# 3

A parable on the long tailed Tit occupies parts of my mind on the drive to Farmington, IL It's dome shaped Titular work of, some say, art - is feather lined and woven together in part with spider silk.

The Tit nest is the most sophisticated & symmetrical birds nest to be discovered, although, there's something to be said for the post-prehistoric minimalism of the Piping Plover or the Red -Cockaded Woodpecker's simplistic pine bore nest that doubles at it's exterior as an unfortunate insects (or even small snakes) sap-trap for Red-Cockaded dining.

Tits, Woodpeckers (Cockadeded or not) it is hardly insightful to suggest or guess which of the genders has been out alone in the woods naming birds.

I am seated sideways in a bucket seat directly behind the driver's seat of the company work van. We are en route to sand a hardwood floor. The driver, also the company owner, curses and spits and throws the phone down - he is not angry, this is his default demeanor. It's my third day on the job and I've taken to calling him Mussolini (privately).

There are dozens of cans & jugs of paint thinner, floor sealer and wood stain (Provincial Oak,Mahogany,Early American Colonial, etc.) loosely arrayed in the cargo area all of them partially used and streaked down the sides. 
I stare down at them like bombs although one I am using as a foot stool. The floor of the van is a veritable super-fund site - also there are two garbage bags tossed in the back, unsealed, filled with sanding dust (think, ultra-fine powdery saw dust) and it crosses my mind that I wouldn't want to park anywhere near a federal building.

The amount of authoritative knowledge I can impart insofaras chemical hazards or fire science could easily trickle out of the anus of a Round Worm. But to say that I am riding around in an extreme fire hazard/IEV(Improvised Explosive Vehicle) would probably not fall under the category of hyperbole or hysterics.

I'm a recovering R.J. Reynolds addict turned phrenetic chewing gum smasher - my jaw muscles are 'ripped', my mouth is raw like eating too many slices of pineapple and food has become almost like bland various textures with a hint of spearmint.

The thought of death by immolation makes my testicles quiver and kills my appetite - so much so, this hair-bag quivering, I think of the possibility that I've just conjured a fire fate for myself and then I think that it's obvious I should be medicated or if I had it my way - A team of neuro scientists/surgeons would monitor by MRI as I have these thoughts and then after pin pointing the exact locations zap the damn things responsible for these hypnopompic terrors of irrationality which I often gently prefer to assign them as "Highly eccentric and/or creative thinking ideas" - ZAP.


Mussolini instructs me to fill any nail holes in the wood floor we are about to strip and sand by applying the wood filler putty with a well worn infrequently cleaned putty knife and to make sure I "really pack it in there" he then hesitates and asks me if I'm a religious man to which I say, no- not really and then he says I should fill the gap like "I'm finger-fucking my first girlfriend on Friday night."
He continues through out the day to make these sorts of 'analogies' e.g., "The floor should be as smooth as the inside of her thigh - unless she's got cellulous[sic]." - and -"My brush should glide along as slick as a moist..." -you get the idea.

Anyway, break time is over.

All Complaints Great and small

“I just wanted to let you know, I’m sick.”

His face looks like it’s drifting apart.

Close-up it looks like a child’s drawing of a face – eyes lopsided and distantly spaced.

This cartoon face, swollen, red and full of snotty sickness.

Individual teeth with varying articulation and space between them.

                                      
                       I call him, Picasso face.

 One bulging ostritch eye, the other like pinched dough around a creepy doll’s eye.

The thing that inhabits the bunk above me – the weekender.

A face only a mother could smother.

Because mother’s are practical and instinctive. 
He must be adopted. 
It’s possible the mother died at birth. 
Shell shock can literally break a heart.

The thing continues, “That’s why I was snoring. I’m sick. I noticed you hitting my bunk last weekend.”

This is true. I was punching the underside of his bunk above me to startle and stop the snoring. 

The god damn snoring.

 I wanted him to notice. I was hoping (hope is the wrong term here) he’d sling his JohnMerrick over the edge and ask me why because I had a whole entire stinging explanation of why.

So I say, “Yeah, that’s what I do to my wife when she snores, I punch her. She rolls over, stops snoring for a while and then I have to punch her again. “

Then I turn and walk away.

Then I think, thanks for bringing your sickness in here you fucking weekender. 

The weekend guys come in and fuck everything up. 

This one tends to kiss up to the other guys and volunteers to mop and is a total goofy fucking yes man – he makes me sick just by his personality. 

Now he’s coughing and hacking and snoring right above me. 
I hope he dies before next weekend.
 I know how terrible that sounds and I don’t care.

Woke up to this the other morning:

"Kiss my dick!"

"Shut up, grampa! I'll fuck you up."

"Kiss my dick"

(I think he means 'suck my dick' or he's about to unleash 'mother sucker' and 'son of a dyke')

"Kiss my fucking dick"

"Go back to bed, grampa. I'd knock you out without even trying."

