The Wind

It is hot and I await the wind – Its cold and I avoid the wind – When there are days like today I wonder if the wind will change the outcome, will it move this day in the direction I hope – Does the wind move things at all – will its power take good from bad – can it make the hurt disappear?

I await the wind – I will be here standing on this spot – I may rock and sway – I might be pushed and pulled – but I will be here – can the wind and it’s offspring, the breezes and whisps and breathes, make us turn and look? – will we see what the wind is showing us – will we run from or to it?

I hear and I understand – I see and feel

I await the wind.

-peace

prison – inside or out?

bars vs walls – bench vs bed – uniform vs suit – trade vs purchase – cellmate vs roommate – fence vs fence – chowtime vs dinnertime – commissary vs supermarket

inside: laugh so everyone thinks you’re crazy – talking out loud gets the same result you’ll be left alone

outside: laugh and talk to yourself and they’ll lock you up (inside)

inside: act tough and scary

outside: act tough and scary and they’ll lock you up (inside)

the walls that keep you out can also keep you in

the rules that protect also prevent

in the end prison is prison- inside or out

 

-peace

wishful thinking – from Unlocked Windows

Pieces of stone and brick kept falling from the sky; I ran under an awning for cover and then realized that I was no safer here under this yellow tarp of a store sign than if I stayed out in the open. I had already been hit in the head by a small piece of fallen brick and I didn’t want anymore. The building across the street was collapsing right in front of me; I didn’t know which way to go. I saw a young couple trying to run to safety across the street towards the park, they had one foot on were the curb meets the grass when a massive piece of concrete landed right on top of them, they both disappeared into the ground along with the concrete into a cloud of dust.

 

I felt the ground beneath me rumbled and shutter, two parked cars vibrated across the intersection. While I watched the pair of cars dance past each other, I saw about a 100 feet of sidewalk begin to rise in the air and then crack in the middle.

 

The crack looked like it was a living breathing thing; the earth belched and smoke or steam came up thru the crack and shot into the air. An old woman appeared out of nowhere and came stumbling into my space under the awning, she was trying to drag a large suitcase and run at the same time, it wasn’t working. She almost fell because of the damn suitcase but I was able to grab and steady her, I yelled at her to drop it, but she wouldn’t let go at all.

 

We backed into a store doorway as more brick was raining down in front of us; I kicked at the glass door to gain access. The panel shattered and we went inside. It was one of those clothing boutiques that had racks and racks of the newest mini sized dresses and shirts, everything had a sparkle or a shimmer to it, I never actually knew anyone that fit into those clothes, what an odd thought to be having at this moment. The woman and I ran towards the back of the store, I am not really sure why we did that, I guess we wanted to get as far away as possible from the storefront and the falling debris. As we looked back at the very large opening in the front wall that at one time probably had a real nice glass window in it, you could see people running and screaming in all directions.

 

 The old woman ducked into one of those small dressing rooms, you know, the ones with the wood slotted doors.

 

 I could hear her praying.

 

 

It was pretty hard to not hear what she was saying considering by now I was occupying the very next stall, like hiding here was going to save us. She was asking for forgiveness for all her sins, she wanted her God to know she was sorry. I really didn’t buy any of it because I’m sure if she wasn’t in this situation right now she probably wouldn’t care as much about hurting others.

 

The rumbling had stopped but outside the shower of glass, brick and stone was still going on. Some of it was starting to come thru the roof above us and into the store where we were. I yelled to the old lady to get off her knees and run with me, she decided to stay put. Bad choice, I ran towards the back of the store and found a storeroom. I could still hear the crashing from above and I looked back to where I was just moments ago and saw both the dressing rooms exploded under the collapse of the roof above. There was an exit door at the end of the storeroom, I ran and threw my shoulder against the middle of it and it gave way and opened.

 

I fell out onto the back alleyway and almost got run over by a speeding garbage truck hurling down the alley. The driver was too busy looking up at falling debris and he never even saw me. He just zoomed past me and out into the street. I ran in the opposite direction and hopped a small chain link fence towards some private houses trying to get away from the tall brick and stone buildings. I could still feel glass showering down and now the cut on my head was bleeding pretty badly, I could taste the blood as it ran down my face and mixed with my sweat and hit my lips.

 

I saw some residential homes and made a bee line for them. The first house I came to had a nice big wrap around porch and I was able to dive under it for cover.

 

The fallen debris seemed to be slowing down now and a lot of it was mostly paper and light stuff. I could still hear some rumbling and thunder like sounds. I still had a few cigarettes left in my shirt pocket and I rolled over and pulled one out and lit it. AAHHH, that’s better, I’ll just hang here and wait this thing out.

 

 

After another 15 minutes or so I crawled out from under the porch and stood up wiping some of the dirt from my pants. I could see other people walking around doing the same thing, brushing themselves off and helping each other.  I could see some of them were injured, and they might be just wandering around in shock. Two young boys ran past me down the street and towards the big office buildings where I had recently ran away from. Someone was screaming and crying somewhere, dogs were walking around sniffing the ground, most likely looking for their owners. Birds were flying from one high spot to the next, never really staying still; did they know something we didn’t? I looked up at where the tall buildings used to be, they were no longer tall, most of them had several of their upper floors gone totally or collapsed down onto the lower floors.

 

A police officer came running down the block asking everyone he saw if they were okay, “help is coming” he was yelling, “just hang in there someone will come and help you”.

 

Yeah right, like anyone or anything is in any better shape than we are right now I thought.

 

 

 

 

I saw an abandoned bicycle lying on the street, I picked it up and started riding down the street; the bike was actually in pretty good shape. I pedaled down the block away from the residential house and back towards the tall buildings thru the intersection. The two cars that I saw dancing across the street earlier were now sitting side by side, almost like they had finished their courting and were now were resting in each others arms.

 

I could hear sirens and horns blaring, most likely emergency vehicles and cars trying to get around each other. The streets and sidewalks were totally covered with pieces of buildings, glass and other debris, there were cars on fire, and buses overturned, store alarms going off everywhere. Most of the stores had power, there were signs lit up and the traffic lights although still swaying back and forth were on normal rotations of green to yellow to red, I even stopped at one red light for a minute. Not sure why I did that at all? I guess in this time of chaos and insanity I still found the urge to be civil and respectful.

