Sunny Delight

Sunny Delight
Freshly cut grass dying on concrete was all Joe saw. With his thumbs under the padded straps of his black book bag, he slouched forward-a sharp curve from belly to forehead. Joe moved quickly from class to class, sometimes bumping into others. His shoulder length brown hair fell over his eyes when he scuttled along the sidewalks at his university. It was very spread out, very little grass, mostly concrete, and all of it completely exposed to a blistering sun. Hidden beneath his hair was an over sized pair of silver headphones that blared music nobody else liked. It was a cd his band had recorded in his mom’s garage. He wore black shirts lacking any design, everyday, and black slacks that were a size too small, everyday. His eyes were probably brown but no one ever saw them to confirm it. Joe kept his long, pale and slender limbs close to his body at all times. Joe rarely ate at the University unless his mother had packed him a lunch. Even at 23, his palette never matured and his tastes remained considerably specific, so the common foods available at the university such as pizza, burritos, and sandwiches would not suffice. It wasn’t healthy. Besides, there were way too many people around those food courts making way too much noise. On most days, his mother would pack his favorite lunch. In his backpack would be a brown paper sack, with his name on it and a heart. In the bag was a sandwich made with 12 grain bread, Nutella (chocolate spread), honey, Grape Nuts cereal, banana, and a few leaves of baby spinach for garnish and added nutrients. In the bag would always be a crisp apple, too big for any one person, especially Joe’s size, and a small green canteen with his favorite juice-Sunny D.
On this particular day, Joe ate his lunch behind the newly built computer lab under an old tree on a concrete bench covered in white spots-healthy pigeon excrement. Joe ate his lunch quickly and with the utmost efficiency. First, the sandwich, which was the heart of the meal and had to be eaten first. The apple was considered ancillary but still had nutritional value, so that had to be second. The Sunny-D had little nutritional value so that had to be last. He knew the last thing he tasted needed to be something sweet. After finishing his meal in a record five minutes he neatly wadded up the plastic wrap into the paper bag and tossed the whole of it into the nearest trashcan. He had scoped it out during the feeding process. His mother had itemized his day for him in his pocket calendar the night before. He didn’t need to look at it, but he did anyway. He pulled his bag up over his back rearing his head forward once again to create the momentum needed to propel him toward the south wing of the library-then to the 4th floor. He would then study for one hour and twenty minutes reviewing a chapter in his philosophy book before he needed to be in class. Joe liked the 4th floor. It was quieter than the rest of the library since the installation of the coffee shop downstairs. He drank their coffee everyday but still managed a considerable disdain for the noise it generated. On the 4th floor there were individual study-group rooms he could sneak into, if unlocked, that were virtually sound proof. Some days, he left the lights off. The chairs were perfect. They were made of sturdy wood. They made no sound. He hated the plastic chairs in the classrooms. They spoke even when the class went silent.
With the quick forward pull of his shoulders, Joe left the 4th floor, the library, and continued dragging his head in the direction of the philosophy building. Along the way a shadow passed him, speaking from the blur a familiar voice.
“Hey Joe how’s it….”
There would be no time to inspect this blur for confirmation of its existence. Joe could not justify the slowing of his momentum. Crossing the street he had crossed only an hour and a half earlier, he noticed the freshly cut grass once again just beginning to turn brown. Each blade looked familiar, but how could he be expected to know if they were? He wasn’t about to give any of them names.
‘Susan,’ Joe thought. ‘That’s her name.’
Like the ungodly force of throwing a corvette in reverse on the freeway, Joe turned around. The girl from his previous class was a good twenty meters away from him now but he wouldn’t let her believe that he could be so cold as to pass her without recognition. Now, he remembered her name. Not only that, he had remembered her white and yellow sunflower dress, the way it wasn’t too short, wasn’t too long, had a great big black belt that wrapped around her stomach and waist. He remembered her hair, a soft inviting and unimposing light brown that felt like summer. He remembered that she had freckles all over her body. They covered her face so lightly and gently that they only added to her beauty. She had crooked teeth where vampire fangs might be, just enough to make her interesting.
“Susan!” Joe released a gasp of air spraying a fine mist of sweat from his brow.
“Susan. Susan. Wait up.” He caught up, devoid of breath and ideas.
“Joe.” Susan turned around with her face smirking and contorting in dimples almost making her appear less attractive, but for some reason made her more attractive.
“Joe, what are you doing?”
He had captured his breath and was then beginning to correct his posture, as far as he could, with what little confidence he had.
“It’s that…It’s just that..You, uh. I didn’t see, uh. I forgot to say hi, is all.”
Susan giggled which made him feel a little better. She picked up her backpack and looked as if she needed to go. “OK Joe. Is that all?”
“Um, pretty sure. Yeah.”
She smiled a full smile this time and started to turn.
“No uh, actually. No there, also, I wanted to tell you that, um, well. You know I’m in a band right?” She nodded quickly, putting the odd smirk back on her face.
