Double Strength

Thomas Prior

Sometimes one pot, just isn’t quite enough. Put another on the brew stove and call up DJ Raincicle to deliver me an eighth. Because that’s how you get ready for a moment of brilliance. You get your effects, your props, the rituals for your hecatomb, make sure all of your tabs are well enough watered, because one thing you do not want is distraction, and the only way to rid yourself of distraction is to satisfy it. That’s why it takes so much time to be an artist. Because our brains never stop crying out for the never ending stream. And the only way forward is to bash our brains against it, even though it is stronger than anything in the world. It has to devour you while you devour it. You must digest it, until you have no choice but to start spewing, and flying with the sharpness of purpose, which means of course that you may never doubt yourself again. Even while trudging on plateaus, you cannot stop. Till death shall we remain linked by the true marriage, always fixed by the wayward eye which is the soul. The guiding eye which is the holy ghost. The brilliant introspector which is the examined life. Making out with lived through revelations. Setting record to the files of our time by burning matches in a dark yet lively room. A few drops on the  sober mans’ tongue and he is sunk into the divers’ depths of life. An inhale’s squeeze from the radio’s transmission and a heart monitor’s bucking like ‘Lightning, the craziest bull in Kansas.’ Put a quarter in the machine, and listen as the robotic arms inside glide to retrieve your little treat. Take a look in the mirror, at that pampered piece of flesh, and think, “My god what I could do with a pair of scissors.” Glaze over the shades waxing through your constant daydreams. Pick a raft out among the river of souls and sail that barge into another depression slump. Because there is a pearl in that gut gulch. Dropped to bend space time. Revealing a shimmer between plateaus. In a live breath, recorded through observation, untouchable, like the flotation of my stomach suspended in a tailspin. When all of your atoms pull apart enough to poke a finger through, that’s when you will witness your true reflection, and within that comprehension may you prick a morsel of peace from the face of God.

But while floating in that head zone one must remember that balance is a critical component to career success. The base chakras must firmly link to Earth and the cranial chakras must firmly link to the heavens. Both of these groups must firmly link with each other. It is like a rail line of energy. One weak link and the whole train wrecks. It is critical to constantly have brakemen on duty as erosion is a fact of life and delicate things need even that much more love.

I want to be the one who writes sentences for you. Because there is so much depth beyond your skin, the wet blossom to my quivering key. Your emotions, the puddles my bare feet like splashing through in the heat. Ignored in a storage dump archive of here was something put up to be discovered when the feeling I’ve been feeling calls out for connection. In this time alone, preparing myself for heroism through the doing of heroic deeds. A knowledge of King James tailors spurring me through crushing tombstone times. A light of life within my spiral. And me being a skilled enough mariner to recognize a lighthouse when I see one. Telling the boy to come take a look:

“Do you know the river song of phoenix sung?”

“Sir, somewhere it exists around here…”

“Look, it is there.”

And the boy realizes that there is something on this ship which has been hiding from us this whole time.

Avoidance

Skipping meals to code. Letting the hours keep slipping. The crick in my neck winding itself tighter. The majic becoming a crust atop its screen.

“The room smells like burnt leaves and poop!” she says, entering after a long day’s work. “And your breath is even worse!”

“Look, it’s not like I’m trying to ruin my grace, pulling at the healing vegetable as much as I do; it’s just that sometimes there’s a part of me which yearns; a part of me which pulls for a betterment and an ability for absolute ingestion. Consumption becomes an inhaling of power, an act of worship – seeking followers like the absent nutrients provided through poverty…”

“Don’t you think you should slow it down a little? I split it into days for a reason.”

“But the reasons are no good, to the man who says go and go and keep on going till you suck the pop right out of that balloon, and relieve that tension stretching in your skull.”

“Perhaps skulls aren’t meant for popping.”

“Perhaps its all that’s worth doing.”

“But what if you pop that skull, right there in front of me, and become something totally unrecognizable to me? How could I go on living with you living apart from me? I need my brother, I need my friend, my best friend. Going inside is just as bad as going out!”

“Darling, darling… I could pop your skull first if it would make you feel any better.”

