broadcasting from the basement of the orphanage, a remote specter of doom

a little off

or

off by half a step

or

falling short

or

overshooting

 

creeping low and wanting to creep low

in hiding and seeking even greater cover

 

where is the string

what is the string

why is the string

the problem with writing for me is that it is not like guitar playing was for me as a medium when I was all broke and half insane that was the best 

shredding of my dumb ignominious past and you can bank on that it made a boy fly (in my mind) and woulda blown your hair back

anyway all it means is what it would take is some kind of preternatural Van Gogh death tragedy brush stroke ability with the word to equate

but better that I don't have this gift because the age of the Word is dead dead dead and if I was so gifted I'd be no less muted neuter than I amz now but probably a lot more drunk

(well,

you know what I'm saying

I said what do you think of that waiter blog

then we were on the side of the river where poor folks live
there was an 8 year old girl in a lot of trouble
but she was smarter than her nightmare
and was bound to prevail

(with the Aliens from outer space)

we boarded a skiff and crossed the river
treacherous river but we made it to the quay
in our hometown which had changed.
yep, I said, that's where the 7 Eleven used to be

and over there, the bank. you expressed some
dismay as we mounted the hill to the (chain)
Mexican restaurant. We were seated in a kind of
ante room, with a large window, overlooking

the cramped neighborhoods and the four-lane
high speed drag of more poor folk. I guess your
wife was there too. She was bored. You ordered
an exotic Merlot about which I thought to chance

a joke but didn't. I asked if they had Dos Equis\
regular on draught and (in this world) they did. Of course
they did, it was my world

It might have been the greatest American era for simply staying in bed. Or for staying bombed out of your mind. Take your pick.

He was a good friend, and a complete guitarist. He also drank too much. But then, so do we all.

her breasts were sufficient evidence of a benevolent Creator

*

He wore in his ears bright green foam plugs
He wore his jeans high on his waist
His clip on shades were clipped on and flipped up
He carried his pizza slices with unerring purpose and excitement

Carried them back to his seat in the booth with the other
retarded man and the helping woman with them
I sat bleakly in my booth and felt the old tears rise
just for a minute

Very easy to feel doomed these days. What you have to remember is the viability of the word. What I have to remember. The viability of the image. The open door

 

what you have to understand if you're in business is that time is money

 

 

I poured the wine. As I poured it, a little hit the rim of the glass and ran down and pooled around the base of the stem. Hey, I thought, There goes my blood.

*

I don't know what's happened to me. My writing has gone lame. Maybe it's just I aint doing enough of it. Maybe it's just I aint doing enough of it while drinking a bit of wine.

But I got that licked tonite

country mouse : : city mouse

 

organic psychotic : : bionic psychotic

the Fake Barf of his soul

whose emotions ran the gamut from catty to snarky

whose emotions ran the gamut from clinically depressed to clinically insane

whose emotions ran the gamut from "Fuck this, I'm outta here," to "Get this fuck outta here."

wrapped up his evening by executing an unconscious face plant onto the dog bed

weird scenes inside the cube farm

that particular newspaper's brand of what he'd come to think of as infantofascism

that particular paper being the Union Leader (Manchester, NH)

He could think of two words for it, and those two words weren't wicked awesome. But they might have been profoundly retarded or they also could have been fucking lame

the dim patina of these latest dreams, even as they faded, altogether too knowable, too obviously derivative from the larger activity of his conscience. This was no good. However, he thought, I'll take what I can get

 

*

 

found that even those excerpted thoughts, passages, images captured or manufactured, kept the pilot flame of his greater ambition, however dimly, from guttering, from extinguishing entirely 

 

*

 

the sparse vulgar traffic streaming mindless through and around the bare, hovering masses of winter trees

 

*

 

where he sat mutely and lengthily in the handicapped stall, perched above someone's discarded newsprint

in a nasty fucking mood today, as well as in the context of a nasty fucking mood.

 

fuck you, too

He hawked his throat clear. The mucous tasted like a consumer brand of insecticide. Why did I even quit smoking?

he had about him a certain je ne sais gofuckyourself quality

*

I was happy that their team lost. End of story.

