RFturn

I'm home again. I have a screwdriver in my jeans pocket. It doesn't talk to strangers. I found my way upstairs, and now I'm opening my bedroom door. Coffee cup on the dresser; dirty worn-out socks; a gummy worm covered in dirt on the carpet. Life is a shame, and enjoying it is shameless. I want to become a noun.

I saw a crucified rat yesterday. It had a burdock in its mouth.

Before he became a world-renowned architect, Joseph Stalin used the play the guitar. Acoustic -- this was long before electric. I met him once, in Sweden. He was wearing a funny hat, and he had a cold sore on his upper lip. It looked like an elephant clitoris. We drank wine and sang songs about dragonflies.

Oh, precious queen. When will the thunder cease and the hills be green? Is there a taxi cab to drive my heart home? And when I arrive, will I be alone?

I've never skied. I don't drink milk. When I was eleven years old, I drowned my baby brother. That was the first and last time I played submarine with a human being.

There's a jigsaw puzzle of Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night glued to the ceiling. One thousand pieces. I glued together each piece, too. I made it, and it cannot be unmade. I started it, and I finished it, and then I glued it to the ceiling. It's the first thing I see before I fall asleep and the first thing I see when I awake. I hope it stays there forever. It better.

Today I'm taking a bus to Boston. It's chilly. I have my winter cap and my mittens on, though! There are faces in the bus's paneling. Dr. Ernstrom calls that pareidolia and says that I'm acutely "involved" with it. He tells me that's not necessarily a bad thing, that my brain is playful. But I shouldn't get too playful. That's what the medicine is for. Two pills: one white, one pink. One to fight, one to think.

But god do they make me constipated. Sometimes I feel like there's a lump the size of a orangutan skull stuck in my anus. Other times, everything builds up and I just have to release.

We're moving. I put my head against the window and fall asleep.

A chocolate-chip mint ice cream cone. I go to take a taste, and a mouth with razor-sharp fangs emerges from the cone to attack me. I wake up. I have wet myself.

"Oh, Christ," the man beside me says in disgust. I tell him I'm sorry and try hard not to stare at his mandible ant mouth. At our next rest stop I throw my underwear and trousers out in the restroom garbage can and retrieve a fresh pair of clothes from my backpack: a pair of white slacks and a pink Hannah Montana T-shirt.Then I go to the counter of the diner and ask for a glass of water to wash down my pills with. The waitress has a huge smile and large breasts.

I get back on the bus. Two young men at the back are discussing baseball.

"No way he averages .400 next season! You're crazy! If he does, god as my witness, I will suck your dick."

"Is that a promise?" I blurt out. My mouth is always outrunning my mind.

"What the fuck did you say, asshole?"

I slink in my seat and try to turn invisible.

"Leave him alone; he's retarded," the woman behind me says. "He doesn't know any better."

"Fuck I don't," I whisper sideways.

"South Station!" the driver yells. I grab my bag and disembark. A cab takes me to Back Bay. I pay the driver and walk up those familiar steps.

A woman opens the door. I don't know her.

"I'm here to see Raymond Mills," I say. "I'm his son."

"Who?"

"Raymond Mills. He's a professor at Emerson."

"You must have the wrong address."

The sky is pitch-black and snow is threatening to fall. The clouds are pregnant with precipitation. A car starts then stalls somewhere nearby.

"It would appear I do. I'm very sorry for disturbing you," I say.

She shuts the door. As it closes, a thin wisp of black smoke escapes and circles my sneaker.

"Hi, Dad," I say. "Sorry I couldn't have visited sooner. I've been away. But now I'm back."