Evans

First thing he does is sing at the top of his lungs while wearing headphones. Next, he takes off the headphones and asks me, "Hey man, you smoke?"
"No, man. Sorry."
"Well, I'm gonna have a smoke, and I don't plan on going outside to do it neither. Too fucking cold for that shit today."
He is right. Outside it's thirty degrees and wet. Not so much in here with eight dryers running. Nevertheless, he makes no motion to take out a cigarette. His face darkens.
"My daddy beat me. He's a railroad man, come home every now and then. Kick me in the head when I was nine. Kick me everywhere. I'm talking BEAT THE SHIT OUTTA ME. One time I spent twenty dollars on a haircut, and that was a lot in those days, like a hundred dollar EXPENSIVE haircut and he come and see it and sneak up behind me with scissors and cut part of my hair off. Mom had to split us up with a gun."

A woman looks over from across the folding tables. She is the only other person here, and she gives us both a generous look.

"I'm sorry to hear all that," I say.
"Don't be! Sorry?! It made me HARD. I been hard since I was born. Come from a hard family."
He's wearing overalls and a baseball cap, and his gray beard and everything else is dotted with flecks of white paint. Skin like iron. His legs are up on a filled shopping cart. It doesn't appear as if he's doing any laundry.

"My family's from up in Virginia. Way up in the mountains. Tough ass country. We got a lineage. Stephen F. Austin, Davy Crockett, and... what's that other motherfucker's name?"
"Travis?" I say.
"No! No, the other guy. All that Alamo shit."
"Sam Houston," the woman says.
"Yeah, that's it, Houston. They all from up there. We breed em hard... I was bred hard. How many kids you got?"
He's talking to me when he asks this and I answer, "None. Yet."
"None?! How old you?"
"Twenty-eight."
"God damn, get on it already. I got five kids of my own and I'm only forty-nine. And I want more. I want every motherfucker in the world to have my last name!"
With this he roots a half-burned cigarette from his shirt pocket and puts it into his mouth.
"What name is that?" I ask.
"Evans," he says. "You got a light?"
"Sorry."
"That's alright, I got a fucking hundred lighters in here."
He digs through his shopping cart and takes out a book of matches but doesn't light his cigarette.

"So you on pills? Everyone's on some pill. They tell me take some pill and I say shove it up your ass. Ain't nothing gonna make nothing better. Where you from?"
"Phoenix," I say.
This answer displeases him immensely.
"Shit. I know that place. Friend of mine from there got hit, right out here on 29th. He's in a fucking wheelchair and they hit him and never did find the driver. All his shit and him, right there in the crosswalk."
He lights his cigarette and inhales. Bad vibes abound.
"I'ma smoke this right here. I don't give a fuck what you think."
"No worries here."
"Fuck, I'll fight you over it. I don't care."
He looks at me as if this is a request, so I stand up and go check on my dryer.

He puts his headphones back on and continues smoking. The woman finishes her folding and removes a t-shirt from the pile. She walks it over to Evans and he pulls off his headphones.
"This shrank on me and I'm not going to take it. You need a t-shirt?" The woman offers.
"Thank you, babe," he says, "That's all right right there."

The woman loads up her basket and I hold open the door for her.
As she exits, she leans across me and says, "God bless you."
"You have a nice night ma'am," Evans answers.
When the door closes he says, "That's a gentleman right there... holding the door for a lady. She's a nice sweet lady. Gave me four dollars. All I wanted was one."

My cycle finishes and I load my clothes into a bag. Evans ceases to acknowledge my presence. He is entirely within himself. As I open the door to leave, I say, "Adios."
"Peace out," he says, without looking up.

Outside I sit in my car and watch the laundromat. Another man enters and sets down his clothes on a washer and Evans removes his headphones. The man looks taken aback at the words he hears. And so go the revelations of Evans, a hard man from a lineage of kings.

posted by ZHorton at 4:31 PM | 3 comment(s)

Scratch From the Past

La Historia de Los Gatos de Wacky, Wacky*

Many nighttimes ago, in a field far, far away, shrouded by the evening redness of glory past, there tilled a humble farmer by the name of Hector Horatio Banano, or, as legend remembers, "El Padrino de Gatos." A more humble, more pious man the world has never known, and humbly he stood that particular night, overlooking rows of beans like lines in the face of God, stretching plainly and clearly across the horizon into soiled oblivion, each pebble his child, each sapling a drop of his blood laid bare to the face of the sky. He removed his hat and chewed at a dirty fingernail as night painted across the firmament like a silent abyss come to deliver his reckoning, when from the distance shot a bolt of godliness so shattering, so staggering, that it threatened to knock him into the dirt and burn through his eyeballs into the ashey core of his brain. He covered his face with the brim of his hat and spat unto the ground. "Dios mio, chingala," he whispered.

The blinding light subsided into the void and Hector Horatio Banano peered into the stillness of the black air, unbelieving, frightfully kneeling as he made out the lines of a great shadow in the distance. He called out into the dark -
"Con permiso? Esta mi tierra."
But there was no answer.

He inched towards the shadow, holding his breath with each step and praying that the face of evil not yet reveal itself unto his mortality, clenching his hoe sturdily, whispering, "Revelo, puta, revelo ahora," and looking into the night with eyes that might have well been painted onto his face for all the good they achieved, one step, two steps closer, Hector readied himself for murder. Like some sullen volcano without a cap the shadow pshhhhhed air obliviously into the night, and Hector approached soundlessly. When he stood no more than seven paces away, the shadow jumped into form faster than the light itself could cast and stood high on the paws of two hind legs taller than a man, and Hector knew immediately what reflected in the horror of his eyes -
"Gato," he gasped.

Frozen to his stance, Hector watched agape as the shadowed beast lunged forward some inches away from his face, leaning in with a head the size of a boar and fangs longer than snowshoes. The great beast looked into Hector's eyes with the depth of a prayer. Burning exhalations left its nose and fell upon Hector's chest, heaving, the heart about to burst in frantic layers about the plants at his feet. Then from the bowels of the great cavity of the beast came some holy emanation of harmony and peace and absurdity wrapped up into a million vibrating tonges.. PURRRRRRRRR it said, and it filled from edge to edge of the heavens and the beast laid down as it was done and rubbed its shoulder against the feeble man, knocking Hector from his feet, face down into the loam beneath.

"Loco!" Hector said as he picked himself up, greeted again by another vast expanse of shoulder, majesty unlike anything he had ever seen, "Gato Gigante..." And for what seemed to last quite a long time the great beast PURRRRRD and rubbed against Hector and brazenly demonstrated the strength of fifty men, lifting the farmer up onto his shoulders and stretching about the field like the rays of the morning sun, limitlessly.

Hector could feel indentations along either side of the beast, great gaping brandings still smoldering, and he felt along their ridges but could not discern their markings. The beast lied down with astonishing gentility, outstretching fifteen or more rows of the bean field without effort, and Hector jumped down to feel the soil again beneath his feet. He leaned into the beast with his hands and traced into his imagination the branded forms burnt into the immeasurable amounts of fur, letters he could not understand, words he would never know, passions he would never commiserate, not as he swaddled and trained the beast, not as he bred through generations a cat so powerful it could crush nations, not as his tribe multiplied with insurmountable feet and endless glory, no, he would never know the words of his gods and he would never dare ask... Hector Horatio Banano would forever find himself beholden to the words of unspoken divinity, the words...

"WACKY WACKY"

____________________________________________________

* This is not an actual history. The name "Wacky Wacky De Los Gatos Locos" was taken from this Onion article mocking an average TV schedule. We took this as a team name in Kickball because we are stupid funny, and because it's a glorious name.

posted by ZHorton at 1:18 PM | 0 comment(s)

Another Trip Around The Sun

This is one man's list of the best things seen, heard, or read by him in 2006:

Best Thing of 2006
Proposing to Deborah Joy Smith on October 20 in the Truman Capote Suite at the Painted Lady Inn in San Antonio, watching her cry as I knelt, hearing her say YES, Yes I will and repeating the process another time for posterity, just to make sure it happened. It happened and it shines on. I think we might even get married soon.



Best Movie Type Thing I Watched That Was Made in 2006:
When The Levees Broke

I just had a chance to see this. It's an epic account of an unforgivable American tragedy. Not only do I think it's the best film I've seen in a long while, I also think it's as important a historical document as anything produced in this millennium. If you see this film and do not feel the entire range of human emotions, foremost being outrage, then I really don't want to talk to you ever again. I'm serious. If this isn't enough visual proof for you to actively loathe the political administration of these fallen United States, then I'll leave you to rot with your dollar bills in your pocket when disaster befalls your house.

For me it tops the list of the Year of the Documentary, nestled along such powerhouse films as An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed The Electric Car?, and Why We Fight. All of these films mark the true movement of the information era, and all of them might have come about twenty years too late.

There were many fictional movies that helped me escape for two hours from this mess of a world we're plundering through - Borat, Beerfest!, Talladega Nights, Dave Chappelle's Block Party - as well as TV shows that broke through - Weeds, The Wire, House, Family Guy, American Dad, Futurama - but nothing really moved me like the truth.

Best Five Albums I Heard in 2006
TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain
The sounds on this album are unlike anything I've ever heard. There is a lot of noise in between the notes, there are no guitar solos, and the melody isn't always catchy. But I've listened to this album a hundred times already, and every new time something else reveals itself.

Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
I really don't care what people have to say about this band or album, comparing them to the Strokes or berating the myspace hype machine. From what I understand, the lead singer Alex Turner wrote these songs when he was twenty years old, and they have immeasurable amounts of wit and balance to go along with their urgency. This is what you wish you could have done and didn't do when you thought about starting a band, so shut up already.

Decemberists, The Crane Wife
There's a couple grating songs on this album, but "Shankill Butchers," "Sons & Daughters," and "The Perfect Crime, No.2" are the closest anyone's come to writing hyper-literate amazing songs since Neutral Milk Hotel.

Harry Nilsson, The Point
I rediscovered this record amongst my vinyl collection, and remembered it right away as something I loved as a child. There's an accompanying movie that's also incredible, about a boy named Oblio who is born without a point in the Land of Point and who goes searching for this point with his dog, Arrow. It's the most valuable artistic endeavor of the acid era, in my opinion, outlining all the absurdities of accepted ordinary life in the most basic, beautiful way. This also led me to get Harry Nilsson's entire catalog, which I highly recommend.

James Brown, James Brown's Funky Christmas
If you listen to this album and don't cry, I also don't want to talk to you ever again. And not just because Papa's got a brand new bag in heaven. Because James talks right to you in this album, and because he asks the tough questions, and because he asks Santa to visit the ghetto for once, and because it's got moments so drippy with soul that your speakers ooze hot butter. Being able to listen to music like this is really what America is all about.

Best Three Books I Read in 2006:
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
This book, once read, cannot be unread. It's the darkest, most unflinching book I've ever read, and it burns right into your imagery. It's about a man and his boy walking through the charred remnants of America, in some distant (or not-so-distant) hellish future. The world is barren, covered in ashes and bodies. Cannibals roam the hills, the few discards of the human population fending over the scraps. Through this we have a simple story about survival, about what it means to be a man and a father and a son, and where all of this leads. Favorite line: Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

Buddha, Vol. 1-8 by Osamu Tezuka
My children will read this, and hopefully their children after them. It's a wonderful eight volume graphic novel masterpiece that shows the story of Buddha from before his childhood to after his death, and it's rendered with humor, balance, integrity, and grace. The first three hundred pages are set before Siddhartha's birth, and this back story gives depth to the ridiculous sacrifices Siddhartha made, leaving behind a kingdom, a wife, a child, a people, all during wartime no less - and there's nothing flowery about his "awakening."

Spanking the Donkey by Matt Taibbi
This book was old news, but I had my head buried in the sand throughout the 2004 elections, so it was news to me. I discovered Taibbi through a devastating Rolling Stone piece where he dismantled the 109th Congress for the collection of callous shitheels that it is, and I've been reading everything he's written ever since. If you're into Hunter S. Thompson, pick up this book today.

So, onward into the future we go.

posted by ZHorton at 1:58 PM | 0 comment(s)

Notes on Stories I May Never Write

1. A hitman flies to a particular city to whack some evil corporate menace, only when he arrives, the rental car place doesn't have the black Towncar he specifically requested. Instead he ends up with a tan Ford Taurus, which puts a damper on his hitman style and really ruins his whole trip.

2. An alien discovers that his family crashed into earth more than one million years ago, somewhere in northeast Africa. Since time means nothing to aliens, it was conceivably his grandfather who took part in the crash and it has been a cover-up ever since. During the time it took them to repair their ship, the aliens were approached by a bunch of Australopithecus cave dwellers. The monkey men stared at the long thin aliens with awesome reverence. Then the aliens fixed their ship and left. However, this particular alien finds out that his family's little crash created a sense of other, higher, godlier beings for these monkeys, and it evolved the monkeys closer and closer each day to the noble, intelligent, alien form. And now these monkeys are humans and they are killing each other each day over various versions of this brief encounter with his alien people, which they are all calling "God," and he has to go down and fix the mess.

3. A pharmacist goes to work everyday supplying medicine to a bizarre assortment of wounded characters. The manic depressive, the depressive, the manic, the chronic pain patient, the junky with the false prescription, the old lady, and the massively fat diabetic. When she gets home, the pharmacist drinks two or three glasses of wine. The pharmacy assistant smokes weed in his car during lunch breaks. There is a culminating event in which all of these characters is in the drugstore at the same time and the manic flips out and takes everyone hostage. During this period they all come to the realization that everyone uses some medicine to help them make it through the night. The manic surrenders and everyone is a bit wiser about his or her own relative addictions and place in the world.

posted by ZHorton at 7:11 PM | 4 comment(s)

A Good Lie

Doc told me meet him out on the first tee at 5 a.m., before all the regular country clubbers get there. That's how we get a free round. Doc's lead maintenance at the place, so he gets the run of things pretty much.

I got there about 4:45, fresh with a set of clubs that I got me in a barter for old stereo speakers a week back. Two of the clubs were real good, like Big Bertha or something. The speakers were an extra set of Sanyos, so it didn't matter much. The set came with a bunch of different balls and tees, some of them real new looking. I told Doc I got me a set of clubs and he said come on out early and we'll get a game in.

When I got there the gates were locked, so I just got the clubs out and started swinging in the parking lot. The three iron felt real nice in my hands, just cutting right over the top of the asphalt. Felt like you could really rip the hell out of something. The putter didn't feel so good. It was too little in my hands, like some goofy golf thing. It felt like I damn near had to touch my toes to get the thing to reach the ground.

I could see Doc's truck coming up. When he got to me he leaned out and hollered, "Well, well, look at Johnny on-time! Don't wet your grampers, I'll get us moving here soon."

He unlocked the gates and we went straight up to the first hole. The course was empty and sprinklers were going along parts of it, making the whole thing look like something out of a movie. A movie about lawns in heaven. Doc said, "We got enough time to play nine if we don't shit around too much."

Doc teed up first. He lit a cigarette, inhaled, and then set it in the grass as he lined up the driver. Then he reared back and got a hold of it. The ball went straight for a while and then took off to the right real bad and smacked a mesquite tree which sent it back down the middle of the fairway.

"Haha! That dog'll hunt!" he said, and then put his cigarette back into his mouth. "Your turn, Arnie. Ready golf."

It had to have been ten years since I last hit, so I was nervous all of a sudden right after I teed up the ball. Damn near had to hyperventilate. I took one practice swing just to shake the cobwebs. Making sure to go real slow on the backswing, I ended up making pretty decent contact. Couldn't see where the hell it went though.

"Oh, that's real nice, that'll do just fine, not bad!"
"I lost it."
"No, you're OK. You're right up there on the left of the fairway, not bad at all!"

We walked up the start of the fairway and Doc pulled a beer out of his bag for the both of us, Coors, and it tasted goddamn majestic. The air was kind of dewey and rolling across the grass, so it just felt like being alone and walking out in nowhere.

"So how's the married life?"
"Not bad. Sandy OK?"
"Sure. We're thinking of going down to Monterrey in a couple weeks."
"Monterrey, never been there."
"They say the cooking is real good."
"What's that, like nine, ten hours drive?"
"Twelve."
"Better be good food."

We got up to Doc's ball first. He took a look at it and said, "You think that's two-fifty from here? I'm not sure, we're too far out from the markers. Ah, to hell with it, I'll just give it the three." He took a couple warmups and then hit the ball nice and square, and it went straight at the green and bounced about fifty feet short.
"Hell of a shot," I said.
"That's what I'm trying to do."

When we got to my ball it was on top of a drainage cover.
"Kick it out on the fairway a bit. We call that a provisional."
I took my shot and hit way under the ball, so it went about fifty feet. I'm not by nature an angry person but I really wanted to break the goddamn club over my knee for about a second just to get back at it. "Chili-dipped it," Doc said.

My next shot wasn't quite as bad but it wasn't quite good neither. It hit a sandtrap right in front of the green and rolled down into a little pool of water settling in the back. "Must be the club," I said.

While we walked up to the green I got to thinking about a lot of things. Like I wasn't really playing a game but just walking out in the clear and open with all of these ideas in my head. I can't much describe the feeling but it felt like a big deal at the time. I looked over to Doc and said, "This is the life right here."
"You got it, old timer. This is the place to get away."

Doc's third shot was a beauty. It went way high up in the air and then spun back on the green and landed about six feet from the hole. "How often do you get out here?" I asked him.
"About three or four times a week. The best time, other than now, is after closing time in the summer, when it still stays light till about eight. You can usually get in at least nine after all the Richie Riches leave."
"You're a hell of a guy, Doc, for letting me join you."
"You won't be thanking me once you see your ball."

Doc was right. I was lying in a hole full of water and mud in the middle of the sand. I reached in with the head of my wedge and pulled the ball out of the water and set it higher up in the sand.
"How you do this again?" I asked.
"Hit an inch or so behind the ball so you can get some sand underneath it and kick it out."

I took a couple practice swings in the sand even though I know you're not supposed to. I wanted to make this one count. When I hit it right away I knew it felt right. A bunch of sand kicked up and I watched the ball float up and bounce right off the green. It rolled real slow and kept rolling until it looked headed straight to the hole.
"Oh, oh, yes, yes, YES, YES!!" Doc was yelling the whole time.
And then it dropped. You could even hear the rattle in the cup.
"Heat seeker!" I said.

