the last man

If you are not aware of what to look for you will invariably miss it. It happens in an instant. Like the dilation of a pupil upon stepping into the sunlight. Like a housefly strumming it's hind legs together in neuron-quick anticipation before digging into a hot meal of fresh shit. It will happen and unless you are lucent, unless you are coherent... unless you are sober... you may miss it. A fragment of time, frozen. And sometimes you will find that you have the ability to watch. You will have the ability to walk around this paused, flickering image of you, and her - and underneath it, and in-between it - and you will be able to analyze the actions and thoughts and emotions unfolding around you. Analyze and control.

And sometimes you will let it pass you by. Brainwaves junk sluggish and eyes brimming with whiskey and red with the hint of long-dried tears. You are fast asleep, locked between ebony thighs, wrapped in whore scent as soft adulations and false promises caress you like a sleeping babe. Manicured nails run through your scalp offering salvation and scratching away what seems like years of worry - and the vessel which carries you to Xibalba races thru the cosmos. The world you once knew disappears at your feet slipping into lapping darkness.

I stand under the canopy watching the snow fall. I inhale my cigarette and then close my thoughts only listening to the soft "shhhh" of the wind and swirling flakes which indiscernibly speak an old language known only to ancient man and white owls. I realize it is over between us R___. I have made my decision. And I am impotent to act.

The Collector

Years of memories, a sea of chiseled faces and gaudy, more fantastic then life, colors and images all carefully preserved, each one individually sealed and stored away in plastic and cardboard.

I've asked him too many times why he continues to collect. I tell him that we're no longer kids, and the market has proven that these comic books hold no re-sale value.I ask him why he continues to collect, why he continues to buy, why he continues to hoard... a litany of redundant questions... and we both know he would never intend to ever part ways with his books, even if he could turn a profit, as they are all, each and every single issue, his babies.

He's amassed a small fortune of "funny" books. Gary and I started this endeavor together, once upon a time, as an innocent hobby when we were children. Reading and absorbing the week to week, month to month struggles of larger then life heroes served as a fleeting, necessary escape for two awkward, angst-ridden kids. But somehow, somewhere along the way, it turned into something bigger… something disturbing.

An appropriate word could be "villainous."

A comic book "long box" houses approximately 350 comic books. It's crafted of sturdy cardboard which is untreated by chemicals as to avoid any fatal "bleeding" into the paper which would thereby prematurely yellow and age the pages. Each individual comic is in turn housed in a mylar bag along with an untreated cardstock "backboard" or "back" which will insure the book remain compact and upright. This will prevent the spine from bending. He insists I wash my hands before reading any of his books. He tells me the oils in our hands in time can become acidic and accelerate the degradation of the glossy covers. He has an entire room devoted to his long boxes. An entire wall of boxes stacked four high and ten long. If one were to do the math this would calculate out to 40 boxes or 14,000 comic books. He has been collecting since we were fourteen, he is now thirty. In sixteen years, at approximately $2.50 per issue give or take, he has spent thirty-five thousand dollars. This doesn't include the price of supplies: bags costing around fifteen cents per and backboards about a dime. And each and every issue is in mint condition.

Each book is as perfect and flawless as the day he bought it.

But each of these books, in Gary's mind, hold a higher value then the original cover price he paid for them... far more value. Each comic is a distinct time capsule which I would surmise reveal more then the story drawn out in-between it's pages. For instance, a certain book may represent a micro-drama which played out during his breakup with the woman he was supposed to "marry" over a decade ago. It could represent the long span back in 2002-2004 when he was broke and he had to limit his buying to a select few books. Certain characters or story-archs could very well remind him of his most recent bout with depression, painkillers, and alcoholism. Sixteen years of storylines, sixteen years of triumph, loss, elation, and depression. Yet the heroes never change, whereas Gary and I have. Superman will always don his red, yellow, and blue and embody justice and selflessness.

Superman will always wear a cape.

