hypodermic boulevard

juggling ice with buttered hands it’s how we it’s what we do because in traffic, I rode behind one slow lamming through the gnats like silent dull bangs his tail to my nose as he drives too slow i lay back smoking it and I forget for a second, the rats and race and cracked dead slate turtle shells and drift away into the wisps of mallows seed and the one behind me makes me push. rear view and double yellow left and isn't that how we do isn't that what we are are? Just hate and push the one in front of us and hate and block the one in back of us who would but for some peering tasteless gas lay waste and cancel the one in front and isn't that just what we do? juggling butter in frozen marshland hands in wasteland mind in chains the continuing host for the evolution of the viruses juggling ice-brain waste caves in spent sharp rigs, and birthday cake cans and cigarettes. hypodermic boulevard and the late late shock./ the setting sequined supper of the sixth great extinction. standing behind me; some thing pushes me to push the thing in front of me and that is what a human does to life. what we do, we are.

'why i love golf' from "The Anatomy Of Vines Letters"

Sometime around the end of 2002 I began cultivating a seemingly unnecessary yet vigorous hatred for all things Pennsylvania and/or Ohio. It was pretty easy to get into the pattern I guess, all summer long here it’s one after another. On the road, in the stores, the beaches, public restrooms, next to me at the bar of the only god damned steak house worth eating at in Kill Devil Hills...bumping me; smelling of too much cologne, solarcaine, and naiveté as they lean in on my space, seeking cheap, piss American beers or "rum and diet’s.” Maybe it is also the fact that every morning as they walk by, searching for our shop, their big arms embracing gallons of soft drinks, pretzels, cheese balls, chips of all known sorts, and snacks only found in the darkest regions of the Midwest, and cheerios, for their stupid, fat, lost little babies, most of them have no idea what they are even signed up for. Being naturally more inclined to the finer pursuits in life, like seeing to it that unelectable morons get the fix in, via brainwashing steamroller back home, in Jesus' name, or shuttling back and forth to and from the Norfolk airport to hand out bibles to the Arabs getting off the planes to show that there's " no hard feelings for them that came and blew us up on 9.11", and trying to find the coupon for that shuttle in the Corolla Visitors Guide, completely oblivious to the fact that every time one of them flushes a rented toilet, or drives an automobile at 34 mph in a 45 mph zone for more than five minutes, an angel named Self Reliance is lobotomized in a back alley for want of a sanitary stem cell research facility, maybe. Maybe it is the fact that all of these cretins remind me of a stubby little Ohio born and Pittsburgh raised kid who I will only refer to this once as CJM, and after this as "it" or "the it". It met me sometime in the '95 or '96 period of my beach existence, during the "Jihad" era when I lived with Roots on Ocean Acres. It shared a dank bottom floor dwelling with another similar creature of similar circumstance. It preferred to live in the woods, having had what I think was a bad "magic" mushroom experience, coupled by the unwelcome advances of another little fella who must have misinterpreted his aloofness as homosexual signals....anyway, the it liked to live outside. Maybe the fact that our reggae band would swell between seven and twelve members, depending on who showed up with a drum on any given occasion, and it, being the last and the least in rhythm to show up, things started out rocky at best. When I came up in the Norfolk scene, young, wet, stupid and full of myself, there were very real human walls that would remind me and the other grommets of our place, but not down here at "Camp Jihad". No, down here, all you had to do was "want to", and even the slightest of dust particles could feign stardom, illuminated in the musical explosion from us few. "Jihad" moved to Asheville in December 1997. I will never forget the day. I left the beach early, sunrise. The drive took us west on 64 through the Alligator River Wildlife Refuge, along the sides of ditches and canals. There had just been an ice storm and everything around me was frozen and still. The trees, stripped bare months before by Autumn and the preparations for more future road, the telephone poles and wires, the dead marshes and the mud, all encased in a fine and fragile shimmer. Everything covered in a dusting of white. I had dicked around with heroin enough back in September to make the better half of October indescribably soul wrenching and unforgettable. I wouldn't call it a turning point by any stretch, or a life changing experience of any type. But it was the first and only time I have ever considered the weight of the word dependency. That word is cold, ugly, inarguable and repetitive. Before August 1997 I had never tried "drugs". Well, I had popped plenty different kinds of pills, acid, mushrooms, pot, mescaline and well no, that's it I think, but never coke or heroin. In the time from August to October I had now tried it all. I learned that heroin made me feel really, really good...and that coke, well that was what made Jenny feel really, really good. I thought Jenny was gorgeous. She had a boyfriend, but we worked together and enjoyed hanging out. I knew there was nothing there, but I guess I had some sort of need to rescue her or some shit. We came to know each other about the same time the drugs came to know me. They were just a vehicle; it turns out, Jenny and the drugs. They drove me up to the big screen, showed me pretty, and showed me ugly. I met Jenny sometime in the early summer that year, and three days before I drove away from that incestuous frozen wonderland, Jenny died. It was just another stupid thing. One person can change the world if he or she tries, but five or six casual junkies working together to kick dope can't change a fucking light bulb. They just may manage however, in some cases to move mountains of grief right onto the heads and hearts of mothers and fathers like Jenny's. I drove away from that beach with the Duster loaded up to the roof, three FAT spliffs of good green herb ready to go, and eight hours between then and where ever the fuck "now" was going to be next. By the time I reached the other side of Roanoke Island, there on the bridge, a nice warm air from that '73 Plymouth's heater mixed with the frozen ghosts of the swamp which crept in through my cracked windows as I exhaled a Kentucky frost. Behind me, a large boom box rested atop a stack of pillows and comforters. I turned it up and pressed the gas, the Congos singing in beautiful harmony "early in the morning, I'm up with the morning sun, it's a good, good, good day". Between 1989 and 1997 I had been in four bands, worked at countless restaurants, had a few girlfriends worth forgetting and had narrowed down the list of people whom I could trust to fewer than the number of fingers on one hand. And then there was Asheville, and THE restaurant, my restaurant. That was my first marriage to end in divorce; my marriage to it, a marriage to” the” it. I would pick up a few tattoos along the way, as well as what would later be settled upon as $54,000 worth of debt, to it. The long and short of it goes like this. We were living together on Beaverdam. There are many references to this place in the Asheville poems. One of the bars in town was flirting with the idea of installing a food vendor ship sort of arrangement. It and me figured that for a relatively low cost we could set up a nice little hustle and PRESTO, -music studio funding! That bar didn't work out, but we got into another discussion with another bar, five grand turned into fifteen, into fifty and so on. Yamama's Snaqueria was born, in August 2001. It started out pretty well. I got great reviews, regular clientele, but never enough to pay any of the bills. I had figured on needing a minimum of about $150- a day to stay open, and we were lucky most days to see fifty. To make things worse, we had fronted around $20,000- to the owners of the club we went into, for the renovations inside. In effect, we gave them tax free money to build with, and then built it for them, with money we were paying taxes and interest on. But I guess being young, sort of lazy, overzealous and naive got many fools like me into situations like mine. I remember the day that I told it that I was near done, and that the hardest part was knowing that the price for my freedom from that dream turned nightmare, would include the ruin of my relationships with the many loved souls who had helped and nurtured me along the better of the journey of the last ten years of my "professional" life. A month later I closed the doors. I woke one morning in the back of my Isuzu Trooper. I went to the house on Beaverdam and packed all I could into the truck. I left so many wonderful and dear possessions at that house. I also left a storage shed full of everything I had saved since childhood, having no money to pay the lady that held them. I left Pete sitting on a concrete curb outside Vincent's Ear early one Sunday morning. I went by the Grey Eagle, where Yamama's now was poised to "have once" been, took the few dozen dollars from the cash register, and a big German stein, glass, and full of change. I still have that. I drove back towards the beaches, only it was hot there now, not frozen. My head pounded from all the Jack Daniels and guilt. I felt like I did back when I ran away from home at 17. I didn't feel warm, not safe, not justified. I felt like someone who had just ripped off a family, but had done so to avoid jumping into a volcano. I did not know at all what I would find to do for money, all I knew was I would not find that money in a kitchen. I thought about Rick and Pam, and of the wild horses I had never seen, and that seemed like fun, but also like a foolish and selfish daydream. I couldn't think of deserving any reward for the achievements of the last five years, only of finding a place to stop, and lay down, until the rest of it all would. I had driven away from that beach in the wake of the death of a flower. A frozen world had stopped to watch me as I drove out and past and I took with me lessons which apparently followed the blue gray wisps of escape and Xanadu right out of my grandma's unrolled window. Somewhere during all of that I took up golf. I loved it right off. I always approached golf and that golf world really, with a healthy dose of caution. Those types of people and that breed of success was surely where my grandfather would have fallen short, chosen the shotgun. And me, long knotty hair, hand me down clothes and inappropriate shoes, I just look like trouble to them, most of them anyway. But this seems a good place for me really. I was in, but not in the picture. I am not a chef, nor a musician, although I have been pretty impressive in both sets of clothes. I am not a skateboarder, not a salesman, not a lion or lamb. I am nothing more than a good mimic. A shy kid that used to get his ass kicked around the playground, until one day discovering how easy it really is to keep all of that hell at bay. I learned pretty early on I suppose that most of the herd around us is pretty easy to manipulate, to manage, negotiate. This came as welcome change. I mentioned before that I was never the chief decision maker in my life, more comfortable fitting in with the plans of those I favor. It wasn't until I began realizing how very unhappy and angry I was, and for seemingly no apparent reason that I began to cast off the false sense of protection found in those friendships and really be who I wanted to be. This is why even today I find it so very hard to empathize with those who want pity for the woes of their own making. I have created my own hell several times over, and I have walked through it alone. I came to realize that no matter how hard someone may be suffering as a result of my actions, I am suffering ten times as hard, as THE CREATOR of that suffering, and being ultimately without the ability to forgive myself, and seeing in most cases no readiness to forgive from the other sides, so I walk on. But golf is what I wanted to address, and why I enjoy, or pursue it. I need all of that rambling above to do so, and will add a little more as well. Since I began this game, just like in the game of golf, I have been outmatched, ill prepared. On the course I may not always have been able to afford to keep up with the fashion, or my ball. Most of the people I play golf with are and will continue being exceedingly more skilled than me. I can accept that, it is the privilege from whence the opportunities arise for those skills to be honed by those few, would be contemptuous critics of mine where I find the object of my disdain. And the big funny cosmic truth of all this shit is that I am not programmed for hate. I am a being of love, forced into girding by the evils in this beautiful, yet unattended garden. My whole thing against Pennsyltucky, it all stems from my attachment to it, the it, and its family, a brother with whom I haven't spoken since, that I really loved. I fucked up while in charge, well joint charge of a lot of their money. I failed as a businessman. I have lived seven years in the shadow of that knowledge, and six under the terms binding in a civil suit levied by it, and never protested. I offered on record at the tribunal, no it present, only a lawyer and officer of the court, my heartfelt apologies for any harm or hardships coming to that family as a result of them believing in me, and helping me to try and realize a goal. The entire proceeding took seven minutes. I was driven the eight hours to get there and I wore borrowed clothes. I have always played golf in hopes of someday whipping the shit out of someone with better clothes, more money, a nicer car, more talent and an easier lot in life than I think I have. I must acknowledge that I could be way off in my snap evaluations of would be competitors; it isn't nice really to generalize. And I must also note that the only reason I focus my hate, scorn, whatever you might call this on good simple people is rooted deeply in my hatred of something I see of myself in them, or something lacking. Perhaps I find a strange jealousy of their blissful blank stares, ravenous appetites for empty caloried experiences, vanilla, or chocolate. Most of the world anymore, is allergic to strawberry, imagine that. But yesterday, I went and played golf with three very nice people from Ohio. Nick, the father, Adam and Matt, one of whom said nothing to me the whole time. He was really good, they all were actually. After the front I was at five over, one better than Adam, three better than dad, and tied not only with Matt, but with my personal best score for nine holes. This is where I usually fall apart, over think it and I almost did. I started all right with a par on number ten, then double bogeys on eleven and twelve. Now I'm playing golf I thought to myself, four over in two holes. Then a par on thirteen, I noticed Matt getting a little more tense, as I just got quiet. A sandy par on fourteen, a par three, then thirty foot birdie putt made on fifteen, three over now, three to play. I'm adding all the numbers in my head, where I might be if I par this, bogey that....then pars on sixteen and seventeen. Seventeen, again out of the sand, on a 185 yard par three over a lake a guy suicided in, later for that one. Matt had given up at this point, and the others were by now enjoying beer, and the beauty of a late afternoon in Currituck County fall. I hit the eighteenth green in regulation, and tapped in a three foot birdie to go three over on the back. 38. My previous best was 83, and it has been a couple of years. I walked away yesterday with a 79 in my pocket. I broke 80. Talk to any golfer, they will all tell you that's a major milestone for most, who only care about golf. For me, it was the product of thirty five or so years of growth, from the scared kid on the school playground to the now unpublished author who just about knows why everything has always been so goofy, so certain, even in times of uncertainty. I got to play golf with three perfect strangers, who I imagine, held a fairly low opinion of me at first glance, and I beat the shit out of them. The quiet one, Matt, shook my hand and said "good round". "You too brother..." I trailed off as we broke away from the day. I had won and maybe for the first time in my life.

"an impressionistic work of autobiographical fiction"

‘impressions about the book’ “Warehoused: The Plight of The 21st Century Working Poor” is an autobiographical effort by Peter Graves Roberts. In “Warehoused” Roberts explores the process of a middle aged mind, bending to accept the consequence of choices made by a younger man. The main character Peter Butler, takes us on a narrative journey through several week’s work as a part time laborer for a large kite company in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The story begins as arthritis stricken Butler accepts punishing warehouse work in order to achieve a more secured and desirable job. A stumble into a warehouse full of faces with stories quickly turns into an introspective and prophetic take on the connection between a failing American economy and a shift in the balance of the global economy. Along the way Butler deals with the emotional tax of an ailing mother, lucid nightmares, and the task of holding it all together as a clinically depressed husband and father. In the end, on the waterfront at a childhood friend’s house, in an epiphytic and philosophical trance the two discuss the weight of a looming stock market crash and subsequent reversal of the American role of importer to exporter while the rest of the world looks to us as the producers of cheap, toxic consumables. In the last scene, thoughts on killing a Mallard for meat and the wasted time therein leads to reflection upon a time when such practice was the day’s work, and a solemn realization and acceptance that the work of today’s human is hollow and without any real reward .

nearly completed work.

