"I tried to look at the pictures again, but its like looking at an autopsy of someone you love. You immediately feel sick and you eyes heavy with tears. I had to turn away. They're on my computer, but I just can't delete them. I miss him sometimes.

Sometimes I don't even think of him all day, all week even... others I wake up and I don't even know why yet, but I'm already crying. I hated him in the end. I still do, I guess, and he deserves a lot of it.

He went crazy. He was selfish. He was a drunk. He would say the cruelest things in the world...

...but underneath it all, he was trying. He was trying to be good again. He loved me, he was just so horrible...

I left him the day he checked himself into a hospital.

By the time he got out, I was already with someone else. He kept trying to call me, I was so repulsed, it just made me hate him more.

A few months went by. sometimes I was alone, sometimes I was in another man's bed. One morning I get the call.

He just wouldn't wake up his room mate said. He just wouldn't wake up. They called it heart failure.

This Little Light of Mine

I am a man of passion and conviction. Eroding. I was a priest. I got defrocked for questioning the lord's wisdom at one too many services. I guess growing up into this sort of Job, you just don't realize how lonely you'll be by the time you're 28. 


At times i feel like I'm a dying man. Like time is winding up for me. I have no science, no doctor's information, or chronic health problem that suggests this to me, just an ambiance, a feeling that maybe i'm on my way out the back door. Its just a delusion, or its a a projection more likely, of amourphous turmoil, feelings and emotions I can't even name, problems I can't identify, and therefore can't rectify, maybe they're taking on a new form, a more identifiable, yet equally unrelenting, ever-present, unbeatable form. Maybe this is the transubstantiation I am 'achieving' in the absence of Christ.

In the bible, Jesus of Nazareth rose Lazarus from the dead, straight up. Walked out of the tomb. Nothing like it. Must've stank, must've had a really gross hangover. But, man, he was alive. How many times does one get resurrected?

David Koresh wanted to have his cake and eat it too; not only did he want to have a bunch of girlfriends and guns, he wanted to be a messiah. What he got was a building on fire and a martyrdom. Now, i'm not saying the government had any right to do what they did, and in fact I hope those cruel men burn for it, but, you have to understand that your actions have consequences.


Love and sex are a million daggers. I'm not getting any love, and i'm not having any sex, But there is always the white rabbit to chase around. Or the maid, or the many different oppurtunities i have squandered time and again, trying to keep things in order, deny my urges and be a good shephard. In this department, i have about a dozen lose ends to tie up, here or there, all of them giving me vertigo, none having any clear chance of surviving my madness, my indescisions, misgivings, nonsense. I want comfort, I want warmth, I want security and companionship. I want something entirely new, adventurous, romantic, strangely appealing. I want sex. Hedonistic, sweaty, teenage fantasy, stranger in the backroom sex. These are polar opposites of which, i am terrified equally.


When Jesus had his moment of doubt, nailed up to that cross, he screamed, "Father why have you forsaken me?" But his father had not forsaken him, rather Jesus was his father, and his father he. Therefore, Jesus may as well have put himself up on that cross, Judas be damned. If he is the alpha and the omega, the all seeing all knowing, omnipotent, he knew, he made it to be so. He built that cross. He placed his beaten flesh, flesh he beat near to death with hand his own. He put it up there on that cross and he himself nailed it to those boards. Martyrs, so often self made.


Jesus, where are you? You spoke to me. You came into my mind and heart and soothed me, and set me off onto a quest. But even with a bible in hand, the answers, the certainty, is not forthcoming. Am I  forever destined to philosphical and theosphical wandering? Answer me! ...Answer my prayers.



Now, I sleep in a basement. Its cold and dark. The results of these conditions are that I never want to get out of bed in the morning, cause its warm under the covers and  its dark in the basement, tricking my mind into thinking its still night.
This morning the light bulb died.

Don't get MADD...

Caller: "I don't have a big suicide problem. I just wanna talk to someone who won't really judge me. Or is paid not to, anyways. Is that alright?"

Helpline Operator: "Of course, I'm listening."

Caller: "I was a victim's advocate for MADD for years. I took the job mostly because it matched up with my social work degree, and I was tired of working HR for a Best Buy down the block. Thought it might be nice to use my skills in a different area. I'd never really had a drunk driver tragedy or anything.

