hmm

I’d drink away the day, but there’s still tomorrow, and the day after. A rest? I don’t know when, and it’s getting to me this perpetual motion, the pendulum that never slows down, and I am running out. Nothing left really. I just keep going, not knowing when I’ll fall down, and if I get up. I don’t think so, but who cares. Another day, and I still don’t care. What’s the use? Damned if I know, and maybe I already am, but still ignorant.

As An Amazonian

So you want to know about the Amazon? Well my experiences are different since I work here, but when I’m not working, I love being here. The working here is the hard part. People expect you to work miracles where there is hardly even god. But that is not the part worth telling.
If you can imagine a slow pace of life, think of that caught by a slow motion camera. You don’t wear a watch or worry about the time. You know there is light enough in the day and you know when it is night. What other great distinctions in the day are there?
Everywhere there is green with a little color here and there, but not like people expect. People expect there to be flowers everywhere, but the flowers are hidden. You have to find them. The animals are elusive too many only coming out at night. Only the monkeys break this pattern. You will hear a troop noisily passing by, and when you look up at them, several are also looking down at you as curious about you as you are about them.
In the middle of it all is the river, but not as most people think of a river. This river looks to many more like a lake than a river, but that is its size(and I am only speaking of the Rio Negro the largest tributary of the Amazon not the Amazon itself), and true to its size its impact on the region is great. When the river floods during the rainy season, the way of life changes. Fishermen become hunters, trees spend 4months underwater, and everything swims because there is no way around it. When the waters recede the men fish again and the animals have a wider territory to roam. The Portuguese underestimated the river and suffered when they made their capital so far up the river during the years of the rubber trade. 6 months out of the year they could get their ships up it, but when the river dropped, they were stranded. Life here is centered around the river and knowing it. Even travel is dependent on the river, unless you can afford travel by plane, which few here can. True to the pace of life is travel by river. A trip that takes 1 hour flying takes 36 hours by river, but I can think of no better way of seeing the river than by 36 hours on the top deck of a river boat with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other just watching the trees go by, to see the differences and pass among the islands of the floating grasses. Stress doesn’t exist because there is nothing to cause it. There is enough food for the day and nowhere to be at any particular time. Only if you try and bring work here does stress exist trying to plan things out and be on time. If you try and schedule things, they will most likely be late because being late isn’t even a consideration. Simplicity is the best description of life here, until you get to the city that is.

Don't Fall Down

There is no loneliness like working in the middle of the Amazon, a loneliness that kills solitude. Your head tells you what you already feel and keeps telling you until you’re too sick to stand it, but there is no escaping, no leaving. Work is all you know, and sleep is a bad memory taunting you with what you can’t have like the women that used to occupy that empty space beside you. The people that surround you want something from you, and to that end they pretend to like you, but you know. You see it in the change when you can’t give them what they want, even though your waking hours are spent in getting them what they want, though you can’t get it all, and they despise you for it.
You are surrounded by beauty, but you only see it in the periphery in passing. Nothing is more painful than such beauty without a moment to savor the sight, and you lie down for a few scant hours unable to sleep finally passing out of this realm with the hope that tomorrow won’t come, but it’s already here, another day where you don’t find the strength, you just keep moving so you don’t fall down. One day at a time is too much.

an old story

What is it about a woman’s back that is so sensual? The hair falling over the shoulders, the curve of the white shoulder blades, the knots of the spine leaving a disappearing trail. It was only a painting, no one I knew, but it was also all the women I’d known, the ambiguity of those shoulders, the dimples just above the jeans. And here I sat alone at a bar in daylight thinking about a painting that reminded me about all the girls but none in particular.

But she had invited me to a party she knew I couldn’t attend. But why invite me? Was it to remind me she was there in that far off city, and I was here… alone?
Suddenly I felt old. 28 is only a number, but years can be weights attached to memories, and when that’s all you have, you wonder, was it worth it? Doesn’t matter now. You can’t take it back redo what has been done. I never loved any of them, and they never loved me. They were company, and I was an escape, though I’m sitting here now alone not going anywhere especially not there not again. The last time was enough, and I’d not return until she is gone.

Storms in Chicago meant delays all day and my ride had gone leaving me at the airport trying to get on a plane, any plane, instead of waiting on my own. I ended up sitting at a wine bar not talking to the people next to me occasionally checking to see that my flight wasn’t going anywhere. Tempranillo was what I had too much of and I bought another bottle to take to her. A couple more glasses of something red on the plane, and I was drunk on the brown line trying to figure out where to go.
Finally she answered her phone, told me where to get off, and I rolled my suitcase to a stool where the ride and the wait were sobering me up, but I ordered a whiskey to fix that.
Hair stuck to her face because of the rain and she came up behind me thinking I hadn’t seen her tussling my hair saying how long it was before she sat next to me. Looking at my glass she began to ask me what I was drinking but stopped herself knowing it’d always be the same.
She ordered a cosmopolitan and leaned in close to me. But what was this? I didn’t know, so I leaned back in my chair away from her.

