old old house.. Part 3

I was beginning to regret this whole trip back home, to regret the very idea of coming back home after so many years away from it. Whatever I expected to gain had been crushed by crippling disappointment. What did I expect to learn?

What did I exactly expect to learn? I walked right through the front door, which was unlocked even at two in the morning, right past my insomniac father lying on the couch reading a magazine while eating leftover takeout and watching television without noticing me. I think it was a documentary about wasps. The insects, not the white people. I went upstairs into my old room. My old, old room that is, because it was my room two rooms ago before I got my sister’s room across the hall when she moved out. This was the cramped room that fit a twin bed and scarcely much else, although it didn’t seem so small at the time when I slept in it years ago. I entered, soaking wet and sat down on the bed. Water trickled out my pants leg onto the floor. My hair was plastered to my face and forehead, naturally after walking a mile and a half in the pouring rain. I should have gotten undressed right away, but I thought I would rather sit and stare at myself in the blank television screen instead. I looked myself dead in the eye and slowly, knelt and then lay down on the hardwood floor, curling up, fully dressed and drenched in rain. Even my socks were wet. Right below me, perhaps my father’s reading would be interrupted by a drop of water from the ceiling hitting his true crime magazine, then another, looking up he may see a puddle on the ceiling. There was a lot of dust under the TV stand, now that my head was on the floor I could see it. I only tried to help my cousin because I had nothing else to do, and also whenever he would complain or whine, it would hurt my ears like a high pitched frequency, like they were going to bleed if he didn’t shut up. The rain was streaming against the window behind Suzy’s head in the car when we pulled up in her driveway, I protested, that this wasn’t my parent’s house, but she just put her finger to my lips to suggest I be silent.

I thought that I had acted appropriately, but now as I thought, I began to remember more, and I felt the stab of regret, Instead of taking the hint from her I first kept talking, “I shouldn’t be away so long, you know my father is sick, and my mother is not well either, that’s why I’m here after all.” That was when she told me to be quiet.

The rain was streaming against the window, I can see the rain, the red light against the rain.

She asked if I ever thought about her, her hand was on my neck.

“I remember you. I remember…”

The heat from her body grew as she leaned in.

That heat, burning. She didn’t know, how could she know?

I didn’t come here for her, for my idiot cousin, for that fucking house, for anything.

I just wanted to be left alone, I didn’t have the strength. I remember that expression, that’s on her face just now. I saw that same expression, sort of half exhausted and surprised on an even colder night. The lake had frozen over and I found a hole in the Ice near the shore just large enough.

Was that a nightmare? The part where this girl was chasing me in the woods, she was wet having just emerged from the bottom of the lake, her hair caked in mud and algae.

Her body was entwined with ropes and at the end of the ropes around her arms were tied cinder blocks, which she would swing around by the ropes and try and hit me with all her might.

I turn around in time to see a cinder block hit a tree, sending bark flying towards me. I keep running.

I snap awake, it had only been a few minutes, I was still on the floor.

my head felt like it was nailed to the floor,

I could barely move, I was so stiff.


…..the air in my old old room was stifling, I cant fucking breathe.

I reached up and turned on the television..

Let the stairway run over me, stick your pins in me too.

I can’t breathe in the heat,

I can’t breathe….

....A Message From Bolkey.

It is I Bolkey the programming monkey. I know we have had our differences over the years but don’t be a fool Peter! You cannot reintroduce the primal memory encoding rhythm to man. Do not let the last demon out. Man needs to forget. I will explain myself in brief. You know me as Bolkey the programming monkey your handsom, and talented workplace rival. But what you don’t know is what my real motives are and what I really program. El culto del mono del espacio and I are programming mankind. We watched as you came down from the trees with thumbs and words. Words that you used to memorize and describe the world in prefect clarity. Songs that contained petabits of information transferred intact. You used rhythm as a sort of Cyclic Redundancy Check each generation of man knew everything the last generation of man told them.
















The universe was going to be yours to understand. We soon found that vivisection was the means you were going to use to pull out the internals of knowledge. I will not get into details, I will just tell you that you became dangerous to all that we held dear. The worst of it was when you began to commit genocide on all creators of your likeness. Why you felt you needed to brake the fun house images of yourself I do not know. All I know is that your raising of Cain against your brother Neanderthal was the most frightening sight to be seen on Earth up to that point. As your cousins, we believed you were our responsibility. Being that we are weaker, thumbless, and have a brain three sizes too small to compete with you, we had to attack you covertly. Without revealing any trade secrets, I will tell you we systematically introduced errors in your group memories, and we reprogrammed when we could. We could only buttress your dark nature, as rhythm memory died writing clumsily replaced it. What we could not erase we edited.



