The Dawning Of The North-Eastern Cowboy

Part I: A Band Of Brothers In An Open Field

The Summer That Made An Old Man
                                                     A novel by cj hammer                                                  











Table of contents:                                        Page:
Preface                                                            3
I: A Band of Brothers In An Open Field                    4
Chapter II                                                            9
Chapter III                                                            15
Chapter IV                                                            26
Chapter V                                                            36
Chapter VI                                                            49
II: An Adventurer’s Sword, Hidden In A Field          63
Chapter II                                                            68
Chapter III                                                            71
Chapter IV                                                            77
Chapter V                                                            91
Chapter VI                                                            96
III: An Apple’s Chance To Turn                              100
Chapter II                                                            107
Chapter III                                                            114
Chapter IV                                                            125
Chapter V                                                            127
Chapter VI                                                            135
Epilogue                                                            142















Preface
         This book is about three graduating seniors: Angel, Blake, and Fili. This novel is about their last months of school, their last real summer, and, mostly, the things that changed them. That made them grow beards. That made them quiet in heart and mind, and ponderous in spirit. That made them old men. It mostly focuses on Angel, his alternate personalities, and his un-diagnosed disorders, both ADD and BPD.
         This book is about struggles for sanity, and insanity, and the phenomenon of maturing. It is written to show the character’s struggle for his mind, and his attempts to make contact with reality, and his thoughts about reality. This book very much represents him as a whole, indeed the whole way the book is written in such a way that depicts his mind: slightly sporadic, with a touch of sanity.























Part I: A band of brothers in an open field












Chapter 1
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“Summer came rushing in on me. It flew through the window, like a wall of water, drenching me in laziness and warmth. I felt sad though; life hated me. It let summer in before school ended, was gone, evaporated. I knew I would sit thus and be pissed and depressed, for a long time, until real summer came.                                                                                                                                                                  A red lilac.” ~ Angel
         “How about a crash course in death?” “Nahhhh…” “Hmmmphhh…”
“I shall knock thee down, and burn thine house” ~ Blake
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         April 26th, 1986, Noon: Western Road, Michigan
         The four of them stood just off the road: Angel, Blake, Fili, and Angel’s imagination, called Charles.
“Blake, go beat in that mailbox, that death in a box, that answer to fallacy.” Said Angel.
It was a quick suggestion, made in haste. Everyone laughed. Blake continued to swing his twenty-seven inch metal t-ball bat in a short circle, flipping his wrist. The bat looked like a vile, a bowl tipped on its side. It was a silver twist in the air, pushing the air out of the way.
         Angel is the Stranger. He was the Stranger. He will be for life. Like the Frenchman’s, Albert Camus’s, character, he does not fit in. But instead of showing no emotions, like Monsieur Mersault, he is very reflective; he sees links and comparisons when there are none. He talks to himself; he is himself. He sees himself as a bird flying in the night sky, a passing thing, a reflector of doom, a voice in the silence, an answer to the forsaken people. Angel gives things names; he calls upon metaphors to speak his mind.
“Awwwwww... what do you know, man?” Blake replied, “ You couldn’t lift a finger to save your ass, let alone do some deconstruction work on Mr. Levil’s mailbox. Lend me a hand there, Fili.”
Time would forget Blake. He will live as he is forever; nothing can change him. He is the Lion, the Bear, the Tiger; he is a devil too. He lives for the destruction of things, souls, mailboxes, heads, minds, computers, windows, barns, tires. His body is massive, an elephant contained in a box; ripping out of the box; destroying, building, expanding the box. His mind is like the jay’s: devious. He is nothing like rats, passenger pigeons, cats, extinct things, except perhaps, the triceratops.
         “Oukaaaay. How do u want to do it? Juist like... beat the wood to splianters, or bash in the black top-piece there?” Fili Said.
         Fili is the runt of the ground, people, litter, runts, crazed people, from the very first glance. He is the suckling pig who got his head beat in by the sow, the malnourished baby monkey of Africa, the ape with AIDS. He is Filipino, and his actual name is Jack Davis, a real Philippine name. He lives with a couple of other Filipinos who say they are his parents, but none of the guys, not even Fili, believe them. He spends almost no time with his “parents”; it is like they are his boarders, landlords, custodians, and no-personality, personalized janitors.
                   Fili has a simple Asian accent, the one that sounds the same to all white-breeds. The complicated mash together of words and syllables forms another language... if a higher, or lower, language, its hard to tell. He makes his o’s sounds like the word “you”, and his a’s and e’s sound the same, somehow.
Mr. Levil’s mail box is a simple thing, a wall, a field. It is made out of a 4x4 post put into the ground. The aluminum, in all its shiny blackness, part of the mailbox, the mailbox its-self, is placed on the very top of the post. It is nailed on; the whole thing is flimsy. All together, the neat, prim stack is about four and a half feet tall. About natural swinging height for Blake. It is ready for a silver-blue arc of movement to make its day, to deliver the happiness of flight, to bring in the suppression of not being able to work, to be to battered and bruised to hold any more mail. It simply sits, and waits.
         It flew in the night, day. A bird crossed the sky, a thousand feet up. It was black... perhaps a crow or raven. Its wings flapped... but it died, and fell to earth. It was beat up, it’s wings were broken. It had a letter in its beak, talons, a pouch as if it was a postal pigeon. And then it too, like the rest of its flock, disappeared into the ground, and was lost. The box lay there, in its place.
         Charlie laughed: “Ha hahahaha.... that crazy bird bitch. It just up and slide away! I bet you were the only one who saw it, Angel. Ha, that’s right.” Said Charlie, a few moments passed. “Ignore me! Your the only one who can hear me. I am The Stone On The Hill. You are The Boulder In The Valley. It all makes sense, really.” Charlie continued. “Oh, divine one.”
         Charlie; Charles. The inevitable concoction of voice, Angel’s soul and his impressions, stamps, of Blake. Charles exists in Angels mind, thoughts, personal fields. He has a dark voice; loves to tell to kill, but has no body, nor the heart to actually do anything. He bosses Angel around, ordering, always ordering. He is a hypocrite; a Satan of the ground, weak arms, birds in flight, empty promises. He is real, as real as Angel is. Sometimes he is Angel. Charlie’s actions could be Angel’s actions; without Angel knowing it.
         “Yeah... about that. Just shut up, and go to hell, buddy.” Said Angel.
         “Dude... I didn’t say nothin! Quit talking to yourself there, man.” Said Blake. “All I did was blast that black metal hunk of shit to hell.” He then laughed high, and violently.
         “Jeast bea quite you guys, the teall Jacob is couming up this way. Lets hit thouse bushes an’ grasses, an’ jump ‘im when he passes. Quick nouw.  Shuzh up.” Fili said.
         They all hushed and were silent. They filed like Indians into the forest, only faster then the Indians used to do. They were mostly dead now of course, the Michigan Indians, the Ottawa, had be gone for a while. A couple generations ago, they had all left, for a more silent home, a darker home, a dead one, a gamblers house. The boys, the Indians, went off the gravel road, passed into the hedge-row, and laughed a sinister laugh. It was a quiet laugh to be sure, but it could not be contained in boxes, barriers, hedge-rows, grass, or fields. It rang out. They waited for the farmer to come by.
         The hedge, which was not a hedge, was along the road and was green and brown, filled with grass, both dead and alive, several inches of swamp bile, road mess, gas leakage, and numerous and varied dirty Coke bottles and empty bags of Sun-Chips. It was like a mini-dump, only the stuff was stored above ground, in public view. A great attraction. What a great social work project. Soon it would spread to the fields. And travel through the furrows and cornstalks, visting.
         Despite the garbage, which the boys didn’t even notice, they had gone among the grasses, and hidden there. Strangely, a single snake, a copper belly crawled over Blake’s boot, and he grabbed it. He smiled his evil smile, and they all sniggered the more. Blake wanted to be David, from the Bible, and throw the snake into the eye of Jacob, of Goliath. He wanted to launch something, and kill something else with it, and then be praised for it. He wished he were David from the Bible. But he was not, and so he carried on as best he could.
         And there he was, Jacob. And there they were, the baby army, the child army, led by Uday Saddam, Blake.
         The hedge dissolved. They were shorn like the sheep in the field. Like Samus, they were cut down, shorn, and betrayed. And they were shown to be there, in the hedge, field.
It was the wind that gave them away; either that, or Angel and Charlie.  The wind passed over and split the grass, showing them, dividing them, passing them. And came over them again.
And there was silence.
         In the silence, Jacob eyed them, his large eyes, like dolphins, ancient Rome, Bambi, looked at them. And looked. It was disbelief in those eyes. He saw three boys, youth, men, and a metal bat and its prey, and a snake, a coil. He knew he was supposedly being ambushed.
         The copper belly was omni-potent. It’s eyes were reflective, like sun-filled lakes, and ripe grapefruit guts. And... they blinked. And something shattered, something happened.
         “Myth begot reason, reason gave birth to life, and life became death.  Re-incarnation is next, but how do you get there? The snake is the answer. Touch the cool coil of the snake, the open fields of its back. Let yourself envelop the snake; let it envelop you.  Uplift it, cross it, bless it, o holy one. And hurl it amongst thine enemies. These are not your friends.” Charlie said in a lucrative voice, a seductive voice, an oily voice.
         “God damn it, Charlie,  shut up!” Angel cried through gritted teeth.
         The guys always thought that he, Angel, was joking when he talked to “charlie.” Nobody ever discussed it, realized it, understood it, fought with it, except Angel. They believe him to be looking for attention, since he was the weak one, the miniature, the powerless. Weak or no, they’d pound him for that one.  Giving away position is a death penalty in Michigan. And it would all be over soon.
Doom... doom... dun doom.
         Dun... dun... doom dun.
         Doom... doom... dun doom dun.
         A funeral dirge plays its  notes over the fields, crossing the empty vastness between them. Angel almost wept, and was almost bitter, for he could see the future. And time passed, and was over simply. Jacob saw what was in the ditch, grass, hedge, and what was hidden. And he cried out.
         And he laughed, and passed on. And they forgot him. But they remembered Angel and took him to the forsaken fields, the barren fields, the dead fields, and beat him.
          Chapter II
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“In the end, silence pervaded the Earth and all were made to pay tribute to the Lord. And they were made to pay. They paid for all their sin, debts, past-lives.  They said they were sorry. And they passed on into Heaven.” ~ Angel
         “ I shall bind thee, like the Sword unto the Stone, the Field. You shalt be stuck to the world, as I am to the you. I am the young Arthur. You shalt never recover, nor leave this place. You shall haunt this time, earth, and all the future ones, eras, and shalt never leave. Nor Shall I.” Charles
         “I really could drink some of my own coffee, right about now. Pass that over here. Damn it.” ~ Angel’s Mom.
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May 26, 1974: Mid-afternoon at Angel’s place.
         Angel’s house is a large structure, twenty-five feet tall, with four bedrooms and two full bathrooms. It is the color of mahogany, but it is only plastic siding. Bright yellow sheets, slits, and boards, cover the bits of space around the windows and doors. The front door its self is vague brown color; shaped like an ironing board, a tall coffin of death.
         In his living room, Angel’s father, Mr. Eddie Lefty sits in his Chair. He reads his New York Times, peering over a pair of glasses, into the lines of another time, place, century, one completely removed from Houghton, Michigan. Houghton Michigan is a small, is the out of the way place of out of the way places. The population is two- or three-thousand. It is like the sword that laughs at the mountain; it is nothing. It is like a dagger, copper, encrusted with sandstone, and Green Stones. It is like a midget’s dagger, a small thing, but not weak. It is strong in its smallness, it’s politeness, it’s pettiness.
         The baby, young, age four, Angel Johan Lefty, born in the summer of ’70, on July 16th, looked up at his father. He looked seriously, a strange look. He hadn’t smiled at his father yet, he was a dull gray cloud to him, a shadow of things past, a sad look on a stranger’s face, and a very simple sadness. He was happy with his mother, he smiled; he was happy with neighbors, he smiled; but with his father, he stared in confusion, bewilderment. There was a certain baroque-ness to it.
         Angel didn’t smile at Mr. Lefty until he was seven years old. And then, it wasn’t a “I’m happy dad!”, it was a “gee, thanks Mr. Lefty.” Angel thought, and still thinks, that his father is a literally a living dead man. That he has no soul, heart. A zombie from the graveyard, aware of only a single, cold, lifeless, goal in life. Not aware of others, feelings, hearts, but instead a living ameba of the Angel Of Death. Not nearly as large, powerful, but a miniature, with the same practice, job, affiliation.
Angel had never gotten along that well with either of his parents. Very few ever do, and those that seem to, actually are thriving, planting, burning, with mistrust and anger.
         His mother, Christine, was full of compassion, love, but was to full of it. She was like the fire pot, some is needed, or you’ll freeze in the northern windows... but if the fire overflows, you get burned. You’ll burn your house down. Her over the top care, love, and strictness was to much for Angel, he hated it. She was making up for the fact that she smoked some marijuana while she was pregnant.
         The sharp contrast, between mother and father, was too much for Angel. It made him wild in the head, a little bit different then when he was born; even more changed. Different then he was created. He didn’t turn out like his mother, or like his father, nor of some mix in-between. Both of his parents were at least clinically and legally sane. By the time he Angel graduates from high school, it is doubtful that he will be sane; granted he may be the only one who knows he is insane. Which raises the question, what is insanity?
The strict difference between Christine and Eddie makes everyone wonder how they ended up together. That’s an interesting story. Angel once heard it at his father’s birthday party; he would not, could not, ever ask to be told the story. Angel only repeated it once, to Charles; in order to make sure he had heard it right, to prove he was sane. This is in Angel’s own words, thoughts;
                                                                          ************
         January 10th, 1980, 8pm: Angel’s house, the living room
         “I was born in Indiana.” Said Uncle George. “ I don’t believe your serious, your from Minnesota? That is sooo amazing! What a coincidence.”
         “God, what idiots my father knew. Who cares if they are family, shoot ‘em. Iowa and Indiana; Not the same. Idiots. You’d think that they had been locked up in a 2 by 2 by 6 feet dungeon cell, for a year and a half. Solitary. In France, no less. ” I thought. 
         “Yes,” Eddie continued, “ I was born in Minnesota. When I was sixteen, my family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I met Mrs. Lefty, then Miss Sombersim. She was born and raised there. We meet at a... roman bar? Wasn’t it, honey?”
           My father was laying back on the soft tan, beige, couch. His right leg was tossed over his left, at the knee. His arms were thrown out in opposite directions. The right one holding a champagne on ice, the left one around my mother.  His mouth flowed like a river, instead of the curious molasses as was the norm. My father lived for parties, they were where he fit in.  So on his birthday, he invited, and perhaps paid, very intellectual, and interesting, people to come. It was the only thing that I ever sort of appreciated from him. Other wise he was always too cold; even when he said he loved me, I could look into his eyes and not believe him. And he would just look away and be quite, when I didn’t reply.
         My mother replied “Oh yes! It was definitely the Roman bar, on South Street. What was it called? Oh yes, it was called Plato’s Place. It was wonderful.”
         That is so total crap. Plato isn’t even Roman. It probably wasn’t that wonderful at all. It may even be that it wasn’t Roman, maybe it was an Asian buffet, if such things existed back then, and she was just covering for him, but not wanting to lie to much. Well at least my parents try.
         “So I was having a nice twisted cup of red wine, at the bar, while I was talking to Jake Manker, one of my best friends at the time, when this... lady just walks in the door. Nobody seems to notice her but me, but, damn, I couldn’t not have noticed her. Fate is fate...”
         I hate this Dad-Party-Talk-SHIT. He is a totally different person in family life. When around other people, my dad acts “cool”, and “nice”, but inside he really is an ass.  That is all there is to say. But then I discovered that other men can be asses too. But that’s another story.
         My father continued, “ ... so she seemed like she was walking right towards me... the place lightened up. I suddenly heard the music; though I had ignored it before. As I turned and gazed, she walked and slipped on past me... how horrible that was.”
         Cut the country crap dad. Don’t get all teary; slobbery; high-horsed; sacrificed soul; manifest powerlessness. But he must have some angle, my father isn’t dumb. He must be playing for something, trying to get something from one of the men he was talking to. I quickly scanned the room, the couch, those seated across.  Bob, from Waterdale, is present, just the same as last year; Jake Manker, is across the room from my father; Tobby John, he sports a white suit, which sticks out, he is black, sitting on the other side of my mother; Hampton Jones is seated on a slightly lighter couch, kitty corner to the beige one; Erik Benthala is sitting next to the empty space that is next to Hampton; and Sarah Dodgerton, made famous by the Home Journal, is sitting in a small arm chair across from my father, laughing lightly, and paying attention to the so-called love story. 
Personally, I am sitting in a small room on the other side of the fish tank. Its rather a secret place, my father fitted the back of the fish tank with one-way glass. I can see out, scan, listen, without being harassed. He build it for safety, but not mine. He build it for family safety, for his precious assets and cash. Yes, my father is a rich man. And the one thing I can say for him, is that he made the money himself. At least he didn’t inherit it, and call it his own. That’s a good thing. There is no great evil, without some small good.  God, I badly mangle things on purpose. I am a great dragon of old. I am bitter sweet, like the lotus flower mixed with arsenic.
                                                                          ***********
         His sanity, instability, came out in several notable actions, in and beyond the years, through things very much worth reading about, mentioning.
When Angel was twelve years old, he attacked the mail-man, Mr. Sulo Saginaw, for reasons still unknown to the rest of the family, friends. When he was 15 years old, he ran away from home. He got pretty far... all the way to Indiana. He was calm and resourceful, and looking for a better life. He was a nightingale, a red fox, a marine, a real Native Indian. In 1986 he wrote his first short story, before that he simply wrote poetry about broken love, Lynn, and twisted lines of darkness. His Short story was called Burning Partly, Burning Brightly, In Hell. He never submitted it for publication, but merely let it slip into his past, his showcase, his grave, his field, unfinished, a work of art yet to be completed.
         This is a direct quote, from the local newspaper, the Daily Mining Gazette,  in 1982. “Mr. Saginaw was bitten by a disturbed, sleep deprived boy on one of his deliveries. At approximately 2:00 p.m. on August 23rd, Saginaw approached the Lefty residence. The Lefty’s mail slot is directly left of the front door, when your standing on the steps. As Mr. Sulo approached the slot, passing the several large Oak trees on the property, he was leapt upon by Angel Lefty, age twelve. Mr. Saginaw reports that he yelled as follows, right before he jumped on him, ‘here is the chance for mine divine ability to kill you.’ The twelve year old then savagely bit into Saginaw’s leg, and trousers, about three inches about the top of the right knee cap. Saginaw called for help, and then when nothing came to his aid within a few seconds, he began to pound the boy in the head with his mail bag, which weighed about twenty-five pounds. Saginaw is now in the process of being sued by Mr. Lefty, and the boy’s family is being sued by Mr. Saginaw. We will have more information as the trials take place.”
         In 1985, on August 1st, Angel ran away from his family. He planned it out well; he was a strong, patient owl in the day. It took him a full six weeks to figure it out, plus some back time, just thinking about it. Angel trained for it, running, getting into shape. He got up to fifteen miles in one day. Mostly though, he trained his feet, his soles, his calluses. He wore in his feet, several pairs of shoes. He stored food out a secret location. Each night be packed, and unpacked his bag, planning, weighing it. He researched bus routes, hitch-hiking laws, and everything else related. He got a map of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. He wrote planned a route, day by day, places to hide out, longer stretches, food stops, border crossings, police stations. He had it all, baby.
         So finally, on August 1st, he left. He left at about 10 p.m. But before that, he went around the yard, property all day. Crisscrossing all trails of his own, on his own accord, to screw with dogs. At 10 p.m. under cover of a goodnight, and darkness, he was gone. He climbed out his window, picked up his pack from the great oak tree in the middle of the small patch of woods, and took off. He left a note saying he had gone to Canada for a while, through Sue Saint Marie. He left a lie. He began on a pilgrimage. He went for Minneapolis, Cedar Rapids, and Indianapolis.           
         And he made it too. All the way.
         Deep down. Inside himself, perhaps it was Charles telling him, he knew that something would happen at the cities. For either Heaven or Hell, something would happen. It might not change the world, but it would change something. He wanted to go there, and write about the town. He felt an urge to laugh at the sky there. He wanted to drink the water in the streets. He felt like going to church there, and crying out there, in a loud voice, “ Listen to your god!”, in the middle of the sermon. It had to be a Lutheran church. A church founded by a man. Not God. A man. An unsanctified church, a Martin Luther church, the Separatist.
         He needed to live on the streets; he needed to beg for money, for a short time. That would be at the end, because then the cops would find him then. He had to be the shadow, the night fox, the untamed wizard. He had to fit and flow, and hustle with the crowd, and join it. He had to fix the problems in his mind; he thought that Minneapolis would do that. He took the answer and made it ripe for the picking. He picked it himself. Charles helped him. He had planted the first seed in the beginning. A water melon seed. Not oodles, masses, of them... just one. And it stood, and held its ground. And it was nurtured by the sore hand, the laughable hand, the rejected hand, the imaginary hand, the sad hand. And there was no regret.
         He made to Indiana, over the course of one week, moving, evading, drifting. He was brilliant. And he spent three days there.
While he was down there, he meet this very odd gay fuck. She/he had long blonde hair that approached it’s shoulders, it was wavy like the sea breezes, and like the sanded waves of the coast. He meet the he-she in a small-town grocery store’s Deli. He was sitting down, having a bit of a bite to eat. When this dude walks up to the table, and sits down. He asked him if he wanted to play some card games. Angel just shrugged, cried, lost twice to him, and fled away into the dark night, onto the path before him.
Then he was picked up. He did not fight, he simply accepted the fact he was caught, and did not run. He had accomplished what he wanted. As they left the city limits, he crossed himself, and said an Our Father, three times. And slept.














