Marc D. Goldfinger

The Plague Days

Posted by le garage

First of all, the COVID-19 makes me rethink Senior Assisted Housing. I’m watching the death toll from Senior Assisted Housing, nursing homes & Veteran Facilities skyrocket. They are like petri dishes enabling the virus to leap from one human being to the next.

I’m 74 years old and my wife is 72 and I’m grateful that we haven’t made the transition to any of those places for elder care. When my parents lived in a Senior Housing complex in Florida, visiting them became a nightmare, even when there was no plague causing residents to quietly disappear.

What was bad was my father talking to me about how nice it was when they first moved there (several friends in their 50’s all applied at the same time) but years later many of those friends were sick and dying. I can only imagine what it is like there now. I’m grateful my parents did not have to live through this.

Maybe the idea of Senior Housing needs to be re-thought and done away with. Places like that didn’t exist in the 1920’s, just one-hundred years ago. It seems unnatural to group silver-haired men and women together without the support of the rest of the family living close by.

Across the street from where my wife and I live is a two-family house where grandma and grandpa live downstairs and their daughter and their son-in-law live upstairs with their children. It gives us great pleasure to see the elder citizens sitting on the front porch playing with their grandchildren.

We’re missing our adult children and grandchildren because our daughter is working in Cairo, Egypt with her family and our son is living in Honolulu, Hawaii with his family.

Living with the virus at our age is not easy. We hate to ask friends to shop for us, but we actually get nervous when we have to go grocery shopping. We’re both in our 70’s with pre-existing conditions and would not make the cut for a ventilator. When they pick and choose who gets to live, we would not be first in line. This is a terribly strange time.

But there are few people who aren’t touched in some way by the virus or the country’s response to it. It appears, according to the Boston Globe, that there is some kind of coverup at the Holyoke Veterans’ Home, where so many have died and are sick with the virus. Bennett Walsh, the man in charge who is suspended with pay, says he and his staff were in constant contact with the Secretary of Veteran’s Services and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services and the Department of Public Health. Walsh claims, “We provided updates on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times a day. These updates were by phone, text, e-mail, conference calls and official report forms.” Which raises some questions for Governor Baker.

I’m sure there will be an electronic trail showing who is telling the truth and who isn’t, but the tragedy is that there are so many elderly veterans who have paid the ultimate price.

Because I was homeless for a long time, and imprisoned for a few years, I especially remember feeling totally cut off while I was in prison and I knew that, if a crisis occurred, I would probably die in prison. In that instance, I got lucky and made it out alive. But my heart goes out to all those trapped in steel and stone, living in a giant petri dish of disease and loneliness.

Loneliness. That’s one of the most frightening aspects of this Plague; that when sick our loved ones can’t be around and people, like us, die surrounded by strangers in masks and costumes. I’ve reread part of Stephen King’s book The Stand and his story really hits the mark as Captain Trips, the Super Flu, wipes out most of the people his fictional world.

COVID-19 isn’t quite like that but I always worry that the coronavirus will mutate into a more lethal strain. That’s not beyond the realm of possibility in the world we live in.

To end this column on a lighter note (but still not a very good note), I wonder how come liquor and beer are regarded as essential but marijuana is excluded except for medical purposes? Governor Charlie Baker says he doesn’t want people from out of state coming in to buy weed at our local stores, but that’s easily remedied by having people show identification and if they aren’t from Massachusetts they can be turned away. No problem, right?

It’s actually very important to have marijuana accessible because our population of Veterans can’t buy medical marijuana since marijuana is not legal on the Federal level. They risk losing their Veteran’s Benefits if they buy medical marijuana. Baker should open the weed stores; if booze is essential, why not grass, eh? Also hit by unemployment, the marijuana industry had to lay off close to 8,000 people who could be hired back with a change in the law.

Well, I’ve certainly spoken my tattered mind on my thoughts about matters related to the Plague, as I work up my courage to go to the grocery store. I’m looking forward to the end of it, yet it doesn’t seem to end any time soon. And Trump—-well, no, I won’t even go there.

Deep Love and Dark Shadows

Posted by le garage

I met my beloved wife in 1994 at a support meeting for alcoholism. Both of us were closing in on our 50’s. We often went out for coffee together and became fast friends. Each of us was struggling with our own demons, yet we were able to give each other loving support. The key word is “loving” and not until 1999 did we start dating, very casually, going out to movies, eating dinner at her place, listening to her play the piano while I kicked back. One night Mary Esther and I went to a party where her close friend was celebrating many years of sobriety. After the party, we came back to her place and just because it was time, we fell into each other’s arms for our first passionate kiss. We didn’t have time to consummate the strong desires that we both were feeling because I had to get to the station to make the train back to the recovery house, called Moore’s Way, that I lived in on the North Shore in the great town of Gloucester.

We both promised to deal with this gift the next time we saw each other. Both of us were dealing with some major wreckage of the past and we both agreed that we would not consummate our relationship unless we both comitted to a monogamous relationship. Needless to say, we agreed and have enjoyed a wonderful relationship over the years. However, there have been dark shadows. On April 7, 2001, we came home from church and were eating dinner at her place when she started having tremors and couldn’t stop shaking. I asked her if she could take some deep breaths and she couldn’t. We both realized this was serious and I asked her to get into her car and, despite the fact that I still had no driver’s license (for some major infractions that took place many years ago), I drove her to Mt. Auburn Hospital which was the closest hospital. We parked by the Emergency room and I walked her in. Immediately the staff there recognized that something serious was happening and they took Mary Esther right in and hooked her up to various intravenous machines and then they let me come in to sit with her while she was being evaluated.

The physician was very concerned because all of her vitals were skewed a bit and he said, “We’ll keep her now for observation until this clears up.”

Suddenly, all her vitals started to crash. The physician and staff ran a line to her heart and told us that they were going to have to intubate her because she was rapidly losing the ability to breath on her own. Our eyes met and I was as frightened as she was as they led me out of the room so they could deal with this major event. To make a long story a bit shorter, what they found out was she had Sepsis. There was a cyst on her kidney that had started to leak poisons into her bloodstream and that was what started the tremors. While she was on the table in the Emergency room, the cyst burst and flooded her system with the lethal poison. For about two days we did not know whether my wonderful woman was going to survive. A priest that she knew came in and gave her Last Rites. I had called her mother, who lived downstairs from her, and she came to the hospital. Her name was Mary and she was around 88 years old at the time.

