I Wanted to Write a Poem

Colleen was furious.  What could be so hilarious?  When she walked into his place, Michael was enjoying himself in the next room and she was determined to find out what was so funny.  She opened his bedroom door and stopped dead in her tracks.  She was so appalled she forgot why she was there in the first place.

"When I swung open the door I saw Michael's "lily-white" clenched like a fist, bobbing up and down."  She paused.  "And he was laughing."  She shook her head in disgust.  "I was so devastated I pulled the door behind me and left the apartment."

Bonnie looked puzzled.  "Didn't you even ask him about it?  Not even about..."

"I felt guilty.  I hadn't knocked," she cut her off without letting her finish.

"But he was expecting you for dinner.  That would have pissed me off."

Colleen couldn't stop recriminating herself for seeing Michael in action without his permission.  Bonnie, on the other hand, pictured a rosy boy-butt, ripe for the picking.

Colleen's a fool, Bonnie thought to herself.  As she was thinking about it she could hear her own voice in conversation with Colleen.  I can't believe she's telling me this.  Thank God she walked away from the scene.  If I were the guy, though, I would've kicked her butt for spying on me like that.  She had a tendency to flatter herself about her own strength and determination.

In her mind's eye, Bonnie was so convincing that she momentarily forgot Michael was with someone else.  That didn't matter somehow.  She was in control now, filling gaps like the sea at high tide.

Colleen had been so furious about Michael's laughter she had lost sight of the fact that he was with someone else that night.  Her anger was free-floating and ineffectual.  She felt intense fury one minute and overwhelming guilt the next.  For her that was normal.  Oddly enough, she too was in control, erecting obstructions like a sea wall against a raging tide.

"I felt like Nancy Wilson, you know."  She sang a couple of bars, "'I headed blindly for the door, I'd never been so shocked before.'"

"Who?"  Bonnie asked, recognizing the tune but not the lyrics.  "You mean the chick from 'Heart'?"

"No, no.  You mean from 'Piece of My Heart,' don't you?"

"Yeah, that's it."  It was a bluff.  She jutted her jaw in angular affirmation, exposing herself to certain risk: a challenge.  She was thinking about what might have happened if Colleen had decided to confront Michael that night.

"No, no.  That was Nancy...something.  Joplin maybe," Colleen corrected.

"Oh, all right," Bonnie responded.  She had no reason not to believe her.  Her private embarrassment came across as kindness and trust.  Colleen thought that was what she detected in her beautiful face.

Their eyes met for an instant.  They seemed to concur about something.  An accident, but these normally incompatible women had unmistakably connected.  It seemed to make Colleen question her own response.  She hated being wrong about anything.

"Or...uh...maybe it was Janis Ian!" Colleen added.

She didn't know why, but her entire conversation with Bonnie had made her feel uneasy.  She and Bonnie were friends.  They danced together professionally, but they had never been particularly close.  It was unusual for her to be treating her as a confidant, Michael usually filled that role.  But she obviously couldn't discuss this particular situation with him.  Exactly what she felt at that moment she was incapable of assessing.  Somehow she wasn't ready for what was going on inside her head.  She was left with a sense of guilt that lingered after her like a dark cloud.  She had the feeling that something else wasn't right; something besides the obvious.  She didn't quite trust her own feelings.

They stood in the living room feeling rather awkward.  They had reached a hiatus in their conversation.  Suddenly a flutter ran along the ceiling from south to north.  A characteristic auditory flutter that immediately precedes the body of an earthquake.  Then the floor started rolling and a couple of pieces of Acoma pottery fell off the mantle and bounced on the carpet.  Colleen turned the radio on so they could listen for details about the shaker.  The reports weren't available yet.  They realized it was larger than normal when the San Francisco station they were listening to described the minor damage the quake had done inside the studio.  After a few minutes they learned it had been a 5.3.  The station warned about possible aftershocks.

