Journal 1990 (in progress)

- Scituate Beach, Thursday. Hot, humid afternoon, hazy sky, cold and salty water— yesterday was the same except there were more people. Swam in the ocean for couple of hours, throwing Frisbee, running and jumping— salt water in my nose, mouth and throat. I love waves and tides— beautiful  and peaceful at times; soft and warmly cold and hypnotic, washing away and sliding forward— a single wave reaching the beach, it’s end. It rushes in only to crash against the previous wave now slipping backwards and they struggle; the energy, two forces smothering out, dying in each others arms.

Me and Anne took a long walk along the beach— deep in water; she’s collecting sea shells for Tonya and enjoying it— sharp seagull eye. She wants me to help but it bores me and I pretend to only see rocks. Plenty of dry crusty or spongy seaweed, full of squirming brine, brought in by storms. Sand shelters sea worms (tiny dozens of legs). Behind Jim Beam Rock in small pockets and pools are snails, barnacles, floating dead crabs, some periwinkles and hermit crabs stroll about the water.  Cruel sea though, cruel tide, coming forth upon the shore and throwing up its sea life on to the beach, drowning in oxygen, stranding them in the hot merciless sun, roasting and cut off from the sea, it’s lifeline as it recedes. The sea only speaks; it does not listen. Yesterday there were boats far out and today they are in close, anchored nearby the swimmers. I walk the pebbly beach covered in fresh high tide wetness. I fall in love with the amazing channels of water imprinted along the wet sand— tiny complex rivers branching here and there and flowing back towards the sea— three inch wide channels, crossing over and intersecting  and sparkling in the sun and breaking off into tinier channels, hundreds and cascading back into the water.

- On the way to the beach, me and Jan had a good conversation— funny.  He told me, “Last night I watched this stupid movie. I went home and sketched my feet. After I finished I looked at my sketch pad and said, ‘man, I got some ugly feet.’” Laughter.

“That will be our new quest.  A quest to find the ideal feet,” I said.

Laughter.

A Lou Reed song came on the radio called Small Town, a new song. I think its main point is that the only positive thing about living in a small town is that you can escape it.

- Lots of good ideas last night. Scituate carnival at night— though hot and muggy— great moments in line standing and waiting to hand over the tickets to the ride operator. Hundreds of people squeezed together passing by as the wait continues. A great moment as the cool breeze finds its way to me and I’m drowning in a whiff of salty harbor air. I’m not hot and bored anymore but relaxed, content and wonderful. I’m overcome by a strange vision. Beside us (Anne, Bart and his sister, Carrie and me) is a children’s ride— a double seated green dragon ride that travels in a quick circle. I watch the little boys and girls faces— 4, 5 and 7 year olds, around and around they go laughing nervously, some scream, the younger ones with terrified eyes and wet cheeks. As I’m watching suddenly their  youth vanishes and they are adults. I can only see their faces, their features having aged and grown, older and wiser and harsh— gone are the baby-faced grins and innocence; adults now not so scared and safe in the knowledge that the ride, all fear and suffering will end. As my mind began coming back to reality I began to see all adults as children— the middle-aged mother became a bubbly five year old. Then it stopped. Everybody was back in their right place. I wanted to have those visions again but something blocked my mind from the strange dream.

Finally we got on the ride, the Rap Dancer or something silly like that. Afterwards I won Anne a panda teddy bear with my money and then a leopard with hers. At 11:00 there was a fireworks show over the harbor and across the street from the parking lot where we hung out. The best ones were these: a bright pink explosion covered the whole sky side and reached up and over so damn big and pink that I thought I could touch it. My sister Dawn, startled by its hugeness flinched back, laughing nervously. The sky lit up and the dregs filtered down on what seemed everything; of course the climax was great— loud thunderous booms that set off car alarms, showery pink red and green glimmers and gold shimmering like phosphorescence and white semen shaped forms zooming and circling downward, vanishing and colors streaking and shooting— the dark night and vibrant colors heightening and defining the skyscape and the intensity pounding in my ears. It was a twenty minute show that outperformed the Fourth of July fireworks.  

Midnight in Minot Village, quiet and cool. Anne and Dawn are up the road waiting for us to join them for a stroll to the beach. Beside Dano’s Bronco, Bart and Dano are hunched over making Long Island Ice Teas like mad alchemists. Dano, the patient one, measuring each glass, and knowing the proper mix; Bart over his shoulder waiting for Dano’s directions. The section of street beside his tire looks like a bar table— a pint of vodka, rum, gin, tequila, triple sec and cans of lemonade. We make light of the set up. The girls call out to us again to hurry up.

We sit on giant rocks that are lodged into the sand. I tolerate the nagging sand fleas and we drink and talk about love. The tide is high and close to our feet and filling the air with soft rush of waves. Bart, in shorts, dives into the darkness, the ocean. Anne follows him haltingly, terrified of the darkness, the blindness, the unknown. Dano says to her, “It’s the same as the day time except there’s no light.” Bart coaxes her into the water. I wade in up to my ankles and the water is cold on my feet. I’m buzzed and a little jealous the way Anne gets along so well with Bart. They emerge from the darkness.  Washing in and out with the waves are tiny phosphorescence— green pebbles of light; some even get stuck in the sand along the shore. Bart tells us they are tiny minerals reacting with the salt and that’s what causes the glow. Some nights, nothing but other nights, like tonight, the tide is full of it.

Anne’s driving permit expired two days ago but we’re too buzzed to drive. Nonetheless, she drives me and Bart back to Randolph and she does an excellent job.

- A few ideas today— me, Kevin, Laurie and Dawn, driving to our softball game. The humidity is thick today. We’re in Brookville Square and hunting down the field where the team is. We make a u-turn. I notice in the front yard of a random house, a huge round birch tree with something engraved in the bark. It’s too quick to tell if it was carved with a knife, razor or they were just natural markings— but it looks like a dozen eyes, perfect imitation of them, some in couples, singles and different sizes and slight alterations of shape. Some face sideways others tilt downward or up and some stare straight ahead— black curves and lines on a gray canvas; the whole picture looks like hieroglyphics.

- I wonder why most of my recent memories are of trivial moments, with friends and not of bygone days with my family. Why don’t the family memories interest me? It seems like I am not a family person.

- I collect sports cards. I love sports— I enjoy playing and watching but preferably, playing them. I enjoy photography and sports cards are filled with colorful action shots of players (I also enjoy all photos— silent, color, landscape, humanity, alien, black and white, dreamy, unreal, balanced, off-centered….). I also enjoy developing my own prints in the makeshift dark room in my parents basement but it is an expensive thing having to buy paper, chemicals and basic tools of the trade. And the value of cards is cool too. I can buy a random pack of baseball cards for .50 cents and I might get a card worth anywhere between two or three dollars— now that’s making a profit. Collecting cards also reminds me of a time, long ago when I was a kid and it was just the pure joy of collecting cards of my sports heroes like Carl Yastrzemski and Bobby Orr.

- Went to the beach again. High rocking waves, stormy, jumping and thrashing the rocks and the stone wall that runs parallel with the street. I wade into the water and the current tries to pull me into the sea as the wind blows hard. I clean the wide abrasion on my leg. I had slid hard during a softball game, wearing shorts on an infield that was pebbly sharp sand. My abrasion has balls of pus growing around it, like mean looking zits and the salt water whitens the cut.

Bart throws Anne into the water because she threw sand at him. The cold water numbs my body as I swim. Me and Bart take a walk to Jim Beam rock and the surrounding rocks and tide pools are now covered over by high tide where only two days ago, Anne and Tonya searched for seashells. We reminisce of the days of two years ago, before he joined the army.

Bart and Anne goofing around at Scituate Beach

The tide recedes. We skim flat rocks as the tide leaves behind rivers and pools. I throw a rock, sideways undercut type throw to get the Frisbee type action on the rock and it hits a rising wave, just right and zings upwards like an airplane straight and smooth before falling back to the sea.

Bart sits alone on a rock, head down and feet playing in the sand. Tomorrow he leaves again, this time for Germany. Army life. Says he might be home again next month.

The cement staircase from the street to the beach, the rails, smooth flat steps and during high tide the surge comes over bottom step but typically the water eventually stops at the wall. You can see the years of abuse by the sea, tides and currents— much of the concrete base and first few steps have been eaten away and there is nothing beneath it except water or air that fills the cavity.

-Lazy humid and rainy day. Tiredly I clean my room. Bart strides in.

“Hey, man, I’ll see you later,” he said.

I reach out and shake his hand. “Well, you’re out of here now, eh.”

“Yeah. My sister’s outside.”

“Well it’s been the balls, partying with you again,” I said.

“Yeah, as long as we don’t drink Alabama Slammers,” he said, laughing, mischief gleaming in his eye and gentle downcast face. His two week vacation gone now as he starts a new adventure in Germany. He rushes downstairs holding an armful of civilian clothes, saying goodbye to everyone and shaking hands.

“Well, Dano. See you in a year.”

“All right Bartles, take care. Good seeing you.”

“Bye Dawn… bye Dave, oh never mind.” He stalls kiddingly from shaking his hand.

“Bye Paul.”

“Take care, Bart,” said Wabrek, sunk down in the couch, hung over.

“See you in March everybody.”

Me and Bart head outside to the car. Outside the rain softens. Anne sits in Carrie’s car. Carrie wears a sad gloomy face.

“Sure I got everything from your car?” I ask.

“No, wait. These towels are yours. Where the hell did they come from?”

Anne laughs.

“So organized,” I said to Carrie. She smiles faintly. Me and Bart shake hands again— two sad friends, like brothers, parting. Anne gives him a hug and he jumps into the car.

“See you, man,” I said.

“Don’t piss in parking lots… oh, do you want these?”

It’s a pair of cheap sunglasses.

“Why would I want those?” I asked.

“I just bought them for here. I won’t need them in Germany.”

“I’ll take them,” said Anne.

Carrie readies to pull the car away.

“Who am I? Sniff, sniff, sniff,” said Anne, imitating Bart’s allergies. I sniff a little louder and he hears us and promptly salutes us with the middle finger. See you soldier boy.

-South Shore Plaza basement corridor, a shared corridor that leads to the dumpster. Brigham’s always has the greasy sticky mess on the floor. In the summer, the humidity gets trapped down here and creates an awful smell. Bathrooms are locked as each store has its own key. I slip into the bathroom for a smoke in the quiet gloomy dim florescent lit bathroom. There is another set of doors that connects to a different corridor. One urinal, one stall. Hot water drips from the faucet, undisturbed and wasteful but it’s broken and I can’t turn it off. I imagine all the faucets on earth forgetfully dripping away. I finish my smoke and head back upstairs to my job as a clerk at Lauriat’s Books

-Who really cares? Birthdays are simple celebrations of death.

-“If you loved me, you would have worn protection,” she said.

-On the road to Grammy’s house in South Berwick, Maine. 95 North. In Dano’s truck, Metallica cranking. Jean in the front seat beside Dano. She joins me for an Alabama Slammer. I finish my smoke and throw it out the window but the window is rolled up and the smoke splinters into hot orange bits that fly beside Jean. A minute later she yells, “Ow my ass!”

Late night at Grams. Beer and Slammers. Drinking games: spoons, slapjack and Canadian quarters. Good music— Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Grateful Dead and drinking until the early morning and everyone hammered and who gives a fuck?

“I have to talk to you,” said Anne.

“Ok,” I said. I’m hungover and a little scared what she is about to say. It’s a familiar voice.

“I’m really mad, Jim. I can’t believe you. When I came downstairs this morning you and Jean were in the bathroom. You care about her more than me.”

“Listen. She was drunk. At that point she had passed out twice already. She was going to puke. I wasn’t going to let her puke all over Grammy’s couch.”

She wouldn’t listen. She had some deeper issue going on. She was ready to burst out.

“I’m just getting sick— I sat outside all morning, thinking and I seriously thought about jumping in front of a car. I can’t take all this— no serious. I just wanted to lay down right in the middle of the street.”

“Baby, I’m sorry if I hurt you. I didn’t mean to.”

“I almost took this ring off and threw it into the field,” she said, crying now.

“Because why?”

“Because of last night.”

“I did nothing wrong.”

“Besides, you always bring up Kenny and say that I’m going to leave you when he comes home next month. You always bring it up Jimmy.”

Now I knew what was going on. Tonya’s father, Kenny was getting out of the army next month for good. He’s coming back to Randolph. I mean she already screwed around with him the first time he was home on leave and now he was coming home for good. She’s feeling the pressure now. It’s true. I do feel like she is going to leave me but I will still hold on hope. Then there’s the pressure of who will get Tonya and how often he will see her or take her. Anne didn’t have a job and lived at her mom’s house. The unpaid medical bill from the miscarriage she just had. I knew she wasn’t upset at me personally. The future scared her and she was unsure and confused. I just knew she’d leave. I’ve heard these conversations before, the undercurrents to a bigger developing storm. We shall see soon enough.

