page 50

taped up on my bathroom walls we met in a room with Mr. Perry’s thigh master I think they were pumping Aerosmith through the house speakers I was working in a factory welding pieces of cars together I lived each day without kicking I read about Mr. Perry’s suicide in the paper I remember Captain Marc was so happy he took us all to the bar and bought several rounds of drinks he said a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders he says that it is wonderful news please don’t cry the world won’t end we didn’t step out the apartment frolicking downtown in a dress they are good for your soul random retarded thoughts there is no such things as logic salt, pepper, and ketchup appreciating a touch of frost not everyone is from the village the sweep that you make a silence born from heaven to believe in a blackened fish jane would go to the mall to buy more smokes and steal the dreams of little children as they pawed the candies from the story at the mending wall as thoughts often occur in a motion a sinning quark mending in the sun with bags of bargain hunters using all our spells an indoor game with needs unmet and hot cross buns a tune blow on good fences with mischief in me he said it for himself Captain moves in darkness with a banjo on his knees with cold fingers a renewed fanaticism I already drank all the free beer to celebrate the coming apocalypse he moves the black Fridays it is all about his art and the holidays the original blob and the blob gets bigger banned from society wanting to be a stoner a good spiff everyday jane likes to give them a quiz jacket up on morphine an old retired pothead a funky path into the enchanted forest getting my weed straight from Chicago getting a flashback of the first time you got backed I’m not doing this to impress the crazy lady on 21^st street  I arrive with a load of trouble and unload my guns I shaved for Christmas just to make you happy reading my mail from ohio I should be ashamed about her boxy hips looking at her jewelry the ones I really like I didn’t mean to ignore you and your social butterfly going to school and work I wanted her to run around and party but she lost her mind and we couldn’t find it I have been feeling very strange it’s eating me alive just as dire it is not the case I got enough dignity to leave but I don’t can’t find my way out I wish there was someone I could talk to someone to share my thoughts with I am so alone left with only my thoughts wondering how easy is this fuck she is bitching about politics and how the glass ceiling keeps getting lower it was her little button that turned me on I bought her an ice cream cone and told about my days on the pony express delivering mail for the new republic making sure the welfare mothers got their checks jane was handling snakes and making moonshine between session of psychotherapy god she could study matrix algebra I went to the strip club to watch the crazy lady dance she was a psycho who heard voices the cabaret Voltaire she always wore a cubist costume and too it off one stroke at a time while reciting the lord’s prayer backwards that was when I met AC for the first time the crazy lady just finished her incantation and AC just popped up out of thin air he looked a little pissed about the whole mess he calmed down when she showed him her website mostly just her making confessions while smoking a menthol cigarette she blows her smoke into the camera a Christmas present from her gay boyfriend Louis aragon

page 49

applications and crying about the atrocities of the holidays Mr. Crowley is licking his sticky fingers he swears to god about Jane’s waist he measures her with a beer bottle he is making plans for her intestines it is all voodoo and backroom politics blood pudding with her arteries skin graft and crushed up bones he puts her in the soup that he sells he can see Gandhi in her nipples in the crossroads and in the streets she can stretch a smile of forgiveness her womb was safe like a fortress for kinbote he could hide inside her for days when he was not strong enough to raise the flag Mr. Crowley is building comfortable shadows when he runs out of beer he send jane to the store to buy more she drinks to forget about Mr. Perry a dick dodging a bullet there is a dog barking outside her bedroom door it makes her think of her past in the new revolution when she was a disciple for kinbote how she saw all the miracles now she stays up late drinking and looking out her window mouthwash and nighttime sex twisted like a toothless stadium she dances around the room holding her ruffles the boys stand in line to dance with her Mr. Crowley couldn’t blink rubbing her cunt against his chin smelling of roads to nowhere she is still swallowing Mr. Crowley’s demons jane is calling all the enamel doctors to come over and perform with the circus she wants to forget about the foolishness of her youth how politicians would part her legs and speak in tongues about the coming glories of the lord she gave her young doctors guns and butter knives so that they could practice making the room grow cold as jane practices raising the dead slumped over the couch waiting for the fickle his suit jacket is hung from a hook on the wall next to the photo of kinbote with the bleeding heart the offended slurps of butane tongues half drunk cavemen jane fumbles for her keys she went to the witchdoctor to have her fortune read he told her she was in for heavy weather so she bought a rain jacket and moved out of her bluff street apartment she missed her hardwood floors the concrete dogs that are smaller than people she was never cut out for sales she was a teacher and it took Mr. Crowley a long time to win her over she was still grieving the loss of Mr. Perry Mr. Crowley would send her flowers and pictures out of magazines of famous paintings he wanted to take her to Paris to show her a good time to help her forget about the holy spirit touching her with the hands of strangers pulling her closer asking her to repeat the question the dominate pattern of her vagina a tin foil pipe and rude manners keeping her eggs warm while she hunts for more sausage the buffet was all elbows looking for that Christmas bargain before they had to take inventory I am sitting on my hands and watching her knees pumping up and down in her plaid skirt I was not sure if she would accept my request my pen says amnesty international I draw large circles around the blood spots Jane is a white flower that Mr. Crowley bough on the street corner he moved in with her and they worked at rearranging their thought patterns jane kept trying to save him when she got as drunk as a sailor he got the crop out of the field and they worked at bottling it in mason jars they felt just like robber barons jane got a corporate tattoo on her left butt cheek just to show that she was serious it is rare when she thinks of her dead cowboy and his political ambitions she has such a nice smile I have taken pictures of it many times they are

