A dream I'd like to share....

Banana and Kuno and I were in Mexico because it was my birthday.

It was real rowdy like it was during the Carnavale festivities but I can't quite remember for sure. But wait a minute...Carnavale is in Fenruary and my birthday is in June....I suppose it could have been Saint John the Baptist Day...but that just doesn't sound as cool. Alright, public notice, my birthday has now changed to February. All I know is that there were a plethora of drunks and crazies congregating on the dirt streets and the air was filled with dust and insanity.

I don't even remember the events that led up to us deciding to come to Mexico. One moment I'm at home in Texas trying to get some reading done, the next I'm sitting at a raggedy old wooden bench with my two good friends being solicited by prostitutes and drenching ourselves in tequila. My fingers were sticky with lime.

We were drinking alot and I felt like I wasn't feeling any of the effects of it though. How sad...what's up with that. I was going to be upset if I made this trek all the way out here and I don't even get fucked up.

But Banana and Kuno were sure having a good time. They were laughing and conjoling like a bunch of crows in a corn field. Then some of our buddies arrived. Hey how'd they know we were gonna be here? That's a big coincidence.

Killer, Froggie and two other guys I hadn't met before (or had I?) arrived. I gave each one a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and since Killer was about 7'1 and weighed nearly 300 lbs, he hugged me, tossed me in the air and threw me over his shoulder until my head was spinning.

We settled down and Banana came up behind me, told me I was sexy and threw up all over me. But it was ok, I wasn't going to cry over projectile vomit. It would make a good story one day.

Then all of a sudden there were a group of parapalegics who over took the streets and wanted to sit at our wooden table (with one broken leg being propped up by a tequila bottle--how'd they do that--only in dreams I guess) And who's gonna say no to a parapalegic, eh? Maybe Hitler...or Martha Stewart, I guess.

But I was upset. A black guy with chocolate smooth skin had rolled his wheelchair up to our spot and was griping for a cerveza when I go up to him, lean over the table and say, "You think you're tough shit don't you....asshole."

I walk away not knowing why I did that but a little voice in the back of my head was calling me a cunt. Or maybe it was the black parapalegic calling me a cunt. It's alright, I can deal with that especially since I'm already a self proclaimed bitch. I think people can call themselves worse things--like a pharmacist, for example. Yeesh, gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I apologize in advance...

The pen breaks underneath my uninspired fingers and the ink flows in the cracks of my hands like a river rupturing through a damn.

Crap. Now I have to go to Walmart for more pens. And its way too hot outside. Fuckin Texas summers. And I hate Walmart. And yet I find myself going there almost everyday. Go figure. When my mother gave birth to me here in America she didn't know that they inject capitalism into your veins right after they cut the umbilical cord. And she wonders why my bank account is always in the red. You shoulda had me in Luxenbourg, ma. Yeesh.

I get up to go to the restroom to wash the blue from my palms. How am I going to turn on the faucet without getting ink all over the nozzles? I could put soap on first but then the bar would get blue smears all over as well.

This is what us in the literary world would call a 'conundrum'? I don't even know if I spelled that right but I never won any spelling bees. That's what I get for trying to sound smart. Ok, I won't try to do it amymore..cross my heart and hope to have writer's block. Or in my case 'writers-Great-Wall-of-China".

Ok, my little brother and sister wanted to play LIFE. Board games are good for their social development, I guess so I agree. It actually ends up being pretty fun. Especially when we discover the trick to winning is buying all the stocks and the best occupation is a police officer. All in all, its a good game. What other game can you marry a lesbian without question (except the glances my bro and sis were giving eachother--what's wrong with two pink people in a orange car anyhow?) who can have a set of twin boys with the roll of the dice and get $25 grand for adopting a dog.

There's these mosquito bites all over me because with Texas sized summers come Texas sized mosquitoes. I look like I have chicken pox-squared. Gross, huh? haha But kinda funny too.

