All Things Bright And Beautiful

1: Deacon Blues

2010-05-04T00:36:00.007-05:00

"I'm going back for what's left," he said shortly after breakfast. They watched him leave, quiet about the shared certainty that not a thing had been "left".

The sky was a solid sheet of blue but outside it still smelled of rain. His balding tires had trouble negotiating the mud.

He had to use a window; it never crossed his mind that the old place would be locked tight. Inside, he was shocked at the emptiness of it. The place was nothing but walls and passageways, with no suggestion as to where one should stand or what one should do.

Light came in from windows, holes, and cracks and traversed entire rooms uninterrupted, breaking against the walls.

The heat got to him and he took off his hat. Extending his arm he used it to catch the light here and there, becoming the interruption.

He turned around and noticed he had tracked a looping line of mud. He heard himself say, "I am the endpoint."

2: The National Anthem

2010-05-04T00:17:00.008-05:00

There is most of a city between these two. The roads between them split and dip and end, frustrating any chance at a straight line. Concrete walls stop bullets, they swallow one's voice and deny one's image.

Other way round there is most of a planet with valleys and rivers, deserts and oceans, plains and canyons, and towns that read like punch lines on a map. Some of them make for adequate meeting sites.

3:Can't Stand It

2010-05-03T10:37:00.006-05:00

What Kadrey knows: there is no reason to have lunch in the baby mall situated within this building's guts. Festering with humanity by 11:55, it becomes a grueling miasma difficult to wade through, exhausting one during the very hour reserved for recuperation.
What Kadrey does: lunch is eaten at the wokstation where there will be no waste of time, energy or social tolerance. This action awards him 18 to 22 minutes that belong to no institution or biological need. In this time Kadrey thinks about fighting. About winning fights. The opponents and settings vary. The style of fighting changes from 70s Hollywood tussles, to Jack Kirby throwdowns, to UFC massacres, back to Hollywood for golden age duels. The ending is always the same, it will brook no modification, mutation, or innovation: the fallen opponent receives an uncivilized kick to the ribs. Kadrey will feel his leg swing back, every joint perfectly aligned as if on a track, then there is the acceleration toward the offered torso, surprisingly effortless, which doesn't end in impact but is transmuted into a wave of pleasure racing past epidermis, then through the nerves, spiraling up the spinal chord, and finally redefining the brain, changing chemicals, opening up transmitters, allowing brand new divorces and unions. It's a party.

4: Parallax

2010-05-03T00:18:00.006-05:00

Looking at a stranger head on is always a confrontation.

There is no truth in battle.

Evan learns to look through things and around them.

5: Planet Telex

2010-05-02T11:48:00.007-05:00

In his car, hands at ten and two, Kadrey is waiting for the frenzy of coworkers fleeing the parking lot to die down before turning the key. He is thinking about the paycheck already en route as electric impulses to his only account. The one in charge of shelter, sustenance, entertainment and emergencies. The one that can never grow quite large enough to actualize desire. He is thinking about all of these fixed numbers that he lives with: the rent, the cable, the insurance, that kid in South America ("just pennies a day") and so on. All of them will be debited automatically from the account. The mighty paycheck will be reduced to a measly allowance in no time flat. Of course there is time. Time enough to change his automatic settings and live at least for a little while with his full compensation. To look at the screen and see what he is worth for real. And then maybe to apply this power towards something significant. Something unexpected. Fuck the rent, he can take the money and run. But where to? And how far? It isn't that much money.

6: Two Against Nature

2010-05-01T18:17:00.011-05:00

Evan got out of the car and the surveyed the street. It was a crap scene. something starring Lee Majors on the way out. Extras casting had no real budget and Wardrobe was all newbies. These tiny towns were all the same: no hope for a decent meal or real conversation. Just a place for beer and cigarettes. And maybe some flashback candy, a Charleston Chew perhaps.

Kadrey always got out of the bus at these insignificant places. Sure, the man always needed a pee or a cigarette or soup, but there was real excitement for him in visiting these alien colonies. The tide of civilization had receded but these folks and edifices had held on to the soil with quixotic determination. A fascinating stain on the land.

7: Alpha Beta Parking Lot

2010-04-30T07:50:00.008-05:00

Sleeping in a car moving across this continent is time travel; you're very likely to wake up in another era. That man you just locked eyes with could have been your grandfather. Before the War. This brand and that cut are were not, until today, things you know from experience but from heavy-lidded memories of late nite reruns. You start to wonder how exactly the world twists around you while you sleep. You look at your hands expecting scars and calluses to still be in your future. You get a little paranoid.

8: Sky Blue Sky

2010-04-30T00:06:00.007-05:00

They went Downtown on a Sunday.

Nothing going.

9: The Late Greats

2010-04-29T14:28:00.006-05:00

With the earnings from the race they go into that little record store across from the Barnes and Noble. They're there until closing, carefully selecting; this will be the soundtrack to their entire October and maybe even November if money's tight.

On the road they test out their new materials. As the tones and stories fill the Civic they slip in and out of new characters. Testing them out. Gripping the wheel a certain way. Twisting their features into unfamiliar expressions. They are renewed.

