As the strata falls

 as the strata falls

 -or-

consciousness, not allowed

  the idea, oh fucking yes, that idea. i am inundated w/ that idea. it's fucking great, won't be troubling no he won't, not that massively nice fell, not he sir. just no indeedeee....

1, 2, 3 baby come back to me
i got the freashest lines you ever did read
  whoah-oh
this is how the story goes

saw seth on the rail the other day. i love seth, yet we rarely talk any more. really.
so slow-stepped on the lede, but yeah, seth and i talked, conversated, had a moment, talked about oxford commas. we chatted.
did i mention throwing words around w/ my main (mostly lost) man, seth? i forget sometimes cause all i really seem to want to talk about is seth.
oh a transcript, something i can provide as some sort of truth supporting what i claim? let me check w/ seth.

now i conclude:

seth: it's always nice to visit...

me: yeah, the thing about visits are that they are so temporary, which really shouldn't be a big deal but then you start parcelling out memories of the last visit than compare/contrast the real vs imagined time dileneation of these visists and the import becomes increasingly tragic. i mean seriously i miss a lot of people a lot of time, but i am (probably, no definitely over/(thinking/ theorizings_ still sad. not like depressed sad, but yeah i gotta do some shit like work out, read internet comments, or drink copiously, cause i like life and want to feel and stuff, but just seriously sometimes i feel overwhelmed. and then i feel guilty for feeling overwhelmed, like i did something wrong to not feel right about shit that goes on in my life and mind, i feel like an asshole when i know objectively i did nothing wrong but someone has to feel something, right?

s: mmm, sounds like life is your typical life?

m: and then some. but i gots jokes!

s: you were a always a riot! so much better when you are amped up and being pos..

m: compositive! it's a new word mangling, mash-up i was thinking about the other day. i mean seriously take the word apart, look at origins, go to dictionary.com and you will see it's absolutely not there! it's called hueristic linguistics  man, and it is so not made up and obscure that it validates everything i believe when i said i want to ham it up w/ my man seth.

s: so that's why i was called hear...

m: someone called you? i seriously was just thinking about talking to you, and then you showed up. like i think this is a fever-dream or something, cause if it's real i am going to look ridiculous...or sound ridiculous, read ridiculous...i guess i am just all kinds of ridiculous. but i'm glad you're here. even if not real, your presence makes me excited...and probably a lot ridiculous.

s: {inaudible}

m: EXACTLY!

[noticeable pause and heavy sighing(?)]

m: but since you are here, let me let you in on some stuff i've been gleaning, you know, the good shit. you ready?

###. ####

Phil would have turned 45 today.  I had this short writing of his stashed away in an old email thread.  August 27, 2016.  

The Grain in the Cauldron

 

Outside, the cool whisps of wind find the warm fallow field, causing steam to rise in the (s)light morning, a reverse gloaming, or maybe just sunrise.  That's a nice sentence but it's as picturesque as this story will get and I have to confess that it's actually a sunset, and I'm stuck inside of a conference room.

An orator introduces himself, southern twang snapping up every word.  What's he saying you ask and I just point to the mouth in your mind's eye, pantomiming a zipper being closed.  The first few words were "Hello, I'm so and so."  Ten supple leather horseshoe-shaped chains form a circle in one corner of this garishly decorated room.  A menagerie of rolling desk chairs form a semicircle outward bound, radiating like waves from the Sun, as drawn by ancient Aztecs, as celebrated in some Mel Gibson film before we found out he was such a huge douchebag and started ignoring him so I'm pretty sure you've forgotten about the Aztec aspect.  

Quick trivia aside, I think those dudes were Mexican-Indians but I don't remember much from that film so don't go around parading this like some delineation of their exact lineage, like a red cape of confidence because you might get bulldozed, intellectually at least.  They called corn maize, which confused me, at the time of watching the movie—Serpentico, I finally remember the title—confused because of corn mazes I never went into as a child of nebulous origins, confused further because these crop constructions could have been called maize mazes but that would only make sense conveyed by written word because a person would sound like an idiot saying maize mazes and maybe even a five-alarm idiot if he said, That was an amazing maize maze.  

