Crabs

Felix scratched his crotch. He was standing, waiting, and scratching. He normally didn’t do this sort of thing, especially since there were five tweens in they’re school-girl uniforms, but then again, never had he experienced this amount of itchiness before.

If you’re wondering, the answer is yes, Felix did have crabs, and yes, those thirteen year olds did notice the fact that he was scratching his crotch repeatedly. They didn’t like it. Maybe one of the kinkier ones did...

At this point, Felix didn’t know he had crabs, so he got on the bus and went to work. It was a terrible day spent sitting at his desk where he could scratch in peace while attempting to concentrate on his work, which he forgot what it was and isn’t relevant to our story. His workmate, Eric walked up to his office and knocked on the door “Hey there buddy, didn’t see you come in, how was the weekend?”, Eric exclaimed in his morning person voice (to the dismay of the entire office on a monday morning). “Eh, umm” *scratch* “It was good spent the whole time with Judy.” *scratch* “It’s been a while since we’ve done that.” Felix responded, trying to keep his attention on the conversation. 

“Ooohhh. Nice, some sexy times with your lady. I get it. Good for you, I thought you and Judy had been over for a while, you stopped talking about her.”

“Nope everything’s” *scratch* “fine.”

“Ok there Felix, have a great! day.”

... And Eric walked out from Felix’s doorframe. 

He went home a few hours later, taking the bus again. Arriving to an empty  apartment, Felix felt a little depressed as his day ad been difficult due to the incessant itch and wanted to be comforted by the sight and sound of his girlfriend, Judy. Evidence of her passing was visible, strewn clothes across their bed, the bathroom in disarray, no note as to where she was on the fridge. It had still not dawned on Felix that he had crabs, so he opened the fridge and grabbed a twist-off-cap beer and some leftovers. Microwave, laptop, another depressing evening waiting for his busy woman to come back. He took his pants off about fifteen minutes later and went in for a power scratch, with only his underwear between the crabs and the fingernails. At this point the scratching caused pain, but it itched so bad he couldn’t help himself. 

Between a photo of cats and a mildly interesting article, about some natural disaster in Africa, Judy came home. 11:47. He got up eagerly and walked over to her, “Hey babe, where were you? I wanted to text but you never answer anyways... What’s up?”

In a flurry of leather coats, a heavy layer of makeup and high heels, Judy looked at herself in the long mirror in the entrance of the apartment. “hey”, she breathed.

“Where were you?”

“I was out with a couple girlfriends”

Leaning on the doorframe trying to be friendly and smiling “Ah that explains the mess you left, was it fun?”

She glared at him “Do you always have to criticize me like that? I can’t just go out with my friends without you passing a comment about it”

Surprised, “Sorry, I was just teasing. I don’t care about the mess.”

Judy sighed loudly, walked straight in to the bathroom and closed the door.

After her shower she went to the bedroom swept all her clothes onto the floor and slipped herself in to the bed. 

At this point, you the reader understands that something is up. Judy is being distant and I wrote it that way so it would be obvious to you, thing is, Felix is a dumb character. Also, consider that when you’re in these sort of situations, it’s different, and you don’t always pick up on subtleties. So Felix, being who he is waltzed in a sultry way in to the bedroom. He go undressed, not wanting to turn the light on and stuck his naked body against hers. She didn’t shudder away when he slipped his hand down to her crotch and he said,

“Ooooh, you shaved? What’s the occasion? Was this weekend that great that you wanted to surprise me?”

“yeah... I shaved.”

“That’s hot.”

“yeah”

“I should shave too, I’ve been itchy all day”

“...”

“Sorry, that’s gross. I’ll go shower then”

Felix ran to the bathroom naked, turned the light on and jumped in the shower. Yet still, he hadn’t figured it out. That is until as he was scrubbing furiously and noticed how inflamed and red his penis, testicles and general surrounding area. He saw Judy’s pubic hair all over the shower floor.

Felix walked back to the bedroom. He nudged Judy awake. 

