Silent Voices

 

Jonas

When I first me her she was beautiful. Everyone thought so. And we were in love. Or so she kept telling me. I never knew what love was. Something poets make up to sell Hallmark cards and flowers. Just another business. Someone with their hand out.

Kimberly was from a fine family. They did not approve of me although they hardly knew me. If they had known more about me, their opinion would have been more justified.

We met at a company Christmas party. She'd had a little too much to drink. And I hadn't enough. I fucked her outside the banquet hall in a snow drift.

About a month passed. Then Kim started to call me. One day I found her standing at my office door. She looked beautiful. I told her to come in and have a seat. I closed the door behind her and as I passed behind her I drew my finger along her shoulder. She had the most exquisite skin. I could feel my trousers tightening.

I leaned back in my chair.

“I was going to call you,” I said.

“I'm pregnant,” she replied.

I rocked back and forth in my chair. Still smiling. What the fuck does she want from me?

“Congratulations,” I said.

“It's yours,” she said.

“Why don't we talk about it over dinner.”

We moved in together. Marriage was discussed. As was abortion. I didn't have the stomach for either. Kimberly got into the whole domestic thing. Fixing up the apartment. Inviting friends over. Hers. I had few friends except for the guys I played hocked with on Friday nights. I still dated other women. Kimberly didn't seem to notice. But then she got needy. She had started to show. And nag. I don't remember the first time I hit her.

One day I got home and her brother Scott was at the door. He beat the crap out of me. I deserved it. No doubt about it. I arranged for Kimberly to get an abortion. And gave her cab fare. Before she left, she turned and spoke to me.

“You really are a scoundrel.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

......................................from my ebook 'Domestic Violence'

Josephine

Josephine

Josephine graduated from high school with honors and entered college. Studying science. Headed for a career in medicine. It was thought how wonderful it would be if she was the first female to become the county coroner. Josephine took a summer job at the local drug store. Her father, who was a police officer, had connections with Mr. Edwards, one of the owners. Josephine loved working as a cashier. So much so that she considered quitting college and working full time. Her father forbade Josephine from making this decision. Anyone with your I.Q. should not be working in a drug store the rest of your life.

And then something happened. There was a boy. Paul McGregor smiled at Josephine the first day she worked in the drug store. The first moment she walked through the front sliding doors. The first time she walked out of the Ladies’ room wearing her blue and ruby uniform. Josephine had been blind sided, struck by Cupid’s arrow. Working at her cash register, she would glance down the aisle hoping to see Paul. Working. Merely walking by.

I’m mad about the boy. A gay appeal that makes me feel that there is something sad about the boy.

On her breaks Josephine would sneak out to the back of the drug store where Paul went to smoke. She wouldn't speak to him. Would stand there like she was out for a break of fresh air. Like she was lost in thought. One day Paul offered her a cigarette and she took it. Smoked like she’d be born to it.

Chained her to the cigarette. And the boy.

Occasionally Paul would come up and talk to her and May when business was slow. Paul was a mysterious figure to Josephine. He smoked. He shaved his head. Though it was obvious his hair was red. Like a Russian. His eyes were dark. Like some count. In the court of Catherine. And he liked to read books. The only person Josephine ever met who read Moby Dick for pleasure. And he wanted to be a writer.

If only I could employ some magic that would finally destroy this dream that chains me to this boy.

Josephine wrote as well. Mostly poetry. About romance. And unspeakable crimes against loneliness. Unmentionable acts against decency. She submitted her work to several magazines. And was published. More than once. The publisher encouraged her to write more. And she did. But she kept all this quiet. Her father did not approve of such frivolous activities as poetry. Won’t pay the rent! was his usual refrain to any activity he didn’t agree with. Nor did she tell her mother. The content of her poems would have scandalized her mother, a religious and rather prudish woman.

One day when Josephine caught Paul writing in a small book he always seemed to keep on him, Josephine mentioned that she wrote. Paul encouraged her to bring in some work so he could read it. She did. When Paul finished reading three of her pieces he just stared at her, his mouth hanging open.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she finally asked.

“They’re very… adult.” He smiled awkwardly.

