meeting in five years. I placed a few rented videos, 'Quest for Fire', 'Last Tango in Paris', 'Amadeus', and, of course, 'The Last Picture Show' (his favorite), on top of the Sony VCR. Titles, I hoped, would please him. Three ancient, mildewed photo albums (gravestones), lay on an end table by the sofa, upholstered, ironically, in blue velvet.

To celebrate Zoomas' homecoming, I'd made a trip to Calvary Hills and bought a 'nickle bag' of weed. I mixed the reefer with garlic, onion, peppers, mushrooms, then added the goulash to the simmering tomato sauce.

I wondered if he still smoked 'reefer'. I'd stopped smoking pot, it made me feel like a milk cow in a roomful of thirsty monkeys. Nowadays, I preferred beer and liquor, a Valium or a Percodan, when I could find one. My medicine cabinet was not exactly a pilferer's dream. Zooma had never been a heavy pill popper, at least not five years ago. Nothing harder than a Quaalude or Placidyl. Still, he'd done quite a few of those.

It felt as if I'd made a date with Fresca, instead of the transient brooder who had once intoxicated my teenage years. I appraised myself in the hall mirror, disgusted by the three−hundred pound of blob glaring back at me. Why I cared how I looked dismayed me. I didn't want to fuck Zooma. I was not homosexual. In fact, if anything, I was asexual. My fervent desire had always been to connect to his sexual presence, not his penis.

I opened the door to the leaf-matted, newspaper-strewn porch.

"Look what the wind blowed in," I said, clutching my trusty Fuck 'Wearever' blender. I hadn't wanted to sound too excited, too vulnerable.

"You rang?" he replied, glaring at me as if I were drunk, stoned, or stupid. Of course, I was drunk, stoned, and stupid, so, if, and when I spoke out of character, I could use one, two, or all three in my defense. He fumbled with a pack of 'Marlboro Reds' and I had a moment to appraise him. He'd gained at least twenty pounds. Elvis-style sunglasses perched on his sleek Roman nose. His full black beard sported a streak of silver. A short billed, 'painters' cap, turned backward, melded to his head. A downright sin for a face to contain such perfect angles of symmetry. His hearse-black hair flanged outward from the sides of his cap, like the feathered wings of a spooked Raven. His black dungarees bleached gray at the knees. A wrinkled purple shirt embroidered with a silver Marlin. The sleeves ripped at the seams. He wore funky, filthy, pinkish 'flip-flops'. A knapsack swung from his strained and veined biceps as he danced across the thresh-hold. I attempted to shake his hand when, without warning, he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and forced my jowls into his sunken chest. Strawberry slush splattered my Dave Clark Five T-shirt.

"Good to see you, Zoom," I mumbled, my chin pressing hard against his bony shoulder, his hand patting my ass. "How ya doin', man?" I asked, retreating. 'Rocky Raccoon' reverberated from the den. The entire house smelled like the 'Little Italy' Bistro downtown. "How'd you get here?" I asked, peering over his shoulder.

"My thumb's a magnet, I reckon."

"Well, hell, come on in, gotta margarita with your name on it."

"Does it shudder?" He glanced around the living room. "Damn, Pan, your folks forget how to clean a house?"

I chuckled. Ha! Yeah. My home was as foul as a house can get. Been months since I'd even washed my underwear.

"Kinda," I said, glad I'd had the energy to at least gather the scraps of paper strewn about the floor. I didn't want him reading my words. Not yet. I recalled the first time he'd stood at the threshold. Selling 'TV Guide' subscriptions, door to door, up and down the street. Bug-eyed sunglasses wrapped around his face. Dressed in that silly naval sports jacket and paisley tie. Truth is, except for the beard and extra visits to the fast food joints, he hadn't changed much. Or so I thought.

"Let's go in the den, I'm making spaghetti for supper," I said. I stirred the sauce, added a pinch more marijuana and a dollop of white wine, then turned the bottle to my lips. I placed a saucer of sliced lime on the kitchen counter and realized how nervous I'd become. Ridiculous. Like I was about to inform Al Capone that I'd impregnated his daughter. What in the hell was wrong with me? I took a deep breath and strode into the den with two margaritas. He wasn't there. "Zooma? Hey Zoom?" I asked the empty room, setting the drinks on the coffee table, lowering the volume of 'Martha My Dear'. He was still in the living room, studying a portrait of my family from twenty-five years earlier. Attired in blue blazers and fake gold tie−clips, dad and I could have passed for members of the Governor's staff. Mildred wore a maroon high-neck blouse. A large ivory pendant obscured the vulgar, wrinkled, neck tendons. Her bra line visible, her breasts stiff, her smile deadly.

"Guess you didn't hear about the folks?" I stated, studying the portrait. "Car wreck, 'bout a year ago..."

Wreck... chocolate. headlights...hey...stop...STOP... "Yeah, killed when a damn goat staggered out in the middle of Jordan Lane. Dad swerved and ended up in the ditch over there by WEUP. Goat died from a heart attack."

"Hmm..." Zooma mumbled, focusing on the photo, his head tilted, lips pursed. A large curio in the corner of the room diverted his attention. The shelves decorated with miniature pianos of silver and ivory, jade and marble. One had been constructed from a bar of soap.

"Don't you remember? Mildred collected them," I said, handing him his drink. "...isn't this guy going to say anything more than 'um'?" I thought, but, then remembered he was never one for conversation. I should have foregone the margarita mix and guzzled the Tequila from the bottle. I had sipped my drink like a pansy most of the day. Now, I wanted to get quite drunk, and fast.

"So, where'd you thumb from?" I asked.

"Don't matter. Got here sooner but a chick picked me in Amarillo going the other way."

"Back the way you were coming?"

"Well, hell, Pan, she wasn't goin' my way!" he snickered, amused at my stupidity.

"Zooma, you ain't changed a bit." I said. He knew I was lying, but I sensed he recognized my girth for the first time. "Well, I guess we've both changed," I said, redeemed.

"No...no, petulant Panther, you haven't changed one damn bit."

"Is that a compliment?" I asked. He lit another smoke.

"It is, my man. No question. Life has forgiven you."

I had no retort for that ridiculous statement, whatever the hell it meant.

I licked salt from the rim of my glass, then placed my drink on the table and slumped into the tattered, scorched, urine-soaked sofa. Zooma inspected my record albums, stacked atop orange milk crates and 'two-by-fours' (compliments of the old Grizzard house). We guzzled margaritas, smoked and listened to a 'Beach Boys' album. He played 'Girls on the Beach' six times before I stopped him from playing it a seventh.

I transferred the tomato-marijuana sauce from the stove top to the refrigerator. Crass conversation was not my forte, but I attempted it anyway. In return I received murmurs of 'uh huhs', and 'un unhs'. I became frustrated with his dismissive utterances. Finally, after five replays of 'Don't Worry Baby' (I never wanted to hear 'Surfer Girl' again), I felt woozy, nauseous. I bid Zooma good night. His tortured silence had whipped me. I felt bad about leaving him alone in the den, especially on the first night, but I couldn't take it anymore. Tomorrow would be a new, fresh day. I stumbled up the stairs, plastered from the margaritas; stoned from samples of spaghetti sauce; and exhausted from the conversation with Zooma, of which there was none.

When we were younger, we'd talk nonstop, but the layer of years had dulled our tongue. Tonight, Zooma hinted of instability. Something wasn't right. He needed rest, a dose of R & R. His eyes appeared empty, dead. Like those of a madman. He won't come into my bedroom, my asylum, will he? I am ready to die but suffering is not on the menu.

My head spins as I staggered down the upstairs hall (avoiding the 'telltale' creaks in the floor, memorized from years of coming home late from Mister Donut, thus avoiding the wrath of Mildred the next morning). Slamming the bedroom door, I pushed the knob and turned it, locking it. I felt foolish, but better. I slithered back into bed, pulled the covers to my chin and contemplated the darkness.

It hovered in the gray horizon, between consciousness and sleep, the twilight zone. A metallic sound coming from the den downstairs. Click. Clack....Click...Clack...Click...

My Zippo cigarette lighter. Opening, shutting. Open. shut...Click....Clack. Click...Clack...CLICK...CLACK. Of course, if he killed me, it would save me the trouble of killing myself.

Friday Morning

September 3, 1982 (NWS) During the last twenty-four hours, T.S. Chris slowed in translation and began turning East toward the Florida Peninsula. Chris remains stationery off the Florida coast near the Town of Cedar Key.

His voice reverberated from the upstairs bathroom. '...Why does the sun go on shinin'...why does the sea rush to shore...don't they know, it's the end of the world...cos you don't love me anymore...'

He kept crooning the same verse over and over. I stuffed the dishwasher with load after load of filthy dishes and soiled underwear. Finally, Zooma finished showering. No doubt wasting all the hot water, forcing the fuck 'Kenmore' dishwasher to employ cold. I poured myself a cup of Fuck 'Folgers' coffee, added four spoons of 'Fuck' Domino sugar, then loafed on the sofa and fondled the remote. A television ad promoted the upcoming Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy telethon. Grainy video clips of Wayne Newton and Liberace. I looked forward to watching 'Mister Vegas' perform 'Daddy don't you Walk so Fast' and hearing Liberace's 'I'll be Seeing You' this weekend. One last time for old time's sake.

Zooma had changed. We all evolve, of course, as the clock trolls on, some for better, others' worse. I wasn't sure which way Zooma rolled. He'd not spoken a dozen words since his arrival. Five years earlier, he sparkled in anticipation of the unknown. Last night, the gleam had vanished, pulverized by events unknown to me. The 'Casanova' of Tuscaloosa, the 'free spirited' pirate in the 'Grizzard House', the courageous entertainer at the Rutler High assembly, had evaporated. He had become the island castaway who curses the empty horizon. No. Not the same Zooma I remember.

He stalks downstairs as I fold the dank quilt he'd slept under last night. He strolls into the den wearing all-black. My jeans, not worn since Pope Leo read the Kama Sutra, swallowed his skinny ass. Dad's paisley tie held them around his bony waist. Draping his sunken chest, Mildred's white frilly lace blouse. My Beatle Boots, older than a Bourbon Street whore, swallowed his tiny feet. Topping off the ensemble was the black straw Panama Jack hat I'd won in a pool shooting contest a few years back.

"Skeeter Davis?" I asked, hoping to please Zooma with my knowledge of pop music.

"What?"

"End of the world. Skeeter Davis song."

"Let's take a ride," he says.

"You plan on wearin' that?" I asked.

"Seen my shades?" he replied, searching the den like a Vulture.

"Over there..." I say, pointing to the television. "Where we goin'?"

"Need smokes."

We hopped in the Falcon. I inserted my homemade cassette of hits from the Seventies. Big Mistake. '...them good ole boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye sayin' this will be...'

Zooma ejected the tape before I knew what had happened and tossed it out the window. It landed in a juniper bush (where it remains to this day).

"What the hell!" I frowned.

"Worse song ever written," he snarled. '...Drivel, useless and utter drivel."

I felt embarrassed, angry. He didn't have to throw the damn tape out of the window. Fuck him and the feet that brought him here.

"Two words sum up the Seventies," he stated, staring out the window. '...Excrescent ordure. Oh, the Seventies, gotta love 'um."

I drove down the street seething, sulking. My nerves ground into my bones, I stewed. I would make him pay for his insolence by keeping my mouth shut. The light turned red at the intersection of Mastin Lake and Pulaski Pike- the 'Crossroads'. In '66, it was the main artery—the bloodline of Northwest Huntsville. The 'Business' sector, consisting of a gas station and Hembrey's, a 'mom and pop' grocery store. Before the rampant onset of the 'Dullies', the east-west artery, 'Mastin Lake', had been a mere dusty trail, a path utilized by mule-carts, wild dogs and bicycles. In the sixties, the highlight of the day would be a trip to Hembrey's for a candy bar and RC Cola. Zooma and I preferred to walk rather than ride our bikes. Bikes meant we'd get somewhere faster, but faster meant we'd return home sooner. Home, to mow the grass, paint the mailbox, take out the garbage, or worse, engage in boring conversations with 'Dullies'. Doing nothing was all we wanted to do.

Now, sixteen years later, the 'Crossroads had degenerated into a slummy quagmire. After Mr. Hembrey death in 1973, an M & J supermarket and a 'Tenneco' gas station opened for business. Later, a Standard Oil would trash the neighborhood. By then, the city had paved Mastin Lake Road−the mule and buggy lost in the shuffle. In the mid-seventies, 'Hembrey's was demolished to make way for a Colonial Bank. The good old days had dissolved into what Zooma West described as 'excrescent ordure'. But the festive aromas that percolated throughout Hembrey's still intoxicate me; cherry pipe tobacco and fresh cinnamon rolls swelling in the oven; ancient wooden shelves overladen with turnip and collard greens; home-grown tomatoes, cucumbers, and cantaloupe; angel food cakes, fried apple and peach pies; polka-dotted 'Wonder' bread stacked atop the aluminum counter where George, the butcher, sliced and weighed various meats. He'd wrap it in white paper, tie it with brown twine, then scribble numbers on the bundle with a grease pencil.

A jovial, simple-minded man named Ernie mopped up pickle juice or vegetable oil. When an old man would drop a bottle of 'Vitalis', the store smelled like Gus's barber shop for weeks. The counter by the front register contained a hodge-podge of sweet treats; multicolored gum balls, red and black licorice sticks, sweet tarts, Necco wafers; jars of peppermint sticks resembled miniature barber shop poles; milk duds, sugar babies, pink shingles of bubble gum with prized baseball cards tucked inside. The faded wallpaper bulged from the walls. A single window air conditioner was secured with a couple of 'two-by-fours'. Under the window was a mop bucket, employed to catch the constant drip. The polished, varnished, and tarnished floor tiles were Confederate Grey. The restroom contained a well-worn crack that revealed the original Oak floor. Cardboard billboards advertised 'Tide' for 37 cents, 'Armanb' Hamur Bakin Soder (scribbled by a Rutler high dropout), a dime.

I was ten when Mildred first entrusted me to walk to the store by myself. I'd stop at Zooma's house on the way (five houses down from me), and we'd go together. I'd 'borrow' a pack of cigarettes from dad, so Zooma could enjoy smoke on the way.

It was a Monday afternoon. Zooma went to buy a gallon of milk for Thizzie. I loitered at the 'Liar's' bench outside Hembreys. Where flayed, old 'geezers' whittled kite handles, spit into 'Prince Albert' cans and nursed 'Dads' root beer. Their conversations enlightening.

"Hot."

"Sho is."

"Say it gone rain."

"Sho do."

Spit, whittle, spit.

The owner, Mr. Hembrey, was a lanky six-five, with stoic, chiseled chin. He reminded me of Abe Lincoln. His black hair, stained with gray, receded into a widow's peak. But old man Hembrey was a gentle-hearted soul. Whenever he'd see me, he'd query, "Son, do me and your mama a favor, get a haircut, don't look like no girl."

"But I got one last week, Mr. Hembrey."

He'd chuckle. "Well, you forgot to get your change. Tell your momma we runnin' a special on ground chuck Thursday."

"Sho will, sir."

I was getting bored, watching the old Geezer's spit into a can. What was taking Zooma so long? I shaded my eyes, peered through the front window. Mr. Hembrey's hands straddled his hips. He was glaring at Zooma. I entered the store and crouched behind the leg of the sky-tapered man. A white mustache adorned Zooma's upper lip. Behind his skinny thigh, an opened package of miniature doughnuts. His cheek bulged like a feeding squirrel.

"Son, what do you think your doin'?" Mr. Hembrey asked in a low, not amused voice. '...You pay for that?"

"Not 'chet," Zooma replied, staring at the man's belt buckle.

"Plan on payin' for it?"

"Already have," Zooma mumbled.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well," Zooma began, his eyes rising to Mr. Hembreys' craggy face. "...I been comin' here a long time, buying stuff, and ya'll charge me more than its s'pose to, so I added up what ya'll owe me."

Mr. Hembrey folded his arms across his wide chest. His white shirt was buttoned at the neck. His shoulders erect. Could have been a Union Soldier at Appomattox. He turned toward me, and my heart raced like the drum solo to 'Wipe Out'. "What you know 'bout this, Panther Burn?"

"Nuthin'," I said, hands in pockets.

"How long you been a doin' this, Zooma?" Mr. Hembrey demanded. The Face of Abe, the Voice of God.

"Every Monday, I reckon, since school started."

"Un huh. Well, son," he continued. '...I'm gonna give ya two choices. We're gonna call the po-lease, or we can go chat with yo mama and daddy. Which'll it...?"

"I don't subscribe to the notion of tax," Zooma interrupted.

"Don't subscribe? What's that got to do with it?" said ole honest Abe, incredulous. The checkout lady, Irene, and a few other 'Dullies' glared at us. I wanted to say, '...take a picture, it lasts longer...'

"I come here and buy a loaf of bread for twenty-nine cents. Ya'll charge me thirty-one. Ain't fair. So, I figured after five loaves of bread, you owe me a lousy doughnut or two."

