Beverlie’s eyes were blue. That’s really all we knew.

She could hear and understand, but could not participate. The constant thought I had was how true it is that the eyes are windows to the soul. I could see through her eyes of baby blue.

Full of emotion with no hope of expression. One day melts into another. Days turn into weeks and months and then years, she remains stuck in her living shell, unable to move.

“God please take me home, why did you leave me this way”. She cannot say it, her heart cries out but her lips don’t speak. She’s stuck inside a body that betrays her.

She can hear life all around her and she lays in bed motionless except for a beating heart, breathing lungs and seeing eyes.

She can’t even tell you what she likes to eat. She can’t tell you if she’s too hot or too cold or that she has to go to the bathroom.

The hands on the clock continue ticking as they always do and life goes by for others as usual.

She is all alone inside this body that refuses to listen to her will and her hands freeze, nails digging into her skin and cannot cry out. It hurts and no one knows.

Her children visit and bring flowers that she can’t touch, longing to hug them and can’t.

Looking at the flowers, thinking about what a good mother she was to receive such a beautiful gift and again blue eyes well up, full of tears now sliding down her cheeks. Two daughters and a son, loving them, but unable to express it.

Simple things amused her, I loved her giggles, still able to smile her face would light up.

I knew her so briefly and I could see her reality. I spoke to her often and I could feel her through her blue eyes. She could both hear and understand, this was clear looking into her eyes. That was the sadness of it all.

I thought of her today. She had blue eyes. Beverly had blue eyes. ❤️

02 May 2019

2:00am musings of a post menopausal insomniac mind

My name is really Bud, but you can call me Sally. I’m the other woman.

You lie, sneak and cheat for me. I’m in your blood. You need me and love me more than your wife and family. I always win.

She cries and begs you to leave me as I sit back and laugh with my feet propped up waiting. She worries and I don’t care. You’ll always come to me.

She can smell me on you, I’m in your every breath and pore. Its fun when you lie and hide me. It’s my favorite game. You say “I’m done with you”, but I toss my head back and laugh. You’ll be back. I know.

I’m even familiar to your friends. They love me too. I’m a whore. I get around and I am everywhere. I don’t even have to be near, and you think of me. You think of me every minute of every day. Your mouth gets wet for me. You need to taste me. You want me. I bring you comfort. I put you to sleep. Who needs a wife when you have me. I’m always within reach.

I have seduced and murdered your family, and yet you still love me.

I cause heartache and grief, it’s my joy. You need me and want me so much. I am elated to know that I will be in your blood when you say your final goodbye. I will move on.

You have kids that need me too. I’m working on one right now. He’s thinking of me too. There’s enough of me to go around. I’m not faithful to anyone and I love men, women and children. Maybe a little part of me will worm into the brain of the tiniest ones. That is my hope. I’m not selective. I’m a whore.

I’m shameless. You can use me any time, anywhere and I will always come back. I’m always here for you. I will love you and come to you. Hold me and bring me to your lips. Again and again. I’m all you need. I’ll follow you anywhere. I’ll help you drive, I’ll go to work with you. I am always here. You love me.

I’m waiting patiently for you to leave your wife. I love you more. She’s no match for me. I am winning. You love me more.

Sally❤️

2020

2:00am musings of a post menopausal insomniac mind

Bus trip in the none-to-crisp suit pocket, they stayed for the Wed. prayer meetin. “Lord, clarity!?” is all she heard.

She let em. In her mind she wouldn’t say any of them words, though she knew em all. Not anymore. School want ever much of an option. She imagined she’d gone some 86 days counting Sunday school. Down in Delta Daddy drove the pickers and Momma would help her people at the gin. She guessed they also make juniper liquor, but she had never seen anybody so much as talking too much.

Usually she let em. Long as Grady wasn’t in the county or parish.

Carthage

Inside of the pain management clinic Momma wagged a smidgen more than usual.

The Cave. Yeah she felt like she understood what that peasant man had been on about. Inside of her the beasts walked behind her eyes projecting outward before the flame. Spirit. It was in there, everyone cept the great harlot believed that, maybe the Jews too.

The connection with the nebulous. A shadow moving over the death waters. Spirit. All of us believed in it, we just didn’t know what it did exactly. People loved to say ‘god-bless’ or ‘Lord have mercy’ without any effect registerin’. To my mind that just made it a cuss word.

She loved the swamp. Would try and draw it out on some papers she kept in a plastic sack. She would rub the expensive paper between her fingers and something stirred. The cicadas song was richer there, the air tugged back, weightier somehow. She felt like her house would one day be in the swamp, clapboard painted green with mesh to keep out the critters but not else.

It sounded like a side of deboned meat being hit with a Louisville slugger, he’d been there and few people went around with bats. Guns mainly. Breaking his hand had been a salvation. He thought he’d found religion but he’d found instead a boy from Colombia. Alerts rang. Grady felt drugs were a last option. Open but last on line. Everyone he grew up with said “in line” but Grady was careful with his mastery of what he considered the only separation betwixt man and dog.

Manfreid Israel Romele was Russian. Perhaps German. Older. Beautiful. Cement blonde. How is a fighter so beautiful? Grady knew.

Smoldering halogen incense prayed for them. Pissing on the carhood altar.

The boy was a fucking nightmare. Glowed. Darkness. He’d seen it before. Everything was loose when he prayed, like the boy standing feet away, steam roiling off of his neck, with “Molon Labe” tatted across the front of his windpipe, where he got hit 45 seconds later.

The Chevelle was purple and Grady wouldn’t lean on it. Surrounding the Big Red Barn choking the purity of the moment were the ‘chickens’. Grady had said, ”clucking foul” but his folk just spit out the gumbo. Grady did not respect a man who watched blood-sports.

Ancient and comfortable. It was more than he could bear, of at time he would sit in the pot till he’d eatin it. A marvel of his power, kneeling on the commode in communion. Particles of hay and heat, cicada’s his private herald. Easy 220. Easy. Against his knees fabric calmed his fingers, he thought of his sister; the smile closed. He thought of Teddy on his horse, the pompous, articulate fool.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”

So fucking obvious, like ham-in-hand. Natchitoches. Ham-in-Hand Festival 94. You could walk across the Sabine on boats, smells of the Cajun Microwave’s buried in the soft loam some 100 paces from the water. Whole hogs stuffed with chickens and doves. Grady wondered if dogs trusted smell the way humans subscribed to sight. It was over tween them and he should have seen it. Grady looked coldly at his need. Only the slightest of scowls. Chemicals he thought, chemicals and blips.

He didn’t think it much, to go to war. He was plied with Mozi, Xenophon and 1st Chronicles 4:10 early. Daddy leaning over him and pointing to sketches momma had drawn to go with the Gideon Bible which was in constant circumlocution with others of its ilk. He always walked hunkered down, tied firmly to many things that were not tied to him.

She scuttled over the grooved Cyprus, kaleidoscope of man reduced, he saw her; languidly absorbing the violence to come. Beneath her impressive multi-spectacled visage was her load, atwitter. Looked of fine hairs in a sharp breeze, her brood beneath her belly. She leaned back as if to sit or box or pray, front legs circling in the direction of the bigger man’s dead face.

Lawd have a way, boy you ready?

The man was a fat, suspender framing a whet shirt with nowhere to go came up on Grady’s boy Ara too fast.

Ok we ready?

Ill kill you ifin you don’t step back.

Things was tight, Grady knew all bout this here.

Aight then.

Theys a bit a nonsense bout that bet?

No. Straight up.

Mine’ll be in money orda?

Ara’d get it after the fight now, cause I’ll be on my way, Briar Rabbit style, gros cul.

Fat man took on a greasy bugger as backward he moved, “that man fittin to fuck you.”

Tingle. Mmmmmmm. Grady felt like Ehud preparing to assassinate the fat king Eglon of Moab.

Hear that Schvartze, eer dat fat man.

God give me a verse. He chewed a small hangnail.

Ha. He knew it. 2 Kings 9:20, 20 The watchman [a]reported, “He came even to them, and he did not return; and the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously.”

The Lord gave this verse a lot.

Ehud and Jehu. Lawd have mercy son.

This boy was car black, and it really aint right, that type a black. That sheen of purple that made Grady think of dinosaurs and that painter Turner. Give em almost like invisibility at night. And nobody wants that shit. It’s like that shine you can see you’re reflection in… but it gives pause cause it’s a black you staring back. How fucking mad you’d be. Grady wouldn’t look at those shiny black cars, he even avoided dark purple.

Fat man giggled into his cerchief and sat down on a bale; he thought, looking toward the unimpressive white boy, that this’d be soon over.

Grady prayed a bit, squatted and thought of something like a dwarf star painted on a canvas the side of the barn.

He knew the boy’d come over the top and heavy, he knew hed move left and the boy’d come in with a quick step and a lunge at his knees. All the cat in that man was now cutting its way to the top. the breath was bull-like in intensity but shallow. The red rims mean he’s a drinker probably and he favored his left knee a bit. Grady felt sorry then. Sorry for his life and his momma, sorry for the man who was gonna try a kill him, sorry for the fat man who bet against his own kind, sorry that Mississippi water that he smelled on everything was growing less pungent. Sorry God was real and poetry was to hang him. Sometimes things seeded afor birth ripen when they aint wanted. He always felt tears was fine where laughter was.

They drummed him out of the military for being too young. Sure at that time it would be the catalyst for a life riding the dark horse, he considered killing himself but didn’t. Grady’d look in the mirror most days to check and see if it was time.

I read somewhere that poor people typically name their kids names like Unique, Kandy, Sherry and Amber. Later, I read somewhere that girls with some particular names wind up being hookers and dancers and in the porno’s. It bothered me it took two studies to not say that poor girls went to stripping a shade faster than rich ones. Academicians are so fucking stupid. Not only this but everyone knew that strippers changed their names. I thought then and think now I should be in charge of a hair more.

I guess I followed her around some. I remember the taste of bubble-gum scented shampoo and her face. We were protective of each other as should be expected. Daddy woednt too much of a provider, nor a daddy. I guess she burned out that wild streak cause she came back directly.

“I wish I was in Dixie, hurrah hurrah

In Dixie land Ill take my stand to live and die in Dixie.

Oh way

Oh way

Oh way down south..... in Dixie.”

She loved the word Dixie, long as I knew her though I believe she thought it more of a state of being, like glory or honor. She may ah never known it was holding all our heads under water. Grady knew all about it and loved it anyway. Some things just don’t figure. Soon as I could I got out. Not sure anyone else ever did, not really.

I remember him takin pictures of her holding onto a lit lighter and a squeeze bottle a lighter fluid.

I remember when the men came in and he couldn’t protect us. He tried. Grady says, “tryin dyin.”

