"Yes sir," Andy says, as we drive through the respectable neighborhood in a respectable American brand rental car. "I need it." I give him the pipe and he passes it back and I pass it back. The windows are rolled up and it is a flavorful weed with a nice texture, an even draw. We're inhaling and exhaling, me in my slow compressed chest posture, hunched in breath with a pumping heart. Andy's head up, looking about, easing the steering wheel past a little kid, standing in the street with a blank, bored, gaze; a haircut for his head of black hair that gets him no trouble. The passing car, the street, his boy scout house behind him, drifting away a short afternoon. "I'm holding it in. I'm holding it in." Andy says, squeezing his words. My window is cracked and I've had enough, "good," I say. He takes one more hit, timely sunglasses, exhales and feels like he's grown five times bigger. "Wooh, hah" he yells, rolling down his window, aerating the dim cloud. "I'm an addict," he says loudly. Then he barks, "And I'm Back On!" breaking all sound in the car, firing it out like a cannon to the backyards and driveways. "I'm Back ON!" He can be heard three blocks in any direction. "Back On!"

Andy wants them to know, wants them to hear, that the crack has hit the street, that he's 6 foot 5 and has been a bully all of his life and he's not from here and he's bringing them his home town act. It's America, baby.

"I need it, Duane," he says seriously. "I feel like I'm going up."

"This is Humboldt," I say, "straight from California, brought up in flour sacks." We're heading down the hill, passing houses, green lawns. A little dog stands in the road, like the kid back there, with no curiosity for the slow moving car, no fear of rolling tires; standing half-asleep in his familiarly marked lawns, groomed curly fur. Without any build up, Andy barks like a mad doberman, cornered, raising the hairs on the back of my neck, showing the little dog, who's who. The dog steps backwards, with a few timid barks back, but Andy's bark was so fast and loud and from the jaws of a human, that the little dog doesn't know what to do. Two men and a woman are standing on a porch. A tall, well dressed, older man, is saying his goodbyes but is in the middle of some story so that the men don't give the barking dogs any play or space in their time. The middle-aged woman in the doorway looks away from the conversation. And I can see her trace over the open front window, past Andy's slack jaw hanging fresh from a growl, to the mirrory glass of the back window, wondering, "is there a dog in that car?"
We drive on. After a 36 hour dry stint of Andy rubbing palms in suits, faking everything for a job, he has let loose, found his form, and is introducing himself to the community.

That First Decade

The first decade of my adult hood, was wild,
it was passionate,
it was creative, and
dangerously undisciplined.
I am who I am because of it,
and in that way I celebrate it,
but in a very real way
it was a waste of material.

The Way We Lived

I was never good with women.

My twenties were flowing with them
but I had no use for them then,
or barely any, besides the basic
exercises and interactions.

On rare occasions,
usually in the fall,
I would want a real girlfriend
but I would have no idea what
that meant, really
or what was required.
Effort would be wasted
in futile attempts that rarely
amounted to more than saying hi
or waving. I would leave poems
and drawings for anon girls
in coffee shops,
then leave,
not to return for months
due to both poverty
and the fact that the cave
was always
hard to escape from.
-

Who was I then?
I was hungry.
I was poor.
I was alone.
I was manic and crazed.
I was desperate.
I was alive with creativity.
I was a magnet
hiding from metals.
-

I rarely remember eating.
For years I think I barely ate.
I was heroine skinny
but it was all
cigarettes,
whisky,
and minor drugs,
mostly I was burning
from thought
consumed with thinking.
Undisciplined mind
Uncontrolled abilities
leaking all over the ground,
the cheap carpet,
the floor furnace,
the smoke colored walls,
the paintings hanging from every space possible.
I was living on pure
liquid youth.
-

I painted the closet doors
took them off and hung them on the walls.
I painted cabinets and sheets of hard board.
Those were hung on the walls too.
The house was all open cabinets and closets
and a wild riot hanging from the walls.
I ran out of detachable surfaces
and starting painting what was left of the walls.
It was a museum
made by everyone living there
painted by me
but made alive by the crowd
coming in and out,
saying my name,
talking about me, only feet away,
betting on when I would die.
-

They all lost:
I am still alive, and
grounded by memories, imbued
with the solid craftsmanship
of unhindered youth.
-

The way we lived
baffled those around us.
“How do you keep it up?”
“When do you study?”
We studied every night.
We were desperately studying
, searching, for ways to keep going,
ways that made living better
than not;
Hoping, the next book, hit, girl, party,
would somehow balance it all out
so I could keep a job
so I could stop crying
when a girlfriend would hug me
so I could stop thinking
so I could stop burning
so I could just stop
and relax
and feel normal.
The way we lived was more like survival
than the careful experimentation of our peers.
They were baffled and entranced by us.
We were burning bright
right before their eyes
and they didn’t know any better than to clap.

Fitting Into the Scheme of Trees

I was outside
under the canopy covering my house.
It was close to sunset.
I was in a chemically perfect spot,
looking up, eyes open
watching the tops of the trees
sway easy
back
forth and back
making that slow sound
of rubbing,
of limbs touching.
So rare for the immobile.
So exceptional for the solitary.

Outside felt more
inside than was usual
and I knew
those trees were
seducing me,
softening me,
patiently acclimating me
to that slow sound.
They have been all along.