Richard Stearny Off The Mountain

"I've got my rights damn it and I aint going to give anyone my social security number."

"Rich if you don't give them the information then they can't admit you."















"I'm a human being fuckers and I got rights...fucking Saddam they fucking hung the fucker, fucker fucking deserved it."

"I told you that you won't have to pay a thing, you trust me don't you? You want to got to sleep right?"

"I've got a head ache."

"Of course you do. You've been drinking tequila for nine days, you've been loaded for the past year, and you haven't slept for the last three days, of course your head hurts."

The financial services officer had been presenting document after document to be signed and Rich had signed a few with a signature blurred and distorted unable to control the pen he was writing with. There were many more to be signed and Rich alternated between outright belligerence and apologetic compliance. The officer was used to his sort and never wavered from a calm demeanor. Rich's friends were racked with fear that after coming all this way that Rich would blow up his only hope of a new life with his verbally violent behavior.

"I'm really a nice guy I don't mean anyone any harm, I'm sorry but...I got my fucking and rights and if I don't get my own room then I'm walking the fuck outta here, you got me fucking damn fuck..."

"Rich just sign this one all it says is that you want to be here."

"I won't give them my fucking social security number, I don't want anyone to have it unless they need it but I have my rights and fuck George Bush the fucker fucked up the whole world fucking fucker."















"I know Rich but just sign this."

Again after having his friend place a finger next to the x on a document Rich scrawled across the paper with that signature that bore no resemblance to the one he actually owned. It could have been tense in the, for what was a fairly swanky facility, drab and cramped office but the officer and Rich's friends, well aware of his tenuous condition, made sure it never escalated beyond the slew of slurred obscenities issuing forth from Rich's cracked and bleeding lips.

"Come on Rich this is your entry into happy camp. You want to sleep don't you."

"I'm not going to fucking sleep...the fuckers. Hey I love you guys. You know I'm not a nice guy. I'm tired of being a nice guy and having everyone shit on me. I'm going to be an asshole from now on and they better give me my own room or I'm going to take a walk right out of here."

Rich wasn't in any condition to walk out of the room much less into the cold night air.

"Rich the lady already said you can have your own room but you need to sign these papers or you can't get the room."

"I have my rights and I want my own room."

"Good me too. I want you to have your own room. My friends get their own rooms and if they don't then shit is going to happen. So sign this one."

"Fucking fuckers. I love everyone, I don't mean you any harm you are a very nice lady but I have my rights."

"Rich look at this next one its even called the Patient's Bill of Rights."

Rich grimaced, screwed his face tight and then laughed.

"I'm not giving them my social security number the fucking fuckers. I'm a human being and I've got rights."

"Rich you trust me don't you. Well the people here want to help you they aren't going to fuck you over so just sign these last few and you can go to your own room and they will knock you out."

"They can't knock me out."

"Rich she just said she is going to give you phenobarbital that shit will put you on your ass."

The papers were signed and the finances arranged. As dawn approached the doctor phoned in the drugs that would start Rich on his way. He was led to his room. His private room that was located not in the detox unit as they all had expected but in the psyche ward. Rich was a human being and had his rights the fucking fuckers.















There are so many words. Words and words. Better then words are actions. It is action that puts words in their place. All of Rich's words would be gone by the time the phenobarbital wore off a day into the new year. And now we could sleep. Sleep Rich, sleep the sleep.

The Angels End At Midnight

The ledger was nearly full. Every line, save for a few, had been filled in and the results, though patently obvious, had yet to be officially tallied with any decisive finality. Each entry had been written there, some in ink, others in blood, but over time each space had been occupied by a record of moments large and small.













A judge was set in place to review the accumulated evidence that was to be set before it. A weighing, a summation, was in order and though the records joy and pain were to be concerned no recording of the gains and losses could be affected until the books had been closed out in total.

There had been great strides made over the period covered in this catalogue of days and then too great missteps as well. When the consideration of this document was to be afforded a great energy would be needed in parsing out and assigning value to each incident. Did one action take precedent, consume more weight then any another? Did a small victory counterbalance a defeat of similar stature, or did a negative simply by the gravity of it's effect on the overall invite the scales to swing in a wholly obscene way and negative manner?

The truth was in question and only in the unflinching dissection of this log could any semblance of it's purity be held to the light. Would the quality of the experience determine value, or would the resultant outcome? Did an easily earned success dominate a hard fought but lost battle? The record was there to see but it's incompleteness was a stop to any predictions that might give early indication to the eventual denouement.














The entries detailed the dance, the moments spent, the agglomeration of actions and inactions of a life lived second to second. They set to acknowledge the routine and the exceptional. The boisterous and the reserved. The sorrow and the hope. It was all there. The gratitudes and the damnations. The wonders and cruelties. Page by page, line by line, prayer by prayer.

In all this, hidden, written between the lines was the constant, the only real truth. The ledger was in fact benign in it's premise, false and only presumed real by the fictional demarcation of those definite points, the lines, those entries that pitted one moment against the next. The constant. The truth. The reality is that which blurred the lines and told one so not to read the entries but to behold the ledger at once, as a whole, as an unbroken, undifferentiated piece. There is hope. There is beauty in the ledger. The ledger is the beauty, the hope, the truth.
















The calender may turn but the truth does not.

At The Cornershop Without The Time

Dispatch: Code Black

via: Master Butterfly Eats Yesterday Governing Council

Once again the primitives of the modern industrial complex have tried to silence Sufferwords from further communications. The latest assault was attributed to a sabotage of the fiber-optic cables used in the transmission of the Sufferwords.

Our technical staff assures us that they have taken precautions such that the source of these assaults has been disabled. Furthermore the nameless perpetrators of these crimes have been brought to task by our security forces and their total elimination necessitates that the utmost care be taken not to further disclose any information concerning their possible identities.

E. Von Stroheim

End dispatch excl:73/z-59





The streets had stars embedded in the sidewalk and the shops with their big glass storefronts challenged his senses with all manner of useless consumer items. Goods meant for tourists and people too out of the loop to know they were being sold a bill of goods prevailed. In all the years he had lived there he had never purchased anything in any one of them save for the one time he had gone to the photo booth at the J.J. Newbury's.














He entered the glass front door of the shop, ringing a small Indian bell hung on a thin red string, then was met by a a wave of putrid smelling incense. The store, as all the others, sold items of little or no value. This shop was unique even by the low standards of it's 'competitors'. There was no theme to it, just useless bric-a-brack, some used, most new, stacked and displayed messily in no particular order.

He had entered, his eye caught by a 'help wanted stock boy' sign, that in small poorly written script went on to say 'four to six hours daily', in search of a job. He knew he needn't attain a job that paid anything like the average citizen would want to expect, he was only trying to get the thirty to forty dollars a day that might get him through, keep him well. All the real jobs fit for his condition required physical effort and even those scant opportunities were taken by immigrants and those shunned by the society at large.

It was his dire misfortune that he had not been gifted, did not own, the gumption to get a good hustle on nor did he feel himself particularly motivated enough to collect bottles and cans, he was lazy and sadly not very adept at the general art of getting by. The sign in the window had screamed stability to him. It was his ticket to some sort of permanence and he excited at the possibility. He still thought himself presentable and at a busted out store like this he could surely past muster. He was clean enough and his clothes were, though not of the latest fashion, not down at the heels either.

'How hard could it be to land a job in this place?' he ruminated, still fearful at the rejection that he presumed was his lot and would be for ever. He made his way around a stack of boxes labeled 'Plan Corners - Made In China', that sat in the middle of what could have been considered the main 'aisle', of the store. Coming around the boxes he saw the register counter and behind it a small dark skinned man of possibly Pakistani descent standing. The man wore his hair in a comb over and had gold rimmed aviator glasses with tinted lenses. His Manila shirt was a tan yellow and showed sweat under the arms. A nine inch black and white television sat on the counter and played a mid afternoon talk show.















He was standing right before the little man but was yet to be acknowledged.

"Excuse me sir."

The man looked up at him then directly back at the television.

"What are you looking for?" queried the man, sounding as if his world wouldn't end if he didn't get an answer.

"I'm not looking for anything" he said, thinking himself to be sounding strong and resolute.

"I came about the job."

The little man didn't answer, he only lowered the volume on the television slightly and lit a cigarette.

"Excuse me but I came in for the job, you have a sign posted in your window that says you are looking for a stock boy."

The man broke his staring match with the television and finally looked at him. The little brown man looked him up and down and he could now see the pock marks that scarred the face of the little Pakistani.

"So you think you could be a stock boy?"

"Yes, I mean, of course. I'd like the job."

"Have you ever been a stock boy before?" the man said as he stood up.

"Not actually, no, but I am sure I would do a good job."

The little man was really checking him out. He stood looking over the counter, his cigarette pursed tightly in his mouth, the smoke making it's way under the lenses of his shaded glasses, his head moving slowly from the ground up and then back down.

"So why do you think you would make a good stock boy if you have never done the job before? This store needs a lot of attention and I need someone who really wants to work hard."

"I guess I'm a pretty smart guy and I learn well."

This got no response.

"I'm willing to take direction and I work well with others" he said, remembering once hearing this on a show about taking interviews, maybe on Oprah, and thought he might give it a try.

"Well I'm the others do you think you could work with me?"

'This was a good sign', he thought, and he tried to play it humble.

"If you'll let me."

"I need you here four days a week, Tuesday through Friday, from noon to around six . Can you do that?"

"Sure, I can do that."

"Leave me your phone number and I'll give you a call."

"Does that mean I have the job?"

"I didn't say that. I said to leave me your number and I'll call you."

"Right. Do you have a pen?"

He wrote down the number of a friend, not having had a working number of his own for some time, and went to hand it to the little man who had reseated himself and was once again peering into the nine inch.

"Just leave it on the desk."

"So you'll call me?"

There was no response.

Out on the street once again he stood before the store window and looked in. His gaze first went to the terrible mess inside and he thought how though it would be a challenge, he could really to a job at reorganizing the place. So this was to be the location of his salvation, not great but a worthy place to relaunch his life. There was a flash of light that caught his eye causing him to refocus his eyes and he came to see his reflection in the glass. At that moment he knew he wouldn't get the job. How could some one give him a stock boy job? What person his age would want to be a stock boy in a horrible place like this? Was his desperation as obvious to the little brown man with the bad skin and comb over as it was to him? It just wasn't any use to try anymore was it?














A few long months had passed and as he expected the call never came through. As he walked the street with the stars embedded in the sidewalk he once again had chance to pass the shop of the little brown man. Hanging in the window was a sign 'help wanted stock boy' and in small poorly written script went on to say 'four to six hours daily'.

