MATTHEW AND CASSIUS GO BOWLING

Things seemed a little...wrong...to Suzie Tomlin from the outset. The moment the two men walked through the door of the bowling alley, her heart skipped a beat and all the spit in her mouth dried up. There wasn't really anything overtly different about the pair--save for the fact that tall shambling beanpole was wearing all black and sunglasses at night, who was that again that sang that?--but, regardless, Suzie stepped back a bit from the counter as the men approached.

"Hey, fellas," she said, forcing cheeriness into her voice. "How's it going tonight?" Up close, her disquiet deepened. The tall guy just really really rubbed her the wrong way. He had to be at least six-and-a-half feet tall and his long skinny hands, she noticed, were as white as sheets of paper. And the sunglasses that he wore, shielding his eyes, made her even more nervous. She was relieved, then, when the shorter, scraggly-looking man spoke.

"Evening, ma'am," he said politely. "We're thinking of bowling a couple of games. My friend here has never bowled and so I figured I'd take him out for a little slice of Americana. Bowling. Apple pie. Mothers. What's more American, y'know?"

Suzie thought of a half-dozen things, right off the top of her head that were more American than bowling and apple pie and mothers, but she kept her tongue and simply nodded. "So, two games each, hon?"

The short guy nodded. The beanpole stood silently, staring straight ahead, Suzie figured, directly at her. Her skin felt like bugs were crawling busily to and fro and she rubbed her arms briskly and stepped away from the counter. "Do you guys need shoes?" she asked.

The short guy nodded and Suzie angled off towards the shoe rack. "What size, hon?"

***

Five minutes later, Matthew Yoosip and Cassius were on Lane 25, right against the wall. The bowling alley was mostly empty, which suited Yoosip just fine. He slipped on his alley rentals and sat down at the computer to enter the names. "Do you want to go first, Master?" he asked over his shoulder.

"What kind of ethablthment ith thith?" asked Cassius. Yoosip swung around on the chair and looked down at Cassius's stockinged feet. Cassisus's shielded eyes bored into Matthew. "They don't even have thoe'th that fit." He gestured at his feet; no shoes had fit his huge feet and so he, Cassius, four-hundred-and-fifty year-old Cassius--had to bowl in his socks.

"I apologize again, Master," said Yoosip. "I did not foresee this problem."

Cassius dismissed him with a slight wave of the hand and plucked his ball, like a feather, from the rack. "I'll go firtht."

***

From behind the counter, Suzie watched the two bowl. Her disbelief grew with each passing moment and she began to wonder if there were a hidden camera, somewhere. The little guy wasn't anything special; bowlers like him were a dime a dozen, here, at TipeRover Lanes. A strike here, a spare there, inconsistency and a bad temperment were all marked facets of his game.

The beanpole, though? The beanpole was a different story. His first throw had been a gutter ball and his reaction had been, at first comic, and then rather troubling. From her safe place, Suzie watched as the man had first stomped his stockinged foot and then seemed to stretch a couple inches higher and a few inches wider. Tricks of the lights, she told herself and she watched as the little man strode quickly to his side and animatedly conferred with him. The tall man seemed to shrink a bit and he fixed the smaller man with what could only be a glare from behind his Oakley sunglasses. He waited for the ball to return and then readied himself for his second throw.

The second throw was as bad, if not worse, than the first. Or so it had seemed. Starting out at a sharp angle toward the right gutter, the ball's only logical destination, as far as Suzie could discern, had been straight to Goose-egg Land. But then something strange had happened. Maybe it had been another trick of the light, she'd reasoned, but it had seemed to her that a black shadow had followed above the ball for about three-quarters of the alley and the ball had somehow corrected its own course--without the virtue of a spin--and had dead-eyed right into the pocket. The seven pin had stood a moment longer than the rest but then, as if blown over by a breeze, had toppled over. She looked back at the tall man, who seemed, momentarily, not as there.

"Tricks of the light," she murmured and turned to take care of a lovestruck couple who were settling their bill.

***

ONWARD AND UPWARD

I feel fucking fantastic. Things seem to be falling into place for me. I've met someone whom I like, I have more money in my pocket, my job is going well (I got a better shift than I had had), I'm blessed with a great family and a thuper dog and I just feel fucking great. Superlatives lose their meaning when overused, but I just can't seem to stop using them.

I refuse to think or dwell upon the superstition that when things are going well, misfortune is right around the corner and the axiom that pride goeth before a fall. Why do that? Why not just enjoy the ride?

One thing that I have been missing, lately, is my urge to create, my urge to flash the fingers upon the keyboard. I think--and this has been true in the past--that I do better, creatively, when my life isn't going all that well. It seems that if things are shitty, I have more of an urge--more of a compulsion--to write. It makes sense, in a way. You see, when things aren't going well, the simple act of getting things out on paper (or on monitor) clears up some of the fog in the noodle and allows me to jettison some of the grief. When things are good, perhaps maybe I want to, on some subconscious level, keep the Good close to my heart. Who knows. Maybe I'm just overthinking the whole matter. Then again, it is what I do.

Here in Michigan, we recently had a spat of rain and then the temperatures dropped percipitously the next day. I always love it when that happens. Sure, the roads suck ass, but there is a phenomenon that I never tire of seeing: The ice that forms on the skeletal tree branches. It is, simply put, beautiful. It's as if God is showing Himself to us, if we care to stop and take the time to open ourselves to the sight. It is dazzling and it is brilliant; it hurts the eyes, almost, to look at an iced tree on a sunny day. One must not look directly into the Light. One more thing about the ice that forms on the trees: Taking pictures of it doesn't do it justice. (See Exhibit A: the picture at the top of the page.)

Peace.

LET'S TALK ABOUT POOP, BABY...

Let's talk about you and me; duh-duh-duh-duh-DAH-duh-duh-duh-DUH. Er, or something like that. My boy, Lou, whom you may have read about once or twice on this here weblog amazes me, sometimes.

A little background information: A couple of months ago, Lou was regressing back into puppyhood. He was declining to poop when asked, opting instead to shit in the luxury of the apartment whilst I was off at work. He and I had a couple of scrapes over that, lemme tell ya. Added to the inside defecation, Lou also found it behooved him to dig in the trash when I was gone at work (see a theme, here?) and strew said trash all over the kitchen floor. If he got lucky and found a plastic OJ bottle in the trash, well, then, he'd found an afternoon of delight.

In the past, Lou has also found women's underwear (thongs, particularly) to be perfectly acceptable playthings.

Here is what Lou did to amaze me. Last night, I took Lou Outside at about 11:45, at which time he squatted and dropped a load. Good boy, I told him and led him back into the warmth of the apartment. Today at 10:00, when I had a meeting to go to, I took him outside and he declined to poop. (I think he was playing the conscientious objector card. Who knows?) Anyway, I went to the meeting and ran a couple of errands afterwards and got home around 1:00. I had half an hour before I had to leave for work, so I made the most of my time--I read my emails and I scanned the Flickr sites and sat down to start on a 'blog. After staring blankly at the screen for about 28.7 minutes, I looked up at the Superman alarm clock and saw that it was nigh time to leave.

"Louie!" I rasped, "time to go Outside!"

Plastic poop bag in hand, I ventured Outside with leash'd Lou. Whereupon he hemmed and he hawed and he, again, declined to poop. (He made a few feeble attempts at the Dance of Squat, but then turned to me, each time, his ears back and his eyes wide, as if to say, "I would if I could, Dad, but I can't so please don't shoot me." I ended up not shooting him...but it was close.) I knew what this meant: It meant that I would go to work and then come home to the earthy aroma of Shit Inside.

"Damn you, Lou!" I screeched at my apartment door as I drove off. "Damn you to Hell!" A hand-in-hand couple blanched at me from the sidewalk and gave my silver four-door 2002 Ford Focus hatchback a wide and wider berth. "What're you looking at?!" I shrieked at them. "You ever have to clean up oxidized dog shit from a parquet floor?! Dante's got nothin' on me, baby!" (Hands clasped, they turned and took to their heels, eyes wide. The woman slipped on a patch of mud and fell awkwardly to a knee, skinning it badly. As I drove past them, north on Crooks, I glanced over and saw the tears rolling down her face. Her face beet-red and her eyes squinched tight, she looked like the world's biggest, chestiest baby.)

Anyway.

I went to work and, while I was there, doing my duties, I made peace with the fact that I would have to go home and pick up dog shit. Let go, let God, I reminded myself countless times during the shift.

"Thy will be done," I said to the cashier at the gas station. He looked at me sideways and slowly scanned my pack of gum. "Uh...nothing," I mumbled.

I ended up working late. I was given a meter installation at 9:30, an hour before I was scheduled off. By the time I got to the site, it was 10:00. The job had a more than a few snags to it, so I ended up getting back to the headquarters at 11:15. Forty-five minutes at time-and-a-half is always a good thing, but, thinking back to Lou and the apartment, I knew that my goose was cooked.

By the time I got back home, it was 11:45. To endow this snapshot of Time with the gloss of relativity, Lou had ostensibly gone 24 hours without dropping a yellowish-brown slip-log. I have trouble doing that, and I'm somewhat-domesticated, not an unintelligent beast like Lou-dog. (He's smart, I know, I just did that for effect. Affected?)

I threw open my apartment door and slowly tip-toed inside. I was careful to look where I was walking so that I wouldn't squelch on Interloper Brown. And but what to my wondering eyes should appear? Not a damn drop of shit and Lou's grin splitting ear. I whooped with joy (not really) and I threw my arms around Lou (not really) and I kissed him on his snout and said that he was a good good good boy (really).

Outside we went and Lou led the way, purposefully walking--as only bully breeds can--to his favorite Dropping Zone. Dropped he did and I reiterated that he was a good good good boy and then we went back inside and I should have given him a damn Scooby Snack. Shit. My bad.

Next time he goes 24-Poopless, I will.

