Of Hero Major, Hero Minor and Hero Lost

Of Heroes Major, Minor and Lost ::Preamble::
It has been a long two years for me in Los Angeles and, aside from a few moments of misfortune or the lack-luster results of honest intention, it has been an amazing two years. To date, the actual amount of time I've lived in Los Angeles comes to roughly 2.724-ish years. Tonight's stories focus on heroes: being present, gone or taken. While this offering boasts not of candied smiles nor sugar-plum wishes, I can write that the first story, “Of Hero Minor,” has a happy, if uneventful, ending. This lack of a dramatic ending, I think, may be the thing that most clearly defines this story as actually having a happy ending. All other stories, when pulled off the gloss of the silver screen while keeping in tact the lurid drama that captivates our collective interests so well, become so damaging, exhausting and forlorn when seen on the stage of everyday life; when the events depicted happen to your neighbor, friend, colleague or random body, then the presence of drama sours events, perception and mood often to the point of spoiling, sometimes permanently, sometimes tragically. There is one gift coming from dramatic tales that we can hang our hats or hearts on, and that gift being that we can strive to be something better than we thought we were or could be. In as much as each person decides for themselves, we can find and embrace concepts that inspire us to greatness, because even though we may not have seen them in our daily lives, we may have caught a glimpse of it in our media. Tonight I write about heroism in three different forms: a small act in a split second, a tragedy with no public record, and a dire sacrifice in an attempt to keep peace. Though these stories could happen anywhere, these are all Los Angeles stories.

Of Hero Minor
This is the happiest story of tonight's trio and therefore the best place to start. Consider this the calm before the change. It is of minor importance I think, although its effect is difficult to estimate because there is no knowing what would have happened in place of this, if this hadn't happened or the outcome were altered.
Over a year ago I had started a boxing classes at my local gym. The class was meant far more as boxing for exercise as no actual fight training happened. We largely spent our time running laps, crunching our abs and throwing our fists at heavy bags until we couldn't stand anymore, or until the hour was up. I was never sure which was going to end my agony first for any given class.
On one particular night of boxing exercise, I was assigned to a bag that partially rested against the hinges of a metal gate; during class, the metal gate is folded into a collapsed state and rests against its moorings and is therefore in the direct path of the punching bag to which I was assigned.
I love boxing classes and the feel of power that comes from my fists thrusting into a heavy bag. This violent release meted out on an inanimate object representing all those cars that drive too slow, those loaves of bread that go stale too fast, those people telling us to buy organic bread because the other breads have preservatives that aren't good, to those damned bread companies adding unhealthy preservatives making the practice of purchasing food so much more difficult, and to that 8th grade teacher... Why were you so mean? Surely it had nothing to do with me being an obnoxious punk, a know-it-all and a smart-ass. So why? Enter punching bag, and 20 years of distance and everything is forgiven. After an hour, I don't care about any of it. I just feel my knuckles burning because the top layers of skin are smashed and force-pressed into the canvas-laminate bag, and it is good. At some point in this knockabout, where bag collides with gate, the repetitive pounding forces an unseen eventuality. The air is cool, my sweat is hot and burns my eyes by running rivulets from brow to cheek eventually dropping from my chin into night air. All around me are the sounds of muffled blows to soft-packed sand, and chains creaking from the stresses of everyone's vented days. I can hear the gate rattle loudly as I land punch after punch on the bag. Vented frustration leads to vented anger as blow by blow my knuckles wear the bag down while it, in turn, wears my knuckles down. In this raw and undisciplined melee, the collapsible iron gate juts free from its railing and it is free to fall. The sound of the bag and gate colliding ceases immediately, which alerts me to an unexpected change. The lack of sound means the bag isn't hitting the gate, and yet the bag is still moving. I look up to see the top of the iron gate begin a slow acceleration out, wide and down. I am at first immediately gratified slightly believing the possibility that I could have been strong enough to actually cause this to happen. I imagine the continued trajectory of the gate and see a woman standing directly at the gate's probable end of path. I think about the weight of the gate and its increasing free fall and know that catching the falling gate could hurt immensely. Better me than her. With a quick side-step setting my feet up for a forward lunge, I wave the woman out of the way and shout at her to move. I stand in the direct path of the gate and hold out my arms to catch the network of collapsed steel arms. I grit my teeth. My muscles taut in dread and anticipation. For half a split second I imagine that the gate my cut me; I push the thought aside as it is of no use. What's done is done, or soon will be. The woman is out of the gate's reach now. Her face is slack-jawed confusion and eye-brow raising fright. The gate lands in my arms and bows my knees from the pain and weight of impact. She's not sure what just happened but she is sure it didn't affect her, and she knows someone is standing next to her, who wasn't there a moment before, holding a gate and grimacing with pain and the strain of large burden. It's been too long now to completely remember if I dropped the gate, or tried to hoist it back in to position. I believe it was the latter. Twice throughout the rest of the gym class, her boyfriend took the time to thank me for saving his girlfriend from the falling gate. I am grateful that his response is gratitude, especially when so generously offered.
This is a good memory because it represents a concrete event in Life where I got to be someone I respected. Regardless of the fears of who I might've been, I have this as a rock to know I acted like the kind of person I wanted to be well before the rational mind could intervene and possibly veto any action.

