by Tuttle, Dan;
they’re photogenic. Crew’s not murderous –
I think, at least! – enough to play the parts
for real.” They neared. One people-herder fussed
with who should lean which way so selfie pic
showed acme of themselves and party tricks.
173.
“On second thought, let’s let that run its course
before going back for burgers,” Mona said,
“Stel, you still look a little bit divorced
from present. This was not some watershed,
big moment. Know we like what you wrote. And
we’ll stay tuned for next episode.” “Oh, that’s
not worrying me, no. But thanks. Wet sand…
brings back a lot. These coastal habitats
were ’bout as real as outer space when I
was young.” “You grew up far from water?” “Ponds,
lakes, creeks, we had the small stuff. Nothing wide
as ocean.” Clouds arrayed now as dull fronds
to fan hid sun. “This much was dream where I
grew up, like Disney tales or lords’ Versailles.”
174.
Mo smiled, “It’s funny, line between what’s real
and what’s imagined. Disney stretched my mind,
and it’s pure make-believe; French feudal zeal
was fact, yet feels remote. I’d leave behind
the latter for the former.” “I recall
a teacher’s stump speech saying lands exist
I’d not heard of, but trusted. Guess that’s all
you can do: trust.” Cade: “Truths themselves subsist
on stories. They’re one in the same. Believed
your teach who spoke of oceans? All folks err
toward trust. We think we’ll know if we’re deceived,
’spite fact that tales are honed before they’re shared.”
“You’re saying I should distrust everything?”
“No. I say you should know you’ve puppet strings.
175.
Pull them yourself. I bridge my dreams and days
with hip-hop ethos, all about the grind.
I caretake for a grandpa who displays
behavior nearly Keller deaf and blind.
I wake up, wrap the story ’round me tight,
and turn to it to fuel the day. The church
identically pretends.” “They think it’s right.”
“The process is the same. We keenly search
until our brains have facts to match our guts,
and suddenly decide we’ve hit the truth.
We stop predictably, mute what rebuts.”
Cade looked back to the fire’s pleased Fawkes-clad youth,
shrugged shoulders as if truer point could not
be made, debate concluded: truth’s kill shot.
176.
Round bonfire motley masses huddled close,
as onshore gusts left heated scene quite cool.
Conversants ranged from kind to bellicose
depending on which drugs they’d used as fuel.
The people carving little men obsessed
with rasps perfecting human form in wood.
Mo asked and learned they partly were protest,
to burn small Boys in effigy, and stood
as well as Burning Man idolatry.
They saw no oddity in such an act.
One even said, “You know, my doll’s a plea
to Powers That Be – if they exist – for tact.
Boy’s ‘fuck-it-all’s a message I want heard,
and like, that’s buried by his flipping birds.”
177.
Admission brought the vodka birthday boy
into their conversation. “Evening, Joe.
And happy birthday,” Cade said. “Do enjoy
the Lagunitas, Pliny, Veuve, Bordeaux
chilled over there, my tiny gift of thanks
as host to you for coming,” Joe replied.
He put two other dried-out logs as planks
beneath the grill face. “Meat’s all getting fried
from being too up-close and personal
to all that flame,” he said, and moved toward Mo.
“Ugh, every time behavior’s worse! Until
he has someone to use and lose, Lord knows…”
Joe: “Tula, what the pleasantest surprise!”
Tee: “Birthdays don’t mean lechery’s advised.”
178.
“Affection, dear.” “Nope, slime. I’ll help police
your callowness. Say, take that champagne case
at spot where most folks guzzle Dos Equis
as blatant signal you won startup race.
Consider discount food and beverage.” “First,
you’re welcome, and it’s good to have you here.
And next, you think me far too Randolph Hearst.”
“Your bathrooms, Joe, have crystal chandeliers.”
“That’s taste,” he said, “and better to have all
instead of solo one in ensuite bath.
You give no credit that I’ve shared.” “The gall!
It’s ostentatious, shoving in our path
repeated signs that you’re rich and we’re not.”
“That’s never my intent. The cash I’ve got
179.
is meant to let me have more fun with friends.
Stop, look around: tonight my grill convenes.
I’m glad you’re here. Remember that’s the ends
when thinking so unkindly of my means.”
He turned to pose as self-styled Charlemagne
for portrait Dar requested by the fire,
a standing Citizen aware that Kane
regretted turning from his Rosebud flyer.
“I’ve got no beef when big men throw down seeds,”
Cade added, “I don’t need to like them to
eat up their meals for reals. This belly feeds
just fine when I’m the small fry. Kings keep crews,
look after all their entourage. Just clowns
pretend that wealth is worn without the crown.”
180.
