Fugue
From out of the fugue state
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A Onesy With Pink Lace
As a passenger Shirley Jones felt insecure
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In the apartment of Abel Gardner, Warden asked if he could wear a mask while tearing down the wall. Abel thought that was a great idea. It would help further the symbolism. Ward was mostly interested in not being recognizable to authorities. Abel set up a camera on a tripod and told Ward to just go at it, we'll edit out the dull parts. After about ten minutes when it became obvious that the dull parts might constitute a majority Abel asked Ward if there was any way he might use a hammer and sickle as the tools of his deconstruction. Ward said he had a hammer but had not thought to bring a sickle. Abel rooted around in a sock drawer and pulled out a rusty curved blade with a splintery wooden handle. He gave it to Ward who in the very receiving of it got a splinter in his hand. We can just use it for effect, at the end, Abel said, looking at Ward Ambler removing the sizable wooden sliver from his palm.
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Janice was stopped on the Parkway at the Clearview light. At the crosswalk, a petite young mother in a floral print sun dress, with her baby in a carriage, was also waiting for the light to change. Shirley Jones, blank faced and apparently harmless, stared out at the baby carriage. Turning, the young mother softened at the sight of the frail woman and pivoted the carriage ninety degrees, ostensibly to show the woman her baby, dressed in a pink onesy with white lace and wearing on its head a matching pink sun hat. Mrs. Jones could see the light controlling the Clearview traffic turning yellow and frantically rolled down her window as the mother smiled. Just as the light stopping the Parkway turned green Shirley pointed a shriveled finger at the baby and shrieked, look at the cob-gobbler Janice, look at the goddamned cob-gobbler, would you? Have you ever seen such a thing?
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Jimmy was in his boat, the I.M.Fluked, with his charter, a trio of Pi Kappa Alpha boys whose names he had already forgotten but could be described easily by size as Skinny, Shorty, and Fatty. Shorty was up on the starboard gunwale goofing around. Hey guys, look, I'm fluked up. His brothers giggled. Jimmy turned starboard and goosed the engine a bit, causing Shorty to stumble back into the boat and grab on to his skinny pal. You're gay. No I'm not. Then let go of me. When they began to fish, drifting a bay channel near Moriches, the boys quieted down and Jimmy took the opportunity to call Janice. Is this a good time? There was a pause on the other end during which Jimmy could hear a bizarre combination of staticky high pitched breathing, and voices that seemed almost human, but every other syllable was an electronic distort and Jimmy stood hypnotized by this for he didn't know how long before finally trying again, Babe, are you there? Yes Jimmy. Are you OK? Another long pause, with more distorted background voices (an army of intergalactic aliens smoldering under a layer of napalm), and then clear as if she were standing in front of him Janice said, OK? Sure Jimmy, if driving your batshit mother around and being verbally abused all day and just now having her call a newborn baby a cocksucker is OK then yes, I would say I'm OK. And you Jimmy, how is your day going? I have three frat boys. Oh you poor thing, do you want to talk about it? Janice, I'm sorry, is there anything I can do? There was more electronic feedback, the suffering aliens, and then he was sure the call had dropped, but after he had shut off his phone and was putting it in his pocket one clear word came through the tiny speaker, and it sounded like something from the garden section at Home Depot--Parenticide. Jimmy frowned, removed the phone from his pocket and, after having Google help him with the spelling and meaning, put it back into his pocket. He had done this last part with two fingers, as if he thought the phone might now be carrying some infectious disease.
Cannibals Of The Deep
All the other persons with rods between their legs
What The Hell Is Palliative?
Ward sat at the counter drinking coffee
Seagulls Are People Too
It was Tuesday May 13
A Cheerful African American Equestrian
I met on the street yesterday morning a gay black cowboy named Steven. It was Thursday. I was attending to my vehicle for the hour and a half required. The street sweeper had already passed. I was musing on the lives of others, looking behind me at all the empty spaces which would undoubtedly be filled within the hour, and wondering what those future parkers were now doing, what adventures were they engaged in, feeling a little diminished by the fact that I was doing little else than playing Oh Hell on my cellphone.
It was wet and foggy out but not raining. The school crossing guard had recently retired for the day. The people-watching was sub par. The regular dog walkers were about, the woman who cradles her aging overweight Pug for all of its walk excepting that necessary time it must be on the ground to do dog business, and the guy with the German Shepard, the teenage black lab guy, the muzzled mutt guy and the man with the Pug whose hind legs are supported by wheels.
People from my building walked by but ignored me. Karen Ireland, lost not in the actual fog but in that of her morning ruminations, being pulled slightly by her inter-specie loving lesbian rat terrier, passed diagonally through the crosswalk in front of me and while I gave a perfunctory wave I did not see enough to be gained by tapping on the horn. People in their morning fog do not want to be honked at. There can be as a result of it ensuing madness like that befalling the awakened sleepwalker. I don't want to be the one responsible for that. Oh yeah? Karen Ireland? She was a lovely lovely woman until that thumb twiddling dipshit honked at her. Now look at her. Has to wear a bib. And the worst of it is that poor dog of hers, was always so proud and lively, but now, well, she's taken up with one of those long haired Himalayans and just lays about all day with it in one of those cardboard scratching "sofas," a shame really, all of it.
