Something of Nothing

We watch the news and she laughs about the wars. They ways by which we legally and morally kill each other Everyday. Cleverly, she says inappropriate things to catch me off-guard. She likes to watch the shock on my face; I know it, but it comes out anyway. I gape. And then she’ll laugh at me, and I know she does not really mean it-but sometimes I am certain she’s evil.

She goes to work early just to brew a fresh pot of coffee for the early newspaper readers. There is only 6 of them these days. All of them are older than 50. This should make her sad, but the younger people come in during the evenings to sit with the 6 computers. As she wonders around her library, she sees them studying.

They add her to Facebook. Two or three, sometimes ten, one time 300, each month. People she doesn’t know. She adds the tally up inside her head. 1029, 1030, 1031.
Sometimes she looks at their profile. Sometimes she thinks she would like some of these people; she thinks about adding them. But she doesn’t. She won’t.
She tells him to add them all when she’s dead.
He rolls his eyes. He probably won’t.

Eyes Upward

Hi, WordPress and all of its people.
I was bored, so I decided to look this thing over. And import a different blog over to here. I will probably come here occasionally to get access to your writings, whether because I am now ‘following you’ or because I am clicking tags to get to the ‘next blog’ and to the ‘next blog’.
I am loyal to Blogger, but I can copy and paste pretty good.
See you around.

 

Soul Stealers

There just wasn’t any reason to hold him longer, so Tommy was released from the jail two days short from the end of October. The skies threatened rain, but the sun, a bright orb was up for the battle against the steely grey. Tommy was waiting outside of the gates smoking the cigarette the lady guard, Bonnie, had palmed him on his way out. ‘Fuck, kid, calm down. Most kids are excited to be leaving here.’ She shook her head at him.
Poor fucking kid.

“Thanks for coming to get me, Momma”, he said, as she pulled herself out of the backseat of the taxi. She fussed with her hair; a brighter blonde than he had seen on her before.
“What a bunch of bastards, Tommy,” she declared, as she threw herself around him, “We can sue.”
“Yeah, Momma,” he whispered, pushing her away, “I don’t think so.”
Tommy looked at her as though she were crazy. And Momma flinched. “Let’s just go home,” she said.
Tommy stared out the window, as they drove through the country roads. It was so nice to see trees, and houses, and cars again. He wanted to ask the driver if he could roll down his window; just to feel the air, but he did not want to make anyone else cold. It had been cold every day in jail.
Momma soon started again. “If we sue, we can talk about deplorable conditions. I am sure everything was terrible there, wasn’t it, Tommy? Besides just falsely arresting you…..”

Inmates pissed on everything they could. In the corner of their cells for the hell of it Most of the prisoners would not drink the coffee, but Tommy wouldn’t eat the eggs or potatoes either. He knew they were powdered mixes.
(More)
It had been bad.

But Tommy just snorted out a laugh at her, “Momma, quit showing-off to cab drivers.” And that had shut her up real quick.
When they were home at the entrance of the apartment building, she grabbed him by the back of his shirt, “Just get in the fucking house, Tommy,” and she added, words of no thought tumbling out of her mouth; just anger. “Since you think you are a big man now, you need to start carrying your weight. And since you are mostly a good-for-nothing, I don’t see how else you can come into some money to support yourself. Because that’s what men do. Support themselves. So, you’ll have to sue. I’m not gonna keep paying for ya.””
“Momma, all I want to do is go home and go to sleep in my bed…”
“You don’t have a bed anymore,” Momma said. “Until you pay some rent, you got the couch.”

There was nothing for dinner that night. “Men feed themselves,” she told him.

“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“Where?”
“Men don’t need to tell people where they are going,” Tommy slammed the front door behind him.

Minnie would not answer his raps on the window. Not even when he drummed out her favorite Judas Priest song.
His footsteps slapped the slick sidewalk, the rain came when the moon climbed higher than the sun.
He heard the car behind him and knew who it was without looking.
“Out looking for new victims?”, the cop sneered out his rolled-down window.
“Hey, man,” Tommy answered, “I’m not looking for any trouble here.”
And he kept on walking.

*Needs to get here
-Not even in a free country were their acts tolerated.

Opaque

She doesn’t know what to do. She did not expect this at all. She chokes on the heart in her throat. She wants to cry out. The very worst and the best in her life always happened together.

