War Hath no Self-love

 

I had been feeling beat, unable to write, wondering if it was the end— thinking there was nothin left.

So, I downloaded a few Ebooks from PDF Drive for inspiration— Thompson’s, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Collected Stories of Raymond Carver, and Factotum by Bukowski. 

I began with Factotum, noticing Bukowski's detailed character descriptions, thinking, maybe I need to work on that. 

I got the feeling Factotum was an early book and Buk left the Mark Twain shit behind later. Buk, overdoing it like Twain—

I worked with a little fat man with an unhealthy paunch. He had an old-fashioned pocket watch on a cold chain and wore a vest, a green sunshade, had thick lips, and a meaty dark look to his face. The lines in his face had no interest of character, his face looked like it had been folded a few times and then smoothed, like a piece of cardboard. He wore square shoes and chewed tobacco, squirting the juice into a spittoon at his feet.

Bukowski’s mumbo jumbo about the guy left me blank, all I got from it was the guy was fat.

I look at Carver’s book. He doesn’t mention his character's appearances— the color of their hair, what they’re wearing, if they're fat, thin, pretty, or rat ugly. 

At one point he says of his wife— 

I noticed white lint clinging to the back of her sweater. 

This gave me the feeling she was a mannequin. 

Carver displays his characters through their, actions, interactions, and dialogue. His characters are domestic, drink a lot, and rarely leave their neighborhood except to go to work. 

Hunter S. Thompson is the unsullied opposite of Raymond Carver. When you read Hunter you get the feeling he’s writing flow of consciousness on LSD, traveling through the cosmos. But, he’s a master of his craft who has— in the words of Pablo Picasso, 

Learned the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.

I was ten at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, puzzled and clueless.

In our den, we had a Sears Toshiba console TV. In the sixties people thought things made in Japan were cheap— they all had RCAs and Motorolas, but our Toshiba was the best TV on the block. 

I think my parents were as dumbfucked about the Cuban Missile Crisis as I was. Of course, they were more aware of the ins and outs, but watching TV for hours dulled their senses— filling their heads with cotton candy, causing world events to look surreal.  

The origins of the Cuban Missile Crisis lies in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, during which US-supported Cuban exiles hoping to ferment an uprising against Castro were overpowered by the Cuban armed forces. Who were tipped off about the invasion beforehand and were waiting for the hapless exile invaders.

After the invasion, Fidel persuaded Khrushchev to give him nuclear missiles to safeguard the Cuban Revolution against US aggression.

Once the nukes were in place on Cuban soil, the shit hit the fan. And, Che Guevara attempted to coax Castro to fire the rockets on major US cities. Guevara, the cold-blooded prick.

What could have been a tragic nuclear holocaust— leaving behind a post-apocalyptic world, was settled in thirteen days of negotiations. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles if JFK and America would accept the existence of Cuba.

A bogus agreement by the US, considering the CIA tried to assassinate Fidel over 600 times during his reign using such tricks as exploding cigars and pens.

I have never tried to write like anyone but myself. I don’t think you can and do bonafide and heartfelt work. 

Surely, there are people out there trying to write like others— Bukowski, Kerouac, Steven King, or even Shakespeare, laugh, the idea of trying to write like The Bard seems silly.   

In yonder cornfield, my true love frolics with a comer, off with their heads.

Shakespeare's work is timeless, great and all that, but, when was the last time you sat down and read Richard III or The Tempest for more than a few minutes?  

What are you gonna do this evening Fred? 

Oh, I’m so excited, gonna make popcorn and sit in the den and read Hamlet.

In high school, we were thrilled to finish the seminars on Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, and Beowulf, progressing to— Henry Miller, DH Lawrence, Phillip Roth, and JD Salinger. 

It was springtime and the books were exuberant— Tropic of Cancer, Portnoy’s Complaint, and Lady Chatterley's Lover. 

The sexed-up books and spring air made us horny— more than a few lost their virginity. What would The Bard say?

When daffodils sprout, a maiden's flower opens, and rigidity pangs of hunger.

I didn’t have a clue about sex back then, I knew what it was but had no idea how to do it.

I discovered masturbation by mistake in the bathtub, soaping my penis overzealously, flowing with the sensation.  

Still a virgin my Senior year, I made it with an older friend of my mother's, a nurse. Nurses were considered to be loose back then. 

She and my mother were drinking in the living room and my mother went to her bedroom and passed out. 

The nurse and I flirted some, walked outside to the backyard, fell on the grass. I had a hard-on instantly, she pulls up her white dress, drops her panties, puts my cock inside her, saying, 

push harder, harder, fuck me, oh God, fuck me.

