Its @ http://imagesnghosts.blogspot.com/
New series from both 2010-06-03 and 2010--07-03. Might have another piece up on this blog tonight :/
-doug
lean, naked and hard
1 hour ago
2010-03-07
2010-03-05
break
I used to think it was just the coolest fucking thing
we could sit there in the sun and catch a tan
or just curl up on the couch to watch TV
never have to say a word to share
a thought
a joke
a tear
a love, a life.
Something I thought I loved
you just got me
but now
Quiet
Standing by the door
munching on the gummi bears
that cost us a fortune in dental work
still sitting on some revoked credit card
The silence is too much pain
It's like you don't feel it
like I do
like you maybe never really cared
like I did
maybe I was just something to occupy your time?
all those wasted years to end so quietly
I sit down in the first chair we ever bought together
Smoke in silence and still hoping you will say
Something
Anything
It would be better
I think
If you just pushed me to the floor
Smashed that pathetic chair over me
Break us both to bits
I wouldn't fight you
I'd let you
Yes
that would hurt less.
we could sit there in the sun and catch a tan
or just curl up on the couch to watch TV
never have to say a word to share
a thought
a joke
a tear
a love, a life.
Something I thought I loved
you just got me
but now
Quiet
Standing by the door
munching on the gummi bears
that cost us a fortune in dental work
still sitting on some revoked credit card
The silence is too much pain
It's like you don't feel it
like I do
like you maybe never really cared
like I did
maybe I was just something to occupy your time?
all those wasted years to end so quietly
I sit down in the first chair we ever bought together
Smoke in silence and still hoping you will say
Something
Anything
It would be better
I think
If you just pushed me to the floor
Smashed that pathetic chair over me
Break us both to bits
I wouldn't fight you
I'd let you
Yes
that would hurt less.
2010-03-04
haunted - 17
It's just past dawn when I take one last look at Colin and slip out the door, quietly. It's warmed up quite a bit and a soft drizzle is slicking the dirty streets. No cars are out. All the people asleep in warm beds, stuffed with turkey and safe in the illusion of permanence for the moment. My Chuck Taylors are already starting to soak through and it's cold but it feels like that's how it's spose to be.
I walk for a long time, taking a moment to make sure no one is watching before I find the burned out, collapsed building that used to be our home and crawl through a smashed window, the bars that used to protect it dangling limply like broken teeth. It stinks of wet fire and rotting wood. Nothing is recognizable but it feels so familiar. The floor creaks and I just jump to the left to avoid going through it. The stove that started all this is half-melted and tipped on its side, a mess of melted gas lines and burned wires that resembles a smashed up robot.
Something catches my eye and I suck my breath in sharp cos I know that it wasn't there before, it's almost like it was expecting me. It's my necklace, one of two identical ones me and Joey exchanged that night he proposed to me. It doesn't even look like the fire touched it.
I swallow hard and put it on, careful with the fragile clasp, it's cold as ice around my neck but it feels so safe now. I poke around more in the ashes, recognizing charred bits of our lives, even what must have been our real IDs melted into one underneath the heap of charcoal that used to be the small statue he gave me for our second anniversary.
The mattress is nothing more than rusty sharp springs stretched all crazy. A smashed up bottle of vodka is in one corner, crushed under boots of those trying to save the building. A few charred scraps of paper that used to be our photo album, and I cry and take out my vodka remembering how almost every day for all those years we made sure to take photos of ourselves, picnics, just cuddly pictures, a few pics I talked him into of us fucking around.
A bunch of melted coins from the one summer we tried to do the coin collection thing again.
All just ruins.
I kill the last of the vodka and whisper something under my breath before crawling back out.
This is the place we found by accident one hot summer, concealed just barely behind a ragged bunch of overgrown weeds, the old abandoned train trestle. I balance on the wet rusted rails, my sneakers slipping all over the place. A warm wind sprays me with mist. I sit on the rail, dangling my feet over the edge, and finish off the last of the scotch I have with me.
I stumble back to my feet, one foot slipping right off the rail before I catch my balance, and carefully balance til I'm on the trestle itself, high above the pavement below of some private road.
My sneakers slip again and this time I let myself fall back into Joey's arms.
I walk for a long time, taking a moment to make sure no one is watching before I find the burned out, collapsed building that used to be our home and crawl through a smashed window, the bars that used to protect it dangling limply like broken teeth. It stinks of wet fire and rotting wood. Nothing is recognizable but it feels so familiar. The floor creaks and I just jump to the left to avoid going through it. The stove that started all this is half-melted and tipped on its side, a mess of melted gas lines and burned wires that resembles a smashed up robot.
Something catches my eye and I suck my breath in sharp cos I know that it wasn't there before, it's almost like it was expecting me. It's my necklace, one of two identical ones me and Joey exchanged that night he proposed to me. It doesn't even look like the fire touched it.
I swallow hard and put it on, careful with the fragile clasp, it's cold as ice around my neck but it feels so safe now. I poke around more in the ashes, recognizing charred bits of our lives, even what must have been our real IDs melted into one underneath the heap of charcoal that used to be the small statue he gave me for our second anniversary.
The mattress is nothing more than rusty sharp springs stretched all crazy. A smashed up bottle of vodka is in one corner, crushed under boots of those trying to save the building. A few charred scraps of paper that used to be our photo album, and I cry and take out my vodka remembering how almost every day for all those years we made sure to take photos of ourselves, picnics, just cuddly pictures, a few pics I talked him into of us fucking around.
A bunch of melted coins from the one summer we tried to do the coin collection thing again.
All just ruins.
I kill the last of the vodka and whisper something under my breath before crawling back out.
This is the place we found by accident one hot summer, concealed just barely behind a ragged bunch of overgrown weeds, the old abandoned train trestle. I balance on the wet rusted rails, my sneakers slipping all over the place. A warm wind sprays me with mist. I sit on the rail, dangling my feet over the edge, and finish off the last of the scotch I have with me.
I stumble back to my feet, one foot slipping right off the rail before I catch my balance, and carefully balance til I'm on the trestle itself, high above the pavement below of some private road.
My sneakers slip again and this time I let myself fall back into Joey's arms.
2010-03-03
haunted - 16
I realize it's like almost four in the morning and try to make it to the bed but the fire feels so nice I drift off before I can sit up.
It seems like I I just fall asleep before I'm being shaken awake and fuck I'm way to sleepy to try to have a conversation with Colin that isn't blunt, maybe that's a good thing, maybe not. I have to tell the man that, yeah, at least part of it is his fault for not listening to what the kid wanted.
'Did you know he had a girlfriend and was going out West with her?'
He looks surprised.
'Who?' he asks.
'He just calls her Jess?'
'Jess? That was that creep Martin's girl. I busted him for drugs but he got some bigshot lawyer that killed the whole thing. And the week after Trey....after Trey died, she got into his drugs and overdosed. Died in the ambulance.'
It comes out so automatic and so cop-like before it hits him.
Maybe that wasn't an accident, after all.
Maybe putting all that pressure on Trey and not paying attention to him killed more than his own son.
He sits down hard and I think I hear him say 'oh my god' under his breath, cos now he's prolly thinking how many lives that he ruined, I know I'm wondering how many I did.
Joey.
His parents, who probably hang on to the hope their only kid is still out there somewhere, wondering if he's in pain or scared. Cos I used his fake ID for all the final shit, our real IDs melted that night.
Maybe the man who once behaved like a dad to me found out about moms and came rushing to find me and make up for his fuck ups, maybe he wanted to try and start over and treat me right, it would've been easy for him to imagine that the whole sham of Paul and moms was behind their separation.
I realize there's a glass in my hand now and even though I have a headache from it earlier maybe more will chase it away, chase all of this away. Numb is usually better, it seems.
Colin asks to be left alone for a bit and gives me the bottle so I tumble to Trey's room, lost in my head and thoughts and fuck if it seemed impossible to, what did he say 'get my life together' it just seems so much more pointless and wasteful of other people's lives to keep trying this failed fucked mission.
Answers come like blackbirds in winter. I dump the water bottle out in the bathroom sink and fill it with some scotch, drop it into my backpack next the leftover vodka from Christmas Eve. I strip off Trey's clothes, they're starting to feel like a straightjacket now, crawling back into my own except for the one thing I keep in a hard-to-see compartment. It's a tight black Ramones T with more than a few holes in it. Joey's T. It still has blood on it.
Hope is the cruelest poison ever.
It seems like I I just fall asleep before I'm being shaken awake and fuck I'm way to sleepy to try to have a conversation with Colin that isn't blunt, maybe that's a good thing, maybe not. I have to tell the man that, yeah, at least part of it is his fault for not listening to what the kid wanted.
'Did you know he had a girlfriend and was going out West with her?'
He looks surprised.
'Who?' he asks.
'He just calls her Jess?'
'Jess? That was that creep Martin's girl. I busted him for drugs but he got some bigshot lawyer that killed the whole thing. And the week after Trey....after Trey died, she got into his drugs and overdosed. Died in the ambulance.'
It comes out so automatic and so cop-like before it hits him.
Maybe that wasn't an accident, after all.
Maybe putting all that pressure on Trey and not paying attention to him killed more than his own son.
He sits down hard and I think I hear him say 'oh my god' under his breath, cos now he's prolly thinking how many lives that he ruined, I know I'm wondering how many I did.
Joey.
His parents, who probably hang on to the hope their only kid is still out there somewhere, wondering if he's in pain or scared. Cos I used his fake ID for all the final shit, our real IDs melted that night.
Maybe the man who once behaved like a dad to me found out about moms and came rushing to find me and make up for his fuck ups, maybe he wanted to try and start over and treat me right, it would've been easy for him to imagine that the whole sham of Paul and moms was behind their separation.
I realize there's a glass in my hand now and even though I have a headache from it earlier maybe more will chase it away, chase all of this away. Numb is usually better, it seems.
Colin asks to be left alone for a bit and gives me the bottle so I tumble to Trey's room, lost in my head and thoughts and fuck if it seemed impossible to, what did he say 'get my life together' it just seems so much more pointless and wasteful of other people's lives to keep trying this failed fucked mission.
Answers come like blackbirds in winter. I dump the water bottle out in the bathroom sink and fill it with some scotch, drop it into my backpack next the leftover vodka from Christmas Eve. I strip off Trey's clothes, they're starting to feel like a straightjacket now, crawling back into my own except for the one thing I keep in a hard-to-see compartment. It's a tight black Ramones T with more than a few holes in it. Joey's T. It still has blood on it.
Hope is the cruelest poison ever.
2010-03-02
haunted - 15
I don't know what to expect, but I just lay there on my back reading with my legs folded up. The pressure is on for a minute because I can tell Colin is watching my expressions, looking for clues or something maybe, but thank fuck he stops doing that after a bit cos if there's one thing that makes it impossible for me to focus that's it. I get lost in the notebook pretty quick, the kid was a very good writer, first it seemed he struggled but the more it went on the more it seemed to come natural, almost like I were sitting here with him talking right now.
But I think the answer that seems to be showing up isn't gonna be something Colin likes so I hope he doesn't expect me to bullshit cos that's just something I don't wanna have to do anymore. Trey started his notebook pretty young and Colin got him into all kind of activities, chess (that really didn't take for him), swimming (he loved it in a river but not so much a pool, and when it went to competitive he wanted nothing to do with it), baseball even. Stuffed in here and there are notes about school itself like report card grades and fuck the kid was like a superstar, almost never anything less than a B+ and mostly A's with great notes from all the teachers and his coaches, seems like almost every month or two he got awards in both sports and school.
