Twithin

I was with Thomas at the Jordan River when the spirit decended a second time. The others were sent away in pairs; teams of two, with power to cast-out demons. We were washing ourselves; preparing for what our Father had shown us in visions. The two were one. In the water of the Jordan, Thomas twisted through the golden current blissfully. As a fish breaking free from a torn net, he was submursed in the spirit. He found his way twithin.

The sea the sun.

The sun the sea.

The spirit showed him. My precious fisherman Thomas, the twin, my beloved who remains until my return.

Healings in Judea must take place. I prepared Thomas to be one with the flesh and to understand the nature of the spirit. My Father filled me and with what had overflowed from my soul filled that of Thomas.

It was the time to show them the way.

Mud along the river banks was soft like infant flesh. Into the hands of Thomas I placed the grey matter and told him not to look back.

Under a shelter of new growth from tall, twisted cedars, he held me despite the dreams.

“Cast them out in the name of David,” I explained to the one I love when we awoke. Thomas was there with me in my dreams. He remembered what it was I saw in the darkness. The mud was to protect us from uncleanliness.

“Do not touch blind eyes with your flesh, thus you will become unseeing,” I explained. His soft, brown eyes watched over me as I said these things. He placed the wavy head of hair upon my chest. Again we entered sleep.

The heat of day was upon us. He thirsted like no other and dove into the Jordan like a fish from the salty sea that enters the waters of the Jordan to give birth. I watched from the banks as the child became a man. Then I went to him.

Those we healed followed us back to the river for more clay. Unclothed we moved the waters.

Zebaccari, the Pharisee was with the healed upon the Jordan River bank. It was there that he asked me about divorce for he knew many others would want to enter.

“So tell me Jesus and Thomas– is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”

I replied, “Have you not read that the creator who planted the Garden of Eden made them male and female?”

“Yes,” Zebaccari replied not believing in our dream which became flesh.

“Well then, they are no longer two but one flesh, so what God has joined together, let no man separate.”

Those who had never seen with their eyes witnessed what happened next. A dove came out of nowhere and landed upon my lover’s beautiful hair and a voice from above proclaimed “These are my beloved sons with whom I am well pleased.”

Father, Forgive Me

My age surprised Dad after he did the math. Twenty-one trips around the sun in this body made it legal for me to have a few cold ones with him. He insisted on going to Keller’s in Huntingdon because Jay was letting him back in after being banned three years from the place.

“I fucked his bitch,” Dad explained. “After he figured out that half-of the men in Huntingdon was doing the same thing, he forgave me, I guess. What kind of beer do you like?”

“I ain’t much of a drinker, Dad. Even in the Army, I didn’t drink much.”

“You don’t take after your Dad then,” he replied while opening a red, wooden door to the tavern. Ice cold air rushed against my face. I was dripping in sweat from the long walk from Mifflin Street. A beer did sound good. The windows of Keller’s were shaped like giant ice cubes. My mouth was watering. Dad ordered two Rolling Rock drafts before Jay had the opportunity to place two square napkins in front of where we were seated.

“Yep. They know your old man in this place. Remember when I brought you and Billy in here when you was kids?”

“I remember, Dad.”
“You was always your momma’s boy, though. Sometimes I wondered why you was always so quiet if you was my son. You told on me to your mom one time when we stopped in here on our way home from the grocery store. You remember that?”

“Nope.”

“You told your Mom that I was talking to a pretty girl at the bar. Your mom was pissed at me that day.”

I quickly grabbed the tall, cold glass of beer and in one deep swallow, I drank it all, just to show my Dad that I could drink if I really wanted to.

“Get ‘em another one, Jay. This is my boy. My second boy, Charlie,” Dad boasted.

Jay wiped his hands on a white towel that hung from his hip like a pistol on a cowboy in an old Western movie. He reached his hand over the oak bar to formally introduce himself. He looked me in the eyes, seeming not to believe that I could have come from such an atrocious man.

“Your Dad’s a prick and a drunk,” Jay said.
My father remained very quiet for a moment, as if he wouldn’t mind slapping the shit out of the blue eyed, skinny bar tender when he said those words.

