Lost And Looking For Home

He turned out the light on the front porch and put the bowl of chocolate bars and licorice strips on the counter in the kitchen. It was over for another year and that was fine.
It had become more and more difficult with the passage of time. The kids were less interested in the blood and the gore and more interested in the candy. He'd heard them groan as he dropped, what in his day would have been a brilliant treat, into their bags, full sized pillow cases, half full and heavy with enough candy to rot the teeth of an entire generation.
And the costumes really were bad. Who the hell is afraid of a secretary or a doctor? Where were the raving marauders, their axes heavy with the greasy blood of their enemies or the mad scientists, a pulsing heart in one hand and a jagged saw-toothed blade in the other or the carrion feeders who relied on the offal that slipped unheeded from the bellies of the freshly slain?
But then, he had changed too, over the years.
The bonfires were prohibited now, as were the depictions of crucifixions that used to hang from the eaves. He'd been forced to put down the werewolves, removing the skins they wore so proudly and forcing them into human shape before he'd cut their throats and left them for the buzzards. And the most heart-wrenching, for him, he'd had to let loose the harpies, whose chains had been so slick with human blood that he'd been forced to cut them with a blow torch and had singed the feathers of one. That had cost him an eye. He wasn't in the mood for what the changing mores of polite society dictated.
As he blew out the last of the candles he looked at the sky and was saddened that his sisters, once so feared, were now a joke and likened to childless old women and thought powerless and weak. The wind that brushed past him held no hint of sulfur and the moon shone clearly without a hint of red and he let out a long sigh and went inside.
In the kitchen he opened the closet door, absently putting the padlock into the pocket of his robe and from the shelves he took up his favorite tools. He turned at the sound of padded feet and straightened in hesitation and fear. The cat jumped from the floor onto the table and sniffed the air tentatively and then wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"One of them has soiled himself." the cat said.
"I'm sorry, Master, they have weak constitutions. They are a faint-hearted race. I will finish them quickly." he said, nervously.
"No, you fool. Remember, Gohtar, do not kill them, just make them remember this night for the rest of their pitiful lives. In fear resides pure power. Remember that." and with that the cat leapt to the floor and padded out of the room.
Gohtar exhaled a ragged breath of relief and continued with his selection. Then he replaced the padlock and shuffled to the top of the stairs.
As he descended to the chamber he began to hum a happy little tune, one that his victims would be sure to remember for the rest of their miserable lives, but even that comfort felt hollow. Nothing was the same anymore. Perhaps the world really was changing and perhaps there really was no going back, but for as long as his master commanded him to persuade the terrified cries of these miserable beasts out of their blood choked throats, and as long as he believed that they could still open the door, he would do his Master's bidding. Gohtar paused before he reached the bottom step and rested his heavy body against the wall. 'I hate this place' he sniffled, 'I just want to go home.'

Home Coming

"Father" said the Hound in greeting.
Lugh appeared from the darkness and sat beside Cuchulainn in the long grass that covered the hillside, high above the fort.
"Why are you here, on this of all nights?" asked Lugh.
"It's part of my penance. You know that." answered the Hound.
Lugh said nothing to this but bowed his head and let out a great sigh.

After a moment, Lugh rose up and turned to his son and said, "Setanta, you have served your penance, you fulfilled that promise long ago. It's time to come home."
"Home?" answered Cuchulainn, "Father, I am home. It's my duty to guard this hill, this night especially. They fear the Tuatha de Danann and the Bean Sidhe, and I am bound to fulfill my duties to them."
"And what night is this." Lugh said, softly, watching his son's face.
"It's Samhain, Father, you know that."
"And what happens on Samhain, Setanta?"
"The Sidhe open and the two worlds join. The dead return to the world of the living and walk among us." Cuchulainn recited, like a child at his lessons. His eyes were glazed over and he seemed to be looking at something far in the distance, something Lugh could not see.
"And me, Setanta? What of me?" said Lugh.

Cuchulainn turned to look at his father. His father's eyes were bright and fixed and in them Cuchulainn began to see the reflections of a great war and the glory that his father had won in battle and the might with which he had wielded the spear and then Lugh's eyes clouded and Cuchulainn saw his father's death at the hands of one of the sons of the Dagda and he reeled in confusion. And then Cuchulainn saw his own life unfolding, from his birth to the years of training in Scotland and the face of Ferdiad, his foster-brother, who had stood beside him so many times in battle. And finally before the light in his father's eyes faded completely he saw his own death, tied to a pillar of stone and the face of Lugaid, his enemy, as the spear found the heart of Ulster and his eyes opened wide in recognition.
"No." said Cuchulainn, "how can this be?"
"It is Samhain, Setanta. The dead return to the earth for one night."
"And we are dead, Father?" the Hound asked. He lowered his head and Lugh saw that he understood.

