Van Damme in ... Future Memories...

I woke up this morning feeling particularly empty.

A feeling I’m used to having at all times of the day, but this morn, it felt different for some reason.

Maybe it was because a line from a Waylon Jennings sung, but Hoyt Axton penned song finally materialized in my brain while driving home from work the night before.

It was one of those moments when a song you’ve been singing along to for years becomes crystal clear in your head for the first time. Yes, you blurted out nonsense words, or just a phrase you thought was being said at the top of your lungs for years. But then, all of the sudden, those words hit your ears at just the right angle and they were crystal clear for the first time.

And you were disappointed by them.

Epiphanies are costly, I’ve found. At least the older I get I start to feel that way.

Maybe it’s because I’m just tired of it. Tired of always wondering what went wrong. Always struggling to see the good of today instead of the good of yesterday. The good of yesterday that is skewed to be good, always and forever. Even though it wasn’t all good, no matter how much lip gloss you apply.

My dog looked at me like I was crazy. Then he went back to sleep in the small cat bed. That’s his new obsession, getting in the cat’s bed. I’m beginning to think my dog has some kind of personality disorder, which of course means he’s the perfect dog for me.

The emptiness subsided while I was driving to work. Must’ve been the Motley Crue that fixed that. It certainly wasn’t the Turbonegro. I’m guessing the album “Ass Cobra” will be set on a shelf for a good while now. It’s run its course of being interesting and simply couldn’t hold my attention. I’d like to think that’s just what happened. She lost interest in me. I became boring.

I doubt that, however. We didn’t see each other enough for her to get bored with me.

Bored with the silence. Bored with the distance. Yes and yes.

I still wonder what it would have been like had I bought a cell phone. One much like the one I have now, only it would have been sexy then.

Ha.

Funny to think about the amount of money spent. On calling cards. Phone bills and credit card calls. I laugh at the thought of a credit card call now. But then, it was something I did often. And boy to 45-minute phone calls charged to a Master Card or Visa get expensive.

I wonder if any of the old girlfriends ever thought of that when they said “Call me.” Always with just a tinge of guilt.

Being broke became an excuse. Then a crutch. Now? I think I’m just stuck there. I’m lucky, I guess. My mind is still mostly intact. Except when I’m interviewing kids after games. I don’t hold on to moments of the game like I used to, and then be able to recall them perfectly for a well-thought out question.

Instead, now I stammer a lot. And most likely appear feeble.

Some would say blame it on the stroke.

I can’t.

Even though it’s probably true.

Like a tortoise, I’m just a shell.

See? Even that doesn’t make sense. I saw it in my head, it came out like that. Fuck it.

The emptiness goes away while I’m typing. Even with this free version of Word that locks up every so often when a new ad has to appear on the side of the page. Or heaven forbid, if I want to save or look up the spelling of a word, like tinge. Which, isn’t the word I want, I guess, since it’s not in the dictionary of this version of “free Word.”

Let’s write some ol’ honk, now ‘right! Ha-ha.

Southern joke. Fuck, sleep doesn’t come easy any more. I take pills for that now.

I guess soon I’ll be taking pills to wake up. At least the dog wakes me up for the time being. He’s a damn good dog. It makes me wonder why I never got a dog before. Oh yeah, because I would never have seen him/her, and that ain’t cool. I already feel bad leaving the guy alone for five or six hours every day that both of us work.

Anyways, I finally figured out what was gnawing at me this morning … I realized that I’m no longer chasing the dream.

I started out in the right direction, then I moved to North Carolina. It seems that North Cackalack is the state where dreams, well, at least my dreams went to die.

Well, not die, just fester. Like my old leg wound did back in 1992. It’s funny that the girl I was chasing then was untouchable. Even though she kissed me that day that the photo in my bathroom right now was taken. Staff infected leg and all.

Those are the memories that don’t fade. Why? Because I have a picture of them. Just like the ones that are written down. One day, maybe, maybe not; I’ll read this and remember sitting in the cold living room in Raleigh, NC, looking at an ultrasound photo and a Kit Kat bar wrapper. Yep, that’s what this memory will be.

