THE BLOOD BENEATH YOU

I tries to let go. "Listen, I'll let go," I told her,
"Just stop...stop wiggling about and give me some time
here. Just... Just."

She tries to yelp. She gets out "Miiiisttterrr!!!
You'd-" before I clamp my hand over her mouth. My
clammy hand clamped over her mouth. She says "Mumphuh,
fEEEEEEE wevvvvv wevvv guuuulll."

I don't. I wait. I wait. I wait a little longer. She
starts crying alittle bit now. Not sobbing, but tears
are coming out of her closed eyes. Her chest is
taking deep breathes in a short-short -short- looong
breathing pattern. She looks a lot like I used to
remember her, but obviously, a little older.

There are little claw marks on my arms, around my
wrists. Did I say claws? I meant fingers. Fingernails.
Fingernail marks on my wrists. That's what I meant.
She's wearing boots. They have buckles on them. I
guess they're half boots and half shoes. I dont know
what you would call them. I don't... I don't really
follow the fashions much.They're brown with the sewing
in yellow. It's funny that the sewing would be shown
like that. Like I said, I dont follow the fashions
much. She tried kicking out a few times. Tried to kick
me. Kick me hard.It was nice, it was a moment.It
reminded me of how we used to play together like this.
How we were both so competitive all the time. We've
both changed though, for the better. I'm more patient
now. Not so rushing rushing all the time, and she,
she's older. Bigger. Smarter.

I ask her if she's ready to be good. If she wants to
play our game. She opens her eyes.

We wait like this. Her eyes looking into mine. Mine
into hers. I sometimes see which eye she's using as
the dominant eye, and which is, which is the backup
eye. I follow that one and match it, so that she's
always looking into my best eye. I want her to know I
mean business.

It gets dark while we do this. Soon neither of us can
see the other's eye. Soon neither of us can see the
other. Soon neither of us can see.

She nods. I ask a question. Actually, I dont really
ask a question. I just say " ? ." and she nods again.
I think on this. I let the time slip by while I think
on this. I'm not going to fall for another trap like
last time. Like I said, she's gotten smarter.
"I'm gonna take my hand off your mouth. Okay?" That's
what I said to her. Thats what I said through the
darkness.

All the way through the darkness it got to her. It got
to heard. She nodded again. She nodded post heard.
I took my hand off her mouth. It made a sound. Like
sticky. Thats the sound it made- like sticky. Then
there was the sound of her sucking in and out the air.
Trying to get all the good air in and the bad air out.
I understood that she had to do that. She had just
been breathing in all that bad air. Why not? I let
her. I'm understanding.I understand her. I'm standing
over her.

Soon her breathing was regular. It was regular like
you and me breathing. Like the kind of breathing you
can't hear regularly.

"Greguh-"
"NO!"
"...Mister?"
"Yes?"
"Okay. What animal?"
"A frog."
"A frog?"
"Yes, a frog. Now, lets just... now put... good and
your...that's right. Knees up."

BB: whew, I broke a sweat up there.
DW: you break it you buy it.

ONE HISTORICAL QUESTION AND ONE HISTORICAL ANSWER
Q: where is Joe McCarhty buried?
A: The six wives of Henry the VII were: Catherine of
Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymor, Anne of Cleves,
Kathryn Howard, Catherine Parr.

RE:HOW ARE YOU DOING?
I am no longer human. I stare and stalk in a small
room, sweating toxic shock. I lie crippled, tongues
broken and half eaten. all words for sunshine erased
from vocabulary. at night I sleep with my glasses on
in order to see what threat shall approach me from the
staircase. my arms and legs are bent, hobbled gnarled,
my skin a light pale green -with a twist of smirking I
refer to as my spring colors. all is lost I feel all
is lost, the pleasure of erasure is not to be
considered.
damian.
fine. really fine.

1/2 sink + 1/2 elephant = sycophant

last night was weird, there was something in the air,
electricity and it was aimed at me, my flesh was all
goose pimples, and I saw shadows conspire towards my
person with harm on their minds. I walked home
constantly swirling, checking behind me for the
possible end of safety.

I walked home and felt it there too, I put a hammer by
my bed side. I read myself to sleep.

