by sam paul
I wasn’t too keen on Jenifer’s dad later that night because he wouldn’t allow her to drive home from their house to her apartment since the streets were iced over and then he forbade me to come and get her when she called to tell me. He didn’t have any problem letting me and my sister drive home, so fuck that “I forbid you” shit! I understand he was worried about Jenifer’s safety but anyone who reduces her to tears with mental abuse is scum in my book. I sense static between her father and me that will only grow with time. I eventually met Jen on her parents’ street corner in the Impala and tried to convince her to get in the car with me and come home because she was shaking and sobbing with angry frustration. I guess I was only able to comfort her enough so that she was able to face going back to her parents’ house though. I was not happy at all with the situation but I deferred to her judgment when deciding how to best deal with her parents.
Our lives seemingly move so slowly sometimes, but I guess time is truly relative. I wonder if trees process the passage of time in a fashion similar to humans or if trees sense the passage of time in relative proportion to their own life spans? What about those moths that only live for a few days? Cities of Trees—let that bounce around in the cavern of my stoned mind. It’s almost as phonetically poetic as saying a Sea of Candles. The true power of Haiku has become clear to me at this very moment and I want to share it with the world. At least by write something down so I remember that once I truly understood. Does that make sense?
I can’t believe it’s after Thanksgiving already! Tempus fugit!
Follow Up: Despite my insistence to the contrary my parents decided Alecia hit the pole at McDonald’s with the Impala that left the yellow streak of paint down the side of the car. There is a life lesson here somewhere but I can’t put a finger on what it could possibly be. My sister appreciated my attempt at tell them the truth even if she still has to be the scapegoat for a crime she didn’t commit. It’s hard to be the bete noire * when you are stuck at home with no place else to go.
* black sheep/beast
Crazy sex-life reality is full of seatbelts poking you in the back when you’re going at it in the car, getting leaves up your ass crack while doing it in the woods, hopping naked out of the neighbor’s window into rosebushes when the husband comes home, that sort of thing. It’s always fun to get to do it, but it’s the occasional rare moments where everything is spontaneous and absolutely perfect for both people that really make the head spin. It’s those moments they try to package and sell you in Victoria’s Secret, Playboy and bridal magazines. They all seem to say to me “this product or picture will make that thing you’ve been missing happen, maybe even by tonight if you order now.”
I had a dream last night that I met the great philosopher Jesus in his time and in his world. I was afraid to present myself to him for fear of being just another seeker of answers for my own petty problems. But from His place among a vast throng of people surrounded by thousands of followers, His eyes locked onto mine alone and He moved forward, gently parting the crowd as He went, and when He was near enough He reached out to grasp my hands, wrists crossed, his right hand on my right hand and his left hand on my left hand. I felt as He absorbed flashes of images from my mind, seeing through my eyes the image of his tortured body hanging on crosses in a hundred different churches, seeing the corruption of decades and cruelties I’ve only read about in history that were inspired by His name with His death. However, underneath it all, like the flicker of hope at the bottom of Pandora’s Box, He knew that I truly knew His death still had to come to pass and despite the atrocities that would be committed in His name, His sacrifice was ultimately good. All the questions I had and the answers I sought were lost because he looked sad and just asked me “Why?” I felt terrible because I didn’t know the answer, I didn’t even know if I grasped the magnitude of the question. Did I?
I look into the mirror but I am not Him, even if we both have skinny wrists. I search the depths of my dark green eyes over and over, yet I feel fortunate that I don’t see power or godliness in them. Every so often I’ll feel a deep glimmer buried someplace down in my chest though. Something else is a part of me, a part of all of us I imagine, but it takes a while to separate my consciousness from reality long enough to locate it. When I take the time to really listen, I can feel the plants and earth and wide-open spaces extending for thousands of miles and across time. Expressing these thoughts in words only comes across as a bunch of Zen/Buddhist/Christian bullshit but this whole macrocosm is linked somehow. I can’t explain it nor do I care to.
I get frustrated with artists who deviate unsuccessfully from the works that originally made them popular with me. Similarly, I find myself feeling diluted a lot, jumping from one task to another. The only difference being that I have no defining great work that might disappoint my fans if I stray. I don’t have much at all. Everything I create is just medicine for me. I suppose the pleasure I get out of creating is what’s important. If one commercially viable idea would infatuate and consume me, then I might potentially exploit my work to so that I can be financially worry-free to indulge in everything else I want to do and be with a clear conscience. Money isn’t evil, love of money is evil, but money represents freedom to me right now.
I’m thinking of dying my hair cotton candy pink. Not that I like the color pink in the slightest, blue or green would be much cooler looking, but something about saying cotton candy pink makes the words roll pleasurably off my tongue with the static electricity of a charged doorknob on a cold day. Life is a lot like the “Tangerine” song by The Flaming Lips. They played on 90210 the other night. Some of my friends thought it was a sellout, and I’m sure the band is sick of the damn song by now, but I thought it was very kitsch and cool for them to use their hit song to get on 90210 while it’s still on the air.
I have assumed the indifference of a warm blooded creature. My TV is just furniture. I hope.
