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Saturday, October 31, 2015

Free Download & Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  



Thanks for the LOVE, donations and kindness.  Download my book if you haven't already and please write me a Review on Amazon or Goodreads.  THANKS!

Free on 10/31/15  

To download just follow the link below.  I think the promotion starts west coast time.  The link is the US based Amazon store so if you are in another country just go search Morbo2000 in your Amazon store.  Like if you're in the UK go to the UK store:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/   

Happy Halloween
-M2K

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Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Serotonin, Morbo2000 and that last story

I got a few messages about that last story To Linger By A Door and just wanted to say that is merely some left over memories.  I wrote in one sitting and it was easy to churn out- but hard to process.  Like to go back to those moments is pretty intense at times.  That Crowded House song reminds me of dark times though the song itself is lovely and positive in nature.

But I assure you all is well and Thanks for your kind words.

I was thinking about serotonin* because I am on a nasty taper.  My body lacks this chemical and boy do I feel this.  Without the artificial boost of PILLS my body goes into a spiraling withdrawal.  I think in the near future I'll just have to cold turkey.

I brought that up serotonin* because a few days ago I was surfing.  My strength is pitiful after surgery.  Not in water shape at all.  Total kook.  But something happened that made me realize this is the Key back through the Door.  Surfing.  I got caught on the outside as big sets rolled in during a tide change.  As stated, I am in terrible shape.  The current and barn sized waves are treacherous.  But I have been here before so I focused, lined myself up and paddled for a set wave because I was not sure I could make it back to shore without some help.  My break is about 200 yards from the beach.  I got lucky and got a sweet one.  Carved across 150 yards or so of smooth, glassy waves.  As I paddled in I relaxed.  This relaxation was amazing because I had to calm down when I was trapped outside.  Freaking out only wastes energy and you need that energy to stay alive on big days.  Later, I met the family for food and ate and was happy.  I was in the world.  Then I remembered, I forgot my pills.  My body had no idea which any addict will tell you is crazy.

I think the adrenaline rush I got from surfing the last wave boosted me naturally.  Now I know I can't keep throwing myself into huge surf because it's stupid and I could die.  But it does give me Hope.  Surfing can take me to that same place as pills but with much better side effects.

*Serotonin is regarded by some researchers as a chemical that is responsible for maintaining mood balance, and that a deficit of serotonin leads to depression.  

Download Tracks: Vol 1 - FREE on Halloween

On Halloween, Tracks: Volume: 1 will be available for FREE download.  So if you missed the last one now is your chance.

When: October 31, 2015
What: FREE Download Tracks Volume: 1
Why: Happy Halloween!

Monday, October 26, 2015

To Linger By A Door

The door swings open and I watch.  I know I am dreaming but my body is prisoner to this vision.  The outline of a doorway lit with electric blue fire shimmers in my stare.  She appears in the crackling light as if expected and stands there, looking in.  Oh I knew who it is.  I can smell myrrh and wildflowers.  Elegantly tall with a striking posture like a statue of a Greek goddess.  From her silhouette, I  see the outline of her jacket.  I hear the leather creaking and the metallic jangle from all the buckles, chains and locks.  Her boots make a distinct soft clomp across the wooden floor.  She always steps lightly when she moves.  Her black leggings outline such long, beautiful legs.  Held together, you can see through the gap in her thighs.  

And she stands in the door of blue flames.  Looking at me.    

"Babe?"

I can't speak.  She slowly and softly walks through the door to me.  Boots across the wooden floor.  Closer and closer.  

"What happened?" she asks softly.

I want to say it has been six years.  Six horrible years but nothing comes out.  I'm paralyzed.  A prisoner to this vision.

"Are you sick?  You look like...Fuck.  You like shit babe.  All puffy, old and fucked up."

This one was never did mince words.  Shadows cover her face and all I can see is her hair is blond and in one of her wild, dandelion hairdos.  She takes another step.

***********

And I wake up.  

The bedroom door is shut and not glowing.  Snoring incredibly loud and sprawled out nude besides me is my coworker Sera.  Then the alarm goes off and suddenly Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" softly fills the room.  Sundays are Sera's days to poke around garage sales and flea markets.  She likes an early start.  The song washes over me as my body slowly returns to the world.      

After college, time passes like water through sand.  All my dreams crumble as the water rises.  Hope slowly washes away with the tide.  Lady Nyx approaches and she drags the her grinning moon behind her.

Sera and I look like this.  Unsexy, unhealthy, splotchy faced 20somethings.  Sustained on cable TV, drugs, liquor and unhealthy foods we could be 30 or 40.  No one would question it.  We age with poor health, poor attitudes and blind visions of the future.  Sure we have our dreams but we no longer nurture them.  Neglected flowers smothered by weeds in a desolate garden.  Sera is the actress who never acts.  I am the dreamer who no longer sleeps.    

"Meeaah" groans Sera throwing an arm over me to initiate cuddling.  

I stare impassively at my white apartment ceiling.  A void.  Sera's arm slides over my torso and lingers but I am stone.  An unmoving, insentient thing.  

"No more drinkey whiskey!  Bleahh!" she yawns rubbing her oily face.

