All morning I thought to myself, “Why wouldn’t I hand over twenty bucks to see music that I adore?”. So I did just that. Like 70,000 other people.

The Pitchfork Music Festival. Snobby shits that wrote reviews for snobby shits booked snobby shows for the snobby shits. Cheap tickets, unmissable lineup. It is wonderful being a snobby shit.

The train ride there was packed with halitosis-addled young music fans. One boy asked a girl, ‘What’s with the key hanging around your neck?”

“It went to my diary I had as a kid.”

Dear god, fuck you. I knew what I was going to be subjected to but when you face it there’s no preparation. I was an idiot once.

Once? Yes, I still am.

I didn’t know how easy it would be to find a ticket. It was sold out two weeks ago. I called a friend to tell him of my delima as I stood at the gates. I looked to my right and saw a guy holding a ticket in the air. He wasn’t saying anything. Maybe he was listening to my worries on the phone. How am I gonna get in? “Hold on a sec…excuse me are you selling that?”

“Yes.”

“Is it just for today?”

“Yeah. My friend backed out because of the heat.”

“Face value? Isn’t that twenty bucks?”

“Yep. Sounds good to me.”

“Alright. Here you go. Thank you.”

“Enjoy your day.”

“Thank you.” What a nice man. “Hey,” I said back into the phone, “I’ll see you when you get here.”

Destroyer, my main reason for coming, weren’t going on until two-something. I people-watched and then made my way to the beer tent. There’s a line for ID checking. Then the line for beer tickets. Then the line for beer. Step by step, question after question, and I had my drink. The sweat drying me and the beer filling my head with cloudy ponderings. I sat underneath a tree and took it all in.

A film crew asking people questions. Big, furry mic reminding me of the collar of a winter coat I had on when I met Patrick for the first time. He had on the same coat. I was with a girl named Kirsten. He was with Kristen.

Bikinis on strange bodies. T-shirts with slogans. Merchants selling wares. Juice-infused energy drinks with a misting shower. Food, porto-potties. Heavens, heavens.

Friends from many cities showed up. I left all of them behind to watch Dan Bejar imitate and yelp about paint and trains. Two hands, two beers. Johnny doing the same thing next to me.

The heat blistered and burned but we were numb so smiles showed our moods instead of words. Walking, smoking, talking, threatening, passing time.

Hours and comfortable hours, silently unwinding my inner clock, passed like a mute aunt playing euchre. Oblivious to nearly everything.

7:00pm and in my ears I heard my favorite song this year, “All Hands and the Cook.” The funeral beat charged the air and a distant, loud note tangled in the trees and brought me closer to my fellow heat stroke victims. The fabric was comfort and the basket that it made up was holding me in a natural state sleeping it all in.

The rhythmic gourd pounding the sound in your ears with sandpaper.

The drums pounding through the Earth’s mantle.

And stars. I saw stars in a city that I rarely see them in.

That girl from the train…is she seeing this? And does she have her diary. I want to write over the pages with marker a true dream and a formula for how everything will, actually, work out.

With each step I feel heat. Walking on air. Like doing push-ups on a ship sailing the sun.

No relief. No worries. I like it, as a whole.

People are nuts in the heat, though. Actually nuts.

The Pecan bows to tie her shoe and falls over. Her ass in the air looks like two halves. Bumpy and wrinkled like a sundae topping. Almost like a walnut, but tastes different.

Walnut grimacing. His shell layers thick. Sweaty and walking home from the office. The goal that bled though his eyes reads the same as almost everyone else…”We Gotta Get Back Into Air Conditioning!”

A special tool will break him.

A large, steel V. Encompassing his body. Breaking him. A horrible situation. Physics in motion. He hails a cab. “Fuck this!” screams in his eyes.

Everyone watch.

Macadamia skins everywhere. Red fingers tickling the air with their salty heart attacks. This macadamia looks fine…until he throws himself in front of a cab.

“No, you fucker!”

The cab driver skids to an inch before the crazy red-nut’s head. I was disappointed, along with the tourists surrounding me. “Awwwww…” dripped from our lips like melted glass.

In this heat there is nothing solid. Everything is soft and visible.

Flesh everywhere. State Street on a (heat index) one hundred degree day is a terrible thing to witness. XXL tourists gagging on their water bottles, stinkiy if you walk behind them. Not BO stinky, but fat stinky. Oil, popcorn, snack stinky. The worst. Tight-jean-shorts-still-creep-up stinky. Why are their crotches such a magnet for moving fabric? A natural defense againt chaffing thighs? (Pull up the cotton, boys! We got thighs turnin’ red!) In their eyes and out of their mouths scream the same thing – “Let’s go into this popcorn place. It’s air conditioned. And it smells like butter.”

