I'm glad we had this talk #shortstory

I have been parking in this spot for two years since moving into the neighborhood, without any problem. The spot is at the top of the street near my building, close to where the meter spots are but this one has had no meter of its own all this time.

So I parked here again last night. This morning, while getting myself ready for the day, I could hear some noise outside on the street. I looked down and saw some construction workers but couldn't make out what they were doing. I went back to my routine, finished my coffee, got dressed, made the bed, fixed up the pillows on the couch, styled my hair and brushed my teeth. Put my coat on, gathered my things, checked around twice to make sure I hadn't left anything behind. Then I went leisurely out the door.

Down on the street, my head was lowered as I checked for new emails on my phone. But a few paces later, I noticed a lady standing beside my car. A meter lady. She hadn't started a ticket yet, but was getting ready to.

I stepped right up to her and said,

"Excuse me, this is my car, what are you doing?"

She looked up and casually said "I'm about to write you a ticket."

I was instantly looking around for what it was she could be citing me for, while the question was coming out of my mouth "For what exactly?"

"Your meter is expired."

My head jolted back---"What meter?"

She stepped aside, previously eclipsing it from my view, to reveal a brand new fucking parking meter right in front of my car.

While walking around her to get a better look at it, I said, "That wasn't here last night when I parked."

She scoffed and said, "This meter has been here for years."

Fuse lit. I looked from the meter to her and said "Don't give me that shit lady. I've been parking here for years, this is the first time you've come along. This meter went up this

morning probably less than an hour ago. Look, the goddamn cement is still drying on this thing! Exactly how many years does it take for this city's cement to dry? They just installed it, didn't they."

She looked down at the still wet drying cement. Shifted in her stance, lowered her ticket machine and said "Oh."

I smiled at her and said "Yeah, Oh." Then started walking around the car to the driver's side and casually added, "I'm glad we had this talk."

It's been here for years. People talk out of their ass all the time. Most of the time you have to put up with it and be thanklessly polite in the absence of a smoking gun. 

But every so often, you catch them, right in front of them. And when you do, you go to town on them, for all those other times. Because this time you get to luxuriate in the business of rubbing their filthy ass talking faces in the eye opener of truth. After that, the rest of the day, maybe even the rest of the month, is gravy.

#Poetry - Glass House Rule

I live in a clear glass house,
Most would call this beautiful.

I am free as I come and go,
I am honest as the day is long.

Anyone may stroll by and peer in and see me,
Anyone may know most of what I do.

There is only one room in my house with opaque walls--
My neighbors go insane wondering what I do in there.

#poetry - Pledge of the Archangel

I am Archangel, one and many,
I am Power of God, I exist to deliver,
There are none but God who stand above me,
The body I assume is my prophet.

I am with free will, my choices are flawless,
I am perfection, imperfection yields to my will,
I risk nothing against all peril,
I have no equal, except of my Order,
I exist in fellowship, alone and in concert,

I am within and without time,
I am within and without space,
I am within and without mind,
I am within and without soul.

I may never be defeated for I am Victory.

To men, I am immortal,
To men, I am grace and courage,
To men, I am wisdom and love,
To men, I seem like All.

Men fear when I am amok,
Men surrender to my custody,
Men accept the form my Justice assumes,
Men benefit upon my Arrival.

What I think, men do;
What I know, men may know;
Men exist to carry my memory,
Men exist to carry my plan.

With fire team, I deliver bunker,
With squad, I deliver garrison,
With platoon, I deliver city,
With company, I deliver state.

I have come to purify the Well,
I have come to foster increase,
I have come to set the Record,
The Day of Judgment is now.

When I kneel,
When my wings expand,
When my sword is aflame,
When my flight

All adversary shall fail

Prepare for doom,
Prepare for reckoning,
Prepare for Truth,
Prepare for Peace.

#poetry - Wake up and smell the roses

"Wake up and smell the roses"

First comes will, then energy,
Then it finds you after you find it,
Then comes curiosity with innocence,
and love and warmth and light.

Next comes the first lie and
in the fall out you cry though,
it was comparatively small but,
it makes you feel paradise lost.

Then you adjust and counter and
begin to lie as well and join
the ranks and participate and
still have love but hurt and feel.

