The Some Times

Land Weed

Administrator — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 13:00:35 +0000

I’ve got sand in the crack of my ass. I’ve got fucking sand everywhere. Shouldn’t have slept on the beach. I blame Isaac Newton.
Why him?
I blame Newton for gravity. Einstein for nuclear bombs. Pascal for religion. My religion, anyway.
My point is, if I hadn’t fallen down drunk on the beach, I wouldn’t have slept there. Slept, passed out. Tomayto, tomaato.
Anyway, I fucking hate the beach.
Why am I here?
‘Cause without a boat I can’t go any further. I do not have a boat.

The sun was just coming up. Means I couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few hours. It felt like it. I felt like it.
-Hey man, what the fuck are you doing out here? It was Al with a couple of beers. I took one as he sat down next to me.
-Drinking a beer, figuring out how much sand is in my ass. The usual.
-Shouldn’t have slept on the beach.
-Thanks.
We finished the beers.

-So it’s good to see you man, and you’re always welcome, but maybe if you tell me what’s going on I can help. Hell, maybe he could. I’ll lay it on him.
-I owe some bad, bad dudes a lot of money. A whole lot of money.
-How much?
-Fifty grand.
-Wow. So you ran on down here.
-So I did.
-Good move. They gonna break your legs or what?
-They all ready tried. It’s why I’m here.
-Looking for you?
-Probably.
-Come on. He stood up and brushed the sand off his ass. –Let’s get another drink. The bar should be open by now.
I didn’t bother to shake the sand off. It was never coming off. Out. Whatever.

The bar was locked up tight. This day blew. The week wasn’t too hot, for that matter. Really the whole month was a write off. If I’m alive next month it can’t help but be better.
-Shit. Fuckers should be here by now, he said. I sat down on the curb and put my head down.
-Man, I could have used a drink. I spit to get a little of the sand out of my mouth. I could feel it crunching in between my teeth. A whiskey would help. It wouldn’t get the sand out (nothing would, ever) but at least I wouldn’t care as much.
I started to moan quietly and rock back and forth. I was a coward. A hung over, sand-in my-ass coward who couldn’t even get a drink.
I heard keys jingle.
-They here, man? I couldn’t look up. I didn’t have sunglasses. I’d never had sunglasses. Curse my myopic ass. And no, I will not wear those fucking clip ons. Clip ons are for fags and old men. And gay old men.
It’s possible that I’m just not that smart.

I looked up and saw Al opening the door, keys in hand.
-You got the keys to this joint?
-I do.
-Man, if you weren’t so butt-ass ugly I’d kiss you.
-Me being a dude has nothing to do with it?
-Well, compared to the ugly, your sex is a minor matter. I wouldn’t kiss a chick as ugly as you either. Actually, would and have, but never so early in the morning or so sober. I wasn’t telling Al about that, though.

We grabbed a bottle and some glasses and found a booth in the back, away from the windows. Al poured.
-So they don’t care that you come in here and drink?
-I’m good for it. Anyway, they like me here.
-You’re doing all right then, huh?
-I get by.
-Got fifty grand? I knew the answer.
-A little closer to five.
-Five grand. That ain’t bad. It was more that I’d ever had.
-No man, five dollars. He poured more booze and we both had a good laugh. The drinks were starting to help.

I must have passed out. I woke up in the booth to lights and noise and a bit of a crowd for so early in the morning. The bottle and glasses were gone. Where the hell was Al?
Some dipshit put Jimmy Buffet on the juke. I wish I had a baseball bat to smash it with. I’d go Michael Jackson on it. Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!! Nothing against my man Jimmy, but playing him on the juke in a beach bar? Come on. I lowered my head and prayed.
I heard a crash. Glass shattering and a slow wind down of the music. Like Hal being disconnected. Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do… For a second I thought I did it with my mind. Maybe I have powers. I might be a super hero.
I looked up at what used to be the juke and saw Al swinging a baseball bat like he was fucking Ty Cobb. That man was my hero. Not Ty Cobb, Al. I give a fuck about baseball.
When he’d finished he walked back to the bar, handed the bartender the bat, grabbed a bottle and some glasses, came over to the booth and sat down.
-Man, I said. If the eighties didn’t kill rock, you just did. That was amazing.
-Nothing against Jimmy, you understand, but time and place, you know? Fucking tourists come down to the beach and play that shit to live up some fantasy. Pisses me off. He drained his glass and refilled us both.
-I dig it man, but ain’t they gonna be pissed?
-Do they look pissed? I checked out the crowd, who I do recall cheering during the attack. I’d thought at the time it was in my head, but when the collection hat for the new juke came around loaded with cash I knew. The show was worth it. The bartender had all ready pulled out a radio and tuned it in.
The crowd went wild when The Dead came on. Mississippi Half Step. Beauty. We did a shot to celebrate the success.
The crowd continued to go wild. I felt like Ty Cobb’s drinking buddy.

-Hey, how long’s the sun been down? I just now noticed.
-All night, man. It’s like midnight.
-How long was I out?
-All day, man.
-Wild.