10: I'm Only Sleeping

2010-04-29T00:01:00.010-05:00

Geography has a strange influence on the radio

Sounds become liquid and tactile

Voices turn to syrup

Putting forth great anger enrobed in great civility

Beats migrate to your sternum

Colonize your heart

And turn humours a golden hue

Radio is sonar

And every song

Is Answer

Is Illumination

Is Location

11: Softest Bullet Ever Shot

2010-04-28T16:59:00.009-05:00

12: Theologians

2010-04-28T16:36:00.008-05:00

FADE IN
Ext Night-A deserted highway in the middle of the night. It is very dark but not pitch black. A solitary Honda's headlights are the only things gliding down the macadam.

CUT TO
Int Night- Two men are inside the car. A haggard looking KADREY is at the wheel. EVAN is passed out in the passenger seat.

CUT TO
Highway-The Honda going down a hill. The headlights suddenly go out. The car pulls over.

CUT TO
Car Interior-Kadrey opens the door and gets out in the huff. The automatic light wakes up Evan. He is a bit disoriented. Off screen Kadrey is cussing up a storm and we hear him kicking the bumper and the hood.

EVAN:
What's going on man? Hey Kadrey. Kadrey! What's going on? Kadrey what the...

KADREY:
[tossing himself into the driver's seat] The lights are dead.

EVAN:

Lights? Both of them? That doesn't happen man.

In lieu of a response, Kadrey makes a frustrated gesture towards the front of the car.

EVAN:

How long 'til sunrise?

KADREY:

I look like an Apache chief to you?

Kadrey balls up his jacket, puts it under his neck and reclines his seat all the way back.

EVAN:

You really going to sleep?

KADREY:

If you let me.

EVAN:

Man, I'm wide awake.

Kadrey digs around under the seats and finds a flashlight. He hands it to Evan. He digs around some more and comes up with a book.

KADREY:

Here. Read.

EVAN:

[looks at the book] Where did you get this? Arthur Miller is ass.

KADREY:

I know he's ass, but it was only a dollar.

EVAN:

[sort of fascinated by the book now] Attention must be paid.

KADREY:

What?

EVAN:

Attention. Must. Be . Paid. He wrote that. That's some sentence. "Attention must be paid." It's like awareness, imperative, existence and economy. In that order.

KADREY:

Evan. Read. Sleep. Marvel. Just shut the fuck up while you're doing it. Please.

13: Don't Take Me Alive

2010-04-27T09:19:00.010-05:00

Evan decided to look up an old buddy. Since we were in town and all.

His family had no news and no curiosity. I think there was a peak of lassitude in their answers but I won't swear to that.

He was not at work where they told us he'd dropped by if and when he was needed.

He was nowhere. And if he was somewhere then we had no idea of what that looked like.

14: Gaucho

2010-04-26T12:22:00.005-05:00

Right before daybreak, Evan found him in the sliver of space between two warehouses; Kadrey was crying.
"Kadrey, It smells like jizz and fried chicken. How you even breathing in here?"
"Please. Please don't tell anybody."
"Who'm I gonna tell. You're everyone I know."

15: Bad Sneakers

2010-04-25T11:51:00.005-05:00

Drinking in worn out clubs with young ladies.

Trailing the music by half a beat.

Pissing in badly lighted johns crowded with scoundrels.

Smelling like smoke and vinegar.

Feeling like ashes and leather.

Forgetting what day it is.

Only Evan is having fun

16: Lucky

2010-04-25T00:26:00.006-05:00

17: Equivalents

2010-04-24T00:16:00.006-05:00

Kadrey says:

"Everybody is from TV"

"Everybody looks like somebody else"

"No one's got their own face"

"Not Any more"

18: Sheep Go To Heaven

2010-03-28T18:01:00.006-05:00

Chapter 1: Wherein our heroes are stranded

...

Chapter 2: Wherein brambles ruin an excellent pair of pants

...

Chapter 3: The lavender and champagne rescue

...

Chapter 4: Wherein a bond is formed

...

Chapter 5: The contagious dream

...

Chapter 6: Leaving the Lautners

...

Chapter 7: Wherein an option loses its abstract nature

...

19: How To Disappear Completely

2009-11-11T23:58:00.005-06:00

Kadrey was blind for an entire day. Blind is perhaps not the correct term but in my personal vocabulary and , I believe, the entirety of the English language it is the closest approximation one will find of his 24 hour affliction. The peculiar mechanism that transforms light into the multitudes of the world was corrupted and shapes, colors and depth were lost to the poor man. For an entire rotation of this Earth, Kadrey was not immersed into the inky blackness customarily caused by the absence of light but was trapped in the words of Paul Auster. It is not that this building or that hydrant were beyond his perception but rather that they were replaced by a descriptive paragraph in the style of his prose. Kadrey was quite certain that it was Auster.

After the crisis had passed and Kadrey was once more able to slowly move his gaze through the subtle shifts in the blue of a summer sky, he rather surprised me. "I could have lived with it," he told me, "if I had a good variety available to me. If this car were described by Chandler or this lamp post by Bukowski, I maybe could have lived with it. I could have enjoyed being immersed in words."