Mr. Hembrey's eyebrows furrowed like a row of prickly pears. "Son, that's tax money, it don't go to me. It's gov'ment money, they use it to build roads, hospitals, schools, them sort of things."

"I ain't seen no new roads or hospitals around here," Zooma replied. He might have had a good argument, but I still wanted to get the hell out of there. Mr. Hembrey cleared his throat.

"Zooma, son, I'm not gone call the po-lease this time. I oughta call your folks, but ain't gone do that neither. But you listen to me, don't come in here again. I don't want your business. Understand?"

"Yes sir."

"Now, you and Panther Burn get on out of here. Whoa... let me have them doughnuts. You'll have to figure out what to tell your mama next time she needs somethin'."

We tore from the store with our spiffy tails between our legs. Bells that hung from kite string over the entrance jingled, broke free and clanged to the floor. We slammed the damn screen door and hauled our ass pronto down 'Mastin Lake Road'. Didn't stop until we were halfway home.

"Zooma!" I screamed. '...Now what'cha gonna do when you gotta go to the store?"

"Ain't rightly sure, Pan."

"Guess I could go for you, but you need to figure something out."

"What I gotta figure out is how I'm going to get rid of these fuckin' headaches."

"Mr. Hembrey's daughter babysits the kid next door to me," I said, not knowing why. The statement ludicrous.

"She made of chocolate?" He asked, lighting a smoke.

'What? What's headaches got to do with it?" I asked.

His explanation was forthcoming. Zooma despised Mondays. Mondays initiated his terrible headaches. The only cure for his malady were heavy doses of sugar, specifically those brown 'coconut' doughnut gems, a miniature 'six-pack' of sugar. Every Monday afternoon, he'd stalk the pastry section, open a package of doughnuts and eat them there in the store. Then, he'd meander to the milk cooler for a pint of chocolate milk. Until today, he had perfected the routine. After snacking, he'd grab the items his mother needed, then linger on the worn old bench outside the store and smoke a cigarette. His headaches originated from Multiplication tables. Zooma explained the physiological reason for his headaches in excruciating detail—multiplication tables required the left side of the brain, the technical side. Since Zooma was left-handed, the technical side (left hemisphere) of his brain was useless. His main concern was the right side, the creative side. Since the left hemisphere was in constant friction with the right, it became a matter of attrition. That skirmish was what triggered his migraine. (That is how he explained it to me). I concurred and advised him to seek an immediate remedy for this precarious situation, in whatever means possible, including stealing a six-pack of miniature donuts).

Not an hour later, I had to make yet another trip to 'Hembrey's for Mildred. Conversation on the bench revolved around Zooma's thievery. The old 'codgers' wondering what was wrong with kids nowadays. I asked a 'Dullie' to go fetch Mr. Hembrey. Another replied, 'whatcha gone do, beat him up?" The old farts howled.

I asked Mr. Hembrey if what he'd said to Zooma included me. He said 'naw', he meant the 'West' kid. I could continue to trade with him. He told me I shouldn't be 'hangin' round' with juvenile delinquents like Zooma'. I purchased a box of 'Saltine' crackers and two cans of tuna for Mildred. Fifty-seven cents with tax. On the way home, I met a boy crouched over his bicycle, fumbling with a broken chain. He asked if I was going to play baseball that summer. His name was Tony, but everybody called him 'Tater'.

That summer, I must have made 200 trips to the store for Zooma. Mr. Hembrey never mentioned the incident again. In fact, I bagged groceries there for a month the following summer.

The light turned green. The Colonial bank was hopping with money-grubbing customers. Sheets of newspaper inserts were whipping across the M & J parking lot.

"Mr. Hembrey died from a brain aneurism a while back," I said. "Got sick from having to deal with juvenile delinquents like you."

I pulled the Falcon into Tenneco's parking lot and as usual, a crowd of thugs lurked outside.

"Ole Abe," Zooma sighed, opening his car door. '...Say, Zorro, two dollars cover a pack?"

"Yeah...ought to, not including tax," I replied. "Stay in the car, man. I'll get um, what kind you want?" I asked, hoping he'd stay in the car.

"Pack a Marlboro's, one Kool filter-tip and some of those little chocolate doughnuts!" he said, closing his door.

'I returned to the Falcon and inserted another cassette. We were going to listen to the Dave Clark Five and I didn't care whether he liked it or not (but I knew he would). I turned the volume up loud.

*

I despise myself for showing such goddamn weakness in front of Zooma. He knows I am a coward, which is the reason he took the fall for me on June second, 1966. But I have my limits. It's not as if we've corresponded all these years. Hell, even now, I haven't heard one compound sentence emerge from the nicotine-encrusted folds of his throat. I'd furnished groceries, prepared a delicious meal and offered him margaritas on a silver platter. Not a 'thank you' or 'pass the damn salt'. He could have said 'kiss my pimple hardened ass' and I wouldn't have minded. His mere presence is excruciating.

I stumble through rooms like I'm wearing a blindfold. Melancholic, lonely, hopeless. I cannot say what leads me down this 'wormhole' of listlessness. Would Lithium help? Shock treatment? Fellatio? This morning in bed, fetal position, my cotton sheets cling to my thighs, dripping with sweat. A gangly spider inches its way across my shoulder blade, its prickly legs comforting. I refrain from moving in fear it would flee.

I do not believe Zooma is ingesting tranquilizers, although he may be on the fringe of madness. His thoughts shrouded in a heavy nothingness, as if waiting for his brain-phone to ring. This morning, I'd asked him something and his answer took forever, as if he could not comprehend my words. And what did I ask? 'Zooma, you drink your coffee black, don't you?'

He rocks in the chair in the den, studying the album cover of Greg Allman's 'Laid Back'. Gray cigarette smoke billows from a crystal ashtray. A grape soda sits abandoned on a silver tray. He wears a floppy, white 'ten-gallon' Stetson hat he'd found in my fathers' bedroom closet. I'd prepared chicken salad sandwiches, looking forward to watching a rented video; 'The Godfather'. I had sliced a hypotenuse of chicken salad when the lunatic hollered, "WHAT THE FUCK!"

I dashed into the den, thinking he might have slit his throat with a coat-hanger. There he was, wrestling with the video remote, stabbing at buttons. START. STOP. REWIND. PLAY. START...REWIND... STOP...PLAY.

"What the hell are you doing, man?" I inquired.

"Panther Burn, this fuckers' been edited! They're gone," he howled, glaring at me as if he wanted to slit my throat. "Don't you remember?" He sighed, lighting his smoke with trembling hand. He'd spoken more words in the last ten seconds than since he'd arrived. But, yeah, I remembered.

It was another boring Saturday afternoon in July 1968, until the movie began. It would be the first time I ever saw a real, live, naked woman.

Zooma had convinced Mildred that 'Barbarella' was a science fiction movie for kids. Hell, he had me convinced as well. It was fiction, and somewhat scientific. Mildred dropped us off outside the Lyric theatre downtown. After purchasing tickets, we went inside and plopped our butts down in the middle row of the half empty theater.

I don't remember the plot, in fact, I don't remember anything after the opening scene. I opened a box of 'milk duds' and waited for the movie to begin. The opening credits scrawled across the screen, superimposed over a suited, weightless astronaut. Tumbling head over heels in the spacecraft, the astronaut seductively discarded the helmet- revealing a floating mane of ravishing blonde hair. My god, the astronaut a full-grown woman! Seam by seam, scene by scene, she ripped apart her spacesuit, baring her privates in waves of undulating somersaults. Titillating violins trumpet her seduction. Her 'space' bra and boots float free in zero-gravity. Holy Shit Batman! I hoped there weren't any 'Dullies' watching; hoped the projectionist had succumbed to a heart attack. This was too good to be true, might have even been against the law. Were the moral-police minutes away? The astronaut was Jane Fonda', but any naked woman would have sufficed. And, oh my...HER STIFFENED NIPPLES POINTED DIRECTLY AT ME! Chocolate-pink and bullet-shaped. Course, I'd seen bare breasts before—the ones I'd ogled in 'Playboy', but this was way different. This lady was fucking Space! Her ass so taut you couldn't have stuffed a pencil in it. And, then...there. Yes! The undeniable patch! A triangular garden of exquisite vintage, there for the purveyor to appreciate in all its magnificent glory. My jeans tightened and I was afraid to move. My stomach tensed. I gawked at the forbidden fruit. The tips of my fingers numb, my insides butter fried. Euphoric, sinful vibrations smoldered at my crotch. I did not dare look at Zooma. I didn't want my ignorance of such worldly pleasures to annoy him, or worse, surprise him. I wondered if he had been aware of the films nudity and had wanted to surprise me. Gauge my reaction in the likelihood of any future forays into the depraved.

"Holeee Fuuck!" he whispered.

I stuffed my pie-hole with popcorn and milk-duds. Couldn't wait to see what Technicolor held in store. I begged for more lurid, protracted scenes of nudity, and prayed for the ultimate act, intercourse. But I had no such luck. I don't remember the rest of the goofy film. I contemplated being hand−cuffed, sent to the D- Home. Embarrassed by the dark, wet spot discoloring the left side of my zipper. But it was worth it. In a weird masturbatory way, I lost my virginity to Jane Fonda.

By the time the stupid movie ended, the ejaculate in my jeans had dried, though the crotch remained stiff for a week. Midway through the movie, Zooma phoned Mildred and told her we wanted to watch it again. As the opening credits ran, I fondled my crotch with a box of milk−duds.

After the opening strip scene, we exited the theatre. Walked to Walgreen's Drugstore for 'fudge-sickles'. I wiped my crotch with a wet paper towel, but it made the spot even more noticeable, so I untucked my shirt and let it hang over my lustful indulgence. We returned to the theater and lurked in front of the 'Barbarella' movie poster until Mildred's arrival. Gazing at the poster gave me another erection and it's fair to say I limped a certain way to the car. Slumped in the backseat, Zooma whispered, "GODWADABOD." For months, when we'd notice a good-looking girl, we'd holler, 'GODBOD'. Oh, youthful innocence. Lustful ignorance.

Now, here in the den of my house, fourteen years later, the movie had produced a different reaction.

"I cannot fucking believe they fuckin' fucked up the fuckin' movie." Zooma moaned, sulking in the rocker, depressed.

The 'Eighties' (quinquenniums ordure, as Zooma called them), were a time when the term 'politically discreet' became the buzz word. The censors, perhaps Fonda herself, had edited the film. Destroyed the only good scene in the silly, shitty movie. Some idiot had disposed of the lurid scenes, had used a fuckin' airbrush to cover her breasts and pubic area. Both an unfocused patch of pink pixels. The pig-fucks had blotted out the best piece, literally. Worse, had 'cut' other erotic scenes. Hollywood was an exercise in utter stupidity.

"Well, hell," I said. 'Guess 'Dullies' don't want their children doing the same thing they did when THEY were young, you know how it is."

"No. Panther Burn, I DON'T know how it is. Why don't you tell me!"

'Holy shit', I thought, '...we're going to argue over a twenty-year old movie, and a terrible one at that?'

"Fonda's a bitch," I said, rationalizing, lighting a Camel. "...She fucked up with all that Vietnam crap," I concluded. But when it came to her gorgeous ass and mouth-watering breasts, I wouldn't have cared if she had married Hitler

"Vietnam, Sheit-nam," Zooma replied. "...They screwed up the only part of this garbage worth a damn. Do YOU want to watch the rest of this shit?"

"OK, man, calm down, Zoom, hell, there has to be an uncut version floating around. I'll check it out," I lied.

He lit a Marlboro. "Fuck," he muttered to himself, loud enough for me to hear. 'Unbelievable. Unfuckingbelievable."

"Jeez,' I thought, 'he's more interested in Jane Fonda than he is me. All these years and it comes down to the tits and ass of Jane. The guy has gone over the edge. I may have to evict him. That, or leave myself. But, it's MY FUCKING HOUSE. He goes bonkers over a damn movie, and I'm going to leave MY HOUSE? BULLSHIT!' I crunched hard on a stalk of pickle.

"Well, so much for Godbod," I said.

"Fuck Godbod," he screamed.

It was time for a long, hot shower. Another thread unraveled in the fabric of my mind. Angry with myself as with Zooma West. "I'm gonna take a shower," I said to the floor.

"GODBOD!' he laughed, smiling as I navigated the stairwell.

"Godbod," I replied, not smiling. Then, at the top of the stairs, I muttered, 'fuck godbod."

I meditated on the toilet as Marlin Brando received five bullets in the gut. Brando survived, but would I? I had gone upstairs under the pretense of requiring a shower. Wanted him to assume I was bathing, so he would leave me the fuck alone. Water gushed from the iron spout as I scurried to my bedroom. I needed a few hours of tranquility. Christ, even with the water running I could hear it. Click. Clack...Click...clack. The godforsaken Zippo. Why am I even acknowledging him? I've already used up five minutes of precious sleep. His unconscious rejection of my desire to consider events important to me has trapped me in a delirious fever of contempt. Shut the fuck up mind. I mean it. Is that my typewriter? Hell yes, he's typing down there. What is he doing? I glance at my bedside clock, three in the morning. I'd come up here for fucking peace and quiet and spend the entire time listening to a damn typewriter. Damnittohell. Man, he is slow. Five words a minute, if that. He hadn't mentioned one word about the shreds of paper I'd scattered throughout the house (to see if he'd read them). Expecting compliments from Zooma was as hopeless as fishing in the Dead Sea.

'Tap...tap........tap............tap'. He must be using one finger. Submerging my head under the shower faucet, I realized there was no hot water. It was used up. As was I.

*

Tonight, the Beatles 'Yellow Submarine' was showing at a renovated Drive-In. (Ironically, it was the first film I'd ever watched at a drive-in theatre. We got drunk on Boone's Farm Strawberry Wine in a 1960 Chevy Impala. When we exited the parking lot, the speaker phone went with us, still attached to the window. He mended the broken window with two rolls of duct tape and then decided to rip out the entire door. I wired it back in place, but it never shut flush again. When he severed both doors from the Impala, the cops deemed it unlawful, so he sold it to a goat farmer. Funny thing was, the car belonged to a girlfriend. Not thrilled with his remodeling, they broke up soon afterwards. Today, the doors lie at the bottom of the Tennessee River, subject to the whims of bottom feeding catfish).

Currently, it appears both of us are bottom feeding, drowning in a doomed submarine. I can't take much more.

In time, I would understand Zooma's outburst at such an inconsequential thing as the editing of 'Barbarella'. A matter of Authenticity.

It was not that Jane Fonda's privates had been airbrushed, it was that some idiot had taken it upon themselves to edit Zooma's past. Traitors to the Truth had sanctioned the False. Shuffled the cards from the bottom of the deck, and, worse, changed the rules after the deal. The video version of 'Barbarella' had proved that the present can be altered by editing the past—that today has no correlation to yesterday—that some eunuch feels entitled to rearrange his yester-years. It was this utter deception that had produced Zooma's tirade. The morally counterfeit society had elicited this phoniness, encouraged it. That night, Zooma had, in his own unique way, exacted his revenge on counterfeit society. He doused the moral gods with verbal gasoline. Cast a curse on the flatulent imbecile that had edited one of the worse films ever produced in the Sixties. But 'Barbarella' was only the scapegoat.

* * *

What a wicked ghost it is. Regret. It haunts my Glory Days. It unfurls the thread of my sanity. I have accomplished nothing. Not a shred of success accounts for my existence. My decision is final. I will join the subatomic before the next full moon.

I cannot remember when the tide of disillusionment swept upon me. As a child, I recall the despair and gloom. Now, at the end of my arduous road, I find minor contentment knowing my exit is near. I will die in the house willed to me by my parents.

I relish the fear I instill in 'Dullies'. The neighborhood 'Dullies' believe I want to murder them because I pitch darts at their door.

There is a level of comfort in my final hours. My Fuck General Electric refrigerator and cupboards stocked. My savings account has accrued fifty thousand dollars, thanks to my parents' double indemnity life insurance policy. It will revert to the Huntsville Little League Association. My Ford Falcon is in no need of fancy repairs and neither am I. I enjoy relatively good health for a twenty-eight-year old male weighing in at three hundred plus. I do not have a girlfriend and no prospects. I bought a fishing boat a year ago but have not fished once in my life.

I cannot fathom why people remain so adamant in their need to define themselves. As if home, family, money, careers, wives and mistresses were the keys to immortality. But, then, define a man with no family, no friends, no conscience, no admiration for beauty. No art, music, or gusto. No passion or regret. I could have chosen to stroke the cock of ambition, but, why? Why consummate arrogance when I can wallow in a bubble bath of urine and Epsom salts? I'd made attempts to rise by six in the morning, but, then, I'd be so depressed, that by the afternoon I'd be counting kernels of corn. When I smoked pot, paranoia would intervene and, I'd suppress my panic by consuming three quarts of fuck Hershey's chocolate syrup in an hour.

