The Portable Henry Rollins

by Henry Rollins

  I see why husbands beat their women. I see why moms and dads beat their kids. I see why they take oaths and break them. Make promises, forget and regret. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. It’s right there. In all their eyes. It’s a lie. It’s a lie and no one seems to mind. They find the most painless and elegant way they can to stand in line.

  The frail white people on the bus. They look so out of place. Mixed in like pieces of shit hanging from a Christmas tree. They’re out of place and they know it too. Look at their faces. The slight discomfort, the nervousness, their thinly masked disgust. What a trip. They always look like they’re being filmed by the police. I’m one of those white dudes. I ride the bus. I watch them and it makes me laugh inside. The Mexican girls with all that makeup. Big asses crowding over into the aisle. The homeys in the back smoking dope. The faceless workers and the whiteys.

  The ambulance came and took the bum’s body away. The girl next to me looked out the window and said, “God, there’s a lot of blood there.” I wondered if the ambulance attendants curse under their breath when they have to haul away some stranger who stinks of his own wastes, who dies in a pool of puke, shit, and urine. I wonder if they ever take one of those stiffs to a dumpster behind a twenty-four-hour doughnut place and dump it. Or toss it over a bridge. Might be cool to dump the damn thing on your landlord’s doorstep. Toss it into a swimming pool in Century City. The body is taken downtown and incinerated by a wetback who works for minimum wage.

  I’m never wrong inside this room. Everything I think, everything I do is right and true. Even when it’s a lie, it’s my room. I know I’m lying, there’s no one around to tell me any different. You could tell your friends that last night you were right about everything and there’s nothing they could say to prove you wrong. That’s why I don’t like to leave this room. Outside it’s all lies. You tell the truth and you get ripped off. You can get arrested or even killed. Inside my room I can tell the truth out loud. Sometimes it’s the only time I get to be real. Because out there everyone is trying so hard to get away from what they are. Reality is the terminal machine. Death-propelled. The truth is so plain that it reduces us to crummy bags of flesh. Weak and dependent. Shitting, pissing, eating, escapists. All of us, this is a drag for some. You can’t rise above your asshole, you can only rise above those who think they can.

  I saw this dog run diagonally down the street one day. Right after it had gotten run over by a car. The dog was howling like its throat was going to come out of its mouth. Its guts were coming out of its stomach. They were tangled up in its hind legs. Made the dog run diagonally. I watched the dog go all the way down the block and around the corner. I could hear the howls for a while after that. I looked at the old black folks hanging out on their front porches. Their faces didn’t even move. Now I’m sitting here wondering what kind of shit they must have seen to make that nothing at all.

  When I was young, I used to go to this park to play almost every day. One day I went there and I was heading toward this clump of bushes. There were all these policemen there. I knew from the TV that I had nothing to fear. I went over to where they were and asked if I could play in there. They told me to get back, and then one of the park maintenance men pulled me away and said I should play over by the swings for a while. The police didn’t leave until it had gotten dark. I found out the next day that a little girl’s body had been found right in the same spot where I had buried seven pennies. I dug up the pennies a few days later. I kept them because I thought they were important. Soon they were gone in the gumball machine.

  It was 360 degrees outside

  The police had come dressed like friends

  Acting like soldiers

  They arrested everything

  All the apartment renters

  All the condo owners

  The rich girls were trying to catch the pigs’ stare

  In hopes of getting in a quick suck behind the bushes

  To avoid prosecution

  The rich boys could only offer credit cards and their assholes

  The asshole offering had worked so many times before

  It was no use, we were all going in

  The last thing I saw before I passed out

  All the rats and roaches cuffed and walking in a line

  Standing in the bathroom with my dick in my hand. Pathetic slobbering fuck looking into the mirror. Come like any other animal. Wash it down the drain. I feel mean now. I don’t need the girl I was thinking about. That was a temporary weakness. I’ll never do that again. I want to kill someone now. I want to see someone get destroyed, fuck that. I want to see a whole lot of people get wasted. I catch myself. Almost punched a hole in the wall. I killed romance. That shit was all right when I wasn’t wise to the ways of the world. Now it’s nothing to me. No girl can make me lose it. I must have been out of my mind. Stupid child. No more. It’s just a place to put your dick as if you had no brains. Getting all bent out of shape. I tell you though, it’s the lies that I couldn’t deal with. Having to lie to not be alone at night. Lying my goddamn head off just to get laid. I can’t do it. I’m glad that I don’t feel the need to do that shit anymore.

