The Yellow Toy Pistol

8 years ago, a fat little girl rides down the block on a pink bicycle. In one hand she holds a yellow toy pistol. Daddy is nearby, all slacks and sunglasses - hands in pockets, his gray hair swept back. The sun slants, she rides, the toy pistol wavering. But she never drops the toy pistol, and I find that fascinating.

Hazelnut VS French Vanilla

Day 1: I want Hazelnut flavored creamer for my coffee. I settle for French Vanilla.

Day 2: I want Hazelnut flavored creamer for my coffee. I settle for French Vanilla

Day 3: Ibid.

Day 4: Ibid.

Day 5: Ibid.

Day 6: Getting coffee, I become irrationally angry. I say to myself, privately, in white hot emotional heat, "Why do I settle for French Vanilla? Why?"

Day 7: I try Hazelnut creamer in my coffee. It is then I discover all along I have not been drinking French Vanilla. I HAVE BEEN DRINKING HAZELNUT.

Going to Sleep

I was trying to go to sleep a few nights ago, and so I started thinking about all the horrible things that have happened to me. I wasn't reviewing the usual garden-variety horrible things that can happen at any time, the horrible things we forget about. I was picking particularly nasty memories, reviewing some uniquely awful situations that I had to go through to get here at this place in time. Naturally, after doing this for awhile, I was quite anxious and felt like I couldn't sleep. I felt like something was wrong -- like I had forgotten a crucial detail that I shouldn't have forgotten. Gradually, I became convinced this forgotten detail would unravel the significance of my entire life. It was terrible. Then, switching gears, I realized a man was in the other room with a knife, and he was going to kill me. And then I fell asleep.

Points on How to be a True Gentleman

Category: Me

1. Always be gentle, polite, and speak kindly and nicely at all times
2. Never throw things
3. Moderate nasty habits
4. Think, "I am attractive."
5. Remember to inculcate a feeling of modesty, and diligence
6. Never kick animals, or small children, especially at parks and in nature preserves
7. Use spittoons if you chew, or a handkerchief if you use snuff
8. Avoid any kind of low drink such as Vermouth, Gin that is sold in plastic containers, and soforth
9. Attend a Church occasionally
10. Do well, and fear not

How I Ruined My Life

You buy bike racks for the roof of your car, and you swear you'll never do anything incredibly stupid with them. You watch for trees, low hanging eves, and other not so obvious dangers. You are, after all, a responsible adult who can handle these things. You'll never make the giant mistake of forgetting bikes are on the racks while driving into the garage. This will never happen. Then like a demented criminal fool who ruined the whole world, you ram your precious bikes into the roof of the house while parking in the garage. The world changes at that moment. Stepping from the vehicle, you feel like you have killed someone. There, look at that. You idiot. Meandering fool. Did the neighbors see? Oh keeeerist look at that! Why? You fall on the driveway and look up at the birdies. In one go I have killed my car, my house, the bikes, and bicycle racks.

Life's a Bitch That Way

They find me guilty. The judge sentences me to, like, 400 years of prison...I dunno, 8 life sentences. When he does that, him looking at me with his fuck grey eyes, with his stringy fuck hair combed over his bulging sweaty head, I stick the tip of a pencil into the palm of my hand. I dig a nice hole there while he talks at me, at the nature of my crime, the heinous nature of my acts. The pencil was just recently sharpened, so it goes in deep. I ain't innocent, BTW -- I just didn't think I'd get caught. If you decide to be good, or you decide to be bad, life's a bitch that way.

Test Story A

He decided to write a story with the letter "A" in it.

6.2.98

we know we can't take it with us
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
we aim to drag it out for as long as possible

to keep life lovely

to keep
life lovely

i terrorize
myself

Viva La Volvo

Clown Country

He picked up the telephone receiver, and it squirted water into his ear. He wrote a note to himself with a pen, and it squirted water in his eye. He opened the door of the hotel room, and the door squirted water all over his crotch. His keys, when opening the door to the car, squirted water up his nose. After that, when he tried to start the car, the engine moved rhythmically sounding like a large horny duck, Quaaack...quaaack....quaaack...QUACK...QUACK... --- he knew he had to get out of Clown Country. Now.

