drug tales

Angel
Mike Baxter

Sitting on a dull green 60's era couch, miraculously unstained, she erratically painted her nails neon orange. She was topless, with her skin tight ripped jeans unbuttoned and unzipped revealing a leopard print thong. Her skin was red with lacerations from constant scratching and fidgeting. Her hair was tied back in a bun, completely removed from her "workspace," which was an antique coffee table with a glass top that had seen better days. As she leaned closer and closer to her fingers resting on the surface of the table, her glasses (which were very chic mind you) slipped all the way down to the tip of her nose. Annoyingly, she nudged them back into place with the back of her wrist, gave the tip of her nose a scratch with an unpainted nail, and then feverishly continued working. Her work was sloppy and ungraceful, with nail polish smeared around her cuticles and splattered on the glass top of the table. Strewn across the table top was a bevy of lighters, empty pen barrels, a near empty pack of cheap cigarettes and a homemade aluminum foil ashtray along with a frightening array of nicknacks and doodads. As to the functionality of these devices, anyone's guess is as good as the next.
A young man named Harley walks into the apartment through the front door. "Angel, babe, you here?" Harley says, wrestling with the keys in his hand and the slightly used stereo under his arm. "Yeah babe, I'm in here." shouts Angel. "Look what I found, some dumbass just left this sitting by their car." Harley said making his way into the living room. Angel noticed how his jaw was moving about seemingly with a mind of it's own. He must be tweaking Angel thinks. She doesn't mind though, she has a habit of her own. Besides, he fucks her like a bull on steroids when he's on that shit. "That's great babe, hey listen," Angel was not at all interested in Harley's find. "I need to borrow the car, Poncho's gonna break me off a half for givin him a ride." "Whatever, as long as all your doin is given him a ride," Harley says glaring at her. "Jesus fuckin Christ, it's not like I'm gonna suck his smelly unwashed cock!" Angel snags the keys and heads straight for the door. "You gonna put a shirt on first?" Harley shouts after her. "Shit!" mutters Angel as she zips into the bedroom. She emerges within seconds and finally makes it to the door. "Love you" Harley says almost sarcastically. "Yeah, yeah you love me, I get it." Angel says while beaming a smile at Harley.
Barreling down the freeway Angel was paying the upmost attention to the road and her speedometer as she was constantly on the lookout for The Man. She was normally relaxed and carefree but with Poncho in the passenger seat drinking a 211 Steel Reserve tall can, her nerves were caught in a vice. If pulled over, one might wonder what a twenty-something-year-old white girl from the suburbs was doing in the car with a half drunk, mid 50’s homeless Mexican convict. The answer was simple really, “oh him? He’s just my heroin dealer, don’t mind him.” This thought constantly raced through her mind as she drove steadily with the flow of traffic trying her hardest to "act natural" and damned if she wasn't pulling it off too. She just prayed that he be done with that tall can before they made the drive back home. “Well, at least he can’t talk and drink at the same time,” she thought.
Poncho broke his incessant rambling only to wave her over to the exit. Angel was in no mood for his small talk bullshit, for she was concentrating way to hard on driving and on top of that, The Sickness was already kicking in. He had to direct her at every turn; she was unfamiliar with the city, even though she grew up just ten minutes drive down the freeway. They finally arrived at a rundown mini market parking lot where Poncho directed her to park. In that same parking lot Poncho’s empty Steel Reserve can found its way out the window.
It’s there they waited, too anxious to talk, too anxious to do anything but stare at the clock on the car dashboard. After the longest seven minutes of Angel and Poncho’s lives, a beat to shit dark grey pick-up pulled into the lot bearing expired tags. She had seen this truck before, as well as the short and plump Mexican man who drove it, this was the man they came to meet. This was the man she drove Poncho to come see every day. This was the man who supplied him with his heroin. Only something was different this time, in the passenger seat was a little boy who couldn’t have been more than ten or twelve. Usually Poncho livens up when Berto pulls up, but this time he was overcome with a quiet sadness. He tried to hide it but it wouldn’t have mattered either way because Angel was not paying the slightest attention to Poncho. He slowly leaned in close to Angel to tell her something. She could tell he was about to speak, but she knew what he was about to say was not like the usual pointless drivel, so she listened. He said, “You see that boy in that truck,” “yeah I do,” replied Angel, speaking softly wondering where this was going, and also why he hasn’t gotten his ass out of the car to go get the shit. “That’s my grandson…only he doesn’t know it.” Poncho hesitated for a moment and continued, “He thinks Berto is his grandfather, a long time ago, while I was in prison, Berto stole my wife and family from me. When I got out, there was nothing or nobody left for me.” Angel didn't know what to say, so she said nothing. Berto got out of the truck, leaving the boy behind. He made his way into the store and Poncho followed him in. While they were in the store Angel started thinking about her father. She hadn't seen him in years, since he kicked her out of the house as a matter of fact. She didn't think too much about her father these days, she just buried the pain under a needle.
Poncho returned to the car and Berto his. "Wait till he leaves to start going." said Poncho. "Aren't you going to talk to him? Your grandson I mean." asked Angel. She almost sounded like she cared. "Nah, it's too late for that, my family is gone now, moved on. I chose drugs over them a long time ago, now I have to live with that. Besides it'd turn the poor little dude's world upside down, ya know?" For the first time Angel felt something for this man. She couldn't help but to relate to Poncho's situation. After her mother died, Angel turned to drugs to deal with the pain of her loss, thus abandoning her father when he needed her most. She still didn't understand why it was so easy for her father to throw her out, why it was necessary to choose one or the other. Why couldn't her father accept his daughter's habit and still have her in his life? But Poncho continued speaking before she could get a word in edge wise, "But hey fuck it, we're in for a treat, we got the real shit, not that black tar garbage. We got some gunpowder. Here's a half for you, be careful with this shit its way stronger then the black." All of Angel's confliction about her own family crisis disappeared the second she wrapped her fingers around that small brown chunk of bathtub manufactured bliss.
Off they went back into town, not mentioning a word about Poncho's grandson, and Angel didn't feel like sharing her own story of similar premise. In fact she wanted to bury those thoughts as deep into her gut as they could go. She dropped Poncho off at the towns central park where he hangs out with all the other local homeless, and promptly returned home. She had beads of sweat dripping out of seemingly every pore in her body and felt like she was burning up. It was a little after three and she hadn't had a shot since last night. She returned home to an empty apartment, Harley's bike was missing, she figured he was out delivering bags of cocaine to help pay the rent. The only thoughts on her mind at this point concerned turning brown powder into brown liquid then sending it off into her bloodstream.