So, anyways, things are cruising along nicely. I was doing really well, I mean. It never seemed to get me down that most of the people I was working for- the victims- were crying most of the time. I mean, its fairly obvious why they were crying, I just filled out my paper work, sent them to the right guy, the lawyer, counselor, whatever. So it was fairly easy to be a small comfort. I worked quickly and allowed them to get home. I loved it. It was like social work in tiny doses. I loved my job.

So here's what happened: I went out with an old football buddy from high school, right? I was going to be the DD, but of course, he convinces me to have a shot. One turns into a few, and a few turn into being there for twenty minutes past last call. He said he would call a cab, but he couldn't find his phone. He had drank a lot more than me, so I decided to drive us back to my condo, a few blocks away.

Well, we're driving down the road, and without warning, he just throws up- all over me. I swerve the wheel and hit a telephone pole. Cops and ambulance get to the scene. I'm pretty much fine, but my buddy ends up in a wheelchair.

So of course the newspaper the next day says something like "MADD EMPLOYEE CRIPPLES MAN IN DRUNK DRIVING ACCIDENT." So now I have all the lawyers I used to refer victims to getting ready to hand me my ass in court, right? My friend's family decides to sue me, and in the middle of this, MADD has a PR nightmare on their hands.

MADD starts picketing outside my condo. The Local news won't even let me get my mail for weeks. My friends and girlfriend, well they won't even talk to me. I had to move out of my place just to get away. It was like that Alice Cooper song, "I got no friends cause they read the paper, they can't be be seen with me" or whatever. The MADD people killed me, they followed me everywhere. Victims I had helped are throwing dirty diapers and coffee in my face, I was literally run out of town. I guess I can't blame them, but, eh...

So I sold my condo. Most of that money and my savings went to the guy and his family, or the court. I end up in a shitty one bedroom and of all things, working in a Bar 200 miles away. And now I'm a drunk. Heh... But a bicycling drunk. I never even bothered to get another car. All the stress I got from MADD turned me into a drunk.

So having people just talk to you about this weird shit. Does that ever make you wanna just drink?"

Helpline Operator: "I've been drinking the whole time."

Caller: "heh. I have too, come to think of it."

Helpline Operator: "Cheers."

Peanut Butter

...I'm telling you, man. This bullshit is piling higher everyday. I already told you about the boys and their Robotussin and their house music. You know, I think they were trying to get a thirteen year old girl high offa glue in my basement? MY basement! And christ, this girl was only thirteen. They don't even go to the same fuckin' school.

And lemme tell you this: My foreman is a good for nothing, ignorant hack. This bastard is twenty two years old, he's balling the boss's daughter, and he doesn't know a fuckin' wrench from a tape measure. I'm supposed to listen to this guy, With his soft hands and his faggoty assed voice? Well, it doesn't make a bit of fuckin' diff'rence, cause they halted development on the subdivision, anyways. Apparently all the union workers who buy these piece of shit cardboard cookie cutters that pass as houses are broke.

So I've spent the last few weeks broke as hell. I get a piece of bread and goddamn peanut butter for breakfas', lunch, and dinner. My wife, god bless her whoring soul has spent what little savings we had on shit the boys don't need and yet another fuckin' Prada bag. She can't get over the fact that this isn't the 1980s anymore. "No Honey, I don't have money for a fuckin' eight ball. No, I don't wanna buy another bottle of wine, I work for a fuckin' living, while you're at home bangin' the shit outta half the neighborhood." She doesn't look like she used to either, man. When I met her, I fuckin' loved this girl. Twenty some odd years later, I wonder if it was her tits and teased up hair. Her skin sags off every part of her body. Like one long fuckin' turkey neck. We haven't fucked in years.

My dad worked in construction, I worked in construction. It was steady, honest work, man. I wasn't one of those damned saving and loan assholes. Now, lookit me! I'm on my ass! No money saved. And not a goddamn thing to show for my years if those bankers get their hands on it.

Last night, I turned in a few bottles I found outside the gas station and went to the supermarket to buy a cucumber for dinner today. I love cucumbers, man. And even a cucumber would feel like a real meal right now.

So I come home from picking up the boys, and what is my wife doing?

She's sitting on the couch, fuckin' herself with my cucumber. I'm real fuckin' glad the boys saw that. I couldn't help it. I slapped the shit outta her. She started cryin' , her mascara runnin' down her face. I looked at her, and I saw me there inside her eyes. She looked like a dying god damned dog, and in her eyes so did I. That shit scared me, ya know?

I walked into the kitchen to make my usual peanut butter sandwich. It was sitting on the counter by the sink. The lid was offa' the jar, so I look in it, and there's a fuckin' fly caught in it. What the fuck am I supposed to about that?!?