There were several significant aftershocks.  The first occurred almost exactly one hour later.  The next one occurred after 8 hours.  Then there was another one sometime later, and several after that.  All of the aftershocks were a little more than expected by anyone who had lived in the Bay area for the past ten years.  The latest reports on the radio were now advising about the possibility of a very large one -- a 6.0 on the Richter scale.  They warned residents to remain alert to the possibility for the next 72 hours. 

Even through no big quake actually hit San Jose during that time, the possibility kept people thinking privately about it.  They had just felt a 5.3; they expected that the effect of a 0.7 magnitude increase would be relatively destructive.  Having experienced the difference between 4s and 5s reinforced their unspoken fear.  But no one was ready to leave the area based on such a remote possibility.  Colleen and Bonnie had lived in San Jose all their lives; it would take a lot more than an earthquake to make them leave their home.

"It's raining!" Colleen shuddered suddenly.  "It's August and it's raining!  That quake shook up more than the ground."

"I bet you people are going to start that ridiculous talk about earthquake weather again," Bonnie remarked.

"What's so ridiculous about that?"  Colleen acted as though someone had splashed water in her face.

"Oh, come on!  You're not gonna tell me you believe in that nonsense?"  Bonnie implored.  Suddenly another flutter ran across the ceiling.  They felt the floor shake slightly from side to side.  "I'm not going home tonight -- you don't mind, do you?"  Bonnie considered the possibility of discussing Michael further.

"I wouldn't think of letting you.  I'm not sleeping in this house alone with such a bizarre change in the weather -- or whatever you want to call it when it rains in August in the middle of a drought and the earth shakes."

"I call it ridiculous quake weather!"  Bonnie quipped proudly, "now where do I sleep?  Where's the...?"

"We'll stay in my room with the sliding glass-door open in case I have to run out," Colleen cut her off without really listening.

"Yeah?  I can just see the two of us running outside naked in the moonlight.  What would the neighbors say?"  Bonnie laughed.

"They'd be running around outside too," Colleen responded, reassuring herself.  It was raining.  There was no moonlight.

This time instead of a flutter there was a loud thump, and a grunt.  They stared at each other with anticipation, waiting for the other to crack -- like Lladro figurines against a brick fireplace.  They heard a muffled chromatic run: a sound like four tiny furry feet rapidly fluttering along the floor -- a breathless gallop, south to north, cracking through the brittle air towards them.  No matter how much they tried to deny it, the impending doom drew them closer together; they couldn't lie.  They weren't prepared for "God!  Thank God!  Faun!"  She had let herself in through the kitchen window, greeting the girls with a long, steady "meeeoooow."

"You bitch!"  Colleen gasped and swept Faun off her feet, kissing her in the back of the head, making Faun blink.  "Let's go beddie-bye, baby."  She nuzzled her, kissing and hugging her close, loving her short gray fur, her golden eyes, and her striking female personality.

"Faun!"  Bonnie chimed in.  "You scared the shit out of us.  We thought you were an earthquake, you fat pig!"  She reached over and patted her vigorously on the head. 

"Don't you want to feed her before we go to bed?"

"Well.  Maybe just a bite.  Look at her, though," Colleen grabbed a handful of fur.  "She needs to go on a serious diet."

"She takes after her mother," Bonnie joked.  Actually, Colleen didn't have an ounce of fat on her.  In fact, both women were in excellent shape.  Their dancing kept them perfectly fit and trim.

By the time they finished feeding the cat and making much of her, they had almost forgotten about the earthquake.  They decided to stay up for a while and watch the late night movie.  It wasn't particularly interesting.  After a few minutes they prepared themselves for bed.  Colleen picked Faun up and carried her into the bedroom.  Bonnie followed closely behind.  The three of them sat up in bed for a while.  Faun preened herself while Bonnie and Colleen talked about dancing and men until they were exhausted.  Their conversation was so animated, they never noticed the minor aftershocks that continued every fifteen minutes or so.  Before turning in for the night, Colleen decided to leave a night light on and make sure the sliding glass door was unlocked.