She was already feeling the rush by the time the plunger was only three quarters of the way pushed down. Her pupils immediately pinned and she felt the warm pulsating feeling of escape take her body over as she fell back into the couch. The heroin was good, really good in fact, it put her into a state of nodding, where she is not fully asleep and not fully awake. She began to have visions of her as a young girl at her family home. It was her birthday party and no one was there except for Harley, who appeared the same age he is now. He was rudely demanding paper because he had to write some stupid story for class and that he should have stayed home instead. She became sad in her dream, not because of Harley, but because the one person she wanted there couldn't make it…her father. She began to sob, both in her dream and in real life. She awoke, but found herself paralyzed by tears. Not even in her dreams could she see her father, or even hear his voice. Heroin was no longer an escape from her rotten circumstance, it had become an extension of it.
She found herself fully awake on the couch, with dried up tears on her cheek. Harley was nowhere to be found, that was fine she preferred to be alone right now anyways. She stared at the dope for a good long while, and decided to jump in the shower to clear her head. She liked to just sit under the hot water for at least twenty minutes, and just relax. No one or no thing could get to her in the shower, she felt completely safe. She had never seen the movie "Psycho."
Not to long after she jumped in, Harley came bursting through the door. "Angel, babe, you here?" Harley shouted walking through the entrance. There was no answer but he soon heard the running water coming from the bathroom. He was coming down unusually hard from the speed, and was becoming unbearably depressed. He saw Angel's bag sitting on the coffee table. He had always been curious what it felt like to send the brown substance coursing through his veins. He'd seen Angel do it hundreds of times and thought of the expression of pure relief that came over her whole body when she did it. He decided to fix up, and do the shot in bed, after all he could use a nap.
Angel finally emerged from the shower. She felt rejuvenated, and came to terms once again with the situation between her and her father. She dried off and headed into the bedroom. When she entered she dropped her towel and was standing naked, exposed, staring at a blue Harley curled in bed laying in a puddle of his drool. His lips, fingers and toes had taken on a deep blue hue, his veins were popping out of his skin as if they were screaming for air. She knew immediately what had happened. He was still breathing although his breaths were shallow and few and far between. There was no time for tears as she propped him up and began trying to slap him awake. "Harley, Harley, wake up!" she pleaded at the top of her lungs. This went on for a few minutes but Harley was not responding. Her mind raced trying to remember all the tricks of the trade she had picked up from fellow junkies on how to revive a fallen soldier. She thought of an ice cold shower and tried to drag two hundred pounds of dead weight into the bathroom. Her weak body couldn't budge him, not even with the overwhelming adrenaline pumping through her skull. She franticly slapped him repeatedly in the face screaming out his name hoping for some sign of consciousness, but to no avail. She remembered a story, she thought too over the top to be true but she was desperate, Harley was on his way out. She raced into the kitchen yanking open the freezer spilling the ice tray, sending cubes darting across the unwashed tile. Her body tensed in frustration as she screamed aloud, “FUCK!” She felt something cold against her little tiny toes and picked it up. She cupped the cube in her hand to shrink its size, and made it more aerodynamic. She pulled off Harley's loose fit jeans and baggy boxers. There was no time for shame and awkwardness as she worked the ice cube into Harley's rectum. She pulled his pants back up as if she were covering up a crime scene. The shock of the cube and another mighty slap brought a flicker of life to his eyes and hope to her heart. Harley was slowly coming around as Angel repeatedly slapped him across the face screaming, "Stay with me, stay with me!"
"Why are you yelling at me." Harley could barely speak, and his words came across weak, and whiney. "Come on baby, you need to stand up, your going to throw up." Harley could barely walk, his body was feeble and he had to lean on Angel as he stumbled into the bathroom. He couldn't even make it down to the toilet before he started violently puking in the sink. "I'm so sorry, babe, I'm so sorry." Harley said with tears in his eyes and puke on his lips. "What are you sorry for baby? It's ok, your going to be fine, ok?" Angel said in a quiet soft voice with a gentle tear of relief sliding down her face.
Angel and Harley made their way back to bed. She made him lay on his side on top of towels and next to a trash can in case he had to puke again. She was sitting beside him, not letting him go to sleep. Then she started scurrying about the apartment, cleaning up the mess trying to keep her mind occupied all the while shouting at Harley demanding a response to keep him awake. After a few hours she laid down in bed next to Harley, she told him it was ok to pass out and he was asleep in seconds. Angel lay in bed, the gravity of the events that had just unfolded began to hit her. She thought of her father, what if that had been her lying there all blue with her eyes rolled into the back of her head. For the first time she saw things from her father’s perspective. A man, after losing his wife to cancer, could not bear to watch his daughter kill herself. She drifted to sleep, making a promise to herself that she would never be the one laying in bed turning blue.
"Where are you going." asked Harley as a fully dressed Angel was slipping out the bedroom door. Angel, with a nervous smile, looked him straight in the eyes with for what felt like an eternity and replied, "Home." Harley looked at her with a puzzled face and did not say a word as he watched her leave.
A taxi is waiting for her in the apartment complex parking lot and she tells the driver her home address. The driver immediately picks up on Angels need for silence and quietly heads toward their destination. Angel stares out the window as the cab rolls through her old neighborhood, she had not been to this part of town since the last time she saw her father. All the houses were the same, nothing was new except a few paintjobs and newer SUVs. The cab pulled up in front of her house. It was the second nicest house on the block, one of only two two-story homes. The house was exactly how she remembered it, nothing had changed, it was still the same dull grey color with a light blue-green trim. Angel sits in the backseat of the cab, for a moment ignoring the drivers request for the fare. She stares out at her lonely house, strong but empty, just like her father. "Ma'm, please." She finally pays the driver and leaves him a handsome tip. She lights up a cigarette as her knees begin to shake and her gut tightens as she makes her way up the concrete walkway to the front door. She takes a deep breath and slowly exhales a cloud of smoke as she rings the door bell. A tall man in his early sixties, who looks damned good for his age answers the door. The pair lock eyes and are equally surprised at who's souls they are staring into. Angel is staring at her father, begging with her eyes for him to say something, anything, she just needs to hear his voice. She just needs to hear his voice and it will all be ok.
"You look like hell…" the man says with a discerning smile spreading across his once solemn face.
"I'm ready to come home."

