Indian Corn

In front of the bathroom mirror, Henry cut himself shaving, motionless, in a stupor, he let the wound bleed for a while, too lazy and not knowing for sure what to do, then tearing off a piece of tissue, placing it on the wound, much the same as he had always done.

Wrapped in a towel, out of the bathroom into his bedroom, Henry old, shedding vanity and hair, oddly shaped, avoiding mirrors at all cost, the pay off for the fabulous mental life of old age.  

At the closet, as usual chinos, no socks, no underwear, choosing the shirt of the day was the only decision to be made here. He picked a Hawaiian shirt, sky blue and white, and would wear his leather slippers that were in a pile of shoes at his door step.

On the computer  watching  a bit on You Tube about the most decorated war hero in U.S. History, Robert Howard, a country boy from Alabama. 

Mannish pluck, a soldier in Viet Nam, a Medal of Honor recipient, comments on YouTube like —Semper Fi and God bless the American hero— jingoistic raves from veterans, empty dispatches to Henry's ears. 

Henry wondering about the other-side of the coin? Wondering how many Asians Howard had killed? What suffering he caused the "enemy"? Under a different more universal system of judgement, would he be a hero or a pitiless killer?

As Henry left his apartment he checked his mail box, it had been empty a few years. Henry living in Akron, in the heart of the dead city that tires built, walking down Main-Street on a golden summer day, just walking, with a straw hat on and Ray Bans. 

Up ahead on the sidewalk, he could see May's Dinner and a newspaper stand, regular stops and conversations for Henry. Buying a newspaper from Blind Al who had lost his eyes somewhere,  asking him what he thought of the war hero Robert Howard? Blind Al saying…

"Who the fuck is he, man?"

At Mays ordering waffles and tea, siting at the counter reading the Akron Beacon Journal, talking with May, wearing an apron on a flower dress,  white hair up in braids. Henry could see the outline of her hairy push through the thin material of her dress.  Henry asked her what she thought the war hero Robert Howard and the Viet Nam war? May quick to say…

"Why Henry you know I was against that war and all wars, I believe in peace and the inner light of love, staying focused on it, simply, without much fuss, avoiding churches and institutions of any kind"

"Does someone like a Robert Howard have an inner light May?" 

Henry asked

" Henry we all have the light shining in us, but some of us just choose to ignore it and take the deadly path, sweetie."

"May, when a  person's inner light is shinning inside will they kill?"

"Oh no Henry, they would be protected and shielded from darkness, joined together in radiance with others, in the high pine darling, avoiding violence and loud talk, flying in the clouds, hero angels, invisible, brimming over.

Henry ordering a second waffle and a raisin donut, more tea, thinking he could walk off the extra servings. Having a plan, to walk south out of Akron till he reached the Indian cornfield 12 kilometers out of town, believing a few ears of dried Indian corn could ward away ghost and evil spirits, cleanse his apartment, keep his inner light shining.

Once out of town, Henry ducked into an old barn with a Redman chewing tobacco logo painted on the side, he loved the smell of hay, flopping down on the hay, lighting a joint, careful not to set the barn on fire. 

Laying in the hay, in reverie some, thankful for the moment of serendipity, thinking he would like to fuck May in the hay, May's inner light sending signal to Henry, he, thinking about her tits, the zaftig, corn-fed rounded shape, imagining her sizable brown nipples, flaccid on an oval patch of skin, surging to the touch. Thinking of her long legs thrusted upwards towards the clouds, Henry's cock pounding out a rhythm inside her, wondering if she would keep things at a low moan and progress to a high pitched, repetitive scream?

After day dreaming in the old barn for an hour or so, Henry walked outside, going down the road, reaching the Indian Corn field and walking down the rows of corn, getting lost some, feeling the stuff that nature was made of through and through. Finally, picking two ears of Indian corn, pappy, new born, it would have to dry some before the cleansing power could be released.

The walk back never seems to take as long as the walk there, but it is more of a struggle. Henry walked back to his apartment on the back roads of Cuyahoga County, ten miles maybe. He thought of the character, Travis, in the film "Paris, Texas," played by Harry Dean Stanton, wondering aimlessly, walking for days at a time through the Chihuahuan Desert. Wanting to forget something, haunted by love gone wrong, or the tragic death of someone he loved. Sleeping in patches of fury bush, lighting mesquite at night to keep warm, his soul detached from his body, oblivious to the harshness of the desert.

Erotic fantasies of May in the hay, exhorting him, Henry calls May around 5 PM, asking her if she had supper yet? May says…

"Why no Henry doll I haven't eaten yet, are you asking me out? Are you feeling aroused baby?" 

Henry choking on the biscuit, goaded by May, lying throw his teeth…

"Oh not ah… not at all May… why I just would enjoy your company over a good bottle of red wine and a steak at the Emerald City Grill"

"Why Henry darling wouldn't that be sweet?  We can meet at 8:30 baby." 

(The Emerald City Grill was in the center of downtown  Akron,  under a freeway overpass that urban development had passed by, walking distance for booth Henry and May) 

Henry shaving again after a long hot shower, doing the stuff that men do to make themselves attractive to women —male birds fanning out their feathers, boy lizards turning orange, blushing red, aroused, sending signal— virility moon-struck by lady hummingbirds, glands engendering the fetching scent of honey. The yin & the yang of passing the message of life on, love and sex.

Henry sat in a booth at the Emerald City Grill, talking to his friend Teddy, the owner, waiting for May to show. The Grill was famous for steaks, where they bought the meat a protected secret. The interior hadn't changed in 60 years, retro, run-down, once gentrified, light green banded wallpaper, fumes of cigarettes smoked past still permeating the now of the no smoking place. Teddy like a Chinaman, waiting for the property to appreciate, not spending a penny to renovate. The prosaic and aloof decor saying....  "fuck you and who cares."

Eddy had one arm, Henry once asked Eddy how he lost his arm?

"Oh, somebody hacked if off with a meat cleaver by mistake" 

Eddy never one for giving straight answers, enjoying diversion, he had nicknames for everyone, he called his brother Honda, my brother Patrick was Patta, a waitress, Stephanie was Rodney, a Greek friend Nick, Cudots and so on and so forth. 

