III.The search for anything that makes sense..2:06 every Wednesday morn..back to work

the ongoing series of Ugliness and Truth in Modern America. Sounds important...

The darkness has rolled in, and so have the requests. The computer has become hungry and now turns on and off by itself. Sometimes, I will be punched awake when it starts up and intentionally plays some random porno movie at full blast that shakes the couch and spills me all over the floor.
            I sneak downstairs. That f*****g piece of machine s**t stirs in the corner like an evil Ba'al, steaming and smoking, repeating scenes of vulgar pornographic nonsense and changing all my appointments.
Some nut job from Clark wants me to do more on the seaside stuff and the picture of the techno-ruined family.
            Some college freak from Florida wants to do some spattered online interview on my experiences and where my motivation comes from.
I have accepted three other jobs that are all late to start and impossible to finish. I have to canoe through the writing pit.

Notes from the strip club piece that reek like perfumed anchovies and have stains on them that resemble white pencil shavings head the pack.

Excerpts for the f*****g Ugly Paper that the Ragu has threatened to slash my tires and drag me across town naked with a keyboard jammed in my a*s if I don't finish are secondary.

My conversation with one of the great men of words, the last Poet Abiodun Oyewale has so much old word wisdom on the paper it’s making my cats smarter by walking past them. I caught jack in my grandmother's pink recliner picking through them, hissing horribly on how I have yet to capture the essence of the man.
"F**k you. You're a cat."
He stomps off and pisses on my dry cleaned work suits.

For geeks with way too much time to write, your works speaks to you when it is hungry. Each piece of paper has its own long winded story to tell and all the thoughts run through the air like literary pollution. Real break downs occur without warning. There is no build up to a real meltdown, it just kicks you in the face like some sort of twisted angry slug from a 44. The eyes tear up, the veins in the head pulsate, and the mouth goes dry. The world comes at you in waves and the entire time you have to contest with the f*****g words that won't stop bombarding the brain. It’s greedy and manipulative. Give it a glint in the eye and a high pitched squeel and it becomes another pig, or a girlfriend who has the inability to turn down the volume while you are trying to watch a sporting event that you have far too money on to leave and spend some "quality time" somewhere.

Whoa. Where was this whole thing going? Right. Yes. There it is.
In the midst of random requests I needed some time to walk and gather some semblance of sanity. Where is the sense in all of this? There is a huge piece of the puzzle that is either missing or does not exist and it’s the one that will stabilize this unhealthy urge to hurl myself into traffic. The clock is wound way too tight and its running backwards. For a while I have had this two ton albatross around my neck that is giving me spinal issues.

I know why I take walks at 2:06 am on Wednesday down Hackensack St. It has seldom been something that I can explain, or care to, but it makes perfect sense to me. The movies and books tell you that weird and wonderful things happen during long winter walks. The chance meeting with the love of your life who also can't sleep and you have an invigorating talk over the coffee machine when you both reach for the same cup and then the same flavor. Instead, you're alone in the 7-11 with Maresh, the 25 year old counter guy with the huge head and sagging eyes. The coffee machine is uninviting except for some flashing lights and hissing steam that bring you back to the night at the strip club where at least someone faked like they gave a flying f**k about your unimportant s**t for one night.

"Wednesday huh," he says, taking my money.

"Can't give up man. They win if you give in"

"Who they?"

Like fate, the door opens and a couple clad in practically matching nighttime outfits came in. They are enveloped in each other, speaking only inches from each other's mouths sharing emotional nonsense and visible beauty.

"They do," I said, snatching my change and spilling it over the floor. Reaching down to get it, I smacked my head on the counter and when I went to raise my hand up to caress the wounded area punched the coffee open and doused the counter and Maresh. A wave of douchey embarrassment fell over me like an ice blanket. I was that guy, a stumbling half dressed mess trying to pay for cupcake coffee with a handful of change and a crazed look of an overworked heathen slapped all over my face.

The happy couple stared at me in horror.

I glared back.

I grabbed the half empty cup off the counter and stormed out into the night like a boogeyman heading back under the bed. The fire in my neck made it hard to breathe and the pain in my face throbbed and caused my eye to twitch in and out of focus.

I tried to make them liars. I tried to turn their situation into the ugly mess I have seen a thousand times before.

She is probably a w***e.

He probably scored a sloppy basement hummer by her mother while his beloved slept soundly upstairs.

She has probably made a phone call to him about how sick and bed ridden she was from some movie theater after just getting done playing hide-a-c**k in the popcorn with some freak from the local gym.

I didn't have it in me. I may have just witnessed purity and had to let it go even with a half ton of vomit in my throat and a head wound that was dripping blood into my eye which the harsh wind only made worse.
The walk home was misery. It was 3 AM, a fresh cut on my head, a half empty cup of coffee and no sightings of fate in motion. By the time I got in, Ba'al had awakened as I heard the screeching of sonic orgasms from my basement that shook the windows and made the neighbors stare. I kicked open the door of my quiet upper class neighborhood and bellowed at them in fury.

"Yes! I'm that good you tools! That's what I call the big O! F**k off! Mind your business!"

I slammed the door shut and started for the basement. The Paper army downstairs rustled and made sounds that resembled a zombie army searching for brains and wisdom.

This is my life. Married to this damned art. No end in sight.

The only thing I could think of was that right now there is a lonely beauty at the coffee counter at 7-11 staring out the window with hope in her eyes and a sigh in her breath, waiting for something she can't quite understand and wanting something that just missed her.

"Never the twain shall meet."-R. Kipling

Put that in your hope pipe and smoke it,
Amen.

Reviews

[Aries]

Aaahhhh, I don't know where to begin. The ugly truth. That's the best I can describe your writing in the fewest words. The narrative is compelling, the subject seemingly simple, and the point to it all only buried under a layer of grime to wipe away in a single, hooked reading to reveal the bareness -- your writing continues to shine through. The outcast of a dark society, trying to subtly glimpse a hope for truth, of some form of pureness, that's what I see.

[D.J. Lutz]

Raw, to the point, truthful. Early H.S.T. Either way, don't let the lizards get to you - keep writing. And as for the rating system, I never use it. Sorry. But I do like your writing. Great voice.

[Andrew Scorah]

Read a couple of your pieces and totally love the tone of your work, to my inexperienced eye, very polished and proffesional pieces.

[roarke]

ain't it great to have work? No pressure there. It's the "cupcake coffee" that's F-ing it all up. All the mistresses of art are harsh.... don't ever take up trumpet.
I'm going to have to put on a pair of thrift store nike's to keep up with the pace here. Don't bogart the coffee man...