"That's one hell of a shot. You might as well quit now," Doc said. He shook my hand and laughed. It felt like a million bucks. Got me a par and didn't even have to use the putter.

posted by ZHorton at 5:36 PM | 1 comment(s)

Delusions of Honesty

Over the weekend, Stanislaw had taken to wearing his rapier in public, and it was causing a great deal of commotion at Herbert Hoover High School on Monday morning. Caterwauling greeted Dean Keating as he entered the front office - "He came in wearing a SWORD!", "He was threatening you to a duel!", "Mr. Buckner is here and he's furious!"

Visibile behind glass, Stanislaw sat alone in the detention room, drumming a beat onto the table, dressed very much like an eighteenth century pirate. He noticed Keating and waved, patronizingly. Keating exhaled deeply and walked into his office, where sat Principal Buckner, holding aloft a large fencing sword. He bellowed - "EXPULSION! That is now our only option. He has outlived his stay at my school."
"Please let me talk to him."
"Talk to him?!" Buckner thundered, "He is beyond talk. He must be taken very seriously and we must stop him before his crimes can multiply."
"Sir, he is having problems."
"Thank you doctor! I couldn't tell, what with the pirate vagabond look coming back in vogue. It's totally preposterous."
"His brother just died in Iraq."
Buckner harrumphed and set the rapier on Keating's desk.
"This I was unaware of," he mumbled. "Huh. Well, I'll let you talk to him and then we'll see if a suspension isn't enough for now. But I'm still convinced the sooner we're rid of him, the better." Buckner stood and marched out of the office.

Keating made his way to the detention room, where Stanislaw had taken liberty to partially disrobe and sprawl across the table. "Get your stuff and come to my office, please," he said.

"I want to know why I am being held against my will - is this Guantanamo?"
"You brought a sword to school. Now get up, let's talk."
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful... They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. Know who said that?"
"Yes, I do. And he never brought a sword to class at Yale. Now get your stuff, get fully dressed, and come into my office please."
Stanislaw sat up.
"Don't you understand that insurrection is near? Where's that philistine fucking retard Buckner? Where is my property?"
"He's gone, let's go."

They went into Keating's office and he closed the door. Stanislaw sat down across from the desk and reached for the rapier. Keating snatched it away and placed it in the corner of the room before seating himself in the executive leather chair. "That will remain there," he said.

The two stared at each other.
"How's life, Stan?"
"Don't call me that."
"C'mon, Stan. Stan the man."
"Stan is dead. Only Stanislaw now. The first condition of immortality is death."
"So let me get this right - you're a revolutionary poet who dresses like an extra from Mad Max. Am I missing anything?"
"Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand."
Keating took out a pad of paper from his desk.
"Let me write that down," he said, "That's special."
"More where that came from. How about this one - 'Forget this Great Depression - let's all go to Europe!' Know who said that?"
"Let me guess - Bob Hope?"
"Wrong. Herbert Hoover, our fearless shiteating namesake. When can I have my rapier back?"

Keating made note of this expletive - the young Stan Jankowski's second in as many minutes - on his pad, and looked up at the teenager with something resembling pity.
"Stan, I'm sorry about what happened to your brother."
"In a war of ideas, it is people who get killed," Stanislaw recited.
"And I understand that you're going through a rough period..."
"Your ignorance is encyclopedic."
"... but it's imperative that I state that we can't really have you dressing this way, and we certainly can't have you bringing weapons to school."
"Just because I wanted a duel? Do you know that men used to wear these everywhere? Rapier literally means 'dress sword.' It was a status symbol."
"Well, now it's called a lawsuit. Or worse."

Stanislaw titled his head back, feigning great exasperation.
"You know, I know who you're quoting," said Keating, "I was halfway educated once upon a time. Stanislaw Jerzy Lec. I took an Eastern European Literature course sophomore year... how about, 'Mankind deserves sacrifice - but not of mankind.'"
"Is this where you tell me that you see a lot of yourself in me, and you want to help me reach my potential? Because honestly..."
"Not exactly. But to torture a man, you have to know his pleasures."
"Stop appropriating my favorite shit, man!"
"Look, the point is, I know you're a good guy. Exceptional student. You even ran track last year, right? This is a tough time, and the questions don't ever get any easier. And I want you to know, I know what it feels like for you."
Stanislaw stood fiercely upright, thrusting his chest forward.
"Gimme that sword back so I can thrust it into your dead yuppie heart."
He lunged forward, quite unprepared, and Keating grabbed the boy by his shoulders, easily wrestling him to the floor. They wrestled awkwardly into the wall, and back near the chair that Stanislaw had leapt from. While they clenched each other aside the desk, Keating said into the boy's ear, "I lost my brother in Vietnam, 1971." It sounded like something from another voice, something he hadn't practiced saying in a long time. Stanislaw let go.

"That's right," Keating said, brushing wrinkles from his shirt.
Stanislaw stood up. "I don't believe it." he said.
"Do you think you're the only one that's lost anything?"
"Whatever."
"You want to hear one of my favorite quotes?"
"Not really."
"It goes like this. 'If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.' Guess who said that? Lennon. The singer, not the reformer."
"Imposter," Stanislaw looked right into Keating's eyes. "Are you lying to me?"
"Want to hear another quote? It goes 'you're expelled.' I'll give you one guess."

Stanislaw the boy pirate had reached a standstill. He sat down and put his head in his hands out of frustration, but suddenly tears erupted from his eyes. They were everywhere. They came before he could stop them. For some ridiculous reason, all that came to his mind as he cried was the time his brother Jake had, in a rage, thrown a basketball at him from point blank range over a disputed foul call. When he had tried to catch the ball, one of his fingers snapped back straight and broke, tearing two ligaments right off the bone. He could only remember this awful moment for the reaction on his brother's face, a look that he would never forget, a look as vacant and helpless and dumb as slaughtered prey. It shattered his glory.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Keating.
Stanislaw didn't look up.
"I think it's important that you articulate your loss, Stan. You don't just let it build."
"He was an asshole. OK? My brother. He wasn't a great warrior or anything like that. He was just another fucking guy. An idiot following orders."
"Most of us are."
"Well, that's not how it's going to be for me. I'm embarassed for him and for the whole system. Nobody has any idea what's going on."
"I tell you what, mix in some normal twenty-first century clothing, ditch the fantasies you are hiding behind, and become your own person and not just a memorization of someone else. Then you can judge."
"Better than listening to people today. Who are people supposed to be today?"
"You want to talk, come see me. You'd be surprised how much I hate people too. Now in the meantime, please do your best to assimilate, at least until the end of the day. You can pick up your sword after school."

He stood to leave and right before he was at the door, Stanislaw said, "Don't forget. A dream will always triumph over reality, once it is given the chance. I like that one."

posted by ZHorton at 10:40 AM | 0 comment(s)

One of Many

A - "The skill is knowing what not to say, and when not to say it. Take all of those things in your head, line them up, and look them straight down the row. What am I gonna say? What testament am I gonna leave? Writing is no rare skill. It may take a bit of mathmatics, but only subtraction. All of those trillion things that just flashed through your head right now - you subtract and subtract and you get the essence of what you really need to communicate. And once you're there, you'll see where you want to go, what you want to say, and the sentences will be plain and clear."

B - "What do you want to say?"

A - "I think what everyone finds once they get past all the words is something akin to compassion. You find yourself alone, you're scared, and you move past all associations and defenses and head right into that core of yourself, and what do you see? You see everyone else, everything else. And your relation to that."

B - "Why be compassionate if nothing really matters? I may not find that path for myself. If we don't have a proven end, aren't all means justified? What if my relation to things is to steal them?"

A - "You'll see, once you live a little bit longer, how real ghosts are. Your choices follow you forever. Your words never die. There are a billion ugly things I haven't said, and a billion I have, and I'm much happier with the former. Never underestimate the power of silence."

posted by ZHorton at 11:29 AM | 0 comment(s)

The Age of Arrogance

"The true period of arrogance for talented men comes between their twenty-sixth and thirtieth year; it is the time of first ripeness, with a good bit of sourness still remaining. On the basis of what one feels inside himself, one demands from other people, who see little or nothing of it, respect and humility; and because these are not at first forthcoming, one takes vengeance with a glance, an arrogant gesture, or a tone of voice. This a fine ear and eye will recognize in all the products of those years, be they poems, philosophies, or paintings and music. Older, experienced men smile about it, and remember with emotion this beautiful time of life, in which one is angry at his lot of having to be so much and seem so little. Later, one really seems to be more — but the faith in being much has been lost: unless one remain throughout his life vanity's hopeless fool."
- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

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An Arrogant Monologue -
(In Jest)

Once, if my memory serves me well, there was a point to all of this. There were underlying themes, friends becoming enemies, enemies becoming friends, and a series of resolutions destined to build into an epic crescendo. My life was a banquet of dissolute hopes and despairs unlike any other the earth had birthed, and all of it lie ahead.

Until I discovered that I was living my unique life already. Just like every one else. And I found this brutally unfair - hadn't the judges read my papers? Didn't I get voted "Most Likely To Revolutionize Human Thought And Transcend The Limits Of Imagination?" And I am supposed to share my kingdom with you?

Just yesterday the U.S. population grew to three hundred million individual souls, each one a shining idol onto itself. Six point seven billion people breathe air from our atmosphere every day. I see this as direct competition.

In order for a winner to exist, there must be a loser. And because I can identify this obvious symbiotic relationship, I must also deduce that you, my dear reader, must be that loser. It's just statistics. Because I will eventually win, or die in the process thereof, which still counts.

