by Cat Oars
He was haunted too
i saw one of the last of the living beats read there once herbert huncke a bit player in on the road supposedly coined the term beat said “i’m just so beat man you know like tired” probably apocryphal introduced burroughs to Junk beloved some friend of a friend of a friend of a friend knew him brought him into town for the night a twisted little dwarf i did sketches of him in bic pen in a graph paper notebook his head covered with dyed black greasy crowfeather hair enormous ears eyes sleepy but crafty he told stories read about being propositioned by old men in central park sickness from writing at what cost i lost the notebook on a bus from dc to philly two years later awkward & pure herbert huncke died an addict to the end awkward & pure
i also met lucy there
although i didn’t know her well back then she’d get up with a girlfriend & they’d yell into the microphone rants about bad men & bad love & razorblades & stinking factories filthy rivers mangled magpies never could have guessed that ten years later we’d run into each other again in a local bar & fall in love & drive from pennsylvania to los angeles together when i finally left that dirty old town once & for all but that’s a whole other ball of string to unravel a whole other labyrinth to trip through
still with me? good. stay with me here a moment.
god it’s quiet here
ok ready now? lets go:
at the same coffeehouse i also met josephine who would seduce me the first night we met although she was a pudgy hairy speed freak had a weird low voice like bullwinkle moose she came up to me in the coffeehouse asked if i wanted to go out to a bar i said uh
at the bar it was noisy bad cover band playing i watched her wriggle & gyrate to the music she came back dripping sweat emanating heat shouted in my ear you’re a virgin aren’t you i was taken aback i said uh yeah i guess so she said do you want to not be one
she bought a six pack of miller lite & we went back to the empty house
she said afterwards that i was the 14th guy she’d slept with it wasn’t very good i was shy & embarrassed clumsy but still
we fucked awkwardly every night couple of weeks unwashed sheets my mother’s old bed & in the morning my mother herself coming to scream at me for not having a job my mom with her caged bird oprah feminist feel-good new age horseshit coupled with her victim mentality suddenly turning against her eldest son anti oedipal meanwhile the house
was on the market & would sell any day the realtor brought people around josephine & i sitting around eating breakfast postcoital in our underwear
i finally broke up with her though who knows if we were ever actually really going out or not i somehow landed a job as a janitor slash shippingreceiving clerk slash textile cutter in a fabric shop at a strip mall 45 minute bus ride upholstering draperies i stole buttons pillows scissors entire bolts of fabric though i couldn’t sew for crap had no use for such things yet i kept on stealing as if my life depended on it
the house sold right before Halloween i had to find somewhere else to live fast ended up renting a room in a house from a woman named beatrice crazy middle aged lady everybody’s lived with one long thin room low ceiling windows at both ends three thirty a month she had another boarder as well an anorexic dyke confusingly enough also named beatrice whom i only saw a handful of times the entire nine months i spent there kind of gestation period incubating so to speak one of the beatrices kept parakeets though i never saw them twittering & whistling from behind her bedroom door twittering & whistling i never did like birds much
we all shared the cleaning chores beatrice used to yell at me every time it was my turn because i didn’t clean good enough for her i didn’t really care about anything
at the coffeehouse i had made sort of friends with this schizophrenic birdwatcher named grant wrote all this terrible poetry about birds he’d spotted the osprey the warbler the sharpening wing of the edge of a sparrow until they put him away he’d call me from the pay phone of the cuckoo’s nest every day saying get me out of here seann get me the hell out of here i can’t stay here there’s no birds in here there’s no fucking birds in here until finally beatrice answered the phone one day & just started yelling at him saying what the hell is your problem you crazy sonofabitch he never called back
