Saturday, December 21, 2013

When Joe came up the stairs with the woman across his shoulders, the old man waited for him. Joe stood in front of him and looked into his face. It came to him to kill the man. The man sat in his wheelchair with his hands under a blanket, and returning Joe's stare, his lips cracked open and from his throat creaked the word yeah. What he was in agreement with not even he knew. It was something close to what a man's will whispers to him in his sleep, what bites at Joe's heels and writes the rules that men such as him operate in, like the wind that stomped the door against the frame until the men ascended from the basement and locked it against him.

Friday, December 20, 2013




 The suicide rate of the elderly is rising.
 The train passing over head. My body amid the vibrations of the train, of the people passing me in the street. I stand in the human highway.
 The girl in the cafe fidgets with the paper. She reads an article that she isn't really interested in, anyway. She looks nervous.
 I wonder if I couldn't ease her pain with my hands along her bare back. What she looks like when she is making love.
 Her friend shows up. She moves her coffee to her side and she spills some on her wrist. He does all the talking. He keeps the words coming, she keeps the kisses coming. When there is nothing left to say they sit there sipping coffee.
 There used to be an old couple who came in every day. The man still shows up. He looks the same.  He passed my gaze to the couple. The girl returned it to me there in the window.
 I do not ease her pain.

 There's a little Korean girl who comes to me in my dreams. I sleep perchance to talk to her again.
 Last night she sat beside me on a hill overlooking the city. The drones looked like bees.
 "You want to see her," she said.
 "I can't. She's gone."
 She looked at me. She said, "Yeah, but you still want to."
 "Yeah."
 A drone approached us on the hill. He hovered in front of us, his red opaque eye threatening to understand.
 "You can," she said. She showed me the prism. It looked like glass. I turned it in the sun. It didn't do what it was supposed to with the light.
 "No," she said. She took it and rotated it in front of her face. She looked through it at the city.
 The faces of the prism showed the city in different years of its past, the more you turned it the further back into the past it went.
 "When can I see her?"
 "You can see her next time. I have to find her."
 "You'll be here next time?"
 "Yeah."
 "Do they have those things in the Fukushima circle."
 "The drones? Yeah."
 "How do things look there?"
 "The same."
 "How's your mom?"
 "They come and check her every day."
 "Is it bad?"
 "Yeah."
 "Are they gonna pay you?"
 "I don't know. They didn't pay her for dad."
 "They gotta pay you something. If they pay people to live there, they gotta pay you something."
 She shrugged.
 "How is your sister?"
 "I don't know."
 "You can't count on her?"
 "No."

Thursday, November 14, 2013

 The story of his life spent clutching instruments of labor.



The work hard and never ending and leading to nothing. Some men had progeny, but Jefferson never felt the need. The facts of his life untold but to those who had the misfortune to hear it from beginning to end some desperate morning.
 The last of the true sun lost to the horizon



The story of Jefferson's life spent clutching instruments of labor. The work hard and unceasing and leading to nothing. His love spent on the fields and remaining unreplenished. Some men occupied themselves with progeny, but Jefferson never felt the need. The facts of his life untold but to those who had the misfortune to hear it from beginning to end some desperate morning.
 The last of the true sun lost to the horizon and what light remained illuminated them in a shadowless haze. Their figures twisting and bobbing at the harrowed wheat's edge. Men bearded with skin like leather and women in men's clothing otherwise in frayed and clay stained dresses. Boys with skin unmarred holding what blade could be fashioned to cut wheat. Children in quickfooted pursuit of what imagined foe or bounty awaited them cloistered in the wheat. Young women whose fantasies distracted them minding the children.
 The feather wheat on the wind and the insects that hop and fly like mad ambers in the hazy orange light, like faeries to Jefferson. He watched them scatter in spirals in his hand's wake. he watched the men. They no longer gathered the strength to cut in one swing and the repeated empty whispering affected him. He charged his scythe, and twisting himself like a great cog, he laid the wheat fallow. The renewing glow of the hour without shadows threaded his days together in his memory back to when he was a filthy and wayward child.
 The night will bring scytheless men. Stone faced harbingers of light come to root out what laziness may hide in the shadows. When he does retire, it will be with men who are not like you. Men whose faces contorted with their tortured lives into something you can not even look at. Something truly ugly. They rest their flesh against the metal train car and look out at the passing Earth and curse their low birth. They walk along the railroad tracks, lanterns swinging and revealing them in pendugal turns, to what ramshackle dwellings they after all afford. Their inner world looking onto them, their regard for what they call a family, the families' regard for them. Not a moment of tenderness in their day. Nobody is grateful.





Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Opening

 
A pig passes in the slanted snowfall, its shape a funny pink cloud in that hazy destitute town. The huddled peasants watch it bitterly. Their eyes shifting in their sockets, their heads turning to follow its shape. Each has tried to get their hands on it before but this is one lucky piggy. Memories of chasing the pig, sliding in the snow and cursing and the pig getting away every time with hardly an effort, its breath little puffs of steam in front of its snout and its head bobbing up and down with its quick steps. The pig stopped among a group of other such lucky piggies of varying sizes and touched snouts and resumed its course. It trotted along with a dignified haste as if it had a job to go to. A personal affront to the jobless poor who aspire to eat it.
              The pig is friends with a boy who has not found a gang of thieves yet. Who lives in the churches and clandestine places that his people travel through and live among. Mud-walled tunnels that lie beneath every city and connect all the parts of it that are accessible to but the destitute and the ugly and deformed and the savvy networks of thieves and all those shunned by society. That belong to the people who are illiterate and who have no history oral or otherwise and never will. The story of how he came to live in these circumstances not even he knows and doubtless it is populated by characters who did despicable things to one another. The boy standing there among trash heaps looking at you, stark madness leering through dark and narrow eyes. The capacity for evil. The cruelty with which he will be treated and the vengeance he will exact as an unreachable prodigy of killers.
              The pig finds the boy sleeping in a pew and wakes him. It buries its snout in his shirt, pinning him in and standing on its hind legs for leverage. It searches for that which brought it here: the smell of food emanating from the boy’s rags of clothing. It finds the bread in his shirt, but he grabs it and gives half to the pig and eats the rest himself. It searches out his open shirt for crumbs and sniffs his face and licks his lips and chin. He pushed himself up and looked around for any belongings. The pig sniffing about the altar. He bundled up and tucked his rags and walked to the back of the church where there is a door. The burst of cold wind not the least bit startling. It was always winter for all he remembered. The cold froze his snot and dried his throat and burned his cheeks as he trudged to a crowd in the street.
              A gallows set up in the street. It was built for six but there were only two. A tall man nearest to the boy. A woman between two older men standing arm in arm. Three young men on horses near the gallows. The boy tugged on the man’s shirt. He asked the man if he had anything to spare. It’s the man’s sons with the rope around their necks and he watched them closely. His shoulders were wide and so was his stance, his long legs braced hard against the ground behind him as if prepared to bare a heavy load. His face bespoke a career of meanness. A fat man in a fur-collared coat and a bow tie had read aloud their crimes and now asked if the boys had any last words to speak. They declined to do so. The fat man took his time to adjust the rope and put black sacks over their heads. He did one and then the other stopped him. He could be seen to breathe heavily. The man paused beside the boy with the sack in his hand. The other boy fidgeted in the already tightening noose and the stuffy burlap sack and the man tried again and the boy didn’t object this time. The executioner made his way to the far left end of the platform and the man closed his eyes and dropped his chin against his chest. The sound of the trap doors in the gallows falling open and the ropes snapping and the counterweights hitting the ground. The wooden frame straining under the sudden weight.
              The man stayed like this for a long time. He didn’t heed nor see the boy who was tugging at his coat. He opened his eyes and lifted his head and turned to walk back to the hotel like a statue come to life to the boy, like a god compelled to awaken from a great slumber. He walked with a long gait. He did not change his course to accommodate others in the street. The pathetic inhabitants watched his pale figure through the falling snow- something wicked, something that was not like them. Their fear made them think foolish things as they scurried out of his way.
              In a back room of the hotel a young woman in labor. Her screams were horrific. Her bare legs writhed in the stained sheets in a way that excited the doctor. Sweat dripping from his beard, his tired eyes. The nurses circling about them working in shifts. They covered her breasts when they shown through her torn blouse and gave her water to drink. They moved about her like diligent workers accustomed to scenes of horror and agony. Their unflinching eyes set upon the ground or on their task at hand, on you the horrified observer. In the thick of it the doctor and his dainty fingers carefully doing his grotesque and necessary duty. She was unreachable in her agony. Inconsolable to the world as if possessed, as if put in a trance by the black magic of an old world shaman. The young woman’s voice became hoarse and it was a relief to stop screaming. She was in labor from the morning of the day before to just before sunrise. It was a long time before they let her see the baby. She knew that something was wrong. The doctor presented it laying stiffly in a blanket in his arms. The infant’s color was a deep red unlike the color of a newborn. Two prominent ridges above his brow. A tail could be seen between his legs struggling to point upward like an earthworm in the sun. His mother was hysterical. She rejected him outright and wept hoarsely into the pillow.
              The doctor stole away with the baby. The man passed the doctor in the lobby. His face did not reveal his intentions or the extent of his knowledge. He went to his horse to the bag of provisions behind the saddle with coffee in hand. He put a foot in the stirrup and drank the coffee and watched the doctor step into his carriage parked directly in front of the hotel. It was just light enough to ride. He could make out the driver’s silhouette against the bright western mountains stretching and yawning himself awake. He reached into a pocket on his saddle and took out the revolver and checked the cylinder and placed it in his belt and walked over to the carriage.
              The doctor gawked at him through wide tired eyes and backed himself away to the other side with the infant in his arms. “I think I know you,” he said.
              “We’ve never met.”
              “But what are you doing here.”
              “I’m here for the child.”
              “I know that.”
              The man stepped into the carriage and placed his knee in the doctor’s face and began to wrench the infant from his arms. The doctor struggled beneath him and made a noise like an animal being slaughtered. The man choked the doctor until he let go and took the baby up and left the doctor there exhausted and too defeated to move. He addressed the driver with baby in hand: “Are you gonna follow me?”
              The driver only sat there, his face barely visible.
              “But the doctor will.”
              “I can’t say he wont be inclined to do so.”
              The man produced a hunting knife from a sheath on his thigh. He walked to the horse farther from him and cut the reins and then walked back and did the same to the other. He glanced at the door of the carriage behind which the doctor would not make himself seen. He plunged the knife into the horse’s thigh until the wood of the handle stopped in the firm meat. It screamed and tried to rear but the left leg buckled and it fell over, tilting the carriage to that side and breaking the harness. The other horse took off with the carriage, pulling the wheels over the one that lay on the ground. It struggled to stand as if its legs and back were not completely broken. The other horse ran for a long time and broke from the carriage and left the driver sitting there. The broken horse stood there looking at the man’s back, held up by adrenalin alone before it collapsed like a statue of a horse suddenly bereft of its foundation.
              The man walked back to his horse with the chaos behind him. He mounted it with one hand and opened his jacket and cradled the infant in its warm plume and rode west. He rode away from the depraved doctor and the scene by the hotel the likes of which that town had never seen before and never would again. Of which the participants were alien to. Of which the people would gossip forever and none will in the telling of it reveal it truthfully. Because in such an insoluble story there is no such thing as fact, but only preexisting myths reaffirmed or dispelled. The notions that each possesses about the world dictating the moral derived by each. In a dreary town on a frozen morning the Devil was born to a young woman of questionable morals. He left behind him bloodshed and chaos and wreaked havoc wherever he rode.

Friday, November 8, 2013

What the hell. They road among the orange glow of the lamps of that town. As dusk came on so did the kerosene lamps and the wooden logs and the candles in the windows. The town sliding into that final contemplation by wooden fire. The illuminated faces of the men and women of the town and their conversation that Joe and Richard were not privy to. Who was trustworthy and who wasn't. Joe wondered if any of them were worth knowing. You get one true friend in this life and that's it. One is plenty.
 You gonna marry that girl?
 I don't know. No.
 She was nice enough.
 Nice enough.
 Her daddy don't like you.
 She's been raised under his wing I guess. She don't got a mother. All she's got is him and him her. It's not up to him to like me.
 There's no arguing with him.
 No, no arguin. Have to be a fool.
 No point in budding your head against it.
 No point in it.
 You have any plans on impressing him?
 There's always plans. All it takes is time. I can't say I see myself regrettin it.
 You think she's worth it.
 Don't see how she aint. Maybe this town aint.
 The lights of the towns set aglow the dust that hung in the air above them. The circumstances that each family of the plains finds itself in and the politics among the households. The smell of poorly hidden contempt. Rotting hatred. It hung above the towns like a stinking wretched halo. Blood feuds and stories of murder in the street. That in a man which convinces him to kill another man. That which deems a man deserving of death. That in the clowns that sought Richard out and what it was they knew about him.
 Richard asked Joe what he thought was the matter with the clowns.
 I think they were just looking for a fight.
 What the hell.
 I think they knew you wouldn't do anything crazy.
 Or you wouldn't let me.
 I wouldn't let you make a fool of yourself.
 God.
 I don't mean to call you a fool, you aren't one. But they had a good look at both of us. They saw the knives, they saw the shotgun. They know what town they're in. There was something in em not worth scaring up.
 They're just men.
 Joe watched Richard, he watched the towns. Out there some of the lights disappearing like ships into a storm. The remaining darkness as if reclaimed by the planes if not for the restless ambition in the hearts of the people who indeed lay claim to that land.
 Joe stopped his horse. There's gonna be rain.
 There already is. Richard held out his palm and took account of the rain. Wont last.
 No more dust over the towns and yet more lights disappearing. The evidence of their existence receding to the void and yet the people's essence remained. The hierarchy of the planes persists. Status lost and won in the economy of rumor and intrigue. Hearsay shifting the petty hearts of those who turn the soil and obey the changing tide of the seasons that looms over the story of their lives in and out of fortune on the prairie of the Southwest. That in a people that gives them the strength. What myth of themselves they are reduced to inventing.
 There's types of people out there you can't pretend to understand, Richard. Can't underestimate.
 You think they're killers?
 No. They're not killers.
 So what is it about them that can't be scared.
 Scare em with what.
 Richard lifted the closing flap of his satchel and tossed the revolver at Joe.
 Joe held the thing in his hands. Heavy and cold. Something to be found in a soldier's hand, a deputy's. Some kind of pretense about it. He gave it back. He asked if Richard knew why he never carried a gun. Because he never met any fucking killers.
 Joe turned the horse in the direction of their homes and asked joe about the girl


There's types of men out there you can't pretend to understand.
You think they were killers?
No. 