“what” she said

“Honey I have some sort of rash and I’m sorry if you caught it. Is that the real reason you shaved?”

“All right, do I have to spell it out for you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I gave you grabs you dumb fuck”

“What?”

“I’ve been fucking other men, I caught crabs, I fucked you, you have crabs. I shaved my pussy so they would go away.”

Felix rolled over and cried, and scratched.

Bus 17

The bus loops around Vancouver General Hospital and heads downtown.

There are so many sick people sitting shoulder to shoulder
that there are no priority seats left and soon the elderly
are offering their seats to the infirm. Those who are
young and healthy are asked to step off.

To remain onboard I pretend I have several health issues.
Imagine me coughing wet mucus into my sleeve and
howling like a wolf every couple of minutes and beating
my chest with a limp hand. Only pretending to be deficient,
I swear. I make a damn good impression though.

A woman is wearing black capris: one uncovered calf
is veined flesh, the other is smooth plastic.

A man has an apparatus drilled into his skull.
like the monster in Frankenstein.
A soggy cigarette dangles from his lips.

Another has a face as colourless and flat as wax.
Perhaps he has been in a fire and they covered
his raw face muscles with paraffin.
They can do anything nowadays.

The ill, the injured, the dejected and rejected, the maimed
and crippled and handicapped of Vancouver
have been released from their hospital bed, dumped
onto the street. They have crawled aboard bus 17
and they are coming home. They are too weak
to be angry, but they are ugly. They don't wear
Lululemon or clutch Starbucks cups, but they have
canes and wheelchairs and breathing tubes and you
will see them down your street.

You can't say I didn't warn you.