James Brown Meet Me At The Natchez At Midnight

My dear,














I often remember those nights we spent together. You would wrap me in your arms and hold me tight, the wind blowing the rain hard against the window, do you remember when the lights went out? How you thought the world would end that night then you told me it wouldn't matter as long as we went together. Do you remember that night?

Can you see back to that time as I do now? How when I awoke, you would be beside me, the warmth spreading from you and heating enough for us both and you would pretend to still be asleep even though I knew you were up. I remember though I wish I couldn't.

That time in Gallup when the truck had broke down and we slept in the truck bed under the stars? How you shivered against the cold, how you cried, but come the dawn, and the pink on the horizon, how you said it was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. Try to remember as I try not to. The pumpkin pie you made and how I ate that thing, horrible as it was, though you tried to stop me. I see your face as the patrolman took me away. I try not to but I can't help it.














I try to think of the bad times and I do and they make me ill but then I think of the good times. I wish I couldn't remember the good times, they curse me. I wish they would just take all those good times away, I wish they would just take it all away but they won't. I'm stuck with these memories and they haunt me like a ghost. I see your face in the dark, I see it in the light of the morning, I still can see your face. Can you remember? Do you remember?

That baby we never had. I can see that baby, right now I can see it. I don't blame you for not letting me be a father, I remember you had good cause to think that way but that doesn't stop me from thinking back. Nothing can stop me from thinking back. I would trade every thought I ever would have if they could put those memories in there with them.

I remember your soft hands, I do, and the feel of your hair and the taste of your tears, I can still taste them. Maybe if I remember everything I will use all those memories up and they will be gone, maybe. Do you remember me? Can you just forget like I can not?















I can remember that I will never send this to you. I can remember I never sent any of the other letters I wrote you. I remember that I want you to forget me. I don't want to think back but I remember. I remember you. I remember us. I can't forget.

Love...

This Wrinkle In Time

He squinted in the glare of the police lightbar. The flashing red, yellow, and blue lights penetrated deep into him and only added to the wave of humiliation that was now engulfing his every thought. The handcuffs cut deep into his wrists, his fingers nearing numbness and his shoulder burnt where the pavement had rubbed the skin from it. The hood of the police car was hot against his chest and he struggled to keep his face from it.















"Do you have anything on your person that I could poke myself on, any weapons or atomic bombs?", the cop said amusing no one but himself.

"No boss, I've got nothing", he said.

"Boss huh, you been on the inside?", the cop said his interest suddenly piquing.

"Not really."

"Not really? Either you have or you haven't. Are you on parole?"

He wasn't on parole and never had been. He had once made a short trip to County, probably where he picked up the term 'boss', all the Sheriffs were called boss there, but there was no parole involved and he knew enough to know that a short stay in The Glasshouse didn't qualify for being 'inside'.

"No, I'm not on parole."

"So where are the drugs?", the cop said in that self satisfied way, assured that the he held the man before him dead to rights.

"There aren't any drugs", he said as the cop pulled his wallet from his pants pocket.

"This I.D. still good? Tell me the truth because I'm going to run it."

"Yeah, it's clear."

"So you're telling me the I.D. is good and if I check your person I will not find any drugs or paraphernalia?"

"That's what I'm telling you."

"You can do yourself a favor by telling me the truth because if I find anything on you or if this driver's license is bad they'll be hell to pay", the cop said trying his best but failing to sound empathetic.

"I'm telling the truth. Say could you loose up these bracelets my hands are going rubbery?"

"You just wait here while I run this."

He could hear the cop talking to someone and he assumed, though he could not see, that another unit was now on the scene. He felt hands upon him, rifling through his pockets, patting his body down, taking his shoes off. He lifted his head to see what was going on but it was thrust back with force down upon the hood of the patrol car.














It was late and he was searching for a store that was open. It was Christmas night and most everything was shuttered but she wanted some Hagen Dasz strawberry ice cream and who was he to deny her anything? He had checked the Vons and then Cap'n Cork but they were a no go. He had traveled west on Sunset and saw that the 7/11 at Sunset near Taft was open and so he made the left...

He stepped from his car and the police were on him in a flash. He hadn't even seen them coming and before he knew it he was being tackled from behind and was face down on the street, a knee pressed to the back of his head. He struggled a moment until the police identified themselves as such and by that time his arms were stretched too far behind his back.

"Stop resisting, stop resisting", the cops screamed at him.

He had stopped resisting as soon as he knew it was the police and not a thug who had blindsided him but the cops kept applying the pressure.

He had been bent over the hood of the cruiser for ten minutes when the cop finally returned.

"Alright the I.D. is clean. So do you have the drugs in your underwear?" the cop said his tone not mellowed in the least.

"I told you there are no drugs, I'm just trying to get my girl some ice cream."

"Fucking pussy whipped", he heard a voice off to the side cackle.

"Alright, this is your lucky day son. Being that's its Christmas I'm not going to take you in", the cop said maintaining his authoritarian tone.

"Take me in? I didn't do anything" he protested meekly.

"You want to play with me, is that what you want? I'm doing you a favor and you want to jaw at me?"

"No sir" he said thinking better then to challenge a Los Angeles cop.

"For your information I could take you in for resisting and obstruction but I'm in a good mood."

He felt his arms pull back from his body and then fumbling on the cuffs. Suddenly blood began to rush back into his hands and he assumed the cuffs had been removed but his hands were still to numb to tell for sure.

"You're free to go but count your lucky stars. If I see you in this neighborhood looking for drugs again I can assure you the outcome isn't going to go as well for you."














He opened the front door of the apartment and the warmth of the room rushed out to meet him. She was lying on the bed watching the television and didn't even turn to see him walk in.

"Hi hon...you get the ice cream?"

"I couldn't get the strawberry they only had chocolate."

"Why didn't you go to another place if they didn't have strawberry?"

Ten On Saturday To Win

'If you gave me a fresh carnation I would only crush it's tender petals'














"Just go in there and talk to her."

"I can't hear a thing in there."

"Then go in there and sit down between them and just be your lovable self."

"It aint going to happen."

"Go ahead bud, everyone needs a place to melt the Toblerone."

"Melts in the mouth not in the hand very funny."

"Those are M&M's."

"Uh, duh, like I didn't know that."

"So how come you won't do it? We've been trying to get the two of you in the same place forever."

"It just doesn't work like that."

"She's pretty isn't she?"

"Sure she's pretty enough that's not it."

"Buddy she has a good job and all the whoop-di-whoop."

"I'm glad she's got the whoop-di-whoop."















"So?"

"Did you see her shoes?"

"Bud who's looking at the shoes?"

"I don't know, you can take a fine girl and if the shoes aren't happening then its just a horror."

"The shoes?"

"Yep."

"So you are saying to me that you won't put it in her because you don't like her shoes?"

"Its not just a matter of putting it in her."

"Why not?"

"Maybe you're wired that way but sadly I'm susceptible to the Gypsy's Curse."

"The what?"

"The Gypsy's Curse."

"What the fuck is that?"

"I don't know where I heard of it, maybe a Harry Crews book or something, but the Gypsy's Curse is that, to put it in terms you might understand, if I find a place for my Toblerlone and it fits, I mean it really fits, fits like no other, then I am cursed. She could be the worse girl in the world and I would be powerless over my desire to melt the Toblerone. Kind of what Percy Sledge sang about in When A Man Loves A Woman ."

"So you're telling me that if a girl is good in the sack you will fall in love with her?"

"That's the curse."

"Well maybe she isn't that good."

"Yeah but if she is then I'm stuck with her."

"So you're telling me you won't put in her because if you do and it fits, the so called Gypsy's Curse, then you'll fall in love with her?"

"That's my experience and it hasn't been pretty."

"So what could be so wrong with falling in love with her."

"Did you see those shoes?"

"You're really fucked up aren't you?"

"Yup. I'm cursed."














"The Gypsy's Curse, bummer."

"You're telling me."

The Combine

'First there is a mountain and then there is no
mountain then there is.'














The House of Pies was quiet for a Friday night. There would be a rush on holiday sweets in the days to come but on this night it was business as less then usual. Luis and Marco sat at a booth near the front door separated from the other diners. They chatted to no great consequence as the waitress took their orders and after she returned with Luis' custard pie and hot tea and Marco's BLT and iced tea, they got down to speaking with all earnestness.

"I don't know sometimes I feel like an island separated from everything and everybody."

"I know what you mean" Marco replied, "I used to feel like that all the time and there are times I still do but if you think about it, islands aren't what we perceive them to be."

"How do you mean?"

"Well we perceive the island as alone, land isolated by water but in reality an island isn't just a piece of land standing free separated from everything. The island runs to the ocean floor which is a mass of land and part of the greater whole."

"Interconnectedness?"

"Exactly. I found my problem wasn't that I was separated from everything only that I perceived I was alone."

"I get you. I think that at times I can understand that concept and really live it but there are other times that all the intellectualizing in the world can't change the fact that I feel lonely."

"Perhaps it is the human condition, perhaps not. I can only speak from my experience and I can tell you that I surely relate to how you feel. Now whether everyone feels this same way I can't venture to say, maybe we are just two like souls, I don't know, but what I do know is that I have fought with this same struggle for the most of my days."

"Its a fucking killer."

"I know there is no worse feeling."

"So what can you do about it?"

"Well for me I came to understand the problem wasn't that I was alone, as is in the island but it was my ego that was my hindrance."

"I know that one."

"Right the problem stems from I, as in I, I, I,... I am fucked. For me I need to get past the I in things. It isn't all about me, you know, I want, I need, I don't have and all that. As soon as I put myself at the center of things then there is now way out."

"You might be on to something."

"I don't know maybe I am?"

"The old humility thing right?"

"I guess so? It is just that when I looked into most of my resentments against the world and people and all that shit I found that I was full of pride and envy."

"Those are deadly sins territory."
















"They don't call them deadly sins for nothing, you get bummed out enough and you're going to want to put an end to it right?."

"I might not go that far but I sure know what you're saying I've totally been down that road."

"You see I might get prideful and bitch and moan, like 'how could this happen to me, I deserve better then this', or then I'll switch to 'I wish I had so and so's girl or I wish I was the captain of the football team', or some relative bullshit. The point is I am putting myself at the center of the world and as soon as I do that then I perceive myself as that island and then I truly am alone."

"Its all in the perception huh?"

