“Does anyone here know Volt Shirley? If you do,
I’m going to kill that mother next time I see him!”
Okay, he’s going to kill my brother, he’s got my interest; I’ll bite. “Why, oh why are you going to kill him?” I hope my beer doesn’t go stale waiting for this idiot, Harvey, to answer.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Well, as his brother, I’d like to tell my parents at the funeral the noble reason why he died.”
The night sky exploded in a profusion of stars, moons, planets and galaxies. I wasn’t sure how I came to be this spaceman when a moment earlier I was sipping a beer with friends and locals in Chasey’s Field off of old Witchtrot Road in South Berwick, Maine. And then it hit me. No not an emotional realization but the bat in Harvey’s hand. Whap! Uh oh, more stars. A lot more stars. Whap, whap! Fuck, my head is getting bashed in! This was no field trip to the local observatory. No, this was an old fashioned melon busting by this completely deranged douche bag. I was lying on the ground taking these blows and it dawned on me that my friends were watching all of this with the same detachment that I was starting to fade into. Mortality seemed to lose its mysterious elusiveness, it was now as real as the chilly Maine night that was coolly tucking me in too early.
I hate this place! Ever since I left Germany and ended up here in Maine it had been one long dreary depressing drunk leading into another dreary drunk. It had been five long years since I left the fold in Germany. Five short years later and I was still the “new guy” in this crap hole called South Berwick. But only five years to finally get killed in a stupid field where generations of dick headed Maniacs have drunk and thrown their empties at the same rock that looked sadly like the skull of an eagle. A foot high wall of broken bottles surrounded the “eagle” as pathetic proof of this degenerate tradition. It would have been more appropriate if it looked like the skull of a rodent. A couple more swings by Harvey and another skull would soon enhance the landscape of Chasey’s Field.
“He said it must be Tuesday. Only faeries wear green hats on Tuesdays.” My reverie was interrupted by Harvey’s fashion calendar announcement. Great, he wears a green hat, has thin skin and I’m going to die as a result of this realization which was now being hammered into me with staggering slow motion clarity. Tick, tick, tick seconds of bright light accompanied me between dazzling stars, my lifetime shimmering in front of me in cinematic slow motion, frame by frame. Harvey was providing ample instants to prolong that tantalizing light show. Had I found the doorway to dharma bliss? It seemed too violent of a revelation, a blood cell thinness separating me from nirvana or death. Ever since I’ve lived in Maine, ever since I had to leave Germany, I’ve been searching desperately for peace. Was this the resolution? Was this my ticket to paradise? Did it have to be so end of time, so black and white painful? My thoughts were squeezing through with alarming, draining weakness, each one falling away in complete darkness.
Whack! The dawning realization of any inner serenity was pounded out of me and I knew that I was soon to be the unwilling target of a tragic end. One of my asshole friends held out his hand so the last blow was minimally deflected. Probably a life changing moment to help an outsider with such unmindful altruism, but more probably a drunken tic. I laid there silently bleeding; the mauling abated, the night punctuated by my torrid breaths, my neck straining to suck in more air. One by one the stars started to disappear into a hazy fugue and in the ensuing darkness a fomenting orb of celestial fury spun into primal creation.
“This is about a green hat? A fucking green hat?” gurgled out of my mouth. My hands tried to rub my chest, to move at all was inciting pain in every surviving cell. All I could think of was the years of suicidal frustration and all the years of being beaten as a kid and all of my German friends being taken away from me and all of the fucked up breaths I had to take pretending I was someone else. It quickly coalesced into a fire storm of sociopathic anger. Fuck Buddha and all of that new age ascension to heaven crap! I was not going quietly into any night! This shit head was going to start feeling some of my heavenly wrath! Despite gravity and the balance beat out of me, I managed to stand and face my ignorant reaper.
“Are you a complete fucking idiot?!” He swung again and missed as I swayed and staggered to my car. I just upped the weapons game. My head was gravel and the best I could put together was running him over, over and over again. There was no grey area, no moment of clarity, no moral code; I had been transformed into one of the idiots this field has spawned for centuries. Grunt, drink, smash, demolish and drink again. I floored the gas pedal and pushed the drive button on my ‘63 Valiant and screamed as I skidded over the grass wildly towards my prey. No thoughts of angels beckoning me to a place of solace, safety or serenity. Just pure malice and revenge. The iron burning in my veins would only be satiated by his body being mangled under my wheels. It was the only road open for me.