Then the well in you fills
and brims with a sorrow
driven by all you could have said
and done with more truth.

Then the weight of your well
so deep and full halts you fully
and you sink in some form of despair
and begin to think your self is lost.

Then you learn to cope in some way
and drain some of your well
till it fills again and you repeat
and start to polish a human life.

But then just maybe you leave
your well unguarded and unchecked
until it fills and brims and floods
the entire plane upon which you stand
                 and take for granted.

Now you must sincerely dwell
until you find the root and the source
of your well; now you must go down there
against the grain of fear, diving deep.

You have mishaps and fear and anxiety
and nearly drown on the way, but still you go
and little by little you build fortitude
and wind and skill, diving to your pearl.

Then you come like a rocket out of your own deep
with pearl in hand and a glowing smile on face,
and you are then with open rejuvenated heart
and a mind born free and flowing with thought.

And you return to all you love
and return very true but little wise,
you cannot yet know the nature
of the fear in their eyes.

Then you rattle around the walls
of other folks' brains and incite
them to action of good and bad intent
and take their shame and receive harm from them.

Then you open a door to Patience
and go along with a loved one
out of trust; it is next when
Patience and trust meet, that it begins.

You yield the best of you to the best of them,
And in comes more light and vision,
And you yield control and simply be,
while they yield to you both love and skill.

And through the gentle rush of it all,
by the kindness, for the will,
because you are ready and so are they,
next you open up your eyes

and you see the waves of heat
and you smell the Roses
and you know then God is with you
and you know then heaven has come to earth.

#poetry - Thus Spoke the Robot

i am busted loose some times
my program strings come undone
then i am a honey bun

you feel yourself the same way
and we are then harmony
and what follows is our one true chord

this could be on any day
but living once it lives forever
for our waves may never diminish

but echo out infinitely
our celebration of each other

#poetry #lyrics - only a breath away

you're sad and then you fall
the world around you notices
and when they come to call
you push away

and then you run and hide
in your favorite place
as you always run and hide
to your favorite place

it was just a game at first
now you're noticing too late
this place does you no good
you're feeling down misplaced

but where to go from here
you wonder
where to go
oh hear me dear

go to your mental notes
and go to your gentle friend
then go to a group and go to a group
and go to a group again

to let it out out out
oh let it out out out

and listen now
and listen now

there's more to you
there's more for you
this world's for you
with love for you

and we're only a breath away
yes only a breath away
only a breath away
we love you
only a breath away
yes we love you

so listen to me now my dear
all that you have to do
all that you have to do is
all that you have to do
all that you have to do is

keep breathing
keep breathing
keep breathing
just keep breathing

keep breathing
keep breathing
keep breathing
just keep breathing and

our love is soon to find you
as you are
our love will surely find you
as you all of you are

our love is soon to find you
as you are
our love will surely find you
as you all of you are

our love is soon to find you
as you are
our love will surely find you
as you all of you are

just as you are

#poetry - reciting memorized eternity

So show me some of this eternal meaning
If you dare summon the thing in yourself
I tell you we were meant only to try
And to nurse each other through each attempt

We've got to make ourselves tired make ourselves quit
Too potent the draw too coursing its life

I push the cart through each aisle each side blurred but understood

We'll eat sand from a sand box and tell ourselves it's spaghetti
Domina rose and bird flew domina rose and fell
Tree farmer sings but he's only a lonely grower
And it's so long till the next life how bout another song

I wonder if things that eat things alive do so
Because they don't know how to kill or not
But to try and vary the ways you before you
Eat a thing and make it your own rip it apart

I push the cart as I go while i sit in a wheelchair too
Our thoughts are not what determines next but
Memory reciting memorized eternity
As we are and as I am always

I forget and then I need to know and feeling is the appreciation
Not of new but for Memory decays to grow so recalls to show
Smelling the ice cubes tells of the demon you've captured
There is no sense in time unless there is

