Pass Me Some Eyes, Please -- Mark Ludgate

"It’s like um…"

His conversation is heard from everywhere in the café. Outside, the pebble beach is wet. The bench he sits on is wet. He takes something from the bag on the table and bites it from his palm.

"…it might have been around October, probably October time. No, that’s all wrong. Ha, how silly of me to forget. No, it was November, definitely, yeah because the point is that the weather was cold, so cold. Ha, everyone always says that, like they weren’t expecting winter to come back around again, "Oh it’s so cold isn’t it." So… it was November, maybe the fourth or something like that… lets not dwell on that: not important… But the beginning of November, and cold like, shit. I dunno’, it was cold enough that we could be sure the earth must have been getting her final laugh, really shaking us up for global warming. ‘Cos, she knows that we’re fibbing, soothing our conscience, when we say we care about her. It was killer cold."

He pauses to chew and puts another past wet lips. It’s a hard candy, maybe the end of a piece of rock. It scrapes against white teeth and is knocked about his cheeks via his tongue. He starts talking again but there’s no clarity to the words. The candy bulges from his cheek. He stops. He swallows any loose saliva and starts again.

"Yeah, achem, um… there was this guy, ha, there’s always a guy, right? Well this one would stoop around on shop corners at night, or on the walls…they were constantly stained with piss, ‘cos you know, it was a lively city most of the time, people got pissed constantly. Kind of funny, kind of not, but definitely just sweating irony. I don’t know… I knew people to blow eighty quid in one night, easy on a Saturday, it’s just the prerogative of the drunk: drink more, don’t stop for anything. Certainly don’t stop for the poor, a beggar. The irony? Yeah, well that lay in these people pissing away all this money on booze and probably drugs, though I wouldn’t want to wrongly accuse a town of that. They trot about the city, these people; flashing money here, there. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of people who… thousands would walk by this guy in one night, they’d barely look at him. Well, he practically blended into the step he would be slothing on. They’d walk by and he’d be leant against a piss stained wall one of them had marked for him. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condemning a city here. Let me point out that I am one of those very people. I must have walked by the guy a hundred times, sometimes two or three in one night, probably even pissed on that wall. I just left him be, pitied him and thought it was enough. Mmm, god these are good. Are these yours? Who cares right?"

He picks another sweet from the bag and tosses it into the back of his mouth. It bounces off one back-of-the-mouth molar in the lower jaw with a hollow clunk.

"I mean…"

He pauses to move the sweet around his mouth, finally resting it in his right cheek. The cheek stretches to compensate.

"…this guy was it, in terms of the lowest, ‘cos you know, you see some people on the street asking for money and they’re wearing decent clothing or have a mobile phone, and you’re suspicious about whether they’re actually homeless - ruining it for the real homeless. I don’t think this guy actually…didn’t um…he didn’t actually ask for money, I don’t think. He just sat there, dirty and unshaven. I saw him smile once for a dog that hopped up and licked his face. Yeah he smiled, before the owner of the dog pulled sharp on the lead and that was that. But the guys smile: horrible teeth, black, wood, you know, a wooden colour; teeth from the dark ages. I feel bad ‘cos I was disgusted by him, by his appearance. I didn’t want to have to look at him, didn’t want him to be there all the time, ruining my evening. No one hassled him, he just looked so timid. Huge eyes that sort of stood out under all this fur. Well, hair, beard, eyebrows, mustache, all big, animated. Beautiful eyes, oh yeah, wonderful, huge eyelashes. I bet he was one of the most beautiful men, with eyes like that, but who would know?"

He starts to draw on an envelope from his pocket. He turns the envelope over quickly and then back, checking it to be nothing important.

"Before I get to the point with this, I need to tell you a quick thing about my father and my, um, sister."

He doodles some more, biting his lip, perhaps buying time. He stops biting his lip and the lip begins to quiver.

"…achem, um, my father…had…taken my sister to London. I don’t know if you’ve ever been…you’ve probably been, but the underground is incredibly complex, you know. My sister, she was five at the time, achem, sorry it’s just…"

He keeps looking down while talking. Rejecting eye contact his eyes focus on his doodles.

"…um, well, my father had been running with my sister…a game…Fran…that’s her name. I think they were having a good time, running to catch the tube. It was rush hour, you know, a lot of people, my sister she would… she was small…achem. She was running a little ahead of my father, slipping easily past the… she got to the train before my father and was pushed into the train by crowds of people…my…father couldn’t get on. Sorry I just need…"

He takes a sip, then a large gulp of liquid, from a mug on the table next to him. He places the mug down, on the doodles, on the envelope, on the table.

"…my father saw my sister through the window of the train, signaled for her to stay at the next stop. She understood...from what he said. Erm, he caught the next train, got to the next station, she wasn’t on the platform, or the one the other side. Both sides had only a few people. "She wasn’t there" he said, "she wasn’t there."

He raises his eyebrows, but sadly. He takes a deep breath looking straight up, and then regains eye contact.

"Well, he searched, searched all night, before finally telling the authorities. Shock or something, blown gasket in the mind, a damaged something; he was shot. They wanted to know why he hadn’t gone to them sooner. There was a search then, went on for, god, I don’t know, but I don’t want to get into that. I’m sure you’ve heard about it because… she was never actually found, still not found. The thing that struck me was my father, one night, recounting the story to me, in a great amount of detail, and I was sure that it was only to try and beg my forgiveness, that he'd done all he could of, though I forgave him anyway… I knew him… I’m his blood. I knew it wasn’t his fault."

He stops and stares at the envelope in front of him where water from the bottom of the mug draws the ink from where he marked it and blurs it into the surrounding paper.

"My father said to me that he’d been calling her name: "Fran! Fran!" His voice was inaudible the next day, he must have been calling her name non-stop for twelve hours. He didn’t ask people to help him, which doesn't seem like him and I think it’s likely to be down to the shock; shell shock, for the dramatic event. But in these twelve hours of calling her name - if you heard someone, a middle aged man, shouting a girls name, looking distressed, wouldn’t you think he’d lost someone?"