I'd believed sex could liberate me, so, for years, I masturbated like a zoo monkey. One night, watching the 'Grammy's, I fondled myself with one hand as the other held a razor blade to my wrist. I hated those successful bastards. I subtracted emotion from diversion and the sum equaled absolute zero.

*

Friday Night

Ramrodding the Falcon across the large gravel graveyard of 'Woody's Drive In', I parked beside an upright metal 'speaker' pole that looked like a deformed Extra Terrestrial.

Earlier that afternoon, I was a nervous wreck, stalking Zooma's transient shadow as it shuffled from the den to the refrigerator. Over morning coffee, I'd found the guts to ask him if he'd done any hitchhiking lately. 'Not much,' he said. Then I mentioned the trip we'd made together. Labor Day weekend, 1972, exactly ten years earlier. Neither one of us had owned a car, but that didn't stop us from going to the beach for the last big weekend of summer. It would prove to be a turning point. A watermark that defined the philosophical difference between us.

In those days, there were minimal risks associated with hopping into a stranger's car. Long before I began hitch-hiking, Zooma had told me about the gentle homosexuals. They'd pick him up, compliment his good looks, his long eyelashes. They'd assume a burger and a shake entitled them to a blow job. Smelled of Old Spice and Brut and baby powder. Hair razor cut, san socks or belts. Loathed low-class blue jeans. Harmless sorts who wanted nothing more than to get in his pants. And, when rebuffed, would revert to the pitiful season the Atlanta Braves were having.

When a rowdy redneck threatened to cut his hair, and asked if he were queer, Zooma snatched a tin of Redman from his pocket and offered the thug a chew. He assured the neck he was not a homo and, in fact, was going to visit his girlfriend, the reigning Miss Point Mallard. Even had a picture of her (a photo of a Homecoming queen, given to him by a distant relative of his Aunt Sara's). But, most of the time, his rides were with kindhearted and courageous souls. Folks concerned about his welfare or in want of conversation. In those days, it was rare for a Thumb to end up in the mortuary.

In 1970, I turned sixteen. The 'Decadent Decade' was over. The Sweet & Sour Sixties had evolved into the Sedate Seventies. The years of the Psychedelic Revolution had mothered a decade of re-fried scenes. Enlightenment gone soft. Sharon Tate's rotting flesh and Manson's lust for celebrity blood.

Hitchhiking in Alabama of '70 was the best way to travel from point A to B. So, when he asked me to thumb to the beach, hell, I said, let's ride! Forty dollars, he affirmed, would be more than enough to enjoy the trip. Panama City Beach, Florida. 'The 'World's Most Beautiful Beaches'.

Thumb served us well. After three routine, innocent rides, two 'hippies' driving a paisley van with surfboards latched atop the hood picked us up. They dropped us off at a penny arcade called 'Funland', across the highway from the sugar white beaches.

Funland never closed. It was heaven on earth; fried, local shrimp, raw oysters, homemade pizza, cold draft beer and the best double cheeseburgers this side of paradise. Breakfast served anytime. Hot dogs smothered in steaming chili and twenty-four flavors of brain-freezing ice cream. But its finest delicacies skipped across the hot asphalt of Hi-way 98. Strolling into the arcade, they'd slump at the counter, comb their long, bleached hair, wet from their morning swim at 'Peeks' motel. They'd correspond tan lines in accordance with the hem of their skimpy bikini bottoms. They'd adjust their thigh-length T-shirts, knotted above the navel, permitting a teasing glimpse of their smooth, tanned mid-rift.

The penny arcade was a hormonal Utopia, a 'clitorae maximus'. Lined against the walls were pinball machines, five balls a quarter, almost impossible to 'tilt'. There were Skee-ball alleys and 'Tell Your Fortune' machines, where a porcelain gypsy issued a card informing you to 'be as you are, and you will go far'. A cacophony of bells ringing and balls pinging, 'flippers' slashing and 'bumpers' flashing. Amid the frantic strokes of nimble fingers, 'Dullies', dressed in Bermuda shorts, black socks and sandals, slouch at the well-worn counter, overburdening red and silver stools, guzzling cup after cup of ice-cold draft beer. Anxious, rosy−cheeked children, white-washed with suntan ointment, scurry across the floor like Santa's bastard brood. Pretty girls perch on wooden stools like golden trophies for their pinball wizard boyfriends and sip cokes through candy colored straws. Sons giggle as daddy slams his fist into a rubberized, duct-taped 'punching bag', scoring points for the level of his viciousness. Scoring points with his boy. He lifts his ambitious son and implores the child to do the same. Daughter begs mother for a quarter. Mom's skimpy swimsuit unfit for a suburban bottom. She dismisses her stretch marks (at least for this week), masking the layers of cellulite with a beach towel embedded with a Flamingo.

Hot grease melds with coconut-scented sun-lotion and oysters sizzle in bubbling oil. Unruly hair forgiven. Timex watches forgotten- rouge, lipstick and eye shadow abandoned. 'Cream of sweat' soup of the day. Diets forgiven, or induced, by the ravenous heat and endless draft beer and peach daiquiris. An impatient child runs in place, hand to her crotch, no time to waste in the rest room; better spent 'gonging' ducks with a plastic mallet when they 'pop' up from 'tic-tac-doe' holes.

Zooma and I, high from the marijuana we'd smoked with the surfer hippies, arrived at the arcade with the munchies. Six bits for a 'Funburger', fries, and a thick, creamy malt. Locate a pinball machine, hopefully near a bronzed, oil-slathered girl in a moist T-shirt. '...Brandy you're a fine girl...what a good wife you would be...' reverberates from the rusty jukebox. Somebody has played the song five times in a row. We don't mind. The girls are in reach—one even begs for a quarter. I dangle a cigarette from my lips like James Dean and slouch and brood like a rebel without any balls. My 'Marlboros' tucked in the short sleeve of my T-shirt. I order my fourth 'Funburger', then stroll outside to a concrete bench. I drool at the luscious babes slouching against the side of a '56 Chevy. A lassie glances at me, but I act cool and ignore her. Crossing the highway, an obese woman adjusts her swimsuit. She takes 'Polaroids' of her offspring, exposing the film and more of herself than she should. Her husband, adorned in knee length 'Bermudas' and black socks, films rambunctious seagulls loitering about with his new eight-millimeter camera.

I had ordered my fifth 'Funburger' when Zooma returned from the gift shop next door wearing a white 'sailors' cap. He looked like Gilligan, with shoulder-length, squid-ink black hair. His chest a mesh of skin and bone.

The hot, delirious sea wind rushed through the arcade as if magnetized. We spent the next eight hours playing 'pinball' and flirting with 'beach-bunnies'. They had a knack for relieving us of our quarters.

The unrelenting heat and lack of sleep soured me. Other than a few misplaced window fans, 'Funland' had no air conditioning. By mid-afternoon the arcade was a miserable, oppressive sauna. The salty air dehydrated me like a desert grape. I rested my weary ass on the bench in front of the arcade, but the manager said the benches were for paying customers, not tired, stoned, 'wigged-out' hippies from L.A. (Lower Alabama). Though we hadn't slept or taken a bath in several days (we hadn't even seen the beach yet), Zooma was content to play his machine and bask in the sweltering paradise. I smelled like a refugee from an onion field.

Off to the side of the arcade, a Eucalyptus tree shaded the ninth tee of a golf course. I needed to rest my stoned, exhausted bones. Leaning against the tree, I had fallen into a nice slumber when something stung my wrist. It was the size of the second hand of my wristwatch and had four appendages like miniature crab-claws. I slapped at it and it jumped, or flew, or time traveled from my wrist to my elbow. A Quantum Leap if there ever was one. I jabbed my elbow into my leg, murdered the hideous creature with no remorse. Mortified at the stream of blood oozing from the spot where the sinister fucker had used my flesh for a transfusion. Aroused by the carnivores' hostile intention and furious at its intervention, I returned to the arcade, paid a nickel for a cup of ice, sat on the toilet and washed the blood from my wound. I rinsed my face and underarm and reviewed my condition in the dirty mirror where, before me, lurked a breathing corpse. White circles loomed where my shades had been; grease matted my forehead; my eyes blood-shot. My armpits smelled like dirty diapers.

I returned to the shadow of the Eucalyptus. Lo and behold, there was Zooma, snoring like an eighty-year-old grandmother, a brown palm-frond covering his face. Nice and cozy that son-of-a beach was. My head throbbed and I realized that if I didn't find some shut eye, I would not be responsible for my actions. I would have sodomized the pope to be in my own bed, watching my own television. I could almost taste the pizza supreme that awaited. I hadn't packed a toothbrush or deodorant, no change of socks or underwear. Down to five dollars. At least, the blood on my wrist had finally coagulated.

I'd had enough of Panama City Beach, Florida; of 'Funburgers' and pinball machines, sailor caps and pink bikini seams. I wanted to awaken Zooma but thought better of it. I was afraid I'd be vilified for 'freaking' out over a spot of blood. Castigated for smelling like shit. Called a 'pussy' for wanting to go home. Also, it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that he might break my thumbs for waking him.

I decided to thumb East on Highway 98, toward the 'Miracle Strip Amusement Park'. Famous for its 'Tilt-a-Whirl', 'roller coaster', and haunted house. An advertisement I'd noticed in Funland mentioned a place called the 'Reef', where a dozen raw oysters were within my budget. My skull roasted in the tormenting heat and my legs revolted from a lack of sleep. If I'd had a hundred bucks, I couldn't have bought a ride. I was on the verge of bawling like a baby when a dark green pickup truck passed me, traveling west, in the opposite direction. A young girl, wearing a yellow headband, leaned out the window of the passenger seat. "Needa ride?" she hollered.

Now, I'm headed back toward Funland. Sandwiched between the driver (an older man with a face redder than a boiled lobster and a purple patch over his left eye) and the girl. She wore a purple head band and white shell earrings. Smacking her gum, she ordered 'Lobster Face' to pull the truck behind a gathering of tall sea-oats. At ninety-plus degrees, the ocean waves hardly moved. The cosmic window fan had shattered a fuse.

The girl was chubbier than I'd hoped, but beggars can't be...well, you know. She exited the pickup and motioned me to follow. When we reach a patch of sea-oats, 'lobster face' zoomed off, leaving tire tracks in the sparkling sand. She shrugged her shoulders and continued down the path to the shoreline. Ankle deep in the lazy sea, she removed her orange shorts and unfastened her lime green halter top. "C'mon, dude" she hollered, galloping naked into the still water, her arms flailing like the wings of a crane. "It's Great!"

'...Yeah, I'll show you great," I thought. I slipped out of my 'We Shuck You Suck' T-shirt. I say slipped but what I meant was struggled. The blobs of my stomach and the folds of my breast bounced and jiggled like a bobble head. Removing my sweat-stained jeans almost cost me a heart attack (I hadn't even thought to bring shorts to the damn beach).

From the shore, I became entranced in a movie...a horror movie. The bobbing folds of her stomach tread the thigh-deep water like warm gelatin. Her stringy and tangled hair mottled like scraps of pig iron; shoulders glistened with acute acne. Yet, she smiled, dousing her scrunched face with seawater.

She exited the Gulf and waddled up to the shore. Dropped to her knees in fake exhaustion and rolled in the sand. It stuck to her wet, slimy body like corn meal to an oyster, gorging every crevice, crack, field and fold.

"Lie down why don't cha? You shy?" she asks, staring at my hands that blocked my genitals. I plopped down and she immediately straddled me. But I was not ready. I have not achieved erection. Stuck together like sheets of sandpaper, our meshed bodies carved a huge dune into the virgin beach. We melded with liquid salt, broiled by the soaring heat of the tropical latitude. Her fingers sandblasted my penis with a billion grains of shimmering granules. It hurt. The intense daylight only made it worse. I was not aroused. My sore cock, stranded and deadened, gripped by her coarse appendage—my penis bleached and beached like a water-logged snail. Her sand-encrusted hand begged me, but any thought of future erection was out of the question.

"C'mon, dude! Get it up!" She implored. I could not. I'd lost interest and her domineering attitude wasn't helping the situation.

I needed a shower, shade, and a pitcher of A & W root beer. My profuse sweating and persistent sanding made me quite irritated. My entire body itched as the bitch attempted to 'resurrect' me, to no avail. I was as malleable as banana pudding. "WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?" she protested, aiming her white-grained lips into my crotch. She sucked with an exuberance I can only describe as desperate. It was as though I were fucking the beach.

Our collective perspiration saturated our bodies. Crusty granules of crunched quartz burned into my thighs like flaming shards of stitching point pins. The hole in my wrist, due to the mutant ant-flea-crab, started bleeding again.

"When is your friend coming back?" I asked.

"He ain't. I'm a thumb too. At least he could get it up."

"Well,' I said, '...I gotta split, my buddy's waitin' on me."

A disgusted, angry growl swelled her jowls. Her poached lips and chapped nose crinkled in contempt. Then she started to howl. "You look like a damn beached whale!" She laughed, then dashed to the surf to rinse her sandblasted body. I could hear her from there.

'Beached Wayul....Beached Wayul!"

I stuffed my lard ass into my jeans. She continued to taunt, racing past me like an angry hippo, adjusting her halter. She skipped to the highway and raised her thumb. When a thug on a motorcycle stopped, she mounted the seat, turned to me and flipped her middle finger. Tossing her matted hair over her shoulder, she howled. "Byyeee Moby Dick! Too bad you ain't got one!" I lurched down the highway toward 'Funland'. When I finally got there, Zooma was playing pinball and chugging an ice-cold Coca Cola.

"What in the hell happened to you?" he asked. My cheeks were ingrained with sand. My jeans and T-shirt etched in sweat. A swath of blood streaked across my hand and my nose shone a horrendous shade of crimson. My chest heaved from the last mile I'd walked. "Nothin' that would interest you," I replied.
I rinsed the blood off my arm in the rest room. Informed Zooma I wanted to go home. Reminded him we were broke, out of smokes and smelled like goose-shit. I was feverish from the insect bite and showed second degree burns from exposure.

"OK, man, let's split," he said. No argument. No questions. When I showed him my 'ant-flea-crab' bite, he snickered and called me a 'pussy'.

From his back pocket, he produced a rectangle of photos he'd made in the '4 pics for a dollar' booth. Black and White. His sinewy biceps in one, in another he'd turned the back of his head to the camera and put shades where his eyes might be, like cousin 'It' in the Addams family. I don't recall the other two.

We were on the outskirts of DeFuniak Springs when the mosquitoes began to take hold. For hours, we hoarded the side of the road. Cursing the Farmers who employed the old trick of pointing to the next intersection, indicating they weren't going far enough to do us any good. Most drivers didn't even look at us. We were stuck in the middle of nowhere. No houses, streetlights, cows or cars. Surrounded by dive-bombing blood sucking predators, serenaded by horny bullfrogs and grouchy crickets. Two hours turned to three, three to five. No ride. I was nauseous and the rash between my flabby sand-blasted thighs was getting worse.

Then, from the opposite direction, oncoming headlights.

Zooma removed his t-shirt and began twirling it like a windmill. The phantom car roared by, horn blaring.

"Asshole!" Zooma cursed.

"But we're not GOING that way!" I screamed.

"Don't matter, P.B., can't stay out here all night. Might as well go back to the beach."

Twin circles of light appeared on the horizon. "Here comes another one, Zooma, get off the road, man."

The headlights flashed several times before the car slowed and finally came to a halt.

"Mista, sho 'pre-che-ate a lift." Zooma stated, exaggerating a southern drawl.

"Please, mister," I begged.

The driver, chewing tobacco, spit out the window. His greasy hair was slick and tied in back with a rubber band. Resembled the tail of a rat.

"I'll give ya'll a ride, but lemme tell ya sumthin. I don't screw around...see this?" 'he drawled, removing a small pistol from a wrinkled towel on the seat beside him. '...Ain't afraid to use it, neither. You boys got the devil in ya?"

"Nosuh!" I said, Southern as possible.

"Where ya'll headed?"

"Huntsville."

"Git in."

I tumbled into the back seat. Zooma climbed in the front.

"Been to Huntsville. Sisters' cousin stays up yonder. She one uh them Church of Christer's. Damned me to Hell for having a kid with a colored woman. Damn, son, when's the last time ya'll had a bath?"

Twenty miles north of Birmingham, he stopped for gas, then ordered Zooma to drive.

I passed out from terminal exhaustion. When I awoke, we were in front of Zooma's house. Not only had 'Rat Tail' allowed Zooma to drive us to our doorstep, he gave Zooma ten dollars for driving. Within minutes, I gloated in a bathtub surrounded by bubbles. A quart of chocolate milk in one hand, a peanut butter and banana sandwich in the other. Thank you, 'Rat Tail', wherever you are.

* * *

Zooma rolled a joint as we waited for 'Yellow Submarine' to begin. Recounting our adventure to Panama City Beach seemed to lighten his mood.

