pulled into nazareth

i think i reached some sort of zenith in my life. at the dinner table with two men in their sixties. both in far better health than most people half their age. they both wear suspenders, one black leather and the other tanned leather. the one across from me has a thick, husky georgian accent. the one next to me has the accent of the midwest, north midwest like you would hear in commercials for potatoes and various brewing companies. they are of dutch descent. they talk about visiting their respective families, that live far and away from southern california. i feel a tinge of nostalgia, although i try to keep it hidden since they're talking about places i have never been and will probably never go. they talk about camping, the mosquitos, the cowboys coffee, fire and brimstone, well not brimstone but coal. they argue about the chevrolet suburban and the ford bronco, the models from thirty years ago. they talk about first wives as they look contently at their current wives fixing coffee in the kitchenette. they both wear glasses. they adjust these glasses. occasionally they'll take off their glasses and wipe them carefully on their chambray and plaid shirts. they skim over the topic of jesus, as if they knew him way back when. one was a southern baptist and one was a lutheran. now they are neither. they laugh. they talk again about tents and tools and heavy netting. i nod, but i don't know much about any of these things. they wear levi's, not todays levi's but those heavy, worn in dungarees that men used to wear when they chopped down things and built other things. they get served pie by their wives. they get served coffee by their wives. one drinks it black, he says he wants to know the beans by taste. the other drinks it with cream. his coffee already has cream when he gets it. his wife put it in for him. she's a good woman he says contently. one says to me, this is my favorite you hear, my favorite. coffee and pie are his favorite. i imagine this is how men ended their meals long ago. i felt proud of myself for thinking this. i drank my coffee black as well. they talked more about camping and then talked about the service. one was an mp and was a grunt. they served far away. this is all they talk on the subject of war and ease into the subject of carpentry. one worked on his son's lake house recently. the other worked on his son's boat. these are the men who hold up the planet. they are atlas and atticus and andy griffith all at once. they laugh heartily and slap their bellies. they snap their suspenders. they drink coffee in it's various incarnations. they talk of camping once again, camping in a shrouded forest that people like me will only ever dream about.

i was feelin' about half past dead. i just need a place where i can lay my head.

holy mother of nothing

this morning i saw a young women in my class shaking a bible and no one else seemed to notice. or they didn't care.

she held the old book upside down and thrashed the damn thing like a martini. i thought the book might fall to pieces or erupt into dust. i imagine people do things like that when they cast spells, have holy seizures or have qualms with religion. perhaps she was struck with an evil whim or perhaps she lost her goddamned mind. it was truly fascinating that she did this with an opaque and uninterested look on her face. eventually she put the bible down, as if she was finished. she then stared at the wall with a content smirk.

the usual, usual

i just heard an array of gunshots. i just heard an array of helicopters. i just heard an array of life bustling in the Inland Empire.

over, pulled.

"hi..." 

"how you doing tonight?"

"good?" (amused by officers shortness, tries not too laugh)

"license please."

"yes sir." (holds out license)

"do you know what the speed limit is?" (officer asks with an annoyed tone)

"thirty five miles per hour?"

"twenty five"

"oh, i didn't see that."

"have you been drinking?"

"yes."(shake head. attempt sincerity)

"how much did you have?"

"a beer and a mixed drink around 10:30." (lying. four whiskeys, one whiskey & coke. it's 2am)

"where did you come from?" (officer looks uninterested)

"the vault"

"follow my pen, don't move your head just use your eyes." (turns on flashlight and moves it horizontally a few times)

"yes sir." (hold breath)

"alright, step out of the car. turn off your lights."

"yes sir" (takes out key out of ignition. turns off lights. touches hole left from plug in ear)

"stand right there. i'm going to test your comprehension. what you do depends on how well you follow my instructions. do what i say."

"yes sir" (holds breathe again)

"now you said you were drinking?"

"yes sir. a beer and a mixed drink." (lying)

"do you have any sicknesses? medical conditions?"

"asthma. and a cut on the back of my foot."

"which foot?" (looks suspiciously)

"right foot."

"have you taken any medicine today?"

"just my inhaler. if thats a medicine?" (points to car. sees friend praying)

"alright, stand right there and put your feet together, your arms out and put your head back. keep your eyes closed until i say open. do you understand?"

"yes sir."

"alright, go ahead and do that"

"yes sir." (does said instructions. thinks about how alcohol consumed in the last hours. thinks about sex. thinks about god.)

