The country-western embroidery on his white flapping collar was stitched so right and this made the Sheriff very upset as he realized that at some point during the day he had spilled coffee on one of them. The gold thread was muddy and dark in one area near the tip. After he had a second to breathe and calm down he concluded that it didn’t matter so much since he would be going home any minute and a clean shirt awaited him in his closet, he was sure of it. There was a pale yellow hue about the light coming in through his office window; a winter yellow, not quite pastel but pallid. Light like that always made him know that it was mighty cold outside and that is how he would say it too, “It is mighty cold out there!”

He wasn’t quite simple or slow, he was merely just attentive and didn’t mind mundane conversation. Idle chit-chat about the weather, round town gossip, deep conversations had by stupid people regarding profound topics that they surely could barely grasp; these topics made up the better part of all of his exchanges. Walk through town around noon for lunch and “hey, howya doin’?’s” - this was his ‘beat’. Drive around the lake and up to the church and back to the general store for a little park time and coffee - this is probably when said spilling event occurred. One more stroll in the evening before it was off to the house where the local switchboard would send all ‘9-11’ calls right to the phone next to his bed. One sheriff, one town; a county officer did two drive throughs in the early hours; one at one and another at four - a.m. that is. During the day (of post juice and muffin at the restaurant at 6 a.m.) he would talk to many people and pack many a cheek of Redman - that is where the stain came from, it was a spat of chaw that dribbled wrong, right from the inception of the spit, and two drops kissed the collar. Quite the detective!

In between the stops that made up his day he had a lot of windshield time made up mostly of tobacco juice expectoration and songs by ‘Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys’; in between song lyrics he would tell himself stories. He told himself all of the stories of his memories over and over again like a stuttering redundancy of fading facsimile. Everyday he could remember, every face he had ever seen, all of the songs he had heard, places he had been, all of the facts of the arson case that he had solved when he first started out as sheriff. Sewn thick and raised and fortified and strong like the lapel loops laced up in gold. He was really upset about the shirt; he really hoped it would wash out. He was not known to dribble, drool, or drip - no Sir-ee indeed.

He stood up from his desk, tucked in each elephant ear flap of shirt into his slacks and then buttoned and zipped them up. He always sat behind his desk with his pants undone as it afforded him the convenience and luxury of feeling relaxed and soothed as he struggled through any paperwork that would force find him in that chair that he so hated to sit in (funny and quite odd that he never loosened his tie). He used to have sex with his third wife in that chair when they were dating while he still had wife number two. He stopped marrying after marriage six. No kids throughout any of it and no alimony either. He had screwed up many times but was a lucky bastard all the same. All he had to do now is grab his hat and coat, sneak past the mayor, and get into the truck; he then would be home free. Since he was still ‘on call’, home free did not mean as much as it does to regular folks and their versions of home free, but it was still in a homeward direction none the less.

Just as his palm hit the exit bar on the front door, the mayor popped his head around the corner and made some snide remark about the ‘God forsaken mail situation’ and then demanded that they have a pow-wow in the common post office box area. He thought to himself, “So close, yet so far”; he made a mental note to Google that phrase when he got home as he wanted to where it originated from. He really, really liked Google; it let’s his brain rest and just focus on stories. He walked into the mail room to the thunderous verbal vomit of, “The Lunatic needs to come get his mail. I am sick and tired of stacking it up in crates and waiting for him to miraculously appear to claim it. I want this dropped off on your way home and it made perfectly clear that this is not the ‘Storage Company for the Madcap’ but rather home to your office, my office, and … THE GOD FORSAKEN POST OFFICE!” The sheriff focused very hard on his stained lapel as it was much more calming than listening to the mayor rant on one more time about the Lunatic and his mail; he thought it to be quite jejune and was exceptionally happy that that word came to mind as it was proof that the ‘dictionary reading game’ that he had been playing was paying off. He looked up and asked the mayor if that was all and upon an exchange of nods he responded with a simple, soft, and easy, “No problem.”

Screaming was not a favourite interaction for the sheriff as it reminded him of wives one, four, and six, plus a teacher that he had back in the second grade that he will never, ever forget; this is the only complaint that he had about the mayor. He loaded up the three boxes of bills, cards, post cards, fliers, advertisements, magazines, periodicals, and about one hundred leaflets with missing children on them with the question plainly printed beneath them, “Have you seen me?”. As he loaded the boxes he intently listened to the swish swoosh swish that the sleeves of his nylon coat as he reached into the back of the truck and then pulled his arms out again. Each box was a big series of swish swoosh swish; he liked that. He pulled his pouch out and loaded up a cheek, tucking the pouch back in his breast pocket. He pulled down his synthetic fur collar as it tended to make him hot once he got going in the truck and the heater kicked in; sometimes he took his jacket completely off but today was far too cold for that and he would be getting out for postal delivery in just a few minutes; he also knew that it covered up his collar which was now probably an issue requiring at least a couple sessions of therapy. Bob Wills saved that thought and offered up some distracting classic country. Ahhhh, the Texas Playboys.

As he backed out and made his way through the intersection in town there were many waiving hands and smiles. He liked that. He was somebody, someone that really mattered and made a difference. The sheriff was that friendly guy that really, really listens to you. He was a sheriff of the people, elected by the people, and for the people. The electric motor made a whisper whimper whirring while cracking the window enough for the expulsion of some tobacco juice. He smiled and bits of leaf covered one of his incisors. The route was pretty straight forward and is long enough to listen to ‘Spanish Fandango’ and get halfway through ‘I Can’t Go On This Way’. Straight up the hill to the north of town and a right onto Valley Lane. Real simple, real easy; he wondered why the mayor had made him so damn mad.