Bracing myself for the emotional roller-coaster ride to come.

-York Beach, Maine. The intense waves are huge compared to Scituate and louder and stronger. As I wade out, a wave breaks toward my balls and my hands move quickly to protect them. I scream toward Anne and Dano on the shore, “This is great!” Then I turn toward a couple of fellow swimmers, strangers and I say, “This is great!”

The boy responded, “Sure the waves are great but the water is too cold.”

No way. Compared to Scituate, this water is warm. I’m in 3 feet. The waves rise up over me, slam and try to drag me out— I dive into the waves or duck beneath them where I can still feel the current’s tug. I jump into a wave and smack, my body flies upwards and into shallow water. I body surf. In the distance a bigger wave is rising up and I wait and as it is upon me, I start swimming until I’m on the crest and hurled forward in sea foam and with such force, I’m no longer in control. I’ve got water in my nose, eyes and suddenly the wave peters out and I’m let go and laying in the sandy shallows, having traveled about fifty feet.

The sand is soft, brown and puddly where high tide has come and gone. Overcast skies, windy, uncrowded beach and easy parking. I look down the beach strip— condos, mobile home park, luxurious homes with beautiful landscaped lawns and pines and bushes, in the village— ah, the Maine coastline, a wonder.

-Emery’s Bridge Road, twisting in the morning gray, alongside the road, a pillowy clump— a porcupine. The car avoids it and I feel sadness.

-Leaving the bare highway, sneaking passed the sleeping village and cutting through the dark foggy bending dram-like road.

-Sunday morning breakfast at Grams, 9 am. A dull light peaks into both dining room windows. In one, is the birdfeeder is— old and flaking and littered with bird seeds. A cool chill enters. Grams makes us all (me, Jamie, Dano, Dave, Dawn, Jean, Anne and Tonya) scrambled eggs and bacon and ham and cheese, us with tired eyes, minds and uncombed hair. We drink instant coffee. We sit around and eat on the big antique table covered in cloth and think about preparations to leave.

I laugh to myself as I remember me and Jamie having fun at the word rhubarb’s expense. Teen age mutant ninja rhubarbs. Cowarhubarb dude. Rhube was here. What did one rhubarb say to the other? Never mind it’s a fruitless joke. Rhubarb can’t wear underwear because it doesn’t fit in Fruit of the Looms. Silly goofy stuff. A typical night with Jamie.

-Boston Common today— nothing unusual. The swan boat ride is peaceful as real swans and ducks floated beside us in the pond. Pigeons scrounge for our popcorn and bread and hang out on our boat. There’s some bread at Wabrek’s feet, a hesitant pigeon sneaks along, determined, pokes at it and snags it in its beak and flies away. Ducks are more interesting than the gathering bums, business men on break, artists drawing city portraits, musicians playing guitars, tourists making their rounds and photographers on assignment. The ducks inspire me today— their quickness and determination and cool. Swans linger close. Paul, Jean, Anne, Tonya and myself throw clumps of bread toward the swans when suddenly a brown-feathered duck shoots out and strikes at the food. Those question mark shaped necks of the swans lazily float along. On the grassy bank, ducks walk around on dry feet except for one, a youngster, rests beneath intermittent sunlight, eyes closed. I throw another piece of bread but the youngster, startled only opens his eyes and stares straight ahead. He just looks straight not even noticing the bread or maybe he’s angry that something disturbed his rest. Alas another duck comes by and swipes away the bread. I try one final piece. He sees it this time and neck groping, he reaches and eats it!

Freedom Trail is always a fun hike. At the state house, its golden dome sharp beneath blue sky and sun, we climb up the long staircase and push open the doors. In the first room are a collection of statues— famous men and women, display case with historical items, some of Emily Dickinson’s political poetry (not one of my favorite poets but I respect her work), a bust of John Adams and some of his famous sayings on women, nature, science, and The Constitution. My favorite is one about himself: "It is my destiny to dig treasures with my own fingers. Nobody will lend me or sell me a pick ax.” There is a plaque honoring Charles Bulfinch, the first New England architect. He designed the state house beginning in 1795 and finishing in 1798.

We enter another room, a wide circular hall with waxed shiny hard wood floors. Voices echo. A sign reads for us to please remove our hats to honor those in commemoration— regiments of the Revolution. Some history on the American flag— Betsy Ross did not design the flag— it’s elements were drawn from earlier Massachusetts flags (similar to the flag now) and the colors, red white and blue were borrowed from the British but not its patterns. The stars “may have been suggested by Harvard Astronomy professor, John Winthrop. Congress said, “the union be thirteen stars while a blue field representing a new constellation.”

Anne gets cranky and we leave.

Walking back through the Common Paul tells me that T S Eliot used to frequent this area and hang out in cafes trying to befriend rich people and write about them. The Alfred J Prufrock ( I haven’t read yet) is about a character who roamed these parts.

I feel inferior.

Wandering by Park Street station, a black man on bongos and a white man on a saxophone play some tunes, smooth versions of Glen Miller’s, In the Mood then Under the Boardwalk; the sax plays a low surprising note that excites me.

I read a 1990-91 Boston tour guide. It says the Boston Common was “originally used as pasture land for cows, goats and sheep as well as a military training ground. The Boston Common is the oldest public park in the country.”

-Hummarock Beach, Scituate— ended up here by accident. I told Paul the wrong exit and well… here we are. Stop off at local variety store. I approach the clerk, heavy girl with long brown hair and tie-dye t-shirt. She’s a friendly cooperative girl too. I ask, “Where in the world can non-Scituate residents park?”  No parking tow zone signs everywhere. She tells me that we can park in the hour parking zone out front, about 100 yards from the beach. I thank her.

The sky is a rolling mass of black grey clouds— waves thunder upon the shore, foaming, bubbling and fizzing like boiling water— chopping waves criss-crossing into one another in all directions. Me and Anne go for a swim. Near us are two young boys and girls— we have a blast; the water is warmer than the windy air. Very few people in the water— seawater in my eyes and mouth— down the beach, no clear vanishing point, only fog and steam and shades of grey— a black and white photo in my eye. Crashing sounds. Three feet into the water are large pits and holes caused by the tidal disturbance— the undertow pulls more than I’ve ever experienced— a chaotic mad sea. The Gods are bitter! I imagine sharks helplessly thrust into shore where we swim, sand sharks cutting along our feet. Great unknown sea! There is a hurricane off the coast somewhere, a local store clerk told me. Incredible beach day.

Homeward bound— ten miles away, inward, the skies are blue, cumulus patches. The change is evident from the car— heavy clouds and a huge field of blue.

-Ring… “Hello… I’m calling about a new exciting travel package.” Click.

-Blue Hills today. The following is what Anne wrote in my other notebook. I put it here for personal interest. “Jimmy holding Tonya on his shoulders. Everyone walking in front of us. We came to the street. No one knows where we are. Three of us wanted to go one way; the rest of us wanted to go the other…. (later) Dave (Prokup), Jimmy, Tonya, Jean, Dawn, Paul and I are waiting for Dano, Kevin, Jamie, Lori to come back with the cars…. (later) Jimmy’s throwing rocks. Dave, thumbing for a ride. The cops just came by and warned us to stay off the street. So me and Tonya came over to sit in the woods…. (later) We got picked up by some gay guy. Seven of us went in the back of his truck. We went up the road and saw Dano, Kevin, Jamie, Lori walking single file. We picked them up. He drove us to the Trailside Museum. We all got in our cars. Drove to D’Angelo’s, ate lunch and went to Jimmy’s and went swimming."

At Eliot Tower, Blue Hills

-At the Trailside Museum I watched a few animals. The Bobcat, awesome even in sleep, curled lazily near the front of the cage— unflustered by our, ahem, cat calls and whistling. He flinched once at a flying insect that buzzed around his head. He is grey and as big as three cats rolled into one. “Their sharp claws catch and hold prey. They eat rabbit and squirrels and not farm animals. They once denned in rocky caves in the Blue Hills. Since they need much space Bobcat no longer live here.” Enough space? Wow. I thought Blue Hills was relatively big.

White-tailed deer, very pretty, a male and female— the male prances near the cage then eats some food from Jamie’s hand. His antlers, young and strong, smooth like Velcro and his tail wags as he walks away, shits and then slips inside the deer house with the female. A sign reads: “The white-tail is a warning signal… today they are seldom found in the Blue Hills.” Still, they might be out there and that’s exciting.

The red fox timidly races around his cage, sorrowful eyes, head down and sulking body— graceful and quick— a little smaller than an average dog and a little bigger than your average cat. He seems so harmless and little, back and forth in the cage like he’s nervous, keeping his distance. He tries to approach but when I move slightly, he runs to the back of the cage. The sign reads: “Fox have excellent sight, hearing and smell… a skunk-like scent marks their territory. Fox are most active at night. They still live in the Blue Hills.” Damn. I think of the half dozen or so times we camped here. How many times had fox secretly roamed our sleeping bags looking for food?

The red-tailed hawk, bird of prey: “Some migrate over Blue Hills, others live here all year long.”

Scattered along the paths are blueberry bushes. Anne picks and eats them. “They’re not that good anyway,” she says.

We trudge through the Blue Hills, high sun but hot. Blue sky gets closer as we push upward, away from the rat race; thin leafy paths, dirt fire roads, rocky and rooted trails. The group of us climbing rocks, up and down, bracing the earth and holding on to strong branches. My legs are heavy, body sweating and mouth dry. Tonya, loving life and the wilderness from upon my shoulders. Water breaks and rest. No one knows when this this trail will end. We have never been on this trail before. We simply hike and absorb the summer day. Best moment: We reached a rocky clearing, after five minutes of climbing a steep staircase made of railroad tiers. We stopped to look back on the trail we had left behind to see a wide terrain of green forest stretching longer than my eye can see— vision scope, to our left Houghton’s Pond, still and serene in the distance— Eliot Tower sneaking up from behind dense tree wall. I surrender all thoughts and the cool breeze soothes my body. It’s strange, a hundred thoughts pass through my brain but in my conscious mind nothing stirs, even time becomes stunted, shallow and untrue— future and past worry— memory, education and emotion; it seems they all just disappear and I simply become a calm united soul.

-I guess, what I really want to do is keep on enjoying life.

-Resting on the pool deck, legs pumping water; my head down on folded arms as I look toward the sky. Just another sunny summer day. The water temperature is 80* and clear. On my left arm is a bead of water, above tanned flesh. There is a ray of light, a pinhead of light caught within. As I look closer, it brightens and widens until it is in total scope of my vision; now full of color rainbow circles— real, real, real and open— mesmerizing.

A hornet caught in the pool— helpless, legs racing and in a panic. I steer him towards the dreaded filter. It nears the rectangular opening, surviving still and then the filter sucks it down. Then it pops back out and drifts again and under, drowning. No more flying around, oxygen, stinging— dead and I feel guilty as hell.

-A dream: I had ordered and received two tickets to a Grateful Dead concert in Canada. Me and Dano were to go, expensive trip. I had to get them at some point in time while me and Hilmer were sneaking into a theater to see a different concert.

-Rolling through Harlem then down streets in the Bronx, quiet, sad, ugly— broken down tenements— winos in battered doorways or sitting on dilapidated porches— graffitized brick buildings, trashy streets— barrel fires. My first trip to New York City and I look on with wide eyed amazement and overcome with a little fear and nausea— yep, the Big Apple indeed… As the bus rolls to a halt beside the MET, me and Dano, in early morning chill and rain, we dance into Central Park— alcohol stuffed in our jackets, explorer eyes… like kids in a sports card shop.

The most amazing thing about Central Park is the deep silence, total isolation from the raging city outside it and as we walk along it’s like entering a remote country. Smooth, clear silence. Seems the statues are thinking and communicating with one another as the statues outside in the city go on unnoticed.

Central Park in early afternoon.

Dano hooking up a homeless man with a smoke.

Dano in Central Park, enjoying the moment.

-95 North to Portsmouth, Maine. Watercountry, a fun place to be when it’s not packed. We are in Dano’s truck.

“How much for a single?” Kevin asks.

“Uh… it’s 25 for a single and 50 for a double,” Dano said.

I gazed out the window as the scenery unfolds. Someone said the number thirty which triggered, in my mind, an influx of zeroes, perfect white zeroes, linked together my darkness  and zooming upward into the space, into infinity.