“It would, oh you know so, but I prefer us both complete, and whole, and here, together. Lovers in Heaven; Adam and Eve, before the suicide…”

The Hues of Martyrdom

There is a thirteen pound bag of dog food waiting for us at home. We purchased it less than a week ago, from the only pet store in town, which is located over a mile away from our apartment, thinking it would save us money in the long run. I carried the awkward, corpse resembling, hunk over my shoulder the entire way home, engendering the required strength by imagining myself a mother wolf delivering a kill to its pack.

Musette’s mother Gina is on the phone telling Musette that pet stores are required to take back bags of dog food regardless of their state.

“You should call them and ask.” Musette says to me.

So I unholster my phone, in an act of getting done what will be done, following as closely as I can Henry Miller’s advice, completely surrendering, looking up the pet store’s number on Google Maps, and letting improvisation guide my performance. The associate hears my case and grants pardon for our purchase. But it takes me weeks to muster the motivation required to make the trip, and the instigation comes not from within but through a text message from Musette telling me that if I complete this task we will be rewarded with enough funds for me to purchase an eighth of seemingly long abstained from, poverty guarded marijuana.

I find the dog food bag fits inside of the faux-paratrooper backpack I purchased from the army navy store in Utah. I had purchased the backpack in preparation for my unfulfilled expatriatism in Mexico. There were actual paratrooper backpacks for sale there as well, but they were less comfortable, more complicated to operate, and duller colored – albeit righteously stylish, and signed by a potential haunting ghost.

Having the dog food fit inside my backpack allows my hands to be free which makes it possible for Charleston to come with me on this journey. It is the longest walk he has ever been on. I use Google Maps’ navigation service to ensure I don’t head East when I should be heading West. It guides me up a different route than the one Musette and I had walked originally, saying, “Turn right on Greyjoy.” and “Head straight on Twentieth Avenue,” depositing me finally at the back of the pet store, where a man stands next to the door, wrangling with a large German shepherd.

He tells an inquiring woman that the dog is actually a puppy:

“Can you believe it? They are the sweetest of dogs… He just met his bestest of friends inside, and now he’s super excited!”

The last thing I want is for him to try to make friends with Charleston. The man is gratingly, and ectoplasmicaly annoying. His dog pulls him around like he is a tassel dangling from the end of his leash. I have had bad experiences with German Shepherds, having been bitten multiple times as a child by a neighbor’s dog, which was dangerously under disciplined, and ill-contained within a homemade pen of two-by-fours. To be fair, I have been bitten by other dogs besides german shepherds; but the only other type of dog I specifically remember being bitten by is a doberman pinscher – which brings me to my opinion that most people are under qualified to harbor these large, weaponesque breeds, and in doing so are committing foul acts or irresponsibility, usually by sickeningly fostering the chimeras of over-compensation and fearful violence which bubble sinisterly in the gut flora of our nakedly pathetic species.

Through a combination of avoidance, speed, proper timing, and the German shepherd’s transfixation upon the inquiring woman, who is forced to validate the man’s claims regarding his ultimate sweetness, Charleston and I slip into the shop without incident. The place smells like dog and the floor is slick. Charleston slides and scratches. “Surely this was a choice of utility over comfort.” I think, sliding Charleston, like a skunk colored mop, past a woman who stands, holding a little dog in her hands, kissing its head.

An associate sees us, notices the size and age of Charleston. She scans the area, and tersely asks, “Can I help you?”

“Yes.” I say. “I have a bag of dog food here in my backpack which I would like to return.”

The associate abandons the task she was working on to sidle the checkstand. I remember her from last time. She has bright tattoos on her arms which I wanted to compliment her on, but didn’t, instead praising them later to Musette.

She had been more personable then, even going so far as to give us ten dollars off our purchase. Today I deal with an alternate incarnation who asks interrogative questions, wondering why I am returning the dog food and what type I am replacing it with. I give her the same answers I gave the associate over the phone, not telling her about that phone conversation though, believing it will have a beggarly, presumptuous effect, knowing however that it is my trump card should this interview go negatively.

“The money will be deposited back into your account within two to three business days; and good luck finding a food that works for your puppy, it can be tough.” she says.

Her raspy voice, which I fell head over heals for last time, has returned, making me want to deliver that tattoo compliment, or touch her cropped, strawberry blonde hair, or lick those freckles on her face, which I imagine continuing down her neck, spattering her chest, and sprinkling her upper thighs – if I am only so lucky to be in the presence of a true, American angel.