20: What a Shame about Me

2009-11-01T21:26:00.004-06:00

The heavy silver ball rolls up his spine

Rumbling

Picking up speed and mean

The gray loosens up

Ready to embrace the coming destruction

The end is blind

Skin gets the final solo

The silver ball makes no decision

It shakes a memory loose

It took a week to heal

And is propelled through the gray

Until it hits another cluster

The cold gritty wall at his back

Hot breath rushing out his nose

Waiting for Carl to give up

It's getting darker in his own head

And all sound is collapsing into pink

Standing in a stream

Water is not

One thing

But many snakes

Each with a slightly different coldness

The silver ball is the same

All over and to the core

There is a clear separation

Between the pole pushing up against his leg

And the leg giving up

What was a closed circuit is open

To the whole world

And the world to it

Communicating through pain

The silver ball

Does not loose speed

After a collision

Fifteen thousand pounds

Fifty four miles an hour

Feet off the ground

21: Pyramid Song

2009-09-10T22:32:00.009-05:00

People

Of Course

Matter

But so do Things

Things

Matter

And also Places

On and off the highway a dozen times tonight looking for a bit of real estate from my 5 foot and below days. Evan is remarkably patient. Is this a real memory? Running with some cousins in the woods? i don't really remember their names. i know the occasional flu had me laying in the living room, nursed by Mom and TBS. Swiss Family Robinson. Little House on the Prairie. Didn't one of the Ingalls sisters loose her sight after some illness? Was fever involved? Glad i never lost nothing. Nothing that big. Jasper! The big dumb one was called Jasper. Jasper and then my last name. That's him. Dumb son of a bitch but funny. Funny goes a long way. Bet he's married now. Paunchy with a litter of dumb kids all his own. Living like an adult. Jasper.

Time done ate it up to shreds but the old cabin still squares with Kadrey's description. Lucky bastard, it's like something out of a Paulsen book out here. I should holler, but I'm in no hurry to have him see the place. I imagine of a bunch of kids inside, their life force tied to the cabin, rotting away at the same pace. Moss and crawlers coming out their mouths and ears. Tiny bugs making songs in their hollow bellies. I'm going to be sick. I need a cigarette. I holler out his name.

The cabin was a mess of flames. The men left the woods.

22: Kidsmoke

2009-08-30T21:57:00.012-05:00

23: Black Cow

2009-08-23T19:32:00.007-05:00

fucking nosebleed every fucking time in the parking lots no exception to all this abject retardity just once one fucking time it would be nice a straight line through a parking lot at peak hours a simple understanding of civility it wouldn't kill you how do the old fucks do it without a stroke and a change of diapers every fucking time was that fun asshole was that your idea of entertainment can't afford cable never learned to make a fist and shake your wrist asshole cumsmear i swear i understand the nra your taurus vs me and smith and wesson how would you feel whose idea was it to arm this entire country with 2 ton bullets just once respect the idea of a motherfucker trying to get to point b keep your fucking paw on the right pedal look think a little reminder that we built pyramids and invented cake and holland all out of dirt and twigs what do you do for a living what do you do with your fucking brain all day you're allowed access all day just once across the lot fucking nosebleed this was a nice shirt

24: The Bends

2009-06-28T15:16:00.014-05:00

The man owed them money

and he had money

too much of it probably

he was used to petty childish pleasures

Twinkies before dinner

"I'm not convinced he'll have it, Evan."

"1200 dollars? Not on him. Not likely. Don't get me wrong, we're not leaving town empty-handed, but you better let go of that figure."

"You make it sound like business; this is revenge."

"Revenge is for fucking Cro-magnon. This is not that."

"This feels like that."

"Kadrey, when I play by the rules, I adhere fully. He stiffed us and this is what follows. If so then."

"If so what. Why don't we drop it? We need milk money that bad?"

"The precedent: We give this guy the idea that you can treat labor a certain way then we are partly responsible for every moe he rips off from now till kingdom come."

"That's very Hammer and Sickle of you."

"Kadrey, that's a great idea. You wait here, I'll get hammers."

In the hours we stood there in the narrow shadow of the corridor, the rain teased us several times. Never enough to get wet, but we were moist the whole time; in combination with an unrelenting wind this kept me cold and lucid for every second of it. I counted the windows that offered up some view of the little scene we had planned. I noticed the ridiculous absence of the police force except for a magnanimous meter maid at sunset. I compared, several dozen times, how many seconds it would take our man to get from car to door and how many it would take us to rush from shadow to door and statistically we failed. I checked on that fat nut of fear suspended in my chest. I was not afraid of what Evan was about to do, I had seen him do it several times. You get used to anything. I felt miscast, quite frankly, for this little slice of noir, and something about being made of the wrong stuff, standing on some other man's mark, must have been the source of my fear. I say this because in the deep of my pocket was a pez dispenser as ontologically misplaced as I was in this never ending moment, and the fat nut was obscured every time I slipped a pez out of Deputy Dog's face.

25: I'm a Wheel

2009-06-23T15:25:00.004-05:00

There is a volatile alchemy of blood and words.

Whispers from a stranger engorge capillaries.

Consequences wait offstage.

26: Night by Night

2009-06-23T00:17:00.004-05:00

On the way down

The body is the instrument

Fell by drink, fatigue, or violence

That describes an arc

A shift in perspective

With point of view doggedly intact

A paradox for moron

A short trip with a Keystone punchline

On the way out

There is usually a quiz

A pretty pointless one word query

With answers that devolve into explanations

Then strengthen into stories

Anecdotes illustrated by scar tissue

Bunched up beneath epidermis

Discreet but fully present

On the way up

There is nothing

A blank page

An empty glass

A clearing of the throat

A kind word toward your mother

To set up the night's entertainment

27: Knives Out

2009-06-18T14:56:00.015-05:00

The world out the windows is flat and black. The road offers up a long series of soft, small curves, like a string of honey poured by an octogenarian. The forward motion, the push against the wind, the tread on blacktop, it all becomes melody, sweetly vibrating in Kadrey's skull.

