Tuesday, December 21, 2021

trouble












there was trouble in his mind. i watched from a far corner as he held the broken box near his face with both of his hands as though he had just discovered it empty- missing a treasure that he could not describe. he looked around the growing dusk as it softly rolled into the room. i said his name but he did not hear me. i moved closer to him and lay my hand gently on his arm before i said his name again. he turned to me and seemed surprised. in that moment, the little blonde flower from the party emerged from the garden with a light in her eyes meant only for him. soon she stood almost between us. i looked back toward the garden and saw a dark trail drawn by the hem of her blue dress in the silver dew that had come to rest upon the grass. her smile was innocent and pure. she wanted his attention but she could not see his trouble. he looked at me with a desperate question in his eyes. ‘leave us please’ i whispered to the girl without taking my eyes away from his. as she moved away he exhaled with relief. he looked into my face as though seeing me for the first time, ‘you’re so goddamed beautiful- so goddamned beautiful.’ his voice was a river of open soul. i said his name again. he pulled me tightly into his chest and then i held him with all of my strength. he buried his face deep into my neck and wept.

Sunday, November 7, 2021

tiny bells


we weren’t done. the unspoken words between us nearly falling from both of our lips. i kept letting my eyes find the ground because this is how it’s always been with us- there simply was no more time. there would never be time. for us these finite moments strung together were all we would ever be. as always, his domestic obligations tugged and picked at the delicate lace of our embezzled emotions. as he started to explain it for the millionth time, i noticed the afternoon sun had drawn a golden nimbus around nearly everything and just like that, my heartache was holding hands with beauty. 'it's fine' i said as i touched his lips with my fingertips to stop his words. 'it's not fine ' he answered and caught my wrist moving my hand behind my back, pulling me hard into his belly. our impending kiss was floating between us like a glass orb. neither of us moved to shatter the sacred space connecting our eyes, our hearts, our desires. my lips fell apart as though i was about to say something- something difficult, something urgent- but the time, always the time declaring itself. i inhaled deeply in a failed attempt to break his spell. i worried aloud that i’d lost my keys. he picked up my hand and opened my trembling fingers to show me that i held them. we walked to my car without talking, without touching- our emotions raw and forever unfinished. the beautiful light of the afternoon sun shined right through the thinnest fig leaf that was the truth of us. 

high above, the distant laughter of his daughter and her friends rang like tiny bells in my ears.

Friday, June 29, 2018

the payoff




                                           photo shandra beri


leonardo sat unobserved in the deep shadows of the unlit room. when the breathless woman passed, she was so near he felt the gentle exhale of air left in her wake. oblivious to everything outside the scope of her mission, she divided her focus only between the instructions held on a crumpled sheet of paper and the steps counted to the destination it revealed. she stood finally- breathlessly- before a long dead potted fig. in order to confirm that she had done everything right, her perfect lips soundlessly shaped the words written on the page. satisfied, she shoved the paper into a pocket of her coat and began to claw at the soil in the pot. within moments, she was rewarded for her efforts and pulled up a crumbling, hollow dried clay brick. when leo spoke from the darkness, the woman did not startle. 'you got it.' he said, 'you must have made your investment early.' never taking her eyes from her treasure, the woman answered through a desolate smile, 'yes. yes i did.'. the moment enough of the clay had fallen away to reveal a block of large uncirculated bills the woman turned to leave. as she moved, she tucked the bundle within the folds of her skirt and hurried out of the room toward the  stairs. leo sighed. maybe this time someone would get away. he stood up and followed the woman. less than a minute had passed by the time he too reached the staircase. stepping down into the deeper darkness of the well, almost immediately he saw her broken body. it had fallen at the last stair. as usual there was no blood and her human remains looked like nothing more than a dropped marionette; a haphazard pile of fabric and akimbo joints. even in the dark, leo could see the dust and lighter pieces of the broken clay upon her garmants. her skirt now held only empty. there was no trace of the living, breathing person she had been only heartbeats before nor the cash she had thought she had safely tucked away. leo sighed. he stepped over the body of the woman and quietly walked into the the remaining hours of the night.



Sunday, September 3, 2017

hunter



hunter s. thompson was starting to detox and i could see the thunderheads rolling in from behind his eyes. the magazine crew was setting up in the next room and i don't know why, but i felt protective of him. i thought maybe i could meter his intake so he could get through the interview and photos before the worst of his demons came out to play. i put my hand lightly on his shoulder, 'hey, how does a mojito sound?'. he tilted his head toward me and looked at me with what i can only describe as the kind of visible contempt a paraplegic would show to a happy/smiley 1st year nurse in answer to, 'do we want our full-to-the-brim colostomy bag changed out now?'. after a beat, he growled, 'over there...' and dismissively gestured toward the cabinets.

i'm not sure what i was expecting when i opened his infamous liquor cabinet- but it wasn't was i saw. instead of a treasure chest full of cool old liquor bottles, the shelves were crammed to overflowing with ancient tupperware pitchers- the one quart kind with the sad, red snap-close 'pour lids'. dried dregs of cheap, sweet booze from an uncountable number of refills lined the rims. prints from drunk, dirty fingers all frozen forever in the cloudy cataracts of all that degrading plastic. every one of those pitchers may as well have been filled with piss.

