new review of RADIO FRAGMENTS

A new review of Radio Fragments by friend and fellow Disco enthusiast General Gandhi is up now on Mr. Destructo.

Take a look

RADIO FRAGMENTS: new book announcement

I'm very relatively happy to announce the (self-) publication of my first book of pomes, RADIO FRAGMENTS. There's a new section of the site for it, with more info and a link to purcha$e it. If you enjoy the stories and pomes on this site and/or my twitter, chances are you will enjoy this book, as I allegedly wrote it. Thanks in advance to anyone who purchases it... I promise I worked really hard on it and you might not be disappointed. If you have bought and read it, drop me a line, or a picture of your face next to the book, or a video of you burning it and cursing my name on twitter or in email - brendlewords@gmail.com. I might compile some sort of reader review/feedback thing. Who knows? Thanks to Andrew Ohlmann, who did the cover design and illustration.

I've also added a new section of the site that has all of the various articles I've written for different sites in the last few years. Check these out if you like Opinions about Stuff.

narrative in the second person

It begins by trumpeting its own beginning, as if the act of enunciation were sufficient to validate being. It continues this vain display of self-awareness, drawing you in with a self-deprecating smile. You're familiar now, confident in your ability to parse the surface and detect the depths. It's taking shape before you, but you can't suppress wondering how long it can go on like this, and then whether or not that idea came to you before or after you saw it reflected in its surface.

A break in its texture allows you to catch your breath briefly, though how long depends on how fast you move over its surface, how long you wait between pauses, how desperate you are to reach its heart, which perhaps only now you've begun to consider. Does this thing, seemingly all surface area and no volume, have what might be considered a core? What about a purpose? You aren't sure, but likely have faith that a thorough examination of those pieces of it that present themselves will lead you inexorably inside, into the secret depths of its being, should they exist.

The last piece of its surface you examined put you on the defensive.

You remind yourself that you can stop looking at it any time, that, after all, it doesn't matter in the scheme of your life. But thinking that immediately forces you to think its opposite, that perhaps your nonchalance in dismissing its import represses a deeper desire for epiphany. But, even if you do have that desire, who is to say this thing will fulfill it. It offers no clues of its substance, no guarantees of its worth. It just stares back at you, motionless, unchanging, unable to adapt to your mood or respond to your input. It simply continues on in the way it is formed, indifferent to your gaze.

This piece of the object describes itself. It tells you that it is telling you. It shows you that it is showing you and that you are looking at it and that it is showing you looking at it showing you. It seems to be aware of your natural pauses and rhythms, making its surface flow to match the pace of your expectations, clearly articulating its being.

What it says and what it is coincide totally. The next part of its surface is dedicated to allowing you to take in the strangeness of the last, whether you want to or not. You know that what you are and what you say are rent by a great chasm, it tells you. You begin to get upset that it keeps telling you about yourself. It's already been wrong several times, it tells you, perhaps incorrectly. You question the worth of its continued examination. It questions its worth as well. You and it question its worth simultaneously. It questions your worth. You question your worth as well. You and it question your worth. You and it question your worth and its worth.

The similarity of the last few sections of its surface blend together, causing you to scan it more hastily than you intended. You think you should rescan those areas and verify that they hold together cohesively and reassure yourself that their simplistic structure bears some resemblance to a deeper, richer substance. You wonder if there is a deeper, richer substance here or elsewhere. It promises you there is not, while promising you there is.

That's the only reason you bother with it in the first place. If you thought it was all surface and no substance, you wouldn't take the time to examine the surface, because the surface in and of itself does nothing. It implies its own substance. Those places where it lacks substance, you fill in with your own. You have substance, it tells you. You wonder what it means that its surface announces "you have substance" when anybody can observe it and a large portion of the time no one does.

The spiral loops of the last sections of its surface begin to smooth out and you feel yourself grasping for the thread of some familiar object, something more akin to your daily experience. In revealing this on its surface, it seems to smugly defy your very wish for normalcy, whatever that is. You want something straight forward, something to which you can relate, a reflection of your own life and thoughts, which, coming from an alien substance, validate them for you. You, like all of your kind, seek a mirror in everything you see.

It reflects you, but not in the way you prefer, or perhaps in the way you prefer, but without the requisite humility. In fact, you start to think that it is nothing but your reflection, nothing but whatever you bring to it. It lacks any objective structure and certainly falls far short of inherent meaning, whatever that is. You crave narrative; you desire truth couched in fantasy, theme hidden inside events and characters.

You want to say "I examined this and it was good". Or perhaps you incline to say "I examined this and it was bad". Whatever those mean. It says "Whatever those mean", implying a fundamental confusion about that which we take for granted. It wants to dynamite valuation, normalcy, everything concrete. It creates a world of relativity, a world in which nothing exists outside of a given, flawed perspective. You think things exist objectively, and are only colored by perspective. Or you think otherwise. In any case, the deadlock is irresolvable.

While you examine this, by now frustrated, intrigued, bored, ironically confident, or something altogether different, you breathe air in and out of your lungs, perhaps not even aware of it until it showed you. Your heart beats. Your eyes scan left to right in quick jerks, making their way across its surface. Your mouth curls imperceptibly. Up when amused or derisive, down when angry, sad or in thought. Each curl of your mouth determines future wrinkles. You don't think much about wrinkles yet, or you do. It assumes you are young. Young enough to put your youth out of mind, at least for now. But maybe, looking into its neutral surface, you become aware of your age. You ask yourself what percentage of your life you have lived thus far, barring any catastrophic and unforeseen accidents. You hope to die in your sleep, quietly, without forethought or awareness that it is happening.

Long after you die, its surface will remain, cached in the world's information stores forever, or at least until something severe enough happens, at which point there wouldn't be anyone to observe it anyway. It may go unobserved for its duration, like a black hole evaporating over trillions of centuries, long after the universe has expanded away its light and life. You think about the term "black hole". You grin and/or grimace at its metaphorical use.

After you finish examining this, you will return to whatever it is you do with your time. A varied host of action and inaction, an array of tedium and enjoyment, scattered across the graph of your awareness in a distribution you cannot picture. You will reassert the quilting points of your ideology, remembering that so and so is important to you, defines you, gives your life meaning. Or perhaps you relate to life negatively, and so and so is what you struggle against, define yourself in opposition to, makes your life meaningless. In any case, as far as the surface of this thing, which though it seems to have intention and gaze, does not, all of your choices are the same.

You could stop now, but you don't. You really want to stop now that you have been challenged, or perhaps you continue on with a smirk, feeling yourself to understand it, identifying with its arrogant reflection. Perhaps you stopped and picked up later. Or never did. Although, that's unlikely, because you see this piece of its surface, accusing you of coming back to it, and therefore you did. Unless you never left, in which case you feel yourself superior to those who did, or inferior, depending on your position and acceleration, neither of which could be determined by the inert set of symbols before you.

You look at this through a screen of some sort, a light emitting interface that, regardless of its physical size, easily supplants your reality. At this point, you become aware that your focus on the screen has blocked out the details of your physical reality and you look away from it (though back now, as you see it telling you “you look away from it”) and everything seems strange and distant. Perhaps there are voices and faces nearby, swarming, unintelligible, unaware that this exists, uninterested. You see value in swarming, unintelligible faces. Or you don't.

Maybe instead you find value in surfaces like these, replete with polyvalent symbolization, into which you can project yourself, or those pieces of yourself, which struggle to find affinity in the "real world". You are very aware of the quotes around real world, and know that they make a somewhat glib implication that all realities, whether scrawls on a surface or that conglomeration of sense and reflection known as consciousness, are also equivalent. But they aren't, you assure yourself, it assures you, they just can't be. But you enjoy playing the game with it, allowing its surface to open you up briefly, penetrate you playfully, and retract politely when you're done.

It reaches its end by announcing that it is reaching its end. You feel relief, disappointment, betrayal, and/or nothing. What was the point of examining its surface? Why did you do that? What has changed in the time since you began? Has it fundamentally changed you? Has it amused you through a boring hour? Has it asked questions you've never thought of yourself? Probably not. It says probably not. But what is the point of any such surface, with any configuration of symbols? What is the point of any observer looking at these surfaces, sorting through them, trying to glean a deeper substance?

You believe there is a point, as it stares at you unblinkingly without confirmation or denial. You believe there is no point; it looks at you exactly the same. You believe this is just pretentious masturbation. You believe this is profound wisdom. Or some third, grayer option. In any case, you will go back to it all, to the passing faces, noise and motion of the public. Or the silence, stillness and terror of an otherwise empty room. Or some third, grayer option. It says, perhaps with some irony, that although it will be finished at the end of this sentence, you will not.

appointments

We've determined your desire
    according to the conservation
    of angular momentum,
    the governing principle of our universe.
Now go play outside.

We've constructed your body
    according to entropy,
    our data indicate you will feel joy and terror briefly,
    then forget.
Now go play outside.

We designed your potential
    according to gravity.
    All trajectories are parabolic.
    This is a dream, or at least a sleep.
Do not deviate your arc.

Our protocol specifies
    that we may not communicate with you
    except through encrypted channels.
    You do not have the decryption key.
Now go.

We apologize in advance
    for any discomfort.
    We sincerely apologize for any fear.
    The illusion of dialectic opposites is no illusion.
Sorry.

The stars are lovely, dark and deep.
    But we have appointments to keep.
    And light years to go before we sleep.
    And light years to go before we sleep.

masculinity

What does a guy have to do to get that
deep yellow urine like you see in a
gas station bathroom in one of those
impossible towns sustained solely
by freeway traffic? I don't mean the
neon yellow of too many vitamins,
or the pastel yellow of the well-hydrated,
but the earthy yellow that issues
from a man whose stream strikes true
in the center of the bowl and fills
the ears of nervous listeners,
hidden away in dilapidated stalls,
with a deep, prolonged gurgle.
A cowboy yellow, reckless,
daring you to match its intensity
with your watered down droplets.
Maybe it takes many men,
you comfort yourself, to make a yellow
that intimidating. That one by one,
men on the road use the same stall
without flushing, and only over time,
as the canyons were carved,
does the yellow incrementally attain
such majesty. You tell yourself that,
but you wonder, every time you see
a face with certain angles, eyes
with certain gleams, every time you hear
that racehorse depth from behind
a fragile, swinging door whose lock
you've turned and secured in fear, while
your ass cheeks grow red with irritation,
and your gaze remains transfixed on
juvenile scrawling, whether this man
is the one who gave you another
thing over which to feel ashamed.

innovation

I invented a way to utilize the dead.
Finally, after all this time, they can
contribute to society. We just need
to run enough cables between
every cemetery in the continental
United States. We just need
to install a circuit in every corpse
and run power to every urn.
Wouldn't they be grateful? Wouldn't
their hollow eyes weep with joy,
to know that once again they can
join with the living in the noble struggle
to keep on keeping on. To push
our advantage on the world and
all those in it. Now, this idea won't come
cheap. I expect my recompense.
What I got, you can't steal. Innovator,
revolutionary. My name's going in
all the text books, or at least in
whatever they replace text books with.
Profits in the first quarter should easily
pay for the infrastructure roll out.
Profits in the second quarter should
buy my momma a big, bad house.
Profits in the third quarter should
put my blessed butt in the seats of many
imported vehicles. And all the girls
I've ever desired will come
breathless to my double doors.
Profits in the fourth quarter should
put us in orbit. We can fall from that
point forward, but move fast enough to
avoid the crash. It's all gravy
from here on out, boys. Let's get our
shovels and start digging up the dead.

tantrum

Risk another glance at the time.
Been five, seems like thirty.
Sitting in the conditioned posture,
behind a wall of liquid crystal. A mountain
of work floats around me.
On my feet in a flash. Briefly concerned
about a severe rush of blood to my head.
I don't pass out. Nothing ever changes.
Out the door and on the way
to the parking lot, before my message,
calling in sick for the afternoon,
reaches its destination.
Pressure presses and each moment
behind the wheel drags on,
but regardless, carries me
toward my destination. My wife
says hello and I
make some excuse. A vague pain,
but nothing too serious. Grateful
for lies at times like these. Grateful
for silence that speaks the unspeakable.
Tear off my clothes and crumple them
in a pile on the floor. Because
why bother. Hole myself up in the closet,
why not.  It's a large closet,
with a window. The world shrinks
to its dimensions and the pressure
slowly subsides. My eye catches
dust in a ray of light, slipping
between the slats, proving that
I can't keep it out forever. I can't
keep fleeing and returning in shame. I try
tearing off these feelings like leeches.
I'm thirty-one. My work, my wife,
my life wait patiently for me outside this
small room in which I've buried myself
again, like a child, hammering his fists
against the ground and wailing helplessly
in violent protest.

o expectiminimax tree

1, Jeffries, Jr. and Sr.

When the phone rang, Jeffrey Jr. took extra care to play quietly in his room so his father could hear the person on the other end. When Jeffrey made a lot of noise, his dad couldn’t hear and sometimes phone calls were from very important people about very important things. Jeffrey did not think his stupid toys were more important than his father’s phone calls. He would not make a racket again. He understood.

“Hello?... Oh… What is it?... When?”

