Paincourt Antique

Title: I want Jesus to Glug

meant this some other time.

how to skin your knee and two other un-fascinating subjects.
fall down for Christ’s sake if you really want to skin your knee just never
blackout after it occurs.
See how you run to mums bosom with crocodile tears?
If you can’t vomit politely then please vomit in the privacy of your own
home. I remember that the hangar was full of lights and aircraft which isn’t
what it really looks like. This is the sign of a family ripped apart for no
good reason at all. Some people resort to negative religious beliefs when
this happens. Others, resort to seclusion and sarcasm. Remember grandma’s
poppies? You tried to cut them for their syrup and never really got any
results. You were doing it wrong. You should have focused on the aircraft.
Fucking old World War II planes just sitting around gathering dust and you
have no access because you are worried about other things. The hills and
mountains of Afghanistan. The jungles of Honduras. The low flying radar
skimming produce of Columbia. It wasn’t even in those areas that was a
primary concern - you heard the stories from your dad after he came back
home after being gone for a couple of days - tanned - in the middle of
January. If it isn’t your old friend the DC3 - smell the oil and the metal?
If it isn’t your old friend the USS Bainbridge? Smell the oil? smell the
metal? All these places they took you and all the adventures you did or
might have had. Blurry like dreams. A man falling on a pier, down a hole,
breaking both legs, drunk. a man shitting his pants and smearing the walls
of a restroom. a man smacking you in the knee with a crescent wrench. bill
before the suicide remarking on his travels. stories of Chicago and dry
humping girls in his mothers basement while listening to madness. a fat girl
on the pool table trapped by a snowstorm - says she will do anything. Darren
takes her up on that - I got to get the fuck out of here. Get me out of this
place. I want French and Algerian whores - not these Midwestern future
wives. I want to see EVERYTHING. I can see it in my mind and I still do when
I sleep. I did see everything and now I sleep.
I keep finding little bits of seritonin reflecting and ferrying these little
bits over my own personal Hades. Pluto. halo. it will be mighty cold one day
and there won’t be much left to warm me back up. maybe memories are a ticket
out of hell.
the old days are ambiguous. I should spell check but we all get the point.
there was darkness and light and you are supposed to decide about that
sometime. keep running out of time. busy. lethargic. laconic?
the new days are ambitious without me. I see myself in a particular setting
and I have never tried to see myself in one that is pleasant and heavenly.
doesn’t exist for me. the memories never tried to construct a vision or even
a bridge to utopia either here or in the next world. Still seeing the world
for what it is, not what it will become or could be or even should be.
See her in that one skirt back around 1990. still see the smile and the wind
blowing it gently around her. It was maybe the only time I really loved her.
It was alright.
Out in the middle of the Atlantic before that time I saw ALL of the stars
and that made me feel so terribly small out on the black glass as we slipped
through it. It made me remember her and wished she could see what I was
seeing. But I knew the communication wouldn’t work. I knew either her or
myself would stumble upon some idiotic hurdle we set up years before. It was
the first time that I ever really hated her.
You want these things that I never wanted. Male - my world could be dirty
and I wouldn’t mind. Female - My world will be perfect for a child? is that
it? Back into my shell I would always hide. I KNEW that nature could take
love and smash it. she could smash a babies head on the rocks emotionless.
atomic energy feels no love it just is. that’s what I am afraid of and can’t
get anyone else to admit. evil is a dirty house? evil is everything? take
your pick. I have. now its worse than before but better at the same time.
isn’t it? when you say that everything is fucked up don’t you mean that
everything is going to be alright? whatever happened to suffering in
silence?
so when she was saved I am not sure if it was ever formalized. I don’t
remember her going to the front of the church like the others. it was just
assumed that she knew HER god. must have been the way she always looked so
judgmental. people of god usually look one of two ways, worried, or
judgmental.
it was here that they lost me. it was really about the way they looked and
smelled more than what they had to say. I could smell their fear and I think
some really bad people can smell it now too.
what was her name anyway? I don’t remember anymore.
so some remember the old ones - Persian - Manichean - and so on. it really
shouldn’t be a question anymore - but many still ask it. we should all be
well aware of what it can do to us and what it eventually will do to us. and
what it makes us do to each other. when I say these things you get angry and
ignore me and say that there is no way to be happy with those thoughts. but
I AM HAPPY. I really am. I get happier and happier the closer it comes
because I think I won’t have to think anymore. I will be put on autopilot. I
will be back to the source. I will be in that hangar again but I wont have
to remember.