What the hell.
 In Richard's eye reflected the lights of the town. As night came on so did the lights. The town sliding into that final contemplation by wooden fire. The faces of the people half illuminated in their places of living and their conversation that Joe was not privy to. Who was trustworthy and who wasn't. You get one friend in this life and that's it. One is plenty.
 You gonna marry that girl?
 I don't know. No.
 She was nice enough.
 Nice enough.
 Her daddy don't like you.
 She's been raised under his wing I guess. She don't got a mother. All she's got is him and him her. It's not up to him to like me.
 There's no arguing with him.
 No, no arguin. Have to be a fool.
 No point in budding your head against it.
 No point in it.
 You got any plans on impressing him?
 There's always plans. All it takes is time. I can't say I see myself regrettin it.
 You think she's worth it.
 Got to be. Don't see how she aint. Maybe this town aint.
 The lights of the town set aglow the dust that hung in the air above them. The circumstances that each family finds itself in and the politics among the households. The smell of poorly hidden contempt. Rotting hatred. Stories of murder in the street.
 That in a man which convinces him to kill another man. That which deems a man deserving of death. That in the clowns that sought Richard out and what it was they knew about him.
 Richard asked Joe what he thought was the matter with the clowns.
 I think they were just looking for a fight.
 What the hell.
 I think they knew you wouldn't do anything crazy.
 Or you wouldn't let me.
 I wouldn't let you make a fool of yourself.
 God.
 I don't mean to call you a fool, you aren't one. But they had a good look at both of us. They saw the knives, they saw the guns scabbards on our horses. They knew what town they're in. There was something in em not worth scaring up.
 They're just men.














What the hell.
 As they rode the town sliding into that final contemplation by wooden fire. The people's faces aglow in orange light and their conversation that Joe and Richard were not privy to. Who was trustworthy and who wasn't. Joe wondered if any of them were worth knowing. You get one friend in this world and that's it. 
 You gonna marry that girl?
 I don't know. No.
 The lights of the towns set aglow the dust that hung in the air above them. The circumstances that each family finds itself in and the politics among the households. The smell of poorly hidden contempt. It hovered over the towns like a wretched halo. You think everything's calm and then you hear of a murder. That in a man which convinces him to kill another man, that which deems a man deserving of death. That in the clowns that sought Richard out and what it was they knew about him.
 Richard asked Joe what he thought was the matter with the clowns.
 I think they were just lookin for a fight. I think they knew you wouldn't do anything crazy.
 Or you wouldn't let me. 
 I wouldn't let you make a fool of yourself. 
 God. 
 Something about the way Richard sat, the way he held the rains. Joe watched him, he watched the towns. The lights from the towns reflected dully in Richard's eye, in the metal parts of his gear. Out there some of the lights disappearing like ships into a storm. The remaining darkness as if reclaimed by the plains but for the restless ambition in the hearts of those who indeed occupy that land. 
 It's gonna rain.
 Joe held out his palm and took account of the rain. Not much rain. Won't last. He breathed in the damp air. The halo formed above the towns by the luminous dust had gone and yet more lights disappearing. He thought hard on whether there was anything to be gained from seeing two clowns scared. He asked Richard what he thought could bring fear into their hearts. Richard lifted the flap of the leather satchel in the rear of his saddle and tossed the revolver to Joe. Joe held the thing in his hand. Heavy and cold. Something to be found in a soldier's hand or a deputy's. There was a pretense in it. He asked if Richard knew why he never carried a gun. Richard didn't know and he said because there's no killers around here. 

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

 Some makeup from the show remained on their faces, and in the incomplete light of the bar, they appeared as clowns. The clowns among the other men and the stories they brought with them and their masculine agendas and the cigarette smoke, meanwhile a wind damp in the lonesome streets they walked in from.
 The whore at her table just out of the light. Richard had sat at her table a while and came back to the bar. Joe remembered that when she first showed up, she sat at the end of the bar with no drink in front of her. Her eyes were strong and dark and she was skinny and her face was round and open. She sat in silence and looked at the ceiling or nodded to herself as if in agreement with what her newfound circumstances have revealed to her. Fat John, who Joe knew to be a father of four, was the first to approach her and follow her up the stairs. Fat John broke her in and after that she sat at the table just out of the light with a drink and took to smoking one cigarette after another.
 Richard asked Joe what he thought the clowns wanted.
 Don't know.
 They're lookin at me.
 No they're not.
 They're lookin at me all right. And they're sayin somethin.
 They're just lookin.
 Joe watched the clowns' painted faces. They spoke a melodic tongue and passed a bottle of bootleg wine they stole or stomped with their own dirty feet. They looked at Richard, they stared without staring. They secreted something away in their smiles.
 Richard couldn't hide the whiskey in his voice, can I help you sirs?
 The clowns only sat there.
 I said can I help you.
 He was old and skinny and his sunken cheeks shown skeletal in the weak light. Behind him sat a fat one who smiled a gaping toothless smile. He turned to his friend and turned back and said, I know you.
 Pardon me.
 The old clown pointed to himself and his friend, we know you.
 No you don't.
 No. We know you.
 No sir, you don't understand.
 Joe watched them. Their stark faces floating like ghosts over the bar. Conspiracy in their eyes and in their smiles. The drunkard Jefferson sat at the other end of the bar and smiled with the clowns. Joe stood, but you don't know me.
 The old fieldhand Jefferson has decided he will never go back to the ranch. He hides his mangled foot beneath the bar. The pain of pulling the boot on. There is no taking it off.
 He has spent every dollar he has, and when the coins in his pocket are gone, he will kill one of the boys or both. It will have to be the bold one first. Then the other will be his to kill or to impose his will on however he wishes. He will wake up to choosing when the boy is in his arms. His new life will begin with tomorrow's bloody sunrise.
 He steps on the foot to see if it can carry any weight. He watches the boys.
 Richard sat hunched at the bar. He'd had too much whiskey. His mind floated. His hand went from the glass to the hunting knife on his belt.
 Joe pushed the knife back into its leather sheath.
 I just wanna see em scared.
 They won't scare.
 The fat clown's serene face and his happy bulges spilling out on the bar. He sips the wine and smiles. His old friend looking across the bar, his whiskey untouched. His eyes alive and intelligent. His mind corrupt and deceitful and long given into what vices he met along his path. His regard for Richard and what he causes in the boy's mind.
 Time to go.
 What the hell.
 Joe took richard by the shirt and pulled him out the door. He untied their horses and took them to the middle of the street.
 Richard's horse acted up. It was frightened of Richard's hand and wouldn't take a rider.
 Joe put Richard on his own horse. He held the head of Richard's horse tightly and tugged on its ear until it lowered its head. He held her head there for a while. He took measure of his own heart rate, then the horse's.
 The clowns amid the smoke and the other men sitting in thought or in drink or in short conversation. Joe imagined the actress at the bar. She laughs, she is comfortable around her friends. She drinks like one of the men. But when she looks at Joe, she changes. He told Richard to get down and switch horses, she's ready.


Tuesday, October 15, 2013

And when the sun had not yet parted with the horizon, and the red canyon rock was aglow in the red of the sunrise, Joe came for the last two, and all their cowardices and all the bravery they thought they contained and the fragility of their human vessels were realized with the red sun for sullen witness.

