June 07, 2005

little texans a big deal

At the time of this writing, 60% of Internet users who've read WISCTV.com's story of the 19-year-old Texas man who killed his girlfriend's unborn twins by stepping on her stomach believe Texas is too harsh. The other 40% believe the jury done good or should've done more.

The girl, who is alleged by the defense to have punched herself in the stomach at the same time, cannot be prosecuted because she has a right to kill her unborn children. Even in Texas. What a tragedy. Didn't her square-dancin' squire know Planned Parenthood is always ready to step up to the plate and pinch-hit for violent boyfriends who don't have enough balls to walk on the floor instead of on pregnant mothers?

Prosecutors declined to seek a necktie party for the clompin' killer, perhaps because George Bush isn't governor right now. So thumper gets an automatic life sentence. The Texas jury deliberated for four hours (I like to think they talked about the weather for the last 3 hrs and 45 minutes of that). Don't mess with Texans. Not even the little ones.

Posted by joel at 02:19 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)

May 07, 2005

anatomy of a fairy tale (part 2)

[Click here to read part one.]

"I come down stairs, and there set this man--"

"A man was in your house?" deputy Phil Kelly asked skeptically, crunching his lips to the left. Why do these fellows never look at me when they're talking? he wondered.

Frank Lomack swallowed, his adam's apple sliding silently up and then down. He cleared his throat. "Ah, no sir, I was over at the Pony Club." He trailed off, as if he expected the deputy to respond to this revelation. Phil kept quiet and waited.

Frank sensed the silence growing, so he darted back to his topic. "Ah, so this man set there eatin' his breakfast--"

"They're servin' breakfast at the Pony Club?"

"Beg pardon?"

"You said he was eating breakfast. I didn't know they served breakfast."

"Well...I guess they do. At least this fella was eatin' breakfast."

"Ok, go ahead."

"So I'm just mindin' my own business and he pipes up and says, 'Is there anybody else in here this morning?'"

"And what did you say?"

"I ain't one to meddle or tell tales. Gentleman never tells."

Phil sighed. "Frank, you ain't a gentleman. So what happened?"

"Well, I said I reckon he ought to mind his own business, and then he came up out of his chair real fast, and come toward me." Frank stopped, glanced at Phil, and then stared at the floor as if he were finished speaking.

"Go on."

"That's all that happened." Frank leaned to the side in the metal folding chair parked in front of Phil's desk, pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket, and wiped his nose. Phil noticed the hand-stitched monogram that Lynn Lomack had stitched on the hanky: FWL.

Phil twitched his mouth back to the right, with a flash of amusement in his eyes. "That's it? End of story?"

"Yeah, well--"

"Frank, that story ain't even a story. What happened then?"

Frank paused, holding the folded hanky in both his hands on his lap. "I figured it'd be best to leave."

"Is that right."

"Yessir."

"So you got right out of there."

"Well, he was coming at me."

"Did he have a weapon in his hands?"

"Don't remember. Coulda had a concealed weapon of some sort."

"Ok, this is a fine story, Frank, thanks for stoppin' in," Phil said brusquely, swinging his feet off the desk to the floor.

"Cam was there last night, and his truck was still there when I left."

Phil leaned forward against his desk, his thick arms draped across the desk calendar, and scowled out through the venetian blinds at the overcast street. "Camerin Bonamy was there?"

Frank nodded vigorously. "Yeah, but he hadn't come downstairs yet, least not before I left."

Phil sighed. "Damn you people," he mumbled, rubbing his bleary eyes. "I guess I gotta swing out there and check up on things." He stood and pulled the keys to the SUV from the hook on the wall behind his desk. "Maybe I'll get some breakfast out of it."

Posted by joel at 02:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

April 13, 2005

orpheus ascending

Roger walked into the living room just as a plume of flame shot out of the television and engulfed Shirley, his wife. He stood absolutely still for a moment, digging his way through the utter shock of it, and finally fell to his knees and started screaming. His wife, now blackened, sizzling and covered with sheets of blue and orange flame, sat perfectly, horribly upright, in a posture of shock herself. Then she tilted her head inquisitively, and asked, "Roger? Are you alright?"

