Shimmer Man

(Story originally appeared in Tastes Like Chicken, issue 9, 2005)

The year was 2046.

My parents took me to a fancy restaurant for my birthday; a giant wedge-shaped thing perched on a series of curved, reinforced stilts 200 feet above a forest of deep and infinite green. The sun singed the treetops with an inaudible hiss as it slid below the horizon and a sweet breeze, pumped in from somewhere overhead, made the candles of my birthday cake flicker and sway softly. The light in my mother’s eyes danced and waved like fire. I was nine years old.

As the waiter set the cake down on the table and everyone drew a breath to sing “Happy Birthday”, suddenly there came a terrible pain in my skull, and I screamed like a wild thing. Throwing an arm across my face, I flailed and lashed blindly at the jungle of comforting hands tangled up in mine. My father seized me in his strong arms but was unable to prevent me from flinging myself out of my chair and onto the floor, taking the table cloth and the contents of the table with me. I felt as if the sides of my head were going to burst out like dammed waters, and I could imagine a boiling wave of bloody red breaking like the tide, spilling across the floor.

As I rolled around howling like a wounded animal and nearly blinded by pain, I saw something through my tears. Beyond the enormous picture windows which framed the off-season balcony was a sight unlike anything I had ever beheld– a stack of twinkling lights in the shape of a man, leaning casually against the railing and admiring the view. Those one-hundred-thousand colors I would never learn a name for stood out against the fading twilight, changing and shifting without pattern, without end or beginning. “Shimmer Man,” said my writhing brain. And as I continued to gape in painful amazement, I swear it turned to face me and even waved hello. The knives of pain subsided, and the twinkling lights began to fade.

The year is 2079.

It took the former United States almost 50 years to get it fully functional.

Despite the hundreds who lost their lives before the keel was ever laid, despite two serious on-board fires, despite a near-total fuel contamination which resulted in the jettisoning of a billion-dollar experiment, the Space Orbiting Platform “Promise” was christened on schedule and became a rallying point for post-war citizens. It was our symbol of the pride we thought we’d lost forever.

Nothing lasts forever, except nothing and forever.

When the main stabilizers went offline 72 hours ago, the ship began to slide, drawn ever closer to the Earth’s atmosphere. The captain of the broken Promise gave the order to evacuate the research vessel’s full compliment: giant robotic arms managed to deploy the twin 770-foot life pods before the Earth’s gravitational pull played “she-loves-me-not” with chunks of the mighty ship, dissecting indiscriminately, sending flaming red petals skipping across the sky. It was a horrifying sight, visible from anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, and covered by every network in every country around the world, simultaneously.

The first life pod was struck by debris from the initial explosion and destroyed immediately. The survivors never had a chance, and the pieces burned up on re-entry. The second managed an emergency crash landing in the North Atlantic Ocean, vanishing under the waves in the time it takes to read this sentence.

The floatation system failed. Two hundred people died, and two survived.

The Promise came down hard. A lot of people wanted to know why, and they wanted to know yesterday. So I admit, I was in a bit of a hurry. And maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention to what I was doing. We were nosing in and around the engine room of the lifeboat, this once-colossal wreck that lay twisted on the ocean floor. Me and Perfect Tommy, my by-the-book dive partner of five years, noting different instrument readings and keeping our eyes peeled for the Engineering Officer’s electronic logbook, which might shed some light on what happened up there. The “black box” system on board the Promise was designed to store reports in triplicate. Two of them were lost forever; the last was here. Somewhere. That’s why we get paid the big bucks.

P.T.’s voice, punctuated by carefully measured gulps of air, came over the Divelink. “Coffee, our window’s up.” Hiss. “Mark position, let’s go.” We use short sentences to preserve energy and air. “Roger.” Hiss. “Mark position.” I removed a luminous wax marker from my sleeve bag and carefully scribed my initials, the time, and a few symbols on the bulkhead in our team-specific color, to show that this space had been checked. “Head for the Bouncer.” Hiss. “Right behind you.” Hiss. “Just want to wave a light in that corner.” Hiss.

“Leave it, kid.” Hiss. “We’ll be here awhile.” Hiss. “Check it later.” But he was out the door, and headed for the Bouncer. He’d probably noticed our mixture running low. He’s good on details.

The remote-operated Bouncer is a combination decontamination station and hyperbaric chamber; it was also our slow boat to the surface. Decom first, depressurise on the way back up. There are formulas to be followed to prevent the dreaded bends.

When high-pressure gases in the air come in contact with water, they dissolve into the water. That’s how carbonated drinks are made– exposing water to high-pressure carbon dioxide gas, and dissolving the gas into water. Surface too quickly, and it’s like uncorking a bottle of champagne. Only really painful, and a lot more fatal. To avoid this, we have to rise slow or make intermittent decompression stops on the way up so the gas can come out on its own. The only solution is to enter a pressurized chamber in which the air pressure matches the pressure at depth (breathing 100% oxygen on the way to the chamber also helps). Then, the pressure is released slowly. But to get to the chamber you have to be “clean”. After all, contaminate the chamber, and we’re all screwed.

P.T. turned to make sure I’d followed him, and I saw his face light up with a smile behind his visor. “Bet I whip your ass in checkers again.” Hiss.

“Sure you will, you cheatin’ bastard.” Hiss. Hearing the sound of your best friend’s digitized laughter in your ears when you’re a mile underwater is a strange experience.

The hatch of the Bouncer is controlled by a gamma-specific fluorometer, which takes a reading from every diver working this wreck before allowing them access. The water passing through a cell in the chamber is exposed to an ultra-violet light from a shielded source. Some molecules absorb the energy from this radiation and give back this energy by emitting a light, which is then read by a super-sensitive detector and transmitted to the Bouncer’s brain. The amount of fluorescent light produced depends on the amount of gamma detected, so a high reading above background in an already hot environment like this means I show up hot. And if I show up too hot, the door won’t open, essentially protecting the rest of the crew, and our only hyperbaric chamber from whatever threat might be present until I can be safely cleaned. If the chamber gets contaminated, you lose eight divers to the bends instead of one to gamma poisoning.

Like I said, that’s why we get paid the big bucks.

P.T. eased the bulk of his suit into the chamber, gave me a thumbs-up, and closed the door. The chamber is only big enough for one diver at a time, and the decon cycle takes about five minutes. As I waited my turn, I nervously eyed the rapidly falling needle that registered the amount of good air available (if you can call this shit “air”). Suddenly, I noticed flashing lights on my BUG. Tiny digital words scrolling across the screen made my blood run cold: my suit was losing pressure! As I was leaving Engineering, I must have snagged my suit on something– I couldn’t tell what, or where, or how bad. Looking up and around me, I could see a tiny stream of silvery bubbles colliding with the overhead, coming from somewhere behind my left shoulder.

“A diver need not worry about having his body contaminated, unless the diving suit or helmet physically leaks.” That’s what the rule books say. Unfortunately, I’ve got some urgent little lights flashing on and off on my BUG that say otherwise. The Bathymetric Underwater Gauge on my forearm provides me with critical information, like updated water temperature, present depth, estimated amount of nitrogen, and in this case, a plus-or-minus-10 reading of gamma in my immediate vicinity. Those numbers are rising. Slowly. I’m hot and getting hotter, fast. At this rate, I won’t be able to get into the Bouncer!

I glance up at the stream of bubbles over my shoulder again. They’ve gotten more pronounced.

“If a leak does occur, the dive must be terminated.” Rules are rules. I tried to remain calm. Water is a very dense material, and acts as an excellent shielding material to protect me from gamma. Because I’m immersed in water, I can control the amount of significant shielding maintained between me and the source by increasing the relative distance. Simple. The water itself is not radioactive– the only radiation that can be detected in the water comes from particles suspended in the water. Gamma and neutron radiation are not particles– they’re pure energy without mass, and must be shielded by material that has a great deal of mass, such as water, concrete, or lead. Of these forms of radiation, gamma is the ionizing radiation source from which the diver will receive the majority of his accumulated dose. Since water is such a great shield to ionizing radiation, I work in an environment which protects me from radiation. Pretty smart, huh?

Unless, as previously mentioned, I happen to tear my suit. And that’s just the beginning of my problems.