"Hundreds of generations have come and gone since you joined me in death, Setanta. Look around you." Lugh swept a hand across the vista in front of them. "Look and see. These aren't the fields you remember from childhood. There is no fort anymore. This is a city now. Look at the lights, how they glare against the darkness pushing back the unknown and the fear. This isn't the land that you guarded in your youth, but a strange land that has grown up where ours once stood." Cuchulainn listened to his fathers words and as the truth of them became apparent, Lugh said, "Come with me. Let's go and see what these people have done with what we taught them. Let's go have some fun ."
The Hound stood, and for a few minutes he could see the hills he had climbed in his youth, and the rough stone walls of the house, and he could hear the plaintive calls of the cattle, out of site, in the pastures behind him. And then that vision faded and he looked at the grim buildings of concrete and steel that stood before him, now. The world was gray and bleak and he could sense the disassociation they held high as a standard of strength and pride and he felt saddened that so much had been lost to the passage of time.

He looked again at his Father who was unchanged, despite the passage of the centuries, and who stood with a hand outstretched for him and he took it and let himself be led down the hill and into the city, where for one night, every year, the doors of the Sidhe open and the dead can walk once again among the living.

It All Turns On A Dime

The blister packing had been punctured and that was why, he supposed, that the big red "Sale" sticker had been stamped over the price. He looked around for a smock, the uniform of employees and found none within range. His frustration grew, as he wheeled up and down the aisles cursing that the specifics he was searching out weren't listed on the over-hanging signs, as the old women, who avoided the place after five, crowded the passages with their carts, left sideways in front of the soup and pasta section, and as the cheerily indifferent cashier explained that "Sale" meant only ten percent off and not the fifty he wanted.
The days, when his soft-scented recollections were thin, were the worst. The bleak sky represented his mood, the stripped bare trees represented his soul, the whiteness of the road represented his bleached suppositions of optimism and he shut the door on it all and sat, unseeing, while the television filled his head with illusions of importance.

Later, while the chemical surrogates chimed in his veins, he laughed. Then he wondered why he had laughed. Then he stopped wondering why and laughed again.

Outside, the vista shifted and instead of decrepit houses and time stained corpulence, there emerged tendrils of contentment, nothing more, and he turned the television off and went to sit on the veranda. While the breeze, which picked up the scent of the cigars and body odour, trickled up the steps, he sought out and found those other refugees, hundreds of them, gazing out into the night and he felt hope, for the first time that day. They all sat, some smoking, some just sitting, while their vanities slept and their truculence dissolved, and he felt something of a connection.

"It all turns on a dime." he said out loud and his neighbour, who had been sitting back in the shadows and out of the light of the street, answered, "You got that right."

Wrecked

When the dust cleared and it became apparent that he wasn't injured, Silas looked around at the wreckage and breathed a sigh of relief. He crawled out from behind the airbag and fell onto the sidewalk, where the car was perched at an odd angle. The street was strangely quiet as if the noise of the accident had silenced the creatures that hide in the windows and doorways, like crickets in a field.
Despite the fact that the collision had let loose a magnificent contatenation of sounds, which escaped and pounded out over the city blocks around him, he wondered that fear could hold human curiosity so neatly in check.
He felt a trickle of blood winding its way down his forehead and wiped it away with the sleeve of his jacket. He sent a message of thanks to whoever held his fate in hand and that there hadn't been anybody on the street at that hour.
When, finally a police car pulled up, he struggled to his feet, aware that the shock he could feel pulling at his consciousness was gaining control and then he blacked out.
They didn't arrest him until he had received medical treatment but by then he had assumed responsibility, anyway. There was no denying that he was drunk; the bottles, that had spilled out onto the pavement when the casing of the car had cracked wide, couldn't be denied.
The tow-truck pulled his car from its metal hammock and the city workers used a mini-crane to straighten the pole, but they couldn't erase the traces left, that despite being barely recognizable, stood glaring in the sun, the next morning.
The crickets came out, then, to watch the last of the clean-up, to commiserate with their brothers, to pretend they were living while it happened, instead of crouched in fear, not of the physical danger that had been present but because of the overwhelming need to be invisible and hidden in the dark when reality intruded on them and shook them into awareness.
And then they turned away and forgot about it. And the city came to life.

