Ashes Ashes- the inspiration

 A while after moving into the house my wife and I currently live in which, by the way, does have a beautiful fireplace, I realized that there was no clean-out for the ash pit.  Was the cast iron hatch removed and the hole blocked up?  Was there never one in the first place?  Who knows.  Curiosity got the best of me, so one day I removed the wood grate, lifted the lid & cleared the thick cobwebs and cautiously lowered my cell phone through the opening in the floor of the fireplace.  Sure, it was a little discomforting putting my arm down there, but I really wanted to see what it looked like.  We all find beauty in a wide range of shit, and the photos I took of the inside of our ash pit were, in my opinion, fascinating.  And no, I'm sorry to say, there were no bodies down there. 

Inside the actual ash pit.  The white spots are cobwebs

Unless, of course, they're buried beneath the mounds of powdery ash and soot at the bottom.

Ashes Ashes final

 I got sick of her bitching about everything, and she got sick of me just lying around, pissing and moaning.  After a while I stopped going to physical therapy and lied about it.  I knew she'd eventually find out, but I was caring less and less.  I spent more time at Casper's, the shit hole dive bar at the end of our street, just so I didn't have to go home.  I know, I know, home is where the heart is, and all that.  I just couldn't do it.  When I was home, we were at each other's throats almost constantly.  Something had to change, especially with the baby coming.  I just didn't know what.  All I wanted to do was tie one on and forget about everything.

Fat chance.  After she realized I'd drained what savings we had left she blew her top.  She told me I'd either have to get back to work or go live somewhere else.  She told me she couldn't take it any more.  Said she didn't need no slacker hanging around making things more miserable than they already were.  That was the final straw.  

  I'd needed to find a way to get rid of her but didn't honestly want to bury her out where critters would almost certainly dig her up and carry her parts off where someone might find them.  One of the things that struck our fancy most when we bought this house was the fireplace in the middle of the living room.  At the time I hadn't given it any thought, but realized after researching some things that there was no clean-out in the basement for the ash pit.  There was a trap door beneath the grate up in the fireplace, but no way to clean out the ash that got dumped down it.  "Well," I thought to myself, "no time like the present."  

After I'd cleaned up all the mess from her and sealed the chimney down in the basement I headed down to Casper's to think things over.  Any regrets?  Should've used more lime, maybe? I suppose I might be just a little sad, and mostly for the baby.  Will I miss her?  Hard to say.  Let's just allow some time for things to sink in. 

Ashes Ashes part I

Moving to the secluded area out by the lake four states away from both our fucked up families was the best thing we could've done for ourselves.  The toxicity had gotten overwhelming, the family drama nauseating.  We knew no one would ever visit, and that's how we liked it.  We were happy in our own little world out here.  Nothing lasts forever, though.  Sure, we'd joked about it aplenty.  "You know, I could chop you up and bury you out here and no one would ever find you," I'd jokingly said more than once.  She'd just laugh and agree, and everything would be okay.  I picked up work pretty easily when we relocated, and we decided she'd stay home and take care of pretty much everything.  First, she tried to respond with, "well I could do the same to you."  Then, "I guess your boss would wonder where you were, though."  Now, I know for most people, "jokes" like this would make one question the relationship, but we were, well, a little different.  You know, saw things with a twist.  One of the things we noticed when we first met was our shared off-kilter sense of humor.  

We kept to ourselves, didn't care to meet any neighbors or make friends, and life went on.  At first everything was good, we managed to put a bit in savings, and we'd settled into a nice quiet existence.  Then I got careless while moving some equipment, you know, trying to be all macho in front of the younger co-workers and all.  Then the baby came along.  Ordinarily that'd be fine, but with the mounting out-of-pocket shit, my physical therapy and whatnot, and being out of work for so many weeks well, things just kind of piled up.  

Mmm, Poppycock

 I suppose the worst part was his screams.  God, he was so fucking annoying, like a little kid who skinned his knee on the playground.  Big brother thought he could force me to scratch his back the way dad made us do his, but I wasn't having it.

I was trying to enjoy munching on the container of Poppycock that was typically reserved for the best-behaved of us, but since my brother and I were the only ones home and our father was out on one of his benders and likely wouldn't be back for another day or so, I decided to grab it from where it was hidden behind the flour and sugar up in the cupboard and claim it for my own.  The screaming had subsided for a bit, but I guess he thought dad might be home, so he started up again.  His fingernails lay in a grisly pile on the bathroom floor where I left them.  Why should I have to clean up his mess?  I'm the one who did all the work, what with having to find a decent pair of pliers, tie him down and all.  He even gave me a few bruises in the process.  It wasn't as bad as when I cut his dick off.  Oh, he'd made fun of me one too many times.  Told all his asshole friends my uncut little cock looked like a baby elephant trunk.  

You know, Poppycock sure blows Crunch 'n Munch and Cracker Jack out of the water, what with the thick caramel coating, the pecans and all.  This shit's delicious. Anyway, back to his dick.  So enough is enough, I thought, and when he was asleep I rolled over, sat on his chest so he couldn't move, and used mom's pinking shears to cut it off.  They sure were pink after that, let me tell you.  I'd be willing to bet he'd never make fun of my pecker ever again.  The screams came again, and he was really getting on my nerves.  It was almost as godawful as when I started slicing across his fucking forehead.  All I wanted was his scalp.  I had no intention of taking off his whole head or anything.  "What do you thing I am, some kind of animal?" I said as he groggily opened his eyes and realized what I was doing.  I'd put some of dad's pills in a spoon, crushed them up and put them in his Kool-Aid at snack time, so he was out like a light.  For a while, anyway.  Up til then I'd only imagined what it would sound like, so when I started pulling the hair and skin back over his noggin' the tearing sound almost made me gag.  It kind of came off in pieces, and I got bored and ended up leaving jagged parts attached by these weird little strings of meat and blood and stuff.  It was kind of gross, if you ask me. The whole point was to embarrass him like he did me when dad cut my hair funny 'cause he was drunk.  I had to go to school like that, and boy was I fuming.  "Not gonna make fun of me again, are 'ya?"  I said.  I got no response because I think he passed back out or something.  