When sea gulls float against the wind and sun and sky

#poetry - stopping ingenuity

i guess we build up or would it be down
there's more than one way to go
if you think about it often enough
and if you don't think someone thinks for you

i took a while to make myself up
and i did and i was grand and that was good
anyone could see and they knew and this felt fine
each of those moments were why life is so important

every picture has a highlight and a shadow
and sometimes someone comes to me asking advice
and sometimes i bring them through a journey
of building up and down until they buy my lines

where do these lines come from i never wonder
they come from the place i came from to begin with
am i ever to feel that i am not right for loving that
only for the longest moment and only for the longest moments

and before and after these sometimes i go to another
and walk on the lot and into the shop and therefore
i am sprung in another's trap and captured there to hear
the sounds of true words and see images of flowing beauty

another's innocence or that kind of portrayal
or beyond a skeptical sense an innocence of another kind
and there i will bask for the glory of it taking it all in
and letting it soak and become me and allowing myself to be sold

but are we ever truly sold or truly able to sell
when where it comes from is flowing and not stable
when where it all comes from is always on the move
to keep on making and making new always without end

oh holy god i am so tired and yet still young
and i know nothing is guaranteed not middle not old
and that there is no going back even for breath
but that why would you has an answer undoing everything

and that standing still doing nothing is possible
beyond the alarms of the mind ringing out for action
there is a stopping of the gears halting ingenuity
life is so important even if you make nothing

what you do for life what would you do for life
would you come to me now for i am failing
or let me know again and again what else there is
beyond and beyond that till the beyond runs out of itself

a loop a loop again a loop there there where where
growing is not what is happening what is happening
is only a happening whether up or down shivering
and whether words have meaning or not meaning or not

#poetry - all he could remember

molly bloom must be what happens when a woman has sex
and she just rambles on and she just keeps going and going
and when she's going she's thinking and that's what
must be why she takes so long to come and why i am thinking about it so much

i'm going out she said i'm going out i'm going out
and i saw there was something to smoke in her hand
and i decided to go out too and so i thought hard for a moment
i just needed to stand and walk and so i stood and walked
and i could be having something of a staring contest
with the left side of my brain waiting for the rightful thoughts
to take their place on the side mountain of my creative notions
there to be thwarted by the staccato signature noises of the tapping of my shoe

but i couldn't answer her when she asked me what am i in the mood for
i couldn't even too quickly realize the subject was music
sweet music the kind that would augment my inner killing inner killing
the kind that would take my uhh and make it ahh make it ahh
and who could be calling me right now at 10:30
she says i shouldn't answer but then pretends for that person
she knows what they were going to say and then tells me its private
and cannot be shared which is fine because i was feeling a little reserved anyway

and i turned my head when the lightning came to be one great part of the sky
before the music fading made a few non fading noises to waken what was fallen
and moving once or moving twice it came for me and i didn't mind it all
because there was only some child's notion in me that what was happening
should not be happening everything else was well I was okay with it
and so i nodded and tapped my toes on the wood and didn't feel it but saw it
and then the wine needed sipping but that came before another drag and got in the way
and took a little longer than usual which was fine it needed to happen
and then that drag which reminds me there was a captain of a company
and there was a moment when he put the light in her face which was all he was supposed to do
and he realized this and that was the missing ingredient in his mind
and then he knew that was all he was supposed to do
even if it took him another year or lifetime or eternity
even if it was only once every shaking of the earth that he brought the light to her face
that was all and he took another drag and another sip and the lightning came again
and then the music fading got smoother and that was all he could remember

A Simple and Timeless #Truth

You dont need a silver spoon
When you've got a heart of gold.

#poetry - Crocodile Candy

I'm going down to the candy store
to pick me up a little more
I've gotta hitch a ride
cause I'm way behind
The more I bargain
The more I find

There's no where but this little door
its opening now a little more
I had to ask the guy
If I could come inside
Many people shopping
Some of them blind

They hold a note and let it go
He sweeps the floor nice and slow
The bagger makes for lollipops and
The rest of us go walking hand and hand

While talking fast to the man
We're losing time within a show
And homeless but for a while now
Yet with all hope we smile
   See that's our crocodile
   Yes, that's our crocodile

