The Kinch

homo evoooohhh my god I have a pwner

2010-01-20T06:41:00.000-08:00

I try and keep all the content on this blog original (aside from a few photos), but yesterday I was blown away by this video of Juan Enriquez, one of the brightest economic and scientific minds in the world, sharing his ideas on the current economic situation and the next step for the human race: Homo Evolutis...BE WARNED: this will pwn your mind:

Now I hope most of you reacted to this with the appropriate response as demonstrated below:

To those of you who may have certain ideological, moral, or medieval religious apprehensions or concerns about the above video, I just ask you to hear me out...25-50 years from now...when I have infrared, x-ray, sniper rifle laser eyes...can have a conversation with a dog and/or whale...have robotic, rocket-powerd antelope legs...and a magnetic, pulse-emitting, wiener...you will look something like this:

Don't be caveman Johnny. Embrace Homo Evolutis.

SpankadinL33T

2010-01-17T22:07:00.000-08:00

Chapter 3: The Lady of the Inn

The screen was dead. The iridescent glow of the monitor was a dead black; the machine next to it sat ticking idly, like a car engine cooling down in the garage; his microphone—mute. He had traversed through the pits of the Undercity, passed the murky waters of Blackfathom Depths, and rid the Black Temple of its demon occupation, but never before had he see a darkness so pure, so absolute, so horrifying as the one he was staring into at that moment.

He blinked. And again. And again and all at once the reality of his bedroom crashed his mind like a brick though a window, knocking him out of his chair and onto a pile half-eaten cheese puff and potato chip bags.

“Ughhhh…what in Bronzebeard’s boots is going on?” Spank looked around his room to find The Lady of the Inn clutching the unplugged surge protector like a mother protecting her infant.

The Lady stood staring at her son—realizing right away that his fantasy-driven delusions had returned—And from the look of his pallid, cheese poof caked and mustard stained body, worse than ever, “Timothy?...It’s—”

“Mah lady, I respect your concern over the welfare of all those who dwell in your abode, but please hand over the surge protector, else you beith pwnd. And how many times must I tell you?—I know not of this sultry ‘Timothy’ character you speak. The name’s SpankadinL33T. Spank for short. It is known across all of Azeroth and you, my lady, have just denied me a great prize. A denial I will not soon forget.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Listen—it’s too late for this crap. I have work in the morning. I’m calling Dr. Erbag to set up and appointment first thing tomorrow. Have your phone on.”

Just lost his WoW account.

“I have no need to see that gnomish donkeyfart. My inventory has a strong supply of health potions, and frostweave bandages. It’s just being excessive.”

The Lady of the Inn shook her head, “Not an option. I have half a mind to take you to the hospital right now.”

Spank eyed her suspiciously. Despite his delusions he knew The Lady had her limits, and in this instance she was not bluffing. Besides, it would be easier to dodge that nitwit Dr. Erbag tomorrow, than to fight with his intrusive keeper tonight. Slowly he spoke, “Very well then, my fair Lady of the Inn, you may head back to your chamber…for I am weary from battle, and long for sleep to wash over me.”

“…So no more elf game for tonight?...and doctor tomorrow?”

His eye twitched at the phrase “elf game” but he agreed, “Yes no more World of Warcraft tonight and I will see this ‘doctor’ of yours on the morrow.”

“Ok. Then go to sleep…we will get this all sorted out tomorrow,” she said, then hesitantly, “love you.”

The Lady dropped the surge protector and Spank rolled out of his trash pile and onto his bed—he could hear the worry in her voice and he felt something tighten inside of him, “I love you too…meh lady.”

She flicked off the light switch, walked out of his room and closed the door behind her He could hear her footsteps down the hall and her bedroom door shut. Silence. He rolled over in bed and shut his eyes, sleep taking him within moments. The night’s episode had ended in darkness, but not all was lost… Spank would live to fight another day.

Andrew Mausert-Mooney; circa 1987

SpankadinL33T

2010-01-06T10:33:00.000-08:00

Chapter 2: Light and Dark

SpankadinL33t led the charge, his guild, IhasApwner, followed suit. Kel-Thuzad hovered just yards away. Almost in range…Seconds from judgment…time to send this foul beast back to the shadow…if my epic helm drops off this n00bus I’m gonna shit myself, thought Spank. He attacked. No effect. He primed his Judgement of Light and released it with all the holy power he could muster. Nothing. What is this new devilry?

Kel-Thuzad lingered in mid air, unfazed, “MINIONS SUMMONS. SOLDIERS OF THE COLD DARK, OBEY THE CALL OF KEL-THUZAD.”

“Fall back to the center! Back to back! He’s summoning his minions!” Spank cried to his guild. From the Darkness a myriad of Abominations and Banshees appeared, their evil stink filling the great hall of death.

“Melee DPS, on the Abominations! Ranged, take out those goddamn Banshees!” ordered Spank.

Wave after wave of undead met IhasApwner, only to fall at their feet. Fireballs, curses, and shadowbolts flew through the air. MooovinHealz sent a lighting strike of healing light through the guild. Spank let loose a medley of judgment, exorcism, holy wrath, and consecration attacks. His DPS was pushing 3k. L33t. Soon enough, the waves became less and less, till only a few scattered undead remained. Is this it? Is this all you can muster, foul necromancer of the Lich? It was then, that Kel-Thuzad struck.

“YOUR SOUL IS BOUND TO ME NOW. THERE WILL BE NO ESCAPE.”

KT fired a frost bolt. An orc fury warrior froze in his steps, his swinging battle axes and bloodlust scarred face sat absurdly still behind a foot of Lich ice. His health drained too fast to heal. He was dead.

“DPS down! DPS down! Healers, focus heals on the ice-blocked target! Come on boys, take him down!” commanded Spank. The battle raged on. Shadow fissures scarred the floor beneath them. Frost bolts screamed through the air, hitting raid member after raid member. But the lines held. IhasApwner was on the path to victory.

The lights flicked on. “TIMOTHY! JESUS CHRIST ITS 4:30 IN THE MORNING! ARE YOU PLAYING THAT GAME!?”

“Pwnm...Is pwninm hmmmmmmmmm, leet gearrrr. Needs itrrrrrrmmmmyyeeaesss,” Timothy gurgled through his half-open mouth. Drool tracks and potato chip crumbs were caked to his chin. His bloodshot eyes sat lifeless behind his greasy face. In all of his glory he was wearing just briefs and one sock. He may have soiled himself.

“Oh my god. This needs to stop. Timothy?! Tim?! Hello?!”…..

“25% health left boys! Keep up the DPS! Nice heals!” cheered Spank. He could feel the cold retreating from Naxxramus and the warmth of Light returning. Nothing could stop them. The Lich necromancer had seen his last day—Kel-Thuzad was simply outmatched. SpankadinL33t, guild master of IhasApwner, champion of the Horde, blood knight of the Sin’Dorei, was one step away from victory when all of a sudden…darkness.

SpankadinL33T

2009-12-29T12:07:00.001-08:00

The following is the first chapter of a fiction novella I am working on about a World of Warcraft addict named SpankadinL33T. My friend Nate commissioned me to write it for 10 bucks...so if anyone else wants to pay me to write...

Chapter 1: Kel-Thuzad and the Raid of Naxxramas

After four hours of hardcore raiding the decay of the floating Nerubian Ziggurat Naxxramas had pushed his mind to the brink. He could feel the sour stench of the undead sinking into his pores, and hear the wicked scuttle of the giant arachnids echo off the vaulted archways of bone and ectoplasm. Death lurked in every corner and the cold was unrelenting—supernatural even—dimming The Light within till it felt as though his very heart was incased in a demonic frost.

He looked into the eyes of his guild, iHasApwner…the eyes of mages, and rogues, and warriors, and shamans…the eyes of blood elves, and orcs, and trolls, and tauren…the eyes of different races and classes brought to this floating fortress of evil for two things: to pwn the plague of undeath, and l33t gear. The hour of reckoning was at hand. He, SpankadinL33t, Blood Knight of the Sin’ Dorei, retribution paladin of The Horde, would rid the halls of Naxxramas of one last boss—Kel-Thuzad.

The Archmage turned Lich Necromancer floated in mid air on the opposite side of the royal chamber. He had no reason to run. Arthas, the Lich King himself, had slain him in The Third War and placed his remains in The Sunwell of the Sin’ Dorei. He was reborn as an immortal Lich, a general of the Lich King, a Commander of the Scourge, the Leader of The Plaguelands, and the Lord of Naxxramus. Even though this petulant group of intruders stood in front of him with the ruins of his prized ziggurat smoldering in their wake, he felt no fear, only cold, inhuman, rage.

