Bud Smith's Blog: Bud Smith , page 35

‘I don’t wanna not know you’

 

 

 

June Doom was my co-pilot along the dark cliffs of Mount Mercy — searching out the right rocks for my dead friend’s crypt. Everything we could see beyond our own spiderweb-cracked windshield been made in part by ice-age glaciers, now long gone.

I’m not sure what had made us: why we were made to suffer. But we were able-bodied, able-minded, able to find distractions to fill our heart like gasoline stored to flood an engine at the right time.

This was the right time. So … kick the tires and light the fires.

First chance, we skipped out on our friends at the lake house. This was our way of getting alone. We needed it, or we’d explode.

The F-250 pulled and popped, shuddered, vibrated: the steering wheel felt like it was trying to escape me, my hands buzzed. The driving was hard. Sticks. Jagged rock. Mud that had no end. The assorted wilds assaulted our industrial horse, tried to stop her dead where she ran.

The cassette deck played, “Roadrunner” by the Modern Lovers. The cassette deck played, “Stay Hungry” by the Talking Heads. The cassette deck played, “Waiting Room” by Fugazi … A mixtape she’d made me, with a handwritten note that said, ‘I don’t wanna not know you’.

I took it in my paw, my hand trembling, feeling like a kid again.

She’d hung a handful of pink quartz, blue datolite and clear rock crystals from my rear-view mirror, they swayed and clapped together with each jarring impact of the truck as we headed up up up up. She said, “each time they click, it’s good luck,” brushing manic panic red hair out of her raccoon eyes.

“I feel like I just got my good luck back, ya know?” I said, squinting. The sun appeared, splintering like an assassin through the canopy of Beech leaves.

“Badluck never really leaves you once it finds you.” she said, as an authority, “it just hides in your clothes, crawls under your nails, hides in your hair. You gotta get rid of it yourself. You know the trick to get it out?”

“What’s the trick, June Doom?”

“Dance around.” she grinned, “shimmy and shake as hard as you can. Otherwise it digs into you and stays, permanent.”

I turned to look at her, she pushed my face back, meaning:look at the road, we’ll die.

Straight ahead was life — alright.

Feathers from a red tailed hawk, that she’d found by a sap weeping Spruce beside the river fluttered wildly from the crooked antennae. There were no radio stations up this high. Not in these isolated passages, son.

Transmissions were void. White violent static without remorse.

Badluck: I thought about Seth, the way that I’d found him. The TV on his nightstand had been solid with snow: while a river of dried up blood showed out of his nose onto the white sheets, now stained brown. He was cold, though the room was hot and I was sweaty. That was only spring.

Now it was almost August. I couldn’t dwell in that darkness long. June looked at me, the way  that the sun melts the glaciers. Slowly. Over the course of a lifetime. Nothing stopping it.

Alone. Two people separate in the world, even farther separated. A castle with a drawbridge that now seemed to be up, saying, “Leave us be for the afternoon. Fuck with us and we’ll drop hot oil and feathers on you from our guard towers. Our archers will shoot you dead with fire arrows.”

Us: Away from the prying eyes of everyone else, and it felt beyond good.

She was private, didn’t even like holding my hand with anyone present.

As we drove the truck away from the stone house and Tull lake, June changed. She warmed up, became talkative and excited. She grabbed my hand, smiled so wide. I thought that I could see each and every single tooth. I focused on the sharp one. It was like a wolf’s. I’d have to be careful around that tooth.

“I know where I’ll take you,” I said.

“The edge of the world?”

“That waterfall that Trish and Otto couldn’t find.”

She knew we’d find it, but she said this anyway, “what makes you so sure that you can find it if they couldn’t?”

“I have incentive that they didn’t,” I said, “I want to show it toyou.”

She smirked, sat on her hands. Looked out the window. There was a deer up on a muddy path eating bark off a beech tree.

I playfully honked the horn: shave and a haircut, two bit.

The road forked as it went up. I went to the left, we wrapped around walls of rock as we went up higher still.

“Put on the windshield wipers, clear some of these clouds away,” she said.

I obliged: that’s what you have to do for pretty girls in the prime of their lives.

The wipers made a horrible shriek. I don’t think the F-250 had been gifted washer fluid since it was new.

She switched the wipers off, “Oh, god. Remind me never to tell you to turn your wipers on again.”

 

The dirt road forked again and got rougher still. The trees closed in. I went to the right again, guessing. The rocks stuck farther out. A quarter of a mile later, I pulled the truck over.

“What do you think?”

 

“I hear something,” she said, her head out  the window. All I could hear were the strange darting birds propelling themselves from the trees above us.

As we walked hand in hand, I kept catching her so she didn’t roll her ankle, she kept doing the same for me.

We crossed through a wall of spruce trees. Then, suddenly, there it was: the biggest waterfall I’d ever seen in person. Thousands of gallons a second erupting off the side of mount Mercy, dumping into the rushing river below.

The rocks were wide and flat, becoming deadly slick as we neared the edge of the spout. Our eyes were wide with wonder. We hugged each other hard, kissing too quick, clanking our teeth together like kissing amateurs. Smooching rookies.

“This looks like a very sacred place, you know that, right?” she said loudly.

“For Indians.” I said, “way back when before us.”

“Yeah, exactly,” she pointed like a tour guide, “See that cut-out where waters eaten away the rock in a perfect circle.”

“How could I miss it?”

“I like that. Old. Ancient stuff.”

“Plenty before us …”

“Plenty after us.”

We started to kiss like crazy. This time, our lips hit all the right targets. Hands flailed. Feet gave out. Softly and with perfect trajectory, we lowered ourselves without disconnecting down to the flat green rock. Down there we pulled each others shirts over head and off as if that’s all we had ever been born to do.

The water streamed down in an impossible wall.

Her hair fell onto my face. We kicked off our pants and started to screw, without worry or restraint.

June pushed the palms of her hands down onto my chest while she moved on top. Moving faster. And faster. And the waterfall seemed to stream down faster. And faster.

Until everything stopped, and we both were panting and separating.

June leaned down, said into my ear softly, “look over there.”

I turned my face. She pointed at a hunk of mossy rock, a hawk perched on it.

“Just look at that thing. It was watching us,” she said, “the whole time.”

We stood up. The hawk flew away, spreading its wide wings, escaping into the sky. As we dressed, we did so with a purpose that was clear. Without mentioning it, we walked to the little hunk of boulder and lifted it together: lichen and dirt flicking off.

We brought it somehow to the bed of the F-250, placed it inside. It’d be the primary stone in Seth’s crypt.

Then we drove wordless back down the mountain, holding hands across the ripped-up bench seat as the tape flipped, and the rare earth gems clapped, and the red hawk feathers moved with the rush of everything alive.

 

Sometimes when badluck death finds you: there’s no way that nature can make it up to you except sending someone brimming with such life as June Doom to come and force you to dance at near gunpoint.

Oranges

A short story from my book Or Something Like That told from the view of an old man, living in New York City, reminiscing in a way about his youth, even though his youth took place in a war zone in Korea.

ORANGES

I lived under a Korean grocery on 181st. It was a steep hill and I used to enjoy walking up the stairs and knocking over his display of oranges so that they would go rolling, bouncing, tumbling down the hill. I would knock over his fruit display as often as possible. He never knew it was me. It would take him some time to notice. When he would notice, I could hear him screaming in Korean. It brought me great joy to hear him scream like that, even though he was a good friend to me and often gave me free fruit. I opened my little window just down the hill and stuck my ear out of it, a beautiful smile unfolding. His screams brought me back to my youth.

I fought in Korea and that’s where Danny died. He was surely a brother to me. Not a very good gunner, but a brother, yes. I never liked him, but I find myself now, fifty five years later, thinking about him every morning when I hear that grocer scream. The way that the grocer screams, it reminds me of the war and makes me feel young again. When I hear the man, his inflection, his red hot anger, I am sent back to the mud, where I lay crouching with my rifle- listening to the patrols pass after our plane had fallen. Danny is lying somewhere close, he is all cut apart. I’m just doing my best to make it out of there alive.

I did. I made it out of there alive and Danny, I still am.

There are only so many hours in the day that you can sit in your apartment waiting for your pension check to arrive. There are only so many walks you can take to the park, to sit and play checkers. There are only so many doctors appointments that you can attend with a straight face.