page 48

reading the plexus and taking down notes about AC and Tim kinbote the glorious one that was when tim was wearing blue eye shadow and throwing interceptions to everyone who could catch a ball jane didn’t believe back then she was an endless chute we were all ungrateful monsters I made you Jane and now you look at me differently like a sinner a lost soul in the pits of hell she hates me because I am friends with Mr. Crowley she is convinced that he is no good the story the fight the adventure she can see no future in his poetry her chakras are troubled and she is giving up the project no more hands across the waters jane only loves tim and occasionally Mr. Perry her heart belongs only to gods and presidents now she is working for the cause she has a mission she has unlocked her inner sickness she writes about it in her poetry tells everyone how daddy abused her made her into a junkie and a tramp it is her excuse to fall into a bottle she is embarrassed she has very little self value it has been stolen from her by her father she feels like a failure the tears fall from her eyes like disembodied ghosts she is looking for her underwear in the back of Mr. Perry’s truck cashing in on her criminal karma flapping her wings of venom he died in her arms as she seduced him she would call him boring as he read her lips jane would speak out against the little voices in Mr. Perry’s head the one that tell him to leave her for tim she wants to ride in a car with tinted windows one that is bullet proof and has secret service running along side of it she is convinced that this is the start of a long lasting relationship but Mr. Perry isn’t so convinced he loves tim more than jane he still uses jane as a bathroom every chance he can get he gets to pretend he is a man with jane even though he is really a bitch he is waiting for the axe that will split the weak he is dreaming of a new cycle a new world with a new king he is sitting on a throne made of skulls everyone bows and worships conformity as the people step in front of the speeding machine it is a revolution that he dreams of a new world where he is king and everyone loves his god tim just as much as he does Mr. Perry wants to kill everyone who does not believe the world does not believe in tim so Mr. Perry wants to destroy the world and jane cried when her daddy died Mr. Perry said he would give her a star everyday he wants to drown her in the sickness every night to burn her on the stake of love he is pulling the curtains of the soul his knife is dull as her cuts out her heart he is dripping from the corner of her mouth he walks he talks he shoots from the three point line the mushrooms are kicking in he tells her that she cannot leave she must stay until the full moon she is picking up the pieces of her broken childhood naked on the hood of Mr. Perry’s car doing this fucked up thing the priest next door never beats on the wall Mr. Crowley has written almost a complete book about AC and his magical powers he says that he will only tell us what we need to know he is claiming no prize he is raising up the propaganda putting his money in the bank and burning his dollars the mothers are standing outside the bank they are holding up picket signs save our babies from filthy lucre Mr. Crowley is standing outside with a megaphone lecturing to the mothers he tells them that the problem is the federal reserve sucking on the nipple of compound interest and the fear of being denied another loan the mothers are burning their