From the back rooms of the house came the wail of a baby. Roger was sitting on the floor now, gasping and choking with surprise, tears standing in his eyes, occasionally shaking his head and sobbing. "Roger!" His wife was standing over him now, beautiful, conflagrant, terrible. He looked up at her and started to hiccup. She turned and headed for the nursery and the crying baby. Roger stared blindly at the floor, and muttered, "I'm ok. Everything is ok." But of course it wasn't. When Shirley returned with Courtney, their eleven month old daughter, Roger couldn't look at them. He saw the flickering shadows of the floor lamp thrown against the wall, and he could feel the heat of his wife's fire, although she was ten feet away.

"Roger, what's wrong?"

"I'm hallucinating."

Shirley was confused, and began to be a little afraid. "What do you mean? I'm right here, Roger, what's the matter?"

Roger got up, and made his way into the kitchen, clutching the bar as he walked around it. He desperately wanted to be busy at some trivial task, but he couldn't even think of one to do. He stared at the bottom of the sink, as dark blue oxygen-deprived flames rippled around the garbage disposal. He stood still for a minute, breathing slowly. He looked up at Shirley. She was blonde, tanned, healthy, and cool as a cucumber, but concerned. Courtney's eyes were getting bleary the way sleepy babies' eyes do, and she leaned her forehead against Shirley's face.

"Should I call Jeff?"

"I don't think I need a doctor right now. I will go and see a shrink tomorrow if I can get an appointment."

"What happened?"

"I'll be ok."

~ ~ ~

Roger's shrink liked to take walks, especially if he had patients who seemed restless, as Roger did today. His offices looked out into an indoor terrarium of glass and steel above an upscale shopping mall. They were on the second level of the mall, because it was quieter.

"Have you ever experimented with hallucinogenic drugs?"

"Some LSD in college."

"How long ago was that?"

"About 15 years."

"Anything more recent?"

"No."

"How frequently did you take LSD?"

"I only did it about a half a dozen times."

"Anything else?"

"Pot, of course."

"Alcohol?"

"Yes."

"Anything else? Mushrooms? Cocaine?"

"No. I only did LSD a few times and then I quit."

"Did you have a bad experience?"

"Nothing too crazy. It just started getting out of hand, and I didn't like it, so I quit taking it."

"What do you mean by 'out of hand'?"

"It just gave me a bad feeling. I felt like I was not in control of my environment."

"Have you made any recent changes in your lifestyle, such as diet or physical activity?"

"I just started eating vegetarian about 2 weeks ago."

"Ah. So, no meat. Do you eat poultry, fish or eggs?"

"Well, I'm not against eating meat or anything. But for the last couple of weeks, no. Mostly I've been eating salads, and fresh juice from fruits and vegetables. Most of what I've been eating is raw."

"Have you lost any weight?"

"Actually, yes. I've lost about 25 pounds in the last couple of months."

"I see."

~ ~ ~

"Where's Courtney?"

"She's at your parents'." Shirley set down the colander of steaming pasta, walked over to Roger, and hugged him for a moment. Her pasta sauce started to bubble and splatter, so she hung from his neck and leaned over to turn down the heat. She turned back to look up at him. "So what did the shrink say?"

Roger tore his gaze away from the blue gas flame on the stove, and squinted at her. A wry half-smile teased the corner of his mouth. "Plum loco."

She smiled back, her eyes laughing. "We already knew that."

He kissed her on the forehead, and moved toward the fridge. "He said it's most likely a cleansing reaction brought on by all this crazy raw-food stuff you've gotten me into."

"Aha. So this is all just a scheme to get out of eating your vegetables!"

"Seriously. Sometimes drugs get stored in fat cells. Losing weight from a diet consisting largely of this junk," he rummaged between bags of celery, and carrots, looking for a diet cola, "can result in further effects from those drugs as they leave your system."

"Drugs? What drugs have you got socked away in your fat cells?"

"Maybe the LSD I took in college."

His grad-school paramour was squinting skeptically at him, fighting off her own smile. "Really, Mr. Hamilton, I had no idea you were such a party animal."

"Sure," he backed out of the fridge with a carton of orange juice. "It makes coed nude mud rugby so much more interesting."

Shirley laughed that laugh that he liked so well as she turned back to her pasta sauce. It was a monosyllabic squawk that somehow conveyed humor and intelligence both at once. "Well, you've been doing a terrific job on this new diet. So, tonight's spaghetti." She turned and presented him a wooden spoon of sauce to taste.

