TARKIO - Story 2:

SO LONG, RONNIE

Ecstasy. Filth. My name is Opal Brenner. My friends call me "Brenner", or "Ben" for short, because my Christian name is so weird. This is my friend Conner. We call him "Connie". He hates that. We're admiring a young woman we've never seen before on main street. "She's not a townie," we mumble to each other in our thoughts. Our eyes meet. It's understood.

"I can honestly say I'd fuck her," quipped Conner.
"Shut up, Conner. Are you out of your mind?" I said, and pointed at the little girl running up the sidewalk with an old man gasping to catch up. "Woh, woh, slow down sweet heart," I urged, "Is that your grandpa?"
"That is-a my Popo. I hold you?" she asked, with her arms outstretched. I gathered she wanted held right away. Her arms shook urgently.
"Hah, hah, h-alright h-Abigail," huffed the elderly fellow presumed "Popo", "Let's not disturb these fine young gentlemen." He smiled at me, and frowned at Conner. No way he heard him. I think he could just smell the fart stench of the word "fuck" on Conner's lips. Old people have keen senses to things of that nature. Especially Baptists.

As they passed by, I stopped Conner, who was still walking and staring at the young woman across the street. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"What? I didn't know they were coming."
"For one thing, there's no way you could 'honestly say' (with quoting fingers) that you'd fuck anybody. If she presented herself prostrate before you, open legged, with a 'come hither' face, you'd wet your pants. Secondly (we continued walking), you don't just say things like 'fuck' out in the open. Especially since you talk so loud."
"I do not talk loud!"
"See! Right there. Nobody's ever told you that before?"
"Seriously, I do not talk loud."
"Yes, yes you do. You so do. You should try listening to yourself. Or better yet, tape record your next conversation. Don't you have something like a tape recorder on your phone?"
"Yeah, a voice recorder. But so what? I'm not taping myself talk to prove your point."
"Why not?"
"Because it's ludicrous. Even if I do talk loud (we arrived at the diner, and went in the door), I can't see any conceivable way of lowering my volume perminantly."
We grabbed a table. There was a strange silence for awhile, but then Conner picked back up with, "Unless of course I stopped talking."
"Yes, yes. That would help immensly."
"Yeah, you're one to talk. Literally. All you do is talk. Analyze. Think of what I'm thinking. Try to decompose what I'm saying."
"You're still talking loud-"
"I have a point!"
"-we're inside shut up..."
"I have a point! You're the most analytical person I know sometimes."
"What we need for you (looking up from the menu, ignoring what he was saying) is a girlfriend. Someone you want to talk softly to. 'Oh Angela -
"Shut up, Brenner..."
"'- my darling sweet-pet, I will kiss you. Better yet! (speaking even softer) I will fuck you! Mmm! Yes! I will!"
"Stop it, ass-hat."
"Oh! We we! (French accent plus kissy noises)"
"You're an idiot."
I smiled. We were strange friends. Conner never liked to admit he spent lots of time with me. His friend (not girlfriend, mind you. An important detail Conner never omitted) Angela did not understand me in the slightest. Taken from a family of tomboy sisters, she so clearly adored Conner. It must have been his farmhand build, his grundgy t-shirts, and his shifty, watch-the-clouds attitude. His presence alone would make any farmer's daughter swoon. He looked back down at the menu and lifted his cap from his brow. We sat in silence for awhile.
"So did you hear about Ronnie's dad?" piped up Conner.
"No, I didn't. What happened?"
"Well, you know how he had to go down to St. Joe to get surgery, right?"
"Yeah. I heard about that. Some sort of spinal issue, right?"
"Yeah, he was having trouble walking and everything. He couldn't work."
"Where does he work again?"
"Down at the Kawasaki plant down in Maryville. He operates the robots."
"The...robots?"
"Yeah, you know. The things that actually put the bikes together."
"Ah. I see. I thought you meant -"
"Actual?"
"-actual robots."
We laughed. A lot.
It was early.
"Well, so anyway, he got some sort of buldge in a disc or something removed, and it took him too long to recover from it," Conner continued
"Uh-huh..."
"So Kawasaki had to take him off the payroll because more than 90 days, or however long their limit is on disability, had already passed."
"They laid him off?"
"They had no choice, apparently. Damn Japs, if you ask me."
"Geeze. So what are they doing? I mean, Ronnie's family?"
"Well, Carl's looking for work now. He's fine - fully recovered - it just took him too long."
"Yeah but there's no jobs. Especially not around here."
