Archive for the ‘Man In Picture’ Category

We talk politics and religion. Celebrities and ordinary people. He’s friendly and charismatic. A quick smile and eyes that seem easy to read. I can’t help but like this man. We smoke and drink and talk. We tell each other excellent stories.

After a time, Carlo looks at me and says with some gravity, “Let’s us visit my shop, you and I. It’s just round the corner and up the street.” I tell him I’ve suffered an injury to both legs and can’t walk far. I’m conserving energy for my return to the ship, I say.

“I have a car”, he says, “I’ll get you back in time”, he flips open his phone.

Like the movies, an immaculate black Mercedes sedan emerges from around the corner. The sound of it’s slow rolling tires is something I can’t help but exalt. “Wait, bring your drink, get him a refill!”, barks my new friend, Carlo Tarcisi. Once inside the car, our drinks are passed to us through the open windows.

I’m drinking snake bites. Bad idea. Carlo sips from a tumbler of what looks like cold medicine with weeds in it. Who knows? I haven’t ordered or bought a drink since he sat down.

“I’m going to sell you a watch my friend”, we’re in the back seat, charging up a hill. He smiles big. Teeth immaculate.

“A good watch at a good price”, he says.

I don’t feel like I need a watch. I’ve had no success with them. They quit working or I lose them. I like watches. I’ve always admired them. I’m kinda broke, most likely unemployed. I say nothing. This is a bad idea. I look out the window.

Past twilight.

No shit, I’m confused. Some cosmopolitan oddity that I’ve just bonded with on a muddy sidewalk in a third world country wants to take me to his store to sell me a watch? What the fuck?

Flags go up.

How do I get myself into this shit?

Who is this guy?

I look at him and he nods his head while patting his knee. He’s composed but anxious and I don’t know what to make of it.

We get to the place and the driver puts a fedora on his head before stepping around. He opens the door for me, then Carlo.

It’s dark. There’s a single lamp at the end of a long road. It’s a spooky business district that probably evacuates just before sundown. Curbs but no asphalt. Sidewalks but no street. I swear I hear bats.

I cannot afford to succumb to fear. I can’t allow it. It’s dark.

“No worries my friend, you’re safe”, he says, looking me in the eye while he pulls out his keys.

I tell him I’m fine and remember my cane.

My shoes are noisy as fuck. His aren’t.

I’m a little light in the head and breathing hard.

Then.

The shop is a wonder. A storefront on approach, labyrinthian inside.

I see herbs and soaps and salves, potions, lotions and concoctions.

Bird’s eggs, fossils, telescopes, globes, animal fetuses in in backlit jars, glass eyes, pipes, cigarettes, cigars, lighters, maps, watches, real skulls, human bones and tusks. Guns, rusty knives and swords.

Dragon Flies, Wasps, Beetles, Scorpions and Black Widows. All giants.

Masks, odd statues, anatomy books, velvet paintings, pinball machines and an impressive array of gumball dispensers. I smell hot greasy fries and ketchup.

Everywhere I turn there’s something to covet. This place is fucking unbelievable.

Cool paintings. Old posters. Unopended model rockets from the seventies.

Look closer, there’s a beaker pale green and bubbling with a two headed rodent bobbing. Organs floating and churning in red or yellow aqueous.

Old Swamp Thing comics illustrated by Bernie Wrightson in portective mylar.

A popcorn cart.

The more I look, the more I see.

There are live owls in the rafters. Almost completely silent but not at all shy about clocking me. There’s five at least and they never stop shooting beams through me.

You know, owls are fierce predators but the biggest ones weigh a mere few pounds. I could take one out with a badminton racket easy. For five, I’d probably need a bat.

He reaches under a dusty counter for a tray of watches, and I’m dismayed. It just reminds me that I don’t understand what’s happening. I’m confused. Why would this guy bring me here to sell me a fucking watch?

I mean, Carlo Tarcisio has far more going on than selling watches to dipshit drunken tourists with an unexplained handicap. At least in my estimation.

The owls mock me.

I look deliberately at the tray of watches for the first time because I don’t know what else to do. Craftsmanship. Nice watches.