At the hospital, she looked at me and said, “Remember, she was mine first!” I looked her in the eye and said, “I know that, and I will always be grateful that you brought her into this world to grace my life.” She came into my arms and cried. By the end of the second day, Mary Esther started to improve, and they were able to take the intubation out and she could breathe on her own. She still couldn’t talk because they had a mask on her face to help her lungs with pressure. When I leaned over to kiss her forehead, Mary Esther gave me a head butt! It was the only way she could communicate and she wanted me to know she was still there. I realized then that she was going to be okay. For the 12 days she was at Mt. Auburn Hospital, the doctors brought resident physicians around to meet the woman who had survived Sepsis. They told us that if she was not at the hospital when the cyst burst, she would have been lost.

During her recovery, I actually watched Mary Esther go through all the stages of growing up. At first, she was like a little child but then, as she recovered, she grew up into the woman I had fallen in love with. While she was in the hospital, I asked her to marry me because we both felt that time was shorter than we knew. Even though she was committing to a homeless drug addict struggling in recovery, Mary Esther accepted. We were married at a friend’s house, in a large backyard on June 22nd, 2002. It was a great wedding, totally alcohol and drug free, and even the caterers had a great time and didn’t want to leave.

Obviously, there is more to this story, but I have run out of space. It is now 2019 and the leaves are coloring, and the acorns are dropping as the holiday season creeps up on us. Mary Esther and I believe that, for us, God saved the best for last.

Thoughts About Relapse and a Trip in the Way-back Machine

Posted by le garage

I took a short ride in my car yesterday and was listening to a group called Jersey Dream put out by Clifton Records. They are an acapella group. The lead singer is a friend of mine named Ron Trautz. I was enjoying his voice and thinking about how much he has accomplished since we ran wild together back in the 1960’s. Just to brag about his accomplishments for a moment, Ron Trautz obtained his LCSW & his LCADC and became the Executive Director of the New Brunswick Counseling Center in New Jersey after graduating from Rutgers University. Ron has over 40 years of experience in the treatment of Substance Use and Co-Occurring Disorders and is experienced in treating people both inpatient and outpatient. He also had a private practice and worked with other non-profit agencies. That’s pretty wild when I think of the times we got loaded together on codeine based cough syrup back in the early 1960’s. We made many trips from Jersey to New York City, along with a group of other wild characters, in my 58 Plymouth Convertible Belvidere with a push-button transmission.

The first drugstore we hit was called Zelnick’s, named after the proprietor. I remember the first time I walked in there and asked for a jug of Robitussin A-C and the pharmacist looked at me and asked me how many people I was with. I didn’t understand why he asked that question and I queried him back. He said, “Look, I don’t want a line of you guys running in and out of my store because it just doesn’t look good. Tell me how many bottles you want and I’ll give them all to you as long as you pay for them.” I told him that there were six of us and we each wanted two bottles apiece. He went into his back room and brought out three 16 ounce bottles while I ran out, collected the bread (money) and ran back in. Needless to say, we were all thrilled and quite loaded by the time we hit our favorite diner on Route 3 in New Jersey to have a couple of cups of hot tea.

I was still in high school at the time and so was Ron. We used to go and “hang” at a friend’s house in Livingston whose parents took off every weekend. If the house wasn’t available we would go to Livingston Lanes and hang out at the coffee shop there until we became personas non gratas—in other words, until they kicked us out. I remember how the town detectives would always follow us around, but back then they were too lame to make any definitive arrests. They would actually come to the parking lot at the Livingston Lanes and chat us up to see if they could glean any information from us. We were just teenagers but thought of ourselves as having the art of misdirection totally under control. Some of us got out of the life, Ron being one of the lucky ones. There were others too. But I continued on the long road to heroin addiction and never wanted to stop, nor did I think I could.

Ron got clean, went back to school and studied to become a drug counselor and was a success. He kept singing vocal group harmony with his specialty being acapella. His album, called Jersey Dream, is just one of the groups he sang with. Ron sang lead vocalist with Jersey Dream and hearing his voice is like a trip in the way-back machine. I struggled for over 3 and one-half decades with my opiate addiction and now I am about to celebrate 15 years of sobriety with my home group. I actually passed the 15 year mark in September but, because I dislike chairing the meeting, I put it off and then realized that it would be a good thing to do to show that a once hopeless case like me, can actually recover from this illness of the body, mind and soul. I have to admit that sometimes I think about using or, as the term goes, “picking up” but every time I think of it, the thought of that terrible Fentanyl crosses my mind. Today, I love life, and I realize that if I were to stick the needle in my vein I might not be alive to pull it back out. That’s what happened to one of my heroes by the name of Lenny Bruce, a great comedian who was ahead of his time. He passed at the age of 37 in 1966. But it wasn’t Fentanyl, just an overdose but he is gone except for his comedic legacy.

Ron is the other side of the story. He spent 40 years of his life treating people with addictions as both a counselor and the Director of the agency I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, Ron is quite ill now with various age-related afflictions, but he is totally valued by his wife, family and friends. When I think back at how wild we were, I find it amazing that he accomplished so much. Of course, he was one of the brighter people in the club we called the Hats in Livingston High School. I guess both of us are lucky, both Ron and me. I worked as a drug counselor for a few years, but it was at the Cambridge Needle Exchange and it was too close for my hungry monkey. I relapsed on the job.

Now I work as a writer and I’ll soon be having a book published of short stories and poetry. I’m looking forward to it but keeping my life in the moment so I can stay drug free. After all, I know I’m not bullet proof.

Running On Empty In Vermont

Posted by le garage

I kept drinking the wine so the withdrawal from the Klonopin wouldn’t hit me. I didn’t want to have a seizure out here in the boondocks. My wife, Debbie, has already gone into detox at a place called Scatterberry Farm. St Dismas House said that they had an opening for me but it would not be until Monday. It was Saturday morning and they might as well said eternity.

I thought it would be a good idea to see if I could make a doctor. I pulled out the phone book and flipped to the yellow pages. There’s not a hell of a lot of doctors close by in the hills of Vermont. I felt a chill and threw a couple of logs in the wood stove. I came back to the phone book and dropped my finger on a doctor that was in the town of Ludlow. A woman doctor.

Sometimes that’s a good thing and sometimes not. Usually a woman doctor can be conned the first time, but every now and then you can run into a real bitch. I crossed my fingers and then dialed the number.

Two rings. Click. It was her nurse or secretary and she said she had an open time at 1:30pm. I looked at the clock on the wall. Almost 11 o’clock. Fuck. Two and one-half hours. And not even a sure thing. But I had to stop drinking the wine because she’d never come off with the script if I smelled like a boozer. I thought that I would try for both cough syrup and the pills. That would hold me until Monday.

