 
VAGUELY VIVID

by RRRoze

Published by Love & Death Press

Smashwords Edition

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Copyright 2011 Love & Death Press

Chapter 1

Part I

You know who you are/ You know that you're reading this/ I know I'm writing it/ Because I couldn't resist

The things you should know/ I don't want you to hear/ I'm writing in response/ In response to my fears

Time can only pass/ You can only progress/ I can only cope/ As in time I lose hope

..........

This will be the notes/ Of my lovelorn life/ And the temptress next door/ The one I adore

Unrelenting proximity/ Unrelentingly degrading/ As I keep my mouth shut/ A pen spills my guts

I hope it's over soon/ This is my life/ Until I'm one with the sun

I give myself away/ With a look/ That look/ The look of kittens and sex fiends

I can't help it/ And she says "what"/ But only after/ She lets it sink in

This is the beginning/ Who knows/ Where this chapter

will go?

A lot of this,/ I'd imagine/ And maybe instances/ When some guy comes over

But he is only that/ Some other guy/ Is that a threat?/ I cant be threatened/ I must be patient

She needs her space/ She needs her time/ She will ignore/ These needs of mine

She's not ready for it/ She's not ready for me/ She's not ready for us/ In time I put trust

I've gotten a job/ I'm staying with her/ Oh Seductress/ Asleep next door

We have so much/ Invested in one another/ Some guy/ Cannot be a bother

Farm boy dick/ Blocking the road/ He'll move sometime/ You know I can wait

Some guy/ I don't get it/ What I think/ Is not important

She says/ I'm a project/ I believe/ She is mine

Maybe she's looking/ For my strength/ Maybe she wants/ For me to give up

And maybe if I don't/ She will end this game

This could be/ A testament/ To boyish infatuation/ That would be insane

If that be the case/ What's wrong with this place/ This life/ And these ladies

Too much/ Of us/ To consider these things

When that guy / Comes over/ He will see/ Right through me

And he will tell her things/ She doesn't want to hear/ When after/ She can't ignore this/ Maybe she'll deny it

She can do what she will/ With it/ With him/ With me

The power is hers/ Suddenly I'm at peace/ No longer concerned/ This much I've earned

Still I will document/ With the same bleeding heart/ As she does what she will/ Then we'll see in the end

She is beautiful/ SHE is the reason I'm here / Yet she sleeps on the couch/ To the right of my stare

The story of my life/ Is written in her/ My best friend and my love/ Who doesn't really care

I haven't yet told her/ Why we can't live together/ But when she brings home these people/ My wrists will bleed just a little

She would not cry for me/ I would die for her/ She would not die for me/ Yet I pine for her

That is/ The story of my life/ This is/ The story of my life

..........

So to explain the other guy/ This is the skinny:/ He's every hick/ I've ever met

Not a redneck/ He's got charming good looks

A typical anybody/ Just like the rest

I just watched/ His dull hands/ All over my love/ And I said nothing

I don't believe in/ And don't understand/ This love/ I'm trying to ignore

She lies with him/ Where she lay with me/ Three days ago/ I should have known

And now/ My senses bombarded/ By what's going on/ My innards in upheaval/ By what's going

No pot/ It's hard to cope/ My insides hurt/ From want of dope

No booze/ I need a beer/ My insides hurt/ From want of dope

It's so important/ Being sober/ So I've heard/ I try so hard

I want to vomit/ Expel all this pain/ I can only indulge/ In the wrath of these moments

I did/ Ecstasy and acid/ Amphetamines and mushrooms/ In that order backward/ The month before I moved/ I'm done with all that/ It's the original addictions/ That are getting to me

It's so bad/ The only answer/ (what's worse)/ Is to get fucked up

My body needs the alcohol/ The cycle seems to own me/ At least most of me

For my job, I'll be loading/ Beer onto trucks/ And it goes to show/ It's all up to me

Things can get better/ Things can get worse/ It's these addictions of mine/ That are the true curse/ Voluntarily/ I wear these chains around my neck

I haven't aged in a while/ Visibly at least/ In a couple of years/ I will age again/ At least I assume

To look older/ Than you did/ In those pictures/ Is perpetually neutral

Unless that stuff bothers you

Something troubled me so/ When two towels hung/ Over the curtain/ Instead of one

The sensation of starting/ A new job/ Or new life/ Is always uncomfortable/ While stewing in strife

While it's only as such/ For a tiny short while/ The time leading up/ Radiates denial

That's how I handle/ Starting new work/ As if it's not happening/ Until I'm upon it/ Then it's no different/ From things of the past

After work/ I almost spilled the beans/ In conversation/ We discussed conclusions

So, this hick and her/ Will see each other/ And other people

She thinks/ It's so perfect/ She couldn't be happier/ And I almost told her

I almost told her/ That that was MY plan/ For the two of US/ From day one

Alas, I still/ Cannot see her with men/ So when she's not with me/ She's a lesbian (I believed)

I told her something/ Just earlier/ I'd never told anyone/ But I couldn't tell her of love

I was so close/ And slipped a little/ She was begging to hear it/ But I could not tell her

Nonetheless, I witnessed progress/ When she was fearing I'd leave/ Now I know me she must need/ And she will need me

She will/ Need me, want me/ She will/ Want to need me/ And need to want me

Meanwhile, I work in warehouse/ With beer/ Stacked to the heavens/ And I just quit drinking

The universe/ Is toying with me/ And I will only play along/ Did I mention/ She's beautiful?/ Female form of perfection/ You'd weep, facing this rejection

But she IS my woman/ And I AM her man/ But we're still only children/ Avoiding life's demands

Like thunder/ On the prairie/ Cascading/ Is this story

She is my girl/ My entire world/ I am in this drama/ Completely unnerved

Despising the moments/ Away from each other/ Fearing the end/ The end of forever

A commitment/ I am making/ Right here and right now/ To be together forever/ Creating an endless thunder

And if I fail/ To adhere to this vow/ So be the future/ I'll get by somehow

She is doing something to me/ And I don't know what/ My head flails helpless/ Amidst the flood of my lust

My train of thought/ Has only one car/ This train of thought/ Has gone nowhere, so far

She is a vicious snake/ That moves with such grace/ As she entangles my person/ I can only struggle irate

I've so grown accustomed to her soft scales/ That when she slithers away/ I feel cold and uncomforted/ Until she is back the next day

And if I tried/ To cage this reptile/ It would only escape/ To return but once in a while

So that mid-western ass/ No longer concerns me/ But the threat of other men/ Really perturbs me

Her 21st birthday/ Could be the end/ When she goes to the bar/ That could be the end/ What with the thousands of men/ Willing to fuck her

She wants to pick up chicks/ But I know what's more likely/ She'll pick up some dick/ And the thought is just frightening

You want/ What you want/ And I know/ My place in it

She has the misconception/ That there can actually be/ More than one man in her life/ Another man, other than me

I can feel/ Our energy/ It's pulling her towards me/ And she welcomes me neutrally

And if you have/ Nothing to die for/ Than what is there/ To live for

I'd rather be dead/ Than without this energy/ She knows it now, too/ She knows how it will be/ It's beyond our power/ And not up to us/ She wants to be free/ And I wanted a blond

But energy's involved now/ Because of what happened/ Before I wrote

this last segment

.........

She came into my classroom/ A bit before I dropped out/ I told her she's not in Kansas/ She wasn't very amused

She was staying with a family/ Which made her untouchable/ It was the family of her man/ Who was away in the army

Such a good friend/ This girl was to me/ It was always an issue/ Of powerful energy

So I will spare you/ Of specific instances/ But let me tell you/ Of the overall history

Her boyfriend came back/ We got along well/ They were both my friends/ I accepted her

as out of my grasp

They moved into a house/ At the end of my road/ The only other people/ In the middle of the woods

They were the people/ I hung out with/ Immediately after/ I lost my virginity

I read her my poems/ Of longing for death/ When it got too hard/ Being on drugs

I worked with her man/ On all sorts of houses/ I fished with her man/ In many lakes

I ate dinner with them/ I ran errands with her/ Her man bought me beer/ If I were in need

They were engaged/ They would always be there/ She would always be there/ That's the way it would be

One day the phone rang/ It was her/ She was calling with news

Three years had gone by/ Since my crack in class about Kansas/ Her man ceased to be happy/ And she was going home

That was not right/ It couldn't be/ I went into shock/ While my friends made fun of me

Jesus Christ/ What?/ Holy shit/ Why?/ What the fuck?/ Are you kidding?/ Are you joking?/ You can't leave/ You can't leave/ You were supposed/ Jesus Christ/ Always be there/ Holy shit/ Jesus Christ

A few days later/ She came over/ To say good-bye/ I would not let that fly

I needed to get away/ On so many drugs/ In a nice lady's basement/ I needed to get away

It made sense to her/ Like it did to me/ When I wanted/ To go with her

Great/ "I'll see you in march"/ That was five months away

..........

Just last night/ In the middle of the night/ I woke up/ Not knowing were I was

I thought I was in Texas/ I thought I'd bought land/ Then I knew/ I was in Connecticut/ It took a minute/ Before I knew I was wrong/ I was in South Dakota/ I'd been there all along

I decided to discuss/ The way that I felt/ I brought the topic up/ With a simple little question

"Will you ever love anybody/ more than you love me?"

Upon which/ She took the hint/ Then she asked me/ "So what if I do"

"That wouldn't be cool"/ Was my general reply/ "I can't stand to see you/ with some other guy"

She was trying to avoid this/ This and all relationships/ A girl's got pressure/ Not wanting to be owned/ Especially by me

She had all sorts of questions/ I'd been dying to answer/ She knew what I was getting at/ She knows how love is

I told her of so many things/ Like my respect for her freedom

/ And my passive aggressive acceptance/ Of her lacking interest

This first instance/ Ruined her day/ She thought I was different/ That I wouldn't get in her way

Of casual sex/ And getting fucked hard/ By every Luke, Peter, Pam,

Marc, and Bryan

Then a few days of talking/ Every discussion important/ She was in upheaval/ From unearthed emotions revealed

I was supposed to be different/ And not want to own her/ She was going to be different/ Not controlled by a stoners boner

Her relationships don't last/ Always getting fucked up/ In this sense we would ruin/ The great thing that we've got

As if I want a relationship/ I only want her love/ Which I already have/ And intend to protect

I told her she is free/ To nail whoever she wants/ But if she does I will leave/ And that is not what she wants

Because it bothers me so/ More than she/ Could ever know/ So much so, I'm willing to go

But I don't want to leave/ And she won't change for me/ And we can't figure out/ What to do about this

.........

The serendipity is like this/ The day we arranged the move/ Was the day I moved out of a rotting recreational vehicle/ And in with some friends

Two months before that/ Was the second DUI/ Out of my house/ And into a camper

It was summer time/ I tried joining the navy/ I even pissed clean/ But they wouldn't have me/ Asthma/ I'm a drunk/ Take your pick

I was in that camper/ From late July/ To mid-October/ Some pretty cold nights

Couldn't handle it/ And went to that nice basement/ That day, she made her visit/ She would leave town the next day

My arrest had paralyzed me/ No car, no license/ No hope, no penance/ Stuck and rejected

Could not infiltrate the navy/ And lick their money gravy/ Drugs were still there/ That's all that was there

In those two months/ I lost hope of escape/ From those drugs and that town/ The navy was my chance

Then that day/ She came to me/ Like the sun through a storm/ She made it ok

I was going with her/ Or I should say 'to' her/ It was truly a blessing/ Five months away

To live with her/ I would have to be clean/ No drugs no booze/ In a town far away

I needed time to make money/ Time to prepare/ To say good-bye/ Though I didn't really care

Me and my housemate/ Another lost soul/ Went to find jobs/ In the days that followed

It seemed/ Jobs were rare/ It seemed/ They weren't there

I talked to her/ Once a week/ On Sundays/ Every week/ Until I arrived

What items she would get/ What items I would bring/ The excitement and love/ Once a week on the phone

Unexpectedly/ My ex called me/ Her man cheated/ And she called me

That changed everything/ The silly little thing/ She came around/ Then it turned upside down

I was about to shift direction/ Give the move all up/ I got her a ring/ And she blew me off

New Year's Eve/ And New Year's Day/ My ex blew me off/ On our anniversary

The ring went to/ Another good friend/ A girl who was there/ To take it off my hands

The same day/ New year's eve/ Was opening day/ Of the restaurant/ I got a job at

Iranian owners/ Gave me plenty hours/ I loved that family/ Especially the daughter

Five days a week/ I worked opening/ In a purple haze

I saved money/ I spent money/ Ordering and shipping/ Stuff to her place

The last months in Connecticut/ I was drunk and fucked up/ Always with friends/ Saying goodbye/ To that plot of land

I did:

Ecstacy and acid/ Amphetamines and mushrooms/ In that order backward/ The month before I moved/ I'm done with all that

One friend in particular/ The best one actually/ The only one on my level/ Did something strange

This friend had gotten into the navy/ When they wouldn't have me/ He was getting away/ To far away lands

I knew I had to get away/ Because I'd have been alone/ Once he left/ I'd have been alone

That was one/ Of the big three/ The three big reasons/ I left CT

In no order/ These are those reasons/ Drugs and alcohol/ Would have destroyed me/ I'd have been left/ With no opportunity

I was in love with the girl/ All of this is about/ Had been for three years/ Would have followed her anywhere

And my partner in crime/ Was getting away/ That in mind/ I could not stay

Oh, I suppose there is four/ I hated those towns/ Those towns and those people/ And I always had/ Always

So my friend/ He did something strange/ At my keg party he announced/ He was going to stay

Not join the navy/ Not get away/ Not buy a bitchin Camero/ And not have a career/ In photo fucking journalism

Who knew he had it in him/ To claim he's too free/ Honestly not even me/ Not even I/ Would claim I'm too free

The navy was/ The best opportunity/ The only chance/ For the two of us

And he blew it off/ All I know is/ He better not rot/ And he better get out

I had planned to leave/ On March 15th / But planned to leave/ A few days late

I couldn't help/ But throw a kegger/ The Friday before I left/ That was the 18th March

My last day in Connecticut/ Was the first day of spring/ A time of renewal/ The astrological new year

I had said good-bye/ The best that I could/ On March 21st / I left on a coach bus

Never had been/ So in-between/ I'd left one life/ And wouldn't be missed/ On the way to another/ Cross country in spring mist/ What waited ahead was/ At worst better than/ What lay behind

The past was shattered/ Beyond renewal, discarded/ That night, I raced ahead/ To better days/ It was dark my page was lit/ An aching ass on which I sat/ The terrain was changing/ So was I

The planets aligned/ I was fine/ There, with no one/ Easing my mind

That was an upheaval/ Who knew it was positive/ The planets are so real/ Those people were not

I fell cross country/ Into her arms

..........

So now the ultimatum/ Or so she called it/ Our whatever we've got kind of relationship/ Or other men

Because as of now/ She knows it all/ And is coping/ With it all/ My feelings and all

What's obvious is/ The strength of her desires/ She wants other men/ She wants all of them

I think it makes sense/ But I'm only a man/ Not sure/ How much I can stand

So for a few days/ This love topic is up in the air/ Conclusions dormant/ As we discuss this torment

All that I know is/ I refuse to let her go and/ She won't give in to/ My unfair demands

She's all about sex/ I'm all about love/ This dilemma/ Rises above

I want to knock her up/ She must mother my child/ No one else is worthy/ I fight her denial

She wants/ Her kid to be ignorant/ So it can be happy/ She wants/ Her kid to be athletic/ Because she never was

She wants/ Her kid to smile straight/ Because she thinks it's important

But my teeth are crooked/ And I've never run a mile/ Ignorance is the enemy/ And I'd fight to the death

Women don't know what they want/ And most never will/ So I point out the positives/ Convincing her still

The kid would be brilliant/ The world needs intelligence/ I'm smart and I'm sort of happy/ So fuck ignorance

I couldn't argue/ With the physical issues/ They're cut and dry/ We must look the other way/ It'll get by/ I did

She says/ "It'll be a drugie"/ We both know that is true/ But that's up to the kid/ And what it would do

For the record/ She WILL have my kid/ It's a matter of time

She is mother material/ And her genes are just right/ A beautiful woman/ Bursting with insight

I doubt anyone else/ Will understand me/ And I won't take the chance/ And just let her pass

And I'll bet/ You're dying to know/ Her take on all this/ Well here you go

She wrote this/ In the midst of our emotional abyss:

......

Richie/ You're so beautiful/ But not beautiful for me/ Richie/ You're a lover/ But not a lover of mine/ Richie/ You have needs/ But you have no need for me/ Richie/ You have wants/ But you have no want for me/ Richie/ You're so blind/ But you only have eyes for me/ Richie/ I'll get you glasses/ Then someday you can see

......

Well, I don't know/ About all of that/ We'll see in the end/ To me it's all false

This next one of hers/ Is a bit more insightful:

.......

Why does every one have to own me?/ Everyone can just blow me/ I feel out of place/ Far out in space/ Gravitating towards what I hate/ What I hate is just my fate/ I spin out of control past what I want/ I've lost it and forgotten what it was/ Living my life for everyone else/ Every step I took I just lost myself/ Someday I hope I revolve around/ And maybe that day I will have found/ Just what I lost so long ago/ When I caught myself in the tow/ Another life another chance/ To repeat this fucked up dance/ Of revolving and belonging/ To every planet but my own

.......

She's such a free bird/ It seems to me/ She wants to be/ All alone

A nomad/ Of the sexual realm/ Which is fine by me/ So badly I want her to be free

But in-between/ My current state/ And my acceptance/ Something has to happen

She says she wants a family/ And if not with me then who?/ There is no one else

for the two of us/ Other than us

And she calls it lust/ Three years of friendship/ An all encompassing understanding of the other/ A life together/ And she calls it lust

She can't see me/ As a lover/ Because she sees me/ As a brother

You know, it's tough/ Dissolving platonic relations/ It has to be done/ To move ahead

She is so used to/ The way things were/ She won't accept/ The way things are

That's how I see it/ Call me delusional/ I'd say determined/ We'll see in the end/ Whether or not/ I'm only a friend

So she wouldn't accept/ This ultimatum of mine/ She will not budge/ It is not easy

CUT IT/ I cannot conclude/ This bit

It's done/ To make way/ For the next one

.........

Oh futility/ Do you know?/ I've gotten/ What I've wanted

She is mine/ For the most part/ She kept a piece/ Of herself/ And I'm not sure/ If it's talking to me

We are now/ Lovers in arms/ Joined together/ For whenever

But I worry still/ Is she happy/ Does she agree/ Wholeheartedly with me?

I am happy/ But uneasy/ I am relieved/ But fearing deceit

This piece/ Will now split in two/ She has read what was written/ Now we will see/ What will happen

She wrote to me:

......

I'll be the sun you've always needed/ I refuse to be the sun you've always wanted/ You can revolve around me every year/ But don't get too close because you'll be burned/ I have my hot spots

I have my cold spots/ I have my sun spots/ But I'll shine down on you as long as you need/ Just know- just like this crazy world that we currently inhabit- there are some places that won't see me. No sunshine. I refuse and I can't. It's beyond the laws of nature, physics, celestial science.

All I can ask/ Is for you to adapt/ My love, you need a moon/ To move your tides/ To tempt the wolves to howl/ And guide you when I'm not there/ A reflection of me/ But not me/ You'll be burned/ So wear sun screen/ And don't look at me directly/ You'll go blind, as you already have/ In reference to what I wrote before/ "I'll get you sunglasses, Richie. And then you can see."

......

End her words

Part II

Repercussions/ Have driven me to this

Driven me/ To/ Jotting in disgust/ Rotting in disgust

This mess/ Is wrenching my guts/ Tearing me apart/ Sadly, I remain whole

Things are now conflicted/ They weren't before/ It's a horror/ I'm destroyed inside

She has read this/ And will never fuck me again/ That's what she said to my face/ When I expected an embrace

What is it women know/ That I don't?/ She won't be my lover/ She refuses/ She is stubborn/ I will NOT give up

I want to vomit/ All day long/ I want to get drunk/ All the time

I want to bury a razor/ Into my flesh/ Just to ease my mind/ Ease my restless chest

I'm writing poems of hate/ Hatred towards this woman/ I love endlessly/ Because she rejects me

Hate blanket

This is the voice/ Of manifested emotions

"That dumb bitch/ FUCK HER/ God, I hate her"

Logic and reason/ Tell me none of that's true/ But my illogical emotions/ Won't hear a word of it

My inner thoughts are screaming hate/ When all I feel is love/ I know only love/ Love unrequited

Denied love created emotions/ The emotions manifest/ Into a voice/ At the back of my head/ Screaming hate through my eyes/ And taking hold of my loved one/ The one who denied me of my love

The things I think/ Are no longer real/ Distorted, along with/ What I feel/ No logic no love/ Just hate/ It's not proper/ It shouldn't be this way/ My reason tells me so/ But as of now/ Hate's all I know

At night/ Instead of her arms/ I wrap myself in a blanket of hate/ I don't respect hate/ And I don't believe in it/ But it's so evident/ So relevant/ So real to the touch/ I can only shiver restless in my cold blanket of hate

We'll sleep apart

You go to bed/ We'll sleep apart/ It's not in the cards/ For us to be together

Now I don't believe that/ But like hours of interrogation/ You've broken my mind/ I'll confess to anything/ Because you're so persuasive

I couldn't believe/ The strength of your resilience/ I guess that's why/ You overtook my confidence

So while you sleep/ My guitar will gently weep/ My eyes cannot tear/ Though they want it so/ I love you from afar/ Like the way things are

We'll sleep apart

Something has gone wrong/ We were together/ Now we're not

We made love/ She would say sex/ Because it was fun/ I agree/ Only because she wouldn't kiss me/ But I still say making love/ Because what's to lose by it?

Now we don't sleep together/ We fight and she is distant/ But we remain friends/ While I stew in hate

I will just complain

Why can't she love me?/ Her reasons are shallow/ What is wrong with her/ It's not fucking fair

She says, "I want to love you/ like you want me to."/ Well if she wants to

why doesn't she/ She WILL be with me/ She WILL be mine/ She THINKS she won't/ I KNOW she is wrong

So FUCK her/ Let her come around/ She already has/ And she'll do it again

She will come around/ Over and over/ Until she forgets/ Where she's coming from

Until then/ A violent jealousy/ Will overtake me/ It's on its way

This ride will be wild/ I will hang on/ Until the child/ Oh/ What a long while...

This girl/ Must spin in circles/ At all times/ To move forward

The issues repeat/ But we grow closer/ She brings something up/ And it gets harder

She makes me want to drink/ So I won't give a damn/ When this girl makes me think/ When I can't stop thinking

How badly I want her/ My paralyzing fear/ Of losing her/ What if I lost her?

She is my queen/ Or better, my GOD/ My sweet vengeful God/ Just fucking with me

There will be other men/ This I understand/ What I can't comprehend/ Is WHY she needs other men

We are equal/ I am stubborn/ We are equal/ She is stubborn

I push for love/ She pushes me away/ She won't accept/ An absence of variety

And what can I do/ Lest drive her away/ It's all attack and retreat/ Wax on and wax off

.........

Another day has come/ She spends it with/ That mid-west dick/ When she had me/ In the morning

In that sense/ This times different/ He goes were I've been/ But he'll never understand

He won't understand/ The mess he's in/ Or the delusion/ Of the girl he's in

He's so innocent/ She's as out there as me/ It's her place/ To live this disgrace

As for me/ You should see me/ Ignoring this/ Sitting on clenched fist

As lovers in arms/ We are awkward/ Getting that close to her/ Is just so hard

We've been friends/ For so long/ I don't know when to start/ I don't know where to stop

Can I take liberties/ When do I kiss her?/ If I kiss her at all/ Will she kiss me?/ When do I touch?/ How much is too much

We're not very passionate/ Like we both wish we were/ The difficult transition/ Is turning her off/ But I doubt it's my fault

Then I get worried/ And that turns her off

Until she commits/ There is a great in between abyss/ Where anything can happen/ Any man can come along

I will be here/ I will stand my ground/ I will keep this woman/ I will turn men around/ I must

This is a matter/ Of controlling myself/ Rationalizing/ My inherent astrology/ And not being clingy

But I can only be one way!/ She can accept or deny me/ Or tease me until I break down/ This sea-saw is nauseating

She pokes me/ To tell me/ She loves me/ Cute

She kisses me/ Here and there/ But never enough/ Not ever enough

I'm enraged with love/ I'm restless as she rests/ No kisses tonight/ Better luck tomorrow

Well here it is/ Tomorrow/ Another day/ Another disappointment

No love for me/ All the love she needs/ Would you believe

I cannot handle this?

Me and my/ Lonely clenched fist/ Waiting for her/ Will to shift

I've been denied/ I'm spinning and sitting/ Seemingly dissolving

Right now I can say/ It's getting to me/ No kisses/ And she's so content

When we do make love/ She tells me things like/ I make her hate herself/ And she gets pissed off

She is tired of men/ And at her wits end

No time for herself/ While she hops amidst relationships/ I've got to give her time/ If I want her as mine/ Yeah/ Right

She is wearing me down/ I'm crawling up crag/ She's adding on pounds/ To the weight I drag

She's dating/ She's dating/ She's fucking dating

Getting calls/ From the wheel chair guy/ And fucking the mid-west hick dick/ Every damned Sunday

Now the Sundays come quicker/ Once a week/ Every week/ The damned fucking Sundays

This piece/ May roll-out/ Longer than I thought/ As this issue doesn't resolve

I want/ To stop writing this/ But it's my only serenity/ Amidst all of this

I was one month sober/ And I got drunk again/ Smoked pot again/ And buried a razor/ Into my flesh again

Because of the love/ That I was denied/ I guess I'm too weak/ And that is where

I know/ I can find strength

I can find it in love/ The strongest healthy source/ The other is words

Without love/ There is only drugs/ Pain/ And destruction

From that I find strength/ But in turn get weaker/ No virtue in intoxication/ No intoxication in salvation

She says she only does me/ When I make her feel guilty/ About not wanting me/ As if I'd ever want that

I want the opposite/ Where sex is irrelevant/ And all we need is love/ And the company

of one another

This rejection/ Has pushed me over a ledge/ Into the deepest/ Pit of depression

I haven't felt this way/ In so long and/ In that last instance/ Lies all the reason

for this

My relationship with her/ Shares a quality/ With the last months/ Of being with my ex

My ex who pushed me away/ And spat on my soul/ Who gave up on our black hole/ Who I'd run to

I've been craving it/ For over a year/ And I've found it in her/ She who doesn't care

Being pushed down/ And out of the way/ To cater to/ Their own needs and wants

While I love them/ No less/ I needed inhumane treatment/ And I don't know why

I can do nothing/ From this pit/ Except reflect/ And lick my wounds

I want to go/ Somewhere far away/ Smoke a cigarette/ And come back

Out in the plains/ One straight road/ To and from/ 30 mile line of sight/ To see what's ahead

In my mind/ In this pit/ I recap/ The six degrees/ Of our relationship

She is/ Six things to me/ All of which/ So important

I start/ With the least significant

My roommate/ I watch her go to bed/ She wakes me when she wakes/ I see her everyday

My sister/ Taking me/ Where I need to be/ Always listening to me

A mother/ Nurturing me/ Cooking for me/ Keeping me off drugs

My master and god/ As if I were a dog/ I serve only her/ And will forever

My lover in arms/ And only when in arms/ Otherwise/ The next one

My best friend/ No one else/ Deserves my time/ No one else/ Gives so much of theirs

Six degrees/ She is everything to me/ A world of purpose/ Still I resort to this

I have to write/ To loosen the grip/ Of my fist on my palm/ As I sweat and shake

in this pit

You should know more/ About this girl/ Then I am comfortable/ Telling you about her

You should know/ Why she is this way/ What makes her womanly/ Where she is coming from/ All about her inner workings/ The things I know

This must come/ Straight from her mouth/ I will get it for you/ Straight from her mouth

I was going to interview her/ I even started/ But if you have read this/ Then you know/ I'm no journalist/ So I had her write this:

......

I was born in 1984/ At the end of July/ I became a Leo/ Emerged from the womb/ Of a Virgo/ How ironic

I was conceived in lust/ And that alone/ Without love a relationship is doomed/ So I grew up in a tug of war of hate

She hated me and loved herself/ And herself alone/ I desperately wanted her love/ and went to great lengths to get it/ She was too blind to notice/ Blinded by her own beauty and self indulgence

He feared for me. Too much so/ Pounding in my head every day of my CHILDHOOD/ My day of innocence, my only chance at true ignorance and oblivion.../ He pounded in my head.../ COMMON SENSE/ WORK HARD/ PAY ATTENTION/ ARE YOU STUPID?/ ARE YOU STUPID?/ YOU'RE LAZY/ COMMON SENSE

What's wrong with you, Lindsey, I just can't understand. Why can't you? Why don't you get it? Knock it off. KNOCK IT OFF/ You're just like your mother/ My mother/

Fuck my mother/ All I wanted from her was something motherly/ Her body was never there for sweet hugs/ Her hands were never there for sweet caress and assurance/ Mama's here. No. Mama's gone/ Her body fucking some fuck she met at the bar/ And he's going to be a loser, guaranteed every time/ He'll hate me and treat me like shit, and she'll follow suit/ Mama hates you and you're a burden/ Her hands never there for sweet caress/ No/ Her hand out giving a job to some dick/ Dick. My father can be such a dick.

My father/ Perplexed by who I am/ Who am I?/ Not who he feared I was/ But he feared it so it was true/ Negative thoughts=negative results/ My whole childhood/ When I wanted to play and be free/ I was tied down/ Following him on jobs/ On odd jobs/ Lifting heavy objects/ Keeping up with a 28/32 year old/ Odd Jobs. Odd Jobs/ Come home from school and work/ WORK MY FUCKING ASS OFF/ I hurt/ I was screamed at/ I was fucking stupid/ Fucking lazy/ Fuck. I was a fucking Kid.

Fuck you, Mom/ I'm just a kid/ Your kid/ Finally, you found a guy that's not a total loser/ All you had to do was destroy a family for him/ But you don't care/ You're too self centered/ And blinded by your beauty/ To see your path of destruction/ The path of destruction/ The ground you walk upon/ The ground I worship/ I worship the ground you walk upon/ And aspire to be you/ Because you can only see you/ If I become you/ Maybe you'll see me/ You destroy everyone, bitch/ You bitch, Bee.

Bee is a bitch/ And she hates me because she's young/ And I'm not hers/ I'm only in her way and/ Oh, no one understands me/ Big fucking surprise/ Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me/ No one cares. I hate myself. I'm ugly. I hate myself/ I want my mom.

Mom. Come save me please/ Be the mother I always wanted you to be/ Daddy and Bee, they hate me worse than you hate me/ So take me, please. It's misery/ My joints, they ache. My bones are tired/ My mind is out of control/ I've lost all emotion/ Emotionless.

I hate myself. So much that I've left myself/ Only a carcass walking, breathing, functioning/ Tears have lost their purpose/ Soaking into a soulless pillowcase/ No one cares about me. So why should I?/ So I moved/ Colorado/ I lost my virginity in Colorado/ I found myself in Colorado/ I was beautiful in Colorado/ It was beautiful in Colorado/ I was happy in Colorado/ I ran away in Colorado/ I struggled to stay in Colorado/ Bob died when we were in Colorado/ My mother became a shell in Colorado/ My mother drank in Colorado/ I fucking hated Colorado/ So we moved to Kansas/ But before Kansas/ He wanted me back/ So what if Bee was a bitch?/ "You should be here in SoDak. Where it's stable."/ "I don't care, I know what's best."/ He feared what would inevitably happen/ He feared his helplessness/ I said fuck you. Hate you. I'm leaving/ PATH OF DESTRUCTION OF MY OWN/ IT'S BEGUN. PERHAPS SHE'LL LOVE ME/ I'm fucking Taz. I'm a twister headed down to Kansas/ Fucking Kansas/ This is where it really fucking gets good/ Fucked in Kansas/ Kansas/ Straight edger meets drug addict. I get caught up in the mix/ Miss Straight edger, thank you, fuck you, see you later/ He lived with me. Introduced me to/ ACID!/ Weeeeeeeee/ Whoa. That's fucked up. Trippin' Ballz/ What the hell is reality?/ Realization?/ I love you. Fuck you. I hate you. You love me. I hate you. You love me? I love you. I hate you. You hate how I hate you. But I love you. But fuck you, but fuck you, but fuck you/ Let's just get fucked up/ Get fucked up/ Get fucked the fuck up/ EX/ Ecstasy.../ Is misery/ He left for Florida/ See Ya/ See you. See you. I'll see you, little innocent boy/ I'll see you, little crazy east coastie, New Jersey, foot fetish, fuck off/ I'll see you, Mr. Back home, I fear to go back so I'll See ya/ I'll see you Mr. Polska/ Mr. Polska/ Shelly. My friend, Shelly. I like him lots. He's sweet/ Such a gentleman. So cute and fun. Fucking drugs. Limp dick. Bloody cunt/ No one said you could do that/ Fuck fucking drugs/ I'm going to just over dose and get it over with/ Polska went postal/ Polska and I went crazy/ We took off/ Bye Mom/ I left a path of destruction/ Became her/ Became my fathers fears materialized/ And she still didn't care.

And he didn't care any more/ I don't care anymore/ Polska/ Boom. Dead. So alive. I thought you were the one/ Does it matter?/ For three years it did/ Twisted years/ Downward spiral/ Twister from Kansas to Connecticut/ Spit me back out to SoDak/ Back home/ My biggest fear materialized/ But now my father cared and didn't fear so much/ His fear of me becoming my mother was replaced with his fear of losing me/ My desire for my mother was replaced by a sober realization that I hated her and wanted nothing more than to be anything other than her/ Back in SoDak/ I'm on my own, alone/ And pleased/ Sober/ Happy for once/ For all/ Fuck the drama/ Hey Richie/ I'll make a better life for you/ Maybe better than the one I've lived.

........

Yeah/ That's why I love her

..........

"I love you/ On a level/ That I could never/ love anyone else"

That is a direct quote/ Out of her mouth

And, she says/ I will only lose her/ If I stay so paranoid/ Of losing her

(Now I know/ what will happen)

She called it/ A negative thoughts/ Negative results/ Kind of thing

At least she's kissing me/ And telling me/ She loves me/ But it's not ever enough

for me

She doesn't/ Long for my presence/ She doesn't/ Require my essence

And if our lives/ Continue this way/ My saving grace/ May stay with me

In the midst/ I cannot resist/ To dig for commitment/ And pull for her hand

Now this view/ I have of her/ Inside my head/ Is taking over/ In my dreams

I see how I feel/ When she runs from me/ To some guy named Neil/ And I chase her/ Over islands/ And thru tornados/ Up stairs and thru halls/ I catch her/ I'm hysteric/ I throw her down/ I beat her/ She gets away/ Finds another man/ Then I catch them/ And assault that man/ And I throw her down/ And beat her again/ It happens once more/ Raining in the street light/ Until, still in hysterics/ I give her to social services/ A nice black woman/ In a black limo/ And she goes away

Thru all this torture/ Thru all this pain/ In a state of unrest/ Is where I remain

These late nights/ I struggle with insomnia/ Everyday a fight/ A struggle to wake

Her indecisiveness/ Has me drinking again/ All I have is beer/ My play list and a pen/ Drinking again/ Again

No social life/ No girlfriend/ As that table waits/ Reserved

She's getting moody/ Bi-polar/ She's being a bitch/ And I've had too much

I can't be nice/ Not anymore/ I don't care to/ Not anymore

Fuck her/ Maybe/ She's not the one/ Fuck her

Who/ Needs this shit/ I don't/ Fuck that

So I've had it/ She'd be pleased/ If she knew/ She'd be ecstatic/ I'm done/ Not in my head/ But at least in my heart

And the way/ That she tells me/ She loves me/ Over and over

I just want to choke her/ I resent her/ Because I owe her/ And I'm sick of her/ Hope it's cabin fever

Making us/ Fuck with/ Each other/ All day

It's getting intense/ I've burned the bridge/ Sexually/ Like it had to be torched/ She'd been teasing me/ So I took the opportunity/ To ruin her serenity/ Sexually

Immediately/ I knew what she'd say/ How she'd react/ I did it anyway/ It's just not important to me

I don't want her sex/ I do/ But I don't/ Too much resistance

I think/ I'm giving up/ I think/ She is about to win

We can burn the bridges/ Destroy our friendship/ Regress/ To an awkward place

But I will not go home/ I won't move out/ So it would only get natural/ Unless she throws me out

I used to hate her/ When she wouldn't love me/ Now I hate her/ Because she hates me

I am only responding/ Superficially/ To all the ways/ She behaves toward me

I used to think/ That we were equals/ Now I know/ We are not equal

She thinks/ She's better than me/ What can I say/ I can only agree/ With she/ Who is/ Shallow/ Superficial

It's all falling apart/ Do you remember?/ How close I got/ How sure I was?/ It's all falling apart

This love/ Will not keep us together/ She won't stay with me forever/ Is this love?

I fucking hate this/ I can't control my thoughts/ Honestly/ I'm a little scared

The reassurance/ Of being in control/ Is gone/ In terms of sanity

This could go either way/ As I hope it's a rut/ I fear/ That it's not

I can't hold on/ Living in the moment/ Is destroying me/ I'm destroying myself

A broken man/ Is writing this/ Nothing more/ Than a broken man

I hope I survive/ To see people read this/ To reassure the like-minded/ You can get past this

Is this still about a girl/ Or is this about/ The chain reaction/ She set off in me

Nothing is clear/ Nothing is solid, cut and dry/ Nothing is stable/ Not anymore

I found myself/ A couple years ago/ I knew, finally, exactly/ Who I was

And now/ I'm lost again/ Disoriented/ Feeling around/ The darkness/ Pathetically/ I was never/ Suicidal before/ I was always/ Above it

Now/ There is nothing else/ It/ Is always on my mind/ The razor blade haunts me/ Looming over head/ Like a dentist appointment/ Or starting a new job/ It's watching me always/ It's waiting for me/ The razor wants my attention/ The razor has it out for me

Out the corner of my eye/ It's always there/ On the table

Waiting for me/ To do what I will/ Making itself available/ Whenever I'm ready

Considerate/ Reliable/ Razorblade/ Waiting for me/ To do what I will

My friends/ Would tell me/ To just go home/ But I can't do that

I can't stay here/ All I think about/ Is draining my blood/ Until I'm dead

There is nothing/ In my head/ Telling me it's illogical/ Not anymore/ There used to be/ But not anymore

I can't go home/ I can't stay here/ A third option/ Has become/ The first priority

..........

Sunday again/ That farm boy dick/ Is here again/ To fuck her again/ With his limp prick/ Why do her fuckers always have erectile dysfunction?

Oh if it were that simple/ I've pissed her off/ Now she wants/ His love

I was wrong/ To underestimate him/ And his picket fence-esque existence/ I have no say

Only one hope/ In an issue/ Of the past/ That's always been reassurance

In preparation/ To my arrival/ She "broke up" with him/ She really just severed/ Emotional attachments/ Between them

The way she put it/ She only needed/ One relationship/ And had it with me

She needed him/ Only for sex/ (What the fuck is wrong with me?)/ She had our love/

We had our love/ Now she wants/ His love/ But has fucked it up/ For herself

As she says/ She fucks everything up/ She fucked our relationship/ By having sex with me/ Which I don't believe/ Nonetheless we are fucked

What else is there/ But draining blood/ I have no hope with her/ Death, is what's left

Death is so definite/ That could be the commitment/ I've been pulling for/ But I'd get cold feet

Now she wants him/ Wants his love/ This ever-dull fucker/ Is what she wants?

I'm in this pit/ So depressed and lethargic/ All she does/ Is hassle me about it

She wants a playmate/ To go to the park/ And enjoy the nice day

She wants conversation/ All I can do/ Is grunt and moan/ Trying to ease the pain/ She caused me/ So please/ Girl/ Don't open the blinds

She yells at me/ She won't love me/ She teases me sexually/ She feels no remorse

for me/ I lost the will to bathe/ I cut myself casually/ I can't get off the couch/ I can't stop loving her/ I have no energy/ I have no appetite/ I have given up/ I can't stop loving her

She yells at me/ For living in front of the tv/ And self righteously/ Storms off to the mall

But before/ She gets out the door/ I say one thing/ And hope it gets through

I told her:/ I am a ball of fire/ When I feel/ Loved by her

What more could I say/ It truly is that way/ If she needs a playmate/ All I need is her love

I am alone out here/ I know no one/ She is all I have/ Her love is all I have

In its absence/ I feel an effect/ I become comatose/ With no reason to smile

All she has to do/ Is love me/ And I'll be everything/ She'd ever need

I'm nothing to her/ She wants me gone/ Says we've made a mistake/ And I should go home

My actions don't matter/ She couldn't care less/ Whether I'm happy

or comatose

I'll say something quick/ Her ex-boyfriend killed himself/ She thinks it's her fault/well sort of/ He was always suicidal/ It's a big deal/ I didn't want to write that/ But it's become important

The reason/ Hacking at my skin/ Is not enough/ Is about that/ This is so bad

A good percent/ Of my suicide drive/ Has to do/ With that

I hate her so much/ I want to slit my wrist/ Just/ To fuck with her

Create/ A basket case/ Like is my fate

That was it/ The most terrible urge/ I've ever felt

We discussed the idea/ I swore/ I'd never tell her that/ Not until we were married/ She will hear it now/

..........

Now something new/ She's made a friend/ And is gone/ Time and time again

Last night/ And today/ She's out getting drunk/ I'm rotting here

I don't have/ A fucking friend/ Other than her/ I have no one

So fuck this plan/ I have no life/ Outside the internet/ And mental strife

This is another beginning/ For her and I/ Her new found social life/ My waning will to die

I look out the window/ Her car's not there/ Why would it be/ There is no reason/ For her to come home

She's dating/ She's dating/ She is/ Fucking dating

She's dating/ I don't really care/ Some bartender/ I don't really care

I don't really love her/ I do/ But I don't/ She's rather disgusting

A nauseating/ Sexual radiation/ And an emptiness/ I couldn't fathom

I will refrain/ From talking shit/ Just know/ I'm sincere

I'll be fine/ Without her/ A new woman/ (or girl)/ Has come into my life/ Sort of

_______________

Part III

My mind is at ease/ And finally I'm free/ I'm over her/ Onto new horizons/ All it took/ Was a tiny blonde angel/ I met/ On the interwebz

I fell in love instantly/ When she sent me/ A picture of her/ In that little bikini

She asked/ If that was alright/ Like I wouldn't welcome the sight/ To which I replied/ I love you

Just like that/ I was free/ From mental agony/ That easily/ I only had to see/ There is more out there for me

This girl is young/ Illegally so/ But fully ripe/ I can assure you

A virgin/ That's never been kissed/ With so many ideals/ Beautifully innocent/ Born on the cusp/ Of Gemini/Cancer/ And she types/ With proper grammar

She fell in love/ And so did I/ It's so easy/ It's what I need

I'm no stranger/ To love at first sight/ And I know/ What will come of it

This jewel/ So young and naïve/ Doesn't know/ Of the reality/ What can and cannot be

I'll give myself a chance/ To be true to her/ She is after all/ Just what I've wanted

I pray it works out/ I assume that it will not/ That's not what matters

In her/ I have discovered something/ About my self/ That was there all along

I'm addicted to love/ Just like a drug/ Without my fix/ I get sick

Like thunder on the prairie/ Cascading is this story/ I will always be/ A love junkie

Chapter 2

I've done many/ Strange things/ And managed to not document/ Any of them/ Crazy endeavors/ And so on/ That ends now

I always take the effort/ To put myself in interesting situations/ And ride it out to where I see fit/ Going with the flow/ Well it's been a while/ And it's time again/ To try something new/ So here I go/ Sharing it with you

Here's what's up/ It's a new job/ As a camp counselor/ With retarded people/ Orientation is tomorrow/ And I've no experience/ I never had the desire/ To tackle this field

I wanted to be a counselor/ For normal kids/ And really only for the counselor-ettes/ But the way I figure/ There will still be counselor-ettes/ So all-right/ I'll do it/ I'll do this/ It will be intense/ But that is good/ And I can get away/ From my roommate/ Which is great

So let me take this segment/ To say a few things/ About the writing to come/ I've always been against/ Doing the whole/ 'Day one, day two' thing/ Or week one, week two thing/ However, in this case/ It seems appropriate

For the most part/ It is one on one/ With the kids/ Each week/ I will start with orientation

followed by/ Week one: so and so/ Week two: so and so/ So on and so forth/ And I will take this time/ To state some/ Of my thoughts and feelings/ About this venture

I will be honest/ First and foremost/ I intend to meet chicks/ All the hot counselor-ettes/ The chick population/ Has got to be higher/ Than that old beer warehouse/ (that I got two months off from/ but made sure I could go back to)/ I want the money/ A lump sum to work with/ So I can get some wheels/ And a place of my own/ And get the hell away/ From my damned roommate/ I want to learn the skill/ Of working with these people/ As perhaps it has career potential/ I want to be a mentor/ And encourage another person/ The way none encouraged me

If the kids were average/ Then that last point/ Would come before/ The one before it/ But whatever/ Those are the big ones

Also/ I want to fix my sleep pattern/ So I can work more hours/ Back at the warehouse/ And come on/ I get to camp out/ For eight weeks

Now/ I'm not sure/ How severe these kids are/ How intense their conditions/ Or what the conditions may be/ This is just/ A learning experience/ For you and me

I will try to include:/ My initial reactions/ To as many aspects/ As I can cover/ My emotions/ But I'm not sure/ I have those/ So/ My progress/ With the chicks/ My progress/ With the campers/ The things I do/ The things we all do/ The things that happen to us/ Other people's/ Significant events/ If I see fit/ A bit about/ The camp itself/ And my superiors/ And maybe/ If I'm lucky/ I can wrap it all up/ With some moral/ That goes against/ My original convictions/ But that is unlikely/ As I have no convictions

So orientation/ Starts in eight hours/ Let's do this thing

..........

ORIENTATION

Day One

I arrive an hour early/ As per my ride/ Everyone else/ Shows at 9:00 am/ Immediately/ "As if" I have no other agenda/ I size up the girls/ Just like/ The last orientation/ I took part in/ At a grinder restaurant/

I hardly took in/ My new surroundings/ As I took in/ The surrounding ladies/ The number of/ Female interests/ Was a small one/ But that did not bother me/ As I found/ What I was looking for/ A brunette named Belle/ Or just call her Beauty

The camp itself/ A flat plot/ In some back woods/ Of this mid-western state/ A bit out of my city/ One A framed quarters/ A gathering hall/ Containing showers/ A kitchen/ And a large room/ Eight rustic cabins in a row/ Where counselors and campers/ Sleep on cots/ Also/ A pool no deeper than five feet/ Some animals off yonder/ A volleyball court/ A shed for smoking by/ And one cabin for the nurse

That said I'll move on/ Ice breakers at 10:00 am/ I learn more/ About my fellow counselors/ And come to find/ A certain type/ Works this gig/ Strange wierdos?/ Something like that/ But some strange wierdos are beautiful

Beauty is into/ Psychology and writing/ I love her/ But you know me

Lunch/ Then volleyball/ I'm on Belle's team/ The only guy/ The other team/ Has one guy also/ We win the first game/ And lose the next two

I got to wear/ The sunglasses I just bought/ Which was nice

Next/ A meeting in the A-frame/ A woman/ Translates for a man/ With cerebral palsy/ Who can hardly speak/ And he turns out/ To be her husband

We learn/ Proper terminology/ And the ten commandments/ Of working with

people with disabilities/ Including 'people first speak'/ Which is just making English

work like French/ I.E./ The woman with blonde hair/ As opposed to/ The blonde haired woman

We hang by the pool/ A few exuberant ones go swimming/ I feel it's not the right time/ Grab my Nietzsche/ And sit on the edge/ With my feet in/ Belle sits next to me/ We small talk

Some handbook review/ Dinner/ I eat away from the others/ As per my disliking/ For eating near people/ A counselor in a wheel chair/ Joins me

Belle had asked me about smoking bogies/ After dinner I take her to the shed/ She smokes two/ We talk/ I make an effort/ To look at her/ With a kitten's eyes/ Reader, this chick is hot/ I think we both knew by that moment

Endless volleyball/ I find I'm pretty good/ So that's weird/ I'll spare you the details/ Then Frisbee/ Then the girls/ Attempt water balloons/ And end up soaked/ Another smoke with Beauty/ Then football/ I will leave out thoughts of girls/ That don't pertain to Beauty/ Covering my lust tracks/ She's all I need and want anyway

Belle and I/ Gravitate/ Towards one another

.......

ORIENTATION

Day Two

Fuck cots/ All night/ I prayed for rain/ To ease me to sleep

More lessons/ On teamwork/ (as per my horoscope)/ Going over general rules/ No sexual relations was one

Belle/ May live in my town/ However/ She is going away/ To college/ And that sucks/ At first/ I was bummed/ And decided to let off/ Look elsewhere/ Then I thought/ Fuck that/ Who am I/ To give up?/ And gave myself a choice/ Give up on her/ Or don't

She is a gem/ A diamond/ And like a jewel thief/ My task is complex/ Can I/ Really change/ The course/ Of this life?/ So I consider/ A few things/ The usual things/ Like taking her away/ Or pulling/ Just for sex/ Which is/ Out of the question/ I don't know

if?/ I'll let her go

Also/ A bon fire/ As/ Our camp director/ Played Native songs/ On her flutes/ And to myself/ I thought/ This/ Is why I live this life

Strangers/ In a strange land/ Forming bonds/ Having fun/ Not on drugs/ No thugs/ So much love/ Away from home/ On my own/ Room and board/ Mid-west thunder/ I am

east coast lightening

ORIENTATION

Day Four

Not much has happened/ Why do I jot?/ Certifications of sorts/ Other stuff/ Lectures on autism/ Other stuff

I'm in love/ And laying low/ Searching in myself/ For some logic/ A straight answer/ From myself/ This girl/ Belle/ Beauty/ A sweetness/ Fit for hummingbirds/ Fun, down to earth/ Cute, perfect yet quirky/ Damn this hopelessness/

END ORIENTATION

Saturday

Tomorrow/ Ten campers will come/ Autistic's and such/ Wow/ I am trained/ But not confident/ I was never/ A people person/ And have trouble/ Catering to others needs/ Or my own for that matter/ Oh well/ What the hell/ I can do it/ Anyhow

Of Belle/ What can I say?/ A tricky one/ This one is/ With her/ I'm hesitant/ The chemistry is there/ Both of us are scared/ We both know/ What's coming in time

She is/ A perfect girl/ One whom/ I could actually/ Wait for/ Or commit to

I lucked out/ With this cursed/ College bound girl/ College bound girl/ Don't you leave my world/ I cannot be without/ My college bound girl

That institute to which you commit/ Is a curse and/ I fear your convictions/ College bound girl/ I fear I can't make you/ Give up your world/ Is this love, less important/ I'm sure that it is/ I would love you/ In a heartbeat/ If you weren't only leaving/ Opportunity will slip away/ One of these days/ Don't leave my world/ College bound girl

.........

WEEK ONE- DAY ONE

Easy E

I woke at 2:00 am/ To one kid/ Standing in the cabin/ At the doorway light quietly/ As another was moaning/ In a low tone/ It is now ten minutes of three am/ I have changed the doorway kid/ Now he stares as I write/ Twiddling his hands/ Drooling a little/ And not responding to requests

Easy E woke/ I put him in my cot/ To keep him content/ I feel the doorway kid/ Will not sleep anytime soon/ As I wrote that/ He laid down/ Thank god/ I have wiped two butts today/ Neither was my own

He is sitting up again/ And walking around/ The energy this takes/ Is not paralleled by anything/ More moans from the darkness/ As my light keeps them awake/ The doorway kid/ Goes to sleep/ So do I

I woke at 5:30/ Easy E is in my cot/ The crooked one that moans/ (who frightens me)/ Is being weird/ Out of his bed/ That night I slept/ Four jagged hours/ 12:15-2:00 am/ 2:55-5:30 am/ The days are/ Or the day was/ Long and exhausting/ I am drained/ Of everything/ They don't pay us enough

Easy E/ Has ADHD/ And is a higher functioning autistic/ Someone's crippled fingers/ Pound a piano/ I look after energetic Easy E/ He is ten/ I have to chase him everywhere/ And he can't do one thing/ For more than three minutes/ It seems/ How do I keep up?

