Early Onset of Night

Moved

Michael Kindt — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 18:25:23 +0000

This blog will no longer be updated. WordPress simply lacks the community and interactivity I want–at least in my experience. Additionally, I fucking HATE HATE HATE internet block paragraphing and the WordPress posting interface practically forces you to use it.

See? Anyway, my blogging activity will be at the Early Onset of Night tumblelog, which is updated several times a day (and is fucking hilarious, by the way).

I still do have a WordPress blog, one that I set up with the publication of my book. It’s right here and will be updated every Sunday.

Asta La Bye-Bye to my first blog.

Michael Kindt

Other places I virtually am: Facebook, Twitter

Note to Self

Michael Kindt — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 00:13:31 +0000

(part one)

Monday, November 1st

12:57 pm

…………This feels stupid, not natural at all. I would never think to do something like this, but here I am doing it. My therapist suggested it. He said it would help me get in touch with my feelings. I just made air quotes around those words. Like this: “in touch.” He suggested keeping a journal or a blog.
…………“A blog?” I said to him. “Seriously? A fucking blog?”
…………“The feedback and interaction could be very valuable,” he claimed.
…………What a maroon. What an ignoranamous. “No dice,” I told him.
…………“If it’s a matter of privacy, I certainly understand. A journal, then.”
…………Whatever. I hate writing. This is easier, but like I said, stupid. I hate the sound of my own voice. I’ve heard it before, like on Christmas videos and shit, and am sort of freaked out by it.
…………I feel insane right now, which I suppose under the circumstances, is kind of hilarious. I don’t normally talk to myself. I don’t say, “Now where did I put those socks?” when I’m looking for socks. I think it. Like this: Now where did I put those socks?
…………I’ll get the hang of this, though. Weirdly, it feels good to be talking, even if it’s to no one, to myself. It’s like thinking out loud.
…………I don’t feel so alone.

1:22 pm

…………Called in sick to work today. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. It’s Monday and those always suck. It’s the first day of November, too, more or less the beginning of winter in my mind. I didn’t do anything but go down to the mall to pick this dumb thing up. November first and there’s already Christmas shit up. Man.
…………It’d be funny if I was doing this at work. If I was sitting in my cubicle talking to no one, just sitting there at my empty desk going BLAH BLAH BLAH. I wonder what that asswipe Dave would say if he walked by and caught me. Most of the people at work don’t know what to think of me. I hardly ever talk when I’m there, so I guess I don’t give them much to go on.
…………Ha. If they could only see me now.

6:40 pm

…………Note to self: Hit the button, hold the recorder up to your mouth and say, “Note to self.”
…………That’s how this is done, right? I saw a guy on tv or in a movie do that once. Note to self: Go to Taco Bell, return home, take epic dump. Feel the burn, baby.
…………Also, this thing feels like a walkie-talkie in my hand and when you’re done talking into a walkie-talkie, you say, “Over and out.”
…………So, over and out.

9:50 pm

…………Note to self: I just played back everything I’ve said so far and what a bunch of nothing. It’s just noise, vibrations in the air. The sound of trash blowing around in the wind contains more information. Am I supposed to play this for Elcock? It’s his idea, but I can’t imagine him sitting there with his legs crossed like a girl, listening intently to the sound of nothing coming out of a small plastic rectangle. Would he be scribbling feverishly in his little notebook, all trapped inside his forest green cardigan? Would he ask me to rewind certain parts?
…………Ha.
…………Whatever. I’ll keep doing it. I actually think I have the hang of it, even though I’m saying nothing. Sometimes I even forget I’m talking to no one. Also, I got eight beers in me, so I’m good and lubricated. Maybe I should actually say something.

10:03 pm

…………So I called Katie tonight around seven. Yeah. Not much there. She’s busy for the foreseeable future, busy not dating me.
…………We went out Friday the 29th to a Halloween party. Someone from my office threw a big one. Invited everyone, even me. Katie works for the law firm on the floor below. She’s talked to me on the elevator a few times. I thought she was nice, pretty. When I got the invitation I was determined to go with a date. Since everything with Hannah I’ve been determined to start dating. I thought of Katie first, simply because she was the most recent girl I was attracted to. She said yes, but that was about the only good part.
…………I rented an old timey black suit with an ascot, a chaotic white wig, and went as Beethoven. She went as a slut witch and, damn, she looked good. I wanted to fuck her so bad, but kept my composure and was a gentleman. When I took her home I wanted to kiss her, but before I could muster up the nuts to make the move, she said “Thank you,” shook my hand briefly, and went inside. I could hear the click as she locked the door behind her.
…………I was so worked up when I go home I headed downstairs to The Black Room, but didn’t stay long. Just long enough to get it all out.
…………I’m going to keep trying. Not with Katie, of course, but another girl. I want a normal relationship, not like with Hannah. If I can get that, maybe all this would change.
…………I know it won’t happen, though. I know I’ve gone too far.
…………So, yeah. Over and out.

Tuesday, November 2nd

8:23 am

…………Good morning. It’s about 8:30 and I’ve been up since about a quarter to. I’ve showered and had coffee. I also changed the honey pot in The Black Room, probably the most unpleasant thing about this whole unpleasant mess that is now my unpleasant life. Work at nine and a twenty minute commute, so I’m about to head out.
…………Thought of something last night while laying in bed tossing and turning and not sleeping. I can record other people with this thing. It might amusing. Note to self: Try to do that around the office today.

10:15 am

…………So here I am all ensconced in my cubicle. I was peaking over the top a second ago and saw that asswipe Dave heading my way, so I think I’ll try and capture something. Hiding this behind the monitor now.

…………“Hey, chief, they’re running low on paper clips over in accounting.”
…………“Running low on paper clips? How do they manage to go on?”
…………“Excuse me?”
…………“Never mind. I’ll take care of it.”
…………“Thanks a million, chief.”

…………Well, that was fascinating. Truly compelling. “Chief” he calls me. So accounting is running low on paper clips, huh? What a nightmare. They should all just wrap their lips around the barrels of shotguns and end it now and the paper clip crisis?
…………Solved.

12:10 pm

…………So, lunch.
…………I actually feel like I have an audience now, for some reason. Not just me talking to no one. Like there’s an actual “you” out there. Air quotes again. There’s nobody, though. I’m not playing this for anyone, I decided, not even Elcock. If he asks to hear it I’ll tell him to blow it out his well-adjusted therapist ass.
…………I’m in the little soup and sandwich shop on the ground floor of my building. I’m eating only soup, creamy southwestern chicken. It’s pretty good. Coffee as well. Katie eats here sometimes, but I don’s see her today. No matter. That little moment in the sun has clouded over.
…………The weird, self-conscious feeling I had yesterday when I started yakking into this thing is gone. I’m rocking it now. I’m in a crowded diner, talking away. No one’s looking at me. I don’t think anybody ever really looks at anybody else in this city. Other people are just scenery, background noise. That’s me, a prop in someone else’s movie: Random Guy At Table To Right.
…………So I know that “you” are on the edge of your seat as to what I’m going to say next. “You” are sitting there, eyes sparkling with anticipation, listening intently to my every syllable. Unfortunately, I’m going to disappoint you. The brilliance is over. I’m shutting this thing off so I can finish my soup. Then you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to compose a shopping list. We need food at the house. If you’re lucky, I may recite it to you later, so have your pencils sharpened and poised for note-taking. There may be a pop quiz on it later.
…………Over and out.

7:02 pm

…………On my first beer and feeling a little sick from the Taco Bell. It’s nice to have food in the house. I made a cheeseburger, wrapped it in foil, and took it downstairs to The Black Room, along with a bag of apples, jug of water, some treats like a Snickers bar and a couple of Cokes. Pro tip: put a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce in with the meat. Mix it right in. It adds good flavor to the burger and also keeps it nice and moist.
…………Relaxing now and actually feeling a little tired, but I know I won’t sleep much. I’ll get drunk and toss and turn and doze off for a few hours like every night. It’s ok. I’ve come to accept how this last month is going to go.
…………I vacillate like that, day to day, even hour to hour. I will think there’s hope, a way out, a way to make things different in my life, then I’ll be resigned to my fate. Back and forth. Last night I was feeling hopeful, remember? Talking about dating again.
…………Yeah right.
…………So, Wednesday tomorrow. I have my sessions with Elcock on Wednesdays. I leave the office at three and go into bullshit mode. He thinks I have an anxiety disorder, which is exactly what I want him to think. I lie and tell him I’m freaking out all over the place. Can’t cope with elevators, can’t cope with social situations, can’t cope with darkness, and, swell dude that he is, he prescribes me drugs. Wonderful central nervous system depressants. I’ve tried one or two and they’re good stuff. I’m stockpiling them in my underwear drawer for later, for when I really need them.
…………I wonder if he’s going to ask to listen to this?