WRITER'S BLOCK

What to write about? I have today off of work, so I'm sitting here, in front of my computer, pleading to my Muse for some inspiration. I wrote out a bunch of words yesterday with which I'm thinking of spinning a yarn, but not today. What I need is one of those Blogging For Dummies books that helpfully suggests blogging topics. Write about your favorite pet! Write about a childhood friend! Write about your favorite vacation! Write about the deluded mind of 19th-century serial killer Jack the Ripper! And how he got his nickname! Won't that be gleeful?! Yeah, those books are quite helpful.

Write about your favorite pet, which you bought on your favorite vacation, which then became your best childhood friend and whom you glossed Jack the Ripper! Whee! There's a blog idea.

So I "celebrated" 30 days of sobriety yesterday. It's been an eventful 30 days, but I've only had urges to pick up a couple days out of the 30 and so I feel pretty good about that. Physically and mentally and spiritually I feel fucking fantastic. Financially, I'm still behind the eight-ball, but, generally, that is the last of life's stratas to come around, as it were. There's a slight delay, is all's I'm saying. That's fine, though. If things continue in the manner in which they have been going, that area of life shall balance out soon enough.

I haven't felt this good in a long long long motherfucking time. 30 days isn't really shit. I can do that standing on my head, and I have, in the past. The thing that is different this time is the fact that I have wholly and unabashedly bought into the AA program. I've gone to a meeting every day since getting out of the clinic, missing only Christmas Day. (But I made up for it by going to two meetings on New Years Eve, so I'm still on track for the "suggested" 90 meetings in 90 days.) Why wouldn't I go to 90 in 90? I'm not foolish. I know that I need all the support that I can scoop up, absorb.

Some people get out of rehabilitation kliniks and say to themselves, "Well, that's it. I'm cured. Buh-bye, monkey." How? How in Hell are they cured? One is never cured from this shit. It just goes into, for lack of a better word, remission. Or hibernation. Whichever. Oftentimes, people with that pretty-flawed mode of thinking relapse. Oftentimes? Try 90% of the time, as a slightly-conservative estimate. When we're tooling around, feeling like King Shit, our addiction is in the basement, like Clubber Lane, from "Rocky 2," hitting the weights and seething with impotent rage. If and when it gets the chance, it will storm back with a vengeance. Happy thought, eh?

So, anyway, 30 days. I got a coin today. It's up there in the corner. It's red. And feels like it's made out of thrice-folded tin foil. You know what, though? It could be made out of bran flakes, for all I care. It's the representation of the coin, if you can dig it, that gets me all hot and bothered. The representation of taking control of my life and attempting to live right. And giving it up to the Creator. And giving thanks. And feeling secure in myself. And looking forward to the next day. And embracing all my quirks and idosynchrasies as a part of myself.

Okay. Enough New-Age psycho-babble. Every day that we are on Earth is a blessing. Every day that we wake to the birds singing and the sun shining is a blessing. Time is short; live well.

ZIG-ZAPPING ZOLLY-FRUGLES--NONSENSE

Z-Zephyr
I-Idiosynchrasy
G-Glut
Z-Zero
A-Amen
P-Primal
P-Penthouse
I-Idiom
N-Nectar
G-Galaxy

Z-Zebra
O-Ostensibly
L-Licorice
L-Labial
Y-Yelp
F-Frightened
R-Rickshaw
U-Unintelligent
G-Geyser
L-Licking
E-Exhibitionist
S-Saran-Wrap
N-Nancy
O-Ocelot
N-Nipple
S-Savoring
E-Energy
N-Nantucket
S-Sincerely
E-Epidermis

Okay. Why? Why did I do this? I don't know, but as I was doing this list, an idea came to me to write a yarn using these randomly-thought words, in order. It'll get easier towards the end, I think, because a lot of the words seem to have a sexual tack to them--not like it's ever tough to wring sex from any damn word, but you get my point.

This should be fun.

PUPPIES AND ICE CREAM CONES--CONCLUDED

[READ PREVIOUS POST FIRST, PLEASE. THANKS]

Matthew Yoosip drove safely yet speedily through the backroads of Thornton, Wyoming. Though he had done this bait-and-snatch six times in six different states for his Master, his anxiety levels and his nerves were always dialed way up during the getaway. He trusted in the Dark Lord, sure, but he could not help feeling his still-human emotions. He was well-aware that calls to the local officials had been placed and that they would be looking for--they'd have an APB out on--a pale blue ice cream truck with the tune of "Camptown Races" blaring through the megaphone positioned just over the windshield. And that sort of vehicle doesn't exactly blend into the woodwork.

From the back of the truck, there were no more cries and no more wails. The children had been silent for the last five minutes and, for that, Yoosip was grateful. He saw the children as no more than feeding fish, truth be told, but, still, when they'd had their caterwauling cranked up to a fever pitch, some of the Matthew Richard Yoosip that was still left in the carrying case felt some pain, some shame.

He passed out of the city limits and merged onto the freeway. It would be just a quick jaunt down I-187 and he would be at his destination. Eleven units...he grimaced. Just eleven units. The Master might have a cross thing or two to say to him. Yoosip was prepared for that yet he was still a bit trepidatious. Master was known for his evil temper, don'tcha know.

***

Yoosip pulled gently to the wrought iron gate and shifted into "Park." He glanced uneasily up the ascending curving driveway and shuddered slightly as he unrolled his window to key in the code to the gate. No matter how many times he returned to the roost, he still couldn't do it lightheartedly. Some places have an almost palpable aura of evil and, no matter where the Master had resided, his homes had taken on such an aura. And rather quickly, too.

The numbers keyed, the gates creaked slowly open and Yoosip drove up the driveway.

***

"Matthew." A statement.

Yoosip shuddered, arms in goosebumps, as he entered the dark room. In the corner, seated in the overstuffed armchair, backlit by a solitary black candle, he could barely make out the shadowy form of his Dark Lord, Cassius. Black billowy clothes and obscenely-long white fingers. A drawn-out skull, hairless. And, of course, the deeply-pitted glowing red eyes. "Yes, Master. I brought you children, Master."

"I know that, Matthew. I can sthmell them. They sthmell delithcious."

Yoosip swallowed and forced himself to add, "I only got eleven, Master." He shifted uneasily on his feet and waited for the storm of vitriol. He was surprised when none was forthcoming.

"Bring one to me."

***

In the garage, next to the impeccable 1964 black Mercedes sedan, Yoosip unbolted the back doors of the ice cream truck and swung them open. Eleven pairs of wide white eyes greeted him. He was not supernatural like his Master--yet--but he believed that even he could smell the fear baking from the bodies of the "stolen" children. He began to feel a wave of pity, but he quashed it efficiently.

He'd learned how to distance himself, over the years. He'd simply begun to think of the countless children as being less-than and he'd focused on his ultimate prize--eternal life granted to him via the blood of his Master.

He reached in and grabbed, at random, the closest one to him. It was Tommy, the nose-jabber. Tommy yelped and latched on to Yoosips forearm with his sharp little baby-teeth. Yoosip grimaced and backhanded the boy, momentarily stunning him. This act of overt violence brought cries and screams to the other ten children's lips and Yoosip, Tommy slung easily under his right arm, slammed and bolted the doors.

Tommy regained his senses as Yoosip slowly climbed the circular staircase to the second floor. "Mommy," he breathed.

"Shh-shh," said Yoosip with absolutely no emotion. "You'll see your Mommy in just a little bit, son. Your Mommy would want you to be strong, wouldn't she? Doesn't she want you to be a strong little boy?"

Tommy nodded slightly, from his position under the man's arm. Snot dribbled from his nose and he wiped it absently away. "Yeah. Mommy. Want...Mommy."

"Shh-shh."

At the top of the stairs, Yoosip paused and drew a deep breath. He had seen this--or heard this--scenario many times, but it had never gotten any easier. A part of him, though buried deep, was still human and had human emotions. Above all, he felt the emotion of pity. And there was also shame. But overriding any sensible emotion was the feeling of arrogance and the overwhelming addiction to power. The boy had just chosen the wrong day to accept ice cream, he reasoned, rather bizarrely. The little brat hadn't even paid for it. Damn-near stole it. He would thus get what he had coming. Yoosip, guilt assuaged, strode forward and pushed through the heavy door.

***

"Nithe," murmured Cassius. "Very, very nithe. Bring him to me, Matthew."

Yoosip obeyed readily and left the little boy at the feet of his Master. Tommy stood, wide-eyed, before the seated beast. His chest hitched once, twice, and he began to wail.

"Husth, child," spoke Cassius. He rose from the chair and stood at his full height of six-and-a-half feet, his arms dangling nearly to his knees. With his long dextrous fingers, he made a 1878 silver dollar dance. Tommy's tears waned and then stopped and he popped a thumb into his mouth as he stared, transfixed, at the floating coin.

In the direction of Yoosip, Cassius said, "Leave uth."

He walked from the room and closed the heavy door behind him. From within the room, he could hear the Dark Lord say, "Come to me, child." And, though he plugged his ears, he could hear still the wet pop of a carotid artery and the deep sucking sounds.

And then nothing. And then nothing. He slowly pulled his fingers from his ears. Direct to his being, in the center of his mind, Cassius spoke. Bring me more, thimple man. Bring me more. Bring me thix, bring me theven. Bring me them all. Your Mathter ith hungry to-night.

***

And so then there were two. Ricky Kludowski and Melinda Barret. Shoved to the back of the truck, up against the doors, was the puppy that had been promised: a thread-bare stuffed beagle. It had been dead and stuffed, it seemed, for decades. Its mottled fur smelled of dust and its blank black glass eyes stared permanently at the heavens.

Ricky shook uncontrollably. Melinda had sunk into a semi-catatonic state. Though children, they knew now that their days--hours--were numbered. Nine children, from two to six-and-a-half, had been taken and nine children had not returned. The remaining two knew, assuredly, that the others had not been spirited off to Chucky Cheese's for pizza and soda pop and video games. As much as their young brains could reason, they knew that the others had been killed and, like mice in a snake's cage, they too were doomed.

Outside the truck, the sound of shuffling footsteps arose. Ricky's trembling worsened as the footsteps grew near. And then, suddenly, he was as calm as a lake on a windless day. Within his five-year-old body, his heart swelled and the will to live burst through his mouth in the form of a scream.