Eddy the restauranteur, who loved to play, prudent, never grim, not as gone as Travis wondering the desert, but gone as much as he wanted to be. Hilarious, full of stories with odd twist of humor and fate, a character himself and a lover of characters. He made thousands of dollars a night at the Emerald City Grill, not caring really, spending allot on cocaine, calling it toot, to be snorted at after-bar parties. 

May arrived at the Emerald City Grill a half hour late, Henry half in the bag already, drinking M 16s  and snorting some toot in the boys room with Eddy. Henry happy to see May, she was grand, fabulous, palatial everywhere and on the spot. Ultra hip, wearing a red Chinese dress, slit at the leg, with a high buttoned collar, fuck me pumps, fish net hose, guys in the restaurant rubber-necking her, eye-balls popping.

"Why May what a surprise sweetie, I have never seen you without an apron on or out from behind the counter of your cafe babe" Henry says

"Oh you will Henry trust me, you will, be patient darling, you will see allot of things in the future baby" May winking at Henry

Henry very turned on sitting across from May in the booth, turgid, sliding his foot out of his leather slipper and running it up Mays leg toward her crotch, May ordered a Flaming Mexican Flag, apropos. Henry gave May a small vile of cocaine to snort in the ladies room.

May back at the booth, after snorting, stars in her eyes, feeling fabulous, ordering Lobster, Henry ordering a T-Bone the meal toothsome, succulent, drinking Mescal Flame Throwers, on fire, blue-flame rising from goblets, going outside into the parking lot to snort, Mays inner light scintillating, consuming Henry, the moment boiling hot. 

It was a highly charged summer night in Akron, Henry borrowed Eddy's Cadillac Convertible parked in the back lot of the Emerald City Grill, taking May for a ride to the Indian cornfield. Henry put the canvas top down, May leaning back and looking at the moon, her hair blowing about, she put her legs up on the dash, satisfied. 

At the Indian cornfield, Henry parked on the road, it was dark and there were no streetlights, the moon lit things up some. "Sure Enough I Do" by Elmore James was playing on the Radio. 

May and Henry took their shoes off, not caring much, wasted, running into the dim field, down the rows of corn, falling at times, laughing out loud, forgetting allot, falling on each other, striping down, balling, the two realizing they had been in love forever and for the moment, that was enough.

Bukowski had the Stuff

Henry waking from a dream, a dream of essence, bad and Godless essence. Not believing in God but realising God or the pure light of reason was the source of it all. 

On Sunday morning Henry would stuff as much cocaine in his nose as he could and wash it down with tequila, happy as a pig in shit— happy  he didn’t have to go to church— not missing the  rooms full of phoneys that even God avoided like the plague, God preferring the real stuff of the world, the mensch, the short-bread, the down and dirty.    

Henry would walk alone in nature sucking up and exhaling the deep cool air, quick gulps again and again,  enjoying the smell and feel of it, the wet leaf smell, the smell of clean air, the smell of old rotting bark and wild animal musk.  It was all good he thought and this was his church, nature… getting the nod from Whitman long gone.

Henry had done it all, he didn’t need anymore, it was hard for him to write, no encouragement or feedback good or bad, he hadn’t sold one book. He felt his work was part of the tradition of hip writers, very different from the boring and unoriginal writing of the day, so he kept at it. 

He started writing late in life and he was born to write, he didn’t need to take any courses or classes, he simply wrote. Early in life he had read the Beats… all the cutting edge and hip stuff out there, starting with Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell and  so on,  he knew what he wanted and ultimately it made little difference what others thought about his work, it was as though it had to be done. 

More than anything he regretted not being a part of a scene of writers, most his pals were retired cons who had never read a book by a beatnik, who if they did read, read the cheesy spy novels and thrillers of the day. Henry feeling like Sylvia Plath must have felt, hip in a square world. 

Henry back at it again, after two weeks of mind fucking himself over and over, hard pressed to find a reason to write.  

The night before while watching Bukowski read poetry on You Tube, he wondered what this man had? Buk’s stuff simple and straightforward, resolute, irreverent, solitary and rare. 

If nothing else Buk kept at it because it was all he had, Buk way out there on the edge looking in at it all, spying on the Jackals and laying them to waste, a foray, spraying bullets at the predatory and thirsting dunderheads late at night, listening to Brahms and as always drinking more and more by the minute, this was his fuel alright.   

Henry needed some of that, what the Buk had, so now you see it, Henry back at it, writing in a vacuum God knows why? Henry a lazy writer, writing to himself out of habit,  it was sad and lamentable all right.     

South Milwaukee Outcast

Life, Christ almighty, like Frank Sinatra singing "That's Life, sometimes you're up and sometimes your down." Jesus pure spirited, the king of the world, he liked to party, drink wine. The Evangelous have no ideal what Jesus is about unless they take psychedelic drugs and open up, then Jesus will truly open up......

Wednesday was a grind for Frank Brickhousky at the Riverside Leather and Dye Company. A Nasty smelling place on the Milwaukee River that processed dyed cow and cattle skin sent smack  from the killing floors and slaughter houses all over the Midwest, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Chicago, Omaha. All kinds of skin, Hereford, Brahman, Texas Long Horn, Holsteins, Jersey Reds.

The leather plant was in the middle of town, you couldn't miss it, the die and chemicals running into the Milwaukee River gave off a precise oder, a certain smell, a mix of  cowshit, cement, oil paint, and sulfur.

 On Wednesdays Frank's job was dying the skins that arrived on semi-trucks, all Holstein skins, cows who stopped giving milk, used for dog food and to make leather accessories. Holsteins were a particular bitch for Frank to dye, neutralising the black and white color to make lighter pastels skins used in ladies wear. Dying black skin for bikers chaps and jackets was no problem. To make the pastel colors Frank would drop the black and white Holstein skins into a alkaline and acid mix, fading the skin color, then running them through a large spinning barrow like a cement mixer with sand in it fading the colors further.

