Untitled

It becomes

(Or doesn't)

I've left artifacts behind.

Unearth them from the mess of your room,

lift them from under heaps:

shirts and socks

and books and papers.

Look back on them fondly if

(and when)

your prospects take you far from

this city.

Mixed cds

black with grooves inlaid--

a clever homage

to trendy vinyls.

(This isn't middle school.)

White paper bag once stuffed

with 14 packs of gum,

a pack a day,

since you quit

smoking.

Long white stitch

sewn

into your favorite shirt

when you looked up

sadly

fingering that tear

in the sleeve.

Slip into it and

(irregular tracks

pull across your skin)

remember me.

I wish I could be there to see

(a settler displaced)

the smile rest on your lips

like some satisfied archaeologist

stumbling upon a

secret

history.

This is Why I'm No Poet, But for Some Reason Keep Trying.

People like Hunter S. Thompson are monuments

are the ideal

the James Dean that lives

to old(er) age

we hardly ever get to witness

they burn themselves out

so recklessly that they fulfill that

'live fast die young' prophecy,

combust long before they get to 67.

Maybe '68 or '71 would have been more

appropriate.

He was out of His mind,

crazy because He lived past the point of excess,

those numerous points,

when He should have died.

 Those who cheat death have no other option but madness.

And the crowd will be there to cheer Him on all along the way.

He has the fortitude;

that of a junkyard cat born in a pool of gasoline,

most do not.

We live vicariously, because if we ourselves went past that point,

we WOULD die.

The most accurate

and the least factual accounts of campaign trail coverage

People interviewed have said that

it was hard to tell what was factual

and what was His fantastical spin,

those things blurred constantly,

though seemed truthful in all its fabrication.

They say that He was so wacked and spastic that He seemed impervious to any high, because His behavior never altered.

He was born altered.

He became something of a superhero.

But maybe

because we don't know fabrication from reality,

persona from person

maybe He'd been moderate this whole time,

pulling back like a tide when necessary

careful and calculated

and when He lit up,

maybe it was just tobacco,

and maybe that brown water on ice was tea instead of Wild Turkey,

maybe that pill was a breath mint,

and maybe that drop of a book in the next room

rang out as the only escape of a tired, tapped out man--

but that doesn't much matter.

Perception is everything.

Believe what you want,

but question everything first--

Then decide which reality works for you.

I think we, the gen pop,

are just dullards,

husks just waiting to be swayed by an inspirational wind.

We are born believing we could be that.

We grow,

begin to think we have potential.

Could we be that forceful wind? Maybe

 if we try hard enough?

The American Dream is imprinted upon us

in our baby skull soft spots,

we are coddled by it

like it was the stuffing in our mothers' viscera.

Could we be the right person

born at the right time?

Meant to chronicle the campaign trail

the era

the absurdity and despair,

of all the crookedness that hid in Nixon's eyebrows and squints.

Or was He just pretending?

Those jerky hands,

that meanness and matter-of-factness in His voice,

the recklessness

that fascination with guns,

all 22 of them fired

with abandon

when the mood was right

at His typewriter forlorn in Colorado snow

at bats.

Was He that animated from birth? And if so,

what chance do the rest of us have?

Once you realize you weren't the one

born with a charisma

and importance that was meant to excel the doldrums,

when you ARE the doldrums,

what else is left but to just give up?

Because to be amongst the crowd waiting for that person to come along

whose birth actually means something

is torturous,

and when that person actually emerges, and you have

to watch them perform,

watch everyone love them, follow them, praise them,

watch them be what you could never be

even with a lifetime's worth of effort,

that much resentment and humiliation

might as well be a loaded gun in your mouth.

A .45.

Bitterly peppered with silt and warm.

Football Season is Over.

GIVE UP.

Let's plan out our finales.

Do everyone a favor and know when your time is right.

Take your ticket and adhere to it.

And keep fantasizing

that one day You could have Your ashes blaze up into the sky

from the lit fuses of fireworks, leaping out

from a red double-thumbed fist

holding a peyote button. 

Dear You: Our Idols Don't Know Where They've Been

Dear You: Our Idols Don’t Know Where They’ve Been
(2nd DRAFT)

To create and send these beautiful things out into the world is a brave and often unrewarded thing.

--Blake Schwarzenbach, forgetters show@Bottom of the Hill

San Francisco, CA. 27January2010.

            I’m the kind of person who seems to get to things years too late. While I’ve felt an intense affinity for certain bands that’ve been with me through adolescence and into adulthood, chronicling and cradling me through the most pivotal times of my life (Jets to Brazil’s Perfecting Loneliness 2002, found at age 17), the times that I’ve felt deeply misanthropic (Jawbreaker’s 24-Hour Revenge Therapy 1994, ashamed of how late I came to Jawbreaker, age: won't tell you) or deeply delighted with the thrill of impending love(Jets, again Orange Rhyming Dictionary 1998, age 18), I haven’t nearly gone to enough shows to enjoy them in their reality. I’ve kept the bands I've loved in a bubble, intangible, on a pedestal—and for good reason.

            You see, the frontmen I've followed throughout band break-ups, side projects, and reunion tours don’t know all the places they’ve been:

1. Rusty baby blue vans with broken speedometers, singing along with my closest friends, competing with each other and the stereo deck at full volume.

2. Concrete basement slabs in Philadelphia watching a recording rehearsal of a friend of a friend's band as they played an impromptu tribute.

3. A friend's apartment after the bar kicked us out as he played songs from my favorite album for us to drunkenly sing ourselves asleep to.

4. My high school's "coffee house" night when I tried to cover a ballad to serenade my sweetheart, but got so nervous that I dropped my pick and forgot the lyrics, singing the same verse twice. (It was okay. My friends cheered anyway.)

5. The open trunk of a navy Jetta in a mall parking lot with a boy I began to love more with each duet we sang.

6. Escorting me down the streets every day, all snuggled up in my ears crooning through tiny metal mesh speakers.

            And while this might sound creepy, or like some sort of delusional projection, I've got an intimacy that the band isn’t aware of. So, bringing an idol up close and in front of my face at a show, having this strange one-sided intimacy with them is awkward in person, and ultimately saddening when they can’t connect to me the way that I've connected to them—like I said, they have no idea where they’ve been.