The waitress came out with coffee. I ordered biscuits and gravy. Conner ordered four eggs scrambled. Same as always.
"The closest thing I could think of would be the Harley plant in KC. I doubt they'll want to travel that far though. The problem is that these robots are self-automated now. They don't even need a human to monitor them anymore."
"I see."
"They just get computer techs to program them, and when a problem arises, they hire a mechanic to fix them. Most automotive companies wouldn't even need guys like Carl."
"Well, he could learn the computer systems I guess."
"No way. Ronnie's dad wouldn't even touch one. He's too old to understand computers. In fact, when Carl got laid off from his last job and the Ford plant in Detroit, he was the one building the cars. Not the robots. He was ousted by a robot. He had to learn to control the robots to get his job at the Kawasaki plant. Which, according to Ronnie, took him three years. They spent three years in a trailer park while he learned how to control goddamn robots."
The food arrived. Conner continued.
"I hate to say it, but Ronnie might be in the poor house again for awhile until his dad learns something new. Ronnie's got three years left of college, so his dad has to keep working. He should have retired years ago, but he wanted to pay for Ronnie's school."
"Well, that's his own misfortune. He could've cut Ronnie loose easily enough. Isn't Ronnie working full time too?"
"Part time. He's in construction up here on weekends. I think part of the rebuilding project up here. They're tearing down that old station today by the look of it."
Conner was right. The wrecking ball stood ready and machine sounds filled the air. Groaning engines. Backing-up beeping. The whole bit.
"Yeah," I replied.
We sat silent again.
"Hasn't he been acting a little strange lately?" I asked.
"Who Ronnie?"
"Yeah."
"I haven't really noticed anything (mouth now full). Have you?"
"Well, not anything specifically (scooping up biscuit bits and gravy with a spoon). He just seemed very down last night."
"You saw him? (swallow) Where?"
"In Maryville. He didn't have class on Friday. Some kinda senior homecoming ritual or something. Anyway, I decided to go down after I got out of class in the afternoon to see him. The whole time he seemed, distant. We went to the theater to see 'Meet the Spartans'. He didn't even laugh that much. He usually dies over retarded movies like that."
"Yeah, totally. He roared all throughout 'Scary Movie 3'."
"Something's not right. Maybe it's his whole dad situation."
"Maybe it's his whole everything situation. I don't know man, but Ronnie's been weird for awhile now. Ever since he left for school, anyway."
"Yeah. Well, maybe we should go down there and see what he's doing. Maybe we could cheer him up?"
"I suppose anything's possible."

We paid for the meal and started walking. We came around the bend to find Ronnie sitting by himself, already eating from his lunch pail. "Taking an early lunch, Ronnie?" asked Conner. "We were just talking about you."
"Oh yeah? What about?" asked Ronnie, looking up from his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
"Just about your dad losing his job," I said, "I'm really sorry to hear that, Ronnie. You guys going to have to move or something?"
"I don't know," he said simply with a sudden frown on his face. He squinted in the sunlight.
"What's with you Ronnie?" asked Conner. "You aren't yourself today."
"You're right I'm not myself today," he said. I remember he sounded and looked like Joaquin Phoenix at that very moment. It was pale, dark, and cut-up, like he was about to cry. I reached to pat him on the shoulder, but just then the loud wrecking ball fired up. I looked over, and before I could turn back, Ronnie had shot up wild eyed and darted for the inept building.
"Hey, Ronnie! What the hell are you doing?" I yelled.
"Ronnie! What are you doing?!" Conner yelled after me.
He ran and we stood speechless. He ran up the blue steps to the second floor where we could see in (the south wall was gone already) and the wrecking ball lifted. We reached out our arms and resumed yelling incessantly, to no avail. Conner darted for the wrecking ball operator to stop it, but it was too late. Ronnie had lifted himself up the rafters on the second floor to the lip of the west wall, and just as the crane dropped the huge metal ball, he stretched his arms out to greet it. It was the most incredible yet horrifying feat I'd ever seen a man accomplish. The ball pushed Ronnie's rag-doll body into the east wall, which he bounced off of, and the building collapsed all around him.
Conner and I ran for the building after him. Neither of us saw his mangled body. Neither of us could say anything. I opened my mouth to speak, but could not. One of his co-workers behind us filled my empty voice with,

