And then I remember that tea is not made like coffee, and I soak up the mess like so much spongy wild mist, and the tea is good to drink, and I contemplate dead plants.

You get old, and you fear death, and you chase God, and you put on a big show of it, and you want to escape, and you treadmill-repeat the same process.

Get, fear, chase, put, want, treadmill-repeat.

Except, in the middle of that, you, wild-eyed, don’t know what you are like at 50% versus 100% because you constantly keep yourself at 50% and just call that confidence, your brain melting, your responses filled with these dead, empty pauses, the kind where you wonder if the person you are speaking to has a broken cog, and you tell me that it has nothing to do with the pot you smoke, the beer you drink, the food you don’t eat, the exercise you don’t do, you are like tea, you pour water over you in the shower, and then you are brewed, so cute that idea, but I don’t see my tea saying anything 100% anytime soon.

Questions like:  Is there anything else that is bothering you?

And like the shower, you shshshshshshshsshs.  Black and white channel 12 popcorn shshshshshsshshshshs.

That wild-eyed empty gaze, the I’ve-left-this-planet stare, the morose, jumpy, cynical look of the hippy-hoppy rabbit that stayed up too late.

That’s you!

: ) ! 

They forgot to tell you, when you said it’s not that bad, that you inevitably would see the world this way.  You would acquire could-you-say-that-again.  You would perfect world-does-not-make-sense.  You would practice what-the-hell-did-they-say.

M-U-T-E-D.

Like a hazy, multicolored cut-yourself-lose-and-forget that dear-guilt area of the brain: you don’t know the word for it you think.

And then, like tea, many varieties. 

And then, like tea, many colors.

And then, like tea, extra time.

And then, like tea, silence.

And then, like tea, shape-cup-dependent.

Because our dear bodies

So good to us

Just keep on going

No matter what we do to them

But you are down, like 50%, and you can’t tell

And your brain knows how shocking it is to see

This you

So your brain got deny-everything orders and follows them like clock-work.

And you can’t see it.

Hmm.  Sing a little, I guess.

. . .

Get up.  Out of this chair.

Take it easy.

The floor is dusty. 

No it’s not. 

Have things to do. 

Take it easy.  E-A-S-Y.

Like sweep the floor.

The non-dusty one?

In the morning, I work.

On what?

Or it’s too late.

For what?

I have to eat.  I wake up with tremendous headaches.

. . .

Food.  Raisins.  Toast with jam.  Coffee. 

Butter.

I pee while the coffee is brewing.  I wonder where she is, but I’m used to that.  Water on my face is refreshing.  My nose is very large this morning and I wonder why.

. . .

My mood is largely based upon what I do before dark. 

Eat.  Come on.

So I plan.

. . .

Meticulously.

No you don’t.

Coffee takes a long time to brew.  I read the news.  They made abortion illegal.  Saying if you don’t want it, we’ll take it.

It.

I want to get her pregnant.

. . .

Or did want to.

Did.

I love her.

. . .

But she’s not here.

Coffee’s ready.

Coffee’s ready.  I put too much sugar in it.  I imagine raisins floating in the coffee.  The doorbell rings. 

Oh boy.

I spent my life jumping up opening doors.  And hoping.  Always hoping.  I’m not doing it anymore.

Ring.

Go away.

Ding.

Go away.

It keeps ringing.

I can feel my brow making a ‘V.’  I’m 6.5 centimeters closer to my coffee than usual.  I put raisins in my coffee.  Heh.

It’s not funny.

The doorbell rings again.  I don’t move.  It could be anything.  By that I mean any version of nothing but disappointment.  I’m not answering it.

. . .

Rings again.

Get it.

I imagine myself on a boat waiting for the fish to leave.

. . .

Everybody’s got an opinion on everything.

No they don’t.

. . .

. . .

. . .

It stopped.

. . .

. . .

It could have been her.

Idiot.

Coming back to me.

Idiot.

I clean up breakfast and finish my coffee. 

It wasn’t her.

I wonder if the bell will ring again.

Think about abortion.

Early adoption.