            And while Blake Schwarzenbach might be trying to tell us something by naming his current project forgetters, in trying to urge us to let go of Blake from Jawbreaker or Blake from Jets to Brazil, we can’t forget because we’ve been with him. And this current incarnation is still Blake, still that writing style that we’ve all been fond of throughout the years. And I mean, listen to "One Summer Last Fall" on Jets' Four Cornered Night album, and Blake'll admit he's done the same and "lived through a record, one summer last fall" and that the songs as they're perceived aren't necessarily the reality of the individual who produces them. There's a disconnect there, despite the desperation of fans to hold on to a rich, meaningful connection we've manifested from an overwhelmingly visceral response to something so moving.

            When I moved to Oakland from Pennsylvania this past summer, in some fantasy I’ve imagined since reading Kerouac’s On the Road, I’d never felt closer to Jawbreaker. More specifically, I’d never felt closer to the song “Condition: Oakland” especially now that I’m living here, having “just heard hot rods and gunshots and sirens”. Blake is known for admiring Kerouac, and quoting British Romantic poets on stage, has taught undergraduate English at Hunter College in New York, and is a fantastic poet.  The songs “Sweet Avenue” and “Sea Anemone” have been around for major parts of my life. Needless to say, I feel an affinity for the literary nerd rock and wordplay and reflective, mellow piano of the bands he’s fronted.

            So, one night while diddling around online, hoping to find some fantastic shows, I found that Blake's new band forgetters was playing at a tiny venue down the street from my grad program’s campus in just a few short days. The show wasn’t SOLD OUT and I was incredibly surprised. Maybe the Cult of Blake wasn’t privy to this appearance. There’s no way I wasn’t going.

        The day of the show, I woke up and checked the venue’s site again. Google search: bottom of the hill. Click on calendar. Scroll down a little to Jan. 27^th. SOLD OUT. Oh…my…god…NOOO.

        It seemed like a rigid verdict. I’d resigned myself to giving up, kicking myself for not purchasing a ticket online. What was wrong with me, thinking I could just waltz up and get in?! Stupidstupidstupid. I caught my school's free shuttle from the dorms off of Webster Street to my school's campus in San Francisco feeling so ANNNGGAAARGHY. There’s gotta be a way, I thought. All day in the graduate Writers’ Studio I teetered between begrudging resignation and hopeful inspiration. Could I sneak in? Magically get a ticket somehow? Bat my eyelashes and use whatever feminine charm? Ugh. No. Probably not. SOLD OUT. I convinced a few friends to go to a bar down the road for a few beers before their respective classes started, and figured I could maybe drown my sorrows a little and try to forget about Blake being a five minute walk away. But when they scattered, I was the only one left. If I wasn't going to buck up and try to get into this show, I should just go home.

        I walked back over to campus and gathered some groceries I’d purchased earlier in the day to catch the shuttle back to Oakland. As I walked to the shuttle, brown Safeway bag in hand and a red reusable cloth bag slung heavily over my shoulder, I checked the time on my ipod. 7:18. Shuttle leaves at 7:20. Cool. I made it.

        But I didn’t. The lights to that coach bus were already off inside and the door was shut. I stood on the wet curb and watched it leave without me, two minutes too early. Before I started the mile hike up 16th street to the BART station, I dropped the groceries off at the studio and went back to the bar by myself. Fuck it, I thought. I drank a couple of beers, read some Bukowski and smoked at a picnic table on the patio out back. Distracted, all I could think was: Blake Schwarzenbach is three blocks away and I’m not even going to TRY?! Really? I HAVE to try at LEAST. There's GOT to be a way.

        I finished my beer and left for the show with so much hopeful resolve, it hurt. If I couldn't get in tonight, my spirit might never recover. I walked the three blocks, found The Bottom of the Hill easily. No line. Yuuusss! There was a dude walking in. He was wearing a red checkered button down and looked like a tattoo artist I know back in Delaware. I walked in right behind him with a confidence that said I don’t need no stinkin’ tickets. I belong here. I gave my ID up to the sprightly, blonde pixie-haired woman on the stool, but the doorman ticket-taker stopped me. “Tickets?” he said. “I don’t have any. I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?” I meant pay money to get in, but I guess that could’ve sounded suggestive. More like, Is there anything I could suck? Totally meant it in all innocence, though. “We’re sold out.” He said. Ugh. I knew that. The guy I’d followed in saw me get turned away, leaned over the railing separating the INs from the OUTs and told me he’d phone a friend and see if he could get me in. Meanwhile, I had to wait outside.

        I leaned against one of the black awning poles at the curb and smoked, hoping someone would pass by and offer the spare ticket of a friend who wasn’t coming or something. But who WOULDN’T come? The blonde who was checking IDs bounced out to take a couple of drags off of a clove cigarette, looked at me and said “You’ll get in, darlin’. Keep trying. I’m feeling good tonight.” seeming to imply that if she was feeling good ENOUGH, she might let me in.  She sped back inside to check IDs as a small crowd made their way to the door. God, I hope she’s feeling good enough to let me in.

        I waited. Watched couples go in. Watched groups of friends go in. Watched the ID checker come back out to drag on the clove she’d left burning in her wire bike basket. Watched a couple. A couple. A group. Watched a guy come out in a snazzy fedora and tack up signs on either side of the door that said “SOLD OUT” on fluorescent green paper. It might as well have said “You’re Fucked” on it. The dude I followed popped back out to smoke a cigarette with his phone in hand. “I’m trying,” he said. “Hey, you can’t go outside once you’ve been in,” ID woman said. “We have a back patio for that.” He threw his cigarette and ducked back inside. Another couple. IN. A group of kids with slant haircuts and lip piercings. IN. One lone dude here and there. IN. A girl wearing a blue Jawbreaker shirt with the Morton Salt Girl graphic on it and her boyfriend by her side. IN. I was still leaning on the pole of the awning, begging the stars pleasepleaseplease let me get in tonight.

        The bands started setting up. I could hear the clanking of metal mic and drum stands, wires clattering to the ground, the checking of the drum heads. I could see the set up happening from a crack in the door that appeared every time someone who could get in did. This is such an awful tease.

        A tall kid with blonde hair came outside, leaned against the brick façade of the venue, facing me. I tried to look in need, but not pitiful. I sighed a couple of times, but avoided soliciting directly.  I had to send out a dejected look that said precisely what I was in need of without having to say anything. “Are you trying to get a ticket?” he said. I expected him to mock me like those green SOLD OUT flyers on either side of the entrance.