Of Hero Lost
Twenty minutes in a Best Buy can make a world of difference.
Los Angeles is a wonderful city. It has almost anything that could be asked of a city or dense collection of anonymous neighbors. In LA, someone can surf the Pacific ocean in the morning, ski the slopes that afternoon and then hit the clubs at night in a dazzling array of mini-skirts, sunglasses, hair gel, frosted vodka bottles and lights in the colors of party and fabulous. With this comes another side of Los Angeles, a side just as well known and slightly less discussed, the Concrete Jungle. As of Oct 1st, 2012, the L.A. Times crime blog posted an annual total of 420 dead in the city by way of murder. The city of Los Angeles has 3.8 million people (as of the 2010 census). The metropolitan area and combined statistical area are, respectively: 12.8 million and 17.78 million. The city police department employs 10,023 police officers and 2,879 unsworn agents; these figures do not include the officers of the County of Los Angeles. (1.) On a Sunday of generally little importance, I was frantically running errands, driving the extents of Los Angeles from South to North and back again. This particular Sunday an errand had me stopping at the local Best Buy on N. La Brea and Romaine, in Hollywood. Traffic in this concrete jungle wore patience like the stress in my jaw, compressing my molars fueled by exhaustion and frustration. The parking lot for Best Buy was simple to navigate; the ceiling is vast, the lighting dim and the lane paint is visible. I parked, pocketed my keys, and with single-minded determination on my face, I entered Best Buy.
Within 20 minutes the errand was complete.
Hurried, because of a hectic schedule, I walked to my car. Oddly, I remember the Best Buy garage left an impression not altogether pleasant. The slate grey concrete walls were stained with dilapidation and enough neglect to dim the light inside its cavernous corners. The painted parking lines were present and bare while the ceiling loomed and engulfed the transient shoppers in a quiet isolation within which no one chose to linger. I quickly found my car and, feeling no warmth from the architect or architecture, engaged the transmission to be on the way. Rolling up to the garage exit, I noticed a single, relatively out-of-sight sign informing all drivers to exit only to the left. Looking ahead, I prepared the car for the necessary left, and expected others to do so as well, though not expecting them to be as quick about it as my schedule required. Expectations be damned; everyone was turning right. A few forward, I noticed that someone was directing all traffic to the right. Hmmmmm.... this isn't normal. Anyone who puts a sign up is intent on the letter of the rule being followed, so to have this clear deviation meant that something was afoot; living in Los Angeles and Santa Monica taught me that most likely a movie was being filmed nearby. Oooh! I perked up, leaned forward in my car to crane my neck around the corner in adoring fascination of the industry for which I work.
At the end of the street, to the left, scattered among the road paint, lay two humans, still, their faces resting on their cheeks, belly down, arms and legs at hollow, off-kilter angles. From a distance, their dress and form suggested the feminine gender, though no motion confirmed nor denied that. The ingress to that branch of the intersection was barricaded by a line of LAPD squad cars, each with an attending officer looking out into the intersection but offering no assistance, no effort and no reprieve for the humans who had not moved an inch. No ambulances were present nor any firetrucks. No medical equipment lay strewn about. No Hollywood camera trucks lined the street, nor any television news trucks. The duty of the LAPD in that instant was to divert the flow of traffic away from that intersection, not assist the two laying askew in the middle of the street about the asphalt crown. This was the western end of the intersection of Romaine and La Brea. You can find it on Google Maps. When my day's errands were complete, I headed home. The day had passed to night but the memory hadn't waned. To the contrary, I needed more than earlier to know what happened and who was laying in the street. Did their parents know? Was it an accident, intentional? Did anyone know, aside from the police and everyone turning right at a left turn only sign?
I tried for an hour to get through, but the local police station wasn't answering their phones, or the line was busy. Constant searches on Google yielded no answers either. I checked for days. When calling the LA Times to inquire what happened and who, if anyone, had been hurt, it was my inquiry that informed them that anything had happened. I was connected with a reporter who promised to check in on the matter. After a few days of emailing, she replied stating that the police had no news of the incident, and therefore had nothing to report. I know nothing more than what I've written here, which seems to be more than the police and the LA Times.
Does anyone know? I truly hope that the people who care, or cared, for these two knows and has the answers they need. If it is ever investigated it should be published on the LATimes local news website:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/ There is no mention here:
http://projects.latimes.com/homicide/neighborhood/west-hollywood/

Of Hero Major
This last story doesn't belong to me, and for over a year i have debated about whether or not to tell it. This story belongs to a friend, and it is in this story that my friend passes away. Were I to provide you any comfort from this story I would say that still, in these days of popularized and romanticized negativity and isolationism, there are people who do what they think is right.
DB was a coworker at my first post-collegial place of employment, a big fancy-pants video games company. At the time, he was a senior artist, already very good at what he did and very respected by his peers. He laughed easy, worked hard and made others feel welcome, even introverted goofballs as I had so readily been those many years ago. I'd like to regale you with stories of his wit, kindness and intelligence (of which it was clear he always had in plenty), but I cant because I never knew him as well as the others. I know he was good to work with, honest and kind. Others closer to him will know more and I wish someone closer to him wrote this story so that his life and times could be honored as befitted him. In 2003, I left the fancy-pants video games company to trek out into a new life, leaving some friends behind. Seven years passed before I saw DB again. It wasnt until I moved to Los Angeles that we reconnected. Occasional Facebook posts filled the years between, ensuring at least that names, faces and memories were remembered, as well as a mutual good will.
DB was the first friend from my time in video games that reached out after the move to LA. We were both working in or close to Santa Monica so we decided on lunch. He looked healthy and happy. It was refreshing to see because our last common employer was notorious throughout the industry for wearing down their employees and their employees' families. The restaurant squatted humbly in the shadow of the great raised concrete automobile river, the 405. We talked, joked, caught up. We were joyed at each other's successes and felt sorry for each other's losses but agreed that life was improving across the board for each other. Our jobs were better; our personal lives were better; we had both grown happier over the years and in our lunch we had a chance to celebrate that, in that openly stoic way that two male friends are want to do. I discussed sorrow over bridges I'd left burned when leaving the video game job and mentioned that i was too much a child at the time to be socially competent. In his reply, "we were all too young back then to be well adjusted" he brought grace and peace to unsettled memories and regrets. I will always be grateful for that. Lunch wrapped up and we agreed to do it again soon. Soon never happened though. A month had passed, or perhaps four, when the Facebook chatter reported that DB was dead.
The circumstances concerning his death were hazy at first, but as the hours spent themselves it became clear that DB was murdered. A few nights earlier, an argument broke out in front of his house. A woman and a man were verbally arguing outside, at night. Its been reported that DB did what he could to keep calm and intervene. Possibly enraged by this, the man in the argument attacked and murdered DB.
The wake followed soon after and was held in his community. The church sat at the end of an inclined driveway. The walls were thick, the interior space was airy and the pews were as uncomfortable as I'd remembered from my childhood church. I caught up withe old workmates from the days of video games. We briefly caught up; everyone is doing well. I paid my respects to people I'd never met before. Fortunately, a friend to joined me at the wake at my request because i didn't think I'd be able to do it alone. He knew nobody at the wake, which must have been daunting, but graciously helped me keep my shit together so I could speak to people without zoning out or climbing back inside my thoughts.
I wish i could tell you where to send money to his surviving children for college, and whatever one needs that only a father can provide, but those pages are removed from the internet. What I ask instead is that while you may never meet them, please say a prayer for his whole family, and a second prayer just for his children; growing up without a father is a hard life.
This is the only time I can remember using anyone's real name in these essays. Were this not a publicly reported event, I would have abstained from using his name. For more information, please visit: Video Game Artist Don Barnes Fatally Stabbed

Epilogue: Of Everyday Heroes
If you'll allow me this moment of sentimentalism...
What appeal for the hearts, souls and minds of humanity would you hear such that you would bring peace and joy to those you know and likewise to those you dont? Or to yourself? I'd simply like to ask that you be good to yourself so that you can be good to everyone else. This, I believe, is how everyday heroes begin.

Notes... 1. All statistical data regarding Los Angeles was pulled from Wikipedia:
Los Angeles entry on Wikipedia
LAPD entry on Wikipedia

Cigarette Smoke

::Preamble::

A good moving journal has written for it the occasional metaphorical contrapposto, as the tilted arm or slumped shoulder hangs off the rigid posture of rightness and movement so popular in the character sketches of the old masters: Leonardo, Michelangelo and even as recently as Degas. This contrast in expression and timely movements creates a single frame wherein a viewer could look for hours if well told. And further, if well told, could then embed grace in the very antagonism of contrasting poses: one arm strong and supportive where the other is bent, pliant and lost in the wind. Contrast is what drives us, more so than the simple notion that change drives us. Change is random whereas contrast is change with memories of before. Contrast is why we remember the dance step quick-quick-slow better than quick-quick-quick. For the sake of contrast, tonight’s subject is about the opposite of moving, changing, fluctuating, and molting. For contrast and the grace of balance, tonight’s subject is about roots and the beginning of a new awareness to that which happens when things stop changing.