There are maybe a dozen and he goes through them with rapid grace, naming the brand and features, weight and thickness, jewels etc. He smiles while he does this. He’s proud of them and pleased to offer them to me. His hands are fast and old.

I know enough. I’ve admired exclusive watches. Bezel, band, movement, crown, case and crystal. These are gorgeous. They are real. I’m sure.

I tell Carlo that although I literally just got off the boat, I have no money. I apologize to him if I’ve somehow misrepresented myself, allowing him to think I was a man of means and in the market for a luxury timepiece. I am embarrassed and still very confused.

He calls me by my first name, smiles and says, “It’s a gift. Pay with friendship and honesty.”

This starts to confuse me further, so I tell him I’d like to buy him one last drink before I go back to the boat.

The Owls compose a very complex chord.

He beams at me and seems lit from beneath, “I would recommend this one, Swiss movement, light in weight, still detailed in a way that appeals to one or both sides of your brain and you clearly don’t favor gold.”

Just like that and it’s on my wrist.

It is silver and glistening. A black detailed face with a style that doesn’t afford contemporary simplicity any more than a nod. Despite Carlo’s words, it’s heft is still impressive.

He’s given me an authentic and beautiful chronograph for the sum of nothing. I’ve made it clear I have no money to spare.

I remind him I’m good for a drink and he says quickly, “My friend, it is time we get you to your boat.”

He tells me on the way that I wear, “the aura of troubled”. I look in his eyes and tell him I’m haunted and it’s as bad as he can possibly imagine. He looks at his old hands in his lap and says, “I know”.

I knew he knew.

“We made friends today, you and I. We are not finished”, he’s smiling. “You like your new watch?” I tell him it’s fucking awesome. “Wear it to bed”, he says.

We approach the boat and He breaks character to become nearly ferocious when he grabs my collar to say, “Tell no one you’ve met me. Say nothing of it. I will find you tomorrow.”

I barely have time to thank him and I’m hurrying up the plank without knowing why.

Ever seen those electric meat carving knives? My mom had one and could slice up a holiday turkey like a goddamn samurai. Even as a kid I worried a little about that appliance. It disturbed me. I made my peace with it when I realized it was only formidable for the length of the cord.

I guess now they’re available battery operated.

After finally figuring out how to work the fucking lock on the door of my suite, He’s sitting on the end of my bed flicking one on and off. He’s in a pair of tighty whities and the blood from his eyes runs down his chest to stain them.

I back out as soon as I see him. He screams HA, but I can’t tell if it’s angry or amused.

I find a bar, I don’t know what else to do.

In the middle of the ship there’s a glass elevator that starts in the lobby, near the bar where I sit, and goes all the way up. He mocks me from it. Dabbing at his eyes to write my name on the glass with the blood on his fingers. At first he writes it backward. Then he get’s it right and he’s delighted.

I understand this will be a long night.

No matter the situation, it’s hard to blame anyone who’s had enough.

I’ve seen the solution in my dreams. The beginning of it anyway.

Nobody knows how things end.

He hasn’t been around for awhile. You may think that’s a good thing.

I do not.

The longer he goes missing, the more anxiety I own.

I look for him harder.

It’s been three weeks now and not hide nor hair.

Nothing.

Quiet.

He performs this vanishing conspicuously. He knows what he does and so do I. If I’m not thinking about him, I’m trying to forget him. Either way, he is a monster in my mind’s eye. He sits at a grey metal desk under a bare bulb in the very back room of my dreams. He sits in there and breathes and sucks back drool and there’s fucking boars stinking and squealing.

Right now the door is closed. Not a sound. Like they left. I hate that.

I still can’t walk worth a shit. My knees and ankles are beyond sore. I fall down sometimes because if I don’t, the low note plucked by my leg travels up my spine and leaves me dizzy and sweaty and unable to stand anyway.

His is the opulent lobby to my nightmares. A cancerous entreaty to my darkest place. An invitation I’m unable to resist. I understand that half my my misery is my own responsibility. It always takes two. Do I miss him?

In absentia, he gnaws at me.

I’ve got to get the fuck out of here.