“You think I’m a pervert?” Josephine asked. “I’m taking an introductory course in psychology at college and I have all the symptoms.”

................from my ebook "Open 24 Hours"

“Trust me, Father, God hates me. He tried to kill me when I was born. My head was too big and my mother almost died. They had to use clamps on my head but the clamps broke so they cut into my mother’s bones. It was a real mess. The doctors figured I would have brain damage. I was tested. They didn’t find any damage but what does that mean? The way I figure it, I was brain damaged. I mean, I should have been a genius but I’m just average intelligence. It’s been a real disappointment to my parents. My dad is an airline pilot and my mom teaches at Humber College so they’re pretty smart. They figured they should have been set for life with a genius as a child but look what they got to show for everything – me.”
Mackenzie Philips had to deal with all the trials of youth, bullies, school, parents who don't understand him. And God. Who Mackenzie believes is out to get him. God wants revenge. Because Mackenzie has committed a terrible crime. He's killed someone. He's killed two someones.

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Several Incidents in Mackenzie Philip’s Afternoons

 

 

Fred and Me: How my cat helped me survive divorce #2

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Fred and Me: How my cat helped me survive divorce

(excerpt)
The first time Ann and I made love was in my room at residence. My roommate, Phil, had gone away for the weekend to a Billy Graham crusade. (Later in the weekend Ann would find polaroid pictures in Phil’s desk drawer of someone’s hand jerking off someone’s cock. We couldn’t agree on whether it was a man or a woman’s hand. There was no such argument over the penis.) My room was in the rear of a house near the Detroit River, behind the kitchen. From my window you could sometimes watch the water rats frolicking in the backyard like kittens. I snuck Ann in the back door. We weren’t supposed to have female guests in our rooms. We undressed each other and lay down on my bed. I hadn’t brought condoms. Ann used her hand. When I went off, my cock fired a shot that struck Ann on the forehead. I guess this means war, she laughed. You just fired a shot across my brow.
“Dave,” Fred said in a soft voice. I did not respond.
Fred stepped over to me and rubbed his back against my arm.
“Dave!” Fred cried.
“Yes!” I cried, jerked out of my thoughts. Something sticky ran off my forehead into my eyes.
“Do you think that God laughs?” Fred asked.
 “What?” I asked, though I had heard very well what Fred had said. Fred repeated his question and added, “After all, a sense of humor is a sign of higher intelligence.”
“I guess He does.”
“A real belly laugh?”
I poured myself some more scotch. I could feel a buzz running through my veins. I wondered if I was beyond climbing up the hill to the cottage and sleep. I no longer cared.
“You think God is a sadist, don’t you Fred?”
“What other conclusion can one come to, Dave? We’re ready to slap Hitler and his little tin Nazis down, but we forgive God everything. He is the biggest criminal of all time. The Big Fella is probably looking down at you now and breaking up with laughter, while somewhere on this planet, at this very moment, some poor creature is going through hell. How can He know this and still laugh? Or does he have a case of gallows humor?”
I looked over at Fred. It was difficult to keep him in focus especially with the cloud of smoke that was laying siege to his head. I saw my father wandering through the woods. He is whistling. Maybe he doesn’t want to be shot. Who shoots someone who is whistling? Maybe he is afraid he will hear someone else. Someone else. Not Germans. Not the allies. Maybe he is afraid he will meet someone else wandering through the woods, someone else who is lost.
“Once there was a German Prince,” I began.
Fred groaned. “No moral fables, Dave.”
I disregarded Fred’s complaints and continued. “This Prince was miserable, because he felt that God was responsible for all the misery of the world. The buck had to stop somewhere. God was evil; the world was hell. The Prince published his views. They were met with indifference from the academic community, which did not surprise the Prince who felt that they were all on the Big Fella’s payroll. God would not allow the truth to come out.”
“Government cover-up,” Fred added.
I continued. “Though his views did not advance his career, the Prince would not abandon them. No one is greater than the Truth, not even God. Year followed year. The Prince grew older, lost his hair and his posture, became poorer. But still he would not abandon his viewpoint. Then suddenly, in his old age, the Prince’s views became fashionable. He became famous, and rich, and much sought after as a head table speaker at hockey banquets. Beautiful women were attracted to him. Power is a wonderful aphrodisiac and what is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Princesses and Lords showered him with honors and gifts. He appeared on all the talk shows. The Emperor invited the Prince to join his court. Such courage, the Emperor nodded approvingly, to challenge the Almighty. The Emperor was having some problems with the Papal Powers and thus felt a great deal of empathy for the Prince.”
“Didn’t that make the Prince happy?” Fred asked.
“That was the problem, Fred. The Prince was finally receiving the rewards of his labor and against his own wishes he felt happy, perhaps for the first time in his life. But you see, Fred, the Prince couldn’t admit to anyone that he was happy. Misery was the only garment he could wear without contradicting his own beliefs. He had become a prisoner of his own ideas. Do you see what I’m getting at, Fred?”
“The Big Fella split a gut laughing over that one?” Fred smirked.
I dropped my head in despair, defeated by a higher intelligence. I poured myself another scotch. Fred rolled some more catnip.

