Milkmoney

Milkmoney

  Ronald Ray

  ‘Stickmen’ was published in the anthology ‘A Sharp Piece of Awesome’ spring 2013

  “Symphony”, “Repetition” and “Quick Fire Sketch” were published in ‘A Sharp Piece of Awesome’, spring 2012

  “More About Grey Jello” was published by Wild Age Press

  Other selections were first published by Lulu Press in “Black Clowns, Stars & Seizures”, “Barking At Random”, “Leaps from Tall Buildings” and “Life, Death & a Porkchop Sandwich” by Ronald Ray

  CONTENTS

  1.Milkmoney

  2.Stick-Men

  3.Heart

  4.Rammstein

  5.Cat Fred

  6.Heaven Pie

  7.Mr Gee’s Ballroom

  8.Monday, Erased and Re-Written

  9.Car

  10.Cards

  11.Symphony

  12.Cardboard

  13.Howl

  14.Repetition

  15.Quick Fire Sketch

  16.Moon-Walking

  17.More About Grey Jello

  18.Recession

  19.A Dirty Floor

  20.Pompadour Man

  21.The World Is Flat Tonight

  22.Fall

  23.Cheese

  24.Green Hotel

  25.Experience

  26.Wallyworld

  27.Insomnia

  28.Leaps From Tall Buildings

  29.Jack’s Car

  30.Birds

  31.Whatever Doesn’t Kill You

  32.Stream-of-Unconsciousness #2

  33.Trans-Am

  34.Owl & Crow

  35.White Sky Day

  36.Friday Night

  37.Swamp

  38.What Life Is

  39.Henry, Call Your Mother

  40.Tuesday

  41.Cupcakes

  42.Amberwood Again

  43.Stars

  44.Institutional Green

  45.Honest Abe

  46.Love

  47.Epitaph

  MILKMONEY

  There's a door that needs to be opened, out in the midst of a field of grass. The stars come out and dance about it, beneath the mad violet sky above. I keep waiting. I keep waiting. The closed door on the hill will be opened, and dreams will rush out while confused dreamers rush in. Smooth chaos. Things will be. I keep waiting. I've moved my bed onto the grassy hill to be closer, closer to when the door swings open and freedom flies out. I want to be there, then. I keep waiting.

  STICK-MEN

  Stick-men with blazing matchheads march across the table, single file, towards a glass of water. Latin incantations are said by a sole stick man by the water. It's a mass suicide. One by one they scramble up the slippery glass and jump in, their flames extinguished. This is the way of the world. Someone has placed lilacs on the table. I don't know why. This is the way of the world. I am their god, yet I only observe. It is not for me to determine their end, only to watch, and keep from getting splinters in my fingers. The lilacs smell good over the smoke. It smells like rain outside.

  HEART

  I left my face in the parking lot, and flies carried it away. Standing faceless in my bedroom, I tried to think about sweet things besides you. I dusted off my glasses and looked hard into my heart, but it was as empty as the cobwebbed cupboard. Fry me up some feeling, let me drink some emotion; I'm dry as the proverbial bone, and looking for salvation. I never gave you a ring. The narrow path is closed now, and I've no other way through. Give me something that I cannot get for myself. Give me enlightenment, or at least hope. Stanly came knocking on the door, as faceless as I. We couldn't speak, but garbled to each other for a bit about shoes and horses and loss. I was glad when he left. My heart couldn't hold out much longer. It wants, it wants, it wants.

  RAMMSTEIN

  The skies were grey and cloudy, filled with squawking birds of all manner. I opened the door to the refrigerator I was living in and climbed out to greet the evening. Lightning struck here and there, and the wind made noises like a soldier dying from a stomach wound. I searched for Honeypot among the junkyard debris, and finally found her lying covered by a large piece of tin roof. "How are you this lovely evening, my Pumpkin?" I asked. "Peachy as a pickled pepper in a jar, my Bug-a-loo". "Well, let us take advantage of this fine night and take out the old Rammstein and bounce around a bit.

  And we did.

  CAT FRED

  Indispensable was the word used, but it was used improperly. Everything is disposable, people more than anything. Cat Fred said that this was everything, but nothing is everything. Everything is nothing without the right something, or someone. Cat Fred's always been an undependable liar, anyway. I saw you on TV at the Cubs game, and wondered why I wasn't there. No, I was here, a hundred miles away, a thousand if you count the difference between worlds. Why do I listen to Cat Fred?