It’s the wrong thing to do but I decide to run.

I book a five day cruise to Ensenada.

Last minute, but with help of William Shatner, I get a pretty good deal.

I buy a nice cane for myself. The handle is a knife.

You’re not supposed to bring booze onboard but I’m successful with a big ass bottle of Maker’s Mark. As soon as we sail, I head down to duty free and pay a buck twenty for a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. I feel like whiskey.

I look into renting one of those chairs for the handicapped. I tell them I have sprained achilles tendons. I lean on my cane. I think about flopping. I want one of these fuckers.

Ultimately they give me one, candy apple red, but express their displeasure at my not having reserved one. I tell them it just happened. Pricks.

I hole up in my suite with my knife cane and some righteous hooch. I get myself a good heat on. I play with my knife and cane. I feel armed. Prepared. He won’t follow me this far. He’s forgotten. Haven’t seen him for weeks. I drink more whiskey. I’ve got both bottles open now to compare them but there’s no fucking contest. Um, Johnnie Walker Blue?

I light a cigarette and remember I have a balcony. I can smoke pot and cigarettes on the balcony with a drink and the ocean speeding by.

So I do that. It’s wet out.

I decide to look around.

Night on the boat is windy and rainy. I explore her from stem to stern. Five floors. I leave my chair and use my cane wherever I need to. She is a floating city. Food whenever and wherever you want it. Drunk people everywhere. I’m not interested in talking to anyone. I really just want to observe. The ship is awesome. It’s huge.

I get a snifter of good cognac and step out on the bow. It’s beyond some theater and down some stairs. Completely dark save for a veiled moon. I say a toast my rabbit Watership. My tears mingle with the rain and are taken by the wind. I throw the glass into the sea.

I’m glad no one can see me climbing these stairs. I am fucked up.

Back to my suite I order room service.

A grilled cheese sandwich. I hope the sandwich has an impaled olive and a pickle on a toothpick cause that’s what I picture. I kinda wake up when she asks if there’s anything else and I say, chicken nuggets, a side of bacon and some chocolate milk.

I watch an interesting program on the ships engines.

I remember answering the door and smelling the food. I’m not sure if it was the boat or me but gravity was a motherfucker. I know I was still dressed.

Black olives stabbed through the sandwich with a green plastic sword. Cool.

I wake up kinda slow. The ship isn’t moving. I look out the window at what must me Ensenada. I go outside to smoke to make myself puke so I can get that over with. It’s a nice view.

On my walk back in, a humid and cloying cloud of whiskey does the trick. All I’ve got is bile and it emerges with violence as does the snot from my nose. I’m used to it. I’ll rehydrate and get some protein and a little fiber. Some grease.

No sign of him the first night.

I’m on my first Gin Mary by twelve thirty. Haven’t eaten shit. It’s overcast and a little drizzly but warm in the tourist section of Ensenada. Strange place. Stray from the obvious path and it gets weird in a hurry. Flies on meat and shoeless kids selling chiclets.

I left the chair behind. My legs are killing me until I find a place to sit but I look around and see that it would have been an embarrassing clusterfuck in that chair.

I can’t help but pay attention to how heels click on the muddy sidewalks.

When in doubt, wear boots. I did.

There’s a man who’s feet make no sound although his shoes appear ordinary enough. He strides with an umberella as a walking stick and I’m sure he’s not an American.

He wears a trenchcoat and his hands are very old. He wears a simple ruby in a gold band on his right middle finger. His suit underneath the coat is the color of vanilla ice cream.

Both pant legs clean, even the cuffs.

I see him walking across the street. Again and again. Back and forth. He has Colonel Sanders facial hair yet his face is very young. Hardly any lines at all.

I’m nursing the mother of all dumbovers.

Eventually he makes eye contact and acknowledges me though I can’t say he smiled or anything.

Within just a few minutes, he’s at my table extending his hand and asking to join me. Despite the weather it is crowded. I invite him to sit. He says his name is Carlo Tarcisio. I wonder if that’s Northern Italy. I can’t tell by looking at him.

I tell him my first name.

After the very third drink, I forget all the rules. What time thew boat leaves etc.