Names of Future Girlfriends:
Megan, Colleen, Natalia, Debra (I'll call her Debbie),
Heather, Lynne, Penny, Angela, Andrea(not the one I
already had, a different one) Patricia, Elizabeth,
Janet, Kelly, Rachel, Marsha, Denise, Heidi, Caroline,
Marilyn Gaudiot , Claire, Wendy, Cherylynne. -I'll
never marry. Some girl out there is always waiting for
me.

MI FAMILIA

+ It took six months for my mother to die. By then we
were relieved ... we had lost patience for her and
her antics after the first two attempts.
+ My father, calling me from the hospital, two cell
phones sparkling and crackling between each other,
says "I tried. I mean... you... of all people...
you...should (um) you should know I'm not... not
perfect." -Is he apologizing? I wonder.
+ My brother says "Its not my decision. She chose to
leave." I ask if he's angry and he says "Yes."
+ At the hospital, my mother shows us that she can get
the Pay-Per-View channels for free. "Look," she says,
" Look, I can get the in-between channels."
+After her death the name of her disease is destroyed,
burned away, from conversation.

FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PURPOSES:
1) My father was a carpenter, he did interior
renovations.
2) My brother is an Editor,
2a) He Edwards
3) My mother was a home wrecker.

UNCLE RON
My uncle had a lazy eye. In fact everything about
him was lazy. He was so lazy he married a pregnant
woman.

NEW STORY
She was whiter than the whitest white of white.
You saw her then? At what point?
When she hit my windshield.
Well, you, you hit her with your
windshield. Technically.
Yeah. But listen she just came out of nowhere... and
time... it slowed. It slowed right down. I could...
details. I remember them. But was helpless against any
intervention. The machinations of my body wouldn't
catch up with. They. I... couldn't.
Adrenaline.
Adrenaline? Yes, adrenaline.
He writes it down. He looks again towards the scene.
The car there- where, when it stopped. He looks
alongside the road, sandwiched between forest foliage
fauna. He watches his colleagues combing through the
underbrush. He sees them photographing the automobile,
the glass, the outline of the body. The body still
covered. He watches the system of men at work,
collecting to analyze, immune to the ethereal romance
of early morning steam coming off the road. Immune to
the body, the person who was once that body. He tries
to remember when it was that he stopped seeing people
and saw only bodies.
You ever fire that thing?
What?
You ever, he points, you ever?
I've drawn my gun.
You ever killed anyone?
I've never fired this while on duty. No.
Oh. Never shot anybody? He asks, not wanting to be
disappointed.
He looks now at this man. This young man, his hairline
receding while scratches of hair form under his chin.
He is wearing overalls, paint spattered onto them.
Mostly white. The truck is business owned. The
business is father owned. This young man on his way to
a job. On his way from his job, home? He's already
asked this and looks through his pad to see what the
answer was.
Cruller, huh? Like the donut.
Not Crueller, Kruller.
Bet you've gotten ribbed about that. Cop with a donut
name?
Kruller retracts himself behind his eyes, he counts to
a slow fifteen, he lets the question sink away like
sick puppies in weighted sacks.
No, no one's ever put those two together.

G
I'm in the middle of the forest. I'm breathing the
entire forest. I'm sinking in its moss, I am sweating
its dew. I'm in the middle of the forest.

I stare. Awake. I stay awake. I am trying to break
everything down to its most basic form. I am watching.
I am waiting. Patterns emerge. The language of
patterns, Language is Patterns. Communication. At its
most basic level. Cells. Molecules. Neurons. Electrons
firing. All talking. All agreeing. All in unison. This
is the pattern of all things. This is my study. Cause
effect. Communication. The wind blows, the leaves
move. The wind blows, through my hair. A rabbit runs
across the floor of this forest. In its foot prints
released dew collects. I'm closing my eyes. I want to
see everything naked, basic, explained through its
nudity. I want to understand this place. Microcosm.
Macrocosm of language.

I want to explain myself. I want to understand myself.
I want to see how others see me. I want to understand
this. I want to see what it is you are made of. Don't
move. Please. Don't move.

