The American Dream is as flat as the whoopee cushion under the ass cheeks of sumo wrestler. Did anyone believe anything that came out of this life sized Howdy Doody’s mouth in that pitiful State of the Union Speech last night? I swear I saw strings coming off of his hands which were cunningly blended into the background which was some sort of Persian tapestry obviously designed by the
You say everything is dripping with sadness--a thick waxy melancholy melting--pooling around your bare toes. Give me that chalkboard eraser so that I might wipe the grey skies blue. Give me a machete so that I might hack out your silhouette and place it on the dog’s pillow next to my bed. There it will lay black and smiling, the antithesis of you, the edges finally dulled and then completely lost in the night. In the morning when I wake and open the back door you will be standing their glowing like the sun. You see all you needed was to lose that blackness; the shadow stapled to your back. I lay your silhouette down in front of the door. You wipe your feet on it and come back inside…
No, I don’t want to fucking dance. Do I look like I want to fucking dance?
She said she wants to feel butterflies in her stomach and I said I want to see lawn ornaments in my lawn, thousands of them; little gnomes fornicating, ceramic deer pissing, PC lawn jockeys with toupees, Budweiser signs half buried and blinking madly…
I want to run on electric shoes that never touch ground and throw fists like Jack Johnson from atop balconies overlooking gardens of sunken ideologues. I want her to tell me I’m distracted, to show me I’m bent with photographs arranged alphabetically on the hood of her VW. She’ll ask if there is a light? And I’ll respond that I fucking don’t know but I’ll pretend there is and she’ll fill her heart with empty deposit envelops in anticipation of my arrival--all those paper cuts and all that blood. Won’t someone stop by with a case of beer so I can grab my sorrow around the neck and drowned it? Blood and beer going down but never coming up.
In the depths of the opening line and somewhere along the way I lose my nerve. I stutter and then quip and then fall completely on my face. You tell me that “it” will be all right and I believe you for a moment until you walk away into the cloud of dust that was kicked up by my fall. I roll over on my back and look up at the cracks on the ceiling, reach in my mini-cooler, remove a cold one (a bunny I’ve snared) and rip its head off with my porcelain vampire teeth. I pour out its blood and replace it with beer, tape the head back on and put it back in the cooler. It’s going to be a very long trip…
You hate me and you don’t even know me and you still have calves like a NFL lineman. I can take solace in that. I can tell that once you wore spare drapes like clothes that you were lonely and the only love you made was late at night to ham sandwiches and fists full of potato salad. Now, you’re hard and hateful, a size zero chained to a treadmill with old gravy stain battle scars on your sweatshirt.
Just one more minute on the treadmill, just one more pound on the scale, just one more inch off my ass and they will love me.
It’s because I didn’t pick you isn’t it? It’s because I can see all the demons that were hiding under your drape clothing (called a moo moo in
I don’t care that you were fat, that you don’t wear makeup and you’re hair is flat and oily. What I do care about is the fact that you’re trying your damndest to fuck up my chances with your friend and in your subconscious you think that maybe someday we will have a chance. Wrong. So, let’s call a truce. Let’s say I leave a peace offering of a ham sandwich and potato salad on the treadmill every day at the gym. Let’s say you smile and maybe grow back a few curves. Let’s say you stop hating me and maybe I’ll get over hating you. Let’s pretend that you’re a nice person, let’s pretend that you never wore drapes and I’ll pretend when I'm fucking your friend that we’re on the treadmill and you’re watching with a ham sandwich in your fist.
I’m not turning into Chucky Wheatgrass or anything but I’ve been taking a closer look at the things I eat and well let’s say I’m not impressed with the chemicals and pesticides that are on and in them. So, I’ve started to buy some organic things. From what I’ve read not everything needs to be organic. For instance these items : Asparagus, Avocados, Bananas, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Corn (sweet), Kiwi, Mangos, Onions, Papaya, Pineapples, and Peas (sweet) have negligible amounts of pesticides in them when tested so it’s safe to buy these things without the organic label. These items according to Food News: Apples, Bell Peppers, Celery, Cherries, Imported Grapes, Nectarines, Peaches, Pears, Potatoes, Red Raspberries, Spinach, Strawberries all test very high for pesticides so it’s probably better for your health to buy these things organic. Like I said I’m not going to go nuts and eat everything organic but I figure that cutting back on some stuff that is doused in chemicals might be a good idea. Sure, when I eat out I’m not going to worry about it but I think cutting back one’s exposure is a good thing. I also think I’ll grow a garden.