Something thumped against the outside of the door. Ricky drew a breath to whoop even louder and was stunned to silence when a foreign voice hissed, "Quiet, kid. Just...quiet. Okay?"

Ricky scrambled on his hands and knees to the dark doors. He queasily slid the beagle aside, shuddering involuntarily at the wooden feel of its long-dead body. Through the small slit between the doors, he could see the shape of a man in the dim light of the garage. "Help us," he said.

"How many of you in there?" the man whispered.

"Just two. Me and Melinda. But Melinda's kinda tired. The rest of them--" he hitched a tear "--the rest of them got took."

"Shit," said the man. "I mean, shoot. Shoot. I knew these two guys wasn't right. Damn it. Took where?"

"Are you a policeman?" asked Ricky, daring to hope.

"Naw," said the man. "I'm just a guy who's been livin' off the land for awhile. I seen that ice cream truck come back today and then I seen that scraggly-lookin' dude walkin' back and forth all night, carryin' shi--stuff. I never really seen the other guy, but I heard him yellin' a couple times. Guy talks like a faggot. Sorry, kid. I shouldn'ta said that."

Ricky had no idea what the man was talking about, but he sensed that the time was growing short. "Mister? Can you get us out of here?"

"Yeah. Hold on," the man said, and Ricky breathed Hope.

Ricky heard fumbling at the doors and the man said, "It's locked, kid. Got a big-ass Yale paddie on here."

The small boy smacked his forehead in frustration, a move he had picked up by watching old black-and-white shows like the "Three Stooges" and that one with the fat man and the skinny man. He was dealing with an idiot; his savior was a maroon. "I know, Mister," he said. "Isn't there something out there that can, like, break the lock?" He doubled-crossed his fingers and tried valiantly to cross his toes.

"Hold on," the man said. "Lemme look around."

"Hurry," whispered Ricky. At his back, Melinda groaned softly. "Hurry!"

The footsteps moved away--the Doplee Affeck--and he faintly heard the man rummaging around at the far reaches of the garage.

Oh, hurry, thought Ricky.

"I got sumpin' here, kid," said the man. "Big ole crowbar. This should wor--" The man's voice was cut off abruptly and Ricky heard a wet thump just before the doors, followed by a heavier slide-thump.

"Mister?" whispered Ricky. "Mister? Are you al--"

"My sthweet child. My stho sthweet child," came a hiss from the other side of the doors. Through the slit, he could make out an impossibly-large shape, nebulous black and cod-belly white.

Ricky's stomach flip-flopped and he was dimly aware of wetness on the front of his Toughskins. Behind him, Melinda was wide awake and shrieking.

Ricky heard himself telling the girl to just be quiet, shut up, they're gonna hear, and then the doors opened and the light spilled in and Ricky was dimly aware that he, too, was screaming as the bogeyman reached in with shovel-sized hands and spatula-like fingernails. The last thing that Ricky thought was His nails are black; stuff's movin' underneath them and then, mercifully, he knew no more.

***

At dawn, the modified 1964 black Mercedes sedan crept slowly, like a snake, out of the driveway of the house on the hill and headed for the Interstate. Cassius slumbered, satiated, in the blackness of the polarized back seat and Matthew Richard Yoosip drove within the rules of the road, heading West, always heading West. A butterfly flitted, through the black diesel exhaust of the Mercedes, and dropped to the ground, motionless.

--PUPPIES, ICE CREAM CONES, BUTTERFLIES. AND SMILES?--

PUPPIES AND ICE CREAM CONES--CURSE-FREE ZONE

Paddington Bear smiles. The Sun casts its benevolent rays across the landscape, sending all shadows scurrying home to their bad places. My Little Pony trots, unbridled, in her corral and Strawberry Shortcake beams beatifically at Scrappy Doo as she serves him a bone. He licks his jowls and smiles.

The ice cream man is coming. The ice cream man is coming. The ice cream man is coming!

And all the cute children and toddlers wobble from their mommy and daddy's homez and totter to the sidewalk.

In the distance, just beyond the breast of hill, the darling children hear the delicate chiming of the bells, arranged to sound like "Camptown Races." As the music swells, little Ricky turns to his towheaded neighbor, Tommy, and says, "My Mommy told me that's the Doplee Affeck." Tommy, all of two years old and just learning to walk, looks at him blankly. "Ya know? When the music gets loud when it gets close?" Tommy looks at him blankly, and sways on his feet in a baby-wind, and then jabs a finger in his nose. Ricky sighs.

Melinda is the first of the sweet children to see the pale blue truck as it appears over the hill. "The ice kweem man!" she shrieks. It is like a domino effect rippling through the glut of children. "Ice kweem!" "Yay!" "Popsicks!" "We want ice kweem! We want ice kweem!" The children's parents look out their front windows at their pride-and-joys and smile lovingly at each other. In the Kludowski home, arms around each other's shoulder, little Ricky's father takes the opportunity of warm parental pride to sneak a lingering grope of his wife's breast. She smiles reassuringly at him and pats his posterior. They sigh in unison and look, through the gauze of the curtain, back out the window.

***

The pale blue ice cream truck pulls smoothly to the corner and the driver turns off the engine. "Camptown Races" is amputated and the only sounds are those of the blessed children sniffling and jostling for position and the soulful sighing of the wind through the nearby grove of willows. With an unoiled squeak, the driver of the truck, Matthew Yoosip, opens the sliding glass window and proclaims gleefully, "Huzzah! Open for business, kids!"

The crowd of adorable toddlers cheer collectively and surge forward.

Yoosip laughs genially. "Now, now, children. One at a time, don'tcha know. One at a time."

Little Ricky is the first in line and he selects a strawberry shortcake ice cream delight. When he attempts to pay with the crinkled dollar that he had secreted away in his tight front pocket, the ice cream man laughs softly and shakes his head. "Your money is no good, here, young Master Ricky," he says. "This one is on the house." Ricky beams and tears open the treat and digs in, his sharp little incisors flashing.

That scenario plays out with the rest of the darling children--no money, no, no money, not today--until they have all been served.

Little Ricky Kludowski is the only one of the children to possess both the wits and the courage to ask the benevolent ice cream man why the ice cream had been free today.

Yoosip props his elbows on the counter and lays a finger against the side of his nose. He appears to be deep in thought, staring wistfully out the sliding service window to the white-capped mountains in the distance. He looks slowly back down at Ricky. "Young Master Ricky, sometimes adults have to do certain things to make themselves super to children. Do you understand that?"

Ricky nods. "Yeah. My Mommy says super is an adjockteeve."

Yoosip laughs softly. "Yes, yes. An 'adjockteeve,' Ricky. Sometimes, adults just want to be super. Kids?" he asks the group, who seem to be swaying more pronouncedly now. The sun slinks behind a dark cloud. "Kids, I have puppies in the back of the truck! Do you want to see some puppies?!" As one, the children let loose a volley of whoops and laughter and they stagger/stumble to the back of the truck, where Yoosip had cracked the double doors. The interior of the truck seems to be as dark as a grave.

"The puppies are in here, kids," he says, opening the doors wider. "Come on in. They're here," he points. "Towards the back."

One after another the children climb the short ramp into the back of the ice cream truck, the smaller children being helped along by the more-developed idiots. Eventually, they are all in--everybody is in--and Yoosip hops gracelessly out of the back of the truck and slams the doors shut. "Eleven units," he mutters to himself, and his unconscious snarl reveals two offset sharp and pointed teeth. "Not too bad, but Master is going to be angry with me again." He scoots along the driver's side of the pale blue truck and hops in and fires up the engine. "Camptown Races" blares to life.

As the first of the parents burst out of their homes, Yoosip throws the transmission into "Drive" and screeches off, his ice cream truck showing now the power that it had been hiding. From the back of the truck, wails of children go unanswered. The souped-up 350 engine has the creaky truck cruising at 50 miles per hour within a minute and by the time the first of the parents reaches the curb, the ice cream truck is disappearing around the corner, its tires leaving stinking black rubber on the glossy new pavement.

The first parent on the scene, Hiram Kludowski, Ricky's father, looks helplessly down the street and yowls back to the house for his wife to call 911. He looks around, shell-shocked, at his neighbors. They too have a look of disbelief tattooed on their countenances.

As they wait for the impotent boys in blue to arrive, the ability to communicate begins to slowly filter back and they bemoan their gullibilty and their trustingness.

A butterfly flits over the group and rises in the sky, rendering the huddled masses miniature dolls below.

--PUPPIES, ICE CREAM CONES, BUTTERFLIES. AND SMILES--

*&^#% and %$!@# and *^%!@

I tend to make liberal use of the F-word. I use it as a noun, a verb, an adjective and, sometimes, as an adverb. I've read over some of my previous posts and noticed that phenomenon and today, when I asked her what she had thought of my writing, I had one of my family members--I'm not going to say whom (Mom)--ask me why I felt the need to curse so fucking much. (Whoops.) I don't really know. It is a part of me. When I am angry, I tend to go overboard a bit. Even when I'm not angry, I use it liberally. I realize that and I accept that.

There is a thought process out there, in the Land of the Readers, that putting one's life out on the Internet is a dangerous balancing act in the first place, let alone when one uses curse words with impunity. The thought process is that the curse words are not being used with impunity. The thought is that, when overused, as I have done, the consequences will be that whoever reads my weblog will come away from the reading session with the impression that I am cold and hard and that I have built walls around myself to keep myself safe. That I'm unapproachable. And that, basically, I'm a dick.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I am actually quite caring and empathetic, so if you believe me to be an unintelligent jerk, please let me disabuse you of that notion straightaway.

On the flip side of the metal money piece, I have to say, with all honesty, that I couldn't give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut if people are offended by my use of curse words and dark subject matter. This is my journal, these are my thoughts; I write in it and I paste it to the forebrains of the Internet wanderers. I will not bow, I will not censor myself, I will not curtail myself to the whims/suggestions of any who read this drivel.

I'm not including my beloved family member in that group. She had an opinion and she voiced it. More power to her. It just is what it is.