I guess it's

WEEK ONE- DAY TWO

Now

But it's all the same to me/ I can't do this/ But now I have to/ To stay with Belle/ With whom my time is fleeting/ This girl makes me swoon/ This girl makes me woozy/ This girl is/ My next endeavor

I'll struggle to keep her/ By my side/ While she prepares/ For college/ I love her/ As I've loved nothing before/ And have no intention/ Of telling her/ She must tell me/ I know that she does/ So I'll wait/ But she might not say it/ To make going to college/ That much easier

So I might have to/ I might have to/ Do a lot of things/ I might have to move/ To some town/ In Minnesota/ I might have to/ Move her/ To the east coast/ I might I might I might/ She might not care/ People get militant about college

The two of us/ Went to a laser show/ At the falls/ And we had our first kiss/ By an illuminated waterfall/ Then rolled in the grass/ Down a little knoll

WEEK ONE- DAY TWO

Easy E

*I believe the autistics/ Can't understand anything/ We were told they can/ But I have not seen/ Any evidence of that*

*speaking from blatant inexperience (the evidence is in the subtleties)

They run for doors/ And jump on/ Everything and anyone/ Always wetting themselves/ Or shitting themselves/ And they don't listen/ They go were led/ When led/ Each with some unique physical tick/ Like twiddling their hands

The one who moans in the night/ Likes to tap windows/ He truly frightens me/ Not because he is different/ His ways frighten me/ They remind me/ Of things I feared/ As a child/ Monsters, gremlins, or aliens

I took two no doze/ And drank two black coffees/ And could still pass out

I am sick of being a professional/ And not being allowed/ To touch Belle

Just doing whatever/ Easy E wants to do/ Which is about six things/ Over and over/ Right now/ He is playing with the phone/ I write while he does this/ His usual itinerary

is as follows:/ Feed the goats/ Play wiffle ball/ Play tetherball/ Have me push him on the swing/ Play in the volleyball sand/ Play on the phone

He wants to swim always/ But we have no lifeguard/ He asks me/ "Wud a is your name?"/ Every twenty minutes/ But he knows

I watch my girl from afar/ As I maintain/ This professional persona/ And pine/ For some time alone with her

16 hours since I woke/ I can go back to sleep/ Painfully long day/ Painfully monotonous living/ I guess it's for the kids/ I get so little time with my girl/ Though we are always together/ I work as if I'd/ Rather be doing something else/ Which I would

I am already sick/ Of Easy E/ And his overly affectionate ways/ How dare I be human/ I am so tired/ All day I couldn't remember names/ Always saying dumb things

I'll say something smart now/ The autistics understand repetition

WEEK ONE- DAY THREE

The cutest thing ever:/ My Beauty's little camper/ Call her Pinky/ At one table in the hall/ Was writing out/ All the names of/ The characters from the tv show/ "Full House"/ For pages/ Becky, Danny, Jessie/ Joey, Michelle, DJ, Stephanie/ And always in the same order/ But different amounts each name

It feels like Easy E/ Is becoming/ A part of me/ I am so sick of him/ But cannot break away from him

An autistic/ Call him BB/ Cannot sit still/ During quiet time/ He is so cute/ But a living terror/ A little tornado/ Raging through the cabin

We had a dance/ With a disc jockey/ The counselors danced/ While moving the campers/ By holding hands/ I would call it somewhat fulfilling

Easy E must always be outside/ Or he pesters you to take him/ I just wish he would sit still

If Belle/ Could be as affectionate/ As Easy E/ I'd be in heaven

While discussing next weeks night out/ With the director/ Trying to switch to Belle's night away/ One campers early 20's helper says/ "Don't date in camp/ it never works out"/ I could have kicked her head in

WEEK ONE- DAY FIVE

Easy E

I can't take these kids affection/ So sick of it/ Whatever/ I got laid last night/ My god, it was good/ It was good/ Horoscope I read/ Afterward said/ We go together like/ Peanut butter and jelly/ Funny cuz she had me make her one/ (Let me interrupt here. On an editorial note, this was the greatest horoscope I ever got. She was wearing my big t-shirt from the miller factory and nothing else. I made her a PB&J and sat down to read my horoscope about how Me and Somebody new go together like the PB&J she was eating.)

Her ex calls/ Twelve times a night/ I don't blame him/ Today I talked shit to him/ For the fun of it/ As I heard myself in his voice/ Recalling his position/ That desperation/ For the woman he loves/ Tragic familiarity/ Nonetheless/ He is trekking/ Four hours to see her/ And she said she would see him

She has to do/ What she has to do/ I just hope/ Karma doesn't bite my ass/ For being a prick/ Anyway/ The kids leave tomorrow/ Thank god/ One kid, BB/ Has become my favorite/ And I will be sad/ To see him go

And after a little thought/ I realized why/ I like him so much/ He is intensely reminiscent

of a smart dog/ One that follows commands well/ He just has that energy

Running around from here to there/ And straight into you/ Carelessly jumping on you/ With a big smile on his face/ And it hurts but you don't care/ Because now you are smiling/ Just as wide as him

SATURDAY

Belle's ex did not come/ She talked him out of it/ I love her so much/ And she loves me the same/ But we don't say it/ And we both know why/ My college bound girl/ My next endeavor/ My relocation/ My new passion/ My Beautiful girl/ Her

The campers are gone/ More are coming tomorrow/ Yikes/ I might take a job/ In the kitchen/ I'm not cut out/ For these kids/ We'll see/ When Easy E left/ He told his mom/ That I said/ "Shut up" and "stupid"/ When in fact/ I said no such thing/ Well/ Not "stupid"/ "Shut up" happened...

..........

WEEK TWO- DAY TWO

L. Cern-Dog

Why?/ I ask myself this question/ Quite often/ About as often/ As this 66 year old retarded man/ Empty's his bladder

Why is it my place/ In this world / To change this man's diapers(Attends- registered trademark)?

I am not qualified for this/ By any means

Why do we place/ So much value/ On human life?

So much so/ That a human/ That is more a burden/ Can be allowed to live/ When they cannot sustain themselves/ Their only contribution is a hard lesson/ For stupid kids like me

Why aren't these people destroyed?/ I can find no other word/ Than burden

Why live?/ Why need me/ To change your diaper?

The adult campers/ Can do nothing for themselves/ Why am I paid so little?

WEEK TWO- DAY FIVE

This crop of adults/ Goes home tomorrow

All week/ I've had/ Not a moment/ To jot

Until now/ Somehow/ I have seen shit fly/ I have woken twice a night/ Every night, to change a diaper/ Then changed diapers/ From first light to midnight

I've seen penis after penis/ Parade around shameless/ I've worked all day/ And got zero sleep/ And did it again/ I've smelt odors/ So foul/ They WILL haunt me

to the end of my days

I understand the minds of these people now/ Each uniquely simple/ I got used to them

Belle and I tell each other/ We love one another now/ Me and her/ I am so in love/ She is always on my mind/ She is the reason/ I am still at this job/ I love Beauty

But now/ I am finding something out/ My demons/ Are coming of age

..........

WEEK THREE- DAY TWO

KDR

The campers got easier/ KDR is in a chair/ But not a bother/ He can mumble a bit/ And stand for moments

He tells me "thank you"/ When I do things for him/ And that really

makes all the difference/ I never knew/ The value of gratitude

There is twice as many campers/ As there was last week/ Yet, it's half as difficult

On Saturday and Sunday/ I worked/ Selling fried candy bars/ Making this/ The first week in my life/ I worked seven days a week/ I'm running out of milestones

And old news to me/ New news to you/ I'll be moving/ To Minnesota/ To be close to Belle

I will get a place/ With another girl from camp/ As Belle/ Is staying in dorms/ She must finish out a year/ At her college/ Then she is mine/ Maybe we can go to Connecticut/ Where she can finish college

And I just got word/ From my best friend back home/ That nothing is the same back there/ All ties and social networks/ That I left and came from/ Have been destroyed/ My clean friends/ Are back on crack/ Friends are fucking other friend's girls/ Property is getting destroyed/ I escaped the people bomb

WEEK THREE- DAY SIX

Off

I slow the progress/ Of this project/ As I am so busy/ Never with a moment

KDR is gone today/ He was sad/ Depressed, the last two days/ Even though he comes back Sunday/ For yet another week

I'll talk about Don Blackwater/ Don is/ Mentally retarded with obsessive compulsive disorder/ And the funniest man ever/ Narrating his actions/ "And to my left

is the soap"/ Repeating things/ We taught him/ On command/ "Pimping isn't easy,

chilling is important/ A man gotta do/ What a man gotta do/ A mans gotta pimp

and a mans gotta chill"/ Awesome guy/ Self sufficient/ An ever admired quality in a camper

The varieties of disabilities/ Is very intense/ So many possibilities/ Cerebral palsy/ Downs/ Autism/ Stroke/ Mental retardation/ Obesity/ Obsessive compulsive disorder/ ADD and ADHD/ Developmental disorders/ Sensory disorders/ Epilepsy/ Plus more/ And all in any/ Combination conceivable

Every camper/ A tweaked brain/ A tweaked body/ Often both

Why am I/ Alone in my apartment?/ Let me tell you/ It has to do/ With my Belle's mom/ Who feels the need/ To punish an eighteen year old/ Belle must stay home/ Because I spent the night/ Last week/ While mother was away

This weekend will be/ The longest/ We've been apart/ Since we met

She isn't needy enough/ For me/ We love one another/ But I worry about her/ About me/ I need her always/ Same as any girl/ But usually/ They need me back

She is distant by nature/ And I just don't know

In the midst/ My CT life/ Is calling me back/ It's more difficult here

I love her/ I'm moving/ To St. Cloud/ Does she want me?/ I should go home/ I need her/ Does she need me?/ She says she does/ But can't show it/ Does she show it?/ Have I scared her off?/ No. She's just grounded/ Where was she/ When I brought her that rose?/ She won't cheat on me/ She could cheat on me/ My love/ Is my curse/ My insecurities are worse/ My worries/ Destroy

I tell her everything/ Always/ She says little/ Each time/ But she is like that/ With words/ Never finding the right ones/ I was the same way once/ Did I put ideas/ In her head?/ Did I creep her out?

Our love is strong/ So is she/ I am weak/ My weakness/ Is my demon/ I'm broken/ By my first love, long ago/ It has manifested/ In my relationships/ Fear of being abandoned/ I forgot how to be loved

..........

WEEK FOUR- DAY TWO

Wheelchair Week

Hell Week

The job is getting/ The worst of all of us/ We all blame one another/ When we should blame the job/ The heat/ The number of campers/ Twelve wheelchair bound campers

Damian/ Is my main man this week/ At all times/ He carries a wadded napkin/ And a copy of/ "The Velveteen Rabbit"/ To move him/ I take his book/ And he follows it/ As I dangle it/ Just out of his reach

In the pool/ He stands in one place/ Watching the power lines/ He has a blistered face/ Very blistered/ For reasons unknown/ And needs cream on his body/ Three times a day/ Which I neglect/ He gets it once/ And on that face/ That face/ Only a mother could love/ That face I got used to

Some girl on the staff/ Did the math/ We make 84 cents an hour/ This Friday/ We get the first/ Of our two checks/ Tonight is my night out/ A weeks worth of relaxation/ In five hours with Belle/ Last night/ I got laid/ In the loft of the A-frame

Next week/ We have off/ I'll be scoping out/ And setting up St. Cloud/ Only a couple days more/ Of the waking agony/ That is this job

..........

WEEK FIVE

The Week Off

Sunday

Not at camp/ Cloud nine/ Tomorrow I go to St. Cloud/ Making living arrangements/ So I can be with Belle/ While she is in college

I could say a lot/ About my feelings/ Towards this college bull shit/ But I'd rather not

I really have but a single thing/ To add right now/ When Damian left/ The rain was torrential/ The camp was hectic/ And I didn't say goodbye/ If anyone didn't care/ He didn't care/ But oddly enough/ I did

I can't believe/ I didn't say goodbye

WEEK OFF

I go back to work tomorrow/ Apartment in St. Cloud:/ Gotten/ Relationship with Beauty:/ Healthy and strong/ Mental health status:/ Still?/ Personal inventory:/ This/ Confidence in the move:/ 45 percent/ What will I do/ With a girlfriend in college?/ Will she ever be around?/ Would she sleep around?/ I suppose I trust she wouldn't/ Can I trust a woman?/ To turn away advances/ One way to find out/ Besides/ When I am single/ Women turn me away all the time/ And we are all each other/ One girl is all girls/ There is hope for fidelity

Let me explain/ How I feel about college/ With an impression of/ A dialog I once heard/ Between two college girls/ As follows

Girl # 1: Who are you fucking tonight?/ Girl # 2: I was gunna fuck so and so/ G#1: Oh, I fucked him last weekend/ G#2: Who are you gunna fuck?/ G#1: I think I'm gunna fuck that guy that you fucked last weekend/ G#2: Oh, that would be cool. (moronic giggling)/ It's like we switched!/ G#1: (differently pitched moronic giggling)I know!

I fear those girls/ I don't want my girl/ Anywhere near them/ In case they're skank is contagious/ Fuck college/ Fuck debt slavery/ Fuck sex/ Fuck partying/ Fuck new found freedom/ Fuck educations continued/ Fuck living on campus/ Fuck college

WEEK SIX

Completed

Welcome Beauty/ To all my problems/ Emotional/ Social/ Alcohol

This last week sucked/ Two autistic brothers/ With more energy than god/ Always wandering/ And shouting the same nonsense/ In my ear/ Day in and day out/ For five and a half days

Shut the fuck up!/ Sit still!/ Whatever/ Go fall off the bridge/ See if I care

Them to me:/ "The cots!/ The cabins!/ The cots in the cabins!/ You're going down big guy!"/ One made fart noises/ Into his hand/ Almost constantly/ I could not handle them/ I lived/ But wanted to die

My head is all fucked up/ Being so dependent on Belle/ She told me/ She was skinny dipping/ With the girls/ And I flipped shit/ All day/ I was a basket case/ She had to talk me down/ A lot/ And this is why;/ Because I didn't want/ Her to waste 40 minutes/ That she could spend with me

I shouldn't love/ I shouldn't live/ I shouldn't smother/ I shouldn't be so

Needy/ Attached/ Cumbersome

To this girl/ I kneel to/ In worship/ I've been away/ From camp for 2 hours/ Already/ I'm drunk as hell/ With the music loud/ Writing my d's as p's

Belle doesn't need me/ What the fuck is that about?/ My sister gives great advise/ And I take none of it/ As I am stuck/ In all these ways/ I know this/ But cannot help myself

..........

WEEK SEVEN

Completed

Easiest week yet/ Easily/ Don came back/ Don is the best

I had him pimp Belle/ To the other campers/ Since they all want her time anyway/ And I taught him/ About collecting his "Benjamin's"/ If they didn't pay up/ He would have to throw down/ And pimp smack them

I'll hit ya with/ Some more Don dialog/ Of the past week

Donalog:/ "I'm gunna pimpsmack the teeth out of your mouth."/ "Timmy Sharky owes me some benjamin's and if he doesn't pay me I'm gunna pimpsmack him."/ "I'm sick of Doc, waking me up with that freaking megaphone every freaking morning."/ "You're ruining my camp experience Doc."/ "You should ditch that reservation wagon and get a real car"/ "Get out of here Timmy, ya freaking cripple."/ It really doesn't end/ That guy is endless fun

All the characters of this camp/ Have reserved a place in a novel to be forgotten/ So many characters/ Two nights in a row/ Belle and I/ Got each other off/ In her cot/ With sleeping campers only feet away/ One week left/ And never again after/ This job's almost over/ Then I'm off to St. Cloud/ To write/ The Love Junkie episode of/ "The battle for my sanity"/ As my paranoia fights my trust/ Over matters of my college girl/ Can't fucking wait for that

Today/ We told Belle's mom about the move/ She got pretty pissed/ Praising me/ While cursing my actions/ Her mother seemed/ To have an endless supply/ Of negative aspects and precautions/ Ultimately suggesting/ We should break up/ Instead

Whatever/ She also said/ Belle would just end up/ Dating her ex/ Which I've been saying all along/ Whatever

..........

WEEK EIGHT

Completed

THE JOB

Over

The t-shirts burned/ Like the Beatles records/ And not our staff shirts/ Rather the shirts/ We made together/ As staff

Brianism shirts/ His name is Brian/ Quoting in praise/ Our 'strange' co-worker's/ "ism's", and containing the camps name/ Which I must omit/ The shirt goes:

TOP 13 BRIANISMS

Of (camp name here)

BRIANISM _: "_ A vocalization of a verbalization that spontaneously occurs in my cranium _"_

13. "What, like drugs?"/ 12. "Sounds like someone's been playing a little too much Grand Theft Auto"/ 11. "There's no priest in the village people"/ 10. "Although the resemblance among the males is fairly prolific"/ 9. "Could I use corporal punishment on Elizabeth's nephews or would that be bad for insurance purposes?"/ 8. "I'm not a cheap action figure...my arm doesn't just pop in and out"/ 7. Hey Brian say cheese! "Fermented Bovine Lactate"/ 6. "My son's name would be Yoshi Kuma because it's a very popular name in Japan"/ 5. "Hi...You've reached (camp name here also). This is camp counselor Brian speaking...how may I direct your call"/ 4. "If you combine the rumors in my home town I'm a homosexual drug addicted cannibal"/ 3. "Let's wake up and see what the day has to offer"/ 2. "If I made it through high school without committing a murder...I can make it through the last 3 weeks of camp"/ 1. "Easy E, while crying is a great stress reliever...but Richie's a little busy at the moment"

A meeting was called/ Concerning #9/ And use of the camp's name/ I changed those names/ As I have done this entire project/ Our director, "Elizabeth"/ And her whole strange family/ Got really offended/ And threw a fit/ Threatening lawsuits/ And quit/ Taking her camping nephews and niece away/ On the second to last day/ No one sensed her ulterior motives/ To get out before it all got worse

She left over a joke/ As if she had found an excuse to quit/ The more we apologized/ The more emotional and pissed off/ She got/ We could not compromise/ With the management/ And ultimately/ We burned all the shirts

Well, THEY/ Burned all THEIR shirts/ I refused to take part/ And still have mine

After that we were all rather/ Melancholic/ Nonetheless/ That last night

without a director/ Was the best night all summer/ For us/ And the campers

The two nights/ Before that weird day/ A coworker and I/ Spent three hours one night/ And seven hours the next/ Making a video for the staff/ With all the footage/ From the past two months/ Complete with staff interviews

A film/ Upwards of two hours/ Containing a hilarious, uncompromising/ Real, and truthful view/ Of what had happened to us/ The past two months/ In short/ It's a trip

The way they reacted/ To the shirts/ They would burn us at a stake/ For this video

And now/ Strictly for your enjoyment/ Some free association recollection:

The heat, the aching contempt, the aching misery, the joy given by those certain campers, the disdain for other campers, the one camper that fell in love with Belle each and every week, sitting with Belle on the hay ride every week, the hikes, that adorable kid in the chair that one week, Pinky, shower time, those naked old retarded men, the eight times I got laid on camp grounds, the girl counselors never getting along, my co-worker/partner in crime without whom neither of us would have made it, getting in trouble for corrupting Don, all the uncounted penises I saw, all the shit that didn't find the toilet, wiping butts, love at first sight, the most natural courting I have ever done, actually getting comfortable working with the campers, breaking my mental issues to Belle, first paycheck tattoo's with the guys

Constant high and low flux/ In everything/ Energy, happiness/ Hard work

Stealing- from counselors- the camp- and campers, fighting to abolish our everyday activities, the number of times I would have quit had Belle not been there, the weird fucking counselor in a wheelchair who was more work for us than most campers, the other weird inbred South Dakotan counselors

That's the type/ That take this job/ Weird people/ Some the good kind of weird/ Some

the annoying obnoxious intrusive/ Kind of weird/ But all weird

The impressive size of South Dakota's inbred population

Waking up everyday/ Wishing I were dead/ Not having anything to kill myself with/ Getting out of bed/ And doing it/ All over again

People's bad moods, inclusion campers-with no disabilities making fun of the disabled ones, the crappy food, nights out with Belle once a week, working for the weekend, cold hot dogs every Sunday, panic attacks over Belle

Anyway/ The last day/ Campers gone/ As I bleach the showers/ A junior counselor tells me/ "We aren't getting paid today"/ Talk about a curve ball/ The camp had no money/ And couldn't afford to pay us/ It was fucked up/ We were getting the camp/ Ready for shut down/ And after our initial shock/ We all finished what we were doing/ And just left

People had bills/ People had rent/ I was buying a car/ The next day/ And moving to St. Cloud/ The day after/ Now I am stuck/ Unemployed and broke/ Waiting for money

We (the staff) were going to blow off/ The staff party that night/ But ended up going/ I said good-bye/ To so many people/ Whom/ I'd been through/ So much with/ It made me nauseous

I hate good-byes/ Enough to make me/ Hate saying hello/ I've just learned/ How inevitable/ Both are

At the end of this/ The beginning of something else/ I challenge any person with disabilities to unnerve me/ Please/ Try/ I'll never be the same/ Special people are in my blood now/ They're all family/ I've seen all the strange they could muster/ Now I'd probably be more nervous around you than any one of them/ Any terror can be made familiar

Chapter 3

The battle for my sanity was not much of a battle. I would call it a massacre. My mental health could not stand up to the onslaught of loneliness that came to pass during the time when Belle was being settled into college.

I arrived at my new apartment on a Thursday. My roommate(a girl from camp) was home but she soon left to visit her parents until Tuesday. By that Tuesday when she returned I had already made up my mind.

It was Thursday and Belle would be moving into her dorms on the coming Saturday. That Saturday, her orientation was set at four o clock and she told me she would see me that night.

My door buzzer was busted as of that day, and being without a phone, I had no way of knowing when she was going to show. Also, her mom was supposedly going to spend a night at my place, which did not happen. So I was expecting her as well.

I spent that night in an easy chair, utterly uneasy, sitting by the screen door to the balcony looking out over the parking lot. From seven pm to twelve thirty am I sat watching movies with the volume turned down low in order to hear every car that pulled into the lot. When said car would pull in, I would stand up and check for her, just to be let down over and over. All night.

Turns out, orientation ran late. I hadn't seen Belle since Wednesday and was jonesin' for her pretty bad. I started sketching in an empty sketch book I had. This is a big deal since, I have little to no skill as an artist but still ended up producing thirteen sketches between Saturday morning and Sunday night when I saw Belle. I drew a few apocalyptic scenes- two mushroom clouds and one picture where a comet is on a collision course with the moon, next to which I wrote this poem:

If a comet hit the moon/ It couldn't be to soon/ An apocalyptic ecstasy/ Would over take me/ As we drown in the seas/ And surrender to famine/ When money is worthless/ And existence is hopeless/ We can all die as one

I drew a picture of a man standing on the side of some road holding a sign that says, "People on glass planets shouldn't throw nukes," and another picture of a man with a red and black flag leading a revolution over a chain linked fence with two officers of "The System" pointing guns at him. I drew a picture of a table with cocaine laid out to be snorted and a cigarette burning in an ashtray; to which I wrote this poem next to:

Chemical coca snowflakes/ Dusting my table/ We play in the snow/ Like schoolboys on a snow day/ A perpetual snow day/ Living off of us/ As long as it may/ Until we have no life left/ And school has ceased to exist/ When we become one/ With the snowflakes

I just found a tumor on my collar bone as I was writing this. This may have to be my masterpiece. That would suck if this was all I left to the world. Cancer can blow me. I'll get back to you on that. Maybe...

Anyhow, Sunday night. You know, I always thought I had cancer. I just don't go to doctors and have no way of knowing.

Sunday night, I finally saw Belle. We took a bath together and laid around naked like we always do. She left around eleven forty five.

The next night we couldn't see each other and arranged to meet in cyberspace at nine o clock. Somewhere between fifteen minutes before she didn't show on the internet messenger and fifteen minutes after, I had made up my mind. It had a little to do with my sister saying I was "just sitting around waiting to be dumped" and Belle's mom saying the chances of us lasting are "slim to nil."

I waited by the computer a bit longer before I walked to the gas station next door to use a pay phone. Love will turn your brains to boiling burning oatmeal. Belle did not answer her phone and, using a calling card, I called Patcher in Connecticut.

Patcher is like a brother. He is the one who was going to join the navy but didn't (remember?). I told him I was coming home. He was stoked about the idea and told me I could live with him, which I planned to do anyway. I will elaborate on that in a bit.

I called Belle once more and again got no answer. She appeared on my internet messenger at eleven o clock, but by then it was too late. I had written a good-bye e-mail. I would include that in here but I deleted it. Basically I told her how unhappy I was and how I can't get by on so little from her. I assured her of how much I love her, but pointed out that she is in her hometown. She has her whole world out here and all I have is her and nothing else. I thought that I could handle the social isolation but the reality is that I can't. If I had had a friend other then her I could have. But when she wasn't around all I had was loneliness. In the e-mail I admitted I was weak because that is how I feel.

She came to see me the next day. Essentially she came so we could break up. But I wasn't about to let that happen. I couldn't justify throwing away the amazing love we have for one another. That would be way too American of me. Waste not want not. That and I can't stomach the thought of her being out of my life. So as I'm telling her how I want to see her as much as possible before I leave, she is telling me we should just end it and not drag it out.

This conversation was all over the place. I desperately tried to come up with some resolution to insure that this was not the end of us. I brought up talk of a baby. That she could carry into life and I would raise until she gets out of college. I suggested getting back together and thought of an otherworldly ex-girlfriend, Jan, from four years ago and that maybe I could probably still get a date with her. Probably not. Couple's suicide crossed my mind and she wasn't about that either. I told her that that way we'd absolutely die together, sort of the same as if we grew old together. Or got in a horrible car wreck.

It was when I said that I planned to write her she came up with the solution. Beauty was terribly upset this whole time, which means she didn't have a whole lot to say. She gets quiet when there is something troubling her. I told her I was going to write her because I cared deeply about her and her life. I told her I was only leaving because I couldn't be happy out here being so lonely. I have to go home to my friends. Then, I figured if I'm going to write I might as well visit her on her breaks. So she figured if I'm going to visit her, we might as well get back together next year. She proposed waiting until she was through with this year at her present college when she will transfer to a state school where she won't have to live on campus and we'll get a place together. I will have time to persuade a friend from CT into moving out so I won't always be lonely. If you haven't realized it yet, I don't make new friends. For whatever reason. Writing it down, that part about relocating a friend here seems a bit ill-logical; they would only be as lonely as I am amidst all this... maybe a little differently. We can wait and see what happens.

Then it was Ok. We had a plan. I get to go home for a year and she gets a year to be a college girl free of my burden. Then we got down to specifics. While talking about our baby we want to have, she mentioned that it will be hard for her to get pregnant because of her birth control pill. She said she might stop taking it while I'm gone but then she got worried about having an "accident" with another guy. Then the reality of the situation really hit me. She is in college and will be fucking other guys. When I protested she quickly pointed out that I'm going to be screwing other girls and she added that no way in hell could I go that long without having sex. I am aware that I most likely would be with other girls, and that I can't go without sex, but I didn't want that brought up so I could avoid being a double standard. We came to an impasse.

As of now it stands at this. Nothing must come between our love, which is most important. I wanted to lie and say I wouldn't be with other girls, but I didn't want to lie to her. I wanted to tell her I could wait until I'm with her again to have sex, but I didn't want to lie to myself. What I did do is inform her to my fullest ability of how important her vagina is to me. If we are going to be together in the future I can't have some fucker in there ejaculating all over the sanctity of my vagina. I told her that her body is a temple but more than that it is MY temple. Her goddess body is where I get my worship on. And of course she told me that anyway I think of her with a man is the same as how she thinks of me with a woman

We got way in-depth with the issue and if it were the nature of this piece I would tell you more about all that talk, but it's not. Although I am pretty sure I never got her to say she wouldn't be with another man.

Right now it is the early am hours of Saturday. Sunday afternoon, tomorrow afternoon, I am getting on a plane and flying home to CT. These past days have been dreadful. While Belle has spent as much time with me as her schedule would allow, I have problems other than just loneliness. My thoughts are fucking with me real bad. I cannot recall such a manic-depressive state of mind, it's usually just depressive. But in this limbo my mind is torn. I am either terrifically joyful that I am going home and I get to think of all the things I've missed so much that are waiting only days away. Or I want to throw up at the thought of being without my Beautiful girl. As I held her I thought of how soon she would be a million miles from my grasp.

If I were in school, I would drop out in a heartbeat and run off to any state with Belle if she desired, but that could be why I am not in school.

Also, if you care, she is a Capricorn.

And on top of all this is my fucking apartment lease. A piece of paper I signed that says I, Richie Rose, will put up with Belle's neglectful college life for at least six months. A piece of paper that says if I, Richie Rose, decide to move out after a week, I will still pay rent for another six months. So when I get home I can look forward to working my ass off and still having to freeload.

******

I spent one more day and one more night with Belle before I got on this airplane that is taking me home right now. Leaving her was the most difficult thing I have ever done. To put her love on hold is fucking absurd.

And now, as the airplane propels me further and further away from my love. I think of the tears that she cried and the nausea I felt as we said goodbye at the airport. I also think of the fact that she spent the second to last night of our fleeting proximity smoking pot with her ex boyfriend. Ya' know how I know? I guessed, and she admitted it. All I could think was; why couldn't she wait two fucking days? Why waste one of these few last nights together? Her ex was always a big problem for us but more so than her ex was her herself. The most amazing girl I've ever had was also the shitiest girlfriend I've ever had. Comparatively speaking, at least I knew the physically abusive one cared.

That isn't to say I won't do everything in my power to make sure I stay with Belle long enough to have a family. This idea of a family seems to be the only possible escape from my own personal hell. It will always matter to me. She has sworn herself and a child to me. So here is little trial of a person's word and will. Of Belle's word and will. We'll know in the end.

As of now, however, Belle is quite literally behind me. And I am going back to the future, also quite literally. 650 miles to Providence at 35,000 feet. From Providence only an hour drive to home. I can sleep with my pug, Mistress Kari, and maybe kick out some jams with my pops.

But, I'm going to be real with you. I don't want you to get the wrong impression, that I was home sick for that sentimental bullshit. I got sentiments but those are not them, my friend. I am going all this way for one thing and one thing only. Something I need more than anything else. The one thing that can truly help when love gets me down. I am going to get balls to the wall hammered with Patcher and we are gonna raise hell in a most extravagant and chaotic fashion, to the fullest of our cooperative abilities. Then I'm going to spend day after day marinating in the thickest cloud of marijuana smoke that you can imagine. And at the end of each of those hazy days, Patcher and I are going to take all the pharmaceuticals we can get our hands on (which I assure you is plenty) and drink ourselves into oblivion once again.

I am a love junkie, plain and simple, I've shown you how I love. Now let me show you the junkie. I won't even have to try. It will just fall into place. That is my life on the east coast. That is why I had to leave. But my exile is done. My hiatus is over. I need this. Chasing love failed. But let me clarify a myth, chasing a high will never fail.

It's because I am heart broken. It's because I am overworked. It's because today is a special day. It's because I have no will power. It's because the reasons not to aren't good enough. It's because excuses are reasons.

Chapter 4

Boy, I'd hate to mislead you. Her voice whispers in the wind. There will be no viciously truthful account of my life as a junkie. A tear falls from my eyes for a dead friend. I miss my girlfriend like an addiction. The people bomb has detonated. I took mushrooms and had a nervous breakdown. I've fallen back in the fall. I felt him die from a state away.

Patcher's twin sister in Los Angeles found an amazing band. They say it all so accurately. They say things I needed to hear. They are called Virgos Merlot. One song's chorus goes, "I wait for no one, no one comes, the cycle goes on." I feel their lyrics in my soul. They speak my dilemma. Another song goes, "be careful what you learn, because sometimes knowing burns." 'Knowing burns' would make a good tattoo.

I heard an amazing rapper, his name was Atmosphere. He is from the Twin Cities; the only place I want to be. He said things like, "Once upon a time in Minneapolis."

There was this one show on the comedy station. An awesome comedian I always liked, who goes by the name David, was doing this one sketch about a retarded person. His impression was right on the money. The character with mental disabilities was very wealthy and hailed from Minnesota. He was always having parties with the hippest of Hollywood's celebrities. The resemblance between him and many of the campers I worked with was striking. So he must have been doing his job as an actor. I thought of the mid-west.

A different rap song was by another rapper from the Twin Cities went, "Minn- Minn- Minneapolis, get down in St. Paul". All these things calling me back. As if something big was going on in the place I left. I didn't hear any of the local music until I got home?

People have destroyed the east-coast. The mid-west has not yet been ruined. I didn't notice when I went out there to begin with. Most likely because of all the drugs in my system. But upon returning east I realize now what a shit hole this place is.

In the woods it is nice. It is rural New England and people are out and about doing their rural New England things. Yet once you go into town you are greeted only by filth. Minorities selling drugs, vagrants scratching themselves- waiting for an opportunity that won't arrive, everything is falling apart. Town commissions place artsy frog statues here and there in a useless attempt to add some class to a town where every business is going out of itself. Every familiar face recognizable to my reminded eyes. All these things are reasons I moved West to begin with.

Every little scrap of tape is a sin. I soaked, ripped, and scraped in repent. Repairing the damaged walls of my youth. Repairing the damage done in the years that my destructive force was confined to that tiny bedroom space. Holes in the drywall reminiscent of so many times when words were no longer enough. All the posters and pictures came down. The band stickers made the biggest mess.

My parents paid me to clean, strip, and repair my old bedroom. A task I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I cleared the endless stacks of random papers. Threw away laundry baskets of ex-girlfriend paraphernalia. Swept the wild dust bunnies. The dust was unbearable, I spent one day sneezing nonstop until it occurred to me to tie a bandanna around my face.

All I could think is that I hate myself. I hate myself for using so much damned scotch tape. There were endless scraps of tape fused to the wall. They need to be removed in order to paint. And the only reason they are there is because at one time or another, or after another, I just had to hang some dumb page from a magazine on my wall. It was the most tedious self inflicted misery I have probably ever experienced.

I used the money for a bus ticket back to St. Cloud. Granted you've taken an interest in my account, you might be asking yourself, "Why?" My friends have been asking why. It might be because I miss my girl. My wonderful Beautiful girl. It may be because I am an unstable neurotic individual who can't set his mind to any one task at hand without simultaneously flipping out about something else- which causes all of my doings to fall out of whack. We may never know.

What I do know is: I have spent the last month freaking out instead of getting anything accomplished. Like getting a job and paying off an arrest warrant so I can get my license back and get a car so I can get a real job working with retards. I got nothing accomplished because I thought I was missing out on something in Connecticut. Because I got homesick. Because my girl wasn't around enough. Because I had nothing in the mid-west.

### Chapter 5

Jack is dead. You probably didn't know him. But he is dead. His funeral was yesterday. I came back for a funeral and had no idea. I came back to say good-bye to Jack.

It was a Sunday that he died. A black fucking Sunday. Jack was Patcher's roommate. We had known him forever. The last night we saw him alive was the Thursday before black Sunday. Patcher and I took him out and had one of those shit kicking good times. All on Jack's dime. We went to the state fair and got piss drunk beforehand. He paid for admission, liquor, and beer. We got even drunker in the fair, pouring our beer into cups we got from random vendor's. We watched a destruction derby and belligerently cheered for car number 69 who ended up winning.

Jack also worked with special people and made a ton of money at it. So much so he could never figure out what to spend his money on. He was the only person I knew who had one of those $3000 dollar temper-pedic space foam beds, which I had been sleeping in every night that he wasn't around. And I had never ever slept that well, either.

We were trashed that night and ended up drinking a quarter million shots of tequila in some bar. After that he let me put about 230 drunken miles on his car. A lot more happened that night but none of it is important.

What is important is that that was the last night we saw him alive. Ten years of friendship ended that night. The next day he took off like he always did. On Saturday he called the house. He told Patcher he had bought $200 worth of alcohol for the house and we wouldn't have to buy anything else for at least a month. He said he was going to see the Red Sox play the Yankees that night at Yankee stadium in the Bronx. Him and one of his other friends were going to deck out in Red Sox garb and see who "they could piss off." A direct quote.

Black Sunday falls upon us. I wake from Jack's bed to go use my inhaler in another room. I find our friend Roger saying good-bye to his girlfriend in the drive-way.

Roger and I spend the better part of the morning hanging out and smoking pot. I get a call from Oscar. We had run into him at the fair and he said he would be stopping by soon. On the phone he told me he had a tasty treat for me. I was like "Ok."

The gift was mushrooms. The magic ones, naturally. Roger got all upset that there was not enough for him. I couldn't be sympathetic, so many times had I been around mushrooms when there wasn't enough for me. It happens. Big fucking deal.

Oscar and I are tripping when Patcher wakes up. Patcher was in a better mood then he had been for the past few days. We were all smoking cigarettes on the porch so he, knowing we were tripping, put Slipknot on the stereo. Slipknot being the most painfully disturbing, depressive, violent and loud music available. Not exactly what anyone would want to hear on mushrooms, but I was digging it. I knew Patcher's only intent was to mess with us. It was good because they are so intense. And being that I was on mushrooms I had a certain predisposition to, and affinity for, intense things.

It was humorous when Oscar pointed out a certain shift in the afternoon. Roger's girlfriend came back to pick him up and Oscar, Patcher, and I decided to go do something. As that took place, the orchestrated earth shattering violence that is Slipknot came to an end and the more mushroom appropriate melodies of our favorite band 311 came on the stereo. Before we knew it; everything was good and everything was positive. Oscar attributed it to Roger's departure. Patcher told Roger we would go pick him up and hang out with him but that never happened.

Instead Patcher would drive his car through the same decaying circles of our youth.

The three of us ended up wearing similar jackets. They all at one time belonged to Patcher. They were track jackets made out of this soft vinyl material. Patcher's was red with blue shoulders and had the brand symbol on the left breast. Oscar's looked similar. Mine was black with four white stripes running down each sleeve also with the brand on the left breast. We looked like we were in a band, or a gang for that matter.

Before we left I did something which in retrospect seems symbolic. I went into Jack's room and made his bed up like he had left it. I shut his window's and turned off his fan even though he always left the fan on and windows open. I put his stuffed Tasmanian devil on his bed and shut his door. We drove off towards town.

Patcher asked me if I wanted to hear something new and I said yes. It was Virgos Merlot. In the moments that followed, in culmination with Black Sunday, something changed, beyond me and within me. Their lyrics and the singers ability to speak his dilemma with such accurate passion, took everything that made life dismal and put it under this beautiful new light and just made everything that was wrong suddenly ok.

We drove around on this day which was the first day that was noticeably autumnal. Such a strange day. Patcher took us to this one place. I had seen it before when I were about 15 or 16 but was really drunk at the time. We had one friend who took us there to fire off his gun a few times and leave. It overlooked the whole stretch of the town's commercialism. It looked like the kind of place you could dump a body. Old rusty skeletons of vehicles and mounds of dirt reminiscent of sand pits. You could see the Wal-Mart and that is where we went next.

I already knew from experience that going there on mushrooms is NEVER a good idea. This instance only reinforced the fact. We didn't even make it out of the car. In the parking lot I saw this girl. I didn't really care for her but I once got her addicted to the cocaine and figured I should give her a hug. I had Patcher pull the car up to her. While I was hugging her, her little blond friend called me a convicted rapist under her breath. She might have meant Oscar.... It's hard to tell.... I called her on it and asked her if she had called me that. She was like, "What, I don't know you." I said "good." To that whole thing I say, I was never convicted, or even really accused. Oscar on the other hand.... And it was only statutory; hardly a crime in my eyes.

We took off down the highway. That was when I felt Jack die. That was when Jack died. I was watching the sunset over a tree lined horizon and my body just shut down. First I attributed it to the mushrooms and the fact that they were poisoning my already malnourished body.

Earlier that day, Patcher had said that he thought something had happened to Jack. I brought it up.

"Dude. I think Jack is dead."

"Me too."

"I felt him die man."

"You can feel it in the air."

Oscar was tripping quietly in the back seat.

I said, "When we get back to your house I think I'll be calling Jack's mother and inquiring as to his whereabouts."

Jack left his bottle of blue and orange speed pills with Oscar's little sister the night of the fair. Naturally their mom found them in her purse and now an innocent blond girl was involved. In my psilocybin eyes she was a princess amidst catastrophe. Those pills were Jack's essence and in my poisoned mind I thought of her place in all of it. The way I figured, the situation dictated that Patcher and I should adopt her and give her Jack's room and bed. Oscar didn't like that idea very much and it occurred to me that events like that are not actually the way the world works at our towns.

We got home and I called his mother. Jack was dead. He was beaten severely in the Yankee stadium parking lot. He died nineteen hours later in some hospital. I consoled his mother to the best of my ability and said good-bye with an "I'll keep in touch." Tears ran down my face and Patcher was silent, mourning through his fingers into his acoustic guitar. We drank Jack's bottle of gin. The alcohol couldn't burn our throats enough to ease our minds.

The first memory I have of Jack was in the third grade. He was telling on me for pretending to play my recorder in the concert instead of really playing it. Years later when he decided to start smoking pot he came to me. The first time he smoked pot was with me on April 20th 2001 at 4:20 pm. His sister, who is also a dear friend was there as well, also smoking for the first time.

He was an amazing friend and in time became my speed dealer. Some more time later he became a rather successful pot dealer. But more so than all that, he was a brilliant mind. Probably the most intelligent guy I've ever known. He knew pi to a hundred digits and would occasionally write it after his signature. It was always great to have him around because he could explain anything. He had the ability to communicate complex thoughts and ideas crystal clear to whoever was listening. As a result of his intelligence he had very little common sense (it seems one can only have one or the other). Once he lost his job at Subway when Patcher and I convinced him to make us free grinders when he wasn't even working. He didn't see the problem.

Black Sunday was my first nervous breakdown. Jack was too young, not even 21 yet. He lived fast and died young. When the bottle of gin was gone, with tears in my eyes I baked the brownies I had promised him sometime in the last week. I had told him when he called that I had baked most perfect batch of fudgy brownies and that they were waiting for his arrival. I got him all excited about them. And he came home to a browniless house. He understood why I was so enthusiastic about them right away and said nothing.

There was nothing left to do but wait for the funeral.

I came out of Black Sunday a new person. I had had all sorts of revelations. Jack had been telling me to start eating again, so I did. I realized that there was no time in life not to take care of myself. I swore to put an end to all of my self mutilation (which has been a problem as of late).

Patcher will have to find another roommate as I am off to Minnesota. But no one can take Jack's place. The world is darker having lost him. He was an Aries.

### Chapter 6

Complacence is me. Back in Minnesota and complacent. I cannot be as unstable as I was and keep my Beautiful girl. When she says jump, I will say how high. Or more appropriately; when she says sit and stay, I will say, for how long? If she doesn't answer, I will wait forever.

I am so happy with my girl though. I am pretty sure she appreciates me more than she did before I left for three weeks. And it occurred to me that I will only be in the same position that scared me enough to run back to Connecticut. That will not change. What has to change is me and my mind set. For me there is no choice but to simply love her, to trust her when she is away and to hold her when she is close. I have to accept life in isolation and make the best of it.

I've got a decent job making pizza at a space alien theme restaurant. I haven't started yet, I'm about to go to orientation right now. Hopefully that will damper my restlessness.

Also, I will be at all times writing stories, trying to develop the craft in myself. I'm still only an aspiring writer. What a terrible thing to be. I hear it's like torture becoming a pro. We'll see. Beauty is going to college to become an editor. My plan is to marry her. We will make a great team, as she can benefit my writing in all the ways I cannot. I have no grasp on grammatical errors or punctuation and have trouble staying in tense.

We are one another's futures and we both know it.

### Chapter 7

I originally intended all of this to be a documentary on the trials of a young man floating through the world from one woman to another, always searching for someone to become his everything. It didn't take very long to find the love of my life and- in light of that event- I have come up with a new angle for you, the beloved reader.

I am nineteen now and I am on my own out in this world. I have no education and nothing to offer society. I took too much acid, did too much speed, and drank too much DXM. I ate too many mushrooms, did too many pharmaceuticals, and drank too much alcohol. I am a psychosomatic attention deficit hypochondriac suffering from schizoid personality disorder. I am obsessive compulsive with agoraphobic panic and a social phobia. I am anxious at all times and sometimes experience brief psychotic episodes. I can hardly bring myself to leave the house yet I need to become a "functioning member of society." I don't know how I'm going to accomplish that but it has to happen (supposedly). If it is going to happen I would love to share it with you.

I will become these pages and they will become me. From eighteen years old until I have found my place in this world. That is assuming I still have a place in this world. Which cannot be known.

Chapter 8

My first day left me wondering how much of those gentlemen's inane babble I could take. Three men who never cease talking about nothing. I clean churches with them. Strange old, dirty old, weird old men. Two of them have intense speech impediments; one a low pitched th- th- th-ing to his half words, the other, high pitched with words that fade in and out in a constant flux in their tone. And my boss, who resembles a jammed human scan button while he fiddles with the satellite radio in the truck. My boss, who will just go on and on saying things so outlandish yet convenient in context I can only perceive them as pathological lies; about strippers and underage girls. With these guys I clean the floors in Mormon churches throughout five states in the mid-west. They are dirty old men, rambling on about sex with women I would never like to meet. As for the churches, interestingly enough, they are all pretty much the same, sort of like a franchise. That fact struck me as odd on my second day.

Regardless, I like the job. Those guys are very nice. The work is good as well, it is man's work, hauling equipment to and from a trailer, complete with long hours, decent pay, and sore unaccustomed feet. My boss gave me a fifty cent raise on my first day. I am just that damn good. Realistically speaking, this is the best job I have ever had. And we eat so good, lunch in a new restaurant each day, all paid for by the company.

Unfortunately, it could not have come at a worse time. I convinced Patcher to move out to the mid-west. He will be here shortly. And while he stays in my apartment, alone with my estranged room-mate, I will be off in hotels, god knows where, leaving Patcher in mid-west solitary confinement, and as much as I'd like to, I cannot quit this job for him. It is my theory that solitary confinement will be good for him, in a Zen sort of way. Giving him time to work out demons, detoxify, and expand artistically.

He will stay in my room on a futon until we find our own place. When Beauty spends the night, he will sleep on the couch. The temporary conclusion that I have come up with is that we will just have to find a new place sooner rather than later. I just worry about the awkwardness he will face being left alone with my female roommate. She is practically a stranger to me, but she is definitely a stranger to him. Perhaps that will work to their advantage.

What I am truly concerned with is Patcher's artistic pursuits. He will be writing his thoughts in the same fashion that I have written mine. One day, perhaps, we will combine them for you to read. To give you a glimpse of the turmoil we face through this difficult period of time in our lives. As we adjust to living life on our own, and learn to cope with the world around us.

### Chapter 9

I love Belle. She completes me, without a doubt. In the fog of life, she is the only thing I can see. Being away from her for work makes me sick at the thought. If at any point in time I feel my job is coming between us (as it inevitably will) I will quit at the drop of a hat. In turn, I have asked her to tell me if she ever wants me to quit, and I will. But she will not ask; she is too strong willed for that.

I am unsure how to be away from her Monday through Friday. There is no trust in me. Contrarily, I do trust her. But my fears, "insecurities" as she calls them, conquer all. I fear that she falls for Patcher. I fear she stray to greener pastures. I have voiced these fears to her, and now fear that by doing so I have self-fulfilled my own prophesy by putting ideas in her head where they would otherwise not have been.

### Chapter 10

As a devout non-believer I have always thought god to be something for those who were born to simple minds, with simple minded families, or those wrapped deeply in tradition. To me, god is a lie, a great big lie. Simple as that. The greatest example of mankind trying to explain the world he inhabits. For me there is and never will be an explanation, and I accept that. Maybe I just haven't heard it yet. That is also a possibility.

As of recently, I have spent many of my days in one church or another. As firm as I have always been in my non-beliefs, the amount of my youth I spent going to church with friends, I am shocked to admit that the presence of religion is fucking with my head. By that I mean that a hint of uncertainty is knocking at my proverbial door. And so, to counteract that undesired effect, I took an offensive approach.

I used music to structuralize my beliefs, or lack thereof. With my computer, I burned a CD full of songs about the philosophy of god, life, and death. The songs are ordered to clearly display my thoughts on the matter. I will list the songs and why I chose them, but will omit the artist's names.

The first song is called "Dear God" and it consists of some bands letter to god about why they cannot believe in him and they question all the injustice in the world. The next song is "Who Will Save Your Soul." In the next song, "Just Like That," a man goes about his business of the day and in the end gets shot for whatever reason. After that comes "Eulogy." And then one called "Sail Away," in which soft melodies build a bridge to "Pass Me By," about the artists own personal heaven. Then comes "Heaven's A Lie," which is followed by "Counting Blue Cars" about a young boy asking the singer to "tell me all your thoughts on god." Then "Hellelujah" about the church's tendency to sell lies and be as corrupt as whatever priest needs it to be. The disk ends with "Opiate" which states, in a round about sort of way, that Jesus Christ is the opiate of the masses.

I have no way of knowing if I have accurately portrayed all those songs, but that is how I interpret them. I made the CD to prevent the churches from further skewing my perception of religion.

On a lighter note, I can tell you about my old job cooking pizza. There isn't much to tell, except, one day I talked back to the owner when he was hovering over us and hassling us, causing him to silently cut my hours from about 28 a week to about four. I didn't even know who he was. For a month and a half, I worked one day a week until I found this new job. In that time my mother paid my share of the rent for me, as she has often done in the past.

On an even lighter note, a little something I noticed about assumptions. Once, the nice manager at the pizza place asked me how my first week off (after having my hours cut) was. I said, "Annoying." He asked, "Too much time with the girlfriend?" I laughed shyly and said, "Yeah," then thought, yeah right, not enough.

At my new job, I forgot the exact words, my boss asked me about my night. Whatever I said was meant to imply that I missed Beauty because she is out of town. He somehow took it that she was, "one of those girls who keep you up yackin' till two in the morning." I wish because that is the exact opposite of our actual one twenty minute conversation per day. I wish I could remember how that all went right now, because I might have illustrated a point rather than only attempting to illustrate one. Not good writing. Whatever the case, I guess I will have to settle with this summarization: people always assume the worst, or the negative, and I guess I love Belle more than anyone could ever know.

### Chapter 11

My past is haunting my person. In the shadows of my mind and my daily grind evil lurks, waiting till I least expect it to show its ugly face and take my breath away. Evil deeds or demons, there is no difference to me. At any moment throughout the day, any day, my attention shifts (today's was the ride back to the job from lunch), from the tasks at hand to any of an assortment of painful recollections I have of my life in CT. Anxiety takes my breath away and I keep the silent panic to myself. I'd like to vomit or curl up and fall asleep, but I can only get back to work.

I think of the villagers, with their torches. Of all the people that speak softly of my name, passing their judgments and never letting the past truly pass. It's only fucked up to them. They don't know what I was thinking, that I wasn't thinking. That when you spend every one of your days drunk and stoned and fiending for drugs, eventually you stop paying attention to what you are doing. Instinct kicks in and now 90% of your actions are (were) driven by sex, because underneath it all is a seething sexual frustration. The other 10% is a potpourri of wrecked cars, avoided parents, crashed on couches, drugs of any kind, lost memories, bitchy people, some job, that girl you accidently married, desperate attempts to salvage your existence by joining the navy, only to get your second underage DWI and not make it, fraud, sloth, asking strangers for drugs, smoky basements, that one nice lady, loud music, sleep, passing on the right of a two lane road, betrayals on all sides, wishing things were like they used to be (which never ends), burned bridges, the incapacity to respect those who deserve it, viewing everything from within a fast paced downward spiral, being recognized, losing your friends one by one to their own destructive lifestyles, never wanting to look up, wishing you could believe in a higher power, poetry, spending your $20 on: cigarettes, fast food, and beer or someone else's gas, waking up with a burning chest and vomiting up those three useless Tums, keg parties, being pissed off when the sun rises, and whatever else.