"None of the people offered to help him, no one asked him what was wrong. It’s strange don’t you think? At first, it seemed to me to just say: damn, the world is cruel and people don’t feel for other people. Thinking about it more - oh actually, I remember why my thoughts have led the way they have: my father asked, no, he said to me that he wished that I’d been there or -- no that’s not right. It’s important, the correct words he used because this explains my point. He said he wished that in those unknown strangers, there had been a person like me, someone just like me because I would have stopped and asked him what was wrong."

He begins to huff and quickly pulls his hand to his face to wipe his eyes. It doesn’t last long but his eyes are puffy and red.

"When I think about this – well, obviously, I said to him I would have helped... but thinking about it… I know, I know. I wouldn’t have stopped. I’m sure I’d have realized he’d probably lost someone, you know, and it’s not like I’d have just walked past not caring, because I do care, it makes me sad, it makes me sad about the… people have this idea that people don’t care for strangers, as though they don’t feel anything for them, but they do; they empathize and feel sorrow, they cry for people they don’t know. But that doesn’t mean that they will help them."

"There’s a barrier there, like… it’s like a social thing, maybe mainly in England. People, keeping to themselves, the reserved character, the stiff upper lip. It’s possible that… I don’t know…we’re... worried of embarrassing a stranger, if we offer them help. How ridiculous is that? But, I mean, it makes sense. People want pride, they want to be seen as strong, they want a will that has control. If a stranger helps another out of pity, then the one helped loses that control. It’s almost a courtesy of the one-that-could-help to show respect by leaving the other to it. Of course, this isn’t how the one-in-need feels, they want help in a situation where they’ve lost someone. But the one-that-could-help feels a detachment to the one-in-need; for them it’s just like watching it happen at the cinema. And... and if these people who could help aren’t engaged in the event immediately, they forget, because they are programmed to. It makes sense to have evolved so that a person will direct their worries at their problems, not someone else’s."

He pauses and takes a breath. He looks up, smiles and shakes his head with a tired tutting.

"That’s enough of that, the ‘why’. Shortly after, maybe six months later, my father came up to visit me. He was wearing this huge parka jacket, you know, like it was built for snowstorms and walking through walls. He also had these thick boots because, like I was saying, it was November, and cold. Erm…we were walking, milling about, not talking or anything but just trying to savor each others company… we came by the man, you know, the beggar on his piss step."

"My father stopped in front of him and looked at…no… it was more like, he was concentrating on him, concentrating at him; a dead stare. Then for no reason - well, not for no reason - my father took off his jacket and gave it to the man, who - without saying anything - put it on immediately, sort of, chewing nothing while he was doing it, as though that as how he expressed excitement. My father watched him put the jacket on and then, when he had, he slowly untied his shoes, slipped them off and gave them also to the man."

"Immediately I thought: what is this? What have I witnessed here? What is the significance? I slowly understood my fathers need to give this man - who he didn’t know and had no relationship with – why he’d give up his clothes. It was for the very reason…um, the idea that I’ve just spoken of and had realized a few months earlier. He was rebelling against this idea of passing by those you don’t know; to help someone for no reason, like the Samaritan. My father was happy with what he’d accomplished; the beggar warm, and content. It was like he’d freed Fran’s spirit or something."

"My father left that day, went home, and after I shut the door behind him I was knocked down with a terrible sadness. It was my father’s happiness; this idea he had in his head that he was doing something completely selfless, assuring himself he wasn’t like the people on the tube. My sadness was because I knew it not to be true. He was a good man, but not a… he was the same as the ones on the tube. If the event hadn’t happened, that is, I mean…um, loosing my sister, he would have just walked by this guy, the beggar. Really he’d created an investment in the beggar. The beggar was a means of alleviating his conscience. It couldn’t be a selfless act; it rejected its sentiment and could only ever be self-invalidating. A... tactful rebellion. An attempt to be in control of who he is. My only wish is that he never realizes."

Photo Courtesy of Diego Cupola

---

Mark Ludgate was born in a hospital that no longer exists in Southern England. He now lives out his days in Brighton, England. Above else he is a coward; but he is also proud, perhaps too proud. This allows him to sustain a certain dignity, to mask the constant overload of anxiety; which would otherwise make itself apparent. He spends every waking hour (other than those hours he is working) writing, and on occasion praises his anxiety which is one of his primary motivators. He is twenty three years old. He is neither married nor with children. He hopes that one day he may get out of working in the restaurant industry; it crushes his already overworked soul.

Insanity -- Joseph Lynch

INSANITY

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Albert Einstein

My head pounded like a steel spike was imbedded deep into my forehead. I managed to open my eyes a sliver against the morning light. Sprawled in a small bedroom, the bureau, dresser, and bookcase all of inexpensive wood veneer appeared familiar. A closet, its door ajar, revealed a bright peach blouse with a ruffled front. An image of a woman with bright blue accusing eyes formed in my mind - Naomi. Her name brought me peace. I had made it home.

I lay as if dead hoping to slip back into the bliss of unconsciousness but the pain kept me in the land of the living and brought the usual host of annoyances: nausea, thirst and the shakes. Like any veteran drinker, I bore these well as I could but I never got used to the unnamed fear and wanted to hide from it.

There are those that have complete blackouts and remember nothing and only learn of their escapades from a third party. I am not so lucky. For the most part, I only lose snatches of the evening. Most of it comes back as if I’m in a dream and usually the dream is a nightmare.
I allowed myself to descend past the throbbing pain. The last clear memory I had was leaving the firehouse yesterday. It had to be about six. Naomi wasn’t going to be home for dinner. She was going to her parents to tell them about the new baby. So I decided to stop at McKenna’s to take a sandwich home. I had promised Naomi I wouldn’t get drunk. And I had no intention of having even one drink. But all day long, I had been thinking about the roast beef sandwiches at McKenna’s. McKenna’s roast beef sandwiches are famous throughout the neighborhood. I just wanted a sandwich and then I wouldn’t have to cook for myself. It started to come back:

I was at the “to go” section of the bar. I watched as the cook sliced a healthy portion from the side of beef, placed it on a thick slice of Italian bread, topped it with a wedge of sharp provolone and added another piece of bread to top it. The cook then took tongs and dipped the whole thing in a pot of gravy and began to wrap it in butcher paper. I stopped him. “I changed my mind. I’ll have it here.” I said. The cook shrugged, slid the sandwich from the wax paper onto a plate as if he had done it a thousand times, added a knife and fork handed it to me along with a bill. I took it to an open section at the bar, sat down tossed a twenty up and a bar maid came over. She was in her mid-thirties and more than a little overweight. Her dirty blonde hair was pinned up but starting to break loose from the strain of the day. She kept brushing back a few loose strands from in front of her face.

