Machiavellian Trash

ONE  At night, he'd lay a plastic tarp in a wooded area near the edge of the city he relied upon, a certain modicum of gratitude in the ritual. He'd remove the comforter from the large leaf-bag, unroll it, shake it, lay it upon the tarp. He'd take some default note of the temperature--typically cold--and provoke a small memory of endurance, push against the unkindness of his situation. It was all but permanently bad, hardly more than an accumulation of rudeness and inhospitability that consumed the energy and good will that wagered against it. He'd lay a backpack with a few books and like supplies and everyday needs such as a toothbrush at the head of the blanket and remove his coat and sweater and fold them into a pillow and set the bundle atop the backpack. The hard air running slow and steady through everything. And on nights when he was sober enough to, he'd remove his shoes, socks, pants, shirt, and set these somewhere dry enough, close enough, for the morning....

 Dawn looked over the San Antonio Paris Premier Field of Hope Racetrack where the whores and drunks and shortrange refugees and other stubborn players and mentally-atuned gamblers were gathering to make their usual purchases and what else and feed the proverbial monkey for another day. Everything had the smell of hot dogs, freedom, coffee, whiskey. Some people were out walking their goats, pigs. Cats moved among the feet of people who'd never seen cats before. Silver light in the eyes of children. No one cold unless they wanted to be.  Judge Hosseini washed his hands with religious sensuality in the North (October) men's room, getting soap underneath the nails and licking and chewing his lush cherry-lips. He has the queer, implacable confidence of a man who knows the realities of resurrection.  Across... the Field of Hope Racetrack, Ray Walsh (assumed name) was moving up to the frontgate, easy of step and hand as he gave the woman in the glass booth his money to get insid...

 Surveillance footage revealed where the two men [later identified as Benicio Hernandez-Guantanamo and Travis Skymoore] entered the B____ K____ at 6:58 AM during the dawn hours of business when the sky was a cold, inky blue, and there were two other customers ahead of them -- a young man ordering a small meal and a woman a few years older than him, who arrived individually -- and the pair of them had entered without trouble nor distinction and they stood patiently in line and the young man made his order and paid in cash and was waiting while the woman made her order, paid with plastic and stood after the young man and the cashier  saw to preparing their breakfasts and Hernandez-Guantanamo and Skymoore stood idly, hardly saying a word. After the first two orders were cleared, the cashier (whose name has been withheld for security purposes) greeted Hernandez-Guantanamo and Skymoore and they informed the cashier they only wanted a pair of coffees without cream or sugar, that the...

 Some shadow fell over the mirror as Turnkey drew the blade over his throat then rinsed off the cream, hair, scum in the basin. Mostly blue sky in the middle of everywhere, the movement, the sound of sea birds where they flew from the impersonal to the impersonal. He finished what he was doing then threw fresh water on his face and then poured it all into the sea. "Any suspicion of what's coming?" came the voice of Parkford as he made his way into the kitchen. "I'd love to know it if there were," was the usual response. "Suggestions!" the ratboy with the busted eye and the mangled ear -- must've followed Turnkey from the upperdeck, almost out of freedom, looking deathly, looking dearly serious. "What is it, man?" "Americans, I think," the ratboy said. "Four ships. Presumably armed. Moving fast as motorcycles." "What's a-- forget about that. Do you think they're fucking with us?" "Hard to esti...

 I woke up at the motel on Graygutter Ave, mucus-choking with lame sorrow and inhospitable sleep. I made sure the phone still didn't work. The phone still didn't work. The clock on the wall said 9:06 like a streetthug rethinking his bank account. And my cab was on time, I had these handsome shoes, enough cigarettes to make the night sky famous and fair. Out the door, graffiti in my lungs, hand on the metal door and inside, up the stairs to my therapist's office. She has the inspirational posters everybody has, platitudes, Eastern Christian Philosophy with graphics to make you reconsider how many times you'll die or if once is enough. I pulled the door shut behind me. I sat down in a chair. I thought about the rules. "How's it going, today Mr. Lopez?" "Oh, it's going," I said. "I'll complain as soon as possible." She smiled. My therapist has this look of serious injury, like a cow with a broken leg that doesn't know it's ...

 Learning Disabilities ~ I take off my glasses to turn the volume down, and through the dumb/cognitive fog one of the other patients says something about my hair, or my ears, I can't tell. He smells like sulphur, that noxious scent of animosity turned out of perceived ridicule. "What?" I say. "You're in my seat!" It was empty when I walked into the cafeteria, I just got my tray and start forking up the eggs & sausage. "He don't know any better!" He's in my seat!" I tried focusing on breakfast. "It's too early for this shit!" (They micromanage everything around here, we give up our poor drug/addict freedom just to get a bed, warm showers, etc. and they mix in the absolute dope finds with us timid, casual drug users (potheads, drunks, simple garbageheads and this is what you get.) "Get our of my fucking chair!" It's not his chair, obviously. I don't know if it's mine either besides I'm sitting ...