"True. Maybe I perceive so and so's girlfriend to be this person who she isn't or that being captain of the football team would make me happy when these are really just manifestations of my imagination. You know the whole 'as soon as I get this thing or that then I will be happy' syndrome. Maybe that girl is lousy in bed or has bad breath or being the captain of the team is a horrible thing I don't know but something inside me tells me I'm no good unless I have these things.

"Like in that movie Bedazzled. The guy keeps wishing for things and when he gets them they never turn out the way he thinks they will."

"The Dudley Moore, Peter Cook version right? Not the piece of garbage remake."

"Of course I didn't even knew they did a remake of that."

"It is in the chasing of things that I feel will make me whole that makes me fractured. The wants, the perceived needs that will drive me crazy if I let them."

"And these things isolate you?"

"That's how it is for me I don't know about you."

"Oh you are definitely preaching to the choir."

"Preaching huh, I don't think so."

"I didn't mean it that way."

"This whole idea that we are separate from our fellow man is a ridiculous concept. To a large degree what I do to you I do to myself."

"It is my perception that needs adjusting isn't it?"

"Again I don't know about you but I had to undergo a profound shift in my views and perceptions lest I go completely bonkers."

"First there was an island then there was no island and then there was."

"You could say that."














"Hey man happy holidays."

"If that's what you want then that's what it will be."

"Okay then happy holidays."

Maybe I'm Amazed

"We love you", he shouted.

"Yes, we love you and Jesus loves you."

"Hallelujah, praise the lord, hallelujah", they cried as one.














The pulpit nearly toppled as the congregation shouted back their affirmations. He gripped hard on the side rails and surveyed the faces, the promise of a paradise awaited, the blind faith, the earnestness of his flock. He never ceased to be amazed at the glory made real before him when his sermonizing struck his followers so. They were his followers and they would follow wherever he chose to lead.

"Lest we be sinners may we be redeemed. In my hour of need I reach out to him and He is there and He is there for you. He is the only thing that is always and we need only to ask and we shall receive His love. God loves each of us as if there were only one of us, and know that we are punished by our sins, not for our sins."

The congregation quieted as he did in a moment of reflection. His sins, though well enumerated in scripture, and numerous, were of a worldly manifestation and these he could resign himself to for he knew himself to be a mere mortal but there were the perceived sins, those sins he held secret, that he was failing to abide. He was being tested and the more he preached the deeper the hole from which the bottom raced to meet him grew narrower and more frightful.

Standing on high, the pulpit straining in his grasp, he knew the lie inside him was no longer containable. Up here before his minions he was god, not the bearer of the good news but god manifest on earth. The power he had attained had filled him so for as long as he could think back but the longer he bathed in this glory the further he strayed from the truth.














Had he never believed? It was Christmastime and he thought back to his youth. Was it not the presents he had so craved above the love of his lord as he had solemnly testified. Had he manipulated his way to the pulpit? Had he not parroted the things he thought they wanted to hear to further his ascent? Early on he saw the hypocrisy in the yule season. He was not a dull child and his studies made clear that the season was of pagan and not divine origin but did he not preach to his flock of the nativity and the story of Jesus the Saviour from Nazareth?

The congregation became unsettled, they were looking to him for a sign but he was far away, ensnared by his sins. His eyes closed and sweat flowing freely streamed down his face.

How could he reconcile his words from his thoughts? This was his crisis of faith not anyone else's. He was alone in this battle and nothing could help him. How he prayed that there were really a god that might take mercy upon him but this thought was superseded by the vacuum at his core. Was it not he that led these people who stood before him? He so wanted to open his mouth and enunciate what filth lied in his being. He would make real the truth, the truth as he really knew it to be.

From the congregation came a lone female voice, pitched high and pure.

"I ain't no sinner now
No I ain't no sinner now
I've been to the river and I've been baptized
And I ain't no sinner now

Crying holy unto the Lord.
Crying holy unto the Lord
You surely could, if you only would
Stand on that rock where Moses stood."

As he stood there and he heard the congregation fill with the spirit and join in the singing he was brought back to the moment. His crisis subsided and his mind was freed. It was Christmastime and the church was filled with the faithful. It was Christmastime and who was he to ruin it for everyone? He opened his eyes and raised his voice to the heavens.

"Well I ain't no stranger now
No I ain't no stranger now
I've been introduced to the Father and the Son
And I ain't no stranger now."

It was Christmastime and he knew the show must go on.














"Sinner run and hide your face
Sinner run and hide your face
Sinner run to the rock and hide your face
And find your soul a hiding place."

The Why Don't You Show Me Something Big Shot

A message from the Board of Directors

Thank you for your patience. We are happy to announce that Google Corporate offices has accepted our demands and has instituted new policies that will allow us to publish not only the writings of Sufferwords but again the images he creates especially for Master Butterfly Eats Yesterday.

Yours,

E. Von Stroheim

















"Why don't you let me hold that for you for a while?"

"Oh you don't have to do that, really, I'm okay."

"I wouldn't say I'd do it if I didn't want to."

"No really, its too much to ask of you."

"Well if you remember, you didn't ask I offered."

"I think you know what I mean."

"I do, its true but please let me help you."

"I'm okay really I am."

"It doesn't seem like it."

"Its my burden and I think I should carry it myself."

"That's very honorable of you but you're being unfair to me."

"How is that?"

"I want to help and you're not letting me."

"Well its mine and I think I should be responsible to it. Why should I make you shoulder the weight?"

"That's just it you're not making me I am offering. What do I have to say to make that clear to you?"

"I know, I know, its just that..."

















The coolness began to take hold and was becoming something akin to a chill as the days last light receded into the orange darkness. Pink clouds faded into purple and a wind began to pick up. They sat together on the front stoop of the apartment and smoked.

"Its like you are hoarding it, claiming it only because it is yours. I know you don't want it but it has become a safe place for you and you are afraid to leave it behind. You're comfortable with it and only because you own it and for no other reason."

"Maybe you're right but why should you want to take it on."

"I don't necessarily want to but I care about you and I would do this for you."

"I don't know?"

"You can't go on like this it has to end somewhere."

"I know. I don't know what's got into me I just feel so..."

"Sad."

"You're right, I'm sad."

"Well then let me hold on to it for you for a while."

"My sadness."

"Yes your sadness."

"You'd do that for me?"

"How many different ways do I have to say it?"

"How long will you hold it for me?"

"Until you don't need it anymore."

"Will you give it back to me then?"

"No."

"What will you do with it?"

"When you have decided that you don't want it anymore then I will write a letter and send it away and put all the sadness in it that you have today."
















"Thanks for taking my sadness away."

"I'll just look after it for a while for you."

"Its a deal."

"Deal."

A Baby Born In A Well

Sorry Blogger won't eat photos right now. Enjoy the words, images to follow.

E. Von Stroheim

MBEY Board of Directors

















"Geeze Mark what were you thinking going over there in the
first place?"

"Abigail wanted to see Thor."

"I know that all sounds good but that is your ex-girlfriend's kid. What a shock that she treated your daughter like a stranger and made her cry."

"When kids are involved that's the most important thing, you should put all that other stuff aside."

"Come on Alice his half retarded as it is how did you think she was going to react?"

"I didn't expect her to make Abigail cry."

"What did you expect? My god, your were neck deep in that crappy relationship and then you went on to one that was even sketchier and now you wonder why she was acting that way towards you."

"But she should have backed off with the kid there."

"Who are you trying to fool here? You really think I believe that you were only going over there to let the kids hang? You have to be joking."

They both lit cigarettes, there was a full ashtray on the little porch table they were sitting at. It was a cold night, cold as it had been in years and the talk could have gone on all night except for the fact they both needed to go elsewhere.















"Where's Abigail?"

"I told her to wait in the car."

"At least you did that right. What do you want me to do? I told you before you started going out with Alice that is wasn't the best idea but you had to find out for yourself. And now a year later you are still coming around trying to stir things up."

"I was not."

"Tell me you didn't suggest to Abigail that before you went to the party you should come over here to see Thor. Tell me she came up with that idea herself."

"I thought it would be nice, they really like each other."

"You came over here to stir up shit with your ex-girlfriend."

"No I didn't. When kids are involved you're supposed to put all that other shit aside."

"I heard you the first time. Granted that's how it should be but that just isn't the way it is. People also shouldn't get into relationships with mentally ill people but that didn't stop you from going out with that last whack job you called a girlfriend."

"She had sweet moments."

"Like the time she jumped through the front window of her husband's car and grabbed him and the girl he was riding with around the throat?"

"That was an amazing sight you have to give her credit, she jumped from the street right through that window landing with both feet on the front seat."

"Whatever, the point I'm making is that your decision making skills leave a lot to be desired."

"I know."

"So don't act surprised when people behave like they are supposed to."

"What should I tell Abigail?"

"First tell her you are sorry for putting her in this situation, you have to claim some personal responsibility in all this, then tell her adults sometimes behave poorly."

"Alright, I guess you're right."

"Next time think first and if that doesn't work call someone and get a second opinion."

"Okay. We're going to the party see you there."

"I can't go but the girls will meet you over there."

"Okay I'll see you later."














He watched as Mark turned away and walked towards the car and Abigail and he thought to himself, 'What a lie this growing up thing is. Adults are just kids with a few years on them. Just because you've been on this earth a while doesn't mean you have any more sense then a kid on a schoolyard.' He felt odd for having to explain what he thought were some very basic things to Mark but then again Mark always did need a little extra help and he probably would again. Sometimes being an adult really sucked.

Lucky Number Seven Its Real

There was a plan, a simple plan. They were to go see a program of short films at the local art house. It was decided that the four of them would all meet up at seven for coffee then continue on to the theater.














The four of them had done this numerous times over the previous months so nothing seemed out of the ordinary. They were three men and one girl and they had all become fast friends going to movies and concerts, dinners and parties, and always in a pack.

She got the first call. Tim couldn't make it, something about an unexpected obligation or the like and so that left just the three of them. Sure Tim's absence would take a little of the fun out of it, traveling as a gang of four as they had so had become accustomed to, but as long as there were three of them it would still be a good time.

It was nearing six when her phone rang again. This time it was Moshe. An unexpected and unavoidable obstruction that would prohibit his attending the films had arisen. Many, 'I'm sorries', and, 'I'd rather be going with you then having to do this I swear''s followed. So that just left her and Jasper.

It was one thing traveling in the pack of four, it was safe, it was another to be going on what could be misconstrued as a date with Jasper. There was nothing wrong with Jasper in the least. He was a great guy, witty and intelligent and together with Tim and Moshe they had spent many a long evening talking and having fun together but she had a bad feeling about spending a night solo with him. Jasper had always been flirty with her but only in the context of the group as a larger whole. She was the girl piece to the foursome and the dynamic worked perfectly. Jasper would flirt with her only to be cut down by Moshe then Tim, saving her from having to do so herself. She knew this might cause a problem at some point because in truth she herself had never personally rebuffed his comically veiled advances, she didn't have to.