“Now Jay, this is my boy. That ain’t necessary.”

Jay stepped away to tend to the needs of others at the bar. Dad asked me what I thought about the two blondes that Jay was getting beers for.

“They ain’t bad,” I said, hoping that I was not about to have a father and son conversation about the birds and the bees at twenty-one. I grew up without Dad, without knowing him, only understanding from my mother that he’s a prick when he drinks.

“I fucked the one in the short hair,” Dad explained. “She ain’t got no teeth and she sucks a mean dick. You must get lots of pussy like your old man,” he implied. “Hell, look at ya! Yer better lookin’ than I ever was and I know how much pussy I done got in my life. What you say about us fuckin’ those bitches together?”

I looked at my father, wanting to explain to him about my own dark side, but I just laughed. I didn’t matter. It really didn’t matter at all.

“I don’t want to fuck a girl with my Dad watching,” I explained while reaching for my second beer.

“Hell, I wouldn’t either,” my old man replied while ordering a third round. He hit me hard on my back, perhaps to toughen me up a little.

There is no place like forclosure

Rising gas prices are the least of my concern. Economic ruin does not make my head spin. Because I do not own a home or a car, I laugh like the wicked witch of the west on her bicycle, speeding past those who now find themselves in the same storm that has keep so many others trapped under the crush of western capitalism for generations.

Anticipated supplemental tax rebate checks are being sucked into the sky by a dark funnel cloud known as rising fuel costs. There goes all of America’s disposable income! We haven’t even landed in OZ yet. Just wait until home values crash even further, my pretties.

Don’t let the men behind the curtains of financial institutions like JP Morgan Chase and Bear Stearns lead you down the piss-stained yellow brick road we are all following right now. The real estate mess will get much worse before it gets better. One does not need a brain to figure out what is happening to the value of land in Kansas.

For so long, the Munchkins in middle-America believed that home ownership was the key to future financial success and platinum retirement accounts. Like Donald trumps with windswept hair, we believed in the figures from property assessments and home values—numbers that promised so many so much and offered promise of a comfortable retirement. Many home owners were so wealthy on paper that they bought more homes, just to turn a quick profit by either renting them to less fortunate or simply by selling them a few months down the road under the promise that property in America never loses its value.

America’s financial experts have assured the media that America’s mortgage mess is almost over because high-risk individuals who never should have been given loans in the first place have been weeded from their bottom lines. There is one major factor that those with Harvard degrees in business have failed to note:

Considering the substantial loss in home and property values over the past two years, it’s better for many, even those with impeccable credit, to simply permit their mortgages to default, thus ignoring payments for thirty years on loans on property that is now worth less than half the amount of money borrowed to purchase in the first place.

America’s second great depression is unavoidable, not even the power of red ruby slippers or another decrease in the prime lending rate will enable us to sidestep the shit we are in. The disaster is good news for many, who have never owned a home.

Don’t believe the hype—there is no place like home.

Hot Momma

Ryan and Robbie Garlock lived at the edge of the Three Springs borough, just a five minute ride on a ten-speed down the only road that runs through the town.

In a retirement village with a population of merely 200, it was hard to find kids our age. Bill and me became best friends with Ryan and Robbie because there was no one else to choose from.

Wiffle ball was the game of choice. They came to our yard to hang out on summer mornings, waiting for the Three Springs community swimming pool to open at 1 p.m. Bill and me couldn’t go. Not until it got warmer, mom said.

It was hot for early June. School was out.

“What are you guys going to do all day? Play wiffle ball? It’s too hot. You should come to the pool with us. Ask your mom if you can come to the pool with us.

Bill knew not to ask Mom. So did I. It had nothing to do with the weather. It was hot and the power lines nearby cracked under the suns warming rays.

“Go ask your mom,” Ryan said to me. I was ready to. I wanted to go swimming at the pool. Bill and me only ever went swimming in a crick behind our grandmother’s house. This was a pool with slides and diving boards. No more swinging from grapevines and jumping into dirty water!