She remembers it all. The fear. The anxiety. Wanting to vomit from something she could not yet describe and from the snot. And Johnny at her window. 13 years old then, and she had to have been just turning four because the skies were their brightest blues and she only wears her panties that say it is Tuesday and she is warm; her hair is slicked to her forehead. Or maybe it is more blood.
God is punishing her for being disrepectful to thou parents.
Because she dropped her glass and broke it. Because she told her mother what to do. ‘Stop yelling’.
And as she cried, she wondered why Mother was not going to bed right now too. And she knows god wants you to cause no one harm. And Samatha’s mother had throw the butterknife at her and the blade had stuck into her head.
Samantha knows her mother hates her. And she is pretty sure God wouldn’t either.
But there is Johnny, with his brown hair always in his brown eyes. There like he always was when she cried.
“Hey now, baby, everything’s going to be ok…”
And the joy she felt when she looked in his eyes.

And the joy she feels when Tommy kisses her, his dark eyes and hands, they move right into her.
And suddenly she is there. Mother.
What is the reason? How is the reason…?
Samantha gets up from the picnic bench and runs.

Her family asleep and snoring as they always do. The skies were the transparent blue of a fine summer’s night. She is going into the fifth grade. And she has snuck-out onto the porch to celebrate her favourite time of the day and she would end up forever wishing she could remember the name of the book she had with her; a random one pulled from under her bed, as cover up if caught.
She could hear his tears as he walked by.
And she said, “Hey, now, everything’s going to be ok” and because she couldn’t bring herself to say baby, her words came out sounding confident. Tough.
Or so Tommy thought. So, he toughened himself up too. Because girls,even if they were just kids, can’t be tougher than him. At any time. Ever.
So, he sniffed off his tears and said back to her,”Hey, baby, everything is always ok.”
And the light of the night shone over him, as if he were an Angel, she thinks.

* Needs to Get Here
-pigment used to block out particular areas on a negative

Read On Another Blog

Have you ever had that feeling, the one where you tell everyone that your real ambition is to write, when really all you do is read what other people write?

These Are My Words, My Neon, SIliconed, Carcinogenic Words. But This Is My Poem, My Poem About Elvis.

It was her first day in town.
Chewing on a fresh stick of gum, she was looking up and down the street; eyes sliding over the bustle of sweat and sin.
‘Little girl lost?’ I asked.
And she sighed.

I would say to her over and over again on that first day,’Laugh with me, Jenny,”
And sometimes she would.
Especially when I made my funny faces at her.
She would try not to; she would just roll her eyes at me, but that smile would come. White teeth and soft lips.
And then she would laugh and laugh and laugh, until her body shook and her hair was covered her eyes.
And I would want to kiss her and kiss her and kiss her…
But I dared not try.

I took her to see the kittens down at Paul’s pet store.
She held them close to her, rubbing them with her face, but she fancied the talking bird more. He said, “Hi, beautiful,” when he saw her. Really, to any woman walking by, but she did not know.

I took her down to see Bruno and his lunch-time sound; strumming his guitar and sucking his cigarette like there was nothing else to better to do. Washing the melody down with tequlila and rum. We sat in the corner and she leaned her head and her body against me. She closed her eyes. “Music is the best thing in life,” she said. And it seemed to me an uncontestable truth.

I took her to Wagner’s and she tried on all the pink shoes and I bought her a pair of 25 cent flip-flops and she hugged me and after that we held hands and I took her down to the beach; grit between our toes, swelter of skin.

And then back up to Sam’s. He smoked with us a joint, in his tiny room, and we were mellow. When he told us the weed came from Wisconsin, she laughed with him.

We skipped over to Joey’s and we ate some fish and when I tried to feed her elegant little bites from my fork, she was laughing with me again.

And when we left, I told I was sorry for all the walking and she said, ‘Who owns a car? I came by bus.’

I took her back to Sam’s for the night; there wasn’t anywhere else to go.
I heard her in his arms that first night. I heard the soft whispers and moans.
I heard his voice.

Well, fair exchange bears no robbery,
And the whole world will know that it’s true.
Understanding solves all problems, baby,
That’s why I’m telling you

And on that second day, she would say over and over again, ‘Laugh with me, Paul.’ And sometimes I would, but only when I thought about the crabs Sam handed out to everyone.