Just saw the Gargoyle yet I'm already light on roxys.  Last night I chose the blue pills over banging heroin.  A wise decision considering the clock informed me the world existed at 3:22 am.  The movies Sera brought over have already travelled through my eyes and into my brain where the meaning dissolved indifferently in a sea of opiate abuse and alcoholism.  I contemplated a needle cook but railed a few comet trails of my girl roxy instead.  Then I washed a couple pills down with whiskey and chain smoked cigarettes until the opiate rain went from a drizzle to a downpour across my soul.

And everything was ok.  

At least I knew I wasn't going to scream when I laid back down next to Sera.  The sound that emanates from sleeping beauty is a deep and immense buzzsaw snore that I can feel in my bones.  Great Ganesh, I bet the Indian family next door thinks that's me.

From my curtained windows I feel another gray, Fall day.  I am not high nor am I feeling any withdrawal.  My mind is rational.  Sober.  So naturally, I begin to freak out.  Suddenly everything is falling down.  I suck oxygen in a panic as the illusions crumble.

Bank accounts are overdrawn and four maxed out credit cards.  I hate clarity for I can feel my world burning around me.  Any day I could be fired from my job and it will be hard to act surprised.  I feel panic like water rising past my chest towards my neck in this prison cell.  My heart thumps grotesquely as I sweat and freak the fuck out...but then I remember.  The Door.  

Under this very bed is my safe.  Inside with my needles, pills and smears of heroin is the key to the Door.  A .357 snub nose revolver.  I can always wait until Sera leaves to go poke around garage sales and kill myself.  I can feel the weight of the gun in my hands.  The weight of my world.  It's like looking through a window.  Thoughts suicide are like smiles from a long, lost friend.  I sit up and light a cigarette.    

"Hey!  How many scoops again?" asks Sera.

The coffee maker is a new habit for her like alcoholism or smoking my cigarettes.  She happily follows me down these noble paths yet ignores her legal opiates in favor of her illegal marijuana.  But she still gives me her pills which is lovely.  The morphine and hydrocodone from her old neck and spine injuries are part of my diet.  Sera will even go into her doctor's office and lie for me.  I have been coaching her.  We are moving up the prescription opiates ladder towards the good stuff.

"Nine scoops coffee and eight cups of water" I answer.

*******

Yesterday afternoon.

"Wait" said Sera dipping a curly fry in mayonnaise as I smoke and politely blow it off to the side.  "Like say I can't sleep?"

We're at the bowling alley.  I just bought six roxies from the Gargoyle for $150.  I came with $500 cash but it was all he had.  Annoyed, I was ready to leave but Sera wanted to go bowling.  After a game, we ate club sandwiches and split a huge order of curly fries.

"Nah.  Just say you're tired but let him ask why."  

Sera already has pills from the benzodiazepine family and and an open prescription for tramadol.  But to get the good shit from a cautious doctor, one must play the game.  And I know the fucking game. 

"Alright" shrugged Sera indifferently as she finished her Diet Coke.

"So now say your back keeps you awake.  Mention it affects your lifestyle.  Like work or your social life.  You know, like exercising or the theater group."

"Yeah, yeah I got it" smiled Sera.  

Sera's spine is actually fine with her yoga class and marijuana.  All pills mean to Sera is another excuse to come over.  She knows I'll be home for the pills.  I keep telling her I don't care when she comes over.  Hell, she has a key.  But Sera likes her reasons.  Pills, dinners, movies.  It's all the same to me.  

But mostly pills.  

*************

Now the apartment smells like fresh coffee.  Laying here in the euphoria of oxycodone, I am happy.  In the bathroom I railed a roxy and swallowed her sister.  The ol' one-two punch.  The snort makes the morning kinder and I relax knowing the other pill dissolves in my body.  The first high of the day is the best.  I join Sera for a bong hit on the couch.  She leans against me as she fires up.  I stare at her luminous purple eyes which are magnified behind her eyeglasses.  In the reflection, a dancing lighter flame aligns perfectly within her violet irises to replace her pupils.  Magic.  And I feel happiness.  The opiate buzz makes me human for this moment. 

Sera catches me staring and smiles.  Why do we click I wonder?  I love her friendship and I love her happiness.  But I know Sera's love for me is the deeper, hurting variety of love.  And I am not that person.  This makes me feel guilty because I really enjoy the idea of putting a bullet in my brain after she leaves.  No more fears about tomorrow.

"Mmm I'm starving!" Sera says loading me a bong hit.  "I brought over some apple smoked bacon.  Want some bacon and eggs?"

Sera rubs my arm as I take a bong hit and I exhale with a sigh.  The head rush is like a train screaming by inches from my face.  I notice a new hickey on my inner thigh and agree.  Food sounds wonderful.  Sera can cook and eagerly does so when she is stoned which is pretty much all the time.  Often I'm too strung out to care but Sera has figured out what I eat.  Mostly sandwiches, pancakes and cookies.  

She puts on her god awful Crash Worship CD and fries bacon.  I watch her movements and feel her simple, everyday bliss.  How do people get like that?  She see's a different world than I.  Thoughts of my gun make me feel guilty as she hums and cracks pepper over sputtering strips of bacon.  It is strange to have someone actually care about me.  No matter how fucked up I am, she always comes back with a smile, hug or peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips.  A Pepsi with a lot of ice.  Sour patch kids.  Sex.  

And I am an evil thing.  I linger too long in the Darkness.  But I am also high and the poppy smothers cruel intentions.  I sit with Sera, thank her for giving me the unbroken fried egg and watch her pour me a coffee with honey just the way I like it.  Later I fuck her a couple of times and my orgasms feels like a soundless scream in an endless void.  Every time I come, I experience a moment of clarity and think about the gun.