I was getting drunker, slipping in and out of my thoughts.
Ann appeared before me, a cup of coffee in her hand. I’m afraid of you, David. Afraid of your world. Too many possibilities. The past has not tied you down, has not burdened you with the terrible pain of failures. While others tremble, you can look into the void and leap. You are always rescued. There is always a net beneath you. There is always an angel guiding your flight. The darkness always blooms with color, with experiences, with madness. Your naivete, your innocence does not allow for death. With bogey-men, with monsters, with horrors and wonder, but never with death. Not the edge of the world and the terrible nothingness. Your imagination is a riot of commotion. It does not allow for stillness. I am slipping into the black water. Sinking. Sinking through blackness into the abyss. Darkness. That is what the future is for me, David. Darkness. The darkness no one survives. A darkness no one can bear. Death is a Black Hole in the core of my soul. My life is being sucked out of my heart, into the center of my soul. You avoid the horror, David, by being mad.
Fred and I must have dosed off. One minute I was thinking of Ann and the next I was fighting for my life in the water, my arms and legs punching and grabbing, flaying the water with desperation, trying to hold onto something. All around me I could hear voices screaming. There was an orchestra playing a waltz. I sank. On the river bottom there were fish swimming in schools, looking up at me sink, smiling. My lips reached the surface and sucked in sky. I sank then rose again. Finally I managed to get a grip on the edge of the dock and pull myself out. God, it was cold. Fred cried out. I looked around. Luckily there was a full moon. I spotted Fred a few feet from the dock. Leaning over, I grabbed him by the scuff of the neck and pulled him out.
“I can’t stop shaking,” Fred cried as he sprayed water from his coat all over the dock.
Hurriedly we made our way, stumbling up to the cottage where the embers of the fire, I had made earlier, were still alive. I stoked the fire, threw a towel over Fred, got out of my own clothes, and wrapped myself in a blanket. I fed the fire more wood. It ate it up greedily, snapping and spitting sparks all over the room.
“Bastard!” Fred said, his teeth chattering. “It’s bad enough that He’s a sadist, now we find out He’s a practical joker as well.”
“What are you talking about, Fred?” I shivered.
“We both ended up in the river.”
“So?”
“There was only the two of us down on the dock. So tell me, Dave, who pushed us? Who pushed us?”
 

Fred and Me: How my cat helped me survive divorce #1

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Fred and Me: How my cat helped me survive divorce

