Thermodynamics

With the shower running
and the television on
and the coffeemaker brewing
you can mask how silent it is

you can substitute
a hastily scribbled note
for a real conversation

working opposite ends
of the same dinner party
for time spent together

but there's just no getting around
the immutable laws of physics;
if you don't add any heat
eventually the molecules just stop moving.

Raymond Carver's Dead

Central Park was emptying
as the daylight was redshifted,
blue light scattered across the troposphere

I walked its paths over and over for hours
until my feet hurt,
a week's worth of clothes in my car

Raymond Carver wrote at length about couples struggling
to survive amidst death, betrayal, poverty, boredom,
but Raymond Carver's dead.

Liquid

Outside the palm trees were molting
and a cool morning breeze was blowing through the house,
the boy was away and I was cleaning

Board games, video games, into stacks,
books back onto shelves,
assorted toys into assorted piles

I reached behind his bed for his huge red stuffed Elmo
and put it into a white garbage bag
to give away.

If I Had Slept Longer This Story Would Have Been Better

There's this place you can go where you're not quite asleep and not quite awake. This happens very rarely for me, but when it does sometimes I can control my dreams. I can stop the action, change the scenery, the people, view it in third person, first person, slow motion, the way the director of a big budget movie can edit action he'd filmed against a bluescreen. And, yet, the dream still feels real. You become godlike in a world like this, and understand things you wouldn't comprehend in the real world. One night, in this place, I realized how it is possible how to travel faster than the speed of light. But it was gone when I woke up. I felt it going away, me waking up, trying to hold it, think about it hard enough to remember it on the outside. It is a strange and sad thing to feel a sense of loss over a dream.

This happened to me last night, I was with a girl in the dream and it was sunny outside and we were driving a convertible and I was behind the wheel for awhile, then above watching the girl and I, and suddenly a beautiful story came to me. And, half asleep, I tried to get the essence of it before I lost it, but could feel it slipping as I was writing it. So, instead of a masterpiece, you get a sentence, and no longer remembering exactly what I was supposed to do with it, I'll leave it as it is, an artifact from a place where I write better that I do here:

There are rooms in my house where I store memories.

Car Shopping

I dial the phone, leaning back in my chair, drinking a beer.

"Hello?" a voice said.

"Hi," I say. "I'm calling about the BMW M5 you have advertised, 40,000 miles, black, leather, 6 speed, gps, cd, ac, abs, pdc, sdc, ps, pb, snrf." He pronounced this "jips, kid, ack, abs, piddick, siddick, piss, pibb, snerf."

"Uhh, yes?"

"So?" I say. "What can you tell me about it?"

I took another drink. I love doing this.

The Persistence Of Memory

Almost seven years of your life
ends here,
a thoroughly nondescript courthouse
in a banal suburb,
the bauhaus tried to teach us
that there was form and beauty
in function,
but here there is just space,
benches and wasted space,
space wasted like the seven years
that had no function,

I sneak my cell phone
through the metal detector
so I can work while I wait
for an absurd man to tell me
how much he thinks I need to pay
to a girl I'm about to not be married to,
he may have gotten a law degree
somewhere, somewhen,
but arithmetic was not part of his curriculum,
I explain where his math is faulty,
he doesn't understand,
I have previously had this conversation
with my departing wife,
but she says nothing,
she has worn makeup today
in case she needs to give a statement
to reporters on the courthouse steps

there is nothing that happens here
that is dramatic,
a courtroom should have given it
some kind of gravitas
but there is nothing,
we don't even appear in court,
we agree to everything on a crowded bench
and eventually there are papers to sign
we could have done this all by mail
and when it's over
there is no relief
no sadness
no closure
only this inescapable fact:
I used to be in love with this woman,
but I can't remember why.

