A coffee stained napkin. A waitress whose ass is too fat for her apron string to get around. The make shift lace hangs high like the top of a corset tie. Old men with bad breath change the orders available on the menu. Kids look around as if to be somewhere else, yet they fidget all the same. Mothers dig for lipstick. Whores laugh cause they know where they keep it. Dirty toothless men sip soup so slow it drags across the mind like Chinese broth torture. Nothing looks good. Everything smells pungent. The window holds in escape from the rain.

Droplets cascade down the panes creating little ravines of slick glass bottomed gullies and collect in pools upon the sill that is sealed just right with the caulking. No leaks here. Someone thought long and hard about preventing it, long and hard indeed. The menus have jam and gravy imprints of diners that have gathered for decades to escape the rain, to be closer to each other. No where to go and certainly no one to see; a very lonely congregation of gourmets in waiting.

The traffic lights and brake lights and headlights and all of the other lights blur out into some reflection of what you once thought Sesame Street to be in a day and age when only that and what kind of jelly there was were the only things that mattered; sans toy location. Kick. Kick. Kick. The table gets pissed at your youthful taunts of perpendicular support abuse. No thoughts escaped or taken by the blurred out lights. The lights do not care what kind of toast is coming or whether or not Daddy ordered decaf. What kind of jelly is there?

Eye make up too bright. Five o’clock shadows. Gum stuck like stalactites, under the tables cover, searching out stalagmites to join that will never form or grow. All of the linoleum is sticky but the foot dragged rain makes it easy to walk; easy to slip too. The front door dirt mud gathers just long enough to see who is wearing who’s shoes. Spatulas ding bells. Tickets spin wild like merry-go-rounds that never stop in the site of those waiting to ride. Juice glasses look like water glasses (little wavy woman shaped things that don’t hold much) the only different is the ice, ice that melts to replenish the liquid lost. Everything has pulp. All of it. Liquids you chew. Solids you swallow. The music of muddled conversation makes it seem like a bad play where no one knows the lines they were meant to memorize or at least be able to fake. Ding!

There is a coat rack for the regulars and new-comers get odd disgruntled looks when looking for a hook to hang their weather protection. Pocket a scarf. Sleeve up some gloves. Look puzzled as to where you should put your drowned umbrella. A man at the end of the counter knows where you should put it but only mumbles so under his breath as if he is talking to the yolks the gelatinously jiggle and giggle two inches form his nose. Not even the eggs can stand his rotten decaying gum stench. They are conspiring with the hash to leave. The hash always wants to leave.

Too much coffee to know or care about frostbitten brains asphyxiated by the pissing skies. God only knows what is behind the bathroom door. Rumours and gossip about the revolving towel hand drier with all of it’s mold and disease and mildew ridden stank of dampness are spread right along with talk about why a coffee counter shop of delectable dines has a condom machine next to the mirror. Initially it was thought that all of the grease could get you randy. It was concluded that no one knows and all the rest is left for horny figments since it has never been filled. Almost a patron trick of who will ask why nothing came out after it gulped down the two quarters and spat nothing out in return. Silly patron, silly condoms, stolen quarters.

Yellowed fingers mash out nicotine stubs into sandbag bottomed trays that sit right in between the ketchup and mustard. Full of butts and wasted smoke, they sit asking themselves if they will ever mistakenly be used as a condiment. Only by the depraved who jones out too hard and still think a dime will get them coffee, endless, bottomless coffee at that. No Cleavers in this café except for the one flailed and flung about by the man behind the counter. Pay no attention to the man behind the counter. He likes the ashtrays and if you ask to move them he will escort you out with the lard greased fingers just barely holding onto his weapon of preparation as he swings it above your head. You are safer to join in and smoke. Cancer is exempt from a table here. Once, it asked about condoms and everyone laughed.

