Gertrude's Flat

Nineteen in '72

2011-07-13T22:00:00.001-04:00

Probably wait to submit this for the summer editions, but felt it was time to let go.

Sea-Bright Jersey midnight ocean

bodies running mascara salting

my cellist fingers finding your note
the small of your back l'Arc de Triomphe

Do you remember that summer solstice

far far away from the madding crowded

envious bar in that cloud-stained joint

high school undertow pulling us down

A name never asked but what’s in a name

more sweet girl than either imagined

memory epiphany joy and regret

to be so young once more in your eyes

Something unspoken some thing not offered

given taken not given withheld

too soon we surrendered shining immortals

these days these winters I cuddle your light

Commuter

2011-05-31T22:43:00.016-04:00

Technodominant morning PATH
filled with Asians frantically working
opposable thumbs sending last farewells
the end of our world sweeps into the car

there's meaning in shadows
suddenly
baked onto concrete walls

witness the new generation learning
feel the air suck away from the platform
empty silent watching the train and
smile it's you who are left behind

Somebody's Watching

2011-01-16T21:02:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, when I'm late driving home from the city, I stop at one of the NJ Turnpike Nathan's and grab a Small #1 and the latest issue of Popular Mechanics. PM used to be every boy's entree into the future and full of little ads for ACME Rocket Launchers YOU CAN BUILD AT HOME and other useless but very cool stuff. There were also adds to meet Russian Women but I knew my mother would intercept any mail while I was in school so I never partook, but I did waste many a one dollar bill on "Additional Information" which every budding 8 year old physicist needed to stay abreast of the latest developments. I have fond memories of Heath-Kit radios and backyard catapults and one disastrous DRANO bomb that went off sooner then calculated. My favorite issue was the one projecting jet cars and people movers and food synthesizers ala Star Trek—all by the year 2000. Blew that one—huh.

The magazine’s a bit more grounded these days, and this month there's an article about video games and IT gadgets watching you while you’re watching them. Wii is pure evil in the making; devious Google is slowly setting us up for the final domination. I just began using SKYPE for business, and according to PM I’m literally opening the front door and inviting Big Brother to take a chair. Remember the shot from inside the POD in 2001? HAL is watching me as I type.

But I've found a solution.

We’re a couple weeks past Christmas now. Today I took the tree down and went through the bag of stuff we got from siblings far away and nieces not so far. What do you get the AARP couple who has everything? Of course, a set of tea cozies hand knitted by wealthy children attending their innovative private school on sale at the annual Craft Show (or Crap Show, as my neighbor likes to say). Only one problem—I drink coffee and Maria drinks—I’ve stopped trying to name it. But these cute little earthen tone tea cozies make perfect web cam tents. They even hug the microphone. I’d post a photo but my Cannon Digital supposedly has an embedded serial number hidden in every exposure, letting someone somewhere know someday what I like looking at.

Popular Mechanics and MAD Magazine. Viva la Revolucion!

Cooking Dinner

2010-12-24T19:25:00.003-05:00

There are seven Spaniard’s cooking in my kitchen (my wife’s family). I’m not allowed to help so I’ve been splitting my time splitting wood and watching White Christmas. They communicate by yelling at each other. They’re all drinking wine and chopping things and yelling. The yelling is somehow comforting. I’ve always liked Christmas and earlier today I lit a candle for those who cannot be with their loved ones this year. It sounds pretty hokey until you do it. Go on and be alone and silent and light a candle for all those who cannot be home listening to their in-laws yell as they cook. It actually takes some courage. Not something you’d think requires strength…

They’re yelling again. It’s time to eat.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Peace.

Bono Moe

2010-12-11T10:12:00.001-05:00

I went to a very cool Christmas Party this evening. We’ve been working down in the Garment District this year and the guest list mingled Devel-Wears-Prada folk with Union Construction execs. It was one of those roof-top bars with loud (but not too loud) music and columns of flame housed in six foot glass cylinders. The flames flared to the beat. There was lobster and sushi and oysters on three tiered silver trays and exotic Brazilian caterers who actually looked like the models they were serving, having body fat in all the places the taller women used digital enhancement. Models look funny in person, especially their eyes. I think the fashionistas we rather impressed how well the construction workers cleaned up. Of course, it was their designs we were wearing. I met what’s her name and chatted with that nice tan man from the movie.

I can’t drink anymore, thanks to NYU getting all their blood from junkies and street people back in the eighties when I had my accident, so I left around 9:30. The groove was settling in. The crowd had finally melded and Tony, one of the marble guys, was lifting models into the air, trying to guess their weight. Several designers standing nearby were discussing how they might integrate men into the Ample-Woman market. The buzz had been circulating all night on so and so’s third quarter earnings, had I bought the stock? I went down in the private elevator with one of the more prominent designers, also a non-drinker. We smiled. The party was over. He, once again, the demanding client and I the contractor draining his budget.

The above is required to set the scene for when I got home and sat down on the toilet. It’s where I get all my reading done these days, the only place I won’t talk on the phone. This fall I have been alternating Franzen’s FREEDOM and Hemingway’s COLLECTED LETTERS with a dollop of TIME every Friday and maybe, if it’s a good issue, Saturday morning.

For months now the back cover has been an advertisement for Louis Vitton. Bono and Ali are wearing blah blah blah and walking away from a classic Cessna parked in a soft golden field of waving African grass. Bono is holding his guitar case like a shotgun broken down for the hike; Ali is setting off in the wrong direction (Bono will fix this momentarily; he sees their target off in the distance) and she is holding a bag I am sure houses one self setting tent complete with carbon fiber safari chairs and a titanium tea setting for two. The fine print says all the profits from the bag and the clothes pictured in the add will be donated to one of Bono’s charities.

My first thought (actually my second, Bono’s eyewear always makes me smile) is who the F is Ali—his wife, girlfriend, some other pop-star I haven’t heard of? She’s too fat in the photo to be a professional model, but I’m betting she looks as good in person as those Brazilian servers did earlier in the evening. The whole shot is making me very uncomfortable—the opposite of what I am trying to accomplish before going to bed. Then it hits me: that should be Hemingway with a Remington Slug Gun; the girl should be Francis Macomber’s soon fated wife. Do they really think anyone entertaining the purchase of a Louis Vitton bag doesn’t know how much “profit” is actually left after a bunch of lawyers and accountants get done with the figures?

This all flashes by in a millisecond because the true “aha” is how the add is really targeting me—us—not the buyers of such things, but the target market of TIME whose guilt must be assuaged, the ones who must envy the other who can afford such accoutrement, the ones who create and support the illusion. We are the middle class sitting here on our johnnies taking it up the rear instead of getting it out, the one’s shrugging off yet another irony we now have the education and worldly exposure (even a lowly carpenter like myself) to understand. Ugly Truth. We all stood there tonight in the restaurant we never get into wearing the clothes we cannot afford looking out great glass walls above the city of cities—the one we built—for a moment, tasting the universe we have created for .00000015% of the planet’s population. Do the math, then pat yourself on the back and go watch The Simpson’s.

Ode to Jon Stewart

2010-10-31T07:34:00.004-04:00

I really did want to go

for many reasons

but I had shit to do.

Kudos to those who made it.

I will vote

no matter what,

continue to challenge,

gently engage those I meet

filled with fear and bigotry.

I will listen

and understand,

a futile gesture—I know.

Eons from now

the Gods will say

we did not deserve this paradise.

Asked at a reading: Why do you write?

2010-08-29T09:18:00.007-04:00

This is my latest attempt to answer the question and still, it misses the mark. Don't you find that as well?

As a young child I was a teller of tall tales. In 7th grade I wrote one down. Mr. Gasperini let me read it in front of our English class and when I finished Stephanie Smith was staring. I wrote another and she stared again. Craig Sprenger asked if I wanted to hang out and listen to Beggar's Banquette. You would think the lesson was one of acceptance but no, it was that they understood.

Asking a writer why they write is like asking a biker why they ride. If you do, you know why and if not, try it. Then you will no longer feel the need.

Nineteen in '72

2010-07-25T10:38:00.006-04:00

Sea-Bright sand

sweet summer sweat

oceans ending breaking

our bodies

running mascara
tight flat muscle

whiskey gin breath

and the small

of your back as

my cellist fingers

find the note

Bursting woman

cover of darkness

there is no moon

barely a star

but this will do

melting and slipping

lover's sighing to

touch and be touched

music and light creep

back over the dunes

ending our running away

Sudden chill

a sea lapping stroll

drifting apart but not

till the squeeze

of your hand

does epiphany come

envious cloud-stained

opposite ends of a bar

among friends

names never asked

but wondered

Within Without You

2010-06-01T07:11:00.009-04:00

Where is my staff

my sorcerer’s light to lift you up

from a long dark sleep,

cast a spell that will take us back

to that day your voice, like Juliet's

whispered over my outstretched hand,

bade me trample your toes at the dance

and smile, years later, when you married a friend.

All of us knew you were fading,

believing the day would not come

where you lay in this room so pale and still,

white upon white, fragile breath

forgotten, remembered, returning

each time to your empty body,

weightless hands,

as if you were standing high on a cliff

we are here now, waiting

within without you.

Soon the earth will open cold and damp,

the sun will not warm our faces,

winds will sigh the bending trees

and prayers, whispered, will not comfort those

who have lost their sweet girl,

dear wife, loving mother, cherished friend…

they will go on alone.

How lucky you are not to be the one

who will cast the rose, the fist full of dirt

when the sound of your heart goes silent,

how lucky not to need these words

as if they might be magic,

keeping you here

if only a moment longer.

A Couple of Good Poets

2010-05-04T19:55:00.004-04:00

Not to beat a dead horse 'cause I've said this before, but I want to point out the elegance of "The Judas Horse" by Jennifer Bower over on Referential Magazine. I think what makes a good poem is the experience created for the reader, either knowing themselves a bit better or knowing the poet - the direct experience of another. This may not be as pretty as some of her other work but when finished I felt as if I knew Jen a bit better. We've never met except through our words. Two people knowing a thing together - is there anything finer?

The Judas Horse « Referential Magazine

The same can be said of Steven Hellyard Schwartz. Goggle the guy. Lots of fine things there as well.

The New Verse News: FOR PHOEBE

And while we're at it, another fine example of

of a gifted writer coming through loud and clear in the most unassuming way. Christopher Allen at

http://imustbeoff.blogspot.com/

Livingston - Day167

2010-04-17T14:07:00.000-04:00

Another installment. Not sure what I want to do with these yet, but they describe an era when we thought we could do most anything, not as now, where we seem to be afraid of our own shadows. Felt it was a little too long for the blog so I put it up over on Fictionaut. http://www.fictionaut.com/stories/derek-osborne/livingston-day-167

Carvel

2010-03-28T11:06:00.018-04:00

“Carvel!”

“Yeah, Carvel!”

Someone had chanted the magic word.

“Who wants to go?”

Well, we all did.

“Too many,” Pooh said. “We’ll get stopped.

Pooh was the first of our little group to get a Farmer’s License. His real name was Steve Nankervis but we already called his older brother “Nank”. The summer before I’d found a Winnie the Pooh bear under his bed while looking for my sneaker. He never did live it down.

“We’ll need to pick up some feed,” Mike said.

“I can’t see my mother this stoned.”

“We can say we’re getting gas.”

“Are you high?”

That spring, anticipating our coming emancipation, we had fixed up an old Chevy wrecker Mr. Romanovich gave us, spray painting it green in the Ward’s garage. It took almost two cases of Krylon and we probably should have sanded the fenders but it did have a certain charm, we named her Big Green, and we all looked like aliens the next day in school. We splurged on Rustoleum Red for the gantry. Holmdel was nothing but farms back then. There were five other kids my age.

“Let’s just do it,” Nancy said. She was Mike’s girlfriend and the only girl in the group.

“All of us?”

“Maybe they won’t be around.”

“They’re always around,” Tommy said.

The Middletown Cops--they were the problem. A ‘pledicament’ Mrs. Ward liked to say. Mrs. Ward was Mike’s mother and Japanese. Carvel was over on Rt. 35 across from the Middletown Cop Shop and Chief McCarthy’s window overlooked the parking lot. Chief McCarthy was a major asshole. His cops had been trying to bust us for years. Middletown was suburbia—Holmdel the country; Middletown had over fifty officers—Holmdel had two, Chief Brady and Jimmy. We were those hippie farm kids who rode their dirt-bikes out on the Tatum estate.

"We’ll say we’re going to Wilson’s to help with the mowing.”

“Yeah, we can all ride in back.”

"I'm pretty sure that's illegal."

"I wouldn't be to sure about that," Drucker said, suddenly present. His dad was a lawyer.

“Let’s just go,” I said.

“Yeah fuck it, let’s go.”

We all hung out at the Ward’s. Their property connected to the Tonti’s, which connected to Pooh’s farm, and then Tommy’s, and all them just a pasture gate closing away. The Ward’s place also ran along Township Line Road and Tatum’s estate, six hundred acres of horse trails, abandoned haylofts and Mrs. Tatum’s pink lemonade, stood just across the way. To get there on our dirt-bikes we had to sneak across to the Middletown side.

You had to be sixteen to get a farmer's license and it was only for use on ‘farm business’, though the statute left things a little vague as to what exactly ‘farm business’ was. At first we were cautious, only driving legitimate errands, just being out on the road was thrill enough, but soon we started pushing the envelope, riding around Holmdel and making excuses whenever Chief Brady or Jimmy stopped us. Jimmy was easy, he used to smoke pot with Mr. Ward, but Chief Brady was reaching his limit when one day we pulled his car from a ditch (he was drunk again) and swore an oath to never tell Mrs. Brady. After that we had the whole town to ourselves—‘farm business’ or not. We even went out after dark.

But going through Middletown presented a challenge. We soon invented all kinds of farm business, hooking up Tommy’s flat-bed trailer and towing Pooh’s tractor, claiming a trip to Belford Repair. We piled hay in the back bed, the cherry-red top of gantry just sticking out, and swore we were making deliveries over to Wilson’s. We discovered a loop-hole, it seemed there wasn’t a law against stopping for errands along the way, and since all roads led to Five Corners and Carvel happened to be there—we stopped. Then Mr. Ward suggested we throw a few bags of feed in the bed and say were coming from Agway. That did the trick, a 50 lb. bag of Purina and we were good to go.

It was hot that day in August, with all the chores done, and the seven of us hanging around the Tonti’s pond, bored, with a solid case of the munchies. We’d swum ourselves out and were laying in the grass under their big spreading elm when Drucker suddenly sat up.

“Carvel.”

We were kids. It was summer. This was America.

“Fuck it!” Pooh said. “Let’s go!”

We were down across Township Line Road in less than a minute.

Some days stand out more than others, maybe even define us—they capture the essence of who we were and how we've come to measure things now. I remember rolling along that day, the blur and vibration under our feet, pulling my t-shirt off and feeling the hot sun on my shoulders, the wind drying my sweat, ice cold as we stood in back of the cab hanging onto gantry and riding through dappled green tunnels along Holland Road. I remember the look on every face, as though we were running and I laughed and leaned way out over the side with Tommy holding my belt and yelling in through the window—how pretty Nancy looked inside that battered cab—and then that first taste of Banana Split, vanilla ice-cream on my tongue, strawberry syrup dripping all over my chest and using one of those little white napkins to wipe it away. I remember sitting on the benches they had out back in the little grove of trees telling stories, how the big, blue, iridescent letters on the car snapped us back, the young cop inside looking like he’d just won the lottery, and the questions, like we didn't belong, the smirk and the I’m-not-buying-it look while he wrote out the ticket and called for the township wrecker.

What a dick.

Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T08:59:00.010-05:00

The only Valentine I ever gave or got was Robbie Wharton in the second grade. We had already traded lunch boxes, but the following day we had to trade back because hers was pink with Barbie Dolls and mine was camouflage green with scenes from Combat.

So it's Valentine's Day, 1960, and we're allowed to give out our cards during snack. Mine's just a big red heart on glossy white stock, my mom bought it at Neisner’s, and I leave it blank inside except for my signature. We're still learning to write cursive and I really suck at it. Hers is all flowery with sparkles and the big question is written inside by hand. She’s drawn a little heart after her name. The penmanship is perfect. Bobby Jakes and I punch each other after reading each other’s.

Then right near the end of lunch we have another air raid drill. The Army thinks the Russians are going to Nuke us any day now. We all march single file out into the hall and Robbie and I press our faces up against the cool beige tiles. It's our private time, these air raid drills. We make a little tent out of both our jackets and kneel there, whispering.

“Will you save me if they bomb us?”

I say sure, just as Billy Schwartz throws up on the other side of her. Billy's 'nervous' and can't make friends. His dad's in the FBI. Billy's always talking about certain people in our town who might be ‘subversive'. I figure he means they came there in a submarine. His puke does change things, though; the Russians never bomb us again after lunch.