I read an article somewhere bad things happen to poorer people more often, it was more nuanced than that but that’s what I got.

“Katy-Rob, bring us that phone.”

“your cellular phone?”

“We aint go no…little smart-alec.”

She was always doin stuff like that. I couldn’t ever figure who she was making fun of, Daddy or this Democratic Republic. Maybe Jonny Locke.

Momma was a Rhodes Scholar, I do not know how.

The slovenly way she met my laughter got her a lick. She called herself red velvet, not a nickname, her color. Said mamma was white as the driven snow cept a little Cocoa and a dash’a red food colorin. At a certain age I started realizing that I was gonna be mostly for myself, like my cousin Fay. I took to strippin like anybody’s business. First night in, this little Indian girl told me we do private parties, all naked. I couldn’t see much difference anyhow. It was illegitimate and the girls were indifferent to the men sucking on their titties and stuff. It just suited me fine.

I told Grady that he was to keep my little sister outta my world. There was only room in Carthage for one Cobb stripper.

The striker clicked down and something happened but it sure did not fire a round. White slipstream stepped quickly and quietly inside and hit the man with the gun in the throat. That noise is a thing. Everyone knew he’d done killed him. Grady remembered Niccki Bercham getting punched just so and dying. He guessed he coulda just knocked the gun away. Somewhere, someone was probably holding a little nigglet, waiting on daddy to call. It’d be a wait.

There were eight Cobbs all said but they slithered off, most of em anyway, to Bama and Nam and Peru. Doesn’t matter too much because once they left sight of the Mississippi River, they was good as dead.

Why’d they decide to try and kill him? Grady had a small warrant out on him that left the Boss little choice. That’s what I heard.

Theys four of us around and we all came. Amber, Bo, Katy, and me. Grady stood up from a Shaker stool he loved.

Grady said they’d maybe come for one of us.

They got Katy Rob two nights later, sent in her fron tooth wit they diamond set in it. Fucked up but shed done talked about rippin it out her own self.

Similies was supposed to be a real swanky joint but it was not. Owner by strategery has built a damn motel in the back. Lord have mercy, sulphur factory. I went to pills in the first month. Once you have gonna church and believe, shit gets real hard to do…after the first couple times anyway.

Grady wasn’t blood related to all the girls and he knew to divide his attentions. You cant just go around fighting the whole wrestling team. Amber was neck-tatted and out from around at 14. Our older cousins had done some strippin down on the redneck riveria and I reckon it called her harder’n dope.

Katy took to the hard life too but came back to me and Daddy, Momma and her never cared to talk to one another. She came back quieter and only wore beige and grey. She wrote long letters to Amber and cried some but I would have had her cry all the time if’n she’d just stay.

You’se too young buddy.

I knew you’d say that shit.,

Amber drove up in a fucking Infinity with something clanking under the jappy hood. I knew Grady wouldn’t even look at her, not even one time.

Amber and me gonna go talk to Joe-Block. See if we can figure something out.

There wasn’t any reason to hate Grady for being what he was but I had me a weapon too.

I never knew a way to complete the things that others completed. I reckon I’m slow or I ain’t totally grown up yet. Somin’. When I saw those men take Katy and beat Daddy, there was some sort of wet click and I seemed of a sudden to be able to see it all. The vast expanse and the precipitous nature of the wealthy and the bright. left us all killing each other over a double wide and an abortion.

I watched myself, knowin somehow I had made a decision that was about being a man, about being a Cobb n’ a Toten but there wasn’t anything movie about it. I stole a ladies cruiser out front a the Winn Dixie and played with myself all the way to Biloxi. I felt greasy and popped a pimple on my back. Somehow the Ruger felt lighter the further south we went, like it was becoming less offended by its own.

I was in love with the purity of my little brother. He would never talk to me in front of other people but in private he asked after my girlfriends and me. Once I got a bit too graphic and he white’nd up so I was sure he was gonna kill me. I think he’s still a virgin at 24.

I had made 1200. I have no damn clue where that fucking money is now. Jessie and I were working on a routine, she had this idea for a ‘concept piece’ with Moors and an allusion to the Hearst family but we just wound up kissing and smoking cigarettes till it was our turn.

They could see her now. More whispers to Letty, “This place gone turn out.”

Gomorrah’s Peace

By Benajah CC Joseph

BloodforInk.Com

@benajahjoseph

https://bnsthrnxpt.wordpress.com

Voice – The narrator is the protagonist (perhaps older) which will indicate to the audience that he makes it out alive. We find out by the end that his father will be murdered.

Figurative language- Southern style comments and Jewish influence. Yiddish is used some.

Character – Lenny, Dad, Narrator, Ethiopian guide, Haile Selassie, Jamaican warlord, woman 1-3, Mom, the Devil in various forms and his followers/ Rastafarians/assassin

Setting – Ethiopia in several distinctive places-The well-guarded Axum and the jungle/Deep South/ in Hell/ on bus/at school/ temple/Baptist church/island.

Plot – The plot is that the “new Sampson” has to save the world from an evil metaphysical presence while not getting arrested for flagrant use of drugs and some random violence as well as “called for violence”.

Word choice- To offset the southern accent use of very big words used kind of unnecessarily. Ethiopian guide uses some local words in very African accent, seems to use movie quotations a lot. Literary allusions by the father.

These characters need to be fleshed out and some of the historical wording needs to match with the intelligence and sobriety of the people talking...mainly the protagonist

Characters:

Lenny

Dad

Guide

Emperor Selassie

Jamaican warlord named Bob Brillo

Women named Kelly Ontangua,Assiga

Mom

The Devil as many characters

Assassin

Protagonist

Act 1-

The obvious sounds of cooking meat, cutting to a group of men cooking meat

looking very serious and wealthy to the burning off of a man’s nose (maybe a slave

in Egypt or African slave in American south or in modern Northern Africa during a

coup). This as the narrator in a very specific Southern accent of Shelby Foote but

very young says…

Narrator:

The first instant of my conversion was to the searing hiss of “the Christians are

right.!.?!”

Scene: A young man looks up from where he is hiding. A man creeps up behind him.

The vegetation is lush and both the men look scared. A short scene of the man

killing an entire room of men with an antler that morphs into Samson's jawbone of

an ass and a very gritty recreation of the Biblical story. This morphs from Sampson

drinking from a stream to the young narrator.

Narrator:

“I'm sick and I am sure I will be again. I bear enough strength to endure many things

but straight shot reality, fuck no. Sick to me may be a shade different from your run

of the mill doper, for while the smack and all of it are bad, the slurring assault of my

conscience and occasional visits from hashem are driving me insane, or may have

already. The deal right now is the Charleston police are racing toward me on boats

and I have killed this dude…and its 330 am…and there is an Egyptian who is

definitely trying to kill me…on this island.”

Scene: During this introduction a choreographed, colleges look at the life of a

privileged Southerner who is seen to: hide a yarmulke in the back pocket of his

jeans, shoot a baby deer, put a dip in his mouth, can be seen at a local cross-burning,

first having sex with a black girl then hitting an almost identical looking black boy

with the thin side of a tennis racket, kissing the Pope's ring, singing at a Baptist

church Hallelujah, drinking beer in camouflage at a deer camp, holding a baby,

holding a puppy, blowing on a duck call ect ect

Addition Note:

(I would like to quickly create the duality or even multi-faceted humanity that exists

in the main character but frankly in all of us. I don’t want to be crazy obvious but

sometimes that’s a good way to introduce a side issue, the nebulous religious

leanings of an obvious Jewish main character)

Narrator:

“I would say this is the first time, but its not quite so cut and dry as that I would tell

you I am exceptionally observant and that all of this is in His plan but dude half the

time I don’t believe in anything but my grinding teeth. I have been put down too far

to fully trust my senses yet every day from sun up to down I have been given some

sort of power. Its not available to me at night and I have spoken to a man in Addis

Ababa who says it is a reduction or evolution of the Judges power from the Torah. I

am an expiation of Sampson he says. Sampson slept with hookers and had long hair

so we’re two for two but there the similarities end and problematic to all of that is

that I have been assured in “visions that touch me”, that Jesus was in fact the real

deal. Dude.

Scene 1

Dad:

“Are you out of your mind?”

Scene: A bus in what is obviously Africa, but specific characteristics label the area as

Ethiopia. On the back of the bus sits an middle aged man with a paunch and a fake

leg. Looking not but just a little dazed and looks like high-school aged

Narrator:

It seemed if I wasn’t saying this to my father then it was being said to me. The

fundamentalist Christian right wing perspective was fucking aggravating. We were

Jews but I didn’t say this.

I have been assured by the rabbis that I speak with, that all men doubt and that

perhaps my father will come back from this tragic no, fatal mistake.

He wanted to take the bus in from Mortinqou in the Northern part of the Ethiopia

down to the Kriska and Kiola kibbutz or the Ethiopian equivalent to read some

historical documents about the Council of Trent.

Scene: Aside from the bus to a typical frater

Lenny:

“Why Ethiopia?”

Me:

“Well it was the longest ruling royal system in the world until 1936 when, everyone

killed everyone else and the remains that we are in today. The Hebrew tradition in

Ethiopia is tied to the very soul of the country and it was this and this alone that I

came for.”

Narrator soliloquy: ( A collage of Ethiopian history)

“The history is remarkable but I could have studied all this from my king sized bed or

a deer stand for that matter. Ethiopia is the oldest independent country in Africa

and one of the oldest in the world. What are believed to be the oldest remains of a

human ancestor ever found, which have been dated as being some five million years

old, were discovered in the Awash Valley in Ethiopia. This beats the discovery of

“Lucy”;, a 3.2 million year old skeleton, who was unearthed in the same area in 1974.

I wasn’t born then and I am glad, my uncle Benny was born in 1975 and the music

he listens to is so wack. Fuck Tool. Ha. Anyway, I came with my dad despite having

a million other things to do because I want him to return to sanity and give up this

thing but so far I have been thwarted, maybe because I have stayed inordinately

high from Atlanta on…”

.

The dad drones on…sounding much like Ben Stein with a southern accent. The

father is a PhD in History and regurgitates this stuff ad nauseum.

DAD:

“The Greek historian Herodotus, of the fifth century BC, describes ancient Ethiopia

in his writings, while the Bible’s Old Testament records the Queen of Sheba’s visit to

Jerusalem where "she proved Solomon with hard questions.. Matters clearly went

further than that because legend asserts that King Menelik - the founder of the

Ethiopian Empire - was the son of the Queen and Solomon.”

Scene: The protagonist in anti-hero style looked at him over his glasses; he had the smallest of smirks on his already shadowed jowly face. He thinks what he said was risqué I realize in a startled jump into his mind. Already today I kicked a 13-year- old kids knee plumb in and…well it

had been a wild morning. The realization that we were so different again waivered

just at the crux of dismissal and epiphany in my scowling mind.