All kinds of fun slides— The Loop, The Twister, The Sidewinder, Raging Rapids, Geronimo (a straight drop and I felt myself free fall for a split second). Nothing interesting about water slides, really— they’re just plain wet, slippery smooth tubes of fun. Today on the sunny Sunday though, it’s very crowded and it’s a 15 minute wait for a turn on the slide. I imagine it would be fun working here, sending nervous kids down the steep slopes of tubocity, maybe not much in so far as making money but you would be in the middle of the action all day from watching the thrilled faces of the children to checking out hot babes all day.

-Merrimack Street, Jack Kerouac memorial. It was sculpted by Ben Woitena in 1988. For a city that didn’t want to immortalize Kerouac, it certainly is a beauty. I move around and snap photos of each individual statue. The sky is grey and it’s rainy. I feel a strong connection with Kerouac suddenly and the ghost of Dr. Sax. Behind the memorial, a narrow section of the Merrimack River slips quietly by. Paul and Jamie read Kerouac quotes from his works. Paul loves his poetry from scriptures. Jamie digs the Mexico City Blues. Paul argues with me about a comma stranded at the end of the line, perplexing. My take is that the end of the line is a break therefore the comma is unnecessary. Regardless, Jamie and Paul love Kerouac’s poetic language. We drink a few beers and after we leave here we head to Walden Pond.

My shirt is a humorous foil for the solemnity of the memorial.

Jamie Shea. A foreshadow of his life to come in Mexico.

-Talk, talk, talk that’s all we really did. Iraq invasion of Kuwait. I’m not worried. Dano’s not worried. I’m signed up for the draft; he isn’t. I got friends in the military. Dano’s got a brother. War? No way. My mom and his mom are real worried— they pray.

“Well, ya see,” said Dano, “I been talking to an ex-marine, Greg Rushkin. He was in for four years. He wants a war— no shit. He wants to destroy all them fucks. He hates ‘em bad and wants to kill. Anyway, the president. What’s his name? Hussein?”

“Saddam Hussein,” I said.

“Yeah, something like that, well, he’s no dummy— he’s just intelligent— he’s too smart to get involved in a war with us, too smart. It’s all a big exhibition, he’s just testing us. I’m not worried. If Saudi Arabia turns into a battlefield, we’ll kill ‘em— they got more men for hand to hand but, a big but, we have so much more high tech weapons— it’s incredible, we’d kill ‘em.”

-Friday, August 10, 1990 Boston Globe: Iraq is refusing to let Americans and other foreigners living in Iraq to leave, heightening fears here that President Saddam Hussein will keep thousands of foreigners in Iraq as insurance against US attacks.

-Desert Shield, US military operation in Saudi Arabia.

-Cairo, Arab leaders gathered here yesterday in an effort to defuse the Persian Gulf crisis sparked by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, but they immediately post-poned their emergency summit until today amid indications that Egypt is seeking protracted peace negotiations to buy time and avert a military clash between Iraq and United States.

Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein meanwhile, lost one of his few remaining overland routes for oil shipments as King Hussein of Jordan will join the world community and enforce sanctions against Iraq.

-Ankara, Turkey. Turkish leaders assured Secretary of State, James A Baker that US forces could use bases here against Hussein, US officers, said.

-United Nations. The UN security council unanimously expressed outrage yesterday over Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait, declaring it “null and void” and called on all nations to repudiate the puppet Kuwaiti regime.

The vote was 15-0 on the 15 member council, which met for the third time since Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2. It demanded the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi troops.

-Amman, Jordan. The 38 Americans detained by Iraqi forces in Kuwait and transported to Baghdad are being kept in a government hotel under house arrest, according to two American business men who succeeded in leaving Iraq for Jordan.

“They are clean. They are well dressed. They are enjoying their meals. But, they are not permitted to leave the hotel,” Frank J Jiral, an executive with a Houston oil firm, Brown and Root, said in an interview here yesterday.

-America barks on in the heat of the dog day summer afternoon.

Pretty obliterated— almost. House party music and all that pleasurable stuff— yeah yeah yeah— pardon in Time— a waste of real time— a waste of real active constructive time; should be asleep or sober or dreaming or working or fantasizing or waking early. A big sigh and oh well… what to do. Sit back and drink and say hello, hello, hello— ha!

Everybody’s in love. Got girlfriends they’re so romantically clicking and falling in the mellow eternal wave of happiness— ha ha ha; fights and arguments and break-ups and back-togethers and nothing changes and more fights and so unwilling to leave completely, yes as much as people brag about girlfriends they cannot be alone. It is easier to rag on girlfriend’s particulars, bad habits, break-ups, stupidities, and stubbornness than to be totally alone. Rod cries. Dano wishes he could hate Dawn. Dave hates Jean. Flip side, I won’t bother.

-Drop off laundry service. “We’ll save you the chore” – laundromat sign, horrible grammar, no commas or periods.

-Something that didn’t totally flush down the toilet, backwards, stuck.

-A poem, lad:

Beware!!

Pens,

Crayons,

Lipsticks, etc.

Damages clothes

Please!!

Check all pockets

Machines

Before use.

-New moon, bending

Youthful stud dreams

Exotic joys between

Soft legs.

-Oh I got a fan.

I got a fan

I got a fan

Feel pretty good

Feel pretty, cool

Fan yes indeed

I got a fan

I have a fan now

I got a hangover, oh

I some hangers too

Got hangers, have

Not felt hung up have

Not felt hung down

I got some hangers

Seven hangers in my room

Of hanging high

Hanging hangers

Hang ‘em high

Feelin’ lucky tonight.

-“Little Pig, little pig let me in!”

“Not by the hairs on my slutty sick clit.”

“Then I’ll pump and I’ll cum and blow my load in.”

-Tear down ratty faded bedroom posters; things change and people move forward, unfortunately.

-At the risk of sounding dreadfully cliché— twice— the coming fall and winter seasons will be empty and lonely. Once has the pain throbbed and it’s coming again. It’s like a rain cloud some miles a way that you can’t hear the thunder yet, or see the lightning but you can feel it in your bones moving closer. So I prepare— one needs shelter from the storm, extra food. Batten down the hatches. Who knows how long it will last? No one sees the cloud above me, no one.

Take care in the heart. Tie it all down. Man the support systems. Harbinger of suicidal thoughts— but when it ends and the worst is over, the spring will come and I’ll be more alive than ever and my life will rage with hope and freedom.

-I will miss the secure days of her love and the family relationship I have with Tonya. Having someone there, always waiting for the welcome home kiss and the loving voice— the morning phone call, sweet words— yes, I shall miss it all. Such days have been my security, my weakness and my abortion of growth. However nothing is comparable to your loved one’s sweet welcoming smile— holding hands (such warm skin) fragile fingers— walking her home through the dark quiet neighborhood— goodbye goodnight and goodbye. The low tree beside the tattered front porch— treasures of leaves folding over and hanging over and touching my shoulder— masking the moon, another goodnight kiss and soft embrace and parting. Venerable tree, naked, but spiny soon.

-Goodbye jealousy, demands, brattiness, immaturity, monopoly, hate, confusion, sex traps and pornographic bribes….

8/14/90 Kennebunkport Maine. An Iraqi tanker was denied permission to dock at a Saudi Arabian oil terminal yesterday and others were reportedly turning away from oil loading facilities as the White House claimed early success in its efforts to halt the flow of Iraqi oil.

-Washington. Less than two weeks into the Persian Gulf crisis he created, Saddam Hussein may be “putting out feelers” to find a way out of his confrontation, a state department official said yesterday.

-Cairo. In this ancient city, where grinding poverty, choking pollution, impenetrable bureaucracy and snail-pace traffic seem to bother no one, least of all the ever placid Egyptians, the Iraqi conquest of Kuwait has exposed a nerve and rubbed it raw with outrage

Outside Saudi Arabia’s embassy yesterday, Egyptian soldiers fixed their bayonets, using them to gently prod and keep at bay hundreds of their countrymen who were seeking to press on Saudi officials hand scrawled demands that they be allowed to join the Saudi army to fight Iraqi soldiers. In just three day’s time, 5000 Egyptian men have volunteered to become Saudi conscripts.

-Washington. Saddam Hussein, four to five years away from developing a nuclear weapon, has spread out and buried his nuclear research sites, making them almost impregnable to conventional attack and heightening concern in Washington and Jerusalem.

-Washington. The Bush administration calls its blockage of Iraqi commerce an “interdiction” rather than a “blockade” to avoid the language of war, a rhetorical and political move of legal meaning both abroad and at home, specialists in international law said yesterday.

-I expect my future emotional roller coaster ride to be mind boggling.

-How dare you give ME an ultimatum!

-Just sitting there on the couch, another unimportant hot sunny day. Anne sits on my lap, getting me horny. Jamie is over on the other couch as she jokes around with him. Tonya is jumping on Jamie and my brother— all smiles and girly baby laughter. Then out of nowhere, the first time I believe ever, Anne asks Tonya: “Tonya, who’s your daddy? Tonya?”

“Mommy!”

“Watch this… Tonya, who’s your daddy?”

“Mommy.”

“Is Jimmy your daddy?”

Tonya smiles, her eyes look into mine, unsure, long devilish smile.

“Jimmy’s your daddy, right? Do you mind, Jim? Jimmy is your daddy,” Anne said.

“Jimmy,” said Tonya. She tries to equate me and daddy into the same image.

“Who’s your daddy?”

“Jimmy!” Tonya looks at me like a shy daughter. I can’t believe my ears.

On my way to Anne’s house, turning the corner at Roel Street, I kiss Anne goodbye and say to her, “Feels weird having a daughter.”

“Tonya, say bye to daddy,” Anne said.

“Bye daddy. Bye daddy. I love you, daddy.”

“I love you too.” I kiss her and she unhesitantly returns another. As I walk away I can hear her, ‘bye daddy.” I keep walking away. I feel so sorry for Tonya not having a real daddy around for nearly three years and thinking I was really possibly her father; sorry that her real daddy would be home from the army in three weeks to add to Tonya’s confusion; sorry that me and Anne will inevitably break up and that I ever got involved but having loved being part of both their lives.

“Jimmy?”

“What?”

“Hear her?”

“Bye, daddy.” She smiles with such loving eyes.

-Rich phoned from Fort Belvoir, drunk. His order came in. He is bound for the Middle East.

-Kind of bored and needing stimulation and notebook dialogue, I asked Dano into my room for some talk. Armed with coffee, cigarettes and a tape recorder we let our conversation simply evolve from pretense to realness of personality. At first Dano played a few guitar chords and waited for me to make up funny lyrics. However I wasn’t drunk. He played on. My brother now joined with his guitar— out of key and with one string. Then Jan Hilmer came by and soon we all began to talk, honestly about life. Later I dug out my Philosophy text book and by this time the tape had run out (so what?)— we tried to understand the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise (Achilles could never reach his destination, numerical problems); read prisoner’s confessions on death row; more mind boggling paradoxes and ancient puzzles. At 2 in the morning we called it quits with blunt sharpness of mind and with a greater understanding of logic and numbers.

-Infinity infinity infinity, vaguely

I see you no I don’t

Where begins your hand where

Does it go

I have a headache

Let me follow your beginning

And I’ll leave you alone.

Going backwards

Into nothing

YAHOO

Living day to day and creeping

Towards old age.

-“Fuck you, boy,” she said.

-Tape-recording:

Four am and going strong

Alabama Slammers til the Dawn

Hilms, Scott and me too

Sitting on the street, talking poo

From the distance appears a car

In the darkness still kinda far

So we sit and laugh

Car pulls up, it’s the police staff

Billy club, gun

A walking badge

A young cop who owns the streets

Tiger of Randolph

I’ll finish this story another time

-“I was gonna write tonight,” I said.

“You’re recording. Same difference,” said Dano.

“Skunk phlegm.”

“Cheese head,” said Dano. “Yeah, I know how annoying it is listening to people playin’ instruments when 

 they don’t know how to play them. I’m gonna stop.”

He put down the harmonica.

“Why are you saying I can’t play?” asked Dave.

“No, I’m saying I can’t play.”

“Today was a total waste of a day,” I said. Hilmz, what did you do today?”

“I got up around three, slapped til four. Called my Mom. ‘Mommy. Make me some dinner!’ And then I went home… to my Mommy’s house. Had some dinner, packed for college… got bored of that. Went over to Sean and Dorni’s house. Hung out with Marcus,” Jan said.

“Marcus?”

“Marcus— not the Marcus you know. He’s a little kid from Quincy. Found Zan somewhere. Talked about… you know some of those deep life type emotional… you know, quirks. Gave her a ride home.”

“They’re all emotional.”

“And we can only read about it,” said Jan.

“Are you shitting me? I got to listen to it everyday,” Dano said.

