Friday Night Corridor: A Liberation Side-Story

(Originally posted on exploitedantonyms.wordpress.com as part of a writing assignment where I picked up the story of Kaylant, Florida. Look for the reference to Liberation: Chapter 4!)

The two of them stood there trembling, horrified… no, mortally shaken by the events they had witnessed there that night. James Ploindekker, a businessman with a master’s degree from the University of Central Florida, and Jessica Fleighty, an artist who made her peanuts selling her paintings at various markets, flea and farmer alike, were experiencing what many could only describe as an atrocity dealt to the truly undeserving.
“Do you think it’s alright?” Jessica asked, fresh canvas underarm. James poked at it, examining it, trying to think about it from as many angles as he could, a habit he formed as a youth in grade school having spent most of his time after school behind a television set, video game controller in hand. “Sorry, but it’s gone, the pepperoni’s stuck to the pavement, you don’t want to even try.”
Jessica’s cheeks reddened and she crumpled the paper plate in her hand, tossing it into a nearby trashcan. She took James by the hand and led him around the corner, passing the bar on the corner where more than a handful of inebriated millenials were enjoying their first official night out on the town. James weaved in and out of the people standing on the sidewalk until he took his place standing behind her in a line outside a bar named Sky57. As a large man in a black t-shirt checked the ID’s of all entering the standard-sized door frame that was the entrance, cars glided by behind him, cells through their vessel. James fumbled for his wallet while Jessica did her best to balance her canvas while rifling through her purse for her ID. James pulled his out as Jessica walked through the doorway, walking up an illuminated flight of stairs without a moment of delay; he followed after her.
James walked by at least three pairs of people talking just inside the doorway of the blue and white-lit bar room, a fourth formed a mobile barrier that failed to prevent him from reaching his destination. James turned his body lengthwise as he slipped by the pair of young women talking about some new singer they heard on the radio and headed for the cold, aluminum handrail in pursuit of his partner for the evening. His search didn’t take long as he spotted her off to the side of the roof overlooking the street; her canvas was already being propped up into an angle proper for maintaining stability. James approached Jessica slowly, watching her as she pulled a single, yellow pencil out of her back pocket and stared down at the street scene playing out below her.
“Is this how you spend your weekends?” James asked, failing to avert her gaze. “Sometimes,” she replied, “most of the time I’m at home spying on the neighbors for inspiration.” She chuckled in an obvious manner, looking over at James, who was content with looking on as she went to work sketching the way that buildings met the street and the palm trees marked the edges of the park in the distance from where they stood. James could only stand and stare in disbelief at the speed at which she sketched out what permeated her field of vision. “How long have you been doing this?” James asked of Jessica. “You know, art in general,” he added. Jessica paused for a second to examine the height of a newspaper stand compared to its passersby and then answered his question. “Seventeen years now, well, seriously pursuing it anyways, I don’t really count what I drew as a child,” she said modestly. The truth of the matter is that even her early drawings as a child drew the attention of her school teachers. As she scribbled on, a bartender was walking around the rooftop with a tray of mixed drinks. James called her attention over, handed her a $10 bill, took two and told her to keep the change. “Could you hold on to that for me for just a minute? I’m almost done. “Almost done?” James thought, “it’s only been five minutes.”
Indeed, the quality of the sketch this girl had produced in under five minutes was astounding to James, who had at once considered entering into the art field, but if not for a rude awakening enacted on the part of his best friend falling into a crater of debt, he too would be holding an art utensil in his hands. This much was certain, she was much better at this than he could ever have been, James thought, patiently holding the glass of poisonous-looking whiskey-and-yellow-something drink for Jessica in his right hand while his left hand cared not much for appearances and slung a splash of the liquid past his lips and down his semi-parched throat. Almost as soon as he did, the canvas leaning on the short fence on the edge of the rooftop was removed from its position of authority and sent to rest against the wall.
James extended the hand holding Jessica’s drink and she eagerly took hold of it. As she sipped the suspicious, yellow drink, her lips came untied, “so I used to do this thing where I would go to the roofs of this one building and try to paint some of the offices with open windows. I figured it would be this opportunity to try something new, but one day someone called security and now they not only lock the doors, but I’m no longer allowed to go into the building.” She laughed while James pressed himself to come up with a response.
“Did you get any good pieces out of it?”
“I did manage to get a few good ones. They never made it past the sketching stage but I’m still getting around to them,” Jessica said, crossing her right arm across her torso. “Why did you choose to pursue business?”
James replied candidly, “because it lets me be myself. I’m not the kind of person who can sit behind a desk and work 9-5, so I specialized in the selling aspects of business and now I go from business to business selling consulting services.” Jessica looked at him with a curious expression, the tinge of red in her cheeks still lingered from the pizza incident just prior.
—-
Forty minutes later, James and Jessica found themselves in the bar room below sitting on a couch with a man in a wrinkled, white double-breasted coat with matching khakis and a grey fedora who was sipping from a glass on the opposite end. James was sitting halfway on the armrest, glass half-full of the same noxious yellow liquid from the rooftop, each successive one lost a little more of its pineapple-and-grenadine accents in exchange for decreasingly subtle hints of its Tennessee heritage.
