Turn the page and see what happens next...

((



))

He sits in the brown folding chair, blue work pants hiding the tongues of his dark brown work boots. He's leaned forward, flipping through today's section of the paper. The arts, sports, and science sections are underneath one rubber footed leg of the chair, holding them tight to the worn concrete.

Behind him, underneath the raised metal security door, is a dark, deceptively deep area. Somewhere for storing something. Somewhere for selling something. But even with the sun high up in the sky, all a passersby can see is shadow.

He comes to this spot every morning, paper and coffee in hand. He bends down and unlocks the door, letting it slide up effortlessly. As the sound of the wheels on their rails dies down he grabs the chair which is always propped against the inside wall and has a seat outside.

He raises his head with a nod and a smile every now and then, greeting the strangers he knows by name. They tip their hats and keep on walking as he hunches forward a sifts through the next article, taking in all the news that's fit to print. He sips from his cup, raising it to his big, brown lips, and smiles as he sets it back down, flicking the paper against the wind as he does so.

And although there's no goods behind him to sell, although there are no customers pouring in through the gigantic doorway, he continues this ritual. Sipping, smiling, reading along with the passage of time. At 5 he folds his paper up and collects his coffee cup. He leans his chair back against the wall and closes up shop, letting the giant metal door down gently, and double checking that he has it locked before he slips the brass key back into his trouser pocket.

Rain, sleet, or snow, he kept to his routine.

When the nor'easters blow in, he still opens the door, and sets the chair up just a few feet inside. No matter how much the streets flood and overflow, or how hard the traffic hits the puddles, he gets only the faintest mists on his leather boots. And he sits there, with a perfectly crisp paper in his hands, coffee by his feet. He sips, reads, nods and smiles.

And no matter the holiday, no matter the parades, no matter what businesses are closed, he sits, sips, reads, nods and smiles. It takes a certain kind of man to have that sort of dedication to a shop of shadows. But that smile never changes. The crease running from knee to ankle never falters. The brown and tan laces that peek out from under the hem are always perfectly in place, tied to perfection I'm sure. But I'm not one to go lifting up people's clothing for inspection.

He's kind of a friendly reminder. Not inspiring perhaps, but not sad either. He has a job to do and he does it very well. He's a kind of rock around which all the pedestrians acknowledge and change their tide for. And no matter the flow, he never erodes, never changes.

Just sits. Sips. Reads. Nods. Smiles.

I envy that kind of man. To have that kind of contentment. That self-assured presence among the populace.

I tip my hat to him.

Lots of wenches is what I need...

((



))

I was but just a lad when I joined the crew of hardy sailors and salty veterans alike, walking up the plank to the deck, grasping the lead rope with a grip I hoped none could see. The few treasures I had accumulated over my short lifetime shifted in the burlap sack that swung against my back, familiar bumps of leather gloves and extra boots drummed against my back. I reached the top and found myself in front of a giant of a man, surrounded by other long, weathered faces. The giant's finger pointed towards the rear of the ship. His smile pointed deep into the center of my being. It was much different that the smiles that sprouted on the faces of the other deckhands. Their crooked grins chased me to the back of the quarter deck where I found Captain Pennysworth smoking a long, curled pipe.

"What's such a baby fresh boy doing on a man's rig?" he asked me.
"Come to work for you, Captain. My mother said she sent you a letter of request."
"So," he said, turning his deep, unconcerned eyes to me, "we have a mother's milk thief on-board?"
"In so many words, yes Captain," I replied, adjusting the pack over my shoulder.
"In so many words..." Pennysworth repeated, turning back to supervising the strolling parade of petticoats passing along the dockside. "Go find Marmoth, you'll recognize him easily enough, and keep in mind there's no teat on board"
"Yes, Captain."

I found the dark skinned giant again, assuming correctly that among a crew of battered, gnarled figures that the one who stood at least a foot taller than the average man would be someone I would recognize easy.