~ ~ ~

It was a gorgeous autumn day, and Roger, in his corner office, found he couldn't concentrate on the brief in front of him. The beautiful 100 foot tall maple outside his windows had turned a brilliant ruby red. And he had discovered that he could set it on fire. It was incredible fire, never consuming the tree. He could turn it on, and he could turn it off. He could shape it, color it, or vary its intensity.

It still bothered him when Shirley or Courtney caught fire, but he was learning to cope with it. His shrink was a little surprised it hadn't cleared up by now, and Shirley was more than a little worried about it. Roger found he mostly didn't want to think about it. He was learning to work his way around it, and to enjoy the moments between the unpleasant spots.

It seemed, lately, that Courtney was always on fire when she cried. He had almost lost his sanity the first time he had gone to comfort her after the onset of his hallucinations. He could still see, in his mind's eye, his screaming infant child engulfed in vicious, searing fire. When he lifted her, the pain was almost unbearable. He wanted to throw her into her crib and flee, but he steeled himself, and changed her diaper. He calmly and carefully applied ointment for the rash he couldn't see for all of the scorched and burning skin. It had made him want to mourn, as if she were gone, as if he would never see her again. He laid his whimpering daughter back in her crib, forcing himself to move slowly and carefully. He wound up the antique music box Shirley had found at some flea market, and as the delicate, chiming melody started, the room went strangely silent. He looked down at Courtney, and she was whole, healthy, pink and quiescent. He bent to kiss the thin fuzz of her blonde head, and paused there, breathing in the smell of her infant skin.

But such moments were becoming rare; the problem seemed to be getting worse. He had long since abandoned the diet which his shrink believed may have brought the problem on. Shirley didn't believe this was the right thing to do, and at first he agreed with her. If his body was purging out remnants of the drugs he had taken in younger days, better to just have them out and be done with it. But that was a week ago. Now he just wanted it to stop. He wanted Shirley to stop asking him about it. He wanted things to go back to the way they were before.

~ ~ ~

"Roger, what did you say the name of your shrink was?"

"What?" Roger seemed startled, looking up from the legal pad he had brought home with him from work. He thought for a moment. "Peterson."

He looked up at Shirley as she crossed the room to sit on the arm of the sofa. He noticed that she was trembling, and that she clasped her hands, clamped them between her knees, and stared at the floor. "There's no psychologist with offices at the mall."

Roger paused for a second, and cleared his throat. "You checked?" He sounded hurt. When she finally looked up at him, he saw that she had started to cry. "Which mall did you check?"

"You said Eastgate."

He got up and moved toward her around the coffee table. "No, no, honey," he put his arms around her. "I'm sorry if I said that. It's downtown."

He held her for a moment, both disturbed by her weeping, and thrilled by the smell of her hair. "Are you worried that I'm losing it?"

She looked miserable, and couldn't look at him. "I don't know what to think. I know you're suffering, but Roger, this is hurting me too."

"I know, baby. I'm sorry." He kissed the top of her head and held her closer. "Maybe you should come with me to my next appointment. Peterson might be able to give both of us some pointers on how to deal with this." Roger saw that she was growing calmer. "I'm so sorry, honey. I know this is really hard."

She reached for a kleenex, dried her eyes, and peeked him a shy sidelong smile. "Yeah," she said, as smoke started to coil, serpent-like, from her clothing, "after all, I'm the one on fire." This bit of levity didn't have the effect she intended. Roger's eyes started to fill up, and he pressed his thumb and forefinger against them, as if to staunch the flow. He willed himself to continue to hold his wife, even as her flames surrounded him.

~ ~ ~

"Roger, you still haven't told me about the fire."

Roger opened his eyes, started, and looked around him. He realized he must have drifted off. Very strange, he thought, to have dozed off in the middle of a session with the shrink.

Shirley sat next to him, on the edge of the bed. Bed? How odd to be in bed at the shrink's office. But he liked the feeling of her there, the pressure of the blanket squeezing his thigh because she was sitting so close.

"Roger." The psychiatrist paused, waiting for his attention. "Perhaps you could tell me about the fire."

"The fire?" He was bewildered. That's not Peterson. "Where's Peterson?"

"Peterson?" the psychiatrist asked.

Shirley said nothing, but just gave him a sympathetic look, and slightly shook her head no. No what? No Peterson? Could I have hallucinated Peterson?

"Roger," the psychiatrist who was not Peterson was talking again, "You are really making some great progress here. Would you like to talk about the fire?"