I’ll call it a future memory. But can something be a future memory? If it’s a memory, it’s in the past already. I’m sure wiser men than me have pondered this and the comments on this story, if there ever are any, will surely advise me on the answer to each question pondered.

Maybe, we’ll be lucky (is that the right word to use?) and he or she will read this and think that his/her dad was really just as confused as he/she is/was.

Van Damme.

blood red '74 Ford Ranchero

I pulled up to the house. My ’74 Ford Ranchero sparkled in one place still – the hood.

I found myself staring at that shiny place a little too long.

“What you want?” a little black kid yelled into my window. I hadn’t noticed him standing on the sidewalk seconds before. I’m slipping, I think to myself.

“Looking for Lovey,” I replied. Hoping that actually telling the truth instead of lying to the little shit – and I could tell he was a little shit because of the way he wore his sunglasses, upside down and without lenses – would get me somewhere.

“That bitch moved out yesterday,” he said before walking over to the Circle K across the way.

I pondered that response. It made little to no sense to me. How could anyone call Lovey a bitch? She was the most awesome woman I’d ever met. She had Pam Grier’s body and Maya Rudolph’s looks. And anyone who knows me will tell you that the only thing better than that is a redhead.

Anyway. I stop pondering that when I see Jeff Knight.

He played fullback for Arkansas for three years before blowing out his knee – not playing football, but tossing cornhole in my backyard three days before the Cotton Bowl his senior year. If there was one person who I did not want to see today, it was Jeff Knight.

But there was no way I wasn’t going to see him, as my car kind of stuck out in this neighborhood. Well, it sticks out in any hood. Fucking great car it is.

“Son of a muther fucka!” Jeff Knight yelled when he saw me. “You got a lot of nerve showing your stupid face in my block.”

“What are you talking ‘bout Jeffrey,” I replied. “I come here every damn day.”

“Yeah, but usually I ain’t ‘round, muther fucka.”

“Agreed,” I said with a flick of sarcasm and fear.

I think he sensed that. The fear.

“Lovey ain’t coming out for you, man,” he said. “The bitch told me the other day what you did.”

“What I did?”

“Yeah, what you did,” he barked. “Told me you fucked that redhead that works at Food Lion.”

“In 2006, yeah, I fucked her. What can I say, I was drunk. She was drunk. And I just happened to need a box of Frankenberry. It was destiny.”

“Fuck that shit.”

“Well, it’s true. All of it.”

“So you fucked the bitch almost 10 years ago? Damn, that’s fucked up. What Lovey said ‘bout you.”

“Damn skippy.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Peanut butter, jelly time, Jeffrey. Peanut butter, jelly time.”

“You a dumb ass, man. A real dumb ass.”

“Yes, but I’m in love. So here I’m going to sit until Lovey comes out. Just like fucking John Cusack in ‘Say Anything.’”

“Who?”

“It doesn’t matter. Kickboxing wasn’t the sport of the future.”

“Fuck you.”

“See you Saturday?”

“Of course. You know I don’t miss cornhole over at the Three Leg, man.”

Fucking Jeff Knight. Still plays cornhole. I fucking hate cornhole. Throwing a beanbag into a hole. What fucking fun. Beats horseshoes, I guess. But I fucking hate horseshoes too.

I look at my flip phone. It says it’s 4:22. I look outside, the sun is almost gone.

“Fucking winter,” I mumble.

“Why you so depressin’?” I hear a familiar voice say from behind me. I look in the rearview mirror and there she is … Lovey.

“Damn, you’re beautiful,” I say.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she says, throwing her left hand in the air, making a motion that says both fuck you and keep going at the same time.

“Why’d you tell Jeff Knight that shit, I think he was going to fucking punch me.”

“Oh, bullshit. That guy loves you, baby. He didn’t punch you when you caused his blown knee did he?”

“No, but it wasn’t my fault.”

“You’re the one who kept feeding him Abita’s, hun. He never woulda slipped and fell playing Marcus in that damn hole game if you’d been feeding him Coke Zeroes instead.”

I stared at her in the mirror. I didn’t dare turnaround. She had a knife at my throat.

