sam paul

WHY I COMMITTED SUICIDE

You are about to read something that made me die. Just a bit. Enjoy!

For her of course

“You gonna give all this up?

8-Track Stereo, color TV in every room and can snort a half a piece a dope every day, that’s the American Dream nigga. Well ain’t it!?

You better come on in man!”

—Superfly, 1972

PART I

SUMMER ’93, DEAD SHOWS and LIFE

1993

“Turn around you dumbass!”

The summer heat was bearing down on the yellow hat I had perched on my head. The grease inside my skateboard trucks was approaching meltdown and the bearings were whirring with the not unpleasant sound of overuse. Push, push! Go, go! Smoke, bearings, smoke!

It was only in the blink of an eye that I saw her. Not that I hadn’t seen her around before, or seen her in the way I would pass a thousand other girls on the street. But this time it was different. I actually saw her, or very nearly ran her over while lost in my personal masochistic world, pushing the boundaries of maximum skate-power into my body’s overheat zone. Instant endorphin serenity, pause. The pause of seconds among the fleeting shade filtered through hot pulsating, green leaves.

“Turn the fuck around you dumbass!!” My brain screamed at me again from beneath the hat of fire. Turn around or you’ll regret this for the rest of your life. Wipe the sweat off your nasty face. Turn around and say “hi” to her or you’ll have one of those regrettable memories like the guy in “Citizen Kane.” Turn around and say… “Hi” . “Hi.”

“What are you doing?” Her smile was disarming. My feeling of false-bravado fading beneath it.

“Sitting on Fry Street and writing, you?” Cue the pounding heart and visions of children. Say something before she thinks you ‘re retarded.

“Trying to skate, um, so, do you wanna go do some bong-hits?” Ooh that was bad.

“Sure.”

So it all begins. She merely smiled and I got the intelligence of an orange. Today, one of the most incredible women I have ever had the pleasure to lay eyes on, graced me with her company. No matter that I already broke up with the supposed “love of my life” less than a month ago in a messy fucking scene that took place in a flowery wallpapered bathroom. Never mind that earlier in the week I had given a completely gorgeous girl the “I don’t want any sort of relationship to ruin our friendship” talk because it was impossible to carry on any sort of conversation with her for more than ten seconds. What was I supposed to say? “Okay bronze Barbie would you mind leaving now that I have released my manly frustration upon your loins in a multi-hour bit of passion and sweat induced drench.” Of course I couldn’t ever put it that way because I’ve always had to be anice person, even when the topic is the unappealing unpleasantness of breaking up with a very dumb member of the opposite sex.

I got so much grief about tossing away a perfectly good bimbo from my other brethren in the flophouse fraternity I’ve chosen to lodge in this sweltering summer that I had to put out the rumor she dumped me because I’m bad in the sack. I’d rather let them all think that I’m a lame fuck than know about my graduation from only appreciating hot dumb women on beer posters. My attraction for her waned immediately after easy attainment and how do I explain to my frat brothers that I’ve reached a turning point in my lusts and wants? Tits and pussy are great but eventually there needs to be more substance to a woman, even if my brothers can’t see it through their beer goggles yet. No, it’s far better for them to think me the victim of feminine rumor than doubt the seeds that define my primitive masculinity.

But this girl I met today is the spark of existential I need. A feeding frenzy of electric eels are already swimming and stimulating the pleasure zones of erotica in my mind.

Ask me how it feels when you know. You just know.

Her name is Jenifer Jane Lansing and despite being born and bred here in the college town of Denton, Texas she carries herself with a worldly air that suggests she knows this town isn’t her fate. Jenifer’s just come back from a bad stint down south at A&M University and it just so happens she’s spending the summer doing the same thing I am, bumming around.

After our brief street introduction Jenifer and I went into the room where I share space with my roommate Ernie and we smoked ourselves into a silly relaxing pause. The room is deep forest green and the ceiling’s that authentic color of tar. It even has uneven spots and crap poking through from decades of neglect to give an officially sumptuous “tar” color. The loft inside is made of wood the color of spilled bong water and it divides the room into a lopsided upper and lower half. This was quite a feat for a room that only has ten-foot ceilings. The heat became stifling. The ever-present odor of cats, wild inbred beasts that used to reign freely in this very room, came wafting back in a pinching sensation that offended the roots of everyone’s nose hair.

We talked the talk of people that ‘click’ when they meet. It was weird how we had a lot of the same stuff in common. She had just moved back to Denton after a long relationship with a future egotistical doctor went sour and she first went away to college to escape from home just like myself. She had even been on several road trips including an annual trip to Mardi gras. Just like me.

The smell of cat piss is one of the more permanent odors in this vast world of particularly rambunctious odors, but it allowed for a properly realistic excuse to walk the new love of my life home. My stomach was doing flip flops because I knew when we got to her apartment I was going to kiss her and after that I was going to make love to her. I was mentally saying a brief prayer already to protect me from the deadly virus us college folk are apparently particularly privy to. Another psychotic psychological legacy of my ex. “God”, I said, “I know I have been with a lot of women and that she has been with a lot of men, but all I want out of life is for someone to love me as much as I love them with all of my heart. So if this isn’t meant to be then please give me some kind of sign” Like I said, it was a brief prayer but I figured God understood the way I was feeling at the moment.

Her kiss was electric. It had more of a rush than the time I accidentally used wet hands to plug in the motor of the fountain by my parents pool. We went into her apartment with its sweet, God sent, air conditioning where we consummated the relationship and secured the mantle of partnership. It’s a hot weird summer, the pot is good and the wheels of my mind are simply in love after a single afternoon.

I thought I was sure that I loved her later, as I buried my face into the hot mound of goodness between her legs and entered her with a sigh on the forest green sheets of her bed. We were making it next to the cage of her giant pet rat Rico who has a fluorescent green tail from the cage liner Jenifer uses to keep him sanitary. We fucked under her giant Jane’s Addiction poster with Perry in his effeminate pose and orgasm heightened my senses to the out of body feeling that gave the illusion of floating and I knew it was real. Then a symphony of cigarettes followed and preceded our third and fourth bouts of animalistic copulation on the bathroom floor and against the wall respectively.

The morning sunlight shone like a spotlight through the thick felt-like green blanket hanging over the window. I awoke to the pleasant and unfamiliar sensation of not sweating or the need for immediate hydration. I awoke with an angel in my arms and absorbed the scent of her hair and the meditative rhythms of her breathing. Nice. Her skin was soft and smelled like girl. The girl. I managed to squirm out from underneath her arms and kiss my way down her soft flat stomach until I could feel the harsher hairs poke into my mouth. I just turned my head and let my cheek rest on her tight belly, moving slightly up and down with her breaths. I planted a brief kiss that tickled the lips then I sat up in the bed, put my back against the wall and just watched her sleep.

I acquired that habit a long time ago. Watching a woman deeply asleep in the morning is one of the most beautiful paintings God’s ever created. Jenifer didn’t know yet, but I did. We are meant to be together.

This IS going to be real. Real enough to stand the test of time. The problem is that like so many other times in my life when I knew, the opposite sex of the coin has reservations. So I let the evening of torment and agonies ensue. I drowned out the mere prospect of thinking about it with alcohol and whatever else was around to postpone any imaginary pain and insecurity until another date with her. Alas poor Horatio, I am the king of all.

♦ ♦ ♦

The smell of her and this intense summer. The prospect of the wide open road inspired by a winter of Jack K. and the pink paperback edition of everyone’s classic motorcycle Zen companion manual, the latter of which I have been toting around in the back pocket of my pants to strike intrigue into the female persuasion that have cause to need the benefits of a phone call. Usually some sort of lame excuse provides that backdrop. Honestly, it really isn’t too hard to inspire the mind of young college co-eds who have been taught all their lives that after prom it would be man-snagging time and there would be no better place to look for that intellectual best friend for life than their college campus.

In college there’s a heavy moral pendulum that suddenly releases and swings back along its lifelong arc. College is a place designed for exploration. Eager minds, raging hormones and cheap beer by the keg all in one mixed up sexual stewpot. Just heat, simmer and serve.

I’m infatuated with Jenifer. She is cool and laid back about everything and it works for her. Normally I would be slightly embarrassed to show a girl that I really like where I am living. Of course she’s already seen the Lodge, and being that she is from Denton, she’s probably been around the Deltas more than I have.

The Delta Lodge is an “alternative fraternity” that I pledged way back when I was a 17-year-old freshman in the fall of 1991. It was hard for me to balance getting good grades, the dependence of a new girlfriend and the “I don’t give a fuck” party attitude of the Lodge but I managed to squeeze into the brotherhood while I was young, unnoticed and nai’ve to the ways of the world. The place held some of the magic that the Animal House/Revenge of the Nerd movies offered. I knew that I wanted the full piss-in-your-face college experience and I knew that to do this I would have to associate with the people my “higher” education was designed to keep me from. I wanted to be able to look the hardcore drinkers in the face and have the stamina to kick each other in the nuts. Well maybe nothing that crazy, but I knew the flophouse frat called the Delta Lodge was going to play a far greater role in my life than anything I had done up to that point and would finally test my mettle. This was the one spot in Denton where the one percent of the population that truly knew they were cool, dark and different deep down in their soul could hang out. A place they could gravitate to and not feel persecuted. Either that or just party their asses off and stir up trouble in a fairly safe haven.

The Delta Lodge became my escape from the serious side of college while I still lived on campus in the dorms. When the chance to live in the “house with no rules” became available this summer, I took it. The house is three stories tall and perches on one of the tallest points in the city. During the hot summer nights you can climb out of the third story window onto the crumbling roof and look at the stars and tops of the trees for miles all around. I scrawled my name in big black spray-paint up here for the entire world to see, or at least those folk brave and drunk enough to climb up here for themselves. The other day I found an old broken television and painted the words “I am watching you” on it in an acidic moment of clarity. I dragged that old TV up to the roof and perched it up on the highest chimney so that the television could watch those who watched it for so long. Down in the depths of this old house is a basement filled with foulness and an old light that hangs from frayed and shaky wires. The walls here resemble a New York subway car, it’s layered with tales of graffiti and past pleasures. There are catacombs of crawlspaces with dirt floors and secret exits under here too. Here and there, among the hallways of the main body of the house, is a sporadic doorway that leads to someone or the others room. The cast of players in the house is ever changing except for a few mainstays. I have been in all the rooms at some time or another and each one is so different in shape and décor from the others that I could spend hours going into the details of each. I have put in a lot of time stumbling around this house drunk, listening to aspiring local bands in the front room, painting the walls, tripping on acid and smoking obscene amounts of marijuana with good people I would not have otherwise met.

This summer is my break. This summer is where I cast off the domineering presence of Melanie (the ex) and have choices to make without fear of fighting and repercussion. Melanie was THE girlfriend. The first super-serious girlfriend I ever had. She had a great body and a buck-toothed face that kept me pussy-whipped for two years. The one that made me wait almost four months to get an AIDS test before I could fuck her. The one that was always getting bladder infections and smoking cigarettes in that annoying matter where each drag took an intense showy draw to inhale. This method of smoking caused her front left vampire tooth to be slightly off-color than the rest of her teeth. She was the one who tried to be so classy and gothic without ever figuring out class is not defined by money but rather is a sense that exists in your soul. The one who always had me give her oral sex without ever truly wanting regular sex, or so I thought. I kept a journal of that whole time we were together and used smiley faces as symbols to denote what sexual activity I participated in on certain days. A frowning face meant just oral sex for her, a neutral face meant just oral sex for me and the face that grinned like an idiot meant the whole walla-walla-sha-bang. When I go back now and read my journal from that time, I see that at some point I was getting quite a bit of the grinning like an idiot good stuff.

I had a lot of developmental experiences with Melanie that looking back now seem like good things to have done, but at the time they were a little bizarre for me. Hell, some of them are still bizarre when I think of them. The handcuffs and bondage was nice and I could even stand going to the gay bars and getting drunk while she played the fag-hag role. I could have done without that one experience where I was wearing makeup while naked and handcuffed to the bed when the Resident Administrator walked into our dorm room though. Melanie would study and sleep mostly but she was pretty cool about letting me trip acid all night and then stumble into her bed during the dawn hours.

I finally moved out of the dorms and all that silliness and while we’ve been broken up I’ve had sex with her once after she made a surprise visit to my pad. My roommate Ernie warned me not to do it with her, saying she was just trying to get back together, but my cock wanted to believe she only wanted “one last fling” and so I had to invoke another tear session when it turned out her and my cock didn’t have the same understanding of the “one last fling” concept. At the time I was kind of pissed that she thought she would get me back merely by fucking me again, but some girls are taught their whole life that sex can equal love when they want it to.

Basically I can sum up Melanie by saying that I really thought I loved her for a few months and convinced her to love me, and then we got trapped in one of those relationships that doesn’t quite work, but doesn’t not work enough to call it off. I was in that whole soap operatic scene until the beginning of this summer. I’ve been dead-set on celebrating my relationship freedom until life threw me this crazy curveball in the shape of Jenifer.

A famous Beatles lyric later adopted by the Manson family was supposed to go here. I think I’m finally learning what “hilter skilter” can actually mean.

Man! This first stage of love is always such bullshit. All the insecurity and confusion I was trying to avoid has swept over me like the coarse bristles of a witch’s broom. We’re so alike that it’s infuriating. Jenifer’s doing the same damn thing that I was trying to do this summer before I met her; playing the field and having fun. Unfortunately the relationship she just removed herself from must have been even more serious than mine was or at least more dramatic in ways that only girl relationships can be. Her laid-backishness is taken to the point of fanaticism at times and I can see how it is preventing us from being together.

It has only been one week and I am already up late at night writing these words under the light of a single bulb casting its dirty glow around my dark, cat-pissy room. These are the actions of an inexperienced virgin-boy dammit! Why am I obsessing like this?

Everyone is predicting the death of Jerry Garcia soon, rumored reports tell of another failed stint in rehabilitation. The scent of motor oil and sun-cooked asphalt fill the air. The weed around town is abundant and the greenest it’s been in years, producing rich thick smoke that fills the air with laughter. Its rich aroma results in the firing of intellectual pistons that merge us both into one person. I am a Gemini you know.

But there is still a problem. Jenifer thinks she loves another. A fine strapping boy of a man named Kristoff with the mystique and doe eyes to drive women (and some men) mad with want. He looks like that picture of Nick Drake on the inside of his Pink Moon album. I pretend not to care because they have known each other since High School and if I start to resent them, soon I’ll resent myself for falling out of the tree and bouncing so readily onto the trampoline of love again.

What does a man do in a situation like this? Stalk her of course. Under the almost respectable age-old pretense of creating that chance encounter. There’s a summer of freedom before me that’s still in its virgin state, so I have the time and the feverish desire to watch her do the girlish things that cause me to infatuate. Plus by following her around, I get to see how actually “with him” she really is. I casually show up and run into her at places I would normally never be in anyway. At the time I think I am being cool and non-chalant but I know deep down that I’m only increasing the repulsive fawning puppy dog effect. I guess I will come to terms with the fact that I am just a couple of one-night stands to her sooner or later, but “Da-Nile” isn’t just a river in Egypt.

I trailed her this evening to one place off Fry Street called the Karma Kafé. It’s one of those trendy coffee places that I always expect to fail but still seem to hang around and make a profit, serving all sorts of granolas and the coffee-addled-Renaissance-fair types that seem to dwell near a college campus at all times. I like this coffee shop because I can ride my hundred-dollar fenced Diamond-Back across the street, on the University campus, and not look like a total stalking doo-fus. The café has big front windows covered with flyers for local bands, but enough of the window is exposed to fuel my hopes of catching a glimpse of her. More often I see the object of her affections walking around and I wonder if he knows his powerful mystique is keeping this beautiful girl’s heart from loving mine. I have made it a point to be there as she inevitably walks home alone because I hope to appear to be the embodiment of chivalry and raw appeal. Corny? Yes, but my heart is hers and I would rather act the fool than lose her forever.

Does that even make sense?

How do I describe the intensity of being in love to the macho parade of men that will read and laugh at these semi-private lamentations? I suppose it doesn’t matter, for this journal isn’t about the opinions of others, it is about my damn summer and the crystal clear knowledge that turns out to not be so crystal clear even when you think you’ve finally found the “one” person in your life that will make you complete.

After being fed romantic movie schlock for years, this is the dream that I have. Traditionally the story should go, awkward boy meets beautiful girl, girl won’t give him the time of day, girl is betrothed, girl is dying of terminal illness etc. etc. ad nausea. Boy takes it upon himself to follow and stalk the young fair maiden and luckily finds himself in a situation to prove his love by saving her from a wild boar, gang members, unsympathetic cruel world etc. I guess that is the emotion going through back of my mind. Or maybe I just want the chance to spend that one last evening in her presence before fate whisks her away. I am sure at this point that I will continue the rest of my days pining for the magic of Jenifer. All the demons of hell have conspired to give me one night of passion and love so wonderful that the rest of my life shall pale in comparison. I am foolishly and romantically in love and not ashamed to go through the throes of that agony if that is my fate, but I will do everything I can short of letting go to keep me from giving in to life without her.

Jenifer and Kristoff have had their relationship for years. Anything that has made her the beautiful creature she has become is a good thing, but deep down I just know that if Kristoff wasn’t more of a free spirit than Jenifer, she would be with him in a heartbeat. For some reason that hurts me even though it’s his loss. While he is actively and openly pursuing other company, Jenifer and I are becoming close friends on the cool. It’s depressing playing second fiddle to the James Dean persona that every girl falls in love with but I think I’m playing it off rather well by acting like the situation doesn’t bother me. The pressure of honesty will drive her away at this point so I am content to be her friend and occasional fuck buddy. I enjoy the nights we spend together and I’m playing the cards the way they fall. For now.

It turns out that Jenifer’s not much of a pot smoker because of her hard-core asthma, so I am flattered she consented to do bong-tokes with me on that magical day we met. It means she realized I was trying to pick her up and despite my clumsy attempts, she was attracted to me. I thought I was slick, but Jenifer has cool in her genes.

Maybe I should start a little earlier and expand the description of my living situation. Moving into the Delta Lodge was one of those ideas that sound a lot better drunk and late at night than it actually turns out to be. My roommate’s name is Ernie Harding and if I haven’t mentioned him already, he happens to be one of the coolest people I know. He got busted in high school with some bitches that had a stolen credit card and ended up taking the whole rap for their little shopping spree. That’s a big deal in the state of Texas and so he is on probation like almost 1/3 of the people in this fucked up state. Does he complain about it? No, he heroically has transformed his life so that he can drink and drop acid with us, he just leaves marijuana out of the equation since that’s the only thing the State’s drug test can really detect. I can respect that, even if I couldn’t live that way myself. I mean pot is the herb of life. It’s in the Bible and everything.

Ernie used to live right down the hall from me in Bruce Hall where we would drink and do lots of acid together. He pledged the Lodge the semester after I did, he was one of the people that dropped me off in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma for a pledge prank and he was even there for me the night I got alcohol poisoning after doing too many beer bongs. Basically Ernie’s an all around good guy and a good friend whose life seems to consist of beer, sports and fighting over the phone with his long distance relationship girlfriend. I could tell a million stories of our delinquency if I wasn’t so busy writing down the joy and trauma of my current life.

The problem with the room that Ernie and I share is that I keep getting sick. We’re on the first floor and this house has been partied in non-stop for the past fifty years so it probably has enough radon and asbestos to keep my little crotch swimmers sterile for decades. The guy who lived in our room before us got married and while he was courting his fair lady, he pretty much abandoned his own homestead. I’m sure it was partly because she had air-conditioning and partly because his fucking cats started to inbreed and take over the place. That’s why there was so much cat shit everywhere when we moved in and there were other things as well. He was one of those people that occasionally dress up like barbarians and Klingons and all that other crap, so he was also extremely sloth-like and accumulated lots of the fast food garbage and miscellaneous crap that people like that subsist on. Throw in an air conditioner without any freon, all the windows permanently nailed then painted shut and you start to get a visual picture of the mess we inherited.

Ernie and I cleaned the place thoroughly when we moved in. We evicted all the four legged, six toed mutations and shoveled out the presents they left behind. We emptied the room of all its garbage and moldy magazines etc. We scrubbed the walls and floor with bleach and tried in vain to cover up or eradicate the permanent odor I’ve already elaborated on. Hell, I even splurged and bought some cheap outdoor dark forest green latex paint that made me pleasantly dizzy in the non-ventilated area. But no matter how much I tried I still couldn’t get the walls to resemble anything broaching the word “new”.

The paint thing might have been a mistake because the ceiling is black now and the walls are such a dark hue that all the light in the room gets absorbed so there’s a generally gloomy feeling to the whole business. It’s like living in a cave that still smells like the generations of animals that lived there before you. Nobody will fix and recharge our AC for less than $100, which we don’t have. So the combination of paint fumes, cats hit and heat is overwhelming. Compound that with the fact that we are right next to the front room of the house where all the bands play and the stereo thumps every single night and it all keeps making me get the flu or something.

Jenifer is such a sweetheart and lemme tell you why. After I pester her and hang around her and obsess in secret over her, she still came over to help me out when I was very, very sick. I was just laying on the mattress in my loft when she popped in to cheer me up. How can I help but fall head over heels in love with a girl that brings me soup and rinses out the dirty washrag I had on my head for the fever? Maybe it’s a delusional Helen Keller syndrome but it really touched me to have her there. I know I kept babbling to her about how nobody has ever gone out of their way to make me soup before, but it was true. Nobody but my mom has done anything like that in years. I tried to convey how good it made me feel to have her there despite the vomit and fever symptoms, but I think I just played it cool.

Right. Must sleep now.

Ernie, our friend Jeffery and I all took some acid last night and were hanging around smoking pot while we were waiting to start tripping. I asked Ernie to show me how to do a gravity hit off the joint we were smoking. What is supposed to happen is that you bend your knees and take a giant hit off the joint as you slowly rise up to your full height. Somebody then grabs you around the chest and lifts you off of your feet while you hold your breath. Then what’s supposed to happen is that you lose consciousness from the lack of oxygen and then all sorts of visions come into your brain during the few seconds that dream-world overtakes you.

Yeah I know, lack of oxygen to the brain, real smart thinking. Well it gets better.

So I bend my knees and rise up and Ernie grabs me around the chest. For a brief moment I’m looking around and wondering when something is going to happen. Whammo! All of a sudden I am swimming across a vast Oceanic world with no recollection of what I did to get there. The air is crisp and the water is warm and the fish can talk without words. I see kelp and blue green filtered light all around me. Then I guess the blood started returning precious oxygen to my brain because I regained consciousness on our dirty floor, down on my knees, with my face hurting like someone had kicked me in the nose.

I wake up and Ernie looks all scared. After a minute his moving mouth starts to actually say words I can hear and understand. Apparently during that split second where I looked around wondering what was going to happen I gave the other guys the impression that nothing was going to happen so they relaxed the grip they had on my arms to keep me from falling. That’s when I passed out and did a full face plant right on my kisser. I was mad because my nose was bleeding and felt numb and I was scared because I was starting to trip by then and I knew the amplified awareness my body was in would cause my face to feel all freaky and I would think something had gone horribly wrong with it while I spaced out. I calmed myself down so that I wouldn’t have a bad trip which was hard because even my teeth felt loose and wiggly. Jenifer showed up right afterwards and she couldn’t stop laughing when I told her what happened. I guess it was pretty funny and when she started tripping she laughed even harder at me when the giggles came. Every time I would feel around on my numb nose she would start to laugh again. So I suppose the lesson for the evening was to not let Sam do anymore gravity hits.

On a better note, the sex coming down off the acid was awesome. We listened to Jane’s Addictions “Ritual” and the Earth moved.

I don’t think that I will ever be happy with a “nine to five” job. Do those hours even exist anymore? There is just too much stuff that I want to do before I get too old to do it. I don’t know. It might have something to do with the concept of what others (the suits) think qualifies as work. I don’t seem to mind sweating it out at the Flying Tomato for $3.55 an hour, but after two years of being there I have to wonder why I like the chump change they offer. It’s so hard to go out and get another job because it’s so easy to fall into the pattern of familiarity. Plus this is a college town and any available job is already staffed with someone who will gladly take my bananas so they can buy food or pot or whatever. The Flying Tomato is a mom and pop, pizza and beer operation except they are owned by a larger company up in Illinois or somewhere really cold. That’s why there are weird things on the menu like spicy hot cider and soup while it’s still 110 degrees outside. All the other stores are way up North, this one just kind of got lost in the shuffle somewhere along the way. The people who manage it and who pretty much own the place are a married couple named Becky and Ski. Ski stands for something like Sluslarski or Slurparski or something. No one really knows his actual name and so we all just call him Ski. He’s a fat greasy-haired Polish guy and his wife Becky is actually a pretty nice looking lady with a brain on her shoulders and a hard work ethic but a horrible desire to birth as many children as possible. I asked an old employee one time how a bum of a guy like Ski ended up with a lady like Becky and the rumor I heard was that she got her heart broken by a hunky dude and Ski picked her up on the rebound. That kind of made me sad because she seems like she could do better. There are plenty of men in the Dallas area that only want a woman to birth and raise children all day if that was all she wanted. I’ve heard it’s one of the only reasons they let women into SMU.

The Tomato job is fairly loyal. Once you get on staff and they know you are a good worker you can take all kinds of time off in the summer slow season or whenever you need to. There are not a lot of jobs in this town that can promise you that your job will be intact after you come back from Christmas break. I also work the crappy shifts that nobody wants on Thursday and Saturday nights, which are the main party nights in a college town. I guess almost anyone can get through Friday classes with a hangover or at least sleep in and not damage the ol’ G.P.A. too much. I like those shifts because the Flying Tomato is right in the hubbub of Fry Street with the bars and such. All my friends come by and I get to meet and talk to all the pretty drunk girls and give people free keg beer whenever I feel like it. Most of my friends have figured out that’s where I’ll be and they always come by to visit and score free pizza and beer. Everyone’s happy. The pizza place gets someone who works the crappy shifts and I get to socialize with my friends and drink beer and smoke pot in the walk-in freezer. It’s almost like I get paid to hang out and flirt if I angle it right and it’s a good night. I’ve probably given out more free beer and pizza than anyone else in Texas. My friends from the dorm and the hardcore drinkers from the Delta Lodge always come in and I make it my personal mission to send them home staggering. This job is probably the main reason why I know so many people in this town and have so many “friends” that know my name, while usually I have no clue about what their name could be. It’s all good I suppose, the blessings I bestow will come back around at some point.

So my job’s a pretty great deal, the after-hours clean-up is a bitch and I come home smelling like sweaty pizza grease but all in all I could be doing much worse. I’ve even learned the magic trick to get the dishwasher working. Specifically, where to beat on it so that it works like Fonzie’s jukebox. Summer time is slow time now though. Most people vacate Denton after the spring semester and we cater to the small batch of locals or permanent students.

Damn it’s hot. I seem to be getting hairier in some strange paradox of nature. I shaved my legs one time in some weird sex game with Melanie and ever since then my body’s rebelled and increased my body hair quotient. Don’t ever believe those scientists that say shaving will not make hair grow back thicker. My Chew-bacca legs are living proof. It’s probably the heat that is making me notice the strange gradual growth of hair on my belly and nipples. It’s actually kind of embarrassing to me. Damn, I mean I thought all this crap was supposed to be taken care of during puberty when life in general is humiliating. At this rate I will be an ape-man by the time I am forty. I guess most girls are used to male body hair though. I even heard a rumor that some girls find it attractive. Probably only girls with mustaches and hairy fathers or with my luck it’s only European women and I’ll be stuck on this continent forever. Maybe girls have so many of their own insecurities that they won’t notice mine? Whatever.

The swim class that I am taking this summer is going well. I am way too advanced for the beginning swimmer class but I figure it will be an easy “A”. There are people in there that can’t swim at all and I think I could be on the swim team if my observations of the advanced class are anything to go by.

I thought that my swim class would be a good thing for the summer time, but the pool is fucking bitch ass cold. The temperature change is too much for a body to handle during the summer. It’s hard to wake up early and bike, with a hangover, over a mile to my swim class and then get into frigid water. Then I have to stay in the Antarctic torture pit for the next three hours. At the end of class even the fat girls, with all the insulation an Eskimo could ever want, have blue lips and their pudgy skin wrinkles in rolls of pale bumpy tissue.

I’ve been trying to sleep over at Jenifer’s every night and bask in her sweet AC. We sleep well together. Some people just are not very compatible in that respect, they can’t get comfortable when a foreign body is in the same bed. To me that is a sign that maybe you should give the relationship up. Jenifer and I both seem to relax around each other and we sleep without rolling over and punching each other in the privates or something on accident. There is nothing worse than waking up screaming in the middle of the night, holding your ‘nads and trying to breathe.

Jenifer would sleep all day and night if she didn’t have the occasional need to get up and go to work. She works as a nude model in the art department on campus. Yes, a nude model. Some of the taboos of conventional society that she breaks without blinking an eye amaze me. Her complaint about the job isn’t that people ogle her or walk up to her at random and feel it’s their obligation to tell her that they’ve seen her naked; it’s that the rooms are so cold in the art department. As hard as it is for me to believe, to her it is just a job. I must admit that it bothers me slightly to know that the girl I am smitten with has people leering over her lovely nude body in the supposed name of art. At the same time though, I think it’s erotic to imagine her standing there naked in front of a room full of strangers. A room where half the guys haven’t been laid and are taking this class to see someone naked while half the women are in there for the same reason.

The power of the courage she wields, to be able to walk into a room full of strangers and simply take off all her clothes without a second thought or hesitation. To be the focal point of that class period where all the eyes of the room are taking in every aspect of her physiology, looking and scratching their interpretation of what she looks like to them on the coarse drawing paper. The sketched images of Jenifer coming to life are amazing or fail miserably, leaving traces of charcoal pencil on the sides of the eager student palms as a reminder of their imagined secret. The stifled energy and eroticism of those moments in the classroom must be what leads random men to feel the need to let her know they have seen her naked. They seek to capture some of that energy. To make contact with the girl that so nonchalantly invades their nighttime fantasies and fuels their secret evenings of masturbation sessions where they have to be really quiet for fear of waking a roommate, or worse, a girlfriend in the same bed. I just like to inhale part of the energy surrounding Jenifer and witness the way she dismisses these boys. It is so delightful to see. It’s even more erotic to watch her naked and sleeping knowing that there will be some point when she will be awake and alive responding to my touches. Passionate and giving before she goes to pose for a crowd that will never ever know the love of a creature so beautiful. It’s just a job to her but I keep thinking of that ARMY slogan that says “it’s not just a job, it’s an adventure”. I guess the adventure is for me.

I think that I am putting too much pressure on Jenifer by sleeping over at her place so much but it just makes my heart ache to be without her. I know that I should play it cool and try to let her grow more attached to me. I know that girls get burned out easily on the boy that hangs around too much. This love is making me psycho in the head. Every action is weighted too heavily in my mind to be of any use for coherent decisions. It’s a problem to savor.

Jenifer is a total Fry Street girl. It’s hard for me to imagine, but she was one of those damn ‘townie’ high school kids that hang around the Tomato and drink five dollars worth of twenty-five cent soda refills in a single sitting. The caramel that coats some of these kids’ digestive tracks must be ungodly permanent and sap-like in its consistency by now. She’s been back from A&M for a while now and I still wonder why I never ran into her before. Even after all these weeks of getting used to her being in this small town, I am still struck breathless at how beautiful and sexy she is. I thought that I hadn’t seen her before but looking back I remember noticing her once when she was working at Voertman’s, the book store right off campus. I was still going out with Melanie at the time and yet when I think back I remember pausing and noticing how pretty the girl behind the counter was. Not leering in an alpha male sort of way, but stopping and appreciating a brief glowing moment of eye-locking mutual attraction. It lasted only seconds and then I was away to re-join my girlfriend, blotting out the memory, absorbed in her needs and some form of intoxicating substance. I either can’t believe that I didn’t remember seeing her sooner, or that I even remember the event at all. Maybe on that day our fates were irrevocably entwined together, finally finding a way to bring us back together after one mere glance, or perhaps I am just being moony again. It isn’t my imagination that she is definitely becoming very comfortable with me being around. I think that she has realized that I am harmless. Yes, that is how I am describing myself—harmless—and she is becoming more content being my friend at least. It’s a start, even if we’ve never laid down the distinctive curse of being “the friend”.

Jenifer’s even comfortable enough to enjoy a little mild flirtation with me. Last night while I was working the front counter like I always do on Thursday nights, Jenifer’s friend Jill Moppingworth came into the store and said she saw Jenifer making out with some guy outside. Now I had already seen Jenifer that evening and I knew she was lurking around outside socializing giggling and goofing around with Jill doing girl things so I knew that Jill was just fucking with me. Still, even though it gave me weird pain in the heart to hear the words, I knew it was the joke that all girls get around to playing on their boyfriend to see if he really really likes them. Melanie did it by saying she was pregnant and observing my reaction. My slight empathic abilities always let me know when a situation is serious and I know the right way to respond to these things so I puffed up my chest and said “I don’t care” in my best I-don’t-give-a-shit-voice. I knew that this would even out the playing field a little bit and accelerate the relationship between us for the good or bad. Sure enough two seconds after Jill went bouncing outside in her giggly girlish manner Jenifer came in pretending to be mad and said “So you don’t care huh?” in her best pouty/hurt voice. Then we both cracked up and just smiled at each other. It was such a small thing but it made my heart soar. I knew Jenifer knew I really loved her and for the first time and that it was not repulsive for her to imagine me caring that much. The playfulness in that exchange made me so happy. I don’t know how I can explain it here, only extreme love or intense anger can drive the words from an intellectual man’s mind. I had an old grade school “check this box” confirmation that she liked me back. It made my whole night.

I am so self-conscious about her and Kristoff hanging out together because I am scared of him taking her away from me. I now know that if it weren’t for Kristoff stringing her along the way some men magically have the ability to do, Jenifer and I would be together. I am such a stupid silly slave of love. I wonder if I could get away with killing Kristoff? That would just make him into a martyr though. You know, the same way popular girls talk about their best friend and hang up pictures of a boy they never even spoke to in high school after he dies tragically in some drunken binge. If Kristoff died now, her heart would be buried with him.

On a lighter note, my swim class is still a joke.

Auuuugghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I can’t take the depression that comes with this newfound love. I am now thinking of Jen all the time and I get depressed when I am not around her. I have started getting these stupid suspicious feelings even if I know what the score is and that I have no right to feel this way. I follow her on my bicycle and see her at the Karma Kafé most nights. I feel like I am overcrowding her and this is going to be a turn-off point in everything we have built. I even try to play it cool, like I am just going out for a casual evening bike ride in the 100-degree weather. Right. I am such a loser sometimes. I’ve done that a couple of nights recently but today was the worst. I talked to her on the phone this afternoon, which is a weird bonus because she hates talking on the phone almost as much as I do. I am beginning to see the telephones advantage in alleviating loneliness though.

She was at her parents’ house here in Denton and in her sexy southern way she said she was sunbathing naked on the roof and would be there all afternoon. Well, the thought of that made me swoon and there was some definite swelling in the loins from the mental visualization I got of her supple sexy body on the hot gritty shingles of her house. Now there was no invitation in the slightest for me to come over. In fact I think she hinted that she wanted to be left alone for a while and any decent person would have respected that. And being the indecent person that I am, and that I vaguely remembered flying past her parents house on one of our back-road pot-smoking cruising sessions in her car, I got the notion to go for another bike ride. It’s only about 130 degrees during the hottest part of the afternoon on a cloudless day and I decide to casually ride a couple of miles over to a place I only vaguely remember.

Smart.

I didn’t even take the time to think about what I would do when/and if I got there. I just hopped on my bike and pedaled off like a dumbass. Visions of a glistening body lying in the sunshine. Sunshine would be my friend. It was one of those plans that I was sure would work out as long as I didn’t take the time to think about the next step, like a cartoon character that falls only after he acknowledges the lack of ground underneath him. But I’m in love and these sorts of things work themselves out all the time right? Well, sort of. I found the place pretty easily and I rode casually back and forth in front of it for a while trying to work up the courage to approach the house or capture a glimpse of her naked body on the roof, fully realizing the stupidity in my lack of planning.

Sweat is pouring off of me in rivers. I am flushed with heat and the blood is in my muscles not my brain as she answers the door and looks none too thrilled to find me there. Plus I stink now too. The only thing I can think to do is ask for a glass of water which she casually gives me and shows me around her parents’ awesome house. There are all these craft things everywhere, and not the painted wooden duck and “bless this house” crafty shit, but high society genuine craft shit. Her mom has a giant loom on the second floor that she’s used to make these really great rugs and wall hangings. I think this is neat because I’ve seen looms in history books, usually with pitiful pre-child-labor-law children slaving over them, but I have never seen a loom up close. I have a million questions, but Jenifer thinks I am being a dumb boy and bullshitting her. The loom is a wondrous wooden creation with its thousands of threads and tentacle arms. It has probably been sitting up there her whole life and she hasn’t thought twice about it in years. Her dad is a potter so they also have a giant walk in kiln in the backyard for firing his creations and it’s also perfect for disposing bodies if that’s your thing. The way she describes her father sometimes I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he’s been kidnapping and torturing people, searing away their flesh and bones in his giant kiln while he casually makes his pottery. Her dad has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which generally makes him an asshole I guess, but he is probably one of the best potters in the whole world. He’s sort of a mad genius always configuring his own glazes, trying to perfect a piece or else out on the road selling his dish sets at art shows. He’s not the ashtray and vase maker kind of potter if you get my drift. All of their dishes and glasses in the house are his work. As well as the bird feeders in the yard, the birdbaths and their sink basins. She even showed me a dildo he made and kept hidden that her parents didn’t think she knew about. Yeah that’s weird. But I digress.

Like I said, I showed up uninvited and felt sort of uncomfortable and dumb for being there. I saw a lot of Jenifer’s ballet pictures. I knew she was in ballet but I just thought it was the typical girl “my mom made me take ballet when I was two” kind of thing. Apparently she was very very good at it. You have to have the right genetic stock and balance and natural intuitiveness to be great at ballet, which is a rare combination. I must admit I don’t have a lot of appreciation for the art, but I understand a little better now why it is a cultural mainstay. The body mutilation alone that the girls go through to attain the highest levels is crazy. It’s similar to the stamina and training of a martial arts master. The way she talked about ballet with me before made it seem like she just got tired of doing it and quit after 13 years, but today she told me how she actually made it to the point where she had to decide whether ballet was what she was going to do for the rest of her life. She said professional ballerinas often get their feet broken and reset so their feet walk ‘naturally’ on the points of their toes and that all of them have to do it in order to achieve the perfection of the dance. She reached the point where she would have had to do that and basically said no way.

I’ve never heard of anything so fucked up in my life. I mean I could cut off my ears and that might make me swim faster but you don’t see anybody doing that. She also said that they have old bitter former ballet ladies who are responsible for overseeing the “whorehouse”, giving the girls whatever they need to stay as thin and light as possible. They walk around and constantly berate them for being too fat then encourage and teach them how to binge and purge.

Now I know where she got those wonderful long legs of hers, I was smart enough not to say that out loud though. For some reason she’s insecure about them. Go figure. Eventually she warmed up to me being with her at her house and she showed me some pictures of her in Australia and all sorts of things from her childhood that I soaked up. Her enthusiasm was innocent and contagious, she felt relaxed and at home here, but I started feeling creepy after a while. Everything in the house was so purposeful and organized, totally unlike the Jenifer I am used to. She wasn’t out of place among the luxury, if I had the means I would shower her with it, it just threw me for a loop because everything I know about her is the antithesis of this. I guess I got the feeling that the Jenifer I knew was only a role she was playing for a while and I would never measure up to what she was used to and deserved.

Eventually I left but I was glad I went over to her house. I definitely know I should be more respectful of her privacy and I fear that I love her even more than ever because of these new mysteries.

Sometimes I’ll catch her looking at me out of the corner of my eye and when I turn to look she’ll give me a little rueful smile. I expect that she’ll turn away, embarrassed to be caught in the act, but instead she gazes harder with an intensity that’s unnerving. It’s like a tiger sizing up a tasty meal.

It’s very sexy but also kind of unnerving at the same time because it is in those moments I feel as if she controls my entire future and destiny. Then I feel like I have to grin or do something goofy to alleviate my perceived awkwardness. It makes me wonder though if I can really handle being with a mate that is my better, or at the very least, my equal in intelligence. People don’t really look at each other anymore, but we do.

I have no doubt that if we were to have a child, he or she would grow up to rock the world down to its tectonic plates. I feel as if our genetics would combine and mutate to the next level beyond anything normal coupling could ever produce. If that responsibility is ours, do I even have a choice or control over what happens? Who still believes in predetermined destiny? Maybe we should join a cult.

I have to admit it’s getting butter,

A little butter all the time

Have to admit it’s getting butter,

Getting so much butter all the time

It’s getting better all the timebutter, butter, butter,

It’s getting butter all the time.

—Buatles

“…the sound of a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue”

—N. Hawthorne

I had the most amazing, strange and magical evening. Last night was like one of those bizarre artificially contrived Penthouse letters that never actually happen in real life. Maybe my serendipity lies in lustful accord with her universal harmony, for I notice when she moves the stars seem to sway in her wake.

Everything started with a dream I had the other night. I used to write down all my intense dreams during the middle of the night, scribbling furiously in the notebook I kept by my bed, deciphering the lettering later and trying to make sense of it all. I guess I thought the key to my waking mind might be given to me in clues deeply tucked away in my subconscious. After a while I just realized I have a lot of fucked-up vivid dreams that don’t make any sort of sense most of the time. The side affect of my experimental project is that I can remember my dreamscapes much more vividly and the retention period is extended by a few days. If I don’t write them down within a few days the inspiration runs out of gas and the thought is given back to dreamland for someone else to pick up on. I’ve heard of people being able to pick up radio waves with their braces or through metal plates in their head, so I wouldn’t be surprised to discover there are dream waves on an existential plane that we all universally tap into during our deepest sleep periods.

This dream I had the other night though would not have required any special abilities to remember, in fact it would be hard to forget now. I was walking with Jenifer hand-in-hand, without a care in the world, across the UNT campus, right where they have that big square courtyard that is used for absolutely nothing, in front of the RTVF building. It was nighttime, and we were both barefoot. I could feel the dew from the green grass soak between my toes as we left the concrete sidewalk behind us and stepped into the trees. The campus lights were shining down like multiple scattered full moons from their tall poles with their odd neon anti-rape glow, lighting up the trees and buildings, creating deep weird shadows in places that made the world feel abstract. She was wearing a thin blue summer dress that glided up and down her smooth legs as we walked. For some reason I was wearing a button-down collared shirt and khaki pants. Why I was dressed like a prep school boy from the “Outsiders” I have no idea. There were people around as if class might still be in regular sessions this late at night, and I think I was supposed to be escorting her someplace but she was pleasantly leading me by the hand instead. Leading me to some surprise with a seductive smirk on her face. Her long blonde hair practically is caressing her shoulders as we move and she keeps tossing it back only to feel it move forward with its light touch again and again. Every so often she would stop and kiss me deeply, making me very aroused, and then turn to continue leading me again before I had a chance to react and return my own advances. We finally get to some school building that I can’t identify in my mind, and even though I spot some people still going in and out, I know what we are going to do.

Nobody notices us as we slip in, it’s as if we exist in a separate plane of reality not available to the common person, and in a dark hallway, we start to make love. Not the physical sex, but the slow dance of two young lovers oblivious. Jenifer pushes me against a wall and puts my hands around the middle of her waist so that I can feel the muscles of her lower back and the tightness of her stomach muscles as they curve into her thighs. Her dress is so thin that it serves more as a mental boundary or tease than a physical impediment. I caress lower down her body and I know the sensations of my touch feel like static charges on her bare skin in spite of the flimsy barrier. While I am caressing her, she is slowly unbuttoning my shirt and with the fingernail on her index finger she slowly scratches a deep red line down from my neck, to my chest and over my tight stomach. My belt is undone and my pants are unbuttoned by this point, but before they can be unzipped, I spin her around and push her against the wall with one hand behind the back of her neck and the other hand reaching down around the back of her leg, raising the hem of her dress and letting my fingers slide further and further up her thighs until I barely graze her pubic hair with a light caress. As this is happening she is turning and we are locked into a deep kiss. In real life our kisses are phenomenally electric so my dream becomes a mirror echo of reality at this point. I can’t describe what it is like to feel so erotically connected but maybe it will suffice to say our enthusiasm left little time nor desire to stop and breath we were so caught up in each other, our bodies behaving with abandon. We had sex right there up against the wall, with the fluttering ghosts of people trapped in their reality maneuvering around us, unknowing and unseeing, never aware of the glowing light coming from us as we were joined into one.

It was so fucking erotic that I woke up with wet sheets for the first time in years, sad to have my dream end and blearily re-focused on the reality I inhabit everyday with all the other ghosts.

Last night I grew tired of playing it cool and all the loneliness that goes with it so I walked over to the Karma Café to find Jen. She was really happy to see me I think. Or at least she didn’t act like I was a stalker and before I knew what was happening I was listening to the events of her day and then I was babbling like a nervous theater student in his first competition. I was talking about everything and anything, enthralled to have her with me enraptured by my words and when I mentioned that I had dreamt about her she insisted I tell her what it was all about. “Here goes” I thought, “If I tell her this she’ll be looking at me like I collect women’s ears on a necklace or something.” I did my best to get all the details right, to downplay the sex and focus on the colors and contours of the dream. I even laughed and gave possible explanations about why things that seemed like sex might not have actually been sex, anything to keep what came out of my mouth from sounding like cheap porn.

Amazingly she wasn’t turned off; in fact I think she may have been flattered. Some part of me must have given her a window of understanding into what was going on in my head and she saw it was pure, or she began to glimpse how powerful her presence was to me, even while in a dream state. With a twinkle in her eye she asked what I was so embarrassed about. She basically said “let’s go” and led me by the hand across campus where there were still patches of people flittering about, going home or rushing to put in some late night library time. We spent quite a bit of time trying to find an open building that was mostly empty and when we did find an empty stairwell in the bottom floor of the campus computer building we were both nervous and excited. At one point we could have easily gotten busted by one of the janitors, but he went out the doorway a floor above us. It was great spontaneous sex in a public place. It was cheap and tawdry and nothing like my dream, but it was wonderfully gritty and most of all it was real.

Dreams of fantasy don’t have to deal with locked doors, musty stairs, dust, nosy people and finding places to put your clothes where they can be got at in a hurry in case of problems. For once in my life though, one incredible dream of fantasy actually inspired reality.

Ok. I’ve just been deluding myself and living in a fucking fantasy world where I thought just maybe one day the simplest thoughts about what I want out of life might come true. I’m so fucking wired up that I wish I could just cry or scream or find any way to release this madness inside of me. I can’t believe what a dumbass I am to actually think I was actually okay with having HIM be there with her. Out of sight, out of mind my fucking ass! I don’t really want to put any of this on paper but I suppose I should have some historical reference that I can go back and look at and confirm WHAT A DUMBASS I AM just in case I ever forget.

Slowly but surely I’ve been building a solid friendship and relationship with Jenifer. She is the woman I love but we are technically not “dating” and I thought I understood about her and this long-term relationship she has with Kristoff. I guess I always thought that I would slowly be able to fill in whatever it is that he provides her, as I got closer and more intimate in her life. But like everything else about girls, I either don’t understand or they don’t make any fuckING SENSE!

Today, not less than an hour ago, I think I actually felt my heart rip in two. I rode over to her apartment in Cement City after my swim class and her roommates let me into the apartment. They were having band practice and I stumbled past all the amps, mics, cords and other musical crap they have lying around the living room. I’ve been here enough times and listened to enough of their crappy music that I feel comfortable walking around wherever I please in their apartment now. They tell me Jenifer’s sleeping and I’m thinking, how sweet, I’ll sneak in and curl up with her as she rests. I get to her door, give a light courtesy knock and then walk in like I’ve done what feels like a thousand times by now. We know each other well enough that this should be cool. STUPID. STUPID! STUPID!

I walk in and what the fuck do I see but Jenifer and Kristoff, naked having sex on her bed. It was one of those moments where everyone just freezes for a second before time can start again. I mumbled a quick apology, shut the door and turned to walk out of the apartment as fast as I could, her roommates giving me this look that tells me they knew what was going on and didn’t even think to stop it from happening. Those dumb fucking assholes! I was feeling like a whore and I was in a stupefied numb daze, which is why Jenifer caught up with me before I could navigate the living room and escape.

She turned me to look at her and asked me if I was alright. Alright? ALRIGHT?!

She was wrapped in a bed sheet, her gorgeous face flush with sex from another man, her blue eyes deep and glistening as she looked at me with genuine concern. I must have had the hangdog look of the century on my face or a great big flashing neon “worlds biggest dumbass” tattooed right on my forehead. Her concern was sincere but unapologetic, so I just nodded dumbly or said I was okay or something, anything to get the hell out of there. The walls in her apartment that seemed so cozy before were small and cramped all of a sudden. I needed to leave. Right then. I knew Jenifer could see that I was barely holding it in and definitely on the verge of freaking out but she wouldn’t let me go, making me look her in the eyes to see if I was ok before the grip on my shoulders relaxed. I just nodded and I guess the situation had been salvaged as much as it was going to get because I left. I walked right out the door with her standing beautifully naked in her sheet and her roommates watching us like an episode of the fucking “Real World”.

I stopped on the way home and put my hand right into the middle of the biggest pile of fire ants that I could find and just let them crawl over my flesh while I cried, the ants biting and injecting their poison into me until I could finally feel the pain physically. It felt good to feel something again, and it felt good that it was painful. Of course now I realize that was really fucking stupid because my hand has swollen up to twice its size and its full of poison which itches madly, but it was what I needed at the time.

In retrospect I guess I’m flattered that she reacted so quickly to come and talk to me, rushing out of the bedroom in the middle of doing it and all, but what the FUCK! Dammit I feel like such an ass. I know she likes me, probably even loves me because she was scared she had hurt me but even though it’s comforting to know she cares, it hurts a lot more now that I’ve seen them together. I guess I can’t accept her being with him out of casual habit anymore. There has to be more between them that I don’t know about. I’m a fucking fool for thinking a relationship of a month and a half could compete with what they’ve had for so many years. A harsh reality check for me I guess but necessary. I just wish I didn’t love her so fucking much now. Mea Culpa I guess. Fuck it.

You know I’ve always wished I had a widow’s peak. There’s just something about having your hair come to a point on your forehead that says “I am mysterious, I have influential powers of darkness at my disposal.” I think maybe it’s some sort of Dracula complex, I’ve just always been fascinated with somebody’s hair making an independent decision about the best way to frame a face. Oh well, one of life’s mysteries I guess. Maybe the reason I mention the hair thing is because my hair is starting to get long again finally. Last year it was down past my shoulders, a savage blonde mane that I defiantly chopped off half of in one of those spite-my-girlfriend-adolescent-rage-type deals. Most men don’t realize what a pain in the ass it is to grow out your hair really long. All that shampooing and conditioning and combing and constantly preening is ludicrous, no wonder women are all crazy. You can’t turn your head a certain way or your vision gets obstructed, you can’t ride in a convertible or you get knots, you can’t even do anything cool like put it in girly pigtails. If you are a guy there are three options: ponytail, not a ponytail, or stuffed under a hat. Bald men probably would be shocked in disbelief at my heresy (bad pun) but picking hair out of my ass every time I bathe is a constant chore that nobody thinks of until they are in the maw of the beast. My hair is a beast that consumes my head and accumulates smoke, dust and pizza grease juice funk like a wet old smelly mop.

I know I haven’t written much of anything since I found Jenifer and Kristoff together in the sack a few weeks ago, but I guess things have actually gotten more intimate between me and Jenifer since then. Whatever happened that day just happened. We both know there will have to be a choice of some sort soon but we haven’t talked or thought about it at all.

This evening we lit fireworks off the roof of her apartment down in Cement City. Anywhere else in Denton and the bastard police will cut your balls off for shooting fireworks, but they won’t come down to the ghetto. Typical America, but we used it to our advantageous amusement and had a fun time.

Jenifer has a Ford Escort, which she affectionately calls “RedOne” and late in the evening while we were sexing it up in her apartment, someone came by and slashed her tires on the driver’s side. I could tell it kind of spooked her but it just made me really angry with no one to take it out on. It was very strange because we had only been at her apartment for about 30 minutes and she was just about to drive me home when we discovered the damage. She had parked across the street with the passenger side of RedOne facing her apartment, the culprit was probably fucking hiding on the far side of her car and watching her apartment as he cut her tires. Spooky stuff. Neither one of us could think of anyone who was aggravated with her in the slightest, but I am beginning to discover that weird-ness follows this girl.

When Jenifer was at Texas A&M for her first brief year of college, she acquired a stalker. The guy would follow her to her apartment. Once he even cut the power to her apartment, before the police got involved. I guess if I want to psychotically obsess over Jenifer I will have to take a number. Thankfully I’m not that crazy yet, just taking advantage of the time we are together not worrying about the future or pining for my lost innocence and blaming generation X.

What am I saying? Dese Nuts! Time to sleep.

I may not have mentioned this before, but this summer, come hell or high water, I am going to go see the Grateful Dead. This second summer semester is my own time to play with and I AM going to go see the Grateful Dead. Throughout my many acid-filled years living in the dorms here at college and interacting with all the cool people in town, I’ve been hearing tales about how going to a Dead show is one of the ultimate life experiences. I don’t want to go for the drugs, I want to taste a little bit of true “On The Road” freedom. I’m young and I’ve got the stamina and the willpower to complete a cross-country journey, plus I’ve saved a little money to help butter my way across the veins of the U.S. At first I thought it might be romantic to hitchhike, but I’ve never done that before and I’m not sure I would get enough rides fast enough to get up to Oregon and still see the shows.

Sing a song of sixpence, pocket full of rye.

Right now, my worst-case scenario involves me taking my ‘74 VW bug with the flower stickers, the exhaust problem, the funky clutch and flying solo on the trip, but I really don’t want to do that. I could easily get stranded somewhere in the bounty of America’s heartland or the exhaust leak that makes me dizzy when I drive the car too far could cause brain damage by the time I make it to the Pacific Northwest. I explained my intentions to Jenifer and she suggested I put a flier up in the Karma Kafe’ since a lot of people in Denton who hang out there are going to the shows.

So here’s the flier I put up:

I need a ride to the Grateful Dead shows in Oregon

on 8/22-8/23 and/or San Francisco shows 8/25, 26, 27th.

I have gas $$ & pot.

Of course my ultimate fantasy would be to go with Her to the shows. It would be our first road trip together and seeing the Dead would be sweet, but she already committed to going with (gasp) Kristoff at the beginning of the summer. Calm blue Ocean, calm blue Ocean.

Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

I’m actually all right with it. This trip will be a definitive point in our lives together I can just feel it. She told me that she wished she hadn’t promised to go with him so long ago but in a way it’s good. I’m praying it will help her decide she really wants to be with me but I’m relaxed about the situation now that the final cards are dealt because it’s all up to fate I suppose. Regardless of what happens we are going to have a little time together before our vacation/separation and more than likely we’ll see each other at the shows in Oregon but I really don’t know what to expect. Long car trips tend to create a forced companionship that strengthens or dissolves any bond. I’m confident that even if she doesn’t know me yet, she knows she wants to know me and I’ll leave it at that.

One of Jenifer’s ex-boyfriends (another?) who owns part of the Karma Kafe is going and she isn’t promising anything, but she said she would talk to him. I’m hoping to find a ride because I would like to go with someone who knows about the music and “scene” to maximize my experience.

It would be cool if I could find some opium too, but I’m not holding my breath. Among the Grateful Dead fans there seems to be a riptide of desperation underneath the happiness so I don’t know what to expect. The people I’ve spoken to say that this might be the last year to see the shows because Jerry Garcia is rumored to die soon. He looks pretty old I suppose but I don’t know why he would suddenly keel over. Maybe it’s a fan thing, but geez they sure are pessimistic.

Well it’s official, I’m moving out of the Delta Lodge. I am sad to leave a house I truly love but there are some good reasons for this. I’ve written before about how I keep getting sick in the room I’m living in. Even with that it might be tolerable if the room wasn’t so accessible to revelers and hoed out all the time. Plus if the heat abated a little our room might actually be downright cozy for about the only 4 months of the year Texas weather isn’t intolerably annoying. Of course I’ll miss all the free marijuana I get to smoke around here (thanks to someone always needing a nearby room to light up in) but while I enjoy smoking dope, ever since I met Jenifer I’m enjoying being a little more aware.

My second reason for leaving the house, and I’m not fucking kidding about this, are the giant possums that wander the hallways at all hours like ambling diseased ghosts. A literal family of possums have taken over the first and second floors. The front door got ripped off during a party last week and several windows are missing so there isn’t really any way to keep an animal that can climb trees out of an open house. One of my alternative fraternity housemates tried to kill one of the possums with a garden rake but the creature was too damn big. I’m serious, we’re talking at least the size of a medium dog here. It’s extremely disconcerting to stumble into the bathroom hungover, or barely hanging onto reality thanks to varying drug combinations, and find a salivating mangy possum between the porcelain god and me. Hangovers and tetanus shots are not a good combination. And despite what I’ve heard about possums, these motherfuckers do not roll over and play dead like in the fucking Deputy Dawg cartoons. I’m speculating whatever keeps making me sick probably mutated them into a new smarter and larger species. I thought they were cute for about five minutes, then back in reality I learned it’s not really cool in any circle to cohabitate with rodents. Jenifer’s pet rat Rico is the exception I suppose.

My third and most important reason for moving is that I found a new place to live. Jim Heines, my friend from the dorms, and his friend Dan found a neat little house on the opposite side of campus, right by the school. I initially didn’t really think they would find any houses at all, so I kind of off-handedly offered to move in with them if they could find one near the campus, knowing that’s a near impossible task in a college town. But less than a half hour after I sent them out on a snipe hunt they came back and had a fresh pad. The rent is cheaper, the house is cleaner and I’ll have my own room.

Ernie wasn’t too thrilled to hear I was moving out on him, but he understood. I think he is secretly ready to get the hell out of the Lodge also, between the crappy room we rent and me being sick and complaining all the time I think it’s for the best. He’s going to move in with Kirk (yet another good friend from our dorm days) so I’m not just leaving him hanging.

Being poor has advantages. I calculate I can move all my belongings in a few quick carloads. I’ll miss controlling the Delta Lodge sound system from my room with the souped up 70’s stereo system I have rigged up with a genuine working 8-track player. But really, how many times can people listen to STYX in a row before the novelty wears off? Still, the feeling of power that goes along with controlling what people are listening too while they are drinking free beer is intoxicating in its own way. I’ll miss being able to subconsciously influence drunken partygoers and exposing various sorts of people to groups like The Smiths, Talking Heads, The Police, Nirvana, Johnny Cash, Mr. Bungle. And some good old N.W.A. & Easy E. The thrill and novelty of being the music god wore off the night some drunken chick pounded on my door over and over and over until I finally answered her insistent pounding and the crazy bitch tried to come in and smash my Dire Straights’ “Brothers in Arms” disc because she thought it was country music. What a damn shame.

It’s moving day! It’s moving day! The protagonist says gleefully with the enthusiasm of Steve Martin yelling “The new phone books are here!” I am so totally stoked about moving into our new house. There are four bedrooms and two bathrooms. Dan and his younger brother Jerry (Jay) are staying there also, rounding out our numbers to four. Four people, four rooms, what a deal. D & J put down all the deposit and they were able to get their parents to help set us up with utilities and all the other stuff that’s so hard to get turned on the first time. I know Dan from the dorm but mostly from him hanging around with Jim at the Flying Tomato on one of my Thursday or Saturday shifts. It seems like a larger percentage of my friends are alcoholics and I love them for it. They love me for it too, because I have the hook-up for free beer on Fry St., so it’s a fucked up symbiotic relationship I suppose.

There is only one usable air conditioner in the house. A giant motherfucker of a window unit that is in the living room, so I imagine we’ll be spending a lot of our time there. The house does have a lot of windows and we all have fans so we should be able to circulate a lot of air through the house and keep moderately cool. If all else fails, I’ll have no problem camping out in the living room and sleeping during the worst of the heat. Dan and Jay have some old furniture from when their parents redecorated, so our new digs already sport a couple of lazy boys, some carpet, a TV & stereo (w/cabinet) and a microwave. All the necessities. Our home will be a hodge-podge of varying styles and comforts united by a mutual appreciation for B-boy flavor.

Jay got what was/is the master bedroom since he was the one who plunked down the $450 deposit. I took the leftover room that wasn’t originally a room but more like a porch area where the original owner probably kept the lawn-mower. My doorframes have no doors in them. They open directly to the kitchen and Jim’s room so I hung up thick blankets for partitions, we’ll see if this lets any of the cooler air into my room at all. Jim’s room is a lowered out area in-between me and Dan. He has to cut through one of our rooms to get in or out of his room, which is kind of cool for his privacy, but it’s kind of restricting for the rest of us. I’m sure it will work out fine. I know Jim is going to hear Jenifer and me when we are rooting around in the bedroom, but we won’t mind. Jim’s got a longtime girlfriend named Simone and I’m sure we’ll hear our fair share of them going at it also. We are both dirty dogs and we’re both down with it all. Isn’t that one of the long-debated gender separations? Guys will encourage other guys to get their groove on as much as possible while girls don’t tend to support their friends who hop in the sack with everybody very much, but they do like to have one friend who sleeps with more people than they do so they don’t feel like sluts.

My room has a backdoor that opens to the humongous backyard which is one of the best reasons for living in this house. Years and years of previous tenants and typical college student neglect has left a veritable garden of wild jungle attitude right in our corner of the city. It’s muy plush and green and I’ll have to add some of my own special plants and see how they do.

Behind the house, near my backdoor, is a garage apartment. The guy who lives there is named Andy and he’s a pot smoker who is one of those people who are so white that they look borderline albino. Andy is pretty chilled out, he seems like he keeps to himself most of the time. Andy’s an all right guy to get high with, except he critiques the weed and his pot is usually superior to whatever I can contribute.

I’m looking forward to mowing the lawn since I had that chore for the majority of my childhood. The two-year hiatus I took from mowing while I lived in the dorms has stirred strange longings for the grit and grime of manual labor. I think it’s just one of those things that appears a lot more fun after the unpleasant details fade away from memory. I guess I’ll figure that out either way soon. Besides, our little lawn shouldn’t be much of a problem compared to the giant acreage I slaved over in my youth. Maybe I was merely smaller then.

My next ambition is to build a half pipe in the backyard since we have more space than we know what to do with. Dan and Jim are both skaters even though they are a little older and not quite as die-hard about it as I seem to be. Although I must note, enthusiasm and skill are two different things, because I know Dan can shred his ass off when he wants to.

I’m excited to be moving in with Jim, he has a lot of savvy about him that I admire. Our ritual ramblings in his blue Mustang is one of the reasons I learned to appreciate smoking pot. We used to cut out of the dorms most nights and drive all around the back roads of Denton by the airport because it was such a pain in the ass to smoke out anywhere on or near campus. A lot of the roads we explored back then are the same roads Jenifer takes me out on when she gets that restless urge to drive. I have a lot of fond memories of Jim and me driving out by dinky-doo airport, smoking big bombers, hitting the proto pipe, listening to Paul’s Boutique on the tape deck and debating whether it is the greatest album ever. We’ve tripped our balls off on acid a few times and watched the lightning storms approach and rumble across the sky while listening to The Orb. Many philosophies and theorems about the secrets to life were debated and solved during our excursions and now we’re going to be living together so let the good times roll.

In moderation of course.

Looks like I’m going to the sows! I mean shows! Good news. Really good news, since there’s little more than a week left to get there. John Browning, one of Jenifer’s old boyfriends, is taking his giant white Ford Econoline van along with two other people up to the shows in Oregon and California. I don’t know how or why I got this lucky, but somebody must have cancelled on him for me to squeeze in a primo seat at the last minute. The deal with Jenifer and John B. is that they went out for a little while before she got bored. Then I suppose he was tossed aside like a bag of potatoes just like the rest of us. It’s a cruel, cruel world to live in when the girls get used to people constantly obsessing over them. Oh, the blessings and curses of having a sweet ass. Jenifer is one of those rare beautiful women that aren’t preoccupied with how much money somebody has or what they might one day be able to earn, (unlike some people who shall remain nameless) if so I would have been eliminated long ago.

John B. and I get along great. He’s got long brown hair and a fully-grown goatee. It’s not a look he’s carefully crafted as an alternative fashion statement either, his goatee comes from being genuinely unkempt. Loose overalls and t-shirts, a carefree attitude and genuinely nice. John’s the same age as I am but he owns half of the Karma Kafe’, a pretty successful business that guarantees he has major bank. I think maybe he likes me because I’m a fresh face that doesn’t hang out in his place all the time. I think he finds it refreshing that I’m not trying to gloss him over with hippy peace and love while trying to scam vegan sandwiches on the side. Plus we have the bond of being obsessed over the same girl and having to watch her go on a road trip all the fucking way across the country, to the same place, without either one of us. We share the spurned lover bond. Ha!

The other two guys going with us are also pretty cool. We kind of all met briefly, checked out the van and had a little smoke out together. It was kind of an introduction, to make sure I’m not a cop or a dickhead before we travel across the United States together kind of thing. There’s another John with really short hair that plays conga (pronounced cooonga) drums, who is all hyped about finding a drum circle at the shows and another guy named Mike who resembles a red Viking giant. One thing is for sure, if the pre-trip smoke session is any indicator, the marijuana will flow like water.

All three of them know a hell of a lot about the Grateful Dead, which is good because I don’t have much time to cram familiarity into my thick head. My plan is to absorb as much of their music as I can on the trip and attend the shows with an open mind prepared for nothing but a good time. I found out that the Dead let people tape all their live shows anyway so no-one can predict or know exactly what they will do each time they get together and play. Spontaneity, I dig it, I’m all over it. It’s even cool that I don’t own any of their music. Apparently anybody who is a true fan doesn’t pay much attention to the studio albums that the Grateful Dead put out anyway, John #2 said, “the early ones are ok and the rest are shit.” I don’t know, I always thought “Trucking” was kind of a cool song.

I talked to Jenifer and she’s still going with Kristoff and some other girl whose name is Deanna. They are driving in a dookie-brown-colored mini pickup truck so I don’t envy their travel arrangements. Sitting on somebody’s lap is fun for about an hour at the most and can make for an awfully long journey. We’ve talked a lot about how she feels for me lately so I’m lot more at ease about her going with him. Lord help me, I love this girl so much that I don’t want to be apart from her even for a day, but I think a little mini-vacation will do us both some good. Merely a short breath between passionate kisses I’m hoping. Enough about Jen though.

I’ve saved about 300 bones, 100 of which I’ve budgeted for a sheet of acid. Another hundred is to buy tickets (I don’t have ANY) to the shows, so I don’t waste my whole vacation sitting out in the parking lot toking up and listening to wisps of far off music that float outside. John Browning has an extra ticket to every show, so I feel confident we’ll be able to work something out. My last hundred bucks is allotted for gas money, food and any miscellaneous items I just have to have. There is a mini-loft in the back of John’s van with a futon mattress on top of it so that two people can sleep or lie down while two people sit up front and drive. Underneath the loft is where we’ll stash our gear and John scored a lot of wholesale muffins, pastries and granola-type things to snack on from the Kafe. He knows there are going to be some severe munchie sessions.

Minimalism is definitely going to be the way to go. I’m bringing my French Army pack from school. It should be big enough for a few weeks. Anything that won’t fit in there, I probably won’t need anyway, so fuck it. I’m also bringing my skateboard for good luck, plus if we run out of gas it might just come in handy. I can just skate down the shoulder of the freeway and get gas or something. Plus, you never know where you will find a perfectly awesome raging place to skate in the wilds of America. You never really know with the way things are raging in Cali right now.

Jenifer left two days ago. We finally left yesterday and had to smoke many bowls almost immediately to christen the van with positive energy. I’m very high. We all seem to have massive amounts of marijuana with us, each person packing for four or more. I’m ashamed to say that my pot, which is pretty good stuff, seems to be the lowest quality weed in the car. John Spiece (found out his last name finally, rhymes with crease) brought nothing but hydroponic kind bud with him. It’s taken my body about a day to happily adjust to the quality.

Fortunately with the enthusiasm of travel still being fresh I haven’t had to drive much yet.

We had an uneventful first day due to merely heading North through dreary old Texas. I imagine that seeing a van full of long haired hippy freaks sent a few rednecks running for their gun racks, but despite a few second glances we haven’t had any trouble. I’ve recognized some of the same washed up dust-covered cities from travels to Colorado with the Patterson family in my youth.

We finally camped about 2AM in Colorado last night. At a turn off down some deserted road out in the middle of nowhere. I could feel the presence of the mountains, with their comforting earthen rocky feel all around me despite the darkness. The moon was so bright and my eyes were so bloodshot that I was thankful to stop rolling down the road for a bit. It was so fucking cold. If I hadn’t brought my mummy bag I would have frozen to death by the side of the van. Despite the sub-zero temp, nobody really wanted to sleep inside the van, although this morning when I woke up John Browning and Viking Mike were in there snoring.

The stars are just so incredibly bright up here. I lay on my bed of gravel and pine needles last night, staring up into the sea of stars. They really do twinkle and shine. Bright pinpricks and bullet holes of pure light that hover merely a few inches from my face. This may sound pathetic, but as I gazed I couldn’t help but wonder where Jenifer was on her journey. I fell asleep thinking maybe she was looking up at the same stars thinking of me. I am a moony bastard sometimes.

I’m glad I remembered to bring my camera along. I got a picture of me skating on this weird shaped thing outside a rest area today. More of the same driving today but the scenery is incredible, maybe just because it’s different. We are taking pot smoking to a whole new level and I am definitely enjoying this meandering trek we are taking towards Yellowstone National Park. All my wanderings have yet to take me this far into the Northwest. Having a great [sic] time. I brought along my copy of Kerouac to read, but smoking a fat bowl once, sometimes twice, an hour all day has kept me too stoned to read. I’m definitely not complaining. Instead of tuning out the monotonous journey by dulling my brain with the mind numbing solace of a good book, I am riding along quite contently thanks to herbal medicine.