Evan is in the back. Asleep. Maybe. He's so quiet that Kadrey is afraid that he'll die one day, in the dark, and his body will be cold and stiff before morning can reveal the stone-like nature of expired skin.

It is very hard not to think about sudden endings; so many creatures have had their bellies split, theirs skulls caved in on the asphalt band. The headlights define a tiny, ever-changing kingdom. Red trails come in and out of clarity. Blood arabesques to deepen the music.

Strange that there are no carcasses on the road, just evidence of collisions. It must be that the road rejects anything that static. Still, it leaves constant reminders, some of them fresh enough to glint in the beams, that eventually there is not enough space for everyone. We are, every single one of us, headed for a crash.

28: Company In My Back

2009-06-17T15:47:00.010-05:00

You all know about Zeno

Right?

So you'll understand

and I imply no condescension

by thus speaking

to the uninitiated

about the split between appearance and existence

But maybe split's too spiky a word

Anyways

The punch

To those not well versed

this

maneuver

Will present itself as a swift, simple action

And

In the presence

Of a

Master Killer

That may well be the case

But for anyone

Everyone

else

It is a thousand decisions

What looks to be

A single gesture

Designed in frustration

The desire

The desire is what's singular

And on the way to contact

Before the destination

And before that

There is doubt

Doubts

Constant corrections too quick

Too minute

To chart

No proof

Blood Pudding

Just Constant

Frustrated

Desire

For

Touch

29: In Limbo

2009-06-16T15:18:00.013-05:00

Ten years on and this country is clockwork. You know when to spit out "Yes Sir", when to susurrate "No Bitch". The rules don't change, but that don't mean that they can't be deflected, mutated, digested and shat out as Montelimar.

Just like the old men, you deal in real estate now, like Bobby Baltz or Lee Frost,

you're always on the lookout for soil with potential,

enclosed areas where each angle responds to the previous one,

places where one can stand and feel the rotation.

You are past the point (hell, can you even draw the point)

Where architecture can betray you,

So it knocks you off your game a bit to fall for the old round-the-corner trick.

Shit, shit, shit, Fuck.

It figures they would not disappear

Just because you stopped thinking about them

An awful long time ago.

Ten years of roads spiked with opportunities for contact.

Ten years they've been carrying your features on their own trajectories.

It occurs to you that they probably could not cut you out from the static. They may have the benefit of transportation, but transformation is beyond them. It must be. There has to be a reason you left. There better be. Four men are in the jelly aisle of a grocery store with one nose and one gait to split between them. You start to close the distance, and with every step you get closer to a new kind of comedy.

It's about twenty five paces to the trio

Just don't walk like a dolt at a wedding

Your path is butchered out of this world

You will splice it back after thirty paces

Close enough to tell Ted's asthma's no better

Eyes down they're looking for apricot

Aren't you glad you're strawberry tall

Rounding the aisle you stash the loaf

Bread can wait, the getaway's constant

On the wide open you keep it steady at 75

You make all the left turns they can't

You wish for another dime, at least

30: Ashes of American Flags

2009-05-31T18:39:00.011-05:00

31: Babylon Sisters

2009-05-28T21:24:00.015-05:00

Bones are slow-built cathedrals revealed only at the architect's exit.

It's day five on the Malibu coast where camping is surprisingly affordable. Kadrey pours himself out of the tent a good hour before sunset because nobody's yet bothered to design a tent for smokers. Evan's there, of course, drawing something in the back pages of whatever he's reading this week.

Kadrey's been a bitch all week but Evan chances a greeting anyway, "Hey Dracula." Kadrey answers through the filter, his words spurting from the tobacco, "Whazit? What the hell are you talking about?" Evan stands and faces Kadrey, "Two weeks in California. Two weeks and you are still lilly-white. I think you had more of a tan in Michigan."

A couple of screeching kids run in between them, their frequencies liquefying thoughts and molars. Kadrey knows they live four tents down, he knows their parents are usually reduced to pinot grigio containers by nine P.M., he has a warm cannibal thought.

He starts walking away from the field of tents and Evan follows. Thirty feet from the highway he stops and speaks.

"I'm tired of this fucking water. And I'm tired of these rocks. I want to get back into the car. I want to keep going."

"Keep going," Evan shouts over the traffic, "there is nowhere to go. This is it. We ran out of country."

"So? We go back."

"We go back why, Kadrey? We do what? It takes me a week with both of my feet in one little spot to feel like I've stopped. All of this movement, Kadrey. All of this for no real reason."

"What are you saying? You can't do this anymore? You don't want to?"

"Driving is getting scary. I keep thinking that we keep avoiding disaster by just a little bit, feet probably, but we keep running we're gonna end up smack dab in the middle of fucked."

"I thought I was the pussy."

"You've been the pussy. Now you're aiming for retard. Did we loose anything on the road, Kadrey?"

"You're not curious? How about Joanie, and Olly, and The Casbah, and that grave in the desert. How about we go back and make sure we kept all of our promises and nobody is worst off in our wake."