Chapter III
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“I feel like I am ridding down the center of a giant dead caterpillar. The walls, curved trees, are bound and gray, like dead flesh.” ~ Angel
         “ I am the black stone on the road. I am the hex on the back of the stop sign. I am the remnants of the warning sticker. I am the black in the water covering the quicksand. I can be your friend; I am your friend. I can be your enemy, darkest fear. I am your enemy. I am your darkest fear.” ~ Charles
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         Story completed on January 23rd,1986, plus a poem, completed around the same time.
This is Angel’s second attempt at a short story. The first attempt will be accented later, and shown later, but not now. Angel never finished this one, but left it at a first draft. He was inspired to write it after a trip downstate, to see his Uncle Job, who lived in the Ghetto. Eddie, Angel’s father, had offered him money, but he wouldn’t take it. The story is called:
“Burning partly, burning brightly, in hell”
by The Boulder In The Valley(Myself, Angel)
         Johan sped along the dank, musty, dirt road. The sun was setting down where the road met the orange shadow of sky. The sun stared him in the face; it was brutal. But Johan didn’t seem to notice the sun, as he left angry clouds of cinder dust, his brother, and dirt. The dirt was everywhere; it even covered the snow, protecting it from the sun’s orange glow.
         It looked low class. The snow only showed a little bit. It looked like a violent sea storm, the froth became the dirt, and the sea became the snow. When the snow piled up here, six months ago, it was a violent ocean storm, a mighty blizzard, a huge system that seemed to swallow the world and crush the size of it into a niche the size of Johan’s house.
         It was Johan’s house. Not his girlfriend’s. His ex-girlfriend now, presumably, as she hadn’t talked to him in weeks. She could burn in hell, the way his old Aunt Chilten did once, and still did. Chilten had been a conspirator, a demonic soul who stole $200,000 from her own family.  She used to love to travel the US, and abroad, going everywhere, using credit cards to pay her way. Now she was everywhere still, but in the air, in his lungs, in the dust behind his 4x4. She had been cremated... along with the six bullets in her. The others had passed through, they didn’t like the feel of her either, of her emanating ill will. That was over and done.
         The red hood of his truck seemed to laugh at the sun, saying that the sun couldn’t be as red as he himself was. The sun shivered in the sky, the half above the road. Turning darker orange, partly red, all the time, as Johan flew through the dusk hours. As the sun dipped below the horizon, it was red. Red as a slice of a beat held up to a light bulb. Like a rotten tomato, left in the yard. It dominated the sky, from its little domain. And at last, it left. It left the sky. The red clouds, of where it had been, showed blood. As if the sun had been killed on its own descent. Blood. Blood. Blood will be spilt.
         Thoughts raced through Johan’s mind; visions crossed his eyes. Inwardly, he asked that no-one interfere with his thoughts. It was subconscious. He had to get home, he had many words to write before the night was out. Words about his enemy, words about his life. More importantly, he had to tell his brother about life, reason, and the reality of it all.
         The car smelt of old leather, his father’s shoes, an old rabbit pelt, ivory, and... books. The scents intertwined to form a simple blend, simple yet indescribable. It was like thick rain in the high desert, with the heat and the breathless air filled with water and sand. The woods and fields flashed on by the truck; the woods were half dark, shadowy, and filled with fingers of old people, deformed and crooked, partly lit by the dying sun-- it was already dead. Snow filled in the cracks of the forest, covering the only leaves that were in the wood.
The Fields, oh the Fields. The Fields were open and flowing, letting the wind of the red truck soar and fly over them. Indeed, any wind that passed by, was allowed over the Fields. They were an open void, asking to be covered, traveled. Anything to cover their empty feeling, the great abyss on top of them. The corn stalks showed in most places, little sky scrapers above the sometimes mud, sometimes snow, mixture. The stalks were golden, tan, in the sun light. In the Dead Light now, they seemed ominous. Like dead door handles leading to a darker world.
         Aunt Chilten was really in the air tonight.  She hotly pursued Johan. She was so close, she could almost be inside the cab next to him; instead she was chasing his truck, closely, tailing him. In his mind he thought:
         “Great God. I have to reach that pagan house. I have to write this down; flow with the pen. Where is my brother? I need to find my brother. I need to write these words, before they are lost. Late. Its late. He better be there still. I hope he hasn’t killed himself. Suicide has eaten and fed on my family enough. It only takes one.”
The 4x4 hit a pot hole in the road, then a whoop-de-do, sending the truck soaring through the air, at more then 70 miles an hour. The dirt road laughed at him, as it showered its prey with potholes and bumps, as Johan careened around another corner. He felt like a cat, being chased by Fido, running for his life; his brother’s life. The dog would break a neck tonight, somebody’s neck. It would be like the cat’s neck, fine and supple, easy to break, feminine almost.
         At last, he entered town, and became part of it. He hit paved roads, and glided over them; not caring for the police, or their lights. Ignoring their existance. It felt good; it felt very good. But he was almost there, he yearned and willed for himself to be home,  for his brother to be O.K.
         There was the house. There was the door, open it up and see all the dead.
         Throwing a rooster tail of dirt onto the drive way, Johan bounced the curb, swerved onto the front yard, tearing up the grass as he came to a stop. He didn’t turn the truck off. He left the lights on—he forgot about them. He blared the horn, though, loudly on the way to the pagan house of hell. As he opened the door with a surge of strength, he yelled for his Brother. It was like a disturbed eagle’s cry.
         “Jim! Jim wait... are you there! It wasn’t you! It wasn’t you...”
         The front door of the house seemed to open of its own accord, power, as he raced towards it. His feet pounded the ground, and skipped just as much of the ground, sometimes skipping a step all together. The dead grass squished and churned and flew under his feet. The cement step to the house, he missed; he forgot it existed. It didn’t exist. He was over, and through the door. A race horse flying through its starting gate, over the jump; a crazy man running from civilization, to the solitude of Fields.
         The house... the house is a large house. It is large, by local standards anyway. With wood siding, the house radiates a dark brown color. It flows through the darkness, like a fish swimming into the view of a glass bottom boat. The windows were dark eyes peering into the night, there was no light in the house to speak of. It was too dark. Johan cried out in his heart, like a mother cub asking for her children, demanding them, begging them to return to her, as if she let her guard down and something came and swallowed them up, in the night, eaten them.
         He heard breathing. Breathing! There was life in the house. For some reason it, the air-flow of the house, the breath, was exceptionally loud, booming out to the world. It was like a megaphone in his head, a loudspeaker on a stage, a band screaming into the void. The air was thick, he had to swim through it, a silent fish, a dead one. His vision was almost fogged, the breath was so heavy. His eyes were windshields; his mind was exhaling heavily. Where were the wipers?  His eyes were screwed open.
         As he turned right, and came into the living room, the motion detection lights came on. His brother, Jim, sat on the rich, blue satin couch, in the middle. He was like a rock on top of a loaf of soft dough. A deadweight formed on top of a violet petal, a flower, a seat for a pixie. Jim stared straight ahead, looking at something a thousand miles away. Perhaps he was a thousand miles away, because he was dead. Dead. The breathing had been Johan’s.
         His own breathing fooled him, he wept silent tears, a trickle down the mountain side, all the way, perhaps, to the center of the earth. A steady flow, like the wind coming off the distant Pacific ocean, a pool of salty tears. A clear reflection on his cheek, it showed his thoughts, his life. It showed a deceased man-brother, a slut girlfriend, a dead-ish immediate family. No extended family.  A past of innocence, then experience,  then clouds, dark formidable clouds came upon him, as shown in the stream over his sunken cheeks.
         Above the door entrance, through which he had run to meet his twin, on a hard oak rack, lay a .12 gauge shotgun; the loaded shells were in the top drawer of the desk in the guest room. He could go find him, the man who started it all, now; then his old girl friend. It wouldn’t be hard. He reached for the gun. Walked towards it, and reached. It was simple; it would be simple. Like a little kid asking for a new dad, he didn’t know what he was doing. He was a deaf-and-dumb man, looking for answers by simply starring at a solution, but without comprehending. Instead, he lowered his arm, to the back part of the chair made of iron wood, to his right, and leaned on it. Suddenly, he moved around and sat in the chair. He made the choice like a machine, decided where the odds lay, and committed to a side.
         The  typewriter was there; so was he. A chisel and hammer, and he, the force required to work it. An old work, to be sure. The work done by thousands of men and women in the past: philosophical musing and the writing of books, thoughts, and lives. He began to type out the tale. When he finished, he left.
                                                 
