We're in it now.
Walkers and wipes from here till the end.
People will say "How wonderful they
take care of each other."
People will say "They have each other."
Smiles will barely mask pity
as I become your good deed.
I don't think I'll care about good wishes.
I'll be grateful for you, I hope,
in-between bouts of awareness.
You'll love me until I die,
and then love me more until you smile
for the time I was once whole –
when there was no walker,
no wipes –
when we thought death was the worst,
some far-off place, some mirage.
We thought we'd escape – took long walks across the bridge and ate food, fun food, hamburgers. I took stairs two and three at a time, and you attracted guys in the showers, just washing yourself you attracted life.
Jealous old men shot proverbs: "Enjoy it while your can." "Things that don't go wrong before fifty...do after. Beware!" Pity crossed our lips but we stood sure age was someone else's war, someone else's ward, the cost of ignorance. Choice. Never bad luck. Never true.
Now everything we do is timed. Weighed. Purposed. My body isn't mine anymore though I placate it with spinach and cardio and porn. He's tending toward home, breaking me into the grave slowly, surely, ready to lay down as I conjure stairs taken two or three at a time and showers, those showers, filled with beauty, mine for a few minutes more.
You can read my latest poem collection, Late-Night Lucid, through your local library! For free! Through Indie California, library patrons throughout The Golden State have access to an electronic version of the book that already has one 5-star review on Goodreads. (It’s the only review; we all have to start somewhere.) I am proud to have had my work selected by an organization whose purpose is the promotion of independently published books and their authors, and am delighted that you have access to it through your local California library. Suits my ethos.
The Indie Author Project (IAP) is a publishing community that includes public libraries, authors, curators, and readers working together to connect library patrons with great indie-published books. IAP has helped hundreds of libraries engage their local creative community and assisted in getting almost 20,000 indie ebooks into their local libraries. Most importantly, the project has worked with top curation partners and librarians to identify hundreds of these as the best indie ebooks available to readers—so they can be sustainably circulated to library patrons with confidence.
For more information — and instructions for independent writers wondering about how to participate — click the State.
Happy reading (and writing)!
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“Libraries are one of the few public spaces where you’re allowed to exist without the expectation of spending any money.”
[note: best if read on a device that preserves indentation/spacing]
“After everything he’s been through…” “Sports’ll knock some sense into him. Teach him something.” “He’s smart – he’ll figure it out.” “Just don’t say anything. You always say something and it always lands wrong.” “Life is going to hit that kid sideways.” “He says he wants to go to Japan. Live there. What’s he think he’s gonna find? Big mistake.” “Football? Right. Cheerleader more like it.” “You’re one to talk. Exactly how many times you land on your back?’” “He’ll find his way. He's gonna be happy. Gonna surprise everybody.” “How am I supposed to raise a gay kid?” “Maybe the swim team? Don’t they like that?” “You love him, you horse’s ass. That’s what you do. Every single day of your life. You love him.” “You always defend him.” “You’re supposed to be a teacher. Shut the fuck up.” “You’re supposed to be his father. Act like it.” “I’m that boy’s Grandma and I say he’s gonna be fine.”
I watched as Billy tried to light the flimsy cardboard match out on the back porch. It wouldn’t catch and he was crying.
“Think about this the next time you decide to waltz around in your mother’s shoes.”
Billy’s fingers were already a little burned. I was allowed to watch because that’s what happens when you dishonor the family like that. “No son of mine…” Dad began but then noticed Billy was trying to fold the cover of the matchbook back so that he could pull the match between it and the sandpaper strip. “No way, no fuckin’ way.” He grabbed the matchbook and used his thumb to hold the match down while he zipped it.
“Like a man, Billy. Light it like a fuckin’ man. And stop your sniveling or I’ll add another book.”
Billy tried to stop crying. He tried to cover the matchhead with his thumb and it lit but took half his thumb with it. He yelped and dropped everything.
“That’s enough!” Mom pushed past me onto the porch. “He’s had enough!”
Dad turned on her. She didn’t back away but I could tell she thought about it. “You want him growing up a fuckin’ PANSY, Mickey? What’s next? Lipstick?” Dad started prancing around the porch with his wrists pointed down and knees stuck together.