I smoked a joint of the homegrown and walked outside. The rabbit cages were covered with snow again and I brushed them off and put fresh food inside the little bowl. I brought their water bowl into the cabin, popped the ice out if it, filled it with warm water, and brought the bowl back out. I looked into the hutch and realized that there was only one rabbit left. I decided to eat the last one. I pulled out the black and white bunny by the ears and put it down on the ground under my foot. Held it tight while I pulled out the .38 and pumped one bullet into its head. It jerked for a moment and then lay still. Slit it and cleaned it and pulled its skin off like taking a foot out of a wet sock.

Then I brought it inside and made some sauce for it to soak in. Usually I like to let it soak for a few days to improve the taste but I was out of food and didn’t want to waste money on food that I might need to cash the scripts. I’d cook it tonight if I was loaded. If I couldn’t get any drugs I wouldn’t be hungry anyway.

I looked at the clock. Almost half past twelve. I figured I’d pull out and go to the doc a little early. Maybe her first appointment wouldn’t show. Maybe I could just catch her going in and she would take me first. Maybe maybe maybe. Three miles of dirt road in the snow and seven of country highway. Good to get a start on things anyhow.

I grabbed my props: an old bottle of syrup from a previous script and a vial of pills with just the right run out date on them. I always could come up with them because I had a satchel of them saved just for this purpose. A lot of doctors would come right off with the drugs if they saw that another doctor where I used to live gave them to me. Chronic medical conditions. Bronchitus. Anxiety because of the respiratory ailments. I’d chain smoke non filters all day before the appointment and my lungs would sound like I was really congested.

I used to love it when I came down with a real bad chest cold because then I would travel all over the countryside making doctor after doctor. I could even get people to come and bankroll me on the scripts because they knew I was almost a sure thing. It always seemed funny to me how, when I was high, the doctors would come right off for me but if I was dope-sick, that’s when I would have the most trouble.

I was dope-sick. And I was nervous. I tore apart the dresser drawers just hoping to come up with a pill or something. I went through the satchel with all the Tussionex and Hycodan bottles to see if maybe I had left the wash in one of them. No luck. I guess I had gone through them and already done that. The thought crossed my mind that this seemed all too familiar.

I put the rabbit in the pan up on top of the fridge, got my hat and coat and boots on and grabbed the keys to the truck and crunched down the drive to the pickup truck. It cranked slow because of the cold but it kicked over and I rolled down the incline into the dirt road. I had snow tires on all four wheels and the back of the truck was loaded with sandbags so the going wasn’t too bad. I smoked a joint and then ate a lifesaver to kill the smell. I don’t know why I smoked the joint because all it did was make me more paranoid. By the time I got to the doctor’s office I felt like my head was going to explode.

I really wanted to smoke a cigarette to calm down but I didn’t want to walk in there stinking of tobacco, so I just took some deep breaths and listened to the phlegm in my chest rattle. It sounded great. When she put the stethoscope to my chest she was going to hear all the right noises.

I walked into the office. There was an old woman sitting there. Doctors that treat old people sometimes are easier to make than others. I nodded to the old lady when she looked up at me and then sat down and picked up a magazine. I flipped through the pages but I couldn’t keep my mind on the articles, because I was thinking of what to say to the doctor to get the drugs. My stomach was all nervous and I could feel it gnawing at itself. I had to urinate and I looked around for a bathroom. I didn’t see one and I hoped it wouldn’t be too long before I could go in.

The door opened and the doctor came out. She looked to be in her late thirties and wore brown glasses. Her hair was brown and hung loosely onto her shoulders with a little wisp over her glasses. The thought crossed my mind that I was glad that her hair wasn’t tied up in a bun. An old man followed her out of the office and the old woman sitting near me smiled at him and stood up as he walked over to her. My heart leaped in my chest. They were together and I was next. The old woman was just waiting for her husband to come out of the office. I saw the scripts in his hand and I wondered what the doctor had given him.

They all talked for a few minutes and then the doctor motioned me in. Good. No nurse. I chatted with her as she took my weight, my blood pressure, and my respiration and pulse. I looked as she charted my blood pressure and I was happy to see that it was elevated. That always helped me get the pills.

She got up and left the room for a minute and I looked around to see if there was anything worth taking. Then she quickly returned. I told her how my chest was all congested and I had trouble sleeping at night with all the coughing.

“This happens to me every winter. Maybe I should move south. I don’t know. I just like the change of seasons.”

“Maybe you should quit smoking,” she said.

“Well, I’ve cut down a lot. I only smoke a few cigarettes a day.”

“You should quit altogether.”

“I’m planning on it soon. I haven’t smoked yet today.”

“I smell cigarettes on your clothes.”

“Oh, yeah. My wife is a heavy smoker. It would be easier for me to quit if she didn’t smoke so much.”

“I see. Well-” she paused.

I held my breath. My props were in front of her. My heart felt like it would pound out of my chest and my stomach felt like it was full of ice-cold water.

She pulled the prescription pad out and I watched the pen move. Yes. Yes. Yes. She wrote for the Tussionex. Only four ounces but I didn’t have to share it with my wife because she was in treatment so it would be enough. She wrote for an inhaler. Screw the inhaler — I would trash that scrip. And she wrote for the Klonopin. The benzo’s are great opiate boosters and my heart was dancing and leaping around in my chest. She pushed the papers to me and I folded them up and put them away quickly. I was afraid the doctor would change her mind at the last minute.

She made out the bill and I paid part of it and told her that I would mail the rest of it in. She took down my address. I always paid part of the bill if I had the money because it was better in case I went back there again. I could pay it off then and owe a whole bill next time. If a doctor kept writing I would keep paying. If they didn’t write I wouldn’t pay at all.

I left the office and drove over to the pharmacy. I hated this part. Some pharmacists were real assholes and would do their judgment thing and say they didn’t have the drug in stock just because they didn’t want to give it. I pulled into the parking lot, turned off the truck and got out. I took a deep breath and walked into the store.

The pharmacist had grey hair and his glasses rested down on a bump in the middle of his nose. The counter woman came over and I handed her the scripts. She asked me for my address and wrote it on the scripts. I hated when they did that if they didn’t cash them because then you had to take it to another pharmacy and the evidence was there that one pharmacy had already turned you down.