Me:

“Dad, I am trying to read my email and listen to this new shit Future dropped.”

Narrator considers: Its possible he did not try to translate my kind of jumbled speech or he is ignoring me. This morning I got up at three and got on the back of a goddamned scooter and

went to find some more, or better, rather, weed and some sort of opioid or heroin,

whatever. Yeah I found none of that but I have been in oscillating states of absolute

torpidity and blaring paralysis since I was plied with some sort of local sucked up,

fucked up African loo-loo root drug about 2 hours and 37 minutes earlier.

Did I say that out loud?

Scene:The teeth continued to be sucked on as punctuation points to his continued diatribe

on Ethiopia.

Me to Lenny: (sitting in rocking chairs on a porch of an Antebellum-stye plantation)

“Remains of the Queen of Sheba’s palace can still be seen today in Axum, in the

province of Tigray, northern Ethiopia were we are now trying to tie up some

religious loose end. Axum is also home to many other extensive historical sites,

including the home of the Ark of the Covenant, brought there from Jerusalem by

Menelik.

Something about what he said next stuck with me.

Dad to Me: (again the series of images that link to what they are saying)

Dad:

“Missionaries from Egypt and Syria reached Ethiopia in the fourth century and

introduced Christianity. In the seventh century, the rise of Islam meant Ethiopia was

then isolated from European Christianity. The Portuguese re-established contact

with Ethiopia in the 1500’s primarily to strengthen their control over the Indian

Ocean and to convert Ethiopia to Roman Catholicism. A century of religious conflict

followed resulting in the expulsion of all foreign missionaries in the 1630s.

This period of bitter conflict contributed to Ethiopian hostility towards foreign

Christians and Europeans which persisted until the twentieth century and was a

factor in Ethiopia’;s isolation until the middle of the nineteenth century.

From the 1700s, for roughly 100 years, there was no central power in Ethiopia. This

“Era of the Princes” ; was characterized by the turmoil caused by local rulers

competing against each other. In 1869, however, Emperor Tewodros brought many

of the princes together, and was a significant unifying force. He was succeeded by

Emperor Yohannes, who built upon the efforts made by Tewodros, as well as

beating off invasion attempts by the Dervish and the Sudanese.”

Scene:The father leaned forward and put his hand on young mans shoulder. The young man looks at the hand as if in total shock that his Dad had took his shoulder in an very loving way. One gets the impression that the relationship had problems and the relationship was not outwardly expressed.

Dad to me: ( shows a huge battle scene)

“This Emperor Menelik II

reigned from 1889 to 1913, fending off the encroachment of European powers. Italy

posed the greatest threat, having begun to colonize part of what would become its

future colony of Eritrea in the mid 1880s. In 1896 Ethiopia defeated Italy at the

Battle of Adwa, which remains famous today as the first victory of an African nation

over a colonial power.”

Protagonist chimed in at this point knowing the history of Rastafarianism from one too many late bong nights with Eloise Hellenic Pointe watching the History channel.

Me: (As this is being said small clips of the royal family from beginning of rule to colonization by the Italians):

“In 1910, no in 1916, the Christian nobility deposed the sitting king, Lij Lyasu

because of his Muslim sympathies and made his predecessor’s, King Menelik's’,

daughter, Zewditu, Empress. Her cousin, Ras Tafari Makonnen, was appointed

regent and successor to the throne.”

Internal dialogue from younger protagonist to self:

“I knew I had said that out loud but at once I was not 100 if it made sense. I sat back

kind of feeling like I may vomit and then for the briefest instant I thought I had just

eaten a literal piece of shit, wet and…I swallowed a little vomit and looked around

for someone to tell that to and make it really, really timely and funny but…fucking

Ethiopians.”

Dad(as this is being said several photos of the father as a younger man with obvious station and money)

“This is the important part son. Zewditu died in 1930, after which the regent -

adopting the name Haile Selassie - became Emperor.”

Scene: Lenny and me at a dope house in an obvious drug related party.

Me to Lenny:

“His reign was interrupted in 1936 when Italian forces briefly invaded and occupied

Ethiopia. Haile Selassie then appealed to the League of Nations, but that appeal fell

on deaf ears and he fled to exile in the UK, where he spent five years until the

Ethiopian patriotic resistance forces with the help of the British defeated the Italians

and he returned to his throne. Haile Selassie then reigned until 1974 when he was

deposed and a provisional council of soldiers, or “the Derg”, meaning committee, as

they loved to self-refer…anyway they seized power and installed a government

which was socialist in name and military in style. Fifty-nine members of the Royal

Family and ministers and generals from the Imperial Government were summarily

executed. Haile Selassie himself was strangled in the basement of his palace in

August 1975.”

Me:

“The year uncle Benny was born.”

Father looks at son. The obvious distaste for stupid statements is reinforced. Young absolute jackass and had just eaten my own feces.

Narrator

“He always looked like he felt sorry for me”

Protagonist stands up in the rocking bus to pretend to look out the

window and put the last piece of weak opium or strong hash in to my mouth, yeah I

was eating it. The vomit taste lingered like anise.

Me to Lenny: (sitting in a duck blind)

“Major Mengistu Haile Mariam assumed power as head of state and Derg chairman

after having his two predecessors killed. His years in office were marked by a

totalitarian style government and the country's massive militarization financed and

supplied by the Soviet Union and assisted by Cuba.”

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG- a temporary lull in the conversation as the

top of the blind is flipped open and ducks come raining down, one managing to break

the narrators nose.

Scene: Pans out from the broken nose Think Owen Wilson…younger.

Dad:

“The brutality of the regime over a period of 17 years - aided by droughts and famine

- hastened the Derg’s collapse. Insurrections occurred throughout Ethiopia, particularly in the northern regions of Tigray and Eritrea.”

The father stopped talking to to eat a Vienna sausage he had brought from the states.

Narrator breaking the 4th wall to audience:

“ I don’t know much but I know those things are toxic and certainly ain't kosher.”

Dad:

“In 1991, the Transitional Government of Ethiopia was set up from the EPRDF and

other political parties in the country with an 87 strong Council of Representatives

and a transitional constitution. Meanwhile, in May 1991, The Eritrean People’s

Liberation front, also called ELF which is funny...led by Isaias Afworki assumed control of Eritrea after 30 years of struggle and established a provisional government. This ran Eritrea until

April 1993 when Eritreans voted for independence in a UN monitored referendum.”

Dad leaning forward looking very annoyed

“You have something in your teeth son. You have some dip in your teeth, son.” Not knowing that it is hash.

Lurching forward I pretended I had been thinking about his 3rd to last sentence. Of

course I have shit in my teeth because it is a dense fibrous yet gelatinous substance

with the consistency of very old cookie dough. Lunch.

“We gon to go to stop to lunch or…”, it kind of drooled out of my throat. He ignored

me.

“In Ethiopia, President Meles Zenawi and members of the TGE pledged to oversee

the formation of a multi-party democracy. The election for a 548 member

constituent assembly was held in June 1994. This assembly adopted the constitution

of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in December 1994. Elections for the

first parliament were held in 1995 and the government has been consistent since

then.”

“Dad.” He looked slightly annoyed.

“Right now, we are supposed to be a vacation?”

The son talks on, “You have been talking over this damn 1952 Jalopy bus’s environment

slaying engine for an hour. If you are going to give a tour of the shittiest place on

Earth, then record it, Ill market it and we can sell the shit on ITunes for other

ridiculous fools looking for religious succor in darkest Africa.”

Narrator: (setting is horrible strip club in Addis Ababa) As he says this on the scene are

“Slouchy. You look for slouchy and fresh shoes to get drugs in Africa. To get hookers

you get disease or that’s what I have been told. I have been as carful as possible. I’m

gonna leave it at that. Staying low key isn’t that hard. I went to some different bar

areas and settled on a titty bar with full nudity and AK 47’s around the door like

porcupine bristles. I find the more firepower around the bullshit that involves me

and worse people than me…the better. I stay strapped in the states. Yeah I am not a

gangster but I fuck with all these people who live to fuck other people, so I try to

keep it honest. Here its business so I gotta keep it business. Straight.

Scene 2: The history of Ethiopia is continued this time with a much more serious

slant to it. Ancient ceremonies, atrocities and valiant battles can be pictured as this

quote from the Balt Jewish Times is quoted.

Baltimore Jewish Times read in a strong Jersey accent:

“Once they were kings. A half million strong, they matched their faith with fervor and

out-matched the Muslim and Christian tribesmen around them to rule the mountain

highlands around Lake Tana. They called themselves Beta Israel—the house of

Israel—and used the Torah to guide their prayers and memories of the heights of

Jerusalem as they lived in their thatched huts in Ethiopia.

But their neighbors called them Falashas—the alien ones, the invaders. And even three

hundred years of rule, even the black features that matched those of all the people

around them did not make the Jews of Ethiopia secure governors of their destiny in

Africa” (“Falashas: The Forgotten Jews,” Baltimore Jewish Times, 9 November 1979).

Operation Solomon was the salvation of the remnant of an old Jewish settlement in

Ethiopia. For centuries, the world Jewish community was not even aware of the

existence of the Jewish community of Ethiopia in the northern province of Gondar.

The miracle of Operation Solomon is only now being fully understood; an ancient

Jewish community has been brought back from the edge of government-imposed

exile and starvation.

But once they were kings. . .and some say they wielded great power…

Its 330 am and I have two full hours before I can count on even being functional,

meanwhile I killed someone else and it wasn’t self defense. Sometimes my night

activities bleed into the days and other times I go weeks without waking up during

daylight hours.

Change this into dialogue--------

Startlingly neer a time until the veil was torn was the question of experience versus revelation realized as one coin, two sides, but the veil has now been torn and what we knew then, all now know.

Degrees, all valiant variegates of the infernal questions that plague, all were present, standing row on row ad infinitum…ad nauseam before him and about him. These poising’s forming a link must be contemplated, must be formulated, must be quiescent enough to distinguish betwixt who he was and the glory of it all in his evident metamorphoses, though he never really changed…everything else did in life’s gradient glandular way. Primed and pumping regularly or disproportional and aberrant. in which they are perceived, like how we die-slowly and then all at once. He had no capacity for change; his turgid spirit distended with effort to pump its element into the soul, was failing. Not for lack of effort, for lack of a receptive target, the soulish nature of his soul was startling; believing its own shit, believed it had a lock on the rabid full-bodied love of life– stonily stood by death calling it valiant and glorious, stood glibly by rape calling it amore and fitting, stood by godlessness and invested in that vacuum as progress. Such a soul that the golden tincture of the dauntlessness of the vital flow was spun through a washing cycle and returned to the well-spring; bastardized beyond asomatous recognition…like blending a flower in a black hole and then replanting it. Well it just wouldn’t take and the strain sunk into the bridgework between two worlds. Sunk in and metastasized into the fantastical spaces where God reaches man and man wrestles with God, to what end he could never say for it all went absolutely unnoticed by earthly eyes. Problem was and remains that the supernal refutation doesn’t just go away, entropy works here in reverse. Nuclear waste and alien serum can be buried but not made to disappear. God washed with humanity is…well abomination is puppy love.