::Bucca::
My new friend will be known as Bucca. Clearly this is not his name. He smokes. He’s old and seemingly closer and closer to a life in the hospital. I wish many things for Bucca. I wish him well. I wish for the feeling to come back to his leg so he can exercise. I wish his wife hadn’t passed and that he had someone. He does have a roommate right now and she is company and a steady ride to the hospital when needed. Bucca is old. It’s in his face, deeper than the lines and crevices, deeper than the skin slowly being drained of its suppleness. It’s in his face because it’s in his eyes. Bucca has sad eyes. His eyes look out, they skim and survey and land only fitfully on various things in their view. His eyes find no interest in what they see but seem so practiced in looking for things that they know no other habit than to look, survey and move on. I like Bucca very much; this affinity was not immediate.
Bucca sits most mornings on a nearly off-kilter, collapsible chair; it is at the least more sturdy than Bucca. He likes word puzzles. Most mornings he sits in front of his door, smoking his morning cigarette and solving puzzles in a book. We are not so dissimilar as I have my own collection of puzzles I habitually solve; the collection is on my iPhone and the puzzles deal with numbers, but these are only surface variations. We share a habitual practice to occupy our time and we do it with puzzles.

First Impressions are thankfully sometimes wrong-
At first I thought Bucca was a lonely, bitter, old man. I believe though that as I get to know him more that my first impression is incorrect. In fact, I look forward to the day when my first impression will be wildly incorrect. Bucca is the only person I see regularly in the morning and even in the evenings. He stands, looks out, surveys, registers no interest and continues looking and surveying until his cigarette burns through its life. Once complete, he turns with a slow shuffle and heads inside. In the mornings he sits studying his puzzles; they keep his mind sharp. I walk by, discuss the weather, ask about his health and if he had been to see the doctor recently. I want many things for Bucca but I think the thing I want the most it to see him every morning and evening so I can have someone to say hi to and I have some company as I pass time between work and living. Bucca is a man that has stopped to grow his roots in one place and, as I have so very little practice in growing my own roots, it always brings me comfort to see him study his puzzles and smoke his cigarettes. I absolutely hate cigarette smoke and especially loathe that lingering smell that even now permeates my clothes and steals the joy from the air. This however is a small price to pay for knowing that even as I plant roots for a single life in Los Angeles, I have a friend with his own sedentary roots who spends too much time playing games instead of getting out.

Bucca-
You would like Bucca; he doesn’t say much but when he does he complains about neighbors and reminisces about his wife. And Bucca has an excellent quality to share for anyone who wants to be known or heard in this world; Bucca is always happy to see you.

A California Night from Santa Monica

"Someone Saved my Life tonight."
A truck passes leaving a muffled, quiet rumbling in its wake. In five seconds the void returns and the lyrics drift in through the slatted glass window.
"someone saved, someone saved, someone saved my life tonight."
In looking out over the night covered streets the song comes from nowhere. The courtyard below, and the corner grocer parking lot, are empty. Cars pass occasionally and temporarily burning after images in the empty corner with their headligts - but here, on 17th and Ocean Park, Santa Monica is asleep save for Elton John's pleading voice. This is when and how the city block sings out loud when it believes no one is listening. 
"Someone saved my life tonight."
While inside one of the many apartments, the Latin Playboys are on an indefinite loop with the song "Crayon Sun" stating "This is what I am. This is what I am."

The neighbors in my building have in past and or present represented many unique points on the nations vast demographic scales. Criminals, a published Christian essayist, Korean school girls, parents, a septa or octagenarian, multiple visual effects professionals, caucasians, African Americans, mixed race couples, writers, visual artists, teens, forty year olds, mustaches, gray hairs, transients and long-timers. Not everyone gets along but at least people don't fight with each other in shouting matches. Sometimes a tv is played too loud, or sex is had at volume eleven, at one in the morning. Homeless people are invited around by one resident who has once gone so far as to make a lobster dinner for his homeless acquaitance and deliver it with some beers and served on top of a garbage bin next to the laundromat. Regardless of day or night, the bitter, and sometimes acrid, stench of wacky-tobacky lingers in the open air halways, just outside apartment windows. On some nights, random strangers stand in the dark alley with the tiny cords coming from their ears. Their eyes are often lowered as usually they desire to avoid direct eye contact. One person wore a hoody, stood completely in shadow against the day care hedges. This warranted a call to the police of suspicious activity. Of the weekly or monthly craziness that happens on my block, some of which starts in my apartment building, nothing was more scary or absurd than the resident who was hauled off to jail for human trafficking. We never learned where he was keeping the trafficked humans, but it wasn't in our apartment complex. This was over a year ago and there's been no similar trouble since.

Tonight though it's quiet as the city sings "someone saved my life tonight" and one apartment quietly replies "this is what I am."

How to Fix Your Brakes, Illustrated

::Preamble::
Tonight's post wraps itself around the soft, inviting cover of hobbies, manliness and auto repair. Rarely is a blanket of comfort so well weaved than when time alone meets personal accomplishment and hardened steel tools. Being able to take time aside from a busy life to build or repair something and to do so with the strength of my hands, the hardness of my bone and the stubbornness of my will is a deeply reaffirming experience. To look at something physical and know my hands have laid upon that material, formed or fitted disparate pieces together and repaired or created it brings pride without hubris and gratitude without expectation.
Additionally I should note that tonight's post brings two hobbies together. The description of the second will be laid out in great detail in a follow up post: the "How-To" of how this post went together; I assure you it is more interesting than it reads. The rest of this post should be humorous...

::Postamble::
Ah brake repair. It is so necessary a task. Without brakes airplanes would crash into levees, auto drivers would crash through fast food restaurants and order their meal while idling inside the kitchen. Even kites need brakes, for without a method to stop those flying daggers every third person would have an eyeball permanently attached to a flying piece of nylon on strings. And what of the Vikings? Without a method to stop their boat they might have accidentally carved a new river in North America as they missed their turn at Greenland and continued heading west.
What follows is a series of photographs from an old auto repair manual. I was fortunate enough to find these photos before I fixed my own front brakes last weekend. In case you're interested I replaced the brake pads and rotors. I'll relay the text as best as possible from the book I found. It is old so forgive the liberal interpretation of the instructions. From the illustrated manual, we can see that fixing your brakes, the front ones, is an easy process requiring no more than 8 steps. So... on we go...

"Step 1: Hire an Assistant-

The hiring of an assistant is of a dire importance. Assistants can be trusted colleagues who anticipate your every move and have the precise tool ready for you before you speak it's name. Working together side by side, you and your assistant will create a bond stronger than..."

Okay, this part gets fuzzy, but I think the author is trying to give examples of things with strong bonds like "Tango and Cash," "Bert and Ernie," or dihydrogen monoxide. The author then gives instructions on how to find an assistant including greetings of proper etiquette of the time. Below, the photo illustrates hiring an assistant.

"I say fair maiden... want to get in my buggy?"

"Step 2: Inspect Your Tools-

Now Reader once an assistant has been hired be sure that all working equipment is in operable shape. This is often where the bonding between you and your assistant starts. The pairing of technician and assistant must start here. Ensure your assistant understands the tools and job at hand."

Umm... I'm not sure what's going on here but I think the technician is excited by his assistant's knowledge.

Great Googly-moogly!!

"Step 3: Read the Instructions:

Well done reader. If you have made it this far, you certainly are quickly preparing yourself for the task at hand."

This photo is straight forward. Make sure you and your assistant read the instructions.