I don't remember us breaking up. Like most children, we faded into other people. Last time I saw her was fifth grade when the new school got built and they divided the town in half. I don’t remember her after that.

She's still my only Valentine.

AARP and the Wise Man

2010-02-05T12:15:00.003-05:00

The ads all tell me

I’m 56

They say I am only beginning

It’s true

I see as I look around

old dreams now dreamt are fading

How soft were those lips

How brilliant the stars

How glorious were the battles

Oh youth

don’t waste of it ever young friends

Don’t dare let go without fighting

You want of my wisdom

I give it here now

Make sure and take plenty of pictures

Venting the Light Fantastic

2010-02-01T17:11:00.002-05:00

I may have mentioned my wife teaches yoga. She’s pretty good at it, so good she’s now a partner with one of the bigger names in the business. I call it a business because they refuse to. In fact, most people teaching or taking yoga think the word business is evil, that Yoga isn’t about money--it’s about spirituality, living green and building community—you know, health shit.

Just open a copy of Yoga Journal and tell me it isn’t a business. Tell me Yoga isn’t about having a nice ass and wearing three hundred bucks worth of gear while you’re on “the mat”. And what’s with all this gear? Thirty years ago we didn’t have poly mats and suede bolsters or leggings suggesting more than just warmth for ones legs, all that heat having to rise somewhere. Thank Bikram for bringing your morning practice out of the closet. And don’t be fooled by that funny, secret language either. I’m pretty sure Laxmi in its original form stood for screwing your neighbor out of every last cent while smiling contently and chanting Om. Don’t kid yourself; spiritual leaders can cook the books with the best of them, especially over in

India

. Where do you think the guys over here learned to do it?

The reason I’m so pissed is because after all the crap we went though when our own guru fell from grace I still see people falling for the hype, my wife included. Today she asked if I could overnight a contract for her. No problem, except when I got to the post office there wasn't any street address on the cute little yin-yang sticky note she gave me. The zip code was wrong, too. Do I lose my cool? No, I took a deep breath, bent like grain in the wind, and looked at the agreement to get the address there. But there was no address, not on the title page, not in the section where parties are identified, and nothing on the last page under the signature lines. In fact, there was nothing anywhere to identify who the hell the two parties were, just a couple of names.

I’m stood there flipping through page after page muttering “What kind of agreement doesn’t have an address?” when this guy standing next to me whips out a card and places it down on the counter.

Johnson, Johnson, Corley & Liebowitz

Corporate & Contract Law

Robert Corley – Attorney at Law

SSID, CCPA, BBMF

One thing I learned from living in an ashram—pay close attention when the Universe intervenes. We’ve got an appointment this Friday.

My God didn’t raise no fool.

AA Fuel Top Eliminator

2010-01-20T20:03:00.003-05:00

They start the bike

all fire and thunder

Shining black lacquer and chrome

Nitro fumes sting his eyes and

ten rows up the grand stand rattles

Gauntlets stretched

Visor down

He straddles the machine

and sets the throttle

Lights come down and

they launch

Seven lost seconds all violence and prayer

Not until he shuts

the beast down

do his senses return

The crowd is roaring

The bike rolls meek and empty

shaking it off

still among the living

No one knows

that he just struck his hand

through the dragon's heart

his quest reduced to a circus act

his sword a black felt pen

Lancelot living in a double-wide

Copy a Classic

2010-01-16T18:58:00.002-05:00

The fine art of Parody is something every creative writing student endeavors to learn. It makes for a valuable tool in your kit, a fun way to understand plot, character and the finer points of composition. I have come up with a variant to this discipline, one designed to help the new writer break onto the scene. It's really quite simple. Copy a Classic.

That’s right, word for word, so simple a cave man could do it. Go grab your favorite novel (I’m using Hemingway’s "The Sun Also Rises" in our example) and copy it into Word or your favorite processor. Don’t cheat. Copy every sentence and period exactly how it was published. For better results, change your page settings to mimic the published book’s format, the reason will soon be apparent. Depending on skill it might take a few days but don’t get discouraged and remember, this counts toward you daily discipline quota. This is writing; you still have to work: I never said it was easy. I’m simply helping you get out there on the circuit where the money and casual sex ain’t bad.

Now that you have it copied save an original file and create a new working file. In this way you can draft on the fly. First thing to do is change all the names. This is fairly simple with Word as you can do a SEARCH and REPLACE ALL. Have fun. Don’t try and line up your ducks just yet. Let it build organically. And don’t get hung up on this or any other step. It’s easy enough to go back and simply cut and paste once you see the new novel taking shape.

Change the setting. Go wild. Turn Paris to Newark; the Pyrenees for the Louisiana Bayou. Spanish farmers sitting on bus roofs will now become migrant laborers swigging Boones Farm and pissing in empty Gatorade bottles. Jake (now Hugo) will catch Bill’s (now Elwood’s) eye and silently communicate all that truly matters in life—a good game of online Texas Hold ‘em—and Robert Cohn (now Evan Ishvwitz) will fall in love with Bret (not Lady Brett, mind you, though this new love interest, a guy, will still have the lines of a yacht. Just don’t use the word "yacht" to describe him, it’s too familiar). You can leave some things alone, like Jake wishing Robert would just go away, and in your version of this classic novel, Jake will still be a steer but not in his pants, he will now have PTSD induced impotency in deference to pop psychology (I still got hurt in the war, sort of) and he’ll buy generic Viagra from Canada online. Bret can be his buddy from college, always longing for but never consummating their man-love. That first night in Newark they’ll both sit close in a cab with bad brakes, waiting in traffic outside the Holland tunnel. “Oh Hugo,” Bret will say, “Life really sucks.”

Now come the big ones—Plot, sub-plot and counterpoint. Don’t get your panties in a wad. Just dive in. Make them insurance people. After coffee one day at the local Starbucks the word comes down on Katrina, get out there and start denying claims. Jake (Hugo) will work very hard and wait while other adjusters destroy lives just to hear themselves laugh. The International Poker Competition is being held in Vegas the following month. Hugo (Jake) can work in New Orleans, maintain his famous integrity, then he and Elwood can meet up in Louisiana and get high while huntin’ ‘gators. They can lay on their backs in the swamp and slug warm beers while making snide remarks about Evan. Evan will have to go back to New York and work in his family’s textile warehouse (He’s still Jewish). Bret can be there for a few off-off Broadway auditions, one or two tête à tête’s with Evan's uncircumcised member (counterpoint), then dump him and come out to Vegas where he’ll meet the reigning poker champion, a Mexican dwarf named Rauole. Of course, Evan will follow, spineless mama’s boy that he is. They all have a grand time, meet a wealthy clown from Cirque du Soleil (The Count). They’ll get high as kites, watch people ruin their lives over gambling, say nothing about it, and Hugo will break up a fight when two Italian American gentlemen insist on making fun of Bret when Evan doesn’t man up.

Once you finish, do another SEARCH and replace all the "and" conditions with commas. The original may still be fresh in some junior assistant’s mind. Shift F7 will resolve any fragments or run-ons. Getting the picture? Two weeks, tops. "An 80,000 word novel about people who go all to hell.”

Next week we’ll look at using Google for templates on query letter hooks and how to con art students into creating Lulu book jackets for free.

Case in Point

2010-01-10T09:58:00.008-05:00

I've been trying now for some time to isolate what it is I don't like about the current popular forms of fiction, specifically Flash, Uber-Flash (under 500), Specific Word Counts, and Twitter. While they all take skill and some result in some brilliant writing, most of it is garbage, the illusion of solid exposition and character development, and the majority is masturbatory angst at best - you know, college crap.

Yesterday I rubbed one out, "The Good Samaritan" (link to the left). It's only 750 words. You should go read it and then come back. I'll wait.
http://www.fictionaut.com/stories/derek-osborne/the-good-samaritan

Not bad, right? But not great. Let's see why.

Plot - I've seen this somewhere before. Can't quite put my finger on it, but I know I have. Twilight Zone? OK, maybe it's updated or place specific (New York Subway) but been there / done that applies. I'll give it a 5.

Character - If I read (or write) about one more

Viet Nam

era vet and his PTSD my head's gonna explode. The beauty of this, though, is the fact that the reader probably feels the same and knows this guy backward and forward. No need to flesh him out, he's like a can of Coke in a vending machine. You know exactly how he'll taste from first sip to last. And then there's the mugger. I could have just said "There's the mugger" and you all would have profiled him right on the spot. I felt compelled to at least acknowledge his sneakers. (How many people pictured them as perfectly clean and white?)

Plot-Twist - Oh please, not another weird guy doing weird things for the greater good of society, but when you’ve got all these stock characters hanging around you’d better do something.

Emotional Payoff - We have to come, bottom line. And we've gotten so good at quickies. This thing takes four minutes to read. Do I hear Chapbook? Do I hear online zine collection? Do I hear favorite on Fictionaut?

Clever - but not too. I'm a guy. Clever translate to cute. Girls are cute. Women are clever. Really clever women are elegant and one can get extremely elegant with these short forms and not become old, which all clever women (who are only clever) become. But clever hooks young writers wishing they could be clever. Clever is key.

Did I mention first person present?

Story arc - Guy on the subway. Guy getting mugged. Guy wants to get mugged? Guy's done this before? Guy's on a mission. Guy poses a question that doesn't have a simple answer. Like all good questions, the explanation leads to God. God is great, as the popular saying goes.

And now for the main ingredient, the one thing it’s got to have.

Putney says the new short fiction has got to have tone.

Putney, Putney Swope. In theatres everywhere May 21^st.

For all you youngin’s, “Putney Swope” was a break-through Blacksploitation film of the ‘70’s that fooled African-Americans into thinking they weren’t being exploited, yet again. The trailer was a voice over announcing three times the third world has got to have soul. Like any hook it is still stuck in my mind forty years later. Tone, with a capital T, is a full 5 points from the judges. Plot, character and all the rest account for another 4. Originality will get you a perfect 10. I have yet to come across a perfect 10 except for the vignettes Hemingway inserted between stories in “In Our Time”. Want to write good flash, go read them.

So, why does Flash ultimately fail? I think for the same reasons TV is mind numbing and films inspire. Our brains need to be engaged for a certain amount of time to eliminate external stimuli and open internal paths. Like meditation, a good 3000 word story accesses deeper parts of the psyche; novels transport.

It’s hard to explain.

Young Poets

2010-01-08T19:52:00.011-05:00

These young poets

I don’t get them

Holding out lamps

covered in black shades

full of pin pricks

their brilliance teasing

but never quite seen

not full on

not naked

Twittered elegance passing for genius

Fantasy worlds mistaken for real

Beauty

these days

not even skin deep

projected instead in 3D surround

Space more important

than words

But then

I shouldn’t be able to understand

Climbing the Mountain

2009-12-31T10:47:00.019-05:00

Some years ago I completed my first novel. It was not such a bad novel, though it was a very poor novel. I got an agent and she pushed it on all the big houses. The rejections were interesting. My favorite? “Some of this is brilliant, but most is just plain awful.” Still, I was proud of actually finishing the damn thing. I'd proved I could do it. Then my business took off so I put the book in a drawer, thinking when things calmed down I'd give it another try.

All went incredibly well for a number of years, then Enron fell and so did my company, forcing an early retirement. Times being what they were, I started writing again, applying the discipline I knew had brought some success in my other ventures. I made some good friends on URBIS and work shopped the novel, making sure I wrote something each day for at least two hours. Slowly, my narrative voice developed. I started publishing on some of the ezines. I built this blog, joined Facebook, twittered with other writers. All the while I carried the belief that even if I failed, I'd given the game the old college try. One or two writers who I dared call writers said the same of me. Then editors said it, too. I even published a poem. I started my second novel.

And then something happened. Through a series of innocent and random conversations I was contacted about that first novel. They wanted it, maybe, was I willing to change this and that? Why not? I knew how to fix it. Give me a month and I'll send it over. I told my wife and we popped a bottle of cider. I slept like a baby. The next morning I climbed to the loft with my first cup of coffee, opened my laptop—and thought I was having a heart attack. For a solid week now, fits of anxiety come and go at all hours. I've faced union goons holding 2x4's. What changed?

Psychology 101 doesn't cut it. Ego, self worth, still proving myself to mother—horseshit. Some of you understand. Writers have come up with all kinds of clever phrases to deflect the embarrassment, keep their hearts safe and the vultures arm's length. Mountaineers still have the best line, “Because it's there.” It's not because it's there; more to the point: because it is. I remember sitting at the stern of my yacht (Yeah, I was one of those guys), smoking a Cuban and sipping cognac, watching the evening light up Nantucket and thinking, “This ain't it.” All my hard work these past thirty years and all I'd achieved was cliché.

I write because I'm a writer, I am that, it is me. I cannot help myself. I tell stories, at times it's gotten me into trouble. No amount of therapy or losing of friends or even the threat of jail has changed it. So confess, mes amis, all you ever were and all you will ever be is a writer, for richer or poorer, Kindle or no, till death do you part. Since that very first story, that anxiety you felt, that you're feeling now? It's all there to teach you. Listen. Suck it up and keep going. Shut them all out. How could they possibly know?

Speak, Christmas Memory

2009-12-23T16:08:00.002-05:00

An 8 Bar Tweet

9 years old, first erector set. Lee, Rick and Chris get one too. We combine them and build Co-Op City. I swear Mark’s dad stole our idea.

12 years old, brand new drums. Leopard skin, man, our names in the paper. Hey Joe, where you goin’ with that gun in your hand. Amplified.

14, new boots, Barney clearing 6 feet plus. All the kids come and watch us practice, even on Christmas, ears pinned back and snorting fire.

16, with Nancy, zippered house coat there by the fire. Her parents laugh when they drop the Bible, hearing us scamper out in the den.

17, high, sleds and Boone’s Farm. Charlie falls off, dies of concussion. Billy gets dosed, hangs himself. Wisdom comes hard that Christmas.

19, drafted, dumped and alone. Mother and I don’t see eye to eye. Spend the day in a bar down in Sea Bright. Far from alone, Xmas cheer.

21, clean, school’s going well. I may be a writer, mother frowns. Friends are home, safe and sound. I sit and wait for hell to freeze over.

56 and beginning once more; been there, done that, seen the big world. All that matters are words on a page, not about me, but you and I.

Talking Shit

2009-12-19T11:42:00.001-05:00

I love fun writers. I love writers who are funny. I love reading funny situations. Life is so funny, and cute, don’t you think? I think it’s cute. I love how funny it is to imagine gnawing my hand off. I love funny, ironic endings, especially if they involve aliens or something. Those are my favorite. I’ll “favorite” you any time you are funny and alien—and brief. Don’t forget to be brief. I don’t have all that much time.

I love how funny my life has been, for realsies. It really was funny, and cute, all of it. The war, my hand, finding my friend hanging, these things can be funny if you try. It can be arranged. And I love how someone can make it all funny in 500 words or less. Those are my favorites, too. Ironic Flash. I love irony, especially if you mix it with popular horror. Clever is funny too, like that talking dog, but irony mixed with horror—I can read stuff like that all day.

But please, don’t make me work, or think—whatever. And if I can’t finish reading in the time it takes for a cigarette (not that I smoke) or a decent dump don’t bother. 3000 words is so last century. You know, I hear that shit, I mean real, smelly shit, is all the rage, especially if you’re a lesbian. If you can write really funny, ironic shit and blend in some sex then I’m so in love. That’s the best. I don’t care which site you’re on. And straight guys talking about sucking off other straight guys? That’s really cool. I mean, girls did it this whole decade, now it’s the guy’s turn. I can’t believe AIDS and the Holocaust are boring but they really are. Who needs to hear about that? Well, as long as it’s short. Maybe Twitter or something.

Workshops

2009-12-17T09:29:00.002-05:00

I know a great many of we "indie" writers have voiced an opinion on this subject. This is mine.

They seem to run a pattern. Like being the new kid in town, everyone's curious. It takes a few submissions and critiques to get noticed, and then all of a sudden you’re receiving a great deal of attention. You even get laid a few times (metaphorically) but sooner or later the established clique comes down hard. If you haven't spent time sucking up to a certain crowd (five or six seems to be the critical mass) the subtle rejections begin. A form of mob rule soon manifests, and you're out. The presence of some form of rating system assures this will happen. Those on top want to stay on top; it is, after all, human nature. One could say these little microcosms behave as the real world does, so suck it up and get on with the show. Which is what most of us do. Oh yeah, I forgot, this pattern applies to those who can actually write.

To be fair, I've been on the good side of a clique. It was a lot of work. A daily presence and group participation was required. We even identified our own evil-doers and sent in the troops, accordingly. At one point I suggested my daughter do a paper on it for her psychology major. After a solid run, we spun off and started our own, private workshop. A good thing. Like all regimes, our time was at hand and the people were secretly gathering off-site, spreading the word. We all got on a plane one moonless night and split, declaring victory to the press and taking as much loot as our bags could hold. This group of twenty or so has now filtered down to four or five serious writers. We work with each other on a consistent basis. In the end, how many opinions do you actually want? I’ve heard several versions of this from other writers.