I Only Have Fifteen More Nights Of Summer

I've lived here for close to
Three years and I've never noticed
This before:
At night it is louder outside my house
Than in,
I'm laying in a tent that is too small
For those it is supposed to shield
And I listen to the sounds
Of suburbia,
The Costa Mesa freeway a quarter mile west of me,
Planes taking off from John Wayne Airport two miles
North by northeast,
A neighbor I have never seen over a wall
In her apartment
Talking to someone I cannot hear,
She sounds pretty,
Another neighbor setting a ringer
On his mobile phone,
Testing various beeps and chirps,
Fireworks from Disneyland fifteen miles north,
Crickets alive in the bougainvillea,
Figs falling from the tree in my yard,

I had picked up over 50 of them before
We built the tent,
Lovey and I,
He wearing a small camping flashlight on his forehead
That was given me by one of my favorite people,
We took with us our sleeping bags
And two small stuffed animals
And a foam hand with index finger outstretched
That I had bought him at a baseball game,
He likes it when I pretend it's a real hand
And say I need YOU
(pointing)
To put the SLEEPING BAG
(pointing)
Over THERE
(pointing)

We take turns at most things,
Tonight it is my turn to sleep
With the stuffed black ape,
He'll be guarded by
The stuffed lion,
We say our goodnights
And I love yous
And he falls asleep crowding me,
Me awake and alone amidst
People talking, moving, living

Today was a day without order, structure, plan
We played inside until we decided
To go for a bike ride,
We played inside again
Until the power went out
On my block
And we went to the pool to drown our sorrows
In chlorinated water and frozen lemonade,
I have 15 more nights of this,
Of days without agenda

Soon he'll start school
And I'll start working again
And I'll need a reminder that I lived days like today
And laid next to a sleeping boy in the dark,
And looked through the net roof of a
Cheap, cramped tent
And watched a full moon rise over a horizon
Of fig and lemon tree branches
And shine on my boy,
Breathing deeply hugging a stuffed lion
With absolutely nothing to do tomorrow
But wait for the sun

I'll need a reminder that things like this really happened to me;

This is it.

Relapse

Keith poured himself another cup of coffee, it was 4 in the morning. Outside he could see the outline of his dented car forming a shadow on the asphalt from the streetlight overhead. The streets were empty and no one had been in in over two hours. He walked out from behind the counter and out into the parking lot, lighting a cigarette, smoking by the front door. This was an awful shift. He came on at 11pm, when there was still a steady flow of customers buying beer, cigarettes, condoms. But after midnight it quieted down, and frequently he wouldn't see anyone between 1 and 6 in the morning, and Keith would listen to music, drinking coffee, reading this month's magazines under the convenience store's fluorescent lights. He poured out his coffee. This was nothing to stay awake for. He looked around at the place his insomnia called home, examined the magazines and cartons of cigarettes, the freezer of ice cream, the racks of stale snacks, the refrigerated aisle full of milk, water, soft drinks, beer. Beer.

He looked out at the parking lot, then up and down the street before pulling a tall bottle of Heineken out and opening it with a key from his pocket. He would crouch down, taking quick swigs from the bottle in case someone drove by. He reached behind the thin cardboard barrier and got a porn magazine out, leafing through it casually, sitting down on two stacked up plastic milk crates. He opened another tallboy, then another. He got up and locked the glass front door, turning off the outside sign. Putting his beer up on the counter, he pulled at a spool of lottery scratchers, scratching the rubbery grey surface off with an old coin, then detaching the card from the roll, putting the winning cards in a pile on the counter next to his beer, throwing the losing cards onto the floor.

The first customers started coming up a bit after 6:00 in the morning. Keith was still scratching, rolls of discarded tickets on the floor, a pile of 2 and 5 dollar winners next to 7 empty tallboys, the front door still locked, people knocking on the window beneath the pink early morning sky.

Hyperbola

It was late at night and I had just gotten home after getting drunk with a girl I wasn't in love with. My small house seemed distressingly large. I went into my boy's room and laid on his bed. My head rested on his pillow, dark blue, white in places where he'd drooled in his sleep. I hadn't seen him in 2 days. I hadn't seen my mother in 30 years, my father in 20. I considered this for awhile. It's a long story, but what's important is that one day I was with them and another day I wasn't. And after some time I stopped noticing. I wondered if it was possible to do that in 2 days. Between my two parents they had eight children, and they probably didn't know where any of them were right now. I looked up at the ceiling in the dark, holding two of my boy's stuffed animals, and could remember when they both still loved me. This is what is in my blood, my son's blood.

Or maybe it's just the alcohol talking.

