II. A Voice, Loud As God

i had a dream,

all ink and gloom.

naked and alone.

i stood.

or sat. 

or floated.

in nothing.

i felt nothing,

saw nothing.

i was simply hanging there.

in space.

there was no fear.

no love.

it was simply.

nothing.

..

gasping. deeply. forcefully. legs raising. back jolting. up, up violently.

every muscle taut as spun steel. stuck in place. for a minute. only a minute?

night time. i was home. in bed. safe.

sheets slick with sweat. hot to the touch. not warm. hot. strange.

the moody, yellow of streetlights cast a somber tone in my apartment.

it was night and i was alone. a nightmare. must’ve been.

i coughed. coughed. coughed up black dust. smelled like char.

burnt steak. faint memories of heat and cries.

weird dream.

..


he spoke to me on the radio.

tinny, thin.

like a monologue over some old cowboy tune.

“every one is so pleased with your work“

i couldn’t react.

the cork from upturned wine bottles held more life than me.

they would sit and vibrate now and then. shaking off the counter as cold trains passed

the whole city shook, in silence.

a gentle insistent vibration like background radiation near Trinity

“you will find your fee, paid in full, cash enclosed in an envelope. look behind your toilet, taped to the back, in a crack along the wall”

his voice was like a nursery rhyme whenever he spoke to me.

it had a quality to it. mickey mouse in the morbid mode

i stood back, turned to the hall and down. but everything was a little different.
maybe it was entirely different.

like someone took my furniture and all the little trappings perfectly spaced as it was for as long as i’ve lived here, and placed it in some new building.

this was my home. but i feel that i’ve never seen this building before.
maybe it was him, maybe his voice was like this.

surreal. corrupting.

a force of the unreal radiating out like psychic sonar.

poisoning understanding.

his voice interrupting the regular vibrations interpreted by the pineal sense.
turning mute floral wallpaper to stark weathered brick,
turning linoleum to tongue-in groove wood.

Was this the same reality? Was i over tired?

Maybe its normal to hear your boss through the radio.

They could be hijacking the signal. pirate radio.

it’s not as absurd as it sounds.

he must be near enough to broadcast a signal.

they clearly have the money to orchestrate something like this.

i turned down a hall i'd never seen before. instinctually i knew. i found the bathroom.

King James Translation placed neatly on top of the back of the toilet.

i knelt.

felt in the crack behind the toilet. the envelope.

“it’s all there, the total amount, but i won’t be offended if you should take the time to count”

his voice was piping in from the drain in the bath tub. i sat on the edge of the bath.

“how are you doing that?”

his voice was like god, always near.

coming from impossible places.

“simple parlor tricks, i’m sure. they occur to allow the ‘ifs’ and ‘shoulds’ extrapolated from likelihoods; to digress, to help you digest that i am god and as such you must heed my every word and turn will to deed.. to make you say: yes, oh lord”

his voice piped from the drain in the bath, slowly circulating to the sink, to the vent above the sink and outside the door. always fitting its surrounding perfectly.

“thank you”

“thank you?” he croaked

“oh lord”

“good”

the clock in the kitchen down the hall, clicked slow and insistent. the pendulum, a monolith in space. shearing reality.

“stand up, place your back flat against the wall”

reflex reaction drew me back.

strings pulling me gently into place.

silent and perfect

my vision blurred. selective portions outlining a frame similar to a human. like heat in the air but in the shape of a silhouette. it seemed so real. i couldn’t breathe. all the air went out of the room. my throat was swollen and thick. it felt dry and panicked. something was choking me. it felt like a shark was gliding in the air. it couldn’t see me. i couldn’t see it..but we both knew of the other. with hunger and apprehension.

a rush of air knocked me down and i was okay again

heaped on the floor, crumpled.

neck hard against the bathroom wall.
the strings are cut. the puppet falls.

“we have another job for you”

i sat there, out of my mind and terrified.

“down the hall is a shelf, behind the shelf is a wall, brick and worn. the brick will wear where worn and yield to hammer and point..beyond where point will take to mortar is where you will find your next order”

..