At these depths, wreck divers face nitrogen narcosis, high partial pressures of carbon dioxide and physiological mechanisms that experts have yet to understand, which can either lead directly to or contribute substantially to certain death. With the increased use of breathing media other than air over the years, there’s been a dramatic increase in fatalities caused by oxygen toxicity. Central Nervous System Toxicity (CNS) is a real motherfucker. Breathing oxygen at very high pO2s for a short period of time means problems arrive that much quicker. We’re talking visual disturbances, pronounced ringing in the ears, dizziness, mood swings, and convulsions and comas. Oh, yeah. And hallucinations.

So, I may or may not be seeing what I think I see ahead of me at the end of Passageway 4– a stack of twinkling lights in the shape of a man, leaning casually against the bulkhead, staring back at me: a hundred thousand colors I’ll never have the chance to learn the names for, changing and shimmering without pattern, without end or beginning… I shake my head several times to get rid of the vision. Must be ambient light passing through the stream of bubbles, casting a shadow, my eyes playing tricks on me, something. But I can’t shake it away, and I can’t tell myself I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing.

The great thing about the Divelink communication Voice Recognition Chip is that it isn’t triggered by bubbles or ambient noise. The mouthpiece is a patented silicon rubber speaking cavity, and doesn’t require any straps. The automatic gain and squelch controls leave my hands free while I’m working, and it’s good to a range of 4,500 feet. Furthermore, the system is equipped with an emergency signal that alerts other divers (and the surface!) when a diver is in distress. I’ve had conversations with multi-billion-dollar company heads, sitting safe in their polished offices while I’m surveying a wreck, offering an on-scene, real-time cost estimate as to how much it will cost to salvage their ruined high-tech chunk of shit sitting on the ocean floor.

My words are automatically picked up by the surface unit, relayed through a wireless transmitter, and sent anywhere in the world as streaming audio. In this case, my dying words. Somewhere above me in a Shoreside Control Facility crammed with radio equipment and laptop computers, I imagine my raspy voice floating out of the speakers, filling the crowded room with the sound of a broken riddle.

“…so beautiful….”

“Beautiful?” Big Bobby Keegan grins broadly at the gathered logistics team and keys the mic. “Hey, Coffee! Who the hell ya got down there with you?” Schoolboy titters flash like fish in the water from a group of hardened men who work hard, play hard, and live like kings the world over.

“Cut the crap, Bobby,” barks Cappy. “Play back his last transmission. What the hell’s he talking about?”

The looped playback of my voice crackles over the speakers. “…so beautiful… (crack) …so beautiful… (crack) …so beautiful… (crack) …so beautiful… (crack).”

“Good Christ, he’s hallucinating! How long has he been down there?”

“About 45 minutes, doing an engine room survey with…” checks the roster, “Perfect Tommy.” Checks another gauge. “…who is… in the Bouncer.”

“How much good air does Coffee have left?” Cappy looks straight to Big Bobby for an answer, who checks the dancing LED readouts in a hurry as his grin dissolves like sunset.

“Maybe, uh, five minutes.”

“Maybe?!? Shit! How far is the Assist Team from his position?”

“Far end of the ship, about five minutes away, but they can’t do anything for him, Cappy.”

“Why?!?”

“Coffee’s hot. And he’s getting hotter.”

“Rad! Talk to me!”

During all nuclear diving projects, our dive crew is under the omnipotent control of the senior radiation protection technician, Rad Man. Rad is responsible for the radiation protection of each diver, plus the entire crew. He’s a short, fat bastard with more chins than a Chinese phone book, and total authority on the project– any doubt about conditions, the first sign of trouble, and Rad pulls the plug: all the budgeting issues, scheduling delays, and pissed-off stockholders in the world don’t make a fucking lick of difference. Rad’s word is final law.

Rad checks the numbers, frowning, hesitating. “At present… he’s still ALARA.” As Low As Reasonably Achievable.

Cappy takes a deep breath. “Plain English, Rad. Give me something good.”

Rad looks up from his instruments and returns the deep breath. “He’s got a bad suit tear. If we don’t get him out in the next few minutes, he’ll–”

Cappy pointed a finger in Rad’s face. “I distinctly remember using the word ‘good’ in that sentence.”

Cappy turned to another man. “Can P.T. still get to him?”

“Negative, Cap. Tommy’s already in the chamber, with another two minutes in his cycle. We’d lose two trying to save one.”

“Well, we can’t just leave him there! Think of something, damnit!” He keys up the mic again, and tries to find a smile among the cracks in his voice.

“Hey, down there! You doing okay, Coffee? We’re working on something. We’ll get you back. We’ll get you clean, and you can return to the surface. Don’t forget, you still owe me $500 from that bar in Singapore, remember? Don’t make me come down there and get it myself, over!” His voice is shaky with laughter, but his eyes are far from twinkling. He snaps the mic off again.

In the silence, the drops of sweat forming on his bald head are the only sound.

He snatches up the mic again.

“Coffee? You listenin’?”

Static.

“Coffee? Come on back, brother. Don’t you give up on me, over!”

I can hear the chatter from my Divelink’s cushioned earbuds– a tinny voice from the world far above me, somewhere in the warm, glittering sunlight. A world I know I’ll never see again. According to the BUG I just ran out of breathable air. I can feel it already– that shortness of breath, combined with a burning throat and chest associated with Pulmonary Oxygen Toxicity. Damage to the cell lining of the lungs, the lung walls, the formation of fluid in the lungs. The simple act of breathing becomes steadily more painful. In order to conserve my energy, I kneel down to think. Assess.

What do I have going for me? The surface team will try to come up with something. The Assist Team always carry pony bottles of air, maybe it’ll be enough. Too far… I could… maybe I could… what if I… nothing. Nothing’s coming.

The Bouncer won’t let me in. I’m out of air. The nearest Assist Team is probably 50 yards away. That’s nothing if ship’s in orbit. But when that 50 yards is pitch-fucking-black and twisted like a snake with a broken back… they’ll never make it in time. I’m too weighted with gear and too far down to attempt an emergency ascent. In desperation, I refrain from swallowing. Typically, this action seals the glottis and allows pressure to build in the lungs. “Always exhale before trying to inhale,” says the rule book. I’m hoping beyond hope there might be just a few more breaths in there somewhere, and I fight down panic, forcing myself to keep my lungs at mid-volume. Hoping. Waiting. But the doubt creeps in.

I’m done.

And so I raise my eyes again to the shimmering apparition before me, telling myself again that it isn’t real. It can’t be.

I haven’t seen the Shimmer Man since I was nine years old, but I’d recognize it anywhere. For a thousand nights after that first encounter, I tried in vain to recreate what I had seen with my colored pencils and pens, hiding under a blanket in my room till all hours with a flashlight, but without success. Every time I had a headache, no matter how slight, I looked around for the Shimmer Man, but I never saw him again. Why here? And why now?

Nitrogen narcosis. High partial pressures of carbon dioxide. Pulmonary Oxygen Toxicity. Central Nervous System Toxicity. Gamma radiation poisoning. Sure and sudden death. Drowning. The tremendous pressure of the ocean. A host of problems seeking me out, as I cower in this darkened wreck full of dead bodies on the cold sea floor. That’s why I get paid the big bucks.

And then I can hear the sound of Perfect Tommy’s digitized laugh. “Bet I whip your ass in checkers again.” Hiss. “Sure you will, cheatin’ bastard.” Hiss. I see all the weekends spent at his house on the beach, playing with his kids, and keeping my eyes off his wife. Like any good friend would do.

I stopped focusing on the grim facts and concentrated instead on the glowing apparition before me. “…let go… return to surface….” This thing, this creature of light is speaking to me in soft broken phrases, but the meaning is crystal clear. It’s time to go.

First, I have to purge my suit.

Of course, there’s no way I’ll be able to follow the Shimmer Man to where ever it is we’re supposed to go with all this equipment on. Ignoring the flashing depth gauges, and struggling against the depleted heliox for every breath, I reach up and begin to open the top-mounted helium double exhaust valve on my DESCO 9 Commercial Diving Helmet, and begin working my face free of the chin button, which allows me to regulate my exhaust and control my buoyancy without using my hands.

My heart is pounding, and all I can think about is the water that’s going to rush in and the terrible pressure that will shove the last breath of life from my lungs.

“What the hell’s he doing?!?”

