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Tuesday, August 30, 2016

I love you, Alice K 47


Dear Alice K 47,

I know this sounds crazy, but I think I'll in love. Yes, it was just one night, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since the Union County Gun Show last Friday. Alice, baby, you are the most gorgeous semi-automatic gas-operated 7.62x39mm assault rifle in the entire world, let alone the wide world of fuckin' awesome firearms.

Sure, I was woozy after guzzling seventeen ice-cold Schlitz at the Funky Bumpkin Saloon when I asked Dale the arms dealer to roll out his wares. And suddenly there YOU were, resting between a Bushmaster M4-type Carbine and a Remington Model 522 Viper…a totally fuckin' badass rose between two totally fuckin' badass thorns. My heart stopped beating for a spilt second. (Of course, that could just be my stupid overactive thyroid, but anyway…) I knew the instant Dale placed you in my hands—after asking me if I was drunk and had proper ID, to which I answered, respectively, "not very", and "does the fishing license on my hat count?"—and I cradled your cold steel butt and smooth, smooth bolt assist mechanism that I wanted to blow the living shit out of something, anything, with you one warm sunny day.

Rush Limbaugh in lederhosen! Just thinking about that moment again causes my palms to sweat. (Of course, that could just be my stupid hyperhidrosis, but anyway…)

I'm convinced it was pure Manifest Destiny that intervened when Dale let me pawn my Make America Great Again camouflage fanny-pack-and-police-baton combo to whisk you away from the Bentleyville Fire Hall for one glorious night. I'll never forget the libido that pulsed through my patriotic loins as I hauled you like a cocked, locked and loaded newlywed back to my doublewide for a Schlitz nightcap.

What happened between us all alone, without the Putin financed NSA peeking around the corner, was sheer 'Murican magic. The way I slooowly removed your barrel jacket…How I geeently stroked your charging handle…When I teeenderly fingered your ejection port. I leaned in to deep throat your sight housing but nudged your trigger in the heat of passion and shot half my goddamn ear to smithereens. Ronald Reagan in a rickshaw, our fore fathers probably creamed in their graves! Who knew your safety was off. Mmm…that's so fuckin' hot! As I scrambled to McGyver myself a makeshift tourniquet to keep two galloons of blood from spraying out my earhole all I could imagine was running off with you to a shotgun wedding. (Ha, Ha. See what I did there, honey gunny.) But seriously, after the bleeding finally stopped and you'd shot your precious load, I pushed aside the empty bags of Cheese Curls and laid you on the futon beside my Glenn Beck Fathead wall decal, wrapped you in the quilt personally knitted by Chuck Norris, and quietly whispered the Second Amendment in your piping-hot greased barrel.

Two days later my mounting passion for you, like my right to keep and bear, well...you, shall NOT be infringed. 

I've been sitting here, alone, in my 1994 Chevy S-10 pickup truck listening to Godsmack deep-cut ballads and Clint Eastwood Reads The Old Testament, and thinking about you. All I got is my memories, and a permanently disfigured earlobe. Like the gunshot residue, I can't get you out of my head. I'm possessed by thoughts of our possible future. Imagine Alice…long walks on a beautiful beach and mowing down a majestic flock of seagulls...just because. Sneaking you into Arby's on a 5-for-5 deal day in case some shifty bugger tries a lil' funny business and we indiscriminately spray several rounds of metal peacekeeping darts all up in his shit and save other clientele from potential harm. Hiking through the park and stopping to instruct the children on the merry-go-round how to properly defend themselves when the government inevitably attempts to overtake the Upside Doodle Playground with their Boeing AH-64 Apache attack choppers and laser-guided bombs. Can't take no teeter-totters from us, Obama.

Shit, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is you and me, Sugar Nozzle.

I miss you. I need you. The last few days without you have been torturous. I feel so vulnerable right now, like any ol' Allah-lovin' rapist gardener can piss on my freedom without knowing I can pump their shriveled nuts full of lead. Every single night that passes without you resting in my warm alive hands will slowly kill me anyway. What good am I with cold dead hands? Who will defend the G.I. Jesus statue or Sean Hannity nativity scene on the county courthouse lawn from the atheist lib-turd dingle-fuckers? Who, Alice? Not me. At least not without you.

I love you. Let me help you help me help myself by helping you in turn helping me to help America by virtue of making myself great again.

Be great with me, Alice K 47. Bang! Bang!









Sunday, August 7, 2016

The Sculptor

She is young. She is an artist. She has boundless dreams and steady hands.
The clay is fresh. The clay is moist. The clay is shapeless.

She places the clay on the wheel and presses the pedal that makes it spin. The clay is squishy between her fingers. It kinda' tickles. The clay slides across her palms. It feels good. She strokes the clay deliberately. She smiles as the clump begins to take shape. She is her own master. She will stop the wheel when the clay has become as defined as her boundless dreams.

As the wheel spins…maybe she stumbles upon a nameless dude in a corduroy jacket amongst a million nameless dudes amid a late night freshman troll on Match.com. Maybe he finds her affinity for microwaveable teddy bears and the 1978 Dr. Strange TV pilot too irresistible so he speechlessly carves his feelings into her stomach with his finger. Maybe she drinks too much Southern Comfort and asks him "What do you think it would be like to be engaged?" while Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick plays on vinyl pre-hangover. Maybe he buys a Whiffle ball and rubber bases and sends a group email to friends instructing them to wear shorts and a tee shirt to the reception, where Whiffle ball replaces a DJ. Maybe they exchange wedding vows beside a band shell hosting a puppet show merely 30 yards away.

Though the wheel spins she loses some sight of the clay. She caresses it with her fingers, but with less resolve. Small chunks spit onto her plaid shirt.

Maybe she sees an expecting woman in the infant section at Target and weeps with what she hopes will soon be empathy. Maybe he hides the Parents magazines in the basement because she weeps in her unexpectedly prolonged yearning to empathize. Maybe she weeps when the nurse hands her Uriah because her empathy is fully realized. Maybe he finally weeps too. Maybe they settle on outer space wall decals to decorate the baby's room while they haphazardly redecorate the walls in the new uncharted room in their lives.

The wheel is spinning…spinning…spinning. She subconsciously weaves her fingers, purposelessly shifting the clay. She doesn't heed the forming cracks.

Maybe she scours the CCAC nursing program website, or nearly aces the PA Civil Service test, or peers over the bobbing head of a still-awake toddler to notice the clock slip to 1:04 AM. She continually strives to be a perfect mother. Maybe he "causes a scene" when Jordy Mercer boots a surefire double-play ball, or orders "one cheese, three craft beers, and an M&M cookie," twice a week, or walks his son about Greenfield to allow Mama the occasional breath.  He continually strives to be an adequate father.  Maybe she wakes up yet fifteen minutes earlier to accommodate a chaotic-er morning because he punched a refrigerator and can't lift more than twenty pounds. Maybe, just maybe, he actually punched a fucking refrigerator and broke his hand like an idiot. Maybe they…

She lifts her foot from the pedal, and the spinning wheel stops. The clay is dry like dirt and amorphous like mud. Her plaid shirt is covered in crust.

He joins her at the wheel. He lifts the clump and holds it in his hands. He wants her to know he's seen nothing so unique--all others are shooting stars, but in a meteor shower; nothing so beautiful--all others are sunsets, but in a world that doesn't rotate; nothing so forever--all others are diamonds, but better left in the ruff. Nothing so befitting an art show all its own.
He tosses a clump of clay--fresh, moist, and shapeless--onto the wheel, and presses the pedal that makes it spin.


...They are young. They are artists. They have boundless dreams and steady hands.