To be clear, I think these workshops are a good thing, especially for those of us no longer in school. Finding one with diverse talent is a bonus. My first workshop lead me to a better one, and now I have found a third. Initial feedback from this new group has been constructive and from people I consider my peers—people getting published by ezines—Indies like me. It’s the next step, A-League ball, what remains to be seen is how the major leagues reinvent themselves. For all I know, Folded Word is the next Google.

So by all means, workshop. Get your feet wet. Watch the politics. Know you will encounter frustrated people wanting to only give pain. Think of them as fledgling literary critics. Listen to those whose work you respect and weigh it against your own wisdom. Do not bend with the prevailing wind. Bend, on occasion, for editors. In the end, it is the power and originality of your narrative voice that will win the day. And don’t forget to practice. Only through discipline will your voice develop.

End transmission.

Some Thoughts on Writing

2009-12-13T10:52:00.003-05:00

We all know a story or two; good times and bad, and we've all been in love, some to war, some who have known excellent adventures, others who grew up with gang-bangers, and those who have witnessed nature's power. We know how to write it all down, construct an entire world on paper (or tablet); create one fleeting moment of recognition for the reader. There are easy audiences; people with burdens will flock toward anyone telling of their story. We love to debate, for the umpteenth time, our personal take on the one true God. And never neglect the gallery, as Shakespeare cautioned, we're all waiting for Tiger's fourteenth girl to show. It’s a proven formula: develop a solid discipline, go out and find a relevant topic, practice good writing and find an agent—it can be done.

And for some of us that is enough, and that’s a good thing. Try and write a genre romance or an enjoyable travelogue. Not easy. Never put down the successful author, even the one hit wonder. Twilight, for all its shortcomings, has entertained millions, and millions make the difference between having a day job and making a living in the word dodge. Do I wish I’d come up with Twilight? Damn straight, though I’d probably use a pseudonym. Been drafting a bonnet novel (those Amish romances where no one even gets their first kiss) as a way to pay some bills.

But the magic, that illusive combination of all things on the printed page; attaining that requires one more ingredient. Just as humans differ from apes by a mere 1% of chromosome content, so does the difference between good writing and great. It isn't only desire, or intellect, a natural talent and simple hard work, and luck, don’t forget luck, not even the combination of all those things; it is something more: the accumulation of disciplined access. Ask any spiritual master and they will say you must dig one deep well, else you only end up with a field of holes. Go and see Edvard Munch's painting, The Scream, knowing he over-painted that canvas 79 times. Othello, King Lear and Macbeth are numbers 27, 28 and 29 out of 37 plays attributed to Shakespeare. As a writer, an artist, you must go there again and again. The Universe rewards persistence. Holden Caulfield could not have sat with Phoebe at her window without it; Jake Barnes could not have looked over at Bill, silent, revealing all that had ever happened and all that would; or owl-eyes standing in Gatsby's library announcing, “They're real…Absolutely real—have pages and everything.” Those authors could not have written such memorable scenes without working, everyday, no matter what.

If you want to be good at anything, truly good, and face the world head on and knowing it, you will probably aim for some level of greatness. The reward is in the doing a friend of mine once said. If you are not willing to strive for greatness be honest, at least with yourself, just okay is still a wonderful place to be. Anytime you feel bitter or failed just look in the mirror, blame is most often found there. All those clichés like loved and lost, at least I tried, he was a good man or she was a good mother—if that’s what they stood for—then rest in peace. But this writing thing, this goal of literature…

And if what I have said here angers you, my arrow has found its mark. If you think of writing as a hobby you have my envy. I've spent four decades doing everything but. Going to God, money and yachts, drugs and booze have only delayed the inevitable. Being a writer has always been there, lurking about in the shadows, ever since 7^th grade when Stephanie Smith seemed to notice me for the very first time after reading my first short story aloud. Now I'm hoping there's still enough time to develop my craft and “go there” often enough to be able to say that I did it. There is my mirror, how did you last find your own?

Brilliance for Brilliance Sake

2009-12-06T08:55:00.001-05:00

I don’t like pretty writing; writing that calls attention to its own structure and elegance. It speaks to me of fragile egos and failed men standing in classrooms impressing young minds. It betrays those who have stood by in life and watched others live. It is the difference between masturbation and making love, where jerking off is almost always perfect while love is messy and full of risk. For me the craft should always be more akin to a movie score, even in poetry, enhancing and moving the story along, breaking the forefront only to punctuate, extend the moment, but never be the story itself. It is why I studied Joyce but still read Catcher in the Rye once a year, Too often, I think, we are impressed with clever writing instead of clever writers. Like the runway model its beauty is only skin deep; like the ballerina, get too close and you smell the sweat, see the bleeding toes and misshapen feet.

This is not to deny any room for experimentation. As in any intellectual game, there is both enjoyment in its creation and some benefit in the practical world. Any writer who’s found their voice has no doubt shown off on occasion. And I do not wish to cast any negative comment on the world of academia or the avant-garde. Two very bookish men taught me what good writing was. There is a time and place for all of us here in the word dodge to read Ulysses, and there must always be an extreme; the fringe, by definition, must remain narrow and focused, but if you are trying to tell a story, if the play really is the thing, then get out of the way and just tell it. Don’t be too impressed with yourself as a word-smith. Nobody likes a show-off except another show-off. We can all describe what a beautiful woman looks like when taking a sip of wine, but it’s the artist who gets the reader to imagine the scene completely, feel her lips touch the glass—to be so absorbed who cares how its done.

I’m seeing a lot of overworked prose these days, poems that look like schematics, even song lyrics too pristine for their own good. It’s a wonder of the new age; this stuff would never have seen the light of day ten years ago, except in some workshop or seminar. Not that I have much clout in saying so, just look at how many follow this blog, but if you are one of those writers who post neon signs in the margins that flash “Look at Me” you might consider your own reading list. Get over your own brilliance. Nobody stares at the sun for long.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2009-12-01T11:03:00.000-05:00

New moon

high tide

midnight water
out on the island
We rolled my old Marshall amp
the one I bought back in ‘68
out onto the dock and played
Dark Side of the Moon
Floating out over the harbor
Somebody shot off a flare
Next morning
the POLICE boat stopped by
and I explained
how there never used to be a POLICE boat
and how my great grandfather
built this house
that the mayor was my good friend
and who doesn’t like Pink Floyd
The amp was already back under its cover
up in the attic with mother
The cop said he had to ask

The Encounter Group

2009-11-30T20:23:00.001-05:00

Back when we were kids and doing a lot of LSD Mr. Dean thought it might be a good idea to start an Encounter Group. Mr. Dean was the Reverend of the local Unitarian church. This was back in ’69 when they first started Encounter Groups out at The Esalen Institute in California and no one had ever done one with teenagers. Mr. Dean met a man named Bart out there and convinced him to come back east and do one with us. Bart was a psychologist and heavy into the whole New Age Movement. Maybe they both had some grand idea about breaking new ground or maybe they just wanted to prove a point but there we were one autumn night, standing in the Dean’s driveway, waiting for The Reverend to open the door.

All ten of our little group had been invited and seven had shown. Keith thought the whole idea was nonsense and Pete didn’t want to be anywhere near a psychologist. Timmy Grill’s parents thought the Unitarian Church was a communist front so he had to stay home as well. Mr. Dean asked Mr. Ward to come but he declined. Mr. Ward had been a Ranger in

Korea

and said we didn’t need his shit in the group. We all wanted him there because he was Mike’s father and it was his farm we hung out at and he and Mrs. Ward were like surrogate parents. We were still too young to know how fucked up he was and how he’d purposely gone away that week and left Mike and Mark to stay with the Dean’s. I realized about half way through that night why it was a good thing Mr. Ward wasn’t there but that’s another story.

The Unitarian Church rectory was this old clapboard house that must have been something in its day but now it was old and run down and in need of paint. It wasn’t a brick Tudor like the Episcopalians, and it didn’t have a nice little garden like the Baptists. Someone had fixed one of the porch columns by nailing a bunch of 2xs4’s together and setting them up on a cinderblock. The wind was blowing hard as it does in early November, and mixed in was the smell of pine and the forest dying and a wood fire. I had on this battered leather coat I’d bought at the Englishtown Auction for a dollar. It looked really cool but did a lousy job of keeping me warm. I had no idea what an Encounter Group was but knew it must be special if Mr. Ward was afraid.

We were all waiting and I was walking around trying to stay warm. The side lawn was full of crisp fallen leaves and I made little trails the wind would erase, like one of those sand paintings, and I heard music playing and saw some light coming through a window and went to look and there was Mike in one of the back rooms, alone, dancing to Only Love Can Break Your Heart. He was there in the middle of the empty room swinging his arms back and forth and waltzing about with an imaginary partner. I knew he was falling in love with Nancy Smith and I was already in love with Nancy Robertson and we used to sit in the back field and get stoned and talk about them for hours at a time, only Mike and his Nancy were really getting together and I was probably never going to get together but I felt good for Mike, seeing him so happy and dancing like that, plus I was tripping. I had been tripping on pure LSD for nearly a month.

I stood there watching him dance until they opened the front door and called us in. I don’t remember much about that evening. Bart explained what he wanted from the group; I mostly watched the fire. It was a nice, pine paneled room with a big stone hearth. The fire spoke gentle words and warmed my hands and face. Bart told us how he wanted to open us up to other ways of getting high using nature and our inner journey. He was a short, roly-poly kind of guy with a white beard and bald head and looked like Santa on his day off. Near the end I think he believed that he failed, but like everything I learned in the group, especially the good things, they show up now as part of me. I am that winter. Bart died long ago of AIDS.

We met every Tuesday for almost a year. We learned to confront our demons, but we did not learn the one thing our parents wanted. I guess the adults forgot we were still children, removed from the ugly things in life. There was nothing to encounter, only experience. The Group became just another medal on our collective hippie chests full of ribbons—this one for Woodstock, this for Purple Ozlie, a patch for the last concert at Filmore East—a silver star for Kent State. We were special. We were enlightened. It would be a few more years before we went off to war and on to harder drugs, deals with cops and the funerals of friends. Bart and the Mr. Dean tried to show us what that road might look like, and I remember one night as they sat in the center of the group sobbing uncontrollably with snot running down Mr. Dean’s face and dripping onto Bart's lap how they begged us to stop doing drugs, and how we sat on the floor of Mr. Ward’s VW Bus driving home that night convinced they simply didn’t understand, that if they’d only drop acid they’d know and be one of us.

That was when we were young and in love and going to God

Livingston College - Getting there

2009-11-29T09:14:00.011-05:00

I remember listening to the recruiters that Saturday in our high school gymnasium, a kind of bazaar with little tents and tradeshow booths, banners hanging from the rafters, my mother hell-bent on me going to Johns Hopkins because the biology teacher said I had surgeon’s hands. It felt funny standing there on the foul shot line listening to these guys—I kept waiting for Mr. Kerns to start yelling about standing inside the zone—and some of my teachers were milling around in their regular clothes which always creeped me out, like the time I bumped into Mr. Weinstein at the Shop-Rite holding a package of tampons.

The Johns Hopkins guy looks like a college professor, corduroy jacket, the whole bit, and they had this little cardboard model of the new wing they were building onto some hospital. He’s using a lot of big words and I’m getting most of it but I’m also listening to the guy at the next table talking about something called Total Independent Study at Livingston College. They don’t have any models; they don't even have a sign, just some brochures strewn about covering a couple of coffee stains. I don’t want to be a doctor, I’m thinking, I want to be a writer.

“Well,” the Johns Hopkins guy’s saying, holding the recommendation from my Biology teacher, “He’s got the grades and this is an impressive letter, any alumni?”

My mother starts droning on about my uncle who’s some big deal Oncologist at Overlook and I start inching my way toward the Livingston guy who’s dressed in blue jeans and moccasins.
“A letter from him would help,” Johns Hopkins declares, watching me out of one eye, the other smiling at my dad.

“We have one student going to Paris this semester for a total emersion at the Louvre,” I hear Livingston mention.

“And Baltimore’s a great town, though I daresay he won’t have much time for play.” Now Johns Hopkins is smiling at me, though he seems a bit worried. We both hear Livingston add, “We’re less than half an hour from Greenwich Village.”

“And of course, we expect them to maintain at least sixteen credits per semester,” the man tells my mother. By now she’s glaring at me through the side of her head, still smiling and charming the nice recruiter. She’s been waiting all week for this, waited in line twenty minutes and refuses to surrender so easily. Besides, she wants Mrs. Burke and Steve Fitzgerald’s mom to see her talking to Mr. Johns Hopkins.

“We’re looking to expand their minds,” my guy with the moccasins says.

By now I’m fully in Livingston’s space, just their side of an imaginary DMZ between the two schools. I scan the rest of the gym. There’s a crowd in front of Montclair State and another at University of Delaware. BU is handing out candy. My father looks over at me and raises both eyebrows, meaning he’s impressed but also a bit bored. He’s been listening to Livingston too. The guy is explaining how students have access to all three of the other colleges: Rutgers, Douglass (the women’s school) and Cook Agricultural School. I’m forming a plan. I can earn a degree in Forestry with a minor in English, then get paid to sit in a fire tower somewhere in Oregon while I write my first novel and become famous.

“Did you hear that, honey?” my mother asks.

“No.”

“Professor Wallace is explaining what a degree from Johns Hopkins can mean.”

“I’m sure it can mean a great deal,” I say.

Later on, in the car and on the way home I tell them: "Look, it’s a third the cost and I can come home on weekends.”
My father raises his eyebrows again.

“I didn’t think you’d want to come home,” my mother says, pretending to look out the window.

The Imaginary Self

2009-11-25T13:31:00.000-05:00

I’m going to let you all in on a little secret. I’m not the fifty-six year old sailor/exec I’ve been posing as (that’s my older brother’s photo); I’m really a thirty-eight year old paraplegic associate professor at a small community college in rural Pennsylvania. I used to sail as a young man before my accident, and my favorite novels are business settings with plenty of sex, and I do write, but as for the rest… Maybe not the acne faced fifteen year old down in the basement, but close enough. Or not.

What an awful place for a writer to be—the internet—like dumping an ounce of cocaine in front of an addict, suggesting they simply say NO. How many of us actually use our real names, a current photo? Not many. “I need my privacy.” Bullshit, just grow feathers and cluck about the barn yard, please. Amazing how many contributors to Nathan Bransford’s Opening Paragraph contest used their online moniker instead of a real name, even a nom de plume. That’ll get you an agent, bucko, tout de suite. Notice the name of the winner? Travis Erwin. No shedemon666 there. OK, there were a couple of first names only among the finalists, but you know where I’m going.

Or do you? I, mean, that’s the beauty of it. Now I’m the Scarecrow at the fork in the road. Some people go that way; others go this way. Some people even do both. That’s the trouble, I haven’t got a brain, or a true sense of self, or the courage to simply say that I’m lost and want to go home. What a wonderful story. How true for so many. A fine metaphor for we wordsmiths, because at the end of the day we all need to know where home is. Without that grounding there can be no trusted narrative voice, no attraction—no novel, really. And don’t tell me there are plenty of fucked up masters out there who could barely wipe their own ass. I would say when they wrote those books they knew exactly who they were and where the spare rolls of toilet paper were kept.

Look at any great novel and the writer is there, first and foremost. Great novels don’t always start with a great opening line. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...well some do. Call me Ishmael isn’t a keeper without the rest of Moby Dick backing it up. Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton is a real loss leader in "The Sun Also Rises", but then we get that left jab in the second sentence: Do not think I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn. In the end, that was the entire novel, right there in the first two sentences. Hemingway originally had another first chapter describing the fiesta. If only we all had our own Max Perkins.

I didn’t get to where I wanted, but it was me, for a moment.

A Question of Balance

2009-11-05T08:16:00.003-05:00

I like pissing in the yard. I’m sure it’s mixed in with marking my territory and all of my insecurities and maybe even a bit of fuck-you toward the neighbors, but I’ve done it ever since I can remember and have always missed the naked bliss of seeing how far I can project my stream when living in a city. Sometimes Lucy, our dog, will join me, and once our cat happened by and started scratching like mad, making all the preliminary motions but, being a cat, privacy won out. Now that we live in the woods I feel it almost a necessity, what with black bear and coyote around, and my wife has finally given in after all these years, making it something of a joke by asking who let whom outside, Lucy or me?

