Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee

2008-10-29T20:25:00.000-07:00

I am thinking of writing a novel from this.

Sketches

for

And Here We Have Them

Fountain Park is on the southwest corner of the intersection of Neponset street and Venice Avenue. The fountain in the middle, the one we named it for, has a pixie dancing or standing on one foot spitting a continuous stream skyward, filling a small, ever-overflowing cup. The pool the cup overflows into has lights that change colors. We spent most nights sitting on the benches that lined the fountain's perimeter, the lights casting tones of pink and blue and green across our faces. Sometimes we smashed the lights with golf clubs or our fists and it was dark. There are trees strategically placed through the park so that cops can see from one side to the other without stepping from their squad cars. In the winter, Christmas lights tangled with the branches and moss. For some of us, they were the only thing that set the holidays apart from the rest of the year. During the years we spent at Fountain Park, we never saw anyone put the lights up or take them down. They appeared with the first winter storms and were gone shortly after the New Year.

Futureman and Handsome Jack were brothers and the park's keepers. Their Aryan faces and statuesque physiques gave the group an authority. Their parents had abandoned them when Futureman was 17 and Handsome Jack was 16. They had been homeless for two years; that was how they started hanging out at the park— bathing in the fountain and sleeping in the shadowed corners. They were there from the beginning.

If you spent any amount of time there, they gave you a nickname. Sprinkles was a fag, self proclaimed and proud of it. We were cool with it. Mad Dog Palmer didn't drink—never had—but when people were drunk around him he broke everything in sight. Sandman could fall asleep anywhere. Many nights we left him curled up and trembling on the park bench asleep. When Sandman's parents had asked him where he slept when he didn't come home he told them, "HJ and Futureman's house."

Juice Box was half black but his biological father had died of a cocaine overdose when he was 4 and he was raised by his mother's new husband, a white catholic man who broke his Megadeath tapes and wouldn't let him watch horror movies. There were always Juicy-Juices in their refrigerator. Mercitron was Juice Box's best friend. He worked at the humane society but didn't talk about that much. He was named after the machine Dr. Kevorkian used. For Christmas one year, Juice Box made Mercitron a shirt that said: My Best Friend is Half-Nigger, and insisted he wear it. So Mercitron made Juice Box a shirt that said: Half as Black and Just as Stupit (sic). Stink Finger had dreadlocked Juice Box's hair one time and his hands had smelled like dirt for a month afterwards. They had given names, but those given were not representative of who they were, or so we all felt.

The closest I got to a nickname was Mundy because I was normal by their standards. My parents were still together and by all accounts they seemed to care about me. I was friends with people outside of our group, too, football players and surfers and girls. I was seen as gregarious and that hurt. There were a bunch of others that came and went but the ones that mattered were always around for the good stuff.

It was summer and I had just turned 15, just lost my virginity to a twenty-year old cashier from the grocery store in a lifeguard stand. I was full of anger that had no roots—just dull, blunt convictions, unstructured ideals. The world was undressing before me, spreading its legs and begging me to take advantage of it.

I was working at the coffee shop across the street from The Park, Grinders—a little kitschy place owned by a coke-head from Colorado named Kristine. I was closing up solo one night and heard what sounded like people wrestling on the roof. I was and am still not one to pursue possibly threatening situations, so I just minded my own business and locked the door, ready to get home. I saw someone standing in the middle of the intersection—a shadow under the sepia street-lamp— holding a tennis racquet like a bat, screaming at the roof to “fucking shoot it already!” I looked to the roof just in time to see who I would come to know as Handsome Jack and Mad Dog holding their arms straight forward, stiff, as Mad Dog cocked the water-balloon launcher back. In an instant the launcher snapped, the ball made a sort of sick thud and the kid in the intersection staggered three steps back and crumpled, like his bones had been pulled out, in the middle of the road.

The ball rolled a few feet away from me. I picked it up and went to see if the kid was alright. It was Sprinkles. Before I could get to him, the kids from the roof had already scrambled from the building, laughing violently, and were trying to pick him up. He woke up, confused and wobbly, stood up and said, “I’m going home.”

I got off work one night and they were all standing around holding golf clubs with a bag full of tennis balls. Mercitron had taken the balls from the humane society. Most animals that entered through the door of the humane society were euthanized. Kittens and puppies, some that had not opened their eyes yet, dissolved from the inside out by a blue liquid. He had worked there for years and watched the balls pile up, apparently donated by local country clubs. The balls, used once, were unworthy of the no-doubt stellar level of play the senile World War vets were capable of. The tennis players surely felt like good Samaritans in their white tennis skirts and polo shirts. Unfortunately, Mercitron said, the dogs would kill each other if you threw a ball into the pack.
The boys were hitting the balls into traffic. None of them had ever golfed, but they were doing a pretty good job. Lined up in the middle of the intersection, they would wait for the light down the block to turn green and all hit in unison. The sound of tires screeching meant a direct hit and sent the group diving behind the benches, falling over each other, laughing.
A little later on, after we had gotten bored and put the tennis balls away, one of the local cops came by on a tip that kids had been hitting golf balls at cars.
"You boys wouldn't know anything about that would you?" he asked.
"They were tennis balls," Juice Box said. "And no, I have no idea what you're talking about."
After the cop drove off we dumped the remaining balls into the middle of the intersection and watched cars run them over, sending them flying all over the streets. The gutters were littered with barely-used tennis balls for weeks.

It must have been the end of winter when I bought the second water-balloon launcher because the Christmas lights had been taken down. The first one broke while we were trying to shoot a bowling ball at an abandoned car. So I bought a new one. We shot oranges and rocks and the stale, left over muffins that Kristine's let me take home with me. Handsome Jack found a dead bird and shot it at an ambulance as it streaked by. Futureman got the idea that he wanted to feel what it was like to get shot with it. So we bought water balloons. Actually, Mad Dog stole them. They seemed safe enough. We filled a balloon up half way (accuracy and the object's size were inversely related) and Futureman walked down the street about fifty yards. I wasn't very good at shooting the damn thing so I sat on the bench and watched. Handsome Jack and Stink Finger held the handles out while Juice Box aimed and shot it. The balloon was red. I couldn't tell you the color of the building across the street, but oh! that ruby balloon, sailing through the air, tumbling over itself, distorted by the momentum, moving just slow enough for Futureman to realize that he did not want anything to do with it. He tried to jump out of the way but it caught him in the thigh with enough force to send his legs out from underneath him, his entire body horizontal. He landed on his side and was laughing and crying when we got to him. His thigh had a bruise that looked like the aurora borealis, all purple and green.

Futureman, Sprinkles and I were sitting on the bench running out of things to talk about. Futureman stood up without saying anything and left. We figured he was going to find Handsome Jack and make him buy some food. However, twenty-minutes later he showed back up and sat down. He didn't say anything, just sat back down, no explanation. I didn't really care until he pulled something out of his pocket and started tapping it on the bottom of the bench, tap tap tap. I asked him about a girl he had talked into sleeping with him earlier that week. Sprinkles laughed and said it never happened. Futureman took the small object that he had been taunting us with, tap tap tap, which turned out to be a hunting knife, and stabbed Sprinkles in the thigh. Sprinkles didn't scream or yell—he hardly moved—and then blood started to soak through his pants. He asked Futureman to borrow his knife. Futureman obliged, knowing Sprinkles wouldn't try to stab him back. Sprinkles cut the bottom of his pants off and tied it around his thigh. Then he got up and said "I'm going home."

6.

The fireworks stand usually only showed up for business the week before the 4th of July but that year it just stayed there. Most of the group was over 18 and could sign the safety waiver themselves. The few of us who were not had to have our parents come down and sign it with us. I don't remember exactly what the waiver said, something about using them exclusively for warning and emergency flares or for herding cows. After he got to know us and realized that we were using them as weapons, he started giving us tips. We came in, one at a time usually, not wanting give away our supply list to the others, and he would tell us what the guy before us bought, making us think we had an edge on the crew, not realizing that he was selling us all the same stuff.
"You’re going to have to do better than that," he would say. "I forget his name, the big blonde kid. He got a fuck-load of Saturn Missiles and Roman Candles. Be careful, you boys are in for it." So the arms race escalated and that made life good for everyone: he stayed in business and we set the block surrounding the park on fire.

Once, we were sitting on the benches, pretending to exist somewhere outside the world that surrounded us, talking about 80's action movies probably, or existentialism, or the nature of specific superheroes sexual encounters—I honestly don’t remember. Handsome jack was smoking a cigarette and pulled a bottle rocket out of his pocket. He broke the stem in half and stuck it in his mouth alongside the cigarette. The fuse sparked and snaked towards his lips, sending us all diving from the bench. He didn't even flinch as the rocket shot from his lips and burst inches from his lap.

