Patrick Fealey's Blog, page 19

lori

twenty goats

the sun has passed the roofline, so many memories east, where they are, left behind, standing as they are without my eyes. but we are all here, like uprooted flowers waiting to be transplanted. we water our roots and wait on a new home.

marliyn pointed out that i spent $24 on a bottle of tequila when she had spent only $15 for the same bottle. i got mine down the street. she got hers at beverage plus, a massive liquor store posing as a grocery. that’s were she got the absinthe. salvia, wormwood, 160 proof. i hadn’t known it was legal anywhere in america. my friend in maine bought it from germany for $100 a bottle. here it’s about $60. absinthe taps into more of your reserves that you probably want to spare, particularly if you are shooting it. i haven’t gone insane or even become a befuddled skeleton, but you know you are drinking the devil’s anise. i’m off it today, was on it because i ran out of tequila and forgot about the gallon of bacardi in the garage.

angela’s mother (karen) still doesn’t talk to me. it’s entertaining when the mother and virgil come by, how karen avoids me and he shakes my hand. it is easy for her to avoid me when five of us are standing together. i look at her. i say things to her. she doesn’t look at me or respond. i’ve been with her daughter 14 months, not counting our time in college (when she wouldn’t look me or say hello either.) she spoke to me recently for the first time: “do you want more whipped cream on your strawberries?” i tell marliyn her mother doesn’t like me and her hug weakens. i say, “she has read about my life and can’t accept it. i am beyond good and evil.” marliyn says, “you’re not beyond good and evil.” i say, “nietzsche was, but he went insane.”

three days in a row now and derek is still excited about junior high. he picked rhode island, my home state, do to a report on in history  class. “why not hawaii?” karen asks. (the grandparents take him to ohahu, maui, and the big island twice a year; when he gets home he refuses to eat our ordinary home-cooked meals.) “the state bird of rhode island is the rhode island red,” derek tells us. i say, “that’s a chicken.” when he mentioned the capitol it threw me because i have so forgotten providence. not sure if i dropped it or am suppressing it like a molestation. nobody really likes providence, but only the ones who pass through are honest about it. crack deal shootings in the shadow s of roger williams’ churches. scientists dug up roger williams’ grave and found one rusty nail. the coffin and bones had rotted away. someone said the soil looked a little darker. they filled in the hole and proclaimed that the rusty nail was evidence of religious freedom.

marilyn is happy when i work around the yard. women want to see their men working. the form matters less than the working. she asks me which book i will work on next. i stumble, ramble off titles that need my attention. she isn’t impressed with my uncertainty. she has just read one and wants to know what’s next? the works answer that for me. the only book i know is the one i am writing now. it looks like a collection of stories. i know it is a book. it might be a novel. it is whatever i say it is, for i am the creator. i look at these stories and see a stylistic evolution. you can track a man’s path by reading them. the form changes. i become less lyrical and more personal. i am beyond good and evil, you know, and i will piss off most and honor the right people.

i see professors, cozy and righteous, people whose talent is staying in school the longest. they don’t know what a work week is. then there is the kid at the surf shop, selling wax, and the kid pumping gas to get through his bachelor’s, or maybe the kid at the movie store, renting out arnold schwarzenegger instead of jean luc picard. something is formenting. there was this idea that has been sold out by greed at the cost of serenity and growth, personal fulfillment. having a toilet that flushes and a mattress you can sleep on would also be nice. the kids are depressed and they don’t mind when a senator is shot in the head. a girl writes “kill bush” on her notebook and the secret service arrives to interrogate her. she becomes a small hero to the discontents, a hero in a landscape where all the heroes have died like our grandfathers and dogs. old men and dogs will change the world because they understand youth. soulful and intelligent and wasted youths will become wise and dangerous.

uneasy (truce?) with that mother. virgil and i get a long perfectly. he used to manage work details comprised of state prisoners. her disapproval is as plain as his respect and acceptance. she’s cornered now: her daughter, her husband, even her grandson think i’m alright, or in derek’s words, “cool.” everyone likes me but this woman with dyed red hair who spends half her life buying things and looks like a bull dog about to bite it. she disapproves of her daughter’s choices? she doesn’t want her daughter to be happy? she is jealous and cannot relinquish her status? she calls every day, and at night as soon as we get into bed for she knows our time. (we have put a stop to that.) a sensitive nurse and instructor (they just fired her without explanation.) she is dismayed that her grandson wants to study the state his mother’s boyfriend is from? “why not hawaii?” like derek is not allowed to learn something new. i thought with the whipped cream incident she was finally coming around, but last night she was an ice berg bobbing in bile. and now i will separate myself from the smell of this old typer . . .