I don’t know how it is for women. I think I speak for most men, however, when I say there is something basic and good in pissing outdoors. Whenever I’m out on the boat I will still get up in the middle of the night and pee off the stern. My boat has this nice little niche comprised of the railing, the mount for the dinghy motor, and the emergency Life Sling pack for any man-overboard situation. Between the round plastic cowling of the outboard and the soft cover of the Life Sling, I can stand with knees pressed up to the rail and employ the old sailor’s adage of one hand for you and one for the boat in complete safety. The stars in the deepening sky and the reflection of the moon on the water come to a sharper focus, and the sound of my stream hitting the water is more satisfying than any hollow echo in a toilet bowl. I won’t allow it off shore, too dangerous, but I encourage all my male guests to give it a shot. More than once I’ve glanced up the companionway to see one of them lingering, lost in thought or perhaps some memory—the one they keep secret—and the smile as they turn away. It is, as always, the little things that matter.

There is also the idea of where your pee will end up. Whereas pissing in some toilet, running through the house pipes and then into a little four inch cast iron tunnel that eventually leads to a septic tank (or the city sewers) seems such a waste, the uses in nature are endless. Besides the aforementioned marking of one’s territory this nitrogen rich liquid is good for fertilizing the garden and rodent control.

Case in point. While working construction as a young man in the plumbing trade it was part of our service to maintain the township pumping stations. These sites consisted of machinery connected to sewer mains and often incorporating an open cesspool used for filtration. Wherever you have raw sewage you will find rats. Often the berms required in case of flood were peppered with rat holes, and it was our crude way as beer guzzling youth to piss on their little homes. One morning, after a night of tequila and, just for good measure, a taste of Four Roses, I emptied my bladder into the largest hole I could find. We then went out for coffee, being Union and all. Upon our return some twenty minutes later we found a huge rat, half-hanging out of the hole, his little paws reaching for salvation and dead as a door nail. I wrote to both the tequila supplier and Four Roses but they declined any interview. It felt like a good idea at the time.

Well, all this for naught you say? No, this essay does have noble intention. Life is made of moments. It's a shame how young men and women rush through certain events, even when they know to slow down and take it all in, it is true that some things will only happen once. I was standing down near our fence line, where the fields give way to second growth forest and marsh. Yes, I was taking a leak, a good one, getting rid of twenty ounces of coffee, some OJ, and whatever my kidneys could squeeze out of the protein shake I had earlier. Lucy was with me, a few respectable yards to one side, sitting on her ass but also incredibly alert. A gray squirrel sat up on one of the posts, smelling the autumn woods; I assumed it was why she was whimpering. All around us the leaves were falling like snow. Then, as my untrained eyes refocused and separated layers of deep brown, golden yellow, and tarnished green I saw what Lucy so keenly wanted permission to run for, our resident eight-point buck, hind legs stretched back and a good stream of his own beating down on the earth. He was looking straight at me, maybe fifty meters away. We both stood there, pissing. I knew if I moved one muscle he’d bolt.

We both finished, remaining perfectly still. Then, with a bit of a snort, he casually turned and walked away, taking a few steps before bending his neck to see what I might be doing. Lucy was whimpering audibly. “Go on,” I motioned, and she shot off into the woods like a rocket. “Don’t get kicked in the head,” I called after. The buck trotted off. Lucy stopped as soon as the forest grew dense, and we both came back here to the house, knowing the day was already finished, certain that any other event would pale in comparison.

“There’s no hot water,” my wife said, greeting her two nature lovers.

I went to the basement and found it flooded, a steady stream flowing from under the water heater. Several cardboard boxes I’d been too lazy to lift were soaking it up. Saw dust and wood chips had mixed into a respectable muck. “Balance,” I told Lucy, who wisely remained on the bottom step, drinking from the puddle.

“Balance.”

Bullet Fiction

2009-11-02T11:47:00.002-05:00

Been seeing a certain form lately in the online mags, like boiled down Flash or maybe crude prose poetry. The basic structure is single lines of description or dialog, like bullets in an outline, double spaced, usually not more the eight in the group, creating one complete scene, suggesting a richer back story, creating the illusion of a complete story. I tried one and they are fun to write and do take some skill, but like all these short forms I feel they are nothing more than clever commercials, more fodder for the texting generation and, in the end, lazy.

I have no doubt that Tweets and Flash will become legitimate forms, but more in the way Snow Boarding joined the Olympics, a desperate ploy by the establishment to attract younger fans and save a floundering franchise. In short - to sell. If Samuel Johnson was with us today he'd embrace these things. Being a pragmatist and knowing the value of Fleet Street, he'd calculate the best use and move on. Shakespeare knew how to play for the Gallery, and I half agree with Phillip Roth's latest quip about the novel becoming something of an elitest hobby, like opera or bird watching, though I think it will never get that far. We are still a generation away from all Kindles at the beach and a lot can happen.

So below is my first attempt at a Bullet. As you will see, the main characters are young, having sex, and the overall tone is tongue in cheek. Now all I need is to work in a car chase and shooting and we can do lunch.

The Freshman

Bullet Fiction

Derek Osborne

“I won't be your weekend girlfriend,” she said.

From habit, they walked toward her father's overstuffed chair.

“We had a true meeting of the minds.”

Without words he motioned, placing a hand at her waist.

“I can really talk to Michael."

“Oh shut up,” he said, pulling her panties aside.

“You are well met."

Hearing her moan, he tried to remember another line.

Livingston College - Day 3

2009-11-01T15:51:00.000-05:00

Ricky Jennings, another friend from high school, is attending Rutgers—the real Rutgers across the river in New Brunswick—the one with the old brick buildings and Mencken Men in their Hush-Puppie shoes. Rick was known as “The Chimney” in our high school on account of his reputation for chain smoking joints. He was also Number 3 in our class of nine hundred and held a place-kicking average of 67 yards, propelling our football team to a state championship. Rutgers offered him a scholarship but he refused to attend practice.

“It’s a team sport,” the coach said on the first day.

“I’m not a team player,” Rick stated.

If a guy like Rick showed up at Rutgers today they’d give him a room at The Marriot and a car, but it’s still only 1971 and Rutgers’ development office hasn’t wised up to a thing called “alumni momentum”. They will, thirty years later, but right now it’s Day 3 and I’m on my way to breakfast.

I notice a blinking light down on the security desk phone array. I push it to find a message from a Mr. Jennings on main campus, requesting a meeting. All my classes start Monday so I’m free. The campus bus picks me up right in front of Souff Towahr (as it will soon be called by everyone on campus) and drops me right in front of Henderson Row, Ricky’s dorm. Rick is smack dab in the middle of main campus. Everything’s covered in ivy and wrought iron.
He lives on the ground floor so he can escape out the window if necessary. The cramped old plaster and mahogany wainscot hall smells of ammonia. Turns out Rick is cooking his first batch of Hashish on a hot-plate in his room. It’s a total loss; the hot-plate isn’t generating enough heat. He tried ganging three together and blew the floor’s fusebox. He’s more concerned now about campus security finding the hot-plates then finding the sauce-pot full of weed. Hot-plates are a fire hazard. After airing the room and throwing more than a pound of ammonia saturated marijuana in the dumpster, we put a call in to Louis-of-Seaside for another kilo and decide to go trip for the rest of the day.

By the time we get off the bus in front of Livingston’s Student Center the two barrels of Orange Sunshine we each have ingested are kicking in beyond expectation. The recommended dosage is half a barrel for newbie’s, a whole barrel for those who have been experienced. Since Rick and I are the equivalent of LSD Special Forces we feel two barrels is not out of reach. We are soon reaching all the way across the universe. I find it impossible to talk. Rick can still talk but must do so one word at a time, the silence between spanning eons. He finally finishes a sentence but it’s so many lifetimes old we both give up. We are doing much better anyway by this time communicating telepathically, and agree that sitting in the middle of the main hall outside the café in the Student Center is a wise choice. There is a granite planter full of broad leaved greens and a palm tree, I think. Rick is insisting it’s a Japanese Maple. Either way, we can both build a Zen garden in the sand. I sense a crowd gathering.

“I sliff inna farma con,” Rick says.

“Fa,” I answer.

You see my point. After some measure of the wall clock’s movement a Wizard I recognize from House 15 arrives on the scene wearing a black armband. He’s on duty at the clinic. Mr. Wizard is an enlightened, non-involved terrorist and wears the regulation blue-jean jacket with ENT embroidered in red Shire font across the back. He asks us to follow him. We wander for days down the walk to Quad One and end up sitting in the Student Services waiting room. Yolanda walks in, sees me and does one of those "Um, um, um," Black Earth Mother things but doesn't stop to chat--she's on another mission. The clown from Yellow Submarine keeps popping in and spinning his top, hiding behind the desk whenever real people enter the room.
After a while two Psyche majors attempt to talk us down, then decide the only way to relate is to take some of the Orange Barrel themselves. Naturally, Rick has a few in his pocket. I can hear the clown snickering. The two councilors split one. An hours later we're talking them down. The clown is no help. The clinic declares the afternoon a success because the task of counseling the counselors has proven the hypothesis that giving people who are freaking out on acid the responsibility of guiding their fellow trippers back to reality facilitates rebuilding the ego, a valid therapy. Rick and I decide it best not to argue whether we were actually freaking out or simply enjoying the show. We leave the two Psyche majors arguing the merits of Stendhal. The clown looks very sad, picks up his toys and goes home.

2012

2009-11-01T11:50:00.000-05:00

Went to see it; should have seen Pirate Radio.

It's awful, another Independence Day wanna-be with none of the emotional investment. I actually cared about the First Lady and crazy crop duster in ID, but here you’ve got two, obese little billionaire brats and John Cusack who never gets a chance to build his endearing, quirky and bankable self. Amanda Peet’s still hot. It’s taken Hollywood just one year to trivialize and make normal (and therefore passé) the election of an African American President (Danny Glover) and also an AA chief scientist (Chiweto Eljirifor). Oliver Platt is a passable effed up white guy loser with a little power. An Indian man is the true hero but he gets shafted in the end (see, I’m not even giving his name). Special effects are good but they milk the cliff hangers (literally) one after another and throw away all basic avionics and what a Winnebago can do on a dirt road. All told, I’d give it two stars (‘cause it cost a lot) and wait for the DVD to go on special.

There is one interesting scene, though, at the end of the movie they show a map of the New World. All the continents have shifted and reformed; only Africa is left intact. The alert theatre guest will notice that most of the Middle East and Croatia, along with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan (in fact, all the "stans") are under water, finally ending that argument. It would have been fun to see a Jew and an Arab fighting over a place in line, up-screen right, but I wax poetic. The last shot is one of those grand pull-backs showing all the wealthy white folks steaming toward Cape Town in the surviving three Arcs, built by that new symbol of 21^st century “can do”, the Chinese. In the sequel I'd like to see an opening sequence where Nigeria flies out in their French built jets to nuke the Arcs with bombs they bought from North Korea (also now underwater—Ping Pong, you dead).

BAWA: Black Africa Wins Again.

Drinking with Janis Redux

2009-11-01T11:39:00.000-05:00

The Monmouth Museum was nothing more than a stone house with a few Civil War relics. A wildflower field led to the courtyard, and a pine forest covered the hills beyond. We had claimed the museum grounds as our own private estate. As youngsters we slew dragons there; as teenagers we smoked pot and slept with our girlfriends under the stars. The property bordered the back of the Garden State Arts Center, a venue for The Performing Arts, and whenever we liked we climbed the fence and saw the shows for free.

That year, 1970, I was seventeen. The Arts Center decided to host rock concerts. It was a big, open-air amphitheater with red auditorium seating and lawns surrounding the stage. From the Parkway it looked like someone had landed a flying saucer and put up a parking lot. Iron Butterfly, the Rascals, and Grand Funk had already played, but nothing compared to the night Janis Joplin showed with her Full Tilt Boogie Band. Thousands arrived without tickets, nearly causing a riot.

On occasion Security caught us climbing the fence but this night they had their hands full. We hopped on over and started down the slope, coming upon a circle of people sharing a bottle of Jack Daniel's. They were older, dressed in leather and very cool hats, laughing out loud and toasting the night. One of them waved. We sat down, taking our place in the circle, clasping hands and bidding the usual hippie greetings. A woman dressed in purple with boas and bangles draped all around leaned in and said, “Hey, man.”

It was Janis Joplin. We were sitting with the band and the roadies. “Holy shit,” was all I could manage. It was summer and just after twilight. A breeze came up the hill and swept the feathers she wore in her hair.

”How you doin', man?”

There was no mistaking that Texas drawl and rasping, whiskey filled voice.

”I'm doing fine,” I said, “This is far out.”

”You guys live around here?”

”Yeah, this is like, our backyard.”

”That's pretty cool, man, glad you came.”

It was only a moment, a brief moment, I felt her kid-sister charm and that sadness I'd heard in her songs. She was looking right through me, and something rushed out passed my shoulder and entered the forest, rustling the pines as the wind followed after. Her eyes softened. She smiled and gave me a wink, then leaned back into the circle. The band went on listing the order of songs in the second set.

Out front the crowd was chanting. I took a hit on the pipe, exchanged elated looks with my buddies. A few minutes later their manager said it was time for the show. We watched as the band walked down the hill to a pair of gray steel doors. I was hoping she might turn and wave but she didn't. It was a hell of a show. All those freaks crashed the gates. The crowd spilled out over the parking lots, standing on cars, dancing and naked. One of the concession stands got trashed. After that The Arts Center banned all rock concerts.

We were on our way home, climbing the fence when I saw this woman sitting alone. I was sure she was crying. I walked over and there was Janis, a bottle of Jack in her hand, leaning against the chain link fence with her legs stretched out, blowing her nose in a boa.

“Hey,” she said, “yer the kid who lives here.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“How'd you like the show?”

I untied my red bandana, the one I'd been wearing around my head, and offered it to her.

“Yer a sweetie,” she said. “Too bad you're not ten years older.”

I stood there and watched her cry. I'd never seen a woman cry. I forgot who she was and knelt down beside her. She laughed.

“Pretty fuckin' sad, huh?”

“Would you like a hug?” I said.

“Oh baby I could so use a hug right now.”

And there I was, hugging Janis Joplin on the hill in back of The Garden State Arts Center. I was a big kid and she was this tiny girl, all soft and smelling like my mom on a Saturday night. I kept my mouth shut. I don't know how long she cried but it probably wasn't all that long. Then I felt someone standing beside us. When I looked the manager glared, shaking his head.

“Janis, the chopper's coming.”

“Limo's here, baby doll,” she said, sitting up, wiping her face with my snotty bandana.

“Hey, you're that kid who lives here,” the manager said. “How'd you like the show?”

I was about to say something when the ground lit up like a movie set. The noise was incredible. The grass flattened out and pine needles stung like pellets. The big chopper hovered, its lit-up belly bright white and black numbers just over the trees. It drifted along the edge of the forest, then set down on a flat piece of ground near the maintenance shed. Janis stood; her boas and feathers fighting to stay put. I wanted to hug her again but instead held up my hand, wiggling my fingers as if to wave.

She smiled and waved back.

I watched them all climb into the gleaming blue helicopter, its uniformed pilot exchanging hand signals with one of the roadies; watched them lift off and fly away over the hill. Grabbing the half filled bottle of whiskey, I climbed the fence and rejoined my friends in the forest, pine needles soft beneath our moccasins, the scent and the silence once more, stars peeking down through the canopy. We drank the rest of the whiskey and placed the empty bottle up on a shelf in the Ward's library.

Two months later, Janis was dead.

The Value of Blogging

2009-10-27T10:02:00.000-04:00

Admit it; tooting your own horn is a bit embarrassing, at least for most of us. There are famous tooters, guys like Bob Dylan who’d sit at every table down at the Gaslight, just sayin’ hello, making sure everyone knew where his next gig was; or John Denver, hosting huge parties at his parent’s home, then breaking out his guitar, making five hundred people listen, like it or not. That they both had talent isn't the point. More to the point—they promoted themselves non-stop until somebody noticed. Any decent salesman will tell you, ask enough people and somebody buys, regardless of what you are selling. Every writer knows the stories of mediocre books getting six figure advances.

But I want to talk about things at a more practical level—our level—people who blog and tweet and maybe have twenty followers. Discouraging, isn’t it? Does anyone actually read my blog? We’ve all heard the mantra—submit your work, get rejected, submit somewhere else. Blogs are like that. In a way, they’re another submission. For us, admittedly, more like a life raft out in the ocean, but sooner or later a ship will pass by. In my case, one did, making the last six months all worth while. I won’t name the publication, but the rejection letter came with a note that said, in part, the staff likes your work but it’s not right for us; we all read your blog; please take a look at our upcoming issue; if you think you have something that fits, send it directly to me. Suddenly, I’m no longer one in three thousand; I’m one in fifty, maybe ten. Those months of floating, baking in the hot sun, eating the eyeballs of fish for the liquid they contain…somebody saw the flare.

First thing you do is write back and say thanks. Next thing you do is comb through that issue, and back issues, too. Third thing you do is find one or two of your old stories and revise. In this case, change f*ck to sleep with; notice how much better you are now than three years ago; Strunk the bugger and shed the pounds. Submit soon, direct to the editor who contacted you. Don’t procrastinate. Keep your foot planted firmly inside that door.