“Lovey, why you doing this?” I asked, knowing she would probably tell me.

“Because I love you, baby. But this, this us? It ain’t neva gonna work. You know that.”

“No, I don’t know that. You’re the one that knows it.”

“What’s the rule, baby?”

“Never lie. Ever.”

“Yep. And you lied.”

I looked at her in the mirror. It would be the last time I saw her.

She stuck the knife into my chest. The blade was cool as it sliced its way through my skin, then my lung. I felt woosy. I felt alone. Lovey kissed my neck before she got out of the car. I slumped down in the seat, blood filled my mouth. It tasted sweet. It was very red. It had been that way ever since I started taking aspirin every day. Doctor’s orders after I had a stroke at work. Hadn’t been able to interview someone since. I lose my train of thought and start stammering for what was just there seconds before.

But my writing improved.

Strange.

I passed out, expecting to die.

But I didn’t.

The next thing I remember was Jeff Knight, standing over me. Fucking naked. His balls touched my chest when he lifted me out of my car – a blood red Ranchero that Lovey gave me for my 40^th birthday. Now the interior matched the hood.

“Hang on, buddy,” Jeff Knight screamed. “I’ve got you.”

“And I’ve got your balls on my chest,” I spit out, laughing just enough to send pain to every pore.

“Chest nuts!” Jeff Knight said with a cackle.

Three days later, I was in Florida. Trying to find out what exactly went wrong.

the day i met her

“I’m not your dad,” I said as nicely as I could.

“You’re right,” she said with a dull glare. “He fucked me better.”

I looked at her, lying in bed covered with my 15-year-old comforter that had been to two colleges and across the country three times. I wanted to cry. Instead …

I left.

Usually, I’m the one who gets left. For whatever reason, I decided to be the leaver this time.

It didn’t feel any better. No matter what the country music videos show or the television commercials imply.

My heart was still broken, it’s just this time it was my choice instead of hers.

I sit in this tiny bar in Eutah, Alabama, still thinking about her to this day.

The first time we met, she told me “You’ll never forget me.”

She was right.

But, I haven’t forgotten a lot of people.

It’s just today, she’s on my mind a little more than usual.

Maybe it’s because I know she’s near.

The modern world allows you to know this. To keep tabs from afar. Tabs without actually travelling to where she is. Well, she’s always in my head, so that’s not true.

Exactly.

The baseball season ended for her tonight. For me, for the first time since 1992, it will continue into October.

I was 21 then.

I’d fucked just three girls.

I’d fell in love just once. Maybe twice, as I told another girl, who left me the next day. I wasn’t talking about her, and I don’t know if she really thought I was. She had that kind of power over me. She made me wonder what the hell she was thinking. All of the time.

I don’t think about her very often.

She wasn’t someone I wanted to grow old with.

Go to Van Halen arena shows and pelt Sammy Hagar with toilet paper with.

Eat peel-and-eat shrimp until we puked with.

Drive the long way, every day with.

Watch people live their lives the wrong way with.

Like I do now.

Without.

I have a life now. But it’s not what I expected. I write for money. Sometimes it’s actually pretty good. Each time I set out trying for it to be, but fall short most of the time. It’s the days when it works that I still smile. My crooked, golden teethed grin. I used to get told I had a pretty smile. I don’t anymore.

I still smile. It’s just reserved.

Unless I’m drunk.

Which doesn’t happen like it used to.

In the past, I’d go to work. Work. Leave work. Then drink.

At a bar. At a game. At nowhere. At home.

Alone usually.

I’d scribble down what other people say to each other.

One night a guy noticed me doing it.

What are you writing? He asked.

Nothing.

Bull hockey. He replied.

OK. I said. I’m writing about everything.

He stared at me.

Pussy. He said.

Nah. I replied. Haven’t had any in a while. So I don’t write about it. Sex. That is.

So then what do you write about. He asked.

A lot about masturbation. I replied.

He laughed.

I expected that.

I wrote it down.

Hey. He said. What are you writing? He asked.

Nothing. I said.

I woke up on the floor.

A nicer looking woman of about 45 years old was bent over me. Her tits were way too tanned. I still liked them. I stared.

