have seen

Jack Galmitz

have seen Copyright Jack Galmitz (2014) ImPress, New York ISBN 978-1-312-03732-8

even

my shadow crouched in a corner

The collagist

thought it was destiny that he had walked the streets of New York City for years bending down to pick up scraps of colored paper, bits of string, burnt out match boxes, cigarette stamps from foreign countries, pieces of fabric, old magazines and books, rumpled paper from fast-food chains, brown paper bags.

Spanking new

At the car wash, all the night shift workers came over to Jesus and one at a time gave him a hearty pat on the back. He had rag dried his onethousandth car and hadn't lost a tread.

Once at Jones Beach

there all the lifeguards assembled, tan bodies shaken, unsure, two of their long white boats pulled up onto the sand, a cordon of adults kept the children back, didn't speak of the terrible sea.

The fall

He was so used to the reflective mesh vest worn by the crossing guard at the local public school that she had become as invisible to him as the trees and the blue mailboxes. Then one day in autumn, when the new school year began, he noticed she was gone.

Snagged

On the bank of a stream, a boy felt a tug so heavy that he was frightened that he had hooked the Leviathan. A weathered fisherman came over to help him. "You're hooked to something on the bottom," he said. "Maybe an old bike or rocks." He tried to let out slack, but to no avail. He told the boy he would have to cut the line and suffer the loss of his gear. The boy looked downcast. "What's the matter, son," asked the old man. Did you think you had caught a sea monster or something?" The boy didn't answer, but he wondered if the old man was a mind-reader.

Like counting

finding the best stone is often a matter of happenstance. usually, those half buried in the sand or mud were the best. With one as flat as a sand dollar, he let heave sidearm across the pond. He counted the leaps the way one counts the stars: sure at first that it can be accomplished and then given up.

Red snow

it's satisfying to see a baby seal under 12 days old lying on its back on the snow in the sun. It smiles, its coat white as the blinding floe. After 12 days, its coat changes color and with that change it is game. They come from Labrador and Newfoundland, jump quickly from ships, and with clubs beat the pups to death and skin them, flipping some still alive into heaps. How hard to grow old.

The Boy

was born late in the marriage of his parents. So late that they hadnt the energy or interest in exploring the world with him. They were disappointed that he had added nothing to their lives, and he could feel this, so he withdrew from them. He collected stamps in lieu of a family and friends, particularly foreign stamps that came in bulk. Since they were inexpensive, his parents always obliged him in his requests for more. They even bought him a magnifying glass on a stand, so he could look for long periods of time without tiring his arm. The glass magnified 7x, which meant he could virtually see the engraving lines with such clarity that it seemed as if he were inside the stamp. He particularly liked stamps of places, of cities, ones that showed streets and monuments. In those he could walk and look and find all sorts of hidden places - public and personal. His ancestors came from Russia, though as Jews they were farmers in the West, peasants subject to pogroms, many of his great grandmothers and their female children raped, the men beheaded. It was his grandfather, who smelled like a cigar up close, who came at aged nine to America. That day he received a package of fresh stamps. He opened it and dumped the contents on his bed. He scanned the images and colors. One stood out and he placed it under his microscope at his desk. It was dated 1966 and was Russian. There was a small map on its upper right hand corner with the location of the place marked in the far west. He was delighted. There was a castle there of white stone and behind it a mountain. Trees grew large to the West and in the distance were more mountains. Groups of people walked in front of the castle, each with a

small boy pulling one of the adults ahead. He was intrigued. He had no way of knowing that the stamp depicted the home of Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who would later be exiled to America Kislovodsk, city in Stavropol Krai, Russia. Had he known, he would also have known that the region of Stavropol was built as a military fortress, built by Don Cossaks, the very military men who had raped and beheaded his ancestors. He also had no way of knowing that the name meant city of the cross, which might have confounded him. It was located in the middle of the Caucasus Mountains and helped Russia secure control over the region. It was the child, a boy, leading on every happy group before and around a church that looked to him like a castle that made him happy. The real history of the place depicted in the stamp meant nothing.