The ring on his finger constantly sounds the same note against his glass.

Carlo doesn’t mind buying and we seem to be hitting it off. I barely think about the boat and how hard it’ll be to get back on two half useless legs while shithammered. When my mind does wander there, I feel like dropping a deuce, so I table the notion for further examination once I’m back on the boat.

I dream of a knife. It’s not the first time. The hilt is steel. The blade is hollow glass. Inside is a liquid. It looks like absinthe.

Like somebody snapped their fingers, I’m awake at one thirty seven a.m. He’s been here. I smell the pigs. Their breath and sweat. Raw intelligence. The steam of their violence.

Ice trays filled. Toilet paper on the roll. I don’t need to check.

A gob of pungent semen on my pillow and on my cheek.

Fuck!

I can’t fucking stand it. I really can’t fucking stand this.

I throw the bloody linens in the laundry with bleach in a gust of disgust and escape to my shower. The water is as hot as I can stand it, shocking the gash in my face when I step in front of it. My split plumb. Reflex, I lower my head. Blood pools at my feet. It’s coming from my face, but also from just above my knees. Something is carved into the flesh above each knee cap, underneath the meat of the thigh.

I can’t make it out. The blood and water simultaneous, make it impossible.

Still faded, this development makes me dizzy. I grab the nozzle with both hands so I don’t go down.

People say their lives are a nightmare, they have no idea.

Where do I go? Who do I tell?

The only blood around here is mine. A white plastic pawn with my hands all over it. I’ve just poured bleach on his DNA. Random and surreal but I’m losing my breath. I can’t breathe. Crazy. No police.

Can’t even picture that.

Man, I miss the good doctor Wednesdays at ten thirty. I doubt I could tell her. Either way she’d think I’m full blown dancing with myself.

I mean, maybe I am.

I’m not sure.

After that? Paranormal services like Ghost Busters? An exorcist?

See? How fucked I am?

Where would you go? Who would you tell? Tell me.

The carvings in my legs have numbed parts of my ankles and calves. I begin to let go of the nozzle and seem to be able to support my weight. I wonder how I’ll walk.

I soap and wash, over and over with one hand on the nozzle at all times.

I’m a senior citizen getting out of the shower.

Yer pretty fucking ambulatory!, I shout at myself in the mirror. My feet feel funny. Like I’m floating but literally tripping on them across the bathroom floor.

I begin to understand. Both my achilles tendons. They’re kinda numb. They still work, but I’m walking like a drunk with broken toes. He didn’t slash the actual tendons because he wants me mobile. I don’t kid myself that he could have.

Then there’s the symbolism of that particular tendon. Achilles. Greek Trojan war icon.

I understand that this insane liquid oxygen rocket fueled poltergeist has me on fucking defrost. He’s just playing. I’m his Sunday stroll. I wonder how many others he doing this to or has done it to.

I trip around the bed, putting on fresh linens.

I can’t wait to get to the office in the morning. I may have to pass on that. Whether I show or not, no good can come of it, they’re all so close to done with me.

An Ace and a Club, the two black suits. On my knees. Lotion stops the bleeding long enough to see.

Clearly, the Bible is a period piece, but I can’t help thinking about finding some creepy old cleric or maybe a shaman. What I’m up against here is light years beyond the archetypical antagonist.

For the twentieth time I tell myself I have no choice but to be his doom.

I have no choice. No other option. No other possibility.

No one one can end this but me.

The thought brings fear and frustration.

Just how the fuck am I gonna do this?

I’ve been thinking about a crossbow. Grenades. A shotgun.

Anybody know a white wizard?

Seven days a week. I know all of their faces if not their names. Some look at me with questions, a few with some concern. Long story, my hand up every time I say it. I take my iced venti drip, dump a little, glug half & half into it, stir it with the straw and leave.

$2.65

I sweat in the car and the air conditioner feels like a hose on my face.

At work I stop to put my briefcase and coffee in my office and head down the hall to greet the boss.

I’m self conscious. I begin to sweat and my face throbs. I own that I look like a pile of shit.

You wanna shut the door? He says. He’s alarmed, his eyebrows are up, friendly and neutral.