The night ended for the two with Jessica walking out of the bar at last call, telling James that she would see him again and marching off into the night to walk a dog she claimed was in desperate need of a walk. James decided against settling in for another yellow drink, settled his tab, and walked back outside into the street long blocked off to traffic as the masses mixed and ebbed into the fishbowl of Kaylant, Florida’s downtown scene. Half-buzzed and aimless, James walked down the south-bound sidewalk, passing Burt’s Cafe au Lait & Coffee Bar on his right, watching as a man and a woman smoked cigarettes off to the side of the door. As he passed them, the distinct clatter of a car striking a lamp post and the squeal of tires of pavement sliced through the air from behind James, urging him to turn around and watch whatever scene was playing out behind him.
From where he was standing, James could see what appeared to be the corner of a street barricade poking into the street that was supposed to remain unoccupied by motor vehicles. James walked closer and found the barricade’s accomplice, the front end of a red sports car that was firmly planted against the shiny, metallic base of a street light. The tires squealed once more as the driver attempted to dislodge his car from its overly-conspicuous prison. More onlookers took notice of the scene and stared on as if in a state of disbelief. A police officer poked his head around the corner from the doorway of a night club that was steadily releasing its occupants to their fates, leaving his post in favor of what he thought could become a DUI arrest.
The officer shot a reassuring glance at James, who assumed it was a nonverbal clue that everything was under control. As the officer approached the vehicle, its occupants fell deathly prone and couldn’t help but stare at the approaching man in uniform. The driver broke his stare and turned to his passenger, who threw his arms into the air as if declaring his inability to answer whatever question the driver posed. The officer’s eyes were trained on the occupants as he approached the front door and stood there looking at the driver, who rolled down the window with the hopes that his cooperation might make things go better for him.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” the officer said in a tone that brought together elements of authority and an intentionally lackadaisical approach. The driver of the pinned vehicle replied to his gesture with a courteous response, calmly explaining that he and the passenger had been arguing over an issue and in his confusion, his foot unintentionally pressed on the accelerator, which brought them to their current predicament. The driver’s words were as articulate and smooth as the blends of coffee served in the very coffee bar behind James, who was following the unfolding of the scene along with the three other onlookers, all of whom held a different reaction. The driver exited the vehicle and walked over to the side of the officer who was already facing the barricade. Together, the two lifted and moved it aside, partially freeing the little, red sports car. The passenger began to move to the driver’s seat, who was quickly reprimanded by the driver, who was having a word with the officer before climbing into it himself. The officer got the driver’s attention once again, but as soon as the officer began approaching the car once more, a woman’s scream issued forth from the night club the officer was just watching. The officer’s attention shifted and the occupants of the red sports car threw it into reverse gear and backed around the left corner before speeding off.
The officer’s full attention came to the bar when the sound of two gunshots rang out into the main drag. Pulling out his walkie talkie, the officer alerted his fellow officers of the situation while drawing his Glock .45 and holding it close to his side. The officer approached the front door of the club, forcing his way into the building amidst the tide of fleeing occupants. James, who was just coming out of shock, gathered his wits together and began running away from the scene, crossing to the other side of the street and taking off at full speed.
James kept running until his brain shouted at him to stop, telling him that he was far enough away from the danger to allow himself the courtesy of catching his breath. As he did so, he took in his surroundings: there were far fewer street lights than there were previously, ten-foot high evergreen trees lined his side of the street. From the looks of things, he had found his way to Treasure Hill Park, James thought as he couldn’t recall how he’d run over half a mile. He thought about his decision to decline joining his college track team while he was still a student months prior, but that was neither here nor there.
Contemplating how he would make it back to his car, he figured that the best way would be to walk down one street and make his way back to the end of the street, where he would find his car and be able to finally go home. With this in mind, James took the cross street that formed the outer boundary of the park halfway to the next street when he heard the sound of a small dog barking furiously. James turned and could see a one-foot tall black-and-brown puff running back and forth barking at a tall figure in a dark jacket. James squatted down and shifted to the left, poking around a bush and catching a full glimpse of the scene playing out. The tall figure was holding a girl to a tree by the mouth while trying to wrestle a purse out of her hands. James recognized that person as Jessica, the girl he had been on a date with less than an hour ago. She was resisting him and he kept his hand on her mouth, a measure the attacker had hoped would keep her from crying out for help. When this failed, the attacker grabbed the purse with both hands, tore it from her grasp, and bolted in the direction towards the exit gate.
James, who had been watching the scene, quickly stood up and tried grabbing the purse from the man in the dark jacket, but this didn’t go how James expected as the attacker struck him with his shoulder and knocked him off his feet. From where he was lying, James watched as the man ran off down a dark street, prize in hand. Picking himself up, James walked over to the tree Jessica was sitting and while he startled her for a moment, she let her guard down when she recognized him and started sobbing. James picked her up off the ground and she wrapped her arms around him and the dog now started barking at him, not knowing friend from foe.
When the tears stopped, Jessica looked at James and smiled, laughing through the tears. James took her by the hand and said to her, “you look like you could use that slice of pizza now.”

