Pickled

Pickled burps curl flies in mid air.
The white-haired drunk wears fruit salad --
thrown on his new leather shoes.
Pineapple chunks paint clear trails on the leather.
Marshmallow oozes
across the laces
and onto the carpet.

Drunk-red for a hug
A public bathroom, offspring, the librarian.
Sappy-drunk!
Who are you?

In lecture mode,
you're a magnifying glass
frying a leaf
in 50 degree weather.

You pass out on the couch
Pink lids: quiet and convenient.
Vodka
your favorite pillow, desert, child, lover,
e
ra
ser.

Then a twitch in your waxed mustache...
" Help me," you whisper into the clear bottle.
I'll watch
you die
And I guess I love you.

Gary Cornack: Mexican Gang Member

Gary was born a white boy. Whether he liked it or not, he appeared to be pretty darn Caucasian-looking. Gary is my first cousin. It's true, our great-grandmother immigrated here straight from Southern Mexico. She's as Mexican as one can be. Her father was even mayor of their town at one point. She was one of the coolest people ever. She spoke 'Spanglish' and we could all understand her, either through context or through giggles and hand gestures. Nana loved butt jokes. If you joked about a butt, you could listen to her laugh in both Spanish and English. But that is besides the point.

The point here is that Gary, whose surname is Cornack-- not Gonzales, Garcia, Hernandez, Ruiz or the like-- considers himself to be Mexican. I guess he's kind of right. I mean, he is 1/8th Mexican. He is missing the dark skin and the Mexican parents, but that didn't stop him from joining a Mexican gang in his 20's. The gang taught him Spanish, they taught him brotherhood, they gave him some crime tips and they discovered, together, how to make methamphetamine.

I don't know Gary's street name, but his two best friends were called "Tweeties" and "Wheaties." I just can't make this stuff up; it's too weird. When I was introduced to Wheaties I laughed. I was waiting for his real name. But Wheaties was not amused and I learned to read faces and look down, politely.

So here was Gary, in a very rural American town, with his two best gang friends, Tweeties and Wheaties, developing meth in a lab on a farm. Soon, Gary and his gang got tattoos to commemorate their brotherhood. In three-inch, gang graffiti writing, Gary had "CORNACK" tattooed across his back. There's no telling if Tweeties and Wheaties got their names tattooed on their backs. I hope not. I didn't think "Tweeties" was a very masculine name to tattoo on a back for life.

My cousin, Gary Cornack was a full-fledged Mexican gang member addicted to meth in a rural town known for 4-H, farm animals, simple folks and hot summer days in the park where little kids wore bonnets and gnawed on hot dogs. Gary's teeth started rotting and his weight plummeted. A body can only ingest so much cold medicine and motor oil before it screams for help. Gary's skin became so pock-marked and yellowed that he began to look like the ubiquitous, wizened, old, bad guy in a retro crime show. Gary's mom called the cops and tried to bust up his meth lab.

Gary outgrew this lifestyle when he hit his 30's. He now has 5-7 kids (two are step-children who have been taken away by the state). He lives in a trailer with his girlfriend, Nancy, who claims to have multiple personality disorder. Nancy goes by two different names depending on which person she is at the time, 'Nancy' or 'Flower'. When Nancy is Nancy she is nice and talkative. When Nancy is Flower, she cries under a walnut tree by the side of their yard. The walnut tree sits near a grave yard of broken down cars which have been stripped and left as part of the landscape.

Nancy/Flower, Gary, and the kids go to church every Saturday where Gary is now a priest. Gary works odd jobs. He was fired from his last job where he served as the language interpreter between Mexican field workers and their boss. Apparently he'd told the field workers that they could take time off and relax and take breaks. Their boss did not like this; it was bad for productivity. Gary always had a soft side even though he shot cats, swung them by the tails, terrorized his sister and put a snake in the refrigerator for his mother to find. I observed, took cover, and disappeared again and again.

George is My Uncle

George is a normal man ... for a schizophrenic. Perhaps the psychiatrist diagnosed him with that label because it was like trying to fit a rectangle into a square. I don't think there is a true label that fits George.

Like most randy, American males, George is fond of boobs. The problem is that he is very fond of his niece's boobs. My cousin Lisa, his niece, still hides from him to this day. He'd come to visit Lisa regularly in the hopes of catching her in a tank top on a hot day. Being the smaller chested niece, I was able to back out of the conversations, invisibly, while George drooled at the outlines of Lisa's breasts. I found other things to do in the meantime like make a sandwich, watch TV, read, or sit, very still, so as to disappear while I feigned intent listening skills. Often George would talk about religion to anyone who would listen. I guess that meant no one in particular.

Religion is George's new crutch. The way I figure it is that maybe he's sinned so bad that he now has to make up for it by talking about God for hours at a time. Maybe, like a jealous person who profusely compliments the beauty queen, George pretends not to be as guilty as he is.

George's obsession with religion and his compulsion to become Christ-like got the best of him one day. Funny, he's since not been as vocal about God. Let me backtrack to what happened. Apparently George tried to emulate the most noble "characters" in the bible who, besides being faithful and benevolent, held another characteristic in common, circumcision.

George never had much money. He'd fried his brains on drugs and alcohol; he was a real free spirit in the 70's. His wild ways made him a damaged spirit in the year 2005 when he decided to circumcise himself in order to save money. Who needs doctors? No one knows whether he used a knife, a razor, or a bottle cap, but he did it. He made himself like the heroes in the bible who sacrificed pain and body parts to be closer to Christ. So too, George thought, must he.

George spent a while in the hospital. I can only imagine the conversations between his nurses, doctors and roommate. How could George begin to explain his predicament?
George to roommate: "Hi nice to meet you. What are you in here for?"
Roommate: "Gall bladder. You?"
George: "Minor mishap. Some cuts and scratches."

George has since recovered from his "surgery," but he still employs his own version of reality whose boundaries aren't understood by anyone else.