I can read this 40 times over

SONG FOR THE GOAT
by

my dearest

L. RAWSON

Ever since Tommy went up to Tulsa to work at that tire shop, Ma has been poppin’ them pills. I never took her for the type. Onliest person I knowed to take them things was Mr. Graves, ‘course he had ‘em prescribed by a doctor in Little Rock on account of his bad back. But Ma see, she don’t have no kind of prescription but she’s been poppin’ them pills and still on the drink for near two months now. She don’t move off that couch. Just last week when Michelle got sick I said to her, "Ma, Michelle ought to be taken to the store for some tussin." But she just layed there on that couch not movin’ a muscle, lookin’ like the good Lord done come down and put a glaze over her eyes so’n she can’t see past the damn television set. So when Michelle wouldn’t stop coughin’ and wheezin’, I took it upon myself to bring her over to Ted’s Pharmacy in the Ford. You oughta seen me in the thing. I could barely see over the dashboard on account of the truck bein’ a 450 Diesel and me bein’ only thirteen. But I got us there none the less. Walked right in and asked Mr. Ted if’n I could have some tussin on loan.
I said, "Mr. Ted, Michelle done caught sick and she need some tussin. But on account of us bein’ poor right now, I can’t offer up any sort of money. But sir, if’n you could find it in your heart…"
As his eyes sunk like a pair of marbles, he cut me off sayin’, "Sandy, take the Tussin. Ain’t no charge for the Rodgers when someone catch sick, you oughta know that honey."
I thanked him and walked back out to the truck to find who but Jim Eggers and little Eddy Warren playin’ in the dirt right there in the bed of the pickup.
"You know there’s cow shit in that dirt, right?" I said.
Right then and there they both stopped dead, looked at each other, laughed, then started heavin’ the dirt at me instead. I tell you them boys were never no good.
Toward the end of that summer me and Michelle sort of got used to Ma and them pills. We never knowed where she got ‘em from, only that she had an ample supply and that they made her useless to us kids. It was sorta hard havin’ both of my older brothers gone, Tommy up in Tulsa and Doug God-knows-where on the road. When school started up I took it upon myself to get Michelle up before the sun, fix her a little sandwich for lunch, and walk her over to the schoolyard. After that, I’d go back inside, try and pick up our rooms and the rest of the house a little, fix myself something for lunch, then walk on to school. I was goin’ into seventh grade that year and I had big plans on makin’ new friends and gettin’ smart. Before Dad moved out he used to tell me, "Now Sandy, take any opportunity you got to get you schoolin’. Get smart. Don’t be like me and your Ma."
Marble Middle School was pretty much in the dead center of town. Right south of it was the tracks that separated the colors of town, one side bein’ white Marble and the other side bein’ black Marble. The school was on the white side and I had to cross the tracks from the South to get to there each morning. I remember that first day of seventh grade like it was yesterday. I was on my way to the school, just crossed the tracks and was heading up Division Street when I seen all the kids gathered outside of the school, waitin’ for it to open up I suppose. I thought nothing of the direction I was comin’ from, but as I made it up to where the other kids was standin’, everyone got silent and stared at me like I was a sick dog. Jim Eggers was there and he said, "Everyone, y’all know Sandy, right? She from Niggertown. Live right South of them tracks." Right then everybody started laughing. I got red as a summer tomato but tried to hide my shame. I said, "Couldn’t help but been born there. Rodgers been on the same land since my great Granddaddy." I thought I saved myself but Eggers had to chime in, "And they still don’t got electricity!"
The year was destined for certain grief. Although I made sure to never arrive again as early as I did that first day, the other kids always seemed to ignore me. It was real hard to make friends with everyone thinkin’ that your family ain’t worth nothing. See, even though it was 1976, Marble was stuck in a time of the past. There was barely six hundred people in the community then, most bein’ white. Niggertown, the place South of the tracks where I was from, had only about twenty families living there. All were black but mine, and as I later learned, Jim Crow was still the law of the land.
Because of the situation with Ma, and because my Daddy was gone and wasn’t never comin’ back, I grew up kind of fast. I learned to take care of Michelle pretty easy. She was quiet enough most of the time and we was close enough in age to talk as friends, bein’ only three years apart. Seventh and eighth grade passed quickly, and before I knew it I was in high school. And that’s when and where everything changed. By the time I got to the ninth grade, Ma had years on the pills and booze. She had learned to function in her own way, on account of her bein’ on them all the time. It became normal for her. She still didn’t have a job, so it was up to me to support the three of us. I was fifteen and held a full time job and still went to school as often as I could. I remember them days. I remember that school and that office. Back then Time was nonexistent. I created it each morning, pushed it forward each afternoon, and turned it off each night. I had complete control, and even though life was harder’n hell, I knew I was destined for good things.
I always woke up ten minutes before my alarm was to go off. I don’t know why, but I guess my body just knew it was time to start the day. I met Scott Prine on a Tuesday. I remember because Tuesdays Ma was supposed to get her disability check, but that Tuesday it never came and was never gonna come again. But before I found out about all that, I got up and went about my day as usual. I got Michelle ready for school, walked her out and waited for the bus, then came back inside and got ready for school myself. It was Spring then, I can remember it clear as day. The mornin’ was already givin’ off lots of humidity and I knew it was gonna be a hot one. I picked out a light yellow dress that grandma Annie gave me when I was a little girl. It never fit me until that Spring Tuesday when I was sixteen and was really starting to look like a woman ought to.
I never had no boyfriends up until that point. Never took any interest in boys really, I guess on account of being so busy all the time with takin’ care of Michelle and Ma and all. But when I saw Scott Prine, I thought he was the handsomest boy in the world. When he saw me looking at him, he came right up to me, walkin’ like he didn’t have no care in the world.
"Hello, miss. My name is Scott Prine. I come from Memphis. Who might you be?"
He had a funny accent, too. A city boy. Before I could answer him I took the time to size him up. Looked like he just walked off a movie set or somethin’, wearin’ new blue jeans and with his hair slicked back all tight-like.
"Well if I can’t know your name can I walk you to class?"
Imagine, a boy sixteen years old, new to town, asking me my name and if he could walk me to class.
"I suppose you could." I finally said. Then and there he took my hand and if the good Lord didn’t put somethin’ in this boy that made him think he was a man I don’t know who did.
"I’m new to town, see. From Memphis, like I say before. My Daddy done bought twelve acres south of them tracks, right past the school there. Yep, moved me and him out here and decided he wanted a farm. Said Memphis was a bad city for a boy like me. Said we oughta humble ourselves a little bit. Would you believe that? Who ever thought of humblin’ yourself? Say, what is your name anyway? Figure if I’m holdin’ your hand I got some right to know."
"Sandy Rodgers." I blinked, blushed, and blinked again.
"Well if your name don’t match the color of your dress. I say Sandy, you sure are pretty. I’d like to get to know you."
"Well right now I should get to class, then I have a four-hour shift, and then I have to go home. But if you got nothin’ better to do after supper time, why don’t you come down to my house. I live in the small blue ranch ‘bout a mile and a half south of them tracks you was talkin’ about before. There’s a red Ford in the drive. Can’t miss it."
His eyes lit up like the light of day and he said, "Well then, maybe I will!"
I could not for the life of me concentrate at work that afternoon. Old Bill kept sayin’ there must be somethin’ on my mind if I couldn’t so much as file a paper in the right order. He let me go an hour early sayin’ something like, "You young girls get stranger by the day."
When I got home Michelle was sittin’ on the porch with her head between her knees. I saw little clear tears on her cheeks when I came up to her and I asked what was wrong. She said that Ma was dead.
Inside I saw the old woman in her usual spot on the couch lookin’ lifeless as ever. I walked up to her and tried to rouse her but she didn’t budge none. She wasn’t dead, just passed out and about as useless as ever.
"Why’d you said she was dead?" I asked Michelle.
"I thought she was, she ain’t moved since I got home from school."
"Did you cash the check like you is supposed to every Tuesday?" I asked.
Michelle was silent.
"Well, you couldn’t remember to cash the damn check? I go to school, go to work, come home, and you couldn’t do the one thing that you is supposed to do every Tuesday? If you ain’t dumber than dumb, girl. You know we need that money."
I walked down the drive to the post box but there wasn’t nothin’ in it.
"Well if the check ain’t in the post box, and you didn’t cash it, then just where the hell is it Michelle?"
Michelle started tearin’ up again, gettin’ shaky all over.
"It didn’t never come." she said.
"It never came." I corrected her and walked inside.
I didn’t make any supper that night on account of Ma being passed out worse’n ever and Michelle holed up in her room. I searched the house for the check but it must’ve really never come because it wasn’t nowhere to be found. And at about half past seven, who did I see walking down the road toward the house but that boy Scott Prine. It was his walk and the way he carried himself that defined him so. Not one hair on his head moved a lick since I saw him at school, his blue jeans were still clean and shiny, and he was smoking a cigarette as he strolled down the road the way that he did, kicking back dirt with his leather heels. I couldn’t believe my eyes or my heart when they both fluterred at the same time.
"This here house reminds me of my Mammy’s in Memphis, all dilapidated-like." He said.
"Well if that ain’t a way of sayin’ good evening."
"No ma’am, I don’t mean it in no bad way, just is what it is, you know?"
"What I know is that you must be the bravest boy this side of the tracks comin’ over here talkin’ like that and expectin’ me to invite you in."
His eyes, Lord. I had not noticed them in school because I was doin’ my best to not look at him on account of everything happening so fast, him approaching me and all. But his eyes. They were bluer than sapphire, yes sir.
"Whyn’t you come down here and say hello, Sandy?" he says.
As I walk down the front porch steps the evening dew sets in. All at once, see. My Sandy-yellow dress becomes paper, then becomes air, then is nothing. With the setting sun on his side he sees me for all a woman’s-worth, all exposed and vulnerable. The black pin-points of his eyes swell in the sapphire like ink in water and he is moved. He don’t stand there so sharp like he was a minute ago. Now he recedes and throws his cigarette butt to the dirt, taking out a comb to check his hair.
"If I oughta truthful, I oughta be crazy." I say. "I didn’t think you’d show."
"My faith brought me down here. Not no faith in the Lord or in the Devil, but my faith in you, Sandy."
If’n this here boy didn’t know exactly the right things to say at the right time, I don’t know who does. Right off the movie set, like I said before.
"Well, should we go inside so I can meet Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers." He asked.
"Now, why would we do a thing like that? You wait here, mister, and I’m gonna go inside and get a dollar. We’ll go down to the Taste-E-Freeze and get us something to cool you off."
When I turn I stop Time. He will stand there motionless until I come back, cheerful and skippy, ready to walk to town in the Spring night’s air. Until my return he is only could-be, and as he waits he is only want-to, and if I don’t return we will be nothing. But I go inside to get that dollar and to tell Michelle to look after Ma until I get back. I wanted to try for us to be some-thing.

A friend of mine wrote...

