Among The Conifers

 

Point A to Point B. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. From poor to rich. But unless you suffer from Alzheimer’s, you never forget. Never forget you were poor. You can walk all around your ritzy neighborhood; five-bedroom three car garage homes, with decorative stone paths, scaped lots the size of a football field, nestled in the enormous conifers. You can. But you know they’re dangerous. Those people you knew. You know what their capable of. You know that if you ever cross paths with them, decorative stone or not, they will immediately recognize all you have to lose, and pounce on it. They will threaten you and your family, nestled in among the conifers. They’ll seize on how much you have to lose. They’ll threaten to hurt your wife and kids. You know they will. They’ll abuse your fear and never stop. Which is why you can never go back. You can never see them as human, never respect them as more than animals. On sight you should kill them. On sight. Six hundred miles separates you from them. Six hundred miles and thirty years. But they’ll recognize you. Feel you, and all that money. But you too, you feel you, poor, out of place, among the conifers.

When Ron Fell

It started out as a mistake. 

They were walking through a house that was for sale asking the realtor about square footage and utility bills and how old the roof is and stuff like that when a decorative owl caught her eye. The husband was looking out over the yard and asking the agent about acreage when she grabbed it to determine what it was made of. It was heavier than she anticipated so she thought maybe it was pewter but it also could have been nickel. 

Then her husband fell down the basement steps. From the top step. Ten steps in all. That kinda racket scares the shit out of you actually. Imagine a flesh covered bowling ball topping out at 200 LB’s falling down your basement steps. Not exactly quiet and not exactly un-fucking frightening. So when she ran over to the top of the basement stairs it didn’t register that she stuck the owl in her jacket pocket. She didn’t notice it when she saw her husband’s tibia poking under his skin like an eager mole of calcium, she didn’t notice it in the ambulance ride to the hospital while he whimpered like only a grown man who had fallen down the steps of a house for sale can whimper. 

She noticed it weeks later when she took the jacket off the hanger and wondered about the weight. Huh. The owl from the house where Ron fell. Well she wasn’t about to call the agent after the colossal embarrassment of dragging your husband from a showing because he fell down the basement steps. And she wasn’t about to visit the owners and explain that she mistakenly put the owl in her pocket. Who was going to believe that? It was a lose lose situation; so she perched that owl in her closet. It looked good in there. She smiled at it. Even if it was de facto stolen.

The next house they looked at it was obvious that Ron wouldn’t be going up or down any stairs as he was on crutches. And for some reason, being alone, in the bedrooms and the closets, and the bathrooms, while Ron and the agent du jour talked about this and that, she stole shit.

Cancel. The. Account.

“I regret to inform you that the deadline has passed.”

There was a silence birthing over the phone.

It was either a battle of attrition or a pissing contest. Neither one was thinking about if anyone ever really wins these.

Somewhere in the annals of manuals and according to Hoyle customer service decision trees an error was made. Undoubtedly.

But epistemologically speaking, only one party in this two party event, knew of this error; and this party was not going to divulge the mistake. Not even close.

The damn broke.

“I regret to inform you that you fucking need to waive the fucking fee!”

“Mr. Donaldson we cannot waive the fee.”

Notice the use of the safer pronoun we. Safety in numbers. The fabric of society -social capital- had been dying since the 60’s and was on death’s door at the moment but Mr. Customer service here invokes the we like we’re back in WWII manufacturing tanks or sewing uniforms for the boys on the continent.

“The fee can and will be waived. Because there was no fault on the part of the customer. This is bad business! This opt out tactic. Who do you think you’re dealing with? Opt out…my ass.”

“The deadline has passed and communication was made regarding the-

“You know what? Cancel the account.”

Another silence filled their phones like helium in a balloon.

“Mr. Donaldson we can spread the fee payment out over a number of months.”

“Cancel. The. Account.”

One of them was as cool as a cucumber now. Comfortable in the silence. Knew the outcome well in advance at this point.

“Mr. Donaldson?”

In Hands Not The Mind

“Come look at this,” she said. “It’s just over this ridge, down the hill where the old fort used to be.”

