he turnedshe appeared out of the clear blue head downcloaked in an unzipped hoodie hood upher fists pummeling its pockets black curls cascaded down her exposed chestcleavage high enslaved by an black underwire bra

she must have glimpsed his shoes as he sidestepped to avoid her as small as she was she would have went ass over teakettle down in a heap had they collided    

her eyes came up at a suddensimultaneously drawing the hoodie closed

she was unhappy

he wasnt going to wish her Happy Twosday happy whatever day it happened to be  Evenin

her head declining Public bathroom?

not mincing words  Rear of the store to your right either of the last two doors

Thank you.

Youre welcome

                that was their transaction as they sidled past each other she borne on her momentum her legs churning to keep abreast of it

a flesh and blood automaton     

      

he didnt see her exit despite working the floor taking cases down restocking shelves

in the next hour and a halfthe store sparsely shopped he proceeded to his cleanup duties preparing to close

it seemed none of his coworkers were keen at keeping the restrooms clean the toilet paper hand towels restocked the mirrorglass unspotted the waste cans emptied 

somehow their maintenance became his responsibility

the last bathroom faired the day

the first didnt

              he laid the largest share of its degradation at mens feet either their inability to piss in a toilet or their haha perverse humour – they didnt have to cleanup after themselvesdid they – young men these days were boys -- he never underestimated the slop they could make

to bus the floors he prepared a bucket of Green Clean in hot water and mop he cleared the trashcans to sweep the floors a quick glance and its weight informed him the plasticbag holding the firsts can would have to be bundleup replaced

he swept 

he mopped

he returned the last bathrooms trashcan compacted its paperwaste saving on plasticbags

he pulled the cosmetic matteblack metal canister off the firsts trash WHAS THISbright blue at the top of the heap 

a torn cardboard that contained ClearBlue 

inside the ruined box were two nondigital tests swaddled in their opened cellophane

he wasnt curious of their results

he was curious why a woman would perform a pair of pregnancy test in a liquorstore lavatorythen hypergalled her privacy had been reduced to the locked brick-and-mortar stall

then he became curious if the woman might have been the unhappy the distracted the underwired bra it was a strange experience  it didnt happen every dayor ever before

Mygoodness what are people being reduced to these days

     

1923,  Twosday,  15  5. 18

1230,  Twosday,  22  5. 18

he was seething

                his family worried that he seethed too muchit wasnt good from himit would  over time  erode hiswha they say  ahyes  erode his humour steal his light

he laughed

he knew they were sincere

he said Youre aware we have the capacity to compartmentalise  I make myself aware of all this shit and rail at it because if I dont I know you wont  So if Im that bright lightsunlight is the best antiseptic  thats my intentionan I dont give a fuck if it disturbs you  My point is telling you the dark side otherwise youll only have the peripheral text the blurps the single sentences the superficial tweets  an wouldnt everyone want theirs lives at a slow simmer soft bubbles throwing rainbow iridescence rather than rapid boils raging surfs   

Long ago they bragged they were making reality  that we couldnt keep up as we tried to understand it were Evidence-based  Nothings changed

Thats their fucking game

he was just off Taxi to the Dark Side which confirmed everything he knewyou couldnt possibly know  you could suspect  no  he knew he read most things the neocons wrote and he took them at their wordhe fucking knew he smelled their kindknew them from the rough bricked alleys of Chicago where drugs were vied and whores sucked cock you moved quickly across their maws through their exhaletheir foetid breath because wellfrankly  they were tempting

he seethed

now the next clowns were in officethe country needed another fix of delusion that only Republicans-by-name can provide

Herr Drumpfwho he called cunt is livid accusing railing his campaign was infiltrated by an FBI informant but he would

the term informant is incendiary it is a term conspiracy buffs yank their cocks to(cunt would have you believe his long long ties suggest . . yaknow) though obviously those buffs aint all males so theres some who tickle their clits to it

however in the miserable dripdrab of languageof terminology vernacular  an informant by any other name would smell as sweet say a whistleblower  say an investigatorsay an investigator who is investigating Russia influence inside cunts campaign once upon a time Russia was a cold war foe an enemy our laws are that you cannot conspire with a foreign powerany foreign power 

                                 if any American believes that Putin is acting because he has Americas best interests at heart thats like saying that OHGOSH! Herr Drumpf also is acting because he has Americas best interests at heart