“I can’t tell! He’s just… kneeling in… Passageway 4… outside Engineering near the Bouncer shaft. He’s just staring at a blank bulkhead, I don’t– oh, Jesus….”

“What?!?” Cappy’s face is contorted, the face of calm control is gone.

“He’s trying to take off his helmet.”

Cappy snatched up the mic again. “Coffee!” he shouted into the mic. “Do not take your fucking rig off, Coffee! You hear me?!? Whatever you’re seeing isn’t real! Get it together, son! We can get you out of there! Hang on!” He slams a hand down on a large red button on the console before him, and throughout the cramped quarters of the dive pod, a blaring klaxon wailed.

“Goddamnit, where’s the Bouncer?!?”

“On the way down, 30 seconds!”

A second flashing red light appears on a control panel, and sirens begin to wail. The pressure in my suit begins to drop rapidly.

“Assist Team! Move on Coffee now! Move it!” Cappy’s anguished voice fills the SCF, and desperation grips him in the pit of his stomach.

“Coffee! It’s Tommy!” P.T.’s voice, wrapped in warm echoes, comes to me. He’s safe and sound in the Bouncer. Such beautiful children, a loving wife. He’s fine. He’ll be fine. Looks like we won’t get that last game, though. Pity. “Hang on, man! We’ll get you out of there! Wait! Wait for me, Coffee, please! Wait! What the hell are you doing?!? Wait! Coffee–” The water is absolute cold, and pounds against my head, turning it inside out with blows from a giant hammer. And there is nothing else.

The Shimmer Man smiles at me with infinite patience, one hand extended and waiting for mine. As I turn around, I see the jagged lights of the Assist Team moving as fast as they can down the darkened passageway, skidding to a halt when they see that my lack of a head will more than likely prevent any resuscitative efforts. The bright beams twirl like fingertips in red paint, stirring infinite patterns. I feel bad for them, having to find me this way. “It’s okay, guys. I’m fine. I’m here.” I want to reassure them. I can see them gesturing to each other, and I know they’re talking to the Shoreside Control Facility, delivering the news. They’re going to take it hard. But it will pass. Everything does.

The Shimmer Man smiles at me again with infinite patience, one hand extended and waiting for mine. And there is nothing else.

Operation: Sweet Tea – Dispatches from Dagobah

The Inner Voice is never quiet.  It creates characters, it writes dialog.  When it can’t think of anything better to do, it writes letters.  It fills a legal pad here, a Post-it note there, or the glossy back of a drink special menu swiped from behind the bar of some REDACTED roadside attraction, the glossy surface of which is valued for its ability to work well with Sharpies.

EARLY SEPTEMBER 2010, LOCATION UNKNOWN

Nyx,

How goes?  Things here are ramping down.  Word on the street is that I’ll take over for REDACTED and then transfer to REDACTED or hopefully REDACTED.  I’d like to spend a week in REDACTED before I REDACTED, however.  (Ha!  I bet you thought I was gonna say REDACTED.)  Things to do on my off-time: visit Cafe REDACTED, get photos of buskers, drink absinthe, and browse the dusty knot of voodoo stores orbiting REDACTED Park.  I need something suitably ugly and unspeakably disturbing for my work desk.  A shrunken head, a fertility doll perhaps, something along those lines.

I can’t imagine what the REDACTED was like during the apex of the thing.  They should have called it OPERATION: MONKEY FUCKS A/N REDACTED COCONUT. I’ll just say that and change the channel.

But heavens, people do a lot of “turning around” down here!  The following are examples of their quaint speech patterns:

“Well, this fella turns aroun’ and sez…”
 “Now, mah daddy turns around and sez…”
 “Well now you turn around and just drive down to the Piggly-Wiggly…”

Oh, and this one! “…‘Well mebbe if’n yoo gotcher head outta yer asshole yoo woodn’t smell shee-it.’”

Time: slows to a crawl. Think ‘Matrix’.

I swear to fuck, that last line was delivered with so much weight and solemnity, and infused with Southern wherewithal: It’s as Bubba had personally re-invented fire and was awaiting my unbridled praise, or at least a retort.

In the mind’s eye, I could see him leaning back, crossing his mighty arms over his barrel chest and slowly nodding his head, further treasuring the weight of his corn-fed decree… Seconds passed.

You know what I’m like: My brain — furiously struggling to diagram, dissect, connect, detect, analyze and reduce the hundredfold layers of subtle communication in this simple moment to a Lego-simple observation (or better still, a haiku!) designed to knock his fucking socks off and demonstrate my mental prowess — takes just a cunt-hair too long to export viable verbal content, and the moment passes.  This strategic error is misinterpreted as dumbstruck idiocy and Bubba walked away, the victor by default, mumbling and slowly shaking his head. “That feller ain’t got no sense no how.  Must be a Yankee.”

Side note: I’ve passed along my thoughts on the iPad to you.  It looks like a wicked good travel tool, but the governing principle of my life is LESS NOT MORE.  I can’t justify owning an iMac, an iPhone AND a laptop, etc. (And planning to reward myself with the iPhone 4 upon my return!)  And yes, should I decide to ditch my iMac/television set, I’ll certainly let you know.  We’ll talk money, or trade.  I’ll need to wipe it dumb and sort out shipping, unless you get the urge to visit your brother in REDACTED.

Ultimately, I’d like to own only what I could carry around in an old Army half ton: Move all of my books into the clouds.., reduce my bags down to two or three.., move to a warmer climate and ditch my winter gear.., keep a loaded .45 under the seat and make my coffee over a different fire each morning.  You get the idea.  I feel we amass far too many things in our lifetime, and that we expend our limited and valuable energy trying to move, store, protect, purchase, dispose of, maintain and figure out how to upgrade to MORE THINGS.

Right.  I’m off the soap box, I’m sure someone else needs the firewood.  Bravo tango whiskey, it looks like I’ve got a few more weeks ahead of me.  You know how our Uncle works: “Hey! How far would you be if we hadn’t called you back?” And yes, per our texts from REDACTED: Look into Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash” (the first book I ever stole!), and seek ye also the clever, clever writings of Grant Morrison.  And Warren Ellis.  The foul-mouthed comic book genius, not the wild-bearded manticore who plays git-fiddle for Nick Cave.  A different Warren Ellis. Although Grinderman will blow your shitting mind just as well. (Click it. Trust me.)

Many thanks for the BBT infusions, BTW! A little nerd in the Savage Land goes a long way.

Go, see, do.

Yours in Christ,

TWM

//

11SEP2010

Dear Cass,

Fuck, yes.

Hello from a Chili’s somewhere in REDACTED after a two-day sick fit full of fevered dreams and fearful images; I’m drinking cold beer and sweet tea like they’re going out of style, but I’ve always got time for coffee.  The sharp laughter of sassy black girls rolls out of the kitchen in a tumbled wave, shrill gossip and delighted decadence bursting through the double doors dressed in the metallic jangle of empty pans and the steamy clink of hot flatware.  I’m reading, writing. I’ve ordered as healthy an option as can be expected.

September 11^th.  Nine years ago to the day, when certain buckets of excrement were striking the blades of certain exhaust systems, and certain planes were hate-tackling certain buildings in the East Coast concrete convention I temporarily call home, my life was at a perfect stand still. I remember launching pine cones from a leaf blower in the parking lot of a tiny rescue station on an Indian reservation somewhere in the REDACTED REDACTED thinking that my life as I knew it was over; that I was free to fail, and that I would probably go nowhere else in life because I simply wasn’t in a position to assume differently. I hated my life, hated my decisions, and despised my surroundings.  I had way too many regrets and not enough good stories to tell.  I was no longer relevant.  I was removed from the equation.  My, how things cha– Oh, hey.  My food is here, we’ll talk later.

19SEP2010

Dear Cass,

Hello again from REDACTED.  I’m writing this from the weathered grey deck of a beach house.  The surf roars and the gulls scream and the wind is warm and sweet.

Ten minutes ago: The door was open, so I walked in holding the key in one hand.

“Hello?  Don’t shoot, they said I could live here…”  I walked from room to room in search of what I felt would be angry (or at the very least confused) homeowners and listened carefully for the click of a rifle bolt, but the place was empty.  Nobody here but us aliens.

