Samantha Tungston's to do list

Monday

Drop J. Jr. at school
Pick up dry cleaning (4 shirts, 2 blouses)
Drive Ginny to piano
Grocery shopping (separate list)
Pick up Ginny
Make list of bills
Call J. to see what he wants for dinner
Browse obituaries
Stare at bedroom wall and catalogue disaster scenarios
Play with Ginny (Hungry Hungry Hippo or Trouble)
Fix dinner (pending J.’s answer)
Make list of letters to write
Watch hour of PBS with J. Jr. (Nova special on bird migration)
Put Ginny to bed (begin Wrinkle in Time)
Be sure J. Jr. is doing homework
Sex with J. (think about death as he cums)
Mandatory post-coital money talk
Prayers
Sleep the sleep of the righteous

Found tacked to the giant oak tree on Samson Boulevard

Each one of these leaves is a life and a puzzle left here for a reason. This is the tree of mystery and these branches its many roads to truth. She who dares to count its leaves, she who dares to contemplate its fearful design, shall understand mystery.

This tree will survive, of what else might that be said?

From the Monad management

Dear residents,

While we do realize, even without your consistent reminders, that it you and your families who pay our bills and allow this place to stay open, you must realize that the rules here exist to help you. They were not writen to "pander to some sickening fascist revivalist spirit" or "help us get our underaged cocks up" as some of you have asserted. While we're on the topic of false claims: Mr. Ragnor, it must be noted that it is not by your will alone that each member of the staff is allowed to awaken and draw breath every morning.

Every night for the past two weeks members of the staff have caught resident out of their beds past lights out. Further, these residents were violating noise quotas and some had even left the building to wander about the garden and pond like it was recreation hour. 3 am is not recreation hour. You all know that.

On noise violations, it has occured no less than 5 times in the last month that when an orderly leaves the rec-room unattended, the residents there-in participate in what I can only call a group wailing. On each occasion the orderly has returned, only to find the residents quiet and otherwise docile.

Other recurring transgressions include: willful destruction of establishment property including but not limited to expensive kitchen equipment and valuable statuaries, rampant graffiti in the public bathrooms, increased distribution of radical political tracts and what can only be described as a disturbing increase in public sexual activity.

Finally, despite Councilman Apping's sensible pleas, his office informs me that he continues to receive harassment from unknown persons in residence here.

Warmest,


Your Caring Staff

Danning's first song.

I was drinking in the 'Ole Skratte, sixteen sheets past the wind
Drunk dreaming of my dead baby, left back on the tracks
on the tracks of the Mississippi.

I met a man, called himself Empty Barrels, "I'm an honest man,
when my pistols are dry, and my pistols'a been dry
since the night she spit in my eye, since the night she spit in my eye"

They say there's a place, west of the rockies, east of the sea
a place they keep people like him and me, keep us under lock and key
I say I been to that place, and I shot myself free
Yeah, I shot myself free.

Answer to the extra credit question on a fourth grade math pop quiz

Extra Credit: Two trains are traveling towards each other on the same track. The first train is accelerates at a rate of 10 miles per hour per minute, the second train accelerates at a rate of 15 miles per hour per minute. If the trains begin 68 miles apart, how long will it take the trains to collide?

[Handwritten] One day I’ll multiply 13 by 13 and get 171. One day I’ll look up into the sky and see a color with no name. One day I’ll step off the curb and there’ll be nothing there to catch me. One day someone will say my name and I won’t recognize it (I shall only answer to the name Eleutheria). One day straight lines will raise their hands and admit defeat. One day I’ll look in the mirror and see parts, not a whole. One day I’ll walk out of this classroom and forget I was ever in it.

Recent study shows drifter traffic on the rise in east Tangiers.

A study conducted by the National Society for Homeless Prevention shows that the number of vagrants passing through the east Tangiers area has grown, despite national trends showing drops in the number of homeless. This statistic is further anomalous as the number of trains transporting goods through east Tangiers has dropped substantially and the rail yard lies almost entirely dormant. What this excess of homeless population is doing east Tangiers or where they are going from here was beyond the realm of the study. Crime rates within the city limits have not shown oddities given recent trends and there does not seem to be any reason for the populace to be concerned.

When local vagrant legend Danning Flaminco was approached for comment he just smiled and tipped his reeking top hat, refusing to add any exact statement.

There Were Gods Here.

A prospectus.
by James King

Recent archaeological research in the woods to the east and south of Tangiers has revealed a startling wealth of anthropological information. Foremost of interest is evidence that a previously unknown indigenous religion flourished in the area prior to the arrival of the first Europeans in the mid 16th century.

And, more startling, the evidence yields, and this paper will seek to prove, that this native religion reversed the era’s trend of Christian proselytizing and the Europeans that came to this land found their own brand of Christianity mutated, infected, and ultimately erased by the strength of this rare set of believes and tenets.