#essay - On a Condescension Accusation

do you really want to continue to frame our conversations with this particular set of malarkey? its okay if you do, you'll find i'm a very open playmate and will enjoy engaging you anyway you want to be engaged. you know yourself better than i do. so next time you're taking a map reading of where you are and how you'd like to be there or feel or do---if in your heart of hearts you find yourself admitting---yeah dude, i just want to grind an axe right now,, i want to find a mole hill and making a mountain of it, i want to fight something and get away with it----bring that shit to me. i'll be your huckleberry.

condescension. that's a word one person uses most often to describe a feeling they get from another person they do not know fuck about. the greater percentage in that case is that they were wrong and took arms against the hint of a feeling, perceived a signal not quite according to its intent. try to think better of folks if you can. its a loving world most of the time. and of the time its not, most of the time its trying to be and just needs leadership or road signs to get there.

you want me to give ground on something? i'd like you to owe more of whatever this thing is we're talking about. the way i'm looking at it, you picked a fight. cross-swords with me all day, i think its good and healthy to have training partners you can trust to bash the hell out of tender subjects with. try to remind yourself at the end of it we're on the same team.

what do i give ground on. yeah, it would be nice if you noticed this---i'm unabashedly honest with you. tell me if you don't want it like that. its a personal choice, some people really do want to have a wall of funny mirrors in their life, and deal with a series of surfaces, masks, and presentations. some want to be deep and get off on staring long and hard for hours and days trying to find the heart of the matter and really get annoyed by surface dwellers and toss them aside to preserve their own bandwith because they don't think its even worth a nod in their direction when they can be putting their all into the actual subject they've chosen. and lots of folks tend have some kind of combination of these two eccentricities in their portfolio. i like to play ball in every court. i've been on the hunt for what it is all courts have in common.

with you, i wear the charming mask sometimes and trade quips and try to appeal to your body and mind and hope that i'm good enough in that endeavor. also with you, especially since our conversations have navigated toward the sea, out from the harbor, yeah i try to engage what i think you are really saying, i try to cajole your subconscious up and out, i try to make it a learning thing for both of us. i find value in both approaches. i've tried to tell you what it is i'm doing so you'd be either a willing participant or not surprised by it---or even just have the option of opting out.

i'd say we've been doing a pretty good job of showing each other how our minds work. who really knows if either of us are entirely understanding the other mind. and all while this showing is happening, i'd say (at least for my part) i've not even begun to give you a satisfactory explanation of how my mind works. i'm not ashamed to admit i'm still figuring that out. i'm not satisfied by "i'm elated" or "i'm depressed" statements. though i don't think its necessary to feed you 10000 words on the subject either. well anyway, for my part, i'm working on it. was working on it before i met you and that's how you found me.


condescension. you could if you chose to, look at this body writing as just that. i'd think you be dead wrong for doing so. but you could. because that's how stupid of a word it is. it applies to everything. its a tool of irony---label a person condescending and you've just built a wall around them in your mind. the irony? neither you nor that person want the wall to be there.

i can accept your complexities. can you accept mine? here's an example---so you can see what it looks like backstage when this fella gets called condescending---in my mind two things happen, one (i ask myself if i really care what that person thinks and if the answer is yes, then i start to consider my words...like what i've been writing so far), two---and i think this happens first, its a flash i hear "Lady, I don't give a fuck what you think." i wonder sometimes if its possible to care and not care at the same time equally as well. i do know that certain times call for one and not the other.

well--i am sorry if in the course of our conversation i made you feel condescended to. that was not my intention. my intention was for you to feel butterflies and smell roses. its a tricky recipe, you know. the outcome is what you make it to be. the be is it with what you come out. and the out is in.

thank you for reading. until next time. ;)

