That's like, weird...right?

I saw one of the strangest

things this morning as I

walked to work from

the train station.

I saw a lone pigeon

strutting along the

busy Chicago sidewalks

with a long pigeon feather

in its beak.  

This pigeon was just

bobbing along, clutching

a long pigeon feather in its

mouth, like it was so

normal.

I had never seen a

pigeon, or any bird for that

matter, ever carry some other

bird’s feather in his

mouth.

It was so weird. The pigeon

seemed to know it was a little

strange because when he saw

me see him, he pretended like

it was so cool to have a feather in

his beak.  

“I do this all the time, bro,” was

the look on the pigeon’s little

face. And he continued to bob

and waddle past me toward the

destination of his choice.

Some bird bar perhaps

where bird feathers might

be currency. A sort of bird

Fight Club maybe, or he

was planting some evidence to keep

the long arm of pigeon law at bay.

Either way, it was a very

peculiar way for Monday to

start.  

Sales Monster

Snortles said she

wished to cease being

a monster under so

many sleeping beds.

She said she wished

she worked in sales

at a mattress store

as a sleeping consultant.

Snortles said she

wished her name was

Cindy, and certainly not

Snortles: the Sandman Strangler.

Snortles sobbed and sighed,

stomped her hooves in the sand

and swung her tail recklessly

in her supervisor’s office.

“Snortles,” said her Supervisor,

“You can’t sell the sleeping beds,

your scales and sharp incisors would

scare the customers.”

Her Supervisor snarled and smoke

spewed from his stack. He steamed

and stoked and hissed. “It’s just how

it is Snortles,” he said.

“Call me Cindy,” she said.

She wiped her snot on her

sleeve and stood from her seat,

“My name is Cindy and I sell mattresses!”

She stormed out, slamming her

supervisor’s door. Thinking about

Melanie Griffiths and starting things

over like Working Girl from the cinema.

“I’m Cindy,” she said to herself,

“I’m Cindy and I’m strong.”

And that’s why there’s no

monster under your bed

anymore.

October Baseball is Scary

                Jim arrived at the ballpark early. He was so early that he was the only fan in the stands yet. He had camped out overnight in front of the park in order to be the first one inside on game day. It was a big moment for his hometown team. The Coreville Mammoths were playing a huge wildcard game against their most hated rivals, The Strandberg Stallions. Jim had taken two days off of work to be at the game. It had been over 90 years since the Mammoths had made it to the play-offs and Jim couldn’t imagine missing it. Nothing could stop him from missing the game, not his job, not his wife, absolutely nothing.

                The game wasn’t scheduled to start until 7:30 and seating wasn’t supposed to start until 5:00, but Jim had made friends with the managing grounds keeper, Hop Chu. Hop Chu was the only member of the mammoth’s staff that was alive the last time they won a championship. He was a die-hard fan even in his old age, so he understood Jim’s eagerness to get into the park early and get fully settled in his seat.  Hop Chu had let Jim in through the employee’s side entrance and warned him to be cool. No matter what happened, to be cool. It was a big deal to be let in so early, so he had to be cool.

                Jim thought that was a strange warning from Hop Chu. Jim felt that he was always a cool ballpark patron. He never ripped his shirt off to expose his big beer belly, or harassed the bikini girls that often sat three rows in front of Jim’s season held seats.  He was a proud fan and kept score in the program, knew about all the ERA’s and BA’s and trade rumors along with the regular gossip that could help or hinder a ball club. So Hop Chu’s warning seemed almost insulting.

                Jim made his way to his seat and set up his drink holder, his Mammoth’s fan gear, made sure his John 3:16 sign was not bent in any way. He finally sat down and looked out at the empty stadium. It was glorious. The grass was plush and green; the infield was perfectly reddish brown. The chalk lines were fresh. Jim could almost smell the pine tar in the air. He took long deep breaths of it and was reminded of his own little league days of glory.

                The weather was gray and overcast for the game. The stadium lights were already on over the field, giving the whole place an ethereal feel. Jim felt like this really was his church. His safe place. His refuge in the storm. It was where he felt his best. Plus he knew his team wouldn’t let him down this time, not like they had for the last 90 years.  Jim looked up to heaven and said a little baseball prayer in his head then mumbled a quiet, “Amen,” out loud.

                “What’s that you say,” asked an old man, three seats over from Jim’s.