"So long, Ronnie."

TARKIO - Story 1:

CHASING SHADOWS

His hands met the keys. The plastic bent and flexed at his command, but not a sound was made. He flipped at the dials, his fingers meandering about the front panel. It probably wasn't plugged in, but that didn't stop the boy inside him from shoving his heart into his eyes, welling every floundering memory into tears as he recalled every moment passed at the helm of his great-grandmother's electronic organ. Tschaikovsky once in his mind, and Singin' in the Rain the next, followed by Claire de Lune, and the bridge of Karma Police passing by. He was performing beautifully for an invisible audience, and a rerun of Law & Order blaired for background white-noise wash. Of course, his great-grandmother would be counted part of the audience, no matter however dead she was lying in her grave. This did not, however, detur the boy inside him from that distant shadow in his mind; a shade of his former self for her to be proud of, or at least to be amused by his pathetic childish wanderings on a much larger-than-life instrument. For the boy inside him was still young, and his great-grandmother still alive, asleep on the chair in the middle of the night with the TV on, snoring. "Ha!" he shouted, knowing a boyish yawlp wouldn't even half rouse the slumbering widow spider, feathered and snuggled peacefully in her web for the night.

His body began romping on the stool, butt lifting from the seat and arms stretched straight and pounding the keys. He was every part vaudville piano act and every part ridiculous, but he couldn't help from singing, and stretching out a Motzart-ian chuckle, as he taunted poor Antonio Banderas, for that was his arch rival, wasn't it? No matter! "High-diddle dee and high-diddle dumb!" sang the boy inside. Spinning the stool around, for he loved to do that incessently (ceaselessly, even), but stopped short to stare at the empty recliner. He "humphed" and cupped his chin in his hands, then dropped one arm to his lap and spun back to the keyboard. As if to shrug off loss and even death itself, he continued to play.

"Grandma Winnie, will I grow old?" inquired the boy.
"Of course you will, boy. Everybody grows old!" Winnie said with her toothless smile and throaty chuckle. The boy seemed frustrated by the response. He looked away from his great-grandmother embarrassed, searching for an appropriate response. He spotted a mirror he had, years ago, mistaken himself for another baby. The memory, however, was so buried that attempting to recollect how he knew the mirror and this supposed other baby made his nose tickle and his eyes burn. He rubbed his eyes and turned back to her. "But, then, I'll die."
"Sure you will. But not for a very long time."
"Does everyone get sick eventually?"
"Not everyone dear. Not me."
"Then how will you die?"
The question perked the ears of the generation above the boy and both siblings of that generation whipped around in the kitchen to grab the suddenly hostile (yet, admittingly innocent) words, and hush the child. The mother was first to respond, though her brother quick to try and squelch the inquiry, piped an "Ah ah ah" before she could reel her silencing words into a finger in front of the boy's mouth.