When do you get to that point?

Where returning is just not an option any more. I’ve been close before, but never this close. 4 years ago I hit a breaking point that sent me to the hospital, but I’m past that point now. I’ve learned how to deal with the stress, but you can only deflect it for so long, and I’m there, but there is further that I need to go. Emotionally I am very fragile, but my will is very strong, it keeps me together, it lets me do things normally I wouldn’t be able to do. That’s the problem. I can push myself too far like the swimmer who has swam out farther than anyone thought he could, but with not enough strength to swim back, and I don’t know if I’m there yet. I almost think it’s similar to combat fatigue when you shut off all the internal warning signs and you rush out in front of the enemy unafraid, and that’s the problem. You need that fear to tell you when you’ve gone too far. I don’t feel that anymore, just a dull ache. The build-up of stress and lack of outlet for my creative energy should have put me in the hospital again, but it hasn’t. I’ve gone longer than I ever have before without a break, a time to recharge, and I can feel it in the back of my mind where I keep pushing it because I need to keep going. But can you be the last person to jump ship with the captain standing there knowing there is still a chance of saving the ship but the hands that could have helped went away to save their own lives. When the captain is your own father, and you are the only one with the courage to stand beside him knowing if you gave up he would give up but not abandon ship. Could you live with yourself knowing you could have stood beside him and saved the ship, but you didn’t, you ran away. These are the questions I ask myself, and I know the answer. I can’t not stand beside him in these times, even though, I know the cost. I have never been so tired or burnt out before. I no longer have a breaking point, and don’t worry about the cost, just the end result. If I can make it and help him, then I can return to the life that sustains me, but only then. Wish me luck, I’ll need it, and I haven’t had any in a long while.

Only a Dog?

My only hope for humanity
Lies in a dog

Looking in the mirror
I realized
I lost my self
But I can’t remember when
Or where

She puts her head in my lap
And I can feel a love
I didn’t know
Or deserve
Everything else has
Fallen away
But this one thing
This
Keeps me holding on
For another day

In The Night

Love is a dream
And I am awake
In the night

Cigarette
After cigarette
And empty pages
With lines
That go
Nowhere

Lost again
And again
But is finding
Worth it?
Are you?
Lying there
Asleep

Questions
And answers
Amount
To about
The same
Nothing
When you’re alone
In the night

Losing Is The End Game

Fighting the good fight
Is still fighting
And fighters eventually lose
Though you don’t always know
When to quit

A Mask

I’m not ready to die
But I’m close
Long nights alone
Are better than ever
My head is company enough
When it’s not clouded
But I’m beginning to find
I’m too damned angry
At what or why
I don’t know
It just came out
When I was all alone
With no one to hide from
Was it always there
And I was just a mask
Can’t tell
Who I am
Or if I was any different
Under all those layers
I claimed were me

friday night

It used to work, but now it doesn’t. Staring at the wall noticing the texture differences; white and peeling. The wall unit is humming but not cooling. The night is hot and there is whiskey in the drawer but it stays there, and somewhere there is wine. Another Friday night and solitude is all I can feel anymore. Today never happened among the ranks of so many others. I thought about going out, for a second, but then I thought of people, who might try to talk to me. Better play it safe. I don’t like excuses, giving them, and they always ask. So I’m giving into that side? You never knew me if you were surprised. Turned off all the lights leaving the glow of the monitor as I thought about writing someone, but no, not tonight. I’m in too honest a mood for that. Instead I read old things I used to like wondering where I was at then, so young, too young.
The phone rings. I watch it light up without noticing the caller. I answered the phone yesterday. It was enough. I like the old songs, and they make me feel like something exists beyond my own thoughts. I believed in a god once, but I don’t know where he went. I was a boy then, and I believed in many things at the time. Now that I’m a man who believes in next to nothing and maybe nothing, am I any better off? Does knowing the truth help, or can you ever know? If I die before I wake, who will read my unfinished book? And those poems? Maybe I should get a safe and hide them. My journals too. Damn they’d be so intrusive going through my things trying to find an answer I left off the pages. That is the one thing I can protect from them. All their searching won’t come close, not even if they knew where to look. Why so focused on death tonight? Is it the darkness? My favorite time of day is when it’s over, and you can sit in the shadows of an electric light. Tonight it’s just my computer and me, but it’s enough.

BETTER THAN THE LAST DAMN THING

You drank vodka not gin, gin tasted like something, and it reminded you of things, which is best to leave alone when you just want to drink. There was a new girl, but it was best to forget her. She looked like trouble when she asked you how she looked, and again? No, it was time for some quiet. A few drinks in quiet, some music, and try to sleep for once. Was it the job, the city, or the girl? Stop thinking about the girl, you’ll never sleep that way. It was time for nothing, not even forgetting. That took too much effort, and you were tired, of even trying. Tomorrow there was enough to do, but for today? There was vodka.