Mine Own Hell
         Where to begin; at the soul of the matter. The root of the soul, at the base of beginnings;
a gaseous cloud, a supernova, God, and the genesis.
         My name is Johan Midland Macki. I am 20 years old; after all this, I feel so old, an ancient Greek in a time-forgotten mausoleum or a Grand Cathedral. My brother’s name was Jim. He was two years younger then me. He will always be two years younger then me; from now, from forever, as his soul seeks rest, but will not find it. Suicides burn in hell. That is a fact; it weighs more on me, my mind, my soul, then do most of the others, combined. His voice is the loudest in my head.
         I currently live in Michigan, in a place called Detroit. I used to live in the part of Michigan that mattered; it loved me, and my family. The doggedness of my most recent home has done nothing but hurt me, and soon, I intend to leave this place for a length of time; when the sun expands to fill the universe, when the people go back to the stone age, when we can finally as a people live in harmony; that’s when I will return. That’s when I’ll blow the place to hell. But not today, not tomorrow.
         My parents, Clyde Maki(I never knew his middle name) and Synthia Alicia Toumiborn, and raised in the U.P. of Michigan, died. They died when I was 18. My dad killed my mother, supposedly, then shot himself. Its hard to tell, really, since there are no absolute truths in life, only points of truth; parts of what we can see, that we can see.  My father worked the night shift as a security guard at the Ojibwa Casino. He was drunk most of the day time, a sort of creature who never ventured into day light, sober. Mother was a great person; she worked at Larry’s Food market in the day, brought home her check for my brother and I, it wasn’t normally spent on beer for the man. Life wasn’t too bad, then my mother convinced Dad to start a new life. We moved down state, to where I am now, to Detroit; hell. That was her only bad decision in life, otherwise she was perfect; a goddess to my dad, a guardian angel to my brother and I, a crazy woman to the pent-up world we moved to.
         In Detroit, my father worked at a factory. He worked on trucks, an assembly line. He was apart of Ford, GM or Chrysler... one of those big companies, that will pass in time, like the sand and the dust of Aunt Chilton. One day, my father came home from work, or evening rather since he now worked the day shift. It was our second week in town, and he seemed scared, dead scared. He asked me and Jim to step out for a bit, that he needed to talk to Mother. Give them a few hours.  Back home, we would have worried; but he had given up drinking when we moved, which was a hard stretch for him but he made it, and there was no alcohol on his breath then, so it seemed fine.
         He was scared shitless really; only we didn’t notice it. His eyes, normally hazel colored,  had that  dreary red fire in them, burning up his conscious. Soon it would all be gone, his conscious, and he could do whatever he wanted, no regrets. With brown hair, cut short, marine style, he asked us out. He needed to shave, badly. He was scared shitless.
         Maybe it was the new town; maybe it was the stoner downstairs, or the tube lights in the attic. Perhaps it was the murders, the lack of alcohol, the boring job of an assembly man, the insane large numbers of people who jostled and pushed him. Perhaps it was the fact his wallet got stolen on the way home from work; maybe it was the fact that his job was getting out-sourced to Canada, because of the free healthcare located there. Whatever it was, it was to much for him. To hell with this world, he must have said. To Hell.
         Any ways, we gave them time. My brother and I decide to go bowling. I thought it would be good; family bonding. We headed out of town a little ways, to get away from the center of the heat. The center is like a bowling lane, each person is a pin. And even when there is a bad bowler about, with bumpers like Chicago, at least some pins fall. And if, if you have a bowler like the Devil, everyone falls. Even my mother.
         When we returned, later that evening, two hours later, the apartment seemed fine. The lights were still on, John Lenin was still singing out to the world. But... time. We were to late; five minutes past two hours. Maybe that caused him to do it; I don’t know.
         Any ways, the door opens. There isn’t any blood to be seen, since the carpet in the living room is a deep maroon. Maroon; the color of infinite death, a swirl of life and death, red and black. Both sitting on the couch, where my brother would sit one day, in the future. Who knows, maybe after I finish typing this out, I’ll go sit in that couch too... and greet my family in Hell. Or I could wait, and visit my Mother one last time; forever, that time.
         But yes, my mother was sitting on top of the couch. Her wound... her wound was in the chest, she was tapped through the heart; like a machine drilling for oil. Only instead of a drill-gun, it was a real gun, shooting a bullet, not spirals of light. My father’s life was a downward spiral; he shot himself in the head, sitting next to her. Later, tests showed there was a good ten minute lapse between her death, and his. I wonder what happened in those ten minutes. I wonder. Maybe he regretted it.
         The one good thing that my father did, was that he didn’t kill my mother when he was drunk. He did it while he was sober; a half-sane man. As sane, sober, as he could be, seeing as how he had drunk so much alcohol in his past life, that his brain was probably perpetually drunk.
         Even now, as his head, what is left of it after the bullet, floats in a mass grave of a thousand dead people, with twisted tongues and forked spines, he is probably talking in a drunken drawl; a boring slurred voice. I hope his flesh is burning now, and his body become used and betrayed, torn apart by a thousand other stubs of hands. I hope he never gets to claw at other’s bodies; he would enjoy it. Hell.
         So with my parents dead, things got sad. Real sad. Instead of pushing my brother and I together, it drove us apart; it made him insane. He became like a manic-depressant. Only instead of being happy and sad, his moods ranged from crazy motions, unpredictable acts, and general insanity, to calm-ness, perfect serenity, and deathlike stillness. The mind numbing power of both our parents death, and of the town crushed him. The stress broke him. Down into hell.
         I believe I took it well. I cried, once, twice, and a million times. I don’t really know if I cried or not. I don’t remember; I just try to remember the better things: the summer days at lake superior playing in the sand, the time spent late at night with the half moon writing a lullaby so I could sleep, the glorious days of spring break. Right now, I want to remember those things. But at other times... other times I want to raise the dead. I want to praise the sad, and the sick.  I want to feel dark, dressed in black. I want to glorify my fathers suicide with a passion of souls, death-throttles, and screaming witches.
         That is only sometimes. It switches often, really. Too often... far to often.  It happens like visions of hell recurring in flames; like the sun reflecting off of snow, cascading the light into night-time.
         Now, one  year ago, when I was 19 years old, another once-in-a-lifetime event happened. My aunt Chilton also died. She didn’t commit suicide; she was shot dead. With six bullets. Six. Let me tell you about her history: she was 45 years old when she died, a tall woman perhaps 5’11”, with wet-sand brown hair, veins popping up everywhere, and a dark, demonic, satanic almost, attitude on life.
         She came over, to our place in Detroit, which we had held onto since it was all that we had left, just over a year ago. She came over demanding an explanation for our parents death.  She had been out and about in Europe for the last year and a half, not bothering to come home to see her dead sister buried.  She wanted to know why my dad had killed her sister; my mother. Like a baby giant, demanding milk from a cow’s teat. Strong, forceful, ill-willed creature picking on low beings, a simple peaceful people, sons of men, not giants. It was on one of my brothers good moments when she came over, knocking on the hard, brass knocker. She let her self into my house; brother’s house.  He was calm and quite, and she ranted and raved at the two of us. We just listened; we thought she just needed to talk. Suddenly, she became violent. She grabbed my brother by the shirt collar, the top buttons. She demanded words from him, from me. He spoke but a few, but they were as thunder to her; to me.
         “ Shut your ass, old women. Come with me, and I can show you why. And how. Yes.”
         He said it in such a melodramatic silenced voice, that I was further silenced. I said nothing, I let him take my keys from me, I let the two of them walk out the door.  I let the two of them walk further into hell.
         Later, I found out what happened. It was horrible; a scene from a horror movie almost. A thing that happens in dreams, and garden-hoses. Small out of the way places; in our minds.
         Jim took her out the country. He took her all the way to the U.P., where Mom and dad and us used to live.  We had sold our house, but the couple used it as a summer home, only every other year. They didn’t actually like the place. It was a small house, with a barn and several sheds. Like a house on the plains, only made of wood and hearts, not sod and dirt. It would soon contain burnt people, ashes, lost minds, and diseased hearts.
         My brother told her to gather firewood; her own demise.  He said it had to contain her soul, and his parents souls, and his and my souls. It had to be gathered from our land, from our house. They took boards from the house; the plating of wood running horizontally around the house; stained, varnished, soul filled siding.  So for an entire afternoon, more even, they gathered fuel. They laid it up on the gravel driveway leading to the barn. And nearing dark, when their labors were done, they lit it. They lit the fire.
         It did not roar; it crept up slowly, onto the wood, through the wood. Till all was burning softly. As Aunt Chilton stood, staring into the recesses of the wooden flames, Jim strode up behind her, with a Winchester shot-gun. She did not turn, but stood... staring into the fire; her lover, her ender. Buck shot to the back, in the back... two rounds fired at once; a double barrel. Instant demobilization of the spine.  Not splintering, shattering, destroying, but eliminating, consuming, utterly removing her backbone. Her crooked spine; soul. A hole was blown through her heart, lungs, and soul. But her soul was already swiss-cheesed, a literal sifter, a columbine to sift out the fine, good things in life, and keep in the large, horrible, atrocious deeds, thoughts.
         She did not fall to her knees, but merely stood for an eternity. A clock that stocks ticking for a lifetime; the silence that follows a nightmare.
         Then he pumped four more rounds into her head, which caused her to fall forward, and her half head fell into the flames, into the arms of her lover; the devil. From the hands of the devil, once God. He threw his flames and the shot-gun and his sanity and his silence and his motionless-ness into the fire, and drew into action. Instantly, pulled Her from the fire. It already smelt of burnt flesh.  He then put her over his head, and threw her a mighty distance into the fire, where she fell face first, toes first, causing a collapse of wood under her. He then threw a great amount of wood on top of her, making sure it caught up in wreaths of smoke. And in circles of flame. Then he left. He left one and entered another, hell.
         He ran the country for a year, I guess. I really don’t know how he made it through alive, or how anyone in the country is still alive. I just hope he still had his sane moments, he must have been calm sometimes, otherwise he would never have lasted.  An eccentric crazy man is a dead one; and conscious quite one can sneak through the lines, and onto crazy deeds and dead people, that are not him.
         I heard nothing of him for a year, I assumed he had committed suicide, was killed in a bar room fight, lost in the woods of Canada, or simply in an in-stable persons’ asylum. The cops apparently made a big fuss about it for about eight months. But when no family member pressed charges, because no one cared for Aunt Chilton, and no one wanted her debt, the cops just let it fall. The owners of the house strangely died later that year, before their complaints about the fire ashes and death and the dust of aunt Chilton  came to light. As it was evidence of a crime scene, the police, state, government, seized control of the property. I believe the cops, drunk, play golf on our old hay fields now.
         Since my parents death, I have done nothing but go to work for eight hours, cashiering at a local thrift store, then I attempt to write, work on, a novel for six hours. Then I try to sleep for eight hours, but I only ever get four or five. Tops.
         Then, earlier today, at work, I get a phone call. It’s my brother, I tell my boss its urgent family business, and he begrudgingly lets me go. He seems pissed off.  I don’t care.  It’s my brother, and he says he is at home, and he wants to see me. He tells me about Aunt Chilton.  I say I’ll be right there, I  tell him to wait just where he is.
          I tell him I have missed him; I tell him I love him.
         I tell him that mostly just because he sounds a little shaky, I want to calm him down. But instead, his voice changes, he says:
         “ What the hell is love? Is it what Dad had for my mom? Is it what family does for family? For aunts?”
         A silence. I don’t know what to say. He speaks again.
         “What about loving yourself? I love myself. Its all my fault: Mom and Dad, this crappy town, my ruined life... I’ll see you, there, Brother. In Hell. ”
And he hung up. He hung up on me, it was over. I tried calling him back; the phone was disconnected. So I left, for home, only the outside shell of life, the frozen light-bulb, the fake of fakes. So I drove home, and found him dead. Dead on the couch. He shot himself; suicide. I wonder if him, and Dad and Aunt Chilton are doing okay in hell.  Maybe I’ll send them a note; or pay them a visit.
         No. I can’t do that. My mother needs company. I’ll try to live a full-life; one with values. Like my mother, but look where it got her? Dead. But at least she is in Heaven, not hell.  I must go now, I must flee. The stripes and blue should be coming soon, a white wash over my house. A complete covering of faith; life and death.
         I must go, I will lead an illusive life. I want to write; have a simple life. Sour dough bread and water. A place with a view of the moon; not of the sea or ocean storms.  I will portray to the world the meaning of my life. I will remember my past; but I do not want any reminders of it. It must be a hard to reach animal, knowable only in my books, my teachings. It cannot become a petting zoo, but a story to unravel, a moral to be learned, emotions to be read.
         I will write about the sad things in life; the depressing. I will write as my soul dictates; as my feelings change. I can write about the joyous; but that would be the norm; the un-prolific. My mind is an unstable vase, a shady courtier, and an un-locked box, which the winds and the times pour eccentricity and emotions into.  I shall leave now, do try not to burn in Hell. You do not want to meet my brother; my aunt chilton; my dad.
         And so Johan stood up from the chair, as an ape attempting to stand on two limbs, not four. He was stiff from writing; thinking. He signed the last page of his document, and stapled it orderly together. He left it on his brothers lap; the dead demonic soul. He knew he had to disappear, to leave his past. He wanted freedom, and a place to escape to. He got in his sunset truck and drove off into the night: to write. To write about  the sad things in life; to make people cry. Everyone must cry, may as well be about something worth crying for, he thought.  And with that final thought, he was gone into the night.
         A warlock without the heart to kill, only to love; a single soul, beacon, of loss to the world; ready to chisel his name into peoples minds; a night-fox left in broad day; and a simple man, full of un-shedable tears.
The end.
Also, a poem, called simply ‘It Grows.’ Here it is:
I watch it climb, I watch it grow,
As the seed it sows, reaches for the sky,
I wish it would die,
As it grows, going for my deconstruction,
It works on its own construction,
Its plan to throw me into the spiral of destruction,
I must resist, I shall persist,
I shall win, I shall not commit a sin,
For it is not one, it must be done.
It will be defeated, before I am unseated.
After it is unearthed, I shall give birth,
To a new idea, a new plant,
I shall be like an ant,
Never breaking from my task,
I will throw away the mask,
That is covering its face,
And I will beat it to lace.
Chapter IV
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“I almost just died.” Angel
“Thou shalt fall, and when thou does, I shalt drive a steak of wood through your heart. It shall quiver and tremble and stop. And be dead.” ~ Charles
         “The Stone On The Hill asked me how I was doing, as I was dying. I said “ About the same as you. We are bound, like the Sword In The Field.” He laughed at that. He asked if there was anything he could do. I said ‘yes, but it won’t happen.’ It was something we had to do together, I for him, he for I. It wouldn’t happen. We couldn’t become one again, as required. We were to far apart, gone. So I died. And he cried out, then laughed, and died too.” ~ The Boulder In The Valley
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         April 26th, 1986, 10 pm: Tapiola Road, Michigan
Angel was by himself. He was driving fast; pissed. He drove the ’83 Corvette along the road, seeming to be disinterested, going about eighty miles per hour. Knowing there were two curves coming up, he gripped the wheel, closing down, consuming. Burying himself in the wheel, the road, his memory of the past day. He sped along the road, gliding, as if down ice on skates, controlled. It was like sledding in the winter, it was like itself, softly sifting through, around, on the road. It was like he was on roller blades, gliding along. Va-moom... va-moom... whoop-de-doo... whoop-de-doo. The soft sensation in the gut, as he crests the hills, and sails down the other side. A soft feather in the stomach, and gentle breeze underneath. Power pulses through his hands, body, mind. Many other things pass through his mind, but he casts them out. He must concentrate: on driving.
         He shifts gears; through each one that his dad paid for. That Angel worked for. It wasn’t just given. Eddie Lefty fully understood the value of hardworking, in order to fully appreiciate the end product. Angel worried about college for a while, that he would have to pay for it. Then he realized he was a genius and forgot about it. He also forgot about the genius part, and never worried about it again. The veins on his father’s neck hadn’t pulsed in a long time, Angel had been a good boy. Tonight thought, he had a feeling like something might happen. Something to bring out the best in his father’s neck. But he tried not think about it, and just drove along. Speed along. Through the night; he flew. Like the crow, he melted into the road, the night, and past on through.
         Earlier that night, he had talked to his girlfriend, Ima Jena Lamberton She was white, a beautiful blonde girl. She was sunken in the eyes, but the eyes themselves were precious tools. Janitors. She dressed mildly —not to erotic, exotic, nor to covered, protected, mixed— but with certain style, common, in the small town. She wore brighter, lighter shirts, small frills and multiple layers. She dressed in penguins, holy suns, and white, angelic frilliness. She was a goddess to goddesses, to goddesses, to goddesses, and yet another goddess. She was the top of the pyramid, the culminate of life, the answer to prayers, but mostly, the smile on his lips, in his mind. She was his sanity, and she retained his sanity, mostly. Sometimes she threw his sanity out the window, destroying it. Usually it was like the magic beans, and grew back all the more powerful, leading to greater things, love, misunderstanding, and anger. But sometimes it was like a thief stole it away, and it took a while to grow back, if at all.
         She had struck him in the heart; or maybe he had. He wasn’t sure anymore, as he slide, and glided over the road, the turn. He just felt angry, a burning passion, a yearning to do something crazy, memorable. Either for good or bad, for love or for the hate, the anti-love; for the love of hate, he felt strong emotions. He wanted to bring closure to the relationship, or to bring it back together. He wanted decision, action! A feeling in the night.
         And out of the night it came. As  he rounded the turn, going eighty miles an hour, there was a car in the other lane, coming at him, plus another backing out into the road, blocking his path. There was a conception; a thrill in the night. It happened as quick as the rattlers strike, the vehicles where there. A nuclear bomb seemed to go off, and it was to late, almost. He hit the breaks, squealing, causing the tires to enter the air, in both physical form, scent, and in sound, vibrations.  He flew past the on coming car, squeezed his car between the car in the road, backing up, and the guard rail. He could feel the surprise, anger, and furious-ness of the people in the car, the white Sudan. It was all over in about three seconds, it seemed. The tremors lasted for longer, the fear, the exhilaration. The car shook, as if in happiness at not dying, being damaged. He slowed down, thought about dying, the fact that he almost just died.
         He decided to go by Blake’s house. He had had enough of being by himself, with Ima in his head. Charles had been left out of the whole thing, not saying a word, or making an appearance.  With other people in the car, Angel drove more safely. He valued other lives, and his own, more then just his own.  He couldn’t stand the though of killing people by having them in the car. Charles thought otherwise, but Charles wasn’t allowed in the car, or vehicle, whatever it was.
         He decided to go 115 miles per hour.
He was on his way to Tapiola anyway, so he just showed up at Blake Boosherman’s house. Blake’s parents weren’t home, by the looks of it. The Boosherman’s vechicle, a white Sudan, was gone. Blake must be home alone, since he is the only child. Angel pulled up the car, parked it on the grass, shut it off, and walked up to the medium sized brown farm house. He knocked on the bitter white door, where some paint is peeling.
         “HEY! Brother on the road, where art thou? Get your ass out here. Where is the elephant? The enchanted huge brother of mine?! I got the car man... lets ride. I need company.” Angel yelled out, beating on the door with his bare, clenched, white fist.
The air was surprisingly cold. Brother Blake Boosherman took his time, Angel thought. But he heard a yell in return, but he couldn’t enter, because the door was locked. He knew it would be looked, but he tried it anyway. Blake’s parents always made him keep the door locked; if they came home, and it wasn’t locked, he was in big trouble. They were out at the movies, Angel found out later. Atleast, they were on their way to the movies, perhaps on the road still.
         Angel went back to the car, started it up, listened to some tunes, warmed his hands, sitting on them. In about three minutes, Blake came out, a shiny emulation of life, dressed in a shiny black, pin strip, button up shirt. He was wearing straight husky jeans. All of his clothes, he made sure, fit him tightly, showing off his largeness, his muscles, but not to tight as to appear homosexual. He was fairly kempt about his appearance, in the hope of picking up ladies, especially on a Saturday night. He wasn’t the steady boyfriend, like Angel was (‘At the moment, anyways’ Angel thought.) He hooked up with a lot of girls, real often.
         “Ooolo there, man. Ready to  ride the disaster train? Lets hit the bowling alley man! Or at least go cruising for a bit. And I am gonna drive, bitch. Ha!” Blake said.
         “Hell no. You aren’t driving me around! You haven’t even been trained yet, nor taken any lessons. Ha. I’m shitting you.”
“Psssh... go to hell.”
“Sure, lets cruise for a while, then hit the bowling alley. I love bowling... I’ll set you flying like a pin. The eagle bird strikes tonight, taking its prey in its own claws.”
         Fili could never go out on Saturday nights. His ‘guardians’ wouldn’t allow it. It was... not possible. They flipped if he disobeyed that rule, but they didn’t have very many rules besides that. Saturday night was their ‘bonding time.’ Fili didn’t actually usually complain to much. At least not in words, then again, he almost never said anything decomposing, destroying, unhealthy, bad, ill-fated.
         So Angel and Blake left. Blake laughed at the wind, while Angel punched the break down, weaving up a cloth of earth and rocks and tire shavings. The quarter-mile drive way passed in what seemed like a few seconds. At the end of if, they were met with a decision, left or right. Angel was struck with a thought, a Robert Frost poem. He recited it to the night, blessing the scene, as they sat there, at the end of the drive way, much to Blake’s obscene objections. Angel had to yell the last few lines, in order for Nature to hear it; Blake was an angry bird, night fox.
         And that made all the difference. Time passed, and was over them. And there was a silence in their world, the night world, the drive-way world, the headlight world. A vibrant voice of intoxicating sand pouring into different mouths surrounded them. The silenced voices cried to them, in quite motions, silent motions, dead motions, weak motions. The heads were black, with blacker hair, and a pair of fickle eyes craving, searching the lighted area, seeking for something to look at, hold onto and breath with. Something to spit the sand into, but there is nothing surrounding them. Complete nothingness, blankness, disembodied hearts, heads, fat friars and, the roof made out of missing, blown off shingles.
         When the silence passed over them, and was gone, they suddenly laughed and they shook themselves from the tales of un-trodden paths. And Angel directed the flow of the car right, into town, away from the country, away from the people, away from the fields, away from peace, away from Blake’s rotting, fat brown house.
         They talked a lot; the people around them seemed to laugh at them. They though they were surrounded by laughing people; the two were embarrassed at how they had acted after Robert Frost. At least, Blake was. Angel wanted a lighter mood, anyway, but he didn’t mind the silence most of the time. He  was obsessive about it sometimes. He walked out into the center of his room, and sat there, on the bare wooden floor; other times he walked the course of the river, black and true, and found a silent place, a quite place, a secret, hidden place. He went to his special place, sometimes, but that was when the slit throat of the lamb called him, the impact after the elephant hits the ground awakened him, the bi-tombed work of the ancient Egyptians questioned his intellect.
         Blake laughed suddenly, spoken, in a shrill voice; an un-controlled voice.
         “Dude, we so have to hit the Lamberton’s place tonight! I heard that...”
         Angel cut him off: “SHUT the fuck UP, you WHITE bitch.”
         “I’m just messing with you man... besides, we’d have a great time. Maybe I could get a kiss from Ima... hell yeah.”
         At that point, Angel slammed on the brakes, held and waited about five seconds, and threw the gear into ‘parking’.  He then threw, missiled himself at Blake; fortunately for Blake, Angel was still strapped in to the car, the mass, the vehicle. Angel swore loudly, then quieted, as he recovered, then de-latched himself from the deadweight. Blake was already out of the car, and running into the woods. They had happened to stop at the side of the Sturgeon River. Blake ran down by the water, pick up a few stones to throw in self-defense, if necessary.
         Angel was a strict, cold bearer of institutional death. He walked the hillside, flowing down to the river, the flowing its self. Each step was a moment, a clang, of doom. It was like the red eye of the west mountains, the deep blue of ancient, light bearing, animals in the dark deep, the clear reflection of tan colored rosettes in the Sahara. It was the deepest of the soundless, the plural of multiples, the esthetic of the eccentric. And the steps brought him up next to Blake. Fire, lava, acid.
         Melting Ice.
         And Angel cried. He just started crying. The majestic sentimentalist was over taken, again, by fear and remembrance and torn fields.
         “Until the wind is gone... leave me. You bastard.” Said Angel
         Angel was thinking about his past moments, his distant lives; he was believing the lost future, and grieving over it. Blake was overcome with chivalry and was silenced. He wheeled about, a perfect half moon, and glanced across the skies as he past them. He strode over them, and up to the parked car. He got in and was quite, waited.
         Angel sank to his haunches; his mind was elsewhere, then, at the banks of the mighty river.  The water moved, splashed, and was happy in its pursuits downstream and after bits of wood. It was a chalice in the night; a perfect resolution of God. The water was dark, but when the moon played on it, and it produced a magnificent silver shade of diamonds, ebbing and flowing in the water. The grass was black, unnoticed.  The shores were visible; the near shore was grass, over-cuts in the bank, that you couldn’t see; the far side was made of hard stones and boulders, a real solid place. The light was danced  and pupated over it’s surface, by the splendid, almost iridescent, flat-black blue in the center of the sky. The shades of blue were complete, ringing, spiraling down into vibrant, then vague shades of teal, and sing-song shapes of birds. Where the sun had set, several hours before, the sky near the horizon had an almost yellow tone to it, which mixed perfectly with the teal, and was impossible to focus on.
         Silhouettes. The pine trees made perfect silhouettes. Their actual shape and size made them strong in the night. The light that seeped out between their branches was amazing, a unforgettable climax. A first sexual act; a kiss. The cones held off the starry night; the stars were bright, but were faded by the blueness of it all. Each needle defined, a picture was created, worthy of such a memory. A memory worth living for, or so Angel thought. He thought he would create a pilgrimage here. To this spot; on this very night. It was a holy place, in its unquestionable glory. He would start a crusade down the river. He would point out God to his soldiers, and call them to arms. They would all be blessed, this very night.
         He decided to laugh at the sky. And then he remembered Ima Lamberton. And his shakes of maniacal fulfillment turned to seizures of remorse, dead fish, fallen angels, destroyed prospects. He began to the night, in a bold spoken tone, with as much demeanor as he could manage:
         The tale of two lovers; two hearts; that were broken.
         As recorded and spoken by The Boulder In The Valley.
“I’ll write to the night. I’ll write to the day. I’ll write till I fucken burn in Hell.” Said the Boulder, in a dark, manic depressive voice. He spoke to the abyss called life, and to the soul of a woman. The black wretch he called his woman; the one he had called his goddess; in other words, his Venus. Centrifugal force cast him out from her eventually; she was a dark spinning power-fest of sin.
         “You are so melo-dramatic, my friend. So melo-dramatic. So fucking-dramatic. I love you for it. I didn’t at first, but now, I claim it as my own.” Said Ima, Ima of witchcraft and black-suns, moon beams and silver trinkets, black cauldrons and coarse, black wool cloth.
         She is black now. She used to be pure, and white, an angel, a virgin.
         The white shirt she wore was a symbol of simple of piety, purity, and cleanliness. It was pure; white as a swan’s limb, feather, eye. The color was cornered at the top; a slim ninety point at the bottom.  The buttons on her shirt were ivory, a silver white lichen on her pure virgin body. The long sleeves encompassed her long arms like sea shells, covering the soft mollusk insides, a soft untouched muscle.
         Her shirt was cornered, bound by an icy, cold reflective skirt. It was full of plain, dark, simple, yet powerful: a simple maroon, a bold yellow, a few trains of thin white, and even fewer lines of the sky, bright baby sky. The lines were diagonal, a mix of horizontal and vertical, all in the same direction, a tangled web of parallel lines. The skirt swayed in the breeze, around her sound legs, beautiful legs, bound legs. The short dress stopped short of touching the bottom of her knees... but covered the knee cap, like a Muslim wrap. Sometimes the wrap was released to the world, freedom involved, and showed up above the top of her knee. And she would modestly pull it down, an Archangel doing her work. A fairy god mother, protecting her trustee, her responsibility. All prim and proper.
         Her feet were adorned  with sandals, leather bonds, letting in the light of day unto the lowest of parts of life. The oxen, normally, but on her, beautiful prancing ponies, white horses, of royal lineage. The hooves of the horses were painted bright crimson red, a view of her blood, that which is pure in her, as every thing else is. Another beat held up to the sun. Another tomato left in the yard. No veins in her feet, nor visible anywhere. A perfect body. A ransomed body. The thongs, the sandals on her feet were thin, small things. Bound by nothing, but bound to everything good, precious.
         Back up her slender body and fine curves, over her sly hips and solid, firm protruding ass, around her hole of a belly button, over her flat stomach and round circles of untouchable skin, over thin fine shoulders, un-kissed, neck, also un-kissed, up to her proud chin, and her mid-sized ruby-purple lips, and over her small, unnoticeable nose, and around her vanilla, tan, yet rosy cheeks, and finally up to her eyes, I traced a path, mentally, thinking over her every detail. Her eyes had been her second beauty. They were strand filled, a perfect, iridescent, incinerated blue color, like full noon day sky blue mixed with heavy whipping cream. If you took dark green, and compared it to tropical ocean green, it would be the same as if  you took dark blue, and compared it another color, a finer color. It would be the same comparison, the same rich texture of beauty.
         That was her second quality. Her first, my friend, was her faith, her mentality. Her undying affection for good, and pure things. She was a saint, and I believe would have been anointed and voted one, several hundred years from now, if I hadn’t corrupted her. I may not have seen it as the best virtue then, but I do now, oh do I now.
         She wore a silver necklace, almost of gold, but plainer.  It was on a chain, a series of links, of bonds, derived oblongs, and elongated circles.  Silver. Silver circles of God, sainthood, majestic ethics. It was simply beautiful. It was around her neck, protecting her; not hurting, but protecting her neck. The cross itself, was engraved with lines, a cross inside of itself. A life, inside a life, a cross inside a cross, an ethic inside an ethic.  But the chain was broken, a hacksaw, a chain-breaker, a giant pair of cutters, lopped it into two pieces. So that it fell from her neck; then it cut the chain to many bits, cutting the cross last, destroying any virtue left.
         Her hair was her third quality, before it turned black. Before the witch I turned lose, took over her soul. A night infested field. A forsaken field. A barbaricly taken-over field. An overtaken field. A captured field. A field never to be taken back. She, the field, was irreparable, irreplaceable. Forever cursed. Even Angel’s blessing could do nothing. It was a cast down angel that did all the damage. Before her hair turned black as the night watch, as the translucent spy in the cellar, it was a baby color of blonde. It was almost pure white, as a virgin’s robe.  But it turned darker, and became dirty, then black.
With age, and experience, it grew old, and tired of its color. It became dark, and sadistic. It became the color of De Sade, him self. The experience was me. The age was with me. She became my age. She learned things, dark things. And she was enticed, and became evil, and left me. Actually, she just became enticed, evil, sinful, hateful, pleasurable, and then I left her, for those very reasons. Those same damn reasons, things, that I caused in her. The good Lord help me. The good Lord help her.
         When she was an angel, she was perfect. A true translucent of the word, before the word, in front of the word. And we were happy, as God was happy at the beginning, with only Eden to contend with, before the world of man started. And for a time, a long time, we were happy. Her, and I. And I touched her, and she touched me; in other words we kissed. Her passion was unleashed, and time was un-reversible. She decided she had a new thrill in life, another way to live, and she was cursed. And I was cursed, by myself, for myself. I was myself. The dark troll that sent the witch out, made his home bigger in me, and build him self, from a hovel, to a castle, well defended. And the witch he sent out, bore no allegiance to him. Though she should.
         She visited other men, talked to them, met with them. I am a man; no mere boy. I know what I say. And I saw what she did, and I did not like it. And I was down cast, put into a lower caste, and hated her, and loved her, with a passion. The troll felt both emotions too. Only stronger, and he took over me. And now I am him; he is me. We are one, the troll and I.
         And I saw her dejected state, her evil state, her necromanced state, her un-holy country. I left her, tearfully, knowing that we couldn’t be happy. I couldn’t be happy. She could though, but not I. The Troll, the Boulder, and I struck out for the home range, to find our selves again. And we three wept a thousand tears, and are forever sad. She shed three tears, one for each of us, and turned away.  And turned to the party, and to the night. The night is full of witches’ brooms, star-gazers, palm-readers, de Sades, and treacherous henchman.
So ended “The Tale Of Two Lovers”,  and Angel was silent again. Charles, arrived, slide out of the air and spoke to Angel.
         “Brother. Brother. Brother. Thou speak of mine creation? Thou speakith of me in such a shallow tone; I art not a troll. I am thine resurrection. Thine soul. Thine true soul. Don’t speak of mine self in such an evil way. I did not send out the witch to Ima. You fool. It was you. It’s all your fault.”
         Angel laughed, tall and gauntly, haughtily and hastily, and suddenly stopped short. He looked at the moon, full and bright, a circular silver cheese, moldy, in its dim light. And he walked to the river edge, where it slopped gradually down, and met the river silkily, and smoothly, and at low angle, and dipped his hands in the pure water. He washed them clean, in rough movements, circular, intertwining movements, and then raised them above the surface, flicked them, at the wrist, towards the water, and getting the excess water off.
         He then stood, uncurling, uncurving, his spine, and turned towards Charles. He walked up to him, and dried his hands on Charlie’s clothes, his cloth. And the water came off of Angel’s hands, and was left on Charlie. The water cleaned part of him, and he was not so dirty. He robes were not so cursed.
         Angel turned again, and walked up to the car, fished for the keys, and got in. He nodded to Blake, who nodded back. He started the car, and drove off into the night: towards the Lamberton’s.
                                                 

