And then the Restauranteur, Bernadette's sister, my sister-in-law for all intents and purposes, she just walks right by me, close enough if I was a pile of excrement encased in flies the flies would have, alarmed by her proximity, momentarily taken flight from the excrement that was me before settling back down again deliciously.
But that's okay. I was not out there to make friends or acquaint myself with others. I was out there doing my duty. Attending to my vehicle parked at the corner of psyche and psyche so that twice a week the sweeper trucks can pass, helping to make this city the glistening jewel that it is.
After a bit, after the initial reattaching of my negative battery cable so the short in my electrical system doesn't drain the battery between tours of duty, and the people watching and the pondering and the shame of coming to grips with my status as an outcaste among my own people, I noticed a car pull up and park behind me. I then went back to playing Oh Hell, either winning or coming in third in the six player version set for hard. I could almost always beat that chump Farqhuar but you do not want to take that Doris lightly. I am aware of a shape exiting the vehicle parked behind me and a progressing of that shape towards me sitting in the Jeep with the windows rolled up. I am pretty much aware now that a person is standing outside waiting for my acknowledgement. I like chance encounters to a certain degree, assuming the encounter is to my advantage in some way. Instead of rolling the window down I gently opened the door and remaining seated encountered this tall middle-aged black man, who as it happens is named Steven, wearing a brown fringed leather cowboy vest, matching fringed chaps over blue jeans held up with a black too-long belt ornamented with a large, oval, engraved sterling silver buckle. I could not see his shoes but I am going to assume they were well worn but shining cowboy boots.
Now be assured this anachronistic outfit did not seem at all out of place or time on this man. But rather so confidently was it worn that I felt transported to whatever or wherever is that time where two men, one a middle-aged long hair in black jeans and faded grey t-shirt covered with a somewhat yuppy-looking LL Bean hooded rain jacket talks to a Buffalo soldier on the streets of New York. About what did we talk? Oh parking mostly. He then retired back to his vehicle to read a book. At 10:29 I stepped out of the Jeep, opened the hood and unattached the negative side of my battery cable and then let the hood slam shut. I sauntered past my vehicle, hoping to wish the cowboy a good day but he was hunched over sideways, his back to the sidewalk, a thick paper-backed book held open somewhere about middle with his left thumb, and with his right hand he was marking passages with a yellow highlighter. There were a fair amount of interesting looking objects littered about the front seat of his car but I could not make out what any of them were. I did not even think about knocking on his window.
You know how you get a bit of fat gooey gristle stuck in your teeth? And you use your tongue like a flaccid toothpick trying to extract it? Imagining that your barbarism is noticeable to no one when in fact you are the greatest of annoyances to those around you? That's what Bernadette said I was being, just annoying. I was coming back from the beach this morning, 9 foot rod in hand, heh heh, and I paused at the first house to talk 911 conspiracy theory with the occupant or rather listen to him talk, me perched on my girl's bike, and he leaning hunched over on too-short crutches, when there came up the road two women who seeing us stopped to talk. I had seen them on the beach days before, walking, for that's what people do on the beach here as it seems to escape them that they could just as easily be fishing. But usually its just me fishing or sometimes me and Bernadette, when she's not swimming, and everyday people see me out there, lanky, unkempt, casting forever casting, but aging and with nary a healthy piece of cartilage in my joints to aid me in my quest for that adrenal rush of a line ripping monster fish. I keep a bag of frozen peas in the freezer for my cartilage. The one woman introduced herself and I said my name without first repeating hers so that I would remember and true to that I don't, not even a clue. I was greatful for a break in the conspiracy talk as the three of them referred to things I knew nothing about. The other woman, who did less talking, had that fixed smile with crinkly eyes that could possibly imply a former career as a high end sports clothing model, intelligent and insightful seeming, or, and here's the thing, maybe not. So she became the gristle stuck in my teeth because I could not get that catalog model's smile out of my head and when I got home I did horribly bad imitations of it for Bernadette. And while she appreciated, briefly, my enthusiasm she soon grew tired and told me that I was being what I already knew I was being which is annoying. Sometimes when people are annoyed themselves they like to share it is all. It is a kind of self exorcism, gentler if perhaps no less grotesque than the projectile vomiting, 360 head spinning kind.
The Fishing Report
The inexorable cycle of life thought Caretaker. The nurturing, the murdering. He was up early on Tuesday having fallen asleep the previous day with still some light in the sky and an aluminum pipe in his mouth. Alzheimer's be damned. Honey is that you? Yes mom. Have you always been here? Got here yesterday mom. The grass would be wet with dew, this he knew without even leaving his bed, because he was a genius this Caretaker with regards to dampness and seasonal dew-points. He would use up the last of the fertilizer and hit those spots near the bighouse that were less than lush. And since he was up and moving around with barely a sun up to burn him he would also poison the weeds in the driveways and between the brick pavers at both houses.
