a friend shared a cigar with him My Father  he wasnt familiar with it but his friend had good taste last time they smoked together was on Morro Bays Embarcadero  they enjoyed Fuentes Hemingway Short Storys which have been his favourite cigar for years

his friend treated him not knowing that

as chance would have it they werent going to be able to smoke and talk so he left him with a cigar 

                                                                                                        Smoke it, write a story as you do.

Awright Yawanna a cameo appearance in it

Yeah, that would be fun, that’d be alright with me.

Awright What do you want your character called like a stage nameHA a porn name  Python

he looked at him as if suddenly he didnt speak Englishdidnt understand him

An alias nom de plumedespite not writing

I  don’t  know.

Think on it Shoot me a text when you have decided on one

I can do that.

Good Because I wont enjoy the cigar until I have a name yare okay appearing under

Okay. I can do that.

Good 

       they embraced said goodbye  they saw each other pell-mell  infrequently

 

he texted  :  :  One night in Guadalajara

  :  :  Awright  And what is the name of this character in Mexico?

  :  :  Boyfriend in Tights

  :  :  You’re killing me, man, killing me

OUTSIDE THE BOX

  :  :  On the road more travelled . . . memoirs of a drug addicted white whore

  :  :  Drug-addled white whore  I can work with that – providing a reason why your ears are big – good handholds

  :  :  Cheap Mickey Spurline highway murdered my mother with all

  :  :  With all . . . . what?

  :  :  The best intentions 

                            he must be fucked up popped a handful of edibles it had been a couple of hours after they separated

  :  :  Sketchy shit to work with, man 

I’ll try

  :  :  Tired now

the fuck tired by wha

he texted immediately  :  :  That was supposed to be Mickey Spillane’s Secret Lover’s Passion. Now a major motion picture starring Mickey Spillane as Mickey.

fuck closest thing he could recall from his library of Spillanes paperbacks was The Body Lovers it was never made into a film

definitely stoned

he texted again  :  :  Get on with the story.

 

wellfuck that was an exercise in futility 

                                           all he wanted was a freakin alias anhow nice to be able to choose your own alias not a nickname  but an alias

Spillane Mike Hammer

Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes or The Coming of Fairies 

                                                                   Doyle after his son Raymonds death in the First World War was attracted to spiritualism and the occult a bereaved father his sons violent death pursuing closure anytime someone tried to peddle closure to him he had to stand up and walk away so he didnt damage them the fairy photographs were taken by a working-class family in rural Yorkshire  shared with Doyle by a Theosophist friend a friend like that one didnt need enemies

he was familiar with the esoteric  Theosophists Madame Helena Blavatsky familiar with their ancient secretive brotherhood of spiritual adepts known as The Masters at least they had the good sense to assume a handle unlike his buddy Christ Throw me a freakin bone!  he met and befriended a gentleman who was once head librarian at the Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library in Wheaton Illinois which housed and catalogued thousands of Theosophy texts

Wayne insisted the system wasnt a religion rather it preached the existence of a single divine Absolute  it promoted an emanationist cosmology in which the universe is perceived as outward reflections from this Absolute

Yaknow buddy Stop right there

What? Wayne was latherednear panting

Sounds like religion

It isn’t.

If it looks like a duck swims like a duck quacks like a duck

It isn’t.

It quacks

You don’t want to hear, your mind closes he snapped his fingers just like that

No Ive read some tracts read Madame Blavatsky The Masters  Ducks  To each his own man I can only imagine that working in such an environment itd rub off on youyoud absorb it how could you not Yasaid you worked there nearly seven years Words like water eventually finds their way in

I still remember things from catechism things I can regurgitate which I learned kneeling on a broom handle

 

 

  :  :  Get on with the story . . .

he thought he had 

 

he fired up the My Father almost triggered a prayer  who art in Heaven creamy taste  light  a 52ring Robusto

he hadnt had a cigar in shy of a yearNo two years his daughter brought him a Cuban she had bought while overseas  it was only the second Cuban he had ever smoked

the first was at a stag party  

                              not a place for him to be to be tempted by an attractive voluptuous stripper the best man pulled out all stops anted-up big time

he wandered to the back of the room out of harms way 

                                                        as a matter of fact he called her Harm when during a break after a couple of dances she approached him

she provocatively took the cigar from between his fingers all eyes and smiles and sinuous 

                                                                                               You mind if I have a puff?