I went to one the other day. The doctors now are all short men from India but their nurses are still young girls who smile and laugh at my jokes. I make a point to try and get them all to laugh. I tell them that if I wasn’t dying I would chase them down and make honest women out of them. But what is honesty really?

I sat in the bed, kicking my legs, a tall blonde walks in. So serious, so focused. I remind her. “Look we’re all gonna die anyway, don’t let all of this impending death get you down.”

This catches her by surprise. I introduce myself. I offer her my hand. My arm is thin and has many bruises on it, somehow my hands are still strong. Don’t ask me how. They have been idle hands since I left the machine shop in ’92. She says hi, says her name is Allison Lewis, she starts to take my blood pressure.

“You remind me of my first wife. You look just like her. I remember her so well still, we had our own personal language. We could speak for hours without saying a word.”

“Oh?” Allison says.

“Yeah, listen with your heart, babe. I’ll show you.” I squeeze out a very serious fart. She pretends not to hear it. “Oh come on, I know you heard that fart! What? You don’t like that kind of language?” I squeeze out another one. She backs away, kind of gagging- but, just like my Gracie, somehow smiling. “There you go. Smile a little it’s not gonna kill you.”

“Oh boy.” She says holding her nose.

I was sitting there in my baby blue paper gown, looking at her in her sea green hospital scrubs. “Boy, kid, me and you are sure making a fashion statement right now. Look at us. We look like we belong on the red carpet. Me in my paper gown and you in your scrubs. You’re a pretty girl, I bet you have nice dresses- you should wear a nice dress to work. I’d say that you could get yourself a doctor, but things have changed haven’t they?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well when I was young, all the nurses became nurses just so they could try to marry a doctor. Now all the doctors are short fat men from India and China or Korea. All the Nurses nowadays become Nurses cause they actually want to help people.”

She was checking my heartbeat with her stethoscope, making a note on her little pad. Did the note say Contact Dispatch Personnel to Transport This Wingbat Old Pervert to the Convalescent Home ASAP. “You remind me exactly of my Grandpa.”

“Grandpa dead?”

“Yeah.”

“You miss him?”

“Yeah, sure do.”

“Listen, babe. I’m gonna be honest with you. My pecker hasn’t worked in a decade. I don’t even know what sex is anymore. I still like to look at pretty girls, my brain does anyway, makes my heart feel young.”

“He was a dirty old man like you, you two would have gotten along.”

“I don’t get along with anybody. Never did.”

“Oh, you seem nice.”

“Come to dinner with me.”

“A date?”

“Sure. A conversation. You kids still eat food right? Thinner and thinner every year. You ever eat food? Familiar with it? You should have seen the women that were around when I was your age, they were built like horses, thick, dangerous, thighs like columns.”

“I outta hit you right over the head with this clip board. I’m not going on a date with you.”

“Ok, babe. Send in the little fat Indian man to tell me I’m dying.”

Then Allison smiled and left, sent in the little fat Indian man to tell me that I was dying. Only he was a little more delicate than that, he said, “Radiation treatment can go a long way, we caught it relatively early…”

I said, “Look, early happened seventy-nine years ago.”

He blinked about ten times, standing there with his chest hair poking out of the collar. He was drumming his belly with his fingers, searching for a route of dialog. Then, finally, I said, “Doc, I want to show you something. I think I found another lump. Will you look at it?”

“Of course.”

“It’s right here.” I flipped, face down, lifted the paper gown and got on my belly. Shame has been out the window since Eisenhower. I pointed to the back of my upper thigh, “Look…”

He is a very professional man. He leaned in to inspect the area and study possible malignancy of the growth. I’m a one trick pony, I let out the most serious of farts right into his face. He pretended that he didn’t notice. I remained wordless. Then he looked closer, there was nothing for him to find there except another fart, this one twice as serious as any I had ever released into the world. I sat up, beaming, proud of it.

“I never had kids, but that last fart, it made me about as proud as I can imagine a father must feel.”

He kept his distance, he continued to tell me about the path of treatment and recovery. I just nodded and listened. He was a very professional man.

When I was his age, do you know what I would have done to a man who farted in my face like that? I would have…well, nothing I guess. If the man was as old and weak as me, with a buzz cut and a head that looked like a damaged potato and the chicken bones poking out everywhere. I probably would have been as kind as possible, delicate, knowing that the man in the paper gown knew that he was dying and that when you know that all bets and understandings are off. Listen, out of respect, I’m still gonna feed you that bull, as if we were still powerful creature in no state of decline.

I’ve got that card of disillusion up my sleeve.

An index card with a speech addressed to Jesus handwritten by myself in neat block letters that I am going to recite on my death bed. Yeah, it’s actually two cards, folded and tucked in the thin remains of my leather wallet. It says:

“Jesus, my friend Jesus. I know that I often called you a motherfucker and a bastard and a scoundrel and that I often sinned, oh boy I sinned. Sins, big sins, lies to my wives, deceptions to them. Thefts…it all looks so lousy when I think about it. I killed, too. How many? Don’t know. War is a blur, my boy. I take comfort that it’s not as many as most and I take comfort in the fact that many people around me at the time were saying that God was on our side and that we were only doing what God would want us to do. Truth be told, I had a boy in my division who had a machine gunned named, “Mary Magdalene”. He was a very serious religious buff, from an honest to goodness Kansas farm. We all know how religious they are out there on Kansas farms…well, you should have seen this boy with Mary Magdalene. He shot almost everybody… I was just following his Holiest of leads. Or so I thought. What can I say? I’m sorry and I wish I had it all to do all over again. Honestly, that sounds better than Heaven. Make me young again with some magic youth zap, OK? Can’t do that? How are my prospects of you taking me home. My Momma, she always said that you, Jesus, you would take me home. An Jesus, I know that I thought it was a funny in 73’ when I ripped the pages out of the Good Book and bought a bird and a bird cage just so I could have the bird shit all over the pages. Damn, that must hurt. That must be the biggest sin of all, just how premeditated it was. But Jesus, I want you to know that I’m sorry and that I accept you as my personal savior- unless you aren’t really in charge of Heaven and Christianity is all wrong. In that case, I just want to say to Buddha and Allah and Zeus and even Satan (or any other being, entity or spirit for that matter) that if they are the head honcho in charge of the afterlife, well then I feel twice as silly to have gotten fooled by the Christians and accepting Jesus on my deathbed. I always thought those Christians were full of shit. But, Jesus, since you are the popular choice, I always liked your words and I hope you will forgive what I just said. Forgive who I was. Forgive who I was not. Ok, now, I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut and die.”

————————————————————————————————

I wasn’t quite out of the hospital. I was walking with my cane, spinning it, tipping my hat at everybody who passed in their wheelchairs. Boy, I tell you what, I still feel like I got a golden apple between my ribs. I still feel like I could fly a plane low over the water as it ripples and pushes away from the force of the propellers. I still feel like I could build with brick. That I could machine down metal to a specified tolerance and cut with torches and weld with flashes of faith and purpose. I could climb up ladders and look at the sleeping city from atop power plants and think about waking up every single woman, touching them in ways that they can never be touched by men who have surrendered to the dull retreats of their life and times and the certitude of their death. I still I look at people and see how they’re hurting and boy, I don’t know how it is that I’m still kicking so hard. But I am.

I walk to the little cafeteria and I buy a cup of coffee and a doughnut and I sit down, facing an indoor garden. Just as I’m about to bite into my doughnut, I hear a sweet voice. It says, “Is that how you get all of your firepower?

Doughnuts?” Allison, the nurse smiles.

“Oh came back for your hot date, huh?”

“You got it.”

She smiled and went to the counter, bought a salad and a diet Coke. She came back and sat at the table right next to mine.

I said, “Rabbit food.”

“Rabbit food. Yup.”

Then we talked for a few minutes until she had to go back out there and help people. We didn’t talk about much, but while we talked, the light in her eyes made me sure that she wasn’t talking to me, that she was talking to her Grandfather. I didn’t mind so much, but it made my ego hurt. As we parted, I put my hand on her elbow and smiled. As I touched her my shoulders widened, my hair grow back in under the cap, my face became smooth and pink, my chest filled out, the biceps in my arms became footballs, my legs- small tree trunks in my slacks. I stood three inches taller and I weighed forty pounds more. She saw me in my youth and she shuddered.