"Kiss my mother fucking dick"

(Oh, the drama. what's going to happen?

 If you ever spent a year in grade school, you know what's going to happen. I am laughing.)

"Hey,You guys wanna go over to the real jail? Because that's what's happening next with this shit."

And with that, the playground monitor has ended the 'fight'.

A Softer Hell


Previously dorms A&B were combined which was how Picasso Face ended up above my bunk. 

So for some reason Sling Blade thinks he's under surveillance by craven females with a desire to see his 50 something white dumpy body in "the nakeds" as he so slingbladianly put it.
He claims there are two that park outside of the work release in hopes of catching some nakedness.

 Dorm A has 5 windows facing the parking lot, tinted, but you can see in when the lights are on. But the shower is all the way in the back. The shower itself is approximately 4 x 7, whatever it is - plenty of room to turn off the water, reach for your towel that's slung on a chair outside and next to the shower and towel off completely in private.
The point I'm trying to make is that it's not really necessary to walk around naked at any time for any reason. 

I tell this to Sling B but there's no talking to him, he's a yeah-buts guy. "Yeah but what if yous towlin off to put yuh skivvies on."
I don't know, if you can't figure how not to expose yourself to the work release parking lot, which is not a hub of a lot of come and go traffic, then I can't help you.

A few days later SB is ramping up the rhetoric. His lacky, his yes man, what some might call a "piss boy" Picasso Face, AKA John - has written a letter, whoa wait, his MOTHER has written a letter to complain about her son's possible exposure of flesh to the alleged voyeurs, voyeurs so sick and depraved and you'd have to assume, mentally ill, that they drive out to the county jail for a little community theater.

I throw up my hands, literally, and say "Everyone in here IS fucking retarded."

Now, a week later we're all still in Dorm A. Everything is ,ah, fine.
I come back from work, my belongings are searched and I get the non-TSA strength pat down as usual.
Then the jailer says to me, "Lipski, roll up your mattress and empty out your locker."

Two probabilities suddenly pop in my head - I'm being released? I'm going to jail,jail?
No, I'm going over to Dorm B. 
It just so happens, a coincidence for fools only, that 'some lady' saw some naked inmate and immediately reported this to the desk officer.

Dorm B is just like Dorm A minus a couple hundred square feet. It faces inward on the jail out on the brick and razor wire, away from any chance of public viewing. Dorm B also has an uncontrollable HVAC system. 
What I mean is that Dorm B hovers around a very dry 88degrees -The exact temperature of hell's waiting room. The reason for this is unclear.

Maintenance is either inept or indifferent but nothing changes. It's like a furnace blasting into a shoe box.

And all thanks to the moron Picasso Face that is now my bunk mate. 
Sling Blade tries to cover for his pet Picasso, it was some random complaint, not the letter his mommy wrote, he tells me.
 I'm sure while SB and PF were having the conversation about how SB would so cleverly cover for PF, he said to PF, "leave it to me, I got you covered" and they both snickered like idiots because idiots, true idiots, do not know they're idiots and assume that they are on the same intelligence level or even a notch above everyone else.

 When I look at Picasso Face I try to focus hard enough to cause Sudden Cranial Detonation. 

Each Sunday night I move his mattress over to another bunk. Each Friday night he is back. 

This whole thing could blow up in my face but I'm making plans.


EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE (but not as bad as a Tom Hanks movie)

And now we get to my full time friend. 
The most obnoxious snore in the house, "Hank".  

Because of the smaller sqft of Dorm B, Hanks is two and one half feet away from me. Less than an arms length from me.

The other night, Hank rolls over and begins snoring in my direction. I'm reading the paper before I go to sleep. A nightly tradition that reminds me of home, reading until the text gets blurry and then going to sleep. 

I begin tearing off pieces of the newspaper's corners and making spit wads that I at first begin tossing at Hank's face but gradually I'm putting my upper body into it. To the point I can hear the spit balls hit his face.

I know, "Isn't it way more offensive and disgusting to chuck spit balls on a guy's face just because he's snoring?" 

No. 
Why?
I just brushed my teeth and I don't eat dairy. 
My saliva is the equivalent of warm tap water.
Also, the percolating snot in his nostrils is wet and loud and without any kind of rhythm you can get used to. 

I look over and his head is decorated in spit balls with nothing achieved but a slight smirk on myself.

It gets to the point where you think, people don't really snore this loud and obnoxiously and live to this age very often. I barely know him and I'm staring at his extra pillow imagining its soft face-silencer in my hands.

I don't like the idea of having to wear ear plugs to bed. 