beatrice had a long term redneck boyfriend buster one night her & i sitting at the kitchen table listening to the radio when that rem song “what’s the frequency kenneth” comes on & “i say hey i like this song” & beatrice says buster loves this song too & in he comes enter buster right on cue stomp stomp garage shop baseball cap wife beater grey sneakers balled up socks backpocket snotrag smoking through the nose saying hey man i love this fuckin song & the stove was always dirty & i didn’t know how to clean it & beatrice & buster chainsmoking holes in the floral pattern vinyl tablecloth clomping down the cellar steps where noise made the clogged unused shower stall vibrate cement walls just like the old house & the carpeting too scared to set foot on those rickety wooden stairs after he leaves Beatrice Says buster will be back soon & i don’t think this whole thing is working out between he & i & i say something but i don’t remember what down the cellar steps
and that night is the night when the phone rings upstairs in my stick of butter shaped room it’s buster & he says heeyyyy man well see i’m goin fishin with the boys tomorrow morning & we need some a those insulin needles you got any extra needles see the worms we use the needles to pump air into the worms, makes em seem all juicy as shit to the fish so the fish bite you know, & i say, “pump air into the worms?” & he says yeah heh heh it sounds weird but that’s what they do you ever been fishin seann? & i say “yeah when i was like eight” & he says well we need those needles now, we’re leaving early in the morning see can you get me some & i say uhhhhh i don’t know & he says aw COME ON man. i’ll just come on by in a little while to pick some up & i say uh ok & hang up & the phone rings again, it’s beatrice calling from god knows where & she says, did buster just call you & i say, uhhhh yeah, & she says if he comes to the house DON’T LET HIM IN & i say ok & shake a little turn out the light go back to bed
fifteen minutes later a little voice from outside whispering loud
Seann! Seann! It’s me, Buster! Seann buddy! Let me in!
and then there’s a little ticking sound of gravel thrown against the side of a house, skittering down the slate roof, & i curl up under my covers & he starts calling up to me again, first kind of laughing then really angry & eventually he stops & i try to sleep & after a while the phone starts ringing again the phone keeps ringing & eventually it stops & i sleep
I don’t see buster for a couple of weeks after that & then suddenly he’s back & he’s very quiet & tired dark bags hang under his dull eyes beatrice’s dumped him 4 times taken him back 4 times & when he sees me in the kitchen he says hey man & then when she leaves the room he says
where were you that night didn’t you hear me? didn’t you hear me that night buddy? & i say no i didn’t hear anything buster & he just looks at me after that nearly every night just to get out of the house really i start walking up the steep steep incline to the historic hotel at the top of the hill the one with the bar slash cocaine den all the waitresses busboys chefs all dealing out of the men’s bathroom no thanks never touch the stuff no really open mike middle age burnouts playing bad covers acoustic guitar superstar nicotine stained murals on the nicotine stained walls pinball machines video games
And so i started drinking regularly
& one night i’m sitting alone watching the girls rub their noses in the dark booths the jukebox is playing loud in the distance & suddenly he’s singing
i’d never really paid attention or listened to his songs before but all of a sudden, drunk & so deeply alone black & white smoke & ash with no fire & alone & cold as alaska i hear him, his scratchy voice with its sincere whine makes me suddenly understand, smoke and mirrored ashtrays & foosball knocking the girls sliding up against the walls fingers brushing their crotches he’s sin
ging Where a man cannot be free Of all of the evils of this town And of himself, and those around Oh, and i guess that i just don’t know And suddenly it all adds up, the equation all works out
i’m there and I get it and it’s wonderful it’s killing me i don’t know how i’m ever going to get out of here this town this room filled with cheap simian melodies spoonbilledstork needlenosedfinch yellow-belliedsapsucker headswing hedgewing the cd the jukebox is slurring and my chest is detaching whiteburst of heat whiteburning mirage forms and forms and the echo of girls laughter held still on the concrete as they ignore the cheap, stupid lyrics and simple mass reverse while the real thing is dying
and i’m slipping on the banana peel of consciousness or is it drunkenness (i can’t tell the difference) and i can’t help but see everything at once and there is no escape and i don’t want there to be. i don’t ever want there to be which is good because probably no escape is ever really possible.
