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Friday, February 22, 2013

Traffic Revelations [Rough Draft]

Traffic Revelations

    “And when you see the face of God you will die and there will be nothing left of you except the Godly man and Godly woman. And prayers will be eternally upon your lips and there will be nothing more to look for except God. And this is all a dream with an end that––”

    Alright, who’s the idiot that was fudging with my radio presets? It was all very precise to how I wanted it. One was my go to for classic alternative rock, always the safest bet. Two was my alternative alternative rock station in case I didn’t like the song on One. Three and Four were pop music stations that I only listened to for the sake of others. Wait, those are my FM stations, this must be AM. I don’t think I’ve ever set any AM stations. The car salesman, or at least the guy I bought the car from, told me that dealerships preset FM country stations and AM Christian stations because of various polls and studies. I wasn’t really listening because I didn’t care, I was more worried about the car.
I told him the seat looked too close to the wheel.
He said that the adjustment lever was broken.
I showed him that I couldn’t fit past the wheel.
He told me that it wasn’t his problem I was too fat.
I told him to fuck off.
He shoved the chair back with force.
It’s still broken and a metal rod is sticking out through the side of the seat, but at least I fit.

    When we had made the deal official, he shook my hand just long enough to make me worry if I had grabbed wet naps on the way out that day. He might have been right about the car being a classic beauty despite it’s current appearance in his posting of it in the paper, but my knowledge and appreciation of cars is about as full as my pockets were when I bought it.

Sitting in the traffic of the parking structure, I look around and make a list of the things I know about my car. It’s a faded red. The seats are uncomfortable leather. It smells. There’s a layer of dust that’s so engrained in the clear plastic that I can’t read the digital display underneath that shows the time and station number. When I opened the glove compartment for the first time it smelled like the retirement home room that my mother died in. Radio reception would probably be stronger if the antenna didn’t look like a coat hanger does after being used to jimmy a car lock.


    “…through this great sea of blackness that I’ve penetrated and I went through this last segment with the dark serpentines and I penetrated to the most high God and you will believe you’re mad, that you’ve gone insane. There are many wonders sitting there today thinking they’re insane, that they saw something that’s unreal. But they see it through the light of God, the way I saw it through the light of God. And when you see the face of God you die.”

    Ambient noise is playing underneath his ramblings to make it more…More what? Poignant? Moving? This guy could describe my car with the same emotion and same music and it would probably sound like something important. But this car would still be the same piece of shit. And when you see the granola bar wrappers on the dirty mats you will die and there will be nothing left of you except the Driver man and Driver woman who don’t care about the trash in your car. And the car wash is too expensive to clean the mud off the tires, the tires of your life. And I’m penetrating through the darkness of this parking structure with the black, serpentine SUV in front of me. And when you see the bends of your antenna, you die.

    I actually should give this preacher credit because he’s had me listening for this long at least. I hit the AM/FM button to switch over to my One preset.

    “…and when you see the face of God you die!” Damn it to Hell, I haven’t moved an inch in this damn traffic and now my radio won’t switch over. Do I deal with silence or more of this lunatic? I push in the volume button in to stop the nonsense ravings.

    “…the face of the Godhead three. A face of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and when you see this face you die.” Oh, come on, I’m sick of this damn, brainless goof! I try pushing in the power button, the AM/FM button, the One button and the Two button, but still get nothing. That is to say, I get the “face of God” thrown back at me again and again.

Look, preacher, you’re performance is getting goddamn stale. At least real actors do multiple takes with various techniques. Like, right now, to show my frustration, I’ll honk the horn and shift violently in my seat, but I won’t keep doing the same thing repetitiously. I swear, you’re like itching a bug bite, the more I try to get rid of you the more annoying you becoming. No wonder I don’t listen to the goddamned AM stations. Plus, you have it backwards. I won’t see the face of God and then die. I’ll be dead already when I see the face of God. 