Help yourself its Cuban so you know

she held it to her rubycoloured lips briefly kissed the end of it then parted her lips held it between her white teeth then placed her lips around it and sucked in a puff

exhaling  Hmm. My, this is good.  I don’t usually smoke cigars. 

                                                                    she helped herself to another toke exhaled it through pursed lips 

             looked like a volcano whispering

she lightly licked her top lip

the natives were getting restless

odds were in their favour

I believe your fans need of your attention

You’re not a fan.

I didnt say that 

                 I am good however of avoiding temptation

You’re tempted?

I said I was good at avoiding temptation

I can’t put words in your mouth, huh? 

                                        she rolled the cigar deftly between her fingers

No

Hmm. Not even if I said I’ve named my left breast  Words she giggled like a little girl

he could hear the smoke seep out of the cigar that was something

Yare cute

Cute? Really?  I’m beautiful.

You are Better beat ityare givin me ideas

she smiled like a wolf took a long pull on the cigar

he couldnt say he ever saw a cigar smoked so seductively

Lemme say this . .

. . Please.

Lemme say to your satisfactionIm sure  Yare killin me

Harm smiledhanding the cigar back to him

he tugged on it a couplethree of times before she let go

he moved in his pants

Good. she murmured 

                       as she turned to walk back to the natives Harm looked quickly over her shoulder  the softened lighting pickeduphighlighted the auburnreddish streaks in her hair That makes two of us.

Manohman she was definitely killin him 

he cleared his throat spoke loudly after her Ill let my wife know you said

she didnt turn back but laughed uproarious the peels shaking her head

 

she slayed the room

very agile

supple

Harms way was the best he ever laid eyes on 

Hmm never did come up with a characters name

My Father was a tasty cigar 

                               he was terribly pleased it refreshed a long ago memory

1711,  Sunday,  21  2. 21

1154,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  24  2. 21

 

Aw nawnaw naw  Come on baby  I really got to get going

Where are you going?

To meet a friend

Where?

Where  well my little Herr  Im heading over to Cumberland

she smiled largeseemed amused it tickled hertickled her at some levelperhaps a base level he couldnt get his head around

he didnt thinkdidnt cross his mind that she might be perverse or meddlesome  wasnt her nature

Cumberland Park had nothing to do with her

Everything to do with him

 

Sowhas the huhbub bub

Whatcha talkin bout Willis? 

                            showing off her depth or recall of pop culture telly-inspired dementia

Diffrent Strokes didnt inspire him 

                                    he wasnt opposed to it placating his girls when they were younger while he made dinner

they had knocked off their homework afterschool while with their sitter

after dinner

              Lemme see your homework girls

they went to their backpacks and pulled out leaves of paper

he scrutinised their work tortured it Dammit they were good they didnt have his sophistication but shouldnt they were children

afterwards they asked him what he thought

he told them what he gleamed with his adult eye

they recognisedunderstood his assessments

We were adroit, yes?

they liked the word  what children like adroit  his girls 

                                                           adroit they like that it was French that it was righthanded as they were while maladroit and gauche were lefthanded  as he was 

Did you know that, Dad?

I did I studied French in junior high Why do you know it

From the dictionary. We figured we might impress you; also tease you.

Manohman  when they hit high school theyd be ranging over himchallenging him 

                                                                                      that was okay

he was always up for a challenge

its why he challenged them when they were younger  he and their mother

they had the capacity

who wanted to know a girl a boy who wasnt worth their salt

their mother attracted him first physically

but it was her mind that enticed him

made him fall in love with her

Cumberland, huh?

Ye . .

. . With a friend

With a friend

Okay.

Okay

        I didnt ask

Did I imply otherwise?

Did you

        

she leered like a hyena I didHA

Knucklehead  crack me up I love you

2322,  Monday,  22  2. 21

1213,  Twosday,  23  2, 21

 

Sunday yesterday   virtually a year ago   he felt his mind seizefelt it become brittlebecome a pathetic honeycomb a pane of unreflective glassSAW his mind shattering  and thought This is what a nervous breakdown a mental breakdown must be 

                      he couldnt in that moment go to his daughters bedside to touch her look into her eyes would have destroyed his mind like a hammer blow 

he saw the irretrievableness of it 

so he backpedaled  Please  in a moment please just not now

                                                                 his voice sounded like a frightened little boys

he was   

it would be the second time hed say goodbye to her 

goodbye

            because she felt she was dying                                                                                           

 

he didnt know if her death was courageous

                                             like a fixture a cheap fixture  he could imagine courage as something cheap – thats telling tells of his state of mind

however  it was the way his daughter chose to die 

the reality is    everyone  has to face their death devise their exit strategy sounds fuckin cavalier  but here you go  because she told him as much told him as much as she knew that he truly despised the phrase  It is what it is, Dad.