        “Yeah.” I said. “I kept checking back, the show wasn’t sold out til this morning.”

        “Well, hey, my friend has an extra one. One of our friends bailed. Just mention his last name.” He hesitated for a second, then threw his cigarette into the wet street. “Here, I gotcha.”  He said as he followed behind me.

        I walked up to the ticket taker with a boastful smile stretching across my face. My over-stimulated nerves made my teeth tingle with a painful elation, the electricity shot forcefully through my bones. I could feel my muscles tense and shudder like I was about to be bedded by a lover for the first time.

        “Ticket?”

        “Yeahyeah! This guy’s got me!”

        “See? I toldja.” said the woman taking IDs.

        “That’s my buddy over there! We’ve got a spare!” As he said that, his buddy who had his back to the ticket taker, but was still within earshot, turned around in his black sports jacket and pageboy cap, wearing sunglasses and questionably trimmed facial hair. He had black strips of hair extending from his mustache down to a goatee on his chin. He looked as ridiculous as the guy dubbed the “bad boy” from any 90's boy band.

        “I’ve got an extra. Put her on mine.” He said.

        “God thank you so much!” I said. I gave the ticket taker a smile and bounced on inside. I immediately hit the bar for a victory beer, and once I was all set, insides still quivering in nervous anticipation, I found the guy in the button down who’d been trying to get me in leaning against the wall adjacent to the stage.  “I got in!” I said flashing a toothy grin and raising my eyebrows, eyes widening, and readied my free hand for a high five.

        After a few minutes I wandered outside to the back patio, not sure what to do with myself now that I was here. I smoked a cigarette I didn’t want, because I’d smoked one after another while I was trying to appear purposeful waiting for that magical admission. I was nauseous, and made more so by the thick oily residue that clung to my hands, to my hair.  I had to appear as though I belonged there, had to calm down to avoid looking like some crazy zealot, had to keep my racing heart at a beat that wasn’t visible.  Everyone was talking to everyone else. Most people came in groups. I just came alone, so I looked around and let my eyes make small talk with all the show flyers stapled up the wall. Most were only stapled at the top, one at each corner, and the way they overlapped, hung so uniformly but billowing at the bottoms when a breeze came through, made me think of feathers on a large, punky bird. Forgetters posters for tonight’s show caught my eye. I wanted to steal one, but didn’t feel comfortable enough in this place to make a move like that, at least until later when I worked my way through the crowded patio to the wall of posters. I hid behind a tall potted plant that was about my height, turned to the two dudes sitting at a table I had to scoot past and said, "I'm camouflaged. You don't see me doing this right now," as I carefully lifted the poster from under its two staples. They just laughed and kept drinking their pints.

        I went back inside and listened to the two opening bands play. Bam Bam!, a duo of two lovely ladies, one on drums in a billowy DIY tank top and the other singing and playing guitar in a blue and burnt sienna plaid button down shirt and jean shorts over torn tights. Her get-up was pretty typical for the Bay Area, for the city scene in general. Her dark pin-up hair was slung back in a ponytail, her bangs cut straight across her forehead.  If quirkiness is the new "thing," what does it take to stand out against the homogenous crowd of scenesters anymore? Does one have to resort to a GWAR get-up or ICP Juggalo make-up? Or do I just have to be as plain and invisible as possible and wait it out?

        The Street Eaters were up next, another duo, a dude on the guitar and another impressive chick on drums and singing. They had the energy and dynamic of The Forecast, the tinny high timbre of the girl’s voice backing the dude’s; some parts were melodic, others consisted of solidarity-inducing war cries. It was fantastic, but these two bands weren’t what I was there for, so I listened half-heartedly. After each of these two bands broke down, the crowd thinned, to the bar, to the patio, and after each wave rolled out, I edged up closer to the stage. And a “stage” in a venue as intimate as this is basically just a few foot high wood riser jutting out of the corner of the room. I could taste the raw passion filtering wetly through the bands’ clothes as each act upped the intensity.

        The main event was upon me. This was it. I watched the sound people set up. I squinted at someone fiddling with the guitars, hooking the thick cables in to their bottoms and testing the strings. He looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure. He was dressed in a burgundy scarf hugging his neck and tucked into a brown leather bomber jacket. He was absurdly tall and had a free-wheelin’ mess of frizzled Bob Dylan hair. The squint-shut eyes, the prominent nose, the heavy thicket of eyebrows starting to gray, the lanky thinness of his frame, the trolling stance. Christ, that’s him! I thought. I could’ve easily missed him brushing past me in the crowd, buying a beer at the bar; I wouldn’t have recognized him. That’s Blake. Gravity jowled his face, pulled his cheeks closer to the ground. I forgot he’s 43 years old and still going. What a fucking champ! I thought.

        Everyone crunched in close to see the man we'd all been waiting for. forgetters barreled raucously through the songs on their EP. They had the rough edge sound of Jawbreaker-esque raw scraping guitar, the minimalist garage sound that comes from one bass, one guitar, and one drum set. But because the EP was new, at least to me, I wasn't able to sing along like I could to every Jets to Brazil song or Jawbreaker's "Boxcar" or "Kiss the Bottle," and it broke my heart a little. I secretly hoped, like all the rest of us, that he would play some throwback that would cause us to slam our bodies against each other. I shouldn't have expected it, and I'm a little ashamed of myself that I did. This isn't Jawbreaker or Jets to Brazil, this is forgetters, remember? Forget the past; forgetters are the present. You know, the moment we're supposed to be living in.

        "What's going on in Egypt?" one of us shouted.

        "That's a great question." Blake said as his bassist just nodded her head in agreement.  Given Blake's political awareness and involvement, that was a great question. He worked with Punk Voter before the 2004 Kerry/Bush election and had given antiwar speeches about the value of life when students at NYU led a walk-out in opposition to the Iraqi war, saying: "...if a missile can take out a person on the 10th floor of a building, doesn't that floor then fall through the nine below it and take down everything above it? Isn't each person an integral part of the overall architecture, a floor in the house of the world? American babies do not shine brighter than Iraqi or Palestinian babies; because the value of life is given a poor rate of exchange in the world market."

        From that desperate scream of a question, forgetters went on through the album, through "The Night Accelerates," "Not Funny," "Vampire Lessons" and "1982: Interdiction".