Frank Brickhousky was brought up on the South-side of Milwaukee. His old man, Stan, a polish house painter and drinker told Frank the fumes from the oil paint caused him to drink. They would buy Schlitz and Pabst beer by the cases, wooden cases in those days, straight from the brewers, returned with the bottles and replaced with more terrible Milwaukee Beer. 

Milwaukee had a church and a bar on every block in those days and still might today, everyone was working back then. Working men, factory workers could afford to go north to the Dells in the summer, go deer hunting,  fishing. Jobs were past on from father to son,  the women were housewives, playing stupid but aware, laughing at everything, bee-hive hair-dos, making donuts all the time, Paczki.

Frank's best friend was Crazy Kurt, he was a greaser, with long sideburns , acne scares, a brillant mechanic, a misfit. He worked at Harley-Davidson and would ride his Harleys all year long, putting chain-spikes on the wheels when it snowed. Kurt was a machinist at Harley, the go to guy. Kurt had 3 Harleys, all Road Kings. He was married to them, walking into his living room, you had to be careful not to trip over Kurt's broken down bike, totally broken down, to the piston springs.

Some nights Crazy Kurt and Frank would drink with their friends. They would drink boiler makers, a shot of whiskey dropped in a large stein of beer, eat pickled eggs, stored in gallon containers on the selves, smoke filter-less Lucky Strikes and Camels. The Tuxedo, home for gonzo bowlers, non compos mantis, tough south side working class Polish dudes that didn't give a shit about n, allot of the guys were World War II veterans. Crazy Kurt was a demolition specialist during the big one, his motto... 

" Point it out and I will blow it to bits  "

 The regular guys at the Tuxedo were all bowlers, and guys from other bars bowled too,  they had teams with names like...

"The Ballbusters",

 "Piston Fuckers"

 "12 Inches of Joy"

 " The Bozos"

 " The Dip Shits"

Saturday night was the bowling league finals, it was " The Dip Shits" vs "The Bozos"

Crazy Kurt and Frank played for the Dip Shits, The Bozo's were no clowns, and were favoured,  the Dip Shits needed Crazy Kurt  to win, he was a psycho bowler.  The tournament began after the playing of  the "Polish Nation Anthem" followed by "Louie, Louie."

Frank and  the Dip Shits had to start without Crazy Kurt, he was late, way late, they were behind by 350 points in the 10th frame of the last round. Out of nowhere you could hear the clear-cut sound of Harley pipes in the bowling alley, it was Crazy Kurt, wasted, he wheeled his Road King around on the carpet and on the lanes, bringing it to a stop and parking it behind the tournament area,  revving the pipes to show he meant business.  Crazy Kurt took one look at the score, seeing the Dip Shits were losing bad,  pulled a hand grenade out of his saddle bag, pulling the pin and throwing the grenade at the upright pins blowing them to bits, a loud noise echoing through the halls, saying to the Bozos….

"Well clowns, who wins?"

Crazy Kurt and Frank would go up north to the Dells in the summer time, Kurt was absolutely mad, he would lay home-made land mind type bombs underground to hunt deer, getting a kick out of blowing the creatures to bits, when they went fishing Kurt would throw a hand grenade in the water,  collecting all the dead garp and bass that floated to the surface.

On the way home Kurt and Frank stopped at the infamous Ed Gein's house, the serial killer from La Crosse who would murder and skin his victims, they busted the door down and it smelt like death inside. There was a meat hook on the wall,  Kurt took it down, taking it as a souvenir to remember his vacation up north. The friends pulled out a bottle of schnapps, sitting down at Ed Gein's nasty kitchen table, a dark wooden table, drinking shot after shot on the very table Gein had feasted on: grilled human flesh and giblets, the two laughing, wondering how Gein seasoned the meat, if he needed tenderiser, salt, pepper, steak sauce?Kurt telling Frank he was going to hang him on the meat hook, skin him alive and make a pair of bowling shoes out his skin.

Living in the winter climate of the north, on hot summer nights you felt extra horny,  a hooker in a bee-hive with a chop-stick in the doo, walked in the bar wearing a asian style dress and striper pumps. Kurt, Frank, Frank's old man Stan and the rest of the Dip Shits were falling all over themselves. She was ready to take them all on, Chico the bartender locked the  front door, the hooker, Cherry, pulling their chains hustling them, she was a pro, lubing herself with Vaseline first and passing out condoms saying...

" Come on you maggots lets see what you can do?"

Intimidating them to get the upper hand, saying while taking them...

"Have you cum yet? Yawn"

" Is that all the meat you got?"

" Is this your first piece of ass?"

What could have been an ugly gang bang turned into a big nothing, Cherry taking the wind out of the Dip Shit's sails, only Kurt got off, the rest freaked. Cherry walked out of the Tuxedo with a grand, feeling nothing much, in good shape.

Crazy Kurt took a short road trip to the dog track on the Wisconsin-Illinois border on his Harley. He won big time, just luck he didn't know shit about greyhounds, he spent his winnings on a machine gun.

The Dip Shits were having a barbecue at Polaski park on the south-side, it was memorial day, potato salad, brats, coleslaw, a keg of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, at 9 pm it was getting dark,  Mexican teenagers,in leather coats, approached the Dip Shit picnic, menacingly,  waving zip guns, twirling knifes, Crazy Kurt cooly walked to the trunk of his car, not giving a shit, calmly opening the trunk, pulling a grenade out and his newly purchased AK 47, walking towards the latin rebels, holding his machine gun in one hand and a grenade in the others, he says...

"OK you wanna fuck? Let's go dudes, bring it on,"

Crazy Kurt the bad of the bad, rebels, teenage wimps, eyes like rabbits caught in head-lights, just getting the fuck out and going somewhere else.

Later that Summer at the Tuxedo, Cherry showed up again looking hot, she wasn't there to hook, she was hot for Kurt. They sat at the bar and drank for a long time, both outcast, they had strong feelings for each other, Kurt took Cherry home on his Road King.

A month later Cherry and Kurt had the wildest Polish wedding in the history of South-Side Milwaukee at Polski Hall, the Dip Shits were the best men. Shots of schnapps lined up on a long table with a paper table clothe, 10 year olds kids under the table, sneaking shots, nobody gave a shit, kids and adults wasted. 