Incidents like this were commonplace and hell always broke loose afterwards. Cars got burned. Our fingers turned gunpowder grey. We bought novelty butane lighters that looked like guns and spent the majority of our time making small cannons to shoot bottle rockets out of, decorating them with slogans like "death from above" and "show no mercy." The conflicts were not exclusive to the park. They happened in our homes, at school and, once, in the grocery store. We did this for two years and during that time we rarely slept well or took a shit in peace, knowing damn well that someone was bound to slip a firecracker under our pillow or a handful of bottle rockets or Black Cats under the bathroom door.
We were talking politics. Handsome Jack was lighting a cigarette with an entire book of matches.
"People are too dumb to be free," he said.
"You think?" I asked. "Wait, what do you mean?"
"People are too dumb to be free. What do you mean, 'what do I mean?'" He threw the matches down onto the brick where a group of weeds were crawling through the cracks, setting them on fire. The rest of the group had been playing dice on the next bench over and stopped to watch the sprouts burn.
"I guess you're right." I said.
"I'm always right." He exhaled the drag he had taken, pulled a bottle rocket out of his pocket and threw it into the burning weeds. The whole group scattered, running to their cars for cover and ammunition.
That night the cops showed up again. When they did, we were spilt on both sides of the road, shooting roman candles at each other—a sort of irresponsibly beautiful Civil War reenactment. I don't remember exactly who was there. I know Juice Box and Sandman were there. Handsome Jack and Futureman, for sure. Some other hangers-on’s were around, as well. So the cops make us stand up against the cars and ask us a bunch of questions like: "do you have any 'street names', or, 'are you affiliated with any gangs?'." Juice Box just started listing shit off: " I go by: T-Bone, Juice Box, Bone Henge, Terrence of LeBonia, T-Bot, RoBot, Race Trader, Half Breed. Do you want me to keep going?" Somewhere in the interrogation Sandman convinced the cops that we were rival gangs. I think he called the two gangs "The Locusts" and "Heaven's Devils," or something cliché like that. Eventually they gave up and wrote us warnings. Come to think of it, we never really got tickets for anything. Juice Box got one, kind of.
7.

One night a homeless man walked up to the group. Juice Box was playing guitar and Handsome Jack was singing, making up shit as he went along, and we were all dying. The man was drunk and filthy. He asked for money and, when no one gave him any, he called us niggers. He said, "this whole fucking town" was "nothing but niggers." Still singing, Juice Box laid him out with the guitar, catching him above the eye with it. The man dropped. Just slumped down and stayed there. We ran to our cars and left. It was the first time I had ever been really scared. It was serious and we knew it. None of us went to the park for a couple of weeks at least. We never saw him before that night and we never saw him again.
8.

So, about Juice Box's ticket. There was a parade down Venice Avenue one night that went right by the park. The streets were flooded with white hair and beach chairs. The smell, a mix of aging flesh and artificial florals, was overwhelming. Juice Box was standing on the sidewalk kicking around a hacky-sack and a cop on a bike came by and told him to get out of the way. Juice Box just stood there, staring. Again, the cop told him to move. Nothing.
"If you don't get out of the way I am gong to write you a ticket," the cop said.
"For what?" Juice Box asked, balancing the hacky-sack on his knee.
"Blocking pedestrian traffic."
"Really? You can do that.?"
"I will be back in a minute and if you haven't moved I'll be forced to write you a ticket."
"For blocking pedestrian traffic? Wait…..you're on a bike. You're not a pedestrian." The cop smiled and pulled out his pad. Juice Box walked up to and then behind him, looking over his shoulder as he wrote the ticket.
"What's your name, son?"
"Juice Box Lebonia," he whispered in the cops ear.
"Can I see some ID?"
"You now I am not going to pay this, right?" he said, handing the cop his license.
"What you do with it is your business." he said, handing him the thin pink and yellow copy of the carbon paper.
"I guess that's true." He took the paper from the man's hand and tore it in half, then in half again, dropping the pieces at the officer's feet. He threw the hacky-sack in the air and continued juggling.
9.

But sometimes the cops were not all bad. One time Sandman locked his keys in his car and we convinced him that the cops were required to help you get into your car. He called bullshit, but eventually he flagged down a cop who was patrolling the area. It was a woman cop and she seemed quite taken with Sandman's flowing blonde hair and bronzed skin. She told him that one of the other officers on duty was a wiz at B and E, so she called in a request. Minutes later there were four cop cars surrounding Sandman's car, all with their lights on. The officers stood around giving Sandman tips on how to get in, offering little tools that they had in their patrol cars. Sandman thought it was hilarious. We were all sitting on the benches, across the street in the park.
"Hey Juice Box!" Sandman yelled. The cops all turned their attention in the direction where Sandman was yelling. "You're half black. You should have been in and out of this motherfucker already!"
"You're right, man. But I would have just thrown a brick through it."
10.

Another time, early winter, I remember, we were playing hackysack in the middle of the intersection in front of the park. The season's first cold front was passing through and the town was silent, save the wind. A cop showed up, lights showering the block in blue and red as the autumn ended above us, the temperature dropping as the wind screamed through the empty streets. He got out of the car and walked towards the group who pretended he was not there.
"Pass me the rock," he said.
We let it fall at our feet, as confused, dumb silence buried us. He stepped into the circle, picked up the hacky-sack and began juggling it deftly with his boots. Everyone stared blankly as the small uniformed man kicked the sack to Mercitron who twitched out of his trance and volleyed it back.
"You got skills, copper," Juice Box said.
"Word," he responded. A few minutes later another squad car passed us and he pretended to be reprimanding us, pointing his finger and shouting.

At times, looking back, it seems High School never happened. I wasn't a part of it. I was at the Park and that's all I remember when I think of those years. I graduated High School in 2002, a semester early, hoping to move to California. The night before I left, I stopped by the Park to see everyone and say goodbye. Most were in attendance: Juice Box, Handsome Jack and Futureman, Mercitron, Stinkfinger and Mad Dog. Sprinkles had moved by then, with his mom, I think, to Key West. It made sense, really. We had all recently taken a group field trip to Wal-Mart in hopes of finding a uniform that the group could wear, something identifying, obvious, something flamboyant. We had settled on black-vinyl (women's) vests and spray painted "Park Posse" on the backs in safety orange. We were all wearing the vests and Juice Box was trying to get hit by a car on his bicycle. He ended up running into a station wagon that had come to a stop at the intersection, sending him sailing over the handlebars into a Pete Rose-slide across the hood. The woman driving panicked and sped off, the mulatto daredevil still laid across the front, trying to jump off the hurtling grocery-getter. I walked over to him, lying on the side of the road laughing. I kicked him lightly in the back and extended my hand to help him up. He slapped it and smiled. I looked back at everyone sitting on the bench, smiling our way, burning under the sodium arc lamp.

Florida Senior Poet-Laureate

2008-07-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

Venice woman named Senior Poet Laureate for the state

By ASHTON GOGGANS CORRESPONDENT

Published: Sunday, November 4, 2007 at 10:12 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, November 4, 2007 at 12:00 a.m.

Katherine Sherin-Zauner usually scribbled her writings on napkins and envelopes. Even though she had been writing most of her life, she never intended for anyone to read her works or for them to be published.

In 1998, her daughter gave her a copy of "The Writer's Market," a writer's guide to getting published. Inspired not only by the gift but by her daughter's knowledge of her writing, she began to submit her work.

That was almost 10 years ago, and since that time, Sherin-Zauner has had more than 600 pieces published nationally and internationally as well as three collections of poetry, "As the Gorse Blooms," "The Butterfly Garden" and "Turtle Tracks." Her writing has appeared in several magazines and a handful of poetry anthologies.

She has received more than 250 awards, including the 2003 and 2004 United Poets Laureate Award and the Pearl Swear Award.

Earlier this year, Sherin-Zauner had another award added to her mounting list of accolades when the Angels Without Wings Foundation named her the "2007 Florida Senior Poet Laureate."

AWOW is a national organization that recognizes the work of writers and poets age 50 and older. The organization has held the Poet Laureate competition annually for the last 15 years. A panel of 12 judges sifted through the submissions of more than 500 candidates, deciding winners for each state. Sherin-Zauner will hold the Florida position for a year and is encouraged to visit schools and attend special events throughout the year to read her work. All this from someone who has had no formal training in the art of writing poetry.

Drawing influence from some of her favorite poets, such as Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, she writes mostly free verse.

"Some poets are adept at rhyme and rhythm set in traditional forms: sonnets to villanelles. While I have produced some work in such patterns, I am better able to express my thoughts and emotions best in free verse," Sherin-Zauner said.

Dickinson, much like Sherin-Zauner, did not write poetry initially for publication.

"For me, poetry is the expression of a soul inspired by personal reactions as well as observation of others' reactions to life experience written in memorable language."

"Gorse Blooms," for instance, was inspired by a trip to Ireland. Gorse is a genus of flower native to Europe and North Africa which blooms most heavily in spring. "The Irish have a saying that 'When the gorse blooms, love is in bloom.' The book was a reaction to spring and the beauty I saw in the country," she said.

Her success as a writer has inspired her to help others who would otherwise never try their hand at writing. She takes joy encouraging others to pursue their creative endeavors.

Originally, Sherin-Zauner specialized in speech pathology and has taught at colleges throughout the northeast and Florida, including the Venice campus of Manatee Community College.

"I have taught all ages of students, but I have to say that I enjoyed teaching at the community college level the most," Sherin-Zauner said.

