A SMOKE IS JUST A SMOKE
Smain lights a Barclay even though, and precisely because, he’s on the verge of expelling the meager contents of his ravaged stomach. The first bottomless drag quells his nausea as he sinks into a third-world crouch against the living room wall, his nemesis smoldering seductively between skinned knees. Damn it all to hell, he really thought he’d make it this time! Six days instantly evaporated in the smoke meandering toward his yellowed ceiling. Six edgy days estranged from his tar and nicotine coffin, but at least that lid was still open.
He hits the Barclay again, more toke than puff, and hazily recalls the sweet days of his youth and Camel no-filters in soft cellophaned packs. Now that was a smoke my friend, a real thoroughbred compared to these turds. They socked you like a locomotive at daybreak, a ‘Mickey Mantle’ homer every time. He closes his eyes and smiles his way to happier days for just a bit, and then, with the laid-back air of some 1950’s matinee idol, he taps forgotten ash onto a floor more Petri dish than anything else.
Another deep drag and he starts to analyze the disaster of his small apartment: Skeletal rattan furniture turned drunken nest for his pal Skeeter and his robust snores; a lonely tone-deaf guitar; several shoes, dingy socks and flip flops searching for mates; an unruly stack of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazines threatening collapse. Mostly he sees the bittersweet secrets of reluctant bachelorhood, random fragments of squandered possibility, and life squared.
“Skeeter…Skeeter…SKEETER! Get your ass UP!”
Smain waits for signs of life from his friend, takes another life-sucking breath from his Barclay, then expels a thick, squinty-eyed plume in Skeeter’s general direction.
“WHAAAHOOOOOOO….ack…humpf…ackkkk.”
Smain’s war cry and subsequent hacking smacks against Skeeter’s slumber and rousts him into the slightly altered state of “where-the-hell-am-I???” Smain grins at this small victory and rises unsteadily in search of caffeine.
He staggers into his kitchen, one last suck before stubbing the Barclay into the stagnant pool of his kitchen sink, and finds the jar of instant Maxwell House lurking among junk mail and Taco Bell remnants. He fills his lone sauce pan with tap water and places it on the range top…click, click, click, click, click…Damn thing won’t light! He pulls out his lighter…WHOOSH!
“FUCK!”
The rude perfume of burnt hair greets his nose, and closer inspection of his left hand reveals the absolute of yet another hangover’s hard lesson. Still, he laughs just a bit, and absentmindedly knocks another Barclay from its box. Quickly between his dry lips, hand cupped, flick, flick, effortlessly lit, another engaging first drag. His nostrils flare and shoot dragon trails of compulsion.
“Hey Schmain, bring me a cup-o-joe dude, I’m hurtin’.”
Skeeter always plunged the “ch” into the nickname Smain had self-inflicted as a kid back in the Carolinas. Smain, Schmain, it’s always the same…his well thought out replacement for “Smith,” a little incognito to assist in his escape from the ordinary.
“Hey, chill Skeet! Who’s your bitch last week?”
Smain stares across the void, mild concern spilling across his face as Skeeter withholds his usual sarcastic retort.
“Hey pal, you okay? Whata you say we hit the beach in awhile?”
Skeeter swallows his stomach’s sour objections before rasping his well-worn question;
“We gonna get some brews to take?”
Images of unraveled souls and their threadbare world skip upon the broken record of Smain’s mind, and he mutters his resignation to things in general;
“Same old shit, different day.”
Skeeter’s brow scrunches into a puzzle, not at what he didn’t quite hear, but exactly because of the unspoken ‘something’ now lying there between them like rotting carp on a river’s bank. Smain bakes from scrutiny’s flame just a bit, but quickly recovers his facade of bravado, and kicks the rotting ‘something’ into the surrounding shadows. As his trademark grin fights to the surface and erases whatever simple fears his friend had stumbled upon, he strains to hear reassurance in his words;
“Sure thing Skeet, if we can scrounge up some friggin’ dinero.”
His grin continues to drone sweet requiem for his friend, and now he hears his own voice as if from some distance;
“Water’s ‘bout ready my brother. How thick ya want it?”
