http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/ The Secret Log of Captain Forehead en-us Nucleus CMS v3.31 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.captainforehead.com/journal//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/ http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=96
Rubbing the hands of once greatness together, flames stretching to lick the flesh, I shook my head, again in self-disgust. I know things must change. I know I must do something. But what? How? Where is the energy, the passion for goodness when the day grinds you into the ground? When you are crushed by exhaustion in the course of accomplishing nothing, what is left to do something — especially when the something is as rewarding to those who are helped as it is to the soul, but does nothing to help put a roof over your head, and roofs are nice is something learned when they are absent. (I always took roofs for granted, thinking they were just another example of man’s growing softness, until I began living without one and felt nature’s relentless coarse caress.)

I take a deep breath. The air is thick, so much so that I feel I can chew what I am breathing — but who wants to chew the putrid stench of nature’s recycling decay? Perhaps breathing the heavy soot coming off of the burning pile is not such a bad idea.

“Nah,” I grunt, passing on the bottle making its rounds.

“Here,” Du grunts back.

I may not want to drink this time, but I still need to pass the bottle along. Taking the bottle, I prepare to pass it along, but Geez cannot take it from my hand. He tries, but something righteous within will not let it go.

The alcohol in this bottle, it is doing no good. What would happen with these men, with me, if we stopped numbing ourselves to the day, causing all days to become a giant blur? Something to consider, to discuss perhaps, except that before the conversation can occur, Geez tugs with all of his might, using both hands, and pulls the bottle from my hand. Only he did not have control of it himself and it fell to the ground. Three men diving to save the bottle were not quick enough. The bottle bounced off of its edge. The fire sniffed the alcohol and swallowed it quickly, providing a rush of warmth. All were stunned, staring at the grimy face of one once glowing goodness.

It might have been a good time to discuss what we were doing using alcohol to escape any purpose in life, but they were not in a mood to talk. En masse, they rushed my gentle and generous soul and began to punch and kick me as they insulted me incoherently. I did not feel threatened by the feeble, barely pulsing men, so simply absorbed the hits into my frailing body. Coming from the other side of the building I heard carolers singing “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.” I am not sure if I actually heard the last words or finished it myself, as I was struck in the head with a blunt object — a brick — and knocked beyond subconscious.

My head is killing me. The bump is sore, tender. No one seems to know who threw the brick. No one really cares where anarchy rules. They seem really pissed about the booze. Did I have a hand in doing a little good? In reducing the severity of inebriation? In giving them one day not numbed? Does it matter? Do I care any more than they care?

What I do know is I am alive and I want to live. Not like this, this is not living. I know that this is not where I belong. Checking my pockets I find nothing. I remember the emergency money in my small change pocket: $32, folded tight and small. It’s a start.

The breath of another day is a start, and all any of us needs is a start.

A start. We need only to begin to succeed.]]> The Next Chapter http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=96 Tue, 2 Mar 2010 09:05:37 -0800 http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=95
Perhaps what I know is nothing more than the excuse of not knowing...]]> The Next Chapter http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=95 Mon, 1 Mar 2010 11:56:25 -0800 http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=94
When you are without a home, you wake up when the city begins to regain its rapacious pulse. Like everyone living—even those without a beautiful roof over their head—you begin routine. For those of us without a physical address it usually means a forage for food.

Like our greatest ancestors, a man without a home has no refrigerator, no storage shelves, no pantry, no food to prime the system for the start of the day. Barely tolerated by society, we cannot hunt the birds or other small creatures the comfortable complain about for sustenance os it would inspire uproar and a call to “do something” about us—the unmentionable, the guilty. We blend the best way we can, wandering with our heads down in tattered clothes looking for something others have cast aside. A half eaten doughnut, pastry, McMuffin; anything will do. In routine I work my way from the places I want to eat where the food is easy to the places rats feast—hopefully I am full before having to compete with the rats. Usually I am able to find a discarded cup from one of the overpriced coffee shops placed every 72 feet, then I can go in and refill the paper cup with something hot and fresh—cream and sugar become a meal. I load the hot, bitter water with so much cream and sugar, it becomes substantial, almost a satiating meal. The smell of something fresh. When I close my eyes it is visceral and I am in another place. Whatever it is, for a moment I feel alive, as if I belong.

I remembered. I knew it was time to begin the path to medom again when I saw some kids on the overpass looking down on me and some of the others. They were shouting and laughing. I felt bad, knowing the humiliation was hurled at me as one of them, as one of us. I turned my head to inventory us and realized why they were so boisterous and animated.