She eagerly recalled the story of a student: She "was so nervous to give her first speech that she broke out in hives all over, she said she couldn't do it. I said, 'Honey, if you listen to what I have to say, and trust me, by the time this semester is over you won't want to leave the stage.'

"You know what? The last speech she did, she nailed it and she told me, 'You were right, I didn't want to stop.' It was wonderful."

As positive as those experiences were, Sherin-Zauner has no intention of returning to teaching. Between her duties as a poet laureate, her writing, social engagements and spending time with her husband, she stays busy.

A short collection of her work titled "Just Croutons" is set to be published in December. Her next major book is expected out in mid-2008.

This story appeared in print on page Poet finds a winning voice

Journalism

2008-07-18T08:16:00.000-07:00

Here are some pieces that I did for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune before I moved to NYC. I am happy to read old pieces, recognize their weaknesses and realize how valuable my education here at New School truly is.

The art of peace

By ASHTON GOGGANS
CORRESPONDENT

Published: Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 4:48 a.m.

John Lennon's "Imagine" echoed through the congregation of the Venice United Church of Christ. Almost 60 observers bowed their heads in prayer and quiet contemplation. Raindrops pelted the roof as the sun filtered through the stained-glass windows, draping the congregation in soft light.

People greeted each other warmly and earnestly in typical church fashion, yet something seemed different, special.

Organizers hosted an Interfaith Vigil for Peace in Iraq last Sunday at the Venice United Church for Christ, amid a week of nationwide protests against the war in Iraq.

The UCC has been circulating a letter and petition, signed by conference ministers and presidents of Seminaries of the United Church of Christ, advocating the end to the war in Iraq as well as "an end to our reliance on violence as the first, rather than the last resort, and an end to the arrogant unilateralism of pre-emptive war." The Revs. Don Wilson and Gene Simpson took turns reading the letter several times during the vigil.

Nelson Hay, a Venice resident, coordinated the event. Inspired by the letter and by the churches' bold statement, Hay said, "The church has been surprisingly silent. It's nice to see them taking a stand."

The church hopes to get 100,000 signatures on the petition, which is available on its Web site, www.ucc.org.

Along with the UCC, representatives from an array of faiths were present. Muslim, Quaker, Catholic, Baha'i, Lutheran, Episcopalian and Santo Daimerepresentatives prepared speeches addressing subjects ranging from the current situation in Iraq and the history of the conflicts in the Middle East to the basic foundation of morality in each respective religion.

Nancyrose Logan, a Quaker from Venice, recently returned from an international Quaker meeting in Ireland, where she represented the U.S. along with 308 Quakers from around the world. She said it was "difficult representing the United States considering our actions in Iraq."

The vigil closed as local folk singer Mindy Simmons led the congregation in songs of faith and protest, ending with "I Wish You Peace" by John Miller.

A chorus echoed from the building as the vigil came to a close: "Peace and Amen, Shalom to You, Namaste, until we meet again."

Sounds of the holidays fill Summerville

By ASHTON GOGGANS CORRESPONDENT

Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 12:00 a.m.

The usually tranquil Summerville senior community in Venice was filled with a chorus of holiday spirit on Saturday morning. Residents were singing along to their favorite Christmas carols, led by some of the area's most promising young musicians.

"We wanted to do something for the community," said Dominic Baiamonte, a 16 year old violinist and choir member from Pine View. "We decided that we should do something with our music, and bring it to people who would not normally hear it."

The group began the concert with carols, and encouraged the residents to sing along. Dominic's mother, Kathy Baiamonte, organized the concert and sang with the group. The pre-World War II building provided a beautiful setting and lovely acoustics for the event.

After the carols, Dominic was joined by his cousin Angelo Grauel, 17 of Barron Collier High School, for a number of violin duets including "Silent Night" and "Holly Jolly Christmas." Grauel plays in the BCHS orchestra as well as the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra in North Port.

Dominic's brother Vincent, 18, and Vera Higgs, 16, followed with several piano pieces; both attend Pine View School. Vincent wowed the residents with Holst's "In the Bleak Midwinter" and Vera performed a lively rendition of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite." Higgs, a junior, has been playing piano for more than 10 years. She won the Tampa Bay Young Artist Concerto competition in April.

Vera's mother, Shigemi Higgs, a talented pianist as well, joined Vera during the concert for a duet.

"Our grandmother lived here for a while," said Vincent. "We wanted to do something fun for them." This is the fourth year that the group has performed for the residents.

By ASHTON GOGGANS CORRESPONDENT

Published: Wednesday, December 5, 2007 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, December 5, 2007 at 12:00 a.m.

Laughter echoed through the halls of North Port High School on Saturday for Manasota BUDS third annual Buddy Walk.

CORRESPONDENT PHOTOS / BETSY WILLIAMS

Hannah Gentry and Jaden Jantzen have been friends for some time. They were very active on Saturday, laughing and playing together during the entire Buddy Walk event at North Port High School.

INFORMATION

Manasota BUDS (Bringing Up Down Syndrome) south county meet. From 6 to 8 p.m. the first Monday of each month at Galleria Plaza, 2097 S. Tamiami Trail, Venice. Meetings include educational topics, informal sharing and networking. Refreshments and supervised playgroup for children and siblings. Call 493-8907 or go to the Web site at www.ManasotaBUDS.com.

More than 75 people took part in the event, which included a one mile walk and activities such as face painting, arts and crafts, games, and a dunk tank.

Sarah Gentry, a freshman English teacher at North Port High School, helped organize the event and was pleased with the turnout.

"This event is more about raising awareness than money. It's good to get the high school kids out here volunteering, and they get to meet the children with Down syndrome. They're kids, just like them," Gentry said.

Many of Gentry's students volunteered at the event. Some helped design games for the children, others helped youngsters customize T-shirts with markers and paint. Arielle Masucci, 8, painted swirls, hearts, flowers, and a smiley face.

Even though there were plenty of activities, the dunk tank area had the longest line. Several teachers volunteered to take their place in the tank and students came running at the opportunity to send there teachers into the depths, for a good cause, of course.

The Manasota BUDS, which stands for "Bringing Up Down Syndrome," organizes several events throughout the year to help families who are raising children with Down syndrome. The group offers a variety of art and music therapies as well as courses in sign language, which has proven to be immeasurably beneficial in aiding communication skills for children with Down syndrome.

Mike Feduccia, a BUDS board member, said, "It is really stressful for the children, not being able to communicate their emotions well. The sign language is incredibly effective at helping them express themselves: whether they are hungry, thirsty, etc."

Along with the services to children and families, the group provides information packets and DVDs and it offers scholarships for families in need. The group now has more than 150 families throughout Sarasota County.

People get health help at LDS fair

By ASHTON GOGGANS CORRESPONDENT

Published: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 at 12:00 a.m.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hosted its first Community Health Fair on Nov. 17. The event is one of several the LDS has hosted in the last three years.

CORRESPONDENT PHOTOS / ASHTON GOGGANS

Dana Alfano-Dettorre, Henry Cancel and Edith Alexander were the organizers of the free Community Health Fair at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Nov. 17.

Participating organizations included the Venice Police and Fire Department, the Hearing Center of South Florida, the Red Cross, the Bloodmobile and the Alzheimer's Association, among others.

Henry Cancel, president of the Gulf Coast chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, and a former New York City police officer and EMT, organized the event.

Cancel now works with law enforcement units throughout the state, training officers to recognize and handle individuals suffering from Alzheimer's using the "Safe Return" program.

In order to help people understand how Alzheimer's and other types of dementia affect the brain, Cancel had participants sit in a chair, hold a mirror with one hand and try to write their names or draw stick figures.

The participants were amazed at the level of difficulty involved in the task.

"It's really an incredibly difficult thing," said Jack Alexander after he tried to draw a house and write his name using the mirror.

Joe Whitehead, of the Venice Police Department, raved about Cancel's program.

"Any organization should have it. I have three people in my neighborhood alone who suffer from Alzheimer's. In this community it is a huge problem and the program has helped us deal with it accordingly."

Whitehead said the information has helped people not only return home safe but also become aware of their disease for the first time.

The Hearing Center of Southwest Florida performed free hearing tests and in the first two hours of the event had diagnosed nine people with hearing impairment and made appointments for them to be treated.

Don Heath, a licensed massage therapist, certainly had the longest waiting line for his free services.

"You should really sit down and try it, it's wonderful," said Jim Walker after a quick massage.

While the parents enjoyed the Health Fair, the children got tours of the fire engines from Rick Hornberger, Chris Mathews and Lt. Jay Del Castillo.

Stefania Dettorre got to wear a fire suit, while Brandon Guera got behind the wheel and played with the different tools.

Cancel hopes the event will grow and that more people will hear about it.

"A lot of these people need these services. It's free, in a relaxed atmosphere, and they get a lot of information," he said.

For more information about the Alzheimer's Association and the "Safe Return" program, visit www.alz-tbc.org.

Musical 'Salute' draws crowd

By ASHTON GOGGANS CORRESPONDENT

Published: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 12:00 a.m.