The morning will not consist of punching in a time-card for me, oh no, it'll consist of napalm-flavored mind warfare and victory over the irrevocable dumbness of mankind. I will demolish the inanity of modern life, and bring you closer to God (yourself), and you will validate me by ignoring my existence. I will know then for certain that I am a genius, because all of you will be in confederacy against me, and you, without a doubt, are total dunces.

Once I reach transcendence, I won't call you back anymore. I will hold grudges, and you may or may not be sorry that you ever met me, depending on the circumstances by which we parted. Either way, you probably ought to start being nice to me now and see where that gets you.

posted by ZHorton at 11:04 AM | 0 comment(s)

What We Ask

Caleb woke up late after arriving late the night before. The kitchen table had all the evidence of having already been sat, the morning paper in a disheveled pile, crumbs on a coffee-stained napkin, chairs angled erratically. Everyone was already gone. He moved a chair across the tile floor, to get around the table.

"I wanted to let you sleep," said his aunt Karen as she sauntered into the room. He walked toward her and they embraced, simply.
"Good to see you," said Caleb.

"Want some breakfast? There's bacon and sausage made, and potatoes. I can get some eggs ready."
"I can't dig on swine," he paraphrased, then corrected, "Pork's no good on me. Potatoes, scrambled eggs sounds great."
"Coffee?"
"Thanks," he said, seating himself at the table. She placed a cup in front of him and poured from a long simmering pot of dark roast.
"Cream, sugar?" she asked.
"No, thank you," Caleb said, eyes moving to the paper.

"I had to go to sleep before you got in last night. How was your flight?"
Caleb laid the paper down on the table.
"You remember the car George Jetson had? The one that had the antenna that propelled the car with little bubbles like 'bbbbbb' and folded up into a briefcase when he showed up to his floating office?"
"Yeah?" she said as she cracked open an egg.
"Well, that's all I want in life. A goddamn flying briefcase car. Is that too much to ask of the twenty-first century?"
His aunt chuckled as she moved toward the refrigerator.
"Not so good?"

Caleb postured as if reading while he answered. "Just that it's a sad question. I imagine there used to be something to talk about, when someone took the train, or drove, or went by stagecoach. You experienced travel then. You smelled the land. You saw the stars. Sure, you probably shot Buffalo, or came down with cholera, but it's better than now. Now means taking off your shoes at the airport, packing in like chickens, being vacuum-sealed."

"Flying can be an experience," Karen offered, stirring eggs in a clear bowl with a fork. "I always get the window seat and watch the fields shrink into tiny dots of carpet. The cities with their little insect cars. Makes it all seem so small."

"I had to throw out hair gel at the security checkpoint," Caleb countered, "Hair gel. Soon it'll be the cavity search 3000. That's the only way to know! Grandma's got a bomb in her ass! Bend over and take it like a patriot!"

Karen laughed half-heartedly, not really listening but embracing the tone.

Caleb drank from his coffee, sternly preparing his ideas. "Once we were in the plane we sat on the runway for an hour, while nobody said anything. We were waiting for the pilots! An hour without air-conditioning. Neutered flight attendants. Updates about nothing. Whatever happened to free drinks? They're protecting you from getting hurt, you know. Like from hot meals and honey roasted peanuts. Courtesy is dead, and company killed it."

His aunt was cooking the eggs with garlic salt and it filled the room with savory air. "Last time me and your uncle flew, they kept our cell phone. I'm convinced, we looked everywhere. At that security search is where we figured."

"Freedim. Dey hate our freedim," Caleb mimicked.

For a while it was quiet. Caleb studied the box scores and Karen put the eggs and potatoes on a plate and walked them over to the table. She brought a bottle of ketchup and sat down opposite Caleb at the table, blowing steam off the top of a cup of tea.

Caleb ate as he asked, "Here we are in the Year Of Our George Two Thousand and Six. You happy with the state of travel? Or you just addicted to 'ole?"
"Don't know." She sipped from the tea. "Always this jovial in the morning?"
"Mornings are about acceptance. What have we accepted? We don't want to live in the future."
"Fear is pretty big," she said.
"And then we ask 'How was your flight?', 'What time are you planning on leaving for the airport?', 'Are you going to have enough time?' All of these questions, and it's always the same answer."
"The world must bore you."
"Sorry, it's just true."
"You have to learn to laugh at it," she repeated from somewhere.

Neither of them spoke, neither wanting to confront this profound lie.

Caleb ate the last of his breakfast.
"That was perfect," he said, standing, "Where's everyone?"
"They're out getting the tree."
"I'm going to shower then. Thanks again for making that," Caleb said as he made his way out of the room.

His aunt took the plate and fork to the sink where she rinsed them off. She opened the dishwasher and put the dish and fork into their proper compartments, then closed the dishwasher door. She wiped off the counter with the dishrag, around the coffee maker, around the sink, and then inside the sink. She rinsed off her hands and toweled them off, and by the time she was done she had forgotten everything they just talked about.

posted by ZHorton at 10:33 AM | 0 comment(s)

L. P. to Eternity

A great man died today. He was a compassionate, patient, egoless man who lived an extraordinary life and left behind countless admiring friends and relatives. He was my grandfather. Born in 1917 on either June 8 or 18, in Hibbing, Minnesota, Lloyd Perry Wing had travelled around the sun some eighty-nine times before he died in a hospice in Mesa, Arizona at 12:01 a.m. on September 7, 2006.

His family was Norweigian, "squareheads," as they were called, recruited high into the northern plains to build the railroads that helped unite the powers of North America and forge enterprise throughout the wilderness. When he was eighteen months old, a fire struck the family home while his father, Walter, was out working. His mother ran the infant boy outside and set him in the snow, then went inside to save his older brother and sister. All three died, consumed in the flames of the fallen house.

His father didn't have the time or resources to fully provide for his son, so L. P. was sent to live with his aunt Cora in the Ozarks of southern Missouri. There he lived with five half-sisters, Mertie, Ester, Eppie, Bettie, and Carol, and one half-brother, Floyd, or as he is properly known, "Sonny." He later recounted to me that these were the best years of his life, wandering through the oaks of mountains yet untouched by sanctions of mankind.

As a child, he rarely frequented school, saying later that this was due to having a cross-eyed teacher that couldn't control her pupils. In the seventh grade, he and three friends hopped a freight train headed to California. They spent all summer on and off the cargo trains, stealing loaves of bread from bakeries and pies from windowsills to persist through the hungry spells. During one of these excursions, one of his friends was killed attempting to hop from one train to another. L. P. was later separated from his friends by accident, and ended up riding by himself to California, at which point he promptly got back on another train home. "I went out there and I came back," he said, "Ain't no reason to stay."

Back home in Missouri, he found himself poor, without education, and no longer able to rely on support from home. It was time to go to work. One day, while sitting on a bridge with a friend, watching the river go by, a man came down the path wearing a brand new uniform. My grandfather asked the man where he was coming from and he replied, "They're signing up for the U.S. Army Air Corps. They give you two pairs of pants, two shirts, and a brand new pair of shoes, plus three square a day and a pouch of Bull Durham for rolling." That was all the information he needed.

In the armed forces, he quickly accelerated through the ranks. He had a natural aptitude for machinery, and developed a keen understanding of plane engineering. During this time, while stationed in Kansas City, he also assisted his surrogate father in jobs building and repairing local homes. On one such job, he noticed a lady sitting in a porch swing across the alleyway, and he was compelled to walk over to her. He introduced himself to Norma Smith, the young lady across the way, and as he later told me, "That was pretty much it." They were married shortly thereafter, and commenced creating a family that included daughters Carol and Melinda, and two sons, Perry and Dan.

World War II came around, and he was stationed in the South Pacific throughout the early campaign. His role had grown to Master Sergeant, which was one step removed from his final rank, Senior Master Sergeant, the highest any infantry man can achieve. He repaired airplanes and avoided much of the heavy combat, although there was one incident which he later revealed: "One time, it was only me and my PFC, and we started receiving gunfire from up on a hill. I grabbed my gun and the PFC and I went up the hill on either side. Boy, my heart was beating. We were going to come in either flank and come around wherever the shots were coming from. As we got near the top of the hill, I heard two shots. Me and the PFC both circled around fast, and we saw a little Filipino boy, standing behind a dead man, holding a rifle. The little boy had saved our lives. We made him a nice meal and he was our friend from then on."

He was later stationed in Germany, where he allegedly sold Johnny Cash his first guitar, through a roundabout series of barters that included him somehow acquiring a new vehicle to drive around town. After this he was transferred to Adak, Alaska, during the onset of the Korean War. He flew in airplanes in seventy-below weather, and raised his family in the nightless and desolate expanse of the Aleutians. After this ended, he returned to Kansas City with his family and there they remained for the better part of twenty years. He worked at Fort Leavenworth training plane mechanics, and travelled some throughout the area giving seminars.

But this isn't about his work. This is about a man that said of his time in the armed forces, "The biggest thing I learned was, there ain't no reason to stand when you can sit, and there ain't no reason to sit if you can lay down." This was a man who was rarely seen vertical, more often supine on the couch, reading, napping, or watching historical documentaries. This was a man who lived to laugh and let life breathe.