Jeffrey Jr. held his toys softly, a car that turned into a T-Rex in one hand and a yellow crane operated by a smiling, hard-hatted man in the other, racing them just above the ground so they wouldn’t make noise touching the carpet. He looked at the pupilless eyes of the dinocar and made it move back and forth over the ground, imagining it rumbling, roaring and speeding through his room. The man in the crane looked like a nice man. He wore a blue long-sleeved shirt, buttoned up the front, and blue jeans. His little cuffed hands gripped the levers of the crane, which, although Jeffrey Jr. couldn’t detach the hands from the levers, or even move the levers, cause of how it was built, being plastic and all, he imagined they swiveled the crane left and right, raised the arm up and down, dropped and retrieved the hook.

“Well-… I know it’s important.”

He placed the crane on the ground in front of him. He imagined the crane operator going to work every day with his hard hat and his metal lunchbox, to a skyscraper construction site, where, from the ground, the buildings rose up into the air so the tops couldn’t even be seen through the clouds.

“Fine… No, it’s fine… Thirty minutes… Yeah… Yeah.”

Jeffrey Jr. jolted as his dad tossed the cordless phone onto the counter.

“Kath!”
“…whaaat?”
“You need to watch him for a while. I have to go into work.”
“you what?”
“I’m going into to work.”
“when?”
“Right now. I’m going in right now. Jesus Christ. Just watch him.”

His dad rustled through the hall closet and coats sagged to the floor as they fell from their hangers. His dad roughly pulled out his brown work jacket. Jeffrey turned the crane slowly. The crane operator grabbed a giant iron girder from the ground and mightily lifted it into place. Jeffrey’s dad now picked through the fallen coats, trying to find his brown shoes. He pulled out the first brown shoe and tossed it behind him. He dug some more, pulled out a black shoe, threw the black shoe back into the closet, dug some more, pulled out the other brown shoe, stood, and slammed the closet shut. Jeffrey made his other toy, now in car form, drive around the crane, still well above the floor, as even though the phone had been hung up, he knew well enough that his dad worked very hard for him and his mother and that nobody appreciated him and that everyone should stay out of his way when he had work to do.

His dad left through the front door, slamming it behind him, and Jeffrey Jr. waited ten seconds after he heard the last footstep on the gravel before moving. He stood up, taking his toys with him. He entered his parents’ bedroom where his mom lay napping on the bed.

“Mom?”
“What is it?”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to sleep.”
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Can I play in here?”
“Can you play quiet? I need to get some sleep.”
“All right.”
“…Play for a little minute, then go play outside. We played outside as kids, you know.”
“All right, mom.”

Jeffrey Jr. sat Indian style between his dad’s sweatshirt and a taped up cardboard box in the corner of the room by the hamper and put his toys down. The plastic clicked as he turned the pieces of the Dino-car so it vaguely resembled a T-Rex. He put the T-Rex down by the crane. Look out, crane guy, it’s a monster! Ahhhh! But the crane operator would swing the crane around and hit the T-Rex in the head with a girder. The T-Rex might try to bite the crane operator, but he was safe inside the steel cab and the T-Rex’s teeth would all break and fall out if he tried to bite him. The T-Rex didn’t stand a chance.


2, William and Jeffrey, Jrs.

“Dude, that crane sucks,” William Jr. said.
“It’s all right. I like it,” Jeffrey Jr. replied.
“Not as much as Dino-car.”
“No, not as much. Dino-car is awesome!”
“Yeah, the Dino-car is the best. Let me be him this time if you’re so big on the crane.”
“I wanna be him this time. I just got him and he’s mine so I should get him first.”
“Yeah, cause I gave him to you. Since I gave him to you, you should let me play with him whenever I want. You can take him home and stuff, but when we play I get to be him if I want.”
“That’s no fair! You said I could have him and so I should get to be him.”
“What am I supposed to be, the crane?”
“Why not?”
“Because, the crane sucks. I don’t even own one of those. I don’t want to be some stupid guy in a crane, especially against the Dino-car.”
“The guy in the crane could take the Dino-car…”
“Hahaha like how? T-Rex is the best dinosaur. A guy wouldn’t stand a chance. T-Rex would rip that guy in half.”
“Not in the crane.”
“Yes in the crane. T-Rex would rip the crane open like a tin can and gobble him up like in Jurassic Park.”
“No, the T-Rex would try to open the crane and break all his teeth on the steel. Then the guy would hit the T-Rex in the head with a giant metal beam.”
“No.”
“Yeah, he would.”
“I’m gonna be the T-Rex and the T-Rex wins against a crane.”
“Not against a spaceship.”
“You don’t have a spaceship.”
“It could be.”
“No, it’s a crane. It can’t change into a spaceship unless it really changes into a spaceship. That’s why Dino-car is so cool, dumbass.”
“If I’m going to be the crane, then the crane has to be able to win too.”
“Not against the Dino-car.”
“Then I don’t want to play.”
“Fine, then I don’t either.”
“Then I’m going home.”
“Well, gimme back the Dino-car then.”
“What? No way, you gave him to me.”
“I want it back. You’re so into crane guy anyway.”
“You can’t take it back now, Indian giver, he’s mine and you said I could take him home.”
“I changed my mind! Give him back!!”
“No way!”
“I’ll tell.”
“So?”
“So, I’ll tell my dad.”
“So?”
“So, my dad is the boss of your dad and your dad will be in trouble.”
“Nuh uh.”
“Yeah, I heard my dad say that he’s your dad’s boss.”
“So?”
“So, so that pretty much makes me the boss of you.”
“No it doesn’t.”
“Are you going to give him back?”
“Come on, you gave him to me.”
“Are you?”
“Will…”
“Are you?”
 “You gave him to me…”
“I only gave him to you because your Christmas presents always suck and I knew you’d cry if you didn’t get something cool.”
“My presents don’t suck.”
“Remember when you told me how much cooler my family was then yours when you came over yesterday?”
“Yeah but,”
“And how much better my house is?”
“Yeah, but”
“And how you wished we were brothers?”
“That’s not what-“
“Just give me back the Dino-car, Jeff. You got to play with him some, didn’t you?”
“I’m not giving him back!”
“Fine, then I’ll take him back.”
“Let go!”
“Got him!”
“Give me back the crane!”
“It’s my crane now. I’ll trade you for Dino-car.”
“Give me back the crane! It’s not yours!”
“Get off me! Let go!”
“Give it!”
“I don’t want this stupid thing anyway!”
“You broke it!”
“You broke it! Give me back the Dino-car!”
“No way!”
“Fine, but I’m telling!”
“Go ahead! My dad will beat your dad up and you!!”
“In your dreams!”


3, Williams, Sr. and Jr.

The smell of fresh blueberry scones wafted over William Sr. as he opened the front door of his house, the wreath tapping as it jostled, and stepped inside. His wife stood in the kitchen at the mixer, smiling at its consistent hum, her eyes lost in the slow revolutions of its blades. She yelled hello from where she stood and William greeted her happily. He removed his boots by the door, carefully brushing off the snow. He hung his new peacoat on the woodgrain wall-hanger and crossed the tile floor in his socks. He embraced his wife and kissed her on the neck, telling her that the scones smelled delicious. She told him how she had bagged blueberries from the farmer’s market and kept them in the garage freezer so she could bake with them in the winter. He appreciated her forethought and greatly anticipated reaping its rewards.

Finally! What he had been waiting for all day: his leather recliner. The gas fireplace already burned safely behind its glass, where Christmas cards of friends and neighbors perched above on the tinseled mantle. His wife brought him some coffee and told him it would be about twenty-five minutes for the scones. He nuzzled into the plush chair and looked at his Christmas tree, now without presents it was just the golden skirt hiding the metal stand of the synthetic tree. But it made him happy. It reminded him of yesterday morning. Just how lucky he and his family were! He always tried to feel the proper amount of awe and gratitude for the blessings he had received.

He asked his wife if William Jr. was home. She told him that Will had come home a few hours ago, but had been in his room. He had looked upset when he came home. Out with Jeffrey, she said. He looked at his wife with dissatisfaction. His son maintained an intermittent friendship with Jeffrey’s son and the last time they got into a fight, William Sr. had thought of forbidding their interaction. He relented, of course, to the pleas of his son and allowed them to be friends again with the strict understanding that they were not to quarrel – or at least to settle it themselves. He assumed from the expression on his wife’s face that they hadn’t, and that it would be up to him to deal with it. He was used to it, being where the buck stopped, and, to be perfectly honest with himself, he relished the role.

He knocked on his son’s door. The timbre of his son’s voice as he said ‘come in’ through the door clued him in to the severity of the fight. He stepped inside. The TV flashed with a Christmas movie next to an open box of peppermint sticks. Comics and toys were scattered on the floor. Will really needed to clean his room. His son lay on his bed, reading one of the new comic books he had gotten yesterday.

“You doing all right, buddy?”
“Yeah.”
“Your mother said you were upset when you came home.”
“…Yeah, I guess.”
“Want to tell me about it?”

His son put down the comic book and paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

“Jeffrey Jr. stole my Dino-car! The one you gave me for Christmas.”
“We didn’t get you a… Oh, last Christmas. He stole it? That doesn’t sound like Jeff.”
“He has it right now!”
“And he stole it?”
“Well…”
“Accusing someone of stealing is a very serious thing, Will. If you’re lying about it, tell me the truth right now and you won’t be in trouble.”
“Okay, well, he didn’t steal it. I sort of… gave it to him yesterday.”
“You gave it to him?”
“Yeah, I mean, I thought I wanted to, on account of how he never gets anything good for Christmas. But then he wouldn’t let me play with it today. And since I gave it to him, I should be able to play with it whenever I want, right?”
“You can’t just give your toys away, Will.”
“Well I tried to get it back! But he wouldn’t give it back and he called me an Indian giver!”
“You shouldn’t have given it to him in the first place. I work hard so I can afford to buy you the toys you get for Christmas, the house you live in, the food you eat. Did you think about that before you just gave it away?”
“…I guess not…”
“Well you should have. What if I just gave away what my father gave to me, or his father to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“We wouldn’t have anything at all. Do you understand?”
“I guess so… Does this mean he gets to keep Dino-car?”
“…I’ll go over to Jeffery’s house and have a talk with his father. I’m sure he’ll understand the mix up and get your toy back. But I want to make sure this doesn’t happen again, so I’ve got to punish you too.”
“Daaad!”
“You made a mistake, buddy. It’s not a terrible one, and this time it won’t cost you anything real, but we need to make sure this is the last time you make it, okay?”
“… All right.”
“I’m going to hang on to your toy for a week, so you can think about what it would have been like if you had lost it for good. If we can make it through the next week without any more incidents, especially anything involving Jeffrey Jr., you can have it back. Sound fair?”
“Sounds fair, dad.”
“All right. Good talk.”

He stood and his son turned his attention back to the comic book. William Sr. felt very lucky indeed to have as well-behaved a son as he did, considering how kids were these days. He could have a talk with his son and work things out, tell the truth, and still be his friend while punishing him when he got out of line. He decided to go share their talk with his wife and then head back out into the snow right away to see Jeffrey Sr. for the second time today.




4, Jeffrey and William, Srs.

Women and kids don’t know what it means to work. Even women who work, most of em, don’t know, cause they got husbands who also work. And anyway working for them is some kind of pride thing, to prove they’re equal. No need to worry about that with Kath, of course. I’m lucky if the house is halfway clean half the time when I get home during the week. She can’t even look after the kid, which is supposed to be a woman’s bread and butter. She lets the guy wander outside doing who knows what and doesn’t think it’s strange that he keeps coming home in one piece. She doesn’t know what it’s like out there, is why.

My work is a tax on my life. It’s a condition of living, a price I pay to savor the few spare minutes in between when someone isn’t asking something of me or telling me what to do or upset because I'm doing something I actually enjoy. That’s not to say I don’t take pride in what I do. You better believe I do. I may not like it, and I might complain about it, but I do it well and I am proud that I provide for my family to the best of my ability, and sure, we don’t have too much, not like a lot of people do, but we get by, which a lot of people can’t.

I hadn’t even sat down for five minutes or cracked the beer I pulled out of the freezer before someone started knocking at the door.

“Kath! Someone’s at the door!”
“I can’t get it right now!”

No, of course not, not even this. Nope, not even this. So I got myself up, out of my chair, and opened the door. Now I fully acknowledge that I have a temper and that in some situations I can overreact, but when I saw Bill standing in my doorway, I thought my head was going to explode. The nerve of this guy, to call me in to work in the morning is enough; I mean, I almost went postal once already today. Now he comes by my house? The fucking nerve.

“What is it, Bill?”
“Hi Jeffrey, how are you?”
“All right. What can I do for you?”
“There seems to have been an issue- “
“No way. I double checked it. Everything was right when I left earlier.”
“…What I was going to say was that there seems to have been an issue with our boys.”
“Our boys?”
“That’s right. I’m awfully sorry to bother you here at home, but I thought it best to talk it over face to face.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Can I come in?”
“…All right.”

So I let Bill in, but stood there, waiting for him to get to his point. I let him in, it’s only common courtesy, even though I could gut the bastard, but still, I wasn’t offering him a beer, I wasn’t asking him to have a seat. God only knew what these little bastards got into and what Bill’s expecting me to do, but I swore by Christ if he was here to bilk me out of more money, I would end his life. Jail or not, the chair or not, I’d choke him out, sit down and drink my beer.