Anyway, as I sat back and gave brief consideration to cleaning up the smears, splats and drips all over the place by now, I polished off the whole can of Poppycock.  I know, I know, you're thinking, "Boy, this guy's got no self control.  You'd think he'd save some for later."  I guess this is why mom used to say we couldn't keep stuff like this in the house.

Moving Day

When I was in grade school my father told us we were going to be moving to a new town.  He said we were buying an ice cream shop with a house attached in the hills of Berkshire County in Massachusetts.  After I made this announcement at school, Randy, one of my closest friends, made me a wooden sign and said all I'd have to do is paint our house number on it once I knew the address.  The sign was simply a stake painted gold with a dark purple arrow-shaped piece of pine nailed to the tip. 

This move never happened, and I'm sure this was one of many schemes my father dreamed up over the years in his maggot-infested mind.  

One day I did something bad.  I had a Suzy Homemaker oven on top of a low dresser in the bedroom I shared with two brothers.  Why it was in our room and not our sister's room across the hall, I don't know, and why it was atop a dresser I'll never know.  I know these things didn't really get hot enough to "bake" anything in, but I ended up melting something plastic inside the oven and filling our soiled laundry- toy- and cat shit-strewn bedroom with acrid smoke, which drew the ire of my father.  He charged up the stairs and, seeing the sign my friend made, grabbed it and started whacking me with it, the blows landing wherever he could reach as I cowered in the corner.

Long story short, he broke the sign on me, so it was just as well that we never actually moved.

But, His Hands

 The hands were what got me worked up the most.  I know they've got to work with what they're given, but surely the embalming process pretty much does all the work.  Am I wrong?  Extreme decomposition can be challenging, I'm sure, but I didn't think this was the case.  When I met two of my siblings and my brother's best friend in the funeral home's parking lot I'd asked for a few minutes on my own before they entered, a request they granted me.  Nervously, I approached the casket, the tip of my youngest brother's nose now coming into view.  As the remainder of his face met my stare I think I let out a breathe I wasn't aware I'd been holding.  They did a great job with his face and hair, and his suit was meticulous.  His hands, though, looked bloated, sausage-like.  "Comfortably Numb" came to mind, that line in the first chorus, specifically.  A sister, breaking our agreement, walked up behind me silently.  "He looks good", she whispered.  I'd cried a little, swiped at my eyes, said, "But, his hands-".

Flashback a few days.  Another brother, oldest of what started out as eight of us, douche of douches, impatient, holier-than-thou, self-important, spouted, "Why should the fact that my brother took his own life inconvenience my employer?".*  Getting back to work was furthest from my mind, but I guess others had different priorities.  We were sitting in a large circle, the funeral director and our mother at the head.  I wondered what mom felt when she heard her eldest spawn blurt such shit, cringed at what the director thought.

Flash forward a week or more- I don't remember.  It's now been about 14 years if I'm not mistaken- the above mentioned sister and I were the only ones who, for closure or whatever the fuck reason, requested to see the photos the police took when they found my brother's body.  It took some nerve but I sat at that desk for what seemed an eternity, staring at the image of him lying on his side, his hands under his cheek, eyes closed, like he'd just fallen asleep.  Which, I suppose, was the case, only he'd had help.

- An excerpt from a memoir that'll likely never be written because I'm a lazy procrastinating fuck.

*Verbatim, I swear, in case this ever ends up in court.  

Marvelous Memories of Youth

When I was a teen in the 70s two uncles- one a pedophile drug addict and the other somewhat normal- ran a night club in a refurbished barn in a tiny town you probably never heard of.  I washed bar glassware, swept up closing time debris and mopped up beer, puke, jiz- whatever all that shit was that gave the concrete floor its texture.  I restocked the beer coolers, helped in the kitchen and even ran the lights once or twice for bands no one ever heard of or ever will.   I guess child labor laws weren't a big deal at the time, and I often stayed until the last patron stumbled out. The Marvelettes- or at least that era's line-up, played one night.  To a typical horndog teen these three beautiful ebony women were untouchable goddesses, and I'll always remember sitting at the bar (yes, at about 15 years old) at the end of the night, mingling with the ladies and their manager and pretending to be an adult.  Suddenly, one of the gorgeous ladies sidled up next to me and asked if I wanted a beer, and signaled the bartender- my uncle- for a bottle of Heineken.  After popping the cap and setting the bottle down on the bar he turned away, and ********** slid the bottle toward the edge of the bar, held it low in front of me and pulled my t-shirt out.  She teasingly slid the beer up my chest under my shirt, poking it out through the neck of my shirt, and had me sip it that way.  Not exactly discreet, I know, and I'm not 100% sure my uncle didn't see what was going on, though he never acted on it.  After another round my uncle made it clear I needed to head home, so I said my goodnights, dug my bike out of the bushes by the dumpster and pedaled the five or so miles home, weaving back and forth over the white line along the edge of the road.  After undressing and climbing into bed I thought back through that night's events and those three beautiful women, which lead to multiple rounds of vigorous masturbation.