Behind me sat Ben. He was slowly working his way into his day. Apparently he wanted to start his day by playing with his pseudo-erection and was sitting on a broken plastic box with little Ben sort of standing at attention and stroking away. I knew why the children were animated, but what really bother me was that I just my back to him and took another sip of my coffee. I was numb to the event, matter-of-factly accepting. I was too close to Ben in every sense of the word.

I have seen the underbelly; I have lived with, in and on the underbelly; I am the underbelly. This is where I have been, but inside he lives, dormant, waiting. Yes, I am older. Yes, I will meet the sickle of Grim Reaper, but between this moment and that, will I just sit and wait, not allowing him to be, to enable me to be the better man he makes I? I must choose, or he dies and I become no more than a Ben.]]> The Next Chapter http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=94 Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:55:14 -0800 http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=89
Perhaps the bowels of hell are swallowing us whole.

]]> The Next Chapter http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=89 Sun, 30 Dec 2007 03:46:56 -0800 http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=92
There are dreams in the dark of a sober night when memories visit. There is a man doing good deeds, knowing the path of rightness, helping to clear the way for his fellow feeblers. There were warm feelings of promise filling the time between ecstasy and despair.

The thought offer hope and promise, but how can one allow themselves to believe. One man making a difference, is there any bigger joke. Then the pain. Forget the hope, the pain is real, debilitating, agonizing. The few drinks from a bottle, any bottle, and the brain shuts down, the pain is pushed. Screw hope, just stop the piercing pain.

Good? Would? Should? If this is tomorrow, let it end now, but like the shadow chasers who hold out for a hope beyond reason, we take another day. Somehow we hold out an unrecognizable hope.

One more drink and the pain will go too far away for my numb brain to notice.

This what it means to not be a burden?]]> The Next Chapter http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=92 Thu, 12 Apr 2007 21:26:00 -0700 http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=91
Where?

No. Who...as if it matters.

Take a deep breath. It is time to be heard.]]> The Next Chapter http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=91 Tue, 10 Apr 2007 08:38:00 -0700 http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=88 The Next Chapter http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=88 Thu, 6 Jul 2006 13:18:01 -0700 http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=87 Lost Male.
]]> General http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=87 Mon, 6 Feb 2006 13:28:49 -0800 http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=86
Something out of place, almost sacred, yet natural and whole woke him for a moment. It was a tree, a lost tropical tree — a plumeria — standing tall and wide in full bloom pouring sweet jasminesque dreams into the night air and awoke the dead scent sense to the world around. It was stark contrast: the bright, beautiful tree in the barren, gray, grimy industrial neighborhood, but he saw no contrast, only the sight of blossoms in bloom and scent of sweetness. The tree brought him back to the realm of nuanced real, and he noticed he was hungry. The scent awoke the senses.

When a man is so out of touch with the physical realm that he wanders the streets without consciousness, he becomes thin, emaciated. The man who would be was hungry, thirsty, but, alas, he was empty of pocket as well as purpose. Fate, always the maniacal menace of the melancholy and morose had a plan — fate always has a plan, but it is never simple, or fully imagined when mindlessly meandering.

Awakened to the world, he heard his hunger growl. It was not to be taken lightly. He searched, looking for an opportunity to earn enough to eat, to seize a bite. He would not ask for a handout. He searched the bland bastion of horizon for a fruit tree, but most everything was dead or desperately dodging death’s sickle, except the red and white plumeria. Where to next? Where was he? He needed a live, vibrant city, but hunger has no boundaries, so the shell of fossilizing force continued his journey. Deeper and deeper into the dingy darkness of a dusk slamming shut the dream of another day.

The sounds were distant, nothing more than unidentifiable echoes, but they appeared to the instincts of he who was as a sign, an invitation to the possibility of food. The draw was followed, and the noises grew louder — the noises were jeers, taunts and condescension.

He who had been followed the echoes bouncing between the depreciated decay of gray and black grime buildings, knowing that as the volume increased possibility grew. He followed until the voices became audible, the words offering disturbing purpose.

“Fuck him up!”
“Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Kick his ass!!!”
“Oooooh!”
“Ouch!”
“Shit, that’s gotta hurt!”
“Fuck!”
“”I think he’s out. He’s out cold!”

The words made no sense, but vanquished hunger for the moment. There was something wrong, and he who had been was brought to this position for a purpose, so he continued, standing taller with each quickened step. Eventually, he rounded a corner and saw the game creating an ugly soundtrack.