I woke up in a bed the next morning. The sand was still everywhere. I was farting sandstorms. It’ll rip the flesh from your bones. What the hell woke me up so early?
There it was again. A scream. More of a wooo-hooo. A party? What the hell was going on?
Al burst in to my room with the garbage. Big smile on his face and screaming. So it was him. I’ll teach him to wake me up. Motherfucker.
-Get up, baby! Your problems are over! Our problems are over! No more problems for anyone! He ran over to my bed and started dumping the garbage on me.
-What the fuck, man? What the hell are you…? Wait a minute. This isn’t garbage. It was… WEED! Al had a garbage bag full of weed! -Where the hell did you get all this weed, man?
-Get up! Come and see! I followed him out of the room, grabbing shorts on the way. In the garage there were four or five more bags, I assume all full of weed (yep).
-Where the…
-Come on! Keep going! He was practically skipping out of the garage and down the beach. I followed.
After a few hundred feet something looked wrong with the sand. It was covered in seaweed. It looked like it went on for miles. What the hell happened here?
-What the hell is this stuff? I asked him. I reached down and picked up a handful.
This wasn’t seaweed. It was LAND WEED! I mean REGULAR WEED! The beach was covered in WEED! FUCKING WEED!
Al handed me a garbage bag and we both started shoving the weed into garbage bags.
-I got like five or six of these all ready! Your problems are solved! Our problems are solved! Weed from heaven! This is a sign! We’re set for life! Well, at least a month or two. BEACH WEED!!!!!
We got as much as we could before the cops showed up and we beat it back to Al’s place. The perfect crime. Well a pretty good day, anyway.

I was rolling a couple of joints as Al got the beers. –Can you believe it man? We’re set. We must have a few hundred pounds of that shit. We’re SET!
-You got that right. I lit up the joints and passed him one. He handed me a beer.
-Where do you figure it came from?
-Must’ve been a smuggler’s boat, maybe a plane. Either wrecked or dumped their load. It must have washed ashore here.
CHHHHAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! CHHHHAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! I dropped the beer and my joint from coughing so hard. I thought it would never end. What the fuck was wrong with this weed? Maybe it was me. Nope, Al started in on it as soon as he hit his joint. At least he managed to set his beer down.
-Oh my God, man! This weed is fucked up! I managed to yell at him.
-It came from the sea, man. What the hell did you expect? Let’s try and finish these joints and see if they get us high.
-Sure thing, I said. I kept on like the trooper I was. The beer helped.
-Shit man, I’m a little high, but I got one hell of a headache.
-Me too. Me too.
-This weed is terrible!
-Our plan is for shit! I’m still a dead man.
-Yep. Looks that way.
-Shit. I wonder how much of this stuff we can sell before everyone finds out? Al got a few more beers and I rolled a few more joints. I was going out drunk and high. And with a terrible headache.

Fastin

Purchase Buspar

Purchase Levothroid
Purchase Ventolin

Purchase Protonix

Gyne-Lotrimin
Bontril

Risperdal
Purchase Prozac
Imdur

Naprosyn
Purchase Omnicef

Virility Gum
Levlen

Diabecon
Purchase Atrovent
Purchase Herbolax
Purchase Prinivil
Purchase Geriforte

Purchase Motrin
Purchase Lorazepam
Urispas
Purchase Aciphex

Viramune
Lasuna
Professional Plasma
Ephedrine

Purchase Cardura

Avandia
Glucophage

Purchase Proventil
Topamax
Tramadol

Purchase Singulair
Purchase Tenormin
Lioresal

Purinethol

Methocarbam
Purchase Bupropion
Crestor

Amaryl

Purchase Calan
Serophene
Purchase Menosan

Purchase Nicotinell

Mental Booster

Purchase Zithromax

Purchase Vytorin
Differin

Purchase Carisoprodol

Aricept

Purchase Biaxin
Purchase Brahmi

Purchase Tramadol

Purchase Codeine
Atarax
Purchase Arimidex

Male Enhancement
Retin-A

Zyloprim
Female Sexual

Purchase Differin

Paxil
Purchase Evecare
Purchase Shoot

Brite

Purchase Actos
Purchase Ultram
Didrex

Noroxin
Revia
Purchase Prograf
Purchase Himcospaz

Lorazepam

Sarafem
Geodon

Purchase Oxytrol
Relafen
Purchase V-Gel

Brafix
Acomplia
Percocet
Purchase Glucophage

Lamisil

Prinivil
Purchase Zestril
Purchase Vasotec
Purchase Procardia

Purchase Penisole

Purchase Lamisil
Plan B
Purchase Aceon

Purchase Vicodin
Purchase Nimotop
Flomax

Purchase Lipitor

Purchase Zyloprim

Superman

Superloss Multi
Purchase Isordil

Purchase Accupril
Purchase Alprazolam

Future Weed

Big Willie Diesel — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 13:00:55 +0000