Angels sing from underneath the eggs. The Devil lurks deep beneath the pot roast special - only consumable to the ‘early birds’ anyway. Once there was a saint found deep within the clods of dried out, burnt to the bone oatmeal that turns to cement two seconds after your first bite (bowls are used as collectable paper-weights that you can purchase when you pay). Every meal a procession of the purest pure. Every mass a meal. Every meal a mass. A confessional of why you would escape the rain. It is never sunny outside. Everyone suspects there is a garden hose on the roof, that is until they leave to go back into the sin, back into the world.

Little hole in the wall home for many lost souls seeking out hot soup and refuge from the rain.

Most order too much and eat too little.

You only get as dry as your conscious will let you.

It is a simple place. A place most don’t know.

There is no decaf, the waitress lied to your father. The orange lipped bowl means nothing.

The sugar is refined. Everything is pre-salted.

Lard is an Apostle.

Don’t go in the bathroom. Johnnie Unitus was the last one to see it clean.

“Hey, little shaver, what kind of jelly did you want?”

The whole place is filled with jam …

Wrapped up in the gaze of eyes that never close. Concrete gate keepers standing with foreboding gloom high above the heads of any tower’s presence. Trying to escape the stare, trying to get down the stairs and past the point of no return. To cautiously turn that bend and bend that corner into something that could protect you in even the most dismal of nights breathing death deep down your collar cuff. A night laid to rest by the return of nothing. A night that never stops. A sun that never comes, not even in the dirtiest dreams of souls that can only dream under the cover of the moon’s glow and gilded light - like butter dripping from a hot cobb.

One single moment blurred into the next with no hope of ever turning back and so this is how we go through it saying what we say, doing what we do. There is no sense in taking anything back because done is done regardless of how deep the brand. The blemish remains the same in the stinging hot press of memory’s mark. To take away any scar would leave you a little less whole; a shortened smile, one tear drop too few. Would you really give up all that you have become to forfeit one part of one thing you have consumed?

Like a stroll in the park with Carl Sagan talking the way he does. His elongated cheek hump of syllables cascading into each other with the mispronunciation of a cockney slur. Walking mind in mind trading the sheer splendor of the cosmos and all that he can tell you (which is far more than you could tell him on any day of the week). Not quite knowing how to even respond. The awkward inadequacy of your silence. His nodding and head swaying and gesticulations leave you blurred into what you can’t even describe if you were to know all the synonyms for the word ‘converse’. How simple a day that would seem in comparison to what some days have become.

A waking smear of never slept and the eyes still twitch and watch. The phones ring in a staggered relay as if to imitate the Tabernacle Choir doing some doo-wop and feeling damn good about it too. An a-cappella nightmare found in the hazed out delusion of a chorale instructor with aspirations that will never be met, not even in a utopia that only they seek out in dreams fuelled by the caffeine overload of too many mocha-something-or-others (everyone has dreams - most do not live them, even if they do offer you an excuse that they are living ’different’ dreams). Ring! Rang! Rung! And no matter how many times you turn the ringer off there are still the rungs to climb. An endless ladder leading into an attic that once held Christmas presents that were not labeled for you or towards your joy of anticipation or reception. You don’t even get coal if you peek, and you certainly won’t stop the ringing.

So much easier to forget behind the eyelids of those who stare. Behind their misconceptions. Behind their preconceptions. Around that corner from their stereo-type of you, what you are, what you stand for. Just jump behind their eyelids and pull them down hard like the window shades that keep cartoon characters awake. Sun snapping into their ocular oracles and bloodshoting their existence into insanity quicker than I would fall prey to angry little public people making everything more public than anyone would wish it to be.

