Red Dye Number Five

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Red Dye Number Five

 · 5 years ago

Summer 1995
E-Print Zine.

Red Dye Number Five is not an attempt to assert skill in writing or anything of related nature. We claim that we do not have to claim anything regarding what we write. Whether it makes sense in any manner could be purely coincidental and should be assumed coincidental as well.

Red Die Number Five as well as Whatever Ramblings and a bunch of other zine-type stuff can be found on the Net at:

ftp etext.org /pub/zines/WhateverRamblings
gopher etext.org /zines/WhateverRamblings

"examinez vos environs"

who did it:

Alex Swain <swain@cybernetx.net>, Marco Ramirez, Marcel Palinkas, Robert Sing <rsing@freenet.scri.fsu.edu or rbrt@ix.netcom.com>, Ben Ohmart <findline@ix.netcom.com>

Red Dye Number Five is published on rare occasion when I happen to amass enough stories to actually have something to print. Write to 5 Greenview avenue, Princeton, NJ 08540 c/o Red Dye, or Whatever Ramblings or whatever.

NOTE: This is an E-Print publication. As in, Its a Print/Electronic Zine. The actual print zine is $2.00 (including PPD) and looks a lot better than this ASCII crap. So buy the zine or something.

Contents

1. A Very Short tale - By Marco Ramirez
2. Progress - By Alex Swain
3. My Life by Farmer Scott - By Alex Swain
4. Chris's Big Mistake - By Alex Swain
5. Another Story - By Marcel Palinkas
6. Always a Price to Pay - By Alex Swain
7. The Old Man Poison - By Marcel Palinkas
8. The Thing I wrote at work one day #828 - By Marco Ramirez
9. The Thing I wrote at work one day #829 - By Marco Ramirez
10. Ben's First Cup - By Marco Ramirez
11. Anecdotal Seniors - By Alex Swain
12. Full of Nog and the Three Pistachios - By Alex Swain
13. The Ears that Always Ring - By Alex Swain
14. Harkus's Urbane Day - By Alex Swain
15. The Alarm - By Alex Swain
16. Ben's Two Minutes - By Alex Swain
17. A Plea to the Wretched - By Alex Swain
18. Sleepers Streaking with the Silent Serpents - By Alex Swain
19. The Swirling Saga of Tornado Alley - By Alex Swain
20. The Weak and the Weird - Robert Sing
21. Slowly Reeling - By Marcel Palinkas
22. Recluse and Free - By Ben Ohmart

1] A very short tale

Ben selenium walked through the door and thrust his minute long penis through the portal of the walk in freezer. Luckily he had succeeded in adjusting the duct tape pipe coupler previously. Immediately a brief rumbling signalled the activation of the electronic bead curtain. It easily ensconged the width of his shaft. Pumpernickel vibrations emanated freely from a toasting boom box that raised the temperature of the hapless freezer to comfortable 32C. "Another fine mess," he screamed, batting the head of his penis with an art deco lamp stand. "Beautiful, beautiful," in a hoarse throated catatonic rhythm droned he. "Hop, hop, hop," in a crackling bone scraping tone popped he. Wapping the purple head furiously with said lamp stand, "bing, bing, bing" chimed he. 1000 gallon per second hydrant release crashed through the 19th story window across the street, drowning three children. "In the car, mama" he screamed, "don't give me no lip!" he strapped his reducing appendage to a converted spine board and began reciting random passages from Leviticus as he pounded untold half gallons of Sealtest ice cream. The ice cream, which was boiling, passed through each of his seven stomachs, eventually being purified to spring water and piped off to a bottling factory. "Baba Jesus" he exclaimed, hefting his spineboard to the operating table. He proceeded to inject it with Cesium 135, which caused his member to become rigid yet smalled as it was now only a mile. The blue glow was intense enough to illuminate half of the western hemi. "Sphere, baby, sphere, baby, sphere" intoned he. "Blue hemi, blue hemi, blue!" advised he. Bee inquired as to the mobility of his condition. "Into eternity!" proclaimed he and stomped he and flogged he the earth, flattening great mountains into plains and changing great industrial masterworks into vast glowing sludge pools. In this way Bee and Selenium traversed the globe and striked with such wanton voracity did they that the axis' of both the earth, and the sun were drastically adjusted. In other words, the whole situation was royally fucked.

2] Progress

Many sick men have fallen deep into the web of the twisted woman. The wife cries as the juice from the greasy stromboli dripped from her uniform lips. The man wipes blood from his face as the whip strikes his scarred back. He cries as she forces him into submission. Earlier, at the supermarket, man asks wife if a bag of Doritos can be had. She smears a rotten Kiwi on his face and yells, "NO!" He asks once more and she kicks him onto the product, knocking over an old woman with breathing appratus and fish-like breath. The old woman hits her head on the scale and blood flows onto the discarded broccoli rubberbands. He turns around and apoligizes to his wife.

En route to the car his wife porposely drops something and bends over. The high school cart-pushing teenager cracks a smile as the roofing contractor falls upon him and snaps his young neck (both necks). Husband gets a divorce and admits himself to a psychiatric hospital. Wife get's 50% of what she never had.

3] My life, by Farmer Scott.

My name is Farmer Scott and I come from the big country. Up here we grow grass and sell it to y'all down in th' valley. We make the finest corn whiskey in our home-fashioned stills. Yep, we can burn the hair off of a water buffalo's belly with this stuff. Over there is grandma hick, she's blind from drinkin' some bad whisky. But I heard that when you go blind yer other senses are bettered. She can smell me rubbin' my pud from three rooms away, fashion that. My darlin' Betty was my high school sweetheart down the dirt path at Susquehanna Falls. We used ta go fishin' in the winter and make out something sickening. Unfortunately though, after we got hitched, she put a few hundred on and now she can't even get through the doorway, and I ain't shittin' you. She did pop out a few though. Junior, Junior II and our latest Junior III are all doin' fine down der in the basement with the cats. Thank god for foodstamps eh? My best buddy in all of Weizen, Montana would be Cadillac Red Man (but all the fellers call him "squat" cause he can surely take a dump when he needs ta.) Poor feller got that god awful name when his ma and pa went out shoppin' for the necessities and couldn't think of a name for the little pud. I collected all the Juniors' allowance and picked up me a real good tv over there in town at Godiva's liquor store and pawn shop. Funny though, can't seem to get no channels in these parts, 'cept one where all these colors are on the screen and this loud tone. The boys come over and we watch them colors all night long and slam a few Weizen Pig Ale's down the chigger. Yep, that's right, Yuri Balcovich who lives down in Moonbeam Creek has fancied himself a brewery something wicked, and he brews the best ale in all the world, no foolin'.

As you can see, we got alot of stuff in our abode. I'd be guessin' with all the knockin' up that goes around in this here house that we got about thirty cats and a few kids on the way. Betty Scott Jean Scott, my daughter, does most of the porkin' in these parts. Something went crazy with her and she's the damn prettiest daughter I have (I think). She's so damn pretty Junior is already rubbin' his pud like old daddy does. And daddy's thinkin' hard on givin' her a christmas present this early in the summer. Over there, between the dang Atari and the icebox is shinky, our dog. Shinky came from somewhere, but we ain't just sure where. Betty Scott Jean Scott swears she hadn't done nothing with him, and my wife ain't got the crawlspace ta be guilty. So we don't know. He ain't like the rest of us, but uses the litterbox anyhow. Over on the mantle in that soupcan we got the leftovers of Jimmy Ray Jimmy Jimmy Scott. He got dead years back when the teamsters came to town. I got away after ignitin' the last of the moonshine and settin' them ablaze.

I hear my wife a moanin', which means it's time to go up der and satisfy her needs, so if you're ever in the area, stop on by for a cup of nog and a screw, that's what we do best in these parts. See ya, stranger.

4] Chris's Big Mistake

Blinking and flashing black and white images on the set. Chris flipped open his calc book and took notes from the seemingly useless theory. Nestled in the corner on top of a black leather beanbag. A dim blacklight flickers in the opposite corner. A party around him as people enter a stage of euphoria. His mind slips as a bottle crashes a foot from his head. Fifteen hundred miles from home and things aren't much different. The thump of Primus brings him to his feet to wait in line for another flat Beer. She comes up to him in passive guilt, offering a gleam of possible interest. His body numb from eighteen hours of a rattling car. His travelling companion has become well adjusted with several ganja smoking companions. Chris glanced briefly at Becky, a best friend of his true love, and saw a possibility. This lasted seconds until she was dragged away by a Thurston Moore look-alike. A well adjusted couple had taken over his old resting place. Slowly he walked through the apartment looking for something to do.

2am and all is left: Empty cups, Becky and the Thurston Moore look-alike dancing in an empty room. Obviously bored, Becky attempts to rid herself but fails. Chris finally finds the person he came to visit, the one he looked for all night and couldn't find. Opened the door to her room and there she was; not alone. Her smiling face pierced through him as he yelled for his travelling companion. Chris found him atop a girl neither of them knew. Two minutes later and they were travelling as far away from that apartment as could be. Chris picked his girlfriends badly.

5] Another story by Marcel Palinkas

Feeling the swinging, fuzzed-out bass of the Tavares tune, Linton was very definitely in the thick of things. The thick of things was Queens on a cold December night in 1975. Linton did not at first fit in. The people were too clean and did not button their shirts in the common manner. Also Linton was a Connecticut wasp when all the people twirling and bugging out next to him were of Italian and Hispanic descent. There were a few people of Irish descent in there also, but Linton felt superior to them also, at least at first.

When Linton first started going to the discos, his pants were too loose and his dancing was too stiff for the sensibilities of his fellow patrons. He was alerted of these things and beaten up one night by some goons who had selflessly shouldered the burden of alerting him of his misconduct. The next day of course Linton was stiff and some ribs ached, but he left the office early not telling Sydney where he would spend his nights when she would inquire.

He got to the club- Club du Monde- around 11:30 and when he went into the bathroom after he drank two Beers, some fellows asked him if he wanted a "toot". Being a young, swingin' college graduate, Linton thought to himself,"I've heard of this cocaine stuff, I think I'll try it." He did but it wasn't what he thought. It was amphetamine. He gleaned this later when he was twirling madly out on the floor, dancing for hours and bringing tepid notice from the women. Approximately 20% of them had chlamydia, herpes simplex 2 or gonorrhea. Linton thought of the amphetamine he was rued into taking and the odds of getting an STD from one of the leering, careening women he moved through on his way to the bar. He ordered another Ballantine's XXX and felt the cold, slightly skunky liquid on his tongue and remembered just how great the stuff was.