"The hallucinations," Roger said, somehow knowing it was the wrong answer even as he said it. Shirley confirmed this by shaking her head again.

"There was no fire." Roger felt panic rising in him. There was something about this situation, this conversation, which seemed all wrong. Something was out of place, and he didn't like it.

The psychiatrist waited patiently. "Roger," Shirley finally spoke up, "I think it's time for you to talk about the real fire."

Suddenly the room blurred and his eyes burned, and he was crying. He fought back massive sobs so that they surfaced only as glottal grunts. "Roger," Shirley said, "everything is going to be ok. But you need to talk about it. Courtney needs you."

"No!" Roger lashed his head his head to the side, sucking air through his teeth. He breathed heavily for almost a minute. Gradually he became quieter; not calmer, but simply tired. He began to sense a terrific pain somewhere inside of him, like a weight on his chest. "Everything is not ok."

"What happened in the real fire?" The psychiatrist pulled his glasses from the front pocket of the white coat he wore, and put them on.

"There was a fire," Roger said, barely able to steady his voice. Shirley gave him a beatific smile, rose and kissed his face, right below his left eye. "There was a fire," he repeated, gazing at her.

The psychiatrist sat still, listening.

"My wife...there was a fire, and my, my wife..."

The doctor was silent for several minutes. Roger did not speak, but looked up at the ceiling. Suddenly he grimaced, and then silently wept.

"Roger, I'm so sorry about what happened to your wife. I know it's painful."

"And Courtney." Roger inflected this somewhere between a statement and a question.

"Courtney is ok. She's been staying with your parents. In fact, today is her birthday. She is a year old today."

Shirley smiled at him, picked up her purse from the foot of the bed, and walked toward the door. She opened it, and then turned back to look at him. I love you, she mouthed, and then she was gone.

Posted by joel at 06:55 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

April 09, 2005

war games

A Monkey Story in the tradition of the tales I used to tell when I was a boy...

ORKO WAS PATCHING UP the last corner of his specialized tank armor. He had proven wrong his more erudite siblings and cousins by pulverizing 8 shanks of high-grade "indestructible" rock liver, and he had done it with hammer and nails no less. He-Man was evidently annoyed, as this wasteful demand of their supplies could mean they would be left more vulnerable later in the weekend, as the exercise went into the final stages, but, as Orko had correctly pointed out, they couldn't leave a hole there, it would look dumb.

Orko raised his graphite hammer high over his boldly {and primitively} sculpted face, and began his downward swing just as Perrier slapped at a mosquito on Clarinette's face, who kicked the left pedal of their heavily modified APV. Orko's aim was spoiled by the lurching vehicle, and he chipped a large chunk from yet another panel of rock liver before tumbling overboard into the dry grass. The APV lurched to a stop as quickly as it had started, and everyone fell silent, looking around. He-Man squinted into the distance at nothing in particular.

"He-Man, look." Orko jabbed at the dirt at his feet there in front of the APV. "Landmine."

There was an earthshattering roar as a column of dirt and dust shot up and out from the locus of Orko's gesticulations. The bulky chimp was thrown backwards into the front of the APV where he impacted with a grunt. Everyone was silent again, amid the clatter and hissing of falling dirt and debris.

Orko slowly slid down the grill and sat on the ground, fiddling with the paper casing of the landmine's detonated "fuzzy" charge. Two hundred yards behind their APV, Orko's hammer landed on a rock-liver tank armor panel on APV number 2, instantly pulverizing it. He-Man's radio handset squawked.

"He-Man, this is Houston, come in, over"

"Houston this He-Man, out."

"No, He-Man, say over. Over."

"I said out, because I'm already done talking. Out."

"But I called you, over."

"Over where? Out."

"Nevermind. Over. Did you get hit?"

"Hit? What do you mean? Out."

"Team blue says they planted a mine near your position, and it's GPS locator no longer indicates the same position. Say again, did you get hit? Over."

"Ahhhhh. Hmmmmm." He-Man peered over the front of the front of the APV at Orko, who was looking around in the grass for his hammer. "Negative. Out."

"So you did not get hit, but the land mine did go off? Over."

"We dispatched a, ah...a specialist, and he, ah, he defused it. Out."

"Ok, roger that, thanks. Out."

"Sure thing, out."

"Over and out."

"Out and out."