She was stalled. How could she cancel without destroying Jasper? If she hurt Jasper the whole relationship among the pack of four would be fractured. It wasn't that she didn't like Jasper, it was just the opposite, she loved him but...the big but, not in that way. Perhaps Jasper was just playing up his flirtations as his role in the pack of four? Maybe it wasn't as real as she thought it might be? Was she just being egotistical? Whatever the truth was she felt uncomfortable going to the movies with only Jasper and she had to do something. She couldn't just not show up that would be just as bad or worse then telling him. But how to tell him?














The cell phone was slim and modern but it felt as if a telephone book as she lifted it to her ear. The phone rang. She hoped against all hope that it would keep on ringing and so she could excuse herself by leaving a cute message.

Jasper picked up on the second ring.

"Hello."

"Hi Jasper."

"Oh hey, can't wait to see you at the movies."

"Well that's it Jasper."

"What's up?"

"Well first Tim called and said he was tied up and couldn't make it."

"So what the three of us can still go. It won't be as fun but it will be so great rubbing it in Tim's face how you sat next to me at the films."

"Then Moshe called and he has to go see a client or some such shit and as he put it, 'This meeting will preclude me from attending tonight's screening as had been previously scheduled'."

"Oh I see. Okay, then why don't just the two of us go?"

"Ah, Jasper its kind of hard to say this but I don't think that would be the greatest idea."

"Really?"

"Really."

"I like you a lot and I was hoping one of these nights we could go somewhere just the two of us."

"I like you too Jasper, I really do but..."

"Come on I'll meet you at seven just liked we planned, later for those other guys."

"Jasper I guess we should talk about this."

"Talk about what?"

"I know you like me and I like you but...but...I don't feel that way about you."

"Oh."

"Its nothing personal or anything but, but I don't know, I just don't have those types of feelings for you."

"You don't? But I thought that we were..."

"I know Jasper. I know and I'm sorry."

"Alright I guess. Maybe another time?"

"Yeah. The four of us will go out really soon."

"Sure, really soon. See ya."

"Bye Jasper."

They both knew as soon as she hung up the phone the pack of four was no more. She couldn't help but already miss those times. 'How come he had to fall for me?' she thought, 'couldn't he have just continued on being funny Jasper and left it at that?'.

Later that night as she sat at dinner with Moshe.

"So you don't have a problem eating alone with me. Why is that?"

"I don't know Moshe, I really don't know."

"You think I should call Tim?"














"No. Let's just the two of us be here."

"Sure. Just the two of us."

A Message From The Board Of Directors

To Whom It May Concern,

We are sorry to report that the latest installment of the serialized novel, Hey Didn't They Film Swingers Here?, by the author Sufferwords, had been rejected by our editorial board.

Rather then publish an inferior work we have decided that it is in the best interest of Master Butterfly Eats Yesterday LLC, and those of it's subscribers to withhold this weeks publication.

We have put Sufferwords on paid administrative leave and have been assured by his representatives that a work whose quality meets our strict standards will be forthcoming.

We again apologize for this inconvenience and encourage you to explore the archived works until this situation is remedied.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Erich Von Stroheim

President

Board of Directors

Master Butterfly Eats Yesterday LLC

Measured In Teardrops

"Oh damn motherfucker, isn't that just the shit, hold on man I got to turn this jam up, damn..."

He reached over and spun the dial on the car stereo and they were then instantly transported to a motel room, satin sheets and bared flesh, candles and cognac.














"Oh, Ronald Isley sure can sing my heart bro."

"Stone cold, for sure."

"I know the Isley's been doing it forever, but they hit that slow jam streak in the seventies and I swear there aint no other music better then that."

"That shit is leg splitting no doubt."

"I mean think of it, they do Twist and Shout in the early sixties, bam, then get on to Its Your Thing , I mean really most motherfuckers aint got even one nearly that good in them, but they was just getting started. Most dudes would of just stopped and rolled it up there but the Isley's, they go and fuck the whole thing up and drop this slow shit right into the bed. Come on Between the Sheets you got to be shitting me."

"Man don't pass on Summer Breeze."

"They didn't write that bro, some Sid and Marty Crofts wrote that jam but they did turn it out for sure."

"Hell yeah, little brother Ernie kills it bro, I hear Hendrix played with them when he was a kid but I'll take Ernie, he can sure pick it for true."

"People all talk about choosing their desert island records."

"What's that?"

"You know, motherfucker is all Robinson Carusoe'd on an island and you got to choose what jams you would have with you if you were stuck out there."

"You got a CD player on the island?"

"Sure bro."

"Like Hawaii?"

"No man, like deserted, no one there but you."

"Oh right I see."














"So I say I'd have the Isley's you know."

"Are you alone on the island?"

"Depends, but I say on my island it would be just me and my lady and the Isley's."

"You get to have a lady?"

"Why not, just making this shit up anyways, but I tell you one thing, if you get me alone on an island with my lady and the Isley's there's going to be a bunch a shorties underfoot. I'd repopulate the whole damn world."

"You can only have a kid every nine months and you know your lady don't like to do it when she's got one up in her."

"You trying to rain on my desert island bro?"

"Oh, sorry man. Hell no. Damn listen to that Ernie Isley, god damn."

"God damn for sure."

"What's that?"

"The song is ending."

"What do you want to do now."

"I think I better be getting on, my old lady's waiting for me."















"You going home or to that deserted island."

"Like I said, as long as the Isley's are around wherever I go it won't be deserted for long."

Come Back Johnny

Yeah, I wanna be well

I wanna be well

I wanna be

I want I want I want

I want I want I want

Yeah, I wanna be well

Ramones


Jonee jumped in his Datsun

Drove out on the expressway

Went head on into a semi

He made her cry

Now she calls his name

Jonee you're to blame

Devo

















Out on the Pacific Coast Highway, just past Zuma, his car sits stalled roadside. 'Have to make a call, have to make it right'. J.K. had to make the last minute run, the kids were screaming for it. Get a pound, no, get two, break it into quarters, break into ounces Johnny, and make them happy. You got to run Johnny.

Tommy Tu-Tone was good for a call but he let you down so now you have to go to a stranger Johnny. Its commerce and you have to be paid Johnny so keep on running. You set out in a car that just won't run but you have to make it Johnny you have to make it, the kids are depending on you Johnny. Saturday night is depending on you Johnny and so is Sunday morn.

You coast down the incline and the engine catches so you head north Johnny, you head north toward the stranger. You hope the traffic is light here in the dark of night so you can go Johnny, go go go, Johnny. You have the money Johnny, you have enough for two. The stranger can take it away from you Johnny, he says he's got the pounds Johnny but he is a stranger. Those kids can't be stopped and you aren't going to stop them, are you Johnny?














You make it out past the bay and ride the coast on shaky wheels Johnny. The moon flares on the breaking waves and you see it Johnny but you have an appointment with the stranger Johnny. It is only a little farther Johnny. There is Pepperdine, you must be in Malibu, you're almost there Johnny. You have to keep on running Johnny, push the pedal down harder, go just that much faster. You can't be late for the stranger Johnny. You can't let the kids down Johnny. Go go go Johnny.

Strangers have taken you down before Johnny. This stranger has the pounds and you have the money. That's CHP so slow up Johnny. You're going past Geoffrey's now, it won't be long. Johnny the kids will be so happy, you will make them so happy. It is dark up here in Zuma. What's that Johnny? The car begins to sputter but you're so close Johnny, only another ten miles to meet the stranger. The car rolls to the side of the road. The car is dead Johnny and you're ten miles from the stranger. You have to call Johnny, you have to run. The kids won't wait. You have to make the kids happy. You have to make money Johnny. Go go go, Johnny.

You couldn't call the stranger Johnny. The stranger is gone by now Johnny. The kids will be sad and you made them that way Johnny. You don't have the pounds or the quarters or the ounces Johnny. You're alone now. You can stop running Johnny.















Sit there on the beach, sit there at Zuma Beach and watch the waves come from afar and break on the shore Johnny. You can stop running Johnny. The stranger is gone now Johnny. Sit and watch the waves break Johnny. Stop running. See the moon reflect on the Pacific Johnny. You can stop running now Johnny the stranger has gone.

Is It The Greasy Hold Down?

"Oh I know a guy who is following him around."

"What do you mean? To fuck him up?"














"I'm not saying."

"Oh come on, let's see this guy is fucking his wife right, and he's going to kick his ass."

"He's not fucking his wife, he doesn't fuck women."

"What, he's gay?"

"He isn't gay either; he just doesn't fuck women."

"Then he's gay."

"You don't have to not fuck women to be gay."

"Well the odds are better if you don't fuck women that you are gay."

"He's not gay."

"How do you know?"

"He told me so."

"So this gay guy is fucking his wife and wants to kick his ass?"

"I told you he isn't gay and he isn't fucking his wife."

"Right so this guy who isn't gay and isn't fucking his wife wants to kick his ass."

"I didn't say he wanted to kick his ass."

"But you did say he was following him around."















"That is true."

"And he's going to kick his ass."

"No, well I don't think so."

"If this not gay guy who isn't fucking his wife is following him around then why would he do it unless he was going to kick his ass?"

"I'm not saying the guy who isn't gay, shit, I mean, the guy probably does want to kick his ass but I don't think he will."

"Then why is he following him around?"

"He doesn't want to kick his ass per se... but he does want to fuck him up?"

"So could he kick his ass?"

"I don't know they are both pretty large dudes."

"Is the not gay guy afraid of him?"

"No, not at all."

"Does that make him any less gay?"

"He's not gay."

"So if he can kick his ass why doesn't the guy who isn't fucking the wife just fuck him up?"

"He's going to."

"Isn't kicking ass and fucking someone up the same thing?"

"Not really."

"So how do you fuck someone up whose ass you could kick but your not fucking their wife and your not gay?"

"I think he is following him around to serve him papers."

"What kind of papers?"

"Probably divorce papers or a restraining order or something."

"So the guy who isn't fucking his wife wants to fuck him up by serving him with a court document from the wife he isn't fucking?"

"You could say that."















"That sounds pretty gay to me."

"One man's gay is another man's doesn't fuck women."

