Blinded by the Light

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The Bukom Café and Taxi Cab Hell

I awoke Monday morning with the residue of the weekend thick in my head and upon opening my eyes the white light of the television penetrated my retinas and made haste to the pain centers of my swollen brain. I was using the matador’s jacket my brother’s roommate Paco had given me as a pillow and the ornate stitching had left a deep criss-crossing pattern on my cheek and neck. I imagined my hide looked like some Goddamn presentation of modern art and at the moment I didn’t give a rat’s ass. The best I could do was to keep my burning brain from seeping out of my ears and onto the floor and perhaps save the last of my sanity. What I needed was a shot of Demerol or to behead my self Guillotine style; anything to get rid of the pain.

“Sergeant,” I called to my brother but there was no response.

Visions of a speeding taxi cab hurling through the streets of DC dodging bumpers and knee caps like some ill-boding metallic swine came to me in throbbing, jagged bursts. I pushed further into the flaming recollection of the previous night and a gorgeous blond in a flowing witch like black sat on the doorstep of possibility but I couldn’t let her in, couldn’t yank the door of pain completely open and invite her into memory.

I went into the bathroom and finding several pills that I was pretty sure weren’t penicillin or birth control I took them and washed them down with a swig of warm tap water. I then got into the shower still fully clothed and cranked the hot water. A boiling stream pulsated against my neck and slowly the pain began to abate and my mind eased from behind the murky morning cloud and lit up my head like the new day’s sun.

While standing in the shower the inevitable questions of my own mortality came down on me with the soul crushing guilt that only befalls those that live on or near the brink of all that is sane. I wondered what the Hell I had done the previous night and if it wasn’t good would I ever be able to stop this programmed self-destruction? What had I ingested? Whose pink G-string had been lying on the futon beside me? Had I found my American dream woman? I tossed these questions up into the sky of possibility and watched them flutter down around me like so much confetti.

After forty-five minutes or so in the shower I sat on the edge of the futon and sipped at a cup of coffee. My mortality was first and foremost on my mind and I thought of the purported fitness gurus that throw down fistfuls of vitamins, consume fiber by the bale, and take long meaningless runs through innumerable neighborhoods and still croak off before their time. And then there are those of us that hang to the tinsel thin strands of life over the abyss of depravity while the grim reaper stomps on our knuckles with his bony feet and still we won’t let go and we look up into his hollow black eyes and say, “Fuck off you morbid cock sucker, I’m not going anywhere yet.”

I assume it would be easier to quit the boozing, greasy food, cigars, blondes and drugs but it wouldn’t be any fun now would it? Do I want to deprive myself of carnal goings on that beckon my every fiber just for the chance to someday rock great grandkids on my knee? I think not. I’d rather have a voluptuous young blond on my knee right now and ram my tongue in her ear like a toilet plunger. That's living. Take me to a taxidermist when I’m dead and stuff me and then take me home and set me in front of the fireplace in a moldy rocking chair. If the grandkids don’t mind the smell they can sit on my knee then and in this way I will be with you…more or less.

I looked out the window and onto 23rd Street and the State Department and wondered if that bastard Colon Powell was having the same kind of morning I was. Three more days and he would see the inauguration of that cocksucker Bush and he would be gone. I wouldn’t even be around that long. I had to get back to the office and chase down my destiny which at that very moment was sitting in envelopes addressed to agents throughout the United States, England, and Canada. Yes, my first book was waiting to be sent out into the world and with such pressures my insomnia and claustrophobia came rushing back. There was no way I could stay put for another weekend. So, I tossed several items into a duffel bag, fired up the Cherokee, and lit out down Route 15 South for the Capitol of these United States…Washington DC.

* * *

The trip for the most part was lost in a cloud of marijuana smoke and deep trance like thought and before I knew it I was crossing the Memorial Bridge.

As I circled the Lincoln Memorial, my tires screeching from the high speed at which I was traveling, I was drinking coffee laced with Sambuca and it shot out of my mug and spilled on my jeans scalding me. This caused me to take my eyes off the road for just a second and this was enough time for me to miscalculate the turn and drive up over the curb and onto a small island of grass and trees and as I turned to my left I saw the smirking face of Abraham Lincoln.

“Honest Abe you bastard,” I said, as I drove back off the sidewalk and onto the road.

* * *

When I arrived at my brother’s apartment building it was around nine PM and so I rushed up to his apartment wanting to go out on the town as soon as possible so we wouldn't miss any of the nightlife. His roommate greeted me at the door.

“Hola,” Paco said, grasping my hand.

“I’m glad to see your still wearing my duster,” I said, “and it appears with nothing else on under it other than a pair of Calvin Klein boxer briefs.”

“I was taking a nap with my girlfriend. I use it as a bathrobe too,” he said scratching at himself. “Come on in.”

“Thanks,” I said, dragging my bag into the living room. “You wear that cowboy hat to bed too?”

“Yes, I cover my eyes with it. How do you like the matador’s jacket I gave you?” Paco said and lit a long skinny cigar that looked to my like a dried rat tail.

“It’s a damn fine piece of craftsmanship, the ornate stitching would cost thousands here in the states and for that reason I use it for largely decorative purposes. It’s much too beautiful to go gallivanting around town in but I thought I’d wear it here in honor of you.”

“You had it repaired?” Paco said, touching the lapel of the jacket.

“Right, there’s a Mexican/Korean tailor down the road from me. The bastard wanted to sew a dragon on the back of it but I told him that there was no way he was going to sully the magnificent stitching of the Mexican artisan.”

“You tend to lay it on awful thick don’t you?” Paco said.

“Right,” I said.

“Cigar?” Paco said, handing me the same dried looking rat tail of a cigar he was smoking.

“Thanks,” I said, took the cigar and lit it.

It was then that my brother emerged from the hallway.

“Sergeant, you bastard,” I said, hugging him.

“You’re looking fit,” he said, stepping back and holding me at arms length by the shoulders.

“I’ve cut back on my indulgences,” I said.

“Bullshit,” Sergeant said. He leaned up against the door frame and I looked him over. He’d been working long hours and when he did he rarely ate, although he still had a lean and powerful physique he was somewhat slimmer than the last time I’d seen him.

“You’re right, I’m lying but it was a white lie. I almost stayed in last Friday night.”

“Almost?”

“It’s a long story…so what are we going to do tonight?” I asked, toking on my rat tail cigar.

“We’ll hit a few bars but I want to take it easy tonight the Steelers game is on tomorrow. If they win we’ll go out on the town and celebrate,” Sergeant said.

“Those bastards better win. I bet my Cherokee that they would,” I said.

“That was stupid,” Paco said.

“Right,” I said, “I tend to think too much with my heart. My wires must have been crossed at birth. It might also explain why I try to love with my head which always gets me in trouble…You going out tonight Paco?” I asked.

“No, Bernice and I are staying in. We will go out tomorrow night,” he said.

“Come on it’s getting late,” Sergeant said, throwing on his jacket and wrapping his scarf around his neck.

“Right,” I said, shutting the door behind me.