Unfinished untitled story

As he turned the corner, Anton’s eyes fell upon the most unsightly beggar imaginable. The man was lying on the cold pavement, and wore only rags. His balding head sprouted only half of the black hair the man may once have had. Due to malnutrition, his dark eyes were sunken into their sockets and the man had a thin face. The attenuated cheeks and small lips put in evidence the two front teeth which protruded from the mouth outwards a couple of centimeters. The pitiful frame of his body looked collapsed on the sidewalk and his left arm was missing, from what was surely a botched amputation while the right clutched something wrapped in cloth. Finally, his feet were unprotected from the cold and all of his toes and had become black from frostbite in the winter. The homeless man looked asleep but when Anton tried to skirt by him, the man noticed that he was carrying the Bible and his dark eyes light up and opened wide. He sat up so quickly that the student jumped from surprise and almost fell backwards into the street. The beggar smiled wide showing that he was missing a few teeth and said in a voice so hoarse Anton was sure it hurt the man to speak. 
“You must be a Christian. If you read the Bible you must be Christian.” 
Anton did not wish to reply, but he felt irritated by the judgment after such a severe one the night prior that he yielded an answer to the old man.  
“I don’t know what I am anymore.” 
“I have never doubted God, not for one minute of my life.” 
Anton looked the man up and down again and though the man’s statement to be farfetched. 
“I doubt that.” 
“You must never doubt, you must have faith.” 
“It’s when I see people in your condition that I doubt.” 
“I am in great condition. Up here,” he said pointing to his head, “and up there.” He added pointing to the sky. 
“Boy, sit down with me. I’ll tell you a story, and you’ll never doubt God again. 
Anton considered the little he had planned and decided to sit but not too close. 
“My name is, Alexei Manchev, I was once, in Russia, a fine maker hats. My shop, sold any hat you could think of. We had top hats, melon hats, short caps, hats with flaps even hats with goggles attached. For the plane riders, you know? And all of the most considerate quality. Within a year of it’s opening, my store was famous throughout the city of Moscow. Every Sunday, people would line up outside my store for hours to get a measurement of their head or even just to get a peak at the merchandise. I quickly became rich, and would have been for the rest of my life. Because of this success at the beginning of my career, by the time I reached the age of twenty-seven, I was an arrogant and condescending man who thought himself invincible and believed no danger could befall him. My religious self, was locked away in the back of my mind in that time and although I didn’t doubt God, I never gave him a thought either.”        
The beggar paused his story to recollect his thoughts and began clutching at the clothed item more strongly. Anton, who was by now intrigued by the story, simply stared at the beggar impatient to hear the next part. After a few moments, the man cleared his throat and resumed his narration. 
“When I turned twenty eight, I decide to celebrate with some close friends, by having a day of horseback riding. I was to get a greater gift than I could have ever imagined. While we rode, a great flash momentarily blinded me and I was catapulted off my horse and became unconscious. In my unconscious, I met God and he told me two things. Firstly, he told me than I was not living for I needed and secondly, that I needed to be closer to him. When I came to, I knew what needed to do. I needed to use my wealth, to obtain a relic of the Christian faith.”       
Anton was now unsure if he should believe the man. His eloquence indicated he was educated but the fact that he story was the same as St-Paul’s, awakened the skeptic in his audience. 
“The very next day!”        
When he said this, the old man in his now excited state, shook his wrapped up package violently so that some of the cloth came unraveled but nothing was revealed. He continued now almost shouting with the same scratchy voice. 
“I vowed, vowed I tell you, to get my hands on a relic. I sold my shop for a hefty sum and then left on an adventure. My travels took me west of my point of origin and I found myself in Western Europe loosing money but smelling gold. It wasn’t long before asking here and there led to a whisper and then a clue as to where I may get my hands on a relic. I was led to a small decaying village in the south of Spain where, I was told, the church housed the skeletal arm and hand of a Saint. Upon my arrival, the Church was closed because it was well into the evening and so I took a room in the nearest inn. When I went to the Church, I found the arm without much trouble. It was encased in a glass box and was on display for everyone to see. No doubt, it was meant as an attraction to the city. I found the residing priest and asked him how much he wanted for it. The man answered that it was not for sale. I told him of all the good the money could be used for. I reminded him how many people could be fed and how badly the village needed to make repairs. But, the man was stubborn and he would have none of it. He told me to get out and I had to give in. This was not going to stop me though.” 
“I decided, after a few visits to mass, that it was too risky to steal it outright. The priest had his eye on me every time I entered his establishment and the object of my desire was in plain sight and it would have been noticed as missing if I took it. I knew what I had to do. I had to replace it. It was my test, you see?” 
Anton, at first, did not understand what the man meant. It was so unconceivable, so stretched a concept that the student did not think of it with his brilliant mind. The beggar then used his right arm and pointed across his body. A look of horror replaced that of confusion on Anton’s face and the man simply laughed a wheezy laugh and continued. 
“I arranged to get a few jugs of water, a saw, some rags and bandages. I then locked myself in my small room on the second floor of the inn and went to work. First, I drank the water and afterwards urinated on the rags and placed them so they would block the crack under the door. I did not want the potent smell of a rotting arm to reach the nose of anyone outside. Next, I went to the bathroom, sat in the tub, saw in hand and bandages at the ready. A miracle took place, I swear to you. I dug into my flesh with the saw but I felt no pain. I went through the flesh, the muscle and bone until I got all the way to the other side of it and I bandaged my arm before falling unconscious. I do not know how long I was unconscious.
Anton butted in, “It’s a miracle you didn’t kill yourself.” 
“Surely, you are right. That makes two miracles then.” 
It took a short pause for the beggar to find his place again after the interruption. 
“When I came to that night, I became aware of a missing part of my plan. My severed arm, probably a half day decomposed, still had much tissue on it. It was an arm, not a skeleton. I needed a knife to cut away the surplus. Clearly, I could not leave the limb in my room in case someone came in during my absence to clean. Neither, I thought, could I leave the room with one arm, without being sent straight away to the nearest hospital. The answer to my dilemma was obvious. I would have to go to the kitchen and ask for a knife with the arm tucked into my sleeve. I did not think that anyone would be attentive enough to notice so late in the evening. So that’s what I did. Once I had wrapped the whole arm back together with some spare bandage, I carefully slid on my coat jacket and waited until the evening to set out for the kitchen on the first level. I’ll admit, my nerves weren’t exactly steady but, by the grace of God, when I left my room the inn was empty except for the cooks who were finishing their shift, dead tired and incapable of much observation. I asked simply as I could for a carving knife. The nearest cook asked no questions and handed me one and said that I was to return it in the morning. I agreed and walked briskly back to my room. I set to work immediately. It didn’t take long to pick the bone clean. After that, I wrapped up the stub properly and cleaned the room leaving perfectly tidy. Not a drop of blood, not a scent of rot and not a trace of anything uncommon. I threw my bag of belongings over my shoulder and tucked the skeletal arm into the sleeve of my jacket as I had before only this time I hid my arm from view under the front of the jacket across my chest. I cracked the door of my room and when I saw no one and heard nothing, I left quiet as a cat creeping up on a mouse. By then, even the cooks had gone to their beds or homes and the coast was clear for me to leave through the front door. The air was cool, but there was nor wind nor clouds. I walked quickly, almost at a run impatient to arrive at the church. Despite this, I could not help but be drawn by the environment. Everything was so still, as though time had stopped for me. There were no lights in the homes, the streetlamps were spaced far apart but close enough to shed light on the entire street. The sky was incredible. There were stars, so many of them shining brightly. As I turned the last corner, the church came into view, I walked right to the entrance and I stopped.”
At this, the beggar ceased speaking. Anton, by now, reveled at hearing the man speak. He was disgusted by the man’s story and still hardly inclined to believe a word of it, but found it so entertaining. He had, since the beginning, shifted his position so he now sat opposite the beggar and looked in his eyes. In doing so, he was taking up the whole sidewalk and people were forced to walk on the street to get around him, but he didn’t care.
“And then what happened? Why did you stop?” 