But, I have taken it under advisement. Perhaps I will cut back a bit on the F-bombs. What could it hurt? And my next post shall be about puppies and ice cream cones and butterflies. Oh. And smiles.

SEE IF YOU CAN IDENTIFY THE SHIFT IN TONE

Well, for the first time in awhile (save for one year when I went to my parents' house) I saw in the new year as sober as a rock. I went with a friend named W____ to an Alano Club in Waterford. An Alano club is a place in which people who struggle with addictions can go to celebrate holidays or, during a normal day, just go and relax.

There was a spread of food on the table, but I didn't eat any. (Gotta watch my girlish figure, don'tcha know.) There was neverending coffee of which I took great advantage. They had pool tables but I didn't play because there was a tournament going on at all three tables.

There was karaoke and I sang "Alabama Song," by the Doors. You know the one: "Oh show me the way to the next whiskey bar/ Oh show me the way to the next whiskey bar/ Oh don't ask why/ Oh don't ask why." That could have been what some in the business call a "trigger," but, fuck it. If my singing "Alabama Song" horrendously makes someone "go out" again, that's on his or her shoulders, not mine.

Trigger!

There were also meetings downstairs at the top of every hour. W____ and I went to two. The first sucked because I couldn't hear a damn thing about half of the people were saying. I have an idea, folks--If you're going to share with the group, make sure that you speak above a whisper, raise your head so that you're not speaking to your chest and don't talk as if a room 20 feet by 30 feet is a room 10 feet by 4 feet. Vocalize or don't share. Thanks. The second meeting was better.

So, the new year was rung in, noisemakers were utilized, hands were shaken and hugs were given. We left shortly after midnight, but the festivities were scheduled to go on all night until 12 noon on the 1st. It's called an Alcothon, and it's utilized during "trigger holidays."

I dropped W____ off at her house and then I took off down the rainswept streets for home. I saw cops sitting on the side of the road, in the darkness, like the poaching spiders that they are. I flashed my brights at them whenever possible, and tried to point them out with my turn signals, so that if anyone had had a few too many and was driving behind me, they would hopefully see the pigs, thus eliminating the element of surprise. I saw a cop, flashers cycling, who had pulled a Honda Civic over and I made sure to shine my brights at him. It was tough to focus the lights on him, but I swerved a bit and made it work. Hell, they do it to us when they pull us over. How do you like it, pigs, when you have a bright light in your eyes, you pompous fucks?

I wanted one of them to pull me over. "Have you been drinking tonight?" "Uh, no ossifer, why?" "Well, you were driving erratically." "Can you even spell the word, ossifer?" "Excuse me?" "I asked you if you could even spell 'erratically,' or is that beyond your comprehension?" "Step out of the car, sir, and we're going to have you blow into this." "Okay, ossifer; if you want to look silly, that's your call." "Hands on the car." "Fuck you."

Okay, it probably would not have gone like that. That's a little extreme. But I'd be damn sure to rub their faces in the fact that I was as sober as a six-year-old. Better luck next time, dicks. I'd be damn sure to make them cognizant of that fact and I would, with every word I uttered, be thinking, fuck you fuck you fuck you. Pig.

On the way home, I stopped at a 7-11 to get some smokes. 90% of the clientele had alcoholic beverages. I walked out of there with some Lysol and a pack of American Spirits. And a pen.

Do I seem bitter? Why ever would you say that? It's nice to be able to wake up with a hangover-free head. It truly is. And the meetings, the portions of which I could actually hear, made that point abundantly clear. Health is good and addiction is bad. Intellectually, I know that. Emotionally, however, I struggled a bit tonight.

In the program, they speak of the first couple or three weeks (whatever) as being a "pink cloud." Why it's pink, I have no idea. But the basic premise is that, early in recovery, people feel almost beatific and grand; they feel as though they are just floating on a cloud and they are loving life. Eventually, though, clouds dissapate and people come back to earth.

Get out the landing gear, Adam, you're coming down.

You know what combats those feelings of bitterness and anger and self-pity? Support and meetings. It's a roller coaster.

One more thing and it's pretty ironic. I've been bereft of cravings since I started this A.B.. ("After Beer.") Tonight, at and on the way home from the Alano club, I had my first real cravings. I could almost smell the beer. Pretty ironic that a place that designed to be a virtual refuge for alcoholics and druggies can actually, too, be a trigger. But, then, I've always been kinda contrarian. Marijuana jazzed me up, as did beer, and I can drink coffee nonstop up until bedtime and then sleep like a baby. (A tired baby.)

So, that's it. Happy New Year. May 2007 (wow!) be a good year for all.

Peace. (But not to pigs.)

2006 COMES TO AN END...

And 2007 waits in the wings.

I believe it was the ancient Greeks who maintained that human beings walked backwards to the Future. It seems quite logical to me. We don't know what the future holds, but we are intimately aware of both our Present and our Past. We see all that has unfolded in the seconds and minutes and days and weeks and months and years that have led us on this journey to the Present, but the Future is ambiguous, yet to be broken open from its plastic wrapping and entered. What will it bring, we wonder. Whatever it brings, it is brought upon a clean slate, and it is our will that determines what markings shall be made.

This is no truer than when one year shifts seemlessly to the next. The Past is the Past, the Present is fleeting and the Future is ours for the making. I have no resolutions for the new year, though. I'm, at this point in my life, compartmentalizing each day as a single unit. Just for today and one day at a time and easy does it and just fucking do it are all catch-phrases to which I subscribe, at this point in my life. I'm going to have to get on the Life is Beautiful soapbox again--sorry--because it is truer than an arrow. Things are beautiful and things happens for a reason. Sure, life throws curveballs--sometimes nasty curveballs which break from 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock and pass across the plate for a called third strike, leaving the batter (me) weak-kneed and cursing--but, that, my friends, is life. Life, though often beautiful, does not shine through rose-colored glasses at all times. But, as Stewart Smalley was wont to lisp, "That's...okay."

[he preaches to the choir and they roll their eyes]

So, anyway.

Enjoy the transition and be safe. Happy New Year. Peace on earth. And goodwill to hookers. :-)

FROM THE SPIDER HOLE TO THE GALLOWS

I can't believe that I actually looked at my webpage yesterday and said to myself, "Oh, me. Oh, my. Whatever shall I write about?" And then I continued to look at the blank white page, thinking about starting the writing with a little quotation from Ernest Hemingway about a blank white sheet of paper being one of the most daunting enemies one will ever face--a la writer's block. Amazing. The biggest news to come down the 'pike in a coon's age is staring me right in the face and I was prepared to write a post about the...what was I talking about, again? Something. About. A. Block. In. My. Muse's. Digestive. Tract?

Fuck it. I'll start off with a quotation from Papa Bear, anyway: "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." For Whom the Bell Tolls--1940.

The despot was executed yesterday. Saddam Hussein. (As an ancillary question, does this count as the third corner in the Celebrity Triangle of Death? Will Saddam be forever linked with Gerald Ford and James Brown? Or does the death have to be a natural one? I'm not really up on all the rules of the Death Trifecta board game. Fuck it. Saddam Hussein?! Come on down! You're the next contestant on the Triangle of Death!

Said the Devil.)

It warms my heart to see a man so-deservedly reap what he had sown. It truly does. Call me barbaric: I fully support capital punishment, in some instances. Saddam is the poster child for the justice of capital punishment. The son-of-a-bitch actually deserved to die thousands of times, but the laws of anatomical physics strictly forbid killing someone more than once. It's bullshit, but it's a law that we have to get behind: Once you're dead, you're dead. (Please don't ask Rasputin that; he would probably beg to differ.)

(I wonder if it would have been considered barbaric if they had brought Saddam to the edge of death umpteen times before finally extinguishing the fat spider's life. Probably, but ask the Kurds, and also ask the relatives of the men, women and children that Saddam had had killed during his career as an insanely violent dick. Er, dictator. They might have differing views on the situation.)

Remember the good old times, when Saddam was pulled from his "spider hole," the despot dirty and unshaven and twitchy with fear and anxiety? I do. That was the last time I felt anything akin to support for this infernal war. But I musn't get off-topic, here. (Too much material, not enough time. Plus, that Patriot Act has me biting my tongue in some instances. Patriot Act. Huh. Unintended irony, brought to you by the chimpanzee, Curious George. Now back to your previously-scheduled broadcast.)

Saddam took his execution ostensibly as a man. He refused the death-shroud and clutched a holy book before he was offed. The fucking gall of the man. When had he been devout? When had he been religious? Had it been when he gassed the Kurds? Had he been religious when he'd had his two sons-in-laws killed after promising them quarter if and when they came back to Iraq? Were his gaudy palaces his way of showing his devotion to his Lord? Living a jet-set lifestyle as his countrymen suffered greatly under the U.N. sanctions to which he refused to bow?

The man called himself a martyr before he was hung by the neck until dead. What a snake. What a fucking snake. Good riddance and all of that. With this boon to the war effort, we Americans should be out of that hellhole by 2029, at the absolute latest. Nothing like racheting up the timetable, eh?

By the way, Middle Easterners have a problem with feet. It's something like the height of insult to show a man the bottom of one's foot. With that in mind, Saddam? That foot at the top of the page is brought to you, with undying love. Non-peace, sir.

Saddam, rest in horror, dude. May the road rise up to grind you into meat and may the wind always be razor-sharp and bludgeoning at your back.

VIOLENCE--ONTO FEROCITY...

I'm a firm believer in getting thoughts/emotions out onto paper, or, in this case, out onto the computer screen.

I think it's because I worked out with some free weights half an hour ago--maybe it's a flood of testosterone and endorphins--but, for whatever reason, I'm feeling pretty fucking violent at the moment. So, I'll write. Why not? This is my weblog, after all. (But I'll limit myself to no more than 10 paragraphs.)

-----

The first shot took Rudolpho in the gut, doubling him over with terrific pain. The second shot sheared off half of his head, rendering the creme wall behind him an abstract painting of red blood and gray matter. He was dead before he hit the ground. Toodles let out a triumphant yowl. "Bring it, motherfuckers!" he screamed. "Bring it!"