The heat in Chicago makes the people go crazy. Instead of food, the beggars ask for water, soda. The Red Line conductor says, passing Wrigley Field, “It’s a hot one out there, but not for the Cubs,” instead of, “The Cubs are below .500 for the eighth year in a row.”

They find a fountain and lie down in the reservoir that can cool their body. What happens when their blood warms the shallow pool?

The lake. That huge lake.

Jump!

There is no escape.

The college-Yeah Yeah Yeahs-girl discontinued the ripped pantyhose and instead went for the short skirt-with-naked-legs-look. Nineteen-year-olds don’t look good like that when they prefer doughnuts to whisk(e)y.

Less interesting.

Fatter.

Only the Earth’s heat can bring it out with complaints and large-thigh-creaks.

When winter comes, these people will smile again. Instead of drinking water, unfortunately, they will eat again.

A lot.

…you have to walk through Chicago to get them.

It is 11:00pm and the neighborhood is just waking up. There’s a gang of twenty-something black males lined up on the curb. Police cars block both streets. No lights. Certain ones are unhandcuffed and pulling at their necklines. White T-shirts stretch a great deal. “What gang is that,” I hear the cop ask.

“Swords, man.” There’s a new gang in Chicago. The Swords. I love it. I will be an ally. A hideout.

The liquor store is right around the corner. The first time in there, the employee informed me that they “take care of their customers” and that if anyone tries to bum change off of me, they’ll “hurt them”. I told them that I could fend for myself.

I haven’t seen him since. Now it is a quiet one watching shitty TV overdubbed in Spanish.

When I walked in tonight, he was loud.

Bat in hand, he said, “What are you talking about?”

“I work at Jo-Ann Fabrics!”

“Why are you yelling, sir? Get out!” The bat was held like an axe. Straight down on the skull like a tree. Chop it down. Swing! Swing!

“You can’t treat me like this!” The customer was, for lack of a better term, Taz. He nedded to be tattooed on a Southern Indiana Junior High English teacher’s ankle.

“Out, Out! Fucker, out!”

I watched and smiled.

He left.

I walk to the counter. “Hey, man. Bad night?”

“I don’t know what that fucker wanted.”

“What did he ask for?”

“Condoms. We don’t sell them.”

“Why not?” I really wondered. He seemed annoyed with my question.

“We just don’t. Why? Need some?”

I wanted to calm him. The bat that he wielded was resting in the corner. I wanted it to stay there. “No. Just some cigarettes.”

Quick transaction. He talked to his comrade in Spanish while I paid him too much cash. The door rang as I left. The bar next door bustled with conversation and I looked at the sky to ask for rain.

Where did the irrate Jo-Ann Fabrics worker go? Was he watching me? I needed my new allies, the Swords. I wonder if we could get a walkie-talkie system going. This could be Code: Quilt.

Cover me in safety, Swords.

They were gone by the time I returned to the corner.

The broom out, getting everything except that fine line of dirt that backs you across the floor until you finally resolve to the vacuum.

9:30am I felt wonderful.

11:00am I felt horrible.

Eventually I found myself on Amber’s porch. She hadn’t returned home from work yet. I brought a few beers and a guitar so I sat and relaxed. I wasn’t about to pass that fucking dog again.

I had attempted to cross the yard and ascend three floors of rickety stairs. Selena, the hound, wouldn’t let me. I admit…I got scared. Fucker reminded me of the cover of the novel White Fang I had as a child. I can stay at home.

I got bored so I went through again. This time she remained on her haunches. Eyeing me with fucking night huunting eyes. Good god.

If it chrages I’m gonna sock it right in the nose. “Dog’s blood. It’s just dog’s blood,” Royal Tenenbaum said once.

Amber came home. She let me in. We watched Nilsson videos. William came home. We talked and I went outside to smoke. I realized that I needed to get home right away. I don’t know why. I thought I had a good idea but, always, three steps into it it’s gone.

Or two flights. Precious Selena.

I was thinking about my IDEA and then I suddenly remembered…that gigantic cobweb. If it went through a loose, beer-drinking bar girl’s nipple, it would look like the picture. But it wasn’t. It hangs between two handrails and a support beam across the staircase. It is an immense cobweb. The spider sits in the middle and watches you with eight eyes.

I wondered what it was like to be a bug. A lightning bug. Harmless. Sticking to a rope of glue. Leg after leg ponding closer. All holding up this island of death.