The Lunatic’s house was worn well by the weather and everything was either overgrown or dead, there was no in-between. The sheriff knew the old woman across the street and thought her to be nice and friendly enough - she tended to focus all of the conversations on the topic of her grandson and all of his great achievements. A dotting grandmother and her little high achiever. The sheriff remembered when her daughter was sent out of town, exiled, when she was fifteen for getting pregnant as a result of a love tryst with the Lunatic who achieved his reclusive insanity has a result of the witch hunt that ensued. The old woman pretends that it never happened as some sort of guilt ridden denial fed monster of amnesia contorting each reflection with the mastication of struggle. Senility feeds that monster well. She is to the point that she honestly does not know anymore. Poor boy had no idea. Poor boy has no idea. Not much ever inspired sadness in this man of law but this was an exception.

The truck rolled up right in front with it’s nose lined up tight with the edge of the drive. Precision parking was something the sheriff took enormous pride in. No one would take notice this time either, no one ever took notice but him. As he walked around to the back of the truck he spots the Lunatic in his chair by the window at the table. He was known to always sit there these days, taking in the sun and staring of into space with his back to the world. The sheriff shouted out as he grabbed two of the boxes at once and hollered once more as he moved his way up the walk to the front porch. The chair inside hears footsteps and the sheriff has no idea that the chair can even hear.

After retrieving all the boxes and stacking them all nice and neat and lined up on the front porch he lifts the old iron knocker and rat-a-tat-tat’s the door. The Lunatic is still. The sheriff walks to the edge of the rotting porch and hocks out a good one that makes it just past the curb. Rat-a-tat-tat! He pulls up his collar to prevent the wind from nipping at his nape. He thinks about the series of international pantomimes that we use to communicate with people of other tongues. He wonders about the people during the rise of the automobile that had to alter their gestures from a ‘yee-haw’ whipping motion to the now standard and generally accepted moving-the-steering-wheel-from-side-to-side motion. That seemed to eat up the appropriate amount of pausing time and another ‘rat-a-tat-tat’ was audibly received. Mail on porch, thrice knockings, good deed done.

As he walked back towards the truck he hears the screen door across the street whack-a whack-a smack shut. Out of avoidance and distraction he returns to the pantomime question. He momentarily notes how much of the world is made up of distraction and swiftly moves onto the distraction at hand. One big spit; coat off for this part of the journey. Home awaited the man of the law.

The sun had some red to it that brightened up the yellow as the oranges nestled against the horizon in a spoon. Cold air sunsets, cold air days. He turned the radio up a notch higher than usual. White ghosts of exhaust danced behind him as he drove home to bed. Old sand and salt sit in the gutters wondering what will become of them. They try to think of a distraction.

Cold sheets and warm blankets await his arrival. “Good night sweet prince, good night” …

The church was an outskirts-of-town church. It was small and had a majestic pin prick pointed steeple that seemed to point to where it was all going on, something from a postcard or brochure. It was placed just so in a cranny of open space in between two boroughs of birch trees that were peeling away their whites for far darker shades. In the winter, people from all across the county would come to see how beautiful it was; during Christmas the manger scene illuminated for guests from all over the state. The little white church from songs and poems, from the visions of men who dream of salvation.

From the church the road winds down and out of the woods. It is a road that is riddled with frost heaves and turn outs and so many switchbacks that you must trust the road in order to escape the clutches of the woods. At the bottom of the road is a decrepit general store. It has a big dusty porch made of large wooden planks that make you feel as though you are striding across the deck of a dirty Spanish galleon with blustering sails billowing with the howling wind, sending it racing over the wave crests so saintly in their white froth. Then the old brass bell dangling from a wrought iron arm gets clipped by the big brass finger atop the door and then you remember that you entered the store not part of history. This realization is normally followed immediately by a dusty hello riddled with the cobwebs of uncertainty as if the greeter is unsure that they really heard the bell to begin with. Pre-made sandwiches, ice cold tonic, canned goods that you would consume in a bomb shelter from 1953, bait, assorted picnic items, an array of hygiene supplies, a few pet products, magazines, and candy. All the shelves are dirty and the whole place is dimmed by an omniscient cloud of dust. Locals buy smokes and lottery tickets and coffee and the ‘in a pinch’ items that they run out of late at night or just before dinner. Tourists buy food and bait. Locals don’t buy bait, they dig up things called night-crawlers and bloodsuckers and put them in empty coffee cans.

Past that is another winding road that laces itself into town like the strings of a corset. Houses scantily pepper the road side and you can see them glint out from the pines and birches and firs as if they were giggling and hoping you did not see them like a four year old behind a laundry room door playing peek-a-boo. There was no formal layout or grid-like game plan to the sprawl of the small town. Houses were where they had been for over one hundred years. Most would probably be there for another hundred. ‘Development’ was a word that was never even ever thought of in this town never mind actually spoken. There are no stoplights in town, however there is a four way stop in the center of town that acts as the central nervous system of town happenings. Everything happens or is discussed somewhere in the vicinity of those four corners. Pretty happening town, huh?

The stars above this town did not just hang in the sky, they blanketed the sky with flickering colors, whites that could cut steel, and swirls of worlds that are not normally seen with the naked eye. A shimmering celestial jar of glitter spilled over by some reckless god furiously rushing towards completion and in his manic panic inadvertently offers up one of the most fabulous gifts this town has ever received. In every direction on a clear night. When clouds are looming they seem de be devoured by all of the light surrounding them. There was never need for a flashlight at night. Street lights weren’t thought too highly of either.

At night the stars would shine down upon the previously mentioned four corners as if to bless each one of the corners commercial residents. There was a restaurant that served all three meals plus stayed open into the early hours for drinks. They have two racks behind the counter with little cubbies that are named via some sort of burning knife or something. One rack has coffee mugs of all sorts of varieties; different colours, sizes, shapes, ages. The other rack of cubbies was filled with beer steins. From every beer company, college, Oktoberfest; from every stein producing ‘man’ event that has ever occurred. This was definitely the heart of town. It was initially the communal fire pit hundreds of years ago. The restaurant with all of it’s enticing scents and faces has always been this town’s center. If you were staring directly at the restaurant you would find the bank directly behind you, diagonally across from the eatery. The bank was a real simple office. Typical nine to five hours. Two people ran the whole thing - a husband and wife team that moved up here from the south about thirty years ago. They knew everyone’s names and what the financial business of the town was. The man would always gently slide a lock of graying hair up and out of his eye when he would smile and begin to discuss personal investment. No one in town cared much for personal investment but it was worth it to see this man smile. Standing with the restaurant in front we will address the left and the right.

