Pacific Garden Mission (con’t)

Narrow stairs, shoulder width. Brushing ancient curls of crumbling wallpaper that rustle as they stomp down. The only light through a square of smoked glass in the door at the bottom. A warning of approaching morning light insufficient when TonyO pushes out on to the street and Grig once again feels the punch of awareness. He tries to imagine what the ratio is of concussion to hangover, and picks a dime sized scab out of his ear with his pinky as TonyO turns him toward the bakery window. It’s lined with cookies, donuts, the little white loaves of bread.

Pretty to look at but they taste like shit.

What’s that?

I told you. Lard. Lard in everything. Lard. Lard. Lard. No butter.

Must be halfway okay. I mean, people buy stuff. The place is in business.

These spics have no idea what good dessert is. They torch their mouths out with chilis so much. How would they know?

Says you. To them it’s really good.

Bullshit.

Relativity, Tony.

What? Who got smart in the prison library?

I mean to them, they think it’s good.

Yeah. That’s that cultural shit. Everybody thinks their people do it the best because that’s all they know. So of course they’ll buy this flavorless crap because they never had something better.

I’m saying to them it wouldn’t be because–

Because nothing. It tastes like shit unless you dunk the hell out of it.

Okay.

I mean, like this one time I met this lady from Iran on the bus, right? The whole trip, she goes on and on about how great fucking Iran is. Algebra this and architecture that and Persian Mesopotamian what the fuck.

Yeah.

So I say to her. Fuck lady, it’s a good thing you were born there. You’d be a fucking miserable bitch if you were from Sweden or someplace.

How’s that?

I mean, the way she went on about how Iran was the greatest country. If it was so goddamn great, they we all would know it, right? So if she was from somewhere else she’d be just about suicidal because she wasn’t from Iran. You follow me?

You’re a piece of work Tony. You’re an expert’s expert.

I’m just saying, that’s proof that everybody thinks they’re from the best place. And that there way of doing things is the best way.

And so?

And so one person’s actually is. And one place actually is. Which makes ninety nine percent of the rest of us fuckers wrong all the goddamn time. That’s relativity, Grig. Relative to shit. Come on, let’s get some of those shit donuts already.

Pacific Garden Mission (con’t)

Tony O grabs Grig under the shoulders, hoists him upright on the couch. He’s sunk in the bow of the cushions, face lined from the upholstery pattern, fibrous mouth, his eyelids scraping over bone dry eyes.

Where’s your coffee? I smell coffee.

You smell downstairs. It’s the bakery.

Mexican.

Right. Those little angel-wing pastries. Fruity cream wedding cakes. The little white loaves of bread. The bolillos.

That’s a nickname.

No it ain’t. It the loaves of bread. That’s what they call them.

No, I mean, for me. Well, for any whiteboy.

What?

Inside. They called us that. The Aces and Cobras and those guys. Bolillos. Because we were white and soft.

Damn. That’s fuckin funny Grig. Bolillos.

Yeah. Funny. I never had one before.

Well, get happy kid. Today’s the day.

Great.

Pacific Garden Mission (con’t)

Bout time you piece of shit.

            Gimme those aspirins.

            Head still hurts then.

            Killing me.  Feels like a dog shit in my mouth.  Right in it.

            TonyO hands him a warm can of beer, open on the coffee table.

            Let’s get some shit donuts from downstairs.

            Nice.

            You know spics don’t use butter, aint that strange?  Lard in everything.

            Got some?

            Downstairs, downstairs.  Get your head screwed on and we’ll go.

. . . and all the MG’s

Pacific Garden Mission (con’t)

Grig wakes up, a hateful morning light burning through the thin tapestry TonyO hangs over his front window. Yesterday’s drizzle has given way to merciless clarity, bright blue slivers of sky bleed around the sheet edges. He’s slept maybe four hours, shaking his head and shuddering against the frustrating truth that liquor puts you to sleep but won’t let you linger. Grig wants to scoop his thumbs into his eyesockets, make room for his swollen brain and the dull yellow ache behind his eyes.

Sez TonyO (PGM)

Grig fades in and out of sleep. The whisky, the gray throb lingering from taking that wrench in the head. Dream after dream. Back on the yard. Basketball under a chain-link ceiling. Curling cinderblocks. Lines of orange jumpsuits. Baloney sandwiches day after day after day. The night they wrenched the teeth out of that punk’s mouth one by one so he couldn’t bite. And through it all, TonyO keeps talking . . .

You better man up, is what I mean. If you’re no good at something, what’s the point of passing yourself off as being good? Sooner or later you get found out and then you’re twice as worse off, right? I know what I know, which is great but you know what makes me valuable? It’s that I know what I don’t know kid. I got the balls to admit that I’m no good and that I need help, I need the right people around me and that if I take care of them well then together we can all do real well. That’s why I like you Grig, you’re good at what you do and I recognize that talent. Recognize and appreciate (an empty pint falls off the coffee table, he’s putting his right foot up, sliding back into the chair, his left leg hanging over into the worn hollow on the left arm). Never understood those crap-asses who try to convince me how great they was at this or that. I’m so great. I’m so great. Mister, then why the fuck are you bending my ear inside out? Why aren’t you just getting down to business? Shit. Are you asleep kid? I might need more beer. I might shoot down to the corner for twelve. Right? Right?

the sun is up, the sky is blue

Sez TonyO (PGM)

Hope is a punk out, Grig. It’s an excuse to stall, to think that all of this (waving his cigarette) is beyond our control. Right. Sorry but no. No. That’s what’s terrifying is that it’s all precisely within our control. We’re just that mighty. Mighty. And that scares the shit (a swig) the absolute blue shit out of us, which is why we want to put it on somebody else, some THING else. That old lady I had before you went in, she read those star charts every morning and they always said sometimes you know what you’re doing. Other times you don’t know dick from donuts. Got me? No shit. Like the movie said: “You believe in that big bearded boss up there? You think he’s watching us?” You know, I have issues if he’s there, because what’s in it for him to be such a prick? The mysterious ways shit the nuns fed us. Remember that? So what’s mysterious about cancer or taking a nosedive off a fire escape? What’s mysterious about the cripple chewing on his chin next to the turnstile? Nothing. People are sick, brittle, insane and alone. Hang that hope crap out to dry and start working (another swig). You understand me? It’s you and the people you trust and that is it. And hell, I’m not even sure any of them that I trust is worth trusting because they’re just as nuts as me and you and damn but you know we’re all an absolute batshit madhouse bunch of fools. Alright, get some sleep. We’re about to get busy.

Couch Hemorrhage Dream (PGM)

Did you ever watch a dog dream Tony? The twitch and whimper? That’s me but awake most of the time . . .

A pair of narrow-hipped boys, one summer from high school, sneak between the box-cars, chemical toilets, square timbers and 55-gallon drums. Three hundred yards down the track, further from home, they can see the caution tape, frayed and flapping now, torn by passing trains. The platform is empty. They pull themselves up from the side, gripping the red pavers at the edge of the platform.

You can totally still see.

Where?

There dumbass. Where the gravel is all dark.

Yeah.

Shit.

So call your brother now.

Yeah.

Misiri Loves Company