Fortress America

Sept. 26
One week later. Past the check points. The random searches. Armed guards. Where getting out of the country is like getting into it. I'm in Little America, Kaiserslautern, Germany - the self-proclaimed largest concentration of Americans outside of America: 50,000 people strong - and I'm thinking that I guess it looks American, or like America, but not like you would think.
Been to Little Italy.
Been to China Town.
Little Havana.
I heard there was a Little Tokyo in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Most of the Little Anythings really are in America, though.
Not in a place like this.
It's a cool September day and it feels cooler, like October, because it's Germany and Germany is colder, even though the sun shines bright and clear, and the wind is blowing and the trees of the endless forests surrounding Little America are already changing colors and their leaves are being plucked and flung away in the breeze and I think that I guess it feels like America, but not really because I would really expect some college football game to be going on right now, in this perfect fall weather, and tailgating too. But Germany doesn't know what football is. Or tailgating.
This is Little America. The lite version. It has a certain ring.
America invented the Little City of culture. But the fact that it's created it's own Little Self in the Middle of Nowhere...baffles me.
Doesn't quite feel American because any Little Place should be in America, I think.
The security is here, though. Always the security. America can't even trust it's own populations. I hear in Japan the crime rate of young people is next to nothing. In America Americans are the enemy.
Since 2001, security has become America's culture.
"Little Fortress America" has a better ring, I think as I watch as a German truck is denied entrance into the base and waved away from the front gate.
All of a sudden the road opens up, a sheet of concrete rises out of nowhere to block the truck from going any further: the median slides into the ground and a new road is created. Military Police with Beretta's and M-16's wave the driver out of America, back into the rest of the world. The funny thing is as they wave him out they wave in countless other cars, not checking a single one of them for guns, bombs, missiles, fire crackers, Chinese rockets, Roman candles, daggers, etc.
Odd, I think, if that's what safe means in Fortress America, not being "American".
I'm pushing the clicker on the top of a pen frantically because I'm waiting and I'm nervous and I'm bored and I'm thinking about my future and thinking about people entwined with my future.
I'm standing outside the gate to Little America.
The MP's see me, approach me - guns shown - ask me why I keep clicking the pen, ask me what I've written on my hand, ask me if I speak English, of course after they ask me everything else. Everyone speaks English.
"What does 'flowers' mean?" The bigger, uglier one says.
I had written it on my hand as a reminder.
"What do you mean what are flowers?"
"Is that a code word?"
"For...what....?"
He calls in backup and the German police and more MP's come and I'm surrounded and as they surround me I mouth "fuck" because you don't fuck with America, because America is trigger happy and nervous and doesn't care if they put a bullet in your head...even if you happen to be American.
"I'm American," I say.
Who cares anymore. Maybe some backward, Dark Age, cave-dwelling fundamentalist in Arabia. But they'd kill me, too.
The American MP standing next to the German tells me to stand on the curb, six feet away, for my own protection. Shows his sidearm to make sure no one's laughing, and I'm thinking this is all a joke. He asks for I.D., I ask how I'm supposed to show him if I can't hand it to him and he walks over and takes my: passport, student I.D., Kentucky driver's license and military I.D.
All for clicking a pen.
That's how it comes apart. The way it does in bad films. Where all you can do is mouth "fuck"; because this is Fortress America, where the sun doesn't set on the battlements from Japan and Korea, to Germany and Italy, to New York and California.
Little Fortress America.
The less touristy-version of the American classic.

Oil Tanker At Sunset

Fanta sky.
My, oh my.
Leaving you would be silly.
Paradise is relative, really.