Billy started to laugh. He was still crying a little but then he stopped and picked up the matchbook. Dad got behind him and held his hands and showed him how to hold the match just right so it would only hurt a little.
“That’s my boy,” Dad said. “Another one.”
Mom went inside shaking her head but she was smiling too.
Neither of them noticed I was wearing Dad’s work boots. I really liked the way they felt.
Resistance is not wearing a pink hat or marching with a million people or speaking your dreams hoping to tame wild beasts. That’s solidarity, and it won’t work.
Resistance is not trusting love as the enemy nails beams together. It is not honesty before Pilate. It is not true to Self. Truth is for Jesus, aching to die.
Resistance is silence as you speak lies. It is saying yes to Christian neighbors and doing what you can as you work, as you wait. It is letting proud boys believe they've won and their women, that you've found home as you sow faith and community – beautiful vines that slowly grow inch by inch, season by season, year by year.
Then, then…
when need’s grip snaps grieving sons and senseless tears, forgotten daughters; when bereft and lost they reach for friend, family, husband, wife; when only hope shields pain and you stand firmly between the question and its adjured answer: then, then remove your mask, then and only then let it slowly slip from your always-enraged face — show them your ageless hate just once, lonely soldier, so that as they sink their departing view
Writers published in Sortes 18 gathered July 7 to read recent and previously published work. Stories, poems, musical interludes, artful inspiration — is there a better way to spend the evening?
The writers/poets/artists (in order of appearance):
JULIA YONG
MARK RUSS
DANIEL RABUZZI
MARTE CARLOCK
CHARLES ALBERT
JAKE SHEFF
MICHAEL THÉRIAULT
DIPTI ANAND
GREG BECKMAN
ROBERT POPE
Enjoy! With thanks to editor Jeremy Tenenbaum for the invitation and awesome atmosphere.
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My reading included poems from Beginning Middle Man, So…What Do You Do?, and Late-Night Lucid. Each is available HERE. Or you could just hit the BOOKS menu button up-top.
I was the first punk not afraid to walk up the driveway. I saw him smoking in the front seat of his car, one leg in, the other leg out. He shifted his head and watched me walk up to the car door and ask if I could look inside. “I want one of these.”
He nodded. “You know what this is?” He stared straight at me. I said it was a 1967 Pontiac LeMans with all-original interior from the look of the dashboard and door panels, dials and chrome knobs and the dual-gate shifter in the center console. I touched the split-bench seat behind his shoulder and felt hard black vinyl. He lifted the cigarette to his mouth and took a drag and exhaled smoke through his nose.
We sat in his car until it was dark, smoking cigarettes and listening to the oldies station that he sometimes tapped the steering wheel to. I asked if he was born there. I told him I couldn’t wait to get out. “It’s a good town and all but nothing that hasn’t been done will ever get done.” He flicked the cigarette away from the car and we lit up again.
“You want to take a drive?”
I said sure and asked if I could take the wheel. He looked sideways at me and blew out smoke fast. “Sure do got a pair,” he said. I knew he was going to let me drive, not out of the gate but later. “She’s got a lot under the hood.” I knew he couldn’t wait. He fired her up. I never heard such a sweet sound before, not from the inside. The floorboards rumbled. I could feel it through my feet. This car had balls. We growled down the driveway and into the street. The car was hungry for the pedal, itching for it, edgy. I threw my arm across the top of his seat behind his shoulder. He grinned and asked if I was ready. I nodded and gripped the door with one hand and the back of his seat with the other before we jumped and that untamed devil roared away from his house and his life and we yelled and whooped over the engine and the wind and the darkness as we blasted out, out into a suddenly wide world.
The air smelled all Georgio and ocean in LA and my body worked so well I felt nothing, nothing, which is what health and vitality are, feeling nothing but heat on the bed, body on the sheets, the summer smell of my body in that not-new crusty motorhome parked outside Aunt’s house at the top of a street on a hill on a curve. It shouldn’t have worked parking on the ridge between Torrance and, over there, Redondo. The street was too small but she loved that RV and parked it in front of her house after she picked me up at Beck’s, my other grandpa, the one I hadn’t seen in so long. He didn’t know where I’d been or why, how I hitchhiked across the Utah desert and Nevada and slept with a truck driver in a cheap motel with shitty beds because I was fourteen and my step-dad threw me out of the car in Salt Lake.
