Freshening – Saturday in the Park

After dalliance, sitting in the park – bold

Aphorism: The important difference between a belief and a dream is that an ideal is transitory but a symbol is timeless.

Henry sat on a park bench in the middle of his lonely planet, his world still spinning off its axis from the night before, a night that just ended this morning.  His spinning head, though recently used as a dull auger, seemed intact – intact being a relative term.   This tool had just awoken in pieces and was falling apart.  Henry reflected in a moment of clarity.  Was this all a dream, a nightmare?  Take stock.  You don’t have a mark on you.  No blood…no stains…of any kind…no signs of struggle – except this powder on your clothes,  except that panic in the bathtub.  Still, he thought, these images swimming in his head must be delusional.

OK, Jim, what do you remember?

Yes, I remember us jumping into bed then – fast forward to my black out.  The nightmare sequence – hit pause.  The nightmare animals, more or less, could be tracked back to the curious tracks in the muddy parking lot, more or less.  A second blackout must have preceded me waking up in that bathtub.    Yada, yada, yada, -buried alive, organs deprived then I saw a hole in the wall.

OK, Jim, put hysteria aside for the moment.

I must have escaped her web.  Crawling out o from her canopy, I cleaned up – how long did that take? – got dressed, and then exit stage left.  Except, in my panic, in the dark, I turned back into bathroom.  I slipped on a wet towel I left on the floor.  I fell headlong into that bathtub.  Sure, I can see that happening: me leaving a towel on the floor, me being half drunk, me being half awake, me a half wit diving head first into an empty pool.  You read about it all the time.  Could all of this be explained by all of that?

No, Jim, that is crazy-town and you are a block away.

Henry called himself Jim during his self-talk when his alter-ego was being particularly thick.  He was Sherlock when he was totally mystified by his stupidity.  He was Scooby when his primal instincts overrode his primary instinct for self-preservation.  Henry heard Sherlock knocking and Scooby scratching – at once – on this cerebral impasse.

Alright, it was a delusion, none of this happened. I will check myself in somewhere for treatment.

Henry became nervous about his decision – to have his remaining sanity evaluated.  He chewed his nails.  Yuck!  How disgusting.  What’s under my finger nails?  More grout?  No.  It’s yellow, flaky chips.  Henry’s resolve started to dissolve.  Oh, no! I swallowed that lead paint…and I’ve also got a piece stuck in my teeth, that’s what’s making me crazy! 

Henry pulled a stiff piece of paper from his back pocket – a sort-of-floss – to remove the paint chip.  Not a paint chip.  Not his erstwhile finger food.  It was harder…like shell?  Henry’s analysis turned to paralysis.  Yuck again, what kind of slimy thing crawled into my sleeping mouth?  Appetizer!  The only other way a person would swallow slime – willingly and joyfully and expensively – is if it were drowning in butter with a French pronunciation.   His tongue’s bitter secretions reminded him of his tong vow.

No, it’s still a dream…has to be.  Some kind of precognition.  Paint slivers and snail shivers came from who knows what or where during my selective black outs.  My unconscious mind engineered them into the dream – purpose!  Henry convinced himself to cop out.  It was the most obvious or, at least, easiest explanation.  He saw himself returning to his safe, unremarkable life, post nightmare, possible therapy.  Satisfied, for now, with his baseless assessment,  Henry picked up his left leg and crossed it over his right knee and closed his eyes, exhausted, he stretched back on the bench, ready finally relax.

What now?  Discomfort between his legs.  Not a good sign!  Something in Henry’s pocket intruded on the crowded quarters cradling a few of his favorite things.  He uncrossed his legs and reached into his right pants pocket.  Evidence solidly supplanted the  delusion which vapidly vaporized.  Sheena put this in my pocket last night.  It was part of the dream.  But if I’m holding it, looking at it fully awake, it’s not a dream.  He reached into his back pocket to retrieve his floss-er. He read it aloud, “8D Pete Street.”

Henry stood resolute and bold.  I’m goin’ back in!

One is the loneliest number but a very popular IQ.

Return to Pete Street

Henry tripped every traffic light on his determined trip back to Pete Street.  He violated every statute erected to impede him but his reckless rampage did not speed him.  At the meandering swamp short cut, the road was closed.   The anxious traffic jam grumbled in concert as they watched several firemen dislodge a moose from a Ram Charger.  The mangled moose, with head and horns still in tact, in better shape than the original Dodge hood ornament.

Henry became distracted from his purpose as his gaze fell on the sumptuous carcass’ proboscis.  Do you suppose any of these fine, halted motorists have jelly?  Any flavor would be kindly appreciated.  As the stalled traffic began to u-turn past the spoiling repast, Henry’s fantastical thoughts of performing a quick rhinoplasty were nosed out by the his impending confrontation.

The clean-up continued and traffic was re-routed back to the main road, a route unfamiliar to Henry.

The heat of the day suited Henry’s inflamed mood and he left the windows open and the radio off to facilitate rumination.  No more nice guy.  No more manipulation.  He was intent on changing his life.  He would not be a fool.  He would act boldly, bold no matter what threat emerged.  Enough is enough.  Bring it on!