A woman walked up next to him and asked mock coy, "Buy me a drink?" He ordered her a 7-Up and vodka, a drink he thought she would like. At least she didn't complain- she took the drink in her small hand, took a sip and said,"So what's your story?" Linton told her of how he had just moved to New York after he was offered a job at a small publishing company. The money wasn't nearly what he had expected and living in Queens was hardly Park Avenue. She told him of how she had Been kicked out of Westchester Community College for cheating and she had to help her mom "anyway" after her father left without telling anyone. Her teenage brother was beaten half to death a few days earlier by some Arab immigrants after he pocketed a Tastykake from their convenience store.

Suddenly Linton felt very depressed. Even through the amphetamine haze, he saw that she was a sorry case, and not through any choosing of her own. She was small and frail and slumped on her stool. Now she looked straight ahead and Linton looked at her small frame plaintively.

"What was she even doing here she was much too good for this phony world of imposed, overwrought macho attitudes and women who gobbled it up. It was probably the only thing she could think of- her girlfriends from the Five and Dime asked her along because they felt sorry for her. her co-workers are probably genuinely dumb and can really appreciate this place," he thought.

When she turned around, she said glumly, "anyway, my name is Myra."

"Mine is Linton."

Pleased to meet you she said for the first time seeming a bit less depressed.

He asked her to dance and just as they got on the floor, the Bee- Gees song How Deep is Your Love came over the speakers. They held each other and swayed to the music. Linton thought of how Coney Island looked at this time of year. How the garishly painted fiberglass horses and merry-go-round benches are all alone in the cold, salty wind sprinting from the ocean and leaping onto the boardwalk. Where are all the screaming children now? Eating lousy lunches at P.S. 123 and maybe thinking of Coney Island for next summer. Their fathers will take them and lay on the beach in their black stretch socks halfway up their calves while the kids parry in the shorebreak. How people lived, he thought."

When the song stopped, Myra told him he was a good dancer. He thanked her and meant it when he told her she was a good dancer too. They went back to the bar and each had a drink. Linton thought how lucky he was to not have to fret over the $2 for the 2 drinks whereas Myra would not be able to afford it so easily. When she was done, she said she had to go.

Linton asked, "Can I walk you outside to get a cab?" She said that would be nice so they got their coats on and walked into the frigid December air. He looked at Myra and then down York Boulevard. They were both in anguish, both worked too hard for nothing and both saw family crumble constantly.

When Linton tried to give her money for the cab, she refused and he thought twice, realizing she's no charity case. As She drove off in the back of the cab, she looked back and waved. Linton waved back and caught the next cab back to his cold apartment.

6] Always a price to pay...

As East-coast winter that leaves my feet icy cold and my mind tired. A few more minutes and I'm going to pass out. The dirty slush from car exhaust creating a warm puddle inside my frost-solid shoes. I turn my head up as the snow collects onto my discolored face. A pretty girl walks directly past me and breaks a bleak smile. High in the sky the clouds flow like a tempest. The purple glow reminds me of my urban surroundings. I rub my numb hands as the forgotten cigarette butt falls to the ground. I reach into my jacket and pull a cigarette from it's pack. The cigarette lights and I walk a few minutes past the oversized 19th century buildings.

Up ahead a crowd of drunk students are yelling and throwing snowballs. Pulling my hands from my soaking jeans, I reach up and pull my hat over my brow. After they pass I feel a cold chill on my neck as a projected snowball liquifies down my back. The bluestone sidewalk appears under the arch as the snow ceases in the church-decorated walk through. I look over my snow-covered shoulder and notice the same girl I saw minutes before walking towards me. I sat down on a marble bench and bowed my head down and stared at my sneakers. Out of my peripheral vision I could see her walk towards the bench with increasing urgency. A moment later I heard her voice as she said hello. I refused to raise my head in worry that she would recognize me. She asked me what my name was. I raised my head and peeled the frozen hat off my head. Her beauty captivated me as I went into a dream state. Seconds later after she recognized me, she approached closer and touched her lips against mine as I felt the intense warmth on my cold face. She backed away and watched me as I started to walk away. She stood there smiling as I passed through the archway back into the snow. My mind reminded me of my accident as a secondary chill shook my body. I became I'll and layed down in the deep snow, staring up at the ice-coated skeletal trees.

It seems that there's no escape from the public, from their dreams, from their fascination with people who have conquered their dreams.

Yet I try to escape my accomplishments to be more like them.

Echoing voices through the archway makes me stomach flutter as I glance at a group of camera toting students. I drop my head in weakness and close my eyes. The street light dims as voices erupt from the cold night. The same thing all over again and I begin to fall asleep. The voices blend into a high tone as hands begin touching me. The click of a camera and a sickness of popularity, the bright light illuminates the blood in my eyelids. The purple glow reminded me of my urban surroundings.

7] The old man Poison.

The green thud of the thumb on the bar, and my man swigs on the bottle of Rye Whiskey in his hand. Grasping tight, he slugs some down as that drinking smile pierces his face. Bald bastard from the record store sits alone at the end of the bar, peering into the swill he calls a drink. Behind his back we talk mean things as the two pretty girls next to him glance our way and gesture something sexual. A laugh comes from my man as a drop of poison drips from his lips onto his wrist. Bartender man drags his fat body up and down the counter refilling numerous alcoholics like ourselves. The smoke makes beams of light as they burn a hole into the kitchen tile atmosphere. A big breasted chum named "Flath" sits down and swigs on some pink Pepto. A belch enpowers the noise of the bar as a drip of poison falls and lands on his fat leg. He slaps me on the back, allowing me to spill the swill on the till. The bartender slaps him around a bit and charges him five bucks for a bud. The drummer sounds good, as my man swivels in the sparklepaint blue barstool. The cats are jammin' to a number he realizes and signals the burned waitress. "Maam, excuuuse me man, a round of drinks for the chumps in the corner." A minute passes as he follows her ancient behind with his visionless eyes. The bald bastard stares at me with disrespect, I grab my poison with pride and proudly chug, leaving my eyes to his. His body cries as he helps up his fattening gut to the men's room. Meanwhile, my man is choking on a drink umbrella, that'll be the death of him. A good smack on the back from any of the fellas would send that perpetrator into the domain of his personal brewery. A signal from the cats in the corner and the drummer yells "fuck you" at my man. Over the noise he perceives it as "Thank you". Two college girls bring their heavenly young bodies for us to stare upon. My pal Flath whispers "They're gettin' take out and then they're gonna think we're sick old men." Upon completion of Flath's premonition, a flying German Beer stein smacks him in the noggin, proceeding to land on the bar. Flath continued his fixed stare upon the girls, rubbing his head in confusion.

"Hey, you want to get out of here? I mean, you want to get out of here and do something really naughty?" The two girls whisper to me.

"Hey, you want to really get laid tonight old man? Look at our bodies you twisted old fuck, how can you say no? We'll make you wish you were young again."

"Look, you drunk bastard, we got all the Beer you want. You come to our dorm and we'll satisfy your fancy. Hey old man, you're lost. Look at you, just look at you, we'll make you better, we'll make you better. Want a ride in our ambulance, how about our ambulance, call the ambulance.."

"Hey man, he's coming to, man, he's okay." Flath stares upon me as well as my man and the "fuck you" drummer in the corner. A bald man kneels down. "You dirty bastard, get a life." The two college girls head out the broken front door. One looks down at me and says "We're gettin' take out and you're a sick old man." Flath laughs and offers, "What's your poison? It's on me."

8] The Thing I wrote at work one day #828

Beanjack opened the cupboard and spake he forth brilliant obscenity at the utter lack of beam whiskey. "I demand bloody smooth bon" Screwed him in tones reminiscent of a hobbling spooge soaker, and brandished a rhinestoned stiletto in fashion of same. Later a fucking pair of billies approached from nine o'clock. "Hand me if I mampered Henry's mussy!" "She's globed!" "Suckhead you -" but demon take me if Jack did not spray stickfuck with a reed lashed open pipe copper shot. "Me life is go," he moaned, clutching his ringwormed chest. In his dying movements he jerked out a boar tooth amulet stained blue by viburnum skins and holding it as high an angle as he could muster -- He pledged it to his mother, to keep and protect her. To keep her safe sane and happy until her dying day. His final life was a salty cry that dripped off his strongest sense as his bowels released. It soaked into mama's stone and saturated the once nerveending occupied cavities. An idea that he never said floated away on the easy lapping of the waves dizzy breakers sucking fusion vacuum lapping rolling in a endless circle of sun and semi stroke and nothing in particular to do... Year ago, he recalled a girl.

Beanjack would have nothing to do with this. "Pork this!" In fact, he said. "Up the ass of the conceptor of this bleeding travesty." And singing the haunting refrain to an Irish jig and reel: Fuck Jig we'll be back another day. He returned spelling his shit into god damn com pressers and nothing big fuck. They we're trying to by nile to him and the real question was did he actually know it. That was the question, but it was not the direct .. We of inquiry. So Porknok replied simply, "My amusement is very mild." "Bleeding babajesus with this brown shit." Commented Beanjack. According to authorities and testigos Beanjack wore a confused look and was rubbing his chest in a circular motion counterclockwise and wondering again and again and again, "Beanman who? Beanman who" As if wondering if the life was really there.

Years later he sat before his fireplace sipping the mellow brown reminiscing. A Beefy redhead in a rain bonnet cha cha-ed to little end about a line of crackers on the cathode box. How sad to die. She died from cancer. It was many years later. Flowery crustaceans hobnobbing at the banquet. They're still alive. A well mannered fork makes a proping introduction. The frupas was death to the boy. It was after all, only a child. Stiff cocktails walking with starchy tuxedos pricks like divining rods lead grinning corups to bucket seats of 81 Celica low and tank chassied screaming by pale shadows and the misbigotten pump. The handle hidden in an old man's rifle box under a pillow with the serial scratched. Dialing babies linger by the boiling tanks. Mini babies bob past the elements. Kinky hair floats in the brine. A life droned by commitments and endless shifts repeated into submission escaping from what at a brisk walk on step before the steel plate. The pauses are meaningless. Never landing on it. Never tasting it. Paying crisp bills for mutilated change. Looking out the basement kitchen on sees soggy cigarette butts on the asphalt, shiny from a rain silent under the roar of equipment. Shiny from a rain that will wash away even this. Shiny from the glow of a streetlight held high atop an aluminum pole. The poles diminish down the street like the rushes at the marsh where he fished with PA before the bottle took him. The flash produces a quick chuckle but no shrug, that he saves for the chill that fills the room from the ground up. on Break he doesn't nibble, this man with a square jaw, rather he chew is Bork Pone, shits and wipes his ass with the daily paper left by some fool. No one could understand it. Outside the rain drives in a furious silence equalled only by the lamenting strains of a Chopin Polinaise. His tower is his castle. He doesn't understand it but he knows it. A crust of cheese if just as delicious as it was on those hairy mosquito filled afternoons with PA. He remembered the darting creatures that were always too fast. His soles squishing in the unimaginable softness, dancing was keeping your balance. His father was a man who wore a wig of coal, one foot out of the mine. A chip off a cherry lifesaver was the sweet taste in his mouth. Sometimes his father poked a small taste into his mouth with the flat of his pinky sometimes he'd chew on a bird bone left by passing buckshot. A crust of cheese is just as delicious.