12:17 am

…………It’s late and I’m out of beer now. Pretty drunk. Just got done watching porn on the internet and trying to keep myself out of The Black Room. I thought talking would help. Who knows, but here I am.
…………I remember when I used to be a happy drunk, like in college. It was fun and I did it to have a good time. Now I do it to just change things, make things different, tolerable. I wish I could drink at work. If I liked whiskey I could. Have a bottle in my desk or flask in my pocket. Beer is problematic because you need so damn much of it, fucking gallons of it. I can’t very well walk into the office with a case of beer.
…………“Morning, Sarah,” I’d say to our receptionist, who always looks at me weird. “How’s it hangin’? Long and low and lackin’ flow or hard and high and jabbin’ yer eye?”
…………What’s her fucking problem anyway? Why’s she always gotta look at me like that, like she doesn’t trust me? I’ve said probably ten words to her over the last year. She doesn’t even know me. Boy, howdy, she doesn’t.
…………So I’m pacing as I talk. Well, I was. I was walking all over the living room like a caged wolf, pacing back and forth. Somehow, though, I ended up here in the kitchen in front of the basement door.
…………It must be kismet. I guess I’m going down to The Black Room after all.

Interstitial

3:37 am

…………I woke from a dream. It was weird, but all dreams are. Calling a dream weird is like calling the night dark.
…………I dreamt I was back in college—at least I think it was college. There were no classes, only this single giant dorm. It was huge, almost a skyscraper. There were bars on the windows. It was like a prison, but you could get out. The prison exterior, bars, and drab, cinder-block look were only design elements.
…………I was given a small room about fifteen floors up. The room was really small , but I liked it. Some guide person showed me to it, then literally vanished. Everyone we passed on the way up the stairs appeared younger than me.
…………There was a lobby or student union type thing on the ground floor and I went down to it to use the bathroom because there wasn’t one in my room or even on my floor. When I got there, I was surprised to see that it was overrun with senile elderly people. The entire lobby, the whole ground floor it seemed, was covered in them. It was very creepy. Old, really, really old people wandering to and fro in pajamas and muttering bizarre, meaningless shit. They were even in the bathroom.
…………I went into one of the stalls and a crazy old woman was sitting on the toilet. Her uncombed white hair stood up at odd, wild angles and looked stiff, even plastic. She wore one of those hospital gowns that are open in the back. “Excuse me, please,” I said to her, but she didn’t answer. “Ma’am? Please?”
…………“I AM AN AMERICAN CITIZEN!” she suddenly screamed. This scared me and I went back out into the lobby as fast as I could.
…………I started going up and down suddenly empty halls looking for another bathroom, but was completely lost. As the minutes passed, I became panicked, even terrified. I was running through the halls now, my heart hammering in my chest.
…………Finally, I saw a young guy. He had a round, pleasant, chubby face and I sensed he could help me. “You’re obviously new here,” he said to me as I approached.
…………“Yeah. Where’s a bathroom?”
…………“A bathroom? Yes. I see you’ve discovered our infestation.”
…………“Infestation?”
…………“Much of the ground floor is infested with the elderly. We’re in negotiations right now with the authorities regarding extermination.”
…………“I see.”
…………“There’s one just down this hall,” he said, pointing. “About twenty yards, on your right.”
…………“Thanks.”
…………“If you want to meet me back here in ten minutes, I can give you a rundown on how this place works.”
…………“That would be great. Thank you.” I found the bathroom easily enough, but the urge to use it had gone away.
…………I decided to go back up to my room, forgetting about the young guy entirely, but instead of looking for the stairs I went outside and began climbing up the side of the building. It felt like a stupid idea while I was doing it, but I continued on. Soon, I was extremely high and unable to go any further. There was a ledge or something and I was stuck. I began to lose my footing and felt myself falling, falling, falling, even though I was still clinging to the side of the building. Sheer terror froze my blood and slowly, very slowly, I began to climb down. It seemed like I was climbing forever.
…………Next, I was back inside the building and going up the stairs, passing girls I had known back in college. On every landing I would pass one: Kara, Melissa, Denise, others. Sometimes I would pass the same girl a few more floors up, another Melissa for example. None of them recognized me and I pretended to not recognize them. They looked older than they used to back in college, but still seemed younger than me. Just before I reached my floor, which now seemed to be much higher up than the fifteenth, I woke up.
…………Right now, I am ice cold and covered in sweat.

Wednesday, November 3rd

7:40 am

…………Well, that was interesting. A fresh dream captured in digital audio, complete with new dream smell. My voice sounds pretty weird, pretty monotone, like I’m in a trance. Capturing dreams was one of the things Mr. Therapist said would be useful, all trapped in his forest green cardigan like he was. Why useful? I don’t know. Dream Journalling he called it. Is it a window into my subconscious? Is there such a thing as a subconscious? Is dreaming just my brain defragging itself so that it can run smoother?
…………Apart from “Wow, that was fucking weird,” I have never thought about my dreams before. Generally, I am so drunk I don’t have them. I was drunk last night, too, but that was one vivid fucking dream. In fact, it was horrible, a real balls-to-the-wall nightmare. I’m pretty sure it was about aging, about growing old. I was totally freaked out by and scared of the senile “patients,” or whatever they were. I was also disturbed to a lesser degree by the young people. Could it be that my birthday is really bothering me deep down? I turn 40 on the 30th. I actually found a gray hair in my beard the other week. Drank an extra 6-pack that night. Aging shouldn’t really bother me anymore considering my half-formulated, half-baked, and completely non-articulated plan, but whatever.
…………I need to shower and get my day started.

8:48 am

…………And the day is underway. Coming to you live from the modest confines of my red Toyota Corolla. Buzzing along the road and in the best mood I’ve been in for some time. Don’t really know why. I’ve come to accept that my moods are as arbitrary and beyond my control as the weather. This particular mood is called Pleasant Sunny Day. I could use a whole lot more of them. I didn’t even mind changing the honey pot this morning. Speaking of which, I’ve really got to clean up The Black Room. It’s getting pretty rancid down there. Tonight.
…………Wednesdays are my sessions with Elcock. I leave the office at three and my “hour” with him is from 3:45 to 4:30. Currently, we’re working on elevators. My project this past week was riding in them and coping with the resulting panic attacks. Between you and me, I’m totally fine with elevators, but Elcock doesn’t know that. Fear of elevators are part of my “anxiety disorder,” along with fear of public places, fear of groups, and on and on and on. I convince the guy I’m scared shitless of pretty much everything and BAM! Out comes the prescription pad. It’s fucking beautiful.
…………I’m wondering if I should try and smuggle this thing in and record one of our sessions. Forty-five minutes is a long-ass time, though, and, to be perfectly frank, a mind-numbingly boring long-ass time as well. I’ll think about it.
…………Over and out.

1:40 pm

…………Sitting here in the cubicle, playing solitaire on the computer. Still in a good mood. I got a lot done today. Usually, I’m not this productive at work. I deleted my Facebook, paid my bills for November, and canceled all my subscriptions to porn sites so they wouldn’t recur in December. That alone took almost an hour since I’m a member of almost thirty of them. I also checked the sales going on at Victoria’s Secret, Charlotte Russe, and a few other stores. Gonna do a little shopping tonight as part of the whole clean up The Black Room plan.
…………Busy, busy.

2:06 pm

…………Was just down getting coffee and saw a boss out on patrol. He had a folder with him and that usually means a stupid hand-out of some kind. He should be around here to my cubicle before too long. I got my computer switched over to work stuff and I took out a piece of paper and a pen, which I plan to be scribbling feverishly on when he pops in. Also, I’m going to try and record any conversation we might have. Actually, you don’t really have a “conversation” with a boss. Mostly you just sit there artificially apologetic as he expresses frustration or disappointment.
…………Anyway. We’ll see how it goes.