(excerpt)
My thoughts drifted off until I heard sounds from our neighbor’s backyard. A group of black men in loin clothes and carrying heavy packs were climbing over the back fences toward us. Behind them was a white man dressed in a safari outfit and carrying a large rifle. When they reached us the white man stuck out his hand toward me.
“Dr. Livingstone, I presume.”
I looked over at Fred who shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m afraid there’s some mistake. My name is David Halliday. This is my cat, Fred.”
“Are you sure?” the man asked, looking quite distressed.
“Yes, we adopted him just a few months ago.”
“I mean,” the gentleman said irritably, “are you sure you aren’t the world famous humanitarian, Dr. Livingstone? I’m Stanley from the New York Herald and I’ve been sent out to find this fellow Livingstone. The whole civilized world thinks he’s dead.”
“I’m afraid they’re probably right,” I replied. “In any case, I am not he.”
 “You wouldn’t know where I could find him by any chance?”
“Well,” I thought for a moment, “there’s an all night doughnut shop on Dundas Street. If he’s about, you might find him there.” I gave Stanley directions. He thanked me for my help and then marched off with his entourage, climbing over the next fence and into the darkness.
I puffed on my pipe, taking it slowly out of my mouth, and pointed the stem at Fred. He ducked.
“So what the hell is time?” I asked.
“It’s an invention,” Fred replied, twisting the hairs of his moustache.
“An invention?”
“Man is the only creature who experiences time. Trees don’t wear watches. Don’t you find that odd, Dave?”
I shook my head.
“All that is,” Fred continued, “is the here and now.”
I didn’t like what Fred was saying. Time for me had always been an escape from the present into the future. Without time, there was no hope. We were imprisoned in the Now. It was a definition of hell.
Fred wiped his bowl clean with his tail, then licked his tail clean.
“I’ll bet my bottom dollar that Ann was always a bitch.”
“Fred!”
"Dave, face up to it. Your golden memories of Ann is the way you ye chosen to create her. Everyone does it. That’s why people are always lamenting about the good old days. There were no good old days. Everything was always and is now, dreadful. Ann was always the bitch.”
I turned away to relight my pipe. I couldn’t be sure if Fred was serious or if he was just having some fun at the expense of my insomnia. But, was he right? Had Ann always been a bitch? I could remember friends at college warning me about her, how unstable she was, emotionally out of control, promiscuous, manic about her appearance, abrasive and argumentative. She had few friends, except for Flora, a beautiful girl with long blond hair, dazzling blue eyes, a brilliant wide smile and flippers for arms. She was the only person at college, besides myself, who would listen to Ann. And even Flora had warned me about Ann.
“She’s not the person you think she is.” Flora said.
A second image of Ann began to compete with the golden girl I had earlier described to Fred. Ann, turning away from me, not saying anything, making me feel as if I had done something wrong. Always I was wrong. An image of Ann, turning suddenly on me, attacking ferociously as if her life depended on it. And then later crying in my arms, apologizing. “They all hate me,” she would weep. “Everyone hates me except you, David. Don’t ever turn on me. Promise. Why don’t they like me? I try hard, I try so hard to make them like me. I hate them. I hate all of them. David, I’ll be good to you, just don’t turn on me.”
For a long time, Fred and I sat on the fence staring into the western sky, neither of us uttering a word. Suddenly the western sky lit up. I thought it must be a fire of some kind. Then I could see the sun peak its head over the western horizon. I gasped, holding my breath, expecting the sun to rise up in the sky like thunder. But, its rise was quiet, subdued, almost shy. How can the sun be rising in the west? I glanced down at my watch. It was too early for sunrise. At that moment, the sun too realized its error, and looking around to make sure no one had seen it, the sun ducked its head below the horizon once again.
“Did you see that, Fred?” I cried. “The sun began to rise in the west and…”
Fred did not answer. I looked over. Fred was stretched out along the fence, fast asleep.

suicide

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Daddy Is Waking Up From Breakfast

poems from 1965-1970
(excerpt)
SUICIDE
i was sitten on a park bench tryen to decide whether i should scratch myself when a man from all state insurance comes up, taps his foot, frets his tongue, & smiling like bela lugosi asks me i had a light. he
asks what i do so i tell him i make up lines for funeral stones. yesterday i made up one, ‘Born 1948, not dead yet, but trying’.
he slaps me on the knee & laughs, ‘my but you’re a funny one, and i know a funny one when i spot them. ask anyone you meet if beater howcome doesn’t know a funny one. why just the other day i traded in my bells. they were absessed, you know. very painful. traded them in for a crack. don’t do that boy. never get married. she’s cleaning out the drains of the milkman, the breadman, and the paper boy. burns me up boy. burns me. burns. read a story in reader’s digest. march i think. don’t quote me on that. ya, it was march. i remember the picture on the front of a barrel of raisins. read in there where some guy shot his wife for the same thing. got off. the guy actually got off. thats of course in the old world. i’d do it myself but it might affect the delivery of my milk, bread, and newspaper. love to read ann landers. sent her a letter.