Chapter V ************************************************************************************
“My cat is Kubla Khan. He is also like Atilla the Hun, Ghengis Khan. He is wise, strong.
Reserved. A ancient Lord Byron lyric.” ~ Angel
“I write this on the hood. I am a sitting duck, but at least I am not contained. I am in the field.” ~ Angel
“She was contempt-ful, evil, satanic in her glory.” ~ Blake(in his rare philosophical mode, mood)
"And I call for you. And I call for you. And my heart screams for you." ~ Angel
“I am nonchalant in my supremacy.” ~ Blake
“Blake… why don’t you just fucken build yourself a fortress and live in it the rest of your life?” ~ Angel
**************************************************************************************
April 26th 11:30 p.m., 1986, leaving Blake’s house.
They drove through the night, like a spear. A wooden halter, handle, with a silver tip. A serrated silver tip, bound to the wood with Whitetail sinew, wrapped around, and around. They were launched from the river, as if from a mighty arm. A huge mask bound their mouths, voice boxes, articulations, and silenced them. It was oppressive to Blake, he seemed to go, felt like he went, into a coma. Angel just enjoyed it, relaxed, exercised his mind, pleasured himself in the silence, in his self conscious mental beauty, he thought about life, about Ima, and about resolutions.
         About three miles down the road, Angel started applying the breaks, for the first time. He gradually slowed them down, almost to a stop. As they were crawling around, along, they came upon a field. At it was the same field that they had ambushed The Farmer at. He pulled the car off to the side of the road, and parked it. He beckoned to Blake, and stepped out of the vehicle, closed the door, and walked his body to the front of the car, and put his pen, from his front right pocket, and paper, from his back left pocket, on the hood.
*******
Lake Mist, A poem by Angel
Look across the lake, my friend.
Into the misty reserve.
For in the unclearness of the distance
Lies the future, clear, and cold as it can be
The land behind you is hard and known,
But it cannot hold eternity.
And endlessly that is what you seek,
To know what lays in the furthest veins of time,
And to see with your own eyes,
The following strength it takes to forge on alone.
For tis true, you must pursue your self,
And know your self totally, is true in actuality.
Before you travel the water through the foggy haze.
*******
The night was late; it must have been one a.m. By the time they were both sitting on the hood of the car, the perturbed, disturbed silence had recollected itself, and was whole once again. A few crickets came through over the air, gliding. The frogs bulled and guffawed in their rock pits, and swamp lagoons. The wind came across the field, blowing. The stars were brighter then they had been before; it was strange. The moon was about 3/7ths full. It had grown more mold.
         “How are you doing?” asked Angel, “Is your mind freaking out yet?”
         “Ahhh… not yet, my friend, not yet.”
         A silence.
“Is it true you slept with Jane two weeks ago?”
         “Honestly? No. That was all a joke, a farce.”
         “Damn. That was a good one. Would have been a good one.”
         “Right. Right. Well, I always could eh? I’d have no problem doing it. She wouldn’t either, you know that.”
         “Awww… shut-up Blake. You couldn’t lie, sleep, with a porcupine.”
         “What?!”
         “Awwww… lets not talk about that. You ever get scared of getting old? Becoming ancient as the sea?”
“What the hell are you talking about? I am seventeen years old! Your sixteen! We’re young. You can’t change time, its impossible. There isn’t any point in laughing at the old, they can’t help it. Live or die, we all the same.”
         “Exactly, we can all get old. Your getting old right now; me too. But what about in twenty years? Aren’t you scared that you will regret your youth? Your childhood? Your innocence?”
         “HEY, I may not have been with Jane two weeks ago, but I sure as hell am not innocent. Hell.”
         Another silence.
         “As old as the sea? Will you ever be that old?” Angel replied.
         “Psssh man. You can’t never be as old as the sea. It isn’t possible.”
         “… That is, unless you make a sea. Make an earthquake. Make a whirlwind. Make a new fucking world. Then you can be as old as something. The key to this world is being as old as stuff. Creating things, building things. Dust to dust. Not physical things; but works of art, mental things, philosophy. Its about making those who aren’t happy, happy. And those who are happy, happier. But only helping those who haven’t thought to much. Who haven’t over thought things. Only those who don’t have an obligation to help others, and make them happy. I have an obligation, and allegiance. Maybe you too, have one. If you would only see, and understand what I say. An icebox in the winter, a stone to a squirrel, a mouse to a tiger, a world to that mouse, a metal sword to a leaf. It means nothing to you, does it?”
         “Acck… man. I don’t know. Let’s go drink.”
         They both got back into the blue suede car, and Angel began to drive down the right side of the road, continuing on in the direction of the Lambertons. The road sped up to 70 mph easily, and quickly. The road hummed a tune, a closed, steady flow of words, sounds, ejaculations. It was paved, smoothed, a licked slick ice-cream gone, an opened Cool Wip container. And like the ice-cream and Cool Wip, it felt sweet and delectable to cruise over it; Angel and Blake felt fulfilled, relaxed, and in the midst of rejuvenation. Angel felt loosely in control; vaguely, without end.
         “Angel?” Blake stated.
A nod from Angel, a glance of the eyes.
         “... how come you talk to the night? To the Sturgeon? How come you never talk to me like that?”
         “You’re full of questions tonight. I’ve got answers. To bad they’re answers to questions like... Why am I here? Why are you here? What is God? What is the complete theological mental state? Why are we going to Ima’s?”
         Angel threw his head up after each question, filling each word with depth, and height.
         “Well then,... ... ... hell, why the am I here? Why the fuck are you here?”
         “You want my theology? You want my ideas. Here... here is my philosophy. You want it, or not? Its long. Its hard, and its full of stuff. It’s everything you aren’t. You got all night? You want it, or not? Huh? Want the sun to go out? Want a black moon to live in your backyard?”
         “Awwww...  shit man, you make it sound like hell. A life not worth living. To complex. Awwww... hell. Lighten up. I want to hear it. Lay it on me.”
         “Sure as shit, man. Here ya go:
                   My theological beliefs and metaphysical ideas.
Social system: there are two types of people; two. There are the common people. Those people just live life, and enjoy it; they live for long sticks, and mansions. Love, women, walks in the country, beer, a full life, a rich life, security, adventure; the common people. The people that you, and I know. You are one; don’t take it wrong.
         I’ told you this was baroque. Don’t fight with me; just listen.
         Two types of people. The common people; and the Wise Men. When I say wise, I do not mean that in a conceited way. I just mean that those people have been doing a lot of thinking in life. They have thought enough, and they consider themselves apart from the common men, women, children, yet they consider themselves equal. They consider themselves servants, almost. They have thought life through, and see little comfort in small things, in opulent things, in excess things, in extraneous things.
         They dedicate their lives to improving other’s lives, opportunities.  Their hands cannot fall limp at their sides. They feel an ardent, or rarely, relaxed, desire to move, to help, to elevate, to increase other people’s happiness and fulfillment of desires and wishes. It’s a main source of satisfaction for the ‘Wise Men.’ I consider myself a ‘Wise Man’, the second type of person.
         So basically, I have a requirement to fulfill towards other people; an obligation. Don’t go getting cocky and asking for shit, you won’t get it. I hate cocky bastards. We all hate cocky bastards; us wise guys. You self-centered bastards can go to hell. No offense; just don’t become one, okay? Alrite. Fair enough. Now, then.
         Love? Love theology? Alrite. Here is what I believe in love. It all ties together; all theology does. At least all of my theology.
         Love. Love is potent. It is the stuff of live; even for those of us ‘Wise Men.’ Wise Men still require a few things in life; in a simple life. We are non-materialists. We are emotionalists. We just need water, sour bread, a bit of old wine, the sun on our backs, three bucks in our wallets, sandals on our feet, and... love in our hearts. Love is not only, obviously, the sweetest emotion, but it can bring you to the greatest heights, although most people don’t notice it. They believe hate, anger, vengeance to be the strongest emotions, but they are wrong. They just can’t control themselves. Self control is everything.
With self-control, comes prowess in love, that is only if your a good person, and then  love becomes the greatest emotion. But if you are more ‘bad’ than ‘good’, hate tends to become the primary emotion, feeling, field.  There fore, if ‘bad’ and ‘good’ are opposites, then ‘love’ and ‘hate’ are also have that relationship, but also, is not hate a form of love? Is it easier to love than to hate? Is hate more powerful if you have loved something first? Or is it on more powerful if you have never known the thing you hate? Does true, and good, hate come from knowledge of it? Doesn’t most hate come from ignorance? Shouldn’t we there fore learn as much as we can, before we judge? Isn’t that a simple answer, yet no one seems to listen and act upon it?
         Fucken people. If people would listen, and inquire.... ahh if only I had a voice that could carry on over the seas of irrelevance. I speak wisdom, and truth, I believe, but I can not get my words out, to be heard, re-heard and spoken again? No I can not.  And it pisses me off.
         “Ahhh, here we are. At the Lamberton’s place. I hate it. I hate this place; may as well learn to love. I better practice my philosophy and learn what I inertly hate. Why do I hate it? At least I should think about that. I got crap loads of philosophy; we better get in there though; I’ll let you in on more later. Heard, reheard, and spoken again. That’s what needs to happen. Spread the word. Read Jane Smiley’s ‘Lily’. It’ll help.” Angel added, to Blake’s dazzled face, in a half spoken, half calm voice.
         Angel parked the car, turned it off, let the music die off into the fields. Blake remained stilled, silent as the night. Then the silence was broken, a waft of air came out to meet them. A sheer laugh, shrill laughter, and happy groans, gurgles, and then some stumbling voices, and music that flowed around everything, covering the air, car, and silence in a thick fog.
         The door slammed shut, and three figures came out; a male and two females. They were obviously drunk. Crucial was the stumbling that lead them about, casting them down the stairs, into a laughable heap at the bottom. Even though the steps were hard cement, pillars, blocks of stone, they didn’t seem to get hurt. Only their minds suffered, as they laughed, and puked, and mewed.
         The man was Brian Oberland, Angel knew. Brian Oberland was a god, as far as Angel felt, knew, believed, prayed. Angel knew the man to be a saint. A verifiable one. One that stood for an example to other saints, in his ability to achieve things. To set out, and accomplish them. Not only to move a mountain, but to move all the ten million mountains in the world. To create the world as you see it, to do the hard work; he has a high set of morals.
         When Angel saw him, he was paralyzed. Brian had been Angel’s epic; his hero of the most famous quest. The pile at the foot of the stairs, with legs, and laughs, was to much for him. He sat there with his hand on the door handle of the Mercedes. He sat the way he had when he had heard about the “Chornobyl” explosion earlier that day. It killed approximately ninety people instantly, and the worst part, that many, infinitely more would pay over the generations, upon generations to come. As the huge radiation had seeped out and took control of the land, for generations and generations, and ages and ages to come, so did the sight of Oberland, and the reaction of it, greased into his body, and become eternally absorbed in it.
         Blake just laughed, cried at the sad, oh so sad, voices of the drunk. He wished he were with them; the three were obviously headed for a quieter place, a more silent home; before they got there, that is. Loud cheers, moans, ejaculations, cries, and drunk yells would be heard,  he knew. He wanted to have a good time, and forget that fact that he wasn’t going to a great college, and that he didn’t have any plans for life. He didn’t necessarily want to forget that, he just wanted to forget about his parents reminding him about it. He wanted a snow storm to cover his world, a complete white wall, a slick black-bandit to cover his tracks into the bold night.
         The night was crisp, cold; a subtle change from the car’s insides, warm intestines, steamy. Angel barely noticed it as he crossed the expanse of air, towards Brian, and the two whores. The two white whores; one blonde; one brunette. And the black man raised himself up from the ground, tangle, pile, mesh. Brian stood not so tall as he used to, in his vague brown colors, in his black pants, and brown tee-shirt, in his black tangled hair and his droopy, dopey doe eyes.  The two women stayed on the ground, amongst the dirt, and gravel, and fragrances of snow. They eyed him up from below, and when Angel spoke, they looked at him; their retinas moved over, and cast upon him.
         Charlie said “Do thou remember, Angel, when Brian helped thou? When he was grand, proud and tall? Do thou rememberest him? I think thou doest. I think thou doest. This is the one night in eternity that he has fallen, can thou really blame him? We all have bad days, don’t we?.... Do we not, I ask?”
         “Ahhh, I remember,” Angel said to the air, “ When Brian was who he was, and when he was good. Let me tell you... let me tell you...”
         Brian and the two whores gazed at him in an amazed silence, for about twenty seconds. Then they burst out into laughing, unbidden, unbound. It lasted for a long time. When it finally died off, like the moon at bay, in the soft glow of the sun, never quite leaving all the way, Angel continued:
         I have known Brian for a long time; he has always been there. Since I was a young son-f-a-bitch, pain-in-the-side kid, I have known him. He has always done things correctly, as he said he would do them, as they ought to be done.
         I feel like Otto Preminger has died again, the actor from Austria, the second man god. What if Jimmy had never lived? What if he was born again, and forced to die again? Acck, world, du.  I mean, he turned down ‘the Godfather’, what would it take evaluate to this man? He was too great. I feel like he has been murdered, cut at the throat, slit in the fields, destroyed, mutilated beyond extension.
I’m losing my voice. My voice box is smitten. I shall forever hold my peace, after this moment, this discussion. At least I can write, that’s the way I talk, communicate, best. But now, for the lecture of this hell, for hell, by hell, written to the Fallen Angel. The Fallen Arch-Angel.
         The millions of people on the streets. The random people in your school; the people on your block. They sit around and don’t do shit. They don’t even matter. They will not affect Life. Someday they will die. And I will laugh. And they will die again. And I will laugh again. And they will die a third time. And I will cry.
         I will have lost my philosophy; my goal in life; all that I stand for. And it will be gone. I hope nothing raises them from the dead, resurrects them. I hope they don’t touch the snakes; and throw them amongst their enemies.
         But here, here is a man who is worth crying over the first time he dies. And worth killing people the second time, and worth committing suicide over the third time. I guess I better start crying. I guess I better start crying NOW.
         There was one time, a long time ago. Brian did something extreme, almost beneficial. He worked it out like a baroque basket, holding it all together, until the end, when he dumped the contents, good guts, insides, on to the other’s heads, hearts, muscles, reimbursing them for their half hearted labor, from his own reserve of karma, goodness and prestige.
         The town was broken, bored, in the dead of winter. I believe it was early February, the angel’s more fearful month. I walked the streets, most of the weekends, by myself. I was in a reclusive period. I was weighted down by trial and error, and by silence, which I reveled in, but I was still torn down by it, when there was to much of it, when it covered me for months. Even I can’t go on for prolonged ages of silence, although I do love my solitude. But all humans need some contact, a word or two, a few laughing nights.
         Brian had come to town, a few years before that. He came in the summer of 1982, I am talking about the winter of 1984. He had sort of settled into town; he had an apartment downtown Houghton. He worked odd jobs, picking up work here and there. He knew a lot about mechanical things, and got a part-time job at a mechanic shop in Hancock. Yes, a part-time job. He walked there, everyday, worked his six hours, and walked back.
         It was on one of these walks, that he first came to know me real well, in a sense, that is. It was August 31st, 1984, and I was alone, walking the line by the beach, on the concrete boards that the boats docked at. I was thinking about Ima, then, I remember, because I was thinking about asking her out. And shit, here we are tonight. But Duke Johnson, Bill Jones, and Philip “Jake” Jabs were apparently walking down a street at cross roads to my path. I could see them walking down the hill, in long, loaping strides, like jack’o’lopes. I continued my course on, towards the downtown area, thinking of getting a tea at the cafe in Houghton. The bridge will be cold I thought.
         Then suddenly, they were on me. The three of them, Duke, Bill, Jake Jabs. They were a close silent circle, confounding me, confronting me, binding me to closed fields of rough terrain, mountains. They hurled rocks down from the top of the mountain, and bashed my head in, and it bled streams down the rock face,  and I did not cry out. I stood there, calculating, building, thinking, philosophizing.
         “Speak now, or forever hold you peace. My house is pervaded, insected, infested, filled, bubbling with voice. They are contained; echoing, back and forth, in my ears, in their melancholy fear and boredom. Wasting time, they feel supreme in the endless, and pointless, candor and babble. Their intoxicating spirit, words, cast me into a state of amplified depression and life-sadness. Endings fine all, even the happy ones, in their uselessness, and self-centered-ness, and automation-imaginary-selfness. Lock and load. They must be made to leave my house. Lock and load.” I said, and thought.
         But I could do nothing, I knew, so I went blank, cleansed my self, and struck out with my body, destroying them, but blankly. I broke one arm, and two pairs of glasses, and two wrists. One of the pairs of glasses was mine; I tore them off myself, and slammed them into Duke’s cheek. It went through, and bled like hell, a red torrent of fire, an unholy visage of something less ordinary then silk.
         It got serious then. I was held. Punched. Punched. Punched. Punched. Punched. Kicked. Beaten. And then thrown in to the lake, and not let to touch the ladder, nor shore. I was, am not, a great swimmer, I could not make for the yonder shore, so I cried out in distress, to the water, and birds.
         A black man, walking by, heard me, and....
         “Dude, what the hell are u ta--*stutter burp*-- talking about? Oooooh yeah, I remember now. Good times man, HEY YOU OWE ME ONE.” Brian yelled, reeling about. He was nothing of what he had been. “come on girls, lets get out of this place... I got this sweet place down on Main Street....”
         And so they left, leaving Angel in a middle of a tirade, speech, and left him with unspoken words. He just shrugged it off, and kept on walking towards the house. He called Blake, who had apparently disappeared, for a bit, almost ashamed of his friend’s spectacle, actions, sight. He appeared from the passenger door of the car. Brian got into his car, the passenger, and let one of the ladies drive, the third crammed was in-between. The car was actually a truck, a 4x4 ford pickup. They drove off into the night, leaving dust trails of air, forgotten memories.
         Angel and Blake entered the house, loud emitting sounds pulsed and beat from the door. The air smelled of beer, and cigarette smoke. It appeared that someone had baked an apple pie; it was face down in the middle of the floor. The fifteen people in the living room were laughing hysterically; they couldn’t stop. It seemed to be something that came from Tapiola, something inbred, of the inbreeds.  Blake and Angel  hit fists, and nodded. They separated: Blake headed into the kitchen, looking for fluids; Angel headed for quietude of the upstairs, silence. He knew the place well; fairly well, anyway. He used to come here a lot, for Ima.  Especially upstairs.
         Thoughts of Ima pulsed through his head. Pulled by an exterior, pushed by an anterior force, he made for the stairs. The wood floor was simple brown, a tan of lines that focused somewhere near the walls that bound the place to the earth.  The steps creaked slightly, but not enough to be heard in the ultra-violent air of the party-time mix. The shabby yellow light cast up dust from the stairs as his shoes seemed to push buttons With the dust, came memories of ancient swords, staves, and helmets. Battles with her parents, and his parents, and then the calmness, as soon as he realized that it didn’t matter, as long as he saw her, because some much stuff doesn’t matter. So much stuff doesn’t even matter, and it just won’t matter for life, forever.
         At the top of the stairs, where the walls faded from white, to pure iron, a cast shape, he turned left. It was like yellow wood on a midsummers eve, a branch a twilight, the faded fungus of puke, yellow, angry swords of plague. The walls were faded yellow, with wood oak paneling, bordering the squares and rectangles like castings, and movie-house lights.
         The there were two doors on the left, and one on the right, and one directly behind him. All were open, but only one got his attention. It was from the one behind him, where a bright cherry laugh exploded like cotton balls on fire, incense petroleum. It smelled of sweet fragrances and deep blossoms of the country, of orchards in the spring, and of stale flower shop fronds.
         He turned slowly, like fine ice melting at 33 degrees F, on a windy spring day in May, spinning on an axis of solid gold finishing. He saw her, and entered her room. The other people in the room instantly shut up and spoke no more. They left. All except for one, who stayed at Ima’s side. Her name he found out later was, Brakna. A sweet Yiddish name to be sure.  Time passed, three sets of eyes starred.  Then the Other Girl said:
         “What the hell you doing here Angel fuck?” she hiccupped there, and then, “ I guess I’ll be moving on. When you finish talking to this asshole, let me know, I’ll come kick his weak ass.”
         Angel thought in his head: She was a small encroaching thing, girl. Definitely one of her family. Though she smiled her fat smile, she lied, was happy, and cried. Now that is something, he thought, I better write that down, that fact, that truth of undeniable religiousness.
         Angel and Ima starred at each other, in perfect parallels, full circles. It was like cold wind in November, and fine August heat in the Bahamas. It was stifling them, struggling to survive.  And it was all shattered, and torn apart, when Angel spoke.
         “I’ve been thinking Ima. I’ve been an ass. I’m sorry. You were never a black witch. A fucking slut. I’m sorry... I’m sorry forgive me. Just give yourself some space next time okay? But not between me and you. What do you say? Is it sacrilege again? A pagan feeling? A news-stand sellout? A black miners cap filled with gold, as he quits his job, walking off in fortunes? Is it  music being played a thousand  miles away, but hearable through machines and yoga techniques? Tell me. More than friends?”
         She stood there for a time, wondering what to do, pondering, almost. But she had made up her mind already. They were complete circles, ready to dance a dance of a life time, or short ages. To fucking grow old, or die young. Ima laughed a somber laugh, and looked him in the eye, she said:
         “More than friends? Hell yes. Lets just... take it slow.”
         “Hell yes.” Angel replied, in his throaty voice, “ It’s been so long, an age has passed. Ten thousand. Why did it happen? Lets not let it happen again. Okay? Fuck. I’ll never have a bad day again. It’s a lie, but I promise. I’ll do anything for you, even lie or do the impossible. I’d rather do the impossible. That’s what I will do, I’ll do my best. I’ll becoming a fucking Boy Scout, by God.”
         And then he reached out and touched her cheek, and she got up to meet him, and almost kissed. But stopped... crossed the room and closed the door, and shut out the world for hours. She dead-locked the door, and bolted it, cast seven-times-ten-fold magical spells on it, and kept the world out.

