15 minutes, 8/31

(two men are in an old pick-up truck driving down a south Texas highway in the haze of the afternoon heat. Big Buck wears old jeans, beat-up brown and black cowboy boots, a worn out cowboy hat, and a red pearl-snap shirt. Dave wears a black t-shirt, khaki shorts, a green poker visor, old white Vans canvas shoes, high-top socks, and big aviator shades. Buck has a week's stubble and is heavy set, but not overweight. Dave is clean shaven, skinny, and smoking a cigar. Buck is driving.)

So tell me Buck, in lou of having no radio in this tank, how long have you lived in the myriad heat of this listless desert?

Whole life. I like it. It's nice.

Nice? There is nothing here to trust! Just sand and sparse weeds. It's wild man, and I don't know how you stand it.

I do alright. It calms you down. Where did you say you were from, anyway?

Me? Oh, Buck. You know, it's funny you should ask. I'm from a beautiful place with trees and grass. Plenty to trust up there, and the strangest part is where I'm from, we actually have seasons!

Alright, where is it?

Missouri! Cheers.

(Dave grabs under his seat, pulls out a fifth of wild turkey and takes a swig before putting it back.)

Missouri is my home, the land that I love, and what not. Now, don't get me wrong, Texas is dandy and fine. Fine and dandy. An alright vibe for a visit or quick job like so...

Right.

...but it is no place for weirdness. Not my type of weirdness There really are no safety nets out here, man. A man like me, I need as many nets as I can get. You never know what trouble will follow you, stalk you, or hunt you down. Especially when you're flirting with trouble. You need nets. Buck, as I hope you can tell, I am not in the circus. I will impress no one performing without nets. Do you sort of get what I'm saying?

I suppose. I would guess you're just a little high-strung though.

What do you mean, good sir?

Well, down here, trouble ain't no different then it would be in, say, a place like Missouri. It's just the setting is different. There are different rules to how you have to handle yourself.

What do you mean by different rules?

I mean, you...well, it's like this: You seem worried. And seeing as how on this particular errand we're running we're saddled up as partners, that's grating on my nerves a bit.

Look man, I'm cool. I didn't mean I'm not cool. I'm fine for what we're doing here.

Ok, but listen. You're jumpy. That's no good. You might be able to be jumpy and, shit, what do the Jews call it...neurotic? You might be able to pull off neurotic up in Missouri with those St. Louey gang bangers. But down here, it's not like that.

How is it down here, Buck?

It's Hell. The Mexicans don't give two shits either way. The cops are in on everything and hate everyone. It's hotter than the devil's nut sack which drives all the outsiders batshit, no offense...

None taken.

...but everyone tries to stay cool. If the Mexicans are cool, which I would say they got a natural, tough coolness to them anyway, then the cops can stay cool, and if the cops are cool, and the Mexicans are cool, well then we gotta be cool or someone's gonna want us real dead real quick just for not being cool. So you're either cool because you love Texas, or you're cool because you don't want to get shot in the face.

I don't want to get shot in the face, Buck.

(Buck pulls a .357 magnum from under his chair)

Then please cool the hell out, stop your weird shit-talking, and listen to the sounds of the road because you're grating on my nerves, alight fella?

Yeah, sure, yeah, that is...uh, yes, not a problem.

Alright then. No offense.

None taken.

(He keeps the gun on Dave for a moment then puts it back)

Where the hell did Boss Acuna find you anyway. I usually run with a tough looking mean Mexican sum bitch who doesn't know English and can't piss me off for talking anyway.

Well, I met him in Houston, I think he...

I didn't mean that to have an answer.

Oh rhetorical, ok I get it. Sorry.

(Dave is obviously nervous and complacent. He stares out the window still smoking his cigar)

We need gas. The next station I gotta top off. I don't know how many more we're gonna see. Hopefully there's one around here.

(Dave looks up to see if Buck was talking to him, Bucks eyes are on the road. Dave keeps his eyes out his window.)

(time passes. they continue on.)

(Eventually they pull up to an old gas station)

Hey there spaceman, wake up. I'm gonna go pay for this and take a piss. You pump it. You want something from inside.