I’m also getting exposed to lots of excellent music. As I predicted, my travel mates overstocked on the mellow guitar music so they were surprised when I showed them all I brought was hip-hop and Police albums, (well CD’s and tapes anyway, bring back the vinyl love man!) but it’s proving to have been a good choice. I get giggly when I think about the image of us as four hippies driving across the country jamming Dr. Dre’s new CD. So far, we seem to alternate between “The Chronic” and The Grateful Dead most of the time.

I’ve got a good feeling; God has definitely blessed this journey.

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

—Plato

Wow. I don’t know if my infantile writing skills can properly describe how incredible Yellowstone National Park (YNP) is. I’m not talking about the tourist attractions that everyone has heard of, although I saw those too. We arrived up in Wyoming about two days ago and drove straight into Yellowstone. The park takes up damn near a quarter of the state and I am VERY thankful to whichever forefather had the foresight to preserve this wonderland.

At first I have to admit I was disappointed because we drove and parked in the area around Old Faithful. There were so many fucking tourists around everywhere it might as well been a fire hydrant in the middle of a city with a big sign saying “Geyser Here”. By fucking tourists, I mean all the old RV people and yuppies in their neon jackets and luxury cars out seeing the sights. The people that they built the souvenir shops and the bathrooms and the motels and the power lines and all the fucking parking lots for! The same people and reasons that Mr. All-knowing Forefather Man set aside the land in the first fucking place to protect it from.

We took our own obligatory pictures of course. Sure enough, the damn thing erupted right on time. Go figure. Some skinny park ranger in a snappy green uniform gave a little speech before Old F. went off, shooting it’s spit and steam into the air quite impressively I might add. Thankfully, John S. had a tentative notion of what we should do and before I knew it we were visiting the ranger station and had a remote campsite appointed to us somewhere out in the wilderness. We got out camping gear together and started following a sidewalk that led to a creaky wooden system of docks spanning an incredible field of colorful hot springs. From the slippery planks we could see deep down into perfectly clear pools of water lined with colors in burnt red and sulphuric yellows. There were areas that bubbled clean white mud and areas that looked like they might be fun to sit around in and drink frozen-drinks with scantily clad women. The air was crisp and cool but the ground felt warm, moist, reassuring and alive as if an area of the Earth was talking to us spiritually. Or maybe passing gas.

When we reached the end of the dock there was a path on solid ground leading away in to the forest. Then the most amazing thing happened. We had walked less than a quarter mile and suddenly all the tourists and throngs of people were just…gone. There was nobody around but us. I learned and discovered that most people who visit YNP don’t venture past the roadside attractions to see where the beauty really lives. A lot of things in life are set up to be shallow like that. Seems I had no right to be angry with the tourists after all—they stay where they are designed to stay—preserving the soul of the land. The map says there are five main areas of attraction, by emphasizing and exposing certain places in the park the rest of it can be preserved. What a beautiful fucking paradigm. Cutting off the foot to save the body.

Ansel Adams got rich capturing the raw spiritual energy of places like this. He was paid well by people who never knew they were hypocrites working toward destruction while hanging their black and white scenery in office buildings in a desperate subconscious last line of spiritual self-defense. He captured spectacular images that need no gimmicks or enhancements to be appreciated.

There was a forest fire here about 4 years ago, I remember seeing it burn on the news and hearing about how it was a tragedy, blah blah blah. Most people don’t know that deep forest needs to burn every so often to get rid of the excess dead wood, open the pine cone seeds and let the ecosystem experience a rebirth. The trail we were on led straight through a vast area of trees that now only resemble charred matchsticks poking out of the ground. The area we went though was severely burned and seemed to encompass everything as far as we could see, yet I knew I was only seeing a small fraction of the overall damage. Having the dead birch trees all around us was very surreal and spooky, so we stopped for a minute to smoke a bowl. I noticed then that the floor of the forest was a canvas of new plush green grass and flowers. The contrasts were so interesting that I took a lot of pictures here, including one with John B. and I pretending to eat a HUGE mushroom we found growing out of a burnt stump near where we were resting.

After the trail brought us out of the burnt trees we hiked through an endless area of old growth which seemed all the more beautiful because of the devastation we left behind. I don’t think I can describe to someone who has never seen anything like this, how overwhelming it all is. I got the impression we could walk for years and never find anybody else. It gave me a twinge of a notion about how desperate or hardcore the early pioneers and explorers must have been to try and conquer a whole continent of this land. At one point we were walking by a pond and there was a huge moose standing there nonchalantly, just watching us hike by. It was straight out of National fucking Geographic. In my mind when I think moose I think Bullwinkle or a large cow creature, but this was a giant beast so large it had limbs from trees taking up residence and growing moss in its antlers. Awesome.

After hiking around all day we finally found our site in a valley and set up camp. We drank our water out of a stream nearby then cooked and hungrily devoured some vegetarian chili—pretty good actually—and smoked the biggest fucking hydro hooter I’ve ever smoked. Between that, the hike and the pint of cheap whiskey I brought along, we slept like the dead. That moose could have walked into our camp dancing and singing and I wouldn’t have noticed.

The next day I got up early, drank deeply from the mountain runoff, breathed the fresh clean air, and just like the Pope I took a shit in the woods. It had been a few days thanks to the road food, time constraints and lack of facilities so it felt good to get the rocks out of my belly, be back in touch with my primitive side, get back to nature and all that business. John S. brought this cool soap, Dr. Bron-ner’s 13 in 1, you can use it for soap or toothpaste or laundry detergent, among other things, and it’s all natural so it was ok to use in the (really) cold water to bathe some of the smoke and travel dirt from our bodies.

Eventually we headed back down the trail leading to civilization after we cleaned up all the trash and mess we created. Real campers pack out what they pack in, it would just be a desecration to leave trash or alter the campsite in any way. I was really sore from yesterdays trek and I thought Mike the Viking was going to pass out he was breathing so hard. We really did hike a long ways out in the wilderness. I felt like a conquering hero returning home when we finally were out of the woods and back at the van, all haggard and beat up from some battle. I don’t know, I suppose it’s the way I feel after a long day of manual labor, like I’ve accomplished something. Not necessarily something significant to anyone else in the world, but something.

We were all smellier and gamier than ever, I needed a breath mint for my armpit, if you know what I mean. On the way out of the park there was a back up on the road thanks to a line of cars that had stopped to take pictures of some wildlife, another roadside attraction but this time it just made me smile. I imagined a lonely animal with an insecure ego stepping out of the woods at a certain time everyday and letting people fawn over it. We stopped and had a late breakfast in a great roadside diner with a giant cow skin couch that we had a lady take our picture on. After a quick poor mans shower in the bathroom sink I felt closer to human again.

I’ll miss Yellowstone, but after a super-sized bowl to commemorate the good memories we got underway again with the wind at our backs and good tunes to spin the wheels. Someday I want to go back to YNP and see even more of the park. I would like to bring Jenifer here. God I miss her so much already. I’m really looking forward to maybe seeing her in Oregon.

Hey Boo-boo, Idaho’s coming up next.

Passed through the spud state yesterday. Dan and Jerry are supposed to be somewhere in Idaho visiting their Grandparents around this time but I didn’t see them anywhere on the highways we navigated. Found a gas station that of all things had pay showers! The shower I used resembled something similar to a urinal from the Mos Eisley Cantina, but it afforded me the chance to wash off a few pounds of dirt and change out flannel shirts. I didn’t expect much for a dollar shower and somewhere out on the open road there is a trucker missing a large portion of his body hair. BLECHHHH. Bigfoot is loose and incognito with a dull safety razor in Idaho. Alert the masses! Call out the National Guard!

We alternated sleeping and driving through the night and arrived in Eugene, OR this morning! Ate a great breakfast at Denny’s then stopped at a local market to buy fruits, vegetables and other sundries. I could tell we were getting close when I started spotting the older hippies buying groceries with their litters of ragtag hippy children. We aren’t on the coast yet, but I can smell the ocean in the air now.

We finally arrived in the parking lot where the show will be and it is un-believe-able. I’m so excited and so unbelievably stupidly high. All I can see are vans and campsites everywhere, all populated with moving dots of people wearing color and flair. A person might think that Volkswagens were the pinnacle and height of design, possibly even the only vehicles ever manufactured, if they were visiting from off-planet. People everywhere here look like I do! I feel like E.T. when his space ship finally came home for him. (I am on some kind of sci-fi kick today). Jim Speices’ girlfriend is here and we’re setting up camp with a few other people we know from Denton. Shane and Cheryl and YES! Jenifer’s here too, my little hippy chick. I’ll write more later, I can see she’s excited to see me and I need to be near her now before I go through withdrawals.

—Evening—

Wow, Jenifer and I talked, eXplored and hung out together most of the day. I was so thrilled; she could have literally led me around like a balloon. Lighter than air, comprende? She told me all about Kristoff getting on her nerves during the drive and that she missed me. She missed me! And it was as if we reacted as if we hadn’t seen each other in years. We smoked some native Oregon hydro that Mike the Viking bought and then wandered all over the place. I didn’t know it used to be legal to grow marijuana here. Apparently there is an entire network of private growers that cultivate the Washington/Oregon/Northern California areas. Police are related to the growers and the growers have gotten involved in local politics and their children have grown up as a part of the cities, helping to make the laws lax and letting the positive cycle continue. Oregon is so cool; I would love to live here. Any state that has no self-service gas stations is all right in my book.

The parking lot outside where the Grateful Dead show will be held is phenomenal. So many people follow the Dead on tour that they only play in places that will designate camping areas and allow people to sleep in their vehicles outside each show. Not that I’ve noticed much sleeping going on. Still, it’s nice for a band to be in tune with their core fan base so closely.

During the day I found “Shakedown Street”, which is apparently the name of a famous Dead album or song, but it’s also the area where everyone plies his or her wares. Sort of a third-world medieval market that runs through a gauntlet of vans with people selling shirts and stickers along with some shadier looking people yelling out names of the various drugs they have for sale. People are selling food and signs proclaiming “Pot Brownies” are posted everywhere. The people that follow the Dead have developed their own eco-system that revolves around goods they sell to visitors, but they depend on what they earn to live. After looking around I kind of felt sorry for a lot of people on tour that looked so run down and haggard. The bright tie-dyes and colors everywhere are like a camouflage worn to hide how hard their life really is. A contrast of severe ups and downs.

I did manage to accomplish one of my goals here. I bought a sheet of acid for $80 bucks. Hooray! I was kind of apprehensive about the whole deal because the tabs didn’t have any sort of picture on them, but this girl, Shawn, a chick Jenifer and I both knew from Denton, was quite obviously tripping her balls off on the shit, so I bought it. It is excellent and very clean. I should have expected quality having bought it from a hippy in an orange VW bus just a few hundred miles North of the acid capital of the world. I’ve never had acid that didn’t have some sort of cartoon character or crest printed on the tabs, but then this is the real deal, paper dipped in pure LSD. Totally clean stuff. The guy tried to get me to give him more money saying he would see me at the shows in California and give me more acid then. I guess I just look gullible.

The parking lot becomes almost a whole new world at night and most of the random hippies seem to have a glow about them now. Some of the gaily-decorated school busses/homes conceal bands that play a variety of musical styles ALL night long. Aspiring rock legends I suppose. I have to add that not all of them are any good, even on good acid.

I’ve mostly just been walking around with a stupid grin on my face that says “hey, I’m on strong drugs” but nobody’s paid any attention to me. Jenifer went off to do her own thing but she’s tripping too, along with everybody else I met today or brought along on this journey.

I think it’s important I give Jenifer her space right now; some sort of primordial mating knowledge is kicking in my brain. If that sounds like rubbery gibberish (ribberish) just blame the residuals.

I eventually found a bus cranking out techno music with a mini-rave going on all around it. There were even authentic little munchkin rave kids everywhere. They must sleep all day because I didn’t remember seeing any of them earlier or they could have all been entirely fictitious. I thumped and danced with the best of them for a while, getting nice and sweaty, until the strobe light started fucking with me too hard. The lady in the bus next to our van shut up about the loud music, waking her kids. I’m going to try and sleep for a few hours, tomorrow is a big day and I should conserve a little strength.

I finally made myself sleep a little last night, I sure didn’t want to but now I’m glad I did because I woke up at dawn to a beautiful sunrise coming up over the forest of green. I slept outside in my sleeping bag under a tarp to keep the dew off. The first thing I did after I pulled on some shoes and grabbed another flannel from the van, was walk down to Shakedown St. and buy some great big muffins and milk for breakfast. I have to say plain banana and blueberry muffins are some of the best tasting food one will ever eat. In fact, I was so impressed I even bought a muffin and brought it back for Jenifer, but I doubt she ate it. She’s one of the most anti-social bad morning people I’ve ever met and for some peculiar reason it’s not a turn off. I find the fact that she doesn’t give a damn in the morning’s kind of cool, plus she’s really attractive with a slight pout-y spoiled girl scowl. I hope she never comes across this because I don’t think she would appreciate me thinking her bad moods were sexy. Sometimes when I look at Jenifer I envision her as a dignified noble woman straight out of some lost ancient time—strong and determined, yet also beautiful and delicate in a land of savages.

I dropped a couple of hits of acid with my morning muffins, so I was tripping full blast by the time the show started in the mid afternoon. I found a seat on the floor with my friends and sat out in the sunshine listening to music. I watched the Indigo Girls open up the afternoon, which was cool. I’ve never been into their music very much, but today it was absolutely awesome. Their melodic harmonies and the familiarity of some of their songs was reassuring while tripping and being in the fellowship of an entire stadium filled with good vibes. People wanting to be happy is addictive.

The Grateful Dead have a lot of good people open for them; last year in Vegas they played with Sting, which may have been another influence in me wanting to get here so badly.

The stage was pretty much set up like any other any other stadium concert I’ve been to except there were giant tye-dye flags waving everywhere. I timed my acid so that I was in another world by the time the show started, but I got really nervous during the break between the Indigo Girls and the Dead because this strange cynical clown walked up to us and started performing magic tricks. Now there was no way for him not to notice that everyone in my immediate vicinity had huge eyes and idiotic grins on our faces, plus he kept saying how he performed for free and didn’t want any money which I know is usually what people say right before they ask for money in some fashion or another. I’ve never liked clowns to begin with and this guy started creeping me out like the clown from “It.” He was being really sarcastic while he was doing these dumb slight of hand tricks and I started thinking he was distracting us while the undercover cops were on their way to arrest us. I looked around and thought I saw a guy in the rafters above the stage with binoculars and I got extremely paranoid. I was tripping really hard by this point in case I forgot to mention that. He finally did get around to bumming some money and left us in peace, which made me a hell of a lot happier.

When the Grateful Dead finally came out to play after the tense session with the clown and many minutes of anticipation I was prepared for anything. I had been listening to non-stop Dead music for the past week (except for small gangster rap breaks) so I was prepared for the laid back country sound they began to play. Truthfully, I believed a lot of the hype that surrounds them and I was expecting to see some maniacal frenzied energy that only a band synonymous with helping pioneer my generation’s counter-culture could produce. I was surprised though. They came out and just began to weave a musical tapestry as if they were already in the middle of playing and giving words to everything around us. I began to see that underneath the bright colors and weariness that goes with this hard life on the road there is a true happiness. These old men who look as if they’ve been on the road wayyyy too long attract these people to them because they love what they are doing. That’s why they encourage people to tape the shows, not because they need to force their music on somebody else, not because they need to continually increase their popularity, it’s because the material aspect just doesn’t matter. It’s a way of showing the audience respect by conveying “we’re sorry we have to sell tickets to see us, but you don’t have to buy our albums and we won’t sell you any high priced t-shirt souvenirs that insult your intelligence, just have a good time and take that with you.” A hidden lesson that maybe the music of life isn’t theirs to package and sell? I don’t know. I see that there are a lot of problems with having a hedonistic lifestyle like this, too many drugs and corruption confuses the message, but sometimes I wouldn’t ever take it to the point where I join the dancing cult devoted to the Grateful Dead’s music. I saw some people today who twirl continuously, around and round, through every show the Dead play, living from message to message in a bizarre hippy aerobic cult.

I just wanted to put down that I got the impression there are a lot of things we miss by not being open to accepting what isn’t necessarily taught. This life is good so celebrate the good vibe all around. Of course the music was flawless but I enjoyed stumbling upon this new philosophy most of all. It’s given me a lot to mull over and think about, especially as it pertains to everything I thought I valued the most. I can sense that seeds have been planted in my mind that may change the course of my life forever. I’m going to go see if I can find Jenifer and frolic.

“And who will save your soul?”

—Jewel

Given the chance to relive any mortal moment again like in the play “Our Town”, I know that today would be one of the days I would choose. I know for a fact now that I have never loved a woman as much as I love Jenifer Lansing and I know now it’s an indisputable fact that she loves me equally as much. Jenifer Lansing loves me and I pledge before my God and any and all other minor deities who happen to hear my thoughts and prayers in passing that she will be given all the consideration and devotion as befits my wife.

Today has been the most bizarre emotional roller coaster that I’ve ever ridden, so I should start at the beginning which is a very good place to begin.

Last night, I slept as close to Jenifer as two layers of mummy bags will allow in cold weather. There was definitely some electricity between us but we kept our hormones in check and bonded closer mentally. I was on one side of her and Kristoff was on the other. Nothing dishonorable occurred; we were all exhausted from the events of the first show day and snuggling beneath the tarp. I definitely was just playing it cool around her (I hope) because (1) any decision for her to make concerning us being together must be done with complete freedom and (2) I didn’t want to piss Kristoff off by making him think I was muscling in on “his” girl and possibly provoke an anger response which might make Jenifer choose me. Actually I was tempted to attempt the second option but that dumb southern mentality I have of “dancing with the one that brung ya” kicked in.

There were a lot of various tensions going on in my mind when I entered the stadium for the second and final show in Eugene, OR. Of course I was tripping, not as hard as yesterday in case any evil looking clowns decided to show up, but hard enough. The show was great; Jerry came out on stage and I cheered like a veteran when he gave his winning smile and started jamming. He really does resemble a big teddy bear much like the Grateful Dead icons depict. Everything was cool. Sitting in the sunshine with my girl, my long hair flowing down my back and wearing nothing but a pair of shorts made from an American Flag. We were totally digging the show when this guy sitting soft of next to us said “Isn’t your name Jenifer?”

I could tell right away it was bad by the look she got on her face. When she turned to see him her dead eyes and relaxed muscles only communicated “I can’t believe this is happening” over and over.

I shouldn’t probably mention that the first time Jenifer ever had sex she was date raped. One of our earliest discussions was about losing our virginity so I knew about the “evil first guy.” I knew how much this guy had traumatized her—as much as a male can ever understand being raped—and I knew how it led to a bunch of different insecurities and doubts in her life, as well as a revulsion that occurs whenever she hears the G-N-R “Appetite For Destruction” album because it was playing at the time of the incident. She never went into the graphic details, and I had assumed she only told me about it out of respect, but I secretly hoped I could ever get my hands on the guy. I would beat him into a bloody pulp for hurting her. This was a confrontation I never expected to happen because he supposedly moved to Washington shortly after it happened. Even though Jenifer, being young and confused, never reported the rape to any authority figure it did happen.

Surprise, surprise. She grew up and he grew up and 6 years later on they’re both on vacation in Oregon and end up sitting less than ten feet from each other at a Grateful Dead concert. Both Kristoff and I could tell something was wrong before she told us, but instead of beating the piss out of the bastard like I always imagined I would, I got scared. Physically hurting him would not have been a problem. I had the size on him and the anger was definitely there for a beat-down, but I got scared, interestingly enough, for her. I knew she was tripping really hard and I was afraid that being confronted by this old trauma would cause her to have a mental breakdown and flip out like some bad sixties horror story. It was such a strange situation going from a peaceful and loving drugged-out state to being thrust into a situation where I didn’t know how to react. It all happened so quickly. When I looked at Kristoff he looked really scared for her too. Fortunately Jenifer has one of the strangest personalities I know. She’s got a measure of control not many people could ever attain, though I could tell the discipline this time was fragile at best, so we shuffled her off towards the porta potties.

Later she told me that being at the “Grateful Dead” show surrounded by so much happiness and good vibes was the only place it seemed okay for a fucke—up confrontation like that to occur. I asked her if she wanted me to find him and beat his ass but she said “no” and fortunately for him (or me) the malicious looks shot in his direction made him back off during the show. His reacting like a wounded dog told me that he knew he was guilty in his soul and the darting of his eyes confirmed it. I can’t really comprehend why he would try and play it off, the fucking nerve of introducing himself as if nothing ever happened. Maybe that’s what the fucker has been trying to tell himself all these years. Maybe coming face-to-face with hostility will force him to finally confront his actions without the benefit of rationalization and he’ll blow his brains out in a bus station bathroom. In retrospect I’ll probably always regret that I didn’t react more violently, but like I said, I was more concerned about Jenifer’s well being.

The show didn’t seem so bright to me after that. Instead of losing myself in the music and sunshine, my protective parental instinct kicked in. The way a parent loses the ability to be free when he or she has their first child. Gone was my piece of a piece of subconscious that naturally keeps a person from being in a situation that renders them unable to protect their loved one.

We made it through the rest of the show. The music was great. Jerry was really on today. I don’t know how to describe a Grateful Dead concert on paper. Unless someone’s experienced a show personally it’s really an indescribable experience, so I will have to hold these memories close to my heart. It’s too bad one asshole had to fuck some of it up.

Afterwards, I walked down Shakedown Street and just took in the sights, knowing most of these people would soon be moving with us south to California. I tried to find some opium but the one guy who said he was selling it didn’t look quite right, so I passed him by. I’m running low on money anyway, have enough to make it to San Fran but not much else. I’ve already bought a lot of souvenirs including a cool “Steal Your Face” patch for $1 and a tie-dyed tour shirt for $5.

Now to the good part. Right around sunset I was walking around the parking lot by myself just processing the days events, contemplating prematurely moving to the wonderful state of Oregon and maybe even feeling a little melancholy for no particular reason. Watching everyone pack up their wares in preparation for next week’s shows reminded me that we have to leave this place soon. I bought 10 sticks of incense for $1—there are some incredible vendors of handmade incense on tour. The guy who sold it to me was packing up his stuff and since I was his last sale of the day he gave me a rambling lecture, one for which I wasn’t really in the mood…about why his fresh incense is infinitely better than store bought incense…but I didn’t pay much attention. I walked back to the tent area in hopes of finding Jenifer, who I had tried to leave alone for a while so she could get her head together. I handed everybody a burning stick of incense, stuck several in the ground around us and sat down to watch the sunset with Jen. Both of us were feeling sad because we would be going in separate directions come tomorrow. I was sitting on the green moist grass, my legs forming a “V” in front of me, my arms around Jenifer who was sitting between my legs. We sat facing West and watched the most incredible sunset I’ve ever seen in my life.

I don’t know how to describe what happened then, but somehow with the sun melting into the horizon reflecting liquid gold off the high cumulous clouds in the sky, somehow with the first chill of the nighttime breeze nipping the air, the smell of various incense around us, somehow with my arms around her belly and my head on her shoulder, my lips breathing warm air on her neck and her hair tickling my nose, I pulled a piece of her soul into me and intertwined our lives forever. Oblivious to whichever people might have been around us at that time, during those moments it was just Sam and Jenifer and the bounty of the world smiling down on us with approval.

Although technically it was not love at first sight, happiness filled a space in my heart that I didn’t know existed, and I didn’t know it existed until I knew that she loved me. I knew at that moment, despite whatever reservations may have existed previously, she loved me more intensely than anybody she had claimed to love before. I wanted the moment to go on forever. I felt that we were as close to perfect harmony as two people can ever be. Spirals of light pure air and DNA were swirling around us with a host of angles fusing our souls.

Now I know that instead of being sad at having to separate tomorrow I’ll be excited at the prospect of seeing her again. Properly this time, with no more fear, because this time I know Jenifer will be waiting for me with equal anticipation.

There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.

—Harry Anslinger, 1937

Unfortunately the shows are officially over here. We pulled out this morning but most of the people had already moved on to the next pasture by the time we got going. Jenifer and I said our temporary goodbyes earlier (God she tastes just like a peach) and the powerful force that changed us into lovers last night hasn’t diminished with time. Several horny Sports Illustrated swimsuit models could parade by and I would have to politely refuse them all.

My crazy road mates got heavily tanked up on whippet juice aka hippy crank, from some guy walking around with a scuba tank of NO2 strapped to his back and some girl, who could barely stand, snorted some X in the back of our van before we left, but we finally made it out and onto the road incident free.

I mailed Jim & Kirk about 40 hits of acid, pressed between two football cards that came out of a McDonald’s happy meal to throw off the Nazi U.S. Postal Service dogs. I’m sure they will be very happy to get the tabs in the mail; it’s sort of a “thinking of you” postcard with a kick.

I’m no longer in love with just Oregon. Northern California is equally incredible, if not more so. I guess maybe I thought that the beauty would stop at the state line? The redwood forests here are incredible. Actually I think they are some other kind of tree besides redwoods, but they are equally gigantic and I don’t know the difference, so the redwoods here are phenomenal. Seeing them in pictures and hearing descriptions about how large they actually are did not prepare me for the reality of their immensity. I felt like an Ewok from “Return of the Jedi” but since it was filmed out here that’s sort of silly to say. I guess I should let it suffice to say that being dwarfed by these monsters gave me yet another conceptual realization of how mortal and insignificant humans really are. It’s no wonder Northern Cali has so many kooky nature cults.

Heading down to San Francisco we pulled over in an inconspicuous spot that John S. knew about from some of his newfound drum circle friends. We all smoked a bowl of hydro with some Afghani hashish sprinkled on top for a kick and then followed a quarter mile path through the sequoias to a natural hot spring smack dab in the middle of the wilderness. The air was pretty crisp, cold enough for long sleeve flannels, but as we came over the top of a hill I found myself looking down on seven or so naturally formed rock pools full of hot steaming water. In the middle of the smoking water, there were about 30-40 stark-buck-ass-naked hippies bathing and cavorting. I’m using the word “hippy” too loosely to describe the people I’ve been around lately but it’s the only non-derogatory word that comes to mind when describing long-haired smelly folks with brilliantly colored clothing.

It truly was a beautiful site and very picturesque but totally unexpected because there were no indications I would be stumbling across naked hairy people in the middle of the most spectacular forest I’ve ever seen. It was a little shocking at first. It was cold out, but after a minute or so, John Browning and I got tired of staring and being the only people dressed so we said ‘fuck it’ and took off our clothes too. I stood on a tree stump in order to keep my last pair of semi clean trousers out of the mud, removed my clothes and soon was relaxing peacefully in the extremely hot and soothing water in between a guy that looked like Charles Manson and a lady with a huge hairy bush. It was a mind-numbing experience while stoned and very surreal while coming down off the acid residuals to say the least. A free relaxing bath is always a bonus on the road and besides when will I ever have the chance to be out here in this area of the wilderness to do it again? I could feel all the strychnine and tension dissolve out of me in the scalding hot mineral water and I just put my head back and relaxed until it started to get dark and the volume of the forest turned up around us.

Maybe I can bring Jen out here at a later date; this magical place would satisfy even her adventurous spirit for a day and get the old juices flowing. As cool as the lady with the hairy bush was, I know I would enjoy the experience more with Jenifer by my side.

The place with the springs is so bad ass that people are not allowed to camp overnight. I guess the man is afraid too many people will stay there, so we’re going to sleep farther down the road and hit San Fran. tomorrow afternoon.

Shit, I never got the name of the place with the hot springs and nobody can remember it now…

“I burn for you”

—Sting

We came to the ocean on the left coast for the first time today while we were driving south. I took several more pictures. I’ll need to buy more film soon. Since John Browning forgot to take a camera I’m taking photos for the both of us. H said he would pay for developing them though. Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour traffic is fun. It’s maybe the first time in my life I don’t mind being stuck in traffic because I like just occupying space on a magnificent historical landmark. Images of a thousand movies with this bridge in them are flashing through my mind right now. I think I can see Alcatraz Island but it might be a hallucination induced by all the killer bud we’re smoking right now. All of us are plastered and peeping the view of the bay and the massive support wires that loom over us. We see countless convertibles and crazy people on motorcycles here in sunny California.

Being a veteran motor scooter rider myself, I don’t normally dismiss people on cycles as crazy, but in California they don’t wear helmets and they are allowed to drive between cars on the highway. It’s strange to see them zipping in and around cars while we are sitting still on a bridge that won’t even let VW bugs drive on it because the wind can blow them over. Somebody told me once that motorcycle riders have only a year-long life expectancy in California, now I believe it. I can already tell San Francisco will be cool, maybe we can ride on a trolley car and sing the Rice-A-Roni theme song.

San Francisco is the coolest. The hills roll along in abundance just like in the movies. Maybe seeing them in thousands of ostentatious car chases on the big screen has made my mind desensitized to how steep they actually are. If I tried to ride my skateboard down one of these monsters I definitely would break my neck, still that isn’t necessarily enough of a deterrent to try. I finally know why driver education manuals in Flat Ass, TX teach people which way the front wheels should point when parking your car on a hill. If our van started rolling here there would be some serious damage.

We parked the van and went off to explore the art district section of town, which is all pretty chill. I found some really neat head shops where there is enough tie-dye to put Jim Morrison in a coma. John Browning bought this really whacked out tie-dye poncho thing while I stood around and read all these books about The Grateful Dead and how to subvert the government using the Anarchists Cookbook.

We are all becoming really good friends but John B. and I are especially close. Hopefully the end of this journey won’t result in a loss of communication, but I suppose one never knows. Sometimes it’s best to take the brief good memories you share with a person and move on to preserve them forever in their pure form.

The place where the shows are being held was kind of disappointing at first. The place exactly resembles the Starplex Amphitheatre in Dallas where I’ve been seeing the Lollapalooza tours for the past few years. Traveling all this way to see the Grateful Dead in an actual concert venue struck me as being too commercial at first, but then I remembered in California there are a lot more local fans to accommodate. Unfortunately the parking lot is also divided into different sections so that all the “fans” can be accommodated, which doesn’t give it as homey a feel as the Oregon shows, but I can already tell this experience will be different in its own way. The shows are going to all be at night here at the Mountain View Shoreline Amphitheater and I’m already tripping in anticipation. I’ve been assured that the nighttime shows orchestrated by the Dead are cutting edge, probably closer to what I expected at the first shows. It’s going to be a different experience and I’m looking forward to it because I sense the same good vibes all around me. No more worries, no more rapists, no more travel. This is the pinnacle of where I’ve worked to be over the past few weeks. I’m running out of money so I might have to skip one of the shows here unless somebody takes pity and “miracles” me. Being “miracled” is getting a ticket from someone on the sole basis that it’s your turn and you get to go. It happens a lot more often than I would think, it’s like I’ve said, “different world, different rules.” There are people who never buy tickets but follow the Dead on tour anyway with the anticipation that, just maybe, some kind soul will bestow the gift of a show on them. This is a religion of sorts to some people. If I get stuck in the parking lot it won’t be a big deal. I can still hear the music and see the freaky people going inside.

John and I just saw a kid wearing nothing but corduroy wandering around in front of the van. He looked so fucking cool that we got into a conversation about how cool corduroy really is. I think if I could only choose one fabric to be in for the rest of my days I would wear corduroy shirt, pants and a hat like this kid. The ultimate in comfort; just me, my baggy corduroy clothes and Jenifer and I’ll be content. Like Eazy E said “I’m the dope man, yeah boy wear corduroy.” I’m going to sign off now because the acid is starting to get intense. I’ll try to write about the show tonight at a later date. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

The last two days here have been incredible. After two nights of intense shows I am in awe. At first, it was very strange going from the daytime shows to seeing the concerts at night, but last night was the best show I’ve seen so far. Sitting in the rear of the Amphitheater on the grass under a “fronda de luceros” and losing myself in the visuals and music has been unreal intense. Really a whole new experience to go with all the new things I’ve already seen so far. Every evening, the moon slowly rises in a huge ghostly pale glow from behind the stage shrinking as it climbs into the sky. It hangs over us protectively until it gets really dark outside, then the screens around the place light up with lasers and slides of different things that morph into other different things. I can tell that California is the Grateful Dead’s hometown because they pull out all the stops and really make an effort to overwhelm the audience. There are a lot of variations of the “Steal Your Face”—that’s the unofficial Dead picture of the skull with the lightning bolt in its brain that everybody knows. I think it’s symbolic of an awakening in the mind created by a member of the band long since passed.

I generally consider myself a very anti-sports person but I found myself cheering like a champion when a humungous “Steal Your Face” with the San Francisco Giants logo in it flashed onto the screens. Jim Spiece’s girlfriend, the long-nosed hippy girl who happened to be sitting next to me, said she “never understood why the Grateful Dead who seem to represent the antithesis of the sports fan lifestyle would use a sports logo. I remember thinking I would normally have wondered the same thing once, but when I saw that image up there, hovering above us all, I had finally figured it ALL out an instant earlier. It’s hard to explain about topics of love and alternative thinking on paper, some people just get IT and some don’t. I realized right then, at that moment, why I held certain prejudices about organized sports and I’m going to have to get these thoughts down on paper in the next few days before it’s lost forever. I used to think I rebelled against the money, corruption and stereotype of the typical alpha male, but rebelling by being a slacker and doing drugs is really its own form of corruption that invites prejudice toward myself. Maybe this world isn’t really “us against them” after all.

At both shows I tripped really hard, big surprise right? During “Space” (the half hour/hour long drum jam in the middle of each show) I really lost myself in the music and visuals. Being exposed to all this experience is changing my life forever. The LSD has peeled away the protective cover of my brain and the warmth surrounding me has been so positive it’s helping me really see things that have always been right in front of my face.

Ha, some Charles Manson-looking motherfucker actually managed to sneak a two foot bong into the show, but just breathing the air around here would get anybody high so I don’t see the point of attracting unnecessary attention to yourself. It’s a good way to get free weed I’ll bet. The rest of the band takes a break during the intermission, so the concerts end up being at least three hours long even though the set lists are actually pretty short. When you really get into the music and show, time seems to fly by too fast.

Last night’s show was definitely the best one yet. There’s no way for me to really describe the way the music is so perfect and how they seem to tune into the audience’s energy and feelings and give it life through their music. I’ll need to see if I can find a copy of that show to buy at some later date when one of the tech hippies has a nice clean processed copy for sale. The bonus of every show getting taped is that there will always be a copy available to me for posterity. I must try and buy one later to play for Jenifer, but it might be more fun to bring her to a night show in person. Listen to me; I’m already planning another vacation with her so it must be serious. What am I saying? It IS serious. J-J-Jane’s getting serious. The last few days have been great but I’m still walking around with the nagging feeling like something is missing.

All the mild advances I’ve been getting from the hippy girls that the two John’s are hanging out with are just rolling off of me like Teflon. The air sure is sweet out here in California.

LATER—more about what I realized in that split second.

When my family moved us down to Texas from the great white North that is Minnesota, I started third grade in a new school. Our first summer in Texas was right in the middle of 1980, the year of the greatest heat wave had since the great depression or some shit. All I can remember was that I spent all summer in the crappy rental house pool the company gave my step-dad as one of his incentives to move us all and learning to mull around with a slow gape-mouthed walk, literally stooping over and beaten by the heat. The grass went from lush green to a wilted deep brown seemingly overnight as sporadic patches of green only existed where someone would damn the water restrictions and succumb to watering their lawn. The television made a big deal about the water restrictions. Water restrictions?! What is that?! Have Texas the lakes dried up? I didn’t know that Minnesota, which practically has a nice clean and clear lake on every block, was an anomaly. I remember checking the calendar gauging the days and trying to determine when it would finally cool down. Watching as the calendar days moved to September and thinking, “it’s going to be getting cold now, I should get out my sweaters’’ Then into October, thinking, “we usually have to wear our big coats for trick or treating,” and I’m still wearing shorts. Finally, November, some relief should come for sure. Then Thanksgiving and I’m still wearing shorts. December? January? February? What the HELL!! There’s no winter here? The Polar ice caps are melting? The world is ending? Hot, it’s hot, it’s hot it’s hot it’s hot it’s hot. It’s like I’m living on Venus HOT! All the time. HOT. My body slowly started to adapt and change. I had pores open up in orifices of my body that it never fathomed actually having to use. It took some time for my body to get the signal down to the vacant unused sweat factories and get them to reopen but once they opened, a deluge of water was constantly having to go into me so it could pour from my prematurely induced sweaty puberty mechanisms. People talk about the awkwardness of telling their daughters about their first periods, well when the time came nobody bothered to tell me about the wonders and immediate URGENCY of wearing deodorant and that was really damn awkward.

In the Fourth grade I moved to another school in another part of the Dallas area, which might as well have been on the other side of the moon. Still to this day I can’t visualize myself in this part of the country and therefore have to ask a lot of gas station people for directions. Half of them gawk that I’m a MAN asking for directions in stubborn testosterone stereotype Texas where “real men” apparently don’t ask for directions; the other half can’t speak English and look at me with a blank look of ignorance that can only say “I hear you jibba-jabbering, but I walk across the street to my job at this gas station. I’m from butt-fuck Egypt and I can’t even give you directions to the freaking bathroom.” My other option factors in the anomaly that there is usually some sort of gas-guzzling minivan-driving soccer mom getting a fill-up outside most gas stations. A slightly overweight (but she’s dieting) big-haired, born-and-raised-in-this-10-square-mile-area (say that part really fast) of the city, who would love to give directions to me because she would be happy to talk to anyone that doesn’t speak in baby talk or talk down to her like her husband does and he works ALL the time anyway so she suspects he might be having an affair because all the kids she’s had, to make him not attracted to her plus she never even pictured having to stay in Texas, much less be driving a minivan full of brats that keep popping out of her, so she would love to talk to anyone who’s male and wants her opinion because her husband doesn’t pay attention or compliment her anymore.

So I usually just bite the bullet, drive around lost and find my way to wherever I’m going eventually.

Anyway, it was in the fourth grade when I was introduced to the fierce competition that always goes along with, and is encouraged heavily in, Texas sports. I probably thought at first that the extended summer had something to do with the drive for constant abusive outside activity to these slow talking folks, but after experiencing the summer seasons’ heated oppression it had to be something more primal that drove the natives, some sort of blood lust that would motivate them to worship high school football and fierce competition in general.

My favorite sport of choice in the fourth grade came from the enraptured feeling of pleasure I got playing kickball. Kickball: all the rules and physics of baseball without the legal liabilities of children hurtling small rock-hard objects at each other. I’ve always been moderately swift, moderately coordinated and uncharacteristically strong for a wiry white fella, so sports like baseball, volleyball, track and especially kickball were my bitches. In fourth grade Physical Education class Mrs. Keys would make us play kickball ALL the time. I became a kickball expert and knew how to exploit the weaknesses of my classmates to excel as much as anyone truly can in the pre-baseball sport.

One of Mrs. Keys’ children died when I was in the fifth grade. He was riding in the back of a pick-up truck and bounced out. I remember thinking that was a really terrible thing at the time and I remember my friend James telling my mother that at least Mrs. Keys had other children so it wasn’t a total loss. James with his amped up hyper-intelligence was always very pragmatic and callous because he was raised in a large Catholic family.

Anyway, we had a substitute for a while that led the P.E. class and she knew absolutely nothing about physical education of any sort. I’m sure it isn’t particularly hard, you either give the kids free reign or organize them into teams and let them beat the energy out of each other. This substitute had us playing kickball one time and when it was my turn I booted the ball way off into the distance, determined to go for the homerun. My competitive spirit was in full bloom and I was a blond-haired golden god who could run like the wind. It was close but the ball came in as I was rounding third base. I was running towards home plate and saw the kid catch the ball and try to get a grip on it to tag me out. Going full throttle I ran at him and as he prepared to tag my chest I went under him, hitting a patch of gravel, and sliding with my bare skin over the hot blacktop into home plate for the run. It totally fucked my shit up. I was crying and had to go see the nurse and tolerate her dabbing my entire fleshy leg in peroxide. I got patched up and sent back to the field only to find out that the sub had called me OUT, despite effectively avoiding the tag while sustaining my injury. I argued. I showed her my bloody leg. I practically pleaded with her as she just moved the game along to making my run’ count to no avail.

As I sat tripping in the field of the final dead show in California I had an epiphany watching the Grateful Dead’s graphic displays on giant television screens, while they played something or other I didn’t recognize. In that split second of time I remembered everything about what I just wrote down, finally realizing why I hated sports so much for all these years. What I thought was an unbiased educated dismissal of an entire community was actually only a response to an inadequacy from my past. I realized every bad sports memory I have was a device of my own creation as a result of my feelings from one single stupid incident. I would never have associated disliking sports with childhood trauma but once that thought was acknowledged I couldn’t turn away from the truth. I have been playa-hating, literally, for most of my life based on an elementary school memory so deeply rooted only the perfect combination of meditation and hallucinogens could have brought enlightenment to the surface. How can I hate something that simply is? All the experiences of my life have immersed me in the joy and complex simplicity of life so why am I devoting my angst and ire to something I have no control over?

So, I guess maybe I’m probably the only person in the world who learned to re-appreciate sports at a Grateful Dead concert.

The “Steal Your Face” with the San Francisco Giants logo in it. Everything finally made sense in that one instant, like I had made a connection to the world. It gave me a lot of things to think about. It helped let me give up my fear and wrong thoughts concerning sports. The bitterness left me. I even understood I didn’t need any more LSD. I had used it to get where I needed to be and now I have a bit of things to think about.

Looking back, I think maybe I was soul searching a little when I decided to take this trip, but it turned out to be far more enlightening than I ever expected it could be. Ever since coming to college I’ve been aware that there is so much more to life than just dreary old Texas towns. This is a knowledge that has motivated lots of different road trips and mini-adventures, each of which has helped to expand my consciousness and make me a much more well-rounded person. Being poor and willing to travel unaccompanied by the comforts of home (that’s a laugh) has helped me to avoid the Teddy Roosevelt method of exploration where everything becomes sanitized. I’m a firm believer in total immersion and this trip has been exemplary. I’ve done and seen so many cool new things and I finally got the chance to let go and fall truly and deeply in love with reciprocation. So while I’m sad my vacation is nearly over, I’m tired and looking forward to being wrapped in Jenifer’s loving embraces again. It’s a good feeling to know that somebody is waiting for you at the end of a long hard road. Like a soothing shower after a long day of manual labor, a small slice of heaven. (Cue the Crue here) “I’m on my wayyyyyy…”

The last show for the season in California was excellent but I’m beginning to think too much of a good thing might spoil me. I didn’t want my tired body hardening my brain against everything I should be appreciating and enjoying so I feel we’re heading back to Texas at the perfect opportunity. Besides the summer shows are all over now, so there’s really nowhere left to go. I wonder what happens to the caravans in the off-season?

John S’s girlfriend is heading to Austin to see the Phish shows and she did her best to talk us into going too. I can tell my three traveling companions wanted to go and I felt like a dick for having to be the voice of reason and explain how we are all out of money and energy and there’s no guarantee we’ll even get to see the shows. I could have probably been talked into attending also (those wily hippie chicks!) if I didn’t have the sense that Jenifer is waiting at home for me in anticipation. Besides I’m afraid my experience seeing the Dead will dilute any experience I have seeing Phish and I’ve heard they are worth appreciating.

Winding home has been very, very strange. Police are always a problem for a van full of long-haired people but I’ve been especially nervous because not only are we still stoned silly, but now I’m transporting the leftover ten or fifteen hits of acid from the shows with me. Instant felony, just add police.

Nobody paid much attention to the gas gauge because we were all so fucked up on the last of the kind bud and hash we smoked in New Mexico, so we ran out of gas and came to an awkward stop on the highway in the middle of butt-fuck Egypt. Everybody just kind of looked at each other in disbelief and things were looking kind of bleak because there wasn’t anything even remotely like a man made construct as far as we could see and nobody was stopping to help four smelly hippes. Then a cop car pulled up and started fucking with us. Pushing us around, the officer was asking what we were doing (ran out of gas, duh!) and the kinds of the questions that usually preclude wanting to search the car. Things were getting way serious when all of a sudden, this crazy Christian man, wearing overalls and driving a beat up blue pinto, swerves around the highway and zooms onto the scene. He gets out and immediately takes over the situation, thanking the officer for stopping to help us even though it was quite obvious to everyone that’s exactly what he was NOT doing. Then from some magic Pinto place in his car he pulls out an extra can of gasoline that he just happens to have with him to help us get down the road to a gas station. While we’re putting the petrol in our tank the bible beater actually gets the pig to leave by intimidating him with Bible verses and that psychotic faithful intensity only a true believer can posses. If the guy weren’t so obviously loony tunes I would swear it was divine intervention. God is good and he surely works in mysterious ways. If I hadn’t been so loopy, the situation would have been a lot scarier and John B was so grateful that we didn’t have to go to jail he gave the guy his last $20 for helping us out.

As bad as that was, I was put in an even worse situation the next day. We were all tripping during the final day of driving towards home and I got elected to drive because I had been on acid the most during our whole adventure and stupid logic dictated I likely had the most immunity. Actually, I volunteered to drive after everybody smoked a fat joint and it looked like we were either going to sit on the side of the road laughing our asses off all day if I didn’t drive. Everything went fine during the day while I was peaking but after dark, wouldn’t you know, I got pulled over by a State Trooper for having only one headlight. One of the big halogens in the van burnt out at some point and nobody even noticed. I was scared shitless because I just knew the officer would see my eyes were dilated and then everything would get seriously fucked up, but God must have seen fit to bestow another blessing on me. I gave the officer my driver’s license and John’s insurance, which was thankfully all in order, and then he made me get out of the car and walk around with him and then sit in the passenger side of his Camaro crotch rocket State Highway Patrol car. I thought I was going to freak out and die right there because my acid started kicking in again really strong thanks to all the nervous adrenaline coursing through my body. I’ve never had a ticket where the cop made me sit in the front seat of the police car while he wrote it and I did my best to present the polite vacation innocent college kid image to him, but I was so tweaked that I couldn’t help but ask about all the magical glowing computers, radar detectors and other futuristic cop gadgets that were blinking and flashing their hypnotic lights from the dashboard in front of me. If I hadn’t been so nervous it would have been really fucking cool but I had to really focus in order to myself to keep from wigging out. Everything turned out okay though I got a ticket and we stopped at an auto parts store to change the light bulb. Viking Mike accidentally dropped the old bulb in the parking lot of the auto store and we had to burn out of there when the manager threatened to call the cops. Everyone was officially weirded out by that point so John B. used his credit card to spring for a motel room so we could stop driving for the night. I should get home fairly early tomorrow, showered and refreshed. I’m anxious to sleep in my own house in my own bed and recover from my vacation.

I get to see Jenifer tomorrow!!!

I’m in a state of Buddha-like bliss. The adventure I just completed has served to remind me of the little things I take for granted in my ordinary drudgery. Got home. Felt good. I immediately called Jenifer and she came right over with the most bouncing schoolgirl cheerleader enthusiasm I’ve ever seen in her. I swelled up with so much pride and love, all I could do was just hold her and kiss her for the longest time.

Oh God, when I finally held her in my arms and inhaled the scent of her skin, after what seemed like an eternity of separation, I wanted to pull her body into mine. Feeling the muscles in her back and tasting her lips makes me know for sure I’m with the girl of my fantasies. I have a woman every young boy would promise his soul to the devil for a chance at, and she wants me as much as I want her. It’s as if the excitement and danger of finding my old man’s ancient Playboy collection is suddenly real life. We couldn’t control ourselves after the weeklong chastity belt was suddenly released. Need took over, a need for each other accompanied by a mutual relief we both felt, knowing that when the Earth moved for us we were both aware and we were still reveling in playing with our gift of each other. Intense. Intense. Intense.

When I finally entered her, it felt as if I was parting the oceans of the world.

When time finally slowed down again and other awarenesses intruded into our dimension we talked for a long time about what we had both been doing during our time apart. Jenifer told me how she had been telling everyone with giggly (that’s my word, not hers) enthusiasm “Sam gets home today,” which made me glad I made the effort to get back to Denton so quickly. I know that from this moment on we will be together but instead of feeling penned in and constricted, I feel free. My soul mate, my lover, my companion, my partner in crime and extension of me. I’ve never felt this strongly attached to a girlfriend, truthfully I didn’t think it would be possible to find a woman that I respect as an equal. I’m not sure I’ll be able to take care of somebody else, not being fully able to even take care of myself, but I want to give it a try and help her take care of me. Sorry I’m rambling. I’m spinning in a post-coital bliss, dizzy with love I guess, but it is soooooo right.

Jim got the acid I mailed and he agreed that it was really good shit. Kirk and Jim went on a tripping binge and Jim must have done about 20 hits in the week or so I’ve been missing. I think I went through about forty myself so there are plenty of extras for later use. I’m a little burned out, but my mission of getting killer LSD has been a decided success. I returned home from my sex-capades to an outcry of enthusiasm and thanks from the house.

Tonight will be a night of rest. A full menu of watching rented movies on the VCR, lounging in the La-Z-Boys with the lights off and smoking massive bong hits out of “Skeletor.” It’s good to use the bong again, even if I’m back to regular schwag weed for a while. It’s good to be back.

Sorry to myself for taking so long to write (yet) again. I’m still having a great summer. Jenifer and I are falling into a comfortable routine of work and discovering each other in new ways during our leisure time. Both Dan and Jim have Hi8 camcorders, which I’ve been fucking around with a lot, but not as much as I would like to. I am officially an RTVF major now so playtime has purpose and thus isn’t playtime any longer.

The other day, we all went skating in this great sewer pipe one of Dan’s friends told us about. We set up the cameras and videotaped the whole session. It was fun but watching the tape at home later I realized how much I suck at skating. Well I don’t really suck suck since I am out there doing it but halfpipes are a fairly new genre for me. I feel like a poser street skater most of the time. Later on, sitting in the lazy boy, smoking pot and watching us cruise back and forth in slow motion with our arms waving ungracefully around in the air for balance made Jenifer and I laugh a lot. She’s working at the Flying Tomato with me now but she hasn’t been there long enough to get on the cool shifts yet. And NO I do not feel threatened having a workplace relationship. We’re now both sick of eating pizza for every meal except for the occasional late night binges on roofies.

I bought a half pipe skate ramp from some kid in the pizza shop for $50. I’m not sure yet how I’ll be able to move it across town and into our massive backyard but when I do it’ll be totally bitching. Do people still say that? I think if I can cut the ramp into three pieces, lay each piece over the bed of our friend Sweeny’s half-ton pickup, manage to find about 12 people to help lift it one piece at a time on and off the truck and maybe if I pray hard enough to the gods of architecture, we should be able to get the whole damn thing back together. Hopefully it will be all good. I watched some guy fall on his arm wrong the other day and listened to the sickening snap and look of disbelief as he stood up and his arm just dangled by his side in a deformed manner. Some girl with a car hauled him off the hospital but I don’t think he’ll be skating for a long time. That first glimmer of mortality in relation to a fun pastime kills a lot of the enthusiasm in real skaters. My first glimmer of mortality happened when I thought I was only play fighting with a kid named Joel Hopkins on the playground in Elementary school. He got genuinely pissed and put me in a headlock with his thumb in my eye. I remember being pretty shook up and thinking about how creepy it would be to lose an eye in some stupid playground skirmish. After that I only got into one fight in school and that was much later in high school because I made fun of a Mexican girl in my P.E. class and I pretty much deserved a sock in the eye from her boyfriend for that I suppose. No harm, no foul. Since the original eye thing there have been a progression of confrontations with my mortality, but fortunately nothing associated with skateboarding yet.

Dan has started working at the Tomato with Jenifer and I, so it will be a family thing soon. The only thing is, I hate having the inside track to getting my friends such a shitty job. They might eventually all blame me for the hot labors at low wages, get a mob together and storm up the hillside to burn down my castle. It’s just so damn hard to find a job up here that makes any money. I’ve been here over a year at least and still make under $4 an hour!

In addition to the boring problems in real life it’s gotten so that sometimes I’m so sexually charged around Jenifer it’s unbearable. Maybe I just hit puberty late and my hormones are kicking in after age 20. Deep down I know it’s all her though. If somebody could figure out a way to harness the energy we expend having sex, the world’s power shortages would soon be nonexistent. The electric company could just pay us to stay at home and hump. Do it for your country! For the record, it isn’t just me pushing her to “do” it all the time either. We just naturally rut around like monkeys mostly in the afternoon or evening. I love having sex in the morning and I’m sure that she just gets sick of me gently caressing her special no-no places until I get her all randy and she wakes up, but that’s because I wake up a lot earlier and I am still so thrilled to find her in my arms. I only have the tiny twin-sized bed so we sleep entwined around each other like boa constrictors. I love sleeping with my arms around Jenifer’s sexy waist or having her head in the crook of my arm and feeling her breath on my chest. A lot of mornings when the sun is shining onto our bodies through my grimy windows, I’ll just lie there and watch her sleep or listen to her breathing and feel her heartbeat pulsing just underneath the surface of skin on her lean body.

You know, as aggressive and comfortable with her body as she is, like all women I think Jen secretly needs me to take the initiative and suggest wild things to keep some electricity alive. Boy, that wasn’t an egocentric statement was it?

Today we used Dan’s video camera to tape us having sex in my room on my 1960’s looking flower pattern sheets. We did every thing and every which way a person would want to do that thing. It was all very passionate and enjoyable and it seemed as if everything we did was intensified because we were always aware of someone watching. I guess the someone would be our future selves, but that gets a little too Star Trek-y. We were finally through after an hour or two so we smoked and watched the tape which started another round of lovemaking. Watching the tape, still out of breath from making it was very erotic. Not in a cheap exploitive kind of way either. Other than the mild embarrassment every girl feels about see- ing their body as others do, it really turned her on and that’s what it was supposed to do.

I transferred the Super 8 tapes to VHS and gave her the copies so she wouldn’t regret doing it later. It’s the only gentlemanly thing to do and I really don’t plan on ever running for public office anyway.

School is starting up again but my thirst for education isn’t ready to be quenched quite yet because I’m having the slacker summer of my dreams. Still it’s good to have some outside force motivating me so I don’t feel like a total bum. The house is starting to fill up with the smell of overpriced textbooks and lots of cool stuff. A regular four man bachelor pad of kitsch with things, that other people might consider tacky, everywhere. Barnum and Bailey circus posters, a giant Star Wars poster from an ancient “World” magazine and a truckload of Beastie Boys paraphernalia adorn the walls. We have a typical stoner pad I suppose, although Jerry and Dan don’t smoke pot they drink enough to feel the groovy vibes with us. I’ve got a $20 TV, that I bought off some student desperate for cash near the end of last semester, hooked up to a Super Nintendo (Jerry’s) near the entertainment center, so it’s on like mother fucking Donkey Kong baby! It’s cool to have a house I can molest with all my eclectic artistic enthusiasms. The walls of my room are slowly getting covered with the cool pictures I cut out in anticipation of future collages. My first year in college I made detailed flyers every week for a fake band I made up called “Smoking Tool.” I wrote reviews of the “Smoking Tool” shows for the local paper and I posted the upcoming show flyers all over town, which was a lot of fun until somebody saw me posting them and aggressively wanted to know why my band didn’t show up to such and such place as advertised. I guess some of the bars and clubs just let whoever makes a flyer play there on the slow nights. With my anonymity burnt, the band broke up and I learned that unless my creativity is directed or focused it often turns to mischief.

In my second year of college I made giant collages (that held weird secret subliminal messages under a black light) out of pictures, shaving cream, cigarette butts and lots of spray paint. I actively channeled my energy into those projects; defacing a large percentage of the dorm hallways and losing my deposit in the process until I entered a picture in an art show and watched it lose out to actual art students. I later learned that the art professors are the judges and always choose the winners based on their students’ projects. A lot of times they even give them the idea and help them develop it in class. I do not mind not winning, originally I was just thrilled to have a picture hanging in the UNT art show, but when I found out later that I didn’t even have a shot at winning because of the politics that are involved with being a successful artist, my enthusiasm for painting diminished a lot. Instead my ‘art for arts sake’ is much better, but more performance—oriented now. My creative energies are channeled into randomly (yet artistically) throwing eggs at the cars in the teacher parking spaces of the art building parking lot. That way the professors can help me with my projects too. My newest creation is to make their cars smell terrible to symbolize the oppression of the constricted establishment. Plus I like to throw eggs. I would say lately I’ve been more occupied and satisfied with experimenting on the canvas I live in. Life.

Jenifer’s been sort of bummed out lately because she’s going to have to give up her apartment on Stella. We’re still together all the time, virtually inseparable, but her roommates have been flaking on helping pay the bills so she’ll be moving back home for a little while with her parents. I suppose the notion of being back with her dad has a lot to do with her being so depressed. Her house is beautiful and huge that it has to be the parental units bumming her out right? I’ll miss sleeping over in her private air-conditioned room but the summer will soon be over and my porch room is much cooler than it was. I told Jenifer that her and her snoopy dog can stay with me anytime, I guess it was something she was worried about because her eyes lit up in that provocative way she has about her. Shit, if I had my way I would have her move in and marry me and bare my idiot children: I sanely keep my mouth shut and enthusiasm contained.

Fourth of July today. Spent most of it by myself drunk. Very drunk I might add. Drunk now. Dan and Jay went to some family thing and Jenifer’s off somewhere. I bought a watermelon earlier this week and a bottle of Everclear and ‘made a watermelon’ if that makes sense. You know, cut a hole in the melon and pour all the liquor inside? So I’ve been sitting on the front lawn in a lawn chair wearing nothing but my skivvies, jamming to classic rock on the radio and trying to count cars while my brain is all fucked up.

I think everyone caught out because they knew I set this day aside to raise hell. I have to go inside to take a bong hit every once in a while but otherwise I’m crisping in the sun until I eat this whole fucking watermelon while celebrating America. How fucking 70’s. Fuck this journal, I’m going to get the BB gun out.

I woke up sicker than a mug today. Grain alcohol isn’t something to be trifled with and I will never eat watermelon again. Ugh. I won’t even reread what I wrote, I only vaguely remember doing it.

It wasn’t even July 4th. Ouch my head.

I think I’m coming down with a cold. It might be good to de-fumigate the lungs for a few days but smoking out makes everything so much more interesting. Jenifer and I have been eating over at her parents’ house a lot lately. The fridge in my house just has a lot of condiments and beer, actual substantial food items don’t seem to stay around very long. Hopefully pizza will be included as one of the four main food groups soon. I love eating at her parents’ house because they always order out and I get to eat good food for a change. Even when we don’t eat take out they cook a lot of vegetables, homemade bread and a lot of other food I was raised on.

Jenifer’s parents cater to whatever eccentric food desires she verbalizes, probably because she’s an only child. It’s so cute to see her make faces and adamantly refuse to eat anything remotely foreign to her. Maybe later on in our life this will be a trait that grates on my nerves, but I’m so in love with her that I tend to find it delightfully enduring. I love getting a chance to cook for her, I try to introduce regular foods to her that I thought every American kid was required by law to like, and then I pretend to be hurt when she won’t eat a lot of whatever I cooked. It’s sick, but I live for the enjoyment of actually finding something she enjoys. It’s a very rare enjoyment though. Part of the not eating thing is that in her mind she’ll always hear the ballet instructors telling her she’s too fat, Jenifer would look even more stunningly voluptuous with a few extra pounds on her. Maybe it’s some secret male urge I have to fatten up the women so they’re easier to catch. I don’t know, I doubt it.

I was nervous the first time I went to eat at her parents’ house. Both of her parental units are polite and nice, despite the various horror stories I’ve heard about her obsessive-compulsive father. Jenifer’s mom is a librarian and Jenifer reveres her with all the “can do no wrong” enthusiasm usually reserved for a girl’s dad. Her mom is well read and I like her alright, but she looks or just reminds me of a short Sigourney Weaver. I keep expecting her to whip out a giant gun and kick some alien ass but she’s too subdued, in a way that only middle class white people can be, to really expect that. I’ve described the house before, I just feel like I should reiterate how much I dig eating lots of good hot food on their couch, facing the big windows that open to their backyard with all of its busy birdfeeders and watching the cable TV in the corner. It’s all very peaceful and serene, comfortable and hidden away like a Japanese garden. Jenifer always eats until she’s stuffed over at her parents’ house—which isn’t much—then she stretches out on the floor right in front of us and takes a nap. Her parents seem pretty used to her napping and even though it isn’t very proper of me, I always like to look at her sexy body when she’s lying there in front of us.

I took Jenifer to eat at my parents’ house and felt embarrassed about their stupid sit down dinner structure after witnessing Jenifer’s parents treat her like an actual adult person. Maybe my parents still feel like they have to try and set an example for my little sister Alecia but they need to fucking relax with all of us every once in a while. My mom even gave me that same melodic teasing “Sam’s got a girlfriend” bullshit I got all through high school. I don’t mind though, Jenifer will likely be my wife one day. I think Jenifer’s nose ring scared them a lot at first and I’m glad. Shock ‘em into the nineties I say, it’s sexy on the cool. My little sister made me angry by confiding she didn’t like Jenifer as much as my old GF Melanie, but I’m inclined to think it was just the unfamiliarity of integrating a new person. I can tell Alecia is warming up to an older sister figure that treats her as an equal. I would say it’s cute but I don’t want to be too repetitious. So now our families have accepted us, what’s next?

PART II

TRAVEL, HABITS and LIFE

Hey again me! Guess what? I finally did it. I cut the long shaggy mane that I’ve been keeping in a ponytail and tucked under my Baskin-Robbins hat for too long. I finally figured out that I wasn’t going to use it to shag the ladies anymore and it’s so hot that it was no-longer convenient to sacrifice style for comfort. Cutting off the hair has been on my mind for a while and I must have been whining about it a bit, because Jenifer point blank asked me if she could cut it. Probably just to shut me up.

I could tell that cutting hair is something that Jenifer really feels like she should be able to do and that this was very important to her. Not only would I be trusting her with my hair, it would also be synonymous with the trust we have placed in each other and in this relationship. You know how girls can equate the weirdest things with the status of feelings for each other? Jenifer is a cool girl but you can’t overcome biology and female “hormonics.” “Hormonics” is my new word that mixes dynamics with hormones as pertained to females in relationships.

I did make sure to ask her about what her initial cutting approach was going to be and offered some pointers. Hey, when you are a guy with long hair you get all kinds of shit and it takes really long fucking time to grow and look halfway decent. My mom has been giving me crappy bowl cuts for years, so I’m entitled to be nervous when a hair chopping virgin is going in for their first time.

We did this the other night on the front porch of the house so I wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of finding a broom. The hair can breakdown and fertilize the lawn with its leftover traces of marijuana and LSD for all I care. I got a camera and took pictures so I could do a before-and-after kind of montage and make it into one of my art collage projects. I got the “before” picture just fine, and notice how I’ve only mentioned Jenifer attempted to cut my hair shorter. Who would have thought that it actually takes practice and a modicum of skill to merely cut hair? I sort of suspected that this might turn out badly and if I wasn’t slightly prepared to take it (“it” being my motherfucking wig) all off before hand, I wouldn’t even have brought it up as a suggestion.

We combed my long dirty blonde hair all down in the back first, making it sort of resemble a country stock-car racing fan hair-do. Then Jen took the scissors and while the hair hung in mid-air, poised for one last show of Nordic sexiness, she cut a straight line right across the back removing the longest portion all in one neat swoop. Well that was the intent anyway. In reality she fucked it all up with our dull and rusty kitchen scissors leaving me with a half chopped back head with an uneven line. A little adjusting on one side led to more adjusting on the other side until most of it was gone. The blood from my lovingly nicked ear gave it a tad bit of color and fun though. I am in love and thus my patience is near eternal. I say that as I write this later because I’m fairly sure I squealed like a stuck pig when it happened.

As any girl will tell you, the process of cutting long hair to short hair is a BIG deal that goes far beyond the actual hour or so it takes to physically cut the hair. The psychological preparation and after-effects of any radical change of appearance are predictably long-reaching for women and men, but it’s a thousand times worse for women. Cosmo probably has received a thousand tearful letters from women across the country about occurrences with hair stylists after cutting off their long locks, and most of those women have had the luxury of having their hair cut by a professional. I certainly didn’t maliciously want Jenifer to fail, more for her psyche than for the preservation of my overindulged image, but her “it looks so easy” quickly turned into apologies. Jenifer was in tears by the time she quit in frustration, thinking I was angry with her, and my fucked up grinning shaggy head wasn’t doing much in the way of being comforting.

Oh sweet Jenifer, how could I ever be angry with you?

We finally went over to her parent’s house and her mom did the best she could with what was left. Her parents thought it was funny and I thought it was funny, but Jenifer didn’t like us joking around about it that much. Obviously girls won’t dig me as much anymore, but I really don’t care if anyone else in the entire world thinks I’m attractive as long as SHE still does. In fact most of the time I wish everyone would leave me alone except her. Having short hair is like a new lease on life, easy-maintenance experience. I hardly have to use any shampoo anymore and that’s got to save some money. Money that can be spent on more Ramen noodles. HA!

Jim had his crazy childhood friend, Timothy, a guy I’ve heard a million stories about, over to the house the other night. Timothy is on of those people that are so full of energy and go-go-go, that he doesn’t always know what to do with himself. He is one of those people always looking ahead to the next thing or the next party or the next drink and if there is trouble of any sort, I wouldn’t ever be surprised to see Timothy in the middle of it. Timothy is amiable and friendly but I learned that it isn’t always smart to give acid to people with too much energy to begin with, especially if it isn’t something they are used to doing. While Jim, Jen and I were sitting down and trying to chill out, Timothy was buzzing around the house doing amped up crazy weird shit. He kept trying to show us this trick he learned about eggs.

The structure of an egg is very strong if the force attempting to break it open is applied evenly over the whole surface area. This means that you can try and crush an egg in your hand and it can withstand the pressure if you don’t get too crazy and apply the force to it evenly. I learned that in one of my old physics classes or while doing bong hits watching the Discovery channel.

Next thing I know, Timothy is in the fridge walking around crushing eggs in his hand trying to show us this “new trick”, but he was way too fucked up to do it right and he kept breaking eggs all over our house. He even broke an egg on top of Jim’s bed, which I’m sure will get pretty gross since Jim only does his laundry about once every six weeks. Yuck.

Timothy was pretty amusing at first but his shenanigans got to be very annoying, something I try to avoid while tripping my balls off, so Jenifer and I cut out of there. Poor Jim had to stay and almost baby sit the guy since it was his friend, but I think they still had fun on their own. I mean, I guess its okay for people to talk to themselves as long as they don’t interrupt themselves at the same time.

I’m going to be starting a new job at the Swensen’s up the street where my roommate Jerry is the manager. Basically I’ll be a short order cook for them, which means my fast-paced, enticing, high-paying career in the food service industry is officially in full bloom. Now if I can only get to the enticing and high-paying part of that description I’ll be on easy street. At least no one in my house will starve. I should be re-named the “Purloined Food Avenger” or some-such nonsense since I practically feed the whole house. I’m apparently the only one with enough sense to grab lots of foodstuffs everyone is sick of looking at by the time our shifts end and bring it home. After slinging pizza for so long, nobody who works with pizza wants to even touch it, much less eat it. I’ve been working at the damn Tomato longer than anyone so I just wanted some sort of new job for fucking variety.

I’m thinking I will still continue working at the Tomato to supplement my income a little, but with both Dan and Jenifer working there now it’s time to attempt at least some sort of minor effort to change. Too many hands dipping in the same till will get me busted, so I think maybe subconsciously I am trying to make a change towards recapturing my honest business practices. My sense of Bushi. I make less than 4 dollars an hour STILL and you just can’t make a dollar out of fifteen cents sometimes. Sooo, even though I won’t be changing industries (oooh check out my ‘high-tech’ lingo usage), I’ll be changing jobs. Maybe I can do a little table waiting and pick up some tips at the new place, and then I’ll at least have waiter training and be able to move on again someday. I can always fall back on the welding I learned in high school if the cooking industry bottoms out. At least welders get to wear the cool looking Imperial-Guard-Star Wars-helmets and that’s not too bad.

For the most part it’s pretty nice to work in a place where you can eat. That way if all the other money has to go to the bills there is always some food around to eat in really desperate times. It’s also cool to be in a place where I can work, eat and smoke pot in the freezer all at the same time. The ice cream parlor aspect of this new job is a slight bonus, but my first damn job was at a Baskin Robbins and it took me years to be able to stand ice cream again after creating so many vile concoctions with customized flavors and combinations. A word to the Baskin Robbins Company: never leave anyone under 21 in charge of an ice cream store!

I figure since Jenifer and I eat at Swensen’s anyway, she can come up there to eat club sandwiches while it’s slow. She can be finicky when it comes to eating the only crap we can afford to eat sometimes.

School is going okay. It’s difficult to get up at 10 am (early is a time relative to when I actually go to bed). It’s hard enough to leave bed, but I also must leave the entanglements of such a beautiful woman behind me. Still I go. Plodding to class in the heat with more heat added on top of that, while hormonally IN heat is not an easy task, especially when there are cool forbidden sexual delights at home. Ahhh well. big sigh. Sometimes both of us sleeping in my regular twin bed can get a little crowded but I really do love it. Have I mentioned I love Jenifer thirty times today yet?

We finally got cable TV in the house and Jenifer will sit with me in my lap on the big easy chair in the living room and watch the Discovery Channel and old Star Trek reruns while I bong out with Skeletor. I feel very content when I spend days and days doing this. It really makes me so grateful for everything. Must be all those juicy love vibes I’m getting, plus I’m learning a lot about World War II and animals so it counts as productive educational time.