Seriously, that might just confuse someone so badly he might have to go to a rectangular room like the one being described herein with four large windows on the east and west sides, the east side also holding an unexcitingly white door with the prerequisite all-caps EXIT sign, inside of which (the room) contains 35 people of varying ages, ethnicities, sexual persuasions, heights, outfits, hometowns and (hopefully) identities who are hashing out the problem that binds them, the problem that in fact brought them (us) all to this room with a twenty-by-four-foot matte black table at an obtuse or acute angle depending on one's perspective.  Whereupon he/she/they, perplexed, would ask, What the fuck is up with those Mexican-Indians whose name I forgot and further with those needlessly complex labyrinths of corn?  And where is the coffee?

Inconsolable shadows splash from behind me.  A crowd slowly creeps in, pleasantries flowing.  In a sense it is a jovial wake, a good-natured burial of things we need dead.  Then silence to tame the shame, tamping down the bile-of-past that threatens to come vomiting back up on a daily basis.  We check in with dates, but not the yummy kind, nor the romantic variety.  

The analogies that can be crafted, indeed, are necessary.  They are trying to draw out each individual's feelings about his/her situation.  There are so many variations but none is completely unique.  The Mexican-Indian in that film Apolitico (mentioned earlier) had to navigate a vicious jungle with constant threats abounding.  His awareness and survival instinct kicked into a gear I have never known.  That could be a symbol for my struggle—despite what others tell me—if mine is a jungle of my own making.

A facade constructed by scab workers, my life has become derelict and condemned.  It is, however, salvageable; a reclamation project.  I have deemed it worth the effort.  The basic support structure is a bit rickety but it needs a new front, one that is easily readable and honest about its contents.  That front might still be a facade, but not a false one.  Free-flowing jazz will trumpet its reopening.  Not the Mardi Gras type of jazz but the kind of jazz from smoky clubs of yesteryear.  Inside I will still be a mess, a maize maze, a clutter of debris which can still be normal, natural.  

Mine is an imperfect structure but these renovations will hopefully make it more inviting, more true.  I will even shelter the Mexican-Indian if he can outrun that large black panther hot on his heels.  My heels, however, will remain for now on the tic-tac-toe granite floor of this rectangular room along with the heels of those around me, who also find themselves in the fixer-upper trade.  

Normal and abnormal are weirdly amorphous terms, their meanings entirely a social construct.  And if a person fails to meet the qualifications for one designation (A), he must of course fit the other (B), right?  And if he doesn't fit the description of A or B, what then?  Does he bounce between the two like a neutron looking for a home?  Like a Heisenberg personality principle, never to be pinned down by a very large, unstriped charcoal tiger, always running around a labrynthine forest, wondering if there is any escape, and if there is, what lay on the other side of it?  And should the bouncing, unclassifiable neutron-person find his/her/their way to the other side would they find any other unclassified neutron-people lurking there?  And if another person were to be found in such a way would the two unclassified neutron-people repel one another, like magnets, because they were not supposed to have met?  Or would they cling together like two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule making the water needed for life and its continuance?  Would I find an oasis?

There is a painting on the eastern wall of this room that depicts an Abercrombie boy with two faces.  One face looks forward while the other one bleeds out of the right side of the boy's head.  The two faces share one middle eye.  That image might have implications.  Or it might just be a minor detail, something to fill the room, a room that right now has a literal Butler speaking with a proper British accent. He tells the room that it is Paul McCartney's birthday, a bit of arcana that he cleverly wraps into his sharing.

The south wall of the room has a double-doored closet, a door leading to a hall connecting to the rest of the building, an electrical closet door, and a door to the bathroom.  All of these doors are done in a cream color.  The north wall is just a wall with nine three foot by three foot decorative cloth tiles spaced in a 1-3-1-3-1 manner.  Above, two ceiling fans are located between ten fluorescent lights.  The room contains exactly thirty people with unmanageable lives.