“It’s hard to talk to Joe without the thought
that he, right there, in front of you, could fix
your lifetime’s worth of problems: house, car bought,
plus cash to live off, if he just handpicks
you as a case for charity,” Tee said.
“I don’t get what you’re really trying to solve,”
said Mo, “you’re caught somewhere in your own head,
in thinking his green stacks would all resolve
your conflict. At Deluxe you savaged wealth
in politics, now envy Joe’s the same.
You’re chasing what erodes your mental health.”
Stel thought: and ought to try a different game.
“Hey Mo,” nudged Cade, “let’s chill. Don’t work up sweat.
Come Stel. You wanna try a cigarette?”
181.
He pulled a pack of dark blue Spirits out
and Stella thought of many reasons not
to finally try. “They say to fear it. Doubt
that story heard, decide yourself. Upshot
is if you like it, then you’re more alive.”
“But Cade, they give you cancer. That’s more dead.”
“You get my point. And you, Stel, won’t nosedive
down some long chainsmoke chimney.” Mona led
them slightly from the group so zephyr blew
their pending plant exhaust the other way.
The crowd’s clothes ranged from thrift store to J. Crew,
no single dominating dossier.
It pleased to see diversity (at face)
lit by camaraderie and pit fireplace.
182.
Forbidden fruit it wasn’t: all Stel’s life
she’d
hacked upon encountering the smog
ejected by a cigarette, the knife
of acrid vapors jamming muscles’ cogs,
unleashing breath control in coughing fits
made worse by sharpened inhalations of
the same putridity of death stick’s hits,
recycled exhaled smoke dropped from above.
But those, Stel thought, reactions were in youth.
I’m in control now, I’m the one to choose
between experiences my own truth.
Kneejerk rejection’s laziness in views.
So something in the way of offer’d made
decision come from where brain’d not forbade.
183.
Stel guessed Mo seethed at Tee: she wanted oil
to soak her canvas fist in fire and flip
a flaming phoenix at Tee’s mind turmoil,
oblivious to its own authorship
of life. Tee drifted out like bleeding ink,
its point diluted, watery, and weak.
She was a victim of her doublethink:
you can’t excoriate that which you seek.
In that, her course to individuate’s
identical to every other’s, so
her journey dumbly mimics. Did coup take
more than awareness she’s her only foe?
Cade lit one up, held high the glow in fist,
then passed to Stella, quite the dramatist.
184.
A deep breath taken in, yet split in two
helped Stel avoid the coughing from the past:
a carcinomic breath when taken through
a filter, mixed with standard air, could last.
Immediately her left brain turned a-right
and noticed nuance in environment,
as if faint stars’ cast temperature of light
increased a hundred Kelvin (three percent).
As nature came to focus, so did chi,
perception’s center migrating from core
of every limb out to skin actively
exposed to air, like waves expand to shore.
It felt like life both calmed and stretched out thin,
translucent tickling film through which soothed sin.
185.
“Tobacco’s powerful,” shared Stel. She stood
a little wobbly in the wind, post-drag.
“It’s bad, yeah, sure, but also kinda good,”
said Mona. “Makes me feel a ghostly swag.”
“And right away.” “Yeah, really hits you quick.
The catch is that it just as quickly fades;
it’s daring you to light another stick.
That’s how uncautiously you’ll spend decades
hooked on the stuff. My mom and dad both were.”
“Oh… sad. I’m sorry, Mo. And yet you still
go smoke yourself?” “Addiction’s not preferred,
Stel. They put this on me. Someday I will
take time to kick it, but for now the hit’s
an easy way to rise above the shit.”
186.
Benita joined with vape pen. “Stel!” she said,
“I liked your Insta-verse. Weird poetry
refreshes in the midst of photo thread.
I thought its cadence nice, its flow. It reads
a little singsong, little hard. I’d poke
a little on your syntax – oddly spliced –
but… fun.” “Thanks, Benny.” Stel coughed, slightly choked.
“In honesty, I had to read it twice
before I understood it.” “That’s the rub.
It makes you slow and think, it makes you read.
We swallow so much everyday hubbub
that chewing something feels like it impedes.”
“As counterpoint, it’s powerful. I stopped.
But, why’d you end at fourteen lines? I’d opt
187.
to read some more.” “That’s not how sonnets work.
They’re just that long, ten syllables in each,
and singsong beat you mentioned,” Stella smirked,
“remains throughout and can’t be skipped or breached.”
“It’s up, and down, and up, and down, and up?”
“Not quite. It’s down then up, five times a line.”
“Screw that. I’d stop at one. That’s crazy.” “Yup.”
“So why’s it all that forcibly designed?”
“Blame Shakespeare? I don’t know. Italians had
a form from Petrarch. Far too many rhymes
for English. William used an end dyad
resolving what three quatrains jointly primed.”