Ohplease

what next are the Irrepublicans going to pull out of their ass

he has this fantasyhe understands its a fantasy  he goes to Washington dressed in his amateur proctologist garb white jacket surgical headdresscompleat with a shiny head mirror thereby utter beyond reproachyoure so professional Howie  he pulls his palegreen latex gloves on up above his elbow snaps them when theyre in place then he proclaims I think we can root out this conspirator  he fistfucks every Irrepublican who dances dreamily inside their heads under the throbbing sparkling Drumpf mirrorball Oh look how pretty hes violent he reaches deep inside trying to find the truth theyve quashed squashed compressed and fit inside a vibrantcoloured prophylactic in case they should shit it and reveal what wouldnt be of good purpose for any of them

he doesnt change glovestheyre Heavy-Duty gloves 

finished he strips them off and bitchslaps that last Irrepublican who had the misfortune to be his last patient  the last man bent over  it should be understood that he never had to ask them to bend over

. . . All Herr Drumpfs horses and All Herr Drumpfs men couldnt put Herr Drumpf together again

it is good to be able to distinguish a fantasy from reality  it stands opposed to delusion

    

1353,  Sunday,  20  5. 18

1033,  Monday,  21  5. 18

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0854678/videoplayer/vi1283981593?ref_=tt_ov_vi

Howie: Do You Like My New Car?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djZBfTSDpr0

What you dont know wont hurt you

                                   a sayingan axiom once upon a time that will serve no one today who gives it any credence  

a longwinded Because

Because I said

she didnt know why her parents went to it as often as they didshe couldnt imagine they meant her to act out of ignorance

they werent stupid

were they 

acting ignorant is a breeze  easier than ignoring somethingwhich you have to work at

she wondered because her parents wouldnt say they often said That was a long time ago. I can’t remember.  they would have made shameless politicians Nah. I don’t remember.  had to be some procedure they agreed to undertake immediately after placing their hand on the Bible swearing to uphold the Constitution  Nah. Cant remember.

it doesnt bother them that you can

That was a long time ago. I don’t know what you expect from me.

I expect you to pausegive it a moment give it some thought because I asked  not brusquely dismiss it  I hadnt any expectations  I asked is all there is to it

her parents acted as if she was accusing them of something  what an unusual place to come from  they were all adults now  she wasnt looking to blame them for anything

they were blowing a hole in the side of her respect for them

they were probably the only two people walking the planet she extended respect to out of hand without they having to earn it

Was it simply convenient for you to say to me What you dont know wont hurt you

Because it will it definitely will

out of both their mouth inthesameinstance What do you expect from me? they reminded her of the chorus in a Greek tragedy she wouldnt tell themmuddying the waters because they had no idea what she was talking about they werent literate people despite raising her to be

I suppose Im asking if your parents told you you told me although Ive never said that to my children That saidan in all fairness I have three you raised nine the slices of pie were a lot thinner

Pie? What are you talking about?

The sharing of time Once upon a time you have a pie all to yourself Then you meet someone and your pie is cut in two

If you marryhave a child the pie is cut in thirds An so on an so on I had time to address my children at a deeper level than either of you ever did Its not rightnot wrong Its the reality of our circumstancesfor cryinoutloud dad you were in time management efficiency you were paid to know Im not telling either of you something you dont know 

But I am asking if you remember why you might have said such a excuse me stupid thing when neither of you are stupid

My guess was that it was convenient 

It saved time

Time certainly is a finite resource

her motherper usual answered for both of them  I don’t know what you expect from us.

Nothing in her head she heard I got a story aint got no morals

1517,  Saturday,  19  5. 18

1059,  Sunday,  20  5. 18

Billy Preston  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F_DRNCGjQM

he listened patiently to his buddy explain how his cat got out of the house the night before

Chances are he said to him had you let her be she would have turned up the next morning when she got good and hungry I wouldnt think that shed flee the hill you live on

Yeah, that occurred to me too  but she hasn’t been fixed and she’s in heat I’d forgotten the sounds a female makes when she’s in heat.

The sounds she makes the Toms crying bothers me more

You haven’t heard Toby, my god, what a racket she can make,gets me at some level deeper than fingernails on a chalkboarddeeper.

Ouch  I can relate

Yeah, it’s something else.

I didnt mean to interruptyou were saying

Yeah. She busted past meId set the canvas grocery bags down to bar her way but she made like a free runneran acrobat cartwheeling off the front door to the screen door pinwheeling onto the porch.

