Escape. the Door

The way we got here
I asked and I asked
By way of some messenger
I asked and I asked

Ah, the Air!

I'd call her but, well, the voice mail is very shaky, but then I saw walking past the apartment and in my haste I tried to jump out the window, but, whoa, I bought too-strong wrong windows and hard as I tried I somehow managed to fall back into the room...


                                                                                                                   and then down the stairs

A Writer

To Eachan: Everyone who reads you must be simply awed by your facility to make their gears straining to ascertain that they too see your world as a haven where they can lose sight and sound knowing that their work they themselves know they would write if they only could…

Going Home Packing

It felt like a gun in my back and the voice behind me didn't exactly put me at an advantage either...I had just walked away from the ATM and now I was about to be robbed..."don't look at me" the voice said. "Im desperate and that's a problem for you, unless I have to shoot."
I was hoping not to get shot, but at the same time, I apparently hesitated and as I fished out the money the voice screamed at me "I that all you got," Two hundred dollars, still warm from the ATM, nice and crisp, was about to be handed over...
"Im coming back tomorrow," the shadowy voice said, "and you better have more money to show me the next time. A lot more money."
Suddenly the voice was gone and so was my money...It has been a month and the voice apparently has not found me...yet...I've moved across town and stopped going out after dark but somewhere out there. I thought I might have seen someone near the ATM, but its all good now because I'm carrying a gun and if I have to...

The Artful Dodge

No matter where I am in New York City, strangers walk up to me and say things like "do you know where I can find a check cashing place that is also open?"

One when I'm standing in a long line, out of hundreds of people it might go something like this: "we're interviewing people today and wonder if you would mind asking a few questions." As usual I have not too much to say and after answering a few questions from the Columbia School of Journalism they ask if they can take a photograph and that's that....then there is the Russian woman who wants to take the subway to Coney Island and wonders which train I think she should take...and this one is NOT listening to a word I say but she seems satisfied with my answer...

What do I do that creates this minor problem for me? Im still searching for an answer and it has been this way for years...when I'm at Trader Joe's in Brooklyn in a pretty long line, the clerk seems intent on getting me to smile even if I am trying to talk to a friend with me and eager to get out of there...I tried looking away but it didn't work out...I tried mumbling, same deal...my biggest fear is going blind and being unable to get away, but at least we will not have any eye contact...as an experiment I tried Trader Joe's in Los Angeles and...

March Under Water

It is the first day of March, not knowing what to expect I am having a cup of coffee but underneath it all I feel something is about to happen...it is the kind of sensation that puts you on guard, something that tells you distantly things are not quite what they seem today...I ignored three knocks on my door and after whomever left, I cut through the parking lot and went out up cottage street, noticing that a strange car was parked near my place, not too near, but closer than I like...about this time the car drove off and I stopped being paranoid, (a mostly relaxed guy), when all of a sudden the car pulls up and says "hey, they found your car in the harbor last night, did you know?"...I don't even have a car, whatta mean I said to this stranger..."Your old Range Rover, the white one, is sitting at the bottom"...I know it had become a curse, but it is outta my life and I are very happy with that..."Okay, he said, I'll tell em to stop looking for you."

Where's The Grit?

Its so simple...just walk around the house for a few hours, spend a bit of time stretching the elasticity into your muscles, swear at the keyboard and finally, you're off to the beginning...voices that materialize out of nowhere, voices that you're not sure you ever heard and then the eerie sound of a dropped bottle in the downstairs basement that crashes with its silent trail of goop that leaves a trail calling out to be cleaned up, but maybe not yet...

In the midst of all this you suddenly find yourself remembering you had invited some people over that you're not having seconds thoughts about, with a higher-than-normal pulse rate telling you not to open the door...they have been drinking and it is late, and furthermore they now tell you that then have to sleep over because they have to...as they wander into the house I look at my one half-drunk beer and feel I could be in for a very long night...after all I never turn anyone away but I'm starting to get a little closer to say something I will most likely regret, so to avoid saying it I just don't...everybody I know drinks and they never seem to suffer for it...if they stay overnight I'll want them to leave but it's too late and we all pretend we're having a great time...two of them are writing a screenplay and drunk or sober they will wind up with a screenplay, a very good screenplay called "Hanging On."