The tenements, curiously, seemed to welcome Henry.  Their cookie cutter arrangement, the stale succumbed to the sweet sunlight and allowed him to relax. His heart slowed.  Now, he could boldly go where he had just left fearfully.  Henry regained his alertness just in time to spot the overgrown post that carried the rusted address numeral and name – 8 Pete Street.  He swallowed with difficulty and remembered to take his reflux pill before stepping down to the muddy parking lot – with resolve.

The wild impressions under his feet were the same but the shoes that tread them belonged to a different man.  The same distance, same destination, and same disarray stood before him but the conditions were different.  The floor apartment caused Henry no distractions, like before – nor did the others.  Feeling strong, Henry marched up to the fourth porch and charged the final distance.  He would boldly and act bravely to find out what Sheena did to him.  His inner voice screamed boldness…but it was drowned out.  He stopped and stood at attention.  He was not hearing voices now, he heard voices.

He heard screams…  They were doing something to Sheena!

He heard louder screams.

“Leave her alone” Henry spoke with boldness.

The screams sounded even louder now, but they weren’t really screams of terror.  Still, someone was surely doing something to Sheena – stating the obvious.  But who and what?

“Open the door!  Sheena, are you alright?” Henry pleaded.

That last scream was much louder…and much different?  But familiar.

Henry boldly stepped forward to…bang on the door?  Knock it down if necessary.  Before he made contact, the door disappeared and Henry saw an over-sized sub-human head, an undersized sleeveless shirt, and a pair of leg-sized biceps.  Brawny Man?  Looks like Brawny Man – the lumberjack, the two ply Georgia-Pacific paper towel mascot.

“What are you looking at” said Brawny Man.

“Nice shirt” said Henry.  Suddenly petrified but more than curious.  Henry craned his neck around the hulk, looking inside the apartment for evidence of Brawny Man’s signature red plaid flannel shirt, possibly hanging neatly over an axe handle or a mounted moose.

The big paper towel mascot lifted a huge-leg-like-fist menacingly.

Henry boldly closed his eyes and hollered, “Wait, stop!”  In that instant, his mind raced with wild thoughts but they were not thoughts of death or dismemberment.  They were inappropriate thoughts.  No, let’s call them weird thoughts.

Henry recalled his disapproval of how the corporate lackeys had  had PC’d Brawny Man’s image over the decades – for the worse, Henry noted.  Brawny Man’s shamefully clean shaven face his curly locks now a coif,  a soulless manikin now compared to the virile, mustachioed, needs a hair cut, porn star prototype of the ’70s.   Henry, however, did concede his approval of Brawny Man’s return to the Virgil’s got his wifebeater on, looks like Helen’s gonna get taught a lesson tonight! undershirt.  Chest hair poked above brief A-shirt collar layered beneath the flannel.  This thought stream disconnected as Henry connected back to reality.

Instead of being punched out, a front jolt to Henry’s right shoulder put him into a spin. He peeked out of one eye to see that he was still vertical, and alone on the D porch – but not for long.

Ba-bam!  Something rammed Henry in the the back and from the opposite side, twisting him completely around and causing him to fall through the doorway onto his face, inside apartment D.  Fortunately, carpeting had been installed since he last visited – this morning.

From a prone position, he half raised his head.  Just beyond his nose were ten toes, ten toenails painted FMR and two legs, two snowy white legs.  Henry’s gaze slowly stepped up the snowy escarpment.  His eyes stopped.  His neck craned.  His mouth smiled.  This could have been base-camp but this was better.  There it was…at the end of his nose.  The fuzzy visage at the end of his nose was…the shirt! The XXXL shirt, Brawny Man’s signature red flannel shirt -and it  wasn’t hanging off a moose’s nose.

“Sheena, why are you wearing that man’s shirt?” asked Henry.

The damsel peered down past her folded arms and flannel gown with a look that was new to Henry.

“You’re not Sheena” said Henry.

“Who’s Sheena, A-hole” chorused three different voices in a single volley, including the personage formerly known as Sheena.

“What are YOU doing here, Sheena?” asked Henry.

“What are you doing here, A-hole?” came another volley, this time more staggered, nerves tensing, vocals chords taut.

An identical vulgarity, in practiced unison…they gotta be family.  “I…” began Henry.

“Shut-up” came an angry man’s voice.

I know, you A-hole.

“I know what you’re doing here.”  said Angry Man.

It dawned on Henry that someone or something was mistaken and agitated Angry Man was not going to give Henry’s little dog brain enough time to figure it completely out.

“Look, you’re mistaken.  I’m here by accident” explained Henry now sounding histrionic.

Angry man was getting angrier staring at the back of A-hole’s head and A-hole’s head was staring at the thighs of his estranged wife, who was glaring at the couple’s teenage daughter.  A Mexican, er, white trash stand off seemed to be congeal as Henry calculated his poor odds of fleeing this unwashed mass.

“Oh, sure, it’s an accident,” began Angry Man sarcastically.  “You were just collecting animal feces the parking lot for your tulip garden and tripped over a dead rat and stumbled into this fourth floor apartment and fell on top of my wife”.

“It wasn’t HIM dumb ass,” the young woman furthest from Henry cursed Angry Man.

“You mean that A-hole in the T-shirt that passed us on the steps?” asked Angry Man.

“You’re a genius, Sherlock” mocked Snowy White.

Hey, I’m Sherlock.