What Seems the Same

A pacific blue lampshade stands stout,
shedding regular-colored light
on a table that might be found
in any coffee shop in any state,

Specifically, it's lying about
the Starbucks just beyond the light
at Alafaya, eastern-bound,
and Gemini; university's gate,

Bait just like catnip, to this writer's soul,
drowned in caffeine, too many cups sold,
lightly-headed and bound for gold,
all doubts have been prolifically shoaled,

Clouts of soporific nostalgia
delight me past Arcadia,
wind up in Naples, Florida;
four hours of driving like a monster;

A prolific author returns home,
what was home, resembles a light
atop the trees, each one tall and stout,
from a distance, much shorter from up close

Liberation: Chapter 1

August 29, 2011 began not unlike any other before it, but within minutes of merging on to I-75, the day skipped down a path of steepening instability.

Left turn signal, check.
Cut around slower vehicles prior to the end of the merge lane, check.
Enter the leftmost lane and drive 15 MPH over the speed limit, check check.

Daniel sat in a relaxed position in the drivers seat of his 2001 Chevy Malibu rental car, left arm on the window well, elbow against the glass, hand on back of head. Stretching his back from the early, static hours of the morning, Daniel took in a deep, slow breath, holding it for a few seconds, and then releasing it; an indication that the morning had truly begun. He reached for his orange juice, a replacement to his regular coffee, and before his lips could reach the straw, his body heaved forward with a sudden jolt, his grip tightened around the steering wheel. "...the fuck!?" Daniel gazed into the rear-view mirror to spot an empty lane of traffic, and as if on cue, a red-and-black Firebird sped around to his right, and he floored his accelerator.