Cherry and Kurt lived together the rest of their lives, they had 5 kids, feral little freaks who they never layed a hand on, untamable, wild in the streets, Kurt and Cherry not carrying if they to grew up to be wild child's like their parents, as long as they had fun.

Van Morrison Knocked up Half the Town

               

Flora and Ted Delmar lived in Bolinas, California population sixteen hundred, a artist community that people from San Francisco visited on weekends, with famous residents Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Van Morrison who owned a ranch outside of town. Bolinas looked like the old run down town in the western "Three Bullets for Ringo". The Delmars lived in a small old wooden house, weathered and sky blue color. They were AWOL, Absent Without Leave from society and the rat race, opting out when Nixon was elected.

Flora had a trust fund from a eccentric rich uncle who lived in the East. It wasn't allot, but the Delmars could afford to live simply and past the time painting, writting, drinking, listening to music and smoking pot. Flora painted her dreams using house paint instead of expensive Rembrant paint. She would glue old newspapers and sand from the beach on the thin canvass to thicken and give it texture. Ted had a old Olympia typewriter he used to write stories with, both were moderately successful and could care less about making it. Flora had a few exhibitions in San Franciso and Ted published a book of short stories entitled ' Mescaline Sombero' on Black Sparrow Press.

One night their neighbors, Dennis and Lola Weaver, came to the Delmar house for a visit. They owned the health food store in Bolinas and were heavy drinkers like the Delmars. After eating some falafel and couscous they began to drink bourbon and spring water, passing a joint of high breed Humboldt County pot around.

Lola Weaver knew that Flora had wanted to get pregnant, bored and feeling horney, like she was in heat she said, " Oh Flora good lord what is wrong with Teddy's sperm? Try this dear, put raw oysters,  earthworms, seaweed and pumpkin yogurt in a blender then give it to Ted before you make love." Flora says " Oh fuck off Lola we all know that Dennis's sperm isn't any better than Ted's, and that your son Moonboy was fathered by Van Morrison", Lola countered by saying " Well dear my darling Moonboy has the DNA of a genius and will be a world famous musician someday,". "Sure" says Flora in reply reminding Lola that, " Van the mans DNA also carries the lousy genes of a sexed out doper, booze hound, rogue cowboy and bald fat man". Roaring out loud spontaneously the pair laughed so hard that their eyes teared.

Meanwhile Dennis and Ted were in the backyard, peering through a telescope at the night sky as they passed a joint back and forth. It was a fresh and crisp night and you could smell the ocean. The sky looked like a dark blue tarp draped over the horizon as though someone had pricked the tarp a zillion times with a needle allowing the light source from beyond to shine through the tiny holes. Ted got serious for a moment saying to Dennis " One night broh, I was looking at the sky, like we are tonight and I saw a tiny star like blue ray of light that was moving up and down, hovering near the moon for fifteen minutes, then bingo the blue ray shoots up into space and vanishes."  Dennis was skeptical and didn't believe in UFOs saying " You are not going to tell me it was a UFO, maybe it was a star that just flickered out." Ted thought for a few seconds and said, " Well it sure as shit wasn't your momma's booty"! The two good friends wrestled each other to the ground laughing.

Later that evening Flora decided she wanted to walk down the hill and go skinny dipping in Bolinas Lagoon. She wanted to bath in moon beams, asking the Weavers to come along. After splashing about and chicken fighting the couples went to their perspective Mexican blankets, exhausted, full of joy, necking a bit and passed out. Life was good for the Delmars and Weavers, whom in their different ways had escaped the rat race of the city and found simple joy in country living, living off the grid, opting for a spiritually creative life instead. Aware beings, choosing to generate the smallest carbon footprint possible, using green energy to power their houses. Not wanting to leave behind allot of plastic shit that would end up in the rubbish, more carbon based toxins taking a big dump on the precious environment, perpetuating the cycle of sedate planetary suicide.

One Christmas night Flora and Ted got magnificently wasted on Mescal. They finished putting the colored lights on their tree, which was not a pine but a huge home grown cannabis bush in a painted pot. For them Christmas night symbolized the birth of earthly innocence that was eroding, going down to the low lands as the centuries progressed. 

Flora got up and changed the channel on the old TV, they only had two channels. It was Christmas at the Nixon White House,

Descartes's Colouring Book

Henry sick as a dog, he just couldn’t seem to shake the gookalygok, wondering what kind of a virus last a month? He felt doomed, disheveled, feeble, covered in green slim. 

He looked like shit as well, like an old Bulldog with scattered strands of long blond rooster hair growing out of the top of his head and a mouth full of busted up tar coloured teeth, a contender in the ugly dog contest.  

Hard to get much inspiration here, old age physically beating the shit out of Henry, a hero slumped in front of a bowl of noodle soup, despicable, invisible to most.

Dope and booze made him sick, he couldn’t take it anymore, thinking of it made him nauseous. Nausea didn’t stop  the old fool though, he didn’t know any better, ready to hit the opium parlour for relief on a whim. 

As a young man he spent hours looking at himself in mirrors, never missing a chance to catch a reflection in a window sill, now avoiding mirrors like washed-up vampire.

Wondering what there was to write about? Henry’s latest story, “ High in the Pines” took him out of his pathetic self some,   romantic stuff from the past. Henry a pus and blood filled pimple, Quasimodo dreaming of Esmeralda past… inner self fading fast. 

In front of a computer typing  away madly in a coffee shop, watching the young things sucking up university rot, beautiful and fit, the world was about them, not him, and he knew it.  Henry, poisons festering and morphing inside him, breathing goo on the innocents in mute fantasy, spreading Ebola and plague as he breathed, the destroyer of young dreams and hope.

Stopping by the Chinaman’s on the way home, he scored cocaine and Oxy-Codiene which he pulverised and snorted for a balanced high. 

A few minutes into it and Henry was rocking again, "Tumbling Dice" was playing on the coloured radio. All things were a matter of perception he thought,  Descartes was right, it doesn’t exist unless you perceive it.  “Good and bad days, feelings,” were a colouring book of perception.

Descartes’ colouring book, that's the ticket Henry thought.