We took off for an abbreviated night on the town stopping first at an Asian eatery called Bangkok Joes which is just a good sprint down the road from the Watergate. I imbibed only liquid nutrition in the form of Guinness as did Sergeant and in double time we were singing praise to that ancestral deity known to our convoluted blood line as Bacchus. I could almost hear that cock sucker’s flute playing and his hoofs tapping on the wood floor.

“To Bacchus,” I said, standing.

Sergeant applauded but it was evident that the rest of the restaurant was not sharing in my appreciation for the hoofed god of wine so we exited pronto and hit Chadwick’s, another little establishment just down the way and in this dim setting, amongst business men and women clad in suits we further traveled down the hops lined road of inebriation and after spilling a full Guinness on a leggy attorney we made haste for Sergeant’s apartment building and climbed to the roof where we leaned back and gazed at the stars and drank more beer.

“Do you see that star there?” I asked Sergeant.

“Yeah, what is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I just wondered if you could see it too,” I said.

The next day we awoke early, drank two pots of coffee and when we were fully caffeinated we walked down towards the Capitol and I was appalled to see all the preparation going on for that cock sucker Bush’s inauguration. In front of the Capitol there were bleachers being set up and I wished I had brought a hack saw so I could saw away one of the steel supports. It would be a blast to watch the inauguration on TV and see the whole shebang collapsed when W. was in the middle of another one of his propaganda speeches. That cock sucker.

We then went to China town and hunkered down in a little restaurant called the Wok & Roll that served 4.95 lunch specials. Being American and wanting to savor the last of the food that will disappear when Bush’s economic policies take hold, I dined on four egg rolls, tea, chicken and broccoli, rice, orange slices and a fortune cookie. My fortune read.: Someone from your past has returned to steal your heart. My lucky numbers were: 3, 6, 12, 24, 36, 42. I have to remember to use those numbers the next time I play the lottery.

Back at my brothers apartment we watched the Steelers squeak by the Jets 20-17 and drank Pete’s Wicked Ale.

“Where do you want to go tonight?” Sergeant asked, as he finished off his beer.

“This is your town, you decide,” I said.

“Why don’t we go to the Bukom Café? It’s a Western African Restaurant over on 18th Street.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

“Paco and Bernice are going to meet us thee,” Sergeant said. “I’ll call my secretary Janine and see if she wants to join us. I think you’ll really like her.”

“The more the merrier,” I said, “just don’t try to set me up with anyone that’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

“You can’t keep running your whole life,” Sergeant said.

“I can and I will,” I said.

* * *

On the dark stage of the night sky, lit by the spotlight of the moon and the throng of stars that sat intently in the audience of the universe watching the drama of earth unfold, we hailed a cab in front of my brother’s building and set off for the Bukom Café.

Along the way I struck up a conversation with the driver, a squat Indian man with a gun powder black beard and strangely feline eyes that darted back and forth from behind wire rimmed spectacles. He smelled like drywall dust, curry, and pine tree air freshener.

“I am totally drained from the game,” the cab driver said.

“Me too, I need an injection of B-12 vitamins and a tall glass of orange juice,” I said. “You root for the Steelers?”

“I built a shrine to Indra, the greatest of all warriors, in my living room and he wears a Jerome Bettis jersey and I place donuts at his feet before every game. Every day I pray to this shrine and my Steelers have only lost one game this season,” he said.

“That’s definitely fucking odd compadre,” I said. “I consider myself a rabid Steelers fan but you’ve taken sick to a whole new level. I like that. Instead of praying for crippled kids or cures for diseases you spend all your spiritual currency on divine intervention for our beloved Steelers. Misdirected perhaps but you have the all the components of a true fan. What’s your name?”

“Boparai,” he said.

“Bopari, do you mind if I smoke?” Sergeant asked.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” Boparai asked. I knew that he wasn’t talking about smoking a pipe full of cherry tobacco. His eyes were glazed over and red around the edges. I’d never known any Indian stoners but I supposed that Ghandi was a pretty mellow guy and perhaps indulged.

“Go ahead,” Sergeant said.

From underneath his visor Boparai removed a fat spliff and lit it with the car lighter.

“Would you like some?” he asked, exhaling.

“No, really I can’t,” I said. I paused for a moment and tried to think of three reasons I shouldn’t partake. First of all I thought of my health, which wasn’t like me but was good enough for reason number one. Reason number two might have been the legality of said herb but I figured a drug bust would only add to my resume as a writer and I couldn’t think of number three so I gave up. “Oh, Hell just give me the damn thing,” I said.

“Don’t get too blasted,” Sergeant said, “you want to make a good impression on Janine.”

“No matter what I do I will never make a good impression,” I said. “It’s not my nature to sugar coat who I am and besides this is not a date. I don’t go on dates, blind or otherwise. I just let things happen and in that way I will find my dream woman. ”

My first impressions are oft spectacular one man shows; somatic extravaganzas coupled with maddening displays of verbosity, and are too much for the average, unwitting bystander to digest in an initial attempt to take in my personality. I am my own private spectacle.

Our driver meandered through town and he and I passed the spliff back and forth and a great cloud engulfed the insides of the cab and in time I lost all perception of time and I thought that in this way I might live forever. If I continually smoked pot could I transcend time? Could I outlive the mayhem that surrounded me? Was the key to outliving everyone else to travel in my mind and let the world outside go on at warp speeds? This all made perfect sense to me as we arrived at the Bukom Café on 18th Street.

“Do a prayer for our Steelers,” I said to Boparai.

“Oh, I will,” Boparai said. The seriousness on his face that told me he wasn’t joking and I admired that son-of-a-bitch for taking the Steelers seriously because there are too many people in this Goddamn world that can’t take anything seriously except money.

Sergeant tipped Boparai and we entered the Bukom Café. It was a dimly lit joint with a kente-cloth décor that put me in the mind of my exploits in various establishments in Senegal, Africa when I had visited Sergeant there during his three year Peace Corps stint. Many a night we drank French wine and a native beer called Gazelle in these places and one morning I woke up in a hollowed out Baobab tree with a cute French lass that I’d met while exchanging money in a bank.

We were seated at a rustic wooden table in the middle of the floor which was lit by thick candles. I looked to the table to the right of us where two African women, dressed in oranges and greens, sat slowly eating dinner. I smiled and they smiled back with smiles that seemed to float directly into my eyes like blown kisses.

“I used to come here quite a bit when I lived up here,” Sergeant said.

“It smells like Jasmine and…is that curry again? Our cab driver smelled like curry,” I said.

People and things about me started to take on a greater, almost other worldly significance. I drank from my bottle of Beck’s which Sergeant must have ordered and people, mostly Africans filed in and out of the restaurant. I looked up and saw the Patriots and Colts on the TV over the bar but the rhythm of the game seemed disjointed and foreign to me.

“Hey, Janine, Paco, Berince,” Sergeant called, “over here.”

I looked up past Paco and Bernice and what I beheld was a blond that might have flopped right off the pages of a mythology book depicting Greek goddesses. She was dressed in flowing black which the ceiling fans kicked up and which floated about her and which made her look like a younger Stevie Nicks. In a word she was exquisite and I couldn’t take my eyes off her skin which was as white as beer foam or her full pouting lips which were the shade of chafed skin on a baker’s elbows.