"That's not polite, boy."
"I'm sorry, Grandma."
"That's alright."
The room grew quiet in an instant. As if a time lapse had captured the awkwardness that lay ahead of the group of four and sped it up to get it out of the way, Winnie brought the boy into her lap and whispered "No matter how I go, my heart must eventually stop."
"Eventually everyone must die."
"But not you, Winnie! Surely, not everyone."
"Not everyone dear. Not me."
Her heart was so large in his mind. Pounding in her chest he could hear it from perched far out on her knee. Even facing the other direction. His mother with her hand at her waist frowned disapprovingly. She felt no sympathy for the ardour of the boy's youth. The fire of curiousity raging in his mind; the thunderstorm of twisting logic as it looped around his cerebellum. He knew, for it is in everyone to know, that sin would one day come knocking for it's due in the heart of every man, and when we come up short on rent we've got to close up shop. Evicted from our bodies we are wandering the world between worlds, the dimensions between the real and the super-real. He thought about the mirror. Could the other baby have mistaken himself for another baby as well? Is the other baby the real him remembering himself as a boy? Did he wave at himself waving from the past to the future-self waving at his past self? Which hand did he wave with, and where was the mirror? North or south? But then what are directions, anyway? Markers for which way the universe is pointing?

The boy and his brother lept from their respective seats, his great-grandmother's lap and the sofa, respectively. Their conjoined minds felt the tingling sensations in their feet as they longed to stretch their legs together; to lock arms as brothers and provide each other rapid entertainment, a heart pumping at 127 RPM, and sweaty, holey socks. Down the stairs the boy and his brother flew, and the man holding the boy inside followed in toe from the organ stool, through the kitchen, and downstairs. The lights came on, and he awoke from his wild-eyed memory. His brother was not there, nor any toys, nor strange canisters behind the stairs, nor clothes hanging up needlessly by the drying machine (old habits die hard, even when the habits have long since been forgone), nor the turntable, nor the paintings on the wall. Only a small shadow, wagging his finger at the boy inside. Still, he thought, a good slide never hurt anyone.

While he slid sock after sock, foot in front of foot, round and round the basement floor, he contemplated nothing. The smile grew on his face as he imagined every turn step for step racing his brother, chasing his sister, chasing his own shadow.

Truely, Winnie never died. Her heart merely stopped like everyone else's.

Woodbrine Rd.

I've been dreaming of the mountains
You've curves like June on Woodbrine Road
I'm breathing heavy in my sleep
Clutching my chest for my heart to contain
All of this longing
Wishing; waiting
Time swells in my core
I may become undone

I've been sneezing in my bed
Your lips are grazing my subconscious
Full and simple ecstasy
What visions flooding through my eyes
Now I see in a mirror
Dimly; unassuming
A weak-kneed boy
Not a mighty arm

I've been writhing in my bones
My body grows and groans
To hold a hand like my Father
To love as You have loved before me
That I may grow to learn
Wisely; patiently
To bring you in my grasp
And never let you go

I've been digging up my well
The rope and stone and everything
Deep crying unto my shoulders
Heaving chest and breaking boulders
That my house will be prepared
Carefully; purposefully
To find you at your window
Waiting for me

For me.

The Airport & The Long Good-bye

The bathrooms are clean. The carpet is vacuumed. The airport is a clean place. A safe place, where people can feel secure. Everything is on camera, and everyone is being watched. Someone is watching everyone. I wonder if that would be a fun job. Just to sit and watch people all day long. I find as well a spectator myself, nodding off at the departure gate.

My arm is stiff and falling asleep, propping my head up on these uncomfortable metal arm rests. My cheek is red from my hand pressing up against it. My glasses are lifting up from the bridge of my nose. Every part of my body aches. I lift my right leg over my left and shake it relentlessly. It's a violent mix of anxiousness and exhaustion; restlessness and anguish. My stomach is grinding food that isn't there.

So there on their black and white screens they can see me, blissfully going absolutely nowhere. They're laughing at me, at least because I decided they are. I did, after all, give them every reason to chuckle at my expense. My bag is still strapped around my shoulder resting in my lap. I'm wearing high-water jeans because I packed all my good jeans the night before. I've got a five o'clock AM shadow caked onto my face and grumpy, droopy eyes. I'm sure they'd be laughing at me.

