8 posts tagged “cops”

Restructured to make a little more sense.  Still haven't gone chronological, though.  Everything that has been added in this iteration of the compendium has (new) next to it.  Six (new)'s under non-fiction and five (new)'s under other.  So, eleven entries worth putting on the revised compendium.  The last time I did one of these was about this time last year.  Not a good sign.

Non-fiction Stories(with no organization whatsoever):
(new)You're Creepy, Hunter - A girl tells me I am creepy.  I get even.

(new)Phoenix - I don't think I am supposed to write about something that is supposed to be anonymous.  Oh well.

(new)Strange Format - Saturday Show   -  Seriously the strangest format or lack thereof I have ever used.  Almost like a poem.  I've bad luck and things get out of hand.

(new)Graham's 21st Birthday - "No, dude, we're walking home.  It's like two blocks."

(new)Dead Cicada - A woman is assaulted while holding her child.  I intercede.

(new)A Warning - First Friday's in Richmond!

Salvia Gets Too Real - Fourth and worst trip on Salvia.

The Most Puke I Have Ever Seen - Imagine this next scene.  Try to visualize it with me.  My eyes open to the ceiling, my body shocked out of deep REM sleep.  My legs and waist are moist. . .

Drunk People - An interesting twist-- I'm not drunk in this story. For once in my life.

Black and Mild - I'll miss drinking with friends on top of the roof at my old apartment.  I will miss that Mediterranean market, with its natural soaps and cheap spices.  I will miss all those families who called the cops on me when I played music too loud on Monday nights.  Ahh

Hunter Takes it to the Limit, Throws Up Everywhere - In The Top Five Drunkest Nights

Pissing in Pools I & II - My double standard on people who pee in pools.

A Retelling of the First Time I Smoked

A Trip To Walmart - Seriously one of the best destinations while high.  Interesting, entertaining, sometimes a little creepy.

To Move My Body - When reality sinks in, when you think you've got nothing, you become psychic, telepathic, and shameless. This story has procession of Segways!

The Things I Remember - I somehow wake up at 2PM in my dorm, still drunk from the night before.  A rough bus ride does me in.

Hunter Blacks Out, Goes To Patient First, Blames Free Beer - Pretty self explanatory.

A Tucker Emulation, It Seems - The very first story I wrote.

Handcuffed, Robbed, and 6 O'clock Rush - Pretty self-explanatory.  Breakfast club.

Hunter Gets High, Driving Barely Ensues - I get high, and drive.  Sort of.

Lebanese: A "Nice Guy" Failure - Nine Guys, One Girl.  I get the girl and ride off into the sunset(upstairs), but turn out to be a "nice guy."

JMU, PART I - The first and, since, only time I have been breathalyzed.  There is no part II.  Part II would be better though, as it includes doing mushrooms, a starving French guy, five plus parties, nearly getting run over, really drunk chicks with australian accents, and BLOODHOUNDS.  But this story has none of that.

THE WEEKEND - A three day bender, with a decadent interlude of cheating debauchery.  All set to the soundtrack of the very trite Garden State. 

Bloody in '08 - A New Year story, complete with someone who attempts to smash a full, unopened champagne bottle over his head.

Perfect Night Ruined by Marriot, Morning -- This story is far too long to hold your attention.  Do not read it.

Short(or long) Stories(Fiction):

Saint Dympna - My favorite.

The Sink at Sunset - Guy has mobile home of a heart.  This is life at 20.

Shells - My drug induced interpretation of the scramble suits in A Scanner Darkly caused this short.  Later turned into a short fiction piece (for a class) called Mise en Place or The Writer.

Nine-Tenths is Nothing - Our children are here to replace us.  One man attempts to slow this process by proving he is better than them and protecting his wife from kid perverts. 

The Last Boat to the Disappearing - A seven vignette fiction piece about flaming zombies.  As much as I wish I had written them gay, they are actually on fire.

Story Starter Exercise - A brief story about a friend who got kicked up and did a lot of drugs while living in the woods.
 

Other:
(new)At The Edge of The Neighborhood - Vivid zombie dream.

(new)Shut Down or Reset - Up late? Two options.  Special bonus feature: scene from this year's Best Friends Day @ Hadad's

(new)A Haiku - About a day I spent at the river getting drunk with someone I didn't know.  She was taken and I fell and cut myself on a rock.  Then there is a sexual allegory at the end.  There, I ruined it.

(new)My First Near-Ticket on a Bicycle

(new)Autumn - The Greatest and Best Time of Year

Can Blood Cells Have Car Accidents? - Thoughts after the fire.

Janus - Girl cheats on me.  Girl dies in short story Sink at Sunset.

Transcribing the Knowledge of The Smoke, Part I  -- I test my voice recorder during a toking session.  Heavy on the dialogue.

Transcribing the Knowledge of The Smoke, Part II -- The better half of the overall recording experience.  A lot of in depth high conversation. 

Friend's Mom Finds Out About Hunter's Livejournal, Missiles Fly - Probably one of the more significant events in the history of my online writing.

Under a Hot Chicago Sun - I didn't even know my neighbors name.

H-D-P-E Does Not Spell "Hope"  -  Recycling is hopeful.  I am not.

It Is Only Hubris If I Fail - Childhood with a heavy dose of failure, sprinkled with Sloane Crosley.

Sick Dream D.A.N.C.E. - Dreams are fun.  Dreams about partying and religious fanatics that all have the same face... strange.  Sick dreams are most disturbing.

Rape, Tacos, and Love - I get raped, noticed for my writing at a party, have sex for the first time high, eat really good tacos, and listen in on a nasty girl shit.

Tainted Elephant Oil Prices Dowsed in Sickly-Sweat-Stained Dreams - More sick dreams, musings on family life and relationships.

Zombie Christ Day

Metal Shows - Are awesome.  Especially when you know the band.  Even if it's at a lame venue. 

Derelict Father, Are We the Cause of Our Suffering?

Shit's Run Its Course - I inherit a bike from a metal head who stole it from a crack head.

The Bear, The Bee, The Rhino - I connect with mother nature, understand things I never thought possible.

Night Luck - I have only gotten in trouble with the law when sober.  Sobriety really takes the spine out of me.

Condom Debacle - A young Hunter hides a partially used condom in duct-tape.

Jesus Freaks - I lament about my hatred for street-preachers.  This is a Facebook classic.

Bloody Knuckles - It wasn't a game that gave me these.

Diphenhydramine - The first time I ever tripped on a deliriant.

Bulgarians are Hardcore - Intoxicated 5 times the lethal limit, this Bulgarian gets hit by a car and sent to the hospital for minor head trauma.

A Little Funny and The Encroaching

Sunchips? - Do you know why they call them sunchips?

LIRICKES -  The funniest rap "lirickes" you'll read all week.

The Binary Universe and How Choice Works  -  With diagrams and shit.

Poems - A little too sing-songy.

Soundscape - High times.

The Nature of Souls and Soulmates - Got a decent response for this one.

Scanner Darkly and the Universe as a Vague Set of Prepositions

Demon Play, Demon Out - Your shoes are not an extension of anything that matters to your person.

Clocked Out - A New Year - 2007.  Some things get better, other things are mentioned less.

New - I miss writing.

  He swings it, round and round.  It forms a ring around his body, like that of Saturn's, but these aren't frozen space particles-- this is fiery hatred!  An absolute expression of the life and death of flame.  He swings two chains around his body. Flame trails from rods wrapped in lighter-fluid-drenched swaddle, hits and crawls along the uninhabitable asphalt.  In fashionable blue.  

I can feel the heat
from several feet.
His body must be
hot and sweaty. 

The ring secured around his finger snaps and he loses grip on the chain.  It hurdles, ball over chain right into my face and my beard bursts into flame!  I am now writhing on the cobble in front of Gallery 5 trying to extinguish my face. 

Okay, that last traumatic bit does not happen.  Just something I envision while spectating. 

Tonight is the first night I am able to go to a First Friday event on Broad in over a year.  For those of you not from Richmond or for those of you who have been epically lazy, First Fridays are a huge celebration held on Broad from about second or first to about Belvidere.  It's like seven block parties, all devoted to art galleries, bars, and live music.

 

I arrive alone and am drawn to Gull ( you really have to watch the videos of him play to get the idea ) who is playing on the sidewalk.  He is a masked musician named Nate who sings and plays guitar and drums all at once.  This is riveting but I must meet with my friends, so I do.  We watch Poi outside of Gallery 5 for half an hour.

I feel like this guy created it.  Or at least brought it to the forefront in Richmond.  Or at least was a main contributor to those who did.

His name is Evan Moses and this is an old ass picture of him that I creepily stole from facebook. He introduces me to poi three years ago, so I have seen poi a million times(maybe exaggerated).  It is only when this older chick dressed in all black comes to the center of the crowd with a hula hoop and some fire am I impressed.  She looks like Leslie Mann and becomes one with the hoop, which is on fire. It is sort of like this but set to trance, not porno groove.  And there is only one hula hoop.  But it's on fire!

I miss Andrea's lantern workshop, which sucks because I see like twenty people around 10:30(which is half an hour after the event is supposed to wind down/cease to exist) and they're totally awesome, albeit really cheap lanterns!

My group wanders back to Broad where Brandon and I end up singing with Gull.  This is his last song and he encourages people to join in.  He even repeats the seven syllable chanting part like ten times, just so we get it straight.  He looks to Brandon and I, the only two really participating and, through his skull-like mask with his totally distorted microphone, tells us to do it louder.  He raises his free hand(for the moment) at us.  We sing louder and he begins the drum part to accompany the pre-existing guitar.  More people join in.  Eventually, at least half of the 30-40 people there are involved.  The tune is stuck in my head for the rest of the night.  It is stuck now.

I eventually leave and ride home.  I blow through a stop sign and am stopped by the cops for the second time.  I mean, I see the car, looking all innocent in its idle darkness and say to myself, "Shit, I'm gonna get pulled."  Of course they let me off with a warning, it is two cute, younger rookie female cops.  I win.  Though one of them writes something on a pad of paper after ID-ing me.  Guess I better take this warning.  Be careful, right? 

"You got lights?"
"Yeah, I just turned them off to save batteries."  I stammer, "when you pulled me."

 

 
 

7/14/09

            I unlock my bike and ride across the street from Cafe Diem to Seven Eleven, doubtlessly bound for cigarettes despite my effort to quit.  I have had several drinks and I need a smoke.  I exit convenience, pounding my pack, and ignite.  I unlock my bike again.  I look up as I do this and some girl on a phone, holding her bike, smiles at me.  I smile back and mount the tatterdemalion frame.  I feel good about this smile, like my night could only end in happiness.

            I get several blocks down Park Ave. before I hear WOOP WOOP and see those familiar blue lights.  The blue to the shield as the yellow to the stinger.  A warning I heed as I look back, pull over.  The high-and-mighty pig pulls up next to me, initiating his lecture: YOU REALIZE YOU HAVE TO OBEY THE SAME RULES AS CARS. 

            I studder, buzzed from firefly, bourbon, and PBR, tell him I'm sorry.

            "You just ran two stop signs," he says, and I nod, bobbing my head up and down, acknowledging the fact that they were four-ways and it shouldn't matter because no one was around but him, not that he was "right" in stopping me.  Whatever will make him happy will make me free, I figure.

            "I'm sorry," I concede.

            "You don't even have a front light," he tells me, as if I didn't know.  "Where is it?"

            "I have one, it's at home.  It just ran out of batteries."  A week ago.

