On The Lam

Up, over the first fence. Chain link, about 3 or 4 feet tall. Heart pounding, face on fire and blood in my ears. THUD. My sneakers hit the ground. THUD THUD THUD THUD. Run….run faster. Remember Speed Camp. Coordinate alternating arm-swings with opposite leg-strides for top speed. Lean forward, drive your knees to your chest. Turn on the jets, hit the gas, GO.

Sounds over my left shoulder, I look. Just a second. Make sure I’m safe. Flashes of blue and red cascade across the darkened faces of neighboring houses. Big Brian Townsend, the defensive end, lags behind. His massive frame heaves as he pants, but he races on. Over my right shoulder now: a gaggle of girls, heels in hand, running through the wet grass of the backyard towards the chain link. The bass cuts off, the music is caput. Shadows cut across the illuminated backdoor entryway as kids pour out. Abandon ship! Large silhouettes with boots and Billy clubs and tasers and guns and glittering shields of Authority emerge in hot pursuit.

“Hey….HEY! YOU KIDS GET BACK HERE. IF YOU COME BACK, YOU’LL BE IN LESS TROUBLE. THOSE OF YOU WHO DON’T…”

The second fence looms ahead, a wood fence, taller than the chain link. The cross beam is on the other side; this side is flat and hopeless. This yard is barren. No grass. No trees. Just dirt and a rusty railroad spike hammered into the ground and anchoring a taught steel chain holding back a snarling pit bull with tense knotted muscles and slobbery teeth in black gums and a mangy coat. He pulls and pulls and pulls at the chain and it gives and gives and gives ever so slightly to each mighty tug.

A scream, high and piercing, melts into sobbing, and finally settles in a state of theatric whimpers. The girls. Busted. Big Brian Townsend’s now in the backyard desert wasteland with me, running towards the fence.

“WOOF! WOOF WOOF WOOF!!! WOOF!”

“Oh shit!”

Big Brian, now aware of the dog, approaches the fence. The dog pulls and pulls and pulls, and that railroad spike, being as old and rusty and unreliable as it is, continues to give and give and give. I back up, appraise, no other options, and go. Go. Charging forward, I take the leap of faith. My hands catch the top of the fence. Millions of rotten splintery teeth gouge at my palm. A plank breaks.

“There are more kids over here!”

Heave ho!, lifting myself up and over. Another plank breaks, but just the top. I’m on the other side, standing on the cross-beam. Watching Big Brian. He tries to jump the fence like me; his weight breaks a plank and he falls backwards into the dirt and weeds. But he’s up in a second, and tries again with the same result. He’s too heavy. Too much protein and strength conditioning or something. The dog is really goin at it now, like REALLY. With one last mighty tug he unearths the spike. The pigs in their navy blue are at the chain link, one is already over. Both animals converge on Big Brian, but at the last second the dog veers towards the officer and blindsides him. He’s got a hold of the man’s arm, really gnawing and throwing his head to and fro. The officer is screaming for help. I drop from the fence into a green pasture of a yard. A tree or two. A bird feeder. Benches and a BBQ grill. There’s even flowers.

The mess on the other side continues. I want to help everyone. I want that dog off the man. I want Big Brian safe in the green pasture yard. I mostly want to save my own skin. An explosion of dust and splinters and nails and timber erupts from the fence and Big Brian surges through the hole with his head tucked and shoulder forward like a battering ram. Through the hole 2 cops beat the pit bull’s brains onto the dirt with their billy clubs. Brian and I look at each other, grin, and fly like bats off into the night.

An Early Beginning to Summer Break

The AC hummed on full blast. I sat criss-cross applesauce on the black and blue tiles of my homeroom, goose bumps covering my little legs. I shivered, and my entire body trembled as if I was the only one in the room experiencing an earthquake. Out the window and in the school parking lot the teacher’s economic sedans had taken on a distorted quality under the clear blue sky. Another class was outside for recess, swinging on the creaky set and running through the jungle gym. The twinkling of their light-up Power Ranger shoes looked like Ferris wheels as their legs churned up the yellow ladder to the blue slide.

I sat there, watching from the floor and rolling a red toy fire truck back and forth, accelerating and reversing. My tiny mouth emulated the oOoOooOhhhhhhhhhs and AaAaAahhhhhs of the screaming siren. I looked outside again, and then to my teacher. I caught her bespectacled eye, and pointed hesitantly to the playground. She shook her head, and her wattle waved like an agitated turkey. I clenched my fists, and felt a revving anxiety build steam within my chest. I stood, and rolled my truck into a block castle meticulously constructed by a pair of pony-taled girls wearing overalls. Then, into a block tower belonging to a peer named Tyler. Their sour screwfaces shot me dirty glances encrusted in slime and hate. My nose scrunched up. The wafting smell of chocolate chip cookies and home fishhooked itself into my nostril, pulling my attention to my teacher as her ancient voice warbled a delicate, “Snack time, children! It is time to clean up your toys and replace them where you found them. After that, we can have some cookies and juice.”