Kel-Thuzad let loose a chilly rattle which swiftly twisted into words, “PRAY FOR MERCY. SCREAM YOUR DYING BREATH. THE END IS UPON YOU.”

“BUFF UP YOU SORRY SACKS OF NOOB!” shouted MooovinHealz a tauren Resto Shaman, and Spank’s first lieutenant. The two had spent years leveling, raiding, and PvPing together. Moo was not just his second in command, but his best friend, and more importantly the best healer in the guild. Without Moo, Spank and the rest of iHasApwner would be lost.

Spank let the buffs wash over him. He could feel his stamina, haste, attack power, critical strike rating, spell power, mana regeneration, and armor increase with each spell. His iron-clad grip tightened around his epic mace, a vicious weapon of destruction known to Azeroth as The Jawbone. Nearly four hours ago he had ripped it from the mouth of a four story arachnid—the vile Maexxna. The teeth of the mace now glowed red with a Greater Savagery enchant that one of the guild priests had bestowed upon him. He could feel it yearning for blood and bone—the last fiendish remnant of Maexxna now under his power. Soon, its thirst would be quenched.

Moo moved beside him, “Spank, buffs are out. Ready check confirmed. We are good to go.”

Spank stood facing the Lich creature and whispered to Moo in private chat, “Have I been a good guild master? Are we not on a path of self-destruction? Am I not Ahab? And is that shrieking, traitorous, Scourge not my white whale?”

“You have trained us well. The guild is ready.”

“And if we should wipe?”

“Then it will be a glorious wipe. And the lamentations will ring throughout Dalaran for ages to come.”

“And what of you, my friend? Are you ready to follow me on this blind quest for glory and l33t gear?”

“My captain…I will follow you till death washes over me.”

“Then be not afraid my dear Moo. For on this night, Arthas will be the one lamenting the defeat of his priced general.”

SpankadinL33t turned to his guildies and began, “Brothers and sisters of iHasApwner, right now I look into your hardened faces with pride, and realize how far we have come. I remember when we were but little n00bs struggling to kill level 6 pigs in Durotar.” He felt The Light burning in his chest, “HA. LET THOSE PIGGIES BESTOW THEIR GAZE UPON US NOW! THE EARTH QUAKES WHEN RIDE OUT AND MEET THOSE WHO CHALLENGE OUR MIGHT! THE HEAVENS THUNDER WHEN WE DON OUR ARMOR AND RULE THE FIELD OF BATTLE WITH BLADE AND AXE! THE WIND WAILS AS OUR SPELLS AND ARROWS SHATTER THE ENEMY’S WILL INTO CORPSEDUST! LET THE KODO MARCH! LET THE WOLVES HOWL! LET THE RAPTORS SCREAM! LET THE WAR DRUMS SOUND! FOR THRALL! FOR GLORY! FOR THE HORDE!!!!!”

“FOR THE HORDE!” cried iHasApwner in a regimented chant. The moment had come. The time for battle was at hand.

Murmurs

2009-12-15T19:34:00.000-08:00

Photos by ZACK HELMINIAK

Excerpt From "Colors of the City"

2009-10-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

FROM A GRAPHIC NOVEL I HAVE BEEN TOYING WITH. ZACK HELMINIAK HAS BEEN WORKING WITH ME ON THE VISUALS...MORE TO COME SOON.

There are unseen things in this universe. Unseen forces at work…unseen beings at play. Unseen watchers, whose very fabric is woven in with our existence. We do not see them…but they are there. Not pushing or pulling, wanting or needing…They are not entities of force or influence. They do not take our hands and lead us forward. But follow in our wake, live in our actions, lurk in our shadows. We do not see them, but they are there.

The sun rises and The Colors stand together but alone atop The Empire State Building and they look out onto the city of lights and colors and passion and death the bright and the dark. The heat of humanity rises from the streets and the gutters and the stink fills them like a river of molten steel swallowing up their being in a flashing wave of degradation and doom.

A single tear stains the fair cheek of White, the child of innocence and purity, and saying nothing she gazes up at the other watchers before leaving as the sun rises over the water. Yellow departs shortly after White, her golden hair dead in the morning breeze. Her eyes, no longer bright with knowledge and joy, sit a decayed yellow in her skull and she opens her mouth to say something, but her words are lost in the whisper and the wind.

Some early stuff

2008-12-19T10:46:00.000-08:00

THE DAY AT THE RIVER

He feels her shake in his arms—just a light twitch, and again and after a few minutes hears the muffled thunder of her snore and he holds her naked body to his and he sighs with the white light of the moon bleeding through the blinds. The room is filled with ease and a silent sense of content. His eyes close, and then open again and then close again but he sits up and rubs a hand over his stomach not wanting to go to sleep. Her dark, well kempt hair has slid across her face and stripes of her soft skin shine through like the moon through the blinds. With a careful hand he tucks the stray strands behind her ear and stifles a laugh. The dark stain of drool on the pillow case, pooling at the corner of her gaping mouth, is visible even in the dim light, and he can even make out her yellow mustache—a byproduct of her momentous experiment with a facial tanning solution. He kisses her right under her earlobe and whispers, “I love you” and her warmth touches his lips and hears her snoring pause for a moment then continue. He pulls his arm out from under her and feels the blood rushing back to his hands and with it the tingling numbness subsides. He rests his hands behind his head as the roar of the heat comes on and he listens as her snores disappear within the deeper rumble and he remembers.

He remembers the first time they met. He remembers going into his first day of work at a summer camp and sitting in a room with bare walls and a T.V. He remembers looking over to his right to try and find the source of an intolerable squawking dominating the room and realizing that it was not Benito Mussolini with a loudspeaker, but, in fact, the small brunette in grey sweatpants and a red sweatshirt sitting next to him. He remembers scooting his chair over a few inches as to not go deaf. On she went, ranting and raving about the injustices of the camp bureaucracy for she was supposed to be a soccer camp counselor, but now she was a nature camp counselor, but she was a collegiate soccer player and an athlete and, a captain and all-state, and therefore she was supposed to be a soccer camp counselor and no one is more qualified than her, and nature camp is for losers. She went on some more and he smiled to himself. He was the soccer camp counselor. Then silence all of a sudden. He redirected his glance to see her scribbling her name in big bold letters and her head was cocked at an angle and her tongue crept out the side of her mouth in concentration and a strand of hair fell across her face and he realized how beautiful she was. Yet this radical change of temperament reminded him of a Chihuahua, or a Jack Russell Terrier—some frenzied little animal whose hyperactivity is sedated only by a chew toy, or in this case, the maniacal scribbling of brightly colored lines.

He remembers how abruptly she turned around and shot him a question and how he was forced to admit that he was the soccer camp counselor who took her job. And he remembers the moment of intensity as she eyed him down but then laughing together for the first time. He remembers her letting her guard down but the ease coming to an end with her bright smile—so unassuming, yet temporary—as he saw before his own eyes the competitive spirit ignite within her like a burning flame, as she drilled him with questions concerning his qualifications for the esteemed soccer camp counselor position. He remembers their conversation coming to an end, but wishing it hadn’t and he remembers watching her walk out early and thinking I wish I was a nature camp counselor. He remembers how fiery and passionate she is, and he remembers why he fell in love with her.

She grunts and rolls over resting her head on his chest. She is awake but her eyes stay closed.

“Are you awake?” He could feel her lips moving over his heart.

“Yeah.”

“You want me to move to the floor?”

“No. Just lie next to me.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Kay.” She gives him a kiss and falls back to sleep.

One day they went canoeing. She helped him drag the canoe down to the river and he jumped in first and held it steady while she eased herself onto a seat. They picked up the paddles and sunk them into the cold water, pushing off with the current behind them. The sun was setting and they caught the penetrating eye of an osprey perched on a jetty and they stared back. In a swirl of black and white feathers it took off and left them to the sound of the water lapping against the side of the canoe. He pointed to a sandy point coming up in the distance.

“That’s where we are going. We can sit on the shore.”

“Kay. Am I doing ok?” She looked back and smiled. She was having fun.

“Yeah. Just keep the tip pointed towards that beach.”

