FLYING COYOTES

The back story behind this is probably book length itself, so I’ll do my best to keep it brief. I was living in a house with thirteen roommates in Portland, Oregon. The year must have been ’97, possibly ’98. These years are sometimes fuzzy. Although that seems like a lot of roommates, we weren’t the most extreme house like this. Our pals at a house called the “Dust Bin” had some ridiculous number of like 25-30 people living there, including several people living in the backyard in tents.

Sometimes I miss these days, sometimes I don’t.

Anyways, we found out our landlord, a crooked Reverend, didn’t own the house we were living in. The bank owned it and this crooked Reverend just had keys to the place and was charging us rent on a building he didn’t own.

This led to a legendary keg party in which the house was severely damaged in several ways. A crew of graffiti artists went nuts on the walls, people dismantled the chimney and threw it in the yard, we burnt the furniture, and my pal Duane cut a Lay-Z-Boy recliner in half with a chainsaw.

It was one hell of a party.

After it was over, we decided to flee Portland, taking two vehicles- Duane’s cargo van and a VW microbus.
After a stop in San Francisco, we decided the best thing we could do with our lives was to become nomads living in the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona, so we headed down there. When we got to the desert, we made a pit stop at a gas station. These would usually take quite awhile as people poured out of the vans, took sink baths, smoked cigs, bought twinkies, whatever.
Jammed in a van with nine people- like I said, sometimes I don’t miss these days.

So what I would do while waiting is see how well I could balance walking back and forth on the concrete blocks at the end of a parking spot. As I was doing this one time I saw a big baggie sitting in the curb dirt.
“That’s funny because that looks like a giant bag of weed.” I thought, then thought “naaah that’s ridiculous, it’s junk.” Then I thought, “Maybe I should look at that and confirm that it’s junk.”

It wasn’t junk- it was a giant bag of weed.

That night we got totally lost in the desert and decided to just pull off the road and make a bonfire and try to figure out what state we were in in the morning. After we made the fire using dried out cactus and wood from a pallet we had stolen from the gas station, we smoked the shit out of that reefer- yes sir.
Then we started hearing coyotes howl. First one, then another, then a dozen. And the howls were getting closer. People were getting a little paranoid about the coyots. They were sure the coyotes were in league against us.
Here’s a point of contention in this story- I swear that we also heard drumming in the background- like Indian drums far away along with the coyote howling, but everyone says that didn’t happen and I just hallucinated it.
The coyote howling freaked a lot of people out and they got in the vans to sleep. I’m a pretty tough codger, though, so I slept right by the dwindling bonfire, along with three or four other people.

That night I had a dream I could see me and the other guys sleeping by the fire, like an out of body experience. Then I saw a huge horde of coyotes running right at us- hundreds of them. Just as they were approaching our sleeping bodies, though, they took off flying over us and up into the starry desert night sky.

UNUSUAL SUBMISSION PROCESS

I had written a couple articles for the Shepherd Express's A and E section, but had not yet written for the Music section. For my first pitch to them, I had a boffo piece. I had been informed of a unique story- a well known Milwaukee DJ, Malcolm Michiles aka DJ Old Man Malcolm had gotten a gig as the personal DJ of the Green Bay Packers, spinning records for them on the filed as they did warm ups.

I contacted Malcolm and then confidently e-mailed the Shep. Days passed with no response. In the back of my head, I was worried about this. Had e-mail Gremlins stolen my message? Were the editors unimpressed with this impressive pitch?

I woke up in a very 1950's looking hotel room, like something out of a Hitchcock flick. A phone was ringing on the nightstand. It was one of those solid black plastic rotary phones with a curling wire connecting the giant handset.

"Hello?" I said. A hushed, muffled voice replied.

"Hey you. You want to get your story printed in the Shepherd Express, huh?"

"Uh...yeah." I said, confused.

"Then you better meet me down in the lobby in 5 minutes." Then dial tone. I got my clothes out of the drawers, and next thing I was in the giant hotel lobby.

I noticed a lot of junk pinned and stapled and nailed to the walls. I thought it was strange that this classy hotel would have such junk for art.