 

I was riding the bike down a side street and I saw this guy just leaning against a building smoking a cigarette. I peddled over to join him. As I glided the bike on the sidewalk and came to a stop in front of him he nodded his head and said, “hey, how you doing?” “I’m okay, thanks for asking, mind if I join you?” He again nodded and shrugged, “okay with me, you need one?”

It was my turn to nod; no, I was fine and pulled my pack from my shirt and showed it to him. I lit one, leaned against the wall with him and started puffing, he and I just stood there looking at the devastation around us for a few minutes. I started the conversation and asked him where was he when all this had started.

 

 

 

 

 

He told me that he was in his car driving on the highway, when he suddenly saw this huge freaking bird with what looked like a freaking arrow stuck in its body coming right towards his car, it literally fell from the sky and just missed his windshield. It took a bounce off the roof of his car and smashed right into some gas tanker truck driving right behind him. As he looked in his rear view mirror he saw the tanker swerve right and left then it hit a guard rail, flew off the overpass onto the road below and then exploded into this massive ball of fire.

 

I was amazed at his story, he said he was okay but the fire ball and the heat was so intense he could actually feel it as he was driving. He said he even felt the ground shake because of the explosion. He pulled off the very next exit and onto this street here to see how bad the damage was to his car. While looking at his car he could see the fire from the tanker still burning.

 

 I finished my smoke and wished him good luck, he waived goodbye and so I peddled off.

 

I had ridden the bike maybe another mile or so when I came across some military vehicles with some National Guardsmen that were trying to put a barricade around this local courthouse or something. I asked if they could use some help and they eagerly said yes. I leaned my bike against the back of a jeep and grabbed one end of a yellow “do not cross” wooden plank.

 

 I was working with one of the younger soldiers for a bit and we started talking about the events of today. He said that his unit had gotten a call to report to duty right away. He was told that there had been a massive explosion near an abandoned power plant caused by an over turned oil tanker.

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently the gas tanker had driven off an overpass and exploded on top of an underground storage facility for a power plant. That explosion triggered another explosion in a under ground facility which held some nuclear material. When he said “nuclear” I almost dropped the piece of wood in my hands. I stood there staring at him in shock, he then said, “actually we we’re all quite lucky, thatexplosion went downwards into the earth and not up thru the surface. If it had gone up we wouldn’t be here right now.

 

 I stayed and finished helping them, we had a cigarette together and they thanked me. I bid my farewell to them and hopped back on my bike.

 

I turned off main street and down onto more residential type streets again to try and get away from the horror. There were some really nice older houses here. I could see neighbors on their front lawns talking and consoling each other. Some were pointing to broken windows and fallen trees, they all looked like they had been affected but nothing seemed beyond repair.

 

At the end of the block was a big house with a perfect lawn and the nice little swing on the porch and with the hanging flower pots. I was immediately drawn to this particular house for some reason. My bike and I cruised up the driveway towards the garage as if I had been here a hundred times before. I hit the brakes and got off the bike and let it fall to the pavement as I walked towards the garage. “Hello, hello, is anyone there?” I called out. I walked in a little further than I probably should have but with everything that has been happening today I thought it would be okay.

 

 

The garage was in disarray as well, the earthquake must have rocked these homes pretty good. I saw a pretty woman picking up some rakes and other items from the floor, she saw me standing there and said, Well am I glad to see you I could use some help here do you mind?” She said, “Was that an earthquake?” “What the hell happened out there’?

 

I told her about the conversation I had with the man leaning against the wall and of how his car was almost hit by the bird with the arrow in it and about the gas tanker driving off the overpass and about the soldier who told me about how that explosion had activated the nuclear material and the explosion that was sent into the earth, which caused the earthquake.

 

 She looked at me like I had two heads, and then she said,” Where were you when all this happened, looks like you got a pretty nasty cut there, come over here and sit down.”  She started tending to my cut when she suddenly and leaned in and kissed me and said that she was glad that I was okay.

 

 I SUDDENLY REALIZED WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON HERE, this is my house and this woman is my wife, it all started to come back to me now.

 

I jumped up and ran out the rear door of the garage and onto my back deck.

 

 I just stood there, stunned at what I was looking at.

 

From where I was standing on my own back deck,  I could see the highway with the overpass, I could see the gas tanker truck still burning, I could see the surrounding buildings that had fallen, the smoke and all the devastation, and as I looked around at all this horror, I reached up and felt the cut on my head.

 

I took a step forward and my foot hit something, I looked down at the deck to see what it was that I had kicked.

 

And there on the deck at my feet was the brand new bow and arrow set that my wife bought me today for our anniversary.

 

 

 

 -peace

The Tree – from Unlocked Windows

The year is 3,108

 

 

They all sat in a circle around The Tree, with its massive trunk which had to be at least 30 feet wide and its branches that spread almost 200 feet in every direction. It had been in this spot for hundreds, no thousands of years, it had always been a source of refuge, shelter, and shade for the citizens of this and every town that settled in this spot in all of time.

 

 

The Mayor stood on the small white plastic stage and waited for the crowd to settle. There was buzzing and whispering all around and few of the elders were trying to sshh and hush the younger citizens.

 

“Now now everyone, settle down so we can get started”, the Mayor said out loud. We need everyone to be quiet so we can all listen for the Words.

 

Every year since anyone could remember, the entire town gathered at the meeting place under The Tree and they listened to the Words that had been written down so long ago. KN and her brother NP had been coming to these meetings for years now. They always tried to be first in line or to at least try and get a seat nearest the stage.

 

The Mayor finally had everyone’s attention and now he was just waiting for the elders to get seated behind him so he could begin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Good morning everyone and welcome to the reading of the Words on this the day known as June 27^th 3,108” As you all know that I am the official Word reader and I shall begin with some of our favorite Words as voted on by you the people.

 

The Mayor held the 12” x 12” plastic panel in his hand and pressed the blue square to activate the Words. He held it up so all could see the first Word.

 

FRESH

 

 

 

He pressed the red square next.

 

AIR

 

 

 

 

Again he pressed a square this time it was brown.

 

 

EARTH

 

 

 

 

The Mayor smiled and said, “Okay everyone here is the Word we’ve all been waiting for. The Mayor held the plastic panel up real high this time  and presed the green square.

 

 

TREE

 

 

 

 

The whole crowd started cheering and screaming, the elders were hugging and shaking hands congratulating each other. The mothers and fathers in the crowd were squeezing their little kids and tossing them in the air, there was great jubilation all around.  The younger couples started kissing, making some of the smaller children squeal and giggle. KN and her brother NP just sat there proud up front, NP reached over and touched his sisters arm and smiled. He said,” you should be very proud of what you’ve done here KN”. She smiled back at her handsome brother and said,” It’s a great moment for all of us NP”.