Family Bonding

We're standing in the line for Space Mountain and the Buddy's swinging a chain back and forth. "Quit swinging that", I say. "You're gonna hit somebody. You wanna do something with your hands? Come here." I hold my hands out, palms up. "Put your hands on mine. Now I'm going to try to slap your hands, and you have to move them away before I can hit them. When I miss, you get to do it to me." He puts his hands on mine, heavily. I, quickly, pull my hands back, slapping the tops of his. Two kids next to us are watching. He puts his back on top of mine and I slap them again. "Hey!" he says. "You've gotta move faster," I say. A family behind us is trying this now. I let the Buddy try to hit my hands. He misses once, twice, then starts windmilling his arms trying to hit my hands. "Okay. Let's try it this way," I say. I hold my hands out in front of me, palms together, fingers pointed out at him. "Now try it." The Buddy swings at my hands. I look back at the line, long and serpentine, watching friends, families, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, waiting to get their hands smacked at the happiest place on earth.

Shared Custody

"Daddy?" Lovey says. We're working on a jigsaw puzzle.

"Yes, love?"

"Did you know I have an electric scooter at Mommy's?"

"Yes, love. I had to come over and put it together for you. You helped me. Do you remember?"

"Oh yeah," he says. He has a piece of pirate treasure in his hands. He rotates it, trying to fit it against the curve at the top of the treasure chest. He fits the piece in place.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, love?"

"When am I going to Mommy's?"

"I don't know. Maybe later on today, maybe tomorrow. Do you miss your electric scooter?"

"Mm hmm," Lovey says, nodding. He puts another piece of treasure in place.

Vamos A Cambiar Un Poco

So I'm in Spanish 2 today and we're taking this test and I get through it really quick and I'm just sitting there waiting for everyone to finish and I'm looking across the room and you know how the room's split with desks on each side facing the center, so I'm looking across and Johanna's totally wearing this jean skirt and you could fully see her underwear, yeah white, and I just nudge Kenny and he looks up and I nod once like "check that out" and he looks over and starts laughing and then Senor G stands up and I totally think we're gonna get busted but he doesn't do anything and he goes over to the board and starts writing and no one's really looking and then he just snaps his fingers and we look up and he points to the board and on it it says "Everyone QUIETLY pick up your things and move to the class across the hall" and we look at him and he puts his hand to his lips like shhhh and he points to Jeremy and he's fully asleep and a bunch of us start laughing and Senor G looks at us like all "shut up!" and we get our stuff and go to the other room and he just leaves Jeremy in there with the lights off and then I say "we should move the clock up and make him think it's night" and Senor G says "if you're done with your test go ahead but do it quietly" and I go over and climb up on a desk and take the glass off the front of the clock and wind it around til it says 6:30 and then go back to the room and Jeremy's still totally sleeping and at the end of class we all go out in the hall and wait for the bell to ring and he fully wakes up all drooling and stuff and he comes out in the hall and we're all standing there laughing at him.

Dude, it was awesome.

Scalene

I slept in the spare bedroom the night before so I wouldn’t wake my wife or son. The alarm went off at 3:45 and I reached over, turning it off. The kitty was laying down on the carpet in the hallway, asleep. I walked downstairs and sat at the kitchen table in the dark, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, the blower to the furnace from the garage. I had 3 hours and needed to eat. I had a energy bar and a banana with some orange juice, in the dark looking out over my street. A possum crossed over the street on a telephone line towards my neighbor’s house. The energy bar was dry in my mouth. I finished it and the banana and went upstairs to shower.

I showered quickly and laid back in bed for another hour and a half, getting up around 6, putting my running clothes on. I wrapped duct tape around the insteps of both feet numerous times, around, around, tearing the tape with my hands, putting on my socks and running shoes. I tiptoed downstairs to my race bag, and fastened the timing chip to my shoes and pinned the race number to my shirt. I got a sports drink out of the refrigerator and got in my car, backing out slowly into the dark street, watching the garage close, looking up at my bedroom.