While he did these things gnats hovered around his face and these gnats he was careful not to inhale, but this did not prevent one from flying onto the wetness of his eyeball and sticking there irritably. Honey is that you? Yes mom. Well its good you could come for a visit. Yeah mom, glad I could come.
Caretaker was now avoiding the hateful manual weed pulling between the 200 or so flat jagged rock pavers surrounding the pool. On his knees on a cushion, sitting yoga style, legs stretched in front, one knee up one folded underneath, a dip in the pool, it did not matter, it was hateful and slow. He used a butter knife as his digging tool. But he wasn't doing that now, he was instead thinking about the fishing he had done over the weekend and the unprecedented feeling of almost being sated by success. Over 5 different area ponds traveling around with Mowerman and sometimes his twin brother, which made things nosier, Caretaker had caught at least twenty small bass, a half dozen more that had thankfully unhooked themselves at the bank to save him the trouble, four nice sized bass, and one really nice sized one at a pond they had sneaked to through bramble and over a dry stacked rock wall, that Mowerman had fished growing up, with his dad, and considered his birthright. And no one messed with us which was giving Mowerman the courage to consider trespassing onto some other area ponds. Except for Kriegers pond because he was, quaint as it may sound, known for shooting at trespassers. No, he WILL shoot your ass Mowerman's twin brother reminded us more than once.
But this reminiscing was only one of the many techniques Caretaker had for avoiding hateful work so he had to be careful not to spend too much time on it. Weeds awaited. There would be some reward for the accomplishment, however temporary.
Poop On My Window
Caretaker was at the kitchen table breaking down his 525 Mag when a Brown Thrasher bullied by a Bluejay crashed into the window causing caretaker to cry out, ahh get out of there. A brown viscous drool of poop dripped from the Thrashers poop shoot and down the screen to which it was attached. Caretaker reached over and hit the window with his palm and the bird flew off crashing into the window over the kitchen sink and then to the unknown.
Caretaker had gone fishing at the pond that morning because it was a lot closer than the 4 hour drive to the nearest beach on which he wished to be fishing. Nothing hit his popper and nothing hit the spinner bait and when a small bass hit his plastic worm he thought oh boy game on but the bass spit the worm out and nothing hit the rest of his time out there. He watched his five new inherited Asian Carp, swept over from Sullivan's pond after the last flood. He had been looking for some grass eaters and now here they were, floating foreignly along the surface of a small pond inhabited by bass and bluegill and catfish, some frogs, some small turtles and one monster snapping turtle which before he left tugged the plastic worm off his hook.
He left the pond and explored the property on a cloudy damp day pausing momentarily to look happily at the blooming white azaleas which had never looked quite so good since their planting 5 years ago. Parking the ATV in his garage he saw his unpacked surf fishing gear still lying forlornly on the garage floor where he had left them after last weeks trip to the Outer Banks. So he picked up the Penn reel lying on one of his tackle bags and went to the kitchen table and took it apart and cleaned off the sand and salt which was making his drag sound crusty and greased the screws and put them back in while eating frozen pizza and when the timer went off he removed the chicken from the portable gas grill outside and put the whole chicken in a glass pan to cool on the kitchen counter because he wasn't that hungry having just eaten pizza and now he was staring out the window.
The caretaker watered the lawn two ways. The second way was holding his thumb over the end of the garden hose and spritzing water over a 30 foot distance to wet the grass seed with mulch he had just sprinkled over that bald spot. His Jeep was parked on the lawn and he had not even noticed the realtors truck parked only 50 feet up the driveway. When the realtor and his female assistant stepped out on the front porch and alerted caretaker to their presence in the house he immediately wondered if they had seen him water the lawn the first way and while realtor prattled on about some damn thing caretaker was counting in his head the number of windows on that side of the house he had watered. Eight windows. This was a new era indeed when a man couldn't pull his pants down anywhere he wanted and water the grass anytime he wanted.
It was easy to sneak up on caretaker. He would not make a good spy or bodyguard or any of those characters he watched on programs via his computer that you couldn't sneak up on and were vigilant and could take a bullet in the first half of the show and be playing racquetball in the second half. HIs girlfriend, Bernadette, who lived in New York, 5 hours away, because that was as close as she could stand to be to him some of the time would come down to this barely southern barely farm and remove the hermetic from his lifestyle periodically and she could sneak up on him like it was nobody's business. He would often scream or gasp like a girl when she snuck up on him not that there's anything wrong with that. Bernadette had taken to various method's of announcing her presence while caretaker performed duties, he said duties, on property. The whistle followed by a hello, the bold hello, the quiet just stand there approach, but none of them worked and caretaker in the end was always snuck upon. Who can even guess into what depth he was immersed while being flanked? Refining the nuances between various cupcake recipes perhaps.
Caretaker remembered a contractor he once worked for in the New Orleans area who in mid conversation, outside on a job would quicker than you could react just open his fly and turning only slightly away empty his bladder onto the dirt and sawdust and scrap 2x4s without missing a beat in his instructions or story about him and his pet chickens on the farm he grew up on in Mississippi.
Caretaker would have to be more vigilant, that is all.