“What are you having?” She asked. “A draft of Michelob,” “You want me to take out for the sandwich too.” “Yeah, but I’m only staying for the one. I was going to take the sandwich home but I hate eating alone.”

“Yeah sure,” she mumbled. I was taken with the artistic way she tilted the frozen mug, letting the beer pour down the side and then righting it as it neared the top so that there was only an inch or so of head. The beer looked perfect. I got butterflies as she placed it on the coaster. It went down quickly. I decided to have another because I hadn’t finished my sandwich. I noticed the second was gone and heard a voice saying, “I’ll have another.” I didn’t realize the voice was mine until she put the mug in front of me.

At some point she said, “Hey, I thought you were only having one?” She smiled as she put down the mug. “I was until I noticed how good you looked walking back and forth behind that bar.” She blushed, picked up the money and walked away without comment. I watched the wonderful way her ass, with just a hint of jiggle, moved in her tight black slacks as she went to the cash register. She turned and glanced back at me after putting the money in the till. It was obvious she was flirting with me.

The rest of the night was like a dream. It came in images: playing darts for shots and beers; arguing with some black guy about whether the dart was in the cork; in the parking lot with the barmaid and not letting her close her car door, her face red and angry or maybe just scared. I remember falling and her driving off calling me an “asshole” back in the bar another barmaid and me slamming an empty mug on the bar to get her attention – and the rest of the night was just gone.

Oh, I’m such an asshole – such a fucking asshole. I thought.

I rolled to get up but it alerted Bacchus. The Peek-a-poo came bounding into the room, leapt on the bed and danced around me nipping and licking at my face. His high pitch bark proved too much and I plopped back down pulling a pillow over my head. There was no escaping him. He burrowed his head under the pillow like a gopher. I sat up and whacked at him with the pillow.
“Get the fuck down you crazed canine,” I grabbed my temples in reaction to the ache my yelling aggravated. He bounded back up and was at my face again. I gave up, shuffled down the narrow hallway past the overflowing hamper and into the bathroom, and closed the door to keep him out.

I emptied my bladder and then climbed into the tub, standing under the shower long enough to adjust the water and then just plopped down. The stream poured over my head. I formed a cup with my hands, placed it under my lips and let the warm water stream into my parched mouth. It was wonderful. I took it in long gluttonous gulps. I alternated bending my head down so that the water would run over the back of my aching skull and neck, and picking it back up so that I could drink my fill. The water turned the excruciating pain to a dull throb. I folded my arms across my chest, bowed my head and started to rock.

Then I remembered the car and the dread that had been hovering, pounced and overwhelmed me. I didn’t know how I got home. I had to find the car. Fuck it! I can’t go through this again. I can just get a razor and let the water carry it all down the drain.

I got up and moved before my thoughts got worse, threw some clothes on, grabbed the keys and headed down the stairs. Peeking from the living room window I spied my station wagon three doors down and breathed a little easier. The car was half on the pavement but at least I got it home. I stepped outside. The sun and air of the late morning seemed surreal. I wanted only to repark the car and slink back into the house. Then I noticed a dent to the front quarter panel and, upon closer inspection, not only a dent but a smashed headlight and an ominous looking red streak against the white paint.

Fuck, Naomi had to have seen the damage on her way to church with Megan. I squatted down spit on my finger and rubbed hard on the three inch long red streak. It turned brownish, like blood. My knees went weak and my heart hammered away in my ears. I dropped and hid behind the car, scanned and rescanned the street. I was safe. Not even the curtains on the front window of nosy Mrs. Crawford’s house moved. I jumped into the car and drove.

Brian and I had been probies together when we first got out of fire school. We were at different stations now. He was a know it all and got on my nerves a lot but we stayed friends. Brian had a garage and I wanted my car out of sight. He would help. It was part of the unwritten firefighters’ code. We take of our brother or sister firefighters whether we’re running into burning buildings or not.

“What did you say happened?” Brian was standing by my car sipping a cup of coffee.

“A deer ran into the side.”

“In the city?”

“Yeah, they’re all over the place along Henry Ave.”

“What did the cops say?”

“Well I had a few and didn’t want to stop.”

“A few?” Brian raised an eyebrow.

“Well, maybe more than a few.”

“I’ll bet. You look like shit and your breath smells like a distillery. Are you sure that’s what happened.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Just let me keep it in your garage until I can get the money together to get it fixed. I don’t want to turn it into the insurance. They’ll raise my rates and the people on my street are a pain in the ass, if I leave it there, they’ll complain.” I explained.

“Yeah sure, but I’ll have to move some stuff to make room. Listen! brother or not, get it out of here as soon as you can, or Patti will be on my shit.”

“No problem, it shouldn’t be but a couple of days. I just have to figure my money situation.”

“Okay, let me get straightened the garage up a little. I’ll pull my car out. You pull your car in and I’ll give you a ride home.”

“How’s things at your station.” Brian asked on the ride home.

“Okay, we’re getting plenty of work.”

“There are rumors that your Lieutenant ain’t real happy with you.”

“Well that’s bullshit. I came in late one time and he gave me a bunch of shit. He’s a stickler for the rules but when we get a job he can’t keep up with me.”

“I don’t know Jess, I heard it was more than once and he had to send you home sick one day because you were still wasted from the night before.”

“And I’m telling you its bullshit. Everything gets blown out of proportion by the rumor mill.”

“Maybe the story did get blown out of proportion. But your car is smashed. Maybe if you were hitting on all cylinders you would’ve been able to get out of the way of that deer.”

He kept talking but most of it wasn’t registering with me. I was looking in the side view mirror. A cop had been following us for several blocks. Then the cop put on his flashers, and I went inside myself again. I was thinking three or four or maybe a hundred things at the same time, thinking of an alibi, seeing myself in handcuffs, watching Megan cry. He flew past us, went through the next light and made a left turn. I slumped in the seat like a used up bar rag.