"I'm scared," Colleen said as she unlocked the door and opened the drapes.

"Me too.  Earthquakes make me nervous."

"I don't know if I can sleep tonight."

"I don't know if I can either."

As soon as their heads hit their pillows Bonnie and Colleen dozed off without any problem.  Faun had gotten a head start at the foot of the bed.  As the three of them slept, their bodies kept time with the powerful rhythm that ran deep inside the earth.

II

The telephone was ringing off the hook.  Why are some people so goddamned persistent.  If you don't answer the fucking thing in twelve rings, what makes them think you're going to answer it in twelve more?  That didn't matter somehow.  Michael wasn't aware that it was ringing.  He had to be told by his date, who was presently on her back, starting to think Michael was deaf.  Certainly he couldn't be that engrossed at the moment.  The phone had already distracted her completely from trying to accommodate his oversized penis.  She wasn't interested anymore.

"Get off me ya fat bastud," she joked, using some comic's routine.

Whack!  He slapped her square in the face, full force with an open hand.  It was an accident.  His knee had slipped out from under him on the yellow satin sheets.  He over-reacted, his reflexes were too quick.  The same swift motion that slammed his hand into her face flipped him off the bed and onto the floor.  Jesus!  The spike heel from one of her cobalt blue pumps missed going up his ass as he hit with a heavy thud.  The pain and shock of the woman's heel gouging his tender inner thigh prevented him from realizing how lucky he was.  He struggled desperately to catch his breath.

They both lay on their backs weeping bitterly.  Each feeling abused and betrayed, unaware of the other's pain.  This pitiful scene set the stage for all their future relationships.  They were both miserable for the wrong reasons and the phone was still ringing.

"Answer the fuckin' phone, you prick!  I know you're fuckin' home," Charlie complained into the receiver, letting it ring and ring and ring.  When he'd had enough he stuffed the receiver down the front of his pants and said eat me.  Then he slammed the receiver onto the hook, unbuttoned his fly, and pissed against the glass in the telephone booth.  When he was finished, he walked out into the rain buttoning his jeans.

"I'll kill that fucker," he grumbled to himself, still fiddling with one of the metal buttons on his fly -- on someone else's fly as he walked in the light (the rain) with his head bowed.  No bulge here -- no protrusion.  Only smooth parted mounds of flesh -- scented.  Just an image he was flashing onto as he continued to walk, staring intently into that metal button between his thumb and forefinger.

A woman and her daughter were walking toward him along the sidewalk.  Charlie was unaware of their presence.  As they approached, the little girl remarked and pointed at Charlie.

"Mommy, that man's got a hard-on."

"Lisa!  Give mommy your hand!"

The child was precocious; she noticed everything.  Her problem was that she hadn't learned to be discrete yet.  Charlie snapped out of his trance immediately and started to breathe heavily.  The woman was walking fast, practically dragging Lisa away while reading her the riot act.

The child had disturbed Charlie's privacy; she had interrupted the voice from the button on his fly as it was instructing him about something else.  He suddenly found himself reeling, unable to talk, anchored to this world by a thumb and forefinger.  The button -- now a button; now a lifeline -- spoke to him again.  This time it informed him that he had a talent for reducing chaos to form.  "It is the gift of screws," it chirped in a scratchy metallic monotone.  But there was a down side.  "It's a secret," the button continued.  "She broke the circle.  She interfered."  He would discover the dark secret once he got past the physical limits of the button: that tiny circle of tarnished mirror.  He began to recite a childhood poem, comforting himself against what was about to happen.