It would be like sharpened car bumpers, fashioned as needles, taking everything from you.

Claws against wood. Image gone. Selena’s charging.

Angry dogs are the only thing scarier than giant spiders. Maybe because they’re real.

I backed up against the wooden beam, spider be damned, and stared at her in the eyes. I was ready to break her nose.

And then I figured that it was better to just walk away. “You don’t want to explain the scratches and bite marks. It would be a tiresome story,” I told myself. I left.

Next time that bitch Selena is gonna get it Last Song on Use Your Illusion I style.

I’m gonna put that bitch in a coma.

In all of the apartments that I’ve had in Chicago one thing remains the same. Public transportation. Rather, falling in love with women on the public transit system.

The CTA.

Since being here, I’ve lived in a walk-in closet, a studio with an ex-girlfriend’s ex-roommate, a half-rehabbed crackhouse, and a gem of a place that I miss sometimes.

I now have the benefit of living in Uptown. (If you click on the link, you will see two tall apartment buildings facing each other. I sit between them. Last night I found out that the one to the right is called Crisco Tower for all the gay “tricks” that happen there.) Ten years ago it was different. It wasn’t a benefit. It was more of a sentence. One was asking to be raped living here. Then, as it happens every time, the yuppies find out that there’s cheap real estate and building after building are turned into wonderful, “affordable, quaint one bedrooms with hardwood floors and spacious living areas”. Luckily I found one that is owned by a precious woman that is just waiting to die. She informs me that her daughter will take over when she leaves.

This is not about apartments. This is about falling temporarily head-over-heels for the women on the CTA.

The #148 – Clarendon Express

This, for me, is the ideal bus to take on the way home from work. It scurries up and down Lake Shore Drive pooping people out at their destinations faster than you can fall asleep in the puddle of head grease left on the window from the prior passenger. It is rare that I ride this bus because, more often than not, I feel like I am running late and hop oto the first one that pulls into the shelter.

If I ride this one home, though, I know things are going well.

I am in a wonderful mood so the patrons are bathed in an exalting light because of that.

The girl with a pleated skirt and a black cardigan. Her forehead dry as a sidewalk…but not stained. In her lap rested her bag and a thick book, the title I couldn’t see. I wondered and imagined but didn’t stare.

Bored? Content?

Her legs sculpted like she took long walks. Hands not calloused, though. Easy job. Boring job?

She got off at Irving Park. There are too many possibilities for my whiskey-soaked mind to fumble though.

The business girl in New Millenium Stretch Pants listening to her iPod. It could be great or deplorable. All I know is that her ass actually fits those pants. Suprisingly. I know, though, that she is going home to, in her eyes, a wonderful man. A man that doen’t talk except for things that he heard on “Everybody Loves Raymond”.

An older woman, beautiful for her age (maybe 56?), sits next to me. “You know he’s gonna be on Charlie Rose tonight?”

“Who?”

“John Updike. He’s going to be discussing his new book.”

“No. I didn’t know that. What time is it on?”

“8:00 and 10:00.”

“What channel is that on?”

“Do you have cable?”

The book I am reading is Rabbit, Remembered. It is about sex with older women. Instead of pulling the cord to get off on my stop I wanted to dry hump this woman until we were thrown out, walking the rest of the way to work. “No.”

“I think it’s on 19.”

“I’ll make sure and watch it. Thank you.”

“Sure.”

She got off at the next stop.

The #135 – LaSalle Express

Fuck this bus. I ride it when I don’t have cab fare. It drops me off in front of the Trump building under construction on Michigan. The drivers, the people…forgotten.

The #145 – Wilson Express

Always the sky. Always the waves punishing. Sit on the right side (which is the left side if you are to see the sunset while driving Lake Shore) and you will know peace.

Always there. Good to take downtown, bad to take home. Not bad. Acceptable. It just takes longer. But it comes on a more regular schedule. It is this that I rode home tonight.

Coming up Michigan, the “Magnificent Mile”, tourist after toursit boards, asks a question, disboards, and standing shaking head. “Fuckin’ Chicago” through their head.

As we depart on the same stop I wonder where they are going. The women. The army of them. The sheer multitude astounds me.

A woman sits across the aisle. Both of us sitting where we could have to get up for the elderly and the handicapped. Bus stop. Doors open. Neither of us look up to see if they are stepping, or rolling, into our “priority” seating. She is holding a book and a large bag housing carry-out. From an ethnic restaurant I guess, from the “HAVE A NICE DAY” printed on the side.