            "I could pin you for three counts of wreckless cycling," he says.

            I want to emphasize the WOW I respond. 

            "WOW," I say. "I'm sorry, sir," I stroke his ego.  I shake my head at myself.  I am about to get a ticket.  And then. . .

            "Just go," he frees me.

            "Thank you, sir," I continue stroking his ego.  The kind of courtesy stroke you give after your forearm is killing you, but it has paid off, so you do it anyway.

            I ride off but he is behind me so I wait at the next red light on Robinson.  The pig pulls up, parks next to me, persuades my illusions of safety.  He leans to shotgun.

            "You see those bikes up there?"

            I squint and see a faint white light.  "Um," I hesitate, thinking he's making shit up, "not really.  My vision isn't so good."  I lie, "I have glasses at home," which should be true, but since I destroyed them back in twenty-oh-five it isn't. 

            "Well, if you don't have a front light and I hit you, it's your fault." 

            Thanks Mom, I think.

            "Yeah.  I've seen a few friends hit," I tell him, "and it isn't pretty.  I'm just trying to get home."  The bikes he is not lying about roll up across the street and he activates the blue, the siren.  His car ironically runs the red and then he begins speaking with the cyclists.  I wait at the red-- I heed his warning-- for as long as it eternally takes to turn green while NO ONE rides through the intersection.

            As soon as I lose the cop, I flick my friction shifters to their heighest gear ratio and safely ride home, where I am now, stopped only by my name yelled into the street where I explain the story to near-strangers, writing this.

            Fuck you, bacon bits, I know it will be my fault if I get hit. 

 

            But I won't. 

 

            Right?

 

 

Okay, so I haven't written anything substantial here in awhile.  Boo hoo.  I was assigned to write a piece of fiction for a class I am taking, and honestly, I don't much like it.  I use Mark Twain's philosophy of writing uncontrollable characters into wells.  Except, this time, with no desire or time left to flesh out characters, I use the opposite of water. 

The Sink at Sunset

Hunter Caldwell

 

           Tonight is the end.  Tonight I am drinking 151, stumbling around into girls telling them I am emotionally vacant, swigging and instructing people to keep lit cigarettes outside a two foot radius of me—I am a gas pump.

     After pulling out of the one girl who actually does burn me with a cigarette, I stumble through my room looking for clothes. My brain rattles in its cage.  The room is dimly lit by a draped door of light.  A light rope hung on pre-existing nails from the guys before us.  I spot my dad’s boxers and shamble toward them.   I have them because of a mix up in laundry.  Mix-ups never happen anymore.  Not now.  Not with my mobile home of a heart. 

    The girl in my bed, Tamra, sleeps heavily now.  Whistling with her “sivalent ‘s,’” she tosses, undisturbed by my steps.  Through the darkness, I see a faint mark on her face.  Earlier, I describe her boyfriend as Voldemorte and her, Harry Potter.  This cheers her up and she sleeps with me.

    One line, one phrase can disarm someone.  People think of themselves as separate from the equations, the numbers and variables that envelope them, but it just takes the right phrase.  An abstract input for a specific output.  Tamra’s red lace panties dangle from my bed-post and I begin to think highly of myself: how many girls have I disarmed with one single phrase or action? 

    There is this girl who always speaks of her dead brother, who laughs at all her own jokes, who strives for loud.  Who irritates the shit out of me.  Who, if you listen to for long enough and pretend is funny, she will like you.  Oh, and a reluctant sympathy for her family’s loss—the golden key to her heart.  But to get her to stop talking, there is only one key that fits. The only strategy I have for shutting her up becomes sex.

    There is this girl who rides bikes everywhere.  I make the mistake of letting her ride me one night.  I wake up the next day, groggy and unable to see clearly.  I look at my hands.  Red viscous gunk covers both the palms and backs of my hands.  Is this blood?  Did she fucking bleed all over me?  It is more applied to me and less bled on me.  I notice black on my arms.  I think for a moment of chain-grease.  Perhaps it is make-up, and perhaps this is her way of marking me.  Claiming me.  This disturbs me.  I scramble for my clothes and, not seeing her anywhere make my exit as quickly as possible. 

    Second thought mentality settles.  These are not proud memories.  Especially not with Nel.  She always said, “I love you.”  I always said, “You know how I feel.”  I know Nel for six years before she gives me this check to cover my rent.  I figure I deserve some help, all those nights I sat next to her crumpled body of tears.  A repetition of, “Everything is plastic, the world is plastic.”  The world is plastic.
     
     I walk down my stairs, guided by my railing, my wall.  I am exhausted, dehydrated from a night of excess in all faculties.  My preference: burn out rather than rust out.  Parched, I know I must reach liquid-refreshment. The refrigerated Thirst-Rockers, flavor blue that my roommate Tom purchases, seems a good solution.  That childish corn-syrup.  I swing the paned-window-door to the kitchen wide open and flip the switch.  On the refrigerator door, there are two of four checks needed for rent due three days ago.  Raiford’s check is absent.  My (borrowed)check—absent.  We can do it tomorrow.  Always tomorrow.  

    Before I reach the syrupy blue nectar, I hear someone yelling.  The yelling continues for a moment and ceases.  The voices come from the street next to my yard.  My shitty yard, surrounded by flimsy chicken wire and filled with a series of empty paint cans, a slouching bench, a heap of branches and timber, and a broken skateboard. 

    I insert my index and middle fingers through a crack in the blinds and separate them.  Three figures stand staggered, yelling at the window.  Or the person behind it—me.  I step outside, half naked with people yelling, “GET THE FUCK DOWN HERE!” 

    I open the door and struggle with an orange alley cat.  Raiford is constantly badgering us about adopting it. I sweep the cat with the side of my foot and hiss at it.
    Hsss!
    “Meeeow,” it pleas.
    “No, goddamnit.”
    I close the door behind me and look to the street.
    “What’s the deal?” I ask.  One of the guys is especially pissed.  The other two stand and shake their heads. 
    “You called us fags, man.”
    “No I didn’t, what are you talking about?”
    “We saw your eyes!” he spits, feeling he has me nailed me with a reference to my peering through blinds.  Now I take offense. 
    “Did you see my eyes call you a fag?  Because it wasn’t me, so calm down.  Why would I do that?  I’m with a girl and I’m getting booze, I don’t care about you.  I don’t even know you.”    I feel entitled to boast half truths and show them some blunt sincerity.  After all, an imposing chicken-wire fence stands between the street and my yard, protecting me from the stupid things my drunk, sex driven mind conjures.   The group’s majority turns to the alleged “fag” and convinces him to leave. 
    I suddenly hear my name.  I look around for the caller.  And once again, someone loudly whispers my name.  I look up and my roommate’s head pops out of the window above me.  It is Raiford. 
    “Hey man, I called those guys fags!” flashing a Cheshire grin.
    I shake my head and enter the house.

     I drink the rest of the blue swill and crawl into bed next to Tamra.  I look at her sleeping face, its scarred eye-brow, and think I am a decent person.  Even Raiford will not hit a girl, much less break a guitar over her face.  I drift with thoughts of fidelity and begin a descent into ethereal.

     The corporeal behind me, affecting me, my mind turns to Raiford’s girls- Tina and Heather.  Tina and Heather have never met, though they share the same man.  Raiford wanders from one to the other, taking advantage of free meals, cheap love, and cigarettes.  Without trying to hide his behind-the-back, under-the-table, stab-you-between-the-eyes-and-leave-you-to-bleed-all-so-I-can-prosper attitude, he manages to avoid detection.  “Monogamy isn’t in my genes,” he tells me.  Raiford, that prairie vole.  Prairie voles are monogamous—sort of.   When other vole people aren't looking, they're fucking whoever they want.  Only in a social setting are those little vole fathers raising their kids with their lovely stay at home vole mothers. 

For caste when eyes present. 
For pleasure when eyes absent.

     And here I am, doing the opposite, wanting that private life back.  I remember Raiford screaming at his phone one night, telling a mutual friend that we are at some huge party.  I arrogantly shake my head, lay an open palm on his shoulder and say, "Stick with me, and this is every night,” so proud of my provincial party planet.  My ears pulse, pressure building.  My cracked rib from another drunken night, it's there, wrapped tightly and bound with a bourbon/Budweiser cocktail.  Muted from notice, like my connection to Nel.  What she could say now.  She could scoff at me for getting sick, for being this thin, this unhealthy. 
     A trip to Patient-First really nails this sentiment.  Hacking up hard chunks of mucus with red streaks, throwing up bile or coagulated blood in the sink at sunset.  The summer sound-- the cicada--crescendos with the dimming.  I decide I should go to the doctor.  His office is closed, so I must endure Patient-First.  I do the insurance bullshit and step onto a scale.  Beep, beep, beep.  Three digital lines do 'the wave' where I expect numbers. One final beep.  Electronic scales don't lie.  A year ago, I weighed 185.  Now, with my current lifestyle, I weigh a mere one-hundred sixty-three pounds.   

     The sun stains my bay windows.  My eyes squint and filter the distant blaze.  A jackhammer goes off somewhere in my brain and I rise.
     I walk downstairs to the living room.  It is a mess.  “I’m sorry, dude,” a voice sags from the couch.  Tom leans with his head floating somewhere between his neck and his lap, swaying.  The broken LCD on his phone illuminates his crotch.  He stares downward into its splintered lightning bolt.  Little dots of light like stars scatter across his screen, his little galaxy.  A red dot, maybe Betelgeuse, blinks in the northern hemisphere of Tom’s hand-held constellation. This informs him of a missed call. 
      “I tried calling you last night after you ran off with the bottle,” I tell him.
     “Man, I’m sorry.”
     “It’s okay.”
     “No.  No it’s not,” he gargles. 
     Last night, Tom pummels the right side of my head with his fist, screaming,
     “You can’t just go through everything like a fucking bowling ball, you cock!” 
      As I carry Tamra’s beach cruiser up the stoop in the front of our corner house, I plow Tom’s face with the front wheel as he sits sipping his beer.  His hand drops his phone in pursuit of becoming a weapon to use against my face.  This is why he is sorry.
     “It’s not a big deal, it just hurts when I yawn.  Or move my head too fast.  Or when I cough, or speak too loudly.  I guess it’s kind of a big deal.”
     “I just had a really bad week, a lot of things happened at work to piss me off the other day.  My brother got suspended from high school.  Those things aren’t your fault.  I’m sorry.”
     “It’s okay,” I breathe.  “You didn’t hit my face.  My beautiful face.”
    He laughs and stands, saunters over, and hugs me.

    All things broken, mend.  Though shaky for a few hours last night, our friendship remains, not ruined by tire treads or slight abrasions.  It stands above the matted living room carpet and piles of cheap beer. It stands above the broken glass and the cardboard boxes in the corner from when we moved in and shattered a lamp.  The corner of the room that promises to, even after four months of mess, one day become a dining room.  The compacted, inch-thick dog hair from previous owners sticks in the cracks against the walls.  This wasted house still stands, undivided.  Undestroyed.

    “Do you smell that?” I ask Tom, looking over my shoulder to the front door.  I see droves of people pass through grimy windows, drawn by magnificent force.  I head to the door and exit.  I pass an impassioned phone-bound neighbor down the brick stoop.  Several cop cars swerve down the street to my left, squealing.  I walk, staged in front of several dozen, shirtless.  Though a player in the act, I am no main attraction.  Two groups of younger adults pass without notice or mention of my no shoes, no shirt policy. 
    Cinders and ruin swim through the air.  I fall in line with everyone else, bunched and huddled, seeking excitement.  Seeking something beyond the monitor, the speaker, and the bottle.   