"alright, you can relax." (takes notes on official looking clipboard) "next i want you to stand there on your right foot and look at your left. keep your arms out."

"can i adjust my bandage?" (points to foot. stares at fast food sign in distance)

"sure. want to do it barefoot?" (officer looks amused)

"not really."

"alright, begin then."

"yes sir." (stand on one foot. looks at sky, sees no stars. looks at toe and wiggles foot."

"good, relax. next time look at toe more. now switch feet." (officer look bored again might be thinking of wife or football. might be thinking of beer after work)

"yes sir." (stands on other foot, stares at shoe)

"good, relax. next you're going to put your arms out and tilt your head back. you're going to count to thirty then i'm going to tell you what hand to touch nose with. understand?"

"sure." (looks at officers hairless face. hones little to no respect)

"alright, put your feet together and head back. then count."

"okay. one one thousand. two one thousand..." (this goes on until thirty one thousand)

"good. now you see this imaginary line?  i want you to walk nine steps forward toe to toe, turn around and walk six steps back. start with your right foot both times."

"alright." (thinks how can one see an imaginary line. how can one walk a line that doesn't exist. walks forward nine steps, turns. looks at ymca and walks six steps)

"good. now come over to my car. sit here." (officer looks uninterested again)

"do you want me to sit on the hood?" (finds this increasingly funny as drunkenness fades)

"i don't care. sit on the hood or lean." (searches through car slowly)

"okay." (decides to sit on hood)

"now this is the involuntary blow device. go ahead and blow your hardest for forty-five seconds."

"okay." (puts mouth on oddly phallic devise, tries not to laugh. blows)

"blow harder. blow, blow, blow." (officer is laughing)

"sorry. the asthma." (lying)

"do you know what the dui limit is in the state of california?"

"zero point eight?"

"point zero eight. do you know what you got? higher or lower?"

"my guess would be lower?"

"you blew a point zero six. be safe tonight."

"okay. can i go?" (trying not to laugh)

"yeah sure."

Cessations

Byron and I stood on the concrete porch smoking menthols as we watched the sun set. We stood outside and smoked because we had nothing else to do; because we felt it gave us a purpose. At night we would watch the fleeting light disappear into the ocean of smog and combustion that sits above the Valley. The impeding summer darkness would march across the yard with a creeping fury. It went past the wilted trees and the hollow, dying shed then progressed over the pool without remorse and stopped before our feet. The month was June and with the month came the dry heat and plagues of those namesake insects. This June had been longer and stranger than usual since we had houseguests.

            Every night with every tragic sunset I had hoped I would wake up in the morning and Byron would be gone. It was hard to look at him with his fading beard, which seemed like it was rotting away with his face. He had riotous eyes, auburn colored eyes that screamed lunacy and sorrow and I could not look into them either. My grandmother used him as a deterrent when I was younger, telling me not to be a horrific child like he was when he was my age. When I got older and started drinking that sentiment was used even more so.

            “Don’t drink too much or you’ll turn out like your uncle,” she would say.

            I worked at a bookstore but had been given leave for a sprained ankle and he had been laid off from whatever it was he did. It was a blue-collar job that involved colored wires and metal tools and such things that I dared not concern myself with. Our unemployment came at the worst times, deep in the summer months when apathy and envy tide in every morning with the sunrise and hung around with every cigarette.

            “You know,” he said as he scratched his beard, “I used to be a made man.”

            “Made of what?” I asked.

            “Forget about it,” he said.

             “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Where you made like you were in the mafia? Made like you were a rich man?”

            “Yeah, a rich man,” he said. “I had wealth and money.”

            “Aren’t those the same thing?”

            He looked at me and smiled wryly, then petted his deteriorating mustache as though it was his last treasure. Smoke seeped out of his nose, spreading through his beard then into the night air.

            “Wealth was my family, your cousins and aunt, wealth was my position and my reputation,” he paused to light another menthol cigarette. “Wealth is what your ma’ has, she has you and you sister. She has her job and she has your dad”

            I imagined he resented my mother, since she had taken him in since he was fighting with his wife. I stared at him and saw an older picture of myself, a drab doppelganger. I hoped what my grandmother said would not be true. Behind his head was the sky; now dark and starless like many other cities are, succumbed to urban sprawl and decay. Both of us contributed to the degeneration, blowing smoke in the air at night and sitting around lethargically under air conditioning and insulation.