She doesn’t have a singular style. Beige business suit. She’s soft, though. Not a bitch. Tender eyes and hair that can be toused in a moment of pleasure.

This woman has secrets and I aim to find them. “What are you reading?”

She looks up and the sun is setting over her shoulder. Through the bus window. The volleyball nets are being taken down and the bathers are going home. It is because of her that I saw this. “Saul Bellow.”

“Ah,” I say. “Chicago’s Updike. Master of letters, describing the Neighborhood City.” I’ve heard my friends describe my glaring blue eyes. “Scary,” they said. I tone it down. “Have you read Herzog?”

“I’m trying.” She holds up the cover. Herzog. Pengiun Classics edition.

“How do you like it?” Her matching jacket-skirt coupled with the Bellow drove me crazy.

“Better when you leave me alone.”

“Wow,” is all I could say.

“What!?” is what I said to the patrons that I thought were looking at me.

“I have nothing,” is what I want to say.

I say instead…

“I have nothing except this…going through my mind the live long day.”

I describe this picture.

Because obviously, she can’t see it.

She looks at me like I am completely insane.

“Enjoy your Thai food!” My eyes fed an honest well-blessing.

“Why do you think it’s thai?”

“I would only hope that that’s what you would bring home to me.”

“Jesus.”

She was disgusted and so was I.

God, mom, tell me what a hug is again.

A new desert asking for rain and getting Dr. Pepper. Mariah, the loneliest girl in the class, raped in the shower by her P.E. teacher.

Starving for weeks crushed by the delivery of food from an airplane.

A scream in the mountains.

Beating the ground that doesn’t respond and can’t hear a fucking thing.

Performing to an audience expecting something else.

Jumping off a thirty story roof into NOTHING.

The clockmakers ensure that you won’t stop. The god makes sure you won’t forget.

The eyes won’t stop looking and the teeth won’t stop their chat-chat-chattering.

You’re in a world of noise, my friend, and those muzzles aren’t being made anymore.

It won’t stop. It can’t stop, unless everything burns.

But that won’t happen.

You purchased a bed but have yet to make it. The mess of sheets reflects the inhabitants of the house tossing and turning those sheets. A golden sunrise brings nightmares where the dark of night is lacking. Get up get out while you can.

Sleep is frightful and conciousness is hell.

You’ll drop off soon.

You can’t do anyhting else.

In sleep you fail.

In life you just don’t know.

The grandmother that won’t stop. The ones that do the impossible. Eyes that light up the room and show you how to get out. A soul that feeds not on your’s but on the radiance that you’ve always hoped you exuded. An eternal soul not afraid of dying. A life so alive that, when speaking, even the traffic stops. Machinery holding out for the next phrase. Sullied storefronts remaining open an extra five minutes in the hopes that they will come. Snowflakes in Northern Hemisphere July and sandstorms on the ocean.

Blood from the dead.

Mom would make me kiss Great Grandma Gussie on the lips every time we went to her house. The huge expanse sat in the middle of Indianapolis, an exciting metropolis for a six-year-old me. I witnessed traffic jams, blacks fighting, crazies cutting their small city lawns with kitchen shears. Truly a wonderful world.

There was the story of Gussie climbing to the top of her house to yell at the roofers smoking and slacking. There was the story of her toppling a display in a grocery store out of disgust for them not accepting her coupons. I only witnessed her broken, lonely, and medicated. In her chair next to the front window, she would pucker as soon as we would walk in. Physical touch was the only thing television couldn’t give her. Entertainment was our shortcoming.

While Annie, my sister, and I would play with a deck of cards and a herd of empty medicine bottles, she would tell stories to my mother. The time that the birthday cake caught fire. When Daddy Ed, my grandfather, got drunk and cussed out Aunt Vy. “Oh, but no one comes around anymore. Except y’all. Bless you.”

I went into the bathroom once and found a spoon on the back of the toilet. I asked my mother what it was for. “Well, when you get older your body doesn’t work as well as it used to. Gussie uses a spoon to help her poop.”

“What do you mean?”

“She scoops it. Like ice cream.”

Then there was her miniature shoe collection. Five shelves packed with small footwear from around the world. “Dougie and Michelle went to Amsterdam and got me this one.” “This one is made of porcelain.” “Don’t touch that one, here…look at this one.”

I was fascinated by the collection. The time that went into it. The love she had for these small replacements of her dead husband, looking on from a multitude of angles – his photo gracing each wall at least twice.