I was alone

at the station. It was late. The time of night when the ferocious day slept. It was misty and halos formed around the globes of light on the platform. It was an elevated station. Midway the length of the line. If I leaned forward and down I could see the little town below, empty of people, as if the boy who owned it was sleeping and left it on a table. The platform was concrete - had not absorbed the fine rain. Its color was the same. I thought of Salvation, probably asleep with his eyes half open, waiting for me. I repeatedly looked left around a bend to see the approach of lights of a train or its rumble. At this hour, it would be distinct, a musical instrument. No telling who could approach, who could enter the station now. There was a giant shadow as light sprung on the side of the building, the faded advertisement for Horowitzs Clothes shown, the length of the train stopped. I entered. I looked around to find the safest place to sit. There was a homeless man bundled in clothes asleep at the other end of the car. No one ranting. I made sure I faced no one of the few there. I rarely went out. Its been years since Ive lived like that. Nothing out there except danger. I thought of Salvation standing at the doorway when I got home. He was a mixed. I got him after I saw the citys animal control vehicle remove a large dog from an apartment with a tightening loop around its neck that choked it if it tried to escape. I thought how someone could send their dog to a most certain death because they had grown tired of him or were moving or what. The dog was old and no one would take it and it was going to be given an injection and it would go to sleep after some time. It would see the surroundings; the strangers; the end of time. There was little furniture in my apartment. Sagging couch. The necessities. A few collages I had made and framed. No mirrors or anything. I was an old man with a dog. No reason to reflect on it. I patted Salvations head and he lifted his paws up to my chest and licked my face. I hoped he went

first because I didnt want him left alone. He couldnt fend for himself. Theyd lead him away and kill him. Theyd probably do the same for me or would if they could. After all, I lived in a rent-controlled apartment.

Will you be

Valentine's Day might just not have existed in their house. They were living together almost twenty years now and the man had stopped running to Chinatown to buy his wife a jade necklace or gold pendant for a few years now. The woman had the excuse that they didn't celebrate Valentine's Day in China; once or twice she bought him cake for the holiday. Now, he had to watch his sugar count as it was borderline diabetic. He spent most of the day in their bedroom surfing the computer, looking at nothing special, constantly returning to searches under his name or rifling through his mailbox. His wife was in the living room on her website on her computer. Every once in a while she laughed to herself and he knew someone in China had sent her a message that amused her. At the same time, the television was on one of the Chinese stations, even though he had warned her just the day before that she was wasting electricity. The bill was nearly $400.00 for the last month. If he wanted to salvage something of their relationship and buy her a gift, it was nearly impossible. There had been heavy snow for two days and there was a foot of snow on the ground. He couldn't get out and around anymore in that kind of weather. They had aged together; that was the one certainty of their marriage. Besides, he knew she likely didn't know it was Valentine's Day or if she did she was not going to be buying him anything. It had come to that- tit for tat- and it was stuck there like a car that just couldn't free itself from a rut of ice. It had been a couple of years since they had had sex together. He had trouble because of medications he was taking; she was eight years older and didn't want sex anymore, anyway. When he did pass her on his way to get more coffee, she had pointed through the window and said "it is a fine day." He agreed and continued on, as if it were an office and they happened to work there together. It

didn't occur to him that she might have been hinting at something besides the weather.

For love he answered the doorbell. The woman standing there was Japanese and entered without invitation. She carried a black bag and wore a black cape. When she stood about centered in the room, on the granite floor, she removed the cape and handed it to him to be hung up with care, as if he were her butler. He looked her over: her hair in bangs, but long, straight; her leather bodice with breasts bare; her black stockings. The face of a Noh actress- pale with the slightest expressions bearing great meaning. She ordered him into the bedroom and told him to wait. He lay on his bed on his back. She entered quietly and directly walked over to him and told him to remove his clothes and roll half-way over. She began to stick her index finger inside his hole. She used the wetness that accumulated to slide it further and further in. She worked it till she could get two, then three fingers through. He squirmed in delight as her fingers reached the spot in there that aroused him. She told him to lie on his stomach. She opened the black bag she had and took out a thick strap-on. She put it on tightly, so she could ram hard. She told him to raise himself, to stand on his hands and knees. She went over to his face to show him her hard on; she poked his cheek with it. Then she went behind him and slowly worked it in. When she had built up enough moisture, she began to ram in and out- a piston, sure as that. He squealed and she said beg me and he begged. She then rolled him over and separated his legs and entered. In this position, he could wrap his legs around her and draw her in. She pounded him hard and then ordered him to meet her as she rammed him. She was good, with strong round buttocks, and a motion that was manly. He did as she told him and moaned each time they were in accord. When it didnt work after some time, he took himself to Japan, to a sex club, where he watched the fem-doms pay for their tickets and chose which one he would approach. In this pursuit, he always had the woman put a leash around his neck and take him to the bar, where he would lay