  I used to love you

  I still do

  So selfish

  I love the old you

  The you that didn’t shoot drugs

  The you that didn’t get beat on by men

  You laugh in my face and call me a fool

  But it’s true

  I still love you

  Sometimes, I can see the old you

  When your eyes flash

  When you look almost alive

  He sits in the folding chair

  He stares at his hands

  All the scars

  Fist to face

  Fist through glass

  Fist through wall

  Fist

  Fist

  Fist

  Where to now?

  Glory is an echo

  He listens to the others tell their stories

  They all sound the same

  He thinks to himself:

  Rehab isn’t a road, it’s a treadmill

  He looks at the men he’s sharing the wagon with

  Faces hollow

  Seen ghosts

  Seen Vietnam

  Seen Korea

  Seen Beverly Hills

  Seen too much

  Too many times

  They sit in a circle

  Confessing

  Coming clean

  Wagon wheel

  Lonely, holding on

  Still addicted to addiction

  The fluorescent lights make them look injured

  Soon, time to go home and wait until next week

  Get back together and sing the old songs

  Awoken from a dream

  He looks out the window

  Three a.m.

  What happened to the last two years?

  Running away

  Curling up

  Hiding

  No use

  Just abuse

  He conceals his pain and horror

  Life could be so great

  Without them

  He got raped

  By his mother’s boyfriend

  You think I’m joking

  I wish

  The disease died

  Brokenhearted

  There was no one left to infect

  There was a time

  When things weren’t so

  And the air was

  And people were

  When you could go about at night

  And not hear

  Gunshots

  27 to life

  Staring him in his face

  Hanging out with him in his cell

  Following him to the shower

  Putting him to bed at night

  He’s got a lot of brothers

  Friends as a gesture

  On the edge of violence

  The thing that keeps everyone together

 
; He doesn’t want to be a faggot

  It’s hard

  No woman in seven years

  What the hell was it like?

  How did it feel?

  There they are

  The walls

  There it is

  The time

  There it goes

  Life passing

  She was raped by her uncle

  Her father left home

  For another man

  She is confused

  She is sixteen

  He never told anyone about the beatings

  The time his father broke his arm,

  He yelled so loud,

  That the neighbors called the police

  Now he lives with strangers

  They’re all right

  He had the closet door taken off its hinges

  He doesn’t let anyone touch him

  Listen!

  Hark!

  Machine-gun music

  In the sky

  Police chopper

  Electric warrior

  Round up from above

  Random gunshots

  Somewhere in the palm trees

  I sit in my hole

  Safety in #1

  At night LA glitters like a woman

  Who got punched in the mouth

  And got told to get her ho ass back to work

  Listen!

  Hark!

  I think I hear an angel!

  Oh, it was just a pig

  I’m lost. I don’t understand. There are a few things that I can remember. I have dreams of him touching me. Dreams of his tongue. I swore to myself that if anyone ever touched me like that again, I would kill them. The dreams never stop. I am afraid he will be there to rape me again. I know I do it to myself. Why? Do I hate myself? I rape myself in my dreams. I torture myself daily. I murder myself at night. I let him into my dreams. I’ve tried to have boyfriends. I don’t want to be alone. I like boys. It’s hard to deal with it when they want to touch me. I know that there’s nothing wrong with what they want to do, but I can’t do it. They call me bitch, castrator, tease. They don’t understand. I am so scared and alone. I wish someone would hold me. I’m so cold. Why doesn’t anyone understand? I can’t talk to anyone. Sometimes I want to die. I feel that I will go through life with no one to love me. The only one who ever told me that he loved me was him. Maybe that was why I keep having the dreams. Please God let there be someone to love me besides him. Someone on the planet to love me. I see the looks on people’s faces. The world is cold and mean. People are wild and dangerous. Someone to love me. Please don’t let me go through life like this.

  I miss you. I know that I keep saying that and I know that you’re getting tired of me writing you all the time but I can’t get over the fact that you’re gone. I know that you only live across town but it’s hard driving by that house you share with that guy and knowing that all the time he’s using you. You know that he’s using you don’t you? You never did listen to me. I have some friends who hang out in this club that he goes to. I am told that he hands you some pretty heavy beatings. I hear that he sells you to his friends. I am afraid to go over there and knock on the door and talk to you because I am afraid he might kill me. Are you using drugs? You never needed to when you were with me. Can I see you again? Will you call me? Will you at least call me? I miss you.