Bill told me not to ask.

“Go ask your mom,” Ryan said again. “Tell her my mom will pay for you guys to get in.”

So I asked mom. Told her outright that Ryan’s mom would pay for us to get in. Ryan was standing right next to me when I asked her. His sandy brown hair blowing in the wind, booggers hanging from his little pugged nose and grass stains were all over his Toughskin jeans.

“Charlie and Bill can go to the pool with you,” Mom said to my best friend.

Mom pulled out two pair of old red jeans, ones that we had almost grown out of, and made us cut-offs to go swimming in.

Then she went into her bedroom and pulled out a hand full of pennies from a ceramic nicknack shaped like a baby’s crib and rolled us each 50 pennies in paper tubes.

“Here. I can pay for you and Bill today.”

Ryan’s mom came in her car with her kids and said hi to my mom.

“Why don’t you come to the pool with us today?”
“Why not?” Mom replied.

It must have been embarrassing for mom to pay in pennies to get us in. Linda insisted on using her $20. Mom said no.

Ryan and Robbie said our mom was real good looking, they didn’t even care that we was poor.

Calico Cat Captures Hood Rats

A rat squeaked just as I was taking a bite of a turkey burger. Baby Girl brought it in from the back yard. Second one this week. This one was alive and squeaking like a dog’s chew toy.

Bradley screamed, “Oh my God. She got a rat.”

“Holy hell, it’s alive,” I replied.

“Quick get a broom.”

“What are you going to do with a broom? That’s a rat, not a mouse.”

“Look at it. It’s half her size.”

Baby Girl blinked at us, as if double winking, and quickly dropped her catch on the floor in front of us. We never eat at the kitchen table. The white sofa is much more comfortable, although it’s no longer white. We lifted our legs above our plates which were on two small wooden tables from which we always eat.

“Shoo!” I screamed a the rat.

The long-tailed rodent quickly turned back towards Baby Girl. The sassy calico wasn’t interested in the rat anymore.

Out came our other cat, Link– the big tabby. He’s never caught a mouse. No wonder. He simply looks at it and thinks it is like the fish in the tank, believing he is not permitted to touch or go near.

It hid behind the refrigerator for a half hour. We lost our appetites. Bradley was running around the house like a witch on a broom. I was shaking the refrigerator.

“There it went. It’s in the bedroom under the pool table. There it goes it’s under that jacket,” I said to Bradley.

“Link get away!” Bradley shouted as he slammed down the broom.

Baby Girl entered the bedroom.

“Baby Girl get out of here,” I scolded as she rubbed her multicolored fur against Bradley’s legs.

“Quick! Get something,” Bradley shouted.

“Like what?”

The only thing in that room besides the pool table is a stack of books I’m reading.

Big thick one.
Slam.

Squeak.

Bradley flushed it down the toilet. Made me sick. Now I’m afraid to read or go to the bathroom.

Vincent J. Lynch, MSW, Boston College

Dr.Vincent J. Lynch, MSW, professor of ”social work” at Boston College is hosting the 20^th Annual HIV/AIDS Social Work Response to AIDS conference again this year.

 

I cannot believe the 500 pound professor has not given me credit for writing a chapter in the book “Social Workers Speak Out on the HIV/AIDS Crisis”.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Social-Workers-Speak-AIDS-Crisis/dp/0275960943

 

 

When my former boss, Willis Green, Jr. of Harlem United Community AIDS Center was on his death bed, I worked tirelessly with Dr. Lynch in writing a chapter of the book on behalf of my boss, who at the time, couldn’t lift a finger, let alone write a sentence.

 

Willis promised to credit my work in the book. That’s why I poured my heart in to it. I was being paid just over $20K a year. I wasn’t paid to write a soon to be published thesis.

 

Years later, after the book was published, I called Vincent Lynch at Boston College and insisted that he at least mention me in the footnotes.

 

His comment to me was—“Secretaries do this sort of work for their bosses all the time.”

 

Well go screw yourself you dim witted, fat-ass, mentally- ill fucker!