so where were you - bad tennis shoes - new friends - I still remember when
you said I was a worthless drunk but now you are dead? god is unfair isn’t
she? or?
there was a time when they weren’t too sure they liked each other. I suppose
opposites attract. you keep coming up with excuses to describe the evil you
see. humanity isn’t even really supposed to act this way but it does and you
get subjective. once again I am right. always right. I don’t need a crystal
ball. I understand the nature of it all. I connected the dots years ago -
the chubby kid said, “fuck dood, the wall is down, I’m staying in, there
will never be another war.” I said, “This means that there will only be
more.”
Was I crazy then? Am I crazy now? ignore it, what the hell, don’t react
until it directly effects you - I realize you can’t help it. I see how that
happens. Lillith never revenges the cycle and you won’t try to figure out
what that means. I speak in codes? You had the chance. The arithmetic is
done. It has always been finished.
And I can remember a day that it wasn’t. Think and then stop. Madness. I see
art in noises and I still hope something is listening - I want you to listen
for me.
I see you in the summer resting on the bed with the fleece blanket and the
cat is sleeping between your legs. it is a perfect picture but I will not
run and get the camera because I think it is burned into my memory.
this is the real question. why allow us all of these memories only to erase
them. they were meant to be erased? it is all that we have god damnit. it is
all that we have ever REALLY had.
this is why some want to build these bridges to you and why I want to burn
them down.
You came to town on a mission. the thoracic pounding was so slow. can you
even remember what you said to your acclaimed best friends on a certain day.
that day maybe there was some music playing and maybe there was some
marijuana smoking going on and you secretly hated their future because they
didn’t have a future and you knew that you did and that you would probably
have to stunt it for their acceptance but that is the way the world works
after all and now you see it all around you and you hear certain people you
care about say how unfair that it is but somehow now you have remained the
same but have grown and they haven’t. soon it all becomes class warfare.
sooner or later even on a microcosmic level one class is always better than
the other and you have to find your way through that maze. the minotaur this
time is friendly? did he lose his horns? Confused but not trampled or gored.
still looking like a brave man? never in the history of slough has there
been such a man you say! a loser who wins. trust me, this is only possible
in this world at this time and place. had we been born 1000 years ago we’d
both be someone’s slave or serf. more concerned about our next beating or
slurp of gruel than whether or not we should have been napoleon or the
antichrist.

here is where the silly bit comes in. you see that sometimes it is
impossible to not laugh about all of this because it is really above
anything that ever mattered and below everything that can ever be acted
upon. you get some cheap thrills pretty easy and then realize they aren’t
thrills at all.
its funny that everyone is so afraid to say they’d love to murder especially
because so many want to so badly. it is ever silliest to think they project
their rage back on themselves and their own kind - a suicidal genocide. its
ever sillier because you think this has never happened before but we always
learn sooner or later even if it is too late.

Addendum 2010:
This is stream of consciousness writing about people I have lost in my life. It was helped out by rum. I drink Vodka now.

Jesus and Humidity:

