Strange songs, haunting utterances, echoing from another time: I strive to hear them, and to understand their meaning. Dead men tell no tales. Perhaps that is why these words speak to me now.

Am I a victim of the times? I don’t believe so. I didn’t grow up in the hopeless, hungry side of town. Rather, the particular accident of my birth afforded me with all the advantages that might be bestowed upon a member of the lesser gentry of England in the reign of George the Third. In short, I was blessed with a good education at one the finest schools in the land, Shrewsbury School, founded by royal charter in 1552. After coming of age, I had entered the sometimes esteemed and often profitable profession of the law, where I worked alongside some who had a far greater nobility of spirit than I would ever possess–as well as others whose character and instincts were every bit as base as my own.

I wear the black for the poor and beaten down, declaimed one of my more altruistic contemporaries. Though I recall his high-mindedness, I can no longer remember his name. It was my lot to find myself in chambers not with this pious soul, but with a man whose world-weary cynicism was a ready match for my own: unscrupulous and ready and bold. Yet his distrust of humanity was masked, for the most part, in a manner which I found nauseating. His smooth adroitness, glib tongue and keen perspicacity served his considerable ambition, even though he lacked any true spark of original thought: the provision of that, of course, was my function within our partnership. He was the lion, and received the lion’s share of praise for our accomplishments in court. I was merely the jackal. ‘Your way is, and always was, a lame way,’ spoke my colleague in law, critically. ‘You summon no energy and purpose.’ All true: yet he found his use of me.

I would don my own dusty black gown, and shabby wig, and take my place at the bench by his side, between copious amounts of port wine–my breakfast, luncheon and dinner. The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities. The poor, the beaten down, the desperate, would be paraded before us, and take their appointed place in the dock. If my companion’s eloquence, and my own lesser contributions, fell short of the mark from time to time, that was to be expected. Not all juries proved sufficiently capable of persuasion. But our successes were greater in number than our failures: and the liquid repast that followed the conclusion of each case was just as fine, regardless. It worried me not a whit when the judge would don his own scrap of black upon his scarlet robes–the cap of judgement, beneath which he would solemnly declare his doom: ‘May God have mercy upon your soul.’

Why should I be concerned? I was the idlest and most unpromising of men. I cared for no man on earth, and no man cared for me.

Until, that is, on the steps of the Old Bailey I met (for the second time) the woman who had impressed herself upon me to such an extraordinary degree in consequence of our first chance encounter. ‘Are you acquainted with our case?’ Miss M– had asked: to which I had replied, ‘I am part of your case.’ It was not every day, after all, that my companion in law and I would be called upon to defend a self-exiled French aristocrat accused of being a spy. Unto this gentle lady, who so piteously pleaded the accused’s case, I would give the solemn charge: ‘I shall be doubly industrious upon his behalf.’ I would endeavour to forget (at least for the duration of this trial) that I was a disappointed drudge.

And thus, little by little, my fate was sealed.

*

Thanks to the combined labours of the lion and the jackal, the young French aristocrat was released. In England, flawed though she might be, and sore weary though many of her instruments, such as myself, undoubtedly were, at least Lady Justice, standing aloft on the high pinnacle of the Old Bailey, still sought to be true.

The same could not be said across the Channel. The sordid iniquity and growing inequalities which bedevilled our benighted continental rival were legion. The tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there. ‘Repression is the only lasting philosophy,’ spoke one of the leading aristocratic minds of that day, the tyrannical uncle of the young man I had so recently defended. And yet the resentment of the lower classes against the unchecked excesses of their masters smouldered with greater intensity with each passing year. That most glorious of hours, the apex of Le Roi Soleil, had passed, and now the twilight of the French autocrats was upon them. It would conclude with a sunset drenched in blood: blood, and fire.

There were the moderate reformers who, doubtless, felt that they could steer the course of the coming storm: who felt that they could fan the flames, once lit, but still control the conflagration. They were much mistaken, as many of them would bitterly ponder on the final journey on the tumbril carrying them to their doom. Madame Guillotine, not Lady Justice, awaited them at the end of that journey.

Oh, but the fire went wild. A l’exemple de Saturne, la révolution dévore ses enfants.