My pilgrimage ends halfway down the block.  Police swarm.  Little spiders spinning yellow silk.  “Caution,” they warn, is advised in this area.  Beyond the heap of timber and puddles of shattered glass, the alley leads to an abandoned warehouse.  Where all eyes lie, an inferno lords over the towering trees.  The fucking warehouse is on fire three houses from mine. 
    “EVERYONE GET BACK,” a cop yelp-yelp-yelp, yelp, yelps.  His hands, open and forward, grasp at an invisible wall which hobbles us backward.  Backward against brick, the encroaching flame in front of us. 

    Minutes pass and my house is inaccessible, taped off by the yellow ward.  I hop the single-beamed “fence” and bolt inside.  I need clothes if I am about to lose everything else. 
In a rush, I yell and scream for everyone to get out, to leave, to hustle.  To hurry up and make their peace.  Abandon all objects and vain pursuits of material happiness.  Save yourselves!  A quaking belch rocks the house.  I hear cries of desperation from shattered windows.  A gas line has erupted.  I grab a shirt and sandals from the living room floor.  These sandals I once lost in the river.  Somehow they wash up on shore and I find them. 
   
    I run outside and a cop yells at me.  My roommates scream my name.  I am escorted over the yellow line like a wrestler out of a ring. 
    “Is everyone out of the building,” a cop inquires.
    Yes, I say, everyone is out.  Everything that matters is right here.
   
    Hours later, our house remains skeletal.  Wooden doors to ash, glass windows to solid goo.  The news interviews Tom and edits the profanity.  The news speculates.  It is arson they say.  Maybe.  It was a group of teenagers, drunk and wily.  Maybe.  We call our friends, establishing new places to stay.  I call Nel, the only person I can rely on.  She lets me stay at her apartment the first night.  This first night away from my new home I get a call from Raiford. 
    “Dude,” he stops before I say hello.  “Dude, the cops just called.  They found a body in our apartment.”
    They find Tamra’s charred corpse trapped underneath roof beams.  And I am responsible.  No annoying dead brother, viscous red gunk on my hands, no debt.  No reason to deserve this.  I am a Bacardi 151 gas pump.  Tom’s bowling ball. Tamra is dead, and, I, responsible.  An object in my bed, a toy for my penis.  Yesterday, nothing more.  Yesterday’s today, nothing more.  Today’s now, I tremble.
    “Are you there?”
    No.
    “Hello? Dude, did you hear me?  You left her behind.  The girl in your bed.  The cops said you’re not in trouble for forgetting her.  They want to know why she had contusions, though.  They need to talk with you.”
    And I have not remembered a single one of them, for romantic or logical reasons, since I lost my battle against the world of plastic.
    She stands in the kitchen, washing dishes.  Her back, wide from years of besting swimming peers.  She has a boyfriend, reserves her emotions.  I have no one and spill.
    “Nel,” I whimper.  The phone slides from my hand and crashes to the floor.  It bounces, lays down.  An uneasy voice trails to the floor with the phone.  Nel turns her head and her careful hands halt, suds sliding off of flesh.  Accumulating.  Amassing in metal.  Her frame  faces me. 
    “What’s wrong?” she asks, a concern in her voice, like a mother addressing a wounded offspring.  My scraped elbows and knees, over the years, I think she realizes, are nothing more than cries for something I miss.  Not now, with the merciless, irreverent moon, spinning madly on in the panes behind her.  Not now. 
    “I love you.”  I plead, longing for reciprocation.  My last sensible sniffle of the night. 
    “You know how I feel.”

    Here's an example of a sick dream.  This is one of those dreams where music and odor is as vivid as real life. 

    There's this huge party and everyone is wasted, except me, because I am dying from pneumonia.  But apparently I can host it.  It is at my apartment and all of the lights are on.  I get the distinct feeling my apartment is much larger than usual--hundreds are in attendance.  I abandon my apartment for another, better party.  As I leave, some guy asks me if he can have a beer.  There is only one left, I tell him.  We'll decide when I get back.  I don't come back until the end of the dream, hours later in dream-time.  This action has the single biggest impact on the outcome of the dream. 

    I am at a dance party now.  The second hand smoke in my lungs is killing me.  In the background I hear Justice's "D.A.N.C.E," and I follow its instructions and "do the dance" with my friend Brittany.  We are the genesis of dance.  Everyone gathers round to join in.  The floorboards creak and fatigue under our combined weight.  My friend Jeff saunters up to deliver a half smoked joint.  I say, What the hell, and take a puff.  As soon as I do this, everyone is gathering at the door, looking out into this field between buildings.  COPS! someone says.  It spreads from one side of the room to the other like a knife pressing cream cheese into a toasted bagel.  Unless you suck at it, like myself, and have to reapply cream cheese every 30 degrees. Soon everyone is at a door or window, gazing, glazed.
    The foremost onlooker at the front door says, "I don't know what to do, if I leave, they'll get me.  If I stay, they'll get me."  I take charge and open the door.  The field is green, even with the sky blanketed.  This must be somewhere on Grace or Monument, the field reminds me of that field behind Stuart Court Apartments.  It seems legit, like everything else in the dream so far, so I don't question its reality.  For some reason, I don't question the next three scenes either, and it takes the final one to really break the dream.
    I walk through the field as identical old lady tenants snap photos of the crowd with DIY Ascoflex cameras from the 50's.  I cover my face, pretending to yawn.  Whatever they're getting a record of our faces for, I want nothing of it.  I walk past the second old lady, and notice that, now, all of them don nun's outfits.  This is odd, but I resume thinking how, even if they get my face, I'll just instantly grow a huge beard to protect myself from identification.  Yes, and I'll dye my hair and get brown contacts. 

What am I worried about, I haven't been drinking.

    I make my way down the street, where I see a girl unlocking her bike.  She notices the huge crowd behind me and I turn to look.  The crowd is massive, and I notice, yes, that is Stuart Court Apartments.  But we're in front of a house in the woods.  That could make sense one day. 
    The girl mounts a golden bike and asks if it's the VCU crowd.  I say yes, and she rides away.  I yell after her, Where do you go to school?!  I don't remember her response.  She sails across the street and disengages her machine, unwrapping the chain.  I ask, "You rode your bike across the street?"
"I had a long way to go, before."  This answer satisfies me and I leave to go to Gary's apartment, which, sadly, he doesn't own. 

    I get there and wait in a shadowy alleyway watching shadowy figures, when Brittany appears.  We sit and wait, idle and not speaking. Except when a dark figure passes, and I say, "Ready. . ." like I am preparing for something, hand on some mental or imaginary weapon. Eventually Gary opens his door and we enter.  His apartment building is set up to resemble a maze of suspended, carpeted beams.  Everything is white, and between the beams are large gaps which lead to plummet, death.  We hop skippity along them, and I inform Gary that some Mayan Aliens must have constructed this Temple of Doom.  That or Escher.  We get inside and I fall asleep.

    The next thing I know there is pounding on my door.  My father enters my bedroom, the one I am sleeping in during the dream, and says, "Hunter!"  He is yelling at me, angry like I've never seen him.  "HUNTER GET YOUR ASS UP!  WHAT DID YOU DO, WHAT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT?"  I just had a few people over you know.  And abandoned them to their own desires.  "HAVING SEX ON THE FLOOR IS UNSAFE, YOU'LL CATCH A GODDAMN DISEASE!"  What?  Sex on the floor?  Dad, I haven't had sex, what're you talking about.  "You need to clean the kitchen up.  NOW." 
    I struggle with the sheets and fight back the weariness of a party night, and roll out of bed.  I walk down the hall to the kitchen in what seems like one of those never ending flash images.  It takes a couple of runs to see everything, but I only get one.  My dad is at the end of the hall, pointing into the kitchen, "It smells like shit." 
    Imagine a horror scene in which there is something horrible around the corner, and you get that first-person POV, slowly rounding the corner, the music slowly building to crescendo.
    Entering my field of view is what looks like blood smeared all over the refrigerator, then the floor.  Blood splat, tints of orange.  I sniff and am knocked back.  I have never smelled anything like this, in dream or otherwise. 
    Who does my dad think I am, having sex that creates this?  Who does my dad think he is smelling things?  He was born without the sense of scents!  Wait, I say in my dream.  My dad can't smell. 

And I wake up, having broken the dream state game. 

    Against a brick wall, my body hardly able to stand, my mind runs a list.  There was that time in the park, when Jeff was on acid, Yetti and I high.  They wanted to run, but of course we got off because we didn't.  Once, when Jeff was sober, a cop pulled us over because he was serving.  I was wasted, and the cop could totally smell me-- he was called off to something more important.  There was that time I was on mushrooms on my roof with Lenora, when I confidently dealt with a cop for fifteen minutes.  And, of course, at JMU, Patrick basically puking on the boots of a tempered veteran cop.  Wasted, and breathalyzed, I got us out of that one too.

    I take my backpack off and with as much discretion as I can muster, I slide it across the floor with my leg.  I nearly fall over, doing this, but no one notices.  My limited carry-on party stash is safely not associated with me anymore.
   
    My back to the brick, I think to myself that every time I run into cops while I'm fucked up, I get off-- free.  The only time I have ever been 'caught' was for my illegal U-Turn violation at 2 in the morning.  When I was sober.  In the swirling nexus of beer, wine, and pot, I think tonight will again try the theory that being fucked up makes me more supple, and thus, less susceptible to arrest. 

    I reassure the girl next to me, "We'll be fine," more for my comfort than hers.  The bulldog hardass cop that has my ID is using someone's phone to take a panoramic of the scene.  Piles of beer cans on this one table and the bulldog, breathing heavily, says, "Oooh, that's a good one."  Everyone who is not a cop scowls and looks around the room to each other-- This is fucked up, right?  What else can you think about cop porn?

    And then the cop's phone goes off, blaring.  He desperately shuffles to squelch Fall Out Boy's "Dance Dance," losing credibility by the millisecond.  I chuckle to myself.  Another cop, some kid who looks much younger than me, flips through a book of charges.  They're charging one of the guys that lives here with 405 of an unscheduled drug.  That's possession of alcohol, and he is 21.  Which means he'll be fine.  These cops suck.  Sucks that the guy has to go to court, but I am out the door in the next few minutes with my ID and my backpack.
   

The barest shell of a fiction story.  It is what I want to get around to telling, and it includes a lot of small vignette type things which develop characters and shit.  Not much more than the ribcage of something better.  Merely ideas before a draft.

The Hippie and The Scientist : A Rough Outline
I am propped up against a wall, waiting for their reinforcements to come.  I have a cold, standard beat-cop issue gun in my hand.  There is a lifeless body at my feet garnering three bullet holes.  I was just trying to save my own bit of humanity.  My experience.  My world, my universe.  But, my chest is missing, my pounding heart giving way.

The Girlfriend Part I
Everyone that has been pinned down by a woman knows what it feels like.  Caged.  At least in my relationship, I am the bitch.  Let me explain.  In every relationship that is unhealthy, there is a bitch.  It is the subservient one, the one with the most vested interest in said relationship.  Typically, relationships will start off balanced and erode to this point.  Or, if you're lucky, you find someone special that will strike a balance.  I am not lucky, nor do I actually believe in luck.