    “…you will not be dead before you see the face of God.” The radio goes silent. I redistribute my weight towards my legs with an amused smirk, the coincidence of words shaking off the veil that was draped across my mind. Did my radio die completely or was the broadcast over? If the broadcast was over, there wouldn’t be silence. Damn it to hell, I guess my radio is really broken. Piece of shit car. I push my foot harder on the break to tense up all the muscles in my leg. And my radio is a piece of shit and my car is a piece of shit and this black SUV in front of me that hasn’t budged in ten minutes is a piece of shit and this Goddamn preacher is a piece of––

    “BUT BECAUSE OF YOUR HARD AND IMPENITENT HEART YOU ARE STORING UP WRATH FOR YOURSELF ON THE DAY WHEN GOD’S RIGHTEOUS JUGDMENT WILL BE REVEALED.” I jump in my seat and cover my ears at the intense volume of the radio and turn the volume knob in every direction to try and stop it. My eyes are closed at the shock and noise when I push every button my fingers land on, all of them at the same time.

    “WHEN YOU SEE THE FACE OF GOD YOU DIE.” What the hell? I know people are staring at me. Shit. I put the car in park and turn off the car, my foot still on the brake.

    “…YOU DIE WHEN YOU SEE THE FACE OF GOD YOU DIE WHEN YOU SEE THE FACE OF GOD YOU DIE WHEN YOU SEE THE FACE OF GOD YOU DIE WHEN YOU…” My hands grow hot around ears and it feels like I have a bloody nose, but everything’s dry. The car speakers are making that static fart noise when they’re about to be blown out and the bass of the voice and the volume are working together to shake the car and pound at my rib cage. When I tear my eyes open, I see the SUV in front of me is white instead of black and pulsing red and blue lights are assaulting my eyes.

    “AND HE WILL SAY TO THOSE ON THE LEFT “DEPART FROM ME YOU CURSED INTO THE ETERNAL FIRE PREPARED FOR THE DEVIL AND HIS ANGELS…” There’s a wetness against my mouth and the pounding on my lungs feels rhythmic. Something tingles at my feet, like the pins and needle feeling when blood stops circulating. The pins work their way up my legs but the ones at my feet start to push harder and harder, as if they are pushing all the way through my foot. The penetrations work their way up my legs and hips, shoving into my spinal cord and cascading over the back of my head and down towards my face. When the needles bury into my eyes, I see the Godly woman in all white with a set of wings atop two snakes around a staff pinned on her chest. She bends down and touches her lips against my dry ones, her blonde hair brushing against my unmoving cheeks and neck. The kiss is a familiar one of “goodbye.”

    A darkness slides into vision from my peripherals like a serpent. A pain erupts at my heart as if the sting of every stubbed toe, every paper cut, every headache, every violent shout, every punch, every divorce, every night spent alone is pushed into one syringe that’s plunged into the last piece of flesh operating in my body. And the last thing I see is the digital clock on my dash, but there’s no time displayed. And I wonder how long I’ve been in this car, how long this agony has lasted. And it feels like an eternity. And the lips are gone. And I’m sorr––

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

MotherFather

For the sake of them all being in one place: I've compiled a list of all these different ways that I've written to describe parents. Not my parents, mind you, just single sentences that I think would sum up characteristics succinctly.

"My father was a scorpion & my mother was a six pack" - Pete and Pete
My father was a haircut & my mother was the scissors.
My father was a farmer & my mother was the rabbit.
My father was an onion & my mother was crying.
My father was Trouble & my mother was Sorry. I was Scrabble.
My father was a monocle & my mother was 20/20.
My father was a novel & my mother was a magazine.
My father was a magazine & my mother was a novel.
My father was a fishing rod & my mother was a hunting knife.
My father was a shark & my mother was a wave.
My father was a lion & my mother was an umbrella.
My father was a safari & my mother was an oak.
My father was an is & my mother was a was. I, will be.
My father was a cop & my mother was dirty.
My father was a steel girder & my mother was blind.
My father was dead & my mother was dead.
My father was crimson & my mother was black.
My father was a heart attack & my mother was bloody.
My father was a moustache & my mother was sideburns
"My mother is a fish" - As I Lay Dying
My father was perfume & my mother was a thorn
My father was a metaphor & my mother was pissed.
My father was a drunk & my mother was an ashtray
My father was a poet & my mother was words.

