Automation

One million asses, repeatedly sitting and standing, lying and rising, squishing foam of the train seats until a tattered thin, velvet crunched square of blue and orange plaid fabric is all that remains, serving no more of a purpose than to decorate the 1970's schoolroom beige plastic bucket seats.  And it smells like some combination of sweat, piss, and perfume mixed with remnants of vomit and grease from sticky weekend nights where the drunks and the kids rode up and down till dawn.
The train is a vessel.  Chicago trains are relics.  They have too much traffic to shut down for renovation and the city's too poor (and/or cheap) to afford it anyway.  Sloshing around in a sea of reverberations, head phone speakers, highly dramatic telephone conversations, pip-pop-popping Spanish postulations, and sometimes heated Polska mother-daughter confrontations, till the rails screech and rattle to a stop and voice recorded directions tell us passengers what to do and where we're going, interrupted by a disgruntled conductor who reaffirms the automation and also reaffirms everyone's desire to just get off and go... anywhere.
The political environment is hot and the economical environment has chilled down a bit, for me, at least.  Rush Limbaugh preaches and fills the minds of young successful professionals with minutia of irrelevant falsities, when a kid driving a Maserati's main concern should be little Andy Drummer.
He's an eighteen-year-old kid moving out of his parents' house for the first time, unassisted, rebelliously even, and as he drives that U-Haul truck, he realizes within the first mile on I-90 that he's not comfortable behind the thick rubber Mayflower styled captain's wheel.  In a desperate attempt to exit, cutting over two lanes of traffic like the blade of a knife sliding off a potato and into an oppressive index finger, little Andy Drummer drives the nose of a black Maserati into a divider off of the California exit.
Pulverized glass, twisted steel and a thin trail of engine smoke rest on the divider from the shattered Italian sports car.  The U-Haul went skidding on its side down the exit, screeching like the rails beneath my feet, a violent war between metal and concrete and neither side was backing down when finally a firm street light forced a treaty and stopped the machine.
I watched the scene unfold from my moving picture window, looking back until it disappeared and then forgot about it.  See, in a city this big there's too much tragedy and death to pay attention to.  So, you keep your eyes forward and worry about the people and space immediately affecting you. Like Jimmy Carlisle who walked down Ashland Avenue for ten blocks, heard two gun shots, one thudded, screaming death and still managed to buy flowers for his newly pregnant girlfriend.
The story came on the news, he didn't recall a thing.  It's why cell phones and iPods and portable privacy devices are so popular and viral.  They provide enough stimulation and distraction to remove one from an unfavorable situation, say the commute on the train and then you start checking it at home and after you get out of the shower and before you go to bed and before you know it you're waking up in the middle of the goddamned night , waiting for a response from some fleeting, nebulous relationship (do we have those anymore?) wondering why they haven't responded.  
Meanwhile, the clock in the living room ticks steady, on and on and on.

#firstclassproblems

A cartoon yellow sun hung over a frothy pool of splashing kids and she wriggled in the AC, biting her lip a little harder each time the diving board sprang like a doorstop.  See, there was a community pool in her backyard.  And that was fine when she built her house in the development ten years prior.  The community then was seventy.  The community now is seven hundred: thirty three percent little boys and thirty two percent little girls who all love swimming and are forced to do it competitively by nostalgic parents.  

            The real issue isn't the playful little kiddies and their squirmy little bodies.  Rather, it's the fact that she works at home and types medical transcription, i.e. transposing voice recorded southern speaking physician's notes into readable text. The kiddies scream and yell and it infiltrates her every thought, breaking her concentration and stressing the skin below her bottom lip.  She turns the volume up and keeps plucking away at the keys. This is summer.

            Winter's no better.  Apparently, sometime in the last couple years the community decided it would be a good idea to train their elementary swimmers year round.  Thus, they began hoisting large skeletal ribs around the pool with cranes and spreading a large white tarp over to create a dome in the fall.  The structure works as an acoustic amplifier, turning shrieks into ambient howling, again infiltrating the poor woman's brain and stressing her bottom lip. 

            One time, it was so upsetting that she walked over to the pool in her slippers, bundled with a fleece coat.  The stocky coach pumped up his chest as she explained the predicament.  He told her that he was sorry, but there was no possible way to keep the kids down.  She bit her lip and walked back to the house.  Upon phoning the then community board president, Jerry Graft, who softly told her that he completely sympathized, the noise slowly subsided.  After a few months, the team started hosting swim meets every week, which bellowed cacophonous renditions of pop songs and distorted screaming.  The woman phoned Jerry again, who shakily informed her that there was nothing he could do about it. 

            See, Jerry's wife had recently cheated on him three week's prior with the swim coach.  He left work early to surprise his wife with flowers and upon creeping up the stairs to muffled vibrations, he caught her spread eagle on his satin sheets moaning like a dog.  One thing Jerry has never been very good at is confrontation.  So, after his extended peek, he merely turned around and went back to work never saying one word to his wife.  He threw the flowers away in a dumpster two houses down.  He imagined those sweating calves of the swim coach, at least eight inches wide, and those full-veined arms and hands, clinched like a baboon.  He feared for his life should he make a scene or even mention the event to Sally, which happens to be his wife's name.  Surely, things would work out if he let the isolated event slide, he thought.  And things did, he thought. 

            So when the woman phoned him and said that the swim meets were entirely too loud and obtrusive to her household, Jerry decided that no action could be taken.  The woman, obviously unnerved, marched over the frosty grass to the swim meet in her slippers and pulled the swim coach aside.  "Have you the nerve" and "how disrespectful can you be" were a couple things she said.  The coach turned the stereo down a notch and told the kids mockingly that they should keep it down.  And, naturally, they got louder.  Steam poured from the poor woman's ears and she almost bit right through her lip as she ascended her carpeted steps.  Ted, her husband, told her that it wasn't that bad and that she should stop focusing on it.  She told Ted that he needed to grow a pair of balls.  And Ted didn't.

            The weeks passed and winter lifted a little. With it lifted the canvas of the "white albatross," which the woman had cleverly described it once in an email to a girlfriend.  As summer approached, a few things were changing.  One was that Jerry discovered that the banging of his wife by the swim coach was, in fact, not an isolated event.  In fact, it was happening every Tuesday and Thursday after the coach finished taking his morning shit, which he did religiously at 9:30 a.m.  It lasted until 9:48 a.m. where he would then shower and head over to Sally's.  Jerry figured this out when he questioned Sally about a dozen tiny splotches of the swim coach's semen on his maroon satin sheets.  Almost dripping with saliva at the question, Sally exploded on Jerry in a tirade of unabashed confession, describing the positions she had screwed the swim coach in and how much more satisfying in bed he was than Jerry.  As a finale to the rant, she held up a bottle of KY Jelly which she kept next to the bed and tossed it out the window, claiming that if she added that to the moisture she produced for the coach, he may slip all the way through her.

            Jerry calmly phoned his lawyer and requested a divorce explaining to Sally during the telephone conversation that he didn't want any trouble and that he would take his things and leave.  And he did, thereby resigning as community board president, the most prestigious title he would ever have in his entire life. 

            News of Jerry's resignation flowed throughout the community, but no one cared that Jerry was leaving. Everyone was simply mentally picturing and gossiping about the amazingly hot sex that Sally had had with the swim coach.  Even some of the kiddies' mother's began looking at the coach out of the corner of their eyes on the pool deck.  The coach wore a smug grin and stood tall, like a prized stud horse in Kentucky.  Because he was. 

            With the flimsy political environment in the community, middle school kids stayed at the park past dark.  And parents stayed at the pool past closing time.  It was obvious that the reigns of power needed to be handed over.  They needed to be handed over to a "real leader" the woman said to Ted. And Ted said, "I liked Jerry." 

Fallen Winter... Illustrations

Below are the illustrations that I've completed for my upcoming zine, Fallen Winter.  The illustrations will coincide with the works, all of which can be found on this blog.  So, I guess, in theory you could print out the entire zine from this blog and construct your own, but that wouldn't be fun.  And, in actuality, my close friend/editor/colleague, Chaz Oreshkov will be formatting the zine, and I'm sure he'll be doing it in a way that you will never be able to achieve on your own.  I'll keep you updated on a release date.

Also note that I kind of fucked around with the photos on Picasa to hide the highlights from my flash Kodak camera and sharpen the lines.  On one of the ducks, I obviously started playing with the different edit options.  Who knows how it will be finalized as...

ONE MORE NOTE: Back2Print is releasing a travel piece collection on June 16th (currently unnamed) and my "Blood in the Heart" Part I has been chosen for publication in it.  I will be working with Elizabeth S. Tieri on the editing and tightening of it.  **Exciting shit for Huron the next couple weeks with this and FW**  Stay tuned for more updates as we near the release date.  Alright, here goes:

Blood in the Heart pt. II of III (I didn't map this out well)

***LOOKING FOR A NEW TITLE***  I love "Blood in the Heart," but it doesn't really capture the message that I intended.  Maybe I'll use it for something else.  Suggestions being taken...

Hoyne and I rented a car at an Enterprise and he fronted the money.  We set out on that bright morning, giddy with excitement and a little fear because we hadn't mapped out our route or planned places to sleep or really prepared at all other than Hoyne bringing his tent from Chicago with a couple marijuana nugs tucked deep in its compact fabric.

            After a while, snaking through the greater Los Angeles concrete network, we finally hit the coast and saw that beautiful street sign, which read: "Pacific Coast Highway."  Pepperdine sat at the top of the overlook and I wondered how wonderful it would have been to be rich enough to go there.

            Hoyne wore shades and a cut off t-shirt, which showed his tattoos and the sharp angle of the Pacific sun reddened our arms.  We stared over the immense ocean and let our minds wander, sometimes not uttering a word for an hour.