She nodded and her tongue crept out of the side of her mouth resolutely and
she concentrated on each stroke—dipping the paddle in and pulling gradually but firmly through the water and easing it out…Dip, pull, ease…
On the shore, pine trees arched their backs in the Chesapeake breeze and needles and leaves flew through the air to finally rest on the surface of the water. The canoe cut through the river without effort and finally came to a groaning rest on the beach. He pulled the canoe up as to not be swept away and led her to a seat under a pine tree and the two sat close and looked out onto the river together.

She asked him a question, “In another life, would you be a bird or a tree?”

“Bird. Fly. See the world. Go anywhere.”

“I would be a tree.”

“Oh? But then you’re stuck.”

“Yeah. But you could watch everyone grow up around you and have a family and you would never be lonely.”

“Trees get lonely.”

“No they don’t. Did you ever read The Giving Tree?”

“Yeah.”

“I love that book.”

“It’s a good book.”

She thought for a moment. “If you could choose one object to define life what would it be?”

“Water. I guess.”

“Mine would be a tree.”

“That was your last answer.”

“Yeah but it’s a good one.”

He reached over and pulled her closer to him and they sat together till it was dark and they had to leave.

They held hands as they walked back along the beach. The sun had set already and a looming chill had swept over them. They reached the boat and, wanting to help, she refused to sit in the canoe while he they embarked. He got his shoes wet holding it while she got in but she was happy that she got to do something and he shrugged it off.

The current had gotten stronger and they had to paddle upstream to get back home and from the second the paddles hit the water the canoe just couldn’t keep straight. She didn’t notice him struggling in the back trying to keep the canoe from turning around. Her tongue crept out the side of her mouth—dip, pull ease…dip, pull, ease…
The canoe turned around and he piped up.

“Hey I need you to paddle a little harder now, ok?”

“Kay.”

Before he could even begin to turn the canoe around she slapped the water with her paddle, and he felt the stinging cold of the water on his face. She laughed.

“Hey actually why don’t you just stop paddling now, ok?”

“Kay.”

He turned the canoe around and heaved them towards home. Each stroke burned his arms and he could feel the sweat condensing on his forehead. They crept closer but after five minutes he was completely exhausted. The paddle slipped in his sweaty hands. She watched him and laughed.

“Hey I could help you now if you wanted.”

“Ok go left.”

She started paddling right.

“LEFT!”

SLAP. A half gallon of freezing cold river water hit him in the face. She laughed.
She was having fun.

He wiped away the water from his eyes and opened them to see the beach in front of them and a shiver ran down his spine from the cold and she was still paddling on the right. Her determination was venerable but the truth was she was paddling them in the wrong direction and he was wet and freezing and close to catching hypothermia but she laughed some more.

“Ok stop. Stop paddling!”

“Am I doing ok? What do I do?”

“Just. Stop.”

“Kay.”

His arms were on fire but he turned the canoe around again and paddled till he couldn’t breath and she sat and watched him.

“I’m getting coooold.”

“Oh my god. Shut up. Just. Shut. Up.”

She laughed.

“You need my help?”

“Yeah go right.”

She went left.

“RIGHT!”

SLAP. He was cold and wet again.

She laughed some more.

He has to keep himself from throwing her overboard and paddling himself back alone.
Eventually he paddled her back home and collapsed on the lawn. The dry grass poked through his shirt and scratched his back but he closed his eyes and listened to the soft silence of the breeze and thought of a roaring fire in the fireplace, a leather couch, football on TV, a down comforter, and a glass of wine, among other things. He smiled till he opened his eyes to see her standing over him.

“Don’t we have to pull the canoe out of the water?”

“I hate you.”

She helps him up and together, they lift the canoe out of the water and when everything is squared away they lay in the hammock together wrapped in blankets and pillows to keep warm in the fall night. And together they recount their little adventure and vent and laugh and sigh and smile and remember.

He falls asleep.

creative non-fiction

2008-12-19T10:42:00.000-08:00

Three Words

Istanbul was alive, ready for adventure, and we sat drinking café Turk and smoking cigarettes on the hostel rooftop and watching the white gulls circle the spires of the Blue Mosque. Across from the Blue Mosque stood the aging Hagia Sophia, the ancient monolith from the Byzantine Empire. In between the two mausoleums sat an expanse of pristine greenery and gardens and fountains. We were thousands of miles away from home and we sat and talked and played chess waiting to step out into this foreign land. The morning sun shone off the old city, and the sound of the street rose to the roof and fused into an unintelligible hum occasionally pierced by a siren speeding by; off to some unknown crime or accident or death. It’s the music of the city—the sounds of compassion, of degradation, of laughing, of crying, of friends and enemies, of morning exchanges and of greetings and farewells—the sound of true humanity.

The spring air was brisk, and my friend Zack put up his black hood to keep warm. He sat smoking. In between puffs Zack shot dialogue in my general direction, but I was too caught up in a game of chess with my friend Jeff to respond. I watched Jeff chew his already badly bitten fingernails and pull at his hair as he decided his next move. Occasionally Zack offered unwanted advice.

“Jeff, yo, move there, man.”

“Zack, shut the fuck up.”

“Man, you got it. Trust me.”

“Zack. Seriously. Shut the fuck up.”

This usually preceded Zack leaning back in his seat with a pensive look on his face, as if he was deducing the outcome of the game, or other unsolved mysteries of the world, but he was just bored and probably stubborn that the game had taken so long. Finally the game ended. Jeff won. He always won; at the sacrifice of his fingernails and mental stability, but he won nonetheless and was sure to let both of us know.

“YESSSS. FUCK YEAH. THOUGHT YOU HAD ME THAT TIME DIDN'T YOU FUCKER!”

“Yeah...Good game, man.”

“From now on call me ‘Chessmaster.’ Or ‘Lord of the Rook.’ Or just...‘The King.’”
We ordered another café from this bumbling British alcoholic named Rob, who worked at the hostel. He claims that he smoked weed with Dave Chapelle and half the Knicks one night in New York, but he was over thirty and missing teeth, so we don’t really buy it. Plus they probably drug test in the NBA. He got our drinks and left us in peace and I took a pinch of Turkish tobacco and rolled a cigarette and put it to my lips and lit it and inhaled deeply. The smoke burned the back of my throat so I washed it down with a sip of the steaming brew and sat back and watched the gulls and waited to get lost. We were at peace. Slightly bored, but not a worry in the world could reach us there—atop the hostel in Istanbul.

Jeff looked at the two of us. “You guys ready?”

Without responding we stood up and pushed in our chairs and grabbed our backpacks and left the hostel and walked into the street. Our goal: get lost—as it had been for every destination over our month long backpacking experience. We had all studied in Europe over the semester; I in Florence, Italy, and Zack and Jeff in Barcelona, Spain and it felt right after the semester to spend a month backpacking and island hopping across Greece and Turkey—it felt right to lose ourselves; to scream “Go! Go! Go!” on the top of our lungs with a backpack and a beer and scrape every piece of life from every corner of the world. We were mad to live—to push forward from one wild adventure to the next draped under the thin veil of a starry night and the yellow glow of the old wrought iron lampposts or the warm Mediterranean sun and a cool sea breeze. We were free. Not a worry could reach us. Travel was life. Travel was freedom.

And with this in mind we set out to wander the streets of Istanbul, not to see the sights, or spend the day looking at the world through the lens of a camera, or stay at the hostel drinking with the Aussies, but to see what abandonment would bring—what cards life would deal us on this day. But on this day, our obsession with finding and living the rush of life came to a halt with three words.

We walked for two hours away from the tourist district of the old city, into the more residential, suburban district of the city. Around us walked the working class of Istanbul, the residents, who made our adventure their home. Age and weather had taken a greater toll on the buildings than in the tourist district. They didn’t feel decayed, or broken down like a third world country, but used—lived in for generations in a happy and thriving community. Clothes lines were strewn from building to building, their attached garments blowing in the wind, and we pushed on amongst the people. In the windows sat potted plants or red Turkish flags blowing in the wind. There was an unspoken sense of pride amongst these people, pride of nation, of religion, of community. We passed a shoemaker sitting in a rocking chair watching a soccer game on the television and a dozen people stood frozen watching the screen talking and smoking and cheering and embracing when the game turned in their favor. I remember the smell of roasted chicken and shawarma kabob and the charcoal smell from white plums of smoke billowing from the brick ovens of restaurants—but they weren’t restaurants, with menus and waiters and music and service, but simply kitchens; where the people could enter and talk to the cook while he prepared them a dish.

