one the Astronomer Dead For a while I didn't have a rabbit and only from time to time would I think about having a rabbit. Those were explainable days. I could give account of all that happened from sun-up to sun-down but for some reason I couldn't remember my dreams all that well or achieve any kind of meaningful lucidity. All that would come later when I got the rabbit. When I got the rabbit much became inexplicable, and it is perhaps because so much began to happen that there was less and less time for reflection. Ultimately my life has become a mysterious blur, a series of bewildering scenes that change as quickly as I can forget them. My dreams on the other hand are as legible as a clear night sky with labeled constellations. His name is William Blake and I got him at a fair. There was this big blue tent a stone's throw from the ferris wheel I was waiting under. I wandered over, lifted and ducked under the tent flap to find long lines of cages before me, and the happiest little kids darting from domicile to domicile, begging their parents mostly in vain. I strolled with my hands in my pockets down the rabbit avenues. There were big ones, little ones, white ones with red eyes, grey ones that looked like distinguished British detectives, and patchy auburn ones you imagined accompanied hobos on boxcars. And then there was William Blake, long-ear'd, brown coated, dark-eyed, and he wasn't in a cage. He was suddenly there next to my coffee bean color'd boot, very much the same shade and size. I said, "Excuse me sir," and his ear lifted a little like the tent flap. And I squatted down and picked up a twenty-five cent piece that was partially under his front foot. I put it in my breast pocket and then, as I remained crouched, the fella hopped in front of me, faced me, and put the same front foot in my hand. I looked into his side-mirror eyes and twitching nose and said, "You hungry?" I bought William Blake and in case you were wondering he came with the name. He cost me one-hundred dollars. When Darla got off the ferris wheel she was in a bad mood. The lights and the heights had given her a headache and headaches give Darla the blues. Jack on the other hand was moving as if some star somewhere was wishing on itself over and over for his good health and fortune. I held William Blake in my arm like a football as they came towards me. Jack slapped a hand down on my shoulder, and looking in all directions said, "I've got a hankering for corn on the cobb—you think they got corn on the cobb around here?" Darla crossed her arms and looked at some spot on the pavement. Her hair fell in front of her face and she stood silent like an apparition. Now, when I encountered William Blake in the big blue tent he wasn't in a cage like the rest of the rabbits. He had given me a quarter (sort of) and I asked him if he was hungry. Having already pocketed the quarter, and observing the twitchings of his nose and chewings of apparently nothing, I felt it most natural to give him the couple cookies I had in my coat pocket. He munched them up and from what I could tell was heavily contented and pleased to know me. When I purchased him I was given a list of foods troublesome to rabbits and of course cookies were on the list. But William Blake is no ordinary rabbit, as you will see. Darla parted her wavy hair like the red sea and threw it behind her ears. She said, "I want soda." There is a place you can go after ten but not after midnight because it closes at midnight. You can get corn on the cobb, coffee, pancakes, peanut-butter sandwiches, free sandwiches, soda, grilled-cheeses, soup; on wednesdays at four you can get oatmeal chocolate chip cookies; you can get a wide variety of Schlitz-bars there and in fact you can buy ENTHUSIASTA- BARS in bulk. Naturally we went there because it was ten-thirty but even if it had been midnight we still would have gone because we know the owner he lives there and lets us in whenever. You can get fireworks there if you know the right way to ask for them; you can even get set up on a blind date; you can get curly fries, french toast, chewy-Plutos and baklava; you can get cartons of eggs courtesy of the free-range chickens that roam the property; there's a heavy-bag in the back room in case you want to get a workout in, and rumor has it Nervous Dave and the Shaky Legs cut their first album there. And so we wandered over it wasn't that far from the fairgrounds. Darla spun round in the nighttime street under the yellow ufo streetlights. She no longer had her headache, no longer had the blues because she knew she was en route to a musically flavorful place. "When did you win that?" She asked me, finally noticing William Blake tucked in my arm and believing him a stuffed prize. "When you guys were on the ferris wheel," I said. And though I knew it would eventually be as real to everyone else as it was to me I cherished the desert moments in the dark under the ufos wherein William Blake the rabbit was a truth and treasure hidden in plain sight in my arms. It was like prayer. Declan Huxley isn't technically the owner of the pinknewspaper, but abstractly you could make a good case. An owner generally cares about profit and loss, damages to the property, reputation and reviews, and whether or not there is a family of raccoons straight up living in the infrastructure of the premises. But Declan doesn't keep track of such things. In his own words, "I've never liked math, and the raccoons like pizza crust, and it's always given me a dreadful hollow feeling to see cold hard pizza crust just sitting in the strewn open boxes, it's like coming across the rigor-mortis remains of a crime scene, and the raccoons take care of that for us." It is a strange place and strange-looking too. You see life can take all that you love and turn it grey. It can take a red heart and make it brain matter. And that is why I find it fitting for the pinknewspaper to sit on the border of Emerson Cemetery. It's one of the largest cemeteries around. It's good for walking dogs in. There are many flowers and nice statues. It's pretty creepy at night though. And so, when Jack suddenly said, "I've got an idea, how about we go and die in the graveyard?" Darla snapped a shutup his way and then said, "I hate when you say that." You see, if you're on your way to the pinknewspaper by foot, you can take the spooky shortcut through a portion of the cemetery, and you can initiate it by saying, "How about we go die in the graveyard?" You might notice with mystic eye two words that sound related, mausoleum and museum. You see, a museum is a tombstone blown up big with chiseled out corridors; it is where what lives forever goes to hang on walls in paintings. But Jack Darla and I had decided to take a shortcut through where what dies and stays dead goes to lay in the earth. We had decided to cut through Emerson Cemetery. Darla whispered in the midst of our steps like a continuous threadlike cloud awkwardly avoiding comets. "I'm going to London. Tomorrow I'm going. I'm sick and I'm dizzy and I'm tired of being in a graveyard in pitch-black darkness." "Why would you pick London then?" Jack said. "That's like the ghostliest city you could pick." "Tokyo—I'm going to Tokyo that's where I'm going." "I don't know about that either—what do you think Roc?" "Very mint green and mystical," I