 

 

 

The year is 2,608

 

 

Watching the weather channel was pretty much the normal thing to do around here these days. You really couldn’t go outside for too long because of the blazing sun and the heat. Kelley was watching the  weatherman pointing to a green chart behind him while telling everyone that today like all the other days since anyone could remember will be extremely hot and you should only go out if absolutely necessary.

 

Kelley was so bored it had been months since the sun had suddenly dropped closer to earth’s surface and forced everyone inside. She really wanted to go out and sit under The Tree, but her ticket told her different. Her ticket number was still so high and the current Tree squatters had a few more days until they had to leave the shade and go back to their windowless homes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The year is 2,108

 

Nicky had promised to bring lunch for the two of them to her job that day. Where is he, I’m starving thought Kelley. He had just bought a new motorcycle and she figured that he was out racing when he should be here with her eating.

She was startled by the sudden appearance of Nicky, he came roaring up the path to the park bench where she was sitting.

 

“Hiya sis, how goes it?” “

 

Nicky, I have been waiting here for a half hour, where have you been?” “Out riding, he said, look I brought you your favorite, a platter of vegetables” She just smiled, how could she be mad at him, he was always there for her, always the protector.

 

They sat and had lunch, he had a power drink and she ate the veggies he brought. He looked up and said,” How cool it is that we are able to sit out here under The Tree perfectly dry while everyone else is running around getting soaked in the rain?” Kelley nodded while chewing, “very true,” she said between bites”.

 

 

The year is 2,008

 

“Daddy plant it here” next to the flowers, so it won’t be alone”.

 

She was so cute and he loved that she cared about the little things so much. “Okay Kelley, I’m coming, I’m coming, is this spot you want honey”?

 

 “Yeah Dad, right here, where she’s pointing,” Nick said.  

 

“This is an excellent spot for a tree honey, it will probably be here forever,” he said.

 

 

-peace

Savage Nomads – excerpt from “Corners”

There was this guy who moved onto our street his name was Frank, he was Russian or some shit like that. He moved there with his mom and little brother Lubo (Lubo is another story). They moved into my apartment building, he seemed like a good guy and he looked like he could handle himself, I liked him right away. He was originally from 175^th street in the Heights and occasionally some of his old friends would come to our street to hang out. I guess after awhile they found our little slice of Manhattan a nice place to visit and they came more often.

 

One of his friends was this guy named Max, he was a tall skinny guy, a little older than me he was 17 or 18 years old, and I was 13 or 14. He was pretty cool and he and I got along real good, real quick, he was in this gang called the Savage Nomads and they normally hung out around in 175^th st area. I used to go back to his neighborhood every now and then with him and the older guys in that gang let me hang out. I was much younger than they were but because I was a tough little guy they liked that.

 

 

It wasn’t long before I became the target for some of these gang guys, since I was from another part of the city, I was an outsider.

 

On the street you had your word and your fists, and since nobody there knew me very well, all I had was my fists. I had a couple of fights with these guys till they figured out I wasn’t going to back away from a fight. It would usually start with a dirty look, then a nasty remark, till finally I had to say something that led to a fist fight. I didn’t always win, but they figured I was okay for a little guy. Pretty soon I was a regular at their hangouts and since I had a pretty good pot and coke connection I was able to get into any party I wanted. I had a few scary times, but only when I had the misfortune of rubbing one of the leaders the wrong way, hey it happens.

 

 I remember one summer night there was this big fight they had planned, I snuck out of my apartment while everyone was sleeping and hopped the back of the #100 bus down Broadway from 200^th st to 175^th st. the fight that night was between the SN and this other gang from Harlem.

 I wanted to be there and I told all these older guys I would be there to fight with them.

 

 

 

 

They were pretty impressed that I actually showed up. I didn’t have colors (the gang’s colors and logo on a demin jacket without sleeves).  I did wear a demin with no sleeves and that was the best I could do. We all met at the entrance to Riverside park at 160^th st and from there we walked thru the park down to the 140^th street or something, that’s where we were going to meet these black guys from Harlem. Max kept saying, “stay close to me and you’ll be alright”.

 He handed me a pipe and said hit anyone that comes close, keep swinging and keep your head up if we all start to run, don’t get left behind.

 I was so fucking charged up. I had a lot of street fights in my life but this shit was straight out of the fucking movies. We were all drinking and smoking, some guys even stopped to shoot up, I was like fuck that, the last thing I wanted was to be stoned during this shit. I was only 4 foot 10 inches and these guys were adults for Christ sake. I’d say there were 100 to 150 of us and we stopped at this large field in the park, on one side you saw the Hudson river with a huge barge floating down with its lights on, on the other side were some buildings on riverside drive, a nice upscale area on the city. I could see the windows of some of the apartments had their lights on and I even saw the blue hue from televisions sets that were on.

 

I was way in the back, Max and some of the other guys were with me and they all agreed that me and the other littler guys would be okay back here and that we could get some one on one fighting time instead of being in the front were most guys were swings machetes and who knows what.

The logic of that strategy worked for me since I was a new to all this. I was talking to some guy when I heard a roar from the front and saw ours guys yelling and screaming, I stood on this rock to see what was going on and I saw like 50 black guys walking towards our front line, the SN guys in front were laughing and shouting shit, we were gonna cream these 50 assholes. Everyone was getting real pumped and I’m thinking shit I’m not even gonna get to hit anyone.

 

All of the sudden I saw Max and this guy turn white and say “shit. Shit,shit. I looked around and saw what they were looking at. Coming from behind us was almost 200 fucking screaming bat waving bottled throwing black guys and “they were less than 50 feet away”. 50 goddamn feet, that’s less than the distance from the pitchers mound to home plate. I could hear the sound on their feet pounding the grass, like fucking a stampede of horses, it sounded like thunder. It all happened so fucking fast, before I knew it I got run over by some huge guy and stomped on by everyone else behind him, they ran thru our group like we were made of paper. I heard the sound of bones breaking and guys screaming. I was swinging my little pipe like mad.

I hit one guy in the chest and another in the balls. Then someone grabbed me and threw me into a tree, another guy came flying into me. I looked up and saw some guy with a knife sticking out of his chest, he dropped to the ground and someone else hit him with a bat. He was dead in a moment. Two guys were wrestling next to his body and he didn’t move at all.