You don’t know when to stop. She asked.

I figured it was a rhetorical question.

What were you writing? She asked.

Nothing. I answered.

Well. She said. He took your notebook. She said, pointing at him sitting at the bar.

A brunette was looking at my notebook.

I got up.

Walked over to the brunette.

You read? I asked.

Just your stuff. She answered.

Barkeep! I yelled. Two shots!

John, the barkeep, brought over two shots of Jameson.

I came here often.

Hey. He said, poking me in the back. Where is my drink? He asked.

She’s drinking it. I replied.

I woke up on the floor again. This time, my head hurt.

This time, there weren’t any tits in my face.

That made me sad.

My notebook was on the floor, right next to my blood.

Written on it were just a few words:

“You were rite,” it began. I smiled.

“You write about nothing.”

I looked at John. He nodded.

I struggled to get to my feet. I finally did. There was some blood on my left foot. Adidas Sambas, size 13. A half size too small for my feet.

Feet she called clown feet.

John already had a drink waiting for me.

I drank it.

Then I wrote about nothing.

I sold that story for $600.

Some magazine that doesn’t print anymore.

But what magazine prints anymore?

Mostly now, I dream.

About the day I met her.

And everything changed.

Jay Leno midget porn

It came down to this: Jay Leno or midget porn.

Smug jokes about people I don’t care about or some chick named Twiget.

Either choice could end the relationship that was just three dates old. But I didn’t have time to think about it. I made a decision, and God damn it, I was going to live with it. What else could I do?

“What the hell are you watching?” she asked as I pretended to not know she was standing behind me.

“It’s redhead midget porn…” I said as numbly as possible to create some kind of illusion that I didn’t actually type “redhead midget porn” into Google to see exactly what was on the screen of my 52 inch television.

“Weird,” she replied and walked into the kitchen. I heard her books slam against the cement floor, then the fridge opened. Some bottles clinked around and one opened with the pssssssssssst sound that I have heard more than any other in my lifetime.

She came back in the den. Took her boots off and plopped down on my ratty red futon mattress with me.

“Is this what’s in store for the next 50 years?” she said.

“Nah, I like this tranny named Bailey Jay a little more than Twiget the Midget,” I replied, taking a small swig of whiskey from my “Makin’ Bacon” glass.

“Nice glass,” she said, pointing.

“Found it at a thrift store a long time ago,” I said. “Was with a redhead. She won’t no midget though. She was normal sized.”

“What the fuck does normal sized mean,” she said, glaring back at me.

“You know, not a midget or playing in the WNBA,” was the best I could do. I took another swig of whiskey. It was a bottle I’d brought back from Ireland in 2011. My best friend from college took me with his wife overseas. They paid for 99 percent of the trip. I’m a deadbeat, but I’m a lucky fucking deadbeat I thought to myself as I watched some guy with an 8-inch penis fuck a three-foot, 4-inch midget.

“This is pretty good,” she said. “I wonder if it hurts?”

“Nah,” I said. “It’s no different than if it was a …” I honestly couldn’t think of anything to say. My dick wasn’t that big, and I’d never fucked a midget. So my frame of reference was slight.

“You were saying?” she asked, taking a long swig of Michelob.

“Don’t drink that!” I screamed, grabbing the bottle away. “It’s old.”

“How old?”

“It’s been in my fridge for about 3 years, I’d guess.”

“Eh, I’ve had worse,” she said, grabbing the bottle back. Some of it spilled on my table/trunk. An old Joe Strummer sticker got the worst of it. I cringed a little bit. She noticed.

“That trunk means a lot to ya, doesn’t it?”

“It’s been with me for a while,” I replied, trying not to look like it mattered.

“How long?”

“After I left New Orleans. So…about 14 years now.”

“You lived in New Orleans?”

“Just a short while. I should have never left New Orleans…”

“You should write that down,” she said.

“I have.”

“Don’t get testy with me.”

“Not testy, just sad. The past does that to me. I cling to it like the Spanish moss does to the trees or maybe how the Kudzu hugs everything around here.”