 “I stopped”, the man started, “I stopped because I heard noises from inside. I looked at my watch and saw that it was two o’clock in the morning. It must have been, I concluded, the stubborn ass who called himself a priest. I slowly opened the large, wooden doors trying to make as little noise as possible. I hoped the priest would not notice me entering. Unfortunately, the door was a bit warped and creaked rather audibly. I slipped it and waited for a moment to allow my eyes to adjust to the diminished light. When I could finally see, I realized the priest was glaring at me.

‘I know why you are here,’ he said, ‘You won’t have it.’

‘It is the will of God for me to have it. He told me so.’, I replied.

‘He would never grace the likes of you with his presence.’

‘He has.’    

Shirtsleeves

Things have been rusty with me, writing wise, lately. Apologies for how very unpolished this is.

The book club discusses, over lightly iced tisanes, their various weddings. Joan is late, as usual, but they started the main discussion without her once, about Lady Chatterley's Lover ("scandalous" was the general consensus), and collectively felt so bad about it that they no longer even question waiting. Margaret is speaking now, fingers brushing the air her voice hums through, sending them all on a journey to a small woodland chapel and the retrospective hilarity of the vicar's border collie trying to be part of the ceremony.

"It wasn't exactly how I dreamed it would be, even if poor Archangel hadn't been there, but I don't think that really matters. I had been planning this wedding since girlhood, and, well, Arthur didn't have many opinions so I was free to go with all of my cherished ideas. And I worried and panicked for absolutely months (didn't we all), but none of those things seemed to make much of a difference. I could have married Arthur in a cowshed wearing a burlap sack and I think it would have been just as perfect."

The book club is unanimous in their agreement with obvious truism. Violet remarks that she, too, had her girlish dreams go awry through catastrophe after catastrophe ("and would you believe that David's best man had a heart attack on his way to the cathedral with the rings and we had to be married using ribbons from my flower girl's hair?"), and Louisa remembers how her husband had had his own plans and they had very nearly come to blows several times in creating a synthesis that would please them both.

Soon the room is a-twitter with remembrances of the ideals - "I wanted the bridal party all to come in on ponies, as any nine-year-old would after reading Black Beauty" - and the eventual realities - "We had to serve cold soup from the rehearsal dinner because my father thought having two separate menus was a waste of money".