I stood and wobbled drunkenly.

“I’m proud to meet you,” I said extending my hand.

She extended her hand cautiously and I grasped it and kissed.

“Oh, my,” she said pulling away.

“He’s a bit of a character,” Sergeant said.

“I’m not a character,” I said, pulling a chair out for Janine, “I’m real, flesh and blood with several different chemicals thrown in.”

It was immediately evident, if only to me, that Janine had something for me and I thought that with enough alcohol we just might get together. Was she the American dream woman I’d been searching for? It was too early to tell. I would have to run her through a battery of tests, none of them planned but spontaneous extensions of my personality manifested through my odd behavior and my outrageous exclamations. How would she react? Would she be by my side in the morning or would she run off into the jungle laughing madly like a stoned hyena? Yes, time would tell.

“It’s good to see you my friend,” Paco said, tilting his cowboy hat.

“You look ridiculous in that cowboy get up,” Bernice said.

“Don’t be rude to Sergeant’s brother. If you insult the duster you insult him,” Paco said.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, “I’m not particularly sensitive to fashion critiquing.”

“What will you have to eat?” our waiter, who had suddenly appeared, asked. He was a very dark, of medium height, had a powerful build and wore a coarse shirt made of yellow and white material.

“I’ll have the African Curried Chicken,” I said. “And I’ll take the jollof rice with that and another bottle of Beck’s.”

“I’ll have a Bukom Bomb and an African salad,” Janine said.

I could tell by her choice of cuisine and beverage that my little Janine was a hard drinker and a light eater. This was my type of woman.

“Bernice and I will have the goat,” Paco said.

“That cowboy hat and duster look dashing my friend,” I said.

“Thank-you,” Paco said, tipping his hat.

He handed me another rat tail cigar and I lit it with a candle on the table. It was then that I noticed a big greasy stain on the front of the duster. It looked like petroleum jelly or maybe honey I wasn’t quite sure which but knew I didn’t want to touch it.

“I’ll have the chicken in the peanut sauce with Fufu,” Sergeant said.

As is my natural inclination as a male specimen of the homo sapien species, and which was probably occurring ever since clothing was invented, I gazed down Janine’s flowing black blouse.
“Are you looking down my top?” Janine asked.

“Yes…I mean no. I was just thinking and gazing in their…I mean your general direction.”

“Oh,” Janine said.

A Reggae band started up in the front of the restaurant and the music filtered through the people standing at the bar and those on the dance floor and our food came and we ate. I conversed with Janine throughout the entire meal, while drinking a half dozen or more Becks, smoking my cigar, and gesturing madly to emphasize my points. By the time our plates were cleared Janine looked somewhat bewildered or was it disgust? Again only time would tell but my heart told me, despite her grimacing and flinching as she listened to me that she was enjoying my company.

* * *

“I’m taller than I am short,” I said to Janine as we exited the Bukom Café and stepped into the cold night air.

“What?” Janine asked.

“He’s just trying to be funny,” Sergeant said.

“We’re supposed to meet some friends over at the Dubliner.”

“Okay,” I said, sliding my hand around Janine’s waist.

I readied myself for a punch or slap but neither came. Sergeant waved down a cab.

“There won’t be enough room for all of us in there,” I said.

“Janine and I will take another cab.”

I saw the look of concern on Janine’s face. She appeared to be nervous. She was biting down on the edge of her black Stevie Nick's cape.

“I bet that cape tastes like chicken,” I said.

“I like you but let’s take it slow,” Janine said. “You make me nervous.”

“That feeling could be gas from the Bokum Bomb or it might be the first seeds of love growing up between the cracks of your heart--”

“Taxi,” Janine screamed.

A maroon cab screeched to a halt in front of us; the driver’s side window was already down.

“Hey mon, you needs a ride?” the cab drive said.

Janine leaned down. “Yes, we need to go to the Dubliner,” she said.

“That’s cool,” he said, beckoning us into the cab.

Before I could say a word Janine was in the cab and plastered up against the far door. Either she was playing hard to get or I had just freaked her out. I chose to believe she was playing hard to get. She just wasn’t drunk enough yet to see how wonderful I really was. I slid in beside her.

“That jacket is really freaking me out,” she said.

“This is a genuine matador’s jacket given to me by Paco,” I said.

“That doesn’t mean you have to wear it,” she said.

“True but you would fall for me no matter what I was wearing,” I said.

“No, I’m too tall for you,” Janine said.

I could tell that Janine was going through the phase of doubt that accompanies meeting and then falling for me. She was now thinking of things she didn’t like about me.

“We’re then same height when we’re lying down,” I said. “And for that matter I’d be taller if I were on top.”

“You are a pig,” Janine said with a smile.

Yes, I was in. I knew for sure then that there was something there, that she had just needed enough booze in her to lubricate her true inner machinery; that her heart would open up to me like a music box and a ballerina would twirl in the center of it and I would dreamily watch it spin and in the twinkle of the tiny dancer’s eye my destiny would be revealed.

I took out my Binaca breath spray and shot a cloud of the minty solution into my mouth. I was a bit overzealous though and shot Janine in the eye.

“Ouch, you idiot,” she said rubbing her eyes with her balled up fists.

The cab slid around a corner the tires squealing. I gripped the handle on the door and nearly ripped it out try to keep my balance.

“That was quite a turn there,” I said.

“Perhaps you might want to knock it down a notch or two.”

“Boo,” the cab driver said.

I had no idea what the Hell that meant but I supposed on some whacked level our cab driver was telling me he didn’t care what I thought. I looked at the thick ropes that made up his dred locks and the knit hat the sat on top of his head and thought that the hair and hat combo looked like an overturned planter. I took out one of the spliffs the Boparai had given me. It smelled damn good, like Wrigley’s Chewing Gum and orange blossoms.

“Do you mind if I smoke,” I asked the driver.

He craned his neck over the seat, the cords of muscle and veins in his neck pulsing like some sort of organic relief map. “No, you can’t smoke dat in here mon,” he said.

There was something’s wrong here. The Indian guy smoked pot and the Jamaican guy didn’t? Had I stepped into some strange time continuum in which everything was not as it seemed but the exact opposite?

“I thought everyone in Jamaica smoked pot,” I said, narrowing my eyes as the cab tore threw traffic at an increasingly alarming rate.

“No, not everyone,” the cab driver said.

That was rude,” Janine said under her breath.

It may have been rude but there was something I didn’t like about the guy. It is a sixth sense I have, knowing who is a bastard and who isn’t and this guy was definitely bastard material. Maybe it was the way he carelessly risked out lives so he could make it to our stop and then zip off and make more money.

“Right there, dee Hilton, that’s where Regan was shot,” the cab driver said, his teeth clacking together, which sounded like the spurs of a gunslinger as he walked across a marble floor.

He zipped around a car making a turn and I had no idea how he hadn’t hit a pedestrian who had just started to cross.

“Ever do any stunt driving?” I asked.

“You don’t like my driving? Then get dee fuck out of dee cab,” he said.

“My eyes,” Janine said, “I think I’m going blind.”