“I guess he needed a donut.” Brian said with an irritating smirk.

“Yeah,” I tried to smile.

“You look bad man. I’m telling you give up the firewater, stick with beer. You’ll be better off.” He pulled in front of the house. I jumped out glad to be home. My head hurt and I had suffered through way too much Brian’s senseless fucking drivel.

Megan greeted me like father of the year. She abandoned her toys, her curly brown hair bouncing as she ran to me. Throwing her arms around my legs, she squealed “DADDY!” I picked her up and gave her a peck on the lips. She was light in my arms and holding her made my spirit light too. She was just so perfect. She had Naomi’s piercing blue eyes but the dark skin and curly mane of my mother. She hugged my neck tight as I held her in the crook of my arm. Bacchus joined in the reunion, dancing at my feet. And then Naomi came striding in from the kitchen, spatula still in hand, making her way between the table and the breakfront of the tiny dining room and into the living room. She got right in my face.

“Where were you and what happened to my car?” She fumed.

“Well, hi nice to see you today, too.”

Megan was mumbling in my ear. “Daddy did you break the car?”

“Knock it off, Jesse – You promised you weren’t going to drink.”

“No, I promised I wasn’t going to get drunk.”

“You don’t think you were drunk? You’re freaking unbelievable. You should’ve seen yourself last night. It’s a miracle you made home. You should get down on your knees and thank God he kept you safe.”

“I know I messed up but…”

“You know you messed up, so what. Who pays the price? I do. I can’t sleep right. I stay up saying the rosary for your safe return. I can’t take this anymore. You could’ve at least called.”

“I’m sorry, I’m really, really sorry. I got involved in a dart game at McKenna’s and lost track of time.”

“You’re always sorry. I’m tired of it.” She paused and folded her arms. They rested on her stomach which made her early pregnancy seemed more pronounced. The spatula in her right beat an angry rhythm in the air. “What happened to the car?” Her tone reminded me of my mother. “I don’t know. When I came out from McKenna’s it was like that. I guess someone hit it while I was inside.” I shrugged. “You don’t know or you don’t remember?” Her head bobbed from side to side and her hair thick brown hair to dance on her shoulders. Her blue eyes bulged like missiles from her rage and all I could think was how beautiful it made her look.

“Of course, I remember. It was like that when I came out. I wouldn’t lie.”

“Where is it now?

“I put it in Brian’s garage until I can get it fixed.”

“That doesn’t make any sense – turn it in to the insurance company, that’s what we pay insurance for.”

“No, by the time we pay the deductible and then they’ll raise our rates it’ll be more in the long run. I’ll get Tony from the station to help and we’ll do it.” I thought of the car and the night before and I wished I could just live it all over again. “I’m really sorry” I said. “I’m going to stop. I mean it this time.” I had to brush away the tears that welled up in my eyes.

“You must be hungry.” She said. “I’m making some eggs do you want some.” The anger had left her face replaced by a look of disappointing resignation. It wasn’t nearly as attractive.

I did as I had promised Naomi and stopped drinking. I guess it was as much for me as for her. I was dying inside. I spent the next few days scouring the paper and watching the news looking for a word of a hit and run. If I heard a knock at the door or if the phone rang, a shiver would run through my body. It was like there was too much emotion for my body and my insides were going to explode. I think being without booze made the anxiety worse. My hands trembled like birds in the snow. I didn’t sleep much but if I did, I’d wake startled in a cold sweat. I kept thinking about the blood on the car. I obsessed on it. I spent most of my time staring out the front window, trapped in my head.

I dreamed about the accident one night and it scared the shit out of me. In my dream, I was in my car on Henry Ave. and pissy drunk. An old guy was walking on the shoulder of the road. He had glasses and a cane and moved with a limp. I saw him fine but the car kept going towards him. I kept pulling the wheel to the left. I know I was pulling the wheel to the left because even when you’re drunk you know if you’re pulling the wheel to the left but the car wouldn’t go left. It kept going towards him. He saw the car coming and hobbled to try to get past the metal guard rail to an open field. He got to the guard rail and sat on it. I guess because of his bad leg he was just going to sit on the rail and let himself fall to the other side. He looked right at me when he was sitting there. His eyes looked real scared in the headlights and then everything went in slow motion. His face got big. So big I could see the pores of his skin and the way his lip quivered in fear. I tried to hit the brakes because the wheel wasn’t turning but I couldn’t get my foot down and then at the last minute the car did turn a little so I didn’t smash right into him but I hit the rail with the front bumper and I heard a noise like when the subway is going around a sharp curve. Then my dream jumped and I was the one on the side of the road and he was standing over me with blood all over his face and he was poking me with his cane and calling me a drunk.

I awoke with a sick feeling in my stomach. The images in the dream were more real than the clock I laid staring at. I curled up and just lay there a long time waiting for the fear to pass. When I couldn’t take my head anymore, I jumped up got in the car and searched the length of Henry Ave. It had to be after three A.M. because by then I was really thinking about a drink but none of the bars were open. I never did find a spot that looked like the one in the dream. I don’t know if that made me feel better or worse.

I managed not to drink for a couple of weeks but it wasn’t easy. If I wasn’t at work, I stayed home. I had this fear. I guess it was a fear that if I went out I’d drink but I had this nameless fear as well. It was like a fear of everything or maybe it was a fear of nothing. I don’t know how else to explain it.

Somehow, I managed to get by in work. I don’t know why but the shakes weren’t too bad while I was working. Maybe it was because I stayed focused on taking care of the truck and equipment to keep out of my head. The other guys noticed something was wrong. They kept bugging me, asking what was going on with me. I’d just shrug my shoulders; tell them I was on the wagon and having a hard time. They’d try to keep talking to me. Often offering suggestions on what I should do but the anxiety built as they were speaking and I’d just walk away. It was kind of ignorant but it was as if I had an animal moving inside me while they talked and I just had to get away.