The North Port Performing Arts Center hosted its annual "American Salute" on Veterans Day, for a crowd of over 600 people. Led by conductor and music director Sasha von Dassow, the North Port Orchestra performed inspired renditions of "The Star Spangled Banner," "America the Beautiful" and more unconventional Americana such as Boublil and Schonberg's "Bring Him Home," which Dassow said was a "fitting sentiment which we can all certainly agree on."

CORRESPONDENT PHOTOS / ASHTON GOGGANS

The North Port Orchestra is led by Sasha von Dassow. The orchestra performed its "American Salute" on Veterans Day for a crowd of more than 600. Noted baritone Doug Renfroe also joined the group for several pieces.

Douglas Renfroe, baritone, joined the orchestra for several pieces such as "Hoe Down," from Aaron Copland's 1942 ballet Rodeo, and George Gershwin's "I got Plenty O' Nuttin."

The crowd cheered between songs as Dassow and Renfroe discussed the significance of each piece.

"You probably recognized 'Hoe Down' from the 'Beef: it's what's for dinner' commercials," Dassow joked.

The North Port Orchestra was formed in 1983 and performs at the NPPAC regularly. Led by Dassow, who serves as musical director, the orchestra consists of musicians of all ages and backgrounds. The theater, on the North Port High School campus, holds over 1,000 people, making it the second-largest theater in Sarasota County.

"It's wonderful that we have this theater here," said Rosalynd Drier of North Port. "It's beautiful, and the sound is amazing."

The Veterans Day celebration is one of dozens held throughout the year. Proceeds from the concerts go to North Port High School's music program.

More information on the group and upcoming events can be found at the Web site, www.NorthPortOrchestra.com.

This story appeared in print on page BV4

Park stroll highlights visually impaired

By ASHTON GOGGANS CORRESPONDENT

Published: Sunday, October 21, 2007 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, October 21, 2007 at 12:00 a.m.

The gazebo at Centennial Park in Venice was filled with energy and chatter for the 12th annual White Cane Day stroll on Wednesday.

The stroll, sponsored by the Venice Council of the Blind, the Venice Lions and the Lighthouse of Manasota, was intended to raise awareness for visually impaired and legally blind individuals.

More than 60 people took part in the leisurely stroll through the park.

Janice Felski, executive director of the Lighthouse of Manasota, said, "we are here in hopes of ensuring the safety of the visually impaired individuals of the community." Lighthouse helps visually impaired individuals become as independent as possible.

The group teaches cooking, cleaning and computer skills and "everything except driving, pretty much," Felski said.

To ensure the members' safety as well as independence, the walk hoped to encourage drivers to stay aware of the visually impaired and the blind.

Sheri Moehling, a member of the Venice Council of the Blind, who specializes in computer training, said, "We use special software to teach them how to use the keyboard and mouse." In the 22 years the organization has been around, it has helped more than 5,000 individuals become almost entirely independent.

The Lighthouse has even formed social clubs for its members, such as a bridge club, craft club and book club. The services, which usually consist of 60 to 80 hours of courses, are free.

Donning shirts that read: "Close your eyes. Now cross the street," members of the three groups took to the Venice streets under a clear blue sky, handing out literature on the respective organizations and their mission statements.

Participants smiled and talked, soaking up the warmth of the mild fall sun. Onlookers met the walkers with friendly greetings.

"It's important for people to realize that there are people out there who are visually impaired who, in something as simple as crossing the street, are doing something courageous," Felski said.

The event proceeded to the Jacaranda Country Club for a luncheon where The Venice Council for the Blind presented The Venice Lions, The Lighthouse of Manasota, and Patti Wilburn, a member of the Venice Council for the Blind, with the "Dina Doris Community Service Award" for their work with the visually impaired community.

This story appeared in print on page BV4

New Piece In Progress

2008-05-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

Home:

A Type of Love Story

By Ashton Goggans

This stuff really happened, the events took place, they are true and ridiculous; we knew this when they were happening. Juice Box really hit a bum in the head with his guitar and we really don’t know if the guy lived or died. The park really exists, the fountain does, too. The humane society injects baby cats and dogs with a blue liquid that dissolves their insides. I still have the water-balloon launcher. And the vest.

If you lived on the island of Venice, Florida you couldn’t avoid the park. It sat, in all its glory, where the two main streets—Venice Avenue and Nokomis Avenue—intersected in a four way stop. The fountain in the middle had lights that changed color and cast tones of pink and blue and green across our faces as we sat on the benches that lined the perimeter. Sometimes we smashed the lights and it was dark. There were trees, dripping with moss, on the park’s four corners and in the winter strands of Christmas lights tangled with the branches. In all the years we spent there we never saw them put the lights up or take them down; they simply appeared with the first breaths of winter and were gone with the arrival of the New Year and all its resolutions. To us they were lovelier than stars, more accessible.

Futureman and Handsome Jack were brothers and the park’s keepers. Their Aryan faces and statuesque physiques gave the group an authority. Their parents had abandoned them when Futureman was 17 and Handsome Jack was 16. They had been homeless for two years; that was they started hanging out at the park, bathing in the fountain and sleeping in the shadowed corners. They were there from the beginning and are probably still there today. If you spent any amount of time there, they gave you a nickname. Sprinkles was a fag, self proclaimed and proud of it. We were cool with it. Mad Dog Palmer didn’t drink—never had—but when there was alcohol around he turned into a lunatic and broke everything in sight. Stink Finger had dreadlocked Juice Box’s hair one time and his hands had smelled like dirt for a month afterwards. Sandman could fall asleep anywhere; many nights we left him, curled up, trembling on the park bench, asleep. When Sandman’s parents had asked him where he slept when he didn’t come home he told them, “HJ and Futureman’s house.” Juice Box was half black. However, his biological father died of a cocaine overdose when he was 4 and he was raised by his mother’s new husband, a white catholic man who broke his Megadeath tapes and wouldn’t let him watch horror movies. There were always Juicy-Juices in their refrigerator. Mercitron was Juice Box’s best friend. He worked at the humane society but didn’t talk about that much. He was named after the machine Dr. Kevorkian used to kill suffering people. For Christmas one year, Juice Box made Mercitron a shirt that said: My Best Friend is Half-Nigger, and insisted he wear it. So Mercitron made Juice Box a shirt that said: Half as Black and Just as Stupit (sic). The closest I got to a nickname was Mundy because I was normal by their standards. My parents were still alive, still together even. I was seen as gregarious and that hurt. There were a bunch of others that came and went but the ones that mattered were always around for the good stuff. They were participants. The rest were just there for the show, grey shapes, mist, drifting through unattached. I felt somewhere in the middle.

I was a few years younger than the group. I knew a kid named Jake who was friends with them and he introduced me. Jake was a Christian. He was pretty simple. So when I met them they associated me with him and didn’t think much of me. One night, I think it was Christmas Eve, Futureman jacked-off onto his skateboard behind a dumpster. Jake didn’t come around much after that. I kept coming back for more. When they all found out I was not a Christian they gave me a chance. That was when I was working at Kristine’s Coffee Shop across the street from the park. It was summer and I had just turned 15, just lost my virginity to a twenty-year old cashier from the grocery store in a lifeguard stand. The world was undressing before me, spreading its legs and begging me to take advantage of it. I was full of anger that had no roots—dull, blunt convictions, unstructured ideals.

The boys were hitting the balls into traffic. Considering none of them had ever golfed, they were doing a pretty good job. Lined up in the middle of the intersection, they would wait for the light down the block to turn green and all hit in unison. The sound of tires screeching meant a direct hit and sent the group diving behind the benches, falling over each other, breathless with laughter.

A little later on, after we had gotten bored with our urban driving range and put the tennis balls away, one of the local cops came by on a tip that kids had been hitting golf balls at cars.

“You boys wouldn’t know anything about that would you?” he asked.

“They were tennis balls,” Juice Box said. “And no, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

After the cop drove off we dumped the remaining balls into the middle of the intersection and watched cars run them over, sending them flying all over the streets. The gutters were littered with barely-used tennis balls for weeks.

It must have been the end of winter when I bought the water balloon launcher because the Christmas lights had been taken down. We shot oranges and rocks and the stale, left over muffins that Kristine’s let me take home with me. Handsome Jack found a dead bird and shot it at an ambulance as it streaked by. Futureman got the idea that he wanted to feel what it was like to get shot with it. So we bought water balloons. Actually, Mad Dog stole them. They seemed safe enough. We filled a balloon up half way (accuracy increased proportionally to the decrease of the object’s size). Futureman walked down the street about fifty yards. I wasn’t very good at shooting the damn thing so I sat on the bench and watched. Handsome Jack, and Stink Finger held the handles out while Juice Box aimed and shot it. The balloon was red. I couldn’t tell you the color of the building across the street, but oh! that ruby balloon, sailing through the air, tumbling over itself, distorted by the momentum, moving just slow enough for Futureman to realize that he did not want anything to do with it. He tried to jump out of the way but it caught him in the thigh with enough force to send his legs out from underneath him, his entire body horizontal. He landed on his side and was laughing and crying when we got to him. His thigh had a bruise that looked like aurora borealis, all purple and green.