Orko rose and grinned sheepishly up at his commanding officer as He-Man clambered down from the APV. Orko wobbled for a second, then fell heavily on his seat again as He-Man walked around to the front of the vehicle. It bore a surreal image of Orko at this moment, whose hair was plastered outward in a fan shaped corona around his head. There was a clean, distinct silhouette of his hulking figure, framed on the front grill by dust and grime."

Clarinette, Trombone, Frogger, get up here and help me clean up this mess."

The three piled out of the APV and came over to survey the damage. They immediately burst into laughter. Undeterred by the lack of any cleaning supplies, they simply scooped up dirt and ground it into the clean space where Orko had blocked the blast, and soon the front of the APV was again uniform, albeit with a different mien than before.

Meanwhile, Grace Kelly had trotted over from APV number 2 with Orko's hammer, and He-Man had intervened in the matter of further repairs, and scored a semantic victory by proposing that the panels be attached with liquid nails. Perrier had done the honors, but had to revisit the task twice, since Orko insisted on "setting" the panels with his hammer.

Back behind the wheel, Perrier again turned to his primary function of DJ, and complied with He-Man's orders to play "Flight of the Valkeries" at twice the usual volume, speed and pitch. His hands were now fouled by the gooey remnants of the liquid nails he had just administered, however, and he consequently ruined the CD. He-Man was only momentarily flummoxed, before he regrouped and ordered up a similarly inspiring number: the theme to the Hannah Barbara cartoon, The Jetsons. However, the liquid nails proved to have ubiquitously infected Perrier's personal effects, including the CD player itself, and eventually an irritated silence settled on the crew. The haunting strains of "Edlewiese" came floating up to them from APV number 2, until He-Man tersely informed them via radio that they were to run silent.

None of them could have imagined that this turn of circumstances had conspired to hand them an early victory that sunny mid-afternoon. They sat side by side, just behind a ridge, while they stopped for rations for the 10th time since lunch. Clarinette had finished her rations with characteristic efficiency, and was idly chewing a blade of grass, when her talented ears picked out the sound of her favorite song from the soundtrack of James Cameron's Titanic. She swiftly aligned the turrets toward the sound of the music.

Team blue's lead APV surged over the ridge, catching air briefly before slamming to the ground, as Celene Dion's voice rang out "I know that my heart will go on." Clarinette never missed a beat, but launched a fuzzy salvo squarely into the middle of the vehicle, causing it to shudder, and slow to half its speed. She followed that up with another shot, this one from no more than 20 feet away, as the blue team's APV slowly rolled abreast of them. This second shot tripped the klaxxons in the blue APV, and it's siren lights began to spin, indicating that it was officially out of commission.

The noise of this cannonade did nothing to alert the crew of blue team APV number 2, as they burst over the crest of the hill amid the blaring Beatles tune "How can you laugh when you know I'm down." This APV caught team Red by total suprise, as it hurtled toward their number two APV, and rammed it head on. There was a dusty coughing interlude of relative silence, during which blue two's engine died. Then somebody fired the gun on red number 2, which happened to be pointing forward, and blue two's sirens immediately went off.

Posted by joel at 08:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 13, 2005

anatomy of a fairy tale (part 1)

Jan was awake at 7am, despite the wild night before, which wound down around 4am and only with her hoarsely shouted threat to call the cops. Call the cops, she thought as she drew a robe about herself and looked in the mirror, what a joke. She saw, by the morning's thin grey light, what she preferred to forget; the years were marching on. She looked more and more like her mother did in her later years, with broken down eyes which saw through to the end of things, and a mouth which seemed determined to frown. She patted her hair into place, and then turned aside, thrusting her own image out of her mind as she strode to the door. By the time she reached the stair, she again saw herself as the woman she had to be in order to get on with things.

She made coffee, but decided not to call the girls just yet. It was Monday morning, and most of the patrons had doubtless slunk off to their wives, or their jobs. The girls had had a rough night, and deserved to sleep in a while. Jan slid onto a barstool with a steaming cup of coffee in her hand. As she raised the cup to her lips, her eyes rose to the front door, and she was startled to see a man standing perfectly still on the pavement outside. He was tall, but stooped slightly. He had a full head of hair, but his face was a roadmap of leathery wrinkles. His simple attire of a black shirt and pants made him look vaguely priest-like, while his beard made him look Amish.

"Jesus, Tom," she muttered as she slid off the stool and headed to unlock the door. "Jesus, Tom," she repeated, as she had rehearsed, "what are you doing here?" She felt awkward, for her tone was scolding although she hadn't meant to sound so.

