Tag: anti-social
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

Capital City Bender Blues

- by Typewriter Fox

Hot concrete alleyways. The reek of stale piss. Potholes and pitfalls. Destruction buffered by neon orange barrels. Barricades blinking caution. Fresh spilled asphalt and naked construction ringing named neighborhoods once historic in nature. The ones now desperately trying to make all the old things back new again. The Capital City.   Its face familiar to me since those early summertime drives. But strangely foreign to me now that I’ve seen it through the bendered lens of an empty bottle’s bottom.  Strange vibrations tangle unsteady feet. Green glass lies echo everywhere. Ugly graffiti, sprayed with the rattle can of memory, howls. Because no matter how many times it gets power-washed under high-proof pours, traces still linger undefined.  Another sleepless night. A fresh spring giving birth to more stillborn …

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Tequila Sunrise

- by Typewriter Fox

It was just another Michigan Sunday dirtbag night. One itching from the bite of hours left unsupervised. And one thirsty for the familiar refreshment of dirty Guinness pours. The free shots of tequila were an unexpected addition. But then, so was she. And while fermented worm juice is not particularly my favorite way to rot my gut, she is still my favorite way to break my heart. So I couldn’t refuse the offer. And then I kept drinking long after she disappeared back into the night. Maybe that’s why I woke up in the stinking confines of a concrete parking garage. That urban surrogate standing in for the depravity of more familiar Old Town bushes.  But at least it was a change of scenery. Not that …

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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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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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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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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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Blog Posts / Random / Uncategorized / Writing

517 Skeletons

- by Typewriter Fox

Somewhere amongst the curled pages of a yellowing manuscript lies my truth; somewhere beneath broken Michigan heartbeats hides my story. And in the space between the division of those divorcing concerns, somehow I survive. But, barely. My mornings are partnered with throbbing afternoon hangovers; my nights are too often invested chasing after ghosts. Lingering translucent amongst the memories in all those windows; reflecting on shadows cast across Old Town alleyways. Straining to hear the echo of old laughter before the tin monsters steal the last of my hearing for keeps. Because I can’t fucking remember the last joke she said to me. Robbed of my favorite little hill by the blight of renewed expansions, I seek another sanctuary amongst strange geography. Slinking haphazardly across inconsistently patched …

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Old Town Blues

- by Typewriter Fox

Lightning flashed bright above the skeletons in a strange city. Cold October rain ran down the back of a neck collared in high-viz blues. An inhospitable wind blew in west from the big lake, carrying with it the last kisses of those warm weather collisions. But I stood alone in the rain that hollow Saturday night. Felt the shift of the seasons on a greying face. The one turned over towards the river. And there, amidst the blustering of that storm, I felt myself hurting for her. Rows of Old Town brick houses stood guard over a spot that was special only to us. Because it was once the place where we just couldn’t bring ourselves to say goodbye. I will never forget that day. We …

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Crossroads

- by Typewriter Fox

It isn’t often that life affords you the opportunity to stand at a literal crossroads. But there I was. A high-viz collar turned up against the darkness of Turner at my back. East Cesar E. Chavez stretching out beside me. Facing the curves of the planked river trail. The one skirting the spot where the fish are supposedly laddered around.   The song of water dancing over the dam filled the symphony of another Old Town night. And for once, I wanted to be safe in the sound of something. Because everything else has proven itself a whole lot of nothing. And the claustrophobic silence of that vacuum left a nervous fox drinking fidgeting. To the west, orange barrels lined the bridge. Their rigidly spaced regularity paced …

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