The grace of angels proves relentlessly the difference between us and them. In the compressed heat of my violent mission, one of my “friends” drunkenly stepped into the line of fire moving next to my maniacal club artist. A sliver of angelic calm rode down my leg and the fire faltered. The brakes applied seemingly by themselves and everything came to a deafening halt. The chaos that was my fever sputtered out like a shattering window. Not gracefully, not silently and not peacefully. My bumper brushed Harvey’s knee and two pair of startled eyes jumped up at me through the windshield. One in wasted incoherence and the other in feral craziness. This party wasn’t over yet!
The grace I’d been momentarily floating in didn’t have a chance to bask in any heavenly high five revelation as Harvey charged to my side of the car with renewed vigor. The Plymouth took the brunt of this new attack as he tried unsuccessfully to pull my head out of the car. He was rewarded with all the hair from the side of my scalp. My victory seemed abysmal but the tide was turning! Mentally spinning but still under the spell of mercy I managed to move my beat up car out of danger and finally off that field of insanity.
On the road I looked back over the field and saw everyone just standing around the fire pit, still drinking out of their bottles, just looking at each other vacantly. Did they see what just happened!? Those miserable silhouettes of strangers, bystanders really, these past 5 years probably grappling with the information that the new guy really got his ass kicked this time! A green hat ass kicking! Ha ha ha!
I was too battered physically, emotionally to connect any coherent thoughts. I was far from peace. I beat insanity by shielding myself with my head and survived. Five years of living in Maine and a lifetime before that of surviving. For what? And why? I will never have the friends that I had made in Germany as a teenager. We were forged out of the military juggernaut, our fathers’ war time vets, our paths flung over the entire planet. We had no roots, family togetherness were only moments between military excursions, battlefield maneuvers and multiple geographical assignments. We knew how to drink in Germany, not like these pussies in the states. With that military upbringing, we lived the hallowed, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger” motto. I’d been more stoned on hash than what this fool brought tonight. Hah! Maine was supposed to be the reward for my dad’s loyalty, hard work and dedication to the force. Great for him yet nothing but a plutonian depression for me. What about my sacrifices? Where was my family life? Those friends were my family and they were ripped completely out of my life. I didn’t even get a crappy little medal for my lost years in the “service”.
I am going to come back to Chasey’s Field and I’m bringing my own fucking army. I will incite a civil war among these fucked up Maniacs. Coughing and crying interrupted my murderous musing. Choking on my blood, I beat the steering wheel with both hands in hysterical humiliation. “A fucking green hat? Am I going crazy? Fuck this town! I’m going to kill you Harvey, you stupid dumb mother fucker!” I howled out the window on Route 236 as bubbles of blood foamed out of my stuttering mouth. My face was streaked with sweat, blood and the dirt from Maine and my planet finally finished collapsing on itself as the Valiant found its way home.
Okay, he’s going to kill my brother, he’s got my interest; I’ll bite. “Why, oh why are you going to kill him?” I hope my beer doesn’t go stale waiting for this idiot, Harvey, to answer.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Well, as his brother, I’d like to tell my parents at the funeral the noble reason why he died.”
The night sky exploded in a profusion of stars, moons, planets and galaxies. I wasn’t sure how I came to be this spaceman when a moment earlier I was sipping a beer with friends and locals in Chasey’s Field off of old Witchtrot Road in South Berwick, Maine. And then it hit me. No not an emotional realization but the bat in Harvey’s hand. Whap! Uh oh, more stars. A lot more stars. Whap, whap! Fuck, my head is getting bashed in! This was no field trip to the local observatory. No, this was an old fashioned melon busting by this completely deranged douche bag. I was lying on the ground taking these blows and it dawned on me that my friends were watching all of this with the same detachment that I was starting to fade into. Mortality seemed to lose its mysterious elusiveness, it was now as real as the chilly Maine night that was coolly tucking me in too early.
