Tag: random
Blog Posts / Random / Writing

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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Blog Posts / Random / Writing

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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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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Ramp Rats

- by Typewriter Fox

Gold and orange autumn canopies arched over broken Michigan asphalt. Reflective ocular cautions of migratory deer lined the road curving out past the grip of those unhealthy Clinton County mirages. Glaring glances peeked accusingly from the fields of brown corn recently broken in the harvest. And they constantly threatened unexpected collisions during the entirety of that wandering Tuesday night Airport Drive. It made me want to collapse into the want of someone. But that was just another 517 impossibility. And my heart fucking knew it. So I could only keep driving.  Pushing myself down past the awkward highway interchanges. And up around the curves where the numbered signs stop making sense. Because I was always taught that 69 should mean north and south. Not east and …

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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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Blog Posts / Random / Writing

October Exits

- by Typewriter Fox

It was right there. That exit out.  The one hooking right off of Old 27. Curving out to the promise of someplace new. Maybe somewhere better. Hopefully a place where the spooling engines don’t whine like temperamental metal bitches. And old hearts don’t get so easily broken. A single tug on the wheel; a simple moment of high-mile highway insanity.   Could it really be that simple?  The stink of airplanes chased me; every part of me itched to be clean. I found myself in need of a higher proof baptismal. And not just because of all the circulating infections. But because every broken man needs something numbing to which to pray in times of want. I had originally intended to behave. To be a good little …

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September Pines

- by Typewriter Fox

The tree atop what we once considered “our” little hill has started to die. The limbs are bare; the branches have all turned brittle. Broken remnants litter the ground. The trunk is suffering. But it used to be a happy place. That agreed upon spot where two lovers used to meet. Down along the river running Grand in the springtime of our romance. That little park strip, just on the Turner side of better gardens. The one filled with fragrant roses. And the brighter freshments never destined to endure. But that was in the before time. Back when summer warmth teased out natural glories. And allowed us the simple joy of actually feeling alive. I remember clearly the race towards that little hill. And just how …

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Sharing an Old Town Sunday

- by Typewriter Fox

It’s funny sometimes what the Mitten can throw at you. It was just another untethered 517 Sunday night. One spent wandering through Old Town brick. I was unsupervised and unappreciated; it was a night rapidly bleeding into no agenda. Even though the underlying vibe was one of sticky hours in desperate need of filling. It was the third bar of the night. Hours of pre-partying sloshed behind me. Because it’s impossible to predict the number of pints required to properly wash away the stink of a week’s worth of tin monsters. Especially the temperamental ones, born of European pedigree. Because those fuckers can bite you if you aren’t paying attention. It was also difficult understanding the dosage required to help calm a wounded heart. The one …

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