Man, I’m all over the place today with these scattered images, the small winter harvest during the colder months delays the importation of my main coping medicine. Jen and I quit fucking with the anti-depressants almost as soon as we started them and now when the haziness wears off, my brain’s unfocused energy runs away with itself sometimes. A crutch is nice but I know I need to learn to cope with all the talking and shite going on in my head, on my own terms, if I’m ever going to get it together. The Germ-anent keeps telling me not to do drugs, except for the ones that make me fall in line. I found out the other day that the U.S. invented methamphetamines during WWII to help the factory workers stay alert and work longer hours. I’ve seen the films encouraging farmers to grow hemp, insisting it was the cash crop of the future back in the forties and fifties. Well they were right about it being a cash crop; it’s now worth a shitload of more money since they banned it.
I’m apologizing here because I don’t think anyone knows what the fuck is going on in my head. I keep unearthing this journal and putting down all the same crap that I wade through over a period of months and none of it helps change anything. What the fuck is going on with me and what am I even doing anymore? I’ve heard that when people reach thirty or have children they get values and shit. Maybe I’m hoping if I write some of this down I’ll be able to look back and see my own naivety. Maybe I’ll shake my head understandingly andhold the hand of somebody who’s looking for truth one day. Maybe out there is somebody who can honestly admit they were confused and frightened when they were like me. Isn’t someone supposed to tell me it’s all going to get better?
Galveston! Here we are on the island for the Christmas holidays, trying to get away from all the drugs and hassles for a little while. It’s gray and cloudy here, empty and cold. All the t-shirt shops and Miami-esque hotels lining the inner coast have been virtually abandoned for the off-season, which leaves me with an odd feeling about the place. We’ve come down here looking to get away for a while after a serious rohypnol and heroin binge with some of our f
riends. I think we are both looking for another Christmas like the one in Baja, but we’ve both changed so much since then and the bleak weather is contributing to our disappointment.
We walked hand in hand over the sand beaches, which made the entire trip worthwhile to me, but I really wanted it to be more of a sunshine moment for Jenifer. At one point we were so bored we picked the largest hotel near us and cruised up and down in the elevator for a half hour. We ended up in a weird conversation with a lonely little boy whose parents had booted him out of their room so they could get busy. He cruised the elevators with us for a while too. He looked a little enamored of Jen since she was so nice to him and that was cute.
We spurned the tackiness of a local neon-signed t-shirt shop that prostituted everything in x-large cotton sizes. I thought about stealing something from them but my heart just wasn’t in it. I think the island must be spectacular and crowded with revelers during March, but Jen and I never got into the drunken Spring Break thing too much, which is sort of why we decided to drive down here now.
The best part of this place is the cool bridge leading here from the mainland; it’s even larger than the bridges that span the swampland in Louisiana. It’s a lot like living in the Keys I suppose, the thrill of being unconnected to the continental U.S., a “create your own rules” or “maritime law” sort of situation. The bridge leading here is curved so that it will be structurally sound enough to withstand the hurricanes that seem to target this area on a regular basis. People in trailer parks here are a better class of white trash and I’m sure they look down on the “regular” trailer parks populating the rest of the state. I guess there’s a distinction that comes with being wiped out by a hurricane instead of a plain old tornado.
While we were sleeping in the car last night on a concrete pier (isn’t “pier” a great word?) overlooking the roaring ocean, I awoke in the middle of the night to heed the call of nature. I’m afflicted with an as yet unidentifiable disease that causes my body to need multiple bladder relief sessions right after getting zipped up tight and perfectly comfortable in a precarious sleeping position on the coldest nights of the year. After working my way outside of the car, shivering with my tiny dick in my hand, wearing nothing but my boxers and getting black tar on my socks from the cold concrete on the wet pier, I crawled back into our cocoon (car-coon?) of steamed windows and into the mummy bag. I checked on Jenifer, giving her cold pink cheek a kiss and then tried to go back to sleep.
About five minutes later, a car drove up, circled the lot and parked at the far end of the pier closest to the ocean. The occupants got out and started flicking a flashlight towards the sea and after a bit I saw return flashes of light out in the night, indicating a boat was out on the water somewhere close by. I’ve seen enough Miami Vice to know what was going down and since I was still groggy from my wake-up pee I started thinking maybe we could be in some trouble if they noticed our car was occupied. We might be discovered and they might make us submit to bizarre torture involving a shower and a chainsaw or a nefarious garden implement.
I scrunched down in the seat a little bit and watched as the boat slowly approached from a hundred yards away. It was a new looking-trawler; I could see the polished chrome glinting through the mist every time a flashlight would swing across the stern until they got the boat in position. Then the lights were doused or covered quickly and I could barely make out several boxes being hastily unloaded into the trunk of the non-descript car. Simultaneously, the boat pulled away into the night and the car drove past us and off down the road. A simple “Wham-Bam-Thank-you-Ma’am” and they were gone; I have to admit I admired their precision and coordination.