It was so god damned easy when you knew the world, knew what to think. But then you got closer, took a look around. And now? Fuck that, you were fucked up and you knew it, but you didn’t know how, and that was what bothered you. Because if you knew, maybe you could fix it, but like a modern mechanic without his diagnostics set, you were lost or at a loss, however they say it. Damned if I know was a common enough expression, but you were using it, for life with no other means of explaining the world you fell away from. Was it the beginning or the end? Damned if you knew, and maybe you would be, if you did.

You were a gambler, that is to say: a loser, in life and at the game. Even women went faster than chips, but that was it. This was the part you knew. Everything else was a blur, or at least you didn’t focus your eyes enough to see clearly, but why blame you? Who wouldn’t, if they could.

My lip was split
And I walked with a limp
I wished I had one last cigarette
As I was looking for my truck
But I had lost them last night.
Damn that girl
Damn that fool
I didn't feel like fighting
But it's kind of hard not to
When you're tackled
I didn't want to hurt him
But should have
It would have been easier
And quicker
Then going to jail
Instead I got to watch him cry
Because he got arrested
When a few punches
Would have stopped it all
He would've still been crying
But neither of us would have been arrested
And the girl
Fuck her
Not literally
But let's just say
I'm only buying myself drinks
From now on

just a story

With 100 dollars left in my pocket, 50 went towards whiskey and the other 50 went towards a girl. It had been awhile since I’d been on a date, and I was in a good enough mood when I asked her, so I came off as charming for once.
Dancing was what she wanted, so we went to this place I’d heard about that day that played 80s music on Thursdays because I wasn’t much of a dancer, and nobody gave a damn to how you were dancing when it was 80s music.
She put one hand on either side of my face, said she liked me beard, and kissed me. Her kisses were like knives, and later that night one of them got stuck in my chest as she was looking up at me with that smile that hurt even worse. I could still feel it days later renewing that hole each time my heart beat against its tip.
I knew how it would end, it was always the same. I was too sensitive for the one night stands, but somehow I couldn’t stop myself. She loved me for the night, and the morning after, that was what the whiskey was for. I poured myself a tall glass and contemplated the other side of the bed, that was now empty. That’s all I could manage, a night. The life of a nomad doesn’t lend itself to any sort of stability, especially among women. I drew them to me, those ones that were worse than I was. I would have taken them with me, if they stayed, but they never did, and I never had to live up to my promises, though once I’d like to try. So many people I know regretted their lives, but I didn’t regret anything, I just had little pains I carried with me like the many tattoos across my back. I told them how easy it was, to get away, but that wasn’t it. They were afraid. It takes a certain carelessness for that kind of life, and the people I talked to were too tied to their security to get away. They lived vicariously through me, but it was the same as watching TV, they were trying to escape their present lives by stories my own or those that lasted 30 minutes commercials included. Sure I didn’t own much more then you could put in a suitcase, I had no house, no steady career, no steady relationship, but my passport told a story most people had trouble even imagining, that was until someone stole it. If I ever found them, I’d cut their heart out because that was everything I owned in that bag, and they probably just traded it for drugs: passport laptop, journal, books and all. Damn junkies. It happened at the worst time it could happen, but it wasn’t the first time I had to start over again. Maybe it was a good excuse to start over again, get a new passport with fresh pages to stamp, write a new story that was unlike any of my other pieces, and just get the fuck out of here. It could happen easily, but still… if I found him or her. Yes, even if it was a woman I’d put my gentleman’s honor aside because if you’re low enough to steal someone’s life, then what else sacred won’t you tred on? My wallet was easier to forgive. I’d forgive someone if they were hungry, I’d been there many times, and I’d be there again soon, but this, was too much.
The whiskey tasted good, and I was glad I had splurged for once. It almost made me forget, almost. Friday morning late and the sun was coming in the motel room window making me think I should go outside. I thought I remembered seeing a park nearby as I drove into town. Looking in the mirror above the dresser, I remembered something she said. Fuck it. So I took out a bic razor and started to work on my cheeks. It took me about an hour because the damned thing kept clogging up because my beard was long and those bics even clogged with not much more than stubble. When I was done there was only a mustache and a soul patch left, and I felt much much better. Change like that is like shedding skin and slithering off somewhere else.
I had a plastic cup that didn’t look suspicious, so I filled it halfway and set off to find that park. I laid under a tree reading Kafka the grass feeling nice in the shade, and thought it funny that it happened to be Kafka. He always made me feel the world like a millstone, too heavy for me, but it was nice today. A weight dragging me down was better than the marks she had left. I could always get back up even from the lowest depth, and sometimes down there was a nice place to hide.
There must be something I can sell, I thought walking back. I needed just a little, enough to put gas in my truck to get me out of town, or maybe I could find out where the day laborers waited and see if anyone would take me on. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t because mostly they wanted Mexicans they could get away with paying next to nothing because they weren’t legal, but occasionally you would find someone who wanted to give a down-on-his-luck American a hand. At least that’s what I told them I was, and it made them feel better about themselves.
Back in my room I noticed I had gotten a little tan even though I had been in the shade the whole time. I never really burned unless I was on the equator, I guess it was the Cherokee in me, which was nice because I hated peeling. I didn’t really see anything but 2 books, a journal, and that bottle, so I headed out to test my luck, which I hoped was improving.