“You’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ve sprayed myself in the eyes several times with that stuff. I don’t want to get out of the cab I just don’t want to die on the way to the Dubliner.”

“You won’t die. I’m dee best driver in DC, mon,” he said.

If he was the best I would have hated to have seen the worst.

“I think I should go to the emergency room,” Janine said.

“You’re overreacting,” I said. “I’ll flush your eyes out at the Dubliner.”

The cab driver slammed on the brakes and we both flew into the seat in front of us.

“What the Hell was that?” I asked.

“That idiot just cut me off,” the cab driver said.

“I want out,” Janine cried.

“Then get dee fuck out,” the cab driver yelled.

We were stopped behind traffic and squinting Janine opened the door and hopped out, slamming the door behind her.

Suddenly the driver took off without notice and Janine’s Stevie Nick’s cape was caught in the door. I looked helplessly back as part of the flowing ensemble was ripped from her body.

“Stop,” I cried.

“I can’t stop now,” our driver said.

“You have to stop. Janine is standing half naked back on the road and she’s blind. She’s going to get hit.”

I looked back and couldn’t see Janine anymore.

“Let me out you bastard,” I cried.

The driver slammed down on the gas and dodged in and out of cars. I reached up and grabbed hold of a hand full of dred locks and yanked his head back.

“Let go of my hair,” he cried.

“Not until you pull over you bastard,” I cried. The cab accelerated.

“You fool, I got rid of her because she was a bitch. I was doing you a favor,” he said.

“What?” I said loosening up on his dred lock.

“I said she was a bitch, mon.”

“She wasn’t a bitch. I sprayed mouth wash in her eyes,” I said.

“What?”

The cab wove in and out of traffic; we rode up on a curb and nearly clipped someone waiting for a bus.

“Let me out,” I said.

“Right here?” the cab driver asked.

“Yes, here,” I yelled. “This is a bad neighborhood mon,” he said.

“I don’t care let me out,” I demanded.

The cabbie hit the brakes hard and the cab lurched to a stop. I ripped a twenty dollar bill out of my wallet and threw it at him.

“Keep the change,” I said and slammed the door shut. The cab shot off into the night. “You bastard,” I yelled.

I looked around me and immediately I wished I had stayed in the cab because I knew that my odds of getting another cab to stop in this neighborhood were not good. I pulled the matador’s jacket shut and hurried down the street. On each street corner there was collected a number of rough types and I hadn’t realized how drunk and stoned I was until I saw them blurrily in front of me.

“Nice jacket,” I heard someone say.

I ignored this comment but caught a good look of two scruffy banditos positioned beneath a flickering street light just ahead of me.

The taller of the two, by at least six inches, wore a blue knit cap and leather jacket that was so worn it looked like the backside of a hairless mule. Two streams of clear snot ran from his Dorito shaped nose and collected in the basin of his upturned upper lip. He nervously and rapidly shifted his weight from on booted foot to another and was smoking a cigarette that was only a quarter of an inch longer than the filter itself. I pegged him for a junky right away.

His sidekick was a dirty little barrel of a man with short thick arms that were attached to feminine and all but hairless hands. His mouth was rimmed with a thick orange beard and his eyes were too small and too close together for his puffy face. I could tell straight off that he was a yes man, that he took orders, whether it was to be the first to mainline a questionable injection of junk or to beat the old lady over the head to get her purse. If push came to shove that cock sucker would be easy to take out…unless of course he had a gun.

I squeezed my brass knuckles belt buckle. These cock suckers had no idea what they were getting themselves into with me.

“I said hey you, the guy with that funny bull fighting jacket on,” the taller of the two said.

“My current state of inebriation doesn’t allow me to engage in supercilious conversation. I suggest you kindly move aside or I will have to beat you bastards down and bloody the path before me,” I said.

I felt a hand come down on my shoulder and knew that this was not good. I spun on the heels of my Burmese Jungle boots with agility that surprised my tall foe. It was then that I noticed several trash cans sitting beside me and in a moment of combative inspiration I grabbed the lid of one with one hand and a broken, lightweight, upright vacuum cleaner with the other hand.

“Get back you fucking cock suckers,” I yelled, brandishing my makeshift shield and sword. I knew then that they thought me mad or at the very least hopped up on angel dust or some other powerful tranquilizer and were rightly weary of me. I stabbed at the tall one with the vacuum. His eyes darted madly about and he grabbed a worn out mop sitting in one of the trash cans.

“Drop that you bastard or I will run you through,” I said.

“With a vacuum cleaner?” the tall guy said.

He smiled and I saw missing teeth and rot and for the first time could see the deep creases in his grey junky skin and the rough brown patches under his bloodshot eyes. I almost felt bad for him but knew that feeling compassion for the enemy could be a fatal mistake so cast such thoughts aside. I hopped around madly so it appeared I was agitated and hallucinating.

“Yes, with a vacuum cleaner,” I said. “I’m not going back to the big house again for murder,” I said.

“What’s a big house?” the shorter one asked.

“If you leave me be on my way I won’t hurt you,” I said.

It was lucky I am agile for no sooner had the last word left my mouth than the broom came at my head. I held the trash can lid up and blocked the blow and then thrust the vacuum cleaner at the tall one’s sternum and hit him cleanly on the bony tip.

“Ouch,” he said falling back and tripping over the curb. He landed on the side of the road and writhed there in pain.

“Hey fat boy,” I said, to the shorter of the two.

I ran at him with the vacuum and at the last second he moved aside and I struck the brick wall of a dilapidated building. The vacuum shattered into a million shards of plastic. The taller of the two had recovered somewhat and grabbed me from behind.

“Unhand me you cock sucker,” I yelled.

Somehow the shorter one had gotten hold of the mop and began to flail away with it smacking me repeatedly on the shins and thighs. He jabbed the end of the broom in my stomach and I dropped my shield and fell to the sidewalk. The tall one opened up my matador’s jacket and took out my wallet.

“Thank-you very much,” he said.

And this is when I finally got mad. When I saw that cock sucker smile with his gaping, rotting mouth, but before I could get up and start beating ass an unexpected thing happened.

“Take that you son-of-a-bitch,” Janine yelled.

She was holding an industrial sized can of mace and spraying it into the faces of the tall guy and his sidekick. She was dressed in a slip and that torn up Stevie Nick’s thing she was wearing was knotted together and wrapped around her body but she couldn’t have been warm. Common senses and her nipples told me this.

“Ah, you bitch, stop it,” the tall one cried.

“Put his wallet down,” Janine demanded. The tall one complied and they both back up slowly.

“Now, get the fuck out of here,” Janine screamed.

The two banditos turned and fled down a dark alley.

“I should spray you with this,” Janine said, turning towards me.

“What did I do?” I asked standing.

“You left me a mile back without my jacket and that idiot cab driver ripped my outfit,” she said, still holding the can of mace.

“I couldn’t stop him. He was insane,” I said, picking my wallet up off the ground.
“Could you please put that can of mace away?”

I took off my matador’s jacket and put it around her shoulders. She reluctantly placed the Mace back in her purse. “Thank-you,” she said.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you why you wear that matador’s jacket.”

“I gave Paco my duster and he gave me the matador’s jacket,” I said.