I am probably the only person ruminating on about Indian-Mexicans running through maize mazes to find and fix some inner me that be both respectable and authentic; a me that I can display in daily life.  But as an alcoholic that is like a man without legs I wouldn't be surprised if someone was thinking about something much weirder and even more tangential than that.  Something for instance like that legless man analogy that one of my cohorts just dropped.  An analogy that, to be honest, doesn't make much sense especially in relation to recovery as a mix of growing the missing limbs back while at the same time learning to live without them.  Maybe that does make sense but seriously, if I lost my legs I would probably drink more.  Maybe I lost my legs from developing diabetes and they needed to be amputated—unlikely.  

Or, more likely, I got into a gnarly car accident where I survived the crash but lost my legs and finally decided that drinking was bad for the business of living.  Which makes sense but even in that event I would probably get a fancy wheelchair, like Stephen Hawking's, and I would proceed directly to the nearest liquor store.  And if I were to do that could I get arrested for operating a moving vehicle while intoxicated?  This seems unlikely considering the cop would have to be a big Mel Gibson-level ass-clown to stop a legless man solely to investigate his level of drunkenness, which in turn would be even more confusing and complicated because the cop could not just presume the willingness on my part to take a field sobriety test because if I were the theoretical inebriated double-amputee I would refuse a breathalyzer and the cop would then find himself in a quandary of logistics getting me and my chair into his patrol car in order to drive me down to the station for booking on suspicion of operating a moving vehicle while intoxicated.  All this trouble for the cop while he also weathers the hostile and disdainful looks from his fellow officers for bringing in a man who has lost both his legs and understandably wanted to get a little tight because life is an unremorseful beast.  It seems like a waste of time, if you ask me, especially since in this hypothetical scenario I'm the rambling man with no legs.  All I can be sure of is that I'm an alcoholic with no metaphorical legs and three eyes wondering what the fuck was really going on with Dorian Gray.

Entitled, embittered, empty exemplifies each entity exactly earmarked.  Assonance that is heavy on the ass planted in a rolling chair located in a second semi-circular row with an innermost circle of supple leather-bound rotating chairs in a rectangular room that is painted slate gray and the shadows dance as the sun sets outside in the west.  Can you picture yourself there?  As part of a group searching for a more gratifying and peaceful life, free of reverse-albino cougars, ridiculous maize mazes, facades of dubious construction, weak literary and cinematic allusions?  Consider the oppressive guilt that brought you here, the complete sense of doom that proceeded and followed every blackout, brownout, and drown-out.  How about a life in which you still had actual flesh-and-blood functioning legs that helped bring you here, where you found a fellowship, a menagerie of storytellers, a group of survivors, a roomful of resilient motherfuckers, people of every non-red stripe grappling with the howling existential dread of a sober life, painfully admitting their problem, supplicating themselves before an unknown higher power of each person's understanding, rigorously willing take twelve steps away from the ledge, downright giddy at the chance of reclaiming their disheveled lives, and looking with optimism borne out of the fertile earth?  Are you ready to step into this rectangular room?  

Still in a silo

 

I'm sorry I almost battle-raged you

 

If you didn't catch that simple title, you're gonna be confused by the history, a simple allegory.  St. Elsewhere was a tv series that I never saw but still understand since I live in a snow globe, but I'm gonna straight ride this until they cancel my seriousness.

And reality seems to be a thinning that Stephen King may have purported but no one supported as a plot until this shit started the Earth spinning like a Randall Flagg.  Say, we're about a pandemic away, and we just laugh.

Catfish yourself, caught like a simple selfie spread across the cafeteria, a corona of a school that only glances sideways at the virus that makes one only stare at the Sun, hopefully to blind themselves to the hazard caused by a basic dumpster fire that cooks no flash-pan but everybody expects Halliburton and is seared by the results while still choking on this scheme I pulled on myself!