“yield to me for i am god”

with that, he left. a rush of wind. the beat of great wings.

i went down the hall, frantic and dizzy. kneeling, reverent and dazed. i took a handful of books and stacked them to the side; i took another handful and another and another. Pushing the last in a frenzy, removing the shelf and pawing at the wall to find a weakness of mortar, a difference, a variation in color.

i stared and stared at the wall. i found a hammer and a screwdriver and started chipping away at the aging mortar. dragging the mortar out and out till the brick edges were raised.
but nothing

no signs, no hints, no suggestions of a clue.

exhausted, i slept.


..


i dreamt of meat. i walked in the woods. i walked a quiet wood. past a lake. up a mountain and down. i felt at peace. serene. and as if it meant nothing, i smelled raw meat on the air. i hadn't noticed it before. the smell was everywhere and everything. i looked down. the forest floor was meat, quivering like gelatin, but meat. i looked behind me at the path i just trod. my footsteps were a fresh wound. the trees seized. imitation tree bark. imitation moss. imitation leaves. rings of mushrooms. wriggling and writhing like a wounded animal. the world was fearful.

a loud crack. metal on metal.

i snapped to. like a snake cracked like a whip.

my heart beat wild, like an old engine trying to find its rhythm.
felt like a knife wedged in my chest

the apartment shook and stamped. the cold trains move a little louder through the cheap part of town. a brick shook loose and rested by my face. startled. fully awake now. i turned the brick over. and over. but nothing. i looked into the hole from which the brick fell. a small matchbook was stuffed in the back, i read it and knew my orders.

It's Nice To Be Nice

it’s nice to be nice. people around here always say it. it’s nice to be nice. it’s kind of our motto. and our town is nice. the post office is unlike any other in the country. no one gets upset. everyone goes at an even keel. and no one troubles one another. i heard of a town where everyone’s nice to one another. well that’s where i live.

it’s not that trouble never falls on us. i got my car repossessed. but the man was very nice about it. i was upset. but i was nice about it. there’s always a nice way to do anything. if you slit a man’s throat and offer him a smile, he smiles back. he sits and smiles. and in a very short amount of time, the man is dead. but at least he’s nice about it.

it’s nice to be nice.

our town was founded on this principal. its in the town charter dating back three hundred years. we like it this way. and we keep that tradition alive.

there is one amendment to this clause. if you can’t be nice. if you need to be mean. like you’re grinding your teeth down to nubs and it’s been building and building for years behind a smile that just feels so damn weary. it’s a great effort always smiling, the bones in your face ache with it. but yea, if you need to be mean, you are free to be mean. you are free to spit curses and drool madly at someone. but that someone gets payment in return.

in our town, where everyone is nice and for the most part happy. we trade nastiness in kind. if you prod your finger in your wife’s face, she gets to chop that finger off. if you’re just so damn mad that you’re willing to part with a finger here or a toe there, then so be it.

it’s nice to be nice.

in our town, where everyone is nice and for the most part happy. it is our civic duty to carry a cleaver with us at any time. this is very important. every man, woman, and child carries their cleaver with them. the punishment must be meted out at the moment of offense. it’s like when a dog shits the carpet. you smash that dog’s face in its shit. immediately. so it knows that it did wrong and can associate that wrong doing with its punishment. its the same thing with the citizens of our town, where everyone is nice and for the most part happy.

it’s nice to be nice.

ritual is key to our prosperity. when i do wrong. i know i did wrong. because my neighbor severed what was left of my wrist the moment i cursed him for keeping me up all night with his cousin’s birthday party. they are a wild bunch. but it was my fault for not addressing my neighbor with civility. i know i did wrong. i just let my temper get the best of me. i guess i’ve always been this way.

everyone in town knows me. i’m the mean one. the hot head. the one who doesn’t really smile anymore. they fixed that. my smile. i can be a mean one. and the more they take, the harder it is for me to keep my cool. i have to learn to keep my cool. i lose my cool. i can’t lose my cool. got to learn to stay calm. and smile. oh yeah. i forgot about my smile.

doreen the smiling queen. she helped me with my smile. pigtails and a grin as wide as the day is long. doreen in the yellow dress. it was her eighth birthday. her mother baked her a big angel food cake with bright yellow frosting. just how doreen likes it. her mother felt sorry for me. sitting all alone on my porch. propped up carefully in my special chair. reggie from the pharmacy built it for me. he cushioned it just right so i wouldn’t get bed sores anymore. nice guy, that reggie.