http://sfsurvivalguide.wordpress.com/

Know Your Homeless
Posted by jeremy tyler garcia on 07/25/2011
I wrote this a long time ago for a different blog. It was really the foundation for SFSG. It’s pretty long so hang in there. I’ll try to make the other ones very short in comparison.
First impressions are everything. In all aspects of life. Dating, career, meeting new people, etc. If you don’t have the beginning down, you’re gonna fail. Below are a list of people who have that down! They are model examples of the biggest occupation: Beggar. Obviously there are other styles, but these are the heavy hitters. I went ahead and made a game out of it. See if you can find all of these in one day, and then attempt the bonus points! It’s a homeless scavenger hunt!
Title: “The Crier”How to spot them: This is a primarily female realm. They’re easy to spot from a distance because they’re usually wailing and screaming. Once spotted, you can see them flailing their arms. Once you’re REALLY close, you see the waterworks.What to do: Proceed with caution. There are two types of criers: 1) The ones who LOOK like they’re yelling for help, but they’re actually so spun that they have no idea you’re even there. And 2) The ones who are ACTUALLY yelling at you. I have found the most effective solution is to give them a cold look and then send a text or make a phone call. They’ll curse at you and probably scream harder, but the fact is, they’re already on the radar of any police officers present, so if they pursue violence, it’ll be stopped very shortly.Where to find them: The Tenderloin mostly. Occasionally there’s some in Union Square.BONUS POINTS! Start crying to one. See if you can get them to stop crying out of confusion.
Title: “The Entertainer”How to spot them: The Entertainer is not a shy brand. They like a lot of attention, and the more people around them, the better. Odds are, they are jumping out of bushes, playing music, dancing, or painted silver and doing an incredibly long robot session. Don’t assume that all of them are just in it for the money. After some research, I have found that the performers, especially at Powell, actually just do it because there’s always people who wanna dance there. However, if you look like a tourist, you’re gonna fork over some cash.What to do: If you ARE interest in what they’re doing, watch from a distance, and change your vantage point every so often. The Entertainers usually have some of their crew looking around the area for spectators, and then they’ll approach you and intimidate you until you either leave or move in closer, where you’ll be trapped with the German tourist families. If you aren’t interested, keep walking. The plus side of these kinds of beggars is they’re posted up in a specific spot because they usually have gear with them. They won’t bug you if you’re passing through.Where to find them: Union Square, Powell Turn Around, Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39Bonus Points: Build a robot (or robot shaped mannequin…whichever is easier) and challenge the Silver Men to stand more still than it.
Title: “The Helping Hand”How to Spot Them: Look curbside. They’re usually waving down cars into empty parking spots. Another sure-fire way to find them is pull out a map in touristy areas and look confused. Truth be told, they are very helpful. But the catch is they expect compensation for being a good Samaritan.What to do: Know the city. If you don’t, pull the map out inside of shops, then figure out your route. Have a member of your party get out and hold parking spots if you need to pull around the block. Or have the person you’re meeting do it.Where to find them: Union Square, Powell, Fisherman’s Wharf, Any area with minimal parking.BONUS POINTS! Find them a parking space, or tell them how to get to Pier 39.
Title: “The Jokester”How to Spot Them: Look for cardboard signs. More often than not, there is some sort of joke or witty line. They’re hoping their originality will score points with you. Unfortunately, I always thought that if you really WERE that broke and hungry, you would give up on wit. These are not to be confused with Street Kids. I’ll explain why later.What to do: Act unimpressed by their signage. If you ARE amused, hold it in until they can’t see your reaction. If you do, they might take your appreciation as “Sure, I’ll give you a dollar.”Where to find them: Basically anywhere.BONUS POINTS! Create a response sign pointing out any grammatical errors they might have and just stand in front of them holding it. For example, if their sign says “Smile if your having a good day,” hold one that says “YOU’RE not getting my change.”
Title: “The Street Kid”How to Spot Them: Sitting on a curb with a few friends, drinking beer, smoking weed, and holding a dog on a leash. They have backpacks filled to the brim, and are usually wearing clothing of the punk or metal persuasion. The truth behind them is, they’re all from Marin county and come down here to appear like part of the Haight scene. Think of them as cheap copies of the original hippies, except improper attire and living off their parent’s credit cards. They usually steal a page out of The Jokesters’ book, but the difference is, the Jokester is amused by themselves and don’t point out their jokes…the street kids draw attention to their “creativity” and want you to make note of it. Usually this “creativity” is a sign that reads “Beer and Pot money.”What to do: Ignore them. Glare at them. Make fun of Black Flag as you pass. When they ask for a cigarette, pull one out and walk away as you light it. They never react. Daddy will take away the car if they get busted for assault.Where to find them: Upper Haight, Hippy Hill, and sometimes the MissionBONUS POINTS! Start a fight with one.
Title: “The Game Master”How to Spot Them: Often confused for Entertainers. This rare breed have a full-on shtick that they stick to. Yours truly has actually fallen victim to them and lost 40 bucks out of it. They’re often on buses. They approach you with a game (in my case it was the ball and 3 cups game). You play a round or a few with no bet…then they bet a dollar or so for a couple rounds until you’re a few bucks ahead. Then they play for “nothing.” When you win, they cut you a “deal” where you place a bet and get it back “because you already won!” Any smart person knows that’s the hook (don’t get me wrong…I tried to back away here). That’s where the muscle comes in. Their “boys” come in and tell you to place a bet. Honestly…I was never more scared of being jumped in this city. So you place the bet. BUT GUESS WHAT. In the time you took to finally cave, they switched the cup, card, dice, whatever…and you lost. And they walk away. Right before I was hustled, I saw a girl lose 100 bucks in 2 minutes. They make their living off tourists mostly.What to do: Don’t even acknowledge them. They don’t approach you unless you have an interest in the game. If they DO approach you, head to the front of the bus, and/or get off at the next stop. They won’t follow you…there’s more people to hustle.Where to find them: Union, Powell, Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, on buses. They might stick to the 71. That’s where it happened to me, and then later I read a blog about how someone saw this happen on the 71. It might have been me. It was around the time the blog was published and they said he lost 40 bucks.BONUS POINTS! Pull out a deck of Uno Cards and challenge him to a round “for no bet.”
Title: “The DMX”How to Spot Them: They see you before you see them. These are the ones to avoid. Fully motivated by money or drugs, and have nothing else in their arsenal besides fear. Sometimes people are mistaken as DMX’es. Odds are, especially in this city, the people who SEEM like them are only doing it so THEY don’t get hassled….or it’s so they can get laid. Who knows?What to do: Get in a crowded area. No one mugs someone when there’s odds of a hero jumping forward. If there is no crowd, throw the fear back. Think of them as a bear. Throw your arms up, make loud noises, run down a hill. Act fucking nuts. If you seem more cracked out than him, he probably won’t mess with you.Where to find them: Bayview/Hunter’s Point, Excelsior, occasionally the Tenderloin, and very rarely The Mission.
Title: “The Used Car Salesman”How to Spot Them: These are probably most common, especially in the downtown areas. Homeless aren’t stupid (eh…). They know how many of them are around. So how do they stay above the other homeless? Pretend to not be homeless. Easiest way to spot them is to see one approaching, and then they open with “Do you have a minute?” It doesn’t matter if you have a minute…you’re getting a pitch. Their story often includes, where they just got off the plane from, how they need a couple dollars for Bart, a hostel, rent, etc. And then they follow by assuring you they’re legitimate because they’re a veteran/college grad/school teacher/etc. They have a script and they stick to it. There’s no stopping them until they know you’re giving them money, or wasting their time. Sometimes they’re literally SELLING you something. Those are easier to avoid. Solution: walk away.What to do: Interrupt them. Stop them early. They get really upset if they waste their breath on an empty sale.Where to find them: Tenderloin, Civic Center, Powell, and pretty much anywhere else has some of them. The ones who are selling things are usually in Civic Center, or 16th and Mission BartBONUS POINTS! Ask very specific questions about their story. Call shenanigans.
Title: “The Good ol’ Bum”How to spot them: Go downtown and open your eyes. You’ll see a few. They’ve tried the tricks. They know it doesn’t work. So know they sit with their cup and simply ask for change on occasion.What to do: Up to you. To give change, or not to give change? That is the question.Where to find them: San Francisco has the highest per capita homelessness rate of any major city in the United States (according to the Coalition on Homelessness, SF)……you’ll find them.BONUS POINTS! Give them your leftovers. At least they didn’t try and hustle you.

