When she walked out the door, he was still there, sitting in the small house by the beach. He was in the living room on the couch, staring silently into the white plaster walls. And he could smell the odor of the last night’s fire. He remembered how the smoke had leaked out and into the little room. The flue must be dirty, he thought, looking at the vent’s scorched seams. The man could see the ash in the basin of the fireplace. He looked at it. Wondered about it. Wanted to take it up between his thumb and forefinger and roll it around. Feel the texture. Get the scent.
“Are you going to be here when I get back?” the woman asked him, angrily crying, before she herself left the house.
They had been arguing, the way they did. The man had sat stoically on the couch, staring at the white plaster walls and the ash. And she yelled. Cried. Begging for answers, but he never had any. He kept quiet, the way he knew how. She asked him questions that he didn’t know the answers too, like “Do you love me?” and “Are you going to be here when I get back?” But realizing long ago that he would never be able to answer her questions, he had learned to sit stoical, staring at the white plaster walls and the ash. Sullen and lonely.
In front of the man was a coffee table, and on it were the empties from the nights before, an ash tray full of butts, the woman’s fifth of vodka that was half full, despite the her best efforts to finish it before they had gone to bed, last night. He looked at the bottle now, staring at it as he had the walls and the ash in the fireplace. The TV on, but he didn’t watch it. He looked at the vodka. Thought about it. Wanted it.
So, after the woman had been gone for a while, he made himself a drink. Vodka straight. He didn’t have any ice, but that wasn’t of any concern now. The vodka was cheap, but he drank it anyway. He didn’t drink for the flavor. Reaching over the table he grabbed a cigarette butt from the ash tray and looked at it. The man didn’t know who it belonged to, nor did he care. Many people had been at the little house last night, he thought, and this particular cigarette, as was true for several others, had too much tobacco left inside to waste, a good inch or so. The TV was on, but still he wasn’t watching. Lighting the cigarette, leaning back from the coffee table and into the folds of the couch, he drew in a deep breath. The cigarette burned and crackled and grew bright red at the tip, like they do, and as he smoked, the man coughed, and examined the cigarette, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger as he held it up to his eye. He was looking into the ember now. Wondering about it. Wanting to touch it.
Again, he drew at the cigarette and looked into the white plaster walls and the ash. And he could smell the smoke from the previous night’s fire…
They had lain in bed talking before falling asleep. He said he loved her. Said he would be there, forever. Said that he wanted a family and children and… And this morning, in the midst of loneliness, he didn’t know if any of it was true.
He made another drink. Drank it. And made another.
Outside, through the cracks in the closed blinds, the man could see the sky. It was blue. There was a light breeze and on the horizon he could see the marine layer coming in and it looked like ash. The palm trees were swaying, dancing with the currents of the day. “The whims of depravity,” he said. The man didn’t like salt air mixing with car exhausts and industrial waste and sewage, which flowed freely down the river, a half mile from the small house, into the ocean. You could smell it from the porch. He didn’t like the city’s fumes and sounds. An orchestra of madness is all it is. And it has reached the crescendo of its ill harmonics, he thought, as he simultaneously wished for blinds without cracks to shade his red-eyed stare.
Turning back to the white plaster walls and the ash in the fireplace he pushed those things from his mind. Back to a blank slate. No emotion. He sat stoically skulking on the couch, alone.
He made another drink. Drank it. And made another.
The couch was old, but comfortable. The man liked old things. His woman called him a Luddite. She screamed it. She hated it about the man; nevertheless it made him feel proud to be associated with such fine people.
There were dogs in the house too, but they were asleep and ignoring him, who sat so silently, transfixed by the walls and the ash. He felt very alone. The woman was comfort enough, or she should have been, he thought, but he liked it when she was gone and he was left to solitude. At least that is what he told himself when he wasn’t satisfied with his life, anymore. What it had become was not what he had imagined.
Hours past while the man sat and drank from the fifth and smoked leftover cigarettes, from the ash tray, down to the filter and starred at the walls. He coughed when he smoked, hacking up his lungs, who deplored the tobacco so much, though they lusted after other things.
All around him, there were boxes, unopened and labeled. They said things like “kitchen” and “bedroom.” They had lived there together for months, but still they had not unpacked and around him everything reminded him of The Move. He wanted to move now. He wanted to get away.
He made his last drink with the last of the vodka. Drank it. And put the glass down with a thud…
When the woman got back, later in the afternoon, when the ash colored clouds were overhead and the breeze had gotten heavier, all she found was an empty fifth of vodka, cigarettes smoked down to the filter, white plaster walls and the fireplace. And the smell of smoke.