A Leaf

I woke up in a shade of grey. In my dream I had been in love, and when I awoke, I was not. Last night I read again for the first time in months. I recovered some of my poems because a good friend had been safe guarding them. That was one small victory in a long string of defeats. It didn't make me feel the tide was turning, it just made the losses stand out sharp in contrast to that old battered folder. None of my other writing survived. Things can always get worse it seems. After losing my job, not recovering any back pay, and selling all of my books and camera, I thought nothing worse, but worse is always a possibility. Without the comfort of my books or anything else, I feel like a leaf blown around in the middle of the street with no where to go. Today is all about figuring out. Maybe I should let the wind take me where it will. Maybe I'll be gone tomorrow. Who knows? I'll send you a postcard if you like. Maybe it will reach you.

written while driving

A super hero
Was what she was looking for
By some mistake
She found me
I’d left my super powers
The same place I did
My childhood
That dark closet
Back in Ohio
I couldn’t save her
I didn’t even try
Though I did run away
With her
Until she ran away
From me
Ran down completely
I heard
From someone
Who knew her
Longer than I had

Some nights
I wake up
Remembering her
And how
When I was on the edge
In the middle of the night
She would push me back
With those words
I believe
I believe in you
She was the only one
Back then
Not even myself
On most nights

Who Knows?

There’s always some other girl waiting around the corner, but instead I walk straight listening to the wind in my ears thinking of turning the other way getting a beer, but damn I’m broke, and that bar would break me for the week. Instead I find my old truck missing the side mirror, and drive away to dinner at home, alone with a few beers that was all that was left in my fridge. Afterwards I feel like going out, but I pick up a book instead. I’m saving up, I’ll go out tomorrow night I tell myself, but in reality, I’ll probably be doing the same again. I don’t know where I should go anymore. Too many couples, and I’m not as good a third wheel as I used to be. I wonder where all those conversations went, that meant something, but it’s too late to start over with the same people, that only know me in a certain way.
Maybe I should go away. Find myself again, or stop pretending. I’m not entertaining anymore. My stories have dried up, and I don’t feel like talking to anyone, unless… but no he’s not here, and I may be gone before he resurfaces. If letting go were losing, than I’ve already lost it all, and there is no reason. I should be going. I always found a way, even when money just wasn’t there. But I don’t go, anywhere. I just sit here, retreating further into who I was, if I could get there again, but not that far back.

It's Not Midsummer Yet, So Why?

I wasn’t supposed to be in that town at that time, but I went looking for a certain girl. I stopped at her old landlord’s shop, and inquired about her. Being a pious person, he informed me that he had kicked her out since she had a child out of wedlock, but he knew where she was staying. And I was familiar with the address.
As I walked into the house where she was now living, since the door was wide open, I noticed a baby on the floor, which I assumed must be hers, though I was surprised to find a baby that didn’t look new born, but months old. I couldn’t quite tell since my experience with babies is limited, but it wasn’t pink but fat and sitting, which told me something. She came rushing into the room to greet me scooping up the fat baby as she did so. It had been awhile since I had seen her last, just under a year, and I wondered how she had had a baby without my knowing, and why she hadn’t told me, but I didn’t ask her just yet.
We talked of old times and such, where she kissed me on the shoulder, something she had never done before, and looked up at me with imploring eyes, though I couldn’t tell if she was imploring me for help or to come back. I asked what she was doing now, and she said she got fired from her job because of the baby, and was now cleaning houses; one of the lowest jobs you could get. I was surprised because when I had last seen her she had been working for the government and finishing on her degree at night. It struck me as very sad that someone who had such a promising future was now doing a job only uneducated people did.
As I was leaving, I asked about the child, and she said it was a year old. When was she free from working, so I could stop and visit? Every day but Wednesdays. That wasn’t enough work, I thought. She must be starving with her little one.
Now in the street, I started calculating. It had been over a year and a half since we had been dating, which meant that the child had been conceived while we were still dating, but it wasn’t mine. I knew that for certain. I had heard rumors during that time, but I never believed them, and now? I had confirmation. I stopped feeling sorry for her as I walked away.
Then I woke-up. I felt like calling her and asking her, but I felt even sillier for wanting to confirm that something wasn’t true, that I already knew wasn’t true, but still… Then I started going over it in my head. Why would I ever be there in June? Why would nobody have told me, especially her? That town was impossible to keep secrets in, even if you wanted to. And where was her mother, whom she had lived with?
While in the shower I was shaking my head at such dreams, and my dog scratched at the shower door, so I opened it and splashed her. Then got dressed, and went to work thinking I would need more coffee today than usual.