at her feet like a faithful dog. She would always take him to a room reserved for customers and dress him as a woman and then finger him and go through similar motions as the other woman did. However, here she would humiliate him, call him her wife, tell him he was hers for the night, forever. He would like naked in his bed and move in synchronization to her movements. He would do this until he spurted. If not he went to China, to a secret rendezvous for such people and a woman would take him to a private room, paying the old male attendant for the use of it. He was never dissatisfied. And he never used his hands; that would have destroyed the effect. He admittedly was no Cocteau, who, it was said, could reach orgasm by merely thinking.

Check out

the cashier took her time swiping items and more often than not did it more than once. When the items were calculated, she moved to bagging at a pace guaranteed to hold her job but not over-burden herself. The line grew longer and shoppers with full wagons would not let those with one item ahead of them. Everyone was impatient. Everyone felt their time was more important. Everyone reached extremis. The cashier was paid a salary on which she could not live. If she hurried to satisfy the customers, she would end up everyone's servant. People looking for a cashier would always find her available. The very idea was intolerable.

If you recite

The professor was sitting at his desk facing the woods off the backyard. He was retired now for some time and was writing poetry. His concentration was divided between the words and watching his twentyeight year old autistic daughter, who at this moment was recklessly riding her foot scooter around the entire house. He was fearful she would either hurt herself or break something, and in that order. He had raised her alone. His wife had left him when she saw that he was going to care for her at home and not put her in an institution. It was not cold-heartedness on her part; she just didn't have the capacity for sacrifice that the circumstances called for. Her husband did not blame her, although he remained single after that, which amounted to most of his life. He took what solace he could from teaching at one of the Universities in the Midwest and writing. Also, he practiced Buddhism and went to a local Vietnamese Buddhist temple regularly. He even contemplated moving to Vietnam, as he had visited it many times, in an attempt to make up for what his country had done over there. In all his poetry books were scattered snippets of phrases from Buddhist texts. The one thing all the references had in common was the inference that if you recited the Buddha's name just once, you gained immeasurable merit. The professor once told a friend that he considered his daughter a gift. She had taught him so much about patience and selflessness. His friend blushed to hear this.

A living doll

He had curly reddish hair receding now that he was fifty-five. Unmarried, painfully shy, except with the few neighbors he had known since childhood in his isolated neighborhood of Hawtree Creek, he was going to retire from his municipal employment as an elevator inspector. He had inherited his house on stilts in a blue-collar neighborhood where an inlet led to the West Hamilton Beach from his parents, now deceased. The area was very private- any outsider was unwelcome and would feel all the eyes in every house boring into them if they walked there. The man had saved money and was going to do what he had been planning for years: he was going to buy a living doll. They were made to order in France and were very life-like; he had chosen a blonde model with blue eyes and even chose the breast size and general shape of his partner. He had even bought her a wardrobe, since she was going to be his life-mate after he retired. The neighborhood being so closed to outsiders, only the day the doll was delivered would draw suspicion; but, he was so well-known, being an original inhabitant, that no one would think anything of his behavior. He had put in his retirement papers and it was only a few weeks till he worked his last day. After that, he would be all hers- Wanda, he named her. Oh, was he going to be the best husband, lover, companion she could ever want.

Critical care

I worked for a law firm that represented injured workers. I was in the business for twenty-years and was trusted with responsibilities equal to that of an attorney. One case passed my desk and I felt I had to do whatever it took to take care of this client. Usually, I didn't. In this case, the man had his hand masticated in a machine at work and was on suicide watch in the hospital. The insurance company had not begun voluntary payments and I felt a duty to intervene. Besides, I knew the manager of the insurer personally. We had worked together many years before. I called the insurer and asked for the manager. After I explained we were old friends, I was put through to him. "Howard, how are you?" I asked. "Fine, Jim, just fine. What prompts this call?" "Well, you have the case of Juan Fernandez, a man who lost his hand at work, and we represent him. I'm asking that you begin voluntary payments to him, so he doesn't have to worry about his family on top of having the trauma of losing his dominant hand." "I'm afraid I can't do that Jim." "Why not?" I asked. "Because we're not under any direction from the Workers' Compensation Board to make payments." "Howard is that you?" "Yes, don't you recognize my voice?" "I meant is that who you are." "How can you contest the claim? What are you going to argue that he intended to injure himself or that he was intoxicated?" "Even those defenses rarely hold up." "Well, we'll take our chances." "Howard," I found my voice rising, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself," and with that I slammed the receiver. I usually didn't speak to the boss unless absolutely necessary. This case I brought to his office.