To the left is a medium sized building of no real visual consequence or attention getting faculty. It was one of those pesky multi tasking administration type offices. Beneath it’s horribly pale yellow paint job, this building acts as the City Hall, Sheriff’s Office, Post Office, DMV, Fish and Game License Office, City Department of Records, and so on and so on. Any sort of official business was dealt with in this building. Four people frequented this building and made it their home away from home. The Sheriff and his secretary were on one side of the building. The Sheriff did sheriff type things plus all of the licenses and was a registered Justice of the Peace. His secretary did all of the paper work, dispatch, and offered up deputy like advice when a hot topic was being discussed between the Sheriff and the Mayor. Real deputies were dispatched from the county Sheriff headquarters on the other side of the county when need should arise. The Mayor and his secretary were on the other side of the building. A narrow hallway of post office boxes divided the two sides. There was no direct delivery in this town, everyone has a P.O. box. The mayor contemplates this issue of ‘no direct delivery’ a lot. He seems to think that if he were not in that building everyday due to his profession that receiving mail might be quite a nuisance. The only other thoughts that ever enter his head beyond that and food are golf and whether or not the town needs a stop light at the four corners for when the miniscule tourist rush/season occurs for that couple of weeks at the end of July. Useless figure heads are needed on every level of government.

The last remaining building was run by a small woman with big glasses and a rat’s nest for hair. Her frail frame was always tucked into some sort of disheveled outfit that consistently incorporated sweaters and skirts, nylons that for some reason always had runs near her ankles, and a various palette of assorted stains from whatever she had consumed that morning for breakfast. She was the librarian and carried out her duties in a very, very stereotypical fashion. No one ever came into the library and it had been years since she actually received a check but everyday she could be found going through the motions of running the building that no one frequented. After church on Sundays, she would race down the hill on her bicycle and cut over behind the filling station on the back side of town and open up shop for a five hour stint from noon to five. She always hoped that the weekly sermon might inspire someone to read about history or religion as much as it inspired her. Her days were spent reading and reorganizing the shelves and floor plan. She read a lot while mulling over some new floor set. Every July, during the festival, she would take sabbatical and purchase new books of antiquity from auctions in places like New York and San Francisco. She used her own money. They were books that she wanted to read, they were books for her not just the library. The only person in town that would come into this structure of small town aversion was the little boy from the east side of town that lived with his grandmother. Right now, he had out a wonderfully leather bound copy of Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’. She made a mental note that he would be late starting tomorrow. Twenty-five cents a day, no exceptions.

Four buildings, four corners. The light shone down from the heavens the same way every night, bright and relentless. Through the light of night you could still smell the remnants of a dinner shift at the restaurant through the ever present and over bearing scent of pine and fresh cut grass that permeated the souls of every denizen of this realm. It was such a small town that it had to consume people to live. To hold strong it’s boundary lines it slowly ate people, savoring their souls and sucking their bones. Each speck of life and hope and respect chewed on slowly until released down the gullet of this diminutive kingdom. So gradual was the consumption that nary a whimper or cry was heard.

Time is often heralded as the great masticator but this town has whooped it’s ass. This is not Thornton Wilder’s American town. This is nothing of Stephen King. This is a real town with an agenda of degradation and mutilation. It cuts souls sharp and drinks as they bleed. Men cower in shadows and cry, women grab children and run as fast as they can drag them; they are allowed these luxuries upon their souls' release. Such luxuries are not easily won and usually found within the redemption of death.

Each gnash and nosh, gripped between the teeth all named like Santa’s reindeer. Apathy, Hopelessness, Anger, Disgust, Jealousy, Sloth, Stupidity, Righteousness, Deception, Vanity. Called out with the crack of a whip known as an Autumn wind. Baked into their being with rays from the sun. The immaculate conception of destruction feeding the town, maintaining it’s refuge from change. Weak becoming weaker. Self defeat inbred into all of the defeatist’s folly. Fear. Breathing hard down their necks with the panting of famine. Fear.

As the stars spiral above the rooftops of dwellers, the raccoons scurry about looking for whatever scraps the town has left behind - maybe some marrow with a dollop of drool. Their narrow little eyes reflecting and refracting light back up and into the night. They have it all planned in order to escape the day. Like the Phantom and Dracula, the day would prove destructive. The people know not, the town fears not; the raccoons retreat from the impending sun, their bellies still bent with hunger.

As the stars melt into the daylight’s guise, if you stand tall enough and breathe in hard and sharp till it hurts, you can taste the death beneath the fragrance of pine muffins …

Getting out of the shower was never quite an easy task for the boy of eleven. It was all very awkward with everything growing and growing hair on top of that. Bony, scrawny, furry boy sopping wet beneath the rescue of the towel. He had his method of drying off that worked best. First a rough shimmy shake of the towel over the hair; this is best done and most effective by utilizing every single dry square inch of the towel which helps regarding staying dry after the rest of the person is dried. It was all very logical and scientific. Down to his shoulders, then a back and forth pull from left to right to work it’s way just low enough to allow the towel to slide under his arms. Flip up, one side at a time, a corner or more of fabric to de-dampen the arms and shoulder fronts. Continuing with the side to side motion till buttocks is hit. This is where it becomes some sort of new fangled yoga or contortion situation; origami of the flesh.