The hitchhiking debacle had rearranged my priorities. I realized I had no desire for the unknown, was uncomfortable with the inconsistency of the nomad. Wanted to sleep in my own bed. Hell, if I wanted to see the Parthenon, I would visit the library; if I wanted to consume monkeys with a Ugandan tribe, I'd peruse a National Geographic. If I wanted to visit California, I'd play a Beach Boys' album; if I wanted to screw Peggy Lipton, I'd masturbate to her photo on the cover of TV Guide.

Panama City Beach had taught me a valuable lesson. I did not need to go anywhere. Oh, it was a glorious revelation. I could live my life within a circumference of twenty square miles. If in the cards, would find love in those square miles. Oh, a tremendous consolation. And my fatal mistake.

A few scenes into the movie, I lowered the volume on the speaker phone, substituting the songs 'We All Live in a Yellow Submarine' and 'Hey Bulldog' with 'Zappa's Motel Hell'. Zooma spied on the couple in the adjoining space, engrossed in rampant lovemaking.

Bored with the movie, we left to grab a bite at the 'Waffle House'. I wasn't hungry, so I ordered three eggs, bacon, pancakes and a bowl of chili. 'Yellow Submarine' wasn't as entertaining as I'd remembered. Not near as good as 'The Beatle's Cartoon' on Saturday mornings. When I saw the film in '68, I assumed the voices of the fab four were authentic. When I later learned that B-rated British actors had spoken the lines, I was angry and sad. Authenticity?

The Waffle House waitress, a short, nappy-headed dirigible, licked the tip of her pencil, took our order and shouted it to the horse-lipped cook. I had poured a triple dose of sugar in my coffee, hoping to ward off an oncoming headache when 'Bye, Bye Miss American Pie' began playing on the jukebox.

"Fuck!" Zooma screamed, startling customers. "Not that shit again."

The waitress waddled to our table and asked Zooma to curtail his language. I'd lost what little appetite I'd had, so I nibbled a slice of bacon.

"You ever thought about joining the Peace Corps?" I stammered.

"What the fuck do you mean by that?"

The waitress returned and told us the manager wanted us out of there.

I lowered my voice. "Means you need to settle down. What would you have me do? Unplug the jukebox?" I asked, innocently enough.

"No, just pay the bill." Zooma sighed, laying to rest his half-eaten pancakes with a napkin.

I strolled up to the cash register. A dumpy waitress with a light brown mustache gawked at me as if I were Charles Manson. I frowned, angered by a woman who didn't have the decency to shave her lip before she came to work. I laid a ten and a five on the counter and got the hell out.

Zooma wasn't ready to go home. I drove to an abandoned cornfield, a mile from where the Grizzard house had once stood. We had been there many times—to hide from the 'Dullies, smoke reefer and contemplate the universe. I killed the headlights and the brown stalks vanished. The blue iridescence of the radio dial was the only light. Above us, a cosmic umbrella of black onyx studded with sparkling, scattered diamonds. Zooma lit a cigarette and I absorbed the perfect silence, invited it.

Then, in a monotone, Zooma spoke. "It's drifting lateral, you know. Nothing but horizontal shadows invading the grain of the Universe. Spiraling off course. We are witnessing the devolution of the Herd, Pan. The Merge of annihilation, man. Experiencing the greatest illusion of all time..."

I vegetate as he boards the caustic train of philosophical babble.

"Fuck," I thought. 'Why can't we talk about important things, such as, where am I going for lunch tomorrow, Mullin's or Big Springs Café."

"...Maniacs, Panther, malicious thugs. Sharpening the serpent's tooth. The Least Common Denominator. A society comprised of laconic songs; moronic Dee Jays; conglomerated newspapers and radio stations. Material sustenance. Buffing their sharpest tool. Advertisement. When was the last time a degenerate promoted Alka Seltzer? Ever see an amputee promote a Dodge Dart?"

"...Mullin's makes a better chili-dog- but the Café has sweeter ice-tea..."

"I mean, why would the LCD have a gorgeous, lip-smacking woman on a billboard, when all they advertise is a toaster? Our instincts perpetuate their greed. Look around, man! It's pathetic. The 'Precious Few' control the 'Idiot Herd'. Exploiting the Least Common Denominator, promoting the illusion of individuality. Survival of the fittest requires a false perception of success. Intimidation escalates. Power is morality. Ignorance is the status-quo.

"Course, Gibson's sounds good, I would kill to have a quart of Brunswick stew right now..."

"Panther Burn. Mention Lenin and McCarthy and folks think of Lennon and McCartney! One half of one percent of the population is misleading the other ninety-nine point nine. Told how to dress, what to eat, what to Believe. We are lazy and the thugs know it. We are what we fear the most. When Power is the illusion of righteousness; when the 'Merge' shelters us; the only success we derive is the excrement of our spirit."

"...No, I haven't had a chile relleno in months. Yep, definitely El Palacio..."

"Convenience invites the complacent," Zooma replied.

"Damn, I'm hungry. Wait a minute! There should be some fruitcake in here. It's been under the seat since Christmas. I'd stashed it there and forgotten about it."

"Panther, do you know how Howard Hughes got rich?" He asked, flicking cigarette ash. I fumbled under the seat.

"Oil, casinos, something like that." I mumbled, searching for that elusive fruitcake.

"Hughes's father invented a drill bit and leased it to the oil companies instead of selling it to them. Now, what does that remind you of?"

"Reminds me of this man who weighed forty pounds and had toenails three feet long," I replied. "Got it! It's still there. Now I need to wiggle it from under the seat without crumbling it to pieces."

"No, you damn fool. The rock bit, the leasing, the empire?"

"I don't know, Zooma, what?" I asked, bisecting Orion with the car antenna.

"It's no different than Organized Religion."

"Of course." I said, not giving a damn. I gripped the cake. It had lodged itself in a spring or something.

"The bit is Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha. Organized Religion owns the patent. It leases us the bit, the least common denominator. And our reward is bliss and eternal banana splits. And the God, Inc. is content. The patent holder is happy, the church is solvent. The herd becomes beholden to its leader; gloats in subservience and immorality."

The only way to retrieve that cake is to remove my fat ass from the seat.

I had to urinate. The warm stream rustled the brown, dried-out corn stalks.

I returned to the Falcon and leaned against the hood. A stick of straw dangled from Zooma's lips as he joined me. "You realize we're doomed to exist forever don't you, Pan?"

"Who cares?" I replied. "Anyway, how would you know?"

"It's been proven. Back in the Fifties, a guy named Kirlian invented a special camera. He ripped a leaf in half, then photographed it. The exposure revealed an outline of the entire leaf. The essence of the complete leaf, invisible to the naked eye, was there. The energy survived. As ours will."

"Ok. Interesting, I guess." I wondered if it would be safe to consume an eight-month old fruitcake. What did I care? Might as well die from food poisoning as carbon monoxide.

"You guess? Don't you get the implication? The entire leaf existed, even though half of it was invisible. Though its physical body was destroyed, its essence remained intact. He documented the Universal Breath. If I sliced your arm off, its essence would remain. It proves we are not separate from the Cosmos. We are It."

A bat, or something, fluttered among the corn stalks.

"What'd you do with the roach clip?" I asked, needing an excuse to forage in the car.

"It's on the dashboard. C'mon, man, let's split. I got the munchies."

To this day, that damn fruitcake rots beneath the front seat of the Falcon.

*

Zooma didn't mutter one damn word on the way home from the cornfield. Fine with me. He had exhausted me. The LCD society, the 'Bit', the Precious Few and the Herd bored me. I didn't care if the entire Earth became a Universal spit ball. By the time Earth was sucked into a black hole by the gravitational blow job, I'd be licking cosmic limes, smoking meteor dust and copulating anti-matter until my cock petrified. I'll grant him Earth is headed toward oblivion. But it takes two to tango, ejaculation requires one.

I'd spent five hours listening to Zooma extrapolate his philosophical dribble. Smoked two packs of 'Marlboros'. We returned to Reynolds Circle. The house smelled of George Dickel and the den resembled the morning after Fat Tuesday.

Saturday Morning

September 4, 1982 (NWS) The storm system remains stationary off the Florida coast near Cedar Key. It continues to intensify with Reconnaissance wind speed estimates increasing from 75 mph to 125 mph in the eye wall.

I am ecstatic. Zooma was speaking into the hideous beast. "Love you, too. I'll be down in a day or two." It appeared Zooma had made travel plans and would soon leave. My destiny, what little remained, in complete control. Now, someone other than Zooma would find my carbonized remains. But it didn't matter. Still, I had more questions for Zooma. I lumbered down the stairs dressed in tan, silk pajamas. Inhaled the aroma of fresh brewed coffee, hoping Zooma hadn't found the doughnuts stashed in the oven. Zooma had momentarily acquitted himself by brewing a pot of coffee. I sipped my joe in a good mood. Zooma would be leaving soon. The coffee didn't elicit a drastic change from my usual melancholy, but I felt better than average. I poured another cup. It was ironic, I'd waited for years to see Zooma again. Now, I couldn't wait for him to leave.

"Was that Thizzie?" I asked. I had not heard from Zooma's mother since she'd sent condolences after my parent's demise.

"Yeah. She bought a new word processor, plans to compose mysteries for a detective magazine."

"You're kidding?" I asked, not realizing Mrs. West aspired to be an author.

"No, but it's hard for her to type with that fuckin' arthritis. Said to tell you 'hi'."

"Thizzies' a sweet lady, you're lucky to have her," I said, sipping coffee, fishing for a smoke.

"What's luck got to do with it?" he replied, ever the fucking philosopher. He sat in the rocking chair, wearing a baseball cap labelled 'Calvin's Truck Stop'. Atop the coffee table, my 'Underwood' typewriter and a stack of blank paper.

"What are you writing?" I asked. He'd be leaving in a day or two, and if he became angry at my intrusion and inquisition, so be it.

"My last will and testament," he replied.

Unbelievable. We'd both composed wills within the previous two weeks and we were only twenty-eight years old. It's not like we had contracted a disease. Well, on second thought, we did have an acute case of terminal apathy.

"Hell, you ain't got nothin' to give anybody." I smirked. Zooma kept pecking. ...Tap...tap...tap...'

Well into my second pot of coffee, Zooma managed to convince me to drive, alone, to Wal-Mart. For some reason, he needed a portable cassette player. I didn't want him rummaging through the house, so, when I told him I'd buy his lunch, he relented, and we went together.

The idea of taking the scenic route to the store was my idea. I felt nostalgic and it proved to be contagious. I dressed in a pair of white dungarees and a sky-blue, short sleeved 'polo' shirt. Whetting my appetite with a doughnut, I watched him stroll down the stairs. He was wearing my mother's long sleeved, white lace, wrinkled, crumpled blouse with the sleeves puffed out. He had rummaged through my closet and discovered my long forgotten, ankle-high, patent leather 'Beatle Boots'. Atop his head was a large, blonde straw hat, with a dark, plastic 'visor' sewn in the bill. As he approached, I was aghast. He had donned Mildred's fiery red wig. Its petrified curls dangling from beneath the hat like demented wings. He grabbed his 'Elvis' sunglasses. "Ready, monster man?" he said with one arm behind his back.

"Me? Monster? A fuckin' cannibal wouldn't eat you. Looks like you got a mop on your head. You ain't plannin' to wear that shit to the store, are you?"

"Hey man, just tryin' to be me. That against the law?"

"It ought to be." I replied. "Well, hell, come on, but I ain't letting you out of the car. Jesus." I don't know why his wardrobe had bothered me. Hell, I'd strolled through town with ground beef molded to my head.

"Panther Burn," Zooma said, bringing his arm from behind his back, "what in the hell is this?" In his hand was 'Tater's' mason jar. Shuffling through my upstairs closet, he had found what remained of Tony Ruminello.

"What? Where'd you find that?"

"In your closet, behind the boots."

I didn't know how to respond. In all the drama and turmoil surrounding Zooma's return, I had forgotten about the jar. I had to think quick. He would have thought me sick, or insane, knowing I had kept 'Tater's' flesh hidden in my closest all these years.

"Wow, man, that's an old biology project. I can't believe I still got that."

"But what is it?" Zooma persisted.

"What difference does it make? C'mon, let's go if we're goin'"

I grabbed the jar. Stashed it in the garbage can underneath the videocassette of 'Barbarella'. We hopped in the sweltering Falcon and I turned the cool air control to 'high'. Sweat gathered at my temples as 'Whiter Shade of Pale' reverberated from the car speakers.

Zooma rolled down his window, so I shut off the air-control. He wanted to know why I'd done such a dumb thing. I didn't have a quantifiable answer, so I switched the air back on and rolled my window down, what the hell.

At the end of the Circle, to Zoomas' right, sat the house where he'd spent his youth. The house was still white, but the four tall columns were blue, which gave it a nice ethnic appeal. Several cats perched on the porch. A pink Dogwood contained a yellow birdhouse. The mailbox was decorated with a caricature of an old farm woman. Her checkerboard knickers advertised a fondness for the agricultural. I made a left onto Reynolds Drive. A stoplight caught us at the crossroads, Mastin Lake Road and Pulaski Pike. From the intersection, we stared at the corner where 'Hembreys' grocery used to be, now a 'Colonial' Bank. I turned left and passed the cornfield, where the night before, Zooma had expounded on the depravity of the sentient.

Minutes later, we arrived at 'Boner' Field. I parked behind 'home plate' and opened a fresh pack of smokes.

"What are we doin here?' Zooma queried.

"No reason," I said. Truth is, I'm not sure why I stopped. I could have, should have, gone somewhere else; a place without tragic memories; where we could relax, smoke, chew the fat. Instinct had driven me to this sordid place.

The large Oaks and Pines had made way for more ball fields. The gravel parking lot paved with slick asphalt.

Before he left, for better or worse, sooner or later, I would broach the subject of Tater and Vanessa. But for now, I would wait. Instead, I asked, "Whatever happened to 'Iceland'?"

"Who?"

"You know, Tuscaloosa, back in '74, those girls that invaded your apartment while I was there."

"Don't recall the names," he said, gazing into the outfield.

"Yeah, you do, man. Fresca," I replied. "Don't you remember...she read my aura with that volcanic shit. She believed that whatever happens in life is supposed to happen. It's preordained at birth. Nothing we can do about it."

Zooma chuckled. "I wish you'd do something about your breath...man...smells like the ass of a mule."

"Well, it hit me, it's a matter of cause and effect. If the original cause for the Universe is the Big Bang, then, everything else is the effect."

"You say so."

"It's true. If not for the Big Bang, I wouldn't be here. So, if I'm only an effect, then, I cannot cause anything!"

A couple of teenage boys with a gloves and bat strode past.

"Pan, something had to cause the Big Bang. The real question is what happened before the Bang. If the galaxies originated from a singularity, then something had to exist outside the event horizon."

"What's a event..?"

"The Event Horizon is the point where the singularity divides from the rest of the space around it. Like that grimy line of shit in your toilet bowl. You know what the Big Bang is don't you?"

"Sorta, I guess."

"It's Mama Cass and Orson Welles farting in a propane tank."

I made a guttural sound at his joke. Since he was in a stupid mood, I asked him a stupid question. "You believe in God?"

He gave me a dumb look. Then said, "You?"

"It don't matter," I replied. "...Anyhow, I'm asking you."

"If I say I do, you will require no explanation. If I say I don't, my explanation will not suffice. Do you hope that I do? Will you feel better? Will my affirmation reinforce yours? Do you need a scapegoat? Panther, remember when that tornado hit Mississippi? A couple months ago? It levelled the entire town except for some old woman's house. When they interviewed her, she claimed it was God's will. The Lord had favored her righteousness. Luck had nothing to do with it. Her countless prayers had saved her home. God's I.O.U., the Almighty's quid pro quo. Is she saying the two-year old child who never prayed deserved the wrath of God? Is she out of her fucking mind? Be a good little soldier and pray and your home will be saved. The rest of us will spend eternity polishing fiery little hoofs. Cover your ass with faith compounded daily—deposit prayer, withdraw salvation. God is your banker, your garbage man, the sewer where, when you shit yourself, He wipes your ass. Blame God because you're so pathetic you can't blame yourself. God is a product of the imagination. Prayer comforts only those reciting them."

'Is an eight-month old fruitcake edible?'

The teenage boys met up with a couple of girls. They retreated to the first base dugout.

Zooma lit a smoke. "...Panther Burn, you desire Sanctification? Listen to 'Mood Indigo' under a palm tree in Cozumel. Sip a Mai Tai with the love of your life. Savor the perfect enchilada. Cherish the moment. But how to proceed when every good thing that could happen has already happened. Where do you go from there? When every possible scenario has a negative outcome? When all roads lead to nowhere? Believe in yourself, man. God is not some gold-toothed miser with a cosmic wand, sprinkling angel-dust across the Universe. God isn't dwelling within or outside you. God is you."

The teenager had his hand up the girl's blouse. I'm considering Combo *9—cheese enchilada, chile relleno, rice and beans.

Zooma continued. "...Panther, if you need to believe in a higher power, so be it. Whatever gets you through the night. Your beliefs reconcile your desire. Search the heavens for an entity, if you must, and enjoy the journey. But travelling is not required. Breathe and you are there. Die and you are there. Have no fear. The God you wish to find elsewhere is nowhere, and everywhere. You are God."