I noticed there was a Fuel cafe hooded sweatshirt, a rubber duckie (pierced through the head to the wall with a nail), a frying pan hanging from a nail and lots and lots of magazine and newspaper articles stapled to the wall. It went on and on down the wall with all sorts of random junk and newspaper clippings, and all of it was connected to each other with different lengths of colored yarn. Typical mad man problem solving.

Suddenly, there was a man in a trenchcoat next to me, a fedora hat tilted down to hide his face.

"You want to get your story printed in the Shepherd Express, huh?" He asked in person.

"Yes, dude." I said, a little irritated already.

"All you got to do is solve the code." The mysterious man gestured to the walls draped in junk.

"Solve the code, get the story printed." He walked over to a bench between two elevators and sat down.

"Ok," I thought. "This is an unusual submission process, but I can do it."
I began studying the junk hanging on the wall to determine if I could see a code."

"Hmm, let's see...a rubber duckie, Fuel sweatshirt, frying pan. Duck-pan? Fuel-pan? Duck-fuel-pan? Cook the duck with fuel in a pan?" I looked down the wall. The mysterious code seemed endless and solving it would take much more effort than the 500 word piece I was writing on Malcolm. I became frustrated with the predicament.

I walked over to the man sitting on the bench.

"You know what?! I'm not solving this stupid code. There's no point! You're on your own!" I exited the hotel.

But I must have returned and solved the code, because I got a reply to the e-mail query the next day.

DUANE, HOW DARE YOU RUIN MY COUNTRY ESTATE

The night was hot, and I was flipping around in my bed. The loud sounds of construction machinery woke me up, and I was highly pissed about this. How dare they wake me up from my sleep at this hour. What time was it? Didn't matter.

I woke up and found I was in my large, palace like estate. My room was four times bigger than my house, the sole piece of furniture was my large bed, with four posts holding up flowing curtains, trying to shield the interior of the bed from this noisy intrusion. I was wearing a red robe and put on a smoking jacket.

I walked across the room and pushed open the doors which led to a large semi circle veranda. It had a marble fence enclosing it and a checkerboard marble pattern for the floor. I put my hands on the marble and looked out at my large country estate, spread out for acres. In the distance, a good forest for a fox hunt.

And there, below me, my friend Duane was digging a swimming pool like hole in the ground in front of me with a back hoe. As usual, he was sporting overalls with patches and ornate tiny bits of scrap metal sewn into them, his spiky bleach hair above the determined look on his face.

"DUANE!" I screamed, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"

He heard my screaming, vaguely, looked up and saw me, waved and gave the thumbs up.

"NO!" I screamed, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"

He looked up to me again, then held his hand to his ear, indicating he could not hear me.

I ran down my marble spiral staircase, adjusting my smoking jacket, my barefeet slapping the stairs. I pushed open the front doors and ran out into the estate. I ran up to the machine and frantically began yelling at Duane. He killed the ignition.

"Hey dude." He said.

"Duane! What the HELL are you doing?!" I cried.

"Oh, Warick told me to dig here for minerals." Warick is the bartender and proprietor of a punk bar here in Milwaukee called Circle A.

"Warick?!" I yelled, "What the fuck does Warick know about minerals?! He runs a fucking bar!" Duane frowned at me and reached to switch the ignition back on.

"Hey, you're going to have to talk to him about this. It might be your land, but it was his idea." I stood there dumbfounded as he started in on the digging.

I woke up and still heard the digging. I walked to the window of my apartment and saw the City of Milwaukee workers digging up the street in front of my house.

There's a joke about Wisconsin, that there's really only two seasons- Winter and Construction.

ME HEAD IS A HAUNTED HOUSE, MATE

This is another project I'm working on- a short book (75-100 pages) that is a collection of writing and illustrations by yours truly based on strange dreams I've had. I don't have much time to work on the illustrations until I'm done with HEROES IN THE NIGHT, but I am in the mood to work on small bits of the writing here and there.

This writing is a lot simpler, it doesn't need to be fact checked or researched, the only reporting is on the strange things that happen to me in dreamland.

INTRO

There was tons of blue smoke, too much of it, like 100 cigarettes.

I was sitting alone with an empty pint in the corner of the pub, somewhere in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. I was very anxious because I wanted to go to the bar and order another pint, but there was a man ranting and raving loudly, standing next to the bar. If I went to the bar, I knew he would try to engage me in his rantings, and I wanted nothing to do with it.