Occasionally we all pitch in some of our money to get some cocaine and then stay up all night playing cards and Super Nintendo. Personally I’m not much of a speed person. I don’t like feeling nervous and jittery, but Jen and I fuck like rabbits when we’re on coke. It’s very nice. I can see why people become addicts I suppose, but sex and awareness of the world around me doesn’t really rule my life. I guess I’m just more of a turn on, tune in, drop out kind of goodfellow. Jerry and Jenifer like doing coke a lot though. Every girl I’ve ever seen doing coke loves it way more than anything else she’s ever tried. When you score it from the dealer they actually call it “girl” since so many broads go fucking nuts over the shit. I thought it was kind of funny when I found out a drug was nicknamed after the gender that prefers it. I think it must affect women differently on a more personal level. Maybe confidence is something all girls lack in their lives and cocaine can fill that gap chemically. Temporarily. I don’t really get it…I wonder what “boy” is?

I really was so disappointed with cocaine because it was supposed to be the greatest drug of all time and it was a really big deal for me to do it the first time. Then it turned out to be (relatively) tame and not very much fun, which meant all the lies I ever heard about cocaine were more paranoid drug war bullshit.

“Just say no, or your arms will fall off. LSD makes you think you can fly and jump off buildings.” Fuck that! I hate when I find out that I’ve been misled into being good for my entire life. TELL ME THE TRUTH AMERICA! I promise I will think about my decisions more rationally if you do.

Good news! My soul mate and I are planning a trip out to Baja, Mexico for the Christmas holidays. Jenifer’s getting restless again and we both need a road trip to instill some sense of our faith in Americana. I gotta get out on the road, read the road signs in different places and encounter people with values that will continually surprise me. It will be our first road trip together. Awww, how fucking sweet.

We’ll be going to Arizona and California and then down to Baja to catch the migration of the grey whales as they head back up the coastline for mating season. It’s supposed to be an incredible experience where they take you out in a boat and you get so close you can actually touch the whales if you want to. That’s the rough plan anyway; we’ll see how it goes. It’s nice to have some sort of vacation plan ahead to give a little excitement to the monotony of our everyday existence. Isn’t that great? I write a lot about how happy I am and then can’t wait to get out of town away from the doldrums. I’m an oxymoron.

One of my managers at work, David, along with his younger brother Gabe are both totally obsessed with doing heroin. Gabe gives Jenifer and I free sandwiches from Schlotsky’s when he’s working sometimes, so we really like him and the strange isolationist groove that he has. I’m sure he likes Jenifer more than me though. It usually works out that way with the guys and her. We are like magnets to weirdos, but mostly good-hearted weirdos.

The smack thing has become some sort of quest for them. They have bought pharmacology books and researched the effects heroin has on the body. I suppose it’s all the glamour and hype that is going on about it lately that has them obsessed, it’s what their excuse would be I’m sure, but I think they really want to try it because we’ve all run out of drugs to do. Everything else is boring or expensive and hurtful (cocaine). I must admit though, that I share some of the same interest that they have to try it. This will be the last drug I ever experiment with. If it lets me down then I’ll move on.

It’s harder than hell to find smack in rural town USA, but I’m sure someone in this college town has it somewhere. Real life isn’t like the movies where you can find people selling drugs on any corner and the first one is free to get you hooked into some drug dealer’s evil scheme. Dammit. I think I’ve located and done about every illegal drug that there is by now, except for PCP, and I’ve discovered that all the textbooks and good fucking Samaritan police officers that came to my school when I was a child to talk about the evils of drug abuse were all full of a big steaming peanut-filled pile of uneducated shit. So I’m guessing that heroin will turn out to be along the same lines, another disappointment.

I went off on a rant there didn’t I? We really are focusing on this trip to Baja now. The whales are an excuse to get out on a road trip and I think my tales of Mexican fun have planted the seed of romance in Jenifer’s brain. I have to find out about passports and car insurance.

Jen and I got our passport paperwork underway even though there is supposed to be some sort of agreement where U.S. citizens can legally drive all the way down into Baja. Some leftover tourist thing from the golden days when big fucking Hollywood money would drive down the coast to Cabo. The picture in my passport is really crazy looking, my hair is sticking up everywhere and my eyeballs are all bugged out. I’m guessing we’re bound to be searched for drugs if anybody looks at them too closely. I borrowed a mummy bag from Jenifer’s cornucopia of parental camping gear to sleep in since I can’t seem to find mine around anywhere.

We’ve got a pocket full of money, a full tank of gas, even a half pack of cigarettes, so our restless spirits are headed to a welcome warmer climate. Both of us are worn out from trying to hump it through the end of semester blues, we’re gearing up for a strong finish and this month or so of holidays will be a real soul quencher. I this will be the first X-Mas where I won’t be going home and I won’t have to be involved in that whole formal ‘spend the day with the family’ thing. I’m stoked, Jenifer and I already opened most of our presents early with the blessing of our families but getting the all clear to go play is the best gift I think I could have received. Even though my parents are not in a position to deny my freedom any longer, the most expensive present I got was something my parents didn’t even know they had given. Freedom.

Jenifer gave my parents a vase fired by her father at my family’s formal present opening party, or ‘present presentation’ I guess. My mom really liked it a lot, thinking it was very thoughtful and touching even though I knew it was an easy and casual gift for Jenifer to give. It made me feel like a stupid bastard for not getting her parents anything, although I have no fucking idea what to get them. I suspect that one day her father’s pottery might be valuable in the same way that people value Van Gogh’s painted madness. Perhaps I should bring up cutting off appendages with him in one of our conversations. I’m a bastard I guess.

I can tell that my sister has accepted the changing of the guard finally and that she really likes Jenifer a lot. Maybe Alecia has identified with an older sister figure during the few times we’ve eaten in Dallas with my family over the past few months or maybe its because Jenifer talks to her like a person. I’ve been watching, noticing their interaction and I respect Jenifer for being so good hearted towards Alecia. This has made me love both of them even more so I’ve been trying to treat my sister more like an adult myself. Alecia’s been having trouble in high school and I remember how much shit I had to eat during that time of my life when I lived at home even though I was an honor student. So I want to be a positive force in her life instead of just another parent.

So anyway, we’re off to escape the drudgery of life by immersion into a world of risk and American road travel. I have my mandatory modest bag of pot (don’t leave home without it), my best girl (I like the way they said that in the 20’s, my BEST girl) and her little Ford Escort that we’ll be sleeping in a lot of the time to make this trip more economically feasible. This…will be…the…ultimate…vaca-tion!! Jenifer’s full of unbridled energy and anticipation con muy porquito coca for the long flat relatively boring drive from Dallas to El Paso.

I think it’s a part of the country that’s pretty ugly. Pretty & ugly? Maybe ugly is too harsh because the land does have a certain raw beauty crafted from untouched desolation and emptiness. The endless miles of straight highway that put your body in a restful state with the perfectly timed rhythm of the road and the cruise control working together. I always enjoy letting my mind wander and envelop my self in the monotony of driving. It’s an addictive love affair I admit, and it’s so crazy to be with someone who understands that. My conversations with Jenifer have been bonding and intimately personal. I find myself telling her things that I don’t necessarily want to share without fear of reproach or misunderstanding. It’s as if the words just spill from me out onto the dashboard like I’m lying back on a psychiatrists couch. Road therapy.

The music we’ve brought is great, just smoking a joint and listening to the Rolling Stones can put me in a state of ecstasy. I’m a little miffed because Jenifer won’t let me drive her car, which is like saying she doesn’t trust me enough yet with something she’s deeply attached to. It’ll make me frustrated and she’s going to be really irritable if she drives the entire two days to San Diego by herself. I really don’t want tension to spoil any part of this due to my bitching but I might say something soon. I’m trying to just sit here writing, letting myself be content to enjoy the journey and Jenifer’s company, confident she’ll let me take the wheel sooner or later. It’s a manly power thing to be the driver for God’s sake!

Miss Suzy had a Steamboat, the Steamboat had a bell, Miss Suzy went to heaven but the Steamboat went to Hell. Miss Suzy had a Steamboat, the Steamboat had a bell, Miss Suzy went to heaven but the Steamboat went to Hell. Miss Suzy had a Steamboat, the Steamboat had a bell, Miss Suzy went to heaven but the.

Viva LA Mexico! Viva Juarez!

We arrived in El Paso early this morning, parked the car on the U.S. side and walked across the bridge into Juarez. Jenifer’s first taste of Mexico. I’ve romanticized her with my outlandish tales of border town life, assuring her it’s a slice of corrupted heaven on Earth.

I haven’t been to Juarez since Ernie and I drove his VW bus out here for our old dorm buddy Darrell’s wedding. We drove across the border that time and ended up getting lost on the way back from the dog track. You would think it would be easy to head North and just sort of run into the United States right? So we drove around until we found a Mexican Kentucky Fried Chicken where nobody spoke a lick of English. I was really lit by this time so I don’t remember how we made it back to the border but we ended up getting harassed by the border patrol because they found a pipe with some resin residue in it that Evan (another dorm friend) hid in the van under a pile of his stinky underwear. Ernie was freaking out because he was on probation at the time and wasn’t supposed to leave Denton County, much less the country, and I was feeling pretty nauseous. After making us sweat for 2-3 hours, they finally just made Evan break his stupid pipe and let us go with a slap on the wrist. Despite all that shit, and despite all the people who ate guacamole at the track getting a severe case of Montezuma’s revenge, I still left Mexico with an idyllic impression of the mighty town of Juarez in my mind.

When Jenifer and I got there this morning, it must have been about 8AM and the markets and vendors don’t start hawking their wares until about 10 or so when the throngs of tourists start filtering over. So Jenifer and I walked hand in hand taking in some free culture and polluted atmosphere for a while, ignoring the stares of the bleary eyed shopkeepers. I think she was a little unimpressed, maybe expecting sombrero clad people living in huts outside of El Segundo or some such, but I bought some beer to commemorate the good times I’ve had before. Corona with lime and salt in the hustling bustling morning marketplace sunshine is one of God’s little gifts to man. Beer is not just for breakfast anymore. Honestly though, even though I couldn’t put a whole lot of enthusiasm into a good drinking binge that early in the morning but I made a nice effort. We split before the markets really started swinging, before the begging children with Chiclets surfaced and before the fruit vendors were even cutting pieces of fruit off unusually shaped melons and shoving them into the mouths of passerby. Ah Mexico! We’ll be going through Tijuana on our way to Baja and I expect it to be about the same. Maybe better.

Everything is everything.

Everything is everything. It’s all good and everything is cool. I gave my friend Darrell a courtesy call outside a supermarket next to the plastic kiddie rides before we left El Paso. Oddly enough it was raining and I think my call caught him by surprise. “Hi, just called to see what’s up. No, we can’t stay but thanks. Yeah, we’re on our way to California. Stay cool, see you in Denton sometime. Bye.” It was pouring down rain like a bitch by the time I hung up, droplets of water were pooling in the seats of the plastic choo-choo train next to the phone, sure to cause some mother aggravation tomorrow. I had a hard time getting Jenifer to slow down enough to make the call, she’s mentally already moving on to bigger and newer things.

Jen drove all the way through New Mexico and Arizona, like a bat out of heck, right past Mexicali along the border and straight along the S1 into San Diego with minimal pauses for rest stops, food and petrol. We did see an incredible sunset in Arizona that brought back fond memories and a discussion of that night in Oregon where we fell in love, or at least the night she fell in love with me. I still feel as if I’ve been smitten across the ages. We scooped out some cool cacti to take home with us. Too bad it isn’t peyote. There are lots of Dairy Queens and gas stations with dusty pumps and musty people. Long stretches of highway with nothing to see for miles except for the road that snakes off into the distance and ends in a blurry mirage of moisture.

We passed lots of people going to work or coming home like a continual trail of ants sipping coffee from funny shaped cups and aluminum thermos. What the hell can they all be thinking? What is their purpose other than existing, is that what being alive is for? Work, relax, work, relax, repeat as needed until dead or move to Florida and drive badly then die. I don’t think so, I think life is for going to motherfucking Mexico with a living sex goddess driving you in her car, the wind in your hair and sand in your teeth washed down with cold beer and a fat joint filled with imported Mexican marijuana!

Tired, tired, tired. After our grueling day of top fuel racing we arrived in San Diego, the home of Sea World. I hope I get shot if I ever exploit the majesty of the sea by confining and whoring out its greatest animals. I’m chilling out at a Denny’s with Jenifer, just maxing and relaxing over the universal hot, greasy food they serve and coffee with lots of cream and sugar. Yummy. I’m literally writing this journal entry at Denny’s while Jenifer sits across from me pigging out on strawberry pancakes. I’m savoring this time and dreading having to sleep in the car again tonight. It’s fun, but I always feel as if my spine has been tied in a knot afterwards. You can forget about fucking too, I don’t know how a whole generation of fifties kids were supposedly conceived in the back seats of automobiles. I suppose back in the era of big cars when gas was cheaper than water and married people still slept in separate beds on television, the back seat of a car was roomy, private and conducive to making whoopee. I yearn for bygone days that I never even experienced.

California is so cool that even ordinary highways look different and full of possibilities. I like how the overpasses have Spanish moss and vines growing up, and sometimes over, them. We’re heading into Mexico tomorrow so I’m smoking a lot of dope tonight and I’ll cross the border with a major buzz. I’m going to have to ditch the leftover pot by the side of the highway before we traverse the international boundary. You don’t want any reason for trouble in Mexico.

I finally confessed to Jenifer one of my biggest secrets that I don’t even feel comfortable writing down. I felt like a bastard because I lied and told her my parents and the police knew, but the real truth is I ran away. One more unsolved crime with no statute of limitations and an overwhelming shadow of guilt and dread that will follow me to my deathbed.

Enough of this now.

As I predicted, like a real life bonafide monkey-finking psychic, I woke up with a backache. We ate our last American meal for a while at the Denny’s, which we parked and slept only a few blocks away from. Coffee is good for the soul but bad for the bladder, especially if nightly urinary relief only comes by way of wiggling out of a sleeping bag, opening the car door (light comes on, loud BING! BING! BING!) hopping over to the bushes and taking care of business. Then back to the car, (Light! BING! BING! BING!) into the sleeping bag and uncomfortable repose. We only got hassled once during the night by a bored police officer who talked to us for a minute then made us move the car to an office parking lot a few blocks away from the Denny’s and let us go back to sleep.

We converted our money to pesos, hopefully the value won’t deflate too much before we get back. We left about half our cash in U.S. Dollars because I have a feeling they will work better than pesos in most places anyway. Also bribes seem to work better with American money if it ever comes to that, better to be prepared than clueless. I got as stoned as I could but still had to ditch about half a sack of weed a mile before the border, some hitchhiker, illegal alien or street sweeper will be happy I suppose. The land of milk, honey and weed. I was fairly certain we wouldn’t be searched going IN to Mexico, I mean what is there to smuggle that they don’t already have? I just wanted to make sure there was no trouble, so except for the couple of joints I hid in my hat (don’t carry more than you can eat), I’m dope free. It’s not a bad thing, just ironic to me. Mexico is cool.

We haven’t gone too far yet, but the American bastard that is Tijuana is now behind us. We’ll stop and do our shopping there on the way back, but for now it’s outlaw country and Tecate beer signs for us. We’ve eaten at a couple of Mexican food places that were very good but also very tailored to American tastes. I’m going to stop writing now and live in the experience for a bit. Adios!

Cheap Motel:

Cheap motel, cheap motel, makes my eyes burn like hell. Oh cheap motel, cheap motel, I hope your owners have to sell, And the whole damn place falls in a well.

—Native American irritation song sung by Sam in the car

Stayed in a cheap motel in San Quintin (not the prison) last night. Not Motel 6 cheap, Mexico cheap. Their main selling point was that they had a bed and a half shower area with running water! We ate some badass tacos from a street vendor last night and washed them down with Tecate beer, which is cheaper (and safer) than the water. Fucking great. The motel was on a dirt road, a turn off the “highway” and we almost got our feet stuck in the mud trying to get in and out of the dank room.

This morning I got pissed because the shower was so cold that I froze my nuts off, then it cut out right in the middle of my bathing so I had to get most of the soap off my body with a cold wet rag. I went out and looked at the shower pump for the entire Motel and it looked like only it had about a five-gallon tank on it. Ooh I’m just being a surly bastard now but I hope some emotional friction will create warmth. After getting nice and muddy pushing the car back to the road, totally negating any value I might have received from the hellishly cold shower experience, we ate at this café that serves only breakfast and lunch that our guidebook highly recommended and was probably the only reason we stayed in this little village of a town to begin with. The café is actually a room with a couple of picnic tables in this old lady’s house and she cooks the food for people in her kitchen. While we were there my clumsiness finally got a good laugh out of Jenifer. I accidentally knocked over a gigantic pot of salsa that was brought to our table and I tried to overcome my language barrier to explain what had happened to the lady in the kitchen so I could get a rag and clean it up for her. Jenifer’s masochistic streak kept her from helping me so I was getting more and more frustrated and embarrassed trying to tell Rosa about the “queso”. “Queso” means “cheese” but I got confused and thought it meant salsa for some reason. So I’m standing in the door to Rosa’s kitchen saying “cheese, cheese” over and over waving my arms in a circular fashion making what I think are the universal “please give me a rag so I can clean up the mess” motions. Jenifer’s rolling on the floor laughing at this point while I’m trying to play international charades and pantomime a pot of salsa falling off the table using simulated explosive sound effects and yelling “Queso!” Poor Rosa was just standing there cooking our eggs, smiling and nodding like she understood exactly what I was saying the whole time. I guess that’s what you do when a six-foot tall, unshaven white man with soap in his hair, covered in mud comes into your house and starts yelling “Cheese” at the top of his lungs.

I fucking suck at Spanish! The breakfast was incredible though.

Oh If I could just tame Jenifer’s free spirit and only dress her in the finest designer couture she should be wearing, force the underlying sense of style on her that we both shun, if only to help her conquer the world. It’s as if she was purposefully living in the raw awaiting my discovery. My treasure. My girlfriend. Damn I love her so much. She’s a ravished and beautiful outlaw woman, cruising the badlands of the notorious old West with her gringo companion.

This is amazing country, mostly untamed, seemingly an unlimited wasteland unaffected by the people who manage to eke out an existence here. It’s warm during the day and cool throughout the night but during the summer the heat must be unbearable, a mirage of warbling watery heat patterns reflecting off the mirrored sand. There are lots of cool cacti here too, standing straight and tall. Very phallic. Their deep green gives an illusion of abundant life that might lay just under the harsh surface of the desert. Jenifer and I saw about fifty buzzards sitting on the rocks just outside of town. It was an eerie scene, watching a gathering of all these scavengers in their off time. It appeared as if the vultures were waiting for a catastrophe to rain down meat from the sky or perhaps they would converge on the town later awaiting a yet unknown disaster to befall the villagers. The scavengers didn’t seem to have any particularly ruthless agenda at the moment though, so I took some pictures and we moved off down the ill-repaired Mexican highway.

I may have mentioned before that I don’t find the desert a particularly pleasant place to be, but I am happy to be here with Jenifer. It’s been a hard trip but the adventure is oozing with romance. I get such a good feeling cruising through the crisp evening air, snuggling against her dirty flannel shirt, listening to her warm breath and the lingering smell of Marlboros in the car. It’s never felt so nice to feel so small, like I’m hanging onto the coattails of a Nordic sex goddess as she tears off on some mission involving the fate of the world. Whoops! There go my ‘want to be dominated’ feelings again. In actual reality I’m scared that my bad attitude about some physical problems is turning the notion of “us” off for her. I shouldn’t be frightened though; I’m acting under the impression that she compensates for my surly attitude times the way I’ve learned to adjust to hers. The way we’re so damn evenly matched is sometimes scary.

Tourism has yet to rape the best parts of the beach but there are occasional signs of hotels being planned or built. It’s so hard to believe its December already and so hard to write down every detail of life that I want to keep preserved…

God is telling us to take a look at this, and God, we are looking. So much to see, so much to explore. My God takes care of his fools and his children, Jenifer and I qualify as a little of both. Old people seem to like consoling themselves by watching tragedy, maybe believing that the world will fall apart after they are gone. Jen and I both seem to be intelligent enough see the world falling apart today and we’re trying to enjoy it while we’re still here and in control of most of our faculties. Who knows, maybe enlightenment with a more worldy perspective will be of aid to our conscience when we finally have to grow up and sell out, and how about a little bit more sassy wickedness until that conscience is called into play then.

Our love for each other could only be more intensified if it was forbidden. Ours will be a love of legends. I feel so fortunate just to be here now, knowing that most people search the world for a lifetime looking for half the intimacy we share. We take pleasure because it’s not recognized as fleeting, but because it exists at all. “Jen, for better or worse, we are not mere insects.” (She just looked at me like I was crazy just then. It’s hard to belt out random quotes based on a whole thought process and then have people look at you crazy.) We are better because we abhor monotony and are not satisfied by daily drudgery, I believe there is a flaccid resigned happiness that comes with being satisfied by mere sustenance. I’m just thankful for the chance to write down the events in my life.

We camped outside last night in an out of the way spot beside the Ocean. It was so fucking cold and unbelievably windy but still vivid and incredible in a contrasting sort of way that only life along the Pacific Ocean can be. The highway down the coast has all sorts of dirt road turn offs and the few we’ve taken the time to explore lead to secluded spots of paradise. We parked the Escort on the rocks, actually a mixture of shells, rocks and a variety of Oceanic debris, right near the water. I built a big fire and we cooked semi-successfully and ate some groceries. The wind was gusting so hard that the fire seemed to burn at a 30 degree angle making it impossible to achieve a happy balance between freezing and well done, so we cleared out all of our gear from the hatchback and slept in the car. It was cramped. One day I might remember it as being cozy because it was so cold that we huddled together in a fetal spoon position most of the night. We woke up stiff and grumpy at dawn. However, uncomfortable as it was last night, it was beautiful that I woke up in Mexico to a clear, windless, warming day with the sound of calm Ocean waves gently lapping against the shore and the salty smell of fishy sea air tickling my nostrils. As we both took care of our necessary functions, even being as disheveled as we both looked, I couldn’t help but notice how the cold air brought out a sexy flush in Jenifer’s face. Those pink cheeks and deep red lips that only a white girl can get. I didn’t tell her any of that and maybe I should have but I’m still shy about constantly expressing enamors of her beauty. I fervently believe that too much affection leads to being pussy whipped.

We went to a Mexican market/store today and bought some interesting stuff including a liter of Coca-cola that is actually in a glass bottle. Talk about a sixties relic and conversation piece! I’m not going to drink it, I’m going to put it in the refrigerator to tempt my roommates and remind me of Mexico when I drowsily look for food on those otherwise bleak school days.

Unfortunately, Jenifer either got pick pocketed while we were in the store or left her pesos behind when we left and we had driven for half an hour before she realized her money was all gone. We drove at high speed all the way back to the store in an intense quiet fashion and of course all her dough had vanished. The clerk even acted like he wasn’t even sure he remembered us. I was kind of mad, well not mad exactly, I was just out of sorts because I didn’t want lack of money to ruin our vacation. I’m sure I acted like an asshole. I’m more pissed that I have to be solely responsible for our well being, as it relates to all things financial, for the rest of our trip. Jenifer is notorious for losing her losing her money and having some quirky twist of fate bring it back to her. Except for the one time in Europe when some Italian stud smooth talked her while he lifted her wallet and passport and caused her to miss her flight home, Jenifer has recounted lots of stories where she’s lost and got back all her cash while vacationing. The luck of the mostly innocent maybe? It was pretty obvious to both of us when everyone suddenly lost their knowledge of the English language that Jenifer wasn’t going to be getting her money back this time. Jenifer looked so sad and embarrassed that I felt like a fool for getting angry. No problem. We both brought a lot of money and I gave her half of mine, we went on our way and everything was cool. I still love her and her silly ways.

Random thought

Being an artist is seeing the world’s single file line and stepping out of place at the risk of losing rank. Then look inwards, backwards and finally forwards. Take a shortcut, but don’t get too far ahead of the pack lest ye be labeled a progressive madman AND don’t let too many people see you cutting in front of them in line lest ye be a fad.

Wow! We found the most spectacular beaches today, different but no less exciting or beautiful than the white sand beaches I saw in the Bahamas. Jenifer and I spent the day frolicking around the warm sand and because there wasn’t anybody around we were naked most of the time. We had sex and a picnic and we played in the massive sand dunes and collected seashells while drinking sodas and lukewarm Tecate beer. The water was very cold (it’s the Pacific, duh!) but I bodysurfed until my skin and lips were blue. I kept worrying that a big fish would come by and chomp on my dick, maybe thinking my cold shrinky penis was a minnow or something, but I stayed in the waves most of the time. I don’t know if staying in the waves makes any difference to fish that chomp, but it helped me not to worry. Hey I can worry about my penis if I want! It is also very relaxing to know that I could drown or get carried out to sea and nobody would be able to save my ass. When did I start thinking about stupid shit like that? Ever since I popped out of the womb I guess. Honestly the isolation made me get a peaceful feeling inside, partly because of the minute danger. The danger just reminded me how we were the only two people on Earth at that moment in time. The ONLY two people on Earth and it wasn’t scary, it wasn’t worrying about grades, it wasn’t having to go to a job or buying gas or dealing with our respective insane families it was just…nice. No that’s just the salt in my eyes really. It was a windy and tiring day but great. We found a couple of great beach spots, unfortunately a majority were spot marked with telltale litter. We just explored the oceanside with no particular agenda.

Today Jenifer and I drove down to the beach again in RedOne and just played in the sand off the coast. The water is still a little chilly, but the sunshine and the secluded embrace of the Pacific makes the wind and sand feel great. To stand and lean forward at a 45 degree angle while a sandy ocean breeze holds you aloft on top of giant dunes of Sahara-esque sand is incredible. We are still so alone out here and there are many more miles and miles of beaches to see. We had to alternate between warm clothes and total nudity, favoring warm clothes for the most part. It took forever to finally get warm again yesterday after swimming out in the Ocean. True to Mexico, a lot of the easier to reach beaches seem to have remnants of long forgotten parties; beer cans and used rubbers and the like, but for the most part it’s still an untapped desolate paradise. Each day we’ve explored a different path off the “road” in an effort to find the perfect beach but it’s all perfect for the most part.

Today our expedition got waylaid slightly due to the low clearance threshold of RedOne’s tires and the soft sand. We were temporarily stranded out in the middle of nowhere by a patch of moist beach sand where our tires could not find any purchase. We tried digging and putting driftwood under the tires in the back but only ended up peeling more sand out from under the car. It wasn’t a big deal as far as survival goes, we had all our food and camping equipment in the car, but it seemed like it could be weeks before anyone might come along this area. Or so we thought. From out of nowhere, an entire family of yuppies—Dad, Mom and 2.5 kids in a brand-spanking-new Land Rover with all the trimmings—comes bumping along the same road. We were waving our arms like crazy intent on getting their attention while I could see the wife on the passenger side in her soccer mom sweater telling her husband that they should get out of there, as if we might be vicious “banditos” or something. I think they realized our predicament pretty quickly, and once they confirmed we were white people, they seemed glad to help. Besides there was no place they could have turned around on the sandy path before getting to our car.

The husband got out and the wife and children stayed in the car. I imagine their conversation went like this “Stay here honey, I’ll handle this. If they try anything funny, lock all the doors.” I love to see the traditional family roles in action that people feel like they should still play out. (Just like when I go to Home Depot I had to explain to the guy what the problem was, what’s not working and the logistics of the formulas I’ve tried to work everything out with.) Jen and I could almost get our tires out of the hole the rear tires of the car had dug with her driving, but in order to get the guy to help me push we had to go through the motion of turning on the car, letting the tire spin and putting wood und the tire and show him that it wasn’t working. I told him “Look, if she can drive the car the two of us can push it out of this hole pretty easily. The car is not that heavy.” This must have seemed too easy for him or he really wanted to use his new toy because it just so happened that ‘family man’ went for the extra-extra option package on the Land Rover and got a winch for the front. So this desk jockey goes off on his repressed manly parade, determined to show off his outdoor survival skills for the sake of his watchful family, who by now realized we actually needed help and felt it was OK to get out of the car and stare at us from a distance. The guy attaches his winch to our bumper and I should mention that the bumper on a Ford Escort is just a piece of plastic with about the same strength as a cheap Storm Trooper Halloween mask from the early Star Wars days. He’s very careful not to get his dry cleaned Eddie Bauer pressed flannel “outdoor” shirt dirty as he’s attaching the winch while we are trying to politely convince him to just help give us a little push out of the sand instead of ripping the bumper off our car. Our clothes have been slept in for many days and both of our hair is starting to ‘dred’ up so we look as comfortably grungy as any decent road trip adventurer should, but we’re not vocal enough to protest since he’s trying to help and we don’t appear observably smart enough for him to want to listen. We’re tired and finally just let him play out his manly role and finally, after he almost rips the back bumper off of the car he acknowledges that I am right and within minutes of our combined efforts to simply push the car, we have the hole cleared. We politely said our thanks and drove off quickly to another beach to spend the night.

It’s still bitterly cold here at night. The wind off the Pacific on both sides is pretty intrusive. I think the cold water in my ears is making me come down with a cold, but it might just be the inhalation of saltwater wreaking havoc on my sinuses and grinding against my skin. We both slept in the car (again), no biggie, and I lit a giant fire to cook some food and get little stinky warmth before we huddled in the car and listened to the great roar of the ocean.

Yes, I’m definitely getting a little bit of a cold, nothing major though. I am man, I am tough. GRRR! The drive is getting even more spectacular because the farther we go south, the more we see signs of a completely different culture becoming evident. The mountains are treacherous and the highway has huge potholes hidden in the black road. Especially ominous curves are often marked with shrines of the Virgin Mary or dotted with flowers and crosses to remember the people who died on particularly bad sections of this road. Sober reminders of the dead, but beautiful in an eerie way.

We are now glimpsing views of long white sand beaches, straight out of a postcard, with crystal blue water that looks so inviting. We stopped to swim at one nice looking beach where there were a lot of parked RV’s and touristas everywhere, crazily thinking that maybe this crowded beach might be better than what we’ve already seen. It wasn’t anything special though, just crowded. We took a picture and left pretty quickly, I had a really weird feeling that someone might break into our car there.

We smoked the last of my pot and got into a deeply buoyant philosophical discussion about life, love, mountain shrines and all the rusted out remains of cars that are everywhere along the highway now. That’s a major difference between the U.S. and here; nobody gets their cars towed to a mechanic when they break down. Sometime during the night people rape cars parked along the highway of every usable part and by usable part, I mean that every tiny screw, knob or bolt is entirely stripped off the car until all that’s left is a crumbling skeleton of rust. The presence of so much symbolic death just serves to remind us we are alive. It’s poetically beautiful in a Morrissey sort of way. We stopped and took a picture of ourselves (auto timer!) leaning out the window and waving bottles of liquor in a decrepit VW van, pretending to be baracho. Why is it I know the word for “drunk” but can’t remember “salsa”? I have a feeling a car left on this highway overnight wouldn’t be much to speak of the next day.

I finally got to drive while Jenifer took a nap. I smoked the absolute last bit of my pot and drove about 90 miles an hour across the Mexican plains. You can’t see the water from the road in most places but I can always smell it and it was amazing to be driving through sunbeams as they pierced the thick dark clouds rolling in off the ocean. The visual beauty of the scenery, the thrill of letting Jenifer’s car open up full throttle without any fear of police and being able to reach and caress the sleeping beauty next to me gave me such a good feeling of fulfillment and happiness. I was alone with my brooding thoughts, feeling groovily stoned, listening to “Licensed to Ill” on the stereo, singing along, driving fast and free. Very pleasurable. Jenifer woke up after while and got mad that I was drivingso fast, which I can understand, but the damage was done. The appreciation of the moment uplifted my sprits and rejuvenated my love, maybe I can learn to share that. If I can absorb it, shouldn’t I also be able to project people’s energy?

After a rather unpleasant argument brought on by mutual fatigue, Jenifer and I finally got to the specific part of the coast where the grey whales swim in for the season.

We can both be very stubborn sometimes. We were all set to check into an expensive motel (no mud!) that would also provide the tourist boat out to the best sites to see the whales when Jenifer started talking to the clerk in Spanish and found out the whales are a week late this year. After 2000 miles of driving they’re late?! Dammit! The clerk specifically told us in broken English “The whales, they are slow” enunciating his words slowly as if to infer that when they are swimming by Mexico they just sort of go along with the whole lackadaisical Mexican siesta groove thing. I supposed when they pass by L.A. they put on dark sunglasses too.

I can respect the whales for being late, but it’s still disappointing and frustrating, especially after driving into town with clouds of anger around us. There were a bunch of fucking German families milling around with all their fancy German explorer clothes and German RV’s. Since we don’t have a week to mill around we said “fuck it” and burnt out of town, leaving any bad feeling with the krauts behind us.

I really wanted to see those whales. After seeing Star Trek IV, I though maybe they might have something to say if I was willing to listen.

“This we know: The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

—Chief Seattle (c. 1786-1866)

Skokemish leader

We realized that we didn’t want to drive all the way down the coast to Cabo after missing the whales so we’re heading back up through wonderful Mexico and enjoying the sights just as much the second time around. We stopped at an area where there were all sorts of huge smooth boulders interspersed with lots of tall, skinny cacti. My perverted side thought it looked like lots of giant boobs with little dark green penises between them. It would have made a perfect location for an old black & white western if not for the spray painted murals on the largest rocks facing the road professing generations of love for Maria and Paco, Hernandez and Vasquez, the PRI political party etc. etc. We took the time to climb around, explore and play. Jenifer got naked for a little while, stretching her lanky body across the top of a huge rock that curved upwards, gently lifting her up and making her back arch as if she was having a subtle continuing orgasm. I polished off some Tecates and took pictures but when I tried to take a sexy picture of Jenifer naked on the sun heated rock she was too sly and slick.

We splurged in the evening and ate a great big Mexican feast at a restaurant with a jungle atmosphere in the small town. I ordered a margarita with my food, just because I could, but Jenifer and the waiter made fun of me in Spanish because there were two sizes of margarita, a “chica” and a “grande” or some shit, and I ordered the “chica” because I didn’t want to get plastered. Plus I drank all those beers earlier and I always forget how the rhyme goes. Is it “beer before liquor, never sicker” or “liquor after beer, never fear”, I can never remember? Anyway, I’m glad I got the small size because it was the worst fucking margarita I’ve ever had. I think the waiter just poured straight tequila in a glass and added some green food coloring, but I finished every drop, more because they made fun of me than anything. Yuck. The food turned out to be great but I think mine had some rogue Mexican parasite in it that didn’t agree with my stomach. Outside of town I made Jenifer stop the car and proceeded to projectile vomit all over the place, much to Jenifer’s delight. I got a sort of malicious sympathy from her with numerous references to the “chica” margarita, but I felt like I was going to die.

After numerous stops we wound up just sleeping in the car by the side of the road, fearful of banditos, but by then I was too sick to care.

“She told me and then I discovered it for myself’

—unknown

We are both exhausted but I can see from the gleam in our adventurous eyes that we are both spiritually more fulfilled. Mexico is behind us now, but the journey served to renew our limited communication with God. Even though Jenifer won’t admit to any metaphysical beliefs, she is too amazing of a person to be uninfluenced by the grace of a higher power. I’ve never really talked to her about my religious beliefs, at least any of my organized religious views that might qualify as classification. I’m drawn to how Jenifer can be so in touch with her soul without any practiced meditation. Is there such a thing as natural inner peace? There are just some things inside her that I look up to as if she’s a teacher, a prodigy or untrained genius. Somehow I always manage to attach myself to people I want to emulate and learn from, I just don’t know if it’s healthy to be that way in an equal relationship.

Right now, we are recuperating with a hot plate of greasy food and a cup of warm Joe at the same Denny’s restaurant we originally left behind, seemingly eons ago, in San Diego. Resting in traditional American surroundings, thankful to not have to live permanently off of street vendor tacos made with God-knows-what. We fucked around in Tijuana before we left Baja and had the chance to enjoy the city the way I originally wanted Jenifer to enjoy Juarez. I also bought a couple hip-flask sized bottles of liquor to drink on the way home since I don’t have any more weed. Drunk driving punk rock hard-core style, we defy you death! Still I would rather have the weed, it’s less dangerous by far, but the law is the law. I smuggled one of the flasks in my pocket and one in the igloo cooler in the back seat. Neither one of us is of legal drinking age yet so we smuggled booze just like back in prohibition days. We joined the mile long throng of cars waiting to cross the border and then crept along at a snails pace hindered by the border patrol keepers that periodically search cars for drugs and illegal aliens. I still can’t believe they even bother taking the trouble. I mean the ratio of people crossing into the U.S. compared to the number of cars they can actually search is astronomical. Any drug dealer worth his salt should know he can send twenty cars in a row filled with drugs and they’ll likely only stop 2 of them. A ninety percent rate of success is something any Fortune 500 company would be happy with. It took us about a ¡ hour to creep up to the actual U.S. boundary and of course as raggedy and strung out as we must have looked we got waved over to be one of the one in ten to be searched. Meanwhile ten cars got through filled with drugs I guess. No sweat, but it took another hour for “the man” to bring out their drug dogs, tap all the panels on the side of the car and yank out all our stuff along with ripping out some of the interior upholstery and checking all the tires. Ironically they went to all that trouble and never bothered to look in the cooler and didn’t even care about checking our ID for the liquor they found in the back seat. After we “passed” their inspection they told us to leave, without bothering to pick up all of our clothes that got tossed onto the oil stained parking area or fixing any of the interior panels that they pried off. It was just a quick fucking in the ass from the U.S. government thanks to our profile and shabby appearance.

So we’re glad to be back in our native land but sad at the realization our vacation is at least half over. Sunny California is the Promise Land for free thinkers and we spent the evening acting like kids in love. We held hands and ate pizza at a transplanted NY pizza parlor, complete with wonderfully gruff employees who all had rich Brooklyn accents. We walked down around the beach, checked out all the head shops, and then sat on the seawall and watched the sun set over the Pacific. We enjoyed what will likely our last day on the ‘Left Coast’ for a while. We walked down and looked at the waves hitting the ocean in the encroaching darkness, while the local druggies and dealers were just starting to emerge. I thought it was romantic in an urban decay kind of way. I mean, on the one hand there was a timeless sunset setting over the beautiful silvery eternalness of the cresting waves on an angry ocean with streaks of crimson clouds slashing the sky, and on the other hand there were desperate people, temporary members of society, each with an individual story of pain, clinging to life and dealing in the short term every day business of pursuing the smallest pleasures. I thought it was a beautiful collection of opposite images that accented each other. Like I said, I was feeling loved and my body was comfortably numb with fatigue and romance.

We bought some Christmas gifts for our friends back home at some of the head shops. A sealable water bong and a couple of cocaine bullets. Those are little portable vials with a one-hitter attachment on them that some of our wilder friends might enjoy. Obviously not items for our families and even though it’s likely not in the true spirit of Christmas to give paraphernalia, they’re decent souvenirs for our friends. We’re planning on sleeping in the car near this Denny’s again, where the cop told us to sleep last time. I am going to miss being here with Jenifer but I look to the future. It’s being with her that’s important, not the invisible whales or our location.

May the Lord forgive me for the dragonflies I killed as a child. Graceful, silent shimmering predators whose only crime was their abundance and innocence. The highway is my Church and my penance, engineered to help me move beyond mere instinctual (re)actions. I will be more than the sum of my parts, more than human. There are foxes in the land of the wolves sometimes.

Something bad happened today. Troopers fat on the excess of power given to various States in the vain attempt to eradicate drugs, bullied us at a checkpoint along I-8 in Arizona. Another blood clot in America’s veins of freedom. We were totally and unnecessarily hassled just because some bitch with a chip on her shoulder is trying to make her way up the pig career ladder. We were just cruising along innocently and our car (of course) was chosen to be the 1 in 10 routinely checked for drug smuggling. No problem right? We just got shook down by the U.S. border patrol yesterday and came out with a clean bill of health. The cunt said she stopped us in particular because my hat with the Grateful Dead patch on it (from the shows) was in plain view on the dashboard and apparently (according to her anyway, believe me we would totally have gone if it was true) there had recently been some Dead shows out in California. I’m thinking, “cool, she thinks we’re acid heads with a hundred pounds of dope in the car or some shit, let her do her worst because I’ve been searched by U.S. customs and I’m clean as the Pope’s bathroom.” It seems I didn’t factor in the small town Mayberry mentality of wanting to punish people different from “us”, which in this case the “us” turned out to be a bunch of inbred, redneck, faggot asshole motherfuckers! They brought out a giant dog and did this trick where they pretend to “accidentally” drop the leash and let their nazi German Shepard practically attack and jump on me. That’s their slick way of violating our rights and letting the dog sniff us for concealed drugs since they can’t technically do anything without probable cause. Then without asking if they could search the vehicle she opened the car doors and let this huge dog climb and sniff around inside our car. At this point I’m aggravated by the blatant display of constitutional violations and abuse of authority but I’m still trying to be nice because I know we don’t have anything on us. In America the innocent are presumed innocent right? Apparently not, the dog smelled some clay pipe that Jenifer had bought during her trip to Vegas several years ago and lost in her glove box. The pipe was empty, it literally hadn’t been smoked in several years and whatever incriminating residue that was still inside it wasn’t even enough to be detected by the border patrol. It had been buried under a bunch of shit at the bottom of her glove box and I would have thrown I out a long time ago had I known about it, after all I threw away my own marijuana when we went into Mexico. The bitch-lady emerged from our car with this evil triumphant shit-eating grin on her face as if she had just happily burned down a Vietnamese village full of children. What could we say? We tried mumbling an apology and I told her how we forgot it was there and explained how it obviously had not been used anytime recently since we had just come from Mexico and their border patrol dog didn’t even smell it. I was desperately trying to appeal to some sliver of coolness we still innocently believed all people must have somewhere, after all, I was raised on that Star Wars “I know there is good in you father” mentality. She wasn’t having any of that. Finding the pipe gave her the authority to trash our car and belongings, which she enthusiastically did. She systematically threw our clothes on the ground and stepped on them, ripped pieces of the seats out of our beloved RedOne and threw all the insurance papers and tire receipts from the glove box onto the highway where they got blown into the desert by passing semi-trailers. She found the bottles of liquor, another evil triumphant grin, and then found our presents from the head shops and confiscated them, though they were still in their unopened packages. When I protested that the bong was for tobacco and the vials were empty of anything that might suggest they were criminal, she launched into a tirade of how such and such “Buttfuck County Arizona” has zero tolerance laws and just possessing liquor underage gave her the right to auction off Jenifer’s car and blahbitty blahbitty. The evil lady spent several hours tongue lashing us and destroying our various belongings for some reason or another while harassing us over needless bullshit because she was disappointed we were NOT transporting drugs. I was getting really pissed and Jenifer looked like she might cry from frustration, which made me even angrier, but there was nothing to do except bend over and take a reaming in our ass because Arizona decided to give some lady with personal issues the right and power to abuse her authority if she chose to do so. True to Southern tradition, it’s likely that Arizona even encourages or rewards her for harassing the hippies and getting them out of the State.

After her and her colleagues got bored with their steady barrage of insults and threats, she let us go, but only after breaking our Christmas presents and making a show of having us pour out our own Goddamn booze in the bushes. I was so steamed by then I threw down the bottle she handed me and tried to break it on the roadway but the hot soft asphalt wouldn’t break the small sealed bottle. This unleashed another torrent of insults and lectures from her. By that point I would have gladly given up the rest of my life in prison to kill this one person and I felt like it was morally justified because I would have been serving the greater good of society by deleting her cancerous presence. Honestly, if I hadn’t felt like I had the obligation to get Jenifer to immediate safety I would have attacked and at least taken out one of bitch-lady’s eyes before her dog or her fellow merry men could have even reacted.

We finally got in the car and drove out of there as fast as we could. Jenifer went absolutely postal. She turned up the radio as loud as it would go and drove as fast as RedOne would let her, screaming epitaphs and pounding the dashboard with tears pouring from her eyes while I clung onto the “Oh-Shit” handle for dear life. As she slowly calmed from molten lava into steaming rock, any efforts I made to diffuse the situation with attempted lighthearted humor were shrugged off, which was good because I was still so pissed I didn’t really feel like being a good guy and consoling anybody. When we finally stopped about an hour later in Shinbone, AZ or some place, I got 4 dollars in quarters and prank-called the inspection booth, telling them I was coming with a truckload of guns and that I was going to blow their bacon-flavored snow cone stand off the fucking highway. It was stupid and juvenile I know, but it made me feel better even though I spent most of the $4 trying to call information and actually find the number and I probably only spoke to a confused and now very frightened tollbooth operator. Still, it made me feel somewhat vindicated and we got out of there just in case they could trace the call and send a patrol car.

I also called my Uncle Dennis and Aunt Sandy in Phoenix, kind of as a courtesy call, but I ended up promising to stop by. When I told Jenifer we were stopping down the road she was pissed. All that was on her mind was the evil-lady and getting out of this fucking state as soon as possible. I kind of concurred but I promised we would stop by and this is my Aunt and Uncle who I’ve always looked up to and thought were cool. Jenifer doesn’t know them so I understand her hesitation but at the same time I need an emotional and physical rest. I think if we can stop for a night, things will cool off a little bit. I certainly don’t want one negative incident to create a wedge between us or follow us like a dark cloud all the way home. I also don’t want our first long road trip together to be tinged with some black voodoo of incompatibility. That would be a disastrous shame. Rest will relieve stress.

Tap tap tap

This is my heart in my hands, This is my hand on my heart.

Tap tap tap

—me

Talk about an attitude readjustment. It turns out that my aunt and uncle’s house was the perfect place for us to stop. Instead of racing home bearing animosity against the “Grand Canyon State,” we are still here resting our bodies and enjoying our vacation again. Dennis and Sandy are treating us so cool. They have a humongous house with a heated pool and a hot tub in their big backyard next to a giant trampoline for their two children. They have a little boy Derrick who is older than their little girl, about 3, I suppose. Cassie, or Cassandra, and Jenifer seem to be smitten with each other and it’s so cute to watch them play together. It’s like observing two little blonde angels that could be sisters or perhaps mother and daughter. Cassie seems to have formed a bond with Jenifer and surprisingly only-child Jenifer, who has never shown the least bit of interest or excitement around children, has fallen in love with her little friend. Cassie looks so much like the child we might one day have together that seeing them goofing around on the trampoline and the way she follows and imitates Jenifer’s every move makes me want to live with her forever. I can sense Jenifer feels safe here, the way she holds me so close while we sleep together at night tells me that she secretly pines for an eventual family lifestyle with beautiful children, a rickety house filled with love, a big dumb dog and maybe a little cash. I can’t lie and say I don’t feel the same things; there is a touch of God in this place.

Dennis and Sandy have given us our own section of the house to stay in, literally a guest wing with it’s own bathroom and a giant soft bed to lie and love in. I always imagined some fraction of my family would be modern enough to acknowledge we sleep together, I just never thought I would meet them. Because they are treating us like human beings, the general awkwardness that goes along with being around my relatives and the nervousness and apprehension I get about Jenifer not wanting to stay with family has worn off. We both feel comfortable and the evil Arizona incident is finally behind us. At night when the kids are asleep we get to relax into a deep coma in the vapors of their steaming hot tub while we get drunk with my Aunt and Uncle. My Uncle seems kind of disappointed that Jenifer and I are not normally big drinkers, even though he manages to keep getting me to do tequila shots with him and I wind up shitfaced. I thought I had learned my lesson after the dog biter of a hangover I got the first night we arrived. Tequila. Blechhh. It’s an acquired buzz, I gather.

The best reason for staying up late is getting to hear Dennis and Sandy’s mesmerizing stories of where they’ve lived all over the world. This was all B.C. (before children) of course. Wonderful rambling tales of nights in Iran and exotic fruit markets in the back alleys of Egypt. It’s interesting to hear how different cultures simultaneously help and harm their women under the guise of isolation and protection. I suppose we oppress our American women in different ways, but I still like to think we’ve made progressive strides as a society. I also heard them say that crime is virtually nonexistent over there because if you are a thief and you get caught stealing they chop off your right hand or execute you on the spot. Apparently the left hand is reserved only for wiping the ass! So if you cut off somebody’s right hand, nobody will give them food or eat with them since they have to eat with their ass-hand. I guess it’s like the “stink finger,” only on a hand sized scale, over there. Jenifer and I stay up with them and watch bad action movies on the VCR and just hang out mostly. I suspect that sometimes my aunt and uncle are reliving some of their youthfulness through us because they want to hear about ALL the details of our limited traveling experience. They ask questions and listen with interest but I think they are just cool people who get a lot more out of life than average folks. Plus even though nobody in my family ever seems to piece it together it’s totally obvious they were/are with the CIA and how fucking cool is that to be part of an international spying team!? I see them as two lovers with mutual intelligence that got them great jobs and long paper to do whatever the hell they want. Plus I find it reassuring that given the freedom to see the world, Dennis and Sandy still ended up with a beautiful family.

Their children are nefarious early risers so we are not getting to sleep in late here, but that’s ok. It’s sweet to see how Miss Cassandra can tame Jenifer’s morning monster with sheer adoration and innocent fascination. I’ll open an eye and see the door slowly open with a tiny swoosh noise on the carpet. Then a little blond mop of hair furtively bounces through the door to see if there is any reaction. I suppose Cassie’s not used to having somebody try and sleep late while she wanders around and after a few minutes of playing an awkward game of one sided peek-a-boo with no response she either decides Jenifer is feigning sleep or she’ll summon the courage only children possess and tiptoe into the room. She sees me watching her but since I am not the object of her affections I merely receive a conspiratorial smile. Cassandra will pat her on the head and stage whisper a loud “Jenni-fur, are you sweeping?” Once Jenifer responds that yes, she is in fact sleeping, the battle is already lost. My aunt might come in and chase her out of the room but Jenifer knows already that it’s a futile effort.

I’m really happy here. I love seeing the feeling of raw maternal-ness gleaning in Jenifer’s sleepy eyes, but if I told her that she would probably punch me. “Alas,” insert sweeping sarcastic hand motion here, “It’s so hard to be a sister figure.”

We’ve visited with my grandparents a few times since they “Winter” in Arizona and live near here. I love my grandparents, their old-fashioned logic and traveling RV lifestyle really appeals to me. I can also tell they like Jenifer a lot, which is important to me, but I can see they are not exactly sure how to react to her nose ring. To them it’s like meeting somebody you really like and then finding out they’ve had a sex change. Once, I brought a black girl, who was a good friend in high school, over to my parent’s house when my grandparents were visiting us in Texas and it nearly gave them a heart attack. I suspect that Jenifer’s having blond hair and white skin is a relief to them despite the nose ring and that they think it’s just a phase she’s going through. Raising four boys and my mother certainly qualifies them to think in terms of “phases” with no reproach I suppose. Like I said, they have old fashioned ways but they are good respectable people and I regret not being able to communicate my admiration of them in any tangible way. I suspect they understand though, being grandparents and all. Jenifer just talks and talks to them, innocently oblivious to their slight discomfort, and it’s obvious she’s won them over with her honest and open manner.

It’s funny for me to observe how much of my mom is in my grandparents. That may sound silly but she inherited their slight uptightness and amplified it with a squeeze of psychosis.

Tomorrow we’re going to try and go for a ride in my Uncle’s plane. He actually built a plane from a kit (see? CIA!) in his garage and since he’s a licensed pilot he’ll periodically take relatives up in the air and just hand over the controls to see how they do. I’ve always just liked cruising along looking out the canopy and watching the myriad of landscaped grids go by in a kaleidoscope of crazy patterns, but every time I’ve been up in the air with him he scares me shitless by making me fly. My brain starts screaming, “Hey, he built this fucking thing in his garage!” Or, “This thing is made out of the same stuff my parent’s swimming pool is made of.” and my imagination creates scenarios involving prolonged fiery death. The plane is made of fiberglass, it is no bigger than Jenifer’s car and it’s an ass-backwards looking bird with the big wings and prop on the back-end and the small ‘steering’ wings on the front. To fly in it is different than cruising around in a regular small plane because instead of feeling like there is something solid & secure steadily pulling me through the air, it feels like something powerful is thrusting me hell-bent-for-leather across the sky. It’s really a totally different sensation altogether. We’ve already been out to the hangar where he keeps his 70’s Corvette (with the motor ripped out) and other miscellaneous junk. It’s sort of his attic away from home with big toys inside it. Jenifer’s eyes actually bugged out of her head when my uncle dragged the plane out by the nose with his hands, thinking maybe he was joking about going up tomorrow and then secretly confronting her own mortality. Hell, we thrive on excitement! How many girls do I love that actually went bungee jumping on their own? Adventure makes her wet but I don’t think her parents would be too happy if one of my relatives killed her.

We’re both feeling so rested and psychologically on top of our shit that we’ve decided to extend our vacation. All it took was a slight expression of interest in Carlsbad Caverns and my grandparents plotted a route to get us there and they even had glossy pamphlets. My grandparents are the king and queen of glossy pamphlets. They have information about everywhere because they’ve been everywhere you can go in a motor home, even Alaska. I want to be doing what they are doing, randomly traveling, spending money on impulse items and collecting glossy pamphlets, but I don’t want to have to wait until I’m really old to do it.

It was so nice to see loving family again and I was sad, hell we were both sad, to be leaving Arizona behind although I was proud to be able to show Jenifer that our life together wouldn’t necessarily have to pattern itself after my parents. The love practically oozes from my grandparents and I was glad to see their appreciation of Jenifer blossom. I’m supposed to be their favorite grandson since I was over at their house so much as a child, but I don’t think they can really have a favorite out of the fifteen million or so grandchildren they have. I’ve always suspected that being the so-called “favorite” was a clever manipulative scheme devised by my mother to motivate me to make the honor roll or some such. Plus if I am their favorite then there must be something in my future that will fuck up the standings, my lifestyle almost guarantees it. Oh well, whoever I am and whatever I go through will have to be good enough. I expect to make many mistakes in the next few years to properly insure my eventual correct placement in society, I am gearing up for getting my mid-life crisis over at an early age and then focusing on nothing but steady progressive steps towards world domination. Plato said “Each man’s ultimate justice comes from within.” I never want to look back andsay I wish I had tried “   “ and now I’ll never get the chance ever again, pluswhile I’m pursuing my gluttony I’ll try to get all of my fuck ups out of the way and eventually be proud I found the conviction and strength to fix them. That’s my theory anyway; it never pays to be smug and contrite because God laughs while mortals make plans.

Ever since my youthful subconscious was manipulated by the colorful smiling dinosaur on the roadside signs of south Texas advertising Natural Bridge Caverns near San Antonio, I’ve had this urge to explore caves and an unexplainable craving for Stuckey’s. Carlsbad Caverns was cool and I imagine it is still cool now that I’m gone. Carlsbad Caverns is the essence of cave-y coolness. We followed a lonely winding stretch of road through New Mexico’s desert hills and ended up at a strange place in the middle of nowhere where there’s a building and a parking lot built to hold more cars full of people than could possibly fit inside the building. The entire area seemed suspiciously absent of life as if an alien abduction ritual from the nearby mysterious Area 51 had taken all the people and parked their cars in an orderly fashion out in a convenient desert parking lot. A cosmic valet. It’s so hard to believe that underneath this area of “nothingness” is enough trippy natural artwork to make Salvador Dali doubt his sanity. I thought we would be constrained to a guided tour and handheld through the caverns but basically we paid admission and got turned loose into the bowels of the Earth. You have to stay on the lit walkways and it’s obvious these caves have lost a little of their raw natural beauty because of the constructed paths but I suppose if they weren’t easily accessible I wouldn’t be here.

We both wished we had a few hits of acid so the walls would melt a little more than they naturally do but that might have been a little too overwhelming. I don’t know how I can describe the enormous caves or the sheer size of the underground complex or the complex murals of limestone splashes dripping and forever changing. We only saw a fraction of the actual caverns and there were areas where we could see branches of the cave that seemingly stretched off into eternity. The only complaint I could voice was that everything was so beautiful that it dwarfed the details. Millions of drip sculptures molded by persistence and time surrounded us at every turn. It was like being at the Met in New York, where every wall contains a timeless masterpiece making my life seem so insignificant and transient. It’s a place you really have to see to believe. Hopefully these descriptions will be enough to trigger my memories as I move on in time, as if anything could make me forget the time I’ve spent with Jenifer.

There’s a restaurant and gift shop about a mile or so underground where park rangers sell all kinds of tourist shit in the middle of a big cleared out cavern. I thought it was tacky and cheap exploitation of Mother Nature so I stole an official Carlsbad Caverns penlight to vent my angst. Then, surprise of surprises, Jenifer and I ran into one of her old roommates from when she had her apartment on Stella down in Cement City. One of the same roommates that sent me in to see Jenifer fucking Kristoff that one time. Phaedra and her boyfriend Johnny were there with her family on vacation. Of all the weird places to run into an old roommate that stiffed you on some bill money, I would have to wager that a mile underground, 600 miles from home, has to be one of the most unlikely. When Jenifer and I are together the laws of chance and physics bend to incorporate us. We said awkward hellos and exchanged pleasantries and then departed, marveling at the astronomical odds and remembering what jerks they were.

When we finally reached the surface again and drove down the lonely desert road out of there I couldn’t help but look at the desert hills as if they might crack open like an eggshell at any moment. So much of what we actually perceive is such a surface illusion. I had to go down to appreciate what was on top. It’s all wayyy too much like life.

Since it’s so close, we’re going to squeeze in seeing Sand Dune National Park too. Personally I’m not that enthusiastic about seeing a lot of sand, but if it’s inspiring enough to be a national park then there must be something worthwhile and interesting about it. Hopefully it won’t be a lot of drunken rednecks on four-wheelers. I’ve always been more interested in the water than the sand on the beach so I’m at a loss to explain what people do with sand when there is no water there. Maybe play volleyball? Do you think the other park rangers make fun of the guy in charge of sand dunes at their annual park ranger meeting? “So, Earl I heard you got that forest fire under control in Yellowstone finally and Carl you’ve kept those wild housecats from pooping on your dunes right? Ha ha ha. Excellent work gentlemen!” Seriously though, I’m just looking for an excuse to extend our vacation this time. I think we both are. We’re tired but this is our last big trip before the spring semester swamps us and we needed the together time to bond. Like Bob Dylan said “If you’re not busy living, you’re busy dying” right?

“Plucked his eyebrows on the way, shaved his legs, then he was a she, said hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.”

—Lou Reed.

I am home again, which fills me with a feeling of relief but also an underlying melancholy. Here I am back in my own microcosm of familiar surroundings and I have achieved a satisfied place in it. I’m settling back into home life routine but I’m thankful there are still a few more vacation days left before school starts. Maybe staying busy with work and school is what I need to stay happy for a while. I’ll let pointless busy work replace the idleness that lets my mind brood and hope it works out better than before.

I’m just kind of sad for no reason at all. Even having symptoms of clinical depression doesn’t mean I want drugs to treat it. Jenifer and I have both become jaded and we lean on each other when the feeling of being boxed in by the world is too much. We want to understand our depression not just make it go away. For some reason God and genetics created my mind to have a cynical view and perceive things differently than Joe-Blow frat boy and I can’t dismiss what I think and feel as being mere symptoms of a disease. If I were gay my feelings wouldn’t be treated as a disease (anymore) so how is this any different? Does that even make sense? Maybe it makes me gay, I don’t know. Jenifer and I are both smart and we’ve taken psychology classes and I’m even technically a manic-depressive, but what the hell does that really mean? Who cares if I don’t want to get out of bed and go to school or work because I’m depressed? Not my boss or professors. Is God trying to control the population by inserting a suicide clause that activates whenever a certain number of McDonald’s restaurants go up in any given neighborhood? I guess I’m asking for answers that are not even defined by logical or legitimately proposed questions.

Who am I to complain that I exist? What gives me the fucking right and audacity to be a thankless bastard? Maybe I should take the Zoloft and be chemically happy and balanced, but right now I would rather die than be a robot. It just seems more natural, more normal, almost like leaving it up to fate to take my chances with reality. Their drugs take away my depression and worthlessness but also my passion, creativity and true enjoyment when things are special. Having quirks and problems gives me inspiration and helps me grow to overcome obstacles. I’m not ready to let government-regulated drugs take care of my insolent thoughts. Although when the big problems come along I might have to reconsider. Life or death? Awake or aware? Aristocrat or plutocrat? Decisions, decisions.

Sorry, I even said I’m feeling melancholy huh? What’s weird is that I’m happy and sad at the same time. I think I’m sad because I want something more than I have but I can’t identify it close enough to make it an obtainable goal. A dissatisfied happiness? If I don’t know what’s missing then it could be anything or everything and what kind of fucked up situation is that to be in? Am I really having a twenty year old midlife crisis? It’s enough to make me reconsider my values and I’m thankful for that because at least introspection puts me in touch with a higher power and reminds me of what’s important. There is no God on anti-depressants. I’ll repeat that for the parents and pharmaceutical companies; unlisted side effect: There is No God on Anti-Depressants. No fucking morals either. My brain thinks about killing somebody and nothing is there in my head to tell me that killing is wrong when I’m taking Zoloft. How fucking scary is that? How many millions of people are out there right now thinking the same fucking thing? It only takes one.

Right now Jenifer is the most important thing in the world to me. I have to stop and gnash my teeth together when I think about how much I love her sometimes. I sense she knows my intensity and maybe even feels the same way but my attempts to communicate the depth of my feelings just look silly and worthless to me. There is no gift or trifle to symbolize the depth of my passion. I just pray she understands.

We are dirt poor but so happy in our run-down house. I’ve got great friends; Dan and I are getting closer as our interests overlap. Jenifer and I are truly part of a strange family. We all live together, work together and look out for each other. We even bond while doing drugs together. I can freely smoke pot everyday and feel safe in my home doing anything at all. My relationship with my parents is more tolerable than ever and my little sister is growing into a good friend. Hell I even get regularly laid and have more than the occasional vacation with the love of my life. So everything is great right? People pass me in the street and say “How’s it going?” and with a glint of my teeth and click of my heels I automatically reply “Great!” But as I write this I still feel like something is missing. I don’t think my life can (or will) get any better than this and I really don’t see any way to keep making it exponentially better. There will always be little things to work for of course, more money and overseas vacationing come to mind, but I doubt material wealth will ever make me feel any more complete. I’ll be able to say that I’ve got a lot of money and opportunity but inside it will still just be me. I’m worried that I’ll have high school football player syndrome, where I constantly look back and regret that my favorite time of life has already passed on. Gone. I don’t want to look back and wish I were still here and I don’t want to look back and wish I was still where I was. Capishe?

Nugget of wisdom for the day: If your pot dealer has a gun he’s a coke dealer.

Today was the official “welcome back to school” Flying Tomato Christmas party. I volunteered our house because I was anxious to have our first balls to the wall, get shit-faced party. The Tomato provided us with the beer and some food, but once the keg got in the door that party was ours. My boss, Ski, didn’t really have any idea about the enormity of this brouhaha we planned to host. In the past they have always thrown quiet subdued parties where everyone from work gets mellow drunk sitting around listening to classic rock and half of the keg is usually leftover the next morning. When Ski showed up before dark with his kids and some videotapes to watch I almost laughed. For one night it didn’t matter if I got fired. If I had my way, all the magical parties I ever envisioned in my youth, sort of a combination “Animal House”, “Sixteen Candles” (Long Duck Dong!) and “House Party”, were going to be a reality. We invited everybody and I mean EVERYBODY, from random people in the street to cute girls on campus, and anyone who’s ever been to our house. Even Andy, the freaky albino-looking guy who lives in our garage out back, got an invite.

The furniture was moved to secure locations, leaving just a basic empty house and a lot of beer to drink. A lot of pot was smoked and a lot of drugs were done in my back bedroom because it was just off the kitchen and shut off from the party. After the first 30 unrecognizable people came through the door, my boss gave up his effort to guard the keg for the employees and went home in disgust. His wife Becky stayed though and we got her to do a bong hit later that night in front of everyone, which brought cheers from all her workers that were still conscious. We even got enough cash together later to get a late-night keg of crappy beer from Griggs, the dickhead who runs The Corkscrew across from the Delta Lodge.

Dan got laid with somebody from work, but he always pulls the ladies. The house was totally trashed. Moving the furniture out was a good play because the floors and walls got covered in spilled beer, ashes and other shit. I was almost ashamed we still had leftover beer in the keg today but it got to the point where I couldn’t drink any more and I was walking around in a smoked out haze trying to jam nothing but loud Beastie Boys songs on the sound system. If we owned a lampshade I would have been wearing it. Our good friend Jack Valentino passed out early in the morning but fortunately he had his usual doting concubines to take him home. Thankfully Kirk came back over this morning to help clean up and we systematically killed the rest of the warm keg over the course of the day.

All in all it was a successful mission: only one window got broken. I took lots of pictures, nobody got hurt, the cops didn’t show up, I shot at the mailbox with my BB gun, everyone in the southern half of North America got fucked up (seemingly) and I still have my girlfriend despite making quite a fool of myself on several occasions.

Yes, my name is Sam and I am a hung-over fool, fear me…passively. Party antics are pretty universal across the globe I guess, but it felt so good to cut loose for one night in the familiarity and safety of our own home. I doubt any of us will get fired; I still have a picture of Becky taking a bong hit.

Note to self: If we throw a party in the summertime the spilled beer is going to stink very badly. The sun unmercifully amplifies that sick smell of ash and beer. I’m still feeling pretty nauseous.

The whole house spent the morning in an early round of drinking in preparation for the big game. Because of this we just happened to be in the bar (college tip: when you work on Fry St. and give out free pizza, you can drink underage!) when one of the regulars came around looking for another sucker to fill in the last square on his betting grid. I didn’t have hardly any money but Kirk and I scrounged together $2.50 each and bought the very last square. It actually turned out to be a great game and Dallas rallied from behind to win 30-13 and turn our (Dallas 0, Buffalo 3) number into a winner for the last two quarters! We each won an easy $125 just for being in the right place at the right time but since we didn’t watch the game at the bar the ‘regulars’ were pissed when I came back to the bar just to get our cash because the other winners had been buying drinks for their buddies during the game. I guess they really didn’t expect the last minute filler money Kirk and I put down to actually pay-off any outsiders. Fuck them and their bar, fuck them and their fragility. In this case fragility is my euphemism for them being asshole jerks. It doesn’t take a Holden Caulfield to know they’re all phonies.

But I was happy despite the curmudgeons, it’s a human condition and I love it in all its falseness. I felt so strong, so invincible, so good and drunk on spirits and hedonistic luck. My mind actually cringed because I badly wanted to take Jenifer forcibly—that came later and of course I was gentle and honorable.

I maliciously plied Dan and Jim and myself with so many shots it should have been illegal. I guess technically it was illegal in my respect. Of course Dan was hardly affected due to his high alcohol tolerance and I had adrenaline to counteract my poison, but Jim, the reluctant drinker of the evening, was my prime target. I love him so much as a good friend that I must have wanted him to have a really good time. He had been drinking all through the Bowl and I pushed him too far because the last time I saw him he was hanging out the passenger window of Simone’s new car and vomiting as she drove down the road.

Today I’m feeling the sins of my incapacitation, confronted with the reality of my own hangover. Aaaaawwwwwcccchhhhhhhhhhh. That long lingering headache that comes with too much celebration is such a shitty feeling. I could dunk my head in a metal bucket of ice water and not feel any worse than I do right now. The throbbing is incessant. Tylenol helps a little but I’m allergic to aspirin. It makes the voices too loud for a morning like this.

I don’t remember much more than what I’ve already written. I spent most of the money I won last night somewhere along the line and Jenifer got pulled over for driving drunk across campus without her lights on. Fortunately we had just pulled into my driveway before the cop turned on his lights and since we were already home he let us just walk into the house without any sobriety tests. She hadn’t had too much to drink but she’s a lightweight. I remember some of the great sex we had and I remember going to bed happy before sleep finally claimed me.

The new semester is going all right, days are flying by since I’m managing to juggle school while working and slacking off. We still occasionally go tripping in Jim’s car and drive 100 MPH down the dark back roads of Texas. There’s lots of good quality marijuana around. The people that I know who are more connected tell me this has been a great harvest season due to the climate in the Western Hemisphere. That could all be hooey for all I know, but whatever the reason, I do appreciate good bud. The air is even getting warmer again though it’s barely February. I’m already looking forward to summer so that I can relax and go on a warm vacation. Speaking of which, Jenifer and I are going to drive down to Mardi Gras in New Orleans this year. It’s coming up in a few weeks. Jen and I have both been several times already but this could be another weekend of romantic debauchery that seals our fates in an enticing soul bond. It should be fun and Jim’s going too, which will work out famously for him because there is much alcohol to be consumed.

Oh to see God’s bounty spring from the Earth, defying gravity and oppression the way the shoes of a fat man struggle to support his girth.

I’ve borrowed a grow box, an indoor growing system, and this summer I’m going to try and grow a bodacious pot plant. The seeds are from Andy who lives in the garage apartment behind our house. He smuggled over some plump bundles of genetic joy from Amsterdam in his skivvies that I can plant. It’s going to be quite an educational project, I borrowed a marijuana botany book and it’s looking like this will be far more complex than I originally envisioned. Maybe those advanced Biology courses I took will finally be put to practical use. And people say college isn’t good for anything.

The shoots that I started growing on a wet paper towel in my windowsill have already been transplanted to their new home in my closet. Only the strongest of the virgin life will survive since the grow system can really only support one large plant. I am like a woman. I create life, but I am godlike in that I decide who dies and who survives. Ha ha (evil laugh dripping with icy power)

I also fulfilled a minor childhood dream of freedom from parental censorship recently and got a subscription to Playboy, which pisses Jenifer off to no end. Sure they are all plasticine (porters and marmalade skies), airbrushed women but I am a man and I have to look. Besides it isn’t fair to unleash the constant sexual torrent of sexual energy that’s inside me onto Jenifer’s beautiful body, even if the alternative might plant a feeling of inadequacy in her mind. It’s better to feel a little wrath than having to deal with her unwanted sexual accommodations or rejections. Rejection makes everyone feel bad. I’ve tried telling her I like to read the articles but that excuse is too cliché by now to really be believable. The irony is that I really do read the articles, certainly more than I drool over the obnoxiously large knockers, but it’s a futile argument rooted in something deeper. I would rather look at and have Jen any day of the week but it’s just a woman’s nature to be insecure (how sexist!) thanks to Barbie dolls and their fathers kicking them off their lap when they start growing boobs. How can I say, “It’s hard to appreciate what you have if you don’t open your eyes to anything else” without sounding like an arrogant misogynist asshole?