 

Max had on these baseball cleats that were made with metal spikes on the bottoms. He was stomping heads and kicking people. I ran at some kid that was almost my size figuring that I would bust him up, he saw me coming and ran at me at the same time, I suddenly realized this was no kid; this was a short tough looking older guy.

He and I hit like freaking rams head butting on some mountain, he fell first, I jumped on his chest and started swinging my pipe at him. He took a bottle and smashed my lip open. I fell off and when I rolled over and got back up he was gone. I kept hearing cries and screams, I didn’t know if it was our side or their side. I lost sight of the guys I was with, and I wasn’t even sure who was on our side and who wasn’t. I felt blood running down from my lip and I spit it out. Max came out of a mass of fighting bodies and collapsed at my feet. I saw that he had been stabbed in the thigh. He said “help me up, let’s get out of here”.

 

The fight was winding down, I saw a lot of people looking out their apartment windows, and there were cars stopped on Riverside drive, people were looking into the field were we were. I grabbed Max and we made it to the street, a cab driver saw us and said “get in the car”. He drove us to Columbia Presbyterian hospital back up on 165^th st.

 I dragged Max into the ER and some doctor came over and helped us. A nurse looked at his leg and then they wheeled him away, she gave me some ice and cleaned my lip. I left the hospital and took a cab home, I didn’t have any money and I felt bad because I had to act like I was getting money out of my pocket and then ran into the alleyway next to my house, no driver was going to follow someone into the dark. I climbed back up the fire escape into my room and went to sleep. I had to get up early tomorrow I had an English test in first period.

 

 

 

 

 -peace

SELADOR – from Unlocked Windows

My daughter asked me to write a story about the words

 “cellar door”.

 

What follows is what I came up with.

 

 

 

 

 

Episode 1

 

 

 

“Oh, look honey, it’s a beautiful house, don’t you think?” He was glad that she was happy, finally. They had looked at dozens of house on the market. He knew she was picky, they both agreed that when they decided on a house it would be “the house”, the one they would raise a family in and retire in.

 

Kelley was walking up the brick path that leads to the front door; he was right behind her examining the steps and the wood siding for defects, doing a mental list of the things he would have to fix. He didn’t mind at all, as long as his wife was happy. She cried with delight when she noticed a swinging bench hanging from the porch ceiling, he saw it too and noticed that it would need a good scraping and painting as well.

 

The list of things that needed fixing was adding up and they haven’t even been inside yet. Where is that realtor, he said to himself, almost 15 minutes late now. Kelley saw that he was mumbling to himself and she let it go, he has been so good about all this, with her dragging him all over the place to look at this house and that house, he’s been very good indeed. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw the realtor’s car coming up the dirt road followed by a cloud of dust.

 

“Howdy, you folks must be the couple Millie at the office told me to meet?” he said as he got out of his car. “Names Walter, folks around here just calls me Walt” He stuck out his hand and Kelley eagerly reached out first and shook it. “I’m Kelley and this is my husband Derek,” she said.
“Nice to meet you,” Derek replied.

 Well come on lets begin the tour, sure hope you folks like this house, been trying to sell it for awhile now, not many people like living way out here. Kelley said, “That sounds just fine to us Walt, right Derek”?

 

Walt took out a set of keys and after a bit of fumbling and some mumbling he found the right key and opened the front door. The door opened to a main hallway with exceptionally high ceilings that held a century old chandelier, he flipped a wall switch and the light flickered a bit then popped on. Kelley was on her tippy toes with glee, she reached back and looked at Derek and said, “So carry me inside silly.”

 

“Kelley”, Derek said, we were married months ago, besides we haven’t even decided if this is “the” house”, “I have”, she smiled back, as she leaped into his arms.

 

They walked down the hallway into the main room when she stopped and turned a full 360 degrees. One entire wall of the living room was all windows from floor to ceiling, and the morning sun was shining thru each and every window, it was magnificent, each of the old window panes had these little defects in the glass which allowed the suns rays to break into colors onto the floor and walls. The kitchen was off to the right of the living room and between those rooms was a small pantry with an old iron sink that had one of the water facets that is mounted up high so you can get a big pot under it. Derek opened and closed the pantry doors and turned the water on and off, he was generally pleased.

 

“Old house still has some life left in it, wouldn’t you folks agree,” Walt said.

 

“Yep it’s growing on me, that’s for sure”, said Derek. They were walking out of the kitchen back thru the pantry, when Derek noticed a slim door; it was almost hidden from view unless you were looking right at it. “Where does this door go to”, he asked. Walt came over and grabbed the door handle, “not rightly sure, let’s take a look, shall we? He pulled a few times on the handle and the little door wouldn’t move an inch then Derek said, “Hold on there Walt, let me try.” Derek yanked on it a few times and it wouldn’t budge for him either.

 

Derek pulled and pulled on the little door in the pantry, “shit, I can’t get this damn thing open”, he said. Walt tried again and he still couldn’t get it open. “I’ll have Mr. Peabody the local handyman come over during week and get this darn thing unstuck for ya that’s assuming you’re buying”?

Kelley laughed and said,”oh well, maybe it wants to stay closed, oohhhh how spooky, ha-ha, let’s go look at the rest of the house honey”

 

Walt did a pretty fair job of showing them all the unique features of the house and of how it truly is one of a kind. He explained how the previous owners had been an elderly couple and they had spent the better portion of theirs lives in this house. The wife died of natural causes and the husband had died shortly after of a broken heart as so the story went. Kelley was touched by the story and whispered to Derek, “If I died first would you follow me”? “Please don’t talk of such things, Kelley, its sad just thinking about that”. Walt watched the little exchange between them and thought, “Yes sirre, this might just be the right couple for this old house, yes sirre.”

 

The second floor was broken into to 4 areas, the 5 bedrooms and the 4 bathrooms and 2 small sitting rooms at opposite ends of the hallway. On the 3^rd floor was the mater bedroom and master bath, “Holy cow, what a space, there’s so much room up here” Derek said. Kelley ran into the bedroom and then ran to the bathroom and into the bedroom again, giggling, “Derek we could play tag up here, try to catch me”. He was a little embarrassed by her playful attitude in front of strangers, Walt was still walking around the rooms talking about the antique glass windows up here and that the doors were all solid oak, and some other things that had to do with old stuff. Derek asked Walt if they could go back downstairs to try the basement again so he could see the foundation, the furnace, the water pipes and other stuff that was so far missing from the tour.