His body trembled as he bent forward painfully.  His mind began to pump rapidly.  He felt quick spurts of silver liquid between his teeth.  It was good.  The hardness of the button was the groundwork upon which he lay his tongue, squeezing it with his hand.  He could smell the thick dripping of honeysuckle.  He felt himself enter the button swallowing -- its length the black tail of a baby snake.  With each peristaltic wave he probed deeper.  Real deep.  Until he pictured Kevin rolling down the side of a grassy hill in March.  The wind was at his back.  The sound of children's voices was dead ahead.  He couldn't judge the distance and could no longer rhyme:

God no

No god

God please god no

Please god please god please god no

No god please god

God no

No!  God!

He was there suddenly.  He saw what they had done to Kevin.  It didn't make much sense, but it was harmless, wasn't it?  In spite of the apparent struggle, Kevin didn't put up much of a fight.  He seemed to enjoy the attention, even though he was stripped naked in the woods.  He chased after the two other boys in mock rage.  Feigning a fall, he let them make off with his clothes towards the river.

The warm sun and gentle breeze felt invigorating to his young body.  He knelt in a small clearing with his eyes closed smelling the fragrance of honeysuckle; aroused by the heat of the sun.  Not sexually.  He and his friends were not aware of their sexuality yet.  They still had some innocent time left.

The sound of children's voices faded in the foreground.  He lay prostrate in the grass, eyes shut, his whole body tingling, anticipating something unknown, unclear.  He heard footsteps coming from behind at some distance.  He would wait for them, let them think they were going to surprise him out of his sleep.  He would, of course, have the last laugh.

III

It was pitch black.  Although he could no longer see, he had the sense of seeing double. The pain at the base of his skull began to awaken.  It was going to be excruciating.  He gradually became aware that his mouth was open; he tasted dirt and grass.  The combination left a metallic aftertaste in his mouth.  He tried to breathe.  It was nearly impossible.  Then the air rushed into his lungs carrying dirt particles that made him choke and spit.  The sudden severity of new pain caused him to take that enormous breath.

The pain in his head blossomed.  Its green stem, a burning force, coursed through his tender entrails, swelling his head with bursts of fresh, brilliant pain.  He struggled to crawl away, but a heavy weight pinned down his arms and legs -- he saw flashes of crimson.

The pain was unbearable.  He felt that he was being torn in half by the trunk of a huge tree; hewn apart by the boundless fury of its size.  His eyes were open so wide his eyeballs bulged like a cartoon wolf's.  Yet all he could see through the darkness were tiny bursts of silver and carmine.  The pain spiraled to a dizzying height.  Each time he started to choke, the thrust of the force caused him to launch streams of iridescent vomit in loud red moans -- an effective Heimlich maneuver.

He saw himself rolling down the side of a hill.  The fragrance of honeysuckle mingled with the smell of dirt and grass, and the air was a chill.  Only the sound of his arm breaking interrupted the silence -- a gunshot ahead.  He couldn't judge the distance; it seemed very far away.

IV

Charlie was shaking.  He needed to walk.  It helped focus him when he couldn't think.  It helped reel him back when he accidentally ventured too far out.  Today he was going to have some trouble finding his way back.

Something had made him follow the mother and child to their house on Greentree Way and wait for the right moment.  He knew what he had to do.  He had no choice.  They needed to be taught a lesson.  Mommy, he would go easy on -- she had, at least, tried to right the wrong.  Lisa was "gonna get fucked."

Without hesitating, Charlie walked into the house.  Lisa had forgotten to lock the front door after letting her cat out for the night.  Keeping his fingers clamped on the button he raised his other arm in a Nazi salute; he lifted his shoulders and tramped through the living room -- one hand up and one hand down.

Mommy was on the toilet reading "U.S. News and World Report" with the door half open.  Wrinkling his nose and squinting at the glaring light fixture he entered the bathroom, taking long exaggerated strides.  Mommy looked up and saw he had no neck.  His grotesque appearance was breathtaking.