“You see, I’m not involved here.  Listen to both of them.  I’ll just go now” implored Henry.

Simultaneously, the family members rolled their eyes, each with a different take and smirk but with same vulgarity forming on their individual lips.

“Doesn’t matter” barked Angry man, “Nobody’s leaving today, by mistake, accident or grace”.

That’s an interesting way of putting it.

It dawned on Henry that he had literally fallen into a hostage situation.  Although, he was figuratively in a world of shit, he remembered his fading vow to be bold.  He watched the TV.  Henry would become a hostage negotiator.  He would negotiate his way out of this situation and, as an after thought, he might even save the lives of these two fine…a…ladies.

Henry turned on to his back, to face his captor.  Woooah daddy.  We’ve gone from a paper towel lumberjack to Deliverance.  Stop it. Compose yourself.  Think.  Get him talking, keep him talking, until we can be rescued.

“That’s an impressive gun” said Henry.

“It’s a revolver” countered Angry Man, never taking his focus off of his wife.

“Of, course.  It’s well maintained I can tell by the shine of the plating”.

“It’s never been out of the case before and won’t be returning,” sneered Angry Man, still focused, “I bought this piece for one reason, and this is it.”

This isn’t working.  Try some other approach.  Henry watched the TV and remembered the History Channel’s programs on the JFK assassination.  Jack Ruby used a similar revolver to take out Oswald.

“You know Ruby…” started Henry.

“What about my wife” snapped Angry Man, breaking his focus, now leaning in toward Henry.

Angry Man’s wife intervened, “Stop it.  I never saw this A-Hole in my life until just this minute”.

Satisfied that his cheating wife’s veracity would suffice, Henry stupidly continued, “Ruby…”.

“Ruby is her whore name,” screamed Angry Man.

“What name do you go by?  Pimp?” the younger woman interrupted.

“Shut up, you slut” screamed Angry Man.

“Don’t call your daughter a slut” retorted Ruby.

So much for family.  Henry, addressed Angry Man, meekly, “So what is your wife’s given name”. Keep negotiating and gain some time until I can figure out how to escape this band of brothel.

“Ruby May” Angry Man almost choked as he softly said his wife’s name.

The sudden quiet in the room was punctuated by the resonant sobs of the daughter, now sorry she led her father to her mother’s affair.  This unwashed procession with their unshaven surfaces and un-waxed epidermises succumbed to panicked pores, letting perspiration pour forth.  Enough.  Let’s get it over with.

“Alright, ” said Angry Man,  “Four.  There are four bullets in this revolver. One for Ruby May.  One for Jesse Pearl…”

These parents should be shot on principle.

Angry Man  finished, “…and One for me”.

Henry was confused.  “Who’s the other one for?”

 

Epiphany at Pete Street swamp

Return to Avatar Bar

Return Home to an empty pool

 

Freshening – Epiphany – Aperitif

A solitary cob web floated in stealth, moving with the subtle breezes generated by movements of those below.  Unable to escape because of its attachments.  Content in its corner…as long it as existed unnoticed by them.  A fragile existence may continue for quite a long time but always ends quickly.

Henry always acted reliably but wished he didn’t always.

Sheena always got what she wanted but wished she were sometimes deprived.

Henry believed that Sheena was the Princess from Pandora but that didn’t make it so.

Sheena believed here femininity was stronger than any masculinity but this belief had already been tested by time.

Henry survived because he knew he was timid and weak and out of touch.

Sheena knew she was alluring and unaffected and young but had never considered that she had any vulnerabilities.

The bright sun reflected off a mirror into Henry’s face.  Where was he?  His eyes were shut but he sensed the light.  He could not open his eyes, he remembered something about this…was it a dream?  With arms pinned at his sides and the feel of grit and the smell of dust…he was buried alive.  At least he was alive.

But wait…he could move his head and there was light shining on his eyelids…he was breathing.   Yikes, he had heard about this – commercial organ harvesting!  The horror of this thought caused him to force his pinned arms from his sides involuntarily.  The hopelessness of this mutilation caused him to cry in futility.

His tears moistened his eyelids.  His eyes peeked through the gauze of crusted sand.  He was not in a grave but a bathtub.  He was not covered with dirt but grout.  He had not lost any organs…except maybe his mind.

Looking to his right he saw a large hole in the tiled wall.  A head size hole.  A Henry head size hole.  How did this happen?  He wasn’t bleeding.  His didn’t even have a headache.  He simultaneously smelled it and saw it.  Thank god for mildew!  He crashed his hard head into the soft wall and it gave way.  Questions remained, but for now, by the nature of the sounds coming from the adjacent room, he knew it to be the bedroom, he had better, exit with extreme haste.

Something slept.  Something.  It should simply be his date, Sheena.  But no one snored like that.  No human could make that vibration and continuous both in and out.  That deep and satiated resonance telling him something about what happened but he wasn’t going to stick around and ask questions.  It was time to go full coward.

Henry climbed out through the bathroom window.  Tumbling on to the porch, he regained his feet in one gymnastic motion and, it seemed, they never touched again until he was pressing his accelerator.  Now that he felt safe, his instincts forced him to look back and up to 8D.  He squinted to see what might be framed in the middle window.  It was dark and blue and there was movement.  A large silhouette could be detected behind the sheers.  As the shape turned in profile, Henry could verify it was the shape of a woman that watched his now reluctant departure.