“Yeah, Kudzu sucks,” she said. She stared into my eyes. I didn’t want to look at her. I wasn’t ready to fall in love again. The worst part about getting your heart broken isn’t getting it broken, it’s falling in love again.  I reached for my notepad and wrote those words down. I had to. While I probably heard them before in some clichéd Americana song in some shitty dive bar in North Carolina or Richmond, Va., over the years, they sounded close enough to good that I figured I could re-write them some other way years later and maybe sound profound.

Not likely.

The notepads full of aimless starts at stories. The blogs full of inane ramblings. The scaps of paper, or receipts or napkins or even the backs of cigarette packs that I never smoked are full of endless words. Usually scribbled while drunk, but never while thinking about Bob Costas. He scares me. Looks too much like Ellen Degenerees. Or whatever.

She watched me put my notepad back under the couch. I left one there for just such moments. It had beer and some kind of peanut residue on it.

“What was that?” she said.

“Annoying habit I picked up from a buddy,” I said, finishing off her beer.

“Did you just write down something I said?”

“Nah.”

“You’re lying.”

“No I’m not. You haven’t moved me that much yet.”

“No?”

“Nope.”

“Well, you’re really smooth with the ladies, aren’t you?”

“Never.”

depressing shit

I look down at the brown, squishy mess that is slowly disappearing in the way-too tall grass in our backyard.  It’s my dead dog’s last poop.

“I don’t do depression very well,” I think to myself. It’s not an epiphany, it’s a fact. I don’t do it very well.

On Friday, I had the day off. No idea why my boss, who doesn’t boss very well, gave me the rarest of rare days off for a small-town sports reporter at a small-town rag. But he did. He makes the schedule up on Friday nights. For the next week. Many times at 1 a.m. on a Saturday morning I’d find out I was working Saturday afternoon. I never will understand why he thinks this is cool. People, even lowly sports reporters at less-than-15,000 circulation newspapers in the 21^st century need some bit of normalcy in their lives. But I resigned myself to the fact that as long as I have this job, I won’t be getting that.

But anyway, I was off Friday, a rarity. I was looking forward to a day spent with my fiancée. Maybe we could take in a movie, got out to get a rare dinner together. Maybe even have a beer or two.

It sounded lovely. But I should have known better. Life, for us, hasn’t been that good.

A few days earlier, we took our dogs – Francine the 15-year-old mutt and Murray the 7-year-old mutt – to the beach. I hadn’t been back to the beach since moving out of my house two blocks from the ocean on Aug. 31, 2012. So, on July 8, 2013 we set out in her SUV to the ocean.

On the way, we drove through Jacksonville. A town I’d promised myself I’d never step foot in again. So much for declarations from my mouth. I’ve found my promises to myself are the ones that are never fulfilled. Maybe  going there is why what happened happened. Being tested. Or told. Or I’m just looking for a reason why.

We get to the beach and take the dogs to the ocean. They frolic. They get wet. Francine, who loves the beach more than I do, I think, smiles as much as a dog can smile. A wave gets her pretty good, she looks at me and smiles again.

Soon, she’s tired. At 15, she’s got lots of health issues. We’re poor. So we’ve done the best that we could. But I know she’s been in pain for a while. The pills she takes help, but not enough.

Late-night panting and needing to pee an awful lot had become a pain. But, you do it because of love. You get up at 4 a.m. to get her some water. Or to let her pee. Or just wander around the house.

Looking back, I wish I’d done more.

We go get some food at a local greasy spoon. Alisa and I talk about moving back to the beach.

“Well, back for you,” she laughs.

I like the idea. I don’t want to be unhappy so much. Would I be happier working a cash register and being looked at disdainfully by tourists? I don’t know. And that’s the question. I really don’t know. I think back to being 22. Working at Roses Department store. I felt stupid for being there, college degree in hand, making $4.35 an hour, but honestly, the job provided less angst and a little bit more fun than most I’ve had in my “career” since.

Yeah, I’ve loved being a writer. Putting words on the page is great. It also drains.

We drive back, getting out in New Bern to let the dogs crap.

At home, we sigh a little. Back to the grind, it feels like.

I work for a few days, and on Thursday take the two doggies for a walk.