But the longer I read the more it sorta seesaws between those kinds of things and some really long almost unbroken sentences talking about how he didn't like the people, and the whole stack of trophies was like concrete blocks roped to his ankles in deep water. Then he met a girl, Jess was her name, and everything changes in the writing all at once. To be honest it got a bit embarrassing and mushy at first. There's a pic of her taped to one page and she's a pretty girl, a bit goth.
It strikes me then that in all the photos in Trey's room, I didn't remember seeing any of her. They must all be in here, and they're cool photos, really well done, they're cute together and look really happy.
The day before his birthday he wrote:
'I've made up my mind.'
Which I think means one thing before it goes on:
'I'm so tired of all this sports and competition. I fucking hate every minute of it and to make it worse I know I can't fail at it or everyone will be disappointed. But over the past few years doing this and now meeting Jess...'
There's some sort of receipt taped in there and it's a minute before I realize it's for two plane tickets to Las Vegas.
'We're going to Vegas. My friend Syd graduated last year and needs roommates, he says he knows some people looking for writers and artists out West and can get me hooked up with them easy. And I think I'm gonna pop the question to Jess once we get out there, I've never been more sure of anything in my life. Tomorrow dad is taking me to dinner and I'm going to tell him. I just hope he isn't mad. I want to be happy, this is what I want to do with my life.'
I'm not sure I want to read the last bits but I force myself to.
The next day:
'I chickened out and Jess is mad but I told her that doesn't change anything, we're old enough we can go on our own, we don't need permission. But I promised I'd tell him before. Which we're leaving in four days so I'm fucking nervous as hell.'
It just gets worse every day and a bit more confused and garbled and sad and angry until the last entry which said 'Fuck this.'
I close the notebook quietly.
What kind of hope is there when a kid like Trey, all the advantages, scary fucking talented, every single thing going right for him, and he winds up exactly in the same place I'm in despite it?
But I think the answer that seems to be showing up isn't gonna be something Colin likes so I hope he doesn't expect me to bullshit cos that's just something I don't wanna have to do anymore. Trey started his notebook pretty young and Colin got him into all kind of activities, chess (that really didn't take for him), swimming (he loved it in a river but not so much a pool, and when it went to competitive he wanted nothing to do with it), baseball even. Stuffed in here and there are notes about school itself like report card grades and fuck the kid was like a superstar, almost never anything less than a B+ and mostly A's with great notes from all the teachers and his coaches, seems like almost every month or two he got awards in both sports and school.
But the longer I read the more it sorta seesaws between those kinds of things and some really long almost unbroken sentences talking about how he didn't like the people, and the whole stack of trophies was like concrete blocks roped to his ankles in deep water. Then he met a girl, Jess was her name, and everything changes in the writing all at once. To be honest it got a bit embarrassing and mushy at first. There's a pic of her taped to one page and she's a pretty girl, a bit goth.
It strikes me then that in all the photos in Trey's room, I didn't remember seeing any of her. They must all be in here, and they're cool photos, really well done, they're cute together and look really happy.
The day before his birthday he wrote:
'I've made up my mind.'
Which I think means one thing before it goes on:
'I'm so tired of all this sports and competition. I fucking hate every minute of it and to make it worse I know I can't fail at it or everyone will be disappointed. But over the past few years doing this and now meeting Jess...'
There's some sort of receipt taped in there and it's a minute before I realize it's for two plane tickets to Las Vegas.
'We're going to Vegas. My friend Syd graduated last year and needs roommates, he says he knows some people looking for writers and artists out West and can get me hooked up with them easy. And I think I'm gonna pop the question to Jess once we get out there, I've never been more sure of anything in my life. Tomorrow dad is taking me to dinner and I'm going to tell him. I just hope he isn't mad. I want to be happy, this is what I want to do with my life.'
I'm not sure I want to read the last bits but I force myself to.
The next day:
'I chickened out and Jess is mad but I told her that doesn't change anything, we're old enough we can go on our own, we don't need permission. But I promised I'd tell him before. Which we're leaving in four days so I'm fucking nervous as hell.'
It just gets worse every day and a bit more confused and garbled and sad and angry until the last entry which said 'Fuck this.'
I close the notebook quietly.
What kind of hope is there when a kid like Trey, all the advantages, scary fucking talented, every single thing going right for him, and he winds up exactly in the same place I'm in despite it?
2010-03-01
haunted - 14
It's a quiet night. He builds a big fire in his study. He's struggling with the monster chair for a minute before realizing I just plopped on the carpet in front of it, trying to get my hands warm. My soul is frozen beyond ever thawing. It's instinct for me, like a doctor with a dying patient just trying to make their last moments less painful through a fog of scotch and cigarettes. He has his pipe and he starts to read some book while puffing away, I swear the man reminds me too much of Sherlock Holmes sometimes which is kinda cool, I never met anyone like him. I always pictured him to be sort of like this behind that too-tight uniform but never quite like this, he's even got the red robe on now.
I think for a minute about trying to find a book to pretend reading but nothing here really seems like it would belong in front of me so I just watch the flames and try not to think of what it reminds me of too much, just focus on the warmth and block out the pain.
After a minute and several scotches down Colin speaks up.
'Can I ask you to help me with something?'
And I'm thinking like what, chop wood, don't they have people that do that and bring it to the house, but he's gone and back in a minute with a crumpled notebook.
I'm not sure what he wants and he seems really not sure he wants to speak so I just pour another scotch for both of us. I like the way it puts a blur over things, warm and soft like an out-of-focus photograph, like a photo of something really awful that almost looks like some piece of art when it's not in focus.
He's thumbing through the notebook now and whatever is in there seems to hurt, his face shows pain but it's like a dog that just got kicked and doesn't know why it did, the kind of pain that comes from not getting why it happened, the kind that sneaks up and catches you by surprise.
The kind of pain like when I lost Joey with no warning.
And I'm getting it I think, or starting to get it, even still I'm only just half-prepared when he hands me the notebook and before I can even get a look at what it says he's rubbing his eyes behind his glasses and sobbing this scary sort of deep almost wail. He takes off his glasses and his crying comes out in heavy low crushing heaves.
'Maybe...' he starts to say before he has to stop for a second. I sit up now, more than a little alarmed. He gulps his scotch and finally that calms him enough so he can finish his sentence.
'Maybe if you read that you can tell us why.'
Answers, answers to things that have no answer, that's what we all want, isn't it? And all I can do is say I'll try, not that I've ever succeeded myself.
I think for a minute about trying to find a book to pretend reading but nothing here really seems like it would belong in front of me so I just watch the flames and try not to think of what it reminds me of too much, just focus on the warmth and block out the pain.
After a minute and several scotches down Colin speaks up.
'Can I ask you to help me with something?'
And I'm thinking like what, chop wood, don't they have people that do that and bring it to the house, but he's gone and back in a minute with a crumpled notebook.
I'm not sure what he wants and he seems really not sure he wants to speak so I just pour another scotch for both of us. I like the way it puts a blur over things, warm and soft like an out-of-focus photograph, like a photo of something really awful that almost looks like some piece of art when it's not in focus.
He's thumbing through the notebook now and whatever is in there seems to hurt, his face shows pain but it's like a dog that just got kicked and doesn't know why it did, the kind of pain that comes from not getting why it happened, the kind that sneaks up and catches you by surprise.
The kind of pain like when I lost Joey with no warning.
And I'm getting it I think, or starting to get it, even still I'm only just half-prepared when he hands me the notebook and before I can even get a look at what it says he's rubbing his eyes behind his glasses and sobbing this scary sort of deep almost wail. He takes off his glasses and his crying comes out in heavy low crushing heaves.
'Maybe...' he starts to say before he has to stop for a second. I sit up now, more than a little alarmed. He gulps his scotch and finally that calms him enough so he can finish his sentence.
'Maybe if you read that you can tell us why.'
Answers, answers to things that have no answer, that's what we all want, isn't it? And all I can do is say I'll try, not that I've ever succeeded myself.
2010-02-27
haunted - 13
He takes me into the City to try and take my mind off of the pain, but I'm just sitting here shivering in front of Rockefeller watching all those people skating and smiling and the biggest fucking Christmas tree I've ever seen sparkling away like nothing is wrong, holding a cup of coffee I don't feel like drinking. All this is doing as I shiver in the rain which decided to go back to sleet and snow is that this could have been my life, this could have been me and Joey getting into playful snowball fights in the Vermont winter.
Colin says something that I don't hear at first so I'm like 'huh' cos I'm getting that nasty feeling of being in this bubble of invisibility that separates me, all the laughter of people just bounces right off of it.
'What would he want for you?'
And I honest don't know there, I mean, in the years we were together I never once had a day where I thought we'd not be together forever.
'Take me someplace lonely and industrial,' I whisper, now it's my turn to repeat myself but Colin gets it. But he goes along with it and we're driving into Long Island City and some forsaken place with a falling down steel factory staring at the cold gray of the East River through the snow which has started to get stronger.
Yes, this feels right to me. I stand real close to the edge of the icy water and that feeling never goes away, just fall in, dive in and swim fast with all my juinor high swim-team skills I'd be way out of reach of rescue before the cold water took me under.
The cold freezes the tears to my face for a good bit of time before I realize I still can't go through with it, all I'm gonna accomplish is giving myself a cold and prolly him too, so when he says he wants to take me someplace I say okay.
It's some Irish pub that could go into any movie, nothing fancy about it really but it's warm and this time I accept the coffee cos it's got whisky in it. I realize I'm hungry again and ask if it's okay to buy some food which of course he says yes.
Fifteen minutes later I'm munching on the biggest hamburger I've ever seen next to the biggest beer I've ever seen. I'm midway through it when Colin drops it.
'This was where I took Colin for his birthday. Three days later he...he killed himself.'
His face is a bit pale and he orders himself something to drink. I don't know what to say, I figure if he wants to say more he'll tell me. But fuck if someone is looking to me for a pick-me-up that's not good.
'We got into a fight that night...a bad one,' he says, quiet, and I guess I offer him an escape cos I already inhaled the burger and like three beers so it's safe to leave now.
The whole ride back is so quiet but I don't mind, just staring out the window, both of us alone in our pain yet somehow maybe sharing it makes it hurt less for the moment.
All today has done is confirm just how shitty this world is.
Colin says something that I don't hear at first so I'm like 'huh' cos I'm getting that nasty feeling of being in this bubble of invisibility that separates me, all the laughter of people just bounces right off of it.
'What would he want for you?'
And I honest don't know there, I mean, in the years we were together I never once had a day where I thought we'd not be together forever.
'Take me someplace lonely and industrial,' I whisper, now it's my turn to repeat myself but Colin gets it. But he goes along with it and we're driving into Long Island City and some forsaken place with a falling down steel factory staring at the cold gray of the East River through the snow which has started to get stronger.
Yes, this feels right to me. I stand real close to the edge of the icy water and that feeling never goes away, just fall in, dive in and swim fast with all my juinor high swim-team skills I'd be way out of reach of rescue before the cold water took me under.
The cold freezes the tears to my face for a good bit of time before I realize I still can't go through with it, all I'm gonna accomplish is giving myself a cold and prolly him too, so when he says he wants to take me someplace I say okay.