At the funeral I met many people that I’d heard stories about over the years. Cousin Doug with his small ears that became red with embarassment and a button mouth made for a trumpet. Jamie and her infidelity. Distant Uncle Bobby, fresh out of prison for kidnapping his own children from his drug addict ex-wife.

My family.

What did Gussie tell others about our family?

Mother pushed me foward towards the casket. The brass railing mirrored my timidity at approaching. The wood was cold and so was my nose. Her lips were even colder. Gussie’s lips in a pucker. Not an eternal one because it will rot away in about a year. Just for now, asking for a kiss. And I kiss I had to give her. One Last Kiss.

She hadn’t lived long enough to have a story about me, except that I was polite, blonde, and a “darling little boy”. I’m grateful that she left when she did. I would have surely disappointed her later.

The kiss.

Cold. Lifeless. Like a doll. A ninety-six-year-old Barbie. Life-size. Unkissable?

No.

With her teeth stapled shut it was impossible to smile, but a smile is what I felt.

I looked down and saw the velcro straps of my high tops not threaded through the plastic-lined holes but jutting out like a bayonette to the side. It was the style of the time. That’s how Doogie did it. I was looking down because I was crying, sobbing, because of an F I recieved on a test that day at school. I sniffled out to Tiger, the only other mammal there, “I’ll never be an architect, kitty.” His eyes squinted, cat smile, and he rubbed my leg.

I sat on the sidewalk and the heat pushed my head down. Ninety five and no rain for a long time, the begining of a drought that would last all summer. The grass yellowed and couldn’t cry like me. Tiger hopped in my lap and circled before resting in the home my indian style legs made for him. It was unbearable, him sitting there…fur and heat, but needed. “Hey, buddy,” I said and he mewed a response – “Hi.”

I removed him from my crotch and walked to the field, grabbing the BB gun on the way. On a day like this, I could lose myself in shooting the frogs at the pond. Hit them just right and they would flip on their backs, belly up, showing you where the BB went in. Deadly aim, the eleven-year-old me had. When there were no frogs, the water would be the target. A leaf floating. A reflection.

The field was not our property but that of a man in prison for manslaughter. He always seemed nice, except when we mowed the grass to the edge of the property. They would munch it, jump the fence, and wander acres and acres away. It was like putting candy in front of a baby for those horses, he said. “They can’t help the sweet taste,” he told my father. Sweet taste? How did he know? Was he eating people’s yards when he wasn’t manslaughtering?

Tiger always followed me to the field. He never seemed to go on his own. On the horse paths, which intertwined throughout the field, acres and acres of it , he followed closely behind. In the thick grass, the stalks behind me shook with a steadfest rhythym that to this day wells my eyes. True blind faith. While sitting on a rock next to the pond, he would chase bugs, sniff dead frogs (but never eat them), drink water, and stare at the spirits. I would watch him and smile. I tried to look at the clouds to find shapes but the only ones I found were clouds. In this tranquil state I sat and thought for hours. The sun left me time and time again, telling me to return home, but Tiger remained until my preadolescent feet clumsily weaved home.

This time, the day of the realized failed aspirations, my father’s voice broke the silence. He stood at the barbed wire fence. “Look behind you!”

I turned and saw two large, fleshy, oblong moons growing and shrinking. Eyes moving up, I saw the complete beast. A horse. It was smelling me. It was wondering what was at it’s watering hole. I jumped up, gun in hand, and sped. Tiger, encountering these mammoths (to him) possibly numerous times before, watched me in wonder. Then followed.

I raced through the weeds towards my father. I looked behind me and saw trampled weeds, Tiger, and the horse. Following like a marching band. Like they were tied to a string on my high top. In my mind the horse was out for blood. No matter how fast I ran, death was coming. Mine and Tiger’s. Dad was the only life jacket I had at that moment. “Throw me the gun,” he yelled. Like a Pekinpah film, the Red Ryder sailed through the air into his one-handed catch, butt-to-shoulder, aim, BLAM.

Right into the horse’s ass. It nayed. Stopped. Shook it’s head. Tiger and I crossed into our land. Safe.

“Almost gotcha, huh?”

“Yeah. That was scary.”

“Have you been crying?” My dad’s eyes squinted at mine. I know he cared, in his own way.

“No.” If I had answered in the affirmative, he would know what can be put off until the report card comes in the mail. Because of that F, I got a B in the class. My first B.

Tiger rubbed my leg, thanking me for saving him. My father didn’t exist in his eyes. Those magical, smiling, night-hunting eyes.

“You should take a bath. Didja shoot anything?”

“Just some frogs.”