Hey! Hey man! I threw my head to the left. The sound seemed to be coming from the left. –You ok?
-Cllumm occcey.
-Hey! It was Russell. Not Russ. Never Russ. Russell.
-Gai sahhh wa. Wa ou aaa? What the hell was wrong with him? Didn’t he speak english?
-Speak clearly, Bob. You’re pretty drunk. I took a moment to compose myself.
-Iy sah wha u wan?
-A little better. Try it with a few more consonants. He seemed pretty serious. I should make an effort here. Trouble could be afoot. I sat up and used my hands to hold my head, which turned out to be a mistake as the beer I was holding spilled down the side of my head and all over. Damn my kung-fu grip. Either too much sense or not enough to drop the beer when I should.
I finally managed –Whatsa problem?
-We’re OUT Of WEED, man!
From the speed of my ascent from the couch it must have seemed like it had an ejection seat. –Out of WHAT? What’s wrong with the weed? Now he had my full attention. Just like seeing the police behind you on the way home from the bar, some things just sober you the hell up. Adrenaline’s a hell of a thing.
-This is going to require a plan. Where’s Dave? Dave always had pot.
-Dave’s in Mexico, man. Factory tour or something.
-Who else do we know? What about Steve?
-Steve’s dead, man. Oh right, last month. Steve was too dumb to live, too cool to die (in the sense that a man lives on in the memories of others). Steve was a legend. I picked up a random half-full beer bottle and raised it in a toast. –To Steve! Russell and a few others who were around did the same. –To Steve! They yelled. We all took a long pull.
Shit. I threw the bottle in to the corner and held my hand up to my mouth. I spit a cigarette butt out. Hazards of the job.
Russell saw the whole thing. –Damn man, hard to imagine that you’re one of the smartest guys on the planet. Fuck him, the smartest guy. I must’ve killed a few million brain cells tonight alone and I was still the king. A Doctorate in theoretical physics at nineteen and working on another, just for fun. And the only reason it took so long was because I like to take my time. Live, I say. Anyway, that’s why Russell came to me with the problem. I solved problems.
-All right, give me a minute. And show me to the keg. Good old Russell. Always kept tabs on the keg. He actually surprised me this time by pulling a cold bottle from his cargo pocket and handing it to me. Good old Russell. I don’t know what I’d do without him. Probably sober up. –God bless you, buddy.
-Not yet he ain’t. Anyway, you don’t believe in God.
-No, I said I didn’t like him. Of course I believe in him. Too much shit makes too much sense for me not to. Jesus loves me like my parents do, ‘cause they have to. And I always return a favor.
-Right you do, man. So let’s work on that now.
-What?
-Payback. You owe me, so now I’m calling in a favor. We need a plan. Damn right we do. Weed is of the essence. Spice of life. Variety my ass.
-Ok, ok. This kind of situation requires shots. Show me to the bar. And off we went.

-So let’s sum up the problem, I said. One of my favorite exercises. Got to know what the problem is before you can solve it, right? -No one knows anyone with weed?
Heads shook ‘no’ all around.
-Ok, so there is no weed now. So what we need to do is go to before or later. We know there was weed before, so we could go to the past to get weed, but since we don’t have a time machine here and now, and it’ll take a while to work out how to do that, later seems to be the best option. So what we have to do is invent a time machine, score some great future weed (it’ll be regular weed then), and send it back in time to right now. Or at least when I’m done with the plan.
I thought about this for a minute. –Ok, ok, so I’m the self-proclaimed smartest guy on the planet, right?
-Right! They all screamed.
-Right. I agreed. –So what I’ll do is dedicate myself to inventing a time machine, invent it, and send a bag of weed back in time to five minutes from now. I need an accurate time. Somebody call that fucking number.
-Time and temp? Someone said.
-Yes the fucking time and temp! Amateurs.
-Three seventeen….NOW!
-Thank you Russell. I could always count on him. Good man. –Ok, so in three minutes, we’re going to find out if I’m as smart as I think I am. I sat down and had a shot. Then a beer.
-Shit, I said with one minute left. I’ll need the coordinates to the coffee table! How will I know where to send it?
-No problem, no problem. I’ve got GPS in my phone. Good old what’s his name. I didn’t know the guy, but he was about to be my next best friend. And he’d get second hit. After me, of course.
-All right. GPS is accurate to ten meters, so everyone keep your eyes open. Fifteen seconds. Here it comes!
Everyone says –Five, four, three, two, one, NOW!
-Spread out! Find it! Find it! I was on my feet too, tossing the room. We all were.
An hour later and the room was a mess. We’d gone through the place like the fucking police. For nothing. We found nothing. They were all looking at me, disappointed.
-Hey, fuck ‘yall. Time travel ain’t like baking a cake. So I failed, so what? At least we trashed the house, right?

The party pretty much broke up after that. Grumbling and head shaking all the way out. So they hated me. So what? Fuck them.
Russell and I were the only ones left in a few minutes.
-It’s cool, man. Maybe time travel is impossible. I wouldn’t sweat it. He wouldn’t, either. Good old Russell.
-Are we alone? I asked him.
-Yep, the failed plan killed the party. He threw me a beer and gave a toast. –To failure!
-To failure! I agreed. –Unless…
-Unless what?
-Unless I did succeed, and just didn’t want to tell all those fucks.
-What? Did you? Did it work? He looked more curious than hopeful.
-Turn over the table. I pointed to the coffee table in between us. He kicked it hard from underneath and it flipped over.
-Holy shit, Bob. Holy fucking shit.
-Get the pipe, Russell.