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         We touched softly, trying to remember things passed, present, future, times to be had, and hadean. And suddenly after one quiet kiss, it came rushing in masses, thick as a horde of flying knifes, and fields, as if filled with dying stones and dead cornstalks. As if a red sun set over it. As if a blade of a knife that had been flashing for years and scaring children with its density, destiny, and sharpness, had been slide into its case, back and forth, and finally contained in the case, never to hurt again, or at least that was the plan, the instructions that were supposed to follow, in leading the charge.
         She was on top, a soft sad-happy complexion, just short of the widest grin, but containing all the energy of a dying sun, an exploding sun, a white-dwarf giant. The sound and pleasure immeasurable, it was uncontainable in all the fields in the universe, matter, and mind. It was there and everywhere.  It formed perfect rhythms, and short cycles, repeating, dying, and regenerating and completing them selves, our selves. Forcing complimenting light to join the force, our force, and engage in the fruitfulness of the world.
The complexion of her face resounded in my mind forever. It was perfect symmetry, a perfect feeling of excellence, absorbance, and excelling. Her eyes meet mine like dying embers that would never let up, or out, or give in. They met me full force and loved me, it was again a perfect symmetry. Her body motioned, even though she was feet away from me, her head, we were one, we moved like a lion, and lynx in the forest, hunting its prey, riding the full force of the attack down the mountain side, the rock face. Our eyes connected, it was something more then life. It was itself; it was potency in its truest form, and we said we could spend out our lives like that. We could spend them together. I told her that one night we would be able to spend it together, the whole night, we would own it, have it. And she agreed. I told her one night, sometime, we would do it for real, not faking it, we would one day realize it. We didn’t need the whole thing right now, it was too much, we would be overloaded, taken down, overborne with mind blowing experiences.
         What we had, made heaven, and I took her up to the highest peak of the mountain, and we both wished for more. We loved each other, and spoke things, whispered, into ears. Quite things, beautiful things, dirty things, and it was complete. True abstention is taking a little, knowing what you could have, and denying it, rebuking it, killing it.
         Again, it was true motion. We were complete, our love was never higher. We slid on, kissed, into the night, and rubbed. We said goodnight many times, and a thousand times, always never meaning it, hoping for another time to say it, demanding another time. Missing each other before we had even left.
         Her face was my face, the distance was true, I love her. She loves me. It is an absolute. Her face showed whiteness, a true emotion, of interior insane, un-inpoundable, happiness, a look I hadn’t seen before, a form I love, a dream I will have again, and again, and again. I can never forget that face. That connection.
         One last time, it was an ozone of voices, sweet things, saying sweet-nothings She held me with those eyes, mine own eyes lassoed around hers, we were intertwined. We moved and were still together, slowly becoming one, never to unshed, unravel. It was an ocean, filled with white spray and dark eyes of morning. Light blue eyes of the sea, and fishes, and small things.  Her soul shown through her eyes, and was like a thin sliver of pine held up to the sun, like a clear vase. I entered into her eyes, and we mixed. I have not yet left her eyes, I shall remain there forever. The look of complete happiness is not a grin, but the look of utter symmetry, peacefulness, trueness, was on Ima’s face. It was a grim, sweet, shadow of love, and of desire, and it was completeness for her, and it completed me.  And it was beautiful, and like the cute swollen eyes of chipmunks and stillness of the lake on a calm morn at the cabin, where the geese fly over, and strain themselves, loving their path of flight, and their home on the lake, and wishing to become one with the lake, and doing so. Like the geese’s desire to fly over, and complete the perfect picture of love, and being absolute, and doing so, I shall never forget it. I do not think she will. It was the moment of my life, to this far point in it. It was like blue grass over trees, and a perfect picture painted in the air over the ocean, in flight, taking in only the great blue water beneath, and ignoring all things present, that didn’t matter, only eyeing the things that mattered in the long run, in the feelings, in the life, in the crash landing, and in the rescue boats. I shall never leave her eyes.
         It felt like the inside circle of a curve that can not be drawn. The top of a upsidedown glass, containing, imprisioning feelings, destinies, loves and eyes. It was like a monsoon contained in our glance, her eyes. It was like 10,000 monsoons in our one body, raging, building, climaxing. It was like the soft silent screams of hunting clays, in open fields, of emotions, of devotion, of love, of undyingness, of forever.
         Holy Shit. I shall never leave her eyes.