I was showed my quarters, a rope hammock atop two others, in a long hold room filled with a licorice stench and hundreds of other hammocks. Privacy was not a luxury for seafarers back then, nor is it to this day.

I was to work, to cut my teeth on the rigging lines and learn a trade so I could send some reimbursement back home to my mother for all her years weaning and molding me. And did I ever learn to do some cutting under the swift guidance of Pennysworth. More of throats and burial lines than of teeth and umbilical cords.

I would hate to think that mother knew exactly what import/export business her old friend Pennysworth was in charge of.

Import the gold, export the bodies.

Import the jewelry, export the bodies.

Import the ship, export the bodies.

We earned quite a fleet, and we suffered quite a few casualties.

So that's the story, how it started at least, of how my own mother shanghaied me into the Federation of Pirates.

May the Sanctifier bless her immortal soul.

I must assure you...

((



))

I am ugly inside.

But some days it doesn't matter, rising to the tone of a phone crackling nonsense in your ear. I owe the American taxpayer some credit. I guess social debt is the best one now and then.

So we've been talking about the Beat movement lately, been going over Allen Ginsberg and I must say, for a bunch of pre-historic emo bastards, I got their idea all wrong. It's a bit romanticized, snotty rich kids wanting to play the down trodden part of society as usual, belying unto us with sugary sweet words of suffering and woe.

But that's just the ones that fell in line when they saw they got to smoke cheap, trendy cigarettes in back alley bars while a boy in a beret exclaimed his hatred of the oppressive capitalist pig-dogs, and for those conformist fools who dress up in their suits and ties and go to work for the MAN...

...exclaimed his hatred in a bar full of black berets and shitty mustaches and secret trust funds.

It's amazing how quickly things have come full circle.

Being downtrodden, stripped down, filthy, 'non-conformist' if such a thing exists...it's hilarious to watch the imitations that people try so desperately to get away from when they don't have the choice.

But, their choice to make, eh, whatever.

Anyways, the Beat movement. Not too shabby. So a kid who's evidently fucking brilliant, graduating from Columbia University with damn good marks, decides to just kinda hit the peyote payload and live life to it's suckiest.

While this is willful 'beat down' I must give the man commendation for getting into print shit that even Walt Whitman had to hide deep within his verse.

"With dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,..." (11, Howl)

1950s here.

"Who copulated, ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,..." (41, Howl)

1950s. Holy. Shit.

But anyways, enough of my bitching about how damn near all of history's writers are fucking frauds.

It's been an insightful quarter so far, learning of the various styles of writing, how the perception of acceptable prose and poetry have evolved,

from the Romantics dripping sugar all over everything,
to the Victorians and the unbelievable sticks up their asses,
to the Modernists who spurned letting emotions cloud their work,
to the Futurists riding the big steel phallus to the future,
to the Confessionals, instilling their shame and agony into their work.

These and many more.

The reason this has all been a wonderful is that it's very reaffirming to see one's work validated in the past. How one's style could have been / maybe will be accepted. And I think this follows through in all walks of life. Radical ideas leading to radical inventions leading to radical, and I mean fucking radical money.

Ooooooh radical money.

But it's really fun to witness it evolve through each of my classes, the changes in acceptability in literature. To see the MAN being fought in every generation.

So I guess cultural movements are kinda lost on me. Shit's hilarious.

It's a little depressing when you think that there's really not anything purely original anymore.

But the Irony. Oh god damn does the Irony kill me.

Some things are good being old and cliche though. Like bubble baths. If there's a single one among you who hasn't ever had a bubble bath, I will god damn well ship you a bottle of that stuff. No matter how old or bitter or cynical or rich you are, I don't see how a bubble bath won't make you relive your childhood.

Foam beards and hairstyles and the gentle sensation of miniature explosions all over your skin as you reach above the water line.

Of course, some things do change...



But my god do you feel like an amazing, original, fresh soul when you're done.

Show me your teeth...

((



))

We snap and snarl at our captors like savage, starving dogs. Perhaps it's wrong to say 'like', often that's what we are. Distended stomachs and sunken ribs, spittle slinging from lips hoping for a taste or treat.

