Thoughts Gone Bad

I had good thoughts that I kept too long to myself and now they have gone bad. I tried to keep them fresh, tried to keep them from turning but good thoughts have a short shelf life. I could sell them at a discount but who wants to buy bad thoughts? The government? Yes, they will use the bad thoughts to scare the citizens and then the private sector can offer protection services for a fee and they will become rich beyond their wildest dreams. See bad thoughts can do good if all you care about is profit…

Another Blind Date

There is no solace for the single man--no comfy evenings nestled in the cushions of a well worn couch, a dog bone poking him in the shoulder blade, peanut shells spread out on his chest while he watches a baseball game--but only the endless pursuit of that significant other who with each passing day and each subsequent date becomes ever more elusive.

The successive nights of bar hopping and mixed social events began to take their toll. I was aging quickly—my hair graying—and people began to take notice. It was then on occasion that well meaning friends would try to save me from an early grave and dabble in the forbidden art of match making, attempting to juke destiny by inserting into my life “the perfect woman.” If this occurs in your life I have only three words for you: RUN LIKE HELL.

* * *

My coworker Alice bit into her Ruben and chewed thoughtfully. “So, what have you been up to lately?”

“The same old.”

“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way but you’re looking a little rough around the edges.”

“Good rough or bad rough.”

“I didn’t know there was a good rough.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

“I want to help you. I know the most beautiful girl. She is the daughter of a good friend of mine. I want to set you two up.”

I was only half paying attention, watching a beautiful brunette in a tight brown skirt walk across the food court. “Okay.”

“Great, I’ll call her tonight.”

I chewed and watched, chewed and watched and only after thoroughly masticating my food did the enormity of Alice’s words hit me. “What? Call who tonight?”

In a panic I looked over to where Alice had been standing at the food bar. Her tray was gone and all that remained of her presence were a few crumbs of rye bread. I looked up just in time to catch a glimpse of her getting on the escalator on the other side of the food court.

“Noooooooooooooooooo!” I cried.

Car crashes of past blind dates flew through my mind: the girl with cankles, the puker, the racist, the stripper…no, wait the stripper was okay. Panic overtook me as I raced out of the food court and towards the office.

In a full sprint I tried to call Alice’s cell phone but it went immediately to voicemail. Back at the office I found she would be in court the remainder of the day and wasn’t coming back to the office.

It was impossible for me to concentrate on my work that afternoon and not just because I was playing retro Atari games on my computer. I knew deep in my heart that this was a conspiracy aimed at getting me to go out with a “handsome” or “big-boned” girl that Alice hoped I would get drunk or perhaps suffer a momentary bout of blindness and that in my fearful or obliterated state would whisk my blind date off to Vegas to marry me. You scoff but I’ve seen it happen.

Every single blind date I had gone on turned out to be complete mismatch. Sure, I’ll concede that perhaps I was “the blind date” and the women were equally disinterested and or repulsed by me, although I would never admit this to myself. Dwelling on such a thing though would allow self-doubt to run rampant through my mind and squander whatever trace of self-esteem I still held onto.

That night I called my coworker again and again but her phone went straight to voicemail. Frantic, I left her between 20-30 voicemails. I even Googled her address and drove by her house several times around midnight but cleverly all her lights were out.

Later that night while lying in bed I thought of at least a dozen ways to get myself out of the date and was content with faking a bout of the flue. Finally I started to drift off to sleep around 2 am when a thought made my eyes pop open. What if I turned down this blind date and this was the woman of my dreams?

I had been so focused on the gloom and doom of the situation that I had failed to see the possibility in the matter. I was being a coward. How hard could one date be? I resolved to go on that date and possibly meet the woman of my dreams.