Very early.

Life saving medicine.

People are going to do it no matter what, so what’s new?

We could have a baby.

. . .

If she ever comes back.

. . .

I miss her.

. . .

I love her.

. . .

Knocking again.

At the back door.

I wonder what she’s doing.

Knocking.  Hey.  Knocking.

I wonder where she is.

. . .

If she’s coming back to me.

. . .

. . .

Still knocking.

. . .

Back door.

She’ll never come back.

. . .

She said so.

Back door.

It’ll be a big ol’ disappointment.

. . .

But maybe I should open it.

There you go.

It might be her.

. . .

I open the back door.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Who is it?

An older woman is staring at me. 

. . .

Younger than me.

Who is it?

I invite her in.

What does she want?

I offer her coffee.

Who is that?

I take her coat.

It’s cold.

I haven’t been outside in a long time.

. . .

She says I know her.

. . .

I want to pretend.

. . .

That it’s her.

. . .

Because it’s not.

. . .

But I want it to be.

It.

That smell.

. . .

I miss her.

Have another cup.

She thinks I’m sad.  A sad old man.  She’s going to leave again.

It’s not her.

Look at these hands.  Ugly hands.

It’s not her.

She hates me.

It’s not her.

. . .

It’s not her.

It’s not her.

No.

Then who is she?

. . .

Does she want more coffee?

Ask her.

Someone who once knew me, she says.  Someone who meant something to me.  Yes another cup of coffee thanks, she says.

. . .

A long time ago.

Get more coffee.

I tell her I remember her.

. . .

But, I don’t. 

. . .

I’m tired.  This is why I should be working.  Soon it will be dark.

Less sugar than last time.  Remember.

I don’t remember what I’m doing.

Getting coffee.

And I remember she said something about importance.

Stop pouring it.

I’ve been listening to her practically not at all.  I can’t seem to.

Stop pouring the sugar buck-o.

Who is she?

. . .

I once loved the most amazing woman, I tell her.  A dancer.  Beautiful. Intelligent.  A real knockout. 

The S-U-G-A-R.  Stop.  Pouring.  It.

Are you she? I ask.

Stop.

Do you want more coffee?

. . .

She’s getting up.

She’s going to see how much sugar you put in there.

Why is she touching me?

Waaaaaay too much.

The sugar.  I’ve poured it everywhere.

Sheesh.

I hastily search for a broom in the closet.  I find it.  I come back.  I sweep.

. . .

After this, I’ll finish my coffee, and I’ll put away the raisins, and then I’ll start working.

. . .

“Hey.”

. . .

I’m sweeping.  I don’t want to be disappointed.  I miss her.

“Hey.”

I’m not doing it anymore.  Always a disappointment.

“Sam.”

She grabs my right arm.  I barely hold onto the broom.  I stare at her.  I feel my arm shaking.  She’s holding me too tight.  Her eyes are green.  She smiles sadly.  I wish I could remember what she said about importance.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Who is that?

Who is it?

“Sam.”

WHO IS IT?

“Good bye.”

She’s leaving.

Who are you? I ask.

“Thanks for the coffee.”

She leaves.

. . .

I’m holding a broom.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Sugar everywhere.

. . .

. . .

. . .

I miss her.

. . .

. . .

. . .

In my kitchen.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Talking to me.  She laughed a lot.  What a smile she had.

. . .

. . .

. . .

She left.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Was it her?

Time to go in.

WHO WAS IT?

Time’s a-wastin!

My heart is BREAKING!

Coffee, check.  Clean-up, check.  Next!

GOD HELP ME I WANT TO REMEMBER!

Put the broom away.

I walk to the back door.  I open it.  I look out.  She’s gone.

Put the broom A-W-A-Y.

She’s not there.

PUT IT AWAY!

What a stupid old waste!

The broom!

When can I finally die!?  When?!

. . .

WHHHHHEEEEEEEENNNNNNN?!

. . .

. . .

. . .

I think about killing myself.

. . .

. . .

. . .

I cry.  I don’t know why.

. . .