Before the breaking of the storm, the young French aristocrat whom we had defended had sought to distance himself from his cruel peers. He had renounced his titles, and built a new life for himself, with Miss M–. An earnest man of liberal sensibilities, he had wanted no part in the oppressive regime in his homeland. But there were those who had sworn to send to oblivion every last member of his noble line. For these tormented souls, it was not enough that his hated uncle, Monsieur the Marquis St. E–, had been murdered in his bed.

The trap that had been set for the French emigre, to bring him back to his homeland on an errand of mercy, was cunning. Only one with the purest of hearts would have fallen into it. I would never have allowed myself to be so easily ensnared. That was one of many differences between myself and Monsieur D–, as he styled himself in his exile. Our characters were utterly opposed to one another. Our resemblances were confined to two spheres alone. First, there was no doubt (as had come to his remarkable aid during the trial at the Old Bailey) that we shared a striking similarity of build and appearance. The second was equally undoubted–at least to me. We both loved the same woman.

His second trial, in Paris, had been marked by the spirit of vengeance, not justice. One of the great heroes of the infamous Bastille, the good doctor who had suffered incarceration in that charnel house for eighteen years, had condemned the members of that family to death with his testimony. Lacking all hope for himself, he had pronounced God’s curse upon them: ‘They have no part in His mercies. And them and their descendants, to the last of their race. I denounce them to Heaven and to earth.’ But how was the doctor to know that his daughter would meet and fall in love with the last scion of that aristocratic lineage? How was he to know that his dread curse would one day imperil his own daughter and her unborn child?

Yet this is what the President of that dread court had declared: ‘If the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of your child herself, you would have no duty but to sacrifice her.’

Oh, but the fire went wild. A l’exemple de Saturne, la révolution dévore ses enfants. And it burns, burns, burns.

The vote had been unanimous: the judgement final. ‘At heart and by descent an Aristocrat, an enemy of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the People. Back to the Conciergerie, and Death within four-and-twenty hours!’

But as I received news of the verdict in a nearby tavern, I still had an ace to play. Before I could cash in.

*

By chance, it would seem, I had met with all the chief players within this final act of my life. That same chance that caused me to bear that vital resemblance to a doomed young aristocrat, a resemblance that had already saved his life once–and would do so once again. All chance–or, perhaps, fate–in this age of wisdom, this age of foolishness.

I had once spoken, with some bitterness, to my rival in love: ‘That’s a fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by! How does it feel? Is it worth being tried for one’s life, to be the object of such sympathy and compassion?’ To which he had given no answer.

Now, I felt, I understood why.

Love is a burning thing

And it makes a fiery ring…

It should not have been easy, but if it was fated to be, then of course it was easy–this switching of places, this giving of one's life for the sake of another. It was a fair exchange: indeed, three lives would now be saved, of that I was certain. The sacrifice of a life up to now lived without purpose was a small payment in return.

I spoke not a word though it meant my life. Thus had Our Lord remained silent as He stood before Pontius Pilate. His silence had sealed His fate: but His death had unleashed the full force of Redemption. The Sinless One offered Salvation to all: poor sinful wretch that I am, I am content to save the lives of three, including the one whom I have come to hold most dear of all in this short life. I sit in my cell in the Conciergerie, I summon these thoughts, and it is enough. Lord, grant me courage to keep my own counsel but a little while longer.

Waiting here in my final abode, as my final night upon this earth passes, I find myself touched by all manner of strange thoughts, half-dreams and phantasms, snatches of conversation and of song. Strains of strange music float on the very edge of my imaginings: and like John of Gaunt, in these last moments I know myself a prophet new inspired. I ponder these two great cities that I have loved and hated so well, in the best and worst of times, certain in the knowledge that these ancient foes, on either side of the Channel, will strive mightily with one another in the days to come; and yet I perceive that a time will come when they will unite against a far more deadly foe than even this unhappy Revolution can summon forth. And in those far-off struggles, if I apprehend aright, the descendants of those lost to our affections now, on the far side of the wide Atlantic, will seek to renew the bonds of brotherly solicitude: the New World come to save the Old.