Nope. I actually fell down the goddamn stairs, I say. I was hammered, I say. I look at him embarrassed because I am. The stairs to my parking garage, I say.

My nose feels like a sliced plum as he stairs at it. I try to breathe quietly through my mouth. It’s not really working.

Sweet Jesus, he says. That’s gotta hurt like a bastard.

It does, I tell him. I tell him if I tear up it’s because it smarts and it’s not because my vagina hurts. He laughs but he’s still looking at me.

His nose barely wrinkles and I understand he knows I’m bullshitting him. It sucks.

I drop with care in my chair, it squeaks like a riot of cats in a sack, turn the computer on, grab the reciever and realize that even the phone against my face is fucking killing me.

They all do the double take when they pass my office.

Mattie’s office is across from mine and he can’t stand it. By lunch he’ll have his angle. He’s six four with a fauxhawk but today I will kill him. I feel fucking mean. Nothing to lose. I will beat him to death with the goddamn fax machine. I picture it and crack a smile. My face hurts so bad tears well up.

The morning is pain and humiliation. No one has really liked me for awhile. They’re all confused and afraid. I can’t blame them. I’ve been confrontational and antisocial for months. Today I show up with my face split open. Like that works.

Put yourself in my shoes. How do you even begin the conversation? We’re pretty close, all of us. But I don’t even hope to tell any of them the truth. This shit is crazy and that’s all they’ll get from me if I open my mouth. They’ll come away thinking I’ve lost my shit. I hate it, but it’s true.

Lunch is cool. Mattie has decided to forego the canyon in my face as a topic. After the first few minutes, I understand this and I’m grateful.

Not cool though. Everyone uncomfortable. Best friends and coworkers are beside themselves because of me. They try to include me in conversation, but look at me with cloudy revulsion and confusion. They have no idea what to make of me and there’s nothing I can say that will put them at ease.

I’m a fucking mess that keeps getting worse in all eyes.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this.

I want to scream that you people have layed awake worrying about how to pay a vendor, while I’ve been fistfighting a fucking demon every night. His eyes bleed and he drools. Fuck me, that’s not the half of it.

Then I go home.

To sleep.

To dream.

I get drunk first. On good gin.

I realize that my flat plasma throws heat because I feel it on my nose.

I go to bed.

I reach to turn off the lamp and on the nightstand, a white plastic pawn.

I’m so tired.

He slips inside. The key is smooth, the knob twists. He enters and shuts the door behind, very quiet.

He throws the bolt.

I see it in my head. The bolt.

I smell lamb and garlic.

Then I breathe shit. Overwhelming. No air in these fumes. He smells homeless. He smells like piss and puke and shit and sweat. It’s a stench so monstorous.

I gag.

I’ll retch. I’m sure.

I hear him begin to fill the empty ice trays on the counter. He turns the faucet off after the first one and he whispers….. too full. Very slowly he poors a thin stream into the sink.

He moves to the bathroom.

I see the spring loaded roll snap into place as I hear it.

My eyes are crusted. He’s rolling away from me. Out of my bed.

Crusty eyes and blurry vision.

Out of my bed.

What?

The front door closes.

My rabbit is dead.

His name was Watership and I adored him.

He’s been sprayed on the walls of my apartment.

His skin is on the floor. The carpet. Ears and all. He was my boy. His velvet nose.

He slept in his cage at night. His water bottle smashed on the marble mantle. He was so sweet and docile. Above the fireplace is a crude scrawl in his blood. It looks Japanese.

I think of that song by The Vapors.

There is fur in the wire around the door of his cage, he liked his cage, he came and went willingly, so I undersand he struggled violently.

He was soft and cocoa brown. His eyes were kind and he shuffled to rub his face on me.

Ever heard a rabbit scream? I have. Sounds like a baby human.

I break all the way down. Collapse. Fold. Fall. Lose it.

I scrape his remains.

Thoroughly. I collect them, all I can get or lift, and deposit them in a ceramic pot I made in grade school.

I don’t know what to do with bowl so I cover it in plastic wrap and put it in the freezer. I’m disgusted by it but it’s all I have.