High in the Pines

On a bus late one night in darkness,  Henry deep in Mexico somewhere, doped up on reefer and codeine. 

It was late at night and the driver woke him with a shove, saying…

“Gringo this is the last stop for you, get out and take your dope with you.”

Henry wasn’t sure were he was,  Rio Verde maybe.

He had no destination in mind and this city was a good as any, he liked Mexico of the Antigua, the past transported him.  

Looking for a cheap hotel he found Los Americana, the rooms were somber and rundown with mildewed brown wallpaper and old curtains made of orange lace on the dirty windows.

He laid down in bed and snorted some pulverised Codeine off a small mirror and then took a drink of mescal from his flask with a gold skull and crossbones on it, a joyous poison all right. 

Henry loved the sound of the Cantina bands, happy go lucky speed freak stuff he thought. Sitting alone and listening for hours, he would eat and drink too, copious amounts of homemade tortilla and beans while downing shots of tequila.

Henry was eyeballing  a ravened haired gal with milk chocolate skin, a Barbara Carrera in the jungle, a brick shit house of a women, Henry liked big exotic women. 

Having finished a few hard  pints he was ready to strike it up with Isabella. He asked her to go on a picnic tomorrow afternoon (How corny Henry thought?).

She says, 

“Sure gringo what is your name?” 

“Henry” he says. 

“Ok Poppy (Her name for Henry) meet me in front of the cantina tomorrow at two and bring plenty of booze and dope, I will bring beans and tortilla.”

A good trade off Henry thought.

Then Rosa says,

“ You got any coke Poppy?”

Henry surprised, happy she dug dope.

“ Sure babe,  Codeine  and killer bud too.”

Henry  turgid,  full of sex charged vision…. delicious  anticipation,  would the moment live up to the prelude he wondered?

Rosa and Henry met as planned, heading up hill looking for pine trees to lay in and lose themselves in drug, booze and sex.

The innocents spread out a colourful Mexican blanket on the pine needles and downed codeine with tequila as the smoked dope. With their heads well into the clouds, Rosa spread her legs in a debauched manner. Henry skates his hand leisurely up Rosa’s chocolate coated and wet legs ripping off her panties.

Henry nonplussed says,

“ Rosa darling you have a cock!” Realising that he should finish what he started, after all, he had feelings for Rosa 

Rosa says to Henry,

“ Poppy darling didn’t you know that the Hindu God Krishna is both man and women, the lack of gender propels the God to the top of the chakra chain and into the heavens.”

Henry says, 

“ Babe we sure are high in the pines.”

Bi Polar Deers

Christmas Eve in Chicago 1990, hardly blessed with the spirit or hallmarks of Robert Frost in a horse pulled sleigh coasting through pure powdered snow delivering figgy pudding to his neighbor. 

The snow in the city was mucky, in the alley-ways wino's hovered close to old oil drums at midnight, burning anything to keep from freezing, hoping the sun would come up tomorrow and warm their bones as they caught a few winks on a park benches at Avalon or Chopin park.

It was Christmas Eve in Miami 1990, Henry worked as an orderly at Dade County Mental Health Center, unofficially, the nut-house. Henry nuts himself, the patients his brothers and sisters, he felt more rapport with them than he did with the staff. 

The Psychiatrist were particularly disengaged and alien. Freudian and Jungian therapy was a thing of the past, therapy was a thing of the past. Big Pharma: Wyeth, Pfizer, Roche, Eli Lilly, Snafu, pushing dope to heal souls and making billions was the future.

People should be allowed to medicate as they see fit, as long as they have the money to support their habits. 

When the ward nurses weren't passing pills, they were passing gas, drinking coffee in the nurse's station talking about sex and shopping, on call, waiting for people to freak-out, cups of Thorazine, hypos full of sedatives close at hand, like stun-guns.

Henry wondered how dope worked over time to stabilize psyches, emotions, brain-waves? People's bodies were resistance to drugs after time. Or could it be people (patients) in another time and place, or in a different reality would be the ones on the outside? Henry often thought, does insanity mirror reality or does reality mirror insanity?

On full moon nights the moonbeams seemed to rattle folks brains more than usual, as though the electric signal in the brainwaves did flip flops, taking some on a roller coaster rides. The selective process out on the street that determined who went to jail and who went to the nut-house, vigilance on the lookout for abnormal behavior, particularly violence or disregard for the laws of municipality, sleeping on the beach, balling on the beach, moving your bowels in the woods. Of course, legal for deers who regularly expose themselves and can relieve themselves wherever they want. But, illegal for humans who regularly hide their penises or vaginas out of modesty, or if gay and liberated, wanting to walk about nude and show themselves, holding back, having to live within the laws of  fat mayors or municipalities.

Henry thought if you were going to punch someone or take a dump in the ocean you were always better off acting crazy when the Stasi showed. If you are lucky enough to get in the nut-house, be cool, down the paper bucket of Thorazine, walk the halls nude, wrap a cigarette in the lip of the foreskin of your uncircumsized   cock, let it dangle as you move, light the cigarette and walk down the hall.  Open your jaws, pointing at your mouth like a geek, waiting for someone to throw a live starling or rat your way to chomp on, but it's OK because, your nuts pointing to your mouth, dry, saliva-less, apparent, teething like a baby.

In the morning, drink plenty of coffee, eat some grits and eggs, then chat up a girl in the ward you like, another nut-case like you, fuck her like crazy in an empty closet, then run out the door in your leopard skin speedo and go for a swim in the sea. Life is good if you know how to play the system.

I'm Al Pacino, I Got Cocaine all Over my Face,

The story of the blues, " One day you got it all and it disappears so fast ." 