 

 

Kelley said, “One minute Walt”, and she grabbed Derek’s arm and yanked him into another room. “Please Derek it’s perfect, please please please let’ make an offer”.

He stalled just long enough to make her do that seductive swaying of her hips and show him her bedroom eyes and then he said,” if all the big stuff like plumbing and roof check out okay, yeah we can make an offer”.

She jumped off her feet and landed in his arms, so suddenly that he almost dropped her, she gave him a big mushy kiss then ran into the kitchen screaming to tell Walt, “We’ll take it, Walt get out your pen”.

 

The next day Mr. Peabody met Derek at the house and they found an old set of storm doors on the side of the house under the uncut grass. “Sure has been a long time since anyone was down here, I’ll tell ya what Dave.”

 

” It’s Derek; my name is Derek not Dave”.

 

 “Sorry ‘bout that, not much good at name these days, I’ll look for a light switch”. Mr. Peabody stumbled into something in the dark and cursed under his breath, Derek laughed under his. “Aaahh there we” go he said, as the light came on and illuminated the basement. From where he stood Derek could see that the walls were made from stone, big stone like the ones you would build a castle with. He walked over and felt them, cold and damp, pretty much as he expected. “Smells like ya got water getting in”, Mr. Peabody said. Derek looked at him and nodded in agreement. He kept talking, “Depending on what you’re gonna do with this space, sometimes the dampness is a good thing”. Derek wasn’t sure what that meant so he asked him,” Like what would you do down here”? “Dunno, Mr. Peabody said, maybe a wine cellar, maybe store vegetables or something like that”?

 

 

 

 

They walked to the furnace, looked at the plumbing and the electrical system and after a thorough inspection it was determined that all was well and working properly.

Derek was following the perimeter of the stone wall and he kept thinking that something was wrong down here, something was missing, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. “Well we’re done here Dave, how about us getting back out into some fresh air”?

 

Huh, oh yeah sure let’s go, and its Derek not Dave.

 

Kelley had a dream the first night in the new house, she was standing in a field looking at the house and she could see a storm in the horizon, the black clouds were gathering quick and the wind was picking up now. She was trying to call to Derek, but he couldn’t hear her, he was on a ladder in the front of the house and he was painting a window. Why would he be painting in this weather? She tried to run to him but it seemed like he was getting higher up on the ladder. She stopped when the lighting bolt hit right in front of her, she fell to the ground and it felt like the wind was holding her down. She called for Derek and for a moment she thought he saw her, he was looking right at her. He can see me; he was coming down the ladder too fast, he jumped a few rungs from the ground and the lightning hit again. He ran straight at her she too was up and running towards him when suddenly a door appeared right in front of her and slammed closed between them. Kelley awoke sweating and scared; she looked over and saw Derek sleeping soundly. The window was open a little and there was a light breeze coming into the room.

 

She was in the laundry room the following morning, when Derek came in kissed her neck and said he was going to paint the windows in the front of the house today. “Derek, no no work today okay, let’s just relax and enjoy our new house”. “Okay baby, whatever you want”, he said.

 

 

 

They spent the morning doing some gardening and other yard work. She had made them a special lunch and they were sitting on the porch steps eating sandwiches and drinking wine. “It sure is nice here huh?” he said.

“Yeah honey, it’s also nice to know its all ours, she replied.

 

He reached over and took her hand, “come here I want to show you something”. They went to the side of the house where the basement doors where. Derek opened them and they bent their heads and down the steps into the basement they went. Derek switched on the lights and they walked around looking at all the old shelves, “yuck, its all dusty, I’ have a lot of cleaning to do down here”, she said.

 

He walked her around the basement and he showed her the how to turn on the furnace if it ever goes out, he showed her where the main switches were for the electricity. Again Derek kept thinking there as something missing here in the basement; he just couldn’t put his finger on it. It was easier climbing out of the basement than it was going in, the fresh air felt great. Derek closed the doors and they went back into the house they were standing at the kitchen sink doing the dishes laughing and splashing water. After a bit Kelley took the clean plates into the pantry to put them onto the shelves. She was standing on a small stool so she could reach the top shelf when she dropped a plate onto the floor. “You okay hon?” Derek asked from the kitchen when he heard the sound. “I’m fine baby, just a broken plate I’ll get it,” she said

 

Kelley got a broom and dust pan and started cleaning the broken plate bits off the floor; she was on her knees brushing pieces into the dust pan when she again noticed that little door that they all couldn’t open on the walk thru with Walt. There was a small gap from the bottom of the door to the floor, and she thought she saw a light in there.

Before she could call out to Derek to show him the light the little door just opened on its own without a sound, so she stood up and walked inside what she thought was a closet or something like that.

Derek was still standing at the sink when he looked over at Kelley and he couldn’t believe his eyes, she was standing right in front of that little pantry door they couldn’t open. One minute she was standing there then she was gone, he ran over to the door just as it slammed closed in front of his outstretched hands. Kelley heard him running towards her, she turned towards him and she could actually see his face when suddenly the door slammed closed.

 

Derek ran to the little door and pulled on the handle, it was locked shut. He was terrified that something bad was happening. “Kelley”, he shouted as he slammed his hand against the door, it won’t open, “Kelley honey, open the door, please”.

 

She didn’t even realized what had just happened, and for some strange reason she didn’t give it another thought. She saw the steps in front of her and she started walking down. The light was coming from a small lamp sitting on a wooden table in the corner of the area. Kelley was barefoot and dressed in one of her favorite flowered dresses, Derek always liked it when she wore no shoes and light flowing dresses, he said it made her look pure and wholesome and sexy, he-he.

 

She walked to the table and saw that there was a chair next to it, one of those big comfty leather chairs that her dad had in his writing studio where she usually sat and read his latest stories. There was a white shawl hanging on the back of the chair as well, she picked it up, so soft, she brought it to her nostrils, hhmmm still smells like fresh laundry. Kelley sat and put the shawl on her shoulders; she just looked around the room and thought to herself, what a neat little room with the chair, lamp, so cozy. As she was looking around she saw a big fabric covered book lying on the floor next to the lamp, hhmm what’s this she thought.

 

 

 

It was pretty heavy and she had to use two hands to pick the book up, she tucked her feet under her in the chair and let the book sit on her lap, she blew the dust from the cover as she flipped the book over a few times to try and find a title or some sort of name, she didn’t see any at all. She squirmed in her seat towards the lamp so she could get the best light to read by and then she opened the book.