Or is it?
just then the waitress walks by tight tight jeans like blue skin ignoring me busy tray full of full glasses i don’t think about it very last moment i put my foot out just a little too far on purpose or by accident she stumbles I have nothing to do with the sudden crash beer liquor glass carpeted floor icy shards everywhere crowd picks her up wet hand wet red running from cut glass mass of yelling blood i quietly slip wide eyed out the backdoor trip across the parking lot down the hill burning white of black night sharp sleety pins pricking my skin unable to ever return why would you want to
is it our parents who kill us our homes that destroy us or is it falling from them that we take the rest of our lives to recover from? It would be ten years until i would finally manage to fly away from the evils of that town, stifling my urge to poison the city & sink it with fire as phoenix pinfeathers & even though I dragged my own evils with me like everybody does & picked up a few new ones along the way at least i know that they are all my own & no one else’s, & I cling to them protectively like a mother bird sitting on her eggs just waiting for them to hatch, waiting to see what the hell good might possibly come out of them it’s all about the waiting & wondering the mystery of what comes next the song the music is the hand that lifts you up but it doesn't put you back in the nest at all it sets you somewhere else sometimes on the thinnest twig that if you’re not careful could snap beneath your weight & send you plummeting again or force you to spread your pathetic little wings that might be strong enough to carry you but then again they might not be
& so you perch on that twig scared & alone & so high above the goddamned ground you may open your mouth & what comes out may just be a horrible croaking cry but it also may be a song, you may find yourself suddenly singing & you don’t know how or why but there you are & the song you’re singing is i’m still alive, i’m still alive, i’m still alive.
Chaz
CGT
MY JEANS GET HOLES IN THEM because I sometimes stand with my hands in my back pockets. The holes develop from the weight of my knuckles pulling the pockets from double-stitched seams. The tears in my straightlegs come in handy when I feel frisky and get that urge to pick up a stranger from the streets of Brooklyn. I met Craig, the man of my wet dreams, in my favorite pair of Levi’s. He was washing his lime green motorcycle across the street. He used water trickling from a fire hydrant to make his sponge wet and squirted a little Palmolive on the shiny wheels of the fancy bike when he first saw me standing on my steps with a Newport in my right hand and my left placed strategically in my back pocket. King Street gets very little traffic and the kids who live inside the projects were still in bed at 6:30 a.m. when I first got a glimpse of the biggest cock in the world. Thankfully, I was dressed seductively, and felt quite comfortable in my Levi’s when I decided to try and lure the man with the motorcycle into my bedroom. I formed my lips tightly and blew a thin stream of smoke toward the sky as he took off his white T-shirt to scrub his hot rod.
The street bike was a perfect fit for a tough, rugged, handsome thug like Craig. He took pride in every nut and bolt on that machine. The screeching of a metal door being lifted to open the corner deli violated the silence of the morning and disturbed his comfort with being half-naked in my presence. I knew it didn’t bother him that I was checking him out. He is one of those men who is comfortable in his manliness. I snuffed out the Newport and darted across the street. I walked within inches of him and his bike on my way to the deli, with both of my hands resting seductively in my rear pouches. Of course I didn’t have underwear on, it was still early and I hadn’t even showered yet.
I thought I heard him whisper “wassup” as I strutted by, as butch as possible. “Yo dude, pick me up some Brillos, aiight?” he request while pulling a ten from his jeans.
The opportunity to look into his deep brown eyes thrilled me. I was in shock over how fine he was. His hair was braided and formed a zig-zagging pattern across the top of his head. The braids were pulled to the back and covered with black and gold beads.
I grabbed the money and felt that it was odd that he would ask that of total stranger on the streets of Brooklyn. What the hell? If the cops saw it, they might think it was a drug deal.