 

After working with social workers for more than a decade, I have learned the hard way that most of them are cold, calculating bitches. When I wrote Willis Green, Jr.’s chapter in Lynch’s conference friendly book, I carefully crafted in lyrics from George Michael songs throughout Willis’s chapter.

 

Willis hated George Michael. I did it on purpose, knowing the type of character that Dr. Lynch has.

 

Revenge is so sweat and “Charity is a coat one wears twice a year,” isn’t it, Dr. Lynch?

 

I’m glad the book hasn’t sold that many copies. George Michael may have sued your asses. If he does not, I plan to.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmi02dHzT1I

 

 

Army Virgin

I lost contact with Brian McManus twenty-two years ago when I left 141 Signal Battalion in Ansbach, West Germany. At times, I sense his presence within the foxholes of my soul. He is one of just a few regrets I have in this life. If our souls are granted an opportunity to return again to this existence to eat from the vines we once trampled, I’ll choose to reincarnate in this body like a horny savior and re-enlist in the U.S. Army a second time. I want another chance to shine my boots just right and receive the blessing he attempted to bestow upon me.

 

I looked away from him, blushing I’m sure. I dismissed the pass he brushed against my flesh. He was simply indicating that it was okay that I found him sexually attractive. We were in the Army and such conduct was taboo. I didn’t want to get into trouble.

 

He led me on and I failed to turn the other cheek. Instead, I quickly turned my back to him to face the Army radio equipment I was responsible for maintaining. I pretended to be busy setting up secure communications with Brigade headquarters in Nuremburg.

 

“It’s so cold outside. Can I come in your rig and get warm, Taylor?”

 

“Yep. Come on in. What are you doing up at this late hour? I thought you were on day shift.”

 

“I had to get up and change the diesel tank on the tent stove. I need a cigarette. Do you got any cigarettes, Taylor?”

 

“They are menthols. You don’t like menthols, do you?”

 

 “It’s alright. I’ll take one. I ran out yesterday and haven’t smoked since then. What’s that you’re listening to? Foreigner? That’s cool.”

“It’s Sterek’s tape. It’s the only music he brought with him to the field. Do you know how many times I’ve listened to this album over and over again? I wish I had brought something different.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Anything else. I’m sick of it.”

“Foreigner is cool,” he said as he turned up the volume on the boom box a little and took a seat next to me beside a large, green tele-typewriter.

 

I quickly rewound the cassette to the beginning of side one and let it play again, this time he sat with me as we listened to “I Want to Know What Love Is”. Just as the chorus kicked in, he touched my face. He stroked my cheek gently with a dirty hand and spread his legs a little so I could see what he knew I had looked at out of the corner of my eye on numerous occassions before. Yes I could see very clearly and indeed, wanted to know what love was, but believed that what I felt for him and other men was so wrong.  Such a sin. Was he worth going to hell for? He certainly was, yet I was a soldier and had a code of conduct to follow.

 

The opportunity to touch him in places that once were forbidden to me would be well worth living through life and basic training all over again. I’ll face the hells of bad acne again just to have him pop me, like he wanted to do that cold January night when we were in the woods of Bavaria.

 

He was more handsome than any man I had fantasized about during adolescence. He made the men that I had known from pages of the Sears Catalogue look like faded newsprint. Curly black hair and blue eyes are such an uncommon match, but he had them and he stood at least three inches taller than me, and I’m almost six feet tall. I felt powerless and nervous as he sat there silently inside that Army truck.

 

I had already seen him naked in the barracks. We shared a room with two others—James Sterek and Jimbo Stevens. What a cock McManus had. At that age, I never knew they could be so big while soft. It was as round as the beer cans that cluttered the side of the room that James and Jimbo shared.  I couldn’t believe he was stroking my face as we sat in the dead of night inside a 31 Charlie Radio/ Teletype Communications Rig in the Army. Everyone else was sleeping. It was the right moment. He stroked my face, yet I turned away.

 

“Are you alright.”

 

“Yes. What do you mean?”