It's some Irish pub that could go into any movie, nothing fancy about it really but it's warm and this time I accept the coffee cos it's got whisky in it. I realize I'm hungry again and ask if it's okay to buy some food which of course he says yes.
Fifteen minutes later I'm munching on the biggest hamburger I've ever seen next to the biggest beer I've ever seen. I'm midway through it when Colin drops it.
'This was where I took Colin for his birthday. Three days later he...he killed himself.'
His face is a bit pale and he orders himself something to drink. I don't know what to say, I figure if he wants to say more he'll tell me. But fuck if someone is looking to me for a pick-me-up that's not good.
'We got into a fight that night...a bad one,' he says, quiet, and I guess I offer him an escape cos I already inhaled the burger and like three beers so it's safe to leave now.
The whole ride back is so quiet but I don't mind, just staring out the window, both of us alone in our pain yet somehow maybe sharing it makes it hurt less for the moment.
All today has done is confirm just how shitty this world is.
2010-02-25
jacko - excerpt - 1/1 excerpt from bok
The days were surely getting darker as winter approached. The quiet house, once always the center of craziness, the air ripe with stench of stale cigarettes in overflowing ashtrays and beer cans turned into ashtrays and the stark Band-Aid smell of his own army of spoons singed with his lighters from 'cooking' over the years, now it all felt so quiet, too quiet. His own footfalls echoed a bit too loud. Prufrock measured his life with coffee spoons; Jacko had measured his with spoonfuls of bubbling smack. And now this, a damp room with a small fire and a solitary Bombay Sapphire to keep him company.
He knew winter was approaching and fast, sometimes the inconvenient obviousness of a bit of blood in the spittle he had trouble controlling these days, the bouts of coughing that turn into retching too frequently. Things that would have shocked the boys of yesterday -- 'really? Jacko put orange juice in his vodka? you're fucking with me!" -- now too commonplace. On some level instinct might have been kicking in, that basic thing as animal as ever inside of all things that draw breath, the thing within that makes a mortally wounded deer try to flee even though it can smell and feel and see its life jetting red across the cold snow, even as it hears the hunter reloading and the dread crunch of his approaching boots. But his mind fought back with the insane logic he'd been gifted with, not near as many years on the earth as should have been offered up to him in the well-heeled neighborhoods of his London youth, yet fuller than most twice his age.
So now he felt obligated, not to anyone but himself really, to try and relive those years by writing to himself as much as he could remember. It was a way to pass the time until he drifted off and did not come back from sleep, pen in hand, the ever-present gin by his side. A way to not feel so alone. Maybe a way to push the worry out of his brain and convince him he had done right in this world.
His boys still checked on him most often, all of them well grown now and most good and decent people, something he liked to think was his doing. A sort of father in a sense most people would have considered fucked up at the least, dozens of them he had a hand in raising and only one ended up in prison. Several found their way to Uni, in fact, when the chances of them making it there without Jacko were near impossible.
Focus, he tells himself, pen to paper. How it began.
How it really began. His hands shake and he begins to write in that disorderly scrawl brought on by years of decadence.
December 1963. The time that became known as 'the Big Freeze.'
It was a chilly day. Hardly understating it, either, and Jackson Lloyd, a boy of 13 months from 14, wandered through the small square going back and forth between shivering to death and staring in amazement at all the snow. The news went on and on over the radio about how the winter of '63 was colder and snowier than ever before. He was on holiday, not by his own choice, but because he was supposed to care about his ailing grandmother, a woman he barely knew beyond a hunched black shadow that creaked on about the Blitz and listened to radio only, even though there was a perfectly sound television gathering dust in the kitchen.
Jackson was not allowed to watch television, however, only when he snuck downstairs in his underwear in the middle of the night, thankful the old bat slept like a rock while worried what he was supposed to do if she didn't wake up. He gave up his nightly ritual after a few days because the programmes about London made him homesick, made him miss his best friend Ben too much and made him need to tell Ben the truth.
His boots crunched under the snow. Finally, he would be allowed escape from days of ringing ears from blaring old music and choked lungs from the Dunhills she chain-smoked as if they might be out of style. He was getting himself back to London any way possible, because New Year's was just half two days off, and he wanted to spend it with Ben and finally come out with things that in hindsight he should have known better than to speak aloud.
His mum of course was none too pleased to have Jackson show up unexpectedly, but he played her quite well with coughing and claiming Grandma's cigarettes were making him ill. A pat on the back and an unemotional brush of his disorderly damp black hair, and now to find Ben and hope his words didn't stick in his throat.
Ben was the sort of boy Jackson looked up to, eighteen months older yet so much more worldly. Jackson envied his best friend for ski trips to Austria and summers in Nice, to be sure, but more to the point he knew that he loved him. The boy thought nothing of letting Jackson curl up with him at sleepover, and those nights Jackson would watch his friend sleep, sometimes dare to be brave enough to brush the long ginger hair out of his eyes or even brave enough on a few occasions to kiss him in his sleep, feel his full lips and catch a taste of his breath slipping into his mouth, always seeming to taste like oranges. Those nights were something of pain and desire he didn't quite understand himself, and now he wondered if Ben might know how Jackson felt.
Ben was immodest in ways that at first embarrassed Jackson, carrying on conversation right in the bath with him whilst fully naked, but then Jackson began to find himself liking this, trying to not be too obvious where his eyes would wander, adopting his friend's habits and himself daring to bathe in front of him fully naked. That required every bit of courage Jackson had, because his own parts where considerably smaller than his friend's, all he could do was discreetly bite his tongue to avoid getting a hard-on at being naked in front of Ben, every bit of his brain fighting his urge to ask Ben to jump in with him. And giving in far too often to mortal sin when alone in his room thinking about Ben. In his mind he saw how tonight would go, simply come right out and tell Ben everything he felt, and then Ben would kiss him, a grownup kiss flowered with oranges and love and they'd share the warm beer stolen from a cupboard Ben's parents thought was securely locked. He thought about discovery, their theft discovered, and then the truth of their true friendship would be out there for all and it would all be fine, munching on Victorian sponge loaded with strawberries. Yes, Ben and him would be together forever, friends and everything else.
And it was time, them alone that evening. He stammered a few words that managed to get the point across nonetheless.
'You fucking queer,' hissed Ben. 'You bent bastard!'
Jackson stepped back in shock, the only small relief was they were alone in the house so no one else could see this betrayal. He couldn't understand anything suddenly, but Ben wasn't finished.
'When I look at you, you...you....tosser, it's like I just crawled into my warm bed to find my dog shat and pissed and puked all in my covers, and I just run to puke myself trying to get the stink off me. Then I trip over my dog's dead body, fall on the loo and break half my teeth. You wanker!'
With a solid shove that nearly sent Jackson flying. Green eyes glared at him with so much hate he couldn't say or understand anything, just sit there on the floor opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish knocked out of its bowl, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Then came the kick, right in his cock, hard and sharp like soccer cleats, the fear and sickness rising in his mouth like spoilt milk realizing that was the only way Ben would ever touch him down there. Fear growing strong as a glass nearly struck him in the head before disintegrating on the fireplace hearth into a thousand pieces. Because clearly now Ben might well kill him.
Jackson was no small boy. In a normal schoolyard fight, a half stone more than Ben and four inches taller, Jackson could have thrashed him. But this was no normal fight, because everything he had hoped for would never happen, and now if Ben killed him that might be for the best. Everyone would know Jackson's secrets, every boy in school, every parent, everyone.
Even nearly fifty years on, he can't remember exactly what happened next. One minute he was choking up a broken tooth and spitting out blood, the very next he had a fire iron in his left hand and swung. Hard. Cricket was his sport to begin with, a game his left-hand swing made him a constant deadly surprise at, and even someone he'd known for almost half his life failed to see it coming from that direction. The iron connected with a vicious crack against Ben's skull, so hard it bent. And it was not like in the movies, no, Ben stumbled around for a few seconds as if drunk, blood coming out of his ears, his eyes, his mouth.
'You...cunt...' said Ben, spitting blood out with every word, before he fell straight onto a glass table that exploded into shards so big some went straight through him.
Jackson remembers sitting up, struggling to his feet, dropping the crumpled fire iron, now tears blocking everything, trying to wake Ben up, those eyes simply staring straight up blank, now his own clothes completely drenched in blood, so much blood it stunk like rust.
'Ben?! Ben?!' his own words seeming like they never came from his mouth.
Rough hands ripping him away from the boy he loved first and most, the boy he'd just killed.
He was only half-aware of Ben's pops trying to bring his son back to life, the boy's mum screaming 'what have you done, Jackson?!'
He stumbled backwards and without a second thought or a hesitation, he ran straight at the window, so fast he crashed right through it, a hundred pieces of splintered wood and glass ripping into him, but not so fast he made it as far as landing on the iron spikes of the fence he was aiming for. His head smacked hard against the bars and then there was just a snowy gray sky and the sting of his own blood crawling into his eyes, the cold, the chill as his blood and Ben's mixed in the snow and his clothes. Tears and pain.
Days later, awake in hospital, Jackson learned that with his family money and the barristers it bought, there was no sin he could not escape the full measure of consequences for, at least not in the real world. But the prison of his mind was now locked tight forever. He didn't speak for weeks, for no reason other than he felt so much pain all he could manage was to cry every moment whilst awake. The grownups assumed that it was his wounds and took a small bit of pity, and until this day Jackson never told a soul the real reason that from that horrible New Year's Eve forward a smile never cracked his lips without the help of the smack or the booze or the boys, all three in generous quantities. But from that day forth Jackson was dead, a boy's corpse living inside the man everyone would forever know as Jacko.
He knew winter was approaching and fast, sometimes the inconvenient obviousness of a bit of blood in the spittle he had trouble controlling these days, the bouts of coughing that turn into retching too frequently. Things that would have shocked the boys of yesterday -- 'really? Jacko put orange juice in his vodka? you're fucking with me!" -- now too commonplace. On some level instinct might have been kicking in, that basic thing as animal as ever inside of all things that draw breath, the thing within that makes a mortally wounded deer try to flee even though it can smell and feel and see its life jetting red across the cold snow, even as it hears the hunter reloading and the dread crunch of his approaching boots. But his mind fought back with the insane logic he'd been gifted with, not near as many years on the earth as should have been offered up to him in the well-heeled neighborhoods of his London youth, yet fuller than most twice his age.
So now he felt obligated, not to anyone but himself really, to try and relive those years by writing to himself as much as he could remember. It was a way to pass the time until he drifted off and did not come back from sleep, pen in hand, the ever-present gin by his side. A way to not feel so alone. Maybe a way to push the worry out of his brain and convince him he had done right in this world.
His boys still checked on him most often, all of them well grown now and most good and decent people, something he liked to think was his doing. A sort of father in a sense most people would have considered fucked up at the least, dozens of them he had a hand in raising and only one ended up in prison. Several found their way to Uni, in fact, when the chances of them making it there without Jacko were near impossible.
Focus, he tells himself, pen to paper. How it began.
How it really began. His hands shake and he begins to write in that disorderly scrawl brought on by years of decadence.
December 1963. The time that became known as 'the Big Freeze.'