On the table were flowers. They had not been there before and they had a lurid, yet bent, appeal to them and she picked them up. They had been picked from the yards of working class people who had spent the day off, somewhere else.
The man was at the ocean. In the water. It was cold and late in the day and he was drunk. He couldn’t feel pain anymore. No one else was in the ocean with him. And, again, looking into the west, he ignored everything behind him, silently. The houses and apartments, the palm trees and cars, stores and people, and the thoughts of the woman who was at the little house with the white plaster walls and the ash in the basin of the fireplace and the sleeping dogs. He waded out further. Began to swim out west. It felt like Manifest Destiny must have, he thought, as his long muscular arms broke through the frigid currents of the blue sea. The water was dirty, plastic bags floated by – more trash, debris, elements of production, growth, chemical agents to progress. Industrialization…
At the house the woman, her name was Lucinda, was crying and holding the flowers, smelling them, cherishing them as if they were her lover and not just another reminder of death. The flowers, like the man and her, were dying, plucked from their life source. The end will be coming soon.
Suddenly, out of rage and confusion, she threw the flowers into the fireplace, got rubbing alcohol form the bathroom cabinet and set the attractive beauties ablaze with the flit of a match. She could smell them as they burned orange, yellow, red…blue. The TV was on but she wasn’t watching it. Instead, she sat stoically on the couch staring at the white plaster walls, the coffee table with the empties and the cigarette butts smoked down to the filters and the ash of the now smoldering flowers.
The wind was howling outside. It was raining now and she could hear the sounds of vehicles driving by on wet asphalt. The man was still not home. It was dark. And long into the night she waited, hoping for the man to step through the door and embrace her tenderly. She missed him. Loved him. And he was gone off to be himself, alone.
first published in Relationships and Other Stuff (anthology)
By: Dillon Mullenix
Friday, May 27, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Woman of The Sea
The woman across the street was a dowager,
Her husband had left her long ago on a voyage to the sea
Since then she has sat on her porch watching the waves rise and fall
Hoping for something other than gulls on the horizon.
When they had wed her dowry had been a boat
And it wasn’t that it hadn’t been sea worthy
For surely it was
But he hadn’t had the skill to maneuver the schooner
He was a man
Born not of the ocean but of the land.
After it happened she would hallucinate objects in the distance
Frantically calling and waving her arms
Imaginary men waved back then disappeared
Crying she would sink back into her arm chair
Positioned to face westward toward the coast.
Some said that they had been doomed from the start
Their miscegenation had been the root cause of all the bad luck
They created a half breed and to their peers it was the ultimate sin
To them it was something worth killing over
Not to say that the disappearance had anything to do with their lineage
But it should not be discounted as implausible comedy.
first published by Boho Coco
By: Dillon Mullenix
Her husband had left her long ago on a voyage to the sea
Since then she has sat on her porch watching the waves rise and fall
Hoping for something other than gulls on the horizon.
When they had wed her dowry had been a boat
And it wasn’t that it hadn’t been sea worthy
For surely it was
But he hadn’t had the skill to maneuver the schooner
He was a man
Born not of the ocean but of the land.
After it happened she would hallucinate objects in the distance
Frantically calling and waving her arms
Imaginary men waved back then disappeared
Crying she would sink back into her arm chair
Positioned to face westward toward the coast.
Some said that they had been doomed from the start
Their miscegenation had been the root cause of all the bad luck
They created a half breed and to their peers it was the ultimate sin
To them it was something worth killing over
Not to say that the disappearance had anything to do with their lineage
But it should not be discounted as implausible comedy.
first published by Boho Coco
By: Dillon Mullenix
Friday, May 20, 2011
Thoughts on Judgment Day
Welcome to the Apocalypse bitches!
Well, it is 12:16 a.m., and its all still here. The whole fucking thing. I bought all this ammunition, canned food, bottled water, and not even one fucking zombie in the yard. I got halogen spot lights! Nothing. Armed to the teeth with nothing to kill... but time.
Well, it is 12:16 a.m., and its all still here. The whole fucking thing. I bought all this ammunition, canned food, bottled water, and not even one fucking zombie in the yard. I got halogen spot lights! Nothing. Armed to the teeth with nothing to kill... but time.