And in many ways I am a lot like Gary.

However, I stopped collecting comic books many years ago. My attention turned to other compulsions. While he continued to invest his money and time into abstract dreams and myths I prospected faces. I collected matchbooks and bar-napkins with hastily written names and barely legible phone numbers. I amassed a collection of one night stands, flings, and intoxicated groping sessions in dingy, dimly-lit booths in the back of dive-bars. A sea of faces, scents, tastes carefully wrapped in plastic, alphabetically sorted, and lovingly packed away into the long boxes of my own mind. And sixteen years later, unlike him, I have nothing to show for it. I have nothing to pass on to my offspring should I ever decide to have children. I have nothing material or absolute… nothing concrete, to show for sixteen years of wasted life.

All I really have to cling to is years of memories, a sea of chiseled faces and gaudy, more fantastic then life, colors and images all carefully preserved, each one individually sealed and stored away. Each and every memory, through the tireless embalming process of the mind, stands flawlessly preserved.

chestnuts roasting..

I've noticed when it snows, the world's suddenly smaller. Pick any street any night, if it's snowing, you feel as though you're walking through a miniature town in a tiny snow globe.

I look over at him through the cold stillness. He's babbling. His eyes are elsewhere - he seems distant. In fact our entire conversation feels alien and distant. I stomp my feet and blow into my hands. "Max, what time did you say this dude is going to meet us here? I'm freezing."

Max snaps back at me. "He'll get here when he gets here. You want the high or what?"

"Yeah I do but fuck bro I seen three cops drive by already." I look around. We're standing next to a leaking dumpster in a dingy alley. Just an alley, any alley, in a disgusting city which time has forgotten altogether. I used to call this city 'Gotham.'

"The Popo are making me nervous Max, call this motherfucker and find out where he's at."

He whips out his cell. Of course Max has his dealer on speed dial. "Yeah. We're here where you at?" Max laughs one of those fake laughs a person typically gives to their boss at a business luncheon or in this case, to their hook. "Yeah, that's right. Three, no make it four. Okay. Okay. Yeah... see you soon." He clicks his phone shut and coughs. The alley carries the echo up into the sky, caught in the wind spinning and spinning up into heaven. Faraway I hear a dog barking.

"So where is he?"

"Dude chill out you're buggin me. Smoke another cig, Jesus."

I shove my hands in my pocket and walk a few paces to get the blood flowing in my legs. I look over at Max. He's staring out into the blackness. His lips are moving. He's talking to someone... and no one. The monkey's on Max's back in a big way, worse than me. Way worse. I could quit the junk anytime. I tell people I could sooner quit using then smoking. I tell people it's recreational. I choose to keep using, I'm not forced... just through the Holidays you know? Then I'll probably quit. But Max he's got it bad.

"Hey man you got the cash? A hundred."

I turn around to find Max standing right behind me. "We buying more?"

"Naw for all four rocks. Their big though. You'll like."

"I'm buying two, I got fifty on me."

Max's eyes widen. His voice raises. "Naw man you told me you were buying all four rocks. And then I'm buying one off you! That was the agreement right!?"

Another police car slowly crunches by at the end of the alley. I lean up against the wall and pop the collar up on my peacoat. "Max shut the fuck up, lower your voice. You're acting like a fucking nut."

Max quizzically looks at me, his voice lowers into a shrill whisper. His speech is animated. His arms flail about. "Fucking Nut? I suppose it's fucking nutty to keep hooking you up with this shit, right? Would that make me a fucking nut? Exactly how..."

I look around nervously. A cough from an open upstairs window. Another car creeps by, a white car. A ghost car maybe? "Okay fine. Fine. Shut the fuck up please Max, Christ! I got it okay. And where the fuck is this guy anyway, Max call him, call your guy."