Sounds marvelous

Actually was marvelous. I was dumbfounded. And she was gone into the night. A calico disappears into the night effortlessly.

You went after her immediately.

I did I tripped over the grocery bags heading in the house, going in after the flashlight in the kitchen drawer.

I went out with the torch lit calling her name. Walked all around the front of the houseinto the car portlaid down on the drive to peer under the car. She was nowhere to be seen.

An wasnt making a soundIll bet

Yeah.  Not a sound.   It was the quietest I could remember. I went back into the house and put away the groceries.

Then after the groceries were away you went back outside looking for her

I did.

You took a breath and thought if you were her where would you go

I did. That’s crazy, how did you know?

I got cats too Im thinking outloud what I would do

I suppose we'd do the same.

Without a doubt  Theyre pets but we have emotional ties to them    Roles reversed theyd come after us

Yeah. I think the same.

Yeah  An so

Sooo  I went around the house gently calling her name. When I got to the side of the house I thought about under the porchit runs across the front of the house and halfway down its side.

Bingo

Yeah, exactly. When my flashlight hit her eyesthem peering back at me bright red I almost shit.

Devilish looking against the blackhuh

Yeah. She frightened me.  Then when my eyes adjusted I could see her colouring beyond her eyes. There was a Tom with her. I call him Youre no Robert Redford. He’s burnt orangetail missingcropped cutoffwho knows. He was further back behind her. She seemed oblivious of him.

Thats something  You didnt catch them midhump
Hey, that’s my girl.

A girls got needs  just like you

I suppose . .
. . You have no needs

I get you.

Thought you would

An so

Sooo  I got down on my belly in front of the steps leading up the porch and talked to her, calling her over to me. I must have spent twenty minutes on my belly talking to her while they were lit up by the torch. A couple of times she moved towards me, but I hadn’t any way of reaching her through the steps.

Then it occurred to me. I had to lure her, she missed dinner, I feed them when I get home from work.

An she ran out

Yeah.  It occurred to me to lure her with food.

Brilliant

I thought so.

Well before you go furthur into your escapades Id like to say one thing

Yeah.

Youd be a miserable paedophile

What?

Miserable paedophile Wanna piece of candy lil girl

OhJesus.

I dont think hed bite  But mebbe

1400ish,  Friday, 11  5. 18

1122,  Saturday,  19  5. 18

Vehicle  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxJFjO4Skgo  Ides of March

Schneiderman fooled himself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmS6FJKpEQI

white men and their assumed prerogatives

1612,  Reggae Friday,  18  5. 18

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/four-women-accuse-new-yorks-attorney-general-of-physical-abuse     

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUQENi4RXqw  a baby boy has got to be free

Dead lizard! Dead lizard! the cry of a child a girl it muted by her distance from him across the church compound near the chapel 

her cry feigned fear  its undertone was bemusement Lookee Lookee disrespectful of the lizard

Awman  it hurts like hell to reanimate animalsthe bigger the animal the more severe the pain but this girl her assembling cadre these children  he could see they recognised at some base level their affluence and entitlement theirs and not otherstheir parents haughty expressions and disposition wash across their pale white faces  theyre possessed  they live well live in brick homes and fireplaces on ranches that sprawl for hundreds of acres to the foothills theyve never lived in townlived in apartments or townhomes they dress conspicuously perhaps even some of their teachersthe hired help envied their clothing and shoes and accoutrementsNothing but the best for our babies  the unspoke opposite  possibly  Your baby can suck dick

wealth is venal

                it moves at levels oblivious of those beneath it and make no mistake  those are beneath them the wealth he knew acted apart acted how someone who is fortunatewhos healthy and contends that someone who is unwell may have done something that made them unwell  their unwellness deserved 

a nice roost to crow from if you happen to be genetically inclinedif you have more than sufficient access to proper healthcare and nutrition  they were hardly inclined to think that perhaps an unwell person did nothing to bring it on themselves other than simply being born their illnessestheir deficiencies baked in the cake they were playing the cards they were dealt 

wealthy people might suppose Then you should have cheatedlooked at your cards and taken a better hand 

a small cadre of the extremely wealthy discuss the possibility of immortality

the hardpressed middle and lower income makers do not

Dead lizard! Dead lizard!