The summer air brought clean oxygen and thoughts about Southern Indiana. The smell was similar. Barbeque. Sweat. Cigarettes. If it weren’t for the people, I might still be there. Limestone capital of the world. Home of astronauts, legendary High School basketball players, cheap homemade drugs containing battery acid, youth groups, quarry jumping, teen pregnancy, and guns. Smiles, heat lightning, tornados, horrific car crashes, hunting seasons (deer, squirrel, duck, and many more), handshakes, and trustworthy car salesmen. Really a fantastic place to grow up. Good things happen there and it’s the good things that I remember.

The Tunnelton Tunnel is home to the wildest, scariest folklore in the region. Built in the late 19th century, this tunnel stretches a half a mile through one of the giant hills in Lawrence County. Lots of dynamite was needed to pound through the hard limestone. Workers lost their lives daily, as reflected in the graveyard that sits atop this gigantic hole. Ghost stories abound, the most popular one being a railroad worker that carried a lantern. His job was to signal trains of potential hazzards (fallen trees, oncoming trains, etc.) and to guard the entrances from hooligans. In the middle of the tunnel, so deep inside the earth that you cannot see light from either end, cubby holes are built into the walls. The tunnel is so long that when trains pass through (at a high rate of speed) it creates a vacuum. These cubby holes allow one to step inside and hold yourself from the suction that is pulling at your entire being. Legend has it that this man was sucked under the train, beheading him. He walks the tracks, to this day, carrying a lantern.

I have never seen him, nor do I think anyone else has either.

Once, though…

We took a trip out there one sunny Saturday afternoon. The road taking you there was narrow, winding, and girded with some of the most beautiful scenery in the state. The last quarter mile ran alongside White River. Nestled on the steep embankments were the homes of “river rats”, uneducated hillbillys that were more frightening than any supposed ghosts.

After parking the car, we ascended the half mile trail that leads up to the tunnel. It is well worn with teenage shoes. Cigarette butts flavor the hillside and empty beer cans sparkle a welcome to those passing by. We made it to the top and decided upon a cigarette before entering. I don’t like smoking outside, usually, but in Southern Indiana its magnificent. I don’t know why.

We started walking. Our gravel footsteps echoed into one hundred years of nothingness. An uninvited grab always yielded a scream from your partner so this was practiced often. “What is that?” I motioned to two grotesque mounds of flesh resting on both sides of the right rail.

“I don’t know…” Her voice was skeptical. Her tone was asking me to leave with her.

Walking up, I realized it was a squirrel that had been cut in half by a passing train. The entrails spilled out into what looked like a spilled casserole. Beefaroni gone bad.

We winced and continued inside. Eventually the dark enveloped us and we had nothing but our voices to ease our accelerating pulses. It was quiet and still and the darkest black I’ve seen. I reached for her hand and nearly found her crotch. “What are you doing?”

“Give me your hand.”

A giggle spills but gives no color. This is the black of death. Buried alive. “Hey.”

“What,” I ask.

“What?”

“Yeah,” I said trying to play it cool but began to worry that there was a third voice.

“I didn’t say anything.”

It is a quarter mile both ways. If we are getting killed, there is little chance for escape. Vomit rose up in my throat. We both listen.

“Hey.”

It is clearly neither of us. Her hand rolls my knuckles into a concave knot. I can’t comfort someone else if I’m just as scared.

“Hey.”

“Yes?” My voice trembles and my feet are ready to flee. “Who’s there?”

“Hey. You gotta light?”

A flashlight turns the black into an off white. Dust is visible in the air, as well as grafitti, trash, and a small group of teenagers huddled in a cubby hole.

“Jesus Christ…what are you doing? You freaked the shit out of me.”

In rural Indiana, the term “country cruising” refers to driving back roads and smoking a great amount of marijuana. Travelling these roads one passes many a farm, general store, unknown town, and covered bridge. I was sixteen when I was invited for my first country cruise. My teammate on the swim team, Sam, asked me in the lockerroom after practice and I was more than happy to get a second taste of this drug. The first taste left me woozy and sleepy, but I was told that the second time is when you’ll REALLY feel the power of the weed.

We headed west out of town and found the highway that led past the Williams Dam and then into the deep country. Miles and miles of flat fields waiting for the next season flowed past my window. Brown, brown, light green, brown. The road is gray and our car is blue. The weed is green and everyone’s faces smiling. It seemed perfect to me.

The joint passed around. Community inside of a Chevy Malibu. I believe Cream was playing. Or the Screaming Trees. Rarely did Sam play anything else. Three of us bunched in the backseat and three in the front. The joint dwindled quickly, with so many thirsty lungs, and another one appeared out of nowhere. I was begining to feel high. And nauseous. “Can we roll down a window?”