Around him, when the light hit his eyes in the club or music came to close to its source within him, some special folks could always see the incongruity that he produced in the known world. Human vision can always pick out the anomaly, the perfectly straight line or the glint of metal in nature. He was eight dimensions in a 3D world and the sloshing of warped vitiate was eroding his inner man.

Despite every fiber of his being speaking to the appositional knowledge that he always knew he would amount to something, the rigors of being him and the barrage of uncertainty or downright hatred from his contemporaries left him in serious doubt as to the validity of any of it. To believe others, to believe himself, to look at history as a life-worth barometer; all of it seemed pretty weak, insubstantial and alleged. Yet he walked with his head down, overindulged at every occasion and cut his upper thighs and licked at the blood.

Mama I’m in love with him, oh how many mother-teenaged Juliet talks begin this way. A Great man once said,“There is something depressing about it and it’s not really about dogs. Except for some superficial bow-wow stuff at the start, the dogs all represent human types which is where it gets into real trouble. Lady, the ostensible protagonist, is a fluffy blond cocker spaniel with absolutely nothing on the brain. She’s great looking but, let’s be honest, incredibly insipid. Tramp, the love interest is a smarmy braggart of the most obnoxious kind, an oily jail bird out for a piece of tail or whatever he can get. No, he’s a self confessed chicken thief; an all around sleaze ball. What’s the function of a film of this kind? Essentially it’s a primer about love and marriage directed at very young people, imprinting on their little psyches that smooth talking delinquents recently escaped from the local pound are a good match for nice girls in sheltered homes. When in ten years the icky human version of Tramp shows up around the house their hormones will be racing and no one will understand why. Films like this program women to adore jerks.”

This may be true and when Marlie-Alex said this to her mother regarding Devin James Boudreaux, her father sitting in the hunting room down the hall could only think how much he hated Walt Damned Disney. Devin wasn't a bad kid, but his family was poor and he had very little hope of ever getting out of his older brothers hand me down tennis shoes. Sneakers he thought to himself, only coloreds, boys playing sports and hospital doctors should be wearing tennis shoes and none of them should be calling em sneakers. Sneakers… damnation.

Devin

When the weight of the world was felt he let it linger, the grit into his shoulder, rawity and servitude, pressure then stepped out from beneath it. The greatest successes are, in terms of character, always the greatest losers he loved to say, for even if they make it back to normalcy, to quantify it, they have gone farther than a fair to middlin’ personality staying right there. Oh you have a job, oh you have a kid, a dog, have erected an adult Lego set around it all…and…I mean who fucking doesn’t. Let’s give that same Joe Blow a sociopathic tendency and a terrible smack habit and see how he fairs, odds are he’ll step in front of a train or eat some high powered rat poison because his character is weak. This isn’t demonizing suicide , for I believe that’s a legitimate option for those who possess a depth to see beyond this carnal plane, circumstance be damned. But don’t do it because you’re stuck, do it cause you aint and want to be more free. Character hasn’t a thing to do with not stealing or cheating at cards, or fingering the girl passed out from drink, it has nothing to do with the obsession for blood or dope, whether or not you like to sleep with boys or girls or cattle for that matter. It is the capacity for change. If entropy be our fate then the moral, psychic, or spiritual gains against it be our salvation.

Devin was such a person, capable but reticent, like the land he leaped from; willing to be made willing but unsure of what it looked like and confused because she loved him for who he was and yet spoke almost exclusively of who they would be. Am and could. Is and would. The consideration of it gave him a headache and most days like today he walked into his momma’s room and ate some of her confusion pills to help out.

In the long line of druggies and drunks that came afor him Devin could be considered a lightweight but the depth of his soul could be seen in his iris’s and when he was high, everyone knew. There is a sadness that can be seen in extraordinarily brilliant eyes when their owners are fucked up. Though speech and mannerisms and function be the same…something is off. The human eye is capable of picking up on the slightest thing out of place. Devin was always kind of out of place and disliked for it.

Marlie-Alex

I have been crazy. Psychosis scared everyone. For me it was just another day, another wave, frenetic diffidence of sense and time. I imagine suicide is Godly, not God is suicide, for that marker is now 8 months past but that the hammer thumbed back day to day by the best of us is allowed by the Godly to ‘molon labe’.

With our initial interview over I looked at her through clear Brooks Brothers lenses, then over them. “OK.”

She looked cold, they all did. The face sheet said arrested for arson. “Did it.” lipped LeBlanc through the black screen worn so with the repetition of caress from hands damned. Willing twernt a word gave much ’tention he hummed to himself, spitting smarmily and with all the aplomb of the entitled stupid. LeBlanc picked up on the eye fucking they were doing, as cops will do. “She done cud herself all up, what dem girls call ye…uhh…hell yeah cudders.”

“What like a cow, she a little bit, that don’t fly. Chewing the cud, don’t make not a dern bit a cotton-picken sense.”

Berietta heard it all, even the caustic thoughts and rough eye licks. Though one of “her Kind” she prayed to God regularly, “Lord a hand grenade, an RPG, a sharp pencil!” Berr realized she was probably gonna start rightly going insane rather quickly…pretty…pretty crazy. This left her released of the occupation of most humans which was to obsess about self. It was much like a Changeling or werewolf, her consciousness was a’leavin and someone else was a’coming. She knew they wouldn’t kill her and briefly wondered who she really was, a gosh dern shame not to know who a soul was. One that would fall down like ancient stones but that no academicians and alien theorists would discuss or write on, cause no one cared.

Bradley

Bradley-Block held the analyst head under the water again. Perhaps a minute, who really counted anymore, it was all available on an app. He hated to count. Maslow, Freud, White, James, Jung, Glaser, Spitzer, Tanner, Glaser, Pinel, Beck, Amen, Ablow, Frankl ad nauseum. His lists were long enough not to be considered comprehensive or boring but with enough syllables to make sure that this fucker believed he was going to die. He had killed before and it was always a spin on the roulette wheel of others lives to see if he would add to that lauded number.

In the Frame of a life depth is illusory. An illusion based on the capacity to explain or create what depth feels like and the apparition is applauded, sent to the psych ward or believed to be an intrinsic flaw or qualifier in great intellect. There may very well be some retards or neurologically damaged folks who are within the bounds of testing for normalcy or perhaps not..Perhaps the testing is the proof we should all recognize that we are scared, scared to death of one another.

Moore says, “If you think anyone is sane you just don't know enough about them.” The fact that Scooby Doo uncovered daily that monsters are in fact men is amazing, because to this day only a portion of us believe that despite definitive and human long evidence. Everyday she looked in the mirror she was horrified by the realization that she was exactly the same as every other day. Weight was neither gained nor lost, black eyes came and went without notice or affect and her for keeping secrets was immeasurable. At some point she became unaware, like the secrets didnt exist, she worried if she was in a state of anti-grace or Enantiodromia. Who could say, who could qualify what was hidden from all. Dividends she felt was being paid to her for a secret touches that place betwixt the spiritual heart and ones taint.

Devin

Devin was such a person, capable but reticent, like the land he leaped from...willing to be made willing but unsure of what it looked like and confused because she loved him for who he was and yet spoke almost exclusively of who they would be. Am and could. Is and would. The consideration of it gave him a headache and most days like today he walked into his momma’s room and ate some of her confusion pills to help out.

In the long line of druggies and drunks that came afor him Devin could be considered a lightweight but the depth of his soul could be seen in his irises and when he was high, everyone knew. There is a sadness that can be seen in extraordinarily brilliant eyes when their owners are fucked up. though speech and mannerisms and function be the same…something is off. The human eye is capable of picking up on the slightest thing out of place.

Bradley-Block, for that was his full first name loved the intricate feeling of loving an intricate feeling. sure as ever that no one had ever so much as looked at the still cold black pool that was his impression of the world at large or the minutia in general. Unfortunately for Bradley he heard voices and saw visions and was seen and heard in turn by these same entities. Tonight they were discussing his best friend, discussing whether or not he was up to snuff for some type of job. Bends was a sick sick boy and though Bradley wasn’t in the slightest bit religious he instinctively knew that at least one of these creatures talking was an angel, after all it had wings and was shiny.

MICHAEL: Hosanna, Bless the Lord. Praises to Elohim, in the Highest. Is he ready Lord? Is the wheat ripened and the man of your choosing prepared

for his task, for his deluge into evil?

FATHER: All is hand for the Sons glory. Your work continues.

PETER: What preparation does this goy have, this one, infested with evil as he is, a

man unto himself, loved by none, for no one, no family, no ecclesiastica, no

no family. He is double-souled, sinking into himself with leprosy.

DAVID: Lord Master Holy One Righteous One must we put what is so precious to

us in the hands of a landless Gentile?

Enter JESUS: Peter am I striving against you still? David have I not broken down the middle wall of partition? Have I not taken care of your nature, your endless questionings, your genealogical murmurings? This one is as precious to me as all of you sitting here with me today? Is Stephen here with you? Is John? Is Isaac here? Some would still wrestle with my choice? Is it not mine, has it not been written in the Book of Life? Am I not GOD? I came for the world little ones. I came for the world generally and for this one particularly. Paul knows this well and Noah and Elijah. When a tool is built a job is in the craftsman mind and a finished work in his heart. He is a tool for Me, for us, my Church, my bride of which you are a part. This one has been formed now he is being filled and soon he shall be poured out. Kenosis of an evil, dexiotites for the ecclesia.

Ben and Bradley were circling evils. Like opposing magnets it was almost as if they couldn’t be too close but because of the opposing forces were always aware that they were being pushed and neither of them cared to be pushed. Devin was without a doubt more evil than either of them, but in a more subversive and less overt manner. He poisoned, he lied almost constantly, he sent letters with legal and medical information to people with no business reading it and only a portion of it true. He burned things and spiked peoples drinks with hallucinogens. Devin was a biter an abuser of kids/dogs, song bird shooter and elderly abductor. To Bradley watching him was like watching a unicorn and hearing the God of the universe speaking of him in such glowing terms was surly a wonderful golden thread added to the tapestry of boring brown. He read Anton Levay’s book and it backed up every single thing that he realized was true. Up was down, good was bad, evil was purity and Hedonism was the way to heaven.