Why you have two knives, asked the old man. One for me and one for you? The old man put his cigarette out in the small glass. A small blue flame passed along the inside of the glass, but it only lived for a second.
Joe thought on his plan for the old man and the unloaded shotgun Richard pointed in the window. He watched the flame in the glass.
You come in here with a plan to kill me, ah. The old man hadn't looked at Joe since he sat down, but only straight ahead across the bar. No, no. You don't want to kill me. You only want to protect your friend. Your friend, ah. Your friend wants to come here so you scare me.
No. I wanted to come here.
The old man held a coin in his hand. He tapped the bar with it as he said: Then what is the plan. What is the trick of the two knives.
No trick.
Yes, you trick. You don't come to no bar to scare no old man who never been scared without a trick. Without adavantage.
Frank the bartender leaning against the bar at the other end. He looked out the window and pretended not to hear. His eyes met Joe's. The old man's fat friend stood in the middle of the room. He smiled when Joe looked at him.
The trick is the gun have no bullets, said the old man. How you must love your friend. He finally looked at Joe. What a great lover he must be. I buy you a drink, boy. He called for the bartender but Frank only stood there.
Joe took Richard's knife off his belt, and in a swift arch of his arm, buried the tip of the blade in the wood where the old man's hand had been.
No, you don't have it. You don't kill nobody.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

The man with green eyes face down in the dirt. The dirt red where he hid his wounds from Papa. The man's hair cow licked into a mohawk. It dried stiff in the winds that do traverse that country and come to disturb what small thing will let them. The dogs of the paddock loitering in the now mundane stench of the man, the males in gelded boredom, and the bitches tending to their brood.
 Joe and Richard's shadows crosswise the man. His fingers protruded purple from wrists bound with twine and his feet bare and bound. His boots beside his feet. Papa lay across his back and licked the sweat from his neck.
 Told her he's a prince. Said they had an accident on the road. Said there's gold in it for her.
 Joe turned him on his back. The man struggling awake in the lonely country. He looked up at them through eyes recessed in swollen flesh. Two hazy figures interrupting the bare firmament.
 He's a prince, all right. Joe sat him up and put the water bladder to his lips. The water stinging his cracked lips and dripping red from the tears in his cheek.
 Said he asked her to get more water. That's when she saw the girls robbing the chicken coop.
 Yeah.
 Didn't need to see em, though. Elson was watching em.
 Yeah. Should never have walked in that door.
 Goes without saying. Lucky I was out. Richard brought his face close to the man's. That's not to say that it wont get worse before the day's over, though.
 Papa standing there and the man on his back breathing and the other dogs circling. The man's swirls of flesh like muddy snake tracks. Papa sniffed at the man and dragged his tongue from the man's chin to his forehead. The man screamed and tried to sit up but the dog clamped down on his ear. Joe straddled the dog and pulled its head down and held it there until it let go of the man. Papa taking his place with the other dogs and the man leaning into Joe. He finally cried.



 The dog looked up at Joe from eyes that struggled to stay open. Black fly larva had made a home of its flesh and could be seen to writhe in their cozy homes. Joe squeezed the dog's brow and expelled the worms to the forest floor. The dog searched them out and stood there chewing, its ear flopping like moth eaten silk.
 Out there two men struggling to find footing in the grass. One bearded with a canvas bag over his shoulder and the other with eyes that looked in different directions.
 Joe sat crouched and held the girl's ankle. He waited for the little one to give them away but she stayed quiet. He watched the girls watching the men. Not a trusting gaze.
 Maybe they don't know em, said Richard.
 They know em.
 Behind the girls the horses swayed in the silence of the forest. They watched the men between the river birch. Across Joe's horse a deer carcass and on the horse that Richard borrowed from Joe's father sat the man with green eyes.
 When Joe took the man's bag, he dug his claws in as if to make a stand over it and his friend found a stick. Joe reached in to the bag. He held the dark mushroom with his thumb and forefinger and said: you're gonna kill everyone with this. The men looked at each other, at Joe. He passed his finger under his chin, dead. He tossed the mushroom. He whistled for Richard. The men watched them emerge from the pine like unconsoled spirits, like a company left for dead and half forgotten.
 The image of Joe and Richard something to measure their fantasies against to the children. Something born of a rumor of a future in this country. They watched the two young men



Monday, October 7, 2013

 The dog's brow and ear swollen and it looked up at Joe with eyes that struggle to stay open. Black fly larva had made a home of its flesh and can be seen to writhe around in their cozy homes and peak their black heads out of

Jobs to be found. Jobs to be found in the fruit fields of___

Mister _____ offering the honest and decent occupation of fruit picking. Of ____, of ____. Pay is ____

On a field owned by Mr ____ that pays ___

He said, good work, decent work to be found.

The two men standing behind him like enlisted men. The others __ ___ ___. From the ___ ___ _____ _____ ______.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Outline of scene where Joe meets the gypsies

-Joe and Richard pick up the man with green eyes in the paddock of the dogs
[He's a prince all right, papa's protecting the dog, the man hiding his face in the dust from the dog's licking]

-Joe and Richard come upon two of the men in the woods
[They hide from the men, the men pick poisonous mushrooms, one of the men lazy eyed]

-Joe comes upon the group crowded around the fire
[The two men carry the dear carcass, the girls go into one of the wagons where the actress greets them, the man with green eyes' family crowd around him]

-Joe hangs up the deer and butchers it
[He puts the hind parts to smoke, he hands the hide over it, he asks for salt to preserve other parts, he puts the organs in a pan to fry with some of the fat from strip of fat beside the tender loin]

-They eat around the fire
[The two clowns off in the dark corner smoking, fat one smiling etc {fat one eats, older one doesn't}, joe sits next to the actress {vibes} and feeds her and her younger sisters the organs, the man with green eye's family crowded around him, he on the floor moaning beside them]

-The surgery
[Joe sets Richard to sharpening the knife, he tells the actress to start a deep pan of water to boil, he asks for needle and thread, cross on the wounds, suturing his cheek etc]

-Sleeps with the actress
[Holds her from behind, she corrupts him with her tongue etc, man growns all night, Joe gets up before day break, meets clown to watches the man and says the man will die before sunrise and that when the people find him they will kill him, something about confidence of the young etc]