“Well we're gunna play tonight and,” Joe struggled to pull a flyer for the show out of his bag when all 20 he had printed tore on the zipper.
“Hold on. Let me just..” Joe finally pulled the wad out with a force of frustration. Wrinkled and oily from his sweaty palms, he accidentally handed all twenty flyers to Susan.
“That’s cool Joe.” She handed them back with two fingers, further contorting that smirk on her face.
“Just tell me where it’s going to be and what time and I’ll go ok?” Susan turned around fully and this time with greater speed. “See ya Joe.”
Joe was kneeling down still trying to catch a glimpse of her as she nearly skipped along the concrete, kicking up wisps of dead grass with her brown clunking grandma shoes, sending the blades into swirls behind her, all of it complementing her white and yellow sunflower dress. Joe saw this moving picture for a glorious three seconds before the glare off a rear view mirror in a 1979 Chrysler Le Baron caught the sun and shot white hot heat into his retina. The car had been blaring music Joe couldn’t stand, an incessant thumping shaking his chest.
In class, he looked at his desk. His music played on in his head but it was beginning to be a distraction from the intricate patterns he loved noticing in the veneer covering his particleboard desk. He couldn’t understand why his palms became so sweaty when he touched anything synthetic. He loved that he didn’t know. He ran his fingers over the dark brown lines simulating wood, swirling with each turn. Always something new. Always something interesting. The professor came in and for a brief moment Joe looked up to confirm he was in the right place at the right time. After this was accomplished his head went back down into his book bag and then immediately into his book to the appropriate chapter. By then, the memory of the other faces in the room washed into pastels.
At home his mother bombarded him with hugs and kisses before he had a chance to put down his book bag or even shut the front door. His head stayed down looking at the carpet while his mother ran her fingers through his hair. She was a large, blond German woman in her 50's with kind round cheeks and piercing eyes that were nearly devoid of pupils.
“D'you wash your hair today son?”
If there's one thing Joe hated it was emphatic greetings followed by accusations.
“Don't remember.”
His mother went into her kitchen and began staring into the pot of spaghetti sauce while continuing her attempt at conversation with Joe.
“Dinner's about ready. You wanna wash up and come on in here?”
She added in the apparent choice to give Joe the impression she was backing off. He rolled his eyes in the hallway. He felt perhaps he could have pretended to enjoy those big heavy arms wrapped around his, pressing his elbows into his ribs.
“Thanks mom. I'll be right there.”
Joe left the room looking for the smirk on his mother's face to return acknowledging that she had won this give-and-take game they have always played. The smirk returned and so did a new attempt to connect.
“Mom, I, uh, tonight I have to play remember?” Joe stayed in the hallway pretending to be moving toward his bedroom. His mother stayed silent for longer than Joe would have liked.
“So I can't stay too long. I need to get ready,” Joe added.
“Play what dear?” The sounds of his mother's wooden spoon against the large deep sauce pot increased in volume and in frequency.
“Remember? My band mom. We're playing tonight at DG's.”
The spoon fell against the side of the metal pot and stopped.
“Oh. That's right. The band thing. Well, ok. Don't you wanna eat first?”
The spoon resumed its noise making and soon after, so did the rest of the kitchen utensil orchestra.
Joe took little time to pack his drums into his little Japanese economy car. His mother watched him from various areas of the house, slowly folding laundry. When Joe got to the club he was reminded once again that his body wasn't built for lifting such heavy cumbersome objects. His skinny fingers and slender body would have made for a great guitar player but Joe always liked the anonymity of being behind something. In this case behind three other guys and a wall of drums. On this particular night, Joe left enough space between his equipment and the “Big Other,” the audience, to see if a flash of color and curves crossed this makeshift peephole. For much of the band's set, Joe's eyes stayed focused on the drums themselves. Inconsequential moments passed when his neck was permitted to straighten for a quick glimpse into a neutral blur in front of him. Sweat had infiltrated his eyes. His heart beat increased further and further until his vision reddened.
The song was over. Joe's head and neck rested into that comfortable space where his plain black t-shirt could more closely and lovingly wipe his brow, as his mother would have. In the distance, at the entrance to the club was a figure in white. A familiar black circle wrapped and segmented the figure into two glorious halves. The figure came into focus revealing a longer, whiter, cotton dress, adorned with sleek modern black high heels, hair curled and floating in heavenly arrangements, flowing all the way down to a familiar black belt. The figure moved slowly, looking at each new detail of the room, stepping lightly and with caution in random directions, awaiting instruction, and perhaps preparing for unfamiliar smells. The figure found a face behind a small fortress of wood and steel that directed her movement in a purposeful manner. A smile emerged.
“Joe. Hey, there's someone I'd like you to meet.”
Another figure, in dark clothing, emerging from nothingness, out of “the real,” never fully establishing human shapes and characteristics, barely seemed to exist as it blurred like a rock in the distance, directly in front of Joe.
“Joe, this is my friend Manny. He really liked your band.”
Joe didn’t know Manny, what he was to Susan, or what to say to either one of them. He loved that he didn’t know.