“No, man. You gotta keep in the smoke. That way between hits its like you’re still smoking.” The guy that said this rarely went to school. His home life was a wreck but his sense of humor was one of the greatest personality traits I’ve ever run across. His name was Brian and he lived near the church that I was forced to attend. Most of the time I walked over to his house on a Sunday morning, got high, and met back up with the family.

We decided to stop outside of a covered bridge ten miles outside of town. With the car off, the stereo on, the smoke thick, and my brain attempting to piece together the situation, I was having the time of my life.

We talked about music. Brian and Sam were both proficient guitarists and I played many instruments. This is the second bond that brought us close. The first being drugs.

We talked about girls. Sam’s older sister was in the front seat. College girl. She was giving us advice but I wanted her to talk about sex. All I got was how I should treat a woman.

The guy next to me looked like he was five. I closed my eyes for a second and George Washington waved at me. The Statue of Liberty driving a semi and my hands wanting to move but remained motionless. I could see myself doing this again. I decided then that my parents were wrong and drugs were fantastic.

We were getting ready to leave and take a long, slow drive when a car pulled up, pinning us to the edge of the woods. The joint was in my hand and my eyes were on the headlights cutting through the smoke. It was so think I wondered if they could actually see anyone inside.

The red and blue lights decided to come on as well. Wow. When my father would have a bad day, the words that he said were, “Well, that’s the Rodgers’ luck.” I thought of the same thing.

Two white orbs and what seemed like hundreds of red and blue orbs gave birth to a single, smaller orb that approached the car. A spy, I thought. A diplomat from the covered bridge. What will the orb say?

It was a wonderful thing that Sam was driving and I was not.

“Evenin’. What you kids up to?” His flashlight danced from face to face illuminating one confused look after another.

Sarah, Sam’s older sister, was the first to open up. “We were just taking a drive and now we are thinking about where to go next.”

Sam and Sarah’s father was a police officer of over twenty years. He is a respected man in the community and the police force. “I saw you got an FOP badge on yer plate. Who’s your pop?”

“Steve Arthur.”

“Is that right? Can I see some ID?” Sam fished it out of the glove compartment. That is always the part in movies where the whole thing goes bad. A gun falls out or a pipe. Luckily this time it was only a map and his lisence.

“Awright…you guys have a good night.”

Everyone looked at each other. The laughter and the relief quaked underneath everyone’s expressions. Our faces remained rigid as long as those headlights were on us. When they disappeared, even the car could be heard sighing relief.

“Fuck, man!”

“Shit!”

“Thanks, dad!”

I rang in with, “Does this happen every time?”

Sam turns to his sister and says, “Poor Luc, man. This is his first time getting high!”

She looks at me and asks, “Really?”

I nod and wish that they would take me home. Not my home. Her home. College home.

Months later, we were talking about that night and I said, “Sam…that was the first time that I realized I wanted to sleep with your sister.”

“All my friends do, Luc.”

(Dreamt on 2/14/06)

The step down from the large SUV was a great one. As many health problems that both of my parents deal with it seems an odd choice for a vehicle. Complaints and groans rumble out with swollen ankles and barley used running shoes hitting the ground. The slamming of the door sounds insulated and sturdy. My ears hear chirpping birds, different songs in the woods versus the city, rather than ZZ Top’s Greatest Hits. Dad thumps his fist and moves his head to the blues beat. Mom looks out the window or sleeps or warns him of upcoming stoplights.

We’ve arrived at a camping supply store. The wood siding and “olde” look remind me of the Woodwright’s Shop, except for the propane tanks stacked three high and vinyl signs for PowerBars.

Dad walks towards the enterance while my mother and I stand next to each other silently. He picks up a propane tank, hobbles it back to the SUV, opens the back, and places it on top of the pile of camping supplies.

“Sam, you should pay for that before you stick it in the truck.” Mom placed a fist on her hip to show the seriousness of her statement.

“They might think you’re stealing it,” I added.

He ignored all words of warning. Were his hearing aides turned off? Was he stealing it? As I watched him, I noticed excited motion from inside the store. A small black girl was gesturing wildly. She could’ve been screaming. I don’t know. The door remained closed.

“You should respect her more, dad.”

“Who?”

I pointed to the girl throwing a fit. “You have no respect for people that work in retail.” I summed this opinion from his present rudeness and history of poor tipping.

“I’m glad I don’t have her job.”

