Alchemy And Treasure

The warm heat
Of the sun’s breath
Exhaled delicately around us
As my brother and I
Explored the measure of railroad tracks
Stretched tightly
Across gravel beds
Behind our Grammy’s house
In Montclair.

Like previous expeditions
We arrived
Pockets full
Of saved or found
Silver and copper coins
Which we carefully lined up
On the bright steel rails
Shimmering.

We would continue
To explore
Listening for the heavy weight
Of an oncoming deisel
In the distance.

When it was discerned
That the train was coming from the correct direction

We would run back
Through the brush
Sawgrass
Prickers
And industrial waste
Perching ourselves somewhere
To survey in anticipation.

Sometimes
We would watch in plain view
Pumping our arms
As a signal to the engineer
Who would most often
Respond to us
With a blast of the air horn
Grinning a tombstone smile
Within the open window.

Miles of freight would thunder by.

Metal creaking
Steel on steel whining
Trackbed groaning
Wheels clacking as they rolled over joints.

When the last car went by
We would tumble down to the tracks themselves
Watching the train snake off into the distance.

We’d find some of the coins
Still on the tracks
Too hot to touch.

Others could be found
In the general vicinity.

We would pick them up
And observe our work.

The talent of practiced magicians
Studied right there in the laboratory.

How thin?
How stretched?
Was the picture or writing still visible?

When the coins had cooled
They were put back into pockets
And taken home
To be put in young pirate’s
Treasure chests
Filled with stuff of sparkling admiration
For years to come.

The Accident

Part One: The Conditioning

My first ‘job’
Paid cash.

I was underage.

I worked for a photographer
Who was a Viet Nam veteran
That got crippled during the war.

His legs got fucked up.
He couldn’t get around
Without the support
Of a pair of clacketing aluminum braces
Extending from his forearms to the floor.

I basically carried the camera equipment
And helped him to set up.

My friends got me the job
And later on
I found out why he hired
Younger boys...

Why my friends
Received lavish gifts.

But that’s another story in itself.
My tenure as a photographer’s assistant
Did not last very long.

Part of his business
Was to photograph proms
And weddings
And social events.

But
He was also the
Evidence photographer
For the local police departments.

So I lugged his gear
To proms and weddings
And suicides
Car accidents
Murders.

Grisley scenes
For a 14 or 15 year old.

Especially the weddings.

I lasted long enough
To have witnessed
A person that had hung himself
From a tree
In the backyard
Of their family home.

I learned
A law of physics and biology
That night.

I became educated
That gravity will draw bodily fluids
Of a suspended dead corpse
To the lowest extremities
Of which
Being
The hands and feet
A dark
Almost black goo like emulsion
Seeped out of the skin
And gelled
Spilling out even
From their shoes and socks.

I was not prepared for that.
Nor the smell.

The joint we had smoked in the car
On the way over
Took some of the edge off
But it was still haunting.

Other than that
The night went routinely.

We took photos and left.

I saw a man
With the top of his head blown off
From a self-inflicted shotgun wound.

We were at the top of the panelled stairs
When the first cop told us
To look quickly
Turn our heads
Look again
Turn
Look again...

To avoid shock.
To condition ourselves.

When I got to the bottom
Of the stairs
I did as he said.

One cop was pale and gagging
So I knew it was bad.

The scene was so eerily surreal
To know that we were in this person’s
‘Space’
Where they made this very intense final decision.

An intact body reclined
Relaxed
On a worn distasteful nubby plaid sofa
With wooden arms and feet
In a suburban basement.

The grip of a shotgun
Nestled between his knees.

His hands had moved
From the discharge
But the end of the rifle
Was perfectly in line
Just above the lower jaw.

There was not much to see above that
Except bone and organ
Packed in like a jig-saw puzzle
Around the lower jawline.

It was splattered
On the sofa pillows behind him...
On the fake wood panelling
The porcelain lamp with it’s yellowed shade.

I know.

I remember.

I helped take pictures of it all.

Evidence of what really happened.

Just as any prom or wedding.


Part Two: The Accident Itself

Ahead of me
I watched a large cloud
Of dust and dirt
Appear on the median
Of I-95.

I could tell that it wasn’t smoke
Or a fire.
It looked different
Somehow.

We approached.

I was in the fast lane
But I could see the metal of a vehicle
Amidst the fury of dirt and grass
In the island of the interstate.

I put on the flashers
And pulled over
Settling onto the center embankment
Across from the accident.

My wife and kids were in the car.
I told them to wait.

I was the first one there.

The car had flipped over onto it’s roof.

The occupant was upside down
Crunched upon the ceiling interior of the car.

Their head was sheared above the eyes
From the open sunroof.

I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman
Only that they were black and heavy-set.

The top of their scalp
Lay just a foot or so
Away
From the roof of the car
Interior side face up in the sun
Much like the undercarriage of the car.

I could see inside of it
Slowly bubbling
Foaming pink red.

There was a detail in this quiet moment
Before others arrived.
A concerto of death.

The settling of the crunched metal of the vehicle.
Automobile fluids leaking.
Gases being released from the body itself.
The gurgling of life fluids exiting arteries.

There was a death racket
Within the din of interstate traffic.

I noticed all of this before the others arrived
And started screaming and sobbing in shock.
I told them
That the driver was DOA
There was nothing that we could do.

I left the gathering crowd
And got back in my car.

I listened to my wife tell me how
She experienced
That person’s soul leave their body.

She was crying.

I believed her.
She was intuitive like that.

I listened to her howl in pain
Like a wounded animal
Hit by a car
All of the way
From Richmond
To DC.

Titanic

She almost got me back
On the
‘Stuff’.

She was hot
And she could fuck
Like the Devil
Or the crayzee black witch
That she proclaimed to be.

Signing my soul over
In exchange
For the most perverse
Pornographic sex
To come down the pike
At the time.

But she was an addict
Like I was.

Although

I was in the middle
Of a run
To stay desperately clean.

Besides her straightforward
No-holds-barred
Kinky appetite
She had a laid back personality
For a stripper
And I liked that.

We did anything together.

Went to the beach.
Took walks.
Shoplifted.
Picked apples.

She really was fun to hang out with.

But she was getting high
All of the time.

Hitting a vein
And THEN going out
To pick apples
“High All Of The Time”.

Who does THAT?

I never did.

Her brother was gay.
He was the DJ at the strip club
Where she worked.

Nice guy
But he was gacked too.

The two of them
Rented a motel room
Next door to the club
To party after hours
And I showed up
Like she wanted me to.

I was in for ten minutes
And I could tell
That it wasn’t my scene.

If I stayed
I was a goner.

I got the fuck out of there
Leaving some worked up
Black witch's
Primo ass and pussy
On some anonymous hard motel room bed
With her queer brother
And some of their friends
From 'Teasers"

Never looking back

Determined
To stay the course

Avoiding the iceberg.

Cracks

The shadows from the trees
Cast
From the talcum dusted
Winter moon
Cracked across the
Deeply embedded deer path
Like the black ice
Of the wide lake
That I navigated
On skates
As a child.

The sounds
Of the dark ice
Expanding under the metal blades
Of hockey skates
Cuts back into me now

As I hop
Skip
And jump
Into the bright spots
Shown to me
By this moon
Like the game Twister
Or Hopscotch.

Crack, crack
Your mother’s back.