Tom stood still a moment longer, gazing at Jan, and then looked up at the garish sign suspended on the front of the building before him. The expression on his craggy face was unreadable and yet she understood it perfectly. Suddenly she saw herself in the mirror again, and her eyes grew hot and bleary. She turned her back on him and said, "I'll get you some coffee."

Tom walked through the doorway and paused again, looking around him. The sun had begun to show, and it struck rays through the dust and lingering smoke, illuminating a cluttered landscape of unbussed tables and abandoned poker cards. Jan set another cup of coffee down on the counter next to her seat, and then walked around and sat down. She stared forward, not looking at Tom as he stood by the door. She became acutely aware of the stink of stale cigarettes.

Tom finally sat down beside her. He was looking at her, she knew, but she chose not to acknowledge him. She reached into the pocket of her robe for her cigarettes. She lit one, with feigned nonchalance, took a long pull, and then turned to look at him. He was looking down at his coffee now, with both hands wrapped around the cup, his shoulders hunched in the posture of one long accustomed to taking meals at a bar.

"So, little brother," she said, regarding him through narrowed eyes, "are you in some kind of trouble or what?"

Tom stared down at the coffee in silence for a long time. Finally he began to nod his head. "I'll have a couple of eggs over easy with bacon," he said looking upward as if to regard an angelic waitress who wasn't there, "a side of grits. Whole wheat toast with honey."

Jan turned in her barstool to face forward again, her ears burning. She breathed quickly and loudly through her nose a couple of times, pressing her lips together and stubbing out her new cigarette in the half full ashtray next to her. "Tom, you know we don't do--"

"Two eggs," Tom repeated without altering his tone, and still looking upward, "Bacon. Grits. Whole wheat toast with honey."

Jan just stared at him. Finally she shook her head slightly, a look of disbelief on her face. "Sammy's would be open by now. Go get some breakfast there."

Tom finally dropped his head, and stared down for several seconds like a grade school boy doing arithmetic in his head. Then he looked sidewise over at Jan with a strange, quiet look, and said, "Jan, get me my breakfast."

Jan locked eyes with him for an angry eternity, and then she sighed and shrugged. She slid off her barstool and patted him on the back as she headed back around the counter. "Come in here, orderin' eggs over easy in a place like this. You're a brave man, Tom."

Posted by joel at 12:55 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

October 27, 2004

cancer

There were six of us sitting there with a shot glass in front of each of us. We had two bottles of whisky on hand, one of Crown Royal (to be consumed first) and one of Jim Beam (to be consumed after). We starting doing rounds, and we went fairly fast. I had six shots inside my stomach, and was just remarking how not very drunk I felt, when those six shots must've finished whatever pow-wow they were holding, and stuck their fists in the middle and yelled "break!" Before you know it, I knew it: this was the most drunk I'd ever been in twenty-seven years of life.

Next thing I knew, I'm sitting on the floor because it was handy, and that's where my friends were. Things were hilariously funny. Things were incredibly sad. I felt disconnected, I felt I was part of a pack. People who never cried were crying, telling me to hang in there. I could beat this thing, I was told. I was the greatest guy, it just wasn't fair. That's life, I told them. I was reeling, swimming, drifting. I pulled myself up onto an ottoman and sat like an emperor, surveying my empire. Grimacing and groping on the floor, like children looking for contact lenses, my friends and my wife were hugging each other. Some of them smoked and didn't act very drunk, but sat on the floor like amiable adults interacting with the kids.

Why had I never done this before? Why would I never do it again? I had to go home. I had to get up in the morning, make a presentation, shake hands, seal a deal. I made a show of standing up, and found that I could manage if I stood still. I took a step, and crumpled, catching my fall with my left hand. There was a vague pain in my wrist, nothing serious. But the serious little voice which was prepping me to get home to sleep, to get up for the presentation knew it was serious. I finally staggered out into the cool night air, across the overgrown grass of the backyard, into the alley. I stood swaying for a moment, like a man about to relieve himself, and stared up into the crystalline sky. The stars danced with me, streaking from right to left, moving as I moved, but opposite. My eyes began to fill, and I moved my mouth to speak some thanks to heaven. Then I stuck my finger into the back of my mouth, bent double, and wretched out my dinner.

