Crisper

            “Fall has started for sure,” said Brian.

            “It sure has,” said Ryan.

             Brian tossed his cigarette out the driver’s side window and looked up at the two story frame house across the street.

             “How long has it been,” asked Ryan.

            “Three hours,” said Brian.

            Ryan adjusted in the passenger seat.

             “My ass is killing me. I think I have to lay off the Mexican food for a while,” said Ryan.

            “I wish you would too. I didn’t want to say anything but it’s been an issue for a while,” said Brian.

            “Well, I’m sorry. I’ve asked you a ton of times not to smoke in the car while we’re on a stakeout. Farting obnoxiously is my only defense,” said Ryan.

             Brian laughed and reached down for his paper cup of coffee. Ryan sighed and looked up toward the same frame house.

             “This is so cliché isn’t it? Two cops sitting in a crappy unmarked car watching a house for a drug dealer to come out so we can follow him,” said Ryan.

            “It’s the job,” said Brian.

            “Yeah, I guess,” said Ryan.

             The front door of the frame house opened and out stepped Mac D. He was wearing a bathrobe and was smoking a cigarillo.

             “Here we go,” said Brian.

             Mac D pulled his robe tighter around him against the crisp fall morning. He bent down and picked up a newspaper. A squirrel leapt onto the front porch railing and Mac D jumped. He flicked the newspaper at the squirrel and it scurried off toward the gangway. Mac D appeared to laugh to himself and he started to turn back toward the front door.  A gray car sped down the street passed Brian and Ryan toward Mac D’s house.

             “Oh crap,” said Ryan.

             The car slowed in front of Mac D’s and gun fire erupted through the driver’s side windows. Bullets peppered Mac D and the front of his house. Brian jumped from the driver’s seat of the unmarked car and drew his weapon. Ryan had trouble opening his passenger door. The gray car sped off as Brian ran towards its rear. He got off a few shots but the car pulled out of range. 

             Ryan ran up next to Brian with his weapon drawn. The street quieted quickly. Brian and Ryan looked at Mac D, now splayed out down his front porch, blood running down the front stairs.

             “Call for back-up and an ambulance,” said Brian.

             Ryan nodded and ran back toward the unmarked car and Brain ran toward Mac D. He realized at that moment he could sort of see his breath. Fall had certainly arrived.

Logo-Sapiens

iPhone using, Abercrombie wearing,

designer eyeglasses, tee-shirt by Atari,

Coach satchel with the seat belt buckle,

specialized brewed beer made in small distinct batches.

 

Apple using, Google reading, You Tube watching,

HBO loving. Whole Foods shopping,

TV commercial quoting, Yoga doing,

Green Tea drinking, pumpkin spices.

 

Nike running, Insurance company sponsored,

Prius driving, X-Men watching, FX laughing,

Liberty, American, Home, Family, Honda selling,

McDonald’s hating, Burger King indifference.

 

Franklin, Washington, Lincoln, Pontiac,

iTunes, Comcast, Star Wars,

Disney princesses, Uncle Ben, Hamburger Helper,

Maytag, Keurig brewing, Starbuck’s sipping.

 

Old Navy, GAP, Banana Republic, Walgreen’s,

Jewel, Moo & Oink,

United, Delta, Mr. Clean. Miller Lite.

Pedigree, Fancy Feast.

 

Irony, history, legacy.

 

The Sound of my Dreams

            I woke to the sound of thunder rattling the windows and the echoes of my own advice in my dreams. It was exceedingly dark in my apartment, flecked with the occasional flash of lightening through the windows. I was asleep on the couch. It seems I’ve been sleeping there a lot lately. I sat up and oriented myself through the darkness when I remembered the dream.

             I was crying and sitting with a blind young woman in a living room I didn’t recognize. This strawberry blonde haired blind girl was terribly upset about something and I was trying to comfort her. I said to her, “It isn’t about the things you have but the bunches of people you have”.  I’m confident that she smiled at that, but it was hard to tell through the tears. In the background was the sound of burning and crackling wood in a fire place. Our shadows seemed to dance on the walls in the flickering firelight.

             She was a very beautiful woman and I could see there was a pure and tender softness about her. I don’t know what our relationship was really. I couldn’t tell if we were intimates or just friends. I think I wanted or at least hoped we were intimates. We did seem to be very close though.  I had the strange feeling that we once held hands or at least gently caressed each other fingers through some other night, when the windows rattled and rain pelted the glass.

             I lit a cigarette and tried to remember more details from the dream. The thunderstorm twisting its way outside was a distraction and I started to lose my hold on the dream. I started to lose her. By the time I finished my smoke her face was nothing but a blurry remembrance. An unfocused collection of all the faces of the woman I’ve loved or want to lavish my love upon.  

             I lay back down on the couch and listened to the rain fall. I realized that my eyes were still wet from the dream tears. I wondered what we had been crying about in the dream. I wondered if my advice, my words of comfort reached her in any real way. Then I remembered again that it was a dream and maybe I was trying to give myself some advice. I thought that in a lot of cases, when we dole out advice to people it’s usually the very thing we need to hear ourselves.