I hate this place! Ever since I left Germany and ended up here in Maine it had been one long dreary depressing drunk leading into another dreary drunk. It had been five long years since I left the fold in Germany. Five short years later and I was still the “new guy” in this crap hole called South Berwick. But only five years to finally get killed in a stupid field where generations of dick headed Maniacs have drunk and thrown their empties at the same rock that looked sadly like the skull of an eagle. A foot high wall of broken bottles surrounded the “eagle” as pathetic proof of this degenerate tradition. It would have been more appropriate if it looked like the skull of a rodent. A couple more swings by Harvey and another skull would soon enhance the landscape of Chasey’s Field.
“He said it must be Tuesday. Only faeries wear green hats on Tuesdays.” My reverie was interrupted by Harvey’s fashion calendar announcement. Great, he wears a green hat, has thin skin and I’m going to die as a result of this realization which was now being hammered into me with staggering slow motion clarity. Tick, tick, tick seconds of bright light accompanied me between dazzling stars, my lifetime shimmering in front of me in cinematic slow motion, frame by frame. Harvey was providing ample instants to prolong that tantalizing light show. Had I found the doorway to dharma bliss? It seemed too violent of a revelation, a blood cell thinness separating me from nirvana or death. Ever since I’ve lived in Maine, ever since I had to leave Germany, I’ve been searching desperately for peace. Was this the resolution? Was this my ticket to paradise? Did it have to be so end of time, so black and white painful? My thoughts were squeezing through with alarming, draining weakness, each one falling away in complete darkness.
Whack! The dawning realization of any inner serenity was pounded out of me and I knew that I was soon to be the unwilling target of a tragic end. One of my asshole friends held out his hand so the last blow was minimally deflected. Probably a life changing moment to help an outsider with such unmindful altruism, but more probably a drunken tic. I laid there silently bleeding; the mauling abated, the night punctuated by my torrid breaths, my neck straining to suck in more air. One by one the stars started to disappear into a hazy fugue and in the ensuing darkness a fomenting orb of celestial fury spun into primal creation.
“This is about a green hat? A fucking green hat?” gurgled out of my mouth. My hands tried to rub my chest, to move at all was inciting pain in every surviving cell. All I could think of was the years of suicidal frustration and all the years of being beaten as a kid and all of my German friends being taken away from me and all of the fucked up breaths I had to take pretending I was someone else. It quickly coalesced into a fire storm of sociopathic anger. Fuck Buddha and all of that new age ascension to heaven crap! I was not going quietly into any night! This shit head was going to start feeling some of my heavenly wrath! Despite gravity and the balance beat out of me, I managed to stand and face my ignorant reaper.
“Are you a complete fucking idiot?!” He swung again and missed as I swayed and staggered to my car. I just upped the weapons game. My head was gravel and the best I could put together was running him over, over and over again. There was no grey area, no moment of clarity, no moral code; I had been transformed into one of the idiots this field has spawned for centuries. Grunt, drink, smash, demolish and drink again. I floored the gas pedal and pushed the drive button on my ‘63 Valiant and screamed as I skidded over the grass wildly towards my prey. No thoughts of angels beckoning me to a place of solace, safety or serenity. Just pure malice and revenge. The iron burning in my veins would only be satiated by his body being mangled under my wheels. It was the only road open for me.
The grace of angels proves relentlessly the difference between us and them. In the compressed heat of my violent mission, one of my “friends” drunkenly stepped into the line of fire moving next to my maniacal club artist. A sliver of angelic calm rode down my leg and the fire faltered. The brakes applied seemingly by themselves and everything came to a deafening halt. The chaos that was my fever sputtered out like a shattering window. Not gracefully, not silently and not peacefully. My bumper brushed Harvey’s knee and two pair of startled eyes jumped up at me through the windshield. One in wasted incoherence and the other in feral craziness. This party wasn’t over yet!
The grace I’d been momentarily floating in didn’t have a chance to bask in any heavenly high five revelation as Harvey charged to my side of the car with renewed vigor. The Plymouth took the brunt of this new attack as he tried unsuccessfully to pull my head out of the car. He was rewarded with all the hair from the side of my scalp. My victory seemed abysmal but the tide was turning! Mentally spinning but still under the spell of mercy I managed to move my beat up car out of danger and finally off that field of insanity.