  HEAVEN PIE

  Three AM in the city, after a good November rain... is a cold slice of heaven pie. Amber mist beneath the streetlights, tires hissing up dark water from the streets. A cold blue searchlight across the way from behind tall buildings. Quiet. Stoplights doing their duty for the few cars. The city may never sleep, but it slows down. I can hear its measured breath. I miss you being here. My doppelganger stares back at me from the window, and I miss you. My coffees gone cold, its 5:37 now, and I miss you I miss you I miss you. I hope the pie is warm in heaven.

  MR GEE’S BALLROOM

  Zappa and Dylan sat in a dark corner of the room, making secret plans for a secret project. I don't know why they wore Andy Warhol wigs. Looking around, I noticed now that everyone was. A wizened Warhol stopped and whispered into my earcanal "All the best parties are on TV." The Dude Ranch is no place for suits, but cheap sunglasses are a hot ticket. The soundtrack was up to snuff, but Aunt Fred wasn't. She spazzed out on the dance floor trying to do the hokey pokey. This is serious bidness, I thought. The floor was flashing NO EXIT, and rain was falling from the ever-so-high ceiling. Birds flew around everyone's heads, singing off-key tunes from a football opera. We laughed and laughed, and then stopped when we realized we were all wearing brown lace-up workboots. How'd that happen? I pulled the string on my bow tie and my head floated away, down a maze of mirrored halls. My body rushed after, but kept bumping into the walls and breaking mirrors. "A thousand years bad luck", I thunk to meself. Suddenly I was outside, my balloon head floating up into space. I saw God. I had a beer with him, and asked him the meaning of life. I'd tell you, but I promised not to. And you can't break promises to God, right? You could end up being president or something, and who needs that? Besides, he was nice enough to re-attach my head and sit me in a cow pasture, far away from all the incoherence of Mr Gee's Ballroom. I wished I'd asked him what Zappa and Dylan were up to, though.

  MONDAY, ERASED AND RE-WRITTEN

  Dawn broke brittle Monday morning, the sky cracked like eggs

  (All done in silence beneath the roaring of my tinnitus)

  Twenty 'til something and I'm driving out into blazing light

  Looking for what, I won't know 'til it’s found but it’s

  Just so damned bright and quiet and I think of a sniper in the clock tower

  Fallen asleep waiting to pick off his targets but how can he sleep

  in this goddamned brightness and nothings moving anywhere

  Empty streets, has the world called in sick this morning?

  Am I awake? Am I alive? Am I in a movie, maybe a character

  in someone's book? Why don't I feel anything? Am I waiting for

  the writer to tell me how I feel, where I'm going, what I'm doing?

  I am lost, that's all, just lost. Lost with this howling in my head

  and the creeping thought that I'm not even real, that someone's<
br />
  dreaming me. Am I the dreamer or the dream? I don't know.

  Dawn broke brittle Monday morning, the sky cracked like eggs

  but I didn't know it because I wasn't there. I was somewhere dark,

  listening to water slowly drip, drip, drip.

  CAR

  Wind, rain, dark, a car is coming. Wipers slapping, tires spraying water. A car is coming, I'm sitting on a bench. Waiting, in the rain, in the sudden chill of a nightstorm in summer. She is upstairs, nodding out more frequently now. I have time, I could go back up, but I've already said goodbye. No, I didn't say goodbye. I said "I love you, I'll see you tomorrow." A car is coming. Tomorrow is not. An ambulance passes the car on the way home. At home the phone is ringing. A car is coming.

  CARDS

  Three AM. I watched a head roll across the sand into the ocean. It was mine, so I gave chase. It bobbed and bobbled farther away, while tiny fish gnawed my flesh. Down to bone, I gave up and sank for miles, until no light could penetrate the depths. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, the whole gang were there, playing cards. “What took you so long? You in?" Jesus asked. "Do I have a choice?" I responded, wondering how I could see and speak without a head. "You never did," he said, dealing me in.