(and now for something completely disturbing - he begins (last night I notice out of the corner of my eye) rubbing his arm that's raised out of the bunk over his head , stroking it, running his fingers up and down his arm like a girl in a provocative music video but this is like Homer Simpson here. Completely asleep and still snoring. This is not cool. This is happening TWO AND A HALF FUCKING FEET FROM ME)

I tried swatting my flip flops on the locker just above his head (lockers at each end support the bunk frames)
I tried frantically fanning the newspaper in front of his face. Throwing the excess of his blanket up over his face, rolling up the newspaper and poking his shoulder, saying to him fairly loud, "Hank, Hank - wake up". Nothing.

These guys get on the Tylenol PM and it's like an 8hr coma.
He's lucky I'm not a homosexual rapist who gets off on mucus gurgling and self-petting because this guy would be seriously fucked and I could totally get away with it.

# 5

FLEAMAGEDDON

My employer is the owner of numerous properties we could euphemistically refer to as 'affordable housing'. 
I am obligated under the implied employer/employee contract to make necessary repairs and ready vacated 'units' for unsuspecting new occupants for which I am compensated at an hourly wage a full one-dollar and nine-cents above the poverty level as assessed in 2010 but unadjusted for current inflation. 

I am not complaining just being thorough. I enjoy the fresh air, store bought edibles and hey, I'm happy to be employed and be of service in good works for my benevolent employer in this...the 'new' economy.

The property of current infestation is a 'studio' or efficiency model (a two story single-family dwelling it's inside staircase severed and discarded thus transforming the home into two separate living quarters <- a house divided, etc.) there were and still are as of this writing two holes in the wall caused by rain water infiltrating the exterior walls specifically around the windows which frames were and are still in a state of disrepair/deterioration - this was the project, some caulking painting spackling painting - good-enough-and-gone.

The initial visit was a brief walk-through inspection, pen and notepad in hand to record a list of supplies. Later the same day I returned to drop off required supplies and a dehumidifier for the basement (an earlier basement repair involved a spider infestation that, as I now reflect, was a bucolic experience in comparison.).

It was during the same day but later visit that I'd noticed a little bug by my side which I reflexively maneuvered to smush or squish with my finger tip and God's approval but the bug took an arcing flight that, at first, in a brief surge of adrenaline, I questioned myself if this indeed could be...? No, I was just being paranoid.

I say paranoid because, when it comes to fleas ( I'll struggle to stay focused on just this one subject of extreme suspicion) I would rather burn a building down than endure even one bite. The background or history of me and flea goes some 17yrs to an experience I'll never forget and will forever carry it's pyschological scar.

But then, I leave and return the following morning forgetting any matter of bugs as I go about unpacking the dehumidifier and bringing in various things from outside, the general sort of busy type preparing-to-actually-work kind of stuff that the hourly employee knows well how to do.

I am also, while fraudulently collecting my first hours pay (with full justification in mind, of course i.e., I should be getting paid a lot more - do you know how much it would cost to hire a pro, etc and whatever -you get it.) taking a phone call from a renter of another property across town a motor-mouthed fiery red-head Caucasian from "the hood" who, I have laid on the table, the call I mean, and engaged the speakerphone option as it becomes obvious I am not needed to participate in the call except for an occasional "yeah" which, with ambiguous inflection I'd say as I passed by the phone inserting the "yeah" at the end of a sentence (or inhalation), in regards to what I have no clue. The person on the other end of the phone was, I'm sure, interpreting my un-nuanced "yeahs' as either empathy, solidarity or and "You gotta be kidding me!"

Fiery-Red-Head continues in oblivious ranting for 11minutes and 31 seconds. Not to give the impression that I'm indifferent towards the needs of the tenants of 'affordable housing' (nor do I take offense when a tenant, while on the phone or speaking to a co-habitant, refers to me as their 'maintenance man', e.g. "Shut up, my maintenance man here!" - it's not easy but I humble myself and say nothing) on the contrary, legitimate concerns regarding property disrepair always gain my full attention it is in this way that I breath the freedom air. This particular FRH hadn't mentioned any property related issues beyond the first thirty seconds mentioning a city flyer being posted about the neighborhood concerning weeds and garbage and then she went on to complain about the neighborhood, cell phone contracts and much much more, I am sure.

It's at this time, feeling a couple of sudden tiny pinches, I look down to see the jumping invasion. There were too many to count, I can't - Have you seen the photo of the man covered in bees?

Slight exaggeration.

[These are terrorist vampires they wear no uniform but the shiny, hard to squish, coat of sucking hematophagy. It's actually suggested by trusted sources (internet) that one should roll the flea between thumb and finger to 'confuse' the flea - Yeah, get 'em all out of sorts, maybe spin it around in circles until it screams "stop! Stop! I'm gonna puke!" Put a blindfold on 'em play pin the genitalia on the anatomically correct (minus genitalia obviously) cardboard flea cut out.]