Sometimes Even A Cabana Boy gets what he needs… Warehoused/One I live in paradise. The radio tells me that at least. Every time I go anywhere in the old Ford, the disc jockeys, the car salesmen, the mini-golf courses, the restaurant owners, the blood drives, the marathons and half marathons, the people that talk like pirates, the liquor sellers and the hammock makers, the sweet sounding nearly English-literate foreign exchange girls from Belarus remind me with their script spoken public service announcements about walking and bicycle safety that we live in a tourism driven paradise. The drivers doing ten miles below post in front of me for half the year really nail it home. The “OBX”, as my home is called, or the Outer Banks of North Carolina, is paradise to all of these trinkets pushers, tricksters and trade workers. When I was just nineteen and had just moved to town iconic oyster bars built on cocaine money and broken toilet dive bars, crooked piers with crooked pool tables were the order of the day for our teenage turnout to the life on this sandbar, after burning down the suburbs of southeastern Virginia. I moved here in 1989, and by 1995 a man that made his loot at three hundred bucks a night working one of those oyster bars had already opened his own restaurant, created that brand “OBX” which has become synonymous with my home of today, while in 1995 we were too busy smoking pot and chanting down the system to give a rat’s ass about saving anything, or opening our own mail, let alone businesses. We drank, we smoked, and we skated. We also played in bands and listened to music. I have been unemployed for about eight months now. This hasn’t really bothered me, but it has put strains on the matters domestic. Two days ago after answering another handful of advertisements for employment I got a call back. A man called me to be a ‘cabana boy’, or at least that is the humorously derogatory term I attached to my own short summarization of this job. The man had let on very little, other than instead of simply dropping off rental furniture at vacation palaces we would instead be in the line of setting up said furniture. Chairs and umbrellas were mentioned. I was to call him and meet yesterday, but as a house was being moved down the road by my cave, traffic was awful, so after exchanging telephone calls all day I had gleaned two things from this potential employer; first, he talked to me so much that instead of entertaining formality and protocol he was fine with me just showing up tomorrow at a local convenience store for paperwork and ‘umbrella set-up training’ between two and eight p.m., and second; he was a very busy man who was in the business of several types and was very much dependent on mindless, disposable help, like many of those very cute Russian summer school kids. I like those kids, and was even into the mindlessness of this position, it’s certain low pay and bunkhouse lifestyle, but as a husband and father of two young daughters, I knew it would be no permanent solution. Nevertheless, I figured, why not give it a go? This morning one telephone call changed all of that. Now I don’t know for sure if it is just my natural resistance to work of any type at this point or the sheer horror that lurked behind the voice and perceived intentions of the man on the phone about the cabana boy thing, but something in his tone led me down the dark and winding tunnel of my mind and it’s memory of a telemarketing job I got into around age nineteen, after answering an ad for concert promotions. I would say that yes, this is probably the sense that turned me the most to instead call the HR, or human resources department of a local company with which I had filed applications frequently and recently as well. Feeling a shaky security I was inclined to jump back in the bed after my wife and kids split the digs around 9:30 to be participants. I instead called a nice woman who I only knew by name, recorded voice and extension number. Much to my very real surprise she called me back this morning, quickly and in a timely fashion. We discussed the issue of the physical application, which she assured me she had not received. She also said that she would put me to work tomorrow if she only had the application. After a moment or so discussing skills and other details, she said that although she could probably use me elsewhere in the operation, that right now she was desperate for warehouse workers and asked if I would be interested in taking that while the other stuff shook out. To be honest, whether she had any valid intentions of ever moving me on I didn’t care, I was happy with the idea of another brainless, yet more stable job, perhaps year round, and with benefits. I assured her that by lunch time I would have that application in her hand. I went to the computer, found one, printed it up, attached a copy of my resume and references along with a photocopy of my Social Security card and Driver’s License for good measure and out the door I went, looking for the warehouse on Lake Drive, Building M. I walked out to the Ford, popped the hood and connected the battery. I got in, started her up and reset the radio to my station. There was a Rolling Stones song playing as I looked North on Highway 12 past my mailbox and into the coming traffic, and gunning it, I started smiling and singing along with them, “you can’t…always get what you want.” Now this may be the most played Stones song ever, and arguably not in my top ten really, but for some reason it made me feel good. Maybe the fact that for twenty five years I have been repeating that old saying that “you should never just go for the money, you should do what makes you happy…” thing, and every time I found myself here before, I let the walls close in, the walls that weren’t even there. I failed the test of the life and practice of that almost paradoxical cliché. I had a near miss last week when almost being hired at a restaurant. I didn’t want the job, but my family needs money; ‘nothing else matters’ became the shorter mantra regarding daily thoughts of employment, and easier to see, on the dashboard, forget any horizon. Now when that song sang “she was practiced at the art of deception”something righteous and clearly shining blue pierced my epiphanic inner eye, I was aware of the umbrella man, and I knew why I was going where I was. Something, somehow had worked, and all I had to do was show up. As the hammers slammed on steel strings in a downward flowing and fallen drag, and the choir began to soar, I gunned her harder, and smiled along, nodding it seemed. “-But if you try some time, well you might find”, and Bang! I knew it all and nothing again. As the end faded out too soon it seemed, I almost began a frown until the Kinks brought Lola in. Okay I thought, by now I was equating every lyric and chord of what would be next as a divine message, and I was tuned in, scrutinizing humanly, ready to turn off the flow at anytime. With all that said I lost my train of thought for a moment looking for the warehouse and left the music. It was short and easy enough. I found my door. A man was looking at me when I walked away from my car. Asking if it was cool to park there a minute, I assured the dude that I would be right back that I was just dropping off.“Well, if it’s only gonna be a minute,” he sort of groaned, “’cause I think that’s someone’s space.” I said, “Thanks man, I swear” as I stepped off, Ford still open and on. I saw the lady, there was a meeting, and I dropped off my stuff. After acknowledgements and mentions of thanks, other pleasantries were mutually and understandably forgone as I bid her good afternoon, “I am going to my house,” I blurted, a bit stuttered and dumb, as if I meant to convey that I knew I wasn’t needed immediately, or shortly, but not really. I got back in the car. Comfortably Numb was playing, Pink Floyd, if you don’t know. I slid past the sandy colored stubble of surfer kids bending metals and machinists and machine drivers and workers in the street on my way to the big road, before I turned left to go home, and to that guitar solo. I shut up and went left as I needed to while the song made me understand the security I just bartered for, what I was giving, and what it meant to be nearing summer here, and my seasonably employed structure remaining motionless really. That is how I thought as I drove past three of them; probably from Bulgaria…two regulars, quirky, and then the post-always, grey third wearing her skull print hose and skin tight hot pink fake leather mini-dress. Nineteen and eighty seven was showing as I just drove on past, the hot road’s focus. As I inched towards home, in and out of the sluggish guests Bob Segar came on the box; Against The Wind, “aww shit, I thought” even though I liked it when I was young and had it in a very small collection of forty fives including The One That You Love from Air Supply and Coming To America by Neil Diamond. To be fair I had Convoy as well, from the movie, I am too lazy to remember the artist right now. The chorus sounds like a Glee Club now, but I thought it was pretty tough back then. Funny, after all of this cleared my mind he sang the line “breaking all of the rules that would bend”, or at least if that isn’t what the song says, it damned well should, because I had the reason now for that song in the mix. Just about the time I climbed down from my musical high horse The Cars brought about the reprise of my smile and a volume hike. My Best Friends Girlfriend started in slowly with that early eighties reggae muffled delayed pick and electric hands clapping. “She always dances down the street with her suede blue eyes…” Cars got out of my way of their own volition, the road opened on that home stretch and nearing my house doing around ten to fifteen above the limit I vowed to get home with the set completed there, in that perfect sonic moment. I drove now on the incoming half of our two-lane road, a hundred yards from my house, landing gear down and air brakes applied, finger on the stereo button in case something horrible came on, like Jimmy Buffett or a Toyota commercial. Fittingly, as I slid in home, Creedence came in with Have You Ever Seen the Rain? I felt thankful for my two new shoes up front and my ability to hold the road now as I sat there, feeling the boil of the old neglected radiator. I smelled the brakes as I sang the first two verses, just being there, me in the Ford. At least the radio in that old heap hasn’t gone out on me. I love my music. I love the music for the people it reminds me of; I love it for those places. I shut her off halfway through, before the second chorus, plenty of song to go, but I wanted to tell all of you about this. I drove around blind with a purpose. I found my turns and my way was clear, and the music was beside me, and not only singing to me, but making me understand the whole time, what I cannot understand; why I can never understand. Oh, and Convoy is what would be referred to as a ‘novelty song’ from 1975. It was the title of a movie and soundtrack sung by C.W. McCall. C.W. McCall is a pseudonym of Bill Fries. I never knew the man or the legend, but I saw the movie and I had that forty five. I mentioned it earlier, I was just reminding you. I was a kid back then too, in 1975. Cabana Boy Warehoused/One The existence of every creature depends upon its ability to not only fool another into thinking that it is smarter than its predator, but necessary for its gain, or poisonous to ingest. Socio-psychological bullshit such as “smarter than” and “more necessary” are of no consequence really in the struggle of life and death, of prey versus predator. The only thing which keeps us upright beings from being eaten by our betters or surpassed in a race against another with longer legs is our ability to trick them. Life is not what we are, or what we do, but what we will be based on what we fool the rest of them into believing that we are, and what in fact we are capable of when that promised moment comes. I work in a warehouse full of snakes, lions, ants and mercenaries. We are Santa’s little helpers. We fill shelves with shrink wrapped toys and move on to the next list. Our supervisor prints the stickers that we place over top of the Chinese bar codes for one main reason; so that the computers at the stores we serve will not have problems reading the pertinent information. Children choke daily on the poison we are packaging, but we make just enough money to stand, listen, respond and sometimes get out of the way of the swinging apes which feel as though they rule our borrowed steel shelved cage and ever teetering house of rotating cardboard boxes. In and out they go as we follow. In and out we throw as they go. After months of psychiatric and medical evaluation I was able to prove my spine unworthy of the only two lines of work which I had become accustomed to over the last twenty five years, and in the face of all of that I chose to take a warehouse job. Much to the shock and dismay of all professionals involved, lifting, twisting, turning, bending and standing for hours on end were to be the order of my day. I would not however have to cook one thing, or talk to one mislead guest about the history of barrier island migration or the difference between a bay and a sound. I was at a show at a local dive on Friday night and an old friend asked what I had been doing when I mentioned the warehouse gig. He was shocked; he mentioned the tours and the cooking and I said without thinking that if one were to offer me twenty five dollars per hour to go cook in a restaurant or pander to tourists I would surely shit myself two hours before my first shift and call in and quit, but I was very happy to be working in a warehouse making eight dollars an hour. He looked away, nodded the obligatory nod that says “I get it” although I know he was thinking “fool” and we continued drinking cheap beer and chewing borrowed fat. I was still young, sort of and very much employable by most standards, but I felt more like a killing spree would satisfy my nature and needs than a job making slightly more than enough to satisfy the needs of my small family. These days of economic uncertainty, a criminal banking and lending industry and a general sense of apathy and disdain when it comes to our national leadership front has left many a good man ready to break. I am only one of those men. I took the bottom of the barrel to limit expectation and to diffuse any potential recourse any employer may have against my anarchistic ideals. I want to stay hot just long enough to get off of this sinking island for real this time, and it will take more than the market will bear, more than the herd will allow, and more than my small brain could have mustered a year ago, before the walls got closer, and before I courted proper insanity. My first day in the warehouse was not unpleasant. There was a quick meeting with the head of human resources, Judy Bright, along with a promise to move me on to a better fit in the coming weeks. We exchanged a few pleasantries and I was handed over to Jayden Lynch, a man of half my age if I had to guess, and his overseer Morgan Tice. They showed me quickly to a large table covered in paint and scored with razor knife marks. There was a list (my p.o., or purchase order), two spools of computer generated price tags, a big spool of shrink wrap, a yellow highlighter, a mechanical pencil and a black permanent marker. After a quick tutorial on how the load of that interacted I was left to my work, and to the sounds of the room. It was a large room, like an aircraft hanger, but filled from top to bottom with shit of every manner. There were cardboard boxes labeled 1 of 13, and empty boxes as well. There were boxes and bins with stickers on them numbering from one to fifteen, and a few blank rolls of hot pink or blaze orange stickers for writing on the numbers not accounted for by the regular numbered stickers. It was a great and wondrous maze of boxes and boxed smells. There were many faces, great and small. Some of these people were foreign, some were special needs, and some were destined to swing that rope for life. Most of the faces in there never spoke, just kept the eyes down, maybe exchanging a casual helpful hint or bit of daily minutia, but not much else worth recollection. There was one gorilla of a human who had no name as I recall, but he was the loudest, the largest and by all accounts the boss of the pissed on. He was ever audible; he used words like nigger and polock fairly frequently with no outward concern for this action. We passed twice during the course of the day. He looked away the first time, as if busy and not meant to be bothered; the second time he simply grunted “-scuse me” to which I gave my favorite smart assed southern reply; “yassir!” The small exchange seemed his attempt at sizing me up, while at the same time letting me know that he was the boss and I was nothing but a crisp shirt sucking ass in his cat box. I found him delightful, in the same way I enjoy a headline about a teen pop star passing out in front of millions of adoring fans, gut full of pills and self doubt. We all get sick, I mean, but if we show it, we get eaten by our prey; we give up the race, finish line in sight. But I had just begun this race, and all I saw was the ass end of the gorilla, swinging along rope by rope as I paced myself off of his rear flank. Everyone else there, the bosses, supervisors, doe-eyed kids, bleach blonde beach bums and foreign exchange student/workers were simply part of my desk when I chose to look up from my boxes of summer. For a first day it wasn’t bad really. I had showed up green and glowing and left slightly faded and dampened but not consumed. There was pain and there were speed bumps. I spoke to no one and no one spoke to me, unless I needed help or someone else did, but soon thereafter both parties separated in the traditional warehouse way, and walked drudgingly back to their respective posts. I had not been found out nor introduced, and from what I gleaned over the long day, not much was expected, only that you show up at eight every morning and work until six every evening, Monday through Friday. For those on the crumb there was also the possibility of Saturday work from nine to four with overtime approved and lunch brought in. I declined this first Saturday as my body was just too tired. The pay was eight dollars per hour and the benefits were few if any. For me, the main benefit was being in a large but small room with every race of prey and predator, all working that desperate migration towards the finial stocking of summertime shelves for a local semi-corporate giant that specialized in selling kites to young kids on vacation, and all that would naturally follow that train of capitalistic thought and vein of support. Yes, it was yet again the beginning of a summer rush here in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Only a mile or two away stood the monument to the first successful human flight by Wilbur and Orville Wright. From where we congregated and worked, ate and bounced off of one another however, it was not visible. Cabana Boy Warehoused/two Today began with lies and women’s’ shoes, a couple of lies and maybe three hundred pair of women’s’ shoes. The last day I worked had been my first which was a Thursday and then I took Friday and Saturday off. I was under the mislead impression that Saturday work was optional. I found out this morning that it was not. When I arrived this morning still wearing a beer spill from Friday night and a good hangover from the sweet and potent milk stout I had last night, I was greeted by a p.o. that seemed unfamiliar. I went in to ask Morgan about it and she asked back “so was this here on Saturday?” to which I replied “no”, and she followed up “did you work Friday or Saturday?” and I answered again”, nope.” She then led in with the query of “did I know that you would not be here Friday or Saturday?” to which I replied without blinking or a thought, “yes.” I told her that I had discussed with the human resources lady that hired me that I could work on Thursday but Friday was out and Saturday was a maybe. The truth is that when I left on Thursday I had every intention of working on Saturday, but I had one hell of a time on Friday night, and again, halfway convinced that I had been led to believe that Saturday work was optional, I chose to sleep in. I hurt like hell from all of the lifting, bending, and twisting on Thursday; I just needed an extra day to adapt, to recover. At any rate, she looked at me with a slight suspicion, and I was about as justifiably worried as her suspicion dictated. I didn’t want to lose this job, but I didn’t really care if I did at the same time. I already had a plan in mind to apply for a retail counter help job at the baseball card and memorabilia shop where I parked every morning if this mess fell in on me. I wouldn’t have that problem. My supervisor, Morgan, was probably something to look at five to ten years ago. I don’t know if having kids did it to her, or just the natural effects of gravity and the sun, but she was a prideful and self confident heifer. She walked through the warehouse like a scared bull. This particular day her hipster sidekick was missing and I think she felt like she had to prove to all of us that she was quite capable of carrying the weight of the two, of cracking the whip. There was a calm demeanor she had when explaining a given task, but also an air of someone who regards herself as slightly better than others. This didn’t work on me though, I was an old man comparatively, and I had seen and spun better than her in her prime. When I stood close and the smell of fast food and cheap coffee accompanied her instructions as well as her obligatory managerial musings such as “does that make sense?”, I would simply nod and wait for her to leave so that I could shake the dust from my lenses and figure out something in the middle of what she required and what I could do. As she spoke I looked her right in the face, focusing on her tired green eyes. I imagined that once upon a dream some boy from somewhere stared into them as he pumped away on the sand, finally arriving at his journey of sixteen lonesome years. I imagined the reluctance, the fear, and the let down in it all. Her eyes today showed unwashed shadow on the lids, sticky mascara on the lashes and a bit of glitter spackled around the tear ducts. I saw everything that should have been, that would have been washed away a night or two before if she actually had happiness in her life. I also really had to pee. I noticed all of this in my small instant as she described to me the process of taking two hundred forty pairs of shoes out of boxes, pulling out the cardboard supports, and then using one of those little three inch clip tie things like everyone has to pull off when they buy their new summer flip flops. Yes, I was now the asshole idiot responsible for putting those little bitches on. She walked away, and as she did I noticed the flip flop sound of someone wearing an open toed shoe with no back, but she was wearing real shoes. They were leaning a bit, and I guess had been worn so much that now they had given up the task of hanging onto the back of her heels as she walked, just boosting her ass up enough to remind herself that she was once a seven or an eight, but now, at best she was a drunken five or six, and only if someone managed to catch her in a winsome mood in some remote corner of the warehouse. Not me, I thought as she flipped and flopped away, not on this day. I never had to look up again to wonder when she was coming or going again, her walk was her alarm, where once a bear trap snapped. About an hour or so later the hipster showed up. Jayden was her boss, or her assistant, or both as far as I could tell. I didn’t care really. He had the skills of a monkey when finding your boxes amid that stacked maze. There were shelves upon shelves; many of them still had stickers on them advertising different merchandise from a former retail wholesaler. He was a lithe young man. He wore long dark jeans, like only the kids “in the know”wear, a tight thrift store tee shirt which showed off his broadly proportioned shoulders when compared to his hips, but he was early twenties thin. His shoes had no laces, a dead hipster giveaway. When you add in his Buddy Holley glasses and the fact that he was probably completely satisfied with his high school Goth lover you get the picture of this one. I would bet the single dollar in my pocket that he has never had his tongue properly up the ass of an older, larger woman, or been scared near death by a much larger and competitive lover who was hell bent on pulling his prick out of his pelvis like a carrot from a garden; these things take years for the ordinary man to experience, and this was no ordinary man, not yet. Jayden was a confident and cocky leader of men whom he