Although most would state that the two words in the title shouldn’t be too related I scoff as in my associations (the mental kind), I see them linked eternally.
When I was 12 years old, I went to a christian youth summer camp that was affiliated with my uncle’s pentecostal church. At that age I really did KNOW better than to do such a thing but I also wanted to spend some time with my cousins who were being sent to the place by their father.
A little family history is necessary here I suppose. My mother was also a religious nut. She had forced my sister and I into understanding the love of Jesus from an early age. It really isn’t that remarkable considering her own upbringing. Some nights my mother would force my sister and I to watch Billy Graham crusades in their entirety as we squirmed and occasionally giggled which then brought about the wrath of a mother who had decided that her children were going to heaven no matter what hell she had to put us through on earth.
The thing though is that she was a novice compared to my uncle. My uncle, after two tours in Vietnam had come back to the United States a troubled man. I assume that was sort of the norm for that experience but nonetheless, his troubled heart finally found comfort in the pentecostal church.
Now for anyone reading this that does not know, the Pentecostal churches of America are extremely passionate about their own version of the gospel truth. Indeed, they are not particular about whom they take in, but once you are in, they are very particular about you. His church also had the extra oddity of “faith healers” and “speaking in tongues”. For me, going to his church on my summer visits was like going to a circus, as my mothers brand of protestant was a more austere event that lacked the drums and guitars and people going into convulsions upon figuring out that the hand of God was upon them.
One minor experience was one time when my younger cousin was mocking a cornbread woman who was “speaking in tongues” my uncle spied our giggles and promptly ran my younger cousin to the basement along with me and forced me to watch him whip my younger cousin with a belt around 10 times. I wasn’t too sure what the psychological intent was for him to make me observe such an idiocy, but the effect was that I was just as sure as ever that I was happy that man wasn’t my father.
So as this summer approached I was asked to go to their summer Bible camp. My mother was against it as she had a little holier-than-thou sibling rivalry going on with her brother. I was also reasonably sure that my mother saw his brand of Christianity as backwards and downright hostile to intelligence.
Still, to spend time with my cousins was golden to me so I insisted on going. No sooner had we got on the bus, I was in trouble. The preacher guy came on the bus before our departure to speak of certain rules we youth were to follow followed by some obnoxious prayer that beggared a terrible God to NOT let us die on the way to the camp via some satanic highway disruption. During this prayer I refused to bow my head. This preacher (who looked like a fat Vincent Price) immediately came to me at the end of the prayer and asked me why I hadn’t bowed my head. I was somewhat afraid of the goon so I told him that it was a mistake. He then stated a few versus of scripture aloud and then exited the bus.
The bus ride to the camp was around 2 or so hours long in scorching humidity that as far as I am concerned is the kind that only exists in Missouri. During this ride the kids in the front were singing sweet libations to their lord while we few in the back were playing grab ass and trying to talk as many young women as possible into letting us explore their natural exports.
Upon arrival we were led to our cabins. The cabins were terrible things. My mind tells me that they were 6 foot by 6 foot and in each cabin was 6 racks, 3 on each side. I was assigned a cabin with 5 of the goofiest human beings I had met up to that point. The first young man to introduce himself to me was named Joe. Joe said, “my name is Joe, but I prefer to be called, “the boss”. I told Joe to fuck off and that you can’t nickname yourself. I told him to refer to me as, “the guy who thinks Joe is stupid”. Soon though I found that Joe had some marijuana. This intrigued my little mind as at the time I was flushed with the idea that marijuana was something people tried to keep other people from because it made them better people and that scared them. I was half right I suppose. In deliberations with Joe we sought our time to smoke that dope along with my cousins and two females that were also interested.
Soon these thoughts turned me completely rebellious. Even though I didn't smoke cigarettes at the time, my youngest cousin of the two did and we would take every free moment possible to run off into the woods to smoke some cigarettes that he had smuggled into the compound. One early morning about halfway through the “prison sentence”, both my cousin and I were caught smoking. The camp counselor that caught us was a complete control freak and sentenced us immediately to two days kitchen duty which meant washing pots and pans after every meal. My cousin went along with the punishment but I told the guy that my mom was a lawyer and that if he made me do it that my mother would sue them. Somehow, in the 2 volt chicken brain I was dealing with, that line of crap worked.
It was about at this time that I noticed all of the “normal” kids I was previously dealing with were beginning to fall like flies for the lord. One after the other went to the front of the chapel after every service to be “born again unto Jesus”.
The kid Joe told me before the service that he was going. He had put much of thought into how evil he was (which as you know, most 12 year old kids are plenty damn evil) and that he needed Jesus in his life. Fine I thought, whatever floats your boat but, where is your pot? Can I have it? Well of course I couldn't because that is a sin and he went and flushed that shit down a toilet. ARRGH! I thought, ARRRGH!
Well this night that Joe went to the flock I will never forget. These Pentecostals pulled out all the stops. The jamming for CHrist that went on that night would put the Allman Bros. circa 1969 to shame. And all through this, the kids were told to get up and STOMP and DANCE for Christ, to STOMP and DANCE the DEVIL on out of this world. Alot of these kids were sure trying, you have to hand it to them, I had never seen such ecstatic nonsense. Of course I didn't know the term ecstatic back then but I did know the term nonsense. There were children fainting from exhaustion but to the leaders of this group, it wasn’t exhaustion, no , it was clearly the lord possessing their spirit. It was practically insane. I began thinking of Jim Jones. I wondered if there was going to be cool aid after the show. Thankfully their wasn’t but there was a little pressure. After the 5 hour event (YUP, 5 HOURS), a counselor came to me and asked why I hadn’t joined in the madness. I told him that this event had driven me further from religion than he could ever possibly hope to imagine. He retorted, “I’ll pray for you BROTHER because I want to see you in heaven!” I rolled my eyes and walked away and couldn’t think of a response. As I slowly worked my way back up to my cabin the guy came running back up to me. He said something long the lines of, “hey brother, this isn’t about religion, its about the WAY to salvation!” I ignored him and continued walking.
Back by the cabin’s I met with Joe and my cousins. Joe was amped, he was overly enthusiastic about his new love of Jesus. He had always been a believer you know, just never “born again”. Indeed his destiny had been sealed by stomping and dancing to a hillbilly interpretation of theology and why the fuck not? I had warmed to the guy by this point and told him that it was a good thing for him but for me, I preferred to wander the wilderness of doubt. Soon we were in our racks and it was lights out.
Joe and I discussed many things but I had to bring up the pot. I was looking forward to escaping this temporary reality and asked him why he did it. WHY? During this discussion another little Jesus freak listened in and heard the word “pot”. He knew what he had to do and that was to turn us in, first thing in the morning. Joe tried to reason with him but it was of no use. Later when the tattle tale for God and all that is holy fell asleep I woke up Joe. I told Joe that there was only one way to keep our asses out of trouble. He looked confused. I said, “Joe, we are going to have to fuck this kid up. He needs to be afraid of telling on us.” After a few minutes of persuading we decided upon our plan of action. Joe had a tube of Bengay. That was ALL I needed to hear. I grabbed the tube and found that our little friend had fallen asleep face down exposing his backside. Into his ass crack a whole tube of Bengay slithered. Needless to say, in about 30 minutes our friend woke up howling in pain. In the initial moments I went to him and said, “you tell on us you creep, the pain you are going to feel will make this feel like fun.” His eyes were wide open in despair. He had no idea that there was evil like me in the world. Soon a counselor heard his yelping and took him off to the nurse.
Of course they came back and questioned me, but I denied everything. When the last inquisition ended Joe asked me nervously if we still had any cigarettes. I said, “sure thing BOSS.” We walked to my cousins cabin and skittered off into the woods smoking and chatting about all the pussy we were going to get in the remaining 3 days.