“So Dan, what did you do today?” I asked.

“Welll, let’s see. I think I woke up around elevenish more or less. I hung around, watched the tube for a while, avoided going out, avoided doing anything. Contemplated my day. Decided I didn’t want to do anything. Eventually got off my ass, took a shower. Came up here. Hung around here for a while. Had coffee. Went to see a movie.”

“What movie and was it good?”

“Flatliners and it was excellent. Quite a good movie. Aaaand… got out of the movies and drank more coffee aaaand then had some yogurt— frozen, that is, it’s just like ice cream. And then we watched three repeats in a row. Called Rich. Called him quite a few things,” Dano said.

“Then slapped,” said Dave.

“No I haven’t slapped yet.”

“In essence you got the existential blues,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Does anyone have a favorite recent book”? I ask.

“Most recent one, Fulgham. Robert Fulgham. It’s the most recent one I’ve completed,” said Dano.

“I got about four books going,” said Jan.

“You’re reading four books at a time?” I ask.

“Sure am.”

“I got about eight books going and I’m not reading any of’em,” said Dano.

“I got about 400 pages done in all of them— and I probably have another 500 pages in all of them to finish,” said Jan.

“Which one’s the better one?” I ask.

“Umm… I like that Tom Robbins book ‘cause I like Tom Robbins but I’m almost done with… umm… that Stephan Crane book. I like that— Red Badge of Courage,” said Jan.

“I think I got that but I don’t recall reading it,” said Dano.

“It’s a different look at the war hero,” said Jan.

“It’s now a more traditional look at the war hero,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“In other words, the main character in it— the faceless character we might say— the nameless, actually is better, would be just like say, Rich, if he were in a war I BETCHOO,” I said.

“In other words, running around with his tail between his legs,” said Dano.

“Well….”

“Not exactly tail between his legs. Taking a look at it from one’s own personal point of view— in this case, scared shitless,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Hanging on to life.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what I want to talk about?” I asked. “Cigarette butts. When you’re on the street you ever think about them? You’re walking and not paying attention to the trash all around you and butts scattered under your feet. Ever wonder how long they been there? Who smoked them? What they were thinking when they tossed it into the street?”

“Not exactly cigarette butts,” said Dano. “But, I have… ever been in a secluded part of the woods and walking through and see a beer can there— or something to that effect— a bottle cap sitting on the ground. And just figuring behind that beer can is an entire story. I’ve often wondered what it is. You know it could have been just someone lounging out in the woods and drinking a beer. Threw the beer can, got really drunk and hit by a truck afterwards. Could have been anything. Or got arrested or had the best time of his life. That one beer can could have been the change in someone’s life that effects everyone else’s life. It’s amazing how just one little bit of a puzzle.”

“I got a ten dollar bill the other day that was dated 1947,” said Hilmz. “These things are only supposed to last a couple of years, you know what I mean? Through passing hands. A dollar bill? How long can it last?”

“That’s something I haven’t thought of.”

“It’s different. They changed the whole format of the whole bill. It’s got everything on it but some things are larger and smaller. I thought it was just counterfeit at first. It still has Hamilton on it,” said Jan Hilmz.

“Where did you get it?”

“Delivering for… a small pizza… business, you know.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I just thought about it and let it ride on to the next person, you know,” he said.

“Let the next person think about it,” said Dano.

Laughter.

“Must have been stuck in somebody’s Bible or a book they opened fifty years later and said, word— went down in value but—“ Hilmz said.

“Dave any thoughts on cigarette butts?”

“Yeah I’m gonna create one in about five minutes,” he said.

-His arms had that awkward look as if they had been trapped in a lint dispenser during puberty.

-Alexandria, Virginia, Fort Belvoir. Rich’s military home. Huge base— long sweeping roads— army jeeps and trucks and personnel strolling about beneath grey rainy Virginia sky— storage units in empty lots. A few military police (many have already been sent to the Middle East) as we cruise passed barracks after barracks— parked cars with license plates from all over the country— apartment of non and commissioned officers. Eventually me and Dano find Rich’s residence, Bennett Barracks.

Casual day and night. The CQ on duty doesn’t seem to mind that we are spending the night or he simply doesn’t realize it. The ACQ, a tall black guy doesn’t acknowledge my presence as I turn the corner and go upstairs to room 4B.

-A dream: unclear now except for the main image/event— a big white man cut my hair— huge scissors the kind that cut through cardboard— a hack job too having taken out big long strands and chunks, not a crew cut but just plain messy and short

-5am, get there at 4 pm.

-I get the impression me and Dano are kind of representatives of Boston— models for Rich’s army buddies to judge basic Boston characteristics by. Well, we as people find it difficult not to generalize— its how the mind works, it organizes things into easy familiar units.

-Rainy and humid Wednesday afternoon. Me and Dano have been sleeping all morning. I dread opening my eyes as they seem to hammer my head with shaking claps that travel through my body— I wake slowly, unsure— I glance to my left, out the Bronco window and its Rich standing there looking at us. He’s in full camouflage uniform with army hat. He looks on with a casual smile, maybe a little awkward as he probably wasn’t expecting us to be camped outside his barracks— probably not realizing that we just drove 10 straight hours to see him and that we are actually here at Fort Belvoir. Yep, old buddy— finally and unfinally.

-The hospital is on full alert. More soldiers will be shipped to the Middle East. Rich is second on list ( we had misunderstood something, we thought Rich was pretty much set to leave, which is why we came to visit him). The entire barracks are dreading the wait-to-be-called list.


-A drunken night in Bennett Barracks. We conjure up memories of good times’ past, laugh and drinking games (Dice and Kings and Drink while you think). Greg, Rich’s roomy brings out a guitar and we sing. He’s a Dead Head, good guy from the South with the heavy accent. Cortez is there, a quiet guy, psych medic who is getting married in four days— a family man and baseball card collector. Carlos, a madman wants to borrow Rich’s camcorder to film himself fucking some girl visiting him from Tennessee. He dreads going to Saudi Arabia and wants to keep it a secret if his orders come in he’s buying out. He loves life too much. Some sober but lots of drunken promises between me, Rich and Dano to see the world when he gets out of the army.

-Belvoir Streets: Surveyor Road, Mount Vernon Highway, George Washington Village

-Indeed what a drive! Baltimore, Maryland, New Jersey, New York— I’m at the wheel— steady falling rain— everywhere darkness except for the distant city lights and our own truck headlights—dangerous wet road— highway lines barely visible— three lane ride at 3 am— trucks everywhere making runs and shipping deadlines north and south— huge semis and trailers at 60 miles an hour beside us, looming and throwing wind and water upon our windshield. We pass one truck, carefully but our Bronco hydroplanes and slips perilously close to the side of the truck. Truckers are merciless and confident as they roar up from behind, startling us from fatigue— a legion of truckers on the midnight morning trek— city after city, service area after service area, Burger King after Bob’s Big Boy. Tight squeeze on end lanes— hoping to pass one between the lane one slaps his face to survive the squeeze.

-Fort Belvoir Dewith Army Hospital. A sign on the door reads: I’d fly 10,000 miles to smoke a camel.” Beneath it is a picture of a camel in a target sight. Says Rich,” Yeah. They’re all gung ho around here.”

-Boston Herald reporting does nothing for me. It takes much space to give me the story whereas the Globe states the whole thing, pretty much in the first, sometimes second paragraph and then it fills in the specifics and details accordingly. The Herald seems erratic and unfocused.

-Belcher Park. The past spring, huge mounds of earth— mud piles dug up by cranes and bull dozers for what purpose I still don’t know— two huge piles of clay and rock; now, late summer they remain there with a thousand blades of grass and weeds, tall and short strands completely covering the surface areas. How things change in a season.

-Tape recording:

“So let’s contemplate,” I said,” the beer can story. You see the can in the woods. Think about it— a hundred possibilities go through your mind. Around and around and around— it sticks on one. What is it?”

“One dude walking home drunk tosses it over his shoulder. It all depends on where it is,” said Dano.

“How do you know a bear didn’t attack him,” said Dave.

“You don’t. Except I never been in any woods where bears were in high population.”

“We must get an idea of a setting. Is it total wilderness or is it a small little woodsy area in the suburbs,” I asked.

“I’d say the most provoking thought would be in the wilderness,” said Dano.

“If it was in the wilderness and he threw a beer can over his shoulder,” said Hilms.

“A bear could have him and drag him away,” said Dave.

“It could have been Smoky the Bear getting a little pissed,” said Hilmz.

“Now we’re getting into the absurd. Let’s stick with reality for the moment,” I said.

“For one thing he shouldn’t have been littering,” said Dave.

“Exactly— that’s where the ignorance comes from,” said Dano.

“Recycle!”

“Is that why this household throws out about two dollars a week in Pepsi bottles? Let’s face it— we’re hypocrites,” I said.

“We’re all hypocrites. I’m all for recycling and all for seeing it get going but I never recycled a damn thing in my life,” said Dano.

“Waiting for other people to do it. Not taking an active stand for your beliefs,” I said.

“Exactly. I’m too lazy to do it.,” said Dano.

-Scituate beach waves rumbling and rising and crashing and dying softly on the shore.

-Tape recording:

“Hey Jamie,” I said. “I’m going to do a poem now. This one is called The Tide is High by Blondie L. Woolworth.

The tide is high

Rocks are all wet

Ocean’s coming in I bet

The boats are there

I don’t care

the tide brings forth

its many pleasures

a rhubarb plant and tailbone fishes.”

Laughter.

“Ocean ocean… bring forth your crabfish and jelly beans,” said Jamie.

More laughter.

-“Ya’ll Boston people I don’t know,” said Greg.

“So what’s your team? The Orioles?” I asked.

“The Mets. I know. I know ya’ll don’t like those fucking Mets. We beat ya’ll in what— 86.”

“You guys were fucking lucky.”

“Lucky? Thanks to Bill Buckner,” Greg said.

“Yeah yeah.”

“This is my first time I… I feel proud. This is the first time I partied with a bunch of Boss… Bostonians,” he said.

“We’re not really Bostonians. We’re from Boston but we’re not Bostonians. We don’t live there,” I said.

“Yeah. We’re just a bunch of casual dudes who like to drink beer,” said Dano.

“I don’t like stereotypes.”

“We’re from the area,” said Dano.

“I don’t know where the hell I’m from. I’m from hell, I think.”

“I’m from Hawaii,” said Rich.

“I’m from New England.”

-A tape recording. A blues type song we made up at Belvoir. Rich on harmonica, Dano on guitar and me singing drunk lyrics and everyone is hammered.

Me:

“Sally Anne, babe

Sally Sally, baby

To my room, babe

Come on up

I got more things

You’re dreaming of

I got everything

You want a diamond ring, baby

I’ll think about it sugar

Meanwhile

I go to work

Gotta hundred things to do, babe

Cutting wood all day

I’m tired baby

I come home at night

Looking for you

How I miss your gobbling goo

Baby, suck it

But I’ll tell ya, me

And all my friends

We’re a bunch of sluts

We like the pig in you

You fucking cunt!”

Rich:

“Sally was a bitch

She had such a gut

She was such a whore.”

Me:

“I want it five times more

I didn’t care how many

Beers Carlos had or his friend Cortez

Still wasn’t enough

I’d still join the army babe, if I

Had your snuff

So what babe here’s a dime

Ear ring on my lobe

Got a story

Has to be told

So I heard your sexual advances

Were very bold

Your heart was very cold

So I say Richie boy, this girl’s

Gotta be sold.

Hey! Pass me a Michelobe

You’re a witch so you deal the cards

Don’t know what to say anymore, babe

So get the fuck out of my room.”

Rich:

Get your clothes on

And get the fuck out.

Me:

So that’s the story of Sweet Sally Anne

In the garbage can

Where she belongs.”

-Tape recording:

The sound of a car speeding by.

“Heey! Look at that! We’re doing seventy miles per hour and a Statey passed us,” said Dano. “Oh shit! I’m still doing seventy and I’m right behind him. This feels good.”

“He came right up out of nowhere. The dark shadow of state police car trailing behind us,” I said. “So anyway, Virginia or bust. That’s the trip. That’s the motto.”

“That’s the ultimate plan.”

-Tape recording of Dano’s CB radio dialogue and us:

“I thought she said she went both ways though,” said Voice 1.

“Uh uh uhh,” she said. “No no no no no. I’m not going around with (inaudible) there sweety.”

“Didn’t you say you went both ways?”

“Uh uh— you got to be crazy (inaudible).”

“Which way you going? North or South?” asked Voice 2.

“I’m going south bound down to Tampa, Florida,” she said.

“Hey now. Yeah hell but she does go both ways,” said Voice 1.