"How about we go back and erase every dumb ass thing we ever done. Come on Kadrey there's forward and there is stop. There is no time travel."

"That's it? You're settling?"

"No, no. I never said that."

"Well I'm not. In two days I'll be headed East. It would make sense if you came along."

"What will you do till then?"

"Right now I'm gonna cross this road, go down that cliff and jack off into the Ocean."

Sand gives to any pressure but it's foolish thinking it will remember.

32: Chain Lightning

2009-05-28T00:08:00.010-05:00

Money's like rain.

Office buildings make for decent shelter.

Before the endeavor or after the failure.

They feed on light and dust.

33: Kamera

2009-04-28T22:33:00.006-05:00

Understand that this inventory does not include the trunk or the glove box. It takes no accounting of those places where things go to hide, but it does include all objects that, by some accident, find themselves out of sight.

In the civic we find:

A pack of Marlboro Reds, three left

A pack of Benson and Hedges menthols, one left

An eyeglass repair kit, no screws

A pack of Merits, five left

A crumpled Wendy's bag with two Whataburger bags inside

Five dollars and forty-three cents in loose change

Three Euros

Five packs of Turkish Gold, all empty

Two atlases, both falling apart

That morning's copy of the Arizona Republic

A pillow

A Tom Waits cd case with Shakira's "Fijacion Oral" inside

The latest copy of the New Yorker

The latest copy of Swank

An old copy of In Touch with a subscription sticker for a Doctor James Bannon

Ticket stubs for a Fellini retrospective

An open bag of trail mix

Eight lighters, most of them green

A paperback copy of "Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand" by Chip Delaney

A Steely Dan shirt

A switchblade

A half full bag of Sun Chips

An empty wallet

An Oregon traffic ticket

A laptop

Evan

Kadrey

34: Pretzel Logic

2009-03-27T12:04:00.012-05:00

Time

is written

on skin

and

Skin

turns to

Shit

Time

is written

on skin

and

Skin

turns to

Shit

Time

is written

on skin

and

Skin

turns to

Shit

36: I Bombed Korea Every Night

2009-03-27T12:03:00.030-05:00

"Goddamn man, that's gotta be one hell of a rock with the new sun on all that granite."

It's three in the morning and the sign reads "Keystone City Limits". Suddenly Kadrey remembers a bit of middle school history. He convinces Evan to stick around and see the sun rise on Mount Rushmore.

"No I can't remember where I'm from, and no I don't blame the chemicals, I'd guess that place didn't lend itself to remembering"

They find a picnic table to lay out their black coffee and ground beef tacos. In between four and five they are joined by a young man with way too many stories for his twenty eight years. He has the grace to leave before the silences start filling in the gaps of his autobiography.

"It's settled then."

They spend the morning tallying up at the picnic table. Every dollar, every assist, every rescue, every piece of bread or drop of blood. Things are almost even between them now, but they agree that Kadrey owes Evan a shirt. The button-up kind. With long sleeves.

35: Handshake Drugs

2009-03-27T12:03:00.029-05:00

At first light, it is often obvious what type of opportunities a day will offer, and on those days that offer neither the option of making nor breaking, Evan and Kadrey will somehow find themselves in one of those gigantic hardware stores.

They prefer the Home Depot, definite article always included, because it gets the scent right. That odor of eager wood with its metallic accents and plastic finish; it's the same in Maine, Georgia, or Wyoming. They must get it from a bottle kept in the back.

They'll walk those deep, bright aisles for hours, gliding from thrill to thrill as raw materials whisper new promises. All that potential animating every piece of wood and stone, every color and fixture, it's dizzying. A man will go light in the head and his knees will tremble and a shopping cart will be the only thing keeping him upright.

Evan and Kadrey haven't built a thing. Not yet. But the trunk of that Civic is slowly filling with hammers and levels and tape measures, and it is often their pleasure, between these two oceans, to correct or clarify a thing or a person that needs correcting or clarifying.

37: Black Friday

2009-03-27T12:03:00.028-05:00

SCENE - Lobby of an abandoned building. Three chairs and a broken table emphasize the desolation of the place. An inch of dust covers everything. It is pitch black.

[Evan and Kadrey run into the room holding flashlights. Kadrey stops suddenly]

Kadrey: Wait. Wait! [whispering] why the fuck are we running?

Evan: [Stopping. Catching his breath] I don't... I don't know. That was a real ruckus.

Kadrey: Quite the commotion. Quite the commotion. But I'm not looking to get my throat slit.

Evan: What are we looking for?

Kadrey: Only the correct exit. [he shines his beam on the floor] What's this.

Evan: [augmenting Kadrey's beam with his own] I think it's blood.

[Kadrey is still. Evan moves his beam along the crimson trail. It goes into the next room.]

Evan: What do we do?

Kadrey: The correct exit.

Evan: We leave? Now? What if someone needs us?

Kadrey: That question only has the one answer. I only have the one life.

Evan: What's that worth?

Kadrey: What?

Evan: A life.

Kadrey: That's not fair Evan. I see no life here demanding consideration. It's curiosity. You want me to gamble for your curiosity.

Evan: You're no kind of man.

[Evan goes into the next room. Kadrey is left alone and in silence for about two minutes. His beam stays fixed on the spot where they first saw the blood]

Kadrey: Evan, damn you, make a sound.

