Walking on Thin Ice

CRYSTAL METH & THE LIZARDS & THE RATS

CRYSTAL METH & THE LIZARDS & THE RATS

“The evil are really Lizards. That would explain the existence of evil people.”

Aw, naw. There are just evil people. Lizards might help people be evil but people are evil on their own. If the lizards took over, some men would work for them, hunting and herding other men.

Some people are just bad. Some are weak, some lazy, some scared. A whole lot are real busy just living their lives. There’s more good than bad, but the good’s preoccupied. It’s hard being alive.

“It’s also hard trying to be good.”

It’s easier these days to be good than non-good because it’s less of an energy drain.

“Being bad is a *psychic* energy drain.”

Yes, it’s difficult to keep track of all yr lies. Plus ya gotta come up with your bad deeds to DO in the first place. It’s not easy being bad. Maybe we could start a business called “Nefarious Deeds.” We could come up with evil deed plans for Bad Guys. “Evil for Dummies.” Make a mint.

“We could compete with Ahmed Chalabi.”

Who’s that?

“He’s the guy who was paid to supply bad intelligence on Iraq.”

Oh yes, he was the guy who made $340,000 a month from our government. Why don’t I get these kinds of offers to sell out?

“I think there’s almost a science in manipulating people so they can’t figure out what truth is. Like all these facts are out there for those who care but they’re all layered and layered in levels of deception.”

That’s what the corporations do to the government when they’re sued. They give information to the government when subpeona’d, but they bury it in thousands and thousands of boxes. Make the government look for it.

There are a lot of lizards out there. Lizards and rats. I wonder if they mate. Have little rat lizards for dessert.

“Do you know the lizards’ agenda?”

No. But I suspect they could be behind global warming. They are cold blooded critters.

“Prior to this you’ve been preoccupied with the Rats.”

Well, the rats were running us through mazes. All those construction cones you see in Cleveland. They were running us through rat tests. They would rearrange the maze every night, sometimes more than once.

“I think you could be right.”

Road cones are obviously a psychological rat trap maze. And who would be running mazes among human experiments if it weren’t the Rats? I think the lizards are just a side problem.

I think the lizards and the rats couldn’t get along because the lizards would eat the rats. It’s not nice to eat your partner unless you’re consenting adults. I think it’s the warm blood / cold blood thing. Some metaphors just aren’t meant to intermix.

“I think you’re right. The lizards must be behind global warming. That’s why they’re taking over the governments and corporations.”

Well, the most primitive part of the brain is the limbic system, which is known as the reptilian brain. Limbic is primitive fight or flight. It’s interesting. Brain studies have shown that men in relaxed states idle in the limbic system, the primitive brain. Women idle a couple steps UP in the symbolic communication section. Which makes sense. Man kill; bring home; eat. Woman are wired to hear sound of child whimper and to be able to read faces.

Man’s wired to feed the brood. Woman’s wired to raise the brood. These studies also found women use a lot more of their brains than men do. And they remember things more accurately over longer periods of time.

* * *

“So crystal meth rots your teeth?”

Yes. I don’t know why. I snorted crystal and I shot crystal. But this was back in the 60s, usually, well, some into the 70s.

“You seem so responsible. This is so hard to imagine.”

Well, the me now wouldn’t do what me then did. But the me now arises out of what that me DID do then. Glad I did it, not doin it no more. Would never suggest a friend do it.

“Why is it called crystal?”

It’s a crystal powder. We got pharmaceutical crystal methodryne. And it looked like bright glistening salt crystals. It was real good stuff. I think we snorted and shot for three months it.

“Who’s we?”

Macklin, who was living with me on Calvert Street, and homosexual John, and some artist downstairs. But the woman selling it was trying to raise bail to get her boyfriend out of jail who’d broken into the store and stolen it.

So my exposure to needles was a pharmaceutical drug which induces intelligence gains of 8 points and euphoria administered by a male hospital nurse with a virgin needle.