Toodles double-clutched his sawed-off and cut down another of the "soldiers" as he ran for the door, all pride and honor forgotten. Toodles reached for more shells and, to his dismay, realized that he had used the last of them. He pawed at his pantleg and found his backup .22 to be gone, as well. He blended to the wall and sidled down the hallway, thankful that the enemies he faced were as dumb as a sack of rocks. In the dark, his right hand found a doorway and he slid into the room. It was the kitchen. He tip-toed comically to the island-counter and selected an 8-inch butcher's knife, its blade razor-sharp.

He crouched behind the counter and waited, his heart beating evenly in his chest. He heard approaching footsteps and suddenly the kitchen was bathed in light. "I gonna check in da kitchen," intoned Guido to his compatriot. "He gotta be 'roun' here, somewheres." As Guido shuffled, apelike, around the right side of the counter, Toodles crept along the left side, always keeping behind the centerpiece of the kitchen. As Guido turned to leave the kitchen, Toodles felt the bloodlust rise in his veins again and he sprang at Guido's retreating back, burying the blade to its hilt, through the man's back and into his right lung, rendering a scream impossible. Guido gasped for breath as Toodles pulled the blade free with a rocking/sawing motion. Guido collapsed to the floor, onto his back, blood oozing from his mouth, and Toodles rose above him, his blue eyes wild, the butcher knife clasped with a death-grip between both hands and he drove it down, with a ninja's strength, through Guido's skull, just above the dazed eyes and smack-dab between the tweezed black eyebrows. The knife broke off in Guido's cranium and Toodles shrugged. He tossed the handle into the corner, where it clattered up against the wall and was then still. He'd been trained well when he had been in Special Ops--he could make a weapon out of a piece of gum.

He settled on a Bic pen.

Rick Rattazoni had heard the commotion, apparently, and he burst into the kitchen. His gaze took in the big man Guido, dead on the floor, the fat end of the blade visible still through the seeping sluggish dark red blood, and his eyes widened. With a silent scream, Toodles swung the Bic pen in a tight arc, his aim uncanny as usual. Rattazoni staggered backward, feebly clutching at the pen that was now buried through his left eye and into his brain, and he collapsed to the floor. He twitched twice and was still. As Toodles crept past the dying man, he paused long enough to kick him in the crotch. Three times. With increasing ferocity. The man's moans fell upon uninterested ears.

Toodles walked through the drughouse, preternaturally alert to any and all sounds. His highly-toned senses told him that he was alone...but not for long. Reinforcements would be arriving sooner than he would have liked. He had to get out of there. Prudence was the better part of valor, or some shit like that. He could never remember the saying.

As he walked out the back door, into the moonlit yard, again a free man, the pit bull watchdog growled. Chained to a tree, the dog was no threat to Toodles. But he had qualms about leaving a living soul alive after what they had done to him...and his wife. His innocent wife, for God's sake. They all had to pay, and canines were no exception.

Acting contrary to all of his instincts and training, Toodles paused and looked for a weapon. The dog growled again and lunged at him, snapping a foot short, teeth flashing white in the moonlight. Toodles' internal clock was blinking red. He had to go. There was no time to find a weapon. He shrugged and advanced on the dog whose only purpose in its heretofore-uneventful life had been to protect the house and its inhabitants. It could hardly be faulted for failing to protect them tonight, though, seeing as how it had been chained to a tree throughout the festivities. No quarter, thought Toodles. No fucking quarter.

His kick caught the dog square in the snout and it yelped with pain. As the dog reeled backwards, Toodles followed its movement and secured its strong neck in the crook of his beefy right arm. The dog tried fruitlessly to snap at Toodles; he held it in a firm grip. He flexed and twisted and heard the satisfying crack and the dog went limp in his arms. He allowed it to slide to the ground, covered in its own filth.

"Sorry, Charlie. You are who you hang with." With that, Toodles disappeared like a ghost into the night.

-----

Ah.... Much better. Who needs anger management classes? Just write them out and watch the emotions disappear into the night sky, as gossamer as spiderwebs.

TWO-THIRDS OF THE TRIANGLE

We're 66.666666666667% there. First the Godfather of Soul and now the Godfather of the Pratfall, President Ford. Who will complete the Celebrity Triangle of Death? Who's sick out there? I wait with bated breath.

Rest in peace, Gerald. You seemed like you had been an earnest, albeit comic, man.

[a feeling of deja vu washes over the 'blogger. he hopes he did not piss off the spirits.]

OHHHH...SO I HAVE TODAY OFF TOO, EH?

I did it again. I went in to work when I was not scheduled to go in to work. I cut a date short, one in which I was having a good time, to go in to work and have them smile and laugh good-naturedly at me. This is like the third or fourth time I have done this. Seriously, I looked at my schedule and it said that I had to work today. I guess the reason I had today off is because Christmas Eve fell on a weekend day. Per union dogma, if that is the case, a person who has one of the weekend days off during a two-day holiday, the next day that they have scheduled to work, they have that day off, too. (Grammatically abysmal, but I think you can understand what I'm trying to say--you, Dear Reader, are smart like that.)

So I've done this three or four times, yet each time I do it, it is like a gift. It sucks to drive in there, but when you hear that you have the day off, your feet feel lighter than air and a smile touches your lips.

I got to work today at two
Ready to work with flammable gas
"You don't have to work, so buh-bye to you"
I exit stage-left feeling just like an ass

(I think I like limericks better.)

I got to work today at two
Ready to make more money new
My boss looked at me and stifled a grin
and said "Dude, why'd you even come in?"
I stammered a something and looked at my shoe and as I left his smile grew

(I am completely brain-dead today. I don't even think I wrote that in the right rhyming pattern. Shit, I haven't eaten enough today. Well, I can't fuck up a haiku, can I?"

man goes in to work
sees that he is scheduled off
leaves; wipes egg off face

There. Maybe I'll take Louie for a walk or to the tennis courts so that he can get some much-needed exercise. Happy Tuesday to everyone.

BEGIN THE TRIANGLE

James Brown is the first one. Who's next? Celebrity deaths always seem to come in threes, don't they? Who else is sick? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? Beuller? Anyway, rest in peace, Godfather.

-----

On to a more uplifting topic: It is Christmas Day. Believe me, I didn't stay up all night, waiting to see if I could hear the jingle of bells and/or see the dark shape of a flying sleigh inking across the early-morning sky. Nope, I just woke up early, for no apparent reason.

I love Christmas mornings. Always have. Back in the day, it was because I was guaranteed to get gifts and, to me, getting gifts was what it was all about. Sure, I'd gone to a Catholic grade school and so I was well-versed in the real Reason for the Season, but that, to me, was somewhat secondary. I'd bought in to the maelstrom of exchanging of gifts and the materialistic Yuletide Yearnings. I have changed a bit, since I was 12 and 13. (Thank God! If I still had the same mentality, things would be--shall we say?--a little wrong, a little off.)

Now I see it as a time to get together with family whom I don't see nearly enough and a time to basically just spend with each other. The gifts are secondary to me, now. Actually, the gifts are now bumped down to number three on my list, after Family and Jesus. It is what it is. I have had a bit of a spiritual re-awakening, recently, and I have, without reserve and quite willingly, welcomed Jesus and the Lord into my heart. And I feel good about that. I feel no shame nor do I feel less-than to admit that fact.

[Emotional Blatherings Alert]

How could I feel shame over the acceptance? I am in the process of receiving the greatest gift I could ever receive: A new outlook on life. That doesn't come 'round every day. I believe that things most-definitely happen for a reason and I believe that God and/or Jesus work through people and/or events to gently mold a human being's life into the shape in which it had been meant. I believe this, too: A couple/three weeks ago, I was reaching the end of my rope. I had been treading water in the same vat of quicksand for the last ten years and I was getting tired--physically, mentally and, without a doubt, spiritually. One night I was sitting at my computer desk, doing the same fucking thing I had done for the previous indeterminate days, and I remember looking to my left and seeing the picture of Jesus that my mom had painted 30+ years ago, the picture in which it seems His eyes follow me to all corners of the room and the picture in which His emotional makeup always seemed to mirror mine to a T. My eyes filled with tears of shame and frustration. I'd said aloud to the picture something like, "Jesus, I can't do this shit anymore. I'm just getting so fucking sick and tired of this life. It's pointless. My left arm ain't working like it should, I've been perilously close to arrest, my job performance is suffering and my supervisors seem to be getting tired of my shenanigans. I need help, Jesus."

This is not to say that there had been a bright flash of life and I had miraculously leapt to my feet and clicked my heels together and skipped whistling into the sunset. No. But I will say this: I think that I, with the help of a Higher Power (sorry, but it seems to be true), had planted a seed in my mind, a seed which would bear fruit a few days later when I voluntarily checked myself in to a place in which they deal specifically with dependencies. Thus starting myself on the path to a life with far more beauty and far less internally-generated suffering.

So on this Christmas Day, I may not get the train set that I'd wanted, nor the remote control car upon which I had had my eyes. I may not get any clothes and I may not get any gift certificates. Hell, I'm good with that. Give me a box of Ramen noodles and I'd still be good with that. I've gotten the greatest gift for which I could even have hoped to ask: A loving family and a genuine foot in the right direction towards the Utopia of Sobriety.

Is Sobriety a Utopia? Oftentimes, not at all. Is the alternative the virtual antithesis of Utopia? Without a doubt.

So, that's that. I awoke early today and I saw neither reindeer in the sky nor fat ageless elves zipping down chimneys. It doesn't matter to me; I believe that I've gotten my gift already....

I think my sister is going to get me some Ramen noodles. Rock on!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! HO-HOE-WHORE!

AN ODE TO LOUIE--BELATED

Best boy ever. Lou-dog turned three years old yesterday. What a Christmas gift he was three years ago yesterday.