Find the nearest book and read it (this one!). All books contain useful knowledge.

"Step 4: Take a Break:

Reader by this point you have surely worked up a thirst. The road ahead will be arduous, take naps, cat-naps, breaks and rests often. I wager a shilling dear reader that you're ready for that nap!"

I guess people back then got tired easy.

Zzzz.... Oh not that insufferable Mr. Darcy again.... Zzzzz....

"Step 5: Fire that Chipmunk!

By now my fellow auto enthusiast you've witnessed that accursed chipmunk waiting around the edges of your project trying to take credit for your work, take your assistant or steal your Lucky Charms. Clearly I do not have to tell you this can not be tolerated. Fire That Chipmunk!"

Look at the chipmunks they had back then. I had no idea chipmunks evolved that fast in a hundred years.

You'll never work in this town again if my mustache has any say in the matter!!

"Step 6: Fix the Brakes!

This is it dear Reader. This is what all your napping and rodent expunging has lead to. It's time to fix your brakes! Make sure your assistant uses the big 'x' shaped tool in the general area of the engine bay. Buff the B-post!"

I think this illustrated guide is missing some key steps...

"Step 7: Congratulate your Assistant on a Job Well Done-

It is customary to show your appreciation to your assistant by making idle conversation and offering fair recompense. It would be rude to not ask your assistant if she is free on the morrow's Thursday to wed and make babies. The modern woman particularly finds large mustaches and waggy fingers appealing."

Times sure have changed since then...

Good Work Technician. Wiggle your mustache and she is now satisfactorily flattered! Prepare to make babies!

"Step 8: To the Victor go the Spoils

Soon the morrow's Thursday will approach. Prepare with a clean shave and practice your waggy fingers!"

Clearly not all technician / assistant relationships ended in babies back then. I think the author was deluding himself by this point.

Dear Technician, did you forget to properly display your waggy fingers?!?! A modern woman deserves better!!!

Artist and Bon Vivant: Tito Margolis Van Amsterdam O'Shaunessy IV

::Preamble::
Tonight's post is written from and with love and brings what I hope to be some lighthearted laughs at the spontaneity of a child's newly maturing sense of humor.
I wish, I wish, I wish I had the wherewithal or imagination to write tonight's entry. Were I to give credit to where credit is due, for the first section in tonight's post, I would credit my friend and his five year old son. I won't use his son's real name here, so instead I'll refer to him as "Tito Margolis Van Amsterdam O'Shaunessy IV." Though not a blood relative of mine, Tito Margolis Van Amsterdam O'Shaunessy IV is like a nephew to me and his sister is my Goddaughter. In an odd turn of events, I am their father's father.
The first section in tonight's post is a retelling of a dinner conversation at my friend's dinner table. In this conversation Tito Margolis Van Amsterdam O'Shaunessy IV references his "Andy Watching Eye." Tito Margolis Van Amsterdam O'Shaunessy IV will tell his father that he can keep an eye on me all the way from Chicago. This keeps me safe and I am grateful for Tito Margolis Van Amsterdam O'Shaunessy IV watching over me, from Chicago, with his "Andy Watching Eye." He's been known to see me on the beach, or after earthquakes.
The second section, shows a visual comparison of a drawing, of me, by Tito Margolis Van Amsterdam O'Shaunessy IV against an actual photo of me.


::That Which Succeeds the Preamble::

As told by my friend / son about his son, my nephew...

So last night we are having beef.  I'm certain it was.  My wife cooked, so it was absolutely amazing.  Tito is farting around with his dinner as usual.  I finally say:

(Dad) "Look…you need to eat that or you will never be big and strong."

(Son) "What makes me big and strong?"

(D) The meat and the veggies.

(S) This?

(D) Yes.

(S) How much should I eat?

(D) Depends on how big and strong you want to be.

(S) Really big and really strong.

(D) Probably all of it.

(S) Then will I be big and strong like you?

(D) Strong yes, but don’t eat too many sweets or you will be big like me.

(S) No, I want to be strong like you, but big like Andy.

(D )Well Andy is not big, he is skinny.

(S) No, not like that, I meant BIG.  Like he is so tall.  He touches the ceiling with his head.

(D) Really?

(S) Oh yea.  He is huge.  He is like a giant. Last time he was here, he left marks on the ceiling with his head.

(D) Really? Wow. How is he doing, Tito?

(S) I don’t know.  I haven’t checked in a while.

(D) Can you check please? 

(S) Sure.  I need to go to the bathroom and put my Andy watching eye in. 

(D) OK, be sure to wash your hands.

-Tito leaves for bathroom…we here sounds like bzzzzz clang clang clang bzzzzz (similar to transformers)

(S) OK I got it in.

(D) Did you wash your hands.

(S) I used Alcohol.

(D) Oh, OK.  So how is Andy?

(S) Oh no.

(D) Oh no?  What is going on Tito?

(S) He ate too much beef.

(D) Huh?

(S) Dad, he grew huge!  He busted down his building and is walking through the city.

(D) Oh no.  Is he breaking things?

(S) Kinda, because he is so tall.  He has airplanes around his head.

(D) Like King Kong?

(S) -laughs- Yea! Just like that.  They think he is a gorilla because he is so tall and hairy!

(D) -now I am laughing- Oh wow!  Are they shooting at him?

(S) No, he is a friendly tall hairy gorilla.

(D) He is a gorilla?

(S) Well, he isn’t a gorilla, he just looks like one.

(D) Are you sure you have the correct eye in?

(S) Let me go check.

-Tito runs into the bathroom, more transformer sounds.

(D) Did you wash your hands?

(S) No, I used alcohol.

(D) OK.  Was it the right eye?

(S) No, I have the right one in now.  That one was my King Kong watching eye.

(D) So what is Andy doing?

(S) Oh not much.  He is just watching some TV.

(D) Oh…ok.      ….    ….   How many eyes do you have?

(S) Lots. 

(D) Like a spider?

(S) Yes.

(D) That is gross.

-         Tito Laughs- finishes dinner.

::Comparison of Artist's Rendering to Actual Photograph ::
A few weeks I received an image which Tito himself drew. It's a portrait of me wearing my well known fedora. In order analyze the visual accuracy of Tito's artistic rendering I've created side by side comparisons of the rendering to an actual photo. It may be difficult to tell the differences between the two, so in the second image I've labeled some of the differences between the drawing and the photo.

The two images are amazingly similar which I think stems from the similarities of the hat. Unexpectedly, there are more differences then you may have originally noticed. You'll see from the photo that I actually have no abdomen whereas in the artist's rendering I have cloven hooves for feet, yellow hose, a purple sundress and a bullet hole.

The Little Things

::Preamble::
I am blessed and cursed by the play and intricacies of the little eddies and whorls of events that encompass and provide constant causation for the unseen and unsung mechanics of this magnificent world. Lately I have been more blessed than cursed by these nearly minute circumstances. Tonight's post, while perhaps not quite an ode to the little things, is at least and certainly a celebration of how small objects, events and circumstances can so perceptibly describe and massively impact all of our lives. So to these things I write in grace, with humor and from observation.

~ Post Preamble ~

::Immediately::
It has been a long day with friends and good people. This is a time in LA when the evenings get cool. I shan't say "cold" because of my friends and brothers in far colder climes. It is nights like this when the temperature drops and I come home to a dark apartment, empty of presence save for my own. I come home, turn on the wall heater, and curl up to the warm blossom of radiating heat and let it open around me.