“You’re going down to Connecticut,” said Voice 2.

“Damn right she goes both ways for sure,” said Voice 1.

“No no no no, baby. You go both ways. You can hook up with that other guy and you can have a real good time,” she said.

“Now what kind of talk is that?” asked Dano.

“The same kind of talk you give me. You give me garbage an’ you’ll get it right back,” she said.

“Oh my God,” said Dano.

“You gonna have to, one thing both ways,” said Voice 1.

“Pete Rose went both ways. Look where that got him… ga ga ga laugh everybody,” I said.

“I don’t care if he goes both ways if he wants to get her (inaudible) she got one (inaudible),” said Voice 1.

“I bet that chick will clean your pipe for a good price,” said Voice 3. “Get an oil change and a tune-up… get a little lock jawed, huh?”

“Baby, who’ll clean you out ‘cause you’re dirty and for a long time,” she said.

“I know what you’re thinkin’ punk… did he take six hits or only five,” I said.

“Who cares?”

“What? You’re going make my day? Huh! Baby I don’t want to make your day,” she said.

“I still think you’ll make anybody’s day for the right price, sugar,” said Voice 3.

“Who gives a shit?”

“I couldn’t either,” she said.

“I got me an oil change, pipes cleaned, a tune-up… and a valve job,” said Voice 3.

“How many miles on you, baby?” I asked.

“Nothin’ you could put on, baby. You could put me through a ride, couldn’t ya?” she asked.

“I say you kind of pretty for five dollars, sugar,” said Voice 3.

“Well sugar, you want to know what you can do with your five dollars?” she asked.

“Buy yourself a better whore?” I asked.

“No. You can buy one ‘cause I ain’t one,” she said.

“I wouldn’t bring you to Burger King, baby,” I said.

“10-4. I’m crazy about Kentucky Fried Chicken ‘cause its fine chicken to be suckin’ on,” she said.

“Oooo, whoa, Kentucky Fried Chicken, honey,” said Voice 3.

“An’ watermelons, man, watermelons, I want a big juicy one,” I said.

“(inaudible) you talk like a fuckin’ asshole,” said Voice 2.

“I don’t know. But, I’ll tell ya one thing… I’m not drunk, exactly,” she said.

“Let me guess. Alabammy, right?” asked Dano.

“No,” she said.

“Mississippi?”

“No.”

“Rhode Island,” said Voice 2.

“Well then, I’m lost,” said Dano.

“She’s a local,” said Voice 2.

“No, I’m not.”

Me and Dano sing:

“ Show me the way to go home

I’m tired and I wanna go to bed

I had a little drink about an hour ago

And it got right to my head.”

“Please don’t ever quit your day job,” said Voice 2.

“I don’t have a day job,” I said.

“Don’t ever quit any job,” said Voice 2.

“I don’t have a job,” I said.

“Good ‘cause you’re making my day,” she said.

-Liberty Street Tar; river otter twirls and wild turkey fly short distances but prefer to walk.

-I see forms and shapes, not color. Photography is a language. What does the photograph want to say?

-Blue Hills. The river otter performs and swims in circles inside the pool, smooth and twisting, then straight like a torpedo and flowing harmlessly along— little wet rainbows where he swims— twisting and smiling a faceful of whiskers and round smart eyes and we ooo and ahh as the otter continues on his way.

At the top of Sunrise Tower (as we had dubbed it many moons ago on our first trip here) and me and Anne and Tonya stand alongside a crowd gathered looking out toward the Boston Harbor. Strong winds feel cool and pleasurable after hot sweaty climb. I sit Tonya on the thick window ledge, holding her— the winds flap our hair. My spirit injected with life and the anxieties of tomorrow fall away like stone.

-Searching for my Firebird in Shaws parking lot— looking for the trunk where the tail piece has broken off. Late afternoon sun creates tangles of shadows. Behind a parked van I notice the shadows of my trunk and it looked very much like the devil cast down on the cement from above.

-Oh neglect

Oh neglect

Neglect oh

Work to be done

-My war has begun, a long winter battle. I hear the shell explode— BOOM and its force knocks me back, weakens me in these threatening hours with head down from smoke and blind eyes. Too much wondering and wandering in paranoid thought, still, the more, the end. In my heart I know I’ll be all right. Yes I am a survivor. Pain is a big joke. I am exempt. I feel none. No love then no hurt. Only anger, much anger. I imitate droids. Let the war end so I can once again blaze upon the freedom trail.

-“Make sure you wipe her bum. Make sure you wipe her bum ok hun?” said Anne on the other end of the phone line.

“Hun?” I ask.

“What?”

“Hun? Wipe her bum, hun?”

“So what? Hun. Big deal. Just a word.”

“Why did you call him, hun?”

“Oh Jimmy are you going to start a fight? You want to fight. Are you going to fight with me Jimmy?”

“No.”

I hung up the phone. I felt like a man trapped in a triangular love affair.

-In war one is never prepared and always taken by surprise of his own shallow preparedness.

-“Time wounds all heals,” Jean said. “Ha-ha— I mean, oh my God, ha-ha, time heals all wounds.”

Bodies roasting in bomb fires— endless smoky fields and roads, wire fences curled and broken— I am the only one alive— injured, unsure and sad. Which way now? Back from where I came. Cold nights. Frozen tents. Dead vegetation and animals. Should I press onward into the smoky nothingness? I sit upon a charred log roadside and I write and think and wonder and come up empty. Empty as a cracked coconut— the whole affair fraught with meaning and love (such universal symbolic abstractions of stupidity).

-Went to my first baseball card show. Amazing— tables and tables and display cases— every sport and non-sports card— sold in packs or individually. A large auditorium of colors, shapes and forms dazzles my eye— crowds of kids and adults hunting out the best deals.

-Called Anne, hesitantly, afraid that Kenny might be there or on his way but called nonetheless. She sounded happy to hear my voice— a pleasant loving hiii. She asked me over to her house.

Played baseball with those big rubbery kids balls. I let her win. I like to let her gloat in victory every once in a while so she won’t always give up and not even try or quit. Also, this day I didn’t want her to get mad at me for some stupid reason. Kenny is home again. Anne says she still loves him but loves me too so I must wait for her to make her choice. If she’s going to have sex with that boy she better in hell wait until she no longer wears my ring.

Part of me says yes I love you please stay with me; another part says just get the fuck out, away, just go to that nigger army sergeant, fuck and suck on that big black cock and don’t bother me again. It comes to this: freedom loneliness and despair or entrapment, contentness and love. Or something to that effect. I really need peace of mind though. It seems that doesn’t actually come from either— a good or non-relationship. I can still have a girlfriend and be in love but then there’s the idea of her suppressing who I am. Hard to pinpoint bliss. Need something moving and eternal; not temporal and fleeting but a permanent fix. As I write, Anne is with Kenny— in love with him and probably having sex— together like pen and paper— confused though and boy, wifey, I’m going out of my mind.

-I wish me, Rich, Dano, Bart and Wabrek were someplace far away, some crazy city drinking Beam and laughing and scoring girls all night. Now that’s bliss.

-While Anne and Kenny embrace somewhere, rekindle old love, dream of happy eternal unity of their souls— I sit alone on the outside and smoke a cigarette, coffee by my elbow and I bleed upon the paper I write…. I wait for the blood to dry, crack. Time heals all wounds? Or was Jean right the first time and does time wound all heals? Good question.

-overrated love songs; we all die anyway so who cares?

-Two prime examples of excess— obesity and the laundromat ha-ha.

-Called Rich the other night. He was hosting a toga party in his room, lots of girls and keg beer. He doesn’t think he’s going to the Middle East. Cortez was just shipped there. Being a psych-tech they are in much demand over there in the desert.

-need a little pity

Give me some

-Boston Herald, Tuesday 10/28/90

Music World Mourns Loss of Texas Guitar Hero:

Tributes to Texas blues-man Stevie Ray Vaughn began pouring in yesterday after the Grammy winning guitarist’s helicopter crashed into a foggy Wisconsin hillside, killing all five people aboard. Vaughn, 35, had just finished performing early yesterday morning at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre, an open-air stage and ski resort 30 miles south west of Milwaukee. The bill included rock legend Eric Clapton and elite blues-man, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy and Vaughn’s old brother, Jimmie, founder of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, all of whom landed safely on other flights in Chicago.

Fans mourning the loss of Stevie Ray Vaughn yesterday said he was a master guitarist at the peak of his career who remained down to earth even as he hit superstardom…. WBCN jock, Mark Parenteau said the radio station’s 20 line switchboard was jammed most of the day. He said many of the callers were crying. “When any artist dies, especially a counter-culture star, people take it very personally. They feel close to them,” Parenteau said. “He was a really nice guy, very down to earth. He was just a friendly Texas guy, not one of those stereotypical egotistical rock stars….”

“I used to be manager at the Dallas Hard Rock and Stevie Ray used to come in all the time for a couple of beers or some nachos late at night. I can remember when Elvis died, when the space shuttle blew up. I’ll remember this the same way. It’s really bad when somebody great dies. We all feel it.”

-Found it, thank the lord— radio station blues— nothing to do but play your favorite songs, talk over the air, creative freedom as a DJ— that is, as long as Scott, the owner OK's it though— as smart as he is, he tends to be hypocritical, narrow-minded and too much pop culture— he plays real commercial music— he could broaden the range of listeners with more dimension, difference and variation— spread your wings— dare to be different. As right as he believes in himself, tis’ not the only case, Scotty boy.

-Your dad peels off his socks

His ass softened by the chair

Television glare

Mommy reads the obituaries;

Expects too much from children.

One gloats about marriage and kids;

Won’t open her fat legs

And that son of theirs, masturbates

With fishing rods; cleans himself

With Mountain Dew

And you, kid, the other daughter

What about you?

You’re growing older too.

-Crossing the Harvard Bridge— steam and fog hiding distant building tops— sailboats below, at least twenty of them and they seem to be in chaos. Trainees? Gray sky and warped ocean blue ugly and cold.

-A photograph of a huge dark cloud weighing down the blue sky beneath, pushing away the white clouds, and sucking its essence into its own gathering darkness— a dark moment captured on film. I’ll carry it in my wallet. Need something. Maybe it’s just a matter of being alive than dead.

I can control a photograph. Contrast can intensify it; objects, even one symbol can change it. Portraits can communicate messages. I like the idea of portraying characters on film, parody or drama— I enjoy the land of make believe.

Photography as a form of acting or theater of black and white, one becoming selfless with many faces. I can polarize it too, the photo in the developer tray and when the image appears, remove it, squeegee it, then re-expose for 3, 4 seconds, replace in developer for a minute. Put photo in water tray, then the fixer tray or place in water tray when image appears to slow down developer then re-expose.

-lost my prior notebook this week-end. Damn. Last time I had it was Sunday night at the radio station, flapping out of my shirt pocket. So pissed.

-Me and Anne finally broke up. Second time Kenny came home and second time it caused me and Anne to break up. He’s home for good now. Pushed out like a piece of shit. First day was pure hell. Yesterday, Monday, September 17— two years flushed away. I still love her. Hate her for the way she’s treated me about this situation (all this 15 days before her 20^th birthday). How did I fall so hard? I was a puppet, played to her liking. What a habit she became— over my house every free moment of my life— that is when I wasn’t at work— a fixture. It’s over. She has chosen Kenny, her first and true love. I ache. I knew it would happen, felt it and I thought I was prepared but wasn’t. Deep down I thought there was a chance yet also that feeling that I didn’t want to settle down and marry her. She used to always say, after I finished college we would get married. Now it’s Kenny revisited. I imagine them two fucking and licking their way through an afternoon. It stings.

Deep down maybe I still want her— but she’d have to change. She’d have to let me live more, breathe a little and let me be with my friends— let me pursue my writing, my hobbies and not to try and choose my friends for me and accept me for who I am and love me for it and try not to change me— damn, and to grow up and just love me. I really miss her. She could be so innocent and sweet , giving, caring and warm. She hasn’t reached her potential— unless she was saving everything for Kenny or learns it from him. Oh well, sad miserable month of my life.

-Went to the radio station today and numbed my brain with music and alcohol from 11:00 am to 5:30 pm— missed photography class because I was too damn drunk.

-I met Anne my senior year in High School, typing class, 6^th period. She was a junior and we were typing partners sharing the same table. I thought she was real pretty and had a great ass. I always thought that I would love to scoop on her if the chance ever came up. But then one day she dropped a bomb.

“Do you want to see a picture of my baby?”

“Yeah… sure.”

“This is a picture of her father. He’s in the army.”