Eating Her Womb

Eating Her Womb

My weak fleshy arms
Transparent and pink
Gripping with tiny instruments
Stubby and delicate
Wrapping new fingernails around my tether
To a blood red abyss
And I am drowning.
I pull at the string
Struggling to reach a shore
Or platform
Safe-haven
Dear God
Give me a breath of fresh air!
I’m not sure it exists
So with soft gums
It takes decades
to chew through
this tough tube
and eat away lining
tissue and sinew
open my eyes
having finally survived you.

This is the Story of an Old Man

This is the Story of an Old Man

This is the story of an old man, a very old man. I am not old. I am a college student. I go to a moderately sized university in the southwestern United States. I am in my senior year now and have enjoyed nearly every class I have taken there. My favorite days are those when I don’t have to work and get to spend the whole day at school, sometimes with hours in between classes, which gives me a perfect excuse to go to the library and read things my teachers have not assigned. My life now is not an exciting one. It used to be. It used to be, dangerous. I am happy now. I am content. I am in love. My time is managed, more like a responsible adult. I have seen my friends dwindle and fade into history. My days are quiet. I stay at home and read to avoid getting traffic tickets and rude stares from drivers who can afford to keep their air-conditioned cars running. When my fiancé is at work I watch Hitchcock films and dream of being a director. I don’t know anything about film.
On Wednesday evenings from 6:00pm-9:00pm I have a class at the University. It is a class on Modernist and Post-Modernist fiction. I imagine sometimes when I am reading, that I have befriended the authors and go drinking with them and my professor in old English pubs-odd considering that the authors are all American-and then I have to re-read long passages, trying to find where it was I first began to daydream. At the front of the class, nearest to the professor’s podium sits the oldest student, Helmond. He is 88 years old. No one in the class knows much about him. We all know that he talks more than all of us combined on any given Wednesday. It is difficult to see if the professor appreciates his enthusiasm or is just too polite to show any signs of annoyance.
Helmond loves to give reference to the popular culture of his day, which more than usually is beyond a frame of reference for even our professor. Helmond wears dark colored suits to class along with plaid hats, sometimes with bright feathers sticking out from the side. He has huge coke bottle glasses that sit firm into the deep ridge of his old sagging nose. He looks as if dust might rise up into the air if you were to hug him awkwardly like a grandfather on Christmas day. This was a stark contrast from the typical khaki colored cargo shorts and rock band t-shirts scattered about the room. For many older people that attend the university, there is hesitation in their voices, even in some cases an underlying terror the younger students can sniff out from the obvious fact that something or someone in their room was out of place. For Helmond, this was certainly not the case. He had an air of confidence and a presence in the room that quieted those of us fresh from adolescence. We respected Helmond. We looked at him like we would an animal that gets brought to the zoo only for special exhibits, one whose viewing area sadly displays a plaque of its imminent extinction.
Half way through the semester it occurred to me that because of this respectful distance we all kept from Helmond, he might never get the chance to experience the warmth of those late night study sessions with wayward college students who chaotically call each other for desperate assistance the night before an exam. That would be a pity. Or at least I assumed so. I myself had never had the desire to take part in these. I hated group work almost as much as I hated people in general, but poor Helmond may not feel this way. Should I deprive him of his experience just because I am an obstinate, cynical introvert?
As midterms approached, I came up with a plan. I would befriend Helmond Bender. It would be just like I had imagined in my literary daydreams. We would discuss how terrible music and television had gotten while reminiscing about the swing jazz era over glass after glass of single malt scotch on ice. I would refrain from cursing in front of him, because I have gathered from parental figures that it is only in our reckless generation X world that this sort of language is tossed about so haphazardly.
It began by simply saying “hi” to him as he waited patiently in the hallway, half an hour before class.
“Hello Helmond. How are you today?”
“Well, fine I s’pose. Just finished that weird one last night, ‘Balloon, or The Balloon, something or other.”
I looked at him with a smile, a reassuring smile.
“Right, right. The Balloon. What’d you think?”
Helmond would turn his lower lip out as if to say he was truly giving the story a chance to mean something to him.
“It was alright I s’pose.”
I would return the favor with a turned lower lip as well as if to give his comment the proper amount of time to settle.
“Alright, well, see you inside,” and then I would dart off somewhere pretending to have some very important young-person thing to do in the other direction. I was constantly terrified of screwing up my plan with language that would create barriers between us. This was a difficult task. I could not use language of the 30’s and give my self away as a fraud, a disingenuous little prick that was up to something. I also had to avoid any hip lingo that would put him off, something to the effect of, “right on man,” or “yeah, fuck that story.”
Slowly, my plan began to work. Our conversations increased by a few sentences each time we met. The week before midterms I no longer felt the need to run away from him. Just as I had relaxed around Helmond I became aware of a larger more pressing problem that threatened to destroy my plan. So far, in this class, as well as all of my other classes, I had spoken to no one other than Helmond. Not once did I lend anyone a pencil or pen. Not once did I attempt to exchange phone numbers with anyone who could provide me notes for a day I missed class due to illness or lack of motivation. Who would be worthy of the magical time spent with Helmond Bender? Much work needed to be done.
School days were very busy for me. Although I had only one night class, I spent my days thoughtfully planning “random” encounters with fellow students. In order to explain the difficulty involved in doing this, I feel I must reiterate the deep loathing I have for casual conversation or “small talk” with anyone. I would watch countless students, hours before class started, one hundred yards away from our classroom in all directions with binoculars, waiting for those I recognized to pass in front of my scope of vision. This was done conveniently from the balcony of the student food court. When a familiar face would pass in front of my binoculars I would rush down the stairs into their path, explaining that I was winded because I was late for my next class and had to give a presentation. My false sense of urgency kept the encounters brief and the conversation to a pleasant minimum. In three days time I had produced five possible candidates for Helmond’s study group experience. I knew that more would be needed because at best, only three of the five would actually show up. This was college and people were even less dependable than in what some have dubbed, “the real world.” Running out of time, with only two days until our midterm, I confirmed the date with the others and presented the idea to Helmond on his way to his American history class.
“Hey, Helmond.” I was nearly shaking in anticipation.
“Hey there, young feller.”
He continued walking and after being slightly winded from my excited jog, it was difficult to catch up.
“Helmond, there are a few of us that will be getting together to study for Wednesday’s exam. Would you like to join us?”
Helmond stopped and moved about his lower jaw quite a bit. He stared into the leaves of the elms on campus that had started turning brown. He squinted and pushed a ball of air out of his mouth in a valiant effort to laugh.
“No…heh. Heh. That’s o.k. You go right ahead.”
I was crushed. He had obliterated my plan and after all of that terrible mingling I had put myself through. I was furious but also incredibly sad. How could this old man deprive himself of this very typical life experience and go to his grave so lonely and bitter. I had to act, I had to insist.
“But, sir,” I had dropped my guard and violated basic rules of language exchange I had set for conversations with him. “Wouldn’t you like to experience what it’s like to be with a bunch of rowdy, enthusiastic college kids that have just met but come together joyously for a common cause, laughing hysterically at the mannerisms of the professor, imitating him, drinking beer and bonding?”
Helmond began heaving violently with amusement at each additional comment I had made describing this magical event. He looked like the joy might kill him. I was worried and very, very angry with him. I got closer to him and patted his back to see if he would regain his breath.
“Are you ok Mr. Bender?” All rules were out the window. I was exposed for the young fraud that I was.
“Are you ok?”
He regained his breath, finally straightening his back, eliminating the hump that appeared when he had bent over laughing.
“Shit son. You’ve never been to one of these have you?”
I then watched as he walked with a swagger, laughing at the old fart behind him.