derek is having trouble in english. his test score was in the 30-percentile. i consider it a good sign. teachers want things to be complex because they need their jobs. english teachers are the worst because we don’t need them. my english teachers were arrogant, satanic, self-absorbed, and oblivious, with two exceptions. mrs. sammons and mrs. janis. what was special about them? they left me alone.

is marilyn wearing anything under that nightgown? skin smooth creamy legs. she is looking and i want to mount her. she makes a comment about the towel. i stay inside her. i withdraw slowly. cum all over our bellies. i go to the bathroom and grab a towel. i throw one to her. she makes the comment. “you don’t like being wet.” true. it is like a stiff tag scratching the back of my neck. but we lay together after the towels in our mutual and private ecstasies.

the sun is getting it up, purple penetration and force, the day has color. marliyn is in the bedroom doing who knows what. she has been in there for awhile. i am thinking about washing my truck after she goes to work. i’ll back it up the driveway. i haven’t washed it yet this summer. the winter dirt inhabits my windows, body, rims.

unless i can find a transfusion, i will quit this scene from exhaustion. a case of getting beaten by the need. we aspire to perfect the fulfillment of the need, but collapse and die before satisfaction. in the beginning, it looks like this: “i am ready, therefor i exist.” later on it looks like this: “i know nothing and i will soon die.” gets one thinking about the concrete. i am going to get 20 goats, one cow and six german shepherds  and a .223 and a 12-guage and a wire fence and a glock .40 and 3,000 condoms and a riding lawn mower and a few mexicans and build a castle and live in the tower where i will watch the dawn and eat a banana. a new mission will come to me in obsidian. my mission will be sharp, or at least clearer than the pricing at the local grocers. i am on a flawed mission. it is arrogant of me. but i can still weep.

marilyn is taping an ivy to a green bamboo post. the sunflowers are pluralizing like zygotes. want me to go on when all the action takes place on the capillary level? nodding at the helm, dreaming of the battle he will see only in dreams. in the dream the battle is complex and makes sense only to him. he is alone in this battle as he is in his dream. if he ever wakes up, it’ll be time to sail. wakefulness is coming on, time to come home, the door unlocked, open, come on in. there is nothing to do here.

    

Mostly Madly Patrick Fealey

Author Patrick Fealey around the time Mostly Madly was written.

Win Your Own Copy of Mostly Madly

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Giveaway ends November 30, 2012.

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where no one can count you

Bird stands on the seat between Wawp and Jess. Cars come. Jess’ hair blows in Bird’s eyes. Wind blows through Bird’s feathers.

  Jess says, “This is our third time going out with them. This is their last chance. You remember Thanksgiving? We got there at three-thirty, starving, carrying trays of food, and there was no smell. You asked them when the bird was coming out and Mary said, ‘Oh we didn’t put it in yet.’ and Bob said, ‘How long does one of these things take, anyway?’ and he brought the raw white turkey out of the fridge? Remember?”

  “Yeah. Six hours of chips and dip,” Wawp says.

  Jess says, “And remember the other time we went over? We were going to hang out and swim in the pool? We brought our suits. And when we got there it was hot and sunny, but they changed the plans, decided they wanted to go to Newport to walk around? They had the pool every day and wanted to do something different. Bob sped around Ocean Road and you got carsick and when we got downtown it was foggy and windy and we were freezing in t-shirts? Do you remember that?

  “I remember.”

  “Where are they taking us, some kind of nature preserve?”

  “yeah.”

  “I’m still worried.”

 

 

“Can Jess use the bathroom?” Wawp says to it.

  “Oh. I was going to use it. But it’s okay. Go ahead!”

  “ . . .”

  “Go ahead!”

  “ . . .”

  “What is that hideous creature?” it says.

  “You must be Bob and Mary’s new roommate,” Wawp says. “He told me you were from Japan?”

  “I’m not from Japan. I was born in America.”

  “The chicken and I will wait outside.”

The air smells like rotting eggs. Bird follows them in the grass. The sun is on Bird. The land is open and flat. No place to hide - no shade - no water.

  “For an old landfill,” Mary says, “It’s pretty nice. An environmental success story, really. Hard to believe there was a time when people thought this was a worthless garbage dump.”

  “The U.S. Navy started that idea,” Wawp says.