“So, what’s the problem?”
“Apparently, your son has one of Will’s toys.”
“You’re saying he stole it?”
“No, no, no, not at all. Not at all.”
“Well, what then?”
“In a… lapse of judgment, as kids often have, Will ‘gave’ one of his toys, one he’s rather fond of, to Jeff for Christmas.”
“And…?”
“And… He didn’t have permission to give his toys away. He made a mistake and I’m here to get the toy back.”

This guy called me in the day after Christmas, a holiday AND a weekend and he’s concerned with some fucking toy? Was he pulling my leg?

“Uh…”
“Look, Jeffrey, you and I know how it is. If the roles were reversed, I know you’d be in the same position that I am and it would be you standing in my living room right now, asking me.”
“…”
“Hopefully, I would understand that children don’t quite grasp the concept of property, of impulse, of hard work and so forth.”
“Is that so?”
“Jeffrey, I’m not looking to give you a hard time, to accuse anyone of anything, or to cause you or your son any trouble. In fact, it’s my son who made a mistake, and I would like to apologize to you and to Jeff Jr. on his behalf.”
“That’s all right.”
“No, I insist. It’s important to teach these kids about right and wrong, about acting responsibly, as you well know. I’m only trying to do my part as a father to look out after my son, as you no doubt do for yours.”
“All right. Let me get him. Jeffrey!”
“Thank you. Again, sorry for the trouble.”
“Yeah, like I said it’s no problem JEFF!”

“Yes?”
“You got one of Will Jr.’s toys?”
“He gave it to me! For Christmas!”
“Go get it.”
“But Dad, he…”
“Go get it now. Bill, I’d like to get this cleared up right away. I have some things to take care of tonight, so if you don’t mind, I’ll get you the toy and back about your business.”
“It’s no problem.”
“Is that it?”
“Yeah, but…”
“Hand it over.”
“But dad…”
“Now!”
“But dad, Will broke my crane, the one I got for Christmas!”
“Will didn’t say anything to me about that, Jeff. Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir! He broke it, trying to get back the Dino-car!”
“I don’t know anything about that, Jeffrey.”
“Yeah, me either. Anyway, give him back Will’s toy.”
“…All right.”
“Thank you. All right, Bill. Sorry for the trouble.”
“If you don’t mind, can I speak to young Jeff for a moment?”
“That’s not necessary, really.”
“I insist. Please, I told my son I would.”
“I guess it’s all right.”
“Jeff, thank you for giving Will back his toy. I want to apologize to you from him, because I know you thought the toy was yours. I’m punishing him for lying to you about it, because he was the one in the wrong here. Anyway, when you grow up and have your own kids, you’ll understand better.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, Bill. I really need to get back to it.”
“Of course. Thanks for your time. See you on Monday.”

I closed the door behind him, barely able to see straight. Brass fucking balls. Comes into MY house, tells MY kid what’s what? Sure I wanted to break his face. What am I gonna do? Beat him up? Which I could, easily. So easily. Maybe if we lived in the wild west when men could settle things between each other. But today, I’d just get thrown in jail, my family would starve, and he’d be back at work on Monday, wearing his bruises like a badge of courage! Fuck him and fuck this world. I’d have to take it nice and slow, wait until there wasn’t anything between us, until long after I quit, which I will someday, and won’t he be fucked then, but after I quit, some night, years later maybe, show up and just beat him to death on his driveway. I need that beer.

See, though, kids and women. Can’t even keep a brand new toy for one fucking day. It’s already broke.

“Jeff!”
“Yeah, dad?”
“How did the crane get broken?”
“Will broke it!”
“I don’t care who broke it! I just got that for you. Maybe if you cared more about the toys you already have, instead of the ones your little friends have, you’d still have an unbroken crane.”
“Yes, sir.”

Kids these days are spoiled to death. Think things just fall from the sky. Think they deserve something just cause it exists. Without working for it. Sweating for it. Day in and day out. Bill lecturing me about raising kids. He’s right, though, even if it isn’t his place to say. Well, by God, my son’s not growing up like that. He’s going to learn the value of a hard day’s work if it kills me.

questions of scale

As I sat, entrenched in my business as usual, I thought I heard a faint buzzing from a distant corner of my office. I paid it little heed and continued my work. I can only with great difficulty express the importance of the work I do, and I can't even begin to put into words its details. In any case, the work must get done. Each day I begin anew, dutifully eking out the tasks assigned to me, carefully inspecting my work, double checking it even, to ensure its accuracy. Again, the buzzing. What a distraction! My work, this burden I carry, must get done, and I am distracted by a petty annoyance.

I decided it would be more efficient to deal with the buzzing now and work quickly in peace than to try and continue working with the buzzing distraction interrupting my thoughts. My cursory examination of the corner from which the buzzing seemed to come revealed nothing. However, the corner was in shadow and I could hardly make out its contents, if there were any.

It had been a long, long time since I had paid attention to this corner, or even this whole side of my office. My work demands my strict attention and I cannot be bothered with constant inspection of every inch of my domain. That said, upon returning to it now in pursuit of this miniscule bother, I found it a rather dull and desolate corner, bereft of that which made the remainder of my office not only tolerable, but enjoyable. Yet this corner existed, had existed, and lacked only my gaze upon it to come into the fore. But soon, without subsequent buzzing, I dismissed the corner, its indeterminate contents, and returned to my work.

Having hardly started at my work again in the comfort of my desk in the center of my office, the buzzing began again in earnest. This time, I jumped from my desk and raced to the corner. Staring intently, I attempted to make out the buzzing's source. Again: nothing. But as I stood there, hovering over the corner, bent in two, with my own shadow blocking the light by which I saw, I thought I noticed a very faint movement, the movement of a dark object within darkness, hardly reflecting the immense light that flooded the rest of the room. I knelt, which I hesitated doing without probable cause, as the joints of my knees give me trouble and bringing myself up to my full height once again would require a great deal of effort and perhaps even pain.

Sure enough, I had not knelt in vain. In the very deepest recesses of the corner, down in the rug fibers, fluttered an infinitesimally small fly. It moved in place, not flying, but flapping its tiny, fragile wings, twisting its body one direction, then another, producing the frustrating buzz that had plagued me this entire morning.

My first instinct was to strike it viciously and forever end its grotesque existence. But, as I watched it writhe absently, a mere speck to my eyes, I began to feel that perhaps crushing the life out of this fly was not the answer. I had killed many flies before, and other insects, had they wandered into my sight, and I would kill many more. But now, I only stared, watching in silence as this fly moved erratically in the darkness amid the chemically treated synthetic hairs of the carpet.

From where had this fly come? It lived in my office, but I couldn’t recall letting it in. It came from somewhere, obviously, but I didn’t remember where. What really puzzled me and stayed my hand from its murderous descent was why the fly behaved as it did.

My work demands logic, precision, clear causality, mathematics… This fly, beating its wings against itself, moved at random, with no purpose, with no obvious goal. Was it only a question of scale? Because the fly could fit into the tip of my little finger with room to spare, did it follow that I could not relate to its being? Or did the fly lack being, as I used the term, and only mechanically follow simple instinctual commands, this particular fly having had its circuits crossed or cut or tangled in a way that made his usually sensible programming go haywire? Neither of these hypotheses satisfied me, for if the fly lacked being, where did one draw the line between being and non-being? And if the fly had being, but operated strictly on instinct, what type of creature would that make? There would be no difference between a fly acting on base instinct and a rock traveling through space with a certain trajectory and speed. In that scenario, the line between being and non-being simply did not exist. I was sure that experts in some field knew the answer, or at least more details about how a fly worked, but I, being a lay person in these matters, struggled against my own ignorance, new hypotheses emerging by the second.

I observed this fly, questioning why I could observe this fly, think about it, reflect upon it, abstract it to the concept of A Fly, while its pathetic faculties could hardly utilize the minimal amount of information provided by its genetics, if that’s how it worked. How did the fly experience life? What did it mean to see the world through kaleidoscope eyes, to flap transparent wings, to stick the snout into a pile of excrement for sustenance, to buzz eclectic without hope of understanding, save an imperfect understanding by other flies, if indeed any could understand another?

And then why? Why exist as a fly? Perhaps the fly didn’t know it existed. It lacked the observed observer of higher intelligence. Or perhaps its experiences were so different from mine that I was incapable of understanding it on my terms. Perhaps time seemed to pass much more slowly to a fly. Each second ticked away as for me a year would pass. Perhaps undetectable attributes gave its life meaning and interest.  Some alien system of signification, so far missed by me, scattered through its dingy microcosm, filled the fly’s world as the various expressions of my kind filled mine. Perhaps I projected my own feelings and thoughts onto this little speck, vicariously filling myself by filling it. The fly buzzed in agitation. What agitated it? Or was agitation my word, my experience, wholly foreign to this disgusting insect? It desperately buzzed, so quickly together did the pulses, that to my ears seemed a contiguous sound, come, that I ascribed desperation to its almost certainly meaningless flailing.

I had to turn away. I turned away in revulsion and horror. My urge to crush its existence returned. The buzzing had escalated from a minor annoyance to a pestilent intrusion, each individual click an expression of irrational and pointless being. I looked out the window of my office, where the light poured in from its source. But the buzzing in the darkness continued. My mind kept showing me the ill lit dance of the pathetic fly in the corner, lilting to and fro, its spindly legs turning deftly while its lidless eyes stared out in every direction.

Could it see me? Was the fly aware of my presence? If I swatted at it, it would dodge, but that only proved reflex to imminent danger. Did the fly recognize me as a continuous whole, a sentient creature, a separate entity? Or am I, as I see myself, wholly abstracted to the fly, who, because of insufficient mental powers, insufficient visual powers, insufficient comprehension, or any other limitation of its physical being, could not understand that I am a creature like it, save of a much higher order? When I hunched over it, looming above its entire universe, did it fear its death at my hand? When I stood, with difficulty, and retreated to my desk, did the fly feel relief? Did it know I had spared its life? Or did it conclude from its continued existence that I never was there to destroy it in the first place?

I could not focus on my work. I could not sit peacefully in my chair. My ears resounded with the buzzing of this fly and I wanted to crush it crush it crush it until silence once again prevailed. Silence, the natural order, brought me great happiness. This impertinent fly sought to steal my peace of mind, my comfort, my ability to continue my work, with its irrational noise! How dare it have the audacity to intrude on a superior creature like me with its meaningless existence? I could not leave my office. I could not abandon my work. I could not go on like this.

Then, an amazing thing happened. The fly left its corner and flew in a nearly straight line towards the window. At last, progress! This I could understand. Spending its whole life grappling with itself in a dark corner, it had finally decided to seek out the light and perhaps escape. I watched intently as the fly buzzed its way quickly over to the window pane. It buzzed frantically, desperately, to my ears, and flew up against the glass pane again and again. Ah, fly, could you only understand the transparency of glass… But it only continued its assault, drawn by the light, repeatedly flying into the window, buzzing, faster and faster, slamming itself into the glass, buzzing, louder and louder, trying different angles, different parts of the glass surface, buzzing, higher and higher, again and again and again SMASH into the glass pane, SMASH into the glass pane, SMASH into the glass pane, and to no avail at all. Could it not see the folly in this, its inability to affect, even in the slightest, its macroenvironment? I saw it all so clearly, the helplessness of this tiny, strange entity, smashing its foolish self against an immovable obstacle, all in the hopes of attaining a distant light that it could neither reach nor understand, a light that would immolate it in seconds with indifferent alacrity. It buzzed and buzzed and continued to buzz.

I should have opened the window, perhaps, though behind the glass was a screen, through which the fly could never have passed, and which I was unwilling to remove for its sake. Would not allowing it a touch of fresh air have been yet another torture it endured? It wasn’t my place, anyway, from what I could recall, to assist this creature in its futile struggle, nor would it have helped. And even if I did help this one fly, millions or billions or trillions more writhed elsewhere, pleading for succor that would never come.

With a final assault, the fly rammed itself into the glass pane, fluttered in the air for a moment, and fell lifeless to the floor. The buzzing ceased. Quiet filled the office. I gazed upon the inert remains of the fly, awkwardly lying on its side, and for all I knew, no longer troubled by its world, whatever that may have been. The fly corpse disgusted me, but I remained still, despite my urge to sufficiently pad my fingers with tissue and move its husk from my office floor to the trash can. I sat calmly, quietly in the calm and quiet.

I left my office, much work undone, sure that something would remove the fly from my floor before Monday. It had grown dark; I had stared at the fly for a very long time. I left my building and felt the cold, fresh air on my skin. Everything stood immobile and hushed. The quiet extended far out into the clear sky above, descended far down into the cracks of the icy sidewalk below my feet. I yawned loudly, stretching my arms outward, my elbows clicking as they popped, then yawned again. My neck craned towards the sky, and I was able to barely make out the wispy glow of the Milky Way against the surrounding blackness.

autosymptomatic

furtive youth glossed and gone,
forsaken every forgone outcome.
rainwet concrete arch underpass,
laughter and echo and laughter again.

rollercoaster mornings misspent.
sunglasses, backpack, stockings, cap.
roller-skate hairdo, kitsch memories,
unfeeling, unneeded, unnecessities.

down on the pier or out in the surf.
eeridescent salvation army throwaways,
too cool for school, too hip to grip,
recording themselves reordering.

failure burn out bulb replacements.
hollow art school tenement basements.
scrawling slogans, corporate dreams,
on the hearts of every absenteen.

pieced together ceramic shards,
arranged without a plot or scheme.
montage, collage, bric-a-brac.
sampled random scrambled screams.

fractured fracture, splintered splint,
infection spread too far to cut.
someone call the fucking cops,
to pick up all the bleeding stumps.