Months earlier, my roommate's pedigree Boxer, Roxy, had had her innocence taken by the mostly-pit bull from the other side of the fence. I remember how it was that morning when my roommate Pablo looked out the back door and said, "Oh shit!" He'd torn open the sliding glass back door and I could hear him shouting, "Get outta here! Go!" Hungover and tired, I'd risen wearily from the kitchen table, chewing my tasteless Raisin Bran, and had gone to the door to see what was going on.

Roxy and another dog were facing away from each other yet were still entwined, if you can dig it. I guess Roxy had liked what she'd been getting--her love fist had clamped down. Hard. Pablo'd ended up spraying the steaming junction with cold hose water and that eventually did the trick. Seperated, his duty done, the interloper had bolted across the backyard and had cleared the fence back to his home. His leap o'er the fence seemed, to me, to have had a satiated quality to it, like he was lighter than air.

Thus was Lou conceived, along with three brothers and four sisters.

In the three years since, I have been blessed with a companion, a clown, a constant friend.

I know that everyone feels that his or her dog is the bestest dog ever. I get that. It's called Love. But I have something to say, and, sure, it may be greeted with skepticism or outright derision, but I'll say it anyway, because I believe, in my heart of hearts [sob] that I'm as right as rain: LOU IS THE BEST DOG EVER. BAR NONE. NO DOG CAN EVEN COME CLOSE TO MY LOU-DOG.

There. If you have any feedback or any moping "No he's not"s, you are pleasantly directed to the comments section. I'll read over your drivel and dismiss it as madness, but, uh, go ahead and get your pointless fallacies off your chest. If it'll make you feel any better.

Happy happy birthday, Lou! I'm lucky to have you, dude!

IMAGES OF THE LI'L MONOPOLY MAN

I'm not good at finances. I'm really really not. Math is not my strong suit. Add to that the fact that I'm lazy when it comes to balancing my checkbook and I have often balanced said checkbook whilst intoxicated and the possibility (the likelihood) of error is raised exponentially.

I dragged my sick sniffling ass to my checkbook earlier this morning and cracked my knuckles, ready to wallow--just in time for the Yuletide celebrations--in the despair of a negative balance. Yes, that happens, sometimes. And, seeing as how I'd been "out of action" for ten days, I figured it was a given that I'd be in the red. Now that I think about it, though, ten days away from my money seems that it would have had the opposite effect.

I went to work on my checkbook, crossing off all the paid checks and circling all the outstanding checks. (Yes, this is Balancing Checkbook 101--pay attention, please.) As the end result became clearer, my wondering eyes took in what at first seemed to be a hallucination. That thought was dispatched rather quickly when the creature slapped his cane against my shin, causing me to slowly close my eyes with pain. I opened my peepers and he/it/the creature was still there in my kitchen, as real as day, staring up at me.

I looked down at him, my eyes wide, a line of spittle dangling from my quivering lower lip.

'Twas the Monopoly Man.

Replete in an ill-fitting suit and a dingy top hat, the Monopoly Man--let's call him Melvin--removed his monocle and polished it on his pantleg. He popped the monocle back over his left eye and cleared his little throat before he said, "Bank error in your favor, asshole."

I goggled at the little man, surely no taller than three-and-a-half-feet tall.

"What'd I grow tits, dickhead?" he rasped. "Close your mouth; you're drawing flies." He slapped his cane against my other shin and the burst of pain caused my mouth to shut with a snap; I clipped the end of my tongue with my teeth.

As the taste of warm blood seeped into my maw, the little bald man continued. "Consider yourself lucky, moron. You had no freaking idea in what state your finances were yet you came out rosy. You have an extra $238 in your account. Now you can be the Santa you want to be instead of the Grinch you thought you'd had to be. Shower up, numbnuts, and get your ass in gear. There's shopping to do."

Cognizance began to filter back into my shocked brain. I opened my mouth to speak and, as I struggled for words, the Monopoly Man winked out of existence with an audible pop. I gawked; he was gone. The only evidence that the creature had been in my kitchen at all was the pain radiating throughout my shins and a small pile of--for lack of a better word--droppings where Melvin had stood. Yes. Droppings. The Monopoly Man had left me with my own little Christmas present--he'd taken a quick shit on my kitchen floor. (And I'd never even noticed him dropping his pants!)

Similar in shape and size to rabbit droppings, that was where the similarities ended. The stench was unbearable and the size of the shit belied its density and its weight. The small pile had to weigh at least 20 pounds. I scooped it up in a doubled-up paper towel and carried it to the bathroom. My dog, Lou, shied away as I approached and I can say, with all honesty, that I did not blame him one bit. I set the prize gently in the toilet bowl and flushed. (Try flushing 20 pounds of ectoplasmic excrement down a normal toilet; it doesn't work. But that's a story for another day.)

I have shopping to do. Thanks, Melvin! :-)

MELISSA, I BLAME YOU

All that talk about having a cold and I think I sympathetically garnered one, just for you. *smile*

Colds suck. And this weather isn't helping any. Fucking rain and lowered temperatures. Here's an assignment, class: Pretend that you are playing an imaginary violin and aim it in my general direction. (I live near Detroit, so aim accordingly.) After you play a few imaginary chords, ask, aloud, to your computer monitor, "Adam? Would you like some cheese with your whine?" If you're at work and you think you would feel a little self-conscious doing that, go the ASL website and learn how to sign it in my general direction.

Hi, my name is Adam, and I'm a pussy. "Hi, Pussy!"

I'm really really really truly not a fan of being sick. It makes smoking ciggies that much more difficult. Want some unintended irony? Other names for cigarettes include "straights" and "faggots." Is it just me, or that ironic as hell?

I have three days to kick this cold to the kerb. I can do it. (And, yes, this is *all* about me. It's a weblog, for crissakes!)

Okay. Time to go to a meeting. Peace.

RANDOM THOUGHTS AT FOUR-AYE-EM

When something catchs fire easily is the correct word "flammable" or inflammable?" Or are they one in the same?

Is "insomnia" the most evil-looking word in the English language. Or does "cunt" hold that crown?

Were the Victorians the first to come up with the idea of underwear? And was it made of inpenetrable metals?

Why couldn't we just take a cue from the Native Americans and use tobacco only as a ritualistic drug?

Which came first the egg or the chicken?

And why did the chicken cross the road?

What the fuck was so damned important about the other side?

Are there legitimate mediums or are they just greenback-vacuums of suckas?

Why is it so blissful to walk around an apartment nekked as a jaybird?

And why are jaybirds singled out for being nekked?

And what the fuck is a jaybird? A blue jay? A marijuana-happy avian?

Why does it seem--every year--that money becomes transparent and disappears every holiday season?

Were the creators of those Phonics books trying to pull a fast one on the American public by naming the kid "Dick?"

And wasn't the cat named "Muff?"

And the dog named "Hard-on?"

Yeah. Those Phonics dudes thought they were slick, I'll bet.

Why is going back to work after a long layoff such a nerve-wracking event?

Is a "baker's dozen" equivalent to seven?

Why would scientists ever have come up with the malady of trans fats? Fuck shelf-life; these are people's arteries that we're talking about!

Is AA in the Guinness Book of World Records for "The Most Blatant Abuser of Cliches?"

Have you ever let go and let God?

How about taken it one day at a time?

Have you ever faked it till you made it?

Have you ever lived by the slogan, the axiom, "Just for Today?"

Have you ever wondered what tomorrow would bring?

Who was the first person to practice skatology and what the hell happened to him or her in his or her formative years?

Do we even want to go there?

Have you ever lived on reds, vitamin Cs and cocaine?

Were you aware that "Grateful Dead" and "Led Zeppelin" are both plays on words?

Were you aware that Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix all died at the age of 27 and all three names have four syllables and all begin with the letter "J?"

Did a goose just walk over your grave?

Will I be able to get the fuck back to sleep?

Yes.

"HI, MY NAME IS ADAM...

...And I'm a coffee-aholic."

"Hi, Adam!"

This is ridiculous. I went without caffeine for ten days and, once I'm sprung from my benevolent prison, I go nuts with the coffee. It all started when I was getting a ride home from a friend from the clinic and we stopped at a Caribou Coffee to garner some joe. I got something called a Turtle Chino, or some shit like that, and--bam!--it was off to the races. This is ridiculous and this is amazing.

I do believe that I would be better off to simply install a coffee IV into my veins. It would be quicker, that way. Cigarettes and coffee: Sustinence of champions.

I've drank so much fucking coffe during the last two-three days, I've had the equivalent of three or four good solid coffee enemas. "Solid" might be a misnomer. Believe me, it's nothing for which one would hope. On the plus side, if there were any toxins left in my body, they're long-gone, now! Buh-bye.

I wonder if caffeine would be classified as a "mood-altering" drug. At the 'Grove, the techs told us that we--the patients--would never be able to injest a mood-altering drug safely for the rest of our natural-born lives. I'm, uh, starting to see what they meant.

Too, does the computer count as a mood-alterant? This is what I have done for the last two-three days, in order of frequency: Smoked, drank coffee, banged on the computer keyboard, eaten oh-so-sporadically and gone to Anonymous meetings.

I am so damn Jacked-up on caffeine right now, I'm halfway up the fucking beanstalk. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Thanks.

Have you ever seen, Dear Reader, that "Seinfeld" episode in which Kramer settles a lawsuit with a coffee place out of court for a lifetime's worth of expressos? "WhatamItalkingfast? Idon'tthinkI'mtalkingfast. Maybealittle." And then he speedwalks down the sidewalk and the studio audience chortles with laughter?

Well, it's funnier on the boobtube.

My poor assaulted stomach is looking up my esophagus and wincing. "Get ready, large intestine," it says, "we've got MIGs at 12 o'clock." And then both the stomach and the large intestine pop open fruitless Wile E. Coyote cartoon umbrellas and brace for the worst. A waterfall of java cascades down the chute and drenches them both. "Reinforcements! Reinforcements!" screams the stomach. The small intestine clambers to their sides and offers its help. "Piss off, kid," says the large intestine, "you're too little."

Anyhoo.

Have you ever drank so much caffeine that your eyes begin to come unfocused? It's kind of trippy, in a way.

Fuck this. I'm gonna switch to decaf.