 

“Look here,” he said. He had it out and was holding it for me like a bottle for a screaming infant.

 

I just sat there, looking at the green strobe light flashing on the AG276 Modem inside my rig, pretending that it wasn’t happening. But it was. The song came to and end. The rig was shaking. I knew what he was doing behind me, but I just sat there, wanting to be good.

 

Now, 20 years later in life, I realize that it’s better to have lived than to have not sinned, but as far as I was concerned, as a gay virgin, he should have tried a little harder. I was waiting for a kiss first. How silly to believe in such romantic nonsense.

JP Morgan Chase Freezes Bank Accounts

An e-mail nearly gave me a heart attack this morning. It was from my bank– JP Morgan Chase, or it appeared to be from my financial institution. The logo was embedded within the e-mail. The correspondence certainly looked authentic–

Your account has been suspended. Suspicious activity. Click here.

I immediately dialed 1-800-935-9935 and pressed 0 to speak with a representative.

“I will have to transfer you to our on-line banking department,” a representative assured. “Mr. Taylor, I see you don’t have a savings account with Chase Bank, would you like to open one?”

“No thank you. I need to speak to your on-line banking department. Please transfer me.”

“One moment please.”

“Hi Mr. Taylor. This is Cindy. How may I help you?”

I read her the context of the e-mail which included details as to why my account was going to be suspended.

“I says here I need to respond immediately, or my account will be frozen.”

“That’s spam Mr. Taylor.”

“It is?”

“Yes. They are really getting good at it.”

“What do you mean?”

“On-line theft is skyrocketing.”

“Well, thanks then,” I said before hanging up.

“One moment, Mr. Taylor. I see you don’t have a savings account with Chase.”

“You must be joking,” I replied. “Didn’t the Federal Government just loan you 30 Billion Dollars? Why are you spamming me too? Do you know how many times I’ve had my account frozen? I’m not interested. Stop sending me e-mails you fucking whores!”

Keepsakes

Uncle Charlie and Grandma Miller are not speaking. Grandma told me she got into a heated argument with her little brother recently.

“You should have seen us outside the house here. I swear to God, it was all I could do to not haul off and slap him. I love Charlie, but he ain’t right. All of Petersburg must have heard my big mouth yelling at him.” She is so upset with him that she refuses to talk to her younger brother ever again, unless he “gets on his knees and begs”.

Uncle Charlie, the man whom I was named after, gave my grandma a wooden, antique bench a few years ago. The bench belonged to their parents. Because Uncle Charlie inherited the Price homestead when both Paul and Rachel died, he was handed down not only the large chunk of property with a large brick house in the town of Huntingdon, PA, but received mostly everything else that once belonged to their parents. It was what the will said, according to Grandma. Charlie got every god damned thing!

I remember my great grandparents vividly; two sets of them, the Prices and the Millers. The Prices seemed wealthy in comparison to the other side of the family. Grandma Price wore white gloves.

My mother was very fond of her Price grandparents and she showed me and my brothers off to them all the time. Grandpa Price smoked a pipe. The house smelled of smoldering wild cherry leaves. Grandma Price was always cooking something. Her grandfather clock was what I admired most with sticky fingers. .

She had tiny knickknacks all over the house. And the stairway which lead to the second floor was spiral. Just learning to walk, I’d attempt to climb the carpeted stairway, making my way to the spare bedroom where Grandma Price kept china dolls on a big, soft bed.

Going to visit our great grandparents was magical. Our great grandparents were genuinely happy to see us and there was always so much to explore inside their mansion. Outside the front porch there was a grapevine and back then, a milkman brought them milk and placed it in a metal box on the back porch. I’d run barefoot down the white sidewalk to see if more milk came yet. Grandpa Price would say, “Did more milk come yet?” and blow a smoke ring so perfect that I could place my hand through it like a silk bracelet.

Uncle Charlie lived with them back then. He had already been married, divorced and was back living at home again. The Price home was so warm. It was odd that any of their children, including my grandmother, would want to marry and move away.