            The 1 intertwined with the 101 at times, pulling the car off of the coast and through valleys of vineyards, which stretched for miles over rolling hills and Mexican workers with straw hats dotted in between the rows and they tossed grapes into the backs of pickup trucks.

            When we reached San Obispo, the 101 continued to stay straight and the 1 broke off northwest and trickled to a two-way road tucked and hidden in the enormous cliffs lining the ocean.  I remember thinking that I was in another world; a celestial world, when I saw those brilliant, intricate color schemes painted down the sides of those bluffs and how their ancient crags stuck out as the first defense against the pummeling ocean, protecting, yet coexisting in a beautiful symbiotic way.  Hoyne said that this is how he knew god existed.  And I thought to myself that this is how I knew he didn’t.

            It took us a few hours, but we winded around those rocky protrusions north until redwoods popped their bushy heads high toward the sun.  The first step out of the car was stiff, compressed bone and then I took that first big inhale of air and could smell nothing but fresh fern and the purest, sweet smell of vegetation just saturated in the air molecules.

            We went to a diner and drank a couple beers and our server let us know that all the campgrounds were full and the two motels within the Big Sur area were close to full occupancy and the price was close to six hundred a night. So, we drove a little further north toward Monterrey and searched for places to pitch the tent.  A lighthouse stood tall far in the distance, perched on a large boulder in the swelling foam and the land surrounding the shore was tall with grass and hundreds of cows grazed near the water way down the valley.  I expected to see Monsanto's cabin and that wandering goat with black lumps of shit in the white sand, but all that I saw were packs of cows and an endless greying sky. 

            We turned the car around and drove back past the diner, finally finding a wide part of the shoulder to park.  Hoyne really wanted to use his tent so he fumbled around with the stakes and the canvas, but could never drive them deep enough to hold, as the Earth was hard and dried, chipping like brick into crusty rectangular pieces.

            That was about two hours ago and now I sit, reclined as far back as the car seat will allow writing by moonlight, which illuminates thick fog rolling in from the never-ending water.  Hoyne breathes softly, chest rising and falling, and he has a Modelo can gripped firmly in his right hand.  The air's gotten cold and my phone hasn't had service for the last six hours.  Hoyne says there isn't a cell phone tower for one hundred miles.  It's kind of nice to be shrouded in fog, but also kind of scary when we hear random pickup trucks speeding around the bend in the road.  I wonder how in the world they don't just fly off the cliff into the steaming water below, but maybe they're used to it and know every dip and turn for the sixty-mile stretch.

            I close my eyes and my brain wanders, far back home to where my mother is curled in bed probably crying at the thought of me alone.  But, I don’t feel sad and I don’t feel scared.  I feel happy.  I hear the animals crying and I can feel that vast ocean churning beneath us and I think of Kerouac and of Nick Adams and wonder how different I am than both of them.  With one crutch on the civilization that raised me and the other dangling off of the side of this bottomless cliff, I feel safe and relaxed, away from the bullshit and alone at last.  Hoyne's lips flutter on the exhale.

Hoyne woke up hungry and we both wanted to get lost in the trees so we bought steaming coffee and some nutty muffins and headed toward the summit of Mt. Manuel.  The air was cool in the valley and hot on the side of the winding trail and we ascended at a brisk pace, facing the clock which limited our exploration.  The issue was that we had to have the car at San Francisco airport by 6:00 p.m. and we knew it would take a couple hours to drive there.  So, we climbed up high and fatigued our legs, gazing down the steep brush inclines with jagged rocks and a waterfall waiting, 3,000 feet below and it was tempting to jump at that white foamy water and we desperately wanted to take a cool swim, but time allowed nothing more than the climb, and it was as wonderful as I could have imagined. 

            The colors were so vivid and popped like blooming spring and it all seemed so foreign compared to the Chicago concrete and the Kentucky limestone that I was accustomed to.  It was a sad moment when we exited that mysterious and haunting cliffscape, but again excitement returned when I thought of San Francisco, the final stop of our adventure. 

            Golden rolling hills and hazy sky flooded through the window of my personal moving picture, when the highway signs became larger and more frequent alerting us of our proximity to the bay.  My arms burned in the sun and I hid them in the shade of the dashboard, massaging my roasting skin.

            We checked in the car and walked into the airport, which was as clean as a hotel, semi-empty aside from some Asian ladies waxing the floors.  We left our luggage at the airport in a locker for twenty-four dollars a night and asked the long dirty finger-nailed concierge where we could find a cheap motel in the city and he pulled out a map highlighting areas around Merchant Street, directly off the B.A.R.T. stop and told us where the hipsters were and where the douche bags were.  Meanwhile, all I could focus on was the thick brown line of muck stuck deep underneath his uncomfortably long fingernails. 

            My shoes and socks were soaked through with sweat and that powdery dirt of the Sur, which turned to mud and crystallized on my leg hairs and when we stepped into our lodging, I stripped down, eyes closed under the warm spray of the shower which washed the dirt down the drain, crusting around the edges of the linoleum.  When I had finished and dried, the remaining filth caked in long brown stripes on the fresh white towel.  After we were clean, we began cracking open the remaining Modelo cans and worked up an appetite.  Hoyne sat tranquil at the table by the balcony and stared into the dark building across the street, sucking at the small pipe in his fingers

Spring, an homage

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the
Starnbergersee
With a show of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt
deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the
archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened.  He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.


The Wasteland (lines 1 through 18)  T.S. Eliot

Moon in the morning hangs semi-transparent in the blue sky.  The trains flush in and flush out, getting all where they need to go and never a minute too late.  I watch as smoke billows from an exhaust vent on top of a rusting warehouse and it steams a moisture patch on the brick chimney next to it, long since dormant.
It's a normal spring day, pretty and cool, and I think of T.S. Eliot and his twisted vision of the so-called prosperous season; how the sun  melted and uncovered piles of mangled bodies decomposing like cow dung in the damp, muddy heaths all across Europe; how even without a world war, spring somehow brings me a sense of sadness, just inklings, of how another season has passed and we looked forward to the next, forgetting of the last.
However, it's hard to be sad in the sun and it's hard to be sad in the breeze, but when the rain comes and cries its eyes on the grey-lit Earth one of these April mornings, I'll revisit my thought and find a really sad one to share.

Blood in the Heart part I of II

Broke and traveling to Los Angeles for work.  Missed my flight and now it's storming.  Could've been sunny by now.  The terminal lights reflect white tile floors and matte grey walls all sterile and clean except for a few rogue Starbucks cups and wadded wrappers. There's a kid, maybe twenty-two, with cowboy hat and electrical tape, which fastens little Styrofoam cubes to his forehead and forearms.  He rocks rhythmically to the incantation of his own voice.  He reads with eyes closed from pen-written Sanskrit, which looks to be a pocket Qur'an, four inches thick. Frayed hemp strings dangle from his pockets and I watch out of the corner of my eye. 

            Water speckles and streams down the windows and the sky is so grey that runway and buildings blend right in, blobbing in the distance.  A baby in a green tank and white shorts stares in amazement at the waves of precipitation blowing in, hands and cheek stuck to the glass.  Others, much older, watch out the window with legs crossed on the carpet, phone in hand; coffee in hand.  All transfixed and hypnotized by the ultimate magnet; the derailleur of sprockets lodged deep within their skulls, water is shifting the focus from what is now to what could become and what has been into what we want.  Storm doesn't worsen, but stays steady and true and shuttle buses break through, trailing spray past the window.  My friend rocks, to and fro, back and forth to the hum of his voice and they stare quizzically, searching for answers, but finding contempt and wrinkles for their foreheads. 

            The hub of America; the heart that pumps to more glamorous capillaries, Chicago has a pace attracting even those from the East and even those from the West, all stopping for a connecting flight, whether for work or for play, but to travel; to go; to leave; to depart. 

            Weird, rectangular and geometrically shaped objects pull wagons in the air yard.  And the water pools and ripples and reflects the dead, grey sky.  Big plane of blue and white with monochromatic shading scales in between has its cargo door flung open wide and water streams off the edges.  My mom is worried.  She's working tonight at six.  A big yellow gas line connects to the underside of the plane like an umbilical cord, fueling the machine for its big flight in this big world and only if they'd just put a little more.

            I'm starting to rock with my friend, but it's not to his voice, it's to the thought that I'll never come back; that I'll never speak to anyone again, but not because of a fear for death, rather, the fluttering excitement for the mystery of future.  The rain's letting up.

            And the sky's a little brighter.  LA's a different pace.  You can feel it just waiting to board, or, hoping to board. Most of the minds are in their own worlds living their own lives without any regard or care for the other minds sitting in the adjacent galaxies around them.  It's kind of refreshing.  And all I can care about right now is leaving Chicago. 

            A fat, younger-looking guy shovels three layers of pancakes into his mouth feverishly and without a pause even for air.  He has a guitar with him, but he doesn't look artistic.  He holds his biscuit tight between thumb and forefinger and chomps down on it with crumbs cascading off his lips.  It disappears after three.  Pathetic. I start rocking harder with my friend and he makes me comfortable because he's not afraid.  He's holding the electrical tape tight and it squeezes his hand, making it balloon around the black stripes in bubbles of white.

            Big grey plane crosses the air yard, must be going far.  Rain is streaming lightly now, but it's still somewhat speckled.  The men in the yard are wearing neon green-yellow jumpsuits and they scramble to throw luggage on rolling wheels of conveyor systems.  The baby in the green tank screams as the water lessens, but maybe that's not why.  In the distance, it looks like it has stopped raining, but up close you can tell it is still sprinkling.  Little brown girl with dark hair and black eyes stares and fingers at the speckles of water dotting the glass.  Her brother in the green tank stops screaming and does the same.  His eyes widen in fascination when he realizes that he can't touch what he sees and he smoothes over and over, every so often searching for moisture. Their mother comes over and picks up the boy.  She's a pretty mom with eyes that look deep into the distance and she rocks the tank and his curly head falls. 