Phi Kappa Death

On University Ave. we all felt safe. I did especially. I was old and confident. The police academy didn’t work out too well as I’m sure my late parents would have expected. I was already in my thirties and was takin’ up too much room in my little desk at the University of Texas at El Paso. The University was affectionately referred to as UTEP by young bright eyed girls ‘n’ boys that frequently bumped into me in the hallways, assuming I was working as an electrician. The only person I ever seemed to have any type of conversation with was the janitor, Tyrone, when he felt like letting off some steam about the brats that left potato chip crumbs and coke bottles all over the floors. My name is Daniel Wells but everyone, including Tyrone, referred to me as Pops, considering I could have been the father of any one of these kids at this school. The first and only class I decided would be worth my time was a detective fiction course that looked like it wouldn’t bore me to death. The class was full the first day. It quickly evaporated into a desolate fifty percent occupancy after our sweet, southern, tough as nails professor gave out the reading list for the semester.
After the first week, I had gotten comfortable enough to scan the room for anyone close to my age. No luck. I saw sorority girls, football players, the typical weird kid that swears he wants no friends but is just too shy, the over-achieving kiss ass and your run of the mill C average students that managed to cheat their way through high school. First kid I talked to was the weird kid.
“Hey kid. Can I bum a smoke from ya?”
He gave me a real ‘fuck you’ look and reached inside his long black trench coat.
“Sure thing Pops.”
I returned the favor.
“How do you like the class so far kid?”
He lit his smoke as I was about to ask him for the subsequent light when he decided to turn away from me and walk toward an area I wasn’t going to be in.
My second encounter was with a real hot pair of shorts that was young enough to date my nephew. She sauntered up on to me twirling her hair with flyer in hand. She handed it to me with a devilish smile chewing on her bubble gum like a goddamned cow. She had been hangin’ out with her friend that looked like a young hot librarian. Like Jodie Foster at 18 with cat-eye glasses. Standing nonchalantly between the two was a hunky big guy in a football jersey looking back and forth at their racks and asses like a damned see-saw.
“Hey. You want to go to a party, Pops?”
I smiled back instinctively. How could you not smile at such angelic dimples? I was pissed she made me smile.
“Not my thing hot pants. I’d cramp your style.”
She laughed at the sky and probably at me.
“Cramp my style? HA! Whatever daddy-o.”
For some reason I got the feeling she was making fun of me. At that point I had decided to head back inside from the designated student smokers corner and try to find someone slightly above babysitting age. I saw a pissed off black guy squeezin’ the water out of his mop and thought he probably needed the company as much as I did.
“Hey, Chief. These kids always act like such little assholes?”
The janitor didn’t look up. He assumed I was directing my question at the professor that was discussing something with a colleague I didn’t understand near the vending machine.
“Hey there, Chief. Did I offend you?”
Tyrone looked up at me with a long exhausted face and a toothpick hangin’ out.
“Nah, man. But yeah. These kids are a real letdown if you ask me.”
I gave a weird look. I was thinking about this 40-something year old moppin’ floors and wondered why he might be in a position to judge our aspiring future.
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“Well, take that rich bitch outside lookin’ up at you with them big eyes. You know she’s just snugglin’ up to you so that you’ll buy her and her stuck up friends alcohol for their little party. And take that little prick in the coat. It’s gotta be a hundred goddamn degrees outside?”
I gave him a nod and a half smile. As I nodded I noticed that the conversation between the popular three had ceased. Miss Hot Pants put her hand on the football player’s backpack and walked off pulling him away from smarty pants and into her ample bosom.
“Well, thanks for the conversation. The name’s Daniel.”
Tyrone went back to squeezin’ out the mop.
“Tyrone. Sure thing Pops.”
Great, even the janitor can see I stick out like a sore thumb here. He turned away from me and went outside to pick up all the loose pamphlets Candy, the sorority girl, had left on the floor. I heard Tyrone as the door closed.
“Little bitch.”
After my first week of class I cuddled up to my detective novel that was assigned to us to read over the weekend. It was ok. We hadn’t gotten to the Hard-Boileds yet, my favorites, and we were still stuck on those boring Brits and their nice, neat, clean little murders and puzzle games. After a few Glenlivets, aged 18 years, I was a bit bored. I began to look at the flyer Candy had given me for her party. “What the hell,” I said. I figured I could always blend into the walls as I had when I was their age.