Elusive
There is a new attraction on the back-country roads of San Diego County, and it isn’t the ferocious and hard to kill wild boars (currently en route from Texas), which I’ve been hoping for. No, this is a mutant anomaly far more intriguing, even to a non-scientist, like my neighbor Ed, who finds these creatures fascinating and calls them, “Crooked thieves, locked into a death grip with the rest of the world.”
On countless nights we’ve gone out with flashlights, and one particularly bright strobe light, looking for these strange beasts. It was a misadventure in search of these loathsome men that brought me near them at first, their psychosis engrossed me, and became an addiction so consuming that it’s rivaled the strongest narcotics.
Now, it has to be said that this is a tricky endeavor - chasing the natives - one requiring much skill and patience. All the driving, when you’re out after sunset with your camera, must be done with the headlights off so that the animals won’t know you’re coming and flee into the darkness. Don’t worry about the hum of the engine, though, they usually mistake that for the natural vibrations of the desert, which they are particularly familiar with and attuned to like Aboriginals.
In the truck, or whatever you are pursuing them in, you must be silent and ready, no talking and mundane chit-chat, and for God’s sake keep the speed down or you’ll miss them. Mostly they are found hiding in road-side ditches or roaming through high grass, their black plastic bag slung to the curb as they pick up one can at a time.
If you see a creature as previously described then you’ve probably seen him! The miraculous high desert road tweaker. You are now part of an elite club, my friend, but beware, this person is not to be approached, they are violent and have been known to attack passersby unprovoked. This, however, will not deter you, I’m sure, because this minor setback does not, to the passionate observers of the road tweaker, diminish at all their incredible draw. They are, in fact, akin to Darwin’s finches.
When the road tweaker first appeared they weren’t seen during the day, but now that isn’t the case, they are braver, no longer scared to show their shallow faces, emaciated bodies, hunger ridden bodies, pacing with a quickness not common to normal men along the roadside. They are driven by an incentive to consume and everything counts. They are going green (in the American Business Sense), but they didn’t mean to. It was just the only viable option when it came time to score another hit.
Occasionally, these men of leisure sickness stick out their opposable thumb, in hopes of conning you to the side of the road, like a traveler might, but these transient clones will rob you blind and steal your car, and your woman, to trade on the black market for speed, a small butane torch, and a few good light bulbs. Then they’ll be on the road again, like a run-dry Kerouac going crazy in the high desert of San Diego County.
This is the land of wine and tweak, good old fashioned chemical nuts with guns and flu medicine, cooking methamphetamine in white trailers hidden in rocks and brush. The flowing industrial stranglehold on the economy has made it worse, the rich are noticeably nervous, and the poor are more virulent. The world is different for me today, but history has seen it all before, and is laughing at our short-term memory loss.
If you ever get curious, and you’re already coming out to Julian to eat pie, or Temecula to drink wine, or Ramona to hit the rodeo, or the Salton Sea to score meth, drive a little slower and watch the roads, we’ll be out here, Ed and me, watching for the ghosts of moonless nights and sun beaten days, and if you’re good enough, maybe you’ll see a good example of the Nation in Action also.
The road tweaker is a microcosm, a personification, of the modern America, a keyhole into its paradigm. He’s eco-conscious because it helps to subsidize his dwindling economic resources and make him seem reasonable to those who question him. He has many addictions, none of which he is willing to give up, even in times of drought and economic rancor. He is happy to sustain his incomprehensible lifestyle by stealing and suckling from the tit of other hard working people(s) of this country. He poisons the land he uses, pollutes the air with escaping plumes of fumes, pours toxins into the water supply, occasionally blows things (including himself) up, ruptures the ground he builds on, and creates a bio-hazard catastrophe on a global scale. But, he is private and therefore uncontrollable. He is perplexing… and he doesn’t think. He acts without a thought to what it does. The road tweaker is a total narcissist and he is distinctly American.
For those of you that are scared, don’t worry, they only run wild by night, in the day they are little more docile, especially in the summer months. The sun is baking their brains then, and cooking them alive as they walk with their shirts off – but the summer is a scant season, and nothing much is seen by the weekend-warrior, only the real road-dogs like Ed and me, out here every day & night like hounds, baying when the guttural squeal of a road tweaker is caught by the hot wind and flown across the valley.