You should see me.  H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S.

. . .

Standing here leaning on this broom crying.

It’s cold.

Very touching.

Go inside and put the broom away.

Very fucking touching old sorry waste of a life man.  My arm throbs. 

Come on.

I imagine her.

. . .

Holding me.

. . .

Cleaning my idiot mess.

. . .

Talking to me.

. . .

Waking me up.  So sweet.  Lips like candy.  Skin soft as fur.  Eyes bright.

. . .

I haven’t seen her in 45 years. 

. . .

That’s a long time.

. . .

She can’t see me like this.  Crying and old and sleeping all the time.

. . .

I’m glad she didn’t come.

. . .

Let’s just go inside.

. . .

No more answering doors.

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

I’m sad.

I know.

Who was that?

. . .

. . .

Some woman.

But who?

I don’t remember.

. . .

Inside.

. . .

In. 

. . .

Go.

. . .

I-N-S-I-D-E.

. . .

. . .

I wonder if she’ll come back. 

. . .

Feels like I opened a present and there was no one there to thank.

. . .

So easy to hide
My hateful
Soul

Nice job

Me

PS.  Due a missing present, this poem has been cancelled.

Thing is, Sam is the judge, and to update you on the current goings-on in the courtroom has just said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.  Why do I have to do this?” to which I replied, “May I approach the bench your honor?” as a formality, and then, low and behold, in comes No-No, affectionately named, and throws a book at all of us, thinking that throwing books is going to get us somewhere, which it isn’t because this is MY courtroom.  But the book she threw is a good one, and I consider for a moment sitting down to read it, and asking her if she wants to join me in a brief two-hour silent reading date, but I don’t because my underwear is too loose, and I finally tell Sam, “Shut your mouth Jupiter, and just sit there or BY GOD I swear that I will keep you out of my writing for as long as I live!”

A brief shudder passes through the audience, which is solely made up of robot versions of you.  If you are sexy, so are they.  And I can make them robot-fuck each other if you are not quiet and just sit there like Sam is supposed to. 

I launch back into the drama:  “Your Honor.  We are here today to discuss the nature of Faith being a completely predictable character.  I would like to approach her leg if the court permits.”

Sam spits in my face.  Stunned for a moment, I wonder about reincarnation. 

Then I resume:  “Faith, how do you answer the accusation?”

Faith:  “What the fuck kind of court is this?”

No-no approaches Faith, carrying yet another book under her arm.  I object.  Sam asks the room if anyone understands the objection.  All your robot selves play this prerecorded response:  “By Heaven, being here is so much fun.  But without talking about fun, can we at least have a dip in the purd-y pool?”

I shake it off.  No-no has taken up position behind Faith, and is braiding her (Faith’s) auburn blonde hair.

“Those legs?  Where did you get them?” I ask.

Faith seems to have cheered.  “From you.”

“Precisely!” I exclaim. “Did you hear that ladies and gentlemen?  From me!”

No-no asks, “Three strand?  Square?  Guilloche?”

Faith murmurs:  “So fucking predictable, am I?”

Mousetrap Catch you know 11 times 2 and stuff.

Sam:  “Get to the point.  I’m tired of this.”

“My point, your Honor, is this!  Excuse me, is this…”

I forget my point.

“To spell it out,” Faith says somewhat happier now with in-process braiding happening, “he thinks he owns my body because I came out of him!”

Shocks and gasps and etc. all around.

“Woman born of man, so yesterday,” shistas No-No.

Sam, incredulous, asks, “What do you mean?”

I put my hand up in the air to keep the air still.  Everyone thinks I am trying to keep them quiet.  Consequently, I find the silence that has arisen the perfect time for me to explain:

“You see, ladies and gentlemen and robots, within me is this woman.  I know just how she looks.  I know how she walks.  I know what she likes to wear.  I know the click of her heels.  I know the smell of her body.  The feel of her breasts.  She has infected and invaded me and I walk her everyday.  Do you see this PURPLE SHIRT!  DO YOU SEE IT?!!!!”

No-no says, “It’s green.”