            Dorsal fins of large planes stick over the dock extensions, which look like accordions.  Black man shovels pancakes in his mouth like his friend and coughs every two or three minutes.  Every grunt breaks my mood and I want to bury my fingers in my head.   Thankfully, after four minutes, the black man's fat white friend comes wobbling back to the gate with the large guitar case sprouting behind his head and he explains that their flight is ten gates down.  So, they gather their things and breathe hard down the hall and I exhale and let my shoulders fall.

            And I look at my friend who has tucked away his electrical tape and neatly closed and banded his important text and his eyes meet mine beneath the black brim of his hat and we exchange a half-smile and a quick look away and that was all that was needed to make the connection; to understand and to comfort.  As I stare at my feet, I feel relaxed and composed with the energy to do anything, like all restrictions have been dissolved.

            Just need to get on this plane.

            Rain still patters but the streamers are slower and speckles are hanging on for dear life.  The grey sky opens to show some blue and a tiny plane rises slowly to meet it.

Here, I sit in a cove of a Long Beach harbor, the sunset pink and orange, all palmy silhouettes and fishermen in casual clothes wipe down the cabins of their boats, carrying poles to the deck.  It must be night fishing.  An open condom wrapper sits next to me, half-buried in the sand… must be night fishing. 

            There are a lot of birds swooping around the sky with one grey pelican gliding softly over the water and another one curving high.  The water is smooth, but still ripples a bit.  Half of the boats have American flags hanging and the moon sits directly above a lighthouse.  A woman takes photos of it.  In the distance, a helicopter hangs motionless in the sky with a flaming red beacon for a tail, pulsating like the lights on a heart monitor.  And I resonate, feeling my chest rise and fall with the red gleam. 

            The harbor is pretty much empty and I'm in complete awe of its beauty.  No longer does it matter that my wallet is flat, but I guess you can attribute that to the fact that my company is paying for every meal that I devour in the dim lights of the hotel bar every night.  The other side of the harbor has many more masts and with all of the hanging white lines, it looks like a dead forest.  Not really, though, just a bunch of white poles and ropes hanging from them.  I think I like romanticizing sometimes. 

            The pelican flies low again and the helicopter hasn't moved in a good fifteen minutes.  I'm leaving for Big Sur in the morning so this will be my last night in the LAX area; an area that, much to my chagrin, I have actually enjoyed.  My dark-rimmed eyeglassed friends built this city up to be hell on Earth and despite the fact that the jeans are loose and the shirts and are even baggier, it has been anything but.  The hipness competition is nonexistent.  Thus, I don't have to listen to anyone preach about the cleanliness of the food industry or the atrocities on the other side of the world or the best hole in the wall bar in the coolest uncovered neighborhood in the city and it makes me breath easy to not see another soul in the entire three-mile square of the harbor.  Exhale.

            The sun is leaving and in its ever-growing absence, neon lights replace it; blue ones circling the edge of the water and red-orange-yellow ones lighting up restaurants and Ferris wheels.  There's a decent breeze and it hisses through the palm trees.  I love how still the harbor is and how quiet it feels.  Very relaxing.  Not like Chicago.  Less bustle.  More freedom of movement.  And as I look around, the helicopter hasn't moved and the boats sit still and the people have gone home and the birds and pelicans glide around effortlessly reflecting dimly off the smooth water.  The skyline is a series of hotel buildings and fishermen fumble, firing up their engines and the sky darkens as they retreat into it.  And I walk back home to the hotel, smiling at no one at all.  

Fallen Winter: Cover

Here's the cover to my zine of short stories.  Obviously, still on drawing paper, but I've decided and this will be it.

Spring Ukrainian and Things to Come

I'll be releasing a zine at Quimby's on North Avenue within the next few weeks, named Fallen Winter.  It will have some of the short stories from this blog as well as some of short snippets, accompanied by some personal illustration (still in progress).  The above is... right, Owl, and is just a prototype.

Splitting Wood on a Cold Day

He had buried the dog as deep as the frozen ground would allow three days prior, twenty five yards west of a silver pond.  He stared down the snowy canyon at crystal reflections of powdery evergreens illuminating off the surface and he tried hard not to feel remorse.  In fact, he felt kind of silly for feeling anything at all when he thought of how his father shuffled through dog after dog during his childhood, never allowing himself any emotional connection; merely enjoying their company for the time that they had to breath and run and shit on this earth. 

            The wispy winds echoed throughout the canyon and, alone, he stood with black and red flannel, staring through cold brown eyes, as flakes fell slow, catching on his beard.  That image of a black-bagged mass with glossy moonlit reflections disappearing into the broken earth intertwined with the white draped coffin of his father and the heavy weight on his shoulders as he, too, dropped and disappeared beneath shovelfuls of moist clumpy dirt. He followed a bird circling in the sky and remembered the hot tears slowly streaming down his brother's puffy red face, mad at the world; mad at the weight on his shoulders; mad at him; mad at everything; mad.  And there, at the edge of that cold canyon, he stood, shrouded in white emptiness.

              The stiff canvas of his jacket purred when he walked into a snowy meadow off the back of his house.  He carried a smooth handled ax, which rested on his shoulder and a heavy iron wedge whose imperfect surface caught the threads of his brown cotton gloves and barbed out a few strands.  He glanced behind, almost expecting her to be trotting in his wake, but the deep boot imprints were lonely and filling with flakes, which fell slow and steady, the size of golf balls. 

             Ahead lay a fallen tree, fresh and uncovered aside from little mounding lines trailing across the frozen, antler-like branches.   He rested the ax against the trunk and looked back at the house, which was barely discernible through the speckled snow.  One golden window glowed bright at the back corner of the house where their bathroom was.  His eyes watered in the wind and he breathed deep lung-filled hot air into his gloves, warming the tips of his fingers. 

             He had sectioned the tree with a chainsaw earlier in bright morning, cutting the trunk into three-foot parts.  The saw dust was already lost in the snow.  He bent down and rolled the heavy trunk out of its comfortable sinking placement in the earth and, gripping the rim of its strong bark, he hoisted it upright and with one hand he buried the shimmering blade tip in the middle of the trunk.  Far to the left where he had just walked from, a snowy top heavy tree bowed to the canyon and he kind of smiled at it because it symbolized how he felt, but then, in the same moment, he let his dry-lipped frown return and disregarded it because it was just a projection from his own thoughts begging to be construed in the natural world. 

            Refocusing on the task before him, he removed the blade of the ax and replaced it with the wedge, tamping it in a bit with the blunt side of the cold iron.  And he thought why he must always be alone and why it seemed everything escaped him.  His father had disintegrated and his brother was away and his lover lived in another city and his dog died and his mom cried for him in hot summer nights and in cold winter days and he looked around that snowy canyon again with squinted eyes.  This burning feeling began torching his heart and blazed low, but hot, working itself up his esophagus, getting lodged in his throat, finally heating his brain and with a grunt he raised the blunt head of the ax and slammed with all his might on the tiny wedge, splitting the salmon colored, healthy wood in two.  The wood splintered and the wedge fell out of sight in the snow.  He fished it out, knocking the snow off on one of the split pieces and placed it back in his pocket.  Then, repositioning one of the halves, he quartered it with the sharp edge of the blade, swinging like he was trying to bury the stump rather than split it in two. 

            After he split three of the logs a steady drip of sweat beaded and fell from his nose.  He walked to the edge of the canyon and bent down, resting on the backs of his calves and he took a deep breath, staring still at the pond. 

            Fantastic golden memories began flooding his brain and the landscape changed from its icy desolation into a warm, fresh summer day with flies buzzing and cicadas screaming.  Bright green shoots of new growth swayed in the breeze across the mountainous valley, reaching for the sun, and in a path that weaves through the rocky crags, he saw a shirtless man with a glistening back, red bandana tied around his sweaty head, followed by a tank-topped girl whose shoulders were pink and whose white shorts were dusted a redden brown.  Finally, after the two had disappeared back into the shade of an evergreen, a brown and black dog came gliding past, accelerating to catch up to the man and woman, and they finally popped out of the shade and into the flat brush by the pond. 

            He closed his eyes and breathed deeper and deeper.  He forgot about the cold air stinging his cheeks and when he reopened his eyes, a grey-eyed girl with little amber halos around her pupils was standing in front of him with a slender smile and a sweating red forehead.  He pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and dabbed her forehead, grasping the back of her neck and kissing her deep.  Her body leaned into his and he wrapped her tight, holding on like it was the last time he'd ever see her.  They sat in front of the pond, the surface glimmering gold, and the dog nosed under his dirty hand waiting for him to rub her ears, which he did in slow circles. 

            Never did they speak and never did he feel like they had to because everything was simple and everything was digestible in that one moment. And she leaned her head on his damp shoulder and closed her eyes and he watched as she breathed softly and smiled like there was nothing in the world more that she needed other than his shoulder and the sun which beamed bright on her tanned legs. 

            His heart was full and his throat was kinked when he reopened his eyes and saw that barren canyon and that still frozen pond.  The snow fell steady and the sun was clouded grey and his hands were frozen solid, buried deep and clinched on the cement-hard ground.  He stood up again and wobbled, trying to find his footing in the snow and once he did he turned around, hoping that that beautiful comfortable image would return, but it howled silence and filled slowly, like a dripping bathtub with the plug stuck deep.  That burning feeling torched his heart and ran up through his throat and for the first time in what seemed forever he bent over and cried, sobbing grunts and dripping mucous, soaking his gloves, which were stuck to his face. 