His name was Watership, I adored him.

As I sit here, I miss him. He was innocence.

There’s a big piece of lumber always propped against the wall by my trash chute. It’s handy for forcing fat bags of trash down the maw. It looks vaguely nautical, like it should be on a medium sized sailboat. It’s been here for the two years I’ve been here.

I take it with me. Back to my apartment.

Hours after dawn and I still smell his fucking pigs.

I will wait forever for him.

He is fucked.

I’m not sure what he is. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to kill him.

I’m a submarine, way down deep, hull compromised. Pinhole leaks will soon begin to gush. You’ve seen the movies. Once that shit starts, it’s the beginning of the end.

Now he e-mails me on all three of my accounts.
Nothing too sinister, emoticons and random puncuation
that I’m sure are supposed to correspond or be in
context somehow with sightings of him.

I haven’t filled an ice tray in weeks, but they’re always full. Lately, the toilet paper is installed properly on the wall dispenser. Something I never do.

I keep hearing the wind blow outside. When I step out
for a smoke, the air is still.

The radio turns on in the middle of the night. Wierd stations that sound like Hamm radio. Sometimes orchestras from the forties.

Constantly lately, what must be ancient perfume. Simple pungent notes. Disturbing but instantly nostalgic.

Then there’s the pigs.

I ask her if she’s noticing them. Not so much says she.

They seem to be everywhere. Iconic to a degree in American culture, she points out, smirk gratis.

Maybe I just notice them more. Everywhere from news magazines to National Geographic.

The ones in the Geographic have dirty tusks and crazy eyes swimming in violence. I smell them when I wake in the middle of the night. I hear their bifurcated hooves in other rooms.

They squeal and clack on my balcony.

They’ll eat anything you know. Anything.

The very next time I see him, his eyes are filled with
blood. Our entire encounter, he blinks once.

There’s a big ass Ralph’s across the street. Tremendous selection of frozen meals as well as standing at the fridge food. Good soup kiosk and a really good salad bar. Single males understand this food dynamic as well as the need for as many plants as you can possibly get down into your goddamn gastrointestinal.

Anyway, sometimes I start on the right because I’m in a hurry. When I start left it’s because I’m cool and I have a little time.

It was an afternoon copasetic as I entered left off the elevator with my smooth and noisless cart. I turned right after perusing the produce section and picking out some avacados, tomatos and onions. I proceeded down the middle north to south aisle. It bisects the store and aisles on your right and left.

He appeared at the head of the first one.

His eyes were rimmed with blood. His hair was more yellow. I thought of a naked corn cob. Right there, thirty five feet to my right. Not showing his teeth today and that’s a relief. Kinda, because the lower front of his face seems to struggle at containing them.

Next block down he’s at the tail of that one and thirty five feet to my left.

The next aisle is a block party. Fireworks bust and spatter in the night overhead. It’s the nexus of this retail venue, and at the same time, red and gold popcorn carts, clowns, balloons and herds of women in pastel stretch pants and heels.

I jerk left down the next lane and it’s just carnival games and frozen food. He’s at that end as I roll up on him while he stares at me through eyes full of blood. He blinks slowly and his lids are squeegees. Fresh red blood runs from his eyes and into his teeth as he begins to grin.

He’s got dozens of pigs with him. Some are hogs. Some are boars. Some are swine.

I understand that if I’m not his demise, he will be mine. I smell this fact when I flip a bitch in front of him and head down the road on the opposite side.

He follows me and it’s loud. He marches and brings his feet down hard. He constantly sucks drool back through his teeth.

I’m panicking. My heart in my throat as my brain screams about how life is fucking tough enough, why me today?

I glance back and his nose and ears have joined in the gush over his giant teeth.

Red blood streams into his maw like rivulets before a wash.

Now he’s ahead of me eating slices of pineapple from a can. Blood and fruit juice run over his chin and down to his shirt to look like sweat. I wonder if I have just minutes to kill this crazy motherfucker.

Or will it be another day?

He beats me to the register and I watch him bag my groceries. His shirt is a dark blue now and his eyes are bloodshot but clear.