“Yes.” I end up saying. “Hopefully this gastro-intestinal stuff gets the job done.”

I exit through the front door, just in case that man is still waiting for Charleston to become his dog’s new best friend. The area is well populated. Everybody wants to pet my puppy. It takes me five minutes to walk five feet. But it is a less strenuous journey than the one I took getting here. My bag weighs thirteen pounds less and the path has flipped to the downhill version of itself.

When Musette comes home I tell her of my accomplishment. She is surprised at my fortitude, but says, “It’s good, because we could probably use the money right now…”

“What do you mean?” I ask, surprised that she is offering me this response instead of a marijuana related one. “Has an unexpected bill popped up?”

“Well…” She says. “I told my mom I would give her money so that she can buy a puppy.”

My brain starts ticking.

“I never got her a Mother’s Day present…” she continues. “And she wrote me a message today telling me how she found the perfect dog; but the money my dad gave her isn’t enough to cover the cost…”

“What type of dog is it?” I ask, struggling to appear unphased.

“A golden retriever.”

“I thought that she wanted a great dane…”

“Well, she’s always loved golden retrievers, and they are such good family dogs…”

“But don’t they require a lot of exercise?”

“She has had one before. And she always tells me how good of a dog it was.”

I ask her how much money she is planning on giving her.

“Two hundred dollars.”

I am nonplussed. Two hundred dollars is five times the amount of money I was planning on spending.

I have to struggle to keep speaking.

“That is so sweet of you to take care of your mom like that. I don’t really need the pot anyways… and you’re right, you didn’t get her a mother’s day present…”

“Really? You’re not mad at me?”

“How could I be? You are the sweetest child the world has ever seen.”

“You’re so wonderful!” she says, proceeding to log onto her computer in search of a means of instantaneous wire transfer.

The music from my radio intensifies. It deepens with the hues of martyrdom.

“This is what I need…” I tell myself. “It is what I truly want…”

“I can pick it up right away…” Says Gina, in regards to the withdrawal of our funds, in full submission to her shamefulness, being blasted by puppy love.

She hangs up the phone with the excuse of needing to finish getting ready. It is the last we hear from her for hours. Musette sends her text messages with no replies.

“She is probably busy dealing with the breeder…” She says.

Five hours pass before pictures of a white colored puppy, buckled into the front seat of Gina’s Astrovan, start rolling through Musette’s message log. They reveal a puppy more resemblant of a yellow lab than a golden retriever.

“The flash is washing everything out,” Gina says. “But he’s really more yellow than that.”

She is driving while talking on the phone which causes Musette to request a call back later.

“Ok sweety.” Gina says, with the pathetic sweetness of indebted gratefulness injected into her voice. “I love you honey.”

Much time passes.

“What’s the deal? It’s practically our puppy!” I say, complaining about the lack of updates.

“She’s clearly busy getting adjusted.” says Musette.

The entire night passes. It isn’t until the next afternoon that we receive a call.

“We decided to take him back.” says Gina.

“What? Why?”

“His hair was affecting our allergies. Mine and Vicky’s both. I couldn’t even sleep last night, my sinuses were so affected…”

She proceeds to corkscrew through this mire like a sycophantic pig. Witnessing her debasement brings a high more euphoric than two hundred dollars worth of pot could provide. It detaches a gasping giggle from my entrails. I have to excuse myself to the bathroom to pour silent mania into the mirror.

“I can deposit the money back into your account…” she says.

“No… No… You keep it, so that you don’t have to wait once you actually find the puppy meant for you.” replies Musette.

I can’t stop smiling.

“Thank you sweetheart… I know he’s out there waiting for me… This one was just too much like Blimpy… But I think I need another miniature schnauzer… that’s just the dog that’s made for me… you know? Oh you’re so sweet for helping me… Some things just don’t work out…”

“Just don’t stop looking, ok?”

“Oh, I promise I will sweetheart. Or I won’t… Whichever one is the right answer…”

The tragedy beneath Musette’s faltering ignorance, manifested in the form of a half smile, which glows my way after the phone call is over, levels the fizzing of my mind, and deposits me to a higher state of sanity.

“Some things just don’t work out…” she says.