When I was born in 1978 in Kansas City, he was there in the hospital with my mother, father, and grandmother. Three months later, my grandmother was dead from cancer. My parents moved us to Maine after my second birthday, where we endured two winters and much culture shock. Right before I was four, we all loaded into a Ford truck and headed to Phoenix, Arizona, or as it was then called, "the Anti-Maine." L. P. was not adjusting well to life without Norma, so my mom suggested he come stay with us for a while once we got settled. In addition, my uncle Dan, who was then in college, lived with us, five total in a three bedroom house.

It's impossible to retrace all of the memories from this time in this space, so I can only offer glimpses. Grandpa would joke about my head size, saying, "Look at the neocortex on that boy," and would often pinch me on the side of my stomach, or as he called it, my "brisket." He used the phrase, "Whack them weirdos," in all sorts of applications. He almost always wore a hat, tilted askew, set high upon the crown of his head. With my allowance money I bought him a Top Gun hat which he wore for most of my childhood. During the summer months, he watched over me while my parents worked, driving me around in his plush Lincoln Continental to see movies, and we always set aside time to catch two shows, the Andy Griffith show, and All in the Family. He was my friend, he was my second father, he was a smartass, and I loved him.

Did I mention that he was a musician? He had played guitar for bands throughout his military career, and while in Phoenix he helped form a group of musicians called the Primetime Players. They had an extensive touring schedule throughout the retirement communities of Mesa, Arizona, bringing life to the lifeless with songs of a more familiar era. Much later he bestowed one of his guitars, a Gibson Les Paul, to me, but I wasn't very proficient at guitar picking and so it became more of an heirloom. When I was in high school, our house was broken into, and I was fearful that the guitar may have been stolen. Once I found everything intact, I called grandpa and he said, "It don't matter if a guitar is gone. The only thing that matters is that you and your mom is safe. We can't buy another one of you at the store."

I went away to college in the northeast, and only saw L. P. on holidays and throughout summer breaks. He had taken a great liking to the absurd writings of Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy, most especially: "You should never take your dog into space, because he'll burn his face off in re-entry." While I was at school, he helped finance a truck for me to use while I was home, and we talked on the phone about once every two weeks. His eyesight was fading badly, and he could no longer drive at night. The gigs with the band were dwindling, as were the members of the Prime Time Players - only one, jazz pianist Leona, was still alive when I graduated.

After college I spent three lonely and heartbreaking years chasing my ego in Los Angeles, and decided to return home after having been mugged at gunpoint on Hollywood Blvd. I came home jobless, directionless, and living off unemployment. But I was only minutes from my grandpa's house, so each Tuesday we would go to a casino on the reservation and play poker. He would always give me $60 to play with, which I would swiftly lose at the table. After our poker game, he would amble over to the video poker machines and, without fail, win at least $40. On one occasion, after such proceedings, he cashed in his winnings from the day, then turned from the cashier's teller and pulled four twenties from the stack of bills, placing them in my hand. "Now everyone breaks even," he said, "But you buy lunch. That's what the winners do."

Two months later he fell down and broke his right hip. He was eighty-six, and the rigors of the hospital were more than he could handle. I stood by his bedside and witnessed the valium induced hallucinations, his reaching for food that wasn't there, his mumbling, "put that there, over by the logs, there by the cabin," his intonations to me darker than expected - "You do what you need to do, drink a bottle, go in the forest, you ain't ok right now, you find that thing, you don't look well without it." I thought he would pass right there in front of me, right there on the bed in the hospital, and in many ways he did.

When I last saw him, he weighed 125 pounds on a six-foot frame. His digestion was troublesome, his reaction time eroded, his purpose diminished. His humor was intact, though, and he stood and walked on his own. After I left, I wept in the car for some time. I cried for myself, for my selfish need for him to always be vibrant and hilarious, for my memories of dignity.

The last time we spoke was his birthday. He said, "I made it around the sun again," but the ceaseless nature of time was taking away the days. He went to the hospital for a colonoscopy, and cancer was detected, along with a striking case of pneumonia. My mother, my aunt Carol, and Carmel Barela, his girlfriend of more than twenty-three years, attended to his care in shifts. After a series of tests, it was determined that he wasn't going to get any better without intensive medical procedure, and the family elected to move him to the hospice bed in which he took his last breath this morning.

Today I cry for the loss of the greatest man I've ever known. He ascended to great heights from relative obscurity, though you would have never known it had you met him. Instead, you would have heard him tell a story about a little creep hiding in the mailbox and wondered, is this guy for real? Then he would have said something along the lines of, "I hear ninety-percent of accidents happen within five miles of the home. I'm moving," and you would realize that yes, he was for real, he was absurdly and undeniably the real deal, a man of great benevolence and humility and perspective. You would have met my grandfather and loved him, just like everyone else did. And he would have made it seem as if he never even tried.

posted by ZHorton at 6:27 AM | 1 comment(s)

Perdedores en Juego de Pelota

(with apologies to Hemingway, and real Mayans)
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The rain fell as Nacon turned into the path that entered the great ball court. The limestone walls were damp and the sea wind tore across the field. Nacon stopped and picked up a head-sized rubber ball from the ground, bouncing it between his left hand and his right.

To the far left was the court storage hut. He watched as smoke bellowed from the top of the hut into the tempest above. Coconut palms swayed far over in the wind as he watched. It was the first of the winter hurricanes. As Nacon crossed the open field, the door of the storage hut opened and Chac came out. He stood on the steps looking out.

"Nacon," he called.
"Hey, Chac," Nacon said, coming toward the steps.
They stood together looking out across the country, down over the field, beyond the court, across brush and beaches to the ocean. The wind was lifting the waves. They could see the surf curl along Chichan Itza point.
"She's strong," Nacon said.
"Ix Chel is vengeful," Chac added. "Come on in."

Nacon went inside the hut. There was a fire burning in a pit in the center. The wind made it hiss. Chac shut the door.
"Pulque?" he said.
He handed Nacon a cup and poured from a ceramic bottle, then poured one for himself.
"All right?" he said.
"Good," said Nacon.
They sat in front of the fire and drank the pulque.

"It tastes like seaweed," Nacon said, and looked at the fire.
"That's the agave," Chac said.
"I thought it might have been the maize," Nacon said.
"It doesn't make any difference," Chac said.

"You ever had a twitch in your eyelid?" Nacon asked.
"No," said Chac.
"I've had it for two weeks now. I can't stop it," Nacon said
"It'll go away. Cut out the coca leaves," Chac said.

"What do you think of next week? The match?" Nacon asked.
"I'm introducing my new wall technique."
"That's not what I meant."
"Hand me that ball there," said Chac.
Nacon reached down to his left and handed him the rubber ball.
"This is a heavier ball. My father says they used to put skulls in the core to make them lighter," said Chac.
"I call bullshit," said Nacon.

Nacon reached down to the pulque bottle. He refilled his and poured more into the cup Chac held out.
"See, this ball has nice edges to it. Game ball is slicker. I'm going to take it high off the left wall and then let the momentum take it to the right, back and forth like, until there's more cuts in the rubber. Then you can really get that nice backspin," Chac professed.
"How many ringers have you had this year?" asked Nacon.
"Two, not counting practice," Chac said.
They sat and drank.

"This is the best time of year. Quetzalcoatl's time," Nacon said.
"I'd like to meet him," Chac said.
"Who wouldn't?"
"I mean, just to ask him the truth."
"What is it, two-thousand and twelve he's coming - ask him then."
"Isn't he supposed to be white? I don't buy it."
"Neither do I."
"Let's get drunk," Chac said.
"All right," Nacon agreed.
Chac filled the cups to the brim.

"What'll we drink to?" Nacon asked, holding up the cup.
"Let's drink to ball games," Chac said.
"All right," Nacon said. "Gentlemen, I give you ball games."
"Ringers," Chac said. "Everywhere."
"Balls," Nacon said. "That's what we drink to."
They drank the cups down.

"Now let's drink to Quetzalcoatl."
"And balls," Nacon punctuated.
Nacon poured out the pulque.
"Gentlemen," Chac said, "I give you Quetzalcoatl and balls."
"Exactly, gentlemen," Nacon said.
They drank. Chac filled up the cups.

"You ever think about that, balls? Why balls?" Nacon murmured.
"It's all about not thinking," said Chac. "Just let the ball be the ball and you be you."
They thought about this for a while.

"You were right to shut it down," Chac said.
"What do you mean?" asked Nacon.
"To quit playing ball this year," Chac said.
"I guess so," said Nacon.
"It was the only thing to do. If you hadn't, by now you'd be sacrificed."
Nacon said nothing.
"Once a man's sacrificed, he's gone," Chac went on. "Obviously."
Nacon said nothing.
"It was probably hard quitting just for a sprained ankle," Chac conceded, "But you can always come back next season."

"All right," said Nacon. "Let's get drunk."
"All right," Chac said. "Let's get really drunk."
"Let's get drunk and then go swimming in the hurricane," Nacon said.
He drank off his whole cup.

"Let's take the ball outside and practice. I'll just play with my left foot," Nacon said.
"All right."
"How do you feel?" Nacon asked.
"Edgy. Going to highlight my skiiiils." Chac was strapping on shoes.

They stepped out the door. The wind was annihilating.
"It's coming right off the ocean," Nacon shouted.