(Then he breaks into flirtatious stomp and says, "I love it.")

9] The thing I wrote at work one day #829 -

Beanjack opened the cupboard and spake he forth brilliant obscenity at the utter lack of beam whisky. "I demand bloody smooth bourbon," screamed him in tones reminicient of a hobbling spooge soaker, and brandished a rhinestoned stiletto in fashion of same. In the immediate afterwards a fucking pair of billies approached from nine of the clock. "Hang me if I hampered henry's hussy!" "She's globed." "Suckhead you-" But demon take me if Jack did not spray stickfuck with his reed lashed open piped copper shot.

"Me life is go," he moaned, clutching his ringwormed chest. In his dying moment he jerked out a boar tooth amulet stained blue by viburnum skins and holding it at as high an angle as was he capable he pledged it to his mother, to save and protect her. To hold her safe and sane and happy until her dying day. His final life was a salty cry that dripped off his glazing eyeball as his bowels released. It soaked into Mama's stone and saturated the once nerve ending occupied cavities. An idea that he never said floated away on the easy lapping of the waves dizzy breakers splashing and sucking vacuum rolling in an endless circle of sun and semi stroke and nothing in particular to do... Years ago, he recalled a girl.

Beanjack would have nothing to do with this. "Pork this," in fact, he said. "Up the ass of the conceptor of this bleeding travesty." And he sang the haunting refrain to an irish jig and reel he loved so well: "And ye he returned spelling his sparkling shit into goddamned compressors and thence returned nothing but salty browned cubes." Beanjack recovered from this brief reverie saying statements the ilk of "My amusement is very mild," and "Bleeding babajesus with this brown shit." According to authorities and testigos Beanjack wore a confused look and was rubbing his chest in a circular motion counterclockwise and wondering again and again and again, "Beanman who? Beanman who?" as if wondering if the life was really there.

Years later he sat before his fireplace sipping the mellow brown reminiscing. A Beefy redhead in a rain bonnet cha cha-ed to little end about a line of crackers on the cathode box. How sad to die. How sad when the cancer feeds to contentment on pleading lungs. How sad. It was many years later.

Flowering crustaceans hobnobbing at the banquet. They're still alive. A well mannered fork introduces, probing. The foax paus was death to the boy. It was, after all, only a child. Stiff cocktails walking with starchy tuxedos...pricks like diving rods lead grinning corpus to bucket seats of an orange celica low and tank chassied screaming by pale shadows that we knew and pulling up at the misbegotten pump one last time. The handle hidden in an old man's rifle box under a pillow with the serial scratched.

Dialing babies linger by the boiling tanks. Mini bagels bob by the glowing elements, kinky hair floats in the brine. A life drowned by commitments and endless shifts, repeated into submission. Escaping from what at a brisk walk one step before the steel plate, the pauses are meaningless. Never landing on it. Never tasting it. Never knowing it. Mutilated change is the remainder.

Looking out the basement kitchen one sees soggy cigarette butts on the asphalt, shiny from a rain silent under the roar of machinery, shiny from a rain that will wash away even this. Shiny from the glow of a streetlight...the poles diminishing into Brooklyn remind of the favorite marsh where he fished with Pa before the bottle took him.

The flash produces a quick chuckle but no shrug, that he saves for the cold that enters the room from the ground up. On break he doesn't nibble, this man with a square jaw, rather he chews his borkpone, shits and wipes his ass with the daily paper left by some fool who could understand it. Outside the rain drives in furious silence equalled only by the lamenting strains of a Chopin Polinaise. His tower is his caste. He doesn't understand it, but he knows it.

A crust of cheese is just as delicious as it was on those hazy mosquito filled afternoons with Pa. He chews slowly, remembering the darting creatures that were always too fast. His soles squishing through an unimaginable softness, his dance was keeping his balance. His father was a man who wore a wig of coal, one foot out of the mine. Sometimes his father poked a bit of cherry lifesaver into his mouth with the flat of his pinky, sometimes it was a bird bone left behind by passing buckshot. A crust of cheese is just as delicious.

10] Ben's first cup

Ben felt uncomfortable in his surroundings. Its Been so long. So long since he's Been outdoors.

He walked swiftly through the light fall rain. He knew he wanted coffee, yes, indeed. He entered the cafe and ordered.

"One large coffee please." Money changed hands and Ben sat at a nicely finished wood-stained table. He looked around and viewed mediocre paintings of old men sitting on benches. He dug into his moist coat and located a Pall Mall. The flaming sulphur meets tobacco as a cloud of smoke rose to the virgin ceiling.

An employee approaches. "Umm, excuse me, you can't smoke here." Ben keeps his gaze on his coffee, barely acknowledging the four- and-a-quarter shitworker. "Yes I can." stated Ben, matter-of- factly. He takes a drawn out drag that terrorizes patrons aside him. "Its always something with these motherfuckers." Ben thinks. "Umm." the acne-plastered espresso girl hums, "look, you gotta leave; PLEASE." Her pitiful spineless stance annoys Ben, "Fuck off, bitch." he eloquently gestures. "I haven't Been outside much less to a cafe in 2 years. I'm not getting wet and I always smoke when I drink coffee." he stops, contemplates. "Any suggestions?" she begins, he interjects, "shut up." By now Ben has a scant few drags left. He takes these graciously and deposits said Pall Mall into the quarter-full coffee. He stands, composes himself, and walks out to the light fall rain.

"Another day, another buck-fifty" he whispers. Ben strolled home, quickly from the caffeine, locking his door and not leaving again for another two years.

11] Anecdotal Seniors

The man who sings sad songs, sings sad songs.
A tornado is coming to your town soon,
to blow you and your motor home away.
Its chilly in drafty homes.
The Jazz buzz in the room.
Everything is hip and dandy,
in our world of icon relish.
Everything then,
SO COOL NOW.
Smoking herb makes me forget,
WHAT DID I SMOKE?

People that drown sleep in the ocean.
The cold days are approaching.
Leaf by golden leaf falling stray.

Amber streetlights twinkle to the eye.
The whole picture in a bird's sight.
Oakland is a bad place to raise kids.
Unless you're on the upper tier.
Hang from one raw hand,
on the brass tube that tempts your fate.
Advertising is getting to me.
My ass hurts, man.
Fortune cookies are misleading.
The old folks are taking over,
imprisoning twisted youth in lousy conditions in medicine-smelling
nursing homes located in Southern Florida.
I'd say its a conspiracy, but i've already said it once. See above.

12] Full of nog and the three pistachios

Aimlessly he sauntered through the desolate university. A bitter cold eve and a boiling hot coffee in his right glove. His mission was to find something to busy himself with. Fridays always meant something to Ben. Ever since leaving the clinic, he's Been without things to do, friends to laugh with, kids to play with. The pills rattled loudly in his smoking jacket, reminding him of his discomfort in the asylum. He sipped his coffee and sat down cross- legged in the fresh toxic snow. An African American squirrel approached him, cocked his head, and removed three lime-green pistachio nuts from his perma-pouch. He layed all three on the snow and smiled, running up a maple tree to his beloved "squirrelfriend". "See that guy down there" said John the African American squirrel. "He's a weird one. He rattles like he's got a million nuts on him." He went on, "I gave him a few pistachios, I really can't stand those things." Ben yelled to John, "What are the implications of these said pistachios?" John thought. "He doesn't even know I can speak in 36 separate tongues." "Well?" Ben yelled. Nothing. At the lack of response Ben became urked and pulled his cold penis out, unloading coffee urine on John's tree. "Dick" John said softly.

Ben placed his appendage back into its holster and walked further through the unviersity, stumbling across a few small hermaphrodite elf's playing carnival tunes at a heated kiosk. "Hey you" Ben exclaimed. "You guys know any Mahavishnu?" "Nope.." a particularily silly looking elf called. "Look man, we don't play covers..." Ben was surprised. What is Jersey but one extended remix of a cover tune at 16rpm? Ben watched the band play for several minutes until he realized, it was pill time.

The pill went down with a raucous taste, being chased with the aforementioned coffee. It sent a chill up Ben's meager spine as steaming bile excited his mouth, landing smoking on the virgin white snow. This spooked him so much that he beat feet upon a beaten path, stopping dead into the chest of a police officer.

"Son," the pig said, "What you think you runnin' from?" Ben had no patience for stupid questions; completely none. "Who says i'm running from anything?" Ben exclaimed.

Pressure mounts...

This reply took the cop entirely too long to process, leaving Ben enough time to pull out his 9 millimeter double-barreled laser- sighted flash-guarded automatic weapon with an assortment of armor- piercing, brain-exploding, cop-killing super bullets. And yes, he squeezed the trigger and watched.

It was more like the sound of Jello hitting a plate-glass window at three hundred miles an hour.

His head turned into something more resembling a thick spaghetti sauce with ground Beef in the mix. Ben chuckled and wiped a piece of shattered skull from his coat. And what a stupid question.

Ben wasn't running from anything, per se, he just felt like running.

Ben continued through the university as the snow came from above. He took an old shortcut through the old archways and entered the convenience store, making sure to wipe the pieces of brain out of his snowflaked hair. "Too bright." he thought, walking past a bland and probably worthless girl chewing hot-pink gum and eating a foot-long jerky stick. Passing through the candy aisle, Ben espied a piece of white trash with his head displaced in a bulk-candy bin.

They do love those yogurt pretzels. Ben approached the cooler with excitement.
He walks...

And to the milk section and looks...hmmmm...Through the grapevine he had heard, Egg Nog is in. A joyous celebration. Ben flashed to the days in Brooklyn eating ham and drinking whiskey nog.

He sighs.

"Oh, the days..." But wait. He can't find his sweetened milk, sugar, and egg beverage.

"Where is it.." he says in a whisper.

"The nog, its got to be here somewhere."

But it wasn't.