I took her down to the graveyard. We read the old stones and I stole flowers from them to put in her hair. And when she went to pee behind some bushes, I ran off, back down to Bruno’s, back on the prowl.

Flexing

It’s rarely quiet in my home these days. Even now as 2 am closes in around me the television blats in the background; more of William and Kate. I should be in bed. Children always wake early on a Sunday. Why is that? I remember sunny days and being out the door by 7 o’clock myself. The new dew soaking my sneakers, the cool breeze of early light.
Life used to be more than about the Everyday. More than going through the motions of the mudane tasks. It used to be about more than just breathing.
It was just a few years ago when the police officer pulled over Charlie and I on one of our middle of the night drives thinking he was a dirty old man with a teenager in the car. Now I look in the mirror of my 33 year old self knowing rationally that I am not all that old, but I can see the subtle changes in my features. I am aging. Somedays it consumes me. Enough Somedays that it is becoming the mundane too.
I used to think I could live on into the immortal with my words. One of my old Everydays took up too much of my time. Then I started doing things like smoking my cigarettes outside. And then I felt a sense of cynisism and bitterness start to set in. The lack of new and exciting. Just the same old. The same old. The same old.
I guess I’ll start with a draft or two sitting in my long neglected Dashboard…

3000 Miles to Nowhere

Mother complained, “When are you coming home?” And Father complained too. “The only part of Canada without decent skiing. Your mother is driving me nuts.”
“My parents are dead,” she told him, serenely, as though thanking God.

He constantly wanted to brush her hair out of her face, but she would fuss, even swear at him when he tried. “Please, don’t.” “Will you fucking stop?” But he would forget so easily, maybe on purpose, he was always just wishing to see her face, to see her burning eyes staring back into his. She found it rude to stare. She told him so. She liked to sneak glances at people who were unaware of her. Or at least unaware of her eyes on them, her hanging limp hair serving a purpose.
He was in love with her. He told her all the time. But she saw it in his eyes, his movements, heard it in his voice and his everyday words, felt his actions, those of concern and care. She could see and recognize and accept his feelings. She could not be sure she felt the same. Of course, she knew she loved him, but she had learned long ago that butterflies and blushes and sex do not equate to in love. She wondered really if there were such a thing as in love anyway, or if it was just all about hormones and stupidity. He acted stupid lots.
She approached everything in life differently these days, down to even the most commonplace of acts; she started brushing her teeth in the kitchen. Unless he was over. She did not want to make anymore mistakes. She did not know if she would ever want the things he did. He knew it too, but he was determined to prove himself worthy of her. She wondered if she would ever know happiness again. He endured her moods and her hysterics and her distain, so he could show it to her. It would take some figuring out, he assured her, but he was certain he could do it. “Just you wait.”

“Go away,” she would tell him, when he hovered over her, like a mother-hen.
“I just want to be near you. Make sure you’re okay,” he would reply.
And this would irritate her further. “Go away,” she would repeat.
And he would.
And when he was leaving, he would say, “This wasn’t enough. I’ll be back soon.”
She would never know if she should love him more or less for this.

She did not have pets of her own, but she loved cats, and fed the neighbourhood strays, and a few of the ones with homes too. If she had ever doubted animals spoke to each other, she knew for sure now they did. She wondered what they had named her place. Suckers Inn. They would come and meow at her window announcing their arrival and some would run away when she opened it to place the bowl of food outside, leaving it open in case they wanted to come in. Sometimes they did.
He brought the cat food over now; she refused to leave her home. He brought her food too, that she would refuse to eat most days. He cooked anyway. He brought her the Bic pens and she chewed on their lids, but she seldom used them otherwise, unless to do numbers. He brought her the drinking straws that she would chew between cigarettes, and the cigarettes, he brought them too, even though the smell and taste upset and disgusted him. He sat in her gloomy, smoky living room and watched old black and white movies, or did nothing, nothing at all, waiting for her to look up at him and glare or smile. He would bet against himself. If she smiles, I will do my dishes when I gets home, if she’s all bitchy, I will do hers….
Somedays, she would not say a single word to him. Everyday, she would mumble and laugh to herself, as he watched her pencil fly across the paper, or her fingertips glide over the keyboard, and he would wonder, What are you writing? He would leave little notes all over her apartment. She placed them carefully in photo albums (he did not know) or some she placed on the bathroom mirror, and she would write back to him in lipstick…

Fuck you.