One leg up on the edge of the tub. Dry around one buttock cheek and between, then around and under the package with a glide rub dry out down the leg ending with all of that toe work. This then repeats down the other side and then out of the tub it starts over again while standing on the furry fuzzy mat that never stays in one place due to his grandmother’s rambunctious cat who is quite sure that the bath mat is a long forgotten feline lass who is in dyer need of the tomcat’s affections. From there on out he should have dried his hair well enough that no remaining water will drip or run down his shoulders, back, or chest. His feet should be comparably dry so that water is not tracked around on the tile floor. This upsets grandmother very, very much.

Playing through patterns of Edgar Varese in his head while he stares in the mirror wondering if today he should tell his grandmother the secret. He had held it tight and close to the chest for a whole week now and to be honest it wasn’t fun for him to hold onto the secret much longer. He was beginning to feel like the guy on the street corner with the “World Ends Today” sign board over his shoulders. He felt this way in a reciprocal fashion. He was quite aware that the crazy sign man should have kept his doomsday knowledge as a huge secret and never let anyone know unless he was looking for an endless supply of Lithium, Thorazine, and Halcion; inversely, he should let someone know his.

A towel around the waist dash into his bedroom and a holler of “I’m outta the shower” to his grandmother, finds him in his private world. He threw the towel onto the bed and began to search for clothes. As the wet towel hit the bed (which is a huge ‘no-no’ ) he gave it the finger and laughed. He turned on some Thelonious Monk and sat at his desk to put on his socks. He always put his socks on first; it didn’t feel right to get dressed any other way. The argyle socks seemed to enjoy the album selection which was a cover album of Duke Ellington compositions featuring “It Don’t Mean A Thing (if it ain’t got that swing)”; each mustard yellow diamond of the print seemed to dance it’s way up past his ankle to the mid of his calf. In his deepest voice (which was still pretty high and girly) he sang, “do-bop do-bop do-bop do-bop do-bop doo-wah!”

The Secret swing-swang-swung around in some jive twirls of be-bopped blurry flurries. Secrets dance extraordinarily well when kept with the worst of intentions. He thought of the Italian classes he took last year at the multi-linguist camp that he went to in order to crash test immersion learn six languages in six weeks. This is how he spent his summer vacation; learning Polish, German, Spanish, Italian, French, and Portuguese in the blistering August swelter of 98 degrees with just below one hundred percent humidity. He spent August 1^st (his eleventh birthday) learning how to defuse a hostile situation in a railway car only speaking in a Brazilian dialect of Portuguese. Upon that thought, the Secret came back.

Dressed and ready to go, he grabbed his glasses and flew out the door and down the hall. He was trying to balance two books between hands as he was tucking in shirt tails that were lost in the sweater pull down/corduroy pant pull up ritual. Whistling loudly and without missing a note, he began to belt out the “1812 Overture” by Tchaikovsky. The cannons were exploding in his swelling mind. He grabbed the banister hard as he rounded the corner at the top of the stairs. Every single stair was memorized for depth and height and low spots and high spots and the like. He literally skipped down the stairs. One second at the top and the next, his smile was greeting you at the front door. The pitter patter of his feet as they skimmed the stair tops was something of a percussive rendition of infinity being wrapped into divinity. His grandmother would always seem to hear it; day or night, awake or asleep. She would yell out, “Take it easy on the God damned stairs! This house is older than me damn it!” ‘Flying’ down the stairs upsets grandmother very much. This time she didn’t mind so much because as she put it, “That damn Tchai-whatever wrote some real hot damn tunes, huh?”

He never could understand his grandmother's brevity of intelligence. He often wondered how her brain could do anything beyond make her organs function. She was very dim and not very well mannered. She was rough. She looked twice her age. ‘Rode hard and put away wet’. On the flip sign of that coin, she could not even begin to comprehend how smart her grandson was. He was eleven and already in his freshman year at university. She didn’t quite understand where he went, what he said, or what he meant. She normally just trusted that he knew better than her since “those men with the ties from the big school came to visit and they said it would cost us nothing - not one red friggin’ cent!” She sure wish she knew who that daughter of hers had been with to have made such a brilliant little boy. Her daughter had died before she could even name him. Grandmother just called him smarty-man. He just laughed and felt sorry for her.

As he went into the kitchen he saw that she had made a nice lunch for him. Cold cuts on buttered bread with a swipe of mayonnaise across the top piece of bread, the crown of the sandwich. It was cut in half on the diagonal and some chips were nestled and tucked into the split between the halves.

He sat down and threw his books up against the salt and pepper shakers that lived steadfast existences up against the wall where the Formica ended. She looked at the titles as he wolfed down half the sandwich in two bites. He may have been smart but chewing was not his forte. He liked to swallow things down like some sort of snake or something. Most foods received approximately three bites before sliding down his throat and into the acid bath below. Her house coat smelled like cat piss and it annoyed him if she stood too close while he was eating. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and gave her the ‘you stink like cat piss in that house coat’ look and she backed her ass up to the edge of the counter and lit a menthol cigarette. The smoke was fine to him but ammonia stank and stench really can ruin a cold cut sandwich on buttered bread.

She exhaled a waft of smoke and said, “Is that friggin’ Divine Comedy book funny?” His eyes rolled so slow that they basically said ‘fuck you’ about ten million times. He cocked his head over about half way through the eye roll and said, “No grandmother, it is about Hell. Life and Hell. Yep, I think that answer will suffice for you.” He was always either curt or sarcastic to her. Today was curt. He asked if she would like to hear some of it so he could rub his intelligence in her face and really show off like the pompous and arrogant little bastard he normally was. She nodded with sort of a grimace of disappointment and belittlement. He flipped through the pages with a well calloused thumb pad and stopped with index finger to page. He cleared his little girlish throat and began to speak, “This from the thirty third Canto of the Inferno from Dante’s Divine Comedy. Circle Nine: Cocytus; Round Two: Antenora; Round Three: Ptolomea. ‘La bocca sollevo dal fiero pasto quel peccator, forbendola a’capelli del capo ch’elli avea di retro guasto‘.” He looked at her upon finishing the first three lines of that Canto. She smiled and said that was pretty. He shook his head and inhaled the other sandwich half. Gulp of milk and his books in hand, he said goodbye and headed out for some reading on the porch. Saturday always meant reading on the front porch. Rain or shine, cold or hot; always on the damned porch.