The next night I found myself waiting in a bar in downtown Harrisburg for my blind date. Alice had briefly described Matilida to me using descriptions like, “nice strong legs” and “big beautiful eyes” which meant absolutely nothing. Cows have nice strong legs and big beautiful eyes but I wouldn’t want to date a cow…

I looked at my watch. She was ten minutes late and hope welled in my heart that she might not show but just then the front doors burst open and instinctively I knew this crazed soul was her. She looked like some out of work bag lady, her hair twisted up in some type of primitive tribute to shrub art, her lips slashed a most hideous shade of Mac Truck red, her eyes outlined with what appeared to be the charcoal from a fire started in an old oil drum. Draped over her skeletal shoulders was some sort of ancient animal skin of the type preferred by the alternative sheik and obviously rescued from the moldy closet of some long lost maternal relative. .

There would be no wishing myself out of this one. I knew then that escape was my only option. I glanced left and then right. I was surrounded. There would be no escape. “Damn it.”

She extended a hand. “Hi there, you must be, Steve”.

I looked over my shoulder as if I weren’t Steve and I was looking to see whom she was addressing.

“Barbara E-mailed me a picture of you.”

Damn, I’d been had. I turned. “Yes, and you must be Matilda. It’s nice to meet you. Should we get a table?”

She ran a hand through her hair and it got stuck. I pretended not to notice. “That sounds good.”

With some effort she pulled her hand free and followed me to a table. A waitress came up and flipped open her notebook.

“I’ll have a coffee.” Matilda looked at me. “I don’t drink.”

Strike one. Damn, this was going to be even more painful than I had first suspected. I needed the booze to slow my ever-racing mind. “Oh, okay, I’ll have a coffee too.”

The coffee would have me up half the night. I never drink the stuff after noon unless I plan to be up for the duration.

“Sorry, I was late. I was at bible study.”

Strike two. She stared straight into my eyes as if looking for some infinite truth. I tried not to blink afraid she might take it as some sign from Jesus.

“Oh, really. I’ve never really studied the bible. I prefer story books with happier endings.”

“Well, Jesus’ story was a happy story in the end.”

I had to fight the compulsion to yell, “CHECK PLEASE!” It took every bit of inner-strength I could muster but I managed to apply the Zen mindset a former Buddhist monk had taught me over a game of darts at a pub in England.

I stood and pushed my chair in. “I have to use the bathroom.”

“You’re excused.”

Excused? Weird, I thought, as I hurried back to the bathroom. I was no amateur when it came to escaping blind dates and had purposely chosen that particular restaurant because I knew the layout and could call friends who could be there in a matter of minutes if I needed backup.

I ran into the bathroom and locked myself in a stall. I quickly got out my cell phone and began to punch keys madly. And then something awful happened. The phone slipped from my hands and landed in the toilet. If that wasn’t bad enough the toilet was also clogged with what appeared to be a five-course meal and three rolls of toilet paper.

“Goddamn piece of shit.”

I looked around for something to fish the phone out with but there was nothing available. Frustrated, I exited the bathroom and searched around for something to fish the phone out with. I saw nothing until I passed the buffet table where I spied a set of salad tongs. I quickly grabbed them and headed back to the bathroom.

It was going to be disgusting work but I needed that phone. There were over five years of contacts on it, numbers I could never replace.

I rolled up my sleeves and began prodding. The water became cloudy and I couldn’t see my phone. I fished for ten or fifteen minutes. Several time I had the phone out of the water but it slipped out of the tongs.

I finally grabbed hold of the phone and pulled it out of the water and held it up triumphantly only it wasn’t my phone.

The bathroom stall door burst open. “There he is. The bastard is using the salad tongs to unclog the toilet.”

I turned to see two restaurant workers standing in the doorway. A police officer came up behind them.

“I didn’t clog the toilet. Someone did that before I came in here.”

The officer took out his taser. “Sure, I’ve seen it a thousand times before. People clog the toilet in a restaurant and then they panic, try to do anything in their power to unclog it before anyone finds out. They become desperate and crazy. I know you’re not in your right mind. You were probably going to put those salad tongs back on the salad bar. Now, slowly drop the excrement in the toilet and lay the tongs on the ground and turn your back towards me.”