The language of screwing was new to me, It sure wasn't Shakespeare.

We made it again a few more times at her apartment, but she moved to Minnesota.

Sex with the nurse gave me an itch for older women. After high school, while working at Shultz’s Kielbasa Factory, living at home, I spent most of my income on Times Square whores. Going out for drinks with and getting to know a few. 

None of them enjoyed sex, one, a gal who called herself Brandy, a fake name, told me.

Nobody, no hookers, enjoys being pawed and fucked by men we wouldn’t give the time of day to if we met them somewhere else.

The Time’s Square hooker episode was a phase, eventually, I realized buying sex made me feel empty.

Today I have wicked sex with my Cuban wife Lucia. What would The Bard say—

She has a simian's spunk which maketh her hoot like a hyena.  

Smoke

 

Two days ago, a friend Muzzy quit smoking, and everything he thought and said suggested smoking. 

We were sitting in the den, watching hockey and drinking beer with my Cuban wife Lucia, and he sniffs his knuckles and fingers saying, 

I can smell it.

Lucia says to him, 

the nicotine has to sweat out of you, the second day is always the hardest, the third day is hard to of course, but from then on you’re over the hump. Henry puts in his two bits, 

you are never over the hump, you can be sitting in a bar, and the guy sitting next to you offers you a smoke and you think, well one won’t hurt, so you savor the cig and you’re addicted again. Lucia says, 

don’t be fatalista, Muzzy is going to be tobacco-free, give credit where credit's due. Henry gives in,

OK, kudos Muz, Muzzy says, 

I can smell it, the tobacco residue on my hand.

Henry takes a brisket in a bowl out of the frig to the patio grill. He pours a quarter bag of charcoal briquettes into the grill arranging them O-shaped, placing newspaper in the center, lighting the paper, Muzzy asks, 

Why don’t you Zippo the shit outta the coals? 

Because the meat will taste like lighter fluid.   

Henry lights the newspaper, the coals catch fire, eventually simmering down to a fine grey color.

Then he pours 12 ounces of Hickory chips on the coals, puts the upper grill in place, setting the brisket on it with an oversized fork. Muzzy says, 

Man, the sizzling Hickory smells good.

Can you vape that shit? 

If you’re craving a smoke Muz, they sell vape pens at Ed’s Smokes down the street. Hickory's harsh, try lilac, tea tree, or eucalyptus. Vaping, cigars, pipes, cigarettes, they’re all carcinogenic. 

What about pot Henry? 

Well, there's no nicotine in it, I doubt it’s bad for you. Let's get loaded and watch Woodstock in the living room while the brisket cooks.

For Christ's sack, Henry, don't tell me you were at Woodstock in 69, everybody says they were there.

No, my boss at Schultz’s Kielbasa wouldn’t let me off, I would've gone. I remember him saying,

Henz, no time for funny business, we got Kielbasa to get out boychek.

Lucias in the bedroom napping, she’s supposed to be making potato salad.

Henry grabs a four-CD set from the cabinet next to the TV, Woodstock 1969. They light a joint.

Richie Havens opens, playing alone, thumb fingering like a madman, big sound, playing his guitar like it’s a drum, serious about something — during Woodstock 69 hippies thought acid was changing the world but the real pioneers in the 60s were the geeks in Silicon Valley. 

Muzzy says about Richie Havens, 

the dude doesn’t have any teeth, 

yeah Muz, I think he’s a street musician. 

Then a swami, a fat guy with long hair and a beard, wearing an orange robe comes to the middle of the stage. He scans the sea of hippies and then says something gurus say —  

music is the celestial sound that controls the whole universe. 

The guys laugh out loud, they're loaded, Muzzy says, 

I don't know nothin about the universe, but sex and money control everything else. 

Henry fast forwards the CD through the folk music, Melanie, Tim Hardin, and Joan Baez to the following evening of Woodstock when the show begins to rock— Joe Cocker, Mountain, Canned Heat, The Who, Johnny Winter, hard-rocking, loud bands.

Lucia walks into the living room, wrapped in her kimono, she's livid.

The brisket caught fire. Didn't you dipsticks smell it burning? I sprayed the grill with the garden hose. Anyway, it's burnt to a crisp. Henry smirks saying,

Oops, we'll go to Fu King Chinese, my treat. 

Lucia dresses in the bedroom, putting on a crop top and cut-offs. Her dark hair's long, waist length, she primps it some, looking like a movie star. 

The guys, Muz and Henry, wear the same shit they’ve had on all day, smokey jeans and T-shirts. They're slobs. 

