textfiles/magazines/WHATEVER/stories.txt

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True Stories from Pathological Liars
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Another fine collection from (swain@enigma.rider.edu)

Oh sure, you don't believe me, do you?  


 Let the *(GROUL) begin ---

* Denotes nonexistent word but it does sound cool.


== Contents ==

1) The grass is always greener on the grave....
2) A very short tale
3) Progress
4) My life
5) Chris's big mistake 
6) Another story
7) Always a price to pay
8) Old man poison
9) Great story #427


1)  The grass is always greener on the grave....


As the clock strikes 12:58 and the rain falls in the suburban town
of Princeton, life is bleak as the non-existent neon blinks in my
head.  As the jocks scream in happiness as pitchers of flat beer
chug down their thick necks.  A request comes as an old 60's hick
song about Alabama blares out of the parent-purchased component
system.  The girls sip imported beer and burn marshmallows as we
peer into the window.  Walk on by and complain about our worthless
lives.  I suppose wasting time is written into our living will. 
Sexual inconsistencies make life unpredictable.  Sick bastards that
chug pitchers and worship the sixth page of the local rag.  Mystery
Science Theater controls the airwaves at 1am.  Don't allow someone
to influence you just to get laid.  Just walking around like life
is purely shit, and what if it is?  Well, it's not, but a
psychosis.  Satisfied to write and become an infamous writer as the
rest frown down upon me.  Two 40's of Ballantine's and my chum,
things are O.K. I guess.  I'm numb and that's just fuckin' fine. 
And when the phone rings I won't answer it, and when I don't care
I don't, and won't try to.  Pre-winter depression sets in and makes
me worry about the months to come.  True stories about people they
can't have.  8am in the cold, en route to work.  Seeing another
possibility cross my path as I refuse to accept the glance back. 
It's so much easier to be numb.  Stories, two decades of stories
that begin and end without a twist.  Depression sets and Percocet
takes effect.  My chum nudges me and realizes how depressing this
talk is.  I lit a cigarette and puffed and smoked away as a drop of
rain landed on the end.

As the Simpson's pervade the tv set, I complain to the other on my
couch.  Almost insultive, very insultive.  Nevermind about that.  
I wonder what stardom is really like.  To be too busy and to see
normally important things as a given.  To be spoiled to the point
where doing things for yourself is worse than a hangover on a
monday morning.  To be chauffeured around so much that you've lost
your driving skills.  A wetbar always near to inundate your senses
beyond their capabilities.  Rockstars that wear shirts, "Corporate
magazines still suck" on the cover of Rolling Stone.  I said to my
chum "We must not know what most people don't even think twice
about."  He sighs as we near the front steps of my house.  It seems
as if every time you get something, and keep it, the realization of
your fortune becomes nullified.  As my chum leaves, I unload and
head upstairs to sleep.  Closing my eyes I become ill from my
spinning vision.  As the nausea passes, I fall unconscious until
tomorrow.



2) A very short tale -  By Marco Ramirez


Ben selenium walked through the door and thrust his minute long
penis through the portal of the walk in freezer.  Luckily he had
succeeded in adjusting the duct tape pipe coupler previously. 
Immediately a brief rumbling signalled the activation of the
electronic bead curtain.  It easily ensconged the width of his
shaft.  Pumpernickel vibrations emanated freely from a toasting
boom box that raised the temperature of the hapless freezer to a
comfortable 32C.  "Another fine mess," he screamed, batting the
head of his penis with an art deco lamp stand.  "Beautiful,
beautiful," in a hoarse throated catatonic rhythm droned he.  "Hop,
hop, hop," in a crackling bone scraping tone popped he.  Wapping
the purple head furiously with said lamp stand, "bing, bing, bing"
chimed he.  1000 gallon per second hydrant release crashed through
the 19th story window across the street, drowning three children. 
"In the car, mama" he screamed, "don't give me no lip!" he strapped
his reducing appendage to a converted spine board and began
reciting random passages from leviticus as he pounded untold half
gallons of Sealtest ice cream.  The ice cream, which was boiling,
passed through each of his seven stomachs, eventually being
purified to spring water and piped off to a bottling factory. 
"Baba Jesus" he exclaimed, hefting his spineboard to the operating
table.  He proceeded to inject it with Cesium 135, which caused his
member to become rigid yet smalled as it was now only a mile.  The
blue glow was intense enough to illuminate half of the western
hemi.  "Sphere, baby, sphere, baby, sphere" intoned he.  "Blue
hemi, blue hemi, blue!" advised he.  Bee inquired as to the
mobility of his condition.  "Into eternity!" proclaimed he and
stomped he and flogged he the earth, flattening great mountains
into plains and changing great industrial masterworks into vast
glowing sludge pools.  In this way bee and selenium traversed the
globe and striked with such wanton voracity did they that the
axeese of both the earth, and the sun were drastically adjusted. 
In other words, the whole situation was royally fucked.