A new day approaches: my last day. It is always darkest before dawn. But I think I understand now the words of these strange songs, sung by the man in black, this latter-day child of the New World.

The Judge said, ’Son, what is your alibi?

If you were somewhere else, you won’t have to die’

I spoke not a word, though it meant my life…

I smile to myself. I am giving myself for the sake of Charles Darney’s wife. And this I see: an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day.

Nobody knows, nobody sees

Nobody knows but me…

There are footsteps in the corridor outside. The heavy bolt is drawn back, and the door slowly opens. A voice speaks from without, rough yet not unkindly.

‘It is time.’

Vinny lit up a Marlboro Red as he stepped on the gas. ”The potholes in this city could take out a goddamn school bus.” We were heading to meet Scarpa at The Joint. He was the only guy the bosses could trust with a job like this. I watched the Spanish moss speed by and held my breath past the cemeteries. “Ever since uncle Joe found Christ, he stopped fucking his wife Bonnie. Now she’s calling me all the time bitching. Like I’m supposed to fix it, or something?” Vinnie had a tendency to ramble when he was nervous, and every time the Lincoln hit a bump, the body in the trunk would let out a deep guttural groan. “And Bettie keeps all that jewelry from the heist laid out on their kitchen table like it’s a fucking flea market or something. Joe tells her to hide it, but she don’t never listen.”

All of the houses we passed were different shades of color, blue, purple, pink, yellow. The streets began to narrow. Tommy put his hand on my knee and gave it a comforting squeeze. “We’re almost there, kid.”

This is for all

Who have walked out

On their own lives

And told God

To go fuck himself

This one's for the nobodies

Who were born

Into nothing and know it

This is a love letter

To the ugly girls

With glasses and terminal acne

This is a prayer

For the soul of the fat man

Who will never get laid for love

A dedication

To the trailer park shit for brains

Who are the butt of chickenshit jokes

To the pillheads:

Long live the numbskull!

This is in recognition

To the man

Who cannot stop crying

Yet refuses

To pull the trigger

A dedication

To the unnoticed

The simpleminded

Kind and generous

A call to contemplation-

Recall the years

Before you were destroyed

How you smiled

And for what?

David Burdett

3/24/21

"Isolation is comfortable" he said,

While swaddling me in the warm blanket of sorrow.

Rocking me to sleep with a bottle of guilt.

A bedtime story of memories,

Bad bad memories.

Close captioned and blurred,

By the tears of innocence;

Lost.

All I did was fall asleep

Woke up pregnant with swollen feet

World went on locks and chains

And in a room I writhed in pain

Blood plum dropped from the womb

My baby died and the toilet was it's tomb

He said he prayed for it to happen

And silently, I did too

Two weeks later, I fell to fever

Bedridden with tachycardia

Autonomic dysfunction

A chronic condition

Eight ER visits without explanation

Was I dying?

I laid for years staring at that one window, grateful it was there so I could count the neighbors shingles

Daughter watched me disappear and detached to keep up good grades in school

The future looked bleak because no one knew what to do

Husband cracked, and became addicted to the devil

Slept with my best friend in my house while I meditated to the angel

My sister betrayed me and he did too

I lost my body, job, the love of my life, and a knife was wedged between what was real, wrong, right?

His family disowned me for being sick

They blamed me for everything that didn't fit

And husband exited, real quick

Leaving me in a daze, with her rabbit named Glitch on my lap, to go live with my parents

All colors of life and love were swallowed by the day I woke up sick

And I grieved the loss of it all, howling madly into my blankets

For again, no explanation was there to comfort me

He slept around some more

And terrorized me any chance he could get

I blamed my illness

And wanted to die

But my child needed me to be there even if all I could be was a mom with ears, confined

All the good times flooded in

And it stung like the sting from a 100 bees

It still hasn't sunk in

Three years later, I am still advocating for my return to life

Trying to rise from the ashes that fell upon me in the middle of that night

And I think to myself....

I sought out spiritualists, priests, nuns, doctors from every specialty and no one could help me....but me

I was ridiculed by my own family with words like: bum, whore, you have nothing going on for you, cripple, loser, and many more

But this morning, I backed out of the driveway with the help of a nomadic friend, rising sun shining on my smile, to look at my daughter, and saw that hell has it's attributes

And I am going to break the illusion

That something so surreal and devastating

Could last forever.