He didn’t ask and I didn’t say. She knew but didn’t say anything. We had that in common.
I sometimes go back to that hill but nothing’s there anymore except I am in that bed over the cab, my own little place because there was no room in Aunt’s house. She acted embarrassed but to me it was heaven and I told her I couldn’t think of a more-fun thing to do. I ran to it that first night to fuck around because I was only fourteen and didn’t know how to pick up sex then and the whole thing was mine so I jammed myself thinking about the missionaries that used to come knocking on the door and the new nylon shorts I was wearing, the blue running shorts she bought me with the slit up the leg so high, and I couldn’t be stopped and nobody was around and they probably couldn’t see even though the little cab-light was on and they probably saw, or saw the camper moving, but I didn’t think about that too long because it felt so good. Nobody said anything the next morning, not even her son, even though he looked at me weird and they’d have to be blind not to see.
I was a nice boy everyone pitied because I was not strong and who my step-dad married. Someone once said at his church “For what he’s been through…Heavenly Father sure made him smart.” Skinny arms and twig legs and desire for those missionaries, desire so wild I yelled the first time I came and then it became a contest to see how far it could go until I knew I was gay and not just friends with guys and my first thought was “Cool.” Then all hell broke loose again and I’m almost fifteen in an RV parked on a curve at the top of a hill. I want so many guys I feel like a whore back when being a whore was dangerous because AIDS was out so I’m fucking around above the cab amazed at how I smell and happy. Aunt drives me to Universal Studios the next day and says she thought she washed the sheets but evidently not and opens the windows as she drives up the 405 freeway. This is the first time I feel like a man. Everything changes. I didn’t think it would — I wanted time to kiss Bryce and use my body with him and have someone beautiful take me away. But she smelled the sheets and I was proud and didn’t need Bryce or mom or a dad because I was sure.
It’s all good now. There’s no need to go back to my glorious skin or dream other whores out there waiting to be touched and taken and left so they can go to work the next day and then home to kids and husbands who know nothing. I go back to that bed over the cab that smelled of sweat and cum because I love how the story began and I watch everything that’s happened and say:
“Fuck you were a skinny whore.”
I feel good. I feel fifty while I sit at the table, stay up for the words because they are strong and true and because this is who I want to be, where I want to be, writing under a crap light while people wonder what the fuck I’m doing parked on this goddamn hill.
My brand-new truck still had less than two thousand miles on it and was the first thing I bought after graduating college even though it had no air conditioning and I found out you had to buy a bumper for trucks separately. I never bought a truck before especially one without a bumper but the salesman told me I made a solid decision and it would come in handy moving from Seattle to Pullman with all my college life in boxes in the back for my first real job. The signpost Aaron wanted to steal was was going to scratch up the bed of my brand new truck but Aaron said “It’s gonna be fine — you worry too much” but he also said he was going to be on-time when I picked him up in Redmond which was south of Seattle and kind of meaningless unless you were into a new company called Microsoft but he was late for the drive back to WSU and now it was dark. “It’s like you’re afraid of life or something” to which I said “Or something” because I wasn’t going to let him think I minded stopping at mile-marker 47 on State Route 26 because that was his number on his high school football team and he wasn’t getting much field time at WSU so he wanted the sign to cheer him up. When he asked if I could stop I told him the sign was attached to a post and I didn’t have any tools in the new truck to take the sign-part off but he said he was strong and flexed his arms because he was always flexing his arms and said he’d take the whole friggin’ post if he had to. No one would see because it was dark as Hades in wintertime when we pulled away from the 90 and Spokane and started toward the southern corner of Washington with nothing but dashboard lights and headlights. “We can turn the lights off if you’re going to be a girl about it” he said and I knew he was baiting me but I really didn’t mind. It was dark and I thought who really looks at those mile-markers anyway so I agreed and Aaron gripped my shoulder as I drove and said I was the best. “Save it for the judge” I said but I was smiling in the dash-lights and Aaron could see that so he tapped me again on the shoulder and asked how things went with my girlfriend in Seattle.