I took the bus back to 181st and went in the grocery store at the top of the hill. I bought strawberries and a head of lettuce. A New York Times, a bag of Fig Newton’s and a carton of eggs. I had him slice me a half pound of bologna.

“How’d it go with your doctor?”

“They’re gonna give me radiation. I’m just gonna save the money and hang out in front of my microwave.”

“Not the same. Don’t mess around.”

“I know, I know. Man, Jin. Sarcasm gap between the cultures. Gap between the whole cultures.”

“Don’t start that again.”

“We don’t eat dogs, you love the taste of dogs.”

“You see dog meat in this store? I outta kick your ass.”

“I may be ninety but I can still kick your ass.”

“I don’t know why I put up with you. You really are a miserable punk.”

“I’m going into the hospital on Wednesday. After that, I’ll be quieter.”

“Oh sure! You said that last time.”

He gave me the strawberries for free. I thanked him. He’s a good guy. He likes to bust balls, but so do I. No harm done. He asks me how come I don’t come to the park and play checkers anymore, I tell him that I’ve been busy writing my memoirs. He nods, tells me he wants to read it when it’s done.

Yeah. When I’m dead he can read all about how I was the one who knocked over his oranges time and time again no matter what he did to try to catch me. I smirk as I go up the stairs with my groceries. The place smells musty. I open the window, turn on the record player and sit down at the type writer.

A life goes click click click click as the type writer spells it all out beautifully.

I wake up. I walk out to the street. I knock over the oranges. They bounce and roll and tumble downwards. A car is rounding the corner below. An orange thuds against his door. Another, and another. He zooms up the hill, we make eye contact. Another displaced soul, looking for a home. I go back into my apartment. I turn the record player down. I shut off the news. I tell my cat Andrew to keep very quiet, I say, “Magic is about to happen… I can feel the time machine warming up already.”

Up above the insults and screams in Korean echo down the hill. He’s gonna catch those kids! He’s gonna skin those kids alive! When he finds those kids he’s gonna cut off all of their fingers!

Just like that, I’m back in the war, crouching in the mud, young again. When you are as old as I am, even being YOUNG on a muddy battlefield is better than being Old.

————————————————————————————————

On Friday I fell. Too weak, and they took me here. Now I just lye in bed, waiting it out. Sometimes typing a little. I have my little Jesus index cards under my pillow and last night I came pretty close to reciting them out loud. I also came pretty close to tearing them up. Not yet.

Not quite yet.

I gave the rest of the memoirs to Jie, he always seemed interested. He reads too much for his own good. When I’m dead he can read the last of it, till then, the great mystery of the flipped orange stand will have to remain unsolved.

I feel good for a little while and then I feel lousy. My toes are like icicles. I wiggle them, just because I can.

The nurse comes in, a pretty young thing. Her name is Bess. She’s been dealing with me for the last few night shifts.

“Joe, how are you doing tonight?”

“Good.”

“Listen, I know I’m dying…”

“Joe …” she came to my side.

“I’m dying and I have a secret that I never shared with the world, can I tell you, to ease my mind?”

“Of course.”

“It’s about the war…”

“Go on? World War II?” Korea?”

“Yes, and about my first wife Bonnie, and my second wife Mary.”

“Yes.”

“And its about taxes and fucking and drinking and having no faith in god or the future…”

“Joe…” she put her hand on my shoulder.

“Listen: Listen…”

Everything was so quiet. Just the sound of the machine that was beeping to let everyone know I was still alive. I opened my lips, motioned for her to come closer, I had something very important to say.

She leaned in with her ear.

I let rip a fart so serious that she left the room and didn’t come back for over an hour.

Uno Kudo Interview: Erin Parker

Uno Kudo Volume 2 — is a full color glossy art meets literary anthology that was released in November, 2013 on amazon and features countless writers and artists. There are over 20 wild and diverse short stories and poems each lovingly matches with artwork beamed in from another dimension of beauty.

For those not familiar with the project, here is a youtube video showcasing some of the art; and here is a link to the Uno Kudo website explaining how the project and art collective as a whole works to raise money for charities such as (PEN) International.

It can be purchased here.

I’d like to share with you some of the people behind my favorite stories and poems inside the collection. There will be a handful of interviews scattered throughout the upcoming weeks featured on this website. Hope you find these peeps as thoroughly entertaining and brilliant as I do, and seek them out and the art that they create.

1st up:

Erin Parker was born two months to the day after the first episode of Star Trek premiered in 1966, and was raised in the Southern California suburb of La Mirada. She grew up in a house where The Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” and Joni Mitchell’s “Ladies of the Canyon” competed for play on the family stereo.  When she was 11, she won her first Creative Writing contest, and has been weaving words into stories ever since. She started out as an English major, fell in love with Art History, decided that choreographing lyrical Modern Dance was like tangible poetry writing, and ended up in Art School studying Design. The best job title she ever had was as a Disneyland Fantasyland Attractions Hostess, when she spent several years working in Fantasyland before making her career in the reality of the corporate retail environment. After designing stores, working in both marketing and merchandising new products, she currently holds a position as the lead buyer for a retail chain in Southern California.  Her first collection of short stories will be published in 2013.

I worked on Uno Kudo as an editor, and for me, Erin Parker’s short story “Dance Home” stood out significantly. It’s the story of a woman who is raped in southern California and finds a way to cope with her trauma by immersing herself in a dance studio. It is dark, mystical and raw, something I admire in literature. I’m looking forward to Erin’s book of short stories, and had a chance to talk to her. Dance Home has been nominated for a few literary awards and is even being considered as the subject for a short film (I’m excited).

What is “Dance Home” in Uno Kudo about? Not the plot, the deeper meaning of it?

Dance Home is a story about confronting fear. After a violent attack, the last thing you want to do is trust complete strangers, but in the right setting, with the right people, that trust can create powerful healing.

Is it semi-autobiographical?

Yes, it is autobiographical. The events in this story took place when I was 19 years old. There really is a place called the Dance Home in Santa Monica which I used to go to quite a bit. My experiences there were an integral part of healing my soul and restoring my trust in other people. I called the story Dance Home in honor of that studio, but also as part of my journey, because I really did use dance to build a new life after I had nearly lost mine.

When does this story take place? what is the window of time? What’s different about Santa Monica now compared to then? Have you changed much?

The first event in the story took place in 1986, the summer I was 19 years old.

When I was going to the Dance Home, it was a few years after that.. 1989 and 1990.  I compressed the events for the sake of the story.

I haven’t spent time in Santa Monica since then.

I have changed a great deal.  When the rape happened, it was like death.  I either lost or walked away from everything I knew and believed was true.  A real spiritual and existential crisis that lasted for years.  I had to start completely over.

Your story is very California. What are your thoughts about California compared with the rest of the country?

Is it? Most people I know do not dance, are not involved in the arts, and would never go to a dance studio to do Contact Improv… what is “Californian” about this story to you?

Bud: Well, I’ve done a lot of traveling by car through America. California in particular. Your story captures the feel of  Southern California to a T. I could feel it vividly. The Pacific Ocean looms over this story like a dark guardian.

Parker: California is truly a melting pot. The stereotypes about people from California drive me crazy. Everyone from everywhere lives here… that is what makes it a really special place. I can go 30 minutes in any direction from where I live and hear lots of different languages being spoken, eat food from all over the world, and experience a huge variety of cultures. I grew up thinking that was normal. What I have found as I have traveled around this country, is how special and unique the diversity in California is.

People idolize California. They are magnetically drawn there. It’s called the golden State for a reason, but what are the biggest misconceptions about living there?

People seem to think that Southern California is either made up of shallow, wealthy people or gang members.  Southern California is to the rest of the country as America is to the world.  Stereotypes simply are not 100% true.  There are lots of gray areas and lots of exceptions.

Are you from there? Where did you grow up?

I am a native Californian – I grew up in the city of La Mirada. La Mirada straddles the border of Los Angeles County and Orange County. It’s a quiet suburb, and was the perfect place to grow up in the 1970’s. Middle class working families, tract homes built in the mid-1950’s, where you played with all the kids on your street and knew all your neighbors.