The house was jam-packed with people, beer, and liquor with no chasers whatsoever. These kids didn’t care. Either that or they had no Earthly idea how to throw a good party. I was in favor of the latter theory. The music was terrible. I prefer Old Blue Eyes myself, but what did my old ass know. Around midnight everyone was either drunk or throwin’ up when I heard a loud scream coming from one of the bedrooms. I was the only one that noticed it over the loud, thumping, bullshit music. I put my drink down and ran to the back of what was obviously someone’s parents’ house. Candy was screaming over her best friend’s body holding onto her boyfriend’s football jersey and balling her little stupid eyes out.
“Someone call an ambulance,” I said in a real authoritative and parental tone.
They all jumped. The poor girl looked like she had passed out. She wasn’t bleeding. She hadn’t hit her head. There was no blood. Her name was Belinda. She apparently was Candy’s best friend, or so I gathered from the mucus-filled slobbering coming from Candy’s mouth. I looked around the room to discover a cause of death. Nothing too glaring, just a couple of pictures with Candy and Belinda with the football team and an apparent suicide note next to the bed written in Belinda’s class notebook.
Jeff, the football-playing boyfriend, had his arm around Candy trying to keep her calm while holding back the little amount of puke I could see was still in his mouth. I wasn’t sure if it was from the drinking or the total shock of a possible dead girl at a party where he supplied minors with alcohol. As the sirens were heard and lights flashed outside the house, I could see Jeremy, that weird kid in the coat, run off and jump over the fence into the neighbors yard. I decided somethin’ was up and bolted after him, wheezing from the twenty years of smoking. I caught up with him and slammed him to the ground.
“Where you off to so quick, punk? Where’s the party at?”
I hadn’t realized the irony of that statement until the kid caught me on it.
“Back there, asshole.”
I slapped him around a bit and searched around in his coat pocket.
“Ecstasy? Well, well. Is that why that girl is unconscious back there?”
Jeremy gave me a genuinely frightened look. “Who?”
“Don’t give me that shit, Germ? Belinda. You give this shit to ‘er and she passed out? Did she O.D.?”
The little shit started to cry.
“Belinda? No man. No. Is she okay? Is Belinda okay?”
I propped him up on his feet and dusted him off a bit.
“What’d you care kid? I thought kids like you hated the preps.”
“Look you old fart. I’ve been tryin’ to get with Belinda for a year now. Things have come a long way since the ‘80s or whenever.”
I gave him an old school “fuck you” and sent him on his way. Somethin’ was up and it wasn’t an accidental O.D.
My suspicions were confirmed the following Monday when the announcement had been made that Belinda had passed away from undisclosed causes. Jeremy didn’t show. I swung by the mop closet to see if Tyrone had heard anything in the hallways.
“Sure, Pops. Could have been anyone of these little assholes. You know that Jeremy kid sells them drugs. I tried to score some smoke from him once and he gave me a big ‘fuck you.’ I heard that fat girl Clarissa say somethin’ ‘bout her and…shit it’s the boss ‘round the corner. I gotta mop.”
Thanks, Tyrone. I was back to square one. Before I headed out the door back to my car I saw Tyrone about to throw away a pamphlet for the party still on the floor with a phone number on it. The phone number was written with swirling curls and hearts. I grabbed Tyrone’s hand before it reached the trashcan.
“I’ll take care of that for you, Tyrone.”
He gave me the ol’ shrug of the shoulders and handed me the paper.
“You know, I got another mop in the closet, too.”
After I got home and got a few single malts in me I decided to call the number and see what happened. A female voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Yes, this is Dan Weiss calling to see if you are happy with your current phone service?”
The voice on the other line was shaky and sobbing.
“I don’t need this. You know my daughter just died, asshole. How does that feel?”
Great, actually. I had a hunch. I looked next to the hearts on the back of the paper and there was an abbreviated message that looked like a text message. These goddamned kids didn’t know how to write anymore.
GO MNRS!
I got this bitch.
Next day in class I had to give a presentation on Raymond Chandler. I decided to go with a new school PowerPoint with all the bells and whistles to show these kids you could still teach an old dog new tricks.
After the typical: Chandler was born on, wrote The Little Sister, Big Sleep, Hard-boiled speech, I had a couple more slides to show the kiddies.
Candy. I know it was you.