If you are reading this disclaimer, you have recently met a man, wait, a boy, child wait, NO a man! Name Ike. As a cautionary note, he:

-Might not remember you.

-Might begrudgingly remember you.

-You might not care if he remembers you.

Also note that he may have:

- Definitly said unsavory things in your presence.

-Snorted cocain of the bar or toilet.

-Bashed (insert: ethnicity, religion, politics, music, or gender).

If you feel the need to report his behavior please send message to Wetbrained@ikesalvador.com

Thank you for your understanding and we would just like you to know: Ike is a Nihilist, and no matter how hard you try to make him understand, or care, or feel bad... I must inform you it has not worked thus far. And furthermore attempts to dispose of this individual have somehow made him stronger, more diabolical, and hateful. So please PLEASE, proceed with equally as much demonstrative bullshit.

In the rain

Teardrops of pain

In clouds stored

Till it pours

The storm

From the tears formed

all the hurt

All the dirt

Sorrow

Wallow

Loneliness

Depressed

To much for to me to take

Please clouds break

Rain fall

To release it all

Pouring down

On the ground

Wind blows

Clouds go

Sun shines

A rainbow it finds

Monday – December 26th

The Ramada Inn – 8:30 a.m.

Daniel Weston checked into Room 131-A

He hadn’t planned to be as secretive or vague about his visit with Baker, but because of an unknown insurance fraud on a policy that was uncovered, and hidden under wraps for a long time; he felt doing things this way without a lot of fanfare or just blurting out, “Guess what? There is more money for you, and you will never guess in a million years from who.”

Doing it this way would be much better. Ease the anxiety as well as the surprise, or most likely, the shock.

Tomorrow, he would arrive at her office, and explain the near-fatal mistake almost made. After all, Daniel Watson wasn’t a man for making mistakes or doing the wrong thing. But after twenty-seven years in the insurance field, he had never seen anything as false in wrongdoing as this was, ever. In the end, it resulted in both attempted theft and fraud.

The Twenty-Second Precinct – 8:55 a.m.

Both stood in front of their respective lockers reading each other’s card.

Johnathan was the first to speak.

“Maybe, sounds good to me. So, maybe lunch on me today?”

Dianne slowly smiled.

“How about lunch on a plate instead.”

“Deal.”

3:35 p.m.

Later that day, Daniel Watson drove around the city of Montie in his beige Volvo. For as quaint a city as it is, it still retained its architecture easily enough. As he drove, he noticed dozens of homes built up alongside the hilly region just a mile outside of downtown Montie. Many of the older homes and other buildings dated as far back as 1803, were still standing, and were listed as some form of historical reference.

Driving around, with help from his GPS, he located the Twenty-Second Precinct, a building made of brick, stone, and cinderblock. A three-story affair that must certainly have an interesting history of its own.

By the end of the day, he was exhausted. When he returned to his motel room, he called a restaurant that happened to deliver, and ordered Chinese. Then he stepped outside and walked to the gas station next to the motel and bought a two-liter bottle of Pepsi.

Tonight, it would just be him. He would be going over the paperwork again and have in order all the papers Lieutenant Baker would have to sign. Later he would watch a pay-per-view movie. He didn’t know which one, and he didn’t really care. It would be something to do before sleep came to tuck him away. Maybe Thor or Green Lantern.

Daniel wanted this to go smoothly so he could be home and be with Patrick. Even one day away from him, and already he wished he were home. He made up his mind he would call him before he watched a movie.

With any luck, by this time tomorrow, the Lieutenant would be pleased, a potential lawsuit averted, and he would be back in Patrick’s arms again.

4:17 p.m.

“Baker, here.”

“Lieutenant Janis Baker?”

“Yes, who’s calling?”

“This is Wesley Boyd with New York Home and Auto. I’m calling to inform you a check has finally been cut and is being sent on a two-day delivery, today. You should receive it no later than December twenty-eighth.