Now, the present is negative, which would be neutral, if not for the past. I don't drink but rarely, and I don't smoke pot. I am a sober person and I only know about five people. I got away from everything, but got away from nothing. My past is haunting me. So maybe I am haunting myself.

I have but one relief. Relief in the form of my Beautiful girl. She is an inhaler to my asthma attack. She can make anything and everything better, but only when she is around. What good is an inhaler you left two towns over? Absence has only negative effects on the heart, don't believe the lies. Alas, I have almost come to terms with absence, by learning to appreciate our time together that much more.

Still, another something bothers me (how bitter I must be), society. Fuck society. I mean all of it. But specifically, fuck work. Money makes the world go around. I need money, I get a job. No longer am I free to live, only free to work. How can a price be put on the moments we have to share with the warm blood in our veins? Now I am losing my life. By working, I cease to live, or rather, live at only a fraction of the quality of how I wish I was living.

I have two dreams or goals, whichever. The first is to be with Belle until the day I die. The second is not to break my back for a living. Or if I must, to at least put up a fight. I hope to achieve this goal by writing fiction. God, I hope someone reads it. I will write a hundred books, if that's what it takes to sell one. With this goal in mind, I will break my back, I will earn a living. But without my dream, I really don't know if I could do it.

I wonder how others bare it, maybe for the sake of their families, like my father. But some have no family; maybe working is an acceptable way of life for them. Good for them. I wish I had the balls they do. Sadly, I do not. I am a dreamer. My dream and my girl are the only things that keep me going.

Now, on the days I don't waste scrubbing a floor in some church, I spend the cash I am making. I can pay my rent and still afford to take my girl out and buy all sorts of the practical necessities for my barren home. Hurray for me.

### Chapter 12

Patcher is driving out as I speak. Trekking cross country with our friend J-Mac, who is only staying a week. It is strange to think of him, in Indiana, driving towards my house from the East coast. It has been so long since I have had a friend. I think it will be a shock. Something tells me he will not tolerate mid-west life, as he isn't running from anything like I was. He just wanted to get away. He can go back. I cannot. Over the phone, I tried to lower his expectations, trying to give him the impression that life out here is nothing more than being alive. That is good enough for me, but something tells me that he wants more. I hope that he can find it on his own because I know that I cannot help him there. These days all I am good for is conversation. I am so burnt out on life that it's not even funny. I have no zest, no energy, nothing left. I accept that.

On that same note, everyone is telling me I am depressed: my mother, my girl, Patcher. I know that I am depressed, but what they don't know is that I'm happy. This is happiness. I think. I don't know what happiness looks like. This could be it. I exist in a fog. The world is hidden by that fog, which explains why I like to keep Belle as close a possible.

Fog, only fog/ Why is it yellow?/ Are those the streetlights?/ Must be/ In this world, there is only me/ And sometimes my baby/ When she is nearby/ When she is close enough/ I can see her, I can hold her/ But other than her/ Fog, only fog/ Yellow fog

When she is near, I can see her and enjoy her company. But, when she leaves I am once again alone in the fog. Alone and content.

At first, being cut off was hell. Now it seems more like purgatory. Nothing excites me, not even Patcher's pending arrival, and my voice has even become monotonous. I think I am learning the art of taking the good with the bad. My girl is sad for me, but I probably can't be happier.

### Chapter 13

Animosity, is the word.

I wasn't even sure what animosity meant until I was living it. That tension in the air so thick it slows and seizes your body. This is about my current female roommate with whom I have entered into a binding financial relationship.

She is a girl I cannot speak to. I could never talk to her- not since we moved in together seven months ago. Even small talk is difficult. I have no respect for her. She likes country music and football, and I like talking shit on her.

I feel comfortable talking shit on her (something I don't usually enjoy doing about people) for two reasons: the first being I am well aware that she is off with her manatee like friends saying equally nasty things about me, and the second being her stupidity. I hate stupid people with all of my soul. But, I have a formula for my hatred. It depends on kindness and the nature of one's heart. If the stupid person is nice, I have no problem chatting with them and rolling around in their simple ideas. However, unpleasant stupid people can fuck off. To me, they do not exist. I haven't the slightest trouble ignoring their existence entirely. Or at least the things that come out of their burdensome face holes.

So aside from the months upon months of awkward silences- morning, noon, and night- aside from her dreadfully filthy habits of not cleaning a thing, and leaving everything everywhere, her cat I can't stand, and its litter box she never empties, aside from those things, the animosity began when her share of the rent was not cheapened by Patcher's presence in the apartment.

I told her, to begin with, that he would not be paying rent. He shares my room for Christ's sake, why would he? He has no money; he has not even found a job yet. I told her how it was going to be once Patcher got out here. There is no reason for him to pay, the lease is almost up, (Belle does not agree with my logic, so I will not expect that of you either) he is in the house only to move out. On an even more illogical note, I feel he acts as a stand in for me while I am out on the road. What's different from him living there instead of me, and when I am home, he is just a house guest? Semantics.

Regardless, the first of the month roles around, and suddenly she's all gangster; extorting money from me. I told her I'd slip her a Benjamin when I get paid, when in all reality I am not paying her shit. Except I owe her some money for bills, I'll pay that because I'm not that shady as to skip out on true debt.

Well, just like that our serenity at home was torn asunder. Hideous vibes flooded the apartment: animosity. Belle, Patcher, and I became hermits, stewing in my room, brooding over the bane of our existence, that dipshit in the living room.

Patcher flipped out about it, about his whole predicament. He considered joining the air force, since the navy is out of the question. This would be in his best interest, but I need a roommate. I reminded him of how he need not concern himself with the presence of this stupid person. I told him to, instead, persevere. I reminded him of how he need not concern himself with the presence of this dim hostile person. I told him that he just needs to make it until we have our own place.

In light of all that bullshit, I will be getting our new place ahead of schedule and on almost impossible short notice. I will still have to pay my share of the last month's rent and the first month of the new one. But, it is plenty worth the money to get away from that repulsive mass of suck sitting out in the living room.

### Chapter 14

The short notice is this impossible: tomorrow, I get a call from my estranged female roommate. She was wondering when I planned on telling her about the noise complaint I got while she was out of town three weeks ago. I had forgotten about it because nothing came of it. It turns out the random cop who mails out the police reports was on vacation. It took a while for apartment management to find out. And when they did, my roommate and I were given until the end of the week to vacate the premises. Evicted. For a damned noise complaint. Whatever. My estranged roommate was really pissed off.

Further solidifying the theory that "everything happens for a reason," this all worked out. I persuaded management out of evicting my roommate, in turn getting her off of my back. I really would have liked to have seen her out on the street, but at the same time I didn't feel like moving her furniture. Patcher spilled a nice puddle of black hair dye on the carpet, and then I signed a paper releasing me of all liability and damages. She ended up with a two hundred dollar bill for that. However, in her defense, she cashed a check I had written her, and there was no money in my account because she waited weeks. And when it bounced I never paid the fee. Now I am black listed from having a checking account in any bank. But I don't really care about having a checking account so we can call me and the banks even.

It normally takes me at least a month to find an apartment, and I was given much less time than that. Patcher and I were quite worried at first. Then one of the old dirty men I work with told me about a lease he is still paying money on, and that I could sub-lease it.

It took fifteen minutes to cut a check and get a set of keys. I moved in on a Friday with two and a half days to spare. The next week Patcher got some cash from his mother and got his own lease. Just as quick and just as easy. The place even came with furniture.

Right about now things changed for the better. Naturally, not for very long.

Our new Indian roommate wasn't even home(the communal housing system was odd and we felt as though we were invading this guys life). But we definitely were.

My first impression of the new place was one of repulsion. Repulsed at a dirty living space. Most of the scum was in the bathtub. The Indian (India Indian, mind you) who we now lived with was a pretty skuzzy guy. The site of the tub was enough to make anyone queasy. Mildew, thick, roughly textured, and dirty like mud, rising to a certain watermark. In the slowly draining water floated slim locks of random body hairs, obviously the culprit of the clogged drain. Those locks were also scattered along the tub's walls and its greasy yellow and brown speckled rim. Cleaning that thing was a first priority of moving in. I used some strong chemicals from work and cleaned the fuck out of that fucker. I had an Indian hair stuck in the back of my throat for a day and a half afterward.

Aside from that business, we had arrived. Things were on the up and up. Our first Saturday there, we popped the door off the spare room and had a beer pong housewarming party. Everyone in attendance was being as loud as they wanted to be and there were no repercussions. A far cry from the days of getting a visit from the police for a card game. The reason for the loose environment was that our new apartment was part of student housing for the nearby university. Which means that our only neighbors were college students. We did manage to piss them off, however, when we bought a high powered stereo system and a drum set to start a band with. I am not sure why that guy I worked with lived in student housing, except: dirty old man.

We have this chubby, gothic, Wiccan, neighbor girl. She is completely insane, and a pathological liar. Nobody in the building likes her, but I do. For one thing she keeps an eye out for the security guard that occasionally snoops around for a party to bust. But more than that, she has a kind heart. That- in combination with the fact that she is so far gone mentally- makes her my kind of company.

In this new place everyone and their brother parties constantly. Patcher found what he was looking for. I guess he just really wanted to party a lot. I went out to a couple parties, but I really hate the crowds, so I don't go anymore unless Belle absolutely must. In that case I will escort her.

Besides not wanting to go, I got into a fight at one of them. It was a pretty stupid occurrence. We were at this lame overcrowded house party. Belle had the great idea to go into the kitchen and pretend like she didn't know me, so I could hit on her and take her home with me. She thought it would be a fun thing to do. So I did it, but by the time I got there to hit on her, some dude had already beaten me to it. I was really intoxicated; we had filled liquor bottles with that cheap Merlot that comes in boxes. I walked up and shouted "Fuck off!" right in that kid's face. Belle explained that he was looking for a lighter or a cigarette or something. I gave him whatever he needed. I lit my girl's cigarette for her and proceeded to hit on her. But so did that guy. I would talk to him about Led-Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, our oddly opposing t-shirts (mine Floyd), and he gave me a beer out of his backpack. But, I couldn't help to notice that I really did not like this guy for hitting on my girl, who was playing the role of the naïve drunk girl. A role I felt she knew all too well.

At some point, she went to the bathroom and I told the guy that she was my girlfriend. That threw him off a bit. She came back and when he wasn't looking I told her that I had told him about our game and that she should deny we knew each other. I'm not sure why I did that. My guess would be that I didn't want to put an end to the fun she was having. We all love a little trouble. She denied our relationship when he asked and now certain stakes were raised. Now he was under the impression that I was a complete head case.

Then there was a commotion about the cops showing up. I grabbed her by the waist and led her towards the door. Only to find out there was not actually any police.

When we went back to the kitchen, the guy started saying something about how I shouldn't take advantage of drunken girls like that. Soon after that our ride was ready to go. But as we went to leave, this guy must have taken a cue from me(hypocrite) and he put his arm around Belle. He probably assumed that if it worked for me when the "cops were coming," it could work for him then. Well, I instantly poured the beer he had given me over his head. Then I grabbed Belle and moved her toward the door. As I did that people were pushing me to the door and telling me never to come back.

As that was happening Patcher showed up and started talking my way out of it for me, or at least creating a diversion. Belle and I and six other people climbed into a bed of a red pick-up with a cap on it. I was by the cab window and Patcher was at the tailgate.

Shortly there after, the kid came out with his best friend demanding an apology. Patcher got out to once again to play diplomat, but it was clear what I had to do. I know that you should never write a check your ass can't cash (the aforementioned utility check excluded). I kissed Belle and climbed over a bunch of girls and out of the truck. Then the truck left us there.

Now, I am not a big guy. Some might say I'm scrawny. And Patcher is about the same. The two of us had a couple of pissed off college guys screaming at us. We are pretty sure that they were football players, or at least lacrosse. It was obvious they wanted to fight, but they took forever to get to it. They might have been timid in that respect. For a while they just kept shouting about an apology. They wanted me to say I had "fucked up real bad," and I quietly adhered but they could not hear me because they just kept on shouting. It was a lot of stepping back and random people getting in between us, until I could see that this kid had gotten his nerve up to hit me. So I hit him first. In the eye.

It wasn't long until I was on the ground with two guys thrusting their fists at me. I couldn't stay on my feet in the icy streets- so much drunker than my attackers. Patcher must have messed up one of the guys pretty bad, because when all was said and done his right knuckles were bloody and raw. It was all over pretty quick, and I'm not sure why but we found ourselves hugging them and giving props. I had a nasty black eye and a bloody skull. One of them was wearing a ring.

Since then I have been pretty turned off on the whole party scene. I wonder if it will last forever... I did, though, see them whilst out walking the streets days later. I said "What's up?" and everything was cool between us.

### Chapter 15

I don't really enjoy writing out these occurrences in detail. But I felt that this log needed some sort of meat and potatoes. I am so happy to be finished writing that, it was like getting over a big hump in terms of this chapter cluster.

I have been trying to finish this chapter cluster for a few months now, and rewriting it was- and will be- another thing. I think it has been difficult because I've been drinking. I can only write when I stop getting wasted for long enough to motivate myself. I recently stopped drinking for a while over an arrest, so I'm writing more.

I wound up in Dane county jail for public intoxication and resisting arrest. We can call it what it was, another rock bottom. Not to place blame, but I attribute the excessive drinking to the presence of another friend from CT. The Jadyn. I got him a job on our crew. No more dirty old men, they have moved on. Now the crew of church cleaners consists of me, my two friends, and the boss. The Jadyn fills the forth and last bedroom of the apartment. The Indian went elsewhere, my girl's best friend took his room, and Belle. Actually, we may have chased the Indian away- to Virginia. Depending on how you look at it.

I had been on quite a bender since the Jadyn got out here. When I got arrested, apparently I flipped my lid. They took me to de-tox and had to strap me to a bed and give me one of those injections in my ass that puts you out to keep me from chewing the straps.

This was in Madison Wisconsin. When I woke up the next day it took me at least thirty seconds to figure out where I was and that I had been arrested. I was in de-tox, comfortable in a white bed in a white room upon awakening. I called my girl and my mom, and the facility called the police to come get me.

After de-tox, I went to jail for public intoxication and resisting arrest, and had to figure out how to get money wired and in my friend's hands using collect calls that hardly worked. From what I heard, I fell about fifteen feet from some sort of construction site, right in front of a cop. The resistance happened when they tried to arrest me. I can only assume it was like trying to put a wild bobcat into a burlap sac with your bare hands. I don't see how they can hold that against me, I think the resisting falls under the public intoxication. Fuck if I know anything. All I know is that I thoroughly pissed off a few people in Madison. Yet, I think I made a friend too. A weird friend.

### Chapter 16

Agoraphobia, is the word. In Latin it means: fear of the marketplace. In my life it means the same. It's funny. I spent the greatest chunk of my adolescence sitting home wishing for someone to hang out with and something to do. Writhing in despair at the thought of wasting my life at home alone instead of doing something exciting and worthwhile with friends. Years later, I want nothing more than to sit home, not see a soul, and do absolutely nothing. I hate few things more than having to leave the apartment.

The bullshit is that my girlfriend hates nothing more then being confined to it. Always she complains about not going out enough. Even when I do take her out, it is never enough for her and I just wish it was. I try to shut her up by buying her things, but to no avail. And the things she wants to do are always group activities. I just want to lock us away in my room and make sweet loving. Being around people makes my skin crawl and my insides squirm.

This difference between us is the cause for much turmoil within our relationship. All the arguments we get into over my psychosis end with me promising to get therapy. Which I did. And she always wants to party, but I hate parties. And I am way too paranoid of sexual predators to let her go without me. I am the shepherd, she is the sheep, and they are the wolves. So fuck letting her out of my sight.

### Chapter 17

On an unrelated note, I would like to point out something I noticed relating to the differences between my and Patcher's different beliefs. Really just a note on existentialism.

I am agnostic. I do not believe in a damned thing and they call that agnostic, at least in terms of god, but I mean it outside the definition. As much as possible I don't put thought into unthinkable things. I feel it will get one nowhere, or rather is counter productive.

Patcher is existential. He thinks about everything. I only bring it up because I came up with an awesome metaphor that describes my view on existentialism. It's pretty simple. Existentialism is like a door and a room full of nothing. The door is unknowable questions; the room is the answers. Patcher walks through that door. I do not.

### Chapter 18

I talked to the district attorney's assistant in Madison. My weird new friend. Apparently he dropped my charges because my case "amused" and "humored" him. Apparently, not everyone fights the police when arrested. Really though, I got the impression that he was in love with me. He kept saying things like, "I wish you were coming to Madison for court so I could shake your hand," and "I'm bummed you don't want to drive the 300 miles to meet me." I was out on the pier in Duluth when we talked for about twenty minutes and only about three of those pertained to my case. Mostly he wanted to know about my involvement with the Mormon Churches. Either way, I'm going to call him back and get a copy of my police report because it was pretty funny.

* I wanted the police report to go in here. I could never get. I waited a year to ask and it was destroyed. I'll just say it was really great hearing the lady officer describe the kicking, and the sexual come-ons, and group of de-tox workers used to keep me at bay.*

### Chapter 19

I got a scorpion- an emperor scorpion. I named him Merlot, after Virgos Merlot. The band who's lyrics, "knowing burns," I got tattooed above the anarchy sign on my left bicep.

Merlot speaks to me- to my very core. All black, all hard. On another level, he is so docile. He is so frightening to many, yet can be handled. A lot like me. Also like me, too much handling causes a certain stress that will cause him to stop eating. I got a black light to hold him under; he glows intense neon green. Apparently he is a chick magnet, as he has helped Patcher get laid a few times. I love the little thing, but I worry about him dying. To put it simply.

### Chapter 20

Lastly, I am a writer. No seriously. I got a book I wrote published. It was a work of short fiction; seven chapters that skip along a story line of ancient times, to present, to ancient, to present, to less ancient, to present, to a final monologue. It is called EONS and published under the name RRRose. Find it.

I think the publisher will just publish any old thing though, so I'm not that proud. The way I figure I will publish a book of poetry through them and then find a new publisher for better works. That means that I have to find a fucking agent. I worry the legitimate writing world will not accept me. I'm worried their rejection might kill me.

On top of that, now that I have finished rewriting this chapter from hell, I have to devote all of my energy to my new project. I don't want this book to get left behind. So much shit is happening in my life and I can't keep up the documenting. I apologize; you are not getting the whole story. I guess I'm not that good at this autobiography stuff, but whatever.

I will end this on a note of present times in a nutshell. I hate my living situation. The Jadyn is not paying rent and doesn't clean. That makes him a leach. I am uneasy around him all the time due to his ugly temper and that is ruining my peace of mind. I want him gone but cannot bring myself to tell him, because it was me who invited him out here.

My awesome job is changing location and I cannot follow it. I am too tied down here. This means I have to get a new job and I fucking hate doing that. Such a pain in the ass. I had such a good thing going with this job. I could finally afford to live on my own without help from my mother. I can't imagine finding that again, but I hope I can.

The apartment is really a nice place now. The girls cleaned it from top to bottom. We have all sorts of lovely posters on the walls. Nice electronics. A band area, our band is called And More, but probably won't go anywhere beyond these four walls. The living room is lit by black and red lights. I have a thing for black and red.

Belle and I have been together for a year now. I love her as much as ever. She is making a wonderful companion, which is what I always wanted from her.

### Chapter 21

There is a lot to say about Mormons. They are indeed a strange group of people. I spent nine months amongst them and I feel I would be failing in my task of observance if I did not make some sort of effort to recount the details of my experience. I formed strong opinions towards them, as it would be difficult for anyone to not do so. Not hostel opinions, more ones of understanding, as I found them to be rather simple in nature. I will start from the beginning.

If you recall, I made a small point about the three men I worked with however many pages back. I called my boss a "pathological liar." I take that back, it turns out he just tells the same wild stories over and over. I am obliged to say that he was an incredibly kind individual; he was a Mormon, and I have never met someone with such a lack of temper as him- I don't think I saw him get truly mad even once. He was easy to talk to and had the ability to get along with anyone; very skilled in finding common grounds with people; our common ground being a love of women. In the beginning, the three dirty old men and I would spend day in and day out watching for an attractive girl to look at, if only for a moment. I recall the strange phenomenon by which our heads turned in the truck; if any one person looked suddenly in a given direction, instantly the three other heads looked in that same direction on the assumption that a sexy(or remotely attractive) girl was in the vicinity. My boss, whom I assumed would have Mormon values, was quick to add to the objectification of women to the same capacity as the rest of us. I'll spare you those details.

The older guy on the crew, seamed a little more traveled and therefore more knowledgeable of the world. I roomed with him for the first part of my time aboard. I felt it was easier communicating with him, even though we hardly ever spoke to one other. I guess that was our understanding. The silence was comfortable. It was this man whom got fired for a drunk driving arrest in the company vehicle, in turn making room for Patcher on the crew.

And then, I'll give him a name, there was Earl. Earl was a mid-west cow farmer. He was in his early thirties and heavy set. However, in his quest to get laid he took up a passion for diet, exercise, and tanning, which he admittedly was not very good at. He became a friend and every now and again he hangs out and gets drunk at my house. He left the job for a better one as an elementary school custodian, making room for the Jadyn.

While I was on the crew with those three men- I think I can say- I was rather melancholic. I felt I was sacrificing my existence just to make a worthless dollar. That goes for any job, but this one was more so as it took five days of my life away at a time. For example, one works in a restaurant kitchen and looks at a clock that says eight o clock- that person thinks "good, only three hours left until I can go home." In my position, I would get done with Wednesday's work and think, "great only Thursday and Friday left." I was about as alone as I could get. I spent a lot of time thinking about anything to avoid the conversations around me. I can hardly communicate with people my age never mind these three men.

Things got better once my friends came on the crew. They picked on me like always, so I had to put up with that, but that has always been my place in our inner circle. I am the youngest and most timid, so whatever. With them there, I really started to enjoy my work. The actual work itself was just a mindless task, I could pretty much clean a carpet with my eyes closed. And afterward, I had my two best friends to hang out with, wherever we were.

I stole things from those churches. Little things like colored light bulbs and scissors, scotch tape, a microphone cable, batteries, silverware, and I collected all the Mormon paraphernalia I could get my hands on, which I later lined Merlot's cage with. I ate all the food I could find, which I thought of as foraging. I could never eat breakfast in the morning because I hate eating when I first wake up, so I got hungry about half way through the day. It was always the same odd tastes, animal crackers, goldfish, maybe some dry cookies, candy, a lot of Tootsie Roles (I think the Mormons have a thing for tootsie roles because they were everywhere; like maybe a deal with the tootsie company or something), and the bread they kept in the chapels which I assume is the body of Christ, but it was always just a store bought loaf of bread and never the same kind, sometimes the body of Christ was twelve grain wheat and some times it was just white- I never understood that. And every once in a while, there was whipped cream and I would do a whip-it; sucking the nitrous oxide out and getting a blissful head rush. Not often did we find whipped cream, so when we did that humdrum day automatically became a good one.

I never cease to be filled with wonder by the Mormon church. That corporate religion. Everyone of their churches was exactly the same, only varying in size. Each came standard with; a chapel; a gym (called a cultural center); a kitchen (called a serving area); a bishop's office where candy was located; class rooms for each age bracket- seminary for young children (a good place for animal crackers), nursery for infants, toddlers, and children under five; the relief society room for the women of the church; a young women's room for adolescent girls; the young men were in the 'Aaronic priesthood', whatever that is; there was a library for supplies and what not; and about another 3 to 30 small rooms for other purposes.

I would call the Mormons brainwashed, but I don't think that is true for all of them. Most of them were just born into the church and that is all they know. And the new recruits are probably just stupid, buying into the first thing sold to them. The entire Latter Day Saints doctrine is obviously an asinine ploy to recruit members. All of their facts are out of whack, it is all bullshit thought up by one man, Joseph Smith, and he stole most of it from Christianity. I am writing this after the fact with no information in front of me, so I can't really point out anything relevant(and who cares about Mormons anyway), but if you look into the religion at all you will probably laugh at the silly shit they believe. Religion in general is a laughable matter; only the product of human nature's uncompromising habit of being led like sheep. But the Mormons take it to another level. I just randomly found this quote on a Mormon web-site:

"Brigham Young would not hesitate to kill any of his wives that cheated on him. He would carry out such an act by putting a javelin through her heart."

See what I mean, Brigham young was the guy who wrote the book of Mormon as it came out of Joe's face unit. I think. A fairly important man in the religion. I am willing to assume that not every Mormon would javelin his wife, but I will also assume that some would. It probably varies throughout each person. But as far as I am concerned they all might as well think that way, because I think one crazy belief is no different than the next.

The Mormons have such strict standards for themselves; no drugs or swearing or sex before marriage or anything that makes life worth living (I'll assume the lack thereof these heightened experiences is one great part of their obedience. What else have they got to live for?). I just don't understand. Thus, I think they have to be either stupid or brainwashed. The feeling I mostly feel towards them is sadness. I can say with 99% certainty that there is no god, and as a result I fear no punishment for my actions, I am free to do as I please. So long as I keep an honest and pure moral compass, I won't face condemnation. But, all of these people are wasting the one life they have fearing a god that does not exist. Missing out on the good things in life in exchange for red rover and ice cream sundaes(I want one!).

The Mormons, like other religions, have missionaries, and if I wrote all this for a single reason it would to make a certain point about those missionaries. These Mormon missionaries are out looking for persons of the simple persuasion to convert to their religion. The church manufactures god knows how many of these people for this purpose. The church hungers for numbers. Missionaries are the church's fork or spear or oven or market or whatever; missionaries acquire sustenance(human sustenance) I think it is unfair and unjust what these people are doing. If they want to waste their own lives, fine, but I really do not like that they convince other people to join them. Door to door, they change someone's life for the- for the most part (one human in many may need saving from themselves)- worse. I wish they would leave people alone. Live and let live, you know? Nobody needs to miss out on what life has to offer. Nobody.

And now I have finished speaking my mind about these people. What else is there but to end this? First Patcher left the mid-west, then the Jadyn. They were replaced by two Mormons. I worked for a Mormon company and apparently the Mormon laborers were on tap. The company moved to the next state over (probably because of our stealing and drinking and swearing and jarring glances at pretty Mormon girls). And for a while my boss would pick me up and keep me in hotels so I could work, but eventually he stopped. He never called me or anything, just stopped picking me up for work and again, like ten months ago, I was unemployed.

### Chapter 22

I am not in control. I never have been and I never will be. That is such an all encompassing statement. Still I find it to be nearly flawless(hail to the unknown). I have no control over my existence. From my emotions to my economic status. It is either a simple matter of control being outside the reach of my psychological grasp or the more complex issue of the beast that we call society. When I think about it, it occurs to me that if I could pick one thing to enrich my life it would be control, in any form I could get.

The most noticeable instance would be throughout daily interactions with other people. The fact that one man's will will usually be more dominate than my own, because who am I to interrupt anyone's constant need for superiority. Things can hardly go my way when they are going the way of someone whom undoubtedly has different preferences than I. Like music, air conditioning, lunch time, and so on. Furthermore, if things go the way of a group. Very rarely do I agree with the group mentality. There's a flaw in it. It's never the whole group, it's always a person's influence over the group, and that ain't fair to no one. My preferences are too specific and too premeditated to flow along the will of the wisp that often presents itself in group situations. It is to my dismay that I cannot go through life as an audacious pompous jack ass making things how I want them. I always have the option to segregate myself from group activities, but hardly ever do I make use of it. Most of the time it is more important to keep the company and just suffer the unpleasantness.

Self control, is one flaw in my earlier statement. I have entirely too much self control. I am a doormat. Welcome, you may all walk on me. I tolerate everyone around me's self control lack thereof with a sigh and a look away. It's like every dumb person that I find myself in the company of; listening to them talk about stupid shit I couldn't give a fuck about because I am too kind to tell them to shut the hell up. I've heard it all already. With the exception of my addictive personality; I am in control of myself. I understand what matters least and can treat it as such. Resulting in a passive air of neutrality that has become a feature for which I am known.

The biggest problem is psychological. I would never try to sum up all that is wrong with me in a single paragraph; I prefer to hint at it and paint a picture in small brush strokes over the course of many writings. But, when it comes to control, it comes to this; I cannot control the aspects of life that make me miserable. I would like to not be agoraphobic, afraid of the outside world. But I cannot help the fact that every pair of eyes that I catch a glimpse of feels like a kick in the face. Or that at any given moment my content state of mind can be shattered like a mirror, and in the aftermath I am left nothing more than a worried heap of man. Every little thing that is wrong or that is going to be wrong comes together to form a crashing tidal wave of malcontent. I have no control over that part of me. Yet, I can recognize it as detrimental and abnormal. Left to my own devices, as a result, I have estranged my friends and found myself once again in the office of a shrink.

And fucking alcohol. The epitome of zero control. To date I have spent a year and some change trying to break free of that fucked up chemical and to no avail. An addiction second only to nicotine. But I don't mind nicotine. Cigarettes only make life easier, but alcohol only makes things worse. Negative, negative, bad. And it is everywhere. In every home, every weekend, the greatest resource of the group mentality. Why must we intoxicate ourselves? Could anything be more unnatural than a habit of intoxicating your body to the degree that it cannot function properly, to the point where you actually lose the instinct and ability to control yourself? Once again I can recognize this malfunction, but have no control over that part of me. A challenge I face every day and, to date, am unable to overcome.

And society. I cringe at the word. A word that brings to mind other words: government, consumerism, cash, highways, superhighways, death, poverty, upper class, lower class, laws, prison, rent, employment, wage slavery, bars, the third world, malls, politics, terrible. It all makes me so nauseous. The best example of how I feel lies in my peers. I listen them complain about how we should do our part to make the world a better place; recycle and drive fuel efficient vehicles. As if any of that will do any good. The problem is bigger than you and I and that makes it a non issue. As if commuters are the biggest users of fossil fuels- no way; industry and construction, heating homes; concerning yourself with the fuel efficiency of your vehicle is like trying to melt an iceberg with a broken lighter. The planet is destroyed beyond litter. Highways are litter, cities are litter. Naturally these problems are only bad for people and the innocent creatures we kill- the planet will be fine. Sort of...

And political conflict? Why do we care? Our government is out of control, and nothing any of us says will make them act responsibly. The terror it creates is not of our lives(YET!), it is real through a picture in a box, the news tells us horrible things and we get upset. But, until it is at my front door(which it will inevitably be unless we divert its tyrannical course), it is a non-issue. The only way that it affects us people in the USA is through giant gas prices and who knows what is going on to cause that? Fuck it. Drive less. A non issue.

The real problem is the role we play. You and I. We are bred to feed the beast. Life consists of bare minimums, mostly happiness. We work and live in boxes and consume. The government takes our money without even asking, then gives it to rich men, spends the next largest amount on people, and the leftovers return to the people. We suffer from illnesses that were given to us at birth in the form of vaccinations, just so they (whoever they are) can sell drugs. Human life has no value further than a dollar bill.

The system that made every thing work this way is bigger than us and has defended itself too well. We are powerless against it, rising up is an rotten thought(But unity is in season). There is nothing for us to do but wait for it to crumble from the inside out. The system that controls us has become a non issue, too big for you and I. So when I hear my brothers tell me that they will not support one institution because it is a product of some corporation, I can only ask "why bother?" Fuck it. Shop at Wal-Mart and eat at McDonald's. We the people have no control over anything that matters and it will stay that way until we have a bigger problem to deal with, when the empire falls and we are faced with raging instability.

I can make the most of the box I was dealt and not much more. I can suck it up and drag myself through a life of constant discomfort. I can clench my fist at the thought of the bigger picture. I can get laid, I can intoxicate myself, I can read a book, I can write a book that will never be read, and I can eat the food that I like when I can afford it. I can play music with a friend, or I can watch a movie I enjoy. I can make the best of a very bad situation. And not much more. Not. Much. More.

### Chapter 23

Often times, such as the creation of the planets (in comparison to this piece of writing), matter and energy(same thing?) accumulate, gather, and create something. Such as this rant, or a planet, or a moon. My thoughts, feelings, and disgusts are like meteorites, circling around one another, impacting and impacting again, all so natural and real, sometimes solid, and sometimes not so much. Creating something, right now, as I record whatever I can think of. And so I give you the earth's second moon, as seen from my point in the world. A sight, in the night sky, or early twilight, or early dusk, only viewable by my mind's eye, and yours I suppose.

The nature of the universe, as far as I can gather, from what I have been told that it is doing out there, beyond us, is to circle and spiral. I have read of the similarities between the cosmoses and microorganisms or quantum reality, and I can only assume it applies to the in-between; the in-between that is us. How it seems, that as we spin in circles, in our lives, we also take larger trips, also in circles. A good example is the job I do every day and errands I have to run every week or every other week, and the visits I make at monthly, bimonthly, yearly, or whatever intervals. The undeniable tearing one can feel when they leave home without planning to return, as they break away from something. An endless run around that feels inescapable. An orbit.

That might be fine for an inanimate mass of rock or gas. But what of us beings burdened by Earthly awareness? Those of us malcontented by our orbit.

A simple guy I am not. Many humans have the ability to accept our state of affairs no different then a ball of gas would. I wish I knew how they did it. If ignorance is bliss, knowing burns. I don't even know what I know, or don't. All I know is something burns. Like the oatmeal in my skull was forgotten on the burner.

In light of this predicament, I have become bitter. Always bitter, incapable of the blissful orbit I see in those planets I envy so.

Authority. Under a rock, or behind a closed a door, I exist in dormancy. My manners mild from fear of authority. The police controlling you. Others judging you. Being an anarchist is like being imprisoned by society. I have spent years breaking laws, and by all means I still do. But as an adult still fearing authority my options are limited. Once, as a teenager, I flourished, untouchable in my innocence. And now not so much. I know better. I disagree entirely with the control matrix, but I know better than I used to. Another sad state of affairs.

It's not even as if I want to kill people or steal things. Mostly I would just like to live in a cabin in the woods, kill food, not live life as a wage slave, and not pay taxes. Anything simple like that. What the fuck is a government? A joke? I don't get it.

The history of the world is so sordid. A beastly place it has always been. I have read of the old empires, imperialistic or barbarian. And in reading such, I have only read of death- every now and again some sort of engineering feat is accomplished, and then more death. I always took solace in mankind's past lack of, and my current access to, heat and running water and dependable food. As a child I always thought, 'how terrible?' At least the world I live in is not as terrible as the worlds of old. But now I realize the truth. Nothing has changed, only engineering advancements have altered our lifestyles.

For one matter, people still starve, only it is so far away I have trouble feeling or relating to their pain. Deep down I know our gluttony is a product of their suffering. In some way I don't understand yet. Even in my country, with such a high standard of living people still freeze. Those people have names: degenerates, miscreants, vagrants, and Peter. For whatever reason, they cannot fit into the mold. The mold being; job, apartment, shut up.

As for treacheries. This is the end of the world. PERIOD! Probably. Industry has escalated to a position of absolute authority. The dollar has destroyed the corpse of the moral. The rainforest is fucked. And the o-zone, too. The ice caps are melting, how strange? The ocean is acid. The sky is radiated. The ionosphere is incinerated.

Nuclear technologies hang over every person's head. It is only a matter of time until someone drops a bomb. I can only hope it is a terrorist, so there is no one for our government to retaliate against. But the odds are the USA will do it first, or rather again. Then they'll blame it on some brown people. And there it goes, everything, gone. Followed by some awfully depressing, doomed, pathetic existence in the aftermath. If we're lucky.

Meanwhile, nobody is free, governments control us, and have their way with us. If you care why it is this way, read Alexander Berkman's What is Communist Anarchism?, the only book I would recommend. Or the TaoTeChing. And I only recommend Berkman it so I don't have to explain what he says.

The white nations are plagued by curable illnesses, such as asthma, depression, and diabetes, all of which I am sure are a product of the vaccinations EVERYONE is subject to at birth. Or some other vague conspiracy. I can only assume this is product of a ploy to boost the economy by selling drugs. In other nations, government engineered illnesses kill off entire populations(AIDS).

If the world can survive long enough, overpopulation will make life almost unlivable(only because of private property and an inability to sprawl). And for some reason people think that death among man is a bad thing. I think more people should die from cigarettes, and those people should smoke around as many non-smokers as possible to cause second hand death(if that's a real thing). In that sense, genocide becomes a beautiful thing. Mankind is more than likely the next mass extinction on this planet. We are going out and we are taking the critters, the trees, and the fish with us.

Nonetheless, I have always thought, and recently discovered Kafka used to think, that there is no other reason to exist than to reproduce. It's the one thing all life has in common. But for all this government, how about some population control? I am not a man, or a person, or an American. I am an organism, nothing more. I reproduce.

I am not an American. Somewhere, some piece of paper says otherwise, but I can assure you that I am not. I am a living thing. I exist on a plot of land. Some people call that plot America, but I am not one of them. I am what I choose to be. And I do not choose to be represented to the rest of the world by that word. I am an anarchist, void of all connection to this nation other then my feet touching "its" soil. How nice the days of the hunter gather must have been? Truly blissful, an existence like that of an earthworm. I digress, I should not want so much, it is stressing.

Life, as it seems, is so empty. The way we eat nowadays. I envy our Indian roommate. I envy his diet of rice and potatoes. Particularly when I spend 90 dollars on groceries every two weeks to fill my cabinets with preservatives, chemicals, air, and sugar. And then, when I go to eat, all I want is McDonald's.

It seems the answer is intoxication, but I now know otherwise. The only answer, the last thing pure, remains the same, love. It always comes down to love. The nature of love is still a mystery. The love of nature is self evident. In a world where we have explained the cosmos I maintain this mystery to be quite an achievement on love's part. People can chalk it up to a chemical reaction in the brain, but that is hardly a water molecule on the tip of the ice burg.

So effective is Belle's touch in releasing all the tension, anxiety, and disgust- I owe her your universe. In my bedroom, in the dark, with her, the universe will collapse into a singularity, and all the world's flaws dissolve.

### Chapter 24

Days later the incident is still all I can think of. I lie in my bed and stare out the window, just recounting the events over and over again. I didn't want to stab anyone. I really had no option. However, honestly, it holds a certain prestige in my mind's eye, along the lines of publishing my first book, and losing my virginity. Now I've got a problem, I have upset an entire posse, and worse, a posse that lives in the same building as I.

Belle was spending the night with our roommate out at the college she went to last year; visiting with all her girlfriends. I was home alone. Throughout the day I wrote a very short chapter in the book I am working on. And that was about it. I played my guitar for a while, but ultimately I took to the outside world to entertain myself. Not very far outside, albeit. More like the floor underneath me in our three story building. I checked in with some guys in 205, who had been around asking if I knew anyone to get them beer, but they know the same two of-legal-age guys I do. They hadn't gotten anything yet and the liquor store was going to close in an half an hour. At my suggestion we set of to find the two guys. One of whom was their next door neighbor in 204. We assumed he would not be home but casually knocked on his door on the way out of our building. We almost turned the corner to the stairs when a door opened behind us and we turn to see our guy, Tyler, sticking is head out his door. He was dressed in a black dress shirt and khakis, having just come home from a wedding. He drove us to the store and purchased beer for the guys from 205. Unemployed and broke, I got nothing.

Back in 204 we played some video games on the X-box gaming system. Some douche-fucks from 203 came in. They wanted to borrow Ping-Pong balls to play beer pong in their apartment. Apparently they were having some sort of Saturday night shindig at their place. I had seen these guys around but had yet to speak to them because from a distance I immediately disliked their personalities, or lack thereof. We kept playing video games. I had been drinking Tyler's beer, which I promised to reimburse him for. Also I had some vodka left at the bottom of a bottle, so I drank that.

At that point some sort of inert desire within became a driving force. To some people it may have been the desire to meet new people, or fit in. It may have been the desire to be in the company of women. Which is a possibility because in retrospect I think the female presence in 203 became the determining factor in my presence. Whatever the case, it was unlike me to go over there. But, I did so anyway. Tyler and I stood against their counter and watched the beer pong game. Which was being played on the smallest table ever and therefore overly simple. Looking at the crowd I quickly became lightheaded. So many people. For the first period of time, I talked to almost no one. Soon enough I began my pitiful attempts at making conversation. I wandered in and out. Upstairs, or into Tyler's, out side to smoke a cigarette- it was raining steadily and the weather was intoxicatingly perfect. Lately I have found that my mind is only at peace in the rain. The only time I can breathe easy is when it is raining. More and more I realize how good the rain makes me feel. I know this precipitation adoration will be with me for life. Like spasms Belle caused in my throat the first day I met her.

In a hallway I had been talking to some of the guys that live in 203. Faceless zombies, all of them. There were so many. Their apartment, like ours, has four bedrooms and it seems that each person I meet lives there. A fight is brewing between them and a preppy yuppie scum type that lives in 201. I invited them outside to have a cigarette. I even helped them take their garbage out. I get along with one of the guys and we talk about cars. Because what else would he have to say? We talk about the guy in 201; I say how I never really cared for him. Some of my behavior would have been a desire to fit in, but I still don't know why I am acted so strangely. One guy walked away to take a piss and the guy I was getting along with told him to piss on the Dodge SUV. The SUV belongs to the yuppie from 201, and the guy I was getting along with (whose name I still do not know) talks about how it's the guy from 201's winter vehicle, and his contempt for the rich fucker for whom he has intentions of kicking said fucker's ass. I suggest that he doesn't fight him because we all live in the same building and we don't need that kind of tension hanging around... I suggested that instead they just piss on his vehicle all year long. He told me about the time that he and two other guys urinated on the yuppie's Lincoln Mark 7. Another guy had peed on this guy's Dodge. In the past, of course.

I invite over a friend of Belle's, named Meila- who had been calling for help picking a lock- over to hang out, because I was sick of not having a decent person to associate with. I played a game of beer pong with Tyler and two girls. I drank all the beer in our team's cups because the girl didn't want to get drunk. Meila showed up with a little redhead friend of hers named Nicole. We were all outside smoking cigarettes.

This is where the story gets complicated and I am not sure of how to communicate everything that happened to cause the night to explode the way it did. A bunch of these college kids stood under the canopy to avoid the rain, boys and girls, including some guys from 203.

I think an important detail would be that suddenly, inexplicably (at least to me), the general consensus of 203 was that the rich kid from 201 was now an ok guy. A very tall, large, ok guy. Only Satan knows where their change of heart came from. The guy I had been getting along with went to piss on the guy's car, as he still felt the same way- held the previous and outdated collective opinion- about the 201 guy. I say I'll join him and piss on the car myself. Then one short blonde pretty boy of a douche fuck, started talking about telling the guy we were going to piss on his wheels. But, he doesn't narc on his roommate's actions, only on my considerations of acting. That's a pretty heavy threat so I say fuck it, and don't piss on the Dodge, his roommate does. So we all sit around.

And then it begins. The little blonde pretty boy fucker and the big guy from 201 approach me and stand before me. I get a hostile lecture from the big guy about not pissing on his car. During which he ignores me explaining to him that I not once pissed on his vehicle. I only condoned the act of doing so by others, whom did. I rose to my feet. They start shouting at me. I am perplexed by the sudden allegiance between the two of them and I asked the pretty boy if the yuppie had paid him money or something. I never figured out why they were suddenly friends when moments prior they were enemies. I stood on the concrete edge of the woodchip shrub garden I had been sitting on. That gave me a height advantage on both of them, which to say the least, was infinitely helpful. They were shouting in the unmistakable fashion of asshole college kids starting a fight. And soon enough, regardless of what I said to progress or deescalate the situation, the little pretty boy stepped up onto the ledge and I pushed him off. Then he came back swinging. Or came back not swinging. My recollection of all this is vague because it happened very fast.

I punched the little one in the face, once or twice, and I grabbed the yuppie by the throat and pushed him out into the parking lot. I probably hit him as well, but cannot be sure. Either way, he was suddenly nice and friendly, shaking my hand and talking about how things were cool and that we had no problem. Exit 201 yuppie. Enter 203 everyone. I see the little fucker approaching me. Blood runs down his face from his left eyebrow; down his face and neck and onto his designer button down yellow shirt. I hear the pretty boy boasting to his roommates about how the only reason I was still standing was because no one had ever "busted" him open like that (which was in itself an obvious statement). As if hitting him was some sort of accomplishment on my part when the obvious truth was that this small napoleon complexed individual, pretty boy in college, had never been in a real fight before, or he was really just a pussy. They all turned out to be pussies.

Distant threats enveloped me out there in the rain. The kid I had been getting along with rushed toward me pointing his finger, telling me that if I "ever hurt someone else from 203, I'm gunna die." There were others, a crowd, half shouting, half silent. I rush through them and up to my apartment on the third floor. Knocks on my door follow. A crowd has gathered as well. I see Maila in the peephole. She is surrounded by shadows. I let her and her friend inside. The mob is momentarily dormant. I shut and lock the door behind them. Then the noise starts. Tension really boils. Slowly at first. I hear them all talking about how they are going to hurt me, "give him one of these." The same stuff I had been watching them say about the yuppie from 201 earlier. They bang on the door and tell me to open it. I kick the door and tell them to go the fuck away. To every taunt I reply "your mother." I must have said "your mother" two hundred times that night. I slid a kitchen knife under the door, trying to frighten them, someone stepped on it and under their weight I pulled the handle from the blade.

Eventually they leave my doorway. I watch the movie "Twelve Monkeys" with the two girls. They tell me that if I ever need a witness, that they can attest to my relative innocence. Meila and her red head friend stayed for about fifteen minutes and then left. More people came and threatened me through my door. I called my friend in Sioux Falls and I asked her what to do about the mob gathered around me. She tells me to call the police. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it myself. So I called the police. The 911 operator said they would send someone. The girls came back and gave me a 100,000 volt taser and then left again. I put batteries in the weapon.

One kid I had seen earlier stood at my doorway. His face was covered in acne scars. He had a calm demeanor and talking to him earlier, I had thought he was a kind of alright guy. He was alone, so I let him in. He was being diplomatic and I told him I didn't mean to bust that kids eye open and that it was an accident. He claimed there was no way I could have done that by accident. And it wasn't an accident, but I had to defend myself I told him. I told him to go get that kid and I'd apologize and everything could be cool.

When he came back, the two walked through my door and immediately the diplomatic guy threw a beer can in my face, and before the liquid fell to the floor he punched me with a shot that glanced off my skull as I fell over the couch behind me. I pushed the button on the small taser and swung it into his side, the device did nothing. He must have thought I was attacking him with my thumb. I don't know how I got them out of my apartment. Maybe I did get hit and my memory lapsed. I may have grabbed a knife, which would explain why one of them dripped blood onto my floor. But I am not sure.

After that came more banging on my door. More threats as another crowd gathered. I turned up Rage Against the Machine on my powerful stereo real loud and shouted "your mother" at some guys standing on the grass outside my third story window. They were watching my apartment. What they were hoping to accomplish I had no idea.

I also accidentally insulted a friend of mine from 205, which I hope he didn't hear. Don't remember what I said but I regret saying it. I called the police again; the dispatcher told me they had not forgotten about me.

Random voices outside my door at random times. I cannot be sure how much time passed while I waited for the police. I called them a third time and then searched the house for my pellet pistol which my girlfriend had hidden a couple of days prior, but I could not find it. More banging. More threats. Some quietness. Repeat.

Then I heard a terrible sound. Belle's voice, and our roommate, and a key scraping a broken deadbolt. They were home early and couldn't get the deadbolt open from the outside. Through the door I asked if there were people out there with them and they said no. Later they tell me they just thought the people in the hall were some typical guys looking for a party. I opened the door to let the girls in and behind them burst in a rush of guys with bad intentions. I recall the initial entry as seeing Belle and our roommate clearly followed by three blurry people with a forth standing in the door. I fell over the couch, again, and the fists miss my head. I jump to my feet and over the couch, through two guys, and grab a knife from the counter. I spin around and point it in the indistinguishable guy closest to the door's face and yelled "Get the fuck out!" I did the same with the next one. These assholes invaded my home, in front of my girlfriend. I was done with the bullshit. The third was being restrained by our roommate, a girl, and I put the knife in his face and shoved his skull toward the door. "Get the fuck out!"

Somewhere during all that I had buzzed the police into my apartment building.

I push against the door trying to close it, the girls help; the attackers didn't let it close. They could easily have shoved it open but I held the knife pointed in their faces. A hand gripped the door knob and I sliced it somewhat automatically. Only then realizing I was using a serrated bread knife. The girls were crying and that annoyed the shit out of me. Crying girls seemed like just another thing on the list. We got the door closed but not locked and someone on the other side told me his foot was stuck. I don't know why I cared but I opened it for him. They pushed the door open again. The diplomatic asshole from earlier was yelling, "Stab me! I don't fucking care! Fucking stab me!" The door was opening wider now and I stuck the knife into his face. Aiming for his left eye the knife slid under the skin of his cheek and the wound bled instantly. Then through the open door, I saw the mob scatter.

A cop burst through my door pointing a gun in my face. I threw the knife across the living room and lay face down on the floor as per the officer's demand and let him cuff my hands behind my back. They sat me in a chair facing the doorway. My girl was crying. My roommate was crying. In the hall people were swearing at the police. I was silent. The kid I stabbed got an ambulance called for him. The police interrogated everyone involved. Some blonde bitch poked her face in my door and we made eye contact. I said nothing. She was a 203 girl. I think she just wanted to see who I was, who had done these things to her friends. I hope she noticed that there was not a mark on me. I drunkenly chatted with a cop- who turned out to be the supervisor- about becoming a cop, and the lack of police in the St. Cloud area. He told me that they were out on a shooting when I called and they were late because they couldn't find the victim, whom had taken himself to the hospital. The supervisor was a jolly sort of guy, probably Irish.

A long while passed by; the girls had been taken someplace else. A cop photographed the area. I stared out into the hallway at the blood covering the adjacent wall. So much blood. I did that.

An officer brought the cuffed little fucker by, the wound on his eyebrow large like a golf ball and magnificent like a ruby. He remarked that he was "not going to ride in a squad car with that piece of shit." And I thought to myself: I'm not going to jail asshole. The supervisor let me smoke a cigarette with my hands cuffed behind my back. I spit it onto the floor when I was done. I asked if I could urinate and he uncuffed me, never to put them back on. I smoked another cigarette and then gave my statement. An account as accurate as I could manage and similar to what you've just read.

The girls came back in, smiling bashfully at me, and the cops talked police things. They checked the dead bolt to see if it worked and could not get it open again after. The three cops had locked themselves into my apartment. Twenty minutes later and with the help of my Swiss Army knife they got out. Our lock broke at six am that morning. The girls and I cleaned the blood off the walls and the door and the floor, then the police helped us rig the lock and left. It was over.

I wonder for how long. I am afraid to step foot out of my apartment. Days later I cannot focus. I am perpetually dizzy and getting tired frequently although I am well rested. Nothing seems real.

During this state of recovery a hero of mine died; the celebrity The Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin. A one of a kind man whom the whole world cherished for his love of animals and his extensive efforts to promote and support wildlife conservation. I watched the news about him and the reruns of documentaries about him incessantly. The sadness I feel adds to the unreal effect of this period of time. I cannot tell what day it is or how much time is passing. The shifting of past and present tenses in this chapter is atrocious. I wonder if I have a concussion; maybe I did catch a punch somewhere, but I feel no bruise on my head. My appetite was nonexistent for two days. My triceps were sore from pushing the door shut. My wrist is swollen and feels sprained. My knuckles are swollen. My tongue hurts the worst, at some point I bit it and the stinging point is miserable.

I would apologize to them in a second. Say, fuck it, put it in the past. But these people are not rational. They will not let this go. For all I know I will be immediately jumped by them. And I don't want that. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.

I cannot get a hold of management to find out if they have been evicted, which should be happening. Also, I hope my friend in 205 gets to stay in the building, because he had been evicted two days prior to this incident for getting punched by those same kids. I hope I turned the tables back on them. I hope their school year is fucked. I hope for nothing but bad things for those people. Those people who thought that somehow fighting 2 on 1 or 5 on 1 was an ok thing to do. Two of whom will soon enough share a bond through the scars I have given them. Those college fuckers; brainwashed by rap music, with no personality and too much testosterone.

Those college fuckers. These first days of "move in week" at the university have had a strange but predictable effect. Sirens. Police sirens; all day and all night. The end of a peaceful summer. A new school year. Anything can happen in this college town. And I can only hope that I have heard the last from my neighbors in 203.