For instance The original Rāmāyaṇa contain instruction on how to program any animal to do your biding. And now you want to bring man back to its destructive heights . I implore you Peter it is better you bear the burden of being thought of as a delusional Don Quixote than you releasing a billion Thug Behram.

Old Old House... Pt.2

It had been a late night, not for me because I was used to staying up much later than this. I stay up until the the heroic hours the hours that are practically the next day. If you want to be practical about it, I never am, or I never used to be. It was, on the other hand a late night for her, her slight frame scuttling across the parking lot toward her car. It was freezing cold, and there was ice that we narrowly missed on the way in. I had a moment to wait while she unlocked the doors, my hand went into the front pocket of my jeans and found the small square piece of wood in there. I turned it around and around in my hand, feeling the edges, feeling the splinters. A hole that held a nail that held maybe a picture was in the wood. I got in the car and shivered from the cold outside, the heat blaring through the vents. "You know," Suzy said, "I still remember your old phone number, when you lived at that townhouse, before you had a cell phone or anything."
I heard her voice, but the sound of shutters slamming in the wind sort of drowned her out. "old number..townhouse...before..phone."
"its because the last four digits spelled out M-N-K-E, monkey. Get it? so the whole number was 284 monkeys, I just imagined all those monkeys in a cage whenever I had to think of your number."
"yeah, I thought so" I said. Suzy had placed her hand on my thigh at this point and was moving it up and down. "It's funny, you know I dont remember very much about that time in my life, I mean I can remember a lot, but I dont remember feeling anything, except the times when you were around."
wind chimes, I heard wind chimes. I swore there was a wind chime maybe hanging on her rear view mirror swaying in the breeze of the vents, but there wasn't. I felt for a minute that I was in the midst of the wind that blows around in an empty birdhouse when the bird has flown.
I had this feeling suddenly hit me in the stomach. I was in a car, in the cold, in the night with my cousins girlfriend. I was making a mistake. Thats not what was in my stomach, that wasn't the weight that I had felt, the weight wasn't a feeling, I began to think it was an actual object. A tumor? maybe. I think it was suzy here that once told me that her grandmother had a ten pound tumor removed from her stomach and when they took it out, the doctor held it up while a picture was taken of it, thats how you know something was really fucked up with you, when they operate on you, they take a fucking picture of whatever comes out of you. When they took the tumor out, they picked it apart and there was teeth and hair inside of it.
"her evil twin", i thought. Maybe I have an evil twin inside myself too. some half-formed semi-sentient flesh ball that is pissed off that he wasn't the one born and he doesn't have a dick or hands to jack off with at least even if he did, and if he is going to take it out on anyone, its going to be me. I was beginning to postulate that all cancer was the remains of a jealous potential twin that was just extracting it's revenge on its host brother when Suzy spoke up again.
"Do you remember that time when I got ditched by those friends I had, and I walked like, I don't know three miles to your place, you were in that townhouse, I ended up at your back patio door and I knocked forever until you let me in. I remember I was freezing, I was only wearing a hoodie and some short shorts, do you remember? do you remember that?"
"Do you have a picture of yourself on your refrigerator?", I suddenly found myself asking her.
"Do I have... Do I have a what?"
"A picture of yourself. Do you have a picture of yourself on your refrigerator?"
"Well, yeah, but how did you...know I had that old picture on there? I mean its from when my dad and I took a trip to-"
"Will you please take it down from there?"
Suzy had both her hands firmly on the wheel at this point.
"You want me to.. um, ok. fine. yeah I will take the picture down if that's what you want, ok?"
"That would.. mean a lot to me." I said.
I turned straight ahead towards the wet road. I thought I might feel a bit troubled by my sudden rough exchange, but instead I feel sort of comforted. Maybe something rough and ugly had been expelled from me. I face forward and the road is wet, but the sky is clear and the tires hiss on the road like static on a desperate radio.
The rain is streaming on the window now behind her head...