To a friend in a far off place.

If I found you again, there are so many things I like to tell you, but somehow I think you don’t want anyone to find you. Like how today all the names I’ve forgotten didn’t bother me, but those few names I remember are old wounds that I feel today because it’s cold, and one name in particular left a scar that hurts whenever someone accidentally bumps into it. I’ve been feeling alone lately. No one seems to know me anymore, maybe I don’t know them, or maybe I just don’t know. Even my muse is quiet, and I’ve been living in silence for weeks. For months I’ve been losing the war against myself even though I’ve tried every trick I know to win out. I stopped drinking so much, I started eating healthier, I started getting more sleep, and I started working out again. But still there are days I can’t look myself in the mirror, even though I look better than I have in awhile. Some people say I’m depressed, and that I should take some things for that, but they don’t know that I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember, except for flashes of childhood. So why would I want to change who I am just so that people could see me smile? I hate my smile anyway. I don’t think I have the kind of face that wears a smile well, and even though I’m not in the best of moods, I think that it’s right for today to be dark and cold because if it were warm and sunny, I don’t think I could have gone outside.
I feel like I should write today, but I can’t hear my muse. I’m thinking of going away, and not telling anyone. Maybe then I could find some peace, sleep through the night, and start to hear my muse again. I remember you telling me about a farm. I wonder if you’re still doing that and where. It’s funny in a sad way to think of how you among all of my friends, were able to understand me best, though we were always going in opposite directions. It’s starting to snow, though it’s almost April, which reminds me of being a child struggling to build a snowman when there really wasn’t enough snow. Back then I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t know sadness yet. I just was, too deep I guess. Something got in, and I could never get it out. I put this letter out there knowing you won’t find it, but if you did, you’d understand.

I can't go into Recycled w/o buying a book.

When nothing else feels right, there is something comforting about books, but only old books with past lives that you can feel speaking to you from the pages making you feel if someone were to open a book while you were there, that your life would bind to the pages, and when they returned the book to the shelf, you’d be home.

Back Again.

To start again is what scares me. As long as I don’t look at it, I can convince myself of its worth and believe that at some far away date, I will finish, and it will be everything I ever expected and more. But to sit down and open up that file and again, and begin the process of beginning again, that makes me take a serious look at what I actually have in my hands, and the next step is even harder: picking words like apples hoping none of them are rotten and will spoil the rest.
The hours I’ve spent working on it are a weight in my stomach making me sick worrying that I’ve wasted them all, those hours. But won’t I have wasted them if I go no further than all the pieces lying on the floor waiting for me to sew them together into something beautiful rather than some disjointed Frankenstein’s monster that I’ve made making a mess of all those perfect parts? Fear of failure is worse than failure because your fear and only your fear is the reason for your failure letting inaction become the deciding factor. Fuck it. I’ve begun again. There is no other option. Progress has been halted for so long because of other things. Now that I have the time, I will put those 2 years behind me, and make something out of it, or fuck it up. Damned if I care. I have no right to complain anymore if I don’t do something.

the price of breakfast

The booth became smaller as my grandfather turned talk to religion and marriage. “You need to find a good church and a nice girl to be your wife.” The song “gives you hell” was playing my mind, which only made me think of becoming famous, so that all the past girls would regret , though I knew I was kidding myself, though if I let him just keep talking he would think I was soaking it all in never imagining I was thinking about what my next failed relationship was going to be like, and how we’d run across the country before we got bored with each other. “Denton Bible Church has a large congregation. You should be able to find a nice girl there, though I can’t say anything about whether their theology is sound or not. You’ll have to look into that.” I didn’t tell him that it had been over 4 years since I had been to a church, and that I wasn’t planning on it anytime soon.
As our meals were brought and my coffee refilled, I realized this was why he had invited me out to breakfast, but I rarely turned down a free meal, and this was a valid excuse for being late for work. My father owed my grandfather money, so my father went along with whatever my grandfather said.
Then he asked me what worldview I was taught, and I’ve studied religion enough to bullshit my way through this discussion, I knew, and he was satisfied with my answer. I hoped it would end there because I was full and already had 5 cups of coffee, but no. “Your grandmother and I were both virgins when we got married.” I wanted to tell him that maybe he should have had this conversation with me 10 years ago, but instead I kept listening to the song in my head. “I started praying that God would prepare the right woman for me when I was a boy, and I knew she was the one because I tested it.” Grrreat, another grandpa story. This was going to take at least half an hour, but at least I would skip more work. It would have been worse if he had invited me to his church, but luckily there are no single girls my age there.
I ended up getting to work at 10 when I was supposed to be there at 8, and what was even better was that grandfather needed a ride to the airport, and Simon smokes too much, so that only left me. At 11 I was off to take grandpa to Love Field having only accomplished checking my email. Luckily the conversation was politics, on the ride to the airport, and I laughed to myself thinking that if we were in a bar we would covered every topic you’re not supposed to talk about.