        I stared intently at the stage, at Blake, absorbing the performance, bouncing along in reserved spasms of foot and head. At one point between songs, he stopped and recited a passage from Hamlet, in which Hamlet's dead father describes being murdered by his own brother. Someone screamed out: "What about Shelley?"

        "You know, every poem I recite is one less song." said Blake.

        A Pabst-hammered kid in a black baseball cap started slurring the ending lyrics to "Too Small To Fail." "Suuuumone's guunnna luff me suuuumday! Suuuuumone's guuuunnnna luff me suuuuuuumdaaaaaay!" People around the kid got irritated, his friends were laughing and trying to hug him, pull him in close and keep him from bumping into the rest of us. One kid got irritated enough to threaten to kick his ass, he threw the tense-toned words over the heads of the people that separated him from the kid, but nothing came of it. I was glad for that. There's nothing worse than having some dickheads ruin the magic for everyone else because they feel like picking a fight to prove their machismatic superiority. Blake must've heard the kid slurring the lyrics, and to placate him played "Too Small to Fail."

        "Okay we're going to play a song that's brand new." said Blake.

        The bassist, Caroline, looked wary, her eyes widened behind her white frame glasses with surprise and maybe even a little fright, and said: "Yeah, like really new." As in we haven't played this yet, new. The stage lights cast a blue hue over the three on the stage, everything slowed like honey in an hourglass. The frequency of the guitar's noise sang now, lulled a melody. The chorus came: "You die by your own hand" Blake sang, with Caroline softly backing him, holding out the ooohhh in the "own" so her "hand" dropped just few seconds after his, echoing it. God, this gorgeous round, this moment, this one poignant phrase that I now felt like I couldn't live without, made my world richer by just having heard it.

        That wasn't the last song they played, but I was still thinking about that chorus through whatever came next: "You die by your own hand." The show stopped there for me.

            As they began breaking down, I noticed no designated crew came out to help them with all the equipment. He wasn’t whisked away behind a curtain (there was no real “behind a curtain” area here anyway) or rushing to get to the van, anticipating a deluge of fans. He was just there on stage, so incredibly accessible, dissembling all the tools of the trade with his band-mates. This is my chance. I thought.

            I hesitated at the thought of bothering him while he was just trying to pack up, but I approached the stage anyway, and simply said his name. "Blake!" He gave me the "just a moment" finger. I waited.

            He crouched down to the side of the stage to pay  me attention, and I pulled Starting from San Francisco from my black City Lights tote. It was a book of poems by Ferlinghetti, a peer of Kerouac's, and a promise I'd made to myself to start fresh and act courageous in the face of self-discovery when I got out here to the west coast. I asked him to sign the title page.

            He looked up at me. "But how are you going to get it out?" he asked, concerned for the book, probably hoping I wasn't going to do what I later did do and tear out the page with his signature. He hesitated, the book almost seeming too sacred to sully like that. I handed him a black bic pen from my bag.

            "No, no. It's okay," I said, and he printed his first name on the lower right quadrant in all uppercase like a typewriter: BLAKE.

            I wanted to say something witty and poignant and meaningful, something that could sum up everything I'd ever felt about his work in the most sincere way possible, but I couldn't. I never have had the foresight when it comes to things I know I should have said. "You have no idea where you've been." That should've been the thing to say, but when he signed the book and looked back up at me, all I could offer was "Thank you. For Jets to Brazil. For Jawbreaker. For everything."

            And with that he pressed his two hands to his chest and said, "Thank you." Then extended his left hand and held mine for a brief second, gently one-shaking it. I smiled and lowered my head and got outside as soon as possible to decompress, to breathe out the tears and the frantic ohmygodohmygodohmygod buzzing through my head.

            The guy in the button down shirt who'd tried to get me in was outside with the guy who was supposed to get me in. "Hey, here's the guy I was calling."

            "I was trying, sweetheart. But I couldn't get you in."

            "It's okay. I made it." I said.

            "I bet you're on cloud nine right now. Look at you!" said button down shirt guy.

            "Yeah." I said. "I feel pretty great right now." I grinned absurdly, Cheshire-like.

            I felt shamefully ridiculous getting as high as I was from this. After all, isn’t Blake Schwarzenbach just another person in the world striving to create beautiful things? Why wasn’t this dude as ecstatic as I was? Why wasn’t anyone else trying to talk to Blake? Shake his hand? Thank him? I guess I forgot how cool it is to be disingenuous and unaffected even if you’re bursting out of your skin. You don’t want to risk looking like some Tiger Beat Bieber-ite.

            It was 12:15. The last BART train across the bay was about to run in 5 minutes and I was nowhere near the station. I texted a friend in the Sunset and asked if I could crash on her couch, when she said that I could, I called a cab and paced from the poles I'd been leaning on so dejectedly earlier to the curb and back again, trying to let off the electricity racketing through my bones, this wild-eyed tooth-bearing exhilaration, accelerating me into the night.

            It was too foggy to recognize my friend's building from the cab, the cab driver doubled back and I called her to let her know I was there. In the doorway stood my half-asleep friend with a smile on her face, greeting me with a yawn and blankets on the couch. The cold leather stuck to my hot skin and I wondered how I was ever going to fall asleep. I didn't want to fall asleep. I wanted this night, this feeling, to stretch on through every day for the rest of my life. I put my glasses on the ottoman near the couch, and closed my eyes, smiling myself to sleep.

            Lately, I've been scouring the calendar pages of venues, trying to stay on top of the good shows so I’ll be prepared next time some idol of mine shows up. And I think I’ll keep the karma going, get an extra ticket for that lonely kid outside who’s just dying to get in, thanking their lucky stars that someone had a +1 so they can tell the idol they've been dying to hear, to touch, taste, smell and see: Thank you. You have no idea where you've been.

The Daughter of Charles (Char-) and Nancy (nai)

The Daughter of Charles (Char-) and Nancy (nai)

            A girl with long, slender legs (her thighs are probably about as long as her arms) with a tan, dusky complexion and blonde, piecey hair that touches just at her sharp V of a  jaw line, pushes her way out of the bottom floor of a sublet two-story house. There’s a light that’s left on upstairs, and Corey, her boyfriend, explains that the upstairs neighbor conveniently works third shift.  She and Corey share the bottom floor.