An Olive Branch For An Anthropophagus

Sometimes we find things when we aren't even aware we are seeking them. Believers say it is serendipity or fate, others claim blind luck or mere happenstance but for some the truth lies somewhere amidst that incomprehensible decussation between guile and stupidity. Bucky had found something while in his early twenties and whether he liked it or not he was stuck with it.















Bucky had grand dreams, dreams of fame, a place where strangers would know and revere him with no need for reciprocation. Oh the misplaced dreams of youth and in their truth the sad palaces they build with moats wide and untraversable. Such was the world he had sought and so through a quirk in destiny did he somehow inhabit that place. Though tenuous in it's definition, and not one much to his design, in a way he achieved that small renown he had so envisioned. To what cost did he become the defalcator of his own future the swifting times so did whisper.

Bucky had blindly swung to and clung to a class, his breed, and stood their shoulders to separate himself, to rise beyond whatever tidemark needed to be crossed in his incognitive pursuit. To his supposed reward his minions sang his praise and elevated him to a place unknowingly far below the point from which he had embarked. As his ascent steepened those misshapen assumptions he had made real took on a greater focus and the celerity in which they secretly accumulated and mutated left him dour and stripped of the incandescence that once fueled his desires.















It was too late for simplicity and trust. There was no giving back what he had never known he had received. In all, he, with a fortune star ruled rather than cursed, might have found there was an expense, known to some as a debt, that must be paid on the one thing he would wrongly claim as being of his own doing. A price taken in increments, a slow dissolution of being, a distortion in value and then in time itself.

Now old into the future Bucky collapsed under the weight of this chimera that had consumed him into being. Alone, his legions now vanished and those shoulders that once hefted him scattered, their league no longer sought, Bucky receded into waters deep and unforgiving. A branch lifted out to him and he saw it. Verdant and alive it extended to his hand out reached.















They keep telling me

and I'm starting to believe

I can walk on water

So Now You Love That Burrito

"So what've you got for me Shel?"

"Adults or kids?"

"Geeeze Shel, aint you got something we can sell across the board?"
















"Sure boss, sure. Me and the boys been doing a lot of work on this and I know I'm going to give you something you're gonna cream over."

"Enough with the lip flappin' Shel, give it to me."

"Where should I start?"

"Adult Contemporary; Go!"

"Listen to this one. We take the musical chops of a Kenny G..."

"I like it so far..."

"Right, right, so we take the chops of Kenny G.,..."

"You already said that. Quit repeating yourself."

"Sure, so we take that, mix it with a guy who can sing like Michael McDonald, and looks like Fabio."

"That's what you got?"

"Its amazing right?"

"Hate it. Find me a Billy Joel. That kid could sure sing and play right, and he wasn't bad looking?"

"Check boss, Jewish piano player that has two first names and aint hard on the eyes, check."

"What else Shel?"

"I got this whiz kid saxophone player."

"Enough with the Kenny G. already."

"No this kid is a jazz prodigy. They say he blows like Bird and looks like a young Chet Baker."

"Jazz, you try to sell me jazz? Shel, when was the last time a jazz artist made us any real money? Shel I need you to produce. You're my ears around here and I rely on you. You don't want to let me down do you son? I can get someone else to sit here and let me down just as easily if you think I should."
















"Ah, no boss I'm just getting started here."

"Shoot."

"Red Day. A punk band who got trapped in a time warp and are still fighting communism."

"Next."

"We got Britney's third cousin."

"Pass."

"Jane's Addiction."

"Good, but not right for our music label. Send them to our commercial licensing division they might have a chance there."

"Right. I got a whole slew of kids form the Echo Park area that are doing the side burns and singer song writer thing."

"What, like that crap we had to suffer through during the sixties. Shel you break my heart. Here we are in the twenty first century and you want to sell me some rehashed Graham Nash, Gordon Lightfoot drivel."

"You know boss we're ready for another fad."

"We could always use a new fad."

"I know that Ska fad didn't take off like we designed it to but I think the kids are ready for this new one."

"Hit me."

"Big bands, you know Glen Miller and all that."

"You want to pay thirty guys in a band. What are you nuts Shel?"

"Alright this might be a little of a reach but a couple of the kids down in the department were thinking."

"Go ahead we need new ideas."

"Okay these kids grew up listening to KROQ and all that new wave garbage."

"Garbage you say. We made a lot of money peddling that crap."

"So these kids in the department are always going on about this band Joy Division."

"Never heard of them."

"No one has. The lead singer hung himself two decades ago."

"What they want to use a dead singer?"

"No boss, this Joy Division had, what I am told, was a great sound, the kids lapped it up but before they got huge the singer guy hung himself."

"Yeah get to the point Shel."

"So this dead guy wrote these really depressing lyrics about alienation and the like, a little deep water for today's market."

"I got you, death aint selling like it used to."

"So what if we get some kids to play this style music and then put some kinky lyrics to it."

"I see, the musical equivalent of a Lindsey Lohan crotch shot."

"Now you're getting it. There was a band, so I've been told, called Soft Cell that wrote songs about sex and dwarves or some such thing, and if we get a couple of sharp pistols to turn some of this type of stuff out I think we'd have ourselves a winner."

"You might have something there Shel."

"Great boss."

"What are you going to call this band with depressing music but fun sexy lyrics?"

"Well the focus group liked band names about girls."

"Jane's Addiction is already taken and so is Alice in Chains. So what have you got?"

"Here's the twist boss it isn't a girl's name. It is a she."

"Now you're thinking Shel. Don't be exclusive, make it about all girls."

"That bit of insight cost us a pretty penny but I think it was worth it."

"This had better pay off in spades."

"Oh it will boss, it will. So we pair that up with an act of violence or horror, you know Alice was in chains, Jane had an addiction."

















"So what does ours have?"

"Ours doesn't have...here's the twist...ours wants."

"Wants's what?"

"Revenge."

"So she wants revenge?"

Golden Wings Silver Bells

"Do you want to come in?"

"Do you think I should?"

"Yeah. Close the door after you."














It was well past midnight and a simple drive home was on the way to turning into something more. He made sure to cross the room to turn a lamp on foregoing the closer light switch that would have lit the overhead. The small apartment was unordered on it's way to being dirty and more then creating mood lighting he wanted to cast as little light on the mess as was necessary in what was his modest home.

"Where do you want me to sit?" she asked.

She looked around, and other than the lone clothes covered stuff chair, there was only the bed.

"You want to watch a DVD?" he inquired with an obviously stultified casualness.

"I guess so."

They both knew that watching a DVD was code for getting on the bed. Getting on the bed was not code for anything. Getting on the bed meant that very little of the DVD would actually be seen. It was more likely to end up as a soundtrack, a starting point, a conversation ender, for there was no need for words for what they both new was on the horizon.

"Why don't you take off your shoes."

"I suppose shoes aren't needed on the bed, I mean, well you know, I wouldn't want to get your sheets dirty and all."

"I wish I had something to offer you to drink?"

"I think I drank enough at the bar."

"No I meant water or something."

"No, its okay."

She sat on the edge of the bed as he walked over to the foot of it where the television was.

"You like Willy Wonka?"

"The new one or the old one?"

"The new one."

"I like the old one better."

"Me too. How about Wild at Heart ? David Lynch is such a genius but some of it is just so obtuse."

He felt like a complete dick the moment the last words left his lips. 'Obtuse, where did that come from?'

"I agree. I get about seventy percent of what he is getting at."

"So should we watch it?"

"Sure."

"Cool."

He attempted to be nonchalant but in reality his mind was three steps ahead. He put the DVD in the old first generation player then looked about and found the remote control. The menu popped up on the screen and he moved and sat next to her on the edge of the bed.

"Before you start it can I use your bathroom?"

"Oh yeah, sure, its right through that door", he said pointing to a spot in the darkness.

He thought to kiss her before she left but she stood abruptly and headed towards the bathroom.

"Be right back don't start it without me."

"No sweat." 'Geeze', he thought, 'no sweat, what the fuck'?

A sudden panic overtook him. 'My god, the bathroom is a filth sty'.














She went into the bathroom and after a second of fumbling found the light switch.

"The switch is on the wall closest to the door", he shouted a second too late.

The bathroom was dirty but she really didn't notice, she'd seen worse and her own, though not in this poor of shape, was itself in need of a thorough cleaning. She was starting to have second, or rather, first thoughts, for it all had transpired so quickly that she hadn't time to consider what was going on. Did she really want to fuck this guy? It didn't matter that she really didn't know him, in fact that was one of the main reasons for doing it, but...did he have rubbers? Did he have a disease? What if his breath stunk? He seemed nice enough in the bar but after four drinks everyone seemed nice. She must have thought him nice enough at the bar for her to give him a ride home when her friend had asked her if she would, not that she could remember, but assuming she had agreed at the time then she supposed she could take that as a plus. Maybe he really was special, then again? She sat on the toilet and tried to pee. If they were going to do it an empty bladder was of the utmost importance. She sat and tried but nothing came.

He sat there and felt the beginnings of a hard on. 'Shit I hope I don't blow it too quick. Of course why would I, its never been a problem but shit...'. He thought about how he would go about it. He should probably wait a little bit, he wouldn't want to come off as presumptuous, 'but hell, a girl knows what DVD watching is all about'. How was he going to get in the bathroom to get a skin, she would have him pegged as soon as he got up. Maybe he should just attack her as soon as she came out. 'That's the way to go, get right to it, leave nothing to chance, she's either down or not'.

She was taking a long time but girls always took a long time in bathrooms didn't they? He wanted to call out and ask her what was taking so long but you can only do that kind of shit with a bona fide girlfriend.

She sat on the toilet and tried to come to a conclusion. He was kind of cute but he had called David Lynch obtuse, one for and one against. It had been a while since she had handed it out, and it could be fun but then again he might be a one hit wonder and there were fair odds that she would be lying next to a snoring stranger in less then twenty minutes. He didn't have a drink for her, 'bummer for him' she thought, 'one more and I wouldn't be having this conversation with myself right now' but she did see a couple of electric guitars as she came in, 'he might be in a band?'.















Nicholas Cage ran across a row of stalled cars into the waiting arms of Laura Dern but they didn't see that moment of obtuse romance. If she had been awake she wouldn't have heard the song David Lynch had chosen for the great love serenade anyways.

She might have been awakened by him to see it but for the fact that the snoring taking place beside her, even in it's ear destroying volume, was strangely in the same key as Nick Cage's earnest call to love.

Hey Didn't They Film Swingers Here? Part XXXVI

"Rene you really are trying to push it buddy."

"Jesus Christmas Sal, I just want a little bud like always. What's the big deal?"