And then it happened. The call to prayer rose from the city in a harmonic wail. The mosques were singing to each other, chanting from one minaret to the other and one voice seemed louder than the rest and we followed it. A few blocks away we stumbled upon the source. In the middle of this run-down working class district sat a building of pristine beauty, of ornate detail, divinely glowing in the early afternoon sun. The mosque had one large golden dome, and four singing minarets each topped with a blue crescent moon. In the run down district, this was the centerpiece, contrasting the broken building with its divine quality, but it fit nonetheless snug in between the alley-like streets. This was the treasure of the people that lived there.

And so we approached the building, and took a peek inside, took a peek into a cultural harmony unbeknownst to us of any Islamic nation. They crouched in a line, a man in a business suit, a homeless man, a UPS worker, and a farmer—all there for the same reason. In those walls, class doesn’t exist, only Allah and his faithful. In unison they prayed and we waited on the outside, peering in, till they finished. When the call to prayer ended they lined up at the door and put on their shoes and we stood waiting till they approached us.

The man wearing blue jeans and a tanned leather jacket drew near us interested in our presence.

“Hello,” he said. His English was thick with accent.

Zack took the initiative and responded, “Hey, can we uhhh…go in?”

“Yes, of course. Where are you from?”

“America,” said Jeff.

“Armenia?”

“No, no, no…America, like the United States. USA,” I replied.

“Ahhhhh. You kill Muslims.”

Silence. None of us could say anything. His tone was not malicious; he just wanted to tell us something. If he ever had the chance to speak to one American, that is what he would say. He knew. He knew that the war in our eyes was something so far away from home. He knew we had forgotten the value of a human life. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan was something that only existed within the media—in headlines and news and documentaries and movies. To him, we were killing the people that held the same beliefs as he, and as we walked around his nation and his religion and his beliefs we forgot that we are from a country that was killing people like him.

“I’m sorry…We don’t support Bush or the war. I’m sorry.”

He nodded and left.

We entered the mosque and saw the unity that our country was destroying and it made us sick and embarrassed that we were part of something that the world considered to be unjust and evil. I wanted to change. To burn. To revolt against my own country. To physically be able to cast down the United States to prove to these people that I was not a killer of Muslims.

So we left and we went back to the hostel and smoked and played chess in silence wanting to forget those three words but unable to. We realized that these three words would stay with us forever, and to this day, they have.

In the recent presidential election, foreign policy has taken a back seat to the economy. Media coverage of the war has dropped to 2% in the last year, a 15% decrease since 2007. The American people are forgetting the value of human life. We are forgetting that while we are losing money, people are dying and the world looks down upon us. We want to escape the truth, to not care about what is happening abroad. To this day, we kill Muslims, and we forget.

Other Fiction

2008-12-19T10:34:00.000-08:00

The Real McCoy

“The restlessness approached hysteria. The parties were bigger. The pace was faster, the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were looser, and the liquor was cheaper...”

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Commentary on New York, 1926

Nathan threw the gears in reverse, and with his foot on the brake, guided the screaming truck down the alley. He could see the glow of the taillights in the fog surrounding the cabin and eased his arm out the window to quench his sweating hands in the cold dew of the night till little beads of water glistened off the sleeve of his wool suit. With a hiss, the truck came to a stop and to the music of chiming bottles echoing from the bed of the truck, the fat man sitting next to Nathan reached for the door handle.

“Let’s get this over with,” he muttered under his breath. Nathan could see his double chin shake and hear his grunts as he exited the cabin.

“Unlock the bed,” Nathan commanded.

Nathan kept the truck running and stepped out into the night with grace. In the red glow of the taillights his firm face eased as his eyes met those of a woman in a full length fur coat and a flapper hat, standing emotionless smoking a held cigarette. Next to her stood a man in a pinstriped suit whose face was hidden in the shadow of a fedora hat. The suit’s hand lay hidden in his jacket, probably clutching a loaded Beretta M1915 or Colt .45 or Mauser C96 or Lugar P08 resting in a leather holster belted to his side. Behind them stood an iron door planted in a brick wall. With a smirk Nathan approached the odd couple, wiping a humid sweat from his dark brow.

She smiled in a reminiscing sort of way. “Nathan Casey.”

He nodded. “Suzette. You look as charming as ever,” and he took her hand and laid a friendly kiss on her cheek. Suzette felt the tickle of his mustache and blushed while Nathan’s eyes met the shadow face. “Who’s the stiff?”

“One a Sacco’s torpedoes,” said Suzette. “Just in case you got into a pinch. Insurance, Nathan. Just insurance.”

Nathan shrugged and lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply. After stepping in a puddle the Passenger unlocked the hatch of the truck and waddled over till he stood, cursing his luck, next to Nathan.

Suzette extended a hand and smiled a smile of someone with rotten cheese under her nose. “Graham. Chic as ever I see.”

The gluttony that padded his face shook as he stammered out, “P-p-pleasure, Miss Suzette…Pleasure’s always.” Beads of sweat glimmered on his bald head.

The thud of the bass and the roar of the crowd seeped out from under the barred door and rose from the pavement. Nathan could feel the rush, the life, the burn from inside.

“Packed night, eh? Business is good?”

“Berries, Nathan. Berries. But to our business…the hooch…in the trunk?”

“No. I drove all the way to Harlem with a trunk full of flowers. You got the money?”

“No. I’ve been standing out here in the fog all night waiting for the sun to rise.”

He laughed and she passed him an envelope, which he casually stuffed into his jacket pocket. Suzette turned around and knocked three times, and then two more times on the iron door. With a screech the door slid open and four suited men made their way out past the group and towards the trunk. The rush of the club escaped its prison and a wave of energy hit Nathan in the face. He took a few steps back and watched the men unload case upon case of hooch off the bed of the truck and disappear into the red glow of the doorway.

“Come in for a drink, Nathan.”

“Suzette, I’m done.”

“Retired?”

“Retired…My family…”

Suzette interrupted, “All the reason to celebrate! Come on, Nathan. Lets have a drink.”

“You know I don’t drink, Suzette.”

“Well take my arm then. You wouldn’t let a pretty girl walk into a club alone.”

Nathan nodded and took one last look at the exchange. “Graham, take care of the truck once they finish up.”

“‘Course, Nathan. I’ll see you in a few.”

* * * *

Suzette held out her arm and Nathan took it and she led him into the red-carpeted hallway. The walls were of burgundy velvet and gold trimming shimmered in the lamplight and the roar grew louder as they strolled down the hallway in silence. The smell of tobacco intensified with each step and Nathan’s eyes began to burn, but he lit another smoke and pushed through the foggy haze. They reached the end of the hallway and turned the corner and, making their way through a series of locked doors, they entered the speak.

The rustic room had no windows, no covering on the brick walls. Bronze chandeliers hung from the ceiling bathing the scattered tables, stage, and dance floor in a smoky red glow. On stage, under a painted sign, “The Mill”, a jazz band bobbed in full swing—the horns belted out a symphonic roll and the lead trumpet exchanged blows with the African American woman in a sparkling white dress and feathered hat. She reached down to the rolling crowd and held the pain in her hand and lifting it from the darkness she wailed to the heavens…Runnin’ wild lost control…Runnin’ wild, mighty bold…

The flappers danced and the lounge lizards watched from the edge of the dance floor in lust and the sheiks and shebas came up from their white-draped tables to join the maddening crowd. A man in a grey suit and fedora hat approached the stage, his head hung low in a rhythmic trance, and looked up to his deity with a horn and with sweat running down his face he threw his hands up into the air and yelled Blow that thing…Blow that thing, Father Dip! And he blew.

Nathan and Suzette stood for a moment, watching in silence. He took his eyes from the stage and to a group of men sitting at a dark booth in the corner, away from the frenzy. The sharks had sleek skin and a burning ferocity in their eyes. In the largest of them Nathan saw the flicker of the candle flame ablaze beyond his eyes and watched as he took a slug of whisky and when the flames turned toward Nathan he nodded.

Nathan nudged Suzette. “The big cheese.”

He felt her arm tighten around his. “I didn’t know Sacco was here. I’ll give him the real McCoy. Grab a drink.”

She left and he said after her, “You know I don’t drink,” but she was gone. He stood and watched her leave and watched Sacco stand up and greet her with a kiss on each cheek and watched his nods as she whispered in his ear.

The discomfort of being alone hit Nathan so he made his way to the bar. As he pulled out a stool and took a seat, the wiry bartender bobbed his head to the snare and reached to the rail to give the people what they wanted. He made his way to Nathan.