::Thumbs::
Thumbs. Little, fragile, important. Today, from the love of exercise and physical activity, my thumbs are bruised to a degree I've never seen. I've asked my trainer to begin incorporating reflex exercises into our sessions. We added a new weight exercise. Using two 2-lb weights, we take turns throwing the balls at each other at random directions. This involves diving low with one hand while stretching high with the other as two small weights are always in the air. From catching the hurled weights, in which the use of thumbs of is repeated, I have thumbs near doubled in size. Two of my smallest digits are now black and blue and as tender as a steak cooked medium well. Every minute I feel their injured presence with every flexion and
retraction.

::This is NOT Penis Cream::
I have spent my whole life as a jester and probably as also a fool in such a degree as is necessarily associated with jesters. My adult years have only tempered my jesterhood but ne'er will this be wrought out. If it should ever empty, please know that pod people have invaded and I am no longer in my right mind. In short, sometimes I'm an ass. A few weeks ago i ran out of checks. I needed checks to pay the rent. So a few weeks ago i visited my online bank dressed only in the finest garb that a bachelor does when online
banking: a t-shirt and a glass of milk (it was cold, i needed the shirt). While perusing the créme de la créme of today's elite world of online check art i noticed that i could also order a personalized rubber stamp with my address on it. Why, if I had a stamp with my name on it, I'd be somebody. I might even be famous someday. That logic degraded when it came time to listing my address for the personalized stamp production. This is what i ordered:
THIS IS NOT
- PENIS CREAM -
FROM SANTA MONICA, CA 90405
Oh, my address book is out of date. Please send me your current address so i can send Christmas cards.

Idea originated from Steve Martin as a skit on SNL. Thanks Steve!

::Crushes::
Does anyone know if Alanis Morissette is single yet? If you see her let her know that I'm totally cool and awesome. Oh, let her know I smell like roses but manly roses: like what you'd get if you mixed a bouquet of roses with gun oil. She probably doesn't like guns, so tell her it's from a sensitive gun. It feel really, really, really bad when fires a round and instead of bullets coming out a flag appears that says "Hey, I'm totally sorry for scaring you, but you did break in to my house and that was naughty. Now be a good lad and call the police while I pour us some tea." On second thought... that's awkward. Just tell her I say "hi."

::Doughnut or Donate::
The local Albertson's is not unique save for it's location. The halls exceed at creating such a manifest beigeness that it's difficult to recall specific details. I dare say the past sentence was more exciting in explaining the store's passive presence than the it's use of mute beige. While in line to purchase my goods, at the last moment possible to add an item of purchase to my list, i look over and see a laminated sheet with bar codes for $1, $5, or $10. Ah! Of course, it's seasonal donation time at Albertson's. I ask if it's too late to donate and he says "No! There is still time. What would you like?"
"I'd like to donate please."
"How much?"
"Five dollars please."
He rings me up, hands me the receipt and says i can pick up my items over there. His hand gently pushes the air in a direction behind me. I am confused. I dont't think i'm supposed to get anything for donating.
He now points to a location on the receipt and shows me where i've made my purchase of five doughnuts. We have a minor back and forth to clarify any miscommunications in the end I decide that the hassle isn't worth having him refund the doughnuts and charge me for a donation. I can just as easily give away doughnuts as I can dollars. So I have 5 sugary, stale sweets - that kind of stale, sweet stickiness that congeals after too many hours in the air and not enough hours in tummies. I ask the cashier what donut he would like. Any doughnut is fine with him. One down, four to go.

::The Current Word Processor and Self Publishing::
This entire missive, and many others like both published and unpublished, is written on two small devices and requires two pieces of software. The total weight of the hardware may be as heavy as two pounds but it feels like that like less a half. The iPhone is the heaviest component as it carries all the brains. The wireless keyboard though greater in volume weighs noticeably less. The software I use to write with is an iPhone app called "Office 2." It cost me about $3. The other piece of software used is "blogger.com" at a mere zero dollars and zero cents. The phone I bought used at $100 and the keyboard, new, at $80.

::A Final Image::
A candid snapshot at the company holiday party this year, disco themed. Can you dig it?

Halloween Remix! :: Four Chopsticks and a Lighter

::Preamble::

First, if you are eighteen years or younger please do not read this post. If you have the sensitivities of someone who is eighteen yours old or younger, I recommend you also pass on this post.
Today's post is an offering to the lore of Halloween. I can't say what you are about to read it true, should you decide to read it. However, I can't say it's not true as I have no just means to measure the veracity of the events in this story. What is true is that this is a story and that it has absolutely nothing, at all, whatsoever, to do with daily life. So, if you're looking for the next humorous or heart-breaking story about a trip to Mexico City, New Orleans or somewhere else then I recommend you skip this entry. Also, if you don't like to read, might I recommend you skip this post. However, if you don't like to read I should have mentioned much earlier that reading will be required. So, if you are learning how to read to find a point where you won't have to read anymore, this would be a fine place to not read anymore.
If however, you like dark stories with mayhem and a fair shade of supernatural all wrapped up in a macabre bow, then perhaps you should continue reading. Not everyone that appears in the beginning of the story lasts until the end, and not all the words within this seasonally dark tale are polite.

:: The Story::

Halloween...
    Halloween happens as Dusk lays down her roots over the wired and tenacious city of Los Angeles. She settles her roots settle deep into the minds and soil of the expansive city, from the Palisades to Manhattan Beach and out east to Ontario. Every day light rests it's guard over the land and gives the Night free reign to charge or discharge the moments of man and their affairs over fellows, colleagues, friends and family. Where the night allows the day to settle lay beyond the reach of sight, just beyond the horizon, in lands freshly reacquainted with the light of day. Here Dawn uproots the mayhem of the night before, replacing nightmares with the first visions of the rising sun, and isolation with waking neighbors. But this night, in this city, Halloween comes quickly and conspires with Dusk to lay poison in the roots of night's take of the land, from the dying light to the death of last starlight - a moment when the hours stop their clockwise momentum and the eyes of sidewalk passersby twinkle with a curious, livid darkness.
The night is upon us now in the City of Dark Angels as Halloween awakens both ancient, and modern, misdeeds left unresolved. Four people shot dead at Sepulveda and Pico, 1932. Arson at Von Brauerstein's Mortuary, Rancho Cucamonga, 1971. The ghosts of victims and criminals alike awake from the sleep of death for one night to avenge a stolen fate or further seal an untimely end. This is the tragedy of Halloween's poison should a stolen fate remain sealed for the watch o' another year. This is also the redemption of Halloween's trickery providing a night free from death for the slain to seek vengeance in whatever manner required as this night promises no morality nor imparts a righteous requirement for living or dead. Should vengeance for a stolen fate prevail, a soul is at peace and may pass as it wishes with the gift of resolution; whereas the soul of the attacker passes to a place undesired for length of time there is no purpose in explaining. However, it may happen in the reverse where resolution and vengeance is not won this Halloween, where by the hour of the clock moving once again brings starlight and then the dawn, and those left unsettled are pulled back to the sleep of their death waiting the eternity of another human year to rise and try again. There are still those beyond the living and the dead but this night plays no special role except as a night to further the goals of the chess game of humanity when tonight the rules are reversed. This is a night where innocence is defined only by what drives a soul, whether with or without a body, and not by the mistakes of the past.