The girl had teased the boy long enough. They were arguing as we exited Boner field.

*

I didn't intentionally drive by the house where 'Tater' had lived, and died, but it happened to be on the way to Wal-Mart. We passed the 'split-level' in reverent silence. In the driveway, black teenagers tossed a basketball at a goal 'slam-dunked' one too many times. The net in shambles, the rim bent at a forty-five-degree angle. As if someone had waved a magic wand through the air waves, The Beatles' 'A Hard Day's Night' played on the radio.

"Cat's couldn't learn that chord if their entire career depended on it," Zooma mumbled.

"What?"

"Hard Days' Night. Guitarists can play every stupid Police song ever written. Yet, not a damn one of 'um knows the opening chord to 'A Hard Days' Night'. Pitiful," Zooma stated, patting his foot to the beat.

"Did you ever want to be famous?" I asked.

"What...you mean like 'Pima Jima'."

"Who?"

"Ira Hayes. The Indian raised the flag on Iwo Jima. Drank himself to death. Found his body in a gutter. Panther Burn, fame will not exclude burning out."

"You burned out?"

"Churned out. You?"

"Yeah."

I turned left onto 'Grizzard Road'.

"Fuck! Where's the house?"

"Tore it down years ago."

The 'Grizzard' house had been demolished in the late seventies. After that, the neighborhood had deescalated into a section geared toward the idea of vertical drift. Today, the property looked nice. An 'up yours' suburbia—a quaint subdivision where sweaty Mexican boy's mowed well-manicured lawns.

"Hell of a note," he sighed. "...Reckon Sarge is still knitting socks in prison?"

"I don't know, but I bet he's still taking it up the ass," I guffawed.

"That's fuckin' hilarious, Pee Bee. You're funnier than Richard Pryor."

"Me? Comic? Look in the fucking mirror you wanna see a Comedian. Anyway, Sarge has probably got AIDS by now. I still can't believe you let that old man do what he did, even if he did give you a bunch of crap."

"Jesus Panther, why such animosity toward the homosexual set, man? I mean, what the fuck? What they ever do to you? Manson and Chapman are comfortably numb. Little girls get raped and murdered. And you freak out because a man sucks a dick? What they need to do is parachute criminals down to Rat Island in the Aleutian's. Seven thousand acres of nothing but black rats. Hell, ain't no birds 'cause the rats ate them. Give Manson and Chapman a shovel, strap a couple pounds of raw hamburger across their back and toss 'um out of a plane."

"Well, I ain't got nothin' against fags, long as they don't bother me."

"Christ, Panther. What would they wanna do with you? I mean, besides eat you. That would be quite a buffet if I say so myself," he howled. "You think I'm gay, don't you?"

"No, Zooma. That I know for sure."

"Pan. I could, and probably will, go the rest of my life without having sex with another man. Sarge was a financial consideration." He pointed to a yellow brick, dilapidated house. An elderly black man was depositing a bag of garbage into an aluminum can. "Hey, you Black Bastard!" Zooma hollered, laughing.

In those few moments, Zooma had returned to the Zooma I loved. Lucky for us, the old Black man didn't hear him, or didn't give a damn. The good ole carefree days had evaporated. Back in the sixties, Zooma had befriended more Black folks than some Black folks had. In the early eighties, the racial line had thickened and become worse. In the late Sixties, Huntsville's racial tension had loomed 'out in the open', melded together in a morass of ignorance. But, now, with the construction of the noxious Interstate Highway System, the city had devolved into a malfunctioning Metropolis. The Interstates divided the social structure more than ever. Animosity simmered like lava. Instead of blowing off one puff of steam at a time, like we did in the Sixties, it wouldn't be long before the damn mountaintop exploded in a demonic propulsion.

We headed down Jamestown Road. Bobby Bales was washing his car.

"Damn, that goat-lover got old,' Zooma said. "I remember him looking through my telescope. Thought he was seeing Moon craters. Turned out to be the damn streetlamp. Next day, he shot the light out with his bb gun."

"Zooma, that was my telescope."

I stopped at a 7-11 to get a Dr. Pepper and a honey bun. Zooma complained of a headache and required a 'moon pie' and a Buffalo Rock ginger-ale. I popped the top on my drink and enjoyed my honey bun.

"Did I tell you I moved to Memphis a while back?"

"You left good ole Huntsville? Did the world implode?"

"Yeah, wanted to be a writer, uh...novelist..." I said, providing quotation marks with my sticky index fingers. I met this old man who claimed to have met Elvis—said his son even took the Beatles to see him. But it was all bullshit. He wished he'd done those things. I got a job chipping concrete from old bricks. Ten cents a brick, if you can believe it."

"Oh, I can, Peter Pan, I can definitely believe it," he said, flicking the Zippo, catching a curl of Mildred's wig on fire.

"Damn, man, don't flip your wig," I laughed. "Well, anyway, it didn't work out, the novel, I mean, so I, uh, came back home."

"A novelist, huh? Yeah, Pan, it's a tough row to hoe out there in the 'real world'," Zooma said.

"You think you're living in the real world?" I asked, louder than necessary, standing my ground.

"OK, my man, calm down, relax, two breaths in, one out."

I winded through city streets. He browsed at the 'new' modern Metropolis, unable to grasp the nature of progress. Upset 'they' had meddled with his hometown. Marvin Gaye's 'Mercy Mercy Me' echoed from the speakers.

"His own fucking father murdered him." Zooma said.

"Who?"

"Marvin Gaye."

"Yeah, but they say Gaye was an asshole," I stated for the record, not knowing who 'they' were.

"Well, then, hell, let's kill every asshole. You wanna be first, or can I have the honor?" he said.

I turned from Fairway Drive onto Holmes Avenue. Drove up a slight incline. There, in her ancient splendor. Rutler High School.

"What a dump."

The old school, surrounded with portable buildings, looked like a cheap trailer park. In 1972, the school was reminiscent of the windowless Pentagon. The 'color-coded' sections of yellow, blue, and green had been swallowed up by prefabricated monstrosities, I could not even see the administrative offices. The humidity of the Alabama September had climbed to ninety percent. The sky had clammed up with dark rolling clouds, but I'd be damned before rolling up the window and enlisting the cool-air control. A matter of pride.

"Drive through," Zooma ordered. I cruised past Homer's old office, or, where it used to be. Passed by the admissions office, then came to a roped security gate. Zooma removed the chain in front of the 'yellow' section, or what remained of it.

"Can't they leave anything alone?" Zooma protested. '...Is progress that important?" The school depressed us. The 'yellow' section now a parking lot for the 'Dullies'. Faculty. Administrators.

"Unbelievable. Unfuckingbelievable," Zooma muttered, bowing his head. Sweat discoloring the straw hat. The curls of his wig charred and limp. '...Let's split, man, ain't a damn thing here I need to see."

I suppose he expected to engage students with black armbands, smoking joints, wearing 'bell-bottoms' and army jackets. But all he saw were their ghosts. And poems, scrawled on walls years past, had long since vanished. I drove past the gym, where his band had entertained the senior assembly and eased the racial tension.

I ventured past the Black Funeral Home, where Zooma had acquired the Cadillac hearse. A mile later, we arrived at Wal Mart. I shouldn't have cared but hoped he wouldn't attempt to enter the store. Dressed the way he was, in that puffy lace blouse, funky straw hat, and Mildred's burnt, red wig, somebody would have called a shrink. No doubt, either he would stay in the car, or I would.

"What type of Cassette player you want?" I asked from outside the window of the Falcon.

"One that plays cassettes," he said, somber as an undertaker.

"Anything else, Master?"

"Bring back a cashier, young and sweet. I love WalMart and Wal-Mart loves me'," he crooned. '...But if she's heavy on the gravy, that will suffice, senor'."

"At your service, King Z," I bowed. Sometimes I wanted to whip his smart ass; sometimes I wanted to love his cool ass. But most of the time, I kissed his white, skinny ass.

I finished shopping at Wal-Mart and returned to the car with a 'Panasonic' cassette player (thirty-nine dollars, not that the price of anything mattered anymore); two filet Mignon, green and red bell peppers, onions, cherry tomatoes, and a fresh head of red leaf lettuce and a bottle of red wine. I loaded the items in the Falcon while Zooma fiddled with the green visor on his silly hat. Purchasing groceries and reliving the past distressed me. I wavered between staying alive or committing suicide. I got behind the wheel and, feeling giddy, asked, "When'd you start losing your hair?"

"'Bout the same time you started losing your mind," he replied.

I dropped my inquiry like a dead rat, but, then changed my mind. "Mines turning gray. Reckon I'll dye it," I lied. Zooma glared out the window. '...You still look ok, Zoom, even though your scalp looks like a goose-turd," I quipped, attempting to lighten the atmosphere. It was futile.

"Looks ain't everything," he said, chewing a matchstick, appraising me. '...Looks ain't nothin'."

Another mile and we arrived at Maple Hill Cemetery. "Well, at least this place ain't changed none," Zooma grumbled.

"Dad and Mildred are here. Thought I'd visit the grave. Care to go with me?"

"Not particularly, Pan. Cemeteries remind me of anal sex. Their a bunch of shit," he chuckled.

Hell, if he didn't want to visit my parent's grave, no big deal. I hadn't visited but twice and sure as hell didn't want him contemplating anal sex while I paid my respects. His reference to anal sex reminded me of his father, who had in '74, gone missing in Transylvania, Louisiana. When they found his car surrounded by a pack of wild dogs.

"Miss your dad, Zoom?"

"Panther Burn, if my daddy ever returned, I'd bust his jaw."

"Well, I dug your old man," I said. I recalled the night his dad had invited me to a 'stag' party. A bunch of old horny men were huddled around a motel room, watching eight-millimeter porn movies. I had a marvelous time. Swigging beers and howling at an obese, wart−faced woman who was sucking the penis of a growling German Shepard.

"Me too, Pan. It was liking him that was a drag. Don't get me wrong, man. He'd mellowed out in his later years but growing up was hell."

"What, he beat you up?"

"Nah, a few belts to the ass, no big deal, more parents need to do that. I was beaten psychologically."

"How's that?" I said, then wished I hadn't. I thought, "here we go again."

"Before I walked into a room, I'd know his mood. Like telepathy. His presence sucked the oxygen out of the house. He'd come home from work and I'd instinctively know whether to approach, before I even saw him. Course, you didn't argue with dad, he'd as soon whip your ass. Shit, man, you ask my father why you had to do something, it would be the last time you asked him anything. He didn't even introduce me to 'rubbers' until I turned eighteen, but that didn't matter. Hell, I didn't lose my virginity until I turned twenty-three."

"Whoa!" those words imploded my senses. "You were a what until when?" I asked.

Zooma lit another smoke. "You deaf, or do your ears flap? I didn't get laid until I was twenty-three."

"Are you fuckin' kiddin' me?"

"Have I ever kidded you, Panther. But, it's cool. I made up for it."

"But, what about 'Flicka', in my trailer, back in '74, '75, when I filmed ya'll...or...?" I started to mention the day at Boner field with Vanessa but thought better of it. Besides, he hadn't gone all the way with Van. Possum had intervened.

"Panther, I screwed her with my thumb for God's sake. I'm surprised you didn't notice and sure as hell was surprised that she didn't."

"You fucked her with your thumb?"

He thrust his thumb in my face and exclaimed, "I guess that's what you call this appendage, 'aint it?"

"What do you mean, you made up for it?"

"One hundred, thirty-three women," he said, matters of fact.

"You counted them?"

"I bedded them."

"You laid a hundred and thirty-three women in the last...what...eight, nine years?"

"Something like that. Better yet, I remember their names."

"What, they fill out a resume? So, you were making up for 'lost' time, so to speak?"

"No, no, no...hell man, I don't care what's between their legs. The best part of fucking is BEFORE the fucking. It's called Romance, Pan. Hell, man, when I was a kid, I knew nothing about sex. Relationships with girls were...uh...platonic, for lack of a better word. My dates were dinners and cruising 'Shoneys'. Sometimes, we'd park on Monte Sano and she'd grab my crotch, or I'd feel her up. But soon as I'd cream my jeans, that would be it. Unfortunately, she'd just be getting started so I'd find an excuse to go home. And then came 'Sweet Virginia'. She was the first. I was twenty-three. She wore me out, Panther and I turned a page. Decided to fuck anyone available. Then, somehow, romance got lost in the shuffle. My attempt to rekindle it led me to women who believed the art of seduction frivolous. For men, romance leads to sex. For women, sex sustains the romance. Women lead the horse by the head and men grab it by the ass. So, no, Pan, it wasn't women I wanted to fuck, it was romance I wanted to enjoy."

*

Throughout high school, and before, girls had demanded Zooma's attention. All these years, I'd believed he'd burrowed deep in the sheets. Now, he tells me he'd never consummated the relationships. Hell, I wish I'd known. I could have relieved him of a few jezebels and worn their orgasms plum out.

"How many you had?" Zooma asked.

"Women?" I replied. Stupid.

"Naw...man....goats."

"Bales fucked a goat once," I said, too ashamed to admit my continual virginity. But I was quick with words.

"Bales would fuck an apple." Zooma replied.

I cruised down Jordan Lane. On the right was 'Ogles' trailer park, where the trailers leaned sideways. Vicious shades of underwear hung from a makeshift clothesline—one end attached to a rusty swing set, the other to the door of a '57 Chevy.

"Wouldn't surprise me if Flicka' still lives there. Wanna stop and say hi?" I said, pointing to an old trailer, in need of the nearest garbage dump.

"Pass."

"That's where I was stayin' when I got fired by Correan Jean. Same day, I quit my job at 'BCI', next day somebody stole my drums. That was the same week Flicka' gave you the crabs. Don't you remember those fucking fleas?" I said.

"De Sade said there'd be days like that."

We finished our sightseeing tour and returned home. I unloaded the groceries. Zooma fiddled with his new cassette player. I marinated steaks in 'Dales' sauce and peeled onions. One hundred and thirty-three women. Glad I'd thought of Bobby Bales. He had fucked a goat. Forced the animal to the edge of a pond. Unfortunately, for the goat that is, the animal didn't take to water and kept backing up. Flush into Bobby's groin. According to Bales, that goat was the best piece of tail he'd ever had.

I'd been afraid to tell Zooma how many women I'd slept with. It would have been more embarrassing than informing him of my daily masturbation to Peggy Lipton on the cover of TV Guide. And, of course, my answer would have been 'zero'. Never screwed a woman. Or a man, or a goat. At this final, singular point in the last hours of my life, I am pathetic. Non-sexual. And not proud of it. How can a twenty-eight-year old man live this long without experiencing the most gratifying part of it? I'm a poster child for the pitiful. How did the greatest pleasure in life manage to elude me?

I popped the top on a couple of 'Coors'. Zooma rocked in his chair. The greatest hits of 'Paul Revere and the Raiders' echoed throughout the house. Upstairs, I placed Mildred's ancient bottle of Valium in a bedside drawer under a TV Guide. Downstairs, I prepared the Last Supper. Peeled leaves from a soggy, lukewarm, head of lettuce; sliced filet mignon into two-inch cubes; pierced onions, tomatoes, and peppers with thin wooden skewers. 'Kicks' blared from his brand-new Panasonic.

"These guys on CD yet?" he asked.

"Don't know. Should be. They were the Supergroup of the Sixties, weren't they?" I said sarcastically.

"Wish I'd kept my Tricorn," Zooma sighed.

"Wish I still had my sanity."

"Hats reveal one's destiny."

"You believe in that crap?" I asked, knowing better.

"Don't you?" Zooma had a knack of answering a question with a question.

"Why don't you answer me, what's the damn difference?" I said, wrapping potatoes in aluminum foil.

"Destiny is where we finish, Pan, fate is the shitty journey that leads us there. Got any more typing paper?"

I convinced Zooma to scrape the carbonized meat from the rusted grill with a metal brush. 'Louie Louie' pounded against the walls of the den as I lit a pyramid of charcoal briquets.

"Five more minutes, we'll put the kabobs on," I said.

"Five more minutes, hombre, I'll die of starvation."

*

Sunday

September 5, 1982 (NWS) Jason Madeira, meteorologist with the National Weather service in Birmingham Alabama said North Alabama is expected to receive the bulk of rainfall associated with the tropical system.

Morning. The remnant of the Tropical Storm Chris will reach Huntsville tonight. It is appropriate. I stash my suicide note in the glove compartment of the Falcon. The hideous, telephonic beast will remain unplugged. I need no distraction. In the pocket of my jeans are seven Valium, wrapped in cellophane. They will guide me to sleep, before the carbon monoxide takes hold. Later tonight, I will dissolve four in Zoomas' margarita, that should give me the time I need. He'd decided to wait until Thursday to leave for Gulf Shores. I have decided not to wait. For Zooma, much will be expected. He will be angry. I doubt he has ever dealt with a corpse before. Hell, he doesn't even know the price of a postage stamp. But it will be good for him to take responsibility for a change. He better damn well do it. Forgive me, but I'm exhausted. As far as I'm concerned, the entire sordid affair will become Zooma's problem.