I once had a dream that I lived in a small house in a wheat field. Everything was quiet and the sun was warm and there was this orange juice sky that stretched for years.
That would be nice.
A few years ago, on a train in Europe, I saw that field. The sky was partly cloudy, there was a breeze, it was cool. The wheat swayed with the wind. It didn't feel right. Didn't feel like my dream.
I guess dreams never do feel right if made into reality. Their whole point is that they are elusive. Unicorns.
What happens when you win? What happens when you capture a dream? Does it all just go away?
Something like that.
There is an orange juice sky, crisp, yet smooth. It reflects itself on a glazed ocean.
You can feel the sea wind. Taste the salt. Smell the ocean, that sharp smell of baked water and the life within it. Hear the waves crashing.
The sun is perfect. It always is, but you never really noticed it before now.
A billion bubbles are created and dashed to nothingness as the crest of a wave foams and batters itself on itself.
But this is harmony.
Sun. Sky. Water. Warmth.
And the oil tanker on the horizon, polluting it all.

Treatis

Listening to the UK game on internet radio. Miracles of technology. Clear skies, 81 degrees, left-to-right wind. Like I'm there. As I write, deep pass, Andre Woodson to Steve Johnson, 44 yards and then Rapheal Little scores the touchdown.
Middle of the night.
Wondering what other people are doing else where. Middle of the afternoon for them.
Really don't want to talk to them, though. Would be the same old garbage that sucks me in when I'm there. Dealing and fighting and yearning and hurting and then numbing myself to it all.
Seems like the only thing that has changed is University of Kwntucky football. Seems like we're a good team these days.
They're a reason to have a drink and hold it up high. Then again haven't drank in a while. Don't want to.

Lemon Juice

The moon was behind the hills and we drove beneath their shadow. Hanging above us, glowing, it looked like a slice of orange, like the kind I used to stick in my mouth after soccer practice and suck out the juice, but not chew because it was always too big to chew.
Always just threw the drained peel to the ground.
I lean back in the passenger seat and look up through the windshield at the slice of light above us and I am worried and I wonder if I bit off more than I can chew in this place.
Not like I haven't bitten off my fair share of choking bites before. This might be different, I think.
There is no more light in our world, as we drive, save for the beams from our headlights, leading the way.
We're through the fog and shadows and around bends and down the hills and I think that this could all be very symbolic, but I'm not one for symbolism.
I look more at the moon.
Taking out my digital camera I wish I had a better camera to take better pictures.
If I knew how to take pictures.
I wish I had and I wish I knew.
Maybe I'll need a fork and knife, but this looks like one I'll eat with my hands.
I taste lemon juice in my mouth as we keep driving.
I always like adding lemon juice to water and am suddenly thirsty.

Somewhere Over the Atlantic

Sept. 18- 19. Day One. On a plane. Nervous and calm at the same time and it doesn't really make sense. Thinking about things doesn't help it make sense. I think that the term "things" is vague, no matter how you use it.
Turbulence. Jitters spring up in my body every time it happens.
I wonder if this will break me. I think I'm doing it for the challenge. Something tells me I'll pull through.
Then there's that something else that tells me that failure is a distinct possibility. How can it not be, I think, I can failure not be a possibility?
The sky is a purplish blue. A lot of clouds, those are darker, but the sun is nowhere. I look at my watch. I guess we're over France. Or England. I don't even know the route, I think. Just know when I'll get there. Last time, I remember, Europe didn't feel so foreign. Seemed natural to me. Aside from the fact that I was a stranger in a strange land.
Munich. Maybe they'll send me to Munich.
Maybe this will be the greatest moment of my life.
A baby is crying. The Stewardess asks her if she wants any chocolate milk. The stewardess told me earlier she didn't have chocolate milk. She's obviously lying to one of us. Why would you lie to a baby? Then again we've all done it.
How many people have done this, have been here, like me, somewhere over the mid-Atlantic, before? According to Facebook the Stars and Stripes doesn't exist. Facebook is, of course, the be-all and end-all of modern civilization. Thank you, God, for facebook. Lifeline.
Does the Stars and Stripes really exist? Haven't talked to the guy that hired me in weeks. Never returns my calls, hardly an e-mail. When communication exists it is short and swift and doesn't leave room for conversation. Vague.
I slept for 2/3 of the flight. Somehow. Then got up and sat next to some random girl who was asleep with an open seat next to her and watched the movie "Fracture" because my personal TV thing didn't work. Weird look on her face when she woke up to see me. Guess she thought I was putting the moves on her.
I think, deep down, I'm confused.
I feel the plane dip. We're going down, into the clouds and my ears are popping. A military man is sitting next to me. He looks rugged. G.I. Joe. I wonder if he is scarred or has ever been scarred or knows what scarred is. I wonder if he knows where he is going.
The plane dips.
Streaks of pink lick the sky and clouds. The sun is coming up.
Dawn is a nice time. Kind of symbolic.
Dawn. New day, new start, new adventure.
We land at dawn. Like Steve Zisssou, we land at dawn.

