treehouse

when the kid was born we wanted to be good parents so after a week or so of showing him off to our families we moved to the middle of the atlantic ocean. everyone knows there are tall trees there and we built a house in one with wood from shipwrecks. when it dried the wood was sturdy and we even got a TV hooked up and it cost us next to nothing. compared to what we could have gotten in new york it's a palace.

we try to sleep at night, with the long waves rolling against the trees and the rain ganging up from upstairs. when he wakes up you feed and change him and maybe i bat an eye. at first light i try to let you get some sleep, sitting with him out on the balcony.

those mornings he smiles up at me in the new sun, before it gets so bright that the water magnifies it into a million invisible knives and we have to keep him in with the shades drawn. he smiles and maybe coos and my heart goes into defrost mode, it ain't bad. eventually he's hungry again and i bring him back, sheepish to wake you up from first 45 minutes of good unworried sleep you've had in 24 hours.

sometimes the neighbors bring bluefish and once in a while, if the kid's in the mood to sleep, you and i get to talk just the two of us, watching the sun set back to the west. you don't mention it, but i know both of us are wondering how long it would take us to row to queens for that perfect halal cart at the corner of Broadway and 73rd.

how voodoo works

All of my teams are born losers. The Eagles always tank. I gave up the Phillies for the Mets in '01 when I met L, who has an 86 and a particularly coked-up looking Doc Gooden tattooed on her right bicep. Things started looking up. But now all of a sudden the Mets are Charlie Brown trying to kick a field goal, and the Phils are wizards, world champions.

I suspect that my grandfather--my mom's dad--can control the outcome of sporting events with his mind. He's a knowledgable man, and could he string together a focused sequence of games I believe he might guide the Eagles to the Super Bowl.

There are two problems with this flight to victory. First, for late games like last night's, he goes to sleep by the 4th quarter, and some night-owl Chicago area grandfather was probably able to sneak in his own psychic tomfoolery to tighten up the Bears' goal line defense. Second, football games always seem to bring out the man's nostalgia, prompting him to pour a glass of something strong. Andy Reid and Jim Johnson have complicated playbooks, and if grandpa's vision is blurred, he might dial up a blitz where something a bit more conservative would be appropriate.

What I'm saying is that when the Eagles lose, it doesn't bust up my theory. You have to look for other factors. McNabb's inconsistent brilliance is one thing I would watch very closely, if I were you. Cross-tabulate with my grandfather's mindset at any moment.

Another reason the Mets can't win is that my dad's parents met at Connie Mack stadium. It is possible that the jinx hanging over the depressins these past two years has actually been the handiwork of Ed and Lorraine, formerly of Marlton, NJ, now of the sweet hereafter. They're probably haunting the shit out of those sad sack Mets. My mom's dad is a Phils fan too.

To put my ability to jinx my teams to good use, I've taken the amateurish next step of falling in love wiith the McCain-Palin ticket. As my team, they will surely lose...

...but everyone knows that isn't how voodoo works. It'll cross you just for trying to fuck with it so obviously, reverse your jinx. I'll have to get grandpa to show me how it's done.

caffeine paranoia

the kind of doom and gloom week for quick spirals of paranoid thinking, e.g.:

a) total economic collapse perhaps more palatable than second Mets collapse?

b) assets perhaps best converted into canned food?

c) nonprofit fundraising perhaps not first profession to prosper in the new world?

d) south jersey perhaps too populated to protect family?

e) vast array of guns friend has been quietly gathering in his basement perhaps not scary, so much as lending library or nest egg to build a new community on?

definitely need a good night's sleep.

anesthesia

pumpkin a/k/a the troll man, under anesthesia.

you breathe it and the tide goes out, but consciousness can't disappear, it reunites with the whole. so under the knife you're nowhere near the scene.out the window, your breeze curls a tired american flag into something pretty to behold. you're sunshine, trees, the fading fall air, you're each schlep stumbling into the hospital's front entrance to stay alive for their loved ones or help their loved ones stay alive.

you're there but also further out, you're the rings around saturn, the kid orion threw in the air a light year from throw to catch, you're both dippers and a blinking satellite making its rounds, spewing good news back to earth in rapid data packets.

back here on earth they're remaking part of you. but they can't touch you, you're the totality now, all the good in the world. you are baseball momentum, secret handshakes, 12 tone rows, chutes and ladders, frisbee catches. you are cherry coke and strict california grass, you are guitar through two fender super reverbs one clean and one with long delay, and the clean one is snaking a melody through the hedgerows of delay.

you are every love that ever was and ever will, you are the discovery and documentation of heaven, perpetual motion patented and pushed on late night TV for just infinite easy installments. you are every historic first that ever was, first love, first man in space, first saturday morning cartoon. you are the first child, king troll the 1st, progenitor of a long trollish line.

we've been beating ourselves up all week about this and now it's finally coming to pass. every time a door opens i picture some asshole with a bereavement counselor name tag. 'Mr. and Mrs Trollman? I'm sorry..." and what I would punch in a violent helpless expression.

trollman, if you just make it through this, we promise, we'll never take anything for granted ever. we'll learn spanish and chinese and esperanto. we'll dot every i, cross every t, give every homeless person ten dollars and never say a mean or snarky thing to no one. we'll honor every tenet of every religion, we'll root for every team, we'll unbreak everything we've wrecked and apologize to everyone we've ever hurt. we'll take full responsibility for u.s. foreign policy and do our best to reverse it, we'll never ignore each other another second, all will be sainted perfect love ever and ever amen.

but all of this, we bring upon ourselves. in the end it was a minor procedure as those things go and now they're leading us it's fine he's fine are you sure he's fine to where you sleep in the nurse's arms.

and everything that could have receded from the world never to return is back again, and i'm kind of starved for one of those not-bad hospital burgers.

pumpkin preface

before pumpkin (BP) we moved to jersey from brooklyn. the omens didn't improve:

driving a UHaul into town, a bird flew across an oncoming car and shredded through the grill.

on consecutive mornings packs of big flies coated the southeast corner of the house. sprayed with a hose they stayed right where they were.

our cat ignored the omens and found the suburbs much to his liking. william, the kaiser, roamed his fiefdom at will, bestowing purrs and tail wags at his leisure. he tightroped fences, dodged dogs, presented us with a chipmunk for a royal feast, respectfully declined. he pondered the living history of sunny patches, and let it be known by royal decree that as the kaiser willed it, so it should be warm and bright. but he always came back. then one day he did not. or the next. or the next.

such were the portents, but the pumpkin would not to be denied. dear reader, etch his birth date in the nearest tree in a generous-sized heart: 7 - 31 -2008.

let us offer each other some sign of peace.