Manh he exhaled

they walked outside onto a porch through a sliding glass door 

the moon was huge

its light brilliant

it threw its light on them like a spotlight

bitchslapping their numb shadows across the porch against its railing and over into a stand of birch saplings as easily as the late afternoons sun had

the heat clinging to them from inside the house simmered off them like a heavy scent

---   Ah Manh this is much much better

---   Feels good

---   Yes  

A smoke

---   Please

he plucked a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket and shook it sideways to offer one        

from between twisted-up joints he picked a cigarette out      

---   Its so bright out here its like the onset of a Once upon a time story

their souls cowered crumbled under the moons harsh interrogation  black insects swarmed helping themselves to larger pieces of it and packed them off in clenched mandibles to their surly subterranean nests

---   Are you kiddin me  Christ thats creepy 

I just came out for a cigarette  continue our talk

---   Awh Im for fresh air beat the heat out from under the throb of musicToo loud

Playing it so loud it was disorienting me

the grass or pills vied for their attention          

                                   Look here!

          No here!                               

                                                                   Here!
                       No Here!like spoiled children prone to having their way
because they realised they could  working their way under their parents skin and other adults  into their very seams like an irritating fine dust
Attention
         not caring if it were either good or bad
each worked to their benefit
they stomped their feet bawled over nothing

and nothing was going to rectify it                          

Attention

         a junkies drug Hey look at me!

though  if either could have be brought forth materialised formed of the nights vapour

they would have beat them with a switch

after offering a cigarette

                    hed have no reluctance to beat em with a bat

a Louisville Slugger made of maple

not one of those cunt aluminum bats  ping

everything off them pinged

a clandestine shot

off a wood bat you could hear if it was a deep ball or a cheapie

but not off one of those manufactured rolled wrapped different-coloured

technologys lastest and greatest shitty advancement

                                           some things ought to be left alone

stand alone

for their obsessed purity   functionality

technology shouldnt have its way every time                

thats why brats ought to be beat within an inch of their lives

thats why it they should have been settled at the get-go  a no-go hardline  apparent

no leniency or equivocation

but maybe thats why there were drugs 

                                to quell the squawking hair-pulling monkeys on their backs

they sat on a picnic table bench

exhaling a deep pull

                 So you were saying inside as we came out

---   I said I liked dick for a bit

he tipped his head to the side

---   Whaat  are you getting at

sidling away a bit

---   Excuse me Getting at 

I aint getting at anything

---   No

I thought we came outside you had something to say to me  yaknow  wanted to confide in me

---   Im confused

I dont confide

I dont confide anything to anybody                                                                      

And why the hell would I confide anything to you

Stoned or not

Jesus man Youd be the last cat Id confide anyones secret in let alone one of my own

No matter

         Tellin you would be like well  What the hell

Youd be able to see it working its way out like a cheap Chinese screw no sooner had you screwed it in

---   Are you whaddayou saying are

You trying to hurt my feelings

---   You trying to say you have feelings

Comon manh                                       

You havent the capacity to keep a confidence Thats no surprise 

What the hell

You know that about yourself

All you got to do is think

Someone croaks and you wanna be the cat tellin everyone first Not as a heartfelt consideration or condolence

You just want to be the first one who says

I suppose in it theres something gratifying something that turns a little crank inside you

I dont get it I dont work that way

---   No

You liked dick for awhile

---   Again                                                                          

Where you running that ball

Ill tell you  Youre running that ball up into the wrong hole no gain running up into a linemans ass like you did in school

---   A linemans ass 

Go ahead

Talk to me about this dick you liked

---  aHAH

Confidence

Thats why  this is why  any confidence in you would be misplaced

Dick

Why you harping on dick

---   I think by your own words you were hung up on a guy for a bit

You wanted to talk to me about it

his head nearly spun threesixty

                          A guy  Because I mentioned dick  Because I would talk about a guys dick before Id talk about the guy himself  Id mention him by name first