  Everybody is somebody else’s freak

  Think about it

  Sit at home with the television on

  Watch some people burn shit down

  Thousands of miles away

  “Look at those freaks. Aren’t they something? Must be rough over there.”

  Outside a killer is checking you out

  Thinking to himself about the freak propped up in front of the television set That’s you

  Everybody is somebody else’s joke

  You laugh all the time

  You’re always up for a laugh

  Point your finger and laugh

  Put it all below you

  Meanwhile

  The monkeys are laughing at you from their cages

  From their glass boxes

  You laugh back and throw excrement

  You go back and forth and laugh and throw

  But it gets to you

  You wonder what’s so funny

  What’s the matter, can’t take a joke?

  He is laughing his ass off

  You do look funny with a gun at the side of your head

  And his cock in your mouth

  Who is the freak now?

  You’re one of those bad trips

  One of those things you read about

  Don’t bite

  You might get shot in the head

  I don’t know if you get what you deserve

  All know is that you get it

  Sleepwalker with the “boob job”

  Yeah get one of those

  You’ll need it

  Otherwise fuckhead won’t fall in love with you

  When he grabs the top of your head

  And tells you to get busy, just think of it as an investment

  Get yourself well-oiled

  For the lifelong sellout

  Drive down the boulevard

  Look at the young boy working the corner

  Look and laugh right?

  It’s not you

  You couldn’t touch a reality that fierce to save your life

  Look at the freak

  Don’t look for too long or he will rip that smile right off your face

  Hand it to you

  And then he’ll start laughing

  You’re a ripe apple on a low branch

  You’re a fillet in a shark tank

  You were born human

  Perfect for gang rape

  Mutination

  Prostitution and glory

  Everybody is somebody else’s excuse

  Perfect

  All you need to get by

  A point man

  So you can have a reason to point a finger

  To be able to escape yourself one more time

  That wasn’t me

  I was drunk

  You know how it is

  That’s not my fault

  I was in love at the time

  The pressure of the city made me do it

  I took drugs to get away from my father

  I drank to get away from my boss

  I go to the bar to loosen up from the hassle at work

  I hit my wife

  Because the car wouldn’t start

  Because our son won’t listen to me

  It’s not me with the problem

  Someone else will take care of my sins

  Some medicine will be invented

  Someone on television will say something

  Everything will be all right

  And since I can stop anytime I want

  Don’t tell me how to run my lie

  I’m free

  I heard that in a song on the radio

  The cesspool of love

  Festering swamp

  Hear the blues song

  The one about the man sitting alone in his room

  Waiting

  Hoping

  That maybe she will come back

  It’s because of her all this pain

  All this sweat

  Like heavy thoughts

  Like:

  I don’t want to live

  I can’t live

  There is no sunshine

  There is no life

  There is nothing

  Without her

  So when that woman comes staggering back in

  There will be a hot fist of love

  Waiting

  It’s nothing but the blues

  Keep your blues to yourself

  Unless you want every pore, every hair, every thought you possess,

  Bought and sold at the speed of light

  Blood, dust, and an empty six

  Spent shell c
asings

  A broken television

  A bent spoon

  Dirty sheets

  Broken glass

  The smell of rotting beer

  Stale sweat

  Dreams of nowhere

  You want mercy?

  A break from the plague?

  Arms to hold you?

  A kind word?

  Then get out of the 213 area code

  It’s all the blues around here

  BLACK SABBATH

  So much litter out of place

  It’s time to put it in its place

  A mind is a terrible thing

  A dream is flashing like a polished weapon in my mind

  To the summer ambulance

  Siren songs

  The two girls

  Drunk

  Fighting outside the club

  Broken glass under the crime lights

  Fuck these streets

  And the bastards who put them here

  All these experiments

  Like how much blood will it take to drown you

  All the while I know

  That I am a hero in the making

  A walking legend

  Superstar status is my domain

  If I had a car big enough,

  I would drive all of you right off the edge

  But there is not the time to play games

  I walk the streets looking at you

  Listening to you living your garbage cowboy coward Fantasy

  This place is going to look a lot different

  After I get done decorating

  Too bad you won’t be here to see it

  I am an angel

  I am a soldier

  I am on a mission

  No one knows but me

  The streets talk to me

  The sidewalk looks up at me and makes faces

  It mocks me

  When I breathe in the stench fills me