Alright. Sit back down. Start all over again.

Rabbit's Milk

"Where am I?"

I look around me and I see walls of glass. Yet beyond the glass is nothingness-white. It scares me and chills me to the bone. I'm afraid to move. The icy fingers of fear frostbiting my toes, slowing my breath.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Nothing but my echoes and the madness of my mind.

"You know, you might want to try scaling the wall."

I spin around. Who said that? And I see straight in front of me, a white rabbit. Pink eyes, long ears, and strong hind legs ready to pounce.

His pink eyes look up. "See. There's a hole up there."

I gawk as the realization of a talking rabbit soaks into my brain but I am not troubled by him for some reason. The presence of another...anything..was comforting. I look up and then back down. Yes, there was a hole up there. The glass walls....the funneling of the room to the top hole in the ceiling. I was in a bottle. A glass bottle.

"Who are you? Where am I?" Was I really talking to a rabbit?

The rabbit bounces around which causes its thumbing to echo throughout the bottle. "This is a milk bottle. And I am a rabbit named......Maurice." He smiles at the made-up name. "But those aren't the questions that are important now because you already knew that." He smiles and his teeth are sharp.

This sight frightens me and I cross my arms, puff out my chest in a futile attempt to seem in control. "I can't scale the walls. The walls are too smooth. Its glass." I palm my way up but my toes don't leave the ground. "If I were you, I would try to hop out, I suppose."

"But you assume that I am here to escape. But I am not. " He smiles again, the sharp teeth are still there.

I smile back. More of a timid grimace. I think. I think hard. What was I doing last. Where was I before I woke up here?

Mother.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I spin around because it wasn't me nor the rabbit who knocked on the glass wall. I see my mother. But she's on the other side of the wall, outside of the bottle. She's trying to tell me something. I run up to where she is and wish to hug her, hold her, feel her safety.

I cannot hear her. I cannot make out her silent wailings. She keeps knocking and it echoes throughout the bottle. It makes my head hurt.

"STOP, MOM. I CAN'T HEAR YOU. STOP IT" But she continues until I close my eyes hard and wish her to stop. I open my eyes again and she's gone. The silent screams gone. The knocking gone.

"Where'd she go?" I turn toward the rabbit who is licking his paw.

He's startled as if he didn't realize it was his turn to speak in a school play. He listens to the empty space as if someone from off stage feeding him his lines.

"Are you sure that was your mother? Or is that just what you wanted to see?" He continues licking his paw.

My mind races. My eyes burn with salty tears of fear and frustration.

"GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!!"

I grab the rabbit by its foot and swing it around around around around around until my steps feel heavy and my head it light with dizziness. I hurl the rabbit against the glass wall over over over over over over. Until there's blood on his white fur. Cracked skull against the clear walls.

Finally one last crash of his head against the wall brings the whole bottle crashing down around me and I'm left with, blood in my hair, shards in my skin and a rabbit foot in my hand.

Mr. Goodbar

Maggie looked at her eyes and winced at her reflection. There were puffy bags under them and she didn't like that tired look on her face. It made her look 10 years older and the guy at the counter hadn't even asked her for her ID when she was buying her morning pack of cigarettes earlier. What an asshole. But, now, as she looked at her eyes, she forgave him.

She had already had two cigarettes from her way back from the corner store and now she had to take a shit. Because that what cigarettes, along with many other things make you do sometimes--have to take a shit.

She sighed and splashed water on her face.

*************

The day was hot and the sun beat down hard. Maggie wondered where all her neighbors were. She lived on the second floor of a dingy apartment complex and still considered it a temporary abode even though she'd been there 5 years already. She leaned over the railing and exhaled. The cigarette shone in the glare of the sun.

Maggie looked left.

#213 usually left their door open and whenever she'd pass she'd see a 300 pound (in reality, probably 400 pound but who was weighing?) woman seated on the floor watching Jerry Springer with a banana in one hand and a candy bar (usually a Mr. Goodbar) in the other. But the door was closed today and you couldn't hear any wailings from the television.