It was ten miles to the beach, but it was early in the morning and it took about 15 minutes to get there. Policemen were directing traffic into the city beach parking lot, I followed the line into the lot and parked my car, taking my car key off the key chain, untying my running shoe, pulling the lace out of a couple of holes, threading it through the key and back into the shoe, where it would be safe for the morning. I walked up the parking lot towards the street. The lot was full and there were pockets of people milling about, stretching, tying shoes, jogging slowly up and down the lot, drinking coffee, talking, laughing, waiting for an open bathroom. Over a rail and down onto Pacific Coast Highway a man was talking into a microphone from a cherry picker. It was cold and I walked, away towards Beach Boulevard, then back towards the starting line. I stood at the starting line, looking up at a electronic clock. Behind me, beyond Saddleback Mountain and through fog and mist the sun was rising, but all it did was make things less black and more grey. The highway was divided by a median; two different races were starting at the same time, the runners in my race were supposed to line up on the southbound side of the highway, the other race on the northbound side.

An announcer was talking, he was naming people in the race who had run it numerous times, or had conquered a disease. I was walking in place to keep warm, looking around, listening to music on a player I had strapped to my arm. It came closer to the start time and the announcer called everyone to the start line. On the left side of the street there were signs at 5 yard intervals with times on them. We were supposed to line up in order of our expected race pace. I understood what to do. I had run in crowded races with narrow start lines before, where the gun sounds and it takes you 5 minutes or longer to walk through the start line and as much as a mile before the crowd thins out enough that you can start running. The idea was to stagger the crowd with the fastest in the front. The sign for my pace time was towards the middle of the pack. I waited, looking down at my shoes, walking in place, listening to music. Most of the crowd was on the northbound side of the Coast Highway.

They began to play the national anthem. I took my headphones out and hat off, looking up at an American flag affixed to the bridge that connected the Hyatt to the beach parking lot. The crowd cheered. I turned on my footpod, an accelerometer that would let me know how fast I was running, and started my watch. It picked up my heart rate. I breathed slowly, feeling the air filling my chest, the pumping of my heart in my throat, looking at my watch, trying to sense my heart beating the 107 beats a minute my watch was telling me. Trying to feel it slow down as I breathed slower, speed up as I moved my feet. The announcer was counting down from 10. I stood up straight, checked to make sure my shoes were tied, turned up the volume on my music player, and started the clock on my watch as the horn went off, leaning forward, walking quickly, then jogging. I got through the starting line about 5 seconds after the start hearing a beep from the sensor as it detected the chip strapped to my foot. Beyond the starting line runners from the crowded side of the street ran across the median onto my side, it was slightly uphill on this section of the Pacific Coast Highway and I could see a sea of heads, bouncing as they ran. A faster song started and I turned up the volume, speeding up as I started to work my way through the crowd, tall, thin, old, young, some already walking, others passing me. I passed the Huntington Beach Pier and looked at my watch. I was going faster than I wanted but my heart rate was lower and I felt really good, moving in between people, the music loud, people watching from the sidewalks, the side streets blocked off.

I was moving. Music was playing and I was alone but not alone. I heard cheers from the sidewalk, a band was playing on a street corner. Heads were bobbing all around me, arms swinging, feet stepping, one in front of the other in front of the other. There was more room to move. I walked quickly through a water station two miles in, taking a cup of water, sipping it, looking at my watch. There was a bike path between the Coast Highway and the beach and a police officer on a motorcycle was riding it slowly, lights flashing. Behind him the leader was running, head back, wearing gloves in the cold. It was disheartening to see how fast he was going. I crested the bluffs at Seapoint and ran downhill, the lone runner becoming a steady line of runners coming back at me towards the starting line.

At the bottom of the hill arrows separated the marathoners, guiding them to the left and to the turnaround the leaders had already gone through. I circled the pylon, heading back southbound, and immediately felt the cold breeze. My pace slowed, my heart rate quickened to 165, and I knew now I was going too slow and was working too hard. I had 3 and a half miles to get back to the starting line, and another 19 miles to go once I got there. I couldn’t imagine how I’d ever finish this. The sun was still hidden behind the haze, to my left I saw thousands of people jogging, walking up the Coast Highway. Less than a thousand people were running the marathon and there were only a handful of other runners on the path near me. I felt like I was on my own. I turned up the music and tried to find the rhythm, in my stride, my breathing.