She walked them back to the guy and he looked at them for what seemed to be an eternity and then he started to type. He walked to the back and I saw the yellow thick liquid in the Tussionex bottle. He shook the bottle. I feel as if I might have said something if he didn’t shake the bottle because it says that the active ingredients settle to the bottom and to shake it before you take it on the prescription instructions. He poured and it came out slow and I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. I heard him shake the pills into the dispenser and then he finished typing and he handed the two packages to the counter woman.

She called my name.

I can’t describe the feeling when you walk out of the drug store with the stuff in your hand. It is like the whole world is yours and you got over on the best of them. I wanted to dance out of the store but I just walked. I strolled over to the coffee shop next door and took that piss that I had been holding since the doctor’s office and then ordered a coffee to down with the pills and the medicine. The hot coffee pumps the drugs into your system and there’s nothing so good as the cigarette with your coffee after the medicine slides down your throat. Then the high comes on.

I looked around the parking lot to see if anyone was watching. No one seemed close. I threw three 2 milligram Klonopin into my mouth and lifted the Tussy jug to my lips. I held it up until the last of it spilled into my mouth. Put the cap back on it and stood it upside down on the seat for the residue to drain into the cap so I could suck it out later. Lit a smoke and sipped my coffee as I decided what to do next.

I figured that I would visit my wife. That was my first mistake.

Right away she could tell that I was high and was pissed off that I didn’t save her any. I told her that I still had Klonopin to give her but that wasn’t good enough. She started yelling at me and the people at the treatment center told me that I had to leave and she said she was coming with me and that I better have another croaker all lined up for a script so she could get high too. I just wanted to enjoy my high and all hell was breaking loose and I knew that it was going to be a big hassle to cop for her and she would bitch the whole time there until we got it. I wished she would stay at the treatment center and I wished I hadn’t gone to see her there but it was too late now.

I don’t know how I always keep making these mistakes over and over again.

They told her that if she left with me that she couldn’t come back and that if she stayed they didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to come any more. I knew that if she stayed they would try to turn her against me and tell her that she should find another place to live, so even though I wanted her to stay I told her to come with me.

I was high and so I knew I would be at my best now for making doctors.

She threw her shit in her bag and we blew out the door of the treatment center. She ate two Klonopin as soon as she got into the truck and made me buy her a beer to wash it down. We stopped at a phone booth and looked in the book for another doctor. There was a doctor in Brandon and I called him and he said that he had one appointment left and could I get there by 4:30. I said yes and let her drive so I could dig my head.

She bitched at me for the entire ride. I chain-smoked and nodded while she talked.

Finally we pulled into the parking lot. The office was in an old colonial house and I went in. The waiting room was empty. He came out and beckoned me in and I laid my rap on him. He took my vital signs and listened to my chest. He thought it sounded terrible and wrote me a script for four more ounces of Tussionex and gave me one of those garbage inhalers and some antibiotics.

We raced to the drugstore because sometimes in these little hick towns in Vermont they close real early. I filled the antibiotics with the cough syrup but I threw away the script for the inhaler. I had learned that those inhalers cost a lot of money from past experience.

I got back out to the truck and I told her that I was going to do one ounce of the syrup because I went in to make the croaker and did all the work and she complained but there was nothing she could do about it. I ate two more pills and did a heavy ounce and then let her do her three and she drained the bottle and took a few more pills.

I took over the wheel after we had coffee. We were turning into Route 7 heading into Rutland and I heard a screech of brakes and this guy almost hit us as we came onto the main highway. Then the creep starts riding my ass. I just hadn’t seen him and it wasn’t my fault and he was beginning to piss me off so I turned around and flipped him the bird. He had an older woman in the front seat and someone was sitting in the back seat too.

My wife said to let it slide but the dude was riding our ass real close so I slammed on the brakes just for a second and he came up on me and freaked because he though he was going to hit us and he locked up his brakes and his car spun sideways as I hit the gas and pulled away laughing like a loon.

He was on us again like maggots on garbage. Coming real close and looking real grim when I peeped into the rear view mirror. We were coming into town and the lights on the highway were green. I saw that the light by the Mobil gas station by one of the main roads into the shopping section of town had changed to orange and he was still coming up on us so when I stopped I looked into the rear view mirror and I saw him ripping out of his car with a crow bar in his hand and he looked like this giant woodsman over six feet tall and I knew that we screwed the pooch.

I figured I’d have as much chance as a pigeon in a wolf pack if I went physical with this Vermont mountain man and I was so frightened that my bowels felt like they’s been turned to oil. I hit the gas and turned the steering wheel and flew through that Mobil station like it was an interstate. My wife yelled at me as we pulled out into the adjacent roadway as an oncoming car swung wildly around us blaring on the horn and I told her to “just shut up” and she did. The guy chasing us jumped back into his car and was on us again.

He had anger fueling his jets but I was running for my life so I had some edge on the creep. The light turned red ahead and I flew through it like it was bumper-car city and pulled a sharp right with my wheels screaming for mercy. Looked back. Heart pounding. Debbie yelling at me. The guy was coming but he’d lost a little ground. The thought of the gun back at the house ripped through my head and I knew just why I never carried it with me anymore.

Red light ahead. Cars stopped in my lane. Debbie screamed as I crossed the line into the oncoming lane and took a left through the traffic. Horns blowing and the screech of brakes and I didn’t look and I hit the gas and the stores and people were flying by the truck in what was once the quiet streets of Rutland. I looked back for a second and didn’t see him. I kept going making rights and lefts and found myself in the residential section of town.

I slowed the truck down and my head and heart was still racing. Time to head home. I felt like my head from the drugs was almost gone but I figured that if I ate some more pills that it would creep back. So I did.

The next thing I remember was we were back at the house and the rabbit was in the wood cook stove. I had a glass of wine in front of me and Debbie was rolling a joint and talking about calling the detox tomorrow to see if she could get back in. We nodded out and the rabbit burned all on the outside and we picked away the burnt flesh in the morning and cut up the meat that wasn’t burnt and ate it for breakfast. It was one hell of a good rabbit.

Debbie called the detox and they said the only way she could come back was if I didn’t’ come there to visit or call her. She decided to go and I dropped her off at Scatterberry Farm.

The next day, sick and shaking, I checked into St. Dismas House and that put another forty mles between me and Debbie. They had to medicate me heavily for about five days so I wouldn’t have a seizure.

I was still being withdrawn slowly from the Klonopin and I had been at St. Dismas House for seventeen days when they called me into the office. My counselor was there and they told me that they had something important to tell me and they sat me down. I knew it was about my wife.

I was right. They said they had to tell me that my wife had left treatment this morning. She left with someone else. Another guy.

