SIX
"If we’d wanted your opinion, you would have known it."
Unfortunately, not one, but two police cars surrounded my sad little dirt bike, jammed in the corner next to the stinky dumpster, where I assumed nobody would notice it. From bad to worse, the narrow escape down the staircase, crossing four lanes of oncoming traffic before mounting the sidewalk, for the block plus of pedestrian weaving, engine off, to not scare anyone. Adding insult to unjust ticket injury, the licence had expired last month, and what’s worse, it shouldn’t legally have one at all, forged insurance, etc. I thought, if I sit here long enough, they’re going to leave. Fat chance. The tow truck arrived, and I kissed the bike goodbye. But what the hell. Hey buddy, what if I slipped you a C-note, you know .,. as a friendly gesture from a stranded motorist. Sure enough, the cop was right behind me, reeking of Chinese takeout. Um, hello sir; is the motorcycle yours by chance? Instinctively, I mentioned my friend’s name, who’d cornered by cops, left it and called me, warning he was leaving my bike, and blowing town. Thank god I’d thrown my psychedelic helmet in the bush, and turned my coat inside out.
They wanted to know a lot about this imaginary friend of mine. How long had I known him? Why did I loan him my bike? What was that licence doing on it, when it was clearly only for dirt? The last one was a bit of a tight spot ... what? I found it and what do you know, it fit? A strange coincidence, not. Um, I park in the street, in front of my house. No garage, you understand. I don’t want anyone thinking its ... stolen? Ditched? Doesn’t belong there. I am very apologetic, decidedly embarrassed, does it help? Uh, huh. Not sure yet.
It’s a bizarre sports bar filled with overtly-monied short hairs, bleeding expensive perfumes. Bear with me, I told her. It’s got the best German beer on tap in town. I have little to no idea why these people are here, or who imported the rarities on handles the tenders yank with polish and verve, whole heartedly wasted in style, as my junior high flame belabors her poor relations with her blood sister, while I listen, marveling at the parallels of her then-best friend, later by two years, my first girlfriend, who by conditional coincidence, just left after a three year hiatus. Within hours, I had downloaded their respective miseries, a love triangle misinterpreted, a married man, four kids, a mono-focus, an inability to let go of childhood patterns, a hard road to chisel. The karma of telling ones aging parents what to do, and reacting when they don’t follow the time line, you devised. I almost laughed, when the flowchart came out. Anyway, the full circle is precious ... I relayed by and by, the openness hedging us to it; they concurred and retreated. It’s as if nothing has changed, except ... you’re more dangerous than you ever were. Which I embraced, and declined. More emotionally risky, than being alone and isolated, or sacrificing a wife, or your heart against a married man? It seemed a mite insane. I know them, so I’m dangerous. I’m less likely to nurture when its superfluous, or injure with blatant ignorance. Without compassion, or knowledge, your heart exposed, and unprotected. I marveled at how women will throw themselves on a knife, they will gladly proclaim as love, and willingly lay their lives down, projecting their dreams on strangers’ ignorance of their quirky kinks and turns. I’m dangerous! I thought. That’s a good one. The ‘danger’ is the attachment to what’s real. Innocent bystanders are rarities in this game
I’m trying to project my fears and attachments, my fairy-tale hardwiring upon you, but it isn’t working. I’m trying to make you part of the puzzle of my life, and I know you’re a part of it, but you’re not fitting. It’s frustrating me, and rather than change, I’m going to take it out on you. I’m suffering for my beliefs, and you have to pay for it. It was a curious day which started cool and quickly towered into the nineties. Groggy and under-slept, the fortress of the in-between suspended hopelessness as the blazing temperature crept to my brain’s primal centers, to instigate unrest. I had the bike back, just barely, but rode even faster to manufacture wind. Cars were meaningless blobs I sped around, piloted by robots in falsely cooled capsules heating the plant world of aeons ago to gasses again. Not that I wasn’t, mind you. Yes somehow ... the yahoo!s and brilliant, crinkle-eyed braille of grins I produced, mitigated the negative with positive vibe.
A rabbit breeding girl sports amazing thunder thighs, and monologues incredible facts about Bugs, bunny that is ... I’m trying to concentrate my depression upon itself, but she’s distracting me anthropomorphically, with rabbit facts. I had no idea the mania had such depth. A well paid professional expert with a seemingly bottomless well of obscurities to punctuate her obsession! The entire picture bred avarice the thrumming heat exasperated. Carefully observing her, I see her work and her passion are one, and although mono-focused, the example is one of enduring success which deserves to be applauded.
Jealous behavior behind, the question of cup half empty i.e. half full assumes a stasis of Neither. It’s just where it is! and I struggle to sea-legs my inner-to-outer world caught in the nasty typhoon or purgatory of depression. So many things have gone wrong lately, I feel compelled to mount a bridge, and swan dive to my watery salvation. I gaze at the pile of paper I’ve scribbled, and wonder how many manuscripts have burned., without one soul feeling their hidden power. Smoke begins to churl from my engine. The rudder feels heavy, and the left pressure needle begins to dip. Belief is wavering; the only thing which keeps this airship aloft in a hostile judgmental environment is belief. The Catch-22 churns me. I think of the trickster Chung Ling Soo1, who died via bullet at the accursed trick renown for killing magicians. "Condemned to Death by the Boxers, referring to the rebellion, no doubt. Snatch the ballistics in flight with your plate, tied to the firing line. Nice trick, if you manage to live through it. And the heavy arsenal is moving to point-blank rage; did I say that? Genetics suggests you can tweak a chromosome, and make animals more passive, or monogamous. How a single letter alters the yarn, is shocking, or nearly intangible, depending on the tale told.