“I see a class divide between the bohemians and the people who had to break in and get stuff.”

Actually, if you’re a junkie, it’s the only way to feed your habit. And there are more junkies in the poor section of life. But there’re junkies in every section along the way.

“But you never considered yourself a junkie.”

No. For some reason–except for alcohol–I could take it or leave it. Plus I always worked 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. You can’t do that if you give in to drugs. Besides, I’m not a down drug type person. And you can’t do drugs all the time; you just wear yourself out. Except maybe cocaine. You keep doing cocaine all the time, and you DO wear yourself out.

“Would I notice any different mannerisms in you if you did coke or speed?”

Oh, I’d start talking a blue streak. And according to government studies, good speed raises your IQ an average of 8 points while you’re on it. So you feel smarter, you actually ARE smarter, and there’s a euphoria from the drug, and 4 to 12 hours of energy.

Actually a lot of LSD in the 60s and 70s was laced with speed. And a lot of coke too, back then. I think coke’s a 20 minute high. Americans like their highs to last longer.

“Hash is perfect for me. Doesn’t leave me stupid the next day. This is kinda groggy though. I like euphoria.”

Ah. That’s the one thing about drugs. When you take the right ones and the right amount, you really get a nice feeling. But as Ramdass says, “You gonna go up, you’re gonna come back down.” Ramdass. Timothy Leary’s partner.

LET’S KISS LIKE I’M THE OPPRESSOR AND YOU’RE THE OPPRESSED

LET’S KISS LIKE I’M THE OPPRESSOR AND YOU’RE THE OPPRESSED

“I’m cold,” I whine. “I want to be hot.”

“You can take a bath, or run up and down the stairs twenty times, or get under the covers.”

“Or,” I suggest, “you could press your hot body against mine.”

Smith lays down next to me. I lie on top of him. “I’m pressed and you’re the presser,” he says.

I say, “Let’s kiss like I’m the oppressor and you’re the oppressed. I’m the oppressor and you’re the oppressed, baby.”

I get up to write this down.

“Wait. You didn’t deliver,” Smith says. “You promised me a kiss, and then you got up and left. In fact early in our relationship, while I was making love to you, you got up and left to write something down.”

Smith gathers and clinks our spent cocoa mugs like bowling pins.

“Well, that’s how it is,” I tell him.

“To keep you around I’ll just have to keep my mouth closed.”

* * *

“I feel alienated. And we are alien here. I feel discombobulated. Maybe I’m just confused, you know?”

Yeah? You’ve been smoking a lot.

“After all this place has taught me smoking isn’t the answer. And smoking’s been one of the major I-beams of my existence. Since January of ‘68. Drugs and independence. A whole pivotal I-beam of my existence is being taken out. And since I hooked up with you, I’m no longer independent either. So I’m losing drug I-beam and independence I-beam. What’s now holding the structure up? That’s what I gotta figure out.”

Hm. Don’t you think you’re about your creativity?

“There’s always been creativity. Through good and bad, through drink. At least with the art. Poetry comes and goes but words have always been easy. You know, words have power. I was getting a C minus as a midshipman plebe, in English. I showed my professor the poetry I’d written, most of which wasn’t very good. But my grade shot up to a B. So words have power! And he liked me after that. Actually, people have always responded enthusiastically when finding out I was a poet.”

It’s funny because you were talking about scaffolding the other day.

“I think I’m rebuilding. I think that’s what this process is, here. I got this far, and it worked. But now I gotta rebuild.”

The problem with creating so much is that it’s hard to promote.

“Oh, I know.”

It’s even harder to go back and edit. We’re too busy.

“Masumi said, ‘Don’t confuse the audience.’ Just think of Prince, putting out forty albums a year.”

Well, we’re just doing what we have to do. To the hilt. Everything’s been pretty logical, in an illogical way.

* * *

“Did you read Melissa’s article?”