Where are you located now? Tell me about your environment. What does it do for your art?

I have lived in Long Beach for the about 15 years. I am completely in love with this city. It’s a big city with small neighborhoods. There is a lot of art and music here. The architecture alone is phenomenal.

You are working  on a collection of short stories?  Tell me about your project. What are you going to cover? Is there a theme?

The theme is transformation in the loosest sense.

Please describe your environment in which you write.

I like to write at home in complete silence.  I can’t have music on when I write, because it messes with the rhythm of the words.

What happens when your writing environment gets disturbed by noise?

When I am writing, it is important to me to be able to feel the rhythm of the story evolve as I write.  If I have music on, I get very distracted and have trouble with the flow.

You’re a Star Trek fan. What is the draw towards Star Trek, what appeals to you about it?

I have always been a fan of science fiction.  What I love about the genre is the fact that since it is set in such a different world, it can make the essence of the storytelling shine brighter if the writer handles it well.  Every series of Star Trek has been distinctly different, but one of the many consistencies is that the writers expect the audience to come to them informed.  In The Next Generation’s episode “Darmok”, Captain Picard tries to communicate with another species by recounting the Sumerian epic story of Gilgamesh.  I can’t think of any other genre that could have held this story line together so successfully, and had it been so moving.

The Next Big Thing: F-250

Nanowrite is wrapping up. I like to write every day anyway, so that just means, November is over for me. I think it’s real cute that a lot of peeps are concerned about their 50,000 words crammed into November. Cool. Hope you hit your number. Also, hope you get laid at some point soon.

I took part though, cause I thought it’d be fun. The novel I wound up completing is semi-autobiographical and covers a summer of my life in New Jersey, drinking a lot of blood, mostly my own.

What is the working title?

The title is F-250. Based off the Ford pickup truck of the same name.

Where did the idea come from for this book?

This is a fictionalized account of my life at 23 years old. I was working for myself as a stone mason, driving around in a Ford F-250 that I used to get in a lot of car crashes, for various reasons. At the time I was playing in an experimental noise band and my drummer/very close friend OD’d at the same time that I was getting caught up in a three way relationship with two girls, K and June. One girl loved the other, one girl loved no one, both seemed to tolerate me simply for sex.

It’s an interaction of my life and some true events and a fictionalization of all of it. I was real inspired by Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and a book written by Misti Rainwater-Lites called Bullshit Rodeo.

Just, a raw, honest ride. That’s what I was going for.

What genre does your book fall under?

It’s literary fiction, told in the first person like a memoir. There’s some humor, but mostly it’s a tense story about sex, music, drugs and working out in the sun, sweating and bleeding and trying to figure out what’s going on.

Which actors would you choose to play the characters in a movie rendition?

Funny shit. A young male American who’s been punched in the gut a lot, and doesn’t get sunburnt too easily. Some girls who don’t mind being topless a lot in the moonlight and know how to put the needle down on Rolling Stones Exhile on Mainstreet on vinyl.

That outta do it.

One sentence description of my book

A guitarist in a noise rock band finds his plans to move to LA interrupted by an overdose and a strange three way relationship with two college girls–K Neon and June Doom.

Will this be self published or agented?

It’ll be self published to start. Pitches to indie houses in the works now.

How long did this take you to write?

One month to draft. One month to re-draft.Wrote it mostly on my lunch breaks and coffee breaks at the oil refinery where I make my money.

What other books would you compare your work in progress to?

It bears a resemblance to works by Henry Miller, Bukowski at his least alcohol and sex obsessed, Amy Hempel and Denis Johnson in its mood and attempt at economy with words. It’s tough, but not posturing.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I always like it when writers make themselves a character in their own book. I think it’s less egotistical than it seems, really. All fiction reeks of non-fiction anyway and vice versa. I enjoy when a writer tells their own story and makes a point in letting you in. Even if its just a rouse. So again, Misti Rainwater-Lites was a inspiration. A lot of small press people, my contemporaries … Frankie Metropolis, Heather Dorn, Cat Benitez, ect.

What else about this book may pique your readers interests?

This book is about car crashes, rock n roll, sex, sex and more sex, drinking poison from red solo cups til you are near immune, fist fights, bonfires, mountain roads leading to the ocean and vice versa.

It’s set up like a novel, certainly, but broke out in segments as linked ‘short stories’ and vignettes almost. Not to be taken too seriously, and hopefully that kills you.

Thanks for reading.

Hit me up if you wanna beta read in January

budsmithwrites@gmail.com

Spider Bar

2.

I got to Spider bar late.

We were supposed to be on soon. Feral cats scattered from atop aluminum garbage cans, disappeared into the darkness, at the sight of my headlights. I barreled down the narrow alley, wedged between two brick wall buildings, dodged a leaning telephone pole which was pretty easy to hit if you weren’t careful.  I pulled around, backed up to the rear door plastered with hundreds of band stickers like a rite of passage; Atomic Bitchwax, Juntar, Purple Doom, The Bedspins,  Beyond the Flesh, our band tonight—Ottermeat.

Inside, I could hear Gail talking loudly in her Bayonne accent behind the bar.

The door opened, Seth stepped out, he had a beer in his fist and a menthol cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Twenty five: Tall, lanky, slouches, a mess of curly brown hair, wearing ripped up jeans and a RUSH 2112 t-shirt. He’s the best drummer I’ve known, one of my roommates, the closest friend I’ve ever had.

“Yo!” Seth says, happy to see me, grinning lighting his cigarette.

“Sorry I’m late.” I hop out of the truck.

Seth shrugged, “Nobody here anyway. It’s dead inside.”

“I was in an accident,” I said. “I caused a wreck.”

“Another one? Holy smokes …”

I walked to the back of the truck, dropped the tail gate. The jolt of the impact had ruptured a bag of cement. My amp and my guitar case was covered in cement powder.

“Oh shit!”

I yanked my amp out of the bed of the truck, tried to brush it off, it was no use. The dust was all over it. Sucked in deep into the speaker cover fabric.

“Man, I need a beer.”

Seth handed me his, he’d only taken one sip. I sat down on the steps, guzzled it down. Cold, bitter, flat. I was still a little shaken up from the collision I’d caused. My friend pulled my guitar out of the bed of the Ford, dusted it off.

“Drawbridge was up, didn’t see traffic was stopped,” I said.

“Where?”

“Princeton Ave.”

“There’s a drawbridge on Princeton Ave.?”

“That’s what I said,” peeling off the label of the beer. It was a Red Stripe. The Spider bar loved serving Red Stripe for some reason.

Seth grinned, took a drag of his smoke. I set the empty glass bottle down, rolled the label in my hands. Half of my fingernails were black, purple, brown–blood trapped underneath the nail from being crushed by rocks, brick, small boulders.

Masonry and playing guitar are at odds with each other. I was very nervous that I was gonna break my hand one day, then what would I do? At the time my life was playing guitar, writing songs, playing shows with my bands, recording music.

“Come on, let me buy you another one,” he said.

Seth stuck his hand down, I gripped onto his soft pink hand, record store clerk hand and he yanked me up to my feet.

We went inside, each lugging some my music gear. The inside of the bar was dark, stale, ominous. It’s a dive in the truest sense of the word. There were five guys in dirty work clothes just like mine leaning on the bar. They were smoking heavy and screwing around with the bartender, Gail, a former G.L.O.W. girl (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) now overweight and slinging beers in this ghetto New Jersey town on the ocean. West Long Branch. A wall of cigarette smoke hung in the air like a fog machine was on.

Seth’s drums were already set up on stage. Cherry Pearl kit. It gleamed in the spot light. It was the only bright thing in the place. The cymbals already seemed to buzz with a golden hum.

All around the drums, suspended from the ceiling were old Halloween decorations, plastic skeletons, bleeding skulls, big fanged 8 legged fluorescent spiders so thick with dust that you couldn’t even tell what color they used to be.

We set my gear down on the stage, just as Jacko, the ‘promotor/bar manager’ came rolling through the back door. He waved to us and motioned to the pool table at the center of the bar. It had to be moved into the far corner to open up room for people if they showed up to see any of the bands.

The pool table was off level anyway, nobody played it.