“They taught this stuff in China?” “No, adult
thought I might like it ’cause it’s difficult.”
188.
“Ha. Clearly they were right. So why’d you put
it on the web?” “Remember Club Deluxe?”
“Yeah, what about it?” Cigarettes kaput,
they stayed between two cold-breeze-blocking rucks.
“Our evening wrapped,” she looked at Cade, “when Dar
whipped out the camera for her followers.
If someone that blah’s now a superstar,
and if I’m interesting, less hollow, per
the standards of our crowd, then why not play?”
“You’re taking aim at her adoring fans?”
“Or others, there are lots of fish in Bay.”
“The sea, you mean. But, yeah. okay. With plans
for what?” “Stay tuned. For now it’s simply proof
attention can be gathered if you hoof.”
189.
Tall flames behind the quartet made them turn.
Stel witnessed one scene, taken in two ways.
The first was by and for those of the Burn:
a coroneted chief’s chant ohm, a blaze
of handmade figurines thrown in the flame,
a vestige of druidic sacrament.
The second was much more mainstream, and tame:
grilled meat, tunes, beers; textbook kicked-back event.
It struck her ’cause Cade nailed it earlier:
they both were true at once, if and because
participants believed they were. Each chirr
on its own branch. Four walked past where Tee was
mid-clink with man-bun, toasting prosecco,
Occult high, friends low? Cade said, “Mo, let’s go.”
190.
They took N-Judah past Parnassus, got
off right as it was crossing Cole, before
the tunnel to Duboce. “Right there’s a spot
called Ice Cream Bar, old timey, sweets galore.
Let’s grab a sundae prior to going home,”
said Cadence, who was thrilled by company
(both shop and Mo). Aluminum and chrome
of soda fountains, cookie clumps in need
of sherbet custard bedding laid in wait
upon their entrance, begging to be noshed.
“Pistachio ought to resuscitate
my senses,” Mo said. “Yeah, you’re looking sloshed,”
said Cade. They ordered, sat, and ate. “So, Stel,
I don’t know of your childhood. Do pray tell.”
191.
As innocent a question as it was
from Mona, hoping to befriend her more,
the inquiry was hard, namely because
it wasn’t stuff Stel ever mentioned, or,
in honesty, could think about. She’d blocked
titanic portions out and all the rest
were bricolage that hopeful minds concoct
when overwhelmed with more than can ingest.
“I guess, you know, there’s nothing special there,”
she started, then satori hit her square.
“Except, of course, the rescued puppy, cared
for him for years. We made a knockout
pair.”
“A dog? How fun! I didn’t know you’d grown
up in a busy house.” “Oh no… no. Lone,”
192.
Stel countered, “fairly quiet place, our home.
Just me and dog. The dog. And me.” “No mom?”
“No mom.” “Or dad?” “Or dad. Just grandmum.” Foam
on root beer float flowed over on her palm,
and gave her an excuse to wipe and think.
One dog. No parents. That was clean and clear,
a normalcy that wouldn’t make you blink.
She dared to step out further, “Pioneers
are what we called ourselves, our duo.” “Chic!”
exclaimed a stabilizing Mo, impressed.
“That’s dope,” said Cade, “I never got a peek
into your past.” That came at Stel’s behest.
They both seemed eager to learn more. Stel drew
electric breath at such a smooth debut.
193.
Stel flipped the script thereafter, asking more
of Mona, so to fill time till they’d part.
It worked. Back home, Stel’s heart still little sore
from thinking of her past, she planned her art.
Instead of writing a riposte ’gainst ways
the Opposition acted, she’d not fret.
More power could come from ditching everyday
of young years, words erasing held regrets.
She opened Apple, flipped her screen to black,
turned out the other lights, and let prints drift,
imprints of mind, touchprints on keys, the plaque
of memories she’d repressed mixed up. She’d riffed
some basic facts that if restyled could
become the basis for a Stel childhood.
194.
From up to down to fortunate and hexed,
from gladdening to maddening, agree
adventuring you’ll find in pages next
is true as memories made can be to me.
Unchained childhood began with what you’ll read,
in many ways adulthood too was born
as self-reliance started supersede
conformist expectations feared outworn.
While chiseled by untempered nature’s edge
I’d get to know my dog and friend like book.
We had but one another’s binding pledge
to rise till social mores were overlooked.
This tale is mine alone, of nicer youth,
shared now so followers can trace own truth.
195.
If verse instead, she thought, can focus on
advice to pass to younger cherubs, I’m
then freed to use embellishment as con
to polish points so that they better shine.
She opened up her Insta feed and saw
last two days’ waiting time was good for biz,
as friends online reacted with some awe,
