Everything You Need to Know About 'Bril'.

 

There was always a fellow who stood by himself at our irregular woodsy gatherings. I was told by a cousin to call him Bril. Whether or not that was his name doesn't make any difference since he died not long ago. When he would arrive at my place for our daily meeting, he had the habit of sitting in a solid chair which had his legend engraved right across one of the iron slats. I would always act like I didn't notice and go out into a nearby hallway. I'd pretend to get a drink of water and then leave for the night. Later on, I would listen in on a gathering of forlorn Chaplains. They had a habit of complaining to no one in particular. Sometimes I'd consider leaving my hiding place for good but usually I'd come away feeling that I was correct in not doing so. Some of them had a wicked temper. Even so, I felt that they respected the course that I'd chosen for my life and that of three of my four children. About the rest, it's quite important not to form an opinion etched in proverbial stone. Why? It could come back to bite you, that's why. But I think you already knew that. It takes one to know one, is all I'm trying to say.

The one and only time Bril left a package in my anteroom, I could have sworn that his hands smelled like mineral wax. Out of the corner of my eye I'd sometimes see him fooling with a small bit of string. I never knew where the string came from or what he was doing with it. One thing I did know though was that throughout the previous Summer, he'd pretend to believe that I only had 'some college' under my belt when the fact was, I had a full Associate's Degree in biological nucleonics. This became a sore point between us. I took to sabotaging his prospects with the County Board. I have to admit this gave me a secret thrill. I'll never understand where his sense of 'inner purpose' came from, if not from his years on the Lutheran Volley Ball circuit. Now that I myself have been released from all waivers, it's apparent that the time has come to put certain things behind me. That with which I choose to do so stands a good chance of occupying more than a little of my remaining time on this planet. I've always had a soft spot for our potential future in Outer Space. In the meantime, I've resolved to do my part to aid in the reconstruction effort. One can only dig so many holes before they long to see the other side. Please don't think this applies to you because that would not be true. Fuck you.

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Is Now the Right Time to Post This?

 

There's a long time passenger of my Uncle's who everybody thinks—and says quite openly—is big for his size. Often trouble is at a minimum when he comes through during the week. But, if it's a Saturday, Sunday or a Holiday, people feel the need to post a notice in a nearby hallway to the effect that, anyone just passing through, no matter how innocently, can expect to have their movements recorded—analyzed even. To this day I still haven't figured out why this makes any sense. Say I was leafing through some papers and needed to relieve a sensation in my opening, would that lead to an armed response? Am I, or is anyone else for that matter, especially the aforementioned passenger, within our rights to be feeling more than a little concerned? It aches to have to prove yourself over and over for the benefit of the chosen few. They say it doesn't make them stronger. I say they're full of shit.

When I replace some of the parts in what passes for one of your larger devices, I can always count on getting stared at by someone who thinks that their convenience is one of my personal 'Ten Commandments'. What they don't get is that I've spent my whole life getting used to the mild burning sensation which most folks take for granted. What makes them think that I have the time to get them involved in an involuntary seating plan? In the end, there's no choice anyway. By the time they've been entered in my booklet, most of the air has been sucked clean out of the room, metaphorically speaking , of course. And if I have anything to say about it, no one is going to get bawled out for something they can't help. However, when people believe they've been cheated out of the best years of their lives and that partially chewed food has been distributed in their name, can anyone blame them for 'blowing a gasket'? No one thinks so. Not even me. Because, after all, I'm the guy who did it!

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A Brief Note On My Time at the Pace Electrical Foundation.

 

To be quite candid, the Pace Electrical Foundation is where I've always made my bones. And now, due to the fact that our facility is located on the periphery of a 'conflict zone', my team and I are being moved to a secure area with neither windows, walls, floors or ceilings. I am asked to seem abrupt and dismissive. The sweaters that I've worn for years are admired for their destructive potential. On this day, when I waltzed through the cafeteria, I was pulled aside, wrestled to the ground, and asked to stay after to receive a briefing from the head of our Dismissions Department. When I met with him in the cellar near the water heater, he told me that he thought I'd never ask him why I was told to meet with him.  I replied that I considered his every move to be part of a larger strategy to induce me to appear more life-like during subsequent years of struggle on the Fourth Continent.

When I thought about it later I realized that he never once felt free to mention my confrontation with his ex-wife at a vaccine distribution center when she tried to buttonhole me and have me run off the reservation with no further questions asked. I knew that if I called attention to the way his hands hung limply at his sides while he made the most outrageous accusations, I could be looking at an experimental surgical procedure at the very least. Once I cut loose some folks I'd been playing ball with since the prior 8th of August festivities, I knew that whatever irons still took up room in my space heater would have to be shared with my deliberative cronies, or else I'd be the first to cry 'uncle!' and make life unlivable for the vast majority of post-pubescent proxy warriors. This could not be permitted to happen. I didn't want to lose a small piece of metal even though I was sure that some of the other parts would turn up without anyone being any the wiser.