 

Derek ran to the room off the kitchen where he kept his tools that he used to fix a step or adjust a window. He grabbed a big hammer and some screwdrivers; he ran back to the door and first he tried to knock the hinges off the little door. He whacked the hinge with his hammer and all it did was create sparks from metal hitting metal. Holy shit he thought, what the hell is going on here? Derek took the hammer and started hitting the wooden door itself, it was like he was smacking a piece of rubber, the hammer kept bouncing off the little door, this went on for almost and hour, till he was exhausted and he sat down on the floor leaning against the little door.

 

As she opened the book she felt a breeze come from the center of the room, it blew right into her face startling her so quickly that she had to catch her breath for a second.  She was rubbing her eyes when she looked down at the opened page, how odd she thought there’s no writing on it and as if on cue words started to appear on the paper.

 

She read the words as fast as she could to try and keep up with them as they magically appeared on the paper. First one page then another, and still another again. The book was writing itself right in front of her. The story was about a young man and woman who were in love and of how they had to hide their love from the young mans family. His family had made arraignments for him to marry someone other than her. They ran away and settled in a different town. Kelley was fascinated by the story, it was true love written in it’s most beautiful form, she wanted to read more but suddenly stopped and realized that she had to go get Derek and show him all this.

 

 

By now Derek was sitting, no almost lying on the floor actually and as he turned around to face the door he noticed the light under the door, is that a light down there? He thought.

 

 “Kelley, he yelled under the door, Kelley are you there?” He got to his feet and started kicking the little door as hard as he could, he even rammed into it a few times.  Just then the phone rang, he ran back to the kitchen and just as he picked up the receiver, he turned his head as he heard the little door open and Kelley walked out into the pantry.

 

“Kelley, he yelled and ran over to her, are you okay, are you hurt?”

She was confused by him, “what’s wrong Derek you’re white as a ghost, of course I’m okay, and why wouldn’t I be okay?”

 

“You’ve been gone for over an hour Kelley, I’ve been trying to open that goddamn door and it wouldn’t budge, I even broke some of my tools trying to break it down”, Derek said.

 

She looked at him and took his face in her hands, and said, “Derek I’m okay, I just went down to the cellar and sat there for a minute or two, not an hour silly”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 -peace

people who look like people

I stand in a line at the market – you stand in line too – I drive on the freeway – so do you – I eat at the diner – you might be sitting right next to me – I believe my troubles are the most extreme – so do you – I worry about the past,present and future – so do you – I have to deal with stuff – so do you – you must pay the price – so do I – I look at you – you stand in line behind him

-peace

I Can Fit in There – excerpt from “Corners”

9:00pm   March 17^th 1975 St Patrick’s Day in New York City.

 

If you were Irish or if you knew someone who was Irish, or if someone you knew knew someone who was Irish then St Patrick’s Day was your day too.  You were allowed to get drunk ask for kisses and basically have a grand ole time. Every bar and liquor store is busy all day long and into the next day sometimes. It was the day to party as hard as you can, and the only reason any decent Irish New Yorker stopped partying would be due to lack of funds or lack of consciousness. I always had a way to get beer and if I didn’t have the cash in hand we would find a way to get the cash as well. On this night after drinking all day long and finding ourselves broke, JC and I figured we would break into this medical health center down the street. It was one of those places you could go to get prescriptions and be seen by a doctor; today they are called urgent care offices. We figured if we didn’t get cash then there would be lots of drugs and stuff we could use or sell. So as we sat and drank in front of my apartment building, we devised the most perfect of perfect plans.

 

So off we go, since it was about 9pm and everything else was closed, we walked down to this place and very nonchalantly climbed the fence and dropped into the back alleyway. We found an air vent that had this huge metal fan attached to it, we figured we could rip the fan off, climb thru the air vent, and snake our way thru the duct work and drop inside the offices grab the goods and split. A most fabulous plan is it not?  We yanked the freaking metal fan off of the concrete wall gently place it on the ground and proceed to climb into the duct. It was pitch black dark in there but JC pulled out matches and we kept lighting them while crawling thru the soot in these ducts. We finally make it to a point where we can stand up and from there we can see into the offices thru this metal grate and as hard as we tried we could not get the damn metal grate to budge at all.

 

 We decided to crawl backwards and go get some real tools then come back. It took us like a half hour to get out of the fucking vents; we were both covered in black soot. I put the hug metal fan back in the concrete hole in the wall climb back over the fence and we’re out into the street where we started. We still had a little cash so we hit the corner bodega to pick up some smokes, beer and as many matches as we could get. We went back to my building to drink and grab some tools from the basement (I knew the super of the building so I had access).

 

 

After about an hour or with fresh matches a second wind and a renewed buzz we went back to the alley, climbed the fence, yanked the huge metal fan off the wall gently lay it on the floor and proceed to climb into the vents again. You’d think we would have brought a freaking flashlight; I must have burned my fingers like 20 times lighting the fucking matches. We get to the metal grate and JC jams this big ass screwdriver into the edge of the grate and pulls, the fucking thing comes flying right back at us, hits JC in the face, I almost pissed in my pants, but we were so cramped in this vent I don’t think the pee would get out. We squeeze thru the opening and creep across a few of the ceiling tiles when all of the sudden, JC falls right thru one of the tiles and drop slams onto the floor below.

 

 I almost shit myself laughing; he was alright though, tough kid that JC, I grab a wooden joist and drop to the floor like a normal burglar.  So now we’re in and we start to ransack all the offices looking for anything, drawer after drawer, cabinet after cabinet, fucking nothing, god damn fucking nothing. What a fucking waste of time, what a waste of a perfectly executed plan. All of the sudden every freaking light comes on, the whole place lights up like Times Square. We can hear people talking and footsteps. You could tell right away that they were cops and a whole lot of cops at that. Me and JC look at each other and I whisper to him,” find a spot to hide, we’ll wait them out and the split”. We only had a moment or two to find somewhere, I was in one of the aisles in the pharmacy where they keep all the prescriptions, and there was nothing here, nowhere to hide, wait what’s that in the corner? It’s one of those metal garbage cans you know the chrome ones with the little swinging door on top, I look at it and said to myself,” I can fit in there”.