            Pulling his head up, he turned and ran back to the ax and picked it up with his right hand, high on the neck, close to the blade, and he swung like a railworker into the side of the trunk, burying the blade deep enough to get stuck. And he continued to cry and pulled with all his strength to remove the blade, but it wouldn't budge.  He plopped his boot on the trunk and pulled again, feeling the muscles in his arms tense and close to tearing, and letting go he fell back into the snow and lay still for a while, staring at the sky.  Breathing as deep as his lungs would allow, sucking flakes with every few breaths he closed his eyes as hard as he could hoping to get his mind back to that image of the grey-eyed girl with little amber halos around her pupils.  But the harder he tried, the only image he produced, was that glimmering black mass of a garbage bag in the moonlight of a subzero night. 

            Pulling himself off of the ground and brushing off the snow that stuck to his canvas jacket, he walked back toward the house, leaving the ax sticking out of the trunk at a forty-five degree angle, pointing toward the hidden sun.

            When he opened the door and felt the warmth flush his face, he saw on the counter, a sweating low ball glass of amber liquid.  It had long been poured and was warm to the touch, with a sweaty reflection pooling toward the edge of the stainless steel counter.  He took off his jacket and removed his gloves, stripping all the way down to his cream colored long johns, which were sticking to his back and legs.  Pounding down the hall toward the bathroom, he opened the door and steamy warmth released from the swing. 

            She sat low in the tub with her hair wet behind her ears and didn’t look up when he sat on the edge.  She mechanically grabbed her glass and pulled it to her lips, sloshing cubes ringing as she drained the last sip, setting the glass back on the floor next to the tub.  He pulled off the last layer of his clothing, balling the long johns and tossing them on the floor.  Then, dipping his frozen toes in the warm water he sank deeper and deeper until the wet heat touched his chest.  He breathed in the longest breath of his life and exhaled slow, with eyes closed, and his face red.  The room was lit by candle and was golden on the backs of his eyelids and he tried once again for that comfortable image to reappear, but it evaded his conscious and the harder his mind ran toward it the faster it seemed to escape.

            As he was looking at the girl, lying in between his legs, she finally opened her grey colored eyes and closed them slowly once again.  Then, sighing on the exhale, she stood out of the water; dripping drops cascading over the curves of her body, and grabbed a towel next to the tub and began drying.  She whispered that she was pruning and left the bathroom shortly with a towel wrapped over the top of her head and another around the top of her chest.  When she pounded down the hall, getting softer with each step, he submersed his head in the water and screamed.

Owl

Perched in darkness with golden-green eyes glowing and head shifting silently, three-hundred-sixty degrees around, because her neck can do mysterious things and because unlike most, she can see, the owl waits.  

In a way, you could say she's preying, over a moonlit forest floor; praying for movement or anything to evaluate and perhaps lash out upon, rip apart and mangle to feed her growing appetite, but in a way, you could say that she's not even interested in satiation, rather the hunt; the idea of the hunt.   

Critters will scurry and their easiness isn't appealing, because she knows that they can't see her and in one swoop it could all be had and the hunt would be finished, and what a messy finish, she thinks, her feathers neatly arranged below those pointy tufts.  

So, she sits silently and calmly, on top of a snaky cage of branches, bursting out in right angles. And it sways at a calculable crunch from the steady pace of the elk, who is the vessel, unaware of her furtive, light presence, just searching for a clear stream and some brush to nestle in.

The Horse Capital

And there I was in horse country with a couple friends when it was bright outside and the horses were running fast that day, glistening muscles in the sun.  We decided that we had lost enough money and went "downtown," which was essentially a few main roads crossing in diagonals; all one-ways so as to clog traffic as often as possible to give the impression that it was, indeed, a downtown.  Jim looked at his watch often, praying for his time to be up so he could go home and not have sex with his fiancé and Jason had that look in his eye like he knew he was going to take advantage of some rich architect's stupid, beautiful daughter and Erik just left because he was too drunk and figured he should just go ahead and drive home.  It was a pretty normal Saturday afternoon in horse country.

            We walked to a pub from Jason's apartment where they had tables set up outside and eight dollar double bourbon n' gingers.  We drank the cool liquid and it warmed our eyes and half way down Jim decided it was time to go home and sit with his fiancé on the couch and watch interior decorating shows and comment on how they were going to arrange the apartment after they got married.  Jason returned from the bar with two more plastic cups full of the amber liquid and we both knew that it wasn't right to drink bourbon out of plastic but because we couldn't take glass onto the patio we had to make a really tough decision and the breeze was too enticing so we sat with shades on watching the people smile and spill drinks.  We were having a decent time, but of course that void of not having locked down a pretty girl still weighed us down and made us a little crazy and we didn't even really talk the whole time, but searched for prey to hunt and there were tons of ladies and they were surely drunk enough after the races, but that goddamned sun seemed to stifle any motivation. 

            "I'm dyin' here," Jason said finally.  "I'm telling you Daniel, I'm fuckin' dyin'."

            He took a long drink and removed his shades.

            "Yeah?"

            "Look at this place, it's wide open." He pointed at a few girls leaning on the brick wall of the bar.  "Let's just start playin', I'm tired of sitting around wondering whether or not I'll be jerking off tonight."

            The girls laughed and had those fake tan legs and flowery sun skirts just fluttering in the breeze and their hair looked shiny clean with thick healthy strands flowing. 

            "Well, okay sir.  Let's do it then."

            And as we stood up to walk toward the squeaky clean white teethed brown (but still white enough) beauties, a team of polo wearing large armed gel haired sunglass wearing bros stepped in and made the engagement and started with the classic manly grippings of the plastic cups and continued with uproarious laughter and complete brain-washed manipulation and the spell worked as the girls each one by one at different intervals of the show that was being played for them reached out their delicate arms with clear white tipped fingernails and grabbed the round arms of each of the guys and that was it.  The engagement was final.  They were set in stone and at such a miraculous speed too. 

            "I wonder what they said," I lamented lightly, turning on a heel, wheeling around back into the chair.

            "They didn't say shit. I mean, what could they have said?  You don't have to say anything when you're arms blow out the ends of your shirt and you just had your teeth whitened with a nice looking watch and Ray Ban sunglasses.  That's what they said. That's all they said and that's all that anyone needs to say around here."

            "Sounds easy."

            "Psh, you have to sell your soul to be that fucking stupid.  Look at em'! There's not one thought running through those meaty skulls.  You wouldn't do that.  I wouldn't do that.  We're more about the soul, that unattainable center."  Jason drained the rest of his cup and crunched it in his fists. 

            "They don't have soul, who the hell are you kidding?  We're not in the right scene.  We've never been in the right scene.  Unattainable center?  It's plopped right there under that skirt and it looks like it's far from unattainable."

            "That's what I'm talking about, man."  Jason stood up and went to the side of the bar where two drinks were poured. 

            I watched the group continue the bullshit and then walk away tossing the empty cups on the pavement.  They walked under the pavilion and disappeared into the breezy street.   

            

Bar Life

Green neon lights cut through the bar like a saw.  A sweaty crowd relished the bass beats and lost themselves in euphoric dancing, otherwise interpreted as an imitation of sex whereas the participants thrust their crotch into the back (or front) side of their counterpart.  It's a real jovial time; a release from the menial lives they lead during the week. 

I'm normally part of this sweaty crowd.  I, like the others, start off timid, smiling and feeling really uncomfortable until I start drinking.  After a few drinks a force takes control over the body.  The little man pulling the levers and cranking the handles becomes subdued and mute.  The mind lets the force field down and gives the body a green light to act like a dumbass. It is at this point where you try to find someone who is on your same level of drunkenness to have fake sex with. Most of the girls are fat and since everyone is sweating you can only imagine what that smells like.  Sometimes I've left the bar with the terrible smell of sweaty perfume infused into my sweater or t-shirt, which is fine for the drunken scurry home, but when you wake to that smell it is just a reminder of the big, fat near-mistake you almost made.  The strange thing is that you can pretty accurately gauge what kind of girl you were faking sex with the night before merely based on the scent of the perfume on your sweater or t-shirt.  For some reason, ugly girls wear acrid-smelling perfume and pretty girls wear delicious-smelling perfume.  You would think that there would be big discrepancies with a statement like that, but, hence the strangeness, there isn't. 

There was one night where everything went right and I woke up with delicious-smelling perfume on my clothes and a delicious-tasting girl next to me in bed.  I had a devastating headache and the odd urge to be alone.  And she sighed softly next to me, purring like a cat. 

Drop's Season: The life of a water droplet

Drops of water's wet, squeaky rubber mat
Drying with sun's blankets, fluffy cumulus clouds
Rising in air's brisk, minty breath, crystalline silk
And conglomerated reproduction in glossy beakers, 250 mL
Angry with fear, falling face first fastened frightfully
Freeze and explode in a parachute of geometric fabric
Then,
Glide...Glide..Glide
Down
         Down
                  Down
Resting stiffly and slanted
And buried in phases till dark, cold cave stillness, serene
And warm liquidy cream of orange bands, streaking yellow and blue
Gently slice, freeing patterns of pure violet puddle pockets
Slowly gravitating, burning striped trails down to cement and spongy soup grass
Pulling Down
                   Down
                            Down
Then sucked up Up UP into yellow green tubing plastic
Feeding in skylighted laboratory mixing pot of orange and blue with yellow turning maroon in fluttering jubilation exultation.
Smiling cheddar yellow smiles of one thousand teeth and purple eyelashes under crispy warm blue spiked hair.
Children noose fingers stranglehold life supply removing tubing from generator and coughing bowing sadness of sun setting despair.