I tell him paper & plastic and to pack them heavy. He does all that.

I still understand that I have to be this guy’s fucking hurricane.

Drinks for my friends.

It was interesting. Fascinating. Kinda compelling.

I had fun with it.

For awhile.

Sometimes, it was like picking at a scab or the tongue constantly probing a sore in the mouth.

Still, enigmatic in the most consumate of ways.

Until he was standing over my bed on a silent night, when some sense caused me to open my eyes.

I think I first noticed him on a movie poster. Outside a shopping mall. One of those faux shelters for public transportation. Maybe on the side of a bus.

I remember thinking, after clocking his countenance out of the corner of my consciousness, that’s one creepy motherfucker. In the background of one of those visually exploding advertisements for some inspid action movie. He registered only after the fact, in my mind’s eye.

Weird.

Time passed.

I swear I saw him wearing sunglasses in a potato chip ad on the back of a comic book. I don’t really read them anymore, but I’ll thumb through them when I come across a display.

Not long after, he was an extra in a cell phone commercial on TV. I wondered at how many times I’d watched that one before I noticed him.

Tall, pale. Gaunt. Always seeming to stare right at me.

Then, he was pictured on packaging for disposable razors.

Then again, in the very back of an advertisement for a new amusement park ride on a plastic fast food cup. I’ve always kept those cups. They hold a lot and it doesn’t matter what happens to them. They make excellent mini trash receptacles for a coffee or bedside table in the apartment of a single male.

Didn’t hang on to that one.

I would catch a glimpse of him walking opposite me while driving. Of course, I looked back and checked my mirrors. Of course, nothing.

He had large front teeth, maybe buck toothed. Red hair in a sort of crew cut flat top. Pale blue eyes that were unbelievably bloodshot.

I could only imagine all these companies hiring him for these ads must have thought he was kinda goofy and cool somehow, they were infusing their shit with character or quirkiness, or something.

I thought he was scary as fuck.

He started to appear in my dreams. Still pretty innocuous, but more overt. Winking, saying hello to me. That sort of thing.

He kept showing up in different places.

In the audience on a talk show.

Blackjack dealer in Vegas once.

One day, he was pumping gas a couple islands over at a Shell station.

Early seventies GTO. It was green. He pulled out very slow.

I walked through a mall and saw him going down an escalator on a lower level grinning up at me before he looked down, sprinted the last few moving steps and disappeared.

He always bolts or turns away when I see him. He knows me.

Obviously.

He said nothing. When he placed his index finger on my sternum ever so gently, I swear I could smell dirt and grease under a long nail. He said nothing but looked right at me. Not through me, but at me. The sliding door to my balcony was open, wind clattered the vertical blinds. I could smell gasoline.

He grinned; a rictus affording massive and misshapen incisors. He began to drool, then sucked it back violently. He blew air past his lips and walked away, away from my bed and out my front door. I heard him close it quietly behind him.

Now I get phone calls at work and on my cell. HEY MIKEY IT’S ME JERRY!! Or, ANTWON!! Or, WILLIAM!!

It freezes me. I know it’s him before it rings, if I don’t answer the goddamn thing, he’ll leave a voice mail and I’ll be absolutely compelled to listen to it. So I try to take it on the chin and then hang up. Get it over with. I know when it’s him.

Get this, he always wears brown corduroy pants, blue suede Puma Clydes, a maroon t-shirt under a leather biker jacket and he’s pigeon chested. Yeah, it’s all lopsided and the fit of his leather coat emphasizes it. His shoulders are narrow and he’s very tall. Sinewy and long limbed. A glance at his hands tells that one of them would kill you if it got you by the throat.

About a week ago, I was at Starbucks waiting for my unsweetened iced crack and he was backing out the door and firing a gun at me with his thumb and index finger. I pissed my pants. I’m pretty sure no one noticed.

I had to go home. I was late to work. The boss gave me the look and pointed out my shitty performance lately. I nodded and apologized.

I don’t sleep much anymore. I’ve begun to obsess about pigs. They scare the shit out of me. Are you aware of how smart they are? They will eat any motherfucking thing. And we eat them.

This is bad.