Sorry Ghost

 

Sorry Ghost

-or-

Just moving

I passed a girl on the subway

Asked her if it was Sunday

She replied, well tomorrow is Monday

I realized it was just someday

Untitled Blessing

 

Standing in front of you, a scepter

in hand, demanding fealty

Offering protection in the manner of

outdated sexual duality; it's a shroud

cloaked in obfuscation

Thus cleansed and full of absolution

Once can then kneel down and accept

this blessing 

a forlorn coda

 

a forlorn coda

-or-

always incomplete

to see it all slip away

by being a caring animal;

albeit a flawed, so flawed that

the government was interested in

using me as an example of something

worse than they are, a being that barely

registers it exists.  Or maybe a fractured

sometimes blank, always meandering self-

referential-aggrandizing pity party of words

can help a brother out of this hole to add that

'W' that represents my ancestry and that question-

able idea of me

e z

 Tiggity pop-pop, zigging and zagging

until I can't stop-stop, zooming and glooming

I feel sad, sad, scheming

and pleading I need a plan, plan

sprinting yet losing I try to plead, plead

siphoning and copying make my integrity bleed, bleed

stacking and innovating, things that I lack, lack

cracking and deteriorating, I somehow don't feel bad, bad

sub-jeckel

          

             retro-gradation

                      -or-

              pulling uphill

I’ve got a bag of cry’s that are destined for van nuys.  As a trucker w/ a prosthetic leg, a part of this journey contains some bit of dread; mountains and braking, slippering slopes the less be said.  Let’s see what’s a-

Took a sleep break, still groggy, on this side of an off-ramp that implied no parking yet I understood that doesn’t apply to our rigs.  I feel gassed out but gas up.  These lamentations aren’t going to deliver themselves.

On the road again: highways 40, 66, 81, they all seem to blend.  My nave-star tells which direction I should be aiming for; I attach myself to the CB, an extension of my arm, to counteract my phantom limb.

“Is CBW out there?” I howl.

“Negative I-8,” he responds.

I keep trucking along packed highways, desolate roads.  The trail of tears weighs down the trailer, makes it slower: but its destination and my relief is an exit ahead.

A Tampa Double-Tap

the phoenix dilemma
  -or-
pirouette

the ashes from the fire clung to the ground while the smoke billowed. the trees cooed softly from the wind, somewhat discomforting for a camper who's seen too many horror movies. it seemed the perfect time for a pedestrian ghost story:

prelude: the drive

  i was going to see my friend D for the first time in almost five years. he had just accepted a job in tampa and was moving cross-country, just not forrest gump style (also sans any shrimping ambitions although chronologically those comparisons are in different succession vis a vis the comparison, hence making the reference (and, as such, this explanation) somewhat of a moot point,) meaning he flew, not ran. in any case, he had arrived a month or so before his gf and while having obtained a very nice apartment, he was also surviving on just basics: air matress, a few glasses and the nom de rigueur.

  so as this figuratively literal reality was set in some sort of stone circle of philosophy, my friend D proposed i visit. the most obvious mode of travel would be by plane (or skytanic (oh dirigibles how i miss thee, especially when He is not immflammable of flammable),) i chose to drive.

  now, multiple factors played into this decision, chief of which would certainly not be transporting drugs, something both illegal and just plain ridiculous vis a vis trying to beat stupid airline security; in other words, as a child i dreamed and loved being on a plane, and now as an adult i loathe and avoid it (thanks obama). another compelling factor was that i have a new car and wanted a chance to drive it hard, fast and long; to get to know its nuances, its complexities...so i could manipulate it into loving me! await, retract that, or don't; let's keep blazing. the actual most important factor relates to my buddy D's sitch: i could haul a lot more shit in my car than getting on an annoying plane w/ annoying this and annoying that and, like camping, i also needed to pack for contingencies so a packed car the decision became.