Standing there

He was the younger brother of a friend. His outside shot made him and with it he had made the high school varsity basketball team, even at five feet five inches tall. It was a strong team, with the center at six feet nine inches tall and expected to make the pros. I was jealous. Basketball meant almost everything to me for many years. When it came to indoor basketball, with the wooden floors and the overhead lights, and the adults organizing the tryouts, I lost all my abilities. He wore the team jacket. With his notoriety, he dated the most beautiful girl in his grade, which I think was the eleventh or tenth. It seemed to be contagious, because his father, who was president of the dry-cleaners' union, had suddenly become wealthy and bought an exclusive house sheltered amongst trees along the Little Neck Bay. My father had once owned a cleaning store in Washington Heights, but due to competition had to close it. He now drove a truck. The boy's father was so proud of his son's accomplishment that he built for him a basketball court - full court, so he could hone his skills. Then one day, as he was outside on the court, the ball fell from his hands and he stood there lost. He stayed like that the entire day. Then, for the week. Then, forever. The doctors his father took him to see said it was common for schizophrenia to manifest at the boy's age. They had medications to help him function as well as possible, but he would never be the same.

A miracle

John Bellmore was blind since birth. He was now in his early sixties. His disability did not keep him from being an avid fan of the basketball team of the College of the Ozarks. It was a small, Division II college, and it played annually in the NAIA Division II Mens Basketball Tournament. One winter night, McDonald's hosted a half-time show: anyone who first scored a three-point shot would win a meal a day at McDonald's for a year. John, of course, couldn't see the backboard or the rim, but he had signed up for the competition. He was placed at the head of the key and pointed in the direction of the basket. The audience was small, but as the gym was also small, it seemed packed with people. The room grew silent as John was ready to shoot. He was told anytime he was ready and he threw the ball from his right shoulder in a most idiosyncratic way. Nonetheless, the ball went through the hoop, a swoosh, no rim, all net. The crowd cheered wildly. It was a Christian College and well things like that were more than welcome there. No one questioned whether winning a year's worth of food at McDonald's was a good return on such an exploit. No one in Point Lookout Missouri thought perhaps the high-calorie, fat saturated fast food could do any harm to a sixty year old blind man. Perhaps, they were right.

Mr. Jones

Only Jones would stand outside surrounded by snow in the biting cold looking up and down the street for a UPS truck. Most people would have concluded long before 10:00 PM that the driver was simply not going to fulfill his obligation to attempt to deliver. From the information Jones found on the computer, the truck went out at 8:26 AM. By 10:00 PM he would have been working 13 and-a-half hours. He discussed this with a UPS representative over the phone, who said he could not track down the drivers whereabouts. Joness wife had long before given up on the package. It only contained a modem for their computer and it could wait till the next day. She made a telephone call to her niece, and Jones heard her laughing. The sound of laughter was like waving a red cape in front of a bull. He did all the work; he did all the worrying: she just gossiped and amused herself. He wondered why he married her. She had nothing in common with him. And the way she kept a home; clothes thrown on top of chairs and tables picked up and brought from the street; her grown sons excess belongings strewn throughout the living room, cardboard boxes randomly tossed between the dining room table and the closet, so that it was impossible to get anything out of it. It was as lost as the package and it crossed his mind that he should leave. He didnt belong there. At 11:00 PM, after watching one of the few television shows he could tolerate, he took the pills he needed to sleep. He smoked in the living room until he could feel their effect. His wife called, but he didnt answer her. He hated her. He hated her son. He hated where he lived. He hated his life. He hated himself.