It was a chilly day. Hardly understating it, either, and Jackson Lloyd, a boy of 13 months from 14, wandered through the small square going back and forth between shivering to death and staring in amazement at all the snow. The news went on and on over the radio about how the winter of '63 was colder and snowier than ever before. He was on holiday, not by his own choice, but because he was supposed to care about his ailing grandmother, a woman he barely knew beyond a hunched black shadow that creaked on about the Blitz and listened to radio only, even though there was a perfectly sound television gathering dust in the kitchen.
Jackson was not allowed to watch television, however, only when he snuck downstairs in his underwear in the middle of the night, thankful the old bat slept like a rock while worried what he was supposed to do if she didn't wake up. He gave up his nightly ritual after a few days because the programmes about London made him homesick, made him miss his best friend Ben too much and made him need to tell Ben the truth.
His boots crunched under the snow. Finally, he would be allowed escape from days of ringing ears from blaring old music and choked lungs from the Dunhills she chain-smoked as if they might be out of style. He was getting himself back to London any way possible, because New Year's was just half two days off, and he wanted to spend it with Ben and finally come out with things that in hindsight he should have known better than to speak aloud.
His mum of course was none too pleased to have Jackson show up unexpectedly, but he played her quite well with coughing and claiming Grandma's cigarettes were making him ill. A pat on the back and an unemotional brush of his disorderly damp black hair, and now to find Ben and hope his words didn't stick in his throat.
Ben was the sort of boy Jackson looked up to, eighteen months older yet so much more worldly. Jackson envied his best friend for ski trips to Austria and summers in Nice, to be sure, but more to the point he knew that he loved him. The boy thought nothing of letting Jackson curl up with him at sleepover, and those nights Jackson would watch his friend sleep, sometimes dare to be brave enough to brush the long ginger hair out of his eyes or even brave enough on a few occasions to kiss him in his sleep, feel his full lips and catch a taste of his breath slipping into his mouth, always seeming to taste like oranges. Those nights were something of pain and desire he didn't quite understand himself, and now he wondered if Ben might know how Jackson felt.
Ben was immodest in ways that at first embarrassed Jackson, carrying on conversation right in the bath with him whilst fully naked, but then Jackson began to find himself liking this, trying to not be too obvious where his eyes would wander, adopting his friend's habits and himself daring to bathe in front of him fully naked. That required every bit of courage Jackson had, because his own parts where considerably smaller than his friend's, all he could do was discreetly bite his tongue to avoid getting a hard-on at being naked in front of Ben, every bit of his brain fighting his urge to ask Ben to jump in with him. And giving in far too often to mortal sin when alone in his room thinking about Ben. In his mind he saw how tonight would go, simply come right out and tell Ben everything he felt, and then Ben would kiss him, a grownup kiss flowered with oranges and love and they'd share the warm beer stolen from a cupboard Ben's parents thought was securely locked. He thought about discovery, their theft discovered, and then the truth of their true friendship would be out there for all and it would all be fine, munching on Victorian sponge loaded with strawberries. Yes, Ben and him would be together forever, friends and everything else.
And it was time, them alone that evening. He stammered a few words that managed to get the point across nonetheless.
'You fucking queer,' hissed Ben. 'You bent bastard!'
Jackson stepped back in shock, the only small relief was they were alone in the house so no one else could see this betrayal. He couldn't understand anything suddenly, but Ben wasn't finished.
'When I look at you, you...you....tosser, it's like I just crawled into my warm bed to find my dog shat and pissed and puked all in my covers, and I just run to puke myself trying to get the stink off me. Then I trip over my dog's dead body, fall on the loo and break half my teeth. You wanker!'
With a solid shove that nearly sent Jackson flying. Green eyes glared at him with so much hate he couldn't say or understand anything, just sit there on the floor opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish knocked out of its bowl, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Then came the kick, right in his cock, hard and sharp like soccer cleats, the fear and sickness rising in his mouth like spoilt milk realizing that was the only way Ben would ever touch him down there. Fear growing strong as a glass nearly struck him in the head before disintegrating on the fireplace hearth into a thousand pieces. Because clearly now Ben might well kill him.
Jackson was no small boy. In a normal schoolyard fight, a half stone more than Ben and four inches taller, Jackson could have thrashed him. But this was no normal fight, because everything he had hoped for would never happen, and now if Ben killed him that might be for the best. Everyone would know Jackson's secrets, every boy in school, every parent, everyone.
Even nearly fifty years on, he can't remember exactly what happened next. One minute he was choking up a broken tooth and spitting out blood, the very next he had a fire iron in his left hand and swung. Hard. Cricket was his sport to begin with, a game his left-hand swing made him a constant deadly surprise at, and even someone he'd known for almost half his life failed to see it coming from that direction. The iron connected with a vicious crack against Ben's skull, so hard it bent. And it was not like in the movies, no, Ben stumbled around for a few seconds as if drunk, blood coming out of his ears, his eyes, his mouth.
'You...cunt...' said Ben, spitting blood out with every word, before he fell straight onto a glass table that exploded into shards so big some went straight through him.
Jackson remembers sitting up, struggling to his feet, dropping the crumpled fire iron, now tears blocking everything, trying to wake Ben up, those eyes simply staring straight up blank, now his own clothes completely drenched in blood, so much blood it stunk like rust.
'Ben?! Ben?!' his own words seeming like they never came from his mouth.
Rough hands ripping him away from the boy he loved first and most, the boy he'd just killed.
He was only half-aware of Ben's pops trying to bring his son back to life, the boy's mum screaming 'what have you done, Jackson?!'
He stumbled backwards and without a second thought or a hesitation, he ran straight at the window, so fast he crashed right through it, a hundred pieces of splintered wood and glass ripping into him, but not so fast he made it as far as landing on the iron spikes of the fence he was aiming for. His head smacked hard against the bars and then there was just a snowy gray sky and the sting of his own blood crawling into his eyes, the cold, the chill as his blood and Ben's mixed in the snow and his clothes. Tears and pain.
Days later, awake in hospital, Jackson learned that with his family money and the barristers it bought, there was no sin he could not escape the full measure of consequences for, at least not in the real world. But the prison of his mind was now locked tight forever. He didn't speak for weeks, for no reason other than he felt so much pain all he could manage was to cry every moment whilst awake. The grownups assumed that it was his wounds and took a small bit of pity, and until this day Jackson never told a soul the real reason that from that horrible New Year's Eve forward a smile never cracked his lips without the help of the smack or the booze or the boys, all three in generous quantities. But from that day forth Jackson was dead, a boy's corpse living inside the man everyone would forever know as Jacko.
2010-02-23
excerpt - 4/4
We get drunk together that night and most of it is a nice warm blur until moms shows up an hour earlier than I expect and finds us, well, not the sort of thing any of us want to see. She was cool with things in the abstract sense but that was definitely TMI and yeah she sorted that her box of rubbers was never touched so she's a bit pissed but not gonna make a scene while he's here. I can tell from her face though I'm really gonna get yelled at about two seconds after he's gone, fuck just wait til she gets the whole picture, that ain't gonna be pretty.
I'm just paralyzed and trying to find anything to cover up with, fuck if there's one thing no kid wants mom to see it's him with a dripping hard-on, Ry is a bit more composed so he manages to find things before I can at least. And he gets his good boy pose back well quick, apologizing for being, what's the word he uses? 'Indiscreet.' That's too many fucking syllables to exist in a normal conversation.
Moms wants to talk to him and I have a really nervous feeling now but he's all calm, they're out in the hall talking and at one point she yells which oh fuck I think he just told her this could go real bad. But now they're talking quietly and I strain to listen in but all I catch is him saying something like 'i promise i'll take care of Ben' which he didn't have to say I guess to her and it makes me feel better or as good as I guess I can feel after quickly fucking my entire life up.
Everything just changed though, and I know it don't want to think too much on it but it has.
Maybe I was really reckless and stupid, but maybe things don't go straight to shit though and me and Ry use the time we have together to be happy and maybe all our days are like warm summer breezes before it starts to collapse into freezing rain and ice.
And it's like Ry is reading my mind cos he crawls into bed next to me and holds me and fuck that just feels so safe and nice I fall straight to sleep.
the rest of this will be in the book coming out hopefully in May. :)
I'm just paralyzed and trying to find anything to cover up with, fuck if there's one thing no kid wants mom to see it's him with a dripping hard-on, Ry is a bit more composed so he manages to find things before I can at least. And he gets his good boy pose back well quick, apologizing for being, what's the word he uses? 'Indiscreet.' That's too many fucking syllables to exist in a normal conversation.
Moms wants to talk to him and I have a really nervous feeling now but he's all calm, they're out in the hall talking and at one point she yells which oh fuck I think he just told her this could go real bad. But now they're talking quietly and I strain to listen in but all I catch is him saying something like 'i promise i'll take care of Ben' which he didn't have to say I guess to her and it makes me feel better or as good as I guess I can feel after quickly fucking my entire life up.
Everything just changed though, and I know it don't want to think too much on it but it has.
Maybe I was really reckless and stupid, but maybe things don't go straight to shit though and me and Ry use the time we have together to be happy and maybe all our days are like warm summer breezes before it starts to collapse into freezing rain and ice.
And it's like Ry is reading my mind cos he crawls into bed next to me and holds me and fuck that just feels so safe and nice I fall straight to sleep.
the rest of this will be in the book coming out hopefully in May. :)
2010-02-21
excerpt 3/4
We wander downstairs where mom is a nervous wreck about dinner, seems like the spaghetti didn't cooperate very well or something so she's running back and forth between the kitchen and doesn't even notice when Ry grabs my dick under the table and so fucking fast he gets me off in like a minute.
'I'm running out of jeans,' I whisper and he smiles that evil smile again.
It's all going way too fast but I don't want to slow it down, can't even figure out how to react I mean I always jerked off to thinking like this might happen but never expected it to. I haven't even thought through any of this like he's just someone I like better than any person I've met and fucking cuter than any of the boy band singers I have on my walls, hmm, yeah, Ben, that was probably a giveaway to Ry when he saw my room first time.
'This is great, Mrs. Jane,' says Ry, and I'm struck that he has more manners than have ever existed in this house, doesn't talk with his mouth full, chews with his mouth closed. It's intimidating and I find myself trying to be proper but that's not so easy cos moms' sgetti is so awesome. I tried making it once, that experiment ended with firemen in the kitchen laughing at me.
'It's Bridge Night, will you boys be okay alone here?' she asks and right when I'm thinking oh god Ben sneaks a quick grab of my jeans which are already wet and I try to say sure but it comes out like a squawk that I have to explain away by saying I choked on something.
Dinner seems to take forever to finish and Ry is sweet, insists on doing dishes.
'Don't let Ben near them,' she cautions, 'last time I let him do dishes he broke three.'
What is it about moms that they always bring up embarrassing shit and as if that wasn't bad enough wtf does Ryan say but 'that's cute' with a laugh. My moms is liberal but that one got her off guard and I have to give her credit for recovering so fast, me, I'm well toast and turning red despite trying to act like I didn't hear that.
He's in the kitchen doing dishes while I try to look useful and decide to throw some of her clothes in the wash which is about the only household chore I do well, and fuck if moms doesn't come in right behind before leaving and scare me half to death.
'You could have told me, Benny,' she says with a smile, 'he's quite a catch.'
And then she gives me a playful punch on the shoulder. I might never be able to speak again, I just want to put myself in the washing machine now.
'Uh...'