He interrupted his revisited rendition of “1812 Overture” to shout out to his grandmother one more time, “La bocca sollevo dal fiero pasto quel peccator, forbendola a’capelli del capo ch’elli avea di retro guasto.” He pulled so hard at the doorknob to open the large wooden door that it somehow felt a bit warped in his grasp just before he released it. Hairier and stronger. The large heavy door swung open with a small creak and a brushing swish across the floor beneath it. He turned as he got out past the screen door and shouted to his grandmother to come into the hall way. She shuffled on out to the hall and he cackled and stuck out his tongue. She went to phooey-shoe him away and he gleefully repeated, “La bocca sollevo dal fiero pasto quel peccator, forbendola a’capelli del capo ch’elli avea di retro guasto.”

He slowly pulled the door shut and sat down on the big bench that sat to the right of the door and looked out to the end of the driveway with the mailbox and on and out across the street to their neighbor's living room window. One whole week he kept the Secret. It is warmer now than it was that day; that day was a breath-seeing kind of cold. He thumbed through his copy of Dante and thought about Hell. He thought about Florentine men in tights. He thought about different translations. He tried not to think about the Secret; it kept creeping into thought. The red splattered windows. The insanity of it all in the daylight. No curtains, completely exposed like a play in New York. The day was so bright and cold. You could see him clear as day, clear as day indeed. The boy thought of Anton Chekhov and Pushkin. He was having an almost cerebral seize that grinded on with dark and darker. One quick flash back to a H.F. Cary translation of the Canto and resolve and redemption were found in one swift synapse.

“Grandmother!”, he shouted through the screen door as he opened it up and started back in the house. He made it to the kitchen doorway when she finally stubbed out her smoke and turned to him to ask what all the commotion was about. He asked her if she wanted to know the Secret and she responded with the curiosity of a four year old. He looked her dead in the eye and in a very serious fashion said, “HIS jaws uplifting from their fell repast, That sinner wip'd them on the hairs o' th' head, Which he behind had mangled, then began:” She asked what he was friggin’ talkin’ about. He responded that it was the translation of what he had quoted. He exclaimed that he shared the 'Secret'. He danced a very happy dance; 'Secret' echoed out too good for good taste.

Absolved in his mind, he gently glides back through the living room and out the front door. He leaves it open this time to let the house get fresh. He leaves Dante closed out of satisfaction and picks up Goethe.

Everything seems better, lighter. Goethe will go down easy. Today will be alright …

She gently licked the glue of one of the papers and lined them up just right so the middle fold of one cradled the edge of the other on top. Slowly and lovingly she presses the moistened glue into intimate bind with the paper. She smiles and looks out past the cobblestone steps and into the yard. Waiting for the glue to set would take a sec so smiling seemed like the thing to do. The warm air baked on the sun’s rays and made the skin feel that right kind of heat, like chocolate chip cookies when rested for a minute after oven retrieval. Comfortable warm, shorts warm but pants feel good as well; just right warm.

She reached one finger up underneath her big knit hat and pulled down one of her sunset red curls. Twirling the big banana coil across the tip of her nail and down past her knuckles distracted her enough from each second that must be waited while glue sets; like watching paint dry. Her other hand gently sways the paper meld extension construction back and forth while corner pinched by her thumb and forefinger. An imaginary orchestra miles away can feel the hands exchange of rhythmic left and right and begin playing upon receipt of the vibration. Air vibration is very important while passing time.

An idea blankets her now and she gently rests the paper down onto a copy of “A Brief History Of Time” by Stephen Hawking; she’s not reading it, but it looks great to have as a rolling tray on the coffee table or on the cobble stone stoop in her backyard, right next to her big dirty bare feet. The same big feet that walk around shoeless and carry her from place to place. Never a shoe needed for this girl. She wiggles her toes and thinks of the Earth. Her eyes wander to her pants and back to her feet and back to her pants and so on and so on.

The neon white blue fleck speckled strings of worn hard fringe breezily blow in motion in contrast to the very still deep dark midnight denim of un washed fortitude and strength. Casual and strong, laidback but relentless and stubborn; paradigmatic contradictions - an individual derivative of perception. Pants tell a lot about the wearer, the giver too but mostly the wearer. All of this analysis occurs just above her large bare feet with filthy little toes and well worn tread due to the nature-child walks of one with all and us and them and the could-be’s that could happen if we all walked barefoot together and ‘feel’ it all. None of this implies that she may be reading the book. She will never read the book, it just looks good.

She grabs her cell phone and hits redial. Again, once again; always with the same results of endless ring with no machine to play second fiddle. Horrible. She would wonder if he was even home, if he knew she was trying to call. Many of these attempts of contact were followed by lots of strong tea, many rolling sessions, and lots of happy earthy distractions like crisp green grass pikes tickle-poking your arches. She thought of Sonny Bono and one of those groovy fur vests that he used to wear. “And the phone rings on …”

Defeat once again but now it is numbed out; a chalk mark or belt notch, just another reminder of all of the attempts. She flips her phone closed and tosses it gently onto the top of a basket of laundry she had taken from the line earlier in the day. Clothes pins and sunshine and fresh smelling smiles. Ahhh, what a morning was had. Even the sun knew that the day may not turn out so well but was content to enjoy the morning moment of easy going sunshine. Whistling ‘Bolero’ and strutting in an up and down squat-jump ballet act motion from clip to clip, clothes corner to corner; the line was tight. It had been cold enough that morning that a faint lift of mist and steam arose from the basket flopped fabrics that futiley clung to their warm water sweaters. Clothes on clothes, clips and steam; a very brisk and practical day, a morning of smiles.