Did you join in for the bonus points? Let me know in the comments if you did, or let me know on twitter.
Until next time,Jeremy

contributions good

��A GOOD THING
CONTACT _Con-3D1B1ACC1 \c \s \l Robert Cody


Hank looks up at the top floor of the Stratmore hotel in front of him. Hank picks up a half of a cigaret he sees a kid stomp out on the sidewalk. The kid offers Hank a fresh cigaret.
"Waste not, want not" says Hank, as he lights the stomped-on half of a cigaret.
"Just take a full one," says the kid, holding an open pack of Marlboros. "I got enough to go around."
Hank shifts his focus from the cigaret between his fingers to the kid standing in front of him. The kid wears clean, pressed khakis, a sweater made to feel as soft as pussy (the kind to which Hank was never given the chance to grow accustomed), and some gold chain. The kid’s eyes are lucid at ten at night. The kid has a kind, understanding smile.
Hank reaches out and takes some of the sweater in between his index finger and thumb. The kid steps back blindly into a parked car.
"Merino wool or some shit," Hank says under his breath.
He throws the half-cigaret on the ground and draws in close. The kid can’t step back any further.
"I ought to cut you," says a dead-eyed Hank, half-joking as he takes the offered cigaret. Hank turns and walks to the nearest bar, a fresh cigaret between his teeth.
*
Hank sits at a table on the floor of the Gold Dust Lounge, drinking rum Coca-Colas, and watching the house band play "(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction" before transitioning into Van Morrison’s "Gloria". A gaggle of middle-aged women dance, blocking the pathway to the men’s restroom. They call out to men (who are full of piss and shit) as they pass, in a fashion reserved for younger women with a kinder relationship to gravity.
Hank gets up from his chair and dances for a moment with the gaggle of women before relieving himself in the urinal. Hank chuckles. He would have fucked any one of them.
*
Hank crosses Powell Street with a big, dumb smile on his face. Five rum Coca-Cola’s later, he is forty dollars above water and as he should be. Hank is Hank and Hank is drunk.
He enters the Stratmore and asks how much for a room. The woman behind the desk keeps her eyes down, locked on the magazine she’s reading. The woman points to a sign above her head.
23$ A NIGHT.
Hank puts a twenty and a five on the desk. He leans slightly to the right and reads the title of the magazine the woman is reading - - Movie Mirror, an ancient film magazine with Mae West on the cover.
"Too much of a good thing can be simply wonderful," says Hank.
"Is that right?" The woman trails a sentence on the magazine page with her index finger and taps the page twice at the end of her sentence. She closes the magazine, looks up and smiles at Hank.
"Mae West said that," says Hank.
"I believe she did," says the woman. She cracks her knuckles above her head, extending her arms and pushing out her bust. She slides the bills off the counter into her pocket and hands Hank two dollars change.
"What the hell are you doing reading a magazine twice your age?" Hank asks.
"We have piles of them in the basement, collecting dust. Might be worth something if I could get the owner to let me sell any of them."
Hank follows the woman into the elevator and then to his room on the fourth floor. Hank stares at her plum of an ass, an ass not unlike his ex-wife’s, as they walk the hallway to his room. He has an erection. Hank is Hank and Hank is a man.
He walks into his hotel room and closes the door. He lies down on the made bed without taking off his jacket and thinks about the woman behind the desk, thinks about how great it would be if she were to sit on his face. He handles the remote and turns on the television. He stands up, falters, and falls to a knee. He lifts himself up and carries his dead weight into the bathroom. He tries out the faucet and flushes the toilet. He takes out his cock and gives it a couple of tugs, but his erection had been lost with the fall to his knee. He turns off the television and leaves the room.
Hank walks the hallway towards the stairwell and sees his reflection in the window at the end of the hall. He takes a hold of his gut and sucks it in and out. He thinks of Elvis, shooting out televisions, and does a roundhouse kick for his own amusement. The woman comes up the staircase. Hank, in a threatening forward-leaning stance, blushes. The woman takes a step back and giggles.
"What the hell you doin’?" says the woman.
"Practicin’ my kar-a-té. A man’s got to stay fit." Hank makes a flurry of his hands and legs. He kicks once to the right of the woman’s thin frame and then once to the left of her. "I see I could take you down easy. Well, if I were in a pinch."
The woman laughs, "Don’t be so sure."
Hank corrects his stance, extends his hand.
"Name’s Elvis, but my friends call me Hank."
"It’s a pleasure, Hank. Lorene is the name my mother gave me, but Lord knows I might’ve fared better with a name like Elvis."
"Wouldn’t we all’ve."
The woman’s hand fits perfectly into Hank’s. He feels the blood rush to his cock and knows no fall to the knee could possibly shake this erection.

Fall 08'

In the fall of 2008 my then teacher Loren Bell gave his creative writing class an assignment to pick up two magazine clippings and write a short story. I picked up a picture of two kittens in a basket and another of a mountain. Still untitled, mainly have been saving it under "Baby Girl"

It was colder than when I usually awake up before, when daddy pick me up with both arms from mah bed an’ curried me out of mah room to the outside. I rub my eyes with mah fists an’ aks’im “Daddy where we going?” an’he said “Hush babe.” He grabbed my slippers wit me still in his arms an’ set me right in fron’a the door an’ I aks agin’ “Daddy where we going?” The sky was still purple an’ the sun ain’t over the mountains yit, but he made me put’em, on anyhow. “Daddy why do we gotta git to work so early daddy?” An he din’t answer, just grabbed hold’a my hand and we started walkin’ down the path away from home. He looked straight on toward the ocean an’ din’t say a thing, looked like he was gunna yell o’ getting ready to say a prayer and we kept on walkin’. I yawned and kept rubbin’ my eye with my left hand. (I think the semicolon takes away from the authentic tone the story is written in)I looked back over my shoulder at our house and the master’s house and the whole ranch as we finally hit the road (highway refers to something too modern for this story), crossed it, and wonderin’ why daddy ain’t waked them up so early in the mornin’. I looked up at his tall face an’ his bottom lip stuck out more den usual so I laughed a lil’ bit an’ he finally looked down at me wit big eyes an’ a stare I ain’t even seen on’im before, made me stop gigglin’. Well we make it across the road and past the dunes on the path that led to the beach an’ the sky was a lighter purple den before and the moon was a little ways closer to the horizon an’ daddy ain’t said nothin’ yet. We walked along the sand an’ my Daddy started hummin’, hummin a song he hums when he’s about to start workin’ or about to run the carriage into town or after he prays and gits in bed with Mama. Then he mumbled a bunch of words, and I could only make out ever couple ones with waves in my head. We walked the seashore till finally the moon was into the ocean an’ the mountains started to turn from black to brown, and things around us started gettin’ orange. We curved around a cliff up a flight of stairs that the master had Daddy build into the dunes, up and back to the road. We walked along the roadside when all a’sidden Daddy stopped and crouched down an’ he finally smiled, started puttin’ my strayed hairs behind my ears with one’a his big ol’ hands an’ his eyes turned red an’ he told me “You stay here, little girl, I’m walkin’ down this here road alone.” I tugged at my white nightie wit my hands and said “What you mean, Daddy?” an’ he replied, “You see there’s a heaven awaiting me, my child, to play into the nights and days, so don’t you weep girl, don’t you cry.” He got back up on his legs and started walkin’ away an’ I begin to worry but I stood there like he told me an’ I wailed out “but Daddy, kitten needs a feedin…an’, an’ so do the pigs an’ black dog, an’ brother Lucas an’ the baby too-“ an’ he says to me, “I know it’s up there baby, an’ when you grow up, real strong, when you grow tall we’ll meet again, baby, an’ I’ll see you.” An’ he turned away. I watched him until he got smaller. I watched the pink of his hands until they stopped swaying, I watched the stitches on his jeans( perhaps call his pants ‘trousers’ or another similar word to fit into the time period) fade and the holes in his back pockets disappear until he was only a black shadow in the distance, on the road. Mah knees began to shake, an’ I worked hard to keep my stomach from comin’ out and I squeezed my eyes real tight to keep the tears from fallin’, an’ the fields around me an’ the sand on the beach and the hay in the roads an’ the mountains were yellow now an’ it was morning an’ I know the master’d be up an’ orderin by the time the sun got over the mountains an’ behind the home, so I took my self back the other way up the road through the field on the dirt path, past all the crickets an’ birds an’ flowers growin’, past the chicken coop and the pigs pens an’ the tractor, an’ the cows that needed milkin’ an’ the chickens feedin’ an’ the weeds a’pullin, an’ the master’d be up by the time that mean ol’ sun hit just over the mountains an’ behind the home. An’ brother, kitten, baby, an’ the dog too. I walked past the pillars, into the quarters where Mama lay dreamin’ still so I shook her with mah two hands so she let outta noise like a puppy an’ rolled away from me and I shook her harder from behind an’ I say, “Wake up! Wake up, Mama, don’t you sleep so hard!” an’ she yawns an’ rolls over an’ opens her eyes right to left an’ says “Heaven almighty, child! It ain’t time yet!” and yawns agin an’ I says “Old man is gone, Mama” an’ she waked and sat up with big eyes at me, real open, an’ says “What you mean baby, what are you talking?””Old Man told me the blues is like the ocean an’ to think of it when I’m alone, then he kissed my head said he’d see me in heaven an’ then he walked the road.” My throat started hurtin’ an’ my mama grabbed me to her bosom and begins to cry out real loud an’ I can’t hardly breathe until my eyes are leaking into her night dress and she yells, “Oh baby, my babies! I knew this day would come!”