Glowing in blue...

+

Color-lametheme-Color

A-reading

I went to a reading at Columbia College on Monday night and it REignited flames of how it felt to be in a classroom, listening to others deliver their work in a shared group of enthusiasts that enjoy the art of literature.  Well, there's my blurb... as honest as it REALLY is, I had the dishonest illusion/disillusion of being the judge; the critic who's opinion is sought and who's clap is heard.   It was nice and it sparked a nostalgic flame that hasn't been present in, I don't know, going on two years. TWO GODDAMNED YEARS... already!?

The judge, I am, and still, I am, overly critical, perusing the thoughts of the creator, wondering why he/she chose what they chose and how they arranged the piece, commenting mentally on why they did what they did and why it worked and why it didn't work.  It's, in my opinion, that fresh open platform of uninterrupted and vulnerable self indulgence/craving-for-criticism/or, just that notion and yearning for someone-to-finally-fucking-comment-honestly-and-openly about the piece and give ME SOMETHING, that really lit the fires in my eyes on what it was like to be in a classroom.  Nostalgia, that sometimes obscure term that equals pathetic-ness, but really doesn't, is what was really generated.  

NOISE

Inconsistent thuds crescendo-ing (?) into crashes that rattle the skinny hands on my clocks until finally, out of an uncontrollable impulse, I provide the final blow to the wall with a closed fist sending a small black faced clock off the wall and into shattered glass on the floor, which needs swept any way.  It's at this moment that I go into the bathroom and stare at my bloodshot eyes in the mirror and wonder why the noises produce such a fiery response; a response that is only barely released by punching the wall; a response that really requires me to thrash my entire body into and through the wall, but knowing the ramifications I use only my small claw-like fists to carry out the action leaving enormous amounts of energy flowing and brewing in my bones, then settling into my heart, where they sleep until the next response is triggered.  It's something I've tried to cope with and work out of my system via exercise and meditation, but for some reason it is so built up that I'm merely releasing the steam on a boiling fire of rage that hopefully will never be released, at least, hopefully, not all at once.  When I think of the triggers, they seem to be related quite directly with sound and noise.  NOISE.  It is the most therapeutic remedy as well as the greasy trigger finger resting on the cold steel hammer, slipping slipping slipping.  A humming furnace or a consistent whooshing fan keep me sane and  help me sleep, but the Mexican girl's suicide sprints and thuds send me into a loony state of insanity.  Music, if good music, can rest my gentle senses.  Music, if bad music, can make me act like a totally different person.  NOISE.  Oh noise, please be kind to me.

Fate {[(Dream) sign?] guess it depends on you}

I went to sleep on a bed of putting-green perfect bermuda grass in some shitty southeastern coastline city with tall palm trees and golf carts.  It was comfortable and warm, not that oppressing heat so common down there.  I only remember fleeting images as I rose and walked around the long weeping willows reaching so desperately for a sip of water and I'm sure their roots were reaching even further, strained into splinters, breaking into water veins and disturbing the peaceful golf and old person community where I was.  It became clear to me that these images were mixed with my grandfather's cross-legged pose of unabashed honesty of why he chopped "every goddamned tree down" over their estate.
Anyway, I kept walking and found myself inside a bed and breakfast laden in mostly white vinyl siding and blue shutters.  The top floor was mine for the night and David sat up there concentrating at the sewing machine with crumbles of shiny crystal weed bits scattered and then piled into the center right in front of the shiny stainless steel needle contraption.  He packed the maroon piece pretty tight and we smoked, not saying a word, but letting our minds float into another world of sheer cynicism, however silent and controlled within the cages of our brains.  And he smiled at me a couple times.  The sun was setting over the perfect lawn and the old men were getting into their dinner clothing and out of their plaid golfing clothing.
It was sudden and abrupt, how she entered, but she did so with such ownership and entitlement that it didn't even startle me.  It reminded me of my own mother coming into my room, gazing over the piles of clothes with that skeptical look, which said, "you better clean this up or there will be hell to pay."  This old lady, with flowery printed sweatshirt and robin egg blue jeans, pulled halfway up her back, came in and ruffled the sheets on the beds, looked at the piece, and didn't blink an eye.  She shuffled the books, mumbled something to David, and looked at me with a really serious stare and told me, "I've got a bad feeling about you."  I scrunched my eyes and didn't speak and she raised her hands.  "I just don't know about you.  I feel something bad."  I kind of hung my head in shame for releasing negative energy because I really was in a complete state of bliss at the time, but her comments made me think.  I felt my body quiver on the bed and I wanted to wake, but my brain kept saying, "shhhhh, let's just see what happens.  We NEED to know what this is." And I did.  I waited it out and she left, but nothing happened.
David and I took the piece and walked in the moonlit putting-green grass and sat beneath a palm tree and kind of bullshitted about this and that and smoked some more, but nothing ever happened.  I kept thinking of the old lady and then my alarm rang.  The images lifted and there I was back in bed.  Wondering about it, but not in a fearful way, more in an excited way, I told Dave on the train and he raised his eyebrows.  That was it I guess...

Ocean of Rice

Precipice

I know you're a twisted ball of stomach knots and compressed windpipes, maybe shaky off-balance because of sloshing thoughts and maybe you feel guilty and maybe your toes are crumbling the edge of a sandy cliff, cold wind blowing misty, blinding fog in your face and you can't tell what's at the bottom or even what's ahead, but you can feel you're going to fall and the hair stands, electrical ants humming zzz over your skin and you close your eyes, go limp like water and...

Robotrippin'

My throat has hurt the past couple days and I've developed a slight cough; a cough that, if another person had, would normally piss me off in the morning on the train because they cough that dry dusty cough every twenty seconds and then clear their throat and after about five or six times, I would normally look at Hoyne and clench my teeth and say that, "they need to shut the fuck up," and he'd normally just shake his head and call me a fucking psycho for giving a shit, but today that guy was me so I guess have some sympathy because I really could not control the urge to drycough.
Anyway, I took Robitussin before I left the house and the bike ride was fine.  It was actually an oddly beautiful January day. I got into work and was really revved up until about two o'clock p.m. central time when I felt my senses getting icky and about thirty minutes later I was nothing but two mushy eyeballs sitting on my keyboard hopping over the keys, sending emails.  It was odd and I emailed Hoyne and told him how I was feeling and he said that two eyeballs is all you need to do our job and he was right.  That seemed to calm me down.  And how profound, though.  All I am at work is two mushy eyeballs, strained and redstreaked.  I think I'll lay off the 'tussin for a bit.

Beautiful Album, Beautiful Album Art

Bukowski

God got out of the tree, took the snake and Eden's tight pussy away and now you've got Karl Marx throwing golden apples down from the same tree, mostly in blackface.

Snowy Vermont Licence Plate

I walk down bright slushy streets and see salty car with snowy vermont plates and for one second I forget where I am.

Kearns (opening to a novel) DDH

"One of my most vivid memories, the one that really stuck, and still sticks in my mind to this day, were her ducks.  She had them littered all over the house, in every room and in every form, except, of course, the living, breathing form.  They were printed on dish towels and painted on wooden ornaments and carved into sculptures and pinned into the walls.  Most were old relics from dead generations that had passed them down the line and some were brand new, as if adding to the decorative ducks collection kept alive the spirit of those who ceased to exist.  It was an attempt to show that nature and civilization could coexist, peacefully and comfortably, so long as nature was as wild as a statue and as unpredictable as the rising of cornbread.  But she didn't do it intentionally.  No, I think it's just the way it was. 

"I remember going to the thrift store or a garage sell with her, and she'd always whisper to me right before we walked in, 'now go in there and find yourself a little treasure.' And I'd go and there'd be a bunch of miscellaneous junk that didn't mean anything to anyone, hence, the reason it's being sold for pennies.  But, I'd go in and find something small, maybe a book or a shitty baseball cap and I'd get it solely for her enjoyment and she'd be pushing a full cart just piled to the top with junk.  'See, now what did I tell ya?' she'd say, smiling as we loaded it into the trunk of her car.  'Anywhere you look, you can find yourself a little treasure, you just need to look hard,' she'd say again, almost talking to herself as she continued placing the used grocery bags in the trunk carefully. Every so often, I would see the bill of another duck sticking out of her treasure bags. 

            "I remember as a kid, the ducks frightened me and not in a holy-shit-look-at-the-size-of-that-spider type of frightened, but a real I'm-being-watched-by-two-eyeballs-in-the-bathroom-window type of frightened.  And, really, it wasn't the ones hanging two-dimensionally on the walls or the ones printed on the dish towels, but it was the three-dimensional ones with big, round, real eyes that bothered me.  There was one in particular that had it out for me.  It was a little utensil-holder carved out of wood and painted green and yellow.  It was kind of cartoonish, but not overly.  I think my aunt made it when she was a kid, at least that's what they said.  Whoever made it or whether it was the light from the garage or the angle it was sitting at on the counter, its eyes were terrifying.  I remember getting a drink of water at night, tip-toeing through the creaky house, and as soon as I turned into the kitchen, every single time, those eyes were beaming bright at me.  They blinked and flashed and followed me just like a person's.  The blood in my heart would pound so hard that it felt like it would pop through my neck.  I would run to grandma's bed and bury my sobbing head in her shoulder and she would whisper stories and say, 'shhh, you cut that out now,' and then she would rub my back until I drifted to sleep.  'It's just a damn duck,' she'd say and I'd laugh because she cursed and it made me feel better to laugh.  She'd tell stories to the family about my night terrors and everyone would laugh and make jokes, but they weren't being mean.  They thought it was cute.

