That Time I Sucked Hank's Cock (working title)

(This is a story I've been working on recently, it's still very rough and far from being completed, but I wanted to give people an idea as to what I've been working on.)


That Time I Sucked Hank's Cock (working title)


I always seem to wind up in the slums of a city, the seedy underbelly. Magnolia Avenue or South Federal Street. Every city has a skid row, and sometimes it’s the only place an artist can fall.

The artist. The bluebird. The martyr. The suicide kid.

The women came with the drinks, and they left me with them.

After leaving a bar, I stroll for some ass on Cherry Street, but eventually settle for a joint behind a tractor-trailer on Jackson Street, just down from the Greyhound Station.

I finish it off and walk to my car. Driving away from downtown, I debate with myself if wearing sunglasses at 2 am would be too obvious. They would be, so I set them down and listen to ‘Rubber Soul’.

I turned into my driveway twenty minutes later, the concrete cracking and separating like a spider web. I stumbled to my front door only to drop my keys and smack my forehead into the doorknob. “Fuck!” I yelled. The dogs a few houses down barked a few times until retreating back to their houses. I put my fingers to my forehead. “Fuck.” I said again, significantly lower this time.

I reach back down and grab my keys. The door creaks. I remind myself to get WD-40 for the millionth time.

I didn’t check the mail today.



In the morning, the trash collectors drive through the neighborhood for the weekly pickup. My can is in the garage for the third consecutive week.



I leave for Los Angeles today. My publisher is bringing me out to do a reading at a bookstore close to their offices. It’s not my birthday, so I’m driving across the country. (I only take planes on my birthday, in hopes that it will go down and I can die on the day I was born.) I’m supposed to showcase new stories that I’ve written. The problem being, I haven’t written in six months. The drive to L.A. should take two days, but I’m going to try to stretch it to three so I can come up with at least one new story to read.

After a battle to get out of the house, including vomiting and a rather nasty shit, I got my bags packed and into the car.

My first stop was at the liquor store. Never go on a road trip without enough alcohol to kill an elephant. I already had a quarter of pot in my possession, so I was finally ready to hit the road.

I got to Memphis around 4:30 that afternoon. I stopped to fill up and to take a piss. I went to the men’s room first. I got the key from the attendant. The bathroom was on the backside of the gas station, facing away from the interstate. The walls in the bathroom were filled with the same immature graffiti you find in almost every gas station bathroom across the country. “Fuck Jews Blacks Fags”. I don’t understand hate banter on bathroom walls. Sure, I hate people, but not enough to divide them into categories. I hate them because they tan too much, or the force their religion on me. As far as race divisions, they’re all the same to me . . . a lot of bad apples and a few fuckable women.

I finish pissing, shake a few times, play with myself for a second, and wash my hands. I walk out to my car and put 14 gallons of petrol into my tank.

I left the gas station a couple minutes later. I put ‘New Skin For The Old Ceremony’ on the stereo. I looked up to Cohen. If one day I could be as powerful as him with words, well . . . just, it’s what I strive for.

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best/I can't keep track of each fallen robin

My next stop was Oklahoma City. I decided to stay for the night. I had to get some writing done and the city that was home to a domestic terrorist attack during my lifetime seemed to be as good as any. After all, it was right off of I-40. I found the cheapest motel close to the interstate and paid for a room.

Now, to write a story. I would need at least half a bottle of the Burnett’s Vodka that I purchased to put one together. After bringing one of my suitcases in, I went back out for a bottle. It was grape flavored and within minutes I was 300 words in. What came out was a dream that I had had months ago, about going insane.

It may be the best story I’ve ever written, but I’m not sure, because I haven’t finished it yet. Though, I’m hammered. I feel everything is my best. When I go back over it, I don’t believe that I wrote it. I think to myself, “Did someone else use my computer to write a story? Because this seems like my writing and my thoughts, though it’s too good to be my own.”

In the morning I took another nasty shit and got back on the road. I still had two days to get to L.A., but I wanted to make sure that I didn’t show up late or too tired to read my material. Not that it mattered. I could always just start the show with a bottle of whiskey and read until it had finished me off.