feared, and it showed in the way that he handled that frame. His look was put together by his first true love, not by life, not by a magazine. There was nothing about him that smacked of originality; just a boy half my age and twice my pay grade that liked to push buttons on a computer, sit in front of a fan and climb the walls for boxes when the need arrived. Once back at my stall, I was alone with all of my shoes. There were many colors and varieties from which to choose. I was only to separate them, apply price tags, tie them together with those annoying plastic binders and then re-sort them into boxes to be shipped off to various stores around the area and region. Nevertheless, I could not help but think of the girls that would wear them. The beach volleyball players or Amazon women with those size tens or the cute pixie waifs in the sixes and sevens. I imagined them coming off after a hot day at the beach, or a party during a graduation week, or a spray-down from a hose after being caked in mud after some teenage music festival. I felt sick, not because of the feelings of lust for those potential wearers of these shoes, but because of the plastic and rubber smell that accompanied every opened box of them. There were no painted toes, no mud smeared arches, no ankles to grab gently and pull on. There was only the smell of my job and my imagination, both of which left me feeling slightly nauseous and like I should have eaten something after the night of sweet and thick beer. I imagined taking my daughters to the store and watching as they picked and pulled those shoes from the rack, and saying like a proud and ineffective father, “daddy put all of those shoes together!” I thought of one or two freaks that share my foot fetish and then I thought of my wife, she wears a size eight. I didn’t pay as much attention to the rest of the workers as I had the first day. The gorilla made his best attempt to endear himself to me. He had abandoned all of the racial talk for simpler nicknames as today he was flanked by a black guy and a really obese man. He called the latter“Snowflake.” I do not know why. As I will occasionally do I interjected when the talk of snowflakes and snowballs came to the forefront. It was close enough for me to hear, so in my opinion, close enough for my two cents. I bellowed from my stall; “in the matter of “snowflake” I have to clear something up.” I continued;”about twenty five years ago I worked for a Brit and several others from the UK and they referred to a popular television show back home wherein several proper black dread would make fun of this one white man dread who always tried too hard, and they called him ‘Snowflake’, in a derogatory way”…the gorilla looked at me in the way that he does when I interject opinion, step on his toes, and then as the rest were staring at me ,some laughing, some interested in what would come next, I stated further “as far as a snowball, well, if you don’t know what that means, then you just ain’t grown up yet.”After which I sort of slapped the gorilla on the shoulder as I walked back to my hole and he smiled, reluctantly, and mumbled “I know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout there.” He would later approach me, using a Jamaican accent to sort of just kill time, size me up or investigate as he stared at the guy across from me. Alan was his name and for three straight days he had been folding and stocking women’s dresses. The gorilla looked at Alan and said to me; “you’d better watch out for that one, sometimes he likes to model those women’s clothes.” I laughed it off to keep things cheery as Alan noticed, pulled his earplugs from his ears and turned his attention from his music to the gorilla and me. “Huh?” he asked, and “nothing man, I was just telling our boy here how you like modeling women’s dresses” said the gorilla. Alan just sort of smiled and laughed it off as nothing, replaced his earplugs and went back to what he was doing. It was a long fucking day all the way around. I didn’t take lunch until nearly four o’clock. I toyed with the idea of not taking one and just trying to get out at five thirty instead of six, but Morgan made sure that I took one. She said she would have to charge me for one anyway whether I took one or not, so I left for my thirty minutes, made a few phone calls and sat outside, thinking of snakes and wind. Returning from my lunch break I started to quietly milk the remaining hour and three quarters. I didn’t really care for this job, or most of the people there. There were some nice guys, kids mostly, and a few girls that looked okay that must have worked elsewhere as I never saw any of them carrying or stacking boxes, but it was near enough to quitting time that everyone was in full throat, especially the gorilla. I just went through the motions of my shoe business. The new assignment had me taking all of these really cheaply made Vietnamese shoes that were packaged in an Alaskan sounding town in California and then re-packaged by us here on the Outer Banks. They were shit quality, like most of what I was processing and the gimmick recyclable bags were torn on most of them. Jayden, the boss just said to tape the ones that were torn. He must have been tired, as to tape these holes was even more of an endeavor than to spackle over those lonely tear ducts on Morgan’s face, or dam a rushing river after the spring’s snow melt, but I did it. Truth be told, I stood around shuffling price tags for about thirty five minutes while looking busy and waiting for the bell to ring. Sometime around five minutes until six I guess the collective clock of the masses was screaming quit time as everyone started to encourage one another to clock out, albeit a few minutes early. I didn’t need much goading, I was right there behind two thirds of them, and in front of the few that had been hired more recently than me. That is the way it goes in this type of job; the ones who aren’t sure of the rules hang back; watch and learn from the confident ones, all the while potentially getting those fingers ever so closer to that former bear trap. Everything said and done though, I was glad to leave that pile of shoe shit on my table until tomorrow morning and grab my stuff and go. It must have been some luminous distraction of the clouds and the sun, or maybe the breeze though, for as I walked away, shoulders back, head held high and feeling the pain of a boxer after twelve to twenty rounds, some little cutie drove past me as I walked to my car and rolling down the window asked “need a ride?” I said smiling “no thanks, I’m just around the corner” to which she replied “look man, I have worked here for a long time, I have walked that walk before, I’ll be around tomorrow too if you ever need a ride, there is no shame!” she smiled as she drove away. Wow! I thought to myself, I have really gotten old. Who knows where that ride may have lead? And then as I smiled inside myself, I thought, well you old bastard, you must still have something, maybe she’ll be back around tomorrow. A few hundred steps later I started the old Ford and turned back onto the big road homeward. I stopped at the local grocery store and bought a twelve pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, half the alcohol and half the price of the milk stout I drank the night before. I had been sober otherwise for the better part of three years leading into that weekend, but I hadn’t quite hurt like I did that afternoon either. Knowing that I would catch hell from the wife once I got home I readied myself with my excuse and walked on in. At least tomorrow, I thought, I wouldn’t be nearly as hung over as I was from the sweet heavy stuff the night before. I might be in pain and have the shits, but I wouldn’t be nearly as hung over, and after the ups and downs of the second day as a talking mule, there was at least that. Cabana Boy Warehouse/three I am lying here in a warm pool of sweat and tremor. It has been this way ever since I woke roughly thirteen hours ago. The cold shower this morning would not touch it. The ride to work, windows down and radio blaring would not distract from it. My throat burned closed and aching up to and around the perimeter of my tongue. Do I have lock jaw? No, I can’t have lock jaw, maybe I sang too loudly at the show the other night, maybe the hot resin in glass. Maybe the dream was to blame. It was one hell of a lucid nightmare. It stuck with me in such a way that as I said, all that I did this whole day could not erase the feelings and images from my mind. Not a cold salt bath in a bioluminescent full moon’s tide, not the cold beer I am drinking now. Nothing I have done has shaken those images from my mind. First there was the fight between my wife and me, a terrible and hateful exchange of accusation and word. I had caught her entertaining the advances of another man which she denied categorically. There were flowers in some Easter basket sort of set up, there was candy, chocolate candy and there were warm soapy baths. As I enraged, kicked and screamed, through things from my hands and mouth she continued denial. I threatened to murder the dick, and he fled. “HOW COULD YOU BE SO STUPID?” I screamed, “HOW COULD YOU NOT SEE THIS BULLSHIT?!?” She responded in an aloof and almost unresponsive manner that only served to anger me further. One thing led to another, as they do in dreams and before I knew it I was on a motorcycle, or a bike in New York City. There was a younger and cuter Arab looking woman on the bike with me, and her mother was close by. She asked if I would like to go home with them and I gladly obliged. I was thinking terribly lustful thoughts. Her perfectly curved frame, small feet, and a strange and foreign willingness to have me accompany her, to hold my interest. None the matter, we soon arrived at the home of her, her mother, and another child, maybe her sister. The other young woman never looked at me nor spoke. During the first few anticipatory moments as the young girl disappeared briefly, the mother showed me about the place. It was a small and humble flat, like a tenement in a housing project. There were white walls and grey painted wooden floors. “She will be out in a minute” the mother said, as I must have looked eager. She pointed down at the floor. I noticed what looked like tiny scratch marks, but what were really the small trails left behind by years of a small legless woman dragging herself, and then it occurred to me, why she had seemed so happy, so glad to have me. She had no legs; she was riding the bike while wearing prosthetics. As I was taking this suddenly in, she appeared in her evening dress without the legs. I know it sounds cruel to say but her ass just didn’t look the same, look as good as it did when she had the fakes on. I was trapped now, both her and the mother were looking me over like a homeless puppy ready for feeding. Seconds passed and I found myself scratching a long blister from my oven’s heating element to the point of breaking. It felt like a snake bite feels in a dream, it was not painful, but not pleasant, it was just “there”surrounded in that lucidity, that reminder of something far off and forgotten, but calling. Just then I turned again to focus on the three of them, the mother, and the two daughters and the mother appeared as if dead, long dead. The sister had no face. There was no mouth, no eyes, nose, nothing, just flesh, stretched across a globe of a skull and stitched somehow, and in the middle sat my bride. She just smiled, wearing a black burqa, or maybe some sort of mourning dress. I quickly awoke in shock, soaked through to the couch. The image of her sitting there, between those two looked like something out of a science fiction movie trailer, but the feel of it was created and accomplished by me and me alone. My next thoughts were of the obvious. What did this mean, why did I dream this and who were those people, and knowing all too well and conceding to the fact, they were me. I was yelling at myself, not my wife. I was angry for the thoughts of the woman in the parking lot the afternoon before, and of the hopes of seeing her again. I knew then that I would not, or that if I did, I wouldn’t take any ride. As the day wore on, and those faces faded into the lists of shoes and sunglasses; of children’s toys and lotions and oils, I maybe fantasized about her picking me up, but I knew what it would lead to, that marriage to blind and faceless death. Sure, it would be cool if she offered me a bottle of pain pills in exchange for oral sex, but as that was unlikely I put it out of my mind by mid-day. I think I saw her driving in as I walked along. It seems that when one is on the verge of being late the needs of another, or even the whimsy of the self suffers the back burner, but at the end of the work day, there is time for anything. Whatever the case the lesson was learned. Although I shook a bit inside from those ghastly images and the thoughts of another day with the stickers, the boxes, the smells and the managers, I slowly settled into my groove again about fifteen or twenty minutes back into work. This day, my third would be a day of revelation, and of tenderness from the roughest of sources. I learned the gorilla’s name, it was Paul. We had a moment to talk a bit about the old C.Y.A. principal of work, the universally understood “cover your ass” principal. Paul was a rough looking dude. He could easily take me or even the big fellow, the one he called “Snowflake” whose real name was Jesse, but all of that “knock you out” talk was just that. He had a cliché for every discussion. He was worldly in the way of the tramps, and he lived close enough to walk to work. He may have been a bit rough and tumble but he always got to work one half hour before the rest, again, covering his ass. In simple terms, we were all just discussing what some of the younger kids don’t know yet. They don’t know jail, or drunken driving tickets, suspended licenses or late night brawls at the local meat market dive bars. They weren’t familiar with how to keep your ass out of the sling when Morgan or Jayden came around sniffing for reasons to thin the herd, but Paul did. He and I discussed it. I mentioned something small of my mother’s upcoming cancer surgery and how I had made it perfectly clear to any and all of an authoritative nature that once that day came, all bets were off. He responded with a similar quip about his mother’s graduation. Who would have ever guessed, the gorilla was a mama’s boy, just like me. Most everyone else there was a young kid, surfers, skaters, roommates, party buddies or just castaways living with five or six others in a cheap summer rental between semesters and trying to raise a little rent money. Paul and I had both arrived on that scene by different roads, but for not so different reasons. As I listened to him recount all of the places he had worked in the past over the last two days one thing was clear; work was never the top priority on his list, but maybe, for some reason it was now. He approached me again later at the table where we all tape our boxes shut and asked me “did you say your mom was going through some cancer shit? Is she down here?” “No, Suffolk.” I said, and he just replied “oh, cause I was gonna say I know some dudes at the cancer treatment facility down here, my uncle went through that shit, sorry man, and hey, if you need anything…” he paused and looked me in the eye like I had known him all his life, and extended his fist, which I firmly punched with mine. “Ah’ight then!” I said, turning to walk back to my desk, as he turned and put his headphones back on and walked over to his. After this meeting of our minds I felt a little relief. Maybe it wasn’t relief I was feeling, but a sense of kinship that I have only felt once or twice, and always from the most unlikely of sources. You just never know what the day will hand you I thought. The rest of the day was quite normal by warehouse standards. Morgan was a snappy little cunt, and Jayden never looked me in the eye. This was more of the same from both of the managers. Throughout the day the old bags walked through. I don’t know who these ladies were, but they would show up every now and again, checking out the merchandise, commenting on something that looked appealing. I couldn’t help but be a bit awestricken by the fact that they all looked to be nearing their mid fifties or early sixties, yet they were still wearing the same cheap clothing made and marketed for teenagers. They were like the cheerleaders from my high school 25 years ago. They used to be the desired ones, but after a lifetime of laying on a beach while stupid rich men catered to their every whim they were reduced to alligators driving Mercedes’. That was my take on it anyway, the years of sun, lack of moisturizer, and a willingness of fools to serve them and say “yes dear” had driven them to the way of the walking leather garment bag. They were all bones, wrapped in scaly orange and spotted hides, adorned with expensive looking costume jewelry which could easily be spotted at any recent or upcoming high school prom. The younger models, the ones with a few years, a few more miles and a handfuls of“yes men” left in their pink pockets just peeked in on occasion, filling their reusable plastic water vessels, and sneaking a peek at we the disposable workforce, like a farmer’s daughter watching from behind the barn as a blacksmith removes his shirt to show the fruits of his hard labor, that sweat and sinew glistening in a hot summer sun. Those women will also have their day to drive expensive cars and wear clothing made by foreign children for pennies on their well oiled dollar, after we first remove it from its original Asian packaging and fit it into something more ecologically friendly looking, more politically and globally correct. No matter how you flipped it, repackaged or retagged it, it was still just cheap shit. I could never see taking my kids into one of those stores to buy one bit of that throwaway trash. The smell from the undoing of it all was enough to choke a slaughterhouse worker, or a performer of necropsy. I guess it was a little before an hour to go when another one of the supervisory types walked by. We had not spoken, nor really made eye contact, but there were few of us left in there for some reason and he made a comment to his buddy about never wanting to work in a restaurant again. I asked, without looking “worked in restaurants too have you?” and he said he had, but that he had had his fill. I told him in short order about my twenty years in that game, and repeated for him to hear that here I was, forty three years old, probably the oldest guy in the warehouse, and working for eight bucks an hour. I also gave him my line about how if I was offered three times that to wash dishes in a restaurant I would probably shit my pants two hours before my first shift and call in and quit. He looked stunned. “You really had enough of it huh?” he asked me. “Yep, I have had my fill.” The subject of conversation turned tender again; there must have been something in the air, or in my eyes that attracted lost souls. He told me he was only twenty three and that he was there in between semesters to make a little extra money, and that his high school sweetie had broken his heart recently. The worst part of it he recalled was that they had a dog together and he had to part with it. I told him he was still way too young to take that seriously, and that if he ever planned to get married, wait a while. He added that he did want to someday have children and a family, but that he just had too much going on right now, and was having too much fun to give his heart to another like he had. I reassured him that every damned cliché in the book on the subject was absolutely true, and that when the time was right he would know it. I told him of how I didn’t even get married and have kids until I was thirty eight. He asked me again,“twenty three is still pretty young isn’t it?” and I said laughing “Man, shit doesn’t even get scary until you hit about twenty seven!” He laughed and sort of breathed a sigh of relief. Being that several moments had passed, and he had eyes on him, and so did I , I reassured him that I wasn’t trying to waste his time, or ride the clock, and he quickly came to my defense as the exchange was cool, and he wasn’t really doing anything anyway. Man, what I wouldn’t give sometimes to be that young and stupid again, with all of that road out there in front and a full tank of gas, but to be truthful, I am happy as hell right where I am. I told him that after guarding my heart for years, playing the field, treating sex as a sport and women as objects that I finally found one that I could trust, and after a few months of trying to convince her I was worth talking a chance on, I met and married the mother of my kids. I also told him that he would too, when he least expected it, but that for now he should live it up, never be disrespectful, and have some fun. The last of the hour passed fairly quickly. I finished up sorting and applying stickers to most of the one thousand nine hundred and eight pairs of sunglass grippers, the spongy colorful looking ones that hold your sunglasses to your face when you are active in a beach setting, and make you look cool, and grabbing my few belongings headed for the time clock. I walked through the parking lot, reflecting on the day, and wondering about the reprise of the previous day’s cat call, but the bitch in the slick white car never drove by. I smiled at the thought of this, as I had been spared another small and simple decision in a day full of several thousand small but simple decisions. Tonight, feeling fed by a nice chicken taco dinner and slightly appeased as opposed to freight trained by cheap beer, I pulled out the clippers and trimmed my stubbly face, cut back the hair around my ears and sideburns and showered and shaved. I also laundered some of my nice shirts and a load of underpants. I have been showing up to work looking and smelling the part of the warehouse worker, but that is not the job I really showed up for. I am getting plenty of kicks out of it, but there is an old saying about dressing for the job you want, not for the job you have, and I need to apply that old verse. I didn’t do this for the immediate eyes of Morgan and Jayden, but for the upper eyes that hired me to start with over the telephone, sight unseen. I need to show them that I am worthy of a better seat at the table, and more bread for the table at home. A New Friend, an Old Breast, and Bacon Flavored Novelties Warehoused/one When I shut down the old Ford this morning and downed the last of my morning Coke I had a renewed zest about what I was aiming for, aspiring towards. I had a freshly laundered tee shirt and a clean shaven face. I looked more like they wanted me to look, and I marched right into Morgan’s office about five minutes after I clocked in and proceeded to shove my big nose right up her fallen ass. I asked her for a couple of minutes to talk and she listened. She more stared and waited for me to finish, but anyway, I explained the whole matter of “dressing for the job you want” and how the last few days of showing up in old clothes and unshorn was not a good representation of Pete Butler. I did express at the onset that although I realized the handbook stated the clean face rule mainly as a standard to be kept by folks in the public eye, or working on the floor of one of their stores, not us warehouse dogs, that I had been ashamed of the fact that I had been so poorly presented. At first she simply shook her head as if to say “yeah, it really doesn’t matter for the likes of your rank,” but when I explained further that between the adjustments to the new schedule as well as parental duties, things such as laundry and personal hygiene had taken a back seat, and I was happy to tell her that I now felt “presentable” as my mother would call it. Morgan smiled, “I bet you feel like a new man.” She said. I told her “yes ma’am, I really do!” smiling back at her. Then and there the deed was done, nose out of ass again and back to work I went, ready for just another day. It began as such at first. My initial p.o. required the throwing of about six medium weight boxes onto my table and opening them up to see what I would have to work on. There were wallets, tote bags, waterproof totes, sequined bags and some horrifically gaudy scarves. Everything was in one of three colors; tangerine dreams, indigo sky or sunflower burst. I sorted all of the different packages and then cut them all out of the cellophane wrappers and began applying the stickers to cover the “made in” words. I was a happy cog in the wheel of a utopian summer beach tourists dream shopping spree once again. While I was tagging everything and getting ready to throw it all in the respective boxes, bound for the different stores I noticed Alan at the table in front of me