"Where's my motherfucking EGG NOG?" He screams at the cooler, almost blaming it for this error. Everyone in the store hears; loud and clear. In one quick stroke of his boned hand, he smashes the cooler glass with scant effort.

Not a drop of blood.

"Listen all you high-brow motherfuckers, this is a goddamn conspiracy and you high-pedestal bastards are going to get me my nog or those aristocratic brains of yours will be conversing with a mop." A disabled worker approaches him. A hush falls.

"Well put, Ben. What's up?" Ben sighs. In a dazed tone, "Oh Chris, my regards."

Ben gives up on the situation. He reasons, "A life without Egg Nog is a life without the rest of these miserable bastards. I'll kill 'em." Ben follows up. He strolls through the store, capping miss chewing-gum-bitch-USA with a shell to the heart, exploding the valves into a meshy spill. The shell continues. Through her back, terminates at a bag of kitty litter. "NO EGG NOG, NO CHRISTMAS. NO CHRISTMAS, NO REASON TO LIVE." he mutters in a calm tone. A small juvenile applauds his drama and begins rifling through the candy section. "Anarchy!" the child screams.

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot Chris." "Chris!" he yells, "Where are you?" On the floor, slithering like a wonded snake, Chris appears.

Ben asks, "You guys got any Egg Nog back there?".. "Yeah, just got some in tonight." Chris replies shakily.

Cool..

"Can you get me a pint? Man, I sure could use some nog." Chris continues his snake-like movements. He slithers to the back cooler and comes back with a pint. Ben take it like a gentleman and makes a friendly gesture of some sort.

Down the pastry aisle to the cashier.

Ben wonders, "where's the cashier?" ... "You just shot her, Ben." Chris reminds. An expression, only described as rage comes upon Ben's face. He swivels around and blankly aims at Chris, now standing. "Now thats trippy." Ben thought. "Would you look at that! Thats a lot of blood, wow." He placed a bloody buck on the table, and exited; not forgetting to take his special shortcut.

The snow came faster now and Ben smiled, walking casually through the snow-covered Ivy-League school. His Converse were logged with melted snow; not at all unlike water. He kept on, passing the expired police officer, passing the musical kiosk, and eventually coming to John the African American squirrel's aforementioned maple tree. Ben's early footprints were barely visible, and quickly disappearing.

He sat.

He looked down at the three pistachios. Inside his coat he emptied his three bottles of heavy sedatives onto the snow, coloring it blue, black, yellow. He took the three pistachios and so he sauntered home, full of nog and the three pistachios.

13] The Ears that always Ring

"Obscenity!" spoke he. Ben sat perched on his front steps watching the golden glow of the sunset. "Winter, bloody winter!" he muttered. The wind howled, it howled frigidity and dryness. Ben rubbed his pale hands together.

The non-fiction flowed along the page, Ben's eyes gazed upon the yellow pages of The Idler. A coincedence he found as he became lucid of this fact. Ben himself was an Idler.

The phone rang. With urgency Ben carelessly dropped his book and ran inside. Catching the couch with his left foot, he proceeded to trip and fall to the hardwood floor. But the phone still rang.

He caught the phone on the fifth ring, a mere millisecond after the caller had abandoned hope. Ben answered, began, "Hel"....The line was dead. "Its like that is it?" Ben said in a challenging tone.

The psychosis continued, even after years of therapy. Ben gestured his hands in a surrendering fashion. Another catch-22. He sat.

His mind attacked him, full-speed ahead. Could it have Been? Was it her? Wait, maybe it was a crank call. Or, was it a telemarketer? And if it was, what did they want to sell me? Maybe I needed it.

The chair was a recliner. Not implying that it was particularly comfortable, but that it infact reclined. Ben never used this function of the chair. He preferred to sit slouched, simulating the reclining option.

His kitten lay masking in the sun on the oriental carpet.

He pulled a creased cigarette from its soft-pack. He examined it. He produced a lighter from his shirt pocket, and ignited the tip. It smoked. Ben took a long drag, watching the flaming red tip glow shades of orange. He relaxed. He begin to exhale. Slowly, methodically, appreciating the carcinogenic connotations.

The phone, it rings again.

Ben stops, temporarily stunned from the loudness of the mechanical ringer. He is interrupted, the last wisps of inhaled smoke exit furiously, outlining the winter sunbeams on the wall. He coughs.

He rises hastily, darting for the phone. He stretches his arm long, hoping to get the phone before its next ring. But another ring overtakes his hearing, one louder and more sharp.

A pain surfaces on top of his head. He questions, "The phone, it stopped ringing. And only after two rings.." His vision narrows, the room spins, he drops to the kitchen floor. He's out.

The kitten rises, disturbed by the racket. Approaches Ben, licks from the mounting pool of blood on the floor.

It is evening. Precisely 7:30pm. The house is pitch-dark. Outside a light snow falls, the circular amber lights from the snowtruck illuminate the room, disco-like. Ben awakens. He has just dreamt of a phone, with a continuous ring. It rings plugged in, it rings disconnected, it rings when it doesn't exist. It just rings.

Ben surveys his environment. His head hurts. His white kitten lay asleep, with traces of dried blood encompassing its small mouth.

Odd, whats going on here? Ben scratches his head in initial confusion, and tempts his wound. He winces. How did this happen?

Ben rises and turns on the kitchen light. Its flourescence nearly blinds him. He stands and tries to grab his bearings.

The phone, it rings.

Ben interjects, speaking directly to the phone, "The devil is in you. I won't answer you." He presses the button on the answering machine; activating it.

The glow of the red light appears.

Ben reaches into the fridge and pulls a Beer from its case. His anxiety builds. "Who will it be?" ..He wonders, "Will they hang up?" He glances at the small circle of blood on the floor, slowly adding the facts together.

A badly recorded message begins:

"Hi Ben..Wait, I mean, Hi, this is Ben here, this is my machine so...Leave a message!" - The sound of the leader tape hisses and the tape completes. A loud *CLICK* and a whirring rewind of the incoming tape.

The tension mounts. The tape, it records.

"Hello, Mr. Selenium, this is Gregg Dabney from New Jersey Bell." he stops. Ben relaxes.

The phone, it rings, but not in installments. Its one long ringing sound. Ben freezes, frightened. The phoneman continues:

"We seem to be having....We seem to be..." The ring grows louder. "Sir, could you please pick up the phone?"

Ben drops into his chair, mesmerized. "Sir?" Ben lifts the phone from the cradle, wearily places it to his ear.

"Hello, what do you want?" Ben yells.

But the phone, it still rings.

The room grew narrow, Ben threw the phone down in rage.

The phoneman's voice continued, "And so the Idler idled, similiar to a phone waiting for a ring."

He awoke.

The phone rang. Ben rose and walked to the phone answering it.

The ringing stopped.

14] Harkus's Urbane Day

Like a quick Tango with a French woman, like a sip of strong Espresso in your waking hour. Like a piece of wrapped candy on the frozen concrete. For Harkus today was working out just fine.

"Whats this I hear about the men in pressed suits taking over my future..." Harkus scratched his head, long and hard. He folded the newspaper in half to facilitate reading the monstrous entity. It was a warm Sunday in Cincinnati, and in-between occasional glances at stale reading, he casually sipped his homebrewed espresso, naturally wincing at every swallow. A warm breeze blew through the cracked window, bringing in the scent of char-broiled burgers from the grease-shop across the street. The scent afforded him the memories of his youth, throwing lawn darts at his sister during the weekly family bar-be-que. Harkus rose and felt a slight disorder of things in his brain. A slight chill approached him as he swayed to the headrush. He made his way to the window and peered out. His boxers hung low and uneven. His face was unshaven and sweaty like a wet fish. The heat poured into the kitchen like an open oven. A man was peddling cheap jewelry with a finish of flaked gold paint. Harkus examined a piece of this jewelry as it hung from his wrist. The electroplated copper reminded him of its actual value, and with a spontaneous feeling of worthlessness, Harkus tugged the meager chain from his wrist and pitched it onto the street, landing several feet before the salesman.

Unnoticed, the man continued to puff on a large-sized cheap cigar, the kind that is sold raw next to the candy section at your neighborhood convenience store. The old Greek man caught a glimpse of the broken chain as a reflection from the sun temporarily blinded him. The man, appearing as though he might have struck gold, no pun intended, scurried over to the chain and picked it up with his fat thumb and forefinger. He muttered to himself as he examined the broken link, and began repairing it. Meanwhile, Harkus began seeing the day in a more awake manner.

He opened the refrigerator for a temporary cool-down from the blast-furnace day, only to find that it had succumbed to the heat and no longer was operational. Infact, upon reaching for the milk and swishing it around, the sheer solid-feeling of the contents led Harkus to believe that infact the refrigerator gave up a long time ago. Bothered, but not completely surprised, Harkus felt somewhat sympathetic with the deceased Frigidaire. At least, he conjectured, HE was still alive.

A wave of sickness passed over him, the heat was taking its toll. He always theorized that his rent was less not because his apartment was structually unsafe, but because his apartment on the top floor had a roof covered with black tar paper, the only one not surfaced with aluminum. As a result, his apartment was always twenty degrees warmer. One would think this might come in handy during the winter months, but alas, the landlord always set up solar panels on his section of roof to minimize costs for heating water. Not surprisingly, Harkus knew this only too well as a reaffirmation of his nature to live in a perpetual catch-22, something he likened to Hell.

Harkus caught a slight wiff of his odor, causing him to nearly retch. He maintained always that when ones own smell bothers them, its time to do something about it. But as a second thought, he realized this odor was a sexual smell, the smell of hours of hot sex in a hot apartment on a hot, humid evening. And with that thought he slowly made his way to the bathroom, stepping on a young cockroach that left his foot moisturized with cold fluidous remains. This occurrence remained unnoticed to him as he crossed the hallway to the bathroom. He stepped in front of the condensating mirror and examined his mug. He ran his hand through his jet-black hair, feeling the grease absorb into his hand. He reached his arm into the shower, pulling the old shower lever back and to the right; COLD. The pipes rattled and well over ten seconds later a sputter of brown water ejected from the faucet head, collecting on top of the hair that clogged the drain. He dropped his boxers, letting them fall to his ankles and proceeded back into his bedroom where a sweaty figure lay asleep. The sheets stuck to her body and outlined her figure. Harkus noticed her erect nipples from an exhilirating dream; or was it the heat...

The room reaked of sex. The windows were wide open and the occasional breeze blew the mini-blinds stray. Harkus lay beside her and awed at her beauty. A sense of urgency struck him as he realized the shower was still running. He figured he could buy a few minutes and placed his hand under the sheets, freely caressing her body.

She awoke.