said. "I'll bet ya got plenty of hauntings there." Darla stopped whispering and said, "All I wanted was a soda." I could feel William Blake trembling in my arm, and remembered that rabbits don't have much body fat to keep them warm. Jack was leading us through the chill of the nighttime cemetery when suddenly he stopped. He said, "Wait hold on a second. I think we went the wrong way." "No we didn't Jack stop it," Darla warned. "Nah I'm not kidding I'm lost in the sauce here. You guys hear that?" "Hear what?" And just then there was a dull groan that came from the ether. It was clearly a frog, for there's a small pond in the cemetery. "Zombie," Jack said. "You know what why don't I just kill myself?" Darla suggested. "Hey Darla," I said, "you got any goodies in your bag?" "Yeah," she said, and I heard her rummaging through her bag. "Here," she said, and handed me two pieces of chocolate. William Blake nibbled them up from out of my hand. It was suddenly the loudest noise in the dark quiet of the cemetery, a rabbit's rapid wet nibbling. "What. The fuck. Is that," Darla said. "That's William Blake," I answered. Now I never asked him if he was truly startled or just trying to scare Darla but at that moment Jack yelped, "I'm outta here!" and took off running. Darla shrieked and followed fast behind him. William Blake and I remained there motionless listening to their shenanigans disappear in the distance. I looked up at the moon. I have seen the moon many times and this was one of the times. I put William Blake on the ground and said, "You can go wherever in the world you'd like to go." And I looked up at the moon and said, "You may stay by my boot-side if you like, or a stone's throw away." And William Blake went hopping away and I was alone in the cemetery under the moon with God and the stars. The pinknewspaper is a fine establishment. It's a house, really, with an upstairs and a downstairs and a front porch and back porch. There are so many rooms and there is so much room and you wonder truly who runs the place and how it works. When I showed up that night the front lawn lay spangled with candlelights illuminating spaghetti dinners. All ages all tongues, laughters and quiets, trios duets even a single, romancings, rebuttals, there was even a couple playing chess with a timer; and the many forks did twirl and spool the Italian strings. I weaved through the tables and threaded myself a path to the front door. I quickly opened the door and closed it behind me, and I observed the first level of the house where much was going on. A pinball wizard was cheered on as waiters and waitresses emerged from the kitchen carrying steamed spaghetti. With a sense of rogue urgency I dashed left up the stairs and passed a couple on the way. They said something to me but I rushed to the top of the stairs and hollered out some kind of lunacy, I may have said, "I plead the fifth," or, "I'm on my way to Glove World." In any case they didn't buy it. I still felt very much alone in the cemetery under the moon with God and the stars. And to feel like that and suddenly be around so many people can make a man feel sick and criminal. Luckily as I stood over the second floor balcony I saw that the couple huddled in the corner of the stair was Jack and Darla. I said, "What are you astronomers up to?" Jack said, "Lookin' at train tickets." I said, "I feel like a criminal—Darla—you got another couple pieces of chocolate?" She did. I ate them up and it made me feel more like a genuine citizen of the world. We sat at a table upstairs. Darla ordered a diet-Love and Jack got his corn on the cob. Darla said, "I'm never going to sleep ever again. The day never ends and I always have to go to sleep before it ends. This time I'm going to find the end of the day before I close my eyes." Jack smacked me on the shoulder and said, "Fall in love with someone and write some songs—just get it over with—like rippin' a band-aid." I said, "I wish there were a song alone in the cemetery under the moon with God and the stars—but it's all so quiet. It's a song so loud that the volume's turned all the way down and it just breaks your heart right in half." Jack bit into the corn on the cob and said, "All that'll still be there, just quickly fall in love and write some songs. Rip the band-aid." There's a family of raccoons that lives in the walls of the pinknewspaper house. They've got a pretty good thing going. The younger ones if adventurous move out when they hit that restless age, and one hopes they take to the sewer instead of those treacherous interstates. Many an eager raccoon with fast-food restaurant dumpsters glowing in his little nighttime eyes has left his career to be scraped off the road and frozen in a roadkill freezer. We salute these stunned and struck soldiers, these pilgrims of the trashlight letter; for we know what it is to make the journey, to have verve for the voyage, verily listening to the disbelievers call our treasure trash, and to perhaps discover it less than that; finding death to be the only destination absolute. And yet one hears their rumbling behind the walls, the busy-work and the best of days, navigation of night-crawl and careful extraction of food-scrap and something important and dangerous to chew on like live-wire. These are the heroes, the humor-driven devils that would be angels but belong to the low places of the earth. In any case there's a family of them living in the walls of the pinknewspaper house, and in any other house it would not be okay it would be disaster, but there it is Astronomer Rules. I ate another couple pieces of chocolate and went over to the window where there's a blue telescope you can use for four minutes upon depositing twenty-five cents. I went into my breast pocket and took out the quarter William Blake had given me. I put it in the slot and turned the dial a hundred and eighty degrees. I heard the currency fall into the belly of the modern age and a timer begin to tick tick tick. I prayed to God to see comets. I could no longer fall in love and I needed to write songs and I prayed to God to see comets. ENTHUSIASTA-BARS were all the rage until they were suddenly yanked from the shelves. It caused a great deal of confusion and added a flavor to general cultural tension. People were more impatient on the roads and at restaurants. Breakups and ghostings flared up and The Smiths became the most listened to artist on all platforms. Church and temple attendances went up fifteen percent according to a study done by the Midnight London Observatory. And through it all, the founder and active CEO of SCHLITZ-BAR Incorporated, the one and only Mr. Dan Schlitz, was, as usual, silent and unreachable. An unlikely treat, the ENTHUSIASTA-BAR attempted to do what no one considered possible by way of candy. And what it attempted it succeeded. Miracle-like and ludicrous a paradox deserving recognition as a new fleshed-out battle between star clusters to be told by the traveller's fire; the ENTHUSIASTA-BAR when eaten made one feel more connected to life. For the brief time it was available there were half-eaten ones all over the place. The ENTHUSIASTA-BAR's effect was to be forgotten about entirely, while calling to the consumer's mind something truly important in their life, that like a disappearing dream they had fumbled. It became a common