Henry has waist-length hair and Muzzy who's bald says, 

bein bald's the best, it’s much less hassle. And, women dig bald guys, our heads are phallic. 

That’s right Muzzy, dick heads get a lot of pussy. 

They pile into Henry’s Chevy Malibu wagon, Lucia drives. Muzzy lights a joint and passes it around. Bill Evans’ Peace Piece is playing on the radio, Henry says, 

God, I love this.

Lucia parks in front of Fu King Chinese, they go inside, sitting at a round table. The restaurant is drab and poorly lit with red lights, resembling a Bangkok whore house. 

An old Chinese woman wearing a Qipao, a traditional Chinese dress, brings a pot of black tea with small cups. After burning his mouth on the tea and scanning the menu, Henry waves his hands to get the old girl’s attention, she comes to the table smiling, her teeth are greyish. He orders,  

we'll have the sweet and sour pork, cashew chicken, fried rice, and wonton soup. 

They sip black tea, forced to contend with a rare period of silence. 

The dishwasher carries the hot food on a large brown tray and the old China girl places the dishes on a spinning plater in the middle of the table— making it easy to reach what you want, unless two people are after the same dish. 

Fu King Chinese was weird, but the food was divine.

Henry pays and they walk out, piling into the station wagon. 

It’s 9 PM, Muzzy invites the couple to his place for a drink. He’s got a trailer at Tropical Mobile Home Park. On the way, he asks Lucia to pull over at Shorty’s Market for beer.

They wait in the car and Muz walks out of Shorty’s carrying a case of Coors Light with a tightly backed paper bag on top.

He directs her to his trailer, she parks in front. It’s nothing special, a Skyline Mobile Home, brown, rectangular, a poor man's trailer.  

It's a mess inside, dishes in the sink, ashtrays full of cigarette butts, smelling like yesterday's garbage. 

Lucia looks around, raising her eyebrows saying to Henry in a muffled voice,  

It’s awful, let’s go.

Muzzy brings em a warm Coors Light, and says,

welcome aboard, and Henry says, 

yeah, the place has a nice feeling, like death. 

Muzzy pulls out a red package of filterless Pall Malls, asking, 

how bout a smoke, Lucia says, 

you know we don’t smoke, you’re back on em again?

well, you gotta go somehow.

There’s a knock at the door, Muzzy yells,

the checks in the mail, common in.

It's a dwarf couple, they're achondroplasian, with long trunks, short arms and legs, large heads, prominent foreheads, and bowed legs. He introduces the couple.

Henry and Lucia, say howdy to Big Mike and Cabbage. 

Big Mike has a bottle of tequila and Cabbage has some plastic cups. She pours five large shots on the console table and everyone helps themselves. Muzzy offers Big Mike and Cabbage a cigarette and Big Mike says, 

Cabbage and I never smoked, we were afraid it would stunt our growth, 

laughter roars through the trailer. 

After too many beers and shots, Henry and Lucia excuse themselves and she says, 

Henry's drunk we should go. 

Lucia jots down Cabbage's phone number saying, 

How bout dinner at our place this week? Just us couples, don't bring Muzzy.

Funked, God, Journalism, The Cosmic Egg & The Fat man

 

You, he said, are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world,

and that, I believe, is why you are in so much pain.

                                                                        Emilie Autumn

Unemphatically— I believe in God, it fits in with all of it, Martians, Angels, Mermaids.

Like a bird i fly free and pray to God, who never says a word to me. 

It's better to pray at home in bed than too watch TV or play Canasta with friends.     

Where can you find truth?  On the internet where the news is on 24/7. I believe everything I hear on the news, from the Left or Right. 

I'm schizophrenic that's why.

Like most, I'm a sucker for the news, world news mostly. I like world leaders you aren’t supposed to like— Yassar Arafat, Castro, Hugo Chávez, Gaddafi, countries with the balls not to be dictated to by the United States or Europe. 

Bad news sells and makes publishers rich and powerful. 

Rupert Murdoch is married to Jerry Hall, did she marry him because he was a good lay? Nobody with the name Rupert could be a stud. 

Or the Wag the Dog Syndrome— writing stories, lies, to spark a war in a foreign country. 

Reporters can’t write freely because they are shackled to the Journalistic Code. Shit like, 

We’ll do our best to avoid error and methodological criticism of the law. 

There’s no room for bias in our profession. 

And How about journalism as fairy tales? 

Fairy Tales, and heartfelt news sell.

Mussolini, Hitler, Sadam Husien, and John Paul Getty are big money makers for The Industry.

