Jail Smells like a Maraschino Cherry

Image by Jacob Appelbaum. This evening seems to be never-ending. Thoughts and thoughts trash about in my cranium like woodland creatures foraging in the forest—keeping me awake, I stare up at the ceiling, counting the grooves on the rafters. The minutes tick slowly, seemingly backwards, then forward, pausing for a moment to tease me as I kick my covers off, pull them back up, writhing with a fevered intensity. One thirty-seven A.M.: I have reached the point of mild delirium. The sun has yet to rise; the sky is still a dark blue. I contemplate making coffee like some people contemplate grabbing a beer at noon time. It’s a lonely kind of misery made more so by the fact that there is a number in my contacts list that I want to call, except that at the moment, I have been exiled from her gated community.

       My thoughts — the desires that are ripping my heart apart — seem to be fashioned around the one that got away. The fevered intensity has ratcheted up a notch; in my nocturnal nostalgia, the air suddenly had the faint smell of her essence that clings to my skin like she used to. It feels like jail, a jail that smells like a maraschino cherry at two A.M. I wonder how long it will take to wash that smell off my skin — a minute, or maybe two days. Her face is etched on the irises of my eyes. Her smile is painted in my memory like a David Siquieros mural. When I clutch my chest, my arms are still molded to fit her contours.

       We were somewhere in between shy, stuttering kids and bored beat poets with existential thoughts and burning libidos. We talked about books, about politics, about music. We talk shit about chronic Instagramers. But when it came to us, we talked about anything other than tomorrow (the nights we fucked, we did so as if it was the last night on earth.) But something was there. It had to have been. Underneath lust’s lacy veneer, there was something deep and profound. I may have projected way too much onto her.

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Diary of a Guerrilla: Gibran Enriquez (5/9/2619 - 5/11/2619)

Image by SuperRaptor1

5/9/2619

We infiltrated the shore after midnight.  Our contact, Marta, shined the directed infrared beacon once on the agreed upon microsecond.  It was at the correct bandwidth signifying the all clear.  Wading ashore, we were hurried to three off-road wheeled vehicles.   Repulsor craft and most other complicated machinery barely work on this planet under ideal conditions and hardly at all in the mountainous regions.  This is in our favor.  

Driving to the ranch took four hours.  Our driver, Joaquin, drove into a ditch upon learning who I was.  It seems the RNAists did a good job on hiding my telltale bone structure.  This delayed us an hour.  I told the others to go on ahead while looking out for patrols.

We exchanged a series of one-time pads for secure communication, two messages for her to send, and Marta then left for the city.  She assured us that that it would be no trouble to send along the other professionals and indiginies.  She would also send more credit keys so the guerrilla can buy supplies while when we get close to villages.  Javier and Paco’s teams will follow in the coming days on the 12th and the 15th with luck.  I look forward to my longtime friends joining us at the training camp.  This will nearly triple our guerrilla’s size from 22 to 57.

Upon arrival at the ranch house, I gave a brief speech congratulating the indigenous people for taking action and allowing us to join them, even though we are from different planets.  Then I laid out my plans for guerrilla training and overall strategy.  Many seem eager though most are untried.  I asked the group who the hunters were so that Teodoro could begin their training as scouts.

My good friend Manuel is already training the men.  It is good to see my revolutionary comrade and second in command again.  It has been two months for me in C-plus relativistic transit but nearly a year for him in local time.

I am hoping to repeat my previous successes on Simmons and Daniel’s World.

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Interview with Paris Hilton

With a Manchurian Press Pass courtesy of Bay Area Butchers I was sent on the assignment of a lifetime to accompany and interview Paris Hilton aboard her private jet while on her way to the Fourth Reich conference scheduled to be held in the upper hills of Bavaria at an undisclosed discotheque. Long gone are the Swastika flags of the Third Reich which have long since been traded out for the more sleek and iconic Chanel logo.

M: Paris, it’s an honor to meet you.

Paris: Thanks!

M: So whats it like being Paris Hilton?

P: Well, it’s just like being myself, so it’s mostly fun, but stressful sometimes.  It’s like asking someone what’s it like to be you.

M: We heard you lost two cell phones during Ultra festival in Miami, did you find them?

P: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

M: Do you ever plan on having children and if so how many?

P: Oh my god, that’s kind of personal.

M: Would you like some coke?

P: I don’t do coke, call Lindsay she might.

M: What does your vagina taste like?