Lips pulled back over yellowed porcelain teeth, pointed and purposeful.

Bared.

Pink, swollen gums showing the quality of life, blackened with decay. Lolling tongues lazily flopping out and dragging through the dirt as we pull against our chains, trying to get closer to a prey we don't recognize.

But blood that we can smell, trembling underneath its skin.

Muscles pumping, legs jumping towards the crimson liquid so clearly in our sight. Bodies snapped back as they reach the end of the chains around their necks, their arms. We all bear the scars. Our necks rubbed raw and pink, jagged stars of scars ring our throats. Our wrists fare no better, tearing open scabs every time we move, bringing a familiar, bitter taste of iron to our tongues as we try to do the simplest tasks.

Rising from sleep.

But we still jerk against the iron, our voices have long lost their penchant for speech. The clasps around our necks has rubbed away the feeling and the memory. Instead we growl. We spit, phlegm flying in beautiful arcs towards no one in particular. We break out necks and gag as we run our chains short, hoping for the rusted bolts securing us to the bricks gives way and we can tear into the flesh with our long, muddy fingernails.

In a past lifetime I learned the rules of domestication. Hundreds of years to turn a savage creature into trusting cattle.

It's amazing how quickly the reverse works. Turning rationality into humiliated, diseased freaks seems so simple. And we are nothing but animals now. I know because the voice on the end of the leather wrapped crop tells me so.

And even knowing this we still spit and piss and fuck and lick each others wounds. The horror glazed over the new eyes shows brightly when the sun tilts past and sheds light on the clumps of ragged hair and skin that fight against the chains all through the day.

For all our fight, we still bow our heads to our bowls, placed just out of reach. We choke ourselves, on knees only, our arms pulled taught by the chains. The collars around our necks allowing us only the smallest bit of room for the clumps of mush and fetid meat to slide down to our churning stomachs. We dig our toes in to the grooves in the floor, suspending ourselves outright, tongues lolling like ribbons from ropes on a windy day, trying to get more.

The screams and howls start shortly after, intestines cramping, twisting, exploding. The grim rays of light shine down through the solitary port above us, and trails along the cracks in the floor, showing the gray-yellow liquid of our own animal existence run towards the drain.

Now and then there's a red tint, not always of our own, and we lower our cracked lips to the warm surface of the stone and suck the life of another deep into our bodies.

The crops can't even stop us now.

We lunge still, never learning our lesson.

Our throats break and our wrists snap.

And our teeth hit the floor, cracking, shards flying out from under us. The smell flies up.

And we begin to rub our faces against the stone. Sharpening them as we have our rage. Screams of pain, anger, purpose echo out. And those blue eyes in front of us continue to stare. And that warm, pure crimson continues to trace through the veins.

Waiting for the first tooth to open them up like faucets.

But here I sit ol' Spider John, the robber man...

((



))

And it sets in across the hills and the valleys and seeps into every crevice.



It's like some almighty hand has dipped into the Holi bowls, taken fistfuls of the powdered pigments and strewn them across the landscape haphazardly. Deep crimson to bright orange, licked with the smallest dabs of brown. The scenery changes from lush to vibrant, each color seeping in through the eyes and pushing against the back of the skull so strongly you can almost taste it.

Like the first few particles of a pixie stick hitting the side of your tongue as the rest spreads across and coats the inside of your mouth.

It can be magnificent, seeing the rolling hills of green shift to bright, almost fluorescent colors. Spots of red and orange and yellow coat the landscape and merge and flow with seemingly no pattern at all. So maybe it's not an almighty hand, but that of a child. It pays no heed to the lines, the edges, the patterns thrown together, but it does know what is beautiful and elegant.

Perhaps poetic.




And a few of the leaves begin to fall, shifted along by the wind, being pushed up against the great, gnarled trunks and strewn across the dying grass. They stick out amongst the faded-green-brown and crinkle under every footstep. They act like bubble wrap, if but the eternal type. There's always a soft crackle, no matter how many times it's tread upon.