            "Miraculously, though, one night, I went to get a drink of water and I saw the eyes and I smiled.  I wasn't scared anymore.  Somewhere in between, I think I grew up.  I thought of how stupid I was to be so scared before and, then, after recalling those times of pure fear and pulsating adrenaline, I stopped making fun of myself because it was scary.  But, now, a grown man, at least in my mind at that time, I stared at all of the ducks proud and strong.  I looked in all of their dead eyes and had an epiphany.  Yes, a real life epiphany.  I noticed how all of the ducks encapsulated that way of life, that rural northern way of life.  I noticed how all of the ducks were a symbol of stagnancy and apathy.  I noticed how, like all of the ducks, my family was also stuck in a state of contentedness, pure, stagnant, ambitionless contentedness.  They had never done anything, been anywhere, made any fleeting attempt at bettering themselves, and really didn't care two shits one way or the other.  It was sad and I think I cried when I first figured it out.  I sobbed like a child.  I loved them, but I didn't share their contentedness.  There were things I aspired to do and places I dreamed of going and people I wanted to meet.  I wanted more, or, simply, I just wanted.  I made a pact with myself that I would never become one of those ducks.  No matter how hard it would be to say goodbye to grandma, it was something that I had to do.  I loved grandma, but for some reason, maybe the movies or television or radio, I thought I was too good to be pinned on her wall.  So, like a duck, I flew south.  I soared to the warmer, more fruitful Los Angeles climate, went to school, and, unlike a duck, I never migrated back again."

Frank closed the journal and threw it back on his father's writing desk.  He knew the story.  It made for a pretty epic tale, but in all reality, it was an exaggerated account of how his father bailed on his family and deprived Frank of ever having one.  You know, that ole story. 

            Frank had been at the estate for two days now and had spent practically the entire time locked in his father's study avoiding the commotion of florists, guests, and the other funeral preparations that were taking place downstairs.  The body was being flown into Los Angeles from Paris where Harold had had a violent heart attack at a café.  You might think that since he was in Paris, he was shooting some black and white coffee-and-cigarettes postmodern masterpiece, but, he was just getting a coffee.  It was eight in the morning and, apparently, he was the only person at the café, writing some magnificent script, when suddenly, he grasped his left arm, dropped his magical pen, and fell, boom bam, dead on the pavement.  That was the story his sleazy, thin-armed agent, Gerald, told.  Oh, right, and the clouds parted and one transcendent beam of light illuminated the corpse like a spotlight on a Globe-Theatre stage effectively sending him off into eternity righteously and ever so fittingly. 

            The study was boring and a complete let down to Frank, who had never been allowed in before.  The view over the orchard was nice, but the writing desk was polished and the curtains were perfectly furled over the window and the record player had been dusted.  The wooden floors were waxed and the ash tray had been polished and all of his books were neatly lined in their places.  It was like the Ernest Hemingway home in Oak Park that Frank had visited with friends one weekend on a cross-country road trip through Chicago.  The feelings of excitement were brewing, for Hemingway was the greatest American author, and what a transport in time it would be, thought Frank, to breathe the same air Ernest breathed in the same room where he practically wrote the entire canon for twenty-first century high school English classes and then how that excitement turned into a slender smile when he was told that the entire house had been subleased for over fifty years and everything had been refurbished and then how that slender smile turned into a scowl when he was told that Ernest had lived there up until age six. 

            The records weren't any good either.  His father, of course, had the high-brow Chopins and Beethovens and Mozarts all neatly stacked in a glass cabinet and that was fine, even though a bit mainstream.  But, beneath the writing desk, there was Eddie Money's entire collection and The Police and U2's Joshua Tree amongst other shitty albums stacked haphazardly and worn so thin the cardboard casings felt like soft denim.  Even the chair had been wiped with leather cleaner.  Martha, in a fit of depression-slash-maniacal-rage post her long lord's passing, had almost scrubbed all of the grease from the arm rests, but a few black dots of filth survived the cleansing.  The only thing that remained of his father, save the acrid-smelling flesh flying 30,000 feet above the Atlantic, were his journals and papers, which had been filed chronologically in his desk and Frank was surprised to find them, thinking Martha would've surely torched them to save the space. 

            His family, well, his father's family, the Kearns', lived in Newberry, Michigan in the You-Pee.  They were a middle-lower class agrarian family who talked about the weather and the price of gas a lot.  His father sometimes told him stories of his life there and how he would go hunting and how, with chains, they would hoist the dead carcasses of whitetails in the garage and skin them.  After strategically slicing the matted fur from the still steaming meat and throwing it in the field, blood would pool over the drain in the garage, as clumps of hair and tendons clogged its rectangular slats.  And, smiling widely, he said his father would pick the drain clean with his bare hands tossing the dripping remnants into a bucket and then spray the garage clean with a water hose, always systematically rolling it back into a perfect coil on the wall.  Then, for hours, like a surgeon, he would dissect the maroon and white body, picking clean the best parts of meat and sawing through bone, flecks flying, in order to get to other more desirable parts.  Through the loins and thighs, the blade smoothly ran unabated, silently slicing large marbled slabs of meat, which were washed and wrapped by his mother.  Through the thicker, more difficult cuts, the blade carved loudly through snapping ligaments, popping every few inches until finally the shoulder would fall to the concrete, thumping like a medicine ball.  From there, he would continue shaving and sculpting until the tender meat revealed itself and his mother again would wash and wrap the cool flesh with brown freezer paper.  The way he told the story, with such specificity and without one flinch made Frank believe that he couldn't have minded it too much. 

Harold just had a way with telling stories. He would start talking generally about a subject and then something would pop in his mind and you could tell, as he stared at the wall behind whomever he was talking to, he was seeing it all come back.  He was living the moment again and after a few seconds, he would continue drawing the landscape and then filling it with subtle details and then larger details and then the smallest of details until the scene began to live again and he would keep talking and talking, never stopping for questions.  He just spewed like a fountain and you had to try to keep up, because, if you did, you could almost relive the experience with him.  He had a way of adding these details to stories, even if just one image or one word and they stuck to the inside of your skull like an iron shaving to a magnet and as he kept going and going more and more iron shavings accumulated and they painted the picture, as clear as water and as honest as wine and after just a few minutes, he had you, and you became intoxicated by his voice and craved more and he would give you just enough to be able to see and then he would just stop, leaving you pining for answers to questions that loomed and you could beg as much as you wanted, but he was done.  The vision was over. 

Frank looked over the lightly swaying apple trees and thought of the old family.

            Apparently, in the You-Pee, it's quite common for young boys to shoot doves off the power lines with air guns.  Not only is it target practice in preparation for that first, perfectly placed, single shot into the triangular kill zone located right behind the shoulder blade of a beautiful buck, but the breast meat of a dove is a delicacy, his father said, in those parts.  Sautéed with garlic and onion and served with cheddar-scalloped potatoes, dove was the best meal a man could eat, aside from venison.  One day, his father was shooting at the doves in the yellow light of evening when he saw one of the little black shadows fall from the thin power line toward the ground.  He had clipped its wing and the little bird waddled off, cowering to its left.  It tried to fly, flailing its right wing feverishly while the left moved in slow concentric circles.  He shot it again and it kept walking.  And then, pump-pump-pump on the air gun, and another shot, this time to the right wing.  Dropping face first, the little grey bird with round yellow eyes crawled on the gravely road with its head buried in the dirt, still frantically kicking its skinny legs. Its short mouth opened and closed in the sandy dirt, coughing and crying like a baby waiting for the worm. And he said he cried and pump-pump-pump, another shot, and he cried louder and louder, and pump-pump-pump, another shot each pellet embedding itself into oozing red holes in a speckled pattern on its back.  He said that his father finally came bolting across the lawn in navy blue sweat shorts and yanked the dove off the ground by its neck and jiggled it like a mustard bottle until he finally freed it to death.  Still standing with the bloody bird hanging from the noose of his fingers, its head resting over his thumb, his father scowled at him silently, which he said chilled him to the bone, not only because he couldn't successfully kill the defenseless bird at point blank range, but also because, like a little pansy, he wept uncontrollably at the torture he had inflicted. 

He was only nine years old.  Every dove he had shot before had been a clean kill, falling dead to the gravel after one shot and from there he would excitedly run to the garage and show his dad who would then rip the breast meat out and pat him on the head, telling him he had a real future.  This time, however, he said that his father refused to do the "dirty work" for him.  He had to man up and skin the bird himself.  Still crying, he asked his dad where to start slicing on the mangled bird.  His father shook his head and told him that there was no need for knives on such a small kill.  He pointed to the seed pouch, which bubbles right below the neck and told him to puncture it and manually remove the breast plate.  With tremors in his hands, he shakily massaged the seed pouch trying to find the easiest way in.  The air inside squirmed around like a lightly inflated balloon full of corn.  "Pop it," his father said, still staring.  After pressing as hard as he could, the pouch burst open and seeds fell to the ground.  Tears streamed down his red cheeks as he looked back at his father, who motioned like he was cracking open a beer.  He grasped the breast plate and pulled, snapping the left clavicle, exposing the air cavity, which was purple and veiny.  Pulling harder, the rest of the breast plate finally cracked free and the bloody breast-less body hung toward the ground.  Removing the ligaments from the rib cage, all that remained were two medium-sized maroon bulbs of meat.  His father took the meat and stomped off toward the house.  Looking at the messy bird one last time, he chucked it into the corn field with his sticky hands. He said it was the last thing he ever shot. 

Interestingly enough, thirteen years after being told this story, Frank read almost exactly the same story by John Updike in one of his upper level English classes at NYU.

The window in the study had a nice view, as I said before.  It was a perfect mix of orange sky, maroon-green orchard, and violet valleys.  The driveway, which weaved through the apple trees, had hundreds of Victorian-styled night lamps lined on both sides, making the road look like the neon exoskeleton of an electric eel two miles beneath the ocean's surface, slithering through slimy stones black with briny bristles. 

