COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Akashic Books
© 2009 Ryan Adams

ePUB ISBN: 978-1-936-07030-5

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-95-8
Paperback Library of Congress Control Number: 2009924489

Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-96-5
Hardcover Library of Congress Control Number: 2009925384

for bug,
always

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1

Florida

Florida

florida lay there before us
swollen
this driver and me
rolling into a sure ghetto
neon jacksonville ghetto
to get a car
taxi was rattling smoke
shot up with seats ripped
we rolled into the lot
and
streetlamp-outlined men
standing up in a row
braced
each on a corner
body language loud
saying listen they had it
firearms
street pharmaceuticals
and when our eyes met
palms
blurred

smokeburns
electrical fires
sky ripping those whitecotton
clouds up
in some deep-ass blue
the too-deep sea
never-going-to-see-land-again deep
sky
lost-at-sea deep sky blur
just over there
that
i could see total anger moans
calm rage
lamps without shades
drywall tears
a history of night hours
and
in that moment
some clenched fists
they broke my bones
like
a light
falling off a night table
and like the rats we all are

florida

florida spat me out
but
i kept my breath

slow
a little girl at the bottom of the stairs
scowled
surrounded by night shade
shadow wall bricks
hidden in a mossy
funk
in a row on the second floor
landing
in the cement block apartment rise
some half-dressed bodies lit
up
christmas trees these men
were
streetlamp damp
sweating hard
guns near
in the nightpools
she
stared through me
like i was meat
she
held a plastic uzi
in a room staring
like they were eating through my skin
and
without a nod
without a tip

we slid very quietly into the butterscotch
grand prix
the driver and me
under the moons
screaming inside maybe
inside the rooms
with television blurs
circling us and circling it
that car
all armor-alled up and smelling like grease
and
like bad stuff or like something
like forget it
we got in
all of a sudden
he stopped asking me about the money
which was scary
he knew
i knew
he knew
i had that money
and
in your mind you go bloody feet
barely alive screaming for your neighborhood life
out of that place
but
she called
and

he answered
and
something pulled him triggered his heart
click
guiding him smiling to the freeway
no taxi
his nephew’s car
butterscotch grand prix
and
off the highway in a
fast food parking lot
the driver pulled me in
hands over my shrugging
sides
delivered me like a wish
as i forked over a little more than bargained
forgot about landing in the wrong city

that airport dry rotting

forgot about meeting

her father her father so decent his grill smoking

forgot about the mosquito bites

pine halls those castle walls of wood

forgot about myself
and
i was just happy to be home
i was happy
to remember who i really was
and

you know
i see that sky still
it reminds me of a dishrag rolled with heavy dew
and
palmettos exploding oranges
that
florida sky emitting total life
and total death
and
me on the fresh steps to
dropping all the bags
arms out
receiving
my destiny
and
hope
in several phases of doubts
colored
somehow
with love

Fruit-Rotting

Fruit-Rotting

once in coins subwayesque
we paid
all the way uptown
back in the skeleton-eye
like,

“hey hey hey gotta

keep up now”

somebody would shout
sweating
beautiful
on the shitty rushing chinatown
streets
glistening bodies yellow mash
sunrocked
those days…