Sera decides not to go out.  Too lazy to look for treasure is how she puts it.  We catch up on missed Sopranos episodes and then take a nap.  For lunch, Sera makes turkey, avocado, bacon, lettuce, tomato and red onion sandwiches on sourdough bread.  We laze on the couch all afternoon staring at TV and completely indifferent to the passing day.  Later Sera barbecues chicken and talks to the Indian neighbors because they are all human beings.  I lurk behind the curtains and listen.  Sera leaves me no opportunity to commit suicide this afternoon so fuck it.  I eat her pills, her delicious chicken and snort roxys as another weekend passes.  

*************

At work we are preparing to launch a new government funded contract.  We have been tasked to overestimate cost and prepare ridiculously expensive scenarios to justify cost.  The boss is excited.  The little man yells and points at an impossible goal.  I clap, guffaw and smile like the other liars as I gulp pills and stare at the clock which tick tocks too slowly.

Sera has some get together with her theater friends after work.  I was invited but opted out.  So I drive the mall, shoot up some coke in my car and go shop for razors, deodorant and hair gel.  I haven't shot coke for years and am enjoying myself immensely as I get a cinnamon bun and a Pepsi with a lot of ice.  Looking around the mall I watch the normal folk doing their normal folk routines.  They are like another species to me.  I am not connected to this tribe.  I walk beneath a different moon and sleep beneath alien stars.  And I no longer remember the way home.

So much slips through my fingers these days.  Opportunities, bills, love and life.  The Earth orbits Sol Invictus.  It is Autumn.  The season of skeletal change.  Soon another sidereal year shall spin away into the inky black cosmos.  I stare uncomprehendingly at a meaningless life.  Like water carving through piles of sand, time never ceases to devour.  

I think about death as I eat the cinnamon bun by myself at a table with four chairs.  I imagine the mess from a .357 would be a terrible thing to come across.  I don't trust myself with drugs, money or responsibility.  So putting the gun in my mouth and angling it to shoot through my brain is laughable.  I would miss.  I am such a fuck up, I know I would miss.  Probably shatter teeth, blow off part of my jaw.  It would be embarrassing and difficult to dial 911 and explain this to the operator.   

So a temple shot.  Straight through the organ that makes me human.  A couch suicide.  Why not?  I get high on the couch, I fuck on the couch, I sleep on the couch and watch endless streams of mind numbing crap on the couch.  Why not exit on the couch?

***********

Tuesday night.  Dining room table covered with misery.  Cigarette ash everywhere.  Empty beer bottles, a snipped McDonald's straw, my driver's license, a charred spoon, Sera's cinnamon scented candle from the bathroom, a bottle of water, a velcro dog collar spotted with blood, a box of cotton balls and the gun.  I am HIGH.  Higher than usual which is hard to come by these days.  But I have been cooking shots and making speedballs.  I have nodded out but the coke yanked me back.  Though I shudder, vibrate and feel OH SO FUCKING ALIVE, I am ready.  I gotta stop doing so much coke.  Let the poppy God escort me through Nyx's veil.  

Mycroft the fish will be my witness.  Will a fish care?  I bet the sound waves from a gun will kick in his lateral line flight from predator design.  In other words, the gunshot will scare the fuck out of him.  And I love Mycroft.  He has held counsel with me in my darkest hours.  So I pick up his jar and carry him to the bathroom.  I feed him some dried krill.  Who knows how long he will be there?  Better he have some food in his belly.  I know Sera will take him so I leave the krill by his jar.  I realize I am still holding the gun so I smile at Mycroft who rises to the top of his Universe to stare at me.

"It's ok" I smile cocking back the hammer.  I close the door.  

I walk back to the couch and sit in my spot.  And the phone rings.  Not my cellphone which is off, but the landline.  Old childhood habits kick in and I put down the gun, wipe my hands and pick up the phone.  I am on autopilot for I was raised by people who answer ringing telephones or knocks at the door.

"Hello?"

"Hey!" shrieks Sera.  "Your cellphone's dead but I gotta tell you something!"

"Ok."

"My gingerbread Frankenstein Place won first prize at the Rocky Horror Convention!  I'm gonna be awarded a prize of like $50 at Blockbusters!"

"Nice" I utter from that far away place heroin takes me to.  My body is failing.  Like a storm moving down the mountain I can feel the opiate stupor approaching on dark wings.

"You gotta come with me ok?  Please!  I know you hate that shit but c'mon!  PLEASE?"

In fragments, I recall her assembling a castle made from frosting and graham crackers in my kitchen.  Many hours and bong hits went into the design and she was so damn proud.  It did look cool though.  Even my cynical brain had to admit her tiny haunted castle was a work of art.    

"C'mon!" she begs.  "I'm gonna be Magenta.  You should be Eddie!  Or Riff!"

"Nah..." I begin but even far away I can hear how cruel it sounds for Sera is so happy and wants to share this happiness.  I'm too high to be cruel so I become human for perhaps the second time in this story and say, "I'm more of a Brad Majors these days."

"Yes!" agrees Sera.  "You already have gray pants and your hair is already dorky perfect!  I can get you glasses from theater and maybe even white shoes!  Oh my god this is awesome!  Thank you!"

"Yeah whatever."