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

 The hand of Joe's father along the horse's coat on its neck, down to the ribs and belly and back up along its spine. His half closed eyes in slow and singular focus. He put his finger in the rope that tied the splint to the inside of the leg. This has to be leather. Replace it tomorrow but use more rope for tonight. This comes loose in the night it's finished. The splint went along the inside of the leg to the belly and at the belly attached to a support that pushed up into the horse's abdomen to take weight off the leg. You know, I think it didn't work with Nave because we should have fixed the other leg the same way and connected it with a harness in the middle. Take the good leg and the bad leg off the ground and it wouldn't put any weight on either of them. It can't run even if it wants to.
 Won't let you. It'll break out of it. This way it doesn't know it's cripple.
 Did it break it in the fall.
 No. Richard rode it in the forest. Must've kicked something. He should have rode in the prairie beside the girls but he got right up on em to scare em. Something wasn't right in the way it was running.
 It's not a bad break.
 Just a crack I guess.
 And the girls.
 In the barn with Richard. He's got a gun on em. Maybe I shouldn't have left them with him.
 Wouldn't make a difference. If they're any good at thievin, they're good enough to steel their freedom from you.
 Wouldn't do em any good. I know where their people are at. I saw the smoke from their fire.
 You think if you bring them their women unharmed, they'll leave town without gettin their eye?
 Don't think they're a people given to vengeance. Find a town. Build a fire and settle down for a day. Take what they can and leave before people wise up. That's what they do. This time they stole too close to home. Thought they could lose us. Thought a river between us was enough.
 And the man?
 He'll live.
 Should've never entered that house.
 Don't see what else they expect to happen.
 They could expect to kill you and be satisfied.
 They won't. I was thinking about shootin them a deer. I think I can help the man with his wounds, too. They won't do nothin.
 The man looked at the boy. He was not of the man's stock, but by and by he took from the man what he had to give to him and forged it into a will yet unrealized, but the capacity of which could be imagined. It came to him that before he met the boy, he had never encountered another made of the same stuff as himself. He said to the boy: Keep the horse fed well or over fed and retie the splint before you sleep tonight. Tomorrow take things very slowly. Read the situation. Don't let them follow you home. Cover your tracks and keep an eye on them until the whole lot of them is out of this country. Take enough bullets to cover the head count.
 The girl there surrounded by all the darknesses of a night and what moonlight may seep through the cracks in the wood. Joe felt her there and after a minute he did see something in the shadow from which an image of her of sitting against the barn wall could be surmised. He felt around for the lamp hook hanging from the ceiling. He lit the match and brought it into the kerosene lamp and for a while the lamp only illuminated itself, until the fire caught strength and materialized in weak orange glow what was to be seen of the inside of that barn.
 The girls rising to their feet in the warm orange glow of the kerosene lamp. Her eyes and her mouth and her skin electric there in the small world of the barn. Her skin bears the marks of a life in the rough, some of the scratches fresh, and the skin at her elbows undelicate and dark. Her dress something that only works from afar. In the light of the lamp it revealed itself to be a patchwork of discarded fabrics sewn together by unscrupulous hands. The hoop skirt something to hide what had been stolen and the shirt an inadequate container for sacks of flesh well acquainted with the hands of men, effect her body has on those who usurp it from her an important part of her place in the world she knows.
 Bitch. Joe sat opposite the girls beside his rifle. He told them to strip.
 The younger one looked up at her older sister. She put her hands on her sister's lower back and pushed her forward. In the girl's eyes swirled the nucleus of a world that existed beside Joe's, but was not like his, where the girl is defined by the notions of her held by those in her orbit, yet remains at the center. She reached behind her back and lifted her dress and pulled down the hoop skirt. Beneath that were shorts covered in feathers, and she pulled them down. The girl's gaze, which knows not hardness or softness but only bares witness to a life bereft of choice, hadn't left Joe since he entered the barn. The light reflected yellow from his iris reminded her of the pattern on a butterfly's wing the more she looked at it. The breathing of the milk cow and the feathers and wheat and dust in the air like mad ambers in the glow of the lamp and the howling madness of the night outside the barn walls. She turned her back to him and lifted her dress and pushed herself into his seam. Her bare ass and the dark hairs along her spine like something of the animal realm intruding on a feverdream to Joe.




Wednesday, September 25, 2013

 Richard's grandmother in the grass. The wheat flattened where she crawled and in her clenched fists dirt and torn plants and in her eyes the senile fear of having shared a space with death. She looking up at Richard and squinting in the sun and in a voice that lost its composure she told him that the man's in the kitchen and that she didn't know who he was.
 When they heard the gun shot they swam in the river that marks the southeast perimeter of Joe's property. The shots echo ringing across the country and bringing the boys out the woods. Richard's grandmother running out the door in their direction, her arms in the air, was a sight they couldn't quite believe. They road the same horse down to her still soaked in their shorts.
 Elson on the stool with the shotgun across his knees. He rolled a cigarette on the flat of the stock. Next to him the table collapsed into a heap of dark wooden planks. He's in trouble, Joe.
 The man with green eyes crawled to the door. His hair undone and enveloping his head. From his face to the floorboards a tangled mess of hair and blood and saliva and loose skin. From the meat of his throat came a groan that told of a life lived in the margin of people's credulity subverted, of a face that betrayed one moment and turned around and loved the next. A voice that did win the adoration of a people it called its own. It reverberated in the hollow wooden spaces of the house and escaped out the doors and windows of the house into the late afternoon of the country that surrounds this corner of the world that found itself the setting of this man's end that day.
 The man's fingers around Joe's ankles. Joe standing in the doorway half naked, the light coming in crowding him in the doorway and rendering him a dark hazy silhouette to the man. A drop of water fell from Joe's shorts and landed in front of the the man's face. Joe's hand supported his head. Joe pondered on what darkness there was to be found in the man's heart, and if the man had made a mistake, if it were to underestimate the darkness that may be contained in the hearts of others.
 A madness stirring in the thick of the woods. It crept along the ground, shifting the leaves and the twigs and over the fallen logs and gliding over the rivers. Its origins black and capricious and native, the thing itself only the residue of a force whose intentions and influence on man are beyond his ability to decipher, it boiled in the sun sliding into orange and rose from the fields like a mist. It descended on the boys and found an equal in their hearts as they sat astride their horses armed with a rifle each and conspired with the madness against the girls.
 Richard's cigarette aglow in the hue of the late afternoon sky. What if they got their horses tied up there and they make a run north across the fields.
 Thieves don't got horses.
 Why would they go through all that trouble.
 You ever stalked a cat before? They go through all kinds of trouble.
 Richard spat. He said: Well. If they got chickens, there'll be feathers.
 There will.
 I can follow the feathers.
 All right. I'll be at the bridge then.
 What if they're not headed for the bridge.
 They're headed for the bridge. Joe loaded the rifle. These are for their people waiting for them at the bridge. If you hear a shot, set up with a clear view of the field. You'll see me first and then they'll follow. It's easy pickings for you.
 Well shit.
 That's the worst that'll happen. Chances are it's just us against the girls.
 How are you so sure they're headed for the bridge.
 Well. How many chickens they take, a dozen? That's more than a family. The woods across the bridge is the only place to hide that many people. They're looking for wood for the fire now, most likely. Chances are good they don't know anything's happened. Chances are the three or four men they got that can fight are busy with something else. He told Richard to keep his ears open and his rifle on the saddle.
 What if there's shooting to be done.
 Only shoot when you're good and ready to shoot. When you're in a good position to shoot. Don't let yourself get startled into shooting. If you hear a shot, walk into the field and get yourself set like you're hunting deer. Just like you're hunting.
 What the hell. Richard spat on the cigarette and flicked it into the weeds. What do I do if the girls turn right and go north across the fields.
 They won't.
 But how do you know
 They're clever. They're too clever to try making it across open country. They never go back the way they came. They cover their tracks. When they reach that line of trees they're gonna make a left to lose us and cross the bridge. Keep the rifle in the saddle and the bullets in your pocket. Keep your head.
 The timber bridge a reminder to the forest of man's supposed mastery over it. It was made by the hands of Joe's father and will fall to decrepitude and disrepair at his passing. It lays across the banks of the river in the shade of the woods, its truss and darkened basswood cover giving it the look of a train car abandoned to return to the elements man summoned to comprise it.
 Joe stood in its entrance with the rope in his hand. He felt them coming when they were about a hundred yards north east down the river. Their footsteps vibrating in the body of the bridge, the more dainty and sensitive instruments of the forest anticipating the arrival of something human and desperate and clumsy. The girls ran out the forest into the prairie to make a straight run for it when Richard arrived at their heels. Their rhythm quick and awkward and Richard's horse maintaining a relaxed trot a quarter of a minute behind. When they got near he heard richard's horse increase its pace and the number of girls running cut to one. He walked out into the prairie and finally heard their voices.
 People-hunting in the heat and the haze of the insects and the pollen and the plants of the wheat fields. The older sister's high kneed galloping in the grass. Fowl under her arms, her hair in a black sinewy trail behind her. If she noticed Joe she gave no sign of it. Her sister a ways back among the pounding hooves of Richard's horse. She writhed in the dirt in awe of the animal with the veined marble muscles and the black coat that absorbed the sun and gave back a bluish reflection of the moon. It reared and buckled over her like she was a small demon to the horse. Richard struggled to control the animal with shotgun in hand. In his eyes the frustration of a hunter kept from his kill, of a sheriff, of a killer. The girl got to her feet and swatted at the horse's face and the beast froze in fear without all of its hooves on the ground and toppled over in the wheat. Richard's shotgun released a cartridge into the prairie, and when the older sister turned around at the sound of it, Joe lunged forward with the rope lassoed and it was wrapped around her waist before she turned back around. She tried to swing him but only swung herself to the ground. Joe put her on her stomach and placed his knee on her back. He passed the rope between her ankles and then around them and under the dress out the collar and back to her ankles and tied it off. Her little sister tried to clear them both in a courageous lunge but Joe's hand was there to grab her and she soon lay next to her sister with her hands tied behind her back with the remainder of the rope.
 Richard tried to stand the horse but Joe yelled to make it lay. He said it broke its leg and if they make a splint for it now they can save the horse.
 Shit. Richard bent over with his hands on his knees. There's something wrong with my shoulder. On that side blood dripped from his elbow. His face was red and wheat covered his back. He said he needed to sit for a while.
 The two chickens that had been under the older sister's arms recovered from the ordeal, and having realized the seeds in the dirt, picked at the ground beside their sisters silent and half dead in the girls' hoop skirts.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