Death is the great equalizer, nothing you did while alive changes what happens to you mind-wise when you die, experience in death: nothing, your'e unconsciousness, not even sleeping, your mind currents don't exist, it is nothingness, nobody knows for sure it is a toss of the coin, if God exist or not. I  doubt  hell is forever. The Jews have it right, Hell, the worst you were in life, the longer you burn, your soul then purified, ready to go anywhere, to Heaven or to live in the forest with Martians, Avatars, highly evolved on the purest level of bio-consciousness, maybe another universe, reincarnated to another universe. Nobody knows for sure yet, faith isn't enough to know what will happen to us when we die, it is just a presumption, well, if you have accepted proof that God is, not on faith, proof of God and Jesus almighty, not just because the bible says it, because your faith says it, because you see it for real? Contact me @ aloha20001@yahoo.com 

Billy, looked like a goat, a poet-goat, with a wispy beard, living  in  Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the 80s, it was a horrible time for popular culture, disco, not making much use of rock n roll. He sold weed, not liking the feeling he got on speed, he liked cocaine enough, but was living in a place that didn't have much cocaine, drinking was good he would  get drunk, every night loving it and arrested from time to time by the long arm of Dade County Police, most the time arrested for nothing, arrested once for flipping the bird at a lady cop, walking the street after having a few drinks, never for dope.

He didn't have a car, he road a Piaggio moped. It had a good engine that hummed, he would take back roads, drive on canal roads. 

There were allot of great parks, you could lay in the grass and smoke a joint, listen to nature, the moped didn't need a state plate, it meant freedom of movement.

Billy was bi polar, retarded, had autism, was psycho, and had parkison's decease, but he he loved nature, it was all he needed really. He didn't know at the time he was bi polar, he was self medicating.  Self-medicating,  unaware of psychotropic meds, drinking and getting high, realizing that there are levels of drunkenness, meds work under the bridge, so to speak, but levels of drunkeness can coexist with meds. Billy found his level, avoiding black outs, and problem drinking, relaxing, enjoying life, in privacy.

He could control his drinking, drinking was a gas, he would push it to the limit, he was not a guy for say, 2 drinks, he prefered drinking bottles of booze.  Billy was a Buddhist, reading works by Buddhist authors, Alan Watts, the Bagavid Gita, stories of the childhood of the Dali Lama, he liked Henry Miller as well.

Billy took a trip with some gay pals, they drove, loaded with dope, bags of weed, downers mostly. Four of them ending up in Tampa, all the others gay except for Billy, thier car parked in a spa with a swimming pool, the gay pals getting out and goint to the spa to fuck their brains out, fair enough. Billy got out of the car and started walking around Tampa. He ended up taking a bus back to Ft. Lauderdale, he had to work on Monday. His friends must have stayed for a while. Billy didn't spend allot of time in gay circles, but had worked with gay people. 

He liked to take trips to Palm Beach, he would drive there in his Renault, he could score in East Palm and go drink in West Palm. He would stay for the day and drive home at night, only 60 miles from Ft. Lauderdale on the Florida turnpike, get out of the car and light up at rest stations or in parks, so you didn't smell up your car with weed, the highway patrol will stop you for nothing, and if they smell weed in your car, the feel very rejected by their fathers.

Billy bit his nails, it was a habit he couldn't kick, he was a nervous person, he would get hang nails and fungus under his nails. 

In West Palm Beach Billy would score weed, he could buy a kilo from a Jamaican he knew well, the short drive to Ft. Lauderdale was a breeze if you keep with-in the speed limit, 62 MPH was a safe speed, Billy never drove drunk while transporting weed, he must have transported 1000s of kilos around Florida over 2 years.

He once had his car hijacked when he lived in Chicago, he was in Cabrini Green, once again scoring a dime bag. He went up stars in one of the projects, to an apartment with everything striped out of it. It was bare cement, with a kitchen table, one guy at the table who seemed to be the owner of the shooting gallery, knocked Billy out, taking his car keys and stealing his car, they found the car, an orange Volkswagen Beatle weeks later, the parts had the engine striped it had to be sold as junk. 

Billy walked north to the CTA station, got on a train and went home. Didn't want to be bothered with reporting it to the cops. Knowing the sinking feeling you get as a prisoner or suspect in jail, the authorities attitudes, big attitudes, allot about attitude with them. For the prisoner it is grayness, grey hell. 

He would put the kilo of weed in the trunk of the Renault, the kilo hidden in a banana box, knowing the dope dogs could find it. Billy was just lucky, he could blend into the shadows somehow. He never was busted in his life for selling weed, but he had been brought in for drunk driving, disorderly conduct. 

He loved the feeling you got in your mind when you smoked weed, a relaxed, elevated feeling, the pureness you felt inside when you where high, the feeling that you didn't need a thing in the world. Billy had thought of opening centers in the hills of South America were people could go to be happy, get  cocaine therapy sessions with trained counselors, a cocaine resort, on the ocean, providing fresh cocaine leaf grown in the area, or high quality crystal cocaine. Sessions to work on positivity and stress, with an all organic Japanese diet. Saving months of time in therapy, the cocaine like a truth elixir, patients entering life with a new sense of exhilaration, turning to the rain and the wind , excited.

Billy had a fetish for the wild man poet Chinese-man,  Lao Tsu, Tsu sure did have a fresh approach to life,  he lived life simply, in nature, in a wood burning cabin. Drinking, drinking  rice wine writing poetry, looking at the snow cowling a field. Saying beautiful and persuasive words were not beautiful, but the snow on the field was blameless.

Most nights Billy would stay home is his apartment, cooking Chinese food listening to Chopin drinking red wine, smoking weed, writing, listening to music, domesticated, he had lived alone most his life, he new he wasn't the only one in the world who lived alone, that living alone had it's advantages, some people who live with others envy people who lived alone and vice-versa, Billy wanting a love that understood him like everyone else, someone who liked his writing, someone who could be a mother at times, a friend more.

Hunter S. Thompson thought that writing was the bottom-feeder of all the arts, music is much more powerful, ok so what? All kinds of music, whatever people like, if it makes them feel full, good. Hunter came as close to being a supreme being as anyone in recent history, allot of big musicians revel him, he was only a writer. Dylan in line too, the way he plays, he's a jammer, when he plays live, he plays minute to minute, inventing it. Martin Luther King or Ray Charles modern day saints. Knowing how to lay out the code, sounding it out, half way to the moon. Martin Luther king, the best Jesus so far, the man on the edge of the universe man.

But what does it all mean, what will happen on earth? Think about the most positive scenario and that is what will happen as long as we all think that way, that is what will happen. It is cheers to the universe, take a drink to its longevity everyday, because it isn't going anywhere soon.