occurrence to hear, "Do you want the rest of this? I gotta call my dad," or to see one in a trash bin with only one bite because somewhere someone was proposing, or quitting their job, or finishing a chorus. No mind-altering substances were found in ENTHUSIASTA-BARS. The feat had been accomplished with flavor. And then they were gone. People returned to the arts that helped them escape from life, and the art of the ENTHUSIASTA-BAR became a missing marvel. It was around the time they vanished that a childhood friend of mine, Declan Huxley, moved into the pinknewspaper house. He said he met the owner somewhere and struck up some kind of deal. "And Roc," he said to me, looking both ways wary of outside ears, "there's boxes of ENTHUSIASTA-BARS in the basement," and he handed me a couple bars. Of course I let Jack and Darla in on the secret, and we developed a kind of system. We buy a box every now and again, and Darla always carries in her purse a tin of the broken-up squares of chocolate. One day we were standing on the subway platform, waiting in the dark for the train, when the lights appeared under the arch-way of the tunnel like cosmic eyes and Darla turned to see them, with a black bow in her hair, and Jack said, "Here come the comets, let's get going somewhere." And the train took us to the Midnight London Observatory where there are tombs for the Astronomer Dead. There was a woman who wrote a letter to Nikola Tesla about lightning and the chocolate-bar and the alchemical potentialities of the two—they say she lays among the tombs of the Astronomer Dead. Darla doesn't like to go in the tombs and to tell you the truth neither do I but sometimes Jack and I will get a couple slices of pizza and eat them in the tombs. But if you go past the tombs and go up the great granite steps and don't get too distracted by the tea-room, you'll find yourself in one heck of a library. Jack and Darla get reeled into the tea-room every time and every time I end up in the library all alone. It's a good system. The tombs when you go past the tombs they do and it does something different for each individual. For Darla it makes her want to handle little teacups of varied geometric design and color. Jack becomes ravenous for biscuits and feels within himself an ancient need for biscuits and crackers and cheese. And me well as usual I become as gloomy as a graveyard and I like to be alone among the books and feel really quite unworthy of the books. I go from shelf to shelf and I move among the shelves and I really feel no connection to anything ever anywhere. And then because I'm nothing and nobody I begin to see beautiful things; for the heavens and the earth never so shined as much as to one as dull as discarded. After having been gloomy so long I sprung from the shelves and went out the back entrance of the library. Jack and Darla were at that moment arriving over the small bridge that rainbows over a stream of the Midnight London River. A bicycle went past as Darla shot me a look that said, "You missed tea-time again ya goof," and Jack looked like he was all hopped up on cheese and crackers and mystical herbal tea. two Navigations of the 25¢ Variety When you don't want the day to end and you have not seen any comets, when you have not heard any music nor heard the voice of a friend; when the timer on the blue telescope runs out and you've spent your lucky quarter, and the rabbit you befriended and bought for a hundred bucks hops off in some cemetery; when you hear the family of raccoons rustling around in the walls and the Astronomer Rules say you're one of the dead ones that lay in the road; it means the best of days are a stone's throw away; it means the candlelights in your world are wizards, stars that wish on themselves for your good health, good fortune; it means your life is a blind date with the angels, a treacherous nightcrawl under the ufos, a big blue tent revealing rabbit avenues, navigations of the 25¢ variety. It was that night, the one Darla said was a day that could not end until she felt it end. I was over by the blue telescope that gives you four minutes to look at stars if you deposit a quarter. My time was up. I hadn't seen a damn thing. I needed more quarters. Jack was talking to Smokie who was wearing overalls and nodding her head abundantly. I waltzed over and noticed Darla slumped over the table snoozing. Smokie began to expostulate eloquently on the subject of tombs. "A museum is a tomb," she was saying to Jack. "Make no mistake, a museum is a kind of tomb." I sat down and said, "What's up—talkin' tombs?" Jack scratched his head and slid a paper plate of half-eaten lemon cake over to me. Smokie stood up quickly and folded violently so that her golden hair whipped forward and agreed with gravity. Still bowed she reined in every lock and strand of her hair with both hands and then she rose, her face flushed, a hair-tie going from her wrist to her working fingers. She said, "Roc, it's my birthday try that lemon cake." Jack said, "What the fuck does that even mean?" And then civilly he turned to me and said, "It's really good cake—eat that—it's really good. Smokie made it, it's her birthday—it's really good cake she made it." Smokie sat back down and said, "A museum is a tomb with a stone rolled away. Whenever you're in a cemetery or any dead place you're a stone's throw away from a museum." Jack looked at me with a helpless expression and said, "Do you understand any of that?" I said, "This cake is fantastic—either of you got a quarter?" Just then Darla sprung up like a revived corpse and hollered, "Don't let the day end!" Jack gave me a quarter and I went back over to the blue telescope. And this time around I saw the crescent moon being played like a stringed instrument, or else it was bow and arrow; and then on third glance of mind it was a walkway, only made possible because someone had taken a costly bite out of the moon. Three streaming stars at once blurred by below the moon and its mystical walkway. They were gone and yet I could still trace the light-trails—had I imagined them? No matter, I imagined more. I imagined they three to be travellers of different destinations who had huddled together like hobos in the same boxcar briefly. One was surely a comet, orbiting the sun, burning up, too clever to get old. Another was a meteor compelled by the earth, heading towards the ocean, the forest, an open field, the desert, a mountain range, or a suburban roof. And the third of course was a meteor escaping the gravity of the earth, moving along and into deep space to discover ethereal light and the loneliness of God. I took my eye away from the blue telescope before the timer ran out, and I looked at the road below that was cut short by an early morning fog that was rolling in. The crescent moon still hung above it all with that lace of pathway cloud running through it. It was three o'clock in the morning. The pinknewspaper house had closed and locked its doors at midnight. Smokie was the only one left from her afterhours birthday party and I was wondering where Declan was. Declan Huxley is the only human being to have successfully finished "The Mesmerizer" at Stella's Diner. It features three eggs any style, three pieces of bacon, two chocolate chip pancakes, two pieces of toast and then a second plate featuring a half-roasted chicken