When we woke up again the next day I told Jenifer all about it and described the scene as best I could, walking over to where they were to see if any clues had been dropped. I did notice the rocks had been cleared out near this section of the pier, which I guess is how the boat could get in so closely. I told her that I would have driven off if she hadn’t been asleep behind the steering wheel but she didn’t seem as fascinated as I was by my glimpse into the underworld. Maybe everything was on the up and up Perhaps we only witnessed a perfectly innocent international espionage ring. Yeah right, and trickle-down fuck-enomics work too.
Anyhow, that’s my big story for the trip. We’re on our way back home again unfortunately but South Padre just wasn’t happening and we crave stimulating action-packed adventure. Sometimes life is reduced to the style of an Ansel Adams print, beautiful to look at but rugged and devoid of color.
My weed plant was chopped off and stolen before harvest a while back, likely by the same skaters I politely invited over to use my half pipe. I wrote a very angry letter and left it by the remains of the plant for any of them that might return looking to steal more herb. My note basically said that I would have shared it with all, but now there is nothing for anybody. I used some F-bombs in there also and likened the thief to the Grinch. Christmas vacation went by too quickly, cut down like my bountiful harvest.
If I haven’t mentioned it before, our friend Gabe, the guy who considers himself the last Coke in the desert, finally found his elusive heroin connection a while back. Of course we’ve scored through him several times now, snorting the brown vinegar smelling shit despite witnessing Gabe’s rapidly diminishing sociability and lowered cash flow. Gabe works a low-paying part-time job and goes to school but he runs a very profitable weed delivery service that he’s built up over the years. He weighs the bags heavy, delivers to your house within an hour of paging him and his prices are good. He doesn’t smoke pot himself so he’s got no incentive to cheat anyone and his low-profile clientele—mostly sorority kids with rich parents and spending money—has built up over the years. Still, I think he’s a full-on H addict whether he realizes it yet or not; he’s barely different from the old junkie he scores through. The guy he connects through is just called Donut (I think his name is really Mark or something) and the smack we’ve been getting from Gabe through Donut has been a disappointment to me and Jen. We’ve been playing with it, trying to figure out what the groove of it all is. It’s supposed to be that final frontier drug, remember? The fucking ultimate!
Turns out, the most evil drug that all our education is supposed to warn us about is actually tame in certain respects. Really, I’ve got to say it’s been a general disappointment so far. Heroin kind of makes me feel sick to my stomach at first and then my body totally relaxes and I’ll spend a lot of time not moving around much and then I feel nauseous again. Speedballs of cocaine and heroin are extremely dangerous and really fucking fun; although we had to swear them off after the first time we tried them so Jen could keep her pledge to not shoot up coke anymore. Rohypnols fuck me up more, but I can inject the smack now and it has the added bonus of allowing my body to fully function while I’m on it. That means the majority of the shit I do is before work and my shift is usually over before I come out of my daze. It’s like I get paid to stand around and do dope, sound familiar? I’m still working hard at my job but any repetitive task is a breeze because I won’t remember or care that I’ve washed seven sinks full of dishes or changed six kegs of beer.
My new classes are the shiz-nit except Gabe’s in one of my film classes and he seems to have this unspoken rivalry or some need to look down on me. He’s had this severe crush on my ex-girlfriend Melanie since forever and he worships the ground she walks on, buying her presents with his weed money and doting on her every whim, which somewhere along the put him in her “friend” category. I’ve always been kind of rabble in his eyes for breaking up with a girl he would chop off his arm for, but he really likes Jenifer as a friend and he likely only associates with me since I come along with the Jenifer “package”. He actually gets the dope for Jenifer and we do it; but, when I ask him to get us some there’s always some sort of inconvenience that comes up so he has an excuse to blow me off. The one thing Gabe’s never had since Jen and I have known him is a girlfriend, so m
aybe he fucking thinks by being nice to other people’s girlfriends he can catch them on the rebound. It’s shitty to be pussy-whipped when you aren’t getting any pussy out of the deal.
Anyway, we have a huge final film project that constitutes the majority of the grade in our class and he’s planning on using Melanie in his final project. I suspect it’s a ploy to try and flatter her into the sack. Part of our class fee pays for us to use the school cameras (expensive S-VHS) and editing equipment but Gabe’s trying to get permission to spend his own money and use real film. He thinks he’s ready but whatever. I’m curious to see what sort of Lynch/Tarentino hybrid rip-off he puts together. I know that’s harsh and maybe I’m just jealous he has an out-of-pocket budget to play with, but I hate being dismissed by people. I see Gabe as the film auteur that needs everything to be exactly right before he can film it. The kind of director that throws chairs and pitches fits when the color scheme of a costume isn’t exactly what he envisioned. I see myself as the kind of director that comes in under budget by using what’s around me, improvising and adapting to whatever’s going on, tapping into a cache of talented unknown actors and since I know public interest better than anybody I’m certainly not above sacrificing my vision to cash in. That’s the way the fucking game is played boys. Okay, okay, I’ll admit I do have an unjustifiable inferiority complex around Gabe for no good reason, but I have my Jenifer so it’s all good. Let Gabe spend his cash and stress out trying to find film-editing facilities at the last minute. I’ll turn in my crappy project on video and get a decent grade.