Center lane, left lane, center lane, left lane again... The Firebird jumped between cars like a flea, leaving Daniel with only a couple of feet worth of room to navigate the same route as his assailant. Center lane, right lane, center lane, left lane... The Malibu and the Firebird reached the front of traffic, lingering for mere moments before the Firebird's custom exhaust system roared with the fire of ogre bellies and began widening the distance between the two vehicles. Trying to keep up, Daniel's Malibu whined and squealed; it's rebuilt engine taking the stress of high-speed driving with stride. Coming upon the next block of traffic and closing the distance on the Firebird, the pair entered the cluster from the center lane, immediately cutting to the right in front of an aqua Honda Accord, back to the center lane around a black and grey Chevy Blazer, and into the left lane around a Publix semi-truck and trailer. By the time Daniel's Malibu caught up to the left lane, the Firebird in front of him was pulling in front of the truck and took chase to it, but on impulse he tapped his brakes halfway up the side of the truck and pulled around behind it to find that the same Firebird he had been chasing was hovering around the back corner of the truck in a vain attempt to outsmart him. Daniel pulled up behind them and flashed his high beams at them; this amusing game of cat-and-mouse was in check. The Firebird once again accelerated to escape, but as soon as they had started, the Publix truck swerved right and cut them off. The vehicles collided, and the Firebird hovered into the emergency lane for a few, brief seconds before succumbing to drop of the slope, mere feet to the right. The Firebird's driver slammed the brakes as soon as he was on level ground, and the car squealed and smoked before spinning out on the dewy grass and, at last, coming to a halt. Daniel flipped on his emergency lights and pulled off the side of the interstate, threw his car in reverse, and slowly approached the Firebird, his dented bumper leading the excursion.

Since the moment he got rear-ended, Daniel had his first, rational thought. "Who would run from something small like that, considering I could have reported his license plate later." The thought that the Firebird he had been so desperately chasing could have been stolen, and the driver was some hardened criminal who was breaking his parole. "Ah, Christ. What have I gotten myself into?" By the time Daniel has his epiphany, he had already backed up to the car with the smoking tire wells, and the doors had already begun to open. "Fuck, why did I have to stop for this asshole? He's probably got a handgun and an ounce of cocaine in his glove box. Maybe I can throw my car in reverse and... no, that's never gonna work, he's probably The freakin' Flash on that crack. Shit! Fuck! I could always just drive off..." Daniel threw his car into D and was about to slam the accelerator, when he had an epiphany. His foot hit the brake and the car shook and his transmission grinded as he threw it into P from an idle speed. "Fuck it, I'm no pussy. I'm not gonna run from this shit, I've got too much pride for this." Daniel opened his door with haste to meet the driver of the Firebird face-to-face. His face tightened, a confident scowl formed from his lips, his eyes squinted, and he marched stiffly from his car to his partner in chase. Daniel walked around the open driver-seat door and was greeted to a twenty-something blonde girl with her nose pointed downwards at a small puddle of vomit; his guard was dropped immediately.

Daniel bent over, wrists to knees, "Ma'am? Are you alright." She shook her head up and down as well as she could and he looked side-to-side and noticed there wasn't a steering wheel on the car. Puzzled, he looked through to the assumed passenger side of the vehicle and found a forty-something man with receding whitish-brown hair attempting to call someone on his cell phone, his forearms resting on a steering wheel. Snapping back into defensive mode, Daniel power-walked around the front of the car and the right-side driver's door, putting his hand on top of it. "You," he said in a powerful voice. The man shook as his neck snapped over to look at the man he had been running from. The man replied with a heavy Brazilian accent "I am so, so sorry Mr. American Man. My girlfriend and I were driving when I drove into you car... and..." the man was cut short. Daniel smelled marijuana. "Let me get this straight. You were stoned and driving on the highway when you ran into my car and tried to run away." The man nodded once, "Yes, that's it. I'm so sorry, if we were caught I would have been deported. I'm here on a student visa, I'm learning about physics. I'm just here for the weekend, I go to University of Florida. Do you want to see my student ID?" The man was panicking. Daniel just stood leaning inward in the doorway, one bent arm on the door, the other on the roof, looking around for any other details that might be useful to know, when the sound of a car tire driving through gravel sounded to his right. The progenitor of the disturbance? A Florida Highway Patrol car driving off the side of the interstate and into the grassy area occupied by the two cars. Daniel turned to look at the third car, suppressed a spiteful quip to the Brazilian man, and tapped his middle and index fingers on the roof of the car in anticipation.