I continue:  “To walk, you see, covered in hair when you want nothing more than to be shaved bald clean.  To sleep, you know flat on your belly, wanting every second to feel the press of your own breasts against your bed.  To breathe, you see, with tight bundles of fabric shifting and shaping my body.  To speak, why not, in soft whispers, dulcet tones, high pitches!  To accept and mock and decry and fight against all that must be for I am a Woman (for crying out loud)!  This is where Faith comes from.  There she is, ladies and gentlemen, her hair braided for all the world to see!”

There is another gasp.  Sam shrieks:  “No braids!”

I scream, “That’s right!  No braids!  Do you see that!  Do you see?  The crooked legs?  The wiggly hair?  The lack of elbows?  The head turned at a nondescript angle–something like 15 degrees, but WHO KNOWS?  What do you see?  Do you see that that emerged from my body to leave me here with this cold dead male existence that I loathe?  Or do you see just another non-braided woman!?”

What has No-No been doing up there all this time (while not braiding)?  Permit me a brief respite from the court proceedings.  Sam needs a nap anyway.

You see, it all began with this idea of being present.  I told No-no what being present meant.  She listened as she always does, the nice woman she is.  She mistook my description of being present, though, for being present in court.  All I meant was for her to be present for the loathing that she would feel imagining Faith as I would describe her.  Now, she stands up there not only not loathing, but being the only one in the courtroom besides Sam that can see that Faith is not wearing a shirt nor sporting braided hair. No-no, though she tries hard, and I mean, really hard to be predictable herself, always ends up being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  So she braided Faith’s hair because she was so bored she could have clawed through plastic.  Back to the trial.

Faith’s eyes, right now:  fire.  Like completely pissed off.  Predictable.  Sorry she does not have a rolling-pin to shove forcibly through one of my ears and out the other.  It’s cute.  You can never predict how she wants to kill me.  She doesn’t do anything.  So predictable.  She starts writing something on a piece of paper.  Where did the paper come from?  Very unpredictable.  She sits down and puts on a shirt.  Predictable.  She was writing while standing like that picture you keep looking at.  Unpredictable.  Nothing happens.  Predictable.  Being afraid to read her letter outloud–

“I will read this letter out-loud!” Faith screams.

I am silent.  I expected that.

She reads:  “Dear ladies.  I have written to you today to ask you for help.  You see, I am plagued by this thing called menstruation.  Pain in my fucking ass.  All sorts of bleeding and such.  I am also plagued by this obsessive idiot that follows me around and dreams me his lover because he wasn’t woman enough to be born this way nor to think about menstruation.  So there is that.  And then, damn it all, I am bio-programmed to have to hear about mommies all the fucking time as if I were a Mommy and not a Woman.  And here I am, agreeing with this idiot that if there is going to be one stinking role model in this world for the ladies, then it is going to be me!”  Faith leaps up from her seat, flies through the roof, and is gone.  Very, very, predictable.  (She did that in the last story.)

No-no sits in the chair that Faith left behind.

Sam is furious.  “Order in the court!” he says, “Order in the court!” yelling at No-No, but No-No is not fazed and just sits there expectantly like a fucking sarcastic chiwawa.  So I ask her a question.

“What do you think this is all about?  More or less existential than you imagined?”

No-no cordially replies, “Calm down.  One question at a time please.”

I am nullified.  Beaten.  I don’t know if I can continue.  I ask Sam if I can quit.  I don’t know how I am going to go on without Faith here.  Without a locus for my sexual confusion.  Sam says she can be replaced with robots, and I remember that is something that Faith and I agree upon.  I grow stronger.  I am brave.  I ask a question that quotes a question–predictable.

“Would you answer the first question:  ‘What do you think this is all about?’”

No-no’s reply:  “Posthumous petulance.”

I nod.  “Yes, No-No.  It is about posthumous petulance.  Too little too late when you wanted to tell her all the things you hated about her the whole time but never got a chance to.”

I wonder if speaking of it causes it to happen.

No-No interrupts me:  “Give me a poem.”