### Chapter 25

In these current moments of my life I am having a spell. My thoughts are coming and going in a frenzy comparable to the likes of Tokyo commuters at rush hour. I feel down. Real down. Trampled. The breakup with my girlfriend I was once comfortable with has broken me apart with something as simple as my hand on her waist. The jobs I am working are overbearing. I want to write, but I have no time. I want to write like the authors I read on my overnight shifts: Kerouac, Wurtzel, Steinbeck, and Chrichton. I want to write four pages for every one thought. And I have to wait until my trip home to write anything at all. I need to lie in bed for days at a time, not a few hours. I need this sadness to vanish. It's hard to function during these seven hour stints with misery on my back and gouging at my eyes. One shift after another after another after another shift. I have no friends in my life. None. I long for my mother's company but cower at the thought and fear of home. I long for those friends that really understand me 1500 miles away. Every moment feels like forever and the next is no different. I cannot concentrate. I cannot enjoy life or be happy about it. I long for stability but experience only uncertainty. Every sound is a razor. Every sight is a flame too near. I feel burdened by my body and long to escape it; to let it do my life for me while I float off into snowy skies. I long to be done with this part of my life.

As I feel the wheels of this giant metal monument to human insanity lift off the safe firm ground of Minneapolis, I simultaneously see a similar contraption in the distance engulfed in smoke with the blotted out glow of flames coming from within the cabin. I didn't feel very good about the flight after that. As I boarded the plane I noticed the young couple in front of me, busy creating another memory to think about while they break up eight months down the road; I thought to myself, if there is a type of person to die in a horrific plane crash it is them. Boarding another plane in Milwaukee I noticed the father asking the young son if he wanted to meet the captain and thought, yes, they too are the type. And what about me, a son on his way to his mother to give her a copy of his first small time published work that he wrote specifically for her, to show his appreciation for everything she had ever done for him; a debt which can never be repaid in full.

How awful is flying? We do not fucking belong 30,000 feet in the air! Ever! And yet we put ourselves there in the name of convenience. Give me a bus and land. Give me a day and half spent traveling to get home in exchange for my life. And I've still got to fly back! But why not? Humans. We have conquered travel by sea, like the first animals, then conquered travel by land, like the animals fresh out of the ocean and breathing poisonous oxygen for the first time, and of course air finishes the cycle. Man imitates nature, but why? Were we so not content being part of it, we had to become it? And nowhere else is that simple observation as evident as sitting nervously in the sky with palms sweating over a keyboard and making a mess as they type the words that could easily be the last words they ever type. From so high up, humans show themselves for what they truly are, and far from god, and far from the devil and details, high in the sky over Milwaukee, one can see the big picture. The fucking colonies man has created for himself. When you see a city from the sky, how can anybody pretend mankind has a future? We are no better off than the termites I assure you, and probably much worse. Termites if allowed enough resources would reproduce to the mass of the universe itself. We have claimed all the land as our own. City after city after city. What is wrong with our nature? Us. What the fuck is wrong with us? How are we hard wired to blanket the planet with all of our man type construction bullshit? Suburbs, new developments- with the luxury of winding roads between homes to create the sensation of a non mass produced housing unit; a true quaint little property for the owner who either lies to themselves, or has not a thought to begin with. Something is obviously not right with the way we all live. Too bad everyone is doing it. From the sky I see so much steel. So much concrete. Why did we do this? What the fuck? Ugliness mankind is. As I fly into Newark, of all places.

Once I get off of this plane in Newark I will find my sister driving her rich boyfriend's top of the line Cadillac that may as well have been purchased sometime in the future. I did not sleep last night, so I will wander around with my sister, in New York, in a dazed and glazed over stupor. I will find the proper subway to get to Grand Central Station. From Grand Central I will take a bus to New Haven, where I will meet my mother and she will drive me an hour and a half to my home. While I drive with my mother I will look out the window and see the Connecticut terrain. Trees and hills; roads that curve around bends. The world is suddenly exotic again; at least in contrast to the Midwest.

Being home will be so strange. I'll see buildings that, had I been living in the area I would have watched be remodeled, but since I've been gone the fire station's become green and enlarged in the blink of an eye. I will get home and hang out with Patcher. Knowing I am sleep deprived he will purchase amphetamines from a friend and I will take some and hang out all night. Patcher and I will go to a friend's house and drink a bottle of Jack Daniels at three in the morning and I'll drunkenly cut off the tip of my right middle finger with a pocket knife, which will make typing this a hassle and cause me to bleed all over Patcher's parent's floor while I talk to them, very drunk, for the first time in over a year. Patcher's parents being more like friends rather than disciplinary figures like most parents. Since Patcher gets off work at midnight every night, four or five of my seven nights in CT will be like that. Starting very late and ending when daybreaks. I will be hung-over for Thanksgiving dinner. The first half of the week I will not be able to sleep more than two hours at a time and the second half I will sleep 16 hours at a time. I will go to the various homes of friends I used to hang out at and I will listen to them be caught up in their trivial affairs that I do not recognize. I will be mostly ignored by friends as I am no longer part of their world. I am a welcome stranger to every friend I have ever had.

I flew into Newark alone with two tickets. Belle was supposed to be meeting my parents and having Thanksgiving with me. She broke up with me instead. We were going to spend time in the big apple, New York City, but instead she broke up with me. I could have flown into Providence or Hartford and been home that much sooner. I have to deal with the buses and the trains instead. I guess I should be heart broken instead of mad over trivialities, but heartbreak comes and goes. I've got bigger problems.

Yeah, she dumped me. It was a very stupid decision on her part. It seems to me she made it haphazardly and then stuck to it out of stubbornness. We are clearly still in love with each other. The relationship wasn't unhealthy, or at least not as unhealthy as some others I've been in. The codependency was there but that's just what I bring to the table.

She'll be moving out while I am in CT. And then I will be truly alone. The strange part is that this past month of being apart but still living together was just as nice and as sexual as all of the rest of the time we had. That's not so strange actually; she just didn't want me running off and hooking up with some skank. Which I did anyway. Sort of. She dumped me, what else would I do?

Yeah, I went out one night looking for an easy piece of ass. Suffice to say I found it. Sort of. With about the worst individual you could imagine. I'm at this party. It's a Saturday, the night before Halloween in my explosive college town. I go as a cat burglar, clad in black. I am with a group of acquaintances, sans Belle, but I lose my peers in the crowd soon enough. I've got a backpack full of this classy beer I like to drink and a liter of rum. We're at some alright house party. I'm sharing rum with everyone I can find. I have to go outside and vomit. The first time I've thrown up from drinking in about six months, I blame the tacos, but no one saw anyhow. I think. I'm sharing the rum with everyone I can hand it to. Some broad with sandy blonde shoulder length hair, a tiny mouth, tight clothes, and a small enough body, ends up dancing up against me and drinking the rum. Eventually we're touching each other. Then we are skipping around town between the blackouts and making out in streets, cartoon like streets, full of candy land nurses and Zorro looking pirates. I ask her to come with me. I just need a slut to fill the void. Belle is off with some friend or something, so I ask the bitch back to my place. Fully intending to put my penis inside of her vagina. She came to my house willingly, on her own accord.

When we walk inside, my female roommate, Belle's best friend that lives with us, is standing in the kitchen. She saw me come home with this girl and saw that the girl was not drugged or dragged or anything of the like. We go to my room and I turn on the weather channel for background noise. We are kissing and making out and I take her shirt off and she takes off mine. She puts her head to my waist and I assume she wants to go down on me so I take my pants off. And she doesn't do anything. So I start kissing her breasts and I put my hand down her pants. Her crotch wasn't shaved which struck me as odd, having only touched smooth skin in that area for so long. I play with her down there and she takes my hand out and tells me to watch her do it. Which, at the time, I found a little insulting. Then she gets a phone call on her cell. She tells me her friend is in trouble and she has to go. As she is putting her bra and shirt on, I enter my phone number into her phone in hopes she will call me later and I can finish what I started. And then she leaves.

Later Belle comes home and walks into my room and we have sex. She tells me it's a booty call because at this point she is sleeping in the room next door. She asks me about my night. Asks if I hooked up with a slut. I tell her, yes. She gets pissed that I was with someone else but a little under a week later she is over it and we are having sex regularly again.

Ten days later. And by the way this all coincides with Mercury going retrograde, which astrologically causes problems and means that everything will get fucked up for about three weeks. The last time it happened I stabbed someone in the face. I am way too in tune with the planets. The night I took the girl home was the first day of Mercury's retroactions. Ten days later I hear this girl is pressing charges on me. Her friends that hang out in my circle of acquaintances are telling every one that I am a violent rapist. Apparently I raped the girl at knife point. I had a knife sticking into my dresser where it always is. I sleep with it there to feel safe(ironic). She must have seen the blade and fabricated her story around it. Now people are looking at me like I am a monster and I don't hang around them for a little while. I get incredibly depressed. One of the worst depressions I think I have ever faced. I am so edgy and so pissed off. I've e-mailed people telling them not to believe the rumors. Waking around and going to work are all punishments from the gods. Hell on earth.

It finally concludes (assuming at this point the police aren't actually looking for me) in this fashion: I get a comment on a picture on my Myspace account. I had posted the picture a long time ago after one of the fights I'd been in and I have a fresh large black-eye. The accusing girl's friend writes- "I bet Tracy punched you in the eye while you were raping her with a knife you sick fuck." After that this series of emails followed.

ME: Listen i don't want to say mean things about your friend cuz the real problem I have is with you. But doesn't it strike you that maybe the same girl that tells the world she is a lesbian for attention when she clearly is not, is the same girl that will tell the world she was raped when she clearly was not? I looked at her profile, that picture, and if you tell her I said this you are the terrible person, not me, that picture of an ugly pimply overweight young woman, what kind of thoughts do you think a girl like that thinks? A breeding ground for delusion and sickness. Unless she is incredibly strong, which I fucking doubt. You were fucking there. She dug me. That's it. She came back to my house cuz I wanted to get laid. She left because she didn't. I didn't argue, I just let her go. She was at my house for ten fucking minutes. She just saw the knife I have (in clear sight) and took it on her own from there. You get off my fucking back. Quit saying terrible fucking things, which by the way are disrespectful to all the women in this world that have actually been raped. I fucking hate you for what you have done to my name. I hope you have a terrible life, I hope every day of your life is worse than the one before it. You will not see the things I have pointed out to you as fact because for one thing you are a complete dipshit and for another you know what you know and that is all that you know, right? A friend says it and it becomes fact right? Well the world ain't that fuckin simple. Fuck off bitch.

HER: Okay, um, shes not fat at all, she's not ugly, and she IS a lesbian, I'd know. I have been raped, and I know what kind of shit guys say and do when they're wasted...kinda like you were that night. All i know is she came back to Adams and was bawling her eyes out to me. I spent 7 hours in the fucking hospital with her! And don't try and make me look like the bad person here. You know what you did! I'm not a bad person for thinking that a guy who raped my friend with a knife is a sick fuck. Nope. I'm not the bad person at all. If you honestly believe she is making this up about you raping her, we'll show you the fucking rape report and you can see what you did to her! You're the sick fuck here, and no, you have no right to say that I'm a bad person for believing my friend over a guy who came onto a lesbian when he was wasted at a party. You know you did it, you can't deny yourself, and you're the one who has to live with knowing what you did. Don't say shit about me or my friends cuz you know nothing about any of us. I believe my friends over any guy on this planet, and whether or not it happened, what does it matter? I'm gonna believe her over you any day. Don't ever call my friend ugly again, don't talk to her, to try and contact her, don't try and talk to me. I'm not the bad person, you are. Deal with it.

p.s. If you didn't do it, why get all defensive about it and not just ignore it? Why do you get all worked up about what a few girls that you don't even know say about you, when you didn't do anything?

ME: I don't think she's ugly. I said that she was ugly at fragile years, in that picture she has, ya know? I thought she was pretty cute. A fucking rape report? A hospital? How? What was there to go to a hospital for? She never took her pants off. You know, everyone else gets to go out and pick up some slut and get laid, I try it once and this shit happens. So tell me when I will be hearing from the police. I don't like surprises. I wrote her a very sincere email as soon as I heard this explaining my position. Did she show it to you? I was hoping she would. I don't know what to say. I did nothing more then maybe move too quick for her. But when she left, I let her. Ten minutes. I had a roommate next door, she heard nothing. You are ruining my life with this shit. what is her legal position on this and all that crap? Let me know. I'd like you not to come around my building anymore. Because I do not want to have to stay away from my circle because I don't want to see you. I don't want to stay away because then I look guilty. You really fucked me over here. I don't care about the charges. But now when someone looks at me they will see your words and her lies.

HER: Alright. Think what you want, believe what you want, and I'll believe what i choose. And don't call her a slut. She's a fucking lesbian! Fuck all this shit. I'm not trying to give you a bad name! It's not about that, I'm trying to bring a friend to justice for something she said happened to her. You're right. I wasn't there, and yes, I'm going off of what she said. Whatever. I'm done with this shit. It isn't about me and you, it's about you and her! Figure it out with her. And as for the request to stop coming around YOUR building? No. I have friends who live there that INVITE me to come to their parties. If I want to go see Urbs, I can. Let's see? Who was there first, the last time we were both there together? Me. You came after me. Urbs INVITED me to come over. And I'm not going to stop going to see him just because some guy like you tells me not to. You don't even live on the same floor as he does. If you see me, don't say anything and I won't. I'm not one to bring shit like this up in public, so if I say anything about it in front of anyone, it will be because of you bringing it up. Let it be and things will go the way they will. Oh well. I'm not asking you to be my friend, I'm asking you to not be an ass if you see me at Urb's cuz i have just as much right to go see Urbs as you do. Let it be already.

Interlude: I don't know why people think that girl is a lesbian, because that was clearly not the case. Also, what the fuck is happening in our lives? Is this youth?

.

ME: I tried to write her. It won't work. I guess she blocked me. You should ask her to write me, or at least unblock me or something.

HER: I'll try...but what all did you write to her? I'm just curious.

ME: I just asked what she was planning to do legally. But you should really see the first e-mail I sent her, as soon as I heard about all this. I was very calm and polite. Just asking that she doesn't send me to jail for eight years for nothing. I guess it doesn't matter.

HER: Do not fucking mention this to anyone, but I do see how she might have took things a little far. I didn't see the rape report, but I just got upset right away cuz I was raped in September and it pissed me off. Um, I hope that you figure things out and wish you luck!! Thanks for being decent about this.

ME: I'm so glad that you have chilled out. Because I really wanted to apologize for the mean things I said to you last night. I'm sorry. you didn't deserve it and I always liked you and to tell you the truth it was a bummer that you and Jewel were involved in the way that you were. Here is some stuff I looked up about rape, if you want to read it. C ya.

*Courts perceived the potential threat of false allegations of rape and fashioned Jury Instructions to inform members of the jury that such allegations were easy to make by the complainant but difficult for the defendant to disprove. Today, this jury instruction is no longer allowed to be given as a result of changes in the law, changes that also mandate giving a very different set of instructions.

The judge now informs the jury that 1) an allegation of rape does not require any evidence of corroboration; 2) there is no requirement for medical evidence; 3) there is no requirement for DNA evidence; and 4) there is no requirement for a second witness. In short, there is no requirement for obtaining a conviction other than the bare allegation made by a complainant. Even the manner in which the jury is selected is tainted with this attitude that evidence does not matter. Prosecutors can demand that during the selection process, each perspective juror must agree that he/she would not require corroboration of a crime. If the juror disagrees with this demand, he/she can be excused.

Consensual sex is still legal. Being able to prove consent, however, has become more difficult for the defendant. For example, if a man meets a women at a bar and has sex with her that night and later she claims that she was raped, the man use to be able to introduce evidence to help establish a pattern of consensual sexual behavior on the woman's part. That might be the testimony by witnesses that the women routinely comes to the bar every night, engages a man's companionship, and then goes home and has sexual relations. Such evidence is highly relevant to show the sex on the night in question was consensual. This type of evidence is no longer admissible.

While the Rape Shield Laws were intended to encourage more women to come forward and testify, it simply has made it easier to falsely accuse and convict an innocent individual.

Such legislation is systematically making it easier to obtain convictions, and while those guilty of rape should be convicted; those who are falsely accused must be given back the right to defend themselves adequately in a court of law.*

When I saw that girl I had been writing to, and her friends, again, everything was cool. Slightly awkward but not nearly as awkward as it could have been. One girl gave me a look and whispered into the girl I'd been writing to's ear. Then the girl I'd been writing whispered something back and the issue was dropped that easily. That happened on the day Mercury returned to normal. And I could finally breathe easy. I cannot describe (story of my pitiful writing career) the horror of being associated with that term, 'violent rapist.' It hit me hard and it hit me deep. And I hope that no one else ever lives through it(unless they're actually a violent rapist). Frankly, I'd rather have been raped at knife point.

But now my vacation is coming. My vacation to home. Just some time to get my head straight, more like twisted on drugs; just time to relax and see familiar faces. Eat Thanksgiving Dinner and finally be close to properly nourished. Not work for a week. Long enough to forget where I came from and the life and the debt and the poverty and the sadness that I am still very much submerged in 1500 miles away. Just long enough to envy everyone's carefree lifestyle as they party at lame parties and go home to sleep at their parent's house. Hear everyone's Of Mice and Men pipe dreams and they will ease my tension better than any masseuse ever could and make me feel better about the way I struggle everyday for something- or rather anything- better. A trip so completely uneventful that I am not surprised when it's over. When all my goodbyes are said and done and I take the inverted trip home. My mother takes me to the train station. And I ride to grand central. I take the six downtown to my sister's rich boyfriend's apartment. I hadn't slept the night before, as I was up trying to get some ass from a girl I used to have sex with but who now has a boyfriend. So I am tired and dazed and glazed over as my sister makes me wander around. I go to her friend's art loft and stare contemplatively out over some random New York view, somewhere around Canal Street. One cannot help but be contemplative when looking at the city. I don't even know what I was thinking about, but I'm sure I thought about it a lot. I sleep for a few hours and a blue van picks me up at 3 a.m. and takes me to Liberty International in Newark. I am hours early for my flight and I get a chance to write some of this.

It is strange but not surprising the effect that the trip had on me. Most noticeably in my attitude toward flying. As I am about to get on my flight I think back to the time I was about to get on the first one. Now my palms are dry and my stomach is settled. I still figure that I will probably die. But if that is the case, whatever. On my way home I did not want to die. Now, on my way back, I don't really care. I don't really care about anything anymore.

Pipe dreams: Since my girlfriend dumped me I had started preparing to move somewhere with Patcher: to Seattle, or Tucson. I still haven't decided. I've always wanted to go to the desert, or at least since I read the Castaneda books. But the problem is that I hate sunlight, and the desert seems to be the worst place to go in that respect. But Tucson is a college town and it is really easy to get laid in a college town (also easy to be accused of rape), so I have to keep that in mind in my decision. And Seattle has rain, glorious glorious rain; that sweet precipitation that Minnesota is lacking in and the desert is completely devoid of. And Seattle is the home of grunge music. The greatest form of musical expression ever created. The genre I wish to add to. But I'm not even a very good musician so I don't know why I care. It will probably come down to the flipping of a coin.

Going back to Minnesota I see that Patcher probably couldn't care less about where we go and probably isn't even going to go because he has the easiest job on earth and most likely won't give it up (he is a security guard at Mohegan Sun casino). Seeing that life really has so little to offer no matter how hard I work toward it, I just don't care anymore. I hate Minnesota nowadays. I used to like it alright, and then my girl dumped me. I used to think of it as an alright place, as good as anywhere else, the place where I could settle down with the girl I loved while she went to college and I worked toward good credit and health insurance and decent pay and all those other things I don't give a shit about. Now fuck it. I can't care. Fuck the land of 10,000 places to drown yourself. I can only exist and sort of steer myself in some direction or another. Probably toward jail with the amount of trouble that I can't seem to stay away from. An old friend I visited in CT put it best when he simply asked me, "Why do you get in so much trouble, Richie?" It really does not matter. Especially if I will be alone without Patcher or Belle. And am I really prepared for that life? What will become of me if left to my own devices? If I isolate myself I can only be certain that I will lose what is left of my ability to communicate somewhat normally with my fellow man. I'll just get stranger and stranger. This is why I always needed Belle. Only a girl, constant companionship, is keeping me grounded to reality. I need that. I am too far gone and will only go farther. I do not see eye to eye with the world. I will drift into a sea of my own creation. Where I am god, the creator, a place where no one else can ever get to. A place where I can not get back from, somewhere truly alone. Am I ready for that? I don't know. I really don't know.

I'm going to ignore that whole problem for awhile. I read On the Road by Jack Kerouac and got inspired. Something about his writing. Also Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel. I realized that I cannot continue writing like a child. I have to evolve. If you noticed in this chapter I used the names of places. I was always reluctant to do that. I think the reason was paranoia; if anyone ever came looking for me I didn't want them to know where I had been. But that was obscure logic. It occurred to me that places are pretty important. What would On the Road be without places? And I had been to many of those places Kerouac visited, like Davenport, Iowa and Chicago and others, but I kept no account of it and now I kind of regret that. Also throughout this log I've strayed away from details and dialogue and everything that makes good writing good writing. I don't know why, most likely laziness. So I am going to evolve. But it won't happen right away, and I don't want to just sound like Kerouac but I do want to be as good as Kerouac and of course better. So over the course of these texts I plan on writing like writing should be written. You saw how this started; those poem cluster chapters. I guess I am already on my way. Keep in mind that I still don't fully understand punctuation. Also I plan on inserting some stylistic angles and practicing for my fiction, which, by the way, is really not going as strong as I'd like it to. I don't know where I heard it, maybe Prozac Nation, but "artistic pursuits are for those who can afford them."

And that is where I'm at. Just working too much. Well actually I'm at 30,000 feet again. I'm noticing these flight attendants. They look like they got the jobs right when the airlines had to stop firing people when they weren't young and attractive anymore. Yeah they used to be hot. Now they're kind of old and look like they've spent too many nights in airport bars The only problem I have with dying is that my writing is going down with me, all on this laptop. That thought is just too much to bear and I will never fly again without copying all my stuff first. I don't know what anyone would do with it anyway. Probably one friend would take the responsibility of figuring out a way to publish it and then do nothing. There's really nothing to publish at this point. Then my other friends and family would resent whoever was kind enough to help for not helping enough even though they would have done equally as little. In that case I might as well take it down with me. 30,000 feet and I have to go to work later; I don't even have a ride home from the airport, so I'm hoping I can catch a bus.

I can't write a god damn thing. Because I work so fucking much. About 65 hours a week between one full and one part time job. And when I'm not working I don't want to work more, like write a damn chapter about a few people dying. No instead I lie in bed or sit around just counting the hours until I've got to go back.

The Laundromat. Where do I begin? The manager? The most retarded non retarded person I've ever met. This lady is forty years old but looks like a strung out twenty seven year old. She is soooo loud. And awkward. Her voice is like being jabbed in the temple with a screwdriver, exactly like that. Always giving the customers the creeps. The regulars come in when she's not working and say horrible things about her.

The jolly Irish lady with the last name Wiener I work with is always blaming the manager for every little inconvenience, because the lady makes a great scapegoat. And when you say something to her, you can see her face go blank and she thinks for entirely too long and it is clear that whatever gears she's got in her head are grinding through some sort of jam, until she finally gives you the most illogical response anyone could. And I get to take my orders from her. I'm the janitor (who didn't see that coming) and the maintenance guy. The owner insists in dressing us in the absolute gayest thing he possibly could have imagined: pastel yellow or green polo shirts tucked into khakis with a mandatory belt. It makes me so self conscious when a pretty girl- and there are a fucking lot of them- comes in to use the tanning salon in the back and here I am dressed like a fucking homo and scrubbing grout out of a tile floor. I'm a fucking janitor and I would like to dress like one. And the kicker is the building. The wall that faces the sun is all windows and full of light during my shift and everything inside is white and bright. It burns my eyes and boils my blood and makes me so edgy I just want to burn the whole place down and go home. The place is soooo bright and my main job is to make it brighter. And all the while here is the owner of the place. He only comes around in the middle of the night. I have been there for months and yet I still have not met him. But every night he leaves a condescending note about some bullshit detail that he needs to nit pick. He is completely anal retentive but everyone around the place calls it being "particular." And that fucker has me detailing his parent's car but can't show up one day to shake my fucking hand. Yeah, I pretty much hate it there.

My other job is sort of better. I get paid 7.50 an hour to watch a boarding house full of special needs, schizos, and drunks overnight. But they want me to clean the whole place with a toothbrush. And every night I gotta look after this one guy, Carl, who needs help walking around. He hardly sleeps, has Alzheimer's, and smokes every 15 minutes because he never remembers that he just had one. And every 15 minutes I gotta walk him outside. His feet make a pitter patter. It was how I first met him. He got out of bed and I am sitting around not doing much and I hear the sound of his feet making the pitter patter of the half steps that he takes because he can't straighten his knees. And every few days I gotta bathe him, but that's no big deal. Sometimes I think he exists through his feet. Cuz the first time I bathed him I got some of his foot slime on me, and every time after that I am careful not to touch those nasty things, but he insists on wearing long johns and they're are a real pain to get over his jagged cracked yellow toenails. His face I may forget, but never his feet. Then there is Chucky. Chucky should be enlisted by the government to create some new kind of fucked up torture. Chucky is up early usually as well. He is a big guy with small legs; he kind of has the presence of a gray haired droopy eyed water tower. And he talks, and talks, regardless of whether or not you are listening. But his voice. It's such a drawl and sounds like that old cartoon character, maybe that dog that mumbled in a high pitched sad voice. He repeats himself because not enough happens in his life to necessitate so much talking. And sometimes he is saying words but other times it's just a soft vocalization that might have some distant phonetic value. And he bickers with Carl about what staff will be coming in when I leave, and other random crap, like what is for breakfast. But his voice, and I don't know how to communicate this except by capitalizing the word, his voice is ALWAYS going, always making some sound, all night long. And the reason I don't clean this place is the money. I am there over night, which alone should be worth 7.50 an hour, just to watch the place, as far as I am concerned. If they want me to clean, bump it to 9 an hour, if they want me to clean and bathe and watch people; bump it to 10.50 an hour. And since it is my secondary job, I don't mind taking this attitude because I only sort of need it.

And I got no friends. Just a circle of acquaintances I drink with on Thursdays. I got no girl to take care of me. I'll be driving to work illegally in Patcher's old abandoned car now that I have no girlfriend's car to drive. I don't have a television to stare at cuz it belonged to our roommate that moved out. I don't really feel alive anymore. I am uncomfortably numb. I really have nothing. I could have less nothing. But this is probably the most nothing I have had so far in my life. All I've got is an ill conceived list of complaints. Thrown together without much zest.

And I just spent 55 dollars going from the airport to the bus station and then out of the city limits to hitchhike all by cab. I really thought hitchhiking was a great idea at the time. When I saw that the next bus wasn't coming until six at night and I had to be at work at 3. I needed to get about 60 miles up the highway to my town. I stood on the on ramp with my thumb out for an hour and a half. No one flinched or even pretended to stop and then drive off as I came running. Nothing. Statistically speaking no one ever would either. Hitchhiking is so dead. And I used to pick up every hitchhiker I saw. Habitually. Fucking Jack Kerouac. Making me think I could just hitchhike home. I'm so stupid and I make horrible decisions. Now I am sitting in a McDonalds, using the wireless internet, not making it home for work and waiting for no one to come and get me. FUCK!!!

### Chapter 26

I hate when the fucking wireless internet goes out. Now what am I supposed to do with my time? I was going to wait to write this stuff until I could get high and be that much more poetic. I am not sure I can do all the pain any literary justice without being mentally someplace different; in a state of mind that makes the abstract aspects of psychosis a bit more tangible in writing.

Well. At the time I am writing this there is still her blood on my walls. The deep cut across my chest is almost done scabbing and the smaller cuts all over me are sort of healed pink. I think back on the last few months of my life and all I see in my mind's eye is blood. Do you know what it is like to have blood play a major role in the plot of your life? I hope not.

I cried for the first time since Jack died, but even then I had only wept a bit. I cried a lot, for about 40 minutes it wouldn't stop. I hadn't cried like this since the eighth grade- if I recall. The spell came at an unexpected time. Sometimes I think that if I cried in front of Belle I could have changed her mind. So I couldn't help but regret that she wasn't around for the tears. She always bitched at me because I never cried and I always prided(fuck pride) myself on the fact. Simply put: it makes me feel manly that I never cry and feeling manly feels kind of good. Kind of. But, I have to say, that at least for a little while after all the tears and the snot had disappeared I felt sort of alright. Not much better, but at least a little alright.

It happened in the middle of the night. Meila had made plans to hang out with me and some time after I realized she was not coming I got out of bed to piss and only got the few steps to the door of my room when I dropped my head against the wall and felt that strange scrunching of my eyes. At first I thought I was just being superficial and vain with my pain. Then I felt the tears on my cheeks. I was inhaling sharp jagged breaths and I walked back to my futon mattress on the floor. I sat in front of my computer. I put a cigarette in my mouth and couldn't bring myself to light it. I wrote her this e-mail:

What the fuck Belle? I'm fucking crying and I can't fucking stop. It's embarrassing, but no one is around. I can't fucking stop. I can't even light a cigarette. Belle, please come to me. This is so horrible. I don't think I've ever experienced this before. I can't fucking stop. Jesus Christ. I've been praying to god. The Christian lord god. I fucking can't do this. This is all too little to you and too much to me. Why is it like this? You love me. Just be with me. I'll give you space. All the space in the world. I'll move back to CT if you'll just take me back. Why aren't you here right now to see this? You should be here. Why doesn't it stop? It's been like 20 fucking minutes. I need somebody. I can't fucking do this! Oh, god, please. Please. Please. I can't believe this. It's the most awful nightmare. Come back to me. Just please. Come back. Stop rejecting me. I thought you loved me. I have no one else. I am alone with this pain. I have no one in the world. I let my friends go back to CT without me because I had you. I put all my bets on you. Everything I am was tied up in you. This is selfish of you. You have never been selfish before, why now? Why? Please, Belle. Just help me. Help me, please. I can't fucking do this. Without you, I am nothing. Belle, you belong in my arms. Just remember. My only joy in life was loving you. Don't you remember? We fucking love each other. Why am I still crying? It shouldn't last this long. I guess it's all been pent up. Remember the poems I wrote you when I freaked out and moved back to CT? I do. God, I'd do anything. I'll find Jesus. Go to church. There are no atheists in fox holes. I don't want to be pathetic. I just want you. I am a man, Belle. I as much a man as any you know. Don't tell me I am not. I don't want to be together forever. Yes I do. But. I need you. Just be here for me as a friend. I just want to die. I wish I didn't require my legacy in writing. It is the only thing that keeps me alive. But, I don't even know if it's worth it. Patcher told me about how we are the types to eat a bullet over a girl. I just agreed with him. You and I shouldn't be apart. Remember The Smashing Pumpkins' song, 'we should never be apart.' I think the crying stopped. There are still these aftershocks though. Belle, we can make more memories. Our entire relationship we made hardly any memories and I regret that. I've got money again and soon a car. We can do things in the cities. Just remember. We still have a great capacity to love one another. I don't know how this happened. I think it just snowballed and got out of hand. Is there someone else? What explains all of this? I am sorry for the way that I am. And I just need one chance to change. Please give me that. I will change. I know I can. But I need your help. I wanted to write about the breakup, but I don't want to start crying again. I'll end this. Just please remember how much we love one another. And please stop to consider that all the hate you have for me is really just your poor decision to break up manifested. If you decided to be with me again you would not yell at me, and tell me how awful I am, how pathetic I am, and all those things you love to say because they help you justify this to yourself. I know you are in college. And I know you need your space. I know how much you want to be out partying and that is a major part in all of this. Compromise. I understand. Let me change. I don't want to lock myself away anymore. I want to stop wearing black, and I want to do it for you. I love you.

So that should catch you up to what things are like for me. But what now? It was a little over a week ago. The night I held her down by the throat and with my other hand flicked open a pocket knife and just under my left nipple pushed it into my flesh with strength and dragged it through my skin to down by the right side of my belly button- from my point of view. Then another cut less deep on my right side rib cage area, then another above the first one, and another, four more, each laceration exponentially less severe until I weakened myself and looked to see if she understood the pain she was causing me yet. And to my horror I saw she was not focused on me. She was looking at her hand. It was spilling blood, so much of it. And she screamed. At this point my new roommate had just moved in; on her third night she got little sleep do to my ex-girl screaming bloody murder. "You fucking cut me Richie!"; "I fucking hate you!" She got up to go to the sink and she was still screaming. She was getting blood every where. I wasn't sure how I was going to explain the blood to the cops because they had to be on their way at that point. They never came. Which makes me wonder about why nobody called them. I don't want to be too comfortable around screaming girls, you know?

It was about four in the morning when she got home from the party I was thrown out of. She saw what I had done to her room and her things and then the yelling started. In the beginning of the night, well, it all started nicely. My neighbor was having his Thursday night beer pong gathering. She was hugging me and dancing against me. It was all so nice. That girl from the e-mails in the last chapter even told us how cute of a couple we were as Belle stood on my toes to keep her socks off the cold ground while we smoked outside. Then the girls migrated to the house party on the street across the park. I went there later on. When I got there she was so drunk. With spinning eyes she asks me "What the fuck are you doing here?" She tells me to go away because no one wants me there. She is dancing to the rap music of the day. Weeks later when I hear music along those lines- the ever popular MTV rap dance crap that they play at these parties- I think of this moment and get nauseous. She is dancing with some girls around some guys. Some asshole with a stupid goatee and a leather jacket puts his arm around her waist. I remove it and tell him she doesn't need that in her life. Every little while I ask her why she is being that way and she tells me to fuck off.

And right now as I'm writing this, I was about to go for my knife to put another cut in my leg but I started crying again. (Hed) PE is asking Jesus to make everything alright in the song I'm listening to. I call Belle but she doesn't answer. I leave a voice mail and tell her what I'm unwell. She won't call me back. At least after the tears I didn't want to cut my self anymore.

In this recollection she is dancing with other girls around the black guy with dredlocks that I walked there with. He dresses like a white guy, kind of skater style, and has a kind heart. She starts making out with the other girls with tongue. He looks at me and says, "I'll drink to that." And I reply, "I'd rather drink to my mother's death." Seeing the girl I love, the girl I respect for always having class, be another dumb college slut tears me apart inside. Now, weeks later, I cannot watch pornography- every girl I see making out with another girl or getting fucked by some frat guy has my Belle's face. When I think of it, I am overcome by spells of intense nausea and a certain panic. It's fucking awful how she haunts me.

So she keeps dancing. I lose track of her and look for her and find her about a half dozen times. That asshole with the goatee is following her around; stalking. Just waiting for his chance. She is so drunk. Her friends tell me to back off and get over it; one of them slaps me over and over as she is talking. I am smoking a cigarette on the covered porch, looking into the kitchen. I call her cell phone and leave her a message that sounded something like this: "Right now I am watching you dancing with that fucker with the goatee. He has been following you all night and waiting for his chance to get close to you when I'm not around. And now you are dancing and rubbing yourself all over him and you have that fucking look on your face that you get when you are drunk and talking to a guy that is not me and he's about to kiss you..." So I get out of the chair I'm in and go pull him off of her. I say to her, "You have to leave with me now, please, let's go, now!" And I push her through the crowd and towards the door. And she yells, "Leave me the fuck alone!" By then I am being pushed out the door. I look up and see the fucker whose eyebrow I split a couple months before with his fist raised and I say, "You?" My shoe falls off, and in an odd moment of symbolism I slip off the other one, the shoes I first wore on the day I met her. While being thrown out the door I drop my phone. I say to myself, "I am not losing another fucking phone." As I lean to pick up my phone I am pushed to the ground. Someone gets on top of me to hit me and I block my face. I hear a thud and another person that wanted to hit me had hit the person on top of me in the head. I role away from them. My pockets are full of beer cans; I was in no position to fight. I walk home against a backdrop of threats and vocalized testosterone.

The dumbest part is that the entire scuffle could have been avoided if I had my knife to pull on them. Since the time I stabbed that kid I have been carrying a pocket knife with a two and a half inch blade everywhere. It flicks open quick like a switch blade. I have been taking it everywhere in part because honestly, I kind of want to stab someone again. But this fucking night, of all nights, I left it on my dresser. Maybe for the best.

In my apartment I tell my new roommate about what happened out there in all my emotional glory as I punch walls and bang my face into them. I understand autistic people for a moment. She had witnessed the first three quarters of the evening anyway. She sees me take the butcher knife into my Belle's room and I go to town on her pillows. I pour beer over all of her clothes that are hanging up. Then I take the clothes to the tub and run water over them. And after that I marinate in misery for three hours before she comes home. I go to my neighbor's house and ask some girl I've never met if she wants to go upstairs and have sex with me. She says no. They always say no to that. Women.

Belle comes home and then the screaming and the blood happens. Eventually she passes out and we have the best sex of our entire relationship. She wasn't even awake for it. I did everything to her.

The next morning at eleven am she wakes me up and starts yelling at me. Refusing to let me sleep. Just yelling about everything. And then the most spectacular, beautiful, amazing thing I have ever experienced happens. She lets me hug her. And I kiss her and she kisses me back. And we don't have sex but we make love somehow nonetheless. We role around in my bed in the noon sun coming through the windows. Truly in love. We take a shower together and when we get out, I get on my knees and put my head to her stomach and tell her how depressed I am and how much I don't want to go to work and she honestly cared.

A week later she won't talk to me on the phone. She won't come upstairs with me and she has no reason to because she has moved out. She won't spend any time with me at all. She still drives me to work. But will not waver in her attitude toward me. When we do talk she only says really mean things, mostly about how pathetic I am and that I am not a man. She has broken up with me, and no matter how much I try to talk her out of it, she refuses, and I cry. Apparently. Fuck.

Then there is Meila. Well, I was planning to rebound into her, but not in the scummy way- rather, the respectful way you would with someone you actually care about. And then something bogus happened. It became clear that her and Belle have become the best of friends. To the point that I know Meila is telling me lies on Belle's behalf. And what the fuck am I going to do with that? So I readjust my intentions and it becomes clear that Meila is also the only friend I've got from here to South Dakota. And God, I need a friend. And Meila at least somewhat understands me. So she would understand if I ask her to hang out every night even if she can't, or won't, because I just need somebody I can talk to.

I can never hang out with Meila because every weekend she's with my ex. They go to the same parties I mentioned earlier. I fucking despise those things. They are fucking sick. A girl will go to one and if she is at least somewhat attractive she will be treated like royalty because every guy knows that she might fuck one of them. And at these same parties every guy is spit on by every other guy because they get in the way of fucking one of these girls. There is so much humanity involved I could puke. And God does my Beauty love those things. So much so that I consider our conflict of interest in that matter a major factor in her dumping me.

I went to smoke a cigarette and fucking started crying again.

Now here I am.

Earlier tonight I convinced my Belle to come over. I talked to her on an internet messenger and after begging and begging and begging and one suicide threat, she came over. I asked her to stay with me. I told her I would do anything. She was making unrealistic requests and I was saying yes to all of them; quitting smoking, not saying fuckin' every other word, keeping my room clean. I would do anything to get her back. I want to try it all over again. I want to give her space and take her out every week. I would be ok with her going out to parties, just as long as I could get that promise again. The one she always told me but I could never let be enough. When she used to tell me that no matter where she was or what she's doing, she was my girl and no one else's. I would do anything for that promise. She only kissed me for a little while and then left. She told me that if I don't bother her, I will see her in a few days.

Fucking suicide. The only answer that makes sense. My entire life is wrapped up in two things: love and writing. I want so badly to leave my legacy in writing. But with all of this pain? Sometimes, in extreme cases, it seems I am willing to make the sacrifice. That peace of mind in death, I can't imagine how good it would feel. To just leave all this pain behind. I am almost certain I can win her back, and if I can not, I am almost certain I will kill myself.

I can't believe I did this to myself. I created this life of isolation where I have no friends. Friends are so hard to make and harder to keep. All my real friends are not around. If I just had some friends to drink with, this might be ok. Instead I have my bedroom, my pain, the internet (sometimes), and my tears. And work, or I mean, hell. All I want is to curl up and die but instead I get to submerge myself in humanity and feel like shit seven hours a day, five days a week. And then stay up all night every other night.

I have not been eating right. Not that I ever had, but usually when I go a day without eating I am fucking starving the whole time. Not anymore; a day and a half will go by before I even think about food. And the thought that comes is a half-hearted, "Man, I should really eat something." She took my appetite with her. I am sleeping alright though. But the moments before I fall asleep and when I awake are some of the most painful. I think about what she is doing and who she is doing it with and all those ever detrimental thoughts I should avoid.

I got the car Patcher left out here running again and I'm driving it with an illegal plate. So I don't need my ex's car anymore. The car is a Saturn, and Belle is a Capricorn which is the zodiac sign ruled by Saturn. And around this time when she is breaking my heart, the planet Saturn goes retrograde, which astrologically means it appears to be moving away and affects us all as if it were. How fucking convenient? And the orbit of Saturn is not the smallest, so this situation affects a decent span of time. I won't be well anytime soon.

When she first started the process of breaking up with me was most likely when Saturn was on the verge of going retrograde. Saturn will stay retrograde until April 19th 2007. If I had to put a guess on when she will come back to me it would be around that time some five months away. Or maybe I'll have someone new by then. However, being mobile is kind of uplifting to my spirit. Driving has always made me feel better about life. Although it is ruined by the constant looking over my shoulder for the police, with my license plate being from a state fifteen hundred miles away and I am driving an economy car with a screaming racing exhaust on it. But what the fuck am I talking about? There is no upside here anyway.

Her rejection of me is so final. It is so fucking final. And I cannot accept that. One way or another. I cannot accept it. I don't even want to be with her forever. I do, but I will be ok if we are not. I just want the breakup to be harmonious. My time in the Mid-West is coming to an end but not for many months. When I think back to Minnesota I want to think of the girl I loved while I was there. Not the girl that broke my heart and the miserable lonely months that followed. I'll probably think of both events.

So now the next chapter can go one of three ways. 1- Somehow I will get over all of this and something new will be happening. 2- I write a short suicide note before the blood from my wrist shorts out the computer. 3- Belle is back in my life and I am trying to change myself for her. We'll see.

### Chapter 27

So many things help a tiny amount. Nothing can fix the problem totally. Each song I write kills the pain a little. Sort of like a shot of whiskey with your rusty hacksaw amputation. When I scream the lyrics with complete disregard to melody or pitch or harmony, it helps a little. These anti-psychotic medications I stole from the clinic I work in help a little. Patcher's constant reassurance that she is just "some dumb girl," or "she's a cunt," or "she's a dime a dozen," or "she doesn't care about you," helps a little.

I feel the pain of losing Belle so deeply simply because I am a deep person. It's one of a poet's few purposes to feel more intensely than everyone else. Right now I am listening to Jewel, a song called "You Were Meant For Me." I can hear that the pain in her lyrics and vocals are proportionate to her depth as an individual and an artist. Her loss is my loss and is everyone who feels and thinks deeply's loss. It is a passing observation of mine that simple minded people feel in a simple fashion. Persons with complex minds feel in a complex fashion. Under that logic I cannot just move on when someone tells me to. When a normal shmo my age gets dumped these terrible agonies do not happen to him. He says, "Awe, fuck. Oh well. I guess I'll have to find a new girl now." And he moves forward with his life. He doesn't stop eating and obsess about suicide and abandon reality and live in a basement where he shuts out the one tiny window so no light can enter in order to make it easier to ignore the concept of time, thus making moving forward a rhetorical impossibility.

The structure of being in a couple is completely flawed. One can feel so strongly for someone who feels nothing for them in return. And my father always told me life wasn't fair.

I have self-medicated. I only plan on writing two or three pages to update this log, but I also plan on it taking about a week. My brain is in a frying pan, but I just couldn't take reality anymore. The constant depression.... Seeing the world as if it rotated ninety degrees and I am falling through it. Nothing matters and nothing is real. I truly feel that, but I am all too aware that there are things out there that do 'matter.' I owe people money. I have a job and responsibilities. But I don't give a fuck about those things. The one thing that mattered to me is gone and out of my life. So now nothing matters. But even if the pain I feel does not matter, it sure as fuck hurts. I feel it like thumbs in my eyes, and I feel it like a kick it the gut.

The worst part of all this is that I don't quite understand these pills I am on. And, you should know, I have a cunning ability to recognize patterns. I find a drug. I love the drug because it makes me feel better. I take the drug until sooner or later it makes me feel worse. And on the flip side of the drug's period of time in my life I am that much more worse off. My solution to this is to take less than the prescribed dosage. I have noticed that the doctors tend to overdose patients, which, I'm sure, has nothing to do with the drug companies. I understand drugs fairly well. Sort of like how a chef neglects recipes and measuring cups. I really have no need for a doctor's guidance. Just a general idea of the dosage, the milligrams, and the desired effect. And with the internet I can acquire this information that 20 years ago, yes, I would need a doctor to tell me. Don't take it with this, avoid this, don't eat grapefruits.

### Chapter 28

My stolen pills have run out. When I wrote that last blurb I was in Sioux Falls, SD. Going nowhere, feeling only pain, and just accustoming myself to the firsthand effects of a pill called Seroquel.

Seroquel is a drug available through prescription only. It is used in the treatment of bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia. I stole enough to self medicate myself for about exactly a month. And that is what I did. In that month I also moved "home" across the country.

Patcher had been floating around on buses for whatever reason and I convinced him to come settle out in SD. However when he got out there he was incredibly malcontent and as such convinced me to move home to CT. This is something that I said I would never do. But, between being so miserable, and working god awful hours, and having no friends, and being completely abandoned by the girl I love, it seemed a reappraisal of my ideals was in order.

In CT I am again acting like a normal 20 year old. No more work, sleep, work, sleep, work, sleep lifestyle. Instead, I am unemployed, living out of my truck, doing drugs, and partying every night. I planned on moving in with my parents when I got here. But my father was on this 'his house his rules' trip which was way too much to handle. Basically he told me that the only way I could live in his house was if I were subject to a curfew. I haven't had a curfew in five fucking years and I came home to be close to my friends; my friends being people who don't necessarily live by any sort of normal hours. It would have been impossible for me to come home before midnight every night. Not because I didn't want to, because I couldn't. I would have loved to have said, "Yes, Dad. I will be home on time every night." But sure enough, on the first night I am having a good time, I will look at my watch and say to myself, I could go home and stick my thumb up my ass or I can keep getting trashed. So I cut out the middle man. I sleep in my truck in Patcher's parent's driveway.

Fuck my father. Everyday I spend out on the street I resent him a little more. I've gotten a key to the house from my mother so I can go there and eat while he is at work, or I can shower and whatever. But I have to be like a ninja about it all. Tread lightly in every way. And meanwhile there are the drugs. If I had a home I might not be around so many Percocets, so much cocaine, so many Vicodins, and so much Oxycotin.

The great thing about Seroquel was how well it made me cope with the move and my situation. I have never once been able to think about the way my life is going and say, "Shit, fine with me." And yet here in this time most dark, I am happy. I have never been happy. I haven't been dwelling on my ex. I have been able to function in social situations. All sorts of shit like that. To put it simply: Seroquel made the impossible possible.

It started in a clinic in South Dakota. We were working as janitors. And one Friday the medicine cabinets were left open. Patcher hands me a small colorful cardboard package and says, "These ones are for you, man." The package read Seroquel Patient Starter Kit.

The next night I take the pill. 25 milligrams at first until your body works up a tolerance. I felt weird as I looked around at everything, shaking in place. We drank at Lindsey's house and I passed out almost immediately as the liquor and pills mixed in my system. I woke up in my basement apartment and asked Patcher how long I was out for. He told me a couple hours.

The pills make you groggy and lethargic. The nearest thing I can compare them to is those scenes from the movies. Those generic ones where they show a character in a mental hospital. And they hand said character some pills in a little cup. After swallowing the pills the character is groggy, loopy, and loses touch with reality. Those pills in that cup have got to be Seroquel.

I remember the day I made the mistake of taking one directly before work. I was falling all over shit. I had to sit down every five minutes. Ridiculous.

On my second to last day in the clinics the cabinets were once again left open and I stole more Seroquel and some panic pills called Niravam. On my last day in the clinic, two doctors stayed late. The only cabinet left open was the one containing Seroquel. I was clearly being scoped out(surveillanced). As I vacuumed at a piece of sticker stuck in the carpet right in front of the cabinet, a doctor walked by. He had clearly been listening for the moment when I would be making my move. Maybe he even planted the sticker for a sound cue from the vacuum. It was sad, too, I would have liked to have stolen more that day, but it didn't work out. Although, I applaud the doctor's exceptional auditory perception.

The day I left SD was supposed to be the day I went to St. Cloud to visit Belle for a final weekend together before Patcher and I moved on a planned date two weeks later. In retrospect, perhaps if I visited her I could have rebuilt our relationship. Instead we skipped town and headed across the country in my truck.

I did something impossible that day. I had left Belle a message on her cell phone to call me back; when she did I was standing in line getting a sandwich at the mall. I answered and told her that I was leaving the Midwest and would most likely never see her again. The news upset her, but more accurately it shocked her. And it didn't bother me. She had dumped me anyway. Why should it be my problem that we are still madly in love?

So with my new found piece of mind I threw all my shit in the pick up and headed East. I won't even go too far into how that road trip turned out because I plan on writing a short story about it. The long and short of it all being that we hit a blizzard at the Pennsylvania border and I became obsessed with the notion of making it home in a straight shot. I ended up driving straight from the Indiana border home. 21 hours and a million caffeine pills. Patcher could have driven, but I was so wired that not driving didn't make any sense to me at the time. In the short story, we will slip through a void in space and time and be caught in that blizzard, skiing across the roads in my truck, being passed and almost driven off cliffs by tractor trailer trucks, forever. In reality, we are dead in a ditch and that is hell.

In CT, at first, things are better than I had ever imagined they could be. Every night I have some new old friend to hang out with, get drunk with, and get into trouble with. I picked up where I took off exactly two years before. Except now I use the Jadyn's ID to get into bars. His ID picture is identical to what someone would presume a younger me looked like. So we go to bars. I fall in love with karaoke. At karaoke I am a rock star, if only for five minutes. Singing "Killing In The Name Of" by Rage Against The Machine to a crowd, and getting a room full of simple minded townsfolk to chant the most heartfelt cry of a true anarchist I've ever heard, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!." Beautiful.

And then there is the cocaine. And the painkillers. And everyone is 21. And there are girls out here, too. Girls I know from the past. Talk about having an easy time getting laid. Well, I'm sure it would be if the Seroquel had left me with any sort of sex drive. Which it did not. All these little 18 year old hood rats that are aching for any man without a "teen" at the end of his age to suck on their neck and stick his fingers down their pants. Beautiful. I have come to the conclusion that naivety is one very beautiful trait a woman can retain. Because to be naïve is to not be a woman. It is to be a little girl, a child, innocence, not yet the product of a culture that takes purity and lifts it up by the hair and with ravenous teeth goes for the jugular to insure a quick kill. Naivety so beautiful, so fleeting. A girl is only naïve for so long. Lucky for me they have laws in place to keep guys like me away from all of these girls. More fucking laws that scream, "Do what is in your nature, and I will throw you in a fucking hole to rot! And when you come out you will bear the cross of a registered sex offender. We will chew you up and spit you out a freak destined to walk the shadows with your cross. Alone and weary of the judging eyes we have created all around you. We will expose you for the pariah in your heart!" So now my friends and I exist in a series of perpetual countdowns; waiting for the day when the next pretty girl turns eighteen and we have escaped the jaws of the system one last time. Because the jaws are always waiting; we may have escaped them this time, but we can only keep it up for so long, eventually we'll slip up, and when we do the system will be there, ready. And the same goes for drunk driving.

Which brings me to the cones. At one point in time in St. Cloud, Patcher came home drunk, and he had a road cone. He barged into my bedroom as my girl and I lay naked under the covers in bed. He shouted, "I have a cone!" through his cone. And through this cone he went on to tell us about how great both of us are and how drunk he was, all the while shouting through the cone. Then one night some weeks later he and the Jadyn drew on that cone with magic marker. Palm trees, Bob Marley quotes, and atomic symbols, whatever.