This is a part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra...

ON THE TARANTULAS

Behold, this is the hold of the tarantula. Do you want to see the tarantula itself? Here it hangs; touch it, that it tremble! There it comes willingly: welcome tarantula! your triangle and symbol sits black on your back; and I also know what sits in your soul. Revenge sits in your soul wherever you bite, black scabs grows; your poison makes the soul whirl with revenge.

Thus I speak to you in a parable- you who make souls whirl, you preachers of equality. to me you are tarantulas, and secretly vengeful. But I shall bring your secrets to light; therefore I laugh in your faces with my laughter of the heights. Therefore I tear at your webs, that your rage may lure you out of your lie-holes and your revenge may leap out from behind your word justice. for that man be delivered from revenge, that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms.

The tarantulas, of course, would have it other wise.

Accidental Short Stories

Write letters. They are personal, so exciting, and a great way to get some pent up energy out. If you're like me and have many hours in the night to kill try writing somebody... I dont know anyone who wouldn't appreciate a well thought out (or not!) letter, especially now a days when communication is less sacred to a lot of people and easily obtainable.. i wonder how much is hidden behind a screen..

My friend wrote me from across this grand ol fuckin land this past February and the letter included a story...


Nameless... By L. Rawson

Even though we are not allowed music I have found ways to hear it by singing aloud or writing down my favorite songs so they play in my head as they are appearing on the page. I met this guy, we call him Cook. He is about five foot seven, wiry but strong, and he is half Cherokee Indian and half Black. We call him "Cook" because he sings Sam Cooke songs all day long and they are right on key!
He has taught me a lot in only a few days. His father, The Cherokee, was aptly named "Crazy Horse". That was his legal name. He was born on a reservation in Oklahoma to alcoholic parents. Growing up he had no schooling whatsoever. He spent his time roaming the reservation looking for good places to fish and getting into small trouble with local boys. When he was twelve he whitnessed his father's murder at the hands of his mother. He did not understand at that young age but later learned that she killed his father because he was a vicious drunk and it was "only a matter of time before he would have killed her".
Crazy Horse grew tired and frankly bored of the reservation and its chaotic, drunk society and decided to leave when he was only fifteen. He felt great remorse because he would be leaving his three young sisters behind but reasoned that he would go insane if he did not discover the rest of this great country that once belonged entirely to his people. It took him a long time to finally end up in Philadelphis, for he had no car and little money. IHe would hitch-hike his way to different cities - to St. Louis to chicago, to Cleveland, and all the small earthly towns in between. Whereever he could find work he would settle for awhile and save his money until he wanted to move on. 

One cool night, while in a a seedy Southside Chiacago motel room, Crazy horse grew tired and frustrated. He was nervous and confused like he had never been before in his life. Though he was still young, only nineteen, he recalled back on his four years of travel and could not recalled when he was uneasy or unsure. He knew he had to leave oklahoma at fifteen, it was very cut and dry. And in ever town or city up until that cool in night Chicago, Crazy Horse felt that he had reason and purpose to be where he was. but that night in his motel Crazy Horse could not pull his racing mind and so he ventured downstairs to a local bar. He had seen first hand the destruction of alcoholism on his reservation and he knew firsthand the sorrow and loss cause by it yet he simply never connected the two ideas in his head; the action of drinking and the reactions of death and destruction. He simply thought, perhaps, that these who did bad were that way by their nature - and the alcohol was neither here nor there. Forgetting his upbringing and his family heritage's history, he stepped into the corner bad, fascinated by its lights and the noises of jubilation emanating from the doors. He sat down inside and drank beer until he was warm. After that he drank ever day for the next fifty years. He eventually made it to Philadelphia and married a beautiful black girl named Sherry. He settled down and worked hard. He raised Cook and six other children in South Philly. one day when cook was only fifteen his father took him and his older brother, Marcus, back to Oklahoma, Crazy Horse told Sherry that he was old and tired, and by the time the alcohol had taken a horrendous toll on his body and mind. He wanted to take his two eldest boys back to the reservation so they could claim their "head rights" before Crazy Hose died. Cook did most of the driving from philadelphia to "The Land of Green Rivers", Oklahoma, while Marcus slept in the back. After almost five days, they graced upon the reservation. Crazy Horse was asleep in the back seat at the time, but he awoke immediately as they arrived on his land. He directed Cook to where he grew up but they came to find that it was no longer there. The reservation had changed drastically in the time that Crazy horse had been gone. All the marvels of Technology and Progressive Society were in place everywhere - casinos, new cars, clubs, nice restaurants - everything. After stopping at a local bar that Crazy Horse recognized as owned by one of "his own" Cook and MArcus learned that everyone was just like their father - old, disgruntled, and drunken Indians wrung dry by working the tired earth and by years of drinking alcohol everyday. After hours of drinking and associating with old indians, Crazy Horse directed the boys back to the car and out on a long drive into the lower Ozark Mountains. This time Crazy Horse drove. Cook and Marcus passed out on the,  but on they both reasoned that they must have been driving for hours, for the place they found themselves in was different from anything they had seen anywhere - let alone in Oklahoma so far. In front of them was a steep mountain, but it was covered in rolling grass and had a river running down and through it. Outside of the car the boys stood at the river's edge with Crazy Horse beside them. He told them that this was his land, and the land of their people, he told them to care of his children, their brothers and sisters, and that he was in fact, sorry. Then he jumped into the river and let it take him away.

At night (by Franz Kafka)

Deeply lost in the night.Just as one sometimes lowers one’s head to reflect, thus to be utterly lost in the night.All around people are asleep.Its just play-acting, an innocent self- deception, that they sleep in houses, in safe beds, under a safe roof, stretched out or curled up on mattresses, in sheets, under blankets; in reality they have flocked together as they had once upon a time and again later in a deserted region, a camp in the open, a countless number of men, an army, a people, under a cold sky on cold earth, collapsed where once they had stood, forehead pressed on the arm, face to the ground, breathing quietly.And you are watching, are one of the watchmen, you find the next one by brandishing a burning stick from the brushwood pile beside you.Why are you watching?Someone must watch, it is said.Someone must be there.

impromptu prose time

There was a time where I would get anxious in my wandering if I didn't visit the ocean at least once a week
A time where things weren't clear if I wasn't writing about sexual deviance, foul play, incompetence even
Where writing was only a blur that needed extension
Now fears come to me in self aware visions
And again in coherent letters
But now a days I spend more time on the streets, less time barefoot grounded lazy week days
And now a days you see me only scurrying with complete destinations like " How do you do, Sir, and how can I please you?"
And still now, I sleep in increments of 3
And the downwards moping lamp shades on hazy zig zagging streets join me in my thirst for sleep

constant toasts to sidney bechet

"It was always the music that explained things. You come into the world alone and you go out of it alone. And you gunna be alone a lot of the times on this earth, and what tells it all is the music"

-SB

I am very excited to share this next story because I was bewildered when I first heard it in my creative writing class in the fall of 2008. It was read aloud and I swear I held my breath the whole time the author , a young man, name unknown still, had the stage. It was read so naturally as if he has inhaled and exhaled every word many times before, perhaps just to himself and in his mind. I am still very determined to find out his name. No luck yet but I do hope that he is writing novels and on his way to a fine establishment for his craft.


***Note: none of the story is edited other than one small typo when he repeats the same word and a couple of spelling errors.

Hands

This is where the pack house used to be, right at the edge of the woods, right where I'm standing. Last summer me and Art built a fort in here after Hurrican Hugo split it open like the belly of a fish and no one used it anymore. We were terrorizing the place, trying to pound nails into the floorboards with only one smack, sending golden sawdust out of a million termite holes. When we knocked a hornet's next out of the rafters Art's little brother, Caleb got bit and Art sent him cause he wouldnt shut up and stop crying all ready. Off he went softer and softer till we couldn't hear him. Then we had the quiet forst noises all around us and the hot fields out beyond the window. Sunlight fell inside. There were place in the rood where the tin had blown off, it was perfect for sunlight to fall right through and shine on everything dusty in the air. And I said, the Devil's beating his wife. Mom says that when it's raining but you can see the sunlight pushing through it and that's what it looked like.