The headlamps spread light out in the clean not-city farm air as I told Aaron we were probably going to get married and I was planning a great big expensive trip down to Los Angeles so that I could propose in front of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion fountain before we watched Phantom of the Opera which was not at the Pavilion but at the Ahmanson right in the same complex. I was lost in my plans and Aaron was quiet until I looked at him for being so quiet and realized he probably didn’t know anything about Los Angeles being from Redmond or why I wanted to propose there to my girlfriend and seemed to be looking forward to it when we were just two guys driving across Washington looking for mile-marker 47. I said “What?” and Aaron looked like he was holding something back staring straight through the windshield because he didn’t want to get in an argument which totally confused me because what argument could there be over my plans to ask my girlfriend to marry me? He put up his hands in a kind of to-each-his-own way and backed into the bench seat until I said “What, Aaron?” and I guess he figured he tried so he just hauled right off and said “Why?” I asked what he meant by “Why?” and he said nothing with his hands and that’s the way we rode through the night down State Route 26.
It was so black outside the dashboard lights hurt my eyes so I decided to see what everything looked like without the lights after making sure no one was coming or behind me. Aaron thought it was cool riding down the 26 with no lights in total pitch black and rolled down his window and stuck his head out into the cold night air until I turned back on the lights and the cab of my truck lit up with the dashboard and I could see the cab and Aaron again and he looked like he was weighing something again in his mind and trying to figure out what to do with it. I guess he decided because he put his hands on his knees and grabbed them and said “What are you afraid of?” The way he asked I wasn’t sure if he was asking me so I would ask him or if he was just messing with the same thing he harped on since I met him and we shot hoops out behind the dorm. His hands gripped his kneecaps and then came together as he looked out his window and said it was probably none of his business but he just didn’t think I should be getting married. So soon. “Why?” I asked and Aaron breathed a little and then stopped until he said “Forget it, man — just me being Stupid Aaron” as we passed mile-marker 32 and talked about Seattle and how different and small and water-less Pullman was and why I decided to do the whole dorm director thing at WSU. “Easier places” he said and I could tell he missed the water and didn’t like all the Joe Farmers who got married their Sophomore years and moved into married housing. In the dashboard light I could tell he wasn’t going to make it as he searched for the next mile marker and told me it was hard for him to meet girls and that he’d be transferring next year. He said I was lucky but I could tell he was just saying that even though he was right. I was lucky and scared especially when I was with him.
It seemed important to ask questions and say things once we passed mile-marker 46 and I started to slow my truck down and could hear the engine slow down also. “The wood’s going to be splintery from being out here so long” and Aaron said yeah as he geared up to steal the signpost and flexed his hands and rolled his neck. I could tell he lived for this and I felt bright and all the things I wanted to say receded into the darkness behind us and we looked at each other like friends. Aaron said “Awesome!” and I said too that it was awesome and that I’d never stolen anything but a piece of Bazooka bubble gum when I was six and was marched back to the liquor store to confess my crime by my mother who noticed I had gum when I wasn’t allowed. Aaron stared ahead with clear eyes reflecting the dashboard lights and said “Damn” and that it really wasn’t stealing because we’d probably paid for the sign many times over and replacing it would probably give somebody a job for a least a while. I could see the mile-marker roll into view next to a barb-wire fence and pulled past it and drove onto the shoulder then onto the dirt and Aaron rolled down the window fast and stuck his head out and told me I was too far away but I said I was going to back up to get the tailgate right behind the post. I shut off the lights as Aaron got out of the truck but he wanted them on because he couldn’t see what the hell he was doing in complete darkness and plus there was nobody out there which was true. I turned them on after a quick look up and down the highway and left the engine running as I jumped out to lower the tailgate as Aaron started to throw his shoulder against the mile-marker sign and then push and pull it with his hands until the post started to move a little and crack up the dirt. I carefully took hold of the splintery post and pulled while Aaron grabbed and pushed. I was happy to be doing this with Aaron until the entire post wobbled and we started to lift it up and a small volcano of dirt came out ahead of the cement around the bottom of the post. We lifted up and Aaron said “Shit!” because he just got a splinter in his hand and said quickly we’d get it out later. “Fuck!” The post was above-ground now still upright while Aaron moved to lift the cemented bottom onto the back end of the truck and I jumped into the bed to lay the mile-marker down gently. In the bed I looked down State Route 26 and it was dark and peaceful and cold until I saw a pair of lights heading for us and I jumped down and the two of us dove into the truck. I was about to put the truck in gear but Aaron said to just shut down the lights quick and go dark. “Are you crazy?” I said but his eyes looked intense and right and he reached over and turned off the headlights and turned off the engine and took the keys. I wanted to grab them but he held them out his window and said “Just wait — everything will be alright.” I said it might be a cop and he probably saw us from way back there and he said “Doesn’t matter” and soon a car passed us like we weren’t there and continued down the road. Aaron took my hand in the dark cab and turned it over and put my keys in it.