  SYMPHONY

  It's the measured breathing of someone on oxygen, here in the small hours. I don't know where it's coming from. I hear it beneath the white noise of the air conditioner.

  It's the faint jumpiness of a phone ringing, a monitor flatlining on a loop in my memory.

  It's the droning in my own ears, the hum-buzz of the tinnitus, the electricity and insect sounds.

  It's the whistle of a train, much louder than it should be. It soars over the top of it all. There are no trains nearby.

  It's four AM again. The silence is not golden.

  CARDBOARD

  I feel sick. The coffee's too strong, the morning too dark. Cigarettes taste like cardboard must taste, although I've never eaten cardboard. (I wonder why I hear "tastes like cardboard" so often. Are people eating it? Should I try it?) No, I feel too sick. I want to spill my guts. The fluid in my lungs, the bile in my stomach. Void myself of whatever inside is making me feel this way. Heartsick. Cee's heart got sick and died. Whatever gods there might be hated me so much, they kept me alive for their amusement. Brainsick, soulsick. There'll be no sun today, but it's still as dark as twilight at eight AM. It could (should) be brighter. Brighter than this. Damn. I feel sick.

  EMS is here again this morning. They're here often, people in this building are sick. No smoking, oxygen in use. I light another piece of cardboard and watch the flashing red and blue lights outside, waiting for the gurney to slide someone into the back of the truck. Hi, neighbor. Sure is dark today, eh? Hope yours is a two way trip. A bird sits on the wire in the rain. Another joins it. They fly away as the EMS trucks go back in the direction they came from. The sirens and lights aren't on now. Goodbye, neighbor. I feel sick.

  HOWL

  Inhale razorblades

  Exhale broken dolls

  Howl

  REPETITION

  The frayed edge of the day is pressed down by the weight of bulky cumulus. Smooth, pin-holed night has its heel on them. Treetops dance in ritual conformity. Raindrops plunder the stars and feed them to the clouds. Tall grass dances, is beaten down, rises to dance again. Repetition. Memories sweep in through the open door in a cold burst of October. She owns the wind, she is the wind; the wind that shrieks through your mind on nights like this. The Visitation. You know her name, but do not speak it. Why would you? Whether she hears or not, she cannot answer with anything but a howl.

  Frayed edge of day pressed down by smooth, pin-holed night, clouds beneath its heel. Treetops dance in ritual conformity.  Raindrops plunder stars and feed them to clouds.  Repetition. Memories sweep through in a cold burst of October. The vestiges of days past, swallowed by night's heavy weight.

  Frayed edge. Treetops dance. Raindrops plunder. Memories sweep. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

  QUICK FIRE SKETCH

  A man walking. A dog barking. The man's head is on fire. The world is on fire. The fire is on fire. The fire burns unevenly down one side of the man's lapel. The man is naked. The man glows from within, red razor slash smile, concrete eyes. The man is gone, and a moon appears. It rises quickly and disappears. A tree is barking. The woman's eyes are taped with black electrical tape Xs. She looks for the man, then leaves with the trees. The fire has missed her somehow. The dog is barking at god. God is on fire. These words are on fire. You are on fire.

  MOON-WALKING

  A man is walking across the moon. Dogs are barking. A choir is singing "Angels Serenade". Tiny birds fly around his head and tangle in his hair. There is a strong gravity pull on the moon, and his walking is slow. He is eating a doughnut, wishing he had a steak. Cars pass and people yell out at him, but he doesn't hear them. He is thinking about the holes in his socks, and whether he should buy some from Wal-Mart. He is thinking about how lonely it is on the moon.

  MORE ABOUT GREY JELLO

  Gray Jello swallows up men working on power lines. Transformer sparks, fizzles, disappears into the grey. Towers with their blinking lights are sucked in. The world is slowly, sadly erased. Replaced. Your aunt is swallowed as she goes out for the paper. Her house and all her porcelain dolls are swallowed. Last night's bad dreams are sucked out of your head, into gray Jello. You look out and see only gray. Gone, gone, gone away.

  A fifty foot tall doll appears, embellished with buttons, pins, writing... a band-aid across the back of her unruly brown hair. She inhales the gray, and the sun shines behind it. The world is saved. As long as she doesn't scream, and release the gray. Don't scream, it would sound like chainsaws and chiming bells and grinding cogs, like diesel engines and air raid sirens.