Things were bad at home too. I was in my head most of the time and for the first few days the shakes were bad. Naomi and Megan were there but I lived by myself. They were only on the periphery of my awareness. I remember being in the living room when I heard Naomi call Megan away from me. “Come in the kitchen with me and leave daddy alone.” She said. “He doesn’t feel good.” It was only after Naomi called her that I realized Megan had been tapping on my leg, saying, “Daddy,” trying to get my attention. It made me feel guilty and gave me something else to obsess on.

I think Naomi sensed how hard I was trying and tried to make it easy for me. She said not a word about me not doing chores around the house which next to my drinking was our most frequent cause of argument. She even went so far as to turn off the vacuum when I walked into the living room and put some gentle jazz on the stereo and only went back to vacuuming when I wandered off into another room. I appreciated what Naomi was doing but I was too stuck inside my head to express it.

The shakes came back hard when I thought about the car languishing in Brian’s garage but I couldn’t help not thinking about it. Despite how crazy it made me, I couldn’t get myself past the fear to deal with it. The issue was forced, however, when Brian’s wife, Patti the Bitch, called and left a message that I had three days to do something about it or she was going to have it towed. Tony the one guy at the station I was still friends with agreed to help me with the car. Tony had been a body and fender man before and he came onto the department and still tinkered with cars and pretty much anything else with a motor. He was the kind of guy that always had grease under his nails and was always happy to lend a hand.

Brian and Patti weren’t home but they left the key to the garage for us. The car looked eerie in the darkened garage, like someone I had known a long time ago. Tony flicked on the lights and went right to where the damage was. He bent over the scrape. His black stingy hair hung in his face. He started scraping at the red mark with his finger. He turned and looked at me over his shoulder.

“What did you say happened?”

“A- A deer ran into the side.”

“Was it driving a red car?”

“What do you mean?”

“This isn’t blood. It’s red paint. You should know what blood looks like.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure, dickhead. This ain’t even all that bad. We don’t have to fix it here. You can drive it home and we can fix it in the parking lot at the fire house when we get some down time. You just need a new headlight. I can pull the dent out and compound the scratch.

Being back behind the wheel of the car felt strange but there was something else too, like I was trying to remember something that I was missing until I realized the fear was all but gone. It kept trying to come back but now I had power over it. I began to breath slow and deep and smile once in awhile.

Naomi was thrilled. I’m not sure if it was because I told her the car would be fixed in a day or two or if she sensed something different about me. I sensed something different about myself. The fear was gone and the shakes were gone with it. We had a steak dinner that night. I can’t remember when I enjoyed a meal so much. I read a story to Megan before putting her to bed. I had forgotten how enchanting her laughter could be. I appreciated maybe for the first time how good a sober life could be.

We were slow at the firehouse and managed to get the car fixed the very next day. I stopped for just one at McKenna’s after work. I had butterflies as I brought it to my lips. I can’t begin to explain how great it felt washing those butterflies away along with everything else that had built up inside over the past few weeks. I reasoned I could have one more and still get home in time for dinner. I kept a picture of reading a story to Megan as she lay in bed to keep my motivation.
After about the sixth, I asked about the barmaid with cute jiggling rear-end. After that, I remember very little of the night. When I managed to get my eyes opened in the morning, I was sprawled on the floor of a cell.

Photo Credit: Mark Cummins on Flickr

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About the author: Joseph Lynch

Joe Lynch is just another drunk trying to get another day (of sobriety) while living in the city of "Brotherly Love". He honed his writing skill in the Rosemont College MFA program and continues to write to keep the demons at bay. He is not always successful with the demons but he has been successful in getting published. Among others, his story Indian Summer is due out any day in the winter edition of "Sunken Lines" and The Screaming Place will be published by "Morpheus Tales" in October of this year.

Three Pieces: Henry Cordova

Windward Passage

Every time the quartermasters officially logged the ship's position, twice a day, at sunrise and sunset; they made it a point to carefully plot it on a large chart hung on a mess deck bulkhead. It wasn't just for the amusement of the crew, the idea was that if we were to sink unexpectedly, everyone would have an opportunity to know where away the nearest land was, and how far. We had been away from Norfolk for several days now, steaming at a steady 12 knots for the Canal, so I knew that that evening we would we transiting the Windward Passage, the channel separating Cuba and Haiti, the gateway to the Caribbean.

It seemed that this was the first time I had some time to myself. They had been working us pretty hard, drills, refueling from an oiler that came alongside, the interminable inspections, an endless grind of vital and trivial activities which seemed designed primarily to keep our minds off our troubles. I was exhausted, I should have gone below and collapsed on my rack--I had the midwatch that night, bridge lookout; but I was determined to have some time to myself. I needed to get away.

It was my first time away from home, at least the first time when I knew I would be away for months, and the enormity of my new situation was starting to sink in. Life had become intolerable, constant work, constant fear, the unbending routine, the discipline, the feeling that you were always being watched, that you were always behind, and you were never alone. I was starting to become homesick, and not just a nostalgia for what I had left behind, but the horrifying realization that my life was changing for a very long time. The days last forever when you're 20 and the only escape is sleep, when they let you. If you were awake you were suffering, and you dared tell no one.

Life below decks was a nightmare, the berthing spaces were small and crowded, mine was the size of a small classroom, and forty men and all their possessions were crammed in there. My little piece of it, my rack and my locker, gave no room for anything but sleep, and during "lights out" only silence and immobility were tolerated. During the day it was constantly being cleaned, and during the brief times between it was inevitably patrolled by petty officers determined to make your life miserable. Later I came to realize that this regimen was essential to prevent disorder and even violence, but at the time I was convinced I had been stranded in the circle of Hell reserved for bullies and their victims. I was seized with a creeping claustrophobia of the soul that never stopped, and I was coming to fear that there was no possible way I could endure two more years of this. Life had suddenly become impossible, and there was no relief in sight.

I finished my coffee, lit a cigarette and pushed through the blackout curtains covering the watertight doors onto the main deck. For a moment I was blind, the ship was running dark, with only her navigation lights on, and until my eyes adjusted I had to grope my way by feel to the spot I had picked earlier: a bollard on the starboard side of the fo'c'sle, by the lifelines. I could see a glowing coal already there, someone must have had the same idea, but when he saw me coming he flipped his butt over the side and walked aft. I guess he sought solitude as well. I was alone.