                Jim jumped a bit. He wasn’t expecting anyone else to be in the ballpark this early. He thought he was the only one crafty enough to get in good with Hop Chu.

                “Oh hey, I didn’t hear you arrive. I was, um…, I was just saying a little prayer for our Mammoths,” said Jim.

                “Ah, I see. Well, young  man, I hope it was a good prayer,” said the old man.

                The old man was wearing a battered Mammoths baseball cap and had a corncob pipe tucked in the corner of his mouth.  Jim looked at him and couldn’t help but be amazed at the frailty of the old man. His skin was nearly transparent. Jim could see the blood moving through the veins in his wrinkled old face.  He looked like he was made out of paper, wet, thin paper.

               

                “Me too,” said Jim.  

                Jim opened his fanny pack and made sure he remembered his multicolored pens for the program. Which he had. He looked at his Mammoth’s wristwatch. It was only three twenty-two in the afternoon. So much time to cover before the game got under way. Jim felt his stomach rumble with excitement.  He fixed his Mammoth’s hat and rubbed his hands together against the October chill. He’d forgotten his Mammoth’s knit gloves. He thought he’d left them with his wife, but they got in the way of scoring the game anyway.

                “Bit of a chill, eh,” asked the old man.

               

                Jim looked up and over at the old man to his left.

                “Yeah, a bit. But you know, October baseball, so…...” said Jim

                The old man smiled and nodded. The old man pointed up toward the huge overhead lights.

                “Look at that,” said the old man.

                Jim followed the old man’s arm up toward the lights. Jim squinted his eyes against the bright lights over the right field wall and just for a second thought he saw a baseball fly in front of the lights, as if someone had hit a foul ball. Jim looked down at the field and it was empty. He hadn’t even heard the crack of a bat, or seen any player come out for a little batting practice. He didn’t hear the ball hit the empty upper deck seats, or any sound at all.

                “What the heck was that? A Bird,” asked Jim.

                “Oh no young man. They’re warming up,” said the old man. A ring of smoke puffed from the end of his pipe.

                Jim was annoyed at the old man for smoking a pipe since smoking was banned in the seats four years ago, but he was an old man and there wasn’t anyone else in the stadium so he could be forgiven.

                “Who is warming up? There’s no one on the field,” said Jim. He sat forward in his seat, fifth row from third base.

               

                The old man stayed silent and was looking out over the field. Jim figured it was probably a bird that flew in front of the lights and this old man was probably senile as hell. He looked back down at the cover of his program with a picture of the amazing, Jimmy “Jaime” Rodriguez-Alanzo, who had revitalized the Mammoth’s pitching when Jim heard the crack of a bat against a baseball.

                Jim looked up at the field just in time for a foul ball to land hard against the plastic seats two rows to Jim’s right. The sound echoed through the empty ball park and made Jim jump.  He looked toward the batter’s box. It was empty.

                “What the hell…,” said Jim.

                “See. I told you. They got a lot of warming up to do. They’re just hitting the ball all over the place,” said the old man.

                Jim looked around the ball park to see if someone was playing a prank on him, maybe one of those hidden camera shows or something to embarrass regular people. He didn’t see any cameras or other folks around.

               

                Another sharp crack of the bat against a ball and Jim looked back toward the field. He just caught a glimpse of a blurred backswing near home plate. A ball then hit the center field upper deck railing and tumbled to the lower decks below. The noise echoed less as there was the gentle sound of what seemed like, cheering starting to roll through the stadium.  The old man stood up and was weakly clapping, as if someone was rounding the bases. Jim couldn’t see anyone on the field again.

                “What’s going on guy,” asked Jim as he started to stand up.

                “I told you. They just needed a little warm up and they’ll be right as rain,” said the old man.

                “Who? Who needed to warm up,” asked Jim.

                “The team. The Mammoths. They needed to warm up. Don’t you see them out there,” asked the old man as more pipe smoke circled around his old hat.

                “I don’t see anybody mister,” said Jim.

                The old man sort of frowned and sat back down. He rubbed his chin and took the pipe from his mouth.

                "I thought you were a big fan,” said the old man.

               "I am a big fan. The biggest. I just, I just don’t know what’s… what’s going on here,” said Jim as he looked around the park again.

                “Right. The biggest fan,” said the old man.

                Jim felt insulted.  This old man had scowled at him and made him feel like a jerk for not being in on the gag.