I read that the cancer rate around 1900 was around 1 in 30 people. Now it is 1 is nearly one in 2 people. Scary. Of course I’ll still drink beer. Don’t be silly…
Neil wore a dirty lime green turtleneck and checkered pants. I don’t remember him wearing any other clothes.
I remember having lost my favorite pen and when I saw Neil with the identical pen I just knew he had stolen it. All I could do was focus on the pen. I took Neil’s pen. Several days later I was cleaning out my desk and I found my pen. I was too ashamed to give Neil his pen back.
One day I was driving with my parents and they pointed out a house that was leaning to the right. The paint job on it sucked. I was sure it was haunted. My dad told me that Neil lived there and that his house had dirt floors and no running water. His older siblings had to shower in the mornings at the high school where my dad was principal. I knew then that Neil wasn’t just poor he was POOR.
One day at recess a kid as big as a teacher was shoving Neil up against the wall. Neil was crying and it pissed me off. I told the big kid to knock it off. I was little but I had big shoes. I belted the bully on the shin and he started to cry. I’m pretty sure Neil smiled. This started my career as the guy who took on the bullies. No one ever thought I would win but like I said I had big shoes.
I wish I could say we became friends after that but that wasn’t what happened. I don’t know if we ever spoke after that but I do remember driving by his house with my parents and one day it was burned to the ground. I’m pretty sure Neil and I are even now. No, I know we are but still I should have given him his pen back.
Me to the fat nerdy girl in SuperPetz: “So, I’m looking for some fish for my niece for Christmas. What type of freshwater fish can I get?” I hold up an aquarium in a box I’m going to purchase.
Fat Girl: “We only sell freshwater fish.”
Me: “Oh.”
Fat girl: “Well, you could get her a frog.” She’s got this smile fixed on her face but it looks somehow disingenuous. No, that’s not it. The smile is Joker from Batman scary. It’s the old lights are on but no one is home smile. She had been one seat away from riding the short bus to school.
Me: “Is a frog a fish? I thought it was an amphibian.”
“Oh year right but it can live with the fish. It can live with a Banjo catfish or Velvet Swordtails. I love them they’re so pretty. Ooh, you could also get an African Butterfly fish. They get real tame and will eat off your finger.”
I’m hoping that is Twinkie filling smeared across the sleeve of her SuperPetz sweatshirt.
“Eat off your finger? Like a dog? Do they bite?”
“No, they don’t bite it’s more like a kiss.” She mimics with her lips which are so big even they have rolls.
“Okay, listen I’m in a hurry here. How about you just get me those four or five fish you mentioned.”
“Oh, no not in that aquarium. You can’t have that many fish in that little aquarium.”
I hold up the box. “Look there’s about ten fish pictured on this box. They all seem to be doing all right.”
“That’s just advertising. These fish need much more room. You can have one or two fish tops in that aquarium.”
“I can have? You mean you won’t sell me the five fish?”
“No, you can’t have the five fish. You can have a frog and a Beta if you want but I can’t allow you to have more than that.”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“I’m twice as old as you. I’ve lived in apartments not much bigger than this aquarium with five people. Now give me the five fish.” I shake the box angrily for effect.
She knits her unibrow. “I’ll get you a frog and a Beta.”
She sounds as if she’s scolding me and its really starting to piss me off. I can tell that she is one of those PETA types that goes overboard with trying to protect animals, the type that thinks every fucking creature is sacred, that type that would staple gun herself to a wheel of cheese because she thought it had feelings and didn’t want it to be eaten. I mean I don’t want to see animals hurt but Jesus Christ she is so damn dumb that I would pick one of the fish in these tanks to beat her at checkers.
She scoops out a frog.
Me: “Excuse me.”
Fat girl: “Yes?”
“Where are your condiments? You know tartar sauce and lemon?”
Can you make me care again? Pinch my earlobe hard and pull me close, whisper that shit that peels the enamel off my brain. I want to bite your big painted lips and laugh like clowns do, silent like. To feel your hot breath on my neck as I carry you piggy back into the river, to feel you clawing at my back as I take us both down to the bottom where the discarded dreams lie, rubbed smooth by the current conservative line of reasoning. (Rocks in my pockets a 9mm in my sock.). When the last of the oxygen has been shuffled out and the blue baby blue comes over our faces I’ll release you and you’ll rise dream like to the top. That’s right baby because I love you because I’ll never have been so close to you as I am right before I die. I think it would be special for you to experience, you know, so you can tell your grandchildren and shit what its like to see a writer die…