Chapter VI
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“When time fades, and shadows answer my call, we shalt all be found together forever, since time is gone.” ~ Charles
“ A storm threatens to blow. I do not accept. I don’t take that. Though I do love the wind and rain and thick, warm or cold, air surrounding any storm, and because they make me feel alive, so I go into storms. Make love to them. Peace to them. Create a future with them, in the present. Listening to the storm, loving the storm, kissing the storm.” ~ Angel
“Walk the Earth. Love it. Make tea out of it. Kiss it. Grow it.” ~ Ecologist
“Kiss the skies, make love to the heavens, live in the culverts, hunt in the swamps, hide from men. Cry unto the city, laugh with nature.” ~ Ecologist
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April 27th, Sunday, 1986, 2:00 p.m., Fili's house, working on homework
         "You have become as inept as slow, enclosed fields." Angel said.
         "Fuck off, Angel. This shit is boring. Why can't we just go fishing, anyway?" Blake replied
         "FUCKING FISHING?! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!?!" Angel screamed.
         " Awwwww.... hell. It isn't that bad of an idea. You know it. Might get a few bites.... Hook up a few. Fry up some nice fat ass fish for dinner. Hell yes. Throw in a little bit of rosemary. Hell yes."
         "Seriously, youses two need to calm down. Eats only science, and fish equals biology, after all. I can't even read as fast you two can. And I remain calm how? You guys can learn so much faster, and you just freak out instead."
         "Awwww.... its only because your so busy. If you werent to slow, you'd be doing fine. OH, AND ANOTHER THING, Angel, how about instead of going for fish, we head over to Ima's place and go fuck her. Let’s go party. Hell yes."
         "My grades are fucking better then yours are! And shut up, your in my house, at least you..." Fili said, before Angel cut him off.
         "Dude, that won't work anymore. Shut up. She isn't a whore. Not anymore."
         "Oh so you two made up? More like, you made up. She didn't do shit wrong. You were wrrrrrong, my sweet little weakling friend. And hell yes, I can still tease you." Blake said, then continued, "I wondered what happened to you last night. You just disappeared. I had to get a lift home with Karry, that was interesting. At least she was sober, and I got home alright. Couldn’t score though. At least I'm alive. Hell yes. How late were you up last night, my sweet friend?"
         "Late."
         "That all? Nice. Hell yes. To bad it wasn't very late. Wink, wink."
         "Awwwww...  burn in hell, Blake. Listen to the fires roar, they are calling your name. Charles wants a piece of you too. Right, Charles?"
         “Hell yes, thou bee-ist right. Myself wants to scald his toes in hickory dust, and rub them till they bleed; wants to stake a flesh wound in his sorry heart, and wants to break his nails with needles. Hell yes.”  Charles stated to the world. Only Angel heard him, of course.
         “Charles? Shut your fucken mouth, Angel. He doesn’t exist! He’s the same guy that stole Lincoln’s house away in his sleep... the same one who doubted JFK’s first live televised inaugural address... the very same who laughed at Hitler’s jokes, I mean, come on. Why, he even doubted the Nazi’s evilness! Crazy fuck. ”  Blake said.
         “Hey now, I agree with him on the Nazi part. It is called cultural relatism, though I am no die hard. The rest, I make no comment. He is right about the Nazis though. They only killed twenty-six million innocent people. That’s it! Research it... it was in the papers, small ones. The Soviets work was published, but washed over in fucken paganism and lies. God damn government. Our allies, the Allies, the god damn Russians, the stupid soviet union government, killed fifty million! Easy! Don’t talk shit about the Nazi. We would have been in a shit load worse trouble if the Russians had won, and hadn’t been on our side. They were the threat, so we joined em, damn it. History is all lies. Shit yeah, read it, learn it. But god, it is all lies. All of it. Not that we can’t learn from it. And that leads me on to my next point, girls. Now shut up, and stay that way. Damn it.” 
         “We hate the Germans cause they chose who they killed, the ruskies just killed those in their way.” Charlie said.
         There was a pause, a simple silence rained down. Angel collected his thoughts, and launched a tirade. The two other boys set down their work, and picked up their mental tracts, and prepared for the worst.
         “Damn! How the hell can we trust the government parties, when we can’t trust history! It’s all the same damn thing. The two political parties--Democrats and Republicans-- are all supernatural. They are living embryos of something unworldly, I don’t know what. I have heard both of their arguments, which seem fine on the surface. I can listen to one, and be persuaded, and then listen to the other, and be persuaded. Now why the hell does that work? Because they say things the opposite way, of course! They both have different facts about the same things. They are blatantly different facts. They both have their own agendas, and their own histories of the world! Damn it all. One accuses the other of lying, not in public always, but its there. Then the other group challenges, either quietly or loudly. And who to believe! I can’t PROVE ANYTHING. YOU can’t prove anything! How the hell do we know to believe? I can’t see for sure how things actually are, so what is the point of following a group? Sure, maybe you’ll guess right, and be on the side who has the facts right, but that’ll change! Parties change. But what if both political groups are wrong? Then we are all screwed. No-body can proof nothing to me, unless I see it with my eyes, as far as political parties go, and histories go, unless I see it with my own eyes, because someone on the other side, is gonna point the finger in the other direction! And then were am I? Damn it all. I’m becoming a non-materialist, and an emotionalist. I will live simply, and do the best I can. Screw the parties, and hope not to many think as I do. Hope they don’t screw up the system, that I have no control over, to badly. Damn it all.
“Closure! We trust the rest of the world exists. That Paris and Africa exist. What if I had been merely traveling around in my head, for the last fifteen years?
What do you think, fellows?” Angel tiraded.
         “Life should be like a quite serenity, a silence awakening after a calm dawn, awakening in a calm dawn.” Said Fili.
         “FUCKING GO TO HELL! Don’t mimic me! Don’t patronize me! Don’t make me feel omni-depressant, a disillusioned fool, a unmentionable underdog.” Angel said. "It is a porcelain cage. Only a mimic"
"How good of a mimic?!"  Blake mentioned
“It’s not your mom’s mimic, damn it. We’re doomed. You’re doomed. It’s all hopeless. You don’t even mean it all, Fili.” Angel blurted out with empathy.          
         Everything got quite after that, and it was all forgotten. They sank back into their biology homework, and sort of worked on it. Blake suddenly got up, and grabbed all the books, and walked out side. No one said anything; Blake often did this; he would just got out into the yard, if it was a bright sunny day, and do school outside. Everyone else did the same, they didnt mind. The weather was nice, a great blue openness.
         “The guy, the sky is beautiful in eternity. Blue.” Angel spoke.
         “Yes, hell yes, the sky iz beautiful. Very beautiful... look Angel, I’m sorry aboutz in their. I’m sorry.... forget it.”
         “You were baroque in your mimicry, but very blunt. It’s alright; here launch some rockets into heaven...” Angel said, as he heaved Fili a box of wooden matches, “go launch harbingers of flight, flying fire, into the air.”
         “Yes, Sir. Hell yes. Right away, sir.”
         “Awwww... hell. Enough of the Sir shit. I’m no leader. I am not a bringer of troubles, a leader in the armed forces, the attack forces, the occupation forces, the anti-guerrilla forces. I am just an angel, pure and simple. Damn it.”
         They stretched out on the green lawn, sprawling in integrity and wholesomeness. The grass was a rich color, vibrant like sausages and eggs, and like the sweetest icing ever made. Angel picked a piece, and stuck it in his mouth, and chewed slowly, leting it hang down like a limp dick, or a dead feather, or like a dying plant, or like a bit of ribbon. Nobody noticed; they were used to it. The grass tasted strong, and wet, in Angel’s mouth; like a rich forest taste, the taste of vines, jungle or otherwise, green mahogany, and like the stuff of cows, and sheep, in bright fields, or in steamy rain.
         Fili’s house looked like a long, drawn out square thrown down on the earth. It was white, with white plastic siding thrown on top of the whiteness. The siding was slightly yellow, like a burned off-color candle, but the twinge of yellow was barely noticeable. The few windows peaked out, as did several pairs of little eyes from themselves, from the house. The roof had been built over it, the original roof was flat, but this one had a angle in it, an angle of more then zero degrees. The roof was done well, would last for a long time. A small set of stairs, made out of treated lumber, lead up to the screen door. The screen door was set open, exposing the windowless, stainless-steel door. The door was thick; a two-and-a-half-inch thick wall of metal.  The steps leading up to it, were parallel with the house, the flat surface of the closed door.
The hand rail was shiny, Fili’s little brother, “Mao”, had dumped a can of oil, from his dad’s working on the family Sudan, off the top of the rail, and down the slanted slope. All the way down the oil flowed, darkening the wood, and making way for a faster ride down the four foot banister, with less splinters in the butt. Angel thought that maybe Mao had done it on purpose, he did love to slide down that thing. Angel thought maybe Mao was smarter than he himself let on, but Angel didn’t say anything.
         Edward “Mao” Davis. He was the pure essence of his nickname. He was the perfect little soldier. He talked in a bold voice, but never said more then was necessary. Angel didn’t like him for that, in fact, he would have despised Mao for that, except that he greatly respected Mao’s wish to live simply, and the fact that he was only twelve years old. He looked and acted like a boy who would die early; he was so calm and secluded, yet earnest.  He was as healthy as an ox. He stood out in the yard, although they didn’t notice him at first. He was busy being industrious.
         The boys sprawled out on the grass, bending the grass with their bodies. Suddenly Fili gave a whoop and a dash, as he threw himself forward, and grabbed up something white, from the green grass of summer. Instantly Angel felt in his back left pocket, but there was nothing there. Angel instantly felt annoyed... why couldn’t it ever stay in his pocket!? Maybe it was the world’s way, fate’s way, of getting his writings and his work out to the barbaric people, and the literate people, and also, the cultured people.
         Fili continued his dive, and sprang up to his feet, clutching the sheets of paper. Blake moved, almost simultaneously, and stood in-between Angel and Fili, a wall, a field filled with cement, a mile high. He had his rare, stoic moments; but he also had his moments where he fled beyond the stars, in fright, when Angel was in tangle, and breathed fire, and emitted emotions like a vampire without wings. It mattered who struck first.
The bit of paper contained a continuation of the story about Johan, which has been stated earlier in this book. It was a sort of sequel; it was about the same Johan, but it was taking place many, many years after the first story was dreamed, imagined.
         Fili coughed a few times, and started out to read it, boldly. He was a stout roman guard, reading a scroll, a circular manuscript from the king himself, a god, a liege to all; at least in literary form. He began:
Suddenly a dream came upon Johan, and he was suppressed. Suddenly he was in a car, driving home after a hard day in another town.
         The night is a grayscale of colors, but the sky is baroque and insane in its openness, and its ability to pervert the mind into seeing scales of blue. The stars of morning surpass those of the evening. The clouds caress the sky, and cover it, and sort of contrast the beauty of darkness to that of lightness, through a filter of the deepest, habitual night blue. The clouds look like cloth, of extravagant colors, and bound by the sky, the open fields of sky, turned into a grayscale of infinite digression.
         Angel relaxed, and listened to his words flow down the mountain side. He laughed aloud to the sun. He looked over at Mao, who had been busy painting what appeared to be a wooden race car, mini, but who was now laying his paint brush aside, and sitting down on the ground, with his hands back behind him, and his knees and legs out in front, and his head pointed up to the sky. A few girls walked by, white, yelled Mao’s name out, in passing. Apparently, Mao didn’t hear. He didn’t budge, instead he became even more at one with the earth, and didn’t move a twitch.
         Angel almost joined him, but decided he was comfortable where he was; instead he laid back into the same position as Mao, in order to create an ambiance with him. It didn’t really work.
         Angel was wearing a light blue shirt, which was very light, and breathed the air around him. It contrasted and blended with the grasses at the same time. It had a natural look, but couldn’t council or ally or camouflage with the grass. He was wearing jeans, bell bottoms, that nearly covered his shoes. The pants used to be a medium ocean blue, but had since been worn at the knees, and become thin and light, comfortable for summer-time use.
His sheltered shoes were caught in the day light, for once, as he streched his legs out. They were solid brown color, with a few lines of seams running through out; all of the lines were parrel and brisk; they formed a perfect topographical map of some distant mountain. The brown was so deep, it appeared that the shoes were crying.
         The shadows intertwine with the simple colors of woods, in blackness. The bushes fornicate with shadows. I see triangles, and squares, and unmentionable shapes in the forest, shadows of the car, the car itself. The night is offset by the green speedometer and the shape of my ancestors and my ancestors daughter. They speak softly, and I feel like a thin sheet of something covering something else, sleep perhaps, I am not sure.  I am so thin and covering that I feel enlightened between two worlds, a simple baroque feeling of grander. I have finally succeeded in the light sleep it seems, now I cannot pass it off.
         The contrasts in the night bend, and burst. Casually my eyes drift close, and when they blink open, suddenly I am traversing open fields with a steady beat and speed. I am myself again. I stay relaxed in the simple cloth covering. The skies are also a cloth covering, and old Greek toga, an Celtic kilt, that seems to sweep the sky in a certain color of whiteness, turned black and blue. The soft rivets and flows seem to grow old in the night. I cannot look at it anymore, I am disjointed. I seem to fall awake, and bring my self to being. I cast off the shadow of cloth, myself, and awake into another world.
         “Shit man, that’s deep stuff.” Blake stated.
         “Hmmmmm.... ... ...” Fili murmured at them, staring adjectively at the paper.
         “Awwwww hell.....  listen to the meaning beneath the words! Think about it, damn it. It isn’t that hard... relax, and picture a theme in your head. Think about implications. Think about what you know about the character.” Angel said.
         “Heeall. Ie’ve got eit! It means you have finally gotten enough sleep lately. It is simple.” Fili squeaked. He sounded Asian in his excitement.
         “Awwwww hell, Fili. That ain’t right. We’ve done this a thousand times before. You guys never get it. Just keep trying. Got anything for us, Blake?” Angel said.
         “Hmmmm give me a minute more, damn it. I’ve got a thought. Let me follow it.”
         “Alright, fair enough, fair enough.”
         Time passed, and was still passing. Mao stayed were he was. He didn’t speak any English, but he could understand it. Angel suspected, believed, that Mao could speak it, but just didn’t. He was smart that way, Angel believed, in a sense. Listening is good, and not talking forces us to listen, so that is good; but it is best to discuss, and argue, and then listen, and argue again, thought Angel. I could do with some of that myself.
         A few more minutes passed. It really wasn’t that long, but it seemed longer to those present. Everyone remained quite, it was a blessing, but the moments did pass like decades, and the sun beat down upon them, and heated them up. Fili almost flared up in boredom and craziness, but he didn’t.
         “Ahhh.... damn. I’ve got the bitch by the tail. HA HA HA. Damn straight, damn straight. I’ know I’ve got it this time! Damn straight. Hell yes.” Blake said at last, after an age, a eternal moment.
         “Well.... let us hear this bitch cry for its mother then, eh? Let us hear you slap that bitch dog around. Let us hear you yank it’s tail out. Let’s hear you bite it’s throat. Okay? Do you really have it? I think you actually might... you actually might.”
         “So... here we go. Here it is. Damn straight. Hell yes. Yes... here it is. Basically, this Johan character, this dude, this crazy son-of-a-bitch who has almost been through hell, has been through a lot of stuff... I mean a TON of stuff, right? So yeah. Hell yes. And now he is at a point in his life when he is ready to move on, and explore new things right? He is ready to attack new things; he is ready to grow up again, to a umpteenth level. He is ready to become a older adult. He is ready for new experiences. Well.... at least he is ready to be done with his old ones, so he is ready to jump into new ones. He is ready to leave the old life behind. He wants to grow up again. And he does, he lets himself go, and fucking grows old. Hell yes. Damn straight.” Blake said, proudly, with his chest thrown out. As he talked, he seemed to become more full of himself, and he seemed to grow in size, stature.
         “Oh man. Hell... ... hell... ... hell  yes! You’ve finally fucking understood what I meant. You’ve got it my friend. You fucking understood me. Hell yes. The baby chicken has gotten his balls... hell yes. Looks like Fili here, the Ugly Duckling still is being feed by his Mother Goose. Ho hum, you got your ass beat, Fili.” Angel rampaged, spoke to the soul of the world, in a loud voice, almost laughing violently.
He then continued, “ Yes, though, Blake, that’s right. He went through puberty again. He graduated from college again. He got married again. He got his first car. He got married again. He got a new car. He got married again. He graduated from high school!!! That is my point you two. Oh and Mao over there. Yes you to, damn it! That is my point... Blake, Fili, Charles, and I are graduating from high school soon! We are pretty much done! We all have straight B+’s... except for Fili who has straight B-‘s. We are fine! We can wing the last exams! We have the knowledge in our heads!!! We just need to relax at the time of testing, and just do it.”
“Dude. You have B’s. I have D’s. He has C’s.” Blake said.
         He breathed, and then spoke again. “We have gotten out all we need to get out. Screw this biology homework. This summer is our last summer we will ever have!! We are all gonna slave away and die after this summer. This is all the fuck we have!!! DAMN IT. Let’s make a pledge here and now, never to work this summer, okay guys? Here we go.” Angel tiraded like never before.
         They forgot the C’s and D’s, and were happy.
         They cheered and yelled and agreed totally with him. They thought he was a god, a supreme power who spoke their wishes. They acted like the ancient people in the Bible. They would have to be careful, unless God dropped fireballs and destroyed their city of obsessions. Angel would be the one to turn around, and look, and be struck down by God, and be cast down, and burned, and be killed.
         They put their hands together, and Angel drew out his Swiss Army knife, and used the small blade to slice a sliver of blood in his pinky finger. Then he did the same to his thumb.
         “I hope none of you guys have AIDS, damn it. But we have to do this.” Angel said.
         “Awww....  hell. I don’t get shit. And Fili here hasn’t gotten laid yet. He has had needles up the wa-zoo though... not surprising. Fucken Asians.” Blake said cheerily.
         “Shut the hell up, Blake. Hell. I ain’t having anything. Never did. I never will. I won’t fuck whores, like Ima. And I haven’t done any needles yet. So.... shit.” Said Fili.
         “Woah. You aren’t my blood brother yet. Watch what you say, fucker. Ha, ha, it’s all in good fun right? Hell yes.” Angel said.
         “Hell yes.” Fili agreed,
         Angel passed them the knife, first Blake, then Fili; they cut them selves on the thumb, and pinky. Fili wiped the blade on the grass, handed it back to Angel, who slipped it into the pocket of his jeans with his left hand, the one un-bloodied.
         He then put on a grim face. He said “Fuck” once, as if to clear his throat. His face became clear, as he thought about what they were doing. The other two looked at him.
         “Hell. Here we go. This is our last bond of high school. After this, we just show up and do work in class, and pray it gets over soon. Sometimes we’ll skip school. Here we go. Here we go. We gotta break into this summer strong, and with lots of momentum. We gotta make this the summer of our lives. We gotta make this something that we can, and will remember in our old age, in our old fucking hurts, in our dying days, in our worn out depressed days, in our fading days.”
         “Hell yes. Damn straight.” “Hell yes.” Blake and Fili agreed.
         “Repeat after me, damn it. Okay?” Angel questioned heartily.
         They nodded okay, fervently. They were excited and assured. They knew what they were doing, they thought they did anyway. Angel raised his right hand, and so did the others. Pinky fingers meet other hand’s thumbs. The blood meet and collided. The three hands were bound together, and the blood was transmuted into something else, something more powerful, something like an oath.
         After each period, the other two repeated after him. It was a more powerful echo, then the voice. It was a god’s voice ringing out in eternity. They spoke, laughing.
         “We fucking swear. For this summer. That we will stay together. And fucking have the most fucking fun possible. And fucking do it over. And fucking over again. And fucking over again. We will hold each other up. And have a communal system. A socialist system. Where all three of us are the system. All money is communal money. All work is communal work. All laughs are communal laughs. All pranks are fucking communal pranks. Hell! Let us all be hanged together. This we fucking swear.”
“And we also swear. That in the fall. Just before summer is over. We will fucking swear again. We will form some bond. Of friendship. For the years that are yet to come. So that. We may better. Remember our one true summer. The one fucking thing we ever had in our whole lives.” Angel finished, with a ring, a silent cheer.
         Blake spoke first. “Hell yes. Damn straight.”
         Then Fili, “Let’s do it. Fuck school. We will be fine. Screw fucking ‘senioritis.’”
         Their hands relaxed back to their sides, a silent scream echoed. Their words were eternal, it seemed. The air turned into a laughing stock. And their were stocks with old men, and even older women, crying, and lamenting about their past lives, and their wasted years.
         “Let us never fucking have to regret our lives. That is our whole purpose, isn’t it? That reminds me of a poem I wrote.” Angel said, “I wrote it when I was twelve. It was my first poem on the subject, and one of the first dozen or so that I ever wrote down, that I still have. I remember it like charm. It was the first lines of my own, that I ever memorized. Here we go:
         