…………“Hello, Wilson. How are you today?”
…………“Living the dream, sir.”
…………“Heh. That’s good. Say, listen, are you aware that accounting is virtually out of paper clips?”
…………“I am, indeed, sir. It’s a tragedy that could’ve easily been avoided had I gotten the office stock transfer number from Dave.”
…………“Did he issue you one?”
…………“Actually, no, sir, he didn’t. He mentioned the horrible situation there in accounting with the paper clips running low, and I wanted to help. I said I’d take care of it right away, but I spoke too soon because he left without issuing me one. I guess we both forgot.”
…………“Well, it’s becoming a problem. I’d like it taken care of today. I’m quite serious.”
…………“I can see that you are, sir. I’ll get right on it.”
…………“Wilson, has anyone ever told you that your sense of humor might be inappropriate at times?”
…………“No, sir. Most people don’t mention my sense of humor at all because they are too busy laughing.”
…………“Heh.”

…………Ok. He shook his head and left. He seemed a little put off, the poor guy.
…………No hand-out for me, I guess.

3:05 pm

…………Note to self: Try to liven up beige office conversations more often with inappropriate humor.

4:36 pm

…………Just got done with Elcock. In fact, I’m walking through the Behavior Management parking lot as I talk. It was good a session. He’s quite happy with my progress regarding elevators. I suffered a setback at work today, however. A complete and utter panic attack—sweat, crying, racing heart, incessant checking of pulse, the works. I told him it happened at the little office get together we were having for Beth from marketing. It was her birthday, you see, and when someone at the office has a birthday we all duck into a conference room, sing a little song, and eat a piece of cake. It’s an office tradition that helps with bonding. At least, that’s what the pigfuckers in management learned at a seminar.
…………So this week Elcock wants me to work on social situations. I’m supposed to go out and purposefully get into one, and, as he put it, “deal with it.” Of course, you and I both know I have no difficulty with elevators or social situations. I’m just saying that to get my hands on central nervous system depressants.
…………God knows I need a therapist, a whole fucking team of them, in fact, a whole fucking team working round the clock 24/7, but not for anxiety. I’m totally sane in that department.
…………Here’s my car. Over and out.

9:17 pm

…………Home. I love home, especially after shopping or running errands. It’s like the outside world is this big giant game of tag and home is base. Home is where you can say, “Safe!” and the chaos has to stop. It has to because that’s the rules.
…………I’m safe here, at least if I stay upstairs. This is my one special place.
…………So, I went to Taco Bell, then the mall shopping. I got some really nice thongs and fishnets. A bustier-type thing. Also picked up some really nice perfume, something called “Mystique Amour.” It was on discount, but I thought it smelled sexy. Also grabbed a case of beer for me and some rope. I’m going to suck down a couple to get ready. Operation Clean The Black Room will soon commence.

5:20 am

…………The night went well and I’m totally exhausted, not to mention pretty drunk. Started off with The Black Room itself. Got all the trash out, scrubbed down the floor, changed the honey pot, clean sheets on the mattress, the works. Then I took down a bucket of warm soapy water and a sponge, also some shave cream and a razor. I’ve always preferred the Brazilian. After that, I took down some of the fishnets and panties along with the discount perfume. I was down there a good six hours and I’m utterly limp.
…………No sleeping after that.

Thursday, November 4th

9:45 am

…………At work, a zombie. Eyes feverish and heavy, pulling down on my face. I need sleep and have decided to skip out at lunch and go home to bed for a few hours.
…………Had four bosses pop in today already about “the paper clip situation down in accounting.” I assured them I was all over it like white on rice, but it’s going to have to wait. Too tired. Accounting will just have to grind to a halt amid the jumbled and loose pages.

6:51 pm

…………Much better. Slept from about one until just a few minutes ago, slept like a dead man, like a corpse rotting in the ground.
…………Now I’m starving. Off to pick up some Taco Bell.

9:30 pm

…………Home now and working on a 12-pack. We’ve eaten and I’m done doing things, I decided. Thought about going to a bar to practice social situations for Elcock, but I’m still dragging ass a bit. I think I’ll just lounge around here and jack off to the computer.
…………By the way, got an email from Mom bitching me out for not answering my phone and not coming to Thanksgiving this year. I wrote her a few days ago and told her I was going to be busy around Thanksgiving, really, really, busy, and wouldn’t be able to make it. She’s pissed. Tried to guilt trip me. Here, I’ll read it to you.

…………“William,
…………I am extremely disappointed in you lately. You haven’t returned any of my calls. In fact, I haven’t spoken to you since the end of August, the last time you and Hannah came for a visit. We used to talk almost once a week.
…………I’m also very sad that you won’t come for Thanksgiving. Grandma is really sad. She doesn’t understand and neither do I.
…………You know she is 84 years old and sickly. This might be the last Thanksgiving we have with her. I just think it’s really shitty of you to do. You’re a grown man. You shouldn’t act like this.
…………Call me if and when you want, I guess. I’m done.
…………Mom”

…………Over-dramatic much there, Mom? I should write her, give her some bullshit to bide time with, but…nah. I’ll let her twist. She’s right, though. This is the last Thanksgiving, for everything.
…………Over and out.

Interstitial

3:25 am

…………I woke from a dream, a twisted fucker full of memory. I was young in it at first, early teens, and I could see my own face. My hair was parted on the side and longish, the way I wore it in those days. I was outside, walking through my old hometown, but it was different, very different.
…………There was something wrong with the night. It wasn’t exactly dark. A grayness saturated everything, even the air, it seemed. It was black and white out, and normally I only dream in color. I was walking and everything was abandoned. All the buildings were empty, boarded up, ramshackle and aged and caving in. All over the ground were skeletons. Rib cages, skulls, pelvises, femurs—pieces of skeletons, actually. I had to watch my step constantly or I’d trip. I was going down main towards the old hotel my grandparents used to own back then.
…………When I got to it, however, it looked like a prison. There were bars on the windows instead of boards. The door, however, was hanging and loose, rotting on its hinges. I pushed it open and entered. I was older now, no longer a kid, with the shorter hair I’ve worn since college. The lobby was empty and I could see the brown wooden floor. There were no skeletons on it. The lobby was dark, a normal dark, unlike outside, where it had been both dark and light at the same time, making a weird soft gray. I could make out the shadows of furniture, but not much else. The brown of the floor was the only color and I noticed it, noticed how there was some color now.
…………I heard music coming from upstairs, people talking, the sounds of a party. To my immediate right were the stairs leading up to the second floor. The stairs were maroon: another color. When I was young they were maroon, too, maroon and carpeted. The lower stairs were muted, a soft, subtle maroon, but grew brighter as they went up, until, near the top they were blood red. They hadn’t been like that when I was young, of course. I started up, going to the party. As I rose, I noticed a light at the top of the stairs, which got stronger and brighter with every step until it filled everything, the whole world.
…………It was like the light those people who die for a little bit see, an enormous, all-encompassing but friendly light. I believe that shit, too. I don’t buy that it’s just brain activity, the firing of fading neurons. I’m in no way religious, but I know that life is energy, powerful energy, and it doesn’t just go away or end. Conservation of energy, a law of the universe, says so. It says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, so why would the lifeforce be any different? The total energy in a system—the universe—is constant, therefore the energy of life simply transfers to somewhere else. That light you see when you die and that sensation you have moving toward it has something to do with the lifeforce transferring. That’s what I believe anyway.
…………When I got to the top of the stairs there was just the hallway. The light was gone. Color was back totally now, the maroon carpet, the brown wood of the railing, the bright red of the fire extinguisher. A door was open to my left and that’s where the party was. I entered the room but didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t like the rooms in the hotel. I used to sometimes help my grandmother clean them up after the guests had gone. This room was much bigger and open. There was a bar along one wall and in the middle of the floor was a keg of beer in a trash can filled with ice. Jared, the guy who supplied me Rohypnol and GHB all through college, was standing next to the keg, a plastic cup full of beer in his hand. Our eyes met. It was just like old times.
…………We went to a corner away from the other people, each of us taking a different path. I handed him a wad of cash and he handed me a baggie of pills. “Good luck tonight,” he said and was gone.
…………All around the party I began noticing different girls from college, just like in the last dream: Melissa, Denise, Tobi, Lori, others. The place was filled with them. In fact, the only people at the party were girls I had known in college. I approached a girl named Jennifer. I had dated her once, I think during sophomore year.
…………“Hello,” I said to her and handed her several pills, which she immediately swallowed. She smiled at me.
…………Then we went down a hall to a bedroom. I paced around, waiting for her to lose consciousness while she sat on the bed. She continued to smile at me, a stupid, blank, knowing smile, her eyes following me around the room while I paced impatiently.
…………I gave her more pills, more and more pills, and she swallowed them down immediately each time, but she still wouldn’t go to sleep. She said nothing and she wouldn’t change, wouldn’t stop smiling.
…………I began to panic because I was almost out of pills now and Jared was gone, gone, gone. Then I woke up.
…………I can’t be sure, but I think I was screaming.