When Joan walks in, stumbling over herself with apologies, she is greeted with a chorus of voices demanding that she share how her girlhood dreams had shifted for her actual wedding. She pours herself a glass of the iced raspberry (Annabelle feels secretly vindicated) as she thinks, then slowly shakes her head.

"You know, I don't think I planned out my wedding, when I was little. I didn't ever really want to get married, or not enough to think about it. I think the first time I even looked at a wedding dress catalogue was when I realized I'd fallen in love with Tobias, and I only started seriously considering details after I decided that if I ever did get married, it would be to him."

She notices that they are all trying very hard to have sympathetic faces, trying very hard to relate to her. "Of course," she continues, gesturing expansively, "when the old idiot finally got around to asking me, he wanted to have the groomsmen in tuxedos and I had to tell him I wouldn't marry him unless they all wore grey tweed before he gave in."

A Deep Cut From The Back Catalog of My Brain. Sentimentality.

I have a comedy blog and it's doing alright. It makes me happy and this post is a little longer and funnier there. Here, I decided to make it a little bit more emotional. But you can read stuff here, too.

I've always been a little bit too involved in wakes.
I don't mean I'm always involved in a wake.
God, I - fuck.
I mean, I have always been fascinated with...
Jesus fucking Christ.
"Fascinated"?! Ugh. Such a creep.
Interested.
There.
Ok.
Take two.

I've always bit a little bit too interested in wakes.
I've never liked them.
I mean, I don't like when people die.
I don't even go to them.
The wakes, I mean.
Not the dead people.
Actually, I don't go to dead people either.
But I try to get to people if they're dying so I could help if I can or make peace with -
Jeez.
Moving on.

It's the idea that gets me:
There you are.
Dead.
Your family and friends have chosen what best represents you.
Then they pay to have your cold presence fill a room for a day or two
or four.
Then they show you off.
"Look how great he was."
"Look how peaceful he seems."
"It would seem that he was great and went peacefully, with his dignity and pride in tact."

The truth is that these people will all remember you the way they want to remember you.
No particular photo of you baking a cake with your cousins, the one time you did it, will change anybody's minds.
And if they did, that'd be a lie.

When death is imminent and I have a family of my own, -
That's not to say I don''t love my family now.
I totally do.
But they'll be dead by then, though.
I mean, -
FUCK
I just mean that I think my parents will die before me.
I couldn't live with myself if I died before them.

...hehe. I just got that.

WHAT I MEAN IS...
If I have a death bed and I'm on it, I hope I have a family of my own:
Wife.
Kids.
Dog.
Bear (the future is very progressive).
Lifelong friends.
Shorter term friends who are very close to me at the time.
People I've lived with in the past.

And I hope they'll gather around me before I die, -
I mean, like, weeks before I die.
Not before the moment of my death.
That would be creepy.
And how would we time that out?

I hope they gather around with whatever memory they have of me.
Photographs and audio files.
Or a combination of those (who knows what the future holds?).
And I will have a say in what gets displayed at my wake.

Sorry cousins, I won't have a picture of us baking together at my wake.
I'd rather have the picture of me, smiling in a leather recliner, satisfied with myself while you guys cower, visibly covering up your noses in disgust.
I'd rather have an Alexisonfire song playing over a well sung ballad by whichever teen vocal sensation is popular then.

But most of all, I'd want the video (hello, future!) of everyone around my death bed discussing with me about what to display at my wake to be on display itself.

Because I'll make sure you remember it as a good thing and a good day.
Not that I'm dying, but like, that it's okay that I'm dying.
Do you get it?
I don't think you're getting it.
I mean...

I've relived an amazing amount of awful moments in my head that all seemed fantastic
just because somebody at the time said "everything is going to be alright."

And that's what my bed says.