Little did I know, it would be the last one I’d ever take the two of them on.

All the old tricks by Francine. She tries to pull me towards the lake. Giving me her sad eyes. She always loved going that way. I look at her and said “Next time, buddy!” She stares at me and pulls one more time. I pull back and she obeys. We go home.

I go to work. Alisa’s already been gone for a few hours.

I come home that night. Murray barks like usual, Francine comes and greets me. She rubs her nose against my hand, poking and prodding to try and get some pets.

I get some food. Giving them both a few morsels. The last thing I give Francine is a piece of Chex Mix. She pants after I don’t give her anymore and goes into the hallway in front of our bedroom. She always disappears like that. Waiting for me to stop watching Law & Order on Netflix and going to bed.

About 3 a.m., I go there. I pet her and say goodnight. Murray has already scampered under the bed, his place to sleep.

Around 8 in the morning, Alisa wakes me up.

“Something’s wrong with Francine,” she says.

I woozily get up.

“Huh?”

“She just slumped down in the hallway after going to the bathroom,” she said.

I call Francine from the bed. She looks at me, but doesn’t budge.

I get up, pet her and say “Come here girl!”

She moves a little, but doesn’t get up.

I go over to her completely, give her butt a little boost and she tries to walk into the bedroom. She almost falls over.

“Something is wrong!” I say.

We debate about taking her to the vet. I think we both are too scared to admit what is going on.

Finally, Alisa says it “I don’t want her last moments to be in the vet’s office.”

“We can call the in-home lady,” I say. “But she might not be able to go.”

We decide to go to the vet. I pick Francine up. She’s stiff as a board. She is never like that.

I place her in the back of my car. We have to drive my car because Alisa doesn’t have any gas.

Once at the vet, it takes forever for them to see us.

Francine sits on the table like a trooper. Staring at us. Her breathing is labored. I pet her as much as I can.

After an initial assessment, the doctor, who is very nervous, doesn’t know what to do.

She takes some blood. It’s very red. And there isn’t much of it.

It’s decided to give her an X-ray. They take her away.

A few minutes later, they call us back. Francine’s breathing is labored even more.

“She’s got blood in her stomach,” the vet says. “We don’t know why. We can operate.”

“No,” we both agreed.

By now, Francine is barely there. Her tongue is sticking out of her mouth and her breaths come only every so often.

We say goodbye.

I watch the breaths slow even more. Then they stop.

Francine is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a dog. I really loved her.

It’s been a few days now. I’m still thinking about her. I know it’ll pass. I don’t get over things very well, though, so it’ll be awhile.

I cussed at God for it. Knowing how pointless the whole exercise is.

I bought a lottery ticket with the numbers from her dog collar on it. In the cruelness that is life, the first two numbers came up immediately. Then nothing.

Of course.

I haven’t put the seats back up in my little Hyundai yet. I don’t know when I will. Her fur, which she always shed tons of, is still there.

But, like I said to Alisa yesterday when she vacuumed the floor and threw away a big container full of mostly her hair “Pretty soon, that won’t be there anymore.”

We cried. Was it stupid to say? Maybe. But I’ve found out from a lot of suffering over the years, that keeping it inside is worse.

Last night I came home from work for the first time since she died. She always greeted me.

This time, it was just Murray. He poked his head around a corner. His confidence is shot since she isn’t backing him up anymore.

I wonder what he thinks. He’s an attention whore, so a little part of me thinks he’ll be fine without her around. Especially with us pampering him the last few days.

But that’ll pass too.

Everything does. Just like in a few days, the rain and weather and flies and whatever will make her last poo disappear. But I’ll keep looking at that spot. Probably for as long as we live here. It’s just the way it is…

I miss you Francine. Love you…

God damn it!

“God damn it!” he shouted. Just like he shouted about every 5 minutes or so.

It was one of those things you got used to hanging out in the pine cone filled floor bar and grill we loved so much down the street from the paper.

“For a God-fearing man,” Eugene, the 28-year-old virginal copy editor, said between swigs of Old Milwaukee, “you sure as hell say God Damn it a lot.”