"What's the big deal you ask? I'll tell you Rene, in case you haven't noticed, you are acting like the fool tonight. Now I don't know what little fucked upped things
you got going on but I know you are up to some shady shit and this whole get the rock star high game comes up just a little shy."

"The guy bought me a shot, toasted me as the new, well new to him, bass player. I just figured I'd reciprocate and smoke him out."

"Fucking noble of you I'm sure. What the fuck are you bothering the customers for in the first place?"

"Bothering, fuck that, he asked me to sit down."

"Right, he saw you from across the room, and of course never having seen you before recognized you as the bass player he didn't even know existed, then called for you to join him. Knowing you, you probably made Sheri or Melanie introduce you then moved right on in. You're not so slick Rene and I'm not that stupid."

"Fuck Sal, just kick down a nugget will you? Why do you have to make everything such a major mind fuck all the time?"

"Rene I really hate to tell you this but I've seen your sort come and go my entire life. Always trying to get one over. It gets old pretty fast."

"Fuck Sal, are you going to make me sit through some psychoanalyzing bullshit just to get the kick down you said you'd throw at me in the first place?"

"Quit whining Rene, the whining act is your least convincing probably because its the closest thing to your real personality."

"Why are you laying it on so thick tonight Sal? What's got into you?"

"I don't know what but you are definitely up to something and it isn't going to fly pal. Not here, not tonight."

"Alright, already. I don't know what I'm supposed to be up to but whatever it is I won't do it. So could you please just kick down so I can go burn one and then play the show?"

"Stay away from the rock star."

"Alright I'll stay away form the rock star."

Sal pulled off a small chunk of bud from the bag, good enough for a little more then a pinner and handed it to Rene.
















"Got a paper?"

"Anything else?"

"Sorry Sal."

"No rock star right?"

"Okay, no rock star. Will you cover Jerry for five while we do this?"

"Does it ever stop with you? Christ almighty...okay shit, just come and get me when your ready. And Rene, don't roll it in the bar go into the john and do it."

"No sweat Sal, thanks."

"No fucking around tonight Rene."

"Jesus Christ already Sal, I heard you. What, you want me to sign a blood oath?"

"You'd probably use someone else's blood, get out of here."

Rene left Sal's office and bumped into Sheri outside the door.

"Hey Sheri, me and Jerry are going to hit the alley and blow one, you want in?"

"You mean smoke some pot? I don't know about you Rene but I can't work when I'm stoned especially that stuff that Sal gets and knowing you its probably Sal's."

"How right you are. Just thought I'd ask."

"I suppose that was nice of you to do?"

"You bet it was. Maybe a drink later?"

Sheri couldn't believe the gall of Rene and became flustered.

"I got to get out of here, I mean, I'm going back in, to the bar, I mean to work."

"Sure babe. Could you tell Jerry that I'm in the head rolling one up and to get Sal to cover for him then meet me in the alley."

"Whatever Rene."
















Rene walked into the bar and then straight over to the rock star's table.

Shut Up You Hockey Puck

Being a card carrying member of IATSE local #44, had served Terry Bemis very well. It afforded him a comfortable life style and he truly enjoyed the work. He had started out in the feature film world but after a few years of doing that he chose to move on to serialized television. The work on the features was fine, it was just the time commitment they required that he so hated. Two to fours months, six days a week, fourteen hours a day, to Terry Bemis that wasn't living at all.

Terry was a set dresser, he prepared the stages and sets for production. At times he wasn't more then a glorified furniture mover but to Terry each discipline on the set held it's own critical importance and set dressing to Terry was as valued as any of the other craft positions. He liked serialized television because the hours were regular week in and week out. He reported to the same lot each day and all his materials were right where he had left them the night before. He preferred working on shows that filmed in front of a live audience. Live audience shows only filmed one day a week so on the other days there wasn't the constant immediacy necessary on filmed shows and movies, and on any day but Friday Terry could go about his work at a calm deliberate pace.

On most days there wasn't a whole lot for him to do and so Terry became very creative at finding interesting ways at spending his idle time. Being a member of the Art Department gave Terry access to the large warehouses that stored all the props and furniture once used in the studio's film and television productions. Terry loved to explore these vast collections of pop arcanum and would get lost in their mysteries. He couldn't believe some of things he would come across. Each item was tagged with a history of their use, there would be a gun logged to show John Wayne had fired it in The Searchers, or a couch from The Graduate.

One day Terry was in one of the warehouses just killing time. He had told his production assistant where he would be and had given strict instructions that if he were to be missed on set that the P.A. was to come and get him in the warehouse. He walked to the deepest part of the hangar sized building. There were old magazines stacked ten feet high, aisles and aisles of kitchen ware, old wood burning stoves, every kind of bed known to man. As Terry was bending down to pick up a football tagged as having being used in Knute Rockne All American, something caught his eye. It was a big plastic bubble like object and Terry couldn't help but to go check it out.














As he got closer he saw where it wasn't one bubble but two interconnected inverted plastic bowls. The plastic bowls were suspended a few feet off the ground from a wire hanging from a metal frame. Terry felt a need to crawl under one of the bubbles and so he did. It was eerily quiet in the bubble. There was no echoing and when he spoke he couldn't hear his own voice. He banged on the bubble and still there was no sound. Terry looked down and saw a tag laying on the ground and he bent down and picked it up.

The tag read, Get Smart episode No. 10 'Mr. Big'. 'Of course' thought Terry, as visions of Don Adams as 86, and Ed Platt as The Chief raced through him. 'Oh Agent 99, Barbara Feldon, how I longed for you as a young man'. Terry stood there and leap frogged back to his youth. He remembered how the Cone of Silence, had been invented by Professor Cone, and how The Chief never wanted to use it but Agent 86 would always insist. How it's failure was blamed on the fact it was purchased at discount warehouse.

With out warning Terry began to cry. It wasn't the loss of the past that so stirred him, of a youth gone by, 'I've been living in my own cone of silence', he thought. 'I work and I go home. I spend all my time alone. I have no friends. Who am I fooling?'. The tears subsided and Terry extracted himself from the silly prop and made his way out of the warehouse back to the set.















As Terry walked in the door his P.A. came running up to him.

"Where've you been? They've been calling for you the last ten minutes."

"You know where I was, I told you to come get me if I was needed."

"I did."

"I told you Bldg. 12."

"That's where I went. Didn't you hear me? I was screaming your name for five minutes?"

Can You See The Real Me? Can You?

"You comin' with?"

"Where ya goin'?"















"Gonna get some mistletoe."

"Where at?"

"Spose Von's"

"Von's? They got that there?"

"Spose so."

"Loose and all?"

"Naw, prolly in a package."

"Don't that suck some of the fun out of it."

"Maybe in the gettin' but not in the doin'."

"You gonna catch yourself some smooches?"

"Spose if someone is goin' to, it best be me."

"Caint you just get that mistletoe off some tree? You gotta go to Von's?"

"Don't know what tree the mistletoe be in."

"Maybe they aint got it here wild in Los Angeles."

"Maybe not then."

"Mistletoe's the only thing about this Christmas I like to do."

"Sure do love me some smooches."

"Right said there."

"I aint bothering on a tree."

"Too big huh."

"Too big and you don't get no smooches from it."

"Why ya think that ya gotta smooch under the mistletoe?"

"I don't know prolly something do to with Santy Clause."

"Nah, Santy Clause aint for real."
















"I know that but smooching under mistletoe aint for real but just like good ole Santy people believe in it."

"Sure do get some smooches under the mistletoe."

"Hopes to."

"You seen them hats with the mistletoe hangin' out over the bill?"

"Sure has, like them beer hats, but I drink the beer out the can and I hang the mistletoe over the front door, just the way I do it."

"Pretty smart then."

"Shock and awe you know."

"Von's huh?"

"Spose so."

"Maybe I should get me some."

"Might need a door to hang it on."

"Spose yer right."

"So you goin' with?"

"Don't think so."

"Alright. Help me hang it when I get back."

"You trying to trick me?"

"Ah sure no. Thinkin' like that, spose the mistletoe is just for boys and girls?"

"Never thought of it that way."

"Me neithers."

"I guess if some boys are inclined that way it works."

"Girls too?"

"Wouldn't mind if I saw me some of that."

"Yup."

"What do you think Santy Clause thinks about all that?"

"There aint no Santy Clause so he might not be thinkin' nothing of it."

"True that."

"Best we not think nothing of it neither."
















"Not even of the girls?"

"Well maybe the girls might not be so wrong."

"Yeah the girls under the mistletoe."

"So you goin' with?"

"Maybe, maybe so."

Scrubbed Shuttle To The Bright Light

Cyril pulled back the curtain on another miraculous day. Blinded momentarily by a sun too bright to be possible, he stood still and let the rays burn deep into his eyes then closed them and watched as colors exploded into geometric blasts of kaleidoscopic fractuals on his eyelids. It all reminded him of his trip.















Pausing a moment to get his bearings, Cyril opened his eyes and moved back from the window into the hotel room. It was just a hotel room and no amount of fruit baskets or congratulatory bouquets would make it anything but, though for now it was as good as being anywhere in relation to where he had been and what he had seen.

He picked up the clothes he had thrown on the floor the night before, too drunk to have folded them neatly but really now things like folding clothes meant very little to Cyril. The suitcase bent easily to his will and zipped shut with little resistance. He went into the bathroom and stood before the mirror. Could this really be him? Had he really done what he had done? He took his complimentary toothbrush and placed some paste on it and began to brush. Foam showed at the corners of his mouth and he looked at it as if it no longer seemed that he, Cyril, would, while brushing his teeth, still have to look at foam in his mouth. Shouldn't everything have changed now that he was back?

He sat on the hotel room bed and dialed the bellmen to come for his bag and then exited the room. Would this room gain some renown for Cyril having slept in it? Would years in the future the hotel proudly proclaim that he had spent his first night back in this room? Would the sheets be snatched up by some enterprising maid and then sold to the highest bidder? It was possible.

There were two government men waiting outside his door and wordlessly he was ushered to an empty elevator that they rode down to the lobby of the hotel. As the Otis door opened he was handed to another set of government men, an agency man, obviously lead on the assignment, extended a hand and introduced himself. Cyril saw where the lobby had been cordoned off and beyond the stanchions a teeming horde of reporters came alive at the sight of him.

Flashes sparked and light umbrellas lit as the television people went live.

"Over here, Cyril, Cyril."

"Smile for us."

It hadn't been this way before his trip. He was just another pilot going on another mission but all this changed high above the earth's orbit.

"Cyril, do you still believe in god?"