I sat on the cold, wet steel, gripped the lifeline stanchion with both hands and began to weep. Never, before or since have I been so profoundly unhappy, so uncompromisingly miserable. Part of my depression came from my intellectual realization that my situation was really not all that bad, certainly not as terrifying as that faced by the infantry huddled in foxholes, waiting for death to come for them out of the endless night.

After all, thousands went through what I was going through now and survived, even prospered. But I realized now how weak I was, how unprepared for even this relatively mild inconvenience. I was forced to face my inadequacy, my childishness and my cowardice. I bitterly rehearsed my own shortcomings in my own mind, I missed my mommy, missed my girlfriend, I missed my stuck-up clueless college friends and my puerile civilian existence. I punished myself with my own sarcasm for my foolishness and my weakness. I was starting to see how pathetically I was responding to an episode that thousands were breezing through right now, that millions had successfully navigated in the past with no lasting damage. I was ashamed of myself for my inability to cope with an experience that even I recognized to be essentially benign. I was worthless and I wanted to die.

Dewey pushed through the night like a locomotive, the water rushed past, flickering with the phosphorescence of the tropics, the only light visible on a dark and overcast night. The air was warm and moist, like I had remembered it from so many similar nights growing up near the sea in Florida. I couldn't even enjoy the beauty of it, I flogged myself with my incapacity to extract even a little pleasure out of what I knew was going to be a milestone in my life, if I could just get through it. The ship groaned, the waves slapped against the sides and hissed and flushed as they sped on their own mindless errands. The rumble of the engines throbbed through the soles of my boots and I could hear the hum of the ventilators, the wind in the wires, even the squeak of the sonar. I knew this was all there, and I hated it, and I hated myself for hating it. It was wasted on me, I just wanted to go home and I hated myself for my weakness.

Far out to sea, on the invisible horizon, I saw a flash. A few seconds later it repeated, and then again, at regular intervals. It had to be Cuba, the light at Cabo Maisí, the very easternmost point of the island, warning this Yankee warship to give her a wide berth. I recalled from the ship's dead reckoning track on the mess deck chart that we would pass within 20 miles of the Cuban coast. The lighthouse beckoned to me, it called.

It would be so easy, I thought. I could slip over the side, no one would miss me until morning muster, even if the lookouts should somehow see me go in the water; by the time the word got to the bridge and they turned around there would be no way they could find me. They had made this point very clear in our training. It's hard to recover a floater even in broad daylight and calm seas. And even if they did find me, I could always say it was an accident, I wouldn't get in trouble, I'd get the traditional shot of medicinal brandy and a day off from work, Naval custom. But no, Dewey would roar off into the night without me, I would be on my own. I could swim west, towards the land of my grandfathers. Could I swim for a night and a day without stopping? Probably not, I was a good swimmer but twenty miles of open sea was probably too much, not to mention the current and the sharks. If the Cubans found me I would probably spend some time in a Cuban jail, perhaps be interrogated, but I knew nothing that would betray my country, and certainly not even Fidel would lock up un naufragado indefinitely. I would go home a hero, perhaps even be discharged from the service. But even if I didn't get away with it, even if I drowned, wouldn't it be better than this? The agony was intolerable, I just couldn't take it any more, even taking my chances with the sea seemed preferable to this infinite misery.

Of course, it was lunacy. There was no way I would jump into that water, no way I could talk myself into it. It was just another pathetic fantasy to distract myself from the immediate necessity of dealing with the problems of the real world. I was contemptible. The light blinked on, as if laughing at my hesitation and my whimpering helplessness. The lighthouse offered an alternative, albeit an almost hopeless one, but an alternative nonetheless; and I was too much of a coward to even kill myself and put an end to it all. I would go back to the torture and humiliation and endure it because I had no other choice.

I could feel the soot starting to rain down on me. Like a gentle hard drizzle, invisible in the dark, but unmistakable by its feel, its sound, even its smell. Periodically, the black gang would run live steam through the stacks to clean out the accumulated carbon from the day's steaming. Usually, it was done in the middle of the night to avoid giving away the ship's position and to spare the crew the mess. Like now. They were "blowing tubes" and I was on deck. The skipper usually took the wind into account to avoid fouling the ship, but sometimes it couldn't be helped and the deck force would have an extra special clean up in the morning. I knew, I was on the deck force, and not only would the clean dungarees I was wearing now need to be laundered, but the ones I wore on sweepers tomorrow would get filthy as well. More work, more bother, and another inspection for sure tomorrow. And I would have to take another shower before I went on watch at midnight, cutting even further into my sleep time. I flipped my smoke over the side and went back to work.

Editors Note: Early submissions for The Hiss Quarterly before we merged came with regards to a theme of "The Hair O' The Dog" -- hence the flavor of this particular piece.

Photo Credit: DogFrog at Flickr --East Uskmouth Lighthouse, February 2007

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Thoughts Upon Hearing the Arecibo Radio Observatory was About to be Closed for Budgetary Reasons

I visited Arecibo Observatory in 1971, I was in Puerto Rico on business, and I took a Sunday off to visit the place. It's a two hour drive from San Juan, and nestled in some pretty spectacular jungle-covered Karst topography: a very beautiful drive into an isolated and haunted countryside.

When I arrived the place was deserted. There was a small building, similar to a motel, where I supposed visiting researchers were quartered; but nobody was home. The permanent staff probably had houses in town (Arecibo proper is about a half-hour drive further north, on the coast). Next door, the control room was visible; through the locked glass doors I could see electronic equipment, powered up, but no one was there. Only my car was in the parking area. At the edge of the lot was a little observation platform where you could walk right up to the edge of the dish itself. It spread before me, filling a vast natural depression. The feeling was very much like standing at the edge of Meteor Crater in Arizona, except I could see suspended above me, on huge white towers, the receivers placed at the focus of the parabola.

The silence, the isolation, the grandeur of it all really affected me. The sheer audacity of the structure, the combination of natural beauty and technological brilliance was almost overpowering. I imagine it would be very similar to be standing alone at Stonehenge on a sunny windy day, accompanied only by ghosts.