Freshened – Episode 2 – Theme, plot, action

Theme: Henry’s belief that it’s no better to safe than sorry, must be dispatched.  He will go have an affair with a mystery woman in order to accomplish this.  First dinner, then drinks, then destiny.

Opening: Freshened – Epiphany – He arrives

Dinner will be unusual but unremarkable: Freshened – Epiphany – Vignettes

Drinks will be unique but not unusual: Freshened – Vignettes 2

Destiny will be unreal but not unexpected: Freshened – Hemingway

 

 

Freshened – Hemingway

The moment of truth came.  Sheena took his hand and led him to the middle door.  The one between the whips and the sausage.  Henry, in stride, said he didn’t think he was up for this.  They both stopped.  Sheena pulled something out from her somewhere with her left hand.  She bent at the waist and reached around and tucked it into his right pocket.

“I think you’ll be fine” whispered Sheena.

He awoke and his eyelids were glued together and he heard terrible sounds and he felt wonderful things and he couldn’t move any of his limbs.  He pried at his eyelids.  They stretched and would have admitted light but there was none.  He screamed so that someone somewhere would hear him but sounds of that night drowned out his pleadings.  The wonderful and cruel sensations continued.  Imperceptibly, a warm liquid began to drip on to his face and into his eyes.

Henry’s eyelids stretched again and cracked the elastic substance.  He something or something above him.  His distended senses could only guess what was happening to him.  It’s a cat with a rat squirming in it’s mouth and animal blood is dripping on to my face.

Henry blinked and refocused.  The terror rose up in his throat even as the rest of his body vibrated with sensation.  It’s a bear with a salmon flailing in its jaws and ocean and blood are gushing on to his eyes and nose and mouth.

Henry realized that neither of these things was possible and he let his eyes take another look.  He saw clearly now and was relieved.  Neither a cat nor a bear.  It’s Sheena with something pulsing between her lips and out into the air and dripping down.  It was his still beating heart.

Then he was gone.

 

 

 

Freshened – Vignettes 2

Sheena was teasing the tense Henry.   It was time to terminate.  The first time she tried this tactic she nearly tossed.  Now she teased a beating just to watch the guys’ expression change.  She smiled as Henry unclenched.  Sheena wasn’t alone.  Women were puzzled by men.  Give men what they want and they leave in triumph.  Withhold it and they stay in hope.  She didn’t know why this worked but it did.

“Can I offer you a drink?  Wine?” asked Sheena.  Cut and scene.

“Yes, do you have Pinot Noir?” asked Henry.  I knew she was kidding.  He checked his trousers, first back then front.

“No, I don’t drink red wine, it turns my lips blue”.

Is that how you do it?

“In fact, I don’t drink any grape wine.  It weakens my inhibitions…”.

Good to know…that she knows of such things.

“But I do have other types of wine.  Fruit?”.

She spoke a drop of potion.  She gestured a motion of entrance.  She excited his thoughts, accelerating them. He recollected walking into the room.  He remembered his senses racing as she teased him.  Now, he conscious give in to abandon.

Abruptly, Henry snapped back as Sheena pulled a short sturdy stool toward her tall, lean fruitful rack of wine.  She perused the necks. She twisted them with purpose. He listened to the lilt of her indecipherable comments.   He wasn’t sure if her whispers were intended for his ears or for his imagination.  Sheena continued her murmuring, her mouth sometimes moving close in, her lips changing color as the ambient light diffused upon them.  Is the Princess from Pandora is revealing herself unknowingly?

Abruptly, Sheena spoke, “I have a nice raspberry.  You surely won’t be feeling any pain…after a couple of pours”.

So are you offering to beat me again?

“I have a nice hibiscus. It helps to regulate body temperature”.

At this point in time, I seriously doubt that.

“I have a nice prickly pear”.

Indeed!

Henry’s stunned silence bade acceptance. Sheena grabbed the “Cactus”.  Surprised by its color.  The rich fluorescent purple spirits evoked romance and nostalgia.  She poured, the flow more like nectar than wine, the long stem exquisite like this woman, the Crystal clarity and veiled motives contrasted as enchantment always presents.

Sheena handed Henry his.  She picked up the prickly pear cork and put it somewhere deftly behind her, this bottle’s destiny predetermined.  Perhaps he wished his were as obvious.

As Sheena advanced, Henry noticed the cork had been placed in an extra large, “giant”, wine glass replica, 750 milliliters, filled with 751 milliliters of normal sized wine-corks.  She had it placed it atop this monument to merriment.  Knowing she was being watched, she had straightened, and turned, like a ballerina, ready to begin her next part, and approached Henry with her stemware held delicately between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand.

“Enjoy” said Sheena, sitting her glass on the table beside his, then reaching across to pinch him.

“What was that?” said Henry, sipping and squirming.

“I wanted to see if you were still breathing”.

Indeed.

Freshened – Epiphany – Vignettes

Dinner

Henry Peck had never been to this restaurant before.  He knew he would never return, but that’s not all he knew.  The menu had no prices listed.  He can’t afford it.  Maybe if he dined by himself, didn’t order dessert, left a meager tip, he could indulge himself once a week.  Another thing he knew, Sheena strode this palace with a confident sway, the entire staff knew her…perhaps intimately.  From the eager young hostess to the practiced mature waiter to the what do you call them in a fine restaurant? The impassive old Maître d’ sensed my attention turned his pointed beak.