This Night in Santa Monica...
17th and Ocean Park. Santa Monica, California. Halloween is seen largely as joyously mischievous with no ramifications for the night's endeavors save an eventual dentist's visit a month or two from now. Parents walk hand in hand with their children; both young and old dress up pretending to be cowboys, law suits, sexy fairies, or elf princesses. In LA's famed west side is Santa Monica, a residential combination of trendy, safe, progressive and conservative. The costumes that parents and children wear may not be clearly aligned along age or gender lines. A sexy and demure fairy may walk with her 7 year old cowboy, or a well dressed man may walk alone from a liquor store with a cowboy hat covering his eyes and a bottle shaped paper bag, grasped in his right hand. This man may be a dentist or lawyer by day. Tonight he is the first step for a freed soul hoping to last one more year. This is one of many stories like this in Santa Monica, and similarly of thousands more throughout LA, all on Halloween.
This block of Ocean Park is quiet, gently swept by the constant breeze of the Pacific and snuggles quietly under the cover of night. Along the north face of Ocean Park stand an array of two-level, concrete and stucco dwellings for humans. Each stucco box spans half a block and is unique only in the small variation of count and sizes of glass panes. All dwellings are variations on prefab building codes from the late 50's. On 17th is a soccer and football field, part of John Adams Middle School, paved with AstroTurf and field paint. On the street is an array of cars whose models, years and makes define a collection of students, professionals and an occasional vagabond. Three blocks north of 17 and Ocean Park is Santa Monica College, collegial gate of the world to the land of Southern California, feeding directly to universities like UCLA and USC. Standing on every block for miles around are tall, often elegant, and slightly bowed (either from wind or gravity) palm trees. These trees, their look, and slender, statuesque posture are out of place among the tended urban sprawl and yet we wouldn't recognize these blocks of Santa Monica without them. Just beyond the line of sight from SMC the cowboy hat walks east out from the Korean grocer (who may soon have his own Halloween story should his temper keep its current course) with eyes hidden from the dark cast by the absence of light between the street lamps. His paper bag sways forward and back, keeping pace with his quickening Nikes as the cowboy hat leans forward with the ocean breeze at his back. Two blocks up and waiting stands a collection of bones. At best this specter is a partially complete skeleton, misshapen, ill-fit, leering, and charred. The bones describe a large frame and bulky human when alive. The cheekbones are high and the forehead slope back. Every surface is slathered with mud, crust and dirt. His breath is the rasp of wind over dry bones and his exhale is dust. Merry costumes and the people within walk past, through and around the skeleton, unknowing, unseeing and uninvolved; tonight the devil in the bones fights to stymie 4 lives and needs a living skin-bag to touch reality. The empty eyes fixate on the approaching cowboy hat, staring with a dead smile that only empty teeth and dread intent can create.Though he has the world to see, the skeleton waits for his cowboy hat suitor.

Five blocks down a group of trick-or-treaters pack into a two-door hatchback. Every arm, leg and painted face of the SMC students climb in hand over fist to make room for the others. The sexy spider girl climbs in first. Her legs are covered with enough fabric to maintain decency by the letter of the law. Behind her pile the androgynous Justin Bieber, the lazy trick-or-treater dressed like a broke college student, and lastly the sexy devil at the wheel. The engine sputters to life, begrudgingly, at the behest of sexy devil's turning key. The wheel turns and slowly pulls the car into traffic, heading north and east to Pico and Sepulveda. The turn signal clicks off and the group disappears into traffic. Back on Ocean Park and 20th the skeleton walks from the invisibility of vision, just behind the all-night laundromat awash in the darkness of neon reds, and steps in line behind his mark. Cowboy hat takes a full pull from his bottle shaped bag allowing the skeleton to step inside and ignite a dark glory of purpose. Halloween takes a step forward tonight as both parties are set in motion against each other, vindication versus suffering.


Four Chopsticks...
Dark Cowboy Hat walks down the street toward an empty car. The skeleton is a good fit for his host, but not perfect. His legs are now stiff being too long for the physical body. His knees never straighten as he walks for fear of ripping through his host. The must remain in tact our the occupier falls out. His posture leans to the left under the weight of the new skin, muscle and sinew. His arms dangle at off angles defying symmetry from any view. Unable or uncaring to be at home in his new host, the collection of bones walks Cowboy Hat toward a black hatchback with red stripes, a bullet hole and cracked, tinted windows. The car sits ill parked between two islands of light cast by the street lamps. Though it sits motionless with its lights off, the front end is pulled far into traffic waiting for a driver equally matched in its desire for vehicular harassment.
Dark Cowboy Hat opens the door to the mid 80's Mustang and after a few minutes of bending broken or dislocated joints finally reduces his posture enough to fit through the open and rests his bones in the driver's seat. He leans far to his left, unable to raise his arm more than a foot, and reaches for the door handle, pulling it shut. Though matched in menace with the driver, the car is well greased and slides easily with the Dark Cowboy Hat's stiff movements and dry joints. Once in, he reaches for two pair of chopsticks from within his host's denim jacket. He breaks each pair into singles by splitting them at the base. He rubs their split joints together causing splintered wood to flake and fall. As he finishes each stick he lays them gently on the dashboard. Once all are set on the dash, the dread smile stretches out his jagged hand to arrange each stick so the narrow ends point directly through the glass to the street ahead. His hand rolls over each stick until they are spaced 15cm, 35cm and 20cm apart. With no notice to the public, nor requirement of key, the 'Stang pulls into traffic heading East to Sepulveda on Ocean Park. The pair are now out of sight.

A Lighter...
We are grateful for the moments that go well for us, that bring smiles and cast away foreboding. We are grateful for raises, kittens, children or a good blow job. We are grateful for the light that doesn't go out as we walk beneath it at night. We are sometimes even grateful for the gift of waking up after night passes, and almost exclusively are we grateful for these gifts - large and small - when the light does go out, when the sex is bad or when our children embarrass us publicly. Almost always are we grateful for everything, including the bad, after a near death experience like vehicular assault. Smelling the foul stench of the airbag, the loud ring deafening your ears, the lapse in memory or culture and the immediate check of body parts after a head on collision. "Get out! Get out!" you yell inside your head. "Can I walk?!" you ask everything and nothing around you and you find only the stench of crunch answer as only they can "Take a step and find out on your own". These moments, when compared to any other day, make the sun brighter and your loved ones far less irritating, if indeed you are lucky enough to walk, crawl or be pulled out alive.

