Democrat, Illinois - The ElectroLounge

60 !
Football had been his life for some years until he got hurt. He got more pussy after
because he had more time & needed new fields of conquest. Booze, too, had awhile become
a sport but he grew soggy & glum. Depressed. Suicidal.
But now here was a chance to twist things about, do something new.
Find out what the fuck the boss-man was hiding.
It happened the night he was expecting his one favorite TV show, TripTown, to be
on & it wasn’t. He watched the new program awhile. John had smoked a lot of weed that
day & drunk many cans of diet cola. He was high, rushing, trying to calm, & seeing his face
on the TV made it better not worse. The black & white becoming color becoming a glowing
pulsing throb, a metallic heartbeat & it would not end, the TV would not shut off, & he
said Fuck IT to his little cabin & shakily dressed, put on his back the tall Army canvas bag
he’d long had packed & ready in the one closet, & walked out, heavy black flashlight waving
about the pitch.
The cold air calmed him a touch, he’d wanted to go, perhaps should have waited for
the sun, but maybe not. Now he had more hours to get somewhere & back in case the boss
dog decided to appear with another “gift.” John was now one of his investments & he kept
an owner’s eye on him.
The map he had was maybe unreliable. He’d gone deep searching in cyberspace one
night, high & paranoid, & found too much speculation based on too little fact. The map
was one obsessee’s guess at the extent & layout of Boss Dog’s property. Much was empty
but the trails he’d previously tested were accurate enough.
The fear came on him slowly, & worse he realized it was not pot-induced. He was
into something here & each step forward was deeper, & one step soon would be the last for
any kind of retreat.
That step came & he never slowed. It was time to get beyond sober boredom & see
what he had left that was special, worth a shit. Boss Dog had picked him for some reason
that night. Going to find out what.
!"#$%#&'()#$*$+,$*$-.&#$/001!
!
lix.
Slave to nothing, so preaches the guru, eats your TV, comes home in your bookbag,
save me, save me, how it hurts, how so! Make it 10 steps, make it 3, do I have to believe?
Do I have to show up? Can I write a check instead?
Stands there with a chalkboard & a red candle, here’s how & then this & now that.
Great big grin. World easy, world knowable, world the sugar live like a long wet tongue, it’s
easy.
Step one. Release your will. Give it to an idea, an idea inside a building, with a
smiling representative & a friendly song. There had better be a few smiling girls. Prosperity.
Allure.
Step two. None of it is your fault. It’s the flesh, it’s the race, it’s the cosmos, it’s how
men dispute lowly among the centuries, how the flaws have grown & all stand impeded.