Five minutes ago: The front of my rental car was encrusted with dead protein, so I hosed it off while I considered my options.  I decided that my options included relaxing, so I hauled my gear onto the porch, kicked off my shoes and put my tired feet on the rail.  Took a beer from the fridge, left a dollar. Goddamn, it’s good to smell the ocean again.  (It’s like having your face buried between the thighs of Mother Nature. It’s a briny, primal smell. Makes me feel like a centaur, or some such…)

Two hours ago: My drive from REDACTED was uneventful, unless you count knocking off the passenger side mirror and putting a tiny gouge in the door of the rental.  Oops. It was purely accidental.  I’d parked the car at the side of the road to photograph a mural in REDACTED and when I was backing up to turn around, I was only watching the oncoming traffic side – not the side where that no-good, goddamn egg-sucking sumbitch Murphy up and decided to install a speed limit sign. Glad I had insurance.

Yesterday: I woke up at 0630.  Showered, shaved, brushed my teeth.  Filled my pockets with small black rectangles: my wallet, my iPhone, and the pretty-much useless REDACTED cellphone.  See also: Keys, gum, a scrap of paper to write on, and a pen.  Out the door by 0700.  I was told the helicopter would be taking off at 0800, so I felt I had plenty of time to get where I was going.

Except I didn’t.

Twenty minutes later, my phone rings.  It’s the REDACTED producer I’m supposed to meet at the airfield.  He wants to know where I am.

“On my way.  Why, what time are we taking off?”

“Uh, probably in the next few minutes?”

“Uh, I’ll call you back?” I stomped hard on the gas.

The drive from to the REDACTED airport was only twenty minutes, and the map showed a straight line.  Unfortunately, my GPS put me in someone’s driveway and then took me through the only underground tunnel in the whole fucking state of REDACTED.  More wrong turns took me more wrong places before I whipped around the corner onto Main Street where the airport lives, all four tires squealing like fucked pigs.   Things were getting tight, but I was in the home stretch.  Almost.  There were no cars on the road at this hour, which explains why I was traveling at speeds of 75 and 80 and running red lights like it was election year in a brothel.

The producer called back.  I was screeching around a corner at the time, so yeah, maybe I shouted into the phone a little.

“HELLO?”

“Uh.., where are you?  We’re ready to fly.”

“Sorry, on my way, I just came out of the tunnel.”

“There’s a tunnel in REDACTED?”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you all about it when I get there.”

I finally found the airfield and slid into a parking spot, tires skidding to a ragged halt on the dusty gravel.  Popped the trunk, grabbed my camera bag and started for the gate when a older woman in a shabby security guard uniform and a slow Southern accent appeared out of thin air.  She spoke so soft and slurred that I almost ran past her.

“Now, sugah, I’m ahfraid you cain’t park yo car heah, because you’s taking spots away frum t’others who work heah.  You just pahk it two blocks over thatch way, ah’m sho yo’ little friends’ll wait…” (What did reality look like from inside this woman’s head??)  I tried Reason, I tried Manners, I tried Jedi, and I tried to explain the tight schedule and complicated mechanics of the fantastic flying machine that was, even now, spinning up for take-off.  But she would have none of it.

Fuck.  Sometimes you gotta let the little old lady win.  (And sometimes you gotta jump back in the rental cars and stuff it three spots to the left when the little old lady isn’t looking.)

I ran for the terminal, slapping the open thigh pockets of my pants.   Something felt wrong.  Nothing says ‘sloppy’ like Velcro that refuses to close and — shit did I just lose a REDACTED cellphone?  No time for that now.  As long as I have my iPhone, my wallet, the car keys, my camera gear and my GPS, the whole Western world could bake itself into an apple fucking pie.

Seven minutes later: I’m stuffed into a black and yellow Sikorsky 76-C that resembled a giant carpenter bee sitting on the tarmac.  There would be no window seat for this trip.  “The needs of the many,” as Spock said.  No, I was informed that this was a media escort, first and foremost.  Whatever I snapped or captured on video was strictly for documentation.  The co-pilot seated me in between the REDACTED camera operator and a REDACTED photographer.  On-screen talent rode in back on the right opposite the sound guy, and the producer squeezed in front left, with the REDACTED liaison opposite him.  The passengers were separated from the pilot and co-pilot by a thin curtain but thanks to the headsets we all wore, we could carry on a conversation.

A moment aside: I’m really not comfortable with video and I’ve had less than zero experience in using one.  Framing is different, the controls are awkward, there’s the constant jarring, you can’t turn it over for vertical shots like you can with a still camera, and you always have to worry about the sound.  Yet they insisted I bring one, so last night I opted to drive all the way to REDACTED to pick one up from REDACTED.  The understanding was that I’d meet some of the REDACTED staff for dinner, and I based my decision on this.  I arrived at the city limits with no problems, but I got turned around in all the construction and the traffic surrounding the REDACTED.  I ended up turning off the GPS and hanging half out the window of the rental, driving it like I stole it.  By then, it was getting late and my calls inquiring about dinner plans had gone unreturned.  Found the address, got the camera bag, tossed it into the trunk and, pretty much disgusted by this point, hauled ass back to my hotel in REDACTED before I turned inside out from hunger.

Back on the helicopter: It was a long flight out to the platform and I nodded off more than once, swaddled up safe like a crash test Jesus in my kapok life jacket that felt like something out of WWII; I was further snugged by the radio headset pinching my skull, the five-point safety harness collapsing my lungs, the D700 snug around my neck and the Sony HD video camera on my lap.

Once we arrived at the platform, I listened as the pilots recited the necessary spells and incantations to get the bird on the ground, or in this case, a tiny green hexagon balanced on the edge of the platform which stood like a steel tarantula in the middle of the REDACTED REDACTED.  The pilot powered down the engines, and we shrugged out of our many restraints.

At this point, I was only vaguely aware of my directions.  Had we come from this way, or that?  The water stretched out in all directions.  It was a surreal experience to say the least, and I half expected a bald man in a wheelchair with a white cat on his lap to meet me on the deck.  “We’ve been expecting you, Mr. Bond.”

We filed inside and I dropped my bag, making a beeline for the coffee to clear the fog of sleep.  Safety brief: No rings, no jewelry, no weird piercings.  Hardhats, gloves and hearing protection were issued; tiny bullets of yellow foam that fill my ear canals like the larva of some strange insect, growing slowly, devouring all sound.  Suddenly, I could hear myself think and breathe, and my voice was clear in my head. I was well into my Darth Vader impression when I looked up, noticing the puzzled expressions of the rest of the group staring back at me. Way to be.

Up a flight of stairs, a few lefts and rights and suddenly we came to the drilling deck where a giant robot arm called an “iron roughneck” was unscrewing hundred-foot sections of pipe fresh from the seafloor, as another arm high overhead stacked the pipe snug into a vertical rack.  It was an awesome sight.  It was also screaming loud, and everything was covered in the mud of a ten thousand hunting dogs.

Time for work.  Out come the cameras.  Right off the bat, I’m frustrated by the safety gloves; a size too small, depriving my hands of complex motor function. Plus, every time I lined up a shot, the sound guy would step in front of my lens, or drop the boom into my frame. (I would mention this to him a few times, but receive only blank looks in return.)

Next stop, the control booth where two men are seated in front of what looks like the most expensive flight simulator I’ve ever seen.  They sip coffee from white paper cups and make small adjustments to the iron roughneck via joysticks in their hands.  A row of computer screens above their heads tells them everything they need to know about return rates, fluid viscosity, and bottom pressure.  The room was crowded. Got a few good shots, though.

More tours, more wonders, and more “holy shit” moments from me.  Helicopter rides!  Robots!  The REDACTED!  Later, I ate freshly grilled steak  from a barbecue deck on the back of the platform and drank wicked good sweet tea.  I gathered more footage, and took a few more shots.  Then we got back in the helicopter and returned to REDACTED. Conversations clicked in and out in my headphones, but I was silent during the trip, thinking about this, that and the other thing.

I drove back to my room, stopping only for more coffee and quarters for the laundry machine.  I had just five hours to write my cutlines, process, edit and upload my video before I’d need to wash my clothes, pack my bags and make prepartatins for the morning drive to REDACTED.