and grilled cheese. If all this is eaten, a slice of pumpkin or peach pie is brought forth accompanied by a Delilah-bar. Now, the Delilah-bar is an animal-cracker laced chocolate-bar that many believe was the precursor to the ENTHUSIASTA-BAR but the ENTHUSIASTA-BAR was of course manufactured by SCHLITZ-BAR incorporated, while the Delilah-bar belongs to the beloved manypoet series of candy delights. Declan not only completed "The Mesmerizer," but later that day was charged with destruction of public property when he front-kicked a mailbox repeatedly, reportedly (and confirmed by me now because I was there) yelling out, "I should get to read all the mail now—do you know how much food is in my stomach?" It was around that time waiting for Declan that Smokie told me how it was all going to end. She was leaning back in her chair and filing her nails and saying, "You know what I think Roc?" I was standing by the window and Jack and Darla had gone downstairs to look for rice krispy squares. I said, "What think ye, Smokie dear?" She said, "You're going to be eaten by a great white shark." I said, "Now's not the time for that kinda talk Smokie." She said, "No really—you're always lookin' out windows and lookin' through telescopes—you're seekin' a sign. Lord says the only sign to see is the sign of Jonah, and Jonah got swallowed by a whale. But you strike me as more of a great white shark kinda guy." Darla rushed up the stairs with a bunch of rice krispy squares wedged in the spaces between her fingers. Jack followed, and after him was Declan, who was rambling about Stonewall Jackson. "The man's arm is buried somewhere else," he was saying to Jack. "They're not exactly sure where—I say we take your camper—camp out, look for the arm." "But why?" Jack said. Darla sprawled the rice krispy squares out onto the table and wasted no time tearing into one. Smokie took one too and tossed one over to me. I put it in my coat pocket. Declan said, "Roc, pop those attic stairs down I gotta show you something." When we were up in the attic he said, "What's wrong you look desolate." "Smokie told me I'm gonna get eaten by a great white shark." Declan widened his eyes for a moment, rubbed his chin and nodded. "Yeah," he said, "well, yea, you know—Smokie's generally spot on about that kinda stuff—but listen—shake it off—loosen up—just—just forget about that—cause I need ya—need ya focussed—I got somethin' monumental to show ya." He put his hands together, wiggled his fingers and shrieked like a hyena into them; then he turned like a crazed hermit and rummaged through a pile of junk. He hurled some of it behind him, which was the same as hurling it at me, all while murmuring to himself inaudibly. I quickly dodged a tin cylinder that was destined for my forehead, I heard it go whizzing by. Then a bowling pin landed on my foot. I yelped and skipped and cursed the man. "Aha!" he proclaimed, "here it is!" Suddenly all the lights in the attic came on. I turned to find Jack over by the switches. Darla was coming towards Declan and I as if she already knew there were a mystery afoot, and the shelves of the stored-away and forgotten were illuminated in the world around her. Smokie was coming up the stairs as Declan held up in the golden attic light a copper-colored coin about the size of a quarter. He said, "I know what you're thinkin' but the safest place for somethin' like this is under a pile a' junk, trust me." There was a woman who wrote a letter to Nikola Tesla about lightning and the chocolate-bar and the alchemical potentialities of the two—they say she lays among the tombs of the Astronomer Dead. The alleged letter is a thousand pages long and bound like a book. As we stood there huddled in the golden attic light gazing at the strange oversized penny between Declan's finger and thumb Smokie said, "Is that the Ellen Emerson Cent?" "Dammit Smokie," Declan rebuked, lowering the treasure. "I'm doin' a thing here—in the attic, under the lights—there actually shouldn't be this many lights on, and Roc should be the only one here—Roc did you know this was the Ellen Emerson Cent?" I shook my head, "I didn't, I didn't know." Declan held the coin between two fingers and pointed them at Smokie. "And why'd you go tellin' the guy he's gonna get eaten by a great white shark?" "Wait really?" Darla said, astonished. "Dude that's awesome," Jack said, "congratulations." He shook my hand wholeheartedly. "Thanks man," I said. "No," objected Declan, "no 'thanks man,' no—look, Jack, Darla—love you guys, always good to see ya, but you shouldn't be here—not qualified. And Smokie—can we all just admit that Smokie is terrifying? Okay? Unerringly telling the future? I let you have an afterhours birthday party in here—and then you tell my boy he's jaws-bound?" "Just why are we unqualified?" Darla snapped, crossing her arms. At that moment one of the raccoons from the family that lives in the walls snatched a rice krispy square from out of Jack's hand. We all watched the critter retreat with the treat to some hidden passage where the wall meets the floor. "Thievery," Jack said. And in the hollow of the house the raccoons listened to the footsteps and the chairs dragging across the floor. The pickin's had been good that day and night. They had half of the lemon cake Smokie had made and some uncooked straws of spaghetti. One raccoon had recovered an overcooked meatball and tried to share it with the others, but they were convinced it was a rock and besides had better options to choose from. Earlier in the day Darla's sister had been in for brunch, and not only did she toss a muffin sleeve with some good sized crumbs in it, but she also dropped her watermelon chapstick. That night a very distinguished raccoon lay in a corner with half-shut eyes. He had bitten the cap off the chapstick and eaten all of it. This, coupled with a can of blue paint he helped himself to in hand-scooped lickings, gave him a nasty stomach ache for the night. He lay in the corner at a slight incline on his bum and back, wheezing and purring through his teeth and feeling immense pride for his current condition. Ellen Emerson was a letter-writer that was for sure. They named a cemetery after her and it is a great honor to have been in your life a writer of letters, signing your name at the end, and then in death have your name be a sign for where some go at the end. There's an unmarked grave in Emerson Cemetery and at the top right corner of the stone is a circular slot the size of a quarter. If you put a coin in there it'll fall and you'll never hear it hit bottom. And so Declan had the "Emerson Cent," the rumored "right coin," that when falling finally makes a sound. The only evidence we had of it being the one was that Smokie had identified it as such, and Smokie's always right about that kind of stuff. It was nearing four in the morning. The sun would rise at seven. Jack went into the fridge and got a bunch of diet-Loves. Smokie said, "Where the heck's the rest of the lemon cake?" Declan brought out a few flashlights and carried a big tub of spaghetti under his arm. He said, "Here's the deal—we put that coin in the grave and nothing happens, well, at least we had a good graveyard picnic; if on the other hand it opens up the gates of hell—well, at least we had a good decent last meal." Our appetites quit. No one wanted