The thread bound notebook under the chair. Her hand patting the floorboards for it. In the notebook, passages from books sold to her by men who stood in her doorway in suits worn thin and slack and beheld her with eyes tired and besieged with sweat. She records her favorite passages and by the window. Out there the plane of millet and wheat and sunflower interrupted by three distant figures. She closed the notebook and placed it there by the bowl of sweets. In her advancing years, Virginia has come upon the habit of chewing sweets and her life has become the story of the flavor and texture of one candy after another.
 Through her telescope, a man with two women in outsized dresses in the silence of the fields seemingly walking in place. They found the road and raised a cloud of dust behind them.

In her advancing years Virginia has come upon the habit of chewing sweets and her life has become the story of the flavors and textures of one candy after another. She records her favorite passages and folds the caramel over in her mouth and looks out the window. Out there the plane of millet and wheat and sunflower interrupted by three distant figures. They find the road and raise a cloud of dust behind them.
 Through her telescope, a man and two women in outsized dresses in the dust and the mirage and the silence of the field seemingly walking in place.
 She drops another caramel and consides
In her advancing years Virginia has come upon the habit of chewing sweets, and her life has become the story of the flavors and textures of one candy after another as she sits by the window and reads.
 Out there the plane of millet and wheat and sunflowers interrupted by three distant figures. She closed the notebook over the magnifying lens and placed it there by the bowl of sweets.

Under the chair for a thread bound notebook. In the notebook, passages from books sold to her by men who stood in her doorway in suits worn thin and slack and beheld her with eyes tired and besieged with sweat.
 She places her magnifying lens there in the page and closes the book.
 Next to the book a bowl of sweets. In her advancing years Richard's grandmother has come upon the habit of chewing sweets and her life has become the story of the flavors and textures of one candy after another. She records her favorite passages and folds the caramel over in her mouth and looks out the window.
 Out there the plane of millet and wheat and sunflowers interrupted by three distant figures. They find the road and raise a cloud of dust behind them.
She finds her telescope and drops another caramel in her mouth.
A man and two women in outsized dresses in the dust and the mirage and the silence of the field seemingly walking in place. They stop and the man addresses the two women who follow before they start again.
 The fabric of his shirt in the breeze and the women keeping up with him, their heads tilted at the ground in front of them. He wears a hat.
 She drops another caramel in her mouth. She considers the situation. She fondles the sweet with her tongue and considers possibilities given to a mind uninhibited from reason by boredom and decrepitude.
 The woman regards the interior if her home. Its appearance and the purpose of the parts of it they built that have become mundane characters in their lives and their value to the strangers.
 She holds the loose leg and drags the table to the center of the living room. She finds three chairs and a stool and arranges them about the table. The contents of the dusty cupboard removed and returned in search of three identical glasses.
 The pump well black and iron and it squawks like an agent of the revolution burrowed out the ground to announce its presence. It wakes Elson but he watches her work the pump arm from the back porch with half closed eyes. Her pale and fleshy arms in the sun and the heat. The wire handle of the water bucket in its crease in her hand.
 The man with green eyes squats in the road. He draws the house and the road in the dust and makes an arch from the road around to the back of the house. He draws a line straight from the back of the house at a right angle to the road. He tells the girls not to go south down the road to get back, but to go west and when they get to tree cover and from there to go south along the river until they get to the bridge. He tells them he may be there or he may not. The girl's face streaked with tear marks and her cheeks pink where her sister slapped her. She doesn't know how to squat without showing her underwear. Her sister takes her by the hand and adjusts her hoop skirt and tucks her own breasts in. He tells them that at no point should they start to run and she says yes, mister.
 The man with green eyes looking over the house and the fields beyond and the houses that populate the country into the warping embrace of the mirage that contain the generations of an animal called man that pulls a living from the fields and holds them accountable to his offspring to be born and to die under the sun rising and falling. His dark skin and and his dark mustache and his green eyes that express an affection not contained within his heart. The dark skinned people he comes from and their insistence to propagate a brood of thieves and hustlers who win what they have from the estate of man in games of deceit and live like lords of the squalor and never stop moving. When he walks there is a rhythm in his step and a musical quality in the way he moves. He liked to dance since he was a boy and he seeks adoration from his mark and his clan all the same.
 She surprised him when she opened the door before the knock and he forgot the story he had prepared. She asked him where the girls who were with him are at. She held a glass in her hand. The two gazing on each other in the heat and the hushed whistling of the wind in the fields. She saw that he wore a turban.
 Are you from the far East?
 He drank down the water and watched her with one eye. When he finished he wiped his mouth. He got down on one knee. He presented the empty jar to her. He began.
 Elson feigns sleep and watches the girls unhook the door to the chicken coop. He watches them entering slowly and the chickens running out between their legs and the younger one falling over herself after them. The older sister looked at the man to make sure he slept and then turned to the fowl. She hovered over one, kneeled down until it disappeared under the umbrella of her hoop skirt, and when she stood the chicken was gone. She adjusted herself and moved onto the next.
 The two sisters taking ownership of a flock of fowl like an unclaimed product of the Earth they came upon by accident. The little one mangling the chickens into the wire hooks hanging from her hoop skirt and her sister performing feats of illusion.
 Well, time to end it. Elson went inside where the cartridges stand on their ends on the shelf. The girls watched him remove the engraved shotgun from its mounting on the wall and begin to load it. The older one took the chickens away from her sister. She looked at Elson like he was robbing them. She took her sister by the hand and lead her west across the fields.
 What the hell, she said. She took in the scene of dead chickens and blood and feathers. She stood in the doorway with her hand over her mouth: There was a fella with them.
 The man with the green eyes had unfurled his turban on the table and lay the silver wear on it to be rolled up. His black hair pulled back tightly and rolled into a bun, his slender neck and his stately jaw line.
 Elson walked to the center of the room and stood between the man and the door and leveled the shotgun at his middle.
 Well.
 The man with the green eyes abandoned the silverware and turned to face Elson. He looked on Elson. He looked at his wife. He leaned back against the counter. He breathed. In his gaze a calm that originates in the nucleus of every creature that forgives its own nature and in its circadian tasks of living never doubts the purpose it gave itself at its conception or deviates from the tracks laid down in its rearing.
 Don't shoot, she said.
 Shut up, Ginia.
 The man crouched low to the floor with his elbows on his knees. He found Elson to be more alive than he had been lately. Elson's eyes bright and smiling and his jowls lifted at the corners of his face.  The man with the green eyes brought his head back against the counter and a faint thud could be heard.
 He thinks I won't shoot. He thinks I'm kind hearted. Elson pulled back the hammer behind the right barrel. The reflection of the gun's engraving on the wall twitched. The man looked at the wall and back at Elson.
 You ain't gonna die, but you ain't gonna win.
 Elson pulled the trigger and sent the lead shot into the man's shin bone and fore arm and cheek meat and eyes. The man lay on his back on the kitchen floor like a spider curled up in abandonment of life. His chest heaved with his breathing but the man neither moved or made a sound.
 Bird shot, Ginia.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