"be yourself," and "make some art."
steal the products from the shelves.
forget tv and hollywood stars
and sody pop and fancy cars.

skateboard, hat brim, sneakers, beer,
descend down from the wealthy blocks.
discover mounds of ancient waste.
detritus treasure restored to grace.

styrofoam headlines on plastic plaques.
steel heartbeats, souls of glass.
tear up the earth and reap the wind,
"Hieronimo is mad againe."

thirty minutes spent on hair,
loiter downtown by the shops.
collapsing infrastructure kids.
"these fags will never touch the heart."

sickarus flew out too far,
refused the sanctum of the sun.
immolation of a threadless shirt,
fell unnoticed behind the lens.

throwing bottles off crosstown bridge,
meandering river, drunk off spit.
murmurs guard the homeless shelter,
"fuck you all," and "fuck this shit."

mantras, fragments

the first thing to go would be the eyes
exciting opportunities await
you'll love the feel of your hands on our sleek new body design
get free online assistance for your goals
you could be the ceo of general motors
if you feel an arm or other primary limb has withered
contact the proper authorities
we'll need your name, number, address, and occupation
a neighbor, brandishing a weapon in his garage
should you bring another life into this world
the 2011 model of the car you are currently driving is better
if you laid all your veins and arteries out end to end
it's always been that way
do you even own a suit
gentlemen's club
when the sidewalk hipsters laughed at you downtown
getting older
our global communications technology is bringing people together
no child left behind // rapture
open the redistributable package
budgeting
feral dogs roaming the streets of your suburban neighborhood
which season is best for replenishing yard mulch
sorry
i was a million miles away
from a cosmic perspective,
authorized personnel only
one foot in front of the other
the morning wager to try for another day
of energy, matter, and consciousness only one can be destroyed
or created
angry, aggressive driving
electronic prox card locks on every door
wall to wall computer monitors
backyard compost heap
the history of mercantilism
the next orgasm might feel better
a bathtub, too small
was man's mind ever whole
did it shatter with the death of the titans
when god swalked the earth
when fire-bringer brought fire
when it became man
just trying to get by
is wage slavery really slavery
imagine a world unexplored
the first footprint in the sand like Crusoe
imagine an ape crushing another ape's skull with a rock
feral dogs foaming at the mouth
clear, plastic braces
slipped on ice, dropped items
wide and welcoming gate
attend an informational seminar on your 401K
we spent a lot of money on this
don't let us down
corporate responsibility
space exploration canceled due to emptiness
insulated
should you check your waste before you flush
for blood or other anomalies
sea anomalies
under the ocean floor
a picture of a cancerous cell
virii spaceship depositing protein warhead
dress for success
dinner is almost ready, she says
new mexican silver bowl
contents: fake red rocks
childhood railroad tracks
dinner is ready, she says
headphones, computer monitor
exercise more
there is no right answer
rfid
hunched over a desk
will you be attending a co-workers goodbye party
sign here, initial here
static
it's just about time, see you tomorrow
check your clock
it could be fast
time is money
lay head to pillow
ashen aftermath of day
a human face telling its story without words

pretty little fetishes

how many wandering souls
have fucked on this hotel mattress
and eked out their pleasure
from a core of desperation.

office building lights across the street
office busy workers in slacks, talking
on beige phones at metal desks
"my downtown corner office."

reading about the latest effort
for corporate responsibility
on the warm cup of coffee
bought for four dollars.

siphon the elusive essence
through a curly fun straw
and spit it up like gasoline
choking on its vapors.

the hands of the eyes reaching out
to behold.

walk the mall circuit, ironically
there are so many ghosts
queued at sbarro for
a quick slice of 'za.

a searchable and indexed
catalogue of eroded signs
painted on brick buildings
in the greater metro area.

lines in the streets for either
the latest gadget release
or the methadone clinic
smell the same in passing.

the hands of the eyes reaching out
to behold.

hipness through exclusion
pretty little fetishes
with little open mouths
rusted in mock affirmation.

yes yes she said yes
we really do have the
greatest deals on appliances
you've ever seen.

pages of empty sheet music
in the city landfill, or on a
barge in the harbor.
spoiled child bored of instrument.

alternative erotic bookstore
racks of zines and posters
of betty page somehow
empowering women sexually.

the hands of the eyes reaching out
to behold.

the disconnected life support,
the fantasy pleasure dome,
the consciousness in bed,
thinking, "i need to go to the store."

the failure of every hipster respirator.
the spiral of every rescued failure.
inky fractal infections
on calloused, weathered skin.

a full grown man playing games
with deadly seriousness
unasleep and careless with
his dress and facial hair.

monkeys ever bound to
obsolete technology
emptying out the ashtray
on a 23rd floor balcony.

stoned and defiled
howling into the alley
playing rock star god
away from home and work.

fell asleep after sex
hand and face still smell of
her cunt and you don't want
to shower before continental breakfast.

two girls

two cold snow girls doorstep coming entreating dark
two snow girls
two cold girls
on doorstep, entreating
snow dark doorstep coming
two snow girls, cold, doorstep coming, entreating dark
made up in their best winter clothes
made up in their best winter warm
two beautiful young high school girls, snow hats, cold cheeks
knocking at the door
entreating you out
in the dark, cold, and snow
beautiful girls, cold and young
out in the snow
on the doorstep
streetlamp snowfall
streetlamp down
the silence the yellow streetlamp
the yellow streetlamp silence
smiling girls, young and beautiful, entreating you out
in the dark snow, cold, down the snowfall under streetlamp yellow
best winter clothes, warm, made up
knocking two girls coming dark
two girls coming dark on the doorstep
entreating you out
under the yellow streetlamp snowfall
cold cheeks, schoolgirls, high, young, beautiful, two
made up in their best
coming warm
on the snowfall down the yellow
under dark clothes
coming
two entreating girls coming up in their best beautiful and young
smiling, coming
entreating you down
dark girls out in the snow
beautiful coming
beautiful, coming
best dark yellow
knocking you out in their best yellow silence
beautiful and down, made up, down, coming dark, down
young young young young
two girls, out in the snow, entreating you out.

intersticial

open up the envelope for a lovely little surprise.
blossom in the finest hour all yellows and particle haze.
i told your cousin the summer was a lovely time.

the unruly disorder solemn and blank.
empty out your pouring bucket.
in from the fields beyond the blue dark of hunger's evening.

unfurl out among the clouds into the blister of spring.
a childhood memory recalled while stoned.
we leapt in thunderbirds and camaros when long hair boys drove all the cool cars.

the desert between cities under the blanket overcast.
monuments and arches and towers and the absence of water in all directions.
the gray pamphlets falling from the sky in slow motion.

a concrete path through the green mown grass.
an empty duplex carport spot.
the haunting black dog in a poor man's backyard.

pattern is perception, reflection only thought.
the destinations reveal themselves spontaneously.
saturday morning drive out of town abruptly.

roll to the rhythm of the cracks in the freeway.
sorrow's empty ocean daydream.
in the smell of that rich kid's house.

paper men are easily torn.
we went to watch zozobra.
and play with flaming sticks from the firepit.
cherubs guarding the gates of eden.

the largest cross

COME SEE

THE SECOND LARGEST CROSS

IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

PRAYER SERVICE

THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS

FAMILY FRIENDLY FUN

ONLY IN TEXAS

I
(scratch, scratch scratch)

Wiping the dust.
Wiping the dust from the thief.
Wiping the dust from the thief on His right.
The wind blow up fierce this morning. The wind blowing up. It blow up the dust and scatter it here, there, on me, in me. Wiping. I wiping off his face. I wiping the dust off his face. There more. There more dust. I wiping it off too, the more, and then there still more. Then there the other thief.  Then there still more.

I clean both thieves and the Lord.
I clean them with this cloth.
I wipe the dust from their faces.
I wipe it with this cloth.

We in the shadow of the cross now. It spreading out across this field the way it does. It hot out too. In the shadow ain’t so hot. We in the shadow of the cross. The dust bad. They always saying the dust bad for you. It get in your lungs. The dust build up in your lungs. You breathe it. They say. Plenty a work in the office, they say. Plenty of work. Ain’t much for office work, I say Ain’t much for it. Rather it in the dust.

That one there, the one there, the one over there, he said, he said something like, he said something like ‘Lord don’t forget me when you go up into Your Kingdom.’ He wished it and was taken up and the other one sent below. It in the book. I read it.

-Rudy, Hey Rudy! he call out to me.

He walking up the platform now, blowing all over in the wind, like I must look. It a sight. I must a sight myself. I must. But him in them black robes or whatever he calls them and his starched white collar, blasted with the dust. It blowing on him, over him, same as me. Blasting him.

-Morning. I say.

-Morning there Rudy, how’s it going then? he say. Stations look real good, real good. Why don’t you come on inside for a bit and grab some breakfast. Everyone else is already inside.

I nod at him though I ain’t that hungry. I do not feel hungry. He looking at me now with those eyes he has. He looking at me now with those eyes. I haven’t finished cleaning up the statues yet. He looking at me now hard, real hard.

If it rain later on it’ll wash off all this anyway and it won’t have meant nothing to even bother. I ain’t quite that hungry, but I going anyway. It won’t have meant nothing. I ain’t hungry. I going anyway, down into the building. I going down anyway.

(scratch, scratch)

They already got breakfast all laid out and they all sitting there already eating, sitting and eating, sitting, eating. They got breakfast all laid out. No Mr. Day. No Ms. Bernice. The rest already there, sitting, eating.

Eggs. Grits. Potatoes. Sausage. Ham. Rolls. Toast. Orange Juice. Coffee.

I don’t drink coffee, though. I do not.

Long and them already all sitting there eating. Laughing bout something. Laughing. Sometimes he look at me with a meanness. Sometimes he look at me. Just look down and they go away. Just looking down. That look bred into a boy. Bred into him. Eggs. He that old Mr. Day’s boy.  Been off to college and all I heard. It usually beat into them, but sometime it come about just through the blood. Potatoes. He heft stuff around here now though. Him and those old boys there, hefting it around all day and working on the truck. They move the stuff around all right.  Ham. They move it around all right. Toast.

Orange juice.

Maureen pour the orange juice. It her hand on the pitcher and she smiling when she pour it. It poured into the glass from her arm, lifting it, and she smiling as she does it.  She smile at me a bit. She pouring the orange juice. She smile at me. She Long’s wife. She his wife. She smile at me. She pour my orange juice.

-Morning there Rudy, she say. How ya doin’?

-All right, I suppose. I say. I got the stations mostly wiped down, though there a few I ain’t got, but I reckon if it rain later on it ain’t gonna matter to have bothered now. How ya’ll doing? I say. How little Molly doing? I say.
(scratch, scratch)

-We’re good. Molly’s good. she say.

(scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch)

She smile at me. Father Sal waiting for his orange juice. I smile or make to smile and turn away. She very nice.

There are three tables.
There are three tables in the office.
Long and the boys, that Si and that Don, got one of them.
LONG LOOKING AT ME
Sal got another but he got his bible out and he liable to be busy and not wanting any disturbing while he working out his sermon. He don’t want no bother.
The last table got that Doc Conroy on it with his bird eyes and bird nose and bird brow and looking through his book like he ain’t even here. I set down by him, quiet, and start to eat. I taste the food and I chew it. I ain’t that hungry.

-Rudolph. he say. He call me Rudolph.

-Doc. I say. I call him Doc. Most folk call him Doc.

He keep on reading.
I keep on eating.

The light looking a little strange. The light coming in from the window. The windows in the office are high up and wide. The light coming in from them a little strange.

I fixing to get up and put my plate away and in come that little Molly, running around like mad. She IT SCRATCHING running around and laughing and IT TREMBLING wearing a little
scratch
a little dress that Maureen
tremble
must have got her last time they gone into town.

She look awfully cute.

-Hey there, Miss Molly. I say.

LONG LOOKING AT ME (I feel the embers of his eyes in the thick of my neck and I scratch it like scratch it and scratch at it peeling off the itch of his stare)

-Hiya, Rudy! she say. Ya’ll already eat? she say.

I look at my empty plate and IT EMPTY
I HAVE EATEN IT ALL
nod and try to smile like
the way folks do

-Yes ma’am, just finished. You runnin’ a little late, ain’t you? I say.
(scratch, scratch
it’s in me it’s in me it’s in me it’s in me
scratch)

-Yeah, I was getting pretty. Mama bought me this dress and did up my hair so I was making sure it was perfect before presenting myself. she say.

LONG LOOKING
SHE GETTING PRETTY
getting pretty getting pretty getting pretty
did up her hair getting pretty
presenting herself getting pretty
getting pretty getting getting getting
pretty pretty
pretty

-Molly. he say from cross the room. LONG Molly, cmere. he say.
HE LOOKING AT ME
As he speak.
Not speaking to me but looking at me and looking at me but his words not for me but his eyes speak too and to me they speak and the itch of the embers of his eyes
SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH
SHE SKIPS AND DANCES OVER TO HIM

-What I tell you about being late? he say, finally looking at her and speaking to her and I feeling a drop of sweat now and I wiping it away. I wiping it off.

-You know better’n that. Can’t be running round here by yourself. It ain’t safe. he say.