“Listen, this is ridiculous. I—.”

The officer held his taser at chest level. “I said, drop the salad tongs, drop the excrement, turn around and place your hands behind your back…I have to admit I’ve never seen anyone hold a turd up like a prize before. You’re a new kind of weird.”

I complied and as soon as I turned around the officer rushed and handcuffed me. He roughly turned me around towards the door. Matilda was standing there.

“I’m sorry, Steve. I had to turn you in. Stealing is wrong and clogging a toilet is really disgusting.”

“I didn’t clog the toilet.”

The police officer jammed me in the ribs with his nightstick to prod me along. “Tell that to the judge. Your fingerprints are all over those tongs and I’m sure there will be fecal matter on the other end.”

Matilda backed up as I was escorted out the bathroom door. “You’re a bad person,” she said.

And then it hit me. I had turned her off. I was getting out of the date. Suddenly going to jail didn’t seem so bad. How long would they keep me there anyway? An hour? Maybe two? It would certainly be more interesting that discussing the bible. I’d make restitution for the salad tongs and be on my way. It was still early. I could meet up with friends downtown.

As the police officer ushered me through the restaurant I couldn’t help but smile and then I felt someone squeeze my arm. I turned as I walked. It was Matilda. She smiled so hard I thought her cheeks might split. “I just wanted to say I had a great time until you started fishing for turds with those salad tongs…I have made it my mission to save your soul. I’ll call you when you get out of the slammer and I can arrange a date for you to come to church with me.”

“Slammer?”

I almost tripped over the weather strip at the door. The officer up righted me and kept me moving towards his waiting car with the flashing lights on top.

I was driving to meet my grandfather for breakfast before work this morning when I passed a hearse. It occurred to me that at some point I might be packed into a casket and the lid sealed shut. Then the casket would be lowered into a deep dark hole and I would be left forever to rot there. This seemed less than appealing to me so the first thing I did this morning was to write a will.

In this will I made it clear that at no time was I to be put in a casket or enclosed in one of those meat locker drawers in a morgue. My body was to be left out in the open, preferably sitting up. I also refuse to have my body stuffed into the back of a hearse. Instead I would like to be taped to the top of a Subaru’s luggage rack as we make my way to my resting place. An acceptable alternative would be to tape me to a chair and then secure the chair to the top of the Subaru. I think they do something like this in New Orleans, the parade of death or something.

I ask not to be buried in some far off location in a cemetery. Surely, people will forget about me if this occurs and I can’t have that happen. I also am a bit claustrophobic so that hole in the ground thing won’t work for me. Oh, and don’t even consider cremation. If you want to scatter anything get some of my old underwear, pour some lighter fluid on them and get ashes from their remains.

My body is to be put in the city in a park. There I will always feel part of things--everywhere else feels too much like death. Eventually the animals small and large will consume my body and I will be part of the raven, the stray dog and the maggot. I suppose a lot of me will be crapped out in various locations. So, yeah, I guess I will be scattered to the wind but it sure beats being stuck in the ground…

The apocalyptic moon baby had been tucked in a gap between the teeth of time by a marauding eclipse and consequently forgotten. Many millions of years later two enterprising lunar pelicans—out looking for space shuttle debris for lunch—found the sleeping apocalyptic moon baby. They tied floss to their left legs and dove into the mouth of time. They drove the floss between the polished gypsum teeth and told the apocalyptic moon baby to grab hold. She grabbed on with her uranium filled hands and was consequently freed but lost her grip on the slick floss and fell at a million miles an hour to earth. I found her in a dry riverbed while out excavating dinosaur watches. She pressed her left nipple and the countdown in her eyes began…

Even when the bored creaked.
Even when your soil wasn’t reputable.
Even when the distain wouldn’t come out.
Even when to the cleaners no one would take you.
Even...when the score wasn’t.
Even limitations had love.