I took that cone with me when I left St. Cloud, and again when I left Sioux Falls. I felt having a cone in the bed of my truck gave me a sense of legitimacy in my illegitimate existence. Then it occurred to me that decorating street cones is about the greatest idea for a completely unique art form I have personally heard of in a long time(a little while). So I started stealing cones. And then I decorated them. Considering I am not much of in artist I took to covering them with passionate words of anger and disillusionment, filling in the spaces with doodles. And of course considering that my truck has an empty bed I had a great platform to display my new art. But the sense of legitimacy I once relished in was shattered when I had four cones clearly covered in black magic marker swear words and anarchy signs. And eventually the police took notice.

One drunken night I took the back roads home from a house where we were drinking. The back roads of our area are notorious for not ever having any police on them. And somehow, in the 45 seconds I had to be on a main road between the back roads and Patcher's driveway. A cop was on my ass. I did not even see him until I pulled into Patcher's house. And over my shoulder I look and say, "Is that a fucking cop?" and Patcher says, "Dude, keys out of the ignition now!" I take them out and throw them at him. Then I rush out of the truck as the cop shines his spotlight on me. On instinct I put my hands where he can see them just praying to myself that he won't turn his blue and reds on and draw Patcher's parent's attention. He asks my name, and I say it. I see the look in his eyes as he registers that I had not lied to him. He knows me and I have no idea how. Well, I have some idea. He asks about my out of state plates. I say I just got home. I mumble something about we have to work tomorrow, coming home from our friend's house. The cop mumbles something about updating my registration and drives off. I think to myself, yeah I'll get my uninsured broke homeless ass right on that dickhead.

The pig was clearly waiting for me, no ifs and shits or butts. I had been coming home drunk on that main road for a couple weeks by then, and generally wherever Patcher and I go drunk, we leave a trail of destruction. A broken bottle at this gas station, a stolen cone, a witness that saw a coned white truck doing well over a hundred past his house at 2 AM. Then there is Patcher's new temporarily underage love interest whose father is a cop the next town over, who on top of that, Patcher has had a drunken run-in with in the past. Couple that with my god damn sexual predator rep (I'll get into that later, maybe) in this fucking town; and the angles are enough to drive you nuts with paranoia. Was it just chance? Am I actually being staked out? In which case, I need to chill the fuck out. So many fucking angles.

It all comes back to anarchy. Give me a choice between a life under my father's rules or the street and I will invariably take the street. If I want to fuck a god damned 16 year old, motherfucker, I'll drive a state over to do it. No one is going to tell me how to live my life, and if they do I am not going to listen. This includes the man, the system, and all of its laws. And I am not so delusional as to see that this way of life only ends in jail. If I want to live this way, I have to come to terms with the fact that jail is where I will end up as a result. And I have. Do you know how much writing I can get done in prison? I'd come out of there after four or six years with about as much literature in my portfolio as I would make in about 15 years struggling with society's bullshit.

Unemployment in my town is a lifestyle. An uphill battle. The overpopulated broken economy of the East Coast makes getting a job difficult. Day after day it's a struggle. Just gotta find someway to make money. Everyday. I need gas to go see my friends and drink their liquor or rock out or give someone a ride for nothing in return. I need cigarettes so I can give them all away to my friends when all I want is to save them and make them last as long as possible. I need to buy beer every night. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I need to buy a thirty rack so the people around me can have a good time as well. Each night I hope the beer will last until the next night, when in reality I know it will be gone before I'm drunk.

A lot of the beer comes from my mother and the money she gives me. But she has so much debt to pay off that she is essentially as broke as I am. God bless her though, I can still milk a certain amount of cash from her every week.

Aside from that, communism is a major facet of the lifestyle. When one of us has, we share. That goes for me and my close friends; mostly Patcher and the Jadyn.

However, lately I have been less than satisfied with their level of participation, or rather their level of having. It seems like I have to hustle more to reap fewer benefits because of what is taken from me. But this is the life I lead. And it won't matter anymore; Patcher has found work with another close friend of ours, Polish. They found work at the same place; doing labor and grounds keeping at a campground. The Jadyn always has a job, but he is in college and doesn't work enough hours except to take care of his bare minimum necessities until his next check. And my other friends never have fucking cigarettes. Getting cigarettes is the biggest motherfucker of all because I fucking need them. Gas, I can live without, if I don't have it I just don't go anywhere. But I need my fucking cigarettes. And everywhere I go, people ask for one, or 4, from me. Why is everyone as broke as me, that they can't have their own cigarettes? Especially when they all have fucking jobs. Don't they realize that I need these fucking things and I have no idea how I'll get more after they smoke all of them for me.

And starving. I learned how to starve in Sioux Falls. I really understand starving. Hunger pains aren't even real to me. I don't feel the pain because I am so god damned used to it. Starving works like this: get to the point where there is nothing in your stomach. It might hurt, but if you are actually starving you will be more concerned about how to get something to eat than the pain you feel. Find a banana(or something similar) and eat it; feel it revive your body, and pay attention for the moment when your body has used up all the sustenance in that one banana(you'll know because your hunger will return) and eat another banana, or an apple, or whatever you can find and wait and feel for it. Now do it with every small amount of food you can get your hands on. A handful of pretzels, a single slice of lunch meat, two mini candy bars, whatever. And when you get the opportunity to gorge yourself, do it. For me, that means whenever I can get to my parent's house, or maybe when I have an extra four dollars for the fast food dollar menu and a cup of free water. Or maybe some random older person offers me a hot meal. Wherever you can get it. And of course, when push comes to shove, find the nearest 24 hour grocery store with the fewest cameras and steel a package of salami and a block of cheddar cheese. Dunkin Donuts throws away at least 10 pounds of donut each night. And in this fashion, I manage to not to die of starvation. I don't know how healthy I am and I'm kind of skinny like a crack head, but I've never really been even remotely fat anyhow.

So that covers food. It doesn't really cost much. Like I may have said, my expenses consist of, in order of importance; cigarettes, gas, and booze. Definitely an alcoholic again. I wake up and drink, drink all day, and then drink all night. When I can anyway. I assume that at this point if I wanted to stop I couldn't. But it's not like I drink in the day to get drunk. I mostly do it to dull the pain. Ya know?

Everyday is a challenge to get money. Sometimes I can get a little money for cleaning up someone's yard, and if not money, then at least some hot food. I found a hose and learned how to siphon gas. Find three targets within a couple miles of each other. Old trucks shrouded in woods work great. Park down the road, and put your hose and your water and your soap and your towel in a clothe bag. Carry the gas can in the other hand. Look over your shoulder as you walk to your target. I'm pretty good at it, but no one ever told me how corrosive gas is. That shit gets on your face and welcome to a chemical burn. So say you want 15 gallons. You have to get the siphon going and wait to fill your five gallons. All the while pouring water on your face and soaping it and wiping to dull the burn until it goes away. I haven't yet figured out what will work better than water on the face burns. Maybe milk? But now you've got that five gallons and you throw it in the truck. Onto the next five. This time when you burn your face, you are burning over an old burn. Not good. You've got that next five. You use the soap more and more, but your face is sore now. At the last five gallons you will be burning a twice burned burn. Even after you clean it over and over that pain will be with you all night long.

Or, get the 1000watt power amplifier you used to have hooked up and love, but now just collects dust. And grab those Polk Audio car speakers that amp used to supply power to. Throw them in the Gucci bag your sister once bought two grand worth of clothes in. And take that shit down to the pawn shop for the guy to tell you that they don't accept car audio equipment. Then find the first Puerto Rican standing around in the newly warm weather. Ask him if he wants to buy it. He won't, but he'll know someone who does. He'll take you to the local barber shop, and put you in touch with the barber with the fucked up face, maybe a burn victim, maybe not. He makes a call. The buyer is at work. Leave your phone number and wait for a call that never comes. Go back the next day. Feel awkward for a moment, being a white boy in a Puerto Rican barber shop, while the guy with the face calls the buyer. Ask for $35. Another guy who had been listening asks if you're serious, you tell him yes, he takes the phone out of the other guys hand and hangs it up and tells you to go get the stuff. He pays you and now you've got 20 dollars for gas, five for cigarettes, and the rest for a bottle of vodka.

And it's that kind of shit I do everyday to get by. And all the while I am applying for these jobs that never call me back. And soon my friends who last week were just as unemployed as I am will be giving me shit about not working. When I am trying to get a job just as hard as they had to in order to get theirs. That is why I drink all day long.

Now time is slip, slip, slipping, into the future. I've got so many projects I want to begin. So much has happened and I want to get it all out. But I cannot bother myself with this log right now. At least not for a while. I already have the next major chapter of this written, and I promise it's a good one; I just have to type it up. But everything I had to say in this chapter while it was a work in progress all seems like it took place so long ago that it just does not mean shit to me anymore.

Looking back on the time in my life all this pertains to, I think this blurb to follow, that I wrote last night, will explain how I feel about it all from a couple months down the line. Things I know now, that I knew then, but couldn't really grasp. The time was not right. And after the blurb I will touch on a few thoughts, but then I've really got to start this story I want to write.

### Chapter 29

There was a time, when I thought life was hard. I no longer feel that way. I now perceive life in this society to be a complete impossibility. Too many chances to be arrested means too many opportunities to become a criminal. Too many fines are stealing the money I need, and don't have, to get ahead. They built the foundation with cash. And over time people kept going back to the stash and now nothings left. Collapse. The rich need more money. The middle class. Taking everything from the middle class. The money they bleed for. The rich are making the middle class poor, exterminating us it feels like, and keeping the remainder for themselves. The profits. People are going to snap. I promise you that. I just want to stay away from it. Make sure I am alive and ok. I don't even want to work anymore. So disillusioned by money, it's all so pointless. I don't give a fuck. I just want to find a balance. A way to get away from this. But still continue to exist. It has nothing to do with conforming. More, being comfortable with not conforming. More accurately, surviving without conforming. One of the biggest concerns of mine, are those, all those, who will never understand. In my eyes, the path I've chosen is no more or less treacherous than the path the system has already laid for me and my generation.

Nothing other than what occurs naturally/ Will ever be real/ At least not to me

I cannot find a handhold in your craggy way of life/ If it can be called that/ Which it cannot/ Non life is more like it

Stop arresting me/ Stop taxing me/ Stop bothering me/ Just let me be/ Please

Nothing matters to me/ And I am left to realize;/ For that,/ They'll arrest me

And that doesn't bother me/ If they really must/ So shall it be

Warrants/ The threat of/ Unwarranted

No more will I submit/ And so I submit/ To this decision's reality/ Sadly

Now every moment is better than the last/ The (new) girl I love/ Is greater than all else

And nature/ You hold my soul/ And nurse my broken spirit

Man is so evil/ Everything we create/ As a rule of thumb/ I stay away from

Give me my girl/ And the natural world/ And an hour glass/ Counting down/ Until it all catches up

So now this log is all out of whack. It will come together sooner or later.

I've got a new girl. Rachelle. It's not the one I talk about in the next chapter. That girl turns out to be nothing(or Patcher's something). Whoever she was... This girl is really something else. First off, the fact that she is a Scorpio has convinced me that she is a gift from my dead scorpion, or from god. Because I really love scorpions. And from owning one in the past, and spending time with this girl now, the similarities are staggering to my mind. She warmed up to me in the same way Merlot did; apprehensive and nervous at first and over time a certain comfort and trust grew between us and then it was all just as good as it is going to be. Which is great.

And with Rachelle, I experience harmony. As of this moment we have only been dating for two weeks. But she blows my mind. Mostly because she is so much like me it's not even funny. Not even a little. Because no one ever thought there would ever be someone else like me, including me. But she thought the same thing about herself. And we are so much alike it kind of creeps us out sometimes. We're both hippies. We both like drinking blood. And our general temperaments are so similar it's just undeniable. She really saved me in some ways. I needed her in my life. She's a perfect 5'5". I could stare into her eyes until I died of starvation. The chemistry is there. She is gorgeous and precious and looks great in a bathing suit. Her eyes are shaped like sideways tear drops with the point going outward, which I find amazing. She's awesome. That's a fact. And right now she is so new to me that I cannot even imagine all the good things to come.

And it won't be like it was with Belle. She won't put her education before me. She won't neglect me; so long as I respect her boundaries. She isn't going to cheat on me (99% sure, at least). She won't treat me like a monster and criticize every little thing. She won't get drunk and flirt with other guys (she doesn't drink at all). She is so good for me. She destroyed my depression. She is perfect for me.

She is the kind of girl who you would picture as having a boyfriend who lives in a truck. Being so alike, we understand one another on a level I never thought possible. With her I am not ashamed to live in a truck. And if I have a girl willing to love me, then I really don't give a fuck what anyone else thinks about me living in a truck. It's nice out- I sure as hell don't mind. I've got to figure something out for when the summer ends but I've got plenty of time.

I love Rachelle's smile. I love Rachelle's style. I love the music Rachelle listens to. And I love the culture Rachelle's into. I love the way Rachelle's constantly high. And I love the way Rachelle's always on the fly (not really, but she is). Rachelle is perfect in my eyes.

On another note. When I used to care, I was planning on making about two pages from the second of these two stories, but now I only feel I should mention it. I've burned a lot of bridges in a quick amount of time here. At the time it bothered me, but now I don't even care.

There is one house of a close- albeit pompous dickhead- friend of mine. The place with the kindest lady in the world who used to let us stay there if we did chores. My coke head friend. I can't go there any more. Because one night we were going to box and to warm up we were sparing in the basement with our respective "trainers." Well, I went to throw an uppercut and I clipped his glass bong, which flew in the air and came down on his glass table. Both items broke and now he wants money. He knows I'm broke, but he'll get over it. Maybe I'll give him 20$ when I can, and maybe not. The long and short of it is I can't go there for a while.

Then there is this one click. I call them the good kids. A long time ago, I threw a party in the pit and there was a girl, named Heather, with whom I discovered I had amazing chemistry with at that party. We were dancing and licking each other. She had just graduated top of her high school class and I guess was also just discovering boys. I couldn't be with her that night because there was another girl I had to attend to. And two days later I heard that she was walked in on covered in her current boyfriend's cum. They have been together since. The whole time I was away and everything. The boyfriend is one of the good kids.

Then I come home and see her at a party. The chemistry is still there. I find myself whispering sweet nothings to her and then telling her to go hangout with her boyfriend. But she won't leave me alone and she's hanging all over me. So I bring this up to her boyfriend and he's like, "Yeah, she's a fucking whore." And at that point I was like, to myself, if you're going to be like that, and call the girl a whore, then I guess it's alright if I treat her like a whore. But that wasn't my intention, I actually wanted to steal her and treat her better than a whore. This was before Rachelle.

So we start talking over the internet. Heather is away at college and we make plans to hang out that weekend when she returns. The weekend rolls around and I receive a call from her and she says she's hanging out with her boyfriend. I don't see her. Another weekend. Same story. But as the time goes on our desire is building to a head, like a great volcano about to destroy the peace in our little town. And after four weekends it finally explodes.

I am with the girl from the next chapter drinking at an old friend's house a ways away. The Jadyn is designated driving, but we leave to go to this other party the girl of topic told us about over Patcher's phone. I get a ride to my truck and bring Angela home while everyone goes to the party.

At the party she is asking Patcher if I'm coming, when I'll be coming (later), and all that. So when I finally do get there, and park a little down the street; I don't even get to the driveway before she rushes up to me, leaving her boyfriend behind. We start making out before we even exchange words. I immediately think, fuck this, I am getting this chick out of here. I see her boyfriend in the distance, in the shadows, and tell her to get in my truck quick. She does and we take off into the night.

I go to a deserted dirt road in the woods, and we have sex and lay around naked as a thunderstorm that started after we parked roars around us. Somewhere in this same thunderstorm, her boyfriend drives all over our area frantically searching for us, not finding us.

It's a rainy grey morning as it gets light out and she passes out next to me on my big bench seat. Around 10 am, we walk into Patcher's folk's house and start a movie, when Heather gets the call from her very upset boyfriend. He had shattered her windshield and thrown her purse that was in his car into a lake.

Drama ensues. Patcher reports that all the good kids want me dead. And I'm like, yeah, so, that's cool. Her boyfriend for one thing is a complete pussy and if he wants to fight, that's his right; I'll just kick the shit out of him. He's got some big friends though. Lucky for me there was a few weekday parties that following week where I saw all his friends and they made it clear, in so few words, that my issue was not with them, just the boyfriend.

All week I talk to the girl. The boyfriend is calling her crying everyday, and she is looking forward to being with me the next weekend. Which I find strange because no one ever ends a serious relationship at the drop of a hat. It's a process, ya know? And up until the moment she's about to get picked up from school and come home, she is talking to me about how she can't wait to see me. That night, Heather blows me off, and her cousin tells me that the two got back together. I wasn't all that shocked.

I still give that kid the respect of staying clear of the bar he drinks at and I don't go to the good kid parties. That doesn't bother me; not missing out on too much- I can usually find something else to do. But the boyfriend's best friend is also a good friend of mine and has written me off completely- won't even talk to me. I think it's lame, but that's his prerogative. He's dead to me.

I would feel bad about fucking this kid's girl. But I've lived through my girlfriend getting fucked by everyone and their brother in the past, when I was 17, and no one felt bad for me. Well, Patcher might have. And eventually I got over it. I really think it's part of being a man. Most men have had their girl fucked by someone else somewhere along the line. He should be happy that it was only once.

And I was really hoping to steal Heather. But he kept her. So it could have been worse for him. I had prepared to be hated by that crew, because I thought I would gain the chick. There is no such thing as a sure thing and this is a good example of that.

The most relevant thing that can be said about my return to CT, is that it was a fucking trip. In so many ways, I've gotten into a lot of trouble since I've been back. And my life is pretty fucked at this point. But I have a new girlfriend now. And that is apparently all I give a shit about. She is the key to my future. Nothing matters except her.

Aint it funny

How the factory doors close

Round the time

That the school doors close

Round the time

That the jaws of the jail cell

Open up to greet you

Like the reaper

-

Rage Against the Machine

### Chapter 30

The most valuable sheet of paper I have ever written on. The most valuable pencil I have ever sharpened. Here in prison the conversation flows like the water from our cell faucet; a choppy thin trickle to full flowing bursts and back again. Some folks are hard to understand but they might be worth listening to. I don't know yet.

This place is a head-trip for sure. Giving up cigarettes, fresh air, alcohol, and the company of women, all in one motion.

Those blue and red lights illuminate the reality of everything real quick; in that moment you know you are fucked. How ironic they're so pretty... The sight of your freedom being torn away from you like so many husbands from wives in revolutionary Africa. The world of blues and reds so surreal as the officer leads you to the police car.

How reflective I felt as I heard the entirety of the song "Short Stories With Tragic Endings" while the cop interrogated my companions. I've never even heard that song on the radio before. And eventually you get that great conversation on the ride to the station. Your special little moment with the arresting officer. The left over vibes from your initial cries of condemnation as he made the arrest.

You tell him about how badly he has just fucked your life up. And he says that he is saving lives. All it really comes down to is that you hate him more than you have hated any man before, and he really doesn't give a shit about you. He calls me "bro," and I tell him not to. I tell him how it is an insult. He's not my brother. He is just a fucking pig. Like all the other fucking pigs. He lost the right to call me "bro" the moment he put that badge on. Because the fact is; he is up there and I am down here. I am in prison and he is out looking for my next cell mate. Or fucking his pig wife.

They pulled me over as I was leaving the 711. I wanted a Slurpee. My buddy, J-Mac, wanted a night on the town. A Tuesday night on the town. This new love interest of mine- by the name of Angela- sat between us in my white GMC. She had a warrant for her arrest and in this cell, with no way of knowing, I hope she is doing Ok.

It was one night like every other night since I've been back in CT. I was drinking 40 ounce malt liquor bottles and blowing Vicodin. J-Mac had stolen a bottle of wine from his grandmother. And Angela is just hanging out with us, drinking. There was nothing else to do. It was a Tuesday.

So there we were, in a gritty garage with a boom box, floodlights, and some milk crates to sit on. Getting real personal, talking about our respective problems. J-Mac talks the most. Having of course the most problems, which may or may not be mine to discuss here.

I have been trying to get with this girl for weeks now. Patcher brought her to a party in the pit one night. We were all doing coke in the cars and getting drunk around a bonfire. People were coming and immediately going when they realized it was just a bunch of coke heads cheesing. That was fine. We all enjoyed ourselves regardless.

My first impression of Angela was that she was a complete airhead, strictly because of the way she talks. Like a valley girl her inflections get higher in pitch as she speaks and she ends every sentence as if it were a question when it's really not. But that didn't matter. Any new female that comes around is just a piece of ass to begin with. Otherwise they are probably ignored, until they can make that leap over to the land of good company. Something not many unattractive girls can manage. If that makes any sense. It didn't matter, for she was not unattractive.

And all the while this party was going on, I'm thinking, "Yeah. I'd like to get with her, but so would these two other motherfuckers and I don't feel like competing for some airhead bitch."

Everything winds down to a bunch of hippies playing acoustic guitar until the allotted time for the pit runs out and we've all got to leave. Considering how yipped we all were, I felt it the responsibility of the cocaine provider to keep that party going. And considering he was into Angela, and his pregnant girlfriend was away for the night, he obliged.

We hit his peaceful home like a cocaine tornado; waking up the woman of the house (his ever forgiving stepmother) before we ever even got through the door. After this initial entry everything is kind of a blur. I remember rambling on about how good I was feeling to anyone who would listen. Patcher fell head over heels down a flight of stairs. It was the most frightening moment of hilarity I have ever witnessed, or the most hilarious moment of fear. I was freaking out and cracking up at the same time. And very relieved to see him lift his head and look around. You could tell he was pretty shook up after that. He got quiet and distant like traumatized people tend to do.

Meanwhile, in pool table basement on this typically fucked up night, I doze off on a brown leather love seat and wake up to our Polish friend, who wasn't around before, standing over me asking what the fuck that smell was. I look around. The cocaine supplier is sleeping on the pool table surrounded by beer cans. Polish is still asking what that smell is and I assure him that it is not me, or at least that I don't think it is. He says, "No, I believe you." And I look across the room at the water bed and see the lump of Angela and the Jadyn under a blanket.

In the morning I drove her home in our supplier's car. Ok. Our supplier should have a name. Call him Steve. I drove her home, just down the road, in Steve's car. And I do not recall exactly how it all came together. I know I had wanted to be around her, because I kind of liked her. And she wanted to be around us because we were always getting fucked up. And over the next week and weekend we ended up spending a lot of time together. And at that time I was trying to get into her pants, but it wasn't working out that way. Call it the friend zone and that is how one falls into it. The landing is rough and slow like landing on a gradual decline of asphalt. And you struggle against it, clawing away at a force powerful like gravity; a decidedly uninterested woman.

Even though we went nowhere romantically, a strong bond formed between us. It was her energy that hooked me. Something about her vibe felt so natural and familiar to me. And it all came together when I realized what her sign was Capricorn. Belle's sign.

The most Beautiful sign I had ever known to date. Suddenly I find myself defending her when Polish calls her Stankpuss. Fighting for her honor, so to speak. And chuckling a little, too...

It's hard to find someone with the same intensity as myself, but she's got it. She is not stupid, she is not naïve, she's got fantastic taste in music. And what it all really comes down to is that I can see in her eyes the same pain that she sees in mine. Thus I empathize with her. I feel so deeply a desire to treat her better than any man has ever treated her. To show her a new dimension of happiness. And while I am discovering these feelings for her I am mercilessly being verbally accosted by my friends. "Richie thinks he's gunna fuck her." "She's using him and he's not even getting ass." It doesn't make sense to them that I can love this girl without fucking her. That there is such a thing as platonic friendship. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to fuck her. Not because she is short. Not because she is sexy. Not because I love her. Maybe because she is Italian. Dark skin and dark hair, she's got the voice and she's even got the mannerisms. The tenderness and hostility Italian women can so easily mix together in a single moment. That is such a turn on to me. Italian is the only trace of ethnicity I can see when I look in a mirror( I have seven other very white ethnicities in me). I see Italian in my Guido mustache or the muzzled baby face I get after I've shaved.

I mostly dig Italians because their culture is so reminiscent of my boyhood days spent in Staten Island. All the New York pizzerias and the grown men hanging around outside of pork stores. My little link to the mafia movies I love so much. So I really wanted to be with this girl.

Up to a point I really did not think it was going to happen. Until that night when she told me her secret. I really wasn't going to write it in here, but I think it is important to. I changed her name and I can take it out if she doesn't agree with it. But when she told me, the night I got arrested, that she had cervical cancer, my heart dropped twice. First because the girl I love is going to die younger than she should, and second when I realized that cervical cancer meant something else. That she could never have children, or more specifically, she could never have my child. Supposedly. Presumably. And it broke my heart.

After she told me about her illness I just wanted to get J-Mac home. I needed to talk to her alone, without him constantly interrupting to insist that his less severe problems are more severe. Cancer beats problems with the law anyday(if it's actually cancer. There is a pandemic of misdiagnosis related to cervical cancer and I actually think she'll be fine). I needed to tell her that no matter what I would be there for her. That I love her and that I care about her. I needed to tell her so many things. I needed to talk until I made her feel better than she had ever felt before.

I brought J-Mac home to his grandmother's and he tells us to wait in the truck and jumps out before I could protest. And when he comes back out he gets back in with a 50 dollar bill from his grandmother's purse. My eyes widened with a survival instinct stemming from my poverty. There was gas money in that bill. And when you are living in your truck, gas money means a lot.

Now, even though I had had a prior agenda, and even though I, for once, wanted nothing to do with anything other than winding down the night- we took off through the forest, me behind the wheel. Dark windy wet midnight roads in the dead of spring in New England. Familiar roads. This was the way to Norwich. The town where I lost my virginity, and subsequently my mind, at the hands of my first real ex-girlfriend.

I slowed the truck down through a town called Occum. And if you are from around here you should know not to go through Occum drunk, and never forget that Occum rhymes with Fuck em'. And I entered an eerie residential strip that I would not drive away from. The houses are all shaped alike. The same distances rest between them. All decrepit. And all different ugly pastel colors. As if they were owned by one man with one contractor and they both had bad taste.

And at the end of this Easter basket neighborhood is the 711 and across from the 711 is the on-ramp to the interstate. I gas up the truck with J-Mac's money, get us both a pack of cigarettes, and get myself a slurpee.

In the sweet green citrus slush I find vindication. If any other one thing has been making me as happy for as long, I cannot think of it. Standing there pumping gas with one hand and drinking the slurpee with the other, I forget about our plans. How Angela wants to go one way, how J-Mac wants to go the other, and how I want to go home. I am lost. Alone. In a warm moist grey void where there is no-one else. No gas station or gas pump. And there is certainly no squad car coming in my direction. Brain freeze.

The pump jerks finished and I hang it up. The truck smells of wine. At the road J-Mac is saying to get on the highway. Angela is shouting over him not to. She doesn't want to go to the casino because she'll be working there soon. As if at the biggest casino in the world, in the middle of a Tuesday night, they'll notice some drunken girl who hasn't even started yet. I take a left and the two are shouting over each other at me. I'm confused as shit and I pull into a closed gas station a short distance down the road to turn around. A cop drives by and I take a right behind him to go home the way I came.

Past the 711 I saw the red and blue lights on those pastel houses and it took a moment to hit me. Slow reaction time. Fuck. That little glimmer of hope was there that I could get out of the situation. I think that hope was there every time I've ever had to deal with the fuzz. Maybe fear would have been more useful. I wouldn't know. I occasionally can get out of trouble with the police. Except when I'm drunk. Was I drunk? I think yes. There is a line between drunk and in control and drunk and out of control, and I know myself well enough to know I had not crossed it.

In the Norwich precinct I am not being cooperative. Not as uncooperative as I have been in the past, but nonetheless. Getting out of the car the pig tells me to put the cuffs back the way they were. I had taken them from behind my back, and put my legs through my arms, so my hands could rest on my lap. This was also one more small token of my defiance. I tell him no, and that I could wait in that backseat all night. He gives and redoes them for me.

Throughout the booking process a lot of hazy arguing takes place. Some fat pig picks up my confiscated shoes with a pen from the counter. He is the first person I have ever met with a CT accent. It's hard to describe; sort of like a Boston, RI, and NY accent all rolled into one. And of course he had the cocky attitude of a pigshitdickface.

"Look. This kids got homo shoes," he says, regarding my black converse with red thread and red fabric painted words from girls of the past.

This led to a lot of name calling back and forth between us, "You're a homo." "No, you're a homo." "You're a fat pig and your wife doesn't love you anymore."

There is a Rose on the pig's sleeve. Norwich; "New England's Rose." "You've got a rose on your sleeve. You must love Rose's" His arrogant American pride shifts into high gear.

"Damn right I love Roses," he said.

"I bet you love them so much. I bet your last name is Rose."

"Damn right my last name is Rose."

"Well if that's not the gayest shit I've ever heard. What kind of homos last name is Rose? That is so fucking gay!"

The cop taking my information chuckles. And in this midst of whatever the fat cops retort was, this officer says, "Chief. Chief. Hey, this kids last name is Rose."

I see the chief's eyes roll and he drops the subject. I return my attention to the booking officer. More noncooperation on my part and a nice mug shot with a gloved hand cocking my protesting skull into place. I refused to take a breathalyzer. Thinking I heard somewhere that without that reading they can't really get a conviction. Turns out, I shouldn't have taken the field sobriety and kept my mouth shut. Then the technicality may have had a shot.

They give me a very unnecessary strip search and for some reason throw my socks away. And they're calling me a homo. They wanted to see me naked so badly... I am put in a holding cell to shiver the night away cold and uncomfortable. It wasn't the first time. I should really break these habits.

Before the arresting officer's shift change he pulls me out of the cell. No longer drunk, I cooperate. We take a nicer photo; one without a glove holding my head in place.

Then he lays out my charges. Driving under the influence, obvious. Illegal use of headlights. That one was a little fucked up. It should have been illegal lack of use of headlights. This was of course the reason I was pulled over. I do that shit all the time when I'm sober. I had just put gas in and had turned the lights off first. It was a lighted area so I could see just fine and never had the chance to turn them back on. Which makes me wish I had listened to J-Mac and gotten on the highway. But it's too late for that. Possession of alcohol by a minor. It wasn't in a minor's hands. I guess because it was in a minor's truck.

What really pissed me off was this: two felony charges. Possession of an illegal weapon and possession of an illegal weapon in a motor vehicle. It was a fucking pocket knife. I got it in South Dakota at the mall for ten dollars. Just a centimeter over the width of my palm, but that standard of measure seems kind of vague. What if someone has really big hands? Big dick? I guess. It was on my dashboard. And it was the chintziest knife you can imagine. It would break apart before it broke anyone's skin. And they want to make me a felon over that. The kind of thing you have to mention on job applications to get immediately disqualified. The kind of charge that comes with jail time.

The other thing about jail time is this DUI. This may or may not be my third arrest for driving under the influence and as such may or may not be an automatic year behind bars. It may be my first and I'll walk. It all depends on if they count the first two I got when I was under 18. And I won't know this until I get sentenced. Well, I would know if I had any kind of access to the public defender I am legally and rightfully entitled to. From what I can gather criminals have no rights and we sure as fuck have no access to information. Normally I would say no big deal. But! If they create such a fucked up system, where everything is black and white, and you're treated like less than human, they should at least come through on the one promise they've made you. Or at least not make the promise at all. That would make more sense.

In jail, getting any service rendered to you is a matter of putting a request into a box that no one checks and your request never gets acquiesced. I've got my mom on the outside though, and last I heard, on my one phone call, which I think I was supposed to be calling a lawyer with, she couldn't reach anyone or figure anything out. Not surprising; it's the same system my mother and I are struggling with and we've got the same goal. The fact that I'm on the inside and she's on the outside by no means alters the system fundamentally.

Either way, that Wednesday was rough. They took me to court right off the jump. One of the benefits of drinking on weekdays. I was thrown into a paddy wagon with some middle aged guy. Polo shirt tucked into khaki shorts and leather sandals guy. He got pulled over on his way to one of the casinos out there. I developed mixed feelings toward this guy. On the one hand, having just been picked up by the fuzz, he was sensitive to my hatred of the 'man.' On the other hand he was a complete dork and he talked way too much while we were in the cell.

We're locked up at the courthouse with two drug dealing gangsters.

I'm trying to listen to them talk about gangster shit and this dorky guy keeps butting in with his goofy suburban two cents and fucking up the flow of conversation right when I'm most interested in what the gangsters are saying. At that time I had no way of knowing how much gangster shit I was really in for.

In the end I guess I felt bad for the guy. He was a typical 21st century male. Wife left him. Daughter won't speak to him. Son won't listen to him. He's got bills to pay but he can't get to work because he's getting a DUI instead.

And court was lame, too. Sit in the holding cell with these chains around your ankles. The guard lets you out and takes you to another room where you get locked in. Door locks are becoming commonplace by that point. You pick up the phone and talk to the woman behind the glass. Yes, I'm unemployed. Yeah, I live in my truck. I'm off my medication and I have severe psychological issues. Wait. I don't want to answer your fucking questions anymore.

You are taken out into the courtroom so the judge can read you some rights way too quickly for anyone to actually process the words. And they throw you back in the cell with the two gangsters and the old man down on his luck. They push bags of bologna sandwiches through the bars. Bologna, cheese, bread. No one wants theirs and I hadn't eaten in about thirty hours so I filled up on those things. Cartons of orange splash; 10 percent juice and 90 percent battery acid. We wait all day for the cases to wind down until they deal with us. They cuff me to a gangster and take us out in front of the judge. I see my mom out in the seats and she mouths, "dumbass" with that loving smile she has had since I was born. No trace of surprise or disappointment on her face.

Some woman tells the judge about my case in a nutshell. A little about my criminal history during which she references "an incident" that took place in Madison, WI. And my assistant district attorney friend there had told me that that would disappear. I guess by disappear he meant become vague. She tells him about the weapon, and how I hadn't had my lights on. No one mentions that it was a lighted area and I had just left the gas station. The woman recommends my bond be raised from 2500 dollars to 7500 dollars. Bitch. And I thought she was the nice one. Some tall lanky grey haired man in a suit that resembles brown carpet thrown over a coat hanger (I can't be the first writer to use that analogy about a lawyer), chimes in that considering my limited assets my bond should be dropped to 1500 dollars. Turns out that guy is my lawyer. I like him. The judge sets my bail at 5000. And I am led back to the holding cell. On the way out of the courtroom I mouth to my mother, "Bail me out." I think she mouthed back, "Call me." As if I could do that.

It was right around that time that I learned what a bail bondsman does. I guess, with any bond, say 100,000 dollars, you or someone pay him 10% to post the whole thing. And when you show up to court he gets his hundred grand back and makes the 10%. Or doesn't make the ten percent? If he does, that is a lucrative business. If not, where's the money in it? He must keep the 10. Though, I think that the criminal might get it back. If you don't show up to court he'll have you hunted down like a dog by some bounty hunter. Maybe the money for the bounty hunter comes out of what the bail bondsman gets back from the court when he provides the suspect. In which case, let him hire a bounty hunter. Something tells me those court type people don't often let money fall through any cracks.

In the holding cell I reflect on the way everything had gone down. I take into consideration that for the past month my folks have been reconsolidating their mortgage and bitching to each other about the debt they were sinking into like some sort of quicksand. It was a safe guess that they didn't have the $500 to bail me out. And even if they did, I wasn't sure that I'd want them to. I would never hear the end of it from my father. And in that cell, with the gangsters, I realized that I was going to be doing some kind of time. It could be three days, or two weeks, or a year, or six months.

I get assigned my next court date; it's in six days from this night as I write. This Saturday night I am sitting and writing no different from any of the eleven nights I have already spent here.

In the courthouse I watched the white dorky man, and the tall skinny tattooed gangster with the short nappy hair get bonded out. Along with a cute little punk rock girl with pink hair. Clearly there for shoplifting. I daydreamed of slipping her my phone number through the bars. Though there was nothing out of the ordinary to inspire such an extraordinary event.

The other gangster from court just walked past me and put his hand on my sheet of paper. He was in segregation for a while but now he is back in with the general population.

From court I got thrown into a paddy wagon with about a dozen other criminals. In that paddy wagon I realized exactly what jail was going to be like: a whole lot of people who know nothing about the law talking about the law. I get a glimpse of a town I've got some history with; Norwich, CT; the Rose of Connecticut.

My first serious girlfriend, a complete lunatic and now a mother, resides there. I haven't seen the town in three and a half years. Then, I'm peering at it through the polka dot eye holes of the paddy wagon.

When we arrive at Corrigan Prison I am surprised at how completely unsurprising it is. A lot of grey walls. Black and Hispanic inmates in orange jumpers. There is an intake desk in a room surrounded by door locks. And behind each of those door locks is a holding cell of whatever size. The first room they put us in is kind of big, with like eight steel picnic tables bolted to the floor. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see the three steel pay phones on the wall. That beautiful feeling slowly turns to horror when I realize these pay phones are completely useless. Every number I try to call has a block on it to keep inmates from getting through. Whose fucking idea was that!? Every number! And forget about calling cell phones- that never works. I call every number I can think of. Every number I have ever known. Numbers I had forgotten. I call strangers. All blocked.

The single number that is not blocked is Steve's. And those assholes won't accept the charges. He is still pissed off over the time I destroyed his bong and table. Steve's obnoxious black girlfriend was freaking out. I rushed to take off the gloves and clean up the broken glass. A look of sadness came over Steve's face, having just lost his bong and his coke table in one shot. I apologized and he knew it was an accident. So I told him to take out his aggression in the ring. Then his step mom came down and was freaking out like I've never seen before. About how we woke up Steve's kid upstairs. I'll have to remember to get her some flowers when I get on the outside.

I was really fucked up that night, on Xanax, drunk on cognac and beer. So dealing with that bad situation was a bit hazy. Me and Steve ended up getting one solid round in. It was fairly even, or so Patcher tells me, considering Steve has 40 pounds on me. I managed to daze him, and I recall being knocked down. Then his step mom stepped in and told us all to leave. In so many much more hostile worlds. I'll have to buy her some flowers when I get on the outside.

So I was sitting in this intake room observing each new criminal being thrown through the door. Every now and again they called me out to talk to somebody or other. Mental health = so the court tells me you're crazy. Yup. The nurse = so mental health tells me you're crazy. Yup. The nurse was cool. She was like, "You want some drugs?" And I was like, "Fuck yeah!"

She was looking for some Seroquel to give me but couldn't find any. She offered me a Trazadone and I gritted my teeth and accepted. She tells me the doctor will see me tomorrow about the Seroquel.

I may have exaggerated how necessary giving me Seroquel actually was. That actually happened at court when I told them I was driving drunk because I was off my medication. Which sounds like bullshit to me, but they seemed to have bought it. I told them that I hadn't had any in about three days, but it was actually a couple weeks. I also think they were under the impression I had some sort of prescribing physician. Which was not the case. Unless you count Patcher.

A lot of people have been asking me about that since I got here, and come to think of it, I have been giving a different answer each time. Some people I told that a woman prescribed them to me in Wisconsin. Other times I said I got them from a friend who didn't want to take them. I haven't told anyone the truth about the robbery.

I knew it was a bad idea taking that pill right then. I also knew I'd rather be fucked up for this booking process. What I didn't know was how long the processing actually took. So down the hatch at the water fountain, and then back to the intake room.

The drug kicked in sometime after our burrito dinner. I find myself talking to the other inmates. Usually I keep to myself because whenever I talk people look at me like I'm a crazy person. Some generation; you have to be crazy to use slightly big words. I think times must have been better for intellectuals before the public school systems made everyone retarded. And not only am I using big words, I am completely stoned from staying awake on this sleeping pill.

There was a television in the room. It belonged to an inmate who was being transferred. There was a nudey girl postcard glued to it and at the shock I remarked, "I was not ready to be looking at a hot ass." Only two people heard me but one made me repeat myself and for some reason everyone found it hilarious. I explain how I meant that in a room full of grungy men, a fine feminine ass caught me off guard. Except everything I say is coming out slow and stony, like a burnt out wasteoid, because of the pill. A guy remarks that I am "funkier than George Clinton." And considering George Clinton is the Godfather of funk, I took that as a compliment. I would have told everyone I was drugged, but the nurse had asked me not to. And she had a hot ass.

People still see me through eyes reflecting that first impression. Along with the tale of the burn on my left hand. They won't ever drop that one. Jesus Christ. I really should not have told that story in that room. All fucked up. What did that nurse think was going to happen letting me take that pill right then? What was she thinking? She probably wasn't.

At court, I had made the mistake of telling the one gangster about the oozing burn on my left hand, and here now the gangster was kind enough to put me in the awkward position of recounting the occurrence to a room full of judging eyes. Once again, these people stared with the confusion- and somewhat the fear- of gazing into something they did not understand.

To me the logic checks out. The Jadyn had a little get together around a fire at his house. Everyone was drinking and we were playing the guitar and bongos. A person there mentions a game involving a cigarette and a fifty dollar bill. The player is handed the money and is instructed to wrap it tightly around the back of their hand. If the player can burn a whole through the money with the cigarette, they get to keep the money. Cries: it's impossible! Can't be done! But a small girl, about 5'3", says that she's done it. I ask if anyone saw it happen and they confirmed the tiny girl had done it. And I figure, if she could do it, then I could do it. What ended up happening was that the bill was flame retardant. And your hand underneath it is not.

I really could have used that money, but more so than that I saw a socially acceptable opportunity to mutilate myself. I went through two and a half cigarettes, pushing them into the money and my hand. The wound it left behind is about a square inch wide and heart shaped. And third degree.

People- the bald gangster from court lock up mostly- still come up to me and say, "I got twenty dollars. You wanna play that game?" To which I reply, "Hell yeah! If you got a cigarette!" Come on.

Four hours passed between when I ate the pill and when I saw my cell bed. In that time I got deloused and photographed for my jail ID. I am 71 inches tall and very sun burnt. I spent most of those four hours slapping my face and fending off sleep for fear that if I did crash I would not be able to be woken up again.

Finally, they deliver me to A block. I am so out of it that I barely notice the inmates out on rec scoping us out the way that I am scoping out the new arrivals right now. I say "What's up?" to my new cell mate. Remark that we will be "straight chillin'." I make my bed, and then pass the fuck out.

Waking up that first day hits you pretty fucking hard. It's sort of like coming to in the precinct only more sober, and more severe. I am in fucking jail. It rings in your head. Not the words, but the sensation that comes along with them.

I wake up at chow time. 6 am. My cellmate who looks a lot like that rapper 50 Cent, is pacing at the door. It clicks open and he walks out to go to the food station set up at the bottom of the stairs. I hurry to follow.

They feed us oatmeal, some sort of golden breakfast cake, watered down apple juice, and a milk carton.

The next day they feed us the exact same thing only the oatmeal is replaced with Cream o' Wheat. That strange white concoction. And I can't help but wonder if the substance ever really needed to exist. I think the world would have got along fine without Cream o' Wheat. I always hated oatmeal until I started eating Cream o' Wheat. By comparison oatmeal tastes like a Denver omelet.

After breakfast I go right back to sleep, and I wake up again at 10:30 for lunch. Franks and beans, which I personally have always loved eating.

After that, I talk to my cellmate for a while. But I won't even touch on him until I get everything else there is to say out of the way.

Around one o clock the doors unlock. clack, clack, clack, clack.... All the way down the line. Louder, clack, and louder, clack, your door clacks. Everyone is usually dazed when they step out from lock down. Except the ones who work out. We walk to the left from our room on the corner. Everyone walks together to the end of this wall and down the stairs to the tables in the center for rec(recreation like substance time). The entire upper level of men either head to the stairs or to the showers directly across the triangle from our suite.

The block has a ground level and the second level that they call a tier. I live on the far right from the door out and the stairs are in front of that door. Going left from my door is the longest wall of cells. At the end of that are some stairs up or down, and the showers. Three on the tier and two at ground level. Going further left is the smallest wall of cells. Underneath that are the few offices, and janitorial crap.

The showers have stainless steel doors to cover up your goods. I did not shower for the first week. I was not comfortable with being naked and watching men play spades at the same time. And even once I started; that woman looking man was always there watching me. But it didn't see nothing.

In the center of the room is a control station for the correctional officers. They need their control. Fuck control. Anyway. There are six or seven stainless steel tables with four seats apiece. In the wall is the counselor's office. And a small conference area. Also there is a small room with two doors for calling lawyers.

A 20 inch TV hangs from a pillar in view of most of the tables. Rarely does it play anything good, and if it does you can't hear it. Rec time immediately annoys the fuck out of me. Leaving the room where I am doing nothing to go do just as much nothing with everyone else.

Some people play cards, others shower. I stare at the wall. At least I did before I found someone with a pencil that was goodly enough to snap it and give me half. Not just a magnificent weapon. In jail you have nothing and you are given nothing. So everything becomes a commodity. Magazines are like a credit card. They can be lent for something, returned, and lent out again. Ramen noodles are the currency. Like dollars without change. There are no games to play and there is no music. There is a notion of a library but that notion has not once become a reality. Decks of cards are like magazines with a higher limit. And what it comes down to is that you've got to push what you've got to get what you want.

I found my wares in poetry when I realized all these guys have girls on the outside. I would take the girl's names and birthdays for astrological specification, then ask a little about what they are trying to say. I managed to get some guy's girlfriend back for him. And for a few days I was rolling in Ramen noodles. Then business slowed down when everybody in A-block took their own interest in writing poetry at the realization that a monkey can do it, it's a nice way to kill time, and it's more interesting to concentrate on than a wall. The poetry movement was still a little beautiful and the kind of thing I could see happening in a dumb movie.

The next night I realized they were feeding us on a really fucked up schedule. They feed us 3 times in 10 hours and we don't eat for another 14. Of course three meals a day is a step up from the banana and pop tart a day diet I had been living on prior. Except there is something fishy about this food. And it's not the fish. I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong. Each day people are talking about how much weight they have been losing. Or maybe how in two weeks I have gone down 7 pounds; from 153 to 146. Whatever it might really be, it seems like they are giving us food with no sustenance in it. To curve the nagging starvation I drink lots of water through the night.

I wake up and think, "I am still in fucking jail."

They call us down to orientation one morning. Days after they had told us it would be. The mother of all formalities. I sit down at my pile of paperwork and get started on what I can without instruction.

Counselor Diane is a woman I want to have sex with. I don't really know if she's attractive. She wears tight black slacks that I like. I think she might have a squishy face, but I like squishy face girls. She kind of blinds me with horniness, so I can't tell. She guides us through the paperwork. With the information I gain from her I realize I am never going to call anyone from here or be visited by anyone while I am here. Visits require more paperwork than I or my derelict friends outside are willing to fuck with- and background checks, too. All those phone numbers remain forever blocked. Steve's house never answers.

We listen to some guy who is way too enthusiastic about HIV. And then I receive a bond call to my mother. She confirms what I already know: I am stuck here.

They review me in Counselor Diane's office. There is a guy representing the religion program. There is a lady representing the school program. And there is some woman who seems to think she knows more about taking Seroquel and drinking than I do.

I told them I had been drinking like a fish but taking my 300 milligrams before I fell asleep. "That will kill you," she tells me. And she rattles off some medical term for losing your ability to breathe while sleeping. "No, it won't," I tell her. She may have read that in some consumer report, but I have been living it every night for the past month and a half and am still around to be a smartass about it.

After that I return to my cell and take the opportunity to shit because my cell mate had not yet been reviewed. Getting that toilet to flush is like waiting for a really old woman to walk to the car. I still don't understand how to actually flush it. There is a silver ring with a silver button, or more like a pad, laid underneath it in the opening of the ring. The button doesn't budge. You mostly just smash your thumb against it for any amount of time from 15 seconds to 3 minutes. Wiggle your thumb, let off and let on, try everything, but it is not going to flush until it feels like it. It might flush ten minutes after you've given up, or it might flush while you're taking a leak.

Next to the toilet, closer to the door- yes door- is the equally obscure, and often useless, sink. You push the cold button for an eight second fountain of lukewarm water. Or the hot button for an eight second trickle of lukewarm water. In the far left of the 10 x 12 cell is a green desk bolted to the wall; the paint is chipping from it and there is a chess board carved into it. Something tells me every room has a chessboard. There are two green plastic chairs. A three foot tall and four inch wide Plexiglas window is built indented in the wall with green trim. The entire window is blurry except for the very top.

I stand on the chair and look out. It is a beautiful day outside. The sunshine glistens in the razor wire. I am still in fucking jail. Jail is a bad dream that you do not wake up from. When you wake up from a nightmare in jail; you are not relieved. Everyday is exactly the same as the last and the word eternity takes on a new meaning.

I ended up missing certain things more than others. Music is #1 on that list. I think about Belle so much I really want to throw my head into the wall to make it stop. If I do that I will be kept here longer.

My cellmate is teaching me a lot of games to pass the time. The most remarkable is spoon fighting. Using your teeth you shape a small 90 degree hammer at the end of the plastic spoon pointing toward the floor when the bowl of the spoon can hold water. Your opponent will do the same. You flick that hammer into the other guy's bowl(upright or opposite), back and forth until someone's spoon is destroyed. He beats me every time but it is still fun.

We made a chess set out of paper and words. It plays pretty nice, but I always lose at chess also.

I carve anti-establishment messages into to the paint with a dead pen. Most of it is Rage Against the Machine lyrics, but I write some original poetry on a white painted wooden fixture with a pencil.

Getting comfortable here was a strange process. I guess like adjusting to your surroundings is everywhere, but with a lot more imprisonment involved.

The system gave me a single "courtesy" visit and my mother was able to see me red tape free. She told me about the hostile e-mail she had sent me. I have had no way to receive it. She ran down the list of every way I have been fucking up over the past few weeks; beer cans in her precious barn; the non-alcoholic wine I stole for some girls (which got them much more wasted, oddly); the couple hundred dollars worth of quarters I have stolen since I got back to CT; I trashed the upstairs bathroom at their house. It went on and on. But when she finished bitching she was the same old sweetheart she always is, very sympathetic and full of motherly advice.

My mother is an older woman nowadays. As I cross the bridge to adulthood, I am watching her become a senior, slowly and surely. Her crow's feet give her face a certain wisdom that was not there a short three years ago. She has always given the best advice.

All my dad ever does is tell me with pinpoint accuracy how and when I'll be fucking up next. She is the one who will tell me what I should do once it happens. I could tell she wanted me out of jail as bad as I wanted to get out, but she had no news of the case, or even what number DUI of mine this is.

The visitation opportunities are on certain hours of certain days for certain people with certain names. I thought maybe she would be able to clear the red tape and visit. But when two opportunities had passed I knew I was not going to see her before the court date. That realization could be considered the closest thing I've experienced to getting comfortable here.

Eventually I stopped having nic fits every few hours. It was only cigarettes that I missed at first. And that faded. Soon, it was the company of women. Then I missed good food. Italian food. Then chocolate. Then dark chocolate. Then with unexpected intensity came the longing for music. Music has been part of my life longer than most anything else. Music is always there. Always. And now there is none. I sing to myself a lot. It helps.

Imagine living in a little house on the prairie, nothing around for fifty miles in any direction. One night you look up at the sky glowing with a billion stars, but the moon is nowhere to be found. Imagine the next night is exactly the same. And the next is, too. And the next. For two long weeks. It's like that. Without the panic. Just the longing for familiarity.

I have not once thought about drinking. Me and drinking are not on speaking terms and I don't know if anything can ever be right between us again. I have said that before; when she had wronged me in the past. I always end up taking her back. We really do love each other. Through all the good times, and through all the bad times.

Fuck! No! Fuck her! Fuck. Whatever. I am still in fucking jail. Can't be an alcoholic in here. That is an outside concern. My only concern is how much longer I have got to be inside for. With a little luck and a lot of praying I could be home two days from now. That is when I go to court for sentencing. I, however misinformed, am fairly certain that my freedom depends on whether this is my 1st, 2nd, or 3rd DUI. And whether or not they drop those felonies.