THE JOY OF PETS

They smell good, don't they? They're loyal. They're sounding boards. They're
lifejackets during stressful times. They're comic relief. They're a lot of other things, but I'm running out of time, here.

Lou is three days shy of his third birthday--December 23rd. According to doggy dynamics, his third birthday should equal about approximately around 21 human years. So. I'd been planning to take him out to some bars in downtown Royal Oak and get his ass all fucked up on shots and beer, but, sadly, that plan will not be consumated. I was looking forward to it, too. I've never seen the kid drunk. I've seen him buzzed a couple of times, but that doesn't really count because he was at home, in the apartment, and it was an ostensibly safe environment. I was actually looking forward to seeing how King Lou interacted with the bitches after he'd had a few too many. I was wondering if it was going to be a like-father-like-son-type-of-thing. Not that I interact with bitches, you see. I interact with women and ladies, but Lou is a canine and so he interacts with bitches although, sadly, not much goes on down there for him, seeing as how he was snipped at an early age. Poor kid.

So, yeah. Pets are cool. I'm going to make this an interactive weblog posting. Does anybody out there in Cyberland have any interesting anecdotes to share about their beloved pets? Come on. Don't be shy. Step right up to the microphone and let loose. Without talking, emotions get bottled up. Talking/typing is very cathartic.

The floor is yours....

WRITE SOMETHING FUNNY, DAMMIT!

Damn. I put myself on the spot! Uh.... Uh....

My dog is lying on his back right now, with his feet stuck up in the air! Hahahahaha!

Uh.... Uh....

Wouldn't it be funny if Goofy and Maramaduke and Scooby Doo roomed together and tried to raise a human baby girl on their own, without a bitch? We could call it "Three Cartoon Dogs and a Real-Live Baby." I'm sure it would be a box office sensation. Sensation, I say!

To your right, you will see a ladder. See? ------------------------------------->

Sadly, ladders aren't all that funny. They're pretty utilitarian, if you ask me. Besides, how often have you seen a ladder doing stand-up at the Laff Factory? If you say that you've seen a ladder doing stand-up at the Laff Factory, you're either lying through your teeth or you're on some good gosh-damned psychedelic drugs. Yeah. That, or you're quite mad. Welcome to the meeting; welcome to the table; pull up a chair and enjoy yourself.

Have you ever heard the one about the priest, the rabbi, the hooker, the toaster-oven, the welcome mat, the baseball bat, the dildo, the diaphragm and the sparrow? Yeah. Me either. But I'm sure it'd be pretty funny. But only if a good joke-teller told it. Other than that, the joke would fall flat on its metaphorical face. Seriously. Splat.

This is what is called diarrhea of the fingertips. Nothing of substance is emitted; it's all cloudy and nebulous. (Damn. I think I just grossed myself out. "Cloudy" and "nebulous?" Gag.)

Time to wipe. Peace.

EUPHORIA, ET CETERA

I'm out. Ten days in a rehabilitation center which, at times, was as surreal as anything I have ever experienced. People hear the word "addict" and an unsavory image probably swims to their forebrain. Let me tell you this: I was in there from the 8th until today, the 18th, and I can say with certainty that I have never met a group of people, with such varying socioeconomic backgrounds, who pulled for each other as much as this group at Maplegrove did. We had solidarity. Which, to me, is obvious, because we all face the same problem: Addiction. Be it alcohol or crack or powder or smack, we all bend to the weight of the King Kongs on our backs.

During the ten days, with six to seven hours of lecture and meetings per day, I began to feel the weight of the massive gorilla lessen on my back and I began to be able to walk more upright, with my shoulders square to face the world and whatever it had to throw at me. I'm not going to lie. I still have a monkey on my back; I still have a problem and will ALWAYS have a problem with mood-altering drugs. But I was given the tools to combat the Beast, the tools to chip away at its knees. And I feel damn good about that. All the cliches in the world were spoken at Maplegrove. You've heard them, I'm sure. But it all boils down to this: One day at a time. And that's as true as an arrow.

It was the best decision I've ever made. Life may not be rosy all the time--in fact, it often sucks ass--but to face it with a clear head and to be sober is paramount in my life, right now.

Anyway, I had a lot of time on my hands when I was in there and I fell into writing poetry. Some poems are dark and some are uplifting. Some are comical--naw. I wasn't exactly in a joking mood, in regards to literature. Here are a few poems, for the most part chronologically-posted, for your perusal:

"Maplegrove" Tuesday 3:16AM

give us your swillers
your poppers your
strung-out injectors
your inhalers
your rollers your
huddled *missed* slackers

with patience tough
love and learn-ed
receptors
the lame may turn
strong (and but
eye-rolling didactors)

o' but one sacred *Life*
is given to all; with patience
and work
we will *all* become factors

***
"Alive" Tuesday 6:16AM

alive. bipedal arm-swinging
humanoids, carbon-based
life-forms capable of both
great Love and great Malice
--God, Yaweh, Buddha, Mohammed--
a brilliant sunrise, a sobering sunset
all give and give us bipedal
arm-swingers Free Will and
the wrapped, bowed gift of
*Choice*. alive

***
"As Hard as I Can" Tuesday 9:20PM

as hard as i can i
slam my fist into the
off-colored Wall of Denial and
my fist shatters
chrystalline like glass and
the wall follows suit
fist and wall flutter to floor
so-slowly
in a puff of
dis-newal

where my hand had been is
now just a bloodless
stump--cauterized
and it seeks to fill the void

pushing sliding ever-so
gently
it smooths into the void and
encounters the Abyss

what is behind this blank portal
of Amputation?
one way to go. forward

***
"The Sobering Reality" Tuesday 10:00PM

reality comes in many forms
some are just more
skewed
than others

in a clinic in the hoity-toits
of the hand-state a man
was admitted wearing the green of Hospital...
his movements were jerky and
his thoughts were
zoomingfromonetopictothenextwithoutahint
of Reason
his liver was frazzled and
sizzled like bacon
cirrhosis of the liver

and i wondered if an end-game
scenario like that could
lead like a shepherd the sheep
of Madness

could the toxins that the liver failed
to metabolize cause one to go insane?
i didn't want to know but I
sure as Hell was not going to shun him

***
"The Sleeping Beast"

a sense of melancholy
pervades my soul
yet a distant hopeful flare
lights the night-day sky

i feel as though i am
on the verge of losing a
very dear friend, one of whom
has been with me throughout
thin and thick over many years

though i grieve for my dear friend
i also silently, surreptitiously,
do somersaults and cartwheels

a wise doctor once said,
"one must tread quietly past
the sleeping Beast;
for one wants It to remain as It is"

***
"Self-Loathing" Wednesday 8:50AM

tell me what you think of this:
a man checks himself in to a clinic
for drinking, of all things,
innocuous Beer
looks in the mirror, sees
bald fat ugly fucker
staring back at him
fuck creativity and fuck
empathy
let the bitch have it with
...both barrels
a piece-of-shit motherfucking
slice-nutted man
checks himself in to a clinic
for drinking, of all things
innocuous Beer
looks in the mirror, sees
bald fat ugly fucker
with dead eyes
(puffy)
and little to no strength
---the end---
.the fuck.

***
"Check-Out Time" Wednesday 11:35PM

where does it all begin?
and when will it all end?
what shape will the Beast take
when the end-game draws nigh?

are there spheres of Distant
interspersed throughout our planes of Sense?
are we one with ourselves or
are we fighting until the end?
is that shadow a Being?
is that light-shaft a Portal?

can we walk into the Light
and zip ourselves up tight
pillowed against the destruction
of latching on to Energy?
should we even bother?

my throat--tight--tells me no
my mind--renewed--is again my enemy
when did it all begin?
and where will it end?
salud. adios. buh-bye. i'm checking out.

***
"Not-So Comfortably Numb" Wednesday 11:58PM

all of these negative fucking emotions
tumble back into my
band-box of a brain and
Rage says hello to Anxiety and
Depression slaps Fear on the back
like a good long-lost buddy
(it's party-time)

talk is of Fellowship and that
talk is just grand but
how does one join a blasted Fellowship
when one has isolated oneself
for so-very long?

i prefer Numbness to Angst
i'd rather bid farewell to Dash's years
than to slog through the taffy of Suffering

call me crazy--i don't like pain

better to die a loner's death
than to parry and proffer and get
shot down in flames...

this is about the fear of Rejection.
there. i made it easy for you.

***
"The Coyotes"

i stand calm, smoking
from woods two coyotes shine
vanish in moonlight

***
"The Gray Haze Descends" Friday 1:16AM

the gray haze descends and i watch
with heavy-lidded lizard's eyes
i watch as a thin sheen of
Beauty
buffers me from the Dark's forces

all worries slide silently away
as i watch the gray haze descend

chaos and catastrophies lose their solidity
they turn dark-gray and then blend
into the sheen
and then they are as ghosts
transparent, easy to fold up
and put in my pocket

i'll carry the Chaos with me always,
crinkled and creased with the
dust of many Years, wary
always, of its ability to unfold
--unfurl--
and replace gray haze with the Red carpet of Hell

***
"Every Day Daily" Saturday 11:55PM

smack-forward to Present
busted lives, forgotten Love
to see suffering is to remember
--every day daily--
for the rest of the natural life
the power of and the wounds from the Beast

every day daily we need to tear apart
the scabbed dermis and probe
fingers through cavity
of blood
and tissue

to forget is to die and
to remember is to daily-live
throughout heartaches and loss and
throughout Light-filled times

our Darkness must be omnipresent
we must hold it close to our breast
as tenderly as a baby bird,
careful not to crush it yet strong
enough to keep it caged

every day daily

next to our heart. where it belongs

***
"Foxholes" Sunday 9:15PM

you make fast friends in foxholes
thrown together by varying circumstances
relationships borne of strife
cemented with a common goal
a flashing neon sign in the temporal lobe:
"good-health-sobriety-lifted-spirit"

you make fast friends in foxholes
with the rockets booming overhead
and the grenades of Addiction
--tearing apart--
showering dirty souls slow-motion-up
into the air and
back down with a
breathless sob

forged with a common goal
broken souls--bleeding--regenerate
and Light begins to filter
back into Darkened lives

the Beast of Burden caterwauls
and dissolves but slowly

but, that's fine:
we have Time on our sides

I'M GOING TO REHAB--TOMORROW

And the tears continue to fall.