The End (for now)
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Using the Magic of Pills to Build a Bigger Cock

Michael Kindt — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 11:23:47 +0000

I was on the road and had to spend a night in a motel room. It was by no means fancy, just a cheap, roadside motel. It had a bed, a shower, and didn’t stink. These were my only requirements. Also, there was a tv.
…………I haven’t sat down and “watched tv” in a very long time, probably not since I had to do a couple days in jail, and that was, like, last year. I watch tv shows, mind you. I download them off the internet commercial-free. I also own a tv set, but all it’s hooked up to is a dvd player.
…………Laying in bed, remote in hand, I found it odd to have absolutely no control over when and what I watched. At home, if the mood struck me, I could watch season 2 of NewsRadio, even if the mood struck me at 3:09 in the morning.
…………Watching broadcast tv seemed charmingly primitive. It was amusing and cute, kind of “retro” and “kitschy”.
…………“How adorable,” I thought, “a car commercial. I remember those.” I smiled and did everything I could to keep myself from springing out of bed and racing down to the nearest Ford dealership.
…………It got late and the tv shows, for the most part, disappeared, only to be replaced with infomercials, most of which wanted me to buy some pills that would make my cock bigger. The remainder wanted me to buy some ridiculous hunk of exercise equipment that was collapsible and would therefore conveniently fit anywhere.
…………For one frightening moment as I lay there listening to the generic hot chick talking about increasing “that certain part of the male body,” I almost became sold. By the way, for you kids out there reading this, she meant cock. She was talking about cock. Anyway, yeah, I almost bought into it. “Hey,” I thought, “I’d like to increase that certain part of my male body.” I peaked at him under the covers as he snoozed contentedly inside my Colorado Avalanche boxers. I smiled and looked over at the nightstand where my phone lay. I started to reach for it and then stopped.
…………“What the fuck am I doing?” I asked out loud to no one. Quickly, I changed the channel back to the infomercial about the ridiculous hunk of exercise equipment that was collapsible and would therefore conveniently fit anywhere.
…………Whew! That was a close one. I almost became a douchebag. I mean, shit, I like that certain part of my male body. I’ve never been unhappy with it, really, nor experienced any crisis of confidence regarding it, even when I was a dumbass young guy. And when I’ve thrust that certain part of my male body up inside a woman, I’ve never gotten any complaints, no soft, breathless whisper in my ear along the lines of “Is that a crayon?” So, yeah. I’m ok with me and that certain part of my male body.
…………Cock, kids. Remember, we’re talking about cock.
…………And what if those pills DID work? Of course they don’t because everything on tv is a lie, but what if they did? Would I even want a bigger cock? And how much bigger would it get? Would I need a new pant size? Would it change the way I walk? I hope not because I’m pretty happy with my gait. Also, would my balls increase in size along with my cock? Or would they stay the same size and therefore look puny? What if the pills actually just shrunk your balls and your cock only appeared bigger?
…………That actually seems most likely to me.
…………Anyway, did you guys know there’s a golf channel? A fucking golf channel.
…………Wow.

The End

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First Interstate Bank on North Avenue Between Walgreens And Dana Dental Arts

Michael Kindt — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 12:02:41 +0000

So I was in line, slowly dying because everything was taking forever. I hate lines. I looked around for something to focus on, but it was a bank and that meant blank. It was boring solidified, boring made three dimensional. They say Jesus was the incarnation of god. I have serious doubts about that, but I know for a fact that banks are the incarnation of boring.
…………Over to the left was the little bank waiting area. There was an older guy sitting there alone amid the financial publications and Wall Street Journals. He was staring at the floor, which seemed like a good idea. I began staring at the floor, too, feeling my life slipping away one second at a time.
…………I began to hear a ringing, like an old phone. When I was a little kid, phones rang, like, with real bells and shit. That was what this sound was, only not quite. It was a digital representation of an old phone ringing, so it was just a bit off. In the 21st century, digital representations are commonplace. Hell, most of the people I know are digital representations.
…………By the way: Hello out there! Hello?
…………The ringing was coming from the waiting area and was the old guy’s phone. He pulled it out of his pocket, not taking his eyes off the floor, and said, “Yello!”
…………That’s not a typo. He actually said, “Yello!” I surmised it to be a combination of “Yes?” and “Hello.” How a question mark plus a period equaled an exclamation point, however, was beyond me.
…………Now, here was something, something to at least listen to, instead of the lulling, muted tones of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The guy was talking loud, too.
…………“No. No. No,” he was saying. “No, I already explained it to him.”
…………Explained what? I wondered.
…………“Twice,” the guy said. His voiced hovered between firmness and anger like a hummingbird. This was a serious call, perhaps even a business call, which made sense. After all, he was in a bank and wore the uniform of the modern American capitalist conformist: tie, button down shirt, slacks, hard, shiny shoes. It was the middle of August, so I gave him a pass on the missing blazer. If this had been October, however, I would have been forced to stab him in the liver with the nearest Quarterly Report.
…………“Maybe even three times,” the guy said. “He said he understood perfectly.”
…………Who understood what? I wondered. And why so perfectly? And how can any understanding be ‘perfect’? Now I was fascinated by the call. I liked how it was one-sided. I liked how it contained tension. I liked how it lacked all meaning entirely.
…………The line moved up a notch and I felt disappointment. I wanted the line to go slow now.
…………“Look,” said the guy, “like I explained to him, I’m not going to be a part of it unless the sizes are consistent.”
…………A person came up behind me and I stepped aside and offered her my spot in line. “Go ahead,” I said gentlemanly.
…………“Oh, no, that’s ok,” she said, using her I-don’t-want-to-impose voice.
…………“No, it’s fine,” I insisted.
…………“Really. Thank you, but that’s ok. I’m in no hurry.”
…………“Me either. I’m actually Mike, by the way.”
…………She was surprised I had introduced myself and took a second to reply. “Hello,” she said and nodded.
…………“And you are?”
…………“Jill.”
…………“Jill. Nice to meet you.” I stuck out my hand. She hesitated, then touched it briefly with hers. “Would it be alright if I called you sometime? Perhaps for a beer or some tea? I’m a tea-freak, but I’d buy you coffee if you wanted me to.”
…………She smiled at me, a bit tightly, and raised her left hand, revealing a wedding ring.
…………“So that’s a no, I take it?”
…………“That’s a no.”
…………“Well, the least I could do is offer you my spot in line.”
…………“That’s also a no–but a no, thank you.” She smiled at me again, quickly and without meaning, then looked away.
…………“Fair enough,” I said, to no one now. I was only mildly disappointed that my subterfuge had failed.
…………I turned around and went back to listening to the guy, who was saying, “Size does matter.”
…………Suddenly, two new teller windows opened up and I was called forward to conduct my transaction. I felt drunk with power.

The End

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You Know What This Word Needs?

Michael Kindt — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:45:32 +0000

I’ve been thinking lately about how I can make the world a better place, about how I can give back. I mean, I know I’m just some mouthy bald dude from South Dakota, but, really, I think I can help.
…………So today I went to my favorite thinking spot, which is the graveyard, and sat down in the dead grass. I turned my hand into a fist and placed my chin on it and began some hardcore, balls-to-the-wall pondering.
…………Thirty-five seconds later, I knew.
…………I knew how make the world better, how to improve things, not only for this generation, but for every generation to come. My epiphany was so emotional I sprang to my feet and ran in slow motion through dramatic soft lighting to my car, which was parked next to the Hooker family plot.
…………I came directly here, to the internet, to enlighten you, the masses.
…………This world needs more celebrities. Simple as that. The terrible shortage of celebrities is of such mythic proportions it’s astounding how it hasn’t been noticed before. Politicians are too busy learning their lines, so they can’t help. That leaves only one other option: television.
…………My suggestion is this: we use the enormous power of television to get more celebrities. We would make dozens of tv shows that do nothing but attempt to manufacture new stars. These shows would be fragmented into the various categories of celebrity, such as Typical Pop Singer, Generic Skinny Model, Yet Another Celebrity Chef, and so forth.
…………The tv shows would be in the form of competitions, where ordinary dipshits compete with other ordinary dipshits to prove they are extraordinary dipshits. There’d be voting and/or judging and in no time at all, hundreds of new celebrities would be created.
…………And the people of the world would just sit there watching, sit there taking it all in as one Next Big Thing after another is generated in front of them, sit there with eyes glazed over and head fucking empty.