The father was this black kid from Randolph who I knew from previous years in school. Well, at that point I didn’t even bother asking if she were still dating him or not. I lost interest in her. There was no future there no matter what. Even though I wasn’t dating anyone, I was looking but this situation would be just way too much for me.

A month later, I quit typing class, preferring to leave school after 4^th period (no 5^th period class) and just take the F.

A year later, one night I was glancing through Chrissy’s photo-book (my sister’s friend) and I came across a stunning picture of Anne. On the back was her phone number. I asked about her. My sister said that Anne had often asked about me, telling Dawn to have me stop by her house sometime. The next night, New Year’s Eve, I called her. Over the phone she sounded shy, insecure and sweet. We were having a party tonight and I asked if she wanted to come. She was sick with a cold and apologized for not being able to come.

A few days later I called her again. I was working as a part time security guard except during school breaks, I worked full time, 7-3:30. I was on break. Well she said she would stop by my house after I got home from work— she couldn’t stay too late because her mother was babysitting the child. She had to be home by 6. I certainly didn’t want her to bring the kid along. I worried about how my parents would react to me bringing over a girl with her young daughter.

Hell, I was a horny motherfucker too and that day in work, sitting there at my post, I couldn’t help thinking, ‘yeah, sex, finally.’ The other night on the phone our conversation was something like this: “So what are we going to do?” she asked in seductive voice.

I played it cool. “I don’t know. Talk. Hang out. Whatever,” I said.

She said something, I forget exactly but there was strong hint towards something sexual.

When I got home from work that day, she was already there, waiting on the couch, her long hair braided and sexy and she looked real good. I felt shy and awkward and she hugged me. “Oh I haven’t seen you in a long time. How are you?”

 I took a shower. Afterwards, we went upstairs to my bedroom. She sat on my couch. I offered her a vodka and coke.

“No thanks. I don’t drink.”

I was impressed that she didn’t drink. Awkwardly, I sat beside her. She was on me quick however and she did not hesitate. We were making out and feeling each other up. Then we are on my bed. She told me to take off my pants. She blew me and then I fucked her. My no sex streak was over.

I walked her home. I remember thinking after she left, great, a little sex kitten to keep around for a while for some not so serious relationship and fun. I liked her but I had no feelings at all, nothing deep anyway.

After a week she asked me out. I was hesitant and wondered on it a bit before I said yes, what the hell. Sex was great those early days, two or three times a day. This was early January 1989, maybe the 5^th. Twice we celebrated our anniversary on the 5^th. From the beginning, I suspected a long term relationship would not work out. The baby’s father, Kenny would be home on leave in two months. Anne hadn’t seen him in at least a year. At one time they were going to marry each other. Hell she had his kid and I figured when he came home, they would begin anew and I’d just go my merry way. I didn’t care. I had my fun. We’d spend a few hours together a day, great sex, at night I would go out with my friends. For that moment, early on, I lived in a fantasy and I kept myself emotionally detached.

She was still in High School and I really knew nothing about her. I talked to my sister and asked if she could talk to kids in school to see if she were a promiscuous little slut or simply a reliable girlfriend. I wanted to play it safe. I didn’t play around with other girls. I hoped she was reliable for the sake of even just not catching any STD’s. She wasn’t sleeping around however and this made me very happy.

In college I was getting by with average grades, not putting much effort into it. I was writing a lot, on my own time, not for school. I was also hanging out with my friends a lot.

I had never had a serious relationship before Anne. I had dated plenty but nothing ever stuck. Somewhere along the road I began to fall in love with Anne Marie Francis. I gained a sense of power and confidence sexually that I had never known. I became a substitute father for Tonya, for two years, and I was a strong presence in her life. I guess I came along at the right time when she was becoming aware of the world around her, the familiar people and faces she could trust and love or despoil.

I think the phrase that best sums up our relationship now: Lost in Space or Spare Part (Spare change?). My time as a substitute father, terminated.

I remember the first time something snapped in me. Around June of 1989 I was drinking a lot and hanging out at the radio station at night. Anne didn’t like me going there and always put it down and she said I was becoming an alcoholic. One night she began yelling at me for going to the station. I tried to reason with her that I just liked “doing radio shows. I get to express myself in ways I’ve never done before. Don’t try to block out my creative expression.”

One night, I got real drunk and was on the air until the wee hours. Around 4 am, Anne called the station. She had her radio dial set on 100.3 and I guess she turned on the radio. She freaked. She called screaming and condemning me. I thought she broke up with me, so over the air I said something to that effect. She thought I just broke up with her.

Around 8 am that morning, my sister said Anne had come by to return all borrowed things and gifts— well, we got back together again, nothing really solved but we were happy to be in each others arms again.

-A machete rhythmically chopping at a thick tree, faster and faster until it is an invisible blur.

-it is a woman’s hand that reaches out and picks a fresh leaf from the tree and she holds the leaf to her face, smiling wickedly. She lets it go and it falls into a pile of crusted dead leaves.

-I am shaking. I want to scream. To kill Anne. Then me. Anne and Kenny just drove by my house. She didn’t even acknowledge my house, fixed her eyes straight ahead. Damn. I want to talk to her. Ask her why, why,why? I can’t take this shit. I want to cry— cry my brains out. Where were they going? Out to eat? Friday night movie? To Kenny’s friends house? I hate her so much. I want to kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Slit her throat. Betrayed once again. Lied to, unfaithful to, used, mistreated— ahhh.…

I just called her house. She answered hello. She sounded foreign. I hung up. Tonight I will die.

-What the hell just happened? Got to the laundromat at 4 pm for my shift. At 4:10 Anne called, business-like tone. “Hi, I know you don’t want to talk to me but you still have some things of mine over your house….”

We talked for two fucking hours. Told her I still loved her and maybe we could get back together again. She seemed uninterested. She told me that her and Kenny are just friends. She has no plans or cares for a relationship with anyone right now. She still loves him she says and still loves me she says. I believe she wants a relationship with him but for some reason it hasn’t really happened. Maybe he just wants to fuck her once in a while. Maybe he doesn’t want a relationship. She says they haven’t had sex yet though if not I’m sure soon. I asked why she broke up with me. She said there was too much pressure.

I felt really happy to be talking to her again in a friendly way. When his name comes up, her voice turns all sweet. I told her it hurt when she returned my ring. It was mine, she said, meaning me and thought I’d like it back. “Would you wear it again?” I asked.

“Yes. I would but it wouldn’t mean anything.”

She says she doesn’t spend as much time with him as I suspect, in fact, she is bored some days. I asked her if she’d like to come to Blue Hills with me tomorrow, weather permitting and if her and Tonya would come we’d take some pictures (I’m such a pussy). She hesitated and tried to tell me it wouldn’t be good for me, that I couldn’t handle “just being friends” and no kissing. We debated it. If she wasn’t doing anything with Kenny or her family she said she’d come.

Since we broke up she’s been having nightmares about death, she said. Her trying to commit suicide or simply dying. The number 622 keeps flashing through her mind. She was born October 2^nd at 6:22. She lost all her friends when she broke up with me and feels that Jean is going to come to her house and beat her up.

-Anne called back a couple of hours later and told me to come by with her things tomorrow and that she and Kenny were going out tomorrow. So much for that.

-9/24/90 How weird! How strange! How peaceful! How happy! How wonderful! Me and Anne are together again. All my pain has vanished. My war is over, flag high fiving in the wind. No more wounds. She came by this morning and spent some time with me and said that I was the one she wanted, the one that made her happy. She called Kenny and told him the news. He wanted Tonya. No she was coming with her to my house.

We went upstairs, dived on to my bed and said our I-love-yous.

This new revelation might be tough for my family and friends to forgive. This is the second time she fucked me over for him. Two strikes. I forgive but I don’t forget. Take it easy this time. I want to grow again; maybe she will grow with me. I should get on with school and maybe find a job related to photography or writing. I am a sucker. A sucker for women. A sucker for Anne.

- (Anne wrote this in my journal): “I never want to hurt you. I just needed time so now you know that I will never hurt you again. I will always love you. Today, next week, next month, next year, for the rest of my life. I will be the best friend and best lover always and forever.

Love always,

Anne

-I hope so!

-The universe rests

Tension thrust out

In huge gulps, no

More blues, no

More blues, no

Gravity, again.

Sunlight

Color, no

More black and white

Forms

Twirling

Out of place

Space.

Green leaves blue

Sky and rosy

Flower opening inside

Me.

-South Berwick Maine, Gram’s house 9/25- 9/27

The river behind Gram’s house seems still and forgotten like someone you once adored to be with but now has since gone ahead without you. Me and Anne play kick ball in the wide open grassy field. As I walk along, grasshoppers and crickets jump out in bunches with each step I take. I pitch the ball and it rolls to Anne, the ball bouncing along lightly and slowing down— she kicks it and the ball soars over my head and lands along the steep edge of the river; it rolls over and floats away, silently disappearing, moving with the velocity of an aging turtle.

We walk along Emery’s Bridge Road. Tonya beside us, methodically bending over to run her fingers through the sand or to gather dandelions. The road is new tar and the yellow line is bright and bends magnificently, revealing long fields on either side— houses and barns set way back, piles of hay and tractor equipment, sunlight spraying shadow and distance forest openings, yes, the land that time forgot, bushes in overgrown fields like tussled hair, tall woods, smooth straight pine trees like colonnades. Every few feet on the road we see flattened grasshoppers baking in the black tar and heat in contorted shapes.

“Back home all you see are dead squirrels,” I said.

“You should put that in your journal,” Anne said.

Then a grasshopper flies out from the grass into the street. It lingers on the yellow line, silent, stupid, unmoved by our advance, challenging our feet.

-In two years, one of the best nights sexually with Anne. Tonya is asleep and Grams downstairs— magical three hour tour. Sex has been good before but we always seem to have Tonya around and it limits our time. Neil Young cranks on the radio— during the heat of moment Anne says, “where’s your camera— get your camera.” No batteries in the flash. The next night, a repeat but I was too sexually disoriented to stop and take a photo. In the end we both agreed that we had a great time.

-Read Curse of the Bambino by Herald sportswriter Dan Shaunessey who says that when the Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Pinstripes, it began a curse of second best teams, basically. Stupid myth but he does show some historic Sox collapses completely and clearly. The book brought back some childhood baseball memories. Let’s see, 1967, forget it, I wasn’t even a thought yet.

1975: Yes I’ve seen the highlights a dozen times over the years on TV specials. As young as I was then I have a memory of that time, an image. I was 7 years old and don’t recall the actual game. I do however recall the pause between games 5 and 6. Strange. It had been raining in Boston and the game postponed for another night— well, I was sitting in front of the television watching a reporter in Fenway, dressed in yellow rain gear but for some reason can’t recall his voice. The camera cuts to a shot of the moon in dark cloudy Boston sky and settles on it for a few seconds. On reflection, it seems like the shot lingered forever and I remember feeling the anxiety in our living room. I can’t see anyone but can feel my parent’s presence— anxious, excited and uptight.

1978: I remember clearly. I was 10 and a devoted Sox fan. I used to make up my own starting line-up— Rooster, Dewey, Jim Ed, Lynn, Yaz, Pudge and Hobson… and I’d create a batting order. I knew every player’s batting stance and personality at the plate, perfect, lefty or righty. I’d go through the order and alone of course in my bed room. I’d become each player, wiffle ball bat in hand, mimicking each player’s at bats, cycling through the order in dramatic fashion. I’d narrate the game aloud and use a melodramatic commentary voice where always the Sox would snatch victory from certain defeat at nearly impossible moments— always a big game winning clout over the monster. My Red Sox always won.

Well in 1978 the season came down to one game playoff game against the Yankees.  It began at 2 pm and I was watching it on TV. I probably skipped school—maybe my parents let me watch the big game, I forget. Anyway, agonizing day from Mike Torrez to Bucky Dent to Yaz popping up meekly to Craig Nettles at 3^rd in foul territory. Damn, I was bummed, really. But Like I said, MY Sox always won— I knew the secret to victory and managing its path.

1986, of course, total disaster. Everyone blames Bill Buckner and John MacNamara for leaving him in the game. I blame Bob Stanley and Rich Gedman. Stanley threw a pitch too outside and Gedman appeared to hardly move for it— the ball got by him and the run scored to tie the game. If not for that moment, the Sox wouldn’t have been in that predicament anyway. Well it was a fun series to watch and I believe the Sox should have won. Good nights in front of the tube, drinking gin and tonic with Rich and Andy. Well, game 6 I was at my parent’s house huddled there, nerve wracking moments— two outs and two strikes on Gary Carter, game nearly over and won— I wake up my mom to witness history (1918 being the last time Sox won a World Series, led by Babe Ruth)— “come quick, Ma. You never know when they will win this again— history Ma, wake up!” But then history fell apart and they lost the game and the series.