Eat shit.

Go home!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes with a heart, and sometimes not.

One night, Jimmy told him, “You’re nothing but a whipping boy.” And maybe Jimmy was right. But since he did not have other whipping boys to compare himself to, he did not take Jimmy’s words too seriously. Besides, he slurred them when he said them. “You should go talk to that blonde.” Jimmy pointed to a tart all permed and in hot pink and heels.
“I think the Jimster should take this one,” he offered back.
They tipped their beers at each other, as Jimmy and his boots swaggered off.
He would inevitably wind up at her window after a night out with Jimmy, and she would let him in. His kisses forceful, wet and all teeth; she would push him away and then once he slowed down she would give into him, barely uttering a sound, as he moved within her. And unavoidably, he would cry real tears. “Please…Please…” And she would really cry too. “I love you. I do. I love you. For always.” He would hold her desperate, and pretend to believe she meant more than what she was saying.

For Caerleon

“I have let down the blood in several places, and applied the dressings to the wounds. Keep them in place for an hour. He will be comfortable now, but he will not last the night.” He touched her shoulder briefly, as he continued shuffling down the great hall, letting himself out.
She rushed to the windows and looked into the early evening light.
Something was so good about these lands. Something so good, it overwhelmed her sometimes. Made her sick to her stomach.
And they are to be mine now…..
She didn’t want them.
Of course she didn’t. She was only seventeen, and she had never left the walls of Caerleon. She wanted to rebel, to be free.
She had wept on her father’s chest for the last three nights in a row, but not for his coming death.
“Find a husband,” he had croaked out his solution, while he smoothed her hair away from her face.

She had almost left Caerleon once. When the dark-haired stranger had shown up in town. He had slept with the horses like any other wanderer passing through. He was one of the few who had ever dared speaking to her, not caring about his place in the world. “Want to go for a ride, lady?”
Startled by his request, she agreed before she realized the improperness of it all. But soon the rides became daily occurrences; the horses frolicking through the sun-streamed canopy of trees.
He spoke to her of another life, another time, a little hut and tamed animals and working the land with his hands.
She said, “I want to come home with you.”
And he replied, “I can never go home. The Romans would find me. But we can give ourselves a new home just like it.”
She believed him, and they would laugh and dance and jump in the excitement of their love. He would kiss her hand. And then her lips.
Then they would make their plans of escape.
But the lands were invaded the night before they were to depart, and he had taken up the sword for Caerleon. Saving the day. So impressed her father had been, he made him leading commander for his army; wiping out her chance for freedom. But not love.
“Here; I have found everything I have ever wanted to be,” he whispered in her ear.

She mourned for three days after her father’s death, before addressing the people of Caerleon. Meeting them out in the street, they soothed her soul with soft murmurs; taking turns to touch her hands, and she soothed theirs with her words. “I promise you Caerleon will always be as it always was.”
And they cheered accolades for her and the land.
But she had only told them half the truth.

Life Is More Than Who We Are

If she wanted it that way, then it was going to be that way. It had to be that way. There was no other way.
Everything was black and white. Even if others did not want to admit it.
Did it mean she felt an overall bleakness towards the foibles of humanity–no. Did it mean she escaped overwhelming emptiness sometimes–no.
She was twenty-three years old when she left her hometown. She would not return. She knew she looked at everyone differently; she saw the things others did not, chose not. She knew their truths better than they did and they could read it on her face; she could hurt them with it. Sometimes, she did.
She did not want to be cruel anymore.
She left for somewhere new. Things would be better.
And they were. In Los Angeles. That’s where she went.
Some nights she would dance in her living room to ZZ Top or paint pictures of fairies and Snow White on the cardboard of cereal and Hamburger Helper boxes.
When it rained, she would put on blue jeans and her favorite sweater, sit on her apartment balcony, coffee mug in hand, and call the day her own.
It was selfish, her whole life, she did not care.

Sincerely, he was a good man. A good-looking one, with lips that could pout. The kind of man all women look at. Her first true lover.
Three days after moving to Los Angeles, she met him. She had told him her name was Susan, and it was not. She did not think he would call her, when she left him her number in the morning.
But he did before she even arrived home.
It began as purely sexual. Sometimes she would stroke the side of his face after lovemaking, and think, “I hope you are my toy too.”

