summer 1964

"Mahm, why is the jello shaking?"

"Eett iss askaered."

"Why is it scared Mahm?"

"Eett iss askaered bekass eett noes you are goingg to eat eett. Efery time you putt een your spoon too eett, eett iss like eett hass been gettingg stabbed wis a shovel."






"Feennish your chello."

fuck you larry king

So we just had a hurricane.

I got my lights back on day before yesterday.

I was watching larry king last night.

Anderson Cooper comes on to do a promo for his show, which will follow larry king.

Anderson Cooper shows the iconic video from hurricane Ike, of the lone house on Bolivar, surrounded by the debris of nearly every other home on the peninsula. Anderson Cooper says something about how he will have an interview with the owner of that home coming up next.

And larry king, larry king, that fucking piece of shit lizard faced talking colostomy bag, larry fucking king cackles and says, "Ha ha, that guy sure doesn't have any neighbors, haha." In a tone, like, you know, life is way better without neighbors. All private beach and shit. Right?

No, larry king, you fucking asshole moron piece of shit, that guy sure does not have any neighbors. You know why larry king? Because a fucking hurricane came by and blew all the neighbors homes and belongings away. You fucking dirtbag serial trophy wife fucker. You fucking stinking colostomy bag of a shit hole ( I know I used the colostomy bag comparison earlier in the post, but I really, really think he's just a thin membrane of dried mucosa completely filled to bursting with mossy, liquid shit).

It's not funny, larry king, you fucking Alzheimer poster boy. People lost everything they owned and some lost their lives. And you sit there in your Depends undergarment, stinking up a studio with your rancid breath and laugh about how some guy now has the beach all to himself. haha

I have friends who had homes there. That was a community. And it was wiped out. And you laughed about how some lucky guy had no more neighbors.

Fuck you larry king.

Fuck you larry king

Fuck you larry king.

And fuck you cnn for keeping this brainless lizard man, who doesn't even know who his guests are any more, on the air.

Oh yeah, fuck you larry king.

With all due respect and from Uncle Walt.

ps. fuck you larry king.

Absent friends

He rolled past the bar, not looking sidelong into the picture window but concentrating self conciously straight ahead. He turned right two blocks past and came back around the bar again about two minutes later. Still rolling past, not looking sidelong into the picture window but concentrating self conciously straight ahead.

He had been doing this for about two hours, fifty-five trips around before he pulled into the parking lot and turned off the engine.

I had been sitting on the other side of the picture window, drinking Budweiser and smoking Marlbros and looking out the picture window at the man driving by in the dark green 1964 International pick up truck. Waiting for him to park the goddam truck. And after he parked the truck, waiting for him to get his ass in the bar.

Register sat in his truck and lit a joint and smoked it slowly and thoughtfully. Taking deep hits and then sucking in the wisps that emanated from the lit end. When he was done he flung the fat roach out of the window and onto the parking lot. He stumbled out of the truck and into the bar.

I saw him approach the door from the picture window. He went to the far end of the bar, where there were no people and sat. I picked up my cigarettes and beer and joined him.

"So what's up?" I asked.

"Sorry I'm late," he said, "I got busy doing some errands and couldn't make it over on time. Sorry."

"It's no big deal, what'd you want to meet me for?"

"You want a bump?"

"Sure."

He handed me a baggie with about a half ounce of coke in it and his keys. I went into the bathroom and didn't take too much. He was testing me.

When I came back out and handed back the baggie he looked closely at it and put it back into his pocket.

"Come up to the office with me." he said.

I followed him out the back door, across the patio and into the out building that constituted the office. The owner of the bar was inside at his desk. Across the room from him was a very cowed looking young man on a couch. I recognized the guy as someone I had gone to middle school with.

Register looked at the owner and asked, "get anything out of him?"

The owner just shook his head.

Register looked at me for a second then he looked at the cowed young man, "I've got to be out of town for three days," he pointed at me, "you pay this man three hundred dollars today, three hundred dollars tomorrow, and three hundred dollars the day after tomorrow or he will kick your fucking ass." He said it very quietly and very pleasantly and the cowed young man on the couch began to cry.

He looked at me and said, "You pay," he pointed at the owner, "this man six hundred dollars by day after tomorrow or I will kick your ass." The cowed young man on the couch began to sob.

I nodded my head and Register and I walked back into the bar.

"You want a shot?"

"Sure thing man"

"You don't mind that I did that do you? That I put you on the spot like that?"

"No. Do I really have to shake this guy down? And pay up?"

"Hell yes you do."

"Can I have another bump?"

"Sure."

I did another. We sat in the near deserted bar and didn't talk for a while.

"Hey Register. How come you was riding around the block out there for two hours?"