It is 9:43 pm.  I put the safety back on the gun and stare at it.  The key to the Door will have to wait.  I wrap it in my Primus t-shirt and place it back in the safe.  I clean up the drug paraphernalia, vomit whiskey into the sink and make myself a peanut butter sandwich.  I swallow it down with water for the nutrients.  I have not eaten much today and need fuel for tomorrow.  The heroin stupor flaps 6 feet above me with my brain in it's claws.  Next to the bed is Sera's bong.  The bong is packed with a fragrant, fresh green hit of hydroponic marijuana.  Propped against the bong is a note in Sera's loopy, girly scrawl:

Hope is a waking dream! - Aristotle.

I stare impassively at my white apartment ceiling.  A void.

I nod out.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Chemical Fire Hot Foot

Pain

As some of you know, I'm a bit impervious to pain these days.  I am working on that though...anywho, it takes a lot to make me say Ouch.  But it always has.  I surf over reefs, have walked off a cracked kneecap, busted ribs, nose, etc.  Yes it hurts but the animal inside can deal with pain.  Then I discovered centipede venom...

3 am.  Wake up.  Heh?  Wha-?!  

Suddenly I am hopping around in the dark.  I turn on the light.  It feels like I stepped in glass.  Soon, the glass seemed to be on fire...I look at my foot and see tiny fang marks with blood dotting out.  Centipede.

The wife is up because I tend to shout when I'm being consumed by chemical fire.  We tear apart the bed.  Nothing.  Nothing underneath.  I can no longer stand so I take the bedding and throw it in the dryer and lay on the couch while the wife looks.

I read this while writhing around in agony with a bag of ice on my foot:
 
Centipedes have modified legs called forcipules.  So it has fangs as long as it's fucking legs.  But the best part is: "Twenty-six neurotoxin-like peptides belonging to ten groups were identified from the centipede venoms..."  

So as I get used to one chemical cocktail of pain another takes it's place.  The pain is severe but everything I read is broken down to, Yeah it fuckin'A hurts but it won't kill ya.

My poor body.  Surgery, pills and now fangs.  Oh and after 2 episodes of Arrested Development (There is ALWAYS money in the banana stand Michael!) I went back to bed.  Wife never found the centipede.  Then I saw my sweats hanging on the door and shook them.  A blue centipede came out which I crushed with great violence and prejudice.    

Laying there awkwardly I felt good.  This could have been testicle crazy bad if I put on those sweats...

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

The Grown-Up Party

"Shhh" giggles Kym as we drag the body up the stairs.  The limp feet go Bump!  Thump!  Bump!  Thump! 

And then the porch light blinds us.  I squint as a doorway materializes like the light at the end of the tunnel.  From inside this light, a blobby, penguin shape appears.

"Oh my god!" gasps Lucy with one hand on her mouth and the other cradled across her pregnant belly.

I clear my throat.  Propped between us is Stan.  Lucy's husband and my friend from the dorms.  Stan is what every parent hopes for.  Goal oriented, serious and primed to succeed.  He is also a good husband.  Kind, faithful and ambitious in his industry.  But Stan went out with us.  Now he's drugged and streaked with vomit.  

"Oh hey Lucy!  We like..."  and the words trail away in my California accent where everything always sounds like a question.  In her shocked eyes, I see how wasted I am.  So I squint and pretend to be serious.  "We like, found him like this..."

I look at Kym and nod.  We haul Stanley inside, lower him to the floor and let go.  He flops face first on the carpet groaning.  Lucy flips him over.

"Oh my god!" says Lucy again.  She squats down awkwardly and rubs the hair plastered across his sweaty forehead.  "Honey!  Honey are you ok?"

"Bleaah" says Stan.

"It was nice meeting you Lucy" smiles Kym cheerfully,  "thanks for having us over!"

*********

I get off Muni on Fulton Street and walk.  Entering the cool, green embrace of Golden Gate Park is like stepping into another world.  An emerald oasis in the concrete coils of the city.  Strolling beneath the colossal cypress trees, my day melts away.  Only the stench of french fries lingers from my crappy dish room job.  The mental chaos of my chemistry lab that was almost in a different language and the bland horror of statistics shrugs off in the shade.  Too beautiful of a day.  I breathe the scent of pine as the tree's wave giant arms madly overhead in the bay breeze.  

I see them on a bench by the de Young Museum enjoying some rare, San Francisco sunshine.  Kym is in overalls with a black tube top and sits with her knees up to her chin as she laughs at something Dev says.  Dev looks like a train hippie.  Thick dreadlocks in her auburn hair, a Subhumans shirt so old I can see her bra and skin through it.  One of Kym's brown miniskirts and black leggings with bare feet and a couple of silver toe rings.  Though they sit next to each other, I shove in between them.  I need contact like a sad monkey in the forest canopy needs his nits picked.

"That bad babe?" says Kym putting her cigarette to my lips where I take a hit.  I exhale and she kisses my cheek.  

"Fucking pop quiz statistics bullshit."

"Aww Lover is sad" says Dev wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me until I relent and smile.

"Where's Melo?" I ask.  He said he had some acid for me.

"Working" says Dev.

"He has a job?" I ask incredulously.

They look at each other and laugh.

"He sells drugs silly" smiles Dev.  

I feel stupid because Yeah, that's what Melo does.  Like I bust my ass in the dish room for minimum wage, a deferment on student loans and a free meal.  Not bad.  Melo and Jason operate in a cash or barter based economy.  No taxes, no forms and no boss.  But I could never deal in their world.  Too much hustle and way too social.  I'm too shy to be a drug dealer.  