"We knew the stars resided at the University of Wisconsin, so we took a road trip from Michigan, to go drink with the masters; you know, see how they do it. Get some pointers. I tell you, it was totally out of control." Which truthfully, did not surprise us. "At first, I wondered why the place was so empty, and what happened to the windows. The one main hall was cordoned off with blankets, and the surrounding rooms appeared to have no heat whatsoever. The basement was a slurry of mud, which seemed to be beer and particulate matter upon closer inspection, perhaps ashes or dust mite residue. Shortly after we arrived it became apparent the zen-like sparsity of the establishment had more to do with flammability than aesthetics, and there were in fact no windows. At night we huddled four or five to a bed to stay warn, in the cluttered attic, which seemed a few degrees above the hall, where all night riots occurred, and they were not beyond burning man-made products to keep a check on the chill. Honestly, it was quite an education in beer reverie."
We popped the cork on a thirty dollar bottle of wine, because good tales are managed by loose tongues, and quite frankly, we could easily die tomorrow. Imagine, leaving that thing in the cellar for when the rouge tritium bomb hits, rendering us too sick to drink! Anyway, it was quite a departure, and a welcome one that falls in you lap, every now and again, making the dirty world magic again. What year was that, I ask him. 1988, at the Fuji house, I think—and the think mark is me. Now that I’m recording its specifics, there’s no for-sure anywhere. And the wind is burbling against the cinder block walls of past memories, wearing them grain by grain away.
Dude, if you ask me for change one more time, I’m going to have to ... the words kill you came to mind. Not very Christian of me, but then again, the Christians are funneling hate into everyone these days through the lens of the rapture’s political aims. How violent, I thought, two seconds from screaming at this dysfunctional maniac, Why the fuck don’t you take your meds?! You’re so freakin’ crazy you scare people. Suck it up or improve your attitude; you’re a toxic waste zone of angst and stress. He was a big burly dude, with an ugly temper, who drilled into you with those demonic red eyes of his, relentlessly asking for coffee money, again and again. I took a deep breath, and tried to relax. I looked straight at him, and ... got it. It’s the brand label. It’s the intimidation factor, he’s cultured. He’s the genuine article Darwin writes about, a high level niche occupant, who’s honed himself into the jagged crack of exploitation others are uncomfitted by. His murderous penetrating stare bored through the translucency I became. "I know what you’re doing; [it supports you] but are you thriving here?" He stood there are screwed his face into an ugly knot. Faces of others flashed by me; the beings I’ve attempted to show shields they carry, to scrape a living from the ground. They decide to protect them, while claiming to let go of them, catching you in their net.
The cops busted the guy being at the interchange corner, flipping off the polite motorists who tried to look the other way, when he wanted their attention. You need to look at me. I want your money, your time, your energy your eyes. I want to suck your soul, forcing you to absorb by self-imoised plight. Little did they know that bastard ran a heroin ring, with junkies collecting motorist’s bulging guilt, after they .... you know. He knows the locals know, but fear to finger him, because money and violence win in the end. I stand there for a while, and wonder whether to tell them he’s running a small time drug cartel ... and the dude begins to sweat.
Can we help you? The cop asks, impatiently.
The other way around,
thinks me.
Truly though, it would complicate things. The last thing these officers want to do, is have their shift spoiled dealing with a rat like this. They’d rather not know. Another obsequious immoral scoundrel with too much savvy for their own good, stinking up the squad car, or what’s worse, having to usher another pusher into their collective consciousness, watching their nefarious moves for months? It’s like realizing the president is a psychopath, or we actually possess the power to heal ourselves. The information does not make your life any easier to live.
The silent actual cowboy, scars from lariats all over his hands, in a blowsy blue button-down covered in gutter leaves as if Rip Van Winkle from another American time, rose from the relative death of the prairies, was unable to decide what a pack of horses was. A herd? We pulled a smoke blackened 1970s encyclopedia from a neglected shelf on the wall as he cradled his quadruple shot of something, and became lost there. I was fascinated by his face, which held ore few businessman would recognize to mine. A short sexy oddly-tattooed hippie circumnavigated the running pool table, to capitalized every man’s eyes’ roving their favorite female body part. Her striking poses of don’t care lingered in the rat brain contact high, of weigh the costs later. The hand rolled cigarette smoke choked unadulterated lungs at first breath; sloppy drunks slurred malapropisms through 4x shots, and outside, a drug deal went bad, resulting in a stabbing. God gam, dis place iz hard care, the cowboy drawls and slurs. Yea, I said. Drugs’ legality ... always a hot spot. When the shit does you, you’re dead. Which surprised, my intellect, cuz it’s not what meant to say. A drug deal gone south is no minor hit, when you’re leveraged ass high in a piranha river, and you’re there for people you thought were your friends. From either side they’re screaming at you, don’t go there, I tell you. Check the blood out front, for the encyclopedia entry. Anti-herd man bites it, from double-dealing fake friend. When your leg’s broken, they shoot you, because it’s humane to get even. That’s the disillusionment factor planet earth maintains for us to breath, to get lung carcinogens over, or reconcile with artistic enterprises. He puts it so perfectly on page 74 and 75 of The Looser, the crafty Bernhard character! given to me by a late state addict’s slow morph into the perpendicularity of the abyss. No matter what you attempt, it has the capability of poisoning you with its insufficiency, and innumerable latent flaws. To think of the sketches which never reached eyes, because of the errors their first line contained, in whose anticipation, no words were written, no pencil touched drawing paper, and little love was transferred to those
starving for it.
AH, Men.
.jpg)