Words cannot describe my loathing for this place. It is nauseating to be cut off from my circle of friends. It's like those younger Saturday nights; you're either grounded, or you can't get a ride, or for whatever reason you are stuck at home. You know all of your friends are out living life up. And the next time you see them, you know, they will reminisce about and make references to all these great events that you've simply missed out on. It's a throbbing discontent. In this time a lot could happen out there. Or nothing could happen. I guess nothing really changes but the weather.

Oh, woe is me, the weather. It was such a long and hard winter out in the Midwest. When I got east side the days were cold and rainy for a very long time. The weather finally broke, like it always does. Sweet warmth. Glorious sunshine. The Jadyn and I went kayaking everyday for two days. One day in the spring swelled river that runs through our little Connecticut town. It was opening day of fishing season and the fisherman were all giving us dirty looks. But it was the perfect day for kayaking. The next day we went to a lake up the road from my folk's house. We were scouting out a good island to party on. I was planning on working on a nice tan until I got thrown in here.

Thrown in here to watch beautiful day after beautiful day glisten on the razor wire. Watch the leaves bud on the fucking trees. I should be getting high in those trees. Instead I get to go to rec where the man/woman- who does the laundry and who must have undergone some sort of estrogen therapy- can stare at me some more. I have always been a homo magnet, but this "guy" is something else. Womanly brown locks, man jowls, womanly boobs, manly beergut. Damn, can that dude stare... I'll just say I'm flattered and drop it.

I really do not approve of this fucking prison. It is the most inhumane institution that I have ever seen or heard of. The system has a way of treating people like they're not even people. Not even animals. If animals were being neglected like prisoners the animal rights activists would be all over it.

Well, that's not entirely true. The jail has a variety of services available to make your average lowlife's stay just that much more comfortable. Like a mythical library. So in your cell you can imagine picking out a nice book to help you pass the time.

Or the phantom counselor, Diane. The only ally a prisoner has on the inside. It is her job to completely ignore the requests we put into the appropriate box. Because she "doesn't have an open door policy." It's not a big deal. We only need her to: organize our visitation red tape, answer our questions about our accounts and property, call a lawyer, or do anything outside of sleep, eat, bathe, shit, and stare. The single rite jail supposedly affords us is a non-reality because of this either lazy or overworked bitch. I watched my cell mate put in five requests to call a lawyer, over five days, and nothing. And she is never even around to hassle as she's walking by.

Or how about the medical staff? I've got a festering wound on my left hand; very prone to infection. For every four requests I put in to go see medical, I go once. They give me two band aids and send me packing. As a result I can't keep the scab on and my hand can't heal. I only get two band aids because they are security risks (to door locks) and I can't see medical to get more.

The jail also offers mental health services, GED programs, and a variety of religious services. All useless, all bureaucratic formalities, the products of years and years of tweaking the system to each human rights violation as it came about. All anyone cares about is that the jail has these services. No one really cares whether or not they function in any useful manner. Formalities.

And fuck the correctional officers. It is clearly their job to put us in our place. Going out of their way to treat us like shit as often as possible. They should really be nicer. The people in here are just that, people. Except for maybe that laundry guy. People who have had their freedom stolen from them. Men who won't fuck a woman for the rest of their lives.

When you look around at rec time, the visual you get is very deep and somber. All these faces, mostly black, all dressed the same, tanish brown pants and shirts. They stand around and talk. Most are loud and obnoxious. Some stand against the walls and speak softly (the whites). There are cards being played at almost every table.

When I look at them I see two types of people. The guilty, and the innocent who have fallen through the cracks. I don't care what your crime is, no one should ever be in this place. Give me twenty minutes and I could come up with a more humane solution than this. It would of course involve beatings and murder, but hey. That beats this.

I get it. I see that these people are criminals, 98% of them in one way or another. None of them deserve this. What I really see is this: 100,000 plus smug faces. Every judge, prosecutor, DA, ADA, judicial clerk, court secretary, CO, and the rest. The criminals are thrown in this place and those people smile to themselves because the streets are a little safer. All the criminals are in the criminal hole doing criminal things away from all the good people. But where one criminal leaves off, another criminal picks up. For every incarcerated drug dealer there a three individuals eager to take over. As long as there is poverty there will always be thieves. And even if there was no poverty, some people just like stealing. And until they destroy alcohol there will always be drunk drivers. Laws will never stop criminals from committing crimes, for every new law they create, they are creating that many more criminals. Thirty years ago I would not be in jail for drinking and driving. But alas, make a few laws and here I am, reading the same magazine over and over and staring at the same damn wall, day in and out.

Still in fucking jail.

I can sum my cell mate up in three words: sex, drugs, and murder. He's not in jail for murder, but nonetheless. A true fucking gangster if I have ever met one. His body is riddled with bullet wounds. He is a Blood. And I really don't think I have ever met a more interesting individual.

One way we passed the time was to tell each other our stories. Usually we get into them when we have one that pertains to whatever else it is we're talking about. It didn't take long for me to tell all of mine. But he just kept on going. Even the dullest of his stories were better than my best. He should be writing a book, not I. The stories all involved shootouts with the Crips, running from the police, robbing people at gunpoint in their own homes, kidnapping, gang rape, and beat downs for sport. If we didn't get along so well I would be seriously afraid of him.

He wants me to sell drugs for him and split it all 50/50. It seems worth the risk. And he knows a guy who makes porno movies and is always looking for new talent. Talk about a life long dream of mine. I'd make a porno for free, but to be paid good money? I really hope it actually comes to pass. Apparently you pick a girl from one of two fat books of profiles with pictures of the girls and a little about them.

This guy, call him Murder, really made my time here easier than it would have been without him. And I've made a new friend. But more than that; a connection. He even has a friend with a studio and he says me and Patcher could come record some music sometime. I hope it actually happens. You never can tell with these things. Murder has to get out of jail first. That may or may not have happened yesterday. He was being held in Connecticut for things he had already done time for in Rhode Island.

An incident where he was running from the police and rolled the car six times with four passengers. Everyone got away except the guy riding shotgun who is now doing time for possession of crack.

Murder was recognized in a gas station weeks later and taken into custody. The thing about the chase is that it happened across the border of RI and CT. He had already served the time but something tells me the CT judicial system won't care much about the pseudo 'double jeopardy' going on. The law states you can't be convicted for one crime twice. Or something like that. It's just as easy for the system to keep people inside as it is for them to let people go. Whatever. He'll get out eventually. And so will I. Probably a lot sooner.

As I write right now my court date looms imminent. Tomorrow the judge will decide my fate. I just want to go home. Get a fucking Slurpee and some dark chocolate. I have never been this nervous in my whole life. Nothing has ever been this real. They are either going to fuck me and send me back here or they won't and my mother will take me away to sweet freedom.

I think of the 18 year old red headed kid that got here the same day I did. Real small with big charges. 22 counts of larceny. Another 26 warrants pending. Every week he goes to court for one or two of the newly arrived charges. It took me months to get around to typing up everything I wrote in here on my pieces of scrap paper. I bet that redhead kid is still going to court every week. He had been stealing things from parked cars.

Or I think about the really positive older college student. He killed his best friend driving drunk on icy roads. He just began a five year minimum sentence for manslaughter. A fucking accident that coast him more that just five years of his life. Currently, he is trying to keep his head up.

The words of fifty know nothing criminals are ringing in my head. "Oh, you'll walk," "You're doing a year," "Six months." And I just don't know. It's funny how I didn't start thinking about it until the date came closer and closer. Now it is everything I can do to not shit my pants. Even though over my shoulder I am hearing inmates talk about 2.5 years, and 8 years. And I am freaking out over mere months, or a year. If I stay I will not be writing anything else about this place while I am here. I will take the opportunity to write short stories. Something I never have the time to do on the outside.

I will say this about jail. As awful as this place is, in so many ways; at least I am not forced to do anything. I am free to sleep all day, and all night, and write when I'm awake. Nobody is making me serve a purpose. In here I am already a functioning member of society. And that is a beautiful feeling.

### Chapter 31

There is only one way, I think, to do this correctly. Over time I have had different ideas. 'I'll start at when I got out of jail'. Or, 'I'll start now and work backward to jail.' But as time went on, neither of those ideas made sense anymore. There were too many variables that could throw the whole thing off. I've allowed too much time to pass. My life has been an avalanche without documentation. This is not cool with me. And here I am now. Ready to catch up. I cannot tell the story of that snowball. I have forgotten exactly what it all looked like. And of course I am the only one who saw it happen. But unfortunately it is my job to recount it. I have been trapped in this snowy grave for a long time. Naturally, I am more consumed with the frantic notion of breaking through the snow than I am recalling the event itself.

For just that I am writing this it could be said I have broken out of the snow already. I have even recovered my wits. I am now on my way back to the devastated site. I want to see the scattered trees. I want to recall where I was when I felt the thunder in the earth underfoot. I want to examine the area they pulled me from and see exactly the tumultuous path I took from standing on my feet to being buried in peril.

All things considered I am doing well for myself. And that is to say that I am doing the same as usual. I have got all the same problems. Even some new ones. Time has passed. Anything about an avalanche would actually have been taking place all summer and all fall until right now in mid November.

Like I said, there was going to be order here. Ideally. Because writing is usually done in order, even abstractly. But in this instance, how I write, coupled with how my actual life and my memories function together, that is not an option. This is going to be very helter skelter.

I need you to remember these six months. Half of May. June. July. August. September. October. And half of November. And the rest of November, and December. Mars is going retrograde on November 15th. That's tomorrow. I have got to pay rent by the first. That's a problem.

No more avalanche analogies. I have got to sort this out.

August. Soon after camp was over. The Jadyn, Patcher, and Oscar, who has got more problems in these towns than I do, are all going to a party. We are all, more or less, really good friends with the girls throwing it. Patcher had dated one for a couple weeks and dumped her, that girl's name is Lindsey, and she was in that basement the time Patcher fell down those stairs that one night. I like her sister and I think she likes me. That girl's name is Jennifer. She's a very sweet girl. Very pretty. Kind of like a librarian type. She wants to be a surgeon. She likes the TV show my favorite author created(ER).

This place we're going is also where the 'good kids' party. And things aren't exactly as calm and comfortable as I thought they would be after the whole sex with Heather incident. I probably should have seen this coming. And in the back of the Jadyn's truck, tearing through the humid back wood streets, I knew I shouldn't be going there. And it's not like my boys had reassured me to go. They kind of didn't have an opinion. So it was all my poor decision. Going had to happen. There was definitely some closure in the evening.

The house was set back from a road set back from the world. There was a long line of cars parked door to door in an orderly fashion on the grass. We got out of the truck and headed toward the house.

"There's your buddy's car," Patcher tells me.

"Uh-huh." I say. I grit my teeth and exhale through them. It seems like I should have seen my breath, but it was summer.

We walk down the gravel driveway toward a golden stained wooden porch that ran along the whole front of the house. I sat on a bench. Patcher went inside. Oscar stood on the porch with me. The Jadyn walked around back. People were drunk back there.

The first person I saw was Heather. We made eye contact through the window inside by the bench. She got this flattering look of shock. Very happy to see me. Then immediately very nervous. That's about how I felt as well.

The next person I saw was Heather's boyfriend. He seemed to recognize me before he even saw me. I assume he saw her reaction and that might have given me away. Regardless, those were some very unfriendly eyes I looked into.

I stood up and left the porch. There was a half chicken wire and half picket fence that touched to the wall of the house. It was a large and awkward steel fence which was tricky to navigate without spilling your beer, but I managed. From atop the steel fence I visually took in the party. In the distance they were playing flip cup. The crowds and clusters of people were illuminated by slightly blinding floodlights.

I landed on the ground from the four foot drop and took a drink from my beer can. I recognized two individuals. I hugged one and gave props to the other. Later I would report to the police that I did not know the real names of the only two individuals I spoke to that night. I was saying hello to Heather's little sister, Little Heather. And my friend Rod's little brother, Little Rod(who only a year later died a tragic death at his own hands. For more on his beautiful life see an essay of mine called "The Eclipsed"). Those aren't their real names but that is what I know them as.

I wanted to take a shot of liquor. I had a flat half pint bottle of rum in a pocket on the thigh of my black cut off shorts. It got stuck when I went to remove it. The zipper was a little too zipped and the bottle couldn't be removed right then.

There was a rush of some kind. A blur of white t-shirts and momentum. I found myself pinned to a wall. A face I could not see was at the edge of my peripheral, and it was yelling. I could feel that much. My focus was on Heather's boyfriend's face. He was not as close to me as he should have been. There was yet another set of white shoulders creating an inexcusable blockage. I pulled at the bottle in my pocket, but it was fucking stuck.

I was being punched in the head and should have been throwing punches back. Instead I was trying to get the bottle unstuck. I couldn't use two hands as my left arm was keeping the most prominent assailant at bay. As well as my left leg with the secondary assailant. I became contorted and it was not good. The boyfriend's face shined like a full moon in August. I should have been throwing punches. I was taking them just fine, hardly noticing. Punches to the head. Over and over, up against the back wall of the pretty house and trying to get that bottle out of my pocket.

I gave up on the bottle, planted my feet, and threw an elbow into the secondary assailant. I threw a punch at the primary assailant. Surely it must have missed, and if not it was not at all effective. The negative aspect of getting distance between myself and them was the act of getting distance between us itself. I could no longer see both of them at once.

By then there was more than two anyway. I was thrown to the ground and then jumped up and threw punches at the white shadows. Punches were thrown at me. Sparks in the side of my head let me know which punches were claiming brain cells. Areas of my brain were dying violent deaths. People were on top of me. Who knows how many? My vision was black and I wasn't sure if I lost sight or if someone's back was covering my eyes. I knew I must have lost sight when I felt my nose pop. That is what I really didn't want. I had friends there. There were girls I like there. And I didn't want anyone to see me bleed. It was too late for that. My nose was broken. And the blood was in my mouth.

I get to my feet. No doubt only thanks to the Jadyn pulling a portion of people off of me. And I threw more punches. Blind punches. There was no light anymore. And I was on the ground again. I could feel the skin of the arm around my neck. It was soft like a baby's and warm with adrenaline heat. I couldn't breathe and spent that time wondering how close to death I was going to come. I was reminded of some of the more severe asthma attacks I have had in my life.

The Jadyn picked me up by under my arm and lead me through the house. He was following Jennifer, the surgeon. I didn't hear a sound until I was in the light of the house. I could see all the blood I had cupped in my hands. I wiped it on my shirt and tried to catch what was still flowing before it hit the floor.

I heard the cries of the peanut gallery. Yes, they are getting the piece of shit out of here. Scumbag, yeah, got it. Heather liked me and I really liked her. This is what happens in small towns. At least for people like me. I fucked a girl connected to the wrong people. If they were gangsters I'd be dead. So it could be worse.

I have known these faces for way too long. Nobody acted like this in high school, why were we starting then? Some of these people I thought were my friends. If you're dating a cousin of Helen of Troy your allegiance will, apparently, be called into question.

Others were strangers. There were girls that had never met me harping about what a piece of shit I was. Who are you?

There was a new commotion. Perhaps this was my man. Coming to take what was his. Something he acquired offhand. It should have been him. He should have fought me. It was his right as far as I see it. But after the mob loosened me up? What then? I was broken. I was fucked up. I had nothing for him. Did he want to kick the shit out of me? Literally, did he want to kick me until shit came out?

They were behind me as I walked down the front steps. The Jadyn was by my side. There were some people keeping others from getting to me. What did it mean anymore? They were going to break through. In one moment I was going to be in the exact same position as I was in the back yard. Only in the front yard. Well, I was on the gravel but I moved to the grass instinctively. It is always better to have your face shoved into grass than gravel.

I look down to see sweet Jennifer walking next to me. I did not recognize her. Making eye contact with this girl who could have been anyone, I sipped blood from my upper lip and left her side.

I had been trying to get the cap off my bottle to take a shot of rum. It had become stuck- crimped to the rim-and would not open. However, it was in my hands. For a moment I fended them off. I swung at them and heard the cry, "He's swinging a bottle!"

The boyfriend was there. The others were to the left or to the right. He was right in front of me and he was rushing toward me. The bottle was in my palm and I brought it down like the swinging paw of a tiger into his face. The guy's head went with my hand. All the forward momentum was removed from him and replaced with the momentum in the direction of my swing.

"He hit him with a fucking bottle!" cried some girl as if that didn't make complete sense. Of course I hit him with a bottle. One down, five to go.

Vindicated, I succumbed to them. I was thrown to the ground and in another headlock. There were punches to my head. But I hardly noticed them by that point.

Then there was the timid kicker. So unsure of himself. He didn't really want to kick me in the ribs. He didn't even know me. He just wanted to fit in until he had a crisis of conscience. I expected many kicks to the ribs. Instead it was only the one. Which did not really hurt. Oscar noticed this instance as well.

After I had been on the ground for long enough to produce sideways lines of dried blood across my face, the Jadyn picked me up again and walked me to his truck. There were girls that talked like they were from the streets.

"They were gunna kill you yo," she says.

"Uh-huh," I reply, snorting blood.

A weird interaction took place between me and this street girl. She told me I should be thanking her for getting them off me. And I said I just got my ass kicked. I had to choke it out through the blood. She got offended about something in the way I'd said it. And then she asked me some accusatory question. I coughed blood, said nothing, and she took that as a hostile rebuttal.

As I am getting in the truck she walked over to my door and punched me in the forehead. I looked at her, dumbfounded, and closed the door. Thank you for the insult with the injury, girl.

"Lock your door," says the Jadyn. And we left as Oscar was getting into the truck bed.

Since then a lot of people have mentioned that Patcher was nowhere to be found. If he is my best friend, why would he not have my back? They don't really understand. Yes, it would have been nice to have Patcher there for me. But from the very first time I mentioned wanting to fuck someone's girlfriend, he told me he was going to have nothing to do with it. For him it was a matter of saving face and not getting involved. Which I can respect. At the same time this was the beginning of Patcher's withdrawl from the real world and into himself. Over time he is sinking further and further into drugs and turning his back on everything he used to be.

It took me a moment to pull myself together. I gripped the aluminum cap of the bottle in my teeth, tore it off, and took a shot. Then I lit a cigarette. The Jadyn and I talked a little about what just happened. And how no one should be expected to defend themselves against six or seven people. I wept through the laughter. Or laughed through the weeping.

We went to Patcher's parent's house. Oscar lived up the road and left on the premise that if his probation officer found out about any of the goings on he would be fucked. And the Jadyn and I went to talk to Mary and Dick.

Patcher's dad thought it was funny and his mom told me to call the police. I didn't want to rat anybody out so she actually ended up calling. Which was the same as me doing it. Revenge is best served awkwardly and unnecessarily. I talked to a 911 and asked if I should clean my face up or if the blood's evidence or whatever. He told me to get cleaned up but Dick took some digital pictures just in case. The operator also said he was not sending any units out to see me. They'd just go to the party.

The blood had coagulated and was difficult to clean off my face. There were three lines going sideways across my face from having my face against the ground. My eyes were swollen but not black. My nose was huge. My new black t-shirt was torn. I had lost the new black hoody I had just bought. And I lost my autographed black bandana. It was signed by a musician who is very influential to me; Jared of (hed) PE. I've always lost the things I get autographed.

The police units did come after all as I was sitting on the porch sipping rum. The Jadyn had gone back to tell Patcher the cops were coming. And I did the whole police report thing. Naturally they were hostile at first and then warmed up once they got a grasp on the situation. Cops love a victim.

I gave them the boyfriend's name repeatedly and none of us, the two cops or myself, could figure out how to spell it. And we philosophized on the nature of cheating girlfriends(It happens, but if you want to fight about it, it has to be one on one). They also thought I was half retarded. And considering all the blows to the head, I might have been at the time. They didn't need to be rude about it.

Mostly they were amazed at how someone could enter a party and immediately be jumped. I understood though. This was not the first incident. There was the first party I saw the boyfriend at. He told me not to talk to him when I went to say "What's up?", so I said hi to his girlfriend, winked, and walked away. Patcher and the Jadyn sat on either side of me that night.

Another time we were at the same party but different, same people some place else, and everything was good until me and Heather started flirting. I might have touched her, or said something about her loser boyfriend. Either way, there was a red and white blur rushing toward me. I kicked the blur in the chest and wound up on the floor somehow. I had a broken collar bone at the time. I really wouldn't have minded fighting this kid. But that break was fresh. His friends explained how I was lucky they didn't kick my ass themselves. Different friends than the jumping incident; people I actually knew. I had fucked his girlfriend after all.

Get over it.

The Jadyn came back. I had previously told the cops that we always designate a driver when we party. So they believed him when he told them he had not been drinking. Patcher stayed at that party. He didn't want to leave or something. He watched the cops arrest people. The police left and Jennifer's father- who was also a cop- showed up ten minutes later to kick everyone out. I assume the police affiliation was the reason they didn't disperse the party before they left. It seemed like the dad had wanted to do it.

I am so sick of writing about fights.

My collar bone was broken in June. It was Oscar who did it. Patcher's cousin was sixteen, I think. I have known her since the elementary school halls. She was in the room the first time I got drunk; Patcher's mom was gone with his sister at the hospital for asthma related things. Patcher's mom's roommate split a liter of vodka with me and him. His cousin was there. When his mom came home, I was in a pretty orange dress reading the toothpaste tube as I threw up into the toilet. Patcher was in the middle of telling her how not drunk he was when he fell down the long white wooden stairs. There was a tapestry at the bottom of that stairway, so when I rushed to the commotion, his legs were on the steps and his torso was on the floor hidden by that tapestry. Like only his legs survived the fall. Why he was always falling down stairs, I don't know.

Patcher's cousin and I, we liked each other. It was a long time coming.

Oscar had a problem with her age(So he said. In reality he was staking a claim because he's fucking twisted). Seeing only the numbers. Not because he is above it. But rather, he was so below it, anymore statutory in his life was ultra detrimental to his probationary status.

And that was that. He had a fire and some guests. Patcher's cousin Katie was there. I was there. We had been giving each other looks. Then I was making out with her behind the house. It was something I saw coming that first night I got drunk. The love was there. And drunken Oscar was spitting in my face and yelling. I was on the ground, my collar bone was broken, and it hurt. I was no longer making out with Katie. Eventually that night I determined I needed medical attention and went to the hospital. They gave me an obnoxious sling which made it hurt a lot worse. I spent that whole night there and made it to work a half an hour late to start my four day shift.

I was working then, but I was not working in May. In May, in May. In May, in May. In May, in May. In May I was not working. I was living out of my truck in Patcher's folk's driveway. Not the first time I have lived in some sort of mobile unit on his property, but hopefully it was the last. I was fresh out of jail and unemployed as fuck. All my money came from the change I pulled out of my parent's mutual stash when they weren't home. All my gas came from siphoning. And I kept Patcher's parents off my unemployed ass by cleaning their kitchen everyday. It was a nice arrangement. Patcher's dad is retired military and usually didn't work, but had been doing some carpentry. His mom is a school teacher. And he was working the grounds at an RV camp with Polish. So I was alone the whole day. At night when we came home drunk together I would crash on the couch but otherwise I would sleep in my truck. In the morning I'd wake up, go inside, crank music, shower, clean the kitchen, and then get my creativity on. I managed to write a semi-fictional story about our road trip home. Well 7/8ths of it at least. I want to finish this chapter so I can finish that and hopefully have it published(yeah right).

I had been living in Patcher's driveway before I went to jail. So it was strange to get out and realize I had simply lost two and a half weeks of my life. I wasn't ahead. I was only sort of behind. I could have gotten a job in that time, but who knows if I would have.

Things were a little different in May. The weather had gotten nice and there was summertime things to do. In May I met Rachelle. In May, Rachelle dumped me after 2 and half weeks. She said she just wanted to be friends. And I said no. I loved her. And she loved me. She just didn't know it yet. I have too many platonic girlfriends. Actually, if numbers determine rank in the army of the friend zone; I am commander in chief. After Angela; I just couldn't be deal with the friend zone anymore.

Earlier this week, in late November, we got back together. We started having sex and she is in love with me. And I love her the same as I always have. Probably a little more. She's got the body of a god. And I won't hesitate to worship it. Or her for that matter.

I mean, between May and now she had come in and out of my life on several occasions. About every month and a half. I could almost predict it on my calendar. We had sex in mid summer. Camping on a mattress in the back of my truck. I was so drunk; I can't really call it making love. And I thought we would be together. But she just scuttled out of my life and wouldn't respond when I tried to contact her. I got sad but I got stronger.

Every time it happened it hurt worse and worse, but I got better at handling it. I learned to take her as she came, and appreciate her presence in my life. Like the levels of a video game growing more and more difficult. As you go on you get better and better, and more capable of handling the difficulties laid out before you, so the challenge technically remains the same. If you play video games rather than chase girls, that is.

Finally I took a lover in Boston, Mass. And Rachelle was not happy about this. I told her about it as I had nothing to hide. We were not together. Really my Boston girl, though a very special girl, was not meant to be. That girl had flaws that I couldn't quite ignore. I do wish her the best.

Unless I am once again mistaken, and I truly underestimate the flakiness of Rachelle; she should be part of this story for a very long time. What ended up being the true cause of her coming back into my life was a mixture of the Boston girl, and a mushroom binge on her part. She loves her drugs. We had been talking. I sent her a couple of emails at the right moments and she came to her senses.

I don't want to get too private with this, but she started telling me how she wanted the sex to be like it was that time in the summer. It was over text messages. I replied, "You want me to get drunk and not take no for an answer?" Which I thought was hilarious, and wasn't too far from the truth. Actually, she wanted me too make love to her. And I was happy to oblige. Some part of me thinks it could have been that lack of sex that kept us apart in the first place. More likely it was her twittering little friends that pulled her from me. I don't really think we'll ever know. She hadn't wanted to settle down. I guess. All that matters is we are together again now. And the relationship seems like it will stick this time.

Finally there is love in my life after a year long eternity without Belle. And really, fuck Belle. I don't need to pine over some chick who doesn't want anything to do with me. Rachelle appreciates me. She can see me for my true value, and I her. There is something so perfect there. I have never been treated like I mattered. Like someone's life would be lesser without me. She respects my struggle. She reads my work without having to be pestered. A quality I wish more people possessed, but then it would not be as special in her. An astrology reading I got about Leo's and Scorpio's says it best: "When Leo and Scorpio join together in a love match, the result is usually a dynamic and intense union. They are well tuned in to one another's needs; Scorpio demands respect and to be wanted while Leo needs to be adored and complimented constantly... Leo relishes comfort and luxury, often doing things on a grand scale. Leo tends to be flamboyant, and Scorpio will appreciate that and will be happy to be the audience Leo requires as long as there is equality in the relationship"

And we're like that to the 'T.' I want her. I respect her. And to put it so simply, she is the audience I require. And I never thought I would be with a water sign. It really went against everything I thought I knew about astrology. I mean, fire and water, when does that ever make sense(Taoism)? To defy explanation, this Scorpio is everything I never knew I wanted but always have. And now, knock on wood, she is mine. She has made that clear.

It is a long distance relationship right now. She lives in Manchester, CT, and I am out in Providence. That is about an hour and twenty minute drive. We are kind of toying with our desire to be close. Someday, she will call my home hers, but for now that cannot be. I am not financially stable enough to provide for her. And she is still kind of young and tied to her family. Not ready to leave the nest. Which seems typical in girls. My theory is that as our passion and love build, her desire to be always with me will uproot her. So to speak. I am hesitant to say that. If you noticed two chapters ago, I wrote about her; three days before she told me she wanted to be friends and at the time I was not the best judge of her character. It's just that I feel that I know her better now.

We see each other when we can. And that would normally drive me crazy, but if you have followed: I have gotten very good at not having her in my life. And we do see each other. Her house is on my mother's commute to work, and I can see her often enough. She usually drives, but someone totaled her car (another suspicion I have to explain her newfound desire to be with me). That is only temporary. I think it will go like this: She'll get a car and visit me more and more. In the meantime I'll get my finances in order and she'll move in with me. She had all these prerequisites to moving in. She wanted her platonic friend to come, so she knew someone. I have no room for some guy. I've got roommates. And she had to feel ready, but it should all fall by the wayside over time. Or, rather, fall into place.

In May, finding a job was consuming me. I am so often unemployed, but not usually homeless. Something had to give. As it was, I was driving my truck/ home illegally; with a fake license plate, unlicensed, unregistered, and uninsured. My mother had no money to give me. And I was as usual too depressed to handle labor with my father, and too anti-social to get a job laboring with some guy. And in the broken economy of my home region, there was no work. If there was, there was a lot of competition for it. Patcher's mom told me of a job at an autism camp right in my home town. It was on my bus route as a kid and it never occurred to me. I went there and the place was deserted, and kind of eerie in retrospect. So I left a message on their answering machine. I told them how I had experience with summer camps for people with mental and physical disabilities, and that I would like to work for them. They didn't get back to me.

Then one day in late May the stars clicked in my favor. I got an interview at an apartment complex for a cleaning position. I was relieved because I knew I could get that job. So I was drinking Mary's tea and writing my story, when their house phone rang again. I had no cell phone so that was the number I was using. No one answers the phone there because it is always bill collectors. I checked the caller ID and it was the Abby institute. I only half recognized the name, but if it was who I thought it was, then I was very happy.

And it was, and I was. The Abby Institute for Autism out of Princeton, New Jersey, had their summer retreat center located in North Eastern, CT. And again, I was given the job over the phone, based on my willingness to put myself through the hell that is a summer camp for disabled people. And, yes, it is close to hell on earth. Perhaps hell is the wrong impression to give. It is more like cutting yourself. So much pain and so much reward. Something so awful making you feel so good. Honestly, I missed that summer in South Dakota.

And here. Imagine my jubilation. Imagine how the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders. Room and Board. And a salary; $3625 for eight weeks. More than twice what they paid in SD. That is East Coast money for you.

I knew what I could do with that kind of money. Exactly what I wanted to do. Things probation would have a problem with me doing if they knew, knock on wood.

Abby was an institute for Autism. Just Autism. I had worked with Autism before, but never like this. It was an educational retreat center. In training, we learned teaching strategies. And how to take data, graph data, and understand the individual lesson plans for the students. Of course it wasn't until close to the end of the summer when any of it actually made sense to me. I was kind of winging it the whole time. We learned A.B.A., Applied Behavioral Analysis. When trying to teach Autistic people the things they need to know to live, you have to keep them at it; day in and day out. It is a very slow process, but if you let them go through the whole summer break without keeping up their shoe tying, or teeth brushing, or toilet shitting lessons, they will regress in their learning(Talk about a test of the human spirit in both teacher and student). That last line doesn't quite express my sympathy for those stricken with this disorder. Perhaps I didn't have that affection when I started the job, and this paragraph does pertain mostly to that period.

This makes me think of the summer at the first camp and how significant that was. The way the summer of 05 dictated everything that was to come for such a long time. The way that it changed me. Yeah, that summer meant a lot to me. And in the same way, this summer did not.

The camp was all red buildings. And it was a gorgeous facility. When my director gave me the tour on the day I came in to fill out paperwork, I was blown away. Each cabin had cable television, bathrooms with showers, comfortable beds, and air conditioning to stabilize the camper's moods. The lodge was a mansion. There was a 'great' room, where we ate. And there was the art room, but most arts and crafts were done on the stone front porch or the big wooden back deck. There was a sitting room with a piano by the office, where we kept all the students folders. I committed the cardinal sin of taking a student's binder home to catch up on work. My friend Chris was dumbfounded. He couldn't believe I did it. I thought nothing of it at the time. It worked out fine, but apparently I was the first person in the history of the camp to ever do that. The sensitive documents contain private information and must not stray far.

Every room was wired with an intercom so anyone could be reached at anytime. It was really necessary and we used it a lot. It played top 40 hits all day long. Everyday the same crap music, day in and day out. You knew what song was coming before they played it. When you walked from your room up in the lodge, out into the hallway, the music faded behind you and picked up in front of you. Out to the third floor stairs you'd hear it coming from the pool. Only walking to the cabins would you really be away from it. Or in the back field.

We had a staff kitchen. I spent a lot of time in there when I decided to pick up cooking for the kids with gluten free diets in the last three weeks.

And once again, this was in my home town. The place I grew up. And all these people were from very far away. I was hoping to hook up with a counsolerette, but it didn't happen. I was kind of a strung out pharmaceutical zombie mess the whole time.

I took only a single thing away with me from this camp, and I will get to it eventually. I did not meet my next love. I did not experience something so overwhelmingly new that I was blown away by it. I just worked the job until it was over.

Actually, I was kind of tormented all summer. And in that torment was the majority of things I will leave out of this documentation; interpersonal social discomforts to be tolerated all summer. I was working with college kids, so. Yale kids, Princeton kids, Harvard kids, UCONN kids. I was the single person involved that had no affiliation with an 'institute of higher education.' It was in my hometown, and I was me. The guy who never smiled and said weird shit all the time. The kid who fucked up all the time, and refused to implement the techniques that made up this institute's method of instruction. I didn't fit in. I made my one friend and let him tell me how the others didn't get me and didn't want to get to know me because I was shady.

Shady- just being me. Doing what comes so naturally, breaking rules and seemingly going out of my way not to conform to the norms. The norms. Ha. Negative reinforcement. They call it aversive conditioning. Hair pulling, snapping rubber bands against wrists, flicking cheeks, squeezing cheeks, spraying noxious liquids into mouths, squeezing legs, squeezing arms, squeezing fingers, squeezing hands. The bribery, the neglect, the discipline. Asking me to discipline somebody is like asking the sun to glow purple. But that was how they got things done.

Like breaking horses.... And while I saw problems with this way of going about things- that was not what was behind my lack of conforming. I am not such a moral person, but I pretended to be. Mostly it was laziness. Each "student" had target behaviors to eliminate. And for each individual, there was a laminated card with the said behaviors and corresponding aversive method. I didn't understand. They really wanted us to squeeze the hell out of these kid's hands while we give the appropriate command along with the squeeze, "no pinching," or whatever they were doing wrong. Which seems just a little hypocritical. So the kid would start freaking out; they'd cry, scream, throw shit, some hit, some bite. And every time they do whatever you don't want and you give the aversive, you take down data. Mark it into a chart on a clipboard that goes everywhere with you. But, if they keep doing it you keep reprimanding them, and giving the command, and marking the data, and since my heart wasn't in it, they usually didn't stop for me. Mostly it was all too confusing for my burnt out little mind. Eventually when I got hassled for not doing my job, moral opposition was the excuse I gave. I met with the director and she had an assistant director give me a personal crash course in behavior modification (And another, in graphing, when my graphs were so far behind and I explained that I failed math every year since sixth grade.)

This all looked to me like a lot of torturing the poor kids. I nodded and smiled. And stepped up to the task. Luckily this was only days before the end of the first four weeks. I really only had to make the kid cry the last two days of his time there. He was a four week camper.

He was about as tall as me and hitting puberty. I had to shave his tiny stubbles. We got along fine, for him being autistic. I think he could sense I liked my other kid better. But I tried to be nice to him. I mean it's hard to really get through to them. I still felt he could tell I wasn't like the rest of the staff. Sometimes he would get mad at me when I tried to act like the other staff and just start repeating everything I was saying to him. It annoyed the shit out of me. The sad part about this kid was the parents. He was really into music, but everyone would tell you he was into sports. He was always with the whiffle ball bat and the balls. Well, he should have been, but I was usually too busy or too exhausted to play with him. Then when I played the guitar, he was so into it. It was as if, to him, there was nothing else in the world but my guitar. And he would hum along and he had rhythm. But since his father was so into baseball, of course he was too.

The coolest thing happened right before his parents picked him up. I knew they were coming so I gave him a little speech. And I don't think he was retarded (70% are 30% aren't), and I do think he understood. I told him not to let these people get the best of him. To make sure that he stayed true to himself. After that I played a song on the guitar. A full song; intro, verse, chorus, verse, breakdown, solo, chorus, crescendo, verse, outro. And when I was finished, he raised his hands over his head and clapped in the air. And then over the intercom I heard that his parents had arrived and I took him to them. They gave me a hundred dollar tip in an envelope. I gave one fifth of it to the guy that covered my kids on my day off. Those people were called floaters.

So I had a week alone with Dexter, my other kid, until the five weekers were gone and the three weekers came. I didn't even know I liked this kid. I was always dealing with the other one being a pain in the ass. But I discovered I loved Dexter.

He was very low functioning. And about 13 years old. His mood shifted in sync with mine. When I got excited he did too. But since I was usually morose, he was as well. I didn't realize this until the first kid left. He was non-verbal. He made bird noises, and sometimes would get excited and run around and jump up and down making these noises. Just happy little O O ah ah ah ah O O noises. I swear; I could have picked up super models with this kid. I really wanted to keep him. Later I played mystery date on acid with Rachelle and some friends. I stole the Dexter guy card from the game. It looked just like him as a normal grown-up person. And being on acid I was convinced that the entire fabric of the universe was caught up in that board game and the card. Later the owner of the game forced me to give it back. She knew I had taken it, because I was very adamant of the card's significance throughout the game. I've got pictures of Dexter. And I remember pretending to be excited to get him worked up. To get him to smile, so maybe I could see that in whatever kind of mind he possessed, he was enjoying himself.

He would ruminate, which is what the noxious liquids were for. Ruminating is when they throw food they've already eaten back up into their mouth to be eaten again. When they do it, you spray some hot sauce or lemon juice in there, touch their throat, say no, and make a tally on the clipboard. And like my other kid, if someone caught a behavior I did not, they would punish him and shoot me a dirty look. But I mean; he's autistic. Let him eat his food twice. Or six times as more often was the case. All these people want to do is their jobs. For example: Dexter's last campfire:

Dexter was very low functioning and we always made smore's on Fridays. And it was mostly another exercise in doing something for someone totally. Hand over hand. Get stick. This stick. Here, this stick. Follow me back to the fire. Get the marshmallow troll's attention. "Show me 'eat'" (sign language), use your words, show me what you want (computerized voice boxes). Hold they're hand close enough to the fire to cook the marshmallow but not to burn them. This varies in difficulty until you learn to get a stick of adequate length. Take it to the chocolate bar and graham cracker dynamic duo. Show them 'eat.' They'll make a smore, and congratulations, Sunday night is over, except for showers. If you have two kids then do it twice.

Dexter was very low functioning. And I had to do the entire process hand over hand with him. And he didn't like holding things; preferring to drop them. My other kid- yeah, with my help- could produce a smore easier than Dexter could. It never occurred to me to do them one at a time. I was tired, a lot of things didn't occur to me. So while I was instructing my one kid to make one, I was making one for Dexter. And when "we" finished, Dexter wouldn't want it because I had done all the work. For three fires he did not eat a smore. And finally, the last fire, the last day of the five weekers, I only had Dexter. I only had to produce one smore. I got him to make it through all of the steps. Hand over hand maybe, but he could tell I was into it this time. The marshmallow was roasted. I remember every counselor and their kids crowded around the chocolate and crackers. This was the last campfire before the five week party.

Me and Dexter get to the assistant director and his girlfriend, the speech therapist, putting the smores together on the golf cart. (I may have asked her out with a kid's speech machine, unknowing of their relationship. I thought she liked me.). The speech therapist freaked out on my kid over a minor behavior. This was a clear display of "who's the boss." He might have had his hand in his mouth, or something stupid like that. This chick, she was the state college party type. Sunglasses in the daytime and sweatpants whenever she was too hung over to look nice. She made the smore, threw it into the fire and squeezed Dexter's hand until he stopped. In defiance, he kept doing it. And she kept squeezing and telling him, "No mouthing." It was the only time I saw him cry. And though I wanted to so badly, I never saw him eat a smore. And I was pissed enough to physically injure that girl. I sat with him until showers were called.

Calling showers was a matter of the director saying who goes to what cabin, who is in the lodge, and who is off. If you were in the cabins, you took care of their showering and body checks, and got them in bed. Someone, often me, made a fire, and when everyone was finished, we sat around it and took our breaks in shifts. Half off first, half off second. If you were off first you were happy to get the fuck out of there. If you were off second it was nice not to have to wait for people to come back before you went to sleep.

Showers in the lodge were insanity. I started loathing it as others started loving it. And in the last three weeks I managed to do it about once or twice as everyone else did it eight times. Others noticed, but I didn't do it on purpose. My desire not to be in the lodge manifested in a practical manner which produced results. In the lodge were the worst kids, the hardest ones. The ones that smacked people around.

Cylas was militant with his outbursts. When I sat with him at meals, I could see the respect in his eyes. He knew I admired his spirit. From other tables I would watch him be taken out into the hallway for restraining. Watch him throw the bin full of dirty dishes out over half the lunch room.

Another girl, Shelly, a chubby 10 year old girl, would always throw things in the lunch room. And her punishment- 'Individualized Learning Plan-' meant having her clean it up hand over hand. While you simultaneously punish her for closing her eyes, or spiting all over the place. It was early one morning and I was at a table alone with two kids and an empty seat. I must be a bad luck charm. My friend Chris's new girlfriend, Tina, sat down across from me. And Shelly was at the table behind her. Tina asked me half of a question, before she was covered in hot coffee.

There was a black autistic kid. He was probably 18 and was definitely large. I had sat with him before in the far side of the great room. I was sitting with him again now at the front of the room. They had moved him. There was a nurse of about 60. Clearly a very sweet older woman. The kid reached up and slapped her across the face with one great motion. The slap echoed in the dining hall. I was sitting with the assistant director whom was way more experienced then I would ever be with this method of "teaching" and he handled it all out in the hallway while I sat with the other kid at the table and gave him some more ketchup.

There we were at the beach for special people on the Connecticut coast one day. Long Island is in the distance blocking any real waves. Still some kids liked to swim out past the markers. No one really minded going out and getting them.

This day was my 21st birthday and the sun was in Leo. I had to work that day and that night. So in defiance to my alcoholism, I abstained from drinking on the day it became legal for me to do so. I could have been off, but I previously had to warp the schedule to have sex with Patcher's cousin, and now there was no space to move around to get me out that day. I ended up buying some rum at a package store on my day break and getting real stoned on my night break.

An ex-girlfriend from 10th grade whom I hadn't talked to in years, and whom I have reoccurring dreams about, actually finished that rum when I did drink it at a party in the hippy bumper sticker factory up the road from my parent's house. I shared it with all the people on the dance floor that night. Eventually I had danced with everyone but her. And of course I noticed. Finally we danced. It was only her and I moving together to this pop song I cannot remember the name of. We had our dance and found our rhythm. Finally I was about to kiss her. I brushed the bleached blond her away from her face. Thinking of Marilyn Monroe. And a desire six years in the making. And the overhead light came on. Some girl ran into the room shouting, "Where the fuck is that CD?!" And the moment was gone. And it stayed gone. That was actually the last night of camp.

Anyway, back at the beach. I had just taken care of my shit machine camper's soiled bathing suit. His parents kept him on laxatives to prevent constipation and wondered why they could never potty train him. But I couldn't complain because he was the most well behaved kid at the camp. And he wasn't part of the Abby centers method of teaching; that combined with a loving family is probably enough to make a sweet autistic kid. And I had my other kid. A very spastic and neurotic kid.

Our time at the beach was over and we were heading to the bus. I walked past three people to my left, struggling to get Cylas into the van used for the bad kids. And of course they were having problems. For legal reasons; all aversive procedures are null and void and basically illegal in public places. Not to mention stigmatized and resembling kidnapping. I didn't really notice this kind of thing anymore. The directors used me for what I was good for; keeping two kids alive and cared for for the duration of their stay.

I did notice two cute, not autistic girls in short shorts and bikini tops, walking a Yorkshire Terrier in more or less the some direction as me to my right. And it was sunny and of course I was exhausted as most people are after a day at the beach. In my usual fashion I was daydreaming and my head was off in the clouds and I had one kid in either hand. There came a sound that drew me back to the real world. It was the sound of panting exertion coming from behind me. I looked back and this fierce fifteen year old boy with spiky hair and zits was charging as fast as he possibly could toward those sexy girls and that dog and right beyond me. I released my kid's hands and put my shoulder and leg in front of Cylas, catching his fall as he went down. Just a heartbeat later, his other three attendants were all over him. I said nothing and took my kids to the bus. Upon leaving the bus the very kind and always positive female assistant director congratulated me on a "nice grab." Which probably made me blush. And as far as I am concerned I saved those girl's lives and the camp from a tragedy at the beach. Not that anyone there was very taken aback from random public acts of violence. It happened all the time.

And as I have said before, I was kind of a wreck and overwhelmed all summer. Sexual frustration was raging inside of me. And of course that tied into another frustration. It was summer time and I couldn't take my shirt off. I have got the scars of a psychopath across my chest. And I was around a pool with pretty girls in bathing suits every single day. Because the kids got swim instruction from us; first thing no matter the weather, everyday. And, really, is not having a shirt off by a pool how I had gotten Belle? That day, reading Nietzsche? And my collar bone was broken, and I was fucked up on Vicodin everyday. Though naturally I did most of the Vicodin up my nose with friends. I was chatty on Vicodin. I told everyone everything about me and then they knew too much. It didn't occur to me that future scholars don't usually associate with jailbirds. Though I often associate with future scholars.

I was experiencing a very depressing sex life. Every time I got laid, I got left. Every girl that seemed promising evaporated. Having seen me try and stab Polish one too many times, or whatever. Or maybe I was a fling. I might have been a fling twice. Or maybe, I'd been romancing a commitment-phobic girl. And developing a strong repulsive aura among my coworkers. Those who were afraid. Those who tried to care, but I was a little too shady. The higher ups and those in the distance. I was being noticed. I started wearing obnoxious black sunglasses to hide my Vicodin eyes from them. I sang my Vicodin song to myself. La de La de dee, La de La de da. I had ideas, but no one listened. I spoke and it was the funniest thing someone with a sick sense of humor had ever heard. Every time I spoke. I didn't mean to be funny.

Like so many other things this summer it came to a head in a one way or another. In the foremost way at the five week party.

The five week party was mostly a whisper at first. Right around the two and a half week mark. It was told by those who were there in years previous. There is one single day, when the five week campers leave, that the camp is empty. They leave that morning, and the three weekers arrive the next afternoon. One night and the grounds belong to the staff in the manner of a reserved luxury resort. I was holding vodka in the same room I'd been clipping toenails. We were drinking beer on the front porch where I smoked half a cigarette whenever I got the chance. If I was going to score with the speech therapist, or the Yale chick, it would be that night. In the back of my mind I knew it was not going to happen. We made a bonfire and there was beer pong on the porch of cabin one.

Everyone had gotten their paychecks. That day I also got my second hundred dollar tip. Which I didn't have to share with Chris because that parent tipped him as well. The girls went shopping; the higher ups and their Princeton lap dogs did their thing. Chris and I went and bought weed. I wanted to go to a mall and get clothes. The girls invited me, which might have been a nice bonding thing, but I know better than to go shopping with girls. We were going to go to a mall, but Chris got high behind the wheel and lost his motivation.

Chris and I talked a lot. That's how we were tight. We had really meaningful conversations outside of work, but while working we kept a professional demeanor. And I was telling him how I wanted to see if the male assistant director would want to drop acid with me. That guy was applying for a state job and would be piss tested so he had to stay clean. The fact that I knew that about him, in my mind, said it was Ok to offer. LSD does not show up in a piss test. Chris tried talking me out of it and I absent mindedly told him I would take his advice. I knew the time would come when it was just me and the AD working on the fire with no one in earshot. We were the only two male fire signs in the camp. I got that all figured out quick. The time would come.

And that time did come. The AD was grateful for the offer but recognized that it wouldn't be a great idea to be strung out on acid when the parents came the next day. Which of course was in the back of my mind as well.

He is not the only one I invited to trip. I was getting drunk is what it comes down to. I asked them if they'd like to get high. I asked them if they wanted an Adderal. I saved the recent high school grad couple from their emotional turmoil. Found a common ground with some dude who may or may not have been giving me shit. Monkeyed around the pong porch fetching the ball whenever it got away. And this was a testament to my collarbone healing. I took shots with the UCONN kids. And somewhere between when I professed my love to the speech therapist and the end of the night, the Yale girl said yes to Adderal. And it wasn't supposed to be the way it was after that. Not in my mind.

It was late when I gave Kay D the pill. Beer pong had been going for hours. The quiet girl was banging the track star. And I was slipping somebody speed. It wasn't supposed to be like it became.

I had never seen a blacked out drunk take amphetamines before that night. Belligerence is the first stage. Then comes the raving. Then comes the restraining. Then comes the insanity. I only wanted to be close to her. To talk to her. She was driven away. I told the guy AD what I had given her and offered my apologetic sentiments; he passed the word on to the other higher ups. It was forever to be remembered as the time Kay D got really drunk on tequila, emphasis on REALLY, and played beer pong flawlessly with her eyes closed. It would also be remembered as the time Kay D woke everyone up for tequila shots at six am. That girl then proceeded to work a seemingly endless nightmare shift.

The new campers came, and she worked that whole day with no sleep. She then worked the lodge, and the lodge was hell. The power cut off in a thunderstorm and the backup generator was out from the last time. And this was the first night of the worst behaved kids. The kids with debilitating physical conditions beyond my personal wildest dreams. I don't think she could have slept well. Then she worked the entire next day. She did it with such grace; I have got to give it up to her. Kay D, wherever you are, I give it up to you.

And I did apologize and clarify my intentions. Also she asked if I had written "Dream Woman" on our personal Valentine's hearts that the staff had for the holiday week theme. I told her yes, and she got the picture.

I slept in my truck the night of the five week party. And when I woke up, it was a masque of nervous tension that had fallen all over the camp. I knew my place in it and everyone knew theirs, or lack of, as well. All the cards were on the table. For me the tension had lifted. I had one by one tried to get everyone fucked up with me. I had hit on the female AD and the hot older blonde director. It seemed like after any way I may have tried to clarify what I am about in the first five weeks, Vicodin induced honesty was not a match for old fashioned drunken forwardness. After that night the mystery was lifted. Who knows what they thought? The Butthole Surfers say, "You'll never know just how you'll look through other people's eyes." And I agree. Counter intuitively, they were all much more comfortable around me after that night.

And the funny thing is. For them, knowing my true colors, however dark yet tumultuous, was better than not knowing at all. There is apparently great comfort that can be achieved through a little understanding.

### Chapter 32

I met Rachelle in May during a period of intense loneliness in my life when there was no girl for me to love on all the Earth. Still. No one person to adore who might adore me in return. Only me alone drifting through the days. And while I had realized that a girl was missing; I did not realize that when I finally found her she would possess such a manner of perfection. When I found her it was a new sense of completion that overwhelmed me. Rachelle managed to be anything I could ever want and everything I would ever need. Somehow she did it with style and grace.

She came to me like you might imagine anyone truly special would. She randomly showed up where I was- more or less. What actually happened was that a friend of mine from town, Oscar, goes to school at Manchester Community College. Rachelle lives in that area and went to that school at that time, too. She would be able to tell you the specifics of what they were all doing the afternoon preceding the early evening we met. Something about picking her brother up in Hartford. I can't recall.

I was sitting around writing and drinking tea all day at Patcher's house. Oscar had been telling me over the phone to meet him at Diana's pool later. Mary actually gave me a ride there that day when she got home from work. Going there alone was very uncharacteristic of me sincee I had no idea when Oscar was going to arrive. I hate being places alone; especially in my hometown. I found a spot by the river in view of the path and played my guitar until some people I knew came by. I hopped out over the rocks and dead birch branches to the path and said 'Hi' to those people. It was two guys I have known for like ever and some guy I did not know at all. We walked up the path further and came to Diana's pool. The pool itself is hidden from view of the path by a house sized rock, or rather; 'the big rock.' Also, there is a large log that has been there for years and a lesser rock to the woods side of the big rock that you have to hop over and up before the pool appears before you. And I'll admit it is beautiful there.

The body of water is the size of my parent's yard(That's funny because you have no idea how big my parent's yard is. It's the size of Diana's pool). The large flat slanting rock is shaded where I was sitting and sunny over the rest of it. From atop it you can look up the river. There are rapids above the pool and at safe sporadic intervals downriver to the left. There is another important rock that reaches out over the water; god's hand. That is where Diana jumped to her death from. It's right off the path; we jump off it all the time. Not in the winter, like Diana, though. I once hit the bottom and sprained both my ankles though. There are also rocks on either side of the short falls that feeds the pool for hanging out on. Also, a short hop over the water away from the bottom of the big rock is few more rocks to lie out on.