"What the h'ell are you doing?" she screamed hoarsely, feeling her anus constrict at the sight of the alien.  With no warning Charlie slammed his forearm across the side of her head, flinging her off the toilet and onto the bathtub rim.  He saw Mark McGwire hitting a home run (but in his hazy vision he had the face of Ty Cobb).  He cheered himself loudly, remembering his days as a "little league" hitter.

"Mommy?" a concerned little voice queried meekly from the back bedroom.  A noise had aroused Lisa from her sleep.  She had counted on her mommy answering, but mommy wasn't going to stop Charlie from "fucking that little bitch."  Charlie would have to explain to Lisa that she had been wrong earlier, that he didn't have a hard-on before.  He would have to teach her that it isn't nice for little girls to talk that way. 

"Who are you?  Where's my mommy?!" she screamed terrified at Charlie's bulging crotch.  He lorded over her in the same grotesque posture.  "Mommy, mommy!" the eight-year-old cried while Charlie exposed his semi-erect penis and waved it at her.

"Daddy's gonna teach you some respect! you little shit."

"Naaghh!" she screamed, "help me! help me mommy!"

"Help me-mommy, help-help me-mommy," he mocked her to a rap version of the Beach Boys' tune, waving his dick to the beat and making scratching sounds with his mouth.

Lisa felt another presence in the room.  The enormity of its power overwhelmed and terrified her.  This was all too real to be a dream.  The sudden jolt of the moderate earthquake added a final sense of impending doom to her already fragile reality.  She tried to wake herself by running from the scene.  She knew if she could make it to the door she would wake up.  But Charlie grabbed her hair and pulled her violently back into her nightmare.  Lifting her straight up, he dangled her off the floor.  When she started to kick, he reciprocated, kicking her shins and knees as hard as he could with his steel-toed boots.

Lisa's convulsive screams of agony unnerved him.  He knew he had broken her legs.  He looked at the jagged end of her protruding shinbone while her body quaked from shock.  Then he slammed her on the hardwood floor face-up, knocking her unconscious and setting her jaw open wide -- fucking baby bird screaming for the worm.

Her eyes stared into space (the blind eyes of the innocent).  He stood astride her clearing his throat.  He spat his wad into her open mouth, then washed it down with a long hard piss that overflowed her mouth and nose into her ears.

"Now if it was hard, asshole, I couldn't be doing this!" he raved, taunting her unconscious body with his insane antics.  "Kitchy-koo kitchy-kye can you con-stan tin-eye, can you ople can you pople can you Constantinople," he rapped, moving to the rhythm.

Severe trauma from the viciousness of his physical attack might have killed her, instead she was going to die by asphyxiation from the urine in her lungs.

When he was finished, Charlie shook himself off -- she pointed her finger at him once too often.  He stamped Lisa's finger out like a crunchy cigarette butt and looked down at his exposed organ.  There was no recognition in his eyes now.  He stood paralyzed for a few minutes, shaking from the cold.  His mind had blocked out the grisly scene that lay before him on the floor.  He packed his sex back into his jeans and tried to remember what he had been doing.

In a kind of acid daze, Charlie walked away feeling nauseous and weak in the knees.  He stumbled into a blinding flamingo bathroom where a woman lay unconscious.  She was bent over the bathtub rim with her feces-smeared buttocks exposed and her banana-yellow pants around her ankles.  The toilet bowl was full of foul-smelling diarrhea.  The stench was too much for him; the whole scene was unreal.  His head ached terribly.  He had to get rid of the smell before it drove him crazy.  He hastily tore off a long piece of toilet paper, so as not to soil his hand, and flushed the toilet.  The sound of the running water reached a feverish pitch that ended in a wheeze.  Then it faded into the distance as his consciousness shrank to a pinpoint of light.  Something drove him heavily towards a locked door in the kitchen.  Before he had a chance to see beyond it, his mind drifted off to a redwood forest with thick vegetation and cool running water.