Smain recedes back into the sad embrace of clutter and fermentation that is his kitchen. He measures two ripe tablespoons of promise and delivers most of it into decrepit cups, then pours in the boiled water and stirs the tonic to life. He balances the two cups and decaying cigarette against the gouge and hard grain of his life as he makes his way into the living room, smoke and steam intertwining toward some invisible destiny.
He hands Skeeter a cup as hot gray embers timber unnoticed into his own.
“What the hell, Schmain, you doing that shit again?
He waits for Schmain to shoot some ‘fallen angel’ logic his way, but hearing none, proceeds to quietly sip from his own cup of despair. He wonders about them, he and Schmain, the future, the past, how it will finally all fall together or fall apart…
“Just today Skeet, that’s all, I swear just today. Ah...af…after last night I was cravin’...I...I just really need to burn a few.”
Skeeter inspects his friend’s eyes and sees only the stammer of other truths and faded dreams staring back…And Smain, not knowing what else to do, can only look away, maybe to some long ago place before all the stiff ‘what ifs’ and subtle ‘should haves’ appeared. Smain nods in silent agreement with something…then hoists the Barclay and inhales his life.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
GORILLA DREAMS
My first impression of Phillip was that he was blessed with ignorance. Ten months gone had merely produced a stalemate; I did everything for him, and he simply stared into the distance while I toiled at his upkeep. His coal-black eyes would sometimes follow me as I went through the routine of maintaining his immensity, but I was no longer afraid. I had quickly learned that if I turned and met his gaze, he would immediately look away, seemingly embarrassed that his voyeurism had been detected.
Phillip had arrived to great fanfare just over one year ago on a reproductive loan from the Saint Louis Zoo. He was in his prime having just turned twelve, and at nearly seven hundred pounds was quite large for a Western Lowland Gorilla. Silver streaks mapped the contours of his thick back, and I swear that Juanita, his intended mate, had swooned just a little when she saw him exit his travel cage. In a subtle gesture that in hindsight foretold so much about Phillip, he turned his back on Juanita and the rest of the world that first day and sat quietly in the shade.
When I was offered the opportunity to become Phillip’s primary caretaker, I jumped at the chance. A Primatology major in college, I dreamed of someday traveling to faraway, exotic places to conduct field research while living the bohemian lifestyle central to all my fantasies. Instead, I found myself slaving away at the San Diego Zoo, scraping exotic animal dung from my boots each night before falling wearily into bed. Phillip, I thought, would be my salvation from such drudgery.
At first I did all of my business with Phillip from outside his cage, or from behind a safety partition that could be raised to split his habitat in half. As I went about the myriad tasks required to keep Phillip healthy and happy, I’d talk to him about Juanita and how he should proceed with his mission. Due to my own lackluster love life, I would often converse with Phillip like some guttural protagonist:
“Look at her Phil, you should give Juanita some gorilla meat right now big guy! You know she wants it bad! Make her scream, eh?
I’d shoot him knowing looks as I talked, but Phillip would only stare at the ground, unmoved it seemed by any of Cupid’s arrows
Over the next eight months Phillip showed no interest in Juanita in spite of her best efforts to impress him. When he wasn’t slumbering outside under her watch, Phillip would move to the man-made cave at the rear of their enclosure to be alone. Poor Juanita seemed to know better than to follow, and would fret and stew like a spurned teenager until Phillip re-emerged.
When allowed, Juanita groomed his fur and cooed like a baby as she consumed the lice and bugs she found. She brought him bananas and corn husks stuffed with peanut butter as proof of her love, but to no avail. Phillip simply wouldn’t mate. I felt sorry for Juanita when she was eventually moved to another enclosure, the throb of her primal longing echoing deep within my own womb.
From that point on, my conversations with Phillip became quite pedestrian, yet I think we both looked forward to them.
“How’d you sleep Phil?”
“What’s the weather gonna do today big guy? I heard it’s gonna be a real burner!”