WE WANDER

we wander from street corner to street corner

always

looking Above.

Life is more than a series of

weakened left hands and

arms.

and alcohol.

Life is Beautiful--Life is God--

remind me tomorrow, please.

tanks

sed Patton.

smilehitchweep.

:-)(

AN AYE-TO-ZEE POST ABOUT ZEBRAS

As I looked out the bedroom window, the sky continued to darken. Best not to look too long--I'd read somewhere that staring at Nothingness could be hazardous to one's health. Come on--really?

Did I stutter?

Every day, I think about my zebra. Fastidious. Gallant. He is a physical specimen, he is my Zorro.

I gathered my smooth head back from the pane of glass and I looked at my dog, Lou, who looked back at me, unflinchingly. "Just gimme a second, dude," I said.

Kudos to Lou--he gave me a second and many more.

Listen: I live in Clawson, Michigan, and I know, on one level, that zebras are not common fauna. My Zorro is real, and if you backtalk, we'll have to have a palaver. Naw, yes, naw, yes.

Open your mind, if you will, and accept the possibility of a zebra in a northern United States state. Personally, I look at my Zorro and I see nothing--not a gosh-damned thing--amiss. Queer, isn't it, how one man's internal skill set differs from another's? Really, I'm preaching to the choir, here.

*Sighs.*

Today, nobody bothered me about my zebra, for which I am eternally grateful. Understand that I never wanted Zorro as a pet.

Vicious, isn't it, the depths to which one will sink to maintain the wool over one's eyes? "Wow," I said to my reflection.

Xerox this into your brain, Dear-Reader: Life is what you make of it.

Yes.

Zorro approved and Jesus wept and then we all ran around the mulberry bush, panting throughout.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

It's 9:30 AM, here, in Michigan. I have today off of work. (And tomorrow, too, but who the hell asked?)

I have W.A. Mozart blaring through my computer's speakers. If there were ever a "musical Prozac," this dude, Wolfgang, would corner the market.

It is difficult to put into words the feelings I get when I listen to Wolfie. It's kinda like this: There is no way in the heavens that such TALENT should exist. The rise and fall of the melody, the cut/scratches of the violins, the blissful rise of the horn section, the meandering cellos....

It IS musical Prozac. Whoever "coined" that phrase needs a raise.

[He throws his two cents into the fountain, shrugs, slams his hands in his pockets, and walks down the road.]

FIELD OF POPPIES, CONCLUDED...

[READ THE POST BELOW, FIRST, PLEASE, IF YOU MAY. THANKS]

The gasman gazed down the dark stairwell, completely cognizant, on one level, of what the princess had told him. He was not to go down these stairs. On another, wholly untethered, level of his brain, he knew that he must go down these stairs. The answer to the unasked mystery lay at the bottom of the out-of-kilter stone steps.

He started down the stairwell and, as soon as he took his first step, the warm fuzzy feeling of floating deserted him and every step he took was like that of the mermaid of Anderssen lore. Every step was a razor blade in the bottom of his booted feet. His work boots did nothing to quell the psychic pain. He counted the steps as he descended into the gloom.

At step number sixty-six, he reached the bottom. Though he could not see his hand in front of his face, he sensed, he knew, that the forbidden door was before him. This door was the antithesis to the radiant welcoming door to the front of the castle. Whereas that door had virtually burst forth with warmth and good feelings, this door acted almost as a vacuum, sucking the life and love and vigor and verve from the gasman.

With trembling fingers, he pushed forward and the door swung open easily on well-oiled hinges.

After the gloom of the stairwell, his eyes took a moment to adjust to the red-orange glare of the stinking cavernous room. Although it could hardly be called a room. Defying all rules of perspective and space, the walls were a thousand miles away and the ceiling was a vague blur in the heavens. But, as the gasman saw, this was not heaven, this was hell.

Men, in all getup of bondage sweated and strained to move boulders that fell back into place and strove to stoke fires that roared when they approached. The gasman noticed, above all, the insectile whine of the laborers. They had lost the ability to speak; they were now simple pawns at the command of the scantily-clad women. The gasman noticed the princess and tried, unobtrusively, to reach her--to perhaps have her help him.

As he slunk along the wall, he was grabbed from behind, by an insanely-strong woman and bum-rushed to the princess's side. The princess looked down at the gasman with nary a glint of pity and her lips curled into an evil smile.

"I specifically forbade you to use those stairs, gasman. You disobeyed my order and now you will pay. With your soul."

As the gasman watched with horror, the princess's face began to melt, losing her beauty, transforming her, in mere moments, into one the unspeakables that had haunted the gasman in his dreams.

As he opened his mouth to shriek, a hand clambered from behind him, up his leg, and gripped, in a vise-grip, his manhood. Reins were slammed into his mouth and he fainted to the floor.

--THE END

Why did I write this story? Well, believe it or not, this was based on actual events. Okay, "based" is probably the wrong word. Let's just say that I was inspired by real-life events to write this rather grim fairy tale. And, yes, it all comes back to what I do for a living.

Last night at about six at night, I went to a woman's house to turn on her gas. She was extremely flirtatious and quite good-looking, too. She'd asked if I could light the pilots, too. I said sure and followed her into the kitchen, wherewithin she opened a closet door and said, they're here, right? "They" were the furnace and the water heater and, yes, they were there.

She bent down, in her tight black--accentuating--pants and took the bottom door off the furnace. No, I told her, that door needs to stay on, so that it presses against the switch that will allow electricity to flow to the automatic spark ignition.

She shrugged and said, "See? I'm a girl. I don't know any of this stuff!"

I answered, "Well, I'm a guy and I don't know a damn thing about fixing cars. It's all individual knowledge, not women knowing some things and men knowing other things."

She moved closer to me and I could smell her perfume. Our arms were almost touching. Damn, I thought, this could get interesting. It did. I got the furnace ostensibly going--it was an auto-ignition furnace; there wasn't anything I needed to do, and I told her to have a good night and I started towards the door.

She hugged me from behind, pressing her breasts against my back. That got a rise out of me...in a good way, though. I turned and smiled and I asked her for her number. She laughed and said sure and that she'd never done this before. I said, me either, Karen. We exchanged numbers, and I got paged for a damn gas leak. I told her that I has to go and she smiled and moved closer. "Gimme a hug, Adam," she said.

Why the hell not, I thought, so I moved in for a hug. We embraced and she told me that I was adorable and she moved her lips towards mine. God knows I wanted to, but something seemed pretty fucking wrong about kissing a customer, so I turned my head at the last minute and she ended up kissing my cheek. She reiterated that I was adorable and we set up maybe something for the next day. I walked to my van with a hard-on pressing against my jeans and praising God.

On the way to the leak, she called me on my cell and told me that her furnace had still not kicked on. I told her that it had been off for ten days and that the air needed to be worked out of the lines. As I drove to the leak, she filled me in on her greatest assests--her pencil-stub nipples and relayed to me that, besides the hair on her head, she was totally hairless. She asked me if that was a problem. Hell no, I said, as I drove with my dick. I told her I had a question for her. I asked her if she liked bald guys. She almost squealed. Oh my God, she said, I was just going to ask you that! I love bald guys...their smooth heads. I love to kiss their smooth heads.

Speaking of heads, I was thinking with the wrong one, apparently.

She called me twice today, saying that her furnace was out again. I repeated what I had said 32 times the night before: The bottom door has to be snug against the electrical shut-off button. I told her that when I came over later, I would take a look at it. But it's freezing here, she said. Then call the 800-number, I told her. Tell them that you have no gas coming to your furnace. I was actually trying to hook her up, seeing as how I knew that there was gas coming in and I pretty knew what the problem was. She called again later, saying that the furnace was out again. Did she want me to come over? I asked her, see if I could fix whatever ailed the furnace, reminding her, again, that I was not trained to repair furnaces. We went around the rosemary bush again (did I mention that she is as shaved as a baby seal?) and eventually I told her that I would call her at four, to set something up for tonight.

Meanwhile, I went and washed my car and vacuumed the inside and slathered Armor-All around the interior. On the way back to my apartment, I picked up a small box of Whitman's chocolates--just eight pieces, don't worry--and then I paced around my apartment until 4:00 came. (Yes, I'm a nervous loon.) For the first time in the three times that I had called her, the call went to voice-mail. I left a message saying, "Hi, Karen, this is Adam...uh, just give me a call when you can. Peace. Bye."

The ball was in her court.

I erased all the incoming and outcoming logs on my telephone and burned the two pieces of paper that had had her number written on them. Though I'm on the wagon, I didn't want the possibility of getting drunk one day down the line and drunk calling the fine upstanding woman who I met while on the job.

Maybe it was a mistake, I told myself. Maybe she was out doing grocery shopping or something like that. But I had told her 4:00, and she'd repeated 4:00.

At this point in time, as I type this comma, I'm thinking it a con job. How fucking low can you go? And I'm not talking about that dance where you kinda shuffle along on the tips of your feet under a pole.

How low can you possibly go?

--THE END END

Postscript--Yes, I had a feeling that it was too good to be true. But. I'll tell you this: If I ever get that address on Warwick Sreet again--and, yes, I remember the address as clear as day; I'm a loser--I'll head towards it and then, oops, somehow, it must have gotten deleted. Wow! The damndest things happen, sometimes, in this line of work! Oh well, she'll call back, and have to suffer through all the phonepad navigations. Wah-fucking-wah.

P.T. Barnum is reported to have once quipped, "A sucker is born every minute." I'll add to that, P.T., if I may: If a sucker is horny as hell and a pretty woman shows him some attention and talks all sexy-like, a sucker is born every five seconds. And that sucker goes home with blue-balls betwixt his legs.

Anyone want some chocolates?

*sigh*

Post-postscript--In her defense, though, she was good at what she did. She certainly had me going! :-)