Art was pissing out the window when I saw his gandaddy, SB's truck roraring over the fields, dragging a long red cloud of dust behind it. He pulled up and yelled at Art, saying if we all coulnd't play then none of us was gonna play. He's the biggest man alive just in the way he is. Blubber face was on the seat behind him. So Art crawled out of the fort and got in the truck. They drove off with me standing in the knocked-out doorway and the big empitness creeping up from the woods. The was all last summer when we stayed for two month and Art and me became best friend; and by the end of the visit they all said I sounded just like a little southern boy.

From the back of Manna's house looks all beautiful with the shady trees around it, like an island set down in the dry fields. You can't tell it's rotting and leave of paint are peeling off into the gardens all grown over since she got sick. And the first thing I do when we come visit is go through the old rooms each with that mystery smell like attic wood I remember again. I can see the three little white sheds in the back yard and the pump-house and our station wagon with the tailgate down. And the rows of tobacco that go all the way down to the branch. And there's no wind in them at all, but here in the pines it's still cool with the morning in them.

I'm always scared to look real deep into the woods, or let it get to quiet like something's listening to me. Art said a black man got burned alive in his cabin back there, he was drunk and his cabin burned down. And sometimes, Art says, you can hear him singing. I don't ever want to hear that. Even though we never found anything when we went looking for his ashes. People become ghosts before they die; I'd always though it came after. They start wandering out of their lives. That's why Manna's always looking out the window over the rusty garden and the fallen grape arbor and everything else. I think she's looking into heaven. At first I thought she was watching her trees. She likes to talk about the trees and how the trees around the house got there and how our family got there and the white oak outside her window is about as big as the sky so she's got a right to be proud. They planted it when they built the house. She's told me that story about amillion times. My great grandma put down the avenue of pecans from the highway, the white oak and a swamp chestnut and another kind I don't remember, and two magnolias and loblollies around the out-buildings. Yesterday I glided up to her beside in her wheelchair and asker her to tell me about the trees, but she was so tired. She wanted quiet mom said. *

It's like you can breath again to finally make it out of the woods, and there's Art leaning against the side of the hog-pen smiling. Mom says he's got an elfin complexion. And it's true, he's got quick eyes that flick down the road, and that's when I see Caleb wandering back to their granddaddy's farm. Nothing new and different. He turns and sees me, but Art yells, go on and the big cement silo put a shadow on him as he passes the two tractor ports and the line of metal sheds on the other side. You can't see their tiny farmhouse from here cause the road does a bend behind another line of sheds that block their tiny farmhouse.

I can hear all the hogs shuffling around in there before we climb up on the wall and really smell them. We're balance beaming to the end and Art hollers back, don't fall in. He's got his arms spread out like jesus on the wall at church yesterday morning. I'd forgotten it was Sunday; when I woke up and mom had my shirt and tie laid out on the bed. We sat up in the balcony. And the other children kept looking back to see who we were. Mom was crying during the sermon. She had a tissue balled up in her hand. Out the window there were two ment fighting across the street. The minister raised his voice, but you could still hear them shouting and everyone tried not to look. Mom didn'nt. She didn't turn my head away either.

It smells so bad, I say. My arms are out too. The hogs are all watching us in a huddle on the far side. All those nervous hooves go tap tap on the concrete. There's a drain hole in the corner where all their shit drizzles out into a pond.

Ain't got to far now, he says. I'm trying not to breathe.

Yup, I gasp.

The little one over there looks jsut like Caleb, he says.

Yup, I say.

C'mon jump down, he says.

There is a little island of crab grass to stand on where a log goes across the bubbling slipper pool. you might mistake it for a vat of hominy if you'd lost your sense of smell. But there's perfect place for a fort on the other side with its in moat of hog shit. But halfway across Art's foot goes slip and my heart slips too. In he goes. I've never seen him look so scared like now. He's sinking up the his waist and I nearly fall in, too, sitting down and pulling him up. Then we got his belly over the log. We're going back quick and art is saying Goddamn Goddamn Goddamn all the way across the pen wall again. Then we're off as soon as our feet hit the ground, running our fastest.

The spigot on the side of this old shed is just a pipe sticking out of the ground with a hose curled around it. The grass there is green and lush from drinking up the cold water that fizzes out all day. If I were a frog I'd sit right here in the shadegrass and soak up the mist and hunt those black crickets in there. You can find a rainbow here some times at evening when the sun's almost down.

Art is spraying off his blue jeans and steps out of his sneakers and floods them out too. I'm on the look out for SB. And he comes around the corner just like I knew he would, and I feel a ton of bricks slide off a shelf inside me. It only takes him about a second to figure out why Art's hosing hog shit out of his pants. He booms, Goddamn it I told you to stay outta there, or osmething like that. I don't even hear what kind of lie Art's making up, cause I'm watching SB's big hands slip out of his pockets and hang there at his waist. But he doesn't give Art a whipping like I thought he would. He just goes on down and slides open the shed door, and disappears in the dark. There's just a shadow now hanging in the doorway. We can hear him messing around. I picture him in that grey light that slides through the cobwebs covering the window. It's all machine guts in that old shed. There's a motorbike in there that won't ride, and soup can filled with nails, chains lying around, saws, and wrenches, and nothing where anyone can find it besides SB. I once saw a family opossums coming out of the back where the tin siding curls up like the corner of a photgraph.

With him out of earshot we're all smiles and nods and snickers. Well fuck you granddaddy, Art whispers. He says it like granddiddy. Then we hear the screen door way up at the house bang and Art's uncle, Clay, is coming down the streps. Art says, c'mon, with his wet jeans and bare feet. Off we go skipping up the gravel on the drive. Art's hot that old iron bar out from where it was flung under the juniper bush. He's saying, Clay, what can you do with this old bar? Clay looks like the man made out of car tires on the TV commercials, and he looks at you as thought you just spit on his shoe. He's the kind of person you want to do anything for. Clay bends that bar right and half.

Whoohoo, we yell. Art jumps about a foot in the air. I doo too. But Clay isn't even impressed with himself. He just looks at us.

How did you get all wet? He asks.

Water-fight, Art says. Then he looks at me for the first time and I hate it. All the blood in my body is rushing somewhere. That's what it feels like, like a big trout is swishing its tail in there.

Why ain't he wet, Clay says.

He got away, Art smiles. Art asks him what he's doing and Clay tells us how the tractor broke down and the fields hands are waiting for him out in the field. He calls them niggers. Then goes off with his big arms and his baseball cap turned backwards. We jump up the steps and inside.

The first thing you notice about their house, besides the air conditioning, is that it always smells like baked beans and macaroni. Margie, Art's grandma, isn't here, or else she'd call out, who's that now? or what's all that noise? She always laughs at whatever I say, and always says, bless me, look at you. And she might make her voice sound mean, but that's just the way she talks sometimes. Mostly her voice floats around like a birdsonf. Except when Art mouths off. We were all out on the porch steps one time with Art's mama sitting right there when are gave her some mouth. His mama got up and said she'd take care of him, but Margie said oh no, I know hot to show him his manners. Art had run off inside and Margie went right in after him. I was left there not saying anything hoping no one would look at me, wondering why art had to go and do that.

We go back in the playroom, I'm setting up checkerboard while Art's changing his pants. First thing I see is Art doesn't wear any underwear. I say, you don't wear underwear, Art.

He says, Hell no.

You got one of those uncircumsized penises, I say. Art's dick looks like it's holding it's breath in, and I remember how Art told me once his cousin, Gracey, made Caleb take of his pants right here in the playroom; she made him take off his pants cause she wanted to play with it. I told Art, That's molesting. Caleb should have called the cops. Next time he should call the cops, I said.

Now finally Art sits down. Chinese checkers, I shout,

Art says, me Chinese, me play joke, me go pee pee in your coke.

He ebats me in about two turns. Just like that. So I get up to take a look at those pictures hanging on tthe wall. They've been looking at me this whole time I figure iti's my turn. It's big old Clay and his wife on their wedding day. Ain't she pretty, Art says. Clay's got a big smile on his face, bbut I can tell it's hurting him pretty bad to smile like that. Ain't she? Art says. But i'm tired of looking at those pictures. I just nod my head. I ask Art if that story Margie told us about him is true.

Which one, he says.

You know, I say, the one about the baby deer. Art puts his nose ina scrunch. But I know he knows, because hw as right there when Margie told us how clay this one time found a baby fawn out when he was plowing in one of the fields.

