Aspirations and Cogitations on a quiet Monday morning.

She has a very fat finger, her chubby little digits, and she tried to dial me, booty call or begging or something, such as "to all things a bright begging", "look at my titties", trying to dial me, and instead mistakenly dials the Goodwill store at Latta, and yells obscenities at the volunteer that answered the phone.  (Editor's Comment: "Sausage Fingers")

Moral of the story: I don't hear all that sh*t and noise, not all the time, and sometimes, waste materials fuel this great furnace anyway, and make me come back so much very much stronger and more intent.

I be she'll start wearing a suit of armor like a knight in a fairy tale of old, anything, as I said of Rockingham, the conspiracy to keep me from opening one up, and yet, 7 am, the unlocking of the doors, I was already there afresh and ready to do my thing, all up in her business, dead-on green.

The Stewart Cosworth-built-and-designed so-called "Ford" V8 world championship engine.  The 2300, the later 291, superior respiration in the engine, making a power-to-weight ratio, and power-to-displacement ratio that made many engineers shake their heads in abject awe.

Think of it, across town the 327 cuber is basically a grocery getter for soccer moms, and inarticulate little matriculation that packs-up panty-hose and kid snacks, while in the other universe, not Saginaw, but Dearborn, the 327 is a fire-breathing monster that bests sometimes even the modern 380 from Saginaw.

I put her panties, her soiled undergarment, replete with their own preloaded accusations and evidences, on the radio antennae of my Tree Fif.

Waugham, Mendoza and Handsome, fools for the city.

Mendoza kept on coming.  The people in the spire ahead thought he might actually be a zombie, this Mendoza from Chapultipec. 

He was staggering of course, the only hold out egg that adhered in any way to the fresco of our narrative, but by choice or nature, tis an entire industry built around the question as it is, and Mendoza might really be a zombie, or infected with 245 Tri-ox, and nobody would know but a few porn stars.

Waugham was prepared to shoot at him, and had seen enough movies:  in head, Fred.  The head.  Preferably between the eyes, and that the only cream that had rose on the mileau crag that was the spread of the place.

At the spire, they had spirited the children off to the vault, and the handlers were sliding papers under the door, the door not being sealed per se, tightly, but something of that, a hair strand between freedom and safety, and safety in response to freedom, and everybody saying if you disagreed with him, you were a Nazi, in some circles, and a Marxist in others, and Marxists suctioned to the glass like a bizarre species of insect.

Jack Handsome's encrypted text messages.  How they become camp news, around and around it goes, nobody really knows, but that maybe some sysadmin or pickpocket, maybe something along that order, clubbing Jack in his helmet hair, and him too, helmet hair and all, calling the other street gang Nazis.

It was such in the way that any insult they hatched onto the others was broadly applicable to both camps, none being immune, but morally and existentially enfeebled to the extent that the white boys were at once, red and blue, and the black boys, and a few of the brown boys, were purple, even in their gums, and some of them scrambled, some of them sat, buttholes drawn tight, as Mendoza pre-ambled steadily forward.

I had run in to one of the girl fighters in the desert at a station.  I recognized her by her own cadence, a kind of stagger from a knee wound.  She had big reputation, once upon a time, but it was such, big explosions and all, for a while there, we just didn't know the difference between the dead and the alive, and afterward, her not to be seen, was assumed among the kaputniks.  But yet not, having taken up something more regular, a menial job, paying her check advance and being economy-sized feminine hygiene products.

On the crag of democracy and gang warfare, so many had flaked-off their blood aspiring to the precipice, "where eagles dare".

Mendoza's mangy old mastiff was wandering toothlessly along the street behind him, eager always for the next crust, for the next flea-flick of an ear scratch, and to listen to the booming voice of her master.

Royal Salmon kept book at the spire, kept book for the Combine, made his little scratch marks for the takes and the owings and all that, the comings and goings, and he was such that the put powdered sugar in his tea all the time, only powdered, not granulated, but powdered only, and a tin of exotic mints, exotic like that usually overlooked in Arkansas, not that its not available, but that they don't give a fig one way or the other.

Clarissa Ward had even come over for American television and camped at the spire, eating from the same types of cans as the common warrior-bean, and I mean, some of those boys at pure, straight, unseasoned spaghetti sauce or tomato sauce, and the American would wait until her cameras were on to actually speak to the detestable brutes, "freedom fighters" beholden not to freedom at all, and for the record, not doing much fighting, but more or less just looking kind of formidable without actually doing much, not a deterrant as much as a detriment, such that they knew the hanging of Handsome or Mendoza by the World Court kind of cleared their own books, such that they could go back to the rat race for capital thereafter, unphased.

"What's she smell like?" Some of the outsiders asked.  "The American."

"Paper" some said.

Could you imagine licking her ear if you're nose was glutted with the smell of something like A4 copier paper?  But anyway, they were brutes, not active enough to be rewarded with the consideration of being even the merest of fiends, and without the unction to commit to much but their own "dan tian", the little region of the body center-pocked with pubic hair, stomach near the top and the tessies marking the southern egress.