A steel drum dance in a mixed calypso drink; syncopated beyond repair for the average Nebraskan white guy looking to funk out at the Jive Brother’s club. That is beyond worth the price of admission. To snuggle into the booth low and order drinks with far too much grenadine in order to blend more into the velour booth, the naugahyde breath of the night. Watch the explosion happen around you. Your own little private fireworks show of sum up and throw down. Too much to take in as you pick your teeth with that little red double barrel mixer straw that only the conceited and retarded actually drink from. The preoccupation with where the exits are and why you didn’t go to the bathroom earlier begin to set in deep. The orange red sunburst neon of the exit appears in it’s pleasant box home of 5” by 12” black plastic and calls you out into the cold calm of fresh snow that wouldn’t let you drive anywhere anyway; even if you could. Ahhh, the inhalation of snow cold. Like sucking life through the steam of a sno-cone. Dangerous, dangerous indeed!

Grind down your soul with a pumice stone and sing songs about how life is as sweet as honey. Have a heart attack on a week-day so you can blend in with the suits that normally would be exempt from even noticing 'your' class of people. Razor wire blankets on a concrete pillow coaxing you to bed. You don’t sleep. You can’t. You won’t. You would miss too much. Something might happen that you would be unable to recall. The eyes are still watching. Nothing ‘has’ to give, nothing at all.

Can you walk past the eyes?

Will you run instead?

Will you make it?

Do you even care?

Would you even care to?

It is simply put and simply thought out; quite simple indeed.

You do what you need to do.

It does not get much more simple than that.

The eyes will close upon that conclusion; close tight.

They sing lullabies to those who know.

Peace is a terrible thing to waste …

I have taken this time to grasp and grab the sword from my throat, like a ton quarried from the earth in the most violent and vigorous manner. One explosion of sorts that could only be found in the pants of boys who first feel wet, warm crotch through a pair of jeans; in nights when only bra straps pose as barriers - in nights when the clear sky moon beam screw reflects what could happen as a boy (wanting to be a man) takes off his watch and places it on the dashboard, in a chivalrous attempt to be more hero and less zero, on a warm winter night that was cold enough to make snow fall in the tear drop zone of a full moon that never seemed to move between park, inception, insertion, and slide; and then the pull out of quick rhythmic dance found in the deep tall breathes of a boy so wanting to be a man. Wanting it so bad that man inherited his soul, justified him being a man, and took from him the simple most gift that God could inspire - innocence.

How hot and inspired those nights could be while whacking away at the foundation, the solidify, of what it meant to be man. A man, after all, is a horrible thing. Something wrapped in passion and anger, all candy coated on mistakes and aggressions, while dancing to the sounds of misstep and false fortitude in a day spread thin with light and insight and left boundless in a day on a road that leads nowhere but to the next push of what a man can be. A man is left to think that it is a sin to be a man and found in the puddle of what a man should be. It is a conundrum of thought that could mess the minds of many young men who are now simply boys and through expensive bills (and penile injection) claims to be the men that only their dreams could lead them to be.

So what makes a man a man?

Simple things. It is not a difficult road; for being a man is as pleasurable to a woman as it is to the man who plunders the bounty. To stand up tall and grab hold of the woman he loves is something that may only become something that only a man, in his loneliest depths can grasp, something that little boys rock against a fold of sheets to enjoy and entertain and turn back upon the world with a wonton need that can never be comprehended by a woman in her darkest most grievous sexual hours. It is something to be left out of man entirely.

Man is something that reflects the existence of sex. He stands tall and holds it like a skinning stone. Once encountered he finds the smoothness, the sheen, the simple curves that can only be licked and lathered in the soul of symmetry. A shudder at something different (and beast like) is not the love of man, but rather the wrath of his loins as an over all mental release of what he may hold for all women as a whole. He holds tight to him the delicious entirety of it all while swallowing all a woman could have. A soul. A heart. A meaning. All entranced in the push of one pelvic thrust, but where does that put man in the greater scheme of things, where does that leave him?

He pushes hot crotch against itself in fury. He grinds to grind. He seeks out what will not be his own or anyone else’s because he is man and ‘it’ is what he has to seek out in order to breathe to push those lungs out and upward into the sky in a sense of passion that can only grind loins the way that lust carries itself with golden robes and blackened thrive.