I tell people I could quit anytime. It's not that I would if I could, it's more like I could if I would. I know a lot of people probably find it hard to believe, but whatever, fuck them. The situation is under control. Just through the Holidays you know?

a beginning to a new ending

R_____, you know we drift increasingly closer, you and I. We are two great ships, ancient ships manned by sightless ghosts, lost in the fog on a collision course. Every morning when I open my eyes I hear your song resonating thru my head. I see your dark eyes and I swear I smell your lingering scent left behind on my pillow. You are out there waiting, watching, pressing your somber, beautiful gravity into my own. The next name on your dance card just so happens to be mine and I think the next name on my card is yours. P.S I still remember how to dance, believe it or not. Do you?

Somehow you've found me, after all of these years, I think you may have finally found me again. Or rather I allowed myself to be found. Long ago, the conditions were less then ideal. Times have changed. I like to believe our time-line has folded and re-folded into an intricate paper bird ready to take flight. Our paths have re-aligned and I pray I do not have to wait until I die to see you once again, as I thought I would, if even for but a glimpse.

I lay in bed next to a whore. I pretend to sleep and I can hear the wind outside rap against the window and the rain nervously drum the tin siding. I can hear the expectant song of the approaching winter storm and my heart races as though it's on tweak. I slip out of bed, out of her apartment, to walk the street. The cold water falls and falls. The steam rises from the pavement and I look at the flickering night lights of the city below which are muted by the rain yet which still struggle to flicker. R___ I remember once I told you what causes the lights to flicker is countless people turning their lights on or off. Do you remember that night? I look at the lights, tuzik, and then I look closer into the dark spots in between the lights. I know somewhere out in that still darkness you are thinking of me. I know you are staring back. I inhale my cigarette and smile - a wet, shaky smile.

We are so in tune to each the other's entire.

Service Tech

Gnashing teeth gargoyle-smile he looks at me thru sun-bleached eyes. He gazes past my demeanor penetrating and digging, probing for a possible fix. I pull a drag from my cigarette and gently smile, nodding as he chirps on about the intricate zen of forklift engines, barbecuing, and his "bitch" wife. Pulsating goblin tweaker eyes and a hollow grin. No teeth just bloody peeling gums painted over with tobacco lacquer. Burn-scarred skin stretch over tense arms coiled like springs capped with clenched fists pinching a cigarette like a lobster claw and just as red. Skin splayed and wrapped over decaying bone like burlap or worn leather torn off the seat of a junked out Cadillac. A broken shell gutted-out cockroach carapace whom I would bet has seen real devils and demons walk the earth... and now he slowly metamorphoses into oblivion. Tweaker demon.

dead sun

He grits his teeth as he strains to lift the wooden box from the frigid ground. His grimy shirt glistens with sweat and steam rises off of his back in the chill December air. It’s quiet here and his ears and cheeks are numb with cold. The only sound is the whistle of the cruel wind and the clink of his pick and shovel against the hard earth. The birds have all but left, even the crows.

With a final heave he lifts the box out and quickly drops it on a patch of snow next to the empty hole. He collapses onto his knees, breathing hard to catch his breath. He looks up at the nuclear sky, up at the impenetrable curtain of reddish-gray clouds. He thinks to himself that somewhere behind those clouds must be the sun which impotently weeps, silent and forgotten.

Somewhere it must exist, the sun cannot die.

He leans back, steadying himself with his outstretched hands. His eyes scan the skeletal, ancient skyscrapers around him which protrude from the icy earth like the ribcage of a fallen titan. He closes his eyes and carefully listens to the shrill whistle of the wind as it blows through shattered windows, cascading down empty halls, and billowing into empty rooms. Father told him once about a great civilization that used to live here, long ago before the demons came. Father said if you listen to the wind hard enough, you can hear their voices, faintly wailing and crying. He listens, God he listens, searching for a sign. And then he hears her. She whispers to him, faintly, like the crackle of a candle in a hushed room.

I thought this thing between you and I was long over. You were dead… You ARE dead.. Buried.