Marlie-Alex

How it happened meant little to them. How, who the fuck cares about how. Most are possessed of the obsession to believe the finder and the seeker are the same when “how” they are different can only be answered with the source code question of “How”. As she sat in the process group, processing the iron deficiency in her nails and leaping to substantive conclusions with regards to her organs or at least an organ, she considered the intrinsic truths circling how, like fins lurching and retreating into the shadows. How, how indeed. She only cared about now and her know was back in Rhymesville and she was cooped up in this shithole all because of a fire.

The fire had been an accident, drugs, yes there were drugs and strippers, well of course there were strippers, was she drunk and whipping about a blow torch when her lover had thrown a punch and the room erupted in flame. She was blamed and never would say anything more than it was an accident. Of course Marlie didn’t believe that. she knew she had been judged, judged by fire.

Devin had opened windows at either side of the house to allow for a slipstream of air, a current to move through as he began lighting things. He wanted to kill some of them.

The word for Church is derived from the Old English and Germanic roots in the form of the word ‘kirke’. Strongly and with no small bit of irony kirke is derived from the Babylonian godess Circe and means circle. So church, stemming form the Old English could be construed as a circle of Pagan worshippers worshipping the Sun or Sun Goddess. Yes, Pagans were the church before Christians.

The Psychiatrist

Well that was me and I had the good pleasure of knowing all three boys and the young girl. I am a Jew and a Christian but no more one than the other, which I found out during the time of trial was unacceptable as a living sacrifice to the god of the Universe. Not Hell but hell on earth was my portion to eat and everything I thought I knew acted against me. It was Devin in all his wretchedness that saved us, unchanging-like Elohim Himself, the world closed in like water around him, like to universe to the sun. He was never required to change because everything else did. Everyone is dying now and the beasts’ men are closing in on us but I will finish my scribble, knowing firmly it will burn like all else for we are all in the shadow of the New Jerusalem. Blotting out the sun, it comes down and we will all be with Him then, Him who for a time forsook us and left us in the hands of a sociopathic man after His own heart.

In the end it was very hard to differentiate between good and bad, fleshly and survival. Most of the world was gone, either dead or raptured, tribulation was being vigorously applied and the Spirit of God had left this place in a rush of wind and a cold stale reverberating illness was left, hovering over the death-waters, land and remaining-life. Left-behind…no sir, we were being proofed, smelted, refined “so as with fire” and every step was the hardest one we’d ever taken. Being able to become invisible was enough to even it out.

The first nuclear bomb had fallen in India. From there who really cared. After 3.5 years of peace Israel was being smothered and by the World Unity League, which was the sown together dead parts of NATO, EU, WTO and the UN and headed up by the New Roman Catholic Church. The Great Quake, the Deluge and Isons Impact had made most of the Earth uninhabitable and temperature was either 100 plus or -40. Animals were bigger, more aggressive and alien to our sensibilities, as they seemed to adore human flesh.

The three of them were established. Bonafide as Christians at an early age yet everyone saw it as part of the script not a part of the reality. Reading lines not a pulse. Praying in the mirror. At different times in their lives, the landscape foreign or their reaction to it foreign, they were carted off to see me in Mornwoe the Parish Seat some 30 miles out of Rhymesville. The notes on their first visits and all subsequent visits are now lost but the memories are as indelible to me as the smell of a Paw-paw plants, somehow attractive rotten meat.

Marlie

Petite, pre-naturally sexual, sly, defiant, angry, glib, a tremendous liar, an abuser of substances, frequent arrests by Sheriff, perfect school attendance, sleeping disturbances that made her afraid of sleep-almost superstitiously so, a rabid appetite, green eyes and black hair with freckles, from a good family-gentlemen farmers, perfect manners, chewed tobacco, blatant and radical racist, reader of Science Fiction and fantasy exclusively which she masturbated to with vegetables that she gave to the poor. Our initial interview in which she laid out her insanity as an offensive action against the world, not defending herself at all was like a cool drink of Dr. Pepper, fresh out of the can. All i could think about was how to get this precious person back into my office and into my fold for good.

Devin jumped very frequently from mild annoyance to a small determined resignation that damn he was gonna have to kill someone, similar to a decision to buy a sweet tea. He picked up Marlie from the state run rehab near Mandeville, called Fountainbleu. Giant gates led through the grounds, perfectly manicured by the prisoners from a satalite camp outta Angola. the buildings were red brick in dire need of a pressure washer and the swimming pool was empty. To Devin it looked like a boys camp, but of course he had never been to one so it was a movie creation and all he ever watched was horror and 80’s musicals. the idea of a boys camp put him in a bad mood right off. he firmly believed that girls were simple little thangs that were barely capable of saying no. Never in his life had he heard a no when trying to get in a girls britches, he wondered briefly what rape was. Really looked like. Really sounded like. He couldn't fathom it. Why would any good ol boy have to rape someone when all you had to do was just take it, just get in there and show em what a man was all about. Bradley was in the back seat fiddlin with something and it annoyed him to no end that he “driving miss daisy” like some nigger. All around the huge ground clumps of people could be seen walking and smoking, in various light greys and blues, some sort of smocks or moo-moo dresses he reckoned. Fountainbleu was multi-purpose facility, housing the disabled, loons and the druggies. He related its history to Bradley as he drove around the back, early and looking for Marlie to be saying goodbye to whatever boy-toy she had picked up while here.

“Fontblue was originally designed to house Governor Jimsons youngest son back in 1856, the boy had a damn near impossible case of the slobber and moans and back then it twernt the thing to have a son at couldn’t act right. His wife was a sweet lady though and wanted to keep him in the state but not in BR. Jimson up and built this here place as a kind of boys camp. Looks like a boys camp dont it. Kind of fun and lots a room to run around and whatnot. That swimming pool I imagine was a great tado back en. Well the boy up and got snake bit and they had to remove a leg. Jimson decided with the help of some slick New Orleanians to make this a proper handicapped facility. Ship em in from outta state, collect money from other states and keep our own retards and cripples here.”

He looked in the mirror and smiled, knowing full well that Bradley had a cousin that he humped who was some sort of “slow”. He reckoned hed catch a rise outta him and was hoping for it as he wanted to fight with something. Kicking ass while invisible was right up there with beer, SEC football and shooting a big buck.

The young soul beyond elevation and bereft of thought, sought out violence in place of dreams. The story of his time in temperance, lacking resolve, ever trying to lick at the blood that caressed his fingertips was my brother. He was the tie that bound Everyman to his unique shadow, the ministerial meniscus that seems to long so for its own demise like so many he had to die for anyone to know that he was love. The very stuff of it. Asked once what made him the Devil he just smiled in absolution. He just grinned and told me he had love songs in his head. His eyes shown and with an air of chagrin, he said he was to save the world. I swore with his passing to tie some phrases together. To give him some purpose in life, rather than death. As I put pen to paper, an owl called in the screaming silence… prince of the night and I knew I could never articulate the roots of any life much less one so simple. It is beyond utterance. For the smallness of words, the frailty of speech were the seeds of his sadness. His love for us was Gagged Divinity. His love of those feelings in ones chest that claim all but touch and sight. Flesh to flesh. Eyes feasting for return, for something familiar. He was a hero, an invisible love hero.

So here it is, the story of words…hoping to be found, to be unobtrusively orchestrated into an ode to my brother.

On a warm September night, unseasonably warm, the wealthy young soldier on furlough came home to a quite distressing affair. A rabid dog, or a dog at least, had attacked his wife and she was quite dead. These things happen, seemed to the sentiment among his neighbors and the case was quickly dismissed by the authorities. The dog was never found, determination of ownership uncertain.

The matter may have been put to rest if the husband had not made the incident the focus of his existence. Having been the first to see the ravaged remains, the Corpsman did what most grieving husbands do…he had bloody disjointed sex with the deceased. The act was quick and terrible, both gleaming with bodily fluids and serenaded by the one piece noise machine; all the while being objectified by the neighborhood dog walker…little Graham Tallen. The tears in his eyes were little diamonds of joy, his face flushed with amorous longing

With the resolve and patience of a good southern soldier Francis waited until his better half was buried to start his obsessive revenge. Within a week he had murdered every dog in the community and put Graham out of business. In the wake of this development, the young entrepreneur decided on a duel course of action. First, to catch the man who took his job, then to teach everyone he knew about the glorious art of love.

So Graham went work. To determine the killer, the young sleuth snuck out night after night dressed in his mothers fur, knee pads and socks taped to his head. Striking out in his pursuits and stirring up the neighborhood rumor mill with stories of a bear, Graham finally asked his mother. Mrs. Tallen told him that more than likely it was their neighbor, the soldier that had lost his wife in the “accident.” To Graham, who knew better than his mother the love that this man had…real love, the connecting kind, this sounded like utter nonsense.

“That cannot be the case mother.” Said the wise and precocious boy-man fully aware of his loved ones lack of personal knowledge. Without informing her beyond the scope of the conversation, he described the love he claimed to have information about.

“Mother, he went to war for America…would you do that? He was a hero, he loved this country. He loved dogs too Mom, I remember him petting all of ’em when he would jog by. “

“Well, Graham sometimes things aren’t always as clear as they might first seem. The man was a warrior, a soldier and often when men come back from battles, they have changed. They are accustomed to violence and see it as a way of resolving problems.”

“Mom, its not just that, I knew him much better than you.”

The hand, that had before been deftly placing wildflowers in an arrangement, stopped.

Her face concerned, “How is it that you know this man so well? Has he done something to you.”

Seeing the conversation was heading in an unexpected direction, he decided to leave quickly, under his breath claiming that the man had taught him about true love.

The next part of his plan was better thought out. Being out of a job had put a damper on his eight year old extravagant cost of living and he determined to rectify this through teaching…teaching love. The very next day he went to work again, bringing his compatriots together behind the Carlson’s guesthouse. Graham was intensively strategic about this, determining that he needed to offer a service to those that needed and deserved it. Graham the teacher.