The old man stared at Eugene. He wanted to pound his face into the pine cones, it was obvious. But he knew it was pointless.

“And what exactly is AP style for God Damn it?” I asked to try and break the stupidly started tension in the room. Hell, this was my favorite place to be other than in bed with my girlfriend on a Sunday morning over-sleeping and not even thinking of going to church. I walked over to the makeshift chalkboard beer menu, erasing “Today’s Special: Bud Lime’s $1.33 each!!!” and scribbled while talking:

“Is it God Damn it? Or maybe Goddamn it? Could it still be Goddamn it? Or lastly, God dammit?”

guts

I saw today that a former friend of mine got a new job. He got out.

It would be nice to follow in those footsteps. I got out the first time by being laid off. The second time by being fired.

Here’s hoping the third time, is a fucking shitastic awesomefest.

And that I get to make the choice.

Of course, I’m the one who keeps diving back in.

Gluttony and all. It’s my deadly sin.

I stopped writing months ago. Even though I get paid to write now. I feel like, rather, I know that I don’t write anymore. I got inspired for about 15 minutes today. At the desk. I threw out some e-mails and got some responses and then flat-lined.

It had more to do with a feeling than a fact, but I still have to face it. Head on. You know, for the penis.

I wonder too much about the past. I don’t wonder about the future. I don’t care about the future. At least that’s what I tell myself. I lie a lot. Not to other people.

Scorching forcing eating bumbling stifling working forking fasting fucking.

One time the girl looked at me and I didn’t look away. She laughed seconds later. I’ll never know if she was laughing at me or not. Because I didn’t have the guts to ask. I did have the guts to not look away, like usual, but I didn’t ask. She wanted to tell me. I didn’t have the guts to ask.

My mind still wanders over to her side of the bed. Every day. I can’t stop it from happening. No matter what. I’m happy now. Happier than I was before. Before what? I don’t know. Can I say I’m happier now, more content, more whatever than I was then? No. But I can’t say I’m not either.

It’s weird. I don’t know what’s right or wrong. What happened and what I want to have happened. It’s all a blur. I guess it helps one cope, the memory’s ability to play tricks on you. If we all remembered things exactly as they happened, every fucking second, we’d go crazy. We’d go mad. And I want that. I want to be mad, because of it. Not be mad because you think you are.

My head explodes with pain now. The teeth are rotten. The sinuses are infected. My heart probably is waiting to explode or just stop or whatever happens when they don’t have the strength to go on. Like a person, I guess. Sometimes they just quit. No warning. No reason given. It just happens.

Bye bye.

I stopped drinking soda for over 5 years once.

I dated the same girl for over 5 years once.

I drink soda now.

I’ve dated six girls since.

Why does that matter? Why do I type it? Fuck you. Fuck you in the ear. Or maybe a bloody eye socket after the eye was ripped out by feral cats. Sure, yeah, that sounds like fun. To watch. Maybe to make happen.

Probably not though.

You see? You see?

No. You never do.

Romanticizing the past like it’s some great place. Like a 78-year old who wants the 1950s back. Why? Because he's a racist shitbag. That’s why.

I don’t hate anyone. There are plenty of people, individuals I can’t stand. But I don’t hate. It’s a waste of time. It really is. Try not hating for a moment.

Of course, that’s a lie. Many times I’ve hated myself. Most would say I still do. I’m not sure anymore. I guess my behavior kind of says I hate myself.

Fucked up.

Do it. Smell it. Eat it. Fuck it. Lick it. Write it down. Drive the extra mile. Take the wrong turn on purpose so you can talk for another five minutes.

Why? Because you’ll be dead one day.

Either of old age at 91 or run over by a semi while getting a box of diapers for your newborn baby.

Which is more likely? Depends on the level of hatred. The size of the dick. The blue of the eyes.

I bought a new car two and half years ago. It’s going to pass 80,000 miles in a day or so.

Even the mechanics at the dealer go “Damn, dude. You drive a lot.”

No shit.

And I’m tired of doing it.

Not because of the deed itself, but the destination.

Then change it, asshole.

I’m working on it, I’ll say.

You’re always working on it.

It’s part of my charm.

And your destiny.