It works both ways though; she’s welcome to look at men in banana hammocks if it turns her on. The difference is that when she’s turned on, I’m always ready and waiting. I can’t really help that I’m horny about 10 times to her every 1. I honestly believe that’s really just a man thing, a leftover liability of our caveman mutant cross-chromosomes constantly telling us to “breed, dominate, breed!” We grow pubes and something in our brains automatically starts appreciating smooth curves, fast cars and the art of violence.

I spent most of puberty wondering what the hell was going on. Why was I humping my pillow in the middle of the night and getting a stiffy every time Allison Wetzl went up to the chalkboard? Who do you talk to about that kind of stuff? The Church led me to believe God was going to punish me every time I whacked off, so I wasted years dealing with issues about masturbatory morality and coming to terms with feeling bad about spanking the monkey because I was doing it anyway. This guilt went on and on until I finally just realized one day that it really is ok and even normal to rough up the suspect every once in a while. It’s my minds own rational form of “God made dirt, so dirt can’t hurt” logic.

Even though I’m more comfortable flogging the Bishop now, when I think about sex for the 100th or so time every Sunday, I look up to God and try to be thankful or ask for strength instead. I’m not sure if it was the damn Catholics or damn Protestants that gave me these screwball conflicting sexual issues, probably both. What’s even more perverted is that the God association is partly why Catholic schoolgirl uniforms turn me on so much; they’re the embodied image of sexy untouchable purity in a woman. The crazy thought of countless educated beautiful girls desiring to give over their innocent bodies to me isn’t a perverted little girl fetish, just a repressed religious uniform thing. Excuse me now, I have to go bop the bologna.

It seems I have a little extra money saved from leftover financial aid for tuition and my padded work income, so I bought some bad-ass Technic 1200 turntables with a case, microphone and nice mixer for $800 bucks from one of Jim’s good friends who’s desperate for cash. Actually it’s Timothy, the same guy who broke eggs all over our house that one time. I also got all of Timothy’s records, which included a ton of these crazy imported techno albums with break-beats on colored vinyl. Right now my favorite is the techno version of Sesame Street; I imagine thousands of tripping kids bouncing to the familiar rhythms of their youth. It’s so FUCKING cool but I still have to hook the turntables up through my shitty 70’s stereo, with the vintage working 8-track player, so I can’t really make the system thump and the house shake like I want it to. Before I sprung for the 1200’s I was reduced to scratching on an old record player that I modified without the drive-belt and jury-rigged into my stereo, so any legit equipment would have been an improvement on what I had. It’s like upgrading from a horse and carriage to a Porsche, now I have the best there is.

To put the enormity of me dropping so much cash in perspective, the turntables I just bought cost more than my first and only car. I can’t really justify the expense to anybody else because my music dreams are only envisioned in my secret prayers to God. I would hate to announce something I really care about and then fail to accomplish anything. I would rather do something and then feel good that I knew I could do it all along. Plus it seems the older I get, the more I learn what I can’t do. You can’t just have a generic dream anymore, you have to have a plan or a product line designed around it. It’s like some byproduct of the 80’s I guess.

My latest revelation for the week is that NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton” is now on my top ten all time album list. I found an NWA single in my records, so I felt I had to mention that. I want to record some of my own music so badly. I want to cut and splice together a collage of sounds and ideas and have the freedom to play with the tracks until it’s a soundscape, an entity unto itself. I’ve got most of the music written I just need more practice and some capital, hopefully buying these turntables is a step towards that goal. I’ve always loved the thrill of being in a band, controlling the emotions of a crowd from the stage is a magical experience and it gives me a rush of adrenaline like a high-stakes gambler. But with a band comes drama. I’ve learned from personal experience that band members don’t show up to practice, or they can’t play because they are hung over, or they listened to Judas Priest on the way over and are into a different sound than what I envision for a track. Someone is going to make a mint if they can design a cheap computerized home editing system where people can just be their own band. Why not, I do digital editing with my video projects in school and if we can already electronically load and edit video how hard could it be to translate that to editing sound on a computer?

She likes to make me work when we make love. She likes to grip the back of my arms underneath me and look into my eyes while sweat drips off the top of my nose, my blond wet bangs hanging down, our faces hovering inches from each other, stealing kisses between hot quick breaths. When the orgasmic bomb finally explodes into her brain and body, her clenching fingers become painful, her blue eyes roll closed, she bites her lower lip and tidal waves of pleasurable contractions pass through her hot body gripping my penis with a pulsing sensation. As the fireworks slow their rocketing, her muscles relax underneath and around me. Inside her it gets so slippery and smooth, I come closer, finally resting my body on top of hers, moist skin on moist skin, crushing the breath from her lungs until I reach around her with my arms and roll her relaxed body on top of mine. I watch as she enjoys the slight increase in penetration, letting her get comfortable, moving her hips ever so slightly as she finds the best spots to push onto, eyes still closed. The follow up orgasms are less intense but more frequent and to watch her is such a turn on. When she comes hard enough with me I actually can feel a part of her pleasure. Instead of working towards my own grand finale I’ve learned to appreciate fucking for long periods of time.

When it’s desperate love, it’s powerful. I’m never sure she’s entirely there with me or if it even matters to her during those times, I’m just thankful to be a part of it. It’s less intimate and far more powerful but still I envy how easily she can immerse herself in pleasure. There is always a part of me that stays aware, never wanting to be compromised. My old theatre teacher taught me that I can give 99% of myself into any character I choose to portray, but holding onto that last 1% is critical to maintaining who I am and I’ve never been able to let go of that lesson. I want to learn how to walk the tightrope without a net from her. I want to use her and be used by her. I want to want to.

Today we were walking across campus together, flirting and goofing off enjoying the beginnings of spring. Somehow we got on the topic of my baggy shorts so I felt obligated to demonstrate how they can just fall down when I walk. She really laughed when I showed her and added some sound effects and it made me feel good to hear her laugh. She has such a musical snicker that makes my heart soar. It was such a stupid, silly thing but I would play the fool for her forever if I could see the simple joy that spreads across her face time and time again. It’s been almost a year since we met now and I fall more in love every day even in the midst of our weird life. I hope we’re still goofy in love when we reach 60 years old. I wonder if our obligatory suicide pact will still be in necessary by then? The world seems to have a tragic history of beating true lovers into dust. I’m going to stop writing for the day now lest I delve into speculative darkness. The sun is shining and I’m happy in love. Nuff said.

We’re bound for Mardi Gras for a couple of days even though I suspect Fat Tuesday was earlier this week. It doesn’t really matter, the cold and rain and dreariness drives us, compelling us to roam. We have our fair bit of drugs to do and we are all looking forward to a relaxing free-for-all weekend. Jim and I tried really hard to get Dan to go with us but apparently something weird happened to him; therefore, all he’ll say is “Fuck Louisiana.” I think he got popped for a drunk driving charge or something. I happen to love the state so maybe I’m biased to its true colors. I know the political system has a long history of corruption and civil rights violations. It’s going to be mine and Jenifer’s first Mardi Gras together and Jim has even never been to New Orleans at all so he’s excited. We’re prepared for an uncomfortable sleeping situation in Jenifer’s car, all the hotels/motels/B&B’s are always booked months in advance, but we’re all stir crazy enough to do it anyway.

Some of my Delta Lodge compadres are also supposed to be down in the Big Easy but I’m sure it will be impossible to find them in the crowds. Another friend, Sam Escobar (Hispanic Sam), lives with his brother down there someplace in the city but I didn’t ask anyone for directions, which was pretty dumb.

Today has just been a slow meandering road trip through beautiful South Texas and Louisiana. Everything is starting to blossom in the swampland along the roads, turning the constant decay into a beacon of new life. There is a good vibe in the car thanks to liberal pot smoking, freedom and camaraderie. Good tunes always help too. Smile.

.breathe

Mardi Gras was great and it wasn’t. I should say that New Orleans was fun but Mardi Gras wasn’t there. No, the event wasn’t cancelled or kidnapped by masked bandits; we were just a week late, missing Fat Tuesday by a few days. I expected that the city would continue celebrating even after the weekend of Mardi Gras, but apparently the revelry really does officially stop after Tuesday. Oh well, we had to show up late due to tests at school so I’m not mad at fate, just disappointed and Jim didn’t get to see the craziness that Jenifer and I talked so much about on the drive down. Of course we still had a good time goofing around the dirty streets of the city and seeing the sites. There were still some residual lingering crowds from the festivities but for the most part we got the chance to appreciate New Orleans as it exists during the rest of the year. I haven’t seen a more beautiful city on Earth to walk in at night. The yellow light bulbs try their best to cut through the thick moist darkness and insects. The wet streets and the misty airs of the morning time linger with the scents of a different time; the whole city is all so beautifully old and mysterious with its ornate houses, above-ground cemeteries and romance tinged with a taste of too many Anne Rice novels. The French quarter gives off the sense of beautiful corruption that spans the centuries. A city of old money gotten God knows where and dangerous seediness lurking in a labyrinth of alleyways. It would have been wonderful to be brought up here and born into some of the secrets that seem to lie just beneath the good natured surface.

We explored the red-light district, of course, on the trail of William S. Burroughs and good drinks. We walked a lot and looked deeply at the intricate ironwork of homes and churches, while the buzz of alcohol and marijuana tinged the air with good nature. We were just fitting in and keeping conversations to a minimum with the grumpy locals who were tired now that their city of sin had just spent itself. All in all, I guess we didn’t really do much this weekend other than sneaking in and around the dispersing crowds, living Cajun style and feeling good. Jenifer won some money on a video poker game that she took over while I was playing it at a bar. She won about thirty clams and we would have won more except we didn’t think the machine actually paid out real money and we made some radical plays with the cards, still it was a nice bonus.

Jim didn’t seem to mind that we missed Mardi Gras and we kept him drunk on beer from different seedy bars. We all just had a good relaxing weekend away from home and revitalizing the youthful spirit in our blood. It was similar but more realistically pleasant than our usual excursions where we just trip acid and go lay on embankments under the highway listening to the roar of cars and watching the deafening stars. This trip’s been a good bonding experience with lots of Denny’s food and a nice groove. This time, my weekend in New Orleans was more how I envision Paris must look. Pleasantly damp and very romantic, there are probably more opportunities for sex in Paris I suppose. But sex is not everything and it isn’t as important now that I sometimes get a lot of it. It is her that matters more than any cheap fuck.

Jealousy is just another form of pride.

Hello love. It seems like I am not writing as much when I’m not out and about in the world traveling. I’m coming to realize my life is complacently routine. I am trying to enjoy these times for what I perceive them to be, a pinnacle in my life. Looking back through the ages and pages, I understand that if I were writing anything other than truth, the introduction of an antagonist would be necessary to capture the wandering attention span and yoke the train of consciousness writing style I’ve adopted. I’m just being me and enjoying things, what can I say? I will give an overview for my own posterity. I suspect that one day, when I reread what I have lived through, it will be very important to remember these so-called simpler times. Is that a foreboding prediction? Only time will tell me the answer I guess. Enough with the Eastern mysticism for now though.

My plant is growing tall and true. Actually plants plural, but one is a lot smaller and will soon be condemned to the wilderness of my backyard where its fate will be decided by limited water and the cruel sun. At least it will get the chance to live. It’s funny, but the simple execution of a plant would make me feel guilty, far better to let fate dictate its slow death. I’m pathetic in my condolences. The planter in my closet gives off a nice moist earthy smell that I find pleasant but the ever-increasing warmth of early spring might make the sense of humidity overwhelming. There is no AC back here in my room and every extra bit of heat is a liability.

Dan and Jenifer are both integral parts of the Flying Tomato crew now. Dan works with me on my killer Thursday and Saturday closing shifts and he gets drunk on the free beer while I get stoned out of my gourd in the freezer. By the time I sober up, if I do, its time to go home. Jim and Jerry come in pretty regularly to get beer and food which is pretty cool because I like being able to share some of my good fortune with the boys, even if it’s just feeding their basic needs. Pizza and beer count as basic needs when you’re in college. Jenifer gets to roam the streets and play while I work which gives her some of the freedom that might be necessary to keep us together. At least it seems to help her feel like she’s not tied down and I try not to violate that belief by intruding on her personal time. She will usually come in at some point during my shift to visit and I still get a thrill of a chill on my spine when I see her singing hips walk through the door no matter how hectic the workplace might be. It reminds me of watching her when she first nervously came to visit me, and that whole flirting via Jill Moppingworth thing. Jenifer’s always waiting for me at home and will call sometimes if I’m late which can get fucking aggravating and causes Dan to give me the “you are henpecked” looks. I can’t seem to convey to Dan the depths of my affection for her, he’s more of a ladies man than I am.

My other job at Swensen’s is going all right too. I dread going there sometimes, but I dread going to work most of the time anyway so it’s all good. Besides it gives me a chance to eat something that isn’t pizza and after a three year pizza diet, and that’s a blessing. Working under Jerry is cool, we both get our jobs done and I get to experiment with obnoxious ice cream creations. Jenifer will come in for food sometimes, but it annoys me when she still won’t eat anything even after I take out all the stuff she refuses to ingest. Correct that, it doesn’t annoy me, I just wish she would eat and I worry about her and it comes across as me being annoyed for some reason.

The cocaine at the house is starting to bother me because I really don’t enjoy it like I thought I would and certainly not as much as the anti-drug commercials promised I would. Our circle of friends has discovered that injecting coke gives such a euphoric feeling that it makes them want to do it all night. Something about that doesn’t agree with me, not that I’m an innocent bystander in any of it. It took forever for me to get over the natural aversion I have about doing drugs with needles and now it bothers me more that I’m OK with it. The day after shooting cocaine I sink into a quagmire of severe depression so deep that I have a hard time motivating myself out of it. I feel violated like I’ve whored myself out, but I keep quiet because my friends are really into the shit. Hell, after I do it just once I’m really into it too, but lately I have actually refused free drugs. It’s weird but I sometimes feel fortunate that our finances are strained because if we could afford more coke we would get more. I don’t want to make out like we’re all coke fiends though because it’s only been an occasional indulgence and shooting it up has only happened a few times but I’m wary of what’s going to happen later. I see good natured-ness and love all around me now and I know that it could all quickly change. I see pangs of guilt already in Jim sometimes because he doesn’t have money to party but he’ll still stay up with us anyway. We want him to of course, but underlying guilt is a bitch on friendships. Besides, I like Jim and he needs help motivating his ass in school so any distractions the rest of us bring could affect the rest of his life. Jim and Jerry haven’t been around us when we’ve used the needle because we just discovered it ourselves and honestly I’m shocked, embarrassed and don’t plan on telling anyone else. However like Hunter S. Thompson I refuse to make excuses for seeking chemical adventure.

Jim has been working at a cushy job in the coliseum giving out keys to the rac-quetball courts. He gets to be high and watch Star Trek every other night for a few hours. I’m totally jealous of his job. I’ve visited him sometimes before I go workout at the school’s gym and it looks like he just gets to sit and do his homework. It’s an easy job but I think God’s looking out for him and providing a place to study away from the disturbance that is our home.

In addition to working out more, I’ve been a skateboarding fool lately. My ramp in the backyard is in ill repair with holes and nails sticking out of stolen street signs I hammered over the holes. It’s intimidating so I mostly just street skate now and I always ride my stick to work. It’s too much trouble to get the VW started just to drive across campus. Created by God and German engineers in 1974, my faded red, flower-covered, ho’ed out car is on her last leg. Shit, “Sally’s” a year younger than me and most days I feel run down too, so I’m not mad at her. Jenifer gets irritated that she has to drive everywhere but then panics when she rides with me and sees the danger I pose to the cars and inanimate objects around us. I drive at 80 mph down the freeway in the hopes of blowing the engine out so I’ll have some excuse to find another ride, but the VW’s durability is pleasantly frustrating. Jenifer also hasn’t looked underneath the car as intimately as I have so she can’t know the passenger seat sits on rusted holes. She obviously knows there isn’t a seatbelt on the passenger side AND that I don’t have any insurance coverage, yet she fails to detect the exhaust leak that I think is slowly making me stupider. Nicely put, “Sally” is a deathtrap, but she’s a reliable deathtrap as long as the battery stays charged and the duct tape stays sticky. Keeping the battery charged requires driving every few days and I’m notoriously lackadaisical about this, so often when I absolutely have to drive someplace I have to get volunteers from the house to help me push Sally down the street so I can pop the clutch and get her going.

So Jen, my true love, can be grumpy that she has to accommodate me, but if she wants to go anywhere she’ll likely have to drive. I certainly wouldn’t relinquish the manly power of driving unless I felt there was a need, even if I can’t communicate it. Lately we mostly get stoned and watch a lot of Discovery channel instead of going out anyway. I’m a true poor Southern gentleman, albeit one without a dog. Yet.

My old friends James & Gregory stopped by the house today, totally by surprise. They went to high school together and both continued on to St. John’s up in New Mexico. I haven’t seen them for ages of course, even a lifetime of friendship can’t compete much with both of our new explorations and the adventures of going away to school. Gregory had one of his usual girls in tow; he likely picked her up last night at a bar somewhere in the Metroplex. Gregory is what I refer to as a girl magnet, a male who can do about anything and instantly become the idol of any female presence within a fifty-yard radius. He’s the only person I’ve ever met that falls into this class of male, though I’ve heard stories—nay legends—of more. I guess as laws get more stringent a lot of them end up behind bars since it’s a crime against the establishment to be that damn alluring. Gregory’s a great guy to make friends with since a person can hang around with him and pick up girls vicariously. Since there’s only one of him it’s nice to help out and handle his overflow, or castaways if you will. It isn’t that he’s especially attractive that I can tell. It’s more of an aura, a look or pheromone secretion as near as I can hazard.

I hadn’t seen either of them since Ernie and I drove my VW to New Mexico and went skiing for the weekend a few years ago so I was nervous at first but we quickly settled into our usual rapport. I met James a long, long time ago and I suppose I should write a little about James and his family since they’ve had such a big influence on my development as a person. I love James for what he and his family did for me as a youth. Their home was my sanctuary and refuge from my own dysfunctional family. It’s because his family placed such a value on learning and reading that I was exposed to thousands of great books and artworks that I would have never stumbled across on my own. Through my observations of their perfect nuclear family I learned about class distinction and that money is a blessing never to be hoarded but something to be used wisely and generously. Hell, they bailed me out when I lost $80, all my money in the world at the time, to a three card Monte hustler on the streets of NY. They even did it slyly by saying it was for my birthday. We went to school together in the same gifted classes and drudgery until sixth grade when James transferred to a Catholic school my parents couldn’t come close to affording. We remained close friends until he left for college. James’s house is where I was encouraged to be creative, to think outside the box and to look at a life where careers are based on more than financial reward. James’s generous car lessened the pain and necessity of not having one of my own in high school and during my first year of college. We discovered girls and zits and a mutual appreciation for bad television together. When we speak it’s with the frustrating language people parallel to identical twins. I’m sure his family was slightly annoyed with the way I managed to attach myself to their gatherings, but I didn’t know any better. I went skiing with them for the first time at their private cabin in Lake City near Crested Butte. I went to museums with them, weddings, funerals, art films, Catholic mass and as we grew up together I generally tried not to make a nuisance of myself during my frequent layovers at their dinner table. I also fell into a secret love with his younger sister Maureen because of a longing for her that grew out of exposure and a desire to be a part of their family. When I proudly announced I would marry her one day, she tattled to her parents and I got red in the face when they said they would be happy to have me. I consider the majority of their brood to be good people too. He has 3 older siblings that were gone before he and Maureen came along. I even looked up to James’s dad as a father who wasn’t my father, not a new concept given my home life. For them I even had to rethink my lifelong instinct and philosophy to never trust anyone with red hair. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for their family and I would die for James. I owe them big time and I know it. Instead of fading into poor stupid obscurity I was shown, not made to, appreciate the value of education.

All past history and bullshit aside however, I was glad to get a random visit from James. I had bought him a giant sombrero during my trip to Mexico over Christmas and he thanked me by bringing over a case of Lone Star beer, assuring me that its high-dollar shit up at St. John’s. We got drunk and talked about nothing and everything, just having a good time. I introduced him to Jenifer (she was working) with pride when we went to the Tomato at my insistence for free beer and pizza. There’s not much else to report really because we got obnoxiously drunk. They were envious of my house and I wished we were able to stay in better contact when he left but long distance friendships must progress. Still it felt like one of my brothers had visited for a day and left, so I was slightly depressed to see them go.

Oh, some gossip: James’s sister Maureen is pregnant and had to come home from her first year at college. Life is weird but I instinctively know she will make a good mother and a routine of childcare discipline will benefit her. I sympathize with her upcoming ordeal though. Despite my fleeting dreams of boyhood romance I would like to send a note of encouragement since she’ll have to face hostile familial Catholicism over this, but I’m probably not even supposed to be privy to the secret at all. So Maureen, here is a subconscious mental well wishing aimed at you and your child. Be good and be strong, I’m thinking of you.

Tonight a bunch of us watched Jane’s Addiction’s “Gift” while tripping on acid. I viewed it with a skepticism—usually reserved for alchemy—in a packed living room of people, all of us watching it for the first time. It was a creepy and oddly romantic movie crammed with lots of badass music. Just us, Perry, Casey and the ultimate rundown of the heroin lifestyle encompassing all its death spanning love. Maybe it was the acid but the movie really moved me and now I want to try smack more than ever. Isn’t that stupid? To be influenced by imagery and music so much, just like the evil government said I would be. Maybe organized government is my friend after all.

Yeah right.

Nope, I now know that I’ve pretty much been lied to and fed misinformation about every drug I’ve ever tried. Usually my virginal nervousness turns to disappointment because for some reason the amount of pleasure I equate with the evil addictive quotient just isn’t there for me. And I don’t think I’m special either. In a way it’s good because I want my experimentation with everything I can get my hands on (excluding sniffing paint and PCP, nasty business) to only be a temporary experimentation. A series of experiences I can look back on and say “I did that” or at least use my exploration as a reference for unwritten characters in a bad after-school special or something.

Heroin is sort of a last refuge, a final drug with the highest ante of all. One last thing to try before I move on to more worldly jobs and sensual pleasures on the physical plane. Somehow I still suspect bitter disappointment from Ms. Morphine but then again I never have thought that the deep ennui I am experiencing could ever be relieved through chemistry, prescribed or otherwise.

But tonight, watching the shocking realism of true love and a reminder of drug-addled despair akin to Drugstore Cowboy, I think I’ve been given a subtle reminder to check myself. A warning I somehow know that if I ignore, I’ll face undesirable consequences later. The music and poetry of the world is alive, but very often dirty. To truly create, I fear I will have to roll around in the corruption of life and get an honest sense of despair that a simple visit to hell could never convey, although Dante’s trip proved inspirational enough for him. People had more time on their hands back then to analyze and write volumes about the experiences in their dreams too. Doesn’t it seem as if the theologians that are most concerned with the good of the afterlife are also unnaturally captivated by the bad of the here and now?

I’m scared. While things are clear to me on acid tonight I can already see I will alienate my family. Too many regrets are coming up. I’m scared mom, I know you’ll never understand. I’m scared Jenifer, nothing I gain in wisdom will be worth losing you. I’m scared Sam, you have already embarked on this different sort of road trip, a ride much more important than you will ever know. Dammit! I may be lacking inner peace but at least most of the time I’m comfortable. God forgive me for the things that will happen. God please forgive me for making them necessary.

I just found out that Jim is moving out of our miniature Monticello after this semester and I’m kind of sad about it, even though I suspected it might happen sometime soon. I just have this sense of an overall tiredness seeping into all of our bones and a general melancholy emanating from Jim because of different things going on in his life. He’s a notorious class skipper, which leads to the eventual disappointing low grades and having to drop half his classes. It’s also pretty damn hard to motivate yourself to do boring school stuff in our house with all these distractions. Jim’s tired of being poor, tired of being hassled by his girlfriend Simone continuously, and lamentably even I get on his case about stupid shit like all his dirty dishes or other stuff only bitches like to nag about, so I’ll bet he’s tired of that too. I guess he just senses it is time to try and move on and who can blame him?

We’ve all been doing more coke, yet slowly excluding each other’s company when we do it. Jim will stay away and I’ll use the excuse of having an early class to not participate. Drug-related relationships are getting more complex and weird around our house. So in a way, even though I’m sad to hear Jim is leaving I know it’s better for him to move back to San Antonio and get his head straight. I’ll miss that bastard though. Jim’s been like a brother to me sometimes and I’ve learned a lot by imitating his casualness. My old friend James gave me the basic Bachelor degree training in slacking off but Jim helped complete my Masters.

We’re all run down and tired from school. The rest of the world looks upon college life and sees it with rose-colored glasses slightly tinted green with envy, but the actuality of doing it daily and living hand to mouth is hard. Up North where animosity gets hidden behind thickly insulated walls during a majority of the colder months, people can drive around the cities and view their ghettos with some semblance of detachment, but Texas is a nearly year long festering stewpot of aggravation. It’s getting hotter and it’s going to keep getting hotter, fuses are getting shorter and the mundane tasks of living are seemingly unbearable sometimes. Often it’s so tempting to just say, “Fuck it!” and do my own thing. I’ve got spring fever to the Nth degree.

I hope Dan and Jay are cool about Jen staying with me at the house most of the time. She’s become a fifth roommate and now when people speak about one of us, our names are invariably lumped together. Sam and Jenifer or Jenifer and Sam, the name mentioned first usually denoting whom the speaker originally intended to talk about. I like the sound of it though. Sam and Jenifer. Jenifer and Sam. Pretty nice.

Our old friend Kirk is probably going to take over Jim’s room so we won’t have to worry about extra rent, not that it would be too big of a problem. I think Kirk is cool even though he’s older (about 27 or so?) and he was there with Jim and me in the dorms and he already knows Dan and Jenifer from drinking together at the Tomato and hanging around our house. Kirk always says he wasn’t much of a pot smoker until he started hanging around Jim and me. Since I (positively!) credit Jim with helping teach me about the joys of being most mellow, he can blame Jim. Kirk likes to party too much and will do any drug put in front of him but he’s also established a set of unflinching priorities and responsibilities that keep him on track, plus I already know I can live with him.

Jenifer told me while we were lying in bed last night that Kirk is weird and kind of creeps her out. I tried to pry and ascertain why she thinks that way, but the feel of her hair on my chest distracted me as she nestled into her favorite pillow, the crook of my arm. I’m thinking it may just be one of the subtle differences that women can detect in men. Something men can’t see in other men because they are blinded by friendship perhaps? We’ll find out soon enough I guess.

For one day, Jenifer and I were members of the upper crust, true sophisticates washing out the taint of our ring-around-the-blue-collar and simplistic collegiate lifestyle for an afternoon. The basic skinny is that today was the final showing of a great Impressionist exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art. In hillbilly speak that means some high-falutin’ famous pictures were on display. The collection was absolutely amazing. The works are on some sort of tour and we had been kicking around the idea of going for the past few months but it took a deadline and some encouragement from Mrs. Lansing to finally motivate our asses. We got to dress up and be art-fags for a day, leaving Generica (that’s Generic America) with all its McDonald’s, Wal-Marts and malls behind for a few hours.

The Impressionist colors and scenes of life have always struck a power chord in me. I love the artists’ quirks, I love the museums and I loved getting to go with Jenifer. She’s one of the few people that I knew would value and appreciate the experience as much as I did. Other lovers have tolerated my off-kilter interests in the past but how many have taken the time to incorporate and embrace my oddities, learning about them out of love for me? Just her of course. I doubt I could have viewed the art with anyone else in the world and felt like it was being equally appreciated. Ours was not a snobbish grasp of the value and history of the pictures but an appreciation for the passion and intensity of the driving force behind the artists and the thrill of seeing so many quality works together. I love her so much, in part because I respect her as having an intelligence level equal to mine. I’ve met women smarter than me in certain ways and I’ve certainly met my share of stupid bimbo bitches with killer bodies but only Jenifer has a unique intelligence I identify with and love.

The vivid scenes highlighting trivialities of life and details that only artists are given the opportunity to capture captivated our minds for the afternoon. It’s rewarding to be touched by an experience but it’s hard to explain the depth of an afternoon with a mere smattering of insignificant recorded details. Let it suffice to say that today we expanded our souls in each other’s company, we got to have a date together, and I’ll remember the pleasant sunlit afternoon forever. Or at least until I get amnesia or Alzheimer’s.

Before we left I talked Jenifer into viewing the permanent children’s exhibit they have at the museum. We mostly goofed around in this one section called the “Shadow Room” where people can stand against this special wall and it burns a shadow impression of your body onto this big screen for a few minutes, kind of a like a police chalk outline in reverse. It was fun because we were the only near-adults in a room full of children and watching Jen laughing and playing around left me star struck yet again by her raw vitality. When my eyes briefly locked with her aqua soul gems I fell into them until she looked away taking a piece of my heart and severing our psychic umbilical cord. I value those silly moments and overly dramatic thoughts that are forever burning themselves into my brain despite the mysterious significance.

I could write whole sonnets on the power her eyes have over me. How the clear blue excites me sexually and withers my confidence. A long time ago I learned this neat trick about looking into a woman’s eyes, a trick that’s worked many times successfully. When I want to appear as if I’m looking deep into a girls eyes and glimpsing deep down into their soul, something that subconsciously drives women wild for some reason, I just stare at the reflection of light in the sheen of their eye. It gives off the appearance that I am staring through them, seeing inside their persona instead of creepily staring at them. When I try it with Jen however, I am always drawn into the obsidian pools as if they have their own gravitational force, black holes with such an intense power that it warps the universe to one point. Like Pavlov’s dog I still drool over her and describing the spirit of the mood between us would be like trying to describe God with a single name or word.

Kirk moved in with us last week which was a decidedly uneventful experience. I finally responded to Jenifer’s impassioned feelings and when Jim moved out I secreted the majority of my accumulated Playboy subscription amongst his belongings. It was more to show her respect than in response to her nagging; besides, enough time had passed where I could get rid of them without it being just in response to her pressures. I would have gotten rid of them sooner but it became such a big deal between us that if I had let her crappy attitude dictate my decision it would have set a bad precedent rooted in disrespect for both of us. Sometimes as the man I have to bite the bullet and fight for something I don’t really care about if I want to maintain my integrity and trust my decisions will be respected down the road when something comes up that I do care about. No woman wants a pushover for a boyfriend even when their natural instinct is to pussy whip them into being their bitch. It’s just one of the burdens of being attracted to strong intelligent women, every type has their idiosyncrasies I suppose. When it was finally my decision again (I think) to get rid of the Playboys it was no big deal anymore and ultimately unappreciated by Jenifer, but I won’t call attention to any of that. Marriage (oops), I mean dating, is sometimes a delicate diplomacy.

Life is just continuing as usual except we will soon have an entire summer at our disposal again. My visit with James has prompted the possibility of a trip to Colorado very soon. The excitement is sexually titillating.

The past weekend, in response to an ad I saw in the Dallas Observer, we all went to the Kennedy Memorial in downtown Dallas to be extras in a Public Enemy video shoot. It was cool but very tiring because we had to get there very early in the morning to be in it and Jenifer stayed up late with Jerry doing coke while I was at work. She didn’t really want to go down there with us but the clingy woman part of her didn’t want to be left out, so she was pretty much a Grumpasaurous Rex all day until she finally went and slept in the scorching car. It was cool because Dan and I got picked to be Nazis and we’re going to be an integral part of the video.

The premise has something to do with us (the Nazis) trying to assassinate the first black president (hence Dallas, i.e.: Kennedy) and Public Enemy foils the plot. We got to meet Chuck D with all his Muslim bodyguards giving us the evil eye because we were white AND we were strutting around with the Nazi armbands that the film crew said we couldn’t take off between takes. This didn’t go over too well with the crowd of Dallas black people who came down to be in the video since nobody ever told them we were part of the shoot, but Chuck D was cool and took a few minutes to talk to us and sign some autographs since we were fans. Flavor Flav wasn’t there, which was kind of a bummer, but I got some hands-on experience seeing how a music video is filmed. It kind of reminded me of being an extra on television which I haven’t done for a long while. I smoked some weed with members of the film crew and chilled out with Dan who bought a couple of 40’s at a 7-11 and got really drunk. All in all it was exhausting but fun and hopefully we’ll see the finished product on MTV in a few months. Public Enemy’s kind of fallen off the hip-hop radar lately, but back when “It Takes A Nation Of Millions…” and “Fear Of A Black Planet” came out they totally ruled the scene.

We hung up Chuck’s autographs in a shrine on the living room wall. The autographs, the baseball-sized chunks of hail that fell in our yard (preserved for eternity in our freezer) and various Beastie Boys paraphernalia are now the highlights of interest on our house tours. Well, they would be if anyone ever showed an interest in touring our casa. Oh Blah Di, Oh Blah Da.

Living with Kirk is all right; he’s so damn passive about everything and Dan couldn’t ask for a better drinking buddy. It also looks like Kirk is going to start working at the Flying Tomato with us, for lack of a better job. There’s just not much work here in a college town. If you don’t like your job someplace, there are a hundred other kids that can take your position the next day. The employers know this and keep the wages right about minimum. The amount of time our household spends at the Flying Tomato is truly pathetic but we’ve developed a sort of symbiotic relationship. They use us for cheap labor and oddball work hours and we use them for free beer, pizza and laundry. Oh and a miniscule paycheck every once in a while helps to pay some of the rent and school expenses.

Jenifer, David, Gabe and myself had an odd experience after we closed the store the other night. Gabe finally scored enough dilaudin to have our first get together and we attempted to learn about shooting it up. Dilaudin is basically the prescription form of heroin, another thing the government conveniently overlooks in their crusade against drugs. I guess if you’re a big business pharmaceutical company it’s ok to be a drug dealer in America. Truthfully I’ve never had a more aggravating or frustrating experience in my life. We’re so inexperienced with using needles that none of us could get the crushed pills into our veins, leading us to think maybe dilaudin is not water soluble and we had wasted our cash for nothing.

I became so obsessed with getting all the air out of my needle I eventually just squirted the whole yellow concoction out in a frustrated rage that can only compare to my short temper in traffic. The temper that scares Jenifer because she observes the animal in me and doesn’t think I notice her looks of fear. The temper usually reserved for things that people do to Jenifer, the one that caused me to throw beer bottles at a car full of rednecks on the highway after they made her cry. Sorry honey.

The night was a failure drug-wise, but I think our attempt is sort of amusing now. As neurotic as Gabe is, I don’t doubt that we’ll find real heroin very soon.

Let me see if I can describe what I’ve observed about people’s love affair with the needle. It’s strange but the terror instilled in us as children while getting shots at the doctor’s office can’t compete with the morbid fascination of preparing and injecting a serum personally prescribed for a good time. I understand how it is now and I think it might have something to do with the blood, that most sacred of fluids.

I stopped giving blood after high school because it was making me progressively dizzier every time I donated, leading me to illogically conclude that my body was having trouble replenishing its supply. But watching the blood cloud diffuse into the milky solution seconds before the whole poison cocktail is pushed back into my arm gives off a rush that precedes the drug. All the romance of the mythical vampire and the power of being able to tap directly into my life fluid, it’s almost like playing with God. Cocaine is so fucking evil but injecting it feels so good, for a while anyway. I don’t want to try and describe the sensation that comes with mainlining cocaine to anyone because if I romanticize it then I might be responsible for what others pursue. I’ll simply state this: as much as people like to merely snort cocaine and still become addicts, most of them would realize they’ve just wasted their coke all these years after the very first time they injected it. It is too nice, fun, intense and pure fucking evil. I don’t think I can do it ever again and enjoy it. There is too much guilt, too much of a desperate need for it and I never want to fall in love with something so fleeting. I’ll spend all my money after that first shot of coke, going back and forth to the dopeman, telling myself this next quarter bag will be the last one for the night.

Jenifer, David, Gabe and I went out camping deep into the woods last weekend and when we got home I couldn’t remember anything we did out there except shoot coke and David’s pistol, a bad combination all the way around. I felt so guilty later, like I had offended the gods, but I couldn’t express my depression to anyone around me, even Jenifer who I’ve always felt I could tell anything to. It just wasn’t right. The whole fucking scene didn’t feel right to me. I know Jenifer enjoys it too much but I was afraid to give her any kind of ultimatum until the other night.

We were over at Gabe’s apartment, doing bumps and listening to Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”. We were all getting really amped and trying to get as much pleasure as we could, increasing the amount of cocaine we put into our shots each time until tiny Jenifer pushed too far and had a seizure. Oh God I’ve never been so fucking scared in my life. I had no idea what the fuck was going on and what was happening, I was just praying to God she wasn’t having a heart attack. I really thought she was going to die and nobody had the first clue about what to do since we had never seen anything like this happen before. I get cold chills just writing this down and nervous about how I could have lost her right there on Gabe’s linoleum floor. I laid her out on the kitchen floor where she had collapsed, putting my hand under her head so it wouldn’t bounce on the hard surface while seizures ripped through her body over and over. I swear I thought she was going to die and tears were streaming out of my eyes. When the seizure stopped I got ready to do CPR on her in case her heart had stopped. I was screaming her name over and over trying to get some sign that she was alive, checking her pulse and breathing while Gabe was freaking out. He wanted to get her out of his apartment and even tried to slap her awake. When he slapped her face I almost broke his arm but I was too focused on helping Jen to follow through.

Thankfully after about five agonizing minutes of me wanting to call an ambulance, she woke up with no apparent side effects and no recollection that anything had happened. I’ve never been so scared in my whole life. I think I got a taste of the pure terror a parent feels when their child is finally out of a terribly harmful situation and it’s something I never want to experience EVER again. Jenifer’s lungs are so bad and she’s so skinny that I was sure her system had overloaded and that she would die right there in front of me, despite anything I could have done. I was so physically drained and relieved she was all right that all I wanted to do was get her away from there as soon as possible, just to hold her and thank God.

My heart almost broke when one of the first things she asked for was another bump. I even understood why. She didn’t know what had happened and she didn’t have to live through the fear and danger we had all just gone through standing over her body. Coke’s like that—a pure evil presence that tells you to keep doing more and more. Shooting coke is almost like winning free games off an easy pinball machine, when the fun wears off you want to leave it behind but don’t feel quite right if you do.

Lord, thank you so much for keeping her alive the other night, she’s a wonderful soul and I need her so much, but whatever you do please, please, please don’t remind me that way ever again.

Despite everything, Jenifer is still doing cocaine with David fairly often and I honestly don’t know what to do about it. I can’t enjoy it anymore after what happened at Gabe’s apartment and if I hang around her now while she’s doing it I end up sounding like her fucking dad. It makes me sick to hear myself. I have to physically remove my presence or I’ll nag and try to watch over her. Plus now it’s like that movie “A Clockwork Orange” where the main character gets ill listening to Beethoven after being programmed with a negative response. I can’t even see cocaine anymore; my heart knots up and I feel nauseous thinking about nothing except Jenifer lying on the floor hurting. I know she feels guilty after staying up all night but its draw on her is so fucking powerful that she doesn’t even care. I’ve even tried being angry with David for being her hypo companion but I know it isn’t him. Cocaine is nicknamed “girl” for a reason. What’s crazy is that up until a few weeks ago I would have been up until dawn with them. I even tried to get over my phobia by staying up with them a few times, but I just can’t do it anymore. Sometimes I feel hurt and left out but I refuse to try and make her quit out of guilt about me. It is something she has to quit on her own.

When Jenifer finally crawls into bed with me in the early hours of the morning I’m usually awake but I never say a fucking word. I’m thrilled to finally feel her chilly caresses and I’ll wrap my arms around her cold body, just happy to have her safely back with me. Sometimes we have a sort of tender, guilty sex during these mornings, sex that my brain tells me not to accept but I always want her so much that it’s impossible. I end up pinning her to the bed with my pent up anxiety and punishing her gently. It’s probably not the most psychologically healthy thing for us to do but I love her, I need to forgive her and I guess by now she always knows I want her. Something’s going to happen soon but I don’t envision us being apart so I’m curious to see what it is.

Hey, guess what! Andy’s moving out from the garage apartment behind our house this summer and it looks like Jenifer is moving in. She’s pretty excited about having her own place again and it’s nice to see a return of the confident independence that makes her face shine but it’s not like she didn’t have the run of the house when she stayed over with us anyway. Oh well, my single bed isn’t going to be much competition against her air conditioned queen size, complete with familiar soft sheets and her Snoopy doll. I’ll miss the mandatory closeness of my bed and I’m sad to have her go, even if it’s just to live in my backyard. I always got a thrill knowing such a beautiful woman would choose to live with me and now I know I’ll mostly be staying with her. Activate the emergency insecurity pods Captain! I suppose since I’m the only one who gets to play with her pet rat Rico, she must feel something for me.

My Dad and I are driving to Minnesota together for some obscure relative’s wedding that I don’t really know, so I’m already off to a weird start with my summer break. My first response when my parents asked if I wanted to make the hel-lacious drive was “no way!” but since my mother is paranoid about my dad falling asleep at the wheel, I finally agreed to go. In all the years we’ve been making this 20 hour, 1000 mile trek into the great White North, I’ve yet to see my Dad even relax enough to take a nap. I guess as nervous as he is with me driving I’ll keep him semi-alert just by being there.

I’m both excited and apprehensive about this trip. I’m apprehensive about leaving Jenifer behind because I’ll really miss her and I know that she and David will likely be doing a lot of coke and I really don’t want to come home to a dead girlfriend. The other night I had to keep going to the dopeman for them since David’s usual connection got busted and the only guy in town with cocaine was one of my good friends from the Lodge. I felt totally pathetic because I was trying to make them feel guilty for asking me to go get them more drugs, but the kind of subtle guilt I specialize in doesn’t work when someone is fiending. I’ve noticed they’ll pretty much say or promise anything to get their immediate needs met. They kept only wanting a little bit at a time, thinking each time would be the last time, pissing their money away little by little and I had to keep going over and listen to this crazy guy’s ranting and ramblings while he played me shitty death metal songs that he had made up. He thought I was doing all the coke I was buying from him (friend discount) and so he thought I was as juiced up as he was, but it all seemed pretty fucking stupid to me. Anyway, I’m hesitant to leave Jenifer behind but I’m glad to escape and not have to roll play as their fucking babysitters for a while. Plus, it’s not like Jenifer would ever cheat on me with David so at least I can have peace of mind in that respect.

I should get to see my older stepbrothers, Adam and Michael, which is cool. Michael just got married to a cool girl named Leann and I’ve always respected him a little because my mother threw him out of the house when I was just a kid. Adam just graduated from film school and we correspond occasionally. He’s opened a coffee shop in Milwaukee so hopefully we’ll get to run out there and see the heart of America’s beer country. I’m sure most of my time will be spent chilling out with my Grandparents at their trailer park so I brought a little pot even though it sucks that I won’t get much of a chance to smoke it on the long drive with my dad and all.

Actually, trailer park is really not the right word to use for the place where my Grandparents park their RV in the summer time. It’s more of a mini-resort for all the “snowbirds” that flock back North when the climate is more hospitable. There’s a golf course and an awesome therapeutic heated swimming pool. I guesscold weather is a lot more of a pain in the ass to deal with when you’re old.

♦ ♦ ♦

So anyway, I’m thinking I should get to swim and lie around and read trashy books for a while. They can’t quite figure out why I’m reading all the time but it’s always been one of my favorite things to do on vacation. I plan to get high and play a little golf in the mornings and then sit and read by the pool in the afternoon, which all adds up to a perfect vacation in my book.

Everything is pretty much going as I thought it would up here. I went to the obscure relative’s wedding and got as drunk as I could at the reception in the smoky VFW, so I managed to have a good time. I hung out with my brother Michael for a while at the wedding and made plans to visit him and his wife overnight in St. Paul, so that should be pretty cool. I also went to a fun flea market with one of my uncles the other day and all of his kids made fun of my skateboard (of course I brought it with me!) but I didn’t really care. I’ve been reading a John Grisham novel and riding around on my Grandparent’s moped looking for places to get high along the Mississippi. These are very lazy and relaxing days, just what I’ve needed to get my mind out of my own problems for a bit. There are a few pain-in-the-ass things to deal with, like all the millions of fucking mosquitoes everywhere and my Grandpa is up at 7 a.m. every day sweeping the driveway or some shit. I like him but sleeping past 9 a.m. is not much of an option while I’m staying at their place. My Grandma keeps me stuffed with home-cooked food all the time and it’s real food too, not that college budget TV dinner crap I’ve been subsisting on.

Dad and I did get to go to Milwaukee a couple days ago and visit Adam. His coffee shop is really cool and it kind of reminds me of the Karma Kafe except Adam’s place is more cluttered and has detailed artwork in surprisingly hidden places. I think the art makes it cooler. I went to use the restroom and even the doorknobs were intricately hand painted with bizarre frescos. Shit like that. We all went out and had beer and vegetarian pizza and spent the night in his rundown apartment. I say run-down in a good way though. There’s nothing like a road trip to make you appreciate the dirty gothic beauty of old architecture.

Adam and I forced dad to watch “Ren and Stimpy” videos, which he was surprisingly tolerant of. It’s weird to watch how people behave when they realize they’re completely out of their element. I found one of my letters and collages among Adam’s clutter of film stuff and that made me happy. I never know if anyone saves or even reads the junk I send their way. I learned long ago that I’m a pack rat but I also like to be clean. So instead of throwing out any stuff that’s kind of cool, I’ll just mail it along to someone else. That way the other person has the liberty of throwing it away or holding onto it for eternity and the pressure is off of me. Adam and I seem to live in the same type of environment. I asked him to write to me more often.

We saw “great” Lake Michigan; it looked dangerously huge and very cold. I also set out in search of the fabled cheap beer that I heard lives up in the heart of brew land. When I finally found a beer store, after much effort, the prices weren’t any better than at home so I ended up saying “fuck it”. I don’t really care for beer that much anyway.

Last night I went out with Michael and Leann in St. Paul to eat at one of their friend’s houses. I had a really good time. Their friend is a roommate with this speed freak who’s in a band with Steve Albini. Steve Albini is the guy who produced Nirvana’s In Utero album and I was visibly impressed even though the guy just went in his room and slammed the door, probably to do more speed. We cooked and ate a huge Italian meal with fresh herbs, wine and French bread. Even the table was formally set with candles and the works. My brother brought along a bottle of nice scotch and some wine so I tried to get really drunk but wasn’t too bad off. I brought some pot along with me but I was hesitant to smoke it because one of my distant cousins was also there and everyone else was a lot older than me. My brother said it would be ok though so I smoked a nice bowl with the host and a few other people around the table. They acted like it was a big deal for someone to share their weed with strangers and it was only later that I found out from my brother that marijuana costs $65 a quarter up here for crappy schwag!

Later Michael showed me the house he’s bought and the music studio he’s setting up in the basement, which I thought was badass. We were both more than a little sauced by that point and I felt bad because I knew he had to get up early and go to work the next morning. I think I prompted him to drink a little more than he was used to, I know I drank more than I was used to.

Right now, I’m staying at my other Grandma’s house in St. Paul. This grandma and I have never really quite clicked, I suspect it’s because I’m just a grandkid by marriage and she hardly ever sees me. Still, she usually sends $2 (for a drink?) and some slippers for Christmas every year and that’s something I guess. I’m sleeping in the basement of her old house. For some reason, all the houses up here have basements and when I was a kid I used to be scared to death of being down here. It’s still kind of creepy but I like sitting away from everyone else in the house and there’s a tiny black and white TV so I can watch something besides news and “60 Minutes”. The little kids are scared of the basement so I get to stay pretty isolated and write a little bit while I’m self-sequestered down in the dungeon.

Minnesota is nice. I think I could get used to being housebound all winter. It might serve to stimulate the creative juices. I’ve noticed that while it’s warm during these summer months everyone is always doing something active all the time. I think it’s because they know in the back of their mind that winter is imminent and there’s only a short window to get it all in. The constant heat and year roundnice climate in Texas just makes everyone slowwww and more relaxed with their time. When you know it’s going to be nice again tomorrow, why bother to hurry through today? That’s just my personal theory though.

Man my head is spinning so much lately. Jenifer’s new apartment out back is good and bad. Sex with her has re-intensified thanks to Jenifer being more comfortable and free spirited in her own home. She’s more sensual with an aggressive twist, free to cry out or indulge while we’re fucking, having sex or making love. There is a difference between the three terms, not to mention the various pleasurable subsets in each category, which we’ve enthusiastically explored. Without fear of intrusion and interruption the world simply becomes her and me (and sometimes Superlover, that randy devil).

Despite all the creative draining, life goes on with each day bringing about its simple joys. I’m so amazed we haven’t gotten sick of each other yet and I think Jen is sometimes puzzled about that paradox as well. We eat a lot of parmesan pasta, leftover pizza and we’re helping keep Sprite and Snapple in business. I smoke a lot of pot and she smokes a lot of cigarettes and we both force our music on each other in a romantic mind-melding sort of way. It’s all a big extension of the “I don’t know where you end and I begin” phenomenon. We still drive RedOne everywhere and sometimes it seems like the days go by too quickly for us to properly appreciate them.

My pot plant, which I had to transport to the backyard due to size constraints, is flourishing with fat juicy buds out by the skate ramp and awaiting harvest. I’m happy about so much, aggravated by so little and appreciated by one.

Jenifer’s stopped doing any cocaine now because of me, which reaffirms my love for her. One of my first nights back from Minnesota we christened her apartment with lots of cocaine and anticipated sex. Guess which idea was mine and which was hers? She ended up having another seizure. This one was even worse than the one before and it scared me so much. One minute we were flirting and sexually serious, shooting up and laughing about how my dick gets soft after a bump and the next minute she was convulsing so hard I couldn’t even hold her down on the bed as her body flung itself around in a sick series of spasms. I knew more about what to do this time since I had researched about cocaine overdose and seizures in the UNT medical library after what happened before, but it wasn’t much help in the heat of the moment. Oh God, I was so scared again. When the seizures stopped she just lay there unconscious for the longest time, so fucking long that I was preparing for the worst. Visions of our brief life together flashed through my eyes, I was wondering and panicking about how I would tell her Mom that I had betrayed and destroyed her most wondrous creation, while I shouted Jenifer’s name over and over, hoping for any sign of life and clarity from her frail body.

When she finally awoke it got even worse. She just suddenly came to life disoriented and was fiercely fighting as if she had been trapped in a nightmarish hell the whole time she was out. It really spooked me seeing her awake but not aware and I kept trying to hold her close to me until it all passed but one of her fists caught me hard in the jaw and she went for my eyes with her fingernails. I decided constraint might not be a wise action at that point so I just watched to make sure she didn’t hurt herself until everything calmed down, praying she didn’t have any brain damage.

Jenifer calmed down eventually (thank you God!) and when she was “normal” again with no recollection of anything happening, again, I freaked out on her. I was crying and shaking and trying to explain what kind of fucked-up shit I had just gone through to the only other person who was there. I felt so small, so powerless, flinching from her condolences and assurances that she was ok. Lord, do anything you want to me, but please don’t hurt her, don’t take her away, okay?

After it happened, I knew if she didn’t stop craving the sweet rush, she was going to die. I sat down and explained it to her the next day as gently as I could. I explained how I would never ask her to place any kind of limits on herself because of me, I told her how I loved her for her spirit and independence as much as anything and also how uncomfortable and worried I was because of her. Like a businessman handing in his resignation over a disagreement about an immoral company policy I told her that I was going to have to break up with her. Oh it sounds so shallow to say it that way and it really ripped me up to even have to say it. It hurt me to merely vocalize a vision of us being apart, but I had to convey to Jen that I love her too fucking much to be here and watch her die. I told her that if she continued shooting coke the way she was that she will eventually die, and that I couldn’t handle being around when it happened. It isn’t my place to restrict her and as painful as it was, I told her I was going to have to leave. Maybe I wasn’t being fair to her because I know a lot of the fault and same desires are inside of me too, but some kind of confrontation had to happen and luckily it worked out for the best. Both of us were blubbering towards the end and I imagine I looked pretty pathetic to her with snot running out of my nose and big puffy eyes, unable to even look at her face as I said the hardest words I ever had to say.

Everything has turned out okay though, she was moved by the depths of my emotion and held me to her chest, kissing me so softly and promising never to do it again while her salty tears rained gently into my hair. My body was trembling, so scared of losing her again in a different way, by my own hand. When I stopped shaking in her arms we sealed our recommitment to each other by letting the tenderness become needful lovemaking. So I’m joyous and happy today and I can only hope this is finally behind us now.

We are visiting the mountain state of Colorado in all its glory. I’m anticipating a week of hiking and laziness amongst the majesty of the Rocky Mountains. I’ve wanted to use the word majesty to describe the mountains since having the lyric “purple mountains majesty” permanently imbued in my brain as a youngster. I’m so excited to show Jenifer the cabin and the wonders it holds that inspired my enthusiasm for Colorado. I already called James months ago and his exact words were “you are more than welcome to use it for as long as you want, you can stay inside and fuck all day if you like.” He swears that his parents don’t mind and even though his older brother Dirk is supposed to be there with his wife Natalya we can do whatever we want because he made plans for us to be there long before them. Basically all we’ve planned is a little hiking and camping around the continental divide. I’m really just excited to be on the road again.

James’s brother Dirk is one of my childhood heroes even though I doubt he knows the extent of his inspiration to me and James while we were growing up. He’s always represented the free spirit of the Patterson family to us even though he’s settled down in recent years, proving even a rogue can make good. I doubt he’s ever even had a clue about the number of creative childhood inspirations his left-behind belongings had for us. He’s the liberal-minded distant brother to the both of us, who’s always seemed to tolerate our youthful eagerness for tales of his adventures.

We left this morning in no particular hurry with a little pot, some good tunes and a few crushed dilaudids to snort on the way. Jen and I get along famously and I still believe our infatuation with each other is growing. To see her spirit soar with release after months of tedium is exciting for me to watch. We even stopped the car at a rest area early on to have a quickie that was cheap, tawdry and wonderful. It started snowing.

Unfortunately, I am writing this while RedOne is broken down on a mountain road about 40 miles from the cabin in Lake City. I’m not worried though because we’re almost there and a quick call to Dirk should get some help on the way soon. As soon as we can find a phone of course…

Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” Peter said to him, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And so said all the disciples.—Matthew 26:34-35

Something strange is going on up here in Colorado. We’ve met lots of eccentric small town mountain people who have been super friendly, but Dirk and Natalya are acting super pompous, which is very disconcerting. I feel betrayed by them, mostly because they’ve finally offended Jen’s easy going nature, which really hurts me. Maybe I should begin where I left off the other day, just after the car broke down.

After we were stuck in the mountains, we hitched a ride back to the nearest town, which is called Creede. You can still hitchhike up here in Colorado because there is a minimum of psychos I guess, and because we had no other choice, it was the best way to go. When we found a phone I immediately called the cabin, told Dirk we were stranded and in trouble and asked if he could come pick us up since we were headed to the cabin where he was at anyway. It was only a few hours away, it was already freezing and we needed help. He knew we had no place else to go and even over the phone I could tell he felt like I was imposing on him by asking for help which struck me as odd because his family always taught me to bend over backwards to help people when they are in trouble. He finally said to give him about 4-5 hours to get his stuff together and then he would come pick us up. 4-5 hours!? What the hell, I’m practically family right!? I gave him the benefit of the doubt though, thinking maybe he was presently engaged in an important activity that demanded his immediate attention, even if we really needed emergency assistance. Turns out I was wrong.

Jenifer and I ended up meeting the Sheriff for the area who had passed our car on the road and since we were the only unfamiliar faces in his town, he correctly assumed it was ours. I normally hate all cops, but he was the nicest old fella I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. He was cooler than cool, sort of like the Marlboro man. The Sheriff arranged to get our car towed and introduced us to the only mechanic in town, a shade-tree grease monkey who was really busy, but the Sheriff used a personal favor to vouch for us and get our car into the shop right away. The mechanic was a little rough around the edges but after we told him were in college he warmed up to us and started asking me all kinds of questions about college football, which I know absolutely nothing about, but I tried to wax hip to what he was saying. Even though it was Jenifer’s car, he kept talking to me about the Cornhuskers and cars. It made me damn proud to be in America where theonly requirement for acceptance is a little football knowledge, an American car and a woman on your arm to confirm your heterosexuality.

Turns out RedOne’s timing belt was the problem which meant we had about five days to wait before the mechanic could get parts shipped in and do the labor. No problem I thought, we have an emergency credit card to pay for the car and we can stay at the family cabin until our car is repaired, maybe do some local day-hikes instead. The Sheriff was a super guy; he loaded our gear from the car into his SUV and then gave us a lift out to Lake City after Dirk didn’t show up. I was nervous because I had put our tiny bit of leftover marijuana in my backpack, which then went into the back of his Wagoneer and I thought maybe his supernatural cop instinct might pick up on it. But we drove through the winding mountain roads and spectacular scenery without incident. Jenifer sat up front with the Marlboro cop who showed her all his police gear and they chain-smoked cigarettes together.

I hope we scared the shit out of Dirk and Natalya when the Sheriff showed up at their door; they certainly seemed surprised to see us despite knowing we were going to show up eventually, regardless of their blowing us off. Maybe they were hoping that if they ignored us our final destination might somehow change. I thought it was pretty rude and low class considering we had asked for permission to use the cabin before they had even made plans to show up there, but I let it go. We ate an uncomfortable dinner with them, took showers, got clean, then pirated one of the four bedrooms and crashed out.

Waking up in the morning at the cabin retreat of my youth with the girl of my dreams, despite our separate twin beds (ala 50’s television) was a satisfying feeling. We walked around and I showed her the familiar scenery and the intimacies of the cabin hideaway including the rainbow prisms that fascinated me as a kid and the high-powered telescope by the back porch used for late night stargazing. The hummingbirds were out in force, buzzing to and fro among the feeders James’s mom meticulously attends to. I showed Jenifer the now defunct pond where James fell through the ice when we were goofing around one winter. James caught a lot of fallout as a child from our misguided schemes. I showed Jen all the fly fishing gear Mr. Patterson taught me how to fish with, the BB guns I used to shoot cans off the porch and the ping pong table in the garage. We mostly just sat in the sunshine under the huge windows in the living room, reading our books and resting after our hard day yesterday. Dirk and Natalya kept trying to get us drunk with them but we weren’t all that interested in imbibing. We were just enjoying the peacefulness of being where we were, respectfully taking in the environment. I can’t help but wonder now that if maybe we had been more outgoing or alcoholic with them we might have gotten to stay in the comfort of the cabin longer. Jenifer and I just wanted to be with each other and let Dirk and Natalya do their own thing since we didn’t want to intrude on whatever they had planned and we only needed to wait for RedOne to get fixed so we could go camping at some overnight spots like we had planned.

So, Dirk and Natalya just happened to be there at the same time we had planned to be there and maybe more social interaction was called for on our part, but they certainly didn’t act like they cared about anything we had to say. In fact they kept going out of the room to talk to each other in private and after they had a few beers in the evening some of their jokes maliciously leaned towards making fun of us and them acting superior about some of the friendly letters I had written to them after their marriage. I was unabashedly polite and stepped lively trying not to intrude or violate their space but I could tell something was going on.

The next evening, we all sat down for a late lunch and they nervously told us some bullshit story about how some friends of theirs were arriving the next day and how we would have to leave. Excuse me?! I called James ahead of time and he talked to his parents to verify our presence would be okay. Then all of a sudden out of the blue we have to go because his older brother decided it was his prerogative? Our car is in the shop, which they are clearly fucking aware of, and this was OUR intended destination and now YOU want to strand us in an unfamiliar town under the pretense of politeness? Well fuck that! I even volunteered to sleep in the basement or the garage if running out of bedrooms was their excuse, it seemed like an uncomfortable but reasonable compromise to me. It turns out they would have enough empty bedrooms for their “friends” even with us there; they just wanted us out of town. They went out of their way to make us feel as if we would be too much of an embarrassment to have around these “friends”. Oh Dirk, you little fucking man, I’m hurt. I always credited you with being better than that, the one adult I related to, and now that my hero worship is dashed, I feel violated. I feel angry to see you treat Jenifer this way. You little fucking man.

Dirk and Natalya diplomatically said we could be driven back to Creede after lunch or early the next morning. Since it gets into the 20’s here at night I immediately responded we would definitely go first thing in the morning, reminding them we don’t have anyplace to stay and that we can’t even get into our own car for camping gear since it’s in the shop. Then they had the audacity to say they would rather drop us off after lunch. Well why the fuck did you even pretend to give us an option you cocksucking bastards?!

I can only hope that the drive into Creede was uncomfortable for them. We piled into their yuppie-wagon and refused to speak to them during the wholehour or so it took to get there. Jenifer was openly fuming at how disgracefully rude and contemptuous they had treated us the whole time we visited and I would have sliced open their plush leather back seats with a knife if I’d had one. My stomach was roiling as if I’d just eaten several teaspoons of salt. Fortunately after their few pathetic attempts to justify abandoning us in the middle of nowhere, they finally shut the fuck up and I could sit quietly and dwell on how humiliating it felt to be driven out of town by the smiling backstabber who shattered the embodiment of everything good I’ve wanted to emulate ever since my youth. It was pathetically weak of them and neither one of us could stand to be around them anymore after seeing their true colors. After Dirk and Natalya let us out of the car they turned it around and drove back by us giving a friendly wave like everything was just peachy with the world. So I pretended as if I was the idiot they thought I was and I smiled and waved back at them until they had both turned to look at me waving and then I shot them the bird. Get the FUCK out of here you two-faced assholes!

Oh, we cursed them. We cursed any ass-kissing benefit to their careers or lives that might come about this week at our expense. We cursed their marriage, friends and future children. They now have a blackness that will forever follow them through life. Gaining without honor is akin to selling your soul. To gain by stepping on family, even extended family, is worse. Even though the first funeral I ever attended was for Pop, the grandfather that Dirk was originally named for, where I was allowed to sit up in front with the family in his absence, the devastation finally sank in and I realized that no matter how much I might wish or want or pretend or even love the Pattersons as my own family, I will never be a part of them. That’s what hurt more than anything else.

After that whole experience, we sort of stumbled around town for a while in shock. We checked the progress on our car and found out it would be a few more days before it was finished since the parts hadn’t even come in yet, then we ate some dinner at a local greasy spoon where we ran into the Sheriff again. We were pretty embarrassed to have to explain why we were back in his town so soon and wandering around like homeless people but he helped point us to this nice little bed and breakfast that Jen melted some parental plastic on. We should send Dirk the bill. The Sheriff also said if the opportunity ever arose he would pull Dirk and Natalya over and give them a ticket for us. Now THAT’S a great guy.

The owner of the B&B has been great to us too; she gave us college discounts without even asking if we were in college, despite her house being empty of visitors at the moment, and she helped us make plans to go out hiking into the wilds tomorrow. The extra bed and breakfast expense is justified because it’s a band-aidfor our fragile psyches, the place is very old school and romantic, which is what our trips are always about anyway. So I guess it all worked out for the best. I learned a painful lesson about childhood “heroes” and God brought us into contact with some truly kind people. Of course we’ll be leaving this small facet of civilization behind tomorrow for a day or three, just as we’ve already left our former host’s bullshit behind, and hopefully the icy darkness stabbed into our hearts will become swallowed among the majesty (there’s that word again) of the Rockies and we’ll learn to forgive. Even if the mountains don’t.

21 Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how many times could my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22 “I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus said to him, “but 70 times seven”—Matthew 18:21-22

Once again we are back at the wonderful little bed and breakfast tucked into the heart of Creede. After roughing it for the past two days, Jenifer felt the need for more pampering and despite my worries about spending too much money I couldn’t find it in me to argue too much.

The day after our unappetizing reality check we set out to gather supplies and hiked a long winding trail that led up into the mountains surrounding the town. We bought water, trail mix and several other necessities like hot dogs, marshmal-lows, bread and rice. I also stole a roll of film for my camera. Jenifer got upset that I stole from a small town store saying how she would rather not have pictures if we have to steal them, but I couldn’t justify the hyper inflated price of $15 for one roll of 35mm film and I wanted to take some damn pictures. There was a brief harrowing moment halfway out of town when she realized her raggedy brown wallet with her money and credit card (which we need for the car!) was missing and I must admit I panicked and probably acted like an asshole (again). I had vivid visions of trying to get the car from the mechanic with no way to pay for any of it and then begging Dirk and Natalya to help us while they laughed and kicked me in the teeth with their steel-toed nazi boots. Memories of her losing her money in Mexico helped compound my growing sense of dread as we walked back into town, but when we returned to the store they had held her wallet there for her. I was relieved but then felt extra guilty about hooking the film from them. I’M SORRY I STOLE A ROLL OF FILM ALRIGHT! Damn I hate moral reminders sometimes.

We hiked up and up and up with our worldly possessions and borrowed camping gear growing heavier and heavier on our backs. We took a lot of breaks for cigarettes and pot but gradually we reached the less inclined trail that wound through a birch wonderland. I took a lot of pictures despite knowing that scenery blends together in a photographic respect but I also know my own angular variations and the inclusion of my 5’9” flannel-clad blond bombshell will make the photos memorable to me. Every time we paused I marveled at how the rigors of altitude flushed Jenifer’s cheeks and made her hair stick to her head. It was sexy in a sweaty aerobics instructor sort of way, plus the oxygen deprivation to my brain probably helped make me moony.

Eventually after trekking all day under a blue sky, Jenifer put on her stubborn face, dropped her gear and said she wasn’t going any further. We set up camp and I felt like an asshole for pushing her so hard on the hike, forgetting that she’s physically smaller and asthmatic to boot. I guess it’s just that her spiritual enthusiasm soars above mine so often that I forget to treat her like the lady she is, but I suspect she likes that I treat her as more of a friend first. My best-est friend. We put the tent up, gathered firewood and then explored our surroundings. My camera has a timer and I took this great picture of us from the back holding hands naked during sunset, staring out over a spectacular view.

After spending the night smoking pot and talking with Jenifer in front of the fire under the most vivid stars I’ve ever experienced, we turned in early to soothe our taxed frames. The following day we hiked back down to the great news that RedOne had been fixed. Well almost fixed anyway, one more night at the most. I got a greater appreciation for the influence and generosity of the Sheriff taking us under his wing when three other touristas came by the garage while me and the mechanic were having another conversation about Nebraska football. The people only needed something minor repaired on their jeep and the mechanic all but told them to fuck off while we were talking. He ended up only charging Jenifer about $160 bucks to fix her car, which was so surprisingly cheap for a timing belt that she wanted to tip him. I got the impression he still thought he was overcharging us because he went ahead and fixed some other minor stuff on her car for free, what a great guy! When Jen eventually tells her parents how much it cost to get the timing belt fixed, her dad’s going to shit a brick. He has used the same mechanic in Denton for years and always gets overcharged for everything. I suspect the extra money her dad pays is mostly just to give his obsessive-compulsive brain a false sense of security.

We’re going to have to cut our car trip short by a few days thanks to all the unexpected events that went on, but we both don’t mind much. We did what we set out to do and it’ll be nice to lie around the house for a few days, among real friends, with no particular place to go.

Today Dan and I went scavenging in the bowels of his parent’s garage. It was boiling with excruciating heat, even under the roof of the building that once upon a time was intended to shelter his parent’s mobile transports. Imagine a virtual warehouse of wall-to-wall boxes filled with discarded treasures of the 1970’s. I scored a new rolling tray that was once a souvenir from a now long forgotten trip to Tahiti. We also got all kinds of framed pictures and even some funky string art that has been incorporated into our living room décor. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we had come across a paint-by-numbers set featuring the Osmond’s, it was just that kind of cool loot. Anyway, after several carloads and lots of replenishing ice water, our front living room in the house is filled with all kinds of miscellaneous junk that one day we’ll sell in a garage sale and make a bit of cash. When the planets perfectly align and we are properly motivated of course. It’s just SO DAMN HOT now that it’s hard to do much of anything at all. We curse the heat yet hate the cold, there has to be a nice balance somewhere, but it’s probably not in Texas.

My twenty-first birthday was uneventful except for continuing to live with Jenifer in sin, which is the only present I wanted since I could already indulge in my drinking delights. My relationship with my parents is improving, mostly because I don’t ask them for anything anymore. My mom still sets aside the occasional bag of groceries for me though. I sympathize with my sister for still having to live there with them but I’ve tried to let her know she can stay with me if things ever get too rough. She’s never had any problems with ignoring their authority so she’ll be all right. My sis has the potential to be really cool if she would only quit listening to that infernal pop country music crap.

After a few bad interactions with her family, Jenifer got put on anti-depressants again in order to satiate her father’s insistence that she has a chemical imbalance and I got put on anti-depressants again to satisfy my mother’s neurosis. Jen and I both get run down but we’ve decided it’s due to our unbiased views about the state of the world rather than fictional cynicism partially due to a chemical imbalance. What is it with adults pushing drugs down our throats to make everything appear better? When did everyone give up on trying to actually make things better? Am I living in some delusional late 60’s radical mindset, didn’t our parents try to change the world for the better once upon a time? Maybe I should try to do both, fix my mind with their serotonin stimulators or inhibitors and try to follow my heart to do the right things. The damn anti-depressants have caused a slight diminishment in my creativity that is very bad. I need that inspired part of me for film school dammit or I’ll wind up directing crappy videos for crappy bands on MTV. Lately, I’ve been making these cool collages that I paste together over a period of weeks and then shrink down on the photocopier to mass-produce intricate pieces of mini-art. I’m really proud of them and I like to give them away to people or use them to write letters to my brother Adam, but when I’m on the Zoloft I just lose the drive to do any of it.