Each employee had the same genuine smile for me.  A Sheena smile.  The hostess attended to my date with deference and to me with kindness, allowing me to pick my chair and pulling it away from the elegant round table.  After deliberating with me on an appetizer, Sheena summoned the waiter without signal and pointed, where upon the order taker complimented the choice but wrote nothing, seeming to have foreknowledge.

Escargot cooked with garlic butter and parsley in a shell, no doubt a popular request here, but rare to Henry’s palate, rarer than pate, and his rarest aperitif since jellied moose nose, but presumably the only thing Sheena found of  interest.  Once the appetizer was selected, she didn’t comment on the entrees, even when queried.  Once the dish arrived, she put on a rapid display of her expertise for handling the mollusks without the special tongs and fork.  Holding the shell in one napkin-ed hand, extracting the tiny carcass with minimal drip, splash or difficulty, plunging the morsel swiftly and fully into the simmering drawn butter placed between them, with voracious anticipation, making it ascend and disappear with one almost frightening motion.

Henry’s technique, clearly unfamiliar, unpracticed and patience, resembled that of a boy embarrassed at his first restaurant outing.  Actually, he did OK.   He semi-mastered the tongs and fork approach, forgoing the napkin, self-conscious of his unsure etiquette with the alien utensils. He liked the exotic taste but he made a note to avoid them in the future so that he might maintain a modicum of adult table manners.

After Dinner

Arriving back at Sheena’s place, they stepped cautiously through the muddy parking lot, she adroit in her measured prance, Henry looking for new tracks, fresh animal tracks, he having decided the unfamiliar large beast tracks from earlier were that of a bear, a big one too!  And hungry.  They mounted the steps, Henry avoiding the hand rail consciously, Sheena moving up the flights unconsciously, with seeming urgency.

Once inside her apartment, the two faced each other in the smart sparsely furnished living area.  The short silence prompted Henry to say something stupid.

“What do you want to do?” asked Henry.

“What I want to do, what I’m going to do, is beat you” replied Sheena.

Sheena cocked her head to the left.  Henry could see into the half opened shadowed closet, lengths of something, probably leather, like a belt, he surmised.  These lengths were hooked to the closet door by something metallic, like a buckle, he guessed.  After him torturing by tong the tender escargot, was she going to torture him?  Hold on now, not that drunk, yet.

Sheena saw the error in Henry’s gaze and nodded again, this time with more emphasis.  He followed her invisible nodded line past the foreboding closet, further past the innocuous glossy closed door, to the entrance of the kitchen.  That’s what she was referring to – he identified a jumbo climate controlled storage unit – a refrigerator.

Henry mauled her words in his mind.  He looked at her and saw the “good” smile, with maybe a smirk mischievousness.  She told him she was going to beat him.  She clarified to him that she would beat him with something, but not something from the closet.  She would beat him with something from the kitchen.  Something normally found in the kitchen.  In the refrigerator…

“Sausage” Henry guessed nervously.

Morning After

Day After

 

Feb 9, 2015 Monday

W. Somerset Maugham

Alternate dramatic material with thoughtful

  1. …”he begins the relationship by threatening to beat her…”
  2. …revelations, choose, pivotal, intrigue
  3. …just when you think…surprise…but prepare your reader

Edgar Rice Burroughs

  1. begin in this world, transition to fantasy
  2. Names: women euphonious, heros strong, enemies dastardly, flat characters long
  3. conflict is the engine that drives the  story forward
  4. romance makes stories retain an element of believability

 

Morning

  • Sonic: Shanikwa, nice as a grammy, mind like a trap, but ears on another planet, always requiring a certain repeat of  the same and simple order, always causing me to push my body half out of my truck, either truck, and threaten to beat her if I must repeat the burrito order one more time.
  • KSF: Something stirred in him, then escaped its hiding place, but he must gather it and replace it before an employee or patient came through the door and discovered the activity, though mundane and messy, getting messier if the truth exposed itself to a hapless inquiry.
  • Writing: The arising and arousal turned to tedium and apathy, and the work was hardly started, hardly even writing, and much less appealing as the hours went by than the electric connection which took the writer to another place where he lost it, lost for just a brief interlude.

Noon

  • Paint: They looked similar if not the same, but looks aren’t everything, and in fact quick looks lead to bad decisions, and bad decisions lead to do overs, and do overs lead to tomorrow, tomorrow may never allow for this do over because, as do overs pile up, this last one may lose its place in line, if not in mind.
  • Library: Albert Camus, another brilliant mind born out of extreme poverty and want, a philosophy shaped so clearly by circumstance, unique circumstance, circumstance that could not be comprehended by those of like mind or like circumstance, and left the recognized genius with dwindling friends and a philosophy embraced and called Absurdism, but his interpretation, as he saw it, became another form of absurdity, an absurdity that ferreted out absurdists who practiced in name only, while he practiced not at all, concluding that such practice would be absurd.
  • Jose: The stranger, Jose Guannas Cruedya , arrived at my gate, his captivating woman ignoring us both, her name was Seana Luciana Calusa, his bad intentions not apparent until those intentions took the time to pass through my interpolation, immediate conclusions that frightened me, depressed me, pleaded with me to escape, divert, and drink; working myself into the paranoid, the familiar paranoid, the familiar give-it-up paranoid who made me what I am today.