            “You see that?” he asked me.

            “See what?” I answered.

            “A bird just fell out of the sky,” he said. “Right out of nowhere.”

            “What the hell are you talking about?”

            “Over there by the pool fence,” he said pointing with his cigarette. “You see it? It’s one of them wise birds… an eagle, no an owl.”

            “Damn! I do see it. What should we do?”

            “Don’t touch it,” he said coolly. “It’s a bad omen. I heard that from an Indian guy I met in the army.”

            I walked off the porch to look at the bird. The yellow light that had harbored us above the porch fell behind me when I entered the darkness of the yard. I felt if I was facing life, cold and raw for the first time. My eyes throbbed in and out of focus as I made my way toward the winged animal. The backyard was so foreign at night, I felt intrusive walking through the cool grass and open air. I stopped within four or five footsteps of the bird, dazed by its outlandish splendor. The wings were spread out on the lawn as though it was part of a spiritual ceremony and I had stumbled upon it. After my eyes had adjusted I realized it wasn’t an owl, probably a hawk that frequented the foothills miles away. I stared at the bird so shocked that I did not move. My cigarette had smoldered through until the hot ash burned my hand. I dropped the butt and continued staring at the brilliant animal. My heart started to pound into my throat and I ran back toward the porch. When I reached it Byron stood watching me with his gray eyes. He looked even more sullen and haggard then he had before, like a charcoal smudge on the canvas that was our porch.

            “What the hell are you doing?” he asked me.

            “Burying that bird,” I answered. “Help me look for a shovel!”

            “Why would a shovel be on the porch?”

            “You’re not helping!” I said. “You never help! That’s your problem god dammit, you never help!”

            He looked at me sullen, but not angered. His eyes were melancholy and apathetic, like they always were. He then pointed slowly to the far end of the yard.

            “Check the shed,” he said calmly.

            I ran back off the porch. Across the yard where the fresh dew on the grass fell silent under my bare feet. I ran into the shed and began tearing through the tools. Dust swirled around me covering my arms and hands, and coating my wet feet and legs. I came across a spade that my mother used in her gardens. It looked meager but it seemed noble enough to bury the plummeted hawk. I made my way back to where the bird lay and found its resting ground empty. The earth looked untouched and desolate. I looked about intently, hoping to see any sign of the bird’s presence. The grass only hosted the cigarette butt I had dropped earlier; but not the animal, which I so desperately wanted to bury.

            “No,” I whispered to myself. “It’s not fair.”

            “Nothing ever is,” I heard a voice say behind me. “You can always count on that.”

            I turned to see Byron standing in the yard, not far behind me. He was looked hidden in the darkness, anonymous to the world. I could see his teeth shining in the gloom, almost unnaturally.

            “What do you know,” I asked. “You wouldn’t even help me bury it.”

            “How did you know it was dead?”

            “At least I tried!” I yelled.

            “When I was your age, when we lived in San Juan we had pets. I’m sure your ma’ told you about them.”

            “Yeah.”

            “We had all kinds of things, big and small, and we had birds. Not like that eagle, owl whatever it’s called, but we had birds as pets too. I found one of them in the yard by the white gate. Whitest damn gate I’ve ever seen. But we found it there, just spread out like it had been shot.”

            He paused and took out a cigarette; he looked it over closely as he held it between his thumb and index finger. He placed the cigarette back in the box with the filter up, then put the box in his shirt pocket.

            “And,” I asked. “What happened to the bird?”

            “Nothing,” he said with a smile. “Nothing at all happened, it was dead. Some damn kid threw a stone at it.”

            “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

            “Nothing,” he said again. “I’m going inside though, it’s getting cold out here.”

            “Get the hell out of here!” I yelled at him. “You’re useless!”

            “I know,” he said grinning. “Don’t stay out here too long. You’ll get cold and start smoking even more. You’ll think hard about what you had and what you lost             and you’ll end up like me.”

            I looked up at him and he was smiling again. His teeth reflected a radiance that was not the moon or the porch light but shone gloriously in the empty backyard. He reached down and patted me on the shoulder. I felt the callous skin on his hands and watched him turn and walk into the house. When he was gone I sat in the yard on the brisk, moist grass and stared at the porch. The porch seemed dreary and void with hanging smoke and menthol cigarette butts tossed around haphazardly like so much else in our lives. In the distance I heard the shriek of a bird and looked for one, but saw none.