The agency man led him before the cameras then spoke to the assembled mob.

"Ladies and gentlemen, no questions at this time. A report will be released in a timely manner and at some point in the future he will be able to speak with you and answer your questions. I'm sorry but that is all the time we have."

Amidst indistinguishable shouts, flashes and arms outstretched, microphones in hand, Cyril was led out of the hotel and rushed into an agency black Suburban. A motorcade of black Suburbans stretched fore and aft and they all pulled away simultaneously.

The agency man sat beside him in the second row of seats the front and back rows filled by what appeared to be agency men of lesser stature. As they left the circular drive of the hotel and came onto the main street the agency man turned to him and spoke.

"Sorry about all this. We would have flown you out by the customary manner but Washington wants to claim this as an American discovery so they felt it necessary to trot you out, if ever so briefly in front of the public."

"Don't worry. That hotel was nicer then any military base I've been on." Cyril said casually. It struck him how calm he was. It was if he had always kind of expected this to happen to him.

"So tell me. What was the first thing you thought of?"

"I'm sorry, I have been instructed not to speak until I am debriefed in Washington."

"Oh I know all that, but really when you looked up and saw it, what was the first thing you thought of? Did you realize what it was that you were seeing?"

"Really I can't speak of this with you."

"I'm sorry to press sir but I think you understand, I mean I hope you do, how exciting all this is, and though I may be working for the agency I am still a man and share the same curiosities as everyone around the world."
















"No problem." And it wasn't a problem.

As the motorcade made it's way across town Cyril went back to that moment. He had been alone in the observation window with his camcorder. He had never felt closer to god, he was praying and giving thanks when it had appeared. At first he thought it to be just another common anomaly. Then it began to grow in size and seemed to be approaching the craft. Had he gone mad? He leveled the camcorder and double checked to assure that it was functioning properly; it was.

Soon the whole of his vision was filled by this strange sight. His eyes were filled with geometric blasts of kaleidoscopic fractuals and he felt a strange pull that started in the center of his head. He tried to call out to his fellow astronauts but couldn't and then to his amazement he was filled with a serenity that rendered that effort moot. The lights lingered before him then fled making turns at angles and speeds that did not compute in his reasoning. Cyril was the first person to have made contact.

Dumbfounded he made his way to the others and explained what had happened. The report was sent to an unbelieving mission control and then the video was uplinked. The mission was to be cut short and the craft was sent speedily home.

All this seemed almost normal to Cyril. Why shouldn't he be the first human to make verifiable contact with life from another realm? He had never entertained this idea before but now that it was upon him it was the most normal of things. As the motorcade rolled onto the tarmac there was one thing that Cyril could not clear from his mind. It wasn't about anything he had seen or done. It wasn't about what was to happen. It was something that one of the reporter's had shouted to him as he was rushed through the lobby of the hotel.















"Cyril, do you still believe in god?"

They Are Amazingly Self Absorbent

"Where were you yesterday?"

"Hiding out."

"What for?"

"You need ask?"
















"I have an idea but it was pretty damn shitty thing to do."

"It might have seemed shitty but I was doing us all a favor myself included."

"You think so?"

"Oh yes. Yesterday was one of those days and I knew early on it would be better to just burrow into the bunker and stay out of the mayhem."

"Like what? My day was okay."

"Well it might have been spectacular if not for the confluence of a lot of negative juju floating around."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. Clearstone drank a case of beer, lost his girl and his job yesterday."

"Bummer."

"You bet. Shaef got the old heave ho from the landlord."

"Should of paid his rent."

"Nope, landlord claimed his spot, moving in the place himself."

"Can't say shit to that."

"Right. Del Monte is in county, fifty gee bail, court date isn't until the twenty sixth, and for once the guy is innocent, well not innocent but the judge in B.H. filed a paper wrong so the city D.A. harshed him."

"Whoa."

"Magpie called at ten. Said she wanted to cry even though everything was fine."

"Shiite."

"It goes on and on. So I had a premonition early on to just lock the door and let the world spin one more time until I poked my head out."

"Probably a smart move."

"I think it was. Today is super bad ass so there you go."

"There you go."

"I'll see ya later tonight after Piazza's."

"Cool. Later skater."

The Sea Of Cortez

"No I won't do it."

"Aw c'mon please."















"I can't."

"Sure you can."

"No I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because it is the winter of my soul."

"Doesn't sound too good."

"Oh it sure isn't."

"Actually sounds like suckajaweea."

"You mean the indian princess who leads you only to bummer times?"

"The one and the same."

"I guess I'm following her path as we speak."

"She loves that full moon. I heard she was a lycanthrope."

"Like a wolfman?"

"That's the one."

"Say how do you pronounce that?"

"What wolf-man? It's easy."

"No; lycanthrope. Is it a hard cee or a soft cee."

"Funny you should ask. I believe it would be the hard cee, almost a kay, though I'm not fully sure."

"I'll go with the hard cee being that I have nothing to lose at this juncture in time."

"That bleak?"

"Bleaker."

"How come?"

"I guess I just got a busload of the lonely guys."

"How's that work."

"The usual. Being awkward socially, feeling you have nothing to offer, the whole victim of the world scenario."

"Harsh."

"I've been here before. It aint permanent."

"Well that's some good news."

"I suppose."

"Damn throw a wet blanket over everything why don't you?"















"Told you I couldn't do it."

"Hmmmph."

Hey Didn't They Film Swingers Here? Part XXXV

"Are you crazy Marty? you don't smoke."

"Humor me Sheri, please."
















"And you want two? What, one's not enough for you?"

"I just want the one, the other is for Elaine."

"Now I know you really have gone mad. Elaine doesn't smoke either."

"Sheri I'm old enough to be your father for god's sake, I don't need a lecture from you little miss smart pants, so if you could just go to your purse and get me a couple of cigarettes, please."

"Sure pops whatever you say."

Rene gave Sal's door his customary over zealous rap.

"Who's it? Like I don't know already."

"Its me, Rene."

"What a surprise. Alright, come on in."

Elaine was just steps away from Sal's office when she saw Rene open the door and enter. She hurried her steps and quickly made her way past Sal's closed door and out the back entrance of the restaurant.

Enrique was standing at the valet station and looked over as she exited.

"Miss Elaine. Going so soon?" Enrique said chuckling at his own good humor.

"The crowd should be so lucky." Elaine riffed back.

Over the years the people at the restaurant had become close. Their every behavior recognized and their knowledge of each other gave Elaine a profound fondness for each one. Each one save Rene Navarette.

"I have a nice BMW I just parked that we can steal if you want to run away with me tonight Miss Elaine."

"Oh Enrique, how you make me blush. Can you see I'm blushing in this dim light. Of course you can't, but just imagine that I have turned crimson at your bold offer."

"I have friends that can take care of that pesky husband of yours."

"Its a deal. Make the call."

Just then Marty came bounding out of the restaurant.

















"Okay I caught you two. What was the offer tonight Enrique a Mercedes?"

"No mister Marty; a BMW."

"Have you called for your dangerous friends yet?"

"He was going to until you had the audacity to interrupt us."

"Better luck next time Enrique."

"Sure bet mister Marty."

Marty grabbed Elaine gruffly by the elbow and pulled her out towards the alley.

"Come on little girl let's be bad."

"You are such the rebel Marty. Swoon."

"I got the stash, the goods, the gear, the works."

"And so well connected to the seedy underbelly."

"Well you know us jazzbos are a pretty fast bunch."

Marty and Elaine walked down the alley to a dark spot and then Marty pulled her close to him and kissed her.

"Pretty fresh there mister?"

"You bet honey."

Marty produced the cigarettes and then made a grand spectacle of lighting them both at once. He handed one to Elaine and then they each took a small puff.

"We don't look so pathetic now do we?"

"Not in this light we don't."

They made a few more vain attempts to smoke the cigarettes.

"These taste awful Marty."

"I know I think I'm going to be ill."

"Can we put them out now?"

"I think that would be the smart thing. Can't say we didn't try."

"You don't have to smoke Marty. Jazzbos like you are cool no matter what you do."

"Thanks dear."

Elaine was enjoying the relative quiet of the alley. It wouldn't be long before they would have to enter the restaurant and do the show. She would have rather taken Enrique up on his offer then face Rene.

"Marty."

"Yes dear."

"I want to talk to you."

"I know."

"I need to talk to you about Rene."

"I know Elaine, I know."

"But I..."

"Listen Elaine. I know everything and I'm sure you had your reasons."

"How do you know?"

"This night is supposed to be a night of celebration. Now I want you to forget all about Rene and just relax. We can deal with all this on another day."

"Are you sure you're just not saying that?"

"Everything is fine Elaine. Let's just go inside and play the show and have fun."

"If that's what you want."

"It is."

Marty and Elaine waved at Enrique as he hopped into an old Thunderbird and roared back into the valet parking lot. As they entered the restaurant they walked down the steps and stood in front of Sal's door.
















"So let me get this right Rene. You want a kick down."

"Sure Sal, nothing out of the ordinary except could you make it enough for a fatty because the rock star wants to burn one with me."

Will The Party Never End?

"You're always talking about the same thing."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"















"I'm just saying that when ever we go out you're always saying the same shit."

"Like what?"

"Oh really. Hmmm let me think. Oh how about, well I'm writing this thing its really interesting. I'm doing this unique thing on the internet."

"I do?"

"Then you go on about the latest lame story that you wrote. About the process and how beleaguered you are each night trying to come up with something creative but in a form that is easily digestible. You talk down to people like you are so fucking special. How people don't read anymore and that you are inhabiting some sort of moral high ground because you write your stupid fucking stories, as if that were some deep special thing."

"What do you want me to talk about?"

"I don't know, how about politics or music or film anything but your damn writing."

"But I don't know anything about those things."

"If you don't have any knowledge of these things then why do you think anyone would want to read what you have to say anyway? You are obviously a dolt."

"I don't know why anyone would read my writing except maybe its interesting."

"Right, interesting to who?"

"I don't know but people read it. Granted I don't know who they are or why they read it but I know that at least a few people do on a regular basis."

"Keep dreaming, no one reads your drivel."

"What are you saying? That I should stop writing?"

"I'm not going to go that far I'm just saying that maybe you should stop talking about it."

"Do you read it?"

"Maybe sometimes."

"I think you do just a little more then that."

"You do?"

"Oh I sure do."

"How's that?"

"I installed a tracker and your IP address comes up every day."

"It does?"















"And I know who you link from."

"You do?"

"Thought you could hide by linking from Calidocious didn't you?"

"I never really thought of it."