Speaking of That

Speaking of that....I know you are a Vampire and you've been trying to kill me. Damn you. All the mirrors have been stolen from my house, and that proves it. Even my silverware. Two fingers like that don't make a cross, you aren't fooling anybody. Besides, I am a Buddhist. The point that you aren't bothered by garlic just means you're an Italian Vampire. No -- back off -- seriously. I see your red eyes and your teeth and your half-hidden bloodlust. The way you jumped over the fucking couch, as if you had springs in your heels, is another indication of your true identity -- a blasphemy, hated by the sight of God, wanderer in the Outer Darkness, etc. Ouch! And what long nails you have -- all the better to clutch me with. Who has Holy Water hanging around the house? Why oh why do I have Holy Water? And where did that sharp wooden stake and mallet come from? You can writhe by you can't get away from me. I'VE KNOWN YOU ARE A VAMPIRE FOR AT LEAST A WEEK!!

Sleepy

I'm sleepy, so I decide to go outside and get the mail. Half way to the mailbox, I collapse on the sidewalk and fall asleep. I lay there sleeping for about 5 hours. When I wake up, man! Is one side of my face sunburned!

In My Office I Have a Small Window

In my office I have a small window, and through it, I can see the ocean. It is not a very wide window, but it is extremely long -- from floor to ceiling. Besides the ocean, I can see part of a white beach, glinting with cars parked by a lagoon. Between my view of the lagoon, beach, and ocean, there is a large freeway. I certainly should go visit the beach and dip my feet in the ocean that I look at all day long. But I never do. And because I look often, and I think about going there, and I don't go -- it becomes more likely I never will. All of us make these kinds of needless concessions throughout our lives. The more used you are to the process of denial, the duller you become. If I find myself quite unexpectedly at the beach tomorrow -- I shall be very very happy.

Going Out the Window

He wanted to call Linda saying it was over, that they shouldn't see each other anymore, but he knew she wouldn't pick up. So he left a message on her answering machine that was so complicated and self contradicting, it made no sense, really, whatsoever.

He kept sitting by the open window after he had hung up. He kept sitting by the open window, after leaving such a stupid idiotic message, a message that made him look badly -- a confused and selfish person full of himself. He hated feeling that he was a confused and selfish person full of himself.

The light was fading. For some reason, he took the cap off a blue ballpoint pen. The cap was smooth and pointed like a bullet. He balanced it on the ledge of the open window. He looked at the bullet shaped cap, balancing on the ledge of the open window. It trembled slightly when a gust of wind blew in the room. Soon it would be blown away. But he would save it from going out the window.

He watched, and right when the cap was going to be blown away, and he would save the cap, a roommate came in the room. Startled, he knocked the cap off the ledge, into the night. Then he realized he had fucked up his relationship with Linda, to try and keep a bullet shaped plastic pen cap from falling out the window.

a poem to my father

when i was in my 20s i wrote poems
looking into our relationship

then i gave up
i thrust through life

now i am aware that every
complicated construct i create

is another snare
another sickening trap

but for you i cannot
resist it

Some Fortunes You Won't be Getting from a Fortune Cookie

All of your childhood memories are completely fabricated.

Haven’t you done it by now, fucker?

You have no lucky number, so get over it.

The harmless pranks of your youth will become the bane of your old age.

Glorious mediocrity will be your ultimate refuge.

Mistaken. About. Everything.

It would be advisable to not answer the phone for four months.

Confucius say, "Piss-off, flathead!"

God hates you.