Soon we will gaze into the fire,
         And dream of our past.
         Thinking of the things we never did.
         The people we never loved, or made love to.
         The places we never visited.
         We will think of friends gone by,
         Days that have left us,
         Times that have forsaken us.
         Of all the times we have failed,
         All the times we have given up,
         All the days that have passed without laughter,
         All the years without love,
         All your life gone by in a flash.
         A very dull flash.”
         “I wrote that one when I was fucking twelve!”
         A silence. Then Angel spoke. “It is poor quality. It has no imagination, no symbolism. It is fucking straight. You may as well have written that hunk of junk, heap of shit, poem, damn it. Fuck. Here is a better one, although unrelated. None of these bitches have names. No bitches do. Hell. Ya:
         Pain met me in a dream.
         And I must say, Her and I made quite the team.
         For what is pain,
         When it usually leads us down that one way lane.
         Oh, I know what it is, and why,
         It teaches us to endure, to stand by.
         It allowed to see the meaning,
         Oh, last night when I was dreaming.”
         More silence. Angel spoke again, almost frantic, and then suddenly bold. He knows who he is. “And to cap it off. Here is the final poem:
         Special. Water tinkling down the street,
And through the Air.
Air. Earth  in the air. Moss growing there.
Breath. Breath it all in.
It will make you grow, in nature.
It will clear: in spirit, in mind,
Conscious and time will bind
And reset. Scales strip off.
Fresh down lies under.
Water runs off just the same.