I nod.  I wait.  I take in the room.  I say, “Anything for you, my sweetness codified.”

Then:

“Like the glistening ice
On a winter’s ice skating rink
With people who fall
After being on that ice
Who touch the ice–”

That up there is me speaking the poem!

“…and feel there
Something so smooth
Like a smooth-thing
So amazing
So greasy
Like grease from a pan
But better
So luxurious
Like a coat furry
That they never
Want
To
Leave…”

No-No shakes her head in dismay. 

I see. 

I regret ever saying any of it.  She hates it.  All of it.  No-no is bad idea, and I wish I hadn’t created her.  Spent hours here doing this, and I wish that I hadn’t made up a poem or questioned Faith or said anything at all and then suddenly from the rear of the courtroom comes a huge “HOOOOAHHHH!”

Faith enters from the rear of the courtroom, THIS TIME, wearing golden ARMOR.  Predictable.  On her side is a broadsword crested with rubies and emeralds.  She points to No-no and says, “Off with her head!”

The robot-yous light up like fireworks blaring a siren and attack Faith.  The sword flies from its scabbard and sparks rage as broadsword hits steel and steel hits armor.  The room brightens and fires leap to and fro, threatening the safety of every wooden and woven (and woman) object.  Robot arms and legs and torsos and heads fly everywhere; I mourn the sex you could have had with your robot selves; and me and No-no and Sam duck for safety behind a giant plant that I forgot to mention but I’m mentioning now and no I’m not lying.  Clashes and creeks and smashes and smacks and all sorts of metal squeaks emerge, and as we cover our eyes and hope no robot sees us, No-No pees her pants and apologizes profusely.  No one, I mean NO ONE knew Faith would reenter the courtroom with armor and defend against thousands–millions–trillions of robots!

As things must, things quiet.

Silence reigns, as it does, after, you know–God do I have to spell everything out–a storm.

“I have to say,” I have to say and do say, “when you are trying really hard not to be predictable, you end up being predictable.”

No-No responds:  “Courtrooms in shambles after so-so revelations lead one and all to want to save the rest of their night for masturbation.”

I just want to know what makes Faith so predictable.  I’ve never kissed a woman sweating inside her armor, and I would really like to.  I’ve never crawled inside her armor and merged and smashed together.  What is predictable about that?  About wanting to fuck her and be her at once?  Huh?

“Crawl inside me babe.  Crawl inside.”  Faith.  You kidder.  Now why did you have to go and say that?

And then, in the distance, we hear sirens.  Cops don’t like stepping over robot carcasses.

“I think it is time to get our oozy asses on outa’ here,” I offer politely, “All we need is a good ending to this mystery.”

No-No says it like no one else:  “I’d really like to forget everything that was said here today.  I mean really.  Let’s go get a beer.”

I hate beer.  It gives me a headache.  And it never leads to good sex.  What is good sex anyway?  I mean, really? 

“Ooo.  Not in the COURTROOM WITH DEAD ROBOTS!”

“So naughty,” I don’t think.  Instead I think, “I mean, did you READ THIS?”

Get out of the courtroom now.  All of your robot selves are dead.  Faith killed them.  You can thank her later.

And I’ll never have good sex, so don’t bother imagining that you’ll be the one.

…what was it?

say something
what?
say something
ok.  la.  la.  la.
QUIET!

.
.
.

…say something…

If only
the track
tread upon
the shoes

then
oh wormy then
so would you

The fight today is brought to you by ________________ — “Never share, never blamed.”

The bell rings and Faith, with a deft series of mountainous haymakers aimed at the upper trunk of the elephant, murders the *&%& out of the elephant et al.  They end up lying cold dead on the floor of the ring.  Faith wanders off to the side, ashamed of what she has done.  She catches my eye, and I give her a reassuring nod (I am in the crowd holding a sign that says, “*^&* you if you don’t like singing.”).  The umpire, wearing a luscious red and green polka dot lace halter top and other than that only a smile, is trying to get the elephant off the et al which is not working and which is, by the way, the reason you don’t talk about the elephant in the room, moreover, why you don’t knock it the *&^& out (you wait until it has left and then nuclear-nuke-gossip it to juicy dirty smithereens which is why the umpire is a half naked man wearing a halter top, because you cannot talk about the hanging penis and scrotum of a possibly-cross-gay-dressing-naked-man until the nuke session post-elephant departure either).