            The funeral was scheduled to take place the following day, but a severe lightning storm in Paris had delayed all flights an extra night.  With many of the guests already in Malibu, Martha decided to have a pre-funeral gathering at the estate.  It was a way to let everyone give their condolences without wasting a Saturday afternoon at the cemetary.  Frank watched as little orbs of light lit up the spine of the eel like pulsating neurons traveling from the butt to the brain.  Reaching the circular turnabout drive, the lights would vanish, and then would reappear at the end of the drive when the next synapses were fired.  About half an hour passed and there were a considerable amount of cars parked all about the grounds.  The turnabout became so cluttered that cars just started pulling to the side of the driveway and when the walk from the cars to the house became decently lengthy, Martha sent one of the caterers in a golf cart to begin shuttling the guests.  God forbid they had to walk. 

They began filing into the front foyer and all were greeted with a hug from Martha and a glass of wine from some bored sommeliers dressed in long starched frock coats.  Their pale faces were droopy and cleanly shaven with light purple bags under their eyes, as if the wine that poured from their white gloves somehow found its way into their veins and kept them in a state of solemn drunkenness.  The Cooper's had been there since early afternoon and Gerald waltzed around the marble floors, wine glass in hand, speaking to each guest as they arrived.  Frank watched from the top of the stairwell as Gerald glided from group to group, always producing a reserved chuckle, offering a light hug and then forcibly contorting his face into a grimace.  He tried ever so hard not to smile.  Mrs. Cooper followed him for a while and then slowly floated to the corner of the room, next to one of the sommeliers, silently gazing at the arrangements of flowers that adorned a large table.  No matter how fast she drank, her glass never seemed to empty.

Every single guest wore their best black attire and they splotched the glistening floor in groups.  Vibrantly colored plants provided a nice border of color and the light from a crystal chandelier, hanging next to Frank, produced hexagonally warped rays, making the view look like an impressionistic painting seen through a large, yellow gem.  In the middle of the room sat an ivory fleur-de-lis, which Gerald had cleverly bought for the event.  Hanging loosely from the curved half-arches, which splayed in opposite directions, were red streamers, tied neatly in bows around the thick ivory.  The scene was beautiful.  Everyone toed delicately on the floors and talked lowly so as not to make too much sound and, surprisingly, they succeeded.  It sounded like a cathedral, right before mass, with the same gentle movements and soft conversations that echo lightly toward the atrium, creating a voiceless hum.  Adding to the atmosphere was the slow, steady line that continued to grow out the front door, spilling into the drive.  They walked slowly and deliberately single-file, again resembling a communion line during midnight mass on Christmas Eve.  The only difference, aside from the cross-less altar, was the absence of the body of Christ, but I suppose they made up for that by the endless flow of his blood and the repeated communion offerings of it. 

Frank felt content to watch from above.  He dreaded the dull conversations and fake smiles and fake tears.  He dreaded watching everyone try to sympathize.  He barely knew seventy-five percent of the people that edged in the door and the other twenty-five percent were completely foreign.  What could they say to him?  "I'm sorry about your dad." No. "I'm sorry about your father."  And that's it.  That's all they could say.  They didn't know anything about him, or his father.  All they knew was a film director, whom they'd probably worked with at some point or another had died and they needed to save face by adhering to the instructions printed on the beautiful cardstock invitations.  Gerald had booked it like a concert; inviting anyone he knew, and, quietly blowing himself for locking down some of the really big names.  In a way, it was a blessing that Paris was flooded because the otherwise morose and sentimental service, which had been scheduled to occur, had now turned into a quasi party under the cloak of remorse.  Most of the guests probably thought that if they could just get through an hour of drinking quietly and reverentially, there would be the chance that a disco ball would drop from the ceiling and music would rattle the palace to the ground in a rave. Or, they would just leave. That was surely more appealing than having to force out fresh water tears and ruin those perfectly lined eyes. And boy, those tears!  It would be hard to keep them flowing all afternoon once they squeezed the last drop of Visine in their well-hydrated sockets.  They'd surely dry up.  So, all in all, this was for the best.

Bernie MacDonald and his ugly wife were talking in front of the fleur-de-lis.  Bernie had been lighting director for one of his father's first films, Fire Friendly, and had since gone on to direct a plethora of grungy porno films in an abandoned warehouse outside of Fontana.  His face was scrunched and wrinkled, with a large crease going across his forehead, which looked like a vagina, almost like he had stared at vagina so much during the course of his life that his face began to morph into one.  His wart-faced wife had thick, cakey make-up covering her face and it was so terribly executed and so terribly obvious that it looked like she had another face (with copious amounts of blue eye shadow) super glued over her own.  Behind them, stood the tall, shadowy Dartmouth Broussard, who had starred in two of his father's films in the early nineties.  He had that kind of face where when you first saw him, you would swear he was intelligent, but after he opened his mouth with incomplete sentences and long, clueless pauses, you just smiled to make him feel comfortable.  His once chiseled appearance had eroded into a skeletal coat-rack draped with pale skin and a red nose, probably from snorting too much blow.  Once an English schoolboy, Dartmouth had successfully become an American man with a martini.  Behind him were a bunch of tan men without faces.  Well, they had faces, but they were turned away.  In the corner, one of the sommeliers poured Mrs. Cooper another drink.  She wobbled and smiled, catching herself on the table.  Further down the wall about ten or fifteen feet, Gerald was pointing at a painting on the wall and talking with Alexa Arnold, a young actress whom Gerald had met at a West Hollywood café and occasionally fucked.  She was at least 25 years his junior and, aside from her wholesome Detroit face, she wasn't much of an actress.  Gerald had his arm wrapped tightly around her waist and she listened intently, nodding every few seconds.  She had on heels with little black straps wrapped around her ankles and they were perfectly tanned, toenails glittering in the light

Below Frank, shakily standing at the side of the fleur-de-lis was a shaggy, blonde-headed guy in a white tuxedo.  He was trying to hold a conversation with a couple.  After flailing his arms about wildly in the midst of the conversation and spilling wine on himself, their fleeting smiles were followed by a fleeting departure and snickering.  The room seemed to rotate around him like planets to the sun with no one daring to enter his peripheral and be forced into contact.  The back of his tux was so white that when he wobbled just right in the beaming lights, the outline of his body was lost within the pure ivory of the fleur.  Frank walked halfway down the stairs to try and see the guy's face.  And after about three steps, Gerald noticed him and started slithering through the crowd, leaving the cute Alexa with a kiss on the cheek. The aberration in white had a large crimson stain on the front of his tux, but he had his head burrowed down, thumbing cautiously on his cell phone.  Frank looked back at the crowd, trying to spot Gerald who held his wine glass high in the air as he slid effortlessly through the crowd.  Rethinking his move, Frank turned to go back upstairs.

"Frankie, my boy," Gerald said smiling.  "Where you running off to?"  He grinned with wine-stained teeth and his moustache was wet in the corners.  "Don't you think it's time you came down and mingled with our guests?"

Frank rubbed his eyes and yawned.  Then smiling lightly, he took another couple steps down.  Gerald met him halfway up and wrapped his arm around his shoulder, squeezing tight. Then, sliding the golden wedding band off of his finger, he clanged the crystal glass in his left hand.  He clanged it so hard on the third ring, Frank was sure it would shatter on the steps. 

"Atten-" Gerald cleared his throat.  "Attention everyone."  The crowd died down to a mumble and then after a few more seconds went completely silent.  "I'm, well, we're so glad you guys could make it out here tonight and for such an, an honorable reason."  Gerald cleared his throat again.  "It's, it's just such a shame that, that Harold couldn't see this right now.  He would've been so proud to be so loved by so many and so honored.  It's, it's a thing of beauty."  Gerald wrapped his bony arm around Frank's neck and squeezed tight.  He turned toward Frank and blew dusty wine breath into his nostrils.  "This boy has been going through it worse than any could imagine and this gathering is as much for his closure as it is our own and, and even more so for him." Frank noticed the aberration in white staring glossy-eyed at the stairwell.  It was his closest childhood friend, James Madison.  He smiled at Frank and rocked back and forth, smoothly keeping his balance.  "But, instead of mourning and crying and trying to forget that honorable, that honorable man tonight, we should let our hair down and really live this night to the fullest for him."  Frank looked at Gerald.  "I mean, really, it's what Harry would've wanted.  He wouldn't want us crying for him.  He wants us to remember those great times, those great times that we all have shared with him.  So, like honorable friends and close compatriots, let's relive those great times tonight and send Harry off happily because, because the past is unrepairable, or, unamendable."  Gerald stopped and took another sip.  "So, raise your glasses everyone," he motioned around the room, "and let's toast to a great life and a great son," he paused and looked back at Frank, "to Frankie."  The room clanged their glasses, took a deep swig, and returned to talking.  Gerald squeezed Frank's neck tight again and then mumbled something inaudibly.  He released his grip and turned, tripping down the first stair.  He pointed up at Frank, smiling, and continued his descent down the rest of the stairs, finally hitting the bottom. 

It was probably the worst toast that Frank had ever heard and he was still in a bit of shock at what Gerald had said.  But, aside from his complete disregard for the actual reason the gathering was formed, Gerald had managed to energize the crowd.  The volume had definitely risen and smiles were popping up on more and more faces.  Finally released from their moral obligation to be sad, even the sommeliers brightened up a bit, bending their skinny lips just a tad in the corners.  People were laughing and telling stories and the bar-backs kept running back and forth with boxes of wine.  A crowd of people had gathered around the fleur-de-lis and they leaned on it like the side of a building.  Martha, who had been absent most of the night running errands around the kitchen and managing the caterers like a major league baseball team, reappeared more flustered than ever, scowling over the guests in disgust for their disrespect. 