And then it changed.
He liked her.
She liked him.
And she let it go on.
She told herself, ‘I will end this next week.’, ‘On Tuesday’, ‘I will just stop answering the phone’, but it was as if she never really heard herself.
Until one night, she was drunk, she told him.
And he asked her to leave; he did not ask her real name.

She worked harder than most out there, and cried herself to sleep listening to old Elton John records.
They found her ‘refreshing’, and she knew in this day and age, she was just a novelty that would soon wear off. She was twenty-eight and a half when she wrote and directed her first feature film; ‘raw’, ‘honest’, ‘painfully truthful’, they said.
She told them her name was Linda, and it was not.

Giving Shit

For the rest of the week, Edward Julian Watson did not take phone calls from Amy, and Becki did not make phone calls to him. Edward Julian Watson avoided as many phone calls as he could from his mother. But he knew he could not let that go on forever. He would have to call her tomorrow.
Or his mother might get back on the plane. And then get to his apartment and have the landlord let her inside. “Well, I see you’re not dead!” she had accused him. And then she had stayed with him for the next three days and nights and had slept in his bed. And he knew he would have to get a new one after she left or he knew he would never be able to have sex in his room again. When his mother was back home, Edward Julian Watson decided to switch bedrooms too. Just in case.
He did not want to go through that again. He did not feel like moving entirely. Yes, Edward Julian Watson would call his mother tomorrow.
But today he was going to call Amy.
“I was back home at my mother’s,” he told her.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“It is now,” he replied.
And they made plans to eat sushi.
And then committed to who-knows-what-else? after that.
Becki couldn’t help but wonder about that, when she tried to call Edward Julian Watson that night.

Punks

Minnie was 14. She liked wearing bright red lipstick and getting high. When Daddy came home drunk again on Friday night, she waited in the kitchen playing Solitaire, until she could hear him snoring.
Creeping through the house and then into her parent’s bedroom, Minnie knew she would find her father’s pants on the floor beside the bed. The glow from the hallway bathroom provided the light for seeing into her his wallet.
Shit. There were no tens.
Oh, well. She took a twenty.

When Tommy saw Minnie on the other side of the glass, his heart leapt into his throat and he was so happy he wanted to cry. He put his hand on the glass and waited for her to put her hand up against his, and when she did not, he sat down.
He picked-up the phone and said to her, “Why haven’t you come? Have you been getting my letters?”
She shrugged. Brushed her hair from her eyes and for the first time really looked into his.
“Oh, Minnie. I’m so glad you’re here…”
Her eyes were empty of emotion.
“Aren’t you happy to see me?” he asked, and then he whisper rushed into her ears, “…Minnie, I love you…”
But nothing changed. Her eyes stayed blank.
“Oh my God, you think I killed her! Please, don’t do that…”” Tommy cried.
And she charged him, “I saw you with her, Tommy. I saw you with her.”

Scars Are Souvenirs You Never Lose

Punks

Minnie was 14. She liked wearing bright red lipstick and getting high. But stoned or not; even asleep, Tommy’s words would come back to haunt her.

Dear Minnie,
How could you leave me here to rot? How could you not come see me? You must think I did it too. Well, fuck you, Minnie. FUCK YOU!!!!!!
Tommy

She cried and cried everytime she read the letter; and she could do almost nothing else but. She wanted to go see him, but she was too scared.
Climbing through her bedroom window late, Minnie walked the all-night over and over again.
And waited for the next visit from Officer Rialian. He stopped by every other day.

She did not go to school. She stayed in her room and her mother never came down the stairs to notice. She erased the school’s messages from the answering machine every day, before her father came home, until the one day, Daddy stayed home and Minnie had to go prentend going to class. And when she came home Daddy was waiting for her, with an envelope in his hand from the school. Thirty days missing. One more day and she would be expelled.
And he hit her.
He hit her.
He hit her.

Her return to school was the news of the week.

in excelsis Deo.