Observatories are holy places. They are as impressive and beautiful as a medieval cathedral and by necessity are usually located in lonely and desolate landscapes. Like cathedrals, they are temples to the ineffable, to the incredibly remote, and to our faith in being able to connect with it-- places of worship, in a way, sacred places. I know it's sentimental and impractical of me, but if this site is to be abandoned, let it not be replaced with a farm or village or reservoir or some other practical symbol of the economy. Let it naturally decay into ruins, as a monument to our boldness, and to our stupidity. Centuries from now, men will stand in that place and say 'we once explored the stars from here'.

Photo Credit: robanhk at Flickr --Gregorian reflector dome (where radio waves are focused on the receivers) and a linear feed antenna (long vertical structure) hanging above the 305 meter dish at Arecibo Observatory.

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SATISFACTION

Well I was just seventeen, you know what I mean, and before too long I had just graduated from high school and gotten my first VW beetle, a brand spanking new Bahama Blau '64. The Beatles had come out just six months earlier, right after JFK was blown away, and America was reeling under the first wave of the British Invasion. The new music was everywhere, and we were all affecting British accents. I was spending my last free summer before college started in the fall, and I was determined to party. My Uncle Manny, my mother's younger brother, lived in Hollywood and off I went to visit him and my cousin Bobby, much later to be known as Bobby the coke dealer, but for the time being he was just a surfer.

Uncle Manny was a trip, he was a musician, a drummer, who played the big Miami Beach hotels, and he was a good one, #3 Latin percussionist in the country, according to a Downbeat poll (Tito Puente was #1!). With his blond hair, blue eyes and Bronx accent he could pass for an Anglo, and even had his name legally changed from Rodriguez to Rodgers. But his specialty was Latin music, and when the style caught on in Miami, he had to play under the stage name of Rodriguez, and sing in Spanish so people would believe he was a genuine Spic. There is a moral in there somewhere, and I made it a point to let it sink in: be neither proud nor ashamed of your heritage, it is the one thing about you that you can neither be praised nor blamed for. You had nothing to do with it.

Cousin Bobby had turned out like his grandfather, not his abuelita, he was dark with black wavy hair, and a very Aztec nose, rather like mine. The only false touch was his bright red hair, an unfortunate result of a peroxide accident while attempting to achieve the appropriate sunbleached surfer do. Until it grew out he would just have to explain to everyone what had happened. Bobby was on to all the latest clothing styles and dance steps, and his slang changed hourly. Back then those things mattered to me. My own Saturday night Tampa hangout, the Palladium Ballroom in West Tampa, was definitely bush league compared to the War Memorial Auditorium in Hollywood. There was British invasion on the radio, but R&B still ruled America, I even had another cousin, Rod Justo, who fronted the quintessential W Tampa big band rock and roll outfit, Rodney and the Mystics, at the Palladium.

But that's another story for another time: my Saturday night fever days. For the time I had wheels and I was going to South Florida, I was out of high school, college bound, and I had a new car. Life was good. I made several trips there that summer before school started, and eventually I could make the trip at an average speed of 67 miles per hour, not bad for a car that topped out at a modest 72! And this was in the days before the Interstate, East on 60 and then South on 27. If I traveled at night, I could just pick up the Miami stations just as the Tampa ones were starting to fade on my bug's Blaupunkt radio. And I always kept one button reserved for CMCA, "the friendly voice of Cuba", when the Feds weren't jamming Fidel's English language broadcasts. You could pick up that monster transmitter in the Panhandle on a good night. It was during one of these mad dashes through the sugar cane barrens of South Florida that I heard the song that changed my life, it was my epiphany, my road to Damascus. It was the Rolling Stones' (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.

I had heard the Stones before, they had come out with their first American release just a few months earlier, a creditable version of the old R&B classic "All Over Now" (Becuz' I uuuuused to luv her, but it's alllllllll ovah now") But Satisfaction was different. From the pounding hypnotic base beat to the signature fuzz bass opening notes, this was like nothing I, or anyone else had heard before. Most popular music was about love, or lust masquerading as love, this was about sex, violence and politics and money. Mick Jagger struck a note that resonates in me to this day, this was not about simple adolescent sexual tension, it was about how that natural, awkward, inevitable teen horniness was recognized, manipulated, used, and eventually exploited for commercial purposes. Capitalism had found a way to make a profit on testosterone, and Mick was hip to their scam and he was clueing me in on it. And from that day on our generation was also wise to it, and we were not going to fall for it any more.

"When I'm watching my TV,
and a man comes on and tells me,
how white my
shirts should be,
but he can't be a man 'cuz he doesn't smoke
the same
cigarettes as me."

It was all there, the media control of the natural human urge to find a mate, expressing itself as consumer products designed to enhance your attractiveness and sexual status (we all wore mod suits, white shirts and neckties to dances then) and we all smoked the right fags. How clear, how true, what economy of language, what clarity of thought. The song goes on, the singer's own art is turned against him, he runs around the world, drives his car, he can sing his song and sign his contracts but he still can't get laid. "Baby better come back maybe next week, can't you see I'm on a losing streak? I CAN"T GET NO.....Satisfaction. " In three tiny verses and a bridge, it's all there, the whole consumerist marketing mechanism that devours society, seasoned in its own sexual juices. The Blues of the American Negro filtered through the soul of the British working class, and spoon-fed to middle-American suburban teen culture; what a trio of hell-bound demographics that is!

"...a man comes on the radio, telling me more and more, about some useless information, 'sposed to try my imagination..."

You get the impression Jagger has not quite figured out just what is happening to him, but he knows something is going on and it's not right. The song is only superficially simple, it is a marvelous multilayered construction alternating with anger, sarcasm, outrage and despair. After Satisfaction, no one wore white shirts any more. Even the Beatles Carnaby Street fashion was exposed for the elitist sham it really was. And all this time, a little just-turned-17 kid driving through the darkness, his mind throbbing with hormones and media images, suddenly saw how it all came together, the music, the clothes, the fashion, the hair, the slang, the dances, even the cars and Bobby's surfboard, it was not our folk art any more, it had been expropriated by a few dozen old men in New York and LA and (now) in London, who were telling us what we wanted so they could turn around and sell it to us. And for a brief moment Mick had grabbed the microphone away from them just long enough to scream out loud that we STILL could... get no, satisfaction...