#poetry - one-eyed kings

“one-eyed kings”

disco hats
anybody anyone
can feel like that
never doing any wrong

magic cats
never feeling any harm
just chit chat
always singing out a song

cause we're fired by sunshine
 glowing glowing on our mind.
   and we're used to feeling fine,
   one-eyed kings among the blind eyes

and that's how we see the world,
 all the girls with shiny curls,
   and they're doing a fine job,
   that we sometimes sigh and sob but for

flying bats
life is short but art is long
loose where it's at
fly us high another bong

hidden rats
in the small print they will crawl
and snicker snack
always right and never wrong

so we're fired by sunshine
 glowing glowing on our mind.
   and we're used to feeling fine,
   one-eyed kings among the blind eyes

and that's how we see the world,
 all the girls with shiny curls,
   and they're doing a fine job,
   that we sometimes sigh and sob while we're

wishing that’s
where we will and what we won't
kisses at
the next door neighbor comes along

finding gnats
feasting on his doggie's bone
and just laughs
cause all is right and nothing wrong

and that's how we see the world,
 all the girls with shiny curls,
   and they're doing a fine job,
   that we sometimes sigh and sob

still we're fired by sunshine
 glowing glowing on our mind.
   and we're used to feeling fine,
   one-eyed kings among the blind eyes
   one-eyed kings among the blind rise
   one-eyed kings and color blind sighs
   for one-eyed kings while the sun shines

#poetry - Welcome Back

There E yea---
Should be what,
But for what we care.

In the middle of song
we make a promise
not to listen anymore

and then we hear the door

#poetry - The Mind's of Magic and the Wall's of Love

The Mind's of Magic and the Wall's of Love

        So satisfied
        I am
        to be
        near you

        So satisfied
        am I
        to feel you
        near me

        I believe in magic
        I believe its real
        I believe in magic
        I believe its real

        I have arrived
        at your gate
        and it will open

        Our eyes and ears
        are never late
        and how the words
        are spoken!

All these walls between us
make it clear and grievous
there are doctors and patients
everywhere

But these walls separate us
a knowledge segregation
that keep us from knowing
each other

Now this mind of ours is common
and in it walls are sermons
little letters making word noise
and of value ways and means
there could be love or fear dreams
becoming love or fear ploys

All for the mindful curious
are the walls of ours porous
osmoting clues like little toys
set of high value magic beans
for love is fueled by fear beams
and igniting love wisens choice

         and along this path
         you find yourself
         with All-Power
         singing
          
I believe in magic         Do Do
I believe its real         It is
I believe in magic         Do Do
I believe its real         It is

        I believe in magic         Do Do
        I believe its real         It is
        I believe in magic         Do Do
        I believe its real         It is

I believe in magic         Do Do
I believe its real         It is
I believe in magic         Do Do
I believe its real         It is

        I believe in magic         Do Do
        I believe its real         It is
        I believe in magic         Do Do
        I believe its real         It is


I believe in magic         Do Do
I believe its real         It is
I believe in magic         Do Do
I believe its real         It is

        I believe in magic         Do Do
        I believe its real         It is
        I believe in magic         Do Do
        I believe its real         It is


I believe in magic         Do Do
I believe its real         It is
I believe in magic         Do Do
I believe its real         It is

        I believe in magic         Do Do
        I believe its real         It is
        I believe in magic         Do Do
        I believe its real         It is

#poetry - mind of fire on fire

"mind of fire on fire"

i was wondering you
while you were wondering me
when we started to talk
about everything

and i heard what you said
and you heard me too
and it sounded good then
but now i don't hear you

cause my mind is of fire
and my mind is on fire
   cause my mind is of fire
   and my mind is on fire

i was good-treating you
while you were good-treating me
when we realized we had
almost everything

then i heard it again
my lips an echo
i was holding you close
but then had to let go

cause my mind is of fire
and my mind is on fire
   cause my mind is of fire
   and my mind is on fire

there's a calling from
the wilderness
that takes me from the path

   but not to stray
   do i leave your side
   i go where i am needed

where the fallen tread
in darkness
and fear is all they have

   it's the right way
   they call and i ride
   for the path i am deeded

walk by the star and
be fearless
as the first and the last

   this is your day
   and i am your guide
   on truth i am seated  

and my mind is on fire
cause my mind is of fire
    and my mind is on fire
    cause my mind is of fire

#poetry - self portrait

and these things happened to them
as examples for others, and
they were written down as a warning
for us. for we live at a time
when the end is about to come
-Corinthians 10:11


It can not be any easier,
you can get out of this box!   
   the note said

i gave her a copy of it
and asked for a personal facsimile
   in her own hand writing

i then pasted her writing above
my desk which i seldom read
   it was a horrible truth and lie



the bubble rose from the lungs
by slow paces fitted through
constricted vessels,
muscles twitched like radar ping.