i gingerly began to sniff my way through the containers trying to bide my time and give the appearance of looking for something that resembled rum. 'hurry the fuck up!' he barked. 'fill it, just fill it! mix the shit up and throw some sugar in there for my nutritional requirements!'

i sloshed three of the liquors into a dirty glass until it was 1/2 full. i didn't bother with tongs as i fished for cool-ish shards in the melt water of the banged up ice bucket. hunter looked at the glass as i was about to hand it to him, 'GOD FUCKING DAMMIT! FILL THAT FUCKING THING UP!' 

all sets of eyes belonging to the sleek new york crew were focused on us now and they were wide with fear. in silence, i let them watch me as i turned and filled his glass to the brim. after i handed it to hunter, i looked toward them, tilted my head slightly to the right in a rather fetching manner and gave a little finger-wiggle 'goodbye'.





prince







he was so alive and the world hadn't frighten him yet. as our plane was about to touch down on the tarmac in detroit, i found myself thinking i was only dreaming of him healthy and laughing. 'wait, just wait,' he whispered, 'these kids are going to blow your mind!' soon we were on the ground and then the long black limo that now held us was crawling down the darkest factory streets of the city. one by one, his young detroit tribe members seemed to appear out of nowhere. they were not surprised to see him and only smiled as they each climbed into the cool belly of the car. i heard someone say, 'tent and ela are still working...' and just like that we were expelled like baby seahorses into the wide world of some 3rd world warehouse. there was ugly florescent lighting and workers busy everywhere. the space itself was a labyrinth of corridors, but prince seemed to know exactly where he was going. i abandoned trying to orient myself and instead, as i blindly followed, tried to focus on discovering the purpose of the factory. we passed thousands of fed-ex boxes closed with red tape that had the word 'MEDICAL' stamped in black every few inches- then we were surrounded by scores of uniformed workers quickly rolling samsonite luggage in a crisscross pattern through an open space. i decided it must be a luggage factory but then the aroma of frying donuts suddenly blanketed our motley conga line. i could smell each flavor distinctly but i never saw the source of it.

we left the medical/luggage/donut factory with tent and ela in tow, but only after prince marveled at the wonder of how these people could be so beautiful under the pressures of such a bleak environment.





Tuesday, March 29, 2016

another lesson in elasticity



kelly was helping me pack up the last of my things. the property looked endless now that it was almost empty and I let myself feel nostalgic as I took in the little glimpse of the ocean that had belonged to me for almost 16 years. the afternoon light was gorgeous and I could smell sea salt on the warm breeze that blew through the palms. 'hey,' kelly said, 'why don't you throw the dogs in the porsche and let me finish up here.' i laughed when I looked down at his muddy little designer dogs. 'you must really feel sorry for me to offer that.' 'i don't give a shit about a little dirt (massive lie)- and besides, a nice drive with the boys will do you a world of good (complete truth). i hardly protested.

as i made my way down the canyon, i silently repeated my new awareness that a woman is not defined by her possessions nor the the place in which she resides. in that moment I allowed myself to feel a little lucky (after all...). bruce licked my hand and as i patted his head i wondered why in the hell anyone would want to breed a rottweiler down to a 7 pound dog.


Monday, September 7, 2015

the filly




i'd hired him for the day and i didn't realize how young his horse was- a baby really. as the day wore on, his frustration with the animal and her emotional sensitivity grew to the point where he was jerking her head violently and digging angrily into her sides with his spurs. finally when she balked and caused him to slip off, he grabbed handfuls of dirt and threw it into her eyes as he kicked her until she cried out like a child. i rode my own horse up to him and grabbed the reigns from his hands. 'okay, we're done for the day. how much for your time and the horse?' he was swearing in spanish and i understood enough of it to know that he was going to beat the animal within an inch of its life the moment he was out of my sight. he reached for the filly and she grabbed the skin on the neck of my own horse with her teeth to keep from being pulled away. 'no, really, i want the horse. how much?' he was seething with rage. 'it's not mine, it's my friends i can't sell it.' 'call your friend,' i said calmly. 'i want to buy her.' javier looked at me for the first time since being thrown and now i could see he was calculating his own profit. 'tell your friend you lost the horse,' i said. 'it will be a secret.' javier grimaced what was supposed to be a smile and I could see that all of his teeth were edged in gold. 'okay, i make a deal with you.' he said. 'good, get some water while i put the horses away.' i let the terrorized filly follow my horse and only gently held her reigns as i walked the animals to the safety of the barn. i put them in the same stall and slipped off their tack. i said soft words to my old boy jack and told the filly not to worry. when i walked backed out javier had already loaded his gear into the truck. we negotiated briefly and he laughed in cruel agreement when i stopped the price because i said he was going to kill her anyway. i stood and watched until the trailing dust from the truck was only a distant wisp. i looked at my dogs and said, 'that's an enemy, guys. bite him if he comes back.' they all appeared to understand. i walked back to the barn to bed the horses down for the night.