“That duster looks as stupid as this matador’s jacket,” Janine said. She smiled and I put my arm around her.

“Let’s get the Hell out of here before we get mugged again,” I said.

“I like you,” she said.

“Don’t just like me. I’ll end up hating you in the end. If you like me step over the edge, let yourself fall for me, if not say good-bye,” I said.

I took one of the rat tail cigars out Paco had given me and lit it.

“You’re like a tennis ball bouncing back and forth between two brick walls,” she said. “Something must have happened in your past. Are you afraid of your past?”

“Hell no, I’m not afraid of the past it acts like a padding when I fall on my ass in the future,” I said.

“There had to be something in your past that makes you so…so…crazy. You’re like Don Quixote on methamphetamines.”

“I like the analogy. Mind if I use it in a book?”

“Sure,” she said. The hard lines in Janine’s forehead softened and she smiled.

She took off my knit hat and rubbed my shaved head in round circles like it was the belly of a Buddha.

“I like you,” I said, “What I don’t like is the Stevie Nick’s thing you’ve got going on.”

“And I hate your fucking matador’s jacket,” she said.

“Why don’t we go back to my brother’s place and change into something else? And in between outfits maybe we can find something else to occupy our time,” I said.

I pulled her close to me and it dawned on me that the reason I went on these adventures, other than to find my dream woman, was because I had to, because I was running from and running to people. Like hopping from stone to stone while crossing a creek. There was no choice in it. I was who I was and everyone would continue being who they were. It is sad that in this world with all its manipulation and bullshit that some will never know that I am exactly the person that I claim to be…I never tried to be anyone else, although others may claim that for me. And to those who do manipulate and consider me pawn, a word of caution to you, know that I am more than I might appear to be; believe it and know that my revenge is blooming into a beautiful field of flowers and you are buried in the dirt of the past underneath them, nourishing my garden with the residue of your lies. Farewell to the cock suckers and hello to the future for in it there is always a tomorrow and this is where I want to be and you can continue to be the high school basketball star, or the glue sniffer, or the tramp in my past because that is all I will ever give you. Thanks for the memories you bastards and peace to the future and my friends.

P.S. Janine was I a mistake or is that just what people tell you I was? Could it be that you were my mistake? Or could it be that it wasn’t a mistake at all that it was a wonderful fucked up moment that could be the spring board that would thrust us into a lifetime of happiness? Perhaps we’ll never know but I am crazy enough to give it a try. And perhaps Angela would like to get together with us for a…I’m not sure how you spell it…is it menage e trios?

A few quotes, song lyrices, etc.

Plots and character don't make life. Life is here and now, anytime you say the word, anytime you let her rip.
Henry Miller

"We all agree that your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough?"
-Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody but my own confusion.
-Jack Kerouac

Imagination is more important than knowledge...
-Albert Einstein

Well I hope that someday buddy
we have peace in our loves
Together or apart
Alone or with or wives
And we can stop our whoring
And pull the smiles inside
And light it up forever
And never go to sleep
My best darn beaten brother
-Johnny Cash


Humanity has advanced when it has advanced not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
-Tom Robbins

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
-Hunter S. Thompson

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
-Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.
-Hunter S. Thompson

"Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas...with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.
- Hunter S. Thompson

We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
-Tom Robbins

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
-Henry Miller

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww."
-Jack Kerouac

To be nobody-but-yourself--in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else--means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
-e e cummings

When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it - don't back down and don't give up - then you're going to mystify a lot of folks.
-Bob Dylan

We turned at a dozen paces, for love is a duel, and looked up at each other for the last time.
-Jack Kerouac


-SMM

Observations in Miniature – People in the Gym V

If you see yourself amongst these people it might be time to change your gym habits.

Little Big Guy (The Napoleon Complex) – Did you just walk under a bench without ducking? No, I’m not staring at you I just looked down because I saw you scurrying across the gym and thought you were a groundhog. You’re what? Five feet two inches tall and weigh two hundred and ten pounds? I’ll let you in on a little secret. Lifting weights isn’t going to make you taller and the wider you get the shorter you look. It’s a no win situation. If you want to attract women I suggest you stop walking like you’re carrying an industrial size can of SpaghettiOs between your thighs. You’re legs aren’t that big and either are your lats so stop holding your arms out to your sides like your carrying invisible luggage. That’s it, make believe time is over. Exhale. It feels good not to have hold all that air in your chest to make it look big doesn’t it? No, I won’t tell anyone you shop in the children’s husky section of Sears.

Aerobics Guy – Okay, to the left now and kick…no, whatever you do don’t fucking high kick. High kicking is an activity that is strictly reserved for female aerobics enthusiasts, female cheerleaders, and members of the Rocketts, none of which you are. And for God’s sake if for some reason you would have to high kick, to say defend yourself in a Ninja battle against a throwing star, make sure you wear some pants that cover your hairy ass. Speaking of asses did you notice the shapely behind of the woman aerobics instructor in front of you? No? Something is definitely wrong here. Did your mother dress you up like Shirley Temple in frilly dresses and red bows and call you little Judy? That’s sad but I’ll let you in on a little secret. You’re not a WOMAN! Get the fuck out of the aerobics room and take off those tight spandex pants they’re cutting the circulation off to your brain.

Senior Woman Trainer – I’m glad to see you’re still trying to take care of yourself. What I’m not glad to see is that sleeveless spandex shirt you’re wearing; when you walk in front of the fan the baggy chicken skin hanging off the back of your arms flaps in the wind like the sail on a pirate ship. Are those nipples just above your pubic line or did you drop Ju Ju Bees down your shirt at lunch? Did you ever hear of a sports bra? Another no no is that tights and spandex shorts combo you’ve got going on. You’re ass looks like a deflated volleyball and I don’t even know if Viagra stands a chance against that visual assault. Here’s a clue. Cover yourself up with a plain grey sweat suit and secure anything that might jiggle or flap in the wind. Got it? Good. Carry on.

Senior Guido Tough Guy – Okay, stop slicking your hair back and put the unbreakable flex comb down, you don’t live on the set of the West Side Story. And wipe the grease spot up your hair left on the bench. Yeah, I’m sure once upon a time, back when you delivered blocks of ice off of a horse drawn cart that you could squat half of what I can do now but guess what? Your sixty years old now and I don’t care who you were. And please wear something other than that wife beater over your odd shaped barrel chest and lose the ID bracelet and gold chains. Ditch those velour sweat pants and Adidas tennis shoes and would it be too much to ask you to wear deodorant? That natural musk you have going on just peeled the paint off the leg extension machine. Don’t fucking growl and grumble and say under your breath that I was never as strong as you. Because guess what? I can hear you and I don’t really have a problem with getting my eight-four year old grandfather to kick your ass.