By the time the afternoon had settled upon the clothes being dry she had transition whistled her way into a bit of Tchaikovsky and was dancing in various swirling ball room promenade motions; the ones where a skirt would flare out and circularly fly around and around as if held up by a running ring of apparitions. It made her wish that it had been a skirt day and not a fabulous fitting jeans day but it was what it was. Her whistle faded out as her plucking rhythm excelled. As she freed her clothes from the line she repeated in her head, “Pick a clip, bag it up, the clothes go in the basket.” Over and over again. A mantra of freedom through the April fresh Downy softness. Each clip was happy to be back in the sack and would click with glee as their springs would smack with each new refugee return. If the clips had ever listened to Tom Petty they would have at least had an anthem, but no one had taken the time to expand the musical horizons of the virtually all classical diet they had been fed since they were released from the thin plastic womb when they came home from the store.

She reached into the marsupial pocket of her ‘Butterfield 420’ sweatshirt and retrieved a large sandwich bag filled with grass. Fumbling around with the bag of broken up shake, she thumb rolls through a top layer to once again assure herself that there are no seeds. Butt to cold stone, knees to breast; Stephen Hawking by her feet appearing to be holding a rolling paper in his teeth while wearing a pot sprinkled afro wig. She eventually covers up the Professor’s face as she puts out a little more to roll up. The origami relaxation distraction of preparing the papers. A fold here, a crease there, a couple of fold-overs and voila! Taking the time to relax as thumb nail pressure glides down each bend and fold line. Breathing in (thought focus, prism mind, focal point, apex idea, tight aperture vision), breathe out. Each exhale cautious of direction out of the safety of the smoke-to-be.

It is normally difficult to stop thinking about something once it is stuck in your craw and this is what she has found to be the truth of the last few days. She keeps calling and when she knows she must stop and can no longer think about any of it all, it all comes flooding in like fire hose juice built up against a hot door - explosion rush flood. Stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking, there it is again damn it! She normally gets caught answering the question that she inevitably asks herself every time, “What was I trying not to think about again?”

The re-birthed thought makes her mad. Breathing becomes less focused. Distraction is at hand. She swiftly licks the paper’s edge after a quick thumb roll twist spin and the deal is done, sealed; drying ensues. She grabs the damn phone again and flips it open with an angry urgency. Redial. She shoulder nudge props the phone up against her ear as she uses the heels of her palms to push her self up off the stoop and walk across the yard to where the grapevine grew, next to the pussy-willows. The grass is cool beneath her feet, the sun sprays down her comfortable day. Staring up at the sky she sees the deep blue to light blue variations of every shade and hue. Not one cloud in the sky. You could see to Charon if you squinted hard enough. She smiled and flipped the phone shut. Her smile grew bigger as she placed the phone in her back pocket and leaned into the branches of pussy-willow. Each little velvet fuzzy bud was given generous helpings of Eskimo kisses.

Skipping back over to the stoop, the big red curl she had hat retracted was bouncing around like a Tigger tail. She sat down again; heels to ass, knees to chest. The joint sat on the book cover as if to make Stephen Hawking look like he had a giant erection. She picked it up and did a few Zippo tricks before she flint tickled and lit the smoke. Breathe in deep, think about nothing except breath holding, exhale, cough a bit, smile. Her neighbor was playing Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass records that seeped through the hedge and into her ears like radiation, each ear drum a Geiger counter having grand mals. By now she was exhaling through her nose. Her smile had widened and then shrunk back for a second as she focused on the melody from next door. She stubbed out the roach and placed it vertically out from the hole in a soda can tab. For the record, it was a can of Hawaiian Punch and she tucked it behind the fern that was time-sharing this season in a beautiful terra cotta jobie that had just enough room for it’s roots to grow.

She arose and carried the laundry in through the glass pane French doors and placed the basket on an ottoman in the hallway that she used to toss her mail onto. The hard wood floors knew each one of her graceful barefoot pirouettes that would take her from room to room. In return she knew every creek and bend and bow. Each little laugh and whisper and grumble the boards made was stamped into her brain like a second language. She flitted and frolicked into the parlour and sat to read a bit of Aldous Huxley. Sometimes things didn’t need to make sense to make sense. Breathe in. Breathe out.

The three windows in the parlour come together like the top of a horizontal stop sign. Each one spans about five feet from the ceiling down to about your knee. Thick drapes are valanced into their respective corners. Huge bulky dark fabric bunches that looked as if they were trying to force themselves out like rabid boxers thirsty for another round. It is a time warp house. One of those houses that was decorated once about a hundred and fifty years ago and has never changed. A weird Manson/Bates feel is always around every corner. She is comfortable and that is all that matters. In her big velvet chair, with one foot tucked underneath while she leans against her opposite knee, she pulls a piece of red licorice from the apothecary jar that sits on the table. She takes off her knit hat and shakes out her curls and they make the licorice pale in shade to almost no hue at all. A civil war of pigments stain the whites of light.

Gazing into the elaborate crown molding in the corner above the fireplace wall as if there is maybe a countenance of enlightenment offering up a Dear Abby answer to some Jombie-like question. She thinks about the evening’s plans of picking up her dog from the all natural groomers. Buying organic things from organic people at organic stores. Talking with friends at the vegan juice bar about the pro’s and con’s of a raw food diet. Debating what really makes up the ‘whole organic vegan thing’. The whole time she will be wishing that Edie Brickell would put out a new album, with or without the New Bohemians. All of her compatriots wish the same thing. At some point in the evening there will be some sort of bong-hit/red wine invitation that I’m pretty sure will have some sort of alternative lighting in order to make everything less electric and more inviting for everyone’s aura. Aura’s are very important to her and her friends. And yes, the licorice was organic-vegan-recycled-all-natural licorice grown on a commune somewhere in Northern California or Southern Oregon. She has the receipt somewhere in an e-mail to prove it.