Spray paint is sold

He had lived in New York City to see a number of waves of graffiti writing on public and private property. He hated it. The most recent was occurring throughout his neighborhood. The Latino youths had spray painted his own building and made it look like a part of a slum. He noticed that they had climbed fences of private homes across the street and spray painted letters on garage doors and even on the marble finishes of newly built buildings. He had enough. He found the site on the internet to make a complaint to the New York Police Department and wrote a scathing letter condemning the local precinct and accusing them of having relinquished control of the neighborhood to the vandals. He also complained about the state of his own building; how graffiti was decreasing the resale value of the property. He forgot about the letter. He never really expected a reply, or, in the event that he received one, it would be a general response without teeth. To his surprise, his complaint had been investigated and he received a letter from the Lieutenant of his local police precinct. He must have gotten an earful from the NYPD, because he explained in detail all the arrests they had made and what efforts they were making to combat a situation they were well aware of. The Lieutenant ended the letter by asking him to please in future first notify him if he had any complaints about the precinct. He gave him his direct line and signed the letter personally. Within a week, the police were using high-powered steam blowers to remove all the graffiti from his buildings wall. He had a short stint as a hero in the building. Then, within a few months, graffiti began to appear again on the wall; usually the initials of the perpetrators. Like cockroaches, he thought.

The old barbers

From the hospice bed he could only make out the color of the day through the window. He couldnt see objects. His small family surrounded him. It offered small comfort, particularly as his wife kept weeping, which revived his own sorrow. He was certainly ready to die. He had been waiting for it for some time. He remembered when he was a boy his mother took him to a barbershop to have his hair cut. In those days, all the barbers were middle-aged Italian men, who spoke with Italian accents. They always leaned on your back as they cut your hair and it was comforting in its way. One of the barbers told his mother that he would be bald when he grew older. She told him not to say that, as she was a superstitious woman. The man held up the boys double cowlick to show why he would be bald. When one of the other barbers heard the boy had two of his toes on each foot webbed, he said the boy would die from drowning. Please, his mother protested. Please dont say that. In the hospice, he thought how wonderfully accurate the old Italian premonitions were. Here he was dying from pulmonary edema, his lungs filling with water. The doctors gave him medication to relieve the symptoms, but he and they knew it was the end. But, as that old barber had prophesized, he was dying from drowning. As to his hair, well, he had lost it years ago, when he was in his thirties.

GG I first heard from a man living in France about half a year ago who introduced himself as Gaston Galmiche and told me that he had assembled a site devoted exclusively to the dispersion of the Galmiches of the world. He claimed that my ancestors and all the ancestors of those with similar names as his derived from the fact that all Galmiches had lived in France in the 14th Century. I was a bit frightened, firstly, because I didnt know him, and secondly, as he was dark skinned like me, but had the look of a man well-preserved, as if he was dead yet lived. I was in my mid-sixties and his skin showed he was older, maybe in his mid-seventies, yet he had long black hair, with a wolfish face, and his skin, though wrinkled, appeared youthful. He put me up on his site for Galmiches. He said he would look into my family ancestry. I admit I was intrigued because no one in my family could trace our ancestry earlier than my great grandfather in Western Russia. It was odd that no one knew of the family before that, as if it had sprung up there for the first time. Gaston said my family might have left France during the French Revolution for political or persecutory reasons and traveled like many of the clan to Eastern Europe. My family, he said, may have gone even farther into Russia. I recently heard from him: Hello Jack, Search for links Galmiche-Galmitz: I did not progress on the individuals. But I found the phonic evolution of French Galmiche (g a: l m i: s) left during the French Revolution towards the Central Europe. In Central Europe the name is written Galmi and Galmisz (both pronounce as galmiche in French). Then in the Eastern Europe the name is written Galmisz and Galmitz. Then of the Eastern Europe towards the USA Galmitz and Golmez. I continue research, GG