There is good and band in everything. 

There are more than a few journalists who are artists; Hemingway, P J O'Rourke, Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Peter Arnot, or Joseph Heller to name a few. 

Last night I dreamt the cosmic egg shattered, something akin to the Second Coming— more fun though.

A recalcitrant God, Bocephus, finds the key and opens the gateway of universal consciousness. 

Pervading particles travel to earth on raindrops and a psychic event occurs, equipping the average Joe with Martian powers. Shit like shapeshift, telepathy, invisibility, Martian vision, and super strength.

National boundaries are impossible to maintain, people travel astrally. 

Crime and money disappear.

Computers and the World Wide Web become obsolete.

Drugs and alcohol are no longer needed, folks can't get any higher.

People have fun being invisible, they spy on people they hate and spread nasty rumors. Some become peeping toms.

Everything needed to be known is known, so schools close.

Cars, planes, and boats become a thing of the past with the advent of astral travel.

Traditional energy sources, fossil fuels, and electricity are no longer needed.

Animals are thankfully spared, people gorge themselves on  Martian insects and truffles.

Overall the cracking of the cosmic egg is a real hoot, a welcome break from the past.

I’m Free Writing these days. 

Most writers use Free Writing to loosen their chops, like an athlete warming up, until they feel ready to write. 

Free Writing is conceptual for me.

Keith Richards said something like this about playing live in front of thousands of people. 

there’s a point in the show when the music takes on a life of its own, we play unconsciously. 

When I Free Write, I let the story find its own way.

Sometimes I  finish a nine or ten-page story, in four or five hours, sometimes it takes weeks. 

On the homefront, I’ve hit bottom— depressed for months. 

Catholics believe suicide is a mortal sin, but it’s a way out for those who direly need it. 

I don’t have the balls to commit suicide— it’s irrevocable, you might miss out on something down the road.

Psychic pain is cold-blooded, it’s a perfect storm of every form and dimension of bad shit loitering in your mind and body. 

When I'm funked primal instincts kick in— I'm paralyzed, lying in bed for days, the black-hearted funk is my low-down roommate.

Writing when you're funked is medicine though, it works instantly, unlike anti-depressants.

Maybe I'll wake up and find the funk was a nightmare.

I see people, people who don’t have money problems, living quasi-normal lives, famous people or friends, and I feel a disconnect. 

Looking at them, at a distance, they’re the lucky ones. Then it hits you— there are no lucky ones. The shit is gonna hit them too.

I’m writing on empty— wondering if this business is readable. 

I lost a bit I wrote, The Fat Man. It was here, on this page and it vanished. I think there’s a Pack Rat living in my hard drive. Here’s The Fat Man bit.

I was in Jake’s at the bar, the best rib joint in Key West. 

A fat man walks in and Jake seats him in a booth, realizing he won't fit on a chair or barstool.

The fat man is the fattest person I have ever seen. He is dressed well and has whopping great hands. The size of a large finger of bananas. As the fat man sips water he looks over the menu intently.

People in Jakes eyeball the fat man, making snide remarks to one another.

The writer in me is curious about the fat man. I go to his table and ask, 

may I join you, friend? 

Sure fella, my name's Gordo, what's yours? 

I'm Henry.

Gordo has a strange way of speaking, breathing heavily when he speaks like his body fat is pushing against his lungs.

When the waiter shows the fat man says without looking up from the menu, 

Let’s begin with a Greek Salad, and then a bowl of soup with some extra bread and butter. Two racks of ribs, and a bowl of scalloped potatoes. 

I order a Rueben sandwich with Coleslaw.

The fat man says to me, 

Believe me, Henry, I don’t eat like this all the time. I say, 

I like to see a man that eats and enjoys himself Gordo. Then the fat man says indignantly,

Do you know what it’s like being a fat man, friend? 

The waiter places another basket of bread and butter on the table. Then Gordo says,

Fat man is written on people's faces when they look at you. We are freaks, oddities. Our bodies become deformed, our feet turn outwards when we walk, it takes great effort to walk. We have trouble finding clothes and shoes that fit. We sweet in the winter, and summer is hell for us.

We, fat men, live in a world of our own, it's impossible for others to imagine.

As I finish my sandwich, Gordo is chewing on his second rack of ribs, he orders another bowl of scalloped potatoes and asked for the dessert menu. I ask him, 

Gordo may I speak frankly? 

Yes, Henry, you seem like a good fellow.

Why have you chosen the path of obesity? 

We fat men call it fat logic, we see the world as terribly false. So we eat to forget it.