                “Hey old man, I don’t see anything going on out there and I know you or some Allen Funt type jackass is just screwing with me because I’m here four hours before the game. So you can just quit it,” said Jim.

                “Do you miss your wife,” asked the old man.

                Jim stopped his scanning of the stands. He looked at the old man. The old man had turned his withered body and was facing Jim.

                “What the hell are you talking about old man? Shut up,” said Jim.

                “Answer the question, do you miss your wife,” continued the old man.

                “Hey. Buddy. I know you’re old but I don’t want to have to come over there and shut you up,” said Jim.

                “You couldn’t lay a finger on me, wuss,” said the old man, “Where’s your wife?”

                Jim started to get up out of his seat. No man, old or young, was going to talk to Jim that way. There was another crack of a bat. A baseball streaked across the field and Jim just had second to duck out of the way as the ball smashed into the seat next to his. The old man was laughing.

                “She’s got a hell of a swing,” said the old man. Smoke rings puffed from his pipe and the air was filling with mist. Jim straightened himself and started moving toward the old man.

                “What do you mean, She,” asked Jim.

                The old man pointed toward the field. He pointed at home plate. Jim waved some of the thickening smoke away from in front of his face. At home plate was his wife, head caved in from where Jim had struck her with his collectors bat. She was standing in the batter’s box, in her robe still, covered in blood, holding the bloody bat.  She took a practice swing and squared her shoulders. A ball came from the fog now covering the mound and she rocketed another ball straight at Jim in the stands. He dove out of the way as the ball slammed into the concrete steps just inches from his feet.

                “What the hell! What the hell! What the Hell,” shouted Jim.

                The overhead speaker system came on and the old man’s voice echoed through the stadium.

                “Now batting, number one, Mrs. Jim Cobbbbbbbbbbb…….”

                Jim stumbled over the steps leading to his section and looked over his shoulder. His wife, Jane, spit blood into the reddish infield dirt around the batter’s box. She tightened her grip on the bloody bat and swung.  Jim stumbled back as the ball shot right past his face. He could feel the seams of the ball just graze him.  He screamed and started to run toward the exit. He dropped his Mammoth hat, his colored pens spilled from his fanny pack.

                Hop Chu stood at the front gate, there were two policemen standing with him. Jim ran toward them, arms waving, shouting, “Take me in! Save me! Save me! I did it! I killed her! I killed her! She wouldn’t let me come to the game! She wouldn't let me! She didn’t understand!”

                Jim was tackled by the two police officers as he crashed through the turn style. They threw him to the ground and placed the handcuffs on him.

                “You’re under arrest for the murder of Jane Cobb,” said one cop with his knee in Jim’s back.

                “Go Mammoths,” screamed Jim, “GO MAMMOTHS!”

Back to the Dark

The dark,

a place of the unknown

and unknowing,

a realm of pitch concealing

every corner.

The dark, impenetrable,

impervious, all consuming,

devourer of the light,

echoer of mysterious

creaks and groans.

The dark muffles,

confuses, hides and

re-shapes through shadows

and formlessness, muddles

and frightens.

The dark grows thicker,

murky, heavy, an abyss

of the unfamiliar swirling

like red wine in a glass

served in hell.

The dark, staring at me

as I clutch the covers up

to my chin. I know it’s

coming to get me. To

consume my soul.

The dark, black eyes,

glaring from beyond,

I can hear it growling,

licking it’s lips, I feel

the hate in its heart.

No, wait, that’s just

my laundry piled up in

the corner.

Damn that

scared me.

Should have just turned

on the light. 

Maintenance Department

I imagine the janitor in

my brain. He looks a lot like

me, maybe even more handsome,

but wears a light bluish gray jumpsuit

and he’s always a little grimy.

I imagine this little janitor mopping

and scrubbing his way through the

crevasses of my brain, cursing ever so

slightly under his breath at all the

graffiti on the walls.

There’s streamers and glitter,

discarded shoes, clothes and

beer bottles and shot glasses

littered across the many pathways

of my mind.

The little janitor, a blue collar guy,

punches in on Monday morning,

dreading the weekend mess he’ll

have to clean up, put back together,

make shiny and new, only to see it tarnished.

The pay is good through, free room

and board. He could invite his wife and

kids to live with him, if he had any. Too much

of a workaholic to ever make the time for a

family.

My janitor, punches in and gets the

sawdust first, sprinkles it about the

drying vomit and various fluids spewed

about. He finds the bleaches and brushes

and goes about his chores.