The officer stepped out of the car calmly and approached Daniel and the Brazilian man, glancing to his left on the sound of the young girl vomiting. The officer looked slightly taken aback. "We received six reports of two cars racing on the interstate, and five reporting a car driving off the road. Would any of you like to explain to me what happened?" Daniel glanced at the Brazilian man before starting. "I would, I was on my way to work when I was rear-ended by him," Daniel pointed to the Brazilian man with his thumb, "and he tried fleeing the scene, so I chased him down and he was run off the road by a Publix truck," Daniel concluded by stepping out of the officer's path to the Brazilian man. The officer looked at the Brazilian man and spoke, "Sir, is this what really happened?" The Brazilian man was unable to keep eye contact, "Yes, officer, it is." The officer quietly inhaled a deep breath, paused for a second and walked over to the other side of the car. "Ma'am, are you okay to stand up?" She nodded her head as she had for Daniel, only quicker, took a deep breath, and stood up with the help of the officer. He led her towards his car and said to her, "Ma'am, I'm going to have to place you and the driver of the vehicle under arrest for the possession and use of a controlled substance. Will you please step into the back of my patrol car?" Looking at the ground with her arms crossed, she nodded again and sat in the back seat as he held the door open for her. She sat there with the door opened, arms crossed and staring at the headrest of the passenger seat, her lips pouting. The officer walked back to the Firebird, past Daniel to the Brazilian man, who had stood up on his own. The officer locked eyes with him for a moment before walking back to his patrol car, seating him next to the blonde girl and shutting the door. The officer walked back to Daniel with shifty eyes.

"Sir?" The officer spoke to Daniel, "Yes officer?" A sinking formed in Daniel's gut, "You are being placed under arrest for illegal racing and reckless driving. Please follow me to my patrol car and I will escort you to the Florida Highway Patrol holding facility." Daniel's reaction was that of someone struck in the solar plexus. "I'm sorry, officer?" The officer continued to look Daniel in the eyes. "I do not intend to repeat myself, please follow me to the patrol car," the officer said as he turned around and began walking. "Fuck my life," Daniel hesitantly followed the officer, who held the door open for him. Daniel took his seat next to the blonde girl, who was hunched over, forearms to thighs, looking roughed up from sweating too much, and the Brazilian man gave Daniel a quick glance before huffing and putting on his seat belt. The officer entered the driver's seat, started the engine, and drove back on to the interstate and sped up to 80. The blonde girl began leaning to Daniel's side and turned her head to say something, but her speech was interrupted as a mass of vomit left her lips instead of words and coated Daniel's shirt and tie; the excess pooling in his lap.

Orange County

Waiting with a scrapped tire by my Hyundai Elantra, sipping McDonald's coffee while my friend negotiates the replacement. I compose a poem on my phone as the garage workers change a tire and flow with the lyrics to Insane in the Membrane. Regrettably, we can't find the correct 15-inch tire and the search continues.

Two used tire shops and half an hour later, Wal-Mart's Tire and Lube Express employees facilitate our return into our daily routines at a cost.

That cost was an hour of talking about high school affairs, pining over sixty dollar gaming controllers, a trip across the street to the tobacco shop and back, a walk to the water fountain, and seventy six bucks from the pawn shop.

We gathered our wits and water bottles and begun our strides towards downtown, stopping only to put $10 in my tank and to take a leak. We spoke of our relationships, our friends, and, of course, how the rest of the afternoon would be spent.

When we made it to the slighted Oldsmobile Silhouette, still parked across the street from the IHOP, the day's treacherous wrath faded with every complete rotation of the tire iron. Slowly but surely the sun emerged from behind the clouds and the new tire held the old van upright.

Our conversation thereafter was short-lived as we went our separate ways for the time being; he drove west to drop off a band saw, while I drove east for a well-deserved reprieve amongst my felinish traveling companions, where the memory of today's trials would soon vanish into the murky depths of my subconscious, slumbering until they are needed again. The day, the 20th of August, 2012, one week short of the month I have been in this city, will remain as a constant reminder of the life and place I chose to better myself. This place, Orlando, where wings are allowed to reach their full span, the place I now call home.

Liberation: Chapter 6

It had happened the same way as the twenty-two cases before it; twenty two victims, twenty two home computers accessed, fifty-one bank accounts cleaned out with an overdrawn amount of measly five dollars and seventy-one cents. 'How could it have happened to me?' all of the victims must have thought at one point or another, nonetheless, as the red text continued reading -$5.71 every time he refreshed the page, Bradley Tzernich shocked himself when he slammed his fist onto the surface of his desk so hard that his rage was temporarily redirected at himself.