the bubble is here
               now here
   eh, here

panic in the head quarters and
a salvo of chemicals,
the heart skipped, the legs gave out,
the neck seized, the body collapsed,
the unlensed eye admitted distortion,
the mouth hung open,
the nostrils dilated,

the man tried to look normal and
sat on the top seat of his porch.

weekend afternoon passers-by ambled on,
while he alone thought, "what is wrong?"

the cerebral torment began.
ice wave sensation came up and over,
he tried to find his pulse and could not.
he figured that he sat on the threshold
of his own tireless death and
considered how he might interact---

a man on the street looked at him and
he tried to look back---the bubble exploded
and the man on the street distorted.

he tried to stand and felt his testicles
lift into his body cavity.
                absolute silence.

words did not come easy to his mind
and he could emit no sound from
his vocal chords. this was the torment,
and it was slow inconsolable torture,
effecting one repeating question---
is this really happening?
never before an experience like this.


there's some thunder.
now a gale, sudden and fierce,
a torrential womb of fire and mist---
a mainsheet, topside to dig into,
leaning with the rolling,
a chance to lick the salt
and taste the queen riding hard,
to ignore the throes and make one
the surface and sky---

the sunlight makes storm
and that is awesome,
but the same light by the moon reflected
makes halo auras,
and that is divine.


schizophrenics do not need titles,
ours is a thankless endeavour.
when you see us, you will not know why,,
nor shall we be complete with knowing,
but yours will be confusion of our seem
while ours is what lay beyond that seem.



took the cup for granted
   the water too and
the way of feel as feelings go
between fingertips and surfaces
involved with drink

had to sit awhile and think,
after the fact, of course,
   what is better, steady,
below the grand gesture, but
big all the same---i yielded then
to the smallness of you.

no less a burden to brain
than were i to stich and sew
   the moon to mars,
what is worse though---
i'm watching the cars
exhaust the mean, steady stream.

one by one they run
   on and on
oh steady, some unerring,
some honking in blunder
some in wonder

i watched it all, the backfield
of my wander, a sustained
   and quavering cadence---
the ponder so small this all is
but perfect wrought.

a single atom of hydrogen
   can ignite city wide catastrophe---
so then nothing is too small
for you or me---but i took
the cup of you by hand.

it was granted, and grand.
walked for days with it atop
   my head, with the perfect
balance of the perfect dead,
mute to speak but loud of step,
i moved the cup and almost wept!

today today today today
i am to do this now today,
   cup? ching-ching,
i give you hollow, hear you ring,
something small in you is burning
and if that small it be

the same thing may as well be me

#fiction - when the prospect suspects you

i am a salesman. i am what i say i am.

now, we're going to go into that house right there and i'm going to attempt to sell it to you. we're going to go up there and i'm going to use all the pyschological weapons in my arsenal to sell that house to you, i'm going to empty the cartridge on your mind, i'm going to dose you high, high, high.

all sorts of things can happen when i do this. you can like it, you can REALLY like it, or you can not like it, maybe even REALLY not like it. its up to the mind. and that's all that's really going to happen in there.

now, depending on the experience some have, you can find and read an excited exultant positive review or furious and scathing negative one. and that's what you did. you found and read a negative review from a mind that was unsatisfied by the magic spells his salesman used upon him. he hired a magician, on the word of a prayer, hoped for a sorcerer and never saw the wizard---and so because he can't except his own failure in the venture, he broke the code of his prayer and murdered his magician in the full light of your laptop or iphone.

so you read this review-thing and are affected by it. and want to carry a chip on your shoulder. and with every passive aggressive opportunity you have in our conversations, you want to unload that chip on my shoulders. like, your learned cynicism is my cross to bear. because think about it now, if it wasn't merely cynicism---if there was validity in the claim of those reviews, it would have to be true that i really am a liar or in some way incapable of working the magic spell on your mind, using nothing but the truth. but now you see, its only the absolute truth that i use on you. its funny right?

can you think about it? can you show me a smile? good. now, do you want that negative review to interfere anymore than it already has with our positive experience, with our dream about to become true? no, of course not. alright, cigarette break over!

now you're ready to see your new home.