The End

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Pickled Beets

Michael Kindt — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 02:47:08 +0000

When I was seventeen, my mother threw my ass out of the house. I was a major fuck-up. I dropped out of school, wouldn’t work, partied, sold pot, and never did the goddamn dishes, even though my mother worked forty hours a week at a bank kissing ass and wearing one of those goofy woman suits with the shoulder pads.
…………This was the first time I was homeless. I had a little money from selling pot and my grandma gave me some cash. I also got a job washing dishes and prep cooking in a shithole restaurant. I slept in my car for a while, showered at the gym, and ate fast food. In a few weeks, I was able to rent my first apartment. Well, it was a motel room that had been converted to an apartment. It had a two-burner stove and no oven. I lived there for a year or so and about once a week, I came home with a frozen pizza, only to throw it away because I had forgotten I didn’t have an oven.
…………I met Steve Lindy in those days. He lived in the same building, was an avid smoker of the weed, and played blues guitar like it was going out of style, which, of course, it was.
…………He was a hell of a guy. I liked his parents too, Jack and Elayne. Good, solid Midwestern folk. Now that I’m older, I can really tell the difference between the freaks and lunatics living all around the edges of this fucked up country and the completely normal people living in the heartland–you know, like Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer.
…………Anyway, Steve was close to his family and often went to their place for supper. After we became friends, I would accompany him on these once or twice monthly excursions into Home Cooked Meal Land. His mom Elayne took a special liking to me, finding me hilarious and charming, of which I am both in spades. She also felt sorry for me because I was such a vast loser with no money or prospects. At the end of every meal, she bestowed upon me any leftovers.
…………“Take it, Mike,” she’d insist, and I would, thanking her vigorously. In time, I had a tall and very unstable stack of Elayne Lindy’s Tupperware in my apartment that I kept forgetting to get back to her.
…………One Fall evening, Steve came over, banged on my door, and said, “Mom’s fixin’ spaghetti and meatballs. Hungry?”
…………“You bet.”
…………Jack and Elayne lived about four or five miles out of town on the way to Pringle in a pleasant single-story house. They were not rich folks, but ranked somewhere in the upper part of the lower end of the middle class. At Jack and Elayne’s, you ignored the front door and went in through the side door, directly into the kitchen. This was the heart of the house. They had a living room, but no one, as far as I could tell, ever used it.
…………I was excited for some homemade spaghetti and meatballs. It had been a few weeks since I had been out to the Lindy’s and I had been subsisting on various burritos and burgers in the meanwhile. Homemade spaghetti and meatballs. Nummy.
…………We entered the kitchen as usual through the side door and stopped dead in our tracks. Every available surface area was covered with jars, clear glass jars containing a dark and mysterious purple-ness.
…………“Oh, hi boys!” called Elayne from over by the stove. “I pickled my beets!”
………… “Her and her goddamn beets,” Jack said from behind his paper. He was sitting at the table. This table was also covered in the glass jars. There must’ve been a hundred of them all told.
…………“I know Stevie hates ‘em, but what about you, Mike? You like pickled beets?”
…………“Um, sure, Mrs. Lindy,” I said, even though I had never seen, much less tasted a pickled beet before. I just wanted to please her. She was such a sweet lady and I wanted to be on her side.
…………“They’re nasty,” Steve said.
…………“And all over the place,” Jack added from behind his paper. “Everywhere you look, a jar of goddamn beets.”
…………Since Elayne had been busy all afternoon pickling her beets, supper was a bit delayed. We didn’t finish up until half past eight. The spaghetti and meatballs were delicious. Elayne had also made salad and crusty garlic bread. There was a slice of homemade apple pie for desert.
…………It was heaven.
…………Sitting there, my mouth covered in succulent residue, I asked Elayne to please, for the love of god, adopt me.
…………“Oh, Mike,” she cackled. Later, she sent me home with another piece of pie and two jars of pickled beets.
…………The next day, around 11 am, I cracked open one of the jars and ate, for the first and last time, a pickled beet. Actually, they were pickled chunks of beets.
…………It was tangy and sweet and vinegar-y and slimy and made my eyes water and was, yes, absolutely nasty. I took the opened jar of beets outside, walked a ways away from the apartment building and poured them out onto ground, knowing that no grass would ever grow in that spot again.
…………I lived in Custer another five years and every time I came into contact with Elayne, which was at least monthly, she would give me some more pickled beets. I never refused them and always thanked her vigorously. Sometimes, she’d give me a single jar, sometimes two. Around Thanksgivings and Christmases, she’d give me four or five.
…………Over those five years of living in Custer, I moved probably six or seven times, and each time I did, I had more and more pickled beets. New apartments or trailer houses had to have enough pantry or cupboard space or I simply couldn’t rent them.
…………“Yeah, I’m sorry. The rent’s great and I like how there’s only one hole in the roof, but there simply wouldn’t be enough room for my real food and my pickled beets. I’ll have to keep looking.”
…………It wasn’t until I was leaving the state that I considered getting rid of what was, by then, my enormous collection of pickled beets. I had packed them into boxes. Six boxes.
…………“You know,” I said to myself, “this is getting kind of ridiculous.”
…………But I left most of my books and kept all of the pickled beets. You’re damn right I did. A very nice lady named Elayne had, for half a decade, made it her mission in life to make sure I had enough pickled beets and I simply couldn’t just throw her success away.
…………I lugged those motherfuckers around with me until my late 20′s. I eventually did get rid of them. Well, all but one jar, which sits in my pantry as I write this, just beyond the spaghetti sauce.

The End

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299

Michael Kindt — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:21:49 +0000

At the mess-tables the boys in training were brought to war:
the sound of crimson, hair long in the old way.
On their lips, the State.

Soldiers:
beget, loaned, assumed.

In their absence:
admirers claim brutality
better than deathless heroism.

Battle immortality:
die oneself,
continuing the life of Sparta.

Subordinates:
memories,
cowering in brave.

The End
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Michael Kindt — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 09:19:47 +0000

Are you afraid to look squarely at the Abyss with an unflinching eye and a big set of balls? Or do you invent a ghost in the sky and name him god and a ghost in yourself and name him soul? Admit your true spirit in, allow it to breathe. It is expression and dwells in what you say, in what you do, in what you create. It lives in what you love and lives in what you hate. It is not a ghost haunting your body. It is your blood, the fluid of life. Let it flow out from you into the world. There it becomes real and lives forever.