When I think about it now, I can't help but see that I went about this all wrong. My first mistake was to ever trust the common sense of your 'average Joe'. Once I had purloined the table from the hallway, I felt that I was literally 'this' close to achieving a long sought position as a Hosiery Encirclement Trabent. Those who knew what to do about invisible people were the kind of experts who could make my grade something to be proud of. Instead of hanging my head, I decided to raise my kids on a farm. One or two of us have been called many things, but never 'grouchy'. We hope to see the rest of you once we've succeeded in priming the paint in our Den. You won't like what you see, but when has that ever stopped you from living out of your best self? Like, never?

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Yet Another Cautionary Tale (this means YOU!).

 

The one time that I took her inside a comfort station, she decided to make her opposition known in a way that failed to impress. Her sister had made it clear to me that under no circumstances should I allow her to hide one of the papers that we'd been duty-bound to protect. The points made during my recent absence from the Farmcast were held over our heads and we had no choice but to restrict her movements to loping within a quarter-mile radius of a salt mind that had yet to open in a field on the periphery. I held her hand as we entered the office. She wore a bluish top-heavy cardigan and I wore my customary plumber's outfit, sooty die-coms adrift as regulated in sightline-adjusted permiglia.

Once I began to lower the pressure in her left ear, she felt free to inch ever closer to the Eastern cave wall, which is right by the Nerty extrusion. Trays of puffs were proffered. We read from a book chained to a desk. I lifted my mask so that everyone could see the scar I've had since I was a baby. A train whistle sounded in the distance, but several of the runyons present made it obvious, without actually saying so, that it was only a recording to help us feel that our time had finally come. I looked at her hands as I'd been instructed and saw that they were indeed infected. Any time a reading is taken on a pleasure center, those of us on the pad will nod knowingly and pretend to go about our business and refuse to play the game. This will give our appointed stalwarts a few minutes to hide in a forested pavilion about a mile and a half up the road. To say we were scared would be to give us undue credit in a time of tedious betrayals.

When Paul Rutin held a perfunctory banner at chest height and began to intone the Braggart's Mantra, we knew we had at most four and three quarters seconds to abscond with the only dietetic almond brush on the property and make scarce like a newborn infant in a Parker Hillsbie movie. This meant that I had to apply a layer of copper gel to her anterior ulna so that we could both fit inside even though the lid was constructed of perforated nickel-oxide flume. At that moment, I got a call from one of the people I'd been considering castigating since Day One. He told me that I needed to be seen entering an Irish-Buddhist Temple in a dream scenario cooked up by some of the guys downstairs. Yes, I did put my foot down. On a very uncomfortable place, I might add. He asked if I'd gained any weight. I told him that his Dad had ruined my graduation ceremony by purposely sitting in a restricted area. We agreed to disagree. I still see him around town from time to time. And I guess it might not shock you to know that he's starting to color his hair. I think I'm about to be sick.

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Stunning New Details About My Wife's Fitness Program.

 

The chimes which we sometimes see outside our bedroom window were a gift from Nathan Paul's widow, Maggie Strauss. Her involvement in my wife's fitness program has caused a lot of problems around here for the last couple of years. She would arrange for my wife to place one foot on a chair and hold it there for up to three hours at a time. This was time that we just did not have, as I was already arranging to have some of the excess equipment in our Bonner's Den shipped to a floral design show from which an undetermined number of prisoners had escaped at the direction of our support staff. I'd always believed that they had it in for our 'kind of people' since we were of an alternative ethnic extraction. The individual who was in charge of keeping both of us confined was a known person and, quite frankly, no one liked the look of this whole situation.

Once I resolved to get to the bottom of this, I came to see things in a way which helped me re-adjust my personal temperature. We all had a deep conviction that color coördination in personal attire could give one a new perspective on the benefits of 'belongingness'. If you're anything like me, you've probably never heard or read that word before. That was just the position I was in when I waltzed into an unremarkable office on Strand Road in the waning months of 2017. I still carried a tiny isotropic spring concealed in my right hemtock and, even though my paperwork was thoroughly up to date, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was about to be exposed to a very strong blow-back from society-at-large. The trouble was, no one felt they could trust me to mishandle their affairs properly without an in-depth psychomantic evaluatory problem raising its ugly head and screaming for a 'tip-of-the-nod'. Now I was in deep. How deep wasn't clear until March 13, 1987. That was the day that I received a one-word reply to a question that I was too shy to even formulate, let alone speak aloud in a voice which wouldn't betray my salty character to any of the scouts that I'd assaulted. This is what finally moved me to start coloring my hair. And no, it was NOT pretty. Not by a long shot.