-But Daddy, I know everybody here. she say.

-Don’t talk back. Do what I tell you. Your ma’ll worry if you’re by yourself. Long say.

-Listen to your Daddy, baby. Don’t be running round. Maureen say.

I listening and hearing the eyes and the voices and looking and trying not to look and to scratch the itch but I feel it and if it rain today it won’t be for nothing and it all set to a slow boil and coming up over the top and sides with this abundance

LOOK AWAY
GOD
LOOK AWAY

I on my feet and I don’t even know how I did and I feel the daggers of the embers of the eyes in my back and wish they could bleed me from all this bramble confusion like I was on the table and bled it all out and be just like new and start it again and GOD now I see Sal there and he looking at me, waiting like, and I don’t know what I should

-I said you need something, Rudy? he say.

-Uh. Sorry to bother you, Sal, just wanted to know what all you like me to do this morning. I say.

He close that Bible on that red bookmark and there all kinds of notes and highlighting and things inside it and I can’t make out his tiny crumped scrawl but I did see it in there around the block printed words of the Lord in that book and he push up his reading glasses on his nose and looking at me with the eyes of a kind I never did feel not like the embers and I am not burned here but he look at me all the same and I would almost want more the violent burning than his calm kindness

-We’re gonna have sermon at ten. It’s what, round eight now? I don’t reckon there’s much to be done before then. Take some time to yourself, if you want. he say.

time
to yourself

-All right then, thanks. I say.

-You can always read this. he say and hold up his bible.

I nod and inside hold down a laugh that bubble up and would come out a cry if it ever escaped but it never will as long as I live and the
(scratch, scratch)
and the derisive
I CAN HEAR IT
and the penitent
DEAFENING
and if it rain
won’t have mattered
none
anyway.


II
I like the feel of this book. There’s smoothness to the leather and a heavy texture to the pages that reinforce its weight. It’s not too big to be unwieldy but it ain’t so small you can’t read the words either. The gold tassel for marking pages broke off a while back, but I can still see the threads coming up out of the binding of where it used to be. Reminds me of how much use it’s got. The pages got this red color on the edges so when the book is closed it looks like all red. All blood red. It’s the blood, all right. It is that. The lettering is crisp and clear, easy to read. Nothing fancy, except maybe the gold text on the front but that’s only to be expected. His Words are all marked out in red too. I quite like the feel of this book.

Long is getting his blood up for something, just looking for what. If he wasn’t Mr. Day’s son, he woulda been sent on his way a while back. It’s too bad. For that little girl. She’s a sweet one. If I had a daughter I woulda liked her to be like Molly. Maureen ain’t a bad woman neither, but I gotta wonder about how she ever got messed up with Long in the first place.

Lord, grant me that I may use your Word through my tongue to get through to the people. I’ll do the best I can, in my meager capacity to get it through. There is forgiveness in every human heart. This I do believe.

He’s coming over here now, Rudy, that hangdog expression on his face, those scared little eyes set back a ways in his skull, shifting. He’s rubbing his hands together as he does often. He got one of them conditions, with those tics. He’s all ragged. Still, out there, rubbing down them statues... Lord, he’s a stubborn one. He walks real slow, shuffling sort of, up to my table. He ain’t quite looking at me with his little kid eyes in his old man head.

“Hey Rudy. You need something?” I say.

He ain’t saying nothing. He’s sort of looking past me, behind me at something, but there ain’t nothing there. Gives folks the creeps. But I like having him around though. I honestly do. God’s charity knows no bounds and giving it to them who are a bit touched is the best you can do with it, I suppose.

“I said, you need something Rudy?” I say again.

This time he looks me in the eye. I’ve noticed many a time how quickly Rudy’s eyes can change. He normally has that dazed, hangdog look on him. Sad eyes. Sometimes though he flashes a bit of smarts under them, makes you think about what goes on in that old man head of his.

“Uh. Sorry to bother you, Sal, just wanted to know what all you like me to do this morning,” he says.

He’s shifting around a bit. Rubbing his hands. Breaks my heart. I cannot know what kind of suffering this man has endured and Lord’s truth I don’t want to. Maybe that’s why he never speaks of it.

“We’re gonna have sermon at ten. It’s what, round eight now? I don’t reckon there’s much to be done before then. Take some time to yourself, if you want,” I say.

He has some books and things in his bunk. Ain’t much, but a man needs some time alone. I’ve seen him before, sitting on his little cot cause he leaves his door open at times, just sort of staring out. Thinking, I’d say, bout what though I would not dare to guess at. Can’t send him outside to work in this wind though. As he said, it might rain in a bit and wouldn’t make sense anyway.

“All right then. Thanks,” he says.

He starts shuffling off towards the door. His shoes scraping along the linoleum.

I wonder if he’s always been like this or if something happened to him to make him this way. When I asked him to stay here, I probed as I could, as I felt proper, but didn’t get nothing from him except that he was from Millington, Tennessee and did some odd jobs for his Pa after he finished high school.  Either way, he’s been like this for some time, I would imagine, and it cannot make for an easy life.

“You can always read this,” I say and show him my Bible.

‘In his utmost extremity, a man can turn to the Lord and find his peace.’  But normal folks can take actions to ease the unknowable pain of a fellow traveler. He shuffles on out and I can hear the wind blowing hard when he opens the door. When it closes the noise dies out and the dust settles down around the threshold, still and quiet.

And that Long staring at him the whole time like a hollow.


III
The nails drive deep in the naked flesh. The sun burns down, scalding, parching, relentless. Surely this is as it should be, for I have forsaken the covenant of man unto man and having thus broken the law, submit to my humiliation, torment and punishment. I steel myself and prepare to jettison the flesh.

He sits in the office among the books and brochures. He holds a bible, closed, in his right hand. Closed are his eyes and he rubs his closed eyes with his left hand. He rakes his fingers back through his thinning hair. His hair is gray. He has mud on his shoes. The mud is caked and dry around the sides, but wet and leaving traces on the soles.

The office door opens.

The other one with me, he screams. His hands clench and unclench wildly. His eyes all rage, all hatred. He curses the soldiers. His mouth a rotting hole. Broken and crooked teeth. His lips crack, white and dust laden. Fear behind this mask of fury.

Long enters the office. Don and Si follow behind and close the door again. The door is now closed. They look down at Rudy with conspiracy.

-Howdy there, Rudy, Long says.

Long sits down on the bench next to Rudy and lays his arm out behind him. The other two stand there, immobile and silent. Don looks on expectantly, the cracking calm of his face betraying a seething desire. His swollen belly sits heavy in his overalls. Si is empty, distant. He looks up at the ceiling.

-Hiya, Long, Rudy says.

If a man steals and that man loses his hand and justice is meted and that be done for infringement on the natural rights of men, property included, warrants retribution of, if not equal to, then fitting the character of, and upon this stake of wood I am bared for my transgression of the laws of man and thus steel for the inevitable jettisoning of this flesh. They prepare to raise another. He writhes on the ground beneath me, as I have writhed, his confession etched above him as mine. The other beside me stares down at this newly arrived also, but with scorn. He tilts his head slowly toward mine, his eyes meet mine and he laughs with wild brutality.

-You know why they call me “Long,” Long asks, grinning.

Rudy remains silent.

Long laughs.

-You know my name’s Luke. That’s what folks call me who ain’t my friend, Long says.

-All right, Rudy says.

-Luke ain’t such a bad guy, Long says. Why, he’s a saint.

Don laughs.

-Working hard, then? Long asks.

-Sal said ain’t nothing to do ‘til after the sermon, Rudy says.

-Issat so? Well, did ya’ll hear that? Ain’t no work to do until after the sermon! Long says.

Don laughs and grunts. Si is silent, distant, but present and partial.

-That’s real strange, Rudy. Sally told us we gotta clean up the grounds and keep on at Conroy’s old truck ‘til it runs, sermon or no. We gotta do it now. You reckon we can wait then, Rudy, if there ain’t no work ‘til after the sermon? Long says.

-I don’t know, Long. Sal only told me what to do, Rudy says.

-Guess you must be special, Rudy. Sally must have a special place in his heart just for you. How about it? Are you special? Long says.

They raise this one up, in the middle, between me and the other. We both pivot our necks, with a crying out of strength, to see his face between us. I see his flesh, his hair, his sweat, his blood. I feel the violation of the metal through his body as it is in my own. I taste the arid lack in his mouth. I see across him, to the other, who cackles madly still, making crude insults to those below and watching with peculiar intensity this one in the middle, newly risen.

-He told me I could read my bible, Rudy said.

-He said you could read your bible? That’s mighty good, Rudy. How is that Bible? You get to any of the good parts yet? The ones where all them boys get their heads cut off and all the pretty girls get kidnapped and raped? Long asked.

Don laughs a deep, dark grunt. Si betrays an emotion on his face. He distances. Long smiles wide, his hand on Rudy’s shoulder. Rudy looks away, towards the floor, and says nothing. Long leans in close and Rudy can smell his breath.

-You ever make it with a girl, Rudy? Long asks.

The other and I read the sin of the one newly raised. But it is not a charge. It is a statement. It cannot be true. I do not understand. The other immediately laughs loud, coughing and spitting up blood. He says, “If that indictment is true, if you really are him, then why don’t you save yourself – and us!” He laughs again and spits upon the ground, the dryness of the soil soaking up his life and dissipating it into nothing.

-I asked you a question, son. C’mon now. You’re what, forty-five, fifty, I reckon. You a monk or something? You been laid, Rudy, don’t play around. I bet you been laid plenty. Old man like you. Shit. Or don’t you like girls, Long says.

Rudy says nothing, does nothing. Long leers at Rudy and grips his shoulder tightly. Rudy submits to the squeezing, to the leering. Don laughs again, his big belly shaking slowly, his deep voice echoing in the empty room. Si just stands there, watching, not quite looking away, but restrained and aloof, his hands in his pockets. For a moment there is no movement in the room except Long’s heavy breathing.

because if there is judgment then there is justice and there must be justice in order for us to go on for we cannot go on without order and there is no order without justice and there is no justice without judgment and who is to be the judge if not the men in the position to judge and condemn or set free? But this man with no crime on his head, is it justice, does he belong here on this hill with the endless rows of the dead hanging from the sky and dripping into the ground and disappearing and does the hot earth deserve to drink his blood with ours, commingling in the soil and bringing forth some nightmare fruit from the skull on which we are perched and the birds above circling for their share when the soldiers go away and they are the keepers of justice, but are men, and unjust, and how can there be order or justice or judgment by men who are above all disorderly, unjust and biased? Have I waited too long to separate from my flesh as the pain of the world burns into my lungs and wrists and I breathe in the death that will consume the little fire of my being and the other one there continues and continues his poison spitting over this man who has no crime on his head he has no crime to speak of and this cannot be justice for though I have stolen and am where I should be, who is this other to speak of the man in the middle with his caustic arrogance? No this cannot be right. This cannot be right. Then the man in the middle looks at me and his face becomes as sunfire, withering me to ashes.

Long throws a punch at Rudy’s face and stops inches short. Rudy flinches terribly. Long and Don laugh hysterically. Si smiles a bit but only with his mouth.

-Hell, Rudy, we’re just messing with you. You’re a good old boy. You’re like a little kid. A little brother I always wanted. Even if you are some kind of retard, Long says.

Long motions toward the door with his head. Si is out the door immediately. Don gives Rudy one last look, bares his teeth, and follows. Long goes to the door and has his hand on the knob when he turns back and stares at Rudy.

“Be quiet!” I say. “How can you mock a man sharing in your very own pain? Do you not fear? He shares our torment and not our crime,” I say. My heart burns. It may explode. My lungs have little left. My muscles are slack and waning. I cannot see but the sky. The man in the middle looks towards me, annihilating me with his gaze. I say to him, “Remember me when you go to your kingdom.”

-You stay the hell away from Molly, you hear me? And Maureen too. You creep me the hell out and I don’t want to see you talking or even looking at my girls. You got it? I’m serious now, you hear, Long says.

He doesn’t wait for Rudy to answer before leaving and slamming the door to the office behind him. Rudy stares at the floor, gripping his bible with shaking hands.

“Today,” he says, “you will be with me in paradise.”


IV
still I was glad I got Molly that dress and had her wear it today for the service even though he doesn’t like me to do it with his man fear not being able to accept something as simple as this without getting all ruffled feathers and making a big scene about it at breakfast in front of everyone like every time any little thing goes on he has to let everyone know he’s in charge all over again embarrassing himself and everyone else who has to watch it like they aren’t already used to the way he is the way he sits there even now with that bored look on his face like this is such a chore and he has better things to do than spend Sunday morning in church with his family

things a man can’t show in public feelings they aren’t supposed to feel but all of them do saving them up for the bedroom and letting them out like a crack in a dam spilling all over us when the lights get turned off and the warmth of our bodies wraps them up in the covers and they begin to speak those secret things that a woman might say out in the daylight but for a man are reserved for only those private times which is why none of them know really that he is a good man how could they know who Luke even is without spending those times with him like I have and hearing him talk in his quiet voice about those things he won’t admit to the rest of the world that knows him as Long and that’s how I know he’s a good man no matter what they might say and even if Sally stares over at him all day I’ll know that he’s a good man and a good father and that deep down he loves me and Molly and I know these things and I’ve heard them spoken from rough lips in the dark when only the truth is light enough to come out

“Thank you all for coming out this Sunday,” Father Sal says from the podium. “Real good to see all your faces. Today I’d like to talk about what I consider to be a cornerstone of our faith and tradition: forgiveness.”