Faith jumps off the ring, and through the roof–hundreds of feet in the air.  I can tell by the trajectory of her jump that she will land in the backstage area.  I get up from my seat to meet her, but the filthy guffawing fat-face beer guzzling idiot next to me is blocking my way and guffawing and seeing absolutely nothing in the distance (like “what is there really to see over there” and “could you stop looking at the dead elephant please?”) and his big bubbly floppy legs are so big that I cannot imagine him swaying them to the side to let me pass (the rolling-jelly-legs already taking up the maximum volume permitted by stadium seating, and at that point you’d have to reshape the seat into a crooked parallelogram to perform the feat of him shifting to the side), and it is absolutely incredulous and impossible to think about him getting UP–the big U-P that big-uns like him apparently forget that not being able to do is a HUGE PROBLEM seeing as we loco-mote on two feet in this society for the most part).  I think about telling him that he and the elephant are not that different, but decide it would not be efficacious, so instead of asking a human to move or insulting him, I step over the back of my own seat, my right foot landing between the right leg of a person who has shimmied left and the left leg of a person who has shimmied right.  I then maneuver my way across a row of people who are completely capable of doing that half-standing-so-my-knees-don’t-stop-you move that people in theatres do to allow people to pass, even though it is always a bit annoying and everyone hopes that that is the last time that is going to happen in a given evening (“fuck I forgot intermission”).  As I exit the row, I can still hear the fat-beer-guzzler, his sweating, pulsating lower lip articulating something about how sick and awful those black bodies are “har har har” and “another beer here har har har” and saying something offensive to his overweight, but by no means AS-overweight, wife who obfuscates every offensive dickering comment he makes with this cute little smile that says “GOD don’t let me die alone, please don’t, please please please, tell me how abusive my husband is, no he did not hit me, no he did not say that”–in any event, lots of beer and seat and fatness and I get backstage only to find Faith crying and K-Box holding her hand.

There is no need to ask what the crying is about.  We are made to bring our fists back so we can swing them as hard as we can and regret our violence later. 

What surprises me is what K-Box is repeating to Faith back there in that backstage area.  K-Box: “When are we going to get a mommy,” over and over again.  As Faith’s weeping seems to deepen and keep rhythm with the ten syllables that K-Box drones repeatedly, I wonder if Faith is crying because of the murder(s) or because of the sentence.

Suspicion eating my soul, kind-of, I stroke K-Box’s hair and ask her, “Why are you asking, ‘When are we going to get a mommy?’ for?”

K-Box looks at me with these big brown eyes and says, “If woman is born of Man, then all Men are Father, and all Women are Daughter, so when is there Mother?”

I think she’s hiding what she is really feeling, and I tell her to come to the quick the thick the heart of it.

K-Box squints and says, “You aren’t doing your job.  When are we going to have a mommy?”

I knew she was going to say that. I mean I knew it up there when I was writing about the fat man.  I knew it when I first used the word “haymaker.”  I knew it when I went to the bathroom between working sessions; I knew it when I was writing email.  I knew it was the right thing for her to say, but I feared it.  I want to crawl into the lap of the fat man and drink beer with him and drown deaden kill my brain my thoughts my creativity drown drown die…

No I don’t.  I like this clarity.

Faith was born of me.  Immaculate conception.  K-Box, I don’t know where she came from, but she likes Faith, so we let her hang around.  I make them do everything I say, so why not imagine that somewhere there is a Mother out there who will let them do whatever they want.  Wouldn’t be nice to live in a world where Faith does not destroy?  Where K-Box doesn’t have to wonder?  Where everything fits nicely in a bundle made my Mommy?

Ah, fat clarity. 

I say to them both, “I don’t know.  The day someone reads these words and has the balls to match them.  Then we know our Mommy.”