  quick list of things packed in my subura crosstrek: 5-6 pillows of various sizes and fluffiness; a 15 year old boombox that still has an aux output which w/ the right cord (which also was packed) still connects to ipods and thus provides tunes; one mid-size plastic container containing blu-ray movies including, but not exclusively: twin peaks: the whole sh-bang, criterion editions of scanners, rashomon, repo-man, etc. and of course, undisputed III (starring scott adkins); a towel; a cooler filled w/ 5 beers, 1 vitamin water, 2 cherry coke zero's; 2 boxes of unique Kobe system nike shoes (including a bruce lee version that kicks so much ass it really is a paradox cause i don't want to wear them to keep them pristine which, obviously, is in direct contrast to the point of shoes); a carton of american spirit cigarettes consisting of one light blue pack, one green menthol pack, 3 black packs and 3 organic packs; a soccer bag filled w/ shirts, underwear, shorts, socks and a toiletry bag that may or my not have contained certain pharmaceuticals and/or rolling papers; a basket containing 3 hats and another 6-7 pairs of shoes of various brands and colors, but all unique; a bag full of shower necessities and personal meds; a ps3; an over-the-shoulder bag (based on the designs from the movie 2001 directed by s.kubrick and, thankfully, has not been remade as 2k1: the internet and all society will collapse,) containing a pc, a kindle, various graphic novels (such as joker), a notebook/diary, 2 pens and a phone charging cord; 5 shirts on hangers; two blankets; another mid-size plastic container w/ 2 playstation controllers, an hdmi cable, a ps3 power cord, a power-adapter and charging cables for previously noted ps3 controllers; a 32" led flat screen tv w/ special radiohead 'in rainbows' sticker artistically placed, which is my housewarming present to D.

  my first stop on this quixotic quest was...to get gas and then to get lost...like an idiot. mapquest had told me [redacted], bang, boom: I-85 to I-75 to I-285 to almenia to D's apt @ [redacted]; approximately 8-9 hrs. after my initial fumble, let's just cut to the chase and say i took it like elway took cleveland: to the crushing house (aka the dawg pound euthanasia clinic).

the unpacking: an exercise plan

  so, soon after the great monsoon that slowed traffic on I-75 in florida to 35-40 mph on the highway and had most cars pulled off to the side (i ain't no fucking pussy [sidenote: i was scared shitless]), i finally closed in on tampa and I-285. luckily traffic was relatively light going into the city but of course the road had to pull one of those switcheroos where my exit for armenia ave is not on the right but on the left, which was just fantastic since i had already moved into the right lane anticipating the exit. made it anyway and proceeded down the road to perdition.

  now, i knew that D's address is on S armenia ave, but what i didn't know is that the exit serves as the beginning of armenia ave, hence starting w/ N armenia addresses. bippity boo, oh yeah, it's a one way street, i get confused, pull into a medical clinic, get D to explain i need to go further south, make an illegal turn, somehow make that work to my benefit, find D's apt complex, blow another turn, take a chance down an alley, end up in a parking lot across from D's apt which is this restaurant ceviche and apparently has valet parking, have to explain my predicament to a parking lot attendant whom i'm sure was thinking what the fuck is this guy doing, finally met D and then made our way to his parking garage where he had saved his spot for me since he knew where to park on the street during the duration of my vacation. whew.

  well, the not-really-impossible-but-still-major-pain-in-the-ass operation has to go into effect. quickly remember i have driven 8 hrs straight, yet still riding an adrenaline high. D sees the car's load, tells me (now i realize omniously) that we should just get to unloadin'. the catch turns out that his apt is on the exact opposite side of the parking garage, which may not seem like a big deal till you realize this complex makes melrose pl seem like a motel 8 and, although not involving stairs, it is tantamount of 1/8 a mile from my car to his apt. in contrast, my parking space is a mere 10 feet from my abode, so loading the car became a whole different beast when unloading it. after a couple trips of essentials (tv, pillows, blankets, ps3, mid-size plastic containers, other ephemera) we (or more rather i) took a cool-down w/ some klons, half a zofran, vicodin and a beer; otherwise known as god's concoction.

  and, the rest of the night was just a continuation of the cool-down zone. D and i caught up on some years over a few more beers, watching some 'archer' before visiting sleepy-time. he had work in the morning and i still had fucking unpacking to do. this was just a thursday though.

meat & potatoes: publix

  the hidden gem in all of my experience (this time, this place, this bat-channel) was the publix grocery story located exactly right next to D's apt complex; i mean literally 1/3 the distance from the parking garage to his place and you didn't have to carry (admittedly not very heavy but still cumbersome) tv's. it basically served as a gourmet version of a convenience store: you could get only what you wanted and pretty much when you wanted it. i gots to describe this place cause i am quite serious in saying this was the best 'grocery' i have ever had the opportunity to privilege.

