quiet.

for anyone looking for info on ordering a copy of "failgivers, volume one", please go to the november 7th, 2007 entry.
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"have it go unbridled....have it make it's way through time.
it carried straw hats filled with cherry mints that dipped and fell to earth every time she leaned over and gave the spectators a kiss.
we painted special banners just for this, with solid gold eviction notes and an ounce of tattered bliss.
she looked over our way, looked well beyond all the things that we would say and just raised her stapled hand and waived a greeting meant to last for a hundred days.
.....and i made action mount for all of us in line, and lifted up my skinny arms to grace her notes with a passion nailed to mine.
we attached our everything.....sung a song without a sound, and painted parks of bliss and sanitation that we knew in our hearts would never live past design.
when she kept the walk in steady stride, though the horse and carraige followed in the case of collapse of more than just the night, the smells and heights fell below the aches and pains that brought us all to bring ourselves to meet the message guide.
....flowers wilted back to soil sights, leaves all but blacked their sour veins and fell to dirt that rearranged the seasons in our dreams of cold and kind.
she had me for the hours without bright, and she had the rest just looking on, looking down, and licked beyond the fault they'd admit to making more than versions sold for grains and wheats and nuts and bolts and all the like.
i had her take my fingerprints, i had her take my scent and hide it all inside the cherry mints that gave the patrons wide open stings on sleeves they'd rather shake.
once she reached the last station, the last hand of quiet wars gave her the last line of a thousand poems and told her that she did her time.....that she lasted longer than the others had and that she's free to run until she's caught and tried.
and this, my son of listening hints, my son of punishment to all the fastened wrists......this is why we cut our tounges to block the speech, because none of us will be the spawn of what tracks her scent to jaws of roads beneath."

This is how he talked to me, with his hands folded in his lap and a look of anticipation from his lips, as if he himself had no idea what was to come out next. But he kept going, kept letting the wheels turn and the gums flap, though every once in a great while there would be a slight pause, making me think i should have been paying more attention because he was bound to slip up and give actual bits and pieces of the story that would wind up being the truth.
He had no shirt on, revealing a large potbelly full of scars that each had a story behind them. I'd been given a virtual tour the moment I stepped into his apartment where he stripped from the waist up and would point to a specific area, take a deep breath and begin a haunted tale involving everything from russian mafia run-ins, sadistic games of truth or dare, or periods of boredom that took his self mutilation creativity to unfathomable heights. Quite impressive if it wasn't so goddamn nauseating. Even as he sat here in front of me in a large, orange plastic beach chair, those folded hands had a large kitchen knife underneath them and it wasn't difficult to assume that blade had done more time on the man's skin than it had ever done in food prep.

"I'm not sure what you want me to say to that...."
I partially trailed off, and partially became fixated on the realization that besides the two beach chairs, the man's studio was filled with books.....books and nothing else. There was a light in the dead center of the ceiling (no cover) housing one bright bulb, but that was it. There were books stacked together in various corners of the room masquerading themselves as couches or coffee tables......some even stacked together to make bookshelves for more books. No trash, no clutter, no food. Just.......books.

"Have you read all of these?" I asked, and motioned with a nod around the room, though he would have been hard pressed to be confused by the question. There was a good twenty second pause before his sunken blue eyes lit, he sat up in his chair and scratched his balding crown.

"Absolutely! Well, no....not all of them. But I will! Mark my words, you come 'round here next year about this time, and i'll be as good as done. Ain't got nothin' else to do.....I like books. they're 'bout my best of friends.....keep me entertained. When I get bored, bad shit happens...."
he said while tracing his left hand over a bed of thick skin on his lower torso.
".....yep, more pages means less trouble. Ain't never been good with conversation, but I always been a good listener. That's kinda the relationship we've got....'cept i don't listen to what they've got to say, I read it."

Brilliant. We've made it past nonsensical diatribes and progressed into a nonsensical Q and A forum.
Five minutes pass, and I let him sit and think.

"Do you know where she is?" I asked, point blank.

"Who?"

"You know who....I wouldn't be here, otherwise...."

"I know. It's just......" he paused again, letting the the question sink and float, sink and float.

"Gone. Dead and gone.....for quite a while."

"I don't buy that. Not at all." I shot back without hesitation, and making sure my eyes met his the entire time.

"Neither do I......'s just what I've been told to say whenever one of you bastards come 'round looking for her....for answers."

"What's it going to cost to get me some answers?" I've played the game for years. The cat and mouse, the connect the dots, the hide and seek.....

"Not sure....you're different. You seem to give a shit. The rest just come and go....come and go" another deep, deep breath and he finishes
"....and most don't last in this room for more than a minute or two before they've all but given up. Makes it easy on me.....I don't give a fuck whether or not there's an end to all this stuff. Ain't my girl. Ain't my daughter....my wife. I'm just involved, and truth be told, I'd rather not ever have to go through another one of these half-assed interrogations ever again. Got too many pages to read....too many stories to hear."

I sat and stared right through him for another couple of minutes. Watched his eyes blink more every passing moment, and figured he was about to snap unless I made a move, or at least an effort. So, I put on my hat, and rose out of the uncomfortable plastic seat.

"Put on a shirt....we're going out...." I declared, hoping to not have any further discussion within the studio walls.

"What makes you think I'm going to leave with you? What the fuck do you think this is?" he shot back, with a look on the fence of either pure agitation or pure panic. His expressions never really gave him away, which was great for him, but made my work even harder than it's already become.
I started my walk to the door, and gave him an answer that both impressed him and bought me another round of chance slip-ups on his part.

"Just put on your shirt......we're going book shopping."