Jacko was stocky, looked like Grizzly Adams: shaved head, Dickie pants, full sleeve tattoos, Naval themed, pin-up girls, logos from hardcore/punk bands he’d been in, murals of prisons he’s been in. 58 years old, been kicked around a lot, had done a lot of kicking himself.

We helped him move the pool table and he starts groggily addressing us both in his gravelly voice. It’s eight o’ clock at night but he’s just woken up, he slept in a room above the bar.

“Ottermeat, right?” he asked, our band name.

“Yeah,” I say, we change it so often that its hard to keep track.

“You guys bringing anybody tonight to see you?”

“Hope so.”

He says, “First band canceled. Flakes. I’ll be doing a reading. Then you guys … then, Bitchwax.” Jacko is a poet. He’s gonna read some of his stuff, like he always does.

“Alright.”

I sit down at the bar, Seth buys me a beer. I try to give Gail a tip, she takes my dollar and slides me back four quarters, winks, points over to the jukebox.

“Do me a fava, pick some good ones,” he says warmly.

Sometimes they played old VHS tapes of Gail’s matches back when she was on TV. Her signature move was jumping off the top turnbuckle and smashing down onto her ‘victim’ of the moment smothering her with her big balloon boobs. The crowd loved it, but that was back in 1984, when I was just 3 years old.

Now Gail’s balloon boobs were fatty fatal blimps.

I pick some songs on the box, Jacko’s got some good stuff on there: Tom Waits, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Velvet Underground, Black Flag … Really, it’s the best part of that bar and why I like hanging out in there.

I dump some quarters in the box. The worker guys from the warehouse stand up, it’s a combination of the two things. First, happy hour is over, beer is full price now and I’ve put some music on the jukebox that those guys can’t stomach. Tom Waits singing like Cookie Monster backed by a junkyard band of noise, “We sail tonight for Singapore …”

Now the bar truly is empty. I get that sour feeling in my stomach, guilt. No one is gonna come to see us play. Oh man, there’s not much worse than that. Plus then the club owner gives you shit and you don’t get to play again. Forget the money, you’re not gonna make any money playing at these bars in this town.

Jacko sat down at the bar, started in with the heavy drinking. He was talking to Seth about the movie Bladerunner. Jacko was a big Phillip K. Dick fan and Seth just saw the movie for the first time the other night with Otto at the Lagoon house.

Otto is our other roommate and he has a huge collection of VHS tapes.

I get up from my stool and started to set up my amp. I’ve got tons of guitar pedals. I’m setting them all up on the stage, cabling then together with red chords; fuzz pedal, two delay pedals, wah, flanger, octave pedal, ect. I adjust all the knobs just the way they gotta be. All these little noise boxes, making havoc. I laugh to myself. I plug my amp in making sure the tubes haven’t popped from the crash … Then I unzip the guitar from its case and the headstock comes tumbling out, suspended by the nickel wound strings. It’s broken. Totally snapped off.

My Gibson SG, destroyed.

I’m in shock. I pick up the headstock like I’d be able to just stick it back on, but that’s not how these things work.

Seth walks over, “Oh no …”

I curse and kick around my pedals and as if it matters, Seth says he’s got an idea. He gets some more quarters from Gail and then goes down the rotten hallway by the bathroom and he gets on the pay phone and calls Wally.

I’m just sitting there on the stage in shock, when some college chicks come in off the street. They’re from the dorm up the block and its cool cause Gail doesn’t check IDs. I used to drink here when I was 16, but I had a beard.

I look over at them, they don’t pay me any mind. They’re trying to order margaritas from Gail.

“We don’t have that kinda stuff here.”

“Oh, then … apple martini?”

She points her big mitt at the single draft beer handle or the shelf of glass display bottles, Red Hook, Heineken, Budweiser.

A tension rises to a pinnacle over this decision.

Seth lurches over to me again. He walks like a bird and he kinda has sharp features like a bird. Big bird. He’s got the same hair cut.

“Alright, Wally’s gonna bring his guitar for you to use.”

“That fucker,” I said.

“What? He’s helping you out.”

“You probably had to threaten him didn’t you?”

“Well, kinda.”

Wally is the lead singer in our ‘main’ band. The real band. The one that’s gonna make us famous. Haha, what a thing. I don’t get along with Wally for quite a few reasons. He’s a stuck up spoiled rich brat who tries to pose as a punk, but I put up with him for a few reasons, chiefly: he’s a real good singer.

I sat back down at the bar. Me and Seth start trying to talk to the college girls but we’re not making much headway. It gets worse when Jacko gets up on the stage and says to us from the microphone.

“Thanks for coming out to the Spider bar. I’m Jacko, this is my place, girls,” he winked at the girls. This caused no reaction from them whatsoever. They were still pissed about the Heinekens.

Then Jacko starts to hollar and roil around as he reads his free verse poetry in a demonic gravelly voice to the six of us, he says:

“Cryogenic hallucination of a paycheck and Uncle Sam riding a Unicorn blowing bubbles cause you think you deserve your money back. Everyday I’m in a world of shit, ankle deep and there’s never any reason to watch TV, get your plastic injection dildo and aim your rockets up your own ass space/time traveler voodoo …”

The girls get up and leave halfway through their beers and Jacko just keeps rambling and rambling all this dark nonsense. He’s drunk and just spouting off.

For half an hour I’ve gotta sit there with Seth and listen to this, Seth doesn’t even wanna go outside and smoke a cig because he thinks it’ll be rude.

Finally, the door opens, Wally walks in. He’s in a leather jacket and has his hair all spiked up. This is a recent development. He used to exclusively wear an army jacket like John Lennon and he had his hair real long down to his shoulders.

Wally’s got a girl with him. A real good looking chick. Italian, dark eyes, long dark hair pulled back in a pony tail. Maybe 20. Jacko is still up there spouting off:  ”bull dykes manning pleasure cannons and worrisome kids afraid of anything that’s not a computer, I got your answers right here,” he says, grabbing onto his dick and faking a long moan.  That’s the end of his reading. The long moan.

Wally and the girl come walking over, “Big crowd tonight,” Wally says.

“Sure, yeah,” Seth says shrugging.

Wally doesn’t introduce the girl, but she’s giving me the eye so I stand up and I say to her, “Bud.” Holding out my busted up hand.

“Denise,” she says, smiling.

Wally starts saying that I gotta be real careful with his guitar because its a collectors item and its irreplaceable.

I just nod. Guys got six guitars, doesn’t even play any of them. Each one cost a boat load more than my F-250.

Gail gives everybody beers and she hands Denise some quarters for the jukebox, she goes I’ve and starts to try to find something to play, but she’s pissed because there’s no, Britney Spears, Janet Jackson or N’Sync on the box.

The headlining band comes in. They’ve got real equipment. There’s a gaggle of people with them too. Thank god. Suddenly there’s ten people in the bar, right before we’re about to go on again.

I’m so happy.

I look around, counting as we’re up on the little stage. Twelve people.

Oh … Fourteen counting Jacko and Gail. That’s great!

I take Wally’s guitar out of the case. It’s a 1958 gold top Les Paul. I look down and realize, just as Seth starts the count off on his sticks, Wally’s guitar is left handed. It strung upside down.

I try my best to fake it through the songs, but its pretty obvious that shit is all wonky. It’s just me and Seth up there, there’s no place to hide. I turn all my pedals on and just make some swirling noise that circles all around the bar.

Wally and Denise leave after the first song. The headlining act goes outside and stands on the street smoking cigarettes and drinking beers, away from the noise.

Jacko and Gail watch from the bar and even clap when we’re done playing.

They’re the kings and queen of the underground, and think everything is art.

I love them like the mother and father I never had.

WASN’T THAT SPECIAL: an anthology about ‘your first time’ — Call for submissions

Attn: writers/artists/regular folks looking for a good time. Call for submissions.

WASN’T THAT SPECIAL is an anthology about “your first time” whether it was awkward, strange, hilarious or exuberant–however it was. Send submissions about losing your virginity or the first sexual experience with a new partner that either went wildly wrong or stunningly right to wasntthatspecial@gmail.com

We are primarily looking for creative non-fiction pieces detailing this experience. We prefer humorous, off-beat, bizarre and artful. We aren’t looking for hardcore erotica but if you have a good one, send it. (wink, wink)

Please send: 1 creative non-fiction piece up to 1500 words

1 fiction submission up to 1500 words

1-3 flash fiction pieces (200-500 words is preferred)

Poems will also be considered, but please do not send more than 3

Attach your submission as a .doc or .rtf file or paste into the body of an email.