  a basic synopsis is that a regular publix smashed itself in the hadron collider w/ a whole foods producing some sort of supermarket 'god' particle. previously i had lived in chicago (1 year w/ D coincidentally enough) and there was a 2 story grocery store by the depaul campus that i had (in)frequently visited. the chi-town store was generic and had its food placed over the two floors; this screwed and chopped publix, however, had managed to fit all its groceries onto the first floor, while still paul-wall mixing in a full sandwhich and grill area. i may have not been a good architecture student but i still love examining construction designs and this was a doozy. upon entering, the immediate right is the designated quasi-cafeteria area, yet the design is non-linear and sleak, lending itself as both a unique and separate part of the greater whole. i could honestly go into great boring detail about how the support structure is utilized and how the aisles are carefully dileanated in a space-savvy way; i could extend the metaphor to include the big bang, but i'll suffice it to say: not too shabby, god publix, not too shabby at all. oh, and before i forget: the genius of the second story was the parking garage and not only that but the escalators going up there were split by a specialty escalator that carried your cart, your g-damn cart of groceries, up to the parking level. i'm not kidding when i say this is next-gen serious super-market shit. let's just say this place was frequented quite a bit in a few days

chill-town: harmony

  friday arrived and my boy D had left around 10 am, in my approximate estimate since i drifted in and out of sleep while he got ready. i arose, went to the bathroom, rolled a spliff, stepped outside (D's place has its own personal balcony, overlooking the pool, which is a point i may or may not come back to, depending on the level of candor i want to stoop to, or let's just leave it at that) and smoke said spliff. refreshed, i spend the next couple o' hours sipping beer, smoking cigs (on the balcony, of course; i'm not a rude guest, assclown...yet there was this one chick w/ a nice rack and sat in a seat where her eyes were not even, i stress even, able to see me sp(eek)y, but guess what...i've said too much)), and watching episodes of 'it's always sunny' on netflix via my ps3 hooked to the tv i brought and the internet connection that D smartly set up in his new place. i mean publix was definitely involved for lunch for me, but you can't go there all the damn time (something i argued  w/ D about under different circumstances), so D needed a destination for distraction-ville and voila, it's the internet, which by extension, meant me. if that wasn't clear...as in the internet helped provide/pass the bulk of our down-time.

 short story shorter: i shit, i showered, i smoked, i drank, i ate lunch, i watched netflix, i awaited D's return.

upon D's arrival, i got a sense that he was heated, and i mean that in a frustration/anger level of temperament. i was as kosh as a ghost, so i let him unwind and this being friday, he vented a bit, but his spirits seemed to improve pretty rapidly. unfortunately, this was a false portent, but i'm getting ahead of myself and also doing a disservice to my enjoyment ratio of en media res trip; it was a false alarm hinting at other smaller concerns, like forgetting to pack my mini hdmi cable allowing both my and D's computer to hook up to the tv; g-damn inconveniences!

  i jest, i jest. D shook off his day-time work like marshall faulk and as the greatest team on turf we started driving towards a drunken k. warner throw towards the end-zone. wait, drinking and driving, pro football, st. louis...um, i've had better metaphors? oh yeah, we slowly became buccaneers, embracing that 2002 spirit(s). we were outlaws: drink, pillage, and then have a few awkward moments. you know, like mid-thirtees men should have. so we tried to watch a bootleg version of the movie 'neighbors' and an apt metaphor never made an announcement so we shrugged while we chugged. besides, other concerns were around the corner.

  like i stated earlier, i have not seen D in five years. during which time he finished medical school in philadelphia, did some tomfoolery in san diego, developed a long live-in relationship w/ some woman i've never met, and basically shitted on the whole process while still out-performing idiots; an aside, i mean, he literally could not try less at what he's doing, not that he doesn't care about his life and his ability to live it somewhat comfortably, but he sees the zero-sum game and i think i got a glimpse of the wear & tear that this is taking on him psychologically b/c he doesn't want to fail, doesn't want his job, and yet he can only fail forward and, just personal opinion here, i think that pisses him off the most (extapolate that dynamic from previous reference to a mr. f gump and the cost of self-awareness).