"Son of a bitch!" Brad screamed at the ceiling as he fell to the floor from his knees. He held his hand to his chest, squeezing it tightly, seeking comfort in the new-found silence around him. His face, red as the twilit sky, sank into a beach-like shade of tan as he slowed his breathing with each breath, and finally opened his eyes to look at what he'd done to himself.

He extended his right hand and rotated it to either side, feeling a stiff pain when it turned to the right. He bent his elbow and held his palm inches from his face. Brad clenched and unclenched his fist, squeezing tightly the third time through; he felt nothing. Still skeptical, he pressed on the bones in his hand, but still to no result. He had started believing his pain was only a temporary affair, but when he tried moving his two leftmost fingers independently, palm still facing him, the stabbing pain that shot down his arm, starting from the wrist and ending before it reached the elbow, the hope that the pain was only temporary had been derailed. Before he had time to fully take in the realization, however, Brad had found the way back onto his feet and was headed back to his desk, where he reached for the cell phone lying just to the right of his computer monitor.

"Nine-one-one... Nine-one-one..." Brad murmured to himself as he held the phone between the thumb and his two good fingers and dialed with his left hand. After pressing Send, he took the phone with his left hand and held it to his ear, letting his right palm rest on the desk as he slid into his expensive reclining computer chair, rocking back and forth. The phone clicked and a pleasant-sounding voice spoke broke through, "Nine-one-one, how may I..."
"I need the police."
"What's your situation sir?"
"My bank account... it's been emptied... I think it's the..."
"Hold on, let me transfer you."

'Click...'

...

...

'Clic-Kaylant P.D. Cyber Crimes Division, this is officer Anthony Hengrin, may I have your name and location?"

"My name is Bradley Tzernich and my address is 12874 Jilpardon Circle, Growli, FL 37548."

... ... ...

"Okay, Mr. Tzernich," Hengrin spoke in a calm tone, "you told the operator your bank account had been accessed and your funds have been removed, is this correct?"
"Yes it is, officer. The account balance was negative five..."
"Negative five dollars and seventy-one cents?"
"Yes officer..."
"You're the twenty-third to call in about this same problem. You will be happy to know we have enlisted the aid of the best internet-security professionals in the state to get to the bottom of this. All I can advise you to do now is change your online passwords and leave your debit card at home in a secure location." Brad's fist tightened again, reigniting the fire in his wrist, "I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you on the perpetrator's behalf, and I wish there was something else I could do for you, but all I can give you right now is my confidence in the team we enlisted."
"Thank you officer," Brad said calmly, despite his inclining frustration, "in case you can't reach me on this number, call my wife on her phone, her number is three-five-two, eight-eight-four, five-two-seven-six."
"Thank you Mr. Tzernich, we will contact you as progress is made in this case."

'Berrrrrrn!' Brad pressed the red, digital End button on his phone and set it face down on his desk and let his head fall back into the curve at the top of his chair's back. He looked at an angle at the intersection of the wall and ceiling above the double doors leading into the garden he and his wife built together out of an unattractive plot of sandy soil and grass. 'Honey...'

Brad pictured his wife and daughter in the garden. His wife's long-red hair swinging back and forth as she picked their daughter up out of the dirt. A small tear welled up in the corner of his eye as he was brought back into reality. His mind raced, wary of the heavy burden looming above, but pressing on nonetheless; he was determined, desperate to figure something out... then he stopped. Brad's torso shot forward from it's leaning position and he began bawling into his hands.

---

She watched the clock as the small hand crawled over from 2 to 3, and no matter how she attempted to get her mind off of it, reality refused to bend. For what seemed to be the fifth time in the last half an hour, some lazy customers left not only their cups on a table she had just cleaned, but dirty straws, wet napkins, lids wearing a fine coat of cappuccino, and melting ice cubes. Taking nearly immediate notice to the mess, she searched near the sink for a clean-looking rag. Identifying her quarry, she tightened up her apron and turned on the sink, allowing warm water to wash through the white square of fabric. She wrung out the rag, twisting it on both ends, and paced towards the table, lifting up the opening in the counter top to allow her passage.

"Can you clean that up Melissa?" Called her coworker, who wiped a bead of sweat from underneath her faded-tangerine bangs. "I've got it already," Melissa called back in an irate tone of voice. She thought of how her coworker should have been the one cleaning, but since she'd been hogging the register since about a quarter after one, this would prove nearly impossible to accomplish.