 

we  will  die

               and how – for the most part – we die  will fall to our decision 

then seeing that decision through

an existential decision

the matter of ones life  and ones death

so  yesterday   Sunday    virtually a year ago 

                                                     he was able to return to his daughters bedside and tell her again what they shared in the ICU three months earlier they cried several times they had to take her ventilator mask off and try to have her blow her nose had to suction herher nose and throat so she could continue to breathe  continue to breath  continue to breath 

                                  let that sink in    BREATHE

that which we take for granted every day  an involuntaryautomatic voluntary action respiration  if people had to think to breathe to be mindful hed suggest the worlds population might be less than half 

                                                                                              BREATHE

on the 27th

her ventilator mask removed

she stopped

1020

                                      

444 or 1644,  Sunday,  21  2. 21

1509,  Monday,  22  2. 21

compare and contrast

Trump virus has now killed more than 500,000 Americans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnGVUI9CD4o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EI9PCFbhLA

1739,  Monday,  22  2. 21

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf_2u3WT1Rg  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJWOIuyh3i0

 

absolute                              

                    absolutely

it started in a coffee shop

a sign hangs at eye level on the front door as you walked in No Mask No Service

he wore his in when he ordered coffee for himself and his brotherinlaw

he wore it in again to utilise the restroom

                                           he only rented coffee and beer  they passed through him like a sieve 

exiting the bathroom a little girl was fast at the door anxious to get inside 

she and her parents were unmasked

he held the door open for her

sidestepping himoblivious of him she was asking her mother why she couldnt look at the music video playing on the monitor screen fixed on the wall above and to the left of the entryway 

                                                                         Because it’s something you need not see.

releasing the door to the mothers hand he glanced at the video

a black singer

unmasked

three of them

he assumed the parents could read

the restroom door closed at his back

daddy was dressed in a black dago-T black jeans work boots his arms and neck tatted thick he seated himself at a tall café table

they made eye contact

daddy sported a closecropped scalp

he hadnt cut his hair in a year

daddy sneered

he was humoured

they disregarded each other

 

outside on the patio taking his mask off he sat down across from his brotherinlaw at a yellow café table and folding chairs

      abruptly he said JesusChrist  Republicans

Huh?

I said Republicans

Who?

Inside

Republicans?

Yabetcha   Nahstop I may have been rash   Dear Leaders   

Why do you say that?

Because they are  absolutely

Absolutely? 

             his brotherinlaw had a hangup with absolutism nothing was absolute to him

Absolutely

Why would you say that?

he iterated what hed seenexperienced inside the coffee shop

So you’re convinced they’re he sneered  absolutely sneering again Republicans?

motherfucker was conveniently deaf  Absolutely 

                                         and as he spoke the family exited the coffee shop he nodded  See for yourself anif you got a bug up your ass regardin my assessment Im happy to ask

No, I don’t need you asking anyone anything. 

they walked past them

while his brotherinlaw took in an eyeful 

                                         Yaneed me to ask

Shaddup. his face reddened 

                            his brotherinlaw didnt have a confrontational bone in his body or he didnt want to risk a fight

the family crossed the street and entered their 4-Wheel four-door white three-quarter ton Ford truck

it wasnt a work truck

he worked years of construction

he knew work trucks

this was a pretty truck

 

And

          Absolutely Republican

I don’t know that.

I can confirm

No sense stirring the pot.

Republican

Possibly.

Absolutely

I wouldn’t say absolutely.

You never say absolutely ya got a bug up your ass with anything I might possibly deem absolute

Because nothing is.

Bullshit I got your twenty dollar bill taped to glass that I beat you out of because I absolutely knew Ossoff and Warnock were winning their respective Senate run-off races in Georgia Yawanna bet another twenty Ill stop them before they leave

You’ll stop them . .

. . Yawanna test meya know I will

No, I don’t want you running into the street to stop them.

Because they absolutely are 

                               his brotherinlaw paused long enough   the truck pulled away

No. I don’t know that. 

exasperated  You certainly could have

I wasn’t going to start anything.

Nothing to start simple question Yathink theyd take exception to a question of their politics

Out of the blue?