I drove for a few hours, until I had to refill, and got back on the road as quick as I could. My goal was to stop in Albuquerque next. I would have only half a day to get to L.A. after that, so I didn’t want to stop before then. After another complete day of driving, I made it to Albuquerque. I grabbed something to eat and then settled down in another hotel room to work on the story again. This time, only adding a few more paragraph’s and editing the majority a bit.

In the morning I woke up to my fifth straight day with a hangover and got in my car to finish the drive to L.A. I crossed in to the Los Angeles city limits at about 5 p.m. Just enough time to grab something to eat and a bottle of liquor for the reading, even though I had told my publisher to have one for me at the auditorium. It never hurts to have a back up.

When I got to L.A. I drove to the airport and left my car there. That’s where I told my publisher to pick me up. I figured that would be easiest for all of us. I wouldn’t have to worry about finding the venue and they wouldn’t have to worry about me getting lost and cut in to pieces or being late. Both were a potential scenerio. They picked me up and when we arrived to the venue I was already one sheet to the wind, only two more to go.

I sat backstage for a while, letting the venue fill up while I got a little more drunk and bullshitted with the employees. We talked about family, politics, and a couple of them asked me to read specific stories for them. Of course, I would oblige them as much as I could. There were a few that I wouldn’t be able to, because I had no recollection of what story they were talking about. That’s the one problem with drinking too much before a reading, sometimes, you just can’t make everyone happy.

I Live In A Coffin The Size Of A Two Bedroom Apartment

I spend all of my time six feet below the earth’s surface. Actually, it’s only sixty-two inches below the surface. I had it put in my will; my nose was to be above ground if I was to stand up in my grave. It’s kind of silly, but I always had this fear of being buried alive. I thought that 10 inches closer to the surface would be a safe bet.
I spend a majority of my time decorating the coffin and making sure my fingernails are at perfect soil digging length. I spend the rest of my time thinking of the woman I left behind and writing down my memories and dreams for her.
I had a dream about us last night. We were just hanging out and goofing off. It was nice to see us back to how we were in June . . . even if it wasn’t real. We went to the local university and walked around for a bit, telling stories, wearing our sunglasses and begging for time to stand still, if only for a few hours.
We had only been together a week at that point, but we both knew it was love. It was more than a mere puppy could understand. I had never felt anything like that before and I was enthralled by it. By her. I sat on the bench in the shade. She danced in the fountain in front of me, her shoes on the rim and my heart in her hand. The wind came by and carried a cool mist from the soaked strands of her black hair away from the fountain and kept me cool while I fell in love.
I counted our footsteps back to my car and kissed her once for each one. My mouth was dry afterwards so we walked from my car to a building on campus. It was the Art and Architecture building and the doors weren’t locked on the weekends. It was dim in the building but it felt good to be out of the sun for a few minutes. I reached across the concession counter and stole a drink while she used the bathroom. I assume dancing in the fountain had caused her to have to go. When she came out of the bathroom I woke up, still alone.
It’s dreams like that that I will never be able to shake. They were so real, so perfect and so simply unforgettable. And it’s that girl that I will never be able to forget. Her kitten smile, her smell, her laugh. How she always embarrassed me when we went places. I miss watching her put on makeup. I miss seeing her face light up when she saw me. I can’t forget all the times I surprised her. I can’t forget anything about this girl, but I’m not sure if she can even remember me.
I leave off my return address when I mail her stuff. She knows where I’ve always been and if she wants she can find me. I died the day she sent me away. Car wreck. Crossed the median with my arms spread out, ready to fly. Ready to die.
I need something to fly over my grave again and let me know that I could be alive, to someone. I was buried with my lioness in my heart or at least my loneliness.
Coffins should come with better ventilation systems. It’s hard to bear smoking a cigarette when plush, silk pillows surround you. I could really use another cigarette right now. My heart sometimes sinks down to my stomach and the smoke helps to push it back into place.
I’ve been in here just short of five months. She’s the only thing I dream about and the only thing I miss. Well, to be completely honest, that first part could be a lie, but as far as I know it’s more honest than George Washington is on the one-dollar bill. I’m sure I’ve had thousands of dreams but the only ones I can remember are the ones where we’re together again. But we aren’t together again at the end of the week. I’ll pass out tonight and dream of her smiling as she covers her mouth with her right hand. I’ll pull out a camera and try to snap a picture. But she disappears before I can push the button. Besides, pictures tend to fade away over time, but memory is forever.
Perhaps she’ll stay in my crosshairs someday. Maybe another guy will kill her and we can be together. Or she’ll come back and decide dating someone who was once deceased isn’t so bad and try to make it work. She’ll save all of the letters I write her and cry to herself at night. I pray that I haunt her dreams, both day and night.
Even more so, I hope that she is happy without me. She deserves it. She deserves everything that we had those first two months and everything more I didn’t think I could give her.
The rain comes three times a week to wash the soil away. I’ll make sure it takes me with it next time.