had moved on from the ladies dresses. I made a comment in that regard and he smiled an earnest sighing smile of relief and nodded, replaced his earplugs once again. Everyone but me; the old man, has a fancy twenty-first century music playing device about half the size of a deck of playing cards that fits right in the pocket. I have been familiar with this technology for years now, but dreadfully behind the times when it comes to utilizing it. No matter, I have plenty of music in my head. Somehow as the day progressed Alan and I began to chat more, mostly about music. I had initially taken him for a college kid, down for the summer and just working a job to pay the bills and buy some books for school while surfing and skating in his free time, and I wasn’t far off. What I didn’t expect was for him to be like a little brother in a way. This kid was smart. Although there were obvious gaps in some of the musical tastes, there were also similarities which I had to give him big credit for. When I was fourteen I was listening to what those young kids regard now as the stuff of legend; Black Flag, Minor Threat, Circle Jerks, Bad Brains and the Dead Kennedys. Alan was hip to most of it though, and also to the fact that I knew a lot of those pioneers; Greg Ginn, Mike Watt, Ian MacKaye, and further that I was currently working on a long term musical goal with a great guitarist/composer/producer out in Santa Monica named Peter DiStefano. Peter is the guitarist for a popular band called Porno For Pyros as well as Lance Herbstrong, Hellride and anything else that has gone gold out of California in the last fifteen years. I showed him the phone messages and stuff as proof and it got the old man a few wows. It’s always good for us oldies to seem relevant around the young crowd. We talked a lot of music and he suggested a few cool new bands that I should check out; it was a very nice and honest mutual exchange! I had made a new friend. As the day progressed so did our conversation. We began discussing our mutual disdain, or at least conflict of conscience as automatons that spent the day for a relatively low wage repackaging goods made by kids in third world sweatshops and then sent to different parts of the United states for our company to eventually order and have us tag as a more “politically correct” item for purchase. I had been noticing all of the Made in China stamps and so had Alan. We were not instructed to hide any of the obvious labeling so to speak, but anyone who thinks for a living as well as does would have a hard time not noticing the smoke and mirrors we were putting to use in our un-boxing and repackaging. We started talking about this strange twist when I brought up the walking leather ladies that come in from time to time to do their “inspections of the goods and their slaves.” He had noticed one of the older bags I described before, and we talked a little about my take on that type of person. We also discussed the global economic disaster as it applies to the working poor of our nation and how most poor people are fooled into buying cheaply made goods from mega stores that offer cheap prices by ordering in bulk, and about how that really drives our economy down in the long run, but it depends on the apathy that seems to go hand in hand with American poverty these days. We talked even further about the crooked lending institutions and practices, the consolidation of global wealth, and not from a conspiracy theorist standpoint, but from his, a student of international economics in school. “We just talked about all of this last semester!” he blurted. “Did you talk about FIAT currency?” I asked as he assured me right away that they had. We talked about the failure of the European Union and how Germany runs Europe now, and how the true economic prognosis is really dreary for those of our generation, well, more his, but for discussion’s sake we were definitely on the same page. It was invigorating. He got what I was saying and not only justified it by having recently studied the hard facts of it which I could only paraphrase, but he also understood my passion and sort of edified it with his zeal for discovering an awake human in the warehouse worker across the table from him. He studied and well understood the whole global economic mess, and I was able to approach it from angles which added a fresh twist on his learned knowledge. I said it earlier, I made a new friend. I was sort of sad when he told me that he’d be leaving in a week or so, but I understood, and it really didn’t matter, we had connected on a meaningful plain, and we would continue to do so. We were both sure of that fact. We talked quite a bit more over the course of the day, exchanging musical tastes and ideas, discussed my passion about the poorly handled infrastructure development of my Congressional district and the misguided leadership in general of our state and their energy policies. Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” as it has become known is threatening to destroy the western part of North Carolina and the main energy corporation out there wants to spend a billion dollars to rehab a failing and aging nuclear facility. The power plant is downstream from a dam that could burst, which would give us a nuclear disaster effectively one hundred times as destructive as the Fukushima incident in Japan after the recent earthquake over there and the resulting tsunamis. We took a break and shook our heads. “It sucks, but it makes you feel so helpless, I mean, the people with the money don’t really care what we think.” said Alan. “I know” I said, “but I plan on running for the District One North Carolina Senate Seat in 2014, as an independent, I have no chance of winning one of the two major primaries, but I can get on the ballot as an independent.” Alan was thrilled. “Hell yeah man!” and he added “and even if you don’t win, maybe you can at least raise a few eyebrows to the issues that people are sort of blind to.” “My point exactly, and even if I don’t win, yeah, maybe someone more qualified will do it in 2016.” We talked a little more about the local politics of the beaches and coastal plain and of how no matter the science or geology mandated a serious change in the course of development in regard to sea level rise and climate change, the driving force in our area is tourism and tourist based real estate. I told him of a recent twenty some page study I’d read put out by Duke University about the effects of erosion on our barrier islands and the proposals of beach nourishment projects. Sadly, it all came down to the relative value of properties depending on their proximity to the ocean. There were many mathematical equations to work it all out for us, but the bottom line was simple; if the area generates more money than it costs to build and maintain fake beaches through destructive and wasteful beach nourishment projects, there was no argument. The answer would always be to protect the real estate, and the state’s cash cow. “Man, I never even think of stuff like that, but I really should” Alan sighed. “Shit man, don’t beat yourself up, I never used to myself before I spent ten years studying that sort of stuff as a tour guide, and besides, I’m an old guy” I winked, “ worry about it when you’re forty three.” I laughed. Lunchtime was coming on and we needed to finish working and at least appear busy so we returned to our tasks at hand, but the talk had been good. After lunch the day only got better. Working among all of those “better than you” types, you can’t help but feel a slight sense of victory when one of them slips up and shows you their ignorance, or in the case I was just lucky enough to be around for, one of their breasts. Ha! I was just finishing up my morning p.o. after the chicken salad sandwich I brought for lunch and all of the stimulating conversation with my young friend when while bent over and taping up another box to throw I saw it, a titty. Yep, it was just a glance, but a full and wondrous chance occurrence wherein one of the women from upstairs had to come down among us for some reason and just happened to be leaning over a box of the stuff we pack for one reason or another. As I said it was a quick look, out of the corner of my eye, and I had looked away as soon as I saw it, but being a sort of opportunistic if not dirty old man, I quickly took survey of the surrounding area, the eyes on me and the woman’s attention, and then took a nice good look, maybe a full second or two of focused gazing. She was wearing a loose fitting shirt and probably had no intention of bending over that far when she dressed for work that morning, but there she was, and there it was. Upon evaluation of the hanging mass I noticed that she was in fact wearing a bra, so there was no full pornographic image to carry away, but the satisfaction in seeing enough to assure me that had she known she would be made to feel uncomfortable was in itself a small victory. I lingered for a moment longer until she finished and walked away, and I surveyed the rest of what I had just stolen a peep of, and like most of the upstairs crowd, she was poorly aged and holding on for dear life to some semblance of youth, but as is the case for all of us, time and circumstance eventually undo the green of our youthful former selves. This fact was true in both of our cases, but in mine I make no attempt to hide or hike up anything, and she had taken a different road. “God bless her” as the older folks say, and yes, my warehouse tenure was certainly taking a turn for the better on this day. I relished the thought of what I had seen and thought for a slim second more, and then went to Morgan’s office for another assignment. Walking into the office is always a crap-shoot. You never really know what you might be in for, but depending on a person’s affinity or not for all things bacon, I had either hit the jackpot or really crapped out. I however LOVE bacon, and as I cut the tape on the next five boxes and began to unwrap their contents my heart soared. There were bacon flavored toothpicks and lip balm. Bandages that looked like bacon strips as well as pickle shaped bandages. I recall well over a half dozen moustache related gag items from candies and mints to actual fake moustache kits containing one for every day of the week, AND moustache bandages that when applied to the lip made a person to look like he or she was wearing a moustache. It just got better and better. The words on the packages and the descriptive directions for usage of all of the gag gift items had me snapping pictures and laughing out loud like a child. The package of self-adhesive stylish moustaches read “don’t be caught in public with a naked upper lip!” I LOVED it, maybe it was the heat, but it got even better; there was the classic “Two-Way SQUIRT CAMERA” with a cool black and white fifties style package that read: “A classic prank! Simply fill the camera with water and offer to take someone’s picture. When they pose…SQUIRT! What a gas! But wait…for double the fun, slyly rotate the hidden nozzle 180’ and offer to let THEM take YOUR picture…SQUIRT! You got them again!” That was my favorite really, but there were other highlights. There was the “Delinquents with Combs” switchblade comb with the fifties greaser thug on the package, the “Uh Oh EMERGENCY Underpants” and even “Squirrel Underpants “for some strange reason. Rounding it all off were three very disturbing masks; “the creepy pig head mask”, the “unicorn head mask” and the always popular “squirrel head mask.” I was in heaven for hours as I tagged, boxed and distributed all of that stuff to their respective boxes and bins. Before I knew it six o’clock was upon me and that meant quitting time. Alan and I discussed some stuff I’d written about my trilogy of novellas documenting my fall from grace as a mild-mannered tour guide into the bowels of Bedlam’s underworld as a serial killer and I promised to bring it to him the next day to check out and give me notes. I explained that it covered a lot of the sentiment I have and that we had discussed about the “shoppers from upstairs.” He said that’d be cool with him and he gave me a list of some new bands to check out. We exchanged the accepted hand shake stylings of the day and off he went on his skateboard while I walked quietly back to the Ford. It had been a hot day and I was sweating a fair amount, but when factoring in the late afternoon Outer Banks breeze, it only served to make those last few moments of work related walking seem a strange sort of sweet. As I strolled along the cracked concrete of the warehouse complex I listened to the Grey Catbirds call out. I took off my hat and rubbed my thinning hair and just breathed it all in; the disappearing gasoline laden exhaust of the cheap cars driven by those like us, the drying but still present smell of Japanese Honeysuckle, fiberglass, resin and fresh cut grass. A New Friend Warehoused/Two “She’s just sort of a plain looking little girl…” said the old wrinkled woman to the younger, wrinkling one, “well, she IS a plain looking little girl.” The venom slipped from the snake’s mouth to our ears had Alan glancing over at me. I walked over to his table. It was in the first few moments of the day as we were all pushing the tools of our desk around, stretching and shuffling papers. But again, one of the walking handbags had her aspiring old rich bitch in tow and was obviously already jacked up on coffee and indifference to compassion or the souls of others. I just shook my head as we started unwrapping, counting, sorting and checking off numbers on lists. Fuck the rest of those old fucks, I thought, I’m not here for that shit. It would turn out to be a harbinger for the type of day ahead. It was hot. Everyone felt poorly. One of Alan’s roommates, another Alan had recently dislocated his shoulder for the fourth time and it was troubling him. The dreams I had the night before caused me to sleep through all alarms and wake up just in time to rush headlong through the process of readying myself for another day of lifting, bending and twisting, and the fucked up disk in my neck wasn’t helping, nor was the arthritis in my mid-back. No amount of over the counter pain reliever would do it so it seemed. The warehouse ran out of drinking water around eight thirty and this only served to exacerbate an already tenuously hot relationship between workers and work. Adding to the mess was the warehouse supervisor Dylan. I can’t really sugarcoat it; he is just a straight up dickhead. I once heard the term “boot lipped”, and in his case it comes to mind. He reminds me of the douche boys from Maryland that come down here for the summer. They all drive the big trucks with lift kits on them and big ass tires and walk around in wife beaters and backward baseball caps. This particular asshole was tattooed as well, but not covered in cool tats, just a bunch of boardwalk summer strip shop style tribal shit with an occasional Bible verse, or a word like “family” done in that douche bag cursive script they seem so fond of. I shouldn’t be so harsh, but this guy has been working with me or above me for a good week or two now and has yet to look me in the eye or offer his name. Sometime around ten o’clock this morning it got so hot in there that he turned on the air conditioning and shut the big bay door to the outside world. This only made it more stifling. Finally someone convinced him that it would be much better to turn the air OFF and open the door again. At least opening the door let a little of the natural breeze in that worked with the sweat to cool us down. My morning lists of tasks were simple enough I guess. There were quite a few quick ones, easy in nature, but that required a lot of walking and repetition. As soon as I’d get going on something good and had the ball rolling the truck would show up and we’d all have to hump boxes for twenty minutes to load it up and clear our shelves, make way for more boxes of shirts, toys and novelties. I tried to hold out as long as I could for lunch as to take a lunch during the first five hours of the shift was to guarantee a longer second half of the day. It was late in the week, and my body didn’t have that sort of elasticity left nor my brain the mental capacity. There was just something fucked up in the air. By the time I had finished my fourth task, which was easy, only two boxes but two sixty pound boxes that were large and awkward to carry, I was wiped. I had to move those bitches from one room to my desk, and then from there to another room, and then finally to a high shelf. Those two bitches alone wore my ass out. To make it worse, Alan number two had to call it quits a few hours early because his shoulder was bothering him, and our resident prankster and morale booster Paul went to Morgan complaining that something about his lunch and the heat were just not agreeing and he thought it best that he leave, and down went another. I stood there for the better part of the day stretching and taking more and more pain reliever, but to no avail. My day just fucking kicked me in the back at every turn. The only good thing about it was the lingering thought that tomorrow would be the end of my week and I could lie down for a good while and let it all heal. What a shaking hell. With about two hours left on the clock I finished the last of the light and mindless tasks for the day and as I approached Morgan in the office she said “let’s see, I have a project for you…” and I could tell by her tone that it would not be another easy one. Most times they will hand you a couple of rolls of stickers and a p.o. of 3 to 7 pages and then take you to your five to fourteen boxes. This time Morgan took me over to the warehouse room next to the one where we all work, where they store all the big shit and instead of saying “okay, here are your boxes.” she said “alright, these four PALATES are for you.” Fuck! Palates, I wondered. There were maybe sixty boxes in all. I took the thirty page p.o. back to my desk and slowly walked back over with my razor knife. To be fair, most of the contents of those boxes had already been tagged, and leaning over the table and tagging shit is what caused my back the most pain, so I figured just distributing it all, or “distro’ing it” as they put it wouldn’t hurt so much. I was wrong. All of the contents may have been tagged but I still had the crappy job of the walk, one heavy ass awkward box after another. None of the boxes were in order. For each item there may have been six to ten boxes of stuff each, but they were put on the palates in a way that you could not grab them as a set, only one by one, which made it an even slower and laborious process. I will tell you honestly, I have done a few things on purpose such as tag something the wrong color, but the right price, not intentionally at first, but after justifying it in my head by thinking that the price is the same as well as the size and item number, the color will just slightly piss off some teeny bopper clerk as he or she goes to ring up Mrs. Smith from Pennsyltucky and it shows up wrong on the computer screen. Well fuck that kid, that customer and their collective air conditioned dream world. It was hot today and I just figured it as having a little fun, my tiniest of rebellion. Hell, my great, great, great, great, great uncle somehow was Nathaniel Bacon, leader of the first armed insurrection against the crown in Virginia in 1676. It’s in the history books. He and a bunch of other young folks told the Governor William Berkeley to kiss their asses and if I come from that, surely I can fuck up a price tag and cause a slight awkward computer moment for some impatient, littering touron or “arrange” a little inventory hell for some low paid shop worker. It is the very least I can do to honor my “rebel lineage.” The day sort of ended like it began. We all left without saying much to one another, shit; a few of us didn’t even make it to the end. I spent the last six minutes of the last two hours listening to a song on my mobile communication device with my buddy Alan, as the supervisory eyes of Dylan stared on. I didn’t give a shit. I took twenty two of my thirty minutes for lunch, and I clocked in three minutes early. If they want to split hairs over the last six minutes of those last ten hot hours then so be it, I have plenty of ammo. The truth is I really just need to keep my fool head down, take a cold shower and find sleep soon. There were no bird songs as I walked away today, just a phone call to the wife to check on the availability of ten bucks for gas to pout into the Ford to get me there and back for another couple of days and her immediate exclamation that I had called at just the right time as she was about to lose her mind over the bad attitudes of our two angels during her recent grocery store trip and to complain about her back pain. “Alright,” I said, dejected “I’ll use the debit card and only put nine bucks in, see ya in a few, love you.” And then there was silence. I popped the lid on the last of the day’s cold Cokes, inserted my key and twisted it and turned the Ford for home with only one scheduled stop. Two nights ago we had chicken tacos for dinner with Spanish rice and vegetables. Tonight we had leftover chicken and rice burritos. As I sat at the table and ate my feast I got one hell of a cramp in my left hamstring. I need to drink more water. A New Friend Warehoused/Three Friday morning finally came. It was a sweet seventy degrees as I walked along the small black side street to my boxes within my box in my metal box neighborhood district. I passed what looked to be dog or wild cat vomit on the way, as from one side of the road to the other I heard a Mourning Dove calling to its mate. I noticed another “for sale by owner” sign on a small white family home near the warehouse complex as down to my right the yellow of Primrose Willow showed its purpose there, growing in the manmade ditch. It made me miss my old tour guide job. I would already be on the water, I thought, in my kayak with the blues of my late spring Blue Flag, the purple Pickerelweed, the young, edible green and buttery Cattail shoots, the white orchid-like vines of the Duck Potatoes and the Spartina. Soon the heat summer heat would bring the Swamp Mallow and Salt Marsh Mallow. The young foals now play among the green grasses and the Blue Eyed Grass, White Topped Aster, and Daisy Fleabane. The White-Bracted Sedge must be growing all over as wild blackberry blossoms cover the bushes of Coral Honeysuckle and Trumpet Creeper. Today’s high should only reach seventy nine but with a ninety five percent relative humidity. It would feel like one hundred and ten in the warehouse by lunch, but on the beach the sea breezes would keep the air just perfect, riding the dune line beneath the Sea Oats and American Beach Grass; stopping along the way to pick the native beach mustard or Sea Rocket. I also remembered the main reason that I left. I worked with a dickhead that I trained and he and I got into it over whether or not what he called Virginia Meadow Beauty was or was not in fact Salt Marsh Mallow. I knew I was right, and that it was a small detail when taken as such, but it was just one small detail that when added to all of the other small details made up the principal reason for my leaving the gravy train, the hundred dollar tips, and the beauty of flowering Prickly Pear and Indian Blanket; my boss was an ever increasingly incompetent ass. So I walked into the warehouse again, electronically punched my time clock and stood there ready for another day of sweat and stickers and boxes for my eight an hour. Here I would stay, for now; warehoused, the plight of the twenty first century working class. All of us, either bought, sold or selling. Some of us have been sidelined by the outsourcing of our technology industry and telemarketing jobs, some by sickness, lameness or war, and some of us, like me, by a combination of bull-headedness and arthritis from the arthritic effects of the good life for far too long. Whatever the circumstance that brought me here, the only truth now lie in the fact that I had three of the four palates of shit remaining to unpack, and it would take every bit of the next ten hours to complete, if not longer. I walked through Morgan’s office which smelled of Skunk Cabbage and like a robot again to my razor knife, my highlighter, my black marker; head full of Carolina Aster and Trailing Flox. Most of the day went as the end of the previous one. Everyone was hot and slightly weaker than we had been on Thursday, but for the elders among us, we who had already made careful plans to avoid the mandatory Saturday shift, at least it was Friday and there was a bit of relief in sight. My escape was a very real dance recital for my four year old Emeline, and all of her little friends down at the local high school auditorium. We had bought her a bouquet of cultivars in her favorite colors