And for those of you who have a blog, add to it once a week. It’s tedious, I know, you’re a writer, not a promoter, but agents and editors aren’t looking for one hit wonders (well, maybe), they’re looking for people who can produce; hang in for the long haul, consistency. Want a few examples? Look at what Mel Bosworth has done this past year. http://eddiesocko.blogspot.com/ . Mel should be the poster boy for “How to Become a New Writer.” Click on Lydia Dutch http://quiddityofdelusion.blogspot.com/ and find M.J. Nicholls (that’s Nicholls, with two L’s) an admitted troll with an oversized frontal lobe, but still a young writer of note. Would you have clicked on his ugly mug? Half his followers are lonely young men in their thirties hoping Lydia notices one of their comments. So what! They’re following. They’re reading.

Yes, Cats and Kitties, you still need talent and luck, but mostly its just hard work. So what isn’t? At the end of the day, you’ve only yourself to blame.

Livingston College - an excerpt

2009-10-19T17:15:00.000-04:00

______________________________________

So it’s one year later, the Fall of ‘71 and my first day at Livingston. I arrived the night before and scored a little weed and got laid by some chick over in Quad Two and this morning they have pancakes in the cafeteria. So far, so good. Now it’s near lunch and I’m kicking back in the dorm watching people show up with all their shit. This kid Tom, who I sort of knew from home, moves in across the hall. At least I’ll know somebody. His mother’s one of these stuck up blue hairs from Oak Hill and gives me the evil dirty hippie stay away from my Tommy look but she seems even more concerned with the other kids on the floor. They’re all black. Diversity was stressed several times when I finally talked to the recruiter that day; Livingston is an experiment in higher education. The entire campus is new, in fact, they’re still finishing half of the buildings. After his parents leave Tom comes in to talk. He thinks something’s wrong.

“Like what?” I ask.

“I’m going to find the Proctor.”

Tom goes downstairs. He’s back in five minutes. Turns out we’ve been placed in the Black House of Quad Three. It’s some kind of bureaucratic fuck up and all hell breaks loose. My new roommate nearly shits his pants when he walks in and sees me, this white kid, lying on my bunk reading Kerouac. I don’t know there’s a problem. Diversity, I keep thinking, like the recruiter said. I’m a hippie, a Captain of Woodstock, I love everybody. I say “Hi” and he says “What the fuck?”

Next thing I know the entire dorm is down in the living room having a “town meeting” and Tom and I are the only white faces there. The looks go from wide eyed wonder to what you doin’ here muthafucka, some of these kids are drunk with their new found power, and Harold, the house Proctor, a Puerto Rican African American Grad Student is truly sorry but the fact remains—we got to go. They all signed up to live in a Black Dorm. I say it’s cool, you know, we’ll go down to Student Housing tomorrow and straighten things out. They don’t want to hear it. This is why they came to Livingston College, to call their own shots, to live and study without The Man telling them what to do. The Revolution will not be televised…The Revolution will not be televised…

So Tom and I start dragging our steamer trunks across campus toward the Student Center. By now its 7 PM and all the office folks have gone home. We’ve even missed dinner. The Center’s deserted; it’s still two more days till classes start. Being Freshman, we’re here for orientation. I’m oriented, all right. Tom and I meet some Korean dude who tells us through sign language and heavily accented English that “Souff Towahr” is open. It’s a brand new graduate student complex on the far side of campus, so we go trudgin’ across the tundra, mile after mile, and sure enough, it’s not only open, it’s totally empty and smells like a new car. Plugged into the granite security console is a fat ring full of shiny keys with a yellow tag: MASTER SET - DO NOT REMOVE.

Tom and I lock the front doors, spend a little time playing with the security cameras and all the buttons, then ride the elevator up to the eighth floor, lock that off, and each take a corner room with a stunning panoramic view of the campus. We have brand new furniture and complimentary towels. We have closets with hangers. There’s a billiard table in the living room still in its shrink-wrap, right next to the kitchen and lounge. We even have our own blender and micro-wave. In the lounge there are big, comfortable sofas and foot stools, a color TV and a stereo with tower speakers. I’m thinking discrimination ain’t so bad, but then Tom makes a comment how only privileged, middle-class white kids would ever luck out like this. I don’t really want to discuss the matter.

The next morning we go down to Student Housing like the good boys we are and present the problem. This woman named Yolanda comes out of the back office and squares off at the counter. Yolanda grew up in Newark and doesn’t take any shit. She types a few strokes on a keyboard and waits for something to process.

“This damn thing says we’re outta housing. How fucked up is that?” She smacks the side of the monitor. I'd hate to be one of her kids.

“Whadya mean there’s no more housing?” Tom says, “My dad’s an alumnus. His dad, too.”

Yolanda looks up at the both of us.

“Where’d did you stay last night?”

“South Tower,” I say.

“South Tower? That’s not open till next year.”

“It’s open. We’re there.”

“Are the bathrooms working?”

“Everything’s working,” Tom says

“Then stay there.”

“For how long?”

“Long as you like.”

“You mean it? Till next semester?"
Yolanda gives Tom a dumb white boy look.
"Far out,” Tom says.

“Peace be with you, sweet thing,” Yolanda says and smiles.

“Hey thanks, Yolanda. Peace be with you, too.”

She's already on to the next crisis. Another clerk has handed her a phone and tells her the Gay and Lesbian House has a straight Proctor.

“What the fuck?” we hear Yolanda say as we’re turning to leave. We forget to show her the keys. Tom and I now own the South Tower. We get back after breakfast to find three trucks backed up to our loading dock, waiting for Campus Maintenance.

“That’s right, brother,” Tom says, “See these keys?”

Correction

2009-10-17T13:41:00.001-04:00

We offer sincere apologies for mispelling the author M.J. Nicholls name and upcoming novel "A Postmodern Belch" in the first release of "To Tweet or Not to Tweet".

Respectfully yours:
Copy Room - Gertrudes Flat
A division of Alice Productions
A Big D Joint
A Das Capital Venture

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

2009-10-17T10:30:00.003-04:00

I will tell you I was skeptical, even with all the coverage in Time and my friends suggesting I get on board. At first it wasn’t much more than another teenybopper bugaboo, a clever text app, another toy for Gen ADS, but then something happened, something I’ve learned to heed.

My wife was at a meeting with all her alternative health cronies. She was telling me about it at dinner one night, a rare occurrence these days with both of us off building new careers. One of the attendees was a former Big Pharma CEO, a marketing genius (think physicians talking to old folks on TV about which meds their family doctor should prescribe) a true prince of the evil empire. The guy went on and on about the power of Twitter. Just a few days earlier Mel Bosworth, a good writer and savvy guy when it comes to promotion, sent me an email about “following” and ended the pitch with something like “don’t miss the train.” I’ve heard that phrase once or twice in my life. Then PicFic gets featured on MSNBC. PicFic, that thing Teresa Houle keeps hawking. Its times like these I look up at the sky and say, “OK, I get it.”

The PicFic structure is simple: write eight, 140 character (text length) installments telling a story, each installment standing alone as a story itself, to be posted once a week for an eight week run. Structure/simple; execution/doable: result, dare I say, literature, if done well. Like all simple things the form attracts both good and poor writers—like Flash first did—more people failed than pulled it off, but every so often somebody nailed it. A good Flash piece cannot be anything else. In architecture, form follows function, so now along with the poem and short story, novella, and novel—and Flash—comes the Tweet. Poetry, Haiku and Flash all rolled into one. Yes, yes, M.J. Nicholls will have a fit that I failed to mention seven other obscure forms, but I’m talking pesos here, I’m talking marketing. Bypass the agent and even the publishing house. Lulu your novel and get it out there all by yourself. Start now. Don’t wait for the book to be finished. Get a following (FB, Twitter), create a critical mass. Sprinkle the path with Blog entries and ezine publishing. Build a rep by placing a few good stories with the print folks. It’s really the same old same old with new tools in the box. Sooner or later, a big house will notice.

And don’t forget—write what you know, not what you've lived—no one else has ever seen it that way. Oh yeah, did I mention my series "The Misfit" is starting Dec. 5th and running through January 23rd on the Saturday PicFic? Be there or be square.

Mark of Chagal

2009-10-14T12:11:00.008-04:00

An eight bar Tweet

I had never seen a great painting. There at the top of the museum stair in a clean white space. I purchased a print for my garret wall.

That night, awake, angled light of the moon through a window, revealing the face, the “I” of the village. I’ll tell them about it in class.

I drag the framed print into class but no one can see it. I draw the line. No? We need the moon, I tell them. Some look away and smile.

After class the professor tries again. What matters is you see it, she says. The campus bus. I’m careful to keep the face turned away.

It’s easy to see, the “I” in my room, moon helper, two in the morning. Each month I invite people over. Never enough chairs or clean cups.

I know these days will end soon, nights full of new ideas and discovery. I will become my father, I and this village, light and the moon.

Every year I will call the museum to see if it’s there. I will go and never ask but wait to be asked, loving the stories they tell.

There is no magic, only Gestalt. Brush strokes on canvas, guided hand. Lydia says the moon is a hologram. Perhaps the window? I don’t know.

Holmdel Park

2009-10-13T09:19:00.001-04:00

An eight bar Tweet

It’s Thursday and we should be in school. Sherwin works at the park. He laughs when we bend to look at the ground through a looking glass.

She sits in a tree; grass feels good on my back. So, you gonna make your move? I could do that, I say. We’ve both seen Alice’s Restaurant.

Mike and I are in the pine forest. Holy shit! Is that Mrs Dunn? Hi boys, this is Wolfie. No it’s not; it’s Mr Worth, our chemistry teacher.

Under a low spreading elm I’m fingering Nancy. Pete sits in lotus getting a blowjob. Linda something. We all walk to the car in silence.

October 15^th and its every freak in the county. Cops with black batons want to beat us. Reverend Dean calls for calm. Stoned, not violent.

New kid drops acid, freaks, then cries for God. Years later I’m hitching back from school. He was my nephew, the man says. Long ride home.

They find Mickey’s body, 23 wounds. The cops say a crime of passion. Yellow ribbons tie off the pines. The message finds me in Cape Town.

Visiting grandma, snow falling time, the park like a movie set, the elm is still there. I alone hear their voices. My girls pet the horses. (139)

Sunlight

2009-10-08T09:10:00.016-04:00

My wife is sitting outside

in October morning sunlight

Lucy, our dog, hangs her head

in the dappled shade

Shining angles highlight Maria’s hair

like a halo like a saint

she teaches yoga and meditation

chakra learning, enlightenment

things I already know

that life is hard

and I’m going to die soon

The dreams I had

she hasn’t learned yet

and so she teaches

and hopes the knowing

will set her free

As for me

I have been free

since the day I ran away

and my mother said

What, no kiss goodbye?

I made it as far as the hayfield

and lay with the summer light

all over me

knowing

Girl on the Plane

2009-09-01T11:21:00.000-04:00

I sat on the plane remembering you,
the touch of your hand there at the gate
your eyes still green
once blue jeans and black boots
down dusty barn smells of bridle leather
I remembered your shape in the shaft light
that morning sun shower drenching
our youth those days of desire.

I often replay our chance reunion
moment by moment there in the airport
as forty years flew with your hand
reaching out over time and the table,
all gold and blue running river,
rusting shadow that one day together,
and silence
such silence
surprising us both.

“So here’s to parents not home,” I said,
“to tasting first wine and fire too hot for sweaters.”
“To grand pianos played,” you rejoined,
“Autumn roads and stolen glances.”
“To one single kiss,” I said,
“the words you whispered—
I thought you whispered.”
And there in that airport with time nearly done
you told me, “Yes, I did whisper.”
as years of wondering lifted.

Oh, why did you not say goodbye
that day long ago,
we both might have walked off alone.
I have cheated them all since you,
first love, give it back.
No don’t, not yet,
the girl in seat 7A is still sleeping,
the one who reminded me of you,
almost home.

New Age Man

2009-07-15T11:31:00.000-04:00

“Give me the phone,” Bill said to his wife. He was standing near the window in her office, looking out over the grounds. His wife put her hand over the mouth piece and shook her head.

“Give me the goddamn phone.”

They were in her home office, though her job did not really require a home office. Teaching yoga to a bunch of yentas in their remodeled basement was not a job as far as Bill was concerned. He held out his hand, motioning again for the cell phone.

“Paul…?” his wife said into her Blackberry. She was using her sweet, professional voice, the one she reserved for clients and the cats. “Yes…Yes…I understand all that. My husband wants to say something.”

She handed Bill the phone. He took it and walked to the carved wooden mantle, below it a hard-wood fire crackling over the blustery, autumn afternoon. It was a stupid fireplace, a prefab steel insert surrounded by brick veneer. It looked real enough, but Bill had grown up in an eighteenth century colonial built by slaves. He knew a good fireplace when he saw one. The mahogany woodwork surrounding the puny opening had cost them $3500 at an auction somewhere. They’d paid their cabinet maker, who Bill affectionately nick-named Gipetto, another fifteen hundred to finish it. Bill felt the wall beside the mantle, cold as a witch’s teat. The whole idea was to build a heat sink, warm not only the air but the walls and the ceiling, too. Half-assed really bothered him. He leaned against the mantle now, taking a moment to make the bastard on the other end of line wait a while longer. What was his name? Oh right—Paul, the loan officer. The last time he had called the bank this crud-sucker made him wait five full minutes. But Bill was too impatient to make the banker wait as well.

“Paul, its Bill.”

Now, of course, he had to endure the pleasantries.

“Paul, ever read Tom Wolfe’s Man in Full?” he said, cutting them short.

“Sure,” Paul said. Bill listened while Paul went off on how much he loved the book, but Bill already knew that. It had been the topic of conversation their first meeting, nearly five years before. Bill remembered the meeting in all its tiniest detail. He remembered the paneled walls and the paintings, the gold leaf motto emblazoned over the conference room doors, Think of yourself as a Customer. Bill listened, waiting for just the right moment.

“Remember the term, Shit Head, Paul?”

There was a pause on the other end.

“I’m a Shit Head now, aren’t I, Paul.”

The phone remained silent.

“Three years ago when we landed Goldman you people couldn’t buy me enough blow jobs…”

“William!” his wife said.

He forgot she was still in the room but he wasn’t about to stop now. “You made seven hundred thousand dollars on that deal, am I right?”

Still, the phone stayed silent. It only fueled his anger. Bill envisioned the banker’s training. Paul, at one of their company seminars, Let the customer vent; Paul, because he was a spineless little fart of a man, What do I say to this guy?

“Seven hundred fucking thousand dollars, Paul.”

“You made money too,” came the meek little voice on the other end.

“That’s right!” Bill screamed at the phone, holding it up as if Paul himself was dangling there with the cord wrapped around his neck (Bill assumed that Paul’s phone had a cord). “I’m supposed to make money! I take all the risk! It’s my ass, Paul. My ass, not your’s.”

“Bill,” his wife said.

“Bill,” came the voice at the end of the line, “I can’t go upstairs and ask them to…”

‘I know that, Paul. Your elevator doesn’t even stop on that floor.”

“Bill, I know that it seems unfair…”

“It’s incredibly unfair. But it’s all business, right Paul? Well here’s some more business for you. Just take the house, I’m walking.”

‘Now hold on.”

“No, Paul, it’s yours. Short sell that out your ass.”

Bill clicked the red button on the Blackberry.

“Can’t even slam this piece of shit down,” he said, throwing the phone onto the couch.

He took in the office again, his wife’s home office. On the floor plan of their 6000 square foot McMansion it had been labeled Sitting Room / Library. Bill had envisioned a comfortable leather couch where he could take naps on sunny afternoons surrounded by books, books with hard covers, books that stood up by themselves, but away on a two week trip his wife and their interior designer had changed the room to a home office, his wife’s home office—there wasn’t the hint of an afternoon nap to found. At the end of the floral print couch there was—surprise, surprise—a wrought iron table with a vase full of—it just killed him sometimes—flowers.

“It’s too far from the kitchen,” his wife had said when Bill pointed to another room on the blue-print that already said Home Office. “I’m turning that into your meditation room.”

Bill had not sat on the floor in nearly a decade.

No, he was not thrilled, but they had agreed he could buy his boat just before the trip so he let it go. That had been nearly four years earlier. Beginning in March and ending October every year after, Bill never thought about his wife’s home office or even the house. The water was all that mattered; the water and his boat. It had been his life’s dream to own a big sailboat. It had been his wife’s dream to own a big home. Their dreams had come true and both were content to mind their own illusions. Now the boat sat on the hard in a cradle up in Newport and the house sat on a hill in similar shape, its own “offering” hanging from a lovely cedar post, the realtor’s logo, a horse and rider off to hounds, signaling wealth and privilege to all who came calling. All boat owners know the happiest day of their lives is the day they buy their boat and the second happiest is the day they sell it. Bill was wrestling with that sentiment. He didn’t need this house. He could live on the boat just fine.