I don’t remember where Sprinkles got the tennis racquet from that night. Probably from the same place they got the golf clubs. He was confident that he could hit a tennis ball if we shot it at him. So the artillery section, JB, HJ, and SF, climbed on top of Kristine’s roof. Sprinkled stood in the middle of the intersection waiting. Handsome Jack pulled back and Sprinkles cocked the racquet like a bat. None of us ever saw the ball leave the launcher. The next thing we knew the ball bounced off Sprinkle’s eye. He staggered two short steps before falling down unconscious in the middle of the intersection. When Sprinkle’s woke up he smiled dumbly, stood up and said, “I’m going home.” The next day it looked like he had been hit with a bowling ball, a flamboyant boxer, his eye swollen shut, caked over with blood.

Another night, shortly after the tennis ball incidents, Futureman, Sprinkles and I were sitting on the bench running out of things to talk about. Futureman stood up without saying anything and left. We figured he was going to go jack-off or to find Handsome Jack and make him buy some food. However, twenty-minutes later he showed back up and sat down. He didn’t say anything, just sat back down, no explanation. I didn’t really care until he pulled something out of his pocket and started tapping it on the bottom of the bench, tap tap tap. I asked him about a girl he had talked into sleeping with him earlier that week. Sprinkles laughed and said it never happened. Futureman took the small object that he had been taunting us with, tap tap tap, which turned out to be a hunting knife, and stabbed Sprinkles in the thigh. Sprinkles didn’t scream or yell—he hardly moved—and then blood started to soak through his pants. He asked Futureman to borrow his knife. Futureman obliged, knowing Sprinkles wouldn’t try to stab him back. Sprinkles cut the bottom of his pants off and tied it around his thigh. Then he got up and said “I’m going home.”

……….

All that happened before the fireworks. The stand usually only showed up for business the week before the 4^th of July but that year it just stayed there. Most of the group was over 18 and could sign the safety waiver themselves. The few of us who were not had to have our parents come down and sign it with us. I don’t remember exactly what the waiver said, something about using them exclusively for warning and emergency flares or for herding cows. My dad smiled and told the owner that he was going to make a fortune on us. They talked for a bit; my dad was the mailman for the neighborhood and liked knowing everyone’s story. Venice seemed to be full of nice kids, the owner said, and it seemed a great place to raise a family. Strangely, after he got to know us and realized that we were using them as weapons, he started helping us out, giving us tips. We came in, one at a time usually, not wanting give away our supply list to the others, and he would tell us what the guy before us bought, making us think we had an edge on the crew, not realizing that he was selling us all the same stuff.

“Oh man! You better watch out,” he would say. “Stink Finger got a fuck-load of Saturn Missiles and Roman Candles. Whooo boy are you boys in for it.”

So the arms race escalated and that made life good for everyone: he stayed open, probably sent his kids to college on our business alone, and we set the block surrounding the park on fire and gave the Venetians nervous breakdowns. One time we were sitting on the benches, pretending to exist somewhere outside the world that literally surrounded us, talking about 80’s action movies probably. Handsome jack was smoking a cigarette and pulled a bottle rocket out of his pocket. He broke the stem in half and stuck it in his mouth alongside the cigarette. The fuse sparked and snaked towards his lips, sending us all diving from the bench. He didn’t even flinch as the rocket shot from his lips and burst inches from his lap. Incidents like this were commonplace and hell always broke loose afterwards. Cars got burned. Our fingers turned gunpowder grey. We bought novelty butane lighters that looked like guns and spent the majority of our time making small cannons to shoot bottle rockets out of, decorating them with slogans like “death from above” and “show no mercy.” The conflicts were not exclusive to the park. They happened in our homes, at school and, once, in the grocery store. We did this for two years and during that time we rarely slept well or took a shit in peace, knowing damn well that someone was bound to slip a firecracker under our pillow or a handful of bottle rockets or Black Cats under the bathroom door.

We were talking politics. Handsome Jack was lighting a cigarette with an entire book of matches.

“People are too dumb to be free,” he said.

“You think?” I asked. “Wait, what do you mean?”

“People are too dumb to be free. What do you mean, ‘what do I mean?’ ” He threw the matches down onto the brick where a group of weeds were crawling through the cracks, setting them on fire. The rest of the group had been playing dice on the next bench over and stopped to watch the sprouts burn.

“ I guess you’re right.” I said.

“I’m always right.” He exhaled the drag he had taken, pulled a bottle rocket out of his pocket and threw it into the burning weeds. The whole group scattered, running to their cars for cover and ammunition.

That night the cops showed up again. When they did, we were spilt on both sides of the road, shooting roman candles at each other—a sort of irresponsibly beautiful Civil War reenactment. I don’t remember exactly who all was there. I know Juice Box and Sandman were there. Handsome Jack and Futureman, for sure. I think Jake was there too. So the cops make us stand up against the cars and ask us a bunch of questions like: “do you have any ‘street names’ you go by?” or ‘are you affiliated with any gangs?’.” Juice Box just started listing shit off: “ I go by: T-Bone, Juice Box, Bone Henge, Terrence of LeBonia, T-Bot, RoBot, Race Trader, Half Breed. Do you want me to keep going?” Somewhere in the interrogation Sandman convinced the cops that we were rival gangs. I think he called the two gangs “The Locusts” and “Heavens Devils,” or something cliché like that. Eventually they gave up and wrote us warnings. Come to think of it, we never really got tickets for anything. Juice Box got one, kind of.

Juice Box would tell us that he was half-black but that his dad was a nigger. His dad had beaten his mom, abused him and died of a cocaine overdose before Juice Box was old enough to really know him. It didn’t seem to affect him. In fact, the only times it was brought up was in joke form. And it was effective. But one night a homeless man walked up to the group. Juice Box was playing guitar and Handsome Jack was singing, making up shit as he went along. The man was drunk and filthy, truly sad. He asked for money and when no one gave him any he called us niggers. He said that the whole fucking town was nothing but niggers. Before I could really wrap my head around what the man was saying, Juice Box laid him out with the guitar, catching him above the eye with the body. The man’s legs crumbled, like his bones had been removed. Just slumped down and stayed there. We ran to our cars and left. It was the first time I had ever been really scared. It was serious and we knew it. None of us went to the park for a couple of weeks at least. We never saw him before that night and we never saw him again.

……..

So, about Juice Box’s ticket. This is true. There was a parade down Venice Avenue one night that went right by the park. The streets were flooded with white hair and beach chairs. The smell, a mix of aging flesh and artificial florals, was overwhelming. Juice Box was standing on the sidewalk kicking around a hacky-sack and a cop on a bike came by and told him to get out of the way. He just stood there, staring. The cop told him again to move. Nothing.

“If you don’t get out of the way I am gong to write you a ticket.” The cop said.

“For what?” Juice Box asked, balancing the hacky-sack on his knee.

“Blocking pedestrian traffic.”

“Really? You can do that.?”

“I will be back in a minute and if you haven’t moved I’ll be forced to write you a ticket.”

“For blocking pedestrian traffic? Wait…..you’re on a bike. You’re not a pedestrian.” The cop smiled and pulled out his pad. Juice Box walked up to and then behind him, looking over his shoulder as he wrote the ticket.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Juice Box Lebonia,” he whispered.

“Can I see some ID?”

“You now I am not going to pay this, right?” he said, handing the man his license.

“What you do with it is your business.” He said, handing him the thin pink paper.

“I guess that’s true.” He took the paper from the man’s hand and tore it in half, then in half again, dropping the pieces at the officer’s feet. He threw the hacky-sack in the air and continued juggling.

Sometimes the cops were fun to have around. Sandman locked his keys in his car once and we convinced him that the cops were required to help you get into your car. He called bullshit, but eventually he flagged down a cop who was patrolling the area. It was a woman cop and she seemed quite taken with Sandman’s flowing blonde hair and bronzed skin. She told him that one of the other officers on duty was a wiz at B and E, so she called in a request. Minutes later there were four cop cars surrounding Sandman’s car, all with their lights on. The officers stood around giving Sandman tips on how to get in, offering little tools that they had in their patrol cars. Sandman thought it was hilarious. We were all sitting on the benches, across the street in the park.

“Hey Juice Box!” Sandman yelled. The cops all turned their attention in the direction where Sandman was yelling. “You’re half black. You should have been in and out of this motherfucker already!” The cops were speechless, not knowing whether to be repulsed by the statement or to laugh. None of the cops were black.

“You’re right, man. But I would have just thrown a brick through it.”

Another time, early winter I remember, we were playing hacky-sack in the middle of the intersection in front of the park. The season’s first cold front was passing through and the town was silent, save the wind. A cop showed up, lights showering the block in blue and red as the autumn ended above us, the temperature dropping as the wind screamed through the empty streets. He got out of the car and walked towards the group who pretended he was not there.

“Pass me the rock,” he said.

We let the soft Rastafarian distraction fall at our feet, as confused, dumb silence buried us. He stepped into the circle, picked up the hacky-sack and began juggling it deftly with his boots. Everyone stared blankly as the small uniformed man kicked the sack to Mercitron who twitched out of his trance and volleyed it back.