Right away, technical difficulties were experienced.  My camera wouldn’t show up on my laptop.  Tried different things, tried downloading drivers. Nothing worked. Grabbed the camera body and my 8GB flash drive and headed for the hotel business center to coax their tired-ass PC into moving my files. Thirty agonizing minutes later, I had the images transferred.  “The faster technology gets, the more impatient we are for it.  (Note to self: Stop shooting in RAW until you get your photo editor sorted out, and never leave home without a card reader!)

I spent an hour making sense of my notes and handouts from the platform until I had something decent, before turning my attention to the video.  And then, horror of horrors: I discover there was no audio on my footage.

A thousand foul litanies.  I shouted and punched the air in frustration, but I knew there were no options and fewer excuses.  I’d just have to transport the video with me to REDACTED, dodge the embarrassing phone calls asking for product, and figure a way to salvage this horrid fucking mess.

20SEP2010

Dear Cass,

Experienced a moment akin to “Apocalypse Now” today; a long ride upriver in a barebones metal workboat toward a place called REDACTED.

I’d neglected to acclimate my camera to the humidity, and as I opened the door of the air conditioned trailer and headed for the pier I watched the lens fog over like San Francisco, my glasses included.  Nothing says sexy like being blind as a fucking bat.  Once aboard, I used an old rag from under the seat to wipe my camera down.

Then I spent the next few hours on the receiving end of a shouted, albeit fascinating education on pirates, illiteracy in southern REDACTED and the mating habits of bald eagles from the animated old skeleton at the wheel, shouting to be heard over the roar of the twin outboard engines.  He had the strangest, most expressive hands I’ve ever seen, the sort of thing you can’t ignore once you’re aware of it.

His earlobes flapped in the wind.  I’m not making that up.

It was a long and droning experience, even at safest speed.  Occasionally we’d catch air on the wake of another fast-moving vessel and come down hard enough to rattle the teeth in my head.  It sounded as though something very large and very angry was trying to tunnel in through the bow of the boat.

The trip was part of an area familiarization tour, the idea being that I’d photograph REDACTED as he handed out awards to two men who’d worked hard, done their part, and were ready to go home.  The ceremony was rushed, mumbled and everyone squinted in the sun.

Frustrations were mounting; first I’d failed to bring what I felt were the right lenses for the job, and I only brought one camera body.  Second, the boom microphone on the video unit failed to work, and then the media encoder on my copy of Premiere had failed to load, meaning I couldn’t export product, and now, decent subject matter was getting harder and harder to come by!  The REDACTED in REDACTED were screaming for imagery, but seemed to change their minds about what they wanted day by day.  I’m not one to use sports terminology to express myself, but this trip was filled with strikes and foul balls. I desperately needed a base hit or, dare I hope, a home run.

22SEP2010

Dear Cass,

Drinks tonight at Artie’s, a rundown road house about four miles down the road, listening to Pantera. That’s the secret purpose of loud bars.  “Shut up and drink up.”

23SEP2010

Dear Cass,

I've always wanted to pull over and take a picture.

Hello from an alternate universe, where Hiroshima never happened and Glenn Danzig found his true calling as a summer camp counselor.  My nails are in rough shape.  Chewed up, dry.  Everything down here is covered in dust and pollen.  Had to rinse off the car again this morning just to see out the windows.  Sent you a picture of the sunrise, hope it made you smile.

This morning: took a drive to locate the airfield in anticipation of an event scheduled for tomorrow.  I amused myself by doing funny voices as I steered the car along the rugged asphalt and long-neglected potholes as I made my share of wrong turns.  Still, I’d rather fuck up today on no timetable, than screw the pooch tomorrow when it really matters.  I read the names of the streets aloud in a high-pitched voice and tried to use each of them in a sentence.  I began a monologue about a poor little backwoods girl with an abnormally strong Southern accent who lived alone in a cardboard shack with her determined, albeit slightly psychopathic father:

“Mah daddy’ll gut you quicker’n sheeit… Ah seen ‘em skin a rev-uh-new-er man and burry th’ body out near Hog Lake, quick as you puhlease.  Made me a pair uh shoes from his hide, too.  That was the first pair o’ shoes I ever owned, and I liked ‘em real well.  My daddy looked at me when he wuz guttin’ that man and said ‘Ah got to fend for me an’ mine’. Yessir, he said that.”

Then I found different ways to pronounce “hog jowls” for the next twenty minutes.  Made me laugh, anyway.

Half the streets on REDACTED Isle are named for trees, and the other half are named for berries or other random words.  At the end of REDACTED is a large dusty compound presently occupied by a number of trailers.  Prior to the month of REDACTED, it was an empty lot.  Now it’s populated by ATVs and massive pickup trucks, and a large white tent in the center, where the food comes from.  I’m pretty sure the swamp wants the land back though, because the plywood threshold of the tent sinks a good inch into the gurgling ground when you step on it.

My office is in a small utility trailer along the left side of the compound, just past the porta-potties.  Step out the door and everything goes white hot in an instant, the heat punching you square in the face.  I can be at the pier in 15 seconds, my car in 30 seconds, taking a piss in 10 seconds, or back at the beach house in about three minutes.

Most of the people here work on the REDACTED response teams.  Their job consists of accompanying the boat crews out to document REDACTED, and ensuring that REDACTED in the field are equipped with water, safety equipment, and other supplies.  REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED.

24SEP2010

Dear Cass,

We picked up some REDACTED from REDACTED today; met their helicopter at the airfield, then took them on a boat ride out to REDACTED, an island a few miles distant from here, where a lot of people are working very hard to clean up the REDACTED.  White tents dot the horizon, and Day-Glo orange is a fashion accessory.  Forklifts cart pallets of supplies from place to place and everyone travels around in all-terrain beach buggies. There is nothing ecological about a REDACTED. You’ve never seen so many water bottles in your entire life; plastic bags of disposable gloves and disposable tyvek suits. The whole thing is like some weird deleted scene from Dune.

I carried two cameras this time; a D700 with a monster 80-200mm lens, and a D200 with a 28mm wide.  Vast improvement to my mood! (Note to self: arm yourself with two bodies from here on out, plus the SB-900 flash.  Uninstall ALL your CS2/3 software, and replace it with CS5.  And learn the shit out of Premiere.  Do it now!) I rode along in a separate ATV, calling out instructions to my driver, bracing myself against the rollbars, my dusty boots wedged hard against the dash.  It felt like a fashion shoot on the Kalahari Desert: “Closer, okay now get me to the left side– hey, what’s their driver’s name?  Ask him to point over there, yeah, by those gulls. Great, thanks!  Now swing in behind them, slow, good, hold that!  Awesome!”  I probably seemed like an asshole, but I got the shots I needed.

(Don’t try to go all fucking Aslan on me/ I’ve been outside the War Drobe a time or three…)

Later, now, night: The moon is lightly clouded, and the small part of the sky still visible peeks down at me, her eyes full of little stars.  I’m upstairs at Arties, pretty much the only bar in town.

Downstairs is for the roughnecks, the last of the hippies and the surviving tribe of classic rock fans.  Pimps and animals take the stairs in the back and party on the open deck where autotuned dance and gangsta jumps and throbs, and four barely-legal cherubs dressed in their sluttiest denim skirts try their damnedest to play the part of jaded, worldly sirens while serving modestly priced drinks to the thirsty citizens of an REDACTED-impacted, shrimp-fishing community. Everyone has a role to play.

Artie’s is where REDACTED parties when it’s not spending all day, every day on the water, in the marshes or slaving to clean up REDACTED beneath the glaring REDACTED sun, REDACTED REDACTED of the biggest REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED in U.S. history.  Which is an odd statement to make, because I can’t think of a bigger REDACTED anywhere else in the world.

Now: I lean against the hexagonal wooden bar and sip my devil gin while observing the bright lights of the shrimp boats anchored out at sea, and the mothership glow of a REDACTED about a mile down the beach to my left.

Artie’s, and REDACTED on the whole I suspect, has a decidedly poor male-to-female ratio.  Great for the girls, hard luck for the guys.  I’ve got a strong drink, a good vantage point, a freshly unfolded drinks menu, and a new Sharpie.  I take a sip, uncap my weapon, and wait for the words to arrive.