I smoke Kym's cigarette and sigh.  Kym plucks it from my grasp and talks over me.

"I saw Cammy at work yesterday.  You going tonight?  The Stan and Lucy thing?" she asks Dev.

Dev leans over me.  "Rondo told me about it but I wasn't invited."

"What?!" exclaims Kym and I in unison.  

"Don't worry" smiles Dev leaning into me.  "I don't want to go.  These grownup parties are mondo bizarro.  People hold up mirrors to each other and lie like motherfuckers.  They're like funerals for our youth.  I'm not there yet."

I look at Dev as I feel my eyebrow rising.  She stares back at me blankly as Kym shoves me while she stretches and yawns.

"Well I'm going.  Just come with us Dev.  That bitch won't say anything" says Kym rubbing her eyes.    

"Nah" says Dev.

Kym shrugs and lights another cigarette.  She wants to go but Kym wants to go to every party from now until the end of time.  It's her nature.  I look at Dev.

"Oh just go!  I really don't care and I know you guys will piss off Lucy.  Have fun!"

****************

"We're not going!" says Jason as he takes a bump of coke and passes it to Autumn who stares at me like a pissy cat.

"He's our friend.  You should go" I say lighting a cigarette.

"Why?  Lucy wears Stan's balls in a pouch around her neck.  It's fucking sad dude.  Worse, it's boring.  BOR-ING!  And a baby shower?  C'mon man!" gripes Jason.

"There's catered food"  I answer knowing Jason's soul better than anybody in the room.  Stan and Lucy spent their honeymoon in Hawaii and came back addicted to island food.  Jason looks up expectantly.  I pick up the invitation and read.

"Entrees include a whole Hawaiian roasted suckling pig, sashimi and an assortment of Chinese cuisine from Hunan Home restaurant.  Served with an assortment of tropical libations and fine, Napa valley wines" I read as Kym hugs my arm and studies the invite.

"Ooh cheesecake from Zanze!" she squeals.

"Correction!  We're going" says Jason.  "For the suckling pig.  But you fuckers are still going to see Rancid at the Gilman with us."

"Ok" agrees Kym.

Autumn rolls her eyes.  

************

A baby shower is an awkward thing for a male in a ripped, knee length black shorts with long johns and combat boots.  Kym tried to dress me but I ignored her.  Mistake.  I am a freak here but at least this Agent Orange t-shirt has no cigarette burns or holes where I twist open beers.  Jason wears an obnoxiously white suit.  When he discovered Kym gets cheap, tailored dresses from a neighborhood Mexican boutique, he had to have a suit.  It's so fucking white you need sunglasses to look at it which is why he wears white-framed, fake Ray Bans.  

"Jesus!" says Kym when struts out in his suit.  Jason twirls around and smiles.

"It's like your whole body is screaming COKE DEALER!" screams Kym.

Autumn is head to toe black.  A black scarf wrapped around dyed black hair, black nails and this full length, collared black dress that looks like something the Nazis would wear to prom.  Kym is squeezed into a silver, mermaid-scaled strapless dress with ridiculously tall high heels.  Her purple hair is in a bun with a chopstick shoved through it.  She winks at me through sparkly, silver eye shadow while I look at my scuffed boots and sigh.  Fucking Dev is always right.  This is gonna suck.

The door opens and a surprised old lady who looks like Lucy is at a loss for words when she sees us.  Jason steps forward.

"Friends of the father to be!" he announces and the old woman smiles in relief.  Jason hands her a bottle of vodka.  "For the party.  We didn't want to show up Irish!" he laughs.  

Everyone inside is dressed like Financial District workers.  Lots of dress shirts, ties and women in power pantsuits and unflattering dresses.  We instantly stick out but I win hands down as Worst Dressed.  Autumn and I wither like dying blooms in our  social awkwardness.  Most of the guests are only a little older than us but the cultural gap is a vast, enormous rift.  Jason and Kym strut around thriving in their social element.  Lucy spots us first and elbows Stan.  

"Guys!" greets Stan coming up to us.

We congratulate him on his impending fatherhood.  Stan is genuinely happy to see us.  I spot Rondo and his girlfriend Cammy across the room talking to a group of people.  Rondo holds up his drink to us.  He's also in a damn tie.  Looking around, Rondo and I are Stan's only school friends.  Most guests are coworkers, Lucy's friends and their relatives.

"It's a buffet so eat!  Let me get you some drinks!" grins Stanley.

I end up wallflowering with Autumn.  We mutely watch people tear into the roasted baby pig corpse and sip our Mai Tais.  Sometimes they greet us but I just smile and nod like an imbecile.  Autumn never talks but always cackles when they leave.

"Here" she says holding out out her finger to me.

A small off-white bump rests on black nail polish.  I look around and quickly snort it.  My eyes peel open and I look at her accusingly.

"That's not coke!"

"Never said it was."

"What is it...?" and then I know.

It's heroin.  I feel it cascading down my bones.  That slow honey trickle...

"Thanks" I smile.