“You got skills copper.” Juice Box said.

“Word,” he responded. A few minutes later another squad car passed us and he pretended to be reprimanding us, pointing his finger and shouting.

………

At times, looking back, it seems High School never happened. I wasn’t a part of it. I was at the Park and that’s all I remember when I think of those years. I graduated High School in the December of 2002, a semester early, in hopes of moving to California. The night before I left, I stopped by the Park to see everyone and say goodbye. Most everyone was in attendance: Juice Box, Handsome Jack and Futureman, Mercitron, Stinkfinger and Mad Dog. Sprinkles had moved by then, with his mom, I think to Key West. It made sense, really. We had all recently taken a group field trip to Wal-Mart in hopes of finding a unifying clothing piece that the group could wear, something identifying, obvious, something flamboyant. We had settled on black-vinyl (women’s) vests and spray painted “Park Posse” on the backs in safety orange. We were all wearing the vests and Juice Box was trying to get hit by a car on his bicycle. It ended up with him running into a station wagon that had come to a stop at the intersection, sending him sailing over the handlebars into a Pete Rose-slide across the hood. The woman driving panicked and sped off, the milado daredevil still laid across the front, trying to jump off the hurtling grocery-getter. I walked over to him, lying on the side of the road laughing. I kicked him lightly in the back and extended my hand to help him up. He slapped it and smiled. I looked back at everyone sitting on the bench, smiling our way, waved goodbye and got in my car.

I remember driving off that night, worrying about my life in California, a life away from the boys that had become brothers to me, a life without chaos, and feeling lost. And I was. I spent a year in California looking for my Park, floating across the surface, empty. I lost touch with all of them. And when I returned, it had changed. The boys were not the same. Many had moved. Some had stayed but changed. Handsome Jack and Futureman came around but it wasn’t enough. I wonder if they all look back with the same fondness that I do. There was something in those moments, sitting with the boys, or alone, in the Park—a substance undefined, nondescript and perfect. We were angry and young, wonderfully stupid and brilliant. The water-balloon launcher and vest still sit in my closet, reminders of what we accomplished.

2008-03-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

This is an updated version of a poem that is ultimately a manifesto in progress. Many of my friends (Short brothers this means you) will hate it. To those I speak of: Fuck You, assholes.

Defending Jack
By Ashton Goggans

Because On The Road was the only Bible I ever had
Because of the stars
The dawn, the dusk,
And each stretching inch
From Florida to California,
and whiskey, flasked,
In my coat pocket, alone
Screaming at the sun, falling from empty desert skies,
Confessing and repenting
To those dusk eyes waiting— look at the bleeding sky!

Because grammar is for the birds
Punctuation doesn’t stop the bleeding, you see
Life is a sentence, one gripping sentence, without periods in it
It doesn’t stop for anything
So fuck them, don’t stop, just go go go

You can’t show someone how to set their soul ablaze

Because I was seventeen and I thought my heart would explode
And for three-thousand miles I had him whispering in my ear, pouring
Honey-handed emptiness from the sweet cloudless brilliant sky
Fresh and clean and new,
Look at the fucking sky!
Running from fate, to confusion,
And he said it was "all I have to give"
But It wasn’t,
And It was

On Keys

2008-03-21T10:18:00.001-07:00

On Keys

By Ashton Goggans

The Hasidic men that work at my apartment building have walked by me four times. They have seen me; I am wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and one sock and am curled up in the hallway on a discarded couch right in front of the office. They have seen me. I know they have. The office is on the same floor as my apartment--I have to walk past it to get to my apartment and every day for the first two-weeks that I was here I waved to the men with curly sideburns wearing funny hats. They never returned the gesture and so I stopped.

I have tried to sleep for three hours now but each time I am interrupted by doors opening and closing—taunting me.

“Why are you here?” A voice asked, pulling me yet again from sleep.

“uh, I’m locked out.” I said.

He returned inside the building and I could feel the warm air float out of the room and brush against my exposed left foot. He returned again a minute later, this time holding a cup of coffee. The steam rose from the cup and got lost in his beard as he lifted the cup to his lips.

“Where is the Super?”

“I called him. He said he’s in New Jersey.”

“And your roommates?”

“I don’t know. I can’t get a hold of them.”

“I feel bad for you.” He said, and walked back into the office.

I grew up in a town that didn’t lock its doors. It could have, but didn’t have to. I never had a key to my house—ever. When we went on vacations we locked the front doors from the inside and my Dad climbed out the back window. He was the mailman, a rural carrier, and had been for twenty-five years before I moved to New York. I had run a skateboard park whose doors required a bundle of keys and never got comfortable with them; I lost them regularly and ended up finding a good hiding spot in the bushes by the front door to leave them. I had given up on my car keys some time ago, opting to risk leaving the keys in the ignition than carry them. I never had a keychain and found them odd gifts to give. They are intended to organize, and improve the appearance of, what amounts to nothing more than a jangling mass of distrust.

Then I moved to New York. I found an apartment with two girls from local art schools to live with. I did not bring a car to the city and was happy to not worry about it—parking tickets, gas prices, keys. However, the day after I moved in my roommate knocked on the door to see if I was in. She came in the room and handed me a bundle of keys. I took the jangling mass and marveled at its size. She began to explain them to me, one by one: “This one’s for the front of the building, you have to punch in a code too, it’s ****. This one is for the elevator to get up; it only works for the 5^th floor though. This one is for the front door’s top deadbolt. This one’s for the bottom deadbolt. And this one opens the door. Got it?” I exhaled the breath that I had been holding, “Got it.”

The next day I bought a keychain. It was not one of my best moments. The keychain looked like what climbers use when ascending cliffs, but it read very clearly “Not For Hanging”. It clipped to my belt loop allowing my keys to stuff into my back pocket. Luckily my Dad had informed me that the best way to keep from getting my wallet stolen was to keep it in my front pocket so there was plenty of room for the urchin of security; had both items been in there, my already bulbous ass would have crossed the line into absurdity.

Not a day went by that I didn’t have brief, unsightly, panic attacks the moment that I did not feel the bundle stabbing me in the ass-cheek. It was terrible. Add this to the stress of moving from the rural Gulf Coast of Florida to New York City and I was on the verge of a meltdown. However, curled up in a ball, my arms tucked into my t-shirt for warmth, with one sock on, in the middle of January, I was relieved to not have the vicious ball of faithless inhumanity in my pocket.

Work in Progress

2008-02-14T19:11:00.002-08:00

The pieces that follow I have been working on a little. I have some serious re-working to do on the short story but would love to hear what you think.