             Another blast of thunder from the skies outside and I felt a rumble through the couch. My eyes shut and I fell back to sleep.

13th Round

The bumbling, aged boxer in

my head. Shuffling, staggering

against the sides of the ring

of my brain.

 

He’s punch-drunk. He’s shaky.

He drools a little from the

corner of his mouth.

 

He keeps going forward,

or sort of forward as ably as

he can. His steps are ragged

but doggedly ahead.

 

It hurts him to move.

It hurts me when he moves.

He looks back with wincing

regret, over his aching

shoulder, for the ring-girl

that he loved but never

loved him back.

 

His joints are painful and

his eyes are cloudy.

Each jerking step a testament

to his duty to march in

the line of his direction.

 

I need an aspirin.

 

The True 6th Sense

            We’ve always been told that there are really only five senses; touch, sight, taste, hearing and smell. I think however there is another sense. It is not extrasensory perception like the TV Ghost Hunters would have you believe. It’s humor, or rather, a sense of humor.

             At this very moment my family is going through a very rough time. There have been a lot of tears shed and emotions have been ramped up to a very high degree. It’s been angry and frustrating and painful for so many and yet, through it all, we’ve kept our sense of humor.

             I will say that my family has a fairly morbid sense of humor, i.e. monster truck hearses, preserved to be embalmed as to stand up next to the coffin so we can be part of our own funeral receiving line, practical joke tombstones that squirt water on your crotch when one approaches, all that stuff. But it is our sense of humor that gives us the tools to deal with the tragic.

             Having a sense of humor I think is as important to survival as the other five senses. If our evolutionary ancestors couldn’t have laughed at Thag and Grod getting mauled by that Sabre tooth Cat then I’m quite sure we never would have made it as a species. It’s our best and purest coping mechanism available to us. 

             This is not to discount the real and honest sadness of certain events. There are some things that are truly too tragic to poke at with the funny stick, but most events require a little levity in order to deal with them. It’s a way to put them in our mind warehouse and get back to the business of living our lives.

             A house full of laughter is better than a house full of sobbing. It is the remembrance of the laughter shared that binds us together as a society and as families; even if those laughs are through rivers of tears.

             Birth, death, and all that stuff that happens in between, requires us to use our senses to survive and carve out a little place for ourselves and those important to us. The most important of these senses, to me, is truly humor. I don’t think we could have made it without it.

             So cry, but laugh. Weep, but smile.

Grinding Greens

A breeze

through

the trees.

 

Rustled.

Shaken.

Fluttered.

 

Stand

against

the wind.

A Cause to Fight for

            I know I’ve been away from the blog writing for a while. Unfortunately my time has been mostly consumed with a search for a job. A job, job, job. Finding a job is nearly a job in and of itself. It’s hell. I don’t like it one bit. Of course it probably would be helpful if I knew what it was that I wanted to do with myself. I do not have a passion for any nine to five cubicle type job, nor do I like the sound of driving around in a van or stocking heavy things, or talking with people or faking being nice just to toe the company line. It’s just not something I can convince myself to do.

             I’ve always hoped for a cause to get behind, but my passions are weak. I’m generally weak in my desires and quite plain in my pursuits. I’ve thought about jobs in Community Outreach or doing something to help people, but then I see that I have very few qualifications in that field of work. I’ve been far too trapped in the insurance industry for far too long and my experience in anything else is quite small. I’m not that marketable as a human commodity.

             I also hate to be referred as a human commodity. The anti-establishmentarian in me can’t stand to be quantified and filed away in some office cubicle. I’ve no will, no stomach for it. I just don’t believe in anything enough to want to do it for a living. A life of passion, zeal and enthusiasm seems so foreign to me. It’s probably the clinical depression talking too. I’ve no motivation. It’s not that I’m lazy or stupid. I’m really neither of those things. I just don’t like much.

             I’m begging for something to believe in. I know that it won’t just knock on my door and say, “Hey Michael, here’s that thing to believe in and care for and feel the joy of pride in something well done. See you later, in hell”. 

             I’m both smart and stupid at the same time and it’s a battle of the mind constantly being played out over the battle ground of my brain. I’m sad. I’m lonely. I’m disinterested. I’m disenchanted by most things. I’ve become cynical about myself, yet always hope for the best for others. I like to see people do well but feel envy over their success. I can’t get over it, but let it roll off my façade like it was nothing.

             I fume. I fluster. I waste time. I am the lost man; the lost boy in a man’s body. Drifting through life without purpose or destination yet upset about the shores on which I arrive. I don’t believe in anything enough. I don’t have a real cause. A crusade of passion. There’s no banner over my head proclaiming my intentions of joy. I’m just another jackass in a crowd of jackasses do jackass things to pass the jackass time until I get old and impotent.

             Yet I persist in the exploration of mediocrity. A continued hunt for a job to sustain this bland and tasteless lifestyle I’ve somehow wound up in. Was it the way I was raised? Am I product of my environment? When did I lose faith? Who will believe in me when I can hardly believe in myself? A recycled recharge is needed.