Time passed. I was trying to run 10 minute miles. I had picked up over a minute going out with the wind and had given it all back in two miles. I made the turn again just beyond the starting line at seven miles out and I was down by 40 seconds, but I was running with the wind again. This was a six mile stretch up Pacific Coast Highway, mostly downwind. I tried to move with the current. I found a good pace that would get me about 10 seconds a mile back and tried to settle in. I was running on the bike path astride Bolsa Chica State Beach. Many of the half marathoners were jogging or walking back in the other direction on the highway, but I wasn’t looking at them. I looked far ahead, focusing my vision on the top of a light pole in the distance, trying not to move my head, to move as quietly, as efficiently as possible.

People in campers and RVs were parked at the beach and I heard cheering, saw people moving across the path with surfboards, smelled bacon cooking, bonfires burning, smoke and ashes carried up by the wind into the clearing fog. A hard candy was handed to me to eat.

Twenty years ago I had run this path numerous times in cross country and track practice. I had run for a year in high school, and then had discovered cigarettes, and had smoked close to a pack a day for close to twenty years, until 4 months ago. I hadn’t wanted to quit, I just knew that I should. It had been a good run. I had gotten a long ride out of minimal exercise, poor diet, and excessive cigarette and alcohol consumption. This morning was payback. I passed by one last travel trailer, the owner sitting in a folding beach chair under an awning, a small dog at his feet on a leash, a cat sitting in the doorway of the trailer. I was thirteen miles out and made the turn, starting back southbound towards the starting line. The route crossed over to the other side of the highway, away from the beach and against some open wetlands. It was low land and the wind cut across it, hard in my face. My pace slowed down and I was tired.

I walked through another water station, remembering the cat I saw in the trailer’s doorway. He looked like mine. Eastern, long haired, numerous shades of brown. Right now mine would be home sleeping, moving from room to room with whoever was there, then falling asleep in a corner. If there was more than one person there who he loved he’d lay down somewhere in between them. Equidistant Kitty. Isosceles Kitty.

The course took me down the Coast Highway, and then inland towards Central Park. I was tired and hot. I had found some electrolyte drink and gel at a water station 16 miles in, and I felt better after taking them. I followed a girl in front of me, just staying behind her, letting my vision blur, my mind clear, trying to make time pass without thinking, without listening to what my body was telling me, without looking. I wanted to blink my eyes and be a hundred minutes in the future, done running.

Down in the park the wind was quiet, there were many people lining the race path, it was louder and the path changed direction frequently, looping through the park, it was easier to run here and keep your focus than it was on the highway, where you were looking at a straight road that stretched miles in the distance. There were things to do other than obsess over your breathing, your heart rate, the deteriorating condition of your knees, the blisters that had formed on both arches, the dryness in your mouth, the salt that was caking on your forehead. You could look at the path, where it was smooth, where rough, where cracked by earthquakes, where it widened, narrowed, where it was lined with people, where it was empty, where the next turn was, who was in front of you, whether you would pass them now or after the turn.

I followed the crowd out of the park, up a large hill, and back towards the water. This part of the course was shared by both races, and I was passing the last of the half marathoners, most of whom were walking. The wind seemed to be back in my face again, and I thought about how many different directions the course was oriented in, and how many of them seemed to be facing the wind. This didn’t seem to make geographic or meteorological sense. I was a minute and a half behind where I wanted to be, and could not fathom how to make that up in the last 5 miles. My heart rate was 185 and every step hurt. This was what the race was about, I thought. Ignoring everything your mind tells you.

Bands were still playing back on the Coast Highway, the sun was out and the clouds had gone and it was 70 degrees, the street was lined with people, many of whom had finished the race and were walking back to their cars, homes, friends. They had medals around their neck and arms around someone they loved and they were happy. I looked up and could see the finish line in the distance, the yellow readout of the clock a blur. I ran faster, passing people, in and out between them as the path narrowed. I turned my watch off as I crossed over the finish line and heard the beep as the sensor picked up the chip on my shoe.