An Old Clown

An old clown under a half-lit USA sign stares at me as I turn the corner walking away from the café. I feel like being alone, but I’m supposed to meet some girl. My Peruvian friend, Paulo set it up, or rather his wife did, because they seem to think I spend too much time alone. “You need a girl, and then you’ll stop being lonely.” “But I’m not lonely,” I tell them, and they don’t believe that. “Of course you’re lonely, you’re always alone.” They can’t imagine that I prefer my own company to some girl I can’t talk to because we have nothing in common.
“She’s a lovely girl, and I’ve already told her all about you.”
Great, that means she’ll expect me to say something clever, that because I travel I should have lots to talk about.
I’m wearing my last clean shirt, and I put out my cigarette before I walk in. As soon as I see her next to Paulo, I know the type. Fuck. What have I agreed to? But if I don’t go in, my friend will find me the next day, and give me hell about it because I’m no good at hiding. I always go to the same places, and damned if I didn’t have money to leave town.
They’d already had a few, “and why the hell was I late?” I made up some lie that would placate, and I didn’t say that I was stalling hoping they’d be good and drunk before I got there, so that I could slip off later, but it seems that it hadn’t worked, and they’re expecting me to be entertaining to make up for being late. Instead I slip out of my stool to get a drink, which I’m going to need. I get a double whiskey for myself and bring back a couple of shots hoping to finish what my tardiness hadn’t taken care of. When I get back I’m relieved to find my friend well into a story about his younger wilder days, though I can’t imagine him being younger or wilder. Something about a couple of girls he met while traveling Europe. Paulo has an endless supply of “dirty little stories” he calls them, and I’m happy to sit back with my whiskey wishing they’d let me smoke in this place.
After an hour and a half they’re both silly, and I’m looking for an out. It didn’t come though, and as we’re leaving, and I get her number, which I don’t plan on using, just to satisfy my friend. It’s still early, and maybe I can sneak into a show or something, so I call a friend who is always willing to open a back door.

Singing, “This I’ll be the day that I die.”

Shivering as I eat my chicken meal, which is hot but doesn’t keep me from being too cold, I take my book to the park and sit in my truck where the sun would keep me warm. The girl who took my order asked me about the book, but how do you describe Henry Miller taking about sex in front of a line. She told me it was ok she was over 18, but I couldn’t find the words, so I said it was good but too graphic for most.
I hadn’t shivered like that in years, but my teeth were chattering, so I wasn’t about to be another collapse. I’d eaten all my meal, but it felt like nothing, and I wondered how well they cooked that chicken because maybe I was dying of salmonella, but that’d take hours. Instead I reason I was recovering my sanity from lack of sleep. I wasn’t behaving more these days, just getting up on time. So what did that make me? Henry talked about his job, and it reminded me I had one, one that was counting to see if I was late, though no one knew when I left. I came back sat down, and thought about the midget and her dog that Henry was describing, nothing new today, except they should let me go home early, but they never do.

This Morning's Poem

It was the worst morning to wake up to
But I was on time
For once
That was it
Nothing else but the coffee coupons
Got me by
With a lady in the back seat sleeping
I had to open that door
It was Tuesday
The second day I was on-time
Ever
In America
Still no reason
To justify my occupancy
Behind that desk
Would they need me if I left
Or miss me
Too late to know
With trying to buy a house
In a town
Where my trouble started
Or did it end
Me that night
On a couch
My lady on the floor

A Few Words on Africa (no more than a few).