Sally speaking directly to us to me to Luke trying to get through to us and yes I feel I feel the Lord but getting through to Luke making him understand and come around is going to take time but he will come around and he will understand Long who never forgave anyone long as I’ve known him man can keep a grudge but sometimes with men the blood gets to boiling and there’s no stopping it until it explodes and smashes against something like a runaway train or a crack in the dam exploding and exploding until the pressure’s all worked out and then they go right back to bottling it up again and we wait and wait and wait for the next time it gets to be too much and he’s always saying how he didn’t mean it and I know he didn’t mean it when he speaks to me in his quiet voice afterwards and the way he caresses me so gentle and tells me what a sorry son of a bitch he is and gets that look like a puppy that just don’t know any better looking at you again and again never meaning it but bottling and bottling and can’t help but blow over at times it’s the way of men hiding in the daylight

“-without sin cast the first stone.’ I ask you, fine ladies and gentlemen, who here could throw that stone?”

but he is a good father there’s that and he might be overprotective the way fathers are but he loves her as I do and wouldn’t hurt her he promised me that one time when he come back all hangdog he promised me it wouldn’t ever happen and he’s been good to his word because I know him deep down the way these others never could the way only a woman can know a man and anyway he’s working on it for me too he promised that the last time he’s working on it and he’ll find a way he promised after all, he is a good father there’s that and Molly’s such a good girl and so sweet she’s been raised right and I have to give him credit for that a lot of men can’t father can’t even abide children and Lord knows Luke ain’t perfect but she is going to grow up to be a good woman and I have to give him credit for that I have to give him that

“-men find the Lord not through purity, but through defilement. Men come to the light out of the darkness. Men have their sins washed away not because they are already clean, but because they are dirty,”

Sally looking over here real intent like he has a point looking at Luke looking down on him like all his words are just for him like he’s just the personal mouthpiece for the Lord come to speak right at Long to make him change his ways like it’s just that simple like you can just speak words to a man and hope for him to change like you can just skip over all the nights and feelings a woman puts in to help her man like he’s just going to see the light and change and Sal not even knowing him not even seeing Luke as Luke but more as Long more as that Long and the boys and not even liking him much the way most don’t on account of how he seems and I know he has a way with people and I guess if that’s all they know about him I can’t blame them much but that’s because a man is an iceberg and you only see that little part he intends to show unless you put in the years, night after night, raise their blood and listen to their quiet voice

“-you might want to think about it for a second. Think about that beam in your eye first. We got so much lumber we could build another church! But no matter how big our beam is, it’s always easy to see right past it and into the speck of another,”

comin out to his Daddy’s place like this asking him for work and doing things here and there that he wouldn’t get paid for anywhere else but by family and saying that he can provide for us and that it won’t be long fore we pick up and go somewhere else but it’s been a long long time

that poor Rudy standing alone in the back there by himself looking down like he’s listening but who knows if he can hear or grasp any of this and no I can’t abide the way Long treats him it ain’t right I know that I know it I know Long oughta leave him alone and I can see why Sally gets upset about it that Rudy ain’t much different from Molly when it comes down to it man barely speaks keeps to himself barely leaves the grounds he’s an older man now but he’s still someone’s son and some mother at some time felt about him how Luke feels about Molly but Long can’t see things that way not yet and why him and those other boys go about picking on him I just don’t know I don’t know what makes men do the things they do acting crazy at every occasion writing cruelties into the fabric of their experience where a woman can see the mother’s child through the present

except that Sally the way he treats Rudy took a shine to him right off like as pastor he’s mother and father but that Rudy that Rudy someone really has to do something someone really has to someone should really do something

the way it is with me and Luke we sort of have to balance out like Molly’s dress how I bought it and how I’ll buy her another one and how he got down on her for it and how he’ll get down on me for spending the money but I just have to keep him balanced out until he gets himself together and figures it all out because deep down I know he loves me I’ve seen him in the quiet in the dark felt his heartbeat and his touch which can be gentle so gentle like none would ever believe of the man they think they know though I’ve heard his soul speak to me in a whisper I could lose in the wind and I know God will forgive him and I pray to the Blessed Virgin he will come round and I know he will show them all how he can be the good man he is down deep where down deep he is a good man where down deep he does love me where down deep he does love Molly too where down deep he does the best he can the best he can the best he can


V
We need to fix a new axle on it. That’s all there is to it. I already told them that. We spent all that time trying to fix that one that’s on it now. But it’s all rusted out. Everybody knows it. Can’t be no good no more. Not when it’s all eat away like that. Where Doc Conroy got that truck, I don’t know.  We been working on fixing it now for a while. The engine was near shot. Would have been faster to just replace it. Maybe cheaper too. I told them that at the time.  Now we need that new axle. The man could afford a new truck.

“Think about the beam in your eye first. We got so much lumber we could build another church!”

That would be nice work. Working on cars is good. Working with wood is better, I figure. I like it more. I built that barn addition with Pa that summer. Last time I cut wood. Wood don’t speak. Metal don’t speak. Makes easy work. I hope James got that work for me up in Amarillo. I could want more to build some houses now than work on that old junker another day in this damn heat. That Conroy, rather have us bustin’ our balls fixing that jalopy than buy hisself a new truck that he could buy no problem. Amarillo’s lookin’ real good.

“…one stray sheep. One sinner repenting. The greater the sin, the more befouled the sinner, the greater the glory in his redemption…”

Why Long gotta run up that old boy every chance he gets, I just don’t know. He is a weird dude, Rudy. No doubt about that. But it don’t mean he needs to be treated so rough, the way Long does it. I would say something but Long’s my friend and all. Better not to get in the middle. Long’s real good with the tools. He does a good job, usually. When he isn’t on the drink. I mean we drank a few beers when we worked outside, me and James, but not the hard stuff and not that much. But Long does good work, mostly. Like how he did with that gearbox that was all tore up. Work with him day in and day out. Wouldn’t stand to have some trouble tween us, working in such close corners. I’d rather just spend my time working on cars and trucks and the like. Building something when it needs building. Hands on the metal. Hands on the wood. Without much speaking at all.

“…which is easier, to say ‘your sins are forgiven’ or to entreat a crippled man to stand up and walk?”

Rudy reminds me of Clint. I ain’t never talked to Rudy none. So it might not be the same thing. If they can even figure out what that sort of thing is. I don’t think there’s any knowing the way people are. Especially if they ain’t right. I wouldn’t wanna be in his shoes. Not Clint’s neither. Always felt bad about feeling that, but it’s true all the same, Lord help me. It’s no kind of world to be less than a man. But what could I do?

Don still got my torque wrench. I’ll have to ask him about that after the service. I like that one quite a bit. It has a no-slip grip. It cranks real good. The fit for the bits is tight. It’s well made. But I reckon if I get that work in the city I won’t much need it. I’ll give it to Don anyway, most likely. I could take or leave Don, to be honest, but I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side.

But I spent plenty of time around my brothers. Me and James and Clint, toolin’ around. Joined at the hip growing up. Before they sent Clint away. There wasn’t nothing wrong with him. I mean, he wasn’t bad or anything. He just had a way of not being able to show or tell anyone how or where he was. He had that empty look, same as Rudy. Just sort of sat there. Looking at you like you weren’t there. He wasn’t no good on the farm. Or with tools. His hands were slow. His body moved like it struggled with how he told it to do.  He the one first called me Si. Hey Si, he said. Hey. If things go too far I reckon I’ll step in. It’s mostly teasing.

“..because ‘he who has been forgiven little, loves little.’ A man cannot love unless he has first wronged and then repented…”

I’d rather just work on the truck. If we never get it to run right I’ll be okay with just working to make it so day in and day out. Long is my friend anyway. With his wife and little girl running around he’s cautious about people. Says Rudy creeps him out. Says, ‘Si, if you were in my shoes, you’d know why.’ If he’s half on the nose with all he talks. Caution ain’t a bad idea. But sometimes he gets downright cruel. I would step in. I figure I would. But trouble’s trouble. I wonder if James would let me stay at his place. He’s got that extra bedroom. That Laura don’t like me much, but we’re brothers and James gotta let me stay, at least for a little while. We’re brothers after all.


VI
Oh and here comes Father Sal. Sal, Father Sal! That was a lovely sermon. It really spoke to me. I think the Word got out today.

Thank you, Bernice, he says. Always nice to hear. He’s a very kind man, if a little short with you after his sermons. But everyone always pulls at him from all sides and you can’t expect him to give you his attention for too long.

Maureen’s waiting on him, got an armful of folders for him. It’s always business with her. I know it’s her job but really, with a little girl like that and married to, to, to that man… she ought focus more on family. That’s what I did at her age and my sons are growed and have their own families now.

Oh and there’s Rudy, standing hunched over, rubbing his hands, looking at Sal like he’s gonna say something, but everyone’s pushing him out of the way to crowd Sal and shake his hand. I never had a problem with Rudy myself, mind you, but the way I hear it, is that he ain’t all put together. You know the type. He seems nice enough but most of them do, until they don’t, if you take my meaning. He’s harmless enough, I suppose. He sure takes his share from Long and the other boys though. That’s the way of things. When my boys were young they fought and fought. Meanness in them, ‘til it isn’t. My Ed, rest his soul, would have called Rudy a stub.

Look at him, just standing there, staring up into the sky like a statue. Why nothing’s up there but a rain cloud, boy. Well, someone might as well do something.

Rudy, I say, you all right? He looks at me like I woke him up and he smiles at me, nice enough, but a little off, and says Yes, Ms. Bernice, I okay, just thinkin’ it gonna rain. That’s a fact, I say and look up with him. The cross is way up there, standing tall and proud like the Lord himself, protecting all us down here. You can feel God’s own power coming down like off the mountain. Lord almighty, yes. But he’s just staring up at it, not saying anything, shuffling and fidgeting. Sal calls them his tics. You’re best not to acknowledge them, I suppose, but they are a bit distracting.

Rudy, why don’t you come by the den tonight and we’ll play some cards, I say. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring up there so I say it again. Times you have to tell him twice for him to hear. He looks at me this time, like a lost child, then smiles and says, Yes ma’am, that sound nice. Do you think you have some of them cookies? Well, I had to get another box the last time he came over. Yes Rudy, I have some. You don’t eat too many though okay, I say. He nods and looks up again.

I need to talk to Maureen about taking a few days; she can be a stickler for the paperwork, even if she’s a nice person. You want some time off you better let her know. I take the same time every year, it was my and Ed’s anniversary. I told her before it would be the same time. She says you can’t apply for vacation more than six months in advance.

She’s still talking to Sal so I lean back against the wall and wait, watching that little girl of hers run around, twirling and jumping. She is a darling; you ain’t seen none cuter or more full of life. Ed was always glad we never had a daughter, but if he saw this one running around like she does he might have changed his mind.

She goes over to where Rudy is, still looking up at the sky and she says Rudy, whatcha lookin at and he doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring up and she says again Rudy, Rudy, I said whatcha doin, whatcha lookin at? He doesn’t look down at her, but he says I just lookin up at the cross, Ms. Molly. Thinkin bout how big it is and how it must look from up in them clouds. Thinkin bout how the farther up you go, the smaller and smaller this cross would look, til you couldn’t even see it at all, he says. You oughtn’t say such things to a child. Molly looks up, puzzling out words she probably doesn’t even know and then says You sound awfully sad. Whatsa matter? Rudy finally looks at her with his odd, stone face and says I all right. Just the weather. You run along now, go find your mama and see if she need any help.

Good advice. He ain’t so bad or as dumb as people reckon. Most people aren’t, you know.  Molly starts pointing over here and says She’s right over there. We’re goin back into town today, to the shops! I love the shops, don’t you? He scrunches up his brow and says I don’t go too often. Ain’t got much money and there ain’t nothin there for an old man anyways. But you all have a good time, okay. See if you can get some ice cream. Ice cream real good. He’s rubbing his hands real fast now, shuffling his feet, looking away and up. Sometimes they get nervous around young ones. I’ve seen it before.

Maureen, finished up with Sal, calls out Molly, Molly! and the girl comes running over, tugging Rudy’s sleeve along with her, pulling him over to stand right next to me. Sal is still flipping through the folders Maureen gave him so I just wait where I am, watching him and listening to Molly clamor on, only cause I’m standing right here of course. I’m no snoop.

Mama, Mama, she says, can old Rudy come with us to town? He sounds sad and needs the company, she says. Rudy makes to protest but she just goes on, tugging his sleeve and swinging his arm back and forth. So can he, Mama, can he? Maureen puts her arm around Molly and guides her arm off of Rudy’s sleeve. Hi Rudy, she says, you all right? He wipes his face. He’s sweating a bit, can’t blame him. It’s rather hot, considering the rainstorm that’s coming, but he can’t get it all, like his hands don’t know how to work his face. Ed, bless him, always said you should feel Jesus through kind works. I suppose I’ll just have to help this stub out a little bit. Sometimes you got to.

They finish talking and Molly runs off, dances off more like, happy, so I guess they convinced him to go with them out into town. I say Rudy, ya’ll goin into town with Maureen? and he says Yes Ma’am, Ms. Bernice, I suppose. Ain’t for goin into town much, but Ms. Molly and Ms. Maureen want it. He’s shifting from leg to leg, restless, and rubbing his hands together like you’ve never seen.