For me introspection tends to lead itself to bouts of melancholy for which I am ill prepared to deal with at this time. Therefore, like or beloved president I shall no longer consider why I do things or consider anything I do wrong a mistake. I shall plow happily ahead with only one thought on my mind and that will be MONEY. If I focus on MONEY and nothing else there will be nothing else. See how simple it is to be stupid and greedy?

When I was a Kid - Part I

His name was Jack Swinger and even as a kid I knew he was a plastic pimp with the scruples of foot fungus. It is beneath me to even mention his name but for the purposes of sharing this story with you I’ll have to put a clothes pin on my nose and resurrect the bastard’s memory. You see Jack was my gold chain wearing Little League coach--an ugly precursor to the modern Little League Dad. He was way ahead of his time as far as being slime was concerned and for that I guess some sort of accolade should be bestowed upon him. So, to Jack I raise my middle finger and say, “Kiss my ass.”

But this story isn’t just about Jack per say, if it were it would be so oily you’d probably slide out of your chair by page three. No, this story is about me and how in a way I had my revenge against Jack, how a kid who was pushed too far learned to push back thanks to the help of a former NFL lineman.

I first met Jack and his freckled offspring Bert--who was as mean as a pit bull locked inside a utility closet---in 1979 when my family moved from Hershey to Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. It was at Little League tryouts that coach and son first appeared in the story that was shaping up to be my life. It would also be the day the bottom of my world fell out like the soggy bottom of a wax paper soda cup.

I remember standing under a leafless tree on the edge of the baseball field with several other prospective Little Leaguers when I saw a great cloud of brown dust came rolling down the dirt lane. I would soon see, buried in the depths of this cloud, a Chevy van bedecked in glittering purple paint, audacious gold rims and oversized Goodyear tires.

A kid named Eddie leaned over and whispered in my ear. “I have a Matchbox car exactly like that van.”

I wasn’t yet able to recognize the tribute to the man whore lifestyle Jack Swinger was making with the gaudy accessories he painted, glued, and welded to his van but I knew something was amiss. I’d never seen a full grown adult drive a vehicle that looked like a Matchbox car and something about it made me uneasy.

“Is that our coach?” someone asked.

We all stared wide eyed as the man I would come to know as Jack Swinger slid out of the van with the same grotesque rhythm of a snake shedding its skin. He adjusted his mirrored sunglasses and tugged at his crotch as if he was making sure his manhood hadn’t come unscrewed and was sitting back on the floor of his van.

His pudgy son Bert soon emerged from the other side of the Chevy van and like his father adjusted his mirrored sunglasses and then tugged happily at his tiny crotch. “Dad do you want me to get the equipment?”

“Well, it’s not going to get itself is it? And don’t forget the bases,” Swinger said. “I’m going to introduce myself to the team.”

The crisp spring air was poisoned immediately as Jack Swinger walked up to us, leaving a vapor trail of Brute and Garcia Vega cigar smoke that burned the linings of our eyes and lungs. He lifted his foot and put his Garcia Vega out on the sole of his new Pony cleat.

Jack twirled the orange chest hair that hung out of his wide collared silk shirt. “Well, what are you nancy boys looking at? Get out there in center field and line up. We’re going to catch some pop flies.”

Like a herd disoriented water buffalo we drifted out into the outfield and formed a crooked line. Somehow I ended up in the front of this poorly constructed line, which was not at all what I had intended. In fact I thought I had been last in line but Swinger designated my position as the front when he pointed at me with Louisville Slugger.

“Okay, hot one comin’ at ya, Messner,” Swinger yelled.

He tossed the ball up in the air and swung with the viciousness of Reggie Jackson. CRACK! The ball whistled through the air in a high line drive that was about twenty feet over my head. I tried to chase the smoking orb down but even if Willie Mays had been given a full head of steam and a fishing net on a long pole he wouldn’t have been able to snag that one.