The Lights Go Out

The lights go out. We go outside, sit on the concrete patio, and eat melting ice cream. You ask, what if the power never came back on? What would that be like? We wouldn't have the news to criticize, we'd go to bed earlier, I say. Ice would be an expensive commodity, and everyone would get portable generators, you respond. The world would become little villages again, I think out loud. Superstition and the burning of witches, you say. Well, that could be, if for instance, for some reason, electrons no longer flow through the wires, I say. We look at the night sky in silence. Little superstitious villages -- and we'd have to do all our fucking laundry by hand, I realize. You exclaim, Shit! No! Like the show where they made that family live like Victorians! We sit and we wait. The power stays out. When the ice cream is inedible soup and my butt falls asleep, you grab a flashlight, and we visit the neighbors. We play a board game with them for several hours, by candlelight. We don't think about the future.

he wrote poems

he wrote poems that had nowhere to go
he didn't know they had nowhere to go
that was a good thing at the time

later he traveled and understood what he had done
he came back and looked at his poems
and he burned them but kept just 1

Afraid

This morning, God told me quite clearly I was going to die this afternoon. Being a priest, I suppose in retrospect I should not have been surprised that God would be telling me things quite clearly. But being a priest, I was secretly a bit ambivalent about whether God really existed. But when God spoke, I was surprised enough to yell out and fall down, hitting my head, when I heard the voice of God.

When God speaks to you, it is not pleasant, it comes through so strong. Your whole body becomes stiff as a board, as if you are paralyzed. It reminded me of an epileptic seizure. After God was done telling me I was going to die this afternoon, I got a pack of ice, and applied it to my head. Then I crawled across the floor and I called my brother.

"Joe -- its me!", I said, trying not to sound panicked.

"Oh, hi Bill.", said Joe, sounding sleepy.

"Joe -- I gotta tell you something."

"What?" said Joe, sounding annoyed.

"I just heard from God. Directly from God! It was terrible!"

"Oh?" said Joe, sounding more annoyed. Like he was going to hang up. But I had to go on.

"Joe - he said...God said --", but I couldn't go on because my fucking asshole of a brother had hung up.

That fucking asshole, here I am getting messages directly from God about me dying and my own goddamn brother won't even listen to me before he decides if he believes in me or not. Or believes in God or not. What an asshole. I hate him! I hate him!! Joe, not God, God. Are you really sure I am going to die this afternoon?

I wait, on my knees by the phone, but God doesn't say anything.

I think about my schedule, and wonder how I can avoid dying. What would kill me? Crossing the street to drop in on Sister Margaret's 5th grade class at 11 PM when they are to be discussing catechism? Having lunch with that tiresome group of ladies who are part of the boosting committee? Mass at 3PM for the departed Mr. Chiantilini?
I decide to try and talk to my lousy asshole of a brother one last time, before I could go out and die, according to God.

"Joe!"

"Aw -- what do you want?", says Joe. "I've got a hangover."

"God said I'm going to die this afternoon."

Joe doesn't answer for about 15 seconds. "Well..." he drawls, "...can I have your golf clubs?"

I hang up on him. Insolent bastard. How I hate him. All sorts of memories and instances from our childhood flood back into my head. Like the time I strapped him to a wagon and pushed him down a hill, or the time he poured beads in my ear when I was sleeping, and we had to go to the doctor to get them out. That fucker.

I wash my hands and appreciate the large bruise throbbing on my forehead in the bathroom mirror. To hell with it. If I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go. I was a bit bored with the priest thing. Or guilty too, I walk down the stairs or the rectory, and into the strong sunlight. As I squint, getting used to the brightness of the day, everything is right in the world.

Interestingly, the last thing I think about is not about Jesus, or God, or my asshole brother -- but of Janice, from an affair I had three years ago. How she moved to get away from me. Janice, who now lives in Lower Manhattan, in New York, NY. I imagine she got on just fine.

This is the only great regret in my life. How I ruined her life. I cross the street, smelling her perfume, and that is when Janice runs me over with a Ford Escort, with a screaming baby in the passenger seat.

As I bleed to death in the street, I remember what I said to her when she asked.

"No." I said. Because I was afraid. I was afraid.