trial and error

As of late my breathing has been nothing more than trial and error. Jumping out of the bed at three in the morning, crying.

3:30 a.m. heavy breathing.
4:00 a.m. tears
4:30 a.m. heavy breathing.
4:49 a.m. bathroom.
5:00 a.m. tears
5:30 a.m. you get the general idea.

I’ve been mistaking strangers for friends and lovers for friends. The little amount of sleep I get takes place on the left side of my bed. I use to have trouble getting to sleep at night. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I would start in on stage one pre-hyperventilating type of breathing. The tears would sometimes follow, but after a short time, I could usually get to sleep. The nightmares were there, but for the most part, they were bearable.
I stopped having dreams when I was the age of six or seven. I didn’t believe in Santa Clause anymore, but I would have dreams around the end of December of him, shimmying his way down our chimney. They were nice and they were some of the last dreams I had, before the nightmares started.
A cousin on my fathers’ side of the family had just died and we had gone to his funeral that day. After that, I can’t really remember what might have made them start.
The phone rings. It’s my boss wondering where I am. “Sorry, I guess I overslept,” I tell him. I finish off a beer, grab my keys and I’m out the door.
I’m twenty-three now and I can’t tell you where the years have gone. I still feel eighteen in my heart, but not in my soul. I’ve been hurt really bad twice and you tend to grow up when woman leave. When family members leave. Friends.
I may be naive beyond words, but I believe I still have a soul. I haven’t lost it yet or given up on it. There are plenty of scratches on it. And dents. It gets rained on a lot and my mother never taught me how to do laundry.
Perhaps it’s the writer in me that wants to believe there is still good in people. Or maybe it’s the poet, we’re all poets or at least we think we are. I can’t really think of a single person that has never let me down, as sad as that is. Maybe that’s because I write and I have this childish belief that somehow I can understand everything before I really know anything about it. I hadn’t thought much in this way until a discussion with a dear friend of mine. As she put it, “we're writers. We daydream too much and it gets us into trouble. We create characters in our stories...and we create characters in our lives.” I think this covers situations, in addition to people. If I was as smart as I think I am, perhaps I wouldn’t be as lost. Perhaps I could still have dreams at night about little kids running through a front yard, carrying a red plastic chair.
I’m going to get in a wreck on of these days while I’m driving, due to my thinking. At times, I wish I could just work my forty hour work week, come home, drink a beer, watch TV, go to sleep, and not have this habit of thinking all of the time. So much that it’s distracting. Is your own impending demise easier to come to terms with when you don’t spend every waking moment thinking about it? And wondering how many people will show up to your funeral or if there really is a heaven?
I’ll have trouble getting to sleep tonight. And tomorrow night. And probably four weeks from now and three months from now.
And yet, the sun will still set at it’s regularly changing time tomorrow, the grass will grow and somebody will masturbate in a bookstore restroom.
I’m just here along for the ride, trying not to get hurt. Trying to continue breathing.
All my systems are coming up with errors.

im not sure that i believe in reality

I just got done dancing by myself in the dark. Hardwood floors, boxers, Tom Waits (not Bruce Springsteen), and only two drinks in. For once, i'm happy. I've never been too good at having happy thoughts or at least being happy about where my life was or where it wasn't. I saw the girl I love tonight, and that's all I really need. I'll fall asleep early tonight, on my right side, sucking my thumb in my bare bones bedroom while Max Richter performs the images of heaven, but not before my fingers bleed to death in this notebook. I haven't written much lately, because i've been busy and I haven't been drunk. Instead i've been getting inspired and hoarding all of my energy that would usually be spent writing. I've got ideas and passion and you'll see them soon. and read them soon.

count your breaths.
fall in love.
breath.
believe.

be happy.