spaghetti. For one thing the unmarked grave is by the pond, and the smell of bass and thought of frogs doesn't exactly make you want pasta. But apart from that it was anticipation killed the picnic. Something had to happen. Something. Scanning the tombfield, checking the stones, my flashlight kept fluttering until it died. I was in the dark. I could see the searching lights of the others, moving in further rows, like perfectly circular spirits or two-dimensional ufos. And then that crescent moon undressed itself and let its hair fall down. La Lune my living nightlight cast a glow upon the ground. And there he was! William Blake the rabbit by my bootside! I squatted down and stroked his head. I said, "Hungry?" and remembered the rice krispy square in my pocket. I tore a bit of the wrapper and broke off a piece. William Blake the rabbit nibbled it up out of my hand. He hopped off upon the moonlit ground and I followed. I found it odd the amount of illumination offered by such scarce moon. Something had to happen. Something. For me and my friends. Who so long waited for London or Tokyo as Darla did, not wanting the day to end because she was alive so very alive. Or like when Declan and I sat in a movie theater and before the movie began I turned to him and said, "If this theater turned into a spaceship and got launched into space would you care?" And his answer was immediate he said, "Nah," and I said, "Yeah I wouldn't care either." We weren't useful enough on the earth. And Jack with similar reverie, yearning to take his camper and go off into the wilderness. Even Smokie who knew so much, had nothing to care for, nothing to love; she was covered in dust. And if I didn't have songs to sing soon that I believed in, that testified to something true, that couldn't be stolen and warped—but no, that's the way it always is. Everything gets stolen and warped. Still, there in the cemetery under the impossible moon, frantic and foolish I follow'd the antidote to doom. I widened my eyes and breathed. I could be nothing and no one forever and still go looking for the rumor'd slot eternally. I still had dreams. I always had dreams. If you can have dreams you can have songs. William Blake the rabbit led me to the unmarked grave, and there it was, that circular slot in the top right corner, about the size of a quarter. I broke off another piece of rice krispy square, knelt down and thanked the man. Then he hopped off as he did before. I remained there in front of the grave as the moon put her clouds back on and put up her hair. I was in the dark again. three The Thing About Being in the UFO The thing about being in the ufo is that they delivered my letters. Imagine that. I put stamps on 'em anyway 'cause I carry a little square tin of stamps in my inside coat pocket, and a stamp kinda spruces up the envelope, but of course I didn't have to. The ufo that I was in didn't give a damn whether or not my envelopes were stamped. I walked around the ship quite a bit, and the thing about being in the ufo is that it seems to have solved the tightness I had in my hips. I used to have a hard time on a skateboard on account of my hips, and I couldn't throw a sidekick without falling backwards—I had a heck of a time just tryna sit cross-legged, but something about just walkin' around on the spaceship and writing letters in my head freed up the mobility of my body and of my mind. I'd write a whole letter in my head and then go to this room where they had a table and chair and a window that looked out on the magic lights, swirls, and spheres of the universe cosmic. And there was a little sign on the table that said, "You don't have to stamp your envelopes we don't give a damn whether or not they're stamped." Sometimes I would wake up and not know whether it was morning or night and it would give me a quick feeling. Some people call it panic but I just call it a quick feeling. And then I'd remember the ufo and put my hand out on the wall and feel the humming and then I wouldn't think of the mornings and nights then. The thing about being on the ufo is that I couldn't remember the earth all that much in the beginning. I'd say, "I don't remember the earth all that much," and everyone on the ufo said the same thing, they'd say, "Good that's good and how are you have you had breakfast?" I made a great many friends on the ufo and there was always breakfast. There was tea, and there was a gentleman there from London who went on and on about tea and biscuits and London and cheese, and I would say, "Maybe tomorrow there will be London," because I did not remember the earth all that much and thought London might be a kind of tea or cheese. Then it happened that I was wandering the ship writing a letter in my head, when I realized I had not been putting addresses on the envelopes, nor had I put the names. This confused me a great deal and I said to someone passing by at that moment, "I don't remember the earth all that much, I've been writing letters I don't know who to, and I'm worried they won't be delivered." The someone passing by replied, "Good that's good and how's it goin' have you had breakfast?" This person was very tall and spoke of things that at that time I found supremely curious. We sat before towers of pancakes of every kind, plain, chocolate chip, strawberry, blueberry, spaceberry, gravity chip, slow-flavor'd—I wasn't too keen on the slow-flavor'd flapjacks. This tall one was demolishing the pancakes, pouring syrup and shovelling the bronze discs into his existence. And he said, "Let me tell you Roc—you do remember your name right? I don't know where this thing's takin' us, I mean, we could be en-route to some kind of intergalactic sex-party or—I don't kow—straight up slavery, but dude you can't argue with these pancakes—you try the slow-flavor'd ones?" I said, "They're not my favorite," and then I said, "I'm worried about my letters." "Don't worry about that," the tall one said, taking a generous gulp of chocolate milk. And then he said, "I'm gonna hit the weight room brother, I'll catch you later." He smacked a hand down on my shoulder and left the dining room. I had always understood the metaphysics of being in the ufo, give or take a few lights. You see my father had explained to me, when I was still climbing trees, that when I fall out I fall towards the earth because the earth has more matter than me. And that was physics. He said the earth and I were pulling on each other and that the earth wins. And that was physics. And then I went in my mind and thought that if something mattered more than myself and the earth, then things as they were would be pulled into the world of that something. And that truly was the beginning of the metaphysics of being in the ufo. And that is the thing about being in the ufo. One writes letters in one's head. And one is thinking of this thing instead of another, and that makes it matter more, and gives it matter. And one forms a whole planet of what matters most to them, and the ufo takes them to live on that planet. And being in the ufo was deciding what to pay attention to. I was writing the letters and I didn't know who to, because you don't know if what matters to you matters to anyone else. Because one is often saying I saw something beautiful terrible otherworldly dash across the heavens; and one is so very alone with