“Look, we got another one!” a young man shouted at the arrival of what once was. “Perfect timing,” he offered, pointing a video camera.

The scene was cold, dark. A few too many men, hungry and homeless — mostly drunk to inoculate themselves from pain — stood about. Some were standing over a giant steel drum, warming themselves over the smoky fire of waste burning toxically inside. Others were standing and sitting against the elevated platform of the loading dock, sharing bottles. All were dressed similar — layers of dark, dirty clothes and coats — staring toward two men, covered in blood. The two had clearly been in a violent, bloody embrace of desperation. On the outside of the scene were two who did not belong. A dog barked in the distance.

The two who did not belong were the instigators, the two that helped the homeless once men come to the bloody mess masquerading as meaning. They loved the senseless fury and were excited, shouting for more.

“Who’s next? A bottle to the winner and $50 for each of you still man enough to take up the challenge. Women too! As soon as you sign the release and fight. It’s yours, win or lose. Who’s next?”

He who had been was confused. These men were smashing each other into bloody burger messes for a few buck — more accurately, for a bottle of cheap gasoline tasting liquor. Was it the desire to be alive, to feel, or the desperate need to kill the senses and set their hands on another mind numbing bottle of booze?

“Who’s next?” the anorexic youth shouted, holding his video camera in one hand and a brown bagged booze bottle high in the air with the other. “Come on, who’s next?!”

Most of the men scattered around the camp, as well as a couple of women, sat in pain, bloodied pain, sharing the bottles the had deviantly deeded.

“Who’s next? How about you?” the youth who would never make man asked, putting the camera in the face of the Captain ex, taunting him with a bottle. The blood began to course the veins violently.

“Oh, so you’re a smart one, huh? You want the money, don’t you? Alright, we’ve got the money.”

Handing the bottle to his timid partner, he pulled $50 from his pocket, waving it from side-to-side, moving it closer and closer to the face of ex.

“Leave him alone. Let’s find someone else,” the timid partner of Cameracreep cajoled.

“No, we’re running out of takers. Let’s get this dude to fight that skank.”

The following partner saw the eyes and within, and tried to warn his camera caressing friend. “No, leave him alone. He’s not right. I’ll find someone else.”

“Don’t be such a pussy. He’s a fuckin’ drunk, dude.”

“You should just let him be.”

“Fuck you. He’ll fight, they always do,” he promised his timid friend, taking a step closer — a step too close.

The man who had been grabbed the camera and placed it in the dirty hands of a meansless man standing at the perimeter of the taunt. “Film this,” he ordered.

“What the fuck you doin’?! Give me my camera back, old fuck!”

“Let’s just go. Get the camera and go,” the friend pleaded, watching the life return to the once of excellence.

“I’m gonna kick this bum’s ass, first.”
“Piece-of-shit, I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m gonna kick your ass for touching my camera.”
“Film this, drunk. Get this fuckin’ ass-kickin’ on tape.”
“Let’s make an ass-kickin’ film, fuckhead.”

The youth started to bounce on his toes, getting ready for the kind of proper boxing match he had seen on television, forgetting the ruleless brawls he had filmed. He bounced on his toes and began to circle he who was becoming again.

The creation that was Captain returned. The instincts watched. As the youth circles, he crosses his legs, and again, and… The Captain knew this causes a moment where the youth was out of balance, so at the right moment he lunged forward and shoved the immature boy, breaking his world. The hardened wanderers of wretch all around began to laugh, and the dirty cameraman circled to film the laughter.

“Let’s get out of here, Drew,” timid tossed.

“Shut up! I’m gonna knock him out, first,” the dreamless director wished aloud.

The man who only existed as Captain smiled a knowing smile. He felt alive. He felt purpose. He felt presence. He felt. The long, lanky youth charged, like an anorexic, retarded bull. The Captain watched, knowing without thought what to do next.

As the rage and anger crashed into the contortion that is the Captain’s body, it did not harden but embraced the blow. He embraced the blow with one hand under one shoulder and one hand over the other boney shoulder, while turning to the side.

The youth was confused. He felt contact with the body. He felt the body go backward. He felt a slight twist as they headed as destined by design toward the dark, gouging, greased ground for impact, but how did the slight twist cause them to land on his back with an old homeless man on top of him?

The experienced sat upon the youth and smiled teeth much too nice to be those of a street ghost, then released his hold on the youth whose face bled in panic.

“I’m gonna fuck you up,” the belligerent buffoon as boy promised, undeterred.