After eating, we grow bored.  The sun sets and shadows are painted over the bay views.  The city turns on it's lights and sparkles below us.  Conversations with guests are alien.  The Future.  Everyone has a Plan or Goals.  Jason lies, Kym is charming and embarrassingly enough, Rondo tells everyone his plans.  This makes folks uncomfortable.  While Rondo has a solid business plan, he makes pornographic fetish films.  I love their expressions when he discusses the distribution goals of his next film: Temple of Fuck Vol. II: A Goddess Strapped.  And I have nothing.  I don't know when or if I will graduate nor what I will do.  I grow tired of saying this and end up with on a couch watching a baseball game with other bored males.  Much like a high school party, no one talks to me which is great because I'm high.

Jason inserts himself all over and wanders around with the bottle of vodka pouring shots.  Lucy is is not into Jase.  Plus she caught us all walking out of the bathroom where we were doing coke with Stan.  Five people crammed into a bathroom at a baby shower is not normal.  Stan mumbles about a running toilet and Autumn laughs.  Stanley's not good at this.  

"Why Autumn, you laugh like a cartoon witch" says Kym wiping her nose.  "Like an episode of Scooby Doo where the gang solves a mystery at the abandoned funpark."  

I shake my head and pinch her but she stares Autumn down just because she can.  Autumn stomps off.

The baseball game is boring.  We're watching an American league game for Christ's sake.  I get up to go have a smoke when Jason plops down besides me.

"Why so glum buttercup?"

"I feel like an asshole dressed like this" I answer honestly.

"Yeah we tried to tell you" says Jason wincing as he sucks down a shot and pours me one.  "I would have loaned you something if you asked but your long ass legs won't fit in my pants.  First time you felt like this?"

I look at Jason and he points with the shot glass at all the nicely dressed people walking around.  Yeah.  I nod glumly.

"The secret dude" says Jason leaning into me, "is you just don't give a fuck.  I could be in my boxers and walk in like I own the place and no one would say shit.  That's the goddamn truth."

"Kym would."

"Well the Devil's Daughter is the worst one of them all" shrugs Jason.  Then he slaps my freshly shaved mohawk.

"Hey!  Let's take him with us."

We look at Stan who is pretending to listen to his father-in-law's tax advice.  His face looks lost and his eyes glazed over.  Poor guy.

"Yeah" I agree nodding.  "Let's take Stanley out tonight."

We pry Stan away from Lucy's party.  It's easier than we imagined.  For some reason, she seems happy to see us go before cheesecake and coffee.

**************

"I kinda wanted some of that cheesecake" mumbles Stan cramming himself up in the back of Kym's car.

"Don't worry" grins Jason climbing in after Autumn.  He pinches her butt and she squeals.  "We have gummy bears and cocaine!"

"I'm not dressed for the Gilman" says Stan looking at his tie and dress shirt.

"Just un-tuck the shirt" says Autumn.

"Totally punk" assures Jason in his ice cream white suit and sunglasses.

Kym unstraps her heels and pulls on boots.  I help her clasp the spiked collar to her neck and she puts on studded wristbands.  In her boots, spikes and mermaid-scaled cocktail dress, she looks an anime warrior princess.  Kym removes her earrings which means she's going into the mosh pit and touches up her makeup in the rearview mirror.

"Fuck Kym" complains Jason from the back, "let's go already!"

"Tu me fatigues" replies Kym in French as she makes her mouth an 'O' and carefully applies lipstick.

"Je m'en fou" shrugs Jason.

"Quel salaud !" says Kym shaking her head and starting up the car.

"Is that like Mexican?" asks Stanley.

I see Autumn's pissy cat face in the rearview mirror.  She hates when Kym and Jason banter in French which they do just to shit on each other.  I have no idea what they are saying but I don't care.  Kym is so obviously pretty that Jason always makes a point of insulting her.  It is how they express their friendship.    

The Gilman is dry so we make a stop at The Bird for drinks.  A student place with toilets so filthy we do coke openly on the tables.  Stan gets maudlin about the future and starts talking about his job and impending fatherhood.  Looking at us degenerates, I know he feels a twinge of regret.  Responsibility is a bitch.

"You're doing great Stanley" I smile because he keeps buying us rounds of kamikaze shooters and I'm getting drunk.  "You always do the right thing.  You're my role model."

"Really?" he asks suspiciously thinking I'm fucking with him.

I look at Jason who who is squeezing Autumn's boobs.  She slaps him, he laughs and does a shot.  Both of them have powdered nostrils and wear sunglasses.  I nod at Stan and he smiles.  Kym throws her arm around me and leans towards him.

"You're the man Stan!  Hot wife, kid on the way and city fucking planner job!  Always Mr. Responsible!  So tonight" smiles Kym wickedly, opening up a dime bag of MDMA, "lets do the fun thing!"

She takes her gravity knife and scoops out a bump and snorts it.  Then she dumps some in her drink and shoots it.  I look around.  Drugs and knives are frowned upon but The Bird is packed and no one blinks.

"Want some?" winces Kym as her eyes water.

Jason shakes his head but Autumn and I take some in our shooters.

"What is it?" asks Stan.

"MDMA!" shouts Jason over the crowd noise.

"What's that stand for?" asks Stan.

"The M is for Mmmmmmotherfucker!" screams Kym.  Stan laughs as she dumps some in his drink and he slams it.  Oh boy.

We show up drunk and late.  Rancid is already playing.  'Junkie Man' cranks out over the claustrophobic confines of the Gilman's spray painted walls.  Kym and Stan run off to the mosh pit.  In their outfits, they look like a nouveau rich couple high on crack and punks slam into them enthusiastically.  Autumn circles around the crowd to get closer to the stage without getting moshed.  Jason and I melt into the back and enjoy the chaos from the shadows.