As I ran after the ball I glanced back over my shoulder. Swinger threw his arms up in the air in disgust. The gold chains around his neck jangled against the collar of his silk shirt. “Come on, catch the ball.”

I searched for the ball knocking down poison ivy with an old reality sign I found leaning against a tree.

“Come on we don’t have all day,” Swinger said.

I kicked at the poison ivy. “I can’t find it.”

Continuing to beat around with the reality sign I noticed in the underbrush someone had discarded what looked like a perfectly good bra and a six pack of Schlitz but not having yet dabbled in the drunken arts I let the warm bottles where they lay. “Damn it,” I said under my breath, “where is the ball?”

Something scurried out from under a wet cardboard box. I flung the reality sign in the animal’s general direction and high tailed it out of the woods. That jerk can find his own ball, I thought.

Next up in the pop fly circus was none other than the mini-pimp Bert Swinger. He took a pouch of Big League Chew out of his back pocket and stuffed his cheek with an obnoxiously large wad of it and gave his dad the thumbs up sign.

“Come on big guy,” Swinger said. “Show the old man what you got.”

Swinger tossed the ball in the air and took a feeble half swing. The ball arched lazily up up up and seemed to hover in the sky like a dirigible for a moment before it decided to come back to earth directly overtop of Bert. There was no need for the scurrilous offspring of Jack Swinger to do any more than lift his glove up and let the ball fall directly into it.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Swinger said. “Did you see that? That’s how you catch a ball Messner.”

Yeah, I saw it all right. I knew then that something wasn’t fucking right. Someone was toying with self-fulfilling prophecies and his name was Jack Swinger. Where had the warp-speed Reggie Jackson swing gone? What about the extra hot sauce on the ball he delivered to me? Why was he trying to make me look bad? I was so pissed off I could barely breath. Baseball had always been carefree and fun. I had been damn good at it too, making the All Star team every year I played and now suddenly, in less than ten minutes I was beginning to doubt my own ability.

I was about to learn the hard way that the world wasn’t fair, that it was filled with unscrupulous adults with agendas that had nothing to do with my best interest but only success for them and their anemic offspring. I had unwittingly joined an inglorious parade led by that plastic pimp named Jack Swinger and I had no choice but to follow. For the next few years I would be at the back of this parade with a push broom and everyone knows what the guys at the back of the parade are left to clean up.

“Hey, Messner, did you find that ball?” Swinger asked.

“No.”

“Well get back in the woods and find it.” He turned to one of the parents that was standing nearby. “Can you believe that kid?” he said.

So, I pull out of the Hess station on Derry Street. The light changes from red to green. I need to get into the left lane but it is jammed so I slowly try to work my way into the lane. Momentarily I have to sit in the right lane and other cars can’t get by. Immediately some cocksucker starts laying on his horn. About five seconds later I pull into the left lane and traffic starts moving. The guy that was behind me drives up beside me and yells into my window, “You fucking asshole.” To top off his tirade he flips me off. Now, anyone that knows me knows that I don’t like aggressive drivers. I find it ironic how tough these people are when they are encased in a couple tons of steel and speeding by you. I wanted more than anything to cut him off and beat his face in but I’m older and mature now and so I waved to him but deep inside I was rearranging his nose.

This incident and other similar incidents have made me wonder if my liberal presidential bumper sticker makes me a target for aggressive redneck types. I hope they don’t think that just because I’m not greedy and or/stupid, that I don’t think I need guns (though I have some that I will gladly donate to melt down into wheelchairs for people in third world countries) or that I haven’t found Jesus (Though I am looking. I think he might be in my glove compartment) that I am some sort of coward. They would be mistaken.

The Squatter Part II

The next morning I had a doctor’s appointment so I was late getting to work. As I pulled into my private parking space I was shocked to find the same beastly vehicle that had been parked there the day before. I slammed on my brakes, got my taser out of my glove compartment and hopped out of my vehicle.