Walkie-Talkie, with clarity

"Once more with clarity," the marching band instructor says to the army of instruments below him. "That wasn't...well that wasn't that good."
I think to myself that I've never heard any instructor remark that his students work was bad.
Earlier that day a photographer taught me photography and I was pretty bad. Lacked clarity and vision and I knew. His remarks were good. That makes things interesting, I think, when remarks are good.
Helps with inspiration and inspiration gets you were you want to go.
Quick remarks.
Like Hemingway.
Like that night.
The cool of the evening, before the night heat rises.
There are six of us at the counter and I'm in the middle and she's across from me and the whole situation is weird because the two of us are looking each other straight in the eye and sending volleys of conversation back and forth and remarking in lightening speed that the other's remarks are meaningless, though they are never meaningless. The other four only look at us, consumed.
"Could you do this?"
"The music?"
"Could you?"
"I could never play guitar for a living."
"What do you want to do then?" She asks and I think that earlier I thought she wasn't attractive but in low light and starring straight into the surge of her glare, watching the flicker of life, she doesn't look half bad.
"I don't know."
But then again I don't really like redheads.
"I want to be an actress."
"That's cute. I wanted to be an actor once."
"Did you?"
"When I was young."
"Aren't you still young?"
"Are you a journalist?"
"Do I ask too many questions?"
"You ask a lot."
"He's a journalist," someone tells her, pointing to me.
"Oh. How do you like it?"
"It doesn't pay the bills."
"Then why do it?"
"Heard of Bayern Munich?"
"No."
"Soccer team. In Germany. My dream is to get a press pass."
"Back stage access?"
I tip my drink.
"Really?" She asks.
"No." I say. "It's really the only thing I'm good at."
"Really?"
"No." I wink.
Later that night, in the shower I think about the actress and think about remarks. I'm looking for inspiration. Remarks make such great inspiration.
Minutes ago a drunken phone call with news to break my heart. Something about a loss that is dear to me. I'm looking for inspiration to move on. Move up.
Earlier, before I left the night behind me we said:
"We just walked her home." She points with her thumb in a general direction behind her, talking about her friend, who called me a journalist.
"What about me?" I say. "Who'll walk me home."
"You can take care of yourself."
She throws her arms around me.
"Have fun in L.A." I say.
"New York," she corrects.
"I'll never see you again," I correct, and maybe that is aweful to say because that means she'd fail as an actress, but, whatever.
"It's always a lonely walk home," He says next to me. "But gives you time to think, on the walk home," He says. He is walking out the door, too. "This walk home my mind is vacant, can't think. And I'll drift along alone alive, and thinking that it is good to be alive.
My bones feel lazy.
I think as I leave that I wish there was a train station close and another one close to where I need to be so I could just step on, step off and be there. Without all the traveling my legs would have to do.
I wave goodbye.
"No random quirp? No quick jab as you leave?" She says, the actress.
"Got nothing anymore. No more remarks."
The best 'The End' is just to end.
"See you never."
I wave goodbye.
Gertrude Stein once said remarks aren't literature.
Remarks don't help.
But I'm in the shower looking for inspiration. Tell Gertrude Stein that.