WHISKY ISN'T ALWAYS THE ANSWER..

BUT IT'S OFTEN THE QUESTION.

As I lay on the floor,

clutching my thigh and knee,

my astonishment washed over the pain for a moment,

and then the fire came roaring back..

slamming into the fleshy underhang

where the thin whisps of white flame roamed just below the skin.

I heard a door open behind me,

and saw several silhouettes in the backlight.

They began to applaud,

and one of them,

in a hooped gown came and stood over me...

I looked up at my guest/hostess.

She was not smiling.

The agony of my leg came back to me in sweeping crescendoes

of unbelievable pain.

"That's what you were going to do to me," she said.

And she spun on her heel,

and left me,

gathering the crowd about her as she swept through the doorway.

Above me,

high in the eaves of the ships bowels,

just below the engine

that pushed this carnivore barge through the swamp of the Gulf,

The single dazzling spotlight turned to indigo,

shining like gun metal on the hull around me.

And it was brighter...

I could see all around the empty vastness

in which I found my damnnear crippled self.

I stood up,

and wondered what next turn of events would befall me

on this sweaty Kristallnacht.

I headed warily towards the door,

and opened it inwards.

Immediately outside the door was fresh air,

or at least southern Louissianna"s version of it.

I was on the deck of the boat..

somehow risen several floors,

and in front of me

a gangplank.

There was naught around me but eerie silence,

a solitary lamp at the foot of the bridge to shore

illuminated only a footpath leading off from the ship.

There was no sound of partygoers,

none of the quasi formality of our welcome.

Only the rolling sea fog

and the single light

and the darkness.

Still in enormous pain,

I limped dolefully

(and in not a little fear)

to terra welcome..

terra firma,

terra normal,

and looked back to bid farewell to the boat...

to the place of my nightmares and dreams..

terra terror..

terra pheromone.

It was,

of course,

gone...

swallowed up in the mists of the mysteries

that she created with the whims of willingness,

and the vagaries of Gulfwater Valkyries.

I stared out over the silent black water,

thinking of the million inner feelings that I had discovered

in the last hour or three.

How impervious I was to the throes of gambling....

My sudden obsession with crinoline....

The ease with which I felt at home in the Satyricon casino...

how easily I was led down to my self realizations in the spotlight...

who was that person - when did it become myself,

Where was the person now,

who tore at exposed breasts...

who snapped broomhandles to frighten strangers..

and who lovingly caressed nakedness in preparation for inflicting agony.???

On the winds came the answers...

darkness and silence.

The werewolves in my soul that came out this one first time

were hidden, back in the gloom..

back where the guilt lives.

back in the darkness,

shamed in the silence.

We find out much about ourselves in moments of great pain,

and clarity tends to occasionally explode

from the deepest chaos.

I now knew one thing that I had needed to learn about myself....

one undeniable fact

that I had never even supposed before.

I now knew

that there were things about me,

things in the ebony interior of my core being,

that I didn't know..

things that I would never even have guessed at,

and would have feverishly denied

upon the mere suggestion of their existence.

I reeled in my own judgement..

unsure of my guilt.

But I knew that I had much to digest..

and a lot more strength to gather before I would even attempt

to find out what those unknowns were.

I turned away from the dockside,

and immediately smashed my kneecap...

yes, That kneecap...

on something very hard and about kneecap height.

It was my car...

silent and subservient.

When I opened the door,

the keys shone in the ignition,

by the glow of the interior light.

It started right up,

purring like the huge cat whose name it carries.

When I slipped up through the smooth box,

the car took me far away from the dock,

along the only road in sight.

I was still befuddled,

still in agony,

and still in limbo.

The bright eyes of the city appeared suddenly from the gloom,

and I ran the gears along the highway...

there was no sign of the injured, semi moribund piece of alien hardware

that I had abandoned to the decidedly peculiar skills of Lamarr Jean.

This was my fine tuned piece of machinery..

back beneath my fingertips.

The softness of the leather beneath me was marred only

by the occasional crackle which came to my ears

as I shifted my weight around the bends.

On a straightway,

I reached back to my hip pocket..

half expecting to find the small fortune

which I had unwittingly won at the gaming tables...

but found only a folded piece of crisp notepaper..

It was an invoice.

It said...in the international code of mechanics..

"R and R.. psyche"

And, where the space was for the total charge,

it said simply..

"more than you can currently afford..."