The dashboard glow hurt especially after the dark that I had just about gotten used to when I turned the key and started the engine. My eyes adjusted to the light and I saw Aaron’s hand turned upright on his leg and him looking at me like a guy who just scored the winning touchdown and still wanted more even though he was hurt. The splinter was more like a stake and was old rough red wood that was probably going to infect because it was driven deep under his skin across his palm. You could see it like a rusted needle in his palm that he was surprised by but started to pull at anyway as the skin of his palm started to move like it was gripping the splinter, like there were barbs that would rip out a lot. Aaron winced and laughed a little and said it was totally worth it and started to pull again but I stopped him and said he was going to leave half in that way. “You need to get that looked at” I said so he said “So look at it” and held his thick dirty palm to my face so that I sat back but then didn’t and took his hand and turned it face-up as I turned on the light over the rearview mirror and thought: “This thing is really driven in.” Aaron said “So am I gonna live doc?” and I said he should’ve been careful but then thought how stupid it was to say that after the old dark wood was already under his skin. I got an idea and asked for the Bic I kept in the glove compartment and he got it without taking his hand from mine and handed it to me wondering what the heck I was going to do with it. Without saying anything I edged the cap off the pen and let the pen fall and used the cap to push the old red wood up from the bottom and watched as it slowly crept out of his hand without any blood or anything. “You’re lucky you have calluses” I said and he said that was amazing and he didn’t feel a thing and then he whooped leaving his hand in mine but turning it over. After a while he said “What a trip, man!” and clapped his hands together and we drove onto the road and started towards Pullman and the dorm.
It was late when I pulled into my spot behind the old brick dorm with a mile-marker in the bed of my new truck. The dorm was still alive with lights on in almost every room and I suddenly wondered how we were going to get the sign-post up to Aaron’s room. I figured he’d lift it into my office on the first floor but then thought he could put it in the basement with all the other storage and just get it later. Maybe there wouldn’t be anybody hanging around the lobby studying or taking a break from studying but Aaron said he’d take care of it and ran inside the dorm through the back door before I had a chance to tell him I couldn’t get caught helping a resident steal a sign-post. I thought about lifting it out of the truck myself and got out to take a look but then figured it was too heavy with the cement around the bottom and leaned back against the truck and waited for Aaron. He came out the door first and then four other guys followed who said hi to me before looking at the sign-post and saying “You took the whole fucking thing?” in awe and judgment so Aaron hit one in the chest and everybody laughed. Aaron beamed and said it was the coolest thing but he needed to get it upstairs to his room and Eric who was strong and smart said unless Aaron was going to plant it all he needed was a crowbar and he’d get the sign off the post. Eric asked me “Do you have a tire-iron Greg?” and I thought of the brand-new unused tire-iron behind the bench seat which I got and gave to Eric who jumped into the bed of the truck and wedged the sign from the weatherbeaten post. He stood in the back of my truck with a wide strong smile as Aaron rubbed his hands together and said he hadn’t had this much fun in such a long time and it was all thanks to me as he clapped my shoulders. The guys nodded and said something about studying though I could feel the drinking signal in the word studying and started to replace the tire iron and lock the truck. The guys got the rotted broken post out of the truck-bed and threw it in the dumpster around the corner from my parking spot and waved goodbye after brushing off their hands on their jeans. Aaron started to follow them but then turned and said “It was really fun — thanks, man” and then started again for the back door with mile-marker 47 in his hands. He turned one more time at the door and I thought he was going to say one more thing, something important because he stopped with the door open and stood there looking at me before nodding up at me and walking into the dorm.