 

 Believe it or not I actually got my drunken soot covered ass into the freaking thing; I haven’t a clue where JC went. I just kept still as the dead and controlled my breathing. There was a tiny slit of an opening that I could see out of, I could hear the cops talking to each other, “clear over here, clear you know the way they talk while they are walking into trouble with guns drawn. The voices and sounds are getting closer and closer to the aisle I was in, I heard one cop say,” Clear nothing down here”. There must have been like 20 cops in the place and they were looking all over for us. They kept yelling, come on out, we know you’re in here, come on out, make it easy on yourself. I didn’t take a fucking breath, I swear one of them was standing right in front of the garbage can I was in, I could actually see him in my mind starting at my garbage can with his gun pointed at it just waiting for me to peek out. Sssshhh, keep quiet, don’t move, then I heard them yell, I got one, I got one of them, get the fuck out of there, and I could hear a scuffle going on. I still didn’t know where JC had hid.

They eventually ended up standing right next to the can I was in, talking, and talking, they kept asking JC, where’s the other guy, “he’s says it’s just me, I’m here alone”, good kid that JC.

 

So you’re probably thinking I’m going pull this off don’t you?

 

Sounds like I’m home free, well guess what.

 

I was so quiet and still that even I thought I had died in here, but for all my efforts you have to remember, “I’m in a garbage can”, one of the cops standing there goes to poke his hand into the swing top of my lair and realizes that it doesn’t move as easy as it should, he hits again this time a bit harder. The fucking thing kept hitting the top of my head so he bends down to peek in, our eyes met, I smiled he jumps back and yells, Hey there’s a another guy in here, they all come running over. Every body has their guns drawn they’re all screaming, “Get him out of there, everyone get ready”. The cop who saw me first yells, “Get the fuck out now, easy does it, make a fucking move and I’ll blow you’re freaking head off”. Even though I was able to get into the garbage can, there was no fucking way I could get out, I never thought about that did I? Since I wasn’t moving at the speed they wanted me to they started to kick the can and scream even louder at me, “GET OUT NOW!” I’m trying to yell back to them thru all their yelling, “I can’t, I’m stuck”. One of them hears me and say,” wait a minute he’s trapped in there, what do we do?, another cop yells kick the can, kick the goddamn thing over. I almost started laughing when this one cop grabs the top and tries to yank me out, it’s only the top of my head here, and my arms are at my side all squished inside this garbage can. The cop pulls back and he and another cop kick the can over and I roll down the aisle till my head pokes out and hits a bottom shelf and stops me. The ones that aren’t laughing at me come over and grab the whole can with me still in it and toss me out of the aisle and into the main area of the pharmacy floor, it takes a few of them but the eventually get me out of my awesome hiding spot. They frisk me and sit me down in one of the waiting rooms next to JC, I swear he pissed himself.

 

JC and I are sitting on this couch and I had to ask one of the cops, how did you guys know we were here? He laughs and says, this is the second time we’ve been here tonight asshole. We had a silent alarm that went off about 2 hours ago (that’s right, that’s the first time we crawled thru the vents), he said, “when we got here and we looked all over and didn’t find anyone. As we were leaving, someone saw your buddy here fall thru the ceiling and land on his ass”.

 

 Did I mention that we weren’t very good at these things?

 

-peace

Jump – from “Unlocked Windows”

“You go” Jimmy said.

 

 No you go”,” You go first it’s your idea”, I replied

 

 

I have known Jimmy for a long time now and he always acts like he’s the toughest kid in our neighborhood. You kind of have to act tough to grow up around here. I have seen him back down a few times, so I know he gets afraid too.

 

When it’s just me and him I’m usually the one who has to go first, I guess he wants to make sure he won’t get hurt first or something. The last time we did something crazy, I had to go first before he would even think about it. That time Jimmy had found these fireworks in this old farm house in the woods and we jammed them all in a can, and Jimmy wanted me to light it. Well I did and we barley got out of there in time, the whole can exploded, luckily we both jumped behind a big rock as pieces of the can hit against it.

 

I really didn’t care when he was in one of his moods, Jimmy had it tough, his mom and dad got along okay, but they were never home because they were always working, he was on his own till they came home at night. My mom looked out for him, she felt bad that he was alone all the time. Sometimes he even slept at our house till morning and then ran home to get changed before school.

 

 

 

 

 

We were both just finishing 6^th grade and this June we had planned on spending the entire summer fishing and playing as much baseball as we could. Jimmy even wrote down a schedule on what we were going to do every single day of the summer.  6^th grade was a cool time because we were the big kids, the “big fishes” in the little pond. Tommy Kelly’s brother told us that when we get to middle school next year we would be the little fishes in the big pond, I’m not sure I’m ready for whatever that means

 

June came and school went, Jimmy and I spent the first summer day hanging out at old man Dorsey’s candy store. His family had this little store for like a hundred years and old man Dorsey was there every morning rain or shine opening the doors every day for as long as I can remember.

 

I didn’t have any money but Jimmy had a dollar that his mom gave him so he could get lunch and dinner till she got home from work. As soon as we walked into the candy store we forgot all about lunch or dinner and Jimmy bought a comic book, some soda pop and candy.

 

We took our loot and ran into the woods and up along the trail to the old farm house where we lit off the fire works, the place had been abandoned years and years ago.

 

Sometimes the older kids hung out there and smoked cigarettes and drank beer. Jimmy and I would find out when they went there and then we would sneak up and watch them thru the broken windows. The old farm house was huge almost 3 stories high and it was even higher than that on the back of the house because of the hill it sat on in the rear.

 

Jimmy and I had found a way to get even higher up than everyone else that went there. We used an old cord hanging from the ceiling to climb up on, and then we pried a few of the wood pieces from the ceiling and pulled ourselves up into the attic.

 

It was really cool hideout; we had some chairs and a small table up there. The roof would make this neat sound when the rain hit it and there was this small window at the back of the house that still had glass on it.  Some days when it got real hot we would open it and step out onto this little ledge and look out at the tree tops, you could see for miles, I think.

 

Nobody knew about our spot except me and Jimmy, oh and Ronny Baker, he knew because he was with us one time when we came to here. Ronny wouldn’t tell anyone because he was too scared to climb up the rope that time, and Jimmy told him that if he told everyone about our hiding spot, we’d tell everyone that he was too afraid to climb a dumb rope.

 

 Sometimes, when the older boys and girls came there to smoke cigarettes and drink beer, we would slide open one of the floor boards and peak down into the room. Once we even saw some of them kissing, “yuck”. But most of the time we just hid up there, hung out talking about baseball and maybe the girls we liked.