Stretching Freak (Rubber Woman) – Did you just pull your head between your legs, look over your ass and smile at me? Okay, I get it you’re flexible. You’ve had your leg up on the treadmill for the last 45 minutes stretching out your hamstring. Do you know why Olympic runners stretch so much? It’s because they have something you don’t and it’s called MUSCLE! Earth to rubber woman you are not Houdini. Ease out of that wrestler’s bridge, untwist your arms, and put your shoulders back in joint. And for God’s sake wash your hair it looks like something the street cleaner drug in. I don’t know if you get some kind of buzz off the Zen vibes that emanate up through your stretched muscles but I’ll let you in on a little secret. You don’t need to pay $40 dollars a month to come to the gym and just stretch. You can do that for free at home and really I would prefer that because I have to keep stepping around you like an out of place piece of furniture every time I walk past the treadmills and it’s starting to piss me off.



Circuit Training Guy – One thousand seven. One thousand eight. One thousand nine. How many fucking reps are you going to do on that peck deck machine? Since you started on it I shaved three times and read War & Peace. And how in the fuck did every piece of equipment I want to use end up in your circuit? Every time I turn around you are setting a towel down on the exact piece of equipment I was going to use. Are you purposely trying to piss me off because I’ll let you in on a little secret…YOU ARE PISSING ME OFF! Your physique looks like that of a prepubescent girl so do you really think the circuit training is working? If your goal is to have a physique that looks like that of Pippy Longstocking’s then you’re right on track and I commend you for your efforts but that still leaves us with the problem of you hogging up every damn machine in the gym so I’m going to make a modest proposal. Stay the fuck off the machines I want to use and I won’t meet you outside the gym when you’re done working out and kick your ass. Sound fair? Good. Carry on.

The Bluesman and the Red Assed Princess

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Where the Heart Resides

The June 12th headline of the Denver Post read: Famed Violinist Found Dead. Nearly all those who picked up the first edition of the paper that morning knew the identity of the headline capturing violinist before reading the article. There was after all only one classical musician in the modern age of synthesized rock and gangster rap with enough wall to wall talent to capture the interest of a general public whose collective attention span had devolved decade by decade into a primordial stupor that could only be engaged with excessive theatrics and overindulgent pyrotechnics. The violinist was Frank Balducci and before the twentieth century had wound down he would leave an indelible mark on popular culture, a mark that stood out like a purple knife scar on a pirate's cheek.

Balducci’s decomposing body was found on Trail Ridge Road in the Rocky Mountains by two retreating nudists, who had been foraging for Saskatoon berries from which to make a potent homemade infusion which they fermented in their root cellar and which they claimed was imbibed for strictly medicinal purposes. At the time of the discovery, neither nudist noticed that Balducci's prized Stradivarius violin was missing, for neither nudist knew that the badly decomposed body was that of the renowned violinist or that he carried the Stradivarius wherever he went.

Balducci’s corpse would not be identified for nearly a week after its discovery at which time his mother, Esther Balducci, would report recognizing the red rose tattoo initialed with the letters H.S. on his left pectoral muscle when his corpse was broadcast on popular national news program featuring unidentified bodies and the mysterious circumstances surrounding them.
There were many tears shed in the weeks to come by family, friends, and admirers, many honors bestowed upon the now deceased violinist, and many hypothesis formed on who exactly might have done Frank Balducci in.

The nudists subsequently denied involvement in Balducci's death, were questioned, dressed in garbage bags, and released. The Stradivarius violin and heart were not found.

"What the Sam Hill is a plucker?" Doctor Vessel, the esteemed forensic pathologist, chosen to perform the autopsy on Balducci, asked as he looked over the body. He scratched at his smooth scalp. At fifty-five, he was mostly bald, except for fine white hairs around the sides of his head which fanned out like dove's wings when the wind blew through it.

"Haven't you ever heard of Frank Balducci?" Dr. Vessel's new assistant, Peter Connelly, asked.

"That Italian designer, the one that wears black all the time?" Doctor Vessel asked.

"No, no, Frank Balducci, he's only the greatest violinist to ever live…”

“Oh, yes, right, right, the violinist.”

“A plucker must be his violin," Peter Connelly said, picking a piece of lint from Balducci's thick patch of chest hair with a pair of tweezers.

"Maybe a plucker's a heart. He doesn't have a heart, which would explain what's missing," Doctor Vessel said, taking the piece of lint from Connelly and placing it in a plastic bag. Doctor Vessel's specialty was a cardiology and he was particularly interested in matters of the heart. Medically speaking he was quite adept in understanding the physical functions and diseases of this purposed love muscle but was rather inept in his understanding of its purported romantic operations. For Doctor Vessel had no love in his life, only dead bodies. If he would have taken the time to listen to his heart through a stethoscope he would have found it sounded hollow, like a leaky roof emptying into a coffee can.

"Someone stole his heart? I don't think so Doc, he's been lying outside so long. I'd guess an animal probably ate it," Peter said.

“An animal? I don’t think so.”

The motivation for murder would not be so easy to pinpoint for there were several medical abnormalities discovered during the autopsy which seemed to defy conventional psychopathic archetypes. The most significant of these aberrations was a hole in the chest cavity where the heart usually resides; there was also the matter of a rock speckled with bluish crystals lodged in the throat, and the most mysterious of the forensic clues, four words carved in his stomach with what would later be determined as a dull tuning fork: My Plucker's Gone Missing.

“The rock found in the throat was placed there post mortem,” Doctor Vessel said into his pocket tape recorder when alone in his office. He bit into a raspberry filled donut and wiped the excess from the corner of his mouth on the back of his hand…“is the rock some sort of calling card? Is the killer a professional? Was he giving us a clue? Reminder to send rock to Bailey for analysis.” He popped the rest of the donut in his mouth and hurriedly chewed it, washing it down with a Styrofoam cup of tap water. He felt inexplicably alert, almost uncomfortably so, as if his nerve endings were on fire. Something about this case was bothering him and it wasn't the words etched on Balducci’s stomach, or the hole in his chest had been made with surgical precision, and it wasn't because he suspected someone had lodged the rock in his throat post mortem. What bothered Doctor Vessel was the absence of a heart.

That night Doctor Vessel slept restlessly, dreaming of a Hell in which the fires were heated with burning Stradivarius and Hellhounds howled like off key string quartets over speakers choked with static, torturing one’s eardrums to the point of near explosion.

At around three AM Doctor vessel awoke and unwilling to chance dreaming of violin Hell once again, he decided to start his day several hours early and rose from bed. Although he was rising well before his normal time, he didn't wake his wife or a lover because he didn't have a wife or a lover. The doctor had never been particularly lucky in love and the left side of his king size bed was kept warm only by his Chihuahua, Ernie.

In the kitchen he brewed a cup of coffee and sat down at his computer. He searched the Internet for information on Frank Balducci, for his interest had been piqued that previous day. He found that the violinist was raised in a middle class neighborhood by middle class parents in the middle of Central Pennsylvania. Reading further, he found that he was an average student of average intelligence who attended average schools. Now, with all this middle and average in his life one might have assumed that Frank Balducci would have most likely never have made it past middle management in any job, might have married an average girl that he met in middle school, and moved into a middle class neighborhood in the middle of nowhere, but one thing in Frank Balducci's life saved him from a life destined for mediocrity.