On this dreary, rainy afternoon, Zooma and I could have been anyone: Stalin and Churchill, Nixon and Mao, Lewis and Clark, Lewis and Ali, Lewis and Martin. Turned out we a bit of each. Fact was, we were two, depressed, unemployed actors, each attempting to play our parts. Embellishing our imprisoned ego. Neither realizing the guilt residing in the other. The 'shish-kabobs' were on the grill, the potatoes baking. I had all night to spike his beer, and, besides, I wanted to converse a while longer.

I lit sticks of sandalwood incense and refilled margarita glasses. Zooma flipped on the television and muted the volume. Rain pounded the roof as we watched a rerun of 'The Fugitive', starring the paranoid David Jansen. An appropriate choice, I realized. Zooma and I were fugitives, 'on the run' from something more sinister. We were running from ourselves.

Late afternoon, we lounge in the den. He in the rocking chair, me stuffed in the blue velvet sofa. As I'd done for years, I planned to watch the Jerry Lewis MD Telethon, set to begin in an hour or so. I'd always enjoyed the spectacle. Twenty-one hours watching CEO's and Tuxedo-clad entertainers beg for donations—climaxing with a Final, Grand Tally and a weeping Jerry Lewis struggling to finish 'I'll Never Walk Alone.'

But we were alone. Alone, but together. I'd never seen Zooma so vibrant, so vulnerable. Something gnawed at him, burdened his spirit. And for the next hour, the darkened den became his confessional. In excruciating detail, he recounted the night Chester Loop had entered his room, under false pretenses, to have sex, and that he had complied. I learned of precious Lynne in Lake Tahoe and her unrequited love. He recalled San 'Dayglo', Blacks Beach and the day Elvis Died. I felt his agony the night some loser murdered John Lennon. His guilt in believing he was responsible for Ellen's demise in Las Vegas. He was angry at Angie and cocaine and the leather-booted maniac that stomped upon the brains of chip-monks. Distraught at the 'Blue Ping Aliens' that had distorted his senses.

Needing a break from his torturous memories, I announced the kabobs ready (they were burned, in fact). I removed the potatoes from the oven, grabbed a couple beers and served his dinner on a tin platter. The feast seemed to brighten his mood. I turned to the appropriate Telethon channel. It hadn't started yet. Supper cured his melancholy. We commiserated innocent youth; Jane 'GodBod' Fonda and 'Barbarella'; the doughnut 'heist' at old man 'Hembreys' grocery. The fond memories of his 62' Cadillac Hearse pummeled by dirt clods and winos begging for 'kwata's' at the liquor store. I recounted my short excursion to Memphis; the art of chipping bricks, and of meeting Moondog, who urged me to 'find my sadness'. There were tales of hitchhiking, him and I to Panama City Beach, and his from San 'Dayglo' to Lake Tahoe. He described the 'Bermuda shorts' tourist who thought he lived under the 'Golden Gate' Bridge. I could picture the smoked ducks hanging from the eaves of the twinkling shops in Chinatown; almost feel the three-pronged dildos displayed in the porn shops. Through him, I met Cher and Englebert, Ann-Margret and Raquel. From him, I was introduced to the sadistic world of Marquis de Sade and the pursuit of Quality in Pirsig's 'Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'. He confessed to being 'conspicuously hindered'; trapped in 'horizontal refreshment'. Now, he 'stroked the cock of vertical replenishment'. I toured Tijuana with him. He surmised Angel's prostitution was a substitute for affection; a debt in lieu of affirmative relationships; guilt (for embracing unrequited passion), then despising her lot for believing in herself; and in failure, entering a den of rogue penis and insincere flattery. Then, after realizing her vagina shrouded her insecurity- she retreats into inner bliss- while her lips, fingers and genitals provide the basic requirements- now free to indulge in her familial fantasy.

Sawing a burnt cube, I asked Zooma why he had allowed Sarge to suck him. He replied that there was no difference between Angel prostituting herself and him receiving a sewing machine for services rendered. No difference between Linda Lovelace deep-throating Harry Reams or John Wayne moving a herd of cattle across Texas—no difference between Marilyn Monroe fucking every Kennedy she could find. What he had done with Sarge was no different than Johnny Carson falling head-first into hot-tub with Don Rickles. What was the difference between Jane Fonda posing on a North Vietnamese tank and Richard Nixon selling his soul for the Presidency? We are all salesmen, he said. It is the buyer who decides the morality. The Telethon finally began. As Ed McMahon introduced Jerry Lewis, I became apprehensive about broaching a subject that had been taboo. But I would never have another chance and he seemed to be in a delightful mood.

"Zooma, why did Tater and Van have to die so young," I asked him.

"Panther Burn," Zooma replied. "Life is a runaway train. Get on or get off, but the whistle-stop is an illusion. Some die young, that's all. Sure, they'll never visit the Empire State Building or exhume Italian truffles. They'll never taste a vintage Bordeaux or gallop across Mexican beaches. They'll never sleep where Washington slept and never sleep with Elvis. But, so what? They're not missing those things. We are. We're so obsessed with them missing it, we miss it ourselves."

Jerry's black tuxedo was pristine during the opening monologue. By the time the Telethon ended, it would be in shambles.

What I wasn't about to discuss, was, why I had embraced madness. I already knew the answer. Insanity craves the welcomed. It lurks in the crevice of perception, incubating beneath the surface. It seethes, anticipating the slightest fissure—the nearest exit from the frontal lobe. It conquers without prejudice, with no conformity. I loathe its power; yet thrive in it. I cherish insanity.

Once, I believed that money promoted power. A power that was benevolent. I was taught that premarital or unnatural sex was immoral and, immorality was destructive. When the Catholic Church excoriated 'Baby Doll', 'Deep Throat' and 'The Last Tango in Paris' I became infuriated. Appalled by hypocrites who deemed Dogma irreversible. It is my unalienable right to choose my life's trajectory. And politicians are no better. I don't need, nor did I ever ask Will Hays to decide what is immoral. I don't want anyone to tell me anything. Do you understand? The churches, the government, the critics, the movie stars, the rockers, the hippies, the neighbors and the elders (the only reason they live so long is, they hadn't taken one fucking miserable risk in their entire pathetic life). So, everyone, shut the fuck up. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Here is what you can do for me; Pay back the royalties you ripped off from the Black artists of the 40's, 50's and 60's. Imprison those responsible for Medgar and Emmitt and the Birmingham Four. Hobble Nixon instead of paying him a quarter of a million dollars to ease back into private life. Guard Oswald better and treat Hoover worse. String Mark David Chapman from the highest tree. And while you're at it, deport Colonel Tom Parker, expel Senator McCarthy and gut Charles Manson. Then, you may award Percy Julian the Nobel Prize. Then you can provide better security for Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon. All I ask in return is, SHUT THE FUCK UP!

*

His convoluted answers did not suffice. I planned to revisit the issue later. For now, as Don Rickles harassed the audience, I brought up the subject of Zooma's father, Johnny.

Senior was a wiry, coat-hanger of a man with a head chocked full of tar-black hair. He adored Billy Eckstine's 'I Apologize' and his favorite Beatle song was 'Why don't we do it in the road'. He admired Fred Allen and watched Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theatre weekly. He despised comedians who read their contrived jokes from a tele-prompter. A somber man, I only saw him excited twice. Once, when Auburn beat Alabama, 17-16, 1972, in the 'Punt Bama Punt' game. And, again, when Red Farmer (an old-school stock car driver) won a 200-laper at the Huntsville speedway in '68. He never missed a televised college football game, though never cared who won (unless it was Auburn). He enjoyed Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Chesterfields; favored old Western movies and read James Michener but thought Hemingway a bum and F. Scott Fitzgerald a bummer. In college, he had authored, he said, a nine-hundred-page manuscript 'ever' bit as good as Gatsby' but never tried to publish it. One summer night, Mr. West was lurking in the garage, working on his car. The strobe light, dangling from the hood, emit rapid bursts of light and gave me a headache. For two hours, he discussed timing adjustments and the logic of automotive principles. Logic beget simplicity and simplicity was the key, he enthused. He was forty when he disappeared from the face of the earth. It was Monday. September 1974. Zooma had arrived at my house with a splitting migraine and needed chocolate. By this time, it wasn't multiplication tables that initiated his headaches, it was life in general. As he devoured an éclair, he mentioned that his father hadn't come home the previous night. When I asked what had happened?" he replied, "Well, when I woke up this morning, he wasn't there."

"How's your mom?"

"She's still there."

"No, I mean, how's she takin' it?"

"She's tolerable. I 'spect he'll be back sooner or later."

"He done this before?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"You don't look worried."

"Panther, what good will worryin' do? If he comes back the worryin' was in vain and if he doesn't, worryin' won't matter."

Less than a week later the Louisiana State Highway Patrol found Mr. West's car in a field in Transylvania, Louisiana. No trace of Mister West. Blood found in his car determined to be of animal origin. Nobody ever saw him again. Thizzie sold the house and moved to the Gulf coast. Zooma travelled to California. It didn't seem to bother Zooma that his father had up and left, he believed some men had to do what they did. No sense in arguing or worrying. And he didn't. But, Zooma vowed that if he ever saw the old man again, he would whip his ass, then hug the hell out of him. But he never did, never would.

There is a company, located in Nashville, that manufactures illusion. A magical mirror that deceives and pretends. Guaranteed to reduce twenty pounds from its victim. Containing a miniscule, undetectable warp invisible to the naked eye. Sold wholesale to restaurants (excluding buffets), installed in women's restrooms across the country. Its psychological benefit is in persuading the victim that tonight she can afford an extra 'grasshopper', 'Black Russian', or a slice of the expensive chocolate truffle pie. Sure, she'd lost a few pounds (but not that many!), but, god, she looked swell in the mirror. The yogurt diet had worked. Yes, she would celebrate tonight with the steak and lobster souffle. Reward for the hard work and long days of suffering—revenge is sweet she smiles, scowling at her jelly-filled husband gnawing on bricks of cheese and gorging himself with mounds of hot fudge sundaes. No more cans of tuna fish and tasteless vanilla yogurt. The mirror business in Nashville was hotter than a firecracker. Now, what does this have to do with the price of ice in the Artic? The pretentious mirror explained the human condition. What we see is not what is and who we be ain't what we see. The Nashville mirror factory bestows the illusion that we are better than we really are. Reflected in that warped glass is humanity. Pretension, hypocrisy and delusion.

When we were young Zooma loved to play his guitar and, was damn good at it. No doubt he could have joined a great band and made a fine living performing. He might have even become famous.

"Zooma, where's your guitar?"

"I told you I left it in Vegas. It wasn't mine anyway."

"Why didn't you buy another one."

"Didn't feel like it, Pan."

"Why not?"

"I lost interest in the damn thing."

"So, you quit?" I stated, loading bullets into my conversational revolver. An army of ants marched single file from a peppermint patty to a spot behind the kitchen wall.

"You were good."

Silence.

"I thought you were better than Santana."

Silence. I reloaded. "Didn't you enjoy it?"

Silence.

"I loved the guitar, man, but, put it this way. Me and the guitar, we're square...I don't owe it nothin' and it don't owe me. We're even."

"That makes no sense, Zooma, If, you enjoyed playin' the damn thing, why not play it, shit?"

"Panther Burn, it's an electric guitar, not the electric chair."

"Could have been a decent life for you."

"How the hell do you know?"

"Man, there's people would have given their first born to have your talent."

"That so?"

"They don't hand out talent like jellybeans. I'm getting' another beer...want one?" I headed for the refrigerator, reloading my revolver a third time. From the kitchen, "...think you'll ever pick it up again?"

Silence.

"Say."

"OK, Panther, you ain't gonna stop flappin' your jaws until, once again, I explain the whole enchilada."

Bulls eye. I popped the top, handed him a beer, studied the ant workers. Wayne Newton was being introduced.

"Fuck. All right. In Vegas, I had a lot of time to myself, especially when Angie worked. She had a bunch of Zeppelin albums. I grabbed one, plopped down in front of the stereo and figured I'd learn 'Stairway to Heaven'. I'd listen to the first few chords, remove the needle and mimic the notes. Then, over and over I'd learn a bit more. Took a week before I'd learned the whole song, note for note."

"Yeah, so you got it, huh?"

He snickered, "Oh yeah, Panther, I got it..." he said, lighting a smoke. "...Hit me like a frying pan."

"Hard?"

"The fryin' pan?"

"No, Zooma, What I mean is, was the song hard to learn?"

"No Panther, what I mean is, I got it. I understood."

"Understood what?"

"Art is contrived, produced to illicit a desired effect. So, if it's contrived, it is phony. Truth requires no action or reaction, no cause or effect. It stands alone, not obligated nor subjugated. The so-called artist, sculptor, painter, writer, or musician produce desired effects. Warhol's goal was to make you think. Can you believe it? Think! Jesus, man, art is supposed to make you feel. Warhol's shit comes from the brain. It's contrived."

"Why is that bad?" I asked, feeling stupid.

"True art isn't contrived. Once the brain becomes involved in the artistic process, it ceases to become art. It is a project, a product."

"Here he goes again," I thought, "but this time I'm not letting go. "You're saying, for example, 'Starry Night', by Van-Gogh is not art? The Sistine Chapel, or, uh, the 'Grapes of Wrath, or 'Dark Side of the Moon', you're saying those are not art?"

"Panther Burn, what did I just say? Art, as does the Universe, requires no judgmental company. Universal Truth, real art, requires no perception of morality or immorality. But, since you brought it up, I would be incorrect if I said there exists no quantifiable difference between Van-Goghs' 'Starry Night' and the master of deceit, Mr. Clean's 'Starry Starry night'."

"Why do you hate Don McLean so much?"

"Because the shit he writes is so fucking contrived, man."

"He, and millions more, may not agree."

"I'm not interested in the multitudes."

"So, you're saying the Pieta, Tom Sawyer, Michelangelo, Yates, Capote, Rembrandt. Hell, you believe Melville, Tolstoy and Gershwin were all phonies?"

"No, no, no, Panther. They were great manufacturers. They produced great works of product, no doubt. But consciousness entered the final composition. Therefore, it ain't art."

"So, nothing you consider to be art."

"Whatever is not contrived, is art."

"Like what?"

"Oh, that regiment of ants over there, that's art, or a flag flying in the breeze."

"Whoa, but a flag produces a result. Like patriotism, or Nazism, or the grand opening of a shoe store."

"No, Pan, you're missing the point, well, that is the point. The peasant raising the flag hopes to achieve a result, but the flag is weaving the air. Raising the flag, making the flag, is contrived, not the flag itself—it furls unfettered."

"Ok, then,' I said, "...same with Van-Gogh, the painting is there, it stands alone. Could be he planned what colors and shapes to employ, but the painting stands alone. It exists apart from the artist and the public. As does the flag."

Silence. I'd shot him with a .357 magnum. The ants were kicking peppermint's ass. I felt a torrent of jubilation. "Well," I said. 'Ain't that right?" Silence. "Well?"

"Hang on, Panther, I'm thinking."

Oh, I was on top of the heap, 'A' number one. I was beating him at his own game. He continued. "Panther Burn, do you believe George Harrison knew the name of the first chord he played on 'Hard Day's Night'—was he aware that it was a G seven with an added ninth and a suspended fourth?"

"I don't know if he did or not."

"Let me put it this way. Did he play around with a bunch of different chords until he found the one he wanted, one that felt right? Or, do you think he found a book of chords somewhere and thought, wow, this is the chord I'll use, it sounds great, and people will dig it? Do you know why that disco crap in the Seventies was so popular?"

"Hadn't thought about it."

"Travolta danced at two hundred beats a minute in that Saturday night fever bullshit. The entire disco movement was constructed upon an excitable heart rate of 200 beats a minute. If that ain't contrived, I'll suck your tongue!"

"No, I never said disco was art, but true works of art do exist," I said, my confidence soaring.

"Ok, Panther, settle down. What I'm saying is, we shouldn't trust art to be the truth. It is man-made with specific perceptions and deductions. It is elicited..."

"Yeah," I interrupted, "...to draw a certain response. But I don't give a damn. Art bores me."

"Well, fine Panther, as long as you understand the difference. You must learn to determine what comes from the heart and what comes from the brain."

"And how do you do that?"

"Any number of ways. Watch Bogdanovich's 'Last Picture Show'. Then, watch 'Barbarella'. Read the 'Grapes of Wrath', then read a Jackie Collin's novel; listen to Lennon's 'Yer Blues', then listen to 'Jive Dancin'; feel Neil Young's 'Harvest", then try to feel anything by the 'Police."

"Ok, Ok. But what does all this have to do with you giving up the guitar?"

"I didn't give it up, as you say. We needed a break."

"From what?"