No, I read the one by her, the review. But not the one about her. Not yet.

“You should take a look at the art in there.”

Oh, I will, I’m looking forward to it. It’s nice to run across someone who is geniunely talented.

“Yes, it is. I’ve always found that. A lot of people dream, a few *do*. Of those, a very few, like Melissa, do it with magic and grace.”

That’s nice.

“Yeah, I almost sound like a phony greeting card at times. I’m a greeting card / text producer. Reynolds says I should be a song lyricist.”

Hm. You always tell me what Reynolds says. But I still know very little about you guys.

“We’ve just known each other for a long time. I was of the hippies. We met in 1971. So he was the last ripple of that.”

Before I was born. But I remember being at hippie parties when I was little.

“Well, that’s the part of the hippies who were still growing up and doing what they’re doing. So you were *birthed* by hippies, and now you’re fucking one. Or married to one, if you want to make it polite.”

Well I can’t imagine being comfortable with any other type of person.

“Well Reynolds always had a positive mindset. He is gentle and giving, and incredibly bright and talented.”

Hm.

“Tho lately I think the world’s getting him down. It’s hard to be optimistic in the face of what’s going on sometimes.”

Yeah, it’s like what we always thought could come true is true and has been true.

“And even worse than we thought.”

“We may not be able to get drugs in Bezier. People might be gone, moved on, arrested, got rich and driving Rolls.”

Don’t worry. I have no doubt we can find people.

“Well I might be *above* drugs by then. Drugs might be yesterday’s news. 40 years of yesterdays as of January. You know what? April 21 was my seventeenth year anniversary of being sober.”

Oh, good.

“Forty years of yesterdays. That has a certain flow to it.”

That’s more than my life.

* * *

Wow. My head’s heavy.

“After I’m done pollinating all the almond trees, we can tie helium balloons to your head to make it feel lighter.”

Thank you. Yr one of those men who doesn’t turn ugly. Your nose and ears haven’t gotten abnormally large or weird.

“Well I ain’t *that* old yet. Give me a chance. Plus, I’ve been drinking Pinnochio juice lately.”

I’m serious, though. Your head would look good on a coin.

“What?”

On money.

“No money, honey. Money’s where it went wrong. One of the three places where it went wrong.”

What are the other two?

“Power or control over another, envy.”

You deliver this wisdom up as tho yr a saint.

“Actually, I have learned things along the way. I’m not totally dense. As for the rest, I just fake it. Hell, they made Yoda sound wise, didn’t they? Just by talking bad.”

HAPPY HASH

“I never thot I’d be doing this,” Smith declares.

“What? Smoking Moroccan hash in Morocco?”

“Yes. It’s pretty cool.”

“Well,” I say, “if you say it’s cool, it must be cool. Cuz yr the coolest.”

Steve puts the needle and book on the windowsill. “You know, if things go right, we’re going to be buying a lot of sewing kits.” We use a needle on a piece of hash as tho it’s an insect specimen. We anchor it on a book. Then we light it, blow it out, and hold a cup over it to collect the smoke. In France, we used Shakespeare. In Morocco, we use Camus.

I watch the palm tree leaves outside the window. They fingerly touch, tustle the sky. I moan.

“Feel it?” he asks.

“Yeah. This is a happy hash.” I’m feeling so glad that we have this thing we can indulge in. Feeling rich without it as well, and better for the parallax gleaned from the shifting of straight and stoned perspectives, the shining of my mind.

“Having a good day, Lady?”

“Yeah. This is going to be transformative, you know.”

“Why?” he asks.

“Well, we’ll be in the center of Marrakech, in the old city, getting high, meeting weird people, creating.”

“Drooling?”

“Hehehe.” I launch myself at his toe, chew on it, bite it. “Um, you gotta nice big juicy toe.”

“It’s probably not very clean, you know.”

“Oh right,” and I spit it out.

And I look at Smith, and it feels like we’re the same age right now.

“Wow this is pretty intense,” I say.