of blue, purple and pink. That event however seemed a world away as I began the walking dirge of carry, slash, un-pack and tag for distro. I got through the second palate of the four fairly easily. As I now had a working foundation of twenty boxes or so to work off of, many of the names began to look familiar; Foam Pirate Sword, Scimitar Pirate Sword, Red and Black Pirate Hat, Dalmatian Vet Cage, Mini Turbo Bubble Blower, Digi-Light Pixie Wand and Snappers, the fucking Snappers. My p.o. said I would have TWO UNITS; two boxes of one thousand units each. I had already accounted for those, but the Snappers just kept coming and coming. That was the trouble with some of the boxes. The ones that said Foam Pirate Sword were easy, they had twelve pieces inside and I didn’t even have to open the box, just apply a pink rectangular sticker, label it with the item number, item description and number of items inside and then set it aside for Dylan to later stack in some other corner of the place. The BAD boxes were those simply marked Toy Store, as these had random boxes of novelties inside and yes, every last one of them was padded with extra Snappers. These Snappers are those little poppy things that you throw down for a quick bang; we called them snap-n-pops when I was a kid, and we loved them; my how the times change. Paul even walked over when he heard me exclaim “God Damn it, MORE FUCKING SNAPPERS!” “What’s that old man?” he said walking over, “Snappers? You can’t find all you need or what?” Hell no!” I said “I have plenty of these little fuckers, like sixteen hundred more than I need, they just keep coming…” I complained. He walked away laughing and started to make a slick remark, slight sexual innuendo as I stopped him short, my face flushed from the swelling heat; “look man, I got NO trouble with fucking Snappers and I know of three types. You got the fish, the turtle and the OTHER kind…” laughing now, “but these little bitches SUCK!” He just put on his headphones and went back to labeling plastic shoes. As the day wore on and the boxes moved from the other side of the warehouse to my desk my new “castle” began to take shape. My desk became an attraction. At first, people would squeeze through the narrowing space between the desk and the shelf behind me, but as I added box after box they began to avoid me. The ones that did pass me would stop momentarily and just say something like “damn man, how much more do you have?” Or “you ain’t done YET?” “NOPE,” I would exclaim through clinched teeth,” two more fucking palates to go.” They went though, eventually. As of lunch time I had it down to maybe thirty five more boxes, approximately a palate and a half with four hours left. I was in the home stretch. The cokes I drank and the pain reliever I took made me vomitous as the afternoon heat bore down on my ham, turkey and cheese-stuffed belly. I stopped a couple of “wet burps” just short of splashing on the smooth concrete below my feet. Alan would ask, “Are you alright man?” and I was, just hot, over-exerted and ready to be finished. I needed a ladder for the third palate. It was perched atop the fourth and completely shrink-wrapped. I climbed up and precariously chopped and sliced away with my razor knife until another fifteen to twenty boxes were mine for the talking. I was happy that more than half of them were of the Foam Pirate Sword or Plastic Sand Shovel variety, as these were now easy work; light and not awkward to carry. I blew through the third palate in what seemed like no time. As the clock ticked and six drew near the crowd became loose as I pressed harder. I would NOT leave until the boxes were finished. It was roughly four thirty, and I had delusions of finishing by five or five thirty and just leaving early, and would feel justified in doing so. Those pipe dreams would disappear like the Flower-Of-An-Hour does once the morning afternoon heat sets in and the cool ocean breeze turns southwest. I started in on the fourth and last palate only to find it full of those Toy Store boxes. Every damned one of them it seemed had twelve to fifteen different types of items inside, all required counting and special distro, as well as more bending over and attention to details that were frying in my oily brain. Nevertheless I kept going like a man possessed. All of my friends and co-workers, even the supervisors had begun standing around, chatting and going through the motions by this time, but I only moved faster. My back screamed, my fingers were covered in dry and peeling adhesive from the boxes, the tape and the stickers, but on I pressed. Three boxes to go, all about sixty pounds each and I would be done. It was now five thirty seven. As I pursued this task like a crazy man the others looked on like I had lost what little mind I had. I would like to say that they appeared to be rooting for me, but the truth is nobody cared really. I shouldn’t have cared myself, but there was a foolish pride that made me want to see it through before quitting time. At five fifty one there was one box left. I dragged it to my fortress and ripped into it. It was full of another twelve boxes and in a strange way I was happy, not only as it was the last of it, but there they were, the Lil Cha Cha’s I had kept seeing on my p.o. but never on my table; those and more Snappers. I threw the Snappers in the big ass box along with all of the other extras along with any concern I had previously for counting those sons of bitches. I felt a strange solace when it was just down to me and the Lil Cha Chas, which turned out to be tiny, plastic maracas of many different colors. They were not tagged, but I quickly tagged them and distro’d them into the ten different boxes, bound for the ten different stores. When I finished there was no cheer, no sense of accomplishment; just me walking into the office with a chip on my shoulder like an idiot running back on a losing football team that just happened to cross the goal line as time expired. My team still lost, but I walked into Morgan’s office and threw that thirty page p.o. on her desk, completed. I took a moment to catch my breath as the rest had already left, and I clocked out. My week of warehouse work was done, I was bound for beer, and other than a dance recital the next day, very little else. New Friend Warehoused/four It seems that there is no escaping my caste lately. It was Saturday, and after a week of shuffling boxes from there to here to there again, I was at my four year old daughter’s first dance recital. It wouldn’t be much for most folks, but I was a proud papa to say the least. The dress rehearsal was the night before and Eme said she LOVED being on the stage with the lights, looking down on all the people. “You’re just like Joe Walsh!” I said with excitement as she asked for me to play Rocky Mountain Way for her on the radio as soon as she was done. She has been obsessed with a vintage performance from 1973. She’s daddy’s little rock star. Her three minutes were like moments in another dimension for me. She was up there with her flower in her hair and little green grass skirt and I was zoned in. Of course I had to endure the first hour of all the other little girls of various ages and an intermission before she went on, but it wasn’t too torturous. The events leading up to and following those three minutes were nearly as much work and as generally degrading as was the work in the warehouse. My mother in law Mama Pat was in town for it, so I was free of much of the getting Eme ready to go process. I did however have the duty of holding tickets and our place in line while Holly took Eme back to get ready and Mama Pat chased our two year old Ella around. The standing in line was the first dose of classism and disregard for “my kind” that I would experience. We arrived early and were maybe the fourth or fifth people in line. Just in front of us was a man I recognized named Nolan Bergowitz. He knew me. I used to work for him years ago when he owned this little grass course putt-putt operation. I didn’t work there long. It’s funny too, thinking back, I wore a “cabana boy” style outfit as part of my job there, a uniform, like the Caribbean Slave garb of today; white collared shirt and khaki short pants. A few years back I saw him at a golf course bar where I was having lunch with another rich man and golf course owner that I was working for at the time. He remembered me very well then, but on dance day he just looked at me with no apparent knowledge of who I was at all. It’s strange how some folks have become so good at sociopathic behavior like that. I don’t know if it’s fear driven, or just the sense of entitlement that comes along with money that moves people to ignore publicly those sorts who they would only engage otherwise in an employer-employee relationship or tone. As I stood there in line staring back at him, determined not to be the one to break the ice, the space between him, his wife and me grew by nine people. Other bejeweled and heavily perfumed old people would just walk up to him, make small talk and after just barely looking down their noses to gauge my reaction became part of the space in between me and my family’s choice of seating. I was slightly pissed by the principal, but just took it in stride; this is why I work in a warehouse and he owns tens of millions of dollars worth of property. He has been trained how to ignore not only the needs of the least in his life, but the very existence of them as well, and I have been subdued just enough by my acceptance that the decisions I have made in life slightly outweighed the fact that I tested well as a child and if I had only applied myself more during my formative years, I might be wearing his shoes. Then again, I could just as well look at his son and tell a different story of the man’s success. The son about age six, like the father was dressed from head to toe in the finest of fines. Nolan could have well been that boy, for as I looked into the eyes of that child indirectly, as he was being trained well himself not to acknowledge the lesser among him, I saw the same fixed and fearful gaze. It was easy to see that he had no earthly desire to be there whatsoever, but he was doing as his father said, and if he would simply do that for another couple of decades he would have the fat pockets, the big house on the water, the boat, expensive car and plastic wife. It only made me more proud of my little girl, as when they took the stage they would all be wearing the same thing, made by the same company and nobody would be any better than anyone else, just a bunch of scared four year old girls doing their best to have fun as a small part of something much larger than they could ever imagine at this stage of their lives. I breathed shallow breaths but stood with confidence in the presence of this decadent mob. They all smelled of imported Gardenia laden sprays and powders, not a hair out of place on any of them and then younger women, more my age looked the type to take a picture of themselves and proudly carry it with them to church on Sunday to show the other ladies what a wonderful hair day they were having while the preacher spouts that which they never hear about goodwill to your fellow man. God how those high heeled shoes must have ached, carrying around all of that cankle and pretense. I shudder to think of it even now, completely removed. Once the line started moving Holly, Mama Pat and Ella were nowhere to be seen. There was a man at the door taking tickets. I wanted to get some good seats. I looked around once more as my turn to enter came and I just handed the guy three tickets and said very clearly “here are three tickets. One is for my wife and the other is for my mother in law.” “No problem” he replied, “enjoy the show.” And in I went. I chose the best seat in the house for viewing and sound quality, right in the middle, the point from which they test all of the lights and sound equipment before making any last minute calibrations before the show. I used my sunglasses, reading glasses and phone to mark the other seats as reserved and sat quietly, waiting. I looked over to my right, three seats away to see number seven. “That’s my lucky number” I thought, and I decided to move to it when the others joined me. About this time the seats in front of me filled with more of the crowd from the line. “Damn, I just can’t shake these self-righteous, stinking bitches” as I looked back over toward number seven placing my hand over my nose to filter some of the heavy perfume odor. Now I know I should have compassion for everyone and every living thing, it’s kind of my gig, but these folks push the very last of the buttons that remain of my lower self, my inner child that hasn’t learned yet not to say what he is thinking. This conscious thought did actually befall me before the events of the next five minutes transpired. These days everyone has a mobile telephone, many of which also have a camera and this makes it possible for people to take pictures or video anywhere and with the touch of a few buttons, send those images as digital data whizzing through time and space to a giant mainframe computer on which all of the person’s friends and family can see and engage in discussion about on their own mobile phones. It is called the internet. So, as I sat there patiently and alone I was taken a bit by the boiled egg smell that made its way back to me from the row in front of me. “I swear to God one of these people has shit themselves!” I just knew it. I should have mustered the restraint to respect the uncontrollable bodily functions of my elders as I will have my day, but remember, we are talking about a crew that has no compassion for those like me, like us, the working poor. I took out my phone and selected the camera application, then, holding it up with no flash on I snapped a picture and uploaded it to that World Wide Web with the caption:” Oh my God, someone in this picture just crapped their pants.” As soon as I was finished, and smiling to myself I got a call from Holly wondering where I was. I told her I was saving seats. She conveyed that the man at the door, who I had spoken to about her and Mama Pat just moments before said he had no tickets for them and they were at will call. The people at will call had nothing for them either, so she called me again. Frustrated, I left my seat and the anal winds and walked like a soldier straight up to the man and without hesitation, and using my fingers to illustrate I said “I just gave you THREE tickets. I said ONE is for me and the OTHER TWO are for MY WIFE AND HER MOTHER.” “I remember you,” he started when “Well they were just told to go to will call and they have nothing…” “Holly! Mama Pat!” I shouted loudly, “Come on, NOW!” “That’s them.” I finished, leaving them and leading them to our seats. As they began to sit I moved over to number seven, a little further away from the bouquet. I showed Holly the picture and message and she scowled at me, unimpressed. I didn’t care, I was happy. She asked a minute later, “Is this where you WANT to sit?” and I just said without looking at her “this is where I am sitting…” as to convey in that spousal sort of tone that says “if you would have been here ten minutes ago before all of the others were taken then YOU could have made the choice, this was MY choice.” That was the end of it. Ella screamed through most of it while Mama Pat and I watched an hour’s worth of other folks children do their ballet and jazz step routines and then the lights came up. Holly had been in the lobby with Ella to keep her contained and out of earshot of the other parents. Mama Pat got up for the intermission for a smoke I guess and asked me, “Are you going anywhere?” “Do they have hot dogs?” I joked as she just rolled her eyes, knowing as I did that no concessions were being served. I stayed put. The intermission only lasted about ten to fifteen minutes. Mama Pat came back in frustrated as she didn’t feel right having a cigarette on the school grounds. The announcer even reminded every one of us before the show during his announcement of the fact that it was a drug, alcohol and tobacco free campus. Nevertheless, Mama Pat told me that when she went outside those same old entitled women were out there smoking it up. Worse even than the smoking around the other parents and kids that had the good sense and MANNERS to follow the rules and a little gentle goading, these old bats just threw their cigarette butts down on the main sidewalk in front of the school doors. There were no ashtrays, of course, being that it was a Middle school, but they just didn’t care and that brings me back to my original point about workers in the modern world. We are expected to shovel shit, to dig the ditch and to do it for thirty five percent less than we deserve because times are so tough someone else will happily take our shitty jobs if we ever lift our head in disgust or raise a voice in anger against the bourgeoisie. The aging wives of the modern day slave drivers were completely confident in their butt tossing, with no regard for the student that may find the leftover smoke and get suspended for it, or worse, get hooked. No, these elitist, socialite former sisters of debutantes expected full well that the likes of me would be there at some point before school resumed cleaning up after them, so they needn’t worry themselves over it. That was it, not a second thought. This enraged me, partly because that is exactly what would happen, and partly because I knew that they knew as well. I wanted to go outside and lay into one of them, but I wouldn’t. Within a few moments the lights were down again and I watched as the first two acts danced their hearts out, and then it was my Eme’s turn. I sat up high, posture straight, head above the indecent crowd in front of me and I watched as her and her little friends came out to the happy island sounds of Wookie Pookie Lullaby. The children did very well. They all missed parts and the crowd sort of laughed a cute laugh, not a mean one, very aware of the children’s’ feelings. It was over as soon as it began and the crowd gave them the loudest ovation of the day. I myself had already planned to do just as my mother did at my first tee ball game, scream my head off. As they finished I yelled “WHOOOOOOOOOOO EME! YAAAAAYYYYYYYYY E_M_EEEEE!” I bellowed so loudly and deep that I was sure it took the ladies in front of me by surprise, most of them half sleeping. I didn’t care. This was the moment I relished. After being treated like a second class nobody, a ghost, and a pauper, I raised my voice in triumph and celebration for my oldest daughter and let her know that her daddy was the loudest cheerleader in the auditorium. I may have gotten a few looks that showed the inappropriateness of my loud response, but the best look was that curled, round smile Eme was holding back as she walked off the stage, looking past the lights and people into that black void of crowd and knowing that somewhere out there her daddy was seated, and very proud of her. There is no amount of money or status in the world that can make a person feel any better than I did then and there. Nothing could make a father any prouder of his flesh and blood than those three little minutes of slightly mis- stepped, choreographed paradise. Holly, Ella, Emeline, Mama Pat and I had a very full and fun day of it. We finished by celebrating with a couple of bottles of wine and a stroll over to the beach for the sunset. I caught a little Grey Trout that impressed Eme and gave the rest of us a laugh. Then we walked back home and readied for a good night’s rest. I went to sleep that night thinking not of the stinking, smoking and farting old ladies that stared right through me while stepping on my toes, but of the last few lines of that ukulele driven lullaby: “and in pajamas made of silk, they drink a glass of milk, and eat a cookie wookie or two…and that’s a Waka Laka what a kooky Wookie Pookie lullaby.” The music faded as my head sank into the pillow. That cute little song about nothing sums it all up; the warehoused, the entitled, the ghosts and the crabs in the innocent few opening words; “they play the song that everybody knows, and this is how it goes…wouldn’t you like a little kiss?” I would, wouldn’t you? Warehoused/Sunsets One People bitch and moan about Mondays for some reason, maybe it is fashion, maybe habit; learned behavior, but I like them. I read long ago that some people make the mistake of judging the day before even getting out of bed. For example, some days you might wake up to a rain shower and think “oh shit, it’s raining again, what a crappy day today is, must be a Monday.” When instead the more positive outlook would be to just get up and say to one’s self, well it’s raining again, better grab an umbrella, or my tomatoes have really needed this. In either case the lesson was intended to illustrate that by simply telling ourselves at the beginning of the day what type of day it would be based on something as insignificant as rain, or the day of the week was to guarantee us a bad day without even exploring the possibilities that day holds for us. Any day may be the day that we won the lottery, or met the love of our lives, if we would only give the day a chance to unfold itself, moment by precious moment. I try to keep that in mind. Today was a Monday, and I didn’t let that bother me, but last night landed my mother in the hospital in a medically induced coma, and this was dominating my thoughts early. To add more of a challenge I arrived at work and everything was the same as it was left on Friday. I had gotten there moments before Morgan, and clocked in before anyone else. The vomit was still on the road and all of the boxes were still piled on and around my desk. I stood silently waiting for instructions on how to remedy the situation. I asked Morgan if there was a direct that I could reach her on and explained my mom’s situation to her. My mom has cancer. There is one tumor in her colon and another in her rectum. The one in her rectum has spread into her vaginal wall and even though she finished all of the radiation and chemo back in December and it is now June, she still awaits surgery. The tumor in her rectum is blocking it so much that two failed attempts at colonoscopies have wasted eight weeks of her time and cost her eight more weeks of unnecessary worry as well as put her surgery off until three weeks from now. She had been getting weak lately, her feet have been swelling and as she puts it, she is growing weary of all of the pain and the not knowing. As I informed Morgan of this I had a hard time fighting back tears and she asked if I needed to be there. I told her I wanted to at least try. She walked over to my desk and saw that all of the boxes were still there and seemed at a loss for any place to relocate them and said that I really couldn’t get started on anything else until they were moved so I walked to a different section of the shop and taped up a bunch of full boxes that were ready to ship and threw them into their respective bins. After about ten minutes there I decided it was time to go so I told Morgan that my dad had just called and asked me to come home, and I left. It was still early once home; the girls and Holly were still there, getting ready for work and school. Holly asked what I was doing at home and whether or not I quit. I told her no I had not quit, but since there wasn’t much for me to do and I was already scheduled to take a half day anyhow Morgan just sent me home. I had an appointment scheduled with my gastroenterologist. I have ulcerative colitis, irritable bowel syndrome and a pre-cancerous throat condition known as Barrett’s Esophagus. I needed to go see the nurse for a medical evaluation, basically a refill on the medicines that would hopefully keep me cancer free. Once they left I sat at the machine for a bit contemplating some unfinished short stories but then settled for wasting time on social media and old music videos. It was around ten in the morning still and I needn’t leave until around one thirty. There were tornado warnings out as hot air battle cold in the upper atmosphere and the sky was beautifully threatening. We soon got a drenching rain. The drops were fat and wet and formed sheets as they fell, turning my sandy wasteland of a yard into a running brook for a few hours, it was magnificent. I did indeed have plans to visit my mother but not until after my doctors visit. Mom lives up in Suffolk, Virginia about two hours north and my doctor’s office is in the middle, in Elizabeth City. I waited for the thunder and lightning to pass along before calling my father around noon. I asked how mom was and he said fine. I wondered how she could be given the circumstance, but that’s dad. I mentioned casually that I had a doctor’s visit in E. City at three o’clock and that I planned on coming up after that. He told me not to. He said mom was doing much better