"From the routine. For true spontaneity to exist, there must be nothingness. But anytime you involve consciousness, music loses its spirit, its sub-atomic glue. The best I ever played was on the couch in Vegas, waiting for Angie to come home, before the cocaine. I'd encounter a fantastic, enlightened moment between wake and sleep and, I'd drift into the Pure. There was nothing constructed or contrived. Trouble is, you can't make a living from your living room."

"Then why didn't you go solo?"

"I wanted to play in a great band. Didn't need, or desire the fame and glory, hell, I detested the spotlight. Give me a shot and a beer. The girls and the money were secondary, man. I didn't need to be like him (he pointed to Mister Las Vegas on the tube), I would have played for free and been asexual. But my destination didn't include a map. Verbal notes were not a substitute for musical ones—it was futile."

"But verbal communication must exist, otherwise nobody knows what the hell to do."

"Panther, if you follow me down a dirt road and you know that I know where I'm going, then, if you trust my instinct, you don't have to know the destination."

"But I have to know where I am going."

"Why? Once you decide to follow me, it shouldn't make any difference."

"Well, if I follow you blindly, then, no. But still, I must know where we're going before deciding to follow."

"Therein lies the problem, Pan. If you don't trust me enough to know I will not lead you down the wrong road, then you shouldn't be following me at all."

"How do you know it's not the wrong road?"

"There are no wrong roads."

"But how do you know?"

"Panther, anything emanating from the benevolent is the correct road."

"But, even if you had played in a great band, it would still be contrived."

"Yes, Pan."

"But that don't make it bad, does it?"

"Bad is in the eye of the emboldened Panther Burn, Benevolence is not blind."

"But I am correct, about the flag, ain't I?"

Silence.

"Is that a yes?" I enthused, turning the volume up on the television. Wayne Newton was singing 'The Impossible Dream'.

I lugged dishes to the kitchen. Zooma muted the impossible dream and exchanged 'Meet the Beatles' with Van Morrisons' 'Hardnose the Highway'. I returned to the den and softened the mood with a couple of Tequila shots. His euphoric reflection had rendered me melancholic. My depression enhanced by the dull, electric hum from the window kitchen fan. It would have been a perfect night, if, instead of Zooma postulating on the Universal conundrum, a tall, brown eyed girl, ensconced in blue velvet, was meditating cross-legged on my face, reciting the Diamond-Sutra. Better yet, how I wished Peggy Lipton, or Fresca, was sitting in the rocker. But, tonight, Zooma would have to do, better this way. I hadn't wanted any company this Labor Day weekend, but I am glad Zooma is here. And here we are, two pitiful souls, only one with any future.

"How 'bout you, Pan, as I recall, you used to be a damn good drummer. Why aren't there any gold records on the wall?"

"Guess I wasn't good enough."

"Good enough for who?"

"Anybody."

"No. You were not good enough for yourself. You weren't as good as you hoped. And you thought you never would be."

"That don't make no sense."

"Yes, it does. Your problem is you weren't willing to settle for less."

"What are you talkin' about?"

"Pan, we all can't be Little Richard or Bob Dylan or Neil Young. I'll never play as good as Django Reinhardt or Jimi Hendrix. There is only room for one Elvis, one Dean Martin and four Beatles."

"So?"

"So, you wanted to be them. Problem is, you gave up and they kept goin'. How do you think Fabian and Pat Boone and Paul Anka and Tony Bennett and Bobby's Darin, Vinton, Vee and Rydell felt, going through life playing second fiddle to Sinatra and Elvis? Neil Sedaka once said he was as good a songwriter as McCartney. Oh, the audacity, the unadulterated bullshit that comes from these fuckers! Joey Bishop would have killed Johnny Carson if he could have gotten away with it?"

"Bullshit, Zooma. Not true."

"Ego is ego, Panther. If you have enough arrogance to believe your good enough, it is ego enough to believe you're great enough. And when you're great, you have to be the greatest."

"I didn't want to be the greatest."

"Did you want to be good?"

"Good enough."

"Exactly. And that's why a thousand groups came after the Beatles; why a thousand actors came after Burton and Brando; why we have a room full of Bobby's—they settled for good enough— enough to keep a roof over their heads. But you weren't even willing to give it a 'good enough'."

"Guess not Zooma, but neither were you."

"Precisely. Good enough wasn't good enough. I left greatness where it belonged and good enough to all the other losers."

"Oh, you're saying if you can't be the best, don't be nothin'."

"No, Panther, that's what you're saying."

"Didn't you ever wonder if you were good enough to be in a famous band? It's what you wanted at one time, a long time ago."

"I don't have to wonder anymore, Panther."

"Why?"

"Because I don't play anymore."

A distressed silence engulfed us. Loretta Lynn was conversing with Jerry. Then, in a soothing monotone, in equal timbre with the window fan, he began to speak.

"Why didn't you ever leave Huntsville, Pan?" A single smoke ring drifted from his mouth in a perfect circle.

"I did, once," I responded, shaking a bit of salt in my beer.

"Didn't you have dreams?"

"Hell, we all had dreams, Zooma."

"What were yours?"

I didn't like this conversation. I knew its destination.

"Have you accomplished yours?" I asked.

"Panther, you know damn well you can't answer a question with a question."

"You do."

"Why did you give up?"

"Give up? Give up what? Hell, I haven't given up..." I lied, sucking on a potato chip. "...Tell me, Zooma, what did you find out there, besides a hundred and thirty-three vaginas?"

"Panther Burn, you hated Biology in High school,"

"What? What's that got to do with anything?"

"You quit Biology after a week."

"So?"

Where was Zooma going with this line of questioning? He got up from his chair, strode to the garbage can and returned with the mason jar. "...What's in here, Panther?"

Oh shit. "I told you Zooma, it was a science project."

"Pan, you wouldn't have kept a lousy science project for sixteen years."

Zooma knew. I couldn't think of anything to say, except the truth.

"You have no idea what I've been through."

"Since he died, you mean."

"Yeah, Zooma, since I killed Tater. Man, if you knew what it did to me. Hell, I'm still fucked up. But you wouldn't understand."

"Oh, yes, I would," Zooma shot back.

"I bet. Do you have 'Tater's' ear or nose or whatever it is marinating in vinegar? Do you know what it's like to murder your best friend? Course not, Zooma. No, you go gallivanting all over the world, screwing women you don't even like, while I wallow here in this shit hole and feel like..."

"He was my friend, too," Zooma interjected.

"Bullshit! Zooma. You didn't cry! Didn't shed a fuckin' tear! Oh, you puked when Taters guts splattered on the floor, but you didn't cry..."

Teardrops of moisture tickled the sides of my beer. Zooma's continuous rocking was making me nervous, agitated.

"No, I didn't cry," he stated, "...but at least I've tried to find some goddamn relief. You sit on your fat ass in this godforsaken slum feeling sorry for yourself...you don't..."

"I don't what, Johnny...!" I stopped mid-sentence. The first time I'd ever called Zooma by his birth-name. I continued, "...If I don't believe what you believe, I'm an ignorant bastard. Is that it? All that philosophical bullshit, LCD and art and religion and shit. Man, you got a fuckin' cork in your brain. Fuck the Truth, fuck the Universe and fuck you!"

"You don't mean..."

"Yes, I do! Your useless dribble doesn't impress me! You haven't had a responsible day in your whole fucking miserable life! I'm trying to keep from going insane. You...you navigate the countryside. Proselytizing to the masses, cavorting with Buddha and screwing every fuckin' girl who'll spread her legs! For all I know you've got AIDS! I deal with reality every fucking day of my life. But not you Zooma, no, not you, you drift in the idiot wind. No tellin' how many girls have had an abortion because of your cock. You told me yourself Ellen killed herself because you were such a fucking asshole! Love um and leave um, Zooma. You didn't give a shit."

"No, I felt..."

"Bullshit, Zooma. You're sitting right here in my fucking house, in my fucking chair. Watching my TV and eating my fucking food! The boombox? Who the fuck paid for that?"

"Calm down, Zorro, your drunk," Zooma cooed.

"Calm down? Calm Fucking Down? This is MY house, buddy, don't you forget it. You think you can leave, come back four or five years later and nothing's changed? This ain't no little league game, pal! Fuckin' A I had dreams, like you, and I never found mine, you're right, but you sure as hell ain't found yours either. You ain't half the shit you think you are, Mister Philosopher. But you KNOW the Truth! You've reached the Mountaintop! You've lived the dream! Well, then, tell me, Mr. Motherfucker, what is the Truth? ...I beseech thee...what is this truth you've kept to yourself? Speak, master. What is reality...Show me the Way!" I screamed, cheeks throbbing, veins streams of pulp. My fat jowls twisted like a demented clown. Staggering about the room, I clenched my fists.

Zooma rose from the rocking chair.

"Oh, you want to fight?" I ramble. "...Well, great one, I haven't received the Holy Grail yet...miserable phony...get the fuck out of my house...you make me sick!" I shudder. "So, skinny little tramp, want to show me the secret of life, huh?"

"Yes," Zooma whispered, '...I'll set you free. I will show you the essence of life."

"Oh pleas..."

Zooma raised his left knee and slammed it into my groin. I never saw it coming. I gasped, my knees buckled, I slumped to the floor, hands cradling my testicles. I lay there and moaned like a castrated whale. In fetal position, my brain a bouquet of exploding stars. Zooma remained prone, a monument in repose, sad as a motherless child.

"Panther,' he said, staring at me, '... multiply that pain you feel now by twenty-eight years. That is reality—the essence. Suffering is life's casualty. Panther Burn, I need to tell you something. Tater's death was not your fault, it was mine."

I lay sprawled on the floor, eye-level to a wired Jerry Lewis. Zooma turned and meandered outside, across the patio. Stray charcoal briquets crunched under his (my) Beatle boots. At the back fence, he opened the gate and headed toward the crossroads. A pack of startled dogs howled in his wake as he slipped into the idiot wind of a humid, Northern Alabama storm.

*

Early Monday Morning

Never have I been more persuaded to acknowledge the utter futility of my sordid existence. My bloated body spread-eagle on the carpet—my testicles swollen like golf balls—residual vomit scalding my tonsils. Due to the violent collision of my crotch with his knee, I may never obtain a viable erection again. But that is the least of my worry. Here, in my den, amid the bluish-gray tint of refraction from the muted Telethon, I attempt to remember what had happened only hours before. Scattered bombs of thunderbolts scorch the heavens. My senses calm. The redemptive scent of fresh rain. The patio screen door sways in the wind. The air feels tainted, blackened. The fetal position distresses me. Earlier tonight I'd demanded my best friend, my only friend, remove himself from this house. I'd said unpardonable things, word's better left unsaid. Since the age of ten, we'd been friends. As teens, we became comrades. Twenty, confidants. Then, bored with Huntsville, tired of the encrusted sameness in the dreary southern town, he had drifted away. But, I'd stayed, to wallow in the mire. I had been so fucking angry, but it was my frustration and bitterness that was thrust upon him. I couldn't take it back. There would be no redemption. Apologies out of the question, wasted words. Excuses. Sidesteps.

Afternoon

Zooma fractured my heart as he did my testes. I am nauseous from the stench of rotting garlic cloves and sour tomato sauce. Drenched, fallen leaves carpet the patio. I crawl up the stairs to my bedroom and remove the envelope from the dresser. My genitals ache as I urinate. I swallow the Valium with a splash of warm beer. Fierce wind gusts rattle an upstairs window- the branches of trees sway. Zooma is no doubt caught up in this storm. I stroll into the living room and glare at the family portrait, made so many years ago. My mother, wearing a string of fake pearls around her blue-veined throat. She'd whipped me senseless when I'd said, 'Fuck Father Simon', and, from that moment on, she became Mildred. Dad, with his stern, tanned face and silly Rock Hudson curl. Me, so young and innocent, anticipating life's pleasures. That's life. Photographs, memories, vanished dreams.

The gloomy garage is chilly. I'm nauseous from the odor of motor oil and turpentine. An unrelenting branch nicks the outside wall. The staccato rhythm like tennis balls bouncing against it. So long ago, another life, the best of times. How often I'd dreamed of those carefree afternoons, not a worry in the world. Mind−blowing conundrums resolved by dinnertime. In those days, I was content, alone, at peace with a glove and a ball.

I enter the Falcon. She had been good to me, the '61 Ford. I insert a cassette of 'Marvin Gaye's 'Greatest Hits' and shut the door. For the final time, a whiff of fresh air. I engage the ignition switch and the Falcon starts with a low rumble—impending doom. The Tropical storm 'Chris' has arrived. I roll the window down, inhale the poison gas and the healing vibrato of Mr. Gaye. Closing my eyes, I rest my hands in my lap, fingers entwined.

The 'D & G ' was a dingy nightclub. Patronized by derelicts and unfaithful spouses, it was located on 'Blue Spring Road', three miles from my house. It is there Zooma found refuge from the storm. He had ordered a shot of 'Jose Cuervo' and was licking salt from the rim when an anorexic, aged woman saddled over. She looked familiar. Her obnoxious perfume smelled of funerals. Her face pancaked with layers of pink rouge. Her fake eyelashes like the fragile wings of a baby sparrow. A short, wiry man with horn-rimmed glasses glared at Zooma from a table situated in a darkened alcove. Five shots of tequila later, the manager of the 'Doom & Gloom' grumbled 'last-call'. With nowhere else to go, Zooma accompanied the reptilian woman into the backseat of her '84 beige Buick Regal.

* * *

...I am startled by the EXPLOSION. "Where am I? What am I doing here? My hands so cold, my lips swollen, throat parched and paralyzed. But the dead do not thirst. Souls do not shiver. Spirits do not piss the crotch of their jeans. Gray, light mist shrouds the neighborhood. 'Chris' has subsided. My God, I am still alive. This is bullshit. The Falcon hums, '...mother, mother, there's too many of you cryin' reverberates from the car speakers. I should be dead, not restored. Dawn has arrived, hours have passed. I heave myself from the Falcon and lean upon its hood. My eyelids bisect my dilated pupils. The Storm. The Frantic Wind. The garage window broken by a tree branch. I stagger out to the street, not believing the turn of event. Countless branches litter the carport, strewn across the street. Silver aluminum garbage cans have rolled from yards into gutters. Autumn brown leaves, crimson and burnt orange adhere to the carport. Dawn brings solace from the remnant of his majesty, King Chris. I am exonerated and excoriated. I had failed once again. The engine of the Falcon hums and Marvin gets it on. My head throbs, my posture reeks of defeat. I open the fridge and grab a container of 'Milos' iced tea. Only a few hours earlier I'd thought I'd rummaged through the refrigerator door for the final time.

I pour the sweet brew into a 'Fred Flintstone' jelly glass. Glimpse at the nocturnal, muted television. Doc Severson mocks me.

I swallowed 'Goody' headache powders, two at a time, for the next thirty everlasting minutes. Hunched over like an old woman, I wobbled to the blue velvet sofa. The ancient typewriter in front of me on the coffee table—beside it, typewritten pages. I tried to focus my squinted, bloodshot eyes.

Panther Burn, you, the master of servitude, deserve an explanation...I am a nomad. Mad, No? Dissecting the wind of Fate, I invade wormholes, spiraling off course. The more I dwell in the sordid, the deeper I gnaw at the bitter bones feeding me. I am emotionally insolvent, not aggressive, not equipped to deal with the peasants. On the quid. I heave aggression, trampling through locked doors to where I know not. Wrong doors. Panther Burn, there is something I should have told you many, many years ago. It was June 2nd, 1966. Tater's house. Pan, Tater would be alive today if not for me. When Tater went to help you in the kitchen, I loaded and cocked the rifle. I don't know why. I'm sorry, man. Sorry I screwed up your life—sorry you have carried the burden for so long. I don't know why I did what I did. A foolish kid. Pan. Take care, Pan. P.S. I know what's in the jar— Z

". . . I loaded and cocked the rifle?" Why had he waited sixteen years to tell me that? And why had he loaded the rifle in the first place. Instant replay. I go to the kitchen to prepare sandwiches. I can't find the fucking mustard and ask Tater for help. While we are out of the room, for some idiotic reason, Zooma loaded a cartridge and cocked the lever. Unfortunately, when he worked the action, pulled the lever, the hammer was not reset—it was now in firing mode. I return to the den with a platter of food. Zooma is holding the gun. Tater insists I handle it- taunting me, "Don't be a pussy...'. When I take the rifle from Zooma, it slips from my greasy, mayo-laden hand. In a millisecond, Tater drops to the floor, his severed head strewn across the room. So, why had Zooma loaded the rifle? What difference does it make? I was the idiot who dropped the fucking thing—the coward. Fuck it, it doesn't matter anymore. I am pathetic. I regret my drunken tirade toward Zooma—If I never see him again it will be my greatest loss. But, only after the wasted whiskey and fear and time, do I realize why. Zooma West reminds me of what I'd neglected in life, of opportunities avoided, risks not taken, choices abandoned. His actions exacerbated my inaction. He is everything I am not. His perpetual freedom depressed me. He danced on the wings of chance, I cowered beneath loins of despair. I existed under pretense, shadowed by jealousy and envy, cowardice and anger. My fears cloaked in a blanket of sheer madness. No, I do not want him to return, will not allow him to re-enter my house, do not need a reminder. Do not need to hear the disenchanted whims and notions he dispenses to those less fortunate. He reinforces my fervent belief. I travel a pathetic trail. A woven path of misery, adrift in a momentary haze of preposterous schemes and unfulfilled dreams. It is what I am—what I have always been. It is Due Course.