She stands up with a moral debate running through her head. “Is it morally and ethically correct to eat yoghurt or drink home brewed beer since there are living organisms in both?” This will take weeks of debate and profound un-interrupted thought. A meditation night with the proper incense and candles, and of course the proper tonality of some chimes and finger cymbals, will be a 'must' sometime within the next few nights. Of course, nude in the pantry is where the vibes are best. She must construct some sort of chart in order to calculate the proper time of prime focus. It is all very scientific. There are rules to everything.

She makes her way to the vestibule and peeks outside to see what the action out front might be. Deadwood, ghost town, done, dry, dead. She about face turns on her heels and heads towards the staircase. She pulls the phone from her back pocket again. Redial. She waits for it to start ringing and then continues up the stairs. The runner carpet is getting a bit worn in places and she can feel the wood close against the balls of her feet. One ring. Two rings. Four rings. Six rings. She pauses on the landing. A click and numerous loud consistently rhythmic cracks. The line goes dead. Dial tone. She thinks about how bad the phone service is out there when it gets cold and blistery. Finally an answer met with disconnection. She has to talk to her reader about this tomorrow when she goes in for her cards to get done. “Note to self: Self, talk to reader about this tomorrow when getting cards read.” The redundancy was necessary due to the quotation being in her voice not mine, which rounds out the flesh of the prose (which sounds so much better than fleshing out the rounds of the prose).

The cotton mouth was making her breath stink like raw earth and mildew. The top of the stairs finds the hallway and the hallway finds the bathroom and the bathroom finds the Scope. She will try again tonight when she gets back from her sensitive evening. A bed time ritual of only and precisely four rings and then hang up. Not three. Not five. It must be four and the sleep to be had will be fruitful and refreshing.

Splashing water on her face she counts each of the fifty swishes of rinse in her mouth. Spit. Repeat.

The sun recedes and hopes she will not be rinsing all night again …

Palms up, window closed. The corners of the glass hold in the moisture and condensation builds in curves like snow drifts that have yet to be touched. Staring through the thin clear boundary out at what is and what was. Wondering. Melting behind the glass. His mind retreating into itself like cascading low notes falling over themselves just to be heard over the screeching pulse of the day.

Seeing the sun for each beam of light, each ray of warmth grown cold through the mid-winter’s winds. The brisk attitude of ‘to be left alone and never to be bothered again‘. To think of shades of grey that will never occur, will never be. A fruit left green on a tree breathing too shallow to push it from the branch. His felt hat is pulled down tight over his hair as he wonders why he even wears it.

There is no one to comment on that fine chapeau, no one to share the day with. A series of alone never to be remedied by even the most potent of snake oils. A simple acceptance of now has fallen over him and a corner of his mouth cracks upward out of defiance towards the realization. A thought ahead could still be too far behind but damn does it run and race forward through his mind as the cold burns his air so thin.

With one finger flick of magical perception the cap goes up into the air and falls flat and deflated onto the hardwood floor. It appeared to fly from his head by it’s own cause, it’s own desire to be separated from it’s captor.

Eyes closed. Eyes opened. Closed once more and held tighter and longer this time; each lid pressed tight together as if they were departing lovers that will never feel the breast of love heave against them again. He dare not open them until his exhale feels right, until his lips purse just so with the air pouring over them and out of his capture. Calm. Manic. Calm. Around and around and back again, over and over again. No ticket needed for no one is taking them. No one pulls the strings or holds the keys or pushes the buttons just so. The engines grind on with no need to be oiled or fine tuned. Coughing out each contorting cough of pump and pulse as the machine spins slower and slower but never seems to stop.

Somewhere smiles dance gleefully amongst those that appreciate them and the words of their cause. The most beautiful people in the world glimmering with the sweat of each other’s love like the sex of two fledgling lovers embracing the animalistic appetite of love found fresh. Each of them looking into each other with nothing more than now held accountable for what was then or to be. Somewhere these people are not thinking of him. They do not think of you or me. Their sight is bereft of peripheral acknowledgment. He wishes he could not picture them. He thinks them away as his eyes open upon his departing breath.

The back yard tree is dying and can hold no swing. It does not seem as cold as the window pane as it’s grey bark peels back like the flesh of a wound; falling in scabs like the peel of an anxiously eaten orange. Pock marked and dimpled and flaking about; an athletic arbor nightmare in need of Tenactin. It can not bear the weight of the air around it never mind the glee of a child rocking back and forth above the Earth with it’s rotation gone a skew by the man staring at it through the window, the day. The gnarled finger gout rot branches can’t even remember leaves, can’t even dream them beneath the harvest moon’s orange. It begs to die with it’s decrepit façade. The insects have begun to devour it’s soul. Soon the roots will be dirt and the tree will be downed. The children have already found better swings, better trees, better days to smile about.

The slow pace of the wind is indicative of the frost and the fury of the white and crisp edges that outline the asphalt and the concrete and the tips of the grass pointing up to the sky as if to say, “That is the way to go, the way to leave, for it is too cold for my points to bear another day.” The phone rings inside. It rings on and on and on and the slow motion movement of molasses made movements amber incase the thought of getting up to make it stop. It stops on it’s own and then begins again. An endless alarm notifying him of nothing. Nothing new, nothing old; just the same old chirp and chime of ‘Brrriiinnnggg’. Simply maddening. Yes, both - infuriation dipped deep for saturation in a tall glass brimming with insanity.

‘Brrriiinnnggg!’

Shirt tucked in deep and his ass has grown numb from sitting so hard and still. The chair is begging for his tonnage to move. “He must need to go to the bathroom or fetch the mail or stop that noise that keeps starting and stopping” The chair talks to itself as a sign of genius not insanity. The chair calls it ‘thinking out loud’. The man does not move. He squishes his ass from side to side and gently scratches the inside of his thigh and then wonders why as he felt no real itch fetching up attention. Why? Why? Why? He does not and nor shall we.