On my way back from the deli, I saw him puffing on a blunt while washing his bike with blood-shot eyes sunk deep into his head and face, which was the darkest shade of skin I had ever seen up close. He looked me up and down, stoned off his ass and offered a glance that suggested: “I’ll work that big round bootie just right, white boy.”
“Nice bike.”
“Thanks! She’s mine and she’s paid for.”
“Where do you go? Do you just putt around the ’hood or do you open her up on the highway?”
“I’m going to drive out to California one day.”
“You aren’t scared?” I asked.
“Scared of what?”
“All those white people between here and there.”
He laughed.
“You live here in the Stuy?”
“Yes I do.”
“That’s pretty brave, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so, but hell, all white people don’t come from money.”
“I hear dat white-boy. Thanks for the Brillos.”
I pulled a wad of his change from my faded denims and handed it to him.
“Oh shit, I forgot to get my cake mix. That’s why I was headed to the deli.”
“You making my birthday cake?”
“Today ain’t your birthday.”
“It sure is.”
He pulled out his motorcycle driver’s license and showed it to me as proof.
“I’ll tell you what: I’ll give you a piece of it if I can go for a ride.”
“Naw, dog! Nobody drives it but me,” he said while grabbing his crotch like thugs often do.
“And nobody bakes like me! You can drive and I’ll ride on the back. I just want a ride on it. Got another helmet?”
“Alright dude, deal! But I drive fast.”
“I ain’t scared. I’m a fast cook, too. 14 King Street, Apt. No. 3. I’ll see you in a few. What’s your name so I can write it on the cake?”
“Francais. That’s my street name.”
I trotted up the steps and into the hallway of my building. As I closed the door behind me I looked through the peephole. He had already picked up his sponge, bucket, Palmolive and Brillo pads and was drying off the lime green machine.
“Damn baby, don’t rub that too hard,” I whispered from behind the door, watching as his big strong black hands move the white terrycloth towel in a circular motion, absorbing beads of water from the teardrop shaped gas tank he would straddle while speeding like Evel Knievel on the streets of Brooklyn. His waist was not more than a 28 but his shoulders stretched out like handlebars. His broadness was accompanied by pectoral muscles with nipples that looked like the headlights on a hearse.
I noticed the bike was a ZRX1200S, which means absolutely nothing to me, but I memorized the letters and numbers in case our c
onversation over birthday cake went in that direction. I walked into my place and quickly fluffed the pillows on the three sofas and turned on the light above the fish tank.
I dumped out the various ashtrays in the apartment and sprayed some Febreze to freshen the place up a bit and decided that I was likely overreacting to what was merely a big tease.
“Oh damn!” I shouted to the fish in the tank. “I forgot the cake mix!” I knew I’d look like a desperate cornball if I went back outside to pick up a box of Duncan Hines. My skills for seducing street thugs are unsurpassed and I knew from experience that if a man knows that you have the hots for him, he will leave you standing out in the cold, like a hitchhiker along a California freeway in the dead of night. I looked around the kitchen to assess my options for a recipe without cake mix. There wasn’t much available to whip something together on such short notice. There were two lemons on the counter, remnants from a weekend of cocktails and more cocktails. Inside the refrigerator there were three brown eggs inside a cardboard carton that had started to deteriorate from the water that drips inside my icebox. Way in the back of the cupboard was a box of Argo cornstarch that had to be at least three years old. I scraped out the little black specks on the top of the white powdery starch, likely roach eggs, and had an idea for his birthday dessert.
There wasn’t enough time to pre-heat the oven before he rang the doorbell. My hands were covered in flour so I wiped them on the ass of my jeans on the way to answer his calling. He quickly rushed inside as if he were afraid someone would notice him paying me a visit.
“I see you are not a vampire,” I said while turning slowly and walking down the dimly lit hallway, showing off the white smudges on the back of my pants in a tempting way.
“Huh?”
“A vampire must always be invited in,” I explained while opening the door to my drafty old apartment.