I tossed the page onto the floor and napped on the sofa. When I awoke, my headache had not abated. I drudged up a pot of bitter coffee, returned to the den and watched the finale of the telethon—Jerry's heartfelt, stammering rendition of 'You'll Never Walk Alone' had always comforted. The television muted, the urge to vomit. I wiped drool from my lips with Zooma's typewritten apology. A 'Special Bulletin' interrupts the telethon. On the screen, a local news reporter, wearing a green, paisley tie, stands in front of the D & G lounge—his toupee in total disarray—fondling a microphone. In the background was the front end of a beige automobile. I crawl across the vomit-strewn carpet and increase the volume.

'Heather, we don't know the details at this point. A witness, whose name HPD has not identified, is currently being interviewed. What we have learned, is, the perpetrator is twenty-eight-years old. A white male by the name of Wallace Strunk. Arrested outside the D & G lounge along with a woman identified as Siggy Rawlins. Mrs. Rawlins, according to sources, lives with Strunk. An eyewitness informed me that Strunk and Rawlins had been drinking in the bar since noon and were seen arguing minutes before the shooting. From information I have gathered, Mrs. Rawlins was seated with the victim in the Buick Regal you see behind me. Minutes later, several shots were fired...

THERE! On the ground, lying beside the tire like a crushed weasel, a fiery red wig, its dead ends charred! Mildred's wig!

The reporter continued. "...The victim was transported to Huntsville Hospital. According to HPD information office, he was pronounced DOA. Mr. Strunk has been arrested and is in custody. Mrs. Rawlins remains in critical condition. When we receive further updates, we will pass them on. For 31 News, I'm Tony Webber. Back to you, Heather."

The names sounded familiar. Fanned my Rutler High yearbook, I found Wallace Strunk. Sure enough, he resembled Wally Cox, the comedian, except for the ugly scar on his left cheek, compliments of Zooma West. Strunk was the scuz-fuck who had, in my freshman year, forced me to nudge a penny across the floor with my nose. And Rawlin's? She was none other than 'Flicka', the stubby, horse-faced whore who Zooma had 'thumb-fucked' in my trailer, the star of 'Heavy on the Gravy'. The slovenly bitch of the slovenly man. Strunk had finally gotten his revenge. As the Telethon resumed, I stumbled upstairs to my bedroom. Hid beneath the sheets. Wished like hell the previous hour was but a dream.

I crouch in the cornfield. From the east, a warm, inviting cloud emerges from the field of yellow stalks. I embrace its fragile, sinewy fingers. The winds increase as flakes of bone lick my cheek. Within seconds, I am lifted into a tunnel of golden dust. Transported to the outfield at Boner field. Two boys play catch. One of them is Tater. He pretends to ignore my presence, tossing the ball to his teammate. I call out. "Tater...Tater...tater..." He glances in my direction, then retreats and vanishes. The other boy frowns at me. A brilliant shadow hovers. I glance to the horizon and There, in all its magnificent glory, a deep blue obelisk. Radiating my senses. My facilitator—my cue. The Blue Sun has made me lucid, aware I am dreaming. I remain calm in the vibrant pulse of indigo. The delicious moment has arrived. I will change that which has tormented my entire life. I will inform Tater. It wasn't my fault. Zooma loaded the gun. I will tell him. I want, need to explain to my friend. Without warning a frigid blast collides with the eastern wind. I spread my arms and the swirling air lifts me upward. The crosswinds my cocoon. There, in the distance, Tater races to his house as I skim above the trees and over the telephone lines. I float to the ground like a feather, whispering his name. Tater looms in the threshold, baseball glove in hand—says nothing but does not shut the door. I cross the threshold and enter the den. An unfamiliar figure glares at me from a corner of the room. Sad, Doomed. Tater approaches the gun rack, removes a rifle and offers it to me. The unknown figure emerges from the dark corner, his slender finger around the barrel. I refuse to handle the weapon and Tater emits an approving smile. The rifle slips from the ghost's grasp, crashes to the floor, and...'

I awaken. Contemplate the elaborate spider web in the nicotine-embedded ceiling. Sad and disheartened, spiraling down a bottomless gutter. Though it would be impossible to forget Tater, Vanessa and Zooma, I needed to surrender to the present. Any grace within me had been disfigured. Forgiveness a trait I wasn't endowed with but was it even required? Could I forgive Zooma for his negligence; his stupidity for cocking the rifle and not retracting the hammer? Wallace Strunk for murder and Siggy for her complicity? Mildred and dad for not realizing my utter disdain for the trivial pursuit of success? I suppose it's easy enough to forgive—no skin off my back—but where would it end? The list of people who had offended and wronged me was endless. Then, there are those who would never receive absolution— even naming them in my story was more than they deserved. True forgiveness resides in the spirit—verbalizing it doesn't mean a thing. The real question was, would I feel better? I teetered on the brink.

Downstairs, I consumed three bowls tomato soup and four grilled cheese sandwiches. I found a tennis ball and walked to the side of the garage. I had pitched the ball one time, when a neighborhood goon approached. Dressed in a silk tie embroidered with skulls and wearing orange sunglasses, he reminded me of Zooma West. I subscribed to a year of useless drivel—a brand new weekly magazine entitled 'People'.

After chasing a tennis ball for fifteen minutes, I grabbed an old ladle from the garage. I spooned Tater's remains into a Wal-Mart bag. Located a shady spot in the backyard. There, under a white Dogwood, I dug a hole and buried the jar. I may have bid farewell. I can't remember. It doesn't matter.

A week later, ensconced in Funland, the penny arcade, I choked down a banana split. I was playing pinball when the manager strolled up.

"Son, don't put your shoes on the machine." He frowned.

"It ain't my boot, sir," I replied. He glanced at my feet, then peered inside the 'Beatle' Boot.

"Why's it filled with ashes?"

"That's my best friend. My good luck charm."

Horrified, the sinister fucker grabbed my arm. Ordered me to exit the establishment immediately. I marched across the cool asphalt highway. The Sun resembled a peeled orange. I waited until the beachcombers abandoned the beach. Kneeling in the sugar-white sand, I emptied the urn into the tranquil, azure waters of the Gulf of Mexico. In the softened twilight, the gray ash scattered a bit, before dissolving into a tiny crest of wave. As it receded into the ocean, I wept...oh...how the tears flowed. And forgiveness imploded in me. I forgave Zooma. Inhaling the salty air, I realize, though his physical being is no more, we breathe as one. Always will. It was so easy...to forgive. Yet, so fucking hard. The toughest thing I had ever done. I forgave dad for being so damn perfect and mom for being so hysterical. I forgave horse lipped Siggy and forgave the sordid world that enslaved me. Finally, I forgave myself.

I returned to the Falcon as the still surf issued an appropriate requiem. Zooma West, at last, soared Across the Universe and I realized something. Due Course issued no contingencies. Once home, I retrieved a world atlas from my father's room and located Iceland. I fingered the cities of Seydisfjord and Reykjavik. Locating Rejkjadahir, I touched the faraway city. Fresca Yggdrasill would soon have a visitor.

* * *

The horrific tragedy of Tater and Van will haunt me forever. The memories like ancient, abandoned tombstones, littering the graveyard of my sordid past. Strange I should cherish the utter darkness of loss. But emerging from that abyss strengthened my endurance. These days, I accommodate the misery and suffering melded to my existence. Some nights, in the dregs of darkness, I comb the neighborhood. Searching for a morsel of tranquility. On occasion, I encounter a benevolent ghost.

"So, Zooma?"

"Yeah."

"What's it's like."

"What what's like."

"The Universal Breath. The population of Kirlian. Do they allow you to lick the Cosmic spoon? Is Lynne there? Lennon, Elvis? Ellen? Vanessa? Tater? Oh, tell me Tater is there."

"Panther Burn, we are here, we are there. The good, bad, the animated and the antiquated. There is nothing, Pan, that is not everything. What fills the Void, is the Void. It ain't rocket science. In due course, I will haunt you. Because even the shadows of atoms are doomed to collide. So, while awaiting your tepid fate, Breathe, man. Just fucking Breathe.

BREATHE...

EPILOGUE

Convicted of manslaughter, Wallace Strunk served twelve years at the state prison in Atmore. He was stabbed to death in 1985 while masturbating in the prison laundry. Siggy Rawlins resides in Arab, Alabama with her thirty-seven cat-litter boxes.

A month after Zooma's death, I received a note from the postal service informing me of a package. It required three service employees to help me strap the huge, black trunk onto the hood of my Falcon. A note, affixed to a rusty, metal buckle, read:

'...Panther Burn, thought you might like to have this...' Love, Thizzie.

I employed dad's hand trucks to haul it inside the house. I loosened a few mildewed leather straps from the top of the trunk and forced the lock open with a butter knife. I felt like an intruder, fondling Zooma's personal artifacts. Relics. Beneath the ratty lid were hundreds of old letters and faded photographs. Small, wooden, broken cologne boxes overflowed with shiny trinkets, dime-store costume jewelry and cheap sunglasses. Hidden under an empty 'Beatle' album was the black 8mm camera I'd employed to film Siggy 'Flicka' Rawlins. A beige, crusty emulsifying dust oozed from it, most likely the remains of my movie, 'Heavy on the Gravy', forever lost to posterity. Zooma had never even removed it from the camera. To my surprise, near the bottom of the trunk, were Zooma's tattered 'Beatle Boots'. Size 8 ½.

I couldn't wait to discover the trunks treasure, but it would have to wait. For one thing, I was leaving for Iceland the following day, two, I required, well, what? An open mind? Sure. But, more. I felt like I was robbing a grave. Spying on the private possessions of a man, a boy. Though it had been entrusted to me by his lovely mother, I wondered if it was the honorable thing to do. Was Zooma peering over my shoulder, hoping I would open it, or did he expect me too? But what would I do with its contents? Would it help me understand Zoomas' fate? I have no doubt, that when I return from Iceland, I will accord this trunk the dignity it deserves. Though they are material things, they may, at last, tell me what I wanted, or need to understand about someone so integral part to my life. In fact, had saved it. If his fate had not concurred with mine on that Labor Day weekend in 1982, there is great doubt I would be writing our story. Because when the malevolent Crosswinds delivered him to that bar in his final hour, the benevolent winds shattered a tree. The limb of which crashed into a window of the garage. And broke the window that sustained my life.

As for the foreseeable future, I will sway in a rocking chair in the cool afternoon shade. Beneath the weeping willow, I will sip sweet iced tea and toast Zooma West. I might shed a tear for the hell of it. The pure misery of existence had almost destroyed me. I teetered on the brink. Today, at age sixty-five, though I remain depressed and apathetic, and though a passion for living has forsaken me, I still enjoy a walk in the cornfield, to gauge the crops and gaze at Orion.

Oh, but the trunk lives and breathes in the living room under the family portrait. On good days, I glance at a yellowed, unsent postcard from Panama City Beach or a faded photograph of some cross-eyed girl. Just yesterday, while returning his ancient, moldy boot to the trunk, something spiraled to the floor. It was the Holy Grail; an ancient, creased ticket stub; Lyric Theater; Admit one child. Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxies.
About the Author

Bill Bice is a author/musician. He has performed with more than forty bands and played the casinos and music festivals, on cruise ships and in a hundred bars. Six months after 9-11, he toured Europe, South America and the Middle East in support of the U.S. Troops. He has resided in San Diego and Lake Tahoe, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Boulder, Colorado; Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee, and Panama City Beach, Florida. He was born in Fort Worth, Texas and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. He resides in northern Wisconsin.

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT MOMENTARY HAZE

Anyone who grew up during the time when the tumultuous 1960's gave way to the cynical 70's will relate to this strange and wonderful saga. The two central characters are polar opposites in almost every conceivable way but are nonetheless bound together by forces both marvelous and terrible. This is a story of coming of age, of life and death, written on the landscape of an America where everything was brighter, louder, uglier and more beautiful than ever before or since. In Bill Bice's first Novel, he caught lightning in a bottle. Read it and weep, and laugh, and remember- B.M. - Huntsville, Alabama

Just finished it! Wow what a wild ride...Thought it was great! As a native Huntsvillian I loved the details. Thank you for sharing- P.G.L. Huntsville, Alabama

I do believe in love and how we keep it in our souls til the day we die. Some love lost is always there to haunt us!! The book is very good. S.H. Baltimore, Md.

Brings back some memories! Bill, send me a message and identify the characters so I really know who you are talking about and don't have to guess...please !!! R.W.H.

Bill, I really enjoyed your novel. Having moved to Huntsville in 1978, I recognized the "Crossroads" and had heard about some of the landmarks that were no longer there when I arrived. I wish you much success and look forward to sharing another adventure in your next novel (which I hope is coming soon). Best wishes- L.P.

Bill's creativity has never been in question, however his ability to harness in a coherent manner has been a very pleasant surprise-A.P. Huntsville, Al.

I liked the book as well and as slow as I read it in 3 days, I couldn't put it down! R.M. Charleston, S. Carolina

Most scenes were far enough removed to be deniable and Some were a little too close for comfort. Good job my brother- D.J. Florida

Wow, after reading this review, I can't wait! I downloaded the book last night and started reading it aloud to my husband (something new for me since I'm an avid reader, and he is dyslexic). Very excited to finish it....and trying not to read ahead when he isn't around!! G.E.F. Escanaba, Mi.

Dear Bill- I just finished reading your book. I want you to know that it's been quite a journey. I really loved the book. I found it absolutely fascinating and have been living with it the entire time. It's all I've thought about for the past month. Your point of view is very interesting to me. I really can't convey to you how important your book has been to me. Actually, your book has affected me more than any novel I've ever read. It has given me so much food for thought. As far as I'm concerned your writing ability is a talent I've never known in any of the other people I've met in my lifetime. Again, I am really amazed at this book. It was an interesting trip that I'm glad I got to take. Mike W. B'ham, Al. (musician, producer, arranger, lyricist)

Hey Bill, I just finished "Momentary Haze" and wanted to tell you I think it is fabulous! It certainly brings back memories and puts some things into perspective. GREAT JOB! S.T. Athens, Alabama

Just finished it. One hell of a tale, and masterfully written. So very proud of Bill and what he has accomplished! B.M. Huntsville, Al.

A blurb from someone in Paris, France; 'We live in a world of radical hypocrisy...Priests, Terrorists and Christian Evangelists use I-phones- access satellite networks, drive automobiles and seem to exist in some kind of imaginary bubble untouched by reality. How is this possible? How can such a large number of people both demand modern technology while still refusing to listen to the very people who brought it to them? In an age of motor cars, electric light bulbs and rockets to the moon, more than half the world still insists on keeping their faith in God, even while the most rational minds are calling this behavior dangerous, archaic, and possibly insane. Perhaps this is something we should talk about; but is anyone listening? Perhaps I should say it louder! Book (momentary haze') features a variety of essays, both humorous and serious on the issues of Atheism, marketing, hypocrisy, seduction- Religion, psychology of belief- 'new' atheism, failures of Buddhism- The Templeton Prize- Beyond 339 Sartre's 'Reef of Solipsism', and other mildly poetic thoughts--- Paris 2015

Hi Bill, I loved your novel, the one "that you didn't want me to read" because of the F word and some scenes from Dr. Zan. She was a wild one. I was overwhelmed with your book it was so good. I enjoyed the names and things that were real (addresses and streets.). You really did such a good job and I'm so proud of you. You kept saying you were writing a book and I never realized it would be so good. You have a lot of Mom in you and I'm so proud. Love you, Mom

Reading it now on my Kindle! Brings back some memories! Bill, send me a message and identify the characters so I really know who you are talking about and don't have to guess...please!!! R.W.H.

Bill, I enjoyed your book. Recognized some "Rutler People" in it. You did change details of riot somewhat but still a good read. Artistic license C.F. Huntsville, Al.

I can't wait for the next one M.T.B. Huntsville, Al.

Too funny and very George Carlin-ish C.J. B'ham, Al.

In his new novel, 'Momentary Haze', Bill Bice convinces his readers of his faithless chicken view of the world. The depiction of his journey from the past to the present, conveys to all that he is a worshipper of iniquity and all things evil. He portrays himself as the main character taking a journey through a valley of hell, delighting in assassinating himself, while he uses his self-inflicted lashes for humanity to claim his burial into a grave of darkness. Readers of 'Momentary Haze' will find taking this journey a despairing walk into a pit of hopelessness. (T-Bone) Hoover, Al.

Bill just read your book! Crystal and I thought it was great! Appreciate you mentioning my name and the Mersey Band. I didn't know that not only are you a great musician but a great writer! Also my best friend! Mike Warren. Guntersville Al.