We were at the top of the big rock and on a sofa like ledge, kind of toward the corner over the water. I was playing my guitar and talking and I must have been sober, because I had only been out of jail for a little while and was still unsure of when I'd be piss tested. I was expecting Oscar, but not particularly urgently. Then there he was. Of course I heard him coming because he is always talking loudly about something. He is deaf in one ear and thinks people care what he has to say.

He walked up the rock with two pretty girls and a gothic looking kid behind him. The goth kid threw me off. You don't see too many of them in my neck of the woods; with the eye makeup and all. That was Rachelle's brother. Which was way better than her boyfriend. The other girl was Megan. Rachelle's best friend. Megan was the girl Oscar was trying to hook up with. I couldn't get their names straight right away. They were going swimming. I was going to keep playing my guitar.

Rachelle and Megan got into bathing suits and that was good. They both had back tattoos. Rachelle had words across her back. If any one characteristic would separate her from Megan, as far as first impressions go, it was the words. I was drawn to them. They were Latin. I liked the letters and even the spaces between the words. You had to read them or ask to know what they said since they were in Latin. I did neither. I only looked at the tattoo like I already understood what it meant. At that point I knew I wasn't going to be paying as much attention to Megan as I was to her.

They were jubilant. And giggly. Things were funny to them. Life was good for them. If I were a vampire I would have consumed them to feel that. I am human, so I politely envied them instead.

They were having trouble navigating the underwater rocks and I was attempting to give them little pointers from up on the rock, but the effort proved kind of useless. I was adamant about not swimming until June; completely due to my own little principle. Eventually I went down and was getting in the water as those three were getting out. Which was irritating for whatever reason.

They wanted to go on an adventure. I was thinking, what kind of an adventure? They were going to keep walking up the path. There was a storm coming in around that time. I closed up my guitar in its case and we all walked upriver. There were some other girls hanging around. And the old friends. I think there were eight of us.

Upriver was another swimming area. The layout is intricate. To get to the center of the rock island and the more or less jump off point is barely doable; involving jumping from rocks over water. Everyone was gung ho about swimming, and I was still not gung ho about the idea.

It must have been Rachelle; cuz Megan wouldn't have had any effect on me. But at that time I could hardly really tell them apart. The two of them seemed to kind of share a brain and I hadn't really seen an individualistic side of either of them. Rather one side of both of them.

It must have been Rachelle that drew me into the water and off of the rock. It wasn't really under my control. If I had had a say in my swimming, I would have over thought it and stayed away. I'd have played my guitar on that rock in the center that looks out over the swim area.

I put my guitar down where I'd be able to see anyone running off with it and the others went off ahead of me. Everyone went off ahead of me for that matter. And sooner or later I took my shirt off and went in. It must have been their vibe or her gothic brother, but my Norman Bates chest scars, as Patcher calls them, didn't seem like that big of a deal. I didn't really think of the other people there. In recollection the others didn't have faces or names, only a vibrating presence. I was simply drawn to those three relevant people and ignoring the others. We all wedged a log across the event horizon of a four foot waterfall and hung out on it as the water flowed over us. I was letting the water carry me away and hanging on with an arm. My head wasn't there. It was there, but it was not thinking. Just watching those three people. At one point I had to walk over and hang out with the others. I simply thought I was staring too much.

When they asked, I told the others my ex cut my chest up when I was passed out. I took my leave of them after a small while and went back to those captivating three. We got out of the water and moved onto a large boulder by the shore to smoke pot. I reluctantly took a hit, weary of the prospect of a urine test.

Then we crossed back to the center rock. We were on our way out, just like that. There were storm clouds overhead. I remember looking up to those clouds and looking back at those three new people. They had an aura of positivity. In my hometown there is no such thing as positivity. This was positively abnormal. They were positively abnormal. I was bewildered. I was dazzled. I was speechless. I was dumbfounded. I was mentally overwhelmed. It was really fucking refreshing. Like water to the parched in a desert. Like freedom to the imprisoned. Like a fix to a crack head. Like the voice of a mother to an infant. Like morphine to the wounded soldier. An antivenin to a scorpion sting. The hour of sun in an Alaskan winter. A friendly city to a drifter. They were the living and breathing personification of your fondest memories.

Oscar was talking this whole time, to them or to the others, but I didn't have much to say. Neither did Oscar, oddly. We walked down the path and past the pool and out to the parking lot. They wanted to go eat at the burger joint, but I was apprehensive and nervous. I didn't like this. I had no money. And there was nothing else to do. I had no place to take them. I was going to lose this girl back to the nowhere. That was the first thought I think I had had since I met them. Yet, what else was there to do but go to that restaurant? Oscar and I got in his truck and they got in their car.

As we pulled out onto the main route, Oscar told me that he could feel in his bones that it was about two minutes from raining. He skateboards and has broken a lot of bones. Somehow that makes him something like a human barometer. He was also telling me how we were going to keep those chicks around, in his typical know everything fashion. Something about making them laugh or whatever. In my typical hopelessness I was thinking that we should tell them goodbye and sink back into our black hole town.

Then it started raining. A lot. Blinding torrential downpours. We got next to them in the two lanes and I rolled my window down. The water bounced off the doors and into the cab, shooting in all directions. They did the same.

"Do we keep going?!" Rachelle shouted.

"Go to my house!" Oscar yelled back.

"What?!"

"Go to Oscar's house!" I said like one talks to a drive through intercom- in a pouring rain storm.

"Where!?"

"Follow us!"

And we turned into the fire station on Rte. 6. It took forever for the traffic to break enough for us to make our left turn. The rain kept coming like being in a landscape of moving pairs of lights; there weren't really any visible car shapes. We drove back to Oscar's house which was between that fire station and Diana's pool.

His home is a different building than his parents but on the same property. It was made with four rooms, one for each sibling, but he was the only one living there. He didn't have company often. They ran in quickly. I walked to the door with a steady pace. Seeing exactly how wet the rain was making me. Or how hard it was striking my skin. If it was running down my face or dripping. We went inside up the raw wooden stairs and settled into the living room. I sat on a chair by the window, picked up drum sticks, and started playing the padded arm of the chair.

For a while that was it. I slipped back into my infatuation daze. Oscar made tea. I remember that happening. Again, I didn't really have a thought for quite a while. Until eventually I realized Rachelle was wearing all black. Black lace at that. She was my Princess of Darkness. I knew then.

I also noticed that Rachelle and Megan each had the purse that matched the others outfit. I asked them if that was on purpose and they pretty much said no. And that seemed stranger than if they had said yes. Rachelle's purse was white and flowery like Megan's sundress. And Megan's purse was black.

More happened. One of our old friends from Diana's was a drummer we played music with when we were very young. We decided to play music with that friend over at his house and the girls were going to come. We grabbed Patcher from his house, only for him to be pissed off at the waterlogged amplifier and otherwise uninterested. I figured I would try to fuddle with that monument to nonsense that is a bass guitar. So important. So hokey and boring.

After all the running around, gathering and moving equipment, the music was kind of a bust. That was really fine. Not a big deal at all. I was under Rachelle's spell. Whatever it might actually be. That far removed desire which manifests in a need so instinctual there is no longer any question of 'putting on the moves.' Our natural chemistry was enough. It pulled me closer and closer to her. Until I was there, close to her. In a basement with a bass guitar. And seeing nothing but her. Absent mindedly fiddling with sound cables. Playing a small small amount of bad music. There was an exchange of information. I was to find her on the internet if she knew it or not.

And that one moment. Out in the rain again as I put the stuff in the truck bed. We were chatting light heartily as we do even now. She said something silly and I made fun of her for it. She stuck her tongue out at me, and that was the moment I came out of my daze. It was over. She was mine. In that moment I had a spell of my own on her. Still this day I feel her control over me and mine over her. She will pull me over enormous distances right to where she is. No matter where she is. I will pull her to me when I get there.

I found her on the internet and we wrote a few emails and had little conversations before we saw each other again. The Jadyn and his sister threw a party at their parent's house. I helped them set up, get things in order, and make jell-o shots. That party was when we saw each other a second time.

Very soon after they arrived Megan told me that Rachelle liked me(read: wanted my body with the passion of a 1,000 suns). Which I knew because Oscar had known, and because I could tell. The eyes never lie, Chico. That night went like this.

I was marking the street with cones when I see they've arrived. Greetings. I started drinking. They were probably cold, since it was a little chilly, but we couldn't really go inside. A girl I hadn't seen since the school bus came and she was still awesome. I was next to Rachelle a lot. Everyone was wearing the red, green, and blue glow stick necklaces I had brought. Then Oscar, Megan, Rachelle and I were in the Jadyn's old Volkswagen van smoking pot. Then Rachelle and I were in there alone. I kissed her and she wasn't very receptive. I asked her if she wanted to have sex and again she was not very receptive(hmm...). I swear I kind of turned her off from me that night, but she wouldn't admit it. Eventually we went to the fire where every one assumed we had been banging in the van. Kind of like I had assumed we would have. Then Patcher and Polish made me do vodka shots off the ice luge Oscar'd supplied. Then there were jell-o shots, which I would have liked more of. That was it. I woke up in my truck sandy and hungover. I actually had to drink that hangover away. The girls had left somewhere in there. They didn't drink anything. They did get really high.

Rachelle and I had a two and a half week relationship of really nice dates. She was sexually closed off to me the whole time. Luckily I really liked spending time with her. Everything about her made me swoon. She asked to go to the drive in and we went. I figured I would let the first movie pass before I tried fooling around with her. We got high, and I confirmed the suspicion that I cannot be stoned around her. I got so awkward. She must have anticipated the fooling around and we left after the first movie because, she "Had to be home." Not before she asked me to take her canoeing. So we made that date.

I borrowed Patcher's dad's canoe and strapped it into my truck. I had my mom make a picnic and I took her to an island to eat it. I threw down a blanket and played the song I wrote for her. She loved that, but I thought it kind of sucked.

I took my shirt off and we talked about all kinds of shit. The weather was fine. I would have preferred heat for skinny dipping, but what I got was fine. We hung around for a while. I read her poetry as I had my poems with me because of the song. And we were on that island for a while. It was a strong gust of wind that told us when to get out of there. It came right at that moment when we had been there long enough. Not a moment sooner. We heard the wind rolling through the woods beyond the small lake, until it was upon us and the trees on the island- which was the size of a big house's floor; the trees swung with abandon amongst themselves. The high noon light danced with the shadows cast by the branches and it was time to go.

I had a comfortable plush love seat in my truck bed that day which faced the tailgate. Using a plastic tote for a coffee table we watched a movie on my laptop while the moon rose. We were under a blanket and parked in Patcher's driveway. It would have been truly great but like things to come, metaphorically speaking, it was plagued by mosquitoes.

That night I fucked everything up. I told her I loved her(god-for-fucking-bid). Which wasn't really news to me, but I don't think she was ready to hear it. From that night, things got weird. And when I saw her next, I had already sensed her inner turmoil and knew what was coming.

She wanted to be friends, and I said "Ah- ahh. No way." I have got way too many platonic girl friends. Girls I'd been convinced were meant for me but turned out to be just another good friend. There has to be about nine by now. And this was not Rachelle's destiny: to be my friend. I told her I would rather not see her at all.

And for a month and a half I didn't see her or speak to her.

My friend Enfurio had told her I was planning on moving away at the end of the summer. Enfurio was involved with Megan by then. I did that; hooked them up. I knew they'd be perfect and introduced them. They were moving at some pace as slow as my progress with Rachelle, although probably more pleasant.

I hadn't spoken to Rachelle for about a month and a half. I was up to my elbows in autism and we arranged to see each other on my day off. In my head I am thinking she wanted me back. She knew how I felt and where I stood. If she was worried about me leaving the state, she had to have feelings for me.

One day she came and got me and together we went out to Manchester to spend the day. Sooner or later we were holding hands. I was again dazed by her. We kissed in the acoustic guitar room at the Guitar Center. We held hands and talked about why I shouldn't move. I would stay here for you, Baby. I can't because you won't be with me.

We met up with Enfurio and Megan.

I wasn't 21 yet. Yet, I bought some rum at a liquor store by showing them my underage ID from MN. Most people are too distracted trying to figure out in their head where Minnesota is on the map to notice that I am illegal.

The four of us ate a picnic at a park by a pond and the girls decided we needed to go camping. About then I made a wish on a shooting star. The sun was going down. I had no way to know my wish would come true that night.

I knew we could go camping at the state forest out by my parent's house. So we ran around collecting blankets and buying smore requisites and eventually I got to my truck at Patcher's.

Enfurio and I threw firewood from my parent's house into my truck and the girls waited in Rachelle's car. I also threw a spare mattress into the bed of my truck with some blankets. We went up the state forest roads until we came to the abandoned horse camp.

I backed the truck up to a fire pit and Rachelle pointed her headlights at it. We made the fire and Enfurio and I drank that entire liter of rum.

I remember Rachelle being timid about where she was going to sleep. As if I would let her sleep in her car with Megan.

I didn't take no for an answer. We had sex there in the woods. In the pitch black. I was more or less blacked out as well. That's about it. We woke up and I took my leave of them to go to work.

I remember her perfect nipples. I remember her perfect hour glass figure. I remember flipping her over onto her stomach and admiring her ass. But nothing else. That was ok. There was no way she wouldn't be with me after all that. There would be more sex.

I told my friend Chris at camp about her. I was really happy. Until I slowly realized she wasn't returning my phone calls or responding to my emails.

I took a hint and kept going with my life. Two weeks later she called me and wanted to set something up.

After work one day I got a ride out to Enfurio's in Manchester to see her. We were all going to drop acid in Boston the next day. They weren't around when I arrived so Enfurio and I took acid without them. Then the girls showed up and we all played mystery date. I told them I would give them the other half of the acid the next day in Boston.

Tripping that night I was extremely distressed. I couldn't get past Rachelle and Megan sharing a brain. It was absurd. There was no Rachelle and Me when Megan was around. I began resenting Megan for this. The whole time I held the position that while I really like Megan as an individual, and had not a bad thing to say about her, it could never be about us when she was around. And maybe it shouldn't be. But maybe, too, she shouldn't always be around.

That wasn't right either. Megan was a very close friend and had the right to be around whenever she liked. So maybe Rachelle should have been better at juggling a love interest and a friend at the same time. Rather than focusing on one and ignoring the other.

If it bothered me when I was on acid, it tormented me in Boston. We were going to see laser Floyd. They were supposed to eat acid. But on the ride out, when I asked Megan if she wanted her piece, she said "No." Well, she may have said no, but she was talking to Rachelle and didn't hear me ask anything.

Rachelle was worried about her heart palpitations, so she only took half of one. I ate the other half of that. And Megan wanted to know where her piece was and we had left it in the car. We needed to catch Laser Floyd at the science museum. Which meant finding a T- stop. That's the subway. We had to find a subway. The green line. And alright, we managed to get across town to the ticket desk a few minutes before the doors closed.

Whereupon I discovered I had left my wallet at the fucking green line where we got on back across the fucking city. This was why I don't go to Boston. Something always fucking goes wrong. I got my wallet back though. Someone actually brought the wallet full of money to an information desk clerk. What the fuck? Who does that? Apparently people are basically good and generally do the right thing. Man, I feel like shit cuz I would have spent the hell out of some found money.

The subway company sent it back across town- four stops past the science museum. I got it back. None of us had cell phones. I sat around at the Science Museum for at least an hour looking like a pedophile before they came back around. They hadn't caught the show after all and took off around town instead. We had no fucking idea where we parked and Enfurio wanted to go to guitar center, so we all did that.

Rachelle was ignoring the fuck out of me and paying all her attention to Megan. She hadn't tripped off the acid. It was weaker than the different stuff me and Enfurio had the night before. And she only took half. I remember being a little twisted on the subway, but not very. I followed them through the streets with Enfurio for hours, feeling like run over garbage. Eventually they got a map and figured out where we parked. I don't think I would have thought of that. Christ!

On the way out Enfurio destroyed some sort of transistor on the T by throwing a computer screen over the high chain link fence of the overpass. It was very illegal and there was an explosion.

At the end of the day, when she dropped me off at my truck, I was happy to be away from her. After that I didn't write her and I really didn't think about her.

A month and half went by. I had moved to Providence after camp was over. Into a nice house off of Federal Hill, on America St., in the Italian district. The main street on Federal Hill has red, white, and green lines down the middle. I wonder what the passing laws are on that road.

We started talking again. She posted an internet bulletin on the network about a concert she had seen in Providence, and I replied to it and said that if I had seen her I would have thrown a rock at her. That statement corresponds to an email I sent her- after she wouldn't reply to me previously- when I told her that if our relationship continued the way it was going it could only result in animosity and resent. At least, that was what I was going for.

And that old notion that women respond to assholes was proven again with hyperbole. I mean. She was really into me after that. At least into seeing me. And I had said that at that point I would rather have her in my life as a friend than not at all. In one sense I had succumbed. My morals had been compromised. In another sense I knew it wouldn't take. We have a very strong animal magnetism. She is only inexplicably constantly fighting it.

This isn't like the way it was with my old friend in SD. I am not delusional with this one. Time has vindicated that. Rachelle was fighting me, but really she was fighting herself. She was building walls around herself out of fear and paranoia. I had to tear them down. Or raise ladders. Or convince her to let me in. And every time I tore that wall down, she would build it up again. This was not the vain air of playing hard to get. She really was not going to give up. It was an endurance trial in persistence. Or a persistence trial in endurance. Every time I tore that wall down, she fucking built it back up again. I didn't even know she was weary of commitment the time she dumped me in the beginning. After that she never ceased to amaze me with how distant she could be. The way she could cuddle with me, or hold my hand. Or hold me, for that matter. The way we could hold each other, maybe up river at Diana's pool alone on a rock and feel how right everything was, there alone in the woods. Yet when I raised my ladders she always pushed them over as I was climbing.

We saw one another. She came to Rhode Island with Megan and Enfurio, of course. She had asked if I wanted them to come. And naturally I wanted her alone, but I thought "fuck it." I wanted to show her that I really didn't care anymore. I was so fucking sick of playing her fucking games and being thrown around emotionally.

We went to water-fire at Providence Place. Water-Fire. Rachelle and Richie. She often reminds me of the Jadyn's party. When I told her I'd show her beautiful things. And how I have kept my word. Water-fire was one of those beautiful things. The gondolas set the iron baskets of wood aflame all up and down the concrete canals running through that area of downtown. The Italian music floated on the cool comfortable early autumn air. Mandolins and gentle horns. She was in the softest wavy earthy skirt. I remember the black designs. I could almost recreate them in my mind's eye. She was in a white shirt of a similar fabric. There she was. I sank into her presence like it was warm quicksand the color of her skirt.

We walked down to Water-Fire from the hill. It was beautiful. Everywhere were couples of young and old. Enfurio and Megan were finally 'officially' dating. Oscar was drunk and acting like the biggest douche bag you could imagine on the walk there. The girls thought it was hilarious but he was the opening act and soon took his leave of us. We walked away from Enfurio and Megan assuming we would bump into them eventually. That assumption always means disaster. If you have to think about it; you will probably lose them in the crowd.

We watched the rich people sip champagne in the gondolas. This seemed a little excessive. There were kids rolling down grassy hills. And a dirty homeless man I was watching watch them. I was dazed again. We kissed and watched the water fires. There was a man twirling fire(poi) by a bridge on a stone structure standing out of the water.

We lost Enfurio and Megan. We looked and looked. Megan didn't have her phone with her. It was in the car. Enfurio didn't have a phone. I convinced Rachelle they could find their way home, though they had never been there before, and we walked back to my house.

We were making out on my bed. Rachelle wasn't letting me squeeze her ass. Rocks hit my window. No one understands that I have a buzzer. I thought it was a different girl so I had Rachelle wait in the kitchen while I opened it to see Enfurio and Megan all pissed off. Megan was upset.

They were going to sleep over, but it was hot as hell in the house. Our couch was so awkward it was impossible to sleep on it, too. White leather is fucking sticky when your face is smashed into it. They all left. I felt nothing.

She ignored me for more than a month and a half this time. Until early November. It was actually this time when I sent the message about throwing a rock at her. So I don't know what happened the last time. She probably just called me out of the blue one day.

We talked on the phone, and it was really nice. I was so wrapped up in her voice. Hearing her speak to me. She has a voice that glides into your ear like a tiny magic carpet. Her words land on my brain and start making love under the stars in my head. I sat there in the kitchen. Why aren't you with me? I am so in love with you. That was all I was thinking.

We wanted to see each other. Her car was totaled and I don't drive. It took a while before I got to see her. I went to her early one November morning. Her house was on my mother's commute to Hartford. And her father was at work. I dressed exactly how I wanted her to see me. Black t-shirt. Black Jacket. Jeans. Reserved. I shaved off my tiny dredlocks. My hair was buzzed to brown fuzz. I was reserved for her. The fucking girl had my heart. What could I do? I loved her. I was just happy to see her. We lay in bed and watched 311 in concert on a DVD. Eventually I was holding her. I had forgotten that that happens every time we see each other. She's only a little distant at first. And only at first. Like one adjusts their eyes to the night.

I didn't even hope to have sex with her. And I didn't.

I hung out with Oscar- who lives in Manchester- when she had to go to work. The day with her went lovely. We walked hand in hand through town to the college where Oscar goes. Then she got her ride to work from there.

I didn't think I'd ever talk to her again. I knew I would, but it didn't matter. I was numb.

This whole time I was dating a girl in Boston. Rachelle didn't like that at all. I had told her I was going to find someone else. I also told her she would always be my one true love. I just couldn't wait for an uncertainty. I remember getting Rachelle's texts while I was with that other girl. I'd respond to them in front of her but not say who it was I was corresponding with.

This is when she began to surprise me. She wanted to see me. Badly. I wrote her a few emails and she read them while on a mushroom binge. Apparently I said the right things at the right time.

She started texting me on my phone constantly. It was almost as though she were hungry. If not horny. One night, I was in East Hampton, NY visiting my sister for the holidays when the things Rachelle was telling me over the texts made me so fucking happy. Finally. She wanted me to make love to her. I couldn't understand why. I knew what it meant, though. She was mine. I already had her heart. I had her soul as far as I was concerned. She was going to give me her body.

That was all that was left. I knew I would have her love after I could actually show her how strong my feelings were for her. In that physical way to which no poem will ever be able to compare. If you want a girl to love you: make love to her. Hear me pray you do it well.

It was November 26th when she finally told me she loved me. Today is December 18, 2007. She has fulfilled my wildest dreams these past twenty two days. I know she will continue to do so forever. Because she has told me so. Except, never trust forever.

The dark months all fell away. Call it playing games. Maybe I was courting her? Maybe she was wooing me? Maybe no matter what it was, it doesn't matter?

She is mine now. She is not simply another girl. She gets me. She is my Scorpio. And I will keep her as such. When would I not want my scorpion in my life? When would I want anything but the best for my scorpion? She transcends limits of girlfriend and soul mate. She is my possessor and of course I am hers.

I am her lion. Loyal to her and her magnificence. Weary of anyone or anything that might infringe on our happiness and our togetherness. I love her deeply. I love her madly.

We are together in our animalization. Imagine yourself trapped in an empty room with a scorpion. If you had shoes on, surely you would squash it. If you had no shoes, surely you would figure something else out. Now imagine yourself trapped in that same room with a lion and scorpion. Imagine that it is very important to the lion that you don't hurt the scorpion. And if you try to hurt the scorpion, the lion will not let you. In this fashion you could imagine a lion would prevent you from doing any harm. Viciously. And if you can somehow handle the lion; you are about to have a problem with that scorpion crawling up your leg.

That is to demonstrate the report we share.

Rachelle makes me feel like I matter. She is supportive. She tells me the sweet things I want to hear. We see eye to eye on everything and our mental connection is clearly psychic- as evidenced by 'you'd have to be us to understand.' She takes me seriously. She thinks I am talented. She gives me self esteem which I have never had before.

I trust her. Which is new and nice. She dresses like the girl I want with me would. Sometimes like a hippie, or maybe like a well put together sweetheart. She hangs on me in public. I am not comfortable with that, but I adore her for it. I love the way she commands my attention. In bed, if I am watching TV rather than paying attention to her, she falls asleep. No matter what time it is. And when I'm done watching TV, or whatever I am doing, I can wake her from her cat nap and she is as into me as she was when she dozed off.

The sex is great. I'll leave it at that. Even though I really wish to elaborate. Tact.

Those dark days of rejection and apprehension are behind us and that feels great. I am so blissfully in love with her. She makes me love my life when I usually hate it.

If ever I have longed for the woman behind my man. I will long no more. This is my Eleanor Roosevelt. My Jackie Onassis. My Hillary Clinton. My Cleopatra. My Madonna. My Hera. So consider this a toast: To the woman you love, and the love she returns to you.

### Chapter 33

There is a rip in the fabric of our lives. Of my life. Fuck you. Not you. You're reading this. Fuck your friend who said they would read this but never will. Fuck all your friends that will never read this.

The crisp air is a testament to the discomfort we all know so well. Is misery not the natural order of things? Have we not, as a race, been miserable for the entirety of our existence? Yes. Was the Buddha not misquoted as saying, "All life is suffering?" Humans have known happiness. Most at least once. Some never.

Why the misery? Why the torment?

I talked to Belle. I'd been lying to her over emails. I'd been telling her my life is going well. She heard an imaginary story where I didn't get fired from the Providence autism institute for lying about my driver's license and forging an insurance document. She thought I kept that job and it's making me happy. My bills are paid. I can afford nice things. I am successful. How you like me now bitch? Belle. I'm sorry. Are you really surprised? You know exactly how off the hinge I am for you.

Our time is over Belle. What is left for me but vindication? Lying to you was probably the shallowest and most humiliating thing I have ever done. Something JD would do, no? I only want you to pine for me the way I've pined for you for so long. This is me telling you that it is Mid-December. I have been lying to you since late October. It doesn't matter. I am on the East coast and you are in the Midwest. All I feel is a quiet ire.

Why? You have been replaced. Can't I look past the rage of losing you and still care about you as an individual? Was that what you meant when you said it was always about me? You are still single. I wish for you to be happy. It's all I can do. Some other man whose heart you have crushed is pursuing you. Poor fledgling. He'll figure it out. I did.

Fuck, Belle. Have a nice life. Really. Go back to sleep. Feel better. Goodnight.

Hello Providence. How are you doing today? How is the hustle bustle treating you? Excuse me. I need to sip this whiskey. That's better. The world is a little further away. As if I didn't have an outsider's perspective to begin with. Lovely December it's been. Wasn't it? Don't fucking lie to me. Record snowfalls and ice storms. And you're telling me it's lovely? Fuck you Providence.

I need a cigarette.

This morning my boss called. One program starts January 15th and the other the 22nd. This is fucking bad. How is it, I can get an apartment, so fucking easily, but I can never fucking pay the rent?

How many more people are gunna jerk me off about jobs? It's funny. I have gotten hired at the only job I could ever want- working with autistics. I got hired because I am qualified. Yeah. I know what I'm doing. But, my license. My fucking driver's license! You need to drive them around. I would love to drive them around! In a big ten passenger van. Or in my car, one on one. Except, if I get caught driving, I go straight back to jail. Any organization involved with autism has a policy about driver's licenses; you need one or you can't work for them. I didn't know I wanted to work with autistic people when I fucked my life up. So much for the can do spirit of elementary school. "You can do whatever you want to do."

They don't give a shit that I've got a god damned noble cause. Laws were broken. Sorry. Big fucking deal. If they really wanted me to be a functioning member of society, they should help me get a job. Otherwise the system is kicking a dead horse. I can't pay the IRS. I can't pay the court, because I can't pay the IRS. I can't pay the hospital, because I can't pay the court. And I can't pay any of them because I can't pay the rent. I can't buy groceries because I have no money.

How is rent being paid, you ask? My sister married a rich guy. The option of exploiting that is becoming an exponentially more temporary solution. Do you tolerate leaches?

I have a job. But it's part time. I don't even know if I have pending full time prospects. I need to hustle. Have you ever seen the lethargic hustle? Ever seen an old dog get up and walk to another place in the room to lie down again? It's like that.

Who cares what I am going to do? There is always (knock on wood) someone for me to fall back on. I am blessed with that. Eventually I will be on my feet. I have been off of them since mid August. It is seriously old at this point. What kind of boyfriend am I? I can nil provide shit for my girl other than good sex. I give what I can.

I will be administering an after school tutoring program for at-risk youth. I don't know what they're at risk of. Maybe being stupid. At least I will work with kids. I already kind of work for the company. I have been getting small sums of money since I completed the online training. I was supposed to be doing my job a month ago. This corporation is so fucking unorganized. It's all I can do without a license. From where I live.

Off of my feet. Yeah. That's what it's like. Always feeling like I am falling.

What else is there to say? I haven't been in a fight since I have been in Providence. I think about Rachelle a lot. I live off of pasta. My bedroom is really pretty. It is lit with black and red lights. On the walls, I have pictures of loved ones and autistic kids, posters, tapestries, paintings, and writings. I sit cross legged on pillows and type at my laptop on a coffee table desk against the wall. My guitar hangs from a handcrafted steel wall mount. The décor is brown and the wood of the furniture matches; my blankets match the wood. It's really nice. My apartment is big with four bedrooms. I have two pothead roommates. They smoke weed constantly. Another roommate is an old friend and is very supportive and practical. I think I am writing his autobiography later in life. His story is a bloody trip.

I have a cat named Norman Bates now. He is black and the friendliest cat one could ask for.

I am done. I have been more or less stagnant for months now. Most of the time I had no laptop and got really behind in my writing. I really just want to get back to the fiction.

Providence is a beautiful city and a really nice place to live. It deserves a dissertation. Not right now. Perhaps I will tell you of the beauty of Providence when things start looking up. Perhaps in spring. After this dreadful winter that has officially begun only today. It is not important. I only have three things on my mind these days. Love, fiction, and money(fuck money). Not in that order.

### Chapter 34

For the past three days I have been writing fiction. Three and four page burst towards completion of my "breakout" work's first draft. Having written three days in a row was a personal triumph.

I read books about how to write novels and they all tell you to write three pages a day, five days a week. Under that formula you will have a first draft of 350 pages completed in three or four months. But I do not write five days a week. I work part time in schools.

If I were to work full time it is almost certain I would give up the novel. My expert opinion is that this situation is not fair to the world. I have set a goal in my mind and it symbolizes success or failure. I acknowledge that I do not write five days a week so I instead accepted a personal deadline of one year from commencement which took place 2.5 months ago on Valentines Day.

The year is 2008. Around V-Day 09 I can begin rewriting the work; a process that will take four months. So come that June I will begin finding an agent and submitting it to publishers.

I want an agent because it means having a person that can sell the idea better than I could, and to the right people. The idea being that the book I have written, if released and marketed correctly could have its impact.

If I find an agent that summer and have it sold by December 09(HA! HA HA HA!!!! YEAH RIGHT !!!! HA FUCKING HAHAHAHA I HATE IT> I HATE ALL OF IT>WHAT HAS THIS DONE TO ME?>WHAT HAVE I BECOME?with love 2011). That will allow a year for editorial work and processing ensuring that the book be on the shelves by the pivotal date of V-Day 2011.

I have allowed a year for complications so that it will at the latest be on shelves by the date the story begins on V-Day 2012(jokes on me, the two stories form a circle and there is no beginning or end. How you like me now space time continuum?).

It is a novel of Astrology, Metaphysics, terror, hopelessness, and the macabre.

I have capitalized on the uncertain ideas floating around what will actually happen on the date of 12/21/2012 and used none of the popular notions. Thus fiction is allowed to take over. No matter what got backed by who, it always came naturally to me. The people in comfortable positions took the audiences, but my work will always show that I was nothing like any of them and thus a better author(I never thought I'd watch my ideas pass me by in the disenchanting products of others).

By tapping into the apocalypse theme of the date itself- with the idea I have always had about the moon disappearing in one way or another- I arrived at my plot(Dax shared the missing moon vision with me, though he wouldn't know it, probably). Always I wanted to write disasterpieces. I love writing (I loved writing those books, no matter what I say. It's editing and rewriting that is murder.).

My main character is a one eyed anarchist apprentice of astrology with a history of abuse named Tobias Squires. This character is in no way me. He thinks like me, and talks like me. He is better than me at all the things I would like to better at. His past is not mine. He doesn't look like me though I wouldn't mind looking like him. He does dress like me.

Tobias is apprentice to Olivia Cassidy. Who is a mystic seer, psychic with super model looks who acts like the girl next door. Olivia is also his step-mother. The relationship scarcely matches the arrangement. She took him in from his cold and hungry darkness after tragedy befell his family.

Olivia is not Lindsey in South Dakota. But she is. She talks like her and thinks like her; but- for the purpose of the story- knows everything about everything. Kind of like Chels thinks she does(Oooooh).

Tobias has clients for whom he does tarot readings and the most important of those clients is the wealthy television reporter, who is also a point of view character, Crystal Gold. Crystal drowns herself in the finest of everything. Crystal gets upset and sad over the stories she covers and goes to Tobias for his sage advice.

Crystal may or may not be my sister who married a rich guy. Although she talks like her and thinks a little like what I think my sister thinks like.

The rich guy is there as well. I gave him a high rise corner office with a view of a wall. I felt bad about the subtle insult and made it so he preferred to look at a wall. Something about his brooding drive for success.

Much of the story takes place in Providence and surrounding areas. Strange and terrible things are happening all over the planet. Everywhere. I show this through the eyes of people in Providence, RI.

There are mass murderers and Autistic people on the deadly fritz. As well as perverts that cause school closings and strict curfews. Sooner or later shit really hits the fan.

All the while Olivia is using her powers to ensure the survival of Tobias.

A love interest arrives half way.

I have to stop discussing specifics now. Because for people who are reading this, and have not read that book, I am not sure what to say and what not to. Also, it's a novel, I could describe a novel for an entire novel.

What I am getting at is that I weaved my message of the true meaning and significance of mysticism all through it. I am hoping to contribute to the universal shift of consciousness that as far as I can tell will be what happens in the circumstances of that day. Also, through the period of time we are in now, called "the time between worlds," and known to us as the apocalypse. The end of all things would be bad for my career so let's hope that is not the case(what little I knew then).

I am hoping that from V-Day 2012 to December 21st that year the world will become more aware of the true significances as I have laid them out in this work. Or at least take something away to spread around elsewhere.

Of course my book is about death. An extinction of every species on earth. Period. I have given that away. Oh well. I need an agent who can sell manuscripts to whoever the hell the most important man in literature his. Or that man's competitor.

I do not know what will happen in 2012. My guess is our world will continue to go to shit like it has been doing for a while now. I don't give a fuck. I'd like to be successful, but I would also like to see the human race destroy itself. As long as I have the girl I love in my arms when death comes knocking, I'll be Ok with it. Everyone dies alone. Unless it's the apocalypse, then we all die together.

If itt is not the apocalypse, it is just another sad day on earth when the government fucks you over and people suck. Hopefully you are in love. I decided to preach love through my work. Not as much peace. Preaching peace is clearly ineffective as hell. Nope. Love. And Satan. Because Satan is love.

Maybe I will mention the way Jesus is one of many gods created over time with a story consisting of a fantasized and fictionalized telling of Sun's journey through the sky.

The Virgin mother is Virgo. On December 22nd the Sun dies, does not move, on the southern cross of stars in the sky for three days before moving a degree on December 25th. Thus it is born again or resurrected.

The three kings are the three stars of Orion's belt which line up with Sirius, the brightest star in the east, and point to the 'rebirthplace' of the sun on that day.

The 12 disciples are the twelve constellations.

It goes on and on but I don't want to write it out in here if I am putting the details in the novel. Or watch the movie.

No one ever documented Jesus. Jesus, like most gods that get worshiped, never happened.

The church was created around Jesus for who knows what reason and they plagiarized all the stories from texts of other religions. A lot from the Egyptian book of the dead.

Those facts are all taken from the most important(to me) film ever made called Zeitgeist. Everyone should know the facts in that movie. Because it also covers very serious acts of mass murder and manipulation by the government. A government that is offending more often than not. Does a day go by when Washington does not deserve the death penalty?

So. I have sixty five pages written and 9.5 months to reach 80,000 to 110,000 words and completion.

Today I feel like giving up on the world. Going limp and falling where it throws me. And letting it catch up and throw me around some more. It has been doing this for years. Why stop now?

I can't get ahead. They've made the world so hard. The economy is broken. No where I can work will hire me. And I refuse to negate my standard of acceptability in terms of work by taking a job that will make me more uncomfortable than I can tolerate.

I am a professional. More than that I am really freaked out by the enclosed spaces and the stresses of restaurants; the only jobs that ever exist. I have no retail experience and frighten timid people. I can't find a factory within walking distance.

The man still won't give me back my driver's license. Probation will be putting out a warrant for me any day now.

Everyday I apply to a thousand jobs and get many of them. They are never within walking distance and I don't take the bus because standing in one spot that long makes me feel really vulnerable(Lame reason. Busses are great).

It's getting harder and harder to live.

I am opting out of my lease and will be moving back to South Dakota via as yet undetermined summer camp moneys.

I completed a season of running an after school program for inner city youth. Now the money is gone. With help from my mom it was barely enough.

I starve a lot. I love starving. I get so pissed off and irritable and I am usually so nice. It is a vacation from myself where I can be hostile toward everyone because I have bigger problems than if they are offended or not.

Fuck it. I hate everyone nowadays. Even those I love sometimes. There is an everlasting desire to be alone and writing and I am giving into it(Addiction). All of my problems are outside my door. It is all I can do to keep these walls between me and them. Biding my time in any way I can.

I'll be leaving Providence and that sucks. I actually liked it here. I was content with my surroundings. Providence is after all what I am usually looking for in life.

I miss the plains of the Midwest. I miss Lindsey or whatever her given pen name is. I may drag Rachelle with me- she'll love it. I do not expect any of this to go well. Nothing ever does. I will simply exist through a grace period afforded me by(assumed) summer camp money which got used to pay rent ahead of time under the prospect of me finding work. I see no hope in finding sufficient employment without a vehicle or a girlfriend with a vehicle.

Then my grace period will end and again I will call on my mother for money because I cannot be self sufficient. Fucking ever. I can't do it. I am too paralyzed by my fears. Too stubborn to be brave. This happens over and over again.

Perhaps I will again get money from my sister as I did throughout Winter. As I predicted she cut me off with a big grand charade on Easter.

I put this here because it will make it easier for me to express my thoughts and motivations. You really shouldn't be reading this. This is what I wrote to my only sister the day after:

hey. i love you very much. and i appreciate what you do for me. how could i not? but i dont think you get it. you have come to embody things i hate. and that doesnt much matter because the hatred stems from a deep jealousy. i dont think you can imagine what it is like living my life. always starving and always depressed. have you ever been sad for years? i have. always knowing that the only salvation from my misery is a financial security i dont think ill ever experience. and my sister. wearing 4 years rent groceries luxuries and bills on her finger or around her arm. it is not easy for me to be happy for you. when you were my age you were in college. have you ever been anxious that at any moment the floor youre standing on will disappear? you do not know what it's like. and if you have been there; for how long? that part of your life cannot be easy to recollect, apparently. and ya know what? i am not a loser. i live and work in a broken economy. once, only once, i made enough money to support myself. those jobs arent easy to come by. and still, i do work where my co fellows are college graduates. i have a career as soon as i find the right job. working with old people, or kids, or retards, i dont give a fuck which. and without a license. i got every job i applied for when i first moved to RI, and i lost them all when they figured out i cant drive. i cant commute. i have to apply to enough jobs on craigslist that eventually ill get one within walking distance. and dont tell me to take a bus because rarely do i have a dollar fifty. and now with this novel. the hours i spend writing, researching, learning, and writing would amaze you. and i have to write it within a year, rewrite it in four months, find an agent and sell it within six months to give them upwards of a year to get it on shelves by feb. 2012 (if you pay attention you know it's about 12/21/2012, and thats called marketability). if it looks like i am not going to finish it in time, ill have to drop everything and go back to south dakota to stay with Lindsey while i finish it. and you can blame alcohol or drugs but what the fuck, that was not under my control, it just happened. i dont know what my point is. i guess it's this; your head is far in the clouds, or up your ass, you cannot see what it is like for me. no shit i ask you for money. you have it. i dont. i need it. dont hold the natural order of things against me. i will take enough responsibility to say that i have made bad choices, and they resulted in a unstable and volitile existence. so i dont care about the world anymore. ideally id like to be drunk and alone with a laptop forever. and since that is not possible, fuck it. every day that goes by is me caring less than yesterday. i dont care that you want respect. i dont think i respect you anyway. i see a monument to hypocrisy. we are of the same ilk and it is hard for me to watch you live the way you do. we were spawned of the same shitpile. you tell me to work harder as a british butler hands you the planet on a platter. you tour asia while i wonder if it's worth explaining to my roommates why our mirrors broken just to put my face through it. so i wont ask you for money anymore. i know a place where i can do gay massage. maybe ill take that up. but dont respond to this, because i dont think i want to talk to you for a while. and thank you for the workshop. i love it.

Get the picture? I only wrote this chapter because I felt this period is a landmark. I have made decisions and set plans in motion. I suspect the next time I will write in this journal, I will be in South Dakota.

Good bye for now Providence. Maybe one day our paths will cross again. And perhaps not.

### Chapter 35

About once a year I pick up a bass guitar to remind myself they are lame instruments created for people without soul and are no substitute for a guitar. Upon realizing I am desperately desperately bored enough to play bass right now, I realize I am better off updating the story of my life. I've always given bassists a hard time. It's not personal.

As far gone as I may be; I've managed to create some distance between myself and the onslaught of my parent's criticism. I've given up and I think I'll be riding that out. The world makes you try too hard and I don't want to do it anymore.

Every time I try I fail, so what the fuck?

Instead I am dissolving. I can actually see my absence of life force in the mirror. I appear hollow. Expressionless. Moments away from crumbling to the floor in a heap.

Clearly I am not much of a journalist. I made three entries in this before enough time had passed to make the effort obscure in its own nature(since when?). I am only writing now because I have tapped into a certain listlessness combined with a nicotine fit, from absence of cigarettes, and a caffeine high.

Earlier I was reading about haunting. Fairly interesting. One reason they give to explain haunting is that often a remnant of the obsessive psychic vibrations left by a living individual can linger and I wonder if I am haunting anywhere right now. I hope so.

I'd like to haunt dream woman; like she haunts me. I'd like to haunt every person who gets their idiotic, boisterous, and nonsensical way over my modest suggestion built on a foundation of logic and reason. I'd like to haunt every girl that got away. Every asshole teacher or vise principle I've ever had. I'd like to haunt the places where I've nursed broken hearts. I'd like to haunt that jail cell I was in. Or any jail cell I've been in. I'd like to haunt the Jadyn. To fuck with him the way he fucks with me in the real world. I might start working on that one. I think I can haunt his truck if I work out the details right.

Enough about haunting.

I'm not in South Dakota again. Lindsey's getting married and I'd like to be there for it, but whatever. I'm getting used to failure. It rolls off my skin and lands on the floor for my ankles to sink softly ever deeper.

They say the successful writers are the persistent ones. That shouldn't be all that difficult. Don't give up. Easy enough. What else am I going to do? Matter of fact. That is a good answer for whoever asks what I'm doing with my life. Not giving up on my dreams. How about you?

The novel I'm working on is so good. I would love to read it. I've worked all the aspects of the writing business into it to guarantee success. Its subject matter even pertains to the year I plan on it being released; 2012. The title of the two book saga is So It Ends & So It Begins.

I'm really in love with all these new personality defects I've acquired; so they're all included; death obsession, psychic phenomena obsession, black clouds, general dreariness, hopelessness. All sorts of things along those lines.

In the book I'll be killing off all life on Earth. No hero's. Only solemn and doomed characters. No happy ending. Well, not for most. I think it's a spectacular ending.

The first book is before that impending date. The second will be after. Time kind of eats itself.

The story focuses on anarchist type characters. Doomsday is my riff. Which makes me assume I am only writing the times. And that sucks because no one will ever read my books if everyone dies. I wouldn't be that surprised. These fucked ironies are the framework of my life as a house.

How grim....

The Pale Mystic shows me the true meaning sometimes. That true meaning is simply to be part of the beauty that abounds. That's it. Which doesn't sit well with parts of me so human. They say when you live for the Earth, the Earth rewards you.

Indians would give back in one way or another what they took away and thus maintained a balance. How do I balance haunting my parent's house with everything else? It's all I do. Mostly (I almost wrote Moistly). I also haunt friend's parent's houses, parks, my friend's themselves. I am the ghost of myself. This makes me wonder if to become truly alive is to die. Life is Death.

Life is Death. It took a really long time to explain that founding principle to the rest of the Pale Mystics. I couldn't have done it without Castaneda. You should consult Taoism. Death is part of life- in fact- there is no life without it.

My sister married a rich guy. She drives the nicest cars has the nicest things and goes to the nicest places. I want that. I wish I married a rich guy.

She said she'd pay for me to go to school. I don't want to. I've always hated school. I dropped out of school to go to an anti-school school. Then I re-enrolled in school to commit statutory rape and while I was only there for a whole month I managed to fail half my tenth grade classes as an eighteen year old. People loved giving me bad grades. That's what happens when you see things differently than people. When I was a kid I always wondered if every one saw dragons where I saw ordinary objects. In the end it is I who sees dragons, while all others saw only what was there.

I don't need my sister to waste all that money. I want her to pay for my apartment long enough for me finish my fucking novel. All this moving around has already set me back way too much. I'll have to kick it into overdrive once I sort my life out if I want to meet my own deadline.

However, I do believe it would be lucrative to learn the Tarot. I tried to learn from books but I feel I need to be taught divination. And community college? Fuck that. Community college is two words my drugged up friends use to justify their lifestyles. CC is a mirage for pill heads to walk toward. CC is two semesters and a dropping out to be included in every working class American's personal story.

Fuck that. I don't go to school. My life is a work of art and to belittle it in such a way is unthinkable to me.

Instead. Ha. Instead? What? Drink other peoples booze (mostly Rachelle's and Oscar's)? Do other people's drugs (also Rachelle's and Oscar's)? Not writing enough (summertime's are often unproductive literarily speaking)? Tip toe around that dangerous enigma of a father?

I was going to shoot myself in the foot. No one supported that idea. I would have with enough support, I'm sure. My mother always tells me I'm shooting myself in the foot. I wanted to actually try it. Gain time in front of a keyboard. Make a minor statement of some vague sort.

Instead I moved into the tent. The urge to put a hole in my foot is always there. Something to break the fucking monotony.

I hardly go to public places anymore. I can't face the general population. I stay in the car a lot and my friends give me shit about that. I can't do it.

Sometimes I can. If I've got money to spend; yes. If the reason out weighs the apprehension; yes. Rarely is that the case.

I hate the world so much, you know? I never know who wants to kill me. Who's thinking what. Or how I look through the eyes of others.

I walk through the big super saving stores with guitars crashing and screaming in my mind. Head down, eyes up. They don't care that I want them dead. Given the option and equipment I would restrain them and line up every person over sixteen in that store against a wall and put bullets in their head one by one.

I'm not homicidal. I would be if it were Ok to be.

So I avoid those places. And all places.

I went out and fired a gun tomorrow.

It really only made things worse. The cult is pulling frightening characteristics from all of us and placing them at the forefront of our attention. Mostly I created a public part of me for everybody I know to criticize.

Because they all have a say in the things we do. And I hear them say "we each put four RANDOM words on a paper and picked them RANDOMLY" and came up with a cult. There is no meaning.

Well, I knew the meaning. Maybe Rachelle did. B from B does now. In the beginning I looked at the Jadyn and said this is a great way to get rich. He agreed whole heartedly. So I began building an empire.

A founding principle was creating an environment of thoughtfulness. I was being creative and everyone was having fun; doing activities for about a week. And then everyone lost faith. My ideas had come to a head and it was time for action. We were off to a good start. I had created grand designs of human interactions to be played out over the centuries. I was being egotistical. And self aggrandizing.

I was being something. I saw spiritual profit and beauty and people harmonizing with the Earth as the solution to the whole destruction of it that is taking place. Make a new religion about harmonizing. Manifesting positivity. And, yes, robbing and stealing. Or whatever else. Revolution, maybe.

It made sense as I came up with it. I spat Pale Mystic Society out like verbal diarrhea for days as I obsessed over it. And people kept up. When I spoke to strangers it was sad because I could get them into the whole movement very easily. And I could get them excited very easily. And it grew.

I said, "Save the plants." I heard "Hell yeah."

I said, "Save the animals." I heard. "Hell yeah."

I said, "Stop atrocities! Save the humans!" I heard, "Hell yeah!"

"And you know what," I said, "we can have a great time doing it! Do enough charity not to be bothered. Manipulate people for the good of the cult. Either be one of us in your heart or buy your way into our hearts."

They told me that is a turn off. So we changed our economic policy to give what you can donations.That's how we work together. They are constantly keeping my far fetched bullshit in check. Mostly, though, they get in my way.

The Jadyn is constantly dominating every aspect of everything. Not the cult. But me and my feelings about the cult. I have to maneuver through his destructive words like a space ship in an asteroid field. The current result is loss of motive. As the asteroids took out the religious zeal of a grand scheme; the here and now of stoners arguing took over. Essentially placing the spaceship on life support.

The spaceship is the cult now. As I was telling them things, I was being agreed with. Everything got agreed upon by the founders and I'd move on.

A week and a half later they started questioning all the things I was saying. I was throwing flyers and whipping staple gun signs all around my head and Hartford. They simply didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. They thought I was going too far without knowing the meaning of The Eternally Dead Pale Mystic. As if I didn't know. It was they who did not know.

So we had a meeting about the meaning. Meaning was what was meant to be addressed. Consider what the words we had used on that first piece of paper were. There were some cool words from all around; chemical, torrential, etc. I maintained I simply wanted Pale in there. I was drunk. Dax Riggs lyrics in my head like always. Dead was picked. That was one of mine also. And my girlfriend in a stroke of genius wrote the word Mystic. Eternally is used to emphasize dead. Or something to that like. It's a point of the dead metaphor actually.

Thus nothing has any meaning because it was all random; is what I hear nowadays. Let's examine this theory.

Q: What is meaning? A: Who the fuck cares? Meaning is meaningless.

I do however like the word 'importance.' Everyone in the Pale Mystic asks themselves what is important to them.

Well. Let me ask myself what is important to me. Right now.

A few things: Dax Riggs lyrics, mysticism, living in the 'woodsism' is the new term for paganism because no one sees that this brand of paganism is not rituals, gods, and dorks with swords. It is a harmony with the earth I am trying to stress.

I don't mean it in a Greenpeace way, but that's how it's taken. That was adapted as a selling point. And while I mean "be mystics in the mist." We are simply a Green organization. Kudos to the times, humanity.

Either way this is more important than random words. I play with words. I love them. If I am around they cannot be random. They are my favorite thing. Words are Eternal.

Naturally this was a big assignment.

Loose organization and the organizations lack of design aspects comes with being a very lackadaisical cult- while I must admit we have much less paperwork- is a thought I have no place for.

We agreed on a symbol. The tree of life. A pagan symbol. It went from there. The four founders are all the elements; Fire, Earth, Air, Water. That was nifty. Something else to work with. What the fuck were we?

Well. I was thinking, at the time; scam, front, scheme, fraud, then shift in consciousness. A long sought after mental revolution where everyone thinks like me. I think I could handle the task of thinking for everybody. At least within means of literary guidance.

I knew the big picture and the details of our vision came next. Exactly as in creating So It Ends. I was hoping to work with people instead of words. Nobody wants to scheme. Nobody wants to advertise until we find someone with a house and land. Hopefully an insane person.

No one wants to create a legitimate old person companionship outfit for donations.

Fine. I'll do it.

Me and the Jadyn pick up broken glass and dirty needles around town. And that is straight out of an Acid Bath song called Jezebel. I am the only one who is obsessed with the band. The only one paying attention. Doing as I hear in ways I can appreciate. These manifestations are of me. They are part of me. I feel offended when they are threatened.

I try to encourage other mystic activities. Graveyard visits. Death obsessions. That's where I get it from; the dead. Because the lyrics are welcoming to me. I think it would be welcoming for others like me. Maybe if we all reach out to people alike ourselves we could reach people better.

