Werth Air Circus

It is early morning and I am on the back porch of the farmhouse. I can smell the coal fires in the air. The dirty smell of coal that we and the neighbors are using in the coal stoves this morning to drive our the slight chill and the dew. The sky is clear and the grass is heavy with dew.

On the round tops of the hills that make up the back acreage I can see airplanes. Vintage airplanes. Vintage World War I and World War II Airplanes. "Oh,I see", I think to myself, "We are running an air circus."


On cue, the first bus of tourist make the uncomfortable left turn into the gravel drive way, up the red dog, and start filing out when the bus comes to a complete stop. Stan come out of the back door and I, for just a second, can smell the bacon grease in the air. It reminds me I need to go in and get a jacket.

Stan is here. He reminds me I have a show to do. There are tourists here and some one needs to fly the planes. I understand that these planes are no ours, but part of a company that has an interest in the farm and we need them to keep what we have. Ultimately it means that I have to fly one of these ancient planes.


I gaze around the area and look at my options. There is a broken down World War I dirigible observation craft, half deflated, gray and quilted, drooping and overgrown on one of the far banks. I feel the presence of the corporate entity that runs this show, making demands of me, wanting me to maintain military bearing. I will not do that.

Disheartened that any organization would demand that anyone would fly in, what is now alarmingly becoming obvious, badly abused museum pieces, builds a fire inside of me that comes out for good or ill. I am commanded to get in a bi-plane and proceed to the other end of that farm and pick up a flight jacket that numbers me among the members of a WWII aircraft carrier. I am to fly over there and pick up the jacket mid air.

I refuse and walk over to the jacket. After many minutes, I arrive and look at the back of the cracked leather flight jacket. On the back is a tattered emblem that actually has a White Water Rafting Advertisement on it. I am disgusted and head back.

The tour bus has loaded up and is pulling out. Stan talks with me after that, and approves. We get in the 1968 baby blue Rambler Ambassador 4-door and head down the road together. I can smell the moth ball scented interior.

19721 Maplewood

I often come here as late.

I am familiar with this house. It is my Aunt Betty's and Uncle Don's home. I am in the kitchen and unfortunately the kitchen looks unkempt. In fact it is dirty with leaves and debris in the floor, as if it has been exposed to the out side. I have a sense that my brother is here in the house, but I can only feel his presence, I cannot see him. I roam into the living room and everything as far as the furnishings and decoration is as I remember it, except, it needs to be cleaned.

I decide to order a pizza from Dante's Pizza to be delivered. It feels like there is going to be some work to do and my brother and I will be here a while. As I am talking to the Pizza guy, he informs me that there is enough orders on the account at that address for a free pizza, and I decline. I decide I'll leave it for my uncle. I feel in the dream that he is still alive, but my aunt has passed away at this time. The pizza guy tells me that's probably a good idea, because Don seems depressed and agitated.


At that moment I realize the Don is not only alive, but in the house and has already ordered some pizza from Dante's.

I go to find him, apprehensive at what I will find.

Graveside

It feels like the springtime. I can't be sure, the skies are gray and the air is damp. I tell by the smell that it is the mountains of West Virginia.

I am in a trailer/shack that is neat and well kept. There is white and off white walls and sheer white drapes billowing from an open window. I am sitting in a room. Other events have happened previous to this, but I can't recall what they are.

I seem to have seen them outside the window. Different activities and different times. All of them involved PJK I am in PJK's room though she is dead. Has been for a long time. The other events are either memories I have had of her or dream events she was actually in. Either way she is gone now, and I lament her loss.

From the wall there is a hand three time the scale of a normal hand, connected to an arm that is all made from very crude looking thick basket wicker. I touch it and it is old and decrepit and breaks a little with my touch. It sadly hangs at an angle that seems lifeless, now. I smell the scent of bacon grease from hundreds of previous breakfasts wafting coldly in the air.

Tiger Woods

I am shaving. I have lathered my face and am staring into the mirror in the bathroom of my current home. I begin to shave but it strikes me that I am using a straight razor to shave. I start at my neck, shaving upwards, slowly, deliberately, with emphasis on detail. I am going out, to revel, and want to look my best.

Sometime later, after the revelry, I am in a car. There are others with me and they are celebrities. It is the end of the evening and we decide to stop at an after hours club. One of the faceless famous ducks into to the club to see who is there. After half a minute he bolts back out. "Tiger Woods is here," he says. At that moment everyone scatters. We know instinctively and communally that Tiger Woods is a narc. We scatter and I get back in the car I came in. I have a passenger. He is a combination of all the old friends that I have had.

We leave the parking lot of the after hours club, which I can now see has been built in my childhood neighborhood in West Park. As I turn left onto Puritas, I have trouble seeing oncoming traffic in both directions because of hills. I make the left and a gray car drives into the ditch next to me, on the left. It is not my fault and the car is one of the after hours celebrities. I know that I best move along, and as I do, I see that my friend doesn't know what to do and that the gray car is old, beat up and the new damage will total the vehicle.