Larry's Boots

Larry's boots are the boots of a working man.  

The yellow leather is deeply etched with scrapes and scuffs.  The coloring is uneven, splotched, water-stained.  His sparsely furnished room is redolent with the earthy smell of the old leather of his boots.  He pushes aside the stale smoke of his lucky strike from last night, the cold dead butt still dangling out of the ashtray by his bedside as he rises and stumbles his way to the open water closet door.  There on the cracked, chipped, rust-stained pedestal sink, sits a flatfish of Fleischmann's whiskey.  His preferred brand of "mouthwash".  He pops the people-proof top off of the bottle of aspirin which resides right next to the bottle of Fleischmanns and hurriedly grinds three of the pills between his molars, chasing it with a bit of the hair of the dog.  He splashes a handful of cold water on his face and then raises it to look at the pathetic slob who stares back at him every morning.

"Hello."

A pleasant young man smiles brightly out at him through the grime of the mirror and holds his gaze.

Larry closes his eyes tightly and then forces them violently open, the way one does when trying to wake from an obvious dream.

He looks again at the mirror.

The young man, his blond hair tousled as from a fresh shampoo and toweling, is wiping away the greasy streaks from his side of the mirror with a bit of toilet paper, tsk tsking as he wipes. When he has finished, he tosses the moist wad of paper toward the wastebasket under the sink where it lands, on Larry's side, with an almost indiscernable "whiff" sound.

Larry stares at the paper in the basket.  He shifts his gaze to the empty cardboard tube hanging in the holder in "his" bathroom.  Then he looks at the almost full roll hanging there in the mirror image.

"What the...."

"Heck." the mirror man interjects.  "We need to talk".

"We?"

"You and I.  We need to talk about the direction your life has been taking.  Or more succinctly, the direction you have been taking your life.  I'm not at all pleased."

"F*ck me, my brain's fried."  Larry moaned, dropping his head into his moist shaking hands.

His breath was coming in and rushing out in short ululating gasps.  "I've finally done it.  Must be the damn DT's."  he muttered.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"What the hell do I do now?"

Tap. Tap. Tap, Tap, Tap, Tap, Tap.  Then, the unmistakeable sound of glass crunching.

Larry lifts his head.  There in the mirror is the pleasant young man, staring wide-eyed at the knuckle of his middle finger as he pulls his right hand away from a star pattern of cracks in the mirror.  There is blood on the knuckle.  He shakes it into "his" sink.  Bright red splotches appear in Larry's sink.  

"I didn't know I could do that."  the young man mutters to himself.

"Do what?"

"Bleed."

Larry hurriedly turns on the hot water and rinses the blood down the drain.

"Thanks" the young man muttered absently.

"OK, I get it.  I've gone nuckin futz.  How long does this damn show go on?  Or do I just wait until somebody comes by and tosses a net over my head?"

"Are you ready to listen?" asked the unperturbed young man.

"Listen to the voices in my head?  Sure.  Cool.  You're not going to make my dog talk or anything like that are you?" Larry said, rather intrigued by the growing sense of calm that was overtaking him.  "If I am freaking out, I might as well enjoy the ride" he thought.

"My name is Steven.  Do me a favor.  Grab your toothbrush and start working some of that yellow paste off of your teeth."

"What?"

"Larry,  you're fine.  Really.  You are.  You're a little "adrift" right now, that's all.  The chaotic interruption to your life that I am, is making you feel unsafe; outside of the comfortable cocoon of a life that you've created.  Doing something "routine" will help you to get your bearings.  Trust me on this one.  Up and down frontsies, side to side backsies.  Take your time because what I've got to say may take a while.  The toothpaste is over there on the floor behind the toilet.  I'd rinse the tube before opening it if I were you."  Steven raised his eyebrows and then softly chuckled to himself.  "If I were you...."

Larry did as he was told and began to go through the motions of brushing his teeth (something that he hadn't done in several days).  "Mmmmmm minty" he thought.

Steven waited for several beats in order to allow the tediousness of the dental ablution to work it's magic on Larry's reeling psyche.

The taste of mint toothpaste and salty blood from his neglected gums commingled on his tongue eliciting an unexpected pleasant response from Larry.