I say Well all right then, but come over here first, you’re sweaty as a pig and won’t do to go into town looking like a ranch hand. You leave that to them other boys. So I take his handkerchief and dab his face a bit, drying it off and he’s staring at the floor with his sad little eyes and making tiny circles in the dust with his foot. I dab him off and hand it back to him and say You all take care in town now. We’ll raincheck that card game, you hear. I’ll keep the cookies in supply.

He nods and shuffles off, looking up at the top of the cross. Dark clouds up there now, rain won’t be long, you can tell when you’ve seen enough storms. But Lord, I wish Ed was here to see this with me because he loved God and Jesus with his whole heart and I know he’d approve of any kindness to a stub like Rudy. I think he looks down on me from up there, you see. He watches over me in the bosom of the Lord and will take me into his arms when it’s my time to finally join him.

I guess I’ll talk to Maureen after she gets back, because I’m taking those days off one way or another. You can bet on that.


VII
Just look at the desolation here, Rudy. Half of these shops are empty and the other half might as well be. This town is finished. Dried up. Dead. It’s quiet out. IT IS SO QUIET. That’s right, rub your little hands, Rudy, rub, rub, rub. The way the dust blows across the sidewalk. DOESN’T IT REMIND YOU OF SOMETHING? Look at yourself in the rearview. Just take a look. LOOK AT YOURSELF.

They pull up into a parking space outside Chick’s Clothing Store. Maureen guides the pickup between the lines and sets it in park. Molly beams and looks anxiously at Rudy who clumsily opens the door lock, undoes his seatbelt and opens the door. He carefully steps out of the truck, feeling some pain in his left knee, and then helps Molly down out of the cab. Maureen gets out on the other side. He closes the door behind them.

LOOK

Stop trying to pretend. You’re in it just like everyone else. Buried in the shit and the piss and the filth. Crawling through it, writhing in it, empty inside and tearing at anything you can reach. Trapped inside. In the Earth just like just like JUST LIKE trapped inside. Hahahaha. She twirls and dances. She moves across the rotting wood patio. She can’t escape it, Rudy. You know that. SHE IS IN IT. She WILL BE. You can no more be other than you can stop. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you about that dry pain, that slow burn, the drinking of sand in an hour of fire and borne and buried into your breast forever. I WILL TELL YOU HOW IT BURNED.

-Well, come on Rudy, Maureen says, holding Molly on the shoulders.
-I gonna just set out here a bit, if ya’ll don’t mind. Take your time though, I gonna park it on this bench and watch the town a while, take in some town air, Rudy says, looking out into the empty street.
-All right. We’ll only be a bit. Molly’s gonna try on this dress and then we’ll be ready, Maureen says.
-Take your time. Take as long as you need, Rudy says.

Molly and Maureen enter the store. Rudy sits down on a swinging wooden bench and looks at the shops across the street.

Antique store. Do you remember the antique store you worked at? Do you remember the old man and the old woman who ran it? Remember they had that little porcelain lamb that was all white, unpainted? Little white lamb. Little white lamb. You didn’t buy it. You drank of the sand, acolyte of the sand, buried in the sand in your mouth, eyes and ears, buried alive BURIED ALIVE in the sand and burn, eternal, into the hollow.

Do not get so upset. When I burned upon the skull I saw many a man deceiving himself out of pain. It is not just you. With the metal in the flesh and the skin torn by wood and the sun blazing down and the burning in the chest there is no escape. Not for kings or false kings, not for thieves and not for any sinning creature, suffering his time upon the Earth. You can’t escape this. YOU ARE IN IT. Even the king dies upon the cross.

Rudy thinks about going into town, shopping, with a woman and a little girl. He had never done that before. He had never been married. He had never had children. He was out shopping on Main Street on a Sunday after church. It’s what folks do.

You just wanted to feel good. You just wanted to do good. He wanted good too. But he writhed and cried like any helpless man. His only kingdom was death, the kingdom with many kings. Everyone sits on the throne. And I saw the fear in his eyes as his soul left his body. I saw it in his face. IN THE BURNING there is naught but fear and in life there is naught but suffering and only fools pretend to more.

The door to the shop opens. Molly comes running out, her little shoes clacking against the wooden porch.

-Rudy, look at this dress! Isn’t it magnificent? Molly says, twirling around in front of him.

The bottom of the dress lifts up as she twirls and twirls around with her. She twirls around and around. She finally stops and looks up at him with her laughing little angel face.

-Well, ain’t it pretty? Ain’t it the prettiest dress you ever seen? she says.
-It beautiful. You beautiful, Ms. Molly.

YOU CANNOT CHANGE the world. It is a gauntlet of pain and desire, crushing hopes and bodies with relentless scorn and you know that misery reigns, you know that the heart of man is black and rotting, that the heart seeks its own temptation, that all is possible, all acceptable, that everything breaks down in the face of desire that NOTHING CHANGES. Men are monsters and monsters are real and even the king dies afraid.
Rudy’s hands tremble.

-Your daddy gonna like it, I bet, he says.
-You think so? Thanks, Rudy! I like it a lot too. It is beautiful, ain’t it? Molly says.

Embers hurled against the darkness. Desperate clawing against the tidal dune. Swallow whole the earth of men and digest its sand in gluttonous derision. Cracked keystones of falling arches and cities decimated with the wasting disease and into the blue of night rush the murderers to some hapless prey, themselves unaware, flailing to the indolent and arbitrary rotation of the fixed stars above. Hahaha.

Molly twirls again and leaps into the air, dancing her finest. She gives Rudy one last laughing glance and runs back into the store.

There is a festering wound in the corpse of the man, eaten out by maggots, green and black with decay, eating away, eating away and distending and the features are vague on the face pulled over the skull and the eyes say nothing and are the first devoured and behind their windows is only blackness and I have seen the king in his purple procession mount the skull and take his wooden throne and I have seen the king speak to his subjects of joining him in his kingdom and I have seen the blood run down his face and into the dust and I have seen the king’s burning death and tasted his fear at the moment of reunion. You know what you are. Now and ever. Unto the assimilation, unto the void.

The king is dead in burning death. Long live the king in burning life.

VIII
I got a vanilla with cherries. Mama got a lemon sore bay. Old Rudy got a vanilla cone. The ice cream is real good. I like coming to town. In town they have clothes and ice cream and all kinds of doodads and toys. I wonder if Rudy likes his ice cream. I sure like mine.

“Is your ice cream good, Rudy?” I say.

“Yess’m, it real good, for sure. How bout yours?” he says with a mouthful of ice cream. You ain’t supposed to talk when you got food in your mouth, but I guess Rudy can get away with it, being touched and all, like Mama says. Mama’s barely eating hers, but she’s always like that. Maybe she doesn’t like ice cream as much as me and Rudy. I hope I never stop liking it.

Mama usually buys me ice cream but this time Rudy bought it for me and Mama. That’s real nice of him. Daddy bought us ice cream one time, last summer and it was real nice. I liked it when Daddy came out here. But he’s real busy workin’ for grampa. One time he let me sit in Doc’s truck.

“Now, aren’t you glad you came out with us, Rudy?” Mama says. “You need to get out every once in a blue moon. It does you some good.”

“Yeah, ain’t you glad?” I say. Mama’s right. It’s good for Rudy to come with us. Mama says people need to be around people or they get sad. I like living at the cross cause there’s always people there. Not many other kids though.

Rudy nods, still munching on his ice cream cone. He might like ice cream even more than me. He’s been staring at his ice cream since he got it, not even looking up to talk to us.

“You know,” Mama says, “we don’t really know a whole lot about you, Rudy. You been workin’ at the cross since Luke and me showed up but we never really talked. You got family in Texas or something?”

Rudy stops eating his ice cream but keeps on looking at it like it’s gonna talk to him or something.  But he’s smiling a little, so he must be happy.

“No ma’am, I ain’t had no family since I live with my Pa back in Tennessee.” Rudy says. “That a ways back. Stayed at home for a while after high school when I couldn’t find no work, then I pick up and move. Ain’t never been married or had no kids. On the road for a while, maybe ten years back, I reckon, then I come here and meet Father Sal and I working for him ever since. Don’t mind it though. Father Sal real nice and I like working there. I do all right.”

How come he never had no kids? Rudy’s older than Daddy by a lot and he ain’t had no kids or been married or nothing? I’m gonna get married as soon as I can and have lots of kids.

“Family’s a great thing,” Mama says, “There are ups and downs to be sure. Even in the best situations, it can be tough sometimes. Lord knows Luke and me don’t always see eye to eye.” Mama laughs and looks out the window a bit like she saw something out there.

“But we work it out, you know? And kids, kids are great. Molly here is the best thing that ever happened in my life. She’s my pride and joy,” Mama says.

Mama’s talkin’ about me. I’m gonna have my own pride and joys one day. I hope Rudy does too. I bet Rudy would be a good daddy.

“My family didn’t ever much work like that,” Rudy says.


IX
Rudy sat in his room back at the cross. He sat on the edge of his bed, quiet, looking into the small mirror above the dresser. He ran his hand through his thinning hair and across his bald spot. He wiped the rain off his face. He shivered. He looked into the mirror and tried to recognize the face that stared back at him.

Knees in the dust, pushed down by overbearing weight. This burden, this burden, O Father, I crumple beneath it like a leaf. I can see the hill, the path, the crosses coming up into the skyline. I feel it in me, ready to burst and You repeat that I must endure. If this is me, if this is for me, if this is what it must take, Thy will be done.

In the mirror was the person people talked to during the day. This old, gentle, timid man. When Molly laughed. When Maureen was kind. When Long was cruel. When Sal was compassionate. When Conroy was indifferent. When Ms. Bernice played cards. This person, this face, bore them all and reflected back to them what they expected to see.

For I have lived my life not by any written tenet, but by the law of my heart, inscribed by my Father, needing no interpretation from priests, requiring no tithe or donation, but only kindness, love, and truth. For I have discarded the laws of my people and torn the garments of their leaders. For I have felt in my own self the guilt of men and the weight of their contrition, bottled inside their souls like roaming ghosts, haunting their flesh until it withers away and they may be free. For I have taken it upon myself to die in their name, sharing in their guilt and burden with the compassionate love available to all people.

The man with this face could be married. He could have a family. This man could have children and go into town with his own family. He could go shopping for his little girl and buy her a dress. He could buy her ice cream. The man with this face could do anything at all. He could remain silent. He could be an idiot. He could let them assume about him and accept their condescension.

I have fallen and there are none about to assist me. These final moments I must spend alone and shoulder what hardships may come, alone. I take up my cross and walk into the field of my own death. My ghost trembles. Father, I approach.

Rudy smiled.  He watched himself smile in the mirror. This kind of smile made people smile back. He thought of Molly twirling in her new dress.

Just spinning around and around and around.
Just spinning.
He pictured her spinning.
Around and around.
Twirling around in her new dress. Ain’t it the prettiest. Ain’t it.
Twirling around. Spinning around.
Around and around.
Around and around and around.


X
Hahahaha.
Now this should be good.
Look at him, standing there. Walking out into the slaughter. Dumb fuck.
Hahaha. I’m gonna enjoy the shit out of this. I nudge Si. He don’t look too thrilled. I wonder about him.

Long gonna whoop him good. Break him. Finally give the old retard what he’s been asking for. Like a cripple deer in the forest.

-Howdy, Rudy. Long says. He’s drunk. That’s all right. I’ll clean up for him if he can’t. I been waiting to get my hands on someone.

Rudy don’t say nothing, course. He knows what’s coming. Even a fuckup like him can smell this kind of trouble. He’s shaking and rubbing his goddamn hands together. He’s scared. Hell, he’s always scared. Put him out of his misery already.

-So, Maureen says ya’ll had a great time in town today. Went and did some shopping? Went and had a little ice cream? Long says.

-Do you like ice cream? I say.

-That sounds like a real good time, Rudy. Did you enjoy it? Long says. Long walks up to him now, standing face to face.

I feel the blood in my hands. I’m ready. I’m tired of this waiting. Long wants to toy with him but I’m ready to start the real fun. I wanna watch him bleed.  Rudy still ain’t saying shit. Standing there like a statue, that stupid expression on his face. Doesn’t he know how it all works. It’s all so simple. So simple.

-He asked you a question, boy! I say. He jumps a little bit. Hahaha.

-Don’s right. I asked you if you had a good time. Did you or didn’t you go into town with my wife and my daughter? Long says. My head is pounding. It’s time to get this out. It’s been too long.

-I did, Long. We had a good time. Rudy says.

Now he’s done it. That’s about it. That’s gonna do it. It’s almost time. Long turning all red, grabbing Rudy’s collar and pulling him in close.

-WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, WEIRDO? Long says, screaming into his face. JUST WHO IN THE FUCK? Didn’t I tell you to stay the hell away from them? Just this morning? You goddamn retard. Creeping around into other people’s business. Did you think I was joking or that I wouldn’t know?

Long’s shaking him real good. He got his arms at his sides like a rag doll. He ain’t gonna fight back or even defend himself. That’s fine by me. Hahaha. I might even like it better. Just lay back and take what I got to give. That’s the way Don does it.

-You told me. I didn’t think you joking. I knew you know. Rudy says.