Due to time and space constraints as well as possible future interaction in-person with certain possible readers that would likely involve eye contact, I am omitting the immediate panic/hysteria etc. which then caused a flurry of auto-defensive manic-extreme thoughts - i.e., my first thought was to torch the place.

Some random (edited) thoughts 'in the moment':

This place is infested

I'm getting the out of here

there are no emergency phone numbers programmed into my phone's speed dial feature.

No one knows I'm here!

No, wait, the Sheriffs department does.

[BTW - the time necessary to write this spellbinding pot-boiler has, by my estimation, increased by 3,4 or even 5 (to 10) times the usual amount of time spent on spellbinding siphonapterical pot-boilers due to frequent pauses for the scratching and examination of numerous creeping/prickling/stalking itches, imaginary or not. Yes, I'm one of those that get all itched out and twitchy when the topic turns to fleas sucking your blood, lice crawling on your head, crabs crawling on your , genital herpes, scabies - if none of this has any creepy-itchy effect on you (and your not on opiates), please keep your proper distance.] 

About, These Fleas of Mine (obscure DeGeneres reference)

Fleas can be drowned in water. 
I imagine holding them individually under water in a long twisted dream-sequence type of story that I've decided not to include.

From Science News:

(I quote from a quote) "Researchers with the University of Cambridge in England have shown that fleas take off from their tibiae and tarsi - the insect equivalent of feet - and not their trochantera, or knees."

This bit of research is no help at all and a waste of research time/money/effort and the expense and ink to print the results in a periodical unless it was published in the Waste of research time/money/effort section of Science News right next to "more results from ketchup research"

Researchers should be researching ways to kill fleas, in all their life stages, exclusively and if or when that scientific discovery of best methods is made, they should pass that information on to companies such as Black Flag - of the popular Roach Motel & aerosal spray formulas - whose flea killing products, in my opinion, seem to lack the killing aspect.

When a person is in need of flea killing pesticides they might expect that after purchasing a product that boasts (no, EMBLAZONS) the popular brand enhancer 'EXTREME' (at a 45 d/angle - CRAZY, EXTREME FLEA KILLING SHIT - my extrapolation but who could blame me{rhetorical}), that the product, once in contact with said extreme killing contents, kills fleas where they stand (or suck) or at least scare the shit out of the flea as it tries, impotently,to escape.

what you wouldn't expect or want to see is a flea casually strolling up your pant leg even as you direct a fully pressurized spray of Black Flag EXTREME (this scene now reminds me of another scene, one in which Spock goes into a furnace blast of radiation to save something or other - maybe the whole spaceship with JT Kirk aboard, of course - and I'm not really a star Trek mega-fan or sci-fi enthusiast - it probably can be traced back to my childhood, as all things must.) bug spray which also boasts, on the bottom-right corner of front label, stamina so powerful it "Keeps on killing for up to 7months!" This being my second trip to spray, a full 6months and 28days of extreme killing action supposedly still in effect ,not to mention as I mention the 4 HotShot brand Flea Foggers I'd set off just 24hrs past. I remove Spock-flea with the tip of the spray nozzle attached to useless jug of mostly (98.98%) water.

Epic Black Death: In the 14th century the bubonic plague killed somewhere around half the population of Europe but not before they suffered an abundant amount of pain and suffering such as - muscle cramps/seizures/extremely painful swelling of the lymph glands in the groin,armpits and neck/hemophilia of the cochlea/chronic vomiting of blood/aching limbs/even more EXTREME pain brought about by decomposing flesh while still alive. The vector of the bubonic plague & pneumonic or septicemic varieties, is or can be, the bite of a single flea. Overreacting? Hardly.

Plague aside, fleas also cause anemia, tapeworms, stomach 'flu' and typhus.

Fleas don't bite, actually, they 'siphon'. Fleas penetrate your skin and suck your hot fresh tasty blood through their pointy straw like mouths. That's not a bite, it's sicker than that and so is this, flea dirt.

Flea dirt occurs when the flea is so greedily sucking your blood that it must defecate to make room for more and does so while still suck, sucking away on your blood while leaving a pile of ass-blood-shit like substance on your skin. It's like eating pizza on the toilet - not really -like eating a BLT while you rape a pig - no - biting into the neck of a cow while riding around shitting on it?Maybe.

When not sucking fresh blood from it's host/victim the flea lays about waiting for the next liquid feed bag to come unsuspectingly walking into the room. From Wikipedia: When the family and pets are gone, flea eggs hatch and larvae pupate. The adult fleas fully developed inside the pupal cocoon remain in a kind of "limbo" for a long time until a blood source is near. When a person arrives(sensing carbon dioxide, noise and vibrations) he or she is immediately attacked by waiting hungry hordes of fleas. (In just 30 days, 10 female fleas under ideal conditions can multiply to over a quarter million life stages.)

If you can read this, you are the resistance.