He tried to calm down. He had to admit he wife had done a nice job with the room. It stood in the southeast corner, optimal Feng Shui. Her classic mahogany desk, the one they had paid Gepetto almost six grand to build, sat before the sun drenched corner windows, the ones with the automatic blinds. The pool and the stone terrace and the valley with all its tax-sheltered pastures and wooded hills stretched out beyond. His wife often mentioned the view over dinner, how she had seen the deer or the fox or Simpson’s matched quartet of Hanoverians pulling their burgundy carriage down Tindall Lane.

“The balloons were all out this morning,” his wife said now, “Lucy went crazy.”

Lucy, their dog, lay on the Oriental rug in the last patch of afternoon sun—Lucy, the only unplanned thing in the room. Her mix was so thorough not even the vet would venture a guess. Hearing her name, the dog lifted her head a moment and gave a few lazy wags of the tail, then relaxed with an audible sigh. Bill had brought her home the day he had taken their Golden to be put down. Poor Baxter, their Golden, had lasted five years. They had bought the dog for their daughter but Baxter soon learned whom to beg from. As Bill carried the heavy dog through the kennel that day he saw this mutt sitting in the far corner of a dirt floored cage, depressed and alone. Her salted black coat struck out at all angles, perhaps as a puppy she’d licked a wall socket. The clip board said she was up to be euthanized. Bill had hugged Baxter tight to his chest. The big dog sighed, like he always did before falling asleep, and died there in his arms.

Afterward, walking out through the kennel, Lucy was still there and gave him one, hopeless half wag of her tail. Bill brought her home and gave her a bath. It only increased the voltage in her fur. She promptly chewed up half the house, including the leather camel saddle his wife and “Michael” the designer, had purchased to serve as a plant stand under the dining room fern. She did turn out to be an excellent watch dog, her somewhat hysterical bark approaching pure mania when left unchecked, a talent Bill wished he had. He watched the dog sleeping now, both her charges home and in the same room. Any degree of separation pained the dog noticeably. She would stay for a while in one room, then go and check on the other, returning five minutes later, only to make the rounds again. A pat on the head meant all was well. Wet licks and dog breath, Lucy was happy. Lucy didn’t know they were broke.

“Lucky mutt.”

Standing there by the window in the fading light, looking out over their free-form pool with its tight-ribbed, forest green cover, the pool that had cost nearly one hundred twenty five thousand before it was done; the cover, another seven, still not correct after having the contractor back a third time, undulating in the breeze that always blew toward their house on the hill, Bill looked down and shook his head. He had failed to see this coming. He watched the cover roll up and down like the ocean. They had once talked of erecting a wind-turbine. After the tax break it would have only cost them thirty five thousand, a twenty eight year pay out at current rates, and those rates would only go up. Well, Bill thought, they were in no position. In fact, they had been trying for over two years to sell the place.

“So what are they saying?” he finally asked his wife.

The open letter from the bank was on her desk. He had already guessed what it said, and it pissed him off, but he wanted his wife to confirm; he wanted her in on this one hundred percent. His wife, Laura, was still sitting with her lap top open, a pastel colored Mac. She had insisted on Mac because all of her graphic artist friends insisted on Macs. He had three perfectly good used Dells down at the office, a real office with ringing phones and a payroll, but his wife had wanted a Mac. They had purchased it back when things were going well and she could handle all of the house accounting—he was too busy making money to bother. Plopping down two grand for the Mac was no big deal, at least not then. Just that morning he had asked his book keeper if the Dells were still in storage. Bill thought they might sell on Ebay. He had come in the door, wanting to tell his wife all about the lousy morning he’d had, but he found her on the phone with Paul and the letter on her desk. It had not been a good morning.

“No, we donated them to the high school,” his office manager had said when he asked about the Dell’s. He was going to ask her what else they had given the high school when a creditor walked in unannounced.

“Karl,” Bill had said, trying to be friendly, “Let’s go into my office”

“I didn’t come to talk,” the man named Karl answered.

“I can’t write you a check,” Bill told him.

“Well, maybe I’ll just sit here until you change your mind.”

It was all of eleven AM. The guy could have at least waited ‘til after lunch. Bill looked around their open office, the one they had just expanded, with all of its brand new cubicles and dual twenty inch monitors and five-way adjustable chairs. Everyone sat with their eyes glued to their screens. They didn’t dare look up.

“Not ‘til next week, Karl,” Bill had said, putting some authority in it.

“I can’t wait that long.”

“Neither can I.”

Bill had known Karl for years. Bill’s company had been one of Karl’s best accounts. He could see the pain in the man’s eyes. Neither one of them was enjoying this.

“I’ll be back on Friday.”

“You’re at the top of the list.”

“It’s getting serious,” Karl said.

“I know. I’ll do something.”

It was enough for one day, the pressure of losing his business had taken out l the fight he had left, so Bill decided to come home early. He stood there now, staring out of the window, out over the stone terrace and their back field and the line of mature Scotch Pines they had planted to mark the border of their four acre lot.

“Have the Wallings’ had any luck?” he asked his wife.

Their neighbor’s house was for sale as well.

“No.”

Laura was looking down through her six hundred dollar designer bifocals at another letter from their mortgage company. “We’re all in the same boat. Two people willing if they can sell theirs’...aren’t you home a bit early?”

The pool cover waffled, another gust crested the hill. Down in the valley a light came on and one of three garage doors in a somewhat over-scaled Tudor slowly opened. Bill watched for Dave Mitchell’s yellow fog lamps rounding the bend. Dave could open his garage from all the way down Tindall Lane. Dave was a Lockheed engineer. Lights came on in Dave’s perfect Closet King garage and the painted floor sparkled. The stainless steel cabinetry and work bench stood sterile and un-used under the special fluorescent lighting. Bill watched the BMW’s taillights blink and then settle as the faux paneled wood door descended back down. He studied their overdone fountain, its garish light flooding the front walk before twilight, beyond it a gaudy chandelier inside their clear story entrance, also too bright. Dave was on his second wife, a bit overdone herself, with two kids from a previous marriage and now a third on the way. Bridge-babies, Laura called them. Dave’s wife had a home office, too.

“The bank,” he said, coming back to the room.

“We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“We already did one three years ago. We’re not eligible again until next year.”

“Jesus Christ, whose bright idea was that?”

“I told you about it.”

Bill remembered. They had gone to the bank for a three month moratorium on their credit line. The bank was running a Christmas special for all their preferred customers. Cash had been a little tight toward the end of that year and they wanted to finance a week in the islands. It had made perfect sense—back then. Their rate was 4.65%. This was the same bank Bill used for all their business. Paul had been treating them well.

“What’s that saying?” Bill said, sitting down on the couch. “The Bank lends you an umbrella on a sunny day and then takes it back at the first sign of rain?”

Lucy let out another sigh and rolled onto her back, belly exposed and legs akimbo. His wife attempted a smile, but they were both beyond smiling. Between the mortgage and equity loan they were shelling out nine grand a month, not to mention the taxes and interest on another two million they had borrowed for business. All Bill needed was six months or a year to get back on track. He hated like hell to ask his father. He hadn’t paid back the first two loans. Not that his father cared, but his mother would rack up another win. As far as she was concerned what he did for a living was not much better than gambling. Bill heard the little electronic sound of a web page open.

“How is enrollment going?” he asked.

January was time for her yoga students to fork over the next ten week’s tuition. She had started the business the previous summer when Bill announced they might be in trouble. He suggested she might start teaching again and envisioned hundreds of middle aged women breathing and stretching in some rented hall, the money—all cash—pouring in the way it had when they first started out. Those had been good years. Every house-wife in greater Philly who didn’t own a horse or collect bad art was getting into yoga. Fifteen bucks an hour. Between the two of them they were seeing more than two hundred students a week back then.

“Really good,” his wife said, answering his question about enrollment, “I’ve got eighteen students so far. One of them is eighty-four.”

His wife had decided to focus on seniors. No one was working with seniors. Bill did the math: eighteen times fifteen times ten. “Whooped de fuckin’ do, you just filled our oil tank.”

His wife looked up over her glasses.

“I never should have agreed to this,” Bill continued.

“Agreed to what?”

He looked at her, sitting behind the seven thousand dollar desk.

“Half your students will be dead next year.”

“Bill.”

“I should have put my foot down.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

She was going to make it his fault. After thirty-two years he knew all the tricks. She was also wearing his favorite blue top, sleeveless and button down, showing off her well toned skin and firm, full figure. No plastics for Laura. Twenty-five years of yoga really did make a difference. His wife was one of the youngest looking women in their crowd. Even Pete Keller’s new trophy bride did everything Laura suggested. It wasn’t that he thought yoga was useless, it was just a useless way to make money, unless you did it right, unless you did New Age like Bikram or Chopra it wasn’t a way to get rich. Someone with his wife’s education could easily be earning six figures managing an office somewhere, a real office with…….he let it go. The money would certainly come in handy right now. His Land Rover had almost two hundred thousand miles on the clock and Laura’s A6 was acting up. Both vehicles needed tires. He sucked at the hole in his lower right jaw. A filling had popped nearly three months ago. Fortunately, the tooth already had a root canal.

“We’ll be fine,” his wife offered. “You’ll just have to wave your magic wand.”

Bill was about to turn fifty-five. There was a time when he actually could make things change, a time when all it took was attitude and energy and trust in the Universe. Bill looked out of the window again as the sun shot its rays out across their valley. His wand did not feel all that magical.

“We just have to stay open. We just have to visualize the bank working with us.”

“Fuck the bank.”

“Please don’t use that kind of language.”

“Fuck you, too.”

His wife bolted, her mouth wide open, even the dog flipped around and sat up. Bill was surprised as well but there was no turning back. The wind pushed up against the house, pressing the windows. He saw the pool cover lift and then settle.

“I mean it, Laura, I’ve been warning you for over a year and you‘ve done nothing.”

“How can you say that? Look at all the marketing I’ve done. I’ve got five new students…..”

“Another seventy-five bucks a week? You spend more on coffee, for Christ’s sake.”

His voice was beginning to rise.

“I don’t drink….”

“Then tea, alright? Herbal latte mocha ya ya fucking tea.”

His wife stood up; so did the dog.

“You can’t talk to me that way.”

“Yes I can, Laura, I sure as hell can.”

He was screaming.

“No one speaks to me that way,” she cried.

“Yes, they do.” Bill grabbed the letter off the desk. His face was on fire. He crushed the piece of paper in his hand. “What do you think this says? It says, fuck you Laura. You and Bill can pound sand for all we care.”

He saw the tears welling up as she rushed from the room. Lucy gave Bill a look of her own and trotted off to stay at her heels. Bill knew he had crossed the line. The room went suddenly dull and gray. The sun slid down beyond the hills and the lights in the valley began to glow, like stars if they actually could see stars in all the light bleeding off of the city. The cover over the pool was now a dark shadow, beyond the reach of their solar powered patio lighting. He could feel it moving out there in the wind. Bill listened as Laura stomped up the stairs, the jingle of dog tags close behind, the bang of the bedroom door. There was no use trying to apologize. She would be teaching class in an hour and Bill knew she’d go straight to bed after.

He walked out of his wife’s home office, through their vaulted family room and into the great kitchen to have his favorite in-the-doghouse dinner, a bowl full of cornflakes and blueberries. He took down one of the thick, yellow ceramic bowls they had bought last year at a juried craft show. Organic cornflakes, soy milk, organic fruit, things he had championed twenty years ago. Bill heard an upstairs door open and Lucy came flying down the back staircase. Laura used the main stair. She loved the graceful curved banister and cathedral ceilinged entrance to their home, the front sitting room archway and the alcoved doorway down to her studio. Great, he thought, we’re not done, but he didn’t feel much like arguing and was still too pissed to make up. Grabbing a copy of TIME off the island he rushed passed their triple Sub-Zero’s and headed out through the laundry room to one of five bathrooms. The logic went if they had two freezers they could buy organic in bulk and then thaw just in time with the refrigerator, the one with the upper door and two separate drawers below. Of course, they had never bothered to check how much power the little euro-monsters sucked everyday, nor the fact they required actual maintenance. Where was Sears when you needed them.

“Christ, how did I get here?” he said out loud. Another cliché had caught up and swallowed them. Most of their old friends were out there teaching, hooked up with foundations and medical groups or progressive corporations. Things Bill and Laura had a hand in creating back in the ‘70’s were all now main stream, even if main stream was, well, main stream. Whole Foods was a public company. Yoga Journal was there on the table, right next to Cosmo and The Village Voice. He knew the editors, knew most of the people featured each month. Not quite what they had planned—DuPont offered yoga and still made napalm—but progress nonetheless. For the first time in his life the idea of starting a new venture depressed him. Once there really had been a lever long enough. Where had he left that fulcrum? Outside the wind pushed hard against the French doors. Lucy came back in, a flutter of fur and feet. He patted her on the head but she wasn’t buying. She sat there, unmoved. The wind pushed again. Bill took another spoonful of union-picked blueberries and crunched the unsweetened flakes. He wished they had real cow’s milk in the fridge.

* * *

He’d been thinking a lot recently, trying to sort out where he’d gone wrong, trying to get it back up for the next twenty years. With his wife’s class in session and nothing to watch on cable, he stood and went out to the garage, taking down the locked red box from the upper shelf where only he could reach, then got into the car and drove along the dark little road. The range was only ten minutes away.

Walking in through the back door he signed the ledger. He gave the man his driver’s license, opened the red box to show him the weapon, and bought three targets—life size silhouettes of a man’s head—the ring of a bull’s eye just above that space where the bridge of his nose should be. Inside the range, Bill loaded the weapon and set it down on the counter. He did not need safety glasses; he did not use ear plugs. He clipped the target to the track and pushed the button, sending it out to the five meter mark. Bill thought of his wife beginning her class.

“Breathe,” she would be telling the women, all dressed in their sheik new yoga outfits. “Relax and breath. Let go of the day. Let go of all external thought. Breathe and let go….. Breathe and let go.”

Bill sighted down the barrel. The gun ignited. He fired again—two quick shots—followed by a third, all three within half an inch of each other.

“Nice shooting,” the man two lanes down remarked.

Bill put the weapon back down on the counter.

“Thanks.”

“You a cop or something?”

“No, just an old hippie who voted for Bush.”

That always shut them up. Bill smiled, picking the Glock back up off the counter. How bizarre, to come full circle. Not quite what he had planned. All it would take was a phone call.

Neon Fire

2009-07-01T11:32:00.001-04:00

It had been raining all morning. Water ran down the red-brick facades and burst from the tops of clogged copper downspouts. It pooled where masons had misplaced their levels, rushed in paper and soda can rapids toward heavy, cast-iron grates. The street had once been abandoned, a patchwork of gutted buildings and crest-fallen homes—gangs on the corner, burned out cars—but now it was new again, picture perfect, a place for Boston’s gentry to eat and shop. The rain fell hard, washing the city clean of winter, washing away the last of construction dust and broken lives. The young couple walked in the rain. They had come to buy candles.

She had asked him to live there in Boston, move away from his life in LA. He didn’t know anyone in Boston. He didn’t like the city. He didn’t like how people had on their Patagonia rain gear with hoods pulled tight. He didn’t like the big OMP umbrellas, red and blue against the white shop-fronts, their deadly tips bobbing along, pointed ribs rushing past at eye level. Two had already touched his cheek. A third had jabbed him, hard. He’d resorted to beating them down with his forearm. People seemed surprised, others frowned from inside their pinched, Patagonia hoods.

The rain poured down and his girlfriend ran ahead, holding her face to the sky. She’d been trying all morning to get him to run in the rain alongside her. “It’s what lovers do,” she said, skipping and holding her arms out wide, gathering rain in her palms. She was wearing the jacket he’d bought her in Paris. They had gone to Paris one day on a whim—her whim. James had liked Paris.

But now he watched his girlfriend run in the rain—desperately happy—he’d read that somewhere. The rain poured heavy and cold, like rain far out on the ocean, water on water alone and no sight of land. It had already soaked through his jacket. It fell dripping, from his beard. He had not worn a hat. The Starbucks he’d bought had dwindled from hot to warm to same as the rain. Earlier in the day he thought it was cute, his girlfriend acting so happy, dancing and smiling at strangers, seeing their faces light up. They’d passed warm cafés and dry restaurants full of couples holding glasses and tearing at loaves of bread. Sometimes he enjoyed how people watched them. People watched them walk by in the rain. It was spring but he did not feel like spring.

“Someone forgot to cue the heat lamps,” he said.