  “They burried the garbage with fill and dirt and planted grass. Isn’t it beautiful now? You can’t even tell.”

  “Like a golf course,” Wawp says.

  Jess smiles.

The air is dead eggs. Very close. The eggs are on the ground, crawling out. The metal trees without limbs grow out of the grass. Wires hang in the sky.

  “I forgot how – it smells out here,” Wawp says.

  “That’s the methane from the decaying garbage,” Mary says. “It’s piped off to make electricity.”

  “Some of it is getting away.”

The storm bird is low – sharp wings and a sharp nose it passes overhead like thunder. It is faster than any bird and it is not a bird. It is one of theirs.

  “YEEHAAAOW!” screams Bob. “I LOVE THE BLUE ANGELS! I WOULD BE UP THERE IF I DIDN’T WEAR THESE GLASSES.” Bob is pointing and talking and balding.

  “I didn’t know it was the Blue Angels today,” Wawp says.

  “You didn’t? Today and tomorrow,” Bob says.

  Wawp looks at Jess. Jess smiles.

  “You didn’t tell me,” Wawp says.

  “I thought you knew,” Bob says. “What? You don’t like them?”

  “It’s not that,” Wawp says. “I was just envisioning a peaceful picnic.”

  “Well, we could go somewhere else. But they’re pretty much everywhere you go today. We’re stuck with them.”

Wawp and Bob come with bottles and cards.

Bob is talking “Bernoulli’s Law.”

  Bird smells meat.

  Jess smiles and nods.

  Mary’s cheeks stretch.

  Wawp says, “What about these high voltage wires? I heard on the news lately it wasn’t a good idea to hang out under them.”

 Bob says, “The computer modeling programs they have for wing foil designs are fantastic.”

Roaring blue fright with swept wings and sharp noses shoot through the sky, roll and dive and roll and go in a scream down the water with fire tails until they are small enough to hear Bob shouting:

“Now, the room where I work is a class 10 clean-room, which means you have full-body coverage except for the face. We’re smoothing these silicon wafers to a flatness within 50 angstroms. An angstrom is the diameter of a molecule of helium. Tiny. Your hair is like 500 angstroms in width. One speck of dust could ruin the whole chip. Now, in a class one clean-room, there you have no exposure, not even the face. You have to wear a mask and goggles and a filter pack on your back. But really I want to get out of the clean-room altogether and do more of the designing. That’s where the money is at.  I wanna be pulling in fifty grand so me and Mary here can have our own place. No more roommates from Japan or anywhere. After the wedding, we’re moving out. We’ve already decided to move to the Boston area. No more commuting. A place with a pool and a Jacuzzi. And we’re gonna get us a new car if we can ever agree on which one. All we can agree on is a four-wheel-drive utility vehicle, but it doesn’t have to be four-wheel-drive. I could go with a Pathfinder, but Mary doesn’t like Nissans. What you have against Nissans I don’t know, but at least we’ve agreed on the color: metallic teal green. And we’ve agreed on the China. Finally. We were looking at this Chinastone stuff, which isn’t really China, but it’s stronger and made from a composite. But you can’t see through it. China is more fragile, but what the hell, I want the real stuff. Don’t we, hon? The set we settled on is called ‘The Kingston’ and it’s got a platinum band around the border. Pretty neat, huh? Platinum rings and platinum on the China? We like platinum.”

  Bob’s mate Mary’s lip curls up on one side and Mary’s jaw hangs open. Mary’s eyes are always on Bob. Jess nods and smiles, “Uh-huh.” Wawp is slipping into the sun without anyone. Bird waits for the food. Beers are opened. The food box gets closed. It is hot here and there are no trees. Bird walks into the shadow of the food box and stands by Wawp’s beer. Bird breathes through Bird’s mouth. Bird has a stomach. Bird is a stomach. Bird hungers, therefore, “AAAAHHWW!”

  Wawp says, “In a minute.”

“A BIG CIGARETTE BOAT,” Bob says. “IT’LL TAKE US FROM GALILEE TO BLOCK ISLAND IN FIVE MINUTES. WHEEWW!!” Bob reaches out and pulls Bob’s arm back. The sound coming from him is like the big birds coming down across the water.

  “Yeah, you’ll be there in five minutes and you won’t see a thing,” Wawp says. “Not the water, not the birds or the fish, and the rest of us will be choking on the smoke.”

  Jess looks at Wawp.

  Bob laughs.

  “Is anyone else hungry?” Jess says.

  “Yeah, I’m starved,” Wawp says. “I think Bird is starved.”