The six shots (or what was left of them) came out the way they went in, but with no shot glass. I was on my knees I don't know how long. My head began to clear, and I saw my left hand was now clutching a vomit covered tuft of grass. My mouth tasted like acid, but the stink was gradually yielding to the smell of cigarette smoke. I looked up at my friend who was standing quietly, looking up at the sky, his long-ashed cigarette dangling from his lips. I stuggled up, and he offered me his pack of cigarettes without looking at me. I hastily wiped my left hand on my jacket, took a cigarette with my right hand, spit a couple times into the grass, and lit up.

"You're going to fight this thing, man."

"Yeah." I said. I inhaled shakily and stared back up at the sky. This time the stars were melting together. "I'm going to fight this thing."

Posted by joel at 01:58 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

August 18, 2004

the myth of the white rabbit

There once was a rabbit named Balsamic who lived long, long ago. He was the most virile rabbit in The Valley of One Hundred Meadows. He had enough strength and energy to rut with all the does of his meadow, and then begin again, without stopping. He would snatch bunches of clover while he rutted, for he was so ardent that he hated to stop even long enough to eat. Soon his fame spread throughout the valley, and does from all the other meadows came to his glade, hoping for an encounter with this most spectacular rabbit. He once rutted with 700 does in a 36 hour period. 630 of them became pregnant with an average litter size of 12.2. Each baby rabbit from those litters was healthy, well behaved and a joy to its mother.

One morning, as Balsamic slid lazily from the back of his 37th conquest of the day, he glimpsed a flash of something white across the stream that ran through the meadow. He paused to chew on a blade of succulent grass, and stared at the spot where he had seen this strange apparition. Perhaps he would not have bothered to satisfy his curiosity before continuing his rounds, had not this strange glimpse been infused with something evocatively feminine.

He hopped down stream to the place where rabbits of that region were accustomed to crossing, and, having gained the other side, proceeded north to the place where he had glimpsed the mysterious flash of white. There was nothing there but a strange and powerful scent lingering in the breeze. The scent was like grass and sunshine, security and seduction rolled into a smell which both comforted and provoked him. He began to sniff around, hoping to pick up the scent of her trail, when suddenly, in the corner of his eye, he glimpsed that for which he was searching.

She gazed at him tranquilly. It seemed to Balsamic that she had arrived without arriving; she was suddenly simply there. She nibbled a dandelion leaf, still watching him as he approached her. As he came near, he smoothly snipped a delicious flower, which he dropped on the grass before her. Then he paused and just looked at her. She was gorgeous; more beautiful than he could have imagined. Her young and healthy teats were full of the sweetest milk, although she had never yet borne a litter. They leaked upon the grass where she passed by, leaving the smell of infancy, and comfort and nourishment. Her fur was snowy white, and her nose was the most delicate shade of pink that Balsamic had ever seen. It was the first time he had ever been transfixed by the sight of anything.

He paused, unsure, for the moment, of what to say. Then his renowned instincts returned. He sniffed provocatively, and said softly, "Rut?"

She acted as if he had not spoken, and sniffed at the flower he had dropped.

Balsamic tried several times to evoke a response from her, and each attempt was gradually more extravagant. Finally he delivered his cartwheel-tail-chasing-snort-dig dance, the gist of which clearly implied "I'm very strong, and I wish to give you a litter. Together we shall create a mighty warren of rabbits, whose names will be uttered by predators only in dread and loathing."

Whereupon, having never been refused such an offer, he squared himself off and pounced. She dodged, and he tumbled into a tree-trunk, smacking his head against a root. Dazed and bewildered, he clawed at the tree for a moment or two, as if trying to determine which end of it was the end of the white rabbit upon which he had hooked his intentions.

A soft laugh sounded behind him, and his head cleared as he turned to look at its source. The white rabbit was nibbling the flower he had dropped, and was evidently amused. He pounced again, this time with more success, but she sloughed him off adroitly, and hopped away several feet. He lunged at her again, and suddenly she was off like a shot, with a speed that astonished him. Balsamic determined at that moment that he must have her, whatever the effort involved.

He chased her back to the stream where she cleared the water without using the stepping stones. Balsamic was awe-struck. She watched him from the opposite shore, but as soon as he started to cross, she turned and fled once again. He chased her through the woods and over the rocks into the next meadow, and the next, and the next. She ran into a cave. The light of day was swallowed up by a grey twilight which soon became as dark as jet. He would have been utterly lost were it not for her lovely scent which made his brain race and compelled him onward. The scent led him back into the sunlight where he blinked in blazing blindness. He had to follow the white rabbit by scent for several more minutes until his eyes became accustomed to daylight again.