Wouldnt you think

Or is this how rumour you with some girl is formulated manipulated spilled dumped onto the Book of Faces  Fabricated for the artifice of social media that seems always to have to be fed to make one legitimate in its multitude of eyes ears and eager tongues

---   You have a poor opinion of it

---   I dont                                        

More accurately Im indifferent

If it doesnt bother me If it stays behind closed doors If its kept in the privacy between its consenting adults

Have at it Go nuts

Just dont involve me in any way or form

Then were good

By the way

The dick     

Nixon

I liked him that he killed the draft

Now what I have to contend with its fallout the back door draft the heroes now manufactured by America obsessing over fear and terror  stoking it  a cash cow  an economy forcing the hands of more and more to volunteer

I did like dick for a bit

1313,  Saturday,  23  4. 16

 1046,  Monday,  25  4. 16

either indie was pulling his Ping-bit or Ping-redux was pulling his dazzling sleight-of-hand indie-bit

he had no idea if they did how they did it or which iteration was more difficult to pull off

a cat acting as a Chinaman or vis-versa

they were astonishing chimeras vying for his attention

whomever was present

every once in a while laying in bed theyd hear indie digging madly in his catbox

---   I cleaned it

---   So what the hell is he doing

---   Maybe looking for a turd hes sure he made  Yaknow like a phantom shit you take and looking you find nothings there but unsoiled toilet paper

---   Whaat  are you talking about

---   Oh dont start with me youve never had a phantom shit

---   I couldnt say I dont inspect my feces

---   Feces Youkiddin

You dont eyeball yourahem  excrement  to ascertain your health  or constitution

---   I dont

---   Whaddaya do

---   I flush the toilet wash my hands and leave the bathroom

---   Im dumbstruck Cant imagine moving my bowels and not checking em out to determine my constitution

Youre a freak

---   Im a freak

---   Freak

indies nuts at his catbox flinging litter across the linoleum floor in the laundry scratching at and scrapping its plastic bottom like a dog after a buried bone

he always goes in to see whats up

and typically he startles indie who dashes past him or between his feet only to reverse in the carpeted hallway wend his bullet-way back past him or through his legs launching himself landing back in his catbox scattering more litter against the wall a hockey player stopping on ice

he shakes his head

whaelse to do

he sees indies eyes glowering in the semilight like a Kilroy with paws

YahGoodnight big fella

he doubles back to bed

---   And

---   And what Your cats a loon or hes playing with Ping

---   Ping

---   YahPing

he sighs

        Youve heard the story if youre in America and you dig perfectly straight through to the other side of the Earth

you emerge in China  You have   Right

---   Yeah

 

So what

---   So Pings got more incentive to dig this way Its America Land of the Free Home of the Brave  And digging to America hes come up in indies catbox

---   What are you talking about

---   Im talking about the restless spirit of a man desiring unfettered freedom Im talking about an incentivized hardworking Chinaman  I got no doubts hed make it

Hence Ping  Indies buddy and playmate

Theyre frolicking

---   You know youre the only one I know who can make that sound plausible

---   Aint plausible babe its goin on in just the other room not ten feet from where your lay

---   Does he come bearing eggrolls I love eggrolls

---   Eggrolls and hot Chinese mustard

Yawant I should have him doubleback for some authentic kimchi As industrious as he is he probably has Korean connexions

so what began as a sly joke white pajamas straw coolie hat wood sandals had grown to epic proportions

                                                                                      Ping

indies phantom playmate

    

indie is a feral tricoloured cat 

being male his true colouring numbers him one in 3,000 births

he read that indies XXY chromosomes was akin to Klinefelters Syndrome in human beings and while conjecture implies such individuals are less interested in sex he could debate indies disinterest probably stemmed from the fact that he was neutered

however  XXY offspring are typically tragically born sterile 

nonetheless  indies devotion his abiding-passion was food

they often chided indie calling him indie and his tapeworm

today  he had no idea who was he talking to

whether indie

the tapeworm

or Ping                                       

he concluded they concluded if they ever got any one of them to speak thered be money in it