Henry's Dream

Henry didn't have much on his mind and had even less to write about,  retreating into dreams to see what he could come up with, chasing the offbeat and surreal.

The barriers of his dreams were layered with walls, like the bijou sets in “Gone with the Wind” filmed at Culver City, a historic street with a view of the suburbs painted over at the backdrop to meet the needs of the scene. 

Henry knew the colors of his dreams, there were three, brown, amber and red, red to highlight; accentuated lips, script, flowers, hearts, nipples, vagina lips and so on. The black and white backdrop took up sixty percent of the dream scene, the rest brown and amber, with the occasional red highlight.

In his dreams Henry would wonder through the city streets which felt like small movie sets. He would often meet his parents who had been dead for many years and they were always broke. Many dreams involved apartments or houses that were closing in on him and falling down around him,  the hound of foreclosure was always at his back as well. 

He had little connection with the people in his dreams feeling that they could turn on him at any minute.

Frightful dreams such as  being in a
concentration camp, being chased by demons or zombies were strictly in black and white, no shades of amber, brown or red highlights here. 

Henry the voyeur, just a huge eyeball viewing the show, other times walking, sitting, flying through it, and sometimes talking to the folks in his dreams.

His favorite dreams involved walking through streets and going to hear music or to eat, although the food had no taste and he couldn't hear the music. 

There was a film with Robin Williams called “ When Dreams Come True” about Heaven and Hell, Henry thought the scenes of after life were more like dreams, at any rate, best graphics of dreams ever. 

One night Henry had an enlightenment dream, one moment he was walking around a Zen-do wearing a robe naked underneath.  Later, at an event put on by Microsoft in a open field somewhere. There was allot of dope there and bands played, Hare Krishna monks were serving delicious food, which Henry ate but couldn’t taste. 

He smoked some pot and felt very alive, not saying anything as nothing happened around him , he full of enlightenment. Nobody noticed or gave a shit because they all were enlightened plenty, they didn’t need any help from Henry. 

Well, so it goes with Henry’s dream, everybody must have different dreams he thought. 

Mohave Blues

Henry lost in the Mohave at 10 am, a hand full of mescal buds, plenty of bottled water, a cell phone that worked to got get through to Las Vegas. Loving it, waving a  hand-size crucifix wrapped in rattle-snake skin in one hand and a marimba in the other, the Cactus was wavy, the colors pierced your eyes, purples, pinks, red, green, the dry desert air is healing.

He was living in Las Vegas looking for a job, a salesman. He had a few rentals apartments in Jersey, in no hurry to get a job, he was lazy and hated work, saying... 

"People  punching time clocks, terrifying, terribly disrupting to your bio-rhythms, as bad as Orwell's "1984". 

Henry loved everything about Vegas, the cheap food and booze, cocaine everywhere, he wasn't a gambler though, he liked getting high and walking the streets, enjoying the light show, waterfalls of  purple, light green and golden colored water, walking through a psychedelic wave. Going to bars drinking some, talking to women, meeting people.

The day in the desert started to unfold psychically, vultures eye balling you, rubber-necking, flying like crows, sloppy flyers, lazy waiting to score road kill, eat some rat-tail,  the garbage man of the desert, taking flight, cooling off some. Crude paintings of vultures on rock walls, on the hills, pulling you, shaking you, if you put your ear on it, the rock moans old secrets, it goes into your bones.

Travis Henderson wondering the desert, in the film "Paris, Texas," a shaman, like Jesus in the Sinai, speaking to the Devil, Travis exorcising his own devils. Travis and Jesus walking miles in the desert, not eating, not drinking, seeing the Devil inside the body of a decaying vulture, not feeling right, smelling death, running away into the desert, people looking for Travis, worried.

On the ground, using binoculars Henry watched a slow flying descending Virgin Airline jet on the way to Vegas, thinking the powerful jet engines must blow huge payloads of spent carbon fuel out. Enjoying the open spaces in the uncluttered open desert, luckily, not roped up in an airplane seat, like being in a straight-jacket.

At Dusk, Henry loaded his BMW dirt bike, finding the main road back to Vegas. His  hotel the "Lazy Suzy" in a lousy city neighborhood, a meth neighborhood full of hookers. Henry felt sorry for the girls, they could have been anything before they took fucking meth, cheerleaders, nurses, who knows, the devil drug meth, Henry liked psychedelics and beer, he hated speed. Henry wouldn't hire the hookers on his street for all the tea in China. He would rather practice celibacy. The johns, lost lonely fat white and hispanic men dudes, who lost the art of making love.

He loaded up a cooler with ice and filed it with german beer. Laying around the room, listening to music, his cell phone rang, a call from a strip joint, talking about a job as a light show technician. Henry wanted the job...

" I want this job, I got a tripped out light show in me , blue lights, fast blinking pink strolbs, light-o-rama, stuff you would enjoy on acid watching hot chicks pole dance, trying hard not to cum in your pants?"

The boss a young guy says....


"OK dude you can start next week on thrursday be here by 5 o' clock, don't fuck up on me...."

Great, Henry thought, what a job, you could go to work high, listen to cool music, plenty of hot women around, his lucky day.

There was a knock on the door, it was a hooker, Henry knew her and she rarely hit him up for money, not much, 10 bucks sometimes. Henry invited Claire in for a beer, she was a mess, he told her she should go to rehab, get out of hooking that she was going to get HIV, the usual stuff. Claire woke up one day and she was a hooker on meth, giving truck drivers blow jobs. Claire didn't care what Henry said, she talked about people, names like, Emerald, Chrystal, Angel, Poppy, Dusty, Trip-Boy, all meth users. It bored Henry, he asked Claire to leave, wanting to go out, he put his only suit on, brown with a cotton shirt and green Hawainana tie.

Wearing converse all stars, he walked to the park and smoked a joint on a park bench, enjoying the view, heading to "Lucky Ladys," having a few drinks, meeting his friend Goth Melva, she was nice, very educated, smoked cigarettes too much, liked Trent Razor, Iggy Pop, Lenny Kravitz, music Henry had no idea about. Henry asked if she would like to go to Casares Palace with him and drink a few bottles of wine, she was thrilled, couldn't wait. 