Tyler had already cleaned up the remains of his tower, putting them side-by-side in the toy bin. Tyler was a good boy. I ignored my teacher, as I had already made a serious commitment to putting out all the fires in the classroom. I continued my accelerate-reverse game, and the oOoOoOOhhhing and AaAaAaAaAahhhhhhhing. A shadow covered the truck for a moment, and I looked up to find Tyler standing over me with a smirk on his face. “Play time is OVER!” he taunted as he jerked the fire truck away from my hands. Salty tears welled up in my eyes and ran down my rosy check into my mouth. I hated his voice; it sounded like swishy pants and nails on a chalkboard. I hated it. I jumped onto his back as he turned away from me, and sunk my teeth into the fleshy blade of his shoulder. It tasted soapy, like detergent. Cotton fibers came from the shirt as I pulled my head back. A wail pierced the room, and he began to cry too. Vindicated, I let go and began to walk to my seat where cookies and apple juice awaited me. The teacher rushed over, having seen this occur, and grabbed me by the forearm with her leathery hands. She marched me down the dim hall towards the principal’s office; anger could be traced in the many lines of her face; her skin drooped like a bloodhound’s. “You’re in so much trouble!” she muttered murderously under her catnip breath.

An idea forced itself into my head, and consumed me. I had to get out of trouble, but how? How? I looked at my free forearm – the one not shackled in my teacher’s bony grip – brought it to my mouth, and bit. It tasted of desperate sweat. I had bit hard enough to actually draw blood. In the confines of the principal’s office my motives were questioned. Why did you bite Tyler? Why did you bite yourself? My only answer was simple: “Tyler bit me first! Look at my arm!” They shook their heads, and talked amongst themselves. Too low for me to hear, but I felt as if I was at the doctor’s awaiting test results, or a guilty defendant about to face sentencing. This continued on until my mother arrived. Her hair was all over the place, she was sweating, and her face bore the same look as my teacher and principal. The verdict was announced: Expelled from pre-school on the last day. My mom’s grip on my hand was ferocious and white-knuckled as we exited the building and walked towards our car. She was yelling at me, spittle raining down, but I ignored it. I turned my face to the summer sun, let its rays warm my skin, and smiled.

Just a Cup

Oh! What it’s like to be filled up! Up, UP!, to my brim, my smooth lip that brushes against your dry and prickly pair. I pour my contentment into you! Oh, what a thing! Perhaps I’m bubbling sappy and sugary and empty calories, but, then again, and again, and again, you need me

Not me, exactly….

No matter, no matter at all! It’s what’s inside that counts, right? But where does that leave me? On occasion I have a heart of gold, of pulp, of substance, and of nourishment. Sometimes I’m filled with a blackness that’s just pure dripping energy and blood surging through your eyelids and sinus-choking cigarette smoke. Sometimes I’m a taste of clarity, plain and simple. It depends on you, you, you.

Not me, exactly….

Ours is a relationship for the ages; give and take; the push/pull; the friends with benefits dynamo; the mutual thirst for the coalescence of our perspiration on a warped and blurry summer’s day; the inching icy winter evenings spent lapping wet mouths…

You need me….

You think of me as a cheap trinket, a conglomeration of who gives a hoot…yet you treat my family with delicacy, venerability, Love. The way you run the pad of your pointed down the dewy translucent spine of my brother… my soul stagnates in emptiness. So, fine. Fine. Drop me, lush. Knock me down, souse. Over, and over, and over. My longevity, my long game; this is what you crave. Or, a long slow sip of me –from me, rather.

You need me….

You need me, but you toss me headfirst into the moist and rank rot with the other riff raff. Do you need them too? Do you? No, you don’t. You use them for sheer convenience, like you use me. You don’t need them. You could hold your sustenance in the palm of your hand; feed your soul with your fingers….but the mess. You use them like you use me. You lazy, inconsiderate ingrate… no matter. You don’t need them, but you need me. My essence cannot simply be grasped by your kind, but by harnessing me, exercising my intrinsic purpose, you use me, and I love it.

And I love you.

Of Key Light and Rock Climbing

Make love to the Stone...

What is Known? - Unknow

Climbing? Climb on!

Drinking?... Drink on,

Drink it in! --- For

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.

When half-high,

-If progress plateaus -

And the cracks begin to show

Do not cast your eyes below!

Surrender yourself to the Stone.

What you’ve known – unknow

Making slippery love to the Stone,

Tracing sweat with talcum bone

Finger the crevice…feel it moan

Feel it give - to you,

Give back (sweet and gentle)

Feel it live –through you

Feel alive, your burden’s belayed

Throw your hands past your eyes

Pull yourself past the brink ---Drink it in!