The End
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Dex Needs His Specs

Michael Kindt — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:13:07 +0000

There was Dex, Bolts, Mertens, and the Other Mike. I called him the Other Mike anyway. I’m the Main Mike, I figure. Bolts was old and sick, Dex was tattooed and pissed, Mertens was funny and sorta stupid, and the Other Mike was black. You could say we had everybody covered.
…………There were a couple other guys, seat-filler types, who didn’t leave much of an impression on me one way or the other. They told me their names but remained anonymous anyway.
…………I decided I liked everybody.
…………Mertens, that poor son of a bitch, was in for a year on his 5th DUI. He was the longest. A whole fucking year in county. Jesus.
…………Dex came in the night before for disorderly conduct and beating up a cop. He wasn’t going anywhere till he saw the judge on Monday, and probably not going anywhere after that either.
…………“You beat up a cop?” I said to him after he’d introduced himself. I whistled my admiration. “Golly, I’ve always wanted to beat up a cop.”
…………I was the only short-timer there and they all got a jealous kick out of it, giving me shit about how I was going to leave in twenty-four hours and get my dick sucked by a woman or eat a burger made out of meat.
…………Twenty-four hours goes by just like that on the outside, but on the inside it creeps along like a retarded snail pausing every centimeter to regard a piece of lint or a crumb of toejam. Fifteen minutes feels like an hour, so there’s ninety-six hours in a day.
…………The books are all inspirational or religious, so reading was out, and the tv was run by consensus. This meant I had to sit there on a bolted-down steel picnic table and actually watch a James Bond movie from beginning to end. It wasn’t too bad.
…………Although I chatted a little with everyone, I got to know Dex the best. He was the most friendly and talkative to me and I responded by being friendly and talkative right back. I learned that he was a welder by trade and hailed from Missoula. He had been out here about five years with his woman and together they had just bought a house.
…………“Probably have to lose it now for lawyer fees and shit,” he figured. “Only had it six months.”
…………It was his neighbor who had called the cops on him because his music was loud. It was also the second time he had beaten up a cop.
…………“Yeah, I did three years in the Montana pen for aggravated assault on a law enforcement official. They tried to get me for attempted murder but couldn’t get it to stick.”
…………Ten years back, he was out in the yard working on his truck and drinking. He was also playing his music loud. The cops were called by the neighbor and when they showed up, he told them to get the fuck off his property. When they tried to arrest him, he started hitting one of them in the head with a wrench.
…………“This time, I only got in a few punches and kicks, but here I am again. It’s weird how things work out. You know, both times I was listening to Metallica? It’s like deja vu all over again.”
…………So Dex was my jailhouse buddy. We were playing poker for left-over tater tots when he asked me to do him a favor. It was 6:30 pm, just after supper, and the cell block was quiet. Even Mertens, who always had something stupid to say, was quiet.
…………“And what’s that?” I asked and folded my hand. I was losing, my pile of tater tots dwindling.
…………“Bring me my specs.”
…………“Your specs?”
…………“I wear glasses. My regular pair got busted when the pigs hauled me in, but I got backups on my dresser. Bring ‘em to me. It’d really help me out. My head is fucking pounding.”
…………I tried to imagine Dex in glasses, but couldn’t. He wasn’t a big man, maybe 5”8, but he was taut and muscular. Tats covered both arms almost completely, all of them amateurish, even shabby. They bled and faded into each other in shades of sea green. He even had tats on the backs of his gnarled, rugged hands and peaking out from the salt and pepper stubble of his neck. Like his hands, his face was gnarled and rugged and looked much older than his forty-one years. He had lived a hard life of working and drinking and fighting.
…………“I can’t imagine you in glasses, man,” I said, “but, yeah, I’ll help you out.”
…………“You weld shit together for twenty years and we’ll see how good your eyesight is.”
…………Dex lived down the hill in Spearfish, like me. In fact, we were the only two guys from Spearfish in the block, so maybe that’s why we kind of adopted each other as friends. The favor was me driving down the hill to Spearfish, going to his place on Hudson, getting his glasses from his old lady, and driving back up the hill to Deadwood–about twenty-eight miles roundtrip.
…………That’s the way people in Spearfish talk: Deadwood is ‘up the hill’, home is ‘down the hill’. Nowadays, Spearfish is five, maybe six times bigger than Deadwood, but Deadwood’s the county seat. The jail’s there, the courthouse is there, and the rest of the town is casinos. There isn’t even a grocery store anymore. Legalized gambling was adopted with the fiction of preserving the history of Deadwood, and that history was quickly gutted-out and replaced with modern cookie cutter casinos and the soulless dinging of slot machines manufactured by B.F. Skinner & Co. Throngs of geriatric gamblers creep slowly around the fake cobblestone streets, blowing the money they worked all their lives for. They don’t seem to know it, but they’ll all soon be dead.
…………Yeah, Deadwood. I go up the hill to drink sometimes. It makes me feel like I’m out doing something. You get cheap beer for free if you gamble, even on the nickel slots, so what I do is gamble really slow and drink really fast. I do the accounting at the end of the night: I lost $17 gambling, but drank $23 worth of beer. I’m drunk and made six bucks.
…………I win.
…………“I tried to get my old lady to bring ‘em to me,” Dex explained, “but she told me to fuck off. She’s really pissed I ended up in here. I called her last night when I came in and she just hung up on me. I tried again this morning and she said I was on my fucking own. What a bitch.”
…………“Then she ain’t gonna give ‘em to me, man,” I told him. “Why would she?”
…………“No, she will. I know her.”
…………“You tell her I’m coming and I’ll do it. I’m not just showing up at the door, some random dude there to get your glasses. Make sure it’s cool with her. I don‘t wanna cause any problems.”
…………Dex nodded. “Come on,” he said and we walked over to the phone.
…………In the block there was a metal phone bolted to the wall you could make fifteen minute collect calls on. Most used it only once a day. I didn’t use it at all. The Other Mike used it several times a day, calling his mother, his sisters, his aunts, his girlfriends. Apparently, all these women were willing to accept his calls about absolutely nothing and pay for them. He would ramble on about how bored he was, how shitty the food was, how he couldn’t wait to get out and head to ‘Cali’. He was only 19 and actually a really sweet kid, I thought. A bit clueless, but what can you expect from a 19 year-old?
…………“Ima make it on rhymes alone,” he was saying into the phone.
…………Me and Dex stood there and stared at him as he yammered uselessly. He turned his back to us and talked lower, but got the message and hung up after a few seconds.
…………“Baby,” Dex began when he got her on the phone. He had told me her name was Dez, short for Desiree, so as a couple they were Dex and Dez. I found this kind of humorous. “I’m sending over a buddy of mine to get my specs,” he told her and then fell silent for nearly a full minute. He shifted from one slippered foot to the other. He looked at me and rolled his eyes. “I know,” he said finally. “I know I fucked up bad, and I’m sorry, baby, but I need my specs. You know I do. I understand that you’re pissed right now and I don’t expect you to do me any favors, so I’m sending over a buddy of mine.” He fell silent again, listening, then, “Well, his name’s Mike and I met him here in county. He’s a short-timer and will be getting out in a few hours…”
…………He looked at me, asked, “When did you come in last night?”
…………“Eight o’clock,” I told him. It was now almost seven.
…………“He’ll head right over,” Dex said into the phone. “He’ll be there in like an hour and a half.”
.
.
.
Later, driving down the hill, I couldn’t help but think of the immortal words of the great Albert Einstein when he said–
…………I’m just fucking around. I wasn’t thinking about the immortal words of the great Albert Einstein. I was just super happy to be out of jail. If you’ve never had the experience of getting out of jail, you’re really missing out on one of life’s great pleasures. No words can describe it. It makes sex seem like putting on your shoes.
…………I could go anywhere, anywhere at all, but instead I was going to 610 E. Hudson in Spearfish to get a pair of glasses for some welder dude who had beat up a cop.
…………It was a small house, on the old side. Not much else to say about it. It was dark when I pulled into the drive, but no doubt it was some weak beige/white/pastel/off-white color like every other house in America. Boldness only in trim and then rarely in primary.
…………Dez was in the doorway already when I got out of the car. I assumed it was her anyway. She was lit from behind by the lights inside the house and I very much liked what I saw.
…………“I don’t know where the fuck his stupid glasses are,” she announced as I climbed the concrete steps. She sounded annoyed. “Come in and sit down and I guess I’ll keep looking for them.”
…………I stood there, somewhat taken aback. Dex clearly had himself a delicious woman. Her brown hair came to her shoulders and was swept to one side, as if there was a continuous gust of ghost wind perpetually off to her right. Her eyes were a watery blue and held depth and warmth. In her eyes, blue was not a cool color. She was younger than Dex, perhaps by as much as a dozen years.
…………“It’s ok,” she said, a slight smile on her face. The annoyance I had heard a second ago was gone. She stood to the side, allowing me room to enter. “Come on in.”
…………My arm brushed hers as I passed and I could smell a touch of perfume, delicate and light, but with a slight earthy sexiness.
…………I turned around to watch her close the door and was very pleased with her curves. Even though it was early Fall and a cool night, she was kind enough to have on shorts and flip-flops and I immediately went from being attracted to her to actually being aroused by her.
…………She turned and smiled at me. She seemed somewhat surprised with herself. “Hi!” she said brightly. “I’m Desiree.”
…………“I’m Mike, your husband’s errand boy,” I said. I felt nervous, awkward. She could tell that I was looking at her, that I was checking her out. She knew and I knew that she knew. It was a strange moment. An immediate chemical thing had sparked the instant I crossed the threshold into the house and had touched her skin with my skin, had caught her eye with my eye. The awareness of it was only now happening, quick and deep. I could feel my heart beating in my chest.
…………“Oh,” she said, lowering her voice. “We aren’t married.” She continued to smile.
…………“That’s wonderful,” I said. I looked around, more to get my eyes off her and not seem so creepy than to take in my surroundings. I won’t describe what I saw. Just your standard living room populated with your standard living room artifacts: pictures, knick-knacks, furniture, various other shit–like a living room, you know. There was no sign of kids.