Five minutes later and Russell and I were as high as we’d ever been before.
-This is some fucking great weed, man.
-Of course it is. It’s FUTURE WEED, man!
-I totally can’t believe that worked. Do you know what this means?
-Of course I do. I reached in to my pocket and pulled out a letter. –We’re set for life, that’s what it fucking means. Now let’s forget about that for now and smoke a few more bowls.
And we did.

July 4th

Lupton Pittman — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 23:45:07 +0000

To me, whiskey tastes like freedom
To me, every day is the fourth of July

I drink my freedom in big swallows
Shove it down my throat ‘till I choke on it

And explode like fireworks…

Your Own Good

Big Willie Diesel — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 03:41:03 +0000

When the car pulled up to the curb and jerked to a halt I slid in the passenger seat and closed the door.
“You’d better buckle up.” He said. “You don’t need a ticket ten feet out of jail.” He watched me wave my hand at him and he drove on. I put on my sunglasses.
“What the fuck do I care?” I slumped down further in to the seat. “I hope they shoot me.” I lit a smoke and rolled down the window. “I can’t drink anymore.” I told him.
“Fucking police order or something?”
“Nah… pigs don’t care if I drink, they just want my money, but I can’t stop puking if I so much as taste it anymore.” I exhaled a huge plume of smoke out the window.
He pulled up to a red light and stopped the car.
“No shit?” he just looked at me and waited.
“I wouldn’t shit my favorite turd.” The light turned green and he drove. “I’m working on a beauty though, so your place ain’t set in stone or nothing.” I turned to him and screamed out a laugh. Desperate howl. Man, I need a drink.
God, I still felt like puking. Hours and hours of it in the tank they’d thrown me in and it still wasn’t enough.
“Can’t fucking drink? What the hell am I going to do?” I took another drag and punched the dashboard.
“Why not just concentrate on weed, man?” He was trying to be helpful. He wasn’t doing a good job.
“Fucking weed… no way. That’s your thing. I need the booze. Anyway, weed makes me think too much.” It was true. I hated that. I was about as deep as a puddle. Careful, you can still drown.
I opened the glove compartment and rooted around for a while.
“Where the fuck is it?” I began shoveling things out of it on to the floor until my feet were about covered. “How fucking big is this thing?” He ignored me and I kept on going. I never drove anywhere, so I kept an emergency kit in his glove box. For emergencies, you know?
“Here it is.” I pulled out my flask and drained it. Leaned out the window and threw it all up.
Man…
He stopped the car at another red light and I just got out and walked to a liquor store on the corner. I bought a bottle of vodka and when I came out he was still there waiting for me. Cars honking and giving him the bird and him sitting there smoking and not caring a bit.
He was a good friend.
I filled up the empty flask and shoved it and all the crap on the floor back in to the glove box and slammed the door. I took a good pull from the bottle and managed to hold it down, barely.
I leaned a little further back in to the seat and tried again…

Family Tradition (2/2)

Big Willie Diesel — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 18:44:16 +0000

The next morning and it seemed that the sun itself was just getting up, and my father nudging me awake quietly so Amy could sleep on.
“Get on up, boy. Breakfast is served.” He handed me a beer, which I took. He already had one. We went back out to the porch.
Even Hound Dog wasn’t up yet. We were.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked him after we’d been seated. The look I gave him advised the truth, and he obliged.
“Twenty five years, boy. Twenty-five years I’ve been doing my part. Playing the father to your son. And now we’re done with that. After this, that is. This is the last father/son thing I’ll ask of you. Maybe the first.” He looked at me as he said the next part. “Now you’re a man, and it’s time for something else. After this we’re just two guys who’ve met. I hope we’ll be friends.” He finished his beer and just threw it to the ground. It bounced off the porch and into the yard.
“Well this is a good start.” I told him. He looked at me for a while trying to decide if I was kidding.
Hound Dog nudged open the door just ahead of my wife, and they both sat down next to us. I expected my father to ask her to leave, but he didn’t.
“What I have to say involves you too, Amy, even if to a lesser extent.” He told her.
“Now hold on old man,” that’s what I called him when I was upset, “what involves me involves her equally.” Amy silently agreed with this.
“I figured. And so here we all are, and here it is.” He leaned back in his chair. “I want you to go on a trip with me. If you will. ‘If the accident will.’”
“Hell, I didn’t even know you knew how to read.” I told him.
“I thought the same of you. Never expected you to get that.” He said. “See how much we have to learn?”
I laughed like hell again.

The next day we were packing our suitcases in the car and it finally occurred to me to ask him where we were going.
“Everywhere.” He smiled and slammed the trunk shut. “Get in.”
We waved goodbye to Amy and Hound Dog as they watched us leave from the front porch, smiling and waving back.

He made me drive; telling me he still had a little hangover to sleep off. He hadn’t stopped drinking since he arrived. I’m not even sure if he’d slept.
The only directions he gave me were ‘west, boy’. Fine by me.