Night

  • House: Erotica, but wait, the who made it more interesting, then an emergency got more attention, before details were supplied, captured this viewer
  • Dick:  My brother came up for air and answered my weekend text, he thought I was making it up, but I was coughing it up, from Wikipedia, and, although he normally Googles my stuff, he replied with a non-sequitur jingle, but I wouldn’t have it, so gave him another clue, a clue that if followed would lead him to the response I wanted, and a discovery he would have never made if I hadn’t discovered it first.
  • JC: She’s a talker, like me, and she’s frustrated by the not talking, less-than-cerebral life partner she is with, like me, and she needs an outlet, like me, and sometimes when I’ve concluded that I’ve done it all wrong, which I have, I, nevertheless am the only game left in town…for her.

Freshened – Epiphany

One’s most cherished beliefs are continually tested and eventually become exhausted.  These beliefs often take one nowhere – motion without movement.  This is where we find Henry, finally free of everything but his beliefs.  One of them resembles the lyric, “it’s no better to be safe than sorry”.  Henry would no longer play it safe and he was already sorry and yet he could not make himself unafraid and he decided to leave a note.  Just in case.  To whom it may concern.  His obituary might start with, “A guy goes into a bar…”.

When you have gone where you were never told you could go, will you ever find your way back?  The lost have no yellow crumbs to follow…but move, faking it, as they feel they must.  One’s old belief map,  annotated with supplied destinations but without compass, etched with strict instructions but smeared by ignorance’s trappings and fear’s perspiration, but having essential clues which have escaped into the yawning holes created by anxious re-referencing, is useless.  You’ll get there, but via the path of least resistance.  Things will get better, but not before they get a lot worse.  The experience will make you stronger, if it doesn’t kill you.  Change always appeals in the abstract.  She fails to inform you of the initial pain.  The harsh reality of nurturing the new, in an environment favoring the old, where old can scorch, drown or simply ignore you and leave you stranded.  Sounds like fun.

He thought, Henry Peck thought: a secret meeting, at an unknown location, with a mysterious stranger – a Princess from Pandora – now that’s excitement…but something is missing – good sense.

Suffice it to say that getting screwed was better than being screwed, even if this might include a pinch of humiliation.  Being manipulated sexually, if that is what is actually happening, has to be the best kind of manipulation.  This guy has really thought this through.  Wouldn’t a torrid one-night-stand avenge the decades of subservience and accommodation?  A jumbo storage unit can always make room for one more ill-advised acquisition.

Henry Peck held the manila beer tab adventure map out the car’s window, between his thumb and forefinger,  under the dieing yellow light and tried to make out the smeared numbers on the distorted surface as in flopped in the growing night wind.

8D Pete Street. Got it.  Never been there but I know about where it was, 0ver in Badsoden in the decaying end of nowhere.  It was near the reservoir named after the swamp that fed the mills that once gave life to this town.  The meandering drive seemed to take longer than anticipated but that’s the way with unfamiliar places. And he was taking the shortcut.  We’re heeeeere…I guess.

The four story walk-up loomed, among a legion of identical run down tenements and back lighted by a broken down school bus horizon and embroidered with the shapes of the small town’s still sunken warehouses and silent sulking machinery.  Each of the devolving apartments in this man-made evil forest, faced front with no access and no expression and all entrances in the shadows behind.  Each apartment displayed it’s number tacked under an identical porch light by an identical door.  One by one each glowed respectable amber.  Level four, 8D Pete, was indistinguishable.  Not seeing a red light up above, Henry Peck descended his Hyundai Accent and began his ascent.

Henry noticed details as he moved.  The muddy ground was heavily trafficked, both vehicle and other.  A good thing?  Animals, maybe cats and dogs, also good…and then some other beasts, bigger cats and dogs?  He stopped and looked about.

I’m no authority on animal tracks, or feces, but… 

Climbing the winding wooden steps and landings would be a workout for anyone other than a world class stair climber and add age, conditioning and eager anticipation and you might have a cardiac case.  And what’s this stuff?  The railing’s flaking yellow lead paint forbade Henry from holding on for safety and the bite of curled paint chips gnashing at his hand like neglected teeth.  Each cluttered landing identical, each muddled porch distinguished by a potted  plant or a rotted coach or a mottled Tom…except 8D, distinguished by nothing.

Sheena stood in the darkened doorway, invisible in of its depth.  She was a 10 tonight, no detail left unattended.  Henry did not see but sensed her, as she had hoped.  He  double checked the address and stepped forward toward her threshold.  He stopped abruptly when she emerged, possibly stunned by the flash of her alluring smile and the pierce of her intent eyes.

“I wasn’t sure you would come” began Sheena.

“Neither, was I” replied Henry weakly.

“Oh, why is that?”

“You, first” countered Henry.

“I thought you would, pock, pock, pock, chicken out” Sheena teased.

“I shouldn’t be here” came Henry’s obligatory explanation.

Sheena caught herself, furtively, then replied, “We’ll see about that”.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“No”.

“OK”.

“Let’s go get a bite”.

