Acropolis Of Absent Fathers...

it was early morning late

I chose to ignore the negative twinge
as I peered out the peephole of my apartment door and
saw him staring back
with his
lost smile and
leaping
eyes

he was the young son of an
acquaintance

a slacker type with
psychic
knife
stuck in the
back of his
weeping
karma

he was looking for a place to hang or
crash
for the balance of the
night

I’d a recent
bad experience
playing good neighbor Sam
and picked up this guy I used to know
standing in the rain like a
pathetic wet rat
and there was that twinge
that feeling

midnight

Christmas Eve in a Hollywood grocery store parking lot

alone

the rat turned out to be a junkie

leaving tears of
blood spattered in the sink of my
bathroom
where he’d popped
sticking me for
40 bucks and the
shirt off my
back

I’m a real soft touch

and now

this guy standing in my
doorway

what a case

complete with
Christ complex
God thing and a powerful
hatred of
women

his old man was a con
so was his older brother

when I met his mother
she was at the time a
self-styled
Marxist
recently crossing over and
shifting gears to become a
born again Christian
raising a grandson for the
younger sister who was working the
streets on
crack
with a little
gang-banging on the
side

the kid had learned his lessons well
turning the shit inside down and
upside
out

I didn’t have the heart to pitch him the
no room at the
inn
routine
so I
let him
in

thought maybe I could
reach the kid and help pull the
funky monkey off his
back

he had been seen down at the local coffee haunt
just days before
escorting a Styrofoam cup full of
dead snake around like it was a
pet dog
telling folks he was
God

and this night was no different

his energy was up
and he was in good
form

my 6 year old son was asleep in the
other room

so I stayed up with my
wide eyed
blistering prophet of
negative
ha ha
for a while
thinking
I might
reign his ass in a bit before I left him
alone

he started in with his well oiled rap about
how the evil women had fucked up the planet
and soon was onto his bit about
being
The Almighty

“Man, I’m gonna drain all my blood and fill my veins
with liquid gold and then I’ll become the God I was
meant to be
and everybody will
know. And I’ll be able to fly man. I’ll
fly above everything and
everyone
and I’ll be
God!”

“Wow, no shit. Yeah, ya know, I have dreams about
flying sometimes.”

“No man. I mean fucking fly dude. For real. Dig. It’s
time ya know? I mean, I’m talking power, real fucking
power
ya know,
and nobody will be able to
fuck with me
‘cause I’ll be God man. I mean, I am
God,
it’s just that nobody
knows.”

his eyes were reaching
his mouth was moving
his mind caught somewhere
betwixt and
between

he was heading over the edge of a
flat world with
no
brakes

I was up with him until about
3:30
maybe
4

I set him up in the front room with a few sleeping bags

about
5:15
something stirred my ass awake and I
wandered out into the
front room
half
dazed

the fanatic fuck had
cut his wrists with my one dull steak knife
and cannibalized the
TV antenna
plugging
the frayed bare wires into each of his
wrists

he had dismantled my red lava lamp
and smeared the warm gooey
lava wax all over his
forearms

my C.D. player whacked out on some sort of
emergency broadcast
weirdness
while this goof is grooving
big time
to static and snow on the
TV
there was a sprinkling of
blood weeping on the
carpet and he was
flying
high

I walked over to the door and
opened it

“All right, get the fuck out, now!”

“But man, you don’t realize what I’ve done…”

“I don’t fucking care. Get the fuck out of here, NOW!”

“You’ll regret this when you realize what I’ve done.
This is an important discovery. Your apartment is sa-
cred. I’ve become God!”

my son comes stumbling in rubbing his eyes

I guess he had heard me
debating with the new
God
about the merits of a good
miracle

“Get back to bed Spencer.”

he didn’t hesitate
he knew from the tone of my
voice
that was exactly
what he
should
do
he turned heel and
exited back to the safety of
the bedroom

we build our shrines to the
strangest possible
things

somehow
there was something
tragically correct about him
believing
he was God
plugged into the
TV and the stereo
lavulating to the energy
and bleeding into the
cheap brown carpet of my
apartment

he disconnected with my place and
vanished

it was the last time I really spent any time with the boy

I called his Mother the following day and
told her he was going over and
to get him some
help

the poor fuck

there were no answers
just
revolving
doors
in and out of
county jails and
madhouses

so tonight
years later
the phone rings,
“Hey S.A.,
you hear about Shelly’s son
Craig?”

“Oh no, don’t tell me…”

“Yeah…he took off all of his clothes and
jumped off an overpass onto the
freeway and
killed hisself.”

“Ah hell. That’s fucking sad. I’m not surprised.”

“Me neither. His two biggest heroes were his
Dad and his older brother, and they were both
fucked up man. I guess that’s what happens.
Maybe he’s not mad anymore,
maybe he’s at peace.”

“I agree. If there’s peace in dying,
he’s with it now,
ya know.”

he had succeeded in building one last shrine
an Acropolis where
lost sons worship
absent fathers and
dreams of
flying
but he flew too high and had
offed himself in the
process

melting in the intense light of the truth and
tumbling
Earthward like a
naked limp sack of
potatoes
pulling the twisted knife from out of his
back
and stabbing the pavement with all the passion and
heart
that makes the miracle of
living
possible

finally escaping the
desperate
deep
darkness

dancing in the
sometimes
unbearable light of
love

---

from my book:
  unborn again


book review with michael baskinski