1988. A joke. Swept by the mighty Oakland A’s; 1990, again the Sox hitters were overpowered by Oakland pitching. Clemens, Kiecker and Boddicker held their own but the relief pitching collapsed.

-Gram’s house. A sense of freedom and responsibility—rather self-reliability. No problems, uptight parents or gangs of kids hanging around— no constant phone ringing, traffic or running madly around— no cable or VCR, no suburban dread. Just easy country. No huge plazas. No media hypes or idols. Just slow and calm like the Great Works River behind the house. I like it. I need it. Like aspirin. To leave and return with a new sense of self. One day I will settle in the country and the country will settle in my soul. The clock ticks steady like the trickle of rain.

-Watched a video clip of Derek Sanderson during his days with the Bruins. I’m amazed. His on ice fearlessness and aggression— long cool hair and dark eyes with a hint of nasty. He played with a controlled rage that bursts when he gets pissed. Dark prince, skilled and reckless maniac— teen idol and ladies’ man of his time.

-10/90 Brockton: rain and heavy clouds like a wet sponge squeezed from above a dirty floor. Me, Anne and Tonya are driving to Alan’s house, a photo student in my class. Slippery roads, puddles along curbs. Anne sits beside me; Tonya in back strapped into her car seat and sick with a cold.

“Look at that,” said Anne.

To our right, a small tree with many branches webbing outward like a peacock’s feathers and on each branch hang small pumpkin baskets, Halloween baskets with black eyes and teeth and smiling pumpkins, beaming orange on this grey day.

-Naked trees and cool breezes scatter fragile leaves around the street— skin and bone season, October— kids in jackets and hoods who frolic in yards, mittens falling off, huge raked leaf piles with lots falling down in there center of soft crackling beds— inside kitchens, mothers drink tea and coffee and gossip. Hockey games. Football games. Sharpening of skate blades. Closets opened— boots, thermals, wool jackets. New England fall is here as winter waits a stone’s throw away. Old man winter, cold and dark and friend of the Dinosaurs.

-Season of ghosts and ghouls and jack-o-lanterns and witches and evil spirits. Trick… or treat? Images of fright on windows and doors.

-“Your life is a comfortable mattress,” said Dano. I agree. I need change. I need a new pillowcase? Sheets? Or just a plain new mattress?

-Quote from Lawrence Ferlinghetti the Artist: “scrawl unconsciously, there practically always appears faces on the paper… ten, fifteen, twenty. And savages for the most part…. From what depths do they come? There is a certain interior phantom one must paint.”

Another:

“This figure will spring up on the canvas, will surge out of the paint, like where did it come from? It’s as if they’re existing for all time to spring up on your canvas at this instant.”

I think these words to describe painting can be applied to writing too.

-a dream: an image of a house— a big, three maybe four story house, somewhere in West Newton off the turn pike. My best friends lived there— a big happy hide and go seek house for 13 year old boys. Scott and Bobby and his brothers Billy and Keith along with two single moms, Scott and Bobby’s moms, of course and they lived there for at least a year. I’d ride my bicycle from Watertown, through Waltham and anticipating my adventures with them— throwing stones at cars, shingles at houses (we did not know any better) or just playing guns in the neighborhood and using our imagination (I always had a cool gun and always escaped but on those rare moments when I got shot, I would die dramatically, heroically) or bike ramps facing down the hill to jump or Blind Man’s Bluff in the gigantic house and plain mustard sandwiches on soft white bread. So, in the dream, I saw the house, like an opening shot of a movie and then it disappeared like an under developed photo exposed to the light.

In 2014, I was working maybe a mile or two from this old house and I went out of my way one morning to see if it was still there... and it was. Of course, though still a big house, it's giganticness had surely diminished with age.

-Lose an hour, gain an hour. What the hell’s the difference? Woke up with that late feeling, that intuitive feeling of lost time. Suddenly I was an hour earlier than what my body was telling me.. My internal clock works pretty well but simply wasn’t adjusted to the time change.

-I stand alone at the register, the zero items or less express line.

-Belcher Park. Me, Anne, Tonya and my dog, Brandy— on a brisk fall day. Tonya wears her winter jacket and holds a pumpkin basket. She runs down the hill building too much speed for her young body to control— tree roots, rocks and gutted earth, but faster she goes and I’m rooting for her and at the bottom she stops and looks around, red-faced. She is surrounded by fragile bent branches.

“Be careful, Tonya,” said Anne.

“If you run too fast you might fall and hurt yourself,” I said.

-It’s 2 in the morning as I pull up to the closed Sunoco gas station— deserted. I hop out of the car, walk over to the Coke machine and drop three quarters into the slot. Having just returned from playing hockey at the Randolph rink, I’m hot and sweaty. I couldn’t wait to drink something. Then this funny feeling comes over me. I imagine myself in a Coke commercial, an image of the can being opened and the Coke thrust down my throat, the Coke song plays and the narrator boasts it’s thirst quenching taste and says finally, “he would do anything, drive anywhere at any time for a cold Coke classic.”

-my dream job, to freelance write and photography.

-Hung down and over

Tossing

Body; head braced

For the tennis ball

Inside

To quit.

-Copley Plaza Hotel. A swell of fans rubbing elbows and chanting the actors’ names. Despite the icy winds, downtown Boston is packed as if the Patriots or Bruins had just won a championship.

“What’s up, Norm?” Sammy asks.

“My nipples. It’s freezing out there,” Norm responds.

Cameras and flashes, photographers and tourists all converge on the hotel where they are staying. The red carpet stretches from inside the lobby and the desk (at least) and ends outside to the street curb. Fans straggle on the carpet waiting for the late arrival— George Wendt, Kirstie Alley and John Ratzenberger. I wait, poised with my camera in the bone chilling wind alongside two lion statues beside the hotel door.

A mail truck slowly drives by and an amused mailman drives away to the chants of “Cliff! Cliff!”

I hop a gate beside the statues and wait by the doors but curse that move as there are so many damn people taller than me with their own cameras— push, push, push, I strain, peering over heads— then the red carpet momentarily vanishes in a sea of fans who begin yelling, “Norm! Norm!” No Norm yet though.

A young guy, maybe 22 with blond hair and glasses jokes with me about the situation. He’s got his camera in one hand and his girlfriend in the other. We stand and wonder and freeze.

“Let’s see if we can get inside,” I said.

A tall black man with camera poised follows us. He’s really pissing me off because of his height and keeps getting in my way. Once inside, he starts hogging all the angles again. A hotel security officer, Kevin, tells us to leave because we are crowding the area. Still lots of people line the walls and even more in the corridor that connects to the lobby. The tall black guy leaves. Me and the blond kid stay and line up against the wall, opening up space. We’re psyched. I sit on the floor and wait. An old couple stands behind me.  The woman says to me, “You’re not going to stand up are you?”

“Nope. This is just fine,” I said.

“Good because we came all the way from Houston and if I missed them I was gonna break your neck.”

“Don’t worry. I’m fine.”

As the doors burst open, the crowd roars. George Wendt is here, much shorter in person as he walks along quick and shy— looking every bit like Norm bouncing through Cheers. “Hi everybody,” he says. His head is angled slightly down as his eyes look up at the swarm around him. He is escorted into the lounge where the other actors are. Tight security. No press allowed. Only the cast and select few celebrities and producers and writers of the show. I over hear security officers saying that Wendt’s car had broken down and they were arranging him another ride.

The Cheers parade starts at the hotel and ends at City Hall Plaza where they will have a rally to commemorate Cheers’ 200^th show. Wendt is the last to arrive and the parade is delayed. Also because of the unexpected crowds, security has decided to cancel the planned back exit the actors would leave from but will use another exit instead. A young man with dark curly hair and an NBC patch on his jacket  pocket exchanges verbal shout with Kevin, the security supervisor because he won’t let them into the lounge. So much for the NBC logo. He persists with the angry banter and feigns disbelief and continues to point accusations at Kevin. He huffs and puffs around the lobby in circles with an attitude akin to a Hollywood ego. The crowd enjoys the show— giggling and smiling and elbowing each other as if to say, “get a load of that guy.” Kevin doesn’t give a fuck who he is and doesn’t budge. After one more assault, he finally leaves, either a failed prankster or pissed off NBC employee.

The parade is ready to begin. At the front is a flatbed truck with a band waiting to play. Police sirens come up from behind people crowding the street and the crowd parts as a motorcycle cop trims the road of bodies. I’d been looking through my lens and almost got my foot run over. Another motorcycle cop, in leather and helmet, does the same thing on the other side of the street. The truck starts up its engine and the crowd inches out again into the street. The band leader calls out and they start moving. Everyone screams madly and adoringly. The motorcycle cop makes another pass and then three more emerge. One has an injured ankle, his face is grimacing. He tells the other cops that he was pushed down by the crowd gathered around Ted Danson and Kirstie Alley’s vehicle.

Soon the actors vehicles slowly make it our way, driving slow, Ted and Kirstie in a convertible. Ted wears an overcoat and a derby; Kirstie, an overcoat and scarf— she is excited and seems to be loving the attention and absorbing it all. The next car carries a smiling yet bewildered Kelsey Grammer sporting a Bruins jacket and gorgeous Bebe Neuwirith, smiling warmly. Then a mail truck with John Ratzenberger standing in the back, a 35 millimeter camera over his shoulder and he waves. The next vehicle has Rhea Pearlman, waving her arms and turning all around to the crowd, wearing a Bruins jersey; sitting beside her is Boston Bruin center man Dave Poulin who has a controlled smile but seems to be enjoying the ride. The next vehicle has Roger Rees, pumped up and high fiving the crowd, a little red-face and probably drunk. Finally George Wendt, slouched down in his seat, reserved and peaking up, seemingly a bit awed by it all.

“How’s life treating you, Norm?”

“Like I just ran over his dog.”

City Hall Plaza. The parade, having traveled down Boylston, across Charles and Beacon, comes to an end at City Hall Plaza. Thousands crammed, the upper deck, staircases, men on high ledges, others outside windows and emergency exits and one guy has climbed a street lamp, sitting comfortably between two bulbs. The throng is ready to explode, waiting. A speaker comes to the microphone and garners applause for the first place Bruins, Division Champion Red Sox and Brian Shaw led Celtics. He makes a joke about the Patriots. The Dedham High School band plays the Cheers theme song. Channel 5’s Bob Lobel and TV 38’s Dana Hersey chat nearby the stage area.

“We want Cheers!”

“We want Cheers!”

“We want Cheers!”

Police on horseback patrol the street and security guards buzz back and forth on walkie talkie’s. A policeman screams at a truck driver to move his Brinks truck. He is blocking the final leg of the parade. The cop, red-faced and angry warns him he’ll have it towed. The driver ignores the warning and walks into the building to finish his drop off or pick up.

There is a narrow passageway from the parking garage to the stage. My eyes are focused and I wait with my camera ready. I am trigger happy. Tonya is cold and uncomfortable in the stroller and cries. My parents are energized— especially my dad, a die-hard Cheers fan; even Anne seems to be caught up in the excitement, despite the cold chapped lips. Behind us, standing on a high square platform someone is dressed in a guerrilla suit as they jump up and down and waves.

Then, they come out in single file to hoots and stomps. Everyone takes turns talking to the audience. Ted Danson was presented with an official Louisville Slugger bat and Red Sox hat by former Red Sox pitcher, Dick Radatz. Danson said he’d “never” experienced an event like this before. “Thank you, Boston. We love you.”

Next the Boston Traffic Commissions presented Kirstie Alley with a street in her name, and when she saw the sign she shouted, “Yes!” She pumped her fist and smiled grandly. Then she said that Boston had better looking guys than Hollywood and that drew a loud applause. Then she said,” I would like to invite you all to my new street to have a streeeeet party!”

Next, Rhea Pearlman was presented with an official hockey stick and a kiss on the cheek by Dave Poulin. “Boston has the best looking bodyguards,” she said. Her voice seems to tremble a little as if nervous unlike her strong willful Carla character on TV.

John Ratzenberger. “Don’t any of you work?” he asked. It drew a huge cheerful response. He told his story of how he grew up right here in Boston.

Kelsey and Bebe. Said Kelsey,” I know now why Frasier makes such a good living in this town. You’re all suffering from mass psychosis.” He never stopped smiling. He looked bigger in person too, not fat just big. Then Bebe chimed in, “I’m going to name my next child, Boston.” It was a reference to the show.

Roger Rees took to the microphone with his heavy English accent. He said,”They let me out of prison for this.” Another reference to the show. He made a joke about how the pilgrims left for England and founded Cheers.