“What can I getcha’ tonight, buss?”

“Tonic water.”

“Gin or vodka?”

“Just…tonic water.”

The bartender stopped bobbing his head and slid him a glass with ice and a bottle of tonic. “It’s on the house.”

Nathan sat alone facing the bar sipping his drink. He saw the rails filled with bottles of amber, yellow, brown, and white liquids resting against brass rail guards waiting to meet each other in ice and glass. In the mirror behind the bar he saw himself silhouetted by the madness of the burning youth—people of amber, yellow, brown and white color dancing and sweating and laughing—stupid with the circus. Boomers and busters, flappers and Janes, it didn’t matter—the rush called and the club was bloated.

But behind the smiles and the laughs Nathan saw a worn hardness in the faces as the madness approached hysteria. In the eyes of the youth he saw flat tires. Their movements and speech were lethargic and he knew most of these kids would wear out early, the excitement of their lives drowning away in liquor.

He thought of his wife and daughters and his stomach ached but not from the tonic.

Graham came appeared through a crowd and pulled up a stool next to him in a huff. “Where’s Suzette?”

“Over there with Sacco…Givin’ him the run around.”

Graham nodded and ordered a drink. “The truck’s inna alley two blocks way. It’s cleaned out.’

“Thanks, Graham. I’m gonna get outa here.”

“Now? Whas eatin’ you?”

“Nothin’. Just worn out.”

“Well, lessee that envelope, ‘fore you scram.”

Nathan slid him the envelope under a menu and Graham fished out his half before sliding it back. Nathan took the envelope, not bothering to count the rest, and left the way he came in.

He let the quiet of the alley wash over him and made off into the night.

* * * *

Nathan felt at home once he crossed the Queensboro Bridge. He looked out the back of the cab and into the dark windows of the houses he grew up with—their panes guarding the sleeping citizens of the city that never sleeps. Beads of rain ran horizontal across his backseat window to the drum of the engine and in a trance he leaned his head back, watching them race. The cab pulled up to his house and, not saying a word, he paid the driver and got out. It pulled away and left him standing in the silence of the street gazing up at his seemingly empty Chicago style house.

He skipped the first two steps leading up to the door, and opened it with care till he found himself standing in the wood-floored hallway. The modest house was quiet with sleep but he made his way to the basement door. He avoided the eyes of his children and wife—their faces framed in stillness against the shadowed wall. The groan of his footsteps and the shriek of the door opening broke the sense of content but at the top of the steps he grabbed his flashlight and descended into darkness. He moved toward the brick wall behind the stove and slid out a few of the red blocks to reveal a hole. From his jacket pocket he removed the envelope and made the deposit. The subtle sound of paper hitting paper made him smile and he rearranged the bricks till the hole it was hidden well enough.

Upstairs, Nathan poked his head into his daughters’ bedroom. He counted the three lumps under the covers but dared not enter for fear of waking them. He passed the bathroom and stood in the doorway of the bedroom at the end of the hallway watching his wife, her soft skin bathed in the moonlight seeping through a crack in the drapes. She lay motionless but not sleeping.

“Is that you?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s me.”

“Come hold me.”

And he did and her curls felt like satin against his face and her warmth felt like life in his arms and he closed his eyes, letting the moment cleanse him.

“I love you, Mae.”

“Don’t ever leave me again.”

“I won’t. I’m done. I’m sorry.”

“I love you too, Nathan.”

* * * *

Mae stood at the stove in a white robe, cooking eggs and bacon while Nathan sat at the table with his daughters. He read the paper and sipped his black coffee, its escaping drips staining a ring into the checkered red and white table cloth. The sun shown through the window illuminating the yellow ceramic tile and flowery wallpaper of the kitchen. Waiting for breakfast, the three girls chattered on about which juice they liked best while they fidgeted with their silverware. The sight of Mae carrying the steaming pan to the table silenced the girls, and they waited with fork and knife in hand watching the food with upturned heads till it finally came to rest in their plates. Nathan put down the paper and Mae took her seat and the family held hands with their heads bowed in humility. Nathan spoke:

For food in a world where many walk in hunger

For family in a world where many walk alone

For faith in a world where many walk in fear

We give you thanks, O Lord. Amen.

The second the words escaped his mouth he knew they were false. He could feel their sound in his throat and his lips opening and closing in rhythm with his tongue but his mind fell into a darker place. A vein in his head throbbed in tune with his aching heart and his chest burned with guilt. In silence he cried out to the heavens:

You have seen me do terrible things in my life. Terrible terrible things. Like a flame they live inside me scaling my heart and scarring my soul. I see the faces of the people whose fate I held in my hands—the faces of the people who ended up incarcerated or raped or shot up or blown up and dead because of the business. My family sits here and eats this food at their expense. I tried to be a good man…to provide for my family…but to do so I have taken from others and become greedy. To you, Lord, I make this confession and this plea. Please let me and my family live out the rest of our lives in peace. I am deserving of your vengeance but plea for your forgiveness. Forgive me.

* * * *

It was a hot day and the neighborhood was outside. Kids played stickball in the street, couples necked in the back of cars, women strung up their laundry to dry in the sun, and Nathan sat in a white rocking chair on his porch watching his girls play in the back yard. In between smiles he took drags of his cigarette, its smoke rising like a ribbon till it disappeared in the summer air. Mae brought him a glass of iced tea and it chilled the scratch in his throat and the beads of water on the glass cooled his sweating hands. The sound of Queens was in the air. The murmur of a summertime afternoon was occasionally pierced by a siren speeding by; off to some unknown crime or accident or death. But at Nathan’s ears, the rush of the city expired and he only heard his daughters’ laughs and squeals.

The telephone rang, and Nathan shifted in his seat.

Mae cried out from the kitchen, “Nathan, it’s for you.”

“Who is it?”

“Graham.” Her voice died on the name.

Nathan got up and made his way through a dark hallway to the telephone in the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Nathan. It’s Graham. Big things is happenin’. Today. Big things.”

“Talk to me.”

“Cases is comin’ inna Newark. Five o’clock. A whole ship. Every legger onna east coast is tryin’ ta getta

piece.”

“You know I’m done.”

“Sacco’s payin’ big. I mean real big. The hooch’s hot. Cops lookin’ ta bust.”

“How big?”

“Retire big.”

“I’m already retired.”

“Not this retired.”

“Where’s it goin’.”

“The Mill.”

“Suzette?”

“She’s in…Nathan?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t hafta do dis.”

In the window above the sink, Nathan saw Mae’s reflection watch him in the doorway, her hand held her face and her eyes were red. “Grab the truck. I’ll meet you under the bridge.”

Nathan hung up the phone. Mae still stood in the doorway and he walked to hold her and tell her that it was going to be ok but she turned him away.

“I thought it was over, Nathan. I see the fire in your eyes. Still, even after you quit. I still see the fire?”

“Mae, just this one. I swear. We need the money.”

“No we don’t. You retired. You told me you retired.”

“I am retired.”

“It’s never going to stop. Is it?”

“It’s over, Mae. After tonight it’s over. I swear.”

“What’s the use of a swear if it’s already been broken?”

And she left him. He heard the slam of the bedroom door and the click of it locking. He went to get one last look at his daughters and stood in the shadowed hallway, but dared not go outside. The traffic drowned out the sound of their voices, and a siren rang out in the afternoon heat and he left them, deaf to their laughs.

* * * *

Graham drove the truck, his belly resting against the steering wheel, and Nathan sat shotgun, a shotgun resting in his lap. The one-two of the tires, as the truck passed over the Queensboro Bridge, jolted the cabin, and Nathan’s grip tightened around the cold black steel of the barrel. The wiry skeleton of the bridge gave way to the towering stone, steel, and glass of downtown Manhattan. They drove through the city in silence. Graham bit his already badly bitten fingernails, and Nathan sat watching people with suitcases and suits and hats make through crowds of street vendors and god speakers preaching for their damned souls. He sat watching them hurry off to their own corners of the city.

Before long the old partners stood leaning against the rail of the ferry as it took them across the Hudson River. They shared a rolled cigarette and could see a dozen ships anchored, waiting for access to Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty, its green elegance glinting in the shuddering light of a broken afternoon, stood—a beacon for the tired and the poor and the huddled masses and the wretched and the homeless.