Phillip’s answers remained in character as he quietly stared at the ground and kept his own counsel. It was also about this time that I decided to go against Zoo regulations and not use the safety partition when I was in his cage, choosing instead to trust my own instincts which said Phillip trusted me. I was right, and so it went.
---------
Today is Sunday, an early pink-orange sermon of a morning, the perfect time to beat the heat and get a jump on cleaning Phillip’s enclosure. I find him posed like a big stone Buddha just outside his cave, all four fingers of one massive hand curled and clinging to the cliff of his lower lip, completely enraptured with some gorilla daydream known only to him. In my best street-jive lingo I offer up the day’s first platitude,
“Hey Phil, what’s hanging today my man?”
Phillip stares at the ground, and thusly assured that all is right with his world, I began my chores. The first item of business is to get a ladder and clear those eucalyptus branches from the top of the cave. I get the ladder and return to find that Phillip has retreated into his cave, so I whisper in tempo to the morning’s rhythm;
“See ya later Phil.”
I set the ladder in place and ascend to the second highest rung. Hmmm, higher than I thought. I ease myself onto the top of the ladder and press my body tight against the rock, my plan to stretch on tippy-toes still seemingly coherent. As I strain for the end of a medium sized limb I feel the first wobble...Abruptly, the ladder slips away, and for the briefest of eternities, I’m floating free, temporarily absolved of all past and future worries.
The first thing I notice is that my head feels like a broken melon looks, all sticky pain and jumbled contents.
The second thing I notice is shattered bone jutting through my left shirt sleeve, so white it looks like fresh snow. I can’t get up, I think I’m going to be sick...
The third thing I notice are coal-black eyes floating above me as strong arms lift me effortlessly from the dirt. Warmth spills from his body to mine, and I let myself collapse into pungent pain. He carries me into his cave and sits placidly with my broken body securely on his lap as I manage to weakly mouth “Hi Phil.” And now I understand as I see my reflection in those eyes. It’s me he sees, it has always been me.
My first impression of Phillip was that he was blessed with ignorance. Ten months gone had merely produced a stalemate; I did everything for him, and he simply stared into the distance while I toiled at his upkeep. His coal-black eyes would sometimes follow me as I went through the routine of maintaining his immensity, but I was no longer afraid. I had quickly learned that if I turned and met his gaze, he would immediately look away, seemingly embarrassed that his voyeurism had been detected.
Phillip had arrived to great fanfare just over one year ago on a reproductive loan from the Saint Louis Zoo. He was in his prime having just turned twelve, and at nearly seven hundred pounds was quite large for a Western Lowland Gorilla. Silver streaks mapped the contours of his thick back, and I swear that Juanita, his intended mate, had swooned just a little when she saw him exit his travel cage. In a subtle gesture that in hindsight foretold so much about Phillip, he turned his back on Juanita and the rest of the world that first day and sat quietly in the shade.
When I was offered the opportunity to become Phillip’s primary caretaker, I jumped at the chance. A Primatology major in college, I dreamed of someday traveling to faraway, exotic places to conduct field research while living the bohemian lifestyle central to all my fantasies. Instead, I found myself slaving away at the San Diego Zoo, scraping exotic animal dung from my boots each night before falling wearily into bed. Phillip, I thought, would be my salvation from such drudgery.
At first I did all of my business with Phillip from outside his cage, or from behind a safety partition that could be raised to split his habitat in half. As I went about the myriad tasks required to keep Phillip healthy and happy, I’d talk to him about Juanita and how he should proceed with his mission. Due to my own lackluster love life, I would often converse with Phillip like some guttural protagonist:
“Look at her Phil, you should give Juanita some gorilla meat right now big guy! You know she wants it bad! Make her scream, eh?
I’d shoot him knowing looks as I talked, but Phillip would only stare at the ground, unmoved it seemed by any of Cupid’s arrows
Over the next eight months Phillip showed no interest in Juanita in spite of her best efforts to impress him. When he wasn’t slumbering outside under her watch, Phillip would move to the man-made cave at the rear of their enclosure to be alone. Poor Juanita seemed to know better than to follow, and would fret and stew like a spurned teenager until Phillip re-emerged.