“Oh, yeah. And we got a lotta good stones left in the chunk, too. So what you writing?”

“Oh, little bits of our conversation, here and there.”

* * *

“Being here is pretty weird, isn’t it? It’s like ‘hippie nostalgia’,” I comment.

“I was *with* the hippies. Not *of* them,” Smith grunts. He lies down on my laptop power supply and cord.

“Yr on my cord, you know.”

“I know. It’s heating my nether regions.” He turns over to show me the power supply. It was under his butt. “Here. I’m having heat sex, that’s all.”

I rub his belly.

He says, “It’s going to be hard enough to write. We’re gonna have to explain what happened today. Go ahead, write it down.”

I’m resistant. Too foggy to recall the day.

“You know some bears aren’t hibernating anymore.”

I continue rubbing his belly. “Some bears?”

“Yeah, it’s getting too warm. All they need is enough grub to stay awake. I’m going to get the big juicy bug grubs.”

We zone out for a while, and out of the blue he asks, “Do snails have livers? They wouldn’t get very fucking big. I mean, how many snail lizards you gonna need to fucking tip the scales. I can see these vast snail herds being herded to market. I used to be a snail herder, you know? Nothing like snails on the trail! You know, it’s interesting. Seeing what goes into the pot?”

“Oh yeah, gets added to our soup,” I say.

“We read about snails on the plane and that got in. I keep thinking about that Steven King where the doctor’s marooned, hurt on an island. He knows which part of himself he can safely eat to stay alive.”

“I’ve been thinking about that too,” I say. It seems like a relevant metaphor for the world and our investment in ourselves. We had to sell the condo to do this. We’re eating our past to pay for the present to invest in the future.

“Steven King’s short stories are better than his books — I think,” I say. “I’m starting to understand the process of writing longer pieces. A fictional story seems possible. I’m learning a lot from writing your book. I think in writing a book a person works on a puzzle of oneself, other people and the world. Clarity’s gained in working out the plot of the book.”

“I know myself and I don’t know myself,” Smith says. “There’re more than two of me. I don’t know myself. So, does this make you a hippie chick now?”

“I don’t know what you mean. What do you mean by that?”

“Well you’re on the road, you’re writing this down, you’re smoking hash, you’re in Morocco.”

* * *

“Does my hair look messy?”

“No,” I say. “You look good. Why?”

“Cuz he kept trying to shave me. I think he thot it’d make me look younger. The gray hair and all.” Our guide pointed out several barber shops and rubbed his face suggestively.

“I wonder what I’d look like under there. It’s been so long I can’t remember. I wouldn’t look like me any more.”

“Who are you?”

“I don’t know. It’s one of them guessing games.” He watches the wall. “I’m looking at that shadow on the wall. It was especially nice, seeing that this morning. It was brighter then.”

“We saw the shadows before we saw the country,” I say.

* * *

“OK come on Steve, write your story. It’s the call of the hippies! Steve, Steve!”

“I was with the hippies, not of the hippies. Hippies all sold out. They’re just a marketing tool now. I wasn’t of anyone, straight or stoned.”

I insist: “You were telling me about the magic little guy. I said maybe he’s a genie.”

“Yes, he was,” Smith says. “A hash genie. He appeared and told you where the ’souk’ was. Down the street, he stopped you to show you where he used to work when he cut his middle finger off. He popped up again when we went past the alley entrance. So he started taking us down the right way. Wouldn’t leave.”

“Sounds like a good genie,” I say.

“Yeah, after that, he sorta ‘hovered.’ He took us deeper in, and he’d turn, and I’d look about for something to mentally mark where we were going, kept checking my compass. After a few more turns, started taking pictures. Cuz I was starting to give up. And after that I just tried to keep a vague west/northeast/south sense. Knew logically we could compass our way back.”

“I got afraid at one point.”

“Right - you said you wanted to be where there were more people. And you know what? More people appeared. Interesting.”