"I was listening to my Allman Brothers tape. You know, I listen to those guys and I just get lost in the music and lose track of time."

"Two hours?"

"You want a shot?"

"Sure."

"Hey bartender, round of shots."

The bartender sauntered over. "What you want honey?"

Ken looked at me, "Cuervo." I said.

"Two Cuervos and Schnapps for everybody else."

"Can I have one too?" the bartender asked.

"I said everybody didn't I?"

"I's just making sure honey."

We did shots. Then we just sat not talking just drinking our drinks and smoking our cigarettes and looking toward the picture window.

cognac

I walked through rooms toward the exit. Through rooms which seemed to be crying, "Stay! Live here! We need living and pulses and hearts!"

I just left anyway. Feeling I had left the rooms bereft and lonely.

I drove the van down highway 288 and stopped at the liquor store just past the city limits. I bought a bottle of cognac because the glamorous couple on some soap opera had spoken of drinking cognac in front of a fire and it seemed romantic.

The fat, red-haired lady behind the counter glowered at me through wisps of smoke emanating from the cigarette hanging between her chapped lips.

I took my package back to the van and began driving toward the beach. It seemed as if I bought the bottle in summer and arrived at the water in the winter. Funny how you remember things.

The beach was cold and deserted. Deserted except for trash and seaweed. The sky was grey and full of bluster. The wind, coming from the north, blew sand from the dunes against my back as I sat southward.

I watched the waves roll and crash, their crests high and foamy from the wind. The sand was packed hard and was cold and damp. Pretty soon my ass was wet.

I opened the bottle of cognac and took a sip from the bottle. I'd never had cognac. I didn't much care for it.

I wondered if Ed had ever had cognac. I couldn't ask anymore.

I wished I had bought a back up six pack in case the cognac didn't work out.

Ah what the hell. I drank some more. Didn't seem as bad the second time.

I looked out at the Gulf of Mexico. By the sixth sip or so I thought maybe if I could swim out to the Yucatan I could kick this thing that seemed to have hold of me. But nobody could swim from Freeport to the Yucatan.

I gave up on the cognac and got back into the van. There was a 7-11 out by the highway. I stopped in and bought a six pack of Miller High Life. I drank it on the way back home.

I returned to the rooms. They didn't seem too happy to see me. I certainly wasn't happy to see them.

But they were mine. A little spot of mine. When I left them they seemed to want me to stay, when I stayed they seemed indifferent.When I was drunk I shouted at the walls. When I was sober I just looked at them and waited.

I don't know what I was waiting for. It never arrived in a package or in the form of a person.

"You just look around I guess, that's prolly how you find it." he used to tell me. "You can't just sit around and wait for something to happen, you gotta go out and look for it. Even if you don't know what it is, or where it is. Just keep your eyes open and start looking."

I'm still looking.

Maybe in a stolen car in a foreign country under an assumed name.

shopping 1

Take a trip to the loserama.

Loser.

It's the only place to find pants that fit you.

I could feel her going through my pockets as I lay, half asleep, on the back porch. I swung hard and connected with her jaw to send her reeling. She stumbled and teetered off the edge of the porch and into the wheelbarrow.

"You son of a bitch!" she shreiked. "You motherfucking son of a bitch!"

"Why were you going through my pockets?" I yelled back.

The night was clear and cold. The stars were hard and close. She clattered out of the wheelbarrow to a horrible din that brought on the lights in the alley and softened the hateful eerie starlight.

"I wanted a fucking cigarette! You hit me you son of a bitch!"

"Where's my wallet?"

"I was gonna get some money out of it to go get some cigarettes."

"Where's my cigarettes?"

"I don't got your fucking cigarettes you motherfucker. Fuck you."

"Can I have one please?"

"Well, okay. But these ain't yours. These are some I found in my jacket."

She handed me a cigarette and sat next to me as I lit it and then one for her.

"You really clocked me pretty good."

"I was awake."

" I really thought you were asleep.You were snoring pretty loud."

"Playing possum. Can I have my wallet back?"

She handed me my wallet and we smoked. The lights in the alley twinkled off as the neighbors realized the commotion was over. The starlight hardened again.

I thumped away my butt and walked off the porch and into the night. She made no attempt to follow. Didn't even say a word.

I fished the bottle out of the culvert at the end of the driveway and took two hard swigs before taking off across the pastures toward the river.

dreams 1

I had this dream that I was in this play. The play got such good notices that the Queen of England came to see it.

After the performance that she saw, she came up to me and told me it was the best performance she had ever seen.

I said, "Aw, thank you, your Majesty."

She said, "You must call me Betsy."

I said, "Thank you Betsy."