Dr. Vessel found that at a very early age, two and one half years according to an unauthorized Frank Balducci website, his mother had started him on violin lessons with the elderly gentleman who lived in the apartment above theirs. Esther Balducci was a part time social climber and full time alcoholic who saw to it, by means of sexual favors and payouts from various insurance scams, that her only son was dressed in the finest of shark skin suits, attended symphonies and other socially enriching events, had his hair colored and cut by the same stylist that had once been Lauren Bacall’s hair stylist, and had a constant supply of his favorite candies, Junior Mints, on hand which she doled out to him like pet parrot whenever he did things that pleased her.

The man that would bring the gift of Frank Balducci’s violin playing to the world was man that went by the name of Phineas Bolke. He was a slight man, who wore a monocle, mumbled swear words in German under his breath whenever he became frustrated, and from time to time could be heard playing his violin on the fire escape of his Harrisburg apartment building. For the cash sum of five dollars per hour he gave music lessons to children of the neighborhood and the first time the youthful Frank sat in his parlor and scratched at his second hand violin he knew he had himself a child prodigy.

No one knew at the time that Phineas Bolke was in actuality Heinrich Schmeltz, the infamous Nazi musician/commander who purportedly used the hair of Jewish concentration victims to string his violin and tortured them by playing his instrument off key late into the night. He’d disappeared after WWII to the chagrin of Nazi hunters who’d lost his trail on Lake Poopó in Bolivia where he hopped a ferry in his rented Puegot and mysteriously vanished from sight.

Like Beethoven, but more like a later day Liberace, Balducci toured the world at a very early age, starting on late night cable access television and graduating to variety shows, minor parts in sitcoms, cable specials and then a much heralded halftime Super Bowl performance. The pudgy prodigy with the coconut milk complexion and frizzy black hair had three best selling albums by the time he was nine, which was unheard of in the music industry especially for a classical musician.

Under the tutelage of Schmeltz, Frank Balducci studied violin until the age of twenty-two, at which time his mother noticed an unsettling closeness had develop between the two. She always been slightly suspicious that her son’s extensive Hummel collection, passion for bubble baths, and undying adoration for daytime soap operas were somewhat feminine interests for a man and soon her suspicions would be confirmed when she would catch her son and Schmeltz mugging down back stage during the post show hoopla after his only performance on the MTV Music Awards.

The possibility of a relationship between her son and Schmeltz bothered Esther on two levels. First she feared that if it was discovered that her son was gay that he would lose his countless endorsements and hordes of female admirers, and therefore his fame and riches and secondly and more importantly she held the irrational fear that if her son did love someone else, namely Heinrich Schmeltz, that he wouldn’t have enough love left for her. So, Esther Balducci forbade Frank to ever see his violin teacher again and being the ever loyal and brow beaten son Frank was he obliged his mother’s wishes and severed ties with his teacher. He then threw himself so fully into his music that his life outside the studio and stage ceased to exist.

Some weeks after Balducci and Schmeltz parted ways a national news story broke revealing the details of Heinrich Schmeltz's Nazi past and hinted at a romance between him and his former star pupil. "Perhaps, sometimes, a little good can come from a lot of bad," Balducci had said to a reporter when asked about his involvement with Schmeltz.

Soon thereafter, he announced that he would be giving twenty percent of his earnings to help surviving Holocaust victims.

Schmeltz, supposedly distraught over his past being exposed and Balducci having recently ended their long love affair, was said to have fled to South America, where he lived some years with the Panará Indians in the Brazilian rain forest.

Doctor Vessel felt better about Balducci after reading about his charitable contributions and in the days to come he found himself becoming more and more involved in Balducci’s case, extending his work beyond his normal forensic role, curiously propelled to find solving the mystery of the slain violinist. He began to dream of the violinist with the hole in his chest at night and thought of him constantly throughout the day and the roots of a strange obsession began to take hold. The resulting odd behavior the doctor began to exhibit did not go unnoticed to those closest to him and when confronted he simply claimed that his overt interest in the deceased violinist was merely an extension of his research but it was evident to everyone that he’d crossed that imaginary line, the imaginary line that lies between medium and well done, stirred and shaken, here and there, a little and a lot.

He began buying up all Balducci's CD's and took to wearing his portable CD player around the office, often humming the violinist's popular Violin Sonata 12. On the walls of his home, he pinned up posters of Balducci and bought his cuff links at a charity auction, which he took to wearing every day. The doctor purchased a violin of his own and fully erect, ran his penis over the strings at night until he climaxed, all the while listening to the violinist's 1998 Concert at the Met. It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that Doctor Vessel fell in love with Balducci's music, and the hole that was his own heart slowly began to fill. Where love might have been found, musical notes swam like goldfish.

Those who knew the doctor had to admit that he was a different person after he found Balducci's music but not all of his behavior was obsessive or odd. Once stingy and not quick to laugh, the doctor became a joke cracker and a giggler. While once he never even attended office parties, he now hosted them. He was lighter on his feet, more graceful in his gesticulations. He became a flirt and tease, dating an endless string of nurses. Co-workers joked that once he'd been one of the dead; now he was such a joy to be around that he nearly raised them. There was even talk that the he might fulfill his life's dream, give up working with the corpses, and start a children’s cardiology practice with his brother. Things were just dandy in the Doctor's life, until one day when he received a special delivery. The doctor was drinking coffee and eating a chocolate éclair in the morgue when a package arrived via UPS. He studied the return address on the box and found it had been sent by his old friend and former college roommate Raymond Bailey.

Bailey worked for the NYPD and was considered a top shelf detective but a gruff son-of-a-bitch, sometimes down right disgusting in his behaviors but unparalleled in his insights into the criminal mind. Although doctor Vessel sometimes hated himself for liking Bailey, a man he considered one generation removed from a mudskipper, he was comforted by the knowledge that he’d been instrumental in taking many criminals off the streets and was therefore able to bear their unconventional friendship.

There was a manila envelope taped to the outside of the box. Doctor Vessel opened it and found a letter written on Holiday Inn stationary.

The letter read: Hey there chubby. Found what we think is Balducci's Stradivarius in a dumpster at LaGuardia. How'd it get from the Rocky Mountains to here? I enclosed it for you to examine. Oh, and I also got the report back on that rock you found in Balducci's throat, seems that bluish green crystal is Yvonite and it's only found in one place in the world in the Salsigne mine in Aude, the South of France. So, whoever killed this guy went to a hell of a lot of trouble to get a rock from France to stuff in this guy's throat. Could've just looked around him and picked a rock up off the ground. He was in the Rocky Mountains for Christ's sake! Well, I gotta run, say hello to Ernie for me. Bailey.

Upon opening the package, the doctor discovered Balducci's Stradivarius violin and after further careful examination, he found stuffed inside the hole on the left side, a tiny piece of paper, which he extracted with tweezers. It read: The Plucker plays on Balducci's heartstrings at the bottom of the lake. Immediately Doctor Vessel remembered, from his research on the Internet, that Frank Balducci, had a chateau in Aude, in the South of France, on a lake. The same area from which the Yvonite had come from. In the many interviews Balducci had given, he often spoke of how the beauty of this lake was the inspiration for much of his music. Doctor Vessel felt that Balducci's music had changed his life, made it better in every way and felt the very least he could do for such a great gift was to find the musician's heart.
That night Doctor Vessel called his old college roommate William Bailey.