The class looked at me like I was a real asshole. I wrapped it all up for them in my last two minutes I had left of my presentation.
“For those of you that attended that lovely party hosted by our wonderful Candy and belated Belinda let me just say that was awesome. I haven’t had a time like that in…well, ever. Candy, I would especially like to thank you for making it really exciting by poisoning your best friend Belinda. I know you must have been pretty peeved to find out your boyfriend Jeff was boinking her which was obvious from the many pictures of him on her corkboard. Pictures that outnumbered the ones of you two together. You must have been pretty pissed off when you discovered the first test grade she got back from this class that you saw dangling out of her notebook, which she got an A on and you got an F. I’m sure when you saw Jeff outside our class Friday and realized he was not there to see you but to see your friend Belinda. You knew this because he never came to see you after class. I heard you bitching about it when I was talkin’ to my good friend Tyrone, the janitor that knows all your secrets. None of you have the common decency to pick up after yourselves for the poor ol’.. well the poor man. You also figured out what must have been goin’ down under your nose when you discovered that Belinda had stuck her phone number in Jeff’s book bag as you all were leaving school. That’s why you pulled it out and tried to throw it away, leaving it for poor Tyrone to pick up after you. You knew Jeremy sold junk and figured if you got your friend Belinda drunk enough, some Vicodin you bought from Jeremy would send the poor girl over. That’s right, I got the medical report from a friend of mine at St. Lukes. [That was my final .ppt slide] Problem is, love-struck Jeremy didn’t know this and flipped out when he heard Belinda had passed out. He zeroed in on you before I did. “
I looked at the prof with a tired old look.
“Sorry lady, I’m too old for this shit,” and I left her with one thought that she could take or leave.
“Patricia Cornwell is kind of a dick for leavin’ her husband don’t ya think?”
I picked up my brown leather old man’s bag and headed out. The scene wasn’t for me. On my way out I ran into Tyrone. Without looking up at anyone, he stared into his mop bucket and said, “Little bitch.”

Art Pillar: Case Study (Part 2)

Every time she left the house I felt like my chest was caving in. For the first few months after we got married I chalked it up to having drank too much coffee. I would try and read to calm down but every few sentences would send me hurtling into a daydream imagining all kinds betrayal and decadent sin. She became a different person in my dreams. My poor Susan turned into a careless party girl getting her kicks about town without a single thought or concern for her husband waiting at home. I tried convincing myself I was working myself up over nothing. I tried masturbating constantly to calm my nerves but degradation I saw on screen only heightened my worry of what she could be doing while away from me. The fucked up thing Doc, is that it wasn’t solely when she would be out late. These thoughts raced through my head when I knew she was working and probably couldn’t wait to get home to me. I also knew that my visions of her in my dreams were only a manifestation of my own fear. Probably created out of the desires I had for that very same decadent sin and debauchery. I want to feel pure Doc. I want to feel clean. I don’t ever want to look at pornography ever again. I want to look at my wife and feel safe and secure. Loving and loved.
I imagine sometimes what it will be like when I’m an old man and the weight of the world finally takes its toll and I have the nervous breakdown that will go down in history for the craziest outburst ever witnessed. I watch too much news. I read too many books on government conspiracy. I watch daytime talk shows that discuss secret affairs and drug abuse between couples that have been married 25 years, all the while, neither person being aware of the other’s horrific secret life. This is my secret life Doc. She doesn’t know how nuts I am. I ruined previous relationships with this same nonsensical worry and I told myself I wouldn’t do it again. Sure I ask her questions now and again about what time she will be home or what group of friends she will be going out with. Maybe sometimes I’ll slip up and ask if the guys are gay, or if she ever at one time dated any of them. For the most part, she has no idea would kind of mental state I am in when she isn’t right there on the couch with me watching a wholesome Disney movie.
When we first started dating, I knew she was the one for me. She needed me around constantly. I played it cool of course. I tried like all hell not to act like she was immediately my world, my number one priority. What kind of loser feels that for a girl after a couple of dates? But, there she was at my apartment every night. Most of the time we didn’t even have sex. We sat on the couch discussing books and watching movies. I thought, ‘This is the girl for me. No skeletons in the closet and needy enough not to question why I constantly need her around.’ I feel like I’m choking Doc. While I lay here on this couch, waiting to see if she noticed that I left without a note or voicemail, I am wondering what she is doing. Is that not sick? Is that not selfish, I ask you. The worst part, is that I am most worried that days will go by and she doesn’t even attempt to contact me because I hadn’t entered her mind yet. Could I be the only person in the world Doc that cares about people this much? Maybe she doesn’t need me as much as I thought she did. Maybe that is what normal couples are supposed to do. Attend to your own life, happy that this other person shows up every once and a while to say, “Hi, how has your day been?” Well, I can’t do it. I’ll just have to leave her behind to enjoy that casual embrace from some other well-adjusted hunk. Why won’t the aliens pick me up Doc? If all these abductions are truly taking place, why don’t they snatch me up and run tests on me? Perhaps their technology supersedes yours and they can actually do something for me. No offense. Maybe they can give me a shot of pure human apathy and then I’ll be cured. They can set me back down in bed one night, no harm-no foul. Maybe I am from another planet. That’s it. Maybe I have some kind of super-pathos gene that allows me to care for people more than humans are currently capable of at this time in our evolutionary history. Maybe my gene should be intravenously shot into the rest of the human population to get some real progress done around here.
Oh my God, I’m hopeless.