Evan: [Coming out of the room, looking queasy] There's most of a man in there...

Kadrey: My God.

Evan: Alone. Whoever, whatever did this... He doesn't have much of a face left...

Kadrey: What can we do?

Evan: I don't know. I don't see a whole lot of options.

Kadrey: Can we take him somewhere? Or do we have to...

Evan: Damn it Kadrey! He's not some fucking horse.

[There is a long silence]

Evan: You get our shit packed up, I'm going to drive down to that truck stop and make a call.

Kadrey: Are we going to wait with him?

Evan: I've got no answers for cops.

Kadrey: For a little bit then.

Evan: You do what you want. I'm not going back in there.

[Evan leaves. Kadrey raises his beam to the entrance of the next room. As we hear Evan's car start up Kadrey starts walking towards the entrance. He turns his flashlight off and goes in.]

Kadrey: Hello?

38: West of Hollywood

2009-03-11T14:30:00.010-05:00

Evan is sitting on the trunk of the civic blinking at the sun. He's hungry, but he's not yet ready to do anything about that.

Kadrey is twenty feet away, crouched down to create a shield against the wind. He sees the sparks and smells the gas but the fire won't come.

The cold is past the skin now and burrowing into muscle but Evan refuses to get off the trunk. He sits up and holds himself.

Kadrey, unlit cigarette between his lips, is standing defeated. He says something but the wind allows no bridge.

Evan sees Kadrey, twenty feet away, saying something. Or maybe just moving his lips. He wonders how close they need to be to beat the wind.

39: Street Spirit

2009-03-10T01:15:00.012-05:00

Words rush up and bottleneck right behind my voice-box

Collisions and fusions confuse meaning

My body refuses me

Pressure builds

Cannot

And right there

Like a joke

I growl and cough and shout

An impostor

Obscene and vicious

Propelled by my own two lungs

Is poured into the world

It's not today and it's not happening

It's not today and I shut it in

It's not happening not today because I shut it in

It's staying in today

I won't let it happen today

Today I shut it in

I shut it in

I close it down

So it won't happen

Not today

40: Gravity Always Wins

2009-03-01T22:22:00.012-06:00

Perhaps this would have been a good place to begin.

This might have worked just as well.

And this. It would have been appropriate.

Perhaps first steps are best taken with eyes closed, in total darkness, with no anticipation of solid ground.

41: I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

2009-02-27T22:33:00.021-06:00

Colin Mardsen sat in his study, ensconced in the red folds of his favorite chair, perplexed by this new novel. He was an educated man and the pejorative connotations of that word__bourgeois__ were not unfamiliar to him, but it had always been an insult without sting, a happy consequence. Outside of the imagination of a moralist author, does the werewolf curse the lunar power pulsating through bone and muscle? Certainly not. Yet there it is. The sting. But, along with the sting, a special sort of vindication. The ideas pushed and pulled at each other like the flavors in a complex Thai dish, and he could only digest so much at a time. There was an old envelope spotted at the bottom of an open drawer, covered in dust, he liberated it from the detritus of time and put it to work. The envelope moved at twenty page intervals, at thirty page intervals, at fifty. His makeshift bookmark served as concrete memory, a marker for how far his eyes and mind had travelled. In years to come, as he returned to the book, the envelope was always part of the ritual.

Family functions became a pain as soon as his sister found true love and a third husband. The man evinced at all time a wit and a bonhomie that made him almost irresistible. Almost. If only he had a sense of context, if only Mister Three showed an awareness of his place in the social constellation. Mardsen would rather spend time with an equal rather than that frustrating lump who occasionally passed him the rolls or the pepper. It had been so long since the family allowed him an accomplice to share a bon mot or an unorthodox opinion, and this one had such potential. It had to be done. Copies were so rare that it would have to be his own. One night, before leaving for Christmas dinner, he pulled the book from the shelf, removed the envelope (Mister Three would have to devise his own ritual), and wrapped it hastily in a tasteful holiday pattern. A small elegant package with hard corners to help the lump find definition.

The week before his son got shipped out he spent every evening alone in the study, crying. Each night, he attempted to find something small in volume yet significant in spirit that his boy could keep on his person at all times. He had silly, embarrassing dreams of his first edition "The Sun Also Rises" stopping a bullet. On the final night, disappointed by his library, he rummaged through his drawers. And then the compass. In his family for generations. Guiding Mardsens through three continents. Perfect. And under the compass his old bookmark, stripped of all talismanic powers and returned to messenger status. He read the name for the first time: Kadrey. The postdate was twenty years old.

42: Caves of Altimira

2009-02-27T22:10:00.013-06:00

There must be

a place

where

a man can

stand

that is more

than

dirt

Where the ground

does not

swallow

but cradles

a body

and covers

red weary eyes

with

cool

earth

43: Comanche

2008-11-11T13:48:00.002-06:00

This place wasn't always a diner, it was built for something narrow and urgent. The joint is full of moes trying to smother tonight's drunk under eggs and grits and flesh and fat.

There's only one waitress and she is custom built. Pushing fifty with a face that's still waiting for pretty. Straight back, bony hands, calves like a goatfucker. A name tag that reads "Daisy". No shit.

She hasn't stopped moving. Not in an hour and a half. Maybe more. She jerks along efficiently up and down that corridor with the lunging lushes. The floor is coated with grease and spit. Plates piled high with oozing, sliding sick make it from window to table without loosing a molecule. She's good.