“The old fort,” he raised incredulously. “I’ll be a week older by the time we get there; why did I let you take me for a quote unquote walk? My pits are staining and my aorta is straining here. “

“Walter, walk, just walk Walter. We’re almost there.”

“Are we, are we almost there? Because it feels like I’m still walking.”

“SHUT UP!...and look, down there.”

“Whoa,” he floated in awe of the sight down the hill. “Is that?...”

“It ain’t Wendell Wilkie Walter."

“It, it’s beautiful. An oasis of junk in a perfect portrait of flora and fauna. Trees schmrees.”

A junkyard lay below them. Walter loved junkyards. Got misty just lookin’ at em.

“Here’s the thing though,” she said, “this thing is secured like the Louvre.”

Walter jerked his head around at warp speed to glare at her. “You bring me here and expect me to just look at all this. This ain’t a portrait of Sir McSire of the Sires of the realm; this stuff needs to be touched and manipulated and held and tinkered with. The progress of man is in hands not the mind. If you say forced dichotomy I will punch you in the brain and ask you how your mind feels.”

“Would you just take it easy Walter. I didn’t say one word about just looking or the progress of man or your parents forcing your lobotomy; I merely said the place is secure. Open. Your. Fucking. Ears. Tinker with em with your fucking hands if you have to but open those god damn things up. Shit Walter.”

“Sorry, I just see so much junk. Me want… me need. There’s auto junk there’s industrial junk, there’s atuo-industrial junk. And soooo much rust. If I had some WD-40 right now…”

“Whoa whoa whoa, I did not come out here to watch you get hot and heavy and talk about rust lubricant. What’s the plan and what’s my cut?”

“The plan depends on your cut.”

“Contingencies are a slippery slope to relativism Walter and you don’t want to be a relativist do you? You want lines and demarcations Walter. Black. And. White Walter.

Walter took his eyes from the junk to glare at her. “I think you may have forgotten your order in the pecking.”

“Do I look like fowl to you? There’s money down there Walter and you know you need me to get it. Stop wasting time; I hate wasting time! You wanna haggle then set a price and we’ll haggle but I don’t have time for contingencies and evolved social behaviors of fucking chickens.”

She cut her rant to breathe heavily and wait for his retort.

“It’s not just chickens but I get your point.”

He began scanning the yard in earnest and mumbling about acreage, entry points, and god damn pit bulls.

“You get the first stakeout.”

First Date

First Date

Young, very young couple, teens young, is out at a nice(ish) restaurant and they are noticeable to everyone that they are on their first date. One wonders who even drove they look so young. It appears they aren’t really talking just kind of being red-faced and embarrassed with nothing to say.

So some altruist, isn’t it always some dork altruist mucking destiny up, goes over and says “Hey guys. First date?”

What an asshole right?

He continues to torment them: “I’ve found that questions like if you were on a deserted island and could have only one music CD, what would it be?; or if you could have only one meal for the rest of your life or one tv show or one movie…what would it be? are good questions to stimulate conversation.”

What kind of freakshow altruist bothers people like this?

The boy on the date was gracious and lied to the man: “Thanks, very cool very cool.” But they were both absolutely disgusted at this hideous gesture and mocked him mercilessly upon his exit to his wife and kids.

They actually bonded over the mocking of the jerkwad and his stupid questions.

They had a lot in common it turns out: they both reveled in mocking other people and soon developed a website together: FootLongMock.com where stories or pictures of people were mocked and henceforth graded for:
Intensity
Sarcasm
Originality
Voice
and Mockitude

They ended up getting married just after high school but failed to invite the asshole altruist that mucked things up.

God altruists are assholes!

#FlashFiction

He’d gotten himself into some pretty kinky shit of late: married women, bondage, feet. He tried telling himself it was a phase and a phase he should enjoy now while he is single before he settles down and starts a family and all that jazz. Funny how short phases can be when a married man comes banging on your apartment door at 3 in the morning yelling at the top of his lungs about “fucking you up” and “don’t let me see you out in public motherfucker” and “don’t forget I know where you live.”
But what are you going to do when you work so hard to get to the status of lothario and feel a certain obligation. Was he just going to let his abs and his cock go to waste because some cuckold was a little upset? Of course not. He was going to stick to bondage and feet and throw in some role play. Starting now.