I met her online.  We were both looking for a simple hookup.  We talk online and decide to do something that very night.  I look at her pictures and, deciding she was passable as a hookup, maybe a high 2 star or low 3, head to the park where we are to meet.  We meet at the fountain in the middle of Monroe Park, a dismal patch of grass with pavement intersections.  The homeless denizens swarm me as I sit on the bench.  One by one, I am asked for change.  I give the first few a couple of coins, but by the fourth guy, I am spent.  At this point I start asking them for change.  One homeless guy comes by with one of those huge hiking packs on his back.  His whole life is in there.  I ask him for fourty cents, and he gets confused.  He looks at me like I'm crazy and shambles off. 

Eventually, she shows up.  She walks around from behind me.  I remain on the bench as she comes into view, blocking my line of sight leading to the fountain.  She leans over and looks at me inquisitively.  Yes, bitch, I am the guy you looked up on that dating service.  We are equally pathetic.  She is a little bit heavier than she portrays herself.  I should have figured.  No one looks as good as their online dating picture.  This is basically a fact.  Forget what you know about attractiveness being based on geometric cognition or any of that shit, a 2D image can always fool you.  Always.

I tilt my head in response.  I guess I have to do a double take, too, because, with her added weight, I can't tell if that's really the girl I saw online.  Kris is her name. Kris with blonde hair, an amazing figure, and beautiful tits.  She is a little overweight, maybe 10 or so pounds, but I am willing to look passed this because of the well-shaped thirty-six-D's resting on her chest.  And, for real, I have my own faults.  So, I figure this won't be that bad.  I put aside my cost-benefit analysis of the situation and put on my A-game.  Every man who has gone two years without sex has either one of two options.  He can become a sad, bitter asshole or he can build himself up, regain a massive amount of confidence, and obtain a true A-game.  I am of the latter.

We head back to her place, which is a good ways down a cobblestone sidewalk.  It undulates, dipping, rising, and dipping again.  It looks pretty, especially with the changing leaves, but is impractical.  I see a group of people jogging on the other side of the street.  I practically will one of them to trip on the uneven surface, but none of them do.  I am engaging this girl, asking her all sorts of questions and coming up with all sorts of talking points.  It's all about talking points.  What did she major in?  One of your favorite shows is mine too, what's your favorite character?  And then I hit a chord-- sex.  I manage to start talking about sex by the time we've entered her apartment, and within seconds, she is fellating me.  I take my shirt off and she follows suit.  She stops blowing me as briefly as possible, and returns immediately after her shirt is off.  I unhook her bra and stare.  I was right, she has amazing tits.  They wobble as she works my penis.  My pants are still on.  I decide this is uncool, and tell her to stop.  We take a second to remove our lower clothing, and then immediately reengage. I grab her and throw her on the bed.  Her eyes light up, and I realize she likes it rough.  I nearly bound atop of her and, slowly pushing, penetrate her.  My hands are on her hips and I am rolling inside of her like it is my job. 

She stops me.  "I wanna ride," she tells me.  We roll over and she rides cowboy style.  Within minutes, I make it my turn to choose.  I want to hit it from behind.  We switch.  It continues like this for awhile, and eventually I peak.  Straining my PC muscle, I attempt to prolong it.  It works, but only briefly.  I slide out and explode all over.  My load shoots over her, across the bed, slams into the wall and oozes to the floor.  She looks surprised and gets up.  She kneels by the wall to inspect it, opens her mouth, and licks, no, laps it up.  Now I am surprised, this woman is sick.  "Let's go drink some," she says.  I am an alcoholic so I follow like a little dog to its master.  And so it begins.

The Job
I work for Techvice.  We integrate technology into current products that people are using.  This helps ween them off the old and gets them attached to the new.  It's a subtle form of social engineering, but a benevolent one.  It helps people accept the future.  This is the same reason you see movies set only slightly into the future with technology we currently have.  In these movies, you see the technology widely proliferated, improved upon, and accepted.  This helps movie goers see what is in store for them within ten or so years.  It helps them accept change.  This is common in the entertainment business.  Anyone remember Star Trek: The Next Generation?  The premise for that show was to demonstrate the benevolence in technology.  Entertainment is the whore of any high bidding product.  Brand name cars, brand name sodas, brand name suits, brand name anything.  Fund our movie, we'll expand your clientel.  Seriously, you may think it's fucked up, but everyone wins.  Except the mindless target market. 

Regardless, I am a scientist, and the first objective a scientist must achieve is neutral, or flexible, morals.  The advancement of technology is of highest importance, despite its form.  I am a part of Techvice's leading team, developing and integrating nothing but helpful technology services.  For real, you know that chip in your cell-phone that allows the Cops to trace you if, and only if, you dial 911?  Yeah, we made those.

On the team, I organize ideas.  What's good, what's bad.  I get to decide.  Will something work, will something explode in your face?  I go from one team to the next, and I exchange their thoughts.  I am a people person.  The Development Team thinks water spraying your ass will make wiping more sanitary.  The Marketing Team says studies show Americans will not accept this idea.  They think it is gross.  So do I, but to be objective, I ask the Marketing Team if they would take a shower without water.  Dave, the lead for the Marketing Team, he says no.  I ask him if he thinks his ass is clean without water.  He seems puzzled, and I ask him to think about it.  He does, and within weeks, we sell the idea to several European clients.  Sometimes we have to reach outside our marketing comfort zone and look elsewhere.

To manage the teams, I require their trust.  I take their goodwill, and in return, promise that their ideas won't get shot down, at least not too hard.  They are scientists.  They are inventors.  They are children.  They hand me ideas, like a child hands a parent a kindergarten painting looking for approval.  Most times, they are shitty, but I validate them anyway.  I feel like a parent.  I feel like it's so easy to bullshit someone who trusts you completely. 

In addition to being what amounts to a Confidence Man, I help debug faulty software.  Input, input, input.  I'm all about input.  I receive and receive, and never do I ask questions.  I receive ideas, I improve upon them.  My name is Niles Creed.  I am a scientist that never produces.  I am a man who never lies in the minds of those I lie to.

Prelude To A Dream
I had gotten no sleep the night before.  My girlfriend, Kris.  She is a total rotten bitch.  She has me up all night trying to fix her father's stupid record player.  I tell her its old technology and I don't know how to fix it.  She gets real upset and throws my work laptop out the window.  Seven stories to oblivion. 

For real, I don't know why I am with her.

Oh. Wait.

It's because I'm a bitch. 

I am with her because I am the bitch.  I can't leave her.  I could cheat on her, but I can't meet anyone. All the women at work are complete prudes.  They slick back their hair into tight buns.  Their hair is always stuck up with something, just like their attitudes.  Supported by some outward appearance of stability.

I take the remnants of my laptop to Repair Center.  On the fourth floor of Techvice, this is where they fix things.   I hand the guy at the cubby-holed desk my parts. His name is Hampton.  I call him "Ham."  He is my only friend.

"Dude," he says, "I don't know what to do for you."  He sorts through the parts with a chubby, cheeto-laden hand. 

"Can't you just get my serial number and replace it?  Our company guarantees replacements," I say.  Orange fingers hold up the base of my laptop.  Eyes behind glass windshields inspect it.  If eyes are the window to the soul, he has a splatterguard. 

"Maybe.  Let me check, man."  I respect him, he reminds me of myself before I met Kris.  Although his appearance is that of a thirty year old loser, gamer, and all out nerd, he generates more confidence than any man I've ever met.  This gets him women.  This gets him respect. This gets him-- he returns and I refocus.  Three hours of sleep was acceptable in highschool, but in the professional world it is tormenting.

"Dude," I say, "what do you think?"

"I dunno man, I can't replace it," he responds.

I implore him to do something, anything.  Everything I need is on that harddrive, and everything I do is on that laptop.  I am no better than the homeless with their overstuffed backpacks and shopping carts.  In fact, I am worse.  My life is not in necessity-- blankets, coats, thrown out food-- but in my laptop.  It is my life. "For real? That sucks.  There's nothing you can do?" I ask him.  "Can you at least retrieve the information on my harddrive?"

"Well, yeah, I can probably do that.  It might take awhile though.  Are you off today?"

It is a Friday.  I have all day off.  Most days I consider myself to be "off."  Really, when you work primarily at home, work seems more like a hobby, and less like a task.  A chore.  It is a good way to make your employees content.  This makes them work better.  When I used to sport a cubicle, I felt like a rat.  A dirty, mindless rat.  At least now I have the impression that I am working for myself, earning something.  Rather than working for the overmind of whatever company.  Instead, you get people working at home.  Encapsulated.  With their social networks, shopping websites, online pizza delivery.  Put it all in one box, make everything convenient.  Make everyone closer, more connected, and less personal.  Less in-your-face.  We don't want other people.  Their bad breath.  Their stupid habits. Everything disagreeable.  That's right, we like our comfort.  Don't touch, don't smell, don't look, don't care.  Don't care about anyone.

A few minutes pass and I am asleep on a crimson two-seater couch.  An hour passes while I wait, and I am unconcious, dreaming.

Dream Part I
I am seeking a blowjob and, for some reason, while seeking, I never leave my apartment.  Someone filters in. It is Donna, a co-worker of mine.  My roommate leaves and I feel no urge to lock the door.  Donna begins seducing me, and within minutes has her lips firmly wrapped around my penis.  It is awesome and I am very horny; however, in dreams sexual things fail to feel very good.  The more corporeal things are the hardest to invision.

I get a weird feeling from the atmosphere.  The groaning nightlife of the city pushes at the cracked windows.  I hear the rush of cars and there is an ambulance in the background heading into darkness to save someone's fleeting life.  I feel like I am in a bigger city, maybe New York.  Donna stops blowing me, noticing I am distracted.  She gets up off my dick and closes both windows.  I get only a glimpse of the outside world before this is done, and it looks surreal.  It is a void of darkness with very piercing building lights.

I stand up as Donna turns around. Her black hair-bun unravells and elegantly falls, tickling her shoulders. We meet eachother halfway between the window and the bed, and I tell her I want to fuck her for real, no more blowjobs. At this point I have her triceps in my hands, rubbing the sides of her arms with my thumbs.  She says, "No, hunny, this night is for you," and reclaims her arms to lean in and push me on my back. I don't really understand, but accept that I will at least get to blow my load into something moist and lubricated. She goes down on my now flaccid penis, working it like it's her job.  I am quickly hard again.

What the fuck man, is the next thing I hear.   I am slouched on the couch in the back of Repair Center.  Three hours have passed since I fell asleep, and now Ham is looming over me, donning a disgusted look.  He stares.  He stares at a raging hardon shoving at my pants, pushing at my boxers. Fighting its way to freedom. 

"What the fuck, man?" he asks.

"Seriously, don't ask."  I tell him anyway.  Confide in him.  "I just had a dream about Donna."

"Oh, yeah dude, she is incredibly hot."

"Probably out of my league."

"Dude, there are no leagues," he says.  He doesn't believe people should pigeon-hole themselves.  He believes everyone should see life without barriers.  I wish I could think like him.  I wish I could believe, as he does, that to assume is to believe is to live.  "Anyway, I have all the information from your harddrive."  My raging hardon subsides.  I am elated to have my life back.  My laptop.  My work.  I am pathetic, holding on to the only thing I have.  The only symbol of stability in my life.  Well, that and being the bitch.

The Girlfriend Part II:
There are some truths to being human that just make you hate, well, being human.  There are traits that define you beyond your control.  There are things you can't change.  This makes us worry, this makes us doubt.  This makes us fear, and this makes us hate.  There are differences among us, there are better and there are worse.  There are aggrivations, there are explanations.  There is science.