 just then this guy pours lighter fluid over him & ignites himself.
i was rather shocked, feeling kinda embarrassed, not knowing what to do. so i pulled out some marshmellows (kraft’s jet puff’d) & was having a gay old time when a cop comes up with a girl called barji (her name was carved in her forehead). fuzz told me that the flames of my fire were too high for a recreation area. but he said he’d let me off with a warning this time if i took care of barji who had pulled up her dress & was warming herself in the fire just like joan of arc.
-let me see that again-
he said he’d let me off with a warning this time if i took care of barji who was putting on some rouge and was dressing in the mirror. she told me she was afraid of getting sea sick.

“o it aint that bad. you might even grow to stand for it. i only got sick the first five times.”
“ya,” she said “but i was really the first female to go this far. what will the bitter kids say. oh, president johnson was such a liar. you know he had t leave because his ears started to grow, and i know that, for a fact. ya know its kind sad cus he was just getting used to hiding the easter eggs.”
& then she smiled and & i could tell her teeth were capped with maggots. so we did it the french way and & slowly i became ill. “you aint’ as good as frances.” “who’s frances.” “the pig.” i was really getting nauseous. i think i enhaled too much smoke. just then chaos better known as duche, one of the founding fathers of the bitter kids, came in, stared at me, punched me in the eyelid & took off with barji. there didn’t seem much else to do so i laid on the ground tryen to bleed.

Sleeping Beauty #3

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Sleeping Beauty

(excerpt)
Behind the wicket a little bald headed man sat behind a desk, his nose grazing the page of a register. The young woman cleared her throat. Without looking up the little man dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
‘Excuse me!” she said, clearing her throat again.
Once again he waved her off. The third time she cleared her throat the little man bolted from his chair and rushed over to the wicket.
“What!” he cried in a squeaky irritated voice.
For a moment she was lost for words. His sudden response had startled her.
“Come on! Out with it!” he cried impatiently. She said. “I’m looking for Mr. Bumble.”
The little man stood on his toes and looked out over the wicket to get a better look at the young woman. His face turned sour with disappointment.
“Not much to look at, are you?”

“Excuse me,” she responded not knowing how to respond to the little man’s rudeness.
“I’m Bumble!” her barked.
“I was told that you could help me.^1~
Mr. Bumble looked at the girl suspiciously, than glanced behind her to see if she had any accomplices.
“By whom,” he asked haughtily, “were you given this information?”
The young woman was taken back.
“By the innkeeper at the cafe across the way.”
“Lumb?” he asked.
“I don’t know the gentleman’s name. He told me that you might be able to find me lodging. And…”
“Lumb knows I’m busy! Practical joker, that’s what he is. I should put him on file. Lodging and what else?”
“I’m looking for my grandfather. I think he might be living, in the village.”
Mr. Bumble polished his baldhead with the palm of his hand as he muttered something inaudible to himself. Then suddenly his face bolted upwards, his eyes aimed at the young woman as if his head were a gun.
“What!”
The young woman’s voice saddened.
“Then you haven’t seen…”
“Egads woman!” Bumble cried. “When would I have time to see a stranger? What do you think we’re running here? Some kind of day care for the elderly?”
The young woman was taken back by Bumble’s antagonism.
“Perhaps you have a place that I could rent, a room or a flat?”
Bumble rubbed his chin considering the young woman’s request.
“Follow me!” he cried and stepped out of his office, leading the girl towards a second door.
The second door led into a large warehouse. There were five floors of heavy mesh like steel floors with cast iron railings and sculptured fences. On each floor were rows and rows of filing cabinets. The young woman followed Bumble toward an old cast iron elevator, which rattled back and forth as it slowly carried the odd couple up to the third floor. The two journeyed through a maze of filing cabinets before they reached their destination.
Bumble smiled proudly. “Pretty damn impressive, eh! It’s the history of the planet on file, indexed and cross-indexed. Took generations to compile. We know everything about everyone who ever was or almost was. What do you think?”
The young woman didn’t know how to respond.
“Takes your breath away, eh?” Bumble sighed with satisfaction.