A metallic poncho of some sort was handed to me, it felt like it was made of very thin aluminum foil. I received a medal and stopped while my chip was cut from my shoe. I had stopped while this happened and I found I couldn’t move again. My knees had locked up. I waited, draping the poncho over me. People were finishing behind me and I couldn’t stay where I was. I moved slowly, bending my knees as little as possible, swaying first onto one blistered foot, then the other, walking like I was on stilts around a corner to an area where water, fruit, and bagels were laid out. I ate a banana and some oranges, standing up, walking in place to keep my knees from locking up again. I had been running all day and just wanted to rest, but I had to keep moving. I felt like the race would never end. I couldn’t decide what to do about the blisters on my feet, or whether I should take off my shoes, or how I would get up again if I sat down to do it. I had to get back to my car and it was almost a mile away. I wanted to cry.

I untied my shoes and, taking a banana and bottle of water, slowly started moving back towards my car. I stepped gingerly, trying to avoid aggravating my knees or my blistered feet. I got to the car and got in slowly, taking off my shoes, seeing the popped, quarter sized red blisters on both insteps. I started the car, turning on the air conditioner, looking at myself in the mirror, my forehead white with salt. I slowly backed out and drove out of the lot, carefully around the finishing runners and their families.

I got home and squeezed my car into the garage and turned off the engine, the door sliding shut behind me. There was only room for the car door to open partially. I tilted the steering wheel all the way up and slid the seat all the way back, leaning to the side trying to get my legs out of the car. Bending my knees was painful. I slid forward, pulling myself up with the door and doorframe of the car. I leaned against the dryer, closing the car door, steadying myself. I took off my shirt and left it on top of the washing machine. My knees had stiffened dramatically since I got in the car and the two steps into the kitchen from the garage were difficult. I walked slowly to the stairs, stepping up the first one, leaning to the side to put weight on the handrail, trying to take weight off my knees. The pain was very sharp. I needed a shower but I couldn’t make it up the stairs just yet. I stopped at the third step and sat down, catching my breath, waiting for the pain to subside.

I went to the downstairs bathroom and washed up a little bit, then went into the kitchen and took a sports drink and a beer out of the refrigerator, and filled up two Ziploc bags with ice cubes, wrapping them with towels. The kitty had come downstairs, he rubbed against my leg as I opened my beer. He followed me as I went to the family room and laid on the couch. I turned on the TV. The Super Bowl pregame show was on. I sipped my beer. It was bright outside but the blinds were closed. The kitty walked out of the room to the base of the stairs, laying down on the cool wood, looking back at me, then up the stairs, then away, licking his paw.

Escrow

We worked well into the night, we had a TV in the office and we had some guy that wanted to do business with us bring us beer. Our office was in the back of an industrial park, surrounded by auto body shops. It wasn't designed for drop in business. The only window was by the front door, and it was easy to lose track of what time it was, gone missing in the flicker of fluorescent light.

Around one in the morning my partner and I left to drop some documents off at the escrow office. The streets were deserted. I got out of the car, three large manila envelopes in my hand. They were too large for the mail slot, I was bending them, lengthwise over on themselves, trying to get them in the door. Look at this, my partner said. Back up Diamond Bar Blvd a car was moving down towards us. It slowly drifted out of its lane, to the right, across the adjoining lane, bouncing up the curb and into a light pole. It hit the pole with the front quarter panel and flipped over, landing on its hood and skidding out into the middle of the intersection.

Across the street some people were walking across an all night restaurant and we saw them start dialing a cell phone. My partner and I ran out to the car in the intersection. We heard a girl crying. A fire hydrant had been knocked over and cold water was spraying up into the sky, raining on us. Steam was rising off the car.

We went to the driver's side and no one was in the seat. We saw a pretty Korean girl up against the back seat, laying sideways. She was wearing a leather skirt and heels. I had a leather jacket on and reached my arm in the open window, brushing the glass shards from the edges of the window. I tried to find the door handle. I saw the feet of the driver. Is everyone okay? my partner asked. The girl was still crying. We walked around to the other side. The driver had been flipped out of his seat sideways, and was crouched, right side up in an upside down car. The passenger side window was broken and the driver's ass was sticking out. His wallet was partially out of his pocket. It was thick with bills. I stopped. My partner and I looked at each other, then looked back, up and down the empty intersecting streets, then back at the wallet.