Blood in his mouth.   The memory of the bones of a strange fist mashing his too thin lips against the front teeth of his lower jaw.  Yeah, that's a familiar taste.  Kind of like it.  Releases all of that pent up anger.  Not the getting hit part, the hitting part.  It's good for what ails you. 

The whole damn world gets in your face all day long and all you want to do is curl up a fist and hit something.  Hard. Harder.  Harder.  Sh*t, I let one through.  His mouth fills with the taste of blood and his tongue quickly checks for loose or missing teeth.  But the other bastard is on the floor, damn near out cold from the return combination to the temple and jaw.  "Not good enough, not by a long shot".  

He sways for a moment, unsteady from the steady diet of whisky he had been taking on all evening.  He looks down at his boots.  "These could use a shine."  he thinks to himself.  He pulls the leg way back and lets loose with a vicious kick deep into the ribs of the supine, semi-conscious man at his feet.  He feels and hears the crack of the two broken ribs.  He kicks, and kicks until he feels much better, and the man on the floor has a steady trickle of foamy blood gurgling up and out of his mouth.  He turns and stumbles out the front door of the bar, before the bouncer has a chance to "escort" him out.

Larry didn't recall a hell of a lot after that.  That is until he woke up this morning into this screwed up 70's acid trip that he was now riding.

Steven continued  "You know that you killed that man last night."

"The hell I did." Larry slurred, wiping a line of toothpaste from the corner of his mouth.

He detected the faintest glimmer of a smile from the pleasant young man.  It disappeared in an instant.  

The young man continued, "You've led a life that is little above that of an animal.  You see to your needs without regard to anyone but yourself.  You care for no one and no one cares for you.  To top it off, you poison yourself with a steady diet of alcohol, fried food and nicotine. What is the purpose?  Where are you going?  What goals have you set and achieved?  Why do you settle for stasis in a cesspool?"

Larry glared at the pleasant young man for a moment, then, as if in answer to all of his questions, he put down the toothbrush and  spit a putrescent glob of brown muck straight into the eyes of the mirror man.  It sailed through the glass surface of the mirror as if it were water.  The sputum splatted dead center on the bridge of his nose and slowly dripped it's way into both lacrymal sacs of the pleasant young man.  

He continued his discourse unhurriedly, undeterred.

"You've stopped showing even a glimmer of a possibility of rehabilitation or eventual reconciliation with your humanity, your true self.  In the movies you could expect some teary-eyed series of events that I would walk you through, hoping to show you a better way.  You would get that second chance. Sorry to disappoint you, but that's not my job.  You should think of me more along the lines of a two minute warning.  You've been judged.  You've been found wanting.  Your ticket has been punched.  No ringing cash registers and angels getting their wings.  Just and end to your useless existence."

Great disembodied muscular arms appeared at his wrists and ankles and locked him in their icy iron grips.  Then they began to pull in four different directions.  There was a rather prolonged wrenching scream, then several loud pops.  The mirror was instantly covered in a fine red mist.  And then there was silence.

The pleasant young man's face appeared in an expanding spot in the center of the sanguinary coating.  More toilet paper and tsk tsking as he meticulously cleaned the surface of the mirror off and tossed the bloody refuse into the basket below the sink.  

He looked once more into the "real" bathroom.  There were Larry's boots, one propped on either side of the toilet.

Then he turned his back and walked out of the frame.

 

Things that go bump in the night

No matter how many times I tell myself that there's nothing down there, I still get a chill that travels the length of my spine whenever I turn my back on the cellar and start to climb the stairs back to the main level of the house.

I've only lived here for two years or so.  We're still getting to know each other, the house and I. 

It's totally irrational, I know.  But, it's a gut-aching, shivering, shaking, why-am-I quaking moment every time I start that ascent from the subterranean soul of my maison d'etre.  

She's a cozy old cape, with doghouse dormers, a single-car garage, white aluminum siding and a deck out back.   The cellar should hardly be a creepy crawly habitation for things that go bump in the night.