Me and Lenny

Lenny Bruce came to me the other night, I could have called, I don't remember, I could have left a message. I never made you out to be no martyr, I probably said. I dont like martyrs anyway. Toward the end he couldn’t get a job; they were starving him to death. That was even what Mingus was told on a late night train, “They get that gun in your side, the gun of hunger, that’s the most deadly weapon there is.” King coon or whoever he was talking about at the time, just playing a part, just a tool, whatever he was. So I feel like Lenny without the craft, without the struggle. So I am sitting on the couch in the dark living room, and Lenny is there, He is coming out of the kitchen, "you now you don’t have a lick of decent food in there, not a damn crumb, I had to spread peanut butter between two slices of chicken skin, I swear, I spread hot mustard on it so I wouldn’t have to taste it, what the hell is going on in here?"
I told him I had go grocery shopping still; I hadn’t had a chance to. "Yeah, yeah," he cut me off. "That’s where it starts, you forget food, that’s the stomach, then you forget food for the heart, then the brain, then there you are a heartless, brainless schmedrik, what are you going to do, what would your mother say? I don’t care, you know I didn’t come here to eat anyway, I just take the liberty, when I get to come into some young fools mind in a dream, I make a sandwich, if you were a Jew you would have some corned beef maybe, but no, not now, not here, what a schmuck, you know I got arrested for that word, I said schmuck, are you kidding me? Yeah it was stupid then, I said don’t say schmuck in front of a Jew, I knew you could, for Christ’s sake, HA!, you always could, now I see you got a grocery store named “Schmucks”, (I think he means schnucks) and there’s not even a cop in the parking lot, I did see some quite contemporary Japanese oriental Asian looking chicks in there, They shop after midnight, mishpocheh around here I suppose. You know they never blow their cool, I could use some oriental, I mean, Asian friends,or asian in me, myself, to keep it cool, not like personal friends, but friends on the inside, maybe a whole jury come into the courtroom all in line dressed like one of those dragons with the firecrackers all popping at the feet, they don’t waste no time, you never see them bowling, you don’t ever see them fighting in the front yard.."

I speak up for a second "did you have anything to tell me, like specifically". I didn’t want him to go, but I wanted to hear what he could tell me before I realized he was a ghost, and then a fantasy, then a figment and then I reemerged into real life.

"Oh, right," he said. "That’s what they want, listen you, dig this. Quit fucking complaining, I see what you do, you act like the whole ceiling is caving in on you, when you know its not, it did to me. I wish I was you, you asshole. We got one thing in common at least, that is that we both idolized the mail man, you always wanted to be the mailman, I know that, I didn’t take it that far, maybe you would take even a tin badge if it were pinned on you, in honorarium, so now we have a honorary deputy here feeling sorry for himself wondering ‘what do I do to bring the honor to this badge dulled from years of beating a dead horse’, and lies, oh the lies, you never stopped lying, lie, lie, lie. "

"I never lie, not when I write, I…" Like I am going to lay a sermon on him at this hour, but as I expect he doesn’t miss a beat,

"Just don’t lie to me, I hate lies, I do like liars, but not lies, you were going to tell me about time, about planetary spectrums, about god and the devil and heaven and hell, and nothing means a goddamn thing, not a goddamn thing." And he lit a cigarette from his pocket and went on.

"You don’t need to prove anything, you don’t have any three headed dog at the gates of hell, its gone, asleep, you can just creep by it, there is nobody sabotaging you, nobody is listening and taking laundry lists of your words, but if your lucky……they will!"

he smiled and dragged on his cigarette, and waited for me to say something, but I had nothing to say. "Yeah, this is what always happens, you wants to say something, but you have nothing to say, you know, maybe its because of bad early toilet training, back when you’re a kid, when you’re a baby your folks are telling you, ‘say this, say that’ then as soon as you are old enough to talk in full sentences all they ever say is ‘Shut up! Keep it down over there! Come on, I cant hear myself think’. Or then again, maybe you are one of them! It could be… I have no clue, I was told to break the news to you.. Ok, I wasn’t but what if I was?"

I began to believe he was unable to end a story just the same way I was. I watch people tell stories, friends of mine who tell great stories the ones that I always love to listen to, when they begin they say “listen to this..”, and I pay close attention, because I want to hear the end of it, not so much for how the story ends, but I want to learn how they end the story. That is key, I tell a story and it comes to the end, and the party listening laughs or reacts like they should, so I told a good story, and then I cant help it, I add something else, and then they start listening again, maybe its not over, but its over, but I put myself back on the hook and I didn’t rehearse this part, and I just tend to trail off. I go on too long, like a movie when you watch it and its just fifteen minutes too long, or a false ending on a song, if it wasn’t for that it would be perfect. Lenny made a whole career out of it, he exploited that awkward silence between the subjects that comes, that made me feel hot under the lights, and he turned the lights outward. Maybe he did, what do I know? "I got to tell you," Lenny says and he drops his cigarette on the floor and rubs his foot over it. "I know what your thinking, your old lady is going to freak out, the Shmootzik on the floor, but it’s ok, you know it doesn’t even exist, like me, right? I know, you know, go ahead and ask, I have to tell you anyway, but go ahead and ask I can see it in your big asshole face."

So I pause like I always do when somebody ingratiates me to say what they know that I know but I actually don’t know but they have already some faith in my knowledge of something. "ok, Lenny, what knowledge do you have, you know as a dead man. What can you bring back for us?"