If you see this ravenous animal, starved and mangy, you’ll know him by the burnt red color and texture of his skin, thoroughly abused it barely holds on to their corpse like bodies, and his pipe will be hanging out from one of his haggard pockets, ready for use at any moment – but they will act like they don’t see you, staring at the ground. It will look almost like they are buffalo waiting to be shot, huddled in their diminished number that are, now, somehow on the rise like an inflated Titanic rising to the surface. Get a sense of the epidemic that’s spreading across these hills and making us all hunters. In the city no one thinks of the madmen high on adrenaline and crystal, looking like the re-birthed homeless depraved dead who walk around like burnt-out wrestlers on a starvation diet. But here, in Warner Springs, CA, it’s a daily reality, and it’s amusingly caustic.
first published by Seahorse Rodeo Folk Review
By: Dillon Mullenix
On countless nights we’ve gone out with flashlights, and one particularly bright strobe light, looking for these strange beasts. It was a misadventure in search of these loathsome men that brought me near them at first, their psychosis engrossed me, and became an addiction so consuming that it’s rivaled the strongest narcotics.
Now, it has to be said that this is a tricky endeavor - chasing the natives - one requiring much skill and patience. All the driving, when you’re out after sunset with your camera, must be done with the headlights off so that the animals won’t know you’re coming and flee into the darkness. Don’t worry about the hum of the engine, though, they usually mistake that for the natural vibrations of the desert, which they are particularly familiar with and attuned to like Aboriginals.
In the truck, or whatever you are pursuing them in, you must be silent and ready, no talking and mundane chit-chat, and for God’s sake keep the speed down or you’ll miss them. Mostly they are found hiding in road-side ditches or roaming through high grass, their black plastic bag slung to the curb as they pick up one can at a time.
If you see a creature as previously described then you’ve probably seen him! The miraculous high desert road tweaker. You are now part of an elite club, my friend, but beware, this person is not to be approached, they are violent and have been known to attack passersby unprovoked. This, however, will not deter you, I’m sure, because this minor setback does not, to the passionate observers of the road tweaker, diminish at all their incredible draw. They are, in fact, akin to Darwin’s finches.
When the road tweaker first appeared they weren’t seen during the day, but now that isn’t the case, they are braver, no longer scared to show their shallow faces, emaciated bodies, hunger ridden bodies, pacing with a quickness not common to normal men along the roadside. They are driven by an incentive to consume and everything counts. They are going green (in the American Business Sense), but they didn’t mean to. It was just the only viable option when it came time to score another hit.
Occasionally, these men of leisure sickness stick out their opposable thumb, in hopes of conning you to the side of the road, like a traveler might, but these transient clones will rob you blind and steal your car, and your woman, to trade on the black market for speed, a small butane torch, and a few good light bulbs. Then they’ll be on the road again, like a run-dry Kerouac going crazy in the high desert of San Diego County.
This is the land of wine and tweak, good old fashioned chemical nuts with guns and flu medicine, cooking methamphetamine in white trailers hidden in rocks and brush. The flowing industrial stranglehold on the economy has made it worse, the rich are noticeably nervous, and the poor are more virulent. The world is different for me today, but history has seen it all before, and is laughing at our short-term memory loss.
If you ever get curious, and you’re already coming out to Julian to eat pie, or Temecula to drink wine, or Ramona to hit the rodeo, or the Salton Sea to score meth, drive a little slower and watch the roads, we’ll be out here, Ed and me, watching for the ghosts of moonless nights and sun beaten days, and if you’re good enough, maybe you’ll see a good example of the Nation in Action also.
The road tweaker is a microcosm, a personification, of the modern America, a keyhole into its paradigm. He’s eco-conscious because it helps to subsidize his dwindling economic resources and make him seem reasonable to those who question him. He has many addictions, none of which he is willing to give up, even in times of drought and economic rancor. He is happy to sustain his incomprehensible lifestyle by stealing and suckling from the tit of other hard working people(s) of this country. He poisons the land he uses, pollutes the air with escaping plumes of fumes, pours toxins into the water supply, occasionally blows things (including himself) up, ruptures the ground he builds on, and creates a bio-hazard catastrophe on a global scale. But, he is private and therefore uncontrollable. He is perplexing… and he doesn’t think. He acts without a thought to what it does. The road tweaker is a total narcissist and he is distinctly American.
For those of you that are scared, don’t worry, they only run wild by night, in the day they are little more docile, especially in the summer months. The sun is baking their brains then, and cooking them alive as they walk with their shirts off – but the summer is a scant season, and nothing much is seen by the weekend-warrior, only the real road-dogs like Ed and me, out here every day & night like hounds, baying when the guttural squeal of a road tweaker is caught by the hot wind and flown across the valley.