“What are you talking about? You work at Lowe’s. You work in retail as well.” He saw my point and removed the tank, placing it on the ground with a mild thud. I looked inside the truck and saw my bike. I jerked and pulled until it was free from catching on the pile of outdoor comforts. I rode in circles, warming up for a long ride through the woods.

“I’m gonna head out,” I said as I donned my helmet.

“I think we’re gonna order some pizzas for the little girl in there and us. I feel bad. We’ll give her a ride home and see you later.” They started for the store and I rode to the campsite.

A friend and his girlfriend were waiting for me. I told them the story, embellishing parts to get my point across. THE NERVE OF MY FATHER!

Night came.

Morning came.

They had brought their cats. I didn’t notice them the night before, but I sure as hell saw them now. Two bodies, one tabby and one mancoon, lying on their sides completely relaxed without heads. The open, screaming mouths and lifeless gigantic eyes wet the dirt a few inches away with blood and other life-liquids.

“I didn’t know smurfs were in this part of the country.” He didn’t seem the least bit upset.

“Smurfs?” I responded while staring at the bodies, not the heads. The bodies were peaceful. Still asleep. Even when the flesh rots away those heads will still be screaming.

“Yeah. They’re little creatures that prey on mammals slightly larger than them, like cats. We’re safe because we’re too big.”

“They don’t eat them?”

“No. They somehow get all their nutrients from beheading. They leave the carcasses behind for their friends, scavengers called opossums.”

“I’ve heard of opossums. I didn’t know they had friends, though.”

He laughs.

My view changes to a fast-fowarded, underground tunnel. It opens up to a large, woody temple. The walls are fingered with the roots of trees and candles that rest in the eye sockets of cat skulls. A gathering of a thousand or more “smurfs” were splayed on the floor, dark earth and damp clay, listening to their leader. He was clad in nothing but fur and a headress harking back to a failed 30’s movie about King Tut. His language and his stare told me one thing: I knew that I was to become one of them. A one foot tall furry savage with no visible teeth and poison whiskers. Ears always cocked back, eyes firey with death.

After realizing this, everything disappeared. When my vision came back I was standing in the middle of a flea market in Indianapolis, Indiana. My hands held a songbook for Piano/Guitar/Voice entitled “Popular Songs With Jesus Added, Vol.9″. The whole collection, volumes 1-8 and 10-16, sat on a rickety shelf in front of me. I tried to figure out how, with no money, I would buy the entire collection. Love songs for Jesus. Fight songs for Jesus. Drunk Songs for Jesus. For some reason, I needed it.

A nurse that I knew long ago showed up. She was always sprightly and actually interested in what you said. She had been looking at homemade jewelry. “Really swell pieces” was how she described it. She had no money, either. My dad walked up.

“Dad, this is _______.”

“Hi, _______. I’m Sam.”

“Are we still going to Aunt Sarah’s?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.” Dad took the leadership role for the first time that I can remember.

The city council in Indianapolis decided to put in a rail system and my aunt’s house was on the list to be demolished. They were having a last hurrah, as if the place had housed many memorable moments besides eating, complaining, and falling asleep to holiday football games.

The roof had already been removed but no one seemed to mind. Spirits were high. The soda flowed like wine at a Roman orgy. Cousin Kate was there from Japan. Cousin Laura’s ex-husband got a pass from prison to be there. My sister and her husband refused to come. Mom was there and so were distant relatives. The great aunt that cheats at board games. The second cousin that enjoys hunting and getting girls teen pregnant. The grandmother that is convinced I am nine years old and the grandfather (Papa) that gets angry at open-faced sandwiches. I am holding a shoebox with the body of a cat and the head wrapped in tissue.

I wander away and find a room, solitary except for the absent roof. A performance for the passengers of airplanes and blimps. Since they are tearing down the house, I decide that it would be best to bury the cat underneath the floorboards. The thundering train overhead can’t wake a cat head that is eternally screaming.

The shoebox makes a “Fffffa” sound as I remove the lid. The screaming head, now silent and staring, had re-attatched to the body. In the vertical slits of it’s pupils I saw my destiny. I was to be a smurf.

I jumped backwards as it lept out. Each charge I evaded with side-stepping. I saw my mom standing in the doorway. She looked at me with eyes I’d never seen before.

“You knew that this would happen.”

“I know, mom, but can’t you help me?”

“There’s nothing I can do, sweetie.” She looked over her shoulder and laughed at something happening at the family party as she closed the door.

I dripped down the wall onto my ass and offered my neck to the smurf-cat.