Chac threw the rubber ball out the door and followed it into the field, running and kicking. Nacon followed him down the steps and into the open. None of it was important now. The wind blew it out of his head. His eyelid stopped twitching. He might be able to play next week after all.

posted by ZHorton at 8:17 PM | 1 comment(s)

All Together Now

Driving down the street the other day, I noticed a flickering in front of my car. I slowed down and made out the figures of two birds, one fallen, stationed in the lane before me. The fallen bird was clearly dead, and probably hadn't fallen as much as had been run over. As much as I could see, the standing bird was nudging the body of the fallen, urging it skyward, pushing it alive. It took two hops away, then returned back to the certain corpse, prodding once more in vain before fluttering over my hood and into the air from which it came.

Later on I watched an overwrought documentary in which physicists explained how nothing ever really touches. Cells respond and electrons activate with proximity of energy, yet there's never really anything pushed together to the point of touching. But that's taking into account that we're separated in the first place. The bird tells me everything is always connected.

If you argue that all is not connected, explore the alternative - we are all alone. There is no halfway. Where do you come from that you are not connected to something? It's a bleak acceptance of your mind's perceptual limitations to think that everything is separate from you and therefore containable. Put it on the shelf, ignore it, chop it down, build it, tear it to pieces, keep it away.

There's an programmed idea we like to perpetuate that insists on fractioning reality. That is a person, that is a dog, that is a building, that is the ocean. Yet on the most elemental level, we are comprised of matter and space. Mainly space. In fact, there's not much matter in anything at all, and the particles vary only to a small degree. So it's all held together by what? There's an absurdly vast interconnected space between everything from the most minute atom to the ends of our comprehendable universe. And no one knows what it is.

Schopenhauer writes, "After death you will be what you were before your birth." Carbon dust, either scattered into the void, or absorbed back into the web.

One way or the other, that bird suffered. I was there to witness this very real display of denial and mourning. The emotions we attach to our soul are only chemical delusions, but the space inside is real. It brings us together and tears us apart, even though we've never really touched, and we never were apart.

posted by ZHorton at 8:39 AM | 0 comment(s)

Joachim Finds Meaning

Joachim was growing tired of tests. Every day it was tests, tests, and more tests, and not in metaphors. These were tests of needles and gauges, of straps and tongue depressors, shavings and sterile gauze wrappings and faceless aids, hovering over the hygienic white space, filling and emptying. Jump through this. Can you hear that? Does it hurt when I do this? Tests. More tests.

It wasn’t his fault. Joachim was only a boy.

They had a name for his condition – hyperthrihos – which Joachim couldn’t even pronounce. His body was covered from head to toe in hair, like a primate, topped with an oval-shaped skull. Nothing like anyone had ever seen.

His father Rafael had said, “His life will be full of struggle. He will be mocked. He will be ridiculed.” And so, when Joachim wasn’t undergoing tests behind hospital doors, he was shrouded underneath white draping cloths, leaving only a slit for his hairless eyes.

“Perhaps you should have him join the circus,” Rodolfo, his grandfather, had tastelessly joked, to lighten the doom of his family’s misfortune. Mayalen, Rodolfo’s only child and the mother of Joachim, was a ceaselessly pious woman, or entirely humorless, depending on the circumstances at hand. What was certain was that, at the age of twenty-eight, she had swallowed enough exhales of wounded innocence to forever crush a heart into blackness. She endured with fury alone. She told her father, plainly, “Joachim is going to be a man, not a beast.”

And so the tests justified the man, for the boy’s mother. The professionals kept their distance from the boy, treating their subject as humanely as possible without engaging his full humanity. To be accurate, they were unsure of the immediacy of this human link. Joachim was not only covered in hair, but also off the charts in his mobility, flexibility and strength – already he was a man.

“Not only that,” said one specialist, “But his intuition is very unique, and he’s demonstrated an innate sense of placement and direction. Even blindfolded with earplugs in, his response is alarmingly acute. A marvel, really, a total anomaly.”

But none of this meant anything to Joachim, as his perspective was drowned in a sea of white chaos – indifference, analysis, despair – and his loyalty had no measure of balance. All of it felt the same, distanced.

At home he would sneak away to the basement of the family’s two-story house, disrobe into his underwear only, and stand on old furniture and boxes, looking out the windows unto the lawns and streets before him. From this vantage point he could envision a framed world, bustling with activity and movement of wheels, organisms organizing, dogs sniffing, other children chasing down desires. Standing on boxes behind icy windows, he was safe and unobserved.

* * * * * *

Kostas Vondapoulos set down his book and looked out the window. It is now warm and clear, he thought. Now is a good time.

He stood and walked into his bedroom and pulled his shoes out of the closet, returning then back to his chair. All of his movements economical, all of his gestures with a purpose. Every breath coming in and going out of his lungs was measured and grateful.

Kostas stood again and looked closely out the window, thinking he had seen something dart across the lawn. He shook his head and thought, too hurried, I am much too hurried. He sat again and slipped on each shoe, dressed as every day in lightweight black cotton pants and pullover shirt. He re-examined the drawstring on his pants, pulled out on the shoulders of his shirt, and rose back to standing, seemingly all at once. For a man of seventy-one years, Kostas was admirably fit.

He went outside to his side lawn carrying a mat under his left arm, which he then unrolled across the perfectly trimmed surface. The sun burned a hole through the sky and shone across much of the block, yet the air remained crisp.

Kostas began his series of postures by leaning forward and touching his toes and holding for several breaths as the wind whisked by his head in sporadic gusts. He breathed in, and out. In and out.

There had always been an elusive channel of stillness in between the busy shorelines of Kostas’ consciousness, or at least as he liked to picture it. Always the river flowed, caged in the past by smoke and mirrors, now widening with each quiet day. Kostas was close. He knew what he was approaching and knew how to approach it. Almost, he thought, almost I am there. The movement of stillness, the breath, once more, one move closer. It had taken a lifetime to begin what he set out to encounter, and on sad days he found himself wondering what might have been done with all of those lost years. But now, he reminded himself, I have started now, and now I am close and there isn’t a lost day to remember, nor a reason not to try.

Arts come in many languages, and Kostas had adapted many of them into his practice. His daily routine mixed equal parts ashtanga, hatha, and Kostas, he liked to joke. In all of his seventy-one years on this earth he hadn’t so much as a migraine headache, and he intended to keep on that path. Variety within the construct of discipline, he repeated, is that which breeds vitality. The string cannot be too loose, or it will lack the strength to resonate, nor can it be too tight and risk snapping at the slightest touch.

Kostas reached into a warrior’s posture and inhaled deeply into his open chest and then saw something – what was that – out of the corner of his eye. He sensed it coming from across the way, and stood up tall to look. It had come from the basement window of his neighbor’s home.

* * * * * *

He knew he had been looking for too long and would soon enough have been caught staring, and so Joachim, in his underwear, cursed himself as he crouched beneath the opening of the window pane. His knees bounced together, and for the first time in his life there was an unstoppable coursing through his veins. Breathlessly, he moved up and peered over the bottom frame of the window, just his eyes and forehead. He just had to look.

And there stood Kostas, staring from across the lawn.

Joachim darted back down and thought about panicking. Perhaps he could cry for his mother and fabricate a story, but how could he justify the half-nakedness? Why had he been down here, staring at strangers performing calisthenics on their side lawn? Had the man really seen him?

He slowly looked out the window another time, and the man was no longer staring. Joachim watched as the old man sat, legs crossed, and with his eyes closed, how the man hummed to himself, and soon enough the boy’s curiosity trumped his fear.

And once again Kostas opened his eyes, only this time without the retreat of the boy, who, frozen in place, had been caught for good. For a moment the boy considered running, but there was truly nowhere to run. Something the man said with his eyes said come here son I have something to show you.

* * * * * *

Joachim approached the old man, covered in his white shawl. The lawn was immense, and it seemed to take an eternity to cross it and for the old man to finally acknowledge Joachim’s presence.

“I see you are curious,” said Kostas.

Joachim nodded beneath his hood.

“Come then, we will have tea.”

And the boy watched as the man rolled his mat with tireless care and followed as the man went inside the house.

* * * * * *

Joachim liked the taste of the tea, and held it close to his face to let the steam warm his nostrils.

“You are fond of Chai tea, no?” said Kostas.

The boy smiled through his hair.

Kostas set his cup down and leaned forward.

“You,” Kostas said, “Are not like the others. Do you know your history?”

Joachim nodded his head no.

“Always there is history,” said Kostas, “And yours is very much ancient and rich. You please wait here.” Kostas left to the other room and returned immediately, holding a book covered in black silk embroidering. He flipped through the pages as Joachim sipped the tea and stared around the kitchen, fascinated especially by a painting of the purple Krishna pinned above the stove in the old man’s kitchen.

“What is your name?” asked Kostas, still leafing through the pages of the book.

“M-My name is Joachim.”

“Ah,” said Kostas, “The lord will judge, that is your name, this is what it means. But perhaps your mother and father, they did not know, because – “

He held the book open and passed it across the table to Joachim. On the page was a small sepia-toned picture of a man wearing a three-piece suit, framed formally, the exception being the hair streaming across both sides of his face, along his eyebrows, over his nose and mouth and chin. Hair; long, beautiful strands parted down the middle of every feature. Covered in hair.

Joachim looked to Kostas with clear eyes, and Kostas grinned assuredly.

“This,” Kostas pointed to the picture, “Is the fiercest in all of the warriors of the Shao-Lin. China, yes? You see, he was left as a child, left behind as you say, a rubbish thing, a demon they think, perhaps. And one day then, a monk passing by, took the child along with him and then home to the circle of the Shao-Lin masters. They knew very much it would be hard for him to live out, in the world, so for him they decided training would be best. And do you know then what happened?”

