Wild Irish Rose

Wild Irish Rose

            I’ve been sitting on the corner of Main and Sixth for three hours and I only have forty cents in my cup.  I dug the cup out of the trash, and there was half a fancy coffee drink that tasted like caramel left in it.  Used to be the cups were all Styrofoam, which made for better begging.  Now, they’re all made from paper and don’t hold up so good.  I don’t know what those damn environmentalists thing they’re accomplishing with changing the cups, but it doesn’t help me at all.  They should consider the little man before they starting making world changes.

            Forty cents ain’t going to get me shit, so I’ll have to keep sitting here.  I’m hungry.  Not for food, no, I can keep on for two days without any food.  I know this because I’ve lived through the gnawing pain of hunger.  It’s not the nutrition I need; I need drink.  Fermented sugars and fructose distilled into something that will blend away the pain.  What pain?  The pain of living this life, unloved.

            It doesn’t matter I’m homeless, or that everything I own on this Earth fits into the military issued duffle I carry around.  I don’t mind being simple.  Folks might think it’s a bit crazy to keep everything right next to me, but I see it as a sort of security.  Better than living a life in the suburbs, trying to keep up with the neighbors across the street.  I tried that once, even had a wife and a couple of kids, but that was too much pressure.  I like walking alone, keeping to myself, forgetting there was a past and ignoring the fact that there’s a future.

            Well.  I say that, but I’m really always looking for the future drink.  It’s the one thing that keeps me moving.  A group of office mates are walking toward me.  The women are dressed like they came out of some glossy magazine and the men are pretending like they don’t notice the way high heels make a woman’s legs stand out.  I shake my forty cents in my cup and look up, pretending to be plaintive.  They might think they have the upper hand, but they have no idea.  They’re just as chained to their name brand addictions as I am to my Wild Irish Rose.

            A petite blonde looks me dead in the eye.  Her green eyes are sad, and her smile is forced.  In her small ears are diamonds as big as the size of cranberries.  Instinctively, I look at her left hand, and sure enough, she’s wearing a ring.  Of course she is.  She makes me think of my now-lost wife, Jenny.  I once gave her a diamond as big as I could afford, but it was nothing like what the blonde has on her finger or in her ears.  Of the group, I know she’s going to be the one to give me something.  She looks too kind, too green to know better than to give a drunk money.

            “Here you go, sir,” she says, pushing a twenty dollar bill into my cup.  “And thank you for your service.”  I forgot that I’m wearing a USMC hat.  I forgot for a moment that I’m a veteran.

            I squint my eyes at her and consider telling her that her path will lead her nowhere.  She’ll end up fat and sad in the middle of cookie-cutter sprawl, wondering what happened to her life.  But I need that twenty like I need air, so I don’t say anything.  I nod and look her dead in the eye.  I think she’ll remember me the next time she goes to the mall and spends four hundred dollars on a handbag that she’ll only carry for two months. 

            The group walks off and I slowly stand.  My joints ache.  I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting old, or if it’s from sitting, or if I’m starting to go through the withdraws.  Last time I was at the VA, the doc told me I had to cut the booze or I was going to die.  Easy for him to say because he was young enough to think that dying was a strange sort of thing.  I didn’t go back for my follow-up.

            Angels II Carryout is musty as I pull open the door.  The son’s owner, Faris, knows me well.  Every chance I get to buy some booze, I come to him.  He’s always open, and he’s nice to me.  Last winter, he gave me gloves when the temperature dipped below freezing.  A kind soul but he has a coke problem and I know it.  I can see these things.

            “How’s it going, Carl,” he calls out to me from behind the bullet-proof glass.  These days, you can’t be too careful.

            I raise my hand to acknowledge his greeting, but can’t find the strength to speak.  My body is rattled with the shakes.  It’s been twelve long hours since I’ve had any alcohol.

            I pluck three bottles of Rose from the stand-up cooler in the back of the store.  The twenty will only get me so far, but I want to try to get some kind of buzz before I drift off to sleep.  I haven’t gone to bed sober in three decades.

            Faris totals my purchase and I hand over the bill.

            “A twenty?  Dang, that’s impressive, man.”  Faris doesn’t pretend.  He knows I’m a drunk and he knows I beg.  I don’t pretend either, but smile wanly.

            He puts two of the slender bottles in a paper bag that smells like childhood and hands me the other.  Pulling a pack of cheap cigarettes from the rack behind him he tells me, “There are on the house.  And why don’t you take a bag of peanuts or something too?  You’re looking a little lean.”  Faris means well, and I hope he kicks his habit before he ends up like me. 