And should you be fortunate enough to live somewhere with hills, mountains, perhaps a very high bridge, you get that first good look as you reach the crest, and stop or slow for a moment, taking it all in, this freckled landscape. There's a cool breeze out, rustling the leaves, and you can see it spread out from limb to limb in the distance, boughs shivering and shaking in a unified dance against the elements.



And then a week passes.

And a rain comes.

And a front changes.

And you're left cold and shivering, water soaking up your pants legs and seemingly through your skin. Your jacket can't seem to hold out against the sharp edge of the wind and the saltless tears spill out from your eyes, drawing an icy line back to your ears. The leaves underneath your feet no longer crinkle, but make a disgusting, foul squish as you tread along the gray sidewalks.

The limbs stand bare, the colors have all been cleaned from the canvas with a freezing turpentine and lay in the gutters in disheveled, sodden heaps the color of mud and shit.

And the wind picks up again.

No longer is there the delicate rustle of leaves brushing past one another, like singles in bars hoping for that one magical moment of intimacy, but rather replaced with the empty clacking of twigs beating out a despairing march for our feet to keep shuffling to.

All that's left is decay underneath a sky grayer than the sidewalk you travel along. Damp and festering at your footsteps, licking at your heels as you pass.

So the fall can be nice, but there's days when I walk home thinking how oppressive it is, when all that is left in the woods near my apartment or trash scrubs and weeds. When the majestic trees shooting up so far in the air fail to hide the view of the other side, having already been stripped of their covering.

So I'll wake up, and be able to see from my soaked, muddy side of the creek to the other. I'll be able to see the gray spray of water from behind a dirty Escalade as they weave their way through the parking lot on the other side, travelling down row after row of soaked, dirty, leaf covered cars. There won't be any distance between this world of ugly and that one.

But perhaps I'm being cynical.

Perhaps the unforgiving cold
             the bare, haunted trees
             the leaf caked gutters
             the unsmiling, unfeeling faces
             the huddled masses standing outside, smoke rising from their covered faces

the pure misery of it all, has some meaning.

But for that, I don't hold out hope.

For me, the ass end of fall is a tribute to decay. An eating away at the year's labor. A failed toast in honor of a year's achievements.

Maybe the snow will come, maybe it won't. Maybe a soft blanket of white will shine the light on a smile or two. Maybe we'll be stuck with the frowns reflected out of sour, muddy pools.



Only time will tell.

You wanna be a big time player? It's not to be...

((



))

Shit, I've really got to work on this schedule thing. Show some commitment, something.

So I'm sitting here, dressed in the finest of fineries, at least on my end of the spectrum, feeling yet again just how annoying this damn brace is. I've got four three more days to go until I walk into the doc's nice and early and have them tell me everything's better'n best. I'll come home, crack open the first beer in over a month, and take a shower.

And I'll stand under the shower head and just let the water pour over me, soaking my hair, my face. I'll pay attention to every movement, wondering if one wrong twist is going to send me back a month, a year, maybe two. And I'll turn around for a few minutes and feel the water wash away at the small of my back, something I haven't felt in a while.

I have washed my ass, tyvm, it's just that these waterproof bandages are just that.

I'll get out, towel off, shave, brush my teeth, throw on some deodorant, fix my hair, and then go to my room. I'll see how much the swelling has gone down since I first got out of the hospital. I'll touch the scar gingerly at first, seeing if I can feel any scabs, any threads from the sutures, anything at all. I'll press a little more forcefully around the scar, seeing if I can find anything at all.

It's truly amazing what nothing feels like. I can tell for short moments when I lay down in bed, stripped of my brace, stripped of clothes. I lay back and feel, nothing. Not the usual discomfort. Not the usual stress telling me that I can't lay this way or that. But I'll still sleep on my back. Fear.