Sleeping Beauty #1

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Sleeping Beauty

(excerpt)

THE GATE

It was as if she were blind. Her eyes could see nothing but white. There was nowhere to go, no there to head toward or flee from, no sense of being in a place. Looking down she saw her legs dissolving in the white mist. She raised her hands in front of her eyes. Which direction should she head? The question made her laugh.

She heard something, something faint. Water. A trickle of water. But from where? The sound appeared to be coming from some place deep inside her head, growing louder and louder. The trickle grew into a roar until she could stand it no longer, falling to her knees, and crying out, as the roar seemed to explode from her head.

The pain was gone. The sound of running water appeared before her. As the mist began to thin she could make out the faint outline of a brook. She moved forward toward the brook, making out the wispy outline of an opposite shore. Stones were so laid in the brook as to allow one to cross. The water was shallow and slow moving. She put her foot on the first rock. It tilted slightly but held firm. She moved forward.

The opposite shore was no different in appearance from the bank she had just departed, no different except for an old man sitting on a wooden milking stool, fishing. He was an odd-looking fellow with his mop of thick white hair, stubby white goatee and Bavarian mountain climbing gear. She approached him cautiously and introduced herself.

The old man did not respond and, thinking him deaf, she stepped around and into his field of vision and spoke again.

“I’ve just arrived by plane,” she said, speaking loudly, enunciating each syllable distinctly.

The old man turned, almost tumbling off the stool that he balanced precariously upon. He looked up at her with anger in his chocolate eyes.

“You’ll frighten the damn fish off!” he shrieked, spittle spraying out of his mouth.

She said. “I’m lost. I’ve come to find my grandfather and I’m...” The old man barked, “Is he lost?”

“No, I don’t think so. I want to find him. I believe he’s living in a village in these parts. Could you give me directions? I would be awfully grateful.”

“How grateful?” the old man glowered, the chocolate of his eyes melting as they fondled the girl’s figure.

“Well, I...” the girl stumbled.

The old man shook his head in disgust and muttered something inaudible under his breath.

“Sir...” she pleaded.

The old man looked up at her, and then spat into the river.

“I should have stayed on the ferry. At least I had the company of the dog.”

Putting down his pole, the old man rubbed his neck.

The girl pleaded once again. “If you could just give me directions to the village.”

“Any direction but the direction you came from should do,” the old man grumbled as he picked up his pole and returned to his fishing. “Thank you,” the girl smiled, and then hesitatingly moved on.

Out of the fog the rough outline of buildings began to assemble in detail. The mist that she had been walking through seemed to give off its own light so that one could almost have believed it was midday. Now that the mist was rising, darkness replaced it as if night were another type of fog. Looking down the girl noticed that she was walking on cobblestones.

A man appeared on the road ahead. He was busy repairing the road, lifting the round bread shaped cobblestones with the use of a long metal bar and tossing them onto a pile. Some of the cobblestones had cracked open like eggs, their yoke spewing out over the pile. The man was singing in a tongue she didn’t recognize. So involved was the man with his work that he did not hear the girl approach.

“Good morning,” she said.

He looked up at her, startled, his hands trembling, a quiver in his voice.

“Excuse me?” the girl smiled apologetically. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. I just wanted to enquire if this was the way to the village.”

The man shook his head and stared at the girl in silence for a few more moments before the terror began to lift from his eyes. He smiled and then laughed. He laughed so hard, tears came into his eyes and holding his stomach he was forced to take a seat on the pile of stones. The girl remained still, silenced by his reaction. When he had regained his wits, he pointed the girl in the direction she should follow. She moved on.

Buildings began to appear along the way. They were strange structures, almost organic in their design. The houses were huddled very closely together so that there were no lanes or alleys separating them. And they were bent, hanging over the street like trees over a well-worn path. The tops of the buildings almost touched at places giving the street the appearance of a tunnel. Flags hung periodically from the houses on either side of the street though it was still too dark to make out what was written on them.