            “Thank you, sir,” I manage to reply, my voice as quiet as a butterfly whisper.  I take a jumbo sized bag of peanuts from the display next to the register and look longingly at the bottle of Rose.  “Mind if I?”  I don’t finish, but twist off the safety seal of the cheap booze and take a long swallow.  I drain the bottle without realizing it.  Faris watches me, nostrils flaring, but doesn’t say anything.  He might be one of those Muslims, but his daddy Ibraham raised him right to respect his elders.  I breathe in deep after the last swallow and hand him the bottle. 

            “Can you recycle that for me,” I ask as I hand it over.

            Faris smirks but takes the bottle. 

His Why to Her How

Injecting the moment with an acid-trip visual, she sewed him in threads of blue and green into the hole of her sweater. August or not, she kept her arms covered, hiding the cut marks, the bruises, the scars. He knew it and tried to explain his why, as he offered up a quasi-mess kit, replete with needle, thread, and bandages.

 “Cuz you never know,” he told her, handing over the plastic bag.

The two, sharing a polyester bus seat and the stale air that came with recirculated coughs and sweat, they were company for the next twelve hours as the Greyhound covered ground from Pittsburg to Chicago. She didn’t ask his motive, and he didn’t ask about the hole in her sweater.

His why-why-why talk rambled over the hills of Pennsylvania into the flat middle land of Columbus, Ohio, where the bus pulled in to refuel.

“I’m going to stretch my legs,” she told him, trying to explain her how to his why.

But neither of them listened.

And as the bus pulled away while she dawdled inside the station, fingering worn postcards and wondering her future, she realized she never learned his name. 

Love Gun

Love Gun

            Ann Savoy and Her Sleepless Nights sing softly from my tiny bistro kitchen.  Arriving two hours ago, you promptly showered.  You have dreams of being an actor, and I have dreams of being a dream.  .  I don’t talk about my brokenness, but you don’t ask.  That’s what makes this work, if you can even call us a this.  Two or three times a week, we’re just two adults finding cadence with nakedness.  August wind makes sea green taffeta curtains move; my wind chime finds rhythm with Savoy.

            “So where’d you put that bugger,” you ask, standing naked in front of me.  It’s not quite dusk, but well after evening.  Friday at the end of summer - the undergrads having returned for another round of study, my sleepy street is coming alive.     

            “There, in the drawer, underneath Ganesh.  Oh, and I guess I should tell you,” I pause, propping pale body on bony elbow; I don’t bother to close my legs.   We’ve been lovers long enough that modesty seems so Puritan, and I just saw Neva for my wax. 

“There’s a gun in there.  I have a gun.”   

            You grin, blue eyes opening wide.      

“A gun you say, like a real gun?”  You affect a Sean Connery accent, forever pretending to be someone else.  One day, I’d like to see the raw you, but I know I won’t. This is just a passing fling, right? Breeze tickles my skin prickled with sweat.  I chew over how much I should tell you about my life, before.  I can’t decide so I don’t say anything.  A car ignition turns over outside; I know it’s a Nissan by sound, but I don’t say that either. 

            “It’s a Glock,” I start, “17.”  I know you know nothing of pistols, let alone the kind of life that would require a person to keep a gun next to her bed.  “I thought of telling you the other day when you came over, but something happened, and I forgot.”  I shrug my shoulders.  I don’t want to talk about my gun, I want to talk about yours – the one between your legs, standing at attention like a Russian soldier during Red December.  And, I really did intend to tell you.  But then I remembered you’re from the suburbs and I know my city life will change the way you look at me.  Better to keep the past hidden until it has to come out.     

            You turn toward the pine nightstand, abs clenched, penis erect.  A giggle is beginning in the deepest part of my throat.  The first time we were here, after slacklining in the park, I laughed as I came.   I know it unnerved you.

“Sure, something happened,” you say knowing full well that I didn’t tell you for a very specific reason. You pull open the drawer, the bronze statue of my deity rattling with sound, to find the Magnum condom you left here last week.  I watch as you look at the steel gun, but refrain from touching it. 

            “Every day,” you start, pulling back the foil of the wrapper, “You find another way to pull the trigger on my love gun.” Your voice, falsetto in the shower, rings baritone true in my bedroom. 