The science of psychology.  In every relationship that is unhealthy, there is a bitch.  In every relationship unbalanced, the bitch is there to tag along.  To hang on to the dominant personality, the one who is emotionally reticent, reserved, and seemingly uninterested. 

I am the bitch.

She is the dominant.

Kris, with her wide hips and her thirty-six-d's,  sits across from me, and I stare back.  She goes, "What?" 

I say, "Don't you want to do something?"

"Like what?" she asks. 

"Anything." 

Let me translate for you:
"Why do you have to stare at me?"
"I need you to make decisions for me, what should we do?"
"Why don't you take control? Girls like that.  Girls like having the guy know what he wants.  Here, let me give you a chance."
"I can't do it, I'm weak.  I'm the bitch."

It goes on like this for months.

The Park I
Techvice is like any other company.  It has the same employees you see everywhere. 

There's Dave, the lead for the Marketing Team.  He has two sons.  He's putting his first son through college right now while worrying that his second son might be on his own in funding for college.  Dave is overworked, underpaid, and depressing.  He has given up his soul.  To his work, to his wife.  To his kids especially.  Every day, he comes home from work and does the same thing.  He watches his favorite show.  He reads a book while taking an hour long shit.  He does all the things you'd expect a sad, middle-aged man to do.  With his grey ends and balding crown.  He's the guy who buys Diet Pepsi for himself and snaps if anyone in the family drinks it.  He has nothing but his soda.  His soda keeps him going.  To get home, back to the routine, and to have some of semblance of stability. He is such a common personality in the middle-to-upper-class work force.  He is a drone.  A rat.

There's Fred.  He's the guy at work you hardly know anything about, other than he saw the game last night.  He likes golf, too.  He's a background person.  The type of person you call when you need more people at a gathering.  He is practically one dimensional.  A cardboard cutout of a sillouette. You wonder what must be going through his head.  Is he really that bland.  That ignorant?  Does he think at all like I do.  You'll never know, of course, and it is futile to ask yourself these questions.  But everyone wonders what is outside their own little vault of understanding.

My friend Ham.  He's here.  Here at the park where Techvice holds their trimonthly picnic.

Then there's Donna. She's here at the park, too.  Claypont Park.   She is a well respected, reserved woman.  A young professional looking to rise to the top.  Her hair is actually down, and she is in casual clothes.  You can see how refined her figure is.  She is the ideal woman.  At least that's what the magazines, channels, and websites tell me.  She works out at the gym constantly, eats all the right things, and never forms ties with anyone else.  She is all about improving her own position in life.  I wonder why she's here.

It is a beautiful Spring day, all the flowers fireworking their way from buds.  Unravelling.  Down the field there is a girl in a sundress, sitting with her legs crossed.  She is picking the pedals off of tulips, and throwing them down around.

She is beautiful, and I think about Kris-- wanting her to want me.

One pedal floats to the blades of grass.  Does she love me?

I didn't invite Kris to this event, because, honestly, I am sick of her.  But I can't leave her, I have nowhere to go from her.  I might as well stay with her, as I get to fuck her.

Two pedals on the ground.  Does she love me?

Instead, I invited Ham.  He works for Techvice, but this party is for upper management and innovation teams.  He works below the fifth floor, which means the company doesn't notice him.  He is unimportant to them. A number, a paper-trail. To me, he is my only friend, so I get him to come.  He didn't want to, but as soon as I mentioned free drinks, he showed up at my house, offering to give me a ride.  At first I thought this was out of concern.  You know, because I drink in excess and am a danger to everyone and myself.  No, he just felt he should return some of my good will.  I learn that he loves alcohol and professional women.

We are drinking at the table where they serve free drinks.  They are only serving wine.  We begin downing glass after glass.  One of the caterers asks us if we've had enough. We give him disgruntled looks and tell him to just leave the bottle out.  Make that a couple of bottles, I tell him.

Off to the side, there is a plethora of red tulip pedals orbiting the girl in the sundress.  Does she love?

I have enough alcohol sloshing in my stomach to merit a random inquiry.  I saunter over and sit, crosslegged. I am just outside her circle of tulips.  Facing her.

I say, "Hey what are you doing?"

"Making a circle," she says.

"Why?"  She looks up at me with big Italian eyes.  Deep and hazel.

"Because. That way it's mine."

This is how I met Calliope. 

The Girlfriend III: The Girlfriend's Friend And A Decision To Cheat
I confess that I love her, my girlfriend Kris. But she only says, "I can see me falling in love with you."  Which is a sure sign that she won't.  It means I haven't done my job as the person with a penis.  I haven't been attractive, in my actions, enough to validate love.   And I so desperately need it.  Validation.  Like my co-workers. Like a child with a painting.  My painting is love.  My poorly presented idea of love.  My sick attachment.

She is a stupid southern belle who thinks she's something she's not.  The forces that control her conditioning come in the form of mountains.  She is from the valley.  A stupid, redneck, racist, asshole, ill-mannered valley girl who was brought up to believe she is better than those around her.  She lives on a large estate once owned by her grandfather, a man who passed away several years ago because of shotgun wound to the face.  And by wound, I mean his head was completely missing.
 
A few months before Techvice's tri-monthly get-together, I go back with Kris on a week off.  It is early December and the valley is freezing.  Before actually heading to Kris' house(mansion), we stop by her best friend's.

Her best friend lives in what appears to be a shack.  Inside, shit is strewn all about.  Clothes are drying on the back of a torn-up couch.  The couch looks like it was suicidal.  Almost like a preteen cutter who blossomed into a full-out, dead-on shredder.  

Her friend.  Her name is Naomi. That is "I Moan" backwards.  And it fits.  This girl is a dirty whore.  With glorious buck-teeth.  Seriously, she can whistle through the gap in her teeth, I have seen it.

I have seen it while laying in bed with her one night. 

There had been a barn party, and I had been drinking excessively when I got the idea that I could fuck Naomi.  I knew it was immoral, but I was tired of being dominated, and I wanted to take it out on someone.  I wanted to continue the cruel cycle of abuse.  That unloving, uncaring lack of attention.  That neglect.  That power.  And I knew how to exert it.

I wandered back to her shack, knocked on the door, and was greeted.  I had snatched a handle of vodka from the party.  Some top shelf stuff.  Good stuff.  She was enamored that I would bring her such a gift.  She can afford only shitty brands.  Odesse.  Aristocrat.  That sort of poison.  I can't blame her, because, as an alcoholic, anything that gets you drunk is worth drinking. 

She is an alcoholic too, and, like I said, enamored at the fact that I brought her such a high-quality gift.  In this brief hook-up relationship, I am the provider.  This makes me the dominant personality.  I get the idea that I like dominating, controlling.

I just want to fuck her.  Hear her scream and whistle through her gapped teeth.  I mean, other than the front teeth, she is attractive.  Short, bobbed hair to the side.  Like every stupid Scene-kid you see going to punk and emo shows.  She has a sense of style, in spite of being poor, and however conformist it may be. 

With every drink, she is more into the fact that I am dominant.  With every drink, the gap between her teeth gets smaller. 

She is too dirt poor to afford being on the pill, which is bullshit.  The government should seriously just issue them to every woman after a certain age.  They put that stupid skin-care nonsense in there to justify every woman being on it.  Say what you will about Brave New World, contraceptives are here to stay.  They have been around for a long time.  Yes.  Yes, they have.  Just not in the way you think.  Well, maybe not contraceptives, specifically, but definitely countermeasures.  All I am saying is, why in the hell would you want to wear a condom when you don't have to?  If you can achieve contraception and enjoy it more, go for it.  

Rant asside, I have to wear a condom.  She only has the free kind they give out at colleges.  These suck.  They are too small.  And there is no lubrication.  The first two bust as I apply them.  I get fed up and tell her to do it with her mouth. 

Just watch the Twin Towers you got there, I tell her. 

She either doesn't notice or thinks I am funny.  Either way, I win, and she applies it with her mouth.  Thank god she is a whore, neither of her huge teeth scrape, and I am happy.

Under the Stars
I wake up in the middle of the night to vomit.  I am not just vomitting from excessive drinking, but because something inside me is wrong.  I do not know what, but as soon as I hit the dry heaves, I leave.  I leave Naomi with a huge puddle of vomit on her floor. 

I return to the barn party where Kris hasn't even been looking for me.  I figured.  She doesn't care about me, which is why I feel no remorse in fucking her best friend.  I do kind of feel bad about puking all over her pathetic living space.  Like she'll notice--that place is a cess pool already.  I push the guilt aside with a double-shot of whiskey.  My blood thins and I am disillusioned with whiskey-addled warmth.

I am not wanted by Kris, so I walk away, swiping a pack of cigarettes from the backpocket of some douchebag wearing a strong plaid pattern.  He doesn't notice.

I walk into the field.  Deep into the field, under the stars.

I lay my body, stretched, across soft, green pasture.  It is cold, but I, content, for as the breeze blows, my eyes set, fixated on the ever infinite heavens.  In it, stars punctuate the darkness.  The air and sky are clear.  The cold sweeps away the past, the smog, the city.  The entrapment.  But, I am understanding, with increasing awareness, that the city is invading the sky.  In the city, the ceiling layed above sits invaded.  Encroached upon.  Hung delicately, the stars sit in a sphere of influence completely surrounded by an enchroaching darkness.  A blankness.  A sick, milky blackness.

But not here, no.  In this valley, I see the craftsmanship of the universe.  And I wonder. 

Where does the hand, the extension of core, begin? And if indefinite strings and beams, do we continue like streams of light, into the perilously infinite swarms of delicately balanced spheres? The conclusion is as the hourglass, hung, fixed above the plane of muted sound and blanketed sight, replenishing and everlasting. Could the eyes of the Leviathan see with the convex crystals, examining intricacies of common ground so few and far? Or do the very retinas of infinity–darkened shadow compressed to brilliant diamond threads–extend beyond the realm and presence of calculation?  Forward, the lineage of all things continues, motionless, securing forgotten inevitabilities, left like infants on the pious doorstep of truth, a location which connects infinite destination.

I wonder this.  Again and again.  And I feel small.  I light a cigarrette, take several drags, and put it out on my palm.  This is my answer.  An outlet for relief. 

I return to the party.

The Park II
The sky is as dark as the ground.  My feet press against my socks.  They against my shoes.  Them against asphalt. I type numbers into my cellphone.  

"It's gone," says Calliope.

What, I say. My ear pressed to the speaker, I hear ringing.

"Why would she leave me here?"

Who, I say.  Ring, ring, ring.

"My sister, we came in the same car."

I tell her that sucks. 

A familiar voice answers the phone.  "This is Hampton, I'm evidently not answering my phone right now.  Leave a message."  And I am stuck at the park too.

There is a squirrel contemplating a crossing.

Calliope asks, "So, what now?"

I have to make a decision.  Take the reigns.

The squirrel is alone.  The squirel wiggles its nose.  Its tail, poofed, twitches.  In its tiny mind, it has a tiny understanding.  Of the world, of itself.  And an interaction between the two.  It has no meaning.  It just has fear.  Fear of failing.  Failing survival.

I say, "I guess we can walk."

The squirrel hops once.

"Alright," she says.

The squirrel hops twice.  It is in the middle of the road.  Is it going to the other side back home.  To get food?  Maybe it's coming back from work, stressed out at the day.  It needs to go to the gym, for some relief.

"It'll be a long one though," I inform her.

The squirrel senses something.

"That's okay, I like long walks through the steel jungle."

A car. 