“Is this the one you named afer me?” Uncle Charlie asked, tapping me on my head.

Mom smiled and told him I was the one. When I was only five, mom explained that Uncle Charlie was her favorite uncle and that’s why she named me after him.
It feels horrible knowing that Uncle Charlie is giving me such a bad name with my mother and grandmother over a silly wooden bench. I’m 40 now. I really don’t need this. Is this what I have to look forward to in my old age?

Grandma Miller didn’t think Charlie would care that she gave that bench to my mom. Why should he? He got everything else. The bench was really the only thing that my grandmother had inherited, and that was only because Charlie gave it to her. Grandma didn’t want it. She gave it to my mom.

“You take it, Flo. It’s yours. I remember you sitting on that bench in Mom’s house. You always loved Mom and that bench. Take it with you to your house.”

My mother was grateful for the family heirloom. She spoke of it recently to me on the phone–

“I moved out my fish tank, Charlie. Can you believe it? I’ve had that fish tank since when you and Bill were babies. I needed to make room for a bench that belonged to Grandma Price. It’s so beautiful. I can’t wait ‘til you come home and see it.”

When Grandma Miller told me that she had gotten into a fight with her little brother over a stupid, old bench, the one she had in turn, given away to my mother, I was saddened. Uncle Charlie is acting childish. He told my grandmother that she never should have given that bench away to my mom, Flo.

“My daughter, Billy Jo wanted that bench, Liz. Why’d ya give it to Flo, for?”

“You gave that bench to me, Charlie. I’m not giving it back to you. Get out of my house,” grandma screamed at her brother recently. They still are not on speaking terms.

Mom must feel sick in her stomach. Why would Uncle Charlie not want my mother, the woman who named me after him, not to have a silly old bench that belonged to Grandma Price?

“What are you going to do Mom?” I asked. “Maybe you should give it back.”

“I don’t know, Charlie…,” she said, while stopping herself, realizing that I’m his namesake.

“I’m going to call him and tell him I’m changing my name,” I threatened.

“That would get him. I dare you,” Mom suggested.

I really don’t know the man anyway.

Starbucks Closings in Manhattan

Starbucks coffee prices are falling like the stock market: not the hot and cold beverages served from behind green aprons of sexy, cool baristas; but the beans sold in pound and pound and one-half increments inside New York’s favorite restaurant. The fancy frothed drinks are still expensive.

Pikes Place blend is back. I’m not too found of its rather pungent aroma, but I bought a bag as a result of the recent media blitz released by the marketing geniuses who are doing all that can be done to keep Starbucks in the black. The chain re-released its original blend of coffee in response to recent economic heartburn. I bought a bag, being a big coffee queen.

My lover a I go through a pound a week. Our new cappuccino machine is fantastic– electronics combined with the power of steam. It spits out espresso so delicious that one does not have to add steamed milk for mountainous texture.

Now Starbuck’s Breakfast Blend is only $9.95– the same price as Pike’s Peak Blend. That’s down from a jolt of $12.95 for a pound of the pigmy toe shaped beans. I once paid over $20.00 for Starbuck’s Black Apron blend. It goes good with bud.

The coffee fad has come to a close in Manhattan and I’m stocking up. Starbucks has announced sharp declines in revenues and my busy mind is being blessed.

The number of perfectly air- conditioned coffee shops will soon be reduced due to customer demands. Within the last five years, New York City has been grinded into a giant, double-whipped mocha, stirred with thin fancy cell phones and flavored with a few Blackberries. They have a store on every corner now.

Everyone has been high on coffee. I’m glad to see the buzz shops closing down.

Wealthy decedents of plantation owners frequent the fledgling chain in the spring of 2008. Blue collar drinkers can no longer afford the perks in life. It’s back to Maxwell House for us.

As the price of oil soars and milk reaches $6.00 a gallon in town, it’s only a matter of time before everyone, even the rich, become chocked full of nuts and decide that coffee tastes better at home, without all the bitches around, soaring on a combination of caffeine and crack; searching for free packets of Splenda and Equal, due to their addictions to stimulants.