page 47

jerk her and her avid flock around Mr. Perry and Jane ran right out and bought a double headed dildo so that they could worship tim together in a most proper and religious way the barmaid is burying the dead in the basement of the bar her followers are dropping like flies AC has mixed up a most potent batch of wanda and he has everyone hooked and some people misjudge how much they are taking and overdose the barmaid hasn’t figured it out yet she thinks that they might be dying because of her lack of faith in tim instead they are dying because AC is trying to get even with his twin brother AC swoops down from the top of the bar where he waits for a victim like a vulture waits for the lost and thirsty to drop dead Lee has been selling wanda for AC all over the town Lee cuts the stuff in half and people are still jumping out of windows because it is such a quality product Lee would cut the product in half again except he was given strict instruction from AC not to step on it again and Lee knows better than to piss AC off Lee hangs around the church of truth and sells wanda to all of the church goers he tells them it will help them worship tim when they are masturbating with their dildos it is another demon inspired marketing campaign just like all the rest Lee used to work for a marketing firm before he discovered that selling drugs was more financially stable Ac just sits back and watches the waves of souls come flooding in AC is confident that this new move on his part is a great success a great counter measure against his brother’s raising the dead stunt feeling like the failure not the phase deconstructed ego wanting love and affection your space alone not thinking it was possible taking steps for the future made of stitches we could not find mystical visions on a stretch of empty staircase drinking in your laughter the rock and the hammer these were the days of lowered expectations the barmaid was mumbling again in some demonic language that nobody could understand she is telling them to set themselves on fire a couple of them do and the bar almost burns to the ground the stench of wasted flesh is everywhere the disciples of tim are confused as usual and truck is having more fun than a demon should be allowed sometimes we find ourselves confronted by sheer naked courage to be more than we ever first imagined our lips saying those magical words all the crazy things we watch as bertha gives us her shadows she used to be alone but know she shares everything with us sending us greetings from the dark side bertha is no mild mannered freak she is a vicious god with large teeth and she has outlived all the other dogs who came before her no shaggy ears to scratch I feed bertha a cold meat sandwich and she smiles like an albatross her glossy tits sliding around my cock  I am international when I am not distracted sticky bodies with bullet hole intentions bertha has needy eyes bertha is attending to her voices a grim compromise hovering over her she is pleading for rescue from the strangers in the street she is poured out as drivel another expressive mythology that we teach the children how bertha overcame her static beauty thinking death won’t notice her she leaves a pain in my mind a mind numbing pain that keeps on pounding those old thoughts of woman how things used to be with bertha before she learned to turn the sunshine into flowers now she sits in a warm memory with her poppies becoming a mindless zombie

page 46

accompanies Mr. Perry to church and does her knitting while they all sit in the bar and listen to the barmaid testify of the goodness of their lord and savior tim humbert and larry show up every now and then when they are not on the road selling bibles the barmaid is trying to keep her hand on the plow she plowing a field for tim trying to harvest him some souls she is trying to come to grips with the larger philosophical and metaphysical issues that have been troubling her all her life she says that tim is the truth and she calls her church the church if truth she has thrown away her books from her earlier days in the green witch village when she practiced her magic for AC it is a story of betrayal separation and redemption America was put on the cross and it was up to people like the barmaid to take America down and prepare her for burial humbert became disillusioned with the bible selling business and he felt that there needed to be a book that told kinbote’s story so he began writing the story of tim according to humbert or more normally called the book of tim humbert started with the story of the barmaid and then began following tim around to record everything he said and everything he did it was humbert who first decided to call himself a disciple of tim and soon larry, the barmaid, Mr. Perry, jane, and toby began to meet together with tim and discuss what he was doing and saying humbert would show them what he had written and they helped him make sure he was getting it straight when I asked humbert if I could read some of the stuff he had written he told me no that it was only for true believers and he could tell that I was not a true believer he said that I didn’t believe in anything it was all a dry hump for the sweet sadist I was still determined to wash all of her holes I slowly stroked my immorality all these circuits lie with the bravado behind their teeth my story takes a turn neither bad nor inglorious it is just a turn the same as when you turn the wagon around and head back for home with your tail between your legs such is the path of a true disciple I have observed they still weep into their tissues and I collect the bile with a wooden bucket to feed the weary horses it may not be gods work but is charity just the same why should there be a problem with the connection the corndog must have gotten stuck in her throat the barmaid is silent for once maybe her brain is trying to recover from the demon possession truck the demon possesses her every other half hour for ten or fifteen minutes during these times is when she says the most intelligent things you have ever heard her speak she doesn’t talk stupid shit about how great and beautiful tim is when truck possesses her the barmaid talks about the joys of having an orgasm I told tell she was possessed by truck the demon because I was once possessed by truck myself and when I was possessed by truck my left would twitch all the time and the barmaid’s left eye would twitch like a motherfucker and when she would discuss to her congregation the holy benefits of a vibrating dildo she would demonstrate its proper use for her parishioners ramming the dildo in her crotch she would inform them that it would help them get closer to kinbote and that this was a superior form of praise and worship I thought it was hilarious that a disciple of tim would be possessed by such a nasty little demon as truck I knew how to expel the dirty little fuck from the barmaid but I was having too much fun watching him