            “Really?  KISS?” I try to keep the surprise from my voice.  You’re way too young for the band. 

            We both know it’s a cheesy line.  You wrap up slowly, anticipation building.  After, we lie silent.  The giggle that’s been hiding in me comes to the surface and I full on laugh, turning toward you.  You ground me in an Asian tradition, closing the hole that you opened.  It’s something you picked up across the pond.  Just enough quiet passes before you begin to speak, thinking I want to hear your voice.  Talking after sex is something for the movies, not something for real life, and surely not something for this moment after you’ve quoted me KISS, seen my gun and might’ve seen a glimpse of my truth, if you were paying attention.   

You sing Love Gun two times through and I go to pour wine, turning up Duo Gadjo to hear her sing to me. 

“Voyin,” I call out, “gde ti,” as if I could lose you in this studio apartment.  I find you in my bedroom standing in Euro-style briefs, looking down the barrel of my gun.  I’m not sure if you’re aware of what you’re doing.

“What the fuck?”  I drop the glasses of wine, and rush to you, kicking you in the shins.  The kick does little to move you, but it startles you just enough. 

“Who points a gun at himself?  Do you want to accidently shoot your head off?”  God, I sound like a mother.

“I just wanted to see what was inside,” you whine. 

“That’s elementary shit, Voyin.  Don’t fuck around like that.”  I begin telling you about a friend I had in the underground days who shot himself in the thigh while trying to look gangster, twirling his pistol.  The intent of the story is lost on you. 

“Bushi, it’s not like I was really going to do anything,” you say.  I think you’re convincing yourself more than me.

“Give me the piece,” I hold out my hand.  “And get a broom from the back room.  There’s glass everywhere.”

I put the gun away, Ganesh looking at me knowingly.  Maybe you are just a kid from the suburbs.  Maybe it’s time to end this.  Dinah begins singing her blues.  I sigh and show you out. 

             

Final Farewell

For today's story, an ode to the six word short. A story, told in twenty four words.

Final Farewell

“You’re strong,” he tells her again.

Her leather hand reaches for him.

Incessant machine wails one last time.

“Bye Mama,” he says, kissing her.

Well, I'll be a Bell

I know I am the most simplistic way to develop him. Made from cast iron, I am a cannonball with a handle, designed for explosive movements. Only with the right strength and flexibility has he perfected just how to grip the center of my mass. Sometimes, I pretend I’m like an ishi sashi, those handheld weights shaped like padlocks and made of stone. But, if I were an ishi sashi, then that would mean he held the key, and I’m not sure I want to give him that much power. At least, not yet. Maybe eventually, with enough training. I’m still not sure he has what it takes.

Hands, warm and calloused, grip the piece that connections my bottom half to the top. His movements show he knows what he’s doing. Or at least, I hope he does. With a high pull, his arms bow out like a bat’s wings, bringing me right underneath his chin. Years of shaving has left his skin with divots, scars from his quest to fit in with everyone else. He should just grow a beard and be done with it. Racked, I’m resting on his forearm in the crook of his elbow. There’s a scar there from a fall in creek when he was a child, chasing after a girl. I know because he always worries it right before we try this move, every single time. He breathes in. Deep. Lowers me below his waist; a slight pause and then we’re back up again – this rollercoaster clean and jerk ride repeated over and over until he’s pouring droplets of his existence onto the linoleum floor. A quick pause for a reset and then he snatches me from the ground, pressing me up toward the track lighting. With a slight thud, I’ve landed on his wrist, softly but with power. I think I’ve left a bruise.

He stands, wide legged like a horse riser, catching his breath and holding onto me with two hands. I don’t know why he saves this for last, but it’s always the same sequence. He thrusts his hips, making his body into a standing V shape. He swings me. Up and up, until I’m just parallel to the ground. The journey is thrilling. Repetition after repetition, we take this ride, always moving in unison. His grip starts to give. Even with the chalk caking his palms, I feel myself becoming unglued. He starts to cuss just as I forcefully fly out of his hands, crashing into my own reflection. Now we’re both shattered.

A Horse, of Course

Bridle

Darkness comes through the decaying wooden slats of the pen you forced me into last night.  It’s time to wake up.  Long before I hear your boots plodding along the soft autumn soil, I smell you, fresh coffee and stale tobacco assaulting my delicate nose.  Involuntarily I let out a soft whimper, knowing what today is going to bring.  This is training season; you’re going to push me hard, harder, the hardest of the days though yet to come.  Today we’re practicing for the Big Day, the fastest two minutes of my life.  You want me to finish in one hundred and forty seconds, my feet pounding the track gracefully, but still with power and force.  I can’t move that fast, but you’re going to try to make me.  Later today, when the sun begins its long slow descent, you’ll pat me on the ass and shove me back in here. 