Sexuality, and expression of such, can easily be a curse held above man in his darkest hours. He stands and tries to forget what it could be, with out sweaty love crotch stink and stank, to grasp in a tooth grip clit moment of ‘who the fuck will spank me next’ and ‘ who will grip my balls with furious anger’. It is a simple divide. To take or be taken. Who will fuck who?

Who will guide the glisten glide further than what could be imagined?

When you get there, who will take it that step further?

Who will call all that shit ‘bullshit’ before the next?

Why will I cum before you?

Who will clean up?

Will it be the paid woman brought in to do that for c-notes?

Will it be the mess maker?

When will it be ok to just be the boy who seeks out hot crotch, dripping into the night the stench of wanton want?

Something tells me it is the couch tonight.

I am right …

Sitting there on the bench waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting some more. It is so cold that your whole body is covered in little erect nipples. Hair not on end, but blowing just right in the solemn breeze of chilly morning sunlight that makes you sit up a little more straight and take notice of what is going on around you, what is to become of your day and the day regarding everyone else.

The cross parked perpendicular couple brawling out their public gladiator moment, waiving hands in fury, occasionally let down in some sort of passive acceptance of something that the mind is barely comprehending in the fury of heated words and scared remains of the words exchanged before in other like maddened exchanges. At their sides. In their pockets for just a split second because in an argument that is far too docile of a posture, too accepting of other's points. Arms crossed in defense, the classic sign of defense, while the elbows palm screw each opposing hand. Up and out and then back down. Above the head as if to beckon down deities that don’t care too much for either one of their behaviors to begin with, and certainly would not answer the call of a madman (or woman); needed defense for wrong done and being done. Back out towards the opponent. Fingers point and wag and shake with furious intention as if to drive home a point that the other one has never thought of but each knows full well the other one knows everything in it’s entirety, it’s history, their history. Now we all do too. No one likes a public spectacle unless you are at the Coliseum. A sense of unease and unrest settles upon the passerby’s and the cars trying to avoid the scene and contorted parking blockade pass by hoping that eye contact is not made thus calling into their vehicle the evil incarnate passed between these two people.

Mothers walking this way and that, hoping to locate carriages that will contain all of the soon to be bought cornucopia and still allow their children to dangerously ride however their toddler's minds deem acceptable, which is normally the furthest thing from 'acceptable' you could ever come up with as one serving of reality with an adult mind. But that certainly will not stop her, the mother that is - and the father too in some cases, from telling the child to eat a chill pill or a good smacking will ensue. Nope, never the case. I know; I have seen it too many times as the grocery lists get blue inked away into scribbles and the cell phone repeatedly chimes into the cacophony of devils with some tune that no one ever wants to hear again except for the person who chose the chime as their Ma Bell beckon. She finds the carriage and the child is quite upset that it is not one of the over sized chinsy race car ones molded in some sort of super plastic that inevitably every child wants to sit in, except for the child that really deserves the privilege but is so shattered and sullen that they would not dare to even think of asking for it to become a child-fantasy-reality of make believe caught somewhere between the pages of Thumbelina and Mother Moon. Kangaroo style, with feet on the axle, the child rides between Mommy’s legs so she can use the kiddie ass saddle carriage seat as a place to stick eggs, bread, and other squishables. Poor kid. His only saving grace is that he instinctively ignores the Springer episode as they pass.

Some one with a shoe size IQ shows up to clean off powder sugar dusted donut trays. This is their profession, their job. They imagine themselves as protectors of princesses that they will never meet beyond their dreams and that the sugar is evil crazy ass nutso nymph dust sprinkled around in order to entrap the soul of the one dressed in pink gowns with iridescent pointy hats that point to the heavens with their pennants of wispy shooting out from the conical point like salty slate ocean spray from atop a whale’s mind. Each tray another adventure in parchment paper as the each glass door closes behind shelves fully loaded with trans fats and diabetic electric chair rides. The muzac beams down from what the donut boy-man thinks is a lute player's ball high atop a castle top where mead and kings dance to the same jester rhythms and the bards topple over with so many melodies that jousts begin in far away lands just out of competition. To make the donuts would be a privilege, one he can not handle justifiably. He is happy to just clean up the counters, cleaner than his smock will ever be. His smiles are a lesson to all who pass but do not take notice due to self consumption and over bearing guilt of their own existence and take for granted moments of ability and serenity.