Harkus was amazed at her breath. For he has never known a human being to have fresh, minty breath after sleep. He approached closer to her mouth as she opened her eyes, exposing a beautiful dark green. "Hey.." she whispered in a choked, congested tone. She lifted the damp sheet off her body and rubbed her eyes, removing the Sandman's remains. Harkus was infact so stumped at her lack of bad breath that he pondered for a moment. "How do you keep your breath so minty fresh?" he inquired. "Harkus, I use Scope. It leaves my breath fresh and minty all day long and it prevents gingivitis." Harkus felt an odd understanding of her, and didn't question this seemingly commercialized response. She sat up in bed, and from underneath the covers she produced a family-sized bottle of Scope. "You should try some, it'll really hit the spot."

Harkus gladly accepted, although somewhat confused as to what was going on. He chased a shot of Scope and spit the mouthwash onto the hardwood floor.

The shower was still running, getting louder and more prominent. The even spray began sounding more like sheets of water, dripping and splashing all over the whole apartment. This time he knew he must get up to take his shower. Sonya continued her commercial dialog, propped up naked in bed grasping the bottle of mouthwash, speaking generally to an empty room. "Honey, you should try Scope, it makes your breath minty fresh." Harkus was confused.

The water flowed smoothly along his body. It was cold and hit the spot. He felt himself wake up, beating this awful heatwave. The small transistor radio clicked on and a radio personality continued to rattle on about today's weather... "Well people, today is our day. Currently we have grey and rainy skies with a chance of a thunderstorm later this morning. Don't forget to bring an umbrella before you leave the house today." The personality paused, sighed, and resumed. "Its Been hot out there this summmer hasn't it? Today we have a high of 74, a nice let-up from the heatwave of '95, destined to go into New York history.."

The shampoo entered his eye as he quickly scrambled to wash it out.

A painful sting entered his body and urked him. Harkus again was confused. He opened his one pain-free eye and glanced out the bathroom window. Through the condensation he saw a hazy sun steam the scenery. He had now taken particular consideration to the last few minutes and these odd events. "Why is my girlfriend advertising Scope?" "Why was her breath so minty fresh?" and lastly, "Why does the radio say its raining when its hot and humid just like every other day?". He scratched his head, accidentally allowing more soap into his previously stinging eye.

Maybe I'm dreami...

Reflexively he slammed his hand down on the alarm clock stifling the radio. The pitter-patter of rain made rumbling sounds on the roof. A cool breeze blew in through the window as the television spewed a Scope commerical. Markus awoke quickly and surveyed his situation. Stunned, he quickly felt next to him for a body. Nothing was there. He caught the last few seconds of the commercial.

"For fresh, minty breath, always use Scope."

15] The Alarm

My daycare center was this huge warehouse-looking place on the top floor of an oversized administration building. It was one huge room with several partitions and a stainless steel slide that must have Been 25 feet high. There were special areas marked out for certain activities and there were places that were just open because not even every piece of furniture in Ann Arbor could have filled it. The teachers were very tall, maybe fifteen feet in height, and there was a stage that I always wanted to climb up on and play on but that too must have Been ten feet tall.

Even though I was three years old, seemingly unable to respond a whole lot to anything, I had already obtained a number of fears that still haunt me today. Inside this huge castle that I spent 5 days a week in for a year and a half was one solitary fire alarm, about a foot squared and containing a grill on the front with one really loud alarm behind it. It really stuck out in the place everytime I passed it en route to the bathroom I would stare at it.

I had no idea what it was, and after a year of nothing interesting about it, I dismissed it as just another one of those ornamental adults things.

We all napped in the same room, a comparitively small room set off from the huge one. Every day at noon the teachers would rustle us all up and take us to this room. We would sit there watching as they produced these weird long cast aluminum stretchers with synthetic tops. Later I would learn these were called "Cots", but still today don't know why. Then the teachers would administer each one of us one (1) whole graham cracker (perforated) and a container of milk which probably held about 5 ounces. We were then instructed to eat the cracker and drink the milk after every bite. The craftiest of us would break the cracker in half, thus doubling our treat. Some of us had no interest in eating the cracker at all. This particular crew would take the two halves and proceed to saw shapes into the crackers, eventually leaving a sugary brown dust on the floor. After what was named "snack", we were all escorted to our "cots" and left to sleep. Most of us, myself not excluded, would cry the duration of our nap-time and periodically cry out for "mommy" or "ma". The others that didn't follow suit always seemed odd to me.

After nap-time we then went onto the roof to play. A dangerous thought to any parent seeing that we were no less than twenty stories from the street (in 3-year old terms atleast). Because of this, there were very high chain-link fences encasing the roof. Nothing much had Been done to make this a roaming ground for children. A few sandboxes were allocated to the roof, and maybe a few balls, a jumprope, and a few Big-Wheels. The roof floor was exactly what it should have Been, nailed pieces of white tar-like shingles that were joined by gobs of gooey black tar and small pebbles. The roof was always hot, even during the fall. Me and several toddlers would pick a spot somewhere on the roof and focus on the tar, rubbing our fingers in it and then rubbing it deeply into each others faces. Alot of us sucked our thumbs, myself excluded, and would suck the tar right off. On several occasions I watched my playmates throw up a mushy paste, not unlike a milk and graham cracker blend. Nothing would happen. Well, not until one of us began crying, either from actually being the victim, or from being the spectator. Big, tall teachers would encircle us and take ahold of our mouths and physically clean them with their huge hands. It was a weird experience to say the least. That was probably my first memory of trial and error, and I successfully learned to stay away from ingesting tar in the future.

Lunch-time was the greatest. And even at the non-competing age of three, I recall vividly wondering why most of my friends got that flat, square, light yellow cheese on their sandwiches when I got this blocky, hand-cut dark cheese. Another qualm I learned to have was that of how the bread was cut on the sandwich. My playmates seemed to generally have a diagonal cut and mine was always straight through the middle. We were all in the same group when it came to vegetables. We all had to eat them and we all hated them. That sort of unity was what I preferred to see. The gist of the whole lunch situation was that of mess. The whole act of eating was disorganized and sloppy. No less than half our food ended up on the floor, or in a companion's hair or a permanent fixture on his/her clothing. This was what seemed so enjoyable. Whereas other times we seemed to be getting chided for every small infraction, there were no expectations when lunchtime came around.

There was one general rule of the house. Nobody the age of five or under could go anywhere without an adult. That was fine, because nobody wanted to. Very shortly after lunch the apple juice would pass through and everybody had to go. And go we went, depending on our age, in our pants or in (or near) the toilet. I had Been pretty good with this and generally could hold it atleast two minutes after I felt the urge. I was actually rewarded for this. And so the masses walked in two's or sometimes five's to the bathroom, which was on the complete other side of the daycare center. About three or four hundred preschooler steps at the least. This was when I would stare deeply at the red-grill box as my arm strained from being held by someone so much taller than me.

One particular day after lunch I had to go. I took a quick look around and found no larger person to escort me to the bathroom. I decided to hit the high road and take the walk myself. I eyed the distance and noted my path. It would be easy, just walk straight and when I get to those things leading down i'll go straight some more and then go left. Although it was actually several years later until I learned what "left" and its opposite "right" meant. So I started on my venture, walking sketchily towards my goal. Finally I reached a landmark, the fire alarm. This insured my route was correct from past trips. Although this was quite some time after my interest in the red box had faded, I thought about it again after needing it as a navigation tool. I focused my gaze upon it again and watched it suspiciously as I began to pass it. At that point I had realized, somehow, that it was a fire-alarm, and that it made a loud noise to warn everybody of danger. As that exact thought had begun to turn into another, the alarm went off.

I froze.

The reverberation of the room was phenomenal, so reverberent infact that a few playing children sounded like a whole playground at recess. I was terrified. It seemed so odd. My intrepretation was that this "alarm" was actually alive, because how else could it have done anything? This terrified me more. The loud buzz, sharp and pounding my young eardrums, only grew worse. My young ears were screaming as well as my young voice. I spontaneously fell to the hard tile floor and writhed around in extreme confusion.

Hours later it seemed, but only about thirty actual seconds, a mass of toddlers and teachers darted towards me from the lunch area. It was a stampede as far as I could tell. The alarm pervaded my hearing and I began hearing another sound, a mellow ringing in both of my ears. The teachers encircled, and I expected great reward for my heroism. However, I was snatched up and taken with my fellow friends quickly downstairs and outside to street level.

I was shaken, to say the least.

I remained crying along with every other child, creating an odd stereophonic wail from all points. A given friend (as in, I was his friend because his parents knew my parents) of mine named Jesse was close at hand and the two of us got together and cried in unity.

The alarm was false, as so many more would be in my days in public school, and each and every time, even up until the end of high school, I would respond in ways that would scare my friends.

16] Ben's two minutes

Beanjack was quietly reading bad prose and sipping his poison. Meanwhile Ben was strolling parallel down the street amusing at a cat that followed him closely. A general hush was present. The cemetary flowed along as his hair flowed with the cool breeze. Twin-engine planes sounded in the sky reminding Ben of todays day, Sunday. He walked carelessly down the cracked sidewalk, unaware of his continuous stumbling.

She left her house and smiled at him. He felt a warm blush on his face. She was his mysterious neighbor, living next to him for a year and still he didn't know her name. She was tall, exotic, and almost dreamlike. They crossed paths accidentally as he stumbled on yet another crack, grazing her side as they passed. His eyes remained affixed on her...They crossed paths and he looked back examining her from another angle. She turned back wondering if he had any response to his bumping into her. Her smile was simply entrancing. He smiled at her and began to apologize.

"I'm, I'm terribly sorry...I, I..." he stopped, too caught up in her eyes. She smiled and gestured a quick forgiveness. She too was amazed with him. She was nervous and visibly shaking. "No, it was my fault." She said wearily.

Ben hated cliches. He knew only too well that it was his carelessness that led him to collide with her. She had no right to claim responsibility for his mistake, it was unfair. He felt himself turned off by her response. His nervousness dissipated. "Hey, I ran into you..." he spoke, almost agitated. She interpreted this response defensively. "Well, I, I just wanted to.." Ben interrupted, "Look, I think you're beautiful and all, but why do you have to be so fake? Its quite obvious that it was my fault and that you're trying to claim responsibility for some odd manipulative reason."

He was babbling to himself and to her, something he had refined in the asylum. He caught himself and began to feel uncomfortable. He tried again, hoping to convince her to restart this odd conversation. She was visibly offended and continued on her way.

He knew it. He continued his walk, distancing himself further from her as she headed into town. "Strike one" he spat in disgust. He continued down the street, verbalizing a new approach to the following cat.