Come on guys  Were kiddin  A little joke 

all he got was slanty-eyed disdain  side-glances

how Oriental was that

no sooner those words were through his synapses than he could hear her harping  Asian  Asian 

trying to muzzle her recriminations he cited Edward Saids book Orientalism  his use of Occidental in opposition to Orientalism

but she never had any of it 

                       And when was that    

---   Seventy-Eight

---   Old news                   

---   Its Said he was brilliant  A humanist thoroughly secular 

Whats to possibly dislike about the man

---   He said oriental

--   AwGet over it  People have prideful prejudices  As long as they know they do as I do we shouldnt be drawn and quartered for slight missteps

---   Im following your lead

Never be quiet in the face of remarks you disagree with

Being silent suggests you acquiesce to the content of their remarks

---   Okay okay  I agree I agree

But its me not some gasbag out on the street in a coffeeshop huh  Me

---   I gotta keep in practise

I appreciate you challenging me keeping me sharp

hed shake his head dolefully roll his eyes

                                  Wisenheimer

 

if in fact it was Ping today  sneaky Ping

he was going to send him back down his rabbithole after his opium and pipe

he had a pipe of his own but wasnt about to share with a changeling no matter how familiar they were with each other

he wanted a taste of opium the Chinese smoked

he enjoyed Mohammeds years back from Armenia  Moe popped him with his hashish

it was different from hashish he was used to  concerned even then that Americans were smoking a cut product

seems Capitalism Greed always spoils a true item

he liked to think the Old World wasnt as tainted as the New was

while New World hash opium got him high  

it was unlike the Old Worlds high

Moes hashish was like smoking delicate flowers smelled like flowers tasted like flowers like being teenagers flirting with sex trembling unbuttoning blouses untying halter tops perky breasts pointed nipples areola like setting suns unbuttoning pants catching your breath fuzzy peaches throbbing cocks the teasing  teasing

it was sensual mindblowing  compared to actually having sex  penetrating  fucking

the delicious deliberate wanting  anticipation  to actually getting  having

Oh the places you will go 

Seuss got it right

he and Moe went without moving a muscle

one wouldnt think an aged Armenian and a young American could converse in their separate languages

they did

they understood each other crystal clear

crystal clear:

            he dug the imagery of Nixon spinning in his grave his blue-tinged skin his cheeks jaw and jowls his face grown long looking like a beatified beatnik his suit gone to rags

Dont hand the man a mirror

Hed shit Befoul his coffin

he wouldnt wish that on anyone

he crawled in next to him

                     Hey Dick  Dick  Can you heard me    Dont move your head(he didnt want it coming off) Lemme think you can hear me otherwise me lying beside you serves no purpose your war on drugs Ehrlichman ratted you out it was your war on blacks your war on leftist anti-war freaks you failed the country dismally you created a gauntlet that didnt have to be you ruined lives to enjoy your own you were the scourge not the drugs you were the fake you destroyed that that was authentic you ought to be ashamed but you never had shame people have always altered themselves its human nature since Time Immemorial in every culture in every nook and cranny that mankind has infested exploited polluted and shamed First People knew it Primitives knew it Commonsense knew it and all of it to assume artificial power to make your dick hard

Dick

Goddammit I hope you can hear me I sincerely do

                                        he xhaled

Moes eyes rolled up in his head

politics always bores people

indie or indiePing curled up in his lap 

eyes like slits 

he stroked his head ran his thumb gently up his broad nose to inbetween his ears ruffled his neck tweaked his ears

cat  purr

no one had yet been able to identify what the purring meant there were theories but he didnt need to know why

he liked simply that it was

it was retiring  relaxing

he wished he could purr

hell  

     sometimes he wished hed like to be a changeling himself

1806,  Friday,  22  4. 16

 0955,  Saturday,  23  4. 16

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/richard-nixon-used-america-s-war-on-drugs-as-excuse-to-target-anti-war-left-and-black-people-claims-a6948521.html