Wake Up Call

2008-02-14T19:11:00.001-08:00

Wake-Up Call
By Ashton Goggans

Keys have always been a pain in my ass, literally. I grew up in a town that didn’t lock its doors, or didn’t have to at least. To add to the feeling of small town warmth, my father was the mailman; the ever chipper bringer of news, both good and bad. From time to time I would find myself in far-off places, sometimes in sketchier areas, and though I would remember to lock the doors from time to time it was rare that I didn’t immediately misplace the keys. The presence of keys in my pockets always felt foreign; a tumor of distrust for humanity.
In a fit of small town idealism and quarter-life crisis decision making, I moved to New York City, Brooklyn more specifically, to finish my Undergrad. Despite the dramatic change of pace, atmosphere, economic diversity, and crime rate, what I found most strange was the pile of keys which I was forced to carry: one for my big bike chain, one for my small, one for the building’s entrance, and another for the elevator, one for the main lock on our door, and one for the deadbolt. I am certain this mass of jangling, faithless, inhumanity caused my blood pressure to rise. I invested in a hook of sorts to keep them on, the kind that climbers use, and yet I still found myself momentarily panicking, more frequently than I would like to admit, the moment that I didn’t feel them jabbing my right upper ass-cheek, sending my right hand compulsively clawing at my ass for reassurance.
As a twenty-three year old single young man living in New York City for the first time, I found myself dabbling in debauchery and paid for it daily. On this particular morning the light that crept under the door to my room sent me cowering deeper under the covers. After a brief rationalization that I had things to take care of, I took a deep breath and in one movement slung the covers off and clamored towards the bathroom. Still dressed in the evening’s clothes, only one sock had survived the night. I exited the bathroom as quick as possible, trying to avoid looking at the reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. In desperate need of stimulants, I put the kettle on the stove to make coffee.
My only source for time, my phone, had died sometime between last call and catching a cab home. Given the eerie silence and gray light that filtered into the loft, I figured it was around ten in the morning and my roommates were surely still sleeping. I am a slob. I know this. However, I have done a bang up job of keeping this fact concealed over the years, especially from roommates, in particular females. When I shit, I turn on the shower to muffle the grotesque orchestra and I never cook when anyone else is around to see the unsanitary nature of my culinary activity. And there are others. That said, I am infinitely conscientious of others, and not out of philanthropy or humanism, but out of fear of being disliked.
I plugged my phone into the charger and as I turned it on the kettle began whistling like the last train to Frisco. I dashed for the stove and as I rounded the corner I nearly died. The lack of traction caused by my one foot being covered in a sock caused me to slide around the corner, waving my arms like a man rolling up car windows in a locust storm, trying not to fall. Another flaw I have kept from others is my clumsiness. This has been harder than cleanliness to conceal and I was not about to pull the curtain. I snatched the kettle from the stove and took a deep breath. At that moment my phone must have activated. It rang—a fractured version of a David Bowie song echoed through the calm. I dashed for the phone, making sure to take the corner slightly slower, grabbed it and ran out the door into the hallway to answer. It was the manager of a store where I had submitted an application, and recently had an interview, calling to tell me I had gotten the job. The news came through the haze slowly, but by the end of the conversation I was overjoyed. I had moved to a strange city to attend a good school, found people to live with who had not seen through me, and gotten the job I wanted. Smiling I walked back toward the door with the intention of sharing this news with my surely awakened roommates; how could they not forgive my irritableness when they saw me in such high spirits. I reached for the door, turned the knob, and immediately realized my mistake. The door was locked. Like every other door in the city it locked automatically upon closing.
I knocked repeatedly and rang the doorbell. All of these things brought a pain to my stomach. I had been here a week and already I was the annoying roommate who never let anyone sleep in. Strangely no one came to the door. A neighbor was coming back home from church. I asked him what time it was.
“Almost one,” he said.
My roommates had been gone for some time and my drunken shenanigans had finally allowed me the ability to sleep in. I called Altyn repeatedly to no avail. Emily had just moved and we had not yet exchanged numbers. I thought she had a website for her jewelry and so I called my dad and asked him to look it up. Perhaps it is non-existent, perhaps not, but I blame my father’s ineptness with computers for not finding her number. After an hour, the cold began to creep in. Dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt, and a lone sock, the scars on my bare left foot had begun to turn a shade of purple, I couldn’t stop shivering, and I had to pee. Ever since I had moved I had possessed the bladder control of an invalid geriatric.
There was a dirty couch in front of the office building of our apartment and after some serious soul searching I decided to lay down on the crusty piece of furniture. I was able to fall asleep for half hour intervals. From time to time the elevator or stairway doors would open and a rush of noise and brisk January air would fill the hall causing me to shiver uncontrollably. I found a coffee cup in the laundry room, peed in it, and threw it away, only to fetch it from the trash some three hours later to pee again, and again a few hours after that. The Hasidic men who ran my building came and went, offering nothing but scornful glances. At one point one of them came out from the building and asked why I was there.
“I’m locked out,” I said.
“And where are your roommates?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I can’t get a hold of them.”
He sipped his steaming hot coffee, glanced at the elevator, and kindly said: “I feel bad for you.”
Altyn did not return until after dark, perhaps seven o’clock. She had left her phone in the apartment and spent the day with her family. When I got back in the apartment everything was where I had left it. The coffee was brewed in the French-press. The stove was still on high, a detail I had forgotten in my panic. Altyn put down her bags and walked into the bathroom.
“Jesus Christ Ashton! Why didn’t you flush?”
I stood there, one sock on, speechless.

The Rise and Fall

2008-02-14T19:10:00.000-08:00

"The Rise and the Fall"
By Ashton Goggans
Dashed lines, racing to the horizon.
Sun setting on crisp autumn air and
The Flatlands blur together
As you drift to sleep, uninterested,
Bubbles are carrying the brave
Against the bronze, bleeding sky.

Do I wake you?
Would you care?
This life, beautiful,
Passing you by and I can’t stop it.
So I stop, for me, and follow them.

Abandoned fire-tower stretched to heaven
I open the door--the fall
Tickles your skin awake with a shudder
"Look," I say. "It's beautiful."
But you see balloons through the eyes,
Those hazy hazel eyes, of the dead.

It is done. I know. And I am scratching over the fence
Before your eyes close
Climbing towards the sky, I can smell the sea
But all you see is dusk, never dawn, and broken me,
Out the window (always out the window)
of the passenger seat.

Kiss Jupiter Goodbye

2007-12-04T18:33:00.000-08:00

Kiss Jupiter Goodbye

By Ashton Goggans

“Hand me the nine-iron,” Jimmy reached into the blue bag stuffed in the bushes and pulled out the rusty club. “Wait for the light to turn green and we’ll all hit on the count of three, ok,” He threw the club to me and grabbed a handful of tennis balls out of the garbage bag sitting on top of the bench.

Thanksgiving had just passed and the city of Jupiter had put Christmas lights up all over the downtown area; light up candy-canes and Santa Claus statues with a few giant menorahs, for political reasons. Fountain Park, our park, was covered in bright white lights, our little holiday heaven--a beacon of truth. Jupiter was a retirement community; World War vets, still shell-shocked, and eager to take their struggle out on the snotty grandkids of their bridge partners. We claimed this space as our own, we being the kids who didn’t go to football games on Saturdays and who were yet to learn that girls preferred confidence over obscure knowledge of early punk bands. No one could take this from us.

Jimmy worked at the Jupiter Humane Society. He injected kittens and puppies, some whose eyes had not yet opened, with blue liquid. This, painlessly he was told, killed them from the inside out. He hated everyone , for obvious reasons. We had become friends some years ago. In middle school the skateboarders stuck together, we weren’t cool then, not even close. We were broken toy soldiers carrying our dignity, and comic books, in military rucksacks. We spent weekend sleepovers wearing out cassette tapes of Black Flag, watching the same skate videos over, and over, and frothing over stolen Playboy magazines.

Jimmy and I began volunteering at the shelter after we were caught stealing fireworks. Forty hours was enough for me but Jimmy had a fondness for the work--walking and feeding the animals, making sure they didn’t fight, and, when the daily duties were finished, running down the clock lying on the cold concrete floor with the tragic beasts. We hadn’t learned about blue-juice yet.

The local tennis clubs would bring their day-old tennis balls to the shelter. They felt philanthropic and slept easier at night knowing that the soon to be blue-juiced dogs had something to chew on. Jimmy said that the balls just sat there because the dogs would “fucking kill each other” if you threw a ball into the pack.

So here we were. Saturday night debauchery was a tradition for us. We would have firework-gang-wars with each other and convince the cops, who always showed up, that we were rival gangs in hopes of getting arrested. Jimmy thought it would give us more street cred. We would place cardboard in the middle of the five-way intersection, wear sweatpants and headbands, and offer free break-dance lessons to the passersby, or bring the water-balloon launcher and shoot anything that was lying around--- rocks, dead birds, day old muffins that the coffee shop I worked at let me take each night--anything. People loved us.

Tonight we were golfing with tennis balls: trying to hit cars stopped at the intersection down the block, and getting really good at it.
My Dad encouraged mischief; he knew the law and the freedoms that being a minor contained. At night Dad and I would sit and discuss most everything but usually came back to his youthful exploits. His eyes would light up as each memory crept through the fog left by three decades of drugs, debt, and fatherhood. He grew up just north of Jupiter, a different time, a different world,—he told me that him and his brothers got to name the street they lived on; Spartacus, they named it Spartacus. He hated video games and cut our T.V. cable with hedge loppers when I was seven. He would rather us be out knocking down mail boxes than inside watching television. He loved Jimmy, and more, somehow, when he got me into stupid shit.

The park bench, our park bench, faced east, and looked directly at the main highway. There was a major intersection there, where the street which ran along the north side of the park ran into the highway. We set up in the middle of the intersection, five deep tonight, and waited for the light facing us to turn red. All at once the five of us would tee off; the sound of brakes screeching meant contact, and sent us running into the bushes for cover.

We had been golfing for about forty minutes and had not even made a dent in the bag. Forty minutes was about the longest we could ever get away with anything on Saturday nights before the cops showed up. We never got in
real trouble; they just wrote our names down and told us to get lost. This was our Jupiter--every weekend the same shit.

Jimmy put the bag back into his truck, a 1982 Chevy pickup aptly named “The Brick” because of its rust color and seemingly immortal nature: we had tried to kill it and it would not die.

As he was walking back, on cue, Officer Wells showed up, lights twinkling, adding to the Christmas warmth. At 23 Wells was a junior deputy and had graduated with some of the older kids who hung out at the park. His dad had been an officer and was killed by a heart attack that occurred while cleaning leaves out of their gutters. The doctors didn’t know if the heart attack or the two story tumble had killed him. Wells parked on the curb of the park, left his lights on, like always, and got out.

“Hey Sherriff” we said in what seemed like unison.

“You boys want to get off that bench and talk to me?”

“Not really man, the bench is really comfortable,” Jimmy said, sitting down.

“I have had some reports of kids hitting golf balls into traffic over here,” He looked at the statue that stood in the middle of the fountain, then back at us. “You guys wouldn’t know anything about that?”

Jimmy hated being patronized more than almost anything, only slightly less than the blue-juice back at the shelter.

“They were tennis balls and no, we don’t know anything,” Jimmy snapped. “And another thing, we aren’t kids; we’re only like four years younger than you.”

Wells looked at Jimmy for far too long, then turned back to his car. He reached inside the passenger window and pulled out a solitary tennis ball, turned back to the group on the bench and dropped it at their feet.