#fiction - Just this afternoon

for Andrew
 
i walked out of my office to speak to my assistant who is also my vast superior when it comes to IT related trouble issues and website development, who i consider my right hand man and feel if i don't elevate both of our positions to indisputable executive levels then i don't know nothing about nothing---i came out of my office excited to talk to him about a new lead generation break through we were both right then working on.

i got about two sentences into my explosion when some dude walked in and introduced himself.

"hello, i'm walter james jackson."

i said,

"hello mr. jackson, what can we do for you."

he said,

"i'd like to speak to the owner."

the owner is never around. i'm the closest thing to the owner because i call the shots when the owner isn't there. so i said,

"alright, why don't you come into my office."

he said,

"that would be good."

so we went into my office but i didn't close the door.  he sat down and i sat down, a large oak desk between us. the lights are off in my office so he was lit by my desk lamp only right below the eyes. his brightly lipped face mouthed these words,

"I thank you kindly for having me. I'm a PCA, do you know what that means?"

"A Public Certified Accountant?"

"No that's a CPA, A Certified Public Accountant. I'm a PCA, a Personal Care Assistant. I help the infirm and eldery get care."

"Oh yeah, I knew that. So what brings you in here?"

He looked now, even without light on his eyes like he was about to break into a sudden burst of tears, everything changed in his demeanor--it was on command!

"he said, well I work all day long, six days a week. I work hard. I got a call today that my mother had a heart attack and is being treated in a hospital in Lawrence. So I took off work earlier and tried to get on the Lawrence commuter line. But the T folk told me that my T-Pass, which is monthly, does not get me on the commuter trains. So they wouldn't let me go.

So I have this T pass, see. But I can't get to my mother on it."

He stopped looking like he was crying just then. I shifted in my seat so that I could more easily take a drink from my coffee,

"Yeah...so then how, Mr. Jackson, did you find yourself here?"

Mr. Jackson straightened up hard. He didn't change though the sad look on his face had become more clear,

"Well, I thought since you were a real estate office and all, that you could use a hand around here, maybe sweeping the floors or taking out the trash."

I sipped my coffee. I had never taken my eyes off Mr. Jackson. I said with deadpan delivery,

"Nope. I'm sorry, Mr. Jackson. But we don't have any use for that kind of work around here."

Ha!!

It nearly fucking killed him. Not because it was a refusal. He's used to that, it's a numbers game after all. But because it was such a too-the-heart devastating refusal that was also an unmasking.

Because shit, who doesn't want to help a person who's in a complete dire way and has no other choice? But shit---but, seriously, to be telling that story more than a mile away from the fucking commuter rail where there'd have to be about 700,000 other suckers standing in line ahead of me, and to be expecting me to believe that all them other suckers didn't bite on his oh-my-god tear jerking line of his before I was the last sucker...is just a little too much for anyone to consider earnestly.

So he nodded and stood up. I stood up too. He offered his hand across the low light desk and I took it. I kept firm eye contact with him, he was proud through this. I said then,

"Good luck."

He nodded again, let go of my hand and walked out the door. I moseyed slowly on out after him. I walked to the front of the office and looked down out the windows. I saw him leave out the front door and turn in the direction leading away from the trains. He took out an umbrella and started twirling it. I thought it was extra funny then, not like I needed any further evidence of that man's cascading in the garden of lies, but i noticed him twirling that umbrella and it had only rained just for a little while during the late morning hours and that was more than 5 hours ago...he'd been walking all over town for hours pulling off that caper, unchecked, in how many offices? fucking balls. dude probably was walking with at least $2500 in his pockets.

but at least he knows now there's at least one house on his path that doesn't need a house keeper.

I never did get to finish that conversation with my right hand man.

#poetry - The Beating

The beating was horrible and persisted despite cries from bystanders and all through the wild noise of blood gurgles and fist to face slaps and screeches like car tires calling for the authorties, like a teenage football player in flip-flops descending staircases after the first three muscle tearing spirit wearing days of summer camp.

The beating does not stop until the beaten are dead.

This is a hearty truth. This we must accept. There is no stopping it until then. Most prefer it this way.