Jerod

The little light spoke to him in clicks and blips, some sort of Morse code developed in the rainy night in which he stood transfixed, visage upward wet and seeking transfiguration. It played out a story beyond his own frail experience…of a face of abject regret that thru stains and halos developed a soundtrack only heard by him. The light though traditional and common had a voice that should have been heard and announced by better people than he. It was an aria, declaring a beautiful truth of a cause no one would ever understand… unless he told it. Unless he wrote it. Unless he could grasp its yonderness, its beyond and hold on…hold until his shaking hand could scratch it out. The rain was in his eyes now and the glow seemed farther away, harder to listen to. Then he was force-fed back into the maw of the sooted sky, the windswept candy wrapper, the grit in the crook of his arm, his breathless sucking, the stillness of his blood; back into the violated womb of normalcy. His Negro girlfriend was standing, legs splayed in resolute fashion awaiting him, always waiting for him like a good n..NO. He hated himself for thinking that, for those words that bit at his redundant vernacular, at the existence of that thought…but it was so descriptive as to not require much else. It enveloped everything and nothing and for this he loved it. He kissed her chin and her nose, took her by the elbow and said quite valiantly, he thought, “Let all these things that stray in thought and mind be gone and shall we dine?” The Cuban restaurant was cool bordering on cold as they entered. The stark contrast of the lights on skin, belayed lack of emotive response. Individuals whom in any other light would have been glib, were not here. Untreatably balancing the here and now with sustenance, the spork to the bitten nail. Waiting to wait. The eating went on without incident save their similar yet mutually exclusive expressions of something unsaid…

He couldn’t wait to get home and become invisible.

The lessons learned behind the Carlson’s guest house began and ended on that first day, at least formally, though Graham out of some sense of entitlement kept receiving payments from his class. When asked later, to describe the payments the tutored would dismiss it viciously, then after moments of alien remembrance, mention some sort of abstractions with an all too casual wave of their hand. Grahams first day as a teacher, not his last. For it was Graham that realized invisibility and taught the others.

The neighborhood, Blistering Oaks, was the type of subdivision that caused ‘division’ to be apropos. On the lofty shores of the Pearl River she sat; stately, sad, and alone overlooking the city…picking her teeth. The children were well cared for and developed into the usual menagerie of attainment. Into this well of knighted upwardly mobile rabbits came Grahams Brigade. They were not a formal gang even in the most untraditional fashion. Nor as in some was there any one incident that united them or drew from them any common denominator. Not all were Grahams initial students, nor were even aware of the necrophilia influence. Simply said it was just a bad bunch…all bad, no redeeming qualities, save maybe well dressed and the invisibility thing. The rapes that were to later distinguish them into a grouping of sorts…a mob of aware and approving individual parts were only dreams at this junction, just magnanimous and effortless dangles of space and time.

Stuart

Stuart was not bright, nor prolific in any arena save physical manifestations. He could not stop himself from doing anJames

Jeremy Allen James could neither conceptualize tomorrow nor cared to. The intent of every moment of every day was to find ways to make it last forever. Sleep was the enemy, the bane of his driven verve. He began to have sex with dolls before his penis could achieve erection. Ejaculating blood and verjuice from friction wounds on the sides of his member, his lovers… the dolls of his sister and their hard plastic inner thighs. In the beginning this was enough to satiate the whirling peculiarities and verities that he stewed in, but as he grew his lust kept up. James spent long hours deliberating the minutiae of peoples expressions. He strove to catch things that related to sex or violence…for he instinctively knew that these were related. He saw it daily, in everything he laid his eyes upon. Lust. Punching and Fucking at once. The grandfather he lived with, Dr. Blain Daughtry James, had never taken a wife, but had live-in girlfriends whom he inseminated and had children with. James never knew his mother or his father and it was often supposed that the doctor was in fact his dad.

He tried everything, the area where most people say no was just grayish to him and he loved grey. He had a mustache and had been raping his mother's maid by 11...before he learned to be invisible. On the night Graham described what he had seen, Stuart felt as if someone had given him a life supply of candy. On his own he never could have even conceived of such a wonderful thing…bloody hugging and rubbing. He was the last to learn how to disappear and the first to die as a result.

Halogen Incense

Daddy stopped when he left her car seat on the roof.

Her earliest memory was wrappers on the floor, at eye level. As she learned to sit up the horror at the world’s endless supply of heretics was perma-sprayed into her grain.

Consuming confusion was brilliant in its entrance. Doctor said she was slow and with that proclamation blinding darkness that she never tried to look through seemed, well just pretty comfortable.

The star, the yesteryear, the livid hopes; all under her banner. She entered stage center, dazzled and smiled the smile of small deaths and caught breath. Mississippi. A single precious tear from God’s face, a single drop of blood from God’s slit wrist; dropped in the mud. Seemed the whole state was confused, she never understood that. How was all a God’s country so turned around? Sometimes she thought maybe it was in her eyes.

They were catching a bus Daddy said, but she didn’t figure as much. She held his hand, comforting him. Our Lady of Perpetual Grace was passed without so much as a spit. Daddy wouldn’t look at it. Catholics. Mostly we called em the harlot. She knew what a harlot was. She’d been one.

Grady was supposed to be around Carthage. Hard boys up there, Momma said. Last time he was around he gave Momma some of his teeth. They were always doing that type of thing.

Katherine Robertine Elizabeth Toter-Cobb. We was all flummoxed by such a regal name. Mama has some history attached to it but she only showed us the peeking corners and dirty obscurities.

Momma stole books and burned them after ‘eating’ them. She’d whisper that it felt like eating anyway. She’d say this every time. Perhaps these were only time she wasn’t listing. Momma believed in divine winds. She wouldn’t ever fight em. She wanted a hero, so bad. Her favorites were the ones who died at the end. Nothing confusing about that.

Katy-Rob they called her. Daddy called Momma pretentious. Or pretty contentious. It was one of the only times she looked at him with love. I magine she thought it witty. I know I did. After that look she went on to the pharmacy and Daddy went to buy tickets. I caught up to her looking real intent on some new tennis shoes on this dude with a Cat hat n’ those damn sequined jeans.

Know when you gaze up and on a thing…cher, you change it?

I know that mama.

Oh youre so erudite, you.

What?

Momma was Acadian and though she was supposed to be so smart she talked just like everyone else, cept kinda dumber for that couyon shit. In every picture I every saw of her she was showing her long white teeth, like she was trying to sell something. Later I came to see she was trying to prove to the world she wasn’t poor.

Id seen Mama do some sketchy shit, some wicked shit…one time she rented Grady out for 3 months. Stabbed a girl in Germantown outside a Memphis because she was too high. Stabbed this colored girl right in the mouth then popped her fake boobies wit the same knife. I remember her asking Grady to stick the knife in his boot, cause daddy wouldn’t have it. In the heat of demon attack mama looked sinistral, eyes seemed almost all black and shadows moved about her profile like they was alive. Face would be all fucked up. I hated looking at her like that. You just wanted to put yourself in-between her and that, but there was never enough space.

I wrote poems for her. She loved to dance. Long lines a sweat in every right place. Everyone looked at her when she was dancing… like they everyone wanted to hump ’er…momma had dat juju.

We leak through the clicks you clock and mourn for the rocks we see carried about Demure with reverence but cannot rationalize just feel within as we all watch our loved ones spin to try and place an eye on the thing That produces the suffering and in this spinning habitual it metastasized into ritual and the dance in its ignorance is beautiful lenocinant sinistral and i wish we could all be still

“Feet pue tan, mi amor”

Mama don’t cuss. Never would or could or should.

I loved lines like that. The whole lot of us lived on that line.

There wasn’t ever gonna be any bus, and she was startlingly not shamed by his lie. Heretics. Small feet kicked at a Fanta Orange. Katy-Rob couldn’t be sure if they was black or dirty so she looked up a bit. Confusing who was proper and who wasn’t. She’d heard some ministers ministerin’ on keeping birds with birds and cows with cows. She guessed that sounded good but she knew some really amazing girls who only dated colored boys and while it was kinda gross, she was kinda ok wit it, like listening to rap. Things were different somehow, like a giant waking up thinking its head and feet wernt ever connected. Still when she looked at pictures with Daddy something deep inside her said, “no”. That was it.

Daddy said wed just heard straight down 55 and go on in to New Orleans. Mamma just walked out. Shed been fucked up and on the dang neighbors phone all day. It really irked me to think she was not making even not one call to try and save her daughters life. They say that it works its way, or maybe issues from the amygdala. It is the portion of God’s control tower in your animal brain that deal with breathing, somehow some people just get real messed over by biology, but really what your taking about here is the flesh. We encased in death, Rev. Madison used to say. We born in a fresh new cut a sin and die pitifully still in it. He used to get particular about all the part of things. He used some Greek on me now but I did fine with all of it. Psuche meant something. When I heard that word bout how humans only operate off of I know and I feel…man that old sinna was smart. God took him to his breast though, five stints later and the last 10 years of his life at a non-profit for homeless addicts in the Delta. Momma had a friend up in there. It always looked to me a bit like a cult should look like. I would look at the manicured lawn in front, at night and cover up the building with my hand, and I was anywhere real nice. Places where men got hired on to do the lawn once a week and in the kitchen I can smell that cut grass, touch a wooden cutting board and pray heartily for all around me to the 10th generation be cursed. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, one of em, said that the Lord’s power is perfected in weakness. I’m on that plan.

She wanted to scratch when she itched but she never did.

Holed up at the non-denominational she took a moment to do her 4th dailies while she watched the transactions. Time and money for peace of mind, she knew there was no equanimity in that purchase for how can you sell somin inside the body. She had got tied into a higher calling and she was one hundred on that, what she could not figure and no one could lend a hand is how in the Ghost can one man make you have a better relationship with God? How in the hell? It rankled her as any free thinking woman (she thought) should be. You had to get the blank out there and find Him. Get to looking, don’t cry to some other fool. If God is out there, then its got something to do with us. Momma knew God, really she did and she will again, but she don’t right now. She looking for a feeling when she talks to anyone or goes to any service. She want to be transposed, transported to transcendence and then shoot some dope in the bathroom “cause its real clean honey,”

She felt that from God too but she didn’t look for it. She understood what it was to be in a niggardly worthless way, so like Cash said she walked the line. Duty. That was it, she 100% unreservedly gave herself to walk as a slave, a bond slave. And she had but as she perused the Scriptures she understood that God was a family man. Half His book is about it and the other half included her; so against her mind she met em up in Bonty outside a Florence, Mississippi and she hadn’t left till now.

Only time she felt that bliss Momma looked for was in the rock and roll church’s, that precious theater inside her heart singing out the most amazing dance numbers. Gold and purple feelings. Like Mamma’s Tigers.

Bus trip in the none-to-crisp suit pocket, they stayed for the Wed. prayer meetin. “Lord, clarity!?” is all she heard.

She let em. In her mind she wouldn’t say any of them words, though she knew em all. Not anymore. School want ever much of an option. She imagined she’d gone some 86 days counting Sunday school. Down in Delta Daddy drove the pickers and Momma would help her people at the gin. She guessed they also make juniper liquor, but she had never seen anybody so much as talking too much.

Usually she let em. Long as Grady wasn’t in the county or parish.

Carthage

Inside of the pain management clinic Momma wagged a smidgen more than usual.

The Cave. Yeah she felt like she understood what that peasant man had been on about. Inside of her the beasts walked behind her eyes projecting outward before the flame. Spirit. It was in there, everyone cept the great harlot believed that, maybe the Jews too.