            She’s got a Smirnoff Ice in hand, and looks wild-eyed, or rather as wild as almond shaped eyes tinted underneath with sleepy bruising can look. She twists a smile from her thin lips. If anyone can flash a grin from ear to ear, it’s her.

            “Who wants to do a shot of tequila with me?!”

This is Charnai.

            She immediately becomes persistent and grabs at my hand like a little girl dragging her favorite stuffed teddy bear to an imaginary tea party. After looking for a minute for something more appropriate to put the tequila in, she settles on two mugs, one green and one orange, and begins pouring the Cuervo Gold.

            “Is that good?”

            The serving is generous, and more than a couple of shots worth, but she slams it back like it’s a single, not seeming to care. I sip cautiously, pop the top off of another Corona, and head to the bathroom.

            I sit down on the padded seat and see directly across from me a metal grated cart with Plexiglas shelves littered with a plastic display of eyelash extensions and a Cottonelle wet wipes container, recycled as a case for her various hair extensions, most blonde, but a few brunette pieces mixed in.  A curling iron, straightening iron, blow dryer, and hair dresser’s comb with its sharp end for easy parting mingled with each other, strewn about with cords intertwined and dangling to rest on one of the three levels of the cart. It made sense when a week later I was invited to her graduation from tech school, where she was studying cosmetology.

            I flush and head back to the group of people outside and notice that she’s hopping from one lap to the next, then finding others to dance with to the bass-cranked stereo that is kept on in the background, and finally she gets to me and throws herself down clumsily onto my lap, puts her arms about my neck and begins to tell me how much she likes me, despite this being our first meeting.  She was camera ready and with camera in hand. Playfully, we joke around about kissing--and we do. She snaps a couple of pictures, and in one pose, she pulls my lip so far from my face that it later looked like she was pulling skin taffy. After a minute or two, she grabs at my hand again and begins to tug me into the house with her.

            “Erin, Come with me.”

            The others around and myself are confused, shooting glances and question marks at each other, not knowing what this girl intends by pulling me in to some place private. My questions are dropped as she persists and then drags me to the bathroom and locks the door. We both have to pee, so she takes to the toilet first and unabashedly. I figured I’d just hover, one pant leg off, over the shower drain. I sit down on the edge of the tub as she pushes her coral camisole and jean covered body against the door.

            “So how are you and Tyler doing?”

            She asks, concerned. I voice my insecurities about the relationship, but was more interested in hearing her talk about Corey, who’s not only her boyfriend, but also Tyler’s best friend . The insecurities about her relationship with him were triggered by my own discontent.

            “He’s so arrogant, you know?” she says.

            Apparently she’d been with him since she was fourteen, a good three to four years by now, and his welcome had been worn out with her, as much as I’d observed that she’d worn her welcome out just the same with him.

            She asks about my trucker tattoo, a memorial piece I’d gotten because of his passing, and from there we’re off on to the topic of dead fathers. Her father had committed suicide when she was young.

            “Everyone kept it from me. They lied.”

            She spoke with a still-hurt, repressed angry passion, citing the lie as one of the reasons why she’d wanted to get away from her family so quickly when she had become a young adult.

            Suddenly, as the conversation slows, she unlocks the bathroom door and leans out of it, peering around to ensure no one else could see. She stretches herself into the room adjacent and pulls out a pack of Light 100 cigarettes.

            “Can I get a light?”

             I hand her my matches. She hands them back and I strike one for my own cigarette. Sometimes there’s nothing like the bond between smokers.

            “Corey doesn’t know I smoke.”

            She lights another immediately after she finishes the previous, and not long after a knock comes at the door.

            “What?!” she yells.

            “Are you smoking?” We hadn’t realized that the window was open, and now Corey’s come to the door.

             She frantically throws the butt in the toilet and flushes, then cautiously opens the door.

            “Nah, Corey, it’s just me.” I interjected, trying to keep her out of trouble.

            “You know, Charnai, I’m not stupid. I just wish you wouldn’t lie to me.” and with that, he walks away and back outside. She closes and locks the door again. She sits for a minute and sighs out of frustration. She began to talk about how hard it is to be herself around him, about having to hide certain habits to keep him from being upset with her. Immediately I remember what Tyler had told me a few days ago.

            “Corey caught her throwing up again.” Caught her, as if she were stealing or seeing someone else, as if it was a habit she could help instead of a disorder.

            “I’ve got to pee!” a voice calls not soon after from the other side. It’s Danny, our curly blonde, dirty-headed and wide-eyed mutual friend. He’s gone from zero to smashed in what little time she and I have been in the bathroom.

            “Can you wait a minute, Danny?”

            He persisted for a minute longer, and then we heard nothing else. Charnai opened the door from where she was sitting on the floor in front of it to find Danny laying face down in the adjacent doorway.

            “Give me my razor.” she whispers.

            “What?”

            “Give me my razor.” Her grin spreads smoothly from side to side as I hand her the razor I found in the tub. She begins to swipe a patch from his leg as Corey comes back inside and toward the bathroom.

            “Aw, Char. Don’t do that!”

            She throws the razor back in the tub as she and Corey try to pick Danny’s dead drunk weight up off of the floor.

            “C’mon Danny! You can go pee now! C’mon! He said he had to pee.”

            Charnai, with a sprightly bounce, heads back outside as Corey puts Danny down for the night. Not soon after, she was missing. It was noticeably quiet.

            “Where’s Charnai?” I ask.

            “Oh, she’s out for the night.” Corey tells me. The tequila had forced her into bed.

            The next day when I went back, I was accosted by their two cats, both with a random stripe of hair missing. I petted them and headed inside where I saw clumps of cat hair on the living room rug and an electric shaver.

            “Isn’t that awful?” Corey said. “ I told her she’d better not touch my cat again.” 

Tyler (tentative)

This is what life is about.

            It’s 3:15 in the morning and I just got in. I’m trying my best to remember the things I narrated inside of my head while in his car. It seems like the things we try the hardest to remember are the first ones we forget. How frustrating, especially for a non-fiction writer who needs to use the honest imagery of the moment.