"Frank Kearns, K-E-A-R-N-S.  How the hell are you?" asked James.  He took a long drink of red wine and rose his glass.

"Oh, absolutely fabulous.  Looking pretty sharp tonight, eh?"  Frank pointed at the stain on his vest.

"I went with white because, unlike what all these assholes think, white should be the standard at funerals.  Think about it, black stands for the bad and the evil.  So, why would we wear that at a funeral?  Are we trying to send the dead to hell?  I mean, it's your dad, but I was just saying.  But, white is for the pure.  You know, the good. So, it makes sense to wear it for the dead, right?"

Frank couldn't help, but laugh at his drunken friend.  He walked down the stairs and poked at the stain on his chest.

"Oh right," James chuckled. "Had a little spill.  This wine's goin' down like water."  His eyes were bloodshot and scrunched as he laughed.  "I've missed you my brother.  How're you holding up through this mess?"

"I'm doing fine.  Glad to be home for summer, but I guess you never really want to come back on these terms."

"Totally.  It's deep shit.  Real deep."  James motioned at a sommelier for another pour.  "What're you studying? Film? Like your pops?"

"I'm studying geography, actually.  Never got into film.  Kind of despise it in a way."

"Me too, man.  Growing up out here can do that to you.  That's why I'm studying the pure art of literature.  Not that watered down, made-for-TV-movie bullshit, but the real art.  The way it's supposed to be."  The sommelier poured his glass almost full and smiled as he walked away.

"Glad you're liking it.  Seattle, right?"

 James nodded in the midst of a long drink.  "Beautiful place, man.  Gorgeous view over the sound.  Pretty ladies, too.  But the real kind.  You know, the pure kind.  Not like these valley girls out here.  How's New York?  D'you find any girls out there?"

"Sure, there are girls everywhere.  New York's fine.  It's cramped and loud, but fine.  Are you back home for the summer?"

"Yep, back home.  I've been talking with Blair Cooper, C-O-O-P-E-R.  'Member her?"

"Of course."  She was Gerald's only child and the same age as Frank.  They grew up together before their fathers had a falling out, but we'll get to that at some other point.

"Yeah, with your dad and all," James said shaking his head.  "I'm really sorry man, I'm not being privy to the situation."

"Privy?"

"You know what I mean." James paused and scanned the crowd behind him.  "Anyway, I've been talkin' with her and we've gone out a couple times.  First rate girl, out here."

"That's cool, is she here?"

"I think."  James moved close to Frank and whispered in his ear.  "I'm tellin' you, she got fuckin' hot man.  Real hot."

"Oh yeah?"

"Oh yeah," James said.  He scanned the room again, looking for her, but there were people cluttered everywhere.  Most of the sport jackets had been shed and a few people had even unbuttoned the first two buttons of their shirts.  James swayed and sipped on his glass.  Even with the shaggy hair and stubble on his chin, Frank could see that goofy little kid he grew up with.  "You dating anyone out in NYC?"

"Nah, I'm more focused on school."  Frank starting cracking his knuckles and bit his lip.  He knew it was bullshit.  He cared about school, but it's not like he would turn down a good fuck for the geography of Russia.  Sure, Muscovites retreating into frozen wheat fields, burning them as they fled to starve their enemies was interesting, but if some brown-legged girl had decided to barge into his dorm room and wrap those golden hips around his waist, I'm sure the Muscovites could have waited another night.

"Right," James said snapping his finger.  He continued scanning the crowd and smiling at everyone.  He looked like a child who had spilled grape juice on his bib. "You know, I'm writing a novel.  It's pretty epic shit."

"Woah, that's awesome.  What's it about?"

James thought long and hard for about twenty seconds.  "It's really about everything."

"Everything?  What does that mean?"

"It encompasses so many different subjects and philosophies and other things that I think it tries to sum up everything.  I think you'll really like it."

"Sounds great," Frank said hesitantly.  "So, you're getting published?"

"I'm halfway through, right now, but I did send off the first few chapters to some presses around Seattle and a couple down here in LA.  I've gotten some interest.  As long as I keep my nose to the sandstone then I think I'll be a published writer."  James looked straight into Frank's eyes as honest as a cat.

"That's really good to hear.  Maybe I could take a read-through?"

"Hell yeah.  I'll send you a copy.  Maybe you could help me edit it," James laughed.  He walked a few feet away, swaying and peeking behind some bodies.  Frank could see his eyes rolling around his head, as he caught himself from falling three or four times.  Blair was still no where to be seen.  He came back close to Frank and whispered, "I think I love this girl, man. I think she's the one, dude."  He stumbled back to the stair case and rested his head on the arm.  Some of the people standing around began watching him and laughing at how drunk he was.  He tossed his body around and controlled his balance as if he was walking on the surface of the moon. 

"What're you talking about?"

"Blair Cooper! C-O-P-P-R-E.  Didn't I tell you man, we're going steady."  James rolled his eyes and shifted all of his weight onto the arm of the staircase.  He was crashing fast like the last glass of wine he just gulped down had sent his body into shutdown mode.  One minute, you're there and then the next minute, you're stupid. 

"Oh, that's right.   Why don't you sit down a minute and tell me about her."

"No, man, I'm good."  He sat down on the stairs and buried his face in his hands.  "I'm good," he said lightly again. 

"Is he okay?" asked a sommelier whose bloodshot eyes looked like road maps.

"Oh yeah, he'll be fine.  He really loved my dad," Frank said. 

"It's quite a shame.  More wine?" the sommelier showed Frank the bottle and poured another drink. 

Frank sat down on the steps next to James.  Everyone was cherry-faced.  They laughed and smiled in complete bliss.  Bernie MacDonald's vagina face was so red he looked inflamed and his wife's wine glass had cream colored smudges around one-third of its rim.  Dartmouth's eyes were wide and attentive.  The rest of his face had turned the color of his nose and he had some tiny blonde-headed girl locked in a frantic conversation.  James ran his hands through his hair and rubbed his eyes, trying hard to break his confusion. 

"So, tell me about Blair."

James yawned and blinked hard.  "I don’t know.  I went out with her one time the night I flew in from Seattle."

"I thought you guys were talking."
            "I wish.  I've been trying to call her the past week with no response.  I facebooked her, texted, and nothing man.  She's fuckin' with me."

"Who knows, maybe she's busy?"

"No way.  Too busy to text back and say she's busy?  She's fuckin' with me and I don't like being fucked with.  I thought she'd be here tonight." James kept his head down as he talked with his eyes closed.

"I don't understand why you care.  Don't you have girls back in Seattle?  I mean who the hell is she?"

"I don't know, man.  I'm in love."

"You're full of shit," Frank said.  He patted James on the back.  "You'll be back in school this fall tearing it up again and all will be well.  You won't even think about this."

"I'm a writer, Frank!  I think about everything all the time!"  James raised his head and stared at Frank.  "Don't you know what kind of pressure it is to be thinking of everything all the time?  Of course not, you're out there, studying, whatever it is, fuckin' geology in New York and I'm up there always thinking."

"You're right, man.  I shouldn't have said that."

"It's cool.  You just don't understand.  Let's get another drink." 

They both got up and stumbled through the crowd.  The hot and sweaty bodies stunk like five-hour-old perfume mixed with salty water, all steamed at one-hundred-fifty degrees.  There had been a point, in the midst of his conversation with James, when Frank heard the slow taps of Chopin's nocturne in B-Flat abruptly fade out, replaced simultaneously by a pulsating thud of low bass that seemed to crescendo into a poppy, over-synthesized and unsympathetic mess and the bodies swayed to it moving forward and backward, rock-step, forward and backward, rock-step.

James led the way straight to Mrs. Cooper who still stood alone in the corner, with her head toward the floor. 

"My lord, if it isn't Mrs. Cooper!" James said emphatically.  He seemed to tap into his reserve tank of appropriateness, making his drunkenness undetectable.

"Good evening," she squinted, "James.  How are you doing this evening?"

"Just tryin' to keep the ole chap's spirits aroused," he said, flicking his head back toward Frank.

"Oh Frankie," she cried.

"Don't mind him, he's fine," James said, stepping in between the two.  "So, would you happen to know where Blair is?"

"Well," she paused, trying to look into Frank's eyes and then readjusting them back to James.  "You know, I haven't seen her since we walked in."

"That was fucking three hours ago," James mouthed to Frank with head turned.  "So, you haven't seen her in three hours, Mrs. Cooper?"

"I don’t believe I have.  Of course, I haven't been observing much in the last three hours," she said.  The sommelier beside her filled her glass as she stared at the roses on the table next to her.  And kindly, the sommelier poured James and Frank's glasses full.  "I think it's an absolute disgrace what they're doing here tonight."

"What's doing what, now?" James said.  He smiled and lifted the glass to his mouth.

"These scumbags.  These faceless scumbags who didn't know Harold from the paper they wipe their asses with," Mrs. Cooper said.  She brought her black handkerchief up to her eyes and dabbed the corners.  "Excuse my language."

Frank watched her intently and his face began getting warmer.

"Come on," James said to Frank.  He started off toward the front door shuffling through a crowd of tan old men.  They walked out onto the smoky front porch and commented on the cool ocean air blowing in.  "Man is she a mess, or what?"  James said, pulling up a cigarette.

"She's the only one who cares.  Well, Martha too."

"Martha's worried about the money," James said coolly.

"Worried about what?"

"You know, her check, how she's goin' to make it."

"I don’t think that's her concern right now," Frank said.  He was getting agitated.  "She's lived here ever since I can remember and now she's grieving because the one constant in her life is gone.  It wasn't a job for her, you know.  It was her life."