Hello

These is an idea I had the other day and I liked the image. I don't plan on writing this into anything or expanding on it, but I wanted to write down these scattered ideas. It's not in any way fleshed out or developed, just sketches of something interesting. It's not something that's fleshed out in any way, complete or developed beyond an outline.

Imagine your body as more cavernous, roomy. Remove the guts & blood & bone & muscle. Deconstruct the insides to rebuild it as Hell. Remove the limbs, there's no running, no grabbing on to where it hurts.

The head: Entrapped in a prison of the skull, souls are entwined in the labyrinth of nerves running through the brain. Electric currents pumping through them endlessly. This is the punishment for Pride.

Gluttons get a buffet. They get to choose to dine on snot & boogers or saliva & vomit. The gluttons in the mouth are stuck between the teeth like a popcorn kernel, eternally begin gnashed and chewed. All the while being assaulted by bad breath. The demon in charge is the tongue, often swallowing itself to induce vomit.
The gluttons in the nose can see their freedom, they forever swim against a flow of snot being sniffed back. The sniffing takes out all of the air from the orifice, as if a vacuum being held up to the lungs. Unable to breath, the souls take in snot. The demons in charge are the impish nose hairs, prickling the souls & flogging them with their boogery bodies.

The eyes are the punishment for Envy. The demon in charge is the pupil, looking inward at the souls floating in the goopy orb. The souls are stuck re-watching, reliving the collective sorrows of the other souls with them.

The ears belong to Wrath. Unable to move in the bitter earwax they are drowning in, their own ears become hypersensitive to every sound, like a nail being hammered into the side of their head. The demon in charge is the eardrum, constantly banging on himself to cause booming reverberations, to cause screams.

Greed gets the gut. Boiling, melting, dissolving in the vat of stomach acid.

And reigning over the slimy, cavernous flesh, suspended in the center of the Hell entity is Satan: The Heart
The gluttonous being eternally pumping, thrusting, providing the rivers of blood that connect every damnation. Each new soul entering through his ventricles, distributed to their fitting torture.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Found Poem

I took words & phrases out
of a textbook, two songs and one movie,
wrote them on scraps
of papers, threw them
in the air. This is how they landed.

the term is mimetic
Sufficient moments.

Do as the band says
so the band says: "Don't
be a whore." Annihilation
of beginnings, everyone crying
as they see your paradise
stolen, not lost. "Theft,"
so the band says, "assigning
theft to moths. Don't be
don't be a nuclear...

---

I turned Ginsberg
upside down but I couldn't
change the color of his side-
burns.

---

small Hispanic boys shout
at my car, windows
rolled up, from a street
corner in front of some
red place called Alfio's
 
---

But a very clear image
of four people, half
in shade, the sun on their feet
father, mother
daughterson, brother.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Recipe: Banana-Rum Splits

Recipe: Banana-Rum Splits
You’ll Need:

"- ½ Tbsp butter                                       - 2 bananas
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar                              - 2 Tbsp dark rum or bourbon
- 4 large scoops vanilla ice cream           - ¼ cup pecans, toasted and chopped
- 4 Tbsp dark chocolate syrup                 - Light whipped topping” (Goulding)
- Decades 

* * *

Prep: 5 minutes
    Mrs. Brown, my kindergarten teacher, looks sick when a truck that isn’t my mom’s finally comes to pick me up in front of school. Her face twists funny when my mom walks out of this strange car with no hair and a moustache. My dad introduces himself and says sorry for being late. “Family emergency,” he says. I take off my backpack in the truck, stretch my shoulders and ask him what took so long and where Mom was. He apologizes for being late. “Family emergency,” he says.

* * *

Step One: “Heat butter in a large skillet over medium heat.”