And yet, I can never turn my back on her without feeling that she's going to follow me, silently, right up those stairs, her dead waxy eyes with the pupils blown waiting right behind the last trailing wisp of hair on my head as I hurry up the unevenly spaced risers.  If I were to turn my head, she would most assuredly reach out with bony fingers and mouth agape, whispering incomprehensible nothings to herself as she dragged me back down to the blackness that is her native abode.

In order to turn off the light down there, I have to close the door.  The switch is on the wrong wall and as a result, I need to put myself into the black before opening the door to make my hurried exit.  

Lights out.  Darkness.

Darkness peopled by a hundred different exquisitely chilling creatures.

They scurry quickly with sharp teeth flashing, hungering for a bit of foot or calf.

They long for the taste of shredded flesh.

She's not there, I tell myself.  There is no beastie with a taste for your demise, snorting away the hours, waiting for the opportunity to lacerate your liver.

She walks alongside me throughout my days.   

I know her.  

She knows me.

And yet my rationality fights against her existence.

And nonetheless, she takes my hand and walks with me up the stairs from the cold, dark, soulless cellar.

Tanya

Tanya shivered.

She wasn't cold.  

The furnace was busily whispering to itself somewhere downstairs in the gut of the house.  Warm air was pulsing out of it's open veins into the many articulated spaces above.  Oil was burning, the fan was turning, cool air sucked into it's metallic lungs was warmed and sent back out to comfort all the sleeping inhabitants of the house on Carillon way.  

Tanya wasn't comforted.

Her bare feet registered the feel of the new plush wall-to-wall carpeting in the living room.  It still had that "new carpet" smell.  

Her eyes were wide open, her pupils nearly blotting out her normally multi-colored Irises. In the light of day, her eyes sparkled with an effulgence of colour.  There were sparks of green, yellow, and blue there that would reach out and hold you, daring your gaze to go elsewhere. 

Her hand rested on the light switch.  She had futilely clicked it up and down 5 or 6 times.  It wasn't working.  Light would chase 'em away.  

Tanya shivered in icy moonlight that barely could push through the thick clouds that raced across the sky outside the huge bay window that looked out onto the blackness that was her front lawn.  Her whispy blond hair hung straight to her shoulder, just grazing the top of her flannel night gown.  The white gown made her stand out in stark contrast to the nebulous figures, which in daylight would be the couch, the chair, the ottoman, the low table, the stone ledge at the base of the fireplace.  In this nether world 'tween day and day they were giant crouching toads and wrinkled dwarves with sharp knives and bad teeth.  They were wagons  filled to the brimful with rotted corpses, whose mouths were agape, carrion creatures busily slithering in and out of the putrescent orifices, munching, and crunching, and swallowing; swimming in odorous brown, dead blood.

A cold breath whispered across the nape of her neck, pushing a loosened bit of her hair out of place.

She heard him.

Mmmmmmmummm, mmmummmm, mmmmummmmm.

The skin of her back went instantly taut then prickled and tickled itself into a myriad field of fleshy humps.

She clicked the light switch one more time.  Nothing.

Mmmmmmummmm, mmmmummmm, mmmummmmmm.

Tears welled in her eyes.

She looked to her left at the front door.  Thought became motion.  Her hand was on the knob.  The door was unlocked.  She threw it open and rushed out into the blackness.  She shrieked as inertia carried her out and across the yard.  She turned, she had to know if she was being pursued.

There, at the open front door were a gathering of her nightmare musings, their red eyes burning holes in the fabric of the night.  They were just standing there, staring.

Why weren't they coming after her?

The dry leaves at her feet rustled ever so slightly.

From behind her a dry whisper uttered a single word: "Thankssssssssssss"

Slowly the front door to the house on Carillon way closed.

Oh Centurion Bring out the Whale

Oh Centurion, bring out the whale
in from out of the sundering gale
for the tear in it's eye
draws a sigh from my thigh
yes, the time for it's rescue is nigh

The sharp-beaked worms have been feasting on blubber that's not theirs to take
they've had plenty of cake with the truncated snake who performs 'sleight of hand' by the lake
yes, the slithery sluthering, tubes are a muttering 'When will the coffee be done?"