Ghandi's Auto Repair. And I screamed at the service truck. A happening.

Well, don't it look like New Jersey just sh*t-flung a water balloon packed with piss towards the air intermingling between there and the Pretty Man Building.

Be ready to duck, Leland.

My little man meat.

My little worry-stick, my fretting-post, my little "stress-reliever".

The tree-fif.  Power steering hanging, lights on the dashboard coming on. 

Soon I had the tree-fif on the shoulder, and was bemused, listening to traffic pass by mere feet away.

In taking care of the matter, "my own two hands", "these most unworthy hands", my truck, my humble transportation, became that institution and time-worn tradition in which good men repair.

I had tasty beverage, iced, two Iceds in the other truck, the rescue vehicle, the Chase Vehicle, "my support staff", and I was scraping knuckles, and musing all the while angrily to myself, feeling every bit, of sound mind, but probably sounding more like the docks on Saturday night.

There was language.

Also, I had a Mandarin lesson later that afternoon, and it was amazing, three words in English became seven or eight Mandarin standard Pinyins.

Oh, but I drove that tree-fif home.  I always drives it home, as you may know already.  I did that: I was up to that, and my muscles hurt for days after, my back pushing a bracing bar forward and down over the radiator cowl, most awkwardly, pushing and feeling the limit of the thing, the metal little plumb-bob in the thing, and I held it there, to the sticking place, for seconds, seconds seemingly on end.

The spirit of Ghandi was at my shoulder, looking on, and his placid eyes were a rebuke that in some ways threw fresh fuel on my ire.  Mahandas, unfapped, gave me a Reese's cup, as I rested and took my Iced, got in my cups, got my drink on during the middle time.

Tim Scott and revisions in the American Dream.

The right and the left usedta agree on the meritocracy.  "Pure Horatio Alger", that a man or woman could "pull himself by his boot straps" that if one worked hard and did worthwhile things, success would follow.

I still kind a believe that, Tim Scott.

And I still want to believe that.

I have to believe that.

That its not graft and sycophants, but the cream, the "optimates" rising to the top naturally, and that its not all evil and Machiavellian Trumpism, but the old way, the way Clinton and Bush liked, that one could be accepted on merit, and not some other means, not a racial intake requirement, or a religious exemption, not a slip in the bureaucratic regulations, but pure merit.

No Biden Crime Family or Trump Crime Family.  No Chinese patents, West Wing Office for you son, or seat on some board, but I remember that Hillary, even in 1980 or so, sat on the board of Walmart.

Even McCain, before rebranding himself, was accused of wrong doing and graft.

And then chapter two.

We pick ourselves up, and stop miming dance moves from within the debris field.

Bear and Octopus.

He walked in the room, I walked in the room, I am he and he is me, and there is only a thin valance of stray thought between us.

"There he is" says Momma, drowsily sweeping the floor.

I grumble.

"Thinking about her.  Wondering about her.  How is she?  What's she doing?  Is she thinking of you?"

"Always, Ma" I said.  Of course it was the way, always, to obsess to the horrific womanflesh piling that you loved, to obsess and smell, even in the midst of the debris field of a life.  Party hats and streamers for any crumb of attention.

I seen my sister, her brownish hair in the window, where she was sitting outside on the stoop, on her phone with her friends.  That was Marsha Dell.

"Boiled eggs, ma?" I said.

"Fried, baby" Ma said, not looking up from her floor.  "They're fried this morning."

I took my eggs, made the pretense of a man, the scantest overture of manhood, to sit, shoulders slumped, in the time-old way of caveman sitting, eating, also protecting their food, head down, shoulders hunched over.

"Good morning!" poppa, from the door.  "Beautiful day to spend in a warehouse."

"Hello love!" said mother.

Pa went and collapsed into his chair at the head of the table, back to the refrigerator, facing both the door and the window.  His plate was already sitting there waiting on him: homefries, bacon, eggs, and the toast sat conveniently, stationed on the plate, near the jam.

He broke-off a piece of his pre-buttered toast and looked up at me.  He breathed deeply and then said, "wondering about her.  How is she?  What's she doing?  Is she thinking of you?"

"Yes, papa" I said, and rubbed my knee.  

I hesitated.

"She needs two thousand dollars for tuition for her school" I said.

Mother gasped and Father smiled.

"And you're her knight, right?" said father, a worn smile on his face.  "Wanting to come through for her."

"Yes, papa" I said.  Feeling my nerves draw into a giant ball.

"Don't know how you're gonna do that, son" said father, his face turning serious.  "When you're otherwise busy here collecting flies, rather than earning an income...."

"Yes, papa" I said.

"You could borrow it from Marsha Dell" said momma.

"Where the hell did she get money?" said Poppa, turning angry.  "What did she do for that money?"

"She said some online boyfriend was sending her some money" said Momma.  "Actually, he's going to send her two thousand dollars, she told me".

"Nah" I said, feeling suddenly a loss of unction.  "Couldn't be" I said to myself.

Edith Keeler Must Die!

She tries real hard, and through all the razzing, she really really does.