I crept around the side of the junk heap—taster leading the way in my clenched fist. What I came up upon was much more bizarre than anything I had expected. The trunk of the car was open and duct taped to it was a blue tarp. The tarp was tied to the branches of the holly tree that sat at the end of the driveway and served as a makeshift tent. Next to the tarp was a blazing fire fed by broken up pallets. Lying on a filthy sleeping bag was the bastard I had kicked out of my parking space the day before.

He turned a pigeon on the spit he’d devised using a car antenna. It actually smelled pretty good for pigeon.

I waved my taser threateningly. “What in the hell are you doing here you filthy cocksucker!”

He looked up at me. “Exercising my rights as a free American.”

“You misguided son-of-a-bitch. You’re not doing anything heroic or patriotic. You’re breaking the goddamn law.”

“One man’s law is another man’s prison.”

My grip tightened on the taser. “That’s not intelligent or profound. In fact it’s too goddamn vague to even make sense.”

He pulled at his beard. “You think you’re better than me.”

“Infinitely.”

“And that’s why I’m squatting on this land and claiming it as my own.”

“I see what you’re doing. You watched that movie Pacific Heights. The one where Michael Keaton plays a tenant who drives the owner of the house crazy, gets him to attack and then sues him to get his house.”

“I don’t watch movies. They distort my vision of reality.”

“News flash, your vision of reality is distorted. You see life through the bottom of a Coke bottle.”

I couldn’t control my anger any longer. I kicked the bumper of his car with my Burmese jungle boot. It started to roll. The idiot hadn’t put his brakes on. The tarp pulled from the tree and dragged through the fire and it was instantly aflame. One of the branches from the holly tree—which was being drug behind the tarp--caught the pigeon and it flew up in the air, and before I could dodge it the damn antennae—with the bird still on it—pierced my suit coat. I had a giant pigeon stickpin in my jacket. I tried to yank it free but the grease from the bird made it impossible.

“Goddamn, you.” I would have surely tased him if he wouldn’t have been chasing his car down the hill at the end of the driveway.

“Screw you.”

The blue tarp was on fire and was flapping behind the car like Dracula’s cape. I started after the car too and the crotch of my suit ripped. I kept up the chase though and soon caught up to the squatter. He was breathing hard and I jammed the taser into his ribs and squeezed the trigger. He fell to the wayside and came to rest in a flowerbed. I laughed evilly but my victory was short lived.

The contents of the trunk--what appeared to be receipts and old documents of some sort--had now caught fire and the car was headed towards a group gathered in front of the Capital. My sense of civic duty compelled me to keep up the chase and try to save the lives of any innocent protester.

“Look out runaway car,” I cried.

The crowd panicked and people scrambled to get out of the way. The flaming car hit the podium and then smashed into the capital stairs coming to a stop. The podium caught on fire but no one seemed hurt. I sighed. It was then I noticed the big sign hanging from the front of the Capital: People For Stray Dogs.

There was a big fence set up with about a hundred dogs inside it and when the car had hit the podium it had knocked part of the fence over. Now the dogs started to leak out through the opening and strangely they started coming towards me. I took a step back and dogs started to pick up their pace. I continued backpedaling and then it hit me. The pigeon stickpin was still hooked to my suit coat.

The dogs started sprinting towards me and I took off. They chased me through alleyways and through gutters. I spent the better part of the day running from them and was only able to rid myself of them when I was able to pull the pigeon from my suit coat and toss it to them.

Worn out, I made my way back to my office. Just as I got to my parking space a tow truck was pulling out. He had deposited that bastards burned car in my parking spot. I could see the squatter behind his car setting up camp again.

He peered out from behind his car and smiled. “Good afternoon, neighbor.”

I was too tired to fight back but tomorrow was a new day and I had a plan to get rid of that squatter once and for all.