When allowed, Juanita groomed his fur and cooed like a baby as she consumed the lice and bugs she found. She brought him bananas and corn husks stuffed with peanut butter as proof of her love, but to no avail. Phillip simply wouldn’t mate. I felt sorry for Juanita when she was eventually moved to another enclosure, the throb of her primal longing echoing deep within my own womb.
From that point on, my conversations with Phillip became quite pedestrian, yet I think we both looked forward to them.
“How’d you sleep Phil?”
“What’s the weather gonna do today big guy? I heard it’s gonna be a real burner!”
Phillip’s answers remained in character as he quietly stared at the ground and kept his own counsel. It was also about this time that I decided to go against Zoo regulations and not use the safety partition when I was in his cage, choosing instead to trust my own instincts which said Phillip trusted me. I was right, and so it went.
---------
Today is Sunday, an early pink-orange sermon of a morning, the perfect time to beat the heat and get a jump on cleaning Phillip’s enclosure. I find him posed like a big stone Buddha just outside his cave, all four fingers of one massive hand curled and clinging to the cliff of his lower lip, completely enraptured with some gorilla daydream known only to him. In my best street-jive lingo I offer up the day’s first platitude,
“Hey Phil, what’s hanging today my man?”
Phillip stares at the ground, and thusly assured that all is right with his world, I began my chores. The first item of business is to get a ladder and clear those eucalyptus branches from the top of the cave. I get the ladder and return to find that Phillip has retreated into his cave, so I whisper in tempo to the morning’s rhythm;
“See ya later Phil.”
I set the ladder in place and ascend to the second highest rung. Hmmm, higher than I thought. I ease myself onto the top of the ladder and press my body tight against the rock, my plan to stretch on tippy-toes still seemingly coherent. As I strain for the end of a medium sized limb I feel the first wobble...Abruptly, the ladder slips away, and for the briefest of eternities, I’m floating free, temporarily absolved of all past and future worries.
The first thing I notice is that my head feels like a broken melon looks, all sticky pain and jumbled contents.
The second thing I notice is shattered bone jutting through my left shirt sleeve, so white it looks like fresh snow. I can’t get up, I think I’m going to be sick...
The third thing I notice are coal-black eyes floating above me as strong arms lift me effortlessly from the dirt. Warmth spills from his body to mine, and I let myself collapse into pungent pain. He carries me into his cave and sits placidly with my broken body securely on his lap as I manage to weakly mouth “Hi Phil.” And now I understand as I see my reflection in those eyes. It’s me he sees, it has always been me.
THE VIRGIN DAWN
From just one eye
still crusty with night’s fog,
I watch you breathe, all
smooth crescendo, balanced pause.
Burnt-orange slivers flash
corn silk-yellow,
and Tinkerbelle upon a dingy wall,
while that unruly ficus rakes
semaphore against window’s pane.
This half-world nest--
cotton plate tectonics,
warm vanilla skin--
imbued with the scent of
our nineteen years.
I linger, calloused hand
cupping soft breast,
as day’s new light
joins me to you,
and the virgin dawn.
From just one eye
still crusty with night’s fog,
I watch you breathe, all
smooth crescendo, balanced pause.
Burnt-orange slivers flash
corn silk-yellow,
and Tinkerbelle upon a dingy wall,
while that unruly ficus rakes
semaphore against window’s pane.
This half-world nest--
cotton plate tectonics,
warm vanilla skin--
imbued with the scent of
our nineteen years.
I linger, calloused hand
cupping soft breast,
as day’s new light
joins me to you,
and the virgin dawn.
A BULLET'S TALE
Destiny has entrusted me to the will and whim of Lt. Reginald Holcomb, a seven year veteran of the LAPD Drug Interdiction Unit. Randomly plucked from a box of one-hundred 9mm bullets, my nine brethren and I breathe as Reginald does, from the edgy air of mean streets and smoggy clandestine meetings, from the man-made world of hope, despair and altercation.