This land was home to a highly specialized pantheon of gods and spirits, heretofore unknown to historians and anthropologists of the area. Many questions regarding this period of colonial Tangiers still remain, this paper will seek to posit answers to these many questions as well as relaying a wealth of information on the gods that once roamed these woods and their followers.

An open letter from a city councilman to the residents at the Monad establishment.

To east Tangier's fine elderly citizens,

I do not have a monster living in my bunker. Claims that recently appeared in this space are quite obviusly bogus. Though claims were made by an anonymous dissident, I do hope that you will take it upon yourselves as concerned members of your community to locate the errant scribe and see that he understands the absurdity of his claims.

Your help is appreciated and I look forward to your votes in the upcoming season.

Your concerned civil servant,


Tom Apping

dbnr.

A note found drifting in the breeze blowing through the Fulsom street playground.

...The scientific community has identified four possible end scenarios for the cosmos: the big rip, the big crunch, the slow fade and the mysterious quintessence. They have yet to recognize the potential fervor of a neglected God’s wrath...

Letter from a mother to her 17 year old son's principal.

Dear Mr. Garduno,

Teach death in your schools. It is more important than sex. Make death, violence and labor relations your core curriculum. They are the most important things that each of us have to undersatnd in live. I read that once and I challenge you to disagree. My son barely has a grasp on sex, let alone the reality of sudden violence, the imminence of death or the complications of labor relations. And you claim that "sex ed" is a key part of our children's educations.

Speaking of Franklin, he tells me that you have been hosting special seminars for the college bound seniors. How very nice of you.

Till graduation then...

Warmest,


Samantha Tungston
[signed]

General notice to the residents of east Tangiers districts 4, 5, and 10

As many of you I’m sure are aware, construction resumed today on the bridge linking east Tangiers with the rest of the muncipality of Tangiers. Rumors have been circulating since last Spring that the project would forever remain aborted. This is categorically untrue and was never even an option.

The project was halted due to a complex of circumstances including sudden disappearance of key project staff, an unexpected budgetary drop and the accidental collapse of a central support column.

The project resumes today, with the funds needed to finish the bridge pledged by the government and various philanthropic locals. Missing members of the key staff have all been rounded up or replaced. And soon you shall all see that collapsed support column rise like a reborn tower of Babel.

We do apologize for the return of the construction noises, but I’m sure you all understand: these sleepless nights and early mornings you suffer are for all of us.

Here’s to a grand and connected future for Tangiers.

Posted on the commmunity billboard outside the game room of the Monad Assisted Living/Intensive Care Establishment.

The five best things about east Tangiers:

By an anonymous life-long resident of Tangiers and 6 month resident of this establisment (against his will).

1. The smell of the river in the morning: Somewhere between the smell of animal rot and the perfume of crisp dew. Take a nostril full as the sun cracks the sky, you won’t regret it.

2. The Tangy-Tangiers sandwich at Frank Benny’s Burger Banger. I have been trying to learn the ingredient of the secret sacue since my eyes barely cleared the bar stools at Benny’s, a restaurant that truly levels class distinctions.

3. The mysterious biography of Danning Flaminco. Local legend Danning Flaminco left the bar room stages East Tangiers at the age of 21, to seek his fortune on the train tracks, highways and interstates of the land. 21 more years later, he stumbled back into town, his eyes sunken, his arms bone thin, scars crisscrossing his back, and his mouth full of bizarre stories, his fingers deft and able. Danning lives somewhere in town to this day, with careful eyes and ears, you can spot him, strumming his worn guitar, singing of weird America in a raspy, grated voice to the willing of east Tangiers.

4. City Councilman Tomas Apping has a monster living in the bunker in his backyard. The last thing I saw before I was interred alive in this ramshackle excuse of a living grave, was a glistening wet tentacle, whipping frantically into the dark recesses of the Cold War era bunker in elected official Tom Apping’s backyard.

5. The trash heap playground on Fulsom street. A socially beneficial relic from Tangiers flirtation with progressive ("Communist!" they screamed) government. Before my imprisonment in this white-washed pit of reptilian ineptitude, I used to sit on the worn spindle swings, letting my swollen joints unwind in the wind flowing off of the abandoned Model A.

Note: A week after appearing, the crumbled sheet of clumsily typed paper was removed for containing political thought, contentious ideas and subversive social sentiment. The damage, however, may well already have been done.