It’s winter here again and I don’t like it. I should have headed back home years ago; back to the sunny days and the warm basking bodies, but I just stay here year after year instead. I lie to my mother. “Yeah, Mom! I love it here! You should see the polar bears…” and all that other bullshit. Fuck. I really thought it would be cool; that I would get to see some penguins and shit. Well, I haven’t seen a fucking penguin yet. How did I end up here? I mean, what kind of guy just up and says, “Hey! I am gonna move to Canada!” And not just to Canada, but way fucking up north Canada? I am an idiot. I swear it snows eight months of the year up here…

So, I sit at home a lot and there is nothing ever on television anymore. Flick. Flick. Flick. Flick the channels. That’s what I do until I want to swear and yell and throw the remote against the wall. But if I did that I would break the fucking thing and then I would have to stand in front of the TV to flick, flick, flick the fucking channels…And fuck that. It’s bad enough I have to clean the satellite of snow almost every day. At least I do not pay for all this bullshit: reality TV craze and Oprah Winfrey and fucking Anderson Cooper, I steal my satellite signal. Too many bad things are happening. On the TV. In books. In the paper. No one wants to hear about anything else but the bad and then we all sit around bitchin’ and maonin’ and fucking wondering why we aren’t happy. Fuck. I am guilty of it too. And then we will all smile at each other, when we would rather scream; never genuine. Yeah. Everybody wants to get good on everybody, but nobody wants to do any of it. Upward and onward, my friends…

Hell. It’s like that up here in Canada too. Sure, these good ole boys would take their shirt off their back for you, but no one is paying Peter to feed Paul. Everybody’s greedy everywhere. Even I came up here because they offered me fifty thousand dollars more a year than what I could make anywhere back home. Fifty thousands dollars. I can do a lot with that, I thought. Stupid scholarship student who had forgotten every word they taught him, except the promise of wealth. Fifty thousand dollars more a year don’t mean shit. It means even less up here. What the fuck am I gonna spend it on? The fucking bowling alley? No thanks, I’d rather drink alone…

Yeah. So, I stay here. I don’t go home for holidays. “I am needed here, Mom! People are fucking freezing to death! A lot of Indians like killing themselves around this time of year!” Happy cheer and a Ho-Ho-Ho. I send her a check for ten thousand dollars every Christmas and I think she would rather have that instead of me home anyway. It pays for her hair and her nails and all that other useless shit my mother likes to do with herself. None of it helps her find a husband…

Up here, there is two kinds of women. Those empty-headed fatties who wear their tops too tight showing off their giant stomach rolls and…it’s gross. I know there is nothing better to do but sit around this fucking place, but still…I have standards. The other half are skinny, pale and soulless. Be Marilyn. Be Farrah. Be fucking Paris Hilton. Anyone but yourself. Fake blonde is even dumber than natural blonde, but who the fuck is gonna tell them that? I spent the first five years up here wanting to smack every single one of them; wanting to watch their heads shatter like glass…until I forgave them for doing nothing about who they are; for living the way they do. Realistically, who the fuck wants to be Canadian? Of course, they have to pretend to be something else…

Probably over half of the people up here are on some sort of welfare. It barely covers their rent. Barely gets them that case of beer. No one can afford electricity. So two years back, I am in bed one night, when I start to feel bad that I have all this extra money just sitting around and there are all these sad Canadian people and their pathetic children going without and I start thinking of myself as a would-be hero. I devised a plan. I was gonna be fuckin’ Boogie Woogie Santa Claus! Goddammit. I was going to give-away that extra fifty thousand dollars a year! And it’s the first time I can jerk-off in over a year and a half. And then I go through the records the very next day and I decide that the nine families that have lost a parent to murder or suicide are going to be the recipients of my money. Five thousand, five hundred, fifty-five dollars and fifty five cents. Five is my favorite number…

And I did it too. I gave away all that money away. On Christmas Eve, almost four o’clock in the morning, I was parking my truck on the outskirts of town, so no one would see me sneaking around. I hummed Christmas carols when I could get away with it and went through a few windows to put my envelopes under the tree when I could get away with that too. I felt all the joy forgiveness promises to bring. But with forgiveness also comes sacrifice. I could see her walking into town from half a mile up and I think that I should hide. No one is allowed to see Santa Claus. She doesn’t see me…

And Ang and I are the first on the scene that morning and we are there late into the afternoon before anyone else shows up. Ang brings a thermos of hot chocolate and a thermos of coffee and some Christmas cookies. And I realize that I have brought nothing. I realize she is the only one who ever brings something. I tell her I am sorry for being selfish-Merry Christmas- and she laughs and says, “What? Are you kidding me? You do all the driving”. And I feel better about myself because yes, yes I do do all the driving, even though we’re suppose to take turns. We only look at the girl once when we get there. And we both gag. And then cover up our honesty with lopsided smiles and jokes: “It’s was Kris Kringle,” Ang says. And I tell her, “No, one of Santa’s reindeer.” We laugh, as we head back to sit in the truck. And when the coroner finally comes, he gave us a quarter bottle of his special bourbon and burps out, “Merry Christmas, folks…”, and then he clutches his chest when he sees her, straight through to his heart. “Jesus Christ…” He thanks the Lord he is alive…
And you know, I thank Him everyday too. I thank Him for the food on my plate and for the fact I’m alive and the fact some others aren’t…