The mail man stopped coming months ago. The knocker is never nudged, the doorbell does not have it’s button pushed. The edge of the driveway against the street is relieved that the car never pounds and revs and leaks oil above it and on it. It would tell the chair but the chair can not move do to a certain person’s ass. If there were pets, they died months ago due to consumption or some other out of date disease that rarely visit’s the modern world except to occasionally maintain contact with a post card from a far off desolate third world locale that not even never discovered species frequent.

Blue-grey smoke polarizes the air around him as a cotton filter feels the fury of abandoned flame. The ashtray is glass, thick glass, the kind that kills people when thrown at their heads. They don’t make ashtrays like that anymore and this one will save the house from fire as the neglected butt burns contained on the edge. Expecting nothing to happen, as nothing ever does, he sits still and breaths in the noxious air that grows thicker everyday in his bubble. He looks over at the ringing machine with it’s big circle of numbers that identify themselves up through the holes in the dial. The large cradled handle is yellowed around each knob of pin pricks. It once was beige when placed against his head to carry on conversations that never meant much to him in the first place.

Thinking of the interactions he places his palm against his cheek and slowly slides it down with a pressured wipe until his fingertips reach his stubbled chin. His hair is nothing more than haphazard grease mats caked against his scalp and sculpted outward as if they were larded out for an act of performance art staring Laurie Anderson. He has no idea who Laurie Anderson is yet wonders if it may be her making the antiquated ringing device sound off routinely. He then wonders why men refer to their cars as women. Blank does his mind go after these very peppered thoughts. Acidic is his stare. He stares at nothing.

The screens on the front porch have grown holes and the hearty bush next to his house has found shelter through those holes underneath the roof. His back is to the bush and he does not see it making faces at him. The bush continues to do so, all the while the screen feels violated and unclean with the fronds growing through it. He may never know. He does not care. The cigarette filter is now black and extinguished after devouring all of the fuel that once was the paper wrapped cotton stained yellow from the first two drags he took.

‘Brrriiinnnggg!’

So much time has passed and never will be retrieved. The concept of time long forgotten by him but not by the chair or the phone or the screen or the driveway. He has forgotten about them too. I do not know what he is thinking and neither does he. Slide show pictures melted into each other with some sort of show going so fast that it is too slow to grasp. A constant contradiction of confusion that wraps itself in the beast of enigma in order to never be found. Drool left drooling for drooling’s sake. Such silly sundry saunters. It would be as if Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum made sense without the sense that they seemed to swap.

In and out and by and by and on and on and on and on; amusement park lines, Soviets getting bread. He would never complain, there was no one to complain to anyhow. They all were gone and never really there to begin with. Silhouettes and mannequins; card board cut outs representing reality. A whole world of signs in a different language all with eyes, and eyebrows, and lips, and attaché cases and large billfolds, not wallets but billfolds. He remembered being scolded about that once, chided for innocence and naiveté. He remembered a song that he never knew but must have. “Who are the brain police?”. “Dumb fuckin’ billfold. It was a God damned wallet” He said it out loud so he knew he could still talk. It was his curse word, not mine; don’t kill the messenger.

He knows the children are smiling somewhere. The corner of his mouth briefly turns up again but is repressed as if it were a student in Tiananmen Square; run down by the tank of his anger, sought out by the sun. It is not as if he has forgotten to smile he just does not know why he does. His shoulders begin to lurch and stretch and shake about. His chest is tight from being hunched over and the pain has now reminded him that he might still be alive. For an hour or so he had forgotten.

For a brief moment there is a division of time from reality and then it kicks back up to make up for the loss. In that brief time he envisioned beaches he had never seen. Oiled bodies fresh with the bronze lay littered about the sands coaxing him to be one with them. The salty air refreshes something about him and his breathing grows laboured from the ion crash of the mighty brine. Flesh with ribbons of fabric covering the parts that once he dreamt of. All sorts of towels and chairs and a few umbrellas for those taking baking hiatus for a quick nip and nap in the shade. Cocoa butter bathe bait beyond benign or banal. The aroma of sanity lost in the insistence of time to catch up with itself.

‘Brrriiinnnggg!’

Standing swiftly and sending the chair into shock he briskly walks, arms above head flailing and legs in giant strides that could cross the breadth of Niagara Falls, he stops abruptly next to the phone and finds it in his hands; manifested from the nothing he had come to know. The whole unit in both hands as if it were a kitten yawning it’s little kitten smile and looking cute enough to embrace forever with awe and love. The phone shaking so hard with each ring that the flat grey wire going to the wall sways from side to side like power lines in a storm. Shaking, ringing; shaking, ringing.

Ripping the handle from the cradle he repeatedly smacks the speaking end against his head with a fury and rage that kills children and rapes old women. A noisy plastic hammer kissing him violently over and over again. SMACK! BASH! DENT! SLAM! Blood from his head seeps into his wino-locks and shoots crimson spray against the wall of the fish tank next to the phone. Vermillion graffiti scribing and scrawling the onomatopoeias. BAM! SMASH! WHACK! SMACK! Red down his arm; a dime size piece of flesh falls onto the tip of his toe nail making his toe warm in contrast to the cold numb day it had been living. Ten, fifteen, twenty smacks left against his skull. Twenty smacks shut the phone up.

Gently cradling the receiver and finding the phone it’s favourite place to nestle in the center of the crocheted doily on the mahogany side table that used to shine like jewels from excessive Pledge, he slowly and steadily makes his way back to the chair leaving blood behind like the crumbs of Hansel and Gretel. He sits with bent knees boned up and exposed but this time his posture has returned from out of nowhere. Like neat little rivers, the blood finds bay in the deep crevices of age worn deep into his visage. His grey field of face bristles almost dancing like deep sea kelp in the fluid flow.

His lips wrap up in both corners and for the first time in the forever of uncertainty, he remembers why to smile …