Somewhere in the beginning of the file, mention your name/pen name, email and any other contact info.

Please include a short bio written in the third person.

Look over your work before sending. Better yet have someone else look over it too.

At this time, there is no payment for inclusion of the anthology. Books will be printed out POD through Amazon at or near cost.

The window for submissions is November 14th, 2014-January 1st

First come first serve. The earlier you send it the better. Make your mom blush.

————————————————————————————————-

Note:

You do not have to have your real name attached to your writing. Publish it however you would like. Submit however you would like

————————————————————————————————-

anyone interested in getting involved in the project beyond a contributor, let me know. Looking for readers/editors.

Also looking for photography submissions, art submissions, black and white.

Thanks

Bud

A Halloween short-story: “The Gravedigger” by William J. Smith

A guest short-story for Halloween by my brother William J. Smith, who tells the tale of a man wandering through an empty fog ridden town on a lonely and desolate autumn afternoon. Enjoy “The Gravedigger” and please leave some comments and reactions for William. Let him know what you think. Thanks for reading –Bud Smith

THE GRAVEDIGGER

by William J. Smith

John slowly rolled over onto his back letting out a breath. His eyes drifted open to look up at the tree limbs above him. He expected to see the early morning light poking through the dying leaves of the big oak trees around him. Instead of being momentarily blinded, John was surprised to see that a dense fog had blocked out the harsh rays of the fall sky. He looked around, letting his old weary body wake up and ran his rough wrinkled hands over his equally wrinkled and bearded face. After giving his old weary body the time it needed to get himself going, he sat up carefully as he always did every morning. He checked to see if his things, which there were not many of, were still there; the old tattered backpack which served as his pillow, his rusted and blackened pot which he used to cook all his food in still sat in the little black pile of coals and charred wood. Everything John owned was taken from the trash or given to him second hand from the homeless shelters which he hated. He took a few sips from the yellowed plastic container that held his drinking water and stood up stretching his sore back.

Twenty minutes later John was making his rounds through the small town looking for some breakfast and maybe a better pair of shoes. His were worn down smooth on the soles and wouldnt last through the winter that was coming. His mind drifted back to standing in line at a millitary base waiting for a new pair of combat boots and OD green socks. He hated those boots then but he would love get his hands on a pair of them now. Half way up main street he stopped and looked around for the first time realizing that no one was out. If his memory was still as together as he thought it was then today was wednesday and the street should be busy with people going to work or shopping but there wasn’t a soul in sight. He pushed it out of his mind and made his way around to the grocery stores poking around in the dumpsters for the morning produce that was always thrown out because it wasn’t perfect looking but could only find rotting heaps in them. Nothing was worth eating unless he wanted to spend another few days in the free clinic with food poisoning again. The beds were nice but he hated the nurses. They always looked at him like he was a bug that needed to be stepped on.

John walked with his head low when he finally realized he was walking straight through a grave yard. He lifted his head, noticed that he’d walked all the way across town and didn’t even remember doing so.

“Hello there … ” said a thin man who had to be in his 80′s standing by a cemetery plot with a shovel in his hand. He was wiping sweat from his brow with an old fashioned handkerchief  He smiled warmly at John and waved him over “I don’t suppose you could lend an old man a hand for a little while… The youngin that I had hired went and called out on me. ” John looked at him for a moment and after seeing how friendly the man seemed he made his way over.

“What can I do you for Mr.?” John asked. The old man smiled again, waved his hand around at the plot he was clearly trying to dig all by himself. There were two folding chairs and a large cooler near the open plot as well as a small pile of grass that had already been scraped away.

“Well, my bones won’t take much more of this and seeing as how I’ve got to have this done today I was wondering if maybe I could hire you to dig this here plot out for me. I’ll throw in a few cold beers and a sub I brought with me.” The old man smiled again and waited for an answer. John simply stood there for a moment and then smiled himself. It had been so long since some one actually offered to hire him to do something that he couldn’t help but beam. He wasn’t a slouch when it came to working hard and he nodded right away.

“Yeah, of course….. I’ll jump right on it.” The old man smiled and handed him the shovel and sat gingerly down in one of the folding chairs.

The digging went smoothly, Very few stones and the dirt seemed to just want to come up for him. The old man had pulled out a hunk of wood and an ancient looking folding knife and began to widdle away at it, talking the whole while. It soon became a steady pace of the old man talking and widdling away, John digging. He would talk about the weather, foods he liked, even things he had seen when he was younger. Every so often he would reach into his cooler and hand John a beer just around the time when john started to get thirsty. The beer was working wonders at making john feel good, they began joking around with each other and having a ball talking about the way kids were dressing and almost anything they found amusing. The day was flying by for them. John could say without a doubt that it was one of the best days he had in long while.

It was sometime after lunch when John finally finished digging the hole. The old man let out a breath and stood up walking to the front of the grave. “Well John it’s time.” John arched his brow at the old man and stood there in the grave as the old man knelt down and looked at him solemnly  “John, you died last night. You see, that woman you slept with in Vietnam kept the baby and she became a doctor. She’s doing real good work over there saving a lot of lives. So many so that I was able to make time for you and I. I always liked you, you’re a kind soul and never once have you ever wavered from doing what was right. I wanted to give you one last good day before I had to take you away.” John simply stood there unable to believe what he was hearing when the old man set down the block of wood he had been widdling on the whole time. The moment his hand moved away it slowly changed into a simple headstone with his name on it. Fear spread throughout his body as the old man reached over and touched him gently on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Your going up as humans say.” He smiled and with that the life faded from john’s eyes and he dropped down to the bottom of the grave.

The man smiled and stood up walking away as the dirt slowly slid back into the hole. He slung the shovel over his shoulder and whistled a mellow shanty as he faded into nothing.

William J. Smith  is a writer and car enthusiast from Bayville, New Jersey. He’s traveled the east coast by big rig, jet airplane and hot rod. He is a database of survival information and lives in style with a Boston Terrier and a pretty respectable comic book collection.

The Portal To Hell

Dave was in the market for a house. He stopped looking when he saw this listing:

4 Br. 3 bath. In-ground pool. 2 car detached garage. Ominous Portal to Hell, finished Basement, Some Demonic Undercurrents, Modern Kitchen, City Water, Appliances, MUST SEE!

The house was far too cheap. Dave figured that it had to do with the portal to Hell. He didn’t care. He called his Realtor, put in a fair offer.

                                               ———–

The house had some other problems; some screwy plumbing downstairs, it needed a new electrical fuse panel, the sheet-rock in the basement had suffered water damage due to a flood and needed to be torn down.

Dave didn’t mind the work, this was his first house — of course it was a fixer-upper. Also, he didn’t mind that the previous homeowner had killed his wife and two daughters and turned the gun on himself. No matter, he thought, people are weird.

He bagged mucked up sheet-rock and other debris, spent the afternoon lugging it all up his creaky cellar stairs. Dave made a big pile of junk beside the portal on the side of the house. He took a break, had some lemonade and a ham sandwich, then he pulled the large wooden lid off of the portal and started to toss the black plastic bags into the portal.

Fire shot up.

Screams from within the portal emanated out, caused some crows to scatter from the black twisted branches of the tree beside the portal. He frowned at the tree. It was rotten and would have to be cut down before it fell on the house. Great.

Dave slammed the lid shut, went back inside the house.

                                            ———–

Later, he was in the front yard raking leaves when his neighbor Jorge came over with two lite beers. They stood on the lawn, sipping the beer.

“So, whaddya think ’bout that portal?” Jorge asked flatly.

“I don’t think nothing if it,” Dave said.

“Nothing of it? Man, the last people who lived here … it affected them, I’ll say that.”  Jorge eyed Dave’s mouth suspiciously. “Your teeth start falling out yet?”

“No,” Dave touched his mouth unconsciously.

“That’s good.”

“I’m not worried about it,” Dave said. “Tell you the truth, I use that portal to my advantage.”

“Advantage? How so?”