Doesn't put the pocketknives on the front side of the table, and all, doesn't do that, a "good girl".  

Contraceptive Sponge Worthy.

And I know further, though it rings silly, that if she and I had a thing, I'd be happy, but I hesitate to extend my throat like that.

Sometimes the Windshield: The Garage Add-On, The Golem, and the age old story of the Philistines and the Balantines.

Stood in his yard.

Breeved some.

Cigarette butt, between the ditch and the road, and that, well, was that not society, the somewhere in between, with Imminent Domain and all, and a bought and paid for domain and all.

"Nice garage" I said.  "Bet that cost something."  His house had all kinds of additions and things, ells and so forth, concrete patios, wooden contraptions, steps leading to the roof where there was a makeshift iron patio thing there.

"That's not a garage" he said.  "That's my seventh."

"Dang."  I said.  "Sorry."  I still kinda thought it was a garage, but I noticed a shoe string trailing off, some kind of marked kind of personification of the thing.

It was in fact, a giant Philistine ogre of a child, that one, what appeared at first some indefinite building add-on to the property.

Were we all not somewhere between, the Philistines and the Balantines and the all that, the Midianites and all them, part of our soul back in Sumer still howling at the moon, still lying down in the winter to make snow angels and all, still wishing on flower petals.

In some towns, I'm the feared revenge-seeking Golem of old, muddy visage and all, and yet in other towns, those that were the fearful are the Golem, such that sometimes, the windshield, and of course, conversely, sometimes the bug.

Society was what, a sweating wiener, some coals growing cold, black to red to white to red to gray.

"We've give her hormones when she was younger" he said.  "Her legs were weak."

"And Bitcoin usedta be worth six dollars" I said, but only to myself.

 

Sauce for the Goose on the Bake or Broil.

Erin came up to me and put her finger in my face.  "Smell this and guess what it is" she said.

"Oh God Jesus" I screamed, and turn and ran.

To my amazement, she followed me, and in turn, this went all around the place, outside, inside, backyard, along the frontage, and right up the back stoop.

I could not-would not-let myself take my ease until I was in my room, door slammed and shut against her, and there she sat for hours, whimpering like a disappointed puppy.

I always suspected, even being friendly to her and all, that in the bathroom, she didn't get it all on the paper, and this was the kind of person, you're in a world of hurt if you get in a "guess that smell" game--maybe it was me, maybe it was Middendorf, or that other time last summer, but I wasn't about that, whatever she had gotten her little hands into or onto or around.

Even the girl from Charlotte did one of those hazmat bath cycles, taking off layers of skin every time, before she traded gas money for nude pictures.  I would go to the gas place and come back with three little baggies, each with a different kind of donut, like the Erin variety being Chocolate glazed, and their being a clean one with powders on it, and a sugar coating glazed.  And her talking about the Thanksgiving hen and the maple sh*t with basil and some other, her "sauce for the goose", a kind of thing where it slid greasily in the pan, its little ankles held up in the air past the breadth of its hips, and I look up and Erin, and its all accusatory, interrogatives, and I twiddle a hen ankle and she frowns, and it reminds me of the thought of all the worlds constructed just outside my room door as she whimpers, the disappointed puppy.

 

Six Legs To Toledo, Nee Providence.

Prosecuted by the people of Rhode Island.

For buggery.

The judge heard, for several days, character witnesses for the horse.  And at length, it was becoming clear that the horse was trustworthy and otherwise chaste, and at this juncture, presumed an unwilling participant.

They really had a good one, a Cincinnatus, a kind of Atticus or something, a Crispus, sitting there chewing his tongue and using Ivy League oratory to heap the besmirchment, the coloring, the characterization, and that, imputing so much evil and a whole lifetime of devilment, on a single unthinking, unplanned act.

He had his closing statement, with visual aids, video tapes and things, and finally, my own counselor stood up, and began his closing statement.  Which was simply this.

"The horse didn't complain.  Ask her, if you doubt it."

Cabeza. He celebrates from within the debris field.

Talhard Dallas.

These gold-rind types of things.

He discarded so much of his own ontology, so much of it, vast worlds of biochemical effluvium, lifetimes, encyclopedias, all sort of various data baubles.

He parsed, and it was divided among experience and intuitions, such that there was a kind of matrix of pattern recognition that he used, a sort of peculiar I Ching made of a child's toy dough, and he began to add to a list of things he felt, were, or might be, or could be, or probably should be, real.

He paid me twenty five dollars for a banner ad on the site.

Perhaps, twas a junk data lobotomy, overwriting the old material of a life, or something, not ignoring what was there, but just using the finite space between the ears for....

well...

other stuff.

He was no longer good at trivia, but had that rugged self-assurance, having carefully selected what he inputted into his brain, of his own volition, his own tyrannical choice, such that it gave his confidence a kind of golden belt buckle, that his brain was a Redman anniversary souvenir, or a Bass Pro Shops souvenir.

Not sifting, carefully, but bent over, ass-crack shining, tossing great handfuls of old memories over his shoulders, into nothing-ness, the forgotten space behind.