No, I believe I'll be fine.

Suit yourself.

(Buck walks into the station where there in an attendant at the register. He is an elderly, but alter man.)

Howdy there, how can I help you?

Howdy. I'm just getting some gas on, looks like pump three. Do y'all have a pisser?

Yessir, right around back.

Cool beans. Say, real quick, you seen any trucks come through here lately? Any big rigs, I mean, for that chain of Aucna Mexican restaurants?

Naw, can't say I see any stop by. Maybe one's passed by, but I don't recall. Mind me asking why?

Nothing important, I'm just following one a bit. A friend of mine is driving. Anyway, pisser?

Right back yonder.

Thank you kindly.

(back outside Dave is filling the tank and leaning against the door of the truck. he is thinking aloud.)

Yep. Yep. Time to get weird.

(Dave opens the door of the truck and pulls out a long bag and an expensive suit case. He sets the suitcase down with care just behind the truck and starts riffling through the long bag)

(Buck exits the bathroom, pays the attendant and starts to head back outside)

What the hell are you doing.

(Dave pops out from behind the truck with a shotgun)

Rocking

(BANG.)

And Rolling.

(BANG.)

(Buck is dead. Dave casual walks into the station holding the gun open like bird hunter walking with gun safety in mind.)

Excuse, old timer, open the register, please.

What the hell is this?

Wrong answer.

(He lifts the gun. BANG.)

Time to build a net.

(Dave takes his time messing with the register but fails to open hit. BANG. The shot opens the register.)

Bingo was his name-o.

(Dave fills his pockets with a surprising amount of cash and then spends time choosing a bag of chips and a tall can of beer, which he bags himself. He casually walks out of the station and sets his snacks in the truck. He loads the long bag into the truck and then the expensive suit case. He pats his pockets, missing something thing)

Keys.

(Dave takes the keys off of Buck and heads back down the highway in the opposite direction singing "On The Road Again" at the top of his lungs.)

(the gas station is still and bloody.)

15 minutes, 8/30

(two college students, one boy and one girl. America average with a hint of passively-hip defiance. they are in the hall of a dorm building.)

No, you're right. She's usually wrong. At least with names.

But my name is easy.

Jodie?

What?

(beat. eye contact.)

Do you want to come watch t.v. with me?

I don't usually watch much t.v. Sure.

(they start walking to his room)

But she knows what she's talking about.

Professor Croner?

Physics, yeah. You're just ambiguous with her for a while.

That's not bad. I hope.

What else are you taking?

Philosophy 101 with Majors, some sort of science class. Spanish I think. Two intro literary surveys.

You're an English major.

Yes.

You should take Waters. Or McCasey. And Steve...Steve...what was Steve's last name?

You'll have to get back to me on that.

Steve....Steve...I'll have to get back to you on that.

(they reach the room. they stop at the door.)

So have you ever sat on a fufa?

No. What's that?

It's a giant bean bag but instead of beans it's filled with memory foam. NASA invented it.

So it's a memory foam bag?

No. It's a fufa.

(he opens the door. they walk in. he closes the door. they stop.)

Jodie?

Yeah?

(they start kissing. they kiss toward the fufa. they kiss their way onto the fufa, awkwardly. they stop.)

You taste like cigarettes.

Fufas are comfortable. Do you think I'm pretty?

You write poetry.

I do.

(they start kissing. they stop.)

Do you want to read my poems?

Of course. Now?

(they start kissing. his phone vibrates in his pocket)

That feels...good.

I should answer this.

(beat. eye contact.)

Never mind.

(they keep kissing. it keeps vibrating)

No, I have to answer this.

Yes.

Hello? Hey sis.

(he covers the phone. to Jodie:)

It's my sister.

Good.

(back to the phone:)

Hi. How is everything. Okay. When did you get out of the hospital? Oh. Well. When did he get out of the hospital. Good, that's great. Congratulations. Of course. No. No, champagne is always funny. Yeah. Yeah, right. Not for him. Okay. Well, thank you. No, no. It's fine; I don't smoke. No, that was Howard. I wish he would too. Okay. Okay. Well, indeed and back to you. I love you. Bye.

