Trio-Lets

I am a meter maid

Few are creepier than me

I hand out tickets, unafraid

I am a meter maid

My father too was a creeper (he was a preacher)

He spoke for a God he couldn’t see

I am a meter maid

Few are creepier than me

She was a drummer

On her drums she beat

Her arms went numb, her ears number

She was a drummer

Her lack of melody was a bummer

And could not make meter meet

She was a drummer

On her drums she beat

I am Dick Cheney’s heart

Titanium rust I bleed

At times I need a kick-start

I am Dick Cheney’s heart

Someday Dick’s soul and I will part

On his carcass the worms shall feed

I am Dick Cheney’s heart

Titanium rust, I bleed

Take Me To the Hospital

-->

It’s two-thousand something, and I make my living as a licensed dealer, grower, and workhorse for a cannabis collective. Not an easy job. Although well paid, and running swaths of business, I quickly hit the glass ceiling. One of the men two rungs higher on the ladder is my abusive boyfriend, hereafter referred to as Dick.

Like all Phish songs that ramble on, and pretend to be about something,

so was my life. I missed my sister that left way too soon, and there was no answer for that. I was getting bored, annoyed and turning to prescription opiates.

A year or so later.

I wake up and get ready for work.  I don’t feel the same, and my makeup isn’t looking right on my face. I apply more foundation, but it won’t blend.

My pills are lined up next to my mascara, so I devour my entire stash.

I put on American Beauty by the Grateful Dead, the king-spawner of all jam band, patchouli drenched, sun groping, pathetic fourth-generation lose-bags who identify themselves as hippies and bohemians. Those living in Oakland at the time knew at least a half dozen of these strip-mall versions of the beats.

Hoping to bleed out in the bath, I take my sliced wrist for our last wash.

I’m not sure this was the best idea.

I call the police twice. When they arrive, I convince them not to take me away.

I lie face up on the living room rug and lift upwards from my body.

I miss my sister more than I miss myself. She isn’t coming back, but I can.

I call Dick.

Dick shows up and carries me to his new car, a white soccer-mom mini-van.

I call Dick a dork. Most of me doesn’t want to step into the attrocity, but as sad as it is, a soccer-mom van is the only ticket out of my self-medicated ghetto. I make him drive to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek. It’s the place of my birth, the hospital where my sister passed, and a world I have travelled so far from. During the twenty minute drive, he yells at me repeatedly to stay awake. As much of an asshole as he was, Dick also saved my life.

As I stand in the parking lot, I watch Dick carry me inside the hospital. I have my arms around my sister. I’m not sure if my eyes are open or closed as I say goodbye to my sister, goodbye to the fears of who I could become, and goodbye to the shitty part of me.

The blinding fluorescent lamps of the ER remind me of who I am, and I rip the cords from my body. I lay my neck back down onto the bleached white sheets. I hit the red button to call the nurse.
I am back in my body.

Remember The Good Lines

Remember the good lines. The lines creased for flight that slice air while landing on the playground’s tarmac. Hopscotch lines that govern the kids that jump and chew gum. The lines on a 1959 Chevy El Camino. The lines on a made bed.

Forget the bad lines. The lines at the DMV. Old men’s lines drawn in the sand. Lines that mar beauty and grow into themselves. 
Lines of gun owners that buy more guns.     

The lines that vanish between progress and slippery slopes. 

Remember the good lines.

Band Van

I’m posted up on my bleached white driveway. I try to dribble past my Dad to the hoop that is secured to our roof. His hands are up, his sneakers scuffle for position. I’m red faced, sweating and panting. My mom brings out orange segments and iced tea. We talk a minute about the prowess of our favorite athletes, Pele’, Kenny Stabler, Reggie Jackson, Martina Navratilova. My interest in musical heroes is taking off as well, and I tell my folks I want to be like Kiss, mainly Ace Frehley,  or Black Sabbath, mainly Ozzy or either of Heart’s sultry front ladies,  Ann or Nancy Wilson.

My loving parents blend into one mouth that lip syncs the mantra:  That’s nice dear, but you will eventually need something to fall back on.  

I ignore their blather. I know my youthful good looks will forever help me through times of trouble.

I reflect on my parent’s thoughtful, yet annoying advice as my band’s van backs out of the same driveway.

My musical mates and I climb the frigid, tree-lined Interstate Five to Seattle on a tour to promote our new record. Our recordings, as well as our live shows are intended to spread our desperate message of laziness, self-imposed confusion, innocence never found, and general malaise caused by the man.

The path to Seattle isn’t safe in the summer, in the winter it can be suicide.  Timber trucks breath down our tailpipe as the snow covered roads mock the ravines. There is a good foot of play between the van’s thirty year old suspension and the steering wheel. The musical equipment, the three dudes and their added stink weigh down the back of the van.

On top of all this, our drummer is driving.