So when we can remember, Jen and I take their medicine and just try to keep each other sane like we always have. I get more nervous when she forgets to take the old birth control pills, but apparently this woman who looks like she’s as fertile as the Tennessee Valley isn’t. It’s good right now while we’re in college but I’ll be sad if it turns out down the line that we can never have a child together.

Oh well. If we had some cheese, we could make a ham and cheese sandwich, if we had some ham.

Jen and I went to Mexico via San Antonio on a Rohypnol run. We visited Jim and Simone while we were there which was pretty cool. I felt like we were two yuppie couples, with the world at our financially stable feet. We stayed at Jim’s house and I got to hang out with his little brother. Jim says his brother has looked up to me ever since the day we went to a Texas Ranger’s game with him while we still lived in the dorms and I showed him how to heckle. That was the same day that Jim got so drunk and stoned before we went to pick up his brother that he puked out the window of his Mustang while he was driving and poor Kirk, who was riding in the back seat, caught the backsplash. Jim was so sick that we just stopped at a random house by the side of the road and used their hose without asking in order to clean out his car before his brother got in. I guess his little brother just really liked the way I constantly badgered the umpire and batters from our cheap seats. Even though the players couldn’t really hear me I kept making his brother crack up by being so blatantly belligerent. What a positive memory to have about someone, right?

Jenifer had never been to S.A. before, so we went down to the River Walk and took a tour boat through the canals they have there. It was fun and probably seemed pretty plastic to Jenifer since she’s experienced the dirt and charm of Venice, but we had a good time. Afterwards we went to Taco Cabana and drank a couple pitchers of their bogus wine margaritas, mostly because Jenifer isn’t 21 yet and we couldn’t get into some club Jim and Simone really wanted to take us to. Truthfully, I didn’t really want to go to a club in San Antonio anyway so we dropped off Simone and then Jim took us cruising through the Mexican barrio for kicks. I’ve ridden the subway through Harlem in NY but I’ve always wanted to see the Mexican ghettos and I kind of felt like a snobby shit for going slumming. Still, curiosity prevailed. Class distinction is so fickle and so much bullshit anyway, more people need to get out and see how people live and survive outside of the white suburbs.

Jim still had the acid I mailed down to him a few months ago and the following day we tripped our balls off at Natural Bridge Caverns. It’s the place whose burnt orange yet cracked and aged dinosaur signs had inspired me to visit Carlsbad Caverns a while back. You know, the ones that looked like a retard person painted them? It was a different experience than I expected and it was almost creepy down in the cave but I really enjoyed holding Jenifer’s hand and watching the walls melt and then reform. I think I must be getting old because lately when I trip I get slightly scared when the raw intensity of the hallucinations overpower me. I feel the acid more, which should be good but it just isn’t that fun to me anymore and almost by unspoken agreement, Jenifer and I hardly even mess with it now. I guess acid is just something people grow out of. This was just a special rare occasion, and besides I’m a sucker for exploring caves.

The cave was pretty freaky but the tour of the caverns only lasted about an hour and a half, so by the time we got back outside we were all still peaking really hard and we were too fucked up to think of anything else to do that might be cool. On acid it’s hard to quickly adjust to changing situations and going from being in the total darkness of a cool cave to back out into the hot sun was disconcerting. Still, it was a clear sunny day and we made the best of it. We were all still slightly tripping when we eventually went to meet Simone over at her parent’s house and hang out. Her little brother is a schizoid with a motor mouth, but in all probability he’s a genius that will do great things if he can learn to focus. Still, he was kind of annoying given the state I was in at the time.

We went and ate breakfast at Simone’s house the next morning, which tasted wonderful despite my hung over belly. A traditional Mexican breakfast with chorizo is a great cure for what ails ye, especially after the weird night we had. Jenifer, who is allergic to everything on four legs, had a severe asthma attack in the middle of the night that was triggered by Jim’s foo-foo dog. She didn’t have the “machine” with her and I tried suggesting all sorts of remedies in my overreaction to something I couldn’t control. We even tried going out and sleeping in the car to get away from the pet dander but eventually we had to wake up Jim and get him to drive us to the nearest hospital for her special steroid mist treatment. After arguing with the bone head doctor, who seemingly felt threatened by Jenifer telling exactly him what she needed in an amazingly ridiculous battle of wills, she was all better.

I hate seeing Jenifer in pain, her attacks hurt me with worry and her tough attitude sometimes makes me forget she is as fragile as a desert flower and could spontaneously keel over. She often tells me she almost died when she was born from this asthma and I’ve personally witnessed what could have been her second death (twice!). Bad luck happens though, so if we can get through her ‘little death’ number three with no repercussions, her life should be kissed with blessings forever.

Cramming our San Antonio adventure into just a few days was a whirling dervish of an experience but loads of fun. Seeing the power of Simone’s family cohe-siveness made Jenifer and I pine for one of our own, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon. I psychically sense distraction ahead of us. Visiting Jim was like visiting a favorite uncle and he treated us really well. Respecting his sleep patterns we pulled out early in the morning without waking him up to say goodbye, but it was necessary to make our timetable. I hollered at his little brother who was awake, and told him to say goodbye to Jim for us and to keep his fingers nimble so he could retain his title as Super Nintendo champion. We drove the rest of the way down to Laredo and crossed the border into Mexico on foot to buy some roofies. Many nights of Dominos pizza and relaxed loving are in our future now. Jenifer smuggled the Ro’s across in her pants with no trouble and we’re on our way home with yet another mini-vacation under our belts. We’re so cool we went to San Antonio and didn’t even see the fucking Alamo. Even Ozzy had to stop and pee on it when he went there, but I guess that he’s even cooler.

I feel so incredibly mammalian today, what with the heat and all. Having body hair is like having parasites all over my body, sapping my crucial minerals and the calories that I need to grow. I think maybe evolution is weeding hair out of our human genetic pool because it is past serving its purpose as a survival mechanism. All the thinning patches do now is give lawyers and businessmen sunroofs of insecurity for their heads. If I ever start going bald I’m going to shave my shit off like Michael Jordan instead of trying to cultivate a flap. A flap is when a person grows out the hair on the side of their head and tries to comb it over the balding area. It’s what the military might refer to as a strategic deployment of available forces. A mullet is a fish? My body hair is sucking me dry to extend its roach-like antennas up through my skin. I’m metamorphosizing[1] into a giant Kafka bug! I worry that this incessant hair growth will eventually turn Jenifer off. It certainly turns me off when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror after a shower.

My life is at the point where if I found a picture of the Virgin Mary weeping on some strange surface I wouldn’t even call the Catholic church to try to cash in on it. Say she appeared on a tortilla; I would probably eat it thinking “damn that tortilla tasted heavenly!” savoring the pleasure all for myself. Maybe I’m fearful of exploitation due in part to my anger at the discovery my education wasn’t always based in truth, which makes me fearful of exploiting things myself. Focusing on the small pettiness of life is making me increasingly atheistic, yet when I let my mind expand enough to take in the vast infinity of the universe I know there is a God. I know it, even when I don’t want to know it. The only problem I have with Him is that the world I live in reflects a laissez-faire policy on His part and that’s even scarier to me than not believing at all.

I’ve come to the personal decision that I believe in a higher power, and I know God wants me to question everything, including Him. There are enough people with blind faith based in ignorance; wouldn’t it seem logical to love the people that find out God exists on their own?

“Expedit esse deos, et, ut expedit esse potemus—It is expedient that gods should exist, and, as it is expedient, let us deem that gods exist.” I take comfort in knowing at least my God isn’t a tool invented by the man to control society, and so despite his anonymity I have to be content with the knowledge that He’s doing the right things. The fucking Baptists around here would censor the entire world if we let them. It’s almost as if they think God favors sterility.

If I ever decide to write a book, that Great American Novel we all have inside us, I sure hope I don’t prostitute it out by hiring somebody to write “compelling” or “spellbinding” or “a real page turner” or “Mr. Paul is a master storyteller” just so I can slap quotes on the cover and induce some soccer mom into buying it. Maybe blurbs are needed to sell books to the average American but it sure gets repetitive and hokey when I go into a bookstore and I’m barraged by all the quotes taking up space on the covers. They yell out at me like a circus ringmaster hucking fifty cent peeks at a five-legged elephant. I think saying that a book is “a real page turner” bothers me the most because what’s that really telling me? That I want to turn the pages quickly? That could be good or bad I guess, but it all seems fucking hokey to me. When I write a book, I want to hire somebody to say, “This book is a nasty evil piece of shit and you should not buy this rot under any circumstances.” That would be much better. I found this great quote about Abe Lincoln the other day that I absolutely loved.

“Filthy story-teller, despot, liar, thief, braggart, buffoon, usurper, monster, ignoramus Abe, old scoundrel, perjurer, robber, swindler, tyrant, field-butcher, land-pirate.”

—Harper’s Weekly magazine, 1852, on Abraham Lincoln

I think maybe those words helped inspire me today. Sometimes it’s my day to sit and vent about all the stupid things that are out of my control in my life, so please forgive my tangents. Thank you and goodnight. Elvis has left the building.

“I have always loved marijuana. It has been a source of joy and comfort to me for many years. And I still think of it as a basic staple of life, along with beer and ice and grapefruits—and millions of Americans agree with me.”

—Hunter S. Thompson ‘71

Greetings sports fans. Welcome to the wide and wacky world of occasional journal writing. Apologies to me for not writing for the past few months but various important things are occupying my life right now. Things that are SO damn important that if I wrote them down I would have to shoot myself after forcibly ingesting this paper. Okay, okay, I’m really just slacking, I admit it, but my life has been stuck in the doldrums of ennui due to familiar routine. Interest lies in the everyday details but I just can’t justify taking the time to write down what I’ve done each week when the majority of my journal entries would just read: “Smogged out on pot, went to class, went to work.” (Repeat and combine in any order)

No, really though, school is school es una escuela. It IS getting more interesting now that my basic bullshit classes are out of the way and I am strictly focusing on my major. I chose the RTVF major after seeing the type of assholes I would be working with for the rest of my life if I’d kept going after my Business degree—the frat jocks with jobs already lined up at their daddy’s companies, whose butts I would be kissing for the rest of my fucking life just to reach middle management. RTVF is also the major I chose after suggesting to my parents I was likely going to take a semester off (while secretly already in the middle of taking a semester off) and suddenly seeing their over-the-top willingness to financially support me with school rather than see me descend into gradual blue collar hell. If I had known the threat of dropping out would make them help me pay for school I would have tried that tactic much earlier. Who says the caste system is dead? The long and short of it is that in the midst of figuring out why I was happy, I personally concluded money is not as paramount to my happiness as I thought it was and with the renewed financial support of my family I’m taking classes that I not only excel in, but also enjoy. Except for the technical terminology textbook aspects of my classes, most of what I’m doing seems too elementary to me to be viable for a practical career application, but who knows?

The television studio production course I’m enrolled in now is fun because I can rely on my raw creativity to cover up my laziness, just like in high school. Our last project was the production of our own 15-minute TV show and mine was titled “How To Carve A Pumpkin” because I had limited resources (no money) and it was right after Halloween so I could steal some pumpkins for props. It was very bogus but I pulled it off with aces.

Keeping with the pumpkin motif, Jenifer and I went to see The Smashing Pumpkins the day after Halloween at this place down in Dallas called the Bomb Factory. Her ex, Kristoff, was there back from hobnobbing around Europe but it was cool because we became fragile friends after he realized that I treat Jenifer with more love and respect than he ever did. The new Pumpkins album, Siamese Dream, is totally bad ass. After working all night at the Tomato on Thursdays and Saturdays, we crank up the jukebox and play their whole disc. I think it’s so good that this might be the last time we’ll ever get to see them in such a small venue. Of course being the pre-stadium gods that they are, they completely rocked my dick off. To kick off the show they played that one song by Arrested Development over and over until the whole audience was pissed off and ready to rock. Jenifer did her own thing and watched from her own little world, letting the waves of sound give her orgasms, producing that humming buzz only live music can generate. I stared and danced like a white boy on ecstasy, just having a good time. It had been a while since a worthwhile concert came through Dallas and we really enjoyed ourselves. Jenifer’s 21st birthday was on October 23rd and it was about as uneventful as mine, even though I racked my brain trying to come up with something special for her. I made a point of asking her what it felt like to be 21 on the morning of her awakening into true adulthood, but her only response was a beautiful smile for my asking and remembering or reminding her of the awaited day. It was a dumb question but I wanted to see if anyone else thought growing older was as anticlimactic and indifferent as I did. Maybe we should relish this time together because youth is fleeting and 21 is a great marker for our midway point, if we can even last until we’re 42. We’re an official part of the big bad world now, the odds are against us, we don’t know what we want, our suicide pact is firmly in place, and we’re deeply entrenched in the typical generation X notion that hard work equaling happiness is a bunch of bullshit.

I heard an advertisement the other day that summed it up for me. “Tell me what it is, what it does and don’t play the fucking national anthem while you do it.” Well it was something like that anyway. I suppose I could go off on the whole philosophy of my generation but I won’t. The truth is everybody thinks differently but there are a lot of us who are depressed by it all. We’re tired of being classified by the clothes, drugs, religion, race and wealth that don’t seem to bring anyone happiness. Hey, I don’t mind being marketed to or exploited by you, just please remember I will never be you.

I’m an American adult with the mind of a teenager that’s jaded like an old war veteran. I’m the descended bastard child of multiple European countries. I have no fucking ethnic pride so I don’t feel the burden of cause placed on me by my ancestors. Pride is a crutch of the insecure. I’m an amalgam; you made me and now I make you. The end is the beginning is the end. Ad nauseum.

My diversity is often shown through the use of my offensive vernacular. My favorite word right now is “FUCK” and its many uses. I really don’t even consider it a swear word anymore unless I substitute “FREAK” or “FRIG” which sounds worse to me because then I know I’m drawing attention to the fact that I meant to say “FUCK”.

By the way it’s sounded out “FUCK” can describe pain, pleasure, love and hate. “FUCK” falls into most grammatical categories. It’s used as a verb, both transitive and intransitive. It can be an active or passive verb, or an adverb, a noun or an adjective. Hey buddy, “Fuck You” (insult). “Fucking-A!” (positive exclamation). “I’m hungrier than a mother Fucker” (denoting extreme hunger). “Fucking beautiful” (very). “Un-be-Fucking-lievable” (when ordinary adjectives just won’t suffice). “Who the fuck are you? (possible aggression). “My fucking feet are killing me” (curse those darn feet!). “I want to fuck the shit out of Cindy Crawford” (Just me, Cindy and passionate sex). And there are thousands of other uses that people have contributed or suggested to me whenever I’ve brought this up in conversation. It seems like everyone has something to add and there are inventive wordsmiths coming up with new uses for “FUCK” everyday. I’m not a historian. It would take too much time to write them all down and most people already know what they mean already.

Anyway, happy birthday Jenifer, I love fucking you. I mean I fucking love you.

My little sister, who’s not so little anymore, came to stay with me during the raucous Thanksgiving holidays while my parents took off to go sailing in the Virgin Islands. I’m not mad at them because I would also rather go where it’s sunny and warm; I just hope I won’t have to watch their god-awful vacation videos like the last time.

So my sister got pawned off on me for a while, which is cool because she and Jenifer still interact well together and Alecia’s been having trouble with school and at home so I hope she can relax around us and observe that life does get better and less constricting later on if you let it. I had to remove my bong from the living room so she wouldn’t accidentally stumble across it and I also told her she could invite some of her friends up to hang out. I even bought them some wine coolers and beer like a good big brother should. Basically everything my parents said to not let Alecia do I’ve been letting her do.

Alecia and I go through phases with my parents where one of us is the better sibling of the moment and then my parents try to play us off each other. It’s just part of their fucked up psychology and they don’t even know they’re doing it. Because it’s my turn to play the good child role. I wanted to prove to my sister that I’m just a regular human like her and that I won’t participate in their game anymore. I believe that being cool to the children in your family should come first so that if and when you ever need to be strict with them, they will respect you enough to listen. I think Dr. Spock said something about that in one of his books, not the pointy eared Spock though. The units must have felt guilty about leaving Alecia with me because I got to pimp Dad’s Grey Impala (which made Dan jealous) to chauffer her around for the week, but I accidentally hit a yellow pole in the McDonald’s drive-thru the other night that I’m going to have to own up to. Doh!

The Lansings graciously invited us both over to partake of their Thanksgiving dinner, which was also supposed to be my big introduction to the more conservative and debutant branches of Jenifer’s family tree. However, a freak ice storm the night before Thursday prompted a massive cancellation by everyone except Jenifer’s Grandma who had arrived a day early and didn’t give a fuck about any icy weather. I’ve met her Grandma before. She’s hip and we bond quite nicely. I sense a strong undercurrent of femininity running through her blood that hasn’t diluted across subsequent generations and I can see a little of Jenifer’s hellion streak in her also. The conservative look of old age doesn’t fool me. The meal was great and Alecia behaved with the same beaten dog politeness that I use in unfamiliar formal surroundings.

I wasn’t too keen on Jenifer’s dad later that night because he wouldn’t allow her to drive home from their house to her apartment since the streets were iced over and then he forbade me to come and get her when she called to tell me. He didn’t have any problem letting me and my sister drive home, so fuck that “I forbid you” shit! I understand he was worried about Jenifer’s safety but anyone who reduces her to tears with mental abuse is scum in my book. I sense static between her father and me that will only grow with time. I eventually met Jen on her parents’ street corner in the Impala and tried to convince her to get in the car with me and come home because she was shaking and sobbing with angry frustration. I guess I was only able to comfort her enough so that she was able to face going back to her parents’ house though. I was not happy at all with the situation but I deferred to her judgment when deciding how to best deal with her parents.

Our lives seemingly move so slowly sometimes, but I guess time is truly relative. I wonder if trees process the passage of time in a fashion similar to humans or if trees sense the passage of time in relative proportion to their own life spans? What about those moths that only live for a few days? Cities of Trees—let that bounce around in the cavern of my stoned mind. It’s almost as phonetically poetic as saying a Sea of Candles. The true power of Haiku has become clear to me at this very moment and I want to share it with the world. At least by write something down so I remember that once I truly understood. Does that make sense?

I can’t believe it’s after Thanksgiving already! Tempus fugit!

Follow Up: Despite my insistence to the contrary my parents decided Alecia hit the pole at McDonald’s with the Impala that left the yellow streak of paint down the side of the car. There is a life lesson here somewhere but I can’t put a finger on what it could possibly be. My sister appreciated my attempt at tell them the truth even if she still has to be the scapegoat for a crime she didn’t commit. It’s hard to be the bete noire[2] when you are stuck at home with no place else to go.

Crazy sex-life reality is full of seatbelts poking you in the back when you’re going at it in the car, getting leaves up your ass crack while doing it in the woods, hopping naked out of the neighbor’s window into rosebushes when the husband comes home, that sort of thing. It’s always fun to get to do it, but it’s the occasional rare moments where everything is spontaneous and absolutely perfect for both people that really make the head spin. It’s those moments they try to package and sell you in Victoria’s Secret, Playboy and bridal magazines. They all seem to say to me “this product or picture will make that thing you’ve been missing happen, maybe even by tonight if you order now.”

I had a dream last night that I met the great philosopher Jesus in his time and in his world. I was afraid to present myself to him for fear of being just another seeker of answers for my own petty problems. But from His place among a vast throng of people surrounded by thousands of followers, His eyes locked onto mine alone and He moved forward, gently parting the crowd as He went, and when He was near enough He reached out to grasp my hands, wrists crossed, his right hand on my right hand and his left hand on my left hand. I felt as He absorbed flashes of images from my mind, seeing through my eyes the image of his tortured body hanging on crosses in a hundred different churches, seeing the corruption of decades and cruelties I’ve only read about in history that were inspired by His name with His death. However, underneath it all, like the flicker of hope at the bottom of Pandora’s Box, He knew that I truly knew His death still had to come to pass and despite the atrocities that would be committed in His name, His sacrifice was ultimately good. All the questions I had and the answers I sought were lost because he looked sad and just asked me “Why?” I felt terrible because I didn’t know the answer, I didn’t even know if I grasped the magnitude of the question. Did I?

I look into the mirror but I am not Him, even if we both have skinny wrists. I search the depths of my dark green eyes over and over, yet I feel fortunate that I don’t see power or godliness in them. Every so often I’ll feel a deep glimmer buried someplace down in my chest though. Something else is a part of me, a part of all of us I imagine, but it takes a while to separate my consciousness from reality long enough to locate it. When I take the time to really listen, I can feel the plants and earth and wide-open spaces extending for thousands of miles and across time. Expressing these thoughts in words only comes across as a bunch of Zen/Buddhist/Christian bullshit but this whole macrocosm is linked somehow. I can’t explain it nor do I care to.

I get frustrated with artists who deviate unsuccessfully from the works that originally made them popular with me. Similarly, I find myself feeling diluted a lot, jumping from one task to another. The only difference being that I have no defining great work that might disappoint my fans if I stray. I don’t have much at all. Everything I create is just medicine for me. I suppose the pleasure I get out of creating is what’s important. If one commercially viable idea would infatuate and consume me, then I might potentially exploit my work to so that I can be financially worry-free to indulge in everything else I want to do and be with a clear conscience. Money isn’t evil, love of money is evil, but money represents freedom to me right now.

I’m thinking of dying my hair cotton candy pink. Not that I like the color pink in the slightest, blue or green would be much cooler looking, but something about saying cotton candy pink makes the words roll pleasurably off my tongue with the static electricity of a charged doorknob on a cold day. Life is a lot like the “Tangerine” song by The Flaming Lips. They played on 90210 the other night. Some of my friends thought it was a sellout, and I’m sure the band is sick of the damn song by now, but I thought it was very kitsch and cool for them to use their hit song to get on 90210 while it’s still on the air.

I have assumed the indifference of a warm blooded creature. My TV is just furniture. I hope.

Man, I’m all over the place today with these scattered images, the small winter harvest during the colder months delays the importation of my main coping medicine. Jen and I quit fucking with the anti-depressants almost as soon as we started them and now when the haziness wears off, my brain’s unfocused energy runs away with itself sometimes. A crutch is nice but I know I need to learn to cope with all the talking and shite going on in my head, on my own terms, if I’m ever going to get it together. The Germ-anent keeps telling me not to do drugs, except for the ones that make me fall in line. I found out the other day that the U.S. invented methamphetamines during WWII to help the factory workers stay alert and work longer hours. I’ve seen the films encouraging farmers to grow hemp, insisting it was the cash crop of the future back in the forties and fifties. Well they were right about it being a cash crop; it’s now worth a shitload of more money since they banned it.

I’m apologizing here because I don’t think anyone knows what the fuck is going on in my head. I keep unearthing this journal and putting down all the same crap that I wade through over a period of months and none of it helps change anything. What the fuck is going on with me and what am I even doing anymore? I’ve heard that when people reach thirty or have children they get values and shit. Maybe I’m hoping if I write some of this down I’ll be able to look back and see my own naivety. Maybe I’ll shake my head understandingly andhold the hand of somebody who’s looking for truth one day. Maybe out there is somebody who can honestly admit they were confused and frightened when they were like me. Isn’t someone supposed to tell me it’s all going to get better?

Galveston! Here we are on the island for the Christmas holidays, trying to get away from all the drugs and hassles for a little while. It’s gray and cloudy here, empty and cold. All the t-shirt shops and Miami-esque hotels lining the inner coast have been virtually abandoned for the off-season, which leaves me with an odd feeling about the place. We’ve come down here looking to get away for a while after a serious rohypnol and heroin binge with some of our friends. I think we are both looking for another Christmas like the one in Baja, but we’ve both changed so much since then and the bleak weather is contributing to our disappointment.

We walked hand in hand over the sand beaches, which made the entire trip worthwhile to me, but I really wanted it to be more of a sunshine moment for Jenifer. At one point we were so bored we picked the largest hotel near us and cruised up and down in the elevator for a half hour. We ended up in a weird conversation with a lonely little boy whose parents had booted him out of their room so they could get busy. He cruised the elevators with us for a while too. He looked a little enamored of Jen since she was so nice to him and that was cute.

We spurned the tackiness of a local neon-signed t-shirt shop that prostituted everything in x-large cotton sizes. I thought about stealing something from them but my heart just wasn’t in it. I think the island must be spectacular and crowded with revelers during March, but Jen and I never got into the drunken Spring Break thing too much, which is sort of why we decided to drive down here now.

The best part of this place is the cool bridge leading here from the mainland; it’s even larger than the bridges that span the swampland in Louisiana. It’s a lot like living in the Keys I suppose, the thrill of being unconnected to the continental U.S., a “create your own rules” or “maritime law” sort of situation. The bridge leading here is curved so that it will be structurally sound enough to withstand the hurricanes that seem to target this area on a regular basis. People in trailer parks here are a better class of white trash and I’m sure they look down on the “regular” trailer parks populating the rest of the state. I guess there’s a distinction that comes with being wiped out by a hurricane instead of a plain old tornado.

While we were sleeping in the car last night on a concrete pier (isn’t “pier” a great word?) overlooking the roaring ocean, I awoke in the middle of the night to heed the call of nature. I’m afflicted with an as yet unidentifiable disease that causes my body to need multiple bladder relief sessions right after getting zipped up tight and perfectly comfortable in a precarious sleeping position on the coldest nights of the year. After working my way outside of the car, shivering with my tiny dick in my hand, wearing nothing but my boxers and getting black tar on my socks from the cold concrete on the wet pier, I crawled back into our cocoon (car-coon?) of steamed windows and into the mummy bag. I checked on Jenifer, giving her cold pink cheek a kiss and then tried to go back to sleep.

About five minutes later, a car drove up, circled the lot and parked at the far end of the pier closest to the ocean. The occupants got out and started flicking a flashlight towards the sea and after a bit I saw return flashes of light out in the night, indicating a boat was out on the water somewhere close by. I’ve seen enough Miami Vice to know what was going down and since I was still groggy from my wake-up pee I started thinking maybe we could be in some trouble if they noticed our car was occupied. We might be discovered and they might make us submit to bizarre torture involving a shower and a chainsaw or a nefarious garden implement.

I scrunched down in the seat a little bit and watched as the boat slowly approached from a hundred yards away. It was a new looking-trawler; I could see the polished chrome glinting through the mist every time a flashlight would swing across the stern until they got the boat in position. Then the lights were doused or covered quickly and I could barely make out several boxes being hastily unloaded into the trunk of the non-descript car. Simultaneously, the boat pulled away into the night and the car drove past us and off down the road. A simple “Wham-Bam-Thank-you-Ma’am” and they were gone; I have to admit I admired their precision and coordination.

When we woke up again the next day I told Jenifer all about it and described the scene as best I could, walking over to where they were to see if any clues had been dropped. I did notice the rocks had been cleared out near this section of the pier, which I guess is how the boat could get in so closely. I told her that I would have driven off if she hadn’t been asleep behind the steering wheel but she didn’t seem as fascinated as I was by my glimpse into the underworld. Maybe everything was on the up and up Perhaps we only witnessed a perfectly innocent international espionage ring. Yeah right, and trickle-down fuck-enomics work too.

Anyhow, that’s my big story for the trip. We’re on our way back home again unfortunately but South Padre just wasn’t happening and we crave stimulating action-packed adventure. Sometimes life is reduced to the style of an Ansel Adams print, beautiful to look at but rugged and devoid of color.

My weed plant was chopped off and stolen before harvest a while back, likely by the same skaters I politely invited over to use my half pipe. I wrote a very angry letter and left it by the remains of the plant for any of them that might return looking to steal more herb. My note basically said that I would have shared it with all, but now there is nothing for anybody. I used some F-bombs in there also and likened the thief to the Grinch. Christmas vacation went by too quickly, cut down like my bountiful harvest.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, our friend Gabe, the guy who considers himself the last Coke in the desert, finally found his elusive heroin connection a while back. Of course we’ve scored through him several times now, snorting the brown vinegar smelling shit despite witnessing Gabe’s rapidly diminishing sociability and lowered cash flow. Gabe works a low-paying part-time job and goes to school but he runs a very profitable weed delivery service that he’s built up over the years. He weighs the bags heavy, delivers to your house within an hour of paging him and his prices are good. He doesn’t smoke pot himself so he’s got no incentive to cheat anyone and his low-profile clientele—mostly sorority kids with rich parents and spending money—has built up over the years. Still, I think he’s a full-on H addict whether he realizes it yet or not; he’s barely different from the old junkie he scores through. The guy he connects through is just called Donut (I think his name is really Mark or something) and the smack we’ve been getting from Gabe through Donut has been a disappointment to me and Jen. We’ve been playing with it, trying to figure out what the groove of it all is. It’s supposed to be that final frontier drug, remember? The fucking ultimate!

Turns out, the most evil drug that all our education is supposed to warn us about is actually tame in certain respects. Really, I’ve got to say it’s been a general disappointment so far. Heroin kind of makes me feel sick to my stomach at first and then my body totally relaxes and I’ll spend a lot of time not moving around much and then I feel nauseous again. Speedballs of cocaine and heroin are extremely dangerous and really fucking fun; although we had to swear them off after the first time we tried them so Jen could keep her pledge to not shoot up coke anymore. Rohypnols fuck me up more, but I can inject the smack now and it has the added bonus of allowing my body to fully function while I’m on it. That means the majority of the shit I do is before work and my shift is usually over before I come out of my daze. It’s like I get paid to stand around and do dope, sound familiar? I’m still working hard at my job but any repetitive task is a breeze because I won’t remember or care that I’ve washed seven sinks full of dishes or changed six kegs of beer.

My new classes are the shiz-nit except Gabe’s in one of my film classes and he seems to have this unspoken rivalry or some need to look down on me. He’s had this severe crush on my ex-girlfriend Melanie since forever and he worships the ground she walks on, buying her presents with his weed money and doting on her every whim, which somewhere along the put him in her “friend” category. I’ve always been kind of rabble in his eyes for breaking up with a girl he would chop off his arm for, but he really likes Jenifer as a friend and he likely only associates with me since I come along with the Jenifer “package”. He actually gets the dope for Jenifer and we do it; but, when I ask him to get us some there’s always some sort of inconvenience that comes up so he has an excuse to blow me off. The one thing Gabe’s never had since Jen and I have known him is a girlfriend, so maybe he fucking thinks by being nice to other people’s girlfriends he can catch them on the rebound. It’s shitty to be pussy-whipped when you aren’t getting any pussy out of the deal.

Anyway, we have a huge final film project that constitutes the majority of the grade in our class and he’s planning on using Melanie in his final project. I suspect it’s a ploy to try and flatter her into the sack. Part of our class fee pays for us to use the school cameras (expensive S-VHS) and editing equipment but Gabe’s trying to get permission to spend his own money and use real film. He thinks he’s ready but whatever. I’m curious to see what sort of Lynch/Tarentino hybrid rip-off he puts together. I know that’s harsh and maybe I’m just jealous he has an out-of-pocket budget to play with, but I hate being dismissed by people. I see Gabe as the film auteur that needs everything to be exactly right before he can film it. The kind of director that throws chairs and pitches fits when the color scheme of a costume isn’t exactly what he envisioned. I see myself as the kind of director that comes in under budget by using what’s around me, improvising and adapting to whatever’s going on, tapping into a cache of talented unknown actors and since I know public interest better than anybody I’m certainly not above sacrificing my vision to cash in. That’s the way the fucking game is played boys. Okay, okay, I’ll admit I do have an unjustifiable inferiority complex around Gabe for no good reason, but I have my Jenifer so it’s all good. Let Gabe spend his cash and stress out trying to find film-editing facilities at the last minute. I’ll turn in my crappy project on video and get a decent grade.

On a weirder note, Gabe and I both seem to have a minor crush on this beautiful collagen-lipped cheerleader-type girl in our class. In fact I think the whole class has a crush on her since it’s basically a room full of lusting movie geeks and being a movie geek is slightly above being a lusting computer geek on the date-ability scale. I think that’s all it is for me—some sort of lust on a primal scale that’s invoked by lip enhancements. I understand what a harmless crush is and I’ve never been happier in a personal relationship than I am now, so I don’t really understand what’s up with me checking out some chick that isn’t really even all that good looking. Of course I can’t tell Jen about her (suicidal I am not) but I feel like I’m cheating on her when I’m attracted to other women. I want to be loyal and faithful. Hell, I AM loyal and faithful, but what’s up with this weird crush? Perhaps it’s a subconscious desire to sabotage the good aspects of my life. Maybe deep down I feel as if I don’t deserve anything great due to feelings of inadequacy from my mother. Freud would have a field day with my psyche I’m sure.

I need to be honest and let some of this shit out of my brain so I can keep my grip on reality. Having a routine helps, but the murmuring in my head is starting to get louder again and that’s one thing the fucking heroin is good for. Something is bothering me, a crisis of faith is venting out of my pores. Plus, it’s not like I’m fantasizing about the girl when we’re having sex together, when we’re actually having sex together anymore that is. I’ll shut up now.

What is it with people and Renaissance fairs? Do people really yearn for the days before showers and food and shelter when 99% of the populace was made up of peasant slaves?

Remember when I wrote about all the junk Dan and I moved from his parents’ house into our living room? Well it’s been sitting in the same spot in our living room for the past few months, cluttering up the entrance and being a general nuisance, so this past weekend I killed two birds with one stone by having the garage sale and also filming it for a documentary project that’s due in my film class soon. I slacked off and I was desperate for something interesting to document but instead I settled for what I thought would be easy. It turned out to be a big pain the ass trying to maintain total control of two situations at once but I managed to pull it off. You think, “garage sales are easy, just thrown your shit out in the yard and it sells, keep the camera on and film it right?” Ha! The more simple something seems the harder it gets to pull off.

I have a new found respect for the life of flea market people. First off, I worked the closing shift at the Tomato the night before and I got really pissing drunk for some reason so I didn’t want to get out of bed at dawn, which is when you have to start setting up because all the hardcore garage sale-ing blue-haired ladies cruise around looking for signs at first light in order to get all the good deals. Dan promised to help but he was stone cold passed out, so I set up the camera on a tripod and filmed my ass hauling all the shit out into the yard myself, changing the camera angle every once in a while and setting it all up on the tables, trying to make our loot look semi-presentable. There was quite a lot of stuff for sale and setting up took forever. Then I hung the signs up all over the neighborhood, which wasn’t hard, but I had to film myself ‘hanging up the signs too. I had filmed myself making the signs while drunk the night before and I had filmed myself putting prices on everything earlier in the week. Luckily my preparation paid off, getting a garage sale on film is a one shot deal and there are no re-shoots if the camera messes up or the battery dies.

A little after daylight peeked through the trees I was all set up so I took some bong hits and settled sleepily into a lawn chair, waiting for the people to arrive. It was off and on the whole day, and in the morning, just when I was beginning to think nobody would even come by, I got swamped.

My roommates woke up to find all sorts of people walking around in our yard and driveway, peeking in through the windows looking for more stuff to buy while I was scrambling around trying to haggle with Mexican ladies who didn’t speak English and trying to adjust the camera to preserve the insanity for my class project. I was wheeling and dealing with fistfuls of cash, even selling people the weird shit that I never thought we would sell in a million years—the shit I thought I would have to pay somebody to take away. An Indian guy bought the old Commodore 64 computer we had in the pile and I could tell by the look on his face that for the $5 he paid, he thought he was getting a bargain on top-secret technology. I sold several bags of children’s clothes from the 70’s for $10 to a Mexican family who had a van with a ladder. Even our friends who stopped by later in the day to make fun of our bogus stuff usually bought something. The camera ran most of the day, I just shifted the angles on occasion to make sure I had enough footage to edit and satisfy the parameters of my assignment. People kept coming up to make offers on the camera, naively trying to haggle me into selling them a thousand dollar camera for $20. Man please!

We actually made a lot of money even after getting Dan totally drunk and sending Jenifer on a smack run. Gabe is definitely the hook up now for heroin and he’s enjoying his status as a necessary step in the process of hooking up. He finally got Donut to introduce him to his dealer so he can get it cheaper and directly from the source without any of the middleman hassle. Whenever I have to deal with him there’s still a bunch of bullshit where he makes a big show of being put out (roll eyes here), but he’ll bend over backwards for Jenifer so she likes to go over there by herself. My stomach doesn’t spin anymore when I do smack and I really enjoy the warm relief that it brings to me. I feel so instantly comforted when I inject it now and I’m easily able to get a lot of stuff taken care of that I would normally dread.

“I’ve got the ways and means to New Orleans, I’m going down by the river where it’s warm and green. I’m gonna have a drink and walk around, I’ve got a lot to think about.”

—Concrete Blond, Bloodletting LP

Mardi Gras was bad ass this year! I didn’t want to write that we might be going down there ahead of time just in case we didn’t make it down at the right time again. The air was thick and grim, hanging upon us, tinged with the grey humidity that is Louisiana. The streets smelled like stale beer and sweat, creating a festering wound of a party. This time, Kirk, Jenifer and I all decided to make a spur of the moment road trip, mainly because Kirk wanted to break in the car his mom just handed down to him. It was kind of a wild and wooly week to remember but I’ll try and put down the highlights.

The crowds were more outrageous than I can ever remember. I suppose that as I get older, youth is starting to seem more impetuous or I’m getting less tolerant of drunken bullshit. The crowds just weren’t as friendly as I expected. Something was missing or maybe the proliferation of black gangs everywhere getting into tense mini brawls made the tone seem overly hostile. You can do practically anything you want during Mardi Gras except fight and fuck in the street but somehow we kept getting stuck in packs of people where two black dudes would end up fighting for some stupid reason or another and then get carted off to jail. When there was a scuffle it got difficult to protect Jenifer from the sway and pushing in the crowd but the police were usually on top of any bullshit before it got too crazy.

It was Kirk’s first Mardi Gras and he seemed more enthused by the experience than we were and I think he was actually enjoying himself. Kirk’s kind of a mild-mannered drunk and even though everything was all raucous and helter-skelter, he still had a happy grin on his face most of the time.

Jen and I were coming off a weeklong H binge so our bodies were edgy and less tolerant than they could have been, but fortunately we had brought along some glass vials of liquid morphine (which I scored from a friend who robbed a pharmacy) to help us deal with our mild withdrawals, but things were still kind of off-kilter in our bodies. Morphine is ok but it just doesn’t have the same punch that H does. M is a little more serious and it’s easier to overdose since it doesn’t really fuck you up, plus it’s a pain in the ass to fucking break open WWI style glass vials (ampoules) and try to suck all the juice out of them.

We had a great time of course. We saw John Goodman, the actor from Rose-anne, wander out on one of the balconies sweating and drunk off his fat ass. Girls’ tops started coming off and tits were everywhere as soon as he came out there, but John was pretty oblivious to it all. We went and walked down by the Mississippi and I picked up what I thought was a crumpled piece of paper off the sidewalk to be a good Sam-aritan and throw away, but when I looked more closely I saw it was really a crumpled up “THANK YOU FOR POT SMOKING” sticker and inside was about an 1/8th of really good weed! So thank you, whoever left that there for me. I thought Kirk’s eyes were going to pop out of his head when he saw what I had found; he’s never experienced the weirdness that follows me and Jen when we travel. We appreciate and accept good fortune but don’t dwell on it much anymore. That way lies madness believe it or not. We added the kind New Orleans weed to our own stash and frequently got high in the downtown parking lot.

New Orleans was still New Orleans. We ate beignets at the Café Du Monde, sipped their strong coffee and watched this teenage mime full of angst literally go fucking postal on the crowd that was watching him. He started yelling at the people (so they CAN fucking talk!) and he even decked some senior citizen before some jocks in the crowd held him down for the cops. It was one of the strangest things I’ve seen in my life. I’ve seen the street performers fight each other for intruding on pan-handling turf, but I’ve never seen a mime get violent, I just thought they were all gay, gentle-spirited boys.

A lot of daylight hours, a lot of walking trying to show Kirk everything in the city. If we hadn’t been slightly high and if Kirk had been gone it would have been very romantic for the two of us. One day we’ll get out here by ourselves. Not every journey can be comfortable; the most memorable ones often are not.

Sweet morphine dreams erratically lulled me into sleepyland last night. It gave me an odd feeling of peace and happiness that washed over my pinched body today. It’s like everything feels the way it should feel. It started with an amazing dream I had this morning and on our drive home I realized what it was. Somebody has died recently and they are watching over me. They are at rest and I am tuning them in as they watch the world as a whole entity for the first time in their existence and embracing it in them. Like a giant bear hug on a fuzzy dog, the world is right today.

I’m sorry that this person died but they are happy… I just wonder who it was. New Orleans is one hell of a wicked city with lots of ghosts. I’m sure glad we came this year.

David, Bryce, Kirk, Jenifer, Gabe, Dan, Jerry and I all went to the Lollapal-ooza concert today. I went to the first one back when I started college, during that awkward summer transition from high school graduate to college freshman. At that time Lollapalooza was the motherfucking shit. I was finally out of hell school and I got the chance to see Jane’s Addiction and a whole day full of other cool bands. That first tour pretty much raised the bar for concert achievement in the nineties, after that, paying $20-$30 to see one or two average bands stumble through their hits on tour was tame and weak. Lollapalooza set the standard that should have always fucking been there. At the end of “Gift”, there’s a tour highlight of Perry and Ice-T standing in each others face singing “Don’t Call Me Nigger” by Sly Stone. Where else do you get to see the Butthole Surfers shoot a shotgun out over the crowd while busting beer bottles over their heads? Where else do you have 50,000 white kids screaming “Fuck the Police” in unison for one day? Where else do you get to see the Violent Femmes play a quick daytime set? It was one of the great ones. That first concert influenced and opened my mind nearly as much as seeing the Dead did. In fact the festival environment was obviously patterned after the Dead shows.

Since the first tour, the bill has generally declined to feature more flavors of the month than established quality, but I’ve been to every one of the shows so far and I had a fucking blast each time. I was starting to think I might have to quit going to the Lollapalooza tours altogether but this year featured the Beastie Boys along with The Smashing Pumpkins in a double headliner show and it was totally awesome. Following tradition we all tripped. It was the first time Jenifer and I had done acid in a long time which made a lot of the opening bands we didn’t know much about more interesting. We got to see George Clinton and his P-Funk and The Breeders who I really wanted to see since I’m a big Pixies fan from way back. Nick Cave was there too and it was an really odd experience to see him and his band playing out in the sunshine; it made Bryce’s acid kick in and the whole scene was freaking him out until Jenifer grabbed him by the arm and said “It’s gonna be ok sugah.” To see the effect that her words had on him, to see the relaxation come over his face as his brain came to grips with the possibility that “yeah, maybe things were gonna be ok”, reminded me so much of why I love her and the amount of goodness she has inside her. I try to write down what I can but as much as I try and gather the best details of my day, those unimportant details that mean so much when I’m out with my friends are ultimately best left to memory and imagination. My words can only serve as my reminders to scenes that I can’t replicate anyplace but in my own head.

Towards the late afternoon Kirk, Jen and I snuck off to the second stage where it was rumored either The Flaming Lips or Verve were going to do a special set but it turned out that The Smashing Pumpkins came out in all their indifference and put on a pre-concert. They just played all their old stuff out of appreciation for the fans. Not even for their fans necessarily. They came out on the second stage without anybody in the audience having any idea who was even going to play—they just wanted to play music for fans of music. It was really cool because you can no longer see the Pumpkins in an intimate environment. Their album I raved so much about finally took off, they’ve been around and won all the awards and now they pack arenas full of screaming fans. I’m glad I saw them at the Bomb Factory way back when I could still afford to get close to the stage. By the looks on the other band-mates faces it seemed like Billy Corgan, with his Uncle Fester baldhead, was making them come out and play in the hot sun for us, reinforcing my image of him as an old geek that used to love going to concerts just like me. It earned my respect and they were very careful to end their small show right as the B-Boy’s came out on the main stage.

I ran like hell through the crowds of people and joined the rioters, making a desperate plunge to get close to the stage area where I found some cuties near the front and proceeded to stand with them and sing along to the songs like an annoying fuck while I danced like the funk master I am. It was an incredible set, a cornucopia of hits that even included a tricked up version of “Eggman” off Paul’s Boutique. Now that I have seen the Beasties in concert I truly can die a happy man.

After sitting in the sun all day, drinking beer and frying our skin and brains, we could only stay for the first half of the Pumpkins main set when they finally came back out to finish the concert. They started playing after dark and this time when they played it was the total opposite of the private show we got from them earlier. The whole band had on silver suits and rock star gear with full stage lights and amps that could make your ears bleed. It was pretty awesome to feel the power chords rip the place apart and the energy they put into everything, but by that time Jerry was feeling pretty ill from the day and it was time for us all to go. I don’t blame him. I was pretty much running on adrenaline by then since even the acid had worn off a while back. Gabe had already gone a long time ago. He’d managed to sneak in some syringes to do in the bathroom; and after that, he wasn’t very interested in the shows.

We all piled into Jerry’s car and left with our “Aloha, Mr. Hand” tour shirts, memories, idle minds and ringing ears. Jerry drove about 90 trying to get us home and got stopped for speeding through Farmer’s Branch for his efforts, about a ~ mile from where I grew up. I pretty much thought Jerry was going to get arrested when he got pulled over, he had been drinking all day long so I figured he was going to jail and I was likely fucked too since I was stuck in the backseat riding bitch between two people who were likely holding drugs of some sort. After a long and freaky ordeal to convince the officer he wasn’t drunk, including having to walk a fucking straight line along the highway, Jerry got us all home without another incident. I took some roofies, ordered a pizza and did bong hits until I passed out, letting my tense muscles relax into sweet oblivion.

I woke up late sometime today, sunburned and tweaky from the acid residuals despite the roofies, and then goofed around with Jenifer all day. My ears are still ringing from the barrage of sights and sounds I experienced yesterday. The blue skies, the trampled ground, the cornucopia of eclectic people flitting about around us, good music, all that magnetism and us. I went to Lollapalooza #4 and I had a fucking blast.

Today was the day that the absolute final movie projects for my film class had to be presented. True to the nature of the procrastination monkey on my back Dan, Jenifer and myself filmed the entire thing over the weekend on a shoestring (no-string, not even velcro K-Mart shoes) budget. I titled it “The Date, I’m Late” and I’ll be the first to admit it’s not my finest work but I tried to add a little flair with the time I had left. It’s basically a regurgitated plot where something disastrous happens on a first date situation. Blah blah blah, since I had to focus on laying down a music bed for one of the parameters of the project, I couldn’t find a way to get the dialogue-driven script I wrote to match what I wanted to do. We’re required to capture certain angles and use the camera in innovative ways which I suppose I could have done during the discourse of the innuendo-laden script I threw together, but like I said, I procrastinated and eventually ended up with a silent film that is backed with this cool jazz piece I found. Plus it was easier to write and film on the fly what I knew would work rather than come up with a more abstract and drug-addled plot line. I’m justifying the suckiness of my own movie, aren’t I? I must be ready for Hollywood.

My grade may suffer for it, but being under the gun I was forced to use the same set as my previous sordid look into the garage sale underworld, my house. I made it flavorful, showing more of the inside of the house and using contrasting color and hot earth tones with an open filter to help center around the chaos in Dan’s mind as he wakes up late for his date. The opening shot of cigarettes and beer bottles strewn about indicate why Dan’s late for his damn date and I made his aggravation comical as the camera follows him around as things keep frustrating his efforts to hurry out the door. I even threw in cameo stunt work of myself getting tossed by Dan out of the bathroom while shaving. I used our house, our hallway, our bathroom, bedrooms, our porch, my VW and the neighbor’s house over the period of a day to get the actual film work done. It was a big pain in the ass running electrical cords and trying to use multiple desk lamps to light the dark nether regions of our crib with consistency and it was very cool of Dan and Jenifer to take the time to help out and be my actors while I set everything up in a mad frenzy of a day. I did some hand-made, grungy credits on a greasy napkin next to a cup of coffee and some cigarettes ooh look, I’m fucking European postmodern. I edited for two days whenever I could get an open machine. I forgot to book time and there was this cock-sucking beginning editing class in there all the fucking time! I finally got it all chopped together, slapped my music over the top and turned it in on time by the skin of my teeth.

I know I could have done a better job but pressure will always be a factor in this field so my challenge for next time is to organize my ideas sooner and go for a better quality project. It isn’t how good you could do; it’s how good you ARE doing. Fucking bollocks.

Gabe’s film was good, better than mine, and I could see the difference it made using his own money to get it on 8mm film. His movie had Dan going psycho over my ex-girlfriend Melanie. It was very arty and a definite crossbreed of the directors I had predicted he might emulate, but it was still interesting. No bitterness here. Cheerleader girl’s film wasn’t all that great either; I wonder if she’s taking this class to get into news casting? Probably radio. Hee-hee! I crack myself up.

The other night before my film studies class (that’s the class where I get to sit on my ass and watch movies), I got extremely high (that’s the thing I always do). It’s easily the best class I’ve ever taken, I don’t always like the movies and I don’t always agree with my professors take on the ones I do like but it’s still an interesting class. What could be better than being able to get high and go sit and watch movies for college credit?

Well, snacks would be nice.

The other night I was sitting through the middle of Citizen Kane, which is already on my list of top ten movies, and I got a severe case of the munchies. So I snuck out the back of the classroom/theater and went to the little lounge where the vending machines live. I reach in my pocket and I don’t even have a nickel in there to spend on food, but I’m sooooo hungry. Since classes are all in session and there’s nobody else around (it’s an evening class) I get the bright idea that maybe I can tilt the snack machine over and dump some of the goodies from their slots. Free food, simple plan, easy money, right? Well the damn machine was a lot heavier than I expected, but eventually by applying my honors class knowledge, I managed to leverage a chair between the machine and the wall to tilt it over a bit. The only problem is that in the process, the machine went over a bit too far and fell face-first right onto the ground with a huge BANG, SHATTER, CLUNK!

I was still pretty high, so the first thing I did was run outside and lit up a cigarette. In case somebody came poking around to investigate why the Unites States was under attack I didn’t want to be the only motherfucker standing around like a slack jawed yokel. After a while I poked my head through the window and realized that miraculously nobody heard or bothered to check out the loud noise in the building. I was home free.

All I needed to do was lift the machine back up and reap my bounty. Yep, just a simple lift and grab. I tried and tried and fucking tried with every ounce of save-the-baby-trapped-under-the-burning-car-adrenaline strength I had in my wee bones. I strained my hardest to lift the damn snack-rack back up just a little. I tried just turning it up onto the side for a while and then I tried wedging the same chair I used earlier under the machine to help lift it back up. Nothing worked, the goddamn thing wouldn’t lift even one inch, the best I could do was slide it around the room on the slick floor for a while and make grunting noises. I finally just gave up, wiped all my fingerprints off the machine and went back to class even hungrier than I was before. Let that be a lesson to me, I’ll have to either bring some change or a fucking glasscutter to class next time.

My body is my only ultimate canvas.

My life is the paint, lifestyle the brush.

Expect some parts to need redoing and memories touched up.

My ugliness is raw beauty, my contradictions are embraced.

Part of your beauty is that you never gave a damn about anything. Strength was a part of you because courage can stem from being unconcerned. Then along came some things that you cared about and for the first time something really mattered in your life. It dispersed your foundations, making things more stable for a while but also so much more vulnerable. Your beauty diversified, expanding and flourishing as you incorporated this new aspect of your personality. Your open-mindedness and love increased exponentially. Nobody told you about this. Nobody told you how it was so much more satisfying while making you so much more fragile. Measures of trust were irrevocably destroyed because of the pain love brought you, creating the inevitable hurt but also a renewed lack of belief in yourself. That’s what’s so hard. Looking at yourself in blame for admitting a need to feel loved and seeing something you really depended on reveal itself as merely mortal. It’s far better to be have loved and lost…but is it really? Wouldn’t it be far more sterile and comforting to create the ultimate thesis and take the psychological shell to its disastrous conclusion?

That’s where we disagree. The ending to that story would be disastrous. The sting of shallow relationships and harmless hormonal partners fueling your propensity to self destruction. The first instinct when inevitable attachment ensued between us was to push me away. So now that you’ve been hooked and escape is nearly impossible, despite your rogue desire, are the childhood barriers again in place? You feel weak yet I see strength. I say strength and you believe I wouldn’t know about it. It doesn’t matter what I see or think though, it’s the feelings you are feeling that are primal and dancing around now, demanding compliance. It isn’t getting any easier to be empathic. I might need to seriously look into taking the mind-menders again.

Scaredy cat, scaredy cat. ASK ME WHO/WHAT I SEE. SAW, SEE, SAW SEESAW SEESAWSEESAW.

I’ve concluded that losing weight is all about learning to use the body as an instrument instead of the other way around. My body constantly tries to be in control. My body will try to be the boss because it has the ability to tell my brain, even lie to my brain, that it’s in pain. Whether it’s pain that comes from hunger, exercise, lack of sleep, or the need to get more drugs, my fucking body is getting better at telling MY brain about its problems, like a whiny bitch whore girlfriend. I think there are only two true ways for people to lose weight (other than cancer or other terminal factors of course), and the body rebels with its pain stimulation no matter which method a person tries. You can either increase activity cycles and maintain current calorie consumption, or you can decrease your calorie intake. Yes, simplistic. The best way of course is to exercise and maintain your current calorie usage, that way your body remains relatively comfortable because it’s technically receiving its usual amount of nourishment and you don’t run the risk of becoming food obsessive. The body will try and counter your efforts by demanding to eat more at first, but you have to realize you are in charge and you have to be aware that your body will try to trick you into eating more favorites (cravings) or more high-octane foodstuffs. It is not uncommon to casually pick up 3-4 candy bars and eat them on the way home from the grocery store without giving it a second thought. In the dull haze of everyday life where high calorie food is readily available it is easy to tune out what and when we are eating. Our bodies manipulate us. We are used to it. When we feel sleepy we rest. When we feel hungry we eat. Some people are blessed with a skinny metabolism but most of us will pack it on during times of plenty, and if you live in the U.S. you have always lived in times of plenty.

Drugs are the same way. The U.S. is in times of plenty but I can’t seem to mentally convince my body to cut down on consumption anymore. I guess since I’ve finally found the one drug that I’m not disappointed with and I’m in way the fuck over my head.

I’ve heard it said that doing heroin is the closest a person will ever truly get to Heaven while on our feeble, frightened little Earth. The sad part is that now I know first-hand that it is true. If heroin hits you just the right way the first time you ever do “just a little too much”, then you’ve tasted the slightest drop of juice from the fruit of the Almighty. To get to the point where a person is a heroin user and gets a “habit,” there’s a lot of initial experimenting and wasting and puking and hurt to go through, which is followed by some self-loathing, confusion and so on. Those aspects of the drug should be sufficient warning; but who would have known that once you hit the fucking zone with the shit, you will always want to feel that warmth and love? It’s seeing something that you can never ignore or un-see again. That’s gotta be why H is the called the devil’s drug. It’s Mr. Beelzebub’s synthetic simulation for mankind that says, “Hey, this is all you need.” Maybe that’s why I’m losing my soul trying to get it?

Imagine the emptiness that the devil feels every day, pining for God’s adoration and maybe you can understand why he loves to see us ache with the same desire for a mere fraction of the awesome power and love he once felt before inciting the war in heaven and being cast out.

I’m seething inside today, filled again with anger I’ve slowly been dissipating by relaxing and settling down with Jenifer. There’s this flare of evil temper I have in me that is rarely used anymore, except for the occasional bout of road rage and that’s mostly just to hear myself rant. My mood swings have become bothersome to me.

Life is entropy, or should I say entropic? The rut that Jenifer and I have fallen into is not a good place to be in. Our love for each other has enabled us to merge into a single package that sustains us now between the shallow peak moments of excitement. I suppose our dissatisfaction with life is just realizing the pointless-ness of everything and being weighed down makes it hard to envision a brighter future. Neither one of us wants to raise a family, which I think is really the only non-material excuse to join the rest of the worker ants scuttling around in society. Up here at college, surrounded by like-minded slackers, it’s easy to believe we might just slip through the cracks and be able to follow our dream of being rich so that we can be left alone and free. I guess being beautiful and used to having things come to us so easily is finally causing the fates to slowly put us in our proper place of disgrace. I see nothing but hard lessons ahead and I don’t want the pain that teaches wisdom. Did I ask for wisdom, because I think I specifically asked to be happily dumb?

Things are slowing down. The onset of finals and summer leave me full of questions about our future. The drugs are slowing us down. The seemingly harmless prowling nature required to hunt down smack is about to pounce on us unawares. I suppose Jen and I technically have small little “manageable” habits now and it feels as if a smiling vampire is slowly draining us of life. We’re still close to each other, perhaps closer than ever, but sleeping in her big bed creates gaps.

A few pleasures still manage to creep in, the vitality of sleeping late on cold mornings under thick blankets and the orange glow that comes in through the passenger window in Jenifer’s car going South on I-35 at sunset. Of course there’s only one reason to travel south down 35 now, so even my smallest pleasures are tinged with a black shadow. More and more it seems our usual sex and intimacy that kept us connected is foregone for the sanitized hollow pleasure heroin brings. For the first time I am actually wondering what it would be like to separate from each other, and even considering that thought, however briefly, hurts me to the core. Am I being clingy? Am I nervous? Yeah. What is it like to lose a wife when there has never been another? I love her eyes, smile, hair, stomach and goofy walk. I’ve made her my friend of friends, excluding most others, but dope is now a part of what we do and it’s only good because we do it together.

Bad News: I finally got caught doing one of the scams I’ve been running in order to pick up a little extra cash on the side to maintain my habit. For months now I’ve been lifting video games for fun and also stealing overpriced CD’s to return for cash from this store called Hastings Records & Tapes. They have a super high-tech security system installed, but the employees there are on sleepwalk mode, so all I have to do is go around the store and pick out a bunch of new shit, then I set them by the door and on my way out I reach around the metal detector and walk out. No alarms or fuss is involved and the employees are all underpaid college stiffs who wouldn’t give a fuck about the company getting ripped off anyway. After getting a handful of merchandise Jenifer and I usually drive off as soon as we can. She parks around the corner and keeps the car running in case something happens and I have to bolt out the door. Sometimes we’ll just do a circle around the parking lot and Jenifer will go in and return the shit I’ve just stolen, saying the discs were a gift from a parent and she doesn’t have the receipt. It happens everyday in that store since we’re in a college town and getting the cash back from 4 CD’s is an easy eighty bucks these days. Sometimes I’ll go back in and get the cash myself and just say it’s was a present from an aunt who doesn’t have good taste in CD’s and ask “can I return or exchange this.” If the clerk is a prick and makes me exchange anything they’ll just give me a receipt for the new merchandise I pick out and then I can take it another store and return it there legitimately. It’s always easy fucking money. Too easy of course.

A detective was waiting around for me when I went to work this evening and I could tell I was the one he was looking for when I pulled into the parking lot behind the Tomato with my front seat full of dirty laundry. Apparently some asshole trying to make manager at the record store either recognized me on one of my little dashes for cash or maybe from their security videotape and then ID’d that I work at the Tomato. I was preparing myself mentally, thinking “no big deal, I haven’t done anything wrong, right? They just have me mixed up with some other guy probably”, convincing my brain of its own lies.

So the detective was waiting and I tried to play it cool but he’s played this game before and he brought his own deck of cards. The clincher was that he brought Jenifer into the fucking mix. The camera in the parking lot had her license plates and the clerk ID’d a blond-haired driver so they had her on file, not me. Shit! Do what you want to me but please leave her the fuck out of it!

I held out, but he broke me down trying to pin this shit on her. He had me damn near in tears because he kept going on about how he just needed me to finger her as the driver, apparently it would amount to a much more severe penalty because of something or other and it would have meant a bigger arrest for him. Vehicle involvement makes it a felony or something I guess and his spiel was probably a load of B.S., but it worked on me. The dick convinced me he really wanted to pin the shit on Jenifer for some reason. He kept asking about her, all I can guess is he must have had some clues from that mall thing with Donut a few weeks ago and he wanted to get her for that too. I finally just broke down and said that I operated entirely independently and that there was no other driver, that whatever was listed as stolen was entirely me acting on my own. He wasn’t happy about that, but finally figured out I wasn’t going to turn in my girlfriend for a felony and he made me write a list of the shit I took from the store. I named about 5 Cd’s and a video game and that was it. I figured they probably had no idea how long I’ve been stealing from there and so I took a gamble and was right. He took the list, said he would call and tell me when to turn myself in to the county jail and then left. What the fuck??!! That’s the first time I’ve heard of a cop letting someone go after they’ve just confessed to stealing something. I watch COPS, and people always go to jail.

After all that I still had to work all night. Even though my rhythm was fucked I still made some cash off the register, gave out some free beer, did my laundry and went home just like normal.

It really fucking sucks that the cops want to get Jenifer so badly. I told her to cool it out; she’s dropped her semester classes and now rides around with her new friend, Donut, most of the day helping him boost shit. He’s good at it, I’ll give him that, but he doesn’t give a fuck about her or anybody but himself and if it comes down to it he’ll sell her out in a heartbeat. I can at least say that I have a job that I make a little money from, but he doesn’t even care about pretending to have anything like that. He’s either in a jail or out stealing to get heroin. That’s it. Not one other thing of significance occurs in his life.

I really hope we can figure out what the fuck we’re doing soon or get the fuck out of this town. I’m not sure how much more of this I can deal with.

I pulled into work for my Thursday night shift and from behind me the ghostly presence of cheap cologne on a tub of lard stuffed in denim with a badge came driving up in his tan, tax paid-for, gas guzzling “work” vehicle. Apparently that call I was supposed to get from the detective about when to arrange to turn myself in fell through the cracks when the fucker decided to let my charges go to warrant and then pick up a little bonus money from the state by bringing me in himself. It just so happens that I’m so easy to find since I always work the same hours and I was FUCKING HERE LAST WEEK! I didn’t even get to go and tell my manager why my car would be at work and I wouldn’t, so they’ll probably think I decided to go out on Fry St. and party.

Tan Lard takes me “downtown” and sticks me in city jail where he promptly turns me over and I never see him or his belt buckle again. From there it’s all about waiting to be processed. The guards there took my clothes from me right away and put me in a really orange jumpsuit with “DETON CITY JAIL” silk-screened on the back in black letters. I couldn’t believe they spelled the name of their own city wrong on the jumpsuits and I couldn’t believe they took my clothes away before being arraigned or getting a phone call or anything. They even took away my shoes and gave me these tan rubber slipper things they call shower shoes or “slides”. Finally after a few hours they stuck me in this weird-shaped cell with a bunch of Mexicans. I say the room was “weird-shaped” because from what I could gather it appeared to be in the shape of an octagon, with an octagon stainless steel table in the middle and a door in every other wall leading to four branches of cells with a set of bunk beds in each. On one of the walls there was a phone and I tried and tried to reach somebody collect. There’s a block on the house phone that Jerry wisely put there in case one of us decided to get drunk and dial phone sex late at night, but it turns out that same feature also blocks collect calls. I tried Jen’s phone but she likely got called into the Tomato to cover my shift so I wouldn’t get fucking fired because Tan Lard wanted to collect his $20 bonus money for bringing in a wanted fugitive.

I can’t even remember who in the hell I got through to eventually, but I made sure they got a message to the house and to Jenifer to see if I could get bailed out ASAP. Then I sat and waited. The cell was mostly empty and there were only four Mexicans in there with me, none of whom spoke a lick of English. I tried to bullshit with them for a while but they just laughed at my attempts to pantomime and communicate in rough Spanish so that didn’t last long. There was no TV, no clock and nothing to do but wait. I finally picked one of the rooms and got on the top bunk with a blanket and fitfully slept.

Early in the morning the guards came in and pulled me out of bed. One of the fucking Mexicans had taken my shower shoes and hidden them as a prank, so after a bit of bullshit I found them and they hauled us all out like a bright orange brigade to stand in front of the judge. The Mexicans were in there for minor things like disorderly conduct and being drunk. I guess that’s why they stayed up together laughing most of the night. The judge had an interpreter for the Mexicans but to my surprise when they called one of the older guys up in front of the judge he spoke perfect English and explained how he was sorry and that he had given blood last night so the couple of beers he drank got him a lot more wasted than he expected and that he’d learned his lesson and he convinced the judge to let him go with time served. One of the other Mexicans also got let go and the other two got something like fifteen days in jail. When the judge finally got to me, there was a brief consultation about why I was at the City jail with the bailiff and then his old monotone voice croaked out “bail is set at $1,000.” I couldn’t believe it! $1,000! I courageously spoke up and told him how the detective had promised to call me so that I could turn myself in and make arrangements with my work schedule. I told him I was probably going to get fired now and by then I was worked up and my voice was tinged with bitterness and sarcasm at their whole system of doing things. The judge just looked at me for a second and then said, in less of a monotone voice this time, “Bail is set at $1,500. Does the defendant have anything else to say for himself?”

“YES! ACTUALLY HE FUCKING DOES, HOW ABOUT I COME OVER TO YOUR HOUSE AND BUGGER YOUR FUCKING WIFE IN THE ASS!”

But I kept my mouth shut after that and when we got back to the cell, the Mexican who spoke English told the other Mexicans what happened to me and they all laughed. He actually turned out not to be so bad of a guy, while he was waiting to be set free we talked for a bit and he said he was getting on a bus and headed the hell out of town. Apparently he was only here to see his mother and he really had sold his blood last night, he just failed to mention to the judge that he used the money to buy the beer that got him tossed in the pokey in the first place. He told me I needed to calm down towards these people and try to gauge what they are about before being so vehement. “They are just doing a job. When you lose your cool, the other person has control and when they know they’ve got control and you try to get it back, they’ll fuck you.” He told me “It’s better to stand against the wall and watch everything first, figure out the motivations behind people’s motivations and keep my mouth shut,” then his Mexican Zen-ass got released and I was stuck with the stainless steel table and a growing twingeof sickliness from not having had any smack recently. I get minor withdrawals now when I haven’t used it for a day, nothing too bad but uncomfortable.

I kept trying to call Jenifer and when I got through to her she said she finally had the bail money together and was on the way to the bond person to get me out. She said the bond person was surprised at my bail being $1,500 instead of a thousand and that I must have done something to “piss the judge off.” I never did mention that she got popped a few weeks back with Donut for shoplifting and that I had her bailed out right away. The “man” gave her the kind of cakewalk probation where the charges get expunged from your permanent record if she acts right. Hopefully I’ll get the same thing.

I told Jen I was getting sick and she told me she was planning to drive down to Dallas while they were processing me out of there. It took forever and ever and my stomach was starting to turn by the time I got out in the evening, wearing the same clothes I had tried to go and work in the night before. Jenifer wasn’t there though and I really didn’t know what to do. I walked around for a while and then sat down on the curb and waited to see if she would show up. When she did I could tell by the look in her eyes that she had gotten really fucked up down in Dallas and the time had just kind of floated off for her while I was sitting on the curb spitting green bile and waiting. I told her I needed whatever she promised to get me and she handed me this dull syringe filled with blood. What the fuck is this? She had cooked and done most of the shot that was supposed to be for me which was why she was so loopy. I didn’t care, I shot the bullshit into my arm in the hopes it would make me feel just a little better so I could go get some of the real shit.

I mean, what could I say? I was pissed because she knew I was hurting but at the same time, She came up with the bail money and SHE drove down to Dallas and SHE was the one giving me a fucking ride back down to try and score. I was thankful but my stomach was in knots and she kept getting sleepy while driving so I had to grab the wheel a few times.

Eventually after a bunch of bullshit it all worked out and I made it home. Now I have to sort out this mess that’s going on in my life.

I’ve been using the Tomato more and more to support my dope habit since I quit my job at Swensen’s. Jerry was already gone and the red haired manager/ owner there started freaking me out a little since he was going crazy watching his business slowly fail. The demand for good ice cream is on the decline these days. My Thursday and Saturday shifts at the Tomato are critical to me now in order to get enough money to make it most of the way through the week. The rest of the time I’ve been out stealing clothes from J.C. Penny or other places to return to the store for cash or credit.

Damn I want to do right but I am really hooked on this stuff. I can’t even believe it myself when I think about it and I have no idea how it started. No, rephrase that, I have no idea when I started needing it. I have no idea when it crossed from a casual occasional hobby to an “I need this to make it through the day” kind of thing. I know better and I can’t fucking help myself, it’s as if I’m outside of my body watching myself do all this crazy shit and getting away with it most of the time.

The other day Donut and I walked right out of Montgomery Wards with a huge stereo system still in the box and even said “hi” to the clerks as we were headed out the door. By the time the stereo was hanging out the back of Jenifer’s hatchback, a security guard was running out the door after us asking to see our receipt. Donut saw him coming while I was still pushing the stereo in the back and he jumped in the car and told Jen to “GO, GO, GO!” Since she thought I was in the car with Donut when he yelled, she took off and left me standing there with two security guards running up behind me.

I’ve learned a couple lessons since my first walk around the shoplifting block. One is to use electrical tape to alter the letters on the car’s license plates so that the numbers and letters look different; another is to run like hell until they actually get the cuffs on you. You still might get away even if you’re wearing Birken-stocks and a big yellow hat. So I tore ass. I kicked off my sandals and ran over the hot gravel and broken glass with one security guard right on my butt while the other one was looking for a radio to call for backup. I’m juking and I’m jiving and the guy is staying close to me when a big gust of wind blew my yellow hat right off my head. I really liked that hat, so I ran through a row of cars, circled back towards the store and grabbed it off the ground, a foot away from his grasp, before he could figure out what I was doing. Then I sprinted towards the highway until I thought my heart would burst, circling as best I could around the mall, trying to stay out of their line of sight. I hit the high way access road and started hustling along with my thumb out, knowing if I didn’t get the hell out ofthere soon the mall’s security or police were quickly going to navigate through the parking lot and pick my ass up.