We began as legions born where form meets function, our uniformity a thing of beauty and purpose, each one of us a classic killing implement when coupled with the proper blend of skill and intent. Hollow points that flatten on impact to bore through flesh and shatter bone, smooth brass shafts filled with gunpowder ejaculate to ensure a smooth trajectory. Our every atom begs for empowerment to simply do what we do. In our realm there is no ‘good’, there is no ‘evil’, there is only cause and effect.
On this day, perhaps my day of awakening, Reginald pilots his black and supposedly “unmarked” car toward an abandoned warehouse near the wharf, my own vessel tucked away by his left beast, out of sight, always at the ready. I can feel his excitement mount, the rhythmic cadence of his heart quickening against my chamber. There’s a certain promise in today’s air, as if for me it will end somewhere other than tucked away in the drawer by Reginald’s bed, always within instinct’s reach.
A voice barely one octave below frantic breaks from the police radio, and suddenly Reginald is throwing the car around corners, speeding haphazardly down streets choked with traffic. Laconic urgency ripples across his surface, I feel it also, and I tense against the near-future seemingly pregnant with the very thing I seek. It’s as if some divine alchemist has taken over our ‘present’, melding Reginald’s flesh and bone with the power and resolution of my solitary purpose. We are truly alive, he and I, here together on Life’s canvas of the absurd.
Of course time doesn’t really exist you know, and now I see it all unfolding at once, simultaneous and pristine, like a beautiful three-hundred and sixty degree view of the infinite provided just for my pleasure…Reginald slides the car to a sideways-stop, flings open the door and spills his person into a crouch behind it while slipping his gun from worn black-leather in one practiced motion. He guards his profile as best he can and aims my host toward someone still invisible. I quiver upon the precipice of my future.
Twenty-five or thirty feet ahead and to the left lays a man, perhaps one of Reginald’s comrades, unmoving and awash in a dark-burgundy pool of sultry consequence. Pandora’s Box ripped open it seems, and Reginald’s demeanor absorbs the pallor of his surroundings as his resolve hardens.
Some small movement tugs his attention to a point near the rear of the building, just behind a stack of rusty barrels needing only one or two stout gusts to send them tumbling. Reggie takes a deep breath, exhales nearly half, and refocuses his aim and perceptions. He freezes, posed like some statue of the already-dead.
I see the future of the supposed perpetrator, still young, his time expired before wisdom comes his way. He looks for escape, over the sagging fence and into the decadent bowels of some Bukowski-like salvation. He quickly gauges his odds, and breaks for the fence some ten feet away… he never sees me.
Reginald pulls the trigger, which causes the hammer to almost instantly impact my firing pin, and I’m free, flying across the thirty-odd yards ahead of sound and fury, ahead of any dreams left unfulfilled. Unrealized possibility becomes certain destiny as I enter balmy flesh still lusting for better days. My soft-copper head flattens as I tear through his left kidney, continuing on to shatter his spine before ricocheting through his stomach and into his bladder. Almost immediately I’m still, alarmed by the enormity of my disfigurement, yet awed by the intoxicating flush of such battle.
My new host finds himself thusly shattered, crushed into the fence that now marks his passage from this life. I’m too deeply ensconced in the soft tissue and ebbing warmth surrounding his bowels to see his difficult death-slide mimicked as his belt’s buckle snags on the decrepit fence, suspending his body like some sad caricature of agony as he sucks one last gasp of despair.
I hear footsteps now, strangely muffled, not like the crisp sounds that reverberated through the gun’s metallic womb. The footsteps come close, then cease, and I think they must have been Reginald’s. And I wonder what he sees in this aftermath, do things seem as surreal to him as they do to me? This hoped for resolution no longer shines as it did from the ‘before’ side of things, and I wonder what now? Once more I hear footsteps, except this time they seem to be fading away, leaving me all alone among the silence and chill of death.