Joachim shook his head no.

“The child proved very much to be strong, and to be how you say, vigilant. Never does a man train in every branch of the Shao-Lin, but for him they make an exception. For him they have a name, Su Kong Tai Djin.”

Joachim brushed his fingers over the picture and wanted to keep it with him forever.

“Su Kong means grand master, and soon this was his name. So strong were his skills and technique, that he fought bears with his own hands, for practice.”

With this, Kostas pantomimed with his arms held high and growled, as a bear might, and it made Joachim giggle.

“So too was the time for when a meeting, yes, was arranged for Su Kong and the other twelve Shao-Lin masters, and the masters bowed to greet him. And instead then of bowing, Su Kong threw a knife straight up high – SHA! – and struck in the heart of an assassin, trying to hide in the rafters above. It was the breathing. Thirteen breaths he had heard, one more than he expected.”

Joachim’s eyes grew wide and Kostas laughed with great enthusiastic bellowing for some time.

“You are very much surprised then, no? That you have a history?” Kostas inquired.

Looking back down to the page before him, Joachim felt the burn of relation in his chest and it trembled down his arm as he held fast onto the book. He looked into the eyes of the man in the picture and they sang back with possibility.

Kostas leaned back and nodded.

“For you,” he said, “The book.”

“Oh,” said the boy.

posted by ZHorton at 6:41 AM | 0 comment(s)

The Revelations of El Chato

El Chato says, "Down there I believe in magic. Up here I believe in the law of big numbers. See, there's always a possibility, a function, if you string enough instances together. Because no matter how many numbers there are, it's never infinity." He is referencing magic ceremonies in Mexico, fourteen hour peyote sessions, conversations with coyotes, and being in "the presence." But that's not where we begin.

Where this begins is with a toilet that smells of its own accord. No matter the cleansing, no matter the lack of use, it smells like a downtown parking garage stairwell in the afternoon sun. Richard Martinez, the plumber, is here to alleviate the stench. But it turns out that Richard has no sense of smell, resulting from a bad pnemonia attack. "I haven't smelled a fart in ten years," he says. He explores the sealings of the toilets, examines the back of the toilet, and asks to look underneath the house. "Sometimes the pipes underneath will leak and seep through cracks in the floorboard. It's especially bad with any wind."

The pipes beneath have no leaks. We walk back into the house and Richard notices a painting on the wall, a frivolous attempt of mine. "Are you an artist?" he asks, his eyes newly alight. He takes a postcard from his pocket and hands it to me. On the postcard is an intricate tiny painting with images of Einstein, Hindu gods, cats with Taoist symbols on their foreheads, all intertwined amongst a mahogany starlit sky. Scrawled at the bottom right of the card are the words "El Chato."

"What's that mean?" I ask, "El Chato?"

"Means bulldog. I've been called that since I was very young; it's a family name. When I was four, I had an orange in my hands and an older man, not sure if he was family or not, grabbed it out of my hands as a joke. I lunged at him and sunk my teeth right into his calf and wouldn't let go. My uncle was right there and he yelled 'El Chato!' and from then on, that was my name. Amongst friends."

Once this heritage has been revealed, El Chato opens up with declarations about the meaning of his art. As we stand near a fetid toilet, he discusses the connectivity of atoms, the illusion of time, the shamanistic tradition of cultures in the Southern hemisphere, and about the purity of ceremonies involving the plants of divinity. I suggest that we relocate into the living room, where I show him some literature I've read about these subjects. I offer some trite announcement regarding the possibility that children should know more about such international insight. El Chato reflects, "I used to work with children, teaching art. And it's about the age of nine, eight or nine, that children's art becomes inherently more functional, more conceptual. It starts to use words. It becomes less free."

Huxley explained this phenomenon in The Doors of Perception. His idea was that we have the ability, generally through the enabling of ego-inhibiting substances, to be conscious of the total nature of existence. However, this awareness is too much for us to handle, it's vastness terrifying in possibility and power. Therefore, we pare down our consciousness into containable avenues of thought in order to function throughout the ordinary day. El Chato says he crossed metaphysical paths with Huxley, receiving mushrooms from the same witch Aldous had met years before. This witch was renowned for her medicinal powers to cure disease, ennui, envy, hopelessness. El Chato says, "She told me my pain came from my pathlessness. She said I must reunite with my roots and abandon the wandering life." And nine months after his meeting with the witch doctor, El Chato's grandmother fell prey to terminal disease. He returned home and took the helm of de-facto patriarch for his grandmother, mother, aunt, wife, and daughter. In his words, "Redemption was there for me in being needed."

On a yearly basis El Chato voyages into the heart of Mexico for pilgrimages of the soul. He eats naturally growing plants and then sits alongside them and waits for visions. This is where the magic lives, he says. On one occasion his grandmother, long since passed, appeared to him in the form of a tree, her presence sparkling. "She had the face of her youth, and her eyes were contented. She said nothing, but it felt connected to my heart like a string. A coyote appeared next to the tree - real or imaginary I don't know - and it spoke to me, not with words but with some universal kind of energy. It said 'She is at peace.' Then two snakes appeared in the dust near the base of the tree, and everything was gone, my grandmother, the coyote, everything. My vision was complete."

After he finished this story, El Chato resealed the base of the toilet with caulk and gave me the postcard. Then he left. Later on we replaced the toilet, but the magic remained.

posted by ZHorton at 8:49 AM | 1 comment(s)

Manufactured Zen

Tender ash of incense, soothing sounds of the quasi-tribal, miniature sand gardens and waterfall desk fountains, colors of caramel-vanilla, ripe pomegranate, and leaves of grass lining walls bordered by bamboo; such are the accoutrements of the modern Zen facility, and they welcome lines upon lines of world-busied bodies for unplugging, yogic decompressing, and curative sitting. But what good is Zen if it’s achieved in a vacuum?

Life is a combination of minute and enormous amounts of suffering. With infrequent exception, most everyone deals with interminable agony in the same fashion – to survive, and in that survival, to embody a noble acceptance of truth and inevitability. As Bukowski wrote, it’s not the major tragedies of one’s life that send him to the nuthouse, it’s the broken shoelace, the horse that doesn’t finish the race, the automated phone solicitation. In every minute of every day there is a reconciliation for each living being between what they think ought to be and what actually is. And virtue is essentially a gauge of reaction – how well or poorly one adjusts to minor disappointment.

Reaction is regularly out of the realm of control for the reactor. Physiological imbalances, genetic makeup, bad fortune, and permanent impressions beset through childhood are beyond the scope of the active mind. Nobody chooses trauma. However, the great majority of choices are made after some interim of consideration, and as such they are chosen consciously. Why then are we so often frustrated? To what end are we responsible for our own state of mind?

It is said that individuals of uncommon stature and success are generally “in control of their emotions.” No matter the situation, they remain rational and defy probabilities. They are able to detach themselves from the paralysis of fear and act decisively. This atypical presence of mind amounts to the difference between victory and defeat, between elation and embarrassment, and in certain cases, between life and death. In the context of the average life, this opportunity presents itself repeatedly. The coffee jolts from the pot over the lip of the cup and onto the floor. Do you bellow profanities, snap a paper towel from its holder, and grumble as you clean? Or do you simply clean and move on? Decision, opportunity, decision, opportunity; the loop forever replicates. You are given steady occasion to create your state of being from within, and should therefore choose your own happiness.

Zen is a notion that attempts to rectify the problem of decision making. It purports that one succeeds when one acts unconsciously, which in itself is a contradiction for the conventionally trained mind, accustomed to assessing, concluding, and then proceeding. In theory, the unconscious is unattached to outcome, and therefore it acts intuitively and without fear or assumption. Because this ideal is so incomprehensible in a world overflowing with the demands of attention and outcome, the practice of Zen involves a great deal of sitting and waiting in a quiet room.

There is no easy way to elude the stimulations of society while entrenched within its grid, so fortresses of serenity are built in which the individual may retreat for ninety minutes of humming on cue, as peaceful administrators emanate gongs and advocate the healing powers of breathing. This establishment is meant not to reflect the universe in which it is located, but instead to create a makeshift utopia for all of its practitioners wherein every sight is gentle and every voice pacifies like cherub wings. One who frequents these buildings is touched with an enlightened sense of ease, generally on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Sundays.

Sometimes these are houses of exercise. These may be seen as hygiene at their most tame, and torture at their ascetic apex. For many patrons, the feeling of being drenched in one’s own sweat is as fulfilling as any illusory spiritual awakening. In this respect the art is justified, because its aim is so simple – to loosen the joints, elongate the ligaments, and resolve the delineations of the spine. All this seems to require is a series of rudimentary postures, performed in a steady, heat-inducing pattern. Absurdity lies in the recognition that such ordinary and obviously attainable postures are so challenging – what insulated and dormant lives we sit through!

And so the people flock inside such studios. All the while, the world outside beats, as brilliantly and insufferably as it always has, ugly and pristine, immense and microscopic, eating, shitting, and procreating itself into subsequent versions of itself. Not all of this, in fact very little of it, is done quietly. Or patiently. Consuming forces drive forward, devoid of reason or repose.

Artificial tranquility is our best defense, but it’s not really Zen. It supplies the silence that the world cannot, but it dodges total acknowledgment of the abyss. If the idea of Zen is what compels you, go stand on the median on the interstate with your eyes closed. Accept the unending noise, the imminent death surrounding you. Realize the unity weaving chaos together. Awaken infinite.