3) Progress


Many sick men have fallen deep into the web of the twisted woman. 
The wife cries as the juice from the greasy stromboli dripped from
her uniform lips.  The man wipes blood from his face as the whip
strikes his scarred back.  He cries as she forces him into
submission.  Earlier, at the supermarket, man asks wife if a bag of
Doritos can be had.  She smears a rotten Kiwi on his face and
yells, "NO!"  He asks once more and she kicks him onto the product,
knocking over an old woman with breathing appratus and fish-like
breath.  The old woman hits her head on the scale and blood flows
onto the discarded broccoli rubberbands.  He turns around and
apoligizes to his wife.

En route to the car his wife porposely drops something and bends
over.  The high school car-pushing teenager cracks a smile as the
roofing contractor falls upon him and snaps his young neck (both
necks).  Husband gets a divorce and admits himself to a psychiatric
hospital.  Wife get's 50% of what she never had.


4) My life, by Farmer Scott.


My name is Farmer Scott and I come from the big country.  Up here
we grow grass and sell it to y'all down in th' valley.  We make the
finest corn whiskey in our home-fashioned stills.  Yep, we can burn
the hair off of a water buffalo's belly with this stuff.  Over
there is grandma hick, she's blind from drinkin' some bad whisky. 
But I heard that when you go blind yer other senses are bettered. 
She can smell me rubbin' my pud from three rooms away, fashion
that.  My darlin' Betty was my high school sweetheart down the dirt
path at Susquehanna Falls.  We used ta go fishin' in the winter and
make out something sickening.  Unfortunately though, after we got
hitched, she put a few hundred on and now she can't even get
through the doorway, and I ain't shittin' you.  She did pop out a
few though. Junior, Junior II and our latest Junior III are all
doin' fine down der in the basement with the cats.  Thank god for
foodstamps eh?  My best buddy in all of Weizen, Montana would be
Cadillac Red Man (but all the fellers call him "squat" cause he can
surely take a dump when he needs ta.)  Poor feller got that god
awful name when his ma and pa went out shoppin' for the necessities
and couldn't think of a name for the little pud.  I collected all
the Juniors' allowance and picked up me a real good tv over there
in town at Godiva's liquor store and pawn shop.  Funny though,
can't seem to get no channels in these parts, 'cept one where all
these colors are on the screen and this loud tone.  The boys come
over and we watch them colors all night long and slam a few Weizen
Pig Ale's down the chigger.  Yep, that's right, Yuri Balcovich who
lives down in Moonbeam Creek has fancied himself a brewery
something wicked, and he brews the best ale in all the world, no
foolin'.  

As you can see, we got alot of stuff in our abode.  I'd be guessin'
with all the knockin' up that goes around in this here house that
we got about thirty cats and a few kids on the way.  Betty Scott
Jean Scott, my daughter, does most of the porkin' in these parts. 
Something went crazy with her and she's the damn prettiest daughter
I have (I think).  She's so damn pretty Junior is already rubbin'
his pud like old daddy does.  And daddy's thinkin' hard on givin'
her a christmas present this early in the summer.  Over there,
between the dang Atari and the icebox is shinky, our dog.  Shinky
came from somewhere, but we ain't just sure where.  Betty Scott
Jean Scott swears she hadn't done nothing with him, and my wife
ain't got the crawlspace ta be guilty.  So we don't know.  He ain't
like the rest of us, but uses the litterbox anyhow.  Over on the
mantle in that soupcan we got the leftovers of Jimmy Ray Jimmy
Jimmy Scott.  He got dead years back when the teamsters came to
town.  I got away after ignitin' the last of the moonshine and
settin' them ablaze.  