Descending from the clouds on a Thursday, my first view of Africa wasn’t quite what I expected. It was just another city with paved streets, houses, pools, and highways. Flying further in, Africa was still covered in clouds, though on the last break through the clouds I found a different city waiting for me. It looked like Africa was supposed to be: set in the Kalahari with dirt roads spider-webbing the countryside and only one highway leaving the city to other cities four hours away.
Luke was waiting for me outside of customs by his Toyota that would take us the 3 hours to the tribal capital of Botswana. After the first shower in 2 days travel we were off to his family ranch where he told me we would be hunting problem leopards. One in particular had killed off all of the horses, donkeys, and was working on the cattle. It was too smart for traps and wouldn’t come to a bait, so it would test all of our limits, the dogs’ limits, and Jako’s driving skills as we scanned the cattle roads looking to get lucky and find a fresh track we could chase down. In all we accounted for at least 4 large males, but the one we were after took us all of 3 days to catch a lucky break, and find a fresh track that more resembled a lioness than a leopard. For 2 hours we tracked it that day, but by 10am we were close enough to set the dogs on it chasing it for 8 and ½ hours that day. By the end we realized that this leopard had tested us all and found us out, and we realized just how smart this thing was, smarter than us. The next day, my last day, we weren’t so lucky. It got away, and Jako left us to go back to his plot close to Maun where he overturned his truck on the way. Luke and I had nothing better to do than cook a beer chicken while I finished up another hunting story. It was a good meal, and I was ready to be back home where things worked out better. I told Luke I still hadn’t finished the story, and he said I needed to come back in October, work or not, and we would get this leopard. So in 8 months I will come back and finish this story. I could tell you of all the scratches I got, how my skin burned, and the names of all the trackers, and their dogs but, I will wait until I have an ending, and hopefully his leopard will not kill as many as last year. In all 100 were accounted for between these 4 leopards, and some people told me, we should just let these leopards be.

The Second One Today

In deleting the emails from an email that no longer exists, I felt like I was losing something, even though I couldn’t read the emails anymore. I couldn’t say for sure who they were from, but I had an idea. All of those messages gone. There must have been over 50 of them lost to a deleted email address. It made me wonder about all the other emails. Would those stories be lost too? I thought about how I was that many years ago so naïve, depressed, yet optimistic. Am I any better today? I’m not depressed, naïve, nor optimistic. Where does that leave me? Nostalgicly alone?
Blah. If I weren’t alone at this point, I’d be like so many of my friends- tied down. Every day it seems I love/hate my life more. The uncertainty grows around me like a bamboo forest, and I barely have 2 dollars to buy a cup of coffee, but I still buy the coffee not knowing where my next 2 will come from, and all my credit is taken up by my travels. 5 months ago I thought I would be about to move into a house with financial security to some extent, but I’m worse off than I was then, though someone wants to publish one of my stories, one that I haven’t even written yet. So what does all this mean? Nothing much, that it feels like I’m going nowhere, but everything around me is changing and moving. Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up somewhere else, but I think not. Even today driving on the ice made me feel out of place. I wasn’t supposed to be here just yet. I haven’t driven on ice in 5 years. Today I feel like a fish on ice or a monkey out of the Amazon, and don’t ask me to explain because I don’t think I could.

The Hunter

I have told several people about my upcoming trip to Africa, and I have gotten mixed reactions. Those who have a problem with it, don’t like the idea of me shooting a leopard. I grew up a hunter, but for several years I gave it all up. I was even a vegetarian for almost 2 years, but when that ended (which is another story), I gradually came back to hunting. In Brazil I have been asked to kill several caiman, and necessity has led me to kill others. Now I will not pretend to be completely altruistic in my hunting, I rarely do it, but I enjoy it. Not only to I enjoy it, but I am good at it. Certain people like to kill things to kill them, which is why they kill them at a distance without ever getting close. I do not enjoy that type of hunting. If I wanted to prove how great a shot I was, I could just shoot cans at a long distance. Rather I like to hunt problem animals, which mostly requires a close encounter. The last caiman I shot had straightened a ½” thick hook to get away, and someone else had shot one of his eyes out. He had set up his territory where my employee’s kids swam, and once a caiman has set up a territory, they will always return no matter how far you move them. So I shot him at close range with a shot gun after lifting his head up with a long pole. The waters were safer for the children to swim, but still I enjoyed the hunt.
While I was in Reno for SCI, a friend asked me to come to Botswana to shoot a problem leopard, not because I’m such a great shot, but because I could make a deal to have what we needed to kill the leopard. This leopard has to go because it has been killing calves, 5 in the 2 weeks he had been in the States. He would kill it himself, but he needs dogs to do it, and I know someone who has dogs, and wants to come fishing in the Amazon. A trade was made, and I used all of my miles to buy the ticket because this has to be done right about now. Will I enjoy it? Probably. Would I do it if I were going to shoot it from a stand with a rifle? Probably not. It doesn’t seem right to shoot something that can’t even see you. I respect such a beautifully dangerous and efficient killer. This hunt will put the leopard right in front of me requiring a shotgun. It seems better that way.
I don’t mind people who don’t like that I hunt. If everyone was keen on killing, we’d all be in trouble, but killing is part of life whether we like it or not. We kill to live whether animal or vegetable. We all need reminding that killing is necessary at times, but needs to have limits. Am I trying to justify myself? Not really. If I were, I wouldn’t tell you how I enjoy the hunt.