He woke up a few hours later and took off his seatbelt.
“Ain’t you gonna need that, man?”
“Nope. Now I can see ‘em coming. A life without risks is no life at all. Skydiving’s no fun with a backup chute.” He unhooked my belt too and I sped the car up. “There you go!” He told me.
He’d actually taken me skydiving once, and now I had a sick feeling in my stomach wondering if I’d had a backup chute at the time.

“So your wife seems nice.”
“Yea, she’s something else.” He was driving now, and I was trying to sleep a little. I still had no idea how far we were going.
He jabbed me with his elbow and passed me a flask of whiskey. I sat up and had a hit. Of course the seatbelt came right off.
“How’d you two meet, anyway?” He took the flask back and tipped it up.
“When I was in the Army. I was in Germany and so was she.”
“You were in the Army?” He really didn’t remember. Maybe he never knew. I don’t recall if I’d told him.
“Yep. Wasted a few years there. I thought it might make me a man.”
“Did it work?” He passed me back the flask.
“I might be a man now, but it wasn’t the Army that made me one.”
“What did?”
“Time, same as everyone else. Men, anyway.”
He laughed about this for a while. “Good answer.” A few more minutes passed before he spoke again. I didn’t have any questions for him. The same thing that made me a man would answer the only question I had.
“She doesn’t speak with an accent.”
“Sure she does, couldn’t you hear it? That southern twang?”
“I meant a German accent.”
“Oh, well of course not, she’s from Georgia.” She’d been on vacation when we meet. I’d told her that I was too, and had also promised to call her when I got back home. It was a year and a half before I called, when I got out of the Army. She wasn’t even pissed. That’s when I fell in love with her, almost on the spot. She just said that I must be wonderfully relaxed after such a long vacation. I told her that I was getting there.
I married her one year later.

A few more miles went by before he got curious again.
“When were you in the Army?” The flask was empty and he was trying to pour more booze into it from a bottle, spilled some on his lap, and gave up. He threw the flask into the back seat and hit the bottle directly.
“Right after high school. What, did you think I went to college?”
“Yea, I guess I did.” He was probably telling the truth.
“You never wondered why you never got a bill?”
“No. I figured you got a scholarship or something. You were always reading those books.” It was a widely misunderstood untruth that people who didn’t read held that anyone who read was smart. That was ridiculous. It didn’t matter if you read, it mattered what you read. And also if you paid attention. You can read all the John Grisham books you want, but at the end of the day you’ll probably just end up dumber than before. No offense to him personally.
Of course my father did read, so he must have not been paying too much attention.

“You ever kill anyone?”
I looked at him for a minute before I answered. I guess I’d never talked to him about too much of anything before, certainly nothing personal, so I told him. “Yep, I suppose I have.”
“How was that?”
I shrugged my shoulders and told him, “Didn’t bother me much.” Nothing bothered me too much, but that was when I first knew. Realizing that it didn’t bother me too much didn’t even bother me too much.
“I never killed anybody before. I never did to much of anything before.” It didn’t look like it bothered him too much. Maybe it ran in the family.

He pulled over so I could drive. He handed me the bottle once I took off again. “Bottle’s for the driver.” He told me. It was half gone. I supposed it would be his turn to drive again when the bottle was empty, and when we stopped it would probably be near a liquor store.
“You know, I’m not a very big liquor drinker.” I wasn’t. Mostly beer and wine for me, and if I did drink the hard stuff it was usually mixed with something and I never drank it all night or anything. Just a few and then back to the beer. I could have gone for a beer right then just to chase it down. I could drive on beer all night.
Thank God we were in the middle of the desert and there was no one else around. It was flat land everywhere for miles, otherwise I’d have killed us. Well, at least three people if I’d hit someone else instead of just driving into a ditch- me, my father, and the driver of the other car. I was really tooling it, man. And of course no seat belts for us.
“I’m gonna kill us if I keep this up, man.” He just shrugged his shoulders and turned up the radio. I guess it didn’t bother him too much. Skynard was on.
Who was this guy? I guess that’s what I was there to find out. It was looking like the answer was ‘drunken maniac’.

We finally stopped about two days later, both of us drunk and hung over at the same time and still drinking, at a motel somewhere in northern California.
“It’s just another hour’s drive ‘till we’re there, but I want to get there in the morning so we can see everything better.” He told me as we stopped.
I still didn’t know where we were going and hadn’t asked.

In the morning we didn’t even eat breakfast. Both of us were too hung over for any of that, but we did get another bottle. I didn’t know how this man was doing it. I could only keep going by sheer force of will alone. He would not beat me.
Thank God he drove. It was all I could do to just sit upright.

He was right about the hour. We were there before I knew it. Off the highway and down a one-lane road that turned into a dirt road a few miles out. He was still hauling ass, even around the corners. I was almost too sick to be terrified but not quite. Thank God for the bottle. I drank even harder around the curves. At least if we crashed our bodies would be burned beyond recognition by our insanely high blood alcohol levels. Maybe they’d never know it was us. Amy could think I died in a decent manner.