Perpetually

Theres a man named George - I think thats his name, unless thats the name he refers to me by - who sits on the sidewalk between a landmark church and a Chinese supermarket in front of a wrought iron gate. He would be noticeable, since he is the only person in the entire neighborhood who is sitting, except for the fact that he is as gray and white as the concrete street he sits on. His hair is white and his face is ashen and half the time he is looking up for attention and the other half looking down in depression. Sometimes, I say hello if his eyes gain access to mine. If he is face down and forlorn and doesnt see me, I pass without acknowledging him. Across the street from where he usually sits was the library which had become a haven for Chinese patrons who sat all day reading Chinese newspapers which is now being rebuilt. The neighborhood, named Elmhurst, although it has no elm trees, is remarkable in this: that George - or the man from the adult home I think is named George is the only person sitting. There are no benches in the entire neighborhood. Everyone and everything is in constant motion. The streets are jammed with cars, there are stores upon stores, restaurants after restaurants, supermarkets and small markets, and people in motion, constant motion, without stop from morning through the night. The neighborhood has no attractions to speak of; the architecture is functional and lacking in any recognizable style, except perhaps that it was all built about 1940. New stores and condominiums are constantly being built to house and supply the new immigrants who arrive mostly from China and settle here. There are no movie theaters. There are no bookstores. There are no art supply stores. There are a few churches and Buddhist temples. Everything is devoted to survival and there are no signs of a life beyond survival, whether in this life or in an afterlife of some kind you can take your pick here. There is a municipal hospital and a park where the young play

basketball and old men play Chinese chess and woman sometimes do the fan dance. There really is no need for what is ordinarily called culture, since people are too busy to be entertained or are entertained by merely being in the throng, close and safely together, like the hundreds of pigeons that have settled in one tree near the park and swoop down together whenever someone scatters crumbs from a sack. Though the old brick buildings are in decay, there are satellite dishes hanging from all the roofs, in order for the inhabitants to receive reception for television programs from around the world. Because of the constant juggling of human beings here, stopping only to eat in a fast food restaurant or the newest Chinese restaurant, sometimes I feel as lonely as George, or is George the name he refers to me by, I forget, and is there a reason to draw a difference.

a change of season

he had only recently returned to New York City after completing his doctoral degree in Buffalo. There were few jobs in his field at the time and in the interim he returned to live with his parents. He laid around the house, unprepared to accept any employment other than in the upper echelons. That was the reason he had sought a higher degree. Jobs were scarce and he soon found out that no one was willing to train him or transfer his skills to a related field. His mother kept after him to the point where he had to take action- either obtain some sort of work or eliminate her. He chose to take a battery of civil service tests, as these were the only type of jobs where discrimination would not play a part in hiring. He soon found himself working for Medicaid at their main offices at 34th Street and 8th Ave. Every day, he dreaded going to work. It was a low job and his coemployees, though amiable enough, were all African-American or Latino, and no one wanted to know him, a displaced white man. And every day, one Jamaican worker would walk past his battered metal desk and say how the mighty had fallen. He soon felt the need to share something in common with some of his coworkers and he chose to fall back on an old habit. Through an old friend, he hooked up with a man who had also once been a heroin addict and soon they found a connection. First it was once or at most twice a week that they used- only on weekends. Then, after some months, they bought on one or two days during the week, as well. After half a year, he had a habit and began to feel sick and show signs of withdrawal if he didnt get his dose of dope. He would buy enough for the week and now in the mornings he would cook up the heroin in the bathroom stall and shoot up before starting the work day. He met a number of other addicts at work, and he soon was introduced to people on the Methadone Maintenance Program, who sold their daily doses to buyers on the street. He found the methadone

completely overcame his withdrawal and it also got him high. Soon, he was addicted to the street methadone. He spent every dollar he earned working and went through his entire savings buying heroin or methadone. It reached a point where he went up to the offices of the methadone program to decide whether to sign up. He looked around him and he thought I cant do it. I mean I cant deny that Im an addict like them, but God, theyre all so dysfunctional, so uneducated, such social outcasts. He knew his thinking would be considered typically snobbish, but he maintained it. He had to seek help through another means. He finally confessed to the psychotherapist he had been seeing what he had been doing and she and the staff psychiatrist made arrangements for him to enter a hospital to detox. Once in the hospital, deprived of even the valium prescribed to him by the psychiatrist, he walked the hallways for months as fast as he could, as if he could get away from himself or else calm himself through fatigue. Nothing worked. When he was released his mother wouldnt talk to him. When he asked to do his own laundry, as a first step towards maturation, she said he wasnt able to do it. He had to get out of that house.

What do you remember

Vaguely people. Cant make them out distinctly. Im important in some way; have a part to play, though I cant say now what it is. I have an overcoat, I think, that must be sold or given away. There are levels, like in a parking garage, and the ground is concrete. Theres perspective and a woman I once was involved with, lived with, though she is now married to someone else. I think the people were known to me in childhood, though I cant be sure. Ive told the woman where to go, but I dont think she followed my directions. It widens to include a world, living things, trees, vistas or at the least roads from which dust rises. Hospital grounds? Who knows. Looking through a kaleidoscope. Maybe. But rather than colors shifting patterns, people and places shifting patterns. Its like that. You understand. Its like that.

