big kid (eighthunredth post)

the bagger was a big kid

he packed like a lout

lacking either the common sense or sensibilities of packing groceries correctly

he loved humping the huge bags of carrots charcoal sacks of flour and sugar bundles of split firework(like that of predatory lending which ought to be outlawed and companies shamed)

he loved assembling and pushing the longest line of carts back up to the store left in the parking lot by lazy customers

he imagined by the dullness in the kids eyes and step that he was going through life unassaulted by those he punished 

hed grow up to be a prison guard street cop or a soldier

the kid was working the end aisle and as he walked to exit without buying anything  the store hadnt kabocha a worthwhile price on sweet onions and peppers or corn on the cob Why did he bother He bothered because he liked harassing its management with errant prices and getting the mistaken food items for free his travel coin jar at home was growing leaps and bounds and was requisite hard evidence if he didnt harass its management all his change and greenbacks would be in corporates till Over his dead body and as he walked unsatisfied a cloth bag over his shoulder away from the kid their eyes casually met

he saw him out-of-focus as he mulled a passage in the book he was reading held in his hands

evidently the kid saw him clearer

as he went out the automatic sliding glass doors the kid pursued him HEY he barked Whaddaya got in dabag

he stopped looked over his shoulder at him turned to his left the bag away from the kids eyes Talkin to me

Ya YOU

In the bag 

DABAG

In the bag . . . . I got yer ass

Whaat

I said  I got yer ass

Ya tryin to be smart

Outsmart you No lift at all Whaddaya want

Whaddaya got in dabag

Ive said Your ass

If youre thinking I have something from inside the store in my bag and thats why youve come outside after me which isnt smart and you arent supposed to do and why you dont know so or cant remember is beyond me As I said Ive got your ass in the bag

If you wanna look check it out and make an ass out of yourself youre welcome to look

Im not one to ever stop anyone from making an ass out of themselves

Take a look

It your ass

Not mine

the big kid stood there

he stood in the middle of the aisle holding up traffic in either direction

which he was oblivious to

too fascinated by the fullblown entitlement this bruiser had conferred on him and had conferred himself with every beating he doled out

LOOKING?

he used the kids tone

Nah  Go ahead  But dont come back into this store if Im here

That really works for you Of course it does Im holding up traffic

he acknowledged the line of cars a nod of his head touched his book to his temple

he looked the kid in the face Come on I think I might have forgotten something Thanks for the reminder

he walked under his big jaw into the store through the automatic sliding glass doors

inside

      the kid hot on his heels he turned to him You wanna look at your ass now

You got a big mouth

And you got a problem Where you taking your problem when you grow up

Grow up Grow up  In two weeks I report to the Marine Depot in San Diego

Sensational You look like someone who takes orders no freethinker Ever work a job for yourself where someone wasnt telling you what to do

Whaat

Gee  I  gee  I dont know

Work for yourself

No

I suspect you never will

You wanna look at your ass now

Fuck you he said under his breath probably recognising he shouldnt be swearing at a customer

what would corporate think

Big mouth Big kid Youre a dime a dozen

Truly  

I hope you dont end up filling a big hole

he walked past the kid

the kid wasnt interested in looking at his own ass so he thought hed show him his one more time 

or maybe again if they saw each other before he left for San Diego

walking away he was flummoxed how a kid like that was going to be armed and become a decider between life and death when he didnt know anything other than what he was told

one more perfect thoughtless pawn

          Congratulations USA  he muttered into his book as he walked and began reading again

 

1352   Friday,  27  5. 16

1234   Saturday   28  5. 16

Dr. Jackle  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfk81On99R8

he was anxious for a soak(like a junky for their next fix never thinking it could possibly be a hot shot a perverse joke to appease and livenup a hardened streetcorner pusher they may or may not have scored)  

he soaked in hot water in an oversized clawfoot bathtub that he found and shipped west out of a Midwestern farmhouse scheduled to be razed    

it must have suffered a share of young children drowning

at six foot bending his knees slightly he easily immersed himself underwater

but he knew how to swim

 

he had the cast iron tub refinished  coloured it an appealing scarlet red

at night  particularly under candlelight  it turned purple and when the deep water was still it reflected the ceiling above and other things he wasnt keen on seeing

he soaked

          head submerged  chin mouth and nose like a snorkel

and wend his way through his jumbled spasmodic thoughts the array of problems that perplexed him which he illumined setting blazing krieg lights on them bleaching out any hope of refuge for niggling shadows or accessories who wanted to interfere with or infect his thinking