'I'm off,' she says, so ordinary like that I wonder if I just totally imagined that. 'Hey, Benny...if you...there's condoms in my nightstand, okay, just be safe promise?'
Then she's out the door leaving me to bang my head against the wall. This must be what they mean when in the movies they say mothers know their sons better than you think.
The phone rings which makes me jump and now I gotta pull myself together and form complete sentences. It's dad, he's off somewhere in Tokyo or some other place too far away to really fucking bother remembering.
'Hey, sport,' he says. 'Where's your mom?'
'It's Bridge Night, dad. Remember?' like he ever would. The only thing he really means to me is allowance money. 'It's just me and my friend Ry here.' I almost slipped up and said boyfriend.
Not like there was any need for me to say that cos next I know dad is asking me if we're boyfriends. Does everyone fucking know my supposed secret. I just stutter a bit and he lets me off easy by saying he's got to run to a meeting or something and have mom call when she gets in. Thankfully he doesn't give me directions to the condoms, at least, though I have to wonder if he knows they're there or if mom is up to something I really don't want to know about.
Ry is done with the dishes now and I find the nasty wine I snuck in a week ago, but he just laughs and says let's have some real wine. I know that might be pushing it a bit for moms even now but whatever, I guess. I watch him opening one of the bottles with that corkscrew I stabbed myself with by accident when I was twelve and wonder how this kid knows all this proper shit so well. His mom must have been someone special or rich or something, the only way an unruly teenager ever acts civilized I guess. Unlike me, who just stabs the cork with a butter knife until it pops down into the bottle. Yeah. Nice glass of wine with crunchy bits of cork in it, sort of like grownup chocolate-chocolate-chip ice cream.
He goes off to pee and discovers mom and dad's bathroom first.
'Wow, a jacuzzi tub,' he yells from the bathroom. Okay, he's not so polite, peeing with the door wide open, that's a bit of a relief.
All sorts of strange things keep jumping to mind and I find myself surprising him mid-piss and starting up the jacuzzi tub.
He starts acting nervous and I'm just dense enough to not have a clue why until I coax him into letting me get his jeans off and he jumps when I touch his dick even though it's hard as fuck he's sort of backing up a bit.
'I'm not sure about this,' he says, kind of looking down. 'I mean...I don't want to give you...'
Fuck if I don't always manage to stumble over myself.
'I'm not scared about it,' I say, which is true, maybe stupid but it's true. He's just standing there with his dick out looking nervous at me so I try to prove my point by putting my mouth on it. Probably would have worked a lot better if I knew what the fuck I was doing, I end up biting him and he yelps but that breaks the tension and now he's laughing.
'You sure?' he says and I say yeah like that should be fyeah cos if I thought he was gorgeous with clothes on he's twice as much with them off. I drag him into the tub and curl up in his lap and he's so far and it's pressing against me which is making me dizzy and before he can react like instinct I just push it in a bit.
'We should use a rubber,' he says, but he's only half struggling to pull out and it feels too good, I won't let him. 'What if I cum,' he whispers and he's gasping cos even though I've only seen this in internet porn I must be doing it right. Not gonna answer him. I never thought anything could feel this good, it's like all my happiest moments in my life all squished into one perfect moment and fuck consequences, no one ever accused me of good judgment, but fuck it and he's gasping real loud now and groans and holds me tight against him which I guess means that question is well pointless now and I'm shooting all over the place at the same time and just flop back against his chest while trying to catch my breath while he slips out.
'I guess we're boyfriends now,' is all I can think to say and it's not a sad thought at all it feels nice and safe when he says 'yeah' back and there's a sort of chill cos now what. I'm scared a bit cos my life is his too now and fuck we only just met but somehow this feels perfect. Now he's washing my hair, his hands massaging me and I close my eyes try not to think of the now what part of things that's gonna be ugly just the part where me and him are together in it, I even let it slip that I'm in love with him and he says 'ditto' and fuck I've filled in all the connect-the-dots part for most of my life I know now the sad part is gonna creep in soon enough.
The part where we never grow old together, at least in the normal sense of things, I guess cos when you die you really can't get much older than that, can you?
'I'm running out of jeans,' I whisper and he smiles that evil smile again.
It's all going way too fast but I don't want to slow it down, can't even figure out how to react I mean I always jerked off to thinking like this might happen but never expected it to. I haven't even thought through any of this like he's just someone I like better than any person I've met and fucking cuter than any of the boy band singers I have on my walls, hmm, yeah, Ben, that was probably a giveaway to Ry when he saw my room first time.
'This is great, Mrs. Jane,' says Ry, and I'm struck that he has more manners than have ever existed in this house, doesn't talk with his mouth full, chews with his mouth closed. It's intimidating and I find myself trying to be proper but that's not so easy cos moms' sgetti is so awesome. I tried making it once, that experiment ended with firemen in the kitchen laughing at me.
'It's Bridge Night, will you boys be okay alone here?' she asks and right when I'm thinking oh god Ben sneaks a quick grab of my jeans which are already wet and I try to say sure but it comes out like a squawk that I have to explain away by saying I choked on something.
Dinner seems to take forever to finish and Ry is sweet, insists on doing dishes.
'Don't let Ben near them,' she cautions, 'last time I let him do dishes he broke three.'
What is it about moms that they always bring up embarrassing shit and as if that wasn't bad enough wtf does Ryan say but 'that's cute' with a laugh. My moms is liberal but that one got her off guard and I have to give her credit for recovering so fast, me, I'm well toast and turning red despite trying to act like I didn't hear that.
He's in the kitchen doing dishes while I try to look useful and decide to throw some of her clothes in the wash which is about the only household chore I do well, and fuck if moms doesn't come in right behind before leaving and scare me half to death.
'You could have told me, Benny,' she says with a smile, 'he's quite a catch.'
And then she gives me a playful punch on the shoulder. I might never be able to speak again, I just want to put myself in the washing machine now.
'Uh...'
'I'm off,' she says, so ordinary like that I wonder if I just totally imagined that. 'Hey, Benny...if you...there's condoms in my nightstand, okay, just be safe promise?'
Then she's out the door leaving me to bang my head against the wall. This must be what they mean when in the movies they say mothers know their sons better than you think.
The phone rings which makes me jump and now I gotta pull myself together and form complete sentences. It's dad, he's off somewhere in Tokyo or some other place too far away to really fucking bother remembering.
'Hey, sport,' he says. 'Where's your mom?'
'It's Bridge Night, dad. Remember?' like he ever would. The only thing he really means to me is allowance money. 'It's just me and my friend Ry here.' I almost slipped up and said boyfriend.
Not like there was any need for me to say that cos next I know dad is asking me if we're boyfriends. Does everyone fucking know my supposed secret. I just stutter a bit and he lets me off easy by saying he's got to run to a meeting or something and have mom call when she gets in. Thankfully he doesn't give me directions to the condoms, at least, though I have to wonder if he knows they're there or if mom is up to something I really don't want to know about.
Ry is done with the dishes now and I find the nasty wine I snuck in a week ago, but he just laughs and says let's have some real wine. I know that might be pushing it a bit for moms even now but whatever, I guess. I watch him opening one of the bottles with that corkscrew I stabbed myself with by accident when I was twelve and wonder how this kid knows all this proper shit so well. His mom must have been someone special or rich or something, the only way an unruly teenager ever acts civilized I guess. Unlike me, who just stabs the cork with a butter knife until it pops down into the bottle. Yeah. Nice glass of wine with crunchy bits of cork in it, sort of like grownup chocolate-chocolate-chip ice cream.
He goes off to pee and discovers mom and dad's bathroom first.
'Wow, a jacuzzi tub,' he yells from the bathroom. Okay, he's not so polite, peeing with the door wide open, that's a bit of a relief.
All sorts of strange things keep jumping to mind and I find myself surprising him mid-piss and starting up the jacuzzi tub.
He starts acting nervous and I'm just dense enough to not have a clue why until I coax him into letting me get his jeans off and he jumps when I touch his dick even though it's hard as fuck he's sort of backing up a bit.
'I'm not sure about this,' he says, kind of looking down. 'I mean...I don't want to give you...'
Fuck if I don't always manage to stumble over myself.
'I'm not scared about it,' I say, which is true, maybe stupid but it's true. He's just standing there with his dick out looking nervous at me so I try to prove my point by putting my mouth on it. Probably would have worked a lot better if I knew what the fuck I was doing, I end up biting him and he yelps but that breaks the tension and now he's laughing.
'You sure?' he says and I say yeah like that should be fyeah cos if I thought he was gorgeous with clothes on he's twice as much with them off. I drag him into the tub and curl up in his lap and he's so far and it's pressing against me which is making me dizzy and before he can react like instinct I just push it in a bit.
'We should use a rubber,' he says, but he's only half struggling to pull out and it feels too good, I won't let him. 'What if I cum,' he whispers and he's gasping cos even though I've only seen this in internet porn I must be doing it right. Not gonna answer him. I never thought anything could feel this good, it's like all my happiest moments in my life all squished into one perfect moment and fuck consequences, no one ever accused me of good judgment, but fuck it and he's gasping real loud now and groans and holds me tight against him which I guess means that question is well pointless now and I'm shooting all over the place at the same time and just flop back against his chest while trying to catch my breath while he slips out.
'I guess we're boyfriends now,' is all I can think to say and it's not a sad thought at all it feels nice and safe when he says 'yeah' back and there's a sort of chill cos now what. I'm scared a bit cos my life is his too now and fuck we only just met but somehow this feels perfect. Now he's washing my hair, his hands massaging me and I close my eyes try not to think of the now what part of things that's gonna be ugly just the part where me and him are together in it, I even let it slip that I'm in love with him and he says 'ditto' and fuck I've filled in all the connect-the-dots part for most of my life I know now the sad part is gonna creep in soon enough.
The part where we never grow old together, at least in the normal sense of things, I guess cos when you die you really can't get much older than that, can you?
2010-02-19
excerpt 2/4
His dad says it's cool and I don't know if I'm imagining but I swear I caught him staring at my crotch which could be for any number of reasons besides the ones I want it to be.
He's never played Wii I guess cos he nearly takes out the TV trying to bowl with the controller flying across the room.
'Shit!' he says then covers his mouth and I laugh and say it's okay, can't really help myself I just mess his hair up cos he's down to just his black T and jeans and socks and so cute. Control yourself, Ben, I think, fishing the controller out of the pile of dirty-but-not-so-dirty-I-can't wear clothes in the corner. Yeah. I'm a fag and even do that badly, I just pick up anything off the floor that isn't too smelly to wear, can't be arsed to dress neat.
'Did ya really mean what you said?' he asks and now I'm wondering what I said, even scared I might have spit something out that was dumb.
'Huh?'
'I heard what you said back at the swings,' he says, 'will your mom get pissed if I climb out onto the roof and smoke?'
And fuck she probably would but since this is the first friend over in like two years I could probably set the lawn and house on fire and get away with it, she's so thrilled and he passed inspection with flying colors, the perfect sort of kid I could call a friend in her judgment. If only she knew what was going on in my head she'd prolly go bats, or maybe she does know, I sure as fuck hope she hasn't figured out what cause the kleenexes are going to in large quantities.
I join him which this just goes to my crush on him cos I'm terrified of heights and keep imagining I'm sliding off the roof to sure death. For a good two minutes or so I manage to avoid dealing with what he said and smoke without choking to death on it just to look cool in his eyes.