“I’m sorry we didn’t get this taken care of sooner, but we had computer problems. Something about satellite connectivity down.”

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Boyd. If you could tell me the amount of the check, please.”

“Discounting age of both the vehicle and residence and totaling everything you gave us a list of that was destroyed, plus we added an additional five percent for items you may not have remembered, it comes to $416,475.00. You will have to sign for the release of funds. Though the check will be mailed today, I do need a current address where it can be delivered.”

She gave him the new address but informed him that whoever would be delivering the check, was to call her and wait for her at home if she weren’t there. “Because of my line of work, I can’t be expected to sit at home all day.”

Wesley Boyd’s response, “No problem. The courier can take any signature on your behalf that resides in the home. They will need to sign your name and overtop the signature, place their initials.”

She called Ed with the good news and made him aware of the twenty-eighth as well.

The holidays were certainly looking brighter for a change.

11:58 p.m.

An old, beat-up Plymouth Fury pulled into the Lazy Rest Inn.

A Black man, about fifty and bald with a thin graying herculean beard stepped out of the car.

His destination would eventually be Montie. He planned to drop in on an old friend from days gone by. In truth, not a friend at all, but this man, once known as Drey (pronounced Dray), whose real name is Reid Thurston, was just released from prison less than a year ago from an Atlanta Federal Prison, is looking for Fred Marsh.

Reid heard that Marsh had done well for himself, and Reid needed some money. He had no qualm in upsetting Marsh’s life if he didn’t give him some money. He didn’t want much; just twenty-grand and he’d be out of Marsh’s life before he could bat an eye.

Reid didn’t know that Marsh’s family and friends knew about his past. Marsh was released from prison nine years ago, started a construction business and married Jean, who is of course, the mayor of Montie,

Reid had a plan, and like all good plans, he had a backup plan.

A Walther P-327.

I used to run up around the school and then down Rainier Street on the way back home. Someone I was supposed to meet lived there. I worked out like a bastard animal to get in shape for varsity football. I played for an incredibly intense, incredibly successful high school football coach. With my animal workouts, I got to be the fastest player on my team. They timed us semi-regularly. 40-yard dash. Admittedly, we didn't have a particularly fast football team; nevertheless, I was the fastest. I was also the third strongest guy on the team. The only two guys who could bench press more than me were huge linemen who outweighed my average build by about 50 pounds, so I would HOPE that they could out-bench-press me!

I had actually started the offseason conditioning program stronger than even those two guys, but once the regular after-school workouts started in earnest as a team, then pretty soon, when it came to the bench press, it felt like I had a four-cylinder-engined car that was competing against a couple cars with eight-cylinder engines: I may have had a head start on them, but it was inevitable that they would pass me.

The week before football season started was also the week before the high school year started. Someone I was supposed to meet later went to my same high school. This last week of practice before the football season started was traditionally called "Hell Week," because of the penultimate intensity of the full-pads, double-a-day football practices in the sweltering heat of late August. We practiced and panted like dogs, both morning and afternoon. Most guys had to drive or get dropped off to practice. But my parents lived three houses up from a park that led to the high school and the practice field. It was literally a five or six-minute walk for me. This was how I acquired my nickname among my teammates.

For the early-morning practices, the hot August sun was not yet tormenting and crippling, it was so damnably early that the first practice of the day started. The grass would actually be cool. There would be a low, fine mist above the landscaped, freshly sprinklered grass in that park.

Because I lived so close to the school and the field, I didn't have to put my football pads on in the locker room like the other guys. I would put my pads and everything on in my bedroom, even my cleats, and I'd then walk out my downstairs sliding-glass door and go clockety-clock-clackety down the sidewalk in full football pads, helmet dangling from one arm. And then I would have to cut through that freshly sprinklered, misty-manicured lawn in the park to get to the practice field. Did I mention it was damnably early? My teammates would be exiting the locker room or already stretching on the field. They would see me coming as a ghostly, mist-shrouded figure. I would emerge, apparition-like, through the misty morning fog, fully padded up to play.