#FlashFiction

“It’s all theory,” he said. He was drunk but they were all drunk. So it didn’t matter; what he’d said. What mattered was getting drunk and getting laid. Which meant that what really mattered, in praxis, was getting drunk. So they got drunk and said stupid adolescent shit and enjoyed their inside jokes and immaturity for what it was but then, wanted laid. Or something like it. Anything like it. Some sort of friction if not love and caressing and intimacy of the highest order. Friction: pants on pants off-doesn’t matter. Some sort of tactile sensation involving the opposite sex. Those dumbasses never put two and two together to realize that getting drunk subverted getting laid. Idiots. The guys getting laid had girlfriends and guts and security to put themselves in front of a woman and offer themselves warts and all. In theory.

#FlashFiction

He’d climbed the ladder to the high dive; like he’d done hundreds of times. He was one of the few guys that could do a gainer let alone from the high dive. No one was really watching so it was quite the surprise when his body hit the concrete and not the water. The sound of tissue on the pavement registered even above the din of an outdoor pool in the middle of summer-like a circus strong man slapped a medicine ball as hard as he could. Then the melee bagan. People started crying, gasping, covering their mouths as they winced and children began running out as the monster of blood and death began to ooze from his head like unending spilled milk. The lifeguard was useless; pressure on the wound was impossible without turning him over and replacing the chunk of skull smashed apart from his head. Nothing for her to do but get blood on her hands.

Like A Critter In An Attic At Midnight

The gas poured out. He struck the match and everything went aflame. The fire burned hot enough to melt the bones. He wanted to cover up his deed but he uncovered his soul; laid it bare to his conscience. His conscience scritched like a critter in an attic at midnight, gnawing at woods, souls, hearts, and minds. His naked soul was pelted with images of char and sounds of wail. The guilt washed over him like blood, encasing him with no chance of escape…or innocence. Though the state would never know, though his parents would never know, he would know and this knowledge would be his prison till he stopped breathing.

Insidious Kind of Malaise

He was having a really hard time…considering therapy, trouble finding joy in things, in life, perhaps depressed. He knew it wasn’t an overarching, enveloping, insidious kind of malaise though. It was his troubled…he didn’t even want to say it. He wasn’t superstitious but he felt that if he admitted it, some kind of fruition was bound. He was under tremendous pressure. At times he felt like it might be too much and that he would breakdown, not be able to handle it and find himself institutionalized…but this scared him more than anything -the loss of autonomy. A troubled_____ was one thing but it still allowed for some degree of autonomy.

Legato Runs

He was running scales backstage when I kissed him on the mouth. “What did you do that for?” he said, kinda pissed. “Because you play better when you’re pissed off, dick!” He kept doing legato runs with his left hand, pointed his right finger at me and, I’ll never forget this, said “if you ever do that again, you better be prepared to brawl or bang and I ain’t sure which one. You got me?” I pointed right back at him and said, I’ll shove a mic stand right into your spine if you ever threaten me again. You got me?” We glared… “Are you about ready for sound check?”

Cheap, Used

They were drenched in sweat and he was gone. Whatever they shared didn’t matter to him; he was thinking of how to get rid of her. He’d done this so many times he was past subtlety. “I have to get to the gym, so you should get going.” He didn’t care about the looks on their faces or how they felt, especially if they felt cheap or used. Because he felt cheap and used he always thought to himself. That is how we landed in this bed together. What is different now he always thought? Clothes on, clothes off, still, cheap, used, both of us.

“Will I see you again?”

Bound

“You ever squeeze a puppy till it yelps?”

“Man why you ask me questions like that?”

“You see we’re here in this fox hole and we’re fixin’ to die and this fucking waiting binds me up. And when I get bound up, sometimes I squeeze a puppy.”

The air was damp and heavy and sank into their gear and weighed them down. The weight of the war and the air was too much for anyone.

“We ain’t got no fucking puppies!”

“I can’t breathe in here anymore man. I’m bound and I’m dead and I’m not human anymore.”

Silence split the difference between them.

“Do you know what I’ve done!?”