He puts his headphones on,

He still has a Walkman cassette player,

with sounds of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s

to get him through the long days

of scrubbing and scraping. He dances a bit.

He’ll get the job done, even take pride

in it all. He’ll get home at night, put his

feet up, watch some TV, doze off and

do it all again, somehow happy and

without any real complaints.

Except for the glitter.

He hates the glitter.   

Apathy, oh apathy.

Some days I’m embarrassed,

to say that I’m part of this

culture, this species, this

homo-genus.

Other days I’m impressed

with our accomplishments

and my chest swells with

awed pride.

Most days I’m shocked by

the apathy.  The momentary

horror forgotten in the blink of

a celebrity break-up or kitten picture.

Too quickly we forget our terrors,

in the hopes that if we ignore them,

they’ll just go away like that bully that

never really went away. We went away.

We never solved it, we just moved on.

We just went somewhere new,

got a new bully, got away from them,

but had to enter adulthood never beating it.

The 239 year adolescence of America needs

to end. Time to enter our adulthood. Time to

face our fears and force them to answer for

how they’ve bullied us.

If we can remember for that long, that is,

the national ADD crisis is a pandemic,

horrors at breakfast are forgotten by

dinner.

It makes me want to wretch. It makes me feel

shame. It makes me want to forget too.

I’ve done what I can, for now, I’ve expressed

my sorrow, my anger to those that might listen.

And I expect nothing to come of it,

but more shame and sorrow, pain and

anger, bitter divisiveness and overflowing

ignorance. 

The Last Song - My October Challenge

            In honor of the most eerie month on the Calendar I think I will devote the majority of October’s posts to the macabre and the morbid. I’m thinking along the lines of either dark and brooding, or light-hearted Halloween themes. I think that can be fun and a little bit of a challenge. It’s not easy to be morose for 31 days. I’ll give it my best shot though my dearest readers. So let’s start with something over the top…

The Last Song

            The boat was leaking and Gerald couldn’t stop it. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to any longer. He’d been drifting for weeks, although he wasn’t really sure anymore. All the days had run into each other and they were always the same. The rolling endless sea bobbed the lifeboat up and down ceaselessly. He had thrown up so much he figured the ocean was now 0.0002 percent Gerald.  

            He was lucky to have thrown up at all. It wasn’t really the sea sickness that had gotten to him. It was the three other passengers of the lifeboat that he had eaten. One of them was making his stomach rather upset. Son of bitch probably had worms or something. Gerald guessed that the other 0.0001 percent of the Ocean was made up of his three comrades and his violent indigestion. But he wasn’t starving, not yet.

            The leak was slowly filling the dingy and Gerald could feel the water in the bottom of the boat. It was a slow leak, yet it was only a matter of time. The leak had filled the boat with ½ an inch of water and had mixed with the dried blood of Gerald’s former boat mates so it was now a rusty, muddy color, dyeing Gerald’s feet red.  There was no place for Gerald to put his feet so he just resigned himself to having blood covered toes. It was just his lot in life he guessed. He burped a little and pounded his chest with his fist, trying to dislodge whatever gas had deposited there.

            Gerald looked up at the blinding sun overhead and burped again. He remembered the buffet on the cruise ship and all the marvelous seafood, beef and assorted meats of creation spread out over several long white table clothed food stations. The smells and the colors were perfectly designed to encourage you to gorge one-self. Gerald was no different. He was a gourmand.  He loved food. He loved eating, smelling it, cooking it, stuffing it with other types of food, smearing it with jams, and jellies, mustard's and mayo’s. He loved everything about food. It made him feel better than just about anything in the world. He wished he was at that buffet right now, rather than picking Sarah out from between his rear molars.

            The entertainment the night the cruise ship sank was the high-point and the low point of Gerald’s vacation. The final night of the cruise at sea there was to be an amazing show with the one and only 70’s songstress, Sarah McCollins. Gerald had a crush on her since her first album cover in 1975 where she was wearing a leopard, an actual leopard and nothing else. The big cat was placed delicately over her naked body and Gerald was completely enamored.  He’d followed her career with enthusiasm, through her failed marriage to folk singer Bert Chambers, her drug addiction days; her slight resurgence in the 1990’s when a famous director used her song, “Only the Forgotten”, in his low budget looking but huge budget film.  She drifted in celebrity circles for a few more years, another failed marriage, until she was reduced to being the finale entertainment on NordiStar Cruises line. But that didn’t matter to Gerald. He’d always wanted to see her in person and when he found out that he’d be on a boat with her for seven days he jumped at the chance.