            Tyler and I spent a lot of time staring up through the windshield. “This feels like such a Jersey thing to do” I said. “Like something from a Saves the Day song.”  One of the images I knew I wanted to remember was the four-headed street lamp in that vast and mostly empty mall parking lot, which resembled stars, as we stared up from our leaned-back seats to the bruised black sky, completely void of natural lights. We spent hours talking, from 9:30 to a trip to a diner because he had to use the bathroom, and back to that parking lot to sit, car parked, our bodies on their sides facing each other, cheeks against the rough, cheap plush seats, as if we were somehow silently whispering secrets. We played through a few of the songs of Sigur Ros, then through the entirety of Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity album. The 16 minute harmonies of “Goodbye Sky Harbor” at the end of that album weren’t enough, then Bright Eyes’ Lifted took its place. Somewhere along the way, with all of our joking around about picking each other’s nose, his index finger was extended, and I took the opportunity to playfully smack his hand away as I laughed. That was the opportunity I needed to ensure that I could get my fingers woven in with his. When “Bowl of Oranges” began to play, he finally got me to sing to him, because before, I had so shyly but adamantly refused to put my vocals on display, claiming to need a couple of drinks before I could even consider it.
          My soprano strained against the stifling quiet inside the car:
"So that's how I learned the lesson/ that everyone's alone./ And your eyes must do some rainin'/ if you're ever going to grow./ But when cryin' don't help,/ you can't compose yourself,/ it's best to compose a poem,/ an honest verse of longing or simple song of hope."

            We  kept our eyes locked, my blue on his brown, but both glistening. We couldn’t help but smile and giggle at the absurdity of all of this, because to think we met three years ago, just a couple of band geeks from Pennsylvania with an intense affinity for music on a tour of Europe, only to end up seeing each other like this after I had seen that his band was playing shows in Allentown, where I was now going to school.

            The tour of Europe had been the result of being recommended by my high school band director for the American Music Abroad group. The group had taken kids from the surrounding area’s high schools to play traditional pieces for small audiences in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and France. It sounds prestigious, but we were mostly just a colorful group of goof-offs. Tyler was no exception. I remember him most clearly when we were up in the Swiss Alps, the actual mountains, we were brought on via cable lift. He stood in his black Strokes t-shirt, and blue skater shorts, with his aviator sunglasses, and noticeably large belt buckle. What I loved most were his brown, full curls that messily rested on his head. He was playing the part of the slightly overweight jokester, taking off of his shirt, ice on the ground and all, and rubbing snow on himself. And as he did that, a man I assumed to be Swiss or possibly German, crept out of the cable car station and balled up some of the snow. He saw me looking at him and put a finger up to his mouth, as he snuck closer with his snowball to get a better shot at this strange, half-naked American kid. He threw it, Tyler jumped, and we all laughed, foreign man included. Laughter is apparently an international language. 
          I remember also, feeling so lonely and homesick on the bus ride from Frankfurt's airport to our hotel, that he made conversation with me about "good music," or what he considered to be good. When I seemed too withdrawn to want to talk, he let me borrow his cd player, and let me drown in the songs as I stared out the window at the greenest hills I'd ever seen.
          And here I am, in this kid’s car, giggling at nothing, save the waves of heat that come over my face like embarrassment, except that it felt like something purer than that, it felt honest. I’m embarrassed by honesty. I reached out every now and again to scruffle his dense facial hair with my fingertips, not a full grown beard, but a nice layer that extended past muttons, all the way down to the top of his neck.

            As the songs bled one into another, the striking “Nothing Gets Crossed Out” began, and in that moment it paralyzed the static of any immediate thoughts, save those evoked by these lyrics:

Well the future’s got me worried such awful thoughts/ My head’s a carousel of pictures the spinning never stops/I just want someone to walk in front, and I’ll follow the leader./I’m trying to be assertive, I’m making plans/want to rise to the occasion/ yeah, meet all their demands/but all I do is just lay in bed/and hide under the covers./And it’s too hard to focus through all this doubt/keep making these to-do lists but nothing gets crossed out/…But now I’ve got to crawl to get anywhere at all/I’m not as strong as I thought.

            That is the one song that can describe perfectly the sadness I’ve been feeling, explaining in those carefully crafted verses how I’ve felt so road blocked on I-Alone. A tear slipped to the ledge of my eye, slowly creeping down the lattice work of my lashes. I felt like I was looking into a mirror when our eyes met, the way you’d take a good, hard scrutinizing look at yourself, but instead of feeling disappointed, I felt relieved. I felt like I finally knew what I was looking at, and that someone else knew everything I felt, just the same.

            That album ended too soon, and Dashboard Confessional’s The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most replaced it.  From either the early April cold that found its way inside his car, or the tectonic plates of anxiety and excitement colliding inside of me, my body shook enough to aid in my impulse of doing what I had thought about doing earlier in the night, and earlier at the height of my overly romantic hopes--I went in for the kiss. Our lips were dry, but not rough, our cigarette stale breath in mutual agreement.  I forget what song was playing, but it doesn’t really matter now, because the vow of restraint I had made to myself not to slide into anything head first, was broken within the week I made it. And there I was sliding recklessly into the relationship bases, with no “go ahead” motion of my base coach conscience. Honestly I didn’t even notice him miming to me to “stop” where I was. And somehow, four albums worth of songs weren’t enough to narrate the moment, as it extended past the ending track and into the vast silence of early morning.

            It’s around 2:30. I think. I began to doze off a little as he ran his warm hand through my hair and around my ear, cupping my face as he thumbed at my cheekbones. Around 3, the comfort I was feeling was enough to cause my eyes to droop asleep and then flicker abruptly awake in cyclic sleepy fashion. I was evidently tired. I could have slept in that parking lot, in his car, by his side.

            Tyler seems so much more considerate than I was expecting. From what I‘d known of him in Europe, I‘d expected him to be the comic asshole, making jokes at my expense, but I got someone with more depth, someone sweeter, and it surprised me. “I guess you should probably figure out how to break up with your boyfriend.” he said, readdressing a concern I had made immediate to him earlier in the night. I laughed and said “I’ll do it tomorrow,” hoping that I could carry the strength I felt in this moment over into the morning so that I could do what I’ve been tip-toeing around for a little while now, and actually break up with my boyfriend. A boyfriend I have had for four years, since before I even left for Europe, but who had eroded the person I was a little more with each day we were together.

            He also said something to the effect of “You can take this at whatever pace you need to.”  He knew I was hesitant to let myself to slide so easily into another relationship. I’d been in one seemingly continuous one for six years, from one boyfriend to another. A serious relationship right now is not something I can necessarily handle, but nonetheless it seems like that’s exactly what I’m headed for. Relationship. Relationship. Relationship. I hate that word. It sounds so superficial. Maybe if we just don’t name it, if we live in these moments with nothing to define what they mean, they’d mean so much more in their namelessness.