it’s nice to be nice.

anyway, doreen’s mother, nell, felt sorry for me. just a heap of nothing, all by my lonesome. so she sends doreen over on her birthday to give me a piece of that big yellow cake. she was scared, i think. but who could blame her. little girls at her age can be squeamish.

my flies got a whiff of that big yellow cake. and started fluttering about happy as can be. i could see beads of sweat on little doreen’s brow. she didn’t know what to say bless her heart. she just stood there mumbling. muh-muh-muh-mumbling. now i wasn’t as happy then as i am now, so i may have been a bit coarse. and on her birthday, the poor thing.

she said ‘why don’t you smile’

i said ‘why don’t you sit on a fire hydrant and spin’

i was just so mean. all the time. i should have said:

i don’t smile because

your beloved neighbors

chopped off my fingers

and then my toes

and bit by bit,

and year by year,

i became less and less

your mother chopped off my foot

when i cursed her

for not joining me at the town dance

she did it, right there

at the dance, for everyone to see

and my face was flushed

and my blood was up

so i cursed her

and bless her heart

she had to mete out

my punishment

as i spoke it

so that i would know

that i had done wrong

not just to know

but to feel it in my gut

that i had done wrong.

and poor little doreen. doreen the smiling queen. pigtails and a grin as wide as the day is long. doreen in the yellow dress. with tears in her eye, hiccuping wildly, never losing that big old cheshire cat grin. she knew what was required of her. and she took the edge of her cleaver, almost as big as her. she dragged the cleaver along my lower lip. and just like that i had a big old cheshire cat grin. just like her. and bless her heart, now i don’t have to force a smile.

The Quiet Death of a Low Creature

I.

i would get a call, late at night

with an address and a time.

a dull voice croaked at me

these little instructions:

where to enter, how to do it.

i made certain i was there.

i was desperate, getting worse.

days counted off,

i blink and watch my life pass by.

i was running my mouth off at the bar

to anyone that'd listen.

and this one, little guy, would just

sit there

and listen.

never said a word, just listened.

he stared at me and through me

but at the same time its like he wasn't there.

the wallpaper stood out more than this guy.

later that night i was watching

the shadows still in the corners of my room.

if you watch long enough, they come to life,

they seem to shiver

like boiling water that darkness vibrates.

i would wait like this

til the sun scared them off.

my record player was still spinning

long after the album was over.

how long had i been sitting here

watching dust cake?

a chill brushed past me and the faint

sound of paper made my ears prick up.

a small square envelope appeared

on the floor in front of my door.

someone must have slipped it there a second ago.

i walked over

unlocked, unbolted and opened the door.

no one was in the hall,

no footsteps fell on the stairs,

no one breathed,

no one made a sound.

i stood there in the hallway

just watching my neighbor's doors

readjusting myself to the silence.

if i stood still enough i might hear

a breath or the gentle beat

of a heart; someone on the other side of the door

waiting for the chance to move.

i just stood there, still as those shadows.

a minute passed

or maybe it was an hour.

i shut the door

locked and bolted it.

i turned around resting my back on the door

and slipped a finger in a gap along the envelope.

a slip of paper turned on its side

was all i found

with the words,

"sit and wait, and i will call," written on it.

lack of sleep, and my mind ground to a halt.

so i went to the kitchen,

filled a glass with three ice cubes

and a few seconds of gin,

turned a lime in my hands

with my fingernail up

and placed the ragged

green rind in the glass.

i stood in the doorway to my living room

trying to make sense of these small hours

a sip of juniper

and i sat down on my couch.

what could i do?

i waited.

II.

the ice didn't melt

it hardly had a chance.

i drank the first two glasses

as fast as time slips away

but the third lingered.

those shadows on my bookcase

got back to shaking

as i stared them through and through.

they were just as nervous as me.

i got up to pace, not feeling safe

behind that lock and bolt.

i stared through every inch

of my home to see

if there was a tiny camera

trained on me.

checked every speck of mortar

between the bricks in my wall;

peered through the blinds

to the building across the way;

studied the alley below

and each darkened car;

i labored over the frost

collecting on my window pane;

i studied the room intensely

as if it might get up

and jump

at any moment.

my phone

jumped to life

in the stillness

of the room.

it echoed

..

in the room

and in my head.

it jumped to life again

and i grabbed it quick

before it fell silent for good.

i didn't say hello,

i didn't say anything

..

a voice on the other end

cleared its throat.