“That is interesting. He’s a good hash genie.”

I drift into myself for a while.

“I’m just having the thought that by allowing ourselves to move around the world helps us to find our true set points.”

“Set points?” he asks.

“Umm hmmm… set points are a controls engineering term.”

“I think I gave my set points away.”

“How’s that?”

He evades me. “I pray for multiple points. You know what it is… it’s like triangulation. You know where they use radar to find three points to find bad guys in the movies. By using more than one set of systems, you use your mind, you use your instincts, you use your experience, you use your - I don’t know - camouflage powers.”

“Actually, you know that’s interesting. I didn’t have to use the camouflage powers today. I didn’t have to pretend not to be me. I just stuck out, like a sore thumb.”

“Yeah that’s right,” I agree. “We did stick out.”

“And when it was over, when he was getting ready to leave us, after he steered us to his store collective, I figured this was my best chance. And I asked him if he could help me find where I could get some hashish.”

“He said, Me, I guess. Moi. We can go to my house.”

“It turns out he thought we wanted to go smoke right then. He was going to take us to his house. So we go further and further in to the medina, to his house, get served tea and pastries made by his wife.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Just seeing their domicile just totally flipped my head.”

“There’s just so much. This is really weird. I’m usually kind of good with this kind of stuff.”

“The thing that stuck out to me was how his son was so studious. He showed us his textbooks. And then I asked him what he was going to do after studying.”

“And he told you what his job was after school. He makes necklaces and textiles, I think.”

“Then his father bade him bring his hash tray.”

“Ah… he invited us to dinner. We tried to tell him we couldn’t have dinner right away. We asked him if he knew a good place we could stay. I figured a man who’d get me hash might find me an apartment. Looks like he will.”

“Started off the day unsure of what we’re going to do. Wandered into the old walled city. Wandered out with an apartment, maybe. We’ll find out tomorrow.”

“And it was interesting, you know. Because at one point another pop-up tried to help us.”

“Another genie, yes,” I say.

“But I don’t know how he recognized we already had help. And he went away.”

“And that was difficult, everybody speaking, the father, his wife, the son and us today. We were speaking, what, four languages? French, German, English, Arabic?”

“We were speaking Pigeon,” I say.

“Pigeon? What do you mean?”

“We kept speaking at each other in different sentences, languages, until everyone came to a consensus of understanding. Pigeon.”

I continue: “It’s definitely interesting. A fundamentally different economy. Everything is based on personal contact here. Less opportunity for slack.”

“Do you wanna see my photos? A lot of them I don’t know what I got. I couldn’t see the screen when I pointed my picture.”

“Oh that was intrusive, him telling us where to take pictures, wasn’t it?” I felt positively resistent. But today I plan on just doing what the guide says. No use resisting the flow.

“Oh yeah, but at least we got to see a lotta weird shit. He coulda just seen that you were taking weird pictures, so he decided to show you weird shit.”

“I didn’t want to take pictures of people. Felt too exploitative. I tried to take pictures of cats. I felt they could stand in as metaphors for the conditions of the the people.”

“There was an old woman, white scarf over her head,” Steve recalls.
She was leaning against a tiled mosque in the courtyard in the sun. It was an excellent photograph. Like she was posing. She had long stuff, covered head to toe. You could tell she was old.”

“You didn’t take that one?”

“Didn’t have a chance. I’m not sure I could have asked. I’m kinda shy in a weird way.”

“Ah, remember the little kitten we saw crawling in the dirt?” Smith pointed him out on our walk back to the hotel. Dirt covered movement flailing under a tree.

“Yes Ma’am, I do.”

“At first I thought it was a rat or something.”

“So did I.”

“How distressing it was, to leave it mewing in the dirt.”

GOOD COP STORY

GOOD COP STORY

Fueling the car,
outside Brahman, Michigan

Hose breaks.

Gets gas all over my white pants.