Politics

The turgid ramblings of the street prophets have been silenced for the time being. That's alright. They're usually wrong anyway. If you need to know the score, look to the billboards and traffic lights. They'll tell you all you need to know about how long this rat trap will stand. And so the slippery and half-seen shades of discontent that crouch in corners and whisper about the blackness will be swept away as sun goes down, in reverse of the natural order. Government town.

I've read about places where a man can be free and mostly disbelieved what is said but someday, when I can no longer stand the sight of my own withering complexion, I might go there, just to see if they were telling me the truth. You see, I suspect that everyone lies much more than they need to, much more than is healthy. I understand, all too well, the very human need to extinguish even the idea of progress. I blame the mass hypnosis promulgated by the lecher crouched on the hill. The blaze on the horizon, that must be licking the bottom of creation by now, seems so far away as to be nothing more than a mirage of (hope, I was about to say) deception. I know that now.

A girl I once knew told me she wasn't going to be a victim anymore, while waving around the flags of aggression. I told her that the only people who have a problem with zealots are zealots and she never spoke to me again. Perception is nine-tenths reality.

You Don't Know Jack

He punched her in the face and a bruise was born that would cover the left side of her face, almost completely. She'd lost consciousness for a minute or two and dreamt about the time the cat had stalked a mole half-way across the yard before disemboweling it. When she woke up, he was crying and trying to put the spilled pasta back in the bag.
I am a vector of transitional thought, loose and free. And you sit in a squalid walk-up crooning about past hurts and collapse at the sight of blood.
There was only one thing to do. I took him into the desert and made him dig his own grave, just like in Casino, and he pissed himself before he was done. At least I wanted to, but she wouldn't let me.
Instead I drove her home to Syracuse and left her with Manny and Isabel. She'll be alright, there.
I like to drive at night. I like to pick a long, straight road and turn off the lights. I can see the heavens unfold like a black angel spreading its wings and sink my teeth into the horizon and pull. Faith is a word and faithful is a feeling. I distrust them both.
It took me two days to get home but by then I had a plan. He was still there, sitting on the couch, feeling sorry for himself. He wasn't happy to see me. Nobody is. I'm a vector of transitional thought, loose and free.

Super Murray

They arrested Marco outside the building on March 3rd. That was three days after he'd let himself be videotaped while holding up a convenience store in the Trough. As soon as I heard I went down to Alice's apartment and found them all crowded into her living room. Alice was an active member of the Tenants' Association and had become the centre of activity in the building. As it was I was the enemy.
"Mom, the Super's here." her other son, Josh, yelled from the door.
"I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am, Alice." I said as she came down the hall.
"Murray, you just can't help yourself, can you?" she said, her voice quivering with barely concealed rage.
"Alice, I just came by to say I'm sorry, that's it."
"Well stick it in your ass, Murray. I don't need you feeling sorry for me, right now."

When the feds caught Walker Casey, in 903, cheating on his taxes the Tenants' Association voted to have him turfed and he left without much of a fight. I was curious to see what would happen now that one of their own was in trouble. It looked to me like they were closing up ranks but before long the cracks appeared and they came to me one day, without Alice, and told me she'd been voted off the committee. They wanted her out of the building, too.
"With that other one still living with her it's only a matter of time before something happens and we just don't feel safe knowing that there is a criminal element amongst us." That was the official line. These were not people who you showed weakness to.
This isn't a high end building. I mean, it's nice and I do my best to keep up with all of the problems but it's not Shangrila.
Alice handed in her notice later that week and I felt pretty sick about it. She'd never caused any problems and even her sons, who were a little wild maybe, had never been a concern of mine. I asked her what she was going to do now and she just said, "I'm moving, Murray."
"But where will you go?" I asked her.
"What do you care, Murray? Really."
I told her that I hoped she found something nice and not too expensive.

The next day I went up to her apartment to do the obligatory inspection. The place was immaculate. I hadn't been in the apartment since before she and her sons had moved in . I'd never been called to fix a leak or patch a hole. And yet someone had done some very nice work in there. Crown moldings had been added in the living room. The hard wood floors had been sanded down and stained and the tiles in the kitchen, instead of the standard linoleum, were now a very nice faux granite. It was the best looking apartment I had seen in this building and I've been around awhile. When I told her how impressed I was she barked at me, "I'm not some low-life Murray. I'm not a criminal." and I let her alone.
She stopped me at the door, just as I was leaving and apologized.
"You've never been anything but polite to me. It's just that I'm under a bit of stress right now, with Marco. He's not co-operating with the police and I'm afraid they're going to put him in jail." She leaned her head on the wall, looking up at me and I realized that she was a very beautiful woman. She looked tired, though, and I felt bad for her.
"Y'know that the Tenant's Association's recommendations are only that: recommendations."
"And stay here? Most of my neighbor's won't even look at me, Murray."
"Yeah," I said, "it would be tough, but I could put in a good word for you, Alice. They listen to me sometimes. Besides, the owner's do like to stick it to these tenants every now and again." I said with a smile. She smiled back at me, but she was too weary and too tired to answer.