And in come the press.  Hundreds of them snapping pictures and asking Faith questions.  She stops crying, and stands up, emboldened by her victory tears.  She addresses them one by one by one.  I take K-Box’s hand and walk away.  Then I get this grand idea to run as fast as we can and that would be fun, so I start running and she runs too.  She yanks her hand from mine and races me.  She is much shorter than I, so I beat her easily, but when I stop, she, running at full speed, rears her right arm back, and let’s go a brilliant haymaker that misses my head and returns boomerang-like against her left ear (arm becoming rubber during haymaker sweeps and all you know that right?), which, consequently, knocks K-Box out.  I pick her up and walk towards something that smells like food.  I imagine that the entire thing will end up in me eating lunch and I am right.  It is pleasant to carry K-Box there, even though she probably needs to be taken to the hospital judging by the stream of blood that connects the lunch table to the haymaker-miss location.  Faith, I imagine, is looking for someone for me to marry.

So silly.

So it is
That one
Patient
Dream

You know
Is going
Going
Gone

But you are
Too tired
To bother
Saying

Farewell

“A lovely bunch of flowery thoughts will come to me.  The jump bump yip yap storyline to save me from my tip tip tip ovvvvvvvvvver–” she almost loses her balance, “–and the hope smile gets better all the time thing that keeps them from actually reaching out.  What more can you ask for?  Nothing, so just let it be.”

One thing that defines her is this strange ok-ness with the nature of it.  Two sided juice maker thought:  who tosses out the rind?

“Who travels across the world to find the perfect place and then discovers that the journey is the answer?  That is like going into your empty refrigerator and finding out that the emptiness is what fills your stomach, not the food that left that refriger-empti-spacinator.”  That would be the empty spot that used to hold food.  K-Box is a mystery, what can I tell ya?

So what are you going to do K-Box?  Now that you are here?  What are you going to do?  For the next few minutes?  The next few hours?  The next few days?  Do you have days left?  Will you –gulp!– before that?  You know?  How long will it take?

“I’ve got a lovely bunch of though-ti-ti-thoughts.  Here they are a standing in a row.  Big ones, long ones, some as loud as a megaphoned-maginfied airplane engine explosion festival.”  Explosion happening after the revving, of course.  “So now, Faith, where are you?  Where are you to send me words of comfort?  Where are you to stomp my predicament into a cloying coy little knot-song?  No where.”

She’s right.  No one is coming.

And so K-Box, she sings, she dances, she leans, she falls, and that is how K-Box came to an end.  Bloody mess the whole way down.

Yet with every ending, there is a beginning, and, somewhere in-between, a big fat middle.

Row, row, row the boat, gently down the ravine…

So, you’ll understand me now when I say:

“Just go in there,”

Telling you that:

Faith said that.

Or:

“Listen to yourself.”

Telling you that:

I said that.

Or:

“Shut up.”

“I’ll say what I want.”

“Shut up.”

“Fuck me.

And you are ok with either:

a) Faith doing the shut-up character

Or:

b) Me doing it

…knowing that Faith and I are there to help Sam, and each (Faith or I) is just as likely to say “fuck me” as the other.  You are, like, totally comfortable with this idea by now enough so that and such that you understand what quotation marks are and you can guess where they are going and who is saying what. 

We are HERE TO HELP SAM because HE IS NERVOUS and now EVERYTHING YOU SEE THAT FOLLOWS is THAT ADVICE.

I should let you know that because I set you up so absurdly blatantly obviously disdainfully, you should expect that I will intentionally confuse you a bit by not following WITH the advice MENTIONED ABOVE.  In fact, I am doing so right now (or not doing so, depending upon how you look at things–sideways or upright glass and all), and I don’t know why you didn’t expect this, because what are expectations but things to be manipulated, because fulfilling expectations is what you do to BUILD TRUST IN REAL RELATIONSHIPS, but with an audience of people who are there to be entertained, you gotta surprise them, it being so much like a roller coaster. So, be on the look out for the advice to not pertain to Sam, but to you, or no one, or your dog, or the sun, or humanity, or prepare yourself for there to be no advice at all.  Prepare for everything, including all the advice appearing in a subsequent post a year from now.