I hear my wife a moanin', which means it's time to go up der and
satisfy her needs, so if you're ever in the area, stop on by for a
cup of nog and a screw, that's what we do best in these parts.  See
ya, stranger.




5) Chris's Big Mistake


Blinking and flashing black and white images on the set.  Chris
flipped open his calc book and took notes form the seemingly
useless theory.  Nestled in the corner on top of a black leather
beanbag.  A dim blacklight flickers in the opposite corner.  A
party around him as people enter a stage of euphoria.  His mind
slips as a bottle crashes a foot from his head.  Fifteen hundred
miles from home and things aren't much different.  The thump of
Primus brings him to his feet to wait in line for another flat
beer.  She comes up to him in passive guilt, offering a gleam of
possible interest.  His body numb from eighteen hours of a rattling
car.  His travelling companion has become well adjusted with
several gonja smoking companions.   Chris glanced briefly at Becky,
a best friend of his true love, and saw a possibility.  This lasted
seconds until she was dragged away by a Thurston Moore look-alike. 
A well adjusted couple had taken over his old resting place. 
Slowly he walked through the apartment looking for something to do.

2am and all is left:  Empty cups, Becky and the Thurston Moore
look-alike dancing in an empty room.  Obviously bored, Becky
attempts to rid herself but fails.  Chris finally finds the person
he came to visit, the one he looked for all night and couldn't
find.  Opened the door to her room and there she was; not alone. 
Her smiling face pierced through him as he yelled for his
travelling companion.  Chris found him atop a girl neither of them
knew.  Two minutes later and they were travelling as far away from
that apartment as could be.  Chris picked his girlfriends badly.



6) Another story by Marcel Palinkas


  Feeling the swinging, fuzzed-out bass of the Tavares tune, Linton
was very definitely in the thick of things.  The thick of things
was Queens on a cold December night in 1975.  Linton did not at
first fit in.  The people were too clean and did not button their
shirts in the common manner.  Also Linton was a Connecticut wasp
when all the people twirling and bugging out next to him were of
Italian and Hispanic descent.  There were a few people of Irish
descent in there also, but Linton felt superior to them also, at
least at first.

  When Linton first started going to the discos, his pants were too
loose and his dancing was too stiff for the sensibilities of his
fellow patrons.  He was alerted of these things and beaten up one
night by some goons who had selflessly shouldered the burden of
alerting him of his misconduct.  The next day of course Linton was
stiff and some ribs ached, but he left the office early not telling
Sydney where he would spend his nights when she would inquire.

   He got to the club- Club du Monde- around 11:30 and when he went
into the bathroom after he drank two beers, some fellows asked him
if he wanted a "toot".  Being a young, swingin' college graduate,
Linton thought to himself,"I've heard of this cocaine stuff, I
think I'll try it."   He did but it wasn't what he thought.  It was
amphetamine.  He gleaned this later when he was twirling madly out
on the floor, dancing for hours and bringing tepid notice from the
women.  Approximately 20% of them had chlamydia, herpes simplex 2
or gonorrhea.  Linton thought of the amphetamine he was rued into
taking and the odds of getting an STD from one of the leering,
careening women he moved through on his way to the bar.   He
ordered another Ballantine's XXX and felt the cold, slightly skunky
liquid on his tongue and remembered just how great the stuff was.

  A woman walked up next to him and asked mock coy, "Buy me a
drink?"  He ordered her a 7-Up and vodka, a drink he thought she
would like.  At least she didn't complain- she took the drink in
her small hand, took a sip and said,"So what's your story?"  Linton
told her of how he had just moved to New York after he was offered
a job at a small publishing company.  The money wasn't nearly what
he had expected and living in Queens was hardly Park Avenue.  She
told him of how she had been kicked out of Westchester Community
College for cheating and she had to help her mom "anyway" after her
father left without telling anyone.  Her teenage brother was beaten
half to death a few days earlier by some Arab immigrants after he
pocketed a Tastykake from their convenience store.  