            He noticed the gravid weight of sleep resting on my eyelids, and suggested it was about time we head off to our respective homes. I stubbornly refused, but knew it was probably for the best--I was incredibly ready to feel my pillow beneath my head. We stepped out of the car, and stood for a moment in that awkward transition of having to say goodbye, but not really wanting to. “So, you’ll see me on Sunday. And I’ll definitely talk to you before then.” he said. I don’t remember what I could have said. It must have been a minimal “yeah” or nod of the head, but then we hugged, and I got into my car to drive back to my dorm.

            I’ll be seeing him at his band’s show on Sunday, and then off to a crummy diner that needn’t be more than what it is, just as long as it offers that familiar environment that seems to foster camaraderie.

            I couldn’t stop myself from writing this as soon as I got back to my room, in a mad dash to remember absolutely everything in the most poetic way possible. Time has extended far past the hours that I should be asleep, but what’s the importance of sleep compared to moments like these? The need to transcribe the vibrations of my heart far outweighs the need to be refreshed for tomorrow’s classes.

This is what life is about.

Banditry

     “How’re you makin’ out over there, Gil?”

            I extended my hand behind the older woman who was expending some of her well-deserved retirement money, quarter by quarter, and who had not-so-strategically placed herself in the seat between Gilly and me. I gestured to Gilly in hopes that if he didn’t hear me in the madding din of the casino, that at least he’d notice there was a hand coming toward him and that someone wanted his attention.

       “Yeah, Andy, what is it?”

            He looked over, a little irritated, with his lips pursed and pushing themselves against his low ball glass of bourbon, ice tinkling with the tilt of his wrist. Everything on him was thick--lips, gut, fingers, neck, and even the bags of sleeplessness that dragged down towards his cheeks. He was at least a week unshaven, which was usual. He shaved about as often as an Amish kid bathed. He saved the task for some holy day near the end of the week. But this was our holy day, given all the jobs we’d done over the past two years, and instead of looking like he was enjoying the fruits of all our criminal labor (our business is really just a more profitable form of organ donation) he looked beaten down, and distracted. Our holy day in Vegas and here he is sulking. He really knew how to put a damper on what was supposed to be a good time. A wet fucking blanket.

       “Just wanted to know if you were getting lucky over there, is all.”

       “Nah, but this one should pay out soon, I think.”

            He grumbled. What the fuck did he have to grumble about? We’re in Vegas, baby, Vegas! And I wasn’t about to let him ruin my time here. I specifically dressed for this occasion, slicked back hair, snazzy pinstripe pants, black tank, matching fedora and all. It was a throw-back to a different era, crime bosses and gangsters of the twenties, but it seemed just as appropriate now considering where I was both in place and profession. I took back up with my dirty martini and slot machine.

            Funny he should be sitting behind one of these golden, one-armed bandits, considering the bar fight he got into a few days ago left his left arm broken and with only an operable right one. The fight precipitated when Gil got a little toasted and kept making some tactless advances on a lanky, freckled red-head at the angled edge of the bar.

***

            Gilly put his foot to the peddle and sped us away from our last hospital job in the podunk one road town of Cartha, Kansas, and from there we delivered the cooler of stolen livers and kidneys to a middle man not too far down the road, in exchange for a leather briefcase brimming with fat cash from our buyer. Eighteen hours later we arrived in Bullhead City, on the edge of Arizona and Nevada. This city was like a little starter Vegas, all lit up in violent reds and sleepy ambers on the Colorado Riverfront. And here we came upon Lucky’s, a wooden Alamo-esque building in its shape and a saloon plaque, coyly inviting us in. It looked like an appropriately substandard and promising hide out, boards almost imploding into the narrow alley behind it. It was a fitting place we could relax in and take advantage of for a few hours, before heading to our ultimate destination--Vegas. 

            We stepped into the vaccuum that Lucky’s created, a black hole on the other side of the boardwalk universe outside, pressing heavily upon its dilapidated structure. It was ill lit, as expected, and needless to say a total dive. It was perfect.

            Half the occupants of the small room consisted of Gil and me, the other half being the bartender and an older barfly in an aqua camisole, jean capris, complete with a golden anklet and black flip flops.

       “Whaddyu guys want?”

            The man behind the bar was portly, somewhat muscular, nearly bald save the slight ring of graying hair that wreathed his head from the top of one ear to the other. He was covered in an overwhelming glaze of grease, like that of a donut, and wearing a dirty black t-shirt. He looked like he should have been a bouncer instead of a bartender. In a place like this, though, I’m sure he doubled as one.

       “A bourbon on the rocks.”

            Gilly didn’t hesitate. He took a seat on one of the hard wooden stools, (they were spray painted a matte black color), and lit a cigarette.

       “An’ you?”

       “Vodka tonic.”

       “You got a preference?”

       “Absolut.”

       “Alright, then.”

            He grabbed a couple of low ball glasses and, like a claw machine in the foyer of a diner, dropped a handful in each glass. I turned to my right to face Gil, who kept facing straight forward.

       “Can I get a drag of that?”

       “Get your own fuckin’ pack. I only have like two left ‘til we get to Vegas.”

            The bartender placed our drinks on the bar, I nodded my thanks to him, but turned back to Gilly.

       “Aww, come on!”

       “Nah, laws of cig conservation. You get low, you don’t give ‘em out. It’s the rules.”

            The woman at the end of the bar slid a pack of Marlboro Lights down toward me. She smiled at me and Gilly. She had a nasty overbite, but flawlessly and no doubt professionally whitened teeth.  It seemed like such a waste on a woman like that. I took one out and slid them back down to her, putting my hand up and nodding my thanks. This act of generosity on her part, caught Gilly’s eye. And in his gaze, he caught hers. His drink was already gone and he was asking for a second.

            Every time the bartender turned his back to tend to tasks behind the bar, Gilly would make eyes with this woman, and she would try to sexily squint hers at him, but missed the mark of sexiness completely. She looked more like she had a nervous tick. Her hair was carnelian in color, and it would have been beautiful had it been lustrous, but in fact, it looked as though it had been overexposed to the heat of a blow dryer. Gil’s taste level in women is seriously questionable, at least it would be, if he were me.