bad dream [this one is old and kinda sucks but I found it and decided to hang on to it]

The two lovers opened their eyes simultaneously in an unfamiliar bed. Jordan, a confused young man, stared bewildered at the ceiling above him that appeared to be very far away from his face. The girl next to him, although familiar, he did not know. He sat up and struggled, like her, silently deciding whether or not to smile. The bed had no frame. The two cheap sheets had almost entirely been removed over night. They laid there, close to the floor, awkwardly for some unknown time before starting the days first conversation that would quickly become an argument.
"I want to drink. I'm tired of living this boring life. Everything is boring to me now. I never go out. Nothing seems fun anymore. We are dead We are zombies, who instead of searching for brains, stay at home to watch Wheel of Fortune."
She stared at him like a stranger on the train, fleeting and with disgust.
"Well, if you start drinking again, I don't see why I can't go out and do coke every once and a while. It's not like I had the problem with drinking that you did."
Both of their hearts collapsed at these revelations. They sank in this unwelcoming apartment that made them feel that both of them had over stayed their welcome. This feeling made it so that no other words or even sounds made any sense there after. Thoughts, whether expressed internally or externally all came out like water. A threatening ocean tide that wiped away children's sand castles and eroded away at mountains. The movement in the room was a dance that resembled panic. Mouths moved and arms flailed about but there was no sound other than the deep oscillations of the invisible tide inside the room. She had swung a knapsack around her shoulders faster than the air should have permitted. Somehow he knew that a phone call had been made behind his back.
Outside a car full of men Jordan did not know had parked a red SUV on the lawn he assumed to be his own. They angrily motioned for her to come out. Jordan began to lose grip on his emotions and all reality that was holding him together. The room had been washed over in pastels and water colors, making unclear what was going on or how he was supposed to feel. She turned at him with a cold and vengeful face, saying nothing. At that moment everything began to move in slow motion. The door had opened and the outside appeared flat like a landscape photograph in a magazine. He could almost touch the gray and glossy scene, afraid it might tear with too much pressure. Jordan saw the girl's body, faceless, entering the vehicle. Unsure of what this meant, he instinctively went after the anomaly on a skateboard he had not ridden since he was a child, down the unfamiliar street, in an unfamiliar neighborhood.