“I think maybe Schmeltz might have done Balducci in and I think he might be in France,” Doctor Vessel said. He dipped his hand in the bowl of salted cocktail peanuts on his desk and popped a few in his mouth. He was a snacker and rarely at more than a half a baloney sandwich and a cup of tomato soup at a meal. The methodology he used to determine cause of death was much like his eating habits, it consisted of taking in bits of information, but never more than one he could figuratively chew. In this way he nourished his hypothesizes and facilitated proper digestion of the facts and was able to determine the cause of death.

“That old Nazi? I thought you said that officials thought he might be cavorting with natives in the rain forest down in South America somewhere. He couldn’t be stupid enough to come back here. They’d have him in handcuffs before he set both feet on the ground.”

“But what if he didn’t come back? What if he only left temporarily? What if he’s been living here all along? What if he only pretended to drop out of sight? What if he’d been sitting under our noses all along?”

“Under our noses? Don’t mention my nose in the same sentence as that honker of yours. Hell that thing’s is big enough to house to circus big tops and an escaped Nazi war criminal but I don’t think he’d have the guts.”

“I don’t buy the rain forest story he’s not the type to live a life that requires you to forage for food everyday. I think maybe he’s been biding his time or maybe he was just watching, watching Balducci’s fame grow, and as it did his own discontent and jealousy grew.”

“Yeah, maybe like you when I dated that sweet thing Mary Ellen in college after you wanted to go out with her so bad-“

“What was that? I can’t hear you you’re breaking up.” Doctor Vessel wrinkled a newspaper in front of the mouth piece imitating static. He often did this when Bailey mentioned a subject that made him uncomfortable. “My cell phone’s breaking up. I can’t hear you. I’ll call you back. Bye.”
The salt from the peanuts had gotten into a paper cut on his thumb and stung. He stuck the finger in his mouth and sucked. He knew then there was only one thing left for him to do if he wanted to solve the mystery of Frank Balducci’s death, he would have to travel to the violinist’s chateau in Aude the South of France.

That night Doctor Vessel packed his scuba gear—he'd been certified the year before while vacationing in Bermuda—dug out his passport, took Ernie to the kennel, and set off for the airport. From the airport in Marseille, he made his way to the chateau in a rented VW Bus and set up a tent in a nearby forest. He hadn’t wanted to camp too close to the lake for there were farm houses scattered about with clear views of its shores and he was afraid his fire would rouse suspicion and possibly encourage unwanted guests.

As the sun sank behind the skyline the doctor lay on his back eating French bread dipped in olive oil and drinking from a bottle of merlot he’d bought at a gas station. He listened to Balducci’s last Christmas collection on his MP3 player and hummed along happily.

It occurred to him for the first time that Balducci had become more than just another case to him, that he might have gotten too close to his subject matter and for a moment this frightened him. He wondered perhaps if he was gay and nearly dropped his loaf of French bread but quickly recovered when he realized that it was the music he’d fallen in love with, not the man. Satisfied, and with his belly full, the doctor drifted off to sleep dreaming of a Violin heaven in which the angles played violins instead of harps and St. Peter sat atop the pearly gates directing with a broke car antenna.

Around midnight the camp fire he’d made went out and the doctor became chilled. The doctor awoke and quickly dressed in his scuba gear. He figured it best to enter the lake under the cover of darkness and hurried off his flippers slung over his shoulder.

The lake wasn't very big, only about the size of a small mall parking lot but it was fed by natural springs and very cold on an exposed face and it took several minutes for the doctor to get used to it. To someone in the distance, the wet suit clad doctor would have looked very much like an overweight seal.

When he was accustomed to the water he dove in and swam and swam and swam, several times changing his oxygen tank when it ran low, but found nothing but a discarded refrigerator and several worn out tires. Not until near complete exhaustion, when he was about to give up, did he spot a steamer trunk partially submerged in a bed of seaweed. After dragging the trunk to shore, he pried it open with a crowbar and like a sprung Jack in the box out popped Frank Balducci's violin teacher/gay lover Heinrich Schmeltz. He was dressed in full SS regalia and spread across his cadaverous mug was a grin so wide it looked like a fanning butterfly sitting on a zucchini. Doctor Vessel instantly recognized the former Nazi from photographs he’d collected and was amazed at how well the body was preserved.

As the sun rolled over the rural skyline looking like an orange that had fallen out of a heavenly fruit bowl, the doctor examined Schmeltz on a tarp at his campsite. He quickly determined the cause of death to be suffocation and noticed in his boney right hand a mass of silk hankies which were wrapped with violin strings like a birthday gift. Doctor Vessel cast the hankies aside to reveal a human heart, so shriveled and dry it looked like a hacky sack. Doctor Vessel had found Frank Balducci's heart. Deep in his belly he felt an uncontrollable fit of laughter stir, finding it ironic, and more than a little maddening that the man who possessed Balducci's heart, one Heinrich Schmeltz, had no heart of his own. The doctor fell to the ground and rolled around in the mud laughing. He laughed until his eyes dried of tears and he’d become jittery from burning up all his blood sugar and then he stopped. It occurred to him that something wasn’t right.

Had Schmeltz, very thin and only five feet two inches tall, somehow locked himself into the steamer trunk with Balducci’s heart in his hand and sink it? The doctor thought it very unlikely. Was it possible that third party was involved? Had Esther Balducci killed her own son and then his gay piano/teacher/lover? She had to be in her eighties, hardly possessing the kind of strength that one needed to cut out a heart and yank it out of one’s chest or stuff them in a steamer trunk. Doctor Vessel thought about it for some time, as he sat on the steamer trunk tossing Balducci’s heart in the air and catching it like a tennis ball.

“Bailey will want to know about this,” he thought after some time and removed his cell phone from his wet suit. He was about to call when suddenly he realized that there was no reason to, that he’d found what he was looking for, Balducci’s heart.

“Let Bailey sort out the bodies,” he thought and smiled.

. He put the Balducci’s heart in a Ziploc bag and slid it into his wet suit and took one last look at Schmeltz before closing the steamer trunk and dragging it back into the lake.
A local farmer, out doing some night fishing on the lake, would later report seeing Doctor Vessel dive back into the lake in the bubbling spot where the steamer trunk went in but several hours later he still hadn’t seen him emerge. It would be the least time anyone would report seeing anyone resembling Doctor Vessel on the lake. He simply vanished.

Bailey at the NYPD, Doctor Vessle’s old college roommate, a bullshiter if there ever was one, likes to tell people his old friend lit off for Tijuana where he now resides spending his time drinking aged triple filtered tequila from his own tequila distillery, screwing ten dollar an hour whores on Viagra subscriptions he writes for himself, and sailing around the Gulf on his yacht The Stradivarius. He also claims that the doctor wears Frank Balducci’s heart in an ornate hand carved teak box the size of a woman’s panty hose egg around his neck but then he’s a bullshitter and his story can’t be substantiated. Wherever Doctor Vessel is here or abroad, in heaven or in Hell is strictly a matter of speculation. So what did happen to Doctor Vessel? The answer lies in the heart and can be heard on the strings of a certain Stradivarius violin. For what is music without a heart or someone to share it with?