There must be miles beneath her soles already, with miles still to come. This table, then the next, then the next, then the next, then the next, then the counter, the whole lenght of it. Endlessly. The show's a bit too ungainly to be mesmerizing. Fascinating though . An hour and a half already. At least.

"Ready to go yet?" asks Kadrey.
"No," says Evan, "not until something breaks."

44: Videotape

2008-11-10T16:18:00.002-06:00

There's a clean line taunting us, pornographic contact of earth and sky. There is nothing to it, it's just a game of knees and elbows. Up, up, up always up, any other motion is a deception, a feint to come back to up, up, and up. Our signatures are stamped in the dirt, once, twice, thrice a second. We're both Neil Armstrong today and maybe even tomorrow, and maybe even the whole week. As long as it takes for the wind and the lizards and the armadillos to erase us, to forget us.

There is immense silence between the moments where our feet slam into the dirt. We are supersonic jets, constantly booming once, twice, thrice a second. Behind us, an invisible wake, and ghosts made of dust and speed, ephemeral like songs on Mars. We are a Buzz Aldrin dream: ships made of energy. We consume what we are to make distance irrelevant. We exhale and sweat the particles that kissed our mothers and held our brothers. We keep going until there is nothing left but the going.

45: Take From Me My Shadow

2008-10-30T15:15:00.002-05:00

Kadrey woke up in the tub clutching a half full bottle of Beam. The plastic bottle was near empty by the time he thought to check on Evan. He was face down between the two beds. Kadrey stood there watching for a minute, making sure his back rose at regular intervals; a habit he had picked up sharing a room with his brother for twelve years. 58.66 to sleep like bums.

A quick pat down told him he was out of cigarettes. He made as much noise as possible unlocking the door. Still there he was, outside by himself. He had no notion of the time, he'd smashed his watch in Virginia days ago. Weeks? No matter. Leaning on the second floor railing he could spot three live neon altars. He picked the one by the feeder.

At the gas station were a bunch of girls. Even wearing their make up like war paint, they still looked like high school. High school mean. High school stupid. High school treacherous. They crowded the entrance.

Kadrey stood a long time on the wrong side of the line between the station's bright lights and midnight's void. But waiting wasn't going to help. Kadrey would not be transmuted through the power of patience. The girls were not going anywhere; this was not a stop on the night's journey, it was the nest itself. Waiting was an affliction he wanted to be rid of. Actions then.

Of course they were mean. Of course they teased him and made the door an unlikely proposition. Kadrey wanted to prove that he wasn't a tourist. Desperately. Kadrey said the wrong thing. Repeatedly. The half jovial ribbing turned all black.

It was his first fight, and he couldn't help but notice how little pain was involved. Confusion, a lot of it, and some pain, but not much. Pretty soon, it seemed that he was only intermittently in command of his limbs. Vision went in and out. The girls had disappeared and were replaced by an adversarial entity. He was not going to "win".

There he is standing on the feeder. A truck's headlights envelops him. In his brain, the chemicals go crazy. Vision is extended past vision. Memories are palpable things. Above all there is the stony understanding that the shadow so quickly spreading at his feet will be his body's last alteration to this world.

46: The Morning Bell

2008-10-27T16:55:00.003-05:00

INT. CONVENIENCE STORE-NIGHT

[C-NOTE: Let's try to keep as much of this as we can in one shot. Preferably let's not cut until the electrician walks in.]

[S-NOTE: I've asked Jerry to find something that sounds like Morricone for incidental. I'm thinking more Corbucci-Morricone than Leone-Morricone. The Great Silence, shit like that.]

EVAN walks into the convenience store. Everything is bright and shiny and new except for Evan and the CLERK who is the only other person there.

Evan looks like he hasn't washed in days.

The Clerk is a teenager dressed in black, he's bent over a notebook, I-pod buds firmly in place he's probably listening to NIN.

Evan walks over to the chips aisle and ducks. We can't see him.

Evan:

[off camera]This must be your busy time.

Clerk:

[oblivious]...

Evan:

[standing up] I hope you don't live on commission.

Clerk:

[finally notices Evan. takes one bud out] Do you need help?

Evan:

[striding up and down the aisle, picking up random snacks and putting them down in the wrong places] Help? I think I'll help myself to a little bit of this, little bit of that. Since I'm in the land of plenty and all.

Clerk:

[putting his bud back in, returning to his notebook] God bless America.

Evan:

Not one for conversation, uh? Well it's late, your business isn't chitchat.

Clerk:

[oblivious]...

Evan walks to the back where they keep the beer, crouches down to the cheap, nasty shit, pulls out three cases and with some effort jogs up to the register and slams the cases on the counter.

Evan:

[catching his breath] Your business is convenience.

Clerk:

[standing up straight, pulling out the buds, and looking really uncomfortable] I can't sell you these.

Evan:

What are you talking about? I have cash.[he pulls out a crumpled bunch of bills and lays them on the counter.]

Clerk:

[pointing to a clock behind him] No it's cut-off. We're past cut-off, I can't sell you alcohol.

Evan:

What.. What's the... Who needs to know?

Clerk:

Mister, I can't do that. I really really can't.

Evan:

Yeah? [he pulls out a beer from the top case, pops it open and starts to sip]

Clerk:

Take it. Take it. I just can't sell it to you.