A week on the boat

The alarm was the sound-trac of my life going off 3 or 4 times a day never quite leaving me. It was 7 notes played on a xylophone then repeated, not the kind of jarring alarm that drags you out of dreamland, but a soft call that you follow not realizing you are waking, so that only sometime later you realize you are awake, though you are not certain of it because that call still plays in your mind. At times of concentration it resembles a child angrily banging away the notes somehow in rhythm, and other times a soft whisper like the wind intently blowing on the keys. This gave the impression of always waking from a dream whether it really was a dream or you were waking from life, and some many days become lost this way.

On my way back.

A year of planes and hotels hadn’t gotten me any further. Certain things were burned upon the memory, and no amount of alcohol, women, and drugs can rub out the mark. How was I to know she would be one of them?
On a plane again watching a romantic movie, that almost makes me sick, just to pass the hours drinking an Irish whiskey for the first time in months. I looked in the lavatory mirror seeing the red intersecting the whites of my eyes from the inability to sleep despite the months of lacking, and the dark semi-circles are an even clearer sign. I feel old, unimaginably old that my 27 years multiplies themselves by 10 or more until I was a petrified flesh still moving.
There was a place I had felt. Now? I didn’t. I wasn’t depressed or angry. I wasn’t… anything. I had opened the flood gates that had been clamped shut banded with iron for so long that everything rushed out, and there was nothing to catch it. Now I was an objective observer to my life and all the spheres intersecting. Life had become a scientific pursuit and all intrinsic interest had gone; only a noting of events, reactions, and causes. How long had I been watching? Not as long as it felt. Time was an hourglass turning circles, so that minutes and hours were lost to the sand never at rest.
whiskey reminded me. I had almost given it up, but what would have been left if I had?
I needed the placebo effect that told me I was numb, when it really wasn’t evne the whiskey. I hadn’t been drunk since that weekend, and I stared at my whiskey more often than drank it. I tried to think of another girl, but it was like trying to see inside a shadow with a flashlight; nothing lasted. Her smile was a memory I used to try and bring back a feeling, any feeling, but there wasn’t anything to bring back. My little emotional experiment failed, and I didn’t care either way. Just like the whiskey I drank, but never enough to feel… any different, just a habit like life lived objectively. The ink stains my white shirt as I write this down, but the inability to remove the stains doesn’t bother me. Just another shirt. I have others. Whiskey again, only this time they put ice in it. I’d drink it fast to not let the ice melt, but instead I watch the cubes sink into disappearing letting the flight attendant take it away. 1 hour left and my ipod had no charge, and my book has no interest. Instead I recline counting twitches of my eye lids…one…two…there.

boats and such

The boat was my home as much as any other place; always moving, though here I was more at rest than any other. The work was demanding, but not lasting long, and a monkey comes along as I write this to steal my pen, drink my coffee, and arrest my hands. I can’t even smoke a cigarette without him trying to taste it. Where did he come from? He is a stow-away, and a skilled one at that. As the horn was sounding the boat’s departure, he showed himself, too far away from the dock to throw him back.
A customer thought I was cussing at him, until he saw the monkey sitting under his chair. The boat is his home more than mine, though he has been evicted many times. The engine room is his comfort, as he is my annoyance. I never wanted a child, and I’ll be no mother to this monkey, though I have taught him a few significant things: don’t drink my coffee, and don’t chew the tobacco from my cigarettes, and don’t try to eat my books. This was all taught with a slap, and is occasionally reinforced with one, to which he responds by howling at me indignantly, as if he would scold me.
And after I’ve had enough of teaching him life’s important lessons, I grab him by the tail, and throw him from the boat into the tree to which we are tied where he has his lunch of leaves, and I can be alone again.
Another day as I type this up, he decides to share my lunch, though I know he has just come up from eating with the crew on the bottom deck. An idea comes to me, and I go into the dining room returning with one of last night’s caught caiman taking the duct tape from around his mouth. I take some old fishing line making him a harness the other end of which is tied to my table on the top deck. This quite distresses Nicolau which can be told from his disconcerted grunting, though what it more powerful than his fear of caimans, is his curiosity. If curiosity killed the cat, then the monkey was long dead before they came up with that saying. After awhile he notices that I pull the fishing line to position the caiman between him and myself, and he begins to tug on the fishing line himself to which the caiman responds by running after him. Howling he scurries to the top of the nearest chair where he continues his disconcerted grunting. After 5 minutes he is on the seat of the chair reaching his hand towards the caiman. Retracting and re-extending his arm several times towards the caiman, he pokes the caiman in the eye with the caiman returning a snap and him returning a howl. Having enough, I throw the caiman on top of him and he runs away with his little monkey screeches.
Finally alone, I ponder the river wondering if it knows more of where it’s going than I do. The trees are all half under water, but they don’t drown. The water is oppressive this season, and soon I will be going away with less in my pocket than when I came; almost not worth it. Not quite sure where I’m going until I step on dry land again, and we’ll see if these boots know where they’re going.