*

a machine that enables selective reconfiguration of one's own past actions to influence a personalized virtual reality of possible future outcomes

a note of unerring sadness

 

a note of ineffable sadness

 

with mute tenderness

 

composure

There's no way and no reason now to segue this all back into something more honest reasonable so I'm not going to try

all these story lines can just go and go and go and in fact they will indeed and in fact
the next trick might be to start resurrecting some from the wayback

like the one about the friends who journey to the magic mountain, there to seek a girl
or the one where I play guitar and make a boy fly
or the one about drinking and dying in the woods by the river in winter

like all the ones back in these pages

*

I used to write crazy when drunk;
now, just lame and sad.

This book was always lame and sad,
but now it's minus crazy
and sanity is a lot less fun

but who knows where a few more drinks
might take me
(I'm speaking metaphorically)

(Oh no I'm not)

*

I'm sick, but that's
our little secret,

stranger

"Oh, shit," said Zhen Lee.

Whatever this is, I thought, I can barely be bothered.

We were on break. The others had fallen back to the Living Room to partake of the customary catered meal and video entertainment options. Lee and I, however, were in the habit of taking our plates back to the Control Room, where we would take turns monitoring Patient activity and freely perusing the System Web, as was respectively required and permitted by our Senior clearance status.

Needless to say, we both spent most of our time Web surfing, occasionally and sporadically looking in on the Patients just to see what was what with that miserable, mindless class of vermin

I was clicking through the Club Spa's most recently posted selection of courtiers and activities. I needed to relax. This morning I'd learned -- through certain non-official, but highly reliable, channels -- that our Group's Perrennial Review had been moved up to the end of next quarter. I hadn't told anyone else in the Group yet.

I had to admit my paranoia. Had I made enemies at the Professional Council? I had no reason to think so - not that this meant anything. Professionals of much higher status than I had gone down for reasons shrouded and apparently - apparently - arbitrary.

In any event, I needed to relax--and I planned to.

"Oh, SHIT!" screamed Lee.

I flinched badly, knocking my plate of spaghetti and meatballs to the floor and dumping over my cup, spilling cherry soda all over the console. I quickly composed myself, notwithstanding the mess. In a quiet, steady tone, I asked, "What is it?"

"CLAY IS EATING THE PATIENTS," screamed Lee.

Tiny, icy wings seemed to erupt everywhere on my skin.

"Where's he at?" My voice cracked. Lee stared, apparently more unsettled at my tone than at Clay's behavior.

"Day Salon. Round Room," he croaked.

I flipped open my phone and thumbscrolled down to "Professional Public Intercom."

"Code Orange A9, Code Orange A9. Containment team needed on DS4. Please advise...ASAP."

I flipped the phone shut and immediately flipped it back open, thumbscrolling to the Living Room Intercom. I spoke as evenly as I could manage.

"All of you get back in here NOW. We've got an Eater..."

"Ah Jesus," Lee muttered, "He's eating their brains."

In a daze, not thinking, I refreshed the Spa courtier screen, only to see Jellice's face and profile appear.

That was quick, I thought.

Much too quick.

Lee said, laughing now with an edge of dangerous hysteria, "You've got to see this."

Jellice...have they gotten to you, my pretty, young one? Are you set to snare me, my pretty young one?

"Send me the link."

Bannister pulled out the Score for Patient 3654532 for the evening of March 29, 2001, selected the passage occuring in the Restaurant with the Woman From Work, and made the notation:

failureissimo

 

 

After the last one's blood centrifuge analysis, we sent him off to the showers with the others. "You can scald 'em up good now," said Clay to the shift controller, a white-haired, adolescent female known as Jellice. I made a mental note to inform the Club Madam about her. Later.

Zhen Lee tapped some figures into his handset, then looked up at me with his peculiar air of ironic insouciance, and murmered, "Diagnosis?"

*

Diagnosis: Subpaleoanachrophilia
Symptoms:
Treatment:

*

The lukewarm mist issuing from the ceiling spray nozzles hissed suddenly into pressurized steam. At her post in the control room, Jellice with her stylus carefully drew the system's temperature up to 125 degrees Celsius, her grey eyes flat and unblinking.

The patients, of course, screamed wildly under the deluge.

"____________," he noted, with wan emphasis.

*

where he lives in obscurity with his wife and dog, occassionally smashing chairs in his unfinished basement

the crushing anomaly of decay
normalization

*

lives in the sticks of his mind and heart and continues to immolate, another
year gone by

didn't want to grow out to be a miserable yelling loser

*

milling amidst the shirted class, awash in un-self-regard