On the road I looked back over the field and saw everyone just standing around the fire pit, still drinking out of their bottles, just looking at each other vacantly. Did they see what just happened!? Those miserable silhouettes of strangers, bystanders really, these past 5 years probably grappling with the information that the new guy really got his ass kicked this time! A green hat ass kicking! Ha ha ha!
I was too battered physically, emotionally to connect any coherent thoughts. I was far from peace. I beat insanity by shielding myself with my head and survived. Five years of living in Maine and a lifetime before that of surviving. For what? And why? I will never have the friends that I had made in Germany as a teenager. We were forged out of the military juggernaut, our fathers’ war time vets, our paths flung over the entire planet. We had no roots, family togetherness were only moments between military excursions, battlefield maneuvers and multiple geographical assignments. We knew how to drink in Germany, not like these pussies in the states. With that military upbringing, we lived the hallowed, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger” motto. I’d been more stoned on hash than what this fool brought tonight. Hah! Maine was supposed to be the reward for my dad’s loyalty, hard work and dedication to the force. Great for him yet nothing but a plutonian depression for me. What about my sacrifices? Where was my family life? Those friends were my family and they were ripped completely out of my life. I didn’t even get a crappy little medal for my lost years in the “service”.
I am going to come back to Chasey’s Field and I’m bringing my own fucking army. I will incite a civil war among these fucked up Maniacs. Coughing and crying interrupted my murderous musing. Choking on my blood, I beat the steering wheel with both hands in hysterical humiliation. “A fucking green hat? Am I going crazy? Fuck this town! I’m going to kill you Harvey, you stupid dumb mother fucker!” I howled out the window on Route 236 as bubbles of blood foamed out of my stuttering mouth. My face was streaked with sweat, blood and the dirt from Maine and my planet finally finished collapsing on itself as the Valiant found its way home.
My neighbor was having a party for his 1st
string linemen and just polished off the first keg when I stumbled into his
apartment. He gasped in shock, “What happened to your face Shirley?” In
staccato grunts I replayed the events of the night. “A fucking green fucking
hat? Christ it’s not even Tuesday! Well I kicked Harvey’s ass before, I guess it’s
time to kick it again!” This brought on a cheer from the team. “We’re going on
offense men, this is not a drill!” My tattered heart was bursting with joy and
I even let myself believe I was one of them for a moment. In my ragged state of
mind I would have gladly splayed my palm wide open and offered it up to all of
my blood brothers!
Eight of us crowded into the Valiant and we chugged back to Chasey’s Field to ignite my personal Gettysburg campaign. I drove over the bumpy grass and stopped at the edge of the fire pit. The fire was bigger and more Maniacs had appeared. I didn’t recognize any of the new people. I think the field just spit them out. Chasey’s Field must be the grim satanic birth canal for all these sinister dumb shits. Harvey turned and looked at us, at me, with no recognition in his eyes at all. Stupid catatonic moron! One of my new brothers, Claud, got out of the car and yelled at Harvey. “Where’s your green hat asshole?”
Harvey looked more confused than troubled. “And where’s your bat now MOTHER FUCKER!”
At the onset of “mother”, Harvey was launched by his shoulders in a beautiful geometric arc over Claud’s head onto the hard, brutal, granite mother stone of the state of Maine’s unforgiving crust. I was front and center to see what defense Harvey was going to lose with. The girls on the sidelines, the strangers I didn’t recognize suddenly came to life in a foreboding manner. Can’t let them block my view. I was going to witness this punishment with glee and wanted no interruptions! Claud was on his knees next to Harvey’s prone head; Harvey was discovering the stars I left behind earlier. Claud’s fist came down with a thud on Harvey’s nose, splintering it on contact. ONE, I counted in my mind. My aria of revenge was beautifully unfolding before me.
The girls were now mutating into wraiths and jumping on our backs screaming like banshees with bestial abandon. That’s why I couldn’t recognize them, they were the dark angel gatekeepers to serve and protect the witch trot malignancy of this sordid black hole field. They only come out when their drunken demons were threatened.