Looking around the bar: “These are the people who make things happen.  They live fast and bright and blind to their own terrible beauty.  They turn the wrenches that file the forms that bus the tables that serve the burgers that tend the lines that fish the waters that Jack built, and they keep the Great Machine running full tilt boogie, despite the inevitable fact that said Machine is headed straight for a real Fall of the Roman Empire kinda showdown when all this lovely REDACTED REDACTED is extracted from the ground.  Nothing lasts forever except nothing and forever, but there’s no talk of that tonight.  Here and now, these folks plain ass don’t care; so long as the music is loud, the drinks are moderately priced, and hopefully, maybe they can find someone to love them back…”

(Three Bombay gin and tonics with squeezed lime later… necessary cohesion fades, switching to inner dialog…)

At some point: the music fades quietly away and the old familiar curtain lowers and your drink loses appeal, and once again you find yourself staring at your surroundings in mild confusion, not entirely certain of how you arrived on a scarred wooden stool at the edge of the Gulf of REDACTED.

You observe the measurements of timeless impossibility etched in the faces of strangers as illuminated by cheap cigarette lighters; you gaze at each of them in turn, and wonder who they were as children.  You’re searching, as always, for meaning, seeking the Ancient, the Hidden, the spark that will at last make sense of it all.  It’s damn sure not gonna be found in a bar, but it seems to be the only time you look for it anymore.  Drink is no decent way to take your brain off the hook, but for the moment it’s the only option you have.

You watch and you record and you commit to present tense the various acts of the macro-theater playing out before you in this tiny REDACTED bar, trying in vain to make sense of the patterns, until you remember once again that random is just shorthand for a pattern too big for our monkey brains to comprehend.  It is what it is, and what will be will be again.  Sometimes it’s the same time all over the world:  All the Friday night smiles and scowls, the closing time rejections, the tiny victories and desperate lonely movies have happened before: here, there, and there.  This moment is happening at every bar at the same time; wherever there is darkness, wherever Friday night draws a breath, there is celebration and hope and drinks and music and wisdom and magic.  Yet, without fresh external stimulation, you feel the human race is destined for stagnation, eternity spent beneath the muddied boot of the Overlords who drive the Great Machine.  We’re like dolphins in captivity, each sequestered in a separate tank, bouncing our forehead-emitted radar off the circular walls of our prison and slowly but surely pinging ourselves to insanity.  There’s got to be something more out there, buried in space, asleep in the sheets of forever.  If we can see it, why can’t we touch it?

I wanna walk way out to the Hut at the Edge, where the Old Man tends the Flame, and I’ll show my soul and he’ll cut my writing hand with the edge of a sharp tooth and smear in the Ashes; so empowered, I promise not to die until I can write something so almighty powerful that it makes wood melt and the stones burst into flame, and every hunting dog from here to Glasgow will sing your favorite song…

You slid gracefully from your stool around 1230, popped in your headphones, and did a high-speed drunk march three-plus miles back to the beach house, pausing only to dart across a partially-lit lawn, scale the grassy dunes at the edge of private property and carve the following the polite request in giant letters in wet sand with the heel of your Chucks:

ALIENS PLEASE LAND HERE.

25SEP2020

Dear Cass,

Got the day off.  Literally nothing happened.  Starting drinking Southern Comfort around noon, and spent much of the day typing up my notes.  Then I went for a walk and thought about the epic feel of the right words in the right order. Must have listened to this song about 25 times on this trip:

Harshly awakened by the sound of six rounds of light-caliber rifle fire, followed minutes later by the booming of nine rounds from a heavier rifle (but you can’t close off the wilderness).  He heard the snick of a rifle bolt and found himself peering down the muzzle of a weapon held by a drunken liquor store owner.

“There’s a conflict,” he said.  “There’s a conflict between land and people.  The people have to go.  They’ve come all the way out here to make mining claims.., to do automobile body work to gamble.., take pictures, to not have to do laundry, to own a mini-bike.., have their own CB radios and air conditioning.., good plumbing, for sure, and to sell Time/Life books and to work in a deli.  To have a little chili every morning, and maybe… maybe own their own gas stations again.  And take drugs, have some crazy sex, but above all, above all, to have a fair shake.  To get a piece of the rock, and a slice of the pie and spit out of the window of your car and not have the wind blow it back in your face…”

–Wall of Voodoo “Call of The West”

TWM

26SEP2010

Dear Cass,

An hour ago: I did it.  I finally launched my book.  The initial thrill was a rush but after a few minutes, it was all over.  I had a glass of wine and listened to a few specific songs to celebrate the closing of ten years worth of work, and then I turned and walked away from it.  Now I can worry about the next one.  I doubt it will sell, but now I can say “I’ve written a book.”

It rained last night and it looks as though it might do so again.  I took a walk on the beach today; the water was warm and the sand looked almost artificial, raked smooth by big machines that sat silent about a mile down the beach. Hungry, more later.

01OCT2010

Dear Cass,

Now in REDACTED. (Hint: It’s French-sounding.)  Notes from this period are hard to come by.  I remember it as bits and pieces of shiny crazy, bright seconds of screaming laughter, uncomfortable wooden stools, the drunken stumble of cobblestone streets, the clatter of beads skidding across ruined asphalt, candle-lit basements, one million tasteless t-shirts, endless excellent jukeboxes, and the omnipotent stench stench of the REDACTED.

Mommy drinks because you cry.

If REDACTED were a real person, it’d be best embodied by an unemployed uncle who; drives an LTD, is missing the majority of his teeth, sleeps on a thrift store couch above an auto repair shop, and has predictably vomited into his own lap nearly every night since May 7, 1718.

These moments dwell in contrast to the cold black blocks of solid concrete and the geometric shapes of authority, acts of soul-sucking drudgery committed while toiling away on the 14^th floor of an anonymous office building somewhere in downtown REDACTED, and the real reason I was in town…

My creativity lives in a small village somewhere on the fall side of the world, and it is only when I sleep that I am able to have any communication with it. A hatch on the top of my head yawns open in the night with the quiet whine of hydraulics, and a long, golden tendril of monofilament line yawns forth, uncoiling itself from a tiny spool; winding this way and that, it crosses the ocean, drifts over fields, mystifies cows, and is largely invisible to all but buskers, fools and unemployed uncles living in the streets below.

Said filament knocks on the door of my creativity and forms an outstretched palm, as though begging for alms. Sometimes my creativity has something to offer, and sometimes the tendril comes home empty-handed. My first impulse, upon waking, is to check my mailbox and see what treasures await. Nothing makes my day like a good breakfast, a solid cup of coffee, the right song playing in my headphones, and a tiny parcel in the inbox of my dreams.

Unfortunately, society has seen fit to schedule me to show up at a job during my peak creativity period. This must be kept a closely guarded secret from REDACTED, lest a ham-handed conversation threatens to begin with, “Well, why not use that creativity to [fulfill dull task X]?” as I’m being hipped to death by Cool Hand Douche and his twin fingered six-guns.

I get it, REDACTED.  You win at parties. I can’t swing a cat within your city walls without hitting a place to drink, eat, or lose track of the time.  You’ve got absinthe and hand grenades and Scotch and all my favorite foods, and some I think you made up.  (Fried macaroni? Who the fuck are you fooling? Didn’t stop me from eating it, though.)  Your architecture, enthralling; your history, visibly evident. You win, REDACTED! Isn’t that what you wanted to hear?  You’re a town full of spooky hippies and beautiful gypsies and starving dancers and I could probably spend the rest of my life trying to separate your magical madness from your common trash for the sole purpose of preservation and documentation, but I’d probably self-destruct inside of five years, if I didn’t get diabetes or go broke first. I know there’s more to you, REDACTED, but I can’t help running to the bad parts first…

Wish you were here.

10OCT2010

Dear Cass,

I miss you, and I’ll see you soon.

TWM

“KnoWare Man” – my debut novel available on Lulu

It’s taken me ten years, six computers, five drafts, four states, and two operating systems, but the big day is here.

My first novel is available for purchase.

Time to start the next one,

TWM

Letter to a friend

(Letter to my good friend @GoFrankGo)

Frankly (Mr. Shankly!),

Sorry I missed your call on Sunday.  It’s been a rough weekend:

Friday night, I ate some takeout Chinese and washed it down with a Red Bull while watching “Venture Bros.”  As one does.  (Fuck, I have GOT to stop eating like I’m 20…) You’re right.  In fact, everyone who has ever recommended “Venture Bros.” to me was right about that show.