  Suddenly Linton felt very depressed.  Even through the
amphetamine haze, he saw that she was a sorry case, and not through
any choosing of her own.  She was small and frail and slumped on
her stool.  Now she looked straight ahead and Linton looked at her
small frame plaintively.  


  "What was she even doing here she was much too good for this
phony world of imposed, overwrought macho attitudes and women who
gobbled it up.  It was probably the only thing she could thing of
-
 her girlfriends from the 5 and Dime asked her along because they
felt sorry for her.  her co-workers are probably genuinely dumb and
can really appreciate this place," he thought.

When she turned around, she said glumly, "anyway, my name is Myra."

"Mine is Linton."

Pleased to meet you she said for the first time seeming a bit less
depressed.

  He asked her to dance and just as they got on the floor, the Bee-
Gees song How Deep is Your Love came over the speakers.  They held
each other and swayed to the music.  Linton thought of how Coney
Island looked at this time of year.  How the garishly painted
fiberglass horses and merry-go-round benches are all alone in the
cold, salty wind sprinting from the ocean and leaping onto the
boardwalk.  Where are all the screaming children now?  Eating lousy
lunches at P.S. 123 and maybe thinking of Coney Island for next
summer.  Their fathers will take them and lay on the beach in their
black stretch socks halfway up their calves while the kids parry in
the shorebreak.  How people lived, he thought."

  When the song stopped, Myra told him he was a good dancer.  He
thanked her and meant it when he told her she was a good dancer
too.  They went back to the bar and each had a drink.  Linton
thought how lucky he was to not have to fret over the $2 for the 2
drinks whereas Myra would not be able to afford it so easily.  When
she was done, she said she had to go.

  Linton asked, "Can I walk you outside to get a cab?"  She said
that would be nice so they got their coats on and walked into the
frigid December air.  He looked at Myra and then down York
Boulevard.  They were both in anguish, both worked too hard for
nothing and both saw family crumble constantly.

  When Linton tried to give her money for the cab, she refused and
he thought twice, realizing she's no charity case.  As She drove
off in the back of the cab, she looked back and waved.  Linton
waved back and caught the next cab back to his cold apartment.


7) Always a price to pay...

As East-coast winter that leaves my feet icy cold and my mind
tired.  A few more minutes and I'm going to pass out.  The dirty
slush from car exhaust creating a warm puddle inside my frost-solid
shoes.  I turn my head up as the snow collects onto my discolored
face.  A pretty girl walks directly past me and breaks a bleak
smile.  High in the sky the clouds flow like a tempest.  The purple
glow reminds me of my urban surroundings.  I rub my numb hands as
the forgotten cigarette butt falls to the ground.  I reach into my
jacket and pull a cigarette from it's pack.  The cigarette lights
and I walk a few minutes past the oversized 18th century buildings.

Up ahead a crowd of drunk students are yelling and throwing
snowballs.  Pulling my hands from my soaking jeans.  I reach up and
pull my hat over my brow.  After they pass I feel a cold chill on
my neck as a projected snowball liquifies down my back.  The
bluestone sidewalk appears under the arch as the snow ceases in the
church-decorated walk through.  I look over my snow-covered
shoulder and notice the same girl I saw minutes before walking
towards me.  I sat down on a marble bench and bowed my head down
and stared at my sneakers.  Out of my peripheral vision I could see
her walk towards the bench with increasing urgency.  A moment later
I heard her voice as she said hello.  I refused to raise my head in
worry that she would recognize me.  She asked me what my name was. 
I raised my head and peeled the frozen hat off my head.  Her beauty
captivated me as I went into a dream state.  Seconds later after
she recognized me, she approached closer and touched her lips
against mine as I felt the intense warmth on my cold face.  She
backed away and watched me as I started to walk away.  She stood
there smiling as I passed through the archway back into the snow. 
My mind reminded me of my accident as a secondary chill shook my
body.  I became I'll and layed down in the deep snow, staring up at
the ice-coated skeletal trees.

