The violence of silence

I've been in pain for a long time. When people ask me how I'm doing, it's hard not to reach out and touch that place. The one that hurts. I have learned to lie really well. Most of the time anyway. I'm tired of lying. I hurt. OK. I don't want you to say, I'm sorry. I don't wanna say why. I just hurt. It's not going away anytime soon, so I've just accepted the fact that I hurt. I'm sure you've been there before. The long grinding feeling that lurks just so. Popping up like a highwayman when you least expect and when you most wished it wouldn't. Leaving you strapped and naked in the wild with no way to get to safety.

Suck it up

'Cuz you're my vampire. The slick needle shines in the light. You pause before you stick it in. Anticipate it. Feel it. Deeper than it needs to go. Slow withdrawal 'til the blood flows. It jets into the glass you hold at my arm. Veins tensed, pulsing with my heart. Dark, oxygen engorged blood flows from me to you. One, two, three, I count in my head. Always the counting. Full. Time for more. And more. And more. One vial, two vials three. I feel my disease. You can have it. My vampire. Smile. You get all you want. Feed on me.

First movie

Blowing bubbles

I was the first entrepreneur in my school. I was the kid selling gum out of his back pack for 5 times the going rate at 7-11. Of course this was still in the days when 7-11 sold gas. They still have the same logo, but they've long since quit selling fuel. Perhaps they were just being environmentally forward thinking much earlier than the rest of us. The gum of choice was Bubblicious or something like that. It wasn't true to it's name, but it got the job done 'til you sucked all the sugar out of it. This wasn't an idle gig. Some weeks, I pulled in almost as much as the fat lunch lady did in one day. Pretty impressive feat for a youngster.

Of course, if I had to write the business plan for my little endeavor, it would have looked like this.

Buy as much gum as I can carry. Mark gum up 5-10 times original cost. Buy Mt. Dew and Salted nut rolls and play Ms. Pac Man with the profit. Save enough capital to invest in another round of gum. I bet the clerks at 7-11 thought I had the strongest jaw on the face of the earth. Kid buys a hundred packs of gum a week minumum. I never realized there was a wholesale buying opportunity though. My business proved successful and kept me running from the Pac Man monster until I moved onto High School where they had vending machines and my failure to diversify my product lines killed me.

Diversification in my school would have meant the weed, ganga, mary jane, smoke or grass. I have no idea what it's called anymore or even if those names were correct for the time frame I'm writing about. As you can see, I did not diversify and had to get a real job. I can still make the trademark Dairy Queen swirl I'm sure. Not that you could pay me enough to do that job again. From there I moved into the grand world of seafood where I couldn't tell the difference between fish and shrimp. Hey, the shit all looks the same when you bread and fry it. I miss the bubblegum out of the blue back pack days though. Life was simple and I had all the flavors to choose from.

Nothing to see here

Today's message kiddies is about understanding whether the grass is really greener on the other side of the fence. It looks so manicured and delightful over there. The sidewalk edged just so and the pretty flowers that brighten up the surroundings are really amazing. It's fresh over there. Must get watered a lot. Everything so neat and perfect.

The grass here has some dandelions in it. A few whispers of bare patches. It hasn't really been mowed in awhile either. OMG is that gopher hole? No need to kill the gopher, just look at the great lawn next door. Perhaps we can just move over there. Oh, and a shiny new lawn mower to top it off. It's sounds so wonderful... the powerful roar of that engine turning the cutting blade. Speaking of the cutting blade, later it will be too late to ask, but is that thing sharp? I can't get hurt over there on beautiful grass can I?

Doggy heaven

Spare some fluid?

I miss my first car sometimes. A '74 Datsun hatchback. Once upon a time, it was probably fire engine red, but by the time I took delivery of said vehicle for $400 and a stereo, it was a faded pink red color. I never once locked the car even when I parked it in bad neighborhoods. Noone with a sound mind would be interested in stealing it. It certainly had no chick appeal. No promise of the wild throes of passion lay in the back seat. Just an old pair of crutches in the back window that I acquired a few months before in a 'roll the van 3 times' accident that should have left me dead.

The tires were bald. I don't mean bald as in the tread was low. These suckers would have passed for racing slicks (albeit skinny ones). I drove as though the tires were coming off every time I hit the gas. That doesn't mean slow, it means being ready to bail at any point in the drive.

The seats were so bad they were covered with faux sheepskin covers to keep you from losing your manhood on a spring. There was a hole in the exhaust pipe that was covered with a piece of tin that was tied on with bailing wire. That came loose and cost me $10 and $70 for a new muffler when I roared past a motorcycle cop who was offended by the fact that I was poor.

The final push over the edge was the master cylinder pumping brake fluid into the body of the cabin under every time I hit the brake pedal. I drove it to a dealer and worked out a deal on a Volkswagon Fox the next day. It only took 2-3 cans of brake fluid to get me there.

The police wrote me a letter in another state a few months later and told me to come get my abandoned car. I laughed and told them the name of the car dealer that had abandoned it. I wonder where it is now.


Something like this.