The squirrel juts back to the other side, making it about as far as the opposite wheel, before getting destroyed.  Bone chassis crushed.  Organs squished.  Eyeballs pouring out onto the pavement.  Tiny understanding of the universe squelched.

All this right in front of us.  She screams and closes her eyes, Oh My God.  I say, ew.  We all live alone and then die alone.

She says, this is true but the one thing we can share is our suffering.

We walk home.  Back to my apartment.

Dreamfast : Breakfast and Dream II
I rest on my couch, and I am uncomfortable.

I fall asleep, briefly and have a dream.

I stand up as Donna turns around.  We meet eachother halfway between the window and the bed, and I tell her I want to fuck her for real, no more blowjobs. At this point I have her triceps in my hands, rubbing the sides of her arms with my thumb.  She says, "No, hunny, this night is for you," and reclaims her arms to lean in and push me on my back. I don't really understand, but accept that I will at least get to blow my load into something moist and lubricated. She goes down on my now flaccid penis, working it like it's her job.  I am quickly hard again.

Minutes into this second wave of saliva and moisture, I tell her to stop.  I am in love with someone other than her and acknowledge this even in the dream.  I tell her I can't go through with this, that it's wrong, and she tells me it's not a big deal.  To me it is.  If I were single, I would have no problem being with a plethora of girls throughout the week, letting them fall under the false impression that I was soley into them.  She tells me I am single, but I imply that I am taken.

I tell her I can't do it, again, and inform her I am in love.  I am not a good person, but I am not a bad person either. She tells me she's used to being cheated on and helping others cheat.  It's like anything else, in that, the more you do it, the more your morals adjust to it, and the better it gets.  "I was like you once, before I first cheated on someone."  This sends shockwaves through my core.  What if this is the beginning, and I am on the verge of becoming a new person that the old me always despised?  I am terrified and sick to the stomach.

By the time I wake up, Calliope is gone.  In the kitchen, there are used pots, pans, plates.  There are two sets of everything.  She fixed breakfast for two. 

Splatters on the wall like gun-shot wounds.  Brains.  Goo.  Internal organs ejected by brute force, slammed into my kitchen wall.  On my ceiling.  There are broken plates everywhere.

I go to the kitchen table.  There is a note.

"Niles," it says.  "Your girlfriend came by."

Oh great.

"She saw me and got angry."

I'm guessing this mess was her.

"I was fixing breakfast when she stormed in and ruined it."

Yep.

"I wish you had told me you had a girlfriend."

I didn't lie to you, at least.  I respected you enough to only let you assume.

And it went on to say she had to leave anyway, for some anti-war rally.  Something she stands for and fights for. 

She didn't leave a number.  Any way to contact her.  And I am alone.

I call Kris and tell her I could never be who I really was with her, that I hated being attached to her.  I hate changing for her.  I told her we were done.  She didn't say a word.

Hampton and Donna
Dude, he says.
"Dude, she is fucking incredible."
Hampton is explaining himself to me in the cafeteria across the street from Techvice. 

This is your standard city cafeteria, run by people who are recovering crack heads.  People who are struggling to get back on their feet.  Or to get on their feet for the first time.  From a life of turmoil.  People who were never given the chance to stand up. They are well into it, this suffering business.

I share it with them, by coming here, by eating the food they prepare.  It's not bad.  It's not good.  Their pizza is phenomenal, and I always get a bowl of fruit, but other than that, it's mediocre.

The ranch dispenser is broken, and I have to get my hands covered in the ranch on the outside of the bottle, just to pour it onto my salad.  Poor me.
An ex drug dealer drops a pan of toasted bread on the floor.  His manager scowls and writes something on a piece of paper.  The manager is a well dressed man with slicked back hair, faded on the sideburns--grey.  He has a striped tie.  He's the only one in here with a tie and it's striped.  This is slavery.  Of the poor and misfortuned, this is slavery.  Basically. 

One of the staff is mentally handicapped.  He says hello, and I nod and wave.  He sits at a table in front of Ham and I, sipping his diet Coke through three straws.  I wonder what makes him unhappy.  If he realizes his life sucks.  Does he want something.  He needs things, for sure, but what does he want.  What drives his understanding?

"She's incredible, man, I had to leave with her,"  Ham continues.
I say, "How exactly did you manage to hook up with Donna, of all people?"
"No barriers, man," he says, muffled, shoving a dead cow into his mouth.
Yeah, I know.  No barriers.  But how exactly did it happen?
"Well, she was there because of her sister."
She has family.  I thought that bitch was a completely shut-off person.  No relatives.  No friends.  Especially no sisters.
"Yeah, I figured that to until I actually talked to her.  No barriers.  She says everyone assumes that she dislikes them or is distant.  She's not."
So she's not into just herself.
"No, she is.  That's why her sister made her come.  She said Donna was, and I quote, 'pushing life away,'" he says using the stupid air quotes.
Pushing life away.  Like, being alone and shit.
"Yeah, and her sister loves the outdoors.  She wanted to share it with Donna.  Donna ended up ignoring her, though."
So, how does this justify leaving my ass behind, I ask him.
"Come on, can't you just be happy for me."
Happy for you.  Alright, I'll pretend, but I woke up to a whole slew of broken things in my house.

I tell him how I woke up and this girl I met at the park was gone and there was a mess in the kitchen.  A splintered breakfast everywhere.

He asks how it was.  How was what?  Hooking up with the girl I took home.  I tell him it isn't like that.  I like this girl.

"Like you liked, or, should I say, loved, Kris?" he says between fits of laughter.  He's making fun of me.
I say, "Hey, fuck you, man, that was infatuation."
"Yeah, when a girl puts out like she did, you gotta love her.  Four times a day, minimum? Jesus man, are you sure breaking up with her is the smart decision."
Sex and love are mutually exclusive.  At least usually.  I tell him this.  He laughs in my face and tells me that sex is the physical embodiment of love. 

Well, I like this girl.  I don't want to fuck anything up.  I tell him this

He laughs again.

There's a fat college student sitting a couple of tables away from us.

CNN blares on the suspended wide-screen a few feet from us. 

The fat kid just isn't fat.  He is obscene.  Obese beyond recognition.  A human blob.

A reporter says the war is going poorly and the military is to be broken into smaller sects for better control.  Secret contracts are being discussed with big corporations.

The human blob sits alone, eating everything on an overloaded black tray.  I feel bad for him.  I tell Ham we should invite him to sit with us.  He looks depressed.

An anchor closes the story, mentioning that some corporations will be conscripted into use, while others will be payed large sums for their services.  They will work hand in hand with the military.  The corporations will own some of the military's forces.  The military will own some corporations' businesses.

"Dude, pity is the worse than hate," says Hampton.

Calliope
She sits in her big black John Lennon shirt.  She sits and doesn't say a word to me, a pear all cut up in front of her.

I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, staring at her.  She doesn't look at me.  Her big Italian eyes stare down and passed her cute little Jew nose to her long, slender hands, which grip a silver spoon.  My reflection is upside down.  I wonder if it would matter if I flipped my view-- if it would be right again.

We're in a public restaraunt and she's silent.  She is so different in public. 

I'm leaning on the edge of the table, staring into two round splattershields.  Lennon just stares back at me.  Calliope's hair covers part of his head, making the shirt kind of come alive with a grown sort of quality to it.

Social Anxiety Disorder.  She has it.  Dipping her spoon up and down, she pokes her pears.  They are soft.  She looks up at me for a quick glance and looks back down, uncomfortable that her gaze was met by mine.

"Why is your hair so long?  I mean, like, no, I mean, I like it, but I'm just wondering,"  I sputter out.  My thoughts are firing off so fast in my head that they have trouble getting out of the traffic jam in my mouth.

"When I was young, my mother always cut my hair, and I always looked like a boy," she says.

"Sort of rejecting your past, that sort of thing?"

"I guess so," she says.

Her slices of pears now sit completely smushed, in a pile of fruity muck.

And I am spent.  I sit there, talking to her in my head for a few minutes.  I don't say a word out loud, but inside, my brain is experiencing a cataclysm of thought.  Nothing thought is suitable to speak, and I remain silent. 

I don't trust myself to talk, in fear of fucking things up.  She is silent, and doesn't give much reaction to what I extend.

A past of heavy drug use.  She has it.  She feels wasted and broken.   A leftover shell of a person.  What's left of me, she asks herself sometimes. I hear her in the next room sometimes, in my apartment, in between fits of singing.  Her life is a musical and she's the main character, alone but not lonely.  Or maybe she is.

I look across the table at her lake of pear-sauce and know that she is full, whole, even if she doesn't think she is.  There's no such thing as losing yourself or falling apart.  Every result is just another form.  The energy of the past pushes the present.  What we are just exists as an output of an input from the past.  We change, but we're really just the same.

But it all sits in my head.  The gridlock on my tongue is caused by one word blocking the path, something I reserve.

This is how I loved Calliope.

Necrolagnia
I come into work one day hungover and my co-worker, Fred, he tells me the news. 

Fred, the cardboard cutout of a sillouette.  He is actually useful to me, for once, other than making myself feel better about, well, myself.  This time, in fact, he makes me feel sick.  Techvice is now merging with a branch of the United States Military.  They are integrating the old with the new.

They are simply declaring the merger, when it has been there for years.  Every piece of technology we have produced for the past three years has been working toward a larger goal, an objective to control.  Tracking devices in phones, advanced camera lenses with smart chips.  Anything.  And they're all weapons.  Tacticians are taking my job.  Whereas a scientist seeks to balance his morals, a tactician seeks to completely ignore the existance of them.

I am baffled and slightly repulsed.  Fred tells me there's one more thing.  There's a reason he's informing me of the merger weeks before we go public.

Naomi Palinski is dead.  She was fucking some guy during the night when it happened.  He's dead too.  When I heard about it, they said he looked so much like me.  His name is unimportant, Naomi is dead.

This means I have fucked a dead person.  I can't believe this. 

They were fucking the night away.

Someone lurks outside.

NonameGuy puts his dick in her mouth, she sinks her teeth down-- her two ivory towers.

Someone looks through the window and sees me fucking Naomi.   And then, Someone moves to the front door of the shack.

Naomi flips over, NonameGuy hits her from the back.

Someone charges through the door with a steady shoulder and steel will.  A thin, shack door cannot contain the intrusive hatred of Someone.

Naomi thinks she hears something in the next room, NonameGuy convinces her it is nothing.

The double-barrel gun blast convinces everyone in the final room, the bedroom, otherwise.

Why is he telling me this?  Because in every device used by customers and employees, especially employees and those they are close to, there are chips that send and receive information.  Trackers and the sort.  He tells me why this is important to take into account. 

I rush out of the office and head to the bathroom.  My stomach is rotten.

In the bathroom, I shit for like twenty minutes.  Because, when some people drink or are hung over, they don't throw up.  Out of their mouth.   I wipe, stand up, and survey the damage I've delt to the toilet.  My shit is greener than I have ever seen it.  And fluffy.  It looks like I just submerged clumps of astroturf.  Much to my dismay, I am now vomitting everywhere.  This is awful.

I step out of the stall and one of the cleaning ladies is standing there looking at me, disgusted at the noises and smells generated by my body.

Naomi Palinski is dead.  And Kris killed her.  Transitively, I killed her.

Shotgun
Kris' mother is insane.  She is obsessive compulsive and manic depressive.  She sees one awkwardly slumped pillow on the couch and flips shit.  First, she tries to make it perfect, but, realizing nothing is ever good enough, she breaks down and starts crying, depressed.  Broken. 