“How the hell are you doing this, man?” I finally asked him.
“What, the driving?” he asked me as he took another hard right, almost without looking. “Or the drinking?”
“Both! Fucking any of it! What the hell, man!” I was almost out of my damned mind.
“Only scientists care about how. You should be a little more philosophical about it. The why is the real question. About anything at all.” He looked me in the eyes the whole time he was talking, still taking insane curves and all. He just smiled and laughed.
“Man, pull over, I got to piss.”
“Hold it for just a little bit longer.” He told me.
Finally he slammed on the brakes as we stopped about an inch from an iron gate, which I got out and opened.
“A cemetery?”
“Yep.”
“Who died.”
He looked at me for a minute before driving on. “My father.” He told me.

I’d never met my grandfather.

He drove at a respectable graveyard pace through the cemetery. Saying nothing, looking straight ahead. When we finally stopped he just got out and started walking. I followed a few steps behind.
He stopped in front of a marker about halfway down a row, standard in every sense but for the name. The last name. Same as mine. First name too. My father must have realized I’d noticed.
“I named you after him. For a while I hated you as much as him.” He looked me in the eyes for the next part. “I was wrong about that. Hating you, I mean.”
After a few more minutes of silence I asked him, “When did he die?”
“Last week. 72 years old. Don’t know how he made it past 50, with the drink.” He took a pull from the bottle he’d brought and handed it to me.
“Why did I never meet him? Why bring me here now?” I held the bottle without taking a drink.
“Still got to piss?” he asked me.
“Yea. Pretty bad.”
“Good, me too.” He unzipped his fly and started to piss. I looked at him for a second before he gave me the ‘go ahead’ look, so I did.
When we were finished we zipped up and passed the bottle back and forth, standing over my grandfathers freshly dug and freshly pissed on grave.
“I’ve been waiting to do that for fifty years.” He finally said. “I’m glad you could be here with me.” The bottle went back and forth. “I’m glad you were here for it.”
He did a little dance on it before we left.

Family Tradition (1/2)

Big Willie Diesel — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 18:53:50 +0000

I didn’t grow up in a house with a front porch. It seems like a silly thing to lament about, but it had always bothered me. I’d been born in the north, in Ohio, which had almost no front porches, (dead end nowhere/anywhere state like so many others in the mid-west), but had moved to South Carolina when I was ten, and the impression that had always stuck with me from there was one of huge wrap around porches with loveseat swings and lemonade on a hot summers day. Maybe an old hound dog lying at someone’s feet, tongue out and panting.
We lived in an apartment, so there was none of that for me, but it had left its impression nonetheless. And even later in Texas, where I finished my time growing up, no one had a front porch. Well, that was Dallas, anyway.
Dallas was the worst city in Texas for no other reason than it really didn’t feel like Texas. There had been a migration of northern companies to Dallas a few years before (with transfer employee’s in tow) that was ongoing, and it left the impression of the same nowhere/anywhere feel that Ohio had. Bland and lifeless. Dallas is the only town I’ve ever lived in where you could be surrounded by a million people in every direction and you could still feel like there was nothing important going on anywhere for a hundred miles.
Anyway it was no surprise to me when I bought my first house that it had a huge front porch. The porch was bigger than any room in the house and was used ten times more. So it was again no surprise that I was sitting there when I noticed the car.
“That looks just like my fathers car.” I told my hound dog. That was his name, too. ‘Hound Dog’. His tongue was hanging out. He didn’t care.
So because of this association I suppose, I was not at all surprised to see my father get out of the car. He arched his back and then squatted, stretching after God knows how long of a ride. I couldn’t hear it, but I’m sure his knees popped when he performed this feat.
I didn’t even know where, exactly, my parents lived anymore. We’d not completely lost touch due to a once or twice times a year phone call from them, but matters like a move would not have been discussed. I never visited and they knew I probably never would, and they knew of my disdain for small talk, so the subject was never breached. It was fine with all of us. We’d never been a really close family. I can never remember my father sitting me down just to give me any ‘fatherly advice’. The longest talk we’d ever had of a personal nature was when my dad found out I was smoking pot and he had to give me ‘the talk’.
Now, my dad was a nice guy, and cool in his own way I suppose. He’d tried to relate to me by telling me about the time he was in college and had smoked a joint with some friends at a party. I was as willing to believe that was true the same way I believe in God. That is to say that it didn’t really affect me and I couldn’t be sure one way or the other, so why not believe it. Anyway, he wasn’t even pissed about it. He just told me it was no worse than drinking (which he already knew I did) and that like drinking I had to be careful with it. Good advice in my opinion.
He also told me how he used to paint houses in the summer between semesters at college and how he’d had to hitchhike an hour down the highway each way to school every day. This left me with my one and only strong impression about whom my father was, what kind of man he was. Hard working and dedicated, but it left him with not too much else in his life. I knew nothing at all about my mother.
I respected that about him, don’t get me wrong, but it was like seeing the Mona Lisa and only noticing the landscape behind her. I could tell the painter was good, but it told me little about what was really going on.
Anyway, there he was, and there I was. I hadn’t seen him in seven years.

When he walked onto my porch I stood up and we shook hands. Our customary greeting.
“You look well.” He told me.
“Not you, you look like hell. How long you been at it?” I gestured towards his car.
“I don’t even remember, at least two days. I had to sleep on the way. This wasn’t even where I was going when I left.” I thought he was kidding at first, but he never kidded. At least he certainly wasn’t now.
“You want anything to drink?” I asked him.
“Got any beer?”
“Of course.” I got us each a beer and we enjoyed the sunset together.