the ufo. But such was not my case as I would find. The ufo that I was one had room for many and many were on it. Of course Declan Jack Darla and Smokie were aboard and I just couldn't remember them. I couldn't even remember the earth all that well. And I was told later that it was necessary for me to forget and detach, in order to write the letters and build anew. My friends had been instructed to facilitate this process, acting like kind strangers and inviting me to breakfast. Of course it was Declan who couldn't help himself, and jump-started my memory. We were in the dining room. There were bowls on the table filled with different mini candy-bars. There were chewy-plutos and sad-Tokyos and california-wednesdays. Declan had brought a set of dumbbells from the weight room and was doing flies periodically. I was pretty quiet and not thinking of much. He said, "Do you remember in little league when I pissed my pants in the outfield? Those were glorious days. I didn't even have to, I could've waited, but I knew that I was a champion." I said, "Yeah I kinda remember that actually. Didn't we go to some kinda shop after the game?" "Yeah," Declan replied. I said, "It was a cheese shop, your mom was buying cheese, and they sold t-shirts with rabbits and mice on them. And there was this little kid looking through the glass of the door, right above the mail-slot." "Damn dude," Declan said, "you gotta better memory than me. All I remember is sayin' to my mom, 'the cheese smells bad,' because I knew I smelled like piss and didn't wanna get in trouble." There's someone here on the ufo that leaves me little messages in French. I wish I could leave little messages in French wherever I went. And then if I happened to find myself on the ufo I could leave little messages in French on the ufo. Such appears to be the position of one of the passengers. I'm all caught up now I believe. I remember the earth. I remember the rabbit. I remember the tombstone with the coin-slot in the top right corner. I remember calling the others over and Darla doing the honors letting fall that copper coin. And then the sound like smooth violins or the sound of sign language. The lights and the spinning disc like a stone rolling away. Someone leaves me little messages wherever I go on the ufo. I cannot read French. I had breakfast earlier with Declan Jack Darla and Smokie all at once. It is the first time we've been all together on the ufo. No one knew what to say. I wasn't going to say anything about my French messages, and I began to suspect that each of us had a secret on the ufo, something that had been entrusted. Finally Smokie said, "Well, now that we're so far away from the earth I can spill a secret I had there." She slid a hardly touched plate of waffles over to Declan and he began to dig in. Smokie fixed her hair and then puckered her lips to the side. She said, "I'm not thinking—I'm trying not to think." And then she said, "You know when Jesus turns water to wine? Well I never heard anyone tell that story right. It's the Gospel of John, chapter two. You see, in chapter one, you've got John the Baptist, and he's baptising people in water, and he says, 'After me comes one greater than I; I baptise with water—but he will baptise with the Holy Spirit.' So that's chapter one. In chapter three, you've got this holy man, named Nicodemus, and he goes to Jesus in the night and says, 'I believe you're from God and I want to learn.' And so Jesus tells him all this stuff about spirit. About how people have spirits but forget because they lose the ability to see and need to regain the ability to see. And Nicodemus says, 'How can this be?' And Jesus says to him, 'Dude you're a priest—you don't know that people have spirits and forget about them—like, what do you think your job is?' You see, Jesus has come to remind people they have spirits, and restore their sight for spirits. And so chapter two, there's a marriage in Cana, Galilee, and Jesus is there and his disciples, and his mom, Mary. And they run out of wine. Remember now, alcohol is spirits, the wine is spirit. They have run out of spirit, they cannot find any spirit. The mother of Jesus goes to him and says, 'They have no wine.' And do you know what Jesus says to her? He says, 'Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.' Immediately, Mary says to the servants of the wedding—'Whatever he tells you to do, do it.' And then Jesus turns the water into wine. People are always confused about this. But it's simple and even humorous. Jesus has come because the world lacks spirit, has forgotten spirit. And who is the first person to experience the revival of the Holy Spirit? Literally within her? His mother Mary. And so when she goes to Jesus and says, 'They have no more wine—they have no more spirit,' Jesus says, 'Woman—what have I to do with thee—don't you remember who I am, how you came to be pregnant with me, and why I am here on the earth?' He says, 'Mine hour is not yet come—I'm not crucified yet—I'm still among you—I am unlimited spirit.' And immediately Mary goes, 'Oh yeah,' and goes to the servants and says, 'Whatever my son says to do, do it, he's about to do something crazy.'" Smokie exhaled deeply. And then she said, "Man, I've been wanting to get that out for a long time, for some reason. I guess there are some things you just—it feels like there's no outlet for on the earth. And you don't know why it's important or if it is important at all." And then Smokie stole back her plate of waffles from Declan and said, "Now I'm ravenous." I have never been nor do I now consider myself to be an astronaut. I don't know what I am yet. I don't feel like an abductee, having participated heavily and with intention, in the processes that find me here. I could call myself a traveller of space-time, but so could any man back on the planet earth. But when I wake I gaze out at familiar lightmarks. Giants that were once dots, dwarfs in terminology tucking away one or two billion stars. I look at the moons of other planets, and I pour myself a cup of astronaut coffee; for I am bewildered but the coffee knows exactly what to do. There is a moon that lives inside of the Andromeda Galaxy. We are going there now to collect something. Darla is livid. She says it is just her luck that the ufo she gets abducted by has her running errands. Jack keeps telling her it could be worse, as there are perhaps ufos that melt your brain and use it to make a cheap cologne. The thought of her brain not going for a decent price has had Darla in a kind of coma, where she is walking around and talking in a manner that many might call—extra. "Roc," Declan says to me now, "I was thinkin', this mission could be dangerous." "It's not a mission," Darla snaps. "And even if it is don't call it that—it makes me nauseous." Declan clears his throat and continues cautiously. "Roc—uh—this—this Michelangelo that we're uh—payin' to paint the sixteenth chapel—he might be unhinged." "Sistine," Darla corrects. "It's the Sistine Chapel, not the sixteenth—it's not like there were fifteen previous chapels." "Aw jeez! Whatever his name is—he could be eventful, and Roc should be recording it, writing it down. Let me tell ya something Darla, if I fall into an alien toilet and burn to death, I want it read aloud like somethin' outta Homer in schools back on earth—all