Kris is similar, but not about objects.  She seeks to control people, not things.  This leads her to be a little crazier than the average person.

The grandfather that owned the farm which Kris owns now died from a shotgun blast to the face.   Kris' grandmother was a very controlling person and one night the grandfather came home drunk and said a few things that were less than pleasing to her.  She took a double barrel shotgun and blew his fucking head off.

Kris is similar, and equally crazy.

Rhythm and Police
The next thing I know I am getting a phone call from the police, asking if I knew Hampton McDylan.

I say, yeah, I know him.

The man on the phone asks me to come down to the station for questions.

I ask him what happened.  Ham was shot dead.  We need you down at the station for questioning.  We just need to know all you know.

"Officer, I'm as shocked as anyone else, I don't know how this could have happened," I tell the cop who sits across from me with broad shoulders and

"Sir,  to be honest, I'm just questioning you right now because we need to keep you safe."

Keep me safe?

He says, "Yes, keep you safe."  The murders have all involved Kris.  They haven't caught her yet, and are worried she will find and kill me. 

"What about Ham," I ask. "He was my only," I pause. "He was my friend.  What happened?"

Kris must have followed me back to Donna's apartment.

"But, I've never been to Donna's apartment."

He scowls and insists this must be the case.

"Wait, what's Donna's last name?"  What's her last name?

"Dellini.  The same last name as your girl," he says ominously. 

Donna's sister.  Calliope's sister.  Sisters.

"I've gotta get out of here, I have to make sure she's okay."

"She's alright," he says.  If they lose her, they might lose me.  "We've been monitoring you for awhile, now, Niles, and what we've come to realize is that you are vital to our success."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, the corporation.  Techvice.  You know, I'm not supposed to say nothin', but you're in a pretty high position, and all these women in your life, all this doubt you have, we gotta protect that if we're going to push forward."

"Push forward? What're you talking about.  The merger, is this about the merger?"

The state police are under Techvice's control.  The local cops.  The sherrif's in small outlying towns.  This city is now a nation, a small nation under the bastille "Techvice," the largest building in the city, right at its center.  Its heart.

My heart, not at the center, but offset to the side of my chest, begins pounding.  War drums in the depths of my ribcage, a mounting tide from within. 

Lub-dub. 

I see the officer has taken off his jacket.  His gunstrap is exposed.

Lub-dub, lub-dub.  My heart expands, contracts, expands, contracts. 

"We really think this'll work out, you know.  Taking things over.  We've gotta keep you safe, you're one of the head designers.  You're a people person, right?  Talk to me."

Thump, thump, thump.  I stare, with tremored vision from a pounding wardrum.

"If you're worried abouch'your girl, I already told you, she's completely safe.  This is in everyone's best interest."

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat.  Rapid fire gun shots.  A tommy gun of force.

And it stops.  I am calm for a brief second, sweat beeds forming around the edge of hair, like fields of tall grass, and scorched earth in contact at the edge.

I snap, bounding across the table, landing a hard fist to the bridge of the officer's nose.  Blood rockets out each nostril as the cartilage in his nose comes crashing down towards his face.  A quick left hook and a right elbow to the side of his face, and he is sufficiently disoriented, having fallen, crumpled, from his metal chair.  I take his gun and keys. 

I shoot my way out of the back of the building and into the streets to my car.  I am speeding to Calliope's apartment, to where Hampton and Donna were murdered.

Relief
I have come to realize something so pivotal life, that it brings clarity to all my actions, and puts them into perspective. 

It is relief, simple yet exquisite.

I work out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I space it out, but on these specific days, exhaust the designated muscle groups.

Monday. Everything chest. Abs, too.  Wednesday. Everything arms.  Abs, again.  Friday is back.

I do my excercises with Ham, because without latching onto a person, I generally lack motivation.  This is why my job is great, I am latched to people who think they are latching to me.  It is a one way street in my mind, where I get all the benefits. 

I lift, and lift, and lift.  I picture Calliope and am able to go beyond my body's limits.  She is the one thing in my life I have been able to detach myself from healthily, while maintaining a fair interest in her. 

I lift, and lift, and lift.  My arms become sore, but I continue.  The more I work my muscles, the better I will feel.  The more I hurt now, all the more pleasure later.  The more endorphins I will release, the greater benefit I will achieve.

There's always this group of guys in there, The Pack, Ham and I call them.  They stick together like dogs, wolves, whatever.  Their biceps are improportionately bigger than any other muscle group on their body.  It's kind of sickening, and disturbing looking.  Even Ham, with his pudgy self, could destroy any one of them.  Sure, they could land a few painful blows with that kind of strongarm, but overall they have nothing.  They walk around, flexing their muscles, looking angry and scowling at everything, especially themselves in the large mirrors that encase the gym.  The don't look like themselves.

Ham struggles to do sit ups on the slanted bench.  Partly because his stomach is the weakest part of him, and partly because I am cracking jokes on The Pack the entire time I stand next to him.  He gets off, laughing, saying he hates me. 

Either way, there we are, destroying our bodies to improve them.

If there's one thing I've come to learn about the wave-pattern of life, it's that there would be no up without the down, and no down without the up.  Without pain, there can't be pleasure, and without pleasure there can't be pain.  But, within both sets of oposing forces, there is relief.  And there is relief in the pain, in a sense.

The Final Cut
I stand inches away from a double-barrel shotgun.  It is leveled at my chest.  The center mass.  She knew I would come back to the scene of the crime.  Mostly criminals do this.  She said I would do this, because she would do this.  Kris.

I hesitate.  It is dark. This side of earth is in a negative universe now-- illuminatory descent, blanketed by its back, which is toward the sun.  The sun, the great big fireball of a life-source.  Suns, the great genesis machines suspended in the great beyond, the nothingness.  I can't help but think we are all our own genesis machine, creating a step further, however minute.  It's big at frist, creation is, and it gets smaller and more complex as time passes.  This is just the way life goes. 

Life.  Not that which you live, but life, the almost ethereal sense of organisms and existence.  Stretching, reaching forward, through the dark, to advance, to exist.  I should have stopped.  To rebel is to impede.  The final stages of man are in efficiency, in giving in to a greater system of need, beyond that of the self.  These final stages of man, I am prepared to say are the death of humanity as we know it.

I hesitate until a dark shadow with chest-length hair comes to the door.   I think back to a time when we sat alone, together, looking up, reaching out with our minds to a better time, and a better place.  This unobtainable dream, within us both, was a similar vision with very different perspectives.

I pull my trigger as fast as I can, three times.  She pulls it once. 

And it is enough.

Humanity
Under the ten story fortress of an apartment, we look at clouds.  We are laying down on an emerald lawn, mesmorized. The top of the building reaches upward, stretching, and scrapes the sky.  Clouds sail quickly across the roof, in our eyes, and beyond our foreheads.  The building is falling through the sky, careening into neverwhere.  It's a simple illusion of juxtaposition, but I don't care, I think it is beautiful.  I appreciate it the only way I know how, I reach out for the closest beautiful thing I can.  I put my arm around her.  She just smiles back and allows it.

The sun sinks in the distance.  I comment on the change in hue.  I say, "It's beautiful how the day changes.  I used to be upset at the fact that it was as simple as the angle at which rays hit the atmosphere, but now I think that complexity's incredible."

"Well, it's pollution too.  It's kind of sickening that the color changes because we're trashing our planet," she says.  I don't know if she's right, but I tell her I guess I'm happy we pollute the earth.  At least I can enjoy the pastel clouds here and now, and not worry about what humanity is doing to itself.  Self-mutilation.

Transcribing Knowledge Of The Smoke : PART I

So, recently I went home and had a good time smoking with one of my best friends ever--Jeff.  In my stories, for continuity, he is known as Horatio.  This entry revolves around the night we smoked, using quotes from the voice recorder.  I wish I could upload the audio, but we went with the cheap version.  In hindsight that was a bad idea.  There is no USB output and thus, I must transcribe it.  Here goes:

We sit in his car, something he has named the "Goldsmobile."  Guess it's color.  Slightly Stoopid plays in the background.

Talking about some guy named William, who is a compulsive liar.
A car passes us, I tell it to fuck itself, because I am the Doctor Doolittle of Cars:
Jeff: He's goin' to 7/11
Hunter: Ha, I love when people come out of Sheetz and go to 7/11. It's like, "Uhh, yeah, flashing lights and cool music isn't going to make me want to come to your store... I want shitty tacquitos."
Jeff: I do want shitty tacquitos!

Jeff: Man, I love the mirror system.
Hunter: Yeah, mirrors are kind of ingenious. 
Jeff: It's like, "We're gonna get a huge chunk of metal and have it fly down the road, and we're gonna put mirrors on it so you can see."
I then geek out at the prospect of video replacing mirrors. Jeff says we can discuss that after he takes his next hit off of the gravity.  We never do.  Instead, Jeff loads the gravity and realizes we have alcohol:
Jeff: This is crazy, but we do have vodka.
Hunter: Really?
Jeff: Yeah.
Hunter: Well, uh, cool.

A car passes and it looks like a cop, but isn't.  He takes a massive hit and sputters the smoke after a few seconds.  It rolls across the ceiling of the car.

Jeff: Ah, shit, that cannot be allowed to float around the car.
Hunter: Do you have Fabreeze?
Jeff: I have drive-breeze.
 
I laugh and tell him I love slamming words together.  This is why the German language kicks ass.  Compound words are key.  We talk about language briefly, and Jeff announces, several times, that he is "really high." He lists off his GB intake over the past couple of days.  He says he had one, then two the next day, and should now have three.  You can see how it becomes necessary to smoke more and more if you do it often.  That's why I love moderation.  We agree on three each, and I'm in for some high times, as I haven't smoked in months.

Jeff: Dude, I love being ambidexterous.
Hunter: ... I like having hands. Period.
Jeff: That's a good call, because not everyone has hands.
Hunter: Yeah, some things don't have hands. Some things have, like, tendrils.
Jeff: Well, no, like people.
Hunter: Yeah, and those people suck.
Jeff: Haha, I feel sorry for those people.
Hunter: Mmm, I don't. (pause) Actually, no, I'm a liar. I feel sorry for the stupidest shit.  I feel sorry for fat people, even if it's their own goddamn fault. There's this guy that sits in Larrick, the dining center next to my dorm, alone.  All the time.  He is definitely fuckin' obese.  This kid is not jokin' around with his fat.
Jeff: Hahaha, aww.
Hunter: I always feel compelled to sit with him but never do.

Jeff loses focus for a second.

Jeff: It's not caching, sooo, uh, I guess that means there's something in there.  But yeah, I saw the fattest dude in CVS today, and it was really sad because he was buying vaseline, which you know was for his bed sores--shit, not bed sores, but you know, like fat sores that you get from having too much fat--CHAFING!
I laugh for like 30 seconds.
Jeff: Yeah, I realize that was convoluted as shit, but I am high as shit.

Somehow we get on the subject of tattoos, probably because I go, "Dude, I was thinking about getting a tattoo." Jeff tells me that's pretty cool, but then I tell him, "I mean we're talking a really hack tattoo"  He goes blank and asks, "What?" in that monotone voice that indicates disappointment.