"TURN IT UP!  TURN IT UP!" yells the lead singer and the crowds boils across the floor.  People jump, shove and slam their way through songs but amazingly enough, no one gets hurt.  Everyone is smiling.  Sometimes I see a flash of silver as club lights hit Kym's dress like a fish streaking through swirling rapids.

Stan and Kym come back flushed and panting after a few songs.  Jason pulls a flask of whiskey from his coat.  We make sure no bouncers see as we take swigs from it.  Gilman bouncers will throw your ass out for booze.  Kym, Autumn, Jason, Stan and I form a circle as we press close together in our conspiracy.  Arms around each and laughing, we slowly move in a circle and bob along to the music screaming "Give them the BOOT!  The roots!  The radicals!" and slurp Baymart brand generic whiskey.

"This!" exclaims Stanley as he squeezes me and Autumn closer and draws our circle tighter,  "This motherfuckers!  Let THIS part never change!"

I look at Stanley.  Long hair cut neat for his city job.  His pregnant wife threw out his old t-shirts including his favorite that simply said COLLEGE.  Their house has framed art on the walls.  No band posters or holes in the plaster where some coked out chick went nuts...Stanley has changed.  Like a wind blowing through the club I look at this new Stan and appreciate.  No matter how much of a fuck up I am, change is inevitable.  And Stanley looks happy.  Sure he's drunk and tweaked on whatever Kym and Jason dosed him with but looking at Stan is like looking at my future.  Right on track he did it.  Four years to graduate, marries his girl, knocks her up and now he stands tall.  Like a big, goofy giant.

Talking with Stan tonight in The Bird simplified my views.  He hopes for a son but would love a girl first because he grew up with older sisters.  His job is boring but the salary and benefits let Lucy take a chance with her catering business.  Pondering the murky future through Stan's eyes is the first glimpse of hope I have had in a long damn time.  Stan and Rondo are my only grown up friends.  The rest of us still act like crazy kids who drank too much fucking juice.

"I love you Stan!" I yell but I'm looking at Kym who smiles.

"To us!  To right fucking now!" bellows Jason waving the flask.

We drain the flask as the ska-punk music rages and the crowd swells like a massive, incoming wave.  The future looms up like a newly appointed god before us.  Autumn winces and passes the last gulp of whiskey to me.  I drain it, drop it and Jason kicks the bottle away.  Stan turns white, starts to say something and pukes on himself.  Kym elbows me as the bouncers move in.

"Hope you had a good time Stanley!" says Kym.

"I love you guys!" says Stanley as he loosens his tie and spews roasted pig all over the dance floor.


Monday, October 12, 2015

I Love You

The gods walked down from the stars and were once again welcomed to the planet.  A world thirsty for gods and magic.  But it won’t last.  It never does.  Fake gods created by clever humans will conquer spiritual belief.  More often than not, one man’s greed will destroy the planet...but seriously, just let it go.  Whether they vote to destroy the world together or one madman decrees this, it still blows up.  Again and again.  


Usually a cleansing fire washes across the planet.  Then it will reset.  


And for your kind, there is always room for the Gods.  

You know that feeling you have that there is more to your shitty life?  If you have pushed against the barrier between life and death, you felt the gods.  In their presence, you glimpsed meaning.  You see the gossamer web strands spiraling from your heart to all the people that loved you.  The ones you touched with your Light.  Oh how they loved you….


New gods, old gods and changed gods.  The excitement of a world born again.  And like commuters sipping morning coffee before another work day, the gods prepare for their shifts.  And so hand in hand, the two binary stars walk from the Darkness back through Aurora's gate to the place they once existed as Lovers.  


And the world reset.


Now they are an old couple.  The space between the diner booth is as familiar as the closeness shared in bed.  On walks, her fingers always seek his forearm and trace down to his hand which is inevitably shoved into a coat pocket.  She always squeezes his hand three times: I-LOVE-YOU.  Then they look at each other and smile.  


The waitress takes their breakfast order and refills their coffees.  Sadie is 19 and to her, this couple is old.  Way older than 30.  Older than 40.  50?  Shit, who knows?  Just old.  But nice.  The tall old guy is always reading.  Books, newspapers, notebooks.  But he's always polite and greets everybody with a smile.  His wife is usually staring at her phone.  She ignores everyone unless she has problem with her order and then we all hear it.  She’s old too but still pretty.  Her hair is always perfect and even though she doesn’t wear much makeup, her skin looks good...  


And the lady looks up from her phone directly at the startled waitress with her wide blue eyes and winks.  Sadie turns away and rushes off to another table.  Well that was weird, she blushes as she approaches a table full of hungry construction workers.


“Oh quit messing with them” chides the old man without looking up from his book.  The woman laughs and spoons sugar in her coffee.


Before the volcanos rose from the sea and called themselves islands, all they knew was their love.  This windswept chain of islands in the Pacific northwest became their domain.  Here, the island forests are full of deer, fern and berries.  Craggy cliff tops above a pounding sea are filled with nesting birds.  Bears, raccoons, cougars and foxes follow the cold, clear creeks that tumble down the mountains to the sea.  They wait for spawning salmon or feast on crabs and shellfish.  And the humans discovered these places too.  The leeward bays became fishing villages.  The streams and rivers became routes of trade.  The life force that draws people here unites the sea and rain giving storm clouds in the sky.  