They were

at Jones Beach. It was getting late and most of the people who had covered the sand and colored it in their suits had left for the day. All the beach umbrellas were returned and stacked in the store-room up by the parking lot. A group of friends had met there accidentally and were still hanging around. He was in blue racing trunks tight on his buttocks and groin. She wore a bikini. He knew her from the neighborhood. She was an artist and had recently ended a long relationship with a man he knew by sight but didnt know to speak of. She told him to lie still. He obeyed. She said put this towel over you and lie back. Her hand softly slid down the tight suit and held him sideways. She began slowly and then changed speeds, as if she were driving a stick shift car. She then brought him almost to completion and stopped completely, until he was as flaccid as a worm that had been used as bait for too long. Then she slipped her hand down in again and upside down, pushing the nylon of his trunks to their extreme, slowly building a momentum, as if scoring an etude. All he could hear was the waves, though she was blowing air into his ear. She had him in her wrapped hand and rolled him like dough then flattened him and rolled again. She felt the tip and pulled out the white stringy prefiguration. She tasted it. It was salty like seawater. The she went under the towel, pulled down the trunks around his ankles, placed her mouth around him, and sucked hard while she tickled his scrotum. In no short time, he spurted into her waiting mouth and he could not see, but he could hear her swallowing. When she was through, she emerged from under the towel and stuck her tongue in his mouth to share with him.

Meetings

A Pennsylvania couple, the Schaibles, who believed in faith-healing were sentenced Wednesday to 3 to seven years in prison in the death of a second child who was sick but didn't see a doctor. The Lord said through Moses to the Israelites, "If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it at the door of the tent of meeting, that he may be accepted before the Lord. "You've killed two of your children ... not God, not your church, not religious devotion you," Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner said. And the Lord said further regarding offerings, "If his offering to the LORD is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves or of young pigeons. They have seven surviving children. Last year, Herbert Schaible told police that medicine "is against our religious beliefs." He said, "We believe in divine healing, that Jesus shed blood for our healing and that he died on the cross to break the devil's power." The Lord said, "And these you shall have in abomination among the birds, they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey. A jury had convicted both parents of involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 death of son Kent. They were put on 10 years of probation that included orders to seek medical care if any other child got sick. The Lord declared: You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. On the subject of abomination the Lord said, And you shall not lie with any beast and defile yourself with it, neither shall any woman give herself to a beast to lie with it: it is perversion.

Their pastor, Nelson Clark, has said the Schaibles lost their sons because of a "spiritual lack" in their lives and insisted they would not seek medical care even if another child appeared near death. The Lord said, And you shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. And the Lord said many things were abominations. Many things.

beginnings

Earth was empty, dark. In the morning it was light and things could be seen. The land with water produced seed-bearing vegetation, trees. Fish and birds and animals abounded, as did men and women, and they all had reproductive organs to continue onward. Words were chosen by the man for everything that existed in its own right and by naming them he caused each thing to appear as he imagined them in his language. Mutual sexual attraction spread humans and animals throughout the earth. They were neither moral nor immoral, but nevertheless caused pain and suffering. The great master and lord of life, Kaang, originally lived with men and women and all living things under the earth. All was harmonious. No one wanted for anything. And it was light even though there was no sun. When Kaang built a tree that stretched throughout the universe, he brought up out of the ground all living things. The only warning he gave was to be peaceful and not build a fire. When the sun went down, the people grew frightened and lit fires to see and to keep warm. From that time the animals and humans separated, as the animals were afraid of the fire. The forms of all things are only their outward appearance. Each thing has a spirit within it. And spirits can enter different forms. A woman may enter a leopard; a man a lion. Disobedience to Kaang created havoc in the world. Unkulunkulu was the Primal Man. From the reeds he came and from the reeds he produced everything that is. He taught the Zulus to hunt, to make fire, and to grow food. He was the Great Benefactor. The universe expanded from an intensely dense and hot state and continues to expand. Space as it expands is carrying galaxies with it. The universe might continue to expand until it bursts with everything in it. So, keep your nose clean.