    My mom comes out from behind the corner of the kitchen before I’m even halfway through the living room. The house feels muggy, like when I accidentally left my space heater on overnight and Mom got mad. I woke up sweaty, looking like Mom’s face does now when she stops me in front of the couch. We don’t sit down.

    “Do you remember your cousin, Chad?” I see her face isn’t sweaty, but that she’s been crying.

    “Yeah.” I don’t though.

    “Chad’s passed away.” I can’t see a face, and I am still unsure exactly what a cousin means. I think we’re related. Mom goes back to the kitchen crying again and I start wondering if I’m going to have to do my homework today or not. My brother comes home ten minutes later with Dad. Why didn’t we get picked up together? I thought.

* * * 

Step Two and Step Three: “Slice the bananas in half crosswise, then lengthwise, place the banana quarters in the hot pan with the brown sugar and cook on one side until deeply caramelized”

    The coastal drive to Santa Barbara is my favorite, even if no one in the car is talking. I prefer sitting in the way back of the van so Jed and my mom and dad can each have their own aisles. 

    I imagine living on the beach. Not in a house by the beach, but in a shack I’ve made for myself out of driftwood, rocks and my furniture would be made out of sand. I’d have to move everyday when the water washes it away, but the ocean would always bring new materials.

    Aunt Nancy’s house is behind a gate that has plants growing all over it. It smells like I think the bottom of the ocean should smell. Before we get to the door, Jed explains that Aunt Nancy’s kids are my cousins. I’m still unsure if that means I’m related. Cody, my “cousin,” is in his room when we’re hugged at the door by Aunt Nancy. She says Uncle Mike has been in the garage all day. There’s other people here, but I don’t know them. Everyone walks into the kitchen with the big window to the backyard, but I don’t follow them. They’re all crying and I’m not, but Jed comes back and gets me anyway.

* * *

Step 4: “Turn the bananas over and cook for another 30 seconds.”

    “Chad was Aunt Nancy’s oldest son.” Jed says to me when we’re in our own room that night. I like Aunt Nancy’s house at night because I can hear the ocean.

    “I know dying means you don’t come back, but doesn’t everyone die when they’re suppose to?” My mom comes in to check on us and leaves. She thinks we’re asleep. I hear people talking in another room.

    “Well, I guess in the way that God has plans for everything, yeah.”

    “If Chad was suppose to die, then why is everyone crying and why won’t Cody leave his room?”

    “Because Chad wasn’t even thirty yet. Everyone is sad that he should have lived longer.”

    “So why didn’t he?” Jed doesn’t answer. I am in a sleeping bag on the floor and Jed is above me in a bed so I can’t see his face. I think he’s sleeping. “Jed?” It’s stupid that Chad’s dead since it just makes everyone cry. 

    “Chad did…bad things. Do they tell you to say no in kindergarten? Probably not. Aunt Nancy told us that Chad went to bed at a friend’s house and never woke up… Chad use to give me haircuts whenever we came down here. He’d take an electric razor and run it right through the middle of my hair giving me a reverse mohawk. You, Chad and Cody would laugh every time.” It sounds like Jed is talking more to himself and I don’t want to be rude and listen. Jed stops talking soon and the ocean makes my eyes sleepy, but I keep them open because I’m afraid I won’t wake up after the bad things I’ve done.
 
* * *

Step 5: “Remove from the heat and add the rum. Be careful––even when the pan is removed from the heat, the alcohol can still ignite.”

    I wake up and Jed’s not in the bed. I go out to the kitchen because I hear sizzling and I see Cody in front of the oven. He reminds me of someone else who was in this kitchen because of how tall he is. I also remember a bald head. I think I’m starting to remember Chad and Cody says, “Morning.”

    “What are you making?” It smells good, like the bottom of the ocean should. Cody picks up a bottle that looks like the ones my mom use to twist her face funny at my dad for drinking.

    “Breakfast.” I see an ice cream container on the counter to the right of him, the one next to the big window out to the backyard where the garage is. I look out but I don’t see anyone.

    “You can’t have ice cream for breakfast.” Cody moves the pan off the stove and over to the counter away from me but tilts it down to show. 