Driving to work I noticed a woman on a street corner in the distance. She was talking rapidly and as I drew closer I noticed she was disheveled, her hair a tangled mess. I wondered whom she was talking to on her phone. She turned her head and I knew she wasn’t talking to anyone. She was talking into a banana…

The Squatter Part I

The beer bottles under my seat came loose and rolled under the gas and brake pedals as I careened around the turn. When I jammed my boot on the brake pedal a bottle lodged underneath it kept it from going down. The result was a rather wide turn that sent my retro-fitted bio diesel Jeep sliding through the neighboring office buildings flower bed. I was headed for a fire hydrant when the beer bottle under the brake came lose and I was able to stomp down on it.

Luckily, it was just after dawn and no one in the neighboring buildings was at their offices yet. I collected several dozen of the less damaged roses from the flowerbed. They might have brought a pretty penny on the flower black market and I planned to sell them to my cohorts at our daily lunch meeting in the food court at Strawberry Square but as luck would have it I forgot them in the back of my Jeep and discovered them several weeks later when I noticed a rotting smell.

After packing the flowers away I drove around my office building to park in the rear parking lot.

“Egad, a squatter,” I cried.

Some bastard had parked in my private parking spot. The car looked like a reject from the demolition derby with one side rippled and stripped of paint. The hood was held down with a bungee cord and the tires were balled and mismatched. This bastard had blatantly disregarded the no parking sign posted right in front of his car.

I had dealt with these parking spot stealers before and they were not a rational type. When it came to parking they believed the rules of the old west still held that if you parked your wagon on a certain parcel that it was in fact by squatters rights their property until they decided it was time to move on. This illegal squatting was of course against every city law known to man and since no one in the city seemed to enforce this illegal parking I had taken it upon myself to deal with these bastards in my own way. Calling a tow truck was too good for them. I needed to make an impression.

I got out of my Jeep and looked inside the car. Evidently this guy was some sort of gadget nut. There was a GPS system, a radar detector, a satellite radio, CB, Two cell phones, an AM/FM cassette, CD and Eight track player and a docking system for an I-pod. The contents of the car greatly out valued the vehicle itself.

I was contemplating my next move when I heard someone cry out. “Hey, what are you doing to my car?”

I turned on the heels of my Burmese Jungle boots and stood face to face with a man that had evidently never been introduced to a razor. He was wearing a white T-shirt that looked as if it hadn’t been washed since the invention of carbonated beverages.

“You’re parked in a private parking spot.”

“I wasn’t even gone for a half hour.”

“Right, well, I think you’re missing the point here. This is private parking. You’re not supposed to park here any time.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to mess with my ride.”

“Again, I think you’re missing the point. You are on private property. No matter what your excuse is you are not supposed to be parked here. Do you understand that?”

The cocksucker got in my face and it was all I could do not to karate chop him in the neck and render him a useless blob but I held my cool. I didn’t want to wrinkle my suit and I was already involved in several physical assault cases, all of which I was guilty of but for the right reasons..

Just as suddenly as he’d gotten in my face he backed down. “You’re going to pay for this.”

“Pay for what? You’re the one that broke the law.”

He swung open the door of his car and it nearly fell off. He fumbled with it for a few seconds, getting it back in line and then hopped inside and pulled the door shut. He rolled down his window and held onto the door so it wouldn’t fall off, started it and peeled out. Pieces of the car fell off as ripped out of my parking spot.