But, as I imagine (and I imagine a lot), they're too busy watching the people saying good-bye to one another instead. Every flight is it's own romance movie plot turn. Will they come back? Will their love ever be the same? Is he coming back a woman? You know, the usual stuff that goes on in romance movies. I'm sure it's an emotional affair to all the people watching. Even I, a simple on-looker, am taken aback by the non-stop, unashamed affection being displayed at the airport. You see love for what it really is there - a blind dedication to another human being.

They don't realize that everyone is looking at them. They just want that one last hug and good luck kiss before he goes off for that out-of-state sales pitch. They just want to say good-bye to that lifelong friend leaving for Singapore to be a missionary full time. They just want to see that a friend makes it home safe. They just want to shake the hand of a good business partner. They just want a picture with that quasi-celebrity.

Haven't you ever noticed that? When it comes to saying good-bye, no one else seems to matter. You temporarily are granted complete tunnel vision, and the only thing in the world that means a damn to you is whoever you're parting ways with. The only thing disheartening about that state of being is that the person you're so focused on also happens to be the person leaving you soon.

When I was single, things were much more simple. When I was going some place for awhile, I said good-bye to my folks and that was that. They cried sometimes, but I was for the most part emotionally un-phased. The first time I felt detached enough to carry an emotional response was after my first week of being at college. I didn't realize how much I'd missed home since I got there. My body ached for home. It ached for the simplicity of resting my head on my father's chest, watching TV. I ached for nights in the kitchen goofing off with my siblings while we made dinner. I ached for conversations with my mom in the living room, and a cup of iced tea on the lawn. So, I cried. I cried for almost a half-hour. All of the sudden, my home was somewhere else.

It stayed that way for quite sometime. Home became a get-away. I even started dating someone at home. Suddenly that home comfort became that person's comfort, and when that ended badly I again felt extremely detached. I stayed away from home, running from my pain I guess. I cried at night because I didn't know where home was anymore. Slowly but surely, I made my living quarters at school my home. I took care of my space like my parents took care of ours. I babied it. I vacuumed it. I cleaned the bathroom. Maybe that's why they keep airports so clean. They want it to feel like home as much as possible to those who are leaving.

When I fell in love, my lover lived elsewhere. But I no longer attached her to where my home (my house) was. Soon, wherever she was, that's where home was. I still visited my house, and I still laid in my father's arms, but it felt different. Not in a bad way by any stretch, but different none the less. I no longer needed this place to feel at home. All I needed was my lover to feel truly at home.

We need that security when we're getting ready to leave. We need to know everything is going to be okay. You need the one you love. I need the one I love. Oh my God, there she is.

The Long Good-Bye

Paper and pad
Dufflebag
Backpack and luggage
All my weight to carry on
If only I could bring you along
My love; stay safe and warm
While I am gone
Carry me in your pocket
Hear me when I cry
This is our long good-bye
But I won't be gone for long
Call me all the time
Stay with me on the phone
When I lay down
You came with me
I hear your voice while I am sleeping
In my dreams
My love; your breath is heaven
My lungs are overflown
The plane passes overhead
We haven't got much longer
I'll stay until your ready
"Are you ready?"
You say; though you know
I never really am
Stay safe and warm
While I'm away and you're at home
This is our long good-bye
It's time
I love you

Airy May

I remember walking to the drug store
Spending my days, turning into nights
I remember the silence of the rain
Fifty, sixty drops per second
I don't know, I don't know, I guess
My zipper shuts up magazines
All the loud cover girls
And candy bars in my pockets

Maybe I'll make it home for "Jeopardy!"
This night, I sneeze; I think of you
Though I do not know your face
You haunt my every step
Every sloshing pothole
From speed bump to speed bump
The slippery handrail
The broken bottle glass

All I think with my head down,
"Love, I do not have,
For one long weekend."
I wish that you were here with me
To pass away the evening
Walk along my side
And underneath my arm
Borrowing my coat

I settle down on the couch
My seat will carry double weight
The chair a second set of thighs
These things I didn't realize now
Or how important they might be
When your waist is in my hands
And your breasts against my cheek
Softly, deeply breathe

When I close my eyes at night
I swear you're really there