And then stop giving your money to gurus in spandex.

posted by ZHorton at 6:06 AM | 0 comment(s)

A Day In The Life Of America

America wakes up early. There is much to be accomplished today, as with every day, helming the great vessel of liberty. Dawn arrives and America is out the door, hair wet with petroleum products, cup brimming with truly international spirit – five mornings a week scurrying towards the unknown, the maybe – and what America knows is what it earns on paper with full medical and dental, the perceived fortune, the rate of feigning compensation, the low altitude surmising, data swimming, carbon copying, the papers and papers and papers to validate other papers and the collectors asking for all of it back, the fixed numbers computing into patient, foreseeable ends, as long as America doesn’t panic. America knows when all is said and done that it’s all about the paper.

America saw this coming and so it endures. Tech booms, instant commerce, ones and zeroes, umbrellas beyond good and evil, instinctual liquid communication, all begat by the ink and the paper. Here it is, a dollar. This is the proof of survival, the record of eventuality. Behold the faces of my heroes. This is the story. All of America is written in the lines of the dollar bill, and America wakes up early for remembrance and reclamation. It knows what it has to do, it goes to work, and it embraces the inevitable.

One might suspect America has forgotten its own story, today, living through its hypothetical self, reflecting through looking glasses of mass frequencies, having lost hold of its ferocity. But to evoke the America of dangerous mythology and survivor of plagues is to reclaim the Idea of America. The Idea is America as Rebel. The Idea is America as steadfast insurrectionary, rejecting the huddled shade of ruins in someone else’s kingdom. America in its infancy was baptized in waters of recklessness, refusing to submit to any one will save its own, wailing incessantly through dissonant clamor and gun powder. Its primary manuscript spat mutinous claims into the face of the dying king, declaring each and every one of its defenses along the way. America was and is and always shall be the insurgent son, even as mendacious father. It was for spite that America roared its rebel yell. This is both its infection and its excuse for forgetting.

America takes a short lunch because there is still a lot left to prove. The story didn’t end yesterday at the edges of the ocean, after America had spread into every crevasse and across each desert a bold new incentive for efficiency, after it had lay waste to incumbent cultures and bordering rivals, no, the story must persist with the same blind fortitude as is natural to its bloodline, so it means America can’t take a long lunch. America’s grandfather didn’t take long lunches in the middle of dodging bindlestiff thieves at transit camps or hammering stakes for a dollar a day, one pair of pants, one pair of shoes and two meals plus the weekly pouch of Bull Durham for rolling one’s own. The Idea is manifest in dirty fingernails, in time deposited and demanded for the story, in the sacrifice of days. And America knows the legacy of an era relies on the maintenance of worth, which in turn means that America must prove the almighty dollar again and again.

In any fraction of a second now America could strike it rich, fat filthy rich, and so after lunch there is talk of streamlining, focusing to targets and various formulas of sizing and sourcing, increasing and diminishing, all of which adds up to America growing stronger each day. The numbers are almost incalculably vast, the pie of far too infinite proportions for any one set of hands to grasp, and so America is forced to share and gamble, but only to help make it appear even. America rolls without fear and never shows its bluff while the game is being played, and it’s always being played in the afternoon. This is when America speaks. America deals gratification in fistfuls, stretching its dollar into fourth and fifth dimensions. It shaves off each corner of exchange, it puts names and operators into the air between hands, and the dollars multiply and multiply throughout vacuum regions of plastic indentations. Credit is America’s dangling carrot, its flashy promise of immediate delight drowning the coughs of rabbits deep in their holes, and the globe spins to chase this carrot because at the heart of mankind is a hole that needs filling and nobody fills it better than America. America knows how to give. So the entirety of afternoon’s zeal is dedicated to manufacturing and producing the right medicine, the right way, for the right holes to fill, and pouring without flinching until the flowing stops. America knocks off a few minutes early if things work out all right.

At home America demonstrates its abundance. It eats too much too quickly from places too faceless for reproach, and it throws away the scraps. It chooses from thousands of regularly scheduled programs. It lie dormant with stimuli, fatly tickled over the same seven melodies as the evening before, watching for its own face but never finding the perfect fit, unsure of its own skin. America could stand to sweat more often. Its tubes are filled with everything every day, things that held on too tightly, things that are repeated, and it tries madly to forget. It drinks to forget. It laughs to forget. It makes love to forget. And yet still, still, still there’s the hunger, the thirst, and the ever-emptying void, waiting for whatever is next. Maybe America is next, it thinks. Maybe just maybe there’s some space on that mountain face for my head, for me to be beholden. And so it watches itself and waits.

Approaching midnight, America tries in vain to reconcile cries of its millions upon millions of anguished faces, wearing eyes that have seen every place there is to stand or float, all asking why - why did you sell me down the river? Isn’t there any more to value? America tastes the bile soaked hulls of African ships, face down with shackled wrists, and it tastes the price of its money. It tastes the cruel staleness of the dying heart in paper. It smells leather searing through flesh, and it rolls from side to side, holding its stomach, trying to shake the truth away. There will be no reparations for some acts. Some sins will go unforgiven. The fool’s gold will only shine for so long, and on some distant tomorrow America will have its reckoning. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow will make up for it all. Yes, tomorrow, says America yes yes tomorrow yes.

posted by ZHorton at 1:01 PM | 1 comment(s)

Muzzle Discarded

At one point in time he was told, by someone who knew, that a writer who is young ought to write about youth. It’s the only thing anyone of that age has balance on and it’s the only intimacy, according to the person who knew. But the more he thought about what he knew, the less balance he felt on any subject, let alone his childhood. He hungered for ideas until he drowned in them. So many words that said everything. It dawned on him that he once had a dumb youth and he wanted it back. He wanted to push away the words, to relent into the safety of his fears, and to forget that he had ever heard anything in the first place.

Yet he wanted more than anything to testify, and his was a story of testament. His was the same blind story as anyone else’s, and he was as afraid to tell it as much as everyone was to hear it, because just like him they had thought the story was theirs alone. Needing testament and fearing it, eroding in the silence of passing days, this, he assumed, was the idea of the shared human experience. He read enough to know that words dictated the perpetuity of ideals, chiefly by being immune to the plagues and invasions of mortal blood. They did not fare well with fire, but their fiercest protectors were vigilant, and they were not limited to paper. It required a special brand of audacity to make permanent one’s own words, he reasoned, but only because he felt his own words were foolish. They did not merit permanence because he had seen nothing new.

All of those words had already been recorded, mostly, he felt, on the basis of imposition. Millions of people had already lived a million lives right where he lived now, just as desperate and inventive, and now they were barely ghosts because a myth of letters replaced their myth of voices and when they died their voices were extinguished, along with everything they forgot to say. And yet all around him he saw images of people in love with only one story, believing in only one book. They fought over exactly which one book that was, many without doing so much as choosing. Inevitably this made him wish to invoke a book against the nature of books. He would kill the words and they deserved to die.

He had made this adolescent proclamation, and shortly thereafter encountered that every assumption he had made about himself was wrong. He was no savior. He was an ordinary man, so pathetically ordinary that even his most transformative and lucid moments of transcendence were part of stories told before him, by other people, with their illusions in mind, funneled down through his ordinarily derivative ethos.

Now it was not just his own stories that were pointless, it was all stories, inasmuch as they were conceived by a person taking time to distort and plagiarize the unrepeatable, in his or her vernacular, sitting at a desk or chair or standing mightily over a dresser, removing both one’s self from the moment and the moment from the past in hope that both will be there in the future. Although he purported to be wary of the maxims of self-enlightened gurus, he often heard himself saying, “You can never be in the now and think you’re in the now at the same time,” and also, “He who speaks does not know, and he who knows does not speak.”

But he was speaking, spouting out underestimations when he got his turn, aching to profess his silent and eternal wisdom. He was no more or less loathsome than others his age, and he laughed enough to be liked, but the contradictions were multiplying. Inevitability has a way of sticking around, despite what you tell it.

By his own decree his last words were destined to be famous, and famous last words by definition were always aggressive finalities. No one ever responded with the trite saying, “Famous last words,” to someone that had a passive take on circumstances. He remembered hearing somewhere from someone, “There’s a fine line between assertion and idiocy,” but he often wondered exactly who was going to render his judgment – perhaps no one, and for a while he rationalized to say what he wanted to say and make testament his impulse. But that didn’t last. His ideals overreached his discipline, and so throughout his age of arrogance he said a lot of things he didn’t do.

One of his favorite quotes in the history of recorded speech was delivered by a madman named Salvador Dali, and it read – “The only difference between me and a madman is I am not a madman.” He liked this because he often felt himself at a great distance from his own madness, and far above the paralysis of its paranoia. Socializing was not his problem. It was revelation he feared and avoided, generally by laughing the voices away and pretending it was all right that everything important go unheard. Speaking in anecdotal circles, he grew nothing to be severed, and so with age he talked about less important things most of the time. The weather, the team, the job, the health. Safe things. And he hated himself for it.

Soon he lived a life he could barely bear witnessing. Just a perilously long list of tasks that he would never finish, rolling down into holes from which he would never again emerge. His life was worth about what he owed, and besides his creditors, he was the only one watching it happen.

And nobody read.
So why write?

It seemed better than just waiting around to die.

posted by ZHorton at 12:47 PM | 1 comment(s)