P: (laughs out loud) Bolinger 63! 

M: Have you practiced your shoddy beej skills since that atrocious movie?

P: I don’t understand you. I don’t understand your questions.

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Rant In Bar Minor

Yeah man, let me get a ah, let me get a Fernie an’ a bottle, and get my man here a Jesus Christ.  Yeah get my friend a Jesus Christ, he looks like he needs one.  You look like you need one man.  How you doin’, how you doin’?  You doin’ good, you doin’ okay?  Good.  Yeah man, that’s cool, glad to hear it glad to hear things are going well.  Wish I could say the same, you know, man, wish I could.  But it’s like, man, I can’t sleep, you know?  I try to sleep at night and I can never sleep.  I try to; try it by laying down, you know, I just find I can’t sleep you know my brain just keeps going.  It’s like a fucking hamster on crack or some shit I don’t know, I can’t get the damn thing to stop.  I just start thinkin’ and thinkin’ and thinkin’, man I don’t think this much— I didn’t think when I was in school, man.  So I took my job, you know.   I didn’t want to fucking think, I was never good at thinking, I was never good at reading and writing so what the fuck, so, I dropped out of school and took my job man.  Now I can’t stop from thinkin’.  Man I’m telling you it’s like a fucking hamster the fucking thing just won’t quit like somebody gave it crack and I wish it would just have a heart attack already and fall off the fucking wheel so I could get some fucking sleep you know? You know, it’s like I lay there and all of the sudden all these fucking problems start going through my head like all this shit like conversations I had with people that pissed me off like how much worse it could have been and what I should have said and what I should have done I don’t know, I keep having those uh, like worst case scenario type things those you know, those what do they call it they’re like hypodermics or hypothermia, or yeah, yeah, that’s it, that’s it man, hypothetical, the, uh, those uh hypothetical situations, like those things. 

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Cuba, New Mexico Part III

Read parts I and II here and here.

“I’m just glad that I came by when I did.”   Imelda, the clerk’s sister, came in with a club sandwich and some lentil soup from the place up the road.  She still had her hair cutting kit in her hand when she found Albert in a pool of chunky vomit.  She stripped him down to his new underwear, helped him back into the bathroom and into the tub for the second time that day and ran warm water over him. “My husband run off.  He was a drunk.”  Giving him the stink eye.  “I ain’t a drunk.”  Albert mumbled as the water ran.  His side was throbbing.  His internal organs were over used and he didn’t know why.  She just looked at him with a look that said ‘Yeah right fucker.’  “You want to change your clothes?”  “Yeah.”  “You want me to come back?”  “No, please stay..I’m…trying to feel a little more human.  Thanks for all of your help.”  “Needed to wash your hair again anyway.”  She said.

Al finished washing off the his own vomit, but when it came time to exit the tub his foot still wasn’t working and he nearly went down again.  “What the fuck??!!” he screamed before changing out of the underwear he had neglected to take off before entering the tub.  He changed into fresh clothes; on the bathroom counter were K-Mart track pants and a wife beater.  Imelda directed him to sit backwards on the toilet.  He was so exhausted and ill that he put his head in his hands on the cold porcelain and moaned while she cut his shit-locks down.  ’8 years!’ he thought.  After forty minutes of work and another hair wash, using the shower this time, he looked in the mirror and thought that he could pass for a member of the Eagles.  ‘And only 34.’  Where had his good looks gone? ‘My teeth!  Godammit!  Am I on Meth?’’  He had been awake for a while and didn’t feel the urge to smoke anything.  A cigarette maybe, or a small bowl of weed to settle his stomach. 

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Not The First Mistake (September)

Robert Bennett is in his room at the Eastman Hotel, a single-room occupancy, watching television.  Watching isn’t necessarily the best description, as the screen is frozen in the test pattern, but he seems to be dozing off, more asleep than awake, occasionally jerking his head as he drifts in and out of consciousness.  The sound of the TV is all the way down, so he cannot hear the high pitched whine that accompanies the color bars on the screen, just the low level hum of the old set.  The only other sounds in the room are the constant hiss of the neon lights outside his window, which he leaves permanently cracked, and the occasional rattle and bang of a Night Owl bus, or sanitation truck, thrashing its wheels over the street grate three stories below. 