It seems that thee's no escape from the public, from their dreams,
from their fascination with people who have conquered their dreams.

Yet I try to escape my accomplishments to be more like them.

Echoing voices through the archway makes me stomach flutter as I
glance at a group of camera toting students.  I drop my head in
weakness and close my eyes.  The street light dims as voices erupt
from the cold night.  The same thing all over again and I begin to
fall asleep.  The voices blend into a high tone as hands begin
touching me.  The click of a camera and a sickness of popularity,
the bright light illuminates the blood in my eyelids.  The purple
glow reminded me of my urban surroundings.



8) The old man Poison. - 


The green thud of the thumb on the bar, and my man swigs on the
bottle of Rye Whiskey in his hand.  Grasping tight, he slugs some
down as that drinking smile pierces his face.  Bald bastard from
the record store sits alone at the end of the bar, peering into the
swill he calls a drink.  Behind his back we talk mean things as the
two pretty girls next to him glance our way and gesture something
sexual.  A laugh comes from my man as a drop of poison drips from
his lips onto his wrist.  Bartender man drags his fat body up and
down the counter refilling numerous alcoholics like ourselves.  The
smoke makes beams of light as they burna  hole into the kitchen
tile atmosphere.  A big breasted chum named "Flath" sits down and
swigs on some pink Pepto.  A belch enpowers the noise of the bar as
a drip of poison falls and lands on his fat leg.  He slaps me on
the back, allowing me to spill the swill on the till.  The
bartender slaps him around a bit and charges him five bucks for a
bud.  The drummer sounds good, as my man swivels in the
sparklepaint blue barstool.  The cats are jammin' to a number he
realizes and signals the burned waitress.  "Maam, excuuuse me man,
a round of drinks for the chumps in the corner."  A minute passes
as he follows her ancient behind with his visionless eyes.  The
bald bastard stares at me with disrespect, I grab my poison with
pride and proudly chug, leaving my eyes to his.  His body cries as
he helps up his fattening gut to the men's room.  Meanwhile, my man
is choking on a drink umbrella, that'll be the death of him.  A
good smack on the back from any of the fellas would send that
perpetrator into the domain of his personal brewery.  A signal from
the cats in the corner and the drummer yells "fuck you" at my man. 
Over the noise he perceives it as "Thank you".  Two college girls
bring their heavenly young bodies for us to stare upon.  My pal
Flath whispers "They're gettin' take out and then they're gonna
think we're sick old men."   Upon completion of Flath's
premonition, a flying German beer stein smacks him in the noggin,
proceeding to land on the bar.  Flath continued his fixed stare
upon the girls, rubbing his head in confusion.

"Hey, you want to get out of here?  I mean, you want to get out of
here and do something really naughty?"  The two girls whisper to
me.  

"Hey, you want to really get laid tonight old man?  Look at our
bodies you twisted old fuck, how can you say no?  We'll make you
wish you were young again."

"Look, you drunk bastard, we got all the beer you want.  You come
to our dorm and we'll satisfy your fancy.  Hey old man, you're
lost.  Look at you, just look at you, we'll make you better, we'll
make you better.  Want a ride in our ambulance, how about our
ambulance, call the ambulance.."

"Hey man, he's coming to, man, he's okay."  Flath stares upon me as
well as my man and the "fuck you" drummer in the corner.  A bald
man kneels down.  "You dirty bastard, get a life."  The two college
girls head out the broken front door.  One looks down at me and
says "We're gettin' take out and you're a sick old man."  Flath
laughs and offers, "What's your poison?  It's on me."