    “Look, there’s bananas, that’s breakfast, right?” He smiles and pours the bottle over the bananas. Now it smells like the ocean really does, not like it should. Cody takes out two bowls with names on them that I can’t read, but quickly puts them back and takes out two more. 

    “Here, we’ll have ice cream for breakfast today and no one will know. Just you and me.” I think about Chad and the “bad things” and how he died in his sleep, but Cody has already made the bowls and I think that he wants me to eat with him. I don’t know where anyone else is, but I imagine Cody and I eating ice cream from bowls with names on them every morning in my shack on the ocean, waiting to see what the waves would bring in.

* * *

Step 6: “Place 2 banana quarters and any accumulated liquid in bowls.” Let it cool. Wait for it to settle in. Serves three. Look at the bowls that are full, not empty. “Top with ice cream, nuts, chocolate, and whipped topping.” Enjoy.







Works Cited

Goulding, Matt and David Zinczenko. "Banana-Rum Splits." Cook This, Not That. New York: Rodale Inc., 2010. 324. Print.

Friday, February 1, 2013

The Borough Boys: Part 1: D-Day of the D-D-Dead

The Borough Boys: Part 1: D-Day of the D-D-Dead

Despite all the activity within the first month of the uprising, I can't remember what month it was. The year was two thousand and two, the year of our lord, and, then artist, P!ink had just had a hit with "Get the Party Started". The P.O.O., or Point of Outbreak, as the special military unit calls it, was Meadows Elementary School's sixth grade dance. One kid, who all the girls had nicknamed "Fuzz" because of his buzz haircut and the guys because of his very early onset puberty, was inventing a move on the dance floor he was hoping would attract his crush, Mallory. P!ink sung on and the CD only skipped once.

The following week was to be that class's graduation. I arrived on the scene a week after that. From the only intel. that the commanding officer had at the time, it appeared that someone had been distributing meth at the party via the fruit punch.

The school cafeteria had been on lockdown since.

"What's it look like in there?" I overhead a cop asking his superior.

"We haven't seen the inside since the third day." That's what I was there for. I was their inside man. The last person who had gone in was the 6th grade math teacher. She survived twenty minutes longer than the science teacher, but if elementary school math had taught me anything, it taught me: 1 dead science teacher + 1 dead math teacher X 3 piles of bodies = 1 hot mess.

At the time, the military figured that if the students were responding to authority in some way, why not go for broke? I was the President, rather, I was to portray the president. We couldn't actually get permission for my title to be the President of the United States, so I was to be the President of Bulgaria. Close enough.

A majority of the story is the same as every bankheist-hostage-negotiation-movie, so why bother with all the details? It's what's on the inside that matters.

"Do you remember that national tragedy a year ago, Dirk?" Sergeant Dirk Ruffin asked me as the team prepped for my insertion.

"How could anyone possibly forget? And don't they keep telling us 'Never Forget'?" Sergeant Dirk Ruffin had the same name as me, but there was no relation or similarity. I just called him "Tool." I had once caught him making out with his secretary in his office and he made a similar grunt to Tim "The Toolman" Taylor, hence the name.

"I'm not talking about 9/11! I'm talking about yoga. Watch yourself in there, I think these kids are classically trained in yoga."

"Okay, so why am I wearing KFC buckets as shoes? More importantly, why are they full of mashed potatoes?"

"Are you questioning my authority, son?" I hated it when he called me son. "Are you questioning the only person to enter that building and get out alive? I think I know what you need to be prepared. We're hoping that when they go for your feet, the food will distract them. All kids love mashed potatoes."

"Without gravy?" I retorted.

"Crap. Call up the Colonel and get some gravy down here, stat!"

Development

Development

My grandfather's ashes
in a box on the ground
under the bed, shares company
with photo albums. Dead people,
my family. All of the firsts,
on vacation, "holidays," my father

my sisters and me. Never met
relatives. Who took these?
Frozen things are easily broken
like ice cube trays. The bindings
are ripped and frayed. Last page:

Just another photo of a girl
with a gun to bore me.