He is sitting up on the bed, leaning back against the wall, propped on the shitty pillows that he found stuffed under the flea-ridden mattress when he took the room.  His sawed-off Remington shotgun sits on the seat of the chair near the door, with several boxes of ammo near it.  He is still wearing the double shoulder holsters, the left one still holding a .45 semi-auto, and the other empty, with a matching handgun lying next to him on the bed.  There are several extra clips, fully loaded, with more random bullets scattered around him on the bed.  He has been here for a while, though even he isn’t sure how long anymore.  The overflowing ashtrays, empty packs of cigarettes, and nearly dozen empty beer bottles on the table beside his bed serve as a testament to the passing time.  He abruptly wakes from his slumber and sees the test pattern playing on the television.  Irritated by it, he quickly stands and turns it off, then immediately sits back down at the foot of his bed, clutching his skull and regretting his sudden movements.  The last four hours are black in his mind again.  That always unnerves him.

Robert walks up to the Grab N Go just before three a.m.  Outside of the store are four bangers, three Mexican and one White.  They all look the same to him: dumb punks.  He looks the same to him: an old drunk.  He fingers his trusty sawed-off in the left pocket of his greying beige overcoat, the shoulder holsters worn over the charcoal vest and tie, and though he isn’t wearing his suit jacket, they remain hidden by the duster, as he walks into the store.  He walks to the beer cooler, seemingly unaware of the teenager looking suspicious in the candy aisle, and the worn down, middle-aged woman working the counter, halfway through her shift for the night.  She is the type of woman who has obviously had a hard life, and has done little to make it easier on herself.  She sighs at every request made of her at work, and says, “I wish this was over.”  Most people assume she means her shift, but some wonder if she isn’t just talking about her life.

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Nephelokokkygia

We met in a train wreck: her car blocked the tracks. 

She stood there and smoked and watched as it burned, licked her fingers and forked tongue and grinned at my sin while the barbs in my flesh stood in defense. 

I offered her whiskey; she offered her bed, so I laughed at my fate while I drank from the stars and ate of the Earth while Mercury rises and falls to the wind. 

Visions of fireflies in rusted out cars cold sleeping in hayfields still flickered and flashed with the words that she said.  

She paused and she screamed, two fists full of hair, and dropped to her knees as the blood she still wept on ochre stained lips showed how I lost her embrace.

Her eyes were long dead before I flew to the sun, molten wax searing flesh as I stared at the passed and forgotten forlorn who sang us the songs of rebellion and scorn.  

The leaders of violence sent wolves to our lair while she rose with the ashes and I gave in to rust for Gabriel’s cries kept the sirens cold silent. 

The felons and jokers all trembled and wept for her laughter and malice were all we had left as she fell to the earth when my dried blood displayed:  The deal had been done. 

I rock on my heels and curse at the sun for it lashes so cruelly at all I have done; the last of her screams still run down my back, her fingernail traces still glistening red. 

The scars of my scars pretend a defense and begin to shut down the feelings I’ve left while the time ran the night all blistered and burned and full of hindsight.

I cradle her hands as her bones turn to dust and the flames in her eyes burn the cities all down as black holes turn to devils and God trades the phoenix for whiskey and wine. 

Cigarettes are burning regrets of a life that’s fading faster than my memory, and these blue and fading tears will wash away dead flowers and the Ferryman.

She tattoos her soul on the back of my neck with her spike in my arm and her rope at my throat and her lust in my heart and her death on my mind: remorse swallows guilt as I chase down the dragon.

The pinch and the press are forgiving and patient, one at a time the fireflies die and clovers cast off  their seeds to the wind where the children are eaten by butterflies creeping. 

She climbs back to her feet and looks down at my grave, then smiles and whispers:

“I told you I saved.”

Cuba, New Mexico Part II

Click here for Cuba, New Mexico Part I

“Glad to see that shitty motel rooms haven’t changed much.  How long will I have to wait to get out of this dump?” he thought.  The way he looked and smelled he was just grateful that the hotel clerk at the Cuban Lodge had let him use the phone.  The clerk had accepted Jon’s American Express Centurion card over the phone and couldn’t get Albert out of the office fast enough.  When Albert got to his room and looked in the mirror he was surprised that the office manager hadn’t called the cops.  He needed to sit down.  “Sleeping under the overpass isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” He was in bad shape.