If you see this ravenous animal, starved and mangy, you’ll know him by the burnt red color and texture of his skin, thoroughly abused it barely holds on to their corpse like bodies, and his pipe will be hanging out from one of his haggard pockets, ready for use at any moment – but they will act like they don’t see you, staring at the ground. It will look almost like they are buffalo waiting to be shot, huddled in their diminished number that are, now, somehow on the rise like an inflated Titanic rising to the surface. Get a sense of the epidemic that’s spreading across these hills and making us all hunters. In the city no one thinks of the madmen high on adrenaline and crystal, looking like the re-birthed homeless depraved dead who walk around like burnt-out wrestlers on a starvation diet. But here, in Warner Springs, CA, it’s a daily reality, and it’s amusingly caustic.
first published by Seahorse Rodeo Folk Review
By: Dillon Mullenix
Fallen Idols
I was just a child then. Sitting in the front seat of my dad’s black inline-6 Jeep Renegade, the tires locked into four wheel drive and the doors off for comfort, I was a miniature of the man driving. We were mountaineers, a Buck knife on our hips and a can of chew in our back pockets. He chewed long-cut wintergreen Skoal, I chewed Bubble Tape. We wanted nothing more than to be mountain men, living in the wilderness on pine nuts and boiled spring water, a blue tarp arced into a tree for protection against the wind and the rain.
Ascents into the mountains were always at night and it was always cold, but he never put on the cover or the doors. Tonight we also had my younger twin brothers with us, they were fast asleep by now, huddled close together in the back seat.
The air was crisp and moisture permeated the air. The clouds huddled, saturated and grey, low in the night sky. They hid the starry heaven above us, but once you hit 3,000 feet they are gone. All you can see is the black blanket of night shot full of holes, exposing the glistening brightness of another hidden horizon.
We had stopped on the way to get food for the excursion. Dad was a camping gourmet chef who always made the same thing: campfire stew. This consisted of canned minestrone soup, canned corn, canned green beans, top-ramen (4), Tapatio hot sauce, canned tomato soup and anything else that happened to crawl or fall into the pot. We had this and bean and cheese burritos, oranges, trail mix and water/juice. He also bought beer and strike anywhere matches.
He said they were, “essential tools for survival and comfort in any situation.” Why he never mentioned the essential bodily need for water, I’ll never know.
I was asleep when he pulled the Jeep into the camp site. It was the same one we always used. My father knew the Campgroup supervisor and he always saved the spot for us. It was a beautiful part of the Buckhorn, the site had redwood trees two-hundred feet tall and a stream that ran next to it and shrubs that grew all around us and up the hill. To the right of us and away from the creek were more campsites and as we pulled in I noticed, after rubbing the sleep from my eyes that there was a camp fire going and people were singing and dancing in some foreign language.
The car lurched to a halt. I got out of the car and helped set of camp. My brothers, never bothered by the sound of the music or laughter or the movement of the Jeep, never broke from slumber. Finally, the tent was up and the blankets had been set. I sat down by the fire I had built in the steel fire pit in the middle of the camp.
“You’re not tired?” my father asked from behind me in the dark.
“No. I want to build a fire.”
“Alright, you need any help?” he spoke in a West Virginia twang that was hidden by his newly acquired Californian accent. I could see his cowboy hat and long hair silhouetted against the light from their fire and Coleman lanterns.
“No, I’ll be fine.”
“Ok, well I’m gonna go up the neighboring camp, I know a guy there and he wants me to come over and play some music.”
“Alright…”
“You wanna’ come up and watch?”
“Maybe later.”
He walked up the hill in his cowboy boots and tight wrangler jeans. He really wanted to be a cowboy – dreaming of horses and guitars and miles of green grassy hillsides of Southern Texas. He had his nine string guitar my mom had bought for him and a can of beer in his right hand as he strode into the light. I could hear his voice chatting loudly with all the foreign voices and strange dialects. I heard the guitar strum and sound off as it was being tuned by the magical musician, the only thing my mom missed after the divorce last year when I was nine. My brothers wouldn’t remember, only five at the time.