"well," he croaked

"did..you?"

"yes"

"who are..what do.."

"oh now, let's not waste our time with all that"

his voice was thin and low, he sounded like death.

not foreboding and grand like the death of Man

but dull, like the quiet death of a low creature.

"i take it you are a..desperate man,"

he lingered on the word 'desperate.'

"how could you know that?"

"trivial things, best not to worry"

"but.."

"what is important..

is that i am someone in a position to help you"

"i can help you

if you are willing to"

he let a breath slip,

"attend to a matter for me"

"what sort of matter"

"there is a building on the corner of 19th and evans..

and past this corner is an alley..

and down this alley is a door that never locks tight..

and through this door is a very large and very flammable loft space..

and if this very flammable loft space were to disappear,

you would find an envelope

full of many

hundreds of dollars

would appear under the door

of your three dollar room"

"what are you offering here?"

"well," he paused, "a job"

i stood there

holding the phone

for quite some time

before he croaked,

"i trust the corner of 19th and evans will disappear, then"

"i'll have to think about"

"good, next tuesday morning"

"but i.."

"i trust i won't be disappointed"

the phone went dead

and i was alone again.

my glass left a large, dark ring

on the coffee table.

i stood there

watching the shadows shiver.

Insignificant and Small

insignificant and small. stuffed in an old coffee can that rusted just right.

i found it in the midst of one of my moves. its home was between an ‘i like ike’ pin and a small letter folded tiny and tight; letters written, never meaning to send. i systematically throw out the old nostalgic garbage i acquire, only to replace it with new nostalgic garbage. the theory is that this garbage is the best possible garbage to represent the sequential failures i refer to as my life.

it was one of those days when the momentum of a hectic life stops and you’re left reeling. emptied of everything, i sit down and look at my shoes. i debate if i really needed to put them on. or if what i really needed was to lie down for a bit. i stare at them and lose time. i snap back when a sliver of drool falls on my shoes. at least i’ll make a great flycatcher with my mouth slack and not a thought in my head.

i look back through the old coffee can and pull out the book of matches a customer of mine gave to me some years back. how did this make the cut? how did i not toss this out so i could acquire more garbage?

kosciuszko hall: “where the party begins and ends”

big bad wolf

a phone number

i dialed the phone number, compelled to speak with a long dead polish bar owner from 50 years previous

A Figure In White

steps up to a strange castle

home of dogs but not man

dogs watching but not calling

staring but never confronting

she lived on the edge of the bog

trapped by the forest

a single path in

trapped past the path

a knight called Sleep

came upon me

and i could not pass back

Sleep came for me

and i could make no move against It

unarmed, Sleep put a finger on me

and i passed out of light

hitting the ground

and coming back up

in an upside down world

the world was dark but i could see everything,

in myth they called this the Gloom

to see nothing but to see it for miles

like a negative image, dark and silver

the world was dark and silver

and Sleep was nowhere in sight

but i feel Sleep was all around

the world was a twin to my own

and so i tried to head back across the path

between the forest and the bog

but here, on the other side of the mirror

the dogs were men, mute and all eyes

staring but not calling

not a move to threaten me,

just to watch

in the edge, in the distance

a figure in white

appeared and vanished in the corner of my eye

when i looked there was nothing

but i followed just the same

towards the castle

but in its stead the castle was a small frail shack

made of bent willow and birch

it looked as though it would have flown apart if i touched it

but even with the low shudder and echo of freezing winds

it stood as sturdy as brick

i passed through the side

for it had no doors

and inside the figure in white

stood

it was a pale young woman

and she said nothing

and i said nothing

the air moved through me

and with a flutter of my eyes

the figure in white

appeared from behind

while she stood before me

and pressed a frozen twig of a finger

into my temple

and like a knife i saw pure white

and cried out in pain

and as swift as ever

i was back from the Gloom

and beside the bog as before

far from Sleep

but i stood before a blackened hag

as bent as birch twigs

as fluid as strands of willow

and dead silent

and there i stood not a man

but a dog

beside the other dogs

silent and staring

the hag vanished

leaving us to wait

as still as the tomb

and there i stand

waiting along the path

between the bog

and the forest

and here i will stand

and wait

But Not To Dream

when we got to california, what did we find?