A game they played—life was a movie; they were the stars—the brand new street a stage. She kissed him when he drew near. She was always affectionate in public. It made him uncomfortable, though sometimes it made him feel special. She hung on the cast-iron street lamp catching her breath, looking up at the soaking gray clouds. Water poured over her eyes. People passed by in their bright colored parkas and looked at the beautiful girl in the rain. He grabbed her arm to keep moving. He was cold now, and hungry. It was fine to run in the rain and be in love but James would have preferred it was June or July.

“I love the rain. Don’t you love the rain?”

“I’d rather watch.”

His girlfriend frowned. Water ran through her dark hair.

“Here it is,” she said, leading him into a shop called ‘Cindy’s’. It looked like all of the other shops along the block, a paneled front with fluted columns, a picture window filled with etched gold lettering. Sleigh-bells jingled as she opened the door. Out of the rain she unzipped her jacket, shaking her head and running her fingers back through her hair. The sopping wet t-shirt stretched tight to her stomach. Beads of water clung to her skin.

“My shoes are squishy,” she said, putting her arms around him. She wanted a hug. Her body felt warm. Her wet clothes felt warm. She rode up onto her tip-toes and placed a hand on his chest, whispering into his shoulder. She stayed there, up on her toes, leaning against him.

“We need lots of candles,” she said. She said it the way another women might say we need condoms.

“And a towel,” James said, hands back down at his side.

“Don’t be a fuddy-duddy, help me pick some.”

The shop was one of those rustic post and beam affairs, loaded with pine wood shelves and scented oil. On an old porcelain table beside an enameled wood stove a video displayed how real candles were made. James watched as kind old women dipped wicks in wax and hung them to dry. Around him were candles made in China, others from India and Mexico, pastel candles of varying size, candles in jars and candles bound in plaid ribbons, colored soaps like Easter eggs piled in baskets, crude wooden toys and hand painted gnomes. One pair of gnomes, designed to hold dinner candles, stood with their hands cupped in front and their heads to one side as if peering around. Tastefully, the candles themselves were missing.

“No comment?” she said, seeing him stare.

“I’m still thinking,” James answered.

She picked up one of the soaps to smell. On the shelf above was a line of tall blue tins holding long wooden matches. Some of the candles nearby were lit. Inside the old blue stove a neon fire burned behind the glass door, flickering yellow and stuttering orange, the pattern repeating. James bent down to touch the glass, letting his fingers linger a moment to see if they might be warmed.

“Smell this one,” his girlfriend said.

He turned up his nose.

“Then this one, softer, vanilla?”

Outside he could hear the rain coming down. It fell over paint-crusted windows, blurred the Patagonians hurrying by with their inconsiderate umbrellas. James studied the technique painters had used to make brand new windows look like they’d seen a century. He studied the gray light outside in the street. A puddle of water had formed where he stood. He stayed by the stove, the shop beginning to warm his sodden coat and clinging jeans. A salesgirl stood at the counter, watching. She watched the way that a man might watch. She smiled, watching, and played with a delicate gold chain at her neck. Her eye color matched her auburn hair. Something about her was dark and smoldering. James knew she’d be wild in bed.

“We should go,” he said.

“Not yet.”

“All right.”

His girlfriend picked up another candle, blue with a purple tip. The salesgirl came out from behind the counter. Her hair was cut short and she had on a pair of low-cut jeans and bright red shoes with flat heels. James could picture her slipping them on when she first got to work. She had what people called an athletic body, erect like a ballerina. Somewhere behind the counter a pair of soggy sneakers slowly dried, stinking and damp, their smell blending in with the perfumed candles and soap.

“Can I help?”

Her voice was soft, though not quite as soft and full of confidence as his girlfriend’s. The salesgirl needed the candles and wood and the neon fire.

“Which is it?” James asked.

“Do you have any peppermint?” his girlfriend said.

“Not right now, only at Christmas,” the salesgirl answered.

“Anything left in back?”

“This is all we have.”

The salesgirl stood by them now, a hand at her side and the other resting upon a shelf full of egg-shaped candles. His girlfriend picked one up, round and yellow, bringing it close to her face, rolling it lightly beside her cheek. Her hair, drying, fell down across her face. She let the bright yellow wax glance her red lips.

“Lemon,” she whispered, looking at James.

The girl stepped back and leaned against the counter, crossing her legs and resting her arms on the glass. James looked down at her shoes.

“We have cinnamon,” she said.

His girlfriend sighed, audibly. He liked how the salesgirl posed nonchalant; liked how his girlfriend feigned indifference. James looked down at the fire in the stove, touching the black metal flue, placing the flat of his hand on the smooth cool surface and letting his fingers wrap all around.

Another couple, standing beside a pyramid of glycerin soaps in plain brown paper beckoned the girl for assistance. James had seen them when he and his girlfriend first entered the store. The man and the woman had on their required parkas, pale blue, the sunlit color of mountain streams bursting through melting snow. The woman was Nordic blonde, the man more sandy brown. James watched as the salesgirl walked down the aisle. His girlfriend picked up another candle, deep burgundy, taller and twisted like taffy.

“What do you think?” he asked, indicating the other couple, “325i or Subaru Outback?”

“Be nice,” she said, smiling now at the other woman, who smiled at both her and James.

“Kids will bring on the Volvo,” James said.

“I like Volvos.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. They’re good cars. That’s what I mean.”

James reached up and took down one of the blue tins full of matches.

“We have cinnamon,” his girlfriend said, mocking the salesgirl’s voice and holding the burgundy candle just as she had the other. The yellow one sat on the shelf.

“Just ‘cause you can doesn’t mean you should,” James said.

“Should what?”

“You know.”

James put the tin back up on the shelf.

“I’m sorry,” she said before he could. “You don’t look happy. I want you to be happy. I want this to be our happiest weekend ever.”

James looked out at the rain.

“I want you to be madly in love with me. I want this to be like Paris.

He glanced at her quickly. “Boston can never be Paris.”

“It can if we want.”

“You can’t change things like that.”

“You can you know, haven’t I changed?”

“I don’t want you to be someone else,” James said.

“But I want to be. Isn’t that enough?”

“You are you and I am me.”

“Is that from a song?”

James looked again out the window. “We should go now,” he said.

“Then we’ll go.”

She leaned in to kiss him. He let his lips brush passed hers, not wanting to look in her eyes. “I’ll take this one,” she said, pulling away, announcing to no one in particular they were ready to leave. James heard the salesgirl excuse herself from the other couple. He looked down the aisle and smiled, apologetically. The couple smiled as well. They understood. He saw how the woman stayed closer now to her husband, touching his arm, leaning in to speak instead of standing apart and wandering the store.

“We’ll need matches,” James said, a bit too loud, grabbing a tin from the shelf. Golden vines wound up the blue sides of the tin, entwining into the word ‘Matches’. He waited to hear a director yell Cut. He wanted to play the game. He wanted to hear the word so he could start breathing again. He wanted to be back outside in the rain, or out in the woods in a hut melting beeswax, an open fire in the hearth, snow falling gently outside on some old, well worn path. He was glad they were going back to the apartment. He looked once more at the flickering wood stove.

”Take two,” she said from up by the register. The salesgirl wrapped the big yellow candle in tissue paper and put it into a square yellow box. She folded the top with red painted nails. James grabbed another tin full of matches. The salesgirl put them into a glossy red paper bag with twine handles, placing the yellow candle box inside as well.

“Lemon,” James said to the girl, watching her hand disappear in the bag. He would never have said such a thing if alone. The salesgirl blushed and could not look up.

“Thank you for shopping with us,” she said, stealing a glance.

“It’s a great little shop,” James’ girlfriend said. “I’ll be sure and tell all my friends.”

“Thanks, I’ll let Cindy know.”

“I love your hair. It really fits your face.”

“Oh, thanks. I love yours too.”

They turned to leave and the salesgirl slumped back to the wall, running a hand through her hair. She took in a deep breath and looked about as if she might have misplaced something. James caught her eye, closing the shop door behind them. In back of the little store the blonde-haired woman was holding up soaps to the light. Her husband was watching the video. The door shut and James heard the small set of sleigh bells jingling inside. The bronze latch clicked in the rain. His girlfriend zipped up her jacket.

Outside in a down pour they hailed a cab. James no longer cared about the rain. Back at the apartment they could make coffee and sit on the couch and look out through the big windows at the harbor. He could look at the boats in the rain. He could use their new matches, build them a real fire. They’d be alone. Perhaps he could try and explain.

They stood in the rain and James felt the cool wet seep toward his shoulders and drip once more down the small of his back. The warmth of the shop faded quickly. He tried to remember the salesgirl walking, tried to remember her smile. A cab pulled up, careful to slow and not splash the deep pools in the brand new cobblestone street. Inside the cab it was damp. There were puddles all over the thick rubber mats.

“Where to?” the man asked. He had one of those south Boston accents and needed a shave. Tobacco stained the corner of his mouth.

“East India Row,” James’ girlfriend said.

Now the man turned full to look.

“Please, just drive.” She leaned back in the seat, snuggling close to James, looking up to be kissed.

“I don’t like when you do that,” James said.

“I don’t feel like being nice.”

“No, I mean back at the shop.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“When did you learn you could?”

“Could what?”

“Own the room, make everyone else feel second rate. Was it a party? Some first day of summer when you opened your shirt and slid down your pants at the beach?”

“Is that how you feel?”

She leaned in closer, using the voice that was sex itself. “Its springtime and we’re in love, remember?”

He knew he should smile.

“Aren’t we in love? Or am I just one of your stories?”

“Probably just a vignette,” James said, not even thinking.

She pushed back and slid to the other side of the car. The rain poured down. The windows rippled and blurred. The water pattered like so many fingers outside on the roof and the big, heavy wipers slapped back and forth. James saw the cabbie glance up at the mirror. “I didn’t mean that,” he said, looking away.

“Oh, but you did.”

James remained silent.

“What day is today?” she asked.

“Thursday,” the cabbie offered.

“What date?”

“May seventh,” the man said, adjusting himself and grabbing the wheel with both of his hands. She continued to look out the window. James watched the umbrellas bob up and down in front of the shops.

“Can you turn up the heat a little?” he asked the cab driver.

The Day Nixon Resigned

2009-06-15T11:36:00.001-04:00

I was at a rock concert in Jersey City. Some promoter got the wonderful idea of staging a mini Woodstock at the old baseball stadium, down where Home Depot is now. Just the ride into that part of town was enough to kill any Love buzz portrayed on the flyers. It was a death trap, with only one gate, and we mooed like cattle entering the tunnel and spreading out over the infield. The whole thing stank of crooked fire marshals and union carpenters.

The stage was above home plate, the requisite wall of Marshall amps forming a menacing, heavy metal backdrop, not what I wanted from the Beach Boys and CSNY. Over by the right-field pole a guy in a lime-green leisure suit was hawking Orange Barrel Sunshine.

“OB, man, OB.”

“How much?”

“Four bucks.”

We bought enough for our group and everyone dropped. Pulling a bag of Qualudes from his pocket he said, “It’s speedy, bro, for later?”

“Now you tell us.”

“A Lincoln for five,” he offered.

“There’s six of us.”

“I can’t break the bag, bro.”

The music was good. Mike Love kept saying if this were LA the girls would all have their tops off. One girl actually did get naked, but six guys had to play guard. It was Jersey City. When “The Boys” finished their set I went to find our iridescent friend to have a little chat but he’d closed up shop. Suddenly, Steve Stills came running out on stage waving his arms.

“Guess what?” he said, grabbing a mic, pausing to get our attention.

Crosby also came out. Steve couldn’t see him, and just when he was about to announce the news, David ran up and ripped the mic from his hand.

“Nixon’s resigned, man!”

Crosby started a chant, No More, No War. Steve just glared at him. I saw his fist get tight. People were going ballistic, hugging and chanting with tears in their eyes. When Steve looked at the crowd his fist began to relax. The others came out and the band launched into “Ohio”. The rest of the show is a bad acid blur.

But later that night, under the harsh glare of the outfield towers, I stood in front of the stage and watched the clean-up crews working. I was strung-out and tired and sad. Under the awful white light the dilapidated stadium showed its age, the pre-packaged litter of love being swept into piles and burned. I had been fighting the war and that man for years; I couldn’t believe it was over.. Up through the haze at the foot of the stage I saw Neil, hands in his jean pockets, surveying the carnage and shaking his head. He saw me, we both smiled, like soldiers after the battle.

“You live around here?”

“’Bout an hour,” I said.

He thought for a moment, looking out again at the fires.

“Drive safe, man.”

Even our heroes had nothing to say.

Angie, I think

2009-06-15T11:33:00.001-04:00

She looked surprisingly healthy, sitting at a table in back, salad and glass of iced tea in front of her. He assumed it was tea. During one of their online chats she said she drank her weight in bourbon each week; that once she had gone a whole month without bathing. She had said all kinds of things, wild things, and he never knew which parts were true, or whether it was only true for that day, or that hour. The one thing he knew for certain was that her poetry was brilliant—rock-star brilliant—and the publishing company he edited for was looking to up their cache in the market, a loss-leader to be sure, but looking nonetheless. No matter which way the industry headed, literature was not dying. Kindle or not, they needed another Pulitzer.

“Kisses in all your filthy places,” was how she had signed the query letter.

Other than the regulars up at the bar she was the only one there. It was one of those neighborhood joints, Italian, with red checkered tables and phony wax candles. She had on a bulky green sweater and faded blue jeans. There was the pale skin, the high cheekbones, her famous dark hair pulled back in a bun. It was famous because she had said it was. Had she washed it? She said that she washed it every so often but rarely bothered combing it out. Once he had asked her why and received the first of many silences, one of those secrets she guarded, some deeply personal fuck-you in her arsenal.

“I have borne three children and mothered none.” As if an entire lifetime had passed and now she was picking up on another conversation altogether.

She did look good, though; the sweater helped set off her eyes, or was that the mania, what schizophrenia did to people? Over the years she’d been diagnosed ASD, then specifically Asberger’s, and now bi-polar.

“Those fuck-wads haven’t got a clue,” she had said and then laughed the laugh that caused him to shiver. Later on she offered some history. She remembered some woman named Mother dropping her off at a shelter. She was seven and strange—a fucking handful—the last words Mother had said. She was also convinced the woman was not her biological mother.

“Maybe a pimp. Who knows? Something you stop thinking about.”

He had asked one time about the clinic where she received her diagnosis but, once again, met up with a road-block.

“It’s not like they give a shit.”

In the back of his mind was a list of things he wanted to do for her. Seeing a genuine psychiatrist was up near the top.

“She has to be able to handle the circuit,” the poetry editor had stressed at their meeting. “We can’t have her flipping out on Oprah.”

He walked past the men at the bar through an archway and into the dining room. He could tell that she’d started applying some makeup but clearly abandoned the idea. One eye was done with green shadow and liner, the other begun, the shadow there, but softer, almost hidden when she smiled. Her teeth looked much too white.

“Hi,” she said, not getting up but extending her hand. The grip was neutral, grew softer, ending with a little squeeze. God only knew what she meant by it. Nothing she did was random—he’d learned that about her—though motives might change depending on which of her personalities dominated, if that was indeed a reality. At times she was so lucid and brilliant he thought she was making it up, trying things on to use at some later time while using him as the guinea pig, but then the breakdown would finally emerge and, as always, fly out of nowhere, sudden, like getting hit by a car that ran a red light, and he’d convince himself she was truly ill.

He looked down at her hand, small and delicate inside of his own lumber-jack grip, each of the nails painted a different color, one of them black, her left pinky. He looked at her other hand, hoping for some kind of pattern but saw none. Patterns, he’d been told, were an entryway into treatment.

“Hi,” he said. “You look nice.”

“Not as nice as I could. I wanted to look nice and then decided I shouldn’t, but now I can’t decide which is best.”

They were picking up from where they’d left off the night before. Fourteen hours earlier she’d been three thousand miles away, madly banging away at her keyboard and telling him not to come. It had been one of their more bizarre exchanges, fits over how she could never live up to her online persona, jabs here and there at things they’d both said, how she was nothing more than a street urchin who’d figured out how to get over, and then she threw that right hook.

“Don’t think I’m in love with you.”

“The thought never crossed my mind,” he had answered.

“Yes it did.”

He had to know, had to see for himself. He wanted this to work for too many wrong reasons. At least the other editors all agreed on her talent. He hadn’t told them how reading her work helped him sleep; that they emailed every night. He’d justified all to himself as part of their professional relationship; he the nurturing editor, she the needy author. Trying to gauge her mood now in the restaurant was useless. Her energy was even more overwhelming in person. It ebbed and flowed, building frenetic highs and then gathering down, all cellos and soft French horns, the way she liked to portray emotion as symphonic movement. Being with her reminded him of how it was walking down a trail in the jungle searching for trip wires, knowing he’d never see half of them. He’d been an ordinance systems engineer during the war, a fancy term for a guy who spent all day digging up land mines. It was really a matter of luck, her smile or that sudden bang—and there he’d be on his back staring up at the sky—surprise, surprise.