He who could be nothing else smiled. The boy bounded on his toes, circling. He took a couple of swings, quick swings, grazing the head and arms of the Captain. The Captain felt pain. It felt beautiful, purposeful. The Captain felt. The Captain was alive.

“You gettin’ fucked up, old man,” the youth again promised, bouncing.

Again and again, the child chump swung, on occasion connecting with the dominate docile figure standing, smiling, seemingly willing to take any blow he could not duck. There were no return blows, just grins.

“You’re fuckin’ him up. You’ve fucked him up, Drew, let’s go. You’ve done enough. Let’s get the camera and go before the cops get here.”

The youngin’ stopped bouncing, feeling victorious.

“You’re right. Old fuck can’t even fight back. Get the camera, we’ve got enough footage. Let’s go.” As he prepared to leave, he was stunned by the response of the man who had been taking his limp blows: the man stood, shaking his head from side-to-side.

“Let’s go, Drew.”

“Dude, this fuck is shaking his head ‘no’.”

“Forget it, let’s go.”

“No way. I’m knocking him out.”

Again, the useless youth stepped toward the man past prime and began to swing, but before he could connect he felt a blow to the chin that sent him reeling up and back to the ground.

“Lucky shot,” he hoped aloud, head cloudy.

The useless youth stepped to the Captain again, quickly finding himself on the ground, blood in his mouth, with a no longer so old looking man on his chest. With every insult shouted, the Captain thrust a fist into his face, pausing long enough for the youth to catch a smile of Captainesque purpose.

“Get him the fuck off me!” faux shouted, calling his friend for help.

The Captain focused on his hamburger helper, tenderizing.

From nowhere noticed, a small reddish-brown dog flew by the Captain and began an attack of his own. This caused the Captain to turn, and recognize that the timid friend had been coming at him with a pipe piece, but his assault was tempered by a terrier terror. The terrier nipped, but sounded vicious. The Captain began to stand, muscles growing with purpose of protection, focused now on the coward of manlessness who wished to bludgeon with a pipe.

Just as suddenly as the sidekick of destiny had appeared, he was silenced, silenced by a blow from the pipe of forever.

“Oh shit! I didn’t mean…”

The Captain wanted to attack the now excusing timid pipe wielding perp, but instead went to the aid of his saviour mutt.

“I’m outta here, Drew!”

“Let’s go. Get the camera.”

“You get it, I’m outta here.”

The crushed crafted hamburger helper kiddy looked around for his camera and spotted a homeless cinematographer recording all, then looked to the Captain. With that one look, Dip Drew knew he was not leaving with the camera, and would be wise beyond his actions to take the opportunity to withdraw immediately. He ran.

The Captain dried empty tears and tried to revive his new loyal friend of trust and triumph. He tried CPR, placing his mouth over the bleeding snout of the terrific terrier. He compressed the small brave chest. He tried, but his sent saviour was gone. The Captain held the waning warmth of the small body close, weeping dry tears, suffering.

“Whose is this?” he shouted. No one answered. No one knew. These ghosts were not people who could claim possession of anything.

The Captain slumped in pain of being sensed again. His stomach growled, still hungry.

Where to bury? Where to pay respects? The Captain did not know where to respect in the concrete and asphalt playground of industrialization. The saviour was not going to be tossed into the trash, into a dumpster.

For those sober enough to know, it seemed horrific and harsh. For the rest, they had already numbed themselves to all, but they considered surprise at what they witnessed. Quickly, the Captain skewered his dead friend and began to roast him over the fire. At first, they thought he was giving the animal a cost effective cremation, but when they saw he was turning the best of beasts to slowly roast the animal, they were startled, for but a blink. When they watched him begin to eat the animal, they were aghast, until they felt their hunger and joined in the honoring.

“This animal is I,” were the only words said to the group. To the Captain, this was far more honorable than tossing the great saviour in a dumpster, or leaving his carcass out to rot, to become fly fumes. This was respect, an acknowledgement of the joining of spirits that were already one. In his mind, he wished that upon his death he could be so worthy of such honor, but expected to be tossed aside with the rest.
]]> General http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=86 Sat, 31 Dec 2005 23:15:00 -0800 http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=85
You knew who Occam was the moment you saw him, but you don’t know who you are? Look! Look within, deep! You’re there! Come out! Please come out. It’s not the same without you. Come out, you know who you are!

I don’t want to be alone.

You can never be anything but, even when you are not. Come out! Please come out. Please.
]]> General http://www.captainforehead.com/journal/index.php?itemid=85 Tue, 6 Dec 2005 13:40:24 -0800