                             then  the young girl cut loose with a bloodcurdling scream the emaciated lizard she poked with a stick rolled onto its bellysuddenly swelling with life and vitalityits bluebelly pulsating electricblue  it launched itself at its tormentorsnapped its jaws on a fingerleapt from her finger to the bodice of her pretty dress and scurried up itscratched her throatsnapped at her lipsscratched at her eyesscurried into her hair and rode her like she was a mindless bucking bronco until she caught her toetripped on a gnarled root of a majestic live oak onto her face 

the lizard dismounted and scurried under a blossoming rosemary hedge

the gathered children stood motionless

then inevitably someone giggled at her misfortuneinevitably other children followed in kind

she laid still  sobbing

he stood on the dirt shoulder of the road outside the compound his hands crossed at his wrists over his chest cringing  quietly grunting groaning

it hurt like a muthafucker

                          but the girls terrorher sobbing the childrens unfortunate laughteryet too ignorant to realise that eventually it might be their own were the topical balm that helped soothe him                                                                                                                                   

dead lizard text to myself Twosday afternoon,  15  5. 18

1519,  Reggae Friday,  18  5. 18

seemingly all his life he worked with characters 

(I gotta be me I gotta be me  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH-pk2vZG2M)

Man were they ever

                     the newspaper overseer of the delivery boys he worked for was convicted of statutory rape he confessed to be a paedophile he was also convicted of other chargesanything the law could pile on him that would somehow make his newspaper superiors themselves the cops men in particular feel better about his twenty-plus years of employmenthis unfettered movement throughout the community  and the diddling  just when he thought the Church had cornered the market

he was a teenager when he hit him up for beer and liquor because he could but he was always able to dance outside his arms length and took off before things got warm Comon, stay awhile longer. No Gotta go it taught him that thats what its like to be a woman all the fucking time curioushuh that the overseers crime was his education  it taught him more than his parents triedhis teachers tried to teach him  Life could be a fucking sensational educator if your head didnt get turned too far around

he had a boss as a teenager who he roofed six years for that was an adamant John Bircher  Bill  a wiry spindly guy with rheumy pale blue eyes  he taught him about leverage  he learned you could randomly shoot a man in the facekill him  and unless you were eyeballed in the act likely youd get away with it because there was nothing to tie you to the dead mannot what the cops called reasonable suspicionor was it probable cause  no matter   cause and effect

Bill asked  Who randomly shoots people in the face?

Sounds like maybe you have

Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes you gotta do what ya gotta do to get to tomorrow. Ya’ve never had to make ends meet, it wasn’t easy in those days, ya did what ya had to do. Dog eat dog. Dem or ya. Was no brainer.

when Bill heard the house he lived during the Twenties and Thirties was being razed they hotfooted it over early one evening ignored the No Trespassing signs slipped the flimsy warning tapes strung around it like garland aside and went in  it was off North Halsted  A dago neighborhood then, he said, me and mine, we stuck out like a sore thumbs, however we was known as trustworthy people. That's how the mob underlings heard of us. They asked if we could use work. Ah, what the hell. At its heart the mob’s a business, savvy sons of bitches, not stupid. I wasn’t stupid. And I was loyal.

inside the dilapidated house Bill triggered a hidden wire that opened a secreted panel under the front stairs revealing a small room  This is where my mother and me made gin. I ran it up to Wisconsin, beat ass back, and turned over the proceeds, like that, proceeds, lot of lettuce, to the muscle that fronted us. They gave us a respectable return, not a lot, not for the risk, but a helluva lot more than most in the neighborhood were making. Crime pays, boy. Don’t believe any bastard who'll tell you otherwise.

Leverage, Bill said, it’s all about leverage.

he cut the lawn edged the sidewalks raked the leaves shoveled the snow for an eccentric world-renown artist painter who spent days in a studio he built for himself at the back of the lot he owned beside his house

his wife prepared him meals and left them outside the door rapped once on it and left  like room service

getting on his knees so that he was looking him straight in the eyes he told him Never respect anyone who doesn’t respect you, respecting your elders is a load of crap, it’s a two-way street. Remembered that.

he did

in Miami he tied up with a gal who worked for a dealer and helped her move grass and hashishGawddamn he loved hashish she was sweet on him she thought sharing the inside track with him would get him into the sack he didnt want any commitments  So if you won’t fuck me, can I go down on you? momma didnt raise no fool

when the cops started sniffing aroundevery good thing comes to an end know that he got the cut-rate buy on hash that hed been setting up for nearly a year and left the profitable business with a quarterpound thatd be 113.398 grams a whole lotta hash he made damn sure it was exactbusted it out on the scale he used at the university borrowed it from the chemistry lab