Three days later she came to the office and told me she was staying.
"I fought their battles and now that I need them they've turned their backs on me. Well, screw them, Murray."
"Good for you, Alice. " I said, and I meant it. I was happy to hear her say that. Sometimes you just have to dig in your heels.
We talked about Marco then and she told me that he'd be on probation for two years.
"He was the lookout, the stupid idiot. He's a good kid, Murray, he just got caught up in something he couldn't get out of."
I myself have been in trouble with the law once or twice. I knew Marco would be alright. He was a good kid. This neighborhood just isn't what it used to be.
"You're a widower aren't you?"
That caught me off guard. My wife died seven years ago. She stepped off a curb in the Market and the driver hadn't seen her until it was too late.
"When was the last time you had a decent meal?"
"I'm not a complete idiot in the kitchen, y'know, Alice." I said, but I let myself be invited over for dinner anyway.

Eventually the frost eased up and Alice, to her credit, never let any of her neighbors make her feel guilty about the whole incident. She still had a lot of friends in the building and now I'm happy to call myself one, too.
Maybe we're a little more than friends, but for now it's good and for once in my life I feel like I'm happier than I have been in a very long time.

Stairway to Heaven

I had a beautiful vision this morning. I was sitting on the edge of a fountain when I heard a voice and looked up. Coming towards me, calling my name, was a tall, regal looking woman, who was as naked as it gets. She said something or other about the future and she made me repeat it back to her. Then she got mad at me because I wasn't paying attention to what she was saying. She was very uptight for a vision who walks around with no clothes on.
Without some sort of vision for the future, you're pretty much destined to find a comfortable chair and relax for the rest of your life. Living 'in the moment' is fine if you happen to like what's going on in that moment. That's why you don't find many enlightened people in line at the bank, but if you do you can bet they're the ones who don't mind if you butt in front of them.

The mystical experience of life is something that most of us are missing. When you wake up every morning with a headache, late for work, driving an old piece of shit car and wondering how you'll ever retire on what you have saved up, you're not likely to stop and look around in wonder at the world or anybody in it. And yet the most curious of superstitions still persist.
The reason hockey players don't shave during the playoffs is the same kind of thinking that makes you lift your feet as you cross a set of railroad tracks. Knocking on wood is a ritual that persists when talking about the future and consider what you're doing when you cross yourself after something ugly happens to you. I personally know people who believe that they will be rescued from a burning lake of fire by God but wouldn't cross the street to help out a neighbor. It's all about what happens next, isn't it.

The root of the problem stems from the fact that we don't know why we're here. We didn't have anything to do with it. We woke up, one day, and found we had a family, lived in a house, had cereal for breakfast every day and a dog that humps the cushions on the couch.
But the afterlife is all ours. It's something we created and it can be anything we want. Everybody has their own version of heaven and it usually contradicts our neighbors' idea of it. There's only one planet Earth but there are millions and maybe billions of personal heavens somewhere out there, each one marked by a sign post that says something like, "Mike's Heaven. Trespassers will be prosecuted."

In the very grey zone that exists where science meets spirituality, you'll find people who are looking into the basic components of existence and they're agreeing that what we call home seems to be both a very practical place, where flat tires are the norm, and a place where thoughts and ideas become reality, where thinking something makes it possible. It's the proving ground for the axiomatic, "Be careful what you wish for." In short, it's no wonder you have a bad day when all you do is think about what a bad day it's going to be.

If you really believe that there is a fate or destiny attached to you, that you are something special and deserve a better life, it seems reasonable to assume that you might have something to do with bringing it to fruition, no? I think we can discount the people who have been driven insane by the pressures of life, and who spend their time trying to subvert whole countries and eradicate people whose beliefs don't coincide with theirs , just so they can afford to put gas in a monster truck that spits poison into the atmosphere and will destroy the planet. Those people are nuts. But you and me? We have to get by on what we've got, and what we've got is this:

If you believe that there is a God, then God exists. Easy enough. If you have faith that people are essentially good then they are. If you believe you will have a good day, then you will. If you believe that you can be happy then you will be happy. But you're not. You don't believe that last one, do you? It's time to ask yourself, "Why?"