“Knock, knock.” ‘Who the fuck could that be?’ Albert thought.  “Care package from your friend.  I sent my wife to go pick up some clothes for you.” Albert tried to get up from the chair.  It hurt to move so he plopped back down. “Just leave it by the door.”  He could hear the little man set it down and then shuffle back towards the Motel’s front office.  After a few minutes he was able to make it to the door (alternately using the table, the dresser and the TV stand as support) to retrieve it. It looked like the basket was full of two of everything that the shitty roadside motel had to offer.  “Typical Jon,” He said.  ‘No food or booze.  Probably couldn’t keep anything down anyway.’ He thought.  All the travel size Advil went down immediately.

He was in another man’s body.  Must be an old man’s he thought.   Albert couldn’t even take stock of his situation.  Every part of his body hurt and it hurt to even think about what could be wrong with him.  “Baths are always good.” He moved in the direction of the bathroom and ended up slumped down on the toilet.  He slowly took off his rags and his talking shoes.  Next he dumped half a dozen body soaps and shampoo bottles into the running bath water, then returned to the toilet while the tub filled up with suds.

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Thoughts Arrive Like Butterflies...

I used to sleep in a bed made of the finest padding available, framed in mahogany with silk drapes cascading down between the posts. I used to sleep under a heavy down blanket that matched my pillows and both were wrapped in the same silk that wrapped my bed.  I used to sleep with women of all races and ages, our bodies intertwined as we both gently snored in the heavy, satisfied sleep of those who have just indulged in the hedonistic and lustful pleasures of the flesh.  I used to sleep indoors, where the walls of my bedroom were inside the walls of my house and I remained insulated from the cold exhaust filled air and noise of the city streets.

I used to do laundry by throwing my dirty clothes in a hamper that a service would take once a week and sort out the regular wash from the dry clean only and return it to me neatly folded and wrapped.  I used to keep my clothes in a dresser and a closet where the folded articles stayed folded in their appropriate drawers and my suits stayed finely pressed in the plastic wrap of the dry cleaners until the day of the week when I felt they deserved to be worn.

I used to shower every morning in hot water that cascaded off of my body and down the drain in the middle of my tile shower.  I used to shave every other day in order to maintain my professional appearance, yet not irritate my skin and cause unsightly discoloration or blemishes like ingrown hairs.

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DJ Dojo Presents: The Future: At The Blank Club

The Blank Club interior: Night
1st Friday, Once a month club night: The Future

Welcome to The Future!

“Paranoiattack” – The Faint

No! I’m not playing any mash-ups tonight! Get the fuck out of the booth!

“The Devil” – The Rapture

Tell Craigy I need Jesus Christ (Jack and Coke)!

“Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” – LCD Soundsystem

Sorry. Short set tonight. Just go dance.

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Cuba, New Mexico

He awoke. “Why is it so bright?” He thought. The next thought was, “Who beat me up?" He felt like shit.

A big rig goes by on the overpass above. Looking down the slope of the grade through crusted eyes he can only see the dry creek bed. “How did I get here?”

“Ahhh!” He rolled over on his left side to searing agony in his ribs. He tried again. He slithered into the shade of mid-morning, no more than 15 feet from where he started. “Where am I?” he thought as he looked out over the desert scrub of the southwest. He resolved to make it to the top of the rise. The crawl to the top was agony on his ribs and he couldn't quite feel his left foot.

There seemed to be some sort of stripmall about a mile up the road. Walking was difficult. He had two shoes on but one was talking to him, the sole was separated. The limp didn’t help either. It felt like his chest, shoulder and abdomen were on fire. He reached a sign on the road, “Cuba, New Mexico, Population 590.”

The first building that he could make out was some type of food establishment. It had some pay phones out front and they each had some writing on the side and some sort of lightning graphic. “Verizon. What the fuck is that?” He thought. Before he could make it that far he had to stop to wretch for several minutes. Nothing recognizable came up.

He finally dialed ‘0’ for operator. “Operator,” She said. Why are they always female? “I need to make a collect call.” “What number please?”, "415-666-0112, ask for Jonathan Moore” “Who may I say is calling?” “Albert Palmer.” “Hold please.”

He noticed a bracelet on his wrist. Peak Psychiatric Hospital. "That can't be good."

Some more coughing. “Jeez..[ccccccchhhhhwwweepp]… “What is that?” He thought as the phlegm-mixed-with-bile hit his big toe through the talking shoe. “I have him for you sir.” “Who is this? I haven’t got time for games.” “Jon it’s me, Albert.” Silence. “It can’t be…,” Said Jon. "I hardly believe it myself. I'm just glad you kept the same mobile phone number."