right? We don't know how big these aliens are, we don't know how big their toilets are, we don't even know what kinda dumps they take—" "Dec," I interrupt, "I'm writing it all down in my head right now—this is one of the letters." We all five of us gathered in a small chamber. Suits and helmets were not required; we stood in our earthly garments looking wholly unprepared for the exploration of a moon in a neighboring galaxy. It was an orange moon with craters and cracks that made our moon seem brand new by comparison. It was one of three orange moons all belonging to the same black and white striped planet, which we nicknamed "The Zebra." But there wasn't much time to take in the strangeness of this solar system; for we fell down and rushed over the far side of our orange moon, so that the other two vanished out of sight, along with the celestial Zebra. A shadow fell upon us and for a few moments there in the chamber a choked up fear could be felt in the unseen spaces where was heard arrhythmic breath. No one said a word. The movement of the craft could not be detected, and it was nonplussing, to be binaurally beaten with the thought we went on at the speed of light in one ear, and were at a standstill in the other. And then city lights came in through the window slots, and we all five watched in awe as we dipped down between brick-built apartments and hovered over and through a roadway that dimly glowed. The color of the road changed every so often from blue to yellow then red to green. There were people. They had haircuts and jackets and shoes, and they also had pants. "Well of course they have pants, why wouldn't they have pants," Smokie said to Declan. Declan said, "I don't know I thought they'd all be walkin' around like Squidward." "Dude—I was thinking the same thing," Jack exclaimed, flashing a smile. "Really?" "Yeah," Jack said, "I thought they were gonna be naked and bald with little penises." The thing about being on the ufo is that you're not told much about what's going on or what will happen. You write letters in your head and listen to your friends, and you keep finding messages in French meant for you but you don't read French. And then you are taken to cities on distant moons where the roads glow dimly and have their own changing moods. And you think there must be a song in all this but you've yet to feel a faint pulse. MOON-BARS—it's all about MOON-BARS, see? And that's what we were there for, MOON-BARS. It is I suppose reasonable to assume that wherever man wanders he's going to find something to put in a candy-bar. It also follows that some other man, if he can, will intercept the novel flavor and rebrand it in his own profitable way. There was a war going on, between the bars, as Elliott Smith puts it. And if you have been hiding away from corner stores and pharmacies, candy shops and Halloweens, Easters and the like; I shall now provide a brief testament, to the rectangular revolution like a carpet rolled underfoot of the flavor-chasing citizen. It unarguably began with the Delilah-bar. Food historian and head chef at Emilio's Café in Little Italy, Sal Biasatti, called the Delilah-bar the first faith-based desert, claiming that the animal crackers within the milk chocolate bar are properly blessed and may aid one in receiving the body of Christ if hindered from attending mass. Considered blasphemy by many, Emilio's Café suffered major financial troubles when a trendy boycott commenced. When the boycott was no longer trendy and some other one was, Emilio's Café came back stronger than ever with the development of a new sauce. In the beginning the Delilah-bar was only sold at movie theaters. Each bar cost 50¢. Its limited supply and outrageously low price placed an ethical dimension upon its purchase. As long as a movie-goer only got one, there would be enough for those who fancied the animal-crackered milk chocolate. Manypoet did this kind of thing a lot with the newly released treats. That's the name of the company, manypoet—all one word all lowercase. And well it happened that we stayed there on that orange moon and collected little rocks that glowed. We lived in the city on the orange moon. And when it came time for us five to leave, two would not board the earth-bound ufo. Smokie and Darla stayed there on the orange moon. Smokie with her prophecies and Darla with her desire never to let the day end. The days are much longer on the orange moon. Declan and Jack and yours truly were headed back home in a manypoet-chartered ufo; we were delivery men, and the shipment we carried was moon-rocks. The moon-rocks were to be used to make moon-bars by the manypoet candy-bar company. But no one believes me. In fact I no longer believe any of it myself. All those candy-bars, the ones made by manypoet and Schlitz-bar Incorporated, are gone—the companies themselves have vanished. The pinknewspaper house is just an ordinary house for sale. Every now and then I say to Jack—"There was a Darla wasn't there? Wasn't there a strawberry twilight and an orange moon?" I don't know where the flavor went but it went. four 862 CATEGORICAL DAYS I was sitting right there in the window of Jesse's Donuts squinting at the mailbox by the street. I had not written a letter in a long long time and I was trying to think of someone to send one to. I sorted through the people in my mind like songs in a jukebox glass. There was a girl I did not know in Texas whose address I had from the 862 CATEGORICAL DAYS. You see there is a constellation called Orion, and one night the moon was so bright and all the stars with it, everything so clear and sharp like mint-conditioned coins, and I said to myself, I will learn the names of all the stars and I will start with Orion. And so there is Betelguese and Bellatrix and a bunch of other ones too but I stopped there at Betelgeuse and Bellatrix. I can point out Jupiter sometimes and the caramel-colored Capella that is actually two stars and I know how to find the North Star. But it is all so far away and when I wanted to learn the names of all the stars it was all so far away and that is when I came up with the 862 CATEGORICAL DAYS. I figured them space-men have strung themselves some mighty fine pearls up there and given them names, and well why could I not do the same, down here in my hangins-rounds? On the tenth categorical day I went to the farm to get some duck eggs. I used to know a kid who worked at that farm but he got fired for talkin' smack to the blueberries during a crucial growth period. The blueberries don't grow as good if you talk smack to them. It was the tenth categorical day and I had said to myself from the first that I would either make soup or have bacon and eggs with duck eggs on the tenth categorical. Now when I got to the farm there was all this corn. There were several wood carts filled past the brim in rounded mounds of green-clothed corn. I nearly panicked, having forgotten about corn. I called Jack. He said, "It's a farm—how could you have forgotten about corn?" I said, "I'm unprepared." I hung up and wandered in the old graveyard across the street and kept an eye on the street for the arrival of Jack's truck. When it pulled in up to the brown splintered picket fence I rushed back over like a scarecrow who had taken a long lunch. We stood where I had originally stood before the mounds of