A gap between two buildings that is understood to be a portal to the lives of people whose existence is not to be acknowledged across the dinner tables of people who are given to notions of status.

The hustler, who never said an honest word in his life, has the look on his face that makes you think he always knows what he's doing.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

When the old beggar was a young girl and lived in circumstances no different than yours, she was the first one with a joke.

A girl with a backpack and tennis shoes. Hair short, ankles thin, can be no skinnier. She is at one second redfaced and close to tears, the next joking with a passerby. She is charmign and engaging. She was at one point the leader of a gang. The distributor of discipline. When a gang of older boys moved in the gang had left her. She grew out her hair and became a prostitute.

The girl's stages:
  Tomboy leader of a group of small children.
  Some of the children are taken to orphenages, come back.
  Most of them are gone at one point. She is kicked out of her place of sleeping.
  She begins to sleep in a place nearby a gang of young men. By and by she is domesticated by the boys. She meets joe in this stage.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

The cat, which may be the incarnation of a god who creates and destroys worlds, drags itself there against your leg. Its hair yokes at your skin.
Its tale betrays its mysterious nature. It whips at the air like a conductor's rod in the rhythm of its clockwork when measuring the possibilities of a room. It taps you on the shoulder as its owner sits on the windowsill, by all appearances distracted.
 As such things go, she has been violated by a mortal, and now carries his swelling brood until her kittens crawl out to repopulate the world with feline grace. Like when she dreamt the story of mankind, like when drops of her milk became the stars.

We love our cruel boys.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Robert Matthews once was a suspect in a case that had gripped the nation in fear. It was a case of an intelligent, anti industrial and ant establishment vigilante anonymously sending things such as anthrax and explosive devices to public figures suspected of undermining individualistic freedoms. He'll show you his FBI file if you don't believe him.
 He speaks in that damn boring voice that makes you think he's speaking

Sunday, August 18, 2013

 The band actors live like gypsies. Among their ranks lifelong actors, men fallen on hard times, and truly strange vagabonds who are forced into such a life by irremediable flaws of character, the nature of which is not expected of you to understand. Beyond this they are all liars. The stories of their lives began in circumstances too shameful to admit and never ended up any place different. All along their journey, fantasy that made them equal to their destiny persisted, and the forbidden truth all but died in the retelling of it. The band of actors brought together by their proclivity for telling lies. Each submits to the myth of each with the same conviction that he spins his own yarn. One does not look in the eyes of another who does not hold his yarn. Such is the fabric that binds the group of wayward fantasists and degenerates.
 See them file out from their methods of travel in the golden hour of the prairie. See them emerge from the corn like children of the fields in the search for a place to start a fire. They had been looking for grounds all afternoon. They know from years of living such a life that which they necessitate. An animal called human making a house out of a forest. Disarranging that which was organized by a force ambivalent to them to suit them. Chopping the wood and boiling the water. Hunting and killing and preparing food to eat according to their will. On their way to the place they looked for farms to rob.
  See them arrange themselves according to hierarchy around the fire. See the food shared along the lines of alliances between them. So called friendship sustains them in times of lean and binds them in infighting against one another in times of plenty.
 One of the hierarchies denotes rank by degrees of deception. Two of the group bigger liars than the others. Their place in the group anchored by the woman who always plays the lead. They sailed on the same ship with her and he sisters to the east coast and made their way with her across the country into the southwest corner of it. The clowns have never said an honest word. One fat and the other old and thin. They pass a smoked sausage between them.
 A young girl in the business of entertaining the troupe of actors. Her skill with lyric and rhyme a practiced effort to distract. She is accompanied by a young boy on the guitar. The boys hands precise, his mind thoroughly occupied. They are encouraged by the old and the very young. The lead actress and others of her age sit in silence. A vein of dissent runs through the actors of marrying age.
 The old jester claps his hands. His beak casts a shadow across his face. His eyebrows make everything he says humorous. His fat partner's face aglow in the light of the flame. A gaping crescent where his teeth once were.


He smiles a toothless smile and has never been heard to speak a word except in the absence of the other clown. His partner older and very thin. His eyebrows thick and high on his forehead. His beak casts a shadow on half his face. His face


two clowns came on same boat as lead actress and her sisters

the group robs richards granparents with skirts and chickens etc.

richard and joe corner them. they are sisters of the actress.

they have sex with joe to be released. joe follows hem back to the camp. lives with the camp for a few days. has romance with the actress. comes back to dead father.



words exchanged over a fire. inconsequential ideas of rhythm and lyqic fill their heads that distract them from the circumstance of their lives.  men who never said an honest word in their lives. the story of their lives started out as too shameful to admit and never ended up any place different. in the telling of stories they forget their secrets. They do not look in the eye of anyone who doesnt believe their yarn and thusly is weaved the fabric of relations of the band of actors. doesnt hold their yarn

See the band of actors file out from their methods of travel and shelter in the orange evening. See them search for a suitable location and arrange a fire. They share food and affections according to alliances. their seating places dictated by the flow of trust among the group

____ lyric and rhyme occupy their minds against the circumstances of their lives. In the deep orange magic hour of the american southwest, adults at play as innocent children in the prairie. Innocent game of

the young and the old

Different types of liars in the group distinguished by degrees of deception. Two clowns in particular never said an honest word in their lives.

Book three.

In the faces of the people in the street human maladies and psychic diseases.
Betrayed souls. Out of hatred for whom do they become

Hatred for those who betrayed them diseases their souls.
Their souls diseased by hatred for those who betrayed them.

the actress with the boy: carry ___ on my tongue to you. are you ready?