A Fourth Grader's Final Writing Project

Jimmy Dixon
Fourth Grade
Mrs. Glockenspiel

A Vision of the Apocalypse

After the skies have melted and the men in business suits have stabbed their wives to death with baby spoons, after the rivers have started flowing with red reeking detritus and alien flesh-spores rule the wind, after every capital has turned into a mutli-ringed flesh auction, lorded over by bloated steam-powered biotech monstrosities, after the sun has given up and the moon has danced away forcing mankind to cling to the last vestiges of electricity for light, after the prognositcators, the card readers and the will-writers have turned the key and locked up shop, a small child carries his stuffed bear out into the ruined and pock-marked street of his small town. He looks left and he looks right, his young mind numbed already to the idea of rabid red-cloaked cultists wielding meat cleavers, to the reality of predatory house cats with batwings, to the idea of death jumping from body to body, spread by look and breath, and the boy finds the perfect spot and he sits and sucks his thumb, clutching his bear. Its name is Frankie, together they ignore the growing roar (a roar that has been buliding for a millenium, longer, a roar that snuck in through the grates, through the sewers, down from the sky and out from just behind you, a roar that deafens even as you ignore it). And as the liquid sky opens up again with fire, together they sit and dream a new beginning.

Proof read by: Mary-Jane Dixon [signed]

The torn contents of scrap of paper found in the shadow of the new east Tangiers' bridge construction site:

"... Surely life itself is the greatest abberation of all..."

An Interview with Rick Anything, part one

I had often heard tales of the mysterious Rick Machete and his legendary adventures. Mostly I had heard that he was a bigoted narcissist, that his adventures were largely throwbacks to an era when colonialism was considered God's holy work, and that he habitually munched his cuticles. When I finally met Mr. Machete, I found two of these things to be true. He never munched a cuticle, though, and for that at least, I can be glad.

The opportunity to interview this atavistic elephant came round when Machette returned from his most recent raping of Africa to promote his second memoir (MACHETE IN THE CONGO: A NEW HERO FOR A NEW WAR). I caught up with him in a small coffee shop on the edges of downtown east Tangiers. After waiting for him to show for about 20 minutes, he burst into the place reeking of khat and musty body odor, his legendary mane of dirty brown hair tied back into an obscenely greesy pony tail. After shaking hands, Mr. Machete whipped his chair around backwards, squatting over it, letting his worn leather jacket hang open, exposing what can only be called an vast array of ridiculous trinkets and accessories hanging from his vest.

What follows is a short excerpt from the interview:

SL: People, myself included, have accused you of treating Africa like it was still the land of boundless adventure that we find in the tales of H. Rider Haggard and others. How do you think of Africa?

Rick Machette: She's like a big beautiful woman, eager to engage you, undeniably sexual but complicated, violent. And black. She's a black woman, definitely. And for a man as potent and virile as myself, her darkest corners are irresistible.

SL: I see. Don't you think that's a somewhat overplayed metaphor? That something is like a woman?

RM: Not if it is true.

SL: True or false: You have killed Zulus?

RM: True. Zulu sorcerers actually. This will make it into my third memoir, tentatively entitled MACHETE HACKS: ANECDOTES FROM THE DARK CONTINENT, but I'll give you a little taste. I was running vital medicines to the native inhabitants of deepest Congo, when I beset by a small party of Zulu sorcerers, hired by a rival medicinal supplier. Do to an unfortunate sexual encounter the previous night, I was without any weapons to speak of, save a long straight razor and even that wasn't particularly sharp.

SL: You killed Zulu sorcerers with nothing but a dull straight blade?

RM: I'm here telling you the story now, aren't I? It ain't easy killing Zulu with anything, let alone when they have summoned up spirit armor to protect their black hearts. The secret is knowing how to swing the blade so it hits the ghostly shell in a particularly senstive area. The balls of the ghost armor, that's where you cut.

SL: Nevermind the ghost balls, Zulus have black hearts?

RM: If a sorcerer chooses to sell his abilities for profit? Hell yeah, I'd say that's black hearted. But I'll tell you what: some of the survivors of the massacre that ensued are among my best drinking buddies now. Real men, man's men, man's men who desire man deaths, and men who have killed man's men for simply looking too masculine. Something you'll never be. I abhor you snivelling journalists...

SL: You don't find us like a lithe and sultry woman, nosey but eager in our inquiries?

RM: No, I find you to be filled with weakness and eager only to spew platitudes like so much Taco Bell-induced shit. What do you know of blood and tears? Of the chants of the natives as they summon their dark creatures from beyond the...

The full interview, which I barely survived, is available in the January 17th issue of the East Tangiers Gazette Magazine.

The best thing a stranger has ever said to me:

"You'll die happy."

Said by a particularly angry Columbia undergrad student, wearing bermuda-style shorts in the dead of winter, on the bottom floor of a frat party neither of us should have been attending, after spending 15 minutes slagging off his ex-girlfriend for dumping him because of personality traits she learned from Vogue and Cosmo.

I'm not a huge believer in divination, but if an angry student of English literature, hell-bent on defying the whim of nature, has had a drunken premontion of my happy expiration, I think that's enough to get me to sleep soundly maybe 7 out of 10 nights.

The kid loved Spanish literature I had never heard of and probably just really wanted that ex-girlfriend back. But I can't help but think back on him with fondness.