  to the belabored (and probably lost in my mish-mash previous paragraph) point: his gf jenn (gotta remember the double-n's) called him on friday to see how we were doing. now, this is obviously not a big deal to me in terms of it's natural, i expected it, and they are still coordinating their cross-country move. the big anti-cena 'you can't see me move' came, however when jenn (2 n's) wanted to talk to me. no biggie, i want to talk to her also to know who tamed the D-beast, but, oh my gahd, stone cold, stone cold...wanted to face-time. now i'm no techno-bugaroo but i also actively resist face to face chatting; never did it, couldn't avoid it. so i get on D's iphone and have no idea what i'm doing (plus i'm halfly lit) and just see my throat and jaw strutting around like it's got all the wrong moves. talk to 2 n's, feel embarrassed. the worst part, however, was the fact i tried to play my discomfort like a weird freddy kreuger: cracking innapropriate jokes, blatanly lying while smiling cause i'm an idiot and forgot the camera works both ways, and, most important of all, forgetting that this woman has never met nor has spoken w/ me before; a clown wouldn't even cry, he'd just shake his head and go back to buskin' to the acoustic boogaloo.

  my horror was short lived as her main concerns seemed to be D's fidelity which i attributed (quite naturally, WHOOO) to my own behavior, lack of significant other and the fact we are actually staying in a steroids version of melrose pl where everybody forgot it's not the 90's (except me, see below); trust me, however, when i say i am not the destroyer of relationships nor an ideal demographic for this particular crowd. that clouds the point: D is very handsome and (by others) a successful doctor living alone in an area that screams typhoon fever; in other words, she shoulda been stressin less, cause i wasn't gonna let my boy get in some stupid mess. i, finally, awkwardly, exited this face-2-phase-star-trek-jumbalaya w/ only my intoxicated sense of disillusioned dignity. there was one more intense call the following night that i sat out (conveniently on the balcony chain-smoking cigs although i could make out the convo if i wanted, but the detective was lying low) and D said things were good.

  the rest of friday night was a maze of weed, booze, pills and me trying to indoctrinate (ha!) D in the intricacies of fifa street. remember, i'm...let me check...oh yeah, #7 in the world and D is one of the best, intuitive soccer (real-life yo) players i've had the pleasure to play w/ and against, so i figured eazy-peazy. not so much. well, a willing particpant and (like in real life) a fierce competitor, i slowly realized there was a lot more nuance to the game that i had previously not noted either because i was learning on the curve (like D) or i had logged so many hours playing the game, i forgot that initial said curve. to be precise: he tried, i got frustrated, he lost to a team that he rigged to score 7 goals against themselves (read that again: he couldn't even win when he brazenly cheated,) i proceeded to beat [redacted] on my first try. scorched metaphysical earth and thus ended the aborted attempt to make IPO the virtual soccer god.

quick synapses: a note on the black-box-recorder

 i would love to say that i was fading and the debauchery was ballin so outta control that i don't remember much of the next few days, but that would just be a partial truth...or half and half, depending on where you dig your vocabulary (hint: not sexual). saturday we made some power moves by walking a bunch to publix then the liquour store, back to publix, D's apt, maybe a third publix journey (who knows) and sweated like mules. did i mention the humidity in tampa in early august? it sucks and i lived in st. louis; even in the shade during the day on D's balcony, sitting btw, i would be drenched in sweat after 10 mins.

  saturday night was going to be another isolation-zone where D and i didn't go out. i, however, wanted to get my hands (proverbially) dirty and convinced D to meet some of his friends out at local watering holes. let's say 2 sheets to the wind and multiply it by, i dunno, maybe a 4-ply cottenelle and get our pre-game: local time is approximately 11:15 am...just kidding. plastered, yet still walking, we made it to the first of three (i think) destinations that night and the only one i remember, relatively, clearly. it was 'the world of beer' or some other variation (look it up if you are in that particular part of tampa, have read this, and actually want to sit in an outdoor cafe w/ a bunch of weird micro-brews that D and i selected only based on highest bva) and lo and behold, it was the standard meet & greet of people you don't know, won't see again, oh, your name is blank, well i'll file that in the memory banks i'm currently wrecking w/ alcohol (amongst other intoxicants,) thank you, chug, refill, repeat.