'You heard that, shit,' I finally say and he smiles and shit he kisses me on the cheek just a light touch which nearly sends me off the roof but he catches me and laughs so I say 'of course..don't get offended or nothing but yeah you're...' uhm Ben what word did you pick out of all the ones you could've used but 'sexy' and add 'as fuck' onto the end of it. Now turning like six shades of red and expecting him to throw me off the roof.
But all he says is 'thanks, you are too' which now I really have no fucking ability to speak left so I just smoke.
Then the ugly thing I was trying to avoid jumps up cos he has to say he didn't get it from doing it with a boy, had it since birth cos of his moms, rambling on about it and asking if it scares me and I say no and fuck if I don't say something about rubbers for some reason, okay, Ben, you just had to drop the thought of wanting to have sex with him didn't you?
'Wow, down boy,' is all he says with a laugh, if I get any redder now I'm gonna match the bricks on the wall. 'Hey, kiddo, I'm not pissed or nothing that you said that.'
I dont quite know what to say here cos well I really expected a repeat of what happened with Jamie and no clue what to do now that he isn't shutting me down. Now he's got my hand which is cold as ice and puts it right on his crotch.
'Fuck,' I whisper and squeeze.
'What?'
'Uhmmm...I just...you know.'
He laughs and yeah he's totally got control of me I just hope he isn't gonna be mean with it. I hope there's no one that can see us even though of course there could be cos we're right out in the open and he sticks his hand down my jeans which makes it happen again and I'm like 'don't stop' just close my eyes and god it's ten times better than when I jerk myself my mind is destroyed wonder if this counts as my first time or not and shit he starts kissing me like pushes my lips apart and I'm so stumbling through this, bite his tongue for good measure, shit my jeans are like drenched now cos I can't stop shooting.
'Boys! Dinner!' yells mom, talk about killing a mood.
We go in and I find a sort-of-clean pair of jeans, start to go to the bathroom to change but decide to strip right in front of him and he's like let me clean you up and fuck he puts his mouth right on me at this rate I'm gonna run out of juice forever.
I don't want him to stop but mom's gonna wonder or worse come check on us so I have to gently coax him off which is the last thing I want to do now, shit, I could go without food for the rest of my life if he was down there.
He's never played Wii I guess cos he nearly takes out the TV trying to bowl with the controller flying across the room.
'Shit!' he says then covers his mouth and I laugh and say it's okay, can't really help myself I just mess his hair up cos he's down to just his black T and jeans and socks and so cute. Control yourself, Ben, I think, fishing the controller out of the pile of dirty-but-not-so-dirty-I-can't wear clothes in the corner. Yeah. I'm a fag and even do that badly, I just pick up anything off the floor that isn't too smelly to wear, can't be arsed to dress neat.
'Did ya really mean what you said?' he asks and now I'm wondering what I said, even scared I might have spit something out that was dumb.
'Huh?'
'I heard what you said back at the swings,' he says, 'will your mom get pissed if I climb out onto the roof and smoke?'
And fuck she probably would but since this is the first friend over in like two years I could probably set the lawn and house on fire and get away with it, she's so thrilled and he passed inspection with flying colors, the perfect sort of kid I could call a friend in her judgment. If only she knew what was going on in my head she'd prolly go bats, or maybe she does know, I sure as fuck hope she hasn't figured out what cause the kleenexes are going to in large quantities.
I join him which this just goes to my crush on him cos I'm terrified of heights and keep imagining I'm sliding off the roof to sure death. For a good two minutes or so I manage to avoid dealing with what he said and smoke without choking to death on it just to look cool in his eyes.
'You heard that, shit,' I finally say and he smiles and shit he kisses me on the cheek just a light touch which nearly sends me off the roof but he catches me and laughs so I say 'of course..don't get offended or nothing but yeah you're...' uhm Ben what word did you pick out of all the ones you could've used but 'sexy' and add 'as fuck' onto the end of it. Now turning like six shades of red and expecting him to throw me off the roof.
But all he says is 'thanks, you are too' which now I really have no fucking ability to speak left so I just smoke.
Then the ugly thing I was trying to avoid jumps up cos he has to say he didn't get it from doing it with a boy, had it since birth cos of his moms, rambling on about it and asking if it scares me and I say no and fuck if I don't say something about rubbers for some reason, okay, Ben, you just had to drop the thought of wanting to have sex with him didn't you?
'Wow, down boy,' is all he says with a laugh, if I get any redder now I'm gonna match the bricks on the wall. 'Hey, kiddo, I'm not pissed or nothing that you said that.'
I dont quite know what to say here cos well I really expected a repeat of what happened with Jamie and no clue what to do now that he isn't shutting me down. Now he's got my hand which is cold as ice and puts it right on his crotch.
'Fuck,' I whisper and squeeze.
'What?'
'Uhmmm...I just...you know.'
He laughs and yeah he's totally got control of me I just hope he isn't gonna be mean with it. I hope there's no one that can see us even though of course there could be cos we're right out in the open and he sticks his hand down my jeans which makes it happen again and I'm like 'don't stop' just close my eyes and god it's ten times better than when I jerk myself my mind is destroyed wonder if this counts as my first time or not and shit he starts kissing me like pushes my lips apart and I'm so stumbling through this, bite his tongue for good measure, shit my jeans are like drenched now cos I can't stop shooting.
'Boys! Dinner!' yells mom, talk about killing a mood.
We go in and I find a sort-of-clean pair of jeans, start to go to the bathroom to change but decide to strip right in front of him and he's like let me clean you up and fuck he puts his mouth right on me at this rate I'm gonna run out of juice forever.
I don't want him to stop but mom's gonna wonder or worse come check on us so I have to gently coax him off which is the last thing I want to do now, shit, I could go without food for the rest of my life if he was down there.
2010-02-16
except.....1/4
For someone whose life has flattened out into a lot of numbers in a stark white sheet of paper in a doctor's office, he's calm. And all the shit that has brought on, fuck, he's my age, seventeen, and dealing with all this. I sure as fuck couldn't do it. Not even sure what is making me do this but something tells me I need to, his name is Ryan, new kid to school is bad enough but everyone knows somehow and that makes it way worse.
'Hey,' I say for lack of anything better. 'I'm Ben.'
He smiles nervously and introduces himself, probably expecting me to be mean somehow. And there's a bit of silence which is awkward, I'm usually the one in his position with making a friend and all I can think is to ask him if he's doing anything after school, if not, wanna come over and play Wii Bowling which shit Ben that sounded so stupid. But he smiles and says cool, that'd be fun, now I'm promising him moms will make dinner if he can stay that late and he likes that.
'That'd be cool, dad won't care.'
Which I don't know the whole story but I know his mom is dead from what he's got and that's gotta really mess him up. I make up my mind to try to avoid that subject even though I know myself well enough to know I'll stumble right into it with my usual clumsiness at some point. The bell rings to send us to class, how the hell did thirty minutes sneak away so fast. I tell him to meet out by the swings after class and we'll walk to my home then, he says 'cool, i will' and I kinda get he's wondering if he'll go there and not find me there and feel stupid for expecting to, but that's not gonna happen, I'll be there cos I don't have any close friends for my own bad reasons.
Us outcasts gotta stick together, right?
I'm so preoccupied I totally fuck up my math test and the teacher has to ask me like six times before I notice she's talking to me and of course the whole fucking room is laughing at me yeah and of course someone manages to yell out 'bent Ben' before they get yelled at. It's so fucking annoying and I was stupid to even have tried that with Jamie that cos of course he freaked out and decked me and the whole fucking school knew I tried to grab his dick not even a day later. Two fucking years ago and that nickname is never gonna go away and yeah part of why I'm nice to Ryan is cos I think he's fit and just maybe he won't freak if I bring it up and another part is he just got here so he doesn't hate me yet like everyone else does. I'll probably be stupid and fix that one like I always do soon enough. Must be nice to be normal and liked by the other kids, but I sure as fuck wouldn't know that feeling.
I just barely remember to warn mom to make extra and she doesn't bitch which makes me feel guilty a bit cos I can tell she's excited for me to actually have a friend over, yeah. She doesn't know what happened and I hope she never does figure out why the last kid over was Jamie or why he left pissed off and red-faced when he was spose to crash there that night. Of course she asked what happened and tried to get me to talk to her but I just blew it off, it was bad enough to know what was gonna happen to me the next day without trying to tell the truth. She didn't push though and even held her cool when I showed up after school next day with a black eye and fat lip. It's so fucking unfair to her, I know, she for sure wonders what happened to her perfect straight-A student that suddenly he got all scrappy and in the space of like a week he went from getting his ass kicked by the entire school to getting suspended for beating the shit out of who used to be his best friend so bad it took three teachers to pull him off. Yeah. I put Jamie in hospital for several days and since then no one dares to really fuck with me much beyond calling me names, that kid who yelled that in class will be looking over his shoulder for the next week which he better cos I'm well tempted to make an example of him.
Ryan's sitting by the swings like he said and looks happy that I actually showed. I try not to be so obvious about it but I'm looking him over and he's fit as hell, messy dirty blonde hair half-covered by his dark purple hoody and he has pretty eyes, so green, I find myself checking out his skinny jeans and I gotta stop myself cos I'm staring at his er package which shit looks big as hell. He notices me staring which I can't help but do and kinda smiles a bit like I wonder what that's about, if maybe he's liking me checking him out. Fuck Ben, stop thinking it, stop raping him with your eyes.
'Hey,' I say, trying not to stutter cos I'm nervous not just cos my mind is making me think things it shouldn't but also cos yeah even if *that* doesn't happen it will be cool to have him over to hang with. I miss having friends.
He stands up, shuffling a sneaker in the snow and smiles a bit wider which just makes me notice his lips, if I could kick myself without coming across like a psycho I would. Ryan gives a hand-slap which I turn into a handshake and almost take too far cos some real weird urge to hold hands is taking over me.
'Thanks for being nice to me,' he says in a way that makes me feel so sad cos it's like he doesn't expect it.
'Why wouldn't I be?' I start to say and for fucks sake I tell him he's cute which I sure as fuck didn't expect to say thank fuck he didn't quite hear me say that so when he says 'huh' I just say 'you seem cool.'
But I think he did hear it cos he gives a bit of a smile that doesn't quite fit and shit he gives me a hug right on the street, not even a straight boy hug but a real one acting like he's appreciative but he's pressed up against me and fuck instant hard-on. I squish him harder against me and make him hold it a bit longer than I should but he doesn't say anything about it.
'Hang on a sec,' he says and he pulls out a crumpled pack of cigs from his jeans pocket which makes me stare at his crotch. 'You want one?'
'Uhm...' and no I've never even tried a cigarette before but Ry, fuck I just gave him a nickname in my head, he could offer me any number of things I'd get in serious shit for and say yes so I do. I feel really stupid cos yeah I have no fucking clue how to work a lighter and almost set myself on fire trying before he takes it away from me and lights my cig in his mouth which either he's just being nice or being one hell of a tease cos now my dick is like bout to pop the zipper.
But thank fuck I get distracted on the first puff which is making me look stupider by the second cos I'm coughing so bad I half-expect my lung to go flying out of my mouth and Ry is laughing at me til I get it under control, now I gotta sit down cos I'm dizzy as hell suddenly. It's kind of a nice dizzy like the time Dad first gave me a glass of wine with dinner despite the stare of death from mom.