After I find nothing wrong, I'll throw on my clothes, feeling a shirt loose against my skin for the first time in ages. The coolness of it, the way it moves with my bad, the sliding over my skin. And I'll worry. As much as I hate this brace, it keeps me safe. It makes me feel secure in my movements. It keeps instinctual momentum in check.

And I'll grab my book bag, and my camera, my cigarettes, lighter, keys and phone, and walk to class. carefully measuring every step. Everything that can go wrong will be running through my mind.

But it'll be all right.

I won't be hooking it through the slotted chairs in my classes anymore.

It won't be slipping under the waist of my pants when I stand back up.

I won't sweat profusely from the tightness.

I won't be afraid to stretch.

So it'll all be good.

And then I'll get drunk.

So it'll all be better.

So that's pretty much the plan. And wow, only 15 minutes in. I'm really starting to worry about content, but maybe I shouldn't at the moment. I'll take it on faith that you have actually read up until this point and wil continue to do so.

I want to make something useful out of this. There's always hope that I'll be reading through this in a weekmonthyeardecade and find a line that just resonates with something in my head. Maybe help me formulate some sort of plot worth mention. It's kind of odd how things like that jump out at you now and then, harnessing your mind and riding it like a wild bull for those sweet, victorious 8 seconds.

I seriously cannot wait to run again. To move.

Colin asked me if I was climbing Saturday. I wish I could. I would love nothing more than to tear up my hands and knuckles against the sandpaper of the wall. To feel my joints give a little bit as I press up to the next hold, or to feel my tendons on the verge of popping as I pull my feet to the wall.

To slide throw the grass on my knees, fingers still fluttering against the trigger and sending paint down range. To hear the 'thonk' of my body smack into a bunker, popping out the far side, railing down the back man in the can and hosing the guy diving for the snake. Circling and silent, but with so much fucking adrenaline every ragged breath sounds like a scream inside of my mask.

I get way too excited when I know I'm going to pop around the next can and am going to see the mid guy crouched, snapping at my back man, and just be able to lay one right on his ass. No trigger walking, no bunkering, no hesitation, just a nice little stroll out in the open on a sunny day and casually popping someone like it's no big thing.

My snowboard calls to me from the closet, protecting it's base from the sun and chemicals, still waxed and tuned from the last season, but needing a brush, new wax, new edges. I'm trying to put it off until after thanksgiving to bring it out, lay it across some books, and really show it some care. Even then it'll be a month before I can use it, before I get to hear the quick, constant flow underneath my feet.

In the best of times, it sounds like car tires rolling through a slightly misted road, spraying up water behind you, and just the ever rolling shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh as your nose begins to freeze, even behind the fleece that covers your face.

In the worst of times it sounds like a skateboard, harsh remarks mutter out at every turn, sounding like the ceramic wheels rolling over wood and concrete. But that's when you have to put your trust in the metal, letting it dig into the ice. It digs deep grooves and slices open the surface to reveal the ungroomed slopes below.

Christ does it feel great when the wind curls in through the vents of your goggles and laps at the sides of your eyes, bringing cold, saltless tears to your cheeks. But you don't want to slow down to make it stop. You want to keep going, to push it right up to the limit. You want to hit that perfect spot of powder where your board doesn't make anymore sounds. Your feet buried in 4" of powder, and still there's feet of snow below you. But there's just silence and a white mist billowing up your knees as you glide on, leaning back to keep the toe up.

It feels like perpetual motion.

Until the toe goes down.

And your heel comes up.

And your face goes down.

And your legs come up.

And you laugh, wrecking your face at 35 mph, because you didn't feel a damn thing.

And to walk endlessly, to be able to go see things, braving the cold and the heat, the water and the rain. No more stopping to stretch every 5 minutes. No taking a seat because you simply can't move your hips anymore without that dagger ripping up the back of your leg, swiveling across your lumbar, and up to your brain.

To drive without frequent shifting. Being able to enjoy the passing scenery again. I can only hope.

Not being so useless again will be amazing.
Not feeling useless will be even better.

So, yeah, that's about it.