Or...the man and the woman.  


Settlers once worshipped the man as Cloud Eagle.  The warrior of thunder and light.  But they feared the woman.  She was the Drowned Hag.  Her staring blue eyes were unknown among the brown-eyed settlers and they feared her gaze and unpredictable temper.  She dwelled deep in watery caves and walked on the bottom of streams and rivers.  The Drowned Hag's nets dragged death and Darkness into her long, white arms.  
The next people to invade and colonize the islands knew the woman as Dancing Fire.  They worshipped the pale goddess and she taught them sacred dances.  The man was regarded more warily.  The Weeping God was a storm god and the fisherfolk worshipped him out of fear.   


And Belief changed again and again to suit the needs of the islanders that came in waves.  This never bothered them.  They still gave and gathered their essence to every soul birthed on this rocky archipelago.  


The man and woman loved the world.  They shared it like today’s special at Osprey Bay Cafe.   Steaming, hot coffee, buckwheat pancakes, eggs over easy and elk sausage all for $6.99.  And like many old couples, they enjoy arguing.


“That fucking zit faced turd boy” says the woman narrowing her eyes at a gawky teenager in a black t-shirt decorated with skulls, ridiculously baggy pants and a wallet chain, “is a thief.  He will steal.”


“Yeah, they all do”, smiles the man stirring wild honey into his coffee.  “Testing his boundaries.  By their own beliefs, he's not evil.”


When Sadie turns her back to ring up the bill, the teen nonchalantly slips a KitKat into his pocket.  Then he pulls out his wallet, pays his tab and leaves a dollar on the table as he walks out.  


“At least he left a tip” chuckles the man.


“Hmm”, muses the woman dragging her elk sausage through egg yolk before popping it into her mouth, “What if I told you I KNOW he’s evil?  What if I told you before the new moon he will kill an innocent?”


“There is no more evil my love.  They simply don’t care.”


“So you say, yet a girl will die. By HIS actions!  His father's lawyer will save him from jail and he will go to a junior college in California. The girl will sleep beneath our cold earth in a pink casket lined with teddy bears and roses”.


“Oh?” nods the man without concern.  “I suppose that would be a victory for you.  Well, maybe in the old days.”


“Trace his thread!” demands the woman.  “The soul is mine.”


The old man sighs, puts down his book and smiles at his wife.  Even today, her old fierce self burns through.  This woman has never backed down from anything.    


“In the old days you would be right dear.  He kills the girl.  Blood for blood, life for life. But now we know he drinks the beer for you.  Rebellion.  Like stealing candy.  Seven beers and vodka causes the crash.  The girl dies an innocent.  He drinks because he is young and foolish.  This soul is mine woman.”


The electricity in the cafe flickers as the woman stares malevolently at him.  He drowns in her wide blue eyes. Helpless, all he can do is grin at her and wait. Powerless as always in her spell. After all these years, she is still so fucking beautiful, he muses.  Too beautiful for the likes of him but maybe that is why she puts up with his nonsense.  No matter what happens in their lives, his soul is always a prisoner in her eyes.


And primal energy streams through each patron as they question their existence.  For an awkward moment, everyone becomes misty eyed and longs for their secret love.  The love that calls to them louder than all other loves.  Some are lucky and have this person in their life but most are not.  They stare at their companions like strangers and question reality for a mad moment...And then the flickering lights stop.  The spell is broken and they go back to their breakfasts.  


The woman smiles the same smile that has greeted the man at dawn for thousands of years.  


“Times have changed” she says.  “But someday Empty Wolf, you will know I’m right.”


“Empty Wolf?”, laughs the man, “The Eternal Devourer of Men heheh....Why no one has called me that for 6 generations.  And my dear, you are ALWAYS right.”


“They don’t believe in justice anymore”, sighs the woman.


“Well not your justice.  And I agree in principal.  His head should decorate a pole and stare at the sunset until the gulls peck it clean.  But in this age, the little shit wins.  So do I.”


The woman smiles.  The eternal argument.  


“Ok.  Let’s go.  Let’s get ice cream at Stanley’s Sweets and walk to my sea.”


“You mean my sea”, corrects the man.  “Before the last curtain of Darkness, the last folks to come through believed my tears created the sea.  Remember?”


“Yeah whatever.  It was mine before yours.  I was the White Seal who brought fishermen safely to shore.”


“And the Sea Hag,” reminds the man as they walk out into a frozen February.  


Hand in hand, they approach the lookout.  She eats a double scoop waffle cone with chocolate banana fudge and strawberry.  He eats a peanut butter chocolate chip brownie.  The lookout spans across a bay where whales wander.  The cliffs hunched over the sea were places of worship and sacrifice to the old couple who munched on their sweets and watch seagulls wheel high above the sea.  The kid from the diner sits on a bench staring out over the ocean as well.  Faint traces of marijuana linger in the air from his pipe.


The teen stares across the water while enjoying his stolen candy bar.  A gull cries out and the teen is confused as the ocean suddenly grows still and flat.  The waves stop.  A wide, green square of ocean lies motionless like an emerald tile before him.  

Whoa, thinks the teen. Trippy.


Stoned and silly, he feels Them. He turns around but no one is there.  Above the smooth, green sea floats a cloud.  Kinda looks like a wolf, thinks the teen as he finishes his KitKat and throws the wrapper into the sea.