when we got to california, where could we go from there?

we followed our dreams

from the dead heart

of a rotting nation

through toil and sacrifice

we left our homes

and severed our bonds

we dropped every penny

on a losing venture

we gambled and lost our way

dizzy and cheapened

we walked like kings

and when we found those promised shores

we stooped, and begged

just to survive

and the price of that wager was our lives

we followed our dreams

from the dead heart

of a rotting nation

all the way to the golden gates,

we followed our dreams westward

to the sea

where our dreams

dashed upon the rocks

and like a weight

set around our necks

we followed over the edge

the wreckage of our dreams made manifest

washed up in the tide pools

and the rooks and vermin

clutch at what became of us

and grow fat off our misfortune

when they mention icarus

aiming for the sun

they never flesh out

the fear and panic,

the rot and waste

that icarus left on this world

when he found the sea

so, the wages of daring

is ruin;

the price of a king's step

is found

in the splintered heap we become

when we got to california, what did we find?

when we got to california, where could we go from there?

and long after picked clean

what fragments and trinkets

that collect in the tide pools and surf

will be little more than a half-memorable

offering from the sea;

a caution that resonates

in some idiot sub-speck of brain,

the instinct to toil

but not to dream

Kosciuszko Hall, 1964

i’ve known this customer for 3 years now. he’s always been pleasant, interested in my work. he asks questions now and then but not in an irritating or prying way. he’s a curious man. from the casual 5 minutes we share before i treat his property, i have gleaned that he teaches high school math. and he looks the part; dry, monotone but in a semi-rural midwestern way. his glasses wouldn’t have been in fashion 30 years ago. all his teeth were gapped and when he spoke his tongue was a bit clumsy. like he had a speech impediment when he was young but overcame it with enough practice in the mirror. nice guy, normal and boring. but the world is lousy with people that look normal and boring but harbor a strangeness in them. 

he’s a teetotaler but not preachy about it. the type of man that has a club soda with lime at the bar and sticks around for the local color and some conversation. he always takes a handful of matchbooks as souvenirs. three of them. he impresses this number on me. as if it means something he’ll never explain. he takes them home and stores them in a small box he built to accommodate the size of a matchbook but probably about 20 some deep. he showed me a few of his pride and joy. matchbooks he would’ve been too young to gain first hand. some advertise war bonds. some bear the name of the old ‘sons of norway’ in palatine. i wonder if there’s some flee market mafia that deals just in old matchbooks. the artwork is beautiful, if not unassuming.

i wouldn’t pay too much attention to this customer but something about him makes me take note. chuck remembers my name by the sound of my voice when i call. 

‘hi this is..’

‘henry, how you doing’

he always knows within 3 syllables time which i feel is a bit odd. i don’t think i have a notable voice. but who knows.

chuck knows that i take care of my folks. that i came back from grad school. that i wanted to be a teacher, like him, but got lost along the way. i guess that’s just the way it goes. we get lost along the way. he knows i make something in the neighborhood of nothing. not enough to move upstream. just enough to drown away another year. and then another.

i keep it brief and detached. but he can tell. people may listen for shit. people may lack empathy. but they can tell. you linger just a little. your smile is just a touch vacant. looks like a smile but something about it says there’s something missing. people know when you’re a glass half empty. or in my case, a glass that broke.

he back hands my arm.

‘ya know what? i want you to have something.’

he runs into the garage, pulls out the small wooden box. thumbing through his collection like he knows just what i need. this is the key you need to open the attic. this is the potion that gives men the strength to endure.

‘this is just what you need’

hands me a matchbook. Kosciuszko Hall, 1964.

‘where the party begins and ends’

on the inside, it’s down three matches. with the words ‘Big Bad Wolf’ and a phone number writ in pen. just a little faded.

‘you look like a Big Bad Wolf’

i give an honest grin and tell him i have to run. i shake his hand and head to the next job.