The four trick-or-treaters are recent friends with a shared heritage; they are all from Seoul though they did not know each other then. Each has come of their own accord to California, either by family or personal choice and all are studying at Santa Monica College preparing for their applications to UCLA. By their parent's pressuring three of them will go on to study lawyering or doctoring, except androgynous Justin Bieber. He will be studying computer science hoping to land a job in video games. Ideally he'll be working on "Star Craft," the most popular game in Korea when he was younger.
The group of new friends drive east on Pico over 34th. Just as they are about to pass Trader Joe's, Spider Girl shrieks for the car to stop and turn in to grocery. The rolling, metal beige hangs a sharp right into the parking lot and everyone slides left screaming and laughing. Tonight everyone is grateful to have the security of their friends, creating a little Korean island in a land of round-eyes, hippies, and thugs. The car rolls to a stop in a parking space. The hatchbacked, metallic beige sits in idle as Broke College Student pulls the latch to the door and kicks it open. He pulls his chair forward to let out Spider Girl and watches her legs as she goes. His eyes are relaxed and his smile still persists from the fun so far. Everyone is excited about what additional fun the night will bring and who... will hook up with who. A few minutes pass and the three inside the car are telling what appears to be a series of fabulous jokes. At least I surmise this from the continued exasperations and suffocating laughter, but I don't speak Korean so I can't be sure.
As Spider Girl exits the store she feigns a sexy catwalk strut from the 'automatic caution door' to the sidewalk. Her flame red, knee high, patent leather boot catches a cement crack and she topples forward just barely catching her own fragile weight with her other equally red, knee high, patent leather boot. In the middle of her not-so-life-threatening stumble a bauble of plastic tinkers to the ground with faint scratching sounds and settles on the ground. It catches Spider Girl's eye. She looks quizzically, can't remember having a lighter, then figure's it's probably Broke College Student's. He smokes after all. It's a disgusting habit but she feels a soft-spot growing for him regardless. Maybe she can help him slowly quit. She picks it up and piles in the back. Spider Girl clutches the lighter tightly knowing he will want it and so wants to keep it safe. Maybe he'll even think to appreciate her kindness, hopefully with a kiss. New to the car and hidden in the recess of the hatchback, a pair of four, faint eyes hover in the back of the rolling beige, immobile and watching. The car signals right and off they drive back into the night and to the theater of a destiny created years before their arrival.

A Race to Eternally Patient Fate...
Spider Girl pulls the lighter from her pocket and starts trying to light it. Fwick, fwick... nothing.

Approaching from the south where Ocean Park and Pico merge a black mustang peals down the road, long past Cloverfield and Bundy. He is not the loudest machine on the road this night as a group of daytime accountants, dressed in denim, chains, beards, and skull face paint, roars westbound on their Harleys. The volume of the exhaust stealing their own dignity while throttling an engine designed to choke for air and never get enough. The 'Stang heads over 32nd, 34th, 38th, running each red light. Faster and faster Dark Cowboy Hat pushes his steed, kicking the clutch in and downshifting to 3rd reaching 75, 80, 85. The four chopsticks are aligned as before at 15, 35 and 20 cm apart and aimed at the open road beyond the windshield.
The 'Stang takes a series of two soft rights where Ocean Park empties on Pico and crosses scantly over Exposition. Through the first corner the mustang almost swipes a rolling beige vehicle then turns abruptly away southeast on Exposition.

Fwick, fwick... nothing. Fwick. Spider Girl smiles, leans forward and wraps one hand around Broke College Student's eyes. With the other hand she reaches the lighter to a space next to his ear and tries lighting it again. Fwick, fwick. Startled, he jumps an inch, turns around and grabs for the source of the noise pulling the lighter from her hand.
"Where'd you get this?" has asks.
"It's yours, right? I found it on the ground."
"Well it's mine now! Perfect timing. I needed a smoke!"
"Not in the car!" yells Sexy Devil.
"Relax! I'll roll the window down."
Fwick, fwick... nothing.
"Damn."

Driving south east on Exposition, Dark Cowboy Hat slows to 50mph and searches for street signes. Up ahead, and soon to be passing by, he sees a sign that reads "Sepulveda." He immediately cuts the wheel to the left, pulls the e-brake, and steers into the skid sliding to the east curb of northbound traffic on Sepulveda and Exposition. The car revs down and when the smoke clears from the shredded tires, a woman with a seeing mouth and empty eyes sits motionless at a bus stop. Her bald spot turns to look at Dark Cowboy Hat, followed immediately by her seeing mouth, agape and staring at him through her jaws. Her eyes stay as they were, looking south at a rabbit and a lounge singer walking together and bickering, but still holding hands.
The driver's right arm raises slightly, bent at the elbow and flicks two fingers back, gesturing the woman and her seeing mouth. She walks over, eyes still on the rabbit and lounge singer but mouth gasping slovenly for air as each fat-leadened leg steps forward. The driver in the hat raises a single finger and twirls it. The sausage finger of the woman's hand excitedly points to a chopstick. Dark Cowboy Hat exhales dust in a low moan and turns his head from one side to the other. She points again at the chopsticks, this time reaching for one. Dark Cowboy Hat grabs her finger in mid theft. In a single twitch he flips her figner backward, beyond the crack of bone, the pop of broken cartilage and snap of torn sinew, breaking or tearing everything inside.

Fwick, fwick...
"Well I guess this is as good a time as any to quit smoking."
Fwick, fwick.
The metal beige nears Sepulveda after being stuck at every other traffic light. K-pop plays loud on the worn speakers. Sexy Devil and Spider Girl are singing along as androgynous Justin Bieber drums on the back of Sexy Devil's head rest.
The eyes in the back are still in the back. They are still and still they are waiting.
An unlit cigarette hangs from Broke College Student's mouth, begging to be lit and smoked.

The woman hobbles back to her bus stop, groaning while trying to breath and see. For her trouble she has lost an egg while gaining the skin-bag's wallet, which is useful even for the dead. She's given up trying to reset the backward finger and instead rifles through Cowboy Hat's unadulterated wallet.
Dark Cowboy Hat takes his newly acquired egg, places one end on the dashboard while his fingers hold the other end up. For one moment he is still, and then with a twist of his fingers sets the egg spinning on end.

Sexy Devil sits at the light in the right hand lane and flicks the lever that starts the turn signal. Androgynous Justin Bieber pulls a comb through his hair; his heart pumps stronger at the thought of tonight's party and the girls and boys he'll flirt with. Will they like his costume? Spider Girl leans forward and begins whispering softly to the back of Broke College Student's head rest. The walk sign for pedestrians turns orange and counts down from 10 seconds.

Anticipation begins. The journey is less than a block from ending. The skeleton master pushes Cowboy Hat's left foot on the clutch. He uses his host's other heel hold the break while throttling the gas with the toe of his Nike. The egg wobbles slightly but is still spinning and somewhere in the back of the physical brain Cowboy Hat thinks to fight his usurper, but too many years of drink combined with the last swig of bottle shaped paper bag adle his resolve.

Inside the mustang Dark Cowboy Hat pulls of his hat and throws it on the seat behind him. A cool slick darkness covers the mass where a face should be. It smiles then raises its head to howl, stretching its neck. It bellows a deep, guttural howl, gravelly and course. The spinning eggs decelerates and starts to wobble. One more year of freedom is about to be sealed.

The pedestrian light flashes and counts down: 3, 2, 1. Sexy Devil begins to turn and accelerate. Halfway through the turn she slams on the brakes when a four ghosts in matching Sketchers and empty eyes walk in front of the car.
"Haiii! You almost killed those people!"
"I didn't see them okay?!"
The tallest ghost lights a cigarette as the quartet walks past.
"Oh man! Not fair, I want a smoke!" he reaches within his pocket for the lighter and Sexy Devil begins again, slowly. As the car sheepishly rolls out, the ghosts in their cool sneakers are gone and the desperate eyes have returned to he recesses of the beige vehicle.