After my two younger brothers were arrested by Canadian Authorities on a series of folded warrants, the weather changed abruptly and we had to sell some scraps in our shell to make payroll, if nothing else. My wife started to act very aloof, withdrawn, moody and obese. I couldn't shake the impression that her hand gestures while walking the dog were starting to  make more than a few of our priority neighbors nervous, ill at ease and downright ponderous. Each of my devices failed in turn. Finally I was down to a thirteen year old cigarette lighter, a ranger flashlight with low batteries and an electric circus wand. The only I way I felt safe asking for help was from a hillside during the lower hours. My son asked if he could come along. I told him it was for his own good. He accidently-on purpose set my shirt on fire. I enrolled him in the youth hockey program sponsored by the Police Athletic League. Anyone interested in receiving mail-in payments should contact me pronto! (That means 'right away') 

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The Quandaries of Fatherhood.

 

Now I've got to call my son who lives in another state. Some may wonder if I've lost my mind but I prefer not to think about it. Something tells me that I've got to 'take it like a man'. It's all some people can do to stop making plans for an upcoming scenario. When my son answers the phone, I can tell that he's thinking about refusing to participate in illusionary spectacles. He shares his Mother's taste for delicate featureless surfaces. I've never been one myself but no one ever said that I didn't know how the game is played. We all line up like this. One person gives the word and it's off we go. I can usually find mine near some sand. Others have to drive miles. I get to go inside, lie down for a minute, wash my hands, read the Bible, blow a load and then get down to raw specifics.

My other son usually drives up on the weekend. This weekend he's sleeping in his car on the golf course with a ready-made device which makes him the envy of every two-bit fraud this side of I-don't-know-what. When I get to him, his breathing is full yet troubled. He tells me about his time in Our Nation's Airport, and how it made zero difference in the ultimate outcome. Somewhere deep inside of me, I know he's lying. On the surface, though, I have a hard time getting bothered by the clothing choices of younger members. As long as someone sits calmly, appears open to new ideas and has at least a trace of je-ne-sais-quoi, no one is under any obligation to offer commentary on my mood disorder. It just goes like that. Who ever said they expected me to offer any unprovoked promises? I'll leave that to 'the big guy' in the special chair.

When we appeared at the Wainscott Club, my sons and I each purchased a secret bag. I couldn't tell what the markings meant, but son #1 seemed to think that it had something to do with an observance with which we would each have to become intimately familiar or risk losing everything to some of the sharper characters lounging about in the antechamber. I could tell that neither one of these two losers had ever seen the business end of a scraping tool without a protective bonnet to ease their way through a dull opening. There was more work to do. I gave each of them five bucks and told them to, in effect, get lost. I rode out the next few weeks with my clerk, his wife, her sister's boyfriend and his (the boyfriend's) personal chef. Once I got used to the crinkling sensations, I knew the new diet was finally kicking in. Hey, I've got the lumps to prove it,... and not in flappy way, you can be assured. Testing one, two, three.

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This Title Contains an Important Clue.

 

There's a piece of (or in) the title which works in my favor. I'm all about keeping strangely quiet when those who labor to, simply, understand, go to their homes in the evening and consider whether our putative equality is  a piebold fiction. Every one of them sees our arrangement as a stark, utilitarian nightmare. I remain the sanguine one, always polishing off a roster of comely surface agents so the real work can find its obligateur and those who ply me with rum and drills won't look bad in light of weekend recasts. It's telling that they offer me a seat in the nactual backing plant while participating in a subculture of atomized grief at a stage where gruffer heads prevail beyond any need for supplemental amprigens.

All of us have rounded off one number after another. The way we look inside each of their compartments leaves a charge on the floor under which we've refused all offers of trouble from a stacked round of double-dealing bantry surgeons.

Is it true that not one of them will arrive any time soon? Now that their wedding has been postponed, they've decided to move my miniature house to the border and lie in wait on a veining  slide. When I get up and running in the spring, one of the most striking debutantes in our structure will be asked to plop down and read some figures into a pancreatic device. She needs to be shown the whole capital flight scenario to help her let her guard be pummeled safely off-shore.

While I pace alongside one of our most trusted ad-mins, I'm given to understand that even leaking my initials to randomly complected colleagues could embroil the least of us in a never ending game of deny and delay, approve and approach. I take her 'lucky brooch' from under my lid, eye her into a comatose coöperation and send a trio of debauched marketing honchos into a reeling cylinder of icy brindle-toast. For this I am rewarded with a seat for one in a unitary kneading suite. There goes my sincerest Abplanalp! Gets 'em every time! Who is the official 'do-gooder'? Pesmo!

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