All of the houses were boarded up with shutters, The doors of the houses were very short, so short that one had to conclude that either the residents were very short or it was the custom of the village to ­enter a building bent over at the waist. As for the street itself, it

rolled up and down, twisted and turned like a river in a deep sleep. Occasionally there were street lamps fastened to the sides of houses casting strange willowy shadows across the cobblestones. In between the lamps, the street seemed to fall off into pools of darkness. There were narrow sidewalks on the street; so narrow in places that one was forced to walk on the street itself. Occasionally there were bars that resembled handles, jutting out from the walls of the buildings. The only sound to be heard on the street was the clap of the girl’s feet on the cobblestones. The silence was broken by an ambulance siren or what she took for an ambulance siren for she saw no ambulance. She breathed a sigh of relief; silence made her feel vulnerable.

A black cat crossed her path. It stopped and looked at her. All she could see were its green flickering eyes as it moved across the cobblestones. Under a street lamp she noticed that it wasn’t black at all, but copper in color. The creature moved slowly down the street until it reached a ladder that was leaning against a house which the cat nimbly climbed until she disappeared into an open second floor window.

By now the mist had almost vanished. Looking up between the rooftops at the stars, she found the big dipper. Sunlight poured out of it, down the darkened sky and over a great golden statue on a church steeple. As the street turned she lost sight of the statue. Ahead of her she heard laughter and singing.

a cauldron of witches

Making Movies #1

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Making Movies

(excerpt)
ANTHONY WHALE: I suppose I forced myself into the company. I was thirty years old and still doing commercials on television for toothpaste and laundry detergent. If I was going to make it as a professional actor I knew I’d have to make my move soon. I didn’t want to be a big name actor, no star or anything like that. I just wanted to act. I love it. Before an audience, a camera, a mirror. My wife says I just haven’t grown up. Perhaps. I tried to kick it once. Took a civilian job. Insurance agent. Drove me its. Sure, financially we did all right. I was good at selling insurance. And I had two kids and a wife to feed and clothe. But I started to drink. I was miserable. And I think I was going a little crazy. I began to see things. Not see things but believe things. For example one day I’d believe that it as raining out so I’d leave the house with an umbrella and it would be a bright sunny day. Or else I’d get the feeling while reading the newspaper that a cat was rubbing its back up against my leg. We didn’t have any pets. I’d rush to the office only to find that it was closed. It was Saturday. The wife and I had some long conversations about this and it was decided at I should return to acting. The wife’s only condition was that I get some permanent ongoing type of work and not do commercials. I heard about this company Sam was forming. I got an interview. I just layed it all it for him. He swallowed my story. I was always good at selling things…

murder #2

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murder

(excerpt)
about the hanging
the courthouse poured out the crowd
who carried the accused
upon
their finger tips……………beneath
………………………………….cracked plaster sky
a violin and the moon passed
twisted shaken trees

a sailor trembling on the beach
handcuff’d peasants on their knees
crystal tears silver smiles in a cage
haunting wailing choirs
a french girl
pointed………………………… to the flag pole
the mob unraveled him
and hung him
from the
top
where he waved in the wind
‘IT WASN’T ME.’

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murder

(excerpt)
a report on the victim

NAME:
Holly Magdalen

ADDRESS
home no fixed address
mailing city morgue

BIRTH DATE
the day U2 Gary Powers fell off
the sky

RACE
potpourri

SEX
for medicinal purposes only
RELIGION
attends church every Sunday
all statutory holidays

OCCUPATION
actress in short art films

CRIMINAL RECORD
talks in her sleep
writes left handed
leaves her blinds open


OTHER
bad dream:
an angel appears unto her
and announces
‘you shall be the mother of GOD
but when the curtain rises
she is giving birth to twins.