  Don't.

  She opens her mouth and sweetly sings.

  I go to sleep, and dream about afterschool cookies and chutes and ladders.

  RECESSION

  A man on fire walked calmly out of the building, through glass doors that were maybe there, maybe not. Hit the bricks, pound the pavement, skin a cat or two. I saw what he was thinking, it formed a black cloud above his head.

  He thought of old photographs and wicker furniture, of how dark it was inside for all of those plants to thrive. He thought of chances taken and opportunities missed. The monologue in his burning head was a constant buzzing fly, a death rattle.

  Old TV shows, bad poetry, seasons, songs and metalworks; nothing could shut out the memories or calm the storm inside. Treading water, he wished that he could fly again. Over the horizon he walked, never seeing the starving child scuffling along behind.

  A man on fire disappeared from the picture plane today, through glass doors that were maybe there, maybe not. Hit the road, Jack, make tracks, don't step on a crack. Leaving dust and ash, smoke-feathers and birthday candles, he receded.

  A DIRTY FLOOR

  The yellowed linoleum is stained with uninterpretable patterns

  Perhaps ten thousand nights of decadence, maybe ten thousand days of happy children

  Thin sunlight through dirty windows shows only battered confusion

  Leaving traces of lives that never meant a goddamned thing

  No more than abstract patterns on a dirty floor

  POMPADOUR MAN

  Greyscale cityscape in the rain. The pompadoured provolone man sits in the diner. His coffee is cold. His laptop is old. The diner is old. His suit is old. He likes things old, and thinks now of old days when it rained this way. He wants to think about the future, but she calls from the past, through the sound of the rain. He wishes wishes that cannot be realized. Dead is dead, and gone is gone. Her heart blew up, and that was that.

  But it wasn't. Pompadour Man's life ended then too, but he had to stay in this world. In the rain, in the grey. He sighs, sips cold coffee, and wonders what he's doing here. Open laptop, check e-mail, close. Maybe he'll write to her again. Open. No words. Clo
se. What's left to say? He puts it away in its case, leaves some cash on the table, and walks out. He wishes he could disappear into the rain, like the end of an old movie. At least in the wet and cold, he can feel something. Something physical, something besides pain, and grief, and loneliness. He almost smiled at the thought; "Pompadour Man go home now." Almost.

  THE WORLD IS FLAT TONIGHT

  The monitor is flat, the TV screen flat, the world is flat. Sharply focused static. Sharply focused eyes see nothing. Dreams reside in a curl of cigarette smoke, evaporating quickly. The world is flat tonight. Wind outside howls blizzardly, man inside feels nothing. Beasts outside howl mournfully, man inside hears nothing. Alone in a world gone flat, a soul gone dead. Inside a box in a flat world, sitting, smoking, notthinking, notdoing, notliving.  Something inside him howls, but he's stopped listening. His dreams have hit the ceiling and puffed out into nothingness. His life has gone flat. Flatlined. He's glad the dreams have gone; they had become raw and painful, needles scraping the soft tissue of his brain. Dreams of her, and what might have been. What might have been had the world not gone flat. What might have been had she not flatlined. The world tonight is flat, but has teeth. Its jaws want to clamp down upon the last bit of his humanity. A single tear testifies to the fact that something remains. Man picks up the gun, and sees for the first time tonight. He sees the future. He sees release, relief, an opening up of the flatness into expanding space. A space filled with stars. A space filled with her heartbeat.  He puts down the gun and sighs. The world is flat tonight.

  FALL

  The diamond-studded sky swept through the spaces between the leaves, leaving them happy and bubbly and sighing for the sheer love of being. I wanted to feel that feeling; after all, my soul is full of holes... but the sky bounced off and whirled away, giddying other plants and trees and things, but not me. I tried to capture that sky with brushes, then with pen, but it wouldn't be captured; it was too free. I could never be that free. My shoes are too worn already, and the tread slick. No traction, Jackson. Stand on the ledge and stretch your arms out, fall backwards, that's the nearest thing as far as I can tell. Let go. Let the sky rush around you, if not through. Watch the sparkle; grab fistfuls of it on your way down. Hold on tightly. Fall, far and far and far.