Remember last year we were out on the porch and MArgie said he found one, out cutting the field. He took it int he the tractor with him?

Nope, Art says. Then silence over us, and I remember when I heard that story imaginging it was a field of winter that went as far as you could see, just soft and waving and endless. And clay in the tractor, not even disturbing anything. He was plowing the field, but I couldn't see the ground up earth beneath him or the cut stubble. I couldn't hear the loud drone of the motor following the tractor the way it does. He came across the little fawn nestled down in the waves, way out in the middle. He cut off the mottor and got down. The mama deer has deserted it, or maybe she hidden her there or maybe she'd been shot. Clay picked up the little baby. He plosed the whole field with the fawn lying there on his lap.

The only fawn I've ever seen had white spots on it. That was back home in the park we camped at on lake Michigan. Mom and me went on a walk and dad was sleeping. And Robert and Justing, my brothers, missed it too, cause they were fishing and wouldn't let me come, so mom and me saw the fawn alone. We almost got close enough to touch him before he ran off. So how oculd a fawn lay there in the tractor with Clay and not scare to death? He finished plowing off that field leaving a circle of wheat where the fawn's next was and then laid it back down. Margie sais, oh you wouldn't think it but Clay got a big heart for little critters. I thought, yeah right. And I got jealous, even right now thinking about it. I went looking for my own fawn on the way home after Art and Margie went into the house for supper. I kept coming to a bend in the road and my heart would go crazy, but there never was one waiting for me.

I want ot watch TV, I say.

You always want to watch TC, Art says. We're standing at the kitchen counter drinking Mellow Yellow in those little glasses they use for whiskey.

Ah, one more for the road, I say.

How about you pouring up another round for an old cowboy friend, says Art. Then he cocks his eye just like Clint Eastwood would do. We sit on the brown sofa in the dark living room, and Art cuts on the TC.

I say, see, Art, all people talk like Northerners on the television.

Don't sound liek it to me, he says. Then I think about all the differences between Northerners and Southerners. When I went hunting with my cousin Juni once he told me that up north they only count the points on one antler of a deer. In the south they count both sides. His cigarette bobbed up and down. See, he said, sometimes a buck's got no more points on one side than the other. That's why it's best to count both sides. So there's no mistake. That seemed right to me too. Another thing that's different about the south is lunch is called dinner and dinner is called supper and I always say yes ma'am and yes sir. Once when I forgot Art's mama said yes, what? in front of everyone in the line at the Burger King. Art said that was cause she was all ready upsey; he said his parts were fight; they were always fighting.

Someone is knocking on the screen dooe. Two knocks, bam bam.

Son, is your Granddaddy selling cigarettes? Ablack man is there, one of the hands. He doesn't open the door, just learns forward, arm over his knee with one foot up on the step. Mom told me not to call them that. Don't call them hands, she said. I asker her why. She said it sounded low. I remeber the first time I heard Art talking about hands doing this and that. I was pictures loose hands roaming around without bodies. And once, one night, when Art slept over at Manna's house, my uncle told us this ghost story about a severed hand that woke up and skittered over the dry leaves where it first got cut off, and crawled though the lady's window and killed her. I tried not thinking about it, but after Art fell asleep I crawled in bed with him where it felt safe. He woke up in the morning laughing, saying, you were scared, weren't you. I said I must have been sleep walking. It was a stupid thing to come up with, but it was the only thing left to say. That's the problem with lying: usually there is only one stupid thing left to say and if you don't say it right then anyone can tell you're making it up. Art winked at me.

Now, Art says, after getting two bright packs of cigarettes from the cabinet, don't go smoking them all at once.

I beg your pardon, the man says.

We;;, Art says, I seen y'all smoking a whole mess of them at a time just fooling. Two in your nose, two in your mouth. You're just gonna waste them like that. The man laughs a little and hands art some money. Then he's gone back towards the fields, smacking the cigarettes against his palm in the sunlight. Art yells after him, the tractor still broke? the man turns and nods. It's true, Art says, I seen them. They smoke a whole mess at once. He puts the money in a tin box in the cabinet.

I wouldn't have believed it if he just told me, but Art really does have a gas pump in his yard and they got a golf cart he can ride wherever he wants. The pump is by the long tractor port that goes down to the silo all covered in vines. There must be about a hundred snakes living inside that silo. All the different tractors are underneath the dome waiting their turn. Art drives the golf cart up to the pump and starts pumping the gas. There's a stray cat crouching in the long grass off to the side. Yesterday we saw a green tree frog in there but I lost him. I looking for him again, pushing my fingers through the grass. The grass is saying, there' a green frog in here somewhere if you just look hard enough. Behind me I hear Art say, that old frog again. He says it like ageen. I go sit down in the driver's seat and put my hands on the wheel like I'm flying down the road, but Art finished up and says, slide Clyde. I move over. Then he hops in, throws it into gear and puts the pedal to the metal. Scram cat, he yells. Eat dust, you old bastard. And then we're cruising down the road with the tobacco fields on both sides. Just two walls of green leaves, if you look right you can see all the way down each row only for a second. It's like those cartoon books where you flip the pages and a picture plays out. Except here it's all the same, just deep green rows and I like it better than those books.

Art likes to keep secrets. He gives me one of his just-you-wait-and-see grins when I ask him where we're headed. I don't mind. I like surprises. Then he slams on the brakes. We skid to a stop and a cloud dust catches up and gets in my eyes. The farm hands are down one row, squatting below the tobacco plants, still and motionless like black statues. We don't have any water to take them like sometimes, so I'm wondering why we stopped. The tractor is out there sunk down still in the sunlight. I look to see if Clay's around, but he isn't there.

Soldiers dismount, Art commands. We get down. Hut two thissaway, he says. It seems about a million degrees hotter out here. The soil is soft and deep like ash; it's like it's been burned over and over by the sun. It gets in my sneakers like I knew it would as we walk along with big leafy plants tickling my arms. Those heavy leave are thick and wrinkled like green skin; just like the skin of a fig right when you pluck it from a tree. Out here among the leaves its like I'm floating on a wide green lake. I like to blur my vision. The smell of the fresh tobacco makes my eyes water anyway. I just let them run. All the colors melt in the sky. I always wanted to be in those stories. I wish I could talk to snimals. I feel a breeze pick up over the fields and I see all the hands rising to catch a part of the cool air coming. I wonder where that breeze came from and how many folks out int he fields have stopped working and stood up to catch it.

Then here we are, looking up at them. This man has a t-shirt wrapped around his hat. i think if I were working out here I'd be just about naker it's so hot, but they're all wearing pants and some of them have on long sleeved shirts. This one young girls asks Art if his grandmamma send him out with water.

Naw, he says, but we'll go get some ine a minute. First, I got a joke to tell yall. Then Art tells them the one about the man who sneaks out of work to see his girlfriend, and his boss is all ready at her house. It's not his best joke. They think it's sort of funny though. Maybe they think it's funny that me and Art came all the way out here to tell it. Then the pretty girl who asked us about the water has taken the tired look off her face. I can see the dust has caught the sweat stains on her sides. It looks like two gold shadows dripping beneath her arms. She's wearing a red and white striped tank-top and she asks us our names. I feel my face going red and my mind starts talking at me and won't let me think straight. I'm worried I might say something else, not my name, but something stupid. But Art does all the talking, cool and easy.

Well ain't y'all some handsome boys. And then Art winks and starts asking them if they seen the dude who lights cigarettes in his nose. Every time she raises her arms to block the sun, my belly goes right up with them. The sunlight feels like it's tingling inside me light it's coming in every time I breathe. Then she twists around to swat the man who keeps poking at her, and my belly twists up, too. Now Art is nudging me, saying, c'mon man, let's get these folks some water. And we turn back.

WE're sitting under the porch waiting for the ice-cubes to freeze. No point in bringing them water that ain't cold, Art says. So we're sitting underr that shade. I'm rocking back and forth on the little chair, brushing my feet over the sandy floor. I can hear the cows moaning and moaning off in the pasture. Just when you think they're tired of pushing out those sad songs a new one starts up, a little higher at first, but then sliding down low. We go over to the fence. There's a bathrub. I've seen it there before, but I don't go. Art comes back and we climb up a rung or two on the gate and lean there, watching the field. Old rusty cars lie out there bogged down. A few salt licks are scattered around. I'd never seen saltlick before last summer when Art showed

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I'm heartbroken. I lost the last page.