I tell her all this on the drive into town. A little plump Indian with large brown eyes. I tell her, “This year I gave the money to nine woman who had are being abused by their partners. Maybe they will move away.” She nods her head, “That is a good thing.” And she nods her head again when I tell her, “You know I’m gonna kill you.”

Punks

Dear Minnie,

You didn’t come. I wonder why. Maybe because you thought I was going to get out on Tuesday anyway. Is your Mom sick again? I guess by now you know I didn’t get out. The judge did’t show-up for court and the other one was on vacation or something. My lawyer was freaking mad. He was jumping up and down and stuff. He said “We’ll get those fuckers! We’re gonna fucking sue!” He’s a crazy guy. He gets so excited I swear he is gonna have a heart attack. But he also says for sure I will get out for Monday. They only have proof I was drunk. I want you to come see me on Saturday even though I am getting out on Monday–no matter what. Promise? The guys are cool here and all but I really want to see someone from home. I want to see you.
Did you go to the funeral?

Love,
Tommy

Comfort and Joy

And now it’s thirty years later; she’s almost 40 and she is lonely and sometimes she shakes her head and she wonders, Why, why, why am I so lonely? And then she remembers why.
It’s Daddy. She buried him five years a go. And good.
She showed-up early in the morning and asked the diggers, if she could help. And they let her.
She took off her heels and shoveled dirt till the end.

Back when the summer shone everyday, she would run around or ride her bike, or swim in the lake with her friends, or run into the bush and meet up with Tyler Johnson and she would let him kiss her and she would let his tongue slide around all inside her mouth, or sometimes, she would just hang-out with her brother.
However, he was mean, as brothers can be, and he would do mean things to her- like hold her head under the lake’s water too long or practice his karate moves on her-and she would cry to her Mom, “Make him stop.” But she never would.
No one ever listened to her. That’s what she thought.

Into the middle of the night, the Christmas lights that covered the Johnson’s trailer would shine too, and she could see them from her bunk, at bedtime. She would watch them blink on and off, and sometimes she would squint her eyes, so all the colors would blur together. She loved the lights.
She loved the Johnson’s trailer. It was shiny in the daylight too. Mr. Johnson had spray-painted it bright green and yellow and he called it his John Deere. And that would make Daddy snort. He said the only thing Mr. Johnson ever farmed was pot.
But she knew that wasn’t true. Drugs were not something good people did.

On Independence Day, there would be a street party and the park would light up, everyone was merry and red. Dancing and laughing. To Bruce Springsteen. The Doors. Duran Duran. Olivia Newton-John.
She thought it was the best time.
Until the year Daddy punched Mr. Johnson in the mouth. It was late, like 10 o’clock and she was tired and she almost did not believe it. But her Daddy did it.
And some of the folks even clapped.

Tyler met her in the woods the next day anyway.
“I’m sorry ’bout what my Daddy did.” She did not even say hi.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “Your Daddy knocked out one my Daddy’s teeth.”
And she could feel her body fill with shame. She was gonna cry.
“No-no,” he said, grabbing her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Emmie. Look at me. He’s all excited about gettin’ a gold one.”
He hugged her.
And that’s when they heard, “Get your filthy hands off my daughter.
It happened so fast.
Tyler let go and Daddy rushed him.
And Tyler fell. His head cracked open on a rock
And she couldn’t or wouldn’t scream.
He grabbed her by the arm, “We gotta walk outta here.”
And they did.
And no one ever blamed Daddy.
Not even Mr. Johnson.