…………“You wanna beer?” she asked and walked passed me, closer than necessary, and into the kitchen. She was not waiting for a response. Again, I caught her scent and felt her against my forearm, diaphanous and electric.
…………“Sure,” I said, mainly to myself since she was already in the other room. My tongue felt numb. I loved how white she was, how milky.
…………She came back a moment later holding two 16 oz cans of Budweiser. “Sorry about this,” she said, handing me a beer. “I have no idea where he put his stupid glasses. You can sit down and I’ll keep looking.”
…………“You want some help?” I asked. “I’m one hell of a looker.”
…………She laughed easily. “Oh, yeah?”
…………“I’m just sayin.” I shrugged and smiled at her.
…………“Alright.”
…………In the messy bedroom, amid piles of clothes, we looked. The two dressers and both nightstands were decorated with assorted beercans, burrito wrappers, and paperback books, but there were no ‘specs’ in sight.
…………“He said they were in here, but they’re not. Fuck it. I guess he’ll have to squint.”
…………“So, do you prefer to be called Dez or Desiree?” I asked as we went back out into the living room.
…………“Dex, who’s Dexter by the way, always calls me Dez, but he’s the only one. I think I’d like to be called Desiree again.”
…………“Ok, Desiree. I’m Mike. Actually Michael, of course, but everyone’s always called me Mike.”
…………“And what do you prefer?”
…………I smiled. “I think I’d like to try being Michael for awhile.”
…………She lifted up her beer. “Nice to meet you, Michael.”
…………“Right back at you, Desiree.” We clanked our cans together and took large gulps. The beer went down easy and really hit the spot.
…………“Have a seat,” she, now Desiree, said. I went over to the couch and she followed.
…………“So he’s just not gonna get his glasses?” I asked.
…………Desiree was sitting just close enough to let me know of her interest. At least that’s how I chose to interpret it. Her gorgeous legs were crossed toward me. I had read somewhere that this was a sign of openness, of willingness. I tried to not look at them, but failed.
…………“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess. I don’t know where they are. His other pair is smashed. If you want, take those to him. To tell you the truth, I don’t really give a shit.”
…………I shrugged. “Well, I tried.”
…………“That’s all you can do.”
…………“So how long you guys been together?”
…………“Since I was 22. I’m 28 now.” Desiree shook her head. Her blue eyes left me and seemed to search for something, something that couldn‘t be seen with eyes. “I’m done with him,” she said with surprising finality. It sounded like she had just come to the decision right then. “I am. He’s been in and out of jail the whole time, and now he’s back in. Dumbass.”
…………“Yeah,” was all I could say. I suddenly felt self-conscious and changed the subject. “So what do you do?”
…………“I wait tables at the Millstone. It’s a dream come true, ya know.” She laughed and finished off her beer in one long drink. “Oh, Michael,” she said suddenly, getting up. I loved the familiarity in her voice, like we were already old friends. I loved the sound of my new name coming from her. “You’re having another beer with me.”
…………“I’d like to have many, many with you,” I told her.
…………“We’re gonna have to run to the store at some point since I only have a couple more here.”
…………I decided then and there I was going to kiss this woman. I had no idea when. Now? Was now too soon? I had met her less than a half hour ago. I never know when to kiss someone. Every single time I have ever kissed anyone, it’s been a blind leap into an abyss, a leap charged with both hope and terror.
…………We talked and drank the last of her beers. She laughed easily, like she did it often, or, like she wanted to do it often, and would touch me lightly and quickly on my arm or thigh. She was sitting close and our knees began resting against each other. Neither of us moved.
…………Oh yes, I was definitely going to kiss this woman.
…………Outside in the cool driveway, as we walked toward her junky, twenty year old Toyota, I put my hand on her shoulder. “Desiree?” I said.
…………She stopped. “Yeah?”
…………For a second we stood there in the mingled light of the moon and the street lamp, looking at each other. Her face seemed to glow.
…………“What?” she said, smiling. “What?“
…………I put my hands on her soft cheeks and kissed her like I had to, like I had no choice. At the time, I had no idea how I’d gotten to that point. It was like I went from A to C. I kept thinking: When should I kiss her? When would be right? Then I was kissing her.
…………I felt her, explored her, lost in the sweetness of her mouth, in the naturalness of her touch. She was so soft, so accepting, and leaned into me, almost to where I was holding her up. My hands went under the delicate curve of her ass and I pulled her hips into mine, feeling her warmth. She trembled.
…………The ride to the store was silent, but pleasantly so. It was not an awkward silence, but an expectant one. “I’ll just be a minute, babe,” she said in the parking lot of the liquor store. They were the only words spoken until we were back at the house.
…………Babe.
…………It was probably the most comfortable I’ve ever felt with a woman, with any person, I had just met. We talked for several hours and drank. We laughed a lot, especially at ourselves, at the ridiculous situation we were now in. She hated it in Spearfish. She hated her life. She hated Dex for wanting to live here. She wanted to go back home to Montana. She wanted to go far away to some new place where nobody knew her. She wanted babies. She wanted to finish school and she wanted to paint. She wanted to sing and dance and learn guitar.
…………I wanted all these things for her too. I wanted them more than anything I had ever wanted in my life.
…………Shortly after midnight, we went to bed and had sex. The first time I was only able to last a few minutes, so urgently, so intensely did I need her. The second time was much better–relaxed, gentle, full of exploration and learning. When I finally let her cum, she burst into tears and clung to me with her arms and legs, like I was rescuing her, carrying her from a burning building. I could feel her hot, wet tears stinging my neck.
…………“Are you ok?” I whispered.
.
.
.
In the bathroom I found Dex’s glasses. They were on the floor behind the toilet in a plastic case. I noticed them out of the corner of my eye while pissing. I knew what they were instantly. I picked them up and took them back into the bedroom with me.
…………“I found them,” I said to Desiree.
…………“What?”
…………“The glasses.”
…………“Seriously?” She rolled over and looked at me.
…………“Here they are.” I waved them in the air.
…………“Shit.”
…………“Yeah.”
…………She rolled back over. “Throw ‘em in the trash.”
…………“I feel like I owe him.”
…………“Owe him? Why, because of me?”
…………“I don’t know. I told him I’d bring him his specs.”
…………“And you’re a man of your word, I take it?”
…………“I am, indeed,” I lied.
…………“You’re going now?”
…………“I wanna get it over with.”
…………She sat up and hugged her bare legs. Her blue eyes studied me. “Are you coming back?”
…………I shrugged. “I think so.” I felt antsy all of a sudden, like I was out of place. I wanted to go, but felt I should say something more, something to reassure her. I didn’t like the feeling. I didn’t like feeling like I was obligated or required.
…………Desiree sighed and covered herself up. She put the pillow over her face. “I hope you come back,” she said, her voice muffled.
…………So in the middle of the night I drove up the hill to Deadwood. It was just after three o’clock in the morning. If it would’ve been summer, it would’ve almost been getting light. But it was Fall and it remained as dark as death all the way there.
…………Why wouldn’t I go back? Why do I always feel like this after I have sex with someone, like I want to get the hell out of there and be alone? It must be some chemical thing in the middle of my fucking brain, like fight or flight, but this was fuck then flee. I thought back to how she made me feel when I first met her, how attracted I was to her, how I wanted her so badly. Now I felt like I had to go back, that it would be shitty if I didn’t. Already, I felt like a chunk of my freedom was gone.
…………At this time of night, the jail was ‘closed’, but there was a buzzer by the door. I pressed it down with my thumb and held it there for a full minute in hopes of being annoying.
…………A muffled voice eventually came out of the speaker. “Yes?” it said, sounding irritated.
…………“I have something for an inmate.”
…………“Come back at seven.”
…………“They’re his prescription glasses. He needs them to see.” The medical industry trumps the law enforcement industry every time. Cops have to jump when you say ‘prescription’.
…………“Come back at seven.”
…………“I’m leaving town on a job right now and can’t do it any other time. That’s why I’m here at this ungodly hour.”
…………There was no response. I stood there waiting a second, then began pressing the buzzer again.
…………A few minutes later, the door opened and a cop said, “Please stop doing that.”
…………I released the buzzer.
…………“Inmate name?” he asked.
…………“Dex. Dexter. I never caught his last name. He’s in M2, cell 4.” I handed him the glasses.
…………“It’s lockdown and lights out, but I’ll give them to him at breakfast.”
…………“Thanks.”
…………As I drove back down the hill, I wondered what I should do and where I should go.
.
.
.
I listened to the sound of the car and nothing else. Normally, I play music when I drive. There were a lot of things on my mind, which was blank. Strange, to be thinking and not thinking at the same time. I had been awake for twenty-two hours. I’d drunk seven beers, gotten pretty buzzed, and came back down again. I’d met someone extraordinary, fallen in love with her, then became terrified. I was very tired.
…………At the bottom of the hill was a T. Right took you to the interstate and far the hell away. Left took you to Spearfish and much too close. I turned left, simply because I was used to it.
…………When I got into town, I stopped at an all-night diner and had coffee. I wasn’t hungry, but figured I should eat something, so I ordered wheat toast and strawberry jam. I chewed slowly, staring at the formica counter top.
…………Maybe I could just call her? I thought suddenly, pulling my head up, but then realized I had never even gotten her number. My head drooped back down. There was no choice. I had to go back. I wanted to go back, but since I had to I didn’t want to, even though I did. Or something.
…………The sky was watery gray with early morning when I pulled into the driveway. There was enough light now and I could see that the little house was yellow–a good, strong yellow. I walked slowly up the concrete steps, remembering last night, remembering when I first laid eyes on her–the goddess in the doorway, lit from behind.
…………I knocked softly, half-hoping she wouldn’t hear me. There were lights on inside and there hadn’t been when I left. She was up.
…………The door opened quickly, almost like she’d been standing just on the other side. Clearly, she was waiting for me. “Hello,” she said and smiled. “I think we’re past the whole knocking thing, don’t you?”
…………“I didn’t know.”
…………“Are you coming in?” She stood to the side, allowing me room to enter.
…………“What if it goes to hell?” I asked. “What if we end up hating each other?”
…………“Maybe,” she said. “But not today.”
…………She took my hand and led me inside.