"Yup. And if you think I don't know it is you who is posting those comments anonymously then you are in for a shock."

"How long have you known?"

"The whole time."

"That doesn't mean you have to go on yapping about it all the time."

"How do you know that I'm yapping about it?"

"Well I don't but I'm sure you are."

"Does this mean your not going to come down to Piazza's on Wednesday to hear me read?"

"Yeah I'll still come I said I would."

"Are you bummed that I found you out?"

"Maybe a little."

"Listen whether you like it or not I really appreciate that you read it everyday and post comments."

"You do?"

"Sure."















"Hey look at those girls over there. They're amazing."

"Yeah, real sterling."

"Let's go over and talk to them."

They walked over to the two pretty girls.

"Hi girls. My name is Joshua and this is my friend Dave. He's a writer. Hey Dave why don't you tell them about your writing."

Till The Dinosaurs Say Goodbye

The door was slightly ajar as he approached. The single story stucco building was nondescript at best and a bell hanging from a string chimed as he pushed through into the spare waiting room. There were cheap travel posters of exotic beaches tacked to the walls and a small table, with what looked like a Mexican poncho serving as a crude tablecloth, was set against the wall. In the far corner was a small forest of crystals arranged in a obviously mannered way.














It had been a strange path that led him to this place. After years of visits with a psychologist, only then to be referred to a psychiatrist, and after that onto the psychoanalysts couch, did he become willing to pursue what he considered voodoo science; astrology. After so many unsuccessful years with studied professionals bent on uncovering and curing him of this malady that had so dogged him did his barrier to any and all remedies evaporate. He was willing to seek relief from any and all forms no matter how ridiculous his attitude towards them might have been in the past.

He stood alone in the room and after a moment had passed and no one had come to greet him he called out.

"Hello, anyone home?"

A pretty girl in her early twenties, hair cropped close, dressed in pegged jeans and a fashion tee came out of a back room.

"Oh there you are."

"Were you waiting long?"

"No its fine."

"You must be my three o'clock?"

"Ah, yeah. Phil."

"Okay Phil why don't we go inside and get started. This was the half hour session right?"

Phil didn't respond but followed the girl to a darkened room with pillows surrounding a low slung coffee table.

"Take a seat there. Okay, first let me get some information from you."

Phil sat down and couldn't take his eyes off the girl. He expected her to be a hippy chick with long curly hair and a flowing flowered gown not this thoroughly modern young thing.

"First if you could tell my your birthday, then the city you were born in and if possible the time of day?"

She wrote the dates and times down and then got a book out and started to make some calculations and then she began filling in charts. Phil watched quietly happy to just watch her and being thankful that he didn't have to answer a lot of questions like he had with the shrinks.














"Are you ready?" she asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Here goes. This is interesting your Sun and Moon as well as your Ascendant sign are all in Aries. That is a pretty rare situation, very rare in fact."

"What does it mean?"

"You have the potential to be a natural leader. Your thoughts and feelings are harmonious with the actions you ultimately take. You see Aries is the first sign of the zodiacal belt and its natives seem also desirous of being first in all activities with which they happen to be involved."

"I see."

"You are not a pure intellectual; rather we should say that you are passionate, impulsive, with an outspoken nature which can be better expressed in activities that have to do with the mind."

"Wow that is pretty accurate."

"Because of your constant mobility and quick mind it is very difficult for you to feel calm and tranquil."

"Unbelievable."

"This next part is a little rough. In love you are passionate, and like to be the first person in the sexual life of the people to whom you give your love."

"I see what you mean. That is a little embarrassing."

"The Sun was in your twelfth house at the time of birth. This may indicate a life full of limitations, obstacles, and human opposition."

"So it wasn't my imagination."

"It is possible that the little popularity that you may enjoy in this life will be from some very reserved and secretive circles where your merits are recognized. It can be expected that you will be successful in positions that call for solitude or remote locations."

"Ten years on the couch and you would think they could have told me a least some of this."

"The Moon conjunct the Ascendant shows that you have some emotional hangups. You want close, intimate contacts with others, but you tend to keep people at arm's length because you are afraid you will become obligated to them."

"Why doesn't any of this surprise me?"

"You are a mass of contradictions making demands on people but complaining when they do the same to you; expecting others to make overtures to you and withdrawing when they do. Although you are highly imaginative, you react to stimulating people in a generally negative and critical way."

"Are you saying that since I want to be first, I need to be first, that if someone beats me to the punch then it pisses me off?"

"I'm afraid so."

"And you are telling me all this based on when and where I was born?"

"Well if you think that I went and researched your whole life and then compiled a dossier on you and memorized it so I could make the fifty dollars this is costing you, I'd say your even more vain then your profile asserts."

"I get you. This is amazing. Anything else?"

"The general course of your life will be filled with many ups and downs and changes conforming very much with the psychological nature of your temperament. Whether you triumph or not in life depends on your ability to develop your most positive inborn qualities and, simultaneously, exert some control over your less favorable characteristics, such as a lack of prudence, and a certain disregard for the feelings and opinions of others."

"So let me get this right. You are telling me things about my makeup but with this knowledge I can change the less desirable parts of personality and hopefully live a better life."

"You catch on quick. Oh that's right you are an Aries."

"Damn I should have figured this out a lot earlier."

"Again very Aries of you."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"No, not in the least. Aries is a great sign some of my favorite people are Aries."

"Do you think I should consult the stars on a regular basis?"

"It couldn't hurt. Your time with me is up but I just want you to know that astrology is real and it can not be undone. These are the facts for you and you are welcome to do with them what you feel necessary. I think you should know that your Mars is in retrograde."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Its not the best but it will change in a couple of days. Just be careful."

They stood and walked into the light of the front room. He handed her the fifty dollars but was so taken from the experience that he handed her another fifty in appreciation.

"Thank you so much. Please come back."

"Oh I will. Thank you."

As he walked into the day he felt as if a light had been switched on. Everything was clear to him. His whole life seemed to take on new meaning and made sense to him in a way he had never imagined.















As he came to his car he stopped and looked down before him. On the ground standing between him and his car was a black cat. The black cat looked up at and stared, and then hurriedly ran away from him.

"Just my luck."

Hey Smart Are You There?

People have all sorts of ideas. Everything can be ruled upon in ones own sphere and people can abide notions that to others might approximate unfettered foolery. Some of these notions concern other people. Some of these notions concern ourselves. There are some among among us who groom these notions to their better effect. Alex Adroyt was one such person. His manipulations were born of necessity.














It wasn't until well into his fortieth annum that his sight began to fail him. On a routine visit to the opthomologist his doctor had diagnosed him with Retinitus Pigmentosa, and said that in the near future he most possibly could lose all sight. It was a gradual decline but after a few short years another follow up exam ensued and he was informed that he was now legally blind.

Alex Adroyt was a man of many hidden secrets. Secrets he obfuscated from even those closest to him. Alex Adroyt was, unbeknownst to nearly all, actually a woman. A large person, he each morning wrapped tightly around his chest a broad elastic sports bandage that served to conceal what would make his ruse transparent. His every other manner was of the male gender and so he lived in relative anonymity. The one person who knew of his charade being his ex-wife, although her children, whom still referred to him as dad, were unaware of his aseity.

Alex lived alone and had very few friends. He was not the lonely sort but saw his solitude as a choice and cherished his independence above all. To him there was triumph in each day he strode the earth as a man and to him this was enough. He was a man of routine and lead a measured and calculated existence; he had to.

He shopped at the same grocery store and procured the same purchases each outing only finding pause if one such item were to be discontinued or moved to another location in the store. A proud man he then would demure and seek the help of a store clerk to find the missing product.

The one thing he prided more then any other was his mobility. Well past when the law would have allowed he drove his car. He retained a valid license through an easy deception having memorized the Snellen eye charts, and the friendly assistance of those waiting in line to take the test.

He drove the same route each day and not being completely sightless was keen to gauge shapes and motion to determine distances. He knew times and landmarks and used these to navigate the short rides around his neighborhood. On one day he rolled just a little too far into an intersection before coming to a stop. A police car was in observance and so fired up the red lights. At first Alex was naive to the policeman
but after a short blast of the siren Alex realized his folly and pulled over.

"Excuse me sir but can I see your driver's license, registration and proof of insurance."

Alex procured the required items and handed them through the opened window to the officer. The policeman looked at the driver's license and then to Alex.















"Oh, I'm sorry ma'am. I mean it says Alexis here and well, do you know that you were half way into this intersection before you came to a stop?"

Alex peered up at the officer through his thick glasses.

"I'm sorry officer. Does this mean I get a ticket?"

"We'll see. Wait here I'll be right back."

The officer disappeared into a wall of blurred mass. Alex couldn't see what the policeman was doing for Alex couldn't see. A few moments later the officer returned.

"Ma'am could you do me a favor and get out of the car?"

"Is there a problem officer? My insurance is paid isn't it?"

"Ma'am could you please exit the vehicle and move to the sidewalk for me?"

"Don't you need to give me a reason?"

"Reason or not you are still going to have to get out of the vehicle for me but I have detected that you are having trouble focusing your eyes when you speak to me and that is the first thing we look for in an intoxicated driver so if you would just exit the car so I can administer a field sobriety test."

Alex did his best to find his way to the sidewalk and then failed most every test given by the policemen.

"Alexis..."

"Its Alex."

"Okay, Alex, I'm going to give you a chance to level with me. How much have you had to drink?"

"Nothing sir."

"Are you on any medication that would inhibit your ability to operate a motor vehicle?"

"No sir."

"Alex. I notice you seem to have all your motor skills but are having trouble with your eyes."

"I'm sorry."

"Alex, can you see me?"

"I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize just answer the question."

"No sir."

"Alex are you blind?"

"I'm sorry but yes I have a greatly reduced capacity to see."

"Alex how long have you been driving like this?"

"It has been quite a few years now.'

"A blind driver well this is a first."

"I'm sorry."

"You are not under arrest but I would like you to get in the patrol car and I'll drive you home. Alex you can not drive anymore you pose a danger to public safety do you understand this?"

"I suppose so."

The bus was noisy and crowded and Alex had trouble making his way across the parking lot from the bus stop to the supermarket. His white cane was unwieldy but he was still living on his own. He was a proud man and that they couldn't take from him.















People have all sorts of ideas. Everything can be ruled upon in ones own sphere and people can abide notions that to others might approximate unfettered foolery. Some of these notions concern other people. Some of these notions concern ourselves. There are some among among us who groom these notions to their better effect. Alex Adroyt was one such person. His manipulations were born of necessity.