(he hangs up. beat. back to Jodie:)

I completely forgot she was pregnant.

What's her name?

It was a boy.

Your sister?

She had a boy. Her name is Catherine.

What's the baby's name.

It's a boy. His name is Peter. I'm an uncle.

You sound worried.

More confused.

Things happen for a reason.

Do you like Thai food?

No. Curry is good.

Right.

(they start kissing)

15 minutes, 8/29

(two young men outside of a garage converted into a one-room apartment. they're at the beach and dressed like hip kids with a dash of beach style. they are not oppressively cool)

So when do you think they'll stop?

€I don't know. Do you want to take a walk?

Maybe after we eat. I think a walk would be nice after we eat. The weather's nice.

€Yeah.

Should we go in now?

€I don't hear anything.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

(they enter. there is a couple in the one room apartment)

You guys hungry?

$Yeah, sure. Where did you guys want to eat?

€Chris said Italian sounded good.

Yeah, I'd like pizza. Pizza has been sounding great lately.

$That's fine. We can do Italian. Sara, is that fine with you?

@Whatever.

$But which place though? Felini's or Cafe Fresco?

@I'm not that hungry.

$But you could eat. We're going to eat, are you coming with us?

@I don't know. I guess. Whatever.

$Sara, we have guests. Chris and Paul are our guests. They want to eat.

@That's fine. Okay. Whatever. Where are we going then?

$Do you want to go to Felini's?

@That's fine.

$I thought you said you didn't like their crust.

@Honestly, John, it's fine. I don't care. Let's just go.

(she storms up, grabs her purse and shoes)

Alright then. Pizza time.

€Felini makes me think of cats.

Italian sausage is Italian for cat.

$That's stupid.

And yet still so sickly true.

€Do you think Felini is a man or a woman?

@Can we go?

$We're coming. Calm down. Do you have my keys?

@No, I don't have your keys. What did you do with them, I thought they were on the counter the last time I saw them.

$What?

@On the counter, your keys are on the counter. Let's please go.

(she leads the pack out the door. Chris and Paul lag a little behind just outside the door. John and Sara argue muted to the Neon in the driveway)

€What are the odds of this being this uncomfortable the entire time we're at the beach?

Why are they so pissy? I thought they were okay now?

€They were fine the last time I was down here.

A few months ago?

€Yeah. It was all rainbows and assholes. Not this passive aggressive hell.

Did they breakup? Is that why she left?

€I don't know, it's weird. She had to go back and see her family or something. I guess living together just did what it does. Their relationship didn't help.

What do you mean?

€I mean the whole open thing. They're all against these gender roles or defining their relationship in conventional terms I guess. Technically they were never together how you would call it. Now, they told each other they loved each other and had plenty of sex...

Naturally.

€...but they never considered themselves a couple. No boyfriend/girlfriend thing.

He seemed really excited about that at first. It sounded shady to me.

€Yeah, I told him it was a recipe for weird, but he thought it was great. I guess when they started driving each other crazy this summer things just went to hell. It's not like they developed a real support system to handle the hard patches of a relationship.

That's a shame, you know?

€It really is.

Well, I'm going to enjoy this pizza, this fine beach air, and make John take us to the beach tonight because I want to have a good time.

€Oh yeah, the beach sounds amazing. I want to get in the water, I was thinking about that earlier.

Definitely. Pizza and swimming should be amazing. I can't believe how good it feels out here.

€It's hot, but it's a good hot.

Totally. Have they made it into the car yet or are they still trying to out piss each other?

€Well, I suppose since no one seems to wonder why we're not in the Neon yet that they're still pissing.

Let's just stone both of them and end their misery. Our misery. Whatever. I just want a tan and some damn pizza.

Oh Lady

Oh lady,
you can’t justify
the ever growing morose
stains on those satin lips
you lie and call
your own
any longer.

Why had the boys
all over called themselves
criers at your feet
if there had not been
something there
for them to want?

And only now
you bay at a moon
you feel you deserve
and you let your toes curl
like fancy hair cuts.