“I don’t know the area.  I was hoping I could take you to a place you’ve never been”.

She smiled, that different smile.

“There is no ‘area’ here, but I have just the place for you…for us, I mean”.

 

Freshened

Where can you go when there is no where else for you to physically go?  The crazy have a place.  The lonely have no place…except crazy.  So, in order for the displaced to delay insanity, they must freshen what they have.  They must take something new to a fresh place and try to invent fire.  Anyone of you can do it.  Anyone, as long as you are neurotic.  But don’t wait too long.  Don’t sleep through this opportunity.  All you’ll have waiting one morning is the over-long sleeves of a sexy straight-jacket or an hiatus of blood circulation and breathing with a one way ticket to hypothermia’s constant climate control.

Let me fill you in on this odd fellow before I turn this story over to him.  Henry Peck was once just a beak in the pen.  On the surface, no particular virtue, no particular vice.  But, inside, a set of hand me down beliefs which guaranteed a life of being screwed.  Not just screwed but humiliated while being screwed.  Further, his beliefs would not allow either blame or revenge to rise above his reactive temper.  Action and pursuit of rectification were not allowed.  Well, it would be better said that they were being stored for later use.  His emotional storage unit was over limit that day, when he got promoted out of the baby pool of impasse.

I couldn’t believe myself.  Enjoying everyone and everything.  No stress.  No real responsibilities.  No more oafish oppressors.  It all started when I calculated that I could financially make it without working for someone else.  I could also do without the burden of family – be that close, immediate or distant.  And friends?  Friends are just self confected zombies who transmute when the small “r” in that vile word dissolves.  Those fiends have no Reason for a Relationship with a Reciprocity expectant sycophant.

I’m playing videos games and killing.  Not only am I strutting my stuff in this game as Scooby-Doo, flailing a six foot link sausage like a chain weapon, destroying mercilessly everything in my radius, including my playing partner, but vanquishing the unwashed, teens who are obviously in awe of my strutting stuff.  Later, oddly, I stand by the game machine un-partnered after my last over-celebrated victory in-your-face jump and strut.  Those sneering punks and punkettes didn’t know who hit ’em.

The vanquished brood leaving suddenly didn’t really bother him.  It wasn’t really on this old man’s mind.  In its near recesses played an earlier game.  She was stuck in his mind.  It was Neytiri the Na’vi amazon princess from Pandora in Avatar.  He saw her.  Tending bar, an empty bar, an empty bar where she seemed to be waiting for his arrival.  He knew it was her by the leading contraindications: her skin quite smooth, sort of iridescent but definitely not cyan – and no stripes.  Tall – but under ten feet.  Slender, however, just like the princess.  The nose, definitely the nose, it was her.  The clincher occurred when he paid his two beer tab and rolled off his bar stool.  He turned to say goodbye and she gave him that genuine smile that vowed to him, “I will stalk you, and put an arrow through your heart, and feed your entrails to the viperwolves if I learn that you are less than pure”.  All of that from gratuitous smirk?

That was no gratuitous smirk, she thought.  Sheena Waderwicz launched a smart bomb with her intent gaze, choreographed pose and full display of near perfect ivory American teeth.  He walked into the door, she remembered, his head turning almost Exorcist-like to look back at her.  That was fun.  The near reality that he would be seeing more of her teeth was something else.  Nothing nasty for real.  But this might not be all for real.

Guys are stupid and this one was perfect in that way.  She would use her scarce assets, which seemed for some reason to captivate him, to manipulate a ritual rendezvous.  It will be so easy to lure this gentle, naive, trusting man-child into a situation he would never enter consciously.  But the spell, the spell almost any Delilah might cast will put his not so shabby tookus where she wanted it.  She really did smirk this time.  Maybe that’s what he’s seeking.  Finality.

Old Henry Peck stumbled out of the dank video game room into a too bright late morning sidewalk.  He fell flat on his face, missing the fact that a single step, just one, existed between his verticality and his being grounded.  No one saw this, that’s the important thing.  Doing careless and foolish things were normal for him.  Getting caught in the act made it unforgettable and, therefore, it would have become another thing to ruminate about.  With humiliation now unnecessary and the new freedom of angst now back in charge, he wondered, Is it was too early for a beer?

He’s baaaaaack, Sheena suppressed, as Henry maneuvered past the pesky door.

“Hey, stranger” Sheena said.

“Hi, ah, I didn’t catch your name last day, I mean time” said Henry.

“I didn’t toss it”.

This is fun.  Arousing she thought.

“Sorry, I’m Henry, I was in here…”.

“Sure, I remember you vividly, punkin’.  I’m Sheena and we talked about books and brothers and boy friends…my boy friend I mean”.

Embarrassed, relieved and  confused.  Boy friend?

“Sheena”, Henry started, in hopes of retaining her name, “you were telling me how you read lots of science fiction.  I think you said you read, not because you liked the science fiction but because you liked the challenge of figuring out the plot twists before the author revealed them”.

“Exactly.  You remembered.”

Alright-y then.  How did he remember that?  Henry hoped she would pick up the conversation. The unpunctuated silence made him anxious but he knew that the next person to speak would say something stupid…if that person were him.  A mouth full of beer might buy him some time.