I'm going back to bed. Maybe I'll have another vision. And this time I'm going to listen.

Hey, the spell checker just told me I didn't spell anything wrong today. That has to mean something. It's a sign.

Always A Moral

I loved going to work with my Dad.
"Let me tell you a story." he said.

A long time ago, in the vicinity of the Echoing Sand Mountain, near to where Lo-tsun saw the spectacular display of sunlight but before he had begun to carve the first of the Caves of a Thousand Buddhas, there lived a young couple who, although very happy, were also very poor.
Every day they would leave their miserable hut and go into the mountains to gather firewood. Every day they gathered two bundles of wood, one for their own use and one to sell, so that they could buy rice to make porridge.
One evening, after they had collected enough wood to sell, and after leaving the extra bundle in the courtyard, as they usually did, they settled into a long night's sleep. When they woke the next morning they discovered that someone had crept in while they slept and stolen the extra firewood.
All of their work had been for nothing and that day they redoubled their efforts to make up for the loss. The next day they discovered that the extra bundle they collected had also been stolen. They were perplexed by this and promptly went out to collect more wood.
After a week had gone by, and after seven bundles of firewood had been stolen from their courtyard the wife pleaded with her husband to do something.
"You idiot." she said, "How many bundles do we have to lose before you put a stop to this."
He thought about it and decided that he didn't want to lose another bundle of wood, so he hatched a plan to arrange himself inside an extra bundle of wood and wait for the perpetrator.
He lay awake, through most of the night, and just before dawn a rope came down out of the heavens and attached itself to the bundle. It was hoisted up through the air and landed at the Gates of Heaven. The man lay perfectly still, hoping to see who had been stealing his wood and soon an old man came along and picked up the bundle.
"I must be getting old," said the Emperor of Heaven, "These bundles of wood are getting heavier and heavier."
And at that moment the man burst from the bundle and accused the Emperor of Heaven of being a thief.
The Emperor of Heaven was dismayed by this and said, "Why do you collect two bundles of firewood each day if not to warm the Emperor of Heaven?"
The man explained why they collected an extra bundle of wood each day and that he and his wife had not eaten in a week because of the theft.
The Emperor of Heaven laughed when he heard this but took pity on the man and said, "Well, I suppose I should pay you for your wood, then."
"Damn straight." said the man, knowing that if anyone could afford it, the Emperor of Heaven could.
The Emperor of Heaven took the man into a large hall filled with bags of jewels and money and said to the man, "Take any bag you want. This will be my payment for your wood."
The man couldn't believe his luck and because he was a greedy man he chose the biggest and heaviest bag there was. The old man stopped him on the way out and said, "The only condition is that you can only take one coin from the bag every day and no more."
When the man returned home with the bag of money his wife was overjoyed. She considered the Emperor of Heaven's restriction reasonable and began to collect the coins that her husband pulled from the bag, one at a time, until she had a sizable stack of them.
"It's enough for an ox." he said one day.
"Dream on. I'm saving to build us a better house." she answered. Time passed and the pile of coins grew larger.
"It's enough for some cows." he said one day.
"Get your hands off that money or I'll break your arm." she answered. And the pile of coins grew larger.
"Surely it's enough to build a house now." he said one day and she relented. She gave him the pile of coins to buy the supplies they would need but instead of coming back with wooden beams and thatch he returned with bricks and mortar.
"Are you completely daft?" she said to him. "That's not enough to build a kennel much less a house."
"My pet," he said, "do not worry. Each day, as we pull a coin from the bag I will use it to buy more supplies until the house is finished." and there wasn't much she could say to that.
Before long, however, he realized that the house would never be done before the wind started to howl down from Echoing Sand Mountain and he decided that he needed to take more than one coin a day from the bag. He reached for the bag and, after he had taken one, he reached in again and withdrew another and then he reached in and drew out a third. When he reached in for a forth time he found the bag empty and he heard a wail go up from behind him.
"What have you done, you witless moron?" and he turned to see his wife standing on the threshold of their old thatch hut. All of the bricks and mortar were gone.
The man fell to his knees and pleaded with the Emperor of Heaven for another chance but his cries went unheeded and he was forced to go back to collecting firewood, an extra bundle every day, so that he could sell it at the market to buy rice to make porridge.