corn. Jack put his hands on his hips and said, "Hmm." Then I saw his eyes drift casually and catch onto something, they widened and he said, "Well I'll be damned." Then he moved. He moved past the corn and stopped just before the entrance of the great red barn, where a brown barrel stood. He turned to me and said, "Dude," displaying his hands, one was red the other green. "Peppers?" I called out. "Spicy Beaver Dam Peppers," he check-mated, and then he re-faced the barn door, peering inside, still holding the peppers at his side like six-shooters. He said, "Roc, get Declan on the phone see if he's outta work—when was the last time you were here?" I put the phone to my ear and replied, "Jeez…four, five years ago—whenever Nate got canned for bullying the blueberries." Jack went on inside the barn, disappearing from the daylight and into the indoor shade. I was still sick with indecision and an internal intuition for a vitamin D deficiency, and so I stood there standing on scraps of hay in the sunlight. Declan arrived, music blaring from his car. He got out and fixed his ball cap, then he looked around and took a deep sniff of the surroundings. Walking over to me he stuck his thumbs in the waist of his jeans like a sheriff, and I anticipated some kind of profound remark to sum up the circumstances. Then all in one motion he buckled over and puked brown all over the hay-strewn ground. "Aw jeez Dec," I said, trying to look away. He coughed and spat and groaned and said, "I'm sorry—aw gahd, aw gahd." He straightened up and put his hands on his kidneys. Then he pointed at the mess he made and said, "That's a gallon of chocolate milk, I swear to god Roc—Roc that's a whole gallon—I don't—I can't—" Declan groaned and tried to catch his breath to explain but it was already apparent to me he had chugged a whole gallon of chocolate milk on the car-ride over. He bent forward again and put his hands on his knees, then put a hand to his belly. I headed for the entrance of the barn. I heard him say, "Yeah sounds good I'll see ya in there," in staggered breaths. On the tenth categorical I got duck eggs from the farm. Jack left with some honeycomb. Declan was 86'd for being sick inside the barn and trying to cover it up with hay. I snagged a pack of apple cider donuts for him though, for his troubles and for when he felt better. A farm is a funny place. It makes you remember old friends. I called up Nate and asked him what he said to the blueberries. He said those were troublesome days of self-doubt and he had been talking aloud to himself. He said that in his life he had never meant to hurt no one, not one blueberry, but if you're too hard on yourself it seeps outwards. Then he asked me for a favor. He said, "Say, I know you scribble away quite a bit well look, a girl I know just moved to Texas, if I gave you the address—would you send her a little poem or a song?" And he gave me the address. And so I was sitting there in the window of Jesse's Donuts squinting at the mailbox by the street. I had not written a letter in a long long time and I was trying to think of someone to send one to. I sorted through the people in my mind like songs in a jukebox glass. There was a girl I did not know in Texas whose address I had from the tenth categorical. five like a song in a jukebox glass And well I'm going to write you twelve songs. I figure there's room in anyone's life for twelve songs and besides if you don't like them you can just forget them. I'm going to have to build you a world or describe some shadowy corner. I'm going to have to uncover some currency. I cannot promise it will be worth as much as a penny but it will be yours and will have been made for you. I wanted to write someone a letter and I had your address. Music doesn't have to be good it just has to be for somebody. At least that's how it is for me. I'm a skyscraper I'm a scarecrow I'm a jellyfish I'm a vending machine. I'm way way back. I'm square and blinking. I'll write ya twelve songs you'll see and if I'm lucky they'll all add up to a good breakfast sandwich. Let's begin. how you lookin' a little ghostly are you down and out I guess mostly do you read at all only minds dear and they all say the same things nowadays nowadays I could've been great could've been yours could've been sane maybe next life in a distant land or planet we could be free we could be free like songs in a jukebox glass you knew me when I was still climbin' trees when the impossible moon was still featured in our dreams when the sound of sign language hummed shapes in your ear when the traveller's fire still burned year after year I know it's not late the sky still glows the picture won't fade time is a friend time is a tool when the one you love you love for a fool at last like a song in a jukebox glass every time I wake up and every time I sleep I still go looking it's all that I can do it's all that I require there are moons of other planets will you figure it out for the last time will you figure it out for me count up all the days in spring and multiply by all the thoughts you think this girl knows when the world will end do you believe? No. I don't believe in her. she doesn't like the notes I leave or the way that astronauts breathe multiplies the year of your birth by mood this girl knows when the world is through do you believe? No cause I don't believe in her. One of my earliest memories—I can't remember too far back—is being in a movie theater for an animated film. I was captivated by the hero, who was a little mouse with a knack for going first into the unknown, and at the end, was even shot out of a cannon into space to kickstart a new adventure. There was a kid crying the whole movie long, I don't know what was the matter with him, I guess it could have been anything. There was also a piece of gum someone had stuck on the cupholder of the armrest and I kept touching it by accident, and partway through the movie I said to the kid next to me, who I was friendly with, put your hand here. He said, ew what is that. I said, a piece of gum and was chuckling and the kid started chuckling and this girl who I always thought looked like an ostrich shushed us. I have an earlier memory of being in the backyard and picking up a dead mouse by the tail and my mom shrieking and that was very different from the movie. I could not write you twelve songs. In fact I could only gather crumbs of a bunch of different ones, cup my hand and then scrape them from the table into the envelope. And so here is your letter; crumbs in an envelope instead of songs in a jukebox glass. I hope it's at least a penny. Do me a favor and go get yourself a breakfast sandwich. six being a little mouse inside the drainpipe And the thing about being in the ufo is that you cannot see the ground below neither can you feel or fathom how fast you go. You might imagine there are stars above instead of by your side. You might ask your questions to the darkness like screwing in a lightbulb. Being in the ufo is being alone with no answer but you cannot argue because it was a lightbeam took you there. And all one can conclude is that the adventure is not over in fact has yet to grow eyes or legs. Being in the ufo is like being a little mouse standing in a continuous stream of rain water and gazing out at the blades of nighttime grass from inside the drainpipe.