The band of actors live like gypsies. See them filing out of their methods of travel and shelter in the orange magic our of the prairie. Their faces, which in their vocation play witness to imagined , now evoking the simple and honest relief at having found a suitable location. The necessities of a camp ground they know from the experience of living such a life: wood for a fire, shrubbery tall enough to hide them from the owners of the property, a source of water, and a farm to rob. Face aglow in the flame of the fire. The face of one jolly and round, a dark crescent where his teeth once were. His partner's beak a shadow across his face, he claps his hands to the rhythm of a boy playing his guitar. A young girl occupied with the business of entertaining the band. Her older sister, the lead actress, solemn in the shadows out of range of the fire. A vein of dissent runs through those of marrying age.
 The band of otherwise wayward misfits and vagabonds bound together by the proclivity for telling lies. Among their ranks lifelong actors, men fallen on hard times, and truly strange vagabonds forced into such a life by irremediable flaws of character, the nature of which is not expected of you to understand. Men whose stories began in circumstances too shameful to admit and never got any place better. In the invention of myth, tragedy and betrayal were put aside, and in the retelling of it, the forbidden truth was forgotten.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The snow follows her in the murderous morning.
 The girl rushing past the other passengers, past the story of their faces and their bulky shoulders. The grey of the train station interrupted by squares of light. They glide across the shadows until, in a roar of vibrations, the train leaves the station and reveals her to him.
 On the way to the train station, the young man Young Jin lost himself in the mornings of others. He puts together their lives from the evidence they bring with them on the train. The boy's imagination examining things they have forgotten about themselves with loving attention to detail. Each time the train stopped was an event to him. He watched them take their stories home with them. The new arrivals seldom as interesting as their predecessors. Their stories come together in his mind like chromosomes before the old ones are forgotten.
 When he saw her it was a story he already knew. Her red skirt underneath the gray winter coat. It catches his eye as she makes her escape out the exit.
 He after all steps out onto the country road.
 Out there her figure walking beside others like ants it must be to the snow above. The snowflakes settle to the ground unhurried by any wind as if under their own will. Like fireflies, like faeries playing among the darkened wood low to the ground. One remains unmelted on the lens of his glasses and looks him in the eye. It finds the boy to be far away from the family that regards him as a scholar. It finds him to be underdressed and cold. It finds him to be small.
 A complex of four apartment buildings stands titanic and aloof in the fog of snow. The whole ant line of people ends there.
 An eyelash on the boy's finger tip. He squints at it until it turns translucent and mixes with his own eyelashes. Could be anybody's. She tried to kill him two days ago and now he is obsessed.
 Along the road, trees that stand silent and ethereal like the ghosts of soldiers. Beyond the trees a forest of pathways lightly warn. Inroads eroded by mushroom hunters or the adventurous inclinations of a gang of boys. In the heart of the forest a cabin and one well worn path way to the road known to only one family.
 Corruption and debauchery in a cabin faintly aglow with yellow candle light in the snow. Intrigue and politics of an animal called human. A family fallen from the grace of society and reduced to base inclinations. Murder as the snow melts. Days of spring spent in uninhibited lust, as much as a body could muster. New generations born, on their way in the ecstasy of youth, and dead again under the eye of the sun rising and falling. An elder who wields power over others watching the road in the red sunset. Watching the road and watching the people and waiting until the road was deserted to venture out and lay his hands on something. In his eye the animalistic seeing and plotting, seeing and plotting of a cat. He is the god of all that surrounds him and he doesn't speak your language.



A family fallen from the grace of the village. Forced out into the woods and

who met some misfortune or pathways warn by loggers a century ago and now overtaken by the forest's minions. In the ductile wood of the forest etched the evidence of human stories, of a variety and number that only a vast and porous wilderness can accommodate. Indeed over the centuries man has left his stench in the woods.
 A legend of the forest so old it is concealed from the consciousness of the townsfolk by time: they say that in the heart of the forest lives a family fallen to corruption. Descendants of an old clan pushed out of town by rumors of incest and cannibalism. The patriarch of which was a prominent business man until gambling and drink overtook him. Stories of his daughter, molested and corrupted from a young age, murdering a young boy in a ritual. Stories of the man leading a would be foreign business partner into the woods and killing him. His brother confessed to eating the man's flesh before his suicide in the same forest. The story forgotten until a mushroom picker stumbled upon a cabin. On encroachment he came upon a figure holding a long stick. When he came near enough to engage the man, he was frightened away by his appearance. He said the man wore homemade clothes and did not speak. He said there was something frightening in the man's gaze that he could not explain. He said he understood that he must leave or else face his undoing.
 The snowflakes settle to the ground unhurried by any wind as if under their own will. Like faeries playing among the darkened wood low to the ground. One remains unmelted on the lens of his glasses and looks him in the eye. It finds the boy to be far away from the family that regards him as a scholar. It finds him to be distracted from his studies. It finds him to be small.

the forest of trees that stand like ghosts of soldiers stinks of human flesh.

the boy waits for the girl in the forest after leaving drunk from the bar. she never walks by. he gets lost in the woods

[pathologists examining the boy's body. frank talk of food. what is best way to cook human meat. sear the tender loin.  brais the thigh. they say that sharks dont eat human flesh because it has too much sodium. that sounds delicious. yes it does. tender loin missing. one part of the leg missing. they found the body, didnt kill him. death by exposure.

look at the skin. were does is it best preserved.
on it's right side.
so what side was he laying on?
the left.
right. the side exposed to cold temperatures froze first. how else can i tell it was on its left side.
the right thigh was cut off?
correct. the cannibals do not like spoiled meat. therefore how did he die?
exposure.
correct. they brought in a murder and leave with an accident.

tell me the story of how he died.

he walked home drunk from the bar. passed out on the road. was dragged into the forrest by an animal. when the temeratures froze the meat the animals left it alone. when the temperatures came back, the animal came back and ate what wasn't rotten. the thigh was eaten because, since its mass is significant it took a long time to defraust and was saved thusly from insects. but why was the tenderloin missing?
what does the lack of a tenderlioin emply?
I dont know.
A dog with good taste.
but what should I write.
write what you want but bring it to me to sign tomorrow noone. bring good beer saturday evening. i love good beer.
does mrs. like beer too?
she drinks it.


tenderloin recipe. are you ready? soy sauce brine, 30 minutes. like salmon. tuna is brined less because it is lean. star anis, black pepper. sear five minutes on each side.

outline
 the boy and girl in train station
 by follows her to her building, sits in bar
  something goes wrong in the bar
  his inner mind, the atmosphere of the bar
 doctors examining the bodies of him and a homeless guy
  their conversation.
   bodies are frozen. frank conversation..

Thursday, June 6, 2013

   



     She is 2.5 years old and the most devastating moment in her life was when she learned she can't put interesting things like cold metal beads into her mouth. Her mother is a Turkish slut.
     There was one day when her father held her to his neck, and with his hand on her mother's neck, said, are you mine? The mother in a stupid love haze remembered so many moments of love making when she wouldn't answer him, shed a tear and said yes. That was the beginning of the end.

   


She doesn't like suspense.
She was never a pretender. When she was a little girl, she never did the acting thing where she pretends to be older.
Her friendship lingers there without regard to time. Like her conversation. Like she is immortal.
When we have sex I am a tourist.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013