"I don't get it." I said.
"You asked me why your Mother is always mad at me." said my Dad.
"Yeah, but I don't get what this story has to do with you or Mom."
"Someday you will, son. Now stop asking me so many questions and start picking up wood." he said.
I looked around but didn't see any wood and for the rest of the afternoon my Dad just leaned on the Deli-counter, looking out onto 7th Avenue.

My Dad was a very weird guy.

The Grove

I slipped away from the house after dinner. The confusion in the kitchen allowed me go unnoticed and I followed the path that led from the back door down to the river. I ducked under the low branches of the willow that overhung the shore and untied the boat and climbed in.
The water was almost black in the failing light and along the shore I could vaguely make out the incandescent hues of spider fungus and Aletheusis, just beginning to give off its supernatural light. I paddled upstream, pushing hard against the current, aiming the boat at the opposite shore. I could barely see the shape of Morgan's' tree against the darkening sky and knew I'd have trouble finding my way back, unless I waited until the morning light could guide me.
I leapt into the shallow water and pulled the boat up on the sand under the tree and tied it off.
The shadows here were darker and my eyes strained to pick out the void between the rocks; the path to the top of the hill.
This was where I came when I needed to be alone, or when something needed to be done, and tonight I was there for both reasons. I'd had a dream the night before and as I walked through the house, my house, I'd stepped on something soft and pliable and when I looked down I saw that it was a small mouse. I'd crushed its spine and killed it. This is where I came to bury bad dreams.
When I reached the grove I had to tear away some of the vines that had crept in and over-grown the open space. The light was poor but the sky was beginning to take on its lunar glow and by the time I had dug the grave the moon had come into view.
I reached into my pocket and withdrew the package, feeling for the contents in the dark, and I dropped it into the hole. I gently covered it with loose dirt and then lay my hand, palm down, on the mound. I whispered some words into the night and then cleaned the ground around the other markers I'd left there, some going all the way back to my childhood. A life time of bad dreams buried, mourned and left here as a token to the lost nights, spent feverish and alone.
When I had finished my cleaning I looked up and knew that I would have to wait until morning before going back, that or risk missing the landing and having to plod upstream looking for the house.
I lay down among my memories and wished for a deep and trouble free sleep, knowing that once buried they were harmless and their power broken. The newest, and the last, the most troubling of them all, because, in the manner of dreams, I knew that that small mouse, darting here and there, looking for escape, only to be crushed to death was me. It needed a decent burial.
I watched the branches of the trees waving back and forth across the black blue sky, leaving trails and after-images in my mind, until my eyes closed on their own and sleep overcame me.

Eight Ball

I never knew that I liked L.A. Woman by the Doors until she wandered over to the juke-box and played it. I took my shot and waited for her to come back. She didn't even make it half-way across the room before some drunk old pecker stood in her way and asked her to dance. I stood up a little straighter, wondering if I was going to have to step in and break it up, but she pointed to the end of her cue and then she pointed between the guys legs and he got the message and sat down. She hadn't said a word. They all knew her, though, and the game was played out on a regular basis every time we were in there after that.
It's hard to date a woman that everyone wants to be with.

I grew up on the road, learning how to play pool from club owners and strippers. The one time I went to a real pool hall I was confused by the 'real' rules because I'd never played on a table that you didn't have to feed coins into. When she asked me to play I decided I'd better take it easy on her. By the time she'd beat me three games straight I knew I was in love.

We didn't have much, in those days. She clipped coupons from the paper and I hustled a little on the market. The university kids were always easy because they had money and came down here to drink cheap beer. When she wasn't working she'd come in a half hour after me and challenge the table. After I'd beat everybody in the room she'd take the table from me and then we'd play another for show. After that they'd line up and let her take their money. Those were great nights, but mostly because I loved to see the looks on their faces when I'd leave with her on my arm. Not only did we take their money but every man in there wished he was me. That's a pretty good feeling.

She couldn't fall asleep unless she had her head on my shoulder and a hand on my chest. That's a pretty good feeling, too. There were times when all I could do was look at the ceiling and wonder how I could be so happy. She burned incense in the room and hung brightly coloured cloth over the lights and, despite the chill seeping in around the window's frame, we were warm, cocooned and together.

Yesterday would have been fifteen years. I say would have been because we're not together anymore. She used to come and visit for awhile but slowly, over the long months before the trial, and after, her visits became less frequent. I couldn't blame her, but that didn't make my nights any less painful. I could see it in her eyes and I knew I was in trouble. In one of the most incredibly stupid maneuvers of my life I told her to stop coming and get on with her life. Stupid, because I was wrong. There was never anyone else. At least not until I told her to leave me alone.