The connection with the nebulous. A shadow moving over the death waters. Spirit. All of us believed in it, we just didn’t know what it did exactly. People loved to say ‘god-bless’ or ‘Lord have mercy’ without any effect registerin’. To my mind that just made it a cuss word.

She loved the swamp. Would try and draw it out on some papers she kept in a plastic sack. She would rub the expensive paper between her fingers and something stirred. The cicadas song was richer there, the air tugged back, weightier somehow. She felt like her house would one day be in the swamp, clapboard painted green with mesh to keep out the critters but not else.

It sounded like a side of deboned meat being hit with a Louisville slugger, he’d been there and few people went around with bats. Guns mainly. Breaking his hand had been a salvation. He thought he’d found religion but he’d found instead a boy from Colombia. Alerts rang. Grady felt drugs were a last option. Open but last on line. Everyone he grew up with said “in line” but Grady was careful with his mastery of what he considered the only separation betwixt man and dog.

Manfreid Israel Romele was Russian. Perhaps German. Older. Beautiful. Cement blonde. How is a fighter so beautiful? Grady knew.

Smoldering halogen incense prayed for them. Pissing on the carhood altar.

The boy was a fucking nightmare. Glowed. Darkness. He’d seen it before. Everything was loose when he prayed, like the boy standing feet away, steam roiling off of his neck, with “Molon Labe” tatted across the front of his windpipe, where he got hit 45 seconds later.

The Chevelle was purple and Grady wouldn’t lean on it. Surrounding the Big Red Barn choking the purity of the moment were the ‘chickens’. Grady had said, ”clucking foul” but his folk just spit out the gumbo. Grady did not respect a man who watched blood-sports.

Ancient and comfortable. It was more than he could bear, of at time he would sit in the pot till he’d eatin it. A marvel of his power, kneeling on the commode in communion. Particles of hay and heat, cicada’s his private herald. Easy 220. Easy. Against his knees fabric calmed his fingers, he thought of his sister; the smile closed. He thought of Teddy on his horse, the pompous, articulate fool.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”

So fucking obvious, like ham-in-hand. Natchitoches. Ham-in-Hand Festival 94. You could walk across the Sabine on boats, smells of the Cajun Microwave’s buried in the soft loam some 100 paces from the water. Whole hogs stuffed with chickens and doves. Grady wondered if dogs trusted smell the way humans subscribed to sight. It was over tween them and he should have seen it. Grady looked coldly at his need. Only the slightest of scowls. Chemicals he thought, chemicals and blips.

He didn’t think it much, to go to war. He was plied with Mozi, Xenophon and 1st Chronicles 4:10 early. Daddy leaning over him and pointing to sketches momma had drawn to go with the Gideon Bible which was in constant circumlocution with others of its ilk. He always walked hunkered down, tied firmly to many things that were not tied to him.

She scuttled over the grooved Cyprus, kaleidoscope of man reduced, he saw her; languidly absorbing the violence to come. Beneath her impressive multi-spectacled visage was her load, atwitter. Looked of fine hairs in a sharp breeze, her brood beneath her belly. She leaned back as if to sit or box or pray, front legs circling in the direction of the bigger man’s dead face.

Lawd have a way, boy you ready?

The man was a fat, suspender framing a whet shirt with nowhere to go came up on Grady’s boy Ara too fast.

Ok we ready?

Ill kill you ifin you don’t step back.

Things was tight, Grady knew all bout this here.

Aight then.

Theys a bit a nonsense bout that bet?

No. Straight up.

Mine’ll be in money orda?

Ara’d get it after the fight now, cause I’ll be on my way, Briar Rabbit style, gros cul.

Fat man took on a greasy bugger as backward he moved, “that man fittin to fuck you.”

Tingle. Mmmmmmm. Grady felt like Ehud preparing to assassinate the fat king Eglon of Moab.

Hear that Schvartze, eer dat fat man.

God give me a verse. He chewed a small hangnail.

Ha. He knew it. 2 Kings 9:20, 20 The watchman [a]reported, “He came even to them, and he did not return; and the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously.”

The Lord gave this verse a lot.

Ehud and Jehu. Lawd have mercy son.

This boy was car black, and it really aint right, that type a black. That sheen of purple that made Grady think of dinosaurs and that painter Turner. Give em almost like invisibility at night. And nobody wants that shit. It’s like that shine you can see you’re reflection in… but it gives pause cause it’s a black you staring back. How fucking mad you’d be. Grady wouldn’t look at those shiny black cars, he even avoided dark purple.

Fat man giggled into his cerchief and sat down on a bale; he thought, looking toward the unimpressive white boy, that this’d be soon over.

Grady prayed a bit, squatted and thought of something like a dwarf star painted on a canvas the side of the barn.

He knew the boy’d come over the top and heavy, he knew hed move left and the boy’d come in with a quick step and a lunge at his knees. All the cat in that man was now cutting its way to the top. the breath was bull-like in intensity but shallow. The red rims mean he’s a drinker probably and he favored his left knee a bit. Grady felt sorry then. Sorry for his life and his momma, sorry for the man who was gonna try a kill him, sorry for the fat man who bet against his own kind, sorry that Mississippi water that he smelled on everything was growing less pungent. Sorry God was real and poetry was to hang him. Sometimes things seeded afor birth ripen when they aint wanted. He always felt tears was fine where laughter was.

They drummed him out of the military for being too young. Sure at that time it would be the catalyst for a life riding the dark horse, he considered killing himself but didn’t. Grady’d look in the mirror most days to check and see if it was time.

I read somewhere that poor people typically name their kids names like Unique, Kandy, Sherry and Amber. Later, I read somewhere that girls with some particular names wind up being hookers and dancers and in the porno’s. It bothered me it took two studies to not say that poor girls went to stripping a shade faster than rich ones. Academicians are so fucking stupid. Not only this but everyone knew that strippers changed their names. I thought then and think now I should be in charge of a hair more.

I guess I followed her around some. I remember the taste of bubble-gum scented shampoo and her face. We were protective of each other as should be expected. Daddy woednt too much of a provider, nor a daddy. I guess she burned out that wild streak cause she came back directly. “I wish I was in Dixie, hurrah hurrah In Dixie land Ill take my stand to live and die in Dixie. Oh way Oh way Oh way down south..... in Dixie.”

She loved the word Dixie, long as I knew her though I believe she thought it more of a state of being, like glory or honor. She may ah never known it was holding all our heads under water. Grady knew all about it and loved it anyway. Some things just don’t figure. Soon as I could I got out. Not sure anyone else ever did, not really.

I remember him takin pictures of her holding onto a lit lighter and a squeeze bottle a lighter fluid. I remember when the men came in and he couldn’t protect us. He tried. Grady says, “tryin dyin.”

I read an article somewhere bad things happen to poorer people more often, it was more nuanced than that but that’s what I got. “Katy-Rob, bring us that phone.” “your cellular phone?” “We aint go no…little smart-alec.” She was always doin stuff like that. I couldn’t ever figure who she was making fun of, Daddy or this Democratic Republic. Maybe Jonny Locke. Momma was a Rhodes Scholar, I do not know how.

The slovenly way she met my laughter got her a lick. She called herself red velvet, not a nickname, her color. Said mamma was white as the driven snow cept a little Cocoa and a dash’a red food colorin. At a certain age I started realizing that I was gonna be mostly for myself, like my cousin Fay. I took to strippin like anybody’s business. First night in, this little Indian girl told me we do private parties, all naked. I couldn’t see much difference anyhow. It was illegitimate and the girls were indifferent to the men sucking on their titties and stuff. It just suited me fine.

I told Grady that he was to keep my little sister outta my world. There was only room in Carthage for one Cobb stripper.

The striker clicked down and something happened but it sure did not fire a round. White slipstream stepped quickly and quietly inside and hit the man with the gun in the throat. That noise is a thing. Everyone knew he’d done killed him. Grady remembered Niccki Bercham getting punched just so and dying. He guessed he coulda just knocked the gun away. Somewhere, someone was probably holding a little nigglet, waiting on daddy to call. It’d be a wait.

There were eight Cobbs all said but they slithered off, most of em anyway, to Bama and Nam and Peru. Doesn’t matter too much because once they left sight of the Mississippi River, they was good as dead.

Why’d they decide to try and kill him? Grady had a small warrant out on him that left the Boss little choice. That’s what I heard.

Theys four of us around and we all came. Amber, Bo, Katy, and me. Grady stood up from a Shaker stool he loved.

Grady said they’d maybe come for one of us.

They got Katy Rob two nights later, sent in her fron tooth wit they diamond set in it. Fucked up but shed done talked about rippin it out her own self.

Similies was supposed to be a real swanky joint but it was not. Owner by strategery has built a damn motel in the back. Lord have mercy, sulphur factory. I went to pills in the first month. Once you have gonna church and believe, shit gets real hard to do…after the first couple times anyway.

Grady wasn’t blood related to all the girls and he knew to divide his attentions. You cant just go around fighting the whole wrestling team. Amber was neck-tatted and out from around at 14. Our older cousins had done some strippin down on the redneck riveria and I reckon it called her harder’n dope.

Katy took to the hard life too but came back to me and Daddy, Momma and her never cared to talk to one another. She came back quieter and only wore beige and grey. She wrote long letters to Amber and cried some but I would have had her cry all the time if’n she’d just stay.

You'se too young buddy.

I knew you'd say that shit.,

Amber drove up in a fucking Infinity with something clanking under the jappy hood. I knew Grady wouldn’t even look at her, not even one time.

Amber and me gonna go talk to Joe-Block. See if we can figure something out.

Joe Block is a gentleman and I would appreciate the man no more if he were a ranking officer. Unfotunatley things are not easy and Mars Bargam wont get involved. This is above his Mason Dixon.

There wasn’t any reason to hate Grady for being what he was but I had me a weapon too.

I never knew a way to complete the things that others completed. I reckon I’m slow or I ain’t totally grown up yet. Somin’. When I saw those men take Katy and beat Daddy, there was some sort of wet click and I seemed of a sudden to be able to see it all. The vast expanse and the precipitous nature of the wealthy and the bright. left us all killing each other over a double wide and an abortion.

I watched myself, knowin somehow I had made a decision that was about being a man, about being a Cobb n' a Toten but there wasn't anything movie about it. I stole a ladies cruiser out front a the Winn Dixie and played with myself all the way to Biloxi. I felt greasy and popped a pimple on my back. Somehow the Ruger felt lighter the further south we went, like it was becoming less offended by its own.

I was in love with the purity of my little brother. He would never talk to me in front of other people but in private he asked after my girlfriends and me. Once I got a bit too graphic and he white’nd up so I was sure he was gonna kill me. I think he’s still a virgin at 24.