Moroccan hash he tweaked the buyerspecifically through the grapevine wha the fuck was that she couldnt help herself she told him the cat dug Burroughs he laid word on him from afar that Bill also toked Moroccan in TangierDuh though frankly it also made him feel closer to the freak who wrote Junky Naked Lunch an on an on something he knew emphatically that he shared with the cat he never saw but the cat never saw him either mutually anonymous

so like Junky Naked Lunch an on an on characters woven their way through his life BING! BING! BING! BING! latest catch was Alexis a real free-spirit pincushion for a face tatted sleeves  elsewhere he was confident nipple barbells on display through her selection of thin tshirts wha the fuck was that

Alexis was having an offday he was told or she was stoned which didnt bother him they were coworkers at a liquorstore that provided for functioning alcoholics she broke a bottle of Maraschino cherries her third that day he was told so he motioned her off the floorRun the cash register hed clean up the mess not that eight ounces of cherries was a mess

later when she approached himthanking him for cleaning up after her he laughed  You shouldnt thank me

I shouldn’t thank you?

No Im afraid I hung you out to dry

Hung me out to dry?

I did

How did you hang me out to dry? doesn’t make sense.

I told them in back when they asked what I was doing with the bucket and mop that I was helping you

You did help me.

I told them that you broke a cherry on the floor in the middle of the store Youre my new hero

NO!

Yes Now try an live that down Alexis Yous now a.k.a. Bustacherry

Thursday evening,  10  5. 18

1303,  Thursday,  17  5. 18

Marvin Gaye  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPCWRlHgztM

Aw comon  my futures behind me

he hustled his demise alongfueling it with high-octane booze  quaffing

swilling

sucking

         choosing the particular verb pejorative to offend                                                                     

much of his offense was dependent upon his mood at the moment  against the misfit who noted discerned his alcoholism and felt it was their place to say something

he thanked them for their exceptional powers of observationtheir keen abilities to state the obvious 

then hed say they were fat or perhaps they ought to have that mole removed refresh their haircolour recinch their old facelift  pick their tits up 

he had been known to let a fish slipthough not frequently  only when as he explained it a warm spasm of compassion oozed in from wherever compassion leaked

damn if he knew                                       

he forgave more insects than human beings They ought to know better and keep their ugly pieholes shut 

whenever he forgave someone he felt tainted  unclean

hed finger his fathers revolver and wonder if that day wasnt the day when hed taste the hard oiled muzzle pressed to the roof of his mouth  slaver   and never hear the gunshot 

his father a soldier who fought in Korea attested to that silence 

his father told him when he was wounded by a machine gun during an attack it sounded burrr - - - rrp  one –  smashed his knee the other two flensed his thigh and turned it into a voluptuous flowerpetal of unfurled meat 

his old man had a way with words

crippled his father returned to the United States and worked as a desk jockey  a far cry the high freedom he enjoyed as a steelworker  

as a boy and a teenager he vowed hed nevernever be stuck like his old man

turned out his suicide was the only thing that made them different        

Man the tedium is overbearing  Nothing bigs gonna happen to me My big is when I die  I find it curiousthis wait an see to see how it will eventually play out 

I may or may not have a hand in it

If I do  thats my rightyah

My lifemy right

he knew him since they were boys since they met in Cub Scouts  

he followed him into bad fights outnumbered  but he followed him too into bad fightsthough fewer  they had one anothers back

               and having his back was also letting him have his way and own mind respecting him  respecting him despite the booze and the drugs  

he only hurt himself

the other hurtshis hurt was peripheral 

he married once 

it went bad inside of three years but hung on life support nearly twenty

they had love

their love didnt provide kids

it wasnt that kind of love

they believed their lovetheir bond that cobbled them together would holdit would eventually rear its head and correct what was wrong between them

but it was all wrong

when it didnt heal and they split he didnt inflict himself on another marriage

unlike his ex

her failures cemented in his mind that he wasnt the majority holder of their failed marriage

he said after his divorce that he was a born-again bachelor

it was funny

he was funny

and desperate

a drunk

         druggie

when the gun went off they didnt hear it 

he said if it did he wanted him to understand that it was a starting pistol  not a suicide

An theyre off!

 

                  

 

1919,  Monday,  14 5. 18

1029,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  16  5. 18