To make it worse, the bartender stood with his back to the bar, ignoring the man, washing pint glasses. It would be hard to get his attention unnoticed. I watched the man pacing in a small circle carrying on and on about something- can't remember what.

Eventually, my thirst for Guinness outweighed my anxiety. I approached the bar. As I predicted, the man put a hand on my shoulder and began angrily ranting to me. I turned to him and suggested he take a seat and calm down. He looked at me, shocked by the audacity of my statement, wild eyed and crazy haired.

"YOU THINK I GIVE A SHITE WHAT YOU THINK?!" He yelled. He placed an empty shot glass in front of him with a large thud on the bar. He looked at me again and bashed his head into the bar as hard as he could, smashing the shot glass. Then he turned to me, grinning and laughing, pointing to his head. Blood and bits of broken glass were dripping down his face.
"You think I give a shite?" He said again, laughing. "Me head is a haunted house, mate!"
I thought it was an odd thing to say and I was kind of in shock from his wild stunt, so I slowly took a step or two back. The bartender turned around, and without saying anything, threw a bar towel to the man.

PUSH!

A couple months ago, I walked home from work and was almost home. My legs were tired, but the afternoon was young. I saw a man approaching me.
"Hey big man- you afraid of me?" He asked. I guess he was asking because he was a different race than me. I thought it was strange.
"No." I said.
"Hey, I need help. I need help pushing my car."
"Ok." I said. I've helped push a lot of cars in my life. The key is pushing with the knees instead of the back. We started to walk. He was thankful I was helping him. His car was out of gas, he said.
"No prob." I said. "Where's the car?"
"Uh. On Brady. Holton and Brady."
I stopped walking.
"Wow." I said. "I'm the first person you found between here and there?" It was about 11 or 12 blocks from where we were (I don't know how many blocks the bridge counts as, but I'll say 2).
"So we would have to walk the 12 blocks, then push it 6 or 7 blocks to the gas station on North and Humboldt." I told the guy.
"No, we can't take it there. We have to take it to Capitol." I stopped walking, again.
"What?!" I said. "Why would we push it to Capitol?!" Capitol is about 22 blocks from Brady, the origin point of the gasless car.
"Because the gas station on North doesn't have diesel."
"Diesel?!" I said. "What kind of a car is this?!"
"Well, it's more of a truck." I stopped walking, for real this time.
"Look, man." I said. "I don't mean to be the bearer of bad news here, or whatever, but you and me aren't going to push a truck for 22 blocks through the angry motorists of Holton Street."
The guy then said if I gave him like ten bucks he could buy a gas can and some gas. Even if it wasn't a scam, I had no money. I literally had two dollars left for the bus in the morning and 50 cents for my sole nutrients for my shift of work- a paper cup of coffee from the vending machine.
As it turns out, it was a scam, or I guess a cursed vehicle, I've seen the guy two more times trying to get reluctant people to help push his car.
Overall, I think this story is funny, especially the image of me pushing a truck at .01 mph while people honk and flip the bird.
The only thing that pisses me off is that, hey I'll help someone push their car. And I hope if I'm in a jam someone will help me. But this type of scamming makes people retreat instead of lending a hand.

KRULOS HOLIDAY CONFESSIONS

1. One of my first Christmas memories. I was on that teetering edge of believing in Santy Claus. The boys at school were making this rough, they were punching guys that believed in Santa, so I played it cool with them and said I didn't. But my heart had doubts. That year my parents got me a gift that seemed huge to a kid. I want to say Castle Greyskull, but I'm not sure. Anyway I told them I believed in Santa, because there was no way that they could have afforded to buy it.
They still think that's funny and so do I.

2. I was briefly a drama nerd. My froshman year I auditioned and got a part in a dramatic adaptation of "A Child's Christmas in Wales" by Dylan Thomas. I can't remember the whole things, but lines of it pop into my head randomly walking down the street. All of a sudden it'll be like:
All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find.
Memory is a weird thing, especially when you're killing time on the number ten bus.