cutting them to the quick

if the forefront of his therapy didnt assuage his thoughts troubles or musings  then what came to him what he heard were the rantings of petty mermaids whales singing like aliens obliviously and indifferent to the mermaids whines

the erotic scolding and encouragement the rutting sounds of narwhals

the seduction of Sirens

but when their vocalisations became too intense or provocative he disengaged he pushed himself up by his feet to either side of the overflow under the spigot 

it was a practised haste that removed his ears from their plaintive or suddenly urgent voices

on occasions despite utter Reason he was struck then saddened that he couldnt talk to Odysseus and examine the abrasions and ropeburns on his flesh from being lashed to the mast of his ship or as he hoped there werent any and Odysseus had resisted the Sirens despite the labor Homers text exacted  as if Man was a slave to his pleasures and desires and could not bear them without submitting to them

wretched Weaklings

twinned to the Odysseus occasions there were those other things he wasnt keen on seeing who displaced and unhinged themselves from the capture and confines of simple mirrors that hung in houses were carried in compacts and obscene in freakshow funhouses

things that wore the caricatured skins of creatures who innocently beheld themselves in them and did not understand the thinnest of veils between their earthly presence and reality and the mockery the disdain and detest of those things

monsters that no one guessed at              

the gruesome murderers who always surprised their neighbors 

                                                  Infections

who watched from the other side of the silver

he was freakish about his glass

he overhung them with fabric cloaked them minimised their access to him

he took solace seeing them in the deep hot water in a medium they couldnt confound

and would admit that if he couldnt unsee them 

                                       then at least they swam and swirled helplessly

unsubstantial phantoms

high winds scouring a blue sky

     

1722,  Friday,  27  5. 16

1236,  Sunday,  29  5. 16

It aint origami

           what panicks one

                                           doesnt necessarily panick another

its symptoms: breath sticking in ones throat eyes bulging fisheyed trying as part of the bodys sympathetic nervous system to see sharper and furthur widen their peripheral a ticking up of the hearts tock tick tock ticks the swift flow organs bathed saturated in adrenaline daubed with a broad brush of blue inhaled opium moist palms scalp armpits backs of knees and feet

                          an organism cued up by the virtue of their panick with nowhere to go 

inevitably theres someone in your head who intones unsympathetically Come on Nothing here to panic over
while youre pins and needles amped ALL SYSTEMS GO!                              

you disassociate

you grab that heartless sonofabitch whos so reasonable(to themselves) by their windpipe throw cautions to the wind and squeeze it tight
             if it crushes like a paperstraw so be it

thereby impeding forever any unsympathetic uncompassionate peep or pique

                                                                   his panick surprised him

he reasoned that afterwards while standing in a hot shower letting ribbons of water sinuously overwhelm him                                                                    

he wasnt feeling well
                      rendered by the hard black rubber-souled boots of pain that kicked the ornate whitewashed baseboard scuffed and marred the handsome tiled and linoleum floors

his pain and panick made for the deep grunts and groans that spasmed in his mouth You whore! You piece of shit! Gawddamn!

he didnt know how he saw it
out of the corner of his eye
a daddylonglegs caught up and desperate in the splash and roil of water coming out the bathtub spigot 

it precipitating an existential moment

he was unable to stoop and snatch it to safety with his hand because he was stoved uphis joints ratcheted his pitiful tendons and muscles inflexible

its thin legs were inarticulate on the boil and bubbles
                                                        its body the size of an appleseed no more than a few pieces of pinched pilled blackened fabric

                              then suddenlyso quickly this small life seemed overwhelmed and conceded capitulated brought it legs in together assumed a mammalian fetal position
of abject submission

he saw but he couldnt snatch the longhandled shower body brush

he finally freed it from where it hung by a hook on the wall from a looped cord and dipped its bristles to the water between the spider and the gurgling drain

he had imagined like Velcro the spiders legs would get caught up on its bristles 

he lifted it to safety

carefully he closed the toilet lid and landed the brush on its back

the spider origami beaded with impossibly tiny water beads did not move  IN  HIS  PANICK  HE  THOUGHT  HE  KILLED  IT  but then he assessed No the aerated water not-yet-hot the bubbled surface No

painfully he leaned forward and gently bumped it with the end of his pinkie

the black origami moved slightly

it was alive

it was in a good momenta brief moment of selfanesthetised homeostasis

finally
      in the shower his eyes closed their yearning ceased the mydriasis blown pupils abated the hot water redemptive to a point he repeated in his minds eye the daddylonglegs negative panick

Huh  made sense to him    Now

it was likely he wouldnt have considered any aspect of it unless he had almost killed another earthling        

0709,  Friday,  27  5. 16