44

i feel as though, if i lived in a different state i would not have to defend the way i feel about our president-elect this morning. talk radio in tennessee is something that i have learned to ignore during my afternoon coffee at the fear of becoming annoyed to the point of anger. there is a lot of talk about the young vote and how "we" do not know what we are doing, we do not realize the consequences of our actions and how a vote for obama is not just a "cool" thing to do and we do not realize the impact.

let me breathe and say . . it amazes me how the adults in our communities, the very people who taught us as children- to dream . . . that we can become anything we want . . . and there is no difference in black and white . . . are now the very people who are questioning the intelligence of the youth they raised.

looking back at the presidents that i remember growing up in my twenty three years, i can only recall three that stayed present in my memory. Bill Clinton, George Bush and John F. Kennedy. The first two because I have actually been alive for their terms, but the later because his memory has never faded, his impact has never died. and often times as a child when I heard of his legacy, I wondered what it would be like to be alive when this country truly supported a leader.
there are only a few things that come to mind that I even remember of Clinton and Bush before I was of age to vote. That being one of them caused a large scandal and evidently had a weight problem and the other lied to us and brought us into a war to show how powerful he is . . . and still they wonder why the youth vote was never motivated or excited about its government?? really?? i am aware that both clinton and bush did do a good thing or two for our government, but when society spends more time focusing on the negative politics they bring into office instead of the good they brought about, something is wrong.

and so i suppose, after 23 years,
i never knew i could feel proud to be an american.
i'm happy and a little nervous that we now have a new president-elect, barack obama. however i hope that people do not wake up today thinking that the whole world is on their side and everything is going to be easy now.
because NOW- is when the real work begins.
and for every person who voted for this change, and hoped for it, it is now time to live for it.
one man did not do this alone and one man CANNOT do this alone.
if you have a dream in the world you believe in, then the time has come to do your part in making it come true.
for this, i am truly excited.
but do not sit back and watch for another four years and then wonder why the world isn't changing like you had hoped.
hope is a feeling & we now need action.

.thanks.

the long awaited "hello, my name is change."

check it. . . this verse is unexpected. mainly because it's been so long since the last post by anyone. Personally, I've been busy with one hundred and thirty-two million things. I've been trying to declutter my head as well as my closet. As well, as moving cities.

Anyway, i've got a lot of things planned and starting to go into motion. . . record label, among other things. I haven't written very much at all since moving in April, but that its changing, and this will be only the first of many posts to follow in the coming months. (don't worry your little hearts, the rest will be less informative, more personal, and more uplifting)

I started this blog to inspire people, and add in my own little change in people's hearts and minds. While I don't currently believe that I have done very much of that yet . . I am hopeful that perhaps I can in the future. If you read this and would like to post something on here.. please send me your posting and I will review it and consider it for publication.

As for my personal life, I've been selling off possessions, trying to become less materialistic. . trying to become more easily mobile and happier. There's more change to come. . and you'll see it, in my writings . . my emotions. . my passion.

Your assignment this week . . . help someone. anyway. anyone. then tell us about it in the comments section.

until next time. . .


p.eace.

Everyone Carries a Room Inside of Them

“Alright, explain this one to me again.” Jack was demanding as I walked into the nearly empty coffee shop.

Jack spoke again, “Nope, that’s it; I’m still totally fucking lost.”

The person Jack was talking to wasn’t a friend. A friendly face, but not a friend. I believe he had told me his name was Daniel one time, or maybe it was Paul. I’m sure it was something simple and catchy.

Daniel, or whoever, quickly rose while I was ordering my third cup of black coffee in just as many hours. He rushed out the door to the clashing of tiny bells above him. Another angel must have just got his wings or Satan bought another soul.

My hands were now being harmed by a tasteless cup of yesterday’s coffee. Recycled and reheated. Jack was busy scratching notes onto the back of this morning’s paper, probably the local section, no one reads that anyway.

“It’s nice to see you again” I announced over a few empty tables with half empty saltshakers and plastic bowls full of empty half and half creamer.

“Yeah, yeah . . . same to you” he said in a hurried manner.

“I overheard you and your company having a discussion, now I don’t mean to butt in to your business, but what were you two talking about?”

He looked up, stared at the wall for a minute, and then started dictating the rough details like he was reading everything off of a cue card. “Pete’s been having a tough time as of late apparently. He didn’t go into any real specifics; he just kept talking about how it was everywhere. How everything he looked at reminded him of what happened or whatever.”

“Is that what you were having a hard time understanding?”

“Yeah, I guess but it was just the way he was explaining it I guess. I don’t know. It all sounded like muddled garbage to me.”

“It sounds like to me like he saw his white room.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, white room? This isn’t a fucking song, dude’s got problems.”

“No, I understand that. His problem might be the white room. Here, I’ll explain it so you can understand.” I take a sip of my coffee as I take a seat. Jack puts his pen down and at least pretends like he is going to pay attention. “Alright, so everyone has a white room. That’s what life is . . . it’s a white room. As long as that room stays white, everything is perfect. There are no doors, no windows, and no secret passages. You just have a white floor, a white ceiling, and four white walls boxing you in.”

“Ok?”

“In your hands, you have a balloon.”

“What color?”

“What?”

“What color is the balloon?” he asked.

“It’s not important to the story, but it was white, whatever. So you’re holding this white balloon and it’s full of the bluest paint you’ve ever seen. Full to the brim, it could pop at any moment, but as long as that balloon is in your hand, it’s safe. The room stays white; your life stays on course for the perfect American dream. Or at least your rendition of it. But if something goes wrong, that balloon pops. Your once perfect white room is now covered with blue paint.”

“Well, couldn’t you just get a hose or a mop or something?”

“No. You’re missing the point again. That balloon popped and now everything in that room is ruined. Everything is tainted and everywhere you look, you’re going to see blue. It’s on the walls, the floor, your clothes, and the bottom of your shoes. There are little spots everywhere from the crash to the floor. One simple thing in you’re life can go wrong, and you’ll see it in everything around you. Like if a friend or girlfriend of yours dies. . . it could end up, that you start noticing things around you that remind you of them, maybe something stupid, it could be anything. Perhaps you overhear people say things in restaurants while you’re waiting on your scotch to get to the table. Somebody says something and you swear for a moment that it was her. You have dreams about her; you do nothing but write about her. Every song you listen to was written in the course of that event. It’s all tainted because that balloon popped, and there’s nothing you can do about it except smile and hope you make it until tomorrow.”

For a few moments he just sits there, staring down at his newspaper. I’m sure a thousand things are running through his head . . . some pertaining to this conversation and others still on his mind from weeks ago. I take a few more sips of my coffee in the meantime and eye a young woman in tight black jeans standing up by the counter.

“So, does everyone supposed have this room? And not just Pete?” he finally asks ever so quietly.

“Yeah, that’s right. Everyone is standing in that room by themselves, holding on to that balloon.”

“Why have I never heard about it before today then?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps you didn’t want to know about it. Perhaps you’ve been denying it without even knowing what you were doing.”

“Is there anyway to get out of that room?”

I sigh briefly, “No, and just forget it. You’re hopeless. Here’s a present. I don’t need it anymore, at least not for the time being. Since I know you can’t see the blue, let alone understand it, go home and see some red.”

I took my hand out of my coat pocket, slammed it down hard on the table, and used it as a level to get myself up. I took one more sip of my coffee before tossing it in the trash can as I went out the door right behind the young woman.