I had made 1200. I have no damn clue where that fucking money is now. Jessie and I were working on a routine, she had this idea for a ‘concept piece’ with Moors and an allusion to the Hearst family but we just wound up kissing and smoking cigarettes till it was our turn.

They could see her now. More whispers to Letty, “This place gone turn out.”

“mmm”

“Im gone go bump th doe man and see if he got a piece.”

Letty smiled a ray of rancid rainbow.

5’1 or 5’3 he guessed. Wadnt no 5’2. Tatted up like her momma didn’t give a fuck. A little bump in his chest somewhere reminded him of another girl, another stripper, another piece of meat in the wily trades of men.

She caught his eye and may have winked, which sent Letty whom everyone called Lessy to the potty to laugh in the stall.

Men with huge dicks walk a bit different she whispered to a man sticking a 10 in her g. Lets the whole world who cares to know. The roxi’s in her were turning everything a little less than, like life was amped up but she was at regular speed. She kept seeing > signs. In the glass of the bowl, in her reflective panties, in her eyes in the cracked john mirra. Pulling his head she thought momentarily of licking his ear but these was Halliburton boys, fresh oft the rig and in Hub City to be jackass’s but not to take a good shower.

When she threw up the front row moved toward anywhere that wasn’t there. Same time a rukus in the commode and a gunshot out the back.

A week later a tall boy walks in and politely asks after Robert-Earl. No one really wanted to tell him.

Everything I did the hardest I ever done. I worked all my life with Daddy at whatever we was doing then so I always knowed I could throw a bale a bit harder than most. I was always taught to be polite even if they weren’t, so I thought Id just ask after Katys old boss. Figured with his lip Id go on ahead. His eye popped out with that first one, his ocular cavity crushed, and I walked toward the back looking at the mirrors for boys coming up on me. I know I punched some girls and I hope to high hell they aint no videotape a me but when it started in earnest it couldn’t be helped. I know one of em kissed me on the back of my neck while I was stomping on this colored boys. Heard later he got paralyzed some. Gottim a check anyway.

I learned that night why mama said them Carthage boys is hard. Robert-Earl. I had a drown his brother in front a him and it wernt no easy thing.

Amocitea

Your Daddy aint gonna recognize you.

Still that little girl. When under all of it, peach flame tripped along at the word. She wanted so much for him to swoop, it was pure. A clean thing, her vision of Daddy just doing what all real animals did. Maybe he was too human.

That golden blanket that she just expected to keep on being, didn’t; and she stepped out really believing that they was gentlemen in this South, in this here state. One night looking deep in her own eyes while everyone elses in the room were on her crotch she realized that this southern thang was a crock. She spected Margaret Mitchell probably just cold wishin like every other Dixie brat split-tail. It was a precious pity that she thought in that manner, she thought…probably affecting her self-image or the like.

She’s hurt I felt. Hurt people, hurt people but with such a swirlin tide, a man just got to decide when to jump in, not if.

Once I heard that Grady involved everybody in his business, I knew I hadda get us outta town. I didn’t really think Momm’d come wit her doctors here and whatever else she was into. Since Id come back from the Wilderness I had taken to wearing full length skirts and not shaving. I know my flesh well and I knew that just like this skirt, I could put it back on rrrrrreeeeeaaaalllllly quick. And that’s the plan, back to the hotel to make us some money.

Half-way from the bus-stop to the club I thought just maybe I was being a bit drastic, but I cant remember what my next thought was after that.

Bo adjusted the mirror on the 91 Olds to see if he’d indeed gotten dip on his collar. A birth canal in the back seat caused him to blink for a second longer than average. The strip-club owners Daddy used to be a Marine and it showed. Punching and biting his way out of the trunk into the car was a feat, Bo’d be the first to tell ya. He’d blindfolded, zip tied and hit the man with 75000 Watts but this Minotaur was now in the backseat. Fucking Carthaginians.

They realized quick they’d done fucked up with this one. She prayed aloud all day long, was unfailingly polite and every chance she got she tried to kill em. Lessy had knocked her tooth out purely on accident but after he reckoned the diamond to be fake, he sent it on to the boss. Almost all his spare time went to kittens. More had received some care from a witch the Dixie Mafia used for dogs. Little bitch had fought harder than any man ever would. In the end she’d ripped off a testicle and with that they put her in box. She calmly told em she couldn’t breath.

I hada shoot him through the seat and we wrecked. He was hurt even worse, so I lit a floor mat afire and ran off in the other directin than Angola, Fuck that, Daddy’d worked there as a guard for 3 days till they done found out he’d been in Parchman for vehicular homicide. Mamma said that great clouds a nephalim hung over those places. I couldn’t see them but I smelled em. Mamma and Katy-Rob always had eyes for that type of thing. Maybe they both lyin though.

I figured theyd run they dogs from around the car so I needed to get gone.

Did not like taken anything from white folks, I did not know how I was gonna pay for that ladies car I done wrecked but it’d get done. The little Kawasaki three wheeler cranked up nice and I left them my hunting license to show good faith.

You aint gonna believe this shit.

Francis-Jean Prichideaux III really could have done without hearing another person say that. It seemed to preface every comment. As a boy he’d felt something akin to the feeling he had now when other nut-brown Acadian boy’s ud say, “Wanna see something…hold my beer.”

Nothing good eva come outta dem type a commentary’s.

What?

Claudius came over with a note. Says here that Similies had another big da-doo.

Whan?

Last night.

Itd been 2 weeks since they colored boys come up in that terrible place and Blanc Bebbette got taken, now what dis shit?

Dixie Mafia used for dogs. Little bitch had fought harder than any man ever would. In the end she’d ripped off a testicle and with that they put her in box. She calmly told em she couldn’t breath. More heard, “I feel free.” thought long and hard about that medicine Melodina gave him, the plan was he was, of a time, to go back. ER out the wustion. She told him he could still sire a brood, if he chose.

Right now the chose was in nose. That moment, eternal, universal, when you know for certain that thing are bout to get lit.

I hada shoot him through the seat and we wrecked. He was hurt even worse, so I lit a floor mat afire and ran off in the other directin than Angola, Fuck that, Daddy’d worked there as a guard for 3 days till they done found out he’d been in Parchman for vehicular homicide. Mamma said that great clouds a nephalim hung over those places. I couldn’t see them but I smelled em. Mamma and Katy-Rob always had eyes for that type of thing. Maybe they both lyin though.

I figured theyd run they dogs from around the car so I needed to get gone.

Did not like taken anything from white folks I did not know how I was gonna pay for that ladies car I done wrecked but it’d get done. The little Kawasaki three wheeler cranked up nice and I left them my hunting license to show good faith.

You aint gonna believe this shit.

What Judge Holden’s Rolled In

You named him Judge Holden

wtf, why?

You wrote his name in book

Labeled

Next Up To Fry

Bet, she said

Check, said he

but chalk it up to narc

In the raiment of night

Ruarch is just pneumatic dispose

You got a rip in your spirit

To match the one in your hose

Unihemispheric

eyes tattooed on lids

So I can stay awake

Full effulgence

-Catfish dinner with some grits

Still riding on a mop handle, cursing like a grown up, panting;

Don’t ask me for the time its gone

Don’t task me more time, too long

Still riding on a mop handle, cursing like a grown up, panting;

of the great things

you will do.

All the world was made from naught?

Nothingness? Crowing now in stock?

If tis true indeed,

Then nothingness is trying to peak

And Naught appears to have sprung a leak.

Showing off her track marks, see?

Claiming she’s just a vaccinee?

Its all just you

Its never me.

Mercy at its most pure

is anarchy.

A reckoning, once rented out

has no right to look about.

City of refuge barometer broke

You get the lime

Ill dig the hole.

Absquatulate the squatter’s dream

Just a fence about a folderol

Clean sheets and some sleep

that is all

We fell in love in the war

and something in the ether stirred,

honoris causa-

Yes, my lord.

from the grave of showers

To the neck of chords

lo they make me feel like i was born to care

eel-like schematics; i lie for you too easily scare

destructors are ready

and the pawns all are still

for the charge is…..

all fucked

cut….

The enemies here,

Lights and he enters to an

an electrum of screams

Sewed into the seams

PROCLIVITAS

Bedazzled onto his hat

The easiest one to love or hate in the room

Dangling mutilation like it was a boon

We cannot forgive, for we hate ourselves

Cannot deliver, neither incense nor pills

Cannot be crowned, its got no Greeks

Cannot be free, its got no peaks

Cannot believe

For you cannot obey

Winds cease to whisper

About getting away

As the trolley man yells to, get the fuck off

What the hell are you gonna do?

Where is the horse and the rider

The horn that was blowing is shorn

as sonder sets

cromulent

as solipsism is quietly

reborn

Many minds but few see that the

truly amazing things

like

Nature gesturing…

go back the way you came.

You broke off for me

and I for you

but you died

what more was I to do?

Its just phonosphonese no ones real,

just wait n see

we hallucinated the whole thing

Yonder craved will break

the Maid

and the

The Merrymen

Whhuuuummmmp

you’re in air

Variegated

But you’ve no sails

On no hands

Metaphysical cannot be wood

Ineffable’s day has come and past

We tied that bitch

to the mast.

Shredding manifestos last-

breath the rest is but a fix-

in the foxhole,

King of Lyre is in repose

is your disssss-graccccce,

but the ssstate your in

Is slight distassste,

Of the you watching you

ride the mare off precipice,

Things in saddle,

seated backward

Sawing air

Giving proposals

On transmorphic dalliances

wishing they were syzygy

in epiphany of the golden line no one but you has ever seen

Until you plummet

Eyes still on me.

chasm

separating man

from what he should have done

from the faces

on which he should have blown

And now your eternity will begin undone

I check everyday in the mirror to see if its time.

Cry for the eternity in

man

Two shovelfuls of lime

seek to deform the perpetually

damned

I was never given a choice or a grin

Poisoned my lakes

Salted my fields

and yet I keep paying taxes

because that was the

deal

No more discovery

Just findin

laziest of all creatures is a poet, for they dont have long.

Have you heard of Grandma death? Neither did I till I died a civilian, now idly-professed philosopher - a countdown is all that time was, and is. That bunny - we wear suits as the world crashes in the space-time continuum, as time is relative so am I within the limbo amongst my chaotic hemispheres.

Trailer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8wqVHjK2bQs

A man discovers his ex-girlfriend has used alternative therapy to erase their relationship from her memory. As he undergoes the same treatment, he relives the relationship in full complexity. Grappling with a new understanding of love and loss, he realizes the value of the relationship as time runs out.

https://youtu.be/0zFywiAh7N0