  as we went from that place to a sushi restaurant/dj night club mash-up where we somehow circumvented the line system to another cavernous tavern where i lost my (loose semblance of a) group, i think things happened. i seem to be alive, typing this, and yet if you want some real detailed specifics i proffer: i made 3 bucks for 3 loosies. smashed or just the logical conclusion of a saturday hearing a bunch of jabronies cavalcading around the pool area proclaiming their (hollow) dominance? it's a toss-up, but rest assured, neither D nor i regurgitated anything ingested, and surprisingly and accordingly, neither of us hurled any immflamatory comments towards the cardboard cut-outs unfurled before us. the night ended uneventfully, except for those ghost images i have of a night before it goes down like oceanic 815.

lip gloss: the decision

  i got the hop-scotch in the peanut butter snatch, double-clutchin like my grandma spread for a vin diesel snack. ribald, of coarse, cause if you ride the pre-destined train your only option is your assigned stop.

  an ambiguity clouded sunday and it would mete out various punishments. i awoke on that tenth of a day lost to posterity and felt stiff; the air mattress had literally deflated and i pulled an undertaker by sitting straight up w/ the mind to tombstone the day into the ground. a little dehydrated, i went about doing my business while trying to be as quiet and polite as possible to my host D. unfortunately, it was 10 (in the am, for real) and D didn't wake until almost 1:30 pm and my perspective started to shift. my initial plan was open-ended in terms of when i would leave but i was getting this creeping feeling that D was ready to just deal on his own (an attitude i both understand and respect). let's short-circuit to a failed drug excursion, differing mentalities, and the hot, humid truth: D had too much on his plate to try and entertain me, while the bay of tampa was not making it very enticing for me to entertain myself (bathrooms, kitchens, communal areas in general all excepted b/c of [redacted]).

  blowing town was always an option (re: drove) and i didn't want to be hasty so i sweated (among other things) the following monday off. once D got home, unfortunately, i knew bubba had died and i was just one more noose for D and his increasingly strained neck. he was pretty quiet, slightly apathetic. he was not pallid but his demeanor suggested a palette of frustration that i knew he was withholding out of respect for me; i recognize that bodily behavior. so to make a slightly interesting story completely tepid, i no-face-timed D, and straight up left a day early while he was at work. it seemed the most melrose that could happen at this place.

  i tacitly admit i bailed. i had vaguely admitted my potential departure but it was nebulous and self-serving at best. the flip to that coin is that i think i had very valid and sound reasons for doing so. D had wanted me to come a week earlier but i demurred b/c my mother, her sisters and nieces had all traveled to the carolina of the south to go on vacation at myrtle beach and i had been asked to take care of various animals (my mothers' cats: otis and lexie; my aunt's dog and cat: charlie and spookie; and my own hell-mouth, who i can only figure is trying to relate to me in 'meows' the meaning of 'old man and the sea' by his namesake (look it up chump)). the problem, really, is my own; you know the proverb, if you're pointing one finger at someone else, might as well be the one you're gonna stick up your own ass...i think that's how it goes. moving along, 75% of the trip was amaza-balls, yet these circumstances (we're supposed to be adults?) achieved a covalence that made a distinct argument against colliding lives.

addenda and/or side-notes

  i only smoked 7 total cigarettes in my combined sixteen hours of driving to and fro tampa

  i slept on a very nice air mattress that had its air-pump built in, thus allowing for easy inflation and deflation

  i only listened to sirius 26: vinyl and sirius 34: lithium during my entire driving experience

  i split my return journey by stopping roughly half-way home and staying in a smoking allowed room

  i only stopped for gas 4 times the entire trip

  i repacked my car by myself, and yes, it was exhausting but at least D got a tv and i didn't need to ferry it anymore

  i tried to maximize my entertainment in a compacted period (PHRASING!)

:as the story finally wound down, the leaves stood still. the night's stars waved at the passing light and an emptiness lingered with the dying embers; the horror is never not real, and life is a constant jay-walk.