I offer Sam this advice:  “Sam, here’s what is going to help you.  When you go to give the Talk, you will find that your audience won’t understand you.  Some will tell you that is just human nature.  It isn’t.  So go in there and talk idiotically.  Say something like:

“‘Happiness is freedom.  Freedom is happiness.  If you are happy, you are free.  If you are free, you are happy.  We’re talking about happiness and freedom.  Both of them.  Both of them separately and together.  Because being together is what you need separately and what we need together.’

“Repeat yourself over and over and over again using the same words the same words the same words, so that you will be, at the very least, understood, and they will shake your hand, and they will pat your back, and they will be happy to have met you, because they all understand the idea that something about happiness and freedom was talked about and thanks for that because they can use the words happiness and freedom in a sentence too.”

Faith says:  “The most important thing to do is just not do it.  And I don’t mean to not do it in the metaphorical sense that by not TRYING TO DO IT you actually DO IT BETTER because we all WE ALL love PLENTIFUL CUTE IRONY.”

Oh Lord.  Faith.  Oh Lord.  How do you explain this?

Sam goes in the room suddenly.  Faith and I are surprised by this.  It was sudden.  No more advice.  So little time.

Yet explain.  Explain.  What has he done wrong?  Should he not be in there?  Explain.  WE WE WE WANT TO KNOW!

Sam is in there giving THE TALK.  Explaining HIMSELF.  It came to a HEAD.  He is SHARE(ING).

I say to Faith:  “Not so nice to leave people confused.”

Faith:  “People live in the world they perceive.”

I would make the argument that it is nice to be helpful.

Faith:  “Like anyone is ever going to notice.”

Sam returns.  “It went great.  They really understood me.”

Well, fuck me. 

“What DID YOU SAY IN THERE?”

Sam smiles.  He nods.  He paces.  He wanders.  He pauses.  He watches.  He smirks.  He stops.  He jumps (tiny-like).  He sighs.  He stops again.  He looks ready.  He says, “I told them ‘black bar bad and think about it.’”

Shaking of heads all around.  The three of us.  Sam, Faith, and I.

Black bar bad and think about it.

(The double-you at the beginning of the ‘what’ up there was part of a ‘was’ and the ‘hat’ in ‘what’ from ‘that.’  So the loss of that ‘t’, and a Franken’what’.)

Faith, Sam, K-Box, some grey-hair named Gravy-Cup, and I stand in front of a monk who keeps saying, “No bowing.  No bowing.  No bowing.  No bowing.”  Sets of four.  Light.  Somber.  Angry.  Calm.  Light.  Somber.  Angry.  Calm.  No bowing.  No bowing.  No bowing.  No bowing.  Sam and K-Box bow repeatedly.  Faith looks at the walls of the temple we are standing in.  Gravy-Cup looks like a-sleep a-sheep a-nose a-pose.  The air of the temple smells like decadent plug-in air freshener mixed with rotting plants.  My shoes have holes in them. 

I ask Gravy-Cup, “Who are you?”

Gravy-Cup is awake.  “Me?  Oh, young man, my name is Bertus, but my friends call me Gravy-Cup.”

“Why do they do that?”

No bowing.  No bowing.  No bowing.  No bowing.  Light.  Somber.  Angry.  Calm.

Something grabs Gravy-Cup’s attention, and he wanders away. Probably looking for a chair. 

The no-bowing series is getting to me.  I grab K-Box and Sam by their arms and lift them up.  (“Listen.  Listen.  Listen.  Listen.”)  They look at each other.  That is, until the droning no-bowing halts, and the monk smiles.

Faith tells me what I wish he had said:  “Take a little frame.  Put within it a moment of hope or regret.  Look at it.  Now stop looking at it.  There you have it.”

Because with a whisper of mystery, your sunshine is teased.  Free.

Faith is wise.  “So be it,” she says.  “So be it.”