The Mustang's engine now roars in unison with the driver's sick humming. The host's lips now show sign of disease because bodies only last so long without their entwined owner. The egg slowly winds down...
and finally falls over.
The driver releases the clutch and brake while slamming the gas. The tires peal then catch and the black stallion shoots out into the street.

Sexy Devil accelerates the beige and in a flat out run, the car just reaches 20mph heading south on Sepulveda. Up ahead, a pair of headlights drive up and over the median then go dark. Back in the beige, the backseat trick-or-treaters are busily singing along to K-Pop as their heads bounce on or near the rhythm. Broke College Student feels a the itch and the pulling allure from the cigarette hanging in his mouth. He pulls the lighter out and holds it to his mouth.
Fwick, fwick...

The mustang crosses the meridian and is now seconds from colliding with the beige. Each chopstick is aimed at one of the passengers in the approaching beige just seconds away from...

"OH My God! You Ass!" Sexy Devil sees the lighter ignite and the and cigarette tip start burning. With her left hand on the wheel and her right reaching out like a frantic feline, she grabs the cigarette from his mouth and the lighter from his hand in a fit of three to five swipes then throws the whole set out the window.

The demon driving the Cowboy Hat skin-bag which is driving the mustang sees the world slow down in this moment of exhilarated pandemonium like the world slows down for all the living in the moments before, during and after a collision. As the white paint lines race into the grill and are consumed by the vehicle the fell demon loosens his grip on the wheel and relaxes.
The owner of the body registers his death only moments from now just as Sexy Devil throws the lighter and cigarette outside the window.

"Hey! My cigarette..."
The four eyes from the back of the beige launch forward the moment the lighter and cigarette reach the outside air. The eyes fly toward the lighter and cigarette.
Suddenly the car is flooded with white light from just outside the open window.
"GGAHHHH!!!" The car fills with shouting. Sexy Devil reflexively pulls the wheel away from the noiseless explosion and toward the right. Her hands are rigid vices at the wheel and her blood becomes as battery acid from the torrent of adrenaline. In this car everyone is sharing the same adrenaline rush as the mustang approaches.

Mustang, Skin-bag and Demon alike see the explosion but only skin-bag attempts to slam the brakes; he is overridden by both demon and mustang. In the blinding light the demon makes one last correction to the right. He slams his fist on the dashboard sending the chopsticks flying forward. They explode through the windshield leaving four small holes behind with small crumbles of broken glass. They are flying into the brilliant white light ahead. Through the explosion come four pairs of eyes reaching out with a force. The mustang is too alarmed to register the intruders; they pass through the windshield with no difficulty and reach into the skin-bag. The mustang races forward with the drunk human, leaving behind the eyes and the skeleton in their grasp.
The car races through the now dying burst of light and drives straight into a tree back in the meridian.

The rolling beige passengers are screaming for the desperation of this moment and they hope that God, any God, will bring sanity or quiet. Their car rolls to the right and quickly decelerates as the aging brakes fight to keep up with the hunk of rolling metal they're attached to. The car pops up on the curb and rolls into a bus stop bench then rolls another 25 feet before coming to a stop, in an empty administration parking lot, a few feet from the glass wall of Park, Hyatt and Burke.

Cowboy Hat sees the tree approaching and has .1 seconds to begin crying before ...
A horrid wreck of metal explodes against a tree as fenders crunch over door panels, a battery explodes, glass ruptures and is pushed forward by the skin-bag flying through the windshield, head first and body broken as it passed by and mangled the steering wheel and dashboard.
The chopsticks are buried six inches into the tree trunk just below Cowboy Hat's facial impact.

25 feet back, on the lane lines in the middle of the southbound lanes of Sepulveda, three pair of eyes are standing around the skeleton as the fourth pair of eyes is still strangling the limp set pf bones. In fury and passion, and from years of torment the fourth pair of eyes forces every last bit of passing breeze from the air that was once Skeleton's throat. Wringing the bony neck, his hands clasping tighter and tighter, and convulsing under pressure, tears form in his rage-red eyes, hate pours through his hands and creating enough pressure to spin a frail spider web of red veins in his eyes. His pupils dilate. Skeleton's vertebrae start popping. As the grinding sound of dry bone compressing against dry bone becomes audible to the others in this Halloween quartet. The eyes shoot quick glances at each other; dispassion becomes concern in their raised eyes. They look down at the fourth, choking a dead skeleton. The pale shapes of what could be their bodies flutters in and out of visibility with the strength of their growing worry. Skeleton looks up one last time and is met by Fourth's fist across the bridge of his nose, now broken. Fourth beats him a few more times but no amount of fists or force will remove the dead skeleton's malivious smile. Fourth is now leaning on top of him, crying and howling wildly, beating his decades old adversary with both fists lost in rage, in an animalistic orgy of violence fueled by suffering.

Sexy Devil and Spider Girl are the first to lift their heads, bloodied from minor scratches. Sexy Devil has the worst facial injuries where the airbag pushed her glasses into her face lacerating the skin around her nose and eyes, but leaving everything relatively undamaged and nothing major injured. Broke College Student is leaning forward and starts rubbing his neck, after he stops screaming. Tomorrow he'll have muscle problems in his neck. The lap belt kept him from sliding forward while the shoulder belt kept his upper torso from flying forward hinged at the lap belt, which would have otherwise severely damaged his spine, if not broken it. Androgynous Justin Bieber put his hands up in a defensive position just before impact where his head then slammed into his fingers breaking three of them and bruising his face.

Back on the cement, as Fourth reaches the climax of his tortured and violent outburst, outline of a square traces itself as a small, thin depresseion of the surface gravel. The thin line traces back to it's origin, becoming a square the about 4 feet wide and long. The cement beneath the skeleton opens. The demons bones separate as the hole widens, each sliding in until the skeleton as a whole dwindles to nothing. Fourth begins to fall forward with the last of the skeletal remains. Fourth's rage turns to panic as balance slides out from beneath him. Before he falls in completely he is grasped and suspended by the remaining trio.

The door closes and the skeleton is gone. The passengers in the beige are safe and have begun walking out of the car, stumbling like zombies without the sense to look for brains.


Dawn...
The four pair of eyes and their souls are free this night for all nights. This night has seen the positive change of fortune in one story long needing the relief of justice and of suffering ended. Sometimes by miles and sometimes by minutes the quartet has missed this triumph.

Halloween on this night has brought the chance for people to end their suffering, should you deign to call the dead people. But, we all know that we are more than our bodies, more than our brains, and are more than the collection of actions and thoughts that filter through our physique and mind. We are all and each a presence with an intention and a will to bring action and change to the world before and around us.
Dawn will come soon. Clocks will restart under the black sky and Halloween's poison recedes from the land and those souls whose untimely ends are left unresolved begin disappearing. The woman who watched the world from her open mouth has succeeded in avoiding the hole in the Earth for one more year.

Day comes and brings no comfort to those fortunate children whose worst problem was eating too many sweets. The light of the sun fixes many problems and sets many things to rest but has yet to counter the powerful effect of industrial strength sugar consumed in large quantities.
Hug the person next to you. Give them your affinity and generosity. Be grateful for the Life you have before fortunes shift and the only thing you have left are memories of things you forgot to be grateful for.