  Meat. Meat.

  “What do we got?” Wawp says.

  “We have roast beef and ham,” Mary says. “This is healthy ham because it’s made from turkey.”

  “Why not eat real ham?” Wawp says.

  “This is healthier.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Turkey is better for you than ham.”

  Jess is looking at Wawp.

  “Why not eat turkey, then?” Wawp says.

  “You mean turkey turkey?” Mary says.

  “Yeah,” Wawp says, “Turkey.”

  “I don’t like turkey.”

  “I’ll have the roast beef,” Wawp says.

  Wawp takes apart the white paper and looks into the food. Wawp bites and breaks off a piece. Wawp breaks the meat into pieces for Bird.

  Thunder birds lower the sky and Bird shakes below them. And Bob is talking again about the Bernoulli. Wawp leans back with Wawp’s beer and says, “The beer is good.”

  “YEP,” Bob says. “I GOT SOME GREAT IDEAS FOR SOME BEER COMMERCIALS I WANNA WRITE. DO YOU THINK BUDWEISER WOULD BE INTERESTED?”

  “Sure. Write ‘em a proposal.”

  Bird is pulling the meat. Bird swallows. They talk while Bird eats and they eat. Wawp goes into the food box for another white paper and shares the meat with Bird. Bird will eat as much as Wawp will give Bird. Wawp knows that Bird will hide meat for another time. Wawp doesn’t like it when Bird hides food. Wawp says, “If you knew where all the food you’ve hidden was, you wouldn’t bother me for a year. You’re feeding the possums, skunks, and landlord.” But Bird will not hide food in this place.

Mary says, “After this we can go look for burrowing owls. They live in burrows along the edge of the flats.”

  “Owls live here?” Wawp says.

  “Sure,” Mary says. “We saw one last time we came, right Bob? Burrowing owls come out during the day.”

  “We counted a hundred and one species that day, right hon,” Bob says.

  “Fucking owls?” Wawp is looking at Bird. “There are owls here? You didn’t tell me that.” Wawp is up and his talk is hard at Bob.

  Bob says, “Why?”

  “Owls attack and eat crows. It’s their number one predator. I wouldn’t have brought Bird.”

  “They’re small. Ground owls are small. Relatively. They wouldn’t bother him.”

  “How do you know?”

The sky thunders. Jess covers her ears. Bob shouts. Bird sees the blue and yellow of the human bird and it leaves behind a white stream.

“WE’VE SET A TENTATIVE DATE FOR THE WEDDING,” Bob says. “IT’S GOING TO BE IN NARRAGANSETT.” The human bird touches the earth on the other side of the water. The dead eggs are free in the air. “AND I WANTED TO ASK YOU, BROTHER, IF YOU WOULD BE MY BEST MAN. YOU REMEMBER THE DEAL WE MADE BACK IN COLLEGE? YOU BE MY BEST MAN AND I’LL BE YOURS?”

  Wawp looks from Bob to the horizon. He looks at the water and back to Bob. “Yeah, sure, yeah. Thanks for asking me.”

 

heather

the scream of the butterfly

it was late afternoon & this rock across the yard was the last ground in the sun. i walked to the rock & saw a yellow butterfly resting on it, the color of the inside of a lemon. it took to the air when it saw me. i sat down on the rock in the sun to think & drink. the yellow butterfly was back before my ass was warm. it landed on my head. it wasn’t screaming, but i guessed it had something on its mind. we sat there, the butterfly on me, me on the rock – in the same sun in the same spot on planet earth. then it flew into the maples. i got to feeling guilty. i didn’t come to the sunny rock to feel bad about stealing real estate so i stood up & walked away. i stopped & turned: the rock was in the sun & i waited . . out of the maples danced the butterfly, small yellow and fragile. it landed gently on the rock.

Untitled by patrick fealey

easy as that

glenny pulled a gun on a cop.

he went to prison.

glenny beat up his girlfriends.

glenny and i were fucking the same girl

we each knew there was someone else

but we didn’t know whom

until she insisted on introducing us.

he and i talked so long, sophia fell asleep.

we became friends and she became a hooker

glenny represented

an extreme i did not believe in

but we were able to hustle

more cash together.

i suspect he gave better head than i did

but i got better head than he did.

when you are a junkie

you mostly encounter dickheads

bright and whining self-centered junkies

who are such greedy machines

they could have their own private jets,

rehab egoists who are profiting off the predicament,

badges, handcuffs, judges, fines,

and coroners glad to tell you how much

your girlfriend’s brain weighed

at the peurto ricans’, we went around back.