One Man above all he's known,

The lonely king atop his throne

Having made Love to the slippery stone

Indian Summer

A short drop and a long stop. It took me five minutes to find my ringing phone that morning, and thirty seconds to discover my best friend Chris Masar had taken his life. Chris' mom called, called again, then left a text message instructing me to call her back ASAP. I did. “Chris is dead, he hung himself in the tree out back,” she sobbed into the phone, screaming at times. I couldn't take it, I ended the call. I sat down. Comprehension was beyond my reach. My ribcage had been pried apart and life set about devouring my heart and soul. Pain, depression, anger...they ravenously gnawed on my shattered self. Disbelief shot down my spine, so I grabbed my keys and left my house.

I cried while I sped towards Chris' home. I wish there were windshield wipers for your eyes. I could hardly see the road. Regardless, I flossed recklessly through the mid-day traffic and arrived in his cul-de-sac in record time, only to be smacked in the face by my prior unwillingness to accept what I now witnessed. There was a fire engine, two police cruisers, and an ambulance pulled up to the curb, and a stretcher was being wheeled out from the backyard. A white cloth was draped over it.

Demolition. Existential implosion. My world shrunk to a pinhole focused on that stretcher. I parked and ran, ran to my friend. Mothers and children stood in a semi-circle around the driveway, rubbing their red and puffy eyes; most of the dads were still at work. The man next door, a stay-at-home father from what I understood, solemnly smoked a cigarette before flicking the remaining half into the street. Kids too young to fully grasp the gravity of what had happened gathered around an officer, begging him for plastic badges and stickers and baseball cards. I didn't care about any of this. I had to get to Chris.

I pushed through the crowd and raced up the driveway to Chris' mother as she escorted the stretcher and the paramedics towards the ambulance. His younger brother and sister stood at the front door of the house. Their wails tore me apart as I came nearer. I had never heard cries of such profound pain before, and they cut deep, deep down. An officer tried to block me from my path, but Chris' mom gave me her blessing to approach. Drops of pure sorrow rolled down the smile lines of her face.

“Can I?...” I asked, motioning towards Chris.

Some paramedic butted in, “Ma'am, we suggest that you don't for....” but she dismissed the man mid-sentence with a glare. He backed up, and left me to my grief. I fingered the edge of the cloth. Was this a dream? How could this be real? I pulled back the corner, and stared down at my comrade, amigo, partner in crime, brother. Bile and acid gurgled in the pit of my stomach. There he lay; a rough abrasion ringed blood around his neck. Brown eyes - eyes that saw once expressed more positive emotion than can ever hope to be conveyed through writing - bulged lifelessly from their sockets. His lips were blue and huge and grotesquely juxtaposed against a cherry-red face.

I collapsed, and rested my head on his chest. I put my ear to his heart. I don't know what I was hoping for. Something, anything. A prank, perhaps. Chris would wake up any second now and scare me, “BOO, gotcha!” There was nothing. I grabbed Chris' hand and squeezed. His hand was still warm, but his fingers were limp. I couldn't hold back anymore. My best friend, my brother... a deluge of tears erupted from deep within. I wept for minutes, it could have been hours for all I cared, until the squeal of tires against pavement roused me. I raised my head in time to see my other best friend, Forrest Williams, whip around the corner in his silver Infiniti.

He turned off the engine, then surged through the crowd towards us. Forrest fell to the ground next to me, enveloping Christopher in his arms. He cried, but without tears, as if he was dry heaving. His mouth silently mouthed the feelings he couldn't put into words. I hugged him, hugged him harder than I ever have, but the gesture felt meaningless and empty. Our best friend was dead. Gone forever, never to realize the limitless potential he had possessed. Chris' mom and siblings joined us in the embrace. Together we watched as Chris was loaded like some worthless couch on it's way to the dump into the back of the ambulance. It drove off down the street, sirens piercing the air. For the first (and only) time that summer thunder clapped, lightning streaked across the sky, and the clouds opened up as torrential rain plummeted to the ground. For the first time ever I knew what it was to be numb without Novocaine.

Centennial

Peace signs, dreadlocks
hippie flips at Red Rocks
but Death knocks,
Death stalks,
lips zipped to hip shit
we all know how Death mocks.
White suburbanites, trite lives
and fast cars
Shiftless kids scared shitless,
snortin up a couple xannie bars.
Centen actuality, vice turns to
addiction just to drown out reality...
Fuck a mega-church mentality!
Tithing to your preacher
while the hypocrite hides
his sexuality
These sheeple and these lemmings
act so hive-mindedly, jumpin to
their deaths just to follow others blindly.

Paper Wings

With paper wings Icarus
disobeyed Daedalus;
contraptions and doo-dads
flaunting the explicit intent
to soar sky high.

On that craftsman's
workbench lay self discipline;
overlooked by Icarus in his
mad dash for flight...
its absence, perhaps, his fall.

To fly was to be free, a
world on its own!
Grounded life
ain't so shabby, though;
at least it's stable.

To fly forever is
just the illusion of freedom;
to never fly is the
illusion of stability,
a hollow life.

With paper wings Icarus
came to know life and death;
and to think, self-discipline
had lay there on the work
bench all along.