I felt like my whole world spun into black holes and I got dizzy and didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run. I wanted to get high. The counselors talked to me for a while and I don’t remember much of what was said but my throat hurt all the time they were talking.

They kept talking and then gave me an extra dose of medication and they said that I could stay an extra 21 days because they thought I needed it. I said I would stay.

My wife and the guy had rented a small place in Ludlow and after eight days the police came and picked him up for violation of parole because he was court committed to the treatment center as a condition of release. They lugged him back to prison.

Debbie started coming around to St. Dismas House and asked me if I would go back with her. The counselor there said he thought I should go into a halfway house and keep away from my wife for a while. He started the process to get me into a halfway house that was affiliated with them. Right before the interview for the house I left treatment and moved back in with my wife but things just didn’t seem the same.

Three days later I cashed a refill for some Klonopin and then went to a doctor for some Tussionex. We didn’t have enough money to fill the script so we pawned the guy’s tools that he had left in the garage behind the apartment house. On the way back I was too messed up to drive and sideswiped a chain link fence. A section of it came down and my wife took over the wheel and we sped away before anyone came.

Two days later when my retroactive disability check came I went to a doctor to get another script and he said that the pharmacy had called him and that I had been going to doctors all over the northern part of Vermont to get narcotics and everyone had my name. He told me if I ever came back again he was going to call the police and I was through around there. He was still yelling at me and I gave him the finger as I left the office.

Debbie and I went to a bar and had a few drinks so we could think straight and we decided to move to South Carolina with the $9000 we had. This way we could start fresh and make a new life for ourselves. That night we loaded the truck with the stuff that we wanted and left for South Carolina at sunrise. I was starting to get dope sick so we stopped in the Great Brook Valley Projects in Worcester to buy some heroin so we could make it into New York City. We figured we could get enough heroin in New York to hold us for the entire trip.

The stuff we got in New York was so good that we stopped in a motel just past Washington DC and didn’t leave the motel until the dope was all gone. We started hitting doctors in the small towns on the way down. Once Debbie fell asleep at the wheel on Interstate 95 and we scraped a cement bridge and the truck spun around on the highway but nobody hit us. I took over the driving.

When we got to South Carolina we found a place to rent really fast and it was a lot cheaper than up north. We were really excited as we moved into the new place and I went to a small medical center and got a script for Tussionex and Klonopin and we celebrated that night.

I fell asleep with a cigarette and when I woke up the couch was smoking and I could barely see. I opened the windows and the door and poured water on the couch. I fell asleep next to Debbie on the bed with my clothes on and that night I had a dream about being in a church. The church was empty except for me and I woke up crying. The crucifix was upside down and there was a pool of blood beneath it with a bent motorcycle wheel in a slow spin.

The Disappearance of Heroin

Posted by le garage

Well, heroin isn’t exactly gone however, it’s not exactly true “junk” either. This Fentanyl thing has crept into the scene and seems to have overpowered life on the ‘nod’ side. As an old time junkie, who hasn’t used for over a decade, ,the kill rate of this new not-junk thing, is kind of terrifying. I mean, who would want to relapse after many years in abstinence, if you couldn’t find real heroin. I hear of people taking a shot and then blacking out for a few hours, then waking up when it’s time to trundle off and get some more. Really, if you can’t enjoy the high, what’s the sense in it? If all your friends are taking the big “dirt nap”, well that’s kind of a drag. In the beginning, way back in 1964, I remember the time that Joey Marantino and I went into the Newark Projects in the hellish state of New Jersey. We only had enough money for one dime bag ($10), and we were sweating it because we usually buy one bag a piece. But as things go with junkies, we were broke and lucky to have the gas money to make it to Newark.

We saw the guy who we usually buy from, made the deal, and headed to the gas station, where we always go to shoot up. Grudgingly we split the bag. After we cooked it up and prepared it, we shot it. The next thing we remembered, we were picking ourselves off of the floor of the bathroom. We were lucky that we couldn’t afford a bag each. If we had shot a whole bag, we would have been dead. But back then, it was heroin and we could count on that for the most part. Never fentanyl. Sometimes, if we got beat, ( mistakenly bought a bag of chalk or flour) we would know it as soon as we tried to cook it up.

I used heroin for over three decades and for most of that time, I never wanted to stop using. My first detox was in Alice Peck Day hospital near Lebanon, New Hampshire. I left on the third day. I remember arriving and laying down on the bed and then the resident came in and handed me a schedule full of meetings for the next day. I was a bit taken aback and said, “All I need is a detox and some bed rest. No meetings please.” Then, when I found out they didn’t give methadone for detox, I knew I wasn’t going to stay. My wife Sascha had dropped me off and I had no vehicle, otherwise I would have left right then. My wife called me the next day and told me she had picked up our paychecks from the New Hampshire State Hospital where we worked as Mental Health Technicians. The checks were big due to all the overtime we had worked during a two week period. I told her to pick me up the next day and we would go to cop some dope. Back then we had real heroin, which was truly a gift in my insane thought pattern. Now, even after being clean for so long, every now and then I get the urge to go out and buy some junk. However, all there is around here, in the Boston area, is fentanyl which I have no urge to use. So the presence of fentanyl and the lack of true heroin is quite a deterrent to me. Heroin is my drug of no choice for sure.

Of course, in the way back of the 1970’s, opium would sometimes arrive when I lived in New Hampshire. It would come shaped like a tootsie roll with paper and Chinese lettering around it. I loved to eat opium and then have a cup of hot coffee to rush it through my system. When one eats opium it creeps up on you over the period of an hour or so and the arrival of the feeling is quite nice. I always worry, even in my double digit sobriety, what would happen if I ran into some real opium. I don’t know if I would have the wherewithal to turn it down. In the parlance of recovery jargon, I guess that means I have a reservation. Usually the reservation is for a place in hell but the journey, lies my monkey mind, would be quite pleasant. Addiction is the illness with a voice. The one thing I can count on is that “this monkey is a liar,” a phrase that I have used in poetry and in my story called “Getting Fixed In South Carolina,” which is sometimes available on a CD or a download. It is performed by the Jeff Robinson Trio, a great jazz band, who also wrote the music. Believe me, it does not glorify the life. You could probably find it on-line somewhere.