We stop for gas just south of Ashland, WA.  Our drummer buys popcorn, a giant barrel-sized soda, and a book on tape, a self-help cassette he says will be funny.  Just looking at the 84 oz Mountain Dew makes me have to go to the bathroom. I find the truck stop’s restroom, and as I stand lonely hearted, I read the logger-penned graffiti. Apparently San Francisco Faggots should wipe their asses with Spotted Owl dicks. Although I live in Oakland, I know this is aimed at me.

Back on the road, the drummer is more fixated on his recent purchases than the danger at hand. He unwisely decides to pass the highway snow plow brigade. They represent the man. Their flagrant abuse of  authority and slow, snow plowing ways are not respected by our drummer.  Unlucky trucks lay on their sides along the highway, and the shredded treads of giant tires lie like fake mustaches in the snow. We change into the unplowed passing lane, and I can’t help but think drummers are dumb.

It isn’t long before we slowly careen into the mountainside and scrape downhill. As bodies and gear topple,  I wonder why I gave up sports as a youngster. I was a triple threat, good at Basketball, Baseball and Soccer.

Our van’s headlights chase their tail, and I realize every derogatory drummer joke I have ever heard is factual. If the drummer drools out both sides of his mouth, the stage is level.  What time is it when a drummer sits on your fence? Time to get a new drummer. What is the difference between a large pizza and a drummer? A large pizza can feed a family of four.

We lay in the van, that now lies in a ditch, 30 feet beneath the roadway. I start to stir and wonder if this will get to Donnor Party desperation. I already know that anyone in arm’s length hasn’t washed in a while, they may or may not have gonorrhea, and their diets have consisted of Cheetos, Gatorade, and Beef Jerky. I’ve already eaten myself to get here, I may have to eat myself to get out. I’m thinking spleen.

I’m sure my spleen tastes better than the drummer’s, but it is his spleen I decide that  I would eat if need be.

My cannibal dreams are interrupted by the cassette spinning in the tape deck. The self help tape now warbles as if  Barry White is  making out with Alvin and the Chipmunks. They both take turns reciting lines from Johnathan Livingston Seagull.

I finally agree on something with our drummer, the self-help tape is funny.

I‘m glad she found another. She has always wanted someone tall.

-->

She says he is twice as tall as me, and I am depriving her of lofty sights. Her desired vistas can not be viewed at my five foot nine, sub-scenic stature. My dad is six foot four. My mom was right; wearing underwear to bed stunts your growth.

My feelings aren’t hurt, the open-space she left is good for me. 

I love white walls uncluttered by art. Nothing for my eyes to get hung up on, and nothing to carry my thoughts away.

Now, thoughts are left to loiter like her boxes that line the hallway, they hang around like teenagers in a 7-11 parking lot waiting to ask an adult to buy them liquor.

This departure of my better half is liberation. I get to be whole again.

When God closes one door, He opens another. I am now anchored, that other door left ajar by God led masked marauders into my room to tie me to the bedpost. She already took the good stuff, the thieves took most of the rest.

I sit tethered to her remaining boxes, my thoughts, and stained, mismatched Tupperware. Now all my leftovers taste a bit like her marinara.

BURIED AT SEA

The night Sheila’s father died we went bowling. My ball spun counter-clockwise down slick lanes, lit and clean. As I reached 195, she pinched one phone between her shoulder and ear. She pecked her other phone like a chicken sorting pebbles and seed. Her drinks stacked up at the bar, and cocktail tissues lay crumpled.

Her father owned yachts. His dying wishes; to be buried at sea, and for Sheila to leave me.

Our love is broken, but Sheila needs me to attend the burial. It’s not a good time

for questions, but I have never been to a funeral. Do I buy her a corsage, wear a cumber bun, bring a dozen black carnations?

I have been on one of her Dad’s yachts once,

The Minimalist, and the thought brings an acidic taste to the back of my throat.

I board the boat with the other respect payers. Inside the hull the portholes bob

and weave. In the distance the shoreline is a piece of driftwood, half-submerged like

a crocodile. My lunch starts to separate from my stomach. I tell Sheila I’m not feeling well just as the urn is passed to her. She frowns at me through her veil.

She holds the trophy over her head, a first place prize in the race to easy street.

Her father’s money is now hers. I violently vomit onto the deck. I lumber to the railing

and pray this will all be over soon. My gush mixes with the ashes of her father.

Like a friend you don’t like being seen with, but is always there for you

Curbed at the gutter, she has turned from silver to grey.

My once fetching sedan is now half-rusted shut.

Her undercarriage is incontinent and pisses slicks in front of my house.

Fuses wrapped in foil hum their disconnect.

Meters flicker as red lines pin left then right.

Dim lamps scarcely light the roadways that absorb my jalopy‘s leakings.

Stubborn stick shift and corroded clutch gnash their teeth.

Threadbare cow print seat covers sit beneath the tree hanging from the mirror.

Perfumed cardboard can’t hide the stench of years and gasoline.

My kids beg to be driven to school in my wife’s car.

She is my mule, will be leaving soon, and owes me nothing.