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You Call This a Storm?

- by Typewriter Fox

I didn’t think about the kids. I ordered another round instead.  Because that’s just what dirtbag, tin kicking 🦊s do on a random 517 Tuesday. On an angry night. When the storms blow in hard from the Great Plains. Gathering their strength out over the expanse of the big lake. Building destructive momentum. And painting the pallets of handheld radars with angry colours. The stuttering bite of backlit lightning silhouetted the curved outline of barely tolerated Eurotrash when her engines finally spooled up. Tolerated because at least it wasn’t a shitty downsized 757. That clunky beaked tin monster that’s a fucking chore to feed. Because its loose load bellies are a claustrophobic nightmare of knee punishing Boeing bullshit. The unremarkable Airbus generally fills the scheduling gaps …

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The New Old Town

- by Typewriter Fox

It was a February tease of a premature Michigan spring. A dishonest one. Because like most things here in the land of misunderstood Mittened madness, it wasn’t really real anyway. Just another Clinton County night spent pretending to be human. But at least it was a night warm enough to finally melt away all the fucking snow. Erasing all the ice clinging stubbornly to this 517 speed dialed insanity. And teasing a springed hope from all the inconvenient mud. But somehow, things inside remained rigidly frozen. And that left me aching for a different kind of thaw. Instead, I was rewarded with only an unseasonably foggy West Clark Road. The one lined with all the damn deer. Those tragic creatures cursed with a stubborn stupidity compelling …

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Dirtbag Holiday

- by Typewriter Fox

Shake off the muck left from the night before. Crack open eyes matted with dirtbag gravel. Trace the line of a frayed power cord; unlock a sticky phone. What’s that fucking number again? Oh, yeah. A birthday. I should probably change that shit. Just so I don’t have to remember those digits anymore. It stopped being relevant over a year ago. It might be easier to use the print of a shaking finger. But biometrics rarely play nice with battered ramp hands. So I’m condemned to absorb yet another PIN. Without the security of any sort of receptive cushion to actually carry it. Splatter out plasticine texts. Because if I don’t respond quickly enough, people worry. And then wonder all day if I spent the night …

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Peak Insanity

- by Typewriter Fox

Smoking my way through another black pack Michigan Monday night. Just because there is fuck all else to do, here in the frozen wasteland of an empty December 517 holiday season. Downing dirty pints. Like it’s my actual job. And not the pretend one. The one I play at every night. Dressed up like a ramp running G.I. Joe; the one where I am kitted out in a uniform of cobbled-together high-viz ridiculousness. With an endless variety of electronic paraphernalia strapped to an aging, uncooperative body balking at the inhospitable weather. It’s always the same damn battle. The one fought six nights a week. Or sometimes, even seven. Especially when it’s our peak season of commercial craziness. And there are glaring staffing gaps to fill. So …

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Champagne Idiot

- by Typewriter Fox

Slipping wild down around DeWitt Road. Right where the airport roads all blink and bend together. Down past the inconvenient end of 28 Left jutting out into Clinton County. That rippling runway scar along which a familiar tin tail number used to shimmy and brake in bombastic MD-11 style. Back in those happy times. Before that catastrophic crash, that cost me more of my friends. I was left shifting gears mechanically in time with the rhythm of sifted memories. Slapping the stick just to better absorb a soundtrack that only I could hear. Because something had to push me through all the suck.  And sometimes, you just have to ride out all the fucking hurt. It was just another unsupervised dose, of yet another manic Michigan …

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Last Call

- by Typewriter Fox

I have danced delicately in the grip of attractively damaged devils. And I have kissed the naked secrets of more freckled angels. I have played endlessly with big words. And even bigger guns. But eventually, I discovered that the words were far more damaging. Because a gun means unequivocally what it says. It rifles true in the world of pure absolutes. Whereas the whispered language of part-time lovers is often too unpredictable. And can’t ever be properly targeted in more responsible fashion. I am guilty of that obfuscation myself; I have never once said it plain before. It has always been easier to hide behind the clever wordplay. Lurking on the literary periphery of acceptable behaviors. Because I have learned through the errors of my trials …

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Black Box

- by Typewriter Fox

Boozy slides down icy Clinton County back roads. Airplanes that spin down on routine maintenance flights. Or inexplicably drop out of the sky. On fucking fire. Carrying the names of faces once familiar to our little backwater Mittened gateway. Danger seems to lurk everywhere these days.  And all I can think is…. fuck it.  Bring on your worst, Michigan.  I am not afraid. Because at this point, I think it’s honestly kind of funny. Maybe it’s the unreasonable number of fresh Old Fashioneds helping pump the cloying sludge through aging veins fueling that bravado. Maybe it’s just the sheer repetitiveness of it all. Because when you dance with the devil every damn night, danger quickly melts into the mundane. Especially after so many close calls. Admittedly, …

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Bar Blessed

- by Typewriter Fox

She ended up blessing me. And all I did was buy her a pizza. With an accompanying pint. At the time, it seemed like a fair deal. So I was happy to make the investment. She dropped into the bar when I was already several rounds in. It was just another typical Saturday Old Town night. One spent feeling sorry for myself. Because after a week of having been benched after punching that fucking airplane, the threat of other winged monsters arriving on the morrow loomed large. And I wasn’t sure if I was prepared for that challenge. So I occupied myself by punishing my brain with doses of liquid poison. Downing rounds like it was my new job. Because at least that was a hurt …

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Two Five Nine

- by Typewriter Fox

It began like every other Michigan Tuesday. Wake up. And immediately struggle to shake off the hangover.   Down some coffee. Rub bloodshot eyes into hesitant focus. Get human again behind the twin hits of caffeine and tobacco. Shuffle across the constriction of a boulevard apartment seeking more nourishing stimulation. Because something had to get the sludge moving again. Force a cold body into a hot shower. Just to feel a different sensation. And to steam an uncooperative body back into adult movement. That aging, fragile meat bag still yelping internally from the abuses absorbed the night before.   Even a brain left pickled from the unanticipated liquid poisoning could still comprehend that it was probably the closest to a baptismal that the attached Mittened maniac will ever …

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Bottom Shelf

- by Typewriter Fox

She said that this city is killing me. And, she is probably right. I feel the bite of that malignancy every fucking time the boulevard coughs and sputters. Or when I have to pivot myself to the floor to dodge the popping clack of turf wars erupting outside the second story of my window. I never wanted to fucking be in Michigan— shamrocked things were always much more my style. Because I was born with an insatiable hunger for something green. And the broken browns of dead Midwestern corn are at best a cruel joke. But here I am.  Suffering through the suffocation of another Ingham County overnight. Just rotting away in the inconsistent squeeze of a misunderstood Mitten’s grip. And expiring slow in the farcical …

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