Burning pine-needles was getting tiresome and the melodies of my father’s voice and guitar chords strung out over the valley was putting me to sleep. I slowly walked toward the tent, stopped to piss on a tree and then unzipped the flaps to get in. I fell asleep instantly as my hot head touched the cool pillow case and I slipped into the warm blankets. He was still singing as I drifted away, “Grendaline baby you are safe-ly sleeping, beautiful girl with ringlets and curls…”
I woke up in a panic. The tent had been attacked, by a bear I was sure. I could hear it outside breathing deep gasping breaths and I could see it pawing at the tents rear window. It thought we were prey, I didn’t want to die like so many on the Discovery channel by a hoard of ravaged heathen animals gone mad on bloodlust. The thing was moving, crawling around the tent towards the front flap. There was no other noise outside. No remnants of a party of foreigners, no music to calm the nerves, just gasping and growling and loathsome cries of pain. I knew someone was being eaten alive in the darkness of the campsite, the fires had long since gone out. I looked desperately around for the lump that I knew would be him, my dad, but sadly nothing. The ferocious bear was still there, outside in the dark and violent night. Where was he, why was he not here? I was freaking out, breathing deep to stay calm, but the fear was mounting.
Then the sounds stopped and the bear seemed to lumber off into the dark. Had he eaten the entire campsite above, were they all dead? I didn’t know. I remembered my dad’s Glock, where was it? I would show that fucking bear a thing or two about fucking with people in their sleep. Found it – under the pillow. I crawled out into the night air and silence. I could hear what sounded like piss ricocheting off tin, it had been going for quite a while now; I knew I had the upper hand. I was going to sneak up behind that thing and blow its fucking head off. We would have bear for breakfast and lunch, and boy would dad be proud. I knew he would.
But, I didn’t kill the bear. I saw my father I saw leaning against an old Chevy van with porthole windows, not some wild beast. His pants were around his ankles and he was peeing on the van, muttering to himself. I watched in horror and he fumbled to zip up and then fell over turning around. He was crazy looking, a mad man with a wild grin from ear to ear. He grabbed franticly at the air as he careened into the ground again. I put the gun down and walked over. He looked like wounded animal there sprawled out on the ground.
“Dad, are you okay?” I whispered to him.
“Huh…fuckin’ japs gave me crown and coke, fuckin’ almost died comin’ down the hill there, what the fuck are you doin?”
“I thought you were a bear…”
“A fucking bear…ha ha ha… bears raid trash cans not tenting areas. Besides I hung it in a tree.”
“You peed for a long time.”
“Yeah, your old man is a mighty fine urinator – a fine professional for sure.”
“Are you going to be okay, dad?”
“Yeah, just give me a hand up. I think I pissed a bit in my jeans.”
I carried him to the tent and laid him down. His body warm and his face perspiring he lay there in quite solitude for a moment, not looking but absently gazing at nothing but the grey hue of the tent. That four person, two pole, water proof thing, we had it for five years already. It had been to the ocean and the desert, seen serene forests of green and lame yellow fields or pastures. It had been there when my mom went nuts over a BB gun and Dickie Moore caught a lizard by the tail. It was a big fuckin’ thing, but he held it too long and he finally broke free leaving the tail squirming in his hand.
Once he was asleep I went to the cooler and hid all the Fosters and Budweiser’s he had bought. There were quite a few left and took a while for me to move the load to the creek and send them floating happily downstream. Dad was snoring in the tent and I could hear it as I worked. It was done when the moon was low in the sky; I could see the faint light of the sun creeping up in the east. I couldn’t stand that man drunk and crazy, stumbling into the day-to-day like a fucking gimp. The strong mountain man reduced to a pile of shit rotting on the forest floor, I hated him then, like when I hated him for driving drunk home from a Sushi bar with me in the front seat, or the time he came drunk to a football game and got arrested for a DUI. He wasn’t driving, but sleeping under an overpass near a strip joint with a .357 and a case of beer isn’t really admired around here. I loved my father, but not when he was drunk. I’m sure he didn’t see what I saw, he couldn’t have, but he managed to grasp the picture a few years later. Being drunk and high on cocaine during Christmas and having to buy presents at the $.99 store changed things with my father. But, that was years later.
The next day he yelled about the beer I sent down the creek and he moaned about the fucking Jap’s who conned him into drinking enough to kill a big fucking donkey. He played guitar and we went for a hike downstream, where he found his beer in a pool five feet deep. When he saw them he paused and looked at me. I stood hard and sturdy as an oak there in that dense forested pass, he didn’t say a word, just picked up the beer and placed them in his pack. I could hear him curse under his breath.
“Fuckin’ kids, they’ll never understand…”
“Understand what dad!?”