            She was magical onstage, just as beautiful as ever in her gold lame dress, with hints of leopard spots. The leopard spots were her signature look of course. She sang all the songs that Gerald knew by heart and she did a few covers of her favorite artists. The crowd seemed a bit bored by her but Gerald was transfixed. She was a vision of all his sexual desires from childhood, through adulthood, through his early middle-ages. He was counting the seconds until he could actually meet her and talk to her and maybe, maybe she would even fall in love with him.

            He wished he hadn’t eaten her. He was starting to regret that he couldn’t hear more about her drug fueled night with Mick Jagger. She didn’t get to finish that story before Gerald crushed her larynx. It had to be done though. She had gone rather delirious after they both had eaten Billy Whatshisface and Mr. Shanders, the Cruise ship’s launderer. Gerald wasn’t even really sure if she had ever really hung out with Mick Jagger but still, it was at least more entertaining than the water lapping up against the side of the dingy.

            Gerald had saved her torn gold lame dress. He figured it would make a great souvenir once he made it to dry land. He had no doubts about his survival. He was pretty sure he’d make it, until the boat started leaking sometime during the night.  At least it was a slow leak and he might still get rescued before the boat became unusable, or whatever nautical term sailor’s used when boats were no longer buoyant. “Scuttle?” wondered Gerald.

            The boat was certainly sinking much more slowly than the NordiStar cruise ship. The ship was called the Empress of the Northern Sea and apparently she was well past any sea-going adventures. While the guests watched Sarah’s wonderful evening show and Gerald was shoving popcorn shrimp in his mouth and applauding wildly for Sarah during the breaks. The hull of the Empress of the Northern Sea burst or blew out or something and there was a seven foot hole in the boat. When it happened, Sarah was just finishing her cover of “My Way”, and the boat was violently rocked. Alarms started sounding all over and strobe lights started blinking. The captain came on the PA and told the guests to remain calm and to head to the lifeboats. He saw Sarah on the stage, by herself, seemingly bewildered by the interruption of her finale.

            Gerald pushed his way through the crowd and went to the stage. He called out to Sarah and to his amazement she looked at him. He convinced her to come with him, to a life boat, that he’d protect her and make sure she was safe because he was her biggest fan. As if she was unaware of the chaos unfolding around them she leaned toward Gerald, her surprising robust bosom spilling out of her dress, and thanked him for being such a huge fan. She said she loved her fans and then she passed out. Gerald hopped on stage and scooped Sarah up in his arms and started toward the emergency exit.

            The life boat could have held 60 people but in their panic, Billy and Mr. Shanders had hit the release system too fast. Gerald had just boarded the boat with the limp Sarah in his arms when the boat began to drop toward the water. The Cruise ship was already sinking fast. He could hear people’s screams as they struggled and fought each other for seats. It seemed even on a modern cruise ship there still weren’t enough seats for all the passengers.

           

            As a stroke of luck, the accidental emergency release by Billy and Mr. Shanders is what initially saved their lives. The cruise ship sank so fast that most people didn’t have time to even get to a life boat, let alone wait for others to board one. There were several days of rowing through the debris and the corpses of those that didn’t make it. It occurred to Mr. Shanders at that time that the boat sank so fast they might not have had a chance to send a distress signal. It could be weeks before they were found.

            Gerald’s stomach growled. He rubbed his belly and shifted his weight. He farted and felt some of the pressure relieve. He was skinny. He was thinner than he was in high school and that was his best weight ever at a mere 198 pounds. He figured he was probably down to 170 to 165 pounds. He could see his penis for the first time without having to push his big belly out of the way. He wondered if Sarah would have liked that.

            The water in the boat had risen to Gerald’s knees. It was leaking faster. Gerald tried to cup his hands and toss the water out, but it wasn’t working. The rusty water was leaking from the boat and leaving a trail in the ocean. It was a trail being easily followed by several sharks.   

            Gerald was oblivious to any sharks nudging the lifeboat. The sun had baked his face and had boiled his brain. He was listening to Sarah sing to him about all the ways she loved him, wanted him, and needed him. She was a ghost now, sitting in the boat, sitting through the water, singing.  The sun was setting. The boat was leaking. There was nothing Gerald could do.