The last time I saw her, sitting across from me, behind the glass, she told me she was getting married. And she did. I wonder if she's happy. I hope she is. She deserves it after what I did to her. You see it wasn't the drugs, or the stealing, or even the jail time that she couldn't deal with. It was the fact that she had put everything aside, everything, to help me through this. Her life was turned upside down but she had managed, for awhile, but I let her down by thinking that she would rather be with someone else. It broke her heart.

She played to win and never made excuses for her game by blaming the table, but she couldn't fall asleep at night unless she had her head on my shoulder and a hand on my chest. Now I'm the guy whose eyes follow them out of the room, knowing that I've been hustled by the most beautiful girl in the room and I wish I was him.

End Times

I really shouldn't stay up all night reading 'end days' prophesies and apocalyptic interpretations of historical events. It's bad for my digestive system and I woke up this morning with a headache.

As a species, and in general, we have a morbid fascination with our own mortality. This has led, at various times, to people from all walks of life getting into the prophecy game. There are lots to chose from so I've thrown together a bunch just to see what happens when you mix and match human destiny with religious fervor and a pinch of mysticism. I have come up with the following.

From the Catholic Church's refusal to reveal the third prophecy of Lucia dos Santos, otherwise known as the 'Our Lady of Fatima' events, to the identification, by certain groups, of the European Union as the 'Seven Headed Dragon' to the revelation that the U.N., who is in the midst of trying to find a new leader, will become the world power ruled by Lucifer in disguise and will topple all forms of government but its own, I have gleaned that we are on the edge of an abyss into which most of us will be plunged as the war for the souls of mankind rages between the forces of Our Father, Who Art In Heaven, and his ungrateful and renegade Arch-Angel, Lucifer.

Generally, it goes like this:

By ignoring the third warning delivered by the Virgin Mary at Fatima, in 1917, and refusing to consecrate Russia, like they were told to, the Vatican has put us on the path to destruction. The Church will be overtaken by the 'anti-pope' who will bring about the destruction of that establishment. Then the European Union will emerge as the dominate power in the western world. The U.N. will assume world government and wage war on an unnamed Eastern Power (take a guess.) and the war of the Apocalypse will be engaged.

Pope John Paul 2, in Fulda, Germany in 1980, was caught a little off guard when he was asked about the contents of the third prophecy of Fatima said, more or less, "What good will it do you to know that the oceans will rise and destroy a bunch of us, and that the church will be subverted, millions will die and a world power, led by the devil, will annihilate the rest of us? But that's not what it says, it says we should all pray and be good. Seriously, I'm telling you the truth, here. It's a message of hope and all that stuff about pain and destruction was just a little joke. Get it?"

Things to watch out for:

1) The re-emergence of the Roman Empire-Done (see European Union)
2) One World Government led by the anti-Christ-Waiting to see what happens at the U.N.
3) One World Money System-Coming (I'm changing everything to Euros in anticipation)
4) The appearance of the Whore Of Babylon, who will rule beside the anti-Christ-Uncertain (variously referred to as the Church, Jerusalem, The Soviet Union, Queen Elizabeth [according to Rastafarians], The United States and Pauly Shore.)
5) Christ appears in Jackson County, Missouri-Not yet (This, according to the Mormons)
6) Christ becomes King of Heaven-Already happened (1914, according to the Jehovah's Witness')
7) The birth of the Buddha Maitreya-Uncertain (Buddhist's aren't saying, but not denying it either)

All in all, I intend to keep a watchful eye on things, although I don't know that it will do any of us any good to get ourselves in a knot over it. I should probably be paying attention to things a little closer to home, like the price of gas, the monopoly Roger's is building, Stephan Harper's weight, and that smell coming from behind the stove.

Oh, and if I'm wrong, just ignore this and chalk it up to a little indigestion.

Something Special

"Are we poor?"
Nelson Tubbs looked up at his mother from the the dinner table as he asked this. Eunice Tubbs had her back to him and he thought he saw a slight stiffening in her shoulders as he asked his question. She didn't say anything, instead she shoveled the dry biscuits onto a plate, waiting, maybe, for an answer from the wheezing blob at the head of the table.
"Mom?"
"What, Nelson?" she said, pretending to inspect her latest creation. The biscuits sat quietly on the plate, trying to look innocent without much success. I'm making biscuits with powdered milk, she thought, you tell me if we're poor. But she didn't say it. Instead she said, "Ask your father."
"Hey, Dad? Are we poor?"
Donald Tubbs said nothing and seemed not to have heard. Nelson watched the paper in front of his father's face, waiting, but the paper didn't move except for one quick snap as a page was turned.
"Aren't you going to answer your son?" said his mother.
"Uh huh." from behind the paper, "Yeah."