Punks

Thursday Afternoon

Dear Minnie,

I have been here for three full days now. The lawyer says he’ll get me out Monday. He’s a pretty cool guy. He goes on about how the cops are the real rats and they’re all corrupt and he tells me we will nail those bastards to the wall. He makes me laugh. It’s fucking great. Most of the time I spend playing cards with some of the guys or drawing tats in my cell here. I have given some of my flash to some of the guys here. A few already have some tattoos. Mostly stuff they have done to themselves here. Mostly without color. Mostly terrible. But that’s okay. A whole bunch of the them said they would come see me to have them covered up when I set up shop. If they all show-up, I have figured out I’ll make 6000 dollars so far. That’s fucking awesome. I can’t wait until I am old enough to apprentice. Birdie says she’ll teach me, but she doesn’t think I will want to do it for very long. Says I will probably give up. Don’t you think she’s crazy? Old people forget about destiny, I think. I do not know why I am writing about all the stuff I’ll just be telling you on Saturday. Just excited about it, I guess. It’s not too bad here in the joint really. Someone cooks me three meals a day. And I get a clean jump suit everyday. They are orange. You would probably love them. The guys told me not to drink the coffee here cuz the guards like to piss in it, but I do not like the shit anyway. I’d rather be drinking something else. The worst thing is I can’t smoke in here. I want one all the time. I will probably tug out all my hair before I get out. I’m not joking. There is some weird Mormon kid with big ears in here. Some of the guys says he’s here for fucking a sheep. I am not sure I believe that. But the kid is pretty creepy. All pale and stuff. There’s two black kids with AIDS here too. I wish you could see them, Minnie. But this is no place for a girl. I never want to see you here. No, that is not true. I DO want to see you on Saturday. I just mean I never want you to have to come here as a prisoner. I am not gonna be coming back here either. I miss outside. They do not let us out here. I guess I miss that even more than i do a smoke.
They’re starting to let kids outta their cells for supper so I gotta go.
I meant what I said in the park that night.

Tommy

Giving Shit

Edward Julian Watson was feeling rather numb. It had been a long, rainy drive home from his mother’s house. The night before had been long, lying awake, in his old room. And Edward Julian Watson also had not eaten anything, since shoving his face full of Double Big Macs from McDonalds the evening before, an hour after getting out of jail.
And now it was evening again.
All of this combined contributed greatly to the numbness Edward Julian Watson was feeling. But his brain was contributing more.
He made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, but even standing over the hot stove did not take the numbness out of his bones, let alone his mind.

Becki was feeling rather numb too. It was not her mother’s mention, during dinner, of, “You look pale tonight, dear. Are you coming down with something?” that made her aware of the numbness she was experiencing, but it was not happening because she was becoming ill.
She knew that putting Edward Julian Watson in jail had been too much.
And she was also feeling terribly frozen because Edward Julian Watson had found her last night, after she left her mother’s house and he had followed behind her, in his car, almost all the way back to her home. Screaming at her. Becki was starting to wonder if Edward Julian Watson was the ill one.
Becki hoped that he would call her. She did not have enough nerve to call him.
Passed-out drunk from Ms. Johnson’s rum, Becki stopped feeling numb around 7 o’clock Tuesday morning. The headache was terrible.

He called her three days later.
“Well, do you have something to say?” He said, not even bothering with hello.
She countered, “Like what, Edward?”
“Like how about I’m sooooory…” Indignation rose in Edward Julian Watson’s voice.
It was the wrong thing to say.
“What do you want me to be sorry about, Edward?”
“You know what, Becki. I could have been having an emergency. A car-accident or something-“
“It could have been the case, Edward” Becki was agreeable, “but we both know it was not.”
“I have you figured out, Becki. I understand you.. You’re jealous. I know you want to marry me and-“
“I want to marry you? I am jealous of…-?” Becki asked
“Yes, you want to marry-“
The calmness of her voice suddenly surprised them both. “I want to marry you, Edward?…..Are you fucking kidding me ?”
When Edward Julian Watson did not answer her quick enough, Becki hung-up the phone on him.

And Edward Julian Watson knew a few minutes later that he had approached the conversation in completely the wrong manner. But because she had not said sorry to him, he was not going to call her back after she had hung-up on him.
So then Edward Julian Watson got back on to thinking, ’Well, what if there had been a car accident… or something?’, until he caught Orange looking at him. The kitten was sitting inside one of his running shoes. That’s when Edward Julian Watson realized he wasn’t feeling numb anymore. Because that’s when Edward Julian Watson simultaneously realized that Becki probably wouldn’t care if he died in an accident…or something and that Orange was not sitting in his shoe, he was pissing in it.