Somehow I knew I hadn’t seen the last of this cocksucker…

Take me to your leader, yes, the one not so blessed with intelligence. We would like to dissect him to see if we can find a cure for greed. It is a disease that has consumed him and his constituents and could eventually bring an end to the world. It is an ugly, irreversible strain, that manifests itself in tunnel vision and a lack of empathy. We must stop the spread before it is too late. We have set up an observation room on the rings of Saturn. The procedure won’t be pretty but rest assured we will find a cure for this scourge. Thank-you for your cooperation…

I drift further and further out to see. How far will I go before someone notices I’m gone? It’s an unabashed ploy for a modicum of affection and when I am fulfilled I drift again. It’s just who I am…

Those goddamn cocksuckers tried to move in on my sweet little Rosa. So, I fixed them and I fixed them good. They won’t be back to bother her. The dead don’t grab your ass when you’re trying to serve them drinks.
Maybe I shouldn’t have stood up to all five of them but then again maybe they shouldn’t have tried to take me out after I pointed out their bad behavior. I’d do anything for my sweet little Rosa and I did.
They jumped me in the parking lot. I was ready for them. My fists were already tucked into my brass knuckles. The first jaw gave way like papier-mâché, the second like an egg shell. And that’s when they decided their own fate.
A bullet struck my arm. I dove behind a garbage can, pulled out my roscoe and started spraying lead. A few minutes later it was just me and a bunch of dead bodies.
Rosa came running out of the bar. “Oh, Burma I thought they had killed you.”
“It would take more than these amateurs to take me out.”
I grabbed her and we kissed long and hard as we stood on pieces of their bodies. I’d do anything for my sweet little Rosa.

Where do I belong in the scheme of things? Too much time on my hands. Too many hands on my time. There will never be another you. There will never be another me. So, what do you say? When the lights go out, when your eyelids slide shut, when it all goes down. I am waiting unrequited. Yeah, I know how it goes. Don't regret it. You are who you are supposed to be and me I'm still trying to be who I'm supposed to be.

I believe there is a conspiracy to keep me from getting my taxes in on time. Yesterday, I found one of the envelopes containing the taxes I had sent to the government. On the envelope it said, “Insufficient Postage.” The thing is there was adequate postage on the envelope. I weighed it. I have sent many envelopes of the same size with the same amount of postage on them and nothing has happened.

Something similar happened to me one other time and that was when I sent a rebate for $200 dollars in and it was returned. So, I lost 200 dollars and now I will probably be penalized for sending my taxes in late. I would love to get some reverse postal rage out on whomever the cocksucker was who sent my envelope back. Grrrr…

The past can never be revisited. Evidently, if and when a time machine is built it will only be able to travel back as far as the date on which it was built. So, if I build a time machine and twenty years later I travel back in time I can go back no further than when I built the time machine. Sorry, we will never be able to find out if smoking cigarettes killed off the dinosaurs.

We’d argue over stupid things occasionally like when we ordered a two pizza special on a Friday night. I would insist we should divide the pizza by bodyweight, since I outweighed her by a hundred pounds. She would have no part of this and took one pizza for herself. My pizza would be gone in one night and she would eat hers all weekend long. Sometimes love isn’t fair…

To be a writer one must write. It sounds simple, elementary so but it isn’t quite that easy. Sometimes the words will rebel. They will barricade themselves in, make demands, hold memories hostage and threaten to assassinate your dreams. They know they are in control and they do as they please. I plead with them, try to meet their demands but sometimes there is no compromising with them. Sometimes my writing is a casualty of this battle.

Nothing beautiful can come from a place like this. Centuries ago it was cursed by a dirty little witch doctor who walked about town with his grubby little hands stuffed into the pockets of his leather duster. The pockets had no bottoms and he would manipulate himself whilst gazing at schoolgirls at play. One day the constable approached him and discovered his secret sticking through the opening of his leather duster. The dirty little witch doctor was arrested and burned like a steak at the stake but before the lighter fluid was sprayed on the wood beneath his feet and the match lit he uttered these words, “Nothing beautiful will ever come from this place again.” And as his soul crackled on the open fire the trees around him wilted and the flowers turned gray. The town’s people became instantly old and their features became pointed beyond recognition. And true to the dirty little witch doctor’s words nothing beautiful has ever come from this place again.