“Ya know, like a garbage disposal. For instance … you see all these leaves. I’m not gonna bag em, drag em out to the curb. I’ll just rake em into the portal. Let em burn up down there.”

Jorge grinned, “Kinda makes me wish I had a demonic portal in my yard! But not really.”

———–

Dave was bothered by the occasional demonic presence. He’d open up a can of soup and instead of chicken noodle, there’d be slugs. He’d have to dump the slugs into the trash, open up a different can of soup. Usually the second try worked like a charm.

His remote control had a habit of shooting spikes out of the buttons when he’d change the channel. The demons liked to insert themselves into sitcoms, all bloody faced and hungry for human flesh. Once, he watched them eat the cast of Gilligan’s Island, in rapt entertainment. After the novelty wore off, he was annoyed by it and never turned the TV on again.

———–

Other problems. Girls didn’t wanna come over. He got a dog, the dog ran away. Torturous wailing rose from the portal at odd intervals and hours of the day and evening which caused the police to show up almost every night.

“Another noise complaint from your neighbors” the cop said, pulling out his ticket pad.

“I’m not responsible. It’s coming from the portal.”

The cop nodded, “Your demons, your ticket.”

“Hey, they’re not my demons. They’re just demons.”

“Well, you better keep them quiet after ten pm. You’re in violation of the town’s noise ordinance, again.” The cop wrote Dave another ticket.

Dave was annoyed.

He’d been drinking. He decided to go and deal with the demons and they’re rude screams. He walked past the rotted black tree, dragged off the lid, peered into the void. A swarm of black flies shot out at him. He ducked down and shouted, ”Can you please keep it down in there!”

A dark ominous wall of venous shrieks erupted up. In unison he heard them say, “Bite us, Dave.”

Now Dave was pissed. He got his extension ladder, stuck it into the swirling vortex of the portal, climbed down.

Then Dave stood in a cave, the ground soaked in blood. He’d just ruined a new pair of white Nike Air Force Ones. “Great …” A bunch of demons sat around on uncomfortable metal folding chairs in various forms of mutation: extra eyes, melted skin, horns popping out of their body like puffer fish.

“Anybody got some tissues?” Dave pointed angrily at his sneakers.

They all turned their heads from him, didn’t murmur a word.

“Hey — what’s the problem?” Dave asked in general, throwing his hand sup, looking from disfigured demon to disfigured demon.

No one really wanted to get into it. They looked at their feet. Shifted on their uncomfortable metal chairs. Thier asses hurt.

“And who’s the one who keeps filling my fish tank up with blood? Those are expensive tropical fish.”

One demon stood up, she wasn’t gonna stand for this, she said, “We’d like it very much if you stopped dumping your trashdown here.” She had ten rows of sharp teeth and eyes that appeared to be on fire. Aside from the fire eyes and the teeth, she looked pretty cute.

“Yeah! It’s a mess!” said another demon with over a hundred different mouths. Dave recognized him as the one who’d eaten Ginger and Gilligan. “You think we wanna clean up your leaves and trash and junk that you push down here on us?”

“I never thought about that,” Dave said.

“We’ll we didn’t realize we were being loud.” It was all a misunderstanding.

They all started apologizing and admitting that they were all wrong and that they’d just gotten off on the wrong foot. I mean, it wasn’t Dave’s fault that they were in Hell, but they shouldn’t have to deal with his trash. He sat down on a metal chair and they had a nice talk.

They came to an agreement. Dave wouldn’t dump any more junk into the portal, they’d keep it down after ten PM. He gave them a clock. Then they knew what time it was. He also agreed to bring them library books on account that they didn’t have anything to do down there. They promised not to get them too bloody.

———–

Things got better after that. Dave didn’t have as many demonic occurrences in his house. His hair stopped falling out. Soup was more enjoyable. Girls didn’t mind coming over.Dave decided to have a barbecue. He invited all of the demons to come up and hang out, meet the neighbors, play volleyball, swim in his pool.

They declined the invitation because they couldn’t come up out of the portal. They were trapped down there. So, to be polite, Dave relocated  the neighborhood barbecue into the portal but everyone was too nervous to go down there. The only one that came was Jorge.

Jorge and Dave brought tons of beers, hamburgers, hot dogs, peppers and sausages, potato chips, cole slaw. They brought some other nice things for the demons, comfortable pads for their folding metal chairs to make it better for them to sit on, a radio for them to have some music: a Frisbee, some horse shoes, a Nerf football. Paper plates, plastic knives and forks. Balloons.

It was quite a party, everyone got drunk and had a real blast. Poker, truth or dare, karaoke. Late into the evening the party raged on.

Jorge and the demon chick with the fire eyes got into it all hot and heavy in the corner of the blood cave. Now she’s his wife and he lives down there with her.

Dave wished for a demon of his own as he sat on the back deck, looking at the black twisted tree beside the portal

“Heh,” he said out-loud to himself, sitting up on the edge of his seat, “look at that.”

There on the dead rotting tree was a single green leaf that’d begun to grow.

The first of many.

Editing a Novel

I’m in the ‘final’stages of revision on a novel that I hope to share with some beta readers in the coming month.

There’s a few things that I’ve found with writing the novel and then going through multiple revisions.

it’s easier to write the book than it is to suffer through the revision process.
When you’re revising something, it’s the easiest  thing in the world to delay and delay and delay the thing because it sucks to revise.
I think I’d be better off with some kind of ‘Visual” representation of the manuscript so I can keep better track of just how much I’ve done and what needs to be done.

A few weeks ago, I screwed around with a new method of outlining a novel for me using index cards and I thought that the method worked so well for that, that as soon as I get to the end of this ‘sweep’ of edits, I’m gonna do something in that vein for the novel I am wrapping up.

Hopefully these ‘final’ edits done with the help of index carding. along with some interjection of beta reader feedback will close up the project nicely.

This is what I’ll do:

Print out file from PDF for the Novel with Createspace to try out their service (I’m unhappy with Lulu and wanna check out Amazon’s Createspace anyway for pricing and all that jazz)
Get a stack of Index cards. Number each card.
My novel is laid out in Numbered chapters, anywhere from 1000 words to approx. 3000 words. Each chapter gets an Index card. Right now that’s 42 cards.
As I go through the book, I will match the index cards with the corresponding chapters and take notes as I read.
I’ll also be highlighting the corrected text, looking for mistakes that I missed while correcting from a computer screen.
When I am done re-reading and taking notes, I will begin the final edits, and final re-writes.
As I finish the chapter I will mark the card with a red sharpie in the upper right hand corner of the card.
Once I get all the way through the cards and each has a red mark in the upper corner, I’ll be ready to begin submitting my novel for considerations with small publishing houses and potential literary agents.

Some notes on my process before this point.

I wrote the novel very quickly over the course of 5 weeks without an outline. When the first draft was done, I went through it after it sat for two months and I did a re-write on the original draft. I thought that I was in pretty good shape.

As luck would have it, I got a message out of the blue from someone who’d been reading my writing online and they asked me if I was interested in forming a critique partnership. 5000 words a week sent to each other. I jumped at the idea … I began reading and editing their novel, they read and edited mine.

My critique partner pointed out all kinds of glaring holes in my writing and the structure of the novel and I pointed out the same in theirs.

I feel like this was vital.

Man, if you can find yourself a writing partner for your project (after it is complete) I highly recommend it. What a difference it made. All the books that are on the shelves of libraries have been professionally edited, For the hobbyist who is toying with the novel and considering self publishing, remember, the thing that sets your story apart from the professionals, is years and years of practice and editing.

so make sure you:

EDIT and by ‘you’ I really mean … find somebody else to edit your book for you. However you can work that out.

There are mant sites to track down an editor. I’d try the forum boards of Goodreads or asking around in facebook Groups. If that fails you, you can find a paid editor at  Elance.com

Poems: one about each day of last week

Here is a cycle of poems, one poem for each day starting last Saturday and ending today (Friday)

Saturday

a day in bed, play sick/be sick

Mama Celeste pizza, Robitussin,

Overboard with Goldie Hawn

call up the liquor store on the phone

2 bottles of pinot noir,

“I got 25 dollars, however far that gets me”

pajamas, faux fur lined moccasins

coffee pot after coffee pot

editing this novel–it’s been too long

my girl cooing like a dove on her cellphone

Spam messages from Russian brides

seeking hookups in America

is this a test from God?