It just so happened that this girl from my old TV class was driving by and recognized me; she picked me up, asking why I was out of breath and had no shoes. I didn’t have any good answer or lie that I thought she wanted to hear so I talked to her about school and got a ride back to Jen’s apartment behind the house. I waited and waited and waited there for Jenifer to show up and finally she did, her eyes wide with happiness that I got away. She said Donut told her I got busted and she truly thought I was in the car when she drove away, and from the look in her eyes I knew it was the truth. They had gone ahead and went down to Dallas, fenced the stereo and got us some drugs so it was all ok in the end. Just another day at the office. Damn! I’ve got to get out of this shit soon.

There’s another big thing that’s going on. The house is finally disbanding. Jerry is moving in with the sorority girl he’s been shagging for a few years and they look like they’ll get married at some point. Dan is getting out of town for a bit and Kirk is moving in with Bryce since David’s shit is all fucked up with smack right now too and Bryce needs a roommate who can pay rent. I’m moving into Jenifer’s apartment and sadly I already know where the extra money we save on rent will be going.

Adrenaline: In some animals it makes them stiff with fright, with others it delivers bursts of action and activity. Humans are a combination of both; our brain is trained to overrule our instincts. The rare form of the athlete is applauded because he focuses his mind into utilizing the power being generated by his own body. There are other athletes that merely surrender to their primitive brutal urges, tapping into the same energy but not as formally or even intimately. The difference is comparable to drinking a rich wine where the grapes have been carefully tended, prepared and aged in just the right fashion, or drinking a gallon jug of hooch. The energy source being tapped into is the same and the results are often comparable, but the crowd always senses when it’s “on” in the mind and body of the athlete. That’s why all of us wait. That’s why we are bored by the rules, angered by the referees and also why our emotional lives become wrapped up in competition. We want a show. We want a display of skill; a POP of surprise and excitement that makes us light up with smile or grimace in horror.

The alternative to the increasingly rare normal person with a healthy normal cool-headed decision making balance, is where society’s perversions and odd urges creep into our lives. I suppose we all know the available forms of escape by now and if nothing works, or feels as if it’s working, then there is always the choice of ending this existence in hopes of an exchange for something better.

We are burnouts. The synapses and receptors I had in me are fucking fried everywhere except my heart. Through all of this shit, I still love Jenifer more than ever. I’ve overloaded my system with junk trying to give solace to my pain, only it’s creating more pain than it alleviates now. The pain of my generation.

I started out writing about adrenaline because I got fired from the Tomato today. That’s bad news for me but it’s also kind of good in a way. Without having the stolen beer money crutch I get from the Tomato maybe I can focus on cleaning up my life and doing the right thing for me and Jenifer in the future. Besides it was worth getting fired. I knew if I let what happened go, I would have to spend years in therapy regretting giving into my flight instinct when I should have had the balls to fight.

I was standing behind the counter helping make the afternoon lunch orders for people as they filtered in the door. When this guy, who I vaguely recognize, parks his white Nissan truck in the spot out front and comes in to order a slice of pizza. I’m not working the register but I’m standing behind the counter kind of looking at him as he’s giving his order when it finally hits me where I know him from. He’s one of the managers from Hastings and he’s looking at me like he knows about the crap that went down. He’s a young, average mid-management-sized white guy (cursed with a curly blond mullet hair) and he starts to say something to me when Becky inadvertently walks between us and asks me to go wash the windows outside. I fill up a big bucket of warm water and soap, get the squeegee and go outside, enjoying the morning and doing my work. I’ve about worked my way around to the front when Manager Boy comes out with his lunch and gets in his truck. I’m standing there with this squeegee in my hand staring at him and giving him a semi-evil eye since I’m not 100% sure that he’s the guy who fingered me. Then from the seat of his truck he starts yelling at me and giving me shit. He’s on Fry St., MY street, shouting that I’m a thief, telling me to “fuck off’ and to “stop staring” at him. I give him my best smirk and still stand there not saying anything to him, fully knowing now that he’s the prick that got himself promoted by pointing the cops towards me. He’s even a Flying Tomato regular; I watched as he ordered his food and he knew exactly what to get, so I’m guessing he’s the guy who told the cops where to find me too.

I’m getting more and more pissed at this guy sitting in his truck starting shit with me through his open window. I’m being calm on the outside but the whole time he’s yelling, I’m standing there getting angrier and angrier at his tirade, holding this huge 10 gallon bucket of scummy water that I just used to wash the windows. He finally figures out he can’t bait me into reacting, shakes his head, and he’s about to drive off when he starts talking about Jenifer, referring to that “blonde bitch who should have gotten busted too.”

Fucking punk! I’m seeing nothing but red then, all the shit in my life right now and all the anger that’s built up while worrying about how to change my life for the better, and this guy wants to throw down. NOBODY calls Jenifer a cunt and a bitch in front of me and NOBODY tells me they tried to get her in trouble with the law without repercussions. I threw the squeegee down so I wouldn’t have a weapon and gave him a quick rabbit punch to the jaw. It was just a light tap, and while he was stunned for a second I picked up the full 10 gallon bucket of shit-water and poured it right into his driver side window, all over his work clothes, his lap, his lunch, his hair, his stereo and several rental tapes in the car. Fucking punk, NOBODY!

He gets out of the car and I know I’m going to beat the shit out of him, but by that point I’m serial killer calm and while he’s still sputtering water I’ve already calmly walked into the Tomato and found Becky. I quickly corner her and say “I know you are going to have to fire me, so I’m going to quit now instead and save you the trouble. I’m sorry it has to be this way, thank you for giving me a job here all these years, now I’m going to go and beat the fuck out of this guy.”

By that time, I’ve got my work clothes off so that the Tomato isn’t going to be held liable and this guy’s soaking wet at the counter wanting to talk to the manager and insisting they call the cops. I’ve run up there too and I’m just reaching over the counter to get a piece of his ass when little Becky races up behind me and gets between us. This guy’s crying like a bitch now, talking about the cops and screaming to Becky that her employee is a thief, trying to tell her about the Hastings incident. Becky tells him to shut up, calls the cops for him and then gets in his face with an inhuman amount of resolve and tells him he has no right coming in here and antagonizing people or calling them thieves and that if he has a problem in his own store he should take it up there. Go Becky!

In about two seconds the police are there and then this guy is blubbering to the two cops about what happened, trying to get me arrested for assaulting him with hot water and for vandalism since the videotapes in his front seat got wet. I’m calm by then and when each officer takes us aside to interview us separately, I tell my cop straight up that Manager Boy came into the store where I worked, followed me back outside giving me shit and finally insulted my girlfriend so I poured a bucket of water on his head instead of kicking in his teeth. Since the guy isn’t really hurt and he’s blubbering like a puss, the cops kind of laugh it off, telling Manager Boy to go home and clean up and that they’ll file a statement for him. He drives off and they tell me I can go on home and that’s it. I quit or I got fired depending how you want to look at it, but it was SO fucking worth it. I’ll remember that surprised look on that fucker’s face and laugh about it for the rest of my life. I might not even need to find him and kick in his teeth.

“Temporality is the cause of all sorrow.”

—Joseph Campbell

Jenifer and I are moving out of the dilapidated apartment from behind the house of love. With all of our friends so fucked up with their various shit we’re taking baby steps to try and get ourselves together and beat this plague. Half of our friends are addicted to smack and the other half of our friends are addicted to shooting meth and coke.

All this drama and shit is spreading through town faster than a virus. New people I would have never pegged as dope heads are looking to Jen and I for leadership in getting them started, like we’re the fucking pioneers that paved a smooth path into some fucking unknown wilderness. There is nothing worse than giving somebody who’s never injected drugs their first shot. Their eager eyes are always tinged with slight frightfulness and then their faces light up as the rush hits them and everything makes sense to them for the first time. It makes me feel guilty because a month or so down the line I might meet the same person and they’re shooting themselves up with anything imaginable or helping some nai’ve kid do their first shot. Everyone enjoys it too fucking much. The next thing we know the same people who were our friends are coming over to our house begging to score, trying to fuck shit up, or eyeing the fucking stereo.

We’re generation-fucking-X and what do we believe in except the shallowness we observe? Addiction is flesh without life, it’s as if the instincts that spawning salmon follow to justify their death have been initiated in us, we’ve activated a switch in our heads that somehow makes it ok to follow this path of self destruction.

No more. Jen and I are getting the hell out of here. Sleep is good, but sleeping while we’re awake is just blindness.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

We’ve tried everything to stop. Jenifer even told her mom what was going on and she brought us over bananas and bread so we could eat while trying to kick, trying to kick is the worst a person can ever feel. Her mom found out when we took Jenifer to Charter rehab hospital for treatment, but after being there a few hours, she threw a fit and signed herself out of there. I got the call to pick her up. I didn’t ask too much about it and I was sad she failed because what does that say for me? I don’t even have insurance to pay for something like that if I wanted to go. I need help.

The body stops producing the endorphins that regulate pain in everyday life. So with the Heroin gone and the endorphins on vacation, everything in my body hurts. I can feel every bit of pain that’s caused by the hair follicles pushing their way through my skin everyday and that’s just one nuisance; I won’t even get into trying to use the bathroom or the pain in my intestines. AHHHH.

My stomach can’t hold anything at all, I hardly even sip water and my tummy produces green acidic bile as if it’s digesting itself. My throat feels like hydrochloric acid. My eyes forget how to adjust to the light. My body rebels against me in every fashion imaginable—clear and strong expression of its displeasure. I’m burning up with chills, sweats, diarrhea. Thus, I would rob my own mother at this point to get dope. There is no sleeping, only fit full nightmares and more of the same. It feels worse than being dead. It’s hell. It’s been about three days now. I’m told these first three days are the worst, and, if you can make it through, you’ll feel yourself getting better and by that point a little better is something.

Getting my hands on some Tylenol with codeine or something could be a lifer saver; even a couple valiums would ease this torture. That’s the only way I know how to try and make it through the detox from smack. Honestly, it’s the only way I’ve made it lately. The voices in my head kick in strong now, I am fighting myself every second of every minute of every day.

Some people can get on a methadone program, and Ive heard that shit works, but I’ve also heard it’s more addictive and takes longer to get off of the need-to-be-high kick. Odd. Most people I know on methadone also go out and score, using the methadone to give their buzz a little kick. Fuck that. That’s another problem I don’t need in my life—methadone, shit.

And then there’s Jenifer and she’s in as much pain as I am and it breaks my heart. I can distract myself into doing something, but for her, there’s nothing to do except ride it out or get more dope. If I could tolerate sounds, I would listen to Morrissey, hole up here and just feel sorry for myself…but I can’t ignore Jenifer or her pain. Everything is real and strong and powerful. It hurts to have somebody lying in the same bed; even the scratch of blankets against my skin whenever she moves hurts like somebody’s putting pins in my body.

WE’VE almost made it through a few times all the way, almost back to functional adults. And then to celebrate, we’ve gone to get us a little—knowing that with our tolerance down, getting just a little bit will really fuck our shit up. When your brain and body work together to trick you into something they both want, it’s similar to being possessed. Ah this sucks, suck sucks.

Evident, but worthy of stating: the new apartment isn’t helping much. It’s shinier and nicer but we keep falling into the same habits. I have this new job lined up with Kroger’s; I took the “honesty test” that they give new employees and found out that I passed the other day. The test was a joke though, “Is it right to give friends money out of the cash register even if they say they’ll bring it right back?” I was more worried that the shoplifting arrest on my record might screw it up for me, but it looks like I’m good to go. I realized the other day that I’ve held a steady job of some sort or another since I was about thirteen, maybe earlier, and this will likely be another shitty addition to my resume, but it’ll help pay the bills and that’s all that matters right now.

There are still more and more people around us shooting dope. Our apartment is all the way across campus now and the rent is more expensive but it’s also more isolated and easier to hide out in. Plus I feel better about having neighbors that can see if anyone tries to break into our place. Every scrap of money we can beg borrow or steal goes towards our habit now. We drive down to Dallas every day just to hook up with our Mexican “friends”. I’ve never written about the drama that goes along with doing a street level dope deal and I don’t feel like rehashing the obvious. We are totally at their mercy as far as scheduling goes. Half of our time is spent waiting for a return call by a shitty payphone in the worst parts of town. There’s an army of white people that will cater to anything these guys want. I imagine the money and power is addicting but I see the wear and tear in the dealers’ lives too. One guy we score from is called “Negro” (pronounced “Nay-grow”) even though he’s Mexican. I’ve seen some of the older junkies like Donut trade him boxes of formula and diapers for his baby in exchange for dope. Weird shit.

I think we’re going to beat this shit for good. We’ve got a possible trip to New Orleans lined up in the next week or so and we’re driving down there, balls to the wall, without any dope on us. That means when we get there we’ll be going through serious withdrawals and we’ll be a solid day away from anybody we know that can help. It’s a crappy plan, but around here I know where I can go out and score and there is no way my body will let me stop shooting smack. I can’t explain it, I’ve never been powerless like this before and I have to step up.

New Orleans—We shouldn’t have driven down here. We’ve been staying with Sam Escobar, one of my old frat brothers who moved down here a while back, and his semi-girlfriend Michele, who Jen and I have partied with several times. The little bit of smack we brought to sustain us on our trip is starting to wear off now and I’m realizing the full extent of my mistake.

Yesterday Sam took us out to these wonderful white sand beaches, in Alabama of all places. It was a pretty long drive to get there and back in one day because we had to drive all the way across a chunk of Mississippi, but the scenery was fantastic and we enjoyed ourselves for a brief while. By the time we got there, Jenifer started feeling the sickness again and its fever is raging full on inside of her right now. I feel it again too, but it’s not bad enough to immobilize me yet.

This was a fucking stupid, stupid, stupid plan. Now we are in an unfamiliar town and staying with people who really don’t want to put up with us puking around their house sick for a week. As the decision maker, I’m looking at two options now. We can drive about 20 hours to Mexico and try and get some pills to take the edge off this shit and finish kicking or we can rush back to Dallas and try and score to get some of this pain taken care of. We don’t have any money but Jen has been begging me to use the emergency credit card her parents gave her for traveling to get some cash and score. You would think in New Orleans we would be able to find somebody what could hook us up but it’s nobody knows anybody and it’s too much effort to hit the streets blind. Our bodies are taxed and worthless tired from just being alive now. The insane part is I’m willing to drive the 12 hours back home just to score one more time and feel better and then be miserable in my own apartment.

We’ll rest a bit for the evening and then head back as early as we can. We’ve got to get home right away, this situation is a really bad fuck up. Between the two of us, Jen and I should have known better but I guess it only emphasizes how desperate our situation really is.

PART III

THE ACCIDENT, JAIL TIME, SUICIDE and LIFE

The automobile is the place where modern America learned to fuck in the outdoors, the place where many baby boomers were brought into life and the same place where some Americans have learned to casually die. Passing only one major accident or death on the freeway during the daily morning commute is considered a good day even as people curse the dead and injured souls that have the nerve to keep them locked up in traffic. An old lady drives to the grocery store and kills a busload of retarded kids, so fucking what? We’re desensitized. Forged in Detroit, or maybe overseas nowadays, the car still holds beauty, status, power and even our lives in its cold womb.

To the teenager, the car is a key to freedom. To some minorities, it can be a modern mating dance, complete with flashy plumage. To a college-bound kid, their car might be a means to see the world before the shackles of responsibility harness theirs souls to a desk all day. To us, it was our refuge and life.

Car accidents are supposed to be sexy, they always have been. Ever since James Dean and Jane Mansfield made the allure enticing, America’s been entranced by the beautiful kind of accidents where the cars seem to caress each other, wrinkled fingers of steel reach out to scratch and mold to the places of another car or object, while the glass eyes shatter and stream down onto the ground as if from a spent lover. A famous person’s death car, riddled with bullets or wrapped around a tree, becomes a symbol, often reduced to legend with one grainy black and white photo that’s held in high regard as if it was forever trapped in time like mass-produced posters, mini Monets symbolic of eternal youth. In truth, the silence that follows the aftermath of carnage is an eerily hypnotic absence of life and sound that seems to hypnotize, similar to those tense moments of freefall before your parachute mercifully jerks open.

The accident was ugly. None of it was beautiful or romantic. None of it was perfect. If it were an ending to a movie the audience would grumble and complain to their friends about how the director failed to leave them feeling special. It was pain and confusion and dread and sand and dirt and blood.

The worst of it all is that it’s entirely my fucking fault. I’d never ever fall asleep while driving. I couldn’t have.

We left New Orleans bright and early while the sun was still nesting and hit the road, hoping to tear ass homeward as fast as we could. Jen drove like a bat out of hell, smoking Marlboros and vomiting into a crinkled fast food cup, determined to get her needs met as soon as possible. She got too tired to move and I took over at some point along the way, doing my best to focus on the road and not be sick. I kept repeating “I will not be sick, I will not be sick” over and over as my mantra but after a while our bodies couldn’t do any more. They shut down and we pulled over to sleep. For several hours we slept right off the side of the highway and I regained terrible consciousness to the sickening smell of diesel fuel and the annoying whoosh of traffic shaking the car. I was still in the driver’s seat so I started the car and drove on while Jenifer slept fitfully.

We finally made it out of Louisiana and hit I-20 for the last leg of our drive home. I was tired and my body was screaming, intent on purging itself of anything inside it—as much and as soon as humanly possible. Just a few more miles. Just a few more miles. Just a few more.

I woke up with the jolt of the car going off the shoulder on the driver’s side and sliding into the median between the East/West directions on I-20. It was a beautifully mown bowed-in field of grass still glistening with the sheen of leftover morning dew that prevented the brakes from having any effect. I tried, oh GOD, I tried braking, tapping the brakes, turning the wheel every which way looking, hoping, praying for some kind of traction to steer that damn Escort in any direction, even onto the other side of the freeway, but it was all to no effect. The car was not responding and we were no longer rocketing under our own power, just gliding along with unstoppable highway momentum on a crisp green slip-and-slide of death. In the split seconds before we careened off the bridge between the roads I tried to shake Jen awake so she could brace herself for the impact but she didn’t even get the chance to stir.

A sickening weightlessness, then a hard thud and crunch of bone against plastic against metal against dirt and concrete.

Then black. For a minute or maybe more.

Can’t breathe.

Then black again followed by an almost instant return and barrage of my senses. The taste of glass and dirt and blood in my mouth and the goddamn horn blaring it’s consistent pathetic note of announcement.

Can’t breathe

I finally shook myself together enough to look and see Jenifer twisted and lying next to me. She was dead.

Oh God, she really isn’t fucking moving!

“Jenifer wake up Jenifer wake up Jenifer WAKE UP!”

Careful not to move her around, I somehow managed to find something and cut the tightly choking seatbelt off of her.

A gasp for air. An exhale. Too much of an exhale. “Breathe IN!”

I can’t breath!

“JENIFER WAKE UP!” I screamed at her over and over, pinching her cheek, accidentally wiping some of the blood from my hands onto her face. “I can’t live without you Jenifer and I’m fucking sorry okay?” Maybe you’ll forgive me for my simple possessive selfishness some other time but you are going to live! “Do you fucking hear me in your HEAD, you are going to LIVE!”

A person was running down the embankment to our smoking car, screaming words I couldn’t hear over the blare of the horn and the bees in my head. He got to the car and backed off for a minute as if he might throw up when he saw us. He yelled to me that he saw us go off the highway and that he had just called for help. He backed even farther away when he saw Jenifer and smelled the gas.

Oh my God, we just filled up the tank!

I yelled to him “WE CAN’T GET OUT, GET HER OUT OF HERE!” I looked around for the first time and saw my door had barely missed a concrete support column from the bridge. The car crashed two inches from my own instant death; my door was shredded like paper against the concrete and completely sealed off. The only way out was across Jenifer and if we had to burn together so be it. If help arrives at least they can push or pull her out first. “JENIFER PLEASE WAKE UP!”

And then she finally stirred. Very weakly she stirred, wheezing in a quick breath for the first time in minutes, her dry lips barely mouthing the words “How did I get back?” then “I can’t feel my legs.”

For the first time I noticed her legs had been pinned under the dash and saw the fear in her eyes as she started to go into shock.

“HANG ON JENIFER, DON’T GO BACK OUT THERE ON ME YOUR LEGS ARE JUST STUCK AND YOU’RE GOING TO BE FINE!”

She passed out again and I had to touch her face with my hands, accidentally smearing more blood from my arm, why is it still bleeding, onto her smooth white cheeks, forcing her to look at me, yelling her name so loud until her open eyes fluttered back with a spark of life and fear.

“Jenifer. Jenifer. Jenifer. Look at me Jenifer. I love you Jenifer. CAN YOU HEAR ME? I’m so sorry and I love you. I LOVE YOU. CAN YOU HEAR ME? SAY IT BACK TO ME! Everything is going to be ok,” my voice panicking at first, then trying to stay calm.

Can’t breathe

“I got your seatbelt off of you, you can breath now. I love you.” Then she passed out again, eyes closing this time, chest moving in and out in a weak rhythm.

“Jenifer, sweetie, I love you Jenifer, listen to my voice, stay with ME.”

Despite my lack of faith at the moment, I baptized her then, using my thumb covered with my blood and saliva to make a crude cross on her forehead while I prayed her soul would be spared the torment of the afterlife and that she would be there always. I didn’t know if she would live then, I just cried and cried while trapped inches from her torn body, listening for any changes and wanting to be thankful she came back to life for me, even for just a few minutes. “WHERE’S THAT FUCKING AMBULANCE!?!”

The guy from the road, backing further away said it had only been a few minutes by that point. “You fucking coward, come here and help us out, smell that gas? YOU need to help her! HELP HER PLEASE!”

Can’t breathe.

But he backed off and nobody would help us. So for minutes, hours, days, I talked to Jenifer while she was unconscious beside me, begging her to listen to my voice, begging her to not let go, fearing each sigh and labored breath might be the last moment we ever share together.

You died right there but my selfish ass wouldn’t let you go. I fucking need you. I couldn’t let you leave me, I just couldn’t let you leave me. Even if you curse my name for the rest of my days and we end up being apart I have to know you are here. Even if you are hurt beyond belief and choose to spit on my grave everyday for the rest of your life for bringing you back and denying your tormented soul a resting place I have to know you are here. Her destiny looms larger than mine right? Oh GOD, did I do the right thing? I’m a goddamn cocksucking, fucking white selfish trashy no good fucking junkie.

Can’t breathe.

The helicopters finally came circling and descended out of the sky like fat spiders closing in on their trapped prey and I had to let them take her from me. More screaming, “Never mind me! Get the fuck away from me! “I don’t car if the car blows up, just HELP HER FIRST!” I was spouting out Jenifer’s medical history to them like a mantra over and over again so somebody would pay attention. I’m telling them her name and about her severe asthma and hurt lungs and her legs, oh God I saw then what had happened to her legs as they roughly pulled her from the car and I watched them put her on a flat board take her away back up to the highway, to the helicopter.

Can’t breathe.

Somebody mercifully cut the electricity to the blaring car horn then. Nice priorities. “Get away FROM ME! Get the fuck away from me and just get her out of here, HURRY you fuckers, GODDAMN YOU ARE FUCKING HURTING HER!!” Oh Jen, I know we were out in butt-fuck-Egypt where they probably still use leeches to purify the blood but I had to let them take you away from me. As the fire crew puzzled over how to wedge me out of the car without it blowing up, I watched Jenifer’s helicopter slowly ascend and fly away but it seemed as if it rose and left too slowly, as if maybe it already carried away the dead.

Please Jenifer, I’ll be there soon, I woke you back up and you had better not fucking die on me again. Please. I love you. I fucking need you. I’ll be there soon.

“Where is she going? Please tell me. Hurry…help her…”

And then it was just me and broken glass falling from the windows around me, dropping onto the dashboard and hood like rosary beads falling on a cold floor.

Can’t breathe.

The firemen started talking about me like I wasn’t there and then about using the Jaws of Life to open the car on my side, which made me mad. I needed out of that fucking deathtrap NOW! I used my good arm (good arm?) to push myself out of the seat and pull myself,

Can’t breatheacross to where Jenifer had been sitting,

Can’t breatheand out her door, bleeding onto the red clay dirt and for a brief moment I noticed how beautiful and green it was next to the little creek,

Can’t breathebefore about 10 paramedics grabbed me. They put me in a neck brace and strapped me to a board and carried me up the hill to another helicopter. When they had reached the top of the embankment the paramedics didn’t notice they had set me down in a fire-ant pile where I screamed and for five minutes my neck and chest were devoured before they finally loaded me into the back of the helicopter. For such a big helicopter the place they squeezed me in was a really small space with my nose about 2 inches from a plastic ceiling which smelled like a disinfected coffin.

Can’t breathe, goodbye lover, please be ok.

God, it suddenly hurt so badly then, the paramedics gave me some morphine but the bullshit housewife dosage they gave me had absolutely no effect on the pain because of my high tolerance and withdrawals from my fucking heroin habit. Fucking poetic justice right? I asked for more and they told me what they had given me was the max dosage and I should be knocked out soon. I finally screamed at them long enough to get another shot but I could still vividly feelevery wound on my body, especially the bone sticking out of my right arm and the crushing weight on my chest that was still stealing my breath.

I started singing to myself then, and the paramedics probably thought that meant the extra morphine they gave me was working, but it was the only way I knew to distract myself from the pain and horror of everything that was happening.

All the voices we’re talking at once now and that’s the thing about the voices. You either go mad or learn how to sing a song that drives them mad first. Either way everyone thinks you’re fucking crazy. Maybe they are right. I was going fucking crazy.

Oh God what have I done?

At the emergency room there was no sign or news about what happened to Jenifer. Before I even saw a doctor there was a police officer in the surgery room drawing my blood to test the alcohol content. He was a fucking prick about it too, like he had seen shit like this a hundred times before and I was just one more fucked up drunk driver that went off the road driving home from the casinos in Louisiana. When a doctor finally rushed in to see me I told him I couldn’t breathe and he figured out my lungs were crushed. They gave me another shot of something that didn’t help and I felt every excruciating bit of pain as the doctor used a scalpel to slice the skin on the side of my pectoral muscle and force a tube into my left lung. I felt it get stuck on my rib cage and I almost passed out from the undiluted pain but in a moment it was over and there was bloody fluid being pumped from my lung into a bag, my body feeling the sharp shocks every time my lung tried to wretch something into the plastic sack.

And then…nothing.

I got out of the hospital today and went home. I’m a little worse for wear and my first thoughts were about how I could get out to Tyler and see Jenifer as soon as possible. I even had to beg and plead with my parents to help make some kind of arrangement for that. It felt like I was in high school begging for an extra hour of curfew on prom night all over again. I think I basically got their help and attention by letting them know I was going to go out there as soon possible whether they wanted to help or not. My fucking girlfriend is in the hospital, thanks to a car I was driving and you think any force on earth is going to keep me from her?! I didn’t fucking ask to be flown across the state with a broken body and no fucking drug or emotional support; Jen and I were together and we should have stayed together.

I got in the back of my dad’s Impala just like when we used to all pile in and go to church on sunny Sunday mornings, only this time we were driving back out to hell and all I could do was silently watch as my dad drove at his painfully slow pace across the state. We were all silent, listening to PBS for as long as we could and then when it faded to static we listened to nothing at all. The elephant was in the room.

It was hard for me to see Jenifer in intensive care; she’s very broken and can only receive visitors for a couple of minutes every few hours. She was glad to see me there, I think, but she was really out of it and her mother was hovering close by, watching me and my mom as we tried to get some sort of positive response from Jenifer. She was lying there in a bed that seemed to envelope her emaciated body, mouth lodged open with a giant pale blue breathing tube stuffed down her throat, and there were millions of machines that connected to millions of needles that connected to Jenifer’s body in various places. Only a dull spark in her eyes and a couple squeezes of her hand gave any indication she was alive, the rest was monitored by the erratic pattern of the machines. Oh baby, I want to see you smile, I want to see you sit up and pull this shit out of you, light up a Marlboro and tell the nurse to kiss your ass.

Then like a fucking tourist I was abruptly ushered into the waiting room by the nurses. I could see by the look on my mom’s face that she finally realized how fucked up the situation really was after she read Jen’s chart while I was trying to communicate. I guess maybe my parents thought that since I was relatively okay, Jenifer would be in a similar state.

I realize Jenifer’s mom may be more important to her right now since she’s been keeping a vigil and has been there to know what’s happened while I’ve been stuck in Dallas the past few days. Mrs. Lansing has been the only person keeping me updated about what’s been going on in the duration and I thought seeing me might make Jenifer cheer up a little, but she’s so broken that I couldn’t tell if my presence had any effect at all. After our minutes of visitation were up we settled back into the intensive care waiting room with a few other families going through various stages of their own terrible tragedies, hollow sleepless eyes glancing back and forth evaluating each other. There was some uncomfortable brief polite contact, nobody wanting to ask each other who or why they were there, fearing to hear the worst as if the bad karma might spread to their own loved ones.

There’s so much emotion pouring from that room, overloading my senses, every time somebody bumps by me I feel the pain from their experience in my head. This has taken a lot out of me and I’m much weaker than I thought, my defenses are down and people’s thoughts keep sneaking in uninvited.

Talking to her parents about how the accident happened was another event that can go on my worst-experiences-of-all-time list. Two in one week, I’m going for a record. It was having to thoroughly explain to her obsessive-compulsive father again and again about all the ways I tried to prevent the car from going off the bridge that really did me in. Did I do this? Did I do that? Over and over, back and forth. I COULDN’T FUCKING DO ANYTHING, not one fucking thing, except bring your daughter back to live in this permanent nightmare.

Jenifer, I need to see you privately so we can talk. You are broken but I need you. I need your touch, your help. I need to tell you how sorry I am, I need to beg you for forgiveness. How can I be strong for you through this? I’m so sorry.

The comets

Have such a space to cross

Such coldness, forgetfulness.

So your gestures flake off

Through the bad amnesia of heaven

—Sylvia Plath (The Night Dreams)

I’m in my old room. It’s seems so lifeless to me now and I can’t believe I grew up here. I’m staring out the same dirty window I used to have to get a chair to see out of, looking through the darkness at the park and trees behind my parents’ house.

Everyone is walking around and talking to me like I’m just back from college visiting for the holidays.

Well I’m not. My life, wife, is lying in a fucking hospital in bed and I’m 150 miles away surrounded by creepy reminders of another life.

My parents didn’t have the time to drive me out to Tyler to visit so I took the Greyhound bus out there. I feel like shit, my arm’s broken and my ribs are sore but on the bright side I probably won’t lose any teeth. Jenifer looked a little better than the last time I saw her and I brought her some pictures to tape to the metal posts around her bed and her snoopy dog to help make her room seem a little more cheery.

♦ ♦ ♦

It’s so hard to see her like this. Her touch is still electric to me, but now it makes me want to cry because when we touch, I can feel a part of every worry and thought she has. I’m still only allowed in there to visit for 15 minutes every few hours, never alone, and it sucks because I can sense she needs me in there with her dammit. The rest of my time is spent in the awful intensive care waiting room talking to her parents who can’t accuse me and can’t help but blame me. I can see it in their eyes, transposed or not.

I’m going to have to bring some pot next time, anything to numb myself. I can’t keep going outside and blubbering.

♦ ♦ ♦

My brain’s on fire and I still can’t sleep. What is happening to me? I feel so fucked up, so alone and small. I sit in my room and try to read or distract myself but there is nothing I can do. Even writing this fucking thing sucks, it’s always sucked. My partner is missing and I need her. If she wasn’t still alive I could at least be thinking of interesting ways to kill myself, that would be nice and easy. If I feel this bad and she’s alive, how would I feel if she had died? God, would it have been better? Painless?

We’re going to lose the nice apartment that we worked so hard to get and it feels like I’m severing one more link with her to have to do that. Does that make sense? I was so happy with our infinite possibilities there. Yesterday I went back to our apartment for the first time with my sister and too many of our friends came by to say how sorry they were. Jen and I were a fucking team and everyone on town knew us as a unit. After they all left I just broke down shaking and crying in front of my sister. I couldn’t stop because I felt so bad, the never-ending torrent of hurt just builds up too much and has to come out. My sister looked scared because she had never seen me like that and she didn’t really know how to react but she offered comforting words and held me for a while until I could get a grip on reality again. It was just too much seeing our friends and being around all of our stuff.

♦ ♦ ♦

Took the bus out to Tyler again. The ride sucked. The visitation room sucked but seeing Jenifer was good. I stayed overnight this time and slept in the non-offensive chairs, but I still haven’t had the chance to visit with Jenifer alone yet. Her mom hangs around like a protective…well…mom, which is good for Jenifer, but it keeps reminding me that nobody in either of our families really knew how close we were.

Except for seeing Jenifer everything about this hospital is for shit. Everything except her is for shit. No texture, no color, no emotion except sadness. If I don’tfind distraction soon I’m going to seriously lose it.

♦ ♦ ♦

I went to Irving Mall with my sister and got arrested for shoplifting a watch from Dillard’s that I didn’t even want. I guess I was trying to get caught. We were just walking through the store from the parking lot and it ended up in my pocket. I really don’t care anymore. I was more embarrassed they also held my sister while waiting for the cops. Shit, let her at least shop or something, she didn’t do anything.

My parents came and picked me up from the jail after my sister drove home alone in my bug. They were so mad that they gave me the silent treatment, which fits right in with how they treat me and my life now anyway, so big fucking deal right? It was actually kind of nice.

♦ ♦ ♦

I’ve been calling Negro and Fats again lately. Jenifer is still in the hospital, progressing by leaps and bounds physically, but the doctors say the surgery they had to do on her neck is going to keep her from ever walking again. She can’t fucking feel anything from the stomach down and the mental shit between us is not connecting. But I really don’t care about any of that as long as she remembers us. It’s been an eternity though. I’ve taken as many trips out to Tyler as I can. My parents won’t drive me out there anymore and they won’t let me stay there with her. The most they’ll do is drop me off at the Greyhound bus station in downtown Dallas and get me a ticket. I’ve gotten on and off at the small smelly station more times than I can count now and there’s not really a perceptible pattern of people that actually want to go to Tyler. It’s usually just me and a few military personnel on leave going home for a few days. From the bus stop I walk a couple of miles in the heat to Mother Francis Hospital. Sometimes I can hitchhike; having a broken arm induces sympathy from strangers at least.

I watch Jen in physical therapy and realize that there is just so much I am not a part of now, but I honestly want to learn. I still can’t quite come to grips with being responsible for hurting her this badly and I’m getting more suicidal everyday even though seeing her mend is rewarding. God, she’s still so beautiful. I shouldn’t start with the dope again but it makes me feel a little better and Jenifer understands.

I felt so lonely that I called my ex-girlfriend Melanie the other night so I could have someone to talk to. I think I might have been secretly hoping she would hang up on me and make me feel even worse but she came right over and I snuck out of the house to sit in her car and talk. It made me feel better but I felt like I was cheating on Jenifer. I hope she can forgive me, I just needed to talk to someone.

♦ ♦ ♦

“Sam, you must be feeling better, so you have to get a job.”

I only agreed because I need something to do besides dope to make myself feel better. No one in my family sees the depression. I’m either an Oscar-caliber actor or they are ignoring it. It’s pathetic really; I’m feeling so much worse. I didn’t write about the experience of moving our stuff out of the apartment in Denton because it hurt too much. All the stuff that was ours for so many years is now separated again and it just feels wrong to me on so many levels.

I’ve been hanging out with Melanie some but she’s not a good substitute for Jenifer. Nobody is. I talked about the accident with her some more and cried again. It’s embarrassing but therapeutic. None of my other friends know how to act around me now. Dammit, we were friends, remember!

Everything I do reminds me of what has happened. My refuge is doing smack, which takes all the bad away but it ends up leaving me more depressed later. I got a job working as a chef’s assistant, a sous chef, at the Doubletree Hotel. I didn’t want to have anything more to do with food service ever again but it was an easy gig to get since Melanie works there as a cocktail waitress. Thankfully I work mostly the earlier shifts back in the depths of their huge kitchen and I don’t have to see her too often.

Jenifer is supposed to be moved to Dallas for therapy soon.

♦ ♦ ♦

Isn’t life supposed to change in incrementally inconsequential ways? I hate my job, I’ve been working the early morning shift which starts at 5 a.m. and it’s the only shift I specifically requested not to be on. Everything is fucked up, the only thing to do with my paychecks is spend them on more H, so I do.

There’s nobody to go out with, and my best friend is in the hospital. At least she’s closer now, doing physical therapy at Baylor Hospital in Dallas, so I should get to visit more. Since my cast came off it’s hard for her to be so weak and see me relatively uninjured. I get to visit more now. Sometimes we’re actually alone for a while, which is nice. She’s worried about me and I think she’s worried I won’t love her anymore but I hope I’ve allayed those fears. I can finally see her starting to have to cope with the reality of the situation she’s in, now that the doctors are decreasing the big mind numbing meds she’s been on. I don’t know how to help her with this, hopefully there will be more of a support system in the rehab facility where she’s at than I had. She asks me to bring her smack now, sometimes begs me, and I guess I will. How can I be a hypocrite when it’s my own escape from reality and it’s likely been the only thing keeping me going for the past few months? I brought her the sequel to Jurassic Park to read, I’m never allowed to be in there with her enough to get to read to her like I want to, like I need to, but maybe her mom will read it to her. I often show up late to visit her and I can tell she’s getting a lot of flak from her folks about it.

There’s probably nothing worse for her than having to defend me to her parents when they can all tell I’m fucking up again. The dopeman makes me late sometimes, but usually I just get lost trying to find her building in Dallas. There’s only one good way to get down there and the ever-changing road construction adds so many detours and delays that by the time I find the newest route to the hospital everyone usually looks on me with disappointed eyes. “Don’t you see Jenifer, I want to be there with you? I want to sleep there every night and take care of you in your hour of need like I should but I can’t. I’m fucking pathetic.” Really though, what will her family let me do? With her mom there 24/7 I’ve been nothing morethan an outside casual visitor since this all happened.

♦ ♦ ♦

I got fired for fucking up my time card at work one day when I tried to use my lunch hour to cash my check and buy some H. It didn’t even work, but I don’t fucking care. I’m tired of waking up at 4 in the morning to chop endless mounds of vegetables and prepare gourmet meals for other people to eat. I wasn’t doing very well there anyway; I would fall asleep while cutting vegetables and all the Mexican ladies who work in the bakery section of the kitchen would giggle, probably betting on how long it would take before I lost a finger.

One day I didn’t have a needle so I tracked down a diabetic and asked her if she had a spare. She was nice, about it, but after I left she called security and I had to get into this big ordeal and tell my boss I was a diabetic. Did you know there are two types of diabetes and only one uses needles? I think I guessed the right type but later on that week the messed up time card was enough of a third strike to get me canned.

Melanie’s pissed off because someone broke into her apartment and stole some buckets of change from her brother, but I won’t comment on that. She was starting to think that my loneliness for company was a prelude to a re-romance, despite my direct insistence to the contrary. I honestly never wanted to, but we ended up having awkward sex in her closet late one night and I came after only about two seconds, so whatever image she had of me as being a good lover went out the window along with any romantic intentions. So now I’m technically a cheating junkie fuckhead bastard, but it really didn’t mean anything. I hadn’t even masturbated since the accident so I wasn’t sure if my equipment still worked. I guess it didn’t, so I have another reason to feel just super great about myself. I’m sorry, but the woman I love is in the hospital, I need her more than anyone and it has nothing to do with sex.

I still manage to make it down to see Jen about every day but it’s hard. Sometimes I get too fucked up and embarrass her in front of her parents. I don’t want them there, I just want to lay down by the bed and put my head in her lap without having to worry about the delicacies of conversation. I’ve also managed to bring her heroin a few times, she’s got this tube in her arm that is permanently stuck in the vein so whenever the nurses need to give her meds they can inject whatever into the end of the tube instead of having to stick her again. It works out nicely to inject a little cooked H in the tube and it even makes Jen feel better for a while.

On one really depressing day she asked me for a hot-shot[3] and I actually brought it to her, letting her put the dope into the tube herself and then I watched her beautiful face relax as she sank into that pleasant deep sleep that precludes respiratory failure and death. Her mom had left us alone and I cried as I watched her but I realized I still couldn’t let her go. Not like that. I rushed out to get the doctor and he gave her this stuff that immediately counteracted the morphine-base and woke her up. I didn’t even get in any trouble for giving the dope to her. Apparently patients on severe pain meds overdose a lot and they have the shit that saves their life readily available. Her mom was crying and kept saying thank you to me over and over since I had reacted quick enough to go get the doctor and technically saved her daughter’s life. This was the third time I watched Jenifer die, and she would have died if I hadn’t been so selfish. It’s all becoming too fucking much to handle. I can’t pretend to play God with her life anymore.

It’s gotten so bad at home now that I would stay at the hospital all the time if Mrs. Lansing hadn’t already reserved the option solely for herself and silently forbade it. I go to Narcotics Anonymous meetings just to get out of the house and I can usually meet some people who want to go and score afterwards. I want to quit and I want to die. If I quit I’m going to spend a lot more time actively pursuing the second option, so maybe this way of life is for the best right now.

I’m now working at Malibu, the race track just down the highway from my parent’s house with the putt-putt golf and video games. I work on the track, fixing cars and helping little kids put their seatbelts on and stuff. Nothing too hard, I was glad to find something to occupy a little time after the cooking gig went sour. It’s an easy job but I can tell that I am not destined to work here for very long. There are just too many problems and things going on around me for anything good to last.

Jenifer is progressing but still can’t fucking feel anything from the stomach on down and the mental shit between us is still not connecting like it used to. I don’t know what to do. She isn’t used to me being the most important person in her life anymore and it hurts deeply, but what can I do? I’m the one letting other people tell me how to behave around her and I’ve relinquished my responsibility to be there for her so it’s my own fucking fault. She wants to be with her mother and I understand that, but nobody ever had what we had together. God, I don’t want to lose her, I don’t mind the physical problems, just don’t take her away.

My brain is screaming inside my head to talk to anyone about what’s happening and nobody wants to hear any of it. It’s too gruesome, too real to think of someone they know involved in a tragedy.

I watch Jen in physical therapy and realize that there is just so much I am not a part of now, but I honestly want to learn but I still can’t quite come to grips with hurting her this bad and I’m still getting more and more suicidal every day. I come home and we still never talk about the accident. I’m already a dope head again and that makes me even more depressed. I’ve been subconsciously pushing my habit to the limits while I’m in Dallas, hoping for the worst (or best, depending on whose point of view you’re looking at).

The other morning I woke up in my little twin kiddie bed with a needle on the mattress after passing out with it still in my arm. I remember cooking up a huge amount the night before and slowly pushing in the plunger of the syringe in order to savor the sensation of my last thoughts on Earth. When I woke up, I was depressed to be alive and I finished what was still left in the syringe after flicking out the coagulated blood.

The state of Texas is dropping Jenifer’s theft conviction and wiping out her probation. I guess having to lie on your back for three months with tubes sticking out of your body qualifies a person for dismissal of a minor misdemeanor. It’s good news for her though. My probation is still in effect in Denton I guess, but the court date for the fucking watch I stole in Dallas keeps getting put off and looms over me.

Jenifer got to go home today and she came over to my parents’ house from the hospital, which means I probably got fired from Malibu. I had requested time off for the afternoon, but the assistant manager bitch wouldn’t let me go when it was time so I snuck out over the back fence and drove home. Sometimes you have to make a decision about what’s really important in life and I felt like this was one of those things. It was good to see Jen in her racing machine and we did the family formalities. My mother showed surprising grace and poise and had even sewn together a couple of things for Jen to take with her, like a hot pad for her lap. I guess her nursing experience clued her in to some things that most people forget about. When you can’t feel your legs it’s easy to set a hot pan or plate of food in your lap and get severe burns without ever feeling anything.

Jenifer’s still shy around me but more open to me than anyone else (besides her mom) so I still see there might be hope for us if she’ll have me. I don’t want to lose her over this but I’ve made things so bad for myself and I know they’ll only get worse. It might be best to drive her away before I fuck her life up even more.

I’ve started cashing in some of my parents savings bonds that I found in a box under their bed. There’s one local bank that cashes them if I go through the drive-thru and send my mom’s driver’s license through the tube. I plan on paying everything back. I have ideas in my head that could work, but when they catch me at this I’m going to be seriously fucked even if I do have the cash to pay them back.

Seeing Jenifer again made me feel as if there might be more to the rest of my life than trying to end it with this addiction but I’m hooked and back at the point where I can’t stop again. I don’t think Jenifer can really even believe what I say half the time anymore.

Malibu called just after Jenifer had left to let me know I was definitely fired. Even if I cared enough to go in and try to explain, I still don’t know if I could make them understand. Besides my sister, I don’t think anybody understands. Maybe not even her.

My parents found out about me cashing in some of their savings bond money when they were searching my car for drugs. They found one last bond in my backseat with my mom’s forged signature on it that the bitch at the bank wouldn’t cash for me.

I’m losing my grip and I’m using my malice against them to justify taking their dough. They’re rightfully pissed and I feel like shit about it. Things are BAD, bad around here.

Now the ‘rents come into my room at odd hours searching through my things while I’m half asleep. It makes me so mad I just sit in my bed with my hands around my legs and glare or laugh at them, usually sitting on my stash if I’ve got one. Except for my sister, none of them care about me or Jenifer because they’re too busy being obsessed with themselves…like I’m not.

I officially welcome all parents to the fucking 90’s and the wonderful world of drugs where no one is immune, especially your children. The first time I took a puff off a joint I realized that I had been lied to my entire life. Pot doesn’t lower sperm counts. Pot doesn’t give men breasts or make people jump off buildings America! My mom’s an alcoholic but she doesn’t drink? What’s really going on?

I shouldn’t spew at my parents though. If I was my kid I would have kicked my ass from here to Mexico by now. Stealing their money was an impulsive egotistical moment that has only made things worse in a situation none of us are prepared to deal with.

I still feel pretty abandoned with Jen being in and out of the hospital so much, there’s no shortage of selfishness and justification I can tap into to meet myneeds. I scare myself with my newfound capacity to be ruthless.

♦ ♦ ♦

I’ve always liked the way people cheer when an injured sports player gets taken off the field. It invokes that base human instinct to cringe at the thought of our own mortality. The way most of us are wired, we genuinely don’t want to see anyone get hurt or killed. We hear enough news about children dying or fireman being killed while trying to save lives and it’s all the same damn thing. Cheering for a felled sports hero is really just an extension of those emotions. In fact I think it’s one of our most important release mechanisms. We cheer because of all the unpreventable cruelties that life offers to the innocent. When we can witness someone getting hurt and then get up and walk off the field it’s almost fulfilling in a way. A person has accidentally injured themselves for the sake of our entertainment and we cheer them for their sacrifice. It’s the one area where most of our public feelings of dread can be transformed into excited relief in an instant. Our excitement and cheers are fueled by relief, not just for the injured athlete but for ourselves.

I awoke this morning to the smell of plastic pillows in a not uncomfortable bed, in a room that was not familiar to me in the least. It had the smell of institution pillows, in the sort of institution where they give you pillows. I barely remembered how I got here but I instinctively knew that it is a good thing I’m here. The morning grog dissolved quickly enough for me to sum up my surroundings and summarize yesterday’s hell.

In a moment of temporary (in)sanity I finally got the courage to go downstairs and ask my mom to help me. I merely told my mom what she already knew and didn’t want to hear. My body was hurting worse than I could ever remember it hurting. I could feel painful friction from my joints when I moved any of my appendages. The simple act of opening my eyelids shot painful spikes of light straight through my retinas and into my brain. It felt like I was falling onto a dull wooden stake and driving its splintered shaft straight into my eyes over and over. My stomach was cramping in knots and all that would come out of me was evil green bile from the wrong direction. The sweats started and I could feel each follicle of my hair as it slowly tore the flesh on my scalp and grew outwards. I knew I was in for it bad this time and I knew that I didn’t want to have to go through the long arduous journey of trying to get out of the house and score just to feel human.

I had been going through severe withdrawals while trying to pretend like everything was okay since I “quit” after they caught me stealing their money last week. Of course I didn’t fucking quit, and when every last bit of cash I could come up with was gone the sickness started. This was about a week after I was supposed to be through with feeling bad. It’s sadly ironic that I had to pretend to be feeling withdrawals while I was still using and then I had to pretend to be well while trying to kick.

My mom freaked, but she found some loophole in my dad’s insurance that got me into this rehab where they’ve given me some nice pills that make me feel almost okay. The name of the place is called “Wood Haven” or “Wood Harbor” or “Wood-something-or-other” so you know it’s a North Dallas fancy-schmancy facility. At least I’m well enough to write something again. This place is mostly full of rich corporate execs or their kids who are addicted to something or other. There are even a few Dallas Cowboys in here serving their mandatory league rehab time after testing positive. Nate Newton’s down the hall, but he gets to stayin his room all day and watch TV instead of going to the weird group activities they make everyone else go to.

I talked with one lady for an hour who claims to have a serious marijuana addiction. I tried to be sympathetic to her plight, while we drank the plentiful and expensive hot chocolate the facility provides, but she wasn’t too keen on hearing about how I like to inject syringes of heroin into my veins. Marijuana addiction, give me a fucking break! They have the drug addicts mixed in with the sex addicts (mostly men unfortunately, and they go to different groups) which is kind of fun. The stupid roommate they gave me the other day said some psycho shit to get put on a suicide watch, which means they took everything away from both us that he might possibly use to go psycho. Hopefully Manson will concentrate on hurting himself if he decides to snap instead of his peacefully sleeping roommate.

Most of the people in here are pretty legit. There are lots of alcohol and coke stories from the dads and kids but I have the dubious honor of being the only heroin patient on this wing and I kind of like the stigmatic aura and whispers that follow me around. It’s like I have a sign that says “PELIGRO” on my back. Heroin is another drug that most people only know from what the propaganda machine has fed them. I’m predicting this place will be seeing a lot more heroin-addicted kids in here really soon that are a helluva lot younger than I am, once the N. Dallas problem shows its face. Maybe my groundbreaking rehab program will serve as an example to help somebody else get the right treatment in the future. We’ll see what happens; I’m not too impressed with the therapeutic value that the polished surface of the fancy “Wood Whatever” conveys. This is more like a white collar prison vacation resort with a pool and tennis courts than a facility that can help me.

Rehab was one big expensive motherfucking joke. Don’t get me wrong, I got a lot out of it and I feel a lot better since I got to come down off my withdrawals with their magic “feel better” pills, but for the most part it all boiled down to a bunch of rich crybabies and their horseshit. The hospital made me physically well and one counselor was even able to help me put my addiction into a better perspective. Plus I felt safe there. While I was in the facility there was no paralyzed girlfriend to disappoint, there was no job to worry about and there were no parents wanting to ban me from their lives forever; just a lot of people willing to listen. I met a lot of cool patients that helped give me a better grasp of how big reality actually is and they helped me gain some focus beyond just myself, but there was nothing more for me there.

There was this one counselor named Dave who thankfully didn’t believe me when I casually brushed over how much the accident was bothering me inside. He got me to talk to him about what was really going on in my head and about how overwhelmed I feel with everything. By the time we were done I was blubbering and crying all over again. It gets easier to relive the accident each time I pull off the mental bandages and pick at the scabs but it sure does suck to go through and it leaves me totally worn out. Except for these writings though, Dave’s the only one who’s sat down to ask me to directly talk to him about how the accident was affecting MY life. If it’s any consolation he helped me realize that I’m at least grateful I wasn’t fucked up when the car wrecked. I knew about survivor’s guilt and all that other crap already, but maybe there’s actually something to it. I have to stay by Jenifer, I have to. Her existence keeps me alive and my problems seem insignificant compared to what she’s dealing with on a daily basis. I have to be strong.

I started to think I would be ok after being confined for those few days. Jenifer came by to visit me and even though it cheered my soul to see her, her parents still look at me with so much contempt. My mom was there also and followed me around spreading her “everything’s okay” false happiness to anyone who would listen. I’m realizing that when I get out of here all I have to go back to is that same cold room at my parents’ house which looms over me like a black hole and nobody pays any attention. My sister is cool and I have a lot of love for her, but she can’t even begin to understand what I’m going through. My Dad’s still pissed off about me stealing their money, even if they have plenty of cabbage. He’s probably more concerned with how easily I was able to deceive them to get at their money; to him it’s like discovering the dog is using the telephone to call China while he’s at work. He’s always been respectful but I’ve never been much more than a stupid kid and now that I’ve proven I’m not stupid he’s likely a little frightened about what other damage I might be able to do. My mom thinks it’s all her fault but I know she’s smart enough to know that it isn’t.

I tried to quit, dammit I tried, but living in my parents’ house right down the street from the dopeman makes the whole situation pathetic. As soon as I got home from the rehab hospital there was a check in the mail with some money from the accident. As soon as my mother left to go someplace I took a taxi to cash the check and then went and scored. Yeah, I scored.

What the fuck is wrong with me? All that rehab crap they fed me bounced around in my head for about 2 hours before I was already back at it, pulling stupid stunts that I know are going to get me caught down the line. I hate taxis too. I’ve put my parents through hell. I had every single advantage as a child and I’m still bitter for no reason even though none of the problems in my life are their fault.

It was a very bad day.

I wrecked my fucking car pretty bad today. Poor Sally. It’s not like before when I merely smashed in the front fender and I was able to fix it by ripping a replacement off a fellow bug owner who had the misfortune of leaving his car by the side of the road one evening. I drive as fast as I can now, probably hoping some ancient part in the vehicle will finally give way and fate will dispose of me quickly, but so far I’ve only managed a few minor fender benders. I even remember most of them.

Having just scored, I was pleasantly fucked up driving to the hospital to visit Jenifer during her afternoon rehab. I wasn’t going that fast but I turned a street corner too shallow and hooked the front passenger wheel on a telephone pole suspension cable. I was going just fast enough to drag my car up the wire and roll it over a few times, finally landing upside down, caving in the roof and smashing all the windows. Except for some minor cuts I got from the glass while crawling out of what was left of the window, I was perfectly fine once again. Dammit.

Jenifer had secretly given me her credit card so I could get cash to buy her some smack but I had to use it to pay the tow truck guy to flip my car back on its wheels instead. Can you believe that when I stuck the key in the ignition the damn car started right up? After some minor business with the police and refusing an ambulance I hunched down inside and drove my car to the hospital for a visit and then back home. Even though I had an excuse, Jenifer was pissed because I was late again and her mom found out about her giving me the credit card, so Jen got even more anti-Sam propaganda to add to the ever-growing fire. Yes I am a bad fuck up, but I still love her and it hurts me more than anything when my behavior is used to take their shitty frustrations out on Jen. Punch me, hurt me, but leave her alone! Isn’t it enough you are more important in her life right now any-fucking-way?!

My parents freaked when they saw the car and I’m guessing it was about the last straw. It was so obvious they just wanted me to go away that I just did. My mom even started yelling that I wasn’t leaving with my car. Oh, you want me to go but I can’t take my own fucking car? What do you want me to do? Fuck you!

I went to Denton and saw my friend Kirk who’s going to let me crash with him for a few days. I wasn’t sure what else to do or where to even try and go.

I’m still sitting here thinking about that last one.

I’ve been staying with Kirk and Bryce now for many of the past weeks and I’ve been doing some terrible things for money. I’ve just kind of attached myself to their apartment and I’ve worked towards establishing some credibility in my life again but nothing ever seems to pan out into anything worthwhile.

I got fired from my job at a local company called MARC whose sole purpose it to call people during dinner and try to get them to answer surveys. I probably should mention that I told them I was bilingual which is why they chose me over several other applicants, plus it got me an extra quarter per hour. My job basically involved calling people and trying to get them to take incredibly long boring surveys with absolutely no incentives. While I was being monitored for practice I only had to talk to a few English speaking people on the phone and I was doing fine after two days of training but when I finally got to my cubicle with my own computer calling list, nothing but Hispanic names and numbers started scrolling down my screen. I tried to do my best but after a day of spouting out random words in Spanish to people over the phone and not fulfilling any of my survey quotas, it was pretty obvious I needed to go before they monitored my calls or got a complaint.

I said I could speak Spanish; I didn’t say I could make comprehensible sentences or understand what the other person is saying when they speak Spanish. So most of my first day I used a lot of very stiff standard key Spanish phrases like “El Gato Es En El Bano”[4] and “Mansana Con Leche Es Bueno”.[5] That kind of thing. It didn’t go over too well with most of the families I called; I probably broke the company record for the most, but shortest, calls in one day. Some very drunk Mexican men had a good laugh about the whole thing when I called their house. They started spouting back English phrases that made no sense and we had a good time playing around for a bit.

After a while, a Hispanic girl in the cubicle next to me started giving me the evil eye, as if perhaps I was butchering her language and that maybe I was also responsible for exploiting and persecuting her people over the past millennium. I realized things were getting too heavy and it was time to ramble so I dicked off for the last few hours of my shift and never went back. At least I’ll get paid for the training time. Hee hee.

My next job was working to help set up the new Super Wal-Mart on the outskirts of Denton. My only difficulty there was getting up at the ungodly hours they start work and finding a ride or catching the bus out to the store. They needed people to be there around 7 a.m. and I usually came in at about 2 p.m. with the returning lunch people and then signed in like I had been there all day. Then I went in the back warehouse and worked for a while, helping unload and then unpack the endless boxes of crap they sell and put it onto the shelves. The few times I managed to make it in there on time, they made all the people sing these gay-ass “Go Wal-Mart” songs to kick off the morning on a positive note. Every time I had to stand and listen to one of their songs I made sure to steal something at the end of the day to compensate for them stealing a part of my soul with their horseshit drivel.

One day I was trying to catch the bus out to the store and I didn’t have any scrilla to pay the fifty cent bus fare, the most I could come up with was a few washers and some pennies I found on the ground near the beat up phone booth next to the apartment. I got on the bus in a crowd of people and deposited what I thought looked like a random assortment of change into the slots. The coin collector was glass though and the bus driver kicked me off the bus when he saw what I tried to do.

While I was walking depressed down the middle of the street back to Kirk & Bryce’s apartment, trying to think of another way to get a ride to work, this dollar bill blew lightly by my feet. I ran to catch the limp paper and it was ten dollars! What a great fucking country right? I went to the store to buy a pack of smokes and then used the change to get on the next bus to work where I smiled at the token Wal-Mart handicapped person saying “hi” at the door and then I signed in as if I had been there the whole time. I didn’t kiss enough asses to get put on the permanent hire list for Wal-Mart, so after the store opened I got the boot, but I did learn one thing. I really hate singing motivational songs in the morning!

After Wal-Mart, I worked for this temp agency that doesn’t do any background checks and I got a job helping this lady clean doctor’s offices at the same hospital Jenifer was born in. It was cool because I got to poke around in the doctor’s cabinets and desks and I scored all these kick ass samples of pain killers they save for themselves which were ripe for the taking. The best score I ever got out of that job was a box of Tylenol with Codeine. It’s something I can trade or use during the next withdrawal time. I never got in any trouble with the hospital or temp agency but after a while I quit going in at night because the lady I worked with was too nice and I felt bad for putting her job in peril.

So I’ve pretty much been on a mini-crime rampage lately trying to fund my habit without any legitimate money coming in. The easiest thing to do is score for other people and then jack the price up a few bucks to pay for my own dope. I also steal a lot of books from the campus bookstores but the scams are getting old, people start to recognize me wandering the stores more than once a week and the people in the return line seem to grasp what’s going on but usually a book isjust a book to them no matter where I got it. I’m glad I’m not paying for these books because I’m getting raped in the re-sale racket.

I’ve hit a few dorm rooms just by knocking on doors during class and checking to see if they are locked. From my experience, most students leave their dorm rooms unlocked and if I walk in on anyone I can just say “whoops, wrong room” and everything’s cool. Some of the outer edge dorms have (unintentional) removable plate glass windows that pop out with a screwdriver. I’ve skateboarded down the street a few times with purloined stereo and musical equipment under each arm to take to the pawn shops. I just don’t like messing with that anymore though. I don’t like stealing from students or people and the last time I took off a window, the huge plate glass wouldn’t fit back into the frame right and while I was casually walking away with a bunch of loot the entire window fell out and shattered all over the concrete. I was glad I always wipe my prints off the glass as I ran scared down the street.

Jenifer is back at her parents’ home in Denton now but I don’t really get to see her much. Although talking to her cheers me up and I really miss her. I wish I could go back and just take back that one day or moment in time forever. The happy memories we shared make me so sad now. The few times I’ve gone back inside the Tomato it’s like I’m a leper. My old boss won’t even look at me in the eyes. I hate it even more when they won’t look at Jen either.

It’s cool of Kirk and Bryce to tolerate my staying with them. Hopefully I won’t end up screwing them over like I have with most everyone else. What can I do to keep my life moving forward? I DO the only thing I know how to do better than most. Write. Lately though, it’s just more sad pages of shattered hopes and dreams. Who am I kidding? This is really all one big titty-sucking whine fest. My miseries and the like are simply recorded in a journal for posterity even though it’s an old repetitious story told across a million lifetimes.

Hello Mom, I’m In Jail! Every day in here is yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Officer fucking Goldberg. The name will be forever imprinted in my brain as a conspirator against me. Mr. good-guy Officer fucking Goldberg. Mr. Campus fucking police man working to right the wrongs the world has committed against him. Officer fucking Goldberg. The embodiment of everything I hate about cops is permeated in the actions of this man. Cops justify falsifying evidence because they look at it as getting the results they want within what they feel are limited means. It’s the quick and easy way to do things, a characteristic that personifies most police as I’ve come to find out. They are the not-so-bright kids in high school, maybe even the ones who got picked on and are still holding a grudge. They’re lazy, donut-eating paunches of men sitting in their cars truly believing they are going to make the world a better place by getting into everyone’s business for the sake of right versus wrong, firmly believing that they are the sole voices of right. The soldiers that dragged Jesus’ ass to jail and beat him down over and over and then nailed his butt to the cross probably felt the same fucking way. I call it “working for the side of right by doing wrong.” How does the famous quote go? “You don’t change the devil, he changes you.”

I went in the campus bookstore to make a snatch and grab, to get some quick cash with a few purloined textbooks. It’s not easy anymore since I’ve become pretty familiar to all the faces around the ins and outs of the campus bookstore in the Union. There were days when I could go in the bottom of the store, get some books, exit the top of the store, walk back down to the bottom floor on the other side and sell them their own books back. It was a quick 50 to100 bucks on most days. Today I went in and as I was about to exit, scott-free again, something came over me. Far back in my mind, my conscience thought it would be a good idea to try and apply for a legitimate job since I know so much about the book orders and shift changes anyway, at the very least I could work the place from inside, but my intentions were honorable. Instead of zipping away with a giant book surreptitiously stuffed in my baggy pants I stopped to fill out an employment application. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I guess I just wanted to do something honest or strive for legitimacy or something. I’m bored by this amoral path I have become so familiar with, I’ve taken to corruption so easily and it is not who I feel I really am.

The joke was on me though. While I was filling out the application somebody recognized me and they must have called the cops because when I went to turn my app into the manager, they had Officer Goldberg in there, waiting and licking his chops. I HATE all of them! Every fucking one of them! Easy money arrest! I might as well have just walked to the jail with a videotape of me stealingthe shit and asked for a room. Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me! Stupid! I blew my cover at the bookstore and got thrown in the pokey.

Humiliation, handcuffs, police car, arrest, blah blah, blah. I finally got to the campus police station and the motherfucker starts shaking me down, only I don’t know it. He starts talking and asking me my motivations like he really is a concerned person underneath that uniform, just another average Joe, like he might be able to fucking help me with some of my problems. Hey look at that I think, this is the first adult in a long time that has asked me about what’s going on in my life and I actually fell for his caring act. It was all a fucking act!

He asked what was going on and before you know it, I started blubbering like a baby in rehab again! The words start coming out about my addiction, the car accident and everything. I knew to hold back about the thefts around town because of the Hasting’s incident, but I couldn’t stop myself from pouring out all this personal pain to him. It must have been boiling just beneath the surface waiting for a release.

Through my whole spiel he’s acting concerned for my well being, like he genuinely has some sort of answer he can give me, like he really cares! I’ve got snot pouring out of my nose and my vision is blurred with tears while he watches sympathetically, but then he releases the kicker. He sort of casually lets out, “we’ve been investigating a couple of burglaries around the campus area.” as if it’s a natural part of our conversation. EXCUSE ME?!!

All at once the tears dry up and I knew I was just played for an ass. My wide crying eyes narrow into evil little slits and I focus every fucking ounce of pent-up hurt negativity and rage through my pupils, into his fucking corneas and penetrate the back of his fucking brain all at once, trying to get his head to hemorrhage or preferably explode. He even backed up for a second in the cold cell where we are talking under observation, looked back at the video camera on the wall and leaves nervously before I can poke my fingers into his fucking eyes and twist them around until he’s Stevie-fucking-Wonder blind! I’m fuming, fuming, fuming mad, but I know what’s going to come next. He’s blown the good cop shit, so he’s got to play the bad cop now. It’s psychologically smart and I’ve been played like a fucking idiot schoolgirl up until now but I realize I’ve got to sit and be calm. So I focus, and breathe and stare directly into the video camera high up on the wall for about ten straight minutes letting the glare off the lens help me focus into a more relaxed meditative state. I know I have to be smart now or this cop’s going to fuck me hard. Sure enough, ten minutes later a Lt. comes in and politely takes me back to his office and offers me a seat. Here it comes I think, be cool. Be fucking ice cream in the Arctic cool.

To this guy, I present myself as Joe Schoolboy. I’m Mr. “In over my head and scared but innocent student” to this guy. I’m sure he was watching the exchange with Goldberg in the cell since I’m probably the only interesting diversion in their full day of writing traffic and parking tickets. I’m the potential “winning-lottery-ticket-of-burglaries-that-might-take-some-of-the-heat-off-their-ineffec-tive-asses” guy. The Lt. starts in on the “this could be hard on your paralyzed girlfriend routine” which almost pisses me off and I’m silently thankful for the meditation time they gave me to analyze the angles that would likely be put in play against me.

When he sees that won’t work he tries to tell me they have fingerprints from the crime scenes and that they will find out if mine match and I can make it easier on myself by just admitting to him the extent of my criminal enterprises. Yeah-fucking-right! I was born at night, but not last night. No matter how green I am at this criminal routine, I’m learning really fucking fast. Innocent as can be I ask him if they really have fingerprints. Of course he says “yes”, his eyes suddenly getting predatory and hungry, his mouth going dry with anticipation for a brief moment before I let out an over-exaggerated sigh of relief and say “Oh, thank you!” I proceed to let him know I’m really glad they have the fingerprints so they’ll know it wasn’t me and thank him over and over while I watch the cast of disappointment fall into his eyes. We exchange a few more words and then I am out of there going back to my cell. Goldberg’s waiting outside the lieutenant’s door and he’s pissed. As he’s taking me to the cell he makes sure to painfully punch me a couple of times in the ribs and slam me up against the concrete wall, but as he walks out I get the satisfaction of giving him the barest hint of a smile. Fucking cock sucking whore bastard. Fucking cock sucking dead whore bastard.

So I’m here in Denton County Jail looking at another misdemeanor charge and, get this, my first felony charge! Possession of a controlled substance under one gram. The fucking bastard got the last laugh by charging me with felony possession of heroin along with my misdemeanor and throwing me in jail just to watch me spin. I’m nervous, but I am assured by the fact that I am innocent of the felony. I had nothing on me. Unless they have drugs to plant on suspects just lying around, like New York, Minnesota and Dallas cops do, I doubt they even have a decent case. It must really suck to be nothing more than an overblown campus traffic cop.

Now it’s just a matter of me waiting around in here. I’m not 100 percent assured that being innocent will actually mean I come out of this experience a free man, but it’s something to latch onto, and thanks to bad government policies causing prison overcrowding I know a first felony will get me automatic probation at the very worst.

The wait is going to be murder. Unless you take the guilty plea, the City of Denton will keep you for damn near as long as they want. File me away, let me plot and rest. Like the black people say, “They gotta let me out one day. Until then, get used to baloney.”

Believe it or not, being in County Jail isn’t too bad. Don’t get me wrong, the food sucks and the process of getting integrated into the system is its own circle of hell that I’ll save for another time, but once I got to my “residence” where I was going to be living for a while it actually wasn’t too bad.

I’m in an area loosely attached to a wing of the jail that fences in a set of portable prisons where they put minor offenders and folks that are trustees or people in relatively good standing. Imagine a large storage shed or a double-wide trailer home completely gutted of its interior and fitted with 6 rows of bunk beds down each side wall. In the very back, open to God and everyone, are three toilets and two small showers off to the side. Each trailer house has one thick wall down the middle, completely and solidly separating it into two living areas, an “A” side and a “B” side. By dividing it in half, they can add twice as many bunk beds, allowing the whole building to hold a total of 48 prisoners instead of 24. Another great part is that only one guard sits behind a thick screen at the very front of the building, watching both sides and unknowingly saving the prison money by not having to hire extra guards.

Here is a picture:

There are four of these buildings next to the main jail, three men’s buildings and one women’s, each with an “A” and “B” Unit. Five of the six men’s Units house the “trustees,” usually the people who are in jail for minor enough offenses that they’re trusted enough to go out and perform all sort of meaningless tasks; everything from mopping up puke in the drunk tank to cooking meals for the prisoners. It’s free prison labor and almost all the guys all do it without objection because it helps pass the time. Hell, one day I rolled a whole pouch of tobacco into cigarettes for a guy in exchange for a single Snickers Bar. I don’t know much about rolling tobacco but I learned quickly with hunger as my main motivation.

Since I’ve got a felony I’m in Unit 3B, the only 1/8 of the four porta-potties that doesn’t have or allow trustees. I’ve put in an application to be one because I’m told that if you work in the kitchen you can find semi-edible cuisine on occasion.

There’s a commissary form we can fill out to buy things if someone on the outside deposits money into an account, it’s called “having money on your books”, but I’m not sure why it’s called that since all the funds are encoded into a security chip on a bracelet that’s permanently attached to every prisoner’s left arm, unless they are missing their left arm, then I assume it goes on the other one. Once a week or so they bring by the items from the form and people with money get things like ‘real’ soap or ‘real’ toothpaste or even deodorant for God’s sake! You can also get candy bars and chips which you can either eat, trade or bet like cash. No one I know is willing to put any money on my books so I’ve had to learn how to roll tobacco and other things to get by.