Melissa let her mind focus on how much she couldn't stand people like her coworker Jeanine at times, as well as customers like the ones who left her table a mess. She kept telling herself that she shouldn't feel that way towards others, but she was already at the point where she was beyond sympathizing with anyone who only cared for themselves. Despicable, basic creatures, hardly worthy of being called human, especially since that's how she referred to herself. The thought angered her as she threw the empty plastic cups into the trash and placed a ceramic cappuccino mug on the seat while she wiped the table down. A bead of sweat formed under her left eyebrow, such an uncomfortable feeling, she thought as she wiped it away, the smell of stale soap, water, and blended coffee filled up her nasal cavities, triggering the olfactories.

She couldn't help but think of another cigarette at this point, the series of inconsiderate customers coupled with her unwilling coworker made the prospect of stepping outside for 5 minutes of respite seem a gift. She stood up fully, looking around to find not a single customer standing in line. Walking up to Jeanine, who was in the middle of flipping through a newspaper, Melissa dropped the rag on the other side of the counter and informed her coworker that she was going outside for a cigarette, who simply responded with an indifferent "Meh." Melissa decided she was taking that as a sign of approval and turned and walked to the door.

Pushing the door open from it's frame instead of the handle, Melissa walked to the left and past the large window in the store front. Fiddling around in her pocket, she produced a single, 100mm cigarettte and a transparent purple lighter. She put the filter of the cigarette in her mouth and lit the open end, her eyes firing upwards towards the grey sky.

A sign, she thought as she took a drag off of her smoke. Her day was nearly over, it was only another twenty-two minutes until her shift ended, but the thought of seeing her stepmother for the first time in seven months was almost enough to make her want to stay until closing time. That option wasn't feasible, much to her dismay, as she was broke for another week and her tips weren't exactly paying her part of the rent.

Her thoughts became long as she lingered by the window, length of tobacco growing short. Her thoughts began to focus on the men and women coming from every direction. Who they are and what sort of lives they led intrigued Melissa, surely their lives were more interesting than hers; sharing a cramped apartment with Jeanine and her obnoxious friends didn't exactly fit into her image of ideal city life. It could be worse, she thought, tossing her cigarette butt into the gutter below her feet. 'I have a job and a place to live,' she told herself often, but it wasn't enough. She never asked for much, never too much anyways, and things always seemed to work out just fine, but it wasn't enough. She envied the people on the street that she knew nothing about, and that worried her.

She took a few short but deep breaths to calm herself down and she turned to walk back inside, but she was caught off-guard by an ambulance rushing by, forcing her to jump back a couple steps. Her heart beat for a few moments, leading her into deep breaths to calm herself down once more, this time leading her into a series of painful coughs that lasted a good fifteen seconds before she started breathing normally again, "I need to quit smoking."

At the Mating

Sitting
at the table
of a foreign
and familiar city,
this place,
my home,
this foreign
and familiar house
where I live
but every night

The place
where I make
Honduran coffee
and practice
the esoteric
with nothing
more
than a pen
from my old home,
this notebook
I made a promise on,
and the promise
to a distant friend;
promised
to myself

I become
at the mating,
myself,
a person,
no longer,
an idea,
or a misconception,
a false imagining
born of a dream,
a desire,
a bottled existence,
this way of thinking,
deemed invalid,
by the din,
kindred,
myself,
I become
at the inception,
myself,
a person,
who I am

What Libertarians Talk About on Their Birthdays

Risen like a ghost
from a life already past
the night played host
to a discussion so fast
and furious, one sure to last

in my head for weeks to come
for we spoke on a matter of great import
one affecting all, not just some;
we spoke of reform, not of tort
in the name of America, since our time is short

before we gather at the polls
to cast a vote
for whom, nobody really knows,
policies are a coat
until one reaches office and strikes at the throat

of our great nation
once humble and free,
full of elation
as a soldier home from an Iraqi
tour, presented to his family.

--
Mr. H's insight:
This poem is about a conversation I had with someone I used to run into quite a bit when I worked at a grocery store through my last year of college and them some. I ran into him over the weekend and being a self-proclaimed Libertarian, we had a bit of a chat. This one could have been longer, but I feel it still manages to say something.