“What it’s like to be a man who has lived too long…”
Sitting here in this broken down office with a fifth of brandy and a glass bulb of PCP I know what you meant so many years ago, dad. Lived so long you can’t eat or sleep, you just sit wide eyed and helplessly sullen thinking desperately of every way to counter all the terrible shit you did in your life time. Tragic memories of fallen idols and endless nights of intolerable drunken behavior, skinning cats alive, eating raw flesh, hiding in the solstice colored red with mud from the crimson clay – an introspective trip of the worst kind, miserably antagonistic and esoteric. I left that mountain colored a different shade of gloom, watching the hillsides change hue as we descended into the Los Angeles smog and confusion. The traffic could be seen as we winded down the crest, I could see the Shell station where dad bought booze and I once was forgotten.
first published by Common Ties
By: Dillon Mullenix
Ascents into the mountains were always at night and it was always cold, but he never put on the cover or the doors. Tonight we also had my younger twin brothers with us, they were fast asleep by now, huddled close together in the back seat.
The air was crisp and moisture permeated the air. The clouds huddled, saturated and grey, low in the night sky. They hid the starry heaven above us, but once you hit 3,000 feet they are gone. All you can see is the black blanket of night shot full of holes, exposing the glistening brightness of another hidden horizon.
We had stopped on the way to get food for the excursion. Dad was a camping gourmet chef who always made the same thing: campfire stew. This consisted of canned minestrone soup, canned corn, canned green beans, top-ramen (4), Tapatio hot sauce, canned tomato soup and anything else that happened to crawl or fall into the pot. We had this and bean and cheese burritos, oranges, trail mix and water/juice. He also bought beer and strike anywhere matches.
He said they were, “essential tools for survival and comfort in any situation.” Why he never mentioned the essential bodily need for water, I’ll never know.
I was asleep when he pulled the Jeep into the camp site. It was the same one we always used. My father knew the Campgroup supervisor and he always saved the spot for us. It was a beautiful part of the Buckhorn, the site had redwood trees two-hundred feet tall and a stream that ran next to it and shrubs that grew all around us and up the hill. To the right of us and away from the creek were more campsites and as we pulled in I noticed, after rubbing the sleep from my eyes that there was a camp fire going and people were singing and dancing in some foreign language.
The car lurched to a halt. I got out of the car and helped set of camp. My brothers, never bothered by the sound of the music or laughter or the movement of the Jeep, never broke from slumber. Finally, the tent was up and the blankets had been set. I sat down by the fire I had built in the steel fire pit in the middle of the camp.
“You’re not tired?” my father asked from behind me in the dark.
“No. I want to build a fire.”
“Alright, you need any help?” he spoke in a West Virginia twang that was hidden by his newly acquired Californian accent. I could see his cowboy hat and long hair silhouetted against the light from their fire and Coleman lanterns.
“No, I’ll be fine.”
“Ok, well I’m gonna go up the neighboring camp, I know a guy there and he wants me to come over and play some music.”
“Alright…”
“You wanna’ come up and watch?”
“Maybe later.”
He walked up the hill in his cowboy boots and tight wrangler jeans. He really wanted to be a cowboy – dreaming of horses and guitars and miles of green grassy hillsides of Southern Texas. He had his nine string guitar my mom had bought for him and a can of beer in his right hand as he strode into the light. I could hear his voice chatting loudly with all the foreign voices and strange dialects. I heard the guitar strum and sound off as it was being tuned by the magical musician, the only thing my mom missed after the divorce last year when I was nine. My brothers wouldn’t remember, only five at the time.
Burning pine-needles was getting tiresome and the melodies of my father’s voice and guitar chords strung out over the valley was putting me to sleep. I slowly walked toward the tent, stopped to piss on a tree and then unzipped the flaps to get in. I fell asleep instantly as my hot head touched the cool pillow case and I slipped into the warm blankets. He was still singing as I drifted away, “Grendaline baby you are safe-ly sleeping, beautiful girl with ringlets and curls…”
I woke up in a panic. The tent had been attacked, by a bear I was sure. I could hear it outside breathing deep gasping breaths and I could see it pawing at the tents rear window. It thought we were prey, I didn’t want to die like so many on the Discovery channel by a hoard of ravaged heathen animals gone mad on bloodlust. The thing was moving, crawling around the tent towards the front flap. There was no other noise outside. No remnants of a party of foreigners, no music to calm the nerves, just gasping and growling and loathsome cries of pain. I knew someone was being eaten alive in the darkness of the campsite, the fires had long since gone out. I looked desperately around for the lump that I knew would be him, my dad, but sadly nothing. The ferocious bear was still there, outside in the dark and violent night. Where was he, why was he not here? I was freaking out, breathing deep to stay calm, but the fear was mounting.