The stuff they give out when you get booked into jail is sort of racially biased. And I say this from a white boy perspective with absolutely nothing to gain. You get booked in and the guards give you a plastic baggy with a mini-bar of soap. It’s actually called Bob Barker soap and its buddies are the Bob Barker toothpaste and the Bob Barker toothbrush. I’m guessing Bob Barker’s got himself a sweatshop someplace that makes cheap-ass-spike-bristled toothbrushes and soap that crumbles and falls apart in water. I bet that the kickbacks for even the smallest things in this jailhouse must be a lucrative side endeavor for some official way up the ladder. Follow the money.

As far as taking care of my hair goes, there’s a tiny black plastic comb with broken teeth that comes in the bag with everything else, although this doesn’t do the black guys any good because of their short curly hair. What I’ve noticed they’ll do instead is melt 3-4 Bob Barker toothbrushes together into a sort of miniature ‘brush.” It’s really a rather ingenious way to adapt, except whenever there is a “shakedown”, the guards confiscate all the contraband and makeshift hairbrushes qualify as contraband since melting down a toothbrush is also the easiest way to make a crude “shank” to defend yourself.

Surprisingly, it’s mostly white guys out here with me and I’ve got a bunk next to this old skinny guy named Eddie who’s pretty cool. Eddie’s so old he owes Jesus a quarter. He’s let me use some soap and toothpaste until my next indigent care package comes in so he’s alright. Eddie’s got a wife who is in the portable building next door to us and they write each other one letter every day but since you can’t send mail from an inmate to another inmate they have to mail their love letters to a friend who mails them back to the jail. Stupid huh? Once a day he presses up against the screen and watches for his wife to walk by and deliver meal trays to the other female prisoners and every day they deliver us mail he has at least one letter in there from her. I didn’t ask him what they were both in for—it’s considered very rude to say the least—but I know it’s for two separate charges. It trips me out that an entire family is in jail though. If I ever get married I would hope one of us is morally fortuitous to keep me in line or at last manage to keep her own ass out of jail. Sheeesh.

I actually feel reasonably safe in here. I’m not in an aggravated cell and I think I could kick about anybody’s ass that’s in my little place if I had to. It’s basically like a big summer camp for the most part. Towards the front there are two picnic tables and a TV (with cable!) mounted on the wall. I’ve learned some good card games and then I learned how to cheat at the card games. I’ve also heard some of the funniest convict stories that I’ll have to try and jot down at some point, no matter where I am there’s always somebody who’ll try to convince me their situation is a hell of a lot worse, and then give me detailed reasons why. It passes the time and the hardest part of being here is just finding something to occupy my brain. I’m enjoying having time to write long letters of salutation and atonement and I do enjoy detailed debates about the merits of Mariah Carey’s ass-shaking in her new songs, but I’m only writing in this when I’m feeling pretty good. Jail is a lot like hanging out with my Delta Lodge buddies except nobody is drunk, and half of them are just stupid.

Since I’m totally sober now, the darkness and ghosts get bad at night. There are a lot of nightmares and sadness creeps in around everything, but I guess it is better that I’ve got time to cool off and deal with it on my own since it looks like I’m the only person who’s going to help me. You definitely find out who your real friends are when you get tossed in jail.

To get a visit, the guards call your number out loud, guide you through the real jail and then put you in a long glass hallway with phones along each side. The walls along the hall are made of bulletproof glass and you can see through to the waiting area on the “free” side where there are always children playing and screaming, or families huddled in close to one phone trying to talk about everything to the person inside with me in the allotted 15 minutes they have. There are usually hot wives or girlfriends waiting against a far wall dressed sexily to either infuriate the guy inside when she tells him the bad news that she’s leaving him for Billy Jack or they’re dressed to put on a little show for their man. Either way about half the visits are psychological torture for any prisoner, a brief glimpse of a former life through scratched glass and scratches of audio. It gives some people hope and it tortures others. I’ve learned to stay away from anyone after visitation, whether it went good or bad, they are all fucked in the head for a while afterwards.

Jenifer’s been up to visit once and it wasn’t very easy to have to talk to her through the thick glass. To be so close and then not be able to reach out and soothe her hurting body is torture for me. She said it wasn’t very easy to get in and she mentioned a couple of things that let me know she’s been scoring lately. I can’t really fucking blame her for that since it’s exactly what I did.

I definitely think that when we get punished by society and have to do menial labor for a bunch of fat pigs, pigs who could easily be in any one of our shoes given different circumstances, it just doesn’t motivate anyone to do anything remotely close to the same thing when they get released. If you’re not being punished any longer why the hell would you want to continue doing the same things you’re doing when you were being punished? A minimum wage paycheck? Please. All I’m saying is that doing crappy labor for the man has an opposite rehabilitative effect. Do they really expect us to get out and say “Excuse me sir, I just got out of jail and I was wondering if you would hire me to mop your floor, or maybe you have some shoes that need shining?” Fuck that, when I get out of here I’m going to feel like the world owes me a vacation or at least some therapy.

My request to be a trustee finally came through after about a month and even though I felt really settled and comfortable in Unit 3B, you’ve gotta go when the guards say you go whether you’ve changed your mind or not. I gathered my mattress, Ramen noodles and notes and moved to the building right next door, Unit 2A, where I got put on the Auto Repair crew with four other guys already in there. The rest of the people in that Unit deliver food from the kitchen a few times a day and they all seemed fairly straight-laced, milder than the bunch I just left because they’re scared to lose their trustee status. If you’ve only got a misdemeanor offense, trustee time credits you 3 days for every 1, and you want to be really damn submissive and careful not to screw up or else you could end up having to spend 2 extra months on a 90 day sentence. The guards know this and treat the other guys like shit but the Auto Repair crew is usually made up of people like me with felonies who are not getting 3-1, so they don’t fuck with us too bad. Their main reasoning is that it takes too long to have to retrain people for the auto yard, so in a sense we’re allowed to be the bad apples in the bunch.

I got approved to be put on the crew because I listed that I could do all kinds of stuff to cars that I really didn’t know that much about, but since I worked on my VW numerous times I knew I could figure it out if I had to. Most of my work consisted of stuff I had never done before but they kept it really simple and I was a fast learner. I mostly learned minor repair things like how to balance and rotate tires, change brake pads and install extra lights or expensive chrome accessories to the various pig-mobiles. It’s a weird gig, changing the brake pads for the police cars and fixing their tires, almost like working for the enemy. I would have loved to fuck over their brakes too, but the garage has actual city mechanics on staff that would supposedly check over our work when we were done. I couldn’t help but think about all the misery I was helping cause for some poor guy who would get pulled over later. Some of the cops even insisted on watching us do the work which was intimidating at first but after a while I got used to it. Paranoid is as paranoid does. I can’t count the number of times officers would swing by to get a free tire rotation and kill some time on their shifts and sometimes they would get one of the guys to install a new stereo or a fancy horn in their personal vehicles. Most of the cops seem like they’re good guys, but since their uniform is blue and mine is orange there’s always a power trip going on in some fashion.

We also had to wash and clean their cars for them too. The rule among us guys was that whoever cleaned out the backseat had to share with everyone else whatever they found stuffed down in the cracks. So while someone is cleaning the inside of the car the other people move in to distract the officer that’s watching or we would call attention to something interesting on another side of the garage. Deep down in the backseat is where everyone who’s going to jail gets rid of any extra incriminating evidence, usually just coke or weed. I was really only interested in smoking a little pot to pass the time but that only happened for me once while I was out there.

I learned two different ways to hotwire a car from one of the guys on my crew. There’s the simple old fashioned way that involves jamming a screwdriver where the key would go and forcing it to turn over with a wrench or there’s the way you see in the movies where you actually pull the wires out of the ignition and start the car. Since there is nothing but free time once we were back to the Unit I got a long detailed discussion complete with illustrated diagrams and elaborate ways to get around different alarm systems. I guess people that are destined to teach will always try to pass along useful knowledge, no matter the circumstances of their life.

Since the auto garage is actually a fenced-in building a couple blocks away from the jail, every night when we returned the guards would make us “assume the position” and pat us down just to make sure we weren’t smuggling tools or anything else back into the jail. After a point, you know the routine and everyone knows everyone’s face so eventually it’s just a quick cursory pat down, then off to the Unit for well deserved showers.

One night when we got back, a replacement guard was there instead of any of the usual guys and during the pat down I didn’t spread my legs far enough apart to his satisfaction so he took out his nightstick and smashed my left knee on the side as hard as he could with one wide wooshing stroke. I fell down in pain and he gave me a good kick in the back, then laughed and let us through, me limping behind.

Whatever he did, my knee is totally fucked up and it still hasn’t healed right. I filed a complaint against the guard for the record. I know they won’t do anything about it in here, but one day I’ll get out and sue him or find his ass on the street and return the favor. I can tell already that any quickness I had in that leg is gone and I have to be very mindful of how I position and bend my joints when I walk now. With my knee went any chance I still had at an athletic scholarship (ha!) and if I ever find myself in a tight spot with mall security again I can forget about outrunning them.

One night after work I was feeling pretty depressed. I hadn’t seen Jenifer since that one time a month or so ago and I wrote her another long letter filled with a lot of emotion and a hidden request. Since I was working at the garage outside the jail with only an ordinary chain-link fence around the property, right across from public roads and a shitty apartment complex (where we would ironically watch people selling crack during our lunch), I drew her a crude drawing of where I was working everyday, hoping that maybe one night she could stop by and throw a joint or two near the dumpster for me to find.

It turns out that someone saw me drawing the map on my bunk and tipped off the guards, who then opened my mail and found the picture that I had drawn outlining the layout of the jail and location of the garage, along with the best place to park and have someone make a mad dash to the fence with some joints. They came and picked me up in the middle of a tire rotation right before lunch and I got charged with “Planning an Escape” which is supposed to be an automatic 5 years in jail and it got me tossed directly in solitary confinement after a few redneck guards beat the living shit out of me.

Unwittingly my prisoner status changed to “Solitary Confinement, Maximum Escape Risk” or in jailhouse terms “Bad Motherfucker,” which meant I was only allowed out of my 6x6 cell for one hour a day (with leg cuffs on) and I couldn’t get any visitors. Solitary is in an old small damp area of the jail with eight cells, four on each side. There are no windows and my only exercise consisted of walking around the four person table in the middle of this group of 8 cells filled with the meanest motherfuckers in the entire jail and a few people like me who got caught up in something they didn’t understand. You can’t exercise or walk for shit with leg cuffs and a fucked up knee, so I usually just sat at the stainless steel table or tried to call Jenifer to let her know what happened to me in case she had been trying to visit. It was almost better to know she couldn’t visit than sitting around waiting in vain for my name to be called twice a week. Though I guess I deserved that for not visiting as much as I should have while she was in the hospital.

By law, the longest they can put a person in solitary confinement is 2 weeks, beyond that it’s cruel and unusual punishment. It’s a rule that came about because of the conditions at Alcatraz back in the 30’s. I was in solitary a week before they dragged me into a room with three old guards who told me I would have to do 2 solid weeks in solitary, starting then, and THEN be transferred to a more secure area AND I would still be classified as a high escape risk, even though I wouldn’t be officially charged with an attempted escape (big sigh of relief). I was also notified that I had the right to appeal their decision AND that I had been granted time served on the theft charge from the book store while I had waited a week in solitary. Apparently I was deemed too dangerous to appear at my misdemeanor court case so they let it go. Naturally I went back to my cell and worked on appealing the two extra weeks in solitary right away; spending one week with just a toilet and the floor had already been enough to drive me batty and I was anxious to write again.

Oh, my English teachers would have been proud to hear me. Finally given a piece of a pencil and a sheet of paper I assembled a ten-minute speech that touched on the emotions of the heart, included historical references and cited current case laws, some of which I just made up to suit my purpose. When they pulled me back into the room with a different group of three old guards, I gave an oratory address that would have made Abraham Lincoln weep. My voice rose with triumph to the rafters and then fell back down in sorrowful repentance and shame as I presented my motivations, telling my tale of woe to their blank uncaring eyes. I inspired them, I moved them and finally I used simple raw logic to behoove them to get me out of solitary hell by explaining I had no reason to try and escape since I would get automatic probation on my first felony case anyway. I clearly outlined the fallacy of the logic behind ruining the rest of my life for a mere few days of freedom and then I thanked them for taking time out of their busy schedules to address this petty concern. I wish I could say that I saw tears form in each of their eyes as I left the room, but the best I can say is that they listened politely and took about ten seconds to pass around the paper and sign off on keeping my sentence as it was. It’s the old boy network so I don’t know why I should have expected anything different.

I spent another two weeks in solitary, getting to know the other guys as they moved in and out after serving their own disciplinary time. One guy in the cell next to me stabbed another guy in a fight over a candy bar and got only one week in solitary. He got one week for a stabbing and I’m doing three weeks for a letter!? After that psycho left, another kid got put in his cell for a week for giving another guy in his Unit a swirly (head in the toilet, flush-flush, that kind of thing) on his birthday. It turned out that the kid had been in County Jail for over a year awaiting trial for a murder charge that sounded like he actually didn’t commit, but get this, he had the same court appointed attorney as I did and since I hadn’t received a response from my lawyer or even heard from him at all, he told me that he would talk to him for me since he has to see him a lot for his trial. That gave me a little hope.

I passed the time by singing to myself a lot and shouting back and forth to the other guys in there, swapping stories, learning who did what. Everyone pretty much agreed that what I did was dumb but also acknowledged that I got a raw deal with the extra time. I did whatever it took to keep from going crazy. Since I was alone I jacked off a lot thinking about faceless bikini-clad women on far away beaches and I worked out the formula for breaking down pure heroin into street heroin and calculated the percentages of the profit margin. One guy wrote the titles to every Led Zeppelin song on the walls of his cell one day and we had a hard time coming up with more than just the popular tunes. It was hard to survive having absolutely nothing to do but exist alone with my thoughts. The nightmares got worse and not having any daylight threw my sleep schedule off so that I slept a lot more than usual and when I dreamt it was one fucked-up thing after another.

Jail is mindless toil. I’ve decided that after this there will be no point below which I will sink in the depths of my anger towards this fucked-up system. I feel like an animal since I’ve been living like an animal, funny how it only took three weeks alone in a moldy cell to strip me of all resolve and completely destroy my spirit and ego. We are given so few moments on this Earth, yet I’ve spent so many days impatiently awaiting their passing. Carpamus dulcia; post enim mortem cinis et fabula fies.[6]

After my three weeks (plus a few days, who’s counting if nobody cares?) in solitary I finally got placed in another area. My new cell is a duplicate 6 x 6 cell like the one I just came from in solitary only it has a TV at the end of the open room that I can sort of see with one eye if I sit on the floor and rest my head on the bars in just the right spot. Not much of an improvement but a better class of convict and sweet merciful distracting TV. I also get to have visitors again (none yet though) and I get to attend church services and get out for a bit. I’m one of the last ones they bring into the room for church and I’m one of the only guys wearing ankle cuffs so I imagine with the beauty regime I’ve just been through I must look about as crazy as I feel to the regular jail population. People don’t talk to you if you look crazy, especially if you have the metal cuffs on you to prove it, but I enjoy the church services even though there’s usually a fight and they have to clear the room before it’s finished. If the fight gets too out of hand they seal the doors and pump in tear gas through pipes in the ceiling just like a Nazi death camp, but that’s only happened to me once. I just kept my head down and got my back against a wall until the cons and cops finished bashing in their own heads. It’s really morbidly fascinating and it gets so fucking real sometimes. Lesson for the week: don’t fuck with teargas. It’s nasty, vile shit.

Being in here is like driving during rush hour. Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere and nobody is moving at all. Things move in slow motion. People speed to the top of the hills and then slam on their brakes when they see the sea of cars spilled out in front of them. You get to the peak and are confronted by your own mortality. You see the futility and that everyone is in the same boat as you and accept that the brakes need to be applied and that you will be going very slowly for quite a long time. Then it’s just a matter of keeping yourself occupied while time passes. and passes. and passes.

The State of Texas dropped Denton County’s heroin charge! I always thought they would since I knew there wasn’t any to begin with, but it’s still nice to get the official papers after all the shit I’ve been through. It only took three and a half months to clear up and that’s pretty fast for Denton County so I should be thankful. It’s hard to be deemed innocent after giving up three months of your life to prove it. I’ve figured out that “innocent until proven guilty” shit only applies to people with money.

Now I’m in Dallas County jail serving out a probation violation because of that misdemeanor charge I got for stealing the watch when I was at the mall with my sister an eternity ago. Dallas is quick about handling their business. I’ve already seen the judge who gave me 30 days, which means I’ll get out in 10 since they’ve made me a trustee. Apparently Dallas doesn’t give a fuck about some trumped up County escape charge which is good news for me since it means I might have a date with freedom coming up soon!

There are a lot of anomalies to what I expected this place would be like. I am not in a cushy Unit or a moldy cell this time. I’m now in a jail that’s actually just a converted tractor manufacturing plant. The name of the facility is New Holland, which used to be the type of farm tractor that was constructed here at one point before the land and building were modified to hold prisoners. You can see where heavy machinery was mounted to the floor in some places because the thick steel brackets are still deeply imbedded in the concrete. There are also areas with faded yellow lines that mark off old safety zones close to the places where the heavy equipment probably once stood. Dallas County came in and gutted the entire building leaving just the rust stained, hollowed out framework made of cheaply constructed corrugated steel pieces.

Along one wall is a pantheon of windows covered with brown grime leftover from years of industrial pollutants and neglect. Many of these windows are broken out in a delightfully random pattern, similar to something children might do when finding windows intact in the ruins of an abandoned building.

In the center of this arena of empty filth, the City of Dallas has constructed what I can only describe as zoo cages. Imagine an entire building filled with 40 cubes of square solid steel bars about 15 feet tall and 50 feet in width and length. Each cube has one side that is an actual solid wall and this is where the two toilets and a shower have been added. There are 20 bunk beds per cell and the coveted bed to get is the bottom bunk for reasons I will explain later. As far as I can see in any direction are more cube cells with the same features and dimensions. The only variations to each cube are the people inside it and the more attention I pay to the people the more I realize even that variation is not much of a distinguishing characteristic.

The factory ceiling is about three times as high as the barred top of the cages, so we have a clear view of the space between us and the roof. If it rains, the tin ceiling thunders and quakes. When the giant air circulation ducts turn on the entire complex rattles and shakes, making me thankful for the bars above us in case pieces of the dilapidated roof decide to come crashing down. Those top bars above us are coated with inches of accumulated dust that has remained mostly undisturbed since the inception of the complex. Above the dust-coated bars are old frayed wires, reams of cobwebs and pieces of ceiling and equipment that hang in no particular pattern.

When I lay in my top bunk I see rats that run around and carry out their business in an ambivalent world that exists twenty feet above us. In New York the rats live underground but here they dominate the maze of pipes and nastiness above our tanks. I haven’t heard of a rat falling into a tank yet but I’m sure it’s happened or will happen one day when one of the fat critters accidentally slips in the thick dust. When the rats glide silently by above me there’s an occasional sifting of disturbed dust that will usually fall onto some unfortunate person’s bed. That’s one of the reasons the lower bunk is in demand and sometimes fought over, though the main reason is the spiders. All those cobwebs way, way up there came from somewhere and that somewhere is still right above our heads. I’m not fond of spiders but they’ve never particularly bothered me either. I have learned that spiders bother black people a great deal though, much like their fear of dogs, and with good reason. Several people have gone to the infirmary with spider bites that fester and turn into angry welts. The infirmary doesn’t do much except dole out Tylenol or give them cream to rub on the wounds as if they are minor skin irritations.

I have never in my life seen anything like this. New Holland is about what I envisioned a Taiwanese prison might look like, something similar to Midnight Express but all tucked inside this huge warehouse. The ceiling has invisible holes that leak a steady stream of water onto several of the beds for days after a big rainstorm. I managed to luck out with my bed situation because I stayed dry after it rained last week. I’ve only got a couple days left in here pushing the food carts around and then I should be free.

Oh Jenifer I miss you so much, I should be there for you now but I’m not. Soon. When I get out I’ll try and do right, okay? I promise. We go together like forks and knives. I need you. I’m not as smart as I was but I’m a hell of a lotsmarter than I used to be. Yes, I meant to say it that way. I used to be harmless but now I’m mostly harmless. Deviously harmless.

I got out. Finally. I got to see my baby and I found out everyone on Earth is mad at me. Half my friends think I shit on them and I still feel so guilty about everything that sometimes I start believing the rumors myself. I like the idea of being a criminal mastermind and I’m far from innocent, but my unwritten rule has always been to never steal from friends. Kirk’s roommate Bryce thinks I stole some CD’s from him but he’s still letting me temporarily stay at their apartment anyway. I’m not sure why, I wouldn’t. These other friends of ours, Clark and Kathy, think I stole stuff from them even though they don’t have anything to steal and I’ve been in jail while their things went missing. Clark worked at the UNT bookstore for a long time and at one point I helped him dispose of some of his large quantities of textbooks. Even my good friend Timothy thinks I stole from his girlfriend, but honestly her hot roommate only fucked me and then let me crash on their couch over night, so I’m not even sure of the logic behind that situation.

While I was in jail there was no possible way to defend myself against any of the accusations people put on me to cover their own asses. It hurts me to know that’s how they all see me, or want to see me, but I always assumed my strength of character would help them remember who I really am. Guess I was wrong again. Truthfully, I’m so jaded now that I don’t even feel like it’s worth trying to vindicate myself or pursue any of their friendships. It would be too hard to live in their world again and pretend they never had these nagging doubts about me all along.

I’ll probably go and find Timothy and apologize to him, not because he thinks I stole his cheating girlfriend’s shit, but because I feel like I let him down by falling off my game and getting arrested. Go figure. I don’t feel mentally strong enough yet to hunt down everyone and get into a name calling match, even if I decide to try and reconnect.

The worst of everything is that I can see in Jenifer’s eyes now that she doesn’t even believe my denials. She’s all out of the hospital now and still paralyzed, but heavy in the dope scene. It makes me sad but how can I say anything? I warped and discarded reality with dope, so it’s strange that I keep asking myself that same hypocritical question over and over.

My world has turned into a crazy man dancing on the edge of a cliff but the heights of despair make me dizzy. We’re being blown about like witless dust. Maybe I can do something proactive, step up to the plate and reverse this downward spiral. Soon right? I hope so.

“April 8, 1994—Kurt Cobain was found dead of a self inflicted gunshot wound.”

What a cold-hearted sentence that reads like a pathetic by-line in a conservative newspaper. In police slang, he ate his gun, which is a shame because I really liked his voice and music. I suspect that his evil wife killed him or had him killed for secret celebrity reasons but I don’t even know if I really believe that. I’ve been observing everyone’s reaction to the news about his death, which typically ranges from anger to disappointment to martyr-like deity emulation. Most people are just calling him a coward. I don’t think it’s cowardly to take your own life if it’s desperate faith or an honest and pure cry of hope for release.

At first, I was pretty despondent when I heard about the suicide, but then I got to thinking about all the words to his songs and everything he ever spoke about in public and I realized he really was depressed. He was pained that the record companies took his anonymity and then the media branded him as a whiner for complaining about being famous. I’ve got to respect when somebody is obviously bummed about their exploited life and acts rashly. Are you really a complainer if you follow through with what your actions have pointed towards throughout your career? His suicide proved he wasn’t a fucking whiny poser cashing in on the image of being morose. He was the real deal, used and cast aside, given drugs to make it through the next show, pushed beyond his limits without consideration. His song, “All Apologies,” just keeps ringing through my mind. I actually respect ol’ Kurt a little more for standing up for his beliefs and his own philosophy by having the balls to pull the trigger and plunge into the final unknown. Rest in peace, ok?

I did something else that was pretty stupid the other day, even by my book. I took (borrowed? stole?) Bryce’s car and drove it down to Dallas to score even though his brake fluid line was busted and there was absolutely no way to stop the car. Even the emergency parking brake was shot, but since his car has a stick shift I thought I could manage. I talked myself into believing I could manage anyway. I made it all the way to Dallas just fine, even though it was rush hour and I had to grind the gears a few times to force some pretty scary stops. I even kept going after I got a flat tire and paid a side-of-the-road shop $15 to fix it for me. Then after making it all the way to where I needed to be, I still ended up totaling his car because some mini-van driver just happened to slam on her soccer mom panic brakes right in front of me while we were going through a green light.

The fucked-up part is that I still managed to find a payphone and score from the dopeman while I was dealing with the cops about the accident. I told the cops I was Bryce and that I was in my thirties and even though I didn’t know his birthday when they asked, somehow everything turned out okay. I just told the cops that the brakes went out on me and luckily no one was hurt, although his insurance is going to get a few claims from the whiny bitch in the mini-van who caused me to wreck.

Everything is not okay anymore. I’ve already managed to get hooked back on dope after two months of freedom and hanging out with Jenifer. My whole experience in jail and the game plan I developed to do the right thing just hasn’t worked out. How can it when I’m hooked on this shit? And poor Bryce, who depends on his car to deliver pizzas and support his useful English degree, is now totally fucked. I’m depressed about yet another bad thing associated with my habit and I don’t know what to do about it. I had his car towed to a shop to fix and I promised him I would get it out as soon as I could afford to but I’m not high on the reliability circuit lately. As a result, Bryce is moving home with his parents in Corpus Christi and without a roommate, Kirk is just leaving the apartment and moving to Austin. He won’t talk to me too much about it but I really shook up his world with my bullshit.

I had to prostrate and humble myself to my parents to get them to help me co-sign on an apartment here in town. It was not a pleasant experience trying to deal with them again; there’s still so much animosity between us about money, but I desperately needed a place to stay and I’ve always been good about getting a job and paying my rent on time before all of this. To say they were reluctant to help me is putting it nicely. I’m really trying to be good though. I’ve got food stamps to help me get back on track with a balanced diet and my bicycle gets me around town now. My wrecked bug was towed and then sold by the city in an auction before I could reclaim it, which I think is the same as stealing since they didn’t wait the required 3 months before selling it off as salvage, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. Stupid city.

The new apartment is just a one room shithole behind the head shop where the Delta Lodge used to be, but at least it’s MY shithole although it always feels hot and awkward. I’ve locked myself out of the apartment several times already (how could that happen?), but by using all my strength I can push the air conditioner into the wall and crawl through the hole to get back in. Now I’m not a large guy but that should give an estimate of the dimensions of my ineffective AC unit.

While I was in jail, the Lodge burned completely to the ground and even though it makes me sad to see it gone, at least I have an alibi that clears me or more than likely it would be one more thing I might have to take the (literal) heat for. When I was homeless I spent more than a few nights on the third floor couches of the house before I finally roomed with Kirk. It’s sad because I loved that house as much as anyone and now it’s gone. All that’s left from there are people flinging crap at me.

In the past month or so I’ve already had to face a trial of my peers at the Delta Lodge because some bitches accused me of stealing money while working at the Fry St. Fair this year. I think it was to divert attention away from themselves since they didn’t show up to the trial where I had to go and address the entire house in person. I guess the worst part is that they didn’t actually see me stealing anything; they just speculated I did because I had money to buy drugs, from them, later on the same day! It’s a fucked up, bizarre rationale but regardless, I’m now on the outs with a lot of people from the Lodge. My habit and drug of choice have become apparent in this community and rumors circulate like wildfire through this new(er) group of guys. I’ve lost touch with them all. I vividly remember my own reaction of revulsion upon meeting my first old “Sammy” alumni who came to the house with these crazy old stories, right out of a seventies rock band cliché, filled with coke, heroin and theft. Well, now I’m that guy in the Lodge, and this new group, which has mostly formed while I’ve been pissing my life away and getting tossed in and out of jail, doesn’t think very highly of me. Somebody even spread the rumor that I was dressing up like my mother and going into the bank to cash her savings bonds, so I had to try and quash that also, but lies based on partial fact are always more believable.

Basically, since I showed up to the Monday meeting and made a convincing plea of my case (the girls didn’t show) I was vindicated. Mostly because the girls that I was getting the drugs from are already not very credible with them either. Delta membership is for life, so after I said what I had to say the whole situation ended with the guys saying “fuck it” and a murmured chant of “karma cash.” “Karma cash” basically means, “We can’t prove you guilty or innocent, so if you did wrong the energy of the universe will boomerang and bite you in the ass later.” I hadn’t heard of that phrase before but it made me feel empty inside knowing I really am guilty of a whole lot more. A curse like that doesn’t bode well for my future because by now I have certainly abused any of the good karma I ever created giving out free food and beer, if that doesn’t count against me also. Words and phrases in everyday conversation now wrack me with ulcer-ish guilt that nearly drives me to my knees. I can’t turn this brain off and it’s so fucking hot.

Disposable pop music and peppermints are all that seem to permeate the air today. The summer heat is pressing in and the trees are dropping those nasty green things that stick to the bottom of my socks and make a green-ish paste on the bottom of my bare feet. I sense humid growth and the ever-present smell of vegetation coupled with fast food scents drifting from the Tomato and Chinese place across the street.

Do I write too much about how hot it is? That’s because it is so fucking hot all the damn time. My body feels like a solar cell when it gets out of a cold environment, storing and internalizing the heat for later use. Must have something to do with my Minnesota roots.

I see Jenifer a lot now that it’s the dead heat of summer. Her habit has gotten really bad, about as bad as mine was while she was in the hospital, but I still need her love even if she can’t perceive it. Every morning I wake up and realize that I live about 100 yards from where I first met and fell in love with her that one fateful day on Fry St. So long ago. Every waking day, I am reminded of what I have done. We’ve just got to see how everything turns out.

How can I describe freedom to people who’ve never had it taken away, people who’ve never lived without it? It’s just not enough that the cops always win, why do they have to make somebody lose in the process of doing it?

I was settled nicely in my new job, new apartment and I was having a mid-morning toke with the screen door open to let in some of the early morning breeze before the heat got too stifling. I was comfortably nice and warm, taking a nap in my only chair after a long night of working at the medical supply company, when I woke up to the cops walking into my place. I heard the squeak of the screen door as it opened and as soon as I saw them, I told them to “get out of my house.” They walked in anyway, saying they saw me napping in my chair and wanted to check and see if everything was ok. I assured them I was fucking “ok” but by that time they were already in my apartment despite my repeated requests not to enter.

The police philosophy is to never pass up the opportunity to search something or somebody around here, whether it’s legal or not. They just always seem to find some fucking excuse to do what they want to do and damn the constitution. I requested to see a copy of their warrant when they had both had stepped foot inside my little room but they just laughed saying that they didn’t need one because they “thought they were responding to a medical emergency.” As they started looking around I clearly indicated that I was not having a medical emergency and that they were not welcome in my apartment, but by then it was too late.

The cops found half of a joint behind my TV and now I’m in fucking jail again with another marijuana misdemeanor and while I was in handcuffs I bitched those cock sucking bastards up and down as they stood and collaborated on their story to say they could see I had marijuana in the house before they entered the front door. This was because the half-joint they found was behind the damn TV and my TV was off to the side behind the door, which would make it impossible for them to see without entering the premises. So it looks like I’m going to get screwed over again because the cops always support each others’ “plain view” story and I have a prior criminal record. So what if it goes against the FOURTH AMMEDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES! Denton County is so corrupt and this is just another reason why their 99% conviction rate is currently under investigation by the federal government. It’s a fucked up system. You can wait six months in jail to go to trial and be proven innocent or plead Nolo Contendre, do thirty days and go home. It’s pathetic how easily they’ve psychologically worn me down and I HATE THEM for it! I’ve learned so much in the past year. All I had was a one-fucking-percent chance, baby! 1%!

Jenifer is taking it personally that I’m in here again, she feels abandoned and that’s the hardest part. With the money she got from the insurance in the accident she now has a brand new Saturn equipped with a special handle that let’s her drive it around town using just her hands. She got about $100,000 from the wreck and that was only because of the extra insurance my parents had bought protecting against paralysis due to an auto accident. If it hadn’t been me driving she wouldn’t have gotten anything extra, but that’s small consolation given the big picture. I think she got scammed and could have sued them for more but that’s another thing I was left out of the loop on. I’ve pretty much been removed from her life by everyone else that’s close to her now. Even the dopeman won’t see me anymore without her there.

I was so happy to hear she got a car, it means some sort of freedom for her and things at her house are bad with her Dad. He’s actually using her injury to try and control her when he should be trying to encourage her to use her freedom. It is more bad news and now she doesn’t have the same confidence in herself that she always used to say “fuck it” and move away from him. Even her mom who should have left him by now is staying to be with Jen. Jen is Jen. Still feisty and I want her so much. Her habit’s gotten so bad that when I get out this time I reallywant to stop, I have to stop for her sake.

♦ ♦ ♦

Intake into jail is the worst part of getting arrested. There is so much uncer-tainty—so much unpredictability. Anything can happen. Drunk men wake up next to stainless steel toilets with a black man’s dangling penis pissing inches from their face. Drugs, fights, broken bones and just the waiting. The hurry up and waiting.

I wrote this down on a scrap of paper while I was going starting to go through withdrawals in the 72 hour tank. Sorry if it’s not very coherent:

♦ ♦ ♦

I saw a kid come in while I was in still the holding tank. He was still trying to find someone to bail his ass out, but finally coming to accept he might be staying awhile. Like I mentioned, the holding tank is a very smelly overcrowded place. Young kids in for piddly shit are mixed in with all the big boys who violated theirparole and are going back down south to Hutchins, Tennessee Colony or any one of the other farms. I guess if you know you’ll be out relatively soon and you are young, jail seems alright at first. You can complain about how much it sucks and then go home after a short stint, but the other long-term guys are quiet. Staring and keeping to themselves. Wondering if maybe this is the time they go down for good and don’t ever come out.

So while I was in there, one of the old timers is on the floor (overcrowding) on his mat, sleeping and snoring his ass off. Well I guess all the snoring is bothering this one young kid or he’s still on drugs or something because he walks around waking people up to tell them they are snoring and asking them to stop or rollover on their side or whatever, who knows? I’m watching as he does this a few times and a couple of people do wake up, mumble an apology, roll over and go back to sleep.

Note: a lot of black people sleep on their back and snore like crazy.

Note: a lot of people snore.

Anyway, the kid finally gets around to this grizzled old white guy snoring on his mat in the corner and he’s reaching down to shake him awake (the guy is still sawing logs, dead asleep) when the guy suddenly grabs the kid around the neck in his sleep and shoots a fist right at him. The guy was instantly awake and didn’t hit him, but the kid nearly crapped his pants right there. I could actually see the look in the kids eyes go from good natured, to this is serious, in a fraction of a millisecond. It was kind of funny but I knew enough to stay out of it. The old guy talked some pretty serious shit to the kid and then went back to bed, snoring just as loud as ever and the kid found someone to post his bail first thing in the morning.

Jen went ahead and bonded me out for the marijuana arrest even though I asked her not to. I mean I secretly wanted her to get me the hell out of there of course, but after about a month in general population, having already kicked the worst of the withdrawals from heroin, I didn’t see much point. I figured I would be going to court soon and that I would just get time served or a few more days. Jenifer went through so much to get the bit of money that she has, it just isn’t worth wasting it by bonding out a bum like me.

I can see in her eyes now that she doesn’t trust me, but that might be for the best since apparently I can’t even trust myself to do the right thing anymore. I just wish she would stop doing dope, we’re another Orpheus and Eurydice and I can’t help but look behind me to check on her. I mailed her a lot of letters from jail, just like before, but I can still tell I’m losing my “Azami flower.” For some reason most people have to have direct contact with me to be reminded of why they love me, but I don’t want my personality to be defined by my presence any longer. Whatever empathic “ability” I have to charm, talk, or get through to people isn’t worth shit if the substance of my essence doesn’t last. Every girlfriend I’ve ever had has been surprised that I can actually think coherently once they get to know me, but now I feel that the same abandonment issues and the “being the butt of all rumors” thing that happened with all my friends is now happening in Jen’s mind too.

Her car is cool, it has a sunroof and everything. The special hand control that allows her to use it like a regular car—Saturn installs it for free if you need them and the contraption still lets a non-handicapped person get in and drive it like a regular car without having to adjust anything. Very cool.

Jen has made friends with this girl named Lori who I don’t particularly care for. Lori’s a stocky Mexican girl who kind of slowly became Jenifer’s new partner in any shoplifting endeavors and anything else that makes quick cash. Lori sees me as an intrusive asshole ruining the good thing they have going together and I just see her as another innocent getting lured into the perils of the H lifestyle without knowing it. While I’ve been away, Lori and Jen have developed their own pattern of going to score and now that I’m out of jail I’m not really included. It’s a blessing for me in a way but very bad juju for Jen in the long run. While I was in jail, Jenifer wrecked her white Saturn while she was fucked up with Lori and by the next week her insurance company already got her a brand new red replacement. She thought it was funny trying to explain to the ambulance drivers that she couldn’t move her legs but that it was okay because they already didn’t move. It was a funny story, but it is also was a sad reminder to methat nobody’s really there watching out for her anymore. Oh Jenifer, don’t do what I’m doing, please stay alive for me, even if I’m being hypocritical.

I’m way, way behind on my rent now but my landlord’s cool and hasn’t evicted me. It is the dead-heat of summer now and I finally talked to him about staying there and arranging to pay him back. It’s so hot that it muddles people’s thinking and he agreed, probably thinking it’s easier to let me stay than moving my few belongings and re-renting the place. He’s a nice guy. I’m going to have to move out anyway though since there is no possible way I can realistically arrange to pay him back the rent I owe. Until then, I’ll stay and watch until the electricity and water gradually get cut off and he eventually forces me to leave. I’ve locked myself out a few more times, but I know that even after the locks get changed, if I’m desperate for a place to squat, all I have to do is push in the AC window unit and crawl through.

There are quite a few old abandoned houses along Fry St. that I can always stay in, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Most of those places are ok but some are too heavily haunted to deal with right now. There’s one old multistory house with four floors of rotting antique wood lovingly carved years ago. Drooping ceilings caving over looping staircases and incredible gaps in the floor that seem to fall forever. The third story porch is incredible, somebody loved it there. People don’t need to talk or tell me about the murder in the family at this house and how the parents abandoned it immediately after, leaving behind their only little girl who was unable to understand the transition her spirit made. Her mother’s grief kept her from ever returning to the house. She’s waiting around just in case, stay in one place, that’s what mommy always said. “If you get lost, stay in one place and I’ll come to find you.” It doesn’t fucking matter how I should know any of this I guess, but I do. Most of the squatters around town say the house is alright, and most have been inside it during the day, but none of them have ever managed to sleep there overnight like I did.

It was their little girl, she’s just scared now. I kept having to tell her to get lost. I don’t know how to explain to a six year old that after she fucking died her parents moved away and tried to start another family. How her mother’s grief was so overwhelming that she couldn’t conceive again, how her father started cheating with his secretary when the mother broke down and went to the institution. How do I explain that back then an institution involved lots of hard drugs and electro-shock therapy? How do I tell her that her mother died alone not even remembering what pushed her over the edge in the first place? She thinks it might help us both if I doused the first floor in gasoline and just let the flames lick their way up to us in the attic room. By destroying the house and taking away the last possibil-ity of hope it will likely free her spirit, but no matter how hard she wants to convince me to stay, burning alive sounds like a terrible way to die. In my craftiness (or desperation) I’m sure I could find a way to comfort her and still escape or maybe I could jump from the roof to reasonable safety.

Then again…I’ve got enough shit of my own to deal with in the land of the living. Some of these damn houses are just too haunted for my taste.

I finally went to court for that bullshit marijuana possession misdemeanor charge that Jenifer bonded me out on. While I was waiting, I saw my very first probation officer in the courtroom testifying against somebody with another violation case, he was very friendly and said “hi” to me, then asked how I was doing. I wonder if he remembered my face or just that I violated my probation with him when I got another case.

This time I almost had to go back to jail and serve 20 days. The District Attorney wanted to give me 20 days which I said would be “great” since I had already done more than 20 days in jail on the charge and that it meant I would get to go free, but the D.A. and even my own court appointed lawyer kept insisting it would be 20 additional days. I argued back and forth with both of them about the language in the paperwork and neither one of them would budge about crediting the time I spent sitting in jail waiting on a court date. Finally, when I saw they weren’t competent enough to understand, I quickly agreed that 20 days would be fine and signed the paperwork. I knew I couldn’t get the 3 for 1 trustee gig anymore, thanks to my prior “miscommunication” with Denton county, but 20 days seemed fair and easy enough. So I stood up in front of The Judge, respectably dressed for a change, and let him agree to the sentence and sign off on the official paperwork. Then just as he was about to order the bailiff to haul me off to start serving jail time, I politely asked The Judge if I “would be receiving any credit for the time I’ve already served in jail on this charge?” Everyone in the court looked at me with surprise for a moment, annoyed by my audacity to speak aloud, but then The Judge asked the D.A. to verify how long I actually had been incarcerated after the initial arrest. The D.A. and my own lawyer’s face turned bright red when the County Clerk looked my file up in the computer and confirmed I HAD already been incarcerated in the County Jail for almost a month before my bond was posted. It turned out that they actually owed me days! The Judge was furious with the D.A. and chewed him out in front of the court for not doing his homework, wasting the court’s time and (shock!) not listening to me. I was prepared to go back to jail that day and the sweet freedom I pulled off by the skin of my teeth tasted like ambrosia!

I finally had to move out of my apartment behind the Zebra Head Shop and the ruins of the Lodge since my landlord found another renter, but that’s ok. He’s still cool in my book for handling it all with dignity. I’ve moved a lot of my stuff over to Dan’s house but I’ve mostly been staying with various “friends” around town. I have a pretty solid weed business going now, based on Gabe’s old business model of quality service. I’ve got a pager and I’ve built up a fairly solid list of clientele that depend on me and prefer my fast, friendly and reliable service. It’s worked out well so far but handling all that cash has made my dope habit start to re-surface and so I mostly just end up breaking even.

Dan lives with this girl that he knocked up named Carrie. She’s a manager from Jersey that we used to work with at the Tomato. My actions with heroin (Dan always preferred “girl”) are driving Dan away and I feel bad about that. I’m sure he could use a friend to talk to since he’s got a kid on the way but I’m pretty much useless with regards to rearing young’uns and if I get too involved I’m sure to bring drama down around their heads. I’m happy for him and he’s scared but I always secretly wished Dan could have been my dad, so I know he’ll be a great father. He’s just a good guy. I also gave him Kirk’s rocking chair to store, it’s the only piece of furniture I salvaged when Bryce and Kirk abandoned everything after I fucked up their lives. Hopefully he’ll pass it back to Kirk if he ever sees him again.

I’ve started working the graveyard shift at the 7-11 on Oak St. down from the old Delta Lodge. It’s always been a dream of mine to wear the red and green smock and be a stern yet lovable 7-11 clerk, but the reality is extremely exhausting. At night most of what I have to do is count everything that was bought or stolen during the day and then send in orders for the new stuff. All the expiration dates have to be checked and it’s more like a supermarket stock boy position since there are hardly any customers to deal with after the bars close and everyone goes home. It’s nice to get a beep and have the people meet me up at work to sell a little weed though. I’m the only graveyard shift herb master in town that I know of. I envision a day when the American people can legally go to 7-11 and buy a pack of whatever flavor pot they prefer from the stern, yet lovable clerk behind the counter. I’ve heard a rumor that’s what Capri cigarettes were originally designed for back when legalization almost happened in the 70’s.

I’m back on the stuff again. No matter how hard I try to get legit, H still creeps back into my life somehow. I’ve used it to the point where my habit almost matches Jenifer’s. We drive her “new” new car around and talk about moving away but it’s so hard to have the same old fucking conversation about something we’re never going to actually do. Is our love strong enough? I am lowering my guard again slowly and loving life a little more this summer instead of worrying about the future. I go down to Dallas with Jen to see the dopeman whenever I can and our ride together helps us bond which sounds stupid and ridiculous but it’s actually sort of romantic in a fucked-up Sid and Nancy sort of way. It’s about as close as we get to being physically united anymore. Riding with her and feeling the sun on my shoulders and face, squinting from the light and listening to loud music reminds me of our glory days (daze) together, before life hit us with a 2 x 4. God, I still love her so much but I’m scared we won’t escape this, so I’m trying to value every moment and second we have left together. We depend on each other a lot now, since sometimes I have money and sometimes she has money (mostly her, unfortunately). We’ve even learned to work as a team and steal together again, robbing the huge evil corporations of their wares in a life full of everyday narrow escapes and dodging bullets. It’s finally getting almost intimate with us again but it just can’t last can it? Even the pecking order has been reestablished for the most part but her friend Lori still intrudes on us along with anyone else just hanging on for the ride.

Every evening we separate and I go out alone among the usual band of wolves to face the night before work. I stay with whoever will have me and the odd hours I keep. Some nights there’s this wonderfully nice girl that lets me stay in her bed. She’s attractive and we have sex on occasion if she initiates it, but my lack of passion for it disturbs her. There’s a guy who lets me sleep on his floor but he went through my backpack (I’ve consolidated) while I was out one day and he found some of my needles, so now he thinks he wants to do heroin with me. I don’t think I can handle that. I’ve talked before how I’m not good with the virgin needle thing. One guy lets me sleep in his bed with him at his grandma’s house but we don’t fool around. He’s just another nice person who feels sorry for me and I can wash some of my clothes there. My only other friend is Bobo, yes that’s her real name, who used to live with the nice girl that lets me sleep in her bed. Bobo’s mom has cerebral palsy so she moved back to help take care of her and I’m allowed to sleep in the back room of their house sometimes. Bobo’s really cool, she’s just always had bad taste in boyfriends.

There are no plans, no ambitions, no hopes, no dreams, no future, no chance at life in any of this and yet here I am.

My predictions of doom have been realized, but thankfully not until another full and glorious summer passed along. I got fired from 7-11, not for selling weed to the customers, not for missing work, not for stealing food or cartons of cigarettes and not for cooking and shooting heroin in the bathroom. I got fired for actually doing something dumb that I couldn’t foresee, double cash lottery tickets.

People would bring in their winning scratch-off tickets and I would punch a hole in the ticket, pay them their money and put the tickets in a special drawer. Well every so often I would “forget” to punch a hole in one of the tickets and it would ‘magically’ fall into my pocket instead of the special drawer. Nothing big in the winnings department, just enough little payout tickets to save over time and have in reserves. The managers would barely freak out when they counted out our registers in the morning because small stuff slips through the cracks in every business and graveyard is technically the last shift of the day.

Since I am locked out of being able to have a bank account (thanks to a minor misunderstanding with First State Bank) I go to a check cashing place by the highway that also sells lotto tickets to the illegal Mexicans or degenerates like me that have no other place to get their money in usable form. One payday I brought along the tickets I’d been saving and tried to cash them in. The lady looked up the serial numbers and told me they were previously accounted for and that she couldn’t pay me. She also kept them. Uh oh! I didn’t know they checked the tickets or did anything with them after they went in the special drawer. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I said “fine,” made up a quick story about buying them from somebody and getting ripped off.

The next day I got a beep from 7-11 to go to an employee meeting, but it was the middle of the day and I was still sleeping so I blew it off. They know I work the night shift so I’m normally exempt from early morning meetings anyway. When finally I showed up late in the afternoon I could sense the vibe in the air as I walked in. They’ve apparently already talked to everyone but me and in the back there’s a guy in a wheelchair who’s been waiting all day just to talk to me. He tells me how 7-11 hires him to do nothing but sit and watch store videotape all day long to monitor any hi-jinks, and that he knows what I was up to. I play dumb at first but after while we both agree that it was pretty stupid to cash my paycheck with all my information on it and then try to turn in some stolen lottery tickets, especially since they have me on videotape doing it. I guess that explained why I was getting pages from work in the middle of the day. Blah blah blah, I just opened up and told him everything, saying I needed some money and thought a little extra lottery cash might help me out. I also tell him that I’ve given away a few packs of cigs to some friends and that I’ve had a couple of cokes without paying for them. He appreciates my honesty, calculates the value of the stolen merchandise, deducts it from my current check, pays me the rest and then fires me.

I’ve got to hand it to 7-11, there was no fuss and no legal problems, they handled the mess I created internally, with class, and we parted in our not-so-amicable ways. That’s the way America should do things, by golly! Instead of whining to the cops about every fucking thing just handle your own business. On the positive side, it means I no longer have to bite my tongue anymore when Officer fuckhead Goldberg comes in for free donuts or free drinks and still has the audacity to shake me down or make light of what he did to me before. FUCKHEAD! I guess I hadn’t mentioned that perky part of the job, but we all have our challenges and he rarely worked the late shift anyway.

Since then I’ve moved around a lot, mostly alternating between the same crew of people or staying at Bobo’s house. I try to stay out of her hair though since she’s got a lot of responsibility and she does a lot of smack that she mixes with some of her mom’s medicine and it puts her in a virtual coma which scares me. Everyone I shoot up with has been in a position where they would have died recently if another person hadn’t been there. It’s so easy to just fall asleep the wrong way or while doing the wrong things. That if there isn’t anyone there to wake you up in the bathtub or pull your face off the pillow or put some coffee in your belly and smack you around a little to wake your ass up, you can drift away and pass on. I believe the medical term is respiratory failure, but that just means the body gets so relaxed that it forgets it even needs to breathe. That’s really fucking relaxed and it’s also how you get to see heaven. White lights dance around, angels sing and everything you’ve ever done while alive will appear before you while your body is free and totally at peace. Fighting back to reality (or getting dragged back) can give you one motherfucker of a headache, but can you really put a price on touching the loving hands of God?

I’m writing this in New Holland Dallas County jail because I was arrested for shoplifting again, this time at a Kroger. On our way to a movie I ran inside the grocery store to buy some snacks to smuggle into the theater with us and I ended up in line behind a lady who got popped for stealing steak or something. They thought I was with her and pulled me upstairs and searched me for stolen merchandise also. I happened to have some heroin in my pocket and the next thing I know I have an instant felony. Possession of a controlled substance under a gram is the official charge. The fucked up part is that the lady who wasactually shoplift- ing got to go home with just a ticket and I got her cab ride in the back of a squad car to the Lew Sterrit Justice Center downtown.

Since this will be a first time felony conviction it should be automatic probation and if I had money for a halfway decent lawyer I could make this charge go away based on the mistaken search. I’m more worried about a misdemeanor theft charge from JC Penney for a couple of shirts that the State has pulled out of their ass from somewhere. Apparently I was a wanted man and while it’s nice to feel wanted by somebody, there’s also a law that says if you get convicted for the same misdemeanor three times the charge can be bumped up to a 2nd degree felony or something worse. This is my second minor theft charge in Dallas and if the State decides to count the one in Denton, things could get seriously heavy. Not that my life isn’t serious enough but I’m talking some BIG TIME big-time-down-south-heavy here.

I’m sad about the whole deal, I was really looking forward to the movie, and Jenifer is rightfully furious. She’s mad at me because the encouragement I’ve been around to give her is suddenly gone again. She knows I still love her but there are so many questions about my ability to remain stable enough to be of any use to her and jail is keeping me pretty unreliable. No duh, right? I guess I take too many risks when I see her in need and although I probably should have been busted before now the worst part is that she actually thinks I was trying to steal candy for our date.

I wish I was one of those tears there,

I could be born at your eyes,

Live on your cheek,

And die at your lips.

So, when I walked into my new tank, the first thing all the old black men asked me was, “What drugs do you do?” A clean cut white-boy walking in with an education is a dead giveaway (and if you think that you can’t tell if people are educated by the way they walk, you haven’t been paying attention). When I tell the black guys that I am in for possession of heroin, they’ll usually say something to the affect of “I can’t be messin’ wit no hair-on.” That’s how they ALL pronounce it, without exception. “Hair-On.” It’s the strangest thing I have ever heard, and I can tell some of them do “fuck wit the hair-on,” no matter what they say.

A guy came into here today that looked a little worse for wear. An older black man with a fucked up Snoop Dog haircut, obviously kicking a smack habit. That “hair-on” got him. He calls himself something strange like “Cavity” or something. Cavity just wanted some chocolate and was having a hard time managing his bowels. I sympathize because I just went though that same bit about a month ago. It’s a very, very rough go but he’ll be fine. Looking at him makes me realize how serious this shit is. I don’t want to be an old man junkie, still getting tossed in jail, waiting through the living hell of kicking the habit again and again, my shaking bones huddled in the corner like a frightened child.

I’ve met some nice guys, I played a few games of cards and word got around that I was alright. That’s the thing. You’ve gotta interact. Play the card games. Don’t hang with too many white people. Don’t hang out with just the black people and give the “what’s happening” head nod to the illegal aliens and Mexican drug dealers. Try to be cool with everyone. Don’t smile too much and don’t start any shit you can’t back up every day with your life. When something serious goes down like a fight, riot, extra food or a smuggled joint, I want to make sure I know about it. If people don’t know you, then you won’t know about anything and next thing you know you’re getting gang-raped in the shower. Just make a couple friends in each faction and you’ve got folks to watch out for you or at least people who’ll leave you the fuck alone when they are going after certain people.

Facts are: Jail is a freaking ghetto microcosm where I’m the minority. Blacks have the numbers and the learned patience of previous generations in jail. They fit in here because some member of their family has been or is currently in jail right now. It’s a familiar territory to them that they have learned to accept as a fact of life. The blacks I’ve talked to convey that in their families it’s not a matter of whether you’re going to jail, it’s a matter of when and for what. They outnumber everyone else in here by far. I think TuPac even says “stay away from the black jails” in one of his songs.

The Mexicans have their own bond of language, culture and knives. They can make a sharp weapon out of anything. They are mostly quiet and keep to themselves but they are the craftiest bastards I have ever met. They can make jewelry out of toilet paper and bed sheets to trade with people for commissary goods. Any ‘real’ jail documentary you’ll ever see will have someone wearing a cross of some sort around their neck. Odds are it was made by and bartered for from a Mexican. Usually one of the Mexicans in the group is educated and speaks great English. He’s not always the ringleader but he’ll be the one to communicate for the group if something goes down. He’s the one who issues the threat when the Hispanics want to watch a soccer match or the Tuesday night fights on the television or he’s the go-between guy to initiate barter. Unlike the blacks, who tend to fight among themselves, most of the Mexicans stick together.

There are a couple types of white people in here too. There’s the DWI crowd, who are usually good ol’ boys that are on their third or fourth DWI and usually have a baby on the way or an untrustworthy spouse or some issue going on in the real world. They are generally good guys that tend to have steady jobs as mechanics or in construction on the outside, but they tend to hate black people because they’ve never been exposed to their culture or lived with them in a confined space. Then there are some older white folks that are connected to someone and are usually in for big cases concerning truckloads of methamphetamine or some such. They have thousands of dollars on their books for commissary and a high-dollar lawyer that will pull them out for court a couple times a week until they get sentenced or go free. These guys have already been to prison at some point and their pasty white skin has a few dark blue tattoos that are faded and spreading. They usually just drink a lot of coffee and smoke a lot of hand-rolled cigarettes, whispering and conspiring on their section of the bunks.

Finally there are the young kids like me—the dumb fucks that did something stupid, usually for drugs or while on drugs, and they have landed in the pokey for minor offenses or felony drug offenses. Most of them/us got popped for burglary, possession or other things drug-related. We are the people that have no friends or family with money to get out, or our probation violations keep us here on a no-bond.

Here’s a typical section of conversation that I transcribed the other day while I was talking with a young meth-head white guy in here. Other than my occasional head nod or “uh-huh” he talked non-stop about shit like this for hours:

“…dude, I totally knew it was over the day we were riding in the car, cruising down the road listening to tunes going to visit HER fucking family. I’m like jamming along, cruising, gearing up for a round of “unfamiliar boyfriend in the house with her folks,” doing her a fucking favor right? Right. And so we’re right in the middle of Jane’s “Summertime Rolls”. Yeah that one. You know the part where it builds up to the climax right? And you know I only say ‘climax’ because I have actually had sex to this song and actually climaxed while it peaked. So we’re cruising listening and the song is building and right as Navarro is about to hit it, I mean jam the fucking notes right down our throat while the volume is cranked and do you know what she fucking does? She reaches over and she doesn’t turn the stereo down, no she turns the whole fucking system OFF. I mean sheesh, right? Bitch, fight with ME or whatever but you gotta respect the goddamn song. I’m talking major karma violation right? Right. I don’t care what kind of girl-shit she’s got going on. If it’s some B.S. Elton John top 40 shit, then FUCK YEAH turn that shit off and bring on your fucking feelings baby, I’m SO there for you, but in the middle of “Summertime Rolls?” I don’t think so. We’re talking a totally different class of song. Whether we’re going to visit her family or not, you gotta respect a fucking song like that. I mean I came all over two titty-dancers faces to that song man. If you don’t have the love, then you don’t have the love, and then you don’t get the love. You know what I’m sayin’ man? Fuck yeah. And everything just went downhill after that. Man e-v-e-r-y f-u-c-k-i-n-g t-h-i-n-g. I could hardly even look at her the same way. You gotta respect the tune man. You gotta, because music is in the air. Like a spirit. If you are pulling it out of the air then you can’t just cram that spirit back in a box like you didn’t summon the motherfucker. Damn that bitch.”

It goes on and on and on and on. Cruel and unusual punishment comes to mind, but what else do I really have except time to listen?

This is my third trip to the animal cages now and most people I talk to say they would rather be locked up in the Government Building with the hard-case criminals awaiting murder trials than have to stay in New Holland again. I don’t mind it too much anymore. The first time I was here I mostly just had to learn to adjust to the noise. Even asleep the place is buzzing with as many decibels as any of the loudest concerts I’ve ever seen, and there is always some cage that doesn’t sleep during the night and likes to play a loud game of dominoes or cards. I’m pretty good at dominoes, but when you play dominoes with the brothers you have to slam the black rectangles on the table as loud as possible and scream out your points along with a pointed insult to the other person or team in order to be taken seriously. I’ll catch myself laughing sometimes at the shit-talk that comes from my mouth. I like these late hours the most though. I generally stay up reading or writing letters to Jenifer while trying to sort out the jumble of thoughts and voices that keep obsessing me.

After reading through the Bible again for the second time, I’ve pretty much memorized and written detailed analysis of the Bible passages concerning trials and tribulations in the book of Job. My first inclination was to manipulate the passages and send them in a letter to my mother but I nixed that when I realized I must have deep issues of my own to deal with if I’m only using the Bible to try and make her feel guilty. The older black men think it’s great to see such a young man studying the Bible and some of the younger guys make fun of it since everyone turns to the Bible out of desperation as soon as they draw their “go directly to jail card.” It’s practically a cliché and the term is “Jailhouse Religion,” only calling upon God to be merciful when you’re in a desperate spot. I’m not too happy with Him right now so people can think whatever the fuck they want.

An old black man came into the cell the other day and after all the initial fears and comforts were taken care of he started to interact with the tank. He said his old lady and him got into a fight, which apparently is quite common. He said “She gets up in the middle of the fight and goes into the kitchen and starts cooking up a mess of meat. I’m talking bacon and sausage and hamburger. Everything we gots in the fridge. The whole time I’m lying in bed thinking what the fuck is going on? That bitch don’t never cook for me.” Next thing he knows, she comes into the bedroom screaming at him again, only this time she’s got a frying pan filled with all the boiling grease from the meat she was cooking and throws it on him in bed. He lifts up the blanket off the bed and catches most of it, getting a little burnt in the process, he pauses here to shows us some of his burns, and slams her against the wall. Yadda yadda yadda, next thing he knows, the cops come and he’s getting hauled off to jail. Fucked up.

There is no music anywhere, just the ambient noise of life in an endless row of cages. The echo of shit-talking conversation and dominoes slamming on the metal tables pop up sporadically. Like clockwork, the black guys watch Soul Train every Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m. With every TV in the animal cages tuned into the same station and each TV turned up as loud as it can go, the entire warehouse gets an odd echo-y stereo effect. It’s usually around the time they serve the special Saturday meal of bologna and white bread. I can’t eat that shit anymore but some people gobble it up like it’s the last food on earth. I guess in a way it is the only food on earth at the moment unless I can start eating steel and concrete. My stomach just can’t handle the cheap crap they feed us anymore. Some of the guys like to build a small fire under the stainless steel tables and fry up their bologna like it’s a Saturday barbeque. Soul Train day is actually alright in a weird way, a little manipulative and contrived but it puts off a positive vibe that kind of radiates through the entire jail the rest of the day. The dominoes slam a little softer, the card players talk a little less shit and tensions seem to ease up for a little while.

Unfortunately, while I watched, there was a guy killed in the cage directly across from us. It was just some minor skirmish that might have turned into a decent fight but didn’t get that far. While the guys were squaring off and doing that whole testosterone pre-fight bit where each person talks shit and they bump chests, one guy shoved the other and he slipped on the wet floor in his shower shoes and hit the back of his head right on the corner of one of the bunk beds. A spasm of nerve endings and he was dead before he hit the dirty concrete and hardly even bled while his body just lay there, quiet and still. Everyone backed away quickly and pretended asleep. Next thing I knew there were cops everywhere in their black storm trooper gear lining everyone in that cage up against the wall and beating out some answers. Turns out the guy who died only had about a month left to do on his very first misdemeanor charge. It’s a fucked up world sometimes. Guilty until proven innocent.

There is a lot of stuff that happens in this world that is turning out to be just plain wrong. How could I have been sheltered from all of this? If you can’t see it in here, then you can’t ever know how it is. Is the goal to rehabilitate or to annihilate us? In Jesus’ name I claim the justice promised in Luke 10:18.

Ever heard of the bad ass named Rasputin who dwelt among the Russian royalty before their first revolution? When things turned bad they stabbed him, hung him, poisoned him and drowned him because he was such bad ass that he just wouldn’t die. That’s the gist of it anyway. I’ve met a few fuckers in here that look about THAT tough and one of those guys in another cage across from ours has some sort of beef with me that started with him making kissy faces at me through the bars and trying to punk me out.

When somebody calls you some name or tries to gain verbal power over you it’s foreshadowing their physical domination and attempt at physical power. There are only two choices in here: flight or fight. The first choice is that you can smile and take the verbal assault, maybe even laugh it off, but that means somebody in your cage knows they can get away with the same thing and might try and punk you out. That means they feel like maybe they can make you their bitch. And if you are somebody’s bitch they can take your food, take your blanket or even force sex if it gets too crazy. I’ve seen enough male rapes and sex to warp me for life. They ALL started out with something innocent like borrowing a bag of chips or some Cro-magnum motherfucker making kissy faces through the bars like the gorilla across from me.

Your second choice is to stand up to the guy, no matter his size or the crazy look in his eyes. You might have to fight and you might get your ass beat or even killed, but people will learn that you are not going out like a bitch. You’ve got to convince them that they can fight you and that maybe they’ll probably win but you’re going to hurt them in the process and then you’re gonna be back and you’re not going to back off until somebody’s dead. I’m just hoping I don’t get stuck going to court the same day as Grape-Ape because he is fucking HUGE and I’ve said enough serious shit back to him where he feels like he’s got to stand up for his reputation now. We’ll see. I’ve only had a few minor skirmishes in the jailhouse and I’ve made out alright, nothing too serious.

It helps that I’m in better shape now than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m way too skinny but I do a thousand push-ups a day, lift the water bag weights we’ve fashioned out of plastic bags and I practice throwing combo punches using different styles. There’s this black Muslim in here that works out with me and he’s always pushing me beyond my limits when we work out. He’s short but stocky and strong with his own set of crazy eyes. We’re cool though. Most of the black Muslims are fine with the white devils since we’re all being persecuted in the same boat together. While you’re locked up, unless you have “White Pride” tattoos all over your body, you’re not a devil, just a potential devil. We greet each other with an “Asha-llama-lake-a” (forgive my phonetics) and get along just fine.

He saw Grape-Ape talking trash to me one day and liked the way I was able to spit smack right back at him without flinching. He even got into it with the guy for a minute, reminding him about us all being persecuted together or something to no avail. My Muslim buddy just kind of shrugged his shoulders after a while, it wasn’t his fight, but later on he asked me if I wanted any of his kin-folk to “talk” to the guy. As much as I would like to have the black Muslims take the guy out for me, there’s no way in hell I want to be in their debt in here. I very politely refused his hint of an offer. My best guess is that Jumbo is getting out soon anyway and if by fluke we do end up in a cage match together I won’t be here towrite. Or I’ll have a murder case. Either way I’m dead, so if it comes down to it, I fight.

3AM—How many months now? Grape-Ape has been gone for a while, released back into the fury of the world some time ago. I just realized that I am no longer afraid of the dark. I can no longer remember the time of my life when I was afraid of what might be lurking in the darkness. I’ve seen darkness in the hearts of men, men walking boldly in the daylight that could cool the very sun. At night the rats scurry above my head and the spiders still drop onto peoples’ faces as they sleep. They crawl down their shirts and bite them on the stomach or legs giving people those vicious welts. Nighttime has become something to embrace. A time when people sleep and I can creep around and look. This is when I am powerful. I know in my heart I could cut up the bottom of a person’s foot with a razor. I could get them in the neck if I needed to or even take an eye out lickety split-split-split. If I cut them on the feet it will humiliate them. When your feet hurt, you hurt as a person. You lose your confidence because your foundation is ruptured. I could kick Shaq’s ass if I cut up his heels and toes enough. It’s the equivalent of taking a baseball bat to the knees over and over and over. A Mexican showed me how they make their shivs down south. Take two safety razors (instead of one) and melt the blades side by side into the end of a toothbrush. That way your weapon will slice the flesh into pieces side by side. “Ain’t a doctor in the world that can stitch that kinda cut up,” he says. “That, or a sock full of dominoes, will ring their bell. Heh heh.”

No, the dark is my friend now. It is in the dark that I can feel silence and a sliver of peace amidst the chaos. I can sit here all alone and write in the dark, watching the people’s stomachs going up and down up and down up and down up and down.

I’ve made friends with a very intellectual black man in here named Charles. Charles is older than me and very smart. He’s a jazz piano musician and has played with all sorts of people that are pretty high up in the North Texas music scene. He buys packs of ‘real world’ menthols and I bum them off of him on occasion. We read about the same amount of books and know a lot of the same shit. He’s a crack addict and just like me, his own demons sent him into this downward spiral that landed him here. The crack must be pretty fearsome stuff to break a man of his caliber.

For some reason, I was just thinking about my neighbor Frank. Or I should say my parents’ neighbor. Frank was my first gainful employer. I used to mow his lawn for five dollars a pop. I negotiated my own deal and when I was 12 it seemed like a good agreement. Frank was a lawyer and the immensity of his yard, the miniscule wage he paid me to mow it and the way he would walk around and critique how I neglected to cut a blade or two here and there should have clued me in the nature of lawyers right then and there. But at 12, five dollars was a shit-load of money. Like the generation that got caught in the loophole of the seventies and will never have to apply for the draft, I was left out of that mythical allowance business I’ve heard tales of taking place in distant lands and counties. Frank was/is Jewish so I’m sure he thought that he was giving me valuable work experience or else giving me a hard lesson in negotiating that stereotypical Jewish people will never be able to get out of their genes.

On the outside I was the typical bumbling gangly white kid in suburbia with seemingly no worries and issues of import, but on the inside I was an intelligent prideful creature going through the stubborn phase that most men never quite break out of—the “never ask for directions phase” and the “I should be able to kick someone’s ass” phase that’s mostly brought on by the onset of testosterone and pubes. My lawn mowing job eventually leveraged me into a semi-lucrative baby sitting job with his wife, Sue, a beautiful woman who seemed to be his one true weakness. Sue was a stubborn Catholic woman, whom he adored, and while I knew them she blessed their family with 2 boys (eventually more) named Adam and Elliot.

Frank and Sue came home from a jaunt out of the insanity of parenthood one evening and he tried to get me to learn a minor history lesson by quizzing me as he counted out the large sum of money required for my babysitting services. When you are desperate to get out of the house and I’m the only babysitter around, you must pay the fee. He asked me who Horatio Alger was or more specifically what a Horatio Alger story was. I said I didn’t know and once he knew that, he said that if I could tell him what a Horatio Alger story was he would take me out to any restaurant in Dallas that I wanted. On the surface this seemed like a pretty sweet deal and the first thing I did when I went home that evening was look up this person from America’s past. It was an interesting story too. An old tale of rags-to-riches/streets-paved-with-gold sort of story for which America is famous.

The point of this is that when I babysat for them again and the topic came up I just couldn’t quite bring myself to let him know that I found all this out. There was something about the way the challenge was presented to me or that smug look on his face or something that made me want to play dumb. The way he would ask me, as if he was already expecting that I still wouldn’t know the answer, pissed me off. It was as if he was just waiting to give me that smug look again and even if I told him that I did know, there would be a smug look of imparted wisdom. Lording that damn meal over me just didn’t sit right.

I’ve been sitting here by myself chewing this over and over in my head as if there was some important clue to my character in this story from my past, but I think I know now what it was that made me keep my knowledge a secret. It was my pride and the fact that I felt disrespected.

I will always look fondly on that time but it isn’t for the right reasons. I should have been the good older neighbor boy. I should have answered his questions and been curious about his life. I should have been his son in training until his children could suckle at the teat of his wisdom. I should have had the inspiration to follow in his footsteps, maybe even become a lawyer, right?

When I was pulled into court the other day, I saw Frank through the thick glass doing a day of probation work, nodding and planning with the other legal system workers. His eyes met mine; instinctively, I mouthed the words, “Help me,” to him. Knowing that a high dollar lawyer of this caliber knew me and was there created the sense of home that I could be set free. Desperate excitement flowed through me as I stood thinking, “This is my fate, this is my reward, my redemption.” Until he turned and walked away. Denied.

My friend Charles got out the other day. He sent me a book written by an incarcerated black man who taught himself to read and write while in jail. It was rudimentary but the images were so vivid and familiar when the author would describe his yearning for mere taste of freedom, that I could feel real pain. I was glad to get something from somebody who knew about where I was at and what I was going through. It meant a lot to me.