Nelson tuned out the argument and when he was finished his dinner he left the table and went to his room. He had never known that his family was poor but Ritchie Clark had told him he was, that afternoon, after school. Sometimes Ritchie Clark was allowed to have friends over to play in his basement before dinner. Nelson liked going to Ritchie Clark's house because Ritchie had nearly every G.I. Joe that there was. He also had the jeep and the helicopter and the base, but he wouldn't let Nelson play with those, just in case he broke them. Ritchie Clark always made him play with the blond haired G.I. Joe, who wasn't as cool, but Nelson might have done the same if Ritchie ever came over to his house to play and if Nelson had more than one G.I. Joe.
That was how Ritchie knew he was poor, Nelson thought.

Eunice Tubbs sat long into the night, with only a small lamp to illuminate the room, her fingers working, abstractly alone, on the sweater as she considered her options. She wondered how things could have turned out so wrong for her. There was a time when she had considered herself very lucky, but that memory had been left to gather dust while she struggled to make ends meet with the pitiful allowance she got from the silent, brooding, selfish man she'd pinned her dreams to. No longer, did she smile at the memory of her girlfriends giggling when he came into the room or at the anticipation she felt as his car pulled into the yard wondering when he would ask her the only question she wanted to hear. And now she knew that the truth was out there, on the lips of everyone in town. She was poor and there wasn't a goddamned thing she could do about it. She put down her needles and turned out the light but stayed in her chair, looking out the window and eventually fell asleep dreaming of the day she met him, the day she'd lost herself in his dreams and drowned in his arms.

Donald Tubbs sat at the end of the bar absently mopping up the condensation from the glass with the sleeve of his shirt. He thought about her, her eyes hard and her mouth twisted into a grimace as she cut him open and lay out his pride, right there in front of the ungrateful little bastard. He thought about the long days he spent in the sun, breaking his back for them, all so that he could come home and be treated like a criminal. 'You don't even give me enough to feed us properly' she had screamed into his face. Where did that come from? They ate every night, under his roof, at his table, and they had the nerve to complain about it. This is my life, he thought.
He looked around the room. It was quiet tonight. There was one other couple in the place and they were leaning drunkenly on each other as he whispered into her ear and she giggled at everything he said. Donald wanted to go over there and slap the man stupid, telling him to get out while he could, before she trapped him and pinned him with kids, a mortgage and expectations he could never fulfill.
He finished his beer and wobbled to the front door, searching his pockets for the keys. Behind the wheel, he started the car and then shut it off again. He leaned his head on his hands and than felt a wave of nausea rising up from his stomach and with a heaving flush of self-loathing, he punched the wheel, immersing himself in the pain and waiting for it to transform his guilt into anger. But it didn't come tonight, the anger. Instead, it dissolved into nothing, leaving him quiet and alone. This life is a quiet killer, he thought, and now so am I. He started the car again but before he could slip it into gear another wave of dizziness raced up his spine and he slipped into unconsciousness and slumped over on the front seat, the engine still sputtering into the night.

"Hi, Mom." chirped Nelson as he sat down at the table. She set a bowl of cereal in front of him and he dug in hungrily, not stopping until the last Shreddie was gone and then he tilted the bowl and drank the milk left in the bottom.
"Did you sleep okay?" she asked him, watching his eyes as they moved to the empty chair at the other end of the table.
"Yeah. Where's Dad?" he said.
"Oh, he had to go into work early today. Nelson, are you sure you're okay? Are you still thinking about what Ritchie said to you yesterday?" Eunice tried to sound casual, sure her son would hear the fear in her voice.
"No. Ritchie Clark is a jerk. He just thinks that because he has lots of toys, he's better than me. But I got eighty-eight on my spelling test and he only got a seventy-three. And he got in trouble yesterday for talking in class." Nelson took his bowl to the sink and rinsed it out.
"Mom?"
"Yes, Nelson?"
"I don't care if we're poor. I got lots of toys and a lot more friends than Ritchie Clark." he stood, legs apart, waiting for her to finish putting his peanut butter sandwiches into his lunch box.
Eunice Tubbs thought about what he'd said long after he'd climbed onto the school bus and long into the morning, as she washed the dishes, and long into the afternoon, as she sat knitting her sweater, and then she put it away and got up to see what she could find in the freezer for dinner. Something special.