Art Pillar: Case Study

I am incredibly sad. William Faulkner sad. Edgar Allan Poe sad. I really cannot tell you how deeply sorrowful I feel. A bit demented. A bit crazy. Just a hair shy of suicidal. It is all because of a girl. Hold on, before you judge, just remember that I too realize it’s all my fault. Perhaps it is my dependency, selfishness, and underdeveloped neediness that is to blame, but, I blame her. Let me also say that Susan did not do anything to me. She didn’t cheat on me. She didn’t blow all our money on designer clothing and rack up insurmountable credit card debit like the couples on Doctor Phil. She didn’t get hooked on drugs. She didn’t have an “emotional affair,” as Doctor Phil so eloquently puts it. She didn’t abuse me or our daughter. The sex was good and relatively frequent. So why do you ask am I leaving my wife of 15 years? Because I need her, that’s why. I need her and need her and need her. I do it to everybody. It’s a fear thing. No Doctor can help me. Yes, not even you. I already know what any doctor would say anyway. They will say “Art, you have to let go and allow these people to love you.” I’ll say, “No shit.” I fear they will leave. I fear that inevitability will take them away from me. Everyone is destined to lose interest. Picture this. Imagine you were staring at the coolest thing in the world. Imagine you were staring at a midget balancing an elephant on his pinky finger and you somehow knew it wasn’t a trick. It was real. Pretty amazing right? Now, imagine you were staring at it for hours, days, weeks, months, years. You have adequate food, shelter, you can get up and move around. It’s basically your job, to wake up, put on clothes, eat breakfast and come to work to sit and stare at the midget balancing the elephant and say, “Wow. Incredible.” repeatedly until the end of time. I’m not saying it’s a bad job, but the allure would wear off.
My problem Doc, is that I realize this and flip out that it might happen when I least expect it. I like to be well prepared for disappointment, if such a thing were possible. I’ve always been a giver. This is why it kills me to know that Susan is devastated at my leaving her. I hate to see people upset. It kills me. In fact, it’s some kind of weird disease I have where I feel other’s pain. Not like the Corsican Brothers movie but in a very real emotional way. Like twins but with everyone. My point is I didn’t know how to relax around Susan, so I left. Alright, I’m a dick. What else could I do? Did she want me around her whole life asking her, “Where were you? Who was that on the phone? Who are you texting? What are you writing? I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love,” every waking moment? The fucked up thing, is that I actually would love for someone to do that to me. Don’t laugh asshole, I’m serious. I need that mother figure. I need someone to ask me where I’ve been, who I was talking to, what my fucking intentions are. Sorry for cursing. If their need for me was that great it would allow me to relax knowing that they loved me and that someone else out there actually gave a shit as much as I give a shit. It’s never happened though. I have never met anyone that puts as much into a relationship of any kind as much as I do. Like I said I’m a giver. Friendships, family ties, girlfriends. They all have been privileged to my giving. I rub feet, I work on yards, help people move, fix air conditioners, give people rides at four in the morning, lend money, act polite in front of former boyfriends, let former boyfriends stay on my couch when they are in town and they “haven’t dated in years, so it’s cool.” Shit, Doctor, I once took care of a cat for a professor that gave me a D, for an entire summer while she and her boyfriend went to Cancun. Doctor, I’m allergic to cats! What the fuck is wrong with me? Why can’t I be selfish like everybody else? Right now, you must be sitting there with your paper and your pen thinking, “This guy is fucked up. What a loser. I’m gunna give him some pills and maybe then he will shut the fuck up.” If I were you, I’d be thinking “This poor man. I better drive him home and offer my friendship.” That or I would run out of the building. Ok, I see I’m getting off topic. Susan. Me. Susan. Ok. Gosh it’s only been 5 hours since I told her I was never coming home again. Listen, I know it looks bad, but consider how we met. You don’t know this story? I could have sworn… Well, consider these circumstances.
We met at an alcoholics anonymous meeting. I was a big talker in those meetings. I would have run the whole damn thing if they had let me but I hadn’t been going very long and they seemed to be pretty annoyed by me. Susan began going after about a month and a half into my sobriety. I was all over that. Despite my constant horniness and confident and casual demeanor with the young, beautiful and vulnerable girls that came through there, I never could find it in me to hit on any of them. I was too nice. Always thinking of them, never wanting to take advantage of their fragile state. Truth be told, everybody knows that what they wanted was to feel wanted. That’s probably why they drank in the first place. Maybe a good fucking would have cured us all. Sorry, I keep digressing. So, Susan comes in there and stays quiet, never sharing her story even 3 months into attending the daily program. Me being me, I decided to take it upon myself to cure this girl and spend as much time with her outside of the program as possible. I wasn’t her sponsor by the way. They wouldn’t allow me to be anyone’s sponsor because I was, “creepy.” Anyway, she said that she had problems sleeping if she didn’t drink and that all she needed was a little company. So, I would go over to her apartment and watch TV with her, watch movies, eat popcorn, until she fell asleep at which point I would sit there on the couch and watch her sleep with one arm on her leg until I decided to go home. My insomnia allowed me to do this for hours but you already know about all that. By the way I stopped taking the Ambian again.
So after months of this TV, movie deal, I actually feel asleep in her lap one night and she woke up and walked me to her bedroom. A year later, we were married. I realize this is a very condensed version of the whole courting process but shit, you do charge by the hour. My point in bringing this up is, she was needy. Just like me. We were two people that both really needed to be needed. The problem is she’s healed. She’s better in every possible way Doc. She can go out with friends,-- men even, man friends, male card carrying pussy hunters with large elephant gun dicks (don’t think I don’t realize that I already said elephant twice and no it’s not some kind of weird obsession I have. It doesn’t mean anything so just drop it) in their pants staring at my girl’s amazing tits--and not drink, and come home never really giving fuck what the poor schmuck at home is doing. AND I KNOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE HEALTHY BEHAVIOR. Sorry for yelling. The thing is, I don’t really think I have a problem. I truly believe that the problem is everyone else. Everyone else has a “caring deficiency” and I’m the only Godly creature reaching my heart out to the world. Don’t you dare assume that I don’t know how stupid that sounds. But I do believe it.
I have to leave her Doc, I have to. If I don’t I’m gunna turn Cloey into a neurotic lunatic like her father. I mean what other alternative do I have. Tell me God dammit. I really do want an alternative. Doc! Are you listening asshole. Oh sorry, right. You’re not supposed to talk during the session. The whole transference thing. Well, that’s stupid.