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Snow

(excerpt)
There was a white van. Inside were four bank robbers. Next door to the bank was a restaurant. A pregnant woman worked in the restaurant. She was the wife of a detective. Outside the window she could see the snow continuing to fall. There were two thugs. Who had been engaged to collect a debt. From one of the bank robbers. The two thugs were being watched by two detectives. There was a loving couple. Who worked together for the gas company. Who were working on the weekend. In the middle of the snowstorm. In a hole across the street from the bank. The gas line they were working on went directly to the basement of the restaurant. The bank robbers were anxious. The thugs were nervous. The detectives were bored. In the restaurant the waitress and the cook were cleaning up. The snow kept falling. Boom.

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The Mystery of Edwin Drood

(excerpt)
I am a corpse. On the ledge of a small blue planet. In the suburbs of the Milky Way. During the first days of the third Millennium. I have always talked. I wake up talking. I talk in my sleep. I interrupt people when they’re talking. I talk during movies. I talk with my mouth full of food. I do not talk while I am being intimate with a woman. Not unless I’m asked to. I can’t stop talking. I’m looking at God straight in the eyes. Now. God has a receding chin. No wonder he’s always wearing a beard. And he has very little personality. God is a chartered accountant. With a second set of books. God is a mortician. Drumming up business. A compost preparing us for decomposition. Or God is a publisher. With a musty smelling manuscript growing in his lap. I am looking my creator straight in the eyes and I have a story. It begins in a bottle.

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The Writer as a Man

(excerpt)
It’s a good place to think. The bench. To mull over ideas. That’s my madness. Everywhere I look I see patterns. Patterns are someone’s idea, someone’s creation. Order is recklessly rearranging the furniture around us. Old buildings being replaced by new buildings. Old people dropping dead at the feet of children. Order giving birth in the ashes of death. Order is my God. Patterns are His skin. I need a universe in which everything makes sense. What else is consciousness for? We were put here as witnesses. But why does God need us as witnesses? Why does God need us at all? When I was a small boy I would wander out into the backyard of my parents suburban home and look up onto the night sky at the stars and ask what all this was about. And just as I finished asking the question, I discovered that I was an old man.

Hit and Run

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Hit and Run

 "I can hear her coming. A powerful roar from a great distance. , Her craggy pot-marked face smoking, the long tail of fog trailing behind. She will come tumbling toward us like a snowball of fire hurled by a spiteful Santa Claus. Her voice. Not soft and comforting, but a voice dripping with rage. Justice will be served. The planet will sizzle like sirloin. And I shall sit on a park bench at ground zero waiting for St. Nick’s smile to fall across my five o’clock stubble. I will wait happily like a blond waits for her tan, like cold tea in a Styrofoam cup, like an accountant queuing up his thoughts. I will taste her sweet justice. And her wrath will fill my lungs with song. Judgment day is coming. Judgment day for the maniacs crowded into the subway system, for the bullies choking the churches, for the meek on Bay Street, for all the malcontents, for the armies of Christ, for every creature that lifts its curious face to the sky."
A mad man is loose and Detective Sam Kelly is on the case. 

 

Rise of the Past

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2017 was a year in the wrong century. The seventeenth century. My head was on a pike outside Newgate Castle. Or someone who looked like me. Laughing at the Prince. People are starting to fear what they say. Next year they will be afraid of what they think. This is a book of survival. Through a world become Dali. The jester is having his revenge on the king. We are standing on the walls, waiting for the enemy to arrive. Old age is another way of going mad.

Property... 21-41

Property... 21-41

An exciting new book PROPERTY. Download it now.
(July 4, 1827 - In New York State, slavery is legally abolished. August 21, 1831 - A local slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, led by Nat Turner, a black slave, kills fifty-seven white citizens. Turner would be captured on October 30 of the same year, tried, and hanged on November 11 for his part in the uprising. November 7, 1837 - Elijah P. Lovejoy, an abolitionist printer, is killed by a mob of slavery supporters, when he was trying to protect his shop from its third destruction. September 3, 1838 - Frederick Douglass, future abolitionist, boards a train in Maryland to freedom from slavery, with borrowed identification and a sailor's uniform from a free Black seaman... The Underground Railroad helped thousands of African American slaves escape from the southern American states, north into Canada. But there were men who followed them, employed to bring these slaves back to America. These men were bounty hunters and the slaves were property. This is one of those stories.)

February 2012

February 2012