and she would be released in the afternoon and back at home with hospice care by nightfall and that the last thing she needed was company. She needed rest and quiet. I talked to her a couple of hours later before heading out and she confirmed that, all she wanted was to lie down; be still and quiet. We talked for a while, the subject of which is not important, but after both of us cried a bit, the thunderstorms came again and blew my reception and I lost the line. Mom quickly called back and cut it all short. “The best thing I could do” she told me was to “take care of Holly and the babies.” I assured her that I would, but also asked her to promise to call if she felt herself slipping away again. She said she didn’t want to be a burden or to worry me and I told her that she was no burden at all but that I was a forty three year old man and her oldest son and I may live to be one hundred and forty three and would have plenty of time for business as usual but as for now, the situation was far from regular if she would allow me to say so, and that no matter her wishes for me not to worry, I reminded her that not only was she my mother with genuine concern for my well being, I was her son with the same concern. We talked a little more and as I told her I loved her she just said “alright, I’m gone.” We hung up. I got home from E. City around five o’clock or so and started preheating the oven for a frozen lasagna. Holly complained that unless I wanted it I shouldn’t heat up the house with the hour and a half cook time and that she would instead make some pasta and toss the leftover veggies from the night before for her and the girls. I wasn’t hungry so I just said “I’m going for a walk.” “Are you okay?” she asked. “Okay enough that you shouldn’t worry for my safety.” I spoke back and I was out the door. I grabbed my rod and reel and headed for the beach, two blocks away. “What if you get rained on?” I heard her ask as I walked out. “I can’t feel the rain.” I said as I just kept walking. Once down at the shore things slowed down for me. It was slightly drizzly and the sky was covered in the most wondrously shaped cloud banks. There were big billowy trails like those from a steam engine that dumped water miles out to sea, and high towers overhead and behind me. The air was much cooler than it had been the last couple of nights there, and the water a degree or two warmer. As I baited two rusty hooks, knowing I wouldn’t catch anything I noticed a pod of Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins about thirty yards off shore right out in front of me. They were working a bait ball just on the other side of the sandbar. Waist-high barrels peeled over the bar as the sets rolled in and the dolphins fed on the little fish. I could see the bait breaking the water in between me and the bar, and I knew also that these were not fish that I would catch on a line. Nonetheless I through my hooks into the swirl of fish in hopes that a stray Bluefish or Speckled Trout would be taking advantage as were the dolphins, maybe even a small Dogfish or Sandbar Shark. I have caught one shark in my life, a little Spiny Dogfish of about two and a half or three feet. I didn’t use a hook. I had neither rod nor reel, just my hands. I was on one of my tours when I noticed it thrashing in a shallow tide pool on the wrong side of the sandbar. It was drowning in air. I stopped the truck to the amazement of my guests as they asked me what I intended to do. “I am going in after it!” I said, “It’s dying.” I jumped out of the truck and stripped off my shoes and shirt. I left my sunglasses on the dash and waded over. As I approached it I said a funny sort of prayer to the animal gods. Please do not let me do anything stupid I thought. I was well aware that even thought the mouth was too small for any appendage loss, if it thrashed the wrong way I could still really get a nasty wound. As I approached the animal I stretched out my hands and placing my left behind the dorsal fin and my right just in front of the tail I grasped the flailing creature fast. It went limp like a muscular baseball bat in my hands. I held it up for all to photograph as they cheered and then I looked into its eye. It was the most beautiful and mysterious web of color I had ever seen. Forget what you know about the Great Whites and the man eaters of television with that large black inhumane eye, this little guy had what looked like a cat’s eye marble from the old days. The eye was an amazing swirl of amber, teal, green and brown. It was very much alive. I watched as the gills opened and closed, wishing for salt water again, it was weak from the struggle to regain its freedom. After the obligatory showing of my feet to its eyes and the “okay now buddy, remember these, never bite these” joke I walked to the other side of the bar into waist deep clear blue water. I spun around slowly with it to re-oxygenate it and after maybe three to five rotations I stood still and slightly lessened my grip as it took off like a bolt of lightning. It was magical. The only experience I could compare it to would be that of holding a Ruby Throated Hummingbird years before in my mountain cabin after it had become caught in between two window panes. The bird, the shark and me, all caught between two pane universes in our own way. That window glass, the tidal flats and my warehoused haven from the world of the unemployed all seemed as one and the same now. As the sun sank lower behind me I saw my first pod of Humpbacked Whales since moving here when I was nineteen years old. I had been hearing many reports of people seeing them, and even seen pictures taken by locals, but I hadn’t seen them with my own eyes until tonight. I almost missed them too. They were out quite a way, out where the shipwrecks lay on the outer bar, where the waves break during the hurricanes and Nor’easters when they reach twenty five to thirty feet. For those unaware my little barrier island home is referred to as The Graveyard of The Atlantic. There are around five to six thousand wrecks dating back to pre-colonial times, before the white folks first polluted this paradise and “discovered” this “new world.” At any rate, out there, among the ghost fleet the whales played, breaching the surface mouths agape and swallowing the schools of menhaden, the distant cousins of the herring that once made our estuaries a world class fishery; again, before we moved everything around, built our castles in the sand and set forth the about the business of trying to hold that which has moved back and forth for scores of millennia in place. Humans are the most stupid sort of beast. We find a perfectly good collective of ecosystems, like those in the deserts of Nevada in the fifties, label it as wasteland, and then go about the business of rendering it as such. We have turned the dunes, the marshes, the maritime forests, the Black Pine barrens into strip malls, mini-mansions and parking lots, continually razing Live Oak to sand and building Cedar Shake domiciles and dentists’ offices. The rule around this place is if it hasn’t been built in the last ten to fifteen years, knock it down and build something bigger. I eagerly wait for the day a Category Five wipes the entire slate clean like today’s heavy rains flooded and wiped away the fire ant hills. Men will then once again scurry about busy like those ants, and maybe next time they will build it differently, more compassionately, but probably not. After the whales and dolphins finished their show I threw a few more casts at the remaining bait fish but for no reason other than exercise really. I thought about heading back home. I thought of the request my mom has for me every summer to just go down to the ocean around this time of the year when the salt air reaches her senses a couple of hours north of here and dip in my toes. I had done that once again, alone. I thought of the pictures of her and my father alone on a March day back in 1969 on a lonely beach in Nags Head, about nine months before I arrived on this planet and I stopped thinking, I just knew. I knew everything and nothing at the same time. As I packed up my tackle box and readied my gear for the walk home I walked once more to the ocean to swish my feet clean of sand before pulling my socks and shoes on over wet toes. Standing there for a moment I allowed the up and back motion of the water to rush around my shins as my feet buried. I watched the Coquina and the Mole Crabs bury themselves fast to escape the piping bills of the Sanderlings and once again, for the first time in my life I saw something that I knew were occasional on our beaches, but had never before seen. It looked shiny and golden as the wave retreated and the foam washed over and away. I have been a collector of coin ever since I was about seven years old but I have never found one on the beach although it has been a lifelong dream of mine. I reached down quickly into the retreating surf so that this magical looking item wouldn’t escape me, sure that it was a candy wrapper, or a polished shell fragment; until my hand grasped it. It was my wildest dream come true; a gold coin that from what I could tell must have been around four hundred and fifty years old or so, probably of Spanish origin. They are out there I know, they have been found before, could this be true? Was I dreaming or did I actually hold not only the most prized possession a kid could ever find, but a very valuable and rare relic at that, possibly worth more than the house I rent coupled with every bit of money that my wife and I had and would or could ever make. I felt butterflies in my stomach, I thought of faraway places and of dreams coming true. I looked around and I was on the beach alone in the azure reflection of the summer sunset on the bubbling ocean bound seawater. Everything was quiet and still as I stood there. Without a thought and before I could change my mind I closed my eyes and hurled that coin as far as my arm could throw it. I saw it splash on the other side of the bar where the dolphins were just playing. Not yet, I thought as I turned to walk home. I pulled those old socks over my cold, wet feet and slipped on my shoes. I passed a few cigarette butts there by the steps back up from the beach to the street and thought again, stupid fucking humans, no sense of what is valuable and what is trash. I picked a piece of salty Sea Rocket to chew as I walked. Once back on the street I was followed by a trio of Mockingbirds. I sang to them as they talked to one another, they flitted and flew along beside me as I walked. They stopped among the Indian Blanket, the yellow Prickly Pear flowers and the Meadow Beauty. Their collective fragrance mixing with that of the freshly bathed Bayberry and Coral Honeysuckle and for those few moments as I walked towards the house, I was home again. I was in my head again. Tomorrow would bring no note from the doctor or sympathy to spare me from the warehouse again, but for a moment I was winning. Butler was back on top, as my world and the barrier islands crumbled beneath my feet. In the distance were the audible groans of green guests caught by Sandspur and Prickly Pear needles while trampling through my garden; their wasteland. Them; drunken and stumbling as I listened, belly empty but soul made whole again by the body and blood of the salt, the rain and the winds. Warehoused/Sunsets Two There were lots of strange smells around the warehouse my first day back. After laying out the last two days with the grief of my mom’s condition I was back among the living, for a few hours anyway. The first thing I noticed was than my friend Alan was gone. He’d told me his last day was Friday but I was so preoccupied by the boxes I forgot. It sucked really. He and I had become close. The other regular faces, Paul, Morgan, Jayden and the heavy set fellow I mentioned earlier. His name was Dustin but everyone called him“Snowflake.”I did mention the story behind Snowflake before, but it was on my first or second day and I guess it got lost in the mix. In the last weeks I had grown fond of Paul and Snowflake, they had their own comedy routine going on. They had lots of jokes and one-liners. Snowflake was a gentle giant really and my compassion for him began to spill forth as the days went along. He liked to fish, he really liked to fish, so we talked a lot about that. He was also sort of cross-eyed which made me want to hug him for some reason. He was just an all around nice guy. I was glad that he and Paul were still there. I really missed Alan though; we connected on an intelligent and mutually respectful sharing level. That’s life I guess, one minute the universe slams a few kindred spirits together and you feel inseparable, like brothers, the next moment it twists and bangs and all of the pieces go flying. I learned it a long time ago, but I have never learned to like it, or understand it. Alan didn’t need the job anyway, he is a college boy, barely twenty two years old, and he has plenty of choices left. I am among one of several lost generations that rode a wave of swollen real estate prices, economic growth that was extremely disproportionate to the actual figures of what real people made and all of that came crashing down about a half decade ago. I am among millions who have lost their job due to injury, illness or outsourcing. I am a lucky man at forty three years to have a job slinging boxes in a warehouse and Alan is a smart kid that’s just making a little extra money for bills while he has a beach summer. In the fall he will be back in school and on his parents’ insurance, I will be off of Medicaid and searching for another low paying job just to keep the rent paid and the kids in school and decent clothes. What a wonderful world we have allowed them to create. As we watched the gladiators of television and bickered over Red of Blue, we have all been fleeced by the greedy greens. But this is a story about smells. I work in a little district of warehouses and lots of other businesses use the park as well. There is a tee shirt printing place, a wood shop and a meat smoking and packing plant all within the same building complex. I didn’t realize this at first. The first few weeks I worked there I would smell what I thought was burnt popcorn. It turns out that the wood shop a couple of warehouses down they would often plane boards to make them nice and straight. The industrial sized electric planer they used would get really hot and the wood would burn slightly, this explained the popcorn smell, or did it? There was also the meat processing place and about once a week smoke would billow from their doors as well, smelling sweet of apple and hickory woods. I remember standing at my desk that day in particular and both places must have been well into full operation. One of my co-workers just a few feet away was in heaven over the roasted smoky meat smell and all I was getting was burnt popcorn.“Come stand right here” I called, “it doesn’t smell like meat to me, I smell burnt popcorn.” As he walked over, making the smelly nose face like a bloodhound he discovered what I was getting whiffs of, and he looked at me and said “yeah, I do smell that…strange.” “Yep” I said, “strange what a couple of feet can do.” He walked back and as business as usual dictates, we stopped talking and went back to our stickers and boxes. All up and down that industrial park there were buildings full of people doing what they didn’t want to do. We were all doing it for the money, short money, but money for our families, all of us except for the college kids. There were body shops, boat builders, mechanics and glass makers, and not one of us was making more than ten bucks an hour, I would bet my eight bucks an hour on that. Strangely enough I was content there, among the boxes and the kids; the Black Rat Snake that lived in the tall grass next to our building where Paul, Snowflake and a few others took their smoke breaks. That snake tormented Snowflake, poor guy, he was terrified of it and it always came out for sun when he was around. That’s life too I guess; don’t bother being afraid of it or it is sure to stalk you while you walk or while you sleep. That was a lesson I learned a long time ago, hell, maybe THAT was why I was now working in the warehouse instead of writing sketch comedy or situation comedies for prime time television. I wonder what kind of cash those guys make. It was nearing lunch time. We can take our thirty minute break anytime between eleven and whenever, but I like to wait until as close to two o’clock as I can, it breaks the day up better. If you get there at eight and work until two you’ve killed six hours, almost a full day by regular work week standards, but we work six ten hour days, with thirty minutes for lunch each day. It was nearing one thirty and I couldn’t stand it any longer. My left leg was killing me. I was feeling sharp pains in the back of my knee every time I put weight on it, or locked it and leaned back on it. This had been going on for days actually, but I ignored it until forced to stand for the long haul again. I decided to hit the ER and get it checked out while I still had Medicaid. I really thought that there might be something seriously wrong the way the pain was, so at one thirty five I went to talk to Jayden, asked him if I might take a little longer lunch to get my leg checked out. He said it was okay and off I went. Here I was, my first day back to work and off to the hospital. At the hospital they sent me to a room. I waited for the doctor to come in and he looked familiar. I was becoming a regular lately with the newfound health coverage, even if it was “welfare” in the eyes of most. I had paid my fair share is what I figured, and screw anyone who said otherwise. Treat my messed up leg please and thank you. The doctor ordered an ultrasound and x-rays. After all was said and done he said I had a Baker’s Cyst. This is apparently a bulge in your knee that occurs from too much standing and/or arthritis. I knew I had arthritis in my neck and back so this came as no shock, but I couldn’t help the feeling that I was falling apart. They put a bandage around it and put it in this slick black immobilizer to take all the weight off of my knee and make me walk like a pirate with a peg leg. They also told me to follow up with an orthopedic doctor in a few days. I left the hospital with a low grade script for a “synthetic narcotic” pain reliever. It sounded suspect to me, but I didn’t make a fuss, it was better than nothing I figured. As I walked out it hit me; “how in the fuck am I going to get in my car?” It was really a challenge to be frank about it. I had to pick a leg and get one in and then go for the other. I tried it both ways; “casted” leg first and then good leg first. Neither way really seemed any better, they both took me several minutes and I am sure it was fun for the other kids to watch. I walked in and explained to Jayden that they had to drain some fluid and I would be back in the morning. No fluid had been drained really, but it sounded scary and I just wanted to go get the pain pills and go home. I was still feeling disconnected anyhow and thinking of mom. I knew I would have about three solid hours in a quiet house and I really needed to catch up on some writing so home I went. I a call from a friend, and I told him why I wasn’t working; “God Damn!” he said“You’re falling apart all of a sudden…” and I laughed it off, “yeah, funny huh?” “Fuck no!” he replied, you’re too young!” I could tell he was being sincere, but I just said, “Well, Mom was about my age now, or a little younger when the same shit hit her, so I guess…” “Yeah…”he interrupted, “I’ll just keel over one day from cancer and they’ll bury me.” That was that, we didn’t talk much more. I went in as scheduled the next morning. Everyone was standing outside as I limped up in my immobilizer. “What happened to you?” a few of them asked in chorus. “Old age.”I mumbled as I walked past them to the office to punch in. I gave a full day this time. It was my first full day in four. It hurt like a bitch, but I sloughed through it. I had a bit of a synthetic narcotic hangover going anyway, and I was taking those pills like mints. It was hot, but everything is always a little better for me with a prescribed and legal high involved. It was Thursday and more than half of the week was gone. I had worked about fourteen hours of the scheduled fifty seven but I gave this math no consideration. There was a fresh tropical storm brewing down south and moving fast. It would be through our area the next day so we had to hustle on Friday to move all of the boxes being kept outside into the already overcrowded warehouse. We worked like little ants to get it all inside; safe and dry. I had a gig scheduled for the next day as well, one hundred bucks for playing two hours of music, but it was looking less and less likely to happen. The forecast called for heavy rain and thunderstorms, tornado watches, and high winds. I went home ready for a proper rinsing. I had every plan on returning the next day. Warehoused/Sunsets Three Damn. It was Friday and the third day of missed work in the last five. No matter the remnants of the Tropical Storm that was barreling through the state on a bullet train tracking the I95 corridor, I started my work day by calling to tell Morgan that I had overslept and would soon be leaving the house. I felt like a shmuck. Everyone around here was in a foul mood due to the gale force winds and sheets of drenching rain. If you went to the beach there was also stinging sand to be had if you liked. Morgan’s voice stung me the second time I called her about a half hour later to inform her that my children’s day care was closing early and that since my wife would have a harder time getting off of work, as she in effect had a more important and better paying job than me, I was going to have to stay home with my kids.