The drive through the desolate Jersey, but they saw the black smoke of Newark smelting and refining plants rise from the horizon; ushering them into the ashy slums and industrial fog of the harbor city. The sun was out, but shadow settled across Newark. Ships lined the port. The monstrous monoliths unloaded the fuel of the times and the tall piles of black and grey sat in the shipyard waiting to stain the sky. Nathan looked into the ashen faces of the workers and saw stone.

“Container 297,” said Graham.

“Just us on this one?”

“Yeah. Sacco spreddas out since ‘s hot.”

“We doin’ the loadin’?”

“Nah. He gottus some bell bottoms for the loadin’.”

They found them waiting by container 297. Graham parked and Nathan stepped out of the truck and wielded the shotgun with an instinctive grace. “You four, in the bed.”

They didn’t hesitate.

“The rest of you start loading. You drop a case, you answer to Sacco. Understand?”

They nodded and followed the orders.

Graham kept watch and Nathan felt the rush in his chest and the shooter in his hand as he stood among the bell bottoms like a boss among a chain gang. They dared not make eye contact with him but went about their work in silence. Only the steady clinking of stacking bottles could be heard by the party and the bed of the truck sank with the load. Nathan strolled about the work to the beat of the bottles and smoked a cigarette. Before long the load was packed and the truck was hot and the bell bottoms disappeared into the yard.

Graham started the van and Nathan took his seat.

“Take us home, Graham.”

The truck lurched forward into the shadowed alley of stacked containers. The walls of steel closed in on them but the truck continued down its narrow path. Nathan held the shotgun to his chest.

“This ain’t good. We got to get out of this corridor.”

“It’s too narrow. I can’t turn the truck round.” As soon as the words escaped Graham’s mouth, a black jalopy appeared in their path and four suited men with faces shadowed by fedora hats stepped out with choppers in hand.

“Graham, put your foot…!” Nathan’s voice was drowned out by the divine thunder of the choppers raining down showers of lead on the truck. Sparks flew from the bullets colliding with the hood and Graham screamed in pain as a bullet hit his shoulder and sprayed Nathan with blood.

His partner’s gore dripped down half Nathan’s face and he howled a frenzied cry of wrath and brandished the steel that crossed his heart. He shot out the window of the truck and unloaded the remaining shell into the chest of a suit, who dropped from the sprayed buckshot. But Nathan wasn’t done. He grabbed the Luger from the darkness under his seat and felt the kick of the gun in his hand as he fired a shot into the head of the closest suit, spraying a mist of blood and brains into the air.

The horn of the truck cried and Nathan looked over to see the back of Graham’s head blown open and his lifeless face pressed against the face of the wheel. Steam rose from the engine and the truck lurched to a stop and he knew it was over, so he sat in his seat and waited for the pain. Three bullets sprayed him across the chest and he heard the sound of the Lugar hit the floor of the truck. His mouth leaked blood and his chest and shoulders were aflame with the pain of ripped flesh and bone but with a last effort he opened the door and fell to the cold of the pavement. His blood felt warm against the cold of the asphalt and his body. He heard the thud of Graham’s body hid the pavement and the music of the bottles as the truck rumbled away.

* * * *

Nathan woke to pain and the unfinished cold of a white ceiling. He heard sobbing and thought he was dead.

“Mommy, Mommy! Daddy’s awake!”

Six pairs of little hands and arms wrapped around his leg but in his hand he felt the life and the tears and the heart of Mae. His eyes burned and he gripped her hand till his shoulder screamed in agony and like an angel Mae’s dark curls and bright face emerged from the white void. Her face was stained with tears and she could only whisper his name over and over again as she sobbed.

Nathan pulled her to him till he felt the satin of her hair against his face and in a hoarse whisper he

croaked, “I’ll never leave you again.”

“You already have.”

* * * *

Nathan sat on his porch watching his girls play in the fall breeze. The whisky burned going down but he chased it with a cigarette and enjoyed watching the smoke billow from his fiery exhale. The beat of the city deadened the sound of his girls and he strained to hear their laughs and squeals but couldn’t get past the rush of the traffic and sirens. The phone rang and Nathan gets up and limps through the shadows and into the kitchen. “Hello? Yeah. The Mill? What’s the payoff? Newark? What time? I’ll be there.”

He hung up the phone and went to the stairs and from the foot he saw the closed door of his bedroom, behind which sat Mae, her face aged with tears. She gazed out into the grey clouds of fall, detached from her former vibrancy. He went to get one last look at his daughters and stood in the shadowed hallway, but he dared not go outside. The rush called, and he left them deaf to their cries.

THE END

Early Short Fiction

2008-10-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

**This post deals with some adult content**

The Things That Go Unsaid

She lets out one final gasp, and watches his rigid body go limp between her legs before rolling off next to him and she nuzzles up till her lips are just below his earlobe, till he can feel her short hot breaths on his neck and she can feel a his two-day scruff on her lips and she whispers, “I love you.” But do I?

Smiling, he makes room for her and looks straight into her dark eyes. “I love you too,” he says. I hate lying.

“That was good.” She means it, but that’s all it is now—the rush and as soon as it comes it’s lost in the fog of memory. God damnit. How long do I have to put on this fake grin and stare at him? The clock on the floor reads 8:43 AM in large red numbers. Fuck it’s early; I just want to go back to bed. The clock paints the room in a red glow and she doesn’t notice the three-year-old old high school pictures tacked up on the wall, dull in the digital light. She doesn’t take pictures anymore. Her eyes creep away from his, over a pile of dirty laundry, and toward the David Beckham poster on her closet door. I should paint my room purple. Purple would be nice.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks, still smiling. I don’t care.

She wants to say, “I don’t love you,” but the only thing that comes out is, “You…and your perfectness.” Fuck that’s not even a word. Whatever…he’ll think it’s cute…pussy.

He gives her a wink, “Awww, thanks babe.” Perfectness? That’s not even a word. What an idiot. He sits up in bed and runs a hand over his stomach. I should eat something.. I can’t believe it’s been three and a half years. He followed her gaze. She is staring at David Beckham again. I wonder what its like to dropkick someone? He looks back into her eyes, searching for something lost. It was great at first—the rush—the high of being lost in her, and her in me. The halogen light from the kitchen outlines the door of her bedroom. Maybe a sandwich would hit the spot. She never has anything interesting to say anymore. I wonder if she has beer in the fridge. I bet she does—probably a few lite beers. She’s obsessed with carbs. Fuck, I have to get ready for class. Can I stop smiling now?

Everyday she has a break for lunch between her twelve o’clock and two o’clock classes, and day after day, he is waiting for her on the same white marble rock in the quad and today is no different. She sees him glance down at his cell phone to check the time and then turn to face her as she walks out of the building and she tries to wipe the bags from under her eyes. He smiles and waves. Look at that stupid grin. He’s an asshole. I don’t like his face anymore—his asshole face.

He holds out his hand, and gives her a kiss, “How was your day?” I’m so fake.

“Good.” I’m so fake.

She takes his hand as they walk in silence to lunch. He can’t make me laugh anymore. If it’s codfish day again I’m going to puke.

“Cat and David invited us to dinner tonight. You want to go?” he asks. Please say no.

“Uhhh... Yeah, sure. Sounds like fun,” she says. He would get mad if I said no.

People she knows come up and say hello. They always tell her how much they envy her relationship—her stability. “Three and half years, or has it been four now? That’s really amazing. You two must really be in love...I wish I could find someone like that,” they say; or something along those lines. Her hand in his, she looks up and down the brick sidewalk running through campus. She sees two people playing Frisbee with a dog, a couple watching the autumn leaves fall from the tree they are sitting under, and a group of friends sprawled out on the grass, listening to some guy with dreadlocks play the guitar. If they only knew I envy them. If they only knew of these words of hate bleeding from my mouth only to scab at his ears. If only they knew the things that go unsaid.

They get home from dinner and she leads him by hand into the bedroom. Her roommate is gone. She doesn’t come around much anymore. He locks the door. There is a mattress on the floor—she waits for him in it.

“Did you forget it?” she asks. I’ll kill him if he did.

“I got it, I got it.” he pulls out what looks like a small leather CD case from his inside jacket pocket. Finally. He carefully places it next to her thigh, and her eyes watch every move.

He runs his hands up her sides as he takes off her shirt, his fingers gliding over her protruding ribs and she shivers from the chill of his fingers but extends her left arm beckoningly. Beginning at her wrist, he kisses up her arm following a trail of purple veins, stopping at the patch of crusted blood glued to the crease of her elbow.

She lights a candle. Yessss.