3. The holidays are the only time I allow myself to miss my ex-wife. Coincidentally, maybe, I have not been in a relationship since during the holidays. (Except for one where I had no communication with the person for almost the whole month of December.)
There are a couple of advantages. 1. Not having to come up with a great unique-thoughtful-romantic-awesome gift, and 2. Not having to hang with the awkward family of she or hanging with the er unique family of me (you know I love you guys).
Being single during the holidays is like being single during a zombie apocalypse. Sure, there are some advantages, but also it is oh so lonely.
Along similar lines: I also wish I had a daughter, or maybe twin daughters during the holidays. I don't know, you tell me.

4. Which leads me to my favorite Christmas song, "Blue Christmas," by the King. Not really a fan of any other Christmas songs.

5. I'm not a strong advocate of traditions, but I did start one for myself last season. I watch all three Lord of the Rings movies, one each night, for three nights. YES I know this is extremely dorky. But you know what, screw you, because you're a huge dork dork, too. So you can jam to a movie adapt of Chuck Dickens, and I'll rock it to JRR. What's the diff?

6. I'm not a huge fan of getting gifts anymore. The few people I do get gifts for, I do try to put some serious thought for. Sometimes it works.

7. Since today is Thanksgiving, I will say that I'm glad I'm not starving to death, dying in a desert, or suffering. See, up until this point you may have thought I'm a bit grinchy, but I do appreciate some holiday stuff. I think if people can find happiness for a month, that's great. I'm glad. I'm glad for the get togethers and the people being kind in the holiday spirit. I love my family, I love my friends.
Just don't expect too much of me.

p.s. Check out my blog on my book: www.heroesinthenight.blogspot.com

MORE BAD TIMES IN DREAMLAND

It was this place again. Sure, I knew it.
An abandoned city, a ghost town. Always rainy, giant piles of garbage, eternal night.
The planes drift around overhead. I can hear the rush of the jets and see the blinking red lights.
I walked down the street and tried to enjoy the loneliness. I heard an accordion playing some French folk or some gypsy jazz. I spotted a goth girl sitting on top of a pile of old tires, pumping the accordion. She wore black lipstick and a black feather boa, with a couple of longer black feathers sticking up from the back of her head.
I'm normally quite happy to hear the accordion, but this intrusion to my solitude drove me rabidly mad.
"SHUT UP! QUIT PLAYING!" I yelled. There was a pile of giant, fist sized rubies next to me. I picked one up and whipped it at her. She reacted quickly. The accordion morphed into a baseball bat, and she smashed it like a beer bottle. The bat turned back into an accordion and she began to snap the bellows shut and placed the accordion back in it's case. She looked at me, angrily.
"E tu, brute?" She hissed, then picked up the case and walked away. I had no opinion on this and kept walking.

Shortly after that I was walking in the street because the sidewalks were clogged with trash. Headlights stopped in front of me, blinding.
"SHUT THE LIGHTS OFF, DAMMIT!" I yelled. The lights shut off and I could see two Hispanic men wearing baseball uniforms sitting in an army jeep.
"Are you the man who phoned for two vampires?" One of the men called out.
"Vampires?! No I didn't." I said.
The two men looked at each other and laughed.
"He said vampires." One of the men said to each other. More laughing.
"I said UMPIRES." The man said. "Are you the one who phoned for two UMPIRES. We're umpires from the San Francisco Giants." I pretended to think.
"Umpires? No, I didn't." I kept walking.
"Okaaay." One of the men said, as if I were the crazy one.

As I walked, I developed a Saharan level of thirst. My body felt lighter, and I put my hand on my gut. There was nothing. I looked down, and my torso had become skeletal. I had some panic about this, and thought, if only I could drink a couple glasses of water, my flesh would return.

I spotted a bar down the street, which looked a lot like the famous Milwaukee institution Wolski's tavern. The door was open, and strands of rock floated out. I walked in, and the bar was frigid. That wasn't the problem, though. The problem was that the bar was filled with a dozen dead people. They were slumped over the bar and tables, and lying on the floor. They were impaled with knives and broken bottles and pool cues. Blood was forming puddles everywhere.
I stood there frozen, unsure of what to do. I badly wanted to go to the other side of the bar and get a glass of water, but decided I should leave fast. This was a crime scene.
I decided to keep walking. I passed under an El train track. An El passed by, empty. A ghost train.
As I walked, I suddenly felt badly for those dead people. A loneliness swept over me, and when I awoke I was sad.