It was like that the entire first week on this job, for all of us scabs. The smell of that dusty, toxic mess stayed with us long after we got back to the motel room. The worst part was the chemical burns. Every day, we’d get back and check out the redness around our eyes [...]
Well… it wasn’t exactly Topeka. That’s just where I was told we were going when I asked. “Some God-forsaken hellhole by Topeka.” I had no idea what he was talking about. “What’s so hellhole-ish about a job near Topeka?” “You’ll find out, new guy.” The whole thing was a mystery and I got nothing but enigmatic [...]
A Long Way from HomeOn the side of the freeway. State highway seventy-two. Well south of I-80. South Omaha. Near the stockyards. I’m on my way home. Heh… home? Am I calling my dingy little dungeon of a room in midtown home now? I guess... now I’ve gone and made this crazy journey to pay [...]
Chapter Five Scab Unskilled Omaha After paying rent and the several days of my (perhaps a bit unwise) street punk feeding program, what was left of the two hundred bucks I’d gotten from Fred was down to practically nothing by the time I showed up on the job site. The guy who'd hired me hadn't [...]
Here I stand Before the stone Not in fear Not alone Journey's end Not fore to see Live in light Live in me Brave the band The Devil's due Sent in silence Sent in you See my friend The helping hand Here in love Here I stand
“Just beyond / yourself. // It’s where / you need / to be. // Half a step / into / self-forgetting / and the rest / restored / by what / you’ll meet. // There is a road / always beckoning. // When you see / the two sides / of it / closing together [...]
Omaha on a String But before I got the job to get that money, the money that would allow me to keep my dingy little basement room (for a while anyway) before I got that job, I had a few days to get to know my new little gang of “punks”. Of course, we didn’t [...]
Omaha on a Shingle The ally outside my dingy little basement dungeon of a room, is also a hangout spot for this group of kids. Most appear to be in their early teens, a few as young as eight or nine. I've seen them nearly every day now, on my way in or out. They [...]
Omaha Affirmations I’m sitting on the floor, in the middle of MY room. The dim diffuse glow reflected off an adjacent building, struggles to define MY four walls. High up one of these walls… the only window from which natural light can enter, is open. Random street sounds from the road beyond MY alley… an [...]
Omaha Mastications One might say that the moment we walked into our new apartment in Omaha, the writing was on the wall for our little makeshift family from Norfolk. But a better metaphor would probably be the bloodstain on the floor. Only… it was not a metaphorical bloodstain, it was a very real bloodstain. It [...]