Now, at the time, and for a long time, the central playground feature of this park, right in the middle of the sandbox I had to walk through to get to practice, was a rather unique, three-story, metal-encaged, playground rocket for climbing. Little kids could climb up its three segmented stories, and they could slide down the descending slide sticking out from the side of the middle, metal segment. Someone I was supposed to meet used to climb up there later on with a pencil wedged sideways in her full lips and a journal in her hand; all by herself she would write in her journal from the inevitable third story of the rocket, inevitable because its lofty isolation beckoned her. As it did for me, later, but my beckoning call from its alluring isolation was more for beer drinking and deep pondering, at the time.

But my mystified teammates would see me emerging from the fog next to this huge, yellow, metal rocket. And I became known as "Rocket Man." I wish it had something to do with my having been the fastest player on the team. But no, my team nickname had a much less heroic, and much weirder origin than that.

How long?

How long have I been ruck-marching through this war?

My war.

This movement to daylight.

Walking through these minefields?

My minefields.

Saturated with the mines I've laid.

Crisscrossed with tangle foot and concertina wire.

Explosive charges tamped full of anger and bitterness.

Trip flares of sadness.

Bright with regret.

Almost to dim to illuminate her face on the other side of these mines that I tirelessly have sewn into the fabric of "me".

Into the landscape of "us".

I thought that by using them up it would loosen the load in my pack.

Loosen the weight in my head.

The weight on my heart.

But by laying them I unwittingly made myself the enemy.

When you wage war on yourself, everyone else becomes your enemy by proxy.

And instead of shedding the weight in my ruck, I added more.

I needed more mines.

More bullets.

Grenades.

More protection from the ever increasing ghosts of friends and foes creeping into my fields of fire.

Looking out across this minefield, my minefield, I could barely see her anymore.

Almost invisible across our battlefield of flesh, dotted here and there with bomb craters, scabs and scars of battles past.

Glassing the field I almost couldn't tell that it was her.

Standing there with a canteen in her hands.

Gazing at my defenses across the distance.

But I could see that she had no weapons.

No helmet.

No armor.

No gas mask.

She never had.

Standing across that vast space facing me.

Never wavering.

I looked down at my rifle.

My helmet.

My rucksack.

Then back at her.

Her hair gently blowing across her face in the breeze.

Still facing me.

Canteen in hand.

Defenseless.

Looking down at my hands I see how dirty they are.

Callused.

Bloodstained hands.

I glance up across the vastness and she still stands there.

Motionless.

Staring.

Reaching down almost without thinking, my fingers reach for the rifle and the feel of the metal against my fingers is almost vile.

A bad taste comes up in my mouth.

My hands continue their nimble dance across the rifle..

across the sandbags...

and find the rucksack.

I reach in and pull out the claymores and set them down in the dirt.

Reaching in again I feel the endless belts of linked ammunition inside and let them slide out onto the ground.

She still stands there.

Canteen in hand.

Feeling around inside once more I find the scattered grenades near the bottom and dump them out around my feet.

As if in a trance my hands and arms pull the pack by it's straps towards me.

Robotically they swing it up, around and then over my shoulders.

Slowly, wearily standing up, I begin walking towards her from my position.

My foot knocking my helmet aside and into my rifle as I begin to trudge past the sector stakes.

Stumble over the grenades.

She still stands there.

Still staring.

Canteen in hand.

Her eyes fixated on me as I walk towards her.

I meet her gaze and begin the long walk across this no-mans land with my head up, my back straight, my hands empty.

Never once looking down as I steadily close the space between us through the mines.

Past the dismembered limbs of trust.

Over discarded dressings of hope.

I can't hear anything but a steady drumming in my ears.

The echoes of guns of war?

Or the beating of my heart?

My rucksack feels so light now.

As if it wasn't there.

Empty.

A few steps away from her I stop and slowly remove the pack from my back.

Stretching out her arm she offers me a drink.

A drink from her canteen.

A canteen filled with tears.

Stooping over I loosen the straps and drop the rucksack.

Reaching inside I grasp the two almost forgotten remaining objects.

She is motionless.

Her eyes a blue/green reflection of the world all around us.

Reaching towards her I grasp the canteen and then place an object into the palm of each of her hands.

She looks down.

In one hand is a small tattered white flag.

In the other,

a compass.