They sat at the small bar near the pool, it was like a dream, Henry asked Melva if she wanted to dose on some chocolate mescaline? They dosed and ordered the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu, they looked into the stars, coming on, feeling very natural, connected to everything and everybody. Henry loved Vegas it was the greatest place in the world if you didn't gamble, kept a low profile, enjoyed the people, enjoying laughing at times to yourself.

Vegas in place, stuck there, not going anywhere, good, bad, indifferent, it isn't a monument, ( what kind of a monument for what, you can't think of anything), (a monument to the investors of the properties? OK so what? It doesn't mean much.) Vegas an achievement of engineering excellence, it will never be one of the wonders of the world, made to look rich, extravagant, garish, not hip really, but fun on drugs.

Melva and Henry headed for her place at 5 am in the morning, they crashed out, Henry used her computer, wrote some, going to bed scared him, bedtime was the loneliest time, he crashed on her sofa, having to lay their without a computer in his face, stuck with himself, trying to meditate, wanting to treat the world right.

People who predict the end of the earth, an impossible thing to do, astronomers approximating the downward spirals of asteroids, saying it can happen someday, in 400,000 thousand years maybe. Nostradamus, poetic predications, lofty unspecific writing, like the bible, open to interpretation, waiting for all the bad stuff to happen in the world and not much of it ever happens, not enough to end the world. Jesus never comes, you just die eventually, not the end of the trip.

Melva and Henry headed out to the desert on his motorcycle. Stoping for a drink at a small run down indian bar, Henry took a picture of the place, it was rustic, a 100 years old, like out of a western, old weathered, light blue painted wood. There were two Navajos Indians at the bar, guys with long white hair in solid green flannel shirts, slowly sipping Grainbelt, not drunk, silent, enlightened. Melva and Henry drank a few beers, lit a joint and passed it over to the Navajos granddads, they grinned from ear to ear, mouths full of white teeth. 

Henry and Melva wanted a teepee. He could be the next Bugsy Siegel, bringing employment to the Indians,  building 20 teepees, a swimming pool and bar, psychedelic drugs available, beer, wine, no whiskey, the works. A place where people were coached to live in peace, by caregivers, a place to come and die and reach the Great Spirit. To be buried Indian style, your body laid out to dry up in the sun, on an elevated tarp on poles, maybe for the vultures to munch on. 

People could come to Henry's Indian Village and feel things deeply, trip and party in peace, safe, opening up to one another, heart to heart, sitting on a blanket cross legged, facing each-other, looking into each-others eyes, full of joy, seeing, feeling everything nature has to offer, wrapped in flora.

It would be the " Longest journey that starts with the first step" one teepee and a well.

Henry Yellow and Weak

Henry feeling yellow and weak inside,replused by modern culture. At times thinking he would welcome a fast death, unsure of what was on the other-side, but knowing it would be more pleasing than the slop the world was dishing out. 

Everyday was much more of the same, all the booze, sex and food in the world didn't give him any relief, but writing emptied the junk of his soul. 

Perhaps it was the depression that comes with aging,  the future offering nothing,  friends would tell him that he was old and must accept the big nothingness of hoary life.

Henry thought of William S. Burroughs, it was unimaginable that the Colonel lost his fanaticism for writing in old age, surely the magic existed for him until the end.

Or the good doctor Hunter S. Thompson, Henry wondered what the doctor was feeling inside that moved him to shoot himself? Writers block?  Where his juices dried up? 

The workings of soul and mind are Gordian and knotted when it came to the creative process in old age Henry thought. 

It is often said that the average man in modern times lived in first class luxury compared to kings of old, but it was clear to Henry that luxury didn’t make people happy, that happiness was an inside job, perhaps just a matter of letting go. 

Buddhist non-attachment was the stuff Henry thought, most the time Henry didn’t give a flying shit, a appreciable state of mind for him. If you have Skype you have seen the emoticon of the little man dancing without a care in the world, that was the ticket for Henry all-right. 

Henry thinking of Bukowski towards the end of his life, pie-eyed and ripped every waking moment, a chick hound who let the ladies rattle him, his psyche up and down, he was uncontrollably attached to it, the booze and the woman his fountainhead for rage, but the Mahler and late night writing sessions delivered him.

Many times finding peace was a simple matter achieved by jumping out of the habit box we put ourselves in. For Henry (Not unlike Bukowski) it was dialing in the classical music and writing instead of chatting on the net(Chatting, a vapid experience).

Henry rarely ended his stories with
—one for the coach— inspirational speeches on artistic creativity,  after all the fuss, inspiration is always with us, we just loose track of it sometimes. 

Flaming Arrows and Cherry Bombs

Henry on a cold, cold morning driving on a frozen lake, his 1963 BMW doing figure eights and cluster fuck spins. In the trunk there was a bow with arrows wrapped in sack, soaked in petrol for a some flaming arrow action later that night. 

The forest a backdrop to the lake, a picture washed in sepia and bronze light, the leafless tree limbs and twigs accentuated the scene, symbols of nature, graphic color like you would see in Jackson Pollack painting. 

He loved the aroma of the forest, burning leaves, melting coconut butter, fresh grass shoots,  deer musk. 

Henry didn’t hunt game,  preferring pyrotechnic stuff that tantalized the senses,  shooting flaming arrows at night, sometimes he would attach Cherry Bombs or flares, creating an outrageous light show with sound.

Later Henry went to town for a drink—  Walden, Maine a small town with a Maple Syrup mill and a L. L. Bean outlet. 

Antler was a bar where Jack Kerouac hung out in the seventies. You could find all types of people there, bikers, priest, poets, bums, business men, all with their heads submerged in their drinks and not one of them wanting to talk about Kerouac. 

Henry at the bar eyed a gal with dreads and feathers in her hair, approaching her he asked what here name was. Her name was Sparrow, she was a poet. 

She invited him back to her place,  she lived in a cabin near a cornfield. After a few drinks he lit Cherry Bombs and Roman Candles almost setting her cabin on fire. She told him to get the fuck off her property and never come back.  Henry made a big impression on her

Just another day he thought.