This was subversive shit, and it struck at the heart of the system. And I ain't been the same since.

Photo Credit: EDgAr H. Acapulco 07 Bugs. at Flickr

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About the author: Henry Cordova was born in 1947 in Tampa, Florida. He was educated as a scientist and mathematician, served in the US Navy, and works as a geographer/cartographer for a municipal government in South Florida. Henry's interests include sailing, amateur astronomy, celestial navigation and writing non fiction for magazines.

Mrs. Foley Joins The Fold -- Patti Dean

MRS. FOLEY JOINS THE FOLD

While not the intended effect, the outcome was surprisingly satisfying. Mr. Foley boasted to his Monday night poker buddies that it was now his firm belief, “Pecan Praline Ice Cream beats Viagra any day, any how!” The news traveled fast as it always does when the players are unexpected.

Mr. and Mrs. Foley co-owned the neighborhood Exxon gas station and mini-mart in the sleepy southern town of Sheldon. The main point of pride for this emporium, according to the no nonsense Mrs. Foley, was the newly installed two way mirror.

The barometer of the town’s shadow waited for her scientific observation after she’d tallied the cash drawer and lectured her “good for nothing” clerk on various points of customer service that she’d downloaded from last night’s restless dream. Mrs. Foley perched behind the mirror, ready to pounce on the hotbed of unsuspecting criminals stuffing their jackets with rolls of mints, bags of Oreos, and six packs of Mountain Dew.

She’d even caught one. In the time it took the culprit to walk the green mile from aisle to cash register, the wall of mirrors commenced to vibrate with the Force of Helios. A loud speaker announced, “John Tyler – unless you are gaining weight – put those back right now! Are you high?” The fear of Mrs. Foley rooted the criminal to the floor until retribution entered on two feet with eyes blazing and hands outstretched.

That two way mirror was the conversation topic about Mrs. Foley for months until three weeks ago – when she took the leap from Body to Christ Consciousness.

It seems Mrs. Foley experienced a miracle of a carnal nature and God being God decided to claim it for his own.

Mr. Foley, when questioned, could not recall if he had done anything unusual that night. He’d headed home from his regular card game, $135 richer, and stopped at the closed convenience store to get a pint of the Pecan Praline that he and Mrs. Foley loved. He’d violated his curfew. Unwilling to surrender his best winning streak in years, he knew that Pecan Praline and the gift of his winnings would soften his reception. He dutifully entered his acquisition on the prize grid designed by Mrs. Foley and carefully deposited $3.95 in the envelope labeled “Employee Purchases.”

Sure enough, as he entered the house, the missus rocked accusation in her favorite chair by the TV. The picture was on, the sound turned down. Sure enough, according to his plan, the magic of winnings and a followed protocol and that Pecan Praline earned him a begrudging smile.

“Just this one time.”

He followed her into the kitchen and right in the middle of giving him more than half his share of ice cream – they signaled a private kind of semaphore – and well, as Mr. Foley himself said, “I fucked her blind.” And it seemed he had.

The last Mrs. Foley remembered, she’d stashed the money in the cookie jar, turned around, and smiled again…

Was it the satisfaction of Pecan Praline?
She remembered: Mr. Foley gave her a kiss,
their cheeks blushed anticipation and surprise,
he pulled her close,
she leaned back and noted the cookie jar pennies richer and
the recently mopped kitchen floor - could it possibly…

According to Mr. Foley, a powerful trembling feeling roared up from such a deep place in his wife and she moaned and made strange trapped animal noises. Then compounding his amazement, her eyes rolled upwards - and wouldn’t unwind.

Mr. Foley shook her, told her to quit joking, shook her harder, and finally poured some jalapeno juice down her throat to correct the situation. She came to with a severe jolt, unwound eyes, and a firm belief that she had seen Jesus and God had allowed that to happen through her husband. A spicy southern Saul of Tarsus conversion all around.

Mr. Foley, not one to deny his angelic responsibility, beamed for months to any and all remotely interested – “Yup – I sure did – I fucked her blind.” His victory did not last long.

Within a year, pictures of Mrs. Foley, with her blue hair surrounded by a halo effect and her ample body enthroned in a robe that the preacher swore she lifted from the choir room, invaded every available space in the country. When questioned, Mrs. Foley said that old robe was so old anyway, she’d mended it so many times, it was probably more hers than the churches. Why there was more mending thread in that robe than there was robe. The preacher good and truly remained silent when Mrs. Foley threatened to show him videotapes of his son, John Tyler, and the aborted heist at her store. To compound her victory, he even let her use the conference room for her intended workshops.

“Channel Divine Love in One Weekend”, presumably without the jalapeno, drew large crowds of middle-aged women with time and yearning on their hands. They spent hours seated with palms open and eyes rolled back. Mrs. Foley believed the sounds they uttered were the beginnings of news laws and new morals for all mankind. She even thought the Republican Party might be interested in what the women had to say. They could do a lot worse. Of course, it would take another weekend workshop for real words to come forth. That workshop cost an extra $100, in addition to the base price of $250 per session. As extra incentive, a robe monogrammed with Mrs. Foley’s initials completed the mix. Her empire had begun.

The preacher knew he’d been screwed.

Mr. Foley now manned the convenience store with the help of a part time high school student and played cards more than he should in the room behind the two way mirror. He kept his winnings and losses to himself. Some people said the business was on its last legs. Why you could walk out of that store with anything your heart so desired. You didn’t even have to tuck it into your jacket.

But one thing for sure, you had to go to another store for Pecan Praline.

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About The Author: Patti Dean is a Rock band singer, former stand up comic and comedy writer for nationally known comics, and actress off Broadway. She produced, wrote and edited an award winning documentary about stand up comics in Seattle. She also wrote a children's musical focusing on disabilities. Patti has produced and written various cabarets and plays performed in Seattle, Baltimore, and New York.

Additionally, Ms. Dean was published in the anthology, Love and Sacrifice, as a companion piece to the international movie, London Voodoo, by Zenfilms. She was also published in the just released anthology, Women.Period. Soon to be published in the the rock music anthology, Experienced, and the women's philosophy anthology, Wisdom X 50.