A fat Mexican man wanders outside to take in the fresh air of a Kool while awaiting the delivery truck to empty it’s parcels of not fresh baked (but  processed and wrapped in plastic with one of those almost non functioning ties of clips with a date that no one looks at) bread that he will need to shelf before things get busy, really pick up. It is going to be so busy today that he knows it will be a two Kool afternoon. He dreams of all the boating parties the ads show, the clubs that never close, the girls who love menthol and do so with a sort of divine ignorance that blocks out the cancer that will surely edit in as a reprecussion of short term reciprocation. He’ll never be there. The store is far too busy. Hell, he will only get to choke down cancer log huff ins all damn day. One now. One later. It is going to be a busy day. Breathe in. Cough. Breathe in again. Long day indeed.

It doesn’t matter much to the suits who are busy patting themselves on the backs, really cheering each other up because of made deadlines, payroll cut back quotas, really sharp looking aisles filled with produce and meat and milk. They have some people to talk to about overstock soon after they get their fifth complimentary coffee from the barista stand next door; God forbid they drink the stuff that steeps like river sludge next to the powdered donuts previously mentioned. No supermarket coffee for these supermen. They will yell with milky brown froth spittle collecting in mouth corners shooting out at a daytime manager that has nothing to do with what the over night guys do; no sockwater market brew, never - it is beneath them as is everyone they smile at. Soon, after the fifth round of yelling, they will collect again around the front end and pat each others backs again. Golf scores and handicaps will be exchanged. An off colour joke about strip clubs that they have to whisper to each other (so the female cashiers don’t hear) will be laughed at. No one will wonder what they are laughing at, they all know. Up stairs for lunch and a conference call or two. Back down to yell, this time about absolutely nothing. This time around it just feels good to them to yell, no reason needed (it is never needed if you wear the right tie). Suddenly, it is early enough to leave and they do so in order to get an early pick up rebate from the dry cleaners and then it is off to some girlfriend or wife that they can berate like they are an employee that they get to drive into submission and a good guilt fuck before they go to sleep, soundly I might add, and get up and do it again the next morning with lots of rich real coffee melting away their stomach lining and foul blood belly cists.

Bag everything up the right way, right away. Make sure your drawer tallies right at the end of the shift. You can punch in seven minutes after the hour. You can punch out seven minutes before. Shop stewards, representing the union and nothing or no one else, creep around like imps seeking out the souls of children to feed to the horned one's bellow below, the union president. Causing mayhem in their wakes, everyday, searching out the fragile to sell dreams of prosperity to. They buy each and every little morsel of hope. Fish in a barrel, sex with a hooker; guaranteed results. It is too simple. It is wrong. They do it everyday that they show up with their little union buttons shined like Marine brass at a fallen soldier memorial. Sleazing and seething around every corner, you can easily slip on their ooze. Slippery little men who live at home with their mothers and still cross sweater arms over their pastel Izods when they show up to collect checks on their days off. Slime with legs. Sludge with intentions. Bad intentions no matter how you slice the deceptive jelly.

I will be back there soon.

I am just waiting to get into the interview that I am 3 hours early for.

I will actually enjoy the 5 mile walk back home.

That five mile walk complete with blister conception.

That walk will be in the sun, walking away from the store.

Skin smoothes hot; hair bakes in the bask.

So nice to walk through the hills that go nowhere.

I can hear the music before I even get home.

Home, where I hang the hats that I no longer wear.

Home …