         Awww... hell. One more poem. A crazy-son-of-a-bitch.

         The Trolley of Leaves passes in a night’s cab,
         Over a bridge of cool water, fresh
         From a near by spring of health.
         A wayfarer’s dream of life
         Goes by without recognition,
         A tin can of cola, half drunk
         Lies by the curve, as he rounds it
         And he lifts it up to his swollen
         Lips and drinks until it is
         All but gone, and it is gone.
         But in vain, a half made jelly sandwich,
         A bellyful of grease, a mad-man’s
         Hat, A lyrical base, a tenor’s
         Tongue, a deep voiced fear.
         The cola burns, and kills him,
         What he needed was the water
         Under the bridge, the clear
         Precious stuff of ages.
         There you two go. Hell. Like em?”
         “Shiiiiiiiiit man. Crazy shit. Nothing to say.” Fili said.
         “Holy fuck. Donkey fuck. Shit fuck. Not bad man, not bad. Just don’t read Plath, I’m afraid your out done there, and I’ve only heard one of hers, called Daddy.” Blake said boldly.
         “Fuck off. Don’t compare me to that Goddess Slythia. Fuck.” Angel said softly.
         “Shit man, I think we are done here. We are pretty much done with high school. Lets get the hell out of this place, eh?” Blake spoke again.
         “Hell yes, lets go!” Said Fili.
         “Damn straight. Lets go. I’m driving. Get in the car now, eh? Leave the biology books for your brother there, he seems to have fallen asleep. Communism only works if done super correctly. He has already failed. Fucking horrible commies. Its one thing to be a commie, but completely another to fail at it! Damn it. Ahhhh… he is not truly asleep. I do not know him, I guess. He is nothing but a girl-fearing, afraid kid… apparently.”
         They all stood up, stretched, and got into Angel’s crisp, clean, shiny car. He had just washed it earlier that day. They drove off towards the grocery store, and the beach. They zoomed out across the ages, and gained experience. Time flowed around them. It was all very simple, it was a complete expanse of skill and knowledge. And they bordered it, and came out trying to have fun. They cruised along like ducks taking off over open fields. The fields were very open, inviting them in. They took to the air and passed on. They lifted themselves up on wings of strength, determination and insanity, the three of them. You can guess which is which.
         The fields were incredible, insane in their beauty. All three became neurotic for the rest of the summer. They forgot about school, but they managed to graduate somehow, all the same. They were to have their last summer together, they didn’t care about how they graduated, as long as they did. Angel taught them that mentality; Angel wouldn’t need to have great high school grades to get into college, he just had to be able to write. Angel was a prick like that. A fucken prick. The others might need high grades to get into their schools of choice, but they were blindsided. Fucken prick.
         They were convinced that college was the only future, brainwashed by teachers, by themselves.
         As they drove off into the sun of brilliant shadows, the gray clouds of undefined pleasure, the blue skies of beaches, and good times, but also towards the cloud shadows of painful experiences and dark expanses of sky known as the rest of life, Angel’s bit of paper’s last words rang out around them, in them,  and was reverberated through out the fields of tomorrow, and of today:

I cast off the shadow of cloth, myself, and awake into another world.