the routine was you banged on the steel bulkhead.

they lived in a fucking bunker. someone would yell from inside, “who is it?”

glenny yelled “mario!”

in the window of the first floor a couple of kids appeared, shaking their heads at us. they knew what was going on.

we weren’t the only ones. this place was hot. sometimes they shot at us with toy guns. it wouldn’t be long before the peurto ricans were raided by real guns.

meanwhile, glenny and i were standing

in the snow, breathing clouds, waiting and waiting.

he leaned over and banged on the bulkhead again.

finally there was the sound of the thing being unlocked

and it was pushed open and delight was there,

telling us to shut the fuck up.

delight was the matron of the house

and she was in command of the heroin,

which she dispatched much more quickly than she answered her bulkhead.

she was small, in her 40’s, and had graduated from kennedy plaza long ago. she lived with her man and another girl in her 20’s

in this dark unfinished basement clogged with furniture and divided by curtains.

the floor was concrete, the ceiling exposed beams.

they had a tv and a couch to the right, a dining room table

straight ahead, where she let us shoot up, and a bedroom to the left, blocked off by a curtain.

she kept the dope in there and we were never allowed there.

down a narrow hall to the left was a makeshift bathroom with a bucket of water and no running water in the sink.

the toilet was clogged.

delight asked us what we wanted and took $50.

this time we brought the dope into the bathroom and used the top of the sink. we had brought our own water.

we decided to split a bag to start because delight's dope killed tanya a week ago and put glenny in the hospital.

glenny said the dope looked like the same dope.

the shit hit harder than anything i’d had all year in any amount.

by the time i was out to the dining room table to retrieve my coat, i was self-conscious about looking wasted.

we split out the bulkhead and walked for the bus, stupefied, it’s good, it’s good.

we drank a couple beers at the bus stop and scratched.

on the bus back to newport we agreed we would save the other bag for tomorrow because we were so fucking high it’d be a waste to shoot it.

i nodded for most of the hour home.

back at the building, we stopped by julio's for a quick visit. we were aglow. julio later said we were very obvious, and he, on methadone, was jealous.

we split julio's place, each for our own rooms. i told glenny i’d be right over.

i dropped my coat and backpack off at my place and headed to glenny's. as i came into his room, he said, “i just did half a shot. yours is on the table.”

i eyed the amber barrel and thought, “no fucking way. i’m so high already. why did he do that?”

i sat down to roll a cigarette. before i opened the can of tobacco, the blood went out of his face and he fell backwards.

He turned grey and he croaked.

the cafe girls

the blonde i let in the door . . . the signals are there . . . she crosses the room talking with a weak guy who i hope is her brother, but it seems biologically impossible . . . she's glanced this way a few times and i've glanced her way, without eye contact . . . i've seen her looks and she's seen mine . . . her voice shakes when i look, a lapse in conversation where her words are shorter, simpler, hollow tones and words of agreement requiring no thought. the weaklings phone rings and the first thing we do is look at one another . . . casually, i break it . . .

building a life around our greatest failing. insight into ourselves the most life-threatening trip. we need to get down and in and break through but have a teather tied to one foot so we can some back. the teather is wound of inherent denseness.

a baby. a sociopath in the early stages of a gradual decline.

the blonde i let in the door, she left with the cellular faggot. money and scrawn over poetry and brawn . . . as she passed (i was outside smoking) she gave me a sidelong smile and i watched her black skirt ass walk up to 22nd street and out of my life . . .

fear aggression. like a dog with no confidence. a coward. mike. i feel no jealousy. just regret.

dream that a name and phone number tab had been removed from my "rommate wanted sign," that somebody might actually call me. i recalled this dream as i passed the bulletin board on my way to the toilet . . . an anxiety dream . . . a hope and lie.

the girl behind the counter, the tall one with the dark cropped hair, she acts shy but isn't. we can't get past "hi" because i have spent too much time with amanda, the cafe princess (vintage dresses, tatoos, her boyfriend on tour with the gorillas.) amanda and i are nothing but a could be, fantasy that hit it off.. but we hang out too much and the dark one leaves me alone. below it all i see a solid, sane, girlfriend and it makes me feel like i've thrown it all out by chasing amanda.

i have been told, and experienced how these short, thin, outrageously built chicks are insane. the madness and mischief is on their faces. their eyes are on the wrong side of the field. these are the ones who can stop traffic with the improbability of their asses and tits.