It would probably be easier to find that CD than to find real heroin around here. This fentanyl is lethal. From my experiences in San Francisco in the 1980’s, where Fentanyl was called China White, the high was never as good as real heroin. Additionally, it’s much easier to shuffle off this mortal coil with a careless bang of fentanyl, which is really a synthetic narcotic. It takes Mother Nature to make the real thing. I’m not recommending anyone to go out and try it. I truly believe that narcotic addiction is a one way trip to hell whether or not you get to live through it. They call it junk for a reason, you know. And it will cycle back. It always does. Actually heroin came by the name junk because, in the way back, junkies would strip the copper pipe out of abandoned houses and sell it to the metal man as junk for money to score dope. It also has the nickname “dope” because if you fall for the false promise of heroin then you become the dope you shoot.

Sorry about that. No insult intended. I just don’t want anyone to fall for the illusion that took me down that long road. I was one of the lucky ones. I lived through it. At least, so far. Like my doctor says, “just because you don’t want to pick up, doesn’t mean that you won’t.” And he has wisdom that doesn’t come from my monkey mind, for sure.

Addiction: The Illness That Talks

Posted by le garage

After more than three decades of heroin addiction, I was on my way to detox again. I had been to at least 40 or more detoxes, some of which I completed and some of which I bolted out the door before they wanted me to, or as they call it “A.M.A.— Against Medical Advice. Addiction is like that. I’m sure that my monkey mind had come up with a good excuse to ‘take it on the run baby,’ however, as one of my friends always used to say to me, “That’s probably not a good idea,” He said that to me very often. Well, I was on my way into a detox in West Boylston, MA, in March of 1994. I had two bags left, and stopped in a gas station to bang them up because I didn’t know how long it would be before they dosed me. Actually, that was just another excuse for getting higher.

When I arrived there, I was counseled and asked if I would complete a rehabilitation that they had, which meant that I would be there for two weeks after they stopped dosing me. I’d be going to relapse classes, meetings, etc. My counselor was a wonderful woman who had been my counselor previous times there. This was my 9th or 10th time at this particular detox. I was comfortable for the first couple of days and then they drastically reduced the methadone they were administering to me. Life is like that. You can’t get out of an addiction to opiates painlessly, no matter how hard you try. Finally I was reduced to nothing but my regular psych drugs for PTSD, Major Depression & Severe Panic Disorder. I don’t know what came first—the mental illness or Chasing the Dragon, as they call using the junk.

Finally I had an appointment with my counselor and she asked me, “What are you going to do different this time?” I looked into her eyes for a bit and then tears welled up in my eyes. You see, I was thinking that I was caught on this treadmill and nothing would happen upon my release but the same old thing. I was honest with her and told her I thought that I was just in for another tune-up. She smiled easily at me and said, “A tune-up! Tell me Marc, how long has it been since you blew the engine? It’s been a while, eh.” At this point I was feeling pretty hopeless. And then my counselor starting telling me my story. She asked if I remembered the motorcycle accident that took place in South Carolina while I was on a drug run at 2am in the morning? And then she told me the truth. I had told her the events of that story and how I was unable to walk after the accident. They started sending me to physical therapy and I hated it because it wasn’t easy and it was painful even though I was on a methadone clinic at the time. I told my physical therapist that I just couldn’t do it anymore. My physical therapist asked me a question. She said, “Marc, how badly do you want to walk again?” I really wanted to walk again. My P.T. said, “Marc, to be able to walk again, you’re going to have to do things you don’t want to do, over and over again. Or you can choose not to walk again.”

It was kind of a no-brainer. Of course I was going to do those things I didn’t want to do, over and over again because I really wanted to walk again without crutches and braces on my legs. So, over a period of one year, I did the work. My counselor, at the detox looked at me and asked me, “Marc, how badly do you want to stay Clean? This is the same deal as learning how to walk again. You’re going to have to do, every day, things you don’t want to do, over and over again. Like you’ll have to go to support groups or meetings every day, sometimes three times a day. You don’t have to like it at first. But I’ll tell you that, in the end, when you stay clean, you’ll begin to get gifts back in your life. Probably more than you can imagine at this time. I know, from past experience with you, that your “monkey” talks a good game. It’s not a matter of arguing with this monkey—you’ll need to overcome it with facts that it will try to deny.” At first I couldn’t see the connection with learning how to walk again and staying clean but then it hit me like a newsflash and tears ran down my cheeks. This was the beginning of my rude awakening.

I walked out of her office with a lot on my mind. Then, later, I was making aftercare plans on their telephone and the people put me on hold. I waited 30 seconds, then a minute, then my mind said, The hell with this and I went to hang up the phone. Suddenly a thought came like a bolt out of the clouds in my head. The thought asked, “If this was the dope man and he put you on hold, how long would you hang onto the phone?” I realized that, if this was the dope man and I was trying to cop, I would hang onto the phone so long that a spider could spin a complete web between the phone and my ear!

This was a total revelation and it was the beginning of fighting back against my addiction. I held onto the phone and was able to arrange for aftercare. Of course, this was just the beginning of that long road but I had become willing! This was how my Recovery began. My addiction was talking but I was talking back. And I did do things I didn’t want to do until, suddenly, I realized that my life was coming back to me. I knew that old monkey was a liar. I realized that “Addiction only remembers what it needs.”

Tales Of Inner City: From The Books of The Keepers

Posted by le garage

The Farm is nestled in the hills of scenic Merrimack Valley. It is honeycombed with semi-sealed tunnels where the vicious Merrimack Mongeese are raised. They are tended to by bipedal lizards known as dragons by the population at large.

These dragons are hopelessly addicted to the bone marrow powder of the mongoose. Incisions have been made on their necks into which tubes have been inserted into the main vein. Two liter skin sacs have been surgically grafted on to their scaly shoulders. These sacs contain potent solution of powdered marrow and it is constantly released into their blood flow.

The Dragon Keepers are entrusted with the care and feeding of the Merrimack Mongeese. Their lives are always at risk due to the vicious nature of these animals. The Dragon’s loyalty is insured by their addiction and the potential for them to become Chief Tenders. This is a cosmic state that can be achieved by only 1% of those who ingest the precious solution. More on this later.

“from the books of Tending: Births of Major and Minor Queens—by InsectO-War”

Dreams, Dragon-child of the sinister Insect-O-War, slipped through a minuscule crevice. A faint mewling sound eerily made patterns of fear in his flickering eyes. He widened the gap on his flow tube. The sudden influx of marrow cleared him. He probed with scaled phalanges through the inter dimensional mesh; made contact and gently pulled.

Greenspur tingled with the touch. There was a moment of indecision and then she responded, her scales glowing. As they stared at each other, Dreams motioned for her to raise her flow. Unwittingly, she opened it to maximum. Greenspur swayed with dream punch! Dreams quickly enfolded her as she went deep. He tried desperately to close her flow tube. Too late, too late.