Avi climbed up the yellowed sandstone rock that had once been part of the headland bluff but now sat six feet in seawater during high tide and fronted by sand during low tide. He stood completely naked because he’d always wanted to be naked on a beach in Big Sur or near Big Sur and the rock was there so he stripped off his jeans and sweatshirt and shoes and climbed until he reached the very top. From the top of the towering rock he looked toward Piedras Blancas lighthouse and the hidden winter home of the elephant seals we’d seen the day before that seemed fat and lazy but could move in unexpected ways and were actually quite fast. Every year a tourist or two learned the hard way that poking the blubberous giants could get you crushed underneath an angry ton of lunging seal.
Who knows why men feel the need to get naked before the ocean and then sometimes in it or why Avi thought he wouldn’t get wet standing high above the ocean or why he thought no one back at the Piedras Blancas Motel could see him when all we needed to do was look out our windows at the lighthouse to the left and him to the right. Maybe Avi knew and that was part of the thrill of it all but I didn’t think so because of the way he scanned the beach and the coast behind him and then crouched on top of the rock like he was surveilling the motel until he found himself safe from prying eyes. He stood again after that and looked carefully over the edge of the front of rock and swayed a little before recoiling at a wave that rushed inward but only made it halfway up the rock and since it looked like a pretty big wave Avi relaxed a lot and scanned the entire Pacific Ocean from left to right before he made the sign of the cross and began to pray. I thought there were other things I’d be doing on that rock but to each his own and I knew anyway that he was probably going to pray from the top of that rock before the entire western hemisphere of seawater, that’s just who he was, but I guess the couple in the next room didn’t know because through the old wall that had been repapered so many times small bubbles had long since become large domes of trapped air I heard: “Good Lord there’s a naked man on that rock over there!”
The voice was female and older from Milwaukee or Fond du Lac but definitely Wisconsin and was loud and very moral at the same time. Another lower more resigned voice told the woman to put down the binoculars and give the man the peace God intended when she said he was PRAY-ING in such a way that it sounded as if Avi was committing a high crime which I found hilarious because their lovemaking the night before was a high crime and had woken me up for almost seven minutes and then left me with thoughts. The woman went on to say that she thought Avi was a CATHOLIC even though he didn’t look it because he’d MADE THE SIGN OF THE CROSS and that she thought the entire display was disgusting and perverted and very inappropriate and had half a mind to report it to the management. The man repeated the word management with irony and I could almost see him sweep the shabby expanse of his motel room with his arm to prove his point. She continued undaunted: “I won’t be able to look out there without seeing him. Him! He’s ruined this vista forever.”
I looked out the window again, differently this time because I’d heard what the woman next door had to say about Avi ruining the view — vista — forever because he was naked before his God with his hands down at this sides but turned out towards the sea and he was beautiful and didn’t someone in the bible once dance naked before the Lord? He stood still against the San Simeon headlands and light-blue almost white sky and slowly lifted up his palms as if offering the earth and all its wonders to the waiting heavens. That was when a wave sliding from the rock back to the sea created a crescendo of seawater that an incoming wave rode until it crashed and cracked and spumed upward to the sky white sea-spray upwards upwards to shower the rock and the man praying on it who did not move but stood there in the glorious surprise of the world still and true, still and true. Shivering and surprised and completely himself in the world.
This communion was interrupted by a knock on the door that startled me and that I didn’t want to answer because it was probably the woman from next door that had enjoyed seven or eight minutes of lovemaking and was now angry. But the knocking was tentative and plaintive and I thought maybe Avi deserved a bit of privacy out on his rock under the sky so I turned from the window and walked to the door to peer through the peephole and saw the motel manager Robin who we met the day before standing outside the room. I opened the door and saw a car rush past her on the highway alongside the motel and a bottle of white zinfandel and two wine glasses that she extended with a bashful smile as she explained: “For tonight and watching the sunset. It’s spectacular.” As I took the glasses and the white zinfandel she leaned in and looked straight up at my face and said: “You’re a very lucky man.” I swear I saw a small slight wink before she pulled away and started walking as I said thank you for the unexpected gift on a morning of unexpected gifts with only a little bit of dampening coming from the voice next door. But that didn’t really matter as I set up the white zinfandel and glasses for later and went back to the window where I was tempted to find Avi again on the rock but decided to leave him alone and in peace with the ocean and sand and his God as I turned to the lighthouse and imagined its slumbering seals.
Piedras Blancas Motel after it had seen better days. (San Simeon, CA)
Greg Beckman 