“Remember, this isn’t a date,” he said.

“Yes it is.”

“All right, it is a date.”

She had that tone in her voice, the one he knew not to confront.

“Shall we shag now or shall we shag later?” she said.

“I think we’d better start with coffee. I see you’re eating.”

“Been eating all week. I wanted to look healthy. Do I look healthy?”

“You look fine.”

“That won’t get you laid, bucko. You’ll need to compare me to a thousand stars, each one the soul of every girl in every town in every city you’ve ever...”

She stopped.

“I suppose that’s the wrong direction.”

“And what would be the right direction?” he asked.

“Are you flirting or editing?”

The jibes—it was one of their games—how long could they go without hurling an insult. Coming from her meant it was time to stop talking; coming from him actually helped her stay calm, especially if timed well. There were patterns, schedules, down in the basement of her mind a tiny toy world existed, complete with schedules and bridges to cross, towns with stores and traffic lights. He’d noticed patterns in their emails, and then later, even more defined in the hours chatting online and over the phone. They wrote together, she her poems and he his novel, leaving the online chat window open, commenting now and then on what they were feeling. If he sensed the mania coming he’d insult her. Then, like throwing a switch, her runaway train would head off down another track, one more wreck avoided. It was cute how she looked now, trying to be on her best behavior. He hadn’t anticipated that.

“Don’t look at me that way,” she said.

“What way?”

“Like you care.”

Another land mine. One wrong answer and poof, he’d buy the farm.

“So, are you ready to keep your promise?” he asked.

She nodded, like a little girl at her first party waiting to give out her present. He watched her eyes, green like a cat, a cat with nine lives; only here the nine lives were all living at once: one brilliant, complicated existence.

“Angie,” she said. “I think.”

“You think?”

“It’s the oldest one. The one I remember.”

“Doesn’t The State have records?”

“Of course they have records, but you never see them. By the time you’re eighteen you don’t care.”

“What does your license say?”

“I’m not allowed to drive. I told you that.”

“Angie,” he said, trying it on. Up till that moment she’d been shedemon666, or Ruby or Delilah, any number of stripper monikers and admittedly not her real name. It had taken some getting used to in the beginning; she signed her emails however she fancied that moment.

“Angie, he said again. “You’re not saying that because you like the song?”

She stood up, fists suddenly clenched and jaw stretched tight. “I tell you the truth and you mock me?”

“No, I’m not mocking you. You know its okay to ask. Sit down.”

He was doing his best to stay calm, not fan the flames of her wonderful fire. She could turn any moment into a blazing inferno, so violent even three thousand miles and the Net weren’t enough to keep from getting singed.

“It wasn’t okay,” she said, stomping off toward the front of the restaurant.

“Angie.”

“And stop looking at my ass.”

A scene was the last thing he wanted. Up front the guys had the ball game on loud with plenty of barstool coaching. The only waitress, an older woman wearing big, thick-soled shoes, stood in the door, smoking. He scanned the room just in case someone else had come in while they were talking. All the booths were empty, the chairs placed neatly under the tables.

“I wasn’t looking,” he called after.

She stopped, glancing back at him, “You mean you weren’t lookin’?” she said, like some cowgirl at a roadside dive, turning and coming back now, almost skipping down the aisle. “I have to go pee,” she said. On her way past she grabbed her bag.

They’d been chatting for nearly six months, mostly about poetry and literature, safe stuff after those initial conversations, the ones about how she made a living, her childhood out on the streets, her time in Juvie since age eleven. She had submitted three poems to a friend’s online contest, each one exceptional. His reading assistant had phoned him one night at half-past ten.

“Open your email,” she said.

He sent her a note saying all three were accepted, that he wanted to publish one in the fall and the other two in the spring while they looked at putting a collection together. Did she have more, an agent? He got back a five hundred word essay on why all three must be published together or not at all. It was a valid argument, except for one line that intrigued him, something about how one missing word would cause her to vanish, steal her soul. And then it went on how he might change something anyway and accidentally, that “she” was a compilation of five other people and they had agreed to form this sixth persona, an expression of the group, the one they’d expose to outsiders. It went on and became even more convoluted but the fact remained—the work was exquisite—a complete expression of the moment, a direct experience of the self, in word combinations he’d never seen before. So he started working the Partners, gathering more submissions and shielding them from who she was, going only so far as to say she was a bit eccentric.

“That’s good,” they all nodded.

He assumed she’d say no to their meeting or never show up, or worst case, he’d show and she’d be drunk and the whole thing would be written off as an instant disaster, case closed. But it wasn’t what he wanted. Her words had an almost magical effect on his own neurosis, his PTSD. Reading her helped him sleep, her poetry had nothing to do with war and violence and yet she spoke to him when no one else could. And recently she seemed better, more up than down, partly because of him she had said. His nightmares decreased when they emailed on a regular basis. He’d learned her personality shifts, when to press and when to back off. She also agreed their time online provided a kind of anchor, something she couldn’t find in the men she occasionally hoped would be different. He could only imagine the nut jobs and perverts she met at work. Just before bed he would check his mail and there she’d be, again, two in the morning back east, her time, waiting to say hello between sessions.

“You’re falling in love with me,” she’d written that night.

“With your poetry,” he’d answered.

Not what she wanted to hear.

“You’re just another fucked up vet who wants to kill again.”

He had to be careful what he admitted; she could turn any confession into a dagger and thrust it right through his heart. He’d been warned how manipulative bipolar personalities could be. He’d done his homework. Instinct told him never to show how she’d touched him, though sometimes the truth revealed; it had to in order to talk as they did. He did have to laugh at how accurate she was. Could that be a side benefit of living with five other people in your head? Did they all get together each morning and discuss him over coffee? Another one of their games, he and shedemon666—the end game—where either one might disappear without a trace, the memory of someone never really known. The Net was such a strange place to make friends.

So he sat there and waited, trying to evaluate. Pretty much as advertised, early thirties, almost sexy, almost sane, on the surface a lot like any single woman, except that her IQ was off the charts, except for her poetry, that he needed to rescue her. Of that he had to be careful. That she wouldn’t publish only increased his wanting to help. He wanted to get her work read by others, get her out of the sex trade. That was a lie. She was fascinating and dangerous. No, that was also a lie.

“I guess I’m enchanted,” he’d written.

“Then why don’t you ride out here and save me? Is your horse lame or something? Maybe you can just kill me and make us both happy.”

The only time he scolded her. He wasn’t one of her clients and certainly not some guy she’d picked up at a bar. He was probably the only friend she had right then and she’d better value it. But she didn’t respond to his tirade that night; she simply signed off. It was weeks before she wrote again. During that time his nightmares became more frequent. His wife, his third, tried to understand, but she didn’t understand—she couldn’t—but Angie could. Angie knew what it was to sleep with one eye open. Angie knew how to fight for her life.

“I’m only writing back because I know you’re as fucked up as me. I’m sorry you had to kill all those people. You made me cry.”

That was the first night he called on the phone, impulsive, probably regrettable, but he had called nonetheless. Her voice melted the knot in his chest, even though that first conversation focused entirely upon the mating rituals of cockroaches. Now he watched her walking back to the table. Who would she be? How many lives had she lived in the last five minutes?

“I’m back,” she said, plopping down on the chair.

“Angie?”

“Yes, Angie. I’ll have you know I’ve been taking my meds every day since we talked. They kill the personalities but not the moods. Does take the edge off my sessions, though, some of my clients aren’t happy.”

“That’s not an excuse to stop.”

“It doesn’t help the tips. They like the danger, not knowing if Camille might show up and slit their throats.”

He shook his head. He couldn’t imagine that tiny frame all pushed and pinched and gathered up in black leather, the whip and the chains. She’d mentioned one night how she owned eleven wigs, iridescent green to jet black. Her hair, at that moment, was deep, dark auburn. Had he ever mentioned it was his favorite color? Something she might do to gain an advantage. Her face was different. She’d finished the other eye. Some mischief entered her smile.

“So?” she asked.

“So?”

“It’s your turn.”

“How do you mean?”

“Is it really you?”

“Yes, it’s always been me.”

“Come on, then,” she said, reaching out for his hand, “Let’s go upstairs.”

“Upstairs?”

“To my apartment.”

She had said she would choose a neutral place for their meeting, far from where she lived.

“This was far away?”

“Sometimes.”

For a moment it felt like the sun moved behind a cloud. One side of the dining room faced the cross street, old fashioned windows with half curtains. Then he remembered they were in Brooklyn where buildings command the light. The side of the red brick building across the street remained constant. Still, the room grew darker.

“You haven’t touched your salad,” he said.

“That was just for show.”

As they walked past the stools with the men watching their game, the barman nodded her way. “We okay?” he said.

“Yes, we’re fine,” she answered.

“Usual time?”

“No, I’m not working tonight.”

“Does Kevin know?”

“Fuck Kevin.”

The barman shook his head. The waitress looked over, disgusted.

“Can you wrap that for me?” Angie asked, indicating our table, then turning to push the door open with her hips and almost knocking the waitress over.

“I’ll put it with the others,” she said.

“No, Carmen, I mean it. Wrap it up like I’m coming back.”

“Just tell whoever’s on tonight that it’s in the cooler.”

“Thank you, Carmen.”

“And call Kevin,” the barman said.

They left the restaurant. She took his arm, pulling him close to walk slowly. He thought it was best not to ask about Kevin. They walked along the front of the building. It was a decent enough neighborhood, much as he pictured, a mix of five story walk-ups and little shops with a deli on the corner, not exactly dirty, but not exactly clean.

“This feels nice,” she said.

They reached her stoop and went inside. She lived on the third floor, the heavy old banister covered in layers of the landlord’s brown paint, green linoleum on the landings. The halls were well kept, she’d lied about that, and the entrance to her apartment had only three locks, not seven. When they stepped inside she immediately closed the heavy door, placing a black metal bar in a yoke bolted to the jamb, turning all three of the locks.

“I’m not a very good homemaker.”

She had described it once, the tiny kitchen, a living room with two windows facing the street, bedroom on the right, bare mattress in a corner, a simple wooden dresser. There was no mirror. The living room had an old metal desk pulled out from the wall, her laptop open, just an internet line running over the floor and out the window. An old brown sofa stood at the far end, a squared off thing with chrome legs, like you’d find in a dentist’s office. Nothing else. No pictures, no table, no lamps or plants, four white walls and the afternoon sun double rectangles over the floor. There weren’t any curtains or blinds.

“Remember, Angie, we said no sex.”

“I remember,” she said, sitting down on the sofa. “Could we cuddle? Could I fall asleep in your arms?”

He remembered the line from one of her poems, “An Hour’s Layover in Paris”, an uncharacteristic moment in an otherwise abstract portrait of Charles de Gaulle. She was always direct. Things most people would bury shot out of her like a cannon.

“Yes, we can cuddle,” he said, sitting down beside her.

She turned and curled against him, resting her cheek up close to his chest. He settled back and put an arm around her. Now he felt how frail she was, light as a feather beneath the wool and it hit him, the green sweater, the faded blue jeans, dark hair pulled tight in a bun.

“You’re safe now,” he said, a line from one of his own stories, the one about the girl who puts her hair in a bun to look older. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. She snuggled in closer and fell asleep; it must have taken all of five seconds. He listened to her breathing; touched her difficult hair. She had cleaned the apartment, a few telltale streaks showed on the windows. A brand new mop with a yellow handle leaned up by the stove, its barcode sticker still stuck. It felt good to hold her. It felt like it did after digging a hole and crawling inside for the night, earth all around and sandbags soft as pillows.

He’d built his own demons, chosen them carefully, the souls he’d taken—they’d share this life together. Was being there now some kind of fluke, a stupid idea? He was tired of faking the good ones. He might have gone on another twenty years before knowing, finally, there would be no rest.

“You live with it,” his father had said in the hospital.

But Angie had no choice. She’d wake up as someone else, or at least in a very different mood, and probably want to go drinking, something he dared not do. He kissed her again, letting his cheek rest beside her, the scent of cheap shampoo mixed in with the lingering smoke and the booze. She could sleep for now—they both could—and instead of cradling an imaginary weapon, what he did each night when he closed his eyes, he gathered her up in his arms, letting the sounds of battle fold into the sounds of the street, the sound of their breathing, the strength of together destroying the times of alone.

Willy D

2009-05-18T11:35:00.000-04:00

Most guys hid out when they got short. Some did the job the same as the day they landed in country. For a few, the Nam just kept getting better. Immortals, we called them, high on God knows what.

For Willy, it was LSD. He got the “D” tacked on to his name that way. He loved to walk point –loved it- the last duty anyone in their right mind wanted. Willy was a big man and marched through the bush like a Bourbon Street funeral. I think it confused the enemy, they figured he had to be nuts. They’d let him by but he’d be watching, then he’d drop and start throwing grenades. We always gave him two or three extra. He liked the noise they made. He liked to close his eyes and roll up into a ball as the dull whump hit and darkness turned into 4th of July.

Willy said things got cleaner on acid. Shadows of green on green turned to patterns and primary colors. He could hear a mosquito land half a click down. Any movement, any movement at all, caused ripples in the dense, soaking heat like stones thrown into a quiet pool. Instead of dense forest, the D-Man saw lines and blinking red arrows pointing at bunkers, little guys dressed like Cupid and tunnels full of velveteen rabbits. Snakes and centipedes spoke to him in strange tongues. The rains, like Rivendell’s water falls, purified his soul.

On a good day, with Willy in the zone, an ambush was more like Sunday in Greenwich Village. For a moment - a tripped out, Disney staged moment - all the little men sipping tea, discussing Kafka, would smile and wave as he came down the trail. Dick Van Dyke danced among the tables, wearing his white shoes and pink striped jacket. He’d wink and tip his hat, the signal, and Willy would drop and start pitching. He knew the grenades fell short, but the flash and the noise caused the VC to cover, just long enough for the killers in our squad to set up. Most fights lasted seconds. For Willy, seconds flowed into hours, clocks hanging up in the trees melting Dali-like onto the rocks and ferns - Napalm did that - so did the moans of men.

I never believed Willy was tripping whenever he walked point, but for some reason he wanted us to, and since he was liked and pulled his weight we played along. It was unspoken, whatever it took, provided you did the job. Of course, the beauty of it all was Willy never got hit. He left Viet Nam in February, 1973 without so much as a scratch.

I had been home nearly four years when I got the call. Willy was gone, his sister said, did I want to be one of the pole bearers?

The service in Iron Bound Newark was packed. It seemed he had once played high-school ball and due, I imagine, to his gentle ways, had made many friends. The line stretched down the church steps and around the corner. His family spread out across the entire first row. I remembered him telling me he was number seven of nine. His mother, a tiny, dignified woman, sat with hands folded. His father was a wreck.

“You were with him, weren’t you?” he asked, taking my hand, "He spoke of you, the white boy who covered his ass.”

“We were friends,” I said.

“Is it true he never fired his rifle?”

“I think so,” I lied.

He looked over to introduce me, but thought better of it.

“I told him the Lord sees everyone’s heart.”

He looked again at his wife.

“His mother tried so hard.”

He stood, using my arm like a railing, leading me up to the open casket. There was no Honor Guard, no friends to fold the flag. As far as the rest of the world cared, Willy died a junkie.

“I guess he needed to rest,” his father said as we stood there.

I reached inside my coat, placing my Silver Star in Willy’s father’s hands, the white ribbon, the red and blue stripes bright against his skin.

“They never did get this right,” I told him.

Enough

2009-05-15T11:34:00.000-04:00

We ran the boat up onto a shoal and into some reeds for cover. I set up a triage down below in the main cabin. They just kept bringing down wounded and there wasn’t any more room. I tried to tell the lieutenant but he’d already lost it. He laughed and jumped overboard. They shot him when he tried to climb the bank on the other side of the river.

I was used to small-arms fire and toe-poppers but these guys had mortar wounds. They were all blown apart. The floor of the cabin was slick with blood and the pump stopped working. I could no longer see the toe of my boot. The air got so bad I had to get out. Now they were bringing more wounded in from the bush and laying them down along the railing inside of the cockpit. I could hear the fire fight off in the forest. The boat was listing to one side from the weight of all those men.

“I think they nicked it,” the sergeant said. He had propped himself up on a little bulkhead by the wheel. His face was already paper thin and he had that look in his eyes. Blood ran down his right side and onto the deck. “Are the choppers coming?”

I nodded and tried to smile. The thought of it spread a wonderful calm over his face and for one brief moment I felt like I’d done something good. Then the kid at his feet made a choking sound and we both saw the light go out of his eyes.

“Ah shit,” the sergeant whispered. I knelt down and held his hand. The two of us watched as another soul came up from below and headed off down river. The sergeant would bleed out soon. I had no more dressings. I had already used my shirt and the legs of my trousers.

There weren’t any choppers coming.