9) Marco Ramirez's great story #427

Beanjack opened the cupboard and spake he forth brilliant obscenity
at the utter lack of beam whiskey.  "I demand bloody smooth bon" 
Screwed him in tones reminiscent of a hobbling spooge soaker, and
brandished a rhinestoned stiletto in fashion of same.  Later a
fucking pair of billies approached from nine o'clock.  "Hand me if
I mampered Henry's mussy!"  "She's globed!"  "Suckhead you -" but
demon take me if Jack did not spray stickfuck with a reed lashed
open pipe copper shot.  "Me life is go," he moaned, clutching his
ringwormed chest.  In his dying movements he jerked out a boar
tooth amulet stained blue by viburnum skins and molding it as high
an angle as he could muster -- He pledged it to his mother, to keep
and protect her.  To keep her safe sane and happy until her dying
day.  His final life was a salty cry that dripped off his strongest
sense as his bowels released.  It soaked into mama's  stone and
saturated the once nerveending occupied cavities.  An idea that he
never said floated away on the easy lapping of the waves dizzy
breakers sucking fusion vacuum lapping rolling in a endless circle
of sun and semi stroke and nothing in particular to do...  Year
ago, he recalled a girl.

     Beanjack would have nothing to do with this.  "Pork this!"  In
fact, he said.  "Up the ass of the conceptor of this bleeding
travesty."  And singing the haunting refrain to an Irish jig and
reel:  Fuck Jig we'll be back another day.  He returned spelling
his shit into god damn com pressers and nothing big fuck.  They
we're trying to by nile to him and the real question was did he
actually know it.  That was the question, but it was not the direct
.. We of inquiry.  So Porknok replied simply, "My amusement is very
mild."  "Bleeding babajesus with this brown shit."  Commented
Beanjack.  According to authorities and testigos Beanjack were a
confused look and was rubbing his chest in a circular motion
counterclockwise and wondering again and again and again, "Beanman
who?  Beanman who"  As if wondering if the life was really there.

     Years later he sat before his fireplace sipping the mellow
brown reminiscing.  A beefy redhead in a rain bonnet cha cha-ed to
little end about a line of crackers on the cathode box.  How sad to
die.  She died from cancer.  It was many years later.  Flowery
crustaceans hobnobbing at the banquet.  They're still alive.  A
well mannered fork makes a proping introduction.  The frupas was
death to the boy.  It was after all, only a child.  Stiff cocktails
walking with starchy tuxedos pricks like divining rods lead
grinning corups to bucket seats of 81 Celica low and tank chassied
screaming by pale shadows and the misbigotten pump.  The handle
hidden in an old man's rifle box under a pillow with the serial
scratched.  Dialing babies linger by the boiling tanks.  Mini
babgies bob past the elements.  Kinky hair floats in the brine.  A
life droned by commitments and endless shifts repeated into
submission escaping from what at a brisk walk on step before the
steel plate.  The pauses are meaningless.  Never landing on it. 
Never tasting it.  Paying crisp bills for mutilated change. 
Looking out the basement kitchen on sees soggy cigarette butts on
the asphalt, shiny from a rain silent under the roar of equipment. 
Shiny from a rain that will wash away even this.  Shiny from the
glow of a streetlight held high atop an aluminum pole.  The poles
diminish down the street like the rushes at the marsh where he
fished with PA before the bottle took him.  The flash produces a
quick chuckle but no shrug, that he saves for the chill that fills
the room from the ground up.  on Break he doesn't nibble, this man
with a square jaw, rather he chew is Bork Pone, shits and wipes his
ass with the daily paper left by some fool.  No one could
understand it.  Outside the rain drives in a furious silence
equalled only by the lamenting strains of a Chopin Polinaise.  His
tower is his caste.  He doesn't understand it bt he know it.  A
crust of cheese if just as delicious as it was on those hairy
mosquito filled afternoons with PA.  He remember the darting
creatures that were always too fast.  His soles squishing in the
unimaginable softness, dancing was keeping your balance.  His
father was a man who wore a wig of coal, one foot out of the mine. 
A chip off a cherry lifesaver was the sweet taste in his mouth. 
Sometimes his father poked a small taste into his mouth with the
flat of his pinky sometimes he'd chew on a bird bone left by
passing buckshot.  A crust of cheese is just as delicious.

(Then he breaks into flirtatious stomp and says, "I love it.")