17] A plea to the wretched.

Disillusionment is the way of the world. Well atleast as of late. Here i'm not referring to anything except language in itself. That is that i'm not going to pussyfoot around with commercialism, societal crap "hey you're disillusioned you must be a slacker." No fuck that, if you weed out all this crap that journalists and writers alike write you can come to terms with something real and not so fucking stereotyped and full of propaganda. There really is something here that is concrete. Set aside all the yuppies in their high-rises smoking Macanudos and telling their secretaries to fire the "young ones", forsake those pricks that capitalize on a generation presumably because their own was so fucking boring.

The clueless are as clueless as the clued, yet the latter simply thinks they have a clue. This explains why twenty years later people are complaining of mid-life crisis. Too bad it takes that long to realize working a 9-5 in a corporate America suit and tie job only serves to give you a monotonous schedule and someone to boss around. Every jerk and their friend will assert that the disillusioned are the biggest bunch of complainers in this free world. Going through college and committing suicide the day before graduation. Man that happens pretty often and even Berkeley tells their donut eaters to keep a look out for jumpers and pale bug-eyed class of 95's looking at rooftops.

Surely its legitimate to take a look around you and question, "Whats the point?". Well maybe there isn't a point. Stop holding your breath for an easy way out. Its partly philosophical I suppose. Its always this "then what" syndrome.

So I get a job and make 300 bucks a week and come home, drink a Beer, watch some tv and go to sleep.

So I graduate from college with a degree in philosophy and end up in cafe's talking 'big things' and 'heavy topics' with some old tattered barfly chick sipping on a small black coffee.

So I throw my graduation cap up in the air, grab my piece of notarized paper and go straight to McDonalds to apply as a drive- out-window-slave for $4.25. But they don't hire me because I'm overqualified so I apply at Burger King and neglect to mention my degree.

My girlfriend has a degree in Psychology and she has an interesting job filling orders for "Super Shammy's" those revolutionary rags that never seem to get dirty and are softer than a baby's skin. I have a degree in nothing and meander around with a cup of black coffee crying about how my world is black like this fucking pint glass full of swill. Kidding, really.

Why question progression? Why the hell not. Changing the present contributes to altering the future if that weren't quite obvious. As in if you do something now like water those poppy plants in the front yard that in a month they'll be full-grown and ready to chew on. You disillusioned fucks out there are too damned lazy and passive to even care to realize that a butterfly flaps his wings and a year later a tsunami takes out japan in one big WHOOSH.

No don't live for the moment. Better to assume you're living for greater and bigger things in the future. Flush that disillusionment down the toilet along with that dozen goldfish you bought last week and go do something creative for a change.

18] 15 Minutes

A warm day crept up upon me so Shane and I decided to amble around the town, end up at the cafe and get some overpriced caffeine with shots of flavor in them. Yeah we're living large. The Spring has truly descended upon Princeton now and the people from neighboring cities, mainly Hamilton, Trenton, Lawrenceville, maybe a few diehards from Lambertville come to walk around and window-shop; literally. I wonder if it adds to ones artifical image of ones-self to look at thousand dollar china and sterling silver toilet plungers when they know perfectly well they'll be eating store-brand mac and cheese for dinner. Don't know, don't need to tread on it either because its pointless or because its futile. If speed is the devil's drug then winter is certainly the devil's season. I said something of this nature to Shane and he nodded in agreement as I stumbled into a 150% Arion Princeton girl with the whole university attire on and I believe that if I spoke to her she would be a "Buffy" and have an acute memory of cheerleader-cheers. This isn't really a stereotype because its possibility of being on the money is high. Shane was pinning verbal shit on me like "Guilt by Association" which sounds like Sociology talk. He really vagued the whole phrase and he succeeded in logically arguing my guilt of any given situation in relation to something I indirectly have something to do with. In otherwords, we were both talking alot of shit as we walked down the tree-lined streets of Witherspoon. Its a nice ethereal day and although the town is populating at an amazing rate what with all the semi's driving down one-way private streets it still seems quiet and peaceful. Maybe the tree's are dampening the sound. There's yard sales everywhere, there's groups of young, clueless, and innocent teenage girls walking around flirting with people twice their age such as Shane and myself. The university is crowded en masse with parents of grads and undergrads sporting high-quality threads, a Nikon around the neck, and that inquisitve look around which always signifies a tourist. These are the kind of people that five or six years ago I would have given snide looks to, maybe even call them "fuckers" in passing. Now I see them and appreciate them for adding to the twisted Saturday ambience but really I care too little to even breathe a word in their direction. After so many years of seeing the same thing, whether its jocks drinking straight from kegs or hippies wandering around bare-footed and tripping, you get used to it and don't even muster up a thought in relation.

Shane went on mocking several people we know, mostly burned out fucked-up freaks. I don't even mean that in disrespect, for if you asked them if they were 'that' they would respond with a yes.

Due to Jersey's deer population, which is so high that driving down any street at night you're bound to see a group of them standing square in front of your car with their reflecting eyes in shock, we have a certain problem with those little one-tenth the size of a penny monsters named ticks. It seems virtually all of them are stricken with Lyme's disease and now everybody knows someone that has Been attacked by it. You really get a solid understanding of the "butterfly flapping his wings" term when a tick so small that it would blend in with a bottle of pepper can afflict one's spinal cord and eventually one's brain until he's lost in a world so far from the one most of us see that there's just no hope. I believe if there is a God that he too would end up with Lyme's disease petting Bambi or something. Oh yes, so what was the point here. Well we strolled up into town which I guess I could say I spent a great deal of my mid-teenage years smoking pot and experimenting with opiates and all that beautiful poison. I long for the day that I can walk up there and not see the same burned out people I did in 1987. You know I deja vu'd last week when I was heading uptown for one of my five coffee runs. I walked past this one bench where all the scum (like myself) used to sit and tell university students they were rich fuckers, and who should I see but three of the biggest die-hard, as they call them "Townies" in Princeton. The Deja Vu is that I swear the last time I saw them there was like seven years ago in the same place, smoking the same cigarettes, smoked the same amount, wearing the same clothes, and discussing the same thing. Its like I wanted to sit down with them and tell them all I've done since they've Been on that damn bench. That was truly a passing thought however. Why spend time telling people what has Been happening when they themselves can't even figure out what they've Been doing. No need to talk to unresponsive types.

We walked a little further up the street and we stumbled across my friend Pete who was the singer of an underrated local band a buncha years ago. He succumbed to the opiates and eventually pulled a crash and burn on himself, ending up in rehab for like two years or something. Now he's a nurse at the Princeton Medical Center, probably one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country. Or rather, the most expensive and therefore posess doctors that don't misread blood tests for AIDS. So now he's a nurse walking around installing IV's of Morphine and Codeine and anything-eine and I wonder if thats not a great piece of American irony. I think he planned that all along. His voice is so low is almost rattles my heart when he talks.

Okay so now we've decided to drop our asses on a Princeton bench (which incidentally are damn fine benches if I do say so) and I fall into this dreamworld of being an age-old senior (like 75 years old) drinking a small coffee sitting there with watery glazed eyes and that look of cosmic contemplation on my face (what I mean essentially is that i'm not there). Old people have a tendency to drink small coffee's but alas they're not so lost (yet) that they drink it decaffeinated, which really is an insult to the bean regardless if it has any feelings. Shane and I are "goofing" on each other, which although a pretty dated word, is more accurate that these bullshit slangs like "ragging" or god strike down all that use "dissing" or without the G and man you should go straight to the gurney. Goofy is definitely a catch word amongst my semi- circle of friends. I became spaced once again as I dropped into an Astral state (this due to lack of sleep the night before) and took consideration of things in a more broad sense. Saturday, warm, good coffee, natural cigarettes, good company oh man I'm like McVeigh in a Bomb Shop; oh so very content.

Long over are the days of looking at people, classifying them, and calling them a "poser" or some crap. Like I said its just not worth it. Remember in grade school when you were getting your ass chucked around the schoolyard by a bully ninty pounds and four feet tall and mom said "its not worth it" and dad said "kick that bastard's ass. No son of mine is going to be a wimp." Blah blah. You still walk away from school at 2:40 without lunch money so what does verbalizing have anything to do with reasoning with some 50 IQ soon-to-be-splattered-all-over-the-local-papers-police-blotter-punk-ass-kid. If there was a point to any of this I guess its that digression is usually a pretty handy little device.

The subject turned to a more primal discussion as scores of flawless university girls sauntered their way into the cafe to get their triple-shot double-almond-hazelnut frappe caffeine concoction-type things. You know, the kinds that wire you so badly that you end up getting sleepy. Instead of discussing why the Delaware Water Gap is a genuinely hilarious name, we segue over to discussing such innate things as sexy girls and shapely figures. Its really not that white-trash sort of "that bitch looks lahk she'd let me stick it in 'er." type thing, because only in two states have I seen people actually stare you in the eye and say it without a grin. That being Arkansas and Oklahoma but i'll let it go this time because both states have cheap cigarettes and 94 octane gas for under a dollar a gallon, yeee hawww! Ok so here I am. Oh right. Man if there's one thing in this world thats the creme de la creme of mystery it must be a woman. Just when you think you know what they'll do next, they do the opposite just to prove you wrong. We men (well in general I prefer to call my lot aged boys or something because I certainly don't feel like a man and due to society and its twisted web when I hear "MAN" I think like some sort of hormonal creature walking around asserting the size of his pectorals or whatever the hell a "MAN" exercises into shape.)