Then the sounds stopped and the bear seemed to lumber off into the dark. Had he eaten the entire campsite above, were they all dead? I didn’t know. I remembered my dad’s Glock, where was it? I would show that fucking bear a thing or two about fucking with people in their sleep. Found it – under the pillow. I crawled out into the night air and silence. I could hear what sounded like piss ricocheting off tin, it had been going for quite a while now; I knew I had the upper hand. I was going to sneak up behind that thing and blow its fucking head off. We would have bear for breakfast and lunch, and boy would dad be proud. I knew he would.
But, I didn’t kill the bear. I saw my father I saw leaning against an old Chevy van with porthole windows, not some wild beast. His pants were around his ankles and he was peeing on the van, muttering to himself. I watched in horror and he fumbled to zip up and then fell over turning around. He was crazy looking, a mad man with a wild grin from ear to ear. He grabbed franticly at the air as he careened into the ground again. I put the gun down and walked over. He looked like wounded animal there sprawled out on the ground.
“Dad, are you okay?” I whispered to him.
“Huh…fuckin’ japs gave me crown and coke, fuckin’ almost died comin’ down the hill there, what the fuck are you doin?”
“I thought you were a bear…”
“A fucking bear…ha ha ha… bears raid trash cans not tenting areas. Besides I hung it in a tree.”
“You peed for a long time.”
“Yeah, your old man is a mighty fine urinator – a fine professional for sure.”
“Are you going to be okay, dad?”
“Yeah, just give me a hand up. I think I pissed a bit in my jeans.”
I carried him to the tent and laid him down. His body warm and his face perspiring he lay there in quite solitude for a moment, not looking but absently gazing at nothing but the grey hue of the tent. That four person, two pole, water proof thing, we had it for five years already. It had been to the ocean and the desert, seen serene forests of green and lame yellow fields or pastures. It had been there when my mom went nuts over a BB gun and Dickie Moore caught a lizard by the tail. It was a big fuckin’ thing, but he held it too long and he finally broke free leaving the tail squirming in his hand.
Once he was asleep I went to the cooler and hid all the Fosters and Budweiser’s he had bought. There were quite a few left and took a while for me to move the load to the creek and send them floating happily downstream. Dad was snoring in the tent and I could hear it as I worked. It was done when the moon was low in the sky; I could see the faint light of the sun creeping up in the east. I couldn’t stand that man drunk and crazy, stumbling into the day-to-day like a fucking gimp. The strong mountain man reduced to a pile of shit rotting on the forest floor, I hated him then, like when I hated him for driving drunk home from a Sushi bar with me in the front seat, or the time he came drunk to a football game and got arrested for a DUI. He wasn’t driving, but sleeping under an overpass near a strip joint with a .357 and a case of beer isn’t really admired around here. I loved my father, but not when he was drunk. I’m sure he didn’t see what I saw, he couldn’t have, but he managed to grasp the picture a few years later. Being drunk and high on cocaine during Christmas and having to buy presents at the $.99 store changed things with my father. But, that was years later.
The next day he yelled about the beer I sent down the creek and he moaned about the fucking Jap’s who conned him into drinking enough to kill a big fucking donkey. He played guitar and we went for a hike downstream, where he found his beer in a pool five feet deep. When he saw them he paused and looked at me. I stood hard and sturdy as an oak there in that dense forested pass, he didn’t say a word, just picked up the beer and placed them in his pack. I could hear him curse under his breath.
“Fuckin’ kids, they’ll never understand…”
“Understand what dad!?”
“What it’s like to be a man who has lived too long…”
Sitting here in this broken down office with a fifth of brandy and a glass bulb of PCP I know what you meant so many years ago, dad. Lived so long you can’t eat or sleep, you just sit wide eyed and helplessly sullen thinking desperately of every way to counter all the terrible shit you did in your life time. Tragic memories of fallen idols and endless nights of intolerable drunken behavior, skinning cats alive, eating raw flesh, hiding in the solstice colored red with mud from the crimson clay – an introspective trip of the worst kind, miserably antagonistic and esoteric. I left that mountain colored a different shade of gloom, watching the hillsides change hue as we descended into the Los Angeles smog and confusion. The traffic could be seen as we winded down the crest, I could see the Shell station where dad bought booze and I once was forgotten.
first published by Common Ties
By: Dillon Mullenix
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