She finally got over herself though and most dinners I get one or two now, part of dad's 'teachable lessons' kick or something, I think it's mostly just trying to make me like him since he's always gone off someplace for work and rarely home to do much more than act like a father based on what he's seen in a movie.
So much for that one though, lol I learned pretty quick what happens if I sneak past the 'responsible' glass or two with cheap wine some old guy bought for me with the odd few bucks I get for birthdays or holidays, learned even quicker there's a point too far past that where all that happens is me trying to puke quietly without waking anyone up and so shit next day I have to fake like I'm coming down with the flu so I stay home and suffer in bed feeling like I want to die. I remember now I still got a bottle of some scary shit hidden under my mattress.
'Hey, it's Friday, can you stay over?'
'Prolly, let me ask my dad,' and he's calling on his mobile while my mind is doing flips. Fuck, Ben, control yourself and please don't fuck this up by getting drunk and doing something stupid. Like I know I will.
'Hey,' I say for lack of anything better. 'I'm Ben.'
He smiles nervously and introduces himself, probably expecting me to be mean somehow. And there's a bit of silence which is awkward, I'm usually the one in his position with making a friend and all I can think is to ask him if he's doing anything after school, if not, wanna come over and play Wii Bowling which shit Ben that sounded so stupid. But he smiles and says cool, that'd be fun, now I'm promising him moms will make dinner if he can stay that late and he likes that.
'That'd be cool, dad won't care.'
Which I don't know the whole story but I know his mom is dead from what he's got and that's gotta really mess him up. I make up my mind to try to avoid that subject even though I know myself well enough to know I'll stumble right into it with my usual clumsiness at some point. The bell rings to send us to class, how the hell did thirty minutes sneak away so fast. I tell him to meet out by the swings after class and we'll walk to my home then, he says 'cool, i will' and I kinda get he's wondering if he'll go there and not find me there and feel stupid for expecting to, but that's not gonna happen, I'll be there cos I don't have any close friends for my own bad reasons.
Us outcasts gotta stick together, right?
I'm so preoccupied I totally fuck up my math test and the teacher has to ask me like six times before I notice she's talking to me and of course the whole fucking room is laughing at me yeah and of course someone manages to yell out 'bent Ben' before they get yelled at. It's so fucking annoying and I was stupid to even have tried that with Jamie that cos of course he freaked out and decked me and the whole fucking school knew I tried to grab his dick not even a day later. Two fucking years ago and that nickname is never gonna go away and yeah part of why I'm nice to Ryan is cos I think he's fit and just maybe he won't freak if I bring it up and another part is he just got here so he doesn't hate me yet like everyone else does. I'll probably be stupid and fix that one like I always do soon enough. Must be nice to be normal and liked by the other kids, but I sure as fuck wouldn't know that feeling.
I just barely remember to warn mom to make extra and she doesn't bitch which makes me feel guilty a bit cos I can tell she's excited for me to actually have a friend over, yeah. She doesn't know what happened and I hope she never does figure out why the last kid over was Jamie or why he left pissed off and red-faced when he was spose to crash there that night. Of course she asked what happened and tried to get me to talk to her but I just blew it off, it was bad enough to know what was gonna happen to me the next day without trying to tell the truth. She didn't push though and even held her cool when I showed up after school next day with a black eye and fat lip. It's so fucking unfair to her, I know, she for sure wonders what happened to her perfect straight-A student that suddenly he got all scrappy and in the space of like a week he went from getting his ass kicked by the entire school to getting suspended for beating the shit out of who used to be his best friend so bad it took three teachers to pull him off. Yeah. I put Jamie in hospital for several days and since then no one dares to really fuck with me much beyond calling me names, that kid who yelled that in class will be looking over his shoulder for the next week which he better cos I'm well tempted to make an example of him.
Ryan's sitting by the swings like he said and looks happy that I actually showed. I try not to be so obvious about it but I'm looking him over and he's fit as hell, messy dirty blonde hair half-covered by his dark purple hoody and he has pretty eyes, so green, I find myself checking out his skinny jeans and I gotta stop myself cos I'm staring at his er package which shit looks big as hell. He notices me staring which I can't help but do and kinda smiles a bit like I wonder what that's about, if maybe he's liking me checking him out. Fuck Ben, stop thinking it, stop raping him with your eyes.
'Hey,' I say, trying not to stutter cos I'm nervous not just cos my mind is making me think things it shouldn't but also cos yeah even if *that* doesn't happen it will be cool to have him over to hang with. I miss having friends.
He stands up, shuffling a sneaker in the snow and smiles a bit wider which just makes me notice his lips, if I could kick myself without coming across like a psycho I would. Ryan gives a hand-slap which I turn into a handshake and almost take too far cos some real weird urge to hold hands is taking over me.
'Thanks for being nice to me,' he says in a way that makes me feel so sad cos it's like he doesn't expect it.
'Why wouldn't I be?' I start to say and for fucks sake I tell him he's cute which I sure as fuck didn't expect to say thank fuck he didn't quite hear me say that so when he says 'huh' I just say 'you seem cool.'
But I think he did hear it cos he gives a bit of a smile that doesn't quite fit and shit he gives me a hug right on the street, not even a straight boy hug but a real one acting like he's appreciative but he's pressed up against me and fuck instant hard-on. I squish him harder against me and make him hold it a bit longer than I should but he doesn't say anything about it.
'Hang on a sec,' he says and he pulls out a crumpled pack of cigs from his jeans pocket which makes me stare at his crotch. 'You want one?'
'Uhm...' and no I've never even tried a cigarette before but Ry, fuck I just gave him a nickname in my head, he could offer me any number of things I'd get in serious shit for and say yes so I do. I feel really stupid cos yeah I have no fucking clue how to work a lighter and almost set myself on fire trying before he takes it away from me and lights my cig in his mouth which either he's just being nice or being one hell of a tease cos now my dick is like bout to pop the zipper.
But thank fuck I get distracted on the first puff which is making me look stupider by the second cos I'm coughing so bad I half-expect my lung to go flying out of my mouth and Ry is laughing at me til I get it under control, now I gotta sit down cos I'm dizzy as hell suddenly. It's kind of a nice dizzy like the time Dad first gave me a glass of wine with dinner despite the stare of death from mom.
She finally got over herself though and most dinners I get one or two now, part of dad's 'teachable lessons' kick or something, I think it's mostly just trying to make me like him since he's always gone off someplace for work and rarely home to do much more than act like a father based on what he's seen in a movie.
So much for that one though, lol I learned pretty quick what happens if I sneak past the 'responsible' glass or two with cheap wine some old guy bought for me with the odd few bucks I get for birthdays or holidays, learned even quicker there's a point too far past that where all that happens is me trying to puke quietly without waking anyone up and so shit next day I have to fake like I'm coming down with the flu so I stay home and suffer in bed feeling like I want to die. I remember now I still got a bottle of some scary shit hidden under my mattress.
'Hey, it's Friday, can you stay over?'
'Prolly, let me ask my dad,' and he's calling on his mobile while my mind is doing flips. Fuck, Ben, control yourself and please don't fuck this up by getting drunk and doing something stupid. Like I know I will.
2010-02-14
fuck valentine's day
cold oil-slick pizza
warm leftover vodka
chalky taste of aspirin
frozen rain slides down the window
fire from yesterday giving out with a low hiss
look at the glass of vodka from last night
still tempted to drink it
even though it became a grisly martini overnight
littered with the corpse of some unlucky insect instead of an olive
three hours til the liquor store opens
this is my religion now
there's enough left in the bottle to last til mid-day mass there
so I throw the glass out on the fireplace
watch it ignite
make him a funeral pyre
lucky creature gets to go out in a ball of fire
there was a time i thought i would have that privilege
yes, this is Today
even a year ago i could have enjoyed it
without staining the birth of dawn in tears
and drowning my world to make it bearable
this is me now
just lonely, sad, pathetic
so pathetic i refuse to even care or feel sorry for me
on the couch with liquor at nine in the morning
still drunk but also hungover
wrenched into half-awake from nightmares sharp as rusty razors
the same way i am about you
burning into my head
like candles on my birthday cake as a boy
the last year before i realized childhood was over and i was going to die
just years before i tried to make that come quick
the time of darkness before you
and like those last days together when i still couldn't believe it
your laughs, the noise, the spinning fun times
stumbling through Us together
bumping into life and each other
always the fool never sensing
we tumbled along in life and i never noticed your distance growing
never expected those terminal words
never thought the day would come where you would say you still wanted me in your life
just not that way
i never thought i could hurt like this
and all im left with is desperately stuffing bits of hate
into the holes of my life that love used to fill
the tears as reliable as winter rain
so I just pop in a movie i've seen a thousand times
some story about a relationship crashing like a doomed zeppelin
and gulp my vodka and cry
anesthesia for reality
careful to not smoke an entire cigarette at once so i don't run out
someone sent me chocolates for the day
a tacky box which like life
is crowded with sweet candies stuffed with disgusting inedible things
the meaning of love
clear as a skyburst atom bomb
food poisoning for the soul
vodka please rinse it all away
leave me with atropine dreams
warm leftover vodka
chalky taste of aspirin
frozen rain slides down the window
fire from yesterday giving out with a low hiss
look at the glass of vodka from last night
still tempted to drink it
even though it became a grisly martini overnight
littered with the corpse of some unlucky insect instead of an olive
three hours til the liquor store opens
this is my religion now
there's enough left in the bottle to last til mid-day mass there
so I throw the glass out on the fireplace
watch it ignite
make him a funeral pyre
lucky creature gets to go out in a ball of fire
there was a time i thought i would have that privilege
yes, this is Today
even a year ago i could have enjoyed it
without staining the birth of dawn in tears
and drowning my world to make it bearable
this is me now
just lonely, sad, pathetic
so pathetic i refuse to even care or feel sorry for me
on the couch with liquor at nine in the morning
still drunk but also hungover
wrenched into half-awake from nightmares sharp as rusty razors
the same way i am about you
burning into my head
like candles on my birthday cake as a boy
the last year before i realized childhood was over and i was going to die
just years before i tried to make that come quick
the time of darkness before you
and like those last days together when i still couldn't believe it
your laughs, the noise, the spinning fun times
stumbling through Us together
bumping into life and each other
always the fool never sensing
we tumbled along in life and i never noticed your distance growing
never expected those terminal words
never thought the day would come where you would say you still wanted me in your life
just not that way
i never thought i could hurt like this
and all im left with is desperately stuffing bits of hate
into the holes of my life that love used to fill
the tears as reliable as winter rain
so I just pop in a movie i've seen a thousand times
some story about a relationship crashing like a doomed zeppelin
and gulp my vodka and cry
anesthesia for reality
careful to not smoke an entire cigarette at once so i don't run out
someone sent me chocolates for the day
a tacky box which like life
is crowded with sweet candies stuffed with disgusting inedible things
the meaning of love
clear as a skyburst atom bomb
food poisoning for the soul
vodka please rinse it all away
leave me with atropine dreams
2010-02-13
disappeared - excerpt of upcoming story for book, part 3/3
It's chilly and dark as fuck here in Oklahoma or Kansas or Nebraska or wherever the fuck Vaughn dropped me off. Way too late to get another ride, I made him drop me off in the middle of nowhere before realizing just how fucking creepy a cornfield is in the full moon. The wind hisses through dried up dead leaves. At least it's not horrible cold and Vaughn was kind enough to give me a sleeping bag from the back of his truck.