That night, I had dreams where I was dying of thirst even though I was drinking as much as physically possible – a sure sign that my body wasn’t happy with the choice I’d made.  (I have those dreams when I eat pepperoni or sausage on pizza, too.  Mmmm, sausage and mushrooms.… )  In these dreams, I’m drinking from the garden hose on full stream, or pounding gallon jugs of ice water straight from the fridge but nothing’s coming out.  Woke up the next morning and I was sore all over, like I was coming down with something.  Showered, went back to bed for a few hours.  Can’t nap too late, though…

Oddly enough, Katie Orlando was in town this weekend with her boyfriend to shoot the Cherry Blossom festival. My plan was to leave a few hours early to say hello (she being only the fourth TLC postboard persona I’d have met!), then head over to Dupont Circle to meet up with Cass (see also: Special Lady) for fancy salads, and then take in a Bach Concert at the Kennedy Center. Eventually: I got up, dragged on clean clothes (NOT feeling like doing any of the above now), packed my faithful bag, and headed for the bus stop.

Fucking tourists. Seems I can never get away from them. They swarmed me in Hilton Head, South Carolina; they clogged the streets of Juneau, Alaska; and now they fuck up my chi each Spring when the blossoms bloom in Disco Charlie.  They clog the Metro, make a mess of the escalators and generally get in the way.  As I get sicker, I grow… angrier.

Short story long, I missed out on seeing Katie but she lives in New York; no worries, we’ll have time to say hello later.  Waited for Cass for almost an hour before she shows up and tells me she was waiting at the other entrance to DuPont Circle – and, her new cellphone’s not working. Google phone can’t get a T-Mobile signal in D.C.?  Who’dve thought it?

We ate our fancy salads and relished every bit — no, wait.  I’m lying.  Because, oh yeah, the salads sucked.  Now, I’m a member of the clean plate club.  All the time.  That’s just how I roll.  And when I tell you my favorite fantasy is taking shelter in an empty hotel in the middle of hurricane season with nothing to do but write (and I’ve got the keys for the bar, the pool, and access to a generous supply of fresh fish, steamed veggies, fresh oranges and brown rice) well, you come to understand what sort of sick, salad-humping son of a bitch I really am.

So when I say I couldn’t finish this salad — well, let’s just not repeat that sentence.

Cass was still hungry (her salad sucked, too! A word to the wise: SweetGreen? SweetFail.  I mean… look at the menu! It’s vegetable PrØn!  How could they fuck it up!?)

…so we ducked into a Subway. She ate half a sub, stashed the rest in my bag. Offered me some, but at this point I couldn’t imagine ever eating again. (I had a feeling of perfect balance, and the following thought occured: “Never eat again!  Why not?  It’s like being a character in a Tom Robbins novel and deciding not to age anymore.”)

On to the Kennedy Center!

Wait!  Go back!  When Special Lady told me we were gonna catch a Bach mass for twenty bucks, I, in my present state of physical delusion, assumed that my attire of camouflage shorts, a clean polo shirt and my beat-to-shit hiking shoes were perfectly AOK for the occasion. What the hell do I know from the Kennedy Center? (What the hell do I know from a mass??) We show up, and of course everyone is wearing suits. Yeah, I looked like a painted turd.  But fuck it, we paid for our tickets so we took our seats.  I slumped down extra low to hide my poor fashion sense from Jesus.

Catholic masses… wait, aren’t those–?  Long as fuck?  Yes.

I experienced a specific mental meme,  a soundbite from a skit starring a Catholic priest who “really thought the world of a GOOD LONG MASS!” (*fist punched into palm for enthusiasm and emphasis*. Might be an old episode of ‘Father Ted’?)  Now, I own recordings by Vivaldi, Wagner, and Mozart, and my first favorite song ever was the Pachebel Canon in D Minor.  So I’m not a culture buffoon.  But this was about the most boring goddamn thing I’d ever seen!  No plot, just grovelling. “Oh, Lord, please forgive us!  We’re not worthy!  Just you!  Only you are worthy!  You’re number one!  We’re number two!  Please let us into your special club!”

Just then, Special Lady (dressed in suitable jeans, top and a shawl — making me look even shittier, thanks) writes on her program and slides it over: WHY ARE THEY SINGING ABOUT CHEESE AND RICE?  I try not to laugh, makes my head hurt, can’t help it.  She’s wearing a mischievous grin, her bright eyes sparkling. I’m feeling like smeared death… sore limbs, and a raging headache, and the chairs are built for tiny beings, not 6′ 4″ motherfuckers like myself.  So we start passing notes back and forth. Hilarity ensues.  We are comedic geniuses the likes of which the world has never seen.

Then she writes: IF THERE’S AN INTERMISSION, LET’S BAIL. I slide her a low-five… aw, yeah. Dig this girl…

We slip out, she finished her sandwich and we discuss an important new opera called “The Cheese and The Rice” on the way to the Metro.  She performs a few scenes for me, in falsetto, at the top of her lungs.  More tourists.  Back to her place, finally.  I’m sore, shivering, and I’ve got a headache strong enough to make a horse squint. I crawl under the covers and I’m out…

Next morning, her godawful rooster alarm wakes me up at zero-dark. She has to go to work, but tells me I can sleep in late, shower, and catch a cab to the Metro.  No worries. I’ll make up the bed.

Conversation courtesy of Jesus of Bastardeth

Back to sleep, in and out of dreams. Head throbbing. (At one point, you texted me. Or maybe it was Jesus trying to sneak in a little self-promotion. You can’t blame the man, everybody has bills to pay.) Back to sleep, more dreams.

Wake up weak with a squinteriffic headache. It’s almost 3 p.m. Shower, dress, and lock up. Check iPhone app for local cab companies while standing in the driveway. Seven numbers appear, three of which are limo service and airport shuttles. Read: expensive. Two numbers don’t even answer. The last picks up: “Yeah? Naw, we don’t pick up there no more. You gotta call someone else.”  He gives me a number, hangs up.  In my feverish, fucked up condition I hope I’ve got it right.  Dialed it.  A Hindu voice answers.  “We don’t pick up there.  You gotta call someone else.”  I dialed the third number.  The sun is beating down, I’m shivering, and my head is SCREAMING.  Cars are whipping past carrying bored expressions and bad sunglasses.  Seems folks’re already sick of sunlight around here.  The last number is a winner.  They’ll be here in ten, and they take plastic.

Get to the Metro station. There’s a guy with a dazed look on his face, standing with his face pressed against the chain link fence, headphones in, his toneless voice rapping along: “Tryin’ ta get her pregnant, tryin’ to get her pregnant…” His eyes are dark and dead.  I’m shredding my taxi receipt into tiny pieces because it has my card number on it, and I throw it into a trashcan that reeks of piss. Everyone looks mean, cheap, like someone pissed in their Cheerios a long time ago and they’ve just kept eating it. I’m still not a fan of the ghetto, I don’t care how much we stand to learn from its residents.

Remember those tourists?  And remember that part about Chinese food and Red Bull being the last thing I’ve eaten all weekend?  I almost lost my temper and starting shouting at some tourists who were wide-eyed as amazed deer that the doors on a Metro car don’t bounce open when they encounter your arm or leg.  “Goodness!”  But I bite my tongue, ever polite.  Off the train now, walking faster and faster, dodging and moving through gaps in the crowd. Muttering, swearing.  Moments from losing it.  Don’t wanna be in a crowd if I do.  Through the Metro, up the escalator (“The RIGHT side is for standing, people!”) and get to the top, spot a cab.  Give the intersection of my neighborly hood, and asked if he took plastic.  He shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know how to work the machine..?”  Try another cab.  He is apparently certified to work the machine.  I pile in.  The cab is clean, and smells of incense. “Nice weather, yes?”  I agree wordlessly, staring out the window, thinking thunderclouds.