Long stops for a minute and I can tell this is it. It’s just about here. Time to teach this boy a lesson. Time for him to learn it. Hahaha. Time to break his bones. Time to spill his blood. Hahahaha.  Can’t he see how simple it is?

I can feel it coming up. Long ready to burst. And the fear in that old boy’s face like a tremor. I can smell it. I can see right through into his coward’s heart. And it’s about time to rip it right out of his chest. Haha.

Long cocks back his fist and I can feel my own blood hammering in my head. Such a rush. Hahaha. Now crush this little cockroach. Show him the way of the world. Haha.

Crush him.

Hahahahaha. Hahahaha.
Hahaha.


XI
Now I have to hit him.
So I do.  So I hit him right in his face.  Hard as I can. He crumples like a little doll. Like paper mache.

I’M TIRED OF YOU.
I’M TIRED OF SEEING YOU AROUND HERE.
WEIRDO.

He’s spitting up blood now, getting on his hands and knees right where he belongs. None of them see it. Nobody else sees it, but I know there’s something wicked in him. I kick him as hard as I can in the ribs and I know how that feels and it takes the wind from him and he rolls on his back. Never felt so in the right.

YOU’RE HISTORY.
I WANT YOU GONE, UNDERSTAND? GONE.
I DON’T WANT TO SEE YOUR FACE AROUND HERE NO MORE.

He’s lying on his back, blinking his eyes real quick like. Rain’s washing away some of the blood coming out of his mouth. He’s covered in mud. It’s what he had coming. Stupid, old fool. To hell with him and all the rest of them anyway.

TO HELL WITH YOU.
RIGHT TO HELL WITH YOU.
AND WITH ANYONE ELSE.
HAND ME THAT BOTTLE, DON.

The wet bottle in my hand. I tilt it back, empty it, then smash it down on a rock right next to his stupid, lying head. The glass explodes and blood starts dripping from the cuts in his face. I’m burning. It’s in me like the fire. Down my throat and into my chest and down and around, swirling, burning, and I could take this man’s life right now and something inside me says to do it to snuff him out right here on his knees in the mud like a dog. But they’re all watching. Don and Si are okay. That Doc Conroy. Not going to do nothing, like usual. Maureen. She best stay inside if she knows what’s good.

YOU GET GONE AND STAY GONE.

A door opens. Sally. Fuck. Musta heard the bottle smash. Once he sees what’s up it’ll be over. I should kill him. I should kill this old man right now. It almost ain’t even me saying it no more. It’s in me, more than me, pressing on me to do it now. There’s something in the earth that wants to drink up his black blood. Sally’s running. DO IT. DO IT NOW. DO IT NOW.

But Sal’s already here.

-What in the hell is wrong with you, boy? he says to me.

NOTHING WRONG WITH ME, SALLY.
BUT THERE’S SURE AS SHIT SOMETHING WRONG WITH HIM.
I’M TELLING YOU.

-You’re drunk, Long. You’re drunk and you beat on this poor man. Look at him. How could you do this? How could you say these things? He’s a gentle man, a simple man. You’re a brute and a coward. He couldn’t even defend himself, Long! What… why…

And it’s like I can see what he’s saying, but at the same time that ain’t it at all. Sally never liked me anyway and I don’t give two fucks about that, but he always been biased against me for no reason, or maybe cause my daddy’s his boss, or maybe just cause he thinks I’m a degenerate, but he can’t see what’s right in front of his face with this shifty fool.

IT AIN’T LIKE THAT SALLY.

Then Maureen come up at me, hitting me on the chest and face, screamin at me.

-How could you? How could you? You animal! You evil bastard!

GO ON NOW.
GET BACK INSIDE.
THIS AIN’T ABOUT YOU.
GET BACK IN THE HOUSE NOW.

She moves toward him. To comfort him. The hell.

I SAID NOW.

She hesitates and then turns around and runs back to the house, cryin. I can still hear it calling me from down inside me. Like a man in my stomach hollering up through my own mouth to step on the neck while it’s down and crush the windpipe. DO IT. But when Maureen gets to the house and opens the door, out runs Molly, out in the rain, white socks in the mud, crying and crying and crying and the fire leaves me altogether at once and I look down and see this Rudy slowly rollin back and forth on his side, breathin hard.

-Molly! Maureen calls.

But Molly just keeps runnin. I aim to catch her, but she loses her footing and slips in the mud. I start over to her, but she stands right back up, okay, and keeps coming on, covered in mud and somehow slips out of my hand and runs over to Rudy, leaning over him.

Her face is all muddy and wet with rain and tears. Her hair all matted against her head. Then I see the blood. She got blood on her arm and her knees where the bottle glass cut her.

Rudy looks up at her, first time he’s moved since I knocked him down. He’s starin at her and she’s crying over him and he’s staring, wild eyed, white as a sheet.


XII
pretty pretty
it just happened
never no good with woodwork
couldn’t never level it
couldn’t make it right

she so pretty
so small
so light
just wanted it to feel good

never meant for it to
hurt
she smiled at me
walkin home from somewhere
getting dark out and the trees rustlin in the wind
the mulch and needles kickin up under my feet
shufflin back home from the antique store

All I wanted was a little white lamb.

so pretty
she smiled at me and the buzzing seemed a bit better
I remember it got a little quieter

LOSER
RETARD
FUCKUP
CAN’T EVEN GET A GIRL
TWENTY YEARS OLD

stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it stop stop stop
im sorry daddy
im so sorry daddy

and she smiled at me and I smiled back at her
she didn’t think I was so ugly
and she
so small and light
and I wanted to kiss her and she
WANTED
to kiss me back and she was
SHE STARTED SCREAMING
but I wanted to feel good
I wanted it to feel good
I wanted her to feel good
and the buzzing was so loud
my teeth scraping together
fit to burst inside my mouth
and I tell her no no no no no
it’s gonna be fine
and she tellin me no no no no no
DOESN’T IT FEEL GOOD
and no no no
don’t it
no no
then it
I never meant
but she
small
pretty
then she hardly moving
hardly talkin no more
and I knew what’d happened
she breathing strange
gasping
a goldfish on the floor
with some
blood
around her little round mouth
round little round little round mouth
so I pull her off into the trees
put her out of the way so no one wouldn’t see her
tried to protect her

went home
didn’t no one know
couldn’t no one know
I made it up best I could but
never no good with woodwork
so it ain’t square or level or what they say
and all the bugs and things
it wouldn’t keep em out
they’d get her
blood, silence

and I told her im sorry im sorry im sorry
I wish I coulda built it better
but I never no good with my hands
im real sorry
this bad trouble real bad
so I put her in it
and put in my pillow and blanket
and told her I was sorry
and I knew
when I dig up the dirt out there in the trees
all the bugs and what have you
I tried to keep em away
the wind so loud
I tried
I didn’t want to leave her there
but
but
so afraid
and I covering her up
hearin her rasp still
chokin like, gurglin
then
hearin it come from inside

scratch, scratch
scratch scratch scratch
scratch scratch scratch

and I cover my ears
sorry I couldn’t build it better

scratch scratch
scratch

couldn’t tell if it
things trying to get out
or
things trying to get in

got my hands over my ears
layin on the dirt, screamin
just screamin

but I still heard it
scratchin

and I knew they were
getting her


XIII
For anyone long engaged in the practice of observing human behavior, that which the majority of people most take for granted seems very strange and that which seems strange makes absolute sense.

For instance, observing a possibly handicapped older man beaten mercilessly in the street by an alcoholic, young never-do-well might encourage other people to actively intervene on his behalf. However, it is this very passion that incites these types of scenes to begin with. Intervene, do not intervene… All beginnings reach their conclusions regardless. The brief but bright explosions of violent emotion can never ultimately stand against the eternal inertia of matter, nor against the Unmovable Mover, nor against His transcendent light.

For one who does observe without active intervention does not derive pleasure from the viewing. Observation, in the strictest sense, is not voyeurism, nor the proverbial train wreck, but only a tragicomic banality with no impact on anyone or anything excepting the few fevered souls directly involved.

Father Salvatore hurries out to intervene. He is that type of man. When he arrived at the cross, I sought to ascertain his theological leanings and learned only that he carries a mace along with his Bible and often prefers to wield it rather than the book. This is not judgment. Men of action co-exist beside men of contemplation, the obverse of their coin, and in the final analysis, equilibrium is achieved. This is why a contemplative man need not step in. A man of action, that hurried blood, will always be drawn to the erupting constellations of vigorous passion.

One cannot be considered enlightened or educated if one moves through the narrative of one’s life without questioning one’s own motivations and asking one’s self difficult questions and giving one’s self honest answers. The true contemplative does not envy the active. To clarify, the contemplative does not wish to be active, but does recognize the substantial lack of validation he receives from the many who take the active man upon their shoulders so readily after any brave yet ill-conceived act. What they must know, subconsciously, yet refuse to admit into the milieu of their value system, is that for every man who runs into a burning building, there is a man, alone in a room with a book, using his God-given faculties to prevent the fire in the first place.

Now the girl has run out. Mr. Day said that he preferred to have his granddaughter live with him, out here in this arid compound. He loves children. He said that no divine revelation is possible without the continued presence of the true innocents. But does he consider the happiness of the child, bereft of peers, in a difficult parental situation? He is a good man, and deserving of love. But he is an eccentric and his opaque reasoning often calls his decisions into question.

“Hello Doc,” says a quiet, deep voice beside me. It is Mr. Day. This often happens, one thinks of him and he appears, though he is no devil.

I return his greeting with befitting cordiality.

“What happened here?” he asks calmly, almost rhetorically.

I inform him that his son, Luke, has put a beating on Rudolph. The details are unnecessary. Mr. Day is a big picture person. He nods as if he was just told that it is raining outside, but his face betrays such a wealth of compassion that one immediately forgives his apparent dismissal. Like many successful men, with whatever criteria one uses to judge success, Mr. Day has a face of great complexity. Each wrinkle earned through observation, reflection, empathy, concern, hard decision, and perhaps even misstep. He clasps me on the back with a friendly warmth.

“Please,” he says.

I clear my throat, certainly barely audible above the rain, but with enough gusto that it captures everyone’s attention. Luke stops in his tracks and looks up at his father with an instant humility. Salvatore, who was attending to Rudolph, gives up his gaze as well, still cradling the poor man in his arms. Maureen, who ran out to restrain Molly, looks up as well and the tension in her neck relaxes. Molly does not look up, still holding Rudolph’s hand and whispering softly in his ear. Rudolph too does not acknowledge the presence, though he may have slipped from consciousness. The situation has resolved itself.

Mr. Day looks out over them as the rain ceases. Could one entirely decipher the lines of the human face, would one be capable of withstanding their import? Many times I have asked myself if Mr. Day is a man of action or a man of contemplation. I have not decided.

What repercussions await those involved will come in their time and all things will continue on as before. There is shame in the faces of those who look up as their reason finally grasps their passionate excess of energy. Long reluctantly goes for a talk with his father. Salvatore continues to look after Rudolph, who seems to be coming around. Maureen has taken Molly inside. Don and Simon have fled back into the shadows to soak in their secret remorse. Everything returns to its place.


XIV
A star explodes. Light races out in a sphere whose circumference is nowhere and whose center is everywhere.


XV
Stinging on my cheek. It sting. On my arm too. In my gut.
Got all clean up last night. Hunch over the toilet.
Hunch over the toilet, vomiting.
Father Sal pat me on the back and say “It’s all right. It’s all right.”
Cause of he seen Long kick me in the gut, I reckon.

Didn’t want me on my chores today. Didn’t want me out in the wind. It all muddy now and wet. The rain wash all the dirt off them statues, the one thief, the other one, and Jesus Lord.

Look in the mirror again. I look in it. Back there, looking out, a broken old man.
That what I heard Ms. Maureen say, I think. Broken old man, I think. How you beat on him, I think.
How you do it.

How you beat on a broken old man?

And Long all sputterin and tryin to explain.
And Molly (scratch, scratch) cryin all the while.
And Long starin at me. Speakin at me with his eyes.
He know.
He know all right.
I know and he know and between us we know.

Got to pray. Got to pray real hard.
I tell em all at breakfast I guess.
Decided to head down the road a ways I guess.
Where the eyes in the faces don’t burn so brightly and sear into the skin when they don’t see me.
They don’t see me.
They don’t.
BUT THEY LOOK AT ME

So I move on. I-40 stretch out a long way west where I never seen.
I-40 stretch out a long way west.
So I head on down it I guess.

Cause they all here. All the thieves and the Lords, all the Longs and the Sals, all the Docs and the Maureens, and all the Dons and the Sis, and all the Bernices, and Mr. Day and all the Mollys.

SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH SCRATCH

All the Mollys.

In their new dresses.
In their mud skin.
In the blood.
In the rain.

The bugs in the fields and the forests crawlin on the earth.
Diggin up the dirt.
Shufflin through the leaves.
They all here. Every hungry insect in the wood.
EVERY HUNGRY INSECT
In the blood, in the rain. I seen them. They all here.

The insects and the ghosts and their chains in parade with us up over the hills and into the horizon, into the west.
No past, no future, no present, infinite stillness, infinite hunger.
What Long see when he see it or how he know I don’t know. If it there to read, it read. If he seek, he find. The open ear against the earth will hear the scratchin of the curse
AND EVERY HUNGRY INSECT
scufflin through the dirt
scavengin for the blood
and the silence yet to be.