Smile for me then,
and laugh a little louder,
scream a hyena-chuckle for me,
because I’ve let go.

I had thought
I would let you drown
in a pool of my regrettable
victories, but I see now
you’re filed in a deeper drawer.

Somewhere closer to a heartstring,
once plucked;
forever resonate.

And happy.

Miserable Youth

At times,
I forget about the languid charm
In your inbred breath
When we would entangle
And talk about how we might
Glorify the certain mundane
Of our futures.

Your hopeless dreams,
While romantic,
Were a silky wine
Drugging me into believing
What I might accomplish,
And I helped to spin
What we knew where looming lies
While we coddled in jersey
Or satin sheets.

We were roustabouts,
Stinking of bad sex,
But with scrap-iron stomachs
And a masochistic flare
For dangling unpromised boons
Upon ourselves and knowing,
Just knowing,
How the cosmos would bend
To our steely provocations.

We sealed ever prayer
In sweat drenched kisses
And posted every corner
With the riches
Of our miserable youth.

Wither-Sheets

You bleed pneumonic blood
on the stale wither-sheets
of old verses that your grandparents
would read you to sleep with.

The feather edges of the works,
stained in your stoic gripes,
now flounder amidst
the wrangled yards of your childhood,
failing and draining
like dying, yellow grass.

Your machine-smile
slowly devours the romance
while your eyes engineer through
long-since memorized fantasies
that were left to crumble
in the fetid hope of
‘grown-up,’ ‘professional,’ and ‘mature.’

Something Bluesy

Throw it all away for me
Follow through this time
Throw it all away for me
Let me know you’re mine.

I have to keep on the road
You could always fallow
I have to keep down the road
We could live moving without a home.

Throw it all away for me
Love me into the night
Throw it all away for me
Love me through the spite.

I have to keep on the road
But you’re the best damn thing I have know
I have to keep down the road
We could live moving without a home.

Throw it all away for me
Give up them other boys
Throw it all away for me
They were all just toys

I have to keep on the road
I have to keep a clean nose
I have got to keep down the road
But around you, I am home.

Throw it all away for me
I know what you need
Throw it all away for me
I can heal your heart when it bleeds.

Summer

Summer
smells like gasoline
And
forgotten opportunities.
It’s full
of orangish dusks
And
burnt pink mornings,
Concrete cracking heat
And
cooler midnight mournings.
It drains and sours
Slowly
melting with rashes,
But
it lazily lunges
into Fall
With romance,
sweat,
and
passion.

Soft Ladies

The soft ladies refuse to learn
that animals and infants
don’t fucking speak English
and that prodding them actionlessly
will accomplish nothing.

The soft ladies,
somewhere inside of their meaning-well
but decaying minds know this,
and are only really talking
to passerbys hoping that they
will take action in the face
of their failures.

This is why they talk
to animals and infants,
uselessly trying
to force them into
some desired action.

Ledge

The man is ruined.
His wrinkled
brow cowers with undeserved life
in the rainfall of his waning years.
Like a stoic philosopher’s bust
he looks on listlessly
with a pupil-less pride
from a deep milky resolve
into the ghost pastures
where children could scream
youthfully with mouthfuls
of cornelian games alongside
rabbits and royalty.
But those children are coiled now,
swimming as pearls cast by St. Patrick,
and nothing is left to fold delicately
into the old man,
now left with only
the barbs of swollen memories,
sullied by their novel, inflated looming.

Vows

I will tie your corset,
I will bite your neck.
I will whisper in your ears
While I devour your regrets.

I will kiss your eyes,
I will hold your hand.
I will find a breeze to blow
While you wallow in the sands.

I will mix your drinks,
I will make you smile.
I will hold you in the night
While the days die to beguile.

Spaceship

Your mother is a spaceship,
With phoenix eyes and cattail wings,
Propelled by the love of level rocket fuel
That stutters her shyly forward
Into the whirling tadpole galaxy,
Into the infinity of Lake Universe,
And the nothing-waves in-between.

Three Small Pieces

I will watch you write
Insomnia-inspired love songs
And review your words
With wounded eyes,
Trying my best to
Disbelieve and judge you.