She became solution, eyes aglow with visionary light. Dreams knew Greenspur had passed the Veil. And just then, a flock of mongoose entered the catacomb. Dreams began the chant of Passing, in the fervent hope that he could prevent their Spirit-loss as the flock approached with malevolent intent. A gentle humming suddenly filled the chamber. The mongeese paused, then stopped. Still standing, they began to croon; they offered their marrow. Dreams stared at Greenspur. She flickered with the White Light. The mongeese lay down in front of her. A new Chief Tender had been birthed!

“The Breech: First Stages—by the Destroyer, Queen sister of Insect-OWar.”

A dense fetid mist rose out of the multiple sewer pipes which extended into the streets of Innner City. Inner City, the final distribution point of the Marrow, was quiet. It was three hours after the midnight.

Tracks, an Inner City trafficker in the powder, was waiting for a major drop. He reduced his flow-tube to a trickle to maintain a state of steady-sickness in order to facilitate flight through dimensional walls, if necessitated by the appearance of the infamous Wart-Hogs.

The Wart-Hogs were the Dream Police whose avowed goal was to rid the world of the Marrow by tracing it to its source and destroying the mongeese. This would alter both time continuum and the entire fabric of space irrevocably. The Dragons would have no more reason to time-slip, which would mean the end of the world, as we now know it, that is.

Molecule movement commenced. There was wind, a shimmering light, and a Keeper stepped into the alley with a sac of powdered Marrow. Tracks handed him the Sacred Meat and 40,000 gold drachmas. Another shimmering, and the Keeper faded.

Tracks moved into shadow with the sac, dimension-slipped into the Cutting Room and, with a sigh of relief, turned up his flow. He began to drift.

“Insect-O-War: Spinning The Wheel”

Dimmer flicked the tracer on as Tracks began to dimension-slip. A gossamer reality thread trailed off and Dimmer clicked his mandibles gleefully, then radioed home base for an assist. His partner, Cold-Shake, immediately pulled up. The motor on his D-cruise, a high tech slipper, was humming. Dimmer slipped the side-rail and they followed the tracer. They homed in on the Cutting Room.

Tracks, unaware of the closing Wart-Hogs, was traversing a heavy drift. Suddenly, the sensor flashed, signifying an unauthorized presence. Before Tracks could react (due to the drift his reaction time was delayed) the D-cruise shattered the Time Wall, entered the Cutting Room and sparkled to a halt. Suddenly, the room was full of airborne Marrow.

Unaware of the drifting powder, Dimmer and Cold-Shake leaped from their vehicle and snapped a collar on Track’s flow-tube. Tracks realized that, if he tried to slip, he would lose his flow-tube. He tried to cool out but the thought of being tubeless was too much for him. He would be a reptile without a solution. He breathed deeply and then it hit him—-Marrow in the air.

Dimmer flicked on the waver to call for a warrant and then—he began to flake. Dimmer and Cold-S. This was a serious and unique situation. A Cutting Room had been probed, which was unusual in itself, but to make things even stranger, two WartHogs had become addicts. Shit happens.

“Kaleidoscope Eye Bar Chronicles: by Insect-O-War”

While Dimmer and Cold-Shake remained in Dream-State, Tracks set the stage for a coup. He made incisions in the Wart-Hogs necks and inserted electronically controlled flow-tubes. He grafted two-liter Marrow sacs onto their shoulders and set the eclectro-monitors on 70% flow. This was the solution to all their problems.

Dreams, a powerful Keeper now, due to his relationship with Chief Tender Greenspur, surveyed Tracks handiwork and was satisfied. He offered Tracks thirty sacs of powdered Marrow and the Inner City trafficker primed his tube. He delayed the flow just long enough to be sick and he slipped back to Inner City for a meet.

The lights were tracing arcs on the walls. The hum of music webbed the atmosphere. The click of flow-tubes was all around him as he entered the Kaleidoscope Eye Bar. Dragons had glued themselves to dimension-blockers to keep from slipping through in Marrow hunger and their eyes came out on stalks when Tracks slipped in and did a heavy flow.

The room came alive with vibrating Dragons as, one by one, they made the connection. The potency was high. Some Dragons would never leave the bar again. No one would complain.

“Tales Of Communion: by the Destroyer, Queen Sister of Insect-O-War”

The blackness lifted and it was clear. Greenspur could feel the raw pulse of thought spinning through the mongoosian mind. She became as one with the flock. She felt their hunger for the Sacred Meat and she understood why their need must be fulfilled.

In the final stages of the addiction the Dragons become catatonic. The only thing they need to sustain life, of a sort, is the solution. They become the Living Meat. Parts of their flesh are sectioned off and become payment for the Marrow. It is the only currency they have left in the end states of the addiction. This meat is then combined with the regular mongoose feed.

Greenspur knew the craving of the meat by the mongeese. She also knew the intense pull of the powder. She knew that only the Chief Tenders were Dragons with mongeesian minds. Only a female could become a Chief Tender.

No male Dragon had ever survived maximum flow. Greenspur was stunned by the symbiosis, the parasitic nature of need on the part of the two species. It was a unique enslavement.

The mongeese sang to her. She hummed and twirled her flow-tube with wild abandon.

“Fixing The Beasts: by Insect-O-War”

The smell was rank. The two mascot mongeese were snarling and slavering. Their leashes were pulled taut. The green sinews of Greenspur’s forearm rippled with the strain of holding them back. Dreams slithered along beside her, nervously playing with his flow-tube. Tracks moved on ahead of them all, time and again apprehensively glancing back at the mongeese. The mongeese were in Meat Rage. If they broke loose, the closest Dragon would be the food for their habits.

A yellow-tinged Dragon stepped out of a darkened building and waved them on. Their pace quickened. Tracks disappeared into the doorway. Greenspur and Dreams waited. Tracks reappeared and waved them in.

The smell overpowered them all. The mongeese murmured with need.

The yellow-tinged Dragon turned his flow-tube to maximum and held his arm out to the mongeese. As they savaged the pure Meat of his arm, his eyes pinned and he smiled with the satisfaction of need meeting need. He had become the Meat.

Six other Dragons with yellow skin lay about the room. Dreams moved about, turning all flow-tubes to maximum-flow and slipped everyone in the room to the caverns of the mongeese. Their eyes were glowing in the darkness. The caverns hummed with animal sound. The Keepers moved back as the mongeese came forward to feed.