She said, "You must come over to my place and have lunch sometimes. We'll have filet mignon." then she reached into her purse and pulled out a gold airline ticket. She said, "This is good anytime for British airways, just call first. " And then she handed me the airline ticket. "How's Tuesday?" She asked.

I told her that would be fine. Then we shook hands.

Okay.

It was a daydream.

wolves

Janet and Mommagirl drove past the steaming chemical plants, careening down the wet highway at breakneck speed. The plants always blew out extra steam during the rains. People always wondered why that seemed to be.

They careened, veered, swerved, lurched and reeled in the ancient Galaxy 500 over puddles and past ditches and down roads on which the paving was more hoped for than found.

Janet bracing herself on the dashboard at all times. Mommagirl holding the steering wheel at ten and two, elbows high.

They pulled into the Woolworths parking lot at five 'till nine. "They have to let us in because it ain't closin' time yet." Mommagirl insisted.

Janet just glared at her as she heaved herself out the passenger door. Janet did not usually speak. Janet looked at her feet mostly, and smoked Newports. And glared at Mommagirl and Tina Louise.

But now she spoke. "Why we gotta go to the Woolsworth in the middle of the goddammed night in the goddam rain, Mommagirl?"

Mommagirl walked around the front of the car and back handed Janet across the mouth just as she stood up from the seat balancing her heft on the door frame, making the car tilt a bit starboard. "Don't you ever take the name of the lord in vain in my goddammed Ford little missy!"

"I could call child protective services on you!" Janet shrieked.

"You're thirty-two years old Janet. Child protective services don't give a shit about you."

"Well, there's some protective agency that helps people who have to live with their parents and then their parents slap them around."

"Yeah Janet it's called the poh-leece. You gonna call the poh-leece on your momma and say she assaulted you? You gonna have me arrested Janet?"

"I jus' might, you keep on slappin' me around like that. I just might."

"Shut the hell up Janet. We gonna miss the Woolsworth. Now move your ass in the store before they lock the doors."

Janet shut up and glared at the back of Mommagirls head. She lit a cigarette and followed the old fat woman inside.

"I want to get Tina Louie something nice. She's getting her 90 day chip tonight at the alcoholics meeting and I want to get her something nice. Oh, Janet, look at that sweatshirt! You think she'd like it?"

"I thought you said something nice."

"Well, it is nice. It's got all them flowers and beads on it. I think it's pretty."

"I don't know why we got to get her something nice just for being a drunk."

"It's not for being a drunk, goddammit, Janet. It's for getting sober."

"She had to be a drunk before she had to get sober. That's all I'm saying. Now she's sober and working like millions of people do everyday all their lives, but since she's been doing it for three months, we gotta go down to the Woolsworth in the middle of the night in the rain to get her a goddam present."

"What I tell you about taking the lords name in vain missy?"

"You told me not to do it in your goddam Ford."

"You sure you hate the sweatshirt?"

"I don't give a shit about the sweatshirt"

"Well, maybe you should start giving a shit, Janet."

"Maybe I should Mommagirl. But I don't."

Mommagirl bought the sweatshirt. They drove home in silence. Going home much more slowly on the slick roads. Janet staring at her feet and chain smoking in the passenger seat and Mommagirl holding the wheel at ten and two, elbows high.

Over the half paved roads and onto the highway, past the steaming chemical plants. "You think that's really just steam?" Janet asked.

"What else could it be?"

"Chemicals. Poison. God."

"Shut the hell up Janet."

Janet lit another cigarette.

They pulled up into the driveway. They ran across the rain spattered front yard into the front door. Mommagirl put the sweatshirt into a nice box for Tina Louise and started dinner.

Janet rummaged around some drawers in the den and found some old construction paper and colored pencils and sat with them at the kitchen table.

"What are you doing Janet?"

"I'm making a card for Tina Louise."

"Well that's real sweet of you, Janet. I'm gonna go pick her up from her meeting in a few minutes. You want to go with me?"

"No." She began drawing flowers on the paper.

Dinner prepared, Mommagirl kissed Janet on the head, "I think it's sweet, you making your sister a card. She's trying real hard."

"I know Mommagirl."

Mommagirl went back out into the rain, out to the Galaxy 500 to drive across Clute to get her youngest daughter, the one they always thought was the smart one, and haul her back from her court-appointed alcoholics anonymous meeting.

After the car was out of the driveway and safely down the road, Janet finished her card. The inside was all flowers and bees and birds. She folded it and on the front she wrote, "Little sister, I do give a shit. Love Janet."

She went and found the box Mommagirl had put the sweatshirt in. She taped the card to the top of the box. Then she took off the top of the box and set the box on the floor. She took off all her clothes and shit into the box. She put the top back on the box, put the box back where Mommagirl had left it, picked up her clothes, and went to bed.