Throwing open the wide door, you call my name, adding baby after it for good measure.  I stand back, the corner of this stall too small for both of us. 

“Come on now,” your gritty voice calls out, “You know what’s coming.  Don’t play games.”

I don’t ever get to play any game but yours.  Don’t you see that? 

I may weigh more than you, but you’re stronger.  You harness me, saddling my back with your expectations, bridle my mouth so I can’t speak.  You like it better that way.  Whispering dreams of your success into my attentive ears, you detail the work I must do for you to take the glory.  Three seasons ago, I resigned myself to knowing my nails will never be painted with bright spring suggestion, my long hair plaited with colorful ribbons.  You’ve designed me to work, not to show, but still you want that wreath of victory.  I bow my head as thoroughbreds saunter past, their strong faces haughty and sure.  A trumpet blares in echoy morning silence.  It’s time.

Trying to warm me, you pull my strings like a puppet master, leading me in circles.  I buck my head.  A man joins you, and the two of you dissect my body, the long lines of muscles I’ve broken down and recreated barely visible after so many seasons.  It’s as if I don’t exist. 

“You think she’s ready,” you ask the little Mexican standing next to you.

“Only one way to find out, esse.  Let’s get her out there.”

I exhale with force and stamp my leg.  I am right here, I want to call out.  But this fucking metal in my mouth keeps me silent.  My head turns from you toward the tender curve of the distance, steam rising up in the early October morning.  We’ve stood here too long.  I know it’s time, but I still pretend that I won’t feel you on my back soon enough. 

You mount me.  Over the years, I’ve carried too many of you – all men, all with dreams of some distant grandeur that I must create.  This is my last season, I heard you tell someone that last week.  You’ll turn me out to pasture after the Big Day, and find one younger, sleeker, with muscles taut and fresh, someone who might give you a trophy.  Your muscled thighs flex around my body.  You push me into submission. 

Like an errant lover, you pull my reigns, forcing me to a speed you think is acceptable.  I don’t respond quickly enough, so you whip me.  We loop the track, and I glance at the clock.  I’m over by twelve seconds. 

“Damn it, girl.  What the hell is wrong with you?”  You smack me on the bridge of my nose and I cower.  It shouldn’t be only my fault that I can’t move fast enough.  Maybe you’re too heavy.  I’m spent, and you’re feeling decidedly defeated.  You let me stand without your weight as you feed bits of sugar that taste like freedom.  Not bothering to wipe off the sweat I’ve poured for you, you throw a coarse blanket over my steamy body, snickering as you walk off.

“Ain’t gonna happen, Juan.  Just no way.  You said you know a guy?”  You leave me to sleep cold and alone, shivering in my defeat.  This stall cannot contain your demands.  I’ve lost.  Green is everywhere around me, but there are no fields.  

Word

Hello June! 

And hello to being halfway through this year. Crazy, right? Seems like I was just writing posts about my missing snow shovel, and here it is, almost officially summer.

This blog, while being a nice step-away from the other creative and academic writing that I do daily, has been something of a vessel for me to tell my tales … to wax poetic about my interests, worries, fears, and dreams. It’s also been an opportunity to tell my story.

So what is a story, exactly?

Is it the truth that we tell ourselves? The truth as it happened? As we remember it? Or is it a combination of all of these?

Coming out of my generative workshop at Residency, where I translated a real-life moment into a moment of fiction, I’ve started to keenly consider what it is about stories that compels me to write them, and hopefully, my reader to keep on reading.

Inasmuch as I think I have something poignant to say, I think that telling stories offers a sort of immovable permanence, something that can be tapped or scratched out … something that never goes away, and something to which I can return after however long and reexamine it with fresh eyes.

This month, I’m going to be writing stories. Not just my own – though I have plenty still to share, but also the stories of folks who have trusted me with their personal truths. I’ll fictionalize most, if not all, of the events, but keep the important details the same. It is my hope that in writing these truths, I come closer not just to understanding myself, but to understanding the world at large.

I’ll end this first post with perhaps the most famous six word story ever. Though I’m not his biggest fan (or his fan in general, really) Hemingway got it right with this one.

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”