Maggie looked right.

Benson and his current gay lover, Morad, was not to be seen either. Benson was from El Salvador and was teaching Maggie some Spanish. But since Morad had come into the picture, the lessons had become fewer and far between. One afternon Maggie had seen Morad knocking on Benson's door.

She'd said, "Que paso, hombre?" trying to be polite.

But Morad rolled his eyes and spitted, "Don't talk that broken Spanish with me, sister. You don't even know me." Benson opened the door, looked Maggie up and down and didn't say a word. He pulled Morad inside by the collar and Maggie listened to their sexual escapades through the thin walls for the rest of the night. How could she sleep with all that wall banging anyhow. Benson was probably coked up which reminded Maggie to ask him for another hit next time around.

******************
Maggie sat on the spinny bar stool and sipped her beer. Three guys had tried to hit on her.

#1: Hey beautiful. Want another drink cause I can't wait to see you hammered.

Maggie gave a polite smile and moved to the other side of the bar.

#2: Are you here alone...cause um..I'm here alone too. And since we're both alone why should two alone people be alone...

He continued on like this for another five minutes and he was just so pathetic Maggie couldn't cut him off in mid-depression. For a moment she thought he would break into sobs. She smiled and excused herself to the bathroom and found a booth in the corner.

#3: Wana dance? You look like a dancer? Do you play sports cause you have the biggest thighs I've ever seen.

Maggie decided to call it a night after that. When she got home she did an hour worth of squats and vowed to go on a diet.

**********************

It was a Sunday morning and Maggie was outside smoking. #213 had her door open and Maggie could see a big fat foot with five big fat digits wiggling whenever Jerry Springer introduced the next transvestite.

Maggie contemplated having another cig when she saw Mr. Goodbar wrappers being thrown from #213.

She heard a deep throaty androgynous voice. "Hey."

Three more wrappers tumbled through the threshold followed by more yelps.

Maggie walked closer and peered in. She waved at the mass on the floor and thought that #213 would make a killer Java the Hut for Halloween.

The mass spoke to her. "Hey I need more Mr. Goodbars, but my sister hasn't got back yet. Can you go buy me some from the corner store. I'll pay you."

Maggie contemplated and thought what a sad existence to live for Mr. Goodbars and talkshows. How could she say no. She nodded. #213 pointed to a jar of nickels on the television.

#213: Take that. It should buy you alot of them.

Maggie walked down the steps slowly with the heavy glass jar of nickels. People that passed her probably thought she was crazy. How embarassing.

******************

It was a big decision looking down at the box of Mr. Goodbars and wondering how many she should get. For one, she wanted to do a good job since #213 had put her trust in her to go on this independent mission. But on the other hand, she wondered how many more candy bars it was going to take for #213's heart to stop. Maybe she should just buy her some peanuts. That's like a Mr. Goodbar...but without the "good", she supposed. If she were a bad person, Maggie would have bought one candy bar and spent the rest of the money on cigarettes and lottery tickets. But she decided on 5 Mr. Goodbars, a lighter, and one $2 lottery ticket instead.
******************

She got back and #213 had dozed off but when Maggie set the half empty (or half-full) jar of nickels back ontop of the tv, the mass awoke.

"Thanks." She wiped her eye crusties away and proceeded to devour two candy bars at once.

Maggie handed her the scratch-off. "Here I bought you this too. Maybe you'll have some luck." She turned to leave.

"Thanks. Wait. Lemme scratch it and we can split it if I win." She dug her chocolaty nails into the ticket playing area. "Hey, I won $2 bucks. That's three Mr. Goodbars."

Maggie smiled. "Yea, hey keep it."

#213 smiled. "Come by whenever you want."

"Ok." Maggie decided to have another cigarette. She sat on the threshold of #213's door and listened to the chomping of candy and television, strangely taking comfort in the sound.