Hence substance to the subject from our meeting; Collectivism vs. Individualism = Collective Individualism. I did not come up with that topic. As a hypothetical assignment, I am closer to the completion of a model of actual collective individualism.

Throw that away. I come up with this bullshit all day and everyday and in the end I am really only doing it for the fucking cult. I do it because I like to do it. But I like to do it for the cult. I want to watch it grow like the tree of life. Over time. Long after I'm dead. For many generations to come. Many. Like the revolution will grow in our lifetime.

In the Pale Mystic's reality we reshape the world so that maybe we're not all doomed. Certainly a harmonious race would be better off than a destructive one. And if the Pale Mystics can pull it off, so be it. We are to survive. Even to only have each other.

Members. We need them if we want a doomsday house and endless food and resources. You will only get that with a religion. There is no money for people like us and we need the money or members or both. So take it from places that have it. Let them give it to you for your noble cause and hard work.

We need a noble cause. Pale Mysticism is the cause.

And I could tell you about it for days. It is rock solid and crystal clear. The bar has been set so low. I know I know. Growing little sapling here. Ok. So be it. There shouldn't be an issue here.

I am weary of a lack of faith among the others. When the Jadyn realized I had ideology down and had created a culture, philosophy, and activities and holidays; he shut down, dropped out as a founder and replaced himself with the girl I used to date in Boston. And from that point became an obstinate opponent of any sort of the one damn thing I have to offer, a blueprint for a very sturdy foundation for something great to be built upon. Or to Pale Mystify it, he's harming the roots of the tree I'm trying to grow.

The religion: Earth worship because the Earth does not judge or condemn. The Earth does not care what we do. The guise, the religion, in which we mask our true lack thereof has been shunned.

Expansion has been suppressed. I would be cool with postponement. People lose interest that way. As they do by the minute.

I understand that they care- if they care- but they don't care about certain things I deem important. The solution to this through collective individualism is to simply take these things unto myself.

I did that. The Jadyn tells me to shut up about my thoughts whenever I vocalize about how an activity would make a good Pale Mystic activity. Certain things have EDPM qualities. I spot them. He tells me to shut up. Fuck his opinion because for so long I wanted his approval(I think. Maybe for practical reasons). It is driving me mad. He debates, discounts, and disbelieves science. All of it. I thought science does many real things. It's confusing. He claims animals are more intelligent than people. Yet does not explain why. I feel intelligence is a concept that pertains to humans and we sometimes apply it to animals. A non-issue. He draws me into these arguments through charisma and skill as he does most things, which reflects poorly of me and a blow is done to my credibility, my integrity, and thus my ability to achieve.

He speaks loudly but says little. Stoic vs. Indignant.

I stay fed up over this shit for days. Writing this now on a laptop. I may copy it into the Pale Mystery a couple days from now only to find it in poor taste more than a week later.

This whole chapter should be deleted.

This shit has all been so hard on me so fuck it. The Pale Mystic means everything to me and I am shunned for that. Everything I do I do for the cult. Everything the cult does it does for its members. Ungrateful fucks comes to mind but I don't mean it that way.

I made flyers. To advertise. To catch insane people with money. For the cult!

No one wants me to do these things. Perhaps my motives are fantastical. Fantastical is what I do. Drunkenly.

Now when I talk to strangers about what we've come up with; I trip over the standards of the Jadyn. I whisper hollow words about the murmurs of impotent debate. And the people do not get excited.

Public relations tied up with the death metaphor.

Life = Death./ Appreciation of death/ Death as a wise advisor (Castaneda)/ Infinity/ Being Dead is the same as being alive/ respect Death and live better/ know Death, live beside and among Death

Dax Riggs and Carlos Castaneda.

We had a meeting because they did not understand what I was gearing toward. Why was I speaking for them? "The Death shit is creepy," they said. What is it all about? They were only Four Random words. And life is all a shoebox.

Eventually B from B understood the death metaphor and was able to communicate it across the board(live like you're going to die any minute. Imagine if you died right now. All unsaid. All undone.). They loved it. Until the Jadyn's attack on "meaning". Now; who knows?

This always seems the case. They used to take my word for it. Now I must explain every little thought until they understand. And I am able to. It is time consuming. People will never trust me. I understand this. It is very alienating to trust yourself when no one else does.

We were to be a manifestation of bleak times and bleaker realities. As I saw it. Creatures of darkness holding candlelight vigils for the doomed. And if we have the cloaks, we'll do that. We should have a vigil. We'll wear black because cloaks are expensive. Unless a seamstress were a Pale Mystic...

And you can't preach nothing to a seamstress. You preach something. All the little somethings. You can't grow without sustenance. And the tree needs to grow. Life feeds on life. The tree is alive and it needs to grow.

In the beginning we were all going to get tattoos. Obnoxious Duck (Oscar) would buy them. He had the money. The group had chosen the tree of life on the left wrist. My ever subtle tattoo. They had chosen the tree of life as the symbol.

A perfect choice. Tree of Life over the Death artery.

I was really excited. We drove and drove on a Sunday evening to find a tattoo artist. To no avail. The next day there were no tattoos. He had withdrawn his offer.

I felt the blow to the tree. Rachelle got hers. Of course.

All these things we can feed to the tree to make it strong and I worry that we are starving it. I may be stifling it. If you asked me I'd say I'm overcompensating for a lack of proactive effort. And I will continue to do that. For the Pale Mystic.

I do not know. This is my first experience with building a state of mind; life; religion; society; support; charity; thoughtfulness and equality; harmony. Second if you count E.O.N.S.

Maybe if they cared more they would be as stressed as I am. I rot inside my skull inside my corpse. Alone with my problems. And I think of a dead rock star. The lyricist and singer of Blind Melon. He asked, "Can you feel the power of the eye that lives five feet away?" He asked this as he lie shitting on the floor, I think.

I can feel that eye. I can hear what it's thinking too. Because it has the same fucking thoughts as the mass mindfuck wasteland of America.

Look at me. In my room. Losing it a little everyday. Having a staring contest with a breakdown. Giving of myself endlessly because I do it compulsively.

The Jadyn will have people believe the things I say and do are meant to aggrandize myself. If only I could have it any other way. My designs are grand. All I do is fantastic. It is self aggrandizing by nature.

I wish he wasn't so jealous. I wouldn't have called him that two months ago but recently he revealed that he is prone to bouts of the condition. Anyway; he knows I need his help. Too bad he constantly dominates me in crass and mammalian ways. Definitely a dog person.

If my girl don't stop siding with him over me I'm dropping her ass. I don't need someone so easily confused by his trickery. As we all are, to one degree or another.

I got to stop hanging out with him. It's too stressful. At least for a time. I've got to pick up the pieces. Re-enthuse Ash Frog; the foremost voice of the Jadyn among the founders.

I can't blame him for my problems. I think I am doing exactly that. Still I don't want to ever do anything worthwhile without him. Perhaps he'll hate me for these words. Years from now, but that I doubt. I can't take it anymore right now.

The cult. The cult. The cult.

Where will the founders and fifths be when I find us a home? Will they respect me then? What about when the religion is acknowledged as such and we've got celebrity members? Can I aim high if they keep bringing me down?

Will I be alone soon enough? The project; abandoned by all but me?

Thank the Earth for the Jadyn's Collective Individualism. Where would we be without it?

I think I'm going to hang out with some old people. Then I'm going to start selling the cult exactly how I did in the beginning. Nothing has changed; except the loss of faith. I'm going to clean the riverbanks. I'm going to learn Tarot. I'm going to be the Pale Mystic I wish everyone were.

### Chapter 36

At this point it is safe to say the Pale Mystic was stillborn. Which, I guess, seems appropriate. Though I'm sure it will be with me eternally. The second doomed cult I've tried to create. When I was in seventh grade me and some jock friend of mine called everyone we could think of asking if they wanted to join our Earthworm cult. For some reason we decided Earthworms were worthy of worship. It is conceivable that the Earth worshiping Pagan tendencies of the Pale Mystic were a throwback to Earthworms; those gooey heroes of the second dimension. Everything moves in circles. Perhaps the future will worship brain devouring amoebas.

What is there to say about the Pale Mystic other than nobody gives a shit? All this comes down to is that I am one overly enthusiastic drunk. When I'm on a bender I feel like I can lead the world to salvation. Then I sober up and notice everyone thinks I'm insane. No. They're all relatively understanding. Fuck everybody, huh? No one gives a shit about anything. There is no passion in this population. What are the college's secrets? How are there so many organizations throughout colleges that can manage to get things done? Women, of course. Women want to save the world and men want to get laid, so they hand out blankets to the cold to sniff a few butts. It's not like a bunch of hippies handing out blankets would ever care for the Pale Mystic. That's what I'm saying; it's sad. If my friends couldn't get it, nobody else would.

At the time, however subliminally, I wanted to share Occult and New Age teachings with the world. Those teachings, at this juncture, are infinitely more valuable than laboratory science. The whole world is hell bent on ignoring crop circles. GOD IS TALKING TO US FROM THE HEAVENS AND PEOPLE ARE IGNORING IT! These are the times. The entire world is brainwashed by the idiot box. Everybody thinks they know the answers because they know the gist of whatever Einstein said. Meanwhile, I read these New Age books, Barbara Hand Clow currently, and I inch my way closer toward the unknowable things light years away and in our own back yard. As I go along further and further and deeper and deeper with the knowledge, it gets lonelier and lonelier because there is nobody left to talk to about what I'm learning. Suddenly I'm the weirdo because I want to tell others about the Circlemakers and the Nine Dimensions. "Richie," they say, "you're wrong. The first dimension is a dot." And I vaguely recall that fraction of a theory. Like explaining something I read a whole book about in the one sentence worth of their attention span is that simple. Why do I even try? Our first dimension, coincidently enough, is the iron crystal at the center of the earth. It pulses like a heart and all the iron on the planet feels it and we've got iron in our blood so we experience the 40 beat a minute or so pulse of the Earth. Also, every first dimension is a source of gravity; the black holes at the center of galaxies are first dimensions. Most likely, of course. Cuz who knows anything, really?

I shouldn't even be talking about this. I am not a scientist or a teacher. My job is not to try and act like I can express what I have learned to others. Basically I don't know shit. I know a hell of a lot more than almost anyone else in my time & place. Still, I don't know shit.

Lately I've been having some trouble defining my writing. I wish I could ask you what you think about my writing, but I wouldn't really want to know anyhow. I'm still a caterpillar. I'm at this 250,000 word crisis. Three projects: Jesus Christ! 82,000 words, this book 93,000 wordsish, and So It Ends 83,000 words.

Jesus Christ! is complete. The whole thing is a mish mash mosaic of my feelings and thoughts and excerpts from my life; poetry, my early reflections, short stories. If you like this book you should definitely check it out because damn there is a lot of personal information in there that will tie a lot of this together in a more theatrical sense. You'd have to read it. Good luck finding it. I hope I get successful one day so you can read my books(the better ones!! Thank you for reading this one, because as far as the craft goes, this is cheating). I only put it together so when 2012 comes out there will be something else of mine for people to read. I wasn't even going to publish it. I was going to let it drift, or surface. Smashwords lets me give it away free. But I need to raise money to print(yeah right. Not going to happen.). Gotta love giving away your autobiography. It only stings a little.

So It Ends is about ¾ done. There is a lot to say about that book. I wrote it because since I started writing I wanted to write about an apocalypse and 2012 is right around the corner. The thing about that book is that I don't believe there will be an apocalypse that year. From what I can tell there is going to be some mind blowing shift in consciousness. Really though it is impossible to discern what is going to happen. All the experts on the subject suggest 30 different theories apiece. The book is really a representation of the fear that is going on around the matter and through the population in general of fascism and radiation. Even Hollywood is hung up on the end of the world. I feel locked into this representation of myself that screams I don't know my asshole from a stugots. Maybe that is true. Let the world realize and understand the whole scenario is not much more than an expression of my mental turmoil. It's art, ya know?

I have finally figured out the ending for that book. It was my original goal to simply kill off the world; let the characters die slow and philosophical deaths. Then I was imagining this otherwordly trip. I wanted to stay true to the original vision but I could see many grand possibilities in taking the story to other dimensions. All the while I have to remain a ten foot pole away from being a sci fiction writer. The book is supposed to express a current archetype; not be about lame adventures in outer space. Except, I currently believe in aliens more than earthbound science so it wouldn't really be science fiction to me anymore anyway. The point is that I figured out my ending. The damned thing kept me awake for hours. The end of the first book and the beginning of its sequel has to do with the Greys arriving at Endsville and taking our characters into space to view the world as it has become. The cast will be delivered to sexy energy goddesses (maybe. That's the sequel and I'll deal with it later) like how that will actually be the character of Olivia in another reality. She will make everything clear. These are matters of the second book. My only decision left to make is where to put the tale of The Lion and the Scorpion; at the end of the first book or at the beginning of the second? It would look beautiful at the end of the first one.

Then there is this book I never get around to adding to because I am always working on the 2012 book. Hence I am really envious of all those authors that write books in under a month. That would be so nice. Maybe once I sell something I'll be able to write quicker. For now I have to work and try and survive.

Thus there are a thousand things, once more, that have been left out of this. For a while I was living some nightmare at my parent's house in CT that I would have really liked to write about. Eventually my Dad gave me a wad of money and told me to get the hell out. So I talked Rachelle into running away to South Dakota with me.

Here I am in South Dakota again. Everything moves in circles. I have gotten a good job watching a special people house overnight (coincidentally I learned that because of overpopulation there are not enough souls hovering around the planet to populate the thing as more and more people pump out kids. Now creation has to create these souls out of nowhere and this is why people are born "special" or stupid or sick or whatever. Billy Meier taught us this). The company pays good and I don't have anything to do all night, so I get to write. This opportunity should speed up my progress on 2012 thankfully. At least give me some time to do the endless re-writing.

I have gotten a car to drive but it has no brakes except for the emergency brake that hardly works. It's a scary car to drive; a hazard to everyone's safety. And I have money to get brakes done with but I hate spending money on things I don't want to and I've never really been good at doing as such. I'll probably get some brakes on it eventually. Except I've got to get insurance or registration on it and that costs money too. My biggest hope for 2012 is that insurance agencies will become obsolete.

The machine takes from you whenever the chance is available. People have to get to work, so they have to drive. Insurance is mandatory by law. My plan is to insure the car, get it registered so I can get up to date tags, cancel the insurance, and drive until the tags run out. The cops don't run insurance checks anyway and the little validation paper that they ask for upon pulling you over has sixth months of up to date on it.

Still I don't even know how accurate all those systems are. My license got suspended for a year when I got arrested that time and went to jail. When I went to reinstate my license, the department of motor vehicles in CT had no clue my license was ever suspended. Last they knew I had canceled it in Minnesota. I could have gotten a license and been driving for that whole suspension period. Instead I lived in poverty not being able to get work. These institutions front like they are on top of things and really they have no clue about what's going on. Really I expect these discrepancy type things of mine to fall through the cracks more so than I expect them to get discovered.

Changing topic, I have turned into a complete asshole like my father. I have nothing nice to say. This blows since I am trying to polarize and balance my existence which among other things entails that I not be an asshole to my girlfriend. The problem here is that I have _nothing_ nice to say.

We're living with Lindsey- naturally- in a quaint little white house in some sort of suburbia. Two cats, a dog, and two couples. Lindsey is married to a really good guy. Lindsey; who is always sick of me being a dick. Except she gets pissed off about everything so whatever. The problem with my attitude is that I am a miserable prick. Just like my father. When I was young I used to tell my mother to kill me if I ever turned out like him. She hasn't pulled the trigger yet.

Everything bothers me. Being in a committed relationship feels like prison even though I know it's what's best. Rachelle would jump off something high if I ever broke it off with her anyway, and she's a Scorpio, so I don't see that changing, ever. The problem being that Rachelle is an amazing person and I don't deserve her and she deserves better than me. This dichotomy is another source of powerful angst.

I hate Nietzsche. Early on in this book I was reading Nietzsche by a pool when I started hitting on Belle. At that time I did not understand Nietzsche. My problem with the man really has nothing to do with him. My problem is that there are these generations that read his book as if his writing will do them good. As far as I can tell he wrote about everything; literally every little thing. How could that not be profound? The writing is too effective. I feel his popularity detracts from his validity. However, his genius was epic. I am simply not a fan. Usually I am not one to claim that popularity ruins validity, but with him I feel that is the case. That was off topic, too. The thought came to mind so I included it. This shit ain't linear apparently.

The real problem of the day is a girl named Janessa. I have been privy to a certain obsession for the bleached dream fuck since I was 14. I mean "dream fuck" in that she has fucked my dreams, not that I fuck her in my dreams, though that does happen occasionally. The dream sex is seldom very good. Every once in a while maybe. It's like even her astral representation is turned off by me. Not all the time, but often. The obsession is always there lurking under the surface, and I am not sure if it is the cold weather that brings it out or what. The notion alone hypothesizes some sort of pattern and I can tell that in time I will come to fully understand the seasonality of the obsession.

Sometimes I can forget about her entirely until I have another dream about her. Then I'll be soaked in melancholy until by some miracle I get her off of my mind. However, here, in South Dakota, Janurary of 2009, the obsession is worse than ever. Always my mind idles on the images and ideals of her essence. When Barbara Hand Clow asks me to locate somebody's emanations to contact from my heart center, it is her.

Except there is no foundation for this. It is completely forth dimensional. Her personification in my mind's obsession exists in the realm of archetypes and gods. Now I pray to the seven directions that in my life some sort of vindication will come from this. There is no sense for all this suffering to exist in vein. Currently I have written a short story about it all. That is clearly not enough. My new hope is to one day write a magnificent novel _with_ her, because last I knew she was a serious writer. She is an absolute genius. If we wrote something together it would offer her intelligence with my grasp on the abstract. I can only imagine how excellent that book would be. Yes, that indeed seems to be the proper solution.

Although I should add that in the past week I have been dreaming of Belle and not Janessa. Well there was one Janessa dream, we were back in high school and we were dating but I don't recall her presence more than a passing kiss on the cheek and she left a cute picture of herself in my locker. Mostly the dream was of me not having a shirt on and walking through the lunch room trying to cover up my chest scars.

As for the dreams of Belle; one I don't remember and the other we had sex in a hotel room in Jamaica. That latter dream was a very nice dream until she abandoned me again. Go figure. Those dreams of Belle would offer some relief from the obsession if Janessa were not on my waking mind at all times. ALL TIMES!

The Belle dreams will pass. Janessa will remain like she always has; omnipresent in 3D and 4D. Why is she haunting me? What supernatural game is being played with my soul? My heart aches at the thought of her. About every other day I look at a picture of her on the internet; my heart stops and I begin to die until with my last strength I tear my face away from the image.

Sometimes all I want is hypnosis. Except I can't be hypnotized. Sometimes all I want is to be rid of this cumbersome burden. Except I would miss the dreams; they are part of me now. Sometimes I know I should seek help. Except there is nothing any man could do to affect the will of a higher power. I know, I have tried(Try Satan).

There is nothing left to say about that for now.

19,000 words left until this is over. By that time So It Ends will be complete and I'll have achieved my goal of documenting my life from being a dreamless dreamer and a blind visionary to having my literary soul stuck between the RI's and the other RO's on book shelves everywhere.

Time to do some work, wipe down a couple counter tops and throw some pills down some throats. Then I'll get in my car with no brakes, drive home to my poor under-appreciated lover, drink 40 ounces of malt liquor, and try to fall asleep. I thought there was more to say...

### Chapter 37

In my apartment, the absence of the drone of cable television aides the loneliness to sink in deep. There is a .357 magnum revolver hung on the wall prepared for nobody to bust through the dead bolted door. The gun is 43 times more likely to kill friends or family than an intruder. The garbage has piled up in the same way it used to in Providence. I plan on taking it to the dumpster after night falls. In my bedroom, two cats are asleep on my mattress on the floor. Their hair accumulates and irritates my asthma when I sleep. I decided to write but with every word I realize how a truth I learned from Invader Zim is ever so completely true: dreams eventually lead to horrible implosions. Another scorpion, Pleiades, is dead, murdered by our adopted kitten, Gaia. Pleiades' absence cloaks this space with looming notions of bad omens. The blinds stay closed to keep the ugliness out and the dismal in. My dismal heart still beats. Tasks I will need to tend to are causing dread in my agoraphobic mind.

I am alone for a week while Rachelle visits her friends and family in Connecticut. This is a trial for me. These days are what I can expect when she gets fed up and leaves me. A possibility that is fast becoming more of an inevitability.

No longer do I live with Lindsey in her white house in the suburbs. That period came to an end in a clash over the metaphysics of kitty litter. Now I have a one bedroom apartment with Rachelle. We make good money and steadily purchase the material comforts I was never able to have in the past. We have a video game system, an X-Box 360, that I sometimes play. We have a futon that began creaking and breaking a week after we bought it three months ago.

Rachelle is having trouble with the court system over an underage drinking charge. She longs to be home smoking pot with her friends and for the moment she is but she will come back sooner than later. When that happens her despair will resume from the point she left it at. She hates her job and she hates me. She threatens to leave me if I will not move home with her. I say good for her. She deserves to get away from me. I take advantage of her willingness to serve me and this often causes her to feel like a slave. She pays the bills. She gets the food. We both clean the house. She pleases me sexually and occasionally I return the favor. In many ways I am like a child to be taken care of. Except for the sex part- I like to give, and she likes to take. I need her for that and I appreciate her for that. I don't believe another girl as submissive as her would be easy to find.

The enormous scorpion tattoo on my forearm reminds me of what it would be like to lose her. With the absence of our dead emperor scorpion and the quietness of my home with Rachelle missing I can easily imagine being alone again. The way I was after Belle dumped me. I won't be that heartbroken. I will be painfully lonely. I have developed a good system for coping with a world that despises me. All I need is one girl. Perhaps I learned this from my father. All I need is the right girl, but that strength becomes a weakness when the girl exits stage east.

Rachelle begs me to move home to Connecticut. I remind her what it was like when I last lived there; no job, no home, no vehicle, no food. The more I tried to attain those basic things the less I succeeded. I have all of those things and my life is comfortable but there is always something going wrong. It wouldn't be life if there weren't. Rachelle is the obstacle. And I was so close to having everything I wanted. Closer than in Minnesota even.

The thing I wanted most was stability. I wanted to have a home and stay put and not have to worry about moving around anymore. If there is anything that I have grown sick and tired of it would be moving around. Every time I have to move it pushes me a step closer to suicide. There is no other way to put it. Since I started working on this book about four years ago, I have not inhabited any one dwelling for longer than two seasons at a time or something like that. Sioux Falls, SD- Lindsey's house; Sioux Falls, SD- special people summer camp; Minnesota- Waite Park; Minnesota- St. Cloud; Sioux Falls- some girl's basement; Chaplin, CT- Patcher's drive way in a truck; Chaplin, Ct- autism summer camp; Providence, RI; Chaplin, CT- Tent; Chaplin, CT- parent's house; Sioux Falls, SD- Lindsey's house; Sioux Falls, SD- this apartment.

I spend an average of four months in one place at time and this has been going on for too too long. Surely since even before I started this book, when I was younger and crashing wherever I might. Before this book began I lived in campers in people's yards and in people's basements or in and out of my parent's house. I can't really imagine where I was most of the time because from 15 years old to 18 years old is a blur in my memories. The things I can recall from that time are all singular obscure events that could and probably will fill a whole other book.

The point is that I am sick of moving around and can no longer do it. Not unless I actually wanted to that is. Maybe I could work on being a normal human worm baby if my surroundings weren't constantly whirling around me.

Everywhere I go there is one common factor that is contributing greatly to my torment. Naturally that factor is other people. This factor is a specific type of every other person and for the most part it is the only type of other person you meet anywhere. These are the people that live wherever I currently reside. The reason they live there is because they have always lived there and they will always live there. These people drive decent cars and what's more is that they have insurance on those cars. These people have money saved and furniture in their homes. They have been at their jobs for more than four months.

I only want to be one of these stable people.

If Rachelle insists on leaving that will be her choice. Only she is living her life and only I am living mine. When she is gone I will be lonely again and I will again be struggling to keep my head above water. After all, the reason we can afford anything is that we both work full time. When she is no longer splitting my bills, I will be able to afford only food and rent.

This is the same sad struggle that has been going on throughout this entire book. I had really hoped my writing would save me from it. Upon completing my 2012 novel I learned something the sources had been telling me all along: Nobody gives a fuck that I wrote a book. I have no previous publishing credits and I am not a scholar or an authority on the subject; no one cares. I will not get this book published. Not right now at least.

I was hoping to rise above everyone's expectations of my impending failure. And perhaps one day I might. Not now. Writing is rejection. My entire life has been about rejection. Every girl I have ever loved eventually rejects me. Usually before they date me. I spent my adolescence falling in love with my friends simply for them to remind me that I am only a friend. This happened four times(at least) before Lindsey and Angela.

If my love life is any indicator of my literary career, I can expect lots of rejection, a sweet success. More rejection. Another beautiful success. More rejection. Something to settle on. And then who knows? I don't know where my life is going.

I expect none of this will matter come 2012. I used to believe nothing will happen in 2012. Then as I looked into the situation more and more the literature convinced me otherwise. I learned some very unnerving facts and now find myself hoping we'll survive the date rather than assuming we will. Something, good or bad, and definitely profound, is going to happen. If we do survive I will look back on these days as time wasted by fear and false prophets. However, the only reason I hope to survive is to see myself become a successful writer and for people to read my work which will by then be edited thoroughly by myself and several hardworking editors. If not for my writing career I really would not give a shit if this entire world was obliterated in an instant. And considering my feelings toward our race, if it were up to me, I might easily be willing to forfeit my pending readership to see this planet end.

How much time I'll have wasted writing. And it will only concern me. If this world ends in 2012 you will never have read this. Only I will have read this and I will have wasted my few precious years alive on this rock writing. I could have been hanging around beaches with The Jadyn but I chose this instead. A cruel cosmic joke.

As for my 2012 book only two people have read much of it. The first is Rachelle. She has read the whole thing. The second is a woman on my writer's website by the name of D.J. Harrington. The support given by the latter is priceless and I would thank her endlessly for it. She told me I've written the best story on the immense website. Other people tell me I don't know how to use a semi-colon or apostrophes. I'll give them that. They rewrite passages of my writing to sound how it would sound had they written it. As if I can up and change my entire voice in a snap. This is neither here nor there. People can suck it. The point is that the two individuals to take an interest in my writing, D.J. Harrington and Rachelle, were born on the same day of different years, November 1st, the Day of the Dead or All Saints day- respectively. A passing case for the legitimacy of astrology.

Perhaps the last thing I have to add here is about my gun. I am a proud registered owner of a Ruger GP100 .357 magnum double action revolver with a six inch barrel. This gun is the beauty of living in the Mid Western United States. I had to fill out a piece of paper and pay ten dollars to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon. In Connecticut, to get the same permit costs hundreds of dollars, requires hours of gun classes, and there is a test involved. My permit carries over to 21 other states and CT is not one of them. Ironically, I would have a thousand more places to shoot in that state than in South Dakota. Here I live in a city and I know nobody with private property so I can only shoot at the firing range which is a little lame. I would like to shoot things that explode. What are you going to do?

The reason I really want the gun is because there was no way I would do all the bull crap to own one in CT and here it was so easy to get one. Also, owning a gun makes me feel badass like an outlaw or something. The gun makes me feel more like a freedom fighter when in actuality the implications surrounding the nature of being a registered gun owner makes me more of a right wing republican in the eyes of anyone watching. Nobody knows what I'd really like to be doing with it.

I'm getting fat. Me! I've never put on weight in my life. My extra mass is truly a testament to how far I've come lately as well as how far Rachelle wishes to regress me.

As for the short length of these chapters; they are simply a result of me not having much to say. I could write a diatribe about some East Coast friends that came and went to the Black Hills and Bad Lands with us so I could take a picture of myself giving Mount Rushmore the middle finger. But why bother? I don't really care about what goes on in my life because it is not that interesting anymore. Another testament to how far I've come.

No more fights. Finally.

I could tell you about the itchiest skin condition you could ever fathom. I think it's finally in remission (bed bug infestation at work).

Even if something did happen in my life I would probably write a short story about the event and stash it somewhere else. This book needs to end. I need to sell my 2012 book or admit defeat. I have two other projects to start as soon as I finish my third rewrite. It is May now. If I haven't sold my book by next March I will admit defeat and try all over again with something new.

### Chapter 38

Rejection. I'm a reject. I always have been and always will be. I've begun to fail writing a screenplay, called Reject, based on the theme of rejection in my life. The constant rejection. The character, Ian, is more or less me. His stories are always rejected and his love is received in much the same fashion. At the end of the story he will finally sell a piece of work and one of the dozen girls he has thrown his love at throughout his life will come to their senses and decide to be with him. And when things are finally right for him in the world, an atomic bomb will drop on his town and decimate him and everything he toiled his entire life for. I am writing the screenplay because no agents want to represent my fucking book. As I can assume no agent will want to represent my fucking screenplay either, but I have to try to be certain. The shitty part is that somebody will eventually read an unpublished novel. Nobody is going to read an unsold screenplay. If I do not sell it, I will have wasted my time.

The story, Reject, would have made a great novel, but I need a large sum of money before I can begin writing as heavily as I would prefer and I have sacrificed that novel for the greater good of my career(I don't know anything about life and cannot predict the future.). Except, it occurs to me now, I have already written that story in a form I did not actively choose. This, right here, is that story. Assuming the world comes to an end, all the elements will be there. In the event of an apocalypse, the plot line of Reject would meld the fiction of that story and the nonfiction of this story, with the actuality of real life. And in my final moment, as I hear and feel the wall of fire barreling down on me, I will choke and cough in amazement at what I know. My shadow will remain, and nothing else.

Hopefully that will not be the case. Hopefully you are reading this right now and reveling in the notion the same as I do. As appealing as I find the end of the world, I find successful authorship with a legitimate readership doubly such. I need to survive for that to happen.

Which is my argument, when audacious agents- buyers and sellers- explain to me that, no, I don't deserve any help from them to make my dream come true. It is my dream, after all, they tell me. Agents have paid their dues. I have not. As if we don't all pay our dues by living in this god forsaken society. I inform them that what I do can save somebody's life. If they'll allow it to. They do not take me seriously.

Every word I have ever written is my own way of warding off suicide. Really there is no other point to my work. I write because if it weren't for my writing, I would rather be dead. I have stories to tell and things to say. If I were dead, I would be doing a karmic disservice to humanity that my soul could not live with (pun?). Perhaps the agents owe me nothing, but I maintain that we all owe one another everything in the same way we would owe something to ourselves. Everything is connected and I am you the same as you are me. The agents owe my writing to the world and they are making a grave mistake by keeping my words in this vacuum.

My work is written as an alternative to suicide. The nature of my words is to prevent suicide. It is what they do naturally, for me, and for the reader I hope. I know there is currently, and will be eventually, a given number of lives to be saved by the things I've written. It's inevitable. In a world that puts so much value on life, if even only one person stays alive by reading my work than the investment of time by some fuckshit in an office would be paid an infinite amount of times in return.

I hope my writing demonstrates that even when there is nothing we can do to better ourselves, for whatever reason, there is always something we can do to better the world.

The agent I had an argument with said that my writing was nothing more than pitiful excuses, self centeredness, and pain. To which I say, yeah.

An obscure reference: Consider the music of the band Stabbing Westward. Their lyrics could be placed under a similar general description as the one of my work used by that agent. Stabbing Westward's relentlessly dark lyrics of misery and sadness pertain to a crippling depression caused by either lost love or a basic inability to fit into a society; taxing the singer's mind even further. They are his problems but as an artist he relates them to me, the listener, and for a moment I feel that same pain in me lessen and recede as he carries the burden for that moment before coming back in full force as the song ends. Thankfully I have the option to play the track over again.

I know if I could get my words out there, I could do the same for other's that musicians and writers- like the anonymous author of Manifesto- have done for me. It is a simple cycle that the demons of agency offices are interrupting. I need to get what's coming to me, so my beautiful readers can get what is coming to them. Always leave it to money to complicate things.

How many more need to die?

On another note, I have lost Rachelle. She moved home to Connecticut without me. Why would she do that when we love each other so much? I am glad you asked. I'll tell you.

Lindsey is the reason.

I have been trying to get with Lindsey since I was fifteen years old. Through three major relationships with other girls this fact has never changed. I have always loved her and have never hidden my feelings from her, but over time I learned to suppress them and keep them to myself.

Then when Lindsey called me, night after night, telling me that she was going to slit her wrist because her life is so fucked up, all I thought to do was express my love for her. If we, Lindsey and I, dropped everything for each other, perhaps we would have a chance of being happy. Have some babies and run away. The usual things I fantasize about when I think of Lindsey. I suggested this to her and she interpreted my sentiments as nothing more than me trying to get into her pants. She ignored my heartfelt sympathies and she ignored my regret that even when she has nothing going for her in her life, she can still reject me. I am more undesirable to her than suicide, loneliness, financial ruin, and general melancholy.

It doesn't matter. We went over all this in depth at the beginning of this book. Suffice to say; nothing has changed between Lindsey and me since those first pages.

I assumed that anything I said to Lindsey was said in good faith and confidentiality. If only for the simple reason that it would hurt Rachelle to hear these things. Or maybe because she is my best friend and I should be able to say anything to her.

One day I awoke to a punch in the back of the head and Rachelle told me about an interesting conversation she had had with Lindsey and she told me that she would be leaving town without me.

This happened among days when I was considering settling down with Rachelle; marrying her and having babies with her were on my agenda. I have always struggled with my feelings for other women but I thought I was getting better. After having read certain e-mails pertaining to Janessa, this was the final straw for Rachelle. She couldn't be with somebody who had feelings like mine for other women.

And good for her. I have always known that she deserved better than what she would get from me. I cheated on her shamelessly in the beginning and I would have dropped Rachelle in an instant to join Lindsey in the suburban hell surrounding her.

The saddest part is that Rachelle took her cat, Gaia, with her. Now, not only am I without a woman, so is my cat, Norman Bates. His spirit was much higher when he had the feline companionship he has now lost. They used to play all day and all night, each day and each night. My cat plays no more...

Me and Norman kind of drift through the days cuddling with each other and missing our ladies. I promise him things will get better but there is a chance I am lying.

I confronted Lindsey briefly over the phone and she said that I am a terrible person and Rachelle deserved better because she is a good person. The fact that I am always trying to fuck Lindsey was what caused her to intervene. I told her that there was nothing new about that and hung up. I don't plan on talking to Lindsey again until I need something from her. When that time comes I hope I will have another option because I really never want to talk to her again period. She altered the course of my life for the last time.

There is nothing on earth similar to losing the woman you love. I have suffered much more difficult separations than this and as such I know it could be worse. Still, I am lonely and cut off from the world.

I have been talking on the phone to girls I meet on the Internet but have not met one in person yet. These women are all so unique in their own unflattering ways. And they are not what I need. I don't much want to talk about that embarrassing and desperate part of my life. Though I am holding a hilariously embarrassing story back and if you ever meet me in person ask me about the airport parking lot incident.

Depression is a lot like asthma. It is always there, but certain things cause it to act up. The comparison here would be that losing Rachelle has made it difficult to breathe. I am not catatonic, like when I lost my Belle. Instead I am loopy with despair. And I can't even go to my best friend for solace because that bitch is dead to me.

Really I lost two women in one blow.

Rachelle took many of the tapestries and posters from the walls and there is such an emptiness in my apartment. A black sheet used to hang over the bedroom window to keep the sun out. She took that sheet with her and I replaced it with a neon green blanket. Now the room glows green- with envy or shame- in the daytime, adding to the obscurity of this isolation.

The Internet access I have is at work.

I have been reading more. Not writing as much because it is hard for me to write when there are changes happening in my life. Heart break makes writing almost impossible. I watch the same movies over and over. I listen to music constantly; Dax Riggs' various projects mostly. I play video games mindlessly. I have been drifting in and out of sleep at weird intervals comparable to the time I spent in jail.

I learned about a sex muscle that you can exercise. It is the muscle you use to hold in urine or squeeze out the last drop. I have been flexing it and by toning the muscle I should observe increased sexual prowess but I have no one to try this out on.

Completely unrelated to the sex muscle: A friend of mine is moving out here to hopefully get a job. He'll be living in the living room of my one bedroom apartment. Hopefully it will be easier to meet a replacement for Rachelle if I have a wingman. Not likely though. If I know anything about finding a mate, it is that there is no certainty. She could be in the first place you look; Belle, or she could walk into your life out of the blue; Rachelle.

I am not looking forward to this period of being single. Single life is chaotic and unpredictable. Anything can happen.

I really miss her. I needed her in my life. She did everything for me; she made sure the bills were paid; she brought me things from the outside world so I never had to go out. I have been out around town more times in the past week than in the entirety of the last seven months I've lived here. She spoiled me with how she took care of me. As if she was plotting the whole time to make losing her as difficult for me as possible by causing me to grow as dependent on her as possible before she severed the ties. Her vagina was simply perfect. She knew exactly how I liked my sandwiches and nobody has ever gotten that right before. She was the most warmhearted person I've ever met. My Mom thought she was great. She was a true keeper.

### Chapter 39

It's time to finish this book, so let's do it.

I haven't been writing since Rachelle left. A couple months have passed now and all I've written was a short article about Black Hole Drinking and a birthday letter to Anarchadia. There were a few paragraphs and maybe a few poems scribbled on empty packs of cigarettes but that's about it. Progress has halted on my screenplay and enough time has passed that I've decided that once I start writing again I'll be postponing the production on So It Begins and the screenplay in order to write a novel about the depressing existence of horny fat chix(or not).

You might be wondering by this point whom Anarchadia is.

Anarchadia is too much for words. She is a writer, my contemporary. I met her on my writing website. She is my lover, though we still have never met. I'll have her in my arms soon enough. She is the Fallen Queen to my Ivory King. Royalty among the ruins. Though I can't explain those terms exactly because she came up with them and I've never truly understood what they mean. Who cares? I'm smitten. As such she is the first girl I've ever been romantically involved with whom I consider superior to me. Literature is the highest form of expression- expression is the highest priority of consciousness- not to be compared to love- and anybody who can create the stuff better than me is automatically superior me, and I better than anybody who cannot create this stuff as well. She writes as perfect as the sun burns and as beautiful as the moon shines. She is my Leo with Cancer rising. Absolutely fierce with the world around her, consuming energy like raw flesh. A matriarch in her own right, with two children- son of 5, daughter of 1- a mothering complex; she cooks like a fiend and is a stern and responsible mother with infinite love for her little ones.

I remember the first contact I ever had with her well. I stumbled upon a poem on my writing website, something beautiful among the admiration of flowers and waterfalls- something filled with blood and misery and anguish and betrayal moving through me like a sword through my throat. I was choking on admiration. Much like I am right now.

I reviewed that poem of hers. What I said about the poem isn't so much important as the last thing I said about her. I told her, in complete sincerity that I would drop everything for a girl like her. And by, "... a girl like her," I meant her. I didn't have much faith that it would ever come down to that. I know I wanted it to. I know I intended to drop everything for her. How was I to know that she would let me? That she would welcome me, and come to love me without a single touch the same way I've come to love her? Do you understand? Girls don't behave that way. Girls are timid. Girls have other things to do. As a man you get used to women not giving a fuck about you or what you want. Understand? Anarchadia understood me from the inside out almost immediately. The same as I understood her. Her desires became my desires because all I wanted was her.

When she told me that she wanted an open relationship, I told her I did too. Because all I wanted was her. She behaves in ways I would find repulsive in other girls. She is covered in brilliant tattoo symbolism and makes out with other girls at the bar. She drinks too much every weekend and for all I know sleeps around way too much. She tells me she doesn't, but I've called her out for lying before to discover I was right. I know her pretty well by this point. I know she lies and until I've got my eyes on her I'll never know what she's doing and until I grow eyes in the back of my head I'll never know what she's doing- like a house cat roaming city streets- behind my back. So be it. I don't give a fuck. It's not about that. It's about not owning her and not being owned by her. Instead it's about me being her strength and her being my beauty; being something real for each other in a world of delusion and illusion. She'll show me some other world I've only fantasized about and I'll teach her about this world I've come to understand too well.

Around the time I began talking to Anarchadia she was cheating on her husband with some dude a greyhound trip away. We were corresponding throughout our respective dramas. I had recently been abandoned. She was actively tending the withered corpse of a seven year marriage when it turned into a mess of zombified collisions. All the while there was something hidden and unknowable calling for her attentions beyond some veil. The husband called it off. Rachelle had left me on the day Anarchadia had let some loser all up in her vagina somewhere. The recollection I have of my original correspondences with my queen is distorted in zero time and spinning in zero space.

At some point I decided I was leaving Sioux Falls. Fuck this place. Nothing left here for me no more. Except a job. Fuck money. Anarchadia's in Salem, OR? I'll go to Portland. Then we kept loosening and loosening our standard for cautious integration of one another into our lives. The more time we would spend talking and trudging through the countless days before I'd ever see her- lay hands on her- the more we realized that we are two people who would rather collide like a loco motive into the ocean than take it slow.

Day by day and night by night we were realizing that we had finally discovered someone like ourselves. I don't know when I told her I love her. I don't know when she started saying it back. I do know the first day I got a naked picture of her sent to my cell phone. It was August 15th 2009. That same day I sent her a plethora of explicit photos I had taken of myself. That day, August 15th, is my birthday.

The day is her birthday as well though she is one year older than me. If you didn't already know, or you haven't been following along, our shared birthday is a big deal astrologically.

Her name has five syllables almost as though you need to earn the right to speak it. She is half Mexican and as such cooks Mexican food all the time. We all know Mexican is the bomb shit. Not only that, she cooks all sorts of other food. Remember how I was bitching that Rachelle never cooked. I was bitching about that right?

She is a fountain of personal paranormal experience, of which she is intriguingly timid, quiet, and humble about. More on this elsewhere in my writings. She is coming from a life I could never imagine but absolutely must learn all there is to know about.

My original plan entailed waiting about 8 months until February to move to Oregon to be with her. Then I found an add for a 1986 Ford E-150 conversion van being sold for $400: one owner, garage kept, 133,000 miles. The date came much much closer. And we kept pushing forward. Soon seeing Anarchadia was only a month away.

It was ugly shades of light blues and greys. We- me and Oscar- named her Stella because that's what she looked like at the time of purchase. We cracked some brews of the same name and that was that.

We did a lot of work on that van. Oscar did a lot of work on it. Oscar, my mechanic, my virus- did a lot of work on it. He tuned up the engine real well. We spray painted her flat black. Then we highlighted all the trim red; the grill, the rims, the plastic window trim around the six smaller rectangular windows- inside and out. Some time passed and we spray painted the interior black and red. Mostly black. Certain areas highlighted in red; the shield over the engine/ counsel, the center portion of the ceiling made of felt and Masonite.

We made her beautiful. She was battered, disillusioned, tired, and not running right when we got her. She's a princess now. There's four Rage Against the Machine tapestries over the windows. The back windows are cut out with either a Native American tapestry or a sort of modern medieval blue and red one. Then that giant Greek tapestry is hung behind the seats kind of like a curtain that blows around way too much.

This is much like some sort of flowerchild shaggin waggen back in the 60's when everyone was on drugs and notions of peace were helping them to ignore the terrible war. Well, our war is staring us in the face and my pretty colors are black and red. My van is of the times, too. The revolution can recognize me. I have a van and a shotgun to offer. What's the cause?

Also I've made a sanctuary to get away from Oscar while he's living in my living room and the transient guy he found somewhere, whom has taken up residence as well. The stupid shit is that once we move to Oregon, Oscar's going to be spending more time in Stella than I will. I think. Maybe. Who knows? Whatever.

And the cycles of our lives keep turning and turning. Anarchadia is struggling with single motherhood. I'm struggling with single bachelorhood. Day in and day out we got lost in the sound of each other's voice and the experience of dissecting one another's existence and drawing closer and closer to one another- pushing ourselves further and further into this immovable barrier of space between us, reaching for each other. There is one way to break the barrier: carefully rushed planning and a stabbing motion of myself toward the westward direction.

For two point five months, or maybe for three months now, long enough for the cycles to change, I've been aching to be with the one I love. To regain a significant other and carry on with my life.

Oregon is adventure. Oregon is culture. A place where the standard is art and intellect compared to South Dakota's cowboymanship. I will see Mount St. Helen in Washington and the Pacific ocean at Oregon's coast. I will start a new life. The newest phase of all of this life. It took four years plus for South Dakota to burn itself through my system. For Lindsey and I to have our fallout. To go from writing poetic scribblings to legitimate literature.

It is time to move on. Take my lover in Oregon and aim myself at the page. Fuck the bullshit. I know how to live. I know how to not sell my soul to get what they tell me I want.

This cycle is new and I've got very little grasp on the notion of what I'm getting myself into. I've got a girl, a companion, and she has a place to live... sort of. She's trying to move someplace bigger to accommodate my tagalong and her tagalongs. Not her two children but the 19 year old Pisces she calls her little brother. This guy she found somewhere and decided to keep. Also that Pisces' girlfriend. Whom I think this Pisces knows Oscar will try to screw.

It's still the meanwhile. I've been trying to burn away my MRSA infection with ice and garlic salt. Did they tell you we live in a perfect world, too? I remember learning about plague and pestilence when I was younger. And I'd always been waiting for it. I wonder if MRSA will kill me. I've been putting off going to the hospital because I've got no insurance. Well. Even without insurance they have to treat me. And I don't mind the debt. Maybe I'll send them a dollar once. I'll need to spend the cash for antibiotics and even though I have the money I don't want to spend it on health conspiracy. Besides, I may have spent the money on a black twelve gage pump shotgun loaded with slugs and ready to blow a man's head clean off for justice. Roll up on the target with the sliding door of the van open, blow off the head, jump out and grab the body, throw it in, drive away. This of course is provided the world breaks out into that sort of bad chaos. Once we eat all the canned food what do you think the next best source of food will be? It's an ugly place we live in and I am mostly convinced no human will ever see it get better. Do you believe in miracles? I think I do. We need one.

Then Rachelle sent me a text message on my cellular telephone telling me she misses me and she loves me. We'd been exchanging little affections disguised as hatred ever since she left. Finally it caught up. We miss each other. We love each other. She shouldn't have left me. But she did.

Rachelle is involved "romantically" with some Beatles listening, too hard trying, chubby, social, two second lasting, outgoing, well treating of her, Aries target and she is sick of him. She wants me. I want her. I miss the way she held on for dear life during sex.

Our conversations were typical of newly ex lovers separated by distance. Rachelle told me to wait and I told her I had to have her now. She said she wasn't ready and I devalued her feelings and intentions. I explained to her that my values and intentions are what are best for us, based on her track record of making flaky decisions. For fuck sake! She wants to get married and have a baby. I want to get married and have a baby! She is the one who could love me the way I want. She is the one who can give me the stability of life my writer's mind craves. Sex, love, and an office. What else is there for me to care about?

I changed her mind. I made her want me like she's never wanted me before. I made her ditch the homo. I told her I'd be there to be with her in a heartbeat because she is the one I truly want. This, for reasons that are obvious to me, is true. I am not an adventurer. I am an imaginer. All I need is sex and an office. I don't need a circle of friends and a twisted sexual identity. I don't need to live some place cooler than the other people online. I need what they always told me- what He always told me I'd need; a woman, a child, and a job. This is my birthright. It is what I want. Rachelle is what I want.

In a room like a yin-yang with no walls and no ceiling I know of two paths I can choose from. The first path is to the right. 1500 miles east. Back to Rachelle. Back to Connecticut. A place where I have never been able to make it. A personal vortex of negative realities. Her family don't like me. Can't live with them. My father don't like me. Can't live with my parent's. A place where over and over I have tried to work and make a living but there was always nothing. The East coast is fucked. You are either rich or poor there. My parent's may be among the final surviving middle classes. It's a matter of time before financial oppression moves west. It's all moving west. I can't make it on the east coast, I've tried and tried and tried and nothing good ever comes of it

I've been fasting until I finish these last pages. Rum, beer, water, chocolate, and coffee fasting. It's getting tough to concentrate and hard to think. Luckily I know what I have to say.

A part of me feels I belong in Connecticut. Back with Rachelle her friend there and my friend Enfurio dating Rachelle's friend. Maybe I could bring Patcher back from the living dead, but it didn't work last time I tried.

I want Rachelle back like I've never wanted anything (except for Belle or the one I briefly referenced in the first "chapter").

Then there is Anarchadia. Why do I love two women? What a fucking mistake. I've always been in love with several girls at once but usually one of them loves me back, not two.

Rachelle is calling for me and begging for me to come back.

I need to get to Anarchadia. My queen is waiting for me on the west coast. The Pacific Northwest is where I've wanted to be for a while. Then I'll make my way to the desert. Then out to Florida. Then I hope to be a writer worth having around in New York as I'm reaching the summit of that hill. I'd like to live out my golden oldies in the house I grew up in Chaplin, Ct. But who knows?

Life with Anarchadia will be intense like my younger years. I've got some wisdom. I've learned a trick or two. There is something inside me telling me I cannot go backward any longer. The circle needs to go in a different direction. Is this even possible?

Anarchadia will make an excellent lover. We will do truly great things together. For instance, on deck is the task of co-creating a deck of Anarchist tarot cards.

Perhaps off topic, perhaps not, there is a girl moving out from Boston to live with us on the west coast. This girl is a writer friend of Anarchadia's. I can't recall her name but she writes screenplays and music reviews and shit. There will be three of us writers. And when you live this life trapped in the vacuum you come to find that there is seldom something to be cherished as whole heartedly as a fellow writer. Or any circumstance conducive to the process.

Stability is on the East Coast.

Inspiration is everywhere.

What is waiting on the West Coast? There is no way to know. Moving through life is like moving through the ether; you need to think it.

I called the Jadyn at paradise for advice and he told me that if Rachelle left me once, she'll leave me again. "Fuck Connecticut," he said and reminded me of every last tragedy screaming from the past that I cannot possibly make work. Nothing good comes from Connecticut. They make a lot of guns there. My new gun is from there.

I asked Enfurio in Connecticut what I should do and he said to come back and live with Rachelle because those girls are under the impression that that is what is meant to be. Rachelle and her friend share a brain. I explained to him that I can't live in Rachelle's father's house because he hates me. I explained all the circumstances and he understands that I can't go back even though I want to. Home beckons like a screaming addiction.

Oscar, day in and day out tells me that we have to go West. We simply cannot go East. He says that if I want Rachelle all I have to do is get set up in Oregon and she'll come visit me for a week. And when she's there I'll pop the question and bust out the ring. Because Oscar seems to "know" that I can't handle a free bird- a social dragonfly- like Anarchadia. Oscar is dying to live some place with more street credit.

Anarchadia tells me how much it would suck if I didn't move out to her. She maintains that she supports any decision I make the same way I maintain to support every decision she'll ever make. All this support doesn't look good on either of us.

Yes, my mother would love to have me back but she knows I won't make it there. I asked my mother what I should do and of course as always she had the most intelligent thing to tell me. She said, "When in doubt, don't do anything."

The day I leave is barreling down on me. Anarchadia can hear the toll it's taking in my voice. 21 days to go. Leo is ending right now. Virgo is here and it's time to make stuff happen. A sudden jolt in the ribs forcing me to face the grizzly options facing me. Love and risk all around.

Rachelle wants me and I want her(so bad I always want her, until death do us part). She is so sweet when she cries. There is so much feeling in that beautiful, complex, and mystical scorpion. All that love waiting to let me back inside. I just need to go to it.

I've been doing push-ups and fasting and ignoring my MRSA. Trying not to kill Oscar. Even though his own mother said I should shoot him and get it over with. I've got the beautiful Stella Rose waiting to take me one direction or the other. I'd be insane not to go back to Rachelle.

This book is over. But I want you to know I am here for you. Whoever you are. I am doing this for you. Please listen closely to my lessons for I am talking to you. This is my essence. I can't hear what you're saying back. I don't even know if anyone will ever read this. I'm simply turning the page and starting the next book.

Rachelle;

The sun travels too, and takes bigger circles.

I am the light at the end of your tunnel.

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