Like a woman for example, which is a good example, I guess. I think it was me and Marc that began trying to piece apart how a woman (MAY) operate in any given situation. This was like trying to foresee all the possible choices during a third move in a game of chess, which I read today there are like 128 to the hundredth possibilities. The day we figure out women is the day we lose interest in them. Okay anyway, so the scenario was like I saw this bombshell and she was walking down the street and I was captivated by her, I mean it would be against my own logic to cast my eyes astray. And the hope was that she'd look at me and atleast smile, grin, chuckle, wink, or whatever. If she pasted a poker face or worse turned away in implied disgust then the next five minutes would be all about how life sucks. However, if she responded positively then I could draw on this until the wee hours of the night and tll all my friends that the most beautiful girl in the city of Princeton responded to my pleading puppydog eyes and my white ass perched on the sidewalk like I was her fucking dog. Which believe it or not I've Been know to play that roll pretty well for a few hours. Okay so the reality was that she infact smiled and said "Hi" in that innocent voice which of course I interpreted as "she's absolutely head over heels for me" which I'm allowed that illusion because men do that and I can be average if I want to so there. It was one of those really neato situations where two people pass each other, exchange words, and as they cross paths both of them opt to adjust themselves so as to not accidentally look away from them ever again. As in "Do you take this men to be your.." Blah blah blah....And the rest is history. "I met your mom on the sidewalk. I loved the way she said hi." Oh man I hope its not like that for me cause that would be just too boring. But okey dokey so we stopped and stared at each other pretty stupidly and I was pretty spaced anyway from yet another day of walking around lacking sleep. I felt that warm buzz like the initial shot of whiskey. We're positioned in front of the town's most elite and expensive restaurant, the only one charging ten bucks for a piece of French bread and a one-inch by one-half-inch rectangle of handmade butter straight from the urn. However the one across the street charges six bucks for a bloody mary so that definitely comes in second. The Princeton superculture exited the front door of the restaurant and purposely walked inbetween us maybe so we could catch a whiff of their thousand-dollar-an-ounce cologne or most likely because they weren't thinking about anyone except themselves and their gold-plated family tree mounted tackily in the bathroom in front of the toilet next to the silver plunger. The kind of family tree that starts with Samuel Johnson's great great great great grandfather and hybrids its way to these fucks that are interrupting this particular white-boy's staring match with this particular white girl. But this whole ramble I just expressed was the result of about one-half second so I probably need to condense my thoughts a little bit better.

There's really nothing to it except that I choked on my own words as if I tried to talk over my own voice at the same time. I assumed I might as well say stupid things because thats the way it should be. And if I ended up actually saying something slick it was the work of the gods and sooner or later I'd have to suffer for the lucky illusion. So I stumbled and she did to so we both got into a decent groove and minutes later after random chatter I had gotten her name but already forgetten it as I fell victim to the most inviting eyes I can ever remember (I'm not including those Albino's that just make you go crazy with lust.) They were green which probably means I should have proposed but okay I can wait. As long as she doesn't compliment me then everything is going to be just fine, because I can see through that shit like transparent butter and I really hate shit that doesn't stick, amen. This girl has an edge on me because if there was some way to turn a woman into an equally beautiful male counterpart, I'd look in comparison like someone who rode bikes into turning cars (which actually I have done once or twice). She could have blown me off right there and I would have Been content with her name, although I forgot it.

Shane stopped this prolonged recollection by waving his hand in front of my dazed mug and saying "You there?" which I blurred into my fantasy just like people visualize ringing phones as their alarm clock goes off at 7am. He noted that we should take off and see other things which was a good idea and being in Princeton ALL DAY on a Saturday is just a stupid thought period. We walked back to my place and took prolonged leaks and hopped in his car heading for New Brunswick, where we embarked on an entirely different chain of events.

18] Sleepers streaking with the silent serpents.

Man I bleed profusely from cat-inflicted scars late evenings on this particular warm and humid Spring. If I were a hemophiliac i'd be running to the hospital in panic dripping type O negative down the virgin sidewalks where the grade school kids walk. However I'm not a "hemo" so I just pass this crap off as a vengeful innate attack sequence on the part of the particular tabby that I named Sunkist because why the hell not commercialize a cat? I sipped respectfully from my 2-liter bottle of Pepsi-Cola brand carbonated soda that I bought specifically because its targeted for people that like two bucks off on amusement parks (however they're quite inflated at 30 bucks) although I should point out that if I did drink Pepsi-Cola brand soda and get on a multiple-loop-puke- inviting ride I would certainly let that go on the whole cub scout troop in line below. So maybe the commercialism isn't as sound as it appears to be hence maybe there's no real relation to that advertisement.

Next step was to smoke one of these natural cigarettes that leave my lungs feeling so refreshed, which believe it or not Marlboro used to advertise that kind of fucking bullshit all over magazines such as the New Yorker in the early 1950's when everyone was walking around with ten-gallon hats and a false assumption that cigarettes gave you fresh breath. Oh god I hope we're getting a clue. So I lit it and I felt life breathe into my lungs as I inhaled and subsequently exhaled in the cats direction which got that orange monster off my lap, which incidentally is shedding something fierce this time of year adding a color to my red cordoroy's that isn't quite fabrically correct.

The phone rang and Robert squandered on about things as I heard a faint ring in my ears, not from music but from some sort of undiagnosed panic discomfort that i've been steadily dealing with for too long now. The ring subsided and the doorbell rang ominiously at three in the morning. Robert diverted me as we discussed Red Die Number Five and Hail Santa although we concluded that Red Die Number Five was more palatable then a tricky linguistic implication of Scratch himself. The room swayed and stirred regardless of any alcohol in me and its been like i've been living an LSD trip for some time. I either need some lead in my cerebellum or I need some treatment, who knows.

Groups of small house spiders started on their way down my stairs presumably either to get a change of scenery or to come and eat me alive over a extended period so that I wouldn't be allowed the comfort of dying quickly. Shit, even a hole through the heart leaves your brain dry of blood as you begin spinning and shock as a few internal valves lay limp on your purple belly pumping their last few. Slow and steady wins the race but I'm still not brave enough to weather such pain.

The refrigerator door remains open apparently to cool the house but somehow I think whoever considered that as a viable option has a skewed mental condition and should seek professional help. I used true logic and turned the heat on to make sure the house wouldn't overheat, such as a car. However logical this was it didn't appear to work because beads of sweat were entering my eyes making everything blurry and the cat was panting which is truly something one must see before they die, its pretty damn strange. Acting on a primal reaction I dug deep in the basement through the shit of the past and found the baby pool covered with Smurf's and various rejected cartoon characters of American history. Walking outside in barefeet I crashed a snail leaving my foot cool with guts, ahhhhh. Ran for the hose and encouraged it inside where I filled the pool up to the very top, not taking into considering physics and gravity and such for when I entered the whole hardwood floor was soaking wet with luke warm water, not from my assumed urine but from the heat of the sunbaked hose. Man this is just not working out too well. So I opted for the freezer which was on its last breath and pulled out all six light-blue icecube holders along with their cubes and emptied its contents into the pool cooling it off considerably.

The coffee was ready so I poured a cup and sat nude in the pool with a cup of the blackest, hottest coffee in the entire country without a doubt but not taking into consideration that fucking boiling swill they serve at McDonalds which isn't really coffee anyway. It was now 4am and well I looked around and truly questioned what the hell I was doing. I phoned or "rang" Robert and we chatted about things as my heart played games with me as I sat in 45 degree water and drank 95 degree coffee.

This can't be a cat because it honestly hopped in the pool like it was a tub full of baked tuna and cheese. Sunkist shook almost exactly like I did and didn't even contort its body or wince even. Infact as I sat there looking at my miniscule appendage the cat opted to do a few laps in my Smurf pool and man the thing even did the dog paddle just to prove feline superiority. Robert didn't believe a word but I guess you had to be there. Eventually I did go wee-wee probably because even urine you can commercialize if you're a tester for drugs. The pool warmed which I hadn't really counted on and Sunkist left immediately in disgust, running upstairs to the bathroom to lap up some bacteria in the toilet.

Smiling sitting content I questioned this whole bizarre scenario and after doing some rudimentary math I asserted that I had Been awake about 3 days longer than smart and thus exited the pool naked and walked up the steps, into my room, and lay soaking wet in my bed, eventually nodding off into a cold comfortable daze.

19] The Swirling Saga of Tornado Alley

Ahh I sit content swinging through moods like a child at a playground. The sun peeks at this early hour of six am but none seen for the clouds have taken it. I prop myself up comfortably with a book as I prepare for the pending storm to come rattle the windows and bring howling wind that rings your ears.

Lost in a trance throughout the years of travelling can't really tell whats real and what isn't anymore, not from drugs but from the devil taking my senses and playing scherzo with them. Returned them back to me broken, scattered, and unstructured fragments of the past. I remain idle in the leather chair see everything as a watery haze through my stupor of insomnia. The pages go flying by wisp at their own leisure, me viewing merely text that isn't sinking in although I am reading it somehow. Questionable if I retain anything anymore unless its a new saga or interesting thing to fall into like a flytrap. Lest I get stuck in that fucking sugary goo and struggle for air writhing and rolling around trying to escape the reality i've brought myself into. As in: gaining a new obsession.

Man if the world doesn't slow down soon i'll get dizzy and puke. The leaves drove backwards in the sky showing their lighter sides as the world above took on the color of a nasty bruise. I set down the book realizing the futility of it all and sat there once again idle, staring deep into the long hallway of my uburbian house I call home. Flies intermittently buzz around my face breaking my concentration and I assume they're either trying to get me out of my daze or their scared of the upcoming Tempest, conveniently brewing about 1000ft above our house exactly. I open the screen door which if anything works only to let LESS flies and bee's in. I walk out onto the blood-red-painted roof, the wind takes me by surprise and I stumble then I innately crouch down in fear.

Poe's Maelstrom was nothing like this swirling beast for it screamed like a million starving babies and spun like a flushing toilet. I sat contently on the porch, knowing too well that the danger was there. You can feel it. From my vantage I can see cars scrambling down the streets honking and racing and plain caring only for themselves. People's mere umbrellas tear and yank from their arms with brute force. It was pointless but yet people still choose to challenge weather. You can feel the tension in the air as humanity ducks for cover yet curses the very nature that created them. Humanity en route to play the game for their peers and society around them yet they scoff at something comparatively peaceful. Idiots they all are.

I climbed back through the window and with that depressing thought I continued reading and gladly encouraged the weather as it beat expensive cars and clueless people into soaking business rags.