I go to the men’s room,
take my pants off,
wash with cold water,
put em back on.

but I don’t wear underwear –
so this isn’t pleasant –

So, driving down road
as passenger,
I take my pants off

Hang em out the window to dry –

State trooper pulls us over.

I’m indignant,
arrogant
and naked.

We haven’t broken any laws

But he just wants to check,
thinks my white pants
are a flag for help

I apologize.

As he turns to leave,
he points at the marijuana pipe in the ashtray.

Says,

Might wanna hide that.

So that’s that,
a good cop story.

And I am an asshole.

Smith & Lady, 2006

JUST NOW

I’m comparing the juxtaposition of perspectives now that I’m high again vs months straight. I slow down. Get a bigger handle on understanding my current condition. I think it’s good to shake things up.

I tell Smith, “I think it’s appropriate for us to be smoking now.”

He slowly, creepily turns his head towards me, wide-eyed. Whispers, “it’s almost always appropriate…”

JUST NOW

the sunlight floods in
after silent cloudy obscuration

  when it’s cold I seize my hand up in my pocket

sun lightlight heart heart theory

but just this moment

                the passing of the sun

the flit from cloud

                to bright

as though someone

unrolled the lights to a grand
                       Ta-dah!

and tho I am cheered
I’m disturbed as well

be
   cause

         I realize

there’s heat inside th body
                        and thoughts
inside th head

sometimes I hear myself talking and it sounds like a duck quacking

Lady
March 24, 2007

what “we” we grow

Lady K called me “honey bunny buggle bear.” sometimes she talks to me in the same voice she used to use to talk to her cat. i think she thinks i’m her big pet.

we’re not smoking today. our 4 day stone fuzzed the brain, slowed the will - especially after being straight for 5 months. it’s nice to shut the brain down periodically, but it’s best to start it back up again after awhile to make sure it still works.

hash is stronger and tastier than grass. these past 5 months of being straight, all i wanted to do was get stoned… now that i am, i realize once again smoking’s not the answer, merely part of the process - it’s the spice, not the meal. our relationship, creating, growing, the journey - these make up our life’s meal. hashish is merely a life spice.

on the road 8 months now. we’ve crossed multiple Rubicons - passages where we aren’t the same people after passing we were before. such crossings are difficult, and sometimes must be done solely because they’re hard to bring yourself to do.

1st reading our poetry to strangers in london was a major crossing because finding praise for our words from folk who had never heard of us reinforced who we were in our heads.

going behind the old iron curtain to a totally foreign language and culture was another. creating & promoting our own poetry reading, opening for an avant-garde rock band, and being accepted by the underground creative community strengthened our image of ourselves.

spending 3 months isolated in a fishing village in croatia was a slow gentle crossing - it showed us how productive we could be… we ended up with 2 dozen art pieces, hundreds of fotos, 5 short stories, and a 250 page manuscript on my checkered past.

here in the south of france, some of our traveling lessons and life changes seemed to have settled in, become part of us. we wildly upped our creative quotient via Lady K’s creating her Pbase foto galleries, and her starting Myspace bases for both of us. here she also began posting her short videos on YouTube, and she’s learning how to create animation.

our greatest crossing was starting our relationship, disposing of possessions, leaving america for an open ended free range world roam.

our journey is an ever changing serial reality moving from new country to unknown city. our future is full of never-beens and not-yet-knowns. we are but seeds of future self.

most folks have a big change every decade or so. we’ve had 18 months of continuous change - changes in life, living, cities, countries, cultures.

we’re folding all this together, making our manifold destiny.

but in 10 days it’s as if we’re starting anew. 3 months in morocco will be going through the looking glass to a whole new sight-line beyond the valley of the other side. we will go from being surrounded by caucasians to being in an arabic/african culture. from safe water to deadly water. from old history to even more ancient. roman writing to arabic alphabet. feminist to patriarchal. different civilizations, different diseases.

wonder what “we” we will grow in morocco.