The End

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Michael Kindt — Sun, 30 May 2010 21:13:33 +0000

You apply a fresh coat of drama to my face with every word you say breaking up my smile into pieces readily absorbed into your swirling bullshit a mucky brown color not unlike sewage I can’t help but listen because I’m weak folded in on myself collapsible like cheap Wal*Mart furniture abandoned with every move.

The End
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Four Twenty

Michael Kindt — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:34:12 +0000

…………“$1.64,” I said. I spoke robotically. My eyes were glazed over. I had been selling junk food and lottery tickets to the peasants for nine straight hours and couldn’t wait to get out of there and drink a bottle of wine.
…………“Oh no, you don’t,” the woman said. Her tone was accusatory and a touch triumphant. “It said 99 cents on the cooler.” Her blunt face wore a sly, knowing smile. Apparently, I was intentionally trying to screw her out of 65 cents and she busted me: Not so fast, Evil Convenience Store Guy.
…………I sighed. “That’s for the Aquapure.” I indicated the plastic bottle of water that sat on the counter between us. “This is Dasani.”
…………The woman looked at me flatly. She snatched the water away and waddled back to the cooler in a huff, clearly angry and very fat. Maybe she was pissed about it being her mistake and not mine. Maybe it was because Dasani was her favorite brand of water and now here it was beyond her financial reach.
…………Even after two years, it still amazes me how people come in and actually buy water. I mean, they actually stop whatever it is they’re doing, get in their car and drive, sometimes blocks and blocks, to the convenience store where I work. They park, come inside, and search through the coolers until they find the water. Then, using their hands, they take some up to the counter and actually give me money for it.
…………They do this without thinking.
…………Sometimes, though, they rise up out of the fog and realize what they’re doing. When this happens, they usually get pissed. That’s what was going on with this woman. $1.64 is too much for her? She’s actually looking for a deal on water. What, is she “special” or something? Did momma drop her on her head when she was a baby?
…………The woman returned to the counter with Aquapure, which she banged down angrily. “I don’t understand why the prices are so different,” she said, rummaging through her enormous, middle-age-lady purse. She was obviously one of those weird people who get off on paying in exact change. They always slow the line down digging for those three elusive pennies.
…………I sighed loudly as her stupid quest went on and on. Finally she handed over two quarters, three dimes, two nickels, and nine pennies. If she would have said something about “lightening the load” I would have burst into tears. The whole time she was searching she had been holding a single dollar bill in her left hand.
…………“Why are the prices so different?” she demanded. “It’s just water.”
…………“The containers are different,” I explained.
…………“I don’t see how that’s worth 60 cents.”
…………“65 cents, actually.”
…………“What?”
…………“65 cents difference.”
…………“Whatever. The bottles aren’t different. They’re both clear and the same size. Even the labels are both blue.”
.………..I tapped on the lid of her water. “This one says ‘Aquapure’, whereas the bottle you had up here before said ‘Dasani’”.
…………Behind her stood a cowboy wanting to buy lottery tickets. He had the whole costume on, beginning with the hat. His shirt pockets had faux pearl buttons and ornately tapered flaps. He wore a large shiny belt buckle with a steer bursting through a gate on it. His boots were pointy and he shifted on them impatiently. He really needed to buy his lottery tickets bad. The poor bastard looked like he was about to piss in his too-tight Wranglers.
…………“It’s just water!” The woman was really upset now. Apparently, being a smart-ass to her was the wrong approach, so I tried something different.
…………“Ma’am,” I said firmly. “Water is free. Please don’t bitch to me about the price of something that’s free. We have a sink in our deli area, plus a drinking fountain, and there’s always the toilet.” I pointed at the restroom sign, which, hilariously, she turned and looked at. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have lottery tickets to sell.”
…………“What’s it up to?” she asked suddenly.
…………I was surprised and took a second to answer. “390 million,” I said.
…………“Better give me one.” She put down the dollar bill she had been clutching. I looked up at the clock and saw that I still had another 23 minutes of this. I sighed and printed out her lottery ticket. Finally, she was gone.
…………The cowboy came up and gave me a smile. “One of those days?” he asked. It took everything I had to not dive over the counter and stab him repeatedly in the throat with the blue Bic pen I kept behind my ear…….

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This, along with 20 other stories, is included in Early Onset of Night, Volume One now available on Amazon.

My Answer

Michael Kindt — Sun, 16 May 2010 09:59:44 +0000

I have all the lights off in the house and am sitting at the table in the near dark. There is a kerosene lantern burning next to me. It provides enough light for me to write by, enough light for my house to look completely dark on the outside.
…………I’m hiding.
…………I try to write a poem but don’t like it. I can’t capture a flow, a movement, a thrust. I am emotional but without direction.
…………I like this lantern. It’s metal and red and my favorite color. It’s not decorative, but is a real lantern designed for use. It looks like a machine. It smells like a machine, petroleum chemical musk. I like its smell and its light seems real, flickering and weak though it is. Right now, it seems more real than electric light.
…………At 3:20 pm mountain time, a little more than three hours ago, the police were here looking for me. I could tell by the knock who it was and what it was and did not answer.
…………When I put a person in my phone I assign them a ring tone. It’s the same ring tone I assign everyone else I put in my phone, so when I receive a call my phone makes either a Person I Know sound or a Person I Don’t Know sound. I do not answer calls from people I don’t know. If they leave a message, perhaps we can go from there. If not, and I am bored and near a computer, I may google the number, discovering in almost every case that I was correct in not answering.
…………My door is similar to my phone. Although I cannot adjust its settings, I can always tell by the way the knock sounds if I know the person on the other side. I do not answer the door if I don’t know the person knocking on it, but I do peek through the blinds, discovering in almost every case that I was correct in not answering.
…………I do not need more strangers in my life. I am strange enough.
…………This knock was not the knock of someone I know or even of someone I don’t know. It was a cop’s knock. Insistent, expectant, a knock used to being answered. A bratty, spoiled knock implying no choice in being answered.
…………The very instant I heard it I knew what it was and what I needed to do: retreat to the back of the house and wait for them to go away. They did, eventually, but not before calling me. If they managed to find my address, it was no surprise that they managed to find my number as well. Through my bedroom blinds I could see one of the pigs with a phone to his ear and just then the Person I Don’t Know sound came from my pocket. I quickly silenced it.
…………I stood there waiting for them to leave, my phone in my hand, and a thought occurred to me: I need an Authority Figure ring tone. It should be something creepy and ominous, a funeral march perhaps. I connected with my service provider and began searching for Berlioz, happy that darkness would soon descend.

The End
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