 

 

So there we were on this the first day of June, hanging out in our hiding spot. I was drinking my soda and Jimmy was holding the comic book and reading the story to me.

 

That’s when we heard the front door of the old farm house open up and heard the voices.

We usually weren’t worried because nobody knew we were up here and even if they did they couldn’t get to us anyway. The voices and footsteps were getting closer as they climbed the steps to the room right below us, Jimmy slide the floor board over and we peaked thru the opening to try and see who it was.

 

 

 

 

 

There were two of them and they stopped right under our opening and started talking. I started to giggle and Jimmy punched me in the shoulder and told me to be quiet. I nodded okay to him as I rubbed my arm.

 

We didn’t know these kids at all in fact they looked a lot older and they were dressed a lot different than the other big around here. They were wearing all black clothes, black shirts, pants and their hair was all spiked up like those punk rockers you see in the city. Jimmy whispered to me that he wanted to yell, “Hey you kids get out of here”. Now it was me who punched him in the arm and I said, “No, they’ll find us up here and they look awfully mean”. They were smoking some funny looking cigarettes that smelled bad and they were drinking from this bottle.

 

The taller kid was showing his friend how he could hold a lit match between his fingers for a long time. The other kid tried to do it longer too; pretty soon they were lighting and throwing matches all over the place.

 

We got bored of watching them and went back to looking at Jimmy’s comic book. Jimmy said that this might be his favorite comic yet, I always agreed with him when he said stuff like he was serious, it was easier than arguing with him.

 

I told Jimmy that tonight there was a brand new TV show on and since we didn’t have school in the morning he should ask his mom if he could sleep over my house so we could watch it together. He said that would be awesome.

 

Jimmy said it first,” I smell smoke”.

 

 I said “me too”, we crawled over to the open floor board and peaked down into the room below where the creepy kids were hanging out.

 

 

 

“HOLY CRAP”! Jimmy said, and he hardly ever uses bad words but this time it was okay I guess. I looked down onto the room and I saw fire and a lot of it, the smoke was starting to come up thru our floor now. I put the floor board back in its place and we jumped back on our butts and scooted across the floor over into the corner of the attic near the little window with the glass.

 

I could see some of the flame sneaking up into our attic thru the floor boards, I told Jimmy we have to get out of here right now.

 

He said,” you’re right go open the board and throw down the rope”.

 

I said, “No you go”, but before he could answer we heard a loud crash.

 

The floor was giving in; the fire was burning the old farm house so fast that our floor was falling into the room below. The fire was now shooting up thru the floor and hitting the roof and that started burning. The house was so old and dry; the fire was burning everything in its way.

 

With our backs against the wall we made our way to the small window to try and get some air, we took turns sticking our heads out of the little window to catch our breath. By now the smoke was everywhere, the fire was making its way towards us and the small window like it was trying to get out the window too.

 

I said to Jimmy, “We have to get out of here right now”. Jimmy nodded his head in agreement, he said, “Out the window, let’s get on the ledge”.

 

 I stepped out first, the little ledge was only about 3 or 4 feet long and like 12 inches from the wall to the edge. Jimmy came out and stood next to me, we could feel the heat right thru the wall on our backs.

I turned my feet sideways so I could get as far away from the window and the flames as possible, Jimmy did the same thing in the opposite direction, and we were running out of both ledge room and time.

 

I could hear more crashing coming from inside the house, the whole house was shaking now and I knew that it was just a matter of time before the whole thing gave way underneath us.

 

I looked over at my friend and I could see in Jimmy’s eyes that he was thinking the same thing I was.  All of the sudden everything stood still and silent for a minute; I no longer heard the crashing wood or the crackling of the fire. Now I only heard the wind blowing thru the trees, I wished I was the wind, just blowing where ever I wanted to, never falling down, never getting hurt.

 

Standing there at that very moment on that ledge as high as we were, I could almost reach out and touch the clouds because we were so high up.

 

For a moment I actually forgot about the fire and the danger, I was totally alone and imagined that I could simply crawl back thru the window, down the rope, walk out the door of the old farm house and go to my house to watch TV with Jimmy.

“YOU GO FIRST”, Jimmy yelled, waking me out of thought.

“We have to jump, are you with me”? “We have to jump now”, he was yelling. I was looking at him while he was shouting at me and all I could see were the flames coming out of the window and rolling up the wall between us.

 

Jimmy said, you go first, I said,” no, why do I always have to go first.” I looked over at him and saw him put the rolled up comic book in his back pocket. Then he reached his arm thru the flames and took my hand.

 

 -peace

excerpt from “Corners”

We just ran at that point, I figured he wasn’t going to shoot from the driver’s seat, with us being on the street by the passenger side of the truck. We ran into the industrial park till we got to a fence which we climbed over and dropped to the road. We ran for awhile till we found a subway station. We didn’t have any money and jumped the turnstile and ran down to the train platform. Karma is adding these things up right?

We got back to Inwood sometime the next morning and went to my moms’ apartment, she said we could crash there for awhile till we got on our feet and moved on. She’s a keeper my mom.

 

A few days later after we slept a lot and ate a lot, Terri called her mom and asked if she could come home, her mom said yes of course. So we washed her things and bought some nice clean clothes for her and I took a cab with her to The Bronx. Her mom thanked me for taking care of her little girl and we hung out for a bit.

 

 I went back to Inwood that night alone.

 

I guessed that we had had our time and I was ready to move on.

 

 

We wanted to stay together and we even gave it a good try. We’d meet at bars between her neighborhood and mine, we got together to screw and smoke, but she eventually got into her old dope habits and some time later she just stopped showing up. I guess she was one thing and I was another, what we had on the road was based on the road and nothing else.

I saw her a few years later in a bar, she was coming out of the bathroom, she was so high that when I said” hey Terri how are you”? She looked at me and nodded but she didn’t know who I was. A year after that I met this guy from one of my high schools one night at a party and he told me about this awesome chick he married, her name was Terri; he said she told him how she and this guy hitchhiked across the country for a year. The guy sounded a lot like me and he knew that I had done some hitchhiking as well, he asked me if I was that guy I said “yeah that was me”, he said “cool dude”; she said that was a cool time in her life.

 

 

 

 

I will say this, it WAS one of the greatest times in my life and I hope you enjoy it the way I did, with out the hangovers and the bad Karma of course.

 

 

-Peace