“What’s this?” He asked sarcastically, picking up the tennis ball that now lay between my torn Converse. Jimmy couldn’t hold it down and started laughing hysterically.

“Are you planting a fucking tennis ball on us?” He asked.

“Jimmy, can’t you fuck around at home?”

“Do we look like golfers or tennis players to you?” I asked, feeling courageous after watching Jimmy laugh in his
face. Truth be told I was a good tennis player, I had taught summer camps all through high school, and Dad and I played most weekend mornings.

“Every week I have to come down here and deal with you. I’m sick of people complaining. I want you guys to move this somewhere else. I don’t want to see you guys here again tonight,” He said.

“Well where do you want us, if not in a public park?” Jimmy asked. The other kids had grabbed their skateboards and began to leave. I had my dad’s stories tumbling through my mind. Jimmy had all the misanthropy of a young man forced to kill baby animals boiling inside of him—we weren’t giving an inch.

“Anywhere but here, I’m done dealing with you,” and on that note he picked up the tennis ball and tossed it to Jimmy, turned, walked back to his car. He turned the glorious blinking lights off and as he drove off Jimmy smiled at me, and flicked him off.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked.

“Hold on,” Jimmy said, trotting off to his car. He opened the trunk and pulled out what was left of the first bag of balls and the second full one. He looked down the street, in the direction which Wells had left and crossed back over to the park.

The other kids were putting their skateboards back in their cars about to leave when Jimmy handed me the almost-empty bag, smiled again, and began emptying the contents of the second one into the intersection.

“This town is dead, there isn’t a thing left here. I’m gone, I am fucking gone! Kiss Jupiter goodbye!”

He dumped all the tennis balls out and began kicking them into the street. I dumped min and followed suit. The rest of the kids began laughing nervously, acutely aware of the implications of Jimmy’s actions-- Jimmy just smiled. He looked alive, radiant-- a beautiful sight, standing under the sepia light of the street lamp, glowing with indignation.

Sunday morning it looked like a cloud had descended over the intersection and rained down tennis balls. The gutters were filled from one end to the other with barely used fuzzy balls. The coffee shop was buzzing, like only small towns can, with talk of who was responsible for the offense. I smiled, thinking of Jimmy’s face, soaking in youth and hate and beautiful, pointless, defiance.

My dad walked through the door, stopping for the paper and Sunday coffee. He greeted the customers sitting at the bar, “Can you believe all the fucking tennis balls?” he smiled at me and I could picture him, thirteen again, filling his older brother’s air intake with baking flour. Authority is nothing against tradition.

Norman Mailer RIP

2007-11-12T09:12:00.000-08:00

If you have never read Norman Mailer's anti-war novel "The Naked and the Dead" then you have truly missed out. Another one of Americas great writers has left us. "So it goes".

Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.
Norman Mailer

Sunday Silence

2007-11-05T22:05:00.000-08:00

Sunday Silence

That bobbing left hand, it looked like he was masturbating an imaginary dinosaur, only when it came, I got a money-shot-right-hook to the chin. I stood there, flat-footed, ignorant of the sport and pissed. Dad got out of Vietnam for having flat feet, but that wouldn’t save me now.

I hated Reese on so many levels. He was a musician in the loosest sense. He butchered others art like a Nazi, all leads, all the time-- rhythm was for pussies, like helmets or condoms. I knew guys that didn’t play rhythm, but they played on acoustic guitars, with nylon strings and at reasonable hours. When Reese turned his amp on all the neighborhood dogs tried to drown themselves in the outdoor pools. They needed a hero. I was doing this for them.

We circled each other a half dozen times before squaring up. He would approach right foot forward, left hand bobbing rhythmically. The moment the left hand stopped bobbing it would stab into my chest, as the right would hook above my left shoulder, connecting with my lower jaw.

I withstood several of the masturbatory assaults without faltering. I was a sponge. He was born with a six-pack and defined biceps, which stood in glaring contrast to my undeveloped physique and thunder thighs. I didn’t know anything about boxing. I was a coward. Ask my Dad.

He stepped forward again, as I regained composure. He circled, left hand still bobbing.

I thought about the dogs. I thought about the cloud of noise reverberating from his guitar amp on Sunday mornings. I thought about the four years of hell I had endured since I first saw the Jersey plates pass our house and pull in.

The hand bobbed, bobbed, bobbed and stopped. Before the dinosaur lost it, I jumped back. His fist fell just short of my sweat ridden face. He stumbled forward with the momentum of his punch. I caught my feet, balled my fist and, with every ounce of life I had, plunged it directly into his face. It felt soft and warm as it smashed against his face, skin and bone against skin and bone. He screamed-- an awful, blood curdling, dog drowning scream. His eye was filled with blood.

Save a few stray vessels, and most of his Italian dignity, everything healed fine. I never apologized. Dogs love me. Sundays are sacred.

Blue Eyes

2007-11-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

Blue Eyes

by Ashton Goggans

The grit against my skin did not wake me- at six years old sandy sheets were second nature. Nor did the echo of the wind slapping branches against my window stir me from the bottom bunk. My brother, usually nestled in bed above me, whispered my name in the dark; he needed the reassurance that I was there.

Jack, two years my junior, had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a cute lisp. At four I knew he was something different.

Hurricane Andrew had ravaged the southeast coast of Florida, leaving it in rubble. It jogged west and slid under us during the middle of the night. Most people didn’t lose a wink of sleep.

Jack and I crept quietly across the wood floors of the hallway to our parent’s room. My Father slept in the jungles for a few years while engaged in certain business ventures which would cause nearly anyone, iron nerved or not, to lose sleep. He slept like a tiger.

He greeted us as if he had sent invitations in the mail and received our RSVP’s weeks ago. He had set comforters and pillows next to the bed for me and Jack to sleep on. The room had one wall made of sliding glass doors that opened into the backyard. He pulled back the curtains so that Jack and I could witness the violence outside.

Before he closed his eyes he told us a story of some crazy who wanted to, “feel mother natures wrath”. The guy would climb palm trees or row a dingy out to sea during hurricanes. We felt the wind was bigger than us and knew it was safer inside. I think Dad was trying to reassure us that we were safe.

I remember a kite, which, looking back was a figment of my imagination, slicing into the oak tree in the dark. I pictured it squirming with each gust trying to free itself from the arms which now devoured the plastic sticks and silk.

Jack and I didn’t sleep or talk much that night. He knew I was there and I knew he was there. We both knew nothing of what was going on outside and did not discuss it. Any noise would wake Dad and he was more fun well-rested.

Morning came slowly. My father found us wide awake, clear- eyed, and ready to see the carnage. Jack never called Dad “Dad”. He was missing his two front teeth and insisted on calling him by his first name. The lack of bite made Jack sound like a pre-pubescent Bostonian.

“Mawk, Mawk!” he would shout. “Down’t mewlt the cheeeese”

He hated melted cheese. The kid ate more pizza than Luigi and Mario combined, but in his head he hated melted cheese.

Dad was a postman and had been since we were born. He had traded in his contraband for more respectable employment and settled down with my Mom and a pair of dogs. Dogs were as far as he planned-- Jack and I were more than he bargained for. He told us, after our psyches were solid enough to handle loaded statements, that "there is nothing harder than trying to talk a woman out of a pregnancy without sealing your imminent doom.” One can imagine not.

He was a rural carrier but did not hold the whole “rain, sleet, snow” mantra very close to his heart, and a hurricane had just blown over, so he called in sick. We were overjoyed. When Dad wasn’t at work he was with us, either playing catch in the back yard, or at the beach. Considering our back yard looked like a woodpile, we knew it was the latter.

Dad drove one of the old style postal vehicles: a little, white, military-style box. He strapped his surfboard to the crude racks fastened on the roof and piled us in the back with mountains of rubber bands. I could have made a rubber band ball the size of the sun. We used them as ammo in the John Wayne signature rubber-band guns our Grandpa used to send us, usually finishing these duels by wrestling each other into the dirt.

The ocean looked as large as it sounded. The surf was deafening and we stayed clear of the waterline. Runoff gave the water very pungent smell of fertilizer. Dad didn’t surf as much as I think he would have liked and we knew it was a special thing when he did. We entertained ourselves quite easily in the sand. This particular day we were delighted at the virtual gold mine of rubble embedded in the sand by the wind, rain, and surf crashing, bringing the abandoned and discarded treasures of the less fortunate.

We spent the afternoon making castles out of the trash and toys we found. Jack and I didn’t fight or argue over the plunder. We were happy to be with each other and to have experienced the storm. I remember my fathers smile as he approached us, inspecting our creations. Dripping wet, he scooped us both up and tossed us down in the sand.

Twenty years later, standing on a cliff in Northern California, watching the morning fog blow off the thundering pacific into the redwoods, Jack remarked:

“I think that is the earliest thing I can remember”.

The surf boomed off the cliffs below us. We had chased this swell from Los Angeles to the cliffs of Monterey. He zipped up his black wetsuit and clamored down the cliff.

Two hundred miles away peoples lives were destroyed by that storm. We built sandcastles out of the wreckage. Together we fear not.