that monster there...

Notes from the über grind:      Everything hurts, most of the time.      Buddy Haha was round-robin leader of group for the day.      "Do you remember the day you were born? The moment? No?  Let me tell you, I was there."      Buddy did his best all-knowing bub-bub lip and squinted into the past.      "Life and death mingled that moment, a viscous rolling, tumbling into the calloused hands of a strange giant."       "But I was born on beach off San Paulo,"whispered Juan. " It had to have been warm, no? And my mother, a Brazilian hippie with beautiful brown breasts - She drew me from herself and cradled me up against them. I've heard the story."      "Never-mind. I'm talking about your spirit, not your bones. Birth into life..."      "Suffering and coffee - a bad combination," noted Maxine. "Can we smoke now? I want to smoke now."   ...

     "Emerald green! And - hey, listen - indigo, if you think maybe you'd have it."      The clerk paused in mid stride, either looking for the items in his mental inventory or, in annoyance at having to hold back a wry comment about indigo underwear.      "You okay there?"      "Yeah," replies the clerk, "Just trying to remember if we carry any indigo boxer-briefs." He smiled, "I just don't think so! But I'm going to look!"      The little man scampered off.     Bud got away with murder - Haha! Literally and figuratively. He was tall and wide and good looking with hair that did tricks; Hawaiian waves, mud-slides, Fast Eddies, you name it. A little grey looked like marble on a slick black night on the Seine. His shoulders were friendly huge, his large hands almost always working a welcoming gesture. Bud got dirty but never dusty. He sparkled clean.      "I got ocean green a...

     The name tag said, 'Buddy Haha'.     "Yes, Buddy, short for Budwald - and Haha, short for nothing - and no, not funny Haha, just Haha. Nothing funny about it I suppose," he said, "except for that its not."       You might imagine that Buddy would have found some fluidity in that introduction. There was enough good material in his name for something soft and humorous, but it always got tangled up.       Hit-O-Rama. A one-stop trade-show showcasing the latest products and services for you, that hard working "Elimination Contractor".       Bud got the nerves during these things - there was physical morphing: his hands grew, shovel-sized. His feet and legs narrowed up and trailed off below him. Bud could feel his head swelling up, ears hissing, pounding. The whole thing made him top heavy, confused.      He'd discussed the social anxiety with his shrink, Wanda. ...

     The plane's tight: tight seats, thin air, narrow aisle, narrow folks, pinched faces and Bud.       Bud's wedged into row 21, seat B.      It's an hour before midnight with little hope of finding Chicago through the squeeze of ice and wind without the wings flailing hard enough to make every soul on that jet pray they've done enough good to make a difference in the eyes of a wrathful God. Everyone's preparing. The silence says so. Everyone except for the woman in row 20, seat A. She's not worried. She's done with God, done with good, done with it all - she's all done.       "What!" She shrieks at her husband, "What is it! What! Tell me! What!?" Her voice is hateful. She's putting every ounce of done and nasty into each word, waiting for her husband to finally snap, spin around, break her neck. She wants him to end it, put his once loving hands around her throat - right there, near Detroit, before the plane...

     The plane's tight: tight seats, thin air, narrow aisle, narrow folks, pinched faces and Bud.       Bud's wedged into row 21, seat B.      It's an hour before midnight with little hope of finding Chicago through the squeeze of ice and wind without the wings flailing hard enough to make every soul on that jet pray they've done enough good to make a difference in the eyes of a wrathful God. Everyone's preparing. The silence says so. Everyone except for the woman in row 20, seat A. She's not worried. She's done with God, done with good, done with it all - she's all done.       "What!" She shrieks at her husband, "What is it! What! Tell me! What!?" Her voice is hateful. She's putting every ounce of done and nasty into each word, waiting for her husband to finally snap, spin around, break her neck. She wants him to end it, put his once loving hands around her throat - right there, near Detroit, before the plane...

     Sunlight behaves differently high in the sky then it does near the ground. It's thick stuff; grainy, nearly tangible. I was thinking about the nature of light as it sifted, sunset-honey colored, through my client's thirty-second floor skyscraper office window.      Pinch. Call him Pinch. He was shouting at me. I'd asked him to check his accounts, there was a large invoice outstanding. It angered him. My asking. So I watched the sun stream in from behind his desk, where it pinched his already narrow head, narrow body. I watched and slowly drew my own anger in around myself, saturated myself with it until I felt it in my mouth. I rolled that stuff around in my mouth while the sunlight warmed my face.       He leaned over to shout at me again - got one finger jabbing, insulting the air in front of my nose - did it for so long that I had finished my own personal exploration of my own anger.       It was time...

     Slim had an idea about touching the earth with their sorrow, marking their loss in the form of an offering to nature. Something stoic, something with dust and stone and silence. He didn't mention it to Angel because when he tried the words clenched up in his jaw and a flush ran over him.        Angel convalesced for two days in a free clinic on the edge of southeast side of Natchitoches. It was hot in there. She watched fat flys bang their heads against the loose screened in windows.      "Why'd they open the windows, Slim? They've got air conditioning! It's as if they enjoy this heat!"      "Maybe to them it's just it not hot. "      But the folks there were friendly. When Esther, a large and slow moving woman the color of Red River silt, found Angel doubled over at the foot of the bed, she took her in her thick arms and held her until both their tears drew dry. And Gaff ( they called him Gaf...

      "Ralph felt it first, the pull."       "Yep, in the bathroom. I felt it in the bathroom."       "What was that like? We're you frightened?"     "Nah. I was checking to see if the hair treatment was working, you know - its been a while, nothing on top moving - and that's when It hit me!"       "Was it a voice, a picture in your mind of this mountainous area or something like that?"       "No, just a tugging feeling. At first it was awful, I thought I was going crazy. Like I needed something, I didn't know what, but whatever it was I needed it bad! Usually I'm watching the high school  varsity cheerleaders over the fence at Regional when I get that feeling!  Har-Har!! Well, The next thing I know, I'm in my car, up here on  Sunset Rock, waiting for the spaceship to arrive."     "That's how I found him! Ha! He was in his car, no pants and shaving cream...