“A Direct Communique from Insect-O-War: In The Solution”

Here I sit under the influence of the mother-lode-mind-flaker. I see twisted spiders dripping green ooze from the walls of Abbey West. There are unidentifiable small creatures spinning helplessly in the webs, the sinister webs of their incommunicable reality.

Listen. Listen. I can hear these tiny trapped creatures cry out into the cavernous reaches of the tunnels while being sucked dry by the between dimension beings that spin lysergic acid webs. These creatures have no eyes yet they can see things that a reptile like me, the simple savage Insect-O-War, can never even begin to comprehend.

Are we not all strange scaly reptilian creatures spinning webs of our own making at warp-light speed while looking for our fatal connection, who sits, no doubt, in a quiet celestial barroom counting his gold drachmas from his last sale of the bitter-sweet solution to the problem which plagues us all. Feelings. Ah, yes, feelings.

I rotate my flow-tube counter-clockwise seeking the lethargic dream state that the powdered bone Marrow of the vicious Merrimack Mongeese produces. I ponder the after effects of the stuff whereby the walls of the dimensions become sticky and penetrable and reptiles like myself must purchase more and more to maintain a solid base within the dream world of Powers beyond. It is a one-way journey to the world of Under-Soil, the home of that great shifting galactic structuring of what is commonly misconceived as the real and known throughout the cosmos as Inner City.

Inner City. The home of the cosmic connection. The final distribution point for the powdered Marrow solution.

Listen. You can hear the clink of coins as the connection counts his gold drachmas. Watch! There is a reptile slithering his way. Look closely. Can you see the packet of Merrimack Mongeese powder in the connection’s hand? Can it be? It seems to shimmer in the glowing dusk light of evening.

Watch! Don’t even blink. They are making the exchange. Marrow flows to its object. Its object becomes its subject. We are all subject to the call. See the reptile. See him run. He is embarking on an endless journey. No beginning. Never-ending. For the reptile, the powder is the solution. It is the only solution. There are many ways to ingest it. There are many ways to die.

Welcome to Inner City.

Prey For Us by Geoffrey Neil

Posted by le garage

“Prey For Us: Priorities Intact Publishing, 8306 Wilshire Blvd., #7076, Beverly Hills, CA 90211, ISBN: 978-0-9850223-5-8, Available on Amazon.”

I was introduced to Geoffrey Neil’s wonderful writing because his first book, Dire Means, was about homelessness in Santa Monica, California where some extremely devious people tried to end homelessness through evil means. In that book, I met a woman named Morana Mahker, who was very skilled at both eliminating people and tracking their movements with
sophisticated technology.

IPrey For Us begins with Morana fleeing her last debacle where many people were killed. There is a one million dollar reward for information leading to her arrest. Believe it or not, this situation has very little to do with the events in this challenging story. However, Morana is at her best, dealing with a brilliant man who discovered how ancient Egyptians were able to move the giant stones that built the pyramids.

Just for kicks, dear reader, why don’t you Google Coral Castle and look into the life of an amazing man named Ed Leedskalnin who created Coral Castle in Florida. Now you’ll have some clues as to what this book, Prey For Us, is about!

Geoffrey Neil is one hell of a writer. This is his 4th book and he still kicks ass every step of the way with great characters. First of all, there is the previously mentioned Morana Mahker. Do not think you can mess with this woman; she will mess you up and kill you if she has too. If she doesn’t have to kill you she can still do you in, and you’ll love her every step of the way. Then you’ll meet her fair weather friend, Clay Thorner, who is, and I quote from the book, “a computer hacker and a gun enthusiast.” But can you trust him? Is he only out for himself? Is he always preying?

Another character is Thane Sykes, who is closely related, in the way his mind works, to Ed Leedskalnin of Coral Castle fame. Or did you not Google the guy when I first mentioned him? Let me make one thing clear. Geoffrey Neil, the writer, has no affiliation whatsoever with Coral Castle. Like most writers, he takes an idea that already exists and moves it into the reality of his fiction.

Thane Sykes has enemies. He’s had enemies for a long time, even before he became a reclusive miracle worker. Are his enemies deadly? Well, they are not as deadly as his newfound friend Morana Mahker. But who’s side is she really on? Who are the real heroes in this book?

The talents of Thane Sykes bring Morana and Clay into an uneasy alliance. Geoffrey Neil, the fearless writer, will keep you guessing throughout the book. I started the book two days ago and I’m already up to page 152 and I don’t want this story to end. Certain books are like that. F. Paul Wilson, famous for his Repairman Jack series, is a master story spinner and Geoffrey Neil is just that.

Did I mention the lawyer Waylon Snells? He’s much more than just a lawyer and he happens to hate Thane Sykes. They grew up together and Waylon was Thane’s nemesis all through school. There’s a lot of history there.

Prey For Us is a fantastic read. Once you start, you’ll find little time for anything else. The twists and turns will leave your head spinning. Morana Mahker’s strange and terrible history is part of the story. And here’s an extra for you. Go to http://gneil.co/sublairtour . I hope you can find your way out! I also recommend Geoffrey Neil’s wonderful book named Dire Means, which impacts on homelessness but in a way that will freak you out. All of his books are wonderfully frightening.

One Of The Tough Guys

Posted by le garage

R.I.P. Bill “Casey” Case

The forest all around us
as we smoked the joint
back in the way back

and Casey was yelling
into the ether, “Yahoo,
Mountain Dew” because

he was a mountain man
born into the wrong time.
Too late, too late the birds

sang; they knew he was out
of time. Casey was a big
man, muscled to the core,

worked as a house painter
when he worked, drank like
thirsty ground no matter

what bar he was in. “you don’t
tug on superman’s cape, you don’t
piss into the wind,” but he could

and did. If you stepped on his
toes at the bar, he would put
you through the window, if there

was one; flagged from every bar
with a window he was. There
were other tales of Casey

I could tell you; he messed with
the devil drugs; do I have to
name them? We were in

my car, his strong arm on the
back of the seat, probing with
the needle to find the elusive

vein; the police parked down
the street and we all scattered
like the wind; Casey was gone

and now he’s really gone. Casey
was older than me; wasn’t afraid
of anything. But when age catches

up and the scars of the old life
take their toll; who can blame him
for deciding to opt out? Swollen with

Hep-C, with warrants to send him to
steel and stone for six months in
the heat of Florida with a body

that he could no longer control and
a mind that knew the truth. No one
can cast the stone unless you were

in his soul to feel his pain. So he
took it upon himself to decide his
fate and when the police came to

take him away, Casey was already gone
and no one could bring him back
unless God gave him another chance

in a new body, in a new place, in
a new time, raised up by new spirits.