the closest thing to a graveyard shift he ever worked was standing watch on a tuna boat a thousand miles off the coast of Peru

        it was a desirable gigbelieve it or not  despite the fistfights he had with crew members who wanted him gone  off the boat  literally  so one of their shit relatives could have his job 

beset by their incensed view which he deemed myopic – they wouldnt have known the word had he mused it – they were working off whamaybe was an eightthgrade education they viewed their number superior so ofcourse they spewed You know, it’s not unusual someone goes missing off a boat, in bad weather; swept overboard. No he rebutted them I have no doubt Any more than I doubt three or four men can go missing in bad weather either

he fingered the knife in his pocket as he spoke momentarilytoying with the notion since they were gathered and least expecting it he ought to get this nonsense over with 

the moment stretched longer than he thought it would

                                                         and maybe they saw it in his face saw the darknessthe nothing-to-lose gamble the set of his jaw  maybe a skull grimace 

he was a Polack from Chicago tipped twofifteen worked circles around them through them without pardon maybe they saw it wasnt a good idea to try and intimidate him

all they knew of him was that he came to the boat from working ranch in Montana  also worked part-time killing and butchering cattle

they didnt know that he had assessed human beings as no better than any other creature on the planet probablydefinitely worse  

they left him on the upper deckbacked away en masse as he was still fingering his knife

their retreat defused the situation 

later in his bunk he laughedsurmised that they were capable atleast of some smarts some dreary latent sense of survival

he also recognised that they stretched the hair of his hairtrigger violence tighter

he wouldnt see them  they were ghosts

and when they realised he wasnt seeing them they made themselves scarce 

theres was maybe another three weeks to the trip

                                                     the boat was big enough

graveyard shift

it was appropriate nomenclature to describe his circumstances

what he couldnt describe then or now he was on deck brought up there because he could smell land a scent of earth and trees and flowers and organic decay

it was miraculous

he smelled it a handful of times over the sevenanahalf months of the two trips he worked fishing tuna on a seiner seiner thats a laugh

every time the scent washed over him he thought of his wife on the beach in Montana in California more miles apart than they had ever imagined

nearly forty years later he was standing watch again

eighteen hour shifts  or whatever it took

itd only been nine dayshe hoped itd be nine months

there was no money in it

only the right reasons

he smiled mischievously 

                           wondering what any man or woman might do for no moneynothing 

to benefit was its sole reason to exist

0031,  Sunday,  15  12. 19

2116,  Sunday,  26  4. 20

if that was the deal

he would have struck it

wouldntve thought twice

it was the deal he wanted

but there wasnt anyone Anything he could pitch

a fuckin wild goose chase

he chased it for a bit

any way he could think

any way he could lean

when he havent faith

faith has no need of him

reciprocal deal

he got it

just didnt think hed ever need it

that was the err in his judgment

it wasnt for him

maybe if he practised it

he could have shared it

but he was pretty sure it wasnt doled out that way

separate accounts

separate ledgers

separate accountability

faith

novel idea

didnt need a reason when you had faith

probably why he didnt met many reasonable people

they were sucking it up for their afterlife

fuck life

by their measure life came after they were dead

when he was dead

hed be dead

anif he went anywhere

itd be where he was before he was born

which he didnt remember

no

it was a thought that crossed his mind when he panickedwhen his frustration was so immense he couldnt get his head around it 
          he wanted to beat something

he was already beatup

that well was dry

picked to the bones

bones

thats how reduced and helpless he felt

well

at least he could feel

and hed feel this long  long   long after it was over

he couldnt strike a deal if he wanted

how obscene

0927,  Monday,  27  4. 20

too obvious  too obvious  or he was being paranoid     or was he paranoid enough

muscles shows up a day earlier

she ran past him this afternooncame up behind him

he heard panting and as he was walking and reading he was alert to sounds around him he veered left gave whoever was overtaking him a wide lane right between him and the street curb

passing him he glanced up out of The Windup Girl a woman CrossFit stitched into the back of her black running bra her thick rump concealed by black spandex running shorts later he learned they were called scrunch bum shorts appropriate  hed happily order them to have with his black morning coffee sumptinsweet

at CrossFit he knew it was muscles

she talked about lifting hurting herself and in the meanwhile recovering she learned of CrossFit that was her gig now she said

he was happy he finally got to see her from behind

it was worth the wait  unexpectedly

at CrossFit he knew

                      but he had to confirm it and dropping his eyes to her churning legs her upper right thighBAM the wrapped tattoo The Sky above me The earth below me The fire within me  he had asked what her thigh said 

during their brief introduction the fire within they revealed they were Aries

a pair of oppositesex Aries

he dug the possibilities

he dug she probably dug too

                                  however

he made enemies or they thought he was their enemy

lambasting the powers that be which they liked to think of themselves as being  whas the pointhuh without their unplumbed depths of entitlement audacity  and hubris  See he could stroke them

                                                                                         but he didnt and they sent lieutenants to properly inform him  unfortunately they thought their words were powerful cudgels 

when he replied cudgels they didnt follow

evidently they had something in common  bad habits

he sent the lieutenants packing like good dogs

they were obvious

maybe they thought muscles wouldnt be as obvious

she was

it was flattering

they got his type right

they got his appreciation of loners of familial détente determinedenforced by long distance consensually agreed and abided

the slag where they missed the bus  was that inside the wrapping

the rap didnt cross the river 

maybe they thought she could erect a bridge  

she said P-A when he asked her where she was from

maybe in P-A they refer to Pennsylvania as P-A 

their psychological assessmenthis breakdown broke down it shouldnt have missed his abject dislike of acronyms his compleat joy of language and saying what something is unabbreviated

                                                                           there was nothing about himnever was that could be seen as abbreviated he preferred ad nauseam  ad nauseam is another word for endurance the long term seeing ahead acorner afork anintersection in along seemingly endless  road 

ablithering optimist

P-A he repeated

muscles nodded

Ah

he was bornfrom Illinois he never called it I-L as it was abbreviated today the abbreviation when he was a kid was I-L-L when he addressed a letter home he wrote Illinois

no muscle was as close as she ever was going to get 

she was close enough to admire

she was dressing

not oyster stuffing

                        or he was fishinghe was wrong swung wildly though again his old man gave him a tool to offset the experience or the error Boy, there’s always more fish in the sea.

1500-ish,  Saturday,  25  4. 20

1522,  Sunday,  26  4. 20

Vic Chesnutt  Philip Guston  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfYKjktav4