New Years Resolutions

The only time I don't mean what I say is when I say I don't mean it.

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Bad Rabbits are the Princes of the Purple Reins

HORSES UNITE! I love when bands now sound like shit that was good when I feel old. This shit sounds like Purple Rain Era Prince but it's current. Dudes used to be the backing band every once in awhile for Slick Rick.

Listen to the studio version on headphones and wait for the end. Might make the Isley Bros. jealous.

Download it from their website.

For free. BAD RABBITS! COME TO NYC! More »

Cause Your Dead

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LETTER TO A FRIEND

We have known each other for a while. From the moment I met you I thought that you were comfortable at being you. I observed you like I was a child watching a carousel. Well, a drunk child. I was sitting in a stroller, sucking on a bottle of whiskey with milk and honey. The lights were shining. The wind was blowing breezily and smiles were on the faces of even those that were losing. The adults were laughing and the children inside the souls that went round and round always rose to the top. Only when the music stopped. This was my first chapter memory of you.

I always knew that you have not been this way forever but I chose not to delve deeper into your psyche. The feeling was good and the teat tasted neat. I sucked and swallowed and got fat on forgetting.

I did this because I did not want to see the disappearance of Superman Moriarty to the kryptonite that Super Sal Paradise’s comeuppance would provide. I didn’t want to see you without the costume of the superhero that you packaged yourself as. I was going through the evolution to the slow learning acceptance of moth to flame to burnt moth and learning to work between worlds that were real and those that were fake. I was going upstream at full tilt and did not want to lose the destruction of fear that you provided me.

That cocoon was warm as a kitten’s litter. I snuggled down deep and came out dirty and stinking but a little bit softer just the same.

My role as an observationalist and as your adviser has taken many turns. None of which I will go into for fear of being perceived as an unprofessional adviser. That, by itself, would be against the oath I silently took to zealously advocate a wayward , fairweather client and friend.

This statement will be anonymous. This blog is. No names will be mentioned. All parties involved will be able to see what they want. They can read and draw the pictures to illustrate the story on the walls of the living rooms of their minds. Over these words songs can play as loud as they want and no one will be forced to clean up these messes. This is a story, my friend. A factual story. Facts can’t be rewritten.

This turn of our friendship will be one that probably involves many right turns that feels like we are coming back to the same place. You probably won’t like it. I urge you to understand that I was not the navigator, but only the observationist. At the end of the bullshit of this tale as I see it I assure you that we are moving forward, but like Sancho watching Quixote, a master or a muse cannot truly see his direction until he sees that there are no more windmills.

I guess the story starts on a dreary day in a bar that has seen so many dreary, shitty days. Our glasses get dirty. Our memories get dirty. Our sleeves get dirty but our thoughts get clean. We hope for the best but our bar tab dies like the rest. We search for past places we have conquered but I end up slumped over taking the A train back to Brooklyn criss-crossing my feet to the music of the last song we left on wishing five years ago could have lasted forever but so glad that it lasted as long as it did.

Cut to a few casual moments later and hell happens. Life is going as good as living a half way lie can be and couples dinner is attached. Thunder rolls. Lightning strikes. You know what happens. If not, your girlfriend might.

Again with the cliché, but there is nothing else as powerful and poignant to describe it as nature itself, the shit came before the storm. It had been along while since I had to deal with a problem that was not my own and seeing as I did not deal with my problems I was caught without the emotional poncho that a man who was watching his Moriarity superhero let his protective plastic fly away in the wind. The cape didn’t flutter but was ripped away violently. Wind whistled through your teeth and I just thought that it would at least serve as shelter if not for a blanket to keep me warm. You bared down on me and asked for the impossible. Like I was a savior. Like I was gonna do something for you. Like I had ever done anything at all except for get you out of a bar tab. I was dumbstruck. Dumfounded. Dumbfucked. I made promises that I knew that I could keep. But you weren’t Super Moriarity anymore. You were appealing to me as a super minority. A philosophical detox of binging on percocets and promises unkept for lotto tickets unscratched that were cashed in. That you were the benefit of. You were grasping at the straws held by those that I hoped you thought would come through in a pinch and I failed to pinch you to tell you that you weren’t dreaming. I’m sorry for this.

You take photos much like I write. You see darkness. But you also see a story. A photo with a lens-cap-covered camera would result in nothing. So you look for light. You traipse back and forth. Adjust and bitch and complain because the subject of the photo gives you nothing to be optimistic about. But when you get it, the broken shard of light that shines down on a glass of triumph and a face of guilt gives hope to me. That one more can get that person from that negative to being back home again.

The only way I know how to do this is the only way you will probably not ever expect, a sports analogy:

“It’s nighttime here in philly, this has been a whirlwind of a series. Two, tough as nails teams that have been struggling to come from behind just to get on top again. Back and forth as the seesaw goes for sure. Here we are, runner on second, final inning. Crowd at a non stop standtill. At bat is the notorious brawler and scrapper Urdowitz. The Polish power, as he is known here in Bronx stadium. Down by one run and after being struck by an alleged errant pitch in the 4th he arrives to the plate with one tooth less than started, folks. After a medical examination he was deemed ready to play after an inning and it is rumored that along with the medical gauze to absorb the blood, he is still chewing tobacco folks! It is said to kill the mouth pain but judging by the looks of his eyes and his slow swagger to the plate he is feeling none. So I guess it is working.

He stops before stepping in the box and gives a look to the umpire and a longer slow look to the catcher. They are both unphased folks. Every single party is steel. The pitcher waits patiently for the triangle of people involved. Urdowitz slaps the bat against each heel and gazes into the outfield…his glance is tightening…tightening…on the right field foul base line!

The jumbotron has picked him up! It is the same Tigers fan that had recently thrown the beer bottle at him while rounding first base! The reason he lost his tooth! How is he still in the stadium, folks?

Urdowitz is raising his bat! Oh my goodness! In the measure of the great Babe Ruth but mimicking the drama of the Natural he is pointing at the…No, he is not folks! He is pointing at the fan! The Taker of the Tooth!

The crowd is going wild! He steps into the box with a foot and reaches down grabbing dirt…he wrestles with something and buries his hands deep in the sand…claps them together…has words with the umpire AND NOW IS HAVING WORDS WITH THE CATCHER!

He brings his other foot into the box and grips the bat accordingly. I don’t know what is happening faster here folks…”

At this time Urdowitz stared at the pitcher. He thought about his right foot that fucking hurt. He thought about that fucking cocksucker in the rightfield that got those seats cause he knew someone. He hoped it was the goddamned catcher. He thought about bowling and how much better that would be then he just thought about fucking leaving.



But then he thought about winning, then fucking leaving.

He made the signal for ready to go, crowded the plate, leaned his right shoulder in, spat at the pitcher and growled.

He backed off the ball as soon as the asshole went into his windup.

He intentionally swung a little late to get a line drive from a fast ball that was meant to clip him and sent it screaming right inside the first baseline against Ramiero’s charging feet. It hit the inside of the bag and shot up in the air and the taunting fan fell backwards to avoid a bullet that he thought was for him. Urdowitz had never had such accuracy but he knew this one was his.
The ball ricocheted and left the right fielder deeper than expected and seeing as Rameiro charged that spot was empty. The ball in all its bouncing glory went into the foot of a ballboy who in trying to keep his job jumped and sent it in yet another direction.

Urdowitz never planned on stopping. He was almost at third when they finally got a handle on it to send to the third baseline for the rundown. The man on second base had scored without even sliding.

The Yankees fans almost did the rest.

While Urdowitz was cleaning the clock for the fastest time an oldtimer had ever rounded the bases, the fans were giving the heckler the once over. He was drunk as a monkey’s uncle and no one except everyone except for Urdowitz saw him being pushed over the rails for fucking with their man.

At this point our hero was running for his livelihood. I’ll tell you that the previous injury had caused his nose to bleed which was mixing with the sweat from his brow and the snot from his nose and looked as if his own nose-coffee was bubbling. It was quite a sight for any photographer. These are the images in the mind of anyone watching but there were those who weren’t.

There was the asshole behind the plate in expensive seats who spilt his drink down the bosses fake-titted wife’s white shirt when he pointed at the jerkoff in the stands as he fell onto the field.

More importantly, there was the entire third base line watching the asshole collapse when they were supposed to be involved in the fucking game AND the catcher who ended up receiving the lob late cause the third baseman bobbled the throw instead of the bullet available to prepare for Urdowitz’s epically metallic train-crash.

Our anti-hero did as his father told him. The catcher caught it up high, pulled it down with the right glove preparing to embrace and he gave it to him with full fucking force.

There are few people who say they know how to take a punch. Anyone that takes them, doesn’t like it.

You spend your life hoping you never have to be the fucking liar that has to say that.

Urdowitz never did.

He buried his head and threw his right shoulder into the catchers left. Not before he slowly pulled his fists into a ball and struck the catcher's Adam's Apple. Urdowitz violently shifted his left hand open-faced and down stumbling like into the catcher’s left wrist hoping to knock the ball from the glove. As he did, he splayed his left leg out and veered to the right bringing the knee into the groin of the jock-strapped catcher while throwing his body to the left and actually collapsing onto the plate sliding forward while both players and the umpire fell silent.

The catcher rose first with glove tight and the black and white shook himself and stood and grabbed his hand like a victorious boxer as Urdowitz rose from the rumble. Again, blood was dripping from his mouth. The cotton swab had fallen by the wayside and the umpire shook loose nothing from the catcher’s mitt.

The ball was seen first by the wayward titty looking fan next to the fence who created an earthquake rumble that made oppenents fans. This incident again drew the attention of the boss away from the cleavage shot the invited employee most certainly enjoyed and she screamed and jumped making mountainous moments of short term sugar lumps on his single scoop of unemployed ice cream.

Urdowitz heard screams and then headaches and then pounding. His winning teammates bumrushed him without his knowledge. He was still semiconscious. He fell apart with energy and then rolled and stumbled to the Gatorade jug and pulled himself forward. He fell backwards, relieved to be not a failure but more so not to be a vomiter. Then he vomited. Blud.

Then other stuff. The stadium was going mad but then again so was he. He was also missing something.

He trudged back with a vindicated soldiers remittance and kicked teammates and pushed new champion t-shirts till he got to the bottom of things. The camera had focused on him. The game winning homerun of the seventh game of the World Series deserved the homeplate. He had wife and children at home and the end of a career to think of, after all. He was gonna hold that piece of rubber up like it was his. Like the constitution of a fallen country that America finally took back. ‘Cept...

He found what he was looking for while the camera forgot him for something happier as he ambled toward the dugout to finally rest. He was front-toothless and dug-out. But those teeth that he lost in that car crash of a win were fucking poison. They were gone. So was his career. He was missing his teeth but he was clean again. He knew he was right where he needed to be. He was whole again even though he was missing pieces (teeths) when he approached the plate to retrieve the metal in the shape of the cross he left when he was digging in the dirt earlierr at the plate. He told that cock-sucking umpire and the goddamn catcher that he was gonna come back and get it a few minutes come hell or high water.

And goddamned if he didn't. All the while leaving his teeth and the catcher's lying bloody in the sand.

And my man, that is the beginning of our story that gives people a place to begin your timeline. And the end for us to enjoy. Good night. More »

Juggaloves

American Juggalo from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

Here's some love for the Juggaloves. What are these, you say? Caring creatures that share the likeness of clowns. But love all. Ass long ass they look like clowns. Go Juggalo ves! More »

Life Lessons By Mumbles

If you want a happy ending, stop your story before it's over. More »

ILLFORGOTTEN GLANCES AT MEMORIES LET GO

I learned that it was not food, nor love, nor acceptance I hungered for...but something more. I looked again at my words to find it, but everyone seemed afraid of what i would do with it and all the books were removed from my room. Yet me, my hunger and misunderstanding stayed locked behind those walls remembering the sunlight and her smiles and that time we walked together along the train tracks to see a man I would later call God. More »

Bread : Part 2,The Story of Abel

Abel was always a wiry fellow. His hands hung low and brushed the pockets of our older brother Hosea’s hand-me-down jeans so much that when they got to me, I could only use the back pockets to keep my possessions safe from stealing. They were worn like our parents faces.

Abel was born with a hooked left foot that didn’t give him a propensity for sports. But because he wasn’t any good on the farm or the field, it gave him a bunch of free time on his hands that resulted in an education for me. I was closest in age in the younger sense and was more gullible than our big brother, so I was an easy pupil and mark just the same.

We were all ornery as all get out. We threw, ran and squirmed like nobody’s business. All of us were naturals for football and the taller ones great at basketball. If it involved one ball and a single purpose that included physical contact, we were dirty in it smelling like the sweat of summer. We were what they called children reveling in sweat of the brow while others were rich kids bathed in water that was chlorine and pristine.

After Abel's first breath in '68, it was the last time daddy allowed momma to write a name down on a birth certificate or even consciously choose to create one via the state. My brother name was misspelled as Abel, but I was the one that was capable. Our momma had dyslexia and she named me after him or wrote down what she wanted to write down for him in the first place. His future begat his idea of his congenital physical condition. His failure at birth justified his unwillingness to succeed later in life. He wasn’t able. Hooked foot said so. When I was born my father was going to get his brood right where the Bible got it wrong. If Abel was so capable then he could’ve handled Cain. I was named in his version of the spelling and my life started so.

Abel in his boredom took to throwing rocks and breaking shit in the general sense of the work. I remember this one time where we sat out front of this abandoned trailer in a park down the road that was full of trailers that weren’t full and he must of chunked at least 20 through the aluminum siding and windows and even bounced one off the tires that damn near took both our eyes out before someone started shooting us with a bb gun. That hooked foot could really get going when it wanted to.

One day he was kneading this clay he’d stolen from school into all types of inappropriate shapes. Once it was a dick, another times a set of balls and others a vagina and any combination left to be imagined. He got bored easily; so when we went by the Hatcher house and the mutt started yapping his mind started turning. What once made a perfectly good set of clay dick and balls became a totally different avenue of entertainment. Abel became able. It didn’t take long for him to talk me into climbing the horse stalls to land in the back yard of the Hatcher’s passageway. As soon as my feet hit the dirt I was already on the fence again as he laughed and laughed while the dog was on me like the dirt on my elbows. I reached up and caught my breath and Abel handed me the clay. He’d stolen a few firecrackers from the rich folks in the trailer next door and fashioned a makeshift explosive. Most of his ideas didn’t work. He was good with a lawnmower but shitty at this type of thing. He must’ve spent more money than I had ever seen on firecrackers tearing them apart and putting them back together so they would be better than they were. For this reason he’d lost a thumb early on.

He tried to hand it to me, clay in palm, sticking his clenched fist through the bars while my hands laid sweat on the rusty poles. I smelled the iron and rust that always made me think of blood. He missed my grasp, maybe on purpose, but I tried again. I picked my hand up above my head while he fished it through and gripped it with similar fingers fitting into the grooves of the indentations that turned it from stolen property to the trailer park grenade.

I wasn’t old enough to buy a lighter yet but Abel always had one. Fires were his friends. He’d lost a thumb but never a singe of hair to a fire. He burned our trash and started our fires. Oftentimes he pissed himself while he did it. He lit the fuse as I tried to get the claytraption into the dogs mouth. The dog didn’t want to take it cause the fuse was smoking. It didn’t take me long to see that it wasn’t going to happen and Abel saw the same cause the asshole started laughing hysterically…again.

I forgot about the dog-menace and flipped over to scale the rusty bars when I started to yell but lost my breath as he was doubled over in fucking fits. I let out a scream in sheer frustration of him being an idiot and another in the heat that was developing in my spine. My shirt was on fire and my hands were heating up and the dog was going fucking crazy.

I fell to the ground as the mutt scratched, pawed and barked. The fire subsided but I was pretty badly burnt. I rolled underneath the bottom rung and ran as fast as I could hoping that I was still on fire and jumped my flames all on top of him. He kept laughing and I kept burning and that was the end of that. I itched and rubbed butter on the burns to make them go away for the rest of the summer. He was throwing rocks and I smelled liked grease.

Because I couldn’t move and he wasn’t worth a shit we had very little to do except clean up around the house while mother slept. There was a girl next door that was a year older than me but one less than Abel. I knew she was up to no good cause she talked too much. Always this and that. I got a herd of bees, she’s got two. We were gonna get to ride the neighbors go-kart, her daddy was gonna buy her one. She was a Mexican anyway.

Hosea had done some stuff with her but Abel was sure he would too. So one day we went over to her house and he turned her water hose on full blast. Before you knew it there was a puddle under her porch bigger than the Grand Canyon. She wouldn’t have even noticed had it not have been for the generator outside charging to work the air compressor for her old man’s tires. He was sleeping like momma but she came bouncing out nonetheless. She traipsed through the screen door letting it slam ever so gently making sure she didn’t wake him. She sucked on the freezer pop like she was so goddamn rich even though they never had any fucking cherry ones even though the flavors were random. We knew her father ate them all but she asked a simple question. Probably the most direct thing I ever remembered as a boy. She said,

“you boys ready to get wet?”

My brother’s feet splashed to turn off the hose to see if he was hearing what he thought he was feeling.

The slosh of water and the twisting of the iron made a weird noise for me seeing as I was only hearing the back and forth of air and tongues and lips on a shitty lollipop. She wouldn’t shut up and after she said that and he cut the water, he wouldn’t stop talking.

He talked about go-karts and moons and better doublewides that his friends knew about and a place where you could just runaway and she just kept on looking. Her toes got skinnier as she removed her shoes and socks and her feet ventured to the water. She kicked it around and giggled and he did as well.

He asked her if she wanted to see that bee’s nest or maybe it was a hornets nest under the trailer and that we had one but she had two of. Seeing as she had more and knew more, she might be able to tell us how to get rid of them.

He told her if she’d come he’d show her that and a bottle of liquor that looked like water. He said if you put a peppermint in it the smell would be like a dirty cigarette and her folks wouldn’t know she’d been drinking. He said, “You might as well come swimming over here if you wanna get wet.”

She obliged and came down.

Now, hand in hand, a naked set of tiptoes went with my brother’s. His feet were mudsoaked and bounced toward the place where the bees were supposed to be.

As soon as we got out of earshot, he showed her what he wanted her to see.

With this he presented a lighter and lingered too long on the flame before he brought out daddy’s cigarette. He was captivated by the maintenance of fire and she was intent on smoking what he had lifted from daddy. When she reached for the cigarette he thought she was going for the flame and he ducked like daddy taught him to and kicked her really hard in the dick. Cept’ she didn’t have no dick.

She fell down and didn’t move.

Abel told me that if we stirred up the bees enough they would bite her and we wouldn’t get in trouble. He said that if he went on top of the porch and held onto the railing and moved his hips back and forth and I pushed Sola toward the wooden 4 X4 it would be easier to make it look like an accident. Shit didn’t work.

We took out a garden hose from the back of her trailer and Abel started spraying the hive. They went nuts. Water and bees and honey don’t mix. She just laid there. I ran all over the place. I had acne scars later and was supremely fucked up. We hid behind a tree to see what would happen. Nothing did.

The bees ran off and we had a can of silver rust-o-leum in hand and were spray-painting her shoes. Abel was pushing down her shorts to make an arrow when her father came out.
Her father beat the shit out him. He had his face in the dirt and there wasn’t anything that hooked left foot could do, I tell you. Both mothers were sleeping but her father was going to town on my brother.

Sola hadn’t moved when my father rolled up covered in El Camino and roofing tar. The first thing he saw was Abel in the dirt and the second thing was a broken handrail on the porch of the trailer.

Last he saw was Sola’s pappy and shit got heavy. I was young, but I wasn’t dumb. They screamed back and forth and got buckwild like mountaingoats. I really think my dad drug his head across every beam on that porch. Both kids laid in the ruins as they duked it out. I watched cause I couldn’t look away. I wandered if I was as fascinated with ass-whoopings as Abel was with fire. I hoped not and then remembered how much I hated getting my ass whooped and thought of it as a done deal.

The police finally showed up but my father had already left. Her dad and my dad had sparred and he won. Mine I mean. We had one lawn mower, she had two. She had a doublewide, we had a single. My dad kicked the shit out of her dad cause she had two mothers and I had none. Her dad got all the moms. I just wanted to ride the fuckin’ motorcycle.

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BREAD

When I was a kid I had some really ratty pants. They scuffed the ground when I walked and I tucked them in my shoes so they wouldn’t make noise. The shuffling of my footsteps was not music to my parent’s ears but only a reminder of the burden that I laid on them.

We were a ragtag group of hoodlums, my brothers. We each had our role. I didn’t fit in so much but I made sure we had bread on our table. That was my role. I was fast as lightning. When I struck Pritchard’s Grocery, they knew I was there to steal bread. They would see me and everyone, woman and child, would run to grab me and sometimes I'd run down the aisle with the boxed goods or head for the can items to mix it up. I strummed my fingers against the shit like a harpist on strings that were old. My intentions were good but the sonic results didn’t match. I wanted the grocery item to land like cannonballs but most landed in soulless oceans. My brothers waited outside to kick the trash can or newspaper cart over in front of the door as Pritchard became good at sweating and old ladies pressed their hands against their heart and made noises that could heal a rainforest. I always jumped the trash can and headed for the field where we would meet.

I always thought sooner or later Pritchard would figure out our operandi. At first I thought he allowed it cause he knew we were poor. There were eight of us for christsakes. I knew my brothers started using the commotion I caused to steal from the registers while he was running after me. They would only get about 30 bucks a pop but Pritchard didn’t say anything. My brothers were probably taking their own share, but I was too. Cause they screwed me, this time, I was going to get a loaf for myself.

Being knee deep in not giving a shit, my mother usually drank away the day. Her job as a homemaker allowed her to forget her civic responsibilities of darning the socks and relegated her day to half-heartedly washing her dishes that weren’t supposed to smell of vodka. Her efforts tired quickly and she forgot about the shopping as pops forgot about the working and we were soon, all 10 of us, on fucking welfare.

She neglected the sewing kit so I appropriated it.

I sequestered some yarn and while Hosea (the oldest) wasn’t looking I tied it around my ankle before entering Pritchard’s.

I ran in like the lightning I told you about before and hit the bread rack with the immediate sound of thunder. I grabbed one and shoved it in my pants. Metal racks clattered and plastic bags burst. I pictured a cloud of flour in my tracks leaving the wolves behind and stuck my sweaty arm inside of the air-conditioning that was the dairy section.

Plastic jugs scrambled from my passing embrace and scattered on the ground acting like mercury, running every which way but contained. People slipped and slided and cottage cheese covered my hands and shirt sleeves as I ran homeward leaving a modern day chemical experiment in my wake. I ditched and dived like a pig slathered in butter (also in my pants) and gave a nice hip bump to a display of tuna that was shaped like the sarcophagus I deserved after fucking up Hosea’s existence.

Hosea, being the oldest, told us what to do. He always told me to go for the packaged white bread, not the fresh shit. I didn’t know it was because he knew what the baker did to it. I didn’t know it was because it was the best way to distract. I didn’t know a lot of things about Hosea. I didn’t know until this very moment but I just suspected he liked it cause he was used to it. Shit, if I had a choice I probably would have chosen white bread, but I don’t know what got into me that day. If it was just a wild hair up my ass or the overarching adrenaline that I felt as I ran to that fancy rack as soon as I got in…I had never done it before, but whatever it was, I fucked up and I fucked up good. I grabbed the second loaf on the way out and I think Abel kicked over a shopping cart and I leapt over it like a young nine year old should. My feet did tiny dancesteps between cracks on lost mother’s backs as my open palms felt the wind that her face cancelled all steps of dance and I ran to the secret spot.

They went in to pillage the cash registers cause everyone there did as they were told. Old ladies screamed and fell down. The boys shuffled their feet back and forth and up and down like elfin devils, giggling in the aftermath of faked terror. The women clutched their purses instead of their babies and my brothers stole their wallets. The victims didn't see the pictures of our names that may or may not hang in xeroxed sketches in post offices or grocery store check cashing stands but only in the empty photographs in school yearbooks. And just the same, they never saw us at all.

I cradled the loaf of free bread like an NFL fullback that had too many hits to the head. My finger was on the tip but somewhere I stumbled and it went sailing. I picked it up quickly but through the running and all the fucking melee I was leaving a trail of flour from the bread in my leg and the loaf I had in my hands for me until I found our meet-up spot. Nine-year old mistake. Lifetime of punishment.

Our spot wasn’t that far away from the grocery store. We always met there and Hosea divided up the profits but there wasn’t ever much that went my way even though I did most of the running. That’s why I thought of the yarn from Mama’s sewing kit and stuffing that other loaf down my pant’s leg. I could keep that one there and only share the other. They didn’t usually get there til half an hour after me. By that time I could have the butter slathered on and eat like a goddamn prisoner in a fancy jail.

I hit the grass at full tilt. I stopped then stumbled dragging my shoe through the dirt to let them know I was there.

I went under a large branch and stuck my hand in a batch of thorns and fell, dropping the bread. The loaf down there softened the blow. But as I landed, I heard the breaking of plastic and fell about 20 feet deep onto overgrown greenery and hit something sharp and solid bouncing me onto something softer. Corrugated pieces of plastic greenhouse splintered and landed on me like an epidural. I moved back and forth and then gave up to an exhausting paralysis.

I give you my word that the first thing I thought about was getting my ass whooped for losing the bread and instinctively looked for it. I couldn’t find it. It was probably up there. My leg hurt like hell but I rolled off the table that I saw to be steel or aluminum. It was clean but it was overrun by weeds.

I reached in my pocket and fished out what was left of the butter. My cigarettes were ruined. I stuck my hand down deep in my leg that was now a backpack and took out the loaf.
I put the butter in the middle and ate that shit like a goddamn sandwich and loved every bit of it. After I was done I was thirsty as hell and knew Hosea would know so I started sucking saliva and phlegm from the back of my throat to get the dryness down.

Time passed and they didn’t show. I got scared and guilty and still had the butter smeared on my face and Hosea wasn’t there. I didn’t know at the time of the robbery, but Abel had different plans for our eldest and when he left the scene of the crime, Abel kicked the shopping cart into his feet sending him careening into the newspaper stand that we usually left errant. Hosea went face first and a few bills went running. Those dollar bills became airplanes in a second. They congregated in the alley where I hopped the fence.

Abel hit the alley first and grabbed as much as he could before going over the fence and my brothers pursued the green that was chasing his pockets and footsteps. My biggest mistake which I would later learn to be my greatest hope of being found was now destroyed by prying fingers and shuffling hand-me-down shoes. The brother and Abel’s escape covered every track that was dusted with the flour of evidence of my location that would lead the police or even my fucking family to our fucking spot. A white powder was now meshed with dirt. All of this over a loaf of goddamn bread.

Hosea went to jail. Abel disappeared. The others languished.

I sat there in that fuckin’ hole surrounded by what looked like an underground marijuana garden. I was surrounded by greenery that most would consider Eden. It smelled of sweetness. I would have smoked myself to the neverafter but I didn’t have a lighter, only buttery smokes. I was nine.

I died down there eating leaves in hopes of killing pain but just kept vomiting them up. Mr. Pritchard now owns our house but doesn’t even have the grocery store. The room I slept in is now a game room.

Fucked up isn’t it? More »

EQUINEBRIATED

If you were a candy wrapper

that made a bunch of noise

that i could get to open up

by being so sweet

this message

would self destruct

so the new me

could be the old me.

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