Friday, February 27, 2009

Breakfast.

David and Francine are in the kitchen. It is a nice suburban looking kitchen. They are young. The sun is bright through the windows and the colors are just lovely. David is reading the newspaper drinking a beverage. Francine takes something in Tupperware out of the refrigerator, she opens it, looks at it, walks over to the microwave and puts it in. She turns around. Looking at him. Leaning against the counters. She is wearing a dress.
Francine: You know, I’m pretty sure I do hate you... I don’t know. Yeah. I think probably I do.
David: Glances at her over the paper. Well.
Francine: Remaining still and calm. Standing. Looking at him. Really David. I want to kill you. Whenever you’re asleep... I just-- I literally want to end your life right there. Like... I... I don’t know.
David: Drops the paper to the table. What the fuck. That’s fucking sick Francine.
Francine: I just thought I would tell you, you know, so you could like... I don’t know.
David: Fuck. Are you serious right now?
Francine: You don’t have to be so coarse David.
David: Well what the fuck am I supposed to say Francine?
Francine: I really don’t know.
David: Why don’t you just fucking leave then. My God.
Francine: This is my home too David, I don’t think I should have to leave it just because of you.
David: Because of me? Me? Well I fucking shouldn’t have to live here in goddamned fear of my life.
Francine: David. Please.
David: Up. Upset. Fuck you Francine. Seriously what the fuck?
Francine: Can’t we just talk about this, please. Let’s just talk.
David: Talk? Maybe we should have-- have fucking talked when you were only thinking about... about... Fuck! Francine! Fuck!
Francine: You’re telling me you don’t understand. Even a little bit. At all?
David: No! No!No!No!No!No! Fuck! Francine!
Francine: I will not be talked to like that.
David: You-- what? What!
Francine: Settle down David, for heaven’s sake, you’re behaving like a child.
David: Puts his hand through the window. He must have cut himself because there is an awful lot of blood. Oh God. Oh my God. Oh God. Oh Lord. Oh God. Francine, I broke the window Francine. I--I broke the window with my hand and I think I cut my wrist oh my God. Francine my wrist is bleeding a fucking lot. Francine.
Francine takes out a pack of cigarettes. She draws one out lights it with a match, inhales deeply, exhales, tilts her head, frowns.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

I am my own grandpaw

My grandfather was a Jazz musician and a contract killer. When I was six years old I spent the summer traveling around northern Iowa with him. I saw him kill seventeen communist potato farmers and a Canadian pimp. That summer had a profound impact on me. When I was thirteen he introduced me to Dave Brubeck. When I was twenty he was arrested. When I was twenty-six he was put to death at a federal prison in Kentucky. My mother attended his execution but not his funeral. My sister attended his funeral but did not cry. Dave Brubeck cried at the funeral and got drunk at the wake. My grandfather had killed some fifty people and recorded three gold records. After he died a reporter from the New York Times Arts and Entertainment section came to my house to interview me. I slept with her. It could have been better. As a child I had always admired my grandfather though I never committed a murder or a song to magnetic tape. I did however burn down a hotel for money once. I guess it all wasn’t wasted.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

No Sleep Haiku

Mutherfucker
I been up for two days
The cricket, he weep

Both Versions Are Angry With Me Now

There is a statue of my grandfather in the park,
across the street from my apartment.
When I am drunk he looks quite angry.
When I am drunk he brandishes his gun at me.
This is why I have to get drunk only in the kitchen,
which has no windows overlooking the park.

I have, on occasion, come to an abrupt consciousness
standing in the park yelling obscene things at this statue.
This has never happened
with the version of my grandfather that is not made out of metal,
with the version that is made out of skin.
I have never yelled at that one.

Nor have I ever been arrested
for shooting at the fleshy version of my grandfather
with a riffle
from the rooftop of my apartment building.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Radio Man

The man had a simple mind. He was not a good man and in his best moments, in his very brightest moments, he knew it. But, of course, this knowledge served only as more fuel for the fear which was the foundation of his simplicity. Was the agar from which his foul vitriol did spring. He had been cowering since childhood and so cultivated a sense of bitter and smug cynicism which he used to mask his crippling inadequacies. As a young man he had been wholly unremarkable, mediocre. In college he did poorly because he had little desire to learn or to think critically or deeply. Bizarrely he acted as though superior to his peers. Those who knew him and disliked him found him to be oppressively smug and somewhat allergic to reason. If ever an opinion was expressed in his presence which did not immediately appeal to his base fears, which did not engage his malformed id, he reacted with blunt incredulity. Those similarly crippled by fear and without a desire to think too much found him magnetic and even charming. They listened to him spout his uninformed opinions night and day. Drunk on their admiration he managed to talk his way into a radio show on the college station. His audience grew, beginning to fill a void inside of him. When he flunked out of college a local radio-station stood ready and waiting to continue broadcasting his brand of fear-based anit-thought, which had already won favor with the local lemmings. In a few short years his listener-base had expanded to include almost every frightened, thought-starved person in the country. He soothed his listeners by whispering to them hatred of the other on their way home from work each evening. He numbed the masses in an increasingly desperate attempt to numb himself. For with each passing year a voice in his head which whispered but one word grew increasingly louder. Fraud. Fraud. Fraud. He got meaner. Fraud. He grew more cynical. Fraud. He grew more frightened. Fraud. He started to slip into desperate self-parody. The voice roared. Fraud, fraud, fraud. When his own voice could no longer drown it out he turned to drugs and when they found out about the drugs and made him stop he just grew decidedly simpler. Unconsciously he broke his mind, ridding it of any critical thought. The voice grew faint again. He found that the more he dumbed down his words the easier it was to sleep. And so he continued to whisper hate into the hearts of his listeners, slowly, steadily, grinding his brain to a halt.