            The bartender went through a pair of hinged doors to the back room. I took this time to survey the area around the bar. It was nothing much but a bunch of wooden panels with a thinning layer of glossy varnish, revealing its matte dullness in spots. A couple of buzzing neon beer signs, the “r-s” missing at the end of Coors, but Bud Light was still intact. There was a mess of dirty, water-spotted glasses near the sink, and on the wall across from it was a newspaper clipping. The bolded headline read “Local Man’s Parts Go Missing.” I became a little uneasy, only a little, because there was no way this big greasy bartender could have known that that was our job, probably about a month ago.  Maybe we were in Ohio, or the one before that in North Carolina. North Carolina. We should have stayed there a little while longer before heading out, it was nice while we were there, and plenty of opportunity to hit up a beach for the day before making our liver steal. I guess that could have been his cousin, or brother, but he was dead anyway so why would it even matter now. He kept the clipping though, so it must’ve mattered to tender Glazed-in-Grease back there. My attention found its way back to Gilly, who was wasting absolutely no time with this less-than-charming barfly.

       “Come on over here honey.”

            And lo and behold, she sauntered over, swaying a little from the Sea Breeze that pushed her in Gilly’s direction. I couldn’t really say anything. Who am I to get in the way of a man and his prospects? I wouldn’t keep him from getting what he wanted, so I played oblivious, turned a blind eye, but watched peripherally. He looked up at her, locking his eyes on hers, and pulled her closer to him by means of a crooked arm, hand on her ass.

       “Hey!”

            She quietly objected to his hands being on her. It’s like a drunk to want something one moment, and to change their mind once reality flashes in front of them for a split second.

       “Yeah? Big Red, I got something for you.”

            He took her unmanicured hand and placed it in his lap. This didn’t look like it was going to end well. I felt disaster slowly, but surely coming on. She looked surprised, in a hazy, confused, drunk way. By this time the tender was just coming back through the doors.

     “I’ve got a tongue you wouldn’t believe and I got a craving for something hot and cinnamon sweet, Red.”

            The bartender heard this, and immediately started furiously toward Gilly, his eyes bulging and ablaze, like light bulbs whose glass expands with the heat of their output.

       “What…the FUCK?!

            He had both hands pushed hard against the bar. His fingers curled and clenched so hard that his knuckles turned white. Red the Barfly backed away, nearly in tears.

       “What’s it to you?” Gil grumbled.

       “That’s my wife, you dirty fuck.”

       “Well, what can I say? It looked like she needed it.” Gil snarled in an unaffected tone.

            Immediately, the tender grabbed the arm that Gilly had previously wrapped around Red, and pulled it across the bar. He had such a grip that Gilly couldn’t pull away from him, and finally Gil looked nervous. I didn’t know what exactly I should do, but I just sat, wide eyed, and watched Gilly take what he had coming to him. Making tasteless advances on a stranger was his action, and having the bartender yank, bend, and break his elbow over the bar was his consequence. However, I also had to endure hearing the crack and split of his bones, which was my consequence for being affiliated with a person so tactless. Gilly’s scream pierced the hollow atmosphere of the room. The bartender still had a hold on his arm, and while Gilly grunted and moaned, he leaned in towards Gil’s sweat-beaded face and whispered something. Gilly’s eyes got wide, and I knew whatever the tender had said, it was good and terrifying. The bartender let go of Gilly’s disconnected bones.

       “Now get the fuck outta my bar. The both of you.”

            Gilly scampered out the door. It was the quickest I’d ever seen him move. I quickly took the last glug of my drink, and followed hurriedly behind.

       “You’d better hope I don’t find you again! Don’t think I don’t know who you shits are!” he called after us. “Sleep Well!” and he laughed.

And that was that.

***

            I had headed to bed not soon after I had tried to question Gilly about his anxious, but zombie-like disposition. By “headed to bed,” I mean that I drunkenly stumbled up to our assigned room, and finally found it after trying the card key in two other rooms on the same floor. I passed out on the bed, face down and still clothed. When I woke up, Gilly still wasn’t anywhere in the room. I found some aspirin and water and took it with me as I headed downstairs again. I wandered outside hoping to catch some fresh, cool air, but all I caught was the nasty smoggy humidity of the city. I walked over to the nearest shaded alley, hoping to evade the heat of the sun and put my forehead against the cool brick, but it was only a slight relief. The sickening smell of garbage beat at my nose and gag reflex, and I opened my eyes to see smears of reds and greens that looked as disgusting as it smelled. I decided the air conditioning in the casino was of a better quality, seeing as how the heavy air outside seemed to intensify my headache.

            Where the fuck was he?

            I then remembered where we had sat yesterday and began to look down the rows of machines. Maybe that fat bastard passed out pulling the machine’s arm, still holding the hand of luck in his dreams.

            I found the row we were in yesterday, and he was still there. He still averted his eyes and kept his gaze on what could be the glorious fruition of the randomly generated, rolling pictures. It wasn’t the idea of winning a jackpot that hooked him--we had enough money--but the idea of winning itself, of being lucky, kept him there, I suppose.            

       “You’ve been down here all night? What’s your Goddamned problem, Gil?”

        “Ah ott ohh hung.”

            He was always grumbling! Damn it! Could he just give me one coherent and crisp fucking sentence?!

        “What?”

            I would’ve jerked his shoulder so he faced me, but the shoulder closest to me was the one attached to his broken arm, so I refrained, yet craned my head so he might turn his.

       “What the fuck’s wrong with you?!” He paused for a moment, staring blankly ahead at the machine in front of him. I just looked at the mess around where he was sitting. Puddles of thick, sticky, coagulated ketchup were splattered and smeared on the floor around his chair, unfinished and spoiled shrimp cocktail that had been there since the night before, and a cherry fucking slushie with what looked like little chunks of chopped, but unchewed and dyed deep pink shrimp. Or chicken. Or a thick meat of some sort.

       “Well?” And at that he turned his head slowly toward me, retaining an expression of dull shock behind his eyes. His face was painted even more heavily with shadows than it was yesterday. The chapped, flaking skin on his lips was stained, and as he began to part them, I hovered closer to his face, squinting to see what he was about to show me--a chip of ice and a wet pit of glistening clear spit, mixing with the red-purple of blood, against the soft cushion of pink, where his tongue should have been.