Sheena returned to his darkened end of the bar, rag in hand.  She leaned forward, leading with her rolled up sleeve forearms, the naked limbs extended un-ringed and unpainted.  Henry acted nonchalant but sensed something of importance, not stupid, was about to be spoken.

“I expected, the time before when I showed you the sci-fi I was reading, that you would take the paperback from me and feign interest.  At first, I was disappointed, that you, you know didn’t feign.  I quickly concluded that, perhaps, this old hound is off his game.  Trying to be kind, you know”.

Feign? Old Hound?  Kind?  Henry suddenly felt vulnerable.  He knew, he thought, she was waiting for a response, hence the silence.  He knew there would be no one or nothing to twist this situation so that would not be compelled to say something stupid.  And ruin everything.  Everything?  What everything?  In any case, he was in over his head and sinking fast.

Sheena invoked that smile, that parting smile she gave him last week, which resulted in a bruise and a lump.  She leaned in.

“It’s OK” she started, he exhaled.

“I have some others I want you to see, you’ll be more interested, I know that, for sure” she concluded.

“Show me ’em” said Henry.  He felt like maybe he blurted it out, he had become so immediately anxious.

Sheena straightened and stepped back from the bar.   She gave a different smile this time as she positioned her hands.  Suddenly, her expression changed…deadpan.  The blueish window tint, the half opened wooden blinds, cast a transforming hue and pattern on this statuesque enigma.

“You want me to ‘Show ’em to ya'” the Princess said.

“I meant…I mean…the books…the ones you said you wanted me to see” Henry sputtered.  He wasn’t sure now to whom he was speaking, let alone being sure what they might be talking about.

“I don’t have them”.

“But you just said…”.

“I mean I don’t have what you’re inquiring about here”.

“But, how can I see…”.

“You’ll have to come visit me”.

“In Pandora” said Henry.

He completely captivated.  She completely confused.

“No”.

She began writing an earthly address on the back of Henry’s tab.

 

 

 

In Pursuit of Goat Milk

Every two weeks, on Thursday at 11 a.m., I satisfy my need.  White as the cotton clouds that sometimes bless the blue endearing sky.  Soft in texture like liquid silk streaming forth to quench the sour and stifled.  Taste enhanced beyond that which most any of us were reared or became accustomed.  I relish the arrival of this day and my anticipation builds into something surreal and, frankly, over done.  Yet I can’t stop myself from building to this frenzy.  The funny thing is, this build up to my one gallon refill of goat milk is always punctuated with disappointment.

One of hardest pursuits of a natural foods aficionado turns out to be acquiring regular raw milk.  Seizing, unpasteurized, right from the teat, bacteria, enzymes and all, raw milk.  If you are, like myself, insistent on that thick white silky slick nectar being pulled from the big teat of a small goat…the problems in procuring become factorial.  Take it from me, a simple fella (for sure, and in more ways than one), realizing raw goat milk has as many foibles as there are among the folks who claim to furnish it.

Selling goat milk must be profitable, but it seldom is.  If you own milk cows, you quite quickly conclude there is more net profit in your durable gorgeous Guernseys than your adorable Oberhasli or cute Nubians.  If you wish to be one of the few, the proud, who sustain goat milk customers, you might resort to a sort of slight of hand; substituting bovine product for caprine, pulling goat udder from another source…even if it’s illegal and unethical.  These are two obstacles I’ve encountered.  Then there is the small operator:  A few goats with a few customers and some spare time.   What could confound this colloquial conformation?

The modern milkmaid comes in many forms but few resemble the ones from childhood stories and medieval tales.  This one does.  Simple, unassuming, and shy.  An ethnicity that is hard to finger but reasonably it could be Mediterranean, if one is pressed to guess.  She possesses such a subtle beauty that it escapes definition but it surely possesses.  Though clad in modern casual dress, one with a fertile imagination can imagine her in a white ruffled bonnet and a blue apron attending to the chores of her rank.  Though sturdily built, the feminine figure and delicate form of her wrist and hands betray a softer quality.  The reality for the infrequent buyer, however, requires more than imagination to complete the commerce.

As we all know, good intentions are more sentiment than substance.  Also, sometimes persistence will flag while perseverance will often fly.  So I found in my continual attempts to do whey business.  The first obstacle to commerce was communication.  The business number was never answered.  The messages were always delayed in delivery.  The delivered messages, when received, were immediately forgotten.  And when forgotten messages were remembered, it was time for obstacle two: scheduling.

Because of kids and chores and cause galore getting an order filled requires a gauntlet run of all things priority and a precise timing required of the buyer with no guarantee from the seller.  Once agreed upon, the actual consummation of the goat milk merchandise exchange reverted back to the communication fiasco.  There was a simple solution but the buyer, me, couldn’t fathom what it would be.  It became incumbent upon the modern milkmaid to discover the failing communication flaw and to confect a resolution.  One day the light came on, she had her eureka moment.

She knew, and only she of the two, that she got her text messages always, all the time, and on time.  Phone messages came late, mostly.  They came infrequently, surely.  They were forgotten, immediately.  So, that would be it: Text your request to me for a sure response and scheduling.  And a bonus idea: Make it every other Thursday at 11 a.m. for one gallon of goat milk.  A plan set up by the milkmaid for the persistent customer to buy precious product.  What could go wrong now?  It’s all straightened out.