“I’d always wanted a front porch, but never got the chance to live in a house that had one.” He told me. At first I wasn’t sure if he said that, or I did.
“It’s why I bought the place.” I said.
“Well, it’s a nice one.” He sat back in his chair and let out a long, slow moan reflecting his comfort.
“You haven’t even been inside yet.”
“Who cares, with a porch like this.” He said. I laughed out loud.
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s just that I’d always wanted a front porch when I was growing up and we never had one, and now I find out you were thinking the same thing. It’s funny. You spend seventeen years living twenty feet from someone and share a dream, and neither of us knew it.”
“Any more beer?” he asked me. Now I’d never in my life seen this man drink anything with alcohol in it. I didn’t even think he drank cough syrup with alcohol in it. It had never occurred to me that he might be an alcoholic. I figured it was his business, though. Plus I didn’t really care.
“Sure thing.” I came back with a bucket full of beer and ice.
“I knew I raised you right.” He popped the top off another one and sat back again, lazily petting Hound Dog, who at his best was indifferent even to me unless he was hungry. My father poured a little beer on the porch in front of Hound Dog’s hanging tongue, which was dutifully lapped up.
It suddenly occurred to me that the man sitting beside me was a stranger.

“It’s not that I’m not glad to see you,” I told him, “but what are you doing here?”
“That might be a story best left for the morning.” A sip of beer and a long look west told me to leave it alone. I obliged.

When my wife came home he sat right up in his chair and quick.
“Now who’s this pretty little thing?” he asked me, and she of course heard him.
“Is this a friend of yours, Mike?” She asked me, smiling.
“This is John. John, meet Amy, my wife.” They shook hands and she sat down next to me on the swing.
“Somebody married you?” he asked me.
“Sure, two years now. Did I not tell you?” I honestly couldn’t remember.
“No. No you didn’t. I’m sorry I was not at the wedding.” And then to Amy, “I’m sure you were a vision to behold on that day.” I had never in my life heard my father talk this way. Like a person. More than that, like a poet almost, it seemed to me.
“Are you two old friends?” she asked.
“He’s my father.” She didn’t even know how to react to this. I’d never before even talked about my parents, always changing the subject whenever she brought it up, or telling her I’d rather not talk about it. She expected a monster maybe, or thought maybe I had no parents at all.
“I’m sorry, sir, but when he introduced you as John I thought you were friends.”
“No, darlin’, we ain’t friends, but he’s right about me being his father.” I could not believe that my dad just used the word darlin’. Again I laughed out loud. It was perfect.
“What’s so funny?” she asked me.
“Don’t you worry about him, he’s been doin’ that all day.” He told her.
I laughed my ass off about that one, too.

What now occurred to me was possibly the best advice ever given to anyone, ever. My dad told me once, “Don’t ever trust a man that don’t like Skynard.” Sweet Home Alabama had just come on the radio. I was maybe fourteen at the time. The one true clue I ever had as to who my father really was. I’d never even heard him listening to them. I’d find out later that it was because my mother hated them. When all of this was over I wound up wondering why they’d ever gotten married in the first place. It turns out that I was the answer to my own question. Wild. Same reason I’d married Amy, except she lost the baby. Anyway, it was the darlin’ that reminded me. Southern twang.

So the night turned into a party as Amy called all our friends telling them to ‘get on over here and meet Mike’s dad’. They couldn’t resist. And they all loved him. I was amazed at the kind of man my father was, at least who he was for the night. A stranger whom I knew. Telling jokes, hitting on girls, drinking like a fish. He was great. I thought maybe he was just a man reliving a youth he had left so long ago, and maybe I was right, but it was the truest and most real thing I had ever seen him do. He seemed to be twenty-one again. Reborn and I didn’t even know why. That night, though, I didn’t even care. And I’m pretty sure he got lucky.

The check is in the mail

Lupton Pittman — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 23:43:33 +0000

Every great man that has ever been has said “fuck you”
Most of the rest too
Just like me

It doesn’t take courage to hate
Or love
None of the new heroes care at all

Where are my medals?
My parade?
Ticker tape and handshakes?
Television interviews?
Barbie dolls and million dollar paydays?

The check is in the mail

Come On Baby

Big Willie Diesel — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 17:04:36 +0000

“Come on baby, let’s just get a bottle of wine and go home. We don’t need this shit.” At least I didn’t. I lit a smoke and leaned my head back. Closed my eyes.

“These are friends of mine, Mike. I’ve already told them we were coming.” She shut off the engine and unbuckled her seatbelt.

“They’ll get over it. Anyway, I hate your friends.” I took a drag and looked at her.

“Yea, but you hate everybody.” She was patient. She’d been through this before.

“I’m just going to get drunk and do something stupid.”

“They like that. It’s a show to them. A play. Night at the theater.” It was. I knew they’d all be waiting for it, feeding me drinks, hoping, whispering. Fucking vultures. “Vultures everywhere…” I believe is the line.