When he began to see clearly again, he realized she had led him into a part of the valley where he had never been before. Although the barren terrain offered little shelter from owls he redoubled his pace and raced after the white rabbit. She bounded ahead toward a rocky outcropping which rose out of the dry soil of the plateau. She disappeared around a boulder.

When Balsamic rounded the boulder he was startled to see that the chase had ended, for the white rabbit had run into a little box canyon, and there was no way for her to escape. She was panting heavily, but despite the dust on her coat, Balsamic was struck yet again by her astonishing beauty.

He paused, gasping for breath, exhausted from the pursuit. After breathing heavily for a moment, he began moving toward her again, this time more slowly. Suddenly she spoke.

Her voice was clear, like the cool air of the morning in late spring. He felt his ears were starved for the sound of it, and devoured the words before he could comprehend them.

"Balsamic, stop."

He obeyed without even thinking about it.

"You must know who I am before you can give me a litter."

Balsamic panted for a moment before answering, "You are the white rabbit."

"I am the Womb of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If you enter into me, you will be changed forever. Your desires will themselves be consumed. Sweetest clover will be like sand in your mouth. Clearest water will taste like dust. Your heart will be heavy, and your thoughts consumed by longing. You will pace for hours at night without sleeping, and of your suffering there will be no surcease. The darkness of midnight will chase the sun from the sky above you, and the coldness of midwinter will blast you in the springtime."

"But I will have you."

"You will have all that I am."

"I must have you."

She seemed unsure of what to say. "You are certain of that?"

"I must have you."

She was silent. Finally she moved toward him, smoothly closing the distance between them in a single hop. The smell of her reawoke his exhausted brain, and he joined her in a whirlwind of confused exultation. Every detail of her rose before his senses until he was utterly swamped and swept away. He was unaware of space or time. His brain was rushing with blood. There was a pounding in his ears, and sparks began to swim before his eyes. A fierce pain began a growling he felt rather than heard from his loins, which grew into a maelstrom of excruciating desire. The dull pounding in his ears grew and filled his head, and became an ocean of hunger pulverizing the fragile shores of his mind. He felt that somewhere deep inside him, a craze of tiny fractures had begun to groan outward, until every fiber of his body was screaming like a million ravens.

And then, for the first time in his life, he felt gladness. It rushed through him, soaking instantly into every crack and chasm of his infant soul, surging through him, and filling him with its weight, until he could no longer bear it. His throat began to ache, and his tongue writhed in his mouth.

Suddenly, in clear, plain English, he said, "Oh, my God!"

Balsamic and the white rabbit continued for days and weeks. After several months, the white rabbit began to bear litters, even while their amorous conjugation continued apace. The young were fed by the white rabbit's miraculous milk, and they moved away beyond the edges of The Valley Of One Hundred Meadows. Balsamic and the white rabbit's bodies began to fade away, nonetheless, their lovemaking continued.

Gradually their offspring began to change; their bodies altered in shape, and they became ever more intelligent. Eventually their children became many other races of beings, such as Australopithecus, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon. A final race was borne after 10,000 million years. This race was called Homo Sapiens, and this race sprang full grown from the womb of the white rabbit. As they were born, the white rabbit reached the height of her arousal, and she exploded into a billion billion pieces. Her cry went up like the scream of a hare, both anguished and ecstatic. Her cry wrenched the hearts of the daughters of Homo Sapiens, and they rushed out of their dwellings into the night air. Each shard of her being, as it fell to earth, was lodged into the soul of a daughter of Homo Sapiens.

When this happened, Balsamic was astonished, and stricken with grief. He wept with longing for his beloved, and began desperately to seek her out in the world, but because she was lodged into the soul of every daughter of Homo Sapiens, he could always catch the scent of her, but he could never find her. He knew no comfort or pleasure or solace. Finally, in wretched grief he cast himself from the edge of the sky down upon a mountain top. He was shattered into a billion billion pieces with a sound like a mighty clap of thunder. The sons of Homo Sapiens were awakened by this noise, and they rushed out of their tents to see what was the matter. Each shard of Balsamic's tortured soul, as it fell to earth, was lodged into the soul of a son of Homo Sapiens. From that day to this, Balsamic continues his desperate search for the beloved white rabbit.

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