---

The choke-chalk of grinding teeth
Wakes me from panic-dreams
In pools of nightsweats,
Reminding me of my frantic pace
In this disturbing dependence
On all things ethereally,
Uncomfortably you.

---

A cornbread smile and overall bibs
Rim picture frames filled
With Friday afternoon memories
And summer evening breeze-breaths.
Your watermelon hair
And friend chicken cheeks
Glisten with youth-grease
And I charcoal sear you into me
In that glazed perfection,
Contained and remembered
As you are and were:
Never fully cosmic,
But rurally beautiful.

Showdown

I scraped my chapped fingernails
Along my tumbleweed stubble jaw
In the iron sun’s breathy haze.

Feeling for my ghost-guns,
I was waiting for Saul,
Trusting a switchblade
I shouldn’t know how to use.

The Texas sting-heat is a rattlesnake
And turns men into epics,
Drying their roots into dust
And clotting them, finally, into ash.

Violence

Snazzy shiner-nosed suits
Spray Thompson spray
Into bricked-eyed bullies
On Valentines Day.

Shinny baton machetes
Twirl glimmer-glare in the sun
Hacking scab frowning gashes
Not wasting single slugs.

Dog

I am a dog.
Head hung
With
Constant
Embarrassment.

I am a dog
Licking your
Hand meekly,
And you jerk
Away
Just to slap
My cold,
Wet nose
Again.

Fire

When the taco truck's tires were burning I had wanted to cry. Smothered in stacks of smoke they tell you to crawl on the floor AWAY from the heat. We couldn't deadpan after the yellow body suits because our tongues stuck to the ribs on the roofs of our mouths. I wanted to scream or eat. Black smoke plums up and billows from flaming roots. My brother gave my phoenix pendant to my father. There should have been something for my teeth. When babies are in danger they can sense their mothers shooting secret screeches into the sky and the babies know to chase the mother whimpers. The metal wrapped and burned around the diced beefsteak tomatoes. Preparation is a sort of incarceration. Sudden incineration. Protection. My gums itched dryly in the dust but I could not scratch them. Heat rises. Your palms sense the surface heat of potentially engulfed doors. I cradled my arms in my hands. Roswell happened. People die. Tuve hambre ese día pero yo no lloré.

Drums

stick strike
count off

it's that
boomboom
rat-tat-tat
that I feel coming up.

the thick chunk
deep bass thump
snare sting crash.

rollingrollingrolling

stop

it's that
boom crash
boomboom crash
rat-tat-crash-rat-tat-tat
boom crash
boomboom crash
snare sting crash
bassbass
that keeps me here.

In My Brewster Chair

Sit and speak with me now
that I am bent and hobbled
in my Brewster chair,
swelling with the rot and bloat
of age and feting along with the time.

Talk to me about mothers and memories,
and count how long we spent in crystal gazes,
locked in the blistering sunlight of youth
without being burned at all.

Whisper into my ancient years
the folk stories we crafted
for our choirs, and remind me of
our animals and their nicknames,
and tell me which ones we became
in our dribbling dream-scapes.

Remind me of our green poetry,
craved into the soft saplings,
proclaiming our love like lucky spinsters
on the barely-born trees.

Forget me not the names of our children,
loved, lost, and never born,
who might have made a difference
and kept me away from this iron maiden,
there was hope for me
in the rouge they put into your cheeks,
but I have crumbled amidst my prayers.

Remind me slowly of the wounds
that we had given to one another,
now drinking honey from the scars
where there would have been blood.

Snap me back into my yesterdays,
life has decided to keep you
and I am bound to go away,
to stay away;
until you remember me again,
I will be gone away.

So keep me bitter on your breath,
stinging your lips
and ravaging your tongue;
I would have died in your position
at even the chance to keep you young.

Lady, Keep Walking

We trade glancing hellos
And she enblows with
Hickory breath
And a lemon juice smile.
She walks past with a
Pendulum rhythm
On whisper heels
And those lying, sleepy eyes
Of bruise-blue gravel.

Lady, keep walking.
You don’t know it,
But you’re ruining me.