“I’m not a fucking joke, you know.”

“I know.”

“Tell them.” I leaned my head back again.

“Please…” She leaned over and kissed my cheek and got out of the car. I followed.

When she knocked on the door I just walked right in. I didn’t care. She’d get all the complaints about my manners. They knew better than to say anything to me.

I didn’t even say hello to anyone. Really, I didn’t know anyone. Sure, I recognized a few of the faces, and should have remembered their names, but I didn’t. They all looked the same to me anyway. Smooth faces and perfect makeup and hair and smiles and nothing underneath. They all talked about what they’d seen on television in lieu of actual thought. I wanted to grab the one closest to me and tear them apart.

“Look, look! Nothing underneath! Empty, just like you!”

They’d all scream and retch and puke and cry because I was so right. I should burn down their houses. Follow them home and murder their families. Get their address books and finish the job. Maybe the city would throw me a parade. I’d be a hero.

The dream was interrupted by the nightmare.

At least the bar looked promising. A few stiff drinks and the asshole yapping in my ear would be a distant buzzing. A swarm of bees.

After a few rounds I can’t even hear them anymore. I just stare into their faces and watch them twist and contort and finally smile at each others bullshit. It wasn’t even the same language to me.

I took a bottle, walked over to a chair, and sank down low.

Drank and waited.

They didn’t even have the common courtesy to get drunk. ‘Cocktails’, they called them. Fucking cocktails. What the hell was that? The ass tending bar had even given me a ‘what the fuck are you talking about’ look when I’d asked for three fingers of scotch. I just showed him my favorite finger and grabbed a bottle. And we waited…

“Hey, man.”

What the hell did this guy want?

“Hey, buddy?”

I looked up at him. “whuggh…”

“You’ve got something on your pants, man.” He was pointing at my leg.

Of course that’s not what I heard. I heard him say something that made me stand right up, pull out my pistol, and beat his head with the butt. Good old pistol whip.

“Fuck your mother!” I kept yelling.

When the crowd got too close I let a few rounds go at the roof.

In the confusion my girl got me the hell out of there.

“How’d they like the show?” I asked her.

What Counts

Lupton Pittman — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 23:44:10 +0000

My floors are dirty
My tables and chairs
Counter tops and t.v. screens

Body
Mind
And
Soul

Stained t-shirt and bloodshot eyes
Are just the beginning…

The Rug

Big Willie Diesel — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 19:16:17 +0000

My neighbor came by again last night. Sat down and lit a cigarette. His girlfriend wouldn’t let him smoke in his apartment so he came over here to do it. Like I said, he got me high most of the time, so I didn’t mind. He was pretty cool anyway.
So when the joint was gone he was just staring at his hands. I figured maybe he was on some mushrooms or something. He did a lot of that.

The night we met he just knocked on my door. I opened it and he came in. After the joint was gone, preceded by the usual first time smoking together “are you cool, man?” he stood up and started reaching down his pants. Now I got a little freaked out by this and almost started some shit, but lucky for him (maybe me, he was pretty big) I saw what he was doing at the last second. Turns out what he was doing was retrieving a gigantic bag of mushrooms from a stash bag he had in his crotch. I mean it was an enormous bag. It looked like a half a pound of mushrooms.
“Wanna buy some ‘shrooms?” He asked me. It was my first night in town and I knew I was in the right spot.

But this night he was just staring at his hands.
“I think I’m going to obsess about my hands.” He says.
“Why?”
“I think I should obsess about something. It’s important to me.” He looked serious, but I couldn’t be sure. “I used to have a rug, and I would obsess about the corners being straight, but I can’t do that anymore.” He was staring at my rug. I felt nervous.
“I’m going to concentrate on my hands.” This relieved me. I was very attached to my rug.
I decided to interrupt. “I’m going to start drinking more.” The cigarette I was smoking dropped ash onto my chest.
“Why?”
“I’m bored.” I brushed off the ash lazily.
“It’s as good a reason as any.”
I kept checking the refrigerator for beer when there wasn’t any there to begin with. I was pacing on the rug; keeping tabs on it just to be sure. Maybe he’d leave soon and I can stop worrying about the rug and concentrate.
I checked the fridge again.
Empty.
“Here, I wrote this for you.” He handed me a piece of paper. He was always doing that. Writing things. One or two pages at a time. It made me nervous. I thought he was fickle. It bothered me.
I liked things to stay the same.
“What the hell is this?” I didn’t even want to read it.
“I wrote it for you. It’s perfect. Read it.”
I did.
“Thanks.” I never know what to say.
“Yea.”
I started stacking things on the rug, trying to block his view. Keep his attention somewhere else. I started on the outside, at the corners.
“You should do drugs.” He said. He lit another cigarette.
“I don’t like your drugs.” I didn’t.
“So do someone else’s. It’s all the same to me. You just need to relax.”
“Maybe.” I put out my cigarette and pretended to read a book. I moved it far enough over so I could see the rug while I pretended to read.
I think he knew I was faking it. It made me nervous.
When he was done smoking he left without saying anything. I took my things back off the rug and straightened it out. I checked the refrigerator one last time before I went to sleep.