WHAP! TWO! Another Claud to Harvey connection. The she devils were shrieking that they were daughters of Satan and would tear and eat the hearts out of our chests. My reality was checking in and out, the surreal becoming bizarrely real. With casual indifference I tore each bitch off of my back and tossed them onto the ground so they could launch their satanical attack on someone else.
THREE! A muffled crack. Harvey’s arms were motionless by his side. Shit! He was unconscious and we weren’t done with him yet. I wanted him to feel every bone crunching punch. I was at that primeval place in my head, maybe this is what the transformation to a Maniac feels like. The she devils relented and hissed satanic spells through the cold night air as the next punches were dispatched with mindless obsession. FOUR. FIVE. SIX. SEVEN. EIGHT. The maelstrom of Satan’s sirens, the shock in the eyes of my worthless friends as Harvey’s face was being tragically disfigured and the flames lighting the violent night all added to the portrait of pain that I reigned down upon this poor dumb soul. All over his wretched faerie green hat. My fractured consciousness tried to focus on the twitching body of Harvey and accept the consequences of my havoc. Did I win? Was I the superior force? Did I defeat the pathetic forces of Maine and all of its underlings? I painfully turned towards the road and threw up blood over the tops of my shoes. Fuck this shit hole town.
1. I'm grateful that I moved out of Maine.Eight of us crowded into the Valiant and we chugged back to Chasey’s Field to ignite my personal Gettysburg campaign. I drove over the bumpy grass and stopped at the edge of the fire pit. The fire was bigger and more Maniacs had appeared. I didn’t recognize any of the new people. I think the field just spit them out. Chasey’s Field must be the grim satanic birth canal for all these sinister dumb shits. Harvey turned and looked at us, at me, with no recognition in his eyes at all. Stupid catatonic moron! One of my new brothers, Claud, got out of the car and yelled at Harvey. “Where’s your green hat asshole?”
Harvey looked more confused than troubled. “And where’s your bat now MOTHER FUCKER!”
At the onset of “mother”, Harvey was launched by his shoulders in a beautiful geometric arc over Claud’s head onto the hard, brutal, granite mother stone of the state of Maine’s unforgiving crust. I was front and center to see what defense Harvey was going to lose with. The girls on the sidelines, the strangers I didn’t recognize suddenly came to life in a foreboding manner. Can’t let them block my view. I was going to witness this punishment with glee and wanted no interruptions! Claud was on his knees next to Harvey’s prone head; Harvey was discovering the stars I left behind earlier. Claud’s fist came down with a thud on Harvey’s nose, splintering it on contact. ONE, I counted in my mind. My aria of revenge was beautifully unfolding before me.
The girls were now mutating into wraiths and jumping on our backs screaming like banshees with bestial abandon. That’s why I couldn’t recognize them, they were the dark angel gatekeepers to serve and protect the witch trot malignancy of this sordid black hole field. They only come out when their drunken demons were threatened.
WHAP! TWO! Another Claud to Harvey connection. The she devils were shrieking that they were daughters of Satan and would tear and eat the hearts out of our chests. My reality was checking in and out, the surreal becoming bizarrely real. With casual indifference I tore each bitch off of my back and tossed them onto the ground so they could launch their satanical attack on someone else.
THREE! A muffled crack. Harvey’s arms were motionless by his side. Shit! He was unconscious and we weren’t done with him yet. I wanted him to feel every bone crunching punch. I was at that primeval place in my head, maybe this is what the transformation to a Maniac feels like. The she devils relented and hissed satanic spells through the cold night air as the next punches were dispatched with mindless obsession. FOUR. FIVE. SIX. SEVEN. EIGHT. The maelstrom of Satan’s sirens, the shock in the eyes of my worthless friends as Harvey’s face was being tragically disfigured and the flames lighting the violent night all added to the portrait of pain that I reigned down upon this poor dumb soul. All over his wretched faerie green hat. My fractured consciousness tried to focus on the twitching body of Harvey and accept the consequences of my havoc. Did I win? Was I the superior force? Did I defeat the pathetic forces of Maine and all of its underlings? I painfully turned towards the road and threw up blood over the tops of my shoes. Fuck this shit hole town.
2. I'm grateful that my head is stronger than steel.
3. I'm grateful that no permaenttaske breaian damadgge okkerurred as a resssgslut of thaerat bereating.
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