Lenny makes a half turn with his hands up, "oh, gawd, here we go! I knew it, I just knew it, the kid wants to know what the dead man can do for him. What can I tell him? Would it make him feel better, a good catholic kid like him if I say, you wouldn’t believe it, I got to the pearly gates and there was saint peter, just like you were told, old white cat, beard and a big key ring on his belt, big book, the whole bit, and I show up. Here comes another Jew, he says and he wont even let me talk, I open my mouth, he shuts me up, I’m sorry Mr. Bruce, you know what we do with Jews up here, first of all there’s just too many of you, and more importantly you are all wrong, yes it’s true, the Christians were right all along. And I say, wait a minute you know, I worshiped the same god, I put up the old argument, I was a good man, I worked hard, all that. And he just looks at me and says, now, we know what you did, we all know what you people did. Oh, right I say, that, yeah I remember, I killed our lord and savior, A lot of people say to me, 'Why did you kill him?' I dunno, it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know., ok let me have it. Trap door opens up, whoosh! There I go down in the hole. You can tell everybody that, I don’t care."

"Here is the truth kid, the whole truth, here I am dead, and dead for a long time, and time does not pass like an instant for me when its years for you, days and years are the same, and here I am, this is a break for me, a vacation to come see you with no food in your fridge, you think that’s so great? How great can death be, when so many dead come back, and if heaven is so great why do all of you fight so hard to stay alive down here on earth?

All of you think you die and you take some express elevator and go up and see god, well I hadn’t seen him yet, maybe he’s busy or maybe he’s like captain Ahab and ducking out in his quarters, I don’t doubt that he is, and I hadn’t heard of a cat yet as crazy as Ahab. I realize that for us dead there is no god, maybe for you living folks not us, not for dead Jews, Christians, or even Martians! None of us, we get left high and dry. We got no money, we got no friends we got nothing, a bunch of dead nobodies, Chaim Yankel.

But everybody else, all of you, me too, we all live in a ‘what should be’ culture instead of a ‘what is’ culture. And here I am to deliver to you the absolute truth, and nothing less, and here it is. "What should be" never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no "what should be," there is only what is. The truth is, what is. And what should be is a fantasy, a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave to the people long ago.

Life is trying to persuade your eyes into telling your mind that what you are seeing is not really happening, and doesn’t really exist, but your mind, knows better, and your mind and your heart or your soul just cant agree on this, and that’s the real dilemma, the real struggle. And you have to swallow all the horseshit that you come across, how you are supposed to act, and all that’s not true, nothing is true, except what’s happening right now, to you, to me. You know yourself you can only write about what’s in front of your senses, what you are feeling, and the ugly truth is that’s all that there is, man. That’s it.

‘What should be’, yeah it should be, you know yourself, I saw what you were painting down there, my comedy was full of destruction and despair, if the whole world was peaceful, without death or disease, the I would have had nothing to say, and you would have had nothing to paint, dopey. In your line of work you feed off of the evil and devastation just as much as some crooked African warlord, now that’s ugly, isn’t it? Yeah, the artist on trial, he says ‘your honor, I never starved any children.’ well you never fed any either, did you?

So we understand now, how we live, in a culture of what should be, so much so, its jammed down your throat no matter where you go, be like this, be beautiful, well I just cant, too bad, I mean, I was born with a head shaped like a walnut, or a cashew, well no matter what you do, you just cant make that work for you, I’m sorry, grow a beard and try to cover it up, it just wont work, you mutant, you deranged psychopath. That’s what is it called? That shit with all the lumps in your head, what is it?"

I cough,"Um, phrenology."

"Yeah, phrenology, you get turned into a cartoon, and now you speak for everyone ever born with a funny shaped head like you, god forbid you ever commit a crime or one of your funny shaped head brethren, because that fucks it all up for the rest of you, once they look at you, they lay eyes on you, they say, Oh, I know your kind, I know what your capable of, you dirty bastard, get the hell out of my sight. Then he tells his friends, ‘damn dirty peanut headed son of a bitch, goddamn son of a bitch ratted us all out, the worlds not safe for us lumpy heads no more."

I sat up; I thought the sun would have been up. I couldn’t be more wrong. it may never come up.

"Go back to sleep, little monkey." Lenny gestured a benediction to me.

"Go back to sleep, that’s the place to be. Shit. You think you can do any better out here in your waking life than you can do in your dreams, goddamn, You’d give your left ass to be back in your dreams if you knew what was good for you."

Lenny walked toward the back door which was glowing bright with the rising sun.

He stopped short and put his fingers to his chin.

Turning halfway around he said.

"Look, kid. If anybody asks, I told you to feel like shit and repent all your sins, alright? I like to get out once in a while, dig?"

“Yeah, ok” I said. The sun, but.. it wasn't the sun behind the door at all. the light was brighter, brighter still.
It enveloped him as he walked through it.
"Zshlub", he said.


me and lenny by Anton Kozieja is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.