Hunter: A yin-yang.
Jeff: Don't do it.
Hunter: Dude, duality is fucking cool. I believe so strongly in duality.
Jeff: OH! That reminds me, I reread your... VOX thing... the entry that was deterministic in nature, and I was thinking, those comments were really good.
Hunter: Yeah, they were, I really appreciated them.  They were good. Wait, you read the actual VOX post right?
Jeff: Yeah.
Hunter: Okay, yeah, those were really good.  The one with the logical proofs I didn't quite understand.
Jeff: I didn't really get that one either. What I was impressed by was how logical these people are, though.  Like, when I read your arguement, I liked it, because it was good writing, but like, there was something wrong with it, but I couldn't put it into words, and these people were just like bam!
Hunter: Yeah, when I write I don't really think about what I'm doing, I just channel.
Jeff: No, I know what you mean.  I left a great story as one giant block of text for two weeks.  No paragraph breaks.
Hunter: Yeah, I remember that shit.

We segway to talking about the college experience, and Jeff asks me if the song playing is Glassjaw.  I tell him it is, and that I put it on the custom CD we are listening to simply because of the effects in the song.

Hunter: I love this effect.
Jeff: Dude, I have yet to play guitar high.
Hunter: Deeyew Deeyew deeyew.  You need a huge effects set-up.
Jeff: Dude, effects make or break music.  That's actually kinda why I like classic rock, because it's not the effects that make the music.
We begin to move out of the parkinglot we're in.
Hunter: Uh, where are we going?
Jeff: To air out the car.

Thinking he had forgotten about me, I point to the GB, then me, and back to the GB. He laughs and reassures me that we're going to stop in a second. I point out the voice recorder set up and tell him I like it.  He says he has forgotten about it. "Yeah, I-- I haven't," is my response.  I am not high enough at this point for a glowing red let at headlevel to just slip into the background. The real background, outside, is beautiful.  The trees are turning with the changing temperatures.  Fall has begun, and back home, twenty or so minutes from where I currently live, it is absolutely beautiful.  Jeff says, "See, that's what separates us from a soul-less, urban 1984 society."  I haven't read the book, but I know the gist of it, and he's right. 

I notice a huge Trailer Truck parked in the vacant lot.  We're surprised we didn't notice it before.
 
Jeff: Oh shit, dude, Mr. Krane did the craziest thing in Creative Writing today.
Hunter: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.  The biology teacher?

He tells me he teaches psychology now.  I am pissed, because when I was in highschool, psychology was forbidden on the premise that sex factored in to a human's thought process.   We continue driving and pass a car of young girls.  Jeff inflects out loud:
Jeff: Holy shit, do I know those girls?
He doesn't. We pull into our spot.
In a news anchor voice, I say, "Here we are, back at Smoke-Central-Station."  Jeff proceeds to slam his hand into the dashboard repeatedly.  This is the only form of laughing he can communicate.  I know this because there is a huge smile on a face gasping for air.
Hunter: I love that about high people. I can't deny my love for beating the shit out of something because it's funny.  Wooo (slam, slam, slam), thaaaat's hilarious.  It's like reverting to a lesser state.
Jeff: But I love reverting.
I reassure him that I do too.  I begin talking about the "allies" mentioned in Carlos Castaneda's The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, but he isn't listening.  The reason for this is he is attempting to pack the GB and it is requiring all of his mental focus.

Jeff: Hunter? I am entirely too high to pack GBs.
Hunter: But you're not too high to hold the GB for me--
Jeff: That's right.
Hunter: --because that's what I did for you.
Jeff: Haha, come here, GB, give me a hug.
Hunter: Man I can't see shit...
I get out my phone and use it as a light to pack by.
Jeff: Oh shit, we didn't use the crack lighter.  Oh, we've gotta raise some GBs with the crack lighter.

There's some silence between us, but Glassjaw is just now finishing up their song.  It's a good thing too, because the end of the song is not something to listen to high. It's caustic.

I go for my first hit, and Jeff whips out his "crack lighter."  I ask him as judicially as I can, "Is that the fuckin' crack lighter."  He lights it, and it is.  The flame ripples in waves towards the ceiling of the car.  It is nearly four inches of deadly blue and orange flame.
Hunter: Oh, NO WAY. No, I'm not using that shit.
Jeff: That's a fuckin' horrible idea, thank you.  Thank you for double checking that, we're in an apholstered car.

In the background a new song is playing.  "Parole Atale," by Meg.  Very moody music--in Italian.  I figured I'd test run the song high, but it flopped and turned out whinier than anyone would ever want to listen to high. 
Jeff: Is that phone-off-the-hook sound coming from the song?
Hunter: Yeah, you're fine.
Jeff:  I know, it's just fucking with my head.
Hunter: Hahaha, dude, does your cellphone have a hook to put on?
Jeff: Yeah, exactly.
Hunter: You are high.
Jeff: Exactly.
I take my first or second hit, and it is gargantuan. I never cough when smoking, but I almost heaved up a lung right there.  I was in for a good time.
Hunter: One second, fuckin' cotton mouth killer.
The car starts rolling.
Jeff: Oh my GOD, this car's still going!

DING DING DING.
The car is turned off and back on. I ask him to hold something while I chug some Pink Lemonade.  I offer him some, because it's a 2 liter, but he remembers I am sick.  We then talk about listening to the voice recorder high, and how we're not going to do that tonight.
Hunter: We're not going to listen to it tonight.
Jeff: Because we're really high.
Hunter: And that's scary.  Remember when we did that, uh--
Jeff: And never listened to it.
Hunter: No, no.  Do you remember listening to it high?  Because I remember that being scary.
Jeff: Oh yeah!
Hunter: Hearing myself on a device was scary.
Jeff: You realized the whole Native American, stealing of soul thing is true.
Hunter: Yeah, because it's true.
We laugh.
Jeff: I like that we acknowledge that.
Hunter: Yeah, it's true.  Your "soul" is stolen when you place it on a cold-- Like, no, seriously, what you are, your soul is everything that comprises you.  And if a machine can transcribe it and replicate it more efficiently than you can... it has captured a moment in your soul, in time of your soul--physically captured it.  Everything's physical.

Jeff: Yeah, that's true.  You just reminded me about the story I was going to tell about Mr. Krane.  He showed us this video with people wearing white shirts and people wearing black shirts, throwing basketballs. And you had to count the number of times the people in the white shirts passed the basketball.  So, the video's like twenty seconds long, he stopped it and goes, "Okay, raise your hand if you didn't see the gorrila."

Hunter: Isn't it crazy? Focus the mind on one thing and it ignores another.
Jeff: Yeah, and you rewatch it and there's just a guy in a gorilla suit on the screen like[Jeff dances].

I cough again, expelling more smoke into the car.  An Airbase song comes on--"Spin." 
More confidently than anything I've ever said in my life, I go, "This song I kept on the remix, because it's only two minutes long(whereas most are 8 or so), and it's a good Airbase song. So, I figured 'Why not?' Mix it up a little bit in your mind.  Like, those are two pretty good reasons."

We go back to discussing psychology, and I tell him how I love that there's a whole science behind how humans operate.  I say, "understanding the self is the only way to obtain any true sense of power."  He tells me if he doesn't become a teacher, he will be a psychologist.  Inevitably, we get around to talking about majors, and how they don't really matter.  At the time of the recording, I was seriously considering switching my major from Psychology to English, which I now realize would be a waste of my time.  Jeff gets pensive about college, explaining all the shit he has to apply for, all the essays he's writing.  Hell, I barely even tried to get into college.  It was more of the next, inexorable step for me.  I really respect the fact that he's trying, and I hope he gets in where he wants and then enjoys it.  Also, I hope he goes to a big party school and fits in... so I can come visit.

Jeff stops mid-breath at the sound of "Sacrifice," by The Expendables.
Hunter: No, yeah, no I had to keep this on the CD, this is a high classic. How could I forget this song?
Jeff: This song is just... YES, I get to listen to this high!
Hunter: In fact, we get to listen to this high, turned up.
Jeff: This is why being high in cars with sweet sound systems is awesome.  Have you been in one?
Hunter: Dude, the kids down the hall have speakers taller than this car.
Jeff: Oh, you totally told me. Such a sacrifice inside, ooo, oooooo.
Hunter(singing to the tune): Taxi cab goin' by. What if that was my ex girlfriend coming to kill us
We make shotgun and machine gun sounds for a few seconds.
Hunter: She's got like a tracking device in me.
Jeff: Is she really that crazy?
Hunter: Mmm, no, but that shit's funny.

We start talking about comedy.  Apparently my delivery of "No, but that shit's funny" spurs this thought in his head.  I'm sweet.  We talk about a comedy club I've mentioned, one that my friend Sean introduced me to.  He wants to go, and I tell him he should come sometime.

Hunter: Dude, you have no idea how high I am right now.
Jeff: A lot? Is the answer a lot?
Hunter: Do you remember planet Sieben?
Jeff:  Oh shit.
Hunter: That's how high I am.
Jeff:  You see, I realized that back when I had a place in my head, a planet that I went to... I got really high then.
I can't stop laughing.  I throw the GB out the window as we leave our spot.
Hunter: I'm making the executive decision up there on that dark road... after... all these fucking lights are gone... Like right here. 
The GB makes a hollow clunk as it roles and slows, stopping-- dead.
Jeff: Doo DOO DUKE!
Hunter: Hahahaha
Jeff: Dooka doo doo, dooka dooka doo doo.(he sings with the song, which is "40oz to Freedom", Sublime)
Hunter: Hahahahhaa, reality is sweet.  Wow, I feel like the car is going faster than me.
Jeff: The great part is, right now, your internal organs are moving at 30 miles per hour.
Hunter: Yup. Damn it's cold.
Jeff: I've learned to ignore it.
Hunter: Yeah, me too, but then a breeze of needles hits you in the face. And you're like, "Mm, that's cold."

I proceed to laugh my ass off at Jeff's driving ability:
Hunter: Hahahaha, as we creep, hahaha, ever so slightly, hahaha, up to the curb.  That was fucking classic man.  Vvrrrr, pulling into docking bay one.
We are in the Sheetz parkinglot eating cold pizza and he wants a drink.  He is going to go inside, but I feel too high to do so.  I will lose my shit in front of the officer on call and laugh at his shiny badge.  Jeff wants cottonmouth killer.  I suggest the alcohol in the back and he scowls at me. "Fuck that," is all he says.  He concedes, though, that beer and pizza would be amazing. 
Jeff: Have you ever had just like... two beers... instead of...twenty?

I tell him no. And then here it comes, Jeff's oration on life, and what it is to be a stoner:
Jeff: I realized why being a stoner is not acceptable.  You are not supposed to have this much fun.  Think about it, you can go out and do anything and it's fun if you're high.  And that's just not natural, you're not supposed to have that much fun.  You're supposed to get that much fun out of life.

I laugh in his face, but say he's somewhat right.
Jeff: Think about it, if you cannot get that kind of fun out of just living life, there's something wrong with you.
There's a slight pause as the bass picks up and Bud Gaugh lays down a tempo change.
Hunter: Or.  The chemicals in our brain are different.
Jeff: Exactly, but you shouldn't need to put chemicals in your body.
This goes on for awhile, but ultimately we make fun of stupid people, like this girl from my English class who tried to argue that sodium ions aren't what help cause thought.
Jeff: Oh, I love the comment from that girl--"SALT DOESN'T CONTROL OUR THOUGHT!"
Hunter: Yeah, somebody actually said that to me.

The periodic table is mentioned and we see blue lights flashing across the four lane road in front of us.  Someone just got pulled, which is a really strange thing to see when high.  I call cops "Enforcers" now, because of that.  That's what they are, but that's my high terminology for them, because I think it's best to have different words for the same meaning, so as to take yourself out of a conditioned mindset about things.  It helps expand your view.  Maybe that's bullshit, but it helps me see things differently.

.