“That’s fine, no worries.” She said hurriedly. Although I knew she said all was fine, I was also very aware of the corporate consequence that usually follows that type of supervisory re-assurance. One day they call you into a different office with that same smile and tone, only they have witnesses; back-up so that when they show you the typewritten list of infractions itemized by date and time in minutes and severity there is no negative backlash from you, they have a clean break when they let you go. That is the real corporate world; nice and smooth, sterile, surgical grade sharp. Once I swallowed the fear of the impending and potential consequence with a couple of pain pills the day took a wonderful turn upward. It was great. The kids and I played and shared real lessons. My right leg was killing me know though thanks to bearing all of the extra weight involved from having my left knee immobilized. I wasn’t really concerned; I just chalked it up to arthritis and went on about the day. My daughters and I watched cartoons and I wrote out the alphabet on a little easel they have so that we could play learning games. I taught them how to trace the letters and then we went through a box of flash cards, learning the different sounds that the letters make. I tried to get them into using those sounds to shape and sound out words but it was a little early for that I guess. Whatever the actual; results of this exchange would mean in real time-real world definition didn’t matter to me; a new world was taking shape through the actions and the wonderment in the amazing eyes of my offspring. Nothing else really mattered. If I got fired, I got fired and nothing I could do would change that now. The only positive in real dollars was that my wife stood the chance of making double the money that I would have that day in just the next few hours unless the storm washes all of this and us away, or one of those tornadoes rips through the town razing every hope and dream to the ground, making way for the new seeds, the new dreamers of dreams. If all went as planned I would also still have my gig in Manteo, on Roanoke Island, and I could make my hundred bucks for sitting in a chair and playing music for any and all passersby, if the weather took a turn for the better by then, but I wasn’t banking on it. I would probably do much better by staying home and playing cover songs by Joe Walsh and Sam Cooke for my little ones. I don’t really mind the current reality of my social situational status. I am fine right now, in this moment and nothing else matters, not Monday, not Tuesday and not next Thursday. Right now is all I have and I am enjoying it. It is a small challenge really to block out the familiar feelings of laying out of work, being off more than on. Those feelings are not dissimilar to those of the ill, the depressed, the addict, or the innocent. There is much more to be written on the subject of being forty three and feeling young again, if even for a few fleeting hours amid a Tropical Storm, just me, my daughters and my acoustic guitar. This day was no loss at all. I was reminded again just how rich and fortunate I am, even without a dime to spend. There was nowhere to go anyway, nowhere but inside on this Friday. Warehoused/Sunsets Four I woke up at five thirty on Saturday morning and took three ibuprophen and lay back down. The crazy lucid dreams began again and then only thing to bring me respite from my restless sleep was a screaming cramp in the back of my right knee. It jerked so hard it woke my sleeping soul! I was once again a participant in the world of physical pain. The warehouse was but two hours away but I knew then and there that another day was going to pass without my seeing it. I couldn’t stand up or even bend my leg. I called and left Morgan yet another message and crawled into bed with Holly and the kids. As the clock drew near nine Holly began to ask the questions she feared the answers to; the ones she already knew. I was not going to work today. She got out of bed early intent on spending the day with the kids but instead set out on a cleaning spree. The last week had left the house in shambles and she was complaining loudly enough for me to hear about it, I would have no easy rest; just like when I was a kid and managed to convince mom I couldn’t go to school, I would have no fun in the meantime. If I was sick, I had to BE sick. Holly had one up on mom though, I wasn’t bringing in money. I lay there anyway, in and out of this world and the other, dreaming and hurting. One dream in particular took me to a strange dream world re-creation of New York City. It was an easy interpretation once I woke up again. I had once again made a spur of the moment move away from home, farther away than mom was comfortable with without telling her. I moved there with my old high school friend Santos. We were both straight-edge punks back in the skateboard days twenty five years back but now he was a real time junkie. Actually, as far as I know now he is well and recovered from that stuff, it is a disease and should be looked upon as such, not a weakness, we all have ours. I used to have a love for the smack myself, but that was years before I was a family man, anyway, we all have our demons and skeletons. Even though we are both clean now the representations and associations in the dream were plain. There was plenty of that familiar blindness, blurred eyes and slurred speech blanketing the dream time assertions of justification for my decisions regarding matters called into question by the owner of our new apartment, in that other dimension, the other now to factor in. I remember that I kept begging Santos to come outside with me; “Come on man! This is New York Fucking City!” We never did go outside though. We searched for a vacuum to do the floors with as I picked up small pieces of broken dishes, dried food and exoskeletons. I guess I should mention that I hate centipedes, and they were all over the floors, just like in my waking life. Every time it rains the rotting wood under this old rental home seems to feed them or bring them out of hiding and into our living space. I like to place a tissue over them and step on them until I hear that tiny snap. After that I pick them up and flush them down the toilet. I wash my hands and maybe therein lies the key to my hatred of the, for as a child, out of all the little bugs I played with, they left a funny smell on my fingers and I have never gotten used to it or liked it one bit, anyway yeah, fuck centipedes. I finally stopped visiting that tired dream and woke up to the very real fact that I might have lost my job. I may loathe every trip to that warehouse, but after the first fifteen minutes inside it all seems natural, and I even kind of like it. The work was mindless and simple enough and the rules were few and relaxed by warehouse standards. Paul said that when he worked for a large internet distributor you couldn’t listen to music, here you could. Every story these humble folks had to tell all led me to believe that I was in the slack, diluted gravy of low end industry employment. This was surely not the Shipyard job I had as a teen. There I would spend about forty five minutes each morning sleeping on the toilet, everyone did. Here there was no need. We could arrive late or leave early as long as we told Morgan or Jayden. My former twenty five professional years were not so slack and forgiving. I worked in restaurants most of that time and then did ten years as a tour guide. In the kitchens or the safari cruisers there was always more structure; more individual responsibility. The warehouse vibe more resembled that of the workings of an ant colony working together to move a large branch piece by piece from a tree to a hole. If a few individual ants strayed from the task, or got sick, injured or lost along the way it was not a matter of focus, the task at hand was; it was much larger, more important than the hapless wanderings of the few for whatever reason. As long as the weaker or lost ants made it back they were welcomed back into the colony, no feelings of guilt, no punishment or isolation, just being; Zen. I find some strange socio-psychological curiosity or maybe even ethos in that fact that we humans generally miss in the rat race of daily life, we are humans doing, not humans being. When I was a chef or even just a line cook to call in sick was unheard of, punishable by immediate termination, even with a one hundred plus degree fever. I was actually pulled out of bed by a chef once when I was nineteen and had Strep Throat. He forced me to get dressed and come to work. I did however eat about five Vicodin and pass out in the men’s bathroom and had to be taken home. To this day I say fuck that guy. The punishment for not showing up as a tour guide was only slightly less punitive and there was genuine guilt associated with sickness or lameness. If I didn’t show for work and it left the office manager, a dear friend and surrogate big sister to me the job of having to call a bunch of people and make up some bullshit story about why they couldn’t go out that day and try to move them to another day. I have been in her position plenty and it sucked. Nobody ever wanted to move their time or day of the tour, and why should they, they were on vacation and had other shit planned for the rest of the week. I could empathize, but if I was sick, or my back hurt, “fuck ‘em” was always the bottom line. I guess it took the diagnosis of arthritis in my neck and back to finally give me the justification to leave that life of being depended upon so heavily for a relatively low living wage. How many humans tote that water every day for want of more, and lack of it? The life of the warehouse, the factory or the shipyard worker is much simpler in this regard. The work is generally more monotonous and requires less thinking in a sense. In some cases the work demands less thinking, especially for an intelligent human; displaced. There is however a certain cold comfort that comes with this“expendability paradox.” If you get sick, break your leg, cut off a finger with a razor knife or even find yourself jailed for a few nights you may or may not lose your job based on the importance of the task of the moment, yet in either case you remained free of the guilt associated with the demands that would be otherwise placed on the individual gear of those much larger machines of service if something was to arise which rendered you useless or absentee for a day or a week. The comfort of the knowing all of those other ants in my colony were there for me both enveloped and satiated any needs the queen may have to exercise her power, and using her mandibles in one swift motion, take my head off. Even with one less protein filled exoskeleton the job would press on, carried by the strong mouths and backs of the strong and willing. I told myself so anyway, as I watched the remnants of a soft summer rain fall, my wife busy with the vacuum still. At Holly’s request, and out of a sense of knowing that I had better head my boss of at the pass so to speak, I called Judy Bright of Human Resources to lay out my record of absentee and explain why I only worked about fourteen hours and change of a fifty seven hour work week. Judy is the canal through which all hiring and firings must pass, and she had hired me and promised me a better position, one that suited my skill set and for more money, hopefully on the telephones in an office and a chair scheduling reservations. She was well aware of my limited physical abilities as well, and I called to not only remind her of that, but to let her know that as a forty three year old father of two and one who had found himself in supervisory roles many times before that I was well aware that my previous week’s record of absenteeism was not in my character usually and that I well understood that it set off red flags for anyone, no matter how bullet proof my excuses may have been, and they were. I had a dying mother and left in tears one day and doctor’s notes for all of the rest. I tried to sound as sincere and contrite as I could. She assured me that I was fine and that as I mentioned concern over the fact that I would not be fired. She went on further to say what a wonderful and expedient job we were doing in the warehouse and how ahead of schedule we were. I told her of the good morale and how everyone really worked well as a team. We had no weak links, unless of course you considered me. She ended the conversation by reassuring me that she would speak to Lowell Spruill, the head of the reservations department and also have a talk with Morgan on my behalf. Lastly, she made it clear once and for all that my job was secure, but that I should get some rest while I could. There it was, that tone again that says “you are fine now, but don’t push it, because if need be, I will fire you with the same smile on my face, okay.” After this conversation Holly felt much better, and that made me feel better. I lay around the rest of the day trying to stay off of my feet. My only worry was a scheduled doctor’s appointment for first thing on Monday morning that they had no idea of. It reminded me of the time in the shipyard, three hundred sixty three days into my first year when I was called into the office for being late right after a union rep had saved my job and wiped my slate clean just weeks before, and I got fired. I was feeling a bit more confident that I had dodged a major bullet, but I couldn’t really be sure. My conversation with Judy had gone smoothly, HA! It was about as smooth as sandy soap rubbed into a sunburned back by a soon to be ex lover, but I pulled it off one more time, whew. Warehoused/Turning a Corner One Well it was another Monday and when I made it to work I was only about eight minutes late. I overslept again, but I jumped up and drove fast. I gave consideration to skipping or rescheduling my physical therapy appointment as I was still feeling the sting of my previous week’s performance. I got into the office and Morgan was in her usual short tempered form. I could tell by now that it wasn’t really in her nature to be a bitch, but she had bitches of her own; mainly Kathy the warehouse big boss. Kathy Krugmann, the short, pug like pit bull. I stood there in front of Morgan and rolled my dice one more time. “Yes, do you need something?” she asked in a short, curt tone.“Well…” I started in, “I have to go to the hospital to pick up that piece of equipment for my neck between eight thirty and nine, should I clock in and work until eight thirty or just go now?” She almost didn’t let me finish “Just go now.” She replied, and I left. One thing that I should include was that one old friend was back, Alan was joining us again for the week and my friend Paul was gone. I had noticed that he wasn’t there and just figured he was sick or had something else obligating him. After most of the morning had passed I heard a couple of the kids talking about him and I asked what had happened. “He quit.” They told me. What? What happened” I asked them. “ I don’t know…Morgan was telling him that he had done his p.o. wrong and he just flipped out, cussed her out and left.”Wow. One of the ants gave the queen more than she wanted and when she opened her mandibles to behead him he snapped; went off to build an ant hill of his own. Paul had been a bit of a kindred spirit to me. He offered to get me a discount on hotel rooms in Virginia if I had to return to see my mom, and then he quit, owing me five bucks. I could give two shits for the cash really, but it sucked that he was gone. I drove down to the Outer banks Hospital to meet my therapist, Angie. She had ordered me a TENS Unit or a Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation System, meant to manage chronic pain. I could go into how pain and non-pain pulses travel along the spine through cutaneous and afferent nerves and about how there are “gates” along the way that determine which messages are sent along to the brain, but I don’t really understand all of that. What I gather is this. If my back, neck, shoulders or knees HURT, I can attach these cool electrodes to the area where I am experiencing pain and turn the little pocket-sized control box up as far as I can stand which in turn sends electrical impulses to these “gates” blocking some of the pain signals from making it to my brain and at the same time allowing the brain to produce more natural endorphins to handle the pain. Pain management is a wonderful thing! Instead of being all dopey and getting hooked on pain pills, this method is not addictive and much better for my body and health overall. When you attach these electrodes to the body you get the feeling of little butterfly wings fluttering over the affected area, and within fifteen to twenty minutes the pain is gone. I pulled that sucker out of the box and attached it and strolled into work like the bionic man. Not only was my new toy a conversation piece, but it strengthened the message that I was damaged goods and should not be considered for all the heavy work. I felt pretty good when I put it on, but it gave me trouble as the day wore on. The electrodes are covered in this really thin tarry sticky stuff and when you sweat a lot they tend to slip off and fall down into the crack of my ass. That feels funny, not what the therapist intended. I didn’t wear them to work after that first day. The day took a strange turn after I got back. Judy Bright walked by me as I was helping to load the day’s truck bound for various stores. This was an every morning occurrence. We would first get to work and then for a while talk a little trash among one another and around nine, when we were all diving into our p.o.’s it was time to form a line and load up the truck. Anyway, Judy saw me and said with that smile “when you’re done with whatever you’re doing, I need to talk to you, okay?” as she nodded her head in hopes of seeing me nod back. I had the feeling that maybe like that last tardy day at the shipyard she might let me know I had become too much of a burden, even though she had assured me that wouldn’t be the case only 40 hours before. I felt that nervous feeling, that “need to take a dump”feeling. I had no idea really what I was in for, if not a full on firing than maybe an official written warning. I quickly finished my work and went looking for her. I looked in her office, no luck. I looked in the conference room and nobody had seen her there, and then I looked over in the administration wing where Morgan said she had just been seen and I finally found her. She was busy talking with another person so I just gave her the “high sign” that I would be where she could find me when she was ready. The suspense was killing me. When she finally saw me she just motioned for me to come outside. I snapped to attention and marched out, ready for it. She had this look, the one I described earlier, but no witnesses and she said as she scooted behind the large, familiar green box “let’s talk behind the dumpster.” “Okay by me, what’s on your mind Judy?” She proceeded to tell me that she had just talked to Lowell and that Monday of next week she would be moving me to start training for reservations. Finally, I thought, my body can’t take much more of this work. I don’t know if my heart to heart with her on Saturday influenced her decision or not, but if it had, I pulled off one major bluff of a bullshit job. At any rate, I didn’t care. She went on to let me know that I would be working in the Nags Head Store, which is very busy and that not only would I have lots of phone work but many walk-up customers as well. She also added that I may be ringing people up at a cash register and wanted to know if I was cool with that. I told her “Yes Ma’am! Whatever you need, thank you very much! Wow, I wasn’t sure if you were going to give me good news or send me home.” I joked, a little pressure off. She said that I had done a great job in the warehouse but that it was time to move me on. Wow, so sudden, I thought, but hey I’ll take it. I went in a few steps lighter. This day was really shaping up. Back at my desk now I was surprised to see a couple of new girls working there; one college aged, and the other just nineteen, not doing much really. The coed was wearing a Green bay Packers jersey and I have yet to catch her name. The other young lady was a little heavy and her name was Bessie. She had a cool looking homemade beaded necklace on, like I used to see out in Asheville and she definitely looked the hippie part. She talked with a sweet southern drawl like the folks of southern Appalachia. She didn’t strike me as all that interesting really; moreover, she gave off this “I will say anything even if I contradict myself to get you to believe me, or to like me” vibe. I just kind of went along with the exchange of greetings and after she asked where I was from I asked her the same thing. I was right, she was from just north of Asheville, but she said she never hung out there too much. Weeks before my buddy Alan was at her desk and now there she was. She made a comment about weather, or something energy related and I replied. I think the general topic was earth changes and I figured that she must know something of this. I was wrong. She ate at McDonalds; she was dirty, sweaty, young. Somehow the subject of the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile came up, and the fact that the latter was supposed to have knocked the earth slightly off of its axis. I responded that I was of the opinion that it wasn’t an earthquake that knocked the earth off of its axis, but rather the natural tilt of the earth due to the gravitational pull in the cosmos had caused a polar shift and that was causing the earthquakes, not the other way around. She had a great one line explanation for everything though;“not to get all religious but the Bible did say that God would smite the earth with his mighty fist like a hammer.” To which I replied “yep, it seems to be going on.” She had lots of those lines. She asked me for a smoke and I told her I don’t smoke anymore to which she retorted “yeah, running out of money is the best way to quit anything.” For some reason this made me mad. Maybe it was her that was making me mad with that care free hippie attitude. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some hippies, but the conscious kind, not the following the rest around for a hit off the big balloon kind, the unwashed and sweating kind, the barefoot in the warehouse kind. I hate to say this, but the plain old lazy, dirty hippie kind. She brought up some religious saying once more and I kindly stated that I was unaffiliated, to which she answered, “yeah, I hate organized religion.” I was starting to get fed up. Luckily for me more good news was on the way. A few days before I was included in a list of people who were sent an electronic message via the internet in reference to a famous comic from a 90’s television sketch comedy show on MTV, a fairly funny and successful one. He was to be in Norfolk hosting a special night of storytelling along with a few of his comic buddies but he has the notion to include a few writers from the music scene as well; my scene. He had a go between that sent us the rules for story idea submission and some guidelines to follow when contacting him; what to include, what to say, how many words and details like that. I jumped on it immediately and sent an email out right away. Well, wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I had gotten the news from Judy I got the news from the comic who was to host this night of storytellers? It was a pretty big deal as it would go out on a national podcast and get massive exposure, just the thing for an aspiring writer such as myself. “Fuck YES!” I thought, and I just began smiling and laughing to myself. None of the kids I worked with would’ve been old enough to remember the show but I did, and I loved it. The email I received asked me to record a 6 to 12 minute mp3 of me telling the story. He was looking for quality of voice and tone, comfort level and range of emotion. I sent a return message assuring him that I would get on it as soon as I got home. I couldn’t wait to get home and the rest of the day passed rather smoothly. I had maybe a hundred and eighty tee shirts, a couple hundred pair of rubber shoes and some games to process, easy stuff. Actually, when I finished the shoes I was given a simple p.o. with a bunch of toys, even more fun! As I started unwrapping boxes Dylan came around and told everyone to find a stopping point, it was time to go home. Cool, I thought, I am READY to go home. I was beat. I left all the card decks and paper aero plane kits on the table and clocked out for the day. I was looking forward to more of this gravy in the morning. Hopefully I could finish out the week with no big orders to fill; maybe I could catch just one more break. I clocked out and walked to my car. I gave thought to how many steps it actually was as my knees hurt like hell and for some reason I have always loved to count things. Oh well, it didn’t matter, I could count steps some other time. It was now time to go home and celebrate with my loving little family. Warehoused/Turning a Corner Two Tuesday morning I counted the steps from my car to my desk. There were two hundred ninety seven of them. Each one of them today was a painful one. My knee was flaring up again. I talked to my mom that morning early, surprised that she had called. Her arthritis keeps her in bed usually until ten in the morning and she had called at seven o’clock to ask me inconspicuously “what are you doing?” She used to do that just for the heck of it in years past, but she had really been fighting the fight for her life lately and been under extreme duress so I was surprised. I told her that I was just packing my lunch and getting ready to go to the warehouse. I didn’t mention my knee problem; she has enough to worry about. We talked for a minute and she was in tears. She cried like a child and told me how bad she was hurting. She expressed again that she wished the doctor would call her and move the surgery up. It was still ten days away but she feared that her body would not make it. I pleaded with her to call the doc and move her up and she just went on like a dignified southern woman about how that wouldn’t be proper and how they had already pulled strings to get her in as soon as they were. I called bullshit on the whole matter and excused myself for doing so. I mentioned the two failed colonoscopies and the eight weeks that she had stolen from her over that mess. As she explained however that she wanted to do what the doctor said, like a good lab rat I thought, I could hear her tone ease up, her stress disappear, as if the submission to this man’s scheduling was in itself a sufficient enough show of acceptance of her place to calm her nerves and fears about things. We laughed about some idiot on a cooking show I can’t remember now and she wished me well on my day and she hung up. I had a very hard time limping in those last two hundred ninety seven steps. When I found my desk all of the air just left me. The paper aero plane kits and other toys of the previous afternoon had been stickered and distro’d and my desk was now littered with a multi-colored hell. I joked that it looked like someone had vomited a bad acid trip all over it. The p.o. was eighteen pages long and there were exactly six thousand ninety two pieces of little trinket jewelry on my desk. There were eleven different types of bracelets, three different types of rings, fake flower hair clips of two different sizes and fifteen different display cases to be assembled and filled with the assortment of neon string art junk. Sitting in the middle in a large plastic zip-top bag were seventeen different rolls of stickers. It took me about twenty minutes to wrap my head around it. I had to eventually call Morgan over to make heads or tails of