George Wendt was presented with a football jersey by former Patriot, Tim Fox. Said Fox, ”Norm is the epitome of an NFL Linesman. He’s big, he’s big… he’s big and he loves beer.” Wendt seems tongue tied and his speech is slow and filled with pauses. He said wished Shelley Long and Woody Harrelson had made the trip and also mentioned deceased Nick Colasanto, the Coach.

-Randolph. Rich tells me his story. We’ve heard it, seen it before. Well here it is again, years from now. Boredom. Monotony. Old comfortable mattress. I’m in touch with that. I live that story.Small town. Old town. Our town. He’s tired. Nothing is new, even when he comes home on leave. Go out and drink and meet girls or play cards or watch the tube or talk about the old days— the first drink, the first girl, the first arrest. The atmosphere was fresh and alive then— somewhere the road dulled— the yellow line a little longer with fewer surprise curves. This is our story.

-Me and Rich drinking and joking about girls we hooked up with for a night or a brief fling. Randolph girls. Girls who got around and acquired reputations and popularized by the guys who scooped on them or other girls who were just plain jealous of said girls. I came up with a funny metaphor for these girls— that they were like baseball cards. We acquire them, trade them for ones we haven’t got yet— most times we are stuck with packs of commons but hoping and waiting for that all-star card. (Not very fair analogy but we had fun with it)

-

“I really do love you,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Yes. More than you love me.”

“How much do you love me?” he asked.

She stripped naked. They consumed each other hungrily.

“I told you. I love you so much. Believe me?”

“yup.”

-Two young boys play around the tarred driveway— showing off skateboard skills and bragging or lying about possessions of expensive baseball cards. Cool fall noon day. Then the older boy shouts,” don’t kick my cat!”

“I didn’t kick your cat.”

“I saw you. Don’t lie. If you ever kick my cat again— it’s not funny.”

“I didn’t.”

   

“You did too! Don’t ever kick my cat— ever.

“I didn’t kick your cat.”

-You know what really sucks Miss Dilliard? I have these experiences or thoughts that at the moment seem real good and I think they deserve to be written down. Sometimes these flashes come so quick that I forget to write them down. Then a couple of days later it will hit me again, but this time it’s only a partial memory or distorted image of the original thought or idea. The distance between them deteriorates the immediacy of the thought. Forgetful sucks.

-This is the story of Martin Young, a sad tale of a lonely man. For forty-one years, his only goal in life was to win the free turkey drawing at the local laundromat. Forty-one Thanksgiving days, come and gone. Every year it’s the same: he hopes, he prays, he weeps for the cursed turkey.

-Little boys and girls in jackets and mittens. Fat bitter mothers prepare stuffing, cranberry sauce and turkey. Odd goofy fathers without humor, happy to simply exist.  

-Peeping Tom Blues:

Phallus lectures from below

Reaching, resounding walls

Women in many shapes flash

Them.

The cunt

Helpless to its power

In line;

The young mother folding

Laundry.

-the student in the 1 item or less; the social butterfly at the bus stop. His id boils over until he masturbates.

-the snake coiled

Hissed from cave

Coils once more

Hiss again.

-the conch

It tightens

Up.

-who what?

Opening door

Stairs creak, thump

Steps approach

The door not shut

Up.

-fuck you

Dick glass ask

Ash tray for you

Glass eyed lady.

-the real image,

the one unseen.

-free form thoughts on paper paper wee wee stairway train pit— yahoo, we’re off to downtown trodden women of mud castle peak.

-Dream fragments: the monster in the closet, it ate Nolan Ryan… I lost a friend, savagely beaten, eaten and bloodied and thrown in pieces on the floor near the big closet that housed the monster… it was a gruesome plant-animal beast and had two siblings growing near the door of the big closet. The monster injects foamy mucous into throats of people… it whispers children’s names, calling on them like sirens leading sailors to tragedy. We ran away from the frightening ghost-like echo of its voice… the monster had eaten nearly the entire human race and transformed the others into flesh eating zombies… there was only one way to destroy them— fire… most of the fight took place on a river and a river boat chase ensued. Myself and a few friends are now on a small canoe; a pack of monsters chase us down on to a big Viking ship.

-dream: Murderess thieves. I open the front door. Slabs and the others are gutting my cat, Benny. The cat is in a crawling position as if trying in vain to run or slip away. His back is bloody and bony and sliced open. One last slow meow. Slabs laughs fiendishly and glares at me.

-Braintree, South Shore Plaza. Christmas shoppers everywhere. I bump elbows and search out mall short cuts— slice through droves of people and judge direction and speed of onrushing groups. I laugh to myself before cursing the commercial parts of Christmas. I am here for a cheeseburger, that’s all. I’m on my way home from school and the plaza was on my way home.

The best time to be in the mall during this season is in the morning sleepiness— stores are closed and gates are locked; ads, posters and discount signs have no value where there are no people. I love the Christmas ornaments— the wreaths, the lighted trees and the music. They feel warm and special and seem to be there just for me— no shoppers greedily consuming gifts— alone I absorb them and wonder and swept away into Christmas spirit—that feeling I get that makes me feel like a child again and I’m protected by some invisible shield of youth that wards off alienation and aging and reality and tragedy— that I’ll be all right in the world and everything remains sad and beautiful and golden and angelic— what an illusion! And what an illusion it is and a giant leap into escapedom.

-Lauriat’s Books. Huge mess— books on floors, fiction books in the business section, anonymous books in the psychology department, the domino effect of hardcovers falling and slapping the floor— long endless lines and dinging of the register and beeps of scanners reading book codes— cash flowing freely and filling the drawers— credit cards painfully stalling the lines, creating longer waits and the slow monotonous credit card procedures: numbers, expiration dates, license numbers, and phone numbers and signatures— pain in the ass to us register workers who constantly deal with people and money for hours. “Thank you. Have a nice day,” I say in my best Hallmark voice.

-Negrotistical bastard.

-to lie in bed body sweat stomach sick cough

Drops paining my teeth white flash skin chill

Weak bones vision too bright

I’m gonna fall

On the job

Back to bed blankets

And sleep rest and sleep.

-dreams, dreams, dreams— in search of the dreamer— an autobiographical account of one man’s dreams— no other information revealed only that within his dreams. We see the man and his world unfold through his dreams.

-Copley Plaza. Saw Theresa, same old Theresa— lightning eyes, hip stance, sexy voice. When I applied for a job in the Braintree store, she looked at my application, threw it down on the table and asked me who my five favorite writers were. Without hesitation I answered, I forget who, Kerouac, Hemingway and Steinbeck for sure but I gave her five authors and she hired me on the spot. She’s running this store now. How are things? Small talk. Lauriats Braintree? Still there? We were never close. She was my manager but I liked her a lot. Our meeting felt awkward though. Anne, the district manager cunt was there; I think she heard me rag on Braintree store. Al was with me and he reminded me we had to split— well limited exchange and bad timing I guess— oh well, good luck Theresa. 

-“I’m sick of it. I’m just gonna pretend she never existed. I can’t handle this. She shouldn’t have dragged me into this and drop it after two months, man. The thing that pisses me off— she hasn’t told me a thing— ‘it’s not working out’. What the fuck is that? She breaks up with me and doesn’t tell me why. The next thing ya know, the draft will come up next week and I’ll be over in Saudi, killing people and won’t know why either. Protect my country for what? Fuck that, man. It’s all so stupid,” he said.

-Christmas sucks, he thought, circling the parking lot. Christmas sucks, he thought, fighting through the crowd.

-Attleboro, La Salette. Christmas park, you could say— it’s actually a wide expansive monastery surrounded by short hills and there’s a big pond, long walkways and tall stairs lined with religious statues— and of course, lots and lots of wonderful Christmas lights, beautifying the cold dark in all forms, shapes and colors. It seems formless at times, endless— the blues, red, greens reflect on the pond’s surface and further up the pathway, they light up busts and plaques of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Wise men and sheep and biblical quotes are displayed on painted wood or decorations. Sweet Christmas music. Hark the Herald Angels Sing warms my soul. If only there was some snow.

-dream: a blue school bag, framed pictures, a letter and a card from Kenny in Tonya’s writing, well concealed.

A bus ride with Anne’s brother, John and his wife and kids. I show him framed pictures of them and pictures of yellow flowers— pictures that Anne had taken in black and white but, just like the dream, it’s in color.

I meet John, his wife and kids on a bus trip and then she shows me a card Kenny wrote to their sons, John Jr and Joshua. One of their relatives is drafted by the NHL— Kenny explains to him the difficulties of being a rookie. John loves the pictures of himself. Calm dream but very strange.

-dream: Paul tells me to wait at the end of the path— drive up to the path and wait. I say the path is too rocky and he says it’s all right. He drives his Escort through there all the time he says. I drive and the road cuts through wilderness— muddy, bumpy ground, ascending around a bend— rocks and logs and tree roots all on the road. My Firebird is low to the ground and as I go around a bend, my car gets caught on a rock. I tried to avoid it but the path is heavily obstructed. I press the accelerator and the car tries to free itself… it breaks through. I inspect the car and something is leaking and needs to be fixed. I wonder how much it will cost. Paul says not to worry about it.

-warm rainy December drag.

Drag, drag drack

Oops

There I go again

Trying to— blah

Trying to— trapped;

Sorry.

Trapping free form

Thoughts

Into

verse.

-Christmas Eve. Keep watch by the tower, Santa Claus alert.

-Today’s theme is loneliness and hurt. I shop in the record store. I meet a girl, Amy. Her boyfriend broke up with her. He brags that he’s got four other girls. She says she’s going to get drunk tonight, real drunk. A few minutes later, Keith comes in and says his girlfriend broke up with him and she won’t tell him why. He says she lies. He wants to cry. Two days ago, Rod’s girl had dumped him too. I saw him meandering around the parking lot, head down, slow mope ahead and hands in pockets. “I just want to get the fuck out of here,” he said.

-drummer boy beats

Loose heads——

———— then

Song ends.

-A skit: opening shot of candy canes on Christmas tree then shot of candy canes sticking out of stockings. Next shot, some trees in Belcher Park with candy canes on them. Me and Jamie are walking through Belcher Park looking very concerned.

“Look at that. Another candy cane,” I say.

“That’s the fifth one so far. What does it all mean?” Jamie asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Could it… be?”

They ponder their thoughts a moment. They turn and look each other in the eyes.

“The Candy Cane Man,” we say, in unison.

-Bob joined the army nearly two years ago. Reagan was the president. The Star Wars program was a big issue in the news. Well, Bob was just a kid looking for something to do with his life. He’s in that army, still and only just a young pup. Well now he’s in Saudi Arabia preparing for war. Imagine that! We studied history together in school for years and wars always seemed to be an issue no matter what era. The teachers tried to make us understand and make sense of these wars. They were always someone else’s wars, never ours. We went to class and we left class to go outside and play ball. Who would have thought in their wildest dreams of war in our time?

-His first car now broken down. For months he cruised the streets freely and independent and blasted that radio. Before his first car, his life consisted of passenger seats, buses, bicycles and walking. Now he stood at the bus stop, waiting. As the bus stopped to pick him up, he cursed his luck as he threw change into the meter.

He settled down. He remembered some pleasant things about bus rides— staring blankly out the window and watching the neighborhoods roll by and resting his head against the window as it vibrated and sometimes a series of potholes would cause in him an unwanted hard-on but then pretty girls would board and he would fantasize about them. No man, it wasn’t all that bad he remembered.

-“Are you serious? Only yesterday you had energy, ideas and motivation. What ghost have you seen?”

-“Yes he does. A pathological one too. He does it to protect himself he does. Keeps him out of trouble. Yes sir, he’s a card all right. Believe you me. He lies about everything. He can’t stop. There’s a fine line between truth and deceit and he can straddle, boy. He sure can bend that truth, yes he can,” he said.

“Who are you? What is your goal in life? Such a simple question isn’t it? You don’t agree?”

“Yes sir, he’s told some beauts.”

-My mind, empty. A plate in my head with bolts that are stripped and have fallen away. The plate it just hangs there, half on. Things are just not together. Decisions are tough to make when there’s nothing there to govern the process. Why can’t things simply flow natural and undecided by human mix up?

-New Year’s Eve, 1990. Seven and a half more hours from a new year and it comes like any other typical day. Why do we celebrate aging? Eternal youth! Bring me no passage!

-“For some strange reason you get a feeling of accomplishment and it’s only laundry.”

-I’m so fucking excited, man. I can’t even focus on writing a couple of thoughts or memories— excitement blocks all— no concentration.

“Hey happy new year!”

“Yeah you too.”

-Liquor stores are packed like Thursday night at the supermarket. Fight for parking. Bumper to bumper. Cold December air like a frosty mug.