He unzips the case. Working by candle light he flicks a measured amount of white powder into a spoon and holds it over the flame. Orange light dances off the walls, playing games with the darkness. Her sunken eyes never veer from the spoon and the flame.

She bites her lip. “Me first,” she says, as she tightens a belt around her left arm.

“I know,” he murmurs watching the powder melt, and then drawing the liquid into the syringe.

She closes her eyes as he puts the needle to her arm, first drawing blood. He takes a second, admiring the peppermint swirl in the syringe, then pushes the mast down.

He does the same for himself.

Holding hands, they loosen the belts together and as they exhale, collapse into each others arms and they melt into each other and the rhythm of their heart beats become one and their eyes meet inches away and they hypnotically gaze into each others dilation. She is lost in him, and he is lost in her.

“I love you,” she says. I love him.

“I love you too,” he says. I love her.

More Poetry

2008-10-27T16:42:00.000-07:00

Going Up

Photo By: Ryan Hechler

My feet ache and my lungs claw for air that isn’t there,
I hear the crunch of a dozen feet in the gravel,
But on mountain everyone is complacent in silence

My heart pounds in my head,
I can feel the pulse in my ears, its beat dances with my breaths,
One breath, two steps,
One breath, two steps,

One gasp, one step,
Two wheezes, one step, and the 4/4 rhythm of the beat,

The song of the trail,
The music of the trance,
Lost time,
Lost in the beat and the burn,

Physical universe,
Mountain cosmos,
The compass trail,

Going up.

The Last Stand of Ollataytambo

We who walked within worlds

One waning, one won

Well-meaning westerners wooed by these woeful walls

Lost in

Words
Or
Worlds
Or
Wars

Wrought with wrath

Fought with fire

Warriors of worth wreak the wretched

Written in war paint

Written in legend

Bow and quiver

Blade and bone

A lost waterloo

And we walk

Through its wake

Of
Words
Of
Worlds
Of
Wars

Wondering why was one world lost and one world won?

Poetry from Peru

2008-10-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

Photo By: Ryan Hechler

The Fever

And you shake,
Till your jaw locks and your teeth shatter,
Till your eyes wince in pain and confusion,
And you shake,

And you shake,
Till the cold of the fever swallows you whole,
Till your body writhes under the blankets to find every inch of warmth,
And the only noise you hear is the tap of the bed,
The violent tap tap tap of the bed against the whitewashed wall,

And you shake,
Till your bones rattle in your body,
Like the decayed hand of a skeleton had run its finger along your spine,

And you cry out between seething breaths through clinched teeth,
And someone answers,

And you shake,
And they see your pain,
And they try to help,

Tears scar your face, you tell them to leave.

And they don’t listen,

And you shake,
Till you feel the weight of another blanket,
Till you feel a mothers hands tucking you in,
And the same hands on your shoulder,

And a sincere voice telling you it will be ok,

And for that second,
For that utopian moment,
Your fever breaks,
And your spine calms,
And your jaw lets go of your teeth,
And your body lets go of the tension,
And the bed settles.

Photo By: Ryan Hechler

The Bus Window

On the third day
In Pisaq,
Outside the bus window,
A young woman with dreadlocks sat in a doorway making necklaces from beads and hemp and shells and stones. There a man with a goatee and dreadlocks in a black, green, yellow, and red tam talking to her sipping a beer. She was quiet but smiled out of the corner of her mouth. The bus driver started the bus and a cloud of exhaust blew over the two. The man with the tam waved his beer around and cursed the bus driver. Little kids came up to the bus window with puppies in their arms. Una foto they said.

On the fifth day,
In Ollantaytambo,
Outside the bus window,
Stood a group of porters waiting to work the Inca trail. Leather straps bound their coarse feet. Their calves were swollen. One man looked like he had worms in his calves. They stood in silence, waiting to be examined like mules or donkeys or some sort of work animal. Most of them were missing teeth. Some of them were old. When the guide picked them they left in silence, their head usually hanging low.

On the sixth day
In Cusco,
Outside the bus window,
There sat a pregnant dog on the corner of a busy avenue and a man with overalls on a bicycle stopped to feed it bread crust. Down the street a group of men lined up to drink chicha from an old woman behind a cart. She gave them a glass and filled it up and they stood on the sidewalk drinking the purple drink. When they finished they gave her back the glass.

On the twentieth day,
In Huacachina,
Outside the bus window.
There was an oasis. A group of tourists drove by in a dune buggy. Some of them had safari hats and cameras with bazooka lenses resting on khaki vests. They were probably British. The buggy drove up a dune and disappeared over the ridge. A man with a
charango sat by the water, waiting for a group of people to play for. He tuned his instrument.

On the twenty-fourth day,
In Nazca,
Outside the bus window.
A man rode a motorcycle with a yellow cart attached to the back of it. It looked like a giant yellow tricycle. His figure was silhouetted against the infinite grey of the Peruvian desert. When he drove by, his figure crouched against the handlebars. His position was one of intensity. Down the street there was a hotel. A child stood against the gate. His head rest against the bars and his hands held him up. He looked like a convict behind bars.

On the last day,
In Lima,
Outside the bus window,Stood a group of school children in matching green jumpsuits. Some of the boys chased pigeons in the plaza and the girls watched and giggled. A group of tourists approached and they ran up to them and practiced their English. They said hello, and how are you, and where are you from? Then they got a picture with the tourists and laughed when they saw the image on the digital display. A father watched her daughter ride a red tricycle.

Creative Non-Fiction From Peru

2008-10-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

photo by: Jackie Cantwell

An Open Window

And the bus ascends from the Sacred Valley leaving the green waters of the Urubamba and the desert mountains of the red-rocked Andes behind. You look out the window and the bus takes a sharp turn and you feel your knuckles turn white as your hand grips the handle on the seat in front of you.

The bus had all the amenities of western culture—running water, neon lights, overhead storage, polyester seats, air conditioning, and a DVD player. You feel the rumble of the tires beneath your feet as the bus rolls through the third world and periodically you can hear the hiss of the transmission when the driver lets out the clutch and changes gears. Vrummmmm sssss Vrummmmm sssss…the noise is comforting to your ears, because it reminds you that you are behind the mirrored glass of the bus. You feel at ease in the world behind your glass, in the little “mobile United States”, traveling through a foreign land of ancient rituals and tongues.

The bus smells of disinfectant and it makes you feel clean. With a smile you go rummaging through your backpack looking for what is now your fifth bottle of hand sanitizer. You squirt some of the clear jelly in your hands and rub it in and cup your hands to your nose and inhale deeply letting the alcoholic fumes clear your sinuses.

The road ends for a moment at each turn around the mountain, only to reappear and you strain to see around the head in front of you to see if maybe, maybe the road will end at this next turn, but it doesn’t—it keeps on going on in its ascent. The girl next to you doesn’t notice, and she has her head in a sketchbook, the sway of the bus guiding her maniacal scribbling of brightly colored lines.

You wonder how she can draw with the bus an inch away from careening down the side of the mountain and finally exploding in a bloody fireball like cars in James Bond movies

“How can you draw with this bus on the brink of careening down the side of the mountain and finally exploding in a bloody fireball like cars in James Bond movies?”

“The chaos adds to the creativity.”

“Right.”

But the bus goes on. Your knuckles are still white and you close your eyes and nod your head to take you away. You want to let go but you can’t.

But then the road straightens and the bus follows through a blasted hill and is born into a golden Andean plateau. Fields of wheat sway in the golden magic hour wind and you want to stretch your arm out the window and grab a handful of the grain and let it crumple in your hand and take a deep breath of the tangy aroma and let the flakes slip through your fingers and float away with the breeze but the window stays closed. In the infinite yellow sea appears a ruined clay house, so comfortable in the fields that it appears not manmade but born of the earth, as if it just sprouted up from the ground like a tree.

Photo By: Ryan Hechler

Snow-capped mountains surround the plateau—their divine presence; the Apus, watching over its children mountains and rivers and towns and fields and mines and ruins. You think of their eternal quality—their infinite grandeur with the heavenly white glaciers shining in the late afternoon sun.

You feel the bus slow beneath your seat as it approaches a town you can’t pronounce the name of and you see the people of this land for the first time. They stand watching your bus of gringos, or herding cattle and sheep and donkeys out of the road. Their eyes stare at the ground and their straw hat hides their face and the swing a branch back and forth in front of their steps, like they are feeling their way home. You don’t know why they do this but his pendulumesque motion hypnotizes you for just a moment till the livestock clear the road, and the bus goes on. You turn to catch one last glimpse but all you see is the fading silhouette of their figures set against a dust cloud kicked up from the bus rumbling down the dirt road.