Oh Centurion bring in the whale
he's been out long enough
to have purchased sweet snuff
which he'll stuff and he'll schnuff
through the hole at the top of his head

Bye the bye, muscle boy
sit by me, share my joy
can you see in the tree
an avuncular squirrel with her tail all a'twirl
expounding on Bach to the tick and the tock of a clement night clock
in a frock with a shock of white hairs showing through where the muscular toads have been hiding

All the night she's been chattering
incessantly nattering
demanding the grass grow more slowly
while the bulbous-eyed hoppers
are sharpening their choppers
and dreaming of flies with red meat on the wing

Oh Centurion BRING ME THAT WHALE!
I desire to converse with his tail
bring a pad, bring a pen
and come into my den
there are thoughts he and I will exchange
no, forget it
it's out of your range

The Cold Place III

"THEY TORE MY ARMS OFF", the freshly pruned oak tree howled.

"Get off, it hurts!" the individual blades of grass wailed as the Morgensens terrier leaped this way and that, it's comical little mouth soundlessly snapping, drowned out by the cacophany that now filled Kyle's ears.

Inconsolable grief disguised as song drew his gaze into the branches of the relentlessly moaning oak. There in it's branches, danced a mother bluebird, shouting her fury and her loss to the winds and the leaves and the insensate rocks down below, where her fledgling's broken body lay, out of the nest too soon, and now, never to return.

Kyle pinched himself. Hard.

Nothing.

When the cold place called, there was no him, only this...

An ear to hear pain that is blithely ignored,
an eye to see rage in the eyes of a stone,
a mind that can grasp the fury of clouds,
an awareness of the seething red storm that is omnipresent,
ever beating against the gates of reason with hands worn raw and bloody.

The Cold Place II

The hairs on both his forearms suddenly rippled like so much grain being kicked about beneath an angry thunderhead.

Cold.

"No. No, not yet. Not yet dammit!"

Kyle picked up the pace, not quite a run, no longer a brisk walk. He was beginning to panic.

The ambient sound all around him started to smudge around the edges, as if some gigantic pastel-dusted thumb was taking the individual sounds, one by one...

(the roar of a jet overhead became a gnat's buzz)

and pressing them to the ground,

(a terrier in the Morgensens front yard became all motion, no noise)

breaking their membranes

(the buzz of passing cars faded into inconsequential motion)

forcing their liquid, glistening essence

(his respiration was heard, but as through thick cotton)

to overrun their natural boundaries

(the soft feet-on-wet-sand crunching of blood beating against the stretched flesh of his tympanii - marched over the hill and was gone)

and become indiscernable.

Silent.

Cold.

His sense of self was draining out of him, like water racing out of a hot tub on a cold day.

Cold.

The cold place I

Humming a tuneless little ditty, Kyle rolled his eyes at the scenery passing by.
His blond, straight, thin bangs occasionally took flight as he marched with a purpose down the sidewalk toward his home.

Another school-day, gone.

Another afternoon begun.

This one will be much like the one that preceeded it, and the one that will follow.
Homework books are squeezed onto the top of a pile in his backpack which works every day to change the curvature of his young spine.
They'll be ignored.
Unless, of course, someone asks "Did you do your homework?".
That should be around 10 o'clock tonight, so we're golden.

Kyle doesn't hang around after school.
He doesn't fit terribly well with any of the "in" crowds.
He's not a jock, not a head, not an artist, not a freak, not a.....
Kyle bites his lip to pull back from the cold place.
His lower lip bleeds a little, warm and salty.

The cold place.

Cold and dark and cavernously solitary. There, a single step could take a thousand years. Or a thousand steps, up a Mayan Temple could pass in an instant.

Kyle never could find words to describe what it was that happened when he would go there.
Go. That's a joke. More like being dragged backward by sharp, merciless steel hooks embedded in his sternum. There was no volition involved, when he would suddenly be "elsewhere".
And, the more he would try to make people understand that he was alright, that he had just "checked out" for a bit, the more they would look at him as if he had grown a tentacle right out of the middle of his oily pre-pubescent forehead. A thick, clammy, sticky, glistening, festering, wriggling, whip-cracking tentacle.