10) The thing I wrote at work one day #829 - By Marco Ramirez
     


Beanjack opened the cupboard and spake he forth brilliant obscenity
at the utter lack of beam whisky.  "I demand bloody smooth
bourbon," screamed him in tones reminicient of a hobbling spooge
soaker, and brandished a rhinestoned stiletto in fashion of same.
In the immediate afterwards a fucking pair of billies approached
from nine of the clock. 
     "Hang me if I hampered henry's hussy!"                       
                  "She's globed."
     "Suckhead you-" But demon take me if Jack did not spray
stickfuck with his reed lashed open piped copper shot.
     "Me life is go," he moaned, clutching his ringwormed chest. In
his dying moment he jerked out a boar tooth amulet stained blue by
viburnum skins and holding it at as high an angle as was he capable
he pledged it to his mother, to save and protect her. To hold her
safe and sane and happy until her dying day. His final life was a
salty cry that dripped off his glazing eyeball as his bowels
released. It soaked into Mama's stone and saturated the once nerve
ending occupied cavities. An idea that he never said floated away
on the easy lapping of the waves dizzy breakers splashing and
sucking vacuum rolling in an endless circle of sun and semi stroke
and nothing in particular to do... Years ago, he recalled a girl.
     Beanjack would have nothing to do with this. "Pork this," in
fact, he said. "Up the ass of the conceptor of this bleeding
travesty." And he sang the haunting refrain to an irish jig and
reel he loved so well: "And ye he returned spelling his sparkling
shit into goddamned compressors and thence returned nothing but
salty browned cubes." Beanjack recovered from this brief reverie
saying statements the ilk of "My amusement is very mild," and
"Bleeding babajesus with this brown shit." According to authorities
and testigos Beanjack wore a confused look and was rubbing his
chest in a circular motion counterclockwise and wondering again and
again and again, "Beanman who? Beanman who?" as if wondering if the
life was really there.
     Years later he sat before his fireplace sipping the mellow
brown reminiscing. A beefy redhead in a rain bonnet cha cha-ed to
little end about a line of crackers on the cathode box. How sad to
die. How sad when the cancer feeds to contentment on pleading
lungs. How sad. It was many years later. 

     Flowering crustaceans hobnobbing at the banquet. They're still
alive. A well mannered fork introduces, probing. The foax paus was
death to the boy. It was, after all, only a child. Stiff cocktails
walking with starchy tuxedos...pricks like diving rods lead
grinning corpus to bucket seats of an orange celica low and tank
chassied screaming by pale shadows that we knew and pulling up at
the misbegotten pump one last time. The handle hidden in an old
man's rifle box under a pillow with the serial scratched. 
     Dialing babies linger by the boiling tanks. Mini bagels bob by
the glowing elements, kinky hair floats in the brine. A life
drowned by commitments and endless shifts, repeated into
submission. Escaping from what at a brisk walk one step before the
steel plate, the pauses are meaningless. Never landing on it. Never
tasting it. Never knowing it. Mutilated change is the remainder. 
     Looking out the basement kitchen one sees soggy cigarette
butts on the asphalt, shiny from a rain silent under the roar of
machinery, shiny from a rain that will wash away even this. Shiny
from the glow of a streetlight...the poles diminishing into
Brooklyn remind of the favorite marsh where he fished with Pa
before the bottle took him. 
     The flash produces a quick chuckle but no shrug, that he saves
for the cold that enters the room from the ground up. On break he
doesn't nibble, this man with a square jaw, rather he chews his
borkpone, shits and wipes his ass with the daily paper left by some
fool who could understand it. Outside the rain drives in furious
silence equalled only by the lamenting strains of a Chopin
Polinaise. His tower is his caste. He doesn't understand it, but he
knows it. 
     A crust of cheese is just as delicious as it was on those hazy
mosquito filled afternoons with Pa. He chews slowly, remembering
the darting creatures that were always too fast. His soles
squishing through an unimaginable softness, his dance was keeping
his balance. His father was a man who wore a wig of coal, one foot
out of the mine. Sometimes his father poked a bit of cherry
lifesaver into his mouth with the flat of his pinky, sometimes it
was a bird bone left behind by passing buckshot. A crust of cheese
is just as delicious.