At first I think about curling up amongst the cornstalks but then the thoughts come like maybe there's some nasty bugs living in the corn or maybe they harvest this shit with those big machines like on TV and I wind up getting chewed up. I hesitate but the next thought then is those movies where creepy shit with big teeth hides in the cornfields and now I'm not bout to go in there.
I find a place in the woods that's a healthy distance from the corn where no one can see from the road and set up as best as I can, really not much to set up, just spread out the sleeping bag and get my second vodka bottle and second pack of cigs out to drink til I get sleepy enough to pass out. My stomach growls, typical fucking Ian remembers to buy cigs and vodka and totally forgets to buy something to eat. There's a rather old bag of pretzels and some peanuts in my backpack from god knows when, well, better than nothing I guess.
I lay back and munch on a stale pretzel while alternating vodka with Diet Coke, staring up at the stars. It's so freaky how the moon and stars seem so close out here like I could just reach up and touch them but yet they're so far, like dreams, forever out of reach of me but always in my face making fun of me.
I snuff out one cig in the dirt and stick another in my mouth, not lighting it just yet. Somehow that stupid line from some movie about you and me lying underneath the same stars or whatev crawls into my head like a bucketful of earwigs.
I don't know why you did this to me. We always hung out and drank together, not like I was the only one drinking and having fun, not like I was mean to you when I was drunk or ever for that matter. Fuck, I made you breakfast in bed more times than I can count, cooked you dinner and made a cake for your birthday for you, got you cards every Christmas and birthday and holiday, took care of you that time you got the flu, doing everything I could for you, even giving you hot baths to make your body ache less. I never said no when you wanted to have sex, never refused you anything.
I even forgave you that time you were staying at your friend's place and ended up getting drunk and having sex with him and came to me the next day hungover and crying your eyes out.
On what fucking planet do I deserve this?
I light the cigarette. It's all so fucked now, just like my grandpa said before he killed himself so he didn't end up in the old age home. This is how it starts, first it's just one question stuck in my head that there is no answer to or way to answer, and then there will be another, and another, until one day it's like a black fog full of them that makes me choke.
He had the right idea, even though he told me he'd held on too long after grandma died, he'd seen and done everything in life he wanted by then and shoulda just stuck his head in the oven the day after she was laid to rest.
He had always gone on without end about all the things he'd said and done while I listened in amazement, my bright blue eyes wide, my mind filled with the things in life I could do.
I remember when I met you and how quick things jumped so far and all those times together like a tornado of emotions, your love the only thing I trusted and how wonderful to wake up next to you and rest my head on your chest while you slept. It felt so safe then. Now the eyes are afraid to believe, stained red from tears which just won't stop coming over and over again. I curl up in a ball and cuddle my vodka, shivering a bit and crying.
My head hurts. I don't know where to go from here any more.
It would be easier if there was anyplace in the world left that I wanted to go.
the entire story will be in the (hopefully!) soon-to-be-released collection of shorts...stay tuned for more info, as i get it more together i'll update ya! thx <3 -doug
At first I think about curling up amongst the cornstalks but then the thoughts come like maybe there's some nasty bugs living in the corn or maybe they harvest this shit with those big machines like on TV and I wind up getting chewed up. I hesitate but the next thought then is those movies where creepy shit with big teeth hides in the cornfields and now I'm not bout to go in there.
I find a place in the woods that's a healthy distance from the corn where no one can see from the road and set up as best as I can, really not much to set up, just spread out the sleeping bag and get my second vodka bottle and second pack of cigs out to drink til I get sleepy enough to pass out. My stomach growls, typical fucking Ian remembers to buy cigs and vodka and totally forgets to buy something to eat. There's a rather old bag of pretzels and some peanuts in my backpack from god knows when, well, better than nothing I guess.
I lay back and munch on a stale pretzel while alternating vodka with Diet Coke, staring up at the stars. It's so freaky how the moon and stars seem so close out here like I could just reach up and touch them but yet they're so far, like dreams, forever out of reach of me but always in my face making fun of me.
I snuff out one cig in the dirt and stick another in my mouth, not lighting it just yet. Somehow that stupid line from some movie about you and me lying underneath the same stars or whatev crawls into my head like a bucketful of earwigs.
I don't know why you did this to me. We always hung out and drank together, not like I was the only one drinking and having fun, not like I was mean to you when I was drunk or ever for that matter. Fuck, I made you breakfast in bed more times than I can count, cooked you dinner and made a cake for your birthday for you, got you cards every Christmas and birthday and holiday, took care of you that time you got the flu, doing everything I could for you, even giving you hot baths to make your body ache less. I never said no when you wanted to have sex, never refused you anything.
I even forgave you that time you were staying at your friend's place and ended up getting drunk and having sex with him and came to me the next day hungover and crying your eyes out.
On what fucking planet do I deserve this?
I light the cigarette. It's all so fucked now, just like my grandpa said before he killed himself so he didn't end up in the old age home. This is how it starts, first it's just one question stuck in my head that there is no answer to or way to answer, and then there will be another, and another, until one day it's like a black fog full of them that makes me choke.
He had the right idea, even though he told me he'd held on too long after grandma died, he'd seen and done everything in life he wanted by then and shoulda just stuck his head in the oven the day after she was laid to rest.
He had always gone on without end about all the things he'd said and done while I listened in amazement, my bright blue eyes wide, my mind filled with the things in life I could do.
I remember when I met you and how quick things jumped so far and all those times together like a tornado of emotions, your love the only thing I trusted and how wonderful to wake up next to you and rest my head on your chest while you slept. It felt so safe then. Now the eyes are afraid to believe, stained red from tears which just won't stop coming over and over again. I curl up in a ball and cuddle my vodka, shivering a bit and crying.
My head hurts. I don't know where to go from here any more.
It would be easier if there was anyplace in the world left that I wanted to go.
the entire story will be in the (hopefully!) soon-to-be-released collection of shorts...stay tuned for more info, as i get it more together i'll update ya! thx <3 -doug
2010-02-12
disappeared - excerpt of upcoming story for book, part 2/3
The driver is nice to me. I've never been in a big rig before so he kinda had to drag me up into it which made him laugh, and he was friendly. The introductions were short, his name is Vaughn, he's from Oklahoma or Kansas or one of those places you only see in depressing movies and misses his wife and kids. He's not asking me many questions, the only one I answered was my name which I lied and said 'Sean.'
It's pushing one o'clock in the morning by the time I see the road sign that says we're leaving the state I never thought I'd get out of in my life just a few hours ago.
'I know I'm not sposed to, but is it okay if I drink this?' I ask, showing the vodka bottle under my hoodie.
Vaughn hesitates but there's no traffic on the road this time of night and this part of the next state is all woods and farms, no reason there would be a cop for miles, so he says okay. I offer him a cig.
'You can't tell my wife if you meet her,' he laughs. 'I'm supposed to be through with these things months ago.'
But he takes one and we smoke in silence. I know he wants some explanation for me, well, fuck, everyone wants one and yeah I could give one but I'm through doing that, everyone I ever let get that close to me ended up stabbing me in the back. At this point, I'm not even sure there is one. I don't know exactly where I'm going, just away, far far away, someplace warm where I can sleep outside out of view of people cos I can't work on the books without being found out yet. Someday I'll figure out how to get around that, but for now I just need to make sure my name doesn't show up on anyone's computer otherwise they'll drag me back.
Much better this way, leave them all thinking that aliens abducted me might be as plausible as any other explanation. I wonder how many days, maybe months, they'll drag the marsh and run their dogs into it trying to find my body before they give up. I should feel guilty for doing this to my parents but I don't, ever since I came out to them a few years back I've had to fight them every step of the way to be who I am, had to hide and protect myself from their prying overprotective bullshit.
And I hope most of all you never rest well again, I hope every night you wonder if you'd done something different that last night, been nice to me and not so fucking mean, this never would have happened. Cos that is after all the truth of it. I hope you wake up soaked in sweat from nightmares about my corpse freezing in the snow, hope it never leaves you alone. Maybe the guilt of what you did drives you deep into alc or pills or drugs and you self-destruct. You sure as fuck deserve it.
It occurs to me that Valentine's Day is just around the corner. I feel so goddam empty and alone.
This is killing me, I half-want to make Vaughn pull over and jump right in a truck going back and find you and beg you to take me back, just to lie in your bed and curl up with you and kiss you and we can get drunk and watch stupid movies and laugh and enjoy each other's company again like we had before.
The other half of me just wants to open this door and throw myself out of it and smash into the pavement at sixty miles an hour, the pain would be gone forever then.
I don't know who I think I'm kidding. There is no future out there for me without you, just a lot of meaningless pain and loneliness, I'm just a scared animal that only knows it has to run away without even knowing where it's running to which is probably someplace worse than where it started.
It's pushing one o'clock in the morning by the time I see the road sign that says we're leaving the state I never thought I'd get out of in my life just a few hours ago.
'I know I'm not sposed to, but is it okay if I drink this?' I ask, showing the vodka bottle under my hoodie.
Vaughn hesitates but there's no traffic on the road this time of night and this part of the next state is all woods and farms, no reason there would be a cop for miles, so he says okay. I offer him a cig.
'You can't tell my wife if you meet her,' he laughs. 'I'm supposed to be through with these things months ago.'
But he takes one and we smoke in silence. I know he wants some explanation for me, well, fuck, everyone wants one and yeah I could give one but I'm through doing that, everyone I ever let get that close to me ended up stabbing me in the back. At this point, I'm not even sure there is one. I don't know exactly where I'm going, just away, far far away, someplace warm where I can sleep outside out of view of people cos I can't work on the books without being found out yet. Someday I'll figure out how to get around that, but for now I just need to make sure my name doesn't show up on anyone's computer otherwise they'll drag me back.
Much better this way, leave them all thinking that aliens abducted me might be as plausible as any other explanation. I wonder how many days, maybe months, they'll drag the marsh and run their dogs into it trying to find my body before they give up. I should feel guilty for doing this to my parents but I don't, ever since I came out to them a few years back I've had to fight them every step of the way to be who I am, had to hide and protect myself from their prying overprotective bullshit.
And I hope most of all you never rest well again, I hope every night you wonder if you'd done something different that last night, been nice to me and not so fucking mean, this never would have happened. Cos that is after all the truth of it. I hope you wake up soaked in sweat from nightmares about my corpse freezing in the snow, hope it never leaves you alone. Maybe the guilt of what you did drives you deep into alc or pills or drugs and you self-destruct. You sure as fuck deserve it.
It occurs to me that Valentine's Day is just around the corner. I feel so goddam empty and alone.
This is killing me, I half-want to make Vaughn pull over and jump right in a truck going back and find you and beg you to take me back, just to lie in your bed and curl up with you and kiss you and we can get drunk and watch stupid movies and laugh and enjoy each other's company again like we had before.
The other half of me just wants to open this door and throw myself out of it and smash into the pavement at sixty miles an hour, the pain would be gone forever then.
I don't know who I think I'm kidding. There is no future out there for me without you, just a lot of meaningless pain and loneliness, I'm just a scared animal that only knows it has to run away without even knowing where it's running to which is probably someplace worse than where it started.
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