20] The Weak and the Weird

Mainstream media has stuck its nose into the zine world more than a few times, usually pulling out some of the most unremarkable examples to focus on. The zines I've seen covered in this manner seem no more interesting than most college newspapers. These are nice, well-adjusted young men and women, the kind of kids who used to set up Kool-Aid stands in front of their houses. Supposedly, their zines offer "unrestricted takes on pop culture." Luckily, I've never personally crossed paths with these people, but I do seem to recall one zine editor stating, "I pray that is I can make <title deleted to protect the ignorant> work I won't have to cut my hair and wear a suit to work every day." I wonder, do these people wise up, lose interest, or get choked out? Or maybe they should just have their carotid arteries split open and be hung upside-down to be bled? After all, the average number of zines an editor puts out is two (previously stated by the creator of this zine, by the way). What seems so stupid is the fact that most people start zines because they're tired of the bullshit that mainstream media has to over. I'd be willing to bet that maybe that's the cause for about 80%-90% of current zine editors. Then again, it seems that more and more people are apparently in it for the money. But is it necessary, and do we need them? Maybe it's just me, but it seems that the sense of "community" with zine editors has dwindled somewhat... not to mention the face of the entire zine population. How much of this do we owe to changes in technology? Five years ago, very few zines were typeset and now quite a few have that polished look. This isn't necessarily a bad thing... just remember, though, that it's not how it looks -- it's what is said. Crap is crap, even if it's got a four color cover and a gigantic print run because no one gives a rat's ass if your zine has a readership of over 30,000... if it sucks. Stop paying lip service to these assholes. At least the zine world hasn't attracted the sort of scum that MLM does. Not yet, anyway. Ultimately, this sort of activity may not have any effect on the zine world, but it's debatable. What it could do is give the wrong impression to people who are motivated by profit and material gain, which in turn will encourage even more empty simps to start doing zines. But since most people are in it for the dirt cheap thrills, and doing a zine doesn't entail making large sums of money, there remains a maintained balance of honesty and integrity to help separate the sheep from the goats. let Time and USA Today do feature articles on the so-called "independent magazine revolution." They'll only cover safe, mediocre ground and there will still be plenty of lunatics with access to copiers and stamps to keep things interesting. Our name is legion! (The jury is out on the ezine scene since it leaves less room for greed and hubris. It's apples and oranges, anyway. Ezines are cool, but don't forget to support other forms of small press.)

21] Slowly Reeling

Two boys were taking a filmmaking class in the summer of 1987. There was a third boy but he was the outsider because his mother called one of the boys to ask him if her burn-out son could go along w/ them and could they make sure he did his assignments, which to him were just running a few film cartridges thru his camera. So the three travelled to the campus twenty miles away two nights a week and sat in class.

The third wheel, Kyle was no especially clever and watched the Soviet Montage films in class w/ a void in his eyes thinking of bong hits and Dead bootlegs. The other two boys Marc and Don were definitely into it and schemed of how their next film would roll out.

Mark visited Don one night when he was house-sitting for Mrs. Maier, a German Lutheran who was visiting family in Germany. Mark has two hits of acid that the boys divied up as they drank Ballantine's quarts. It was summer and the nights were miserably hot but humidity washed over every pore in the asphalt driveway and every blade of grass in the yard.

Going outside to be away from all the religious iconography in the house, they saw the 7-11 down the hill and across state route 602. On a dare, one would run across the road and around the van in the parking lot ready to sprint away from the cops at any second. Stupid, but a rush in that town.

When that got boring, the super-8 camera came out. Looking for the creepiest part of the house to shoot in (it was all pretty creepy), they decide on the basement. It was a stockpile of the religious paraphernalia that had outlived its usefulness upstairs. There was a stack of seminary class graduation photos leaned against the furnace. Held in fake-gold frames braced with orchid heads and frail women, the pictures were masses of young boys behind void eyes.

The film was then decided to be super short bursts (3-4 frames) of the boys standing beside nearly life-size scenes and Mary and child plaster castings cut with longer runs of the seminary photos framed close-up to detail the students, handsome but lifeless. The light in the basement came from three bare bulbs hanging from wire running the length of the rafters.

A wash of gray in the perimeters of the bulbs dabbed spots on the otherwise black-gray basement. Religious symbols could be made out in the light but barely. More enticing were the ones just outside the light, half illuminated. Past those, a teeming void.

Switching holding the camera and standing drunk still next to the various crosses and paintings, the boys went through the three and a half minute cartridge of film and four aa batteries in the hazy moaning light of the basement.

Thursday night Kyle picked up the two in his mom's Lincoln Continental and the three arrived at class to sit down and watch the films so far. When Mark and Don were called to show their film, Mark walked to the back of the room in near dark, looking at the students, mostly women, from hippy to near cover-girl. Some were beautiful, to be longed for. They were blood and flesh, the diametric opposite of the figures and flat images in Mrs Maier's basement. But they enforced the same distance and held their eyes away like they did in the basement.

The students watching the film looked ahead with blank faces as Mark and Don thought to themselves the film looked pretty good. When it was over and rewound, the instructor got in front of the class and asked if there were any questions. Silence. Finally the most beautiful girl in the class asked, "Couldn't you get better lights?"

Don answered, "We just decided to use what was there when we decided to shoot there, not change anything."

"Oh."

Finally the instructor asked the next pair of students to show their film. It was followed by numerous questions about its simplistic plot.

22] Recluse and Free

They were all down by the water, bloated ducks on the shore trying vainly to cope with stretched stomachs. The sky blued the breeze on with just a hint of cloud and the white men and women never heard the soft footsteps that told the story of the haggard, light stomached man coming up from behind.

They were throwing fried chicken livers into the pond, watching it intensely, searching with every second a movement, a slight ripple, even a freak gup of the fattened fish from below that would tell them something secretive. Kisses on various brown moles on the women's face. The women tickled the palms of the men's hands in retaliation before grabbing more ammo from the greasy Levi's Chicken boxes that were scattered on the public lawn.

A plane darted overhead making a straight line of fabricated cloud. Under the shade of a kind tree were a steal drum set of 3 pieces, open notebooks attempting to tear away but which were always held fast by the wiry spiral, bookbags made from synthetic materials reading ISU whenever the sun was away enough to read the gaudy orange lettering. The man was there, but it was the splash that made the others turn to face him. Then they turned back, just in time to see the slice of pizza living its last as it slowly sank to the bottom.

He carried a medium. And all it wore were green peppers. The women felt the men's arms around them, looking at the scruff of the tall man's face that was so fine it looked savagely dirty. Jeans and a simple plaid shirt that defied any kind of competent or individual description, he wore the part in his hair at the outer most reaches of his left side so that it gave him the illusion of extra skin before the ear. The second slice was in his hand. No one asked, everyone waited. He was making them wait. A woman's mouth opened.

The new man looked around. Saw the sky sliced in two by man's propelling machine, and laughed. They understood and waited. The ducks had had enough and were now trying to do something about their lazy conditions, but they were perfectly round and honked wildly when the movement produced nothing but feet still up in the air. He threw the slice in. Looked at the bookbags. The men were edging to the high reeds that kept the surrounding rim of the pond looking like swamp land. The women were frightened without understanding, but the crust was still in the water. The men came back to hold them, and they stared while the new man went through the rest of half of the pizza.

A daring woman felt her hand go to the chicken liver box. She took it. She threw it in. They watched the pizza man for his reaction. He began on the other side of the circle, wishing now he'd opted for black olives on half of it. Still, it floated fine, and the men went to empty the chicken liver box as the new man emptied what was left of the pizza pie.

"I understand," one man said to the new man who'd discerned himself as Ti. They shook hands in that knowing way, and the rest of his new friends shook their heads to promote the idea that they All understood the symbolism.

"Making a tour," Ti explained. Both sexes hung on to his words like they were money in their land. "That way." He pointed with a clay encrusted finger. His destination seemed to make sense because of the pizza.

"Road's dusty," another man said.

"It's a journey you have to take. You've got to go. I've got protection." The women gasped, but the men failed to see themselves jealous. "I've got a gun." They brought out the map from one of the bookbags. State college layout was on the front, but they turned it over, and showed the entire state to Ti at once.

"Come live with us. You'll pass through here, right?" Ti nodded and the way the students seemed to be spaced out, he had rooms right up until the state's border.

They smiled him goodbye and everyone felt better as the man with no money taught the quiet dirt road his feet. The men tried going back to the chicken livers; there was still some breading left down at the very bottom of 2 of the boxes, but it didn't feel the same. Full academic discussion supervened on the fact that Dino's was on the way home, and they prided themselves on the fact that the pizza establishment was neither corporate nor did it accept coupons. Somehow it all felt right.

But disappointment came to the couples individually for several nights. Just the usual drugees, band members, political rebels and Ticketmaster picketers showed up, drank the nectar, smoked the weed, and everyone petted the basset hound dying in the corner. Morge went to the short icebox and opened the door. She left it open, she sat down, reveling in the feeling of being an adult. A short philosophical altercation ensued between the man and woman, with bits of bands agreeing to basic isms and dogmatic equations between the walk from the piss chamber (the only reason they came, some of them) to the front and only door, but they were interrupted by a knocking.

Then the doorbell rang and the door was answered. Ti was standing there, going on to himself about the political and social structures that Must prove that the doorbell is in fact really there. The man came to door, deep in thought; he'd overheard some of this, and they hmmmed and broke the bones of the doctrine as Ti came in, saying, "If I don't want it to be there, it can hardly be, can it?"

"But what if I want the doorbell to be there?" Morge asked.

"Then for you it is. Isn't it?"

They sat deep in the sofa.

Ti brought a special dressing he made himself from oil and cloves, and many interesting hours were spent pouring the mixture into the john. So interesting in fact, it became almost a cult conversation among the many friends waiting to get their personal hooks into Ti who was moving on slowly but certainly. The symbolism was great and at each home or apt he stopped; as they poured the liquid into the commode, they pondered on the specific aspects of intuitionism, nominalism, conceptualism, pragmatism, and expounded on the Chinese beliefs that are at the center of so many scholarly achievements in the grants programs. But somehow it grew much more spiritual. They could no longer put it into words, and only the flushing of the toilet between pours cleansed the cluttered and often confused minds of the house, or apt.

"Where are you going?" Jhon asked when he'd first opened the door.

"To find myself," Ti answered.

"Do you know where you are?" Vnthe asked, not trying to be funny.

Ti pointed to the window and they knew what he meant. Vnthe cleaned up her panties from the cable box and the 2 men moved to the extra bedroom so the arrival could unpack. But Jhon wanted to see the liquid. He'd heard so much about it. Talked, speculated so much on it. But the only bottled mixture in the worn Emergency (tv show) backpack was far from clear. It almost looked like sewage, human or other.

Ti came back from hanging up his 2 piece suit and Jhon had a puzzled expression. Vnthe came in, all smiles, but she could tell something was unclear. They moved to the bathroom.

"I've moved on to a celebrated mixture of peppercorn sauce potato I recently read in a cookbook," Ti explained.

"Huh?" Two voices as one.

The guest uncorked the small glass bottle and the chugging sound the small bits of potato made as they glopped out was strange, very strange to the couple. They didn't understand They asked.

"It's peppercorn sauce potato," he reiterated.

They watched the mixture fall. The color was briefly red, mostly pink and the combination it made with the Sani-Flush was completely beyond them. They had to wait four hours. They didn't know what they wanted before then. And they couldn't... do what they had to do before the guy had had his dinner.

They asked him to leave, and Ti thought about his new peppercorn sauce potato. He nodded and the door slammed louder than necessary when he was on the outside world. Ti looked in his pocket and tried to determine for how long this currency was going to put him up at the Red Roof Inn at $19.95 a single night.