Evan:

[very slowly] But. I. Have. Money.

Clerk:

It's not my job to get fucked up. Just... please take it.

Evan tries to hop over the counter slips on the surface and falls at the clerks feet. The clerk backs up, still afraid of Evan. Evan gets up and returns to his original mission unembarrassed. He takes the clock of the wall, adjusts it and holds it up to the clerk.

Evan:

Now it's eleven thirty. Problem solved.

Clerk:

[pointing to the register] That receipt isn't going to say 11:30.

Evan puts the clock down and goes up to the register. The clerk has noticed a mop in the corner he's trying to disappear into. Evan pushes the register onto it's side. The clerks hand closes around the mop's handle. The door opens. It's some DUDE probably coming from a late shift, he's haggard looking and sweaty. His shirt reads: "if it's not grounded, it's not dead."

Evan:

[to the Dude] Hey! Hey, you know anything about electronics.

Dude:

[hesitantly] I'm an electrician.

Clerk:

Certified?

Dude:

[Grinning] Almost.

Evan:

Good enough. You have time for a job? A quick one.

Dude:

Who's paying?

Evan:

[pointing to the wad] I am.

The Dude trots up to the register. The clerk is more obviously holding on the mop now, but it clearly functions more as a life raft than a weapon. The two men are not interested in his state of mind.

Evan:

I want this to say 11:30

Dude:

[examining the register] But it's past one.

Evan:

I know. I want the receipt to say 11:30

Dude:

[still scrutinizing] Isn't there a simple clock function.

Clerk:

No.

Dude:

No? I don't buy that.

The Dude comes around the counter and produces a small screwdriver and a flashlight from his pockets. He starts prodding the register.

Evan:

These are your official tools?

Dude:

You're paying for the knowledge. Not the hardware.

The clerk has been letting himself slide down. He's now sitting on the floor, wrapped around his mop.

Clerk:

You can just have the beer you know.

Evan:

[looking at the clerk with some sympathy]I know...

Dude:

Shit!

The register has started sparking. The Dude makes a break for it seemingly propelled by expletives. The sparks are turning into small flames. The clerk snaps to, grabs an extinguisher from under the counter and lets loose a jet of white powder.

Evan, exhausted and defeated walks around the counter. He's facing the clerk now. Things are back to square one except for the dead register and the retardant still hanging in the air.

Clerk:

You can have it you know.

Evan:

I know [he grabs one case] It just didn't feel right.

Evan walks out, case under his arm. The clerk watches him leave, waits a moment then pockets the crumpled wad.

47: Hell Is Chrome

2008-10-27T14:59:00.001-05:00

If spun hard enough, the wheels let go of the earth,

and for entire moments it does not own you.

IF SPUN HARD ENOUGH, THE WHEELS LET GO OF THE EARTH,

AND FOR ENTIRE MOMENTS IT DOES NOT OWN YOU.

If spun hard enough, the wheels let go of the Earth, and for entire moments it does not own you

If spun hard enough,

the wheels let go of the earth,

and for entire moments

it does not own you.

If spun hard enough,

the wheels let go of the earth,

and for entire moments

it does not own you.

if spun hard

enough,

the wheels let go

of the Earth

and for entire moments

it doesn't own you

spun hard enough, the wheels

let go of the earth, and for entire moments

it does not own you.

spun hard

enough, the wheels

let go of the

earth, and for entire moments

it does not own you.

if spun hard enough,

the wheels let go of the Earth,

and for entire moments it doesn't matter

SPUN

HARD ENOUGH,

THE WHEELS LET GO OF THE EARTH, AND FOR ENTIRE

MOMENTS

DOES

NOT

OWN YOU

48: Side With The Seeds

2008-10-24T00:48:00.001-05:00

On his shoes

The dirt from three states

Caked thick

No wind at his back

No wind on his face

No wind

Nothing to rush and fill the voids between palm and thigh

Up above

Empty sky

Cruel blue and hard light

Moisture sucked from every pore

No wind to cool his brow

No wind

No hope for clouds

and shade

and rain

In his pocket

Lousy talismans

Bent cigarette, six keys around a circle

Kadrey's estate

He holds out the keys

His fist a porcupine

There is no wind to make them chime

Nothing

No wind

To carry the sounds growing in his chest

He smells the keys

Gives them new names in the absence of doors

He presses into the body of the cigarette

Rolls it back and forth

Paper disintegrates

Dry leaves fall through his fingers

Like sand

Like ash

No wind to alter their trajectory

No ladder to bring him the fragrance of tobacco

The leaves gather on his shoes

He is buried

49: Then There Is

2008-10-20T09:22:00.001-05:00

50: Everything in it's right place

2008-08-29T13:33:00.001-05:00

The scent of the airbag is surprising, the glow of the flames very familiar, the combination is disorienting. As if he needed more of that. There is probably blood but he's in no hurry to find out. Past the flaming hood of his civic, the road stretches out to a black point, two lines whose intersection harmonizes into imperative rather than emphasis. He reaches for the seat belt before he can remember that he never uses it. His finger traces the empty smile of the clasp, then he coughs. The flesh knows what matters. He is standing on the road envisioning with unmitigated clarity every step that could have brought him here, but unable to actually remember any of them. He starts walking towards the convergence, very careful not to blink.