everything, I was just too confused and growing increasingly apathetic. One more week in the warehouse…I thought, just one more week. I thought of my mom fighting through much worse and real consequences and just started unwrapping and sorting the shit. I like to separate everything and then use the numbers on the p.o. to match the numbers on the stickers when I have such a large amount of stuff before I place the first sticker. I did my best but Morgan had to make the final call. It turns out that the distributor had sent us several hundred items that were not on the p.o. and several hundred others that were on there but under a different number code and listing. Morgan had to go straighten that out, but I was ready to stand there and apply stickers over it all. By this point Jayden and I had developed more of a friendship than a boss-worker one. He was decidedly younger, he would be twenty six the next day actually, and I think the age and experience coupled with an intelligence in there I couldn’t see at first made him empathetic to my plight. He lived full time in Arkansas, I don’t know why he chose this place for his summer getaway, but like the tens of thousands of other residents, here he was. I also had a twenty three year old supervisor from Alaska who once cried on my shoulder about losing his girlfriend, or rather the pain he felt from losing a dog of which they had joint custody. That kid was a punk, but Jayden and I had started to really get along. I was sad in a way to be leaving the comfort of this warehouse, even if it was slowly killing me. The only employee in there that was anywhere near my age was a foul mouthed mother of four named Karyn Stockton. I liked her right away because she had a man’s sense of humor. I remember one of my first days there when I was throwing something in a box and bent down to pick it up and she said “oh, don’t go bending over in front of me like that!” I laughed and apologized for not wearing a more flattering pair of britches. Had I known, I told her, that she would be looking at my ass I would have certainly showcased it in a better light. We both laughed. She and I understood each other, and she loved to run the young boys around. She was married, but she was a funny sort of flirt, nothing anyone took seriously, she was a sarcastic sort of flirt. I played along quite well. I knew her type and loved it. I didn’t even know her name until a few days ago. I stopped her and asked for her name and introduced myself, even though we had exchanged many a one-liner. Once properly acquainted I asked her “are you one of those girls that acts all nice and then turn into an alter-ego with a different personality when you get drunk?” “YES!” she shouted while punching me in the arm and looking around quickly, “why? Have you heard stories? They call me “shooting star”.” I laughed and assured her that I had heard no stories, she just reminded me of others I knew like her, the intelligent kind of person who enjoys having their fun that was all. “Oh…” she replied, seeming let down, and she walked back to her desk. I looked forward to more time around her, but we never really got any. We showed each other our kid’s photos and both talked about how beautiful the others’ were and then pretty much just shared the work zone. I took lunch early. I told Morgan that my oldest daughter was throwing up and that I had to pick her up from day care and wait for my wife to get home to relieve me. She seemed fine with that. I went to my buddy Fred’s house. Fred has a recording studio. I had received that follow-up message from the comedian that wanted me to make a recording of my story. I am there! I thought excitedly. The night before I tried to do it at home but the programs I use require internet reception and I kept losing it every time I tried to upload my finished story. I shot down to Fred’s eating my chicken salad sandwich on the way. I got there, recorded it, uploaded it and saved it in the format the pro wanted and then emailed it to him. I waited for a response, sure that I would not only gain fame and fortune from this, but also maybe a job writing for television. I was sure of that fact. After the work was complete I returned to work and to my rings, bracelets and other worthless little crap that needed stickers. Around two o’clock I broke down and asked Jayden for a stool to sit on as I really had about three full days worth of work to do and I needn’t do it standing. He gave me one and I sat there, applying the stickers to the stuff. As the day went on Bessie kept on bugging me. She is a nice person but not my cup of tea. I was happy when she got a large p.o. which inevitably placed a huge wall of boxes between her and me. As the day wore on I felt slightly relived only because it was about to be over. I was annoyed by this undying task and by a quarter of six I began like the other kids, checking my messages on my mobile device. I wanted to get an email from the comic, but none yet. Oh well, I thought, he must be busy and have lots of stuff to sort through, he’ll be in touch. I thought I had that one in the bag. I left at six when everyone else did and I stopped and interrupted Jayden to ask him to please give my p.o. to someone on the night shift because it was mindless, painful and I was the only guy there with no headphones. I still had no headphones. If only I had headphones I thought, I could listen to anything I wanted and just zone out, forget the monotony of that long and stupid p.o. I walked back to the Ford feeling deflated from the day but the familiar six o’clock breeze blew welcome reminders of my potential story sell to the comedy man, and I returned home confident, if also beaten and bruised. My head cooled down and I headed home. I was very much behind on a story I was writing for another project and I really felt the need to write about twelve thousand words that night, although I had no idea how I would pull it off. Warehoused…Revelation Final I just came home and took the immobilizer off of my leg, then the bandage and let my swollen knee rest and breathe. It’ had been through a lot, that knee. I checked my electronic mailbox for messages about selling my story to a pro, the funny story about nearly being killed by a large man for allegedly raping his prostitute sister. I saw on this other social media window that a friend of mine had stated to the viewing public and all who spy on us the “he had just seen where he could get a Pizza Hut pizza, large with one topping for $5.99, and he thought about getting one until he realized how much better he would be going hungry than eating the Pizza Hut pizza.” He is a genius, one like I have been trying to tell you about. Humans have screwed it all up. We have lost our way; put our trust in our stock markets, the investments of the indoctrinated, well fed and foolish, the working class and our children. We have all been swallowed by the big fish. We have gone the way of the antigen, always chasing down and killing the pathogen a day late. We always leave part of the root alive. Even in modern war it seems, why do we fool ourselves by trying to make the advances of technology into our bedrooms and on our battlefields look so sexy, stealth and surgical. If an armed drone kills a wedding party in some country because it harbors “terrorists” and someone who hates “us” tells “us” that the ones we wish to kill are going to be at 123 Bomb Me Street so that we instead kill a family, women, innocent children and animals, why don’t we just return to old school war. When armies fought centuries ago they would slay every man woman and child on the opposing side, they would kill all of the roots; for as to leave those roots growing was to ensure future conflict, the opposite of the peace they tell us about when they kill. What would make the bigger statement as a deterrent? Would it be more of a statement to wipe out a city of 650,000 people to kill several enemy combatants or kill forty civilians while trying to kill four? I think the former would be more of a deterrent than the latter, but I am a fool who knows nothing. I drove home with the tires on the old Ford squealing on the hot asphalt. Ronnie lives back in Collington Harbor on the water, and the road to his house twists and turns like a mountain road. We have both spent lots of time driving in the mountains so we love it, but most people around here fear that road because they drive drunk. Most people around here like to close one eye when they drive and that type of idiocy is better reserved for a straight road. None of this makes sense. I tried explaining to Ronnie the concept that I was trying to drive home, the ideas that kept me writing the night before last for nine hours straight; what if we humans really got it all wrong when we started attempting to battle disease, cure weakness and natural decay? From Loius Pasteur finding penicillin growing as bread mold or whatever back then, or the Chinese artificially creating a virus through hybridization that has actually made good old Bird Flu airborne, and transmittable without the need for sick birds; what in the ham fat have we done? I talked on about this book I am trying to write and Ronnie started talking about his sick tomato plants. He said that a few nights before he and a friend had been talking about the connection between the plants you buy and the products you have to buy as a result to make them grow and stay healthy. It isn’t really a surprise that when the company that genetically manipulates the seeds of the plant you purchase to do what they want the plant to do also produce the chemicals you need and have cornered the market on sales. We are beaten at every turn; bigger fish own the whole of the human game. There is no such thing as a human race or a rat race anymore, no more than in any pure illusion. We are all pawns now in the human game. Some of us may rise to the status of King or Queen, but we will still be participants; pieces necessary for the game to continue, or might we learn a different way, a more expansive, conscious and multi-dimensional way to play the game? We all do it as individuals whether we can acknowledge that or not. Some seed-of-the-earth types call it lying. Other people use their game manipulation to break rules and seek to justify, but as we play, the ones who awake from the bounds of the board are able to consciously watch the game as opposed to participate in the game. As Ronnie and I sat and talked I watched a Mallard land on the water in the deep canal behind his house. Ronnie had just shown his neighbor how to tie a particular know for fishing rigs, a Palomar knot. While I watched the duck a Martin came and lighted on his dock. “Look at us” I exclaimed, stretching my sternum outward and shoulders back, “we are living in Paradise…people from all over the world come here just for a week and here we are, living, without a dime in our pockets.” I laughed as a few boats of fishermen headed out towards Kitty Hawk bay in the growing mid-morning summer heat. Ronnie and I had smoked the herb a bit earlier and I hadn’t smoked a thing in months. I asked him to let me light his Nat Sherman cigarette as I haven’t smoked one since making the call to a quit program months before. He refused to let me, saying that he would need me to be strong for him in a few weeks. He had also made the call. As he chatted with is neighbor about building an addition on her dock and the cost in American human dollars I watched the Mallard as she caught a small pin fish. Ronnie walked over to show the neighbor how to rig that little bait fish onto a popping cork rig to hopefully swim around for a while and attract a dinner sized fish. It’s what neighbors do, sometimes. It felt good to just sit there on the blue bench, my left leg immobilized. I thought of what it would take to kill and eat that duck. I would have to buy a gun and some ammunition, get a license and while I waited for the approved days to shoot and kill the bird I would spend many hours on practicing to kill it, talk about killing it, and then eventually with the slightest squeeze of one finger on a trigger, kill it. I would have to use some method, either dog or gasoline powered boat to retrieve it and then gut it, pluck all of the feathers, skin it and butcher it for a couple of leg quarters and two small pieces of breast meat. It didn’t make sense there for a moment. I have no problem with hunting for eating, I just don’t do it myself; I mean, it was the foundation by which we as humans began to evolve from our primitive ancestry. It is recognized and solid science that a human’s ability to consume more calories through protein led to the advances in the human brain, and thus so called civilization. Where did we stop evolving and begin devolving? Maybe vegetarianism is a more evolved thought process and I am a still a meat eater and maybe that is my problem. I don’t know. Finding meat, stalking it, moving and living with it as well as idolizing it was the work of the day for my paleo-ancestory. There were no jobs, so your job was to practice the art of killing to sustain life. Now a select few of us have begun the practice of killing our ways of living as their forms of sustaining, manipulating, and controlling global wealth. As Ronnie went to water his tomatoes I reminded him again of the irony in that. The tomatoes aren’t meant to be there I told him, but the little yellow and pink wildflowers in his side yard were. They endure continual mowing yet produce flowers nearly every day and evening. Most people spray chemical weed killers to kill them. Those same weed killers produced by the same companies which make the beneficial chemicals for our cultivars and food. It is all screwed up. We deserve every bit of what is coming. Fuck it, I am in financial and physical ruin, what’s my difference? I have to go to the doctor today to get injections in my knees to keep me walking. I don’t want the shots, but I need my legs, and I have not cared for them properly. I wouldn’t need them if it were years ago. My wisdom from life’s beatings would earn me the title of elder by most primitive societies’ standards. This society, or incarnation of such demands that I labor until death or inability, and if there is something artificial that they can inject you with or replace a human part of you with, they will, and you are screwed as far as any recognized disability is concerned. Ronnie told me about a guy that has begun some process by which he incubates the sick leaves of a tomato plant such as his and eventually reduces the leaves to a liquid solution which is in turn diluted and sprayed on the plants as a sort of “vegetable vaccination” so that the plant gradually develops an immunity to that disease which may have contributed to the demise of its ancestor plants. I thought it sounded cool. “The cure is in nature…” spoke Ronnie, “the herbs, the plants, the natural things growing where we live…” he went on. “I know...” I sighed.“It’s just about the opposite of your virus story.” He said. “Yep…” I sighed again. I decided to go back to the beginning, rethink my story right there. Maybe I’ll write about the looming crash of the stock market and the next REAL depression I thought as we talked more about the state of the economy, in relation to everything else we were tying together. We were pretty high some would say. I told him about an economist I had just seen on television who all of the popular economists were dismissing as a “chicken little”, saying that the shy was falling, but he made real sense. He likened the state of our economy to that of almost a decade ago when the correction of the real estate market caused millions of Americans to lose their homes. The problem was that there wasn’t enough money in the economy to sustain all of those loans; the housing industry may have boasted large numbers but only because people who didn’t really have the money to buy the houses were allowed to get those loans. It was a product of the last two decades worth of evolution in the lending industry, a “bad” mutation. Now the same thing is happening in the stock market; while the numbers report that we are doing well as an economy, it is all because of this “fiat currency” or invisible money that keeps everything inflated so that nobody really understands the severity of the problem we are facing as a nation, and the polar shifts to come as a civilization in regards to global power and wealth distribution. In other terms; while the stock market reports gains and record highs, it is a false positive as our economy, production and worth have not grown at all, and a correction, similar to that of the housing industry is due, or is beginning. While all of the other countries of the world like China, India and Saudi Arabia have been buying up our debt, if our financial house of cards comes crashing down, the currency of the other nations of the world will skyrocket in such a way that their economies will be transformed into those of import as opposed to export and just the opposite will hold true for our future as a nation. We will be the world’s producers of cheap, poisonous bullshit, our wages will continue to fall and our bosses will continue to grow fatter. Most of us will sleep right through it. Don’t take my word for it, just read any financial report and see just how many billionaires who have made their money in this human trading game are dumping millions upon millions of tried and true American stocks, those of banks and products made in the good old U.S.A... The writing is on the wall, but we are looking for the pictures, too lazy now to read. As I continued to enjoy the breeze underneath the shade of his deck I watched my birds and looked to my left to the Oleander, a cultivar which thrives here, but was brought in by some landscape artist to make the house attractive twenty years ago. I noticed the Scuppernong grape vine growing alongside the Japanese Honeysuckle. Two of the three of those unlikely bush mates were from somewhere else and one was not, but they had learned to get along. Stupid fucking humans, I thought to myself. Ronnie had gone to check on his son Ronald who was power washing his neighbors vinyl siding and I felt as though it was time to go. I was only there to hide really until my wife and kids had left the house. I went to work this morning with that immobilizer on for the effect and paperwork saying that the doctor’s orders were to rest the leg. Morgan told me to just go home citing that it was a Thursday and the next day was Friday and Monday I would start in a new department so why not go to the doctor today, get my shots and heal up and be nice and fresh for Monday, and another department of the corporation. I was free of the warehouse. It took a minute to sink in, but I didn’t want to worry my wife about the eight bucks an hour I had just lost a day or two’s worth so I went to Ronnie’s to catch one. It sure is funny how a day can change everything. Yesterday was the first day which actually felt like summer around here. The temperature broke ninety degrees, and today we should have triple-digit heat indices. I will go to the doc’s in a few hours and get my shots, talk about how bad everything hurts and let my wife know that the doctor said I should just wait until Monday and start fresh, just like Morgan said. She won’t like it, but she’ll swallow it, or I will go fishing and ignore her inability to swallow. We all see things for different reasons at different times in life, I just happen to be seeing things as clearly as I ever have right now, the whole picture too, minus the part the human in me is missing. As I left Ronnie’s I watched Ronald out of the window as he sat atop a ladder and sprayed. I thought of his choices and chances to come versus mine as we both now work in the same store for the same wage. He is to be a senior in High School this fall and I will just be looking at forty four. As I drove away I lost focus on that dock and watched the hot black tar unfold in front of me as I gripped the wheel, cruise set to thirty seven, and smelled the rubber from my new front tires squeal and burn under the strain of getting me back home. It’s funny sometimes, this game we play. I was on my way to the hospital yesterday to get my leg looked at because of the pain, most likely arthritis. I wasn’t going in for any pain meds this time, I wanted an answer, and I wanted to know the root of my physical pain. As I drove there the heat of the first triple digit day caused my rear-view mirror to become dislodged and it fell, the metal part that was glued to the glass pressed on my good leg like a branding iron. I just laughed at the simple correctness and Zen of those three seconds. It made sense to me and nothing else did. I cannot explain why, it just does. Once at the hospital my doc was an older guy than me named Doctor Kirkpatrick. He looked like an old priest or something, wise in appearance and no rookie by any means. He examined my leg and my brain for a good few moments as I talked about my mom and her rheumatoid arthritis. He went and looked over the ultrasound images and x-rays that had been taken last week and then he returned. He explained that they were going to draw some blood and do some tests to determine if in fact I had RA or if it was something else. This was not on his list of alleys to explore. He told me with the certainty of Santa Claus and the tenderness of that Holy man I first envisioned when I saw him walk in. After the blood was drawn he told me it would be at least a couple of hours and I could turn on the television if I wanted to. I asked him for a blanket instead and if I could just go to sleep. He said that would be alright and came back with one of those thin but warm hospital blankets. I pulled it up and I was soon sleeping like a baby. I hadn’t slept the night before as I was playing catch-up, trying to finish the story about the virus thing as well as the one for the comedian. When I got home today I got a message from the comedian saying that he wasn’t using my story. I was really let down, but his critique was rock solid, I understood his line of reasoning, and although he was rejecting me, he gave me a lot of great insight, something I am learning to eat very well these days. My thoughts turned back to the doctor and my time earlier with my old friend Ronnie. One of whom I only met for a couple of moments but extended me every kindness and the other the oldest friend I can recall. The comedian said my story was too much of a bragging type of story and that most audiences get turned off by the subject matter when told in that way and I got it. This was the same reason I had just left Ronnie’s with a whole new story in mind. It was going to be a story about corporations and the human socio-psychological condition, I would surely hit it this time, I thought as I drove that winding road. In a few hours I would visit my doctor to get my leg fixed and something else hit me. Before I left Ronnie’s house I had gone to the trunk of my car to retrieve the only pen and paper I had to take notes so that when I got home, the music on the radio would not have stolen my thoughts or sent my mind on a chase. The only paper I had was on an old pad in a briefcase I had from a job five years ago, in an executive capacity. The old briefcase was still back there, melting a bit from five summer’s heat, as well as my last legal pad from the office I worked in. I got the paper then realized that the zipper separating me from my writing utensil was broken. I remembered immediately that I had a knife and grabbed it from my fishing tackle box in the back seat. I cut open the briefcase along the zipper line and reached my hand in. I grabbed a set of headphones that I had been hanging on to for five years probably and forgotten all about. I reached again to grab a pen. I closed the trunk; it only took about seven gentle slams this time to get it to catch. Before walking away I stretched the blue bungee cord under the car to attach it so the trunk wouldn’t fly open as I drove and I remembered the last thing that old ER doctor told me. When he came in to tell me that I probably did not have RA based on the sediment levels or whatever they use to determine these things, I was relieved and I took his hand in thanks. He said I probably just had some old osteo-arthritis from bouncing around in the tour trucks and jumping out of helicopters. “Yeah, I knew I shouldn’t have jumped out of those helicopters…” I laughed. He laughed too and said that when he was in the Army they used to say in flight school; “yep, nothing but bird shit and idiots jumping out of perfectly good airplanes fall out of a clear blue sky.” I told him how brilliant I thought that was and he just laughed and told me to take some aspirin or ibuprofen if it hurts anymore, and to stop worrying. He smiled and left me there in the room, moving onto the next human being forced against stillness.