william s burroughs on TV

william s burroughs on TV

Kappa Kappa Gamma

Most people, I imagine, do not have too much to say about Postmodern architecture before 8:30 in the morning. Nothing could be of less interest to most people than I came across than to discuss Classical Antiquity before they even had a chance to unpeel that thin yellow layers from the external films of their outer eyelids. What kind of a man would engage thirty some semi-strangers with his critical analysis of the Materialist philosophers and of Pythagoras of Samos whose perception of numbers and early math somehow helped explain the underlying structure of the universe? Such thoughtless engagement could only be perceived as cruel and unusual punishment for these poor university undergrads who were doing their best to keep awake after last night’s floor of cheap alcohol and menthol cigarettes.

But what was I suppose to do. I was not the one who scheduled this 8am seminar. Just like my students, I had to go through the motions. I had to pretend that I had no better place to be at such an hour.

While I was talking away and drawing logical diagrams on the blackboard, the majority of them were sipping away at their Starbucks lattes and their caramel frappuccinos. Most of them looked alike to me. They were mostly female, mostly blond, mostly young and mostly southern. I know for a fact that non of these girls have ever backpacked through the jungles of Brazil, non of them ever climbed mount Kilimanjaro nor did any of them ever experience the city of Barcelona.

These small towns outside of Norman did not offer people too much in terms of worldly imagination. People around these parts just lived their lives in the most descent ways that they could. There was no need for far away mountaintops, there was no need for all of those false adjectives and nouns that were offered by New York based television stations.

In the third seat behind that fairly large student sat Jenna Parker. Just like the rest of them, she had hair of gold. Just like the rest of them, she came some small town right outside of Wichita Falls or Oklahoma City. She was always surrounded Stacey and Madison. Neither of them could I stand for more than a minute. But Jenna was ok. The three of them were best friends for ever (or at least so they thought). They always played with one another’s hair. They wore pink shirts and sweaters that Kappa Kappa Gamma.

Last week, after we made love for the second time that night, Jenna explained to me that Kappa Kappa Gamma was amongst the oldest sororities in America. Founded on some university campus right around Illinois sometime around 1870, the Kappa sorority was amongst the oldest and largest sororities in the world.

I did not care much for her history lesson. I simply flipped her around.

She rolled me a joint and I promised to give them all an A for the semester. That is, I agreed to give Jenna and Stacey an A. Madison would have to settled for a B-, I could not stand anything and everything that she stood for.

After the semester was over, Jenna went back to Justin, her old high school sweetheart. Justin was an All American and I was not. Justin was one of them and I was foreign.

Jenna did not care about mount Kilimanjaro nor did she care about Pythagoras of Samos. Jenna was young and her breasts stood firm and substantial.

As the summer session came around, she and Justin went back to Wichita Falls. I flew back to New York City to meet up with the guys.

It was there on the bar down at Harry’s on Sullivan Street that Katie came around.

Can I buy you a drink?

But she did not need one. She was keeping away from the yellow stuff for a few weeks just to clean out her system, at least that was what the doctor told her to do.

I bought myself another round.

Katie did not like for me to be on top, she wanted to be in charge. As she climbed up and down , from side to side and all around, I ignored her grunts and closed my eyes. As she pulled her nails across my flesh, I thought about that first time that we met, down at the Blue Bonnet Bar on Norman’s Main Street. It was a cold Saturday night in Oklahoma and Jenna was wearing a pink jacket that wore ΚΚΓ across it side.

So what do you do Mr? She asked.

A few weeks later, Jenna and her friends registered for my class.

Hard-Boiled Men on Amazon

The Joy of Youth

The Upstairs Neighbor

It all started with a dog named Cujo. He was named after that one dog no doubt, that scary dog that everyone saw in that old creepy movie. But this Cujo was nothing to run away from. He was more rabbit than a dog. He had the looks of a genetic error and the personality of a brainless adolescent. Directly and perhaps biology related to him was the his owner, a vociferous nineteen year old student from the local community college. This guy was no Danny Pintauro. At best, he was less than average in every category.

I never caught this guy’s name nor did he throw it in my direction. Ever since that incident the other night, we have done our best to avoid one another. Ever since that one party they threw, ever since I called the cops, ever since they cited him for violation of the city’s noise ordinances, ever since they cited him for underage drinking, every since they found that dime bag on. He somehow and for some reason blamed the entire thing on me, his downstairs neighbor.

I thought about it for a while and still failed short of a conclusion. Was I becoming a spiteful old man like the ones you always saw around the deli or the public library? Was I simply jealous of youth? Back when I was twenty years old, I started my weekends on Wednesdays only to end them at the conclusion of Monday night football. When I was younger, I could drink like any man, with pride. I had no preferences back in those days, the cheaper the beer the better we all were about it.

Now this witless, senseless, idiotic grown child was killing my nights. That 8am public relations class that I had to teach was killing my mornings and in the middle of it all I became a bitter insomniac.

Ever since the incident, war has been declared and the upstairs kids are taking no prisoners. Their television grew loader with every hour that pasted by. Like a bunch of drunk incestuous Sumatran rhinoceros, they run around the apartment jumping up and down in an attempt to tear away at the barrier concrete and at the edges of my sanity’s external membrane.

But that was not the worst of it.

I have not yet mentioned Jenny Sue.

How that son of a bitch ever got himself such a woman was beyond my comprehension. The fact that guys like these got to sample such high quality ass was the ultimate evidence of the abundant lack in universal justice. If indeed there was a God, why would he bestow this upstairs heathen a unswerving residence in God kingdom, in between her lovely thighs?

Jenny Sue always ran around the apartment complex in a skimpy tank top and those tiny tiny pink shorts that read JUICY across the backside. Her voice was made of butter and her lips were the serving spoons. At the tender age of eighteen women still had that adolescent wholesomeness sprinkled across the windows of their charm. Ten years later most women would replace that allure with the subtle bitterness that typically resulted from a broken heart or a cheating boyfriend.

My mind was filled with friendless envy and my nights were disturbed and limited. I thought about it for a while. I thought about calling the cops. I thought about letting the air out of their tires. I thought about poisoning their dog. I thought about it and thought about it but in the end I simply gave up like most men around my age typically do.

At night when Mr. dumbfuck made love to Jenny Sue, her voice trickled through the frail hairs on my arm, through the thin walls of this old apartment complex.

Six months later and the U-Haul truck drove away with Jenny Sues’ possessions. An older couple moved into the upstairs apartment and replaced my jealousy with the trite taste of routine.

Another summer ended in this small city and then another came around. With every winter that passed and every woman that I left behind, I came to appreciate the undemanding pleasure of youth, the one thing in this world that you could never replace.

Hard-Boiled Men

Beer by Charles Bukowski

BEER
from: Love is A Mad Dog From Hell
I don't know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I dont know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
"what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!"

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows its bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horney cowboys.

well, there's beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottle fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.