Expect (something I wrote on the train the other day)

I've been told I expect too much, maybe I'm to supposed to hold everyone to the same moral standards, the same values that I hold myself to, but is it asking for respect too much, asking for human decency asking for some degree of tolerance asking for understanding asking for truth from the representatives we've chosen asking for recognition of this SHARED human condition asking for acceptance of natural differences skin comes in all colors of the rainbow, like eyes and hair and who I want to touch me there because really is that any of your business? I didn't think I was asking too much but some people think otherwise some people don't truly see past their eyes but where are there minds where are their souls what will they do when their daughters want abortions and their sons bring home boyfriends what will they say about gay-rights and being pro-life then when these realities are brought home, when it's someone close, sometimes it's different then...or not and they throw the kids out but maybe just maybe it'll introduce doubt, that maybe they don't really know what it's all about that maybe it's not all as clean cut straight line between black and white and right and wrong as they had thought, and hey, maybe you'll begin to accept that your son likes dick and your daughter`s last sexual partner was a prick and she doesn't have to carry the cells that he left in her body that could possibly form a child, and maybe she'll want to bring home a girlfriend and yes they are having sex and maybe you'll accept that, but oh I expect I`m being too hopeful, too optimistic too willing to believe that everyone has that ability in them, to love and accept regardless of differences. I guess I can only expect that of myself and I do and if my daughter would rather be a boy then that`s cool with me and if my son wants his bedroom pink that`s perfectly alright and if both my kids are straight and not queer in the slightest and love their gender norms I`ll love them anyway because gay or straight or any place you fall on the sexual preference spectrum on the gender identity curve I will love you with every piece of my patchwork soul and I will want you to expect the same from yourself.

Concentric Images Torn from the Daily Life of a Student Who Has Gone West to Become a Writer

1.

During a poetry reading

in a tent

a bee flies into my hair.

I feel the person sitting next to me

become rigid.

My ears fill with

the sound of zippers.

The lady behind me

taps my shoulder in a panic

and points at the insect,

which has landed on my shoe,

studying it for pollen.

2.

I shop for groceries

in exactly six different places:

Safeway

The Granville Island Public Market

Apple Farm Market

Whole Foods

No Frills

and the anonymous corner store down the street

where the Asian cashier has such a shrill voice.

3.

Movement on the water

like oil marks.

A dozen people and seagulls watch

while a man with a biker beard

guts brown fish with

a machete-sized knife

and throws pink insides

into the shallow water.

You can see the rocks at the bottom

dotted with small mussels

4.

I read The Brothers Karamazov

on a westbound bus

with a four in the number.

The pages get blunter

and the spine more pliable

as my thumb approaches page 776

when it’ll be written THE END.

On my way back from school

I can’t read because

the bus is too full

5.

The first time I ever

walk into a gym

my ears pop like

when the plane

begins its descent.

I feel faint after the pushups

and I need to lie down

and then I get up too quickly

and I need to lie down again.

I leave a sweaty blur

on the mirror when I rush over

to puke in the bathroom.

The blackberries from breakfast

come out hot and sour

and red as blood.

After, he tells me I look like shit.

I don’t know if he means

my pale, clammy face

or my skinny arms.

4.

so I stand, eastward,

until my stop at Vine Street.

All the streets after that

are named after trees:

Maple, Cypress, Fir, Pine.

Further it’s provinces:

Yukon, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec.

Sometimes I think of staying

on the bus and stepping off there

but it wouldn’t get me anywhere

because she’s moved

so far East that I might as well

just fly over the North Pole

to give her a hug.

3.

The movement in the water

is a seal, no two,

three seals.

The smooth, whiskered head of

the most adventurous one

pokes from the surface and

follows the fisherman’s movements.

The seals plunge for gills

and intestines.

They have white spots

on their black backs

like oil marks

on the dark water.

2.

But I only go there

when I run out of milk.

I have no one else to cook for.

The second portion

cools in a tupperware

for the next day

while I eat and read

a story in The New Quarterly

or watch an episode of Homeland. 

1.

I stay calm.

The bee is so big

that when it flies off

finally it is nudged down

by its own weight.

My gaze follows its

bobbing until

the wind sucks it out

into the sunshine  

and the lady behind me

gives me the thumbs up.