I realize now all the time I took for granted, even with the little things, out in the real world. Especially that little bit of time, most people block it out of their minds, which is set aside to masturbate. Everyone does it; it’s just a matter of frequency, location and style or preferences. I’m only writing about this in jail because it’s come to my attention that I am subconsciously tuning out the creative ways people find to isolate themselves and handle their business. They call it “killing” in here. It’s short for “killing babies”, a synonym for beating off, since all your potential “babies” just wash down the drain in the shower. Shower shoes are a critical necessity. The word “killing” is so universal that it has been shortened to just “kill” and if it’s said in ebonics it comes out sounding more like the word “keel,” like a boat.

The warden knows it too, or whatever they call the overseer of this county hell. With every meal we’re given a cup of juice, but it tastes nasty like it’s laced with something I can’t quite figure out. I’ve seen them making it in the kitchen and I know it all comes out of big bags of generic Kool-Aid but there’s an additive that’s rumored to be saltpeter in there too. I doubt it is saltpeter since that’s outdated, but I don’t doubt there’s something extra in there. I’ve had nothing but lukewarm water from the toilet/sink for the past 5 months now. They can’t make me drink their juice.

“I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who need reasons when you’ve got heroin?”

—Trainspotting

After six months of hopelessness and hell I was finally released from the New Holland facility and processed out of the Lew Sterrit Justice Center into freedom. I got out on her birthday. Oh God, it was all supposed to be so beautiful but now I’ve hit bottom and tonight I am going to do more than just passively try and kill myself.

I showed up on Jenifer’s doorstep like I did so many years ago when I was hoping to get her to like me, only this time I am sure of where I am at and that I belong there. I’m finally out of jail and I want to see MY girl. Milton, her father, answers the door and it was as if I could see the gears of outrage turning in his head. I watched as the anger started to seethe from beneath his skin and before it could be directed outward from him, I gave him the stone face stare that I have learned to give so many times while in jail. The look that says “you better not fuck with me old man or I will make you hurt”. And I meant it. I meant it with the same seriousness I would reserve for having to put a pet to sleep. A steely cold paralysis of seriousness that will forever be a part of me now.

“Where’s Jenifer?” I say. He slowly turns around and goes to get her without even an invite inside the house; I guess I should expect the cold shoulder. I stand on the porch for a while staring at the Lansing’s closed red doorway and eventually Jenifer wheels out and we’re happy for a moment. Milton sits in the house and seethes in his abusive off-kilter crazy way. Every once in a while he comes out to say something of unimportance to Jenifer, just so he can give me the disapproving glance. Whatever.

I’m sure at this point if I say anything he’ll go off on her or me. I’m almost hoping he does say something to me so I can fucking make his face all bloody and knock the teeth so far back into his mouth that they barely hang onto his bloody stumpy gums. I am pissed, focusing IT all—the accident, the jail terms, my parents and the whole fucking world—on him. Mess with me and get the brunt brutal temper of my situation.

Listen old man, I’m set up to fail. I’ve got one foot back in jail and a monkey on my back that weighs the fucking size of a gorilla and its whole fucking family. So fuck you, fuck your car, fuck your wife and your mom, fuck the Virgin Mary’s bloody womb and fuck your world. Fuck The World.

Just give me and your daughter a moment of peace and then I will leave yoube.

With my song

I will charm Demeter’s daughter,

I will charm the Lord of the Dead,

Moving their hearts with my melody.

I will bear her away from Hades.

Like I said, it was her birthday, October 23rd, and I tried to make everything as special as I could, but fate intervened. Everything was taken care of, after scoring some “congratulations you’re out of jail dope.” We went to a Wal-Mart to return some merchandise from Jenifer’s car. I got picked up for suspicion of shoplifting (again) since I was poking around in the back of the store while Jenifer was busy gathering some women’s undergarments in another department. She saw them take me in the back and I guess she went out to sit in her car and wait.

Let me make this clear, I had been through the return line at the front of the store already to return an electronic organizer that somebody had already stolen. I was returning it for store credit, rather than cash, since I’ve already had more than three returns without a receipt there. I had not even chosen an item to exchange yet when a fat black guy started yelling and they pulled me into the interrogation room near the front of the store. In the room there was a plainclothes female security guard and the fat black employee who said he saw me stealing something from 100 yards away. I went through the motions and let them search me every which way they could think of but I didn’t have anything on me. By the time the cops showed up I was asking that they return the organizer I left behind the return counter, demanding the name of their supervisors and managers. With the arrival of the cops though, Ms. Plainclothes got her confident attitude back and with a twist of the story and the help of her colleague, the two of them pretty much convinced the officers that I was guilty of theft before I even had the chance to speak. So the police also went through the motions of searching me to their satisfaction and after that was over, I asked for my merchandise again so I could leave the premises. One of the officers asked how I got to the store and I explained how my paralyzed girlfriend went out to her car until this mistake was straightened up since Ms. Plainclothes was being an incorrigible bitch.

If there’s one thing I learned from the last time I was arrested, it was to never to carry any dope on my person for any reason, just in case something goes wrong and I end up getting searched. The rule of thumb in any criminal enterprise is that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. My six-month harsh lesson from Kroger reminded me every day not to carry dope into a store and it looked like it was paying off this time because I had just been repeatedly searched by the police without any problems. However, things got seriously fucked after the second officer decided to go out and talk to Jenifer just to “make sure she was ok.” I wasn’t out there but somehow the cop convinced her he was a friend and just wanted to confirm there wasn’t any stolen merchandise from the store hidden in her car. Even though we had just scored dope, which was just sitting right inside her console, she decided to live in fantasy land and gave fucking Officer Herrera permission to search her car. What?!!

When the officer came into the store with a couple baggies full of fresh brown heroin, my self-confident smug look of self righteousness fell to the floor. I couldn’t believe they had gone out and busted Jenifer for possession. I was already thinking of what I could do to get her a lawyer or bail her out when I noticed the officers murmuring to each other.

It turns out there wasn’t anything in the car with the paralyzed girl at all, but I had secretly kept the bags of heroin in my pocket the whole time they repeatedly searched me! They brought the fucking drugs into the goddamned store so they wouldn’t have to deal with the paperwork and hassle of arresting a handicapped girl. The next thing I knew I was in cuffs and as we walked out Ms. Plainclothes was yelling to the entire store how they had just busted a shoplifter at “your neighborhood Wal-Mart!” I stopped and looked at her for a minute just to give her the dead eyes and explain they actually had taken merchandise from me. The cops almost broke my arm (fucking break it off you pigs!) when I did that and I also requested the police immediately confiscate the store videotapes for my legal defense and impending lawsuit against Wal-Mart. They laughed at this as if I was joking even though they knew I wasn’t. To Protect, Honor and Serve, my ASS!!

The absolute worst part was being led in handcuffs out to the squad car in the pouring rain past Jenifer who had this look of malice on her face that hurt me more than anything in my life. She let me know it was over right then by saying “Bye Sam” in a voice tinged with anger that meant it really was finally over. That’s all I hear again and again and again in my head right now, the only person in my life worth anything has finally given up on me.

I’m going to kill myself. No meticulous planning. No slow degradation. Straight Richard Cory all the way. My old belt should be good for a simple hanging, maybe strong enough to crack my neck if I do it right. No note. She knows I love her and everyone else knows I’ve tweaked, what could I possibly put in writing that might explain it all? One last call to my mom to let them know not to be afraid. I’ve finally figured out a permanent solution to my permanent problems. I have the advantage of knowing it gets better on the other side.

Goodbye Jenifer, I loved you so much.

Suicide Watch

Thankfully I’m still here on this plane of existence, but I’m royally pissed at my mom for doing something I can’t bring myself to forgive her for right now.

God intervened in my misery right after I wrote my last note of desperation, when my thoughts were still at their darkest. I retired to an empty cell in the 72 hour holdover tank wearing the same clothes I had been wearing when arrested 6 months ago and then released and re-arrested last night. Six months of stink plus one day and I smelled like a corpse. I took the old leather belt from around my waist and worked it into a loop that would tighten around my neck as I leaned forward to hang from the bottom bunk, hopefully cutting off my air supply long enough to die before anyone checked up on me. It was the only way to do it without someone noticing and intervening, long enough for me to finish the job.

I got down on my knees and said one last prayer for forgiveness. A year or so before, after the accident, I had asked God to show me a better way within 2 years or I would terminate my existence for the benefit of society and I apologized to Him for ending our agreement early and not living up to my end of the bargain.

But as I put the loop of belt over my head and around my neck I heard a commotion down in the dayroom. People were gathered near the front windows like the guards were passing out free beer, so in spite of the welcome distraction, my curiosity got the best of me. I figured my business could wait another minute anyway and I walked down the thick metal steps to see what was going on.

Apparently somebody in the 72 hour holding tank next to ours had hung himself during the same moment I was praying and contemplating the best way to hang myself without botching the job. There’s nothing more pitiful to see than an unsuccessful suicide attempt except maybe a heroin addict killing himself slowly. I pushed through the crowd of miscreants and watched through the unbreakably thick windows as a group of guards were carrying the anonymous body of a man wrapped in a prison blanket out of the next tank. Part of the blanket had fallen open and as he bounced past I could see the empty eyes and tortured expression of his poor soul reflecting back at me. Dead.

While the other prisoners around me started crazily hooting and shouting insults at this man’s body I just stood slack-jawed and realized right then and there how stupid it would be to give in and actually die in this place. All the bastards were getting me down and I was about to blindly commit the only unforgivable sin. Seeing that guy’s face was the only thing that could have kept me alive that day and as I watched his body being taken away, it was if all my worries and sins and troubles went with him.

I went back to my cell, put my belt back on the right way and just cried and cried and cried for the longest time while God sat next to me on the bunk not saying a word. Without speaking he touched my head, filled my mind with a fraction of His awareness and then when I blinked he was gone. Conversation over. I felt reborn, still angry and emotional and confused, but reborn as a child of innocence and light. I KNEW right then that no matter whatever happened next, everything would be ok. I shuddered at the thought of what I had almost done and how close I came to ending it all. I shuddered to think how that poor man had to sacrifice himself to save my life, a few minutes difference, one forgotten prayer and I could just as easily have been HIS example.

My mother made the call to the jail after I hung up on them so abruptly earlier that evening. I guess I was wearing my emotions on my sleeve and she figured out what I was going to try and do. I was still feeling good and smiling about actually “talking” to God when they came into the tank and grabbed me, dragging me down the metal stairs, down the hall and threw me in a freezing solitary 6x6 cell with a wide-angle camera in the corner. Since one guy had succeeded in killing himself today the guards decided to actually take my mother’s warning call seriously whereas normally the guards prefer to just leave the animals in their cages to wipe themselves out whenever possible. I tried talking to the SS guards, insisting I wasn’t suicidal, but their only preventive response was to toss me into the blinding white concrete room. They took my shoes, slammed the door and left me in there for hours.

…and hours…

…and a few more hours. To amuse myself I decided to see if this was an actual suicide prevention cell and I wanted to see how closely they were monitoring me, so I pretended like I had a broken neck and lay down on the floor in a crooked death-pose. When nothing happened after about twenty minutes I got bored and used some wet toilet paper to cover up the lens of the camera instead.

About thirty minutes later a huge black man came running down the hall and when he saw through the plexiglass that I was sitting there, still alive, he got pissed and yelled at me to take the toilet paper off the “goddamn camera.” I do. It’s so cold that I keep trying to stuff wet toilet paper into the air conditioning vent and block it off, but the toilet paper quickly dries out and won’t stick to the ceiling. So I decide to cover the camera again instead.

This time an hour passes before the guy comes down to yell at me, a steroid-abusing white guard with a marine haircut and veins bulging from his forehead. I tell him to let me the hell out of this meat locker and I’ll stop covering the camera. He tells me they are working on it and goes away again. I give him about 30 minutes before I cover up the camera again.

There must have been a shift change because the next time anyone comes by, it’s only to give me a bologna sandwich and a cup of their evil juice. A couple of guards with extra stripes on their shoulders walk down a bit later and tell me I need to uncover the camera. I explain to them that if I wanted to commit suicide and they were really monitoring me to prevent it, then I would already be dead. I try and compromise by asking them to put me in general population and inquiring what the basis is for keeping me under “observation” when they are clearly not observing me. That’s when I officially found out about my mom’s call.

Many, many cold hours later I eventually just stretched out trying to preserve my body heat in the most economical way possible. My lips were blue and I’d long since tired of fucking with the guards.

Sometime in the middle of the next morning I got another bologna sandwich and some coffee and then a crew of guards came to escort me to the second floor, which had a funny smell to it. They took away every scrap of clothes I had, except my boxer shorts, and tossed me in a single cell similar to the solitary cell I had in Denton. The difference is that this one looks like it’s straight out of a sixties mental institution. From what I can see, I’m lucky that I got to keep my boxer shorts. Most of the people in here are buckass naked which I originally thought was their mentally unstable personal choice, but apparently the standard procedure is to remove ALL clothing from potential suicides. Perhaps it’s just in case we decide to eat our county jail uniforms and freeze to death. This floor is fucking killing me already. The people I see around me are the people I see as reflections of myself. The previous tenant of my room felt the need to write on the walls with his feces. I guess that was a while ago, but human shit is kind of like cat pee, once you are committed to decorating the walls of your room with feces there really is no Martha Stewart jailhouse solution to getting it all off. They must have hosed out the room or something but there are still nasty little remnants stuck in the grout between the tiles.

Still, feces and all, it might not be so bad if I had clothes. They strip you of all socks, shoes, clothes, mattress and blanket and put you in a plexiglas cell to “observe” just in case you invent some magical way to hurt yourself with absolutely nothing. The thick plexiglas is covered with a layer of gunk or God-knows what (He said I wouldn’t want to know), but it’s there so whatever mental help they have on staff can stare at you and make notes without having to get too close. My cell has got the standard toilet/sink and a raised section of crumbling tile and concrete that is where the mattress and bed are supposed to go. After I wiped the dirt, shit and old toilet paper off of that little area as best I could, I lay down on the cold tile to try and get some form of sleep even though there were big bugs making noise around me everywhere. And take it from me, there’s not much worse than sitting on an ice cold metal toilet seat and having a giant water roach run out from under the lip of the toilet and across your balls. Yeech.

I woke up a little later and there was a tray of food shoved under my door with no utensils. Macaroni mush of some sort, pineapple from a giant jumbo can and a cup of that awful red juice with the chemicals in it to make your sex drive decrease. I still can’t do the juice; I would rather drink out of the toilet/sink than be part of their experiment. Most of the retarded and crazy people love the crap they serve and I shoved most of my food back under the slot in the door for whoever wants it. A little while later the guards and trustees come through to pick up the trays. None of the other prisoners will look at any of us in our single cells. Not because most of us are naked, it’s just that the 2n floor has a prevailing sense of wrongness to it.

I met with the girl who was assigned to do my psychological evaluation pretty early the next morning. She looked up and down at my mostly naked body disdainfully, as if it was my choice to live like a savage. She was even younger than me and obviously still in training or else she just had no idea about any kind of psychology whatsoever since I could see right through her. She barely looked up and asked if I hear voices in my head. That’s her big evaluation. “Do you hear voices?” I ponder for a second, wondering whether I should say “yes, in fact I just talked to God yesterday” thinking maybe they could get me on some kick-ass reality distorting meds, but my need for clothing and warmth prevailed over my plot to haze out the next couple of months. I am definitely going to be spending some time in here and I would rather not do it in the same nasty cell. I try to joke with her and say “I heard some voices yelling at me to put some damn clothes on,” but she was too plutocratic or jaded to respond. It was as if she didn’t, or couldn’t, even see me as a human being any longer. I finally tell her, “Look, something got messed up and I know I am on suicide watch and I would PLEASE like some form of clothing since its damn near 50 degrees in here.” I even managed to say this nicely without the least bit of sarcasm in my voice, realizing she has the power to deprive me of clothing for a very long time. That’s about it. With my psyche summed up in a three minute conversation, she gets the guards to at least let me have my Dallas County jumper back but I’m still on sock and shoe probation for a week. I feel like slightly less of an animal now, but its creepy walking around my area knowing there could be poop particles clingingto my feet. I guess the idea is to prove my sanity by not going crazy on them for doing all this mental torture and other bullshit to me.

It’s ok. I can wait. If there’s always been the one thing I could do, it is waiting. Not like I have much of a choice anyway. My problem is that the voices DO talk to me. I feel better and know now that most voices are merely some form of the voice of God. But what if they are not? The voices tell me to do some pretty crazy things. Nothing particularly bad but I know that everything is subtle where head-voices are involved.

I made friends with the guy next door to me. Like solitary in Denton, they let everyone out to exercise in the dayroom once a day for about a half hour. It’s a measly ten foot space but you can change the channel on the only TV in the place and all the naked freaks in their cells can’t do anything except yell behind their glass and gesture lewdly. I’m pretty desensitized to that kind of crap by now. I like to put it on NOVA and educate them against their will.

Anyway I found out the kid next door to me got busted trying to walk out of a hospital in a stolen lab coat with two multi-gallon jugs of formaldehyde. You lace that in a joint and it fucks you up the same as PCP. Black people call it “water” or “wack.” It’s the poor man’s angel dust and it totally fucks your brain into stupidity. The kid isn’t too bright. They tagged him before he even got out the door of morgue, classified him as “fucked in the head” and he ended up on the second floor mental ward with me. I guess he’s been here for a while since he’s one of the only other residents wearing clothing. He’s even got shower shoes. Better off than I am.

No one will look you in the eyes up here except the psychos. There’s even an AIDS section on this floor. One hallway is nothing but entire rooms full of AIDS patients waiting to die. They do a lot to separate the folks that are closer to dying, but the couple of times I’ve walked by the places where they keep the infected people it looks a lot like a hospital from a civil war battlefield. There’s some really creepy shit to see in there and getting stuck in jail with the AIDS patients is high up on my list of crappy ways to die. I guess you have to experience all the sensations of isolation and the smell that emanates from their bodies as they decay behind a plexiglas zoo cage to really get that eerie prickly neck hair feeling I get when I’m near their tanks.

There are so many people in my life that will never see or comprehend the shit that is going on right now. People pay good money to law enforcement and jails to keep the stuff of nightmares away from their doorstep. This is not America; itis someplace in between heaven and hell. Winston Churchill once said “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” That’s all I’m trying to do right now, keep going.

Thankfully I convinced some of the more able-minded shrinks to let me go and be a trustee. I think it was my multiple written grievances regarding a medical complaint about a sore on my ass-cheek that finally got them to get me down to tank 2E in the basement. While I was on the medical wing, the doctors or old lady nurses had to look at my ass every time I wrote a complaint about it, and having them have to look at my ass every once in a while was about the only bonus that went along with the being in with the crazies. Other than the benefit of just being able to act loony-tune crazy of course. But you know, when you are around enough people that are actually crazy and they can out-crazy you before they even wake up for breakfast, it’s quite a fucking reality check. It’s not the “mama’s-boy-needs-an-antidepressant-and-nice-soothing-therapy-because-he-brought-home-a-’C’-in-chemistry” crazy. Some of those guys really need serious help in a sad sort of way and they’re stuck in nothing more than a modern day dungeon. If anything, being around them cheered me up as much as God’s saving grace on the day I killed myself. They helped remind me that I’m functional and that I can control most of my urges and that it’s wrong to throw shit on people (at least in public) or decorate your walls with it.

When I was being led out of there, after I made trustee, I saw a guy come in that was nailed to a cross and freaking out on some sort of PCP. He wasn’t nailed to an actual cross of course, but the County has this giant wooden “X” with feet and hand restraints and this guy was flipped out on the worst bad acid-trip from hell. Being in jail, naked, immobilized, and left in a pool of urine while having a mental breakdown as people ignore and step around me is close to my idea of hell. The young kid was gnashing his teeth and trying to bite off pieces of himself he was flipping out so bad. Mental health is a nasty business sometimes. The cross was just a cute reminder of that.

“Tripping is the like having a dream while you are more wide awake and aware than you have ever been in your life…the thing is that while most dreams are pleasant, some can become nightmares without warning. The bad thing about having a nightmare while you are awake is that there is no waking up with a sigh of relief and instantly knowing everything is all-better because it wasn’t real. Things can get so very real sometimes.”

Tank 2E is cool. It’s mostly full of black guys and they are all Crips or people who are cool with the Crips. I guess after enough fights the guards quickly figure out who’s with which gang and try and keep the peace by keeping them all together. I know there is a tank of Bloods on the same floor and once when one of them did something to piss off a cop or a guard they tossed him in here with us. He looked around and after a few minutes he started banging on the walls and screaming to the guards to get him out of there. The guys had a good laugh watching him beg to get taken back out to his old cell. The guards laughed at him too but were smart enough to pull him out before anything serious happened.

Nobody wants to lose their trustee status down here, especially since we get to go by the kitchen sometimes. Being able to go to the kitchen and eat a piece of bread or get some water with ice is worth its weight in gold. Fighting your fellow man over the colors he wears while we are all in white jumpsuits is stupid and can wait until freedom comes, or at least until the lights go out, whichever comes first. I guess being tossed in with the gang members was supposed to be my punishment for the psych-ward ass trick, but I’ve gotten along great with all these guys so far. If you piss off the wrong cop during processing you can get assigned to an “agg” tank (Agg=Aggravated=Highly Pissed Off=Your’ White Ass Is Dead). This was the best they could come up with.

I’ve said it before, white guys are the minority in here and I’m always outnumbered 5-1 at the very least. If some guard wanted to get back at me he could throw me in any tank, casually toss in just a hint of racist tendencies about me or my name, then watch me get beaten on camera, tape it and take it home for personal enjoyment. The guys in 2E are cool though. They’ve taught me how to flash authentic gang signs and write graffiti and even explained what it means and where it came from. It’s actually fascinating to get the inside scoop and to be accepted by a hidden culture inside America’s culture with its own rules, territories and definition of “kin-folk”. If they ever stick me in the Government Building (that’s where the serial killers, serious murders and aggravated assault guys go) I might have a chance if I get thrown in with the right set. If not, I fight anyway.

There’s a Monopoly board in here that the brothers have taught me how to kick ass on. There’s nothing better than holding a fistful of gold five hundreds and telling someone, “Nigger, get your skanky ho’s the fuck off my property ‘fore I cornhole your ass!” Monopoly can get to be a contact sport sometimes, but it’s all in fun. I’m just doing time till I get this probation and then get sent back.

Yes, sent back, did you expect apologetic reform? God tells me I have to come back again. He certainly didn’t promise it would be easy, he made that point quite clear in the mental ward, but he’s there, I know it and as a believer I can tell the world to fuck off. Put that in the Sunday motivational pamphlet. God told me to tell you to “fuck off and pull your heads out of your asses.”

My bunkmate is this young African-looking kid that is one dumb motherfucker. He calls himself (or “hiself’ as he pronounces it) Tuddy-Mac (Tuddy rhymes with moody for some reason), which is his Crip gang name. Not a wannabe gang member but the genuine don’t fuck around and wear the wrong color violent gang member. His head is a deep dark oblong shape, creating the illusion of angular ebony. For being a gangbanger and a little thick-headed he’s not too stupid even for a dumb motherfucker. It’s just that some of his priorities are way out of whack. Let me see if I can write that out a little better just in case he finds this and manages to decipher my normal English usages without every plural word having a “Z” on the end.

Tuddy’s in here for the typical “selling a controlled substance” rap that most of the brothers are in here for. One day I expect someone is going to finally take some sort of action against these blatantly racially biased arrest policies, but until that happens were going to keep building jails for guys like Tuddy since he’s only one of the many easy-target, low-level dealers who are just trying to make a living doing the best paying job in their neighborhood. It boggled my mind at first when he explained to me about the cash potential there is for him to sell drugs. I’ve calculated that when Tuddy’s actively out in the street he’s making at least five times as much money as any highly paid doctor or lawyer and he’s only 19! When you work maybe half the day and do whatever you want while working, the incentives for selling drugs far outweigh the potential consequences of possibly doing some prison time. Day one high school economics teaches the basics of supply and demand, plus anyone watching enough History Channel should know that people always take risks for exorbitant lumps of cold hard cash. Since we’ve infused the poorer areas with drugs and continue to buy them there, America continually perpetuates its own problem. Truly the scariest thing that could happen to a major drug dealer would be complete legalization, the slim profit margin and taxes would make most of the dealers go away within five years as the economy adjusted to acceptance of these new policies. I’m starting to truly suspect that a lot of lobbying by people that want to continue to perpetuate the drug war originally comes from people heavily involved in drug trafficking. People that prefer to keep their industry illegal. They are so high up the food chain that they will never be in any form of legal trouble, at least not without millions of dollars and lives being lost to bring one corporate head of the mythical hydra to so called “justice”.

We all should think of the drug war in terms of office supplies. There isn’t much profit in supplying them since anyone with a little starting capital can open a store and sell them. However, say that all the office supplies were made illegal tomorrow, most companies would still need them and as people’s stockpiles dwindled, the cost of the legalities involved with purchase would drive up prices, and as prices and profits rose, so would competition. Without a legal form of protection against indiscretions by rival office suppliers, there would soon be a network of underground suppliers and purchasers and eventually harsh violence over supplies and profits would likely occur. Now someone reading this might be thinking, “yeah but office supplies are not dangerous to use and people don’t need drugs the way they need office supplies so its not a fair illustration of the economics.” This is where it can get tricky, because I truly believe that Americans NEED drugs. The same way we need television. It’s all an opiate for the masses in one form or another, fueling counterculture and creativity but most of all it provides an escape for the average drone worker bee to relax or alter their perception of reality. So many people crammed into such small city areas is an unnatural way to live, most cities are reliant on outside sources for everything from agriculture to water to entertainment, and so the need for extreme psychotherapy and contentment in some form is absolutely necessary. Ponder that the next time you are in a bar drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette.

Back to Tuddy though, I think his real name might be Sean. The kid is young and most likely a high school dropout but he’s as smart as a whip. Completely immature and no formal sentence structuring is evident in any of his letters to and from home, but he can rap his dick off as easily as if he’s ordering drive-thru. He keeps going to court for his narcotics bit and they keep offering him probation and he keeps turning it down every time. They send him out to court and he comes back with the papers that would have let him walk out of this hellhole right the same day and he’s rejected the offer every freakin’ time. Everyone in here keeps telling him that he’s off his gourd staying inside when he could be out drinking a 40 oz or fucking some hot pussy by tonight. Tuddy wants nothing less than prison time and he keeps telling his court appointed lawyer that and then he comes back totally pissed that they even bothered to call him out for court. I’ll go into the unpleasant experience of the hassle of going to court some other time. Going to court is a hassle for everyone involved. Putting on hand cuffs at 4 a.m., multiple searches, no smoking, people losing the rest of their lives…Every time I look at him I just keep thinking to myself, dumb motherfucker dumb motherfucker DUMB MOTHERFUCKER.

What’s even crazier is that this isn’t an isolated incident. A lot of these young kids are trying to get time down in prison rather than get out on probation. I thought maybe it was because their lifestyle wouldn’t allow them to stay out free on probation and maybe they just want to do a little bit of prison time, get it all over with and be completely free. I could maybe respect that, but that’s not what is going on. It took me a while but I was asking him questions while we were slamming bones one day and he started telling me about some of his family. It seems his father and his uncles and some of his brothers are all doing jail time or have done time for something or other, almost all of it has something to do with drugs. The way he was brought up and the culture of his whole family has helped him come to terms with literally living under a state of constant oppression. It’s normal to get arrested for things that he and his family don’t consider a crime. When Teddy’s in jail there is already a complete support system in place that provides money and people that can look after his family while he’s inside. When he’s out of jail or prison, a large portion of the money he makes is going back into the family to help out others whose kinfolk are locked away. They have evolved their family dynamic around being screwed by the government and support each other through the ups and downs. Guys who are not related refer to each other as “kinfolk.” Someone from the same gang or set or street or junior high school is one of your “kinfolk”.

The first time you get sent away, going to prison is a right of passage. You know that scene in Goodfella’s where Ray Liotta’s character gets pinched for the first time and all the mob guys are waiting for him when he gets out, congratulating him for taking it like a man and not bending over for the fuzz? This is almost a perversion of that concept and the whole family accepts it as part of their life. It’s the same with some of the Mexicans too, although they’ll try like hell to stay out of prison as long as they can, when they finally do go down South, a son or a brother will step into that person’s shoes and keep the family financially able to survive. That’s why so called drug organizations will never be infiltrated; there are far too many families to go through to even get close to the top of the heap.

The older black guys tell me that the young kids are going crazy down in prison, that there is no order and that the lifers even stay away from this new breed of kid. Texas has lowered the adult conviction age whenever they see fit, so these 14, 15 and 16 year old kids are getting life sentences and really long stretches of time thanks to biased mandatory sentencing laws. When you are 16 and you get sent to prison for 10 or 20 years you can’t imagine even living long enough to get out. They are getting down to these prisons and “acting the fool” as they say. Making their own version of home, killing each other, raping each other and going nuts the way only really young people with nothing to lose can do. It’s this generations’ Vietnam and it’s really fucking serious. I’m in the middle of another civil war based on other people’s insanity and moral convictions that those of us in the trenches have no way of ever justifying. Most people can’t grasp the dynamics of anything outside these walls anymore. Soon we’re going to be talking about 40 year old men that have been locked down since before their dick first got hard, guys who have only had sex by raping another person of the same sex, and they are going to get out of jail with nothing in their brains except some fucked up psychological trauma to add to their original economic disparity.

I understand Tuddy-Mac’s point of view a little better now. In a twisted way, he’s Sir Gawain and the State of Texas is his Green Knight. He’s got to prove moral aptitude, not to society but to his kinfolk, so that he can show he has the courage to bare his neck for the killing blow. He’s got to experience this as his testament of manhood for his family. It’s his primitive right of passage adapted to our modern age, and he’s not going to back down. I can almost respect that in a twisted way but then I keep thinking what a dumb motherfucker! Get out on the street for God’s sake and be free for a minute before you take the prison time, it’s not like it will go away.

I’m realizing more and more that our so-called law enforcement is a supply and demand business. More cops on the street means that more arrests are needed to justify their expense. Simple supply-side economics. Cops have a demand that criminals supply: themselves. If there are not enough criminals, we have to make something criminal to feed the ever-growing demand placed on society by the police. Surely I’m not the first person to see this, but maybe I’m the only one inside that can write plainly enough so that it makes sense.

Even though we are all in the same underground trustee crew tank together, I’m the one-man trustee person who cleans the offices where they collect and process all the fines and bail money that people bring in. The office is like what I imagine a casino counting room might be like. There are stacks of cash just lying around, probably close to a hundred grand a night is taken in through the little slots in the bulletproof glass by the officers there. I’m the only prisoner allowed in the room, so every night they drag me out of bed to go down and clean the office where they are busy collecting money orders and wrinkled up stacks of twenty and hundred dollar bills which they pile on the counter. It’s like a slave trade where people can come to buy their loved ones back from the kidnappers. I basically empty all the wastepaper baskets, sweep/mop the floors and empty their ashtrays. The whole process takes about an hour but I usually stretch it into two so I can watch the people coming to the window. The sort of people that come into the entryway of the jail to bail out somebody or other is an odd mix of people to say the least. I’ve seen prostitutes and pimps with fur coats pay a twenty thousand dollar bond from a wad of hundreds they whip out of some hidden pocket. The looks they give the cops when they pay this much cash to them are full of suppressed anger, yet there’s some pride in showing off all that money at the same time. I’ve seen groups of Mexicans pooling twenty dollars each to afford a hundred dollar bond for somebody with a public intoxication charge. Every night is something different and if I’m lucky I’ll see a hot chick waiting for her boyfriend. One night there was even a fight out in the lobby between two women of ill repute over who was taking so and so home.

With all the distractions, I’m praying the keystone wanna-be cops never have any money missing out of their awkward stacks because it will definitely mean a thorough search of bodily cavities that I don’t care to have searched. They are all “officially” cops but since they are on desk duty, I think they must be pretty low on the food chain. Sort of like a private or Sergeant in the Army maybe. Why is it that the guys who get picked on are the same guys who like to lord the little bit of power they do have over the little guy? There is this one redheaded bastard, a real prick, who doesn’t talk much and I’ve overheard that he’s trying to get authorized to be a street cop. Just smile and mop up while he purposefully throws cigarette butts at me or on the floor right where I have been mopping. He’ll be a great cop.

For the most part, the cops in here are all right guys stuck in dead-end government jobs. There are pictures of the head Sergeant standing next to ungodly amounts of seized drugs in his office and a framed copy of the tax stamp they give to people licensed to grow marijuana. I had always thought the tax stamp was a myth or an urban legend designed to lure in gullible first time growers, but it’s actually real. I’ve examined it up close several times while “dusting” the pictures in his office. The Sergeant is an all right guy for the most part; he’s bought me a Coke one or two times and he’s good natured about not having to do a whole lot for his job. I don’t think he was ever a grower though. Other than around his waist I mean. Ha ha.

When I’m done cleaning for them and they’ve patted me down for office supplies, as if I’m going to give them an easy misdemeanor arrest while IN jail. I usually go and sit with the rest of the guys in my tank in the processing room where they work. The other guys do all the fingerprinting of new residents before they go to the intake tank and they also clean up as cops bring in their usual herd of people every night. We all work the graveyard shift in #2E and so we get to see most interesting late night arrestees as they come in. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to convey the scenes of outright brutality and abuse prisoners receive at the hands of the guards that process people into jail but I try and write about the more interesting things in my letters to people as they happen.

The processing department is the first place you go once you get to jail. Not many people know this and the police surely don’t advertise it, but when the cops pick a guy up on the street, their job is to get that person to jail. By choice or because they are all punks, a cops attitude is usually, “I’m not qualified to pass judgment (or even make a decision on my own based in reality most of the time) so I’ll take you to the place where they can do that for me.” The police pull into an underground guarded garage, turn in their gun so nobody can grab it, and you stay cuffed until you’re on the second floor where you go through processing. Processing is where they take all your money and anything valuable that someone else might steal and stab you for while you are in the holding tank. A lot of this money somehow never makes it to storage and since everyone knows how prisoners exaggerate, there is a nice little “my word against yours” kind of corruption thing going on. The guards also search your pockets and clothes and add a few more charges if you are carrying any drugs or if they need to plant anything on you. Processing is where the real shit breaks out and they have a staff of people I refer to as bouncers that handle any trouble while a prisoner is being processed. The bouncers are thugs in specially tailored uniforms designed to resemble the black Special Forces uniforms used in the Army. They have pockets everywhere, full of devices of torture or rations or spare change for the candy machine or whatever. Their tight black pants tuck into their spit-shined steel-toed black shin-high boots. Just add attitude.

The problem is that these punk-ass guards end up creating a lot of the trouble my guys have to clean up, and our shift includes one particularly bad seed. Chopper is a huge black man who stands close to seven feet tall and he revels in the chaos of this place. I sit to the side and watch him interact with prisoners as they come in. Chopper loves to use whatever form of formal ‘fuck-you-up-bad’ martial arts he’s learned to literally beat the shit out of these people. He even smiles as he twists arms to the point of breaking. I’ve seen soccer moms picked up for unpaid tickets that he’ll toss in with the crack heads and other people who will corner them in their cells. I’ve even seen one guard stand at the door while another will go in and ‘coerce’ or maybe rape young girls too drunk to know any better.

There are a lot of people that come through the door that you can tell are most likely innocent. I guesstimate it at about a 7 to 1 ratio of guilty people in here. Meaning for every six or seven people that are saying they are innocent, one of them is most likely telling the truth. Some people know the routine and go through the processing department under the watchful eye of the goons without saying anything. Some people have never interacted with people that can even conceive of thinking on this low brutal mental scale and their protests of innocence and attempts to hold onto the simplest of their sacred rights are met with extreme force.

Chopper’s favorites are the drunk driving rednecks that pour into this place on Friday and Saturday nights. Most are still drunk and pissed off that they are there, so he’ll stand right next to them and talk shit about their mom or scream at them until the drunk will try and push him away or cuss him out. That’s when he uses his boots to break people’s legs or kick out some of their teeth. Sometimes they will arrest two men outside a bar that have been fighting with each other, both will be bruised, bloody and strapped to those wooden cross looking things that basically bends them over backwards and prevents all movement. They put these hogtied guys on a flatbed cart and wheel them in all strapped down. Rare is the time when I haven’t seen Chopper get a few good licks on these totally immobilized people, breaking a rib or giving them an elbow to the eye. This is pure twisted legalized evil and I wish I could film it to pass to any news agency. I literally hope he gets killed in one of his own melees but I seriously doubt the world is that lucky. Most of the other goons just eat donuts while watching him kick people’s asses all night and if it gets too crazy they’ll all dog pile a prisoner and really fuck him up. I’ve had to look away many times and I’ve been threatened with being taken off trustee duty if I ever yell at them to stop again. One protest from me was enough to get a busted lip and some kidney shots so I mostly just watch and fume when I see something really bad, feeling totally powerless. So when I say we have to clean up the processing room it usually means cleaning the trash from people’s pockets, somebody’s vomit from an overdose or too much drink and the blood that Chopper splatters on the floor.

Tuddy came in today from visitation and I found out later that his brother had died last week and nobody could get in to tell him until after the ceremony. I guess the cliché that white people instinctively run towards trouble is true. I could tell he was hurting and while the other black guys in the tank could also tell something was up with him and backed off, I was the one who finally tried to be a pal and asked him what was wrong? He was so upset and angry that he sucker punched me and I got in a couple quick ineffective retaliatory shots to his nose before the other brothers pulled him back. It was cool that the other guys were there for me when it all went down because given another minute Tuddy could have taken me apart like a surgeon. He didn’t mean me any specific harm, this place just gets to people. Feeling so powerless compels a man to do something to regain a sense of power.

He never apologized, but I could tell we were still cool a little later; his brain just needed time to process everything that had happened or to shove it down deep so it wouldn’t affect him. This place is slowly killing a piece of everyone.

Well I’m back out on the streets after another three months of waiting. The problem is that in Texas you have one foot in prison and one foot on a banana peel. I’m going to enjoy myself as best I can for a few weeks, try to rekindle my love with Jen and be with her as much as possible before I violate again. I know I’m an addict now and hooking back up with her means I’ll soon be a part of the smack-run again but it’ll give me the chance to be involved in helping her life for a little while. For this little while I’m going to devote my life to her, even if I can’t find a way to tell her that I’m going to have to go back. She would get angry if I told her why, but I want her to remember me as I loved her. I would die for her but I won’t get all wacky obsessed with her again just to have it taken all away, if not for my sake, then hers.

Besides, this getting out of jail crap is a big joke anyway. I’m expected to pay the County money to be free, yet nobody will hire me in a job that can pay my start-from-scratch living expenses. Then, on top of that, when I’m not scraping money together to help them build new jails, I’m supposed to do community service. Then, on top of THAT, I’m supposed to find a way to pay for a series of classes that gets me a letter that says I’m rehabilitated. I sorry I have to refuse to comply, but thanks for letting me out on my temporary jail pass.

I still have no family to turn to and I won’t ask Jenifer to help. I have no possessions, no more worries and I’ll do what I can to settle my affairs with the time I’m given. They’ll be able to give me up to two years once I’m back inside. That’s just the way it is and what I might have to do. Since I’ve missed two birthdays and every holiday at least once while I’ve been incarcerated, a few more won’t make much difference.

Jenifer, I have ego now and I’m not scared. I hope one day you’ll understand that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing but I’m doing what I think is right for both of us. Dammit Jenifer, I love you, I pray everyday now. I pray that you will heal. I’ve never stopped loving you as you are. I still fantasize that I want to have a child with you and that one day we can magically live together for the rest of our lives. I’m just grateful to know you and to have been a part of your life in a small way since I think you are the most truly magnificent person I’ve ever met. I know we’ll always be friends and I guess that should come first, even if the way we have to get there is a shitty road to be on.

A part of me had to die to gain the little bit of wisdom I needed to have these thoughts and write these words, but I never envisioned having to hit rock bottom when I prayed to God for knowledge. The trouble with wisdom is that most of it comes from experience. Le Petit Mort.

My dad once said Jenifer reminded him of Katherine Hepburn. I think he meant it as a compliment though. The only image I have of Hepburn is the wrinkly scratchy throat lady who was a bitch to everyone. Apparently she was somebody especially beautiful a long, long time ago. God shaped Jenifer’s soul to suit her face. I now know that if I ever want to achieve my full potential, be better than blue collar, I cannot indulge in my fantasy of a life together. My denial of the ordinary forbids my indulgence and eventual stagnation. Please just know and remember that I will always love you.

“Instead of a war on poverty, there’s a war on drugs that says the police can bother me.”

—TuPac

“How do you know where I’m at when you haven’t been where I’ve been, understand where I’m coming from?”

—Be Real

Sung to the Brady Bunch Tune:

Here’s the story,

of a college student,

who spent two years of his life behind bars.

All his friends thought that he went crazy,

because he wrecked their cars.

I’ve been back in here quite a few months now. I don’t really keep track of the time or anything anymore. There is weekend time and weekday time. It’s funny how weekend time is really dreaded around here. Weekend time is when you know there will be no progress made whatsoever on anything concerning you. Some of the other prisoners get visits but I’ve given up on expecting or getting upset and moody when nobody comes to see me. I guess it’s been a few weeks since I saw my sister and a few months since I’ve seen Jenifer. The mail doesn’t come on the weekend and the blacks take over the TV so they can watch Soul Train and Flava TV, a local rap video show. I must admit I’ve come to enjoy the latter after months without music. The people that keep track of time are the people that know when they are getting out or when they should be getting shipped down south to prison. It’s kind of funny that the county jail is so bad that people who know they are going to prison get bent out of shape when the guards run a chain and they are not on it.

“Running a chain” is what they call it when you catch the prison bus to go to the various farms. They cut the phones off early and announce the people getting shipped out later that night. The phones go off so that no-one will try to arrange sort of an elaborate Hollywood sabotage that frees the prisoners from the buses on their way down South. When you get to prison is actually when you get those “prisoners rights” that people out in the real world get so bent out of shape over. For instance, they still serve the Vitapro stuff that is used as a meat substitute here in County, the same protein stuff that is used to fatten cattle and sheep that are going to be slaughtered. After a riot or two down south that crap went out and semi-normal food was re-introduced. Down South a person can get magazine subscriptions and order books or other amenities that the everyday schmoe on the street takes for granted and doesn’t use, but people still don’t feel like prisoners deserve to utilize them. People are really fucking stupid if they think that keeping people from reading books in jail or eating food with nutrients could possibly be morally sound. If I’ve learned one thing in here it’s that one day, with the exception of maybe 1% of the people at the most, everyone is going to get out. If you are in your retirement years and you are old, frail, rightfully scared and vote republi-fuckin-can then of course you support mandatory minimum sentencing and cruel punishment because you are going to be dead and buried long before the chaff of society is released. Anyone that thinks in the short term like that would want those sorts of things. If everything becomes a label such as black and white, cops and robbers, get the bad guys and all that other bullshit, then prison makes sense. It’s a great short-term viable solution that is easy to ingest and gives great statistics for opinion polls. What gets to me is the younger people that think a system like this will ever work over a long period of time. My peers, before all this mess, agreed that the social security system would crumble under its own weight a long time before we ever see the same benefits it provides to our elders. It’s best to think of the current jail system in the same way.

Let’s ponder a moment and think about the definite. ONE DAY THE MAJORITY OF THESE PEOPLE WILL GET OUT OF JAIL. Why is it so easy to accept that one day the people we put away will come out totally unsuper-vised and unable to handle the changes society has been gradually going through while this person, this human being, has been stewing and becoming an instinc-tually surviving creature. This creature is no longer a man by society’s standards. We think we want our creatures manageably stupid and uneducated because we take away the books, education and reintegration programs. We establish conditions that allow this creature who is becoming stronger, meaner and more disgruntled to eventually re-enter society. The beast was sentenced to be punished, so we took away its rights in the name of punishment sent the filth into a concrete jungle where being the strongest and meanest are the only dominating traits worth developing. The creature is given handlers, which dictate when IT may eat or interact with others. The creature is continually at war with others of ITS own species so IT learns to fight, or to kill, or at the least the value of strength over knowledge. And then one day the gates that keep the foul stench of the dregs inside ITS properly sealed barrier suddenly swing open and the creature is told that IT is no longer an IT but a man and sent on ITS way to the proverbial happy ending. Except the happy sunshiny people that now call IT a man expect all to be forgiven and the years of instincts that kept IT alive to be abandoned instantly. A “yes massa, ise be good now, I learnt mah lesson” mentality to be firmly implanted into ITS thick dense skull. Except our creature has been tattooed with a mark on its forehead that informs anyone who might mistakenly take IT in and offer IT work or shelter, that IT may look like a man but inside, IT is still an IT. The creature is introduced to the things it missed out on—the sensory untouchable pleasures of the flesh of society’s daughters and granddaughters (or sons and grandsons depending on ITS preferences now)—unable to comprehend why the men that walk and talk just like IT are blessed with these things. IT becomes confused, frustrated, jealous and lost like a freakish Frankenstein monster that eventually fucks up so that the townsfolk have to chase IT to ITS cage or burn IT alive.

Okay, so I’m going on a melodramatic rant here right? Then let me back pedal and reduce this to its simplest form. History supports that segregation doesn’t work, so we’ll have to establish that rule as a given. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or you would have them do unto your surviving family.

It is really that easy.

I’m learning to savor the books that I read in here because it is so infrequent that I am blessed with a good one. I used to read about a book a day and read them as if I was trying to finish them in order to complete an assignment or something. As the supply dwindles I am forced to read more slowly. My comprehension level remains the same although it was already close to perfect. I liken the trend to a connoisseur of fine wine. I spend more on one bottle and savor it slowly instead of drinking tubs of Boone’s Farm. The only thing is, in here, I am drinking Boone’s Farm and savoring it as a bottle of fine Scotch. I always establish myself as the library person. Once a week or month or whenever, someone goes to get books off the library cart. You can trade whatever books you have into the library one for one. I always hide more magazines and extra books in my socks and pants though. Some people are able to smuggle drugs into jail with them or cigarettes into the court holding tanks. I have to smuggle extra books. Pretty fucked up.

If you get up early enough in the morning you can watch this little closed circuit TV show that they run on the television that is supposedly put on by the inmates. There is a black guy and white guy sitting in a room with about 20 records, musical discards from some guard’s Goodwill pile no doubt. They play these records and just sit there looking into the camera while the music plays. I suppose there is someone working the camera because he pans around the room sometimes to let everyone know there is nothing of interest in their booth and sometimes the camera just tilts slowly up to the ceiling and stays there for a few minutes. I asked around about these guys at first trying to glean how they got such a tasty trustee job but nobody knew, then one day I realized that they must have only taped about five of these shows because they repeat every week or so and it’s the same damn recording. I guess that’s not a bad thing since even I didn’t notice that the shows were repeating until about six weeks into the series. I have a lot of time on my hands to ponder these sorts of things too.

Another thing that is odd is that in order to have a hot cup of water for coffee, or to simply heat a cup of water for sterilization purposes after getting it from the sink at the top of the toilet, you have to buy or use these things they call stingers. Stingers are such crude devices; I would never even have thought they existed in this modern world. Basically it consists of a plug that goes into the one live socket in the dayroom of our tank, and the other end is a metal loop that gets really fucking hot. I’m not a rocket scientist but I think the concept of channeling raw electricity into a cup of water is inherently a dangerous proposition. Plus if you leave these “stingers” plugged in without the metal part being in water the end of it gets glowing red-hot and will explode into molten chunks of metallic pain. These explosive properties are known to happen even while in the cup of water on occasion, which can destroy the only assigned cup that they issue each person upon containment.

In case I haven’t given a rundown of the basic admission supplies, when you get here they give you a tortuously uncomfortable mattress, a sheet, a blanket, a cup, a spoon, and a pair of very worn and usually stained boxers. If any of these things get destroyed, the jail can fine you or charge you with destruction of county property if they have a bone up their ass. If your cup gets destroyed then you don’t have anything to shove through the slot in the door for tea or juice at mealtime and you have to drink directly form the toilet/sink.

Another sad part is that the boxer shorts Dallas county issued used to all be white, but so many people were taking them home with them upon release, for souvenirs I suppose (?!?!), that the newest boxers they issue are (and I’m not fucking joking or exaggerating) FLOURESCENT PINK. You probably can fathom that it doesn’t go over very well to walk around all day in jail wearing nothing but bright pink underwear. Instead of exchanging mine on monthly laundry day, I now have to wash them in the sink with a bar of soap or rinse them out while I’m in the shower. Plus I’m thinking of taking them with me when I leave, out of protest and to stick some other unlucky sod with the new issues. Denton jail had microwaves and cable TV. Dallas has repeating closed circuit TV, stingers, and pink boxer shorts.

To a dog, the act of me wielding a crude instrument such as a knife must seem amazing. All I’m saying is that there are still some things that people view as amazing which could hypothetically be common place to some of us.

Here’s some great jail-yard terminology that I heard the other day when two ‘bruthas’ were about to throw down, including “bizzaatch,” “blow-holed she-goat,” and “stanky mackerel crotch”. Think of how many extreme reactions you can get when you announce to someone that you’re going to “watch them in the holding cell getting their buttery cornhole gangraped by a bunch of drunk bikers.” It’s so extreme that it cracks me up.

Today some people came by in white lab coats and said they were giving mandatory flu shots for the entire unit. I became pretty suspect but they did a roll call and there ended up not being any way to get around it. I asked them specifically what they were giving us and got a standard flu-shot answer that didn’t seem quite right to me. I asked them what company they were with (no response) and why a private laboratory would sponsor a jail-related act of good will (no response). I did notice they charted everyone’s skin color and racial makeup when they administered whatever it was. There is one guy that has been in here for over a year, Junior, and he said they gave him this right when he came to this tank about a year ago. When they realized they had the same person from last year the people in the coats got really excited and took him off somewhere. He said that later they asked him a whole bunch of questions about how he felt and if he had noticed any unusual symptoms and how often he’d gotten sick in the past year. He also said they held him down and drew blood out of his back! I’ve got to get out of here soon. I suspect a pharmaceutical company is sub-contracting without the states-knowledge or something. I’m tired of being a second class citizen in here.

I read somewhere that teenagers retain forty percent more when they get more sleep. The amount of quality REM sleep allows them to process information and think about new ways to approach situations and incorporate new skills. I am getting more sleep than I have ever had in my life. So much sleep that it doesn’t feel good to sleep anymore. 14-16 hours a day is not the way our behavioral cycle is naturally supposed to rotate.

A lot of what I learned is that I never want to forget this experience, ever. Whether I climb above it or sink down into more sorrow and eventually sweet death, I’ll never forget what I’ve seen and Jack, a friend of mine, finally got around to doing my “hook,” or first crappy tat. I traded one jar of peanut butter for my first tattoo and it was all done with a sharpened staple melted into the end of a pen. The ink was just charcoal from a burnt piece of paper mixed with some water and my arm bled like crazy. I got this crazy but talented black kid named Crispy to design it for a candy bar. I said I wanted a sun with an acrylic “S” in the middle and he created a really funky design for me to use. I can’t have the sun on my face so I want to at least have it somewhere on my body.

Why did I need to learn that laptops are the best thing on the market to steal right now? People don’t pay any attention to them and you can take them easily from airports. Why did I need to learn a few different ways to steal car? Why did I need to learn that Home Depot accepts returns for cash without receipts? Why did I have to meet new guys who can get me the same drugs I’m trying to stay away from?

There’s a bond when you spend even a little time with somebody in jail. They trust implicitly that you’re not a fucking cop. It’s like a confessional disguised with bragging in here. The people to avoid in county are the ones who won’t tell you what’s going on in any part of their lives. The troubled ones that are on the phone all the time and have that crazy haunted look in their eyes.

My sister has been up to visit. I watched as her belly swelled up with life and then one day she brought a little girl wrapped in soft blankets to see me. It was my first glimpse of my sister’s little girl, Kalinn, and she’s amazingly beautiful even behind bulletproof glass. Good for her. Everyone has given me and Alecia shit about our lives and our decisions, but she’s accomplished something beautiful. Thank you, Alecia. You might never know how much it meant to have you visit me then, but to see my amazing niece the other day was truly awesome! The best I’ve felt about anything in a long, long time.

The only means by which I have to see myself in here is the piece of corroded stainless steel above the combination stainless steel sink and toilet. It is old and covered with toothpaste flecks and other bodily fluids too numerous to get into. I bring this up only because of the reflection of the person I see looking back at me.

It’s been close to 5 months now and the eyes that stare back at me are still the pale eyes that have been there since I came in. My eyes that have won me friends with a glance, broadcasting their stern defiance. Eyes that look better to be allied with, but I’m not trying to convey that I am a badass in any sense of the word. Even though I have come along way in these months from the soft sickly man that shuffled through the doors and lay in his bunk for the first month, barely eating and shitting arduously one day a week. The food is repulsive as always but its minimal nutrition is feeding my wiry frame. No bulk, just aggressively strong sinew. The body is healing, but the mind… the mind is still not right, the decision to live isn’t always the easiest one. I look in the mirror and I still see the same eyes peering out from beneath the dirty film. The dark circles are shrinking but still gaunt. My skin is far paler than it has ever been since the Texas sun first laid its kiss upon me so many years ago. All that I have done and all that I am as a man, all that I have learned has come down to this reflection of a person I do not even know in the mirror.

The talk around the block is always the same. Typical clucking braggadocio about loose women or what they will be doing with their wives when the mythical period of punishment and atonement is finally over. The sex, the beer, the freedom to be nothing. No talk of the magic dew on the grass as you struggle into the shower before climbing into a truck for a day of working wherever. No talk of life, just the fantastical rewards of men that have survived a battle. The battle with their government. The battle that others have forced them to wage in their own minds. See the demons you are, or have in you, with no distractions from everyday life! Nothing will make you not feel what you are.

There are no glass mirrors, you can’t smash polished steel to cut yourself or another and I’m sure they learned that requirement the hard way a long time before I was introduced to this system. All my education, all the things I have been taught and raised with as qualities worthy of a man are gone. I am soul-stripped naked and I lay bare for the world while they hide me away to protect my shame.

I have no common talk or prattle to offer about the things I will do when I am out of here. I have nothing outside of here. I am homeless, family-less, friendless and I am marked with the shame and duty I rightly deserve. The crimes I committed are not what brought me here for I am a monster that needs to be locked away. Yet they can’t see it. The things I have done will never ever be better. I could have all the money in the world, all the sex, all the political power and not one little bit of it will ever change what I did. Nothing will ever change what has happened to the woman I loved. I laugh at the weak reasons they have used to keep me here. They should give me the same slow death penalty I dished out. They should whip me and beat me, but instead they gave me a home and put me in a place where I have shallow friends. A place where I have a TV and a deck of fucking cards and some goddamn Cheetos for everything I did. They are hiding me from the world but I can’t hide from the cold eyes I see looking back at me. How do you punish a man that has done the deed to himself for years? Who’s going to make me want to embrace the life again? Say it with me. Irre-fuckin-pairable spinal cord injury.

That my life is forfeit to make hers live.

Done.

That I switch fates and live my life as hers.

Done.

God convinced me not to die. Saved me. Intervened in the course of another’s life to give me back the gift of my own. Do I inhabit these dens of prison and squalor or do I learn to be me again? No, not me anymore, the cold person I have become, infected and dying for the love and joy that I was convinced would be eternal. Some of these mornings are easier than others. The burden of my life is no longer the path of detraction and distraction. The drugs are too easy and too good and not helping. God has given me a gift. Told me that “the marrow of the Earth is mine to suck from the bones of my past.” The thing is, I have to learn how. Normal again. Me. The egotistical bastard smarter than anyone in this entire jail will be as helpless as a child when they finally let me go. I have forgotten how to be free. Institutionalized is what they call it. It happens to people that are in prison for ten or twenty or thirty years and I have it after 5 months. I’m scared and bored with the idea that this is my fate. Tired of the taste of blood and puke and the mildew growing in the corners. Too tired to talk about fucking. Too tired to even sing over the voices.

I thought I was crazy for a long time because I have had a song in my head every second of every day for my entire life. Sometimes mine, sometimes off the radio, but always a song, beat or a groove. The wilds of the Earth, one of my many gifts and a curse. The song isn’t there anymore. Not always. It’s the reverse equivalent of a deaf child suddenly being able to hear for the first time ever. Except the silence is disconcerting, my mind a wasteland, as cold as a snowstorm in the woods with thousands of little eyes gleaming out at me through the trees.

I have had a lot of nightmares while I’ve been in jail and recently I keep waking up in a sweat after having the same dream. I’m driving down the road in a car that I can’t really make out exactly what it is but it’s a small Honda/Nissan/ Mazda hybrid of some sort. The road is always filled with emerald green Mustangs. It doesn’t seem to matter exactly where I am driving but I am always familiar with the road every place I seem to be, even when the scenery changes abruptly. I run to get a hamburger and there is an emerald green Mustang parked in the sun outside glistening. I show up at work and someone shows me his new car and it’s an emerald green Mustang. I visit my dope dealer and I see him in a shiny new emerald green Mustang offering me free heroin. My parents are taking me back to their house and in the driveway is an emerald green Mustang for my birthday.

The worst dream takes me to a place where I am driving along in a familiar place and the shiniest, tricked-out, flossing, rimmed Mustang brighter than the sun pulls along side my little car with a gorgeous girl driving. Her windows are down and her college-length blonde hair is shimmering in the morning sunlight but she’s staring straight ahead. Her face and skin and beauty are always perfect beyond comprehension and sometimes she’ll make a sort of sly sideways glance with a slight smirk just to make sure I’m watching and to let me know that I know she knows I’m watching.

In my dream I often try and distract her; I roll down my windows and smile or wave, but the more I try, the more intently she focuses on the road ahead of her. She tears off down the road at a speed that seems casual but there’s no way I can match it in my little bucket. I put her image out of my mind and drive to where I am going.

Flash forward. I am staring at the twisted tree where I had my bike chained before I got put away and it was stolen. My bicycle apparently sacrificed itself for the tree previously by taking the brunt of a drunken frat boy’s car. It’s in bad shape and as I stare at the mangled mess of tires I turn to see the emerald Mustang with the beautiful blond girl racing towards me, quite obviously intending to fuck me the same way the frat boy fucked my bike. Her perfect girlish grin smiles as if to invite me to suck on her perfect small girl breast, exposed by a perfectly rumpled maladjustment of the sexy oversized tank top she always wears. Perfectly. I’m fixated on herbodyhersmilehersexher as the emerald front of the car, gleaming mystically brighter than any green can be, even as its custom front end, sharper than a razor blade, cuts me in half pinning me to the tree. My waist falls away under the car and she’s there watching and giggling, still playing up and getting off on the thrill of her own body, her own sexy come hither glance. Her eroticism is perfect but it’s as false and practiced as a porn star. Her body dances in its seat, wriggling as if to say, “come to me poor boy as you are dying, you’ve suffered so much at least let your last moments be filled with pleasures beyond anything you have known.”

My upper body is still hanging, practically perched on the front of her hood, my back against the gnarled tree, thick red blood soaking from my torso into the car’s unnaturally green glossy surface with little wisps of smoke as it drains from my body, my heart is still pumping, believing that my body is still intact. My vision falters as I start to get dizzy from lack of blood but I can already tell that her/its body has been created to be the accumulation of all my supposed inner desires. Suddenly it’s as if she’s standing beside me with her lips softly grazing my ear as I hear her finally say to me in a low, slow sultry whisper of sexuality that of course matches her form perfectly, “Icangiveyoueverythingyou’veever-wanted… justsaythewordanditwillallbeyours… youdon’thavetodiehere… thereis-somuchwecandotogether.”

As my own blood begins to fill my lungs it slowly drowns me from the inside, it runs from my left nostril now and bubbles from between my open lips. I only manage to gurgle as I try and speak but my mind is clear and words thunder in my head. I can almost see them flashing around me with a life of their own in the still night air, “Get the fuck away from me beast!”

That’s the point where I wake up knowing beyond all else that something is trying to get inside me while I’m weak. My body is weak from too much emotion and too little food, but I’m meditating now and saying silent prayers. My defenses may be weak but in my waking hours I’ve started to create a mental wall of protection around my body, around my head, my thoughts, my mind and my soul. Get out of my head dream demons; this weakened vessel is not for you. I say this over and over as I build. Over the course of a few days I construct my defense brick by brick, applying a substantial amount of mortar to each of the strong earthen porous bricks that I’ve molded individually with a prayer and fired in the kiln I’ve constructed in my mind. It’s slow going but as I lay the bricks around me, the thick mortar oozes from each crack and hardens as it runs down the wall. As I get closer to completing my wall of protection, the dreams that attack at night intensify in their desperation and brutality. Vivid images of blood and pain, sex, blood, drugs, family, hurting, blood, betrayal and always those infernal fucking unnaturally colored emerald green Mustangs forged in the depths of someplace that’s better not mentioned or put to paper. I’ve awoken several nights yelling and thrashing in my bed. As my wall gets higher tendrils of emerald green plants try and grow up the outer side of the wall, desperate to reach me or deposit seeds that will grow inside and feed. It’s harder and harder to resist so I’ve taken to trying to stay awake during the night and sleep during the daylight where the vivid images are not as strong. I should be done with my wall soon and if I ever find a way to get at the thing/person/devil/beast responsible for having the audacity to fuck with me I will make it pay very dearly.

Jen sent me a letter. Well not a letter, an empty envelope with a 2 inch clipping of an article out of the Denton Record Chronicle that informed me my friend Bobo is dead. Oh it hurt so bad to read that, even touching the already yellowing paper hurt my hands. If only I had been there, been around or been out. Could I have even done anything to help? Oh God, another friend gone, please show mercy and take her into your arms, lead her into your light.

The right answers have always seemed to make sense and come to me a majority of the time, but I have never been smart like this. The world moves around me in patterns and shadow now. I see the ebb and flow of desires, the slow motion reactions on people’s faces in day-to-day life. I’m in tune with something I searched for so long. An eternal invisible dangling carrot taunting me with the hope that it actually exists, I could smell it and hear it swing and even caught a glimpse as I walked through the fog of my life, but it was only when I stopped looking and finally relaxed that the empathic touches to life showed themselves to me fully.

I am in the middle of my war, a modern day version of my real father that I swore I would never become. What did his Purple Heart get him? A whole platoon full of dead friends and nothing to come home to except the sweet succulent bodies of bikini-clad beach women. I’ve built my wall now, the dreams are mine again, the demons cast out.

Necessity is breeding desire. The desire is making me crafty smart and able to feel the energy I have to read people. I have to have an edge that puts me one step ahead or a little bit higher on the brain awareness level. I know when they no longer care. I know the face of apathy, but I also have the desire and the need to take what I want without unnecessary involvement. I pinch it all. I knick it, I shoplift it and I get away, lickety-split, and the adrenaline rush of success is as sweet as any victory in my long forgotten war, as sweet as any drug and as sweet as being happy because it is happiness, energy and life.

I woke up with a thought of true genius fluttering through my head, but twas lost twixt bed and paper. Can you use twixt nowadays without insuring the wrath of the critics? I suppose I will find out. It’s finally time to go and make a home now. I’m not scared anymore.

“In this lucid moment, Epps concentrates and see the world with harsh, objective clarity: all of God’s children are simple animals, of no more or no less interest to the clinical observer than a leaf or a clamshell…”

—Caricature, Daniel Clowes

PART IV

THE REST

Epilogue:

So they, meaning them, the powers that be in all their glory, deemed me worthy enough to take my 36 hour pass. Finally. After all the sweat, blood and tears, I am being granted the freedom to roam (under their tightly organized schedule of course) away from the compound for a day and a half. My sister picks me up and we go home where the usual awkward fawning over the wayward son goes on. The “Oh don’t say anything too controversial, he might go crazy and attack us with a heroin gun or something” kind of conversation.

Please.

I finally see and touch my niece for the first time and she fears me because I am old and a relative stranger to her. Jenifer says they watch me closely whenever I interact with her too. I would never have noticed if she hadn’t said that. I wish she hadn’t said that actually. And then we go to the movies, trying to see something or other and I end up riding with Jenifer in her car from my parents’ house to the theater. A couple of miles, tops, and I look around and notice all the details. The faint hint of vinegar scent in the upholstery and the brown flecks of stain. The little droplets of dried smack on the windshield where some of the precious liquid shoots out the end in order to clear the potentially fatal air bubbles from the syringe. I am getting nervous because between us, and the obvious awkwardness of the situation where we have been so often in the past, is the console. The little storage place in her car where she keeps everything—everything that got me arrested. I know at that moment if I open the top of the compartment between us I will find the remnants. The cotton and needles and everything that’s needed and I don’t know what to do. She’s nervous and a little fucked up and I am nervous and scared to get fucked up and there we are in a situation I should not be in. My cells are screaming with ache to peek and look and put something into my veins and I just can’t do it. None of it. Not the casual socializing or talking or love or anything. Not while the console and all of its contents are there between us.

And that’s when I know. All the bullshit from the counselors and numerous attempts to open my eyes come down to this. Would I give my life for hers? Absolutely. I tried for so long. Would I change places with her in a second, be paralyzed never again knowing the intimate contact of sex or even the simple gratifying ease of knowing when to use the restroom? No question about it. But do I destroy our lives together? There it is, the big question. The answer leaves me reeling. I start to shake and I know I have to get out of there. I know I love her. I know it and I know that I always will love her but this isn’t right. This is no longer who I am or what I want to be. I’ve had a revelation, a dream, a will, a need to exist and survive. The knowledge that there is something more. To go back to her will be all there is and we will die.

I fought it for so long. I feel so guilty and selfish like a fucking bastard. But there they are. The fucking smack drips and the hollow eyes meaning the person I fell in love with is not in that car with me.

I didn’t make the decision far away in a safe shelter where I knew that harm would never come near me. I didn’t phone a friend and tell them to tell her that we should see other people. I didn’t fade away and avoid it all, like I want to now that I know. I held on to the dream and prayers for hope that I needed to believe in. I went back to her with the same love and devotion I’ve had since that miraculous sunset in Oregon and I finally saw what the score was. We were apart too long and I guess we are going to stay that way.

Before the wreck we were falling apart. Held together through commitment and friendship and a common need, but we were nothing but the robots we tried not to become. Not the worker bees that we feared but lecherous vampires that prowl upon them. It was all so glamorous and shitty and not at all who I am anymore. I will fight no more forever. I am born again, completely new, and there is a lot of pain and loneliness and guilt ahead. Some days all I have is a reminder that I’m not the poor bastard they dragged out of the cell next to me. Some days all I have is the memory of God’s mischievous silent smile as he touched my mind. Every day I have is a gift, thanks to that poor fuck and God’s intervention.

That was the day I killed myself.

That’s why on a cold lonely evening in jail I took that belt from around my waist and methodically attached it to the empty bunk in the holding cell. That’s why I gave my final pleas and told the world go about its business without me. That was the day my old life died and that’s why I committed suicide. That was the day I started this painful process of re-crawling out of the womb and into the harsh lights and sounds of what we call reality.

And you know what? I am very glad that I am here to talk about it. All the rehab and psychotherapy in the world can’t make things right until they are supposed to be. The patience and understanding and knowledge didn’t come from me. I feel more secure knowing that I had help. I feel even better knowing that I am here when I didn’t want help even though I’m the only one who made it difficult to get life’s lessons through this thick head of mine. True happiness is a drop of morning dew dripping off the leave of a giant redwood as it basks in the rising sun. The world is perfection and we are only graffiti.

.gradually we just drifted apart, me on the strict path that a moral society supposedly needs to set as its standards and her on her own longer path to acceptance and recovery. After the visits tapered off and dried up we became better together as friends. As lovers we are poison to each other, but to know that one of the greatest minds and loves that I will ever have is still around makes it ok that we’re friends nonetheless.

“I’ll call you” and “We’ll have lunch” invariably gets delayed and protracted over days, then weeks, months and now years. Sure I’ve run into her every once in a while and we still have that magic spark of electricity when we speak and touch, but it isn’t an all consuming torch or flame anymore. We both know the situation and with more than a little regret we remain close friends. Ex-lovers with a large dancing child and a big elephant in the room, bonding them forever.

Well, I hope this all works out.

Thanks to Neal Cassady—d. 1968

www.whyicommittedsuicide.com

Copyright

New York • Lincoln • Shanghai

All Rights Reserved © 2004 by Samuel Paul

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

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A portion of the profits from this book, if there ever are any, will be donated to Spinal Cord Research.

All Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Unwilling.

For author information and permissions, address Samuel Paul, 5507 Bent Bough,

Houston, TX 77088

Paul, Samuel E., 1963-

Why I Committed Suicide or ‘Le Petit Mort’: a sexual double entendre’ that extends from the belief that whenever a man ejaculates and gives himself fully over to a woman he must die a little. When that happens it isn’t so much a tribute as it is a chronicle.

Samuel E. Paul

ISBN: 0-595-32695-1

ISBN: 978-0-5957-7500-2 (ebk)

ENDNOTES

1

The dictionary says metamorphosizing is not a word. It should be.

2

black sheep/beast

3

A hot-shot is just the slang term used for a really strong dose (usually lethal) of Heroin (or anything) due to the quantity cooked up or a higher purity level. Most junkies die because of a change in the quality of their usual supply. If the quality gets worse, there’s no problem, just a lot of pissed off junkies, but if the purity gets better and someone uses the amount they usually use, it can be too much and kill them. This happens in NY a lot where the stuff from overseas varies in consistency.

4

The Cat Is In The Bathroom

5

Apple With Milk Is Good

6

Let us seize sweet things; for, indeed, after death you will become ashes and a story.

—Persius

Content

sam paul
WHY I COMMITTED SUICIDE

PART I SUMMER ’93, DEAD SHOWS and LIFE

PART II TRAVEL, HABITS and LIFE

PART III THE ACCIDENT, JAIL TIME, SUICIDE and LIFE

PART IV THE REST

Copyright

ENDNOTES