The window is your viewing glass—a comfortable separation between the amenities and conveniences of western culture and the third world. Outside the glass you see the town. You see dirty faces and dogs so skinny their ribcages cast striped shadows across their bodies in the fading sun. The buildings are of mud and straw and clay and the white smoke of fire rises into the sky and on one corner sits an Indian woman in a top hat. She looks up at the glass but only sees wrinkles, like spider webs spread across the eyes, lips, nose, ears, and brow of her own face. And you wonder. You wonder if she is wondering like you are wondering—wondering of the separation of humanity, of the fundamental differences of culture, of the false of the ubiquitous unity of mankind.

Before this trip, you believed in humanity—humanity as a universal ideal. You believed that race, religion, sexuality, or other cultural barriers that work to divide us are false, and that we, as humans, are all brothers and sisters on the same earth.

But the impoverished third world surrounded you, and you see the dirty faces and toothless grins and the worn feet and the glossy eyes by the hundreds and you walk around them with

your North Face backpack and Gap Jeans and you realize that the difference between everyone on this planet is very real. And so your assumptions were shattered into a million pieces and molded into the mirrored glass of the window you hide behind. The third world, like the face of the woman, reflects of the glass, and the bus becomes something completely different—a caravan of western culture or some sort of twisted United States mobile, with its own set of borders and authority and luxuries. And you whisper in your head…we are so different…to the woman and she spits coca saturated saliva between her rough feet and licks her lips. You wonder if she heard you, but the bus rolls on.

You remember letting go in Europe a year ago. Five months seeing the treasures of the western world and you thought you could handle the poverty of South America. You remember playing that image of cultured youth very well, preaching a gospel of cultural superiority in foreign lands, and how American society was juvenile compared to these nations of old. You thought you were a hardened traveler—rugged, enduring, tenacious, and ambitious. You skid the Swiss Alps, dropped acid in Paris, circumnavigated the Greek islands on a scooter, got chased by a bull in Spain, rioted in Sicily over a soccer match, and pissed off the London Bridge. In Europe, you found life, but in Peru, you found fear. So you hold onto the handlebar, and don’t let go. But the bus rolls on and the window stays closed.

This crank attitude died the moment you left, the moment you stepped off of the airplane and into the city, the moment you saw miles of city blocks filled with crumbling buildings and little kids, no older than eight, coming up to you trying to sell old gum for a few centimos. They come up to you by the half dozen, with their hands extended, patting your jacket. Dirt clogged the pores of their faces, and you swear you saw tears building in the corners of their eyes.

At first you gave them money to try and suppress the guilt. When you ran out of money you gave them leftover food, or half a coca-cola and the kids smiled and thanked you and you watched them stuff their face and lick the box when they finished and then with a smile and a wave they leave, happy to have just eaten someone’s leftovers. The food you couldn’t eat was their meal for the night. But they kept coming at you with their dirty hands and you started to hate them and you ignored them. They looked at you with their glazed eyes and cheerless faces and you didn’t see a kid on the street but a scam to get your money. In your mind, these people who needed help became parasites, and the dissonance boiled inside you till you feared them. The window stayed closed.

The bus leaves the town in a cloud of dust. The girl next do you stops drawing but keeps her eyes on the page.

“We are almost there.”

“How do you know?”

She doesn’t answer.

She closes her sketchbook with care and leans her head back against the headrest as the bus comes to a stop. Her dark eyes are framed by horn-rimmed glasses, white on the inside and black on the outside. They match her hair. You turn to her and open your mouth.

“Do you ever feel like this pressure in your chest like the world is coming down on you and you just cant stop fucking thinking so much till you think you are loosing your fucking mind?”

“Hmmm. Sounds like you had one hell of a ride?”

“Yeah you could say that.”

You follow her off the bus and she waits for you.

“Well to answer your question. Sometimes, yeah I do. And there is nothing I can say to make it better, you know. I think its just human nature to question. But look around you. Now is not the time to be thinking like that.”

“Yeah I know but its just like is there even one set human nature? Because I think the human nature could be different depending on the environment. I mean look at the people and their impoverished surroundings. I bet you they have a dif…”

“Shut up or I’m not walking down to the bottom with you”

“The bottom?”

And you look around and see a painted blue sign with white letters reading “Moray” and you look down and find centric terraces dug hundreds of feet into the earth. At the bottom you see

the yellow, blue, and orange of unknown crops.

Photo By Jackie Cantwell

And the girl is off and you follow.

She looks back at you, “The Incans used these ruins to grow different types of crops each layer is exposed to different amounts of sunlight and different temperatures they were great experimenters those Incans the temperature gradient between the top layers and the bottom layers can be as much as 15 degrees Celsius they bring the water from that glacier over there through a complex system of irrigation canals and did you know that there are 400 different types of corn and 3,500 different types of potatoes here in Peru? No bullshit.”

“Was that all one breath? You should start leading the tours.”

She laughs and you walk next to her, climbing down each ancient stone terrace till you stand next to her at the bottom. You both lie down and looking up at the terraces and your racing thoughts calm and for the first time on the trip you feel centered, spiritually and mentally centered. Its quiet, only the sound of the wind blowing through the corn stalks reaches your ears and just as you think you are going to fall asleep she gets up and gives you a gentle kick in the side.

“Get up. I saw some people playing soccer on one of the other terraces, I want to go watch.”

You groan and she helps you up. You climb back up the terraces and from a distance you can hear rapid Spanish and scattered cheering. After one last wall the field comes into sight and you sit with her at a comfortable distance to watch. The players are Indian and small in stature. They wear stained sweatpants and jeans and dirty shirts and sweaters but their faces glow in the fading light as they chase around the ball. During the game they joke and laugh in Spanish and you think you hear some scattered Quechua from the people on the sidelines. To you ears it sounds ancient but its age is soothing and pure.

She shifts in her grassy seat and looks at you, “Do you play soccer?”

“I played in High School”

“Cool, I played in college. Let’s join the game”

“No, absolutely not.”

But she was gone.

"Wait!”

She approached the four men on the sideline and engaged them in Spanish. You think about running but you stay. You think that the game is for a league and they defiantly won’t let two gringos in on their game. And its probably men only anyways, you think. Because this is a male dominated society, yeah they definitely wouldn’t let a woman on the field. She waves you over and before you can stop yourself you find your legs carrying you to her and her new friends.

“Ok, we are good to go. I’m on this team and you are that team. Good luck, man.”

The men laugh and your stomach drops a little but you run onto the field and join the game. The first ball comes to you and you promptly kick it out of bounds and hang your head and curse this stupid fucking game but the Andean man playing behind you walks up and says something in Spanish you don’t understand and smiles and pats you on the back. And the game goes on. The ball comes to you in midfield, you make a move and beat two. As you run by the sideline they chant Go gringo go! and Look at that gringo go! and they give you an endearing laugh after you play a ball across the goal. Every time you get the ball the cheers come and they laugh at you, the giant foreign white man running amongst the small Andean men. After a few minutes you are ready to have a heart attack from lack of oxygen at 12,000 fucking feet above sea level and you leave the game. As you go they come and shake your hand and wave goodbye and you wave back and thank them and sit with the men on the sideline.

She comes up a few minutes later and gasping for breath, takes a seat.

“You played well, man. Holy shit my lungs are going to explode.”

“C’mon lets walk, I think the bus is leaving soon.”

Eventually you make your way back to the bus and sit on the curb. A few kids on beat up bikes ride up and sit next to you. You brace yourself for the begs and the dirty hands and the sadness but it never comes. They simply sit and chat in Spanish and try to engage you in conversation but you don’t understand. So you take out your camera and snap a photo and show it to them. They laugh and fight and joke, over who they think looks the best. So through a slew of hand jesters and repetition they turn to you to judge and you pick the short chubby one. The other kids throw up their hands in outrage and cry Dios Mio! But the chubby kid crosses his arms and smiles and nods his head.

You have to leave them behind and get on the bus. Back at your window seat you see the kids on their bikes looking up at the mirrored bus windows waiting for something with a confused look. You open the window and they wave and you wave back. And then you see it—you see that they don’t want your money, only a new friend. Friendliness like this lives in these kids, and in their parents playing soccer in the field below. Friendliness like this is lost in the modern rush of the west, but in the plateau of the Andes, it is life.

Photo By Ryan Hechler