I get home, check the mail, unpack, toss my dirty clothes in the laundry basket, gun a handful of ibuprofen and some other stuff Cass had given me before diving under the covers, trying to wish away the intense brain pain.  Sleep, and more weird dreams…

In this one, I wake up in my first-ever bedroom, which was haunted.  I know there are visitors downstairs, and I’m supposed to go see them.  But I have to get dressed.  I can’t turn on any of the light switches (sure sign that I’m dreaming) so I use my cellphone camera for light.  As one does.  I put on a black shirt, black slacks and black dress shoes.  I look like I’m ready for Vegas.  Or a Miami funeral.  I go downstairs and suddenly I’m in a cab.  And we’re driving  - have been driving for quite some time, actually. Eventually, I speak to the driver.  “Say, man. We’ve been at this for awhile, and, like, I don’t remember telling you where I wanted to go..? So how’s about we go a little further for scenery’s sake, and then you drop me off at where ever it was that you picked me up?”

Suddenly, I’m walking under a clear night sky.  The weather is perfect.  The stars are bright and plentiful, like when you’re out at sea, or in a country with minimal light pollution.  I’m aware that I’m walking ahead of a great multitude of people, and they’re waiting for me to do something, but it’s dark and I can’t see them.  The stars are huge and perfect…

Woke up at midnight. Headache and soreness gone. Wrote this letter to pass the time, which may explain the typos.

That’s why I missed your call.

TWM

Samsonite, Wandering

November 26, 2009 – Room 234, The Cavalier Hotel, Virginia Beach

Good news! The streets are largely deserted in the off season, and there is no shortage of parking. I caution, however, against relying on satellites and gadgetry to feed you during the late months, as this will lead to fits of impatience and angry hunger. (Divided technological thought process: “There should be an app for that” = a wild lunge toward Problem Reaction Solution. I don’t believe %95 of what Icke says, but this part kinda makes sense. Twenty years ago, we were all afraid of Big Brother. Today, through FB, Twitter and some sexy rebranding, we’re pretty much doing BB’s work for him.)

More good news; when you finally discover an open establishment, they’ll wait on you hand and foot, if you’re into that kind of thing.

Which, I suspect you are.

My room appears to have been decorated by a grandmother on a mescaline trip; brain-pink trim laced with orderly floral arrangements and conch shells interwoven with strings of pearls. The beds are high and firm like the breasts of a prom queen, and the blankets are made from a substance first discovered at the Roswell incident of 1947, a lightweight textile nightmare that slides off the bed in the night and leaves you shivering against the icy rampage of the air conditioner from hell. (Two settings. One of them: John Carpenter’s “The Thing.”)

None of that mattered when I threw back the curtains and opened the sliding door.

After a few deep breaths, I dragged a chair from my room out onto the balcony in order to take in the midnight ocean breeze and the steady hiss of the surf.  There’s something majestic and stupefying about the heaving saline muscle of the ocean that fills me with a childlike sense of awe and wonder, and generally chills me the fuck out.  Each time I lay eyes on my mistress, I’m reminded of the first time we met.

It was the week of Thanksgiving, November 1987, at the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. It was dark, and I could smell her before I could see her. I’m not sure how you’ll take that.  Anyway, I took a tentative step down a set of wooden stairs and she rushed into the light, slapping me in the face before she ran away laughing. I was left standing there, dripping wet and very much in love.

Three things I love about travel:

1. Living out of a suitcase.
1a. Luggage and travel gear.
2. Fresh towels daily.
3. Sometimes a Great Ocean.

Life lived out of a suitcase is a teaching tool. For the duration of the assignment/gig/vacation/visit, you are only what you bring with you, existing in a neutral environment, painting from a transparent pallet, standing before a blank canvas. A reduced footprint searching for WiFi, craving decent coffee.

I fantasize about roaming the Earth in this manner; wandering from place to place with a duffel bag of clothes, a camera, and a quality laptop capable of withstanding a few knocks. Your mission: move to the weird part of town, take up temporary residence in some poorly furnished shit-hole of an apartment or worn-down motel, photograph the buskers, capture the local color, and move on in the night when the time is right.

The gear is unimportant, and best left to personal taste.

Fresh towels daily. No-brainer. Good name for a punk band, or perhaps a t-shirt. The ocean part I’ve already mentioned. Moving on.

Jittery rivers
flow from magic silver urns.
Can’t sleep, can’t shut up.

The next day: wandering the aisles of a war toy trade show, beset on all sides by card tables laden with “find ‘em, bag ‘em, and tag ‘em toys.” If I didn’t know better, I’d say the threat of terrorism was largely non-existant, a money-making scheme concocted in the secret squirrel boardrooms of big corporations and further disseminated by middle-weight, middle-aged Aqua-Velva  motherfuckers in brown loafers and embroidered polo shirts. Armed with vocabularies full of power verbs, these strange specters get paid handsome sums to prey upon the fearful and law-abiding.

White man speak with forked tongue: “The bogeyman is out there waiting, but for a few billion dollars, we’ll help you bring him to justice!” There is money to be made here. Flight simulators, giant gun turrets, gas masks, gyro-stabilized death spitters, and every manner of catalog system are present. Know your enemy, test tomorrow.

Blessed is he who, in the name of common fucking sense, shepherds his own way through the valley of the merchandise of darkness, leaving the ink pens, mousepads and logo-ridden plastic crap where he finds it. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and minor annoyance those who attempt to poison and defile my luggage with free coffee mugs, advertising campaigns masquerading as art, and assorted plastic malarkey best left to rot on a pier somewhere in Korea.

“Hey, didja get over to the Armed & Hammered booth? Lots of free stuff!”
“No, thanks. Not really my thing.”
“”Well, don’t you want some? It’s free! Give them as gifts!”

Color me stupid, but nothing says, “I place less than zero value upon our friendship” quite like the gift of a light bulb-shaped foam toy emblazoned with the logo of a consulting firm. Maybe I’m wrong here.

Skipping ahead through the week: as it turns out, Hotel Fail had no pool, and no laundry facilities on the premises. This made me sad, but the WiFi was free. The empty streets of this typically topless town are laced with “No Swearing” signs (Q-Berty grumbles and the International No), and shops of teen rebellion, the same old song and dance: butterfly knives, pot plant belt buckles, and tasteless t-shirts. (“Swallow or I’ll shoot it in your eye.” Clever!) News update: she sells sea shells by the sea shore.  The sticker on the bottom, however, reads ‘Product of Philippines.’

When the curtains came down and the show was over, I packed my things and left. A few hours later, I was standing twenty-five feet from Amanda Fucking Palmer, giving a polite back massage to a beautiful girl who makes everything seem okay.

One day, Schrondinger’s Cat will die for real…

Dreamserver.

Hurting for pocket cash, I recently loaned my sub-consciousness to a local business to be used as a Dreamserver. It’s a relatively new service for on-the-go types which targets people whose lives are so complicated that they can’t enjoy restful dreams of their own.

Sometimes they just want to come in and walk around, look at my memories, poke in my closets; you know, just see how the other half lives. Most of them just like to watch.

Sometimes I’ll have erotic dreams for them so they can experience the grit of real life without getting their own thoughts dirty. It’s a win-win situation for them, and they can blame any arousal they might feel on me.

Thing is, I’m not getting quite the compensation I was promised. My bank account’s drier than an East German stand-up comedian, and there’s zero side perks involved. No one ever says hello to me on the street, thanks me, buys me dinner, nothing. Just like the wealthy to squeeze a nickel till it screams.

I tried to renegotiate my contract, but I can’t reach anyone in Customer Services. I tried calling tech support, but the phone tree just bounces me around in circles. I tried calling some of the people from my dreams direct, but they’ve blocked my number. I mean, would you take a call from some stranger who bombards you in the shower or interrupts your dinner with strange claims about some cerebellum time-share project gone horribly awry?

I tried to stay awake for a few days, maybe force them to call me direct when their customers weren’t getting a clean signal. Three days I lasted, cramming down pasta, gunning down energy drinks, caffeine, ramming needles into my palms, taking freezing cold showers, jogging in place. No use. When I finally crashed, I crashed hard, and when I woke up, my head was sore as hell and I needed a hot shower.

Ever thought having sex with anyone you wanted would be fun? What if anyone could have sex with you? Not as much fun, is it? Imagine being mentally grudge-fucked by pissed off strangers while you slept, helpless.

My only course of revenge is to pay close attention to the smallest details of my dreams: names, places, clothing, faces – gather all their dirty little secrets in comprehensive file in my head and hope that by some far-flung chance I might stumble across them in reality and blackmail them into submission.

The stupid fucking things we do to pay the bills, eh?