Destiny has entrusted me to the will and whim of Lt. Reginald Holcomb, a seven year veteran of the LAPD Drug Interdiction Unit. Randomly plucked from a box of one-hundred 9mm bullets, my nine brethren and I breathe as Reginald does, from the edgy air of mean streets and smoggy clandestine meetings, from the man-made world of hope, despair and altercation.
We began as legions born where form meets function, our uniformity a thing of beauty and purpose, each one of us a classic killing implement when coupled with the proper blend of skill and intent. Hollow points that flatten on impact to bore through flesh and shatter bone, smooth brass shafts filled with gunpowder ejaculate to ensure a smooth trajectory. Our every atom begs for empowerment to simply do what we do. In our realm there is no ‘good’, there is no ‘evil’, there is only cause and effect.
On this day, perhaps my day of awakening, Reginald pilots his black and supposedly “unmarked” car toward an abandoned warehouse near the wharf, my own vessel tucked away by his left beast, out of sight, always at the ready. I can feel his excitement mount, the rhythmic cadence of his heart quickening against my chamber. There’s a certain promise in today’s air, as if for me it will end somewhere other than tucked away in the drawer by Reginald’s bed, always within instinct’s reach.
A voice barely one octave below frantic breaks from the police radio, and suddenly Reginald is throwing the car around corners, speeding haphazardly down streets choked with traffic. Laconic urgency ripples across his surface, I feel it also, and I tense against the near-future seemingly pregnant with the very thing I seek. It’s as if some divine alchemist has taken over our ‘present’, melding Reginald’s flesh and bone with the power and resolution of my solitary purpose. We are truly alive, he and I, here together on Life’s canvas of the absurd.
Of course time doesn’t really exist you know, and now I see it all unfolding at once, simultaneous and pristine, like a beautiful three-hundred and sixty degree view of the infinite provided just for my pleasure…Reginald slides the car to a sideways-stop, flings open the door and spills his person into a crouch behind it while slipping his gun from worn black-leather in one practiced motion. He guards his profile as best he can and aims my host toward someone still invisible. I quiver upon the precipice of my future.
Twenty-five or thirty feet ahead and to the left lays a man, perhaps one of Reginald’s comrades, unmoving and awash in a dark-burgundy pool of sultry consequence. Pandora’s Box ripped open it seems, and Reginald’s demeanor absorbs the pallor of his surroundings as his resolve hardens.
Some small movement tugs his attention to a point near the rear of the building, just behind a stack of rusty barrels needing only one or two stout gusts to send them tumbling. Reggie takes a deep breath, exhales nearly half, and refocuses his aim and perceptions. He freezes, posed like some statue of the already-dead.
I see the future of the supposed perpetrator, still young, his time expired before wisdom comes his way. He looks for escape, over the sagging fence and into the decadent bowels of some Bukowski-like salvation. He quickly gauges his odds, and breaks for the fence some ten feet away… he never sees me.
Reginald pulls the trigger, which causes the hammer to almost instantly impact my firing pin, and I’m free, flying across the thirty-odd yards ahead of sound and fury, ahead of any dreams left unfulfilled. Unrealized possibility becomes certain destiny as I enter balmy flesh still lusting for better days. My soft-copper head flattens as I tear through his left kidney, continuing on to shatter his spine before ricocheting through his stomach and into his bladder. Almost immediately I’m still, alarmed by the enormity of my disfigurement, yet awed by the intoxicating flush of such battle.
My new host finds himself thusly shattered, crushed into the fence that now marks his passage from this life. I’m too deeply ensconced in the soft tissue and ebbing warmth surrounding his bowels to see his difficult death-slide mimicked as his belt’s buckle snags on the decrepit fence, suspending his body like some sad caricature of agony as he sucks one last gasp of despair.
I hear footsteps now, strangely muffled, not like the crisp sounds that reverberated through the gun’s metallic womb. The footsteps come close, then cease, and I think they must have been Reginald’s. And I wonder what he sees in this aftermath, do things seem as surreal to him as they do to me? This hoped for resolution no longer shines as it did from the ‘before’ side of things, and I wonder what now? Once more I hear footsteps, except this time they seem to be fading away, leaving me all alone among the silence and chill of death.
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