Yes out of the fucking blue Someone asked me a question Id give them a precise answer

But that’s you.

Im like everyone else

No, you’re not like everyone else.  he was getting exasperated 

sternly  I am

 

 

later the conversation continued over a beer

he said that the Michigan state governor Rick Snyder by law had placed nearly eighty percent of Michigans black voters citizens under emergency managers his appointments which disenfranchised not only the populace but also publicly elected municipal officials  the managers answered to no one but the governor 

                                                                                           Did you know that

he did not

Synder and his clown manager poisoned Flint

they were told by local health officials it wasnt prudent to proceed with their plan to use the Flint River as their water source

they did it because they could 

So they are absolutely responsible for the deaths and future health risks for tens of thousands of citizens 

                                                                                                                An for their crimes they ought to be executed

They should be executed?

Absolutely An eye for an eye Love the Old Testament They didnt have to drink the water or bathe in it Take it personally woudja man  What if one of the children who died was yours

They weren’t.

Whaif they were

That’s a hypothetical.

Quit  Whaif one of your childrens death was attributeddirectly due to the governor and his emergency managers premeditation   Say Ohwell shit happens

I’m saying . .

. . Yare saying someone who absolutely caused your childs death shouldnt die for their crime  It happened for everyone to seewith everyone watching

 

Nothing 

Awright howbout this  epidemicide   Trump virus has killed 450,000 Americans

Absolutely

2349,  Saturday,  20  2. 21

1517,  Sunday,  21  2. 21

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/23/us/anger-in-michigan-over-appointing-emergency-managers.html 

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flint-water-crisis-everything-you-need-know

 

he was celebrating

he didnt keep a high bar

not champagne not highend wine a beer  a beer from a local gas station liquor store

they didnt have Therapist

they didnt have Knuckle Sandwich

                                    Fuck

Lance man ya let me down  A recommendation

Sorry.

No sorry a recommendation please

Hoptologist? Top shelf.

he turned back into the cooler Deep Knee good brewery doubleIPA nine percent alcohol ah 103 IBUs he did like bitter 

done deal 

           I don like this Lance ya owe me a beer

I’ll owe you a beer.

                    Lance knew his words werent casual

but then Lance knew his shit

hed taken his recommendations in the past  he was no slough

 

he wasnt one to celebrate himself  he preferred celebrating others  his family and friends birthdays anniversaries

he did celebrate his birthdays religiously  he didnt work 

                                                            I can’t give you the time off.

You misunderstood me Im not asking  I wont be here

That’s not how this works.

I  wont  be  here   So cover your ass

That’s not how this works.

he had either hungup the telephone or smiled wryly turned his back and walked out of the office

too many people allowed themselves to be bullied

he didnt show 

Joe.  I want to see you in my office.

Be right there

 

Shut the door please. 

                       someone ought to put that lyric to music  they ought to write a melody

he shut the door because he was asked not because he wanted hed rather the other employees heard

Where were you?

Where was I when

Yesterday.

Yesterday was my birthday I told you I wasnt coming in

I scheduled you.

Im happy to hear you can admit you made a mistake

You hung your co-workers out to dry.

My coworkers knew three weeks in advance as you knew  I wasnt going to be here

Your co-workers wouldn’t have done that to you.

Have you asked them

                       Cuz if it was their birthday Id man up Thats a legitimate unpaid unpaid  I did say unpaiddidnt I day off  a day worth having not here

What am I supposed to do with you?

Lemme work Andon put me on the schedule when I tell you Im not workingI wont be here

Donbe excuse me   stupid

Na I got work to do Anything else

 

he could see they were flabbergasted

it wasnt a kind thing to see  twitchy 

                                       Youll excuse me As I said Ive got work to do

he got up and left the office

closed the door behind him

wasnt another employee who could outwork him who knew his job like he did

 

an executive once told him 

                           You know what your problem is? he loved people telling him what his problem was No whas my problem You know your job too well.

he did know his job too well

didnt get him timely raises

he had to go in and ask

didnt stop themmanagement from threatening him

he wasnt going to pull their pud

he had his own 

never did fired him 

                    but that didnt stop them from threatening

 

if they werent in the nambypamby West he would have treated them to some good oldfashioned MidwestChicago retribution 

           but they all looked like bleeders 

they wouldnt have been able to ID him

not for the hood hed wear

he would have been the shit in the Ku Klux Klan

but he liked black folk better than those the colour of his skin

he had more in common with them

2257,  Reggae Friday,  19  2. 21