Black Water

It was hot in July of 2005. This night was mercifully not an evening of the sweltering variety the two of us had grown accustomed to driving down the Interstate during daylight hours in recent weeks, for our many destinations, with or without purpose. Instead, it was wretchedly humid.

Near her apartment building was a swamp, and a small wooded area. Neighbor’s cats scurried around the grass until the sprinkler system turned itself on, at which point the cats of course scurried away with haste. Crickets, frogs, birds, and other sounds filled the air. The twilight that eve was a swirling, scarlet and violet impasto sky. Clouds broke in clumps, and bright white stars shone brightly despite the buzzing, distracting lamps in the parking lot. The sprinklers let up and we had moved from the sidewalk back onto the grass.

We were conversing, but not of anything of importance. Not at that time. Instead, I was reprising my typical role, that of the fool, and she retained her role as the pseudo-irritated straight-man. I had at this point taken something of hers, a key chain, or trinket. Of course I began to make a chase out of it. We chase one another around the trees and cars, back and fourth, and so on. Finally, she corners me and as she is attempting to regain her property I begin with the unsportsman-like tickling. She half tackles me, which I turn into an embrace.

I held her there for a long, akward while. I wanted to take her in. I memorized the feel of her arms against me. The scent of her hair products, the feel of her cheek brushing against mine, her fingertips. I released her.

We spent more time than we had intended outside. We had spent the better part of the last two days together, I had slept on her couch the night before, and we had run around looking for things all day. I begun onto one of my diatribes about my past, and my emotional insecurities and self doubts.

This was a role she would play frequently, and never complain. My counselor and confidant. So often I would encumber her with worries and pains I had bled out to her ears. Nonetheless, she stood ready.

I wrapped up that night’s monolouge, and said my goodbyes. I hugged her once more, and as I atempted to release she took grip of my elbows and lightly kissed me upon the cheek. My left cheek, if I recall. She said, "Its okay". She smiled Lightly, like a child. The humidity had made her sweat, and her skin glistened from it. She would have likely thought she looked terrible in that moment, but I captured that Image of her with my mind and held on for dear life. Her Headband, a hankercheif, slightly out of place, her checkered belt, blue jeans with ripped knees, and black hoodie, which she never went without. I looked into the sea of calm in her green eyes. The stars and street lamps reflecting out of them. I departed.

It was fourty minutes back to my home. I listened to my radio. I felt invulnerable.

Much time passed, Many encounters, much time spent together. Somewhere, we lost our way. All the bridges that used to link us had fallen under sheets of black water and rusted away.

I'm Listening.

People only pray when things have gone horribly wrong. When the house gets foreclosed on, the drugs stop working or start working too well. The wife left or the baby died in delivery. People tend to pray when they're at the end of their rope. When you think about it, God's got a depressing job, having to listen to people whining all the time.

So, that considered, I got into the business. Hearing people's problems. It started simply, really.

When I was in high school and college, I worked the same types of jobs anyone else has: fast food, retail, some office work. I eventually ended up working as a debt collections caller. I hated the phone, and still do. What I hated worse was the treatment I received from the people I had to call. Debt collectors and repo men are perhaps the only occupation folks hate more than the IRS. People would get irate, vulgar, and crass. Others, though, would break down.

One caller, in particular was the game changer. It was one of those calls where you knew you were gonna get this guy's life story. He started crying pretty early into the call. His wife had left him for some hedge fund guy, or something like that. He hadn't been able to visit his kids in months, and his credit card bills had piled high trying to pay his bills. This part was typical. The problem was, I didn't stick to the plan. When you're working in collections, you're supposed to take every conversation back to business. But something this guy said engaged me, and we started talking about his personal life. At one point I heard him rummaging through his house, and then I heard a gunshot. He had killed himself.

Maybe it was the psych class I was taking, or maybe its that I was over my Ayn Rand phase and into my Khalil Gibran phase. I decided If I was going to talk to people on the phone about their problems, I wasn't going to bring the problems to them. I'd let them bring their problems to me.

I became a help line operator.

After awhile of "guiding" people over the phone in a state of desperation, I had my second over-the-phone suicide. At that point I decided to stop answering questions and pleas, and start listening. Just letting people speak their piece. After all this time, I've heard some interesting stories. Some horribly sad, some wretchedly insipid, and some, well, actually pretty funny. I started writing them down. Here they are.

I'm your Helpline Operator. I'm listening.