Pauley Shore on VHS,

Joy Division cassettes, Moulder,

Dominican chickens, Skully,

Reese’s Peanut butter cups

Nightmare on Elm Street poster

puffer fish doomsday lantern

it’s colder outside than it looks

a hooded sweatshirt is a suit of armor

Let it Ride with Richard Dreyfuss

Our Rolling Stones Vinyl Hot Rocks

has a jagged chip cracked off

so be diligent: when you get to Wild Horses

shit’s about to get real 1/2 way through the chorus

extra blanket heat not on yet

land lord comes up at 7, says:

the guy in the next apartment died

so if you knew him, he’s dead now

we say, “We don’t know anybody in real life,

just on the computer”

Sunday

build chili out of meat and some other things

watch TV for awhile, wishing it was Twin Peaks

solve sitcom mysteries, devour books on tape

watch my girl tongue-tie the stems of cherries

no football or baseball or political discussions

just bedroom laying, coffee cup poison

John Hughes advice, steak-ums on english muffins

reserve time to reserve plane tickets to the SW

order gem stone field guides, Audubon bird books

3/4 length pony baseball t’s, Ebay, Amazon, Etsy

don’t shave don’t complain, don’t worry,

just flip the record, and keep loving me

we broke the washing machine, we crashed the car

we lost the spare keys, we dropped the ball

& have no idea how we’re gonna hide our mutations

and it’s almost Halloween, we’re misplaced

we outta sorts, somebody lend me some latex

if I get you pregnant, let’s name the baby Ace

make some popcorn, put on T-Rex,

start a fire though we don’t have a fireplace

digging in X-mas boxes for loose leaf paper,

photographs of you when you were young

yer still young, throw some popcorn up into the air

I’ll grab it like a wolf, catching a rabbit peaking out a hole

talk awhile about life after death, infomercials

telemarketing, negotiations with Iggy Pop

compromises with the Zombies, ignoring Rubber Soul

share the last beer, study the light in your eyes

everybody else: Piano Man or Tiny Dancer

I don’t think they’ll ever die, only in the movies

make a phone call to Texas, talk to my brother

so glad when he answers and says he’ll come to Jersey

Monday

I put on my army coat, I dust off my neon sneakers

got the garbage in one hand, a cartoon shark mug in the other

coffee, black coffee, 4am; just shooting everywhere

as I come down the marble stairs, door slams, 4am

In the foyer of my building are junk magazines

books on C++ programming, tour pamphlets for New Mexico

guy somewhere somehow (someone) died somewhere in the building

there’s a  little note: “take what you want, this belonged to the dead guy, the rest will go to charity” I look but I find nothing, I walk out into the rain

no umbrella, no hat, rain overflows the drain,

New York City, where’d I leave my car? what street? 173? 174?

Demi Moore used to look good … long ago

Glossy People Magazine on the radiator when you die,

that’s what you get in our building when you go

I wonder “Is he the one who always ordered Indian food?

Oh. Yes. 172. I should have remembered 172

What is C++? Would it help me? Should I go back and get it?

I’m going to New Mexico. Should have taken that one

God leaves little clues for you, but they just lead to more clues

and more clues and more clues and more clues and

who has time for any of that? Surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrender to:

the morning commute. Rolling through the neighborhood

approaching the George Washington Bridge

Rolling Stones on the stereo, windshield wipers malfunctionable

“I forgot my lunch” look in the back seat, “Fuck”

Look on the floor, “Fuck. I’ll have to eat off the roach coach truck”

Mick Jagger says: “Bring me dead flowers to my wedding

… and I won’t forget to put roses on your grave”

Jersey turnpike, rolling towards the oil refinery, New Order

How Does it Feel? Tell me how Does it Feel? Finish my coffee.

Weave in and out of traffic, steering with my knee

awash of static on the radio, Blue Monday, Tom Petty,

“Was he the guy who’s mail I used to get, the nameless faceless

one behind the door to 14B?”

Tuesday

Duck outta work early

make it out the gates of

the job at the oil refinery

gravel lot,

chain link fence,

mimic Paul Newman

in the Great Escape

fires from the flare stack

burning up the white sky

got my car keys in one hand

checking my phone with the other

my girl is on a train

from New York City

coming to me

Linden, New jersey

try to time it right

be there, waiting at the station

take her into the west

for a car ride

first, navigate

through a maze of blocks,

red lights, stop signs, gang kids

lounging on the stoops

trash cans, basketballs hoops

what a strange place to have to live

industrial row house

chipped brick wall waste

cross over 1 & 9

cut through the 99 cent store lot

Wood Ave, gas n go, office stationary

post office, Army Navy,

a park with no lakes and no swans

I park under an unidentifiable shade tree

my neon sneakers kicked out in front

sitting on the last of the green grass

drinking a Dunkin Donuts Coffee

I smell like fuel

but I can’t tell

cars running/windows down

stereo growls

Bruce Springsteen insinuating

“This is my hometown …

this is my hometown”

keep checking my silver Timex Indiglo

everything in life is supposedly scheduled

not much longer now

her time, her light, her life, her mouth

looking up the rails for Spout

when the train comes in

she’s the last one on the platform

flower dress

dark hair, dark everything

sea green dayyglo purse

she takes my hand, says,

“Want me to drive?”

“No,” I answer

I need you navigate and play music.”

Spout nods, “That’s much more important

you’re right.”

any direction will work

but we can only get there

set to the perfect soundtrack

Wednesday

on payday

all your problems

temporarily lift

and everything

becomes a ladder

that leads

wherever you wish

Thursday

clicking around the internet aimlessly

free association, Queen under pressure David Bowie

trying to figure out what the fuck with Halloween

what we gonna be, which demon, which ghost

where we going? where we rolling?

big suit, David Bryne, record reviews,

lusting for my time machine

a meet up with 1976 Debra Harry

drinking pumpkin beer like a pumpkin patch pimp

hanging with Spout in the pink room

new chair from “the dead guy” that was out at the curb

“Think there’s bed bugs in it”

“It’s a chair”

“Bed bugs can still be in a chair”

“Oh, chair bugs?

Totally has chair bugs”

Astral Weeks, Moondance

Van Morrison sings like a god damn saxophone

guy couldn’t have been human, “everyone, everyone

everyone everyone everyone, everyone

everyone everyone everyone, everyone

everyone everyone everyone, everyone

everyone everyone,” Royal Tenebaums”

“Ethel, I’m dying” Angelica Houson, Gene Hackman

then, Spout gets up and goes to make burritos

she puts on Daft Punk and I hear the chopping

the sizzling, the ‘Harder Better Faster Stronger’

I’m rolling around on my trash found Herman Miller chair

thinking about lit mags to submit to:

jmww, killpoet, the big jewel, thrush review, modus operandi

elimae, word riot, pank, full of crow, a-minor

sometimes I feel lost. website after website

but when a friend out there there there in the ether

takes the time to drop a hint on their timeline

I add it to my blue notebook and I refer back motherfucker

pop music, beer after beer after beer,

I’m writing a novel on my Iphone at my oil refinery job

it’s about me when I was 23,

I’m gonna be a character in my own book

and I’m gonna tell you all about death

and life and pink that I’ve seen

like an Ipod on shuffle, Robert Zimmerman

Bob Dylan Blonde on Blonde

into Dusty Springfield

singing, “Only one that could ever reach me was the

son of a preacher man”

I see the subtle ways the universe aligns

I’m dumb and numb and happy

and when I fall asleep

I’d like you to lean in

and kiss my eyelids

so I can dream like a movie about a band

and write about it during the working hours

at the oil refinery, the machinery trembling

and my thumbs skipping across the LCD

as if my life depended on it

Friday

hang out in the rain

not worried about anything

books I should be reading

things I should be finishing

too many projects,

too much hope on the line

there a buzz in all the blood

if you keep your heart open

there’s a truth you can learn

if you don’t care to look stupid

all the ways you are here for me

all the ways I hide the car keys

life is just a typo

that everyone edits a different way

be careless and be unoriginal

and don’t walk too straight

take every chance to stumble

laugh at all you come across

forget all the bad times

glow neon undoomed and

shake yourself til something pops