HENRY
Cold flashes. The green spinning. Lines connecting.
Swirling disparate. Her face. Singular. Focused.
Stomach tightens. Her face is concentrated. Everything
is firing at once. His body seizes. Overload of
demands. His mind is already configuring how to avoid
hitting her. It is trying to figure out how not to
endanger himself, and back there, way in the back, he
can hear his own worry about the damage to his
father's truck. His body fails his mind. It has
atrophied. The only thing opening is his pores. He can
feel the burn. It runs from his neck. It covers his
face. He hears the sound of her body and now. Hitting.
Hit. And now. She's coming close to him. He see her
approach slow motion. Her face is so white. He has
never seen such a white. The green of the trees. Her
face. He sees it now. Her right hand. Dragging along
the hood. Is it making a sound? Did it make a sound?
Her hand on the hood? Is he making this sound now?
Post hit. Is he making this all up now or was the
collection so thick so dense he couldn't process it
then? He see her eyes now. Wide. Not surprised.
Resigned. Fearful but not of him. Not of his father's
truck. Fear. Palpable. The upper right of the truck's
hood. That's where she was coming up from. Right
there. The left hand is raised. That hand is slow. It
is covering her heart. Her breast. It wants to cover
her face. She instead, is pledging. Nail polish. Red.
Nails- short, close cut. Sweater black tear in upper
right shoulder. What is this voice. Is this his voice
listing the details? Is this his voice cataloging
details? Who is he doing this for? Her face. He knows
her. He knew her. It explodes, her face, on his
windshield. He sees this. Where the breakaway glass
spider webs from her face. It looks like she is
holding her breathe under water. That's how he sees
it. Like someone, her, holding her breathe underwater.
Her hand. The right one. Now comes up. Punches the
windshield. Her legs. Are. They are folding her in
half. Black jeans. Dark boots. They are folding in
half now and now she is disappeared and he hears
sounds. Small explosions that track her. Now she's
overhead. Now she is behind him. His eyes catch a
flutter in the rear view mirror. The sound is coming
back. The sound of the rest of the world is coming
back and his ear drums are exploding. He hears the
whistle of air from his mouth. He is sucking all the
air of the world into himself. He hears the wheels
against the road, the brake pads against the wheel. He
hears everything, he hears his pores open. He hears
sweat pouring out of him. He waits. He waits until the
density of information translates itself into what has
just occurred.

He opens the door. The car rolls forward; he closes
the door and puts the park brake on. He reopens the
door.

He steps out and looks back at her. What was her name?
He knows her. Her name is Maggie. He knows this. He
went to school with her. He told her she looked like
Christina Ricci once. She rolled her eyes then.

He reopens the car door, from the outside now. He
reaches inside, reaches across the seat. He opens the
glove box. He is, in his head still making a list of
everything he is doing. He doesn't know why. He can
hear his own voice in third person. Doing this. He
makes two calls.

He waits for them to come. The police, his second
call. His father, his first call. He walks over to
her. She is, how far is she? He looks. He measures. He
walks towards her counting yards a step. He looks at
her body and the pool of blood softly running out of
her. He stays... four yards/footsteps away. He wants
to change her, move her, he doesn't want anyone to see
her like this, bent the way no body should be bent.
Smashed into the pavement. He stands here, making sure
no other vehicle will desecrate her.

He talks to four different police officers. He is
robotic. He notes their tonalities. He isn't sure what
the questions are. He isn't sure if they are asking
him questions, he knows he is giving answers though.
He is listing things for them. He is describing
colors, he is using his hands and officers are at
turns sympathetic, professional. Some of them write
something down. Others just looks at him. Is he
speaking? Can he be understood?

He is erasing everything from his mind, he is turning
it away. They have covered her now, and he in turn is
covering the memory of her now. He is thinking about
what he has to do today, what he has done yesterday.
He is concentrating heavily on these two tenses of
time, before- after, he is squeezing out the middle
section - the now, presently. He is. His father is
standing over there talking to a police officer. He is
squeezing this all out of him, he is sweating the
present tense away. Detective Kruller stands beside
him, hands him his identification, his insurance card,
and a business card. 'Detective Kruller' it says on
the card. The card is bone white.
She was whiter than the whitest white of white he
tells the detective.

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