Free Write, Week 13

Free Write 1

The brown Christmas tree propped against the back of the Piggly Wiggly stares through pollen haze at white dogwood petals swimming in a sea of pine and oak. Powdery pine cones sway into the metal fence blocking out project housing and purple wisteteria. Brandon snaps a twig off the brown pine and flicks his BIC lighter, watching the flame in front of Sam’s face. If anyone set that son bitch fire, the whole damn store would go up. I inhale my Camel, staring down at the yellow sea in the loading dock pool and breath white smoke into the afternoon.

Free Write 2

Men with beards like men with beards. Men without beards lust after and despise men with beards. They are envious. These are the ways of things, and they are inalterable. The hierarchy is as follows:

MEN WITH BEARDS

MEN WITHOUT BEARDS

MEN WHO CAN’T EVEN GROW BEARDS

I wish things could be different, but they aren’t. Sorry. There is nothing like the feeling of two men with beards each running their hands through, examining and exploring each other, feeling up the beard. There is nothing gay in this, and yes I have been reading Ginsberg this week. But that’s not the point. There is a whole culture here that needs to be examined: the culture of the beard. We form a brotherhood, a beardhood if you will. Automatically I am connected with millions of other men, and when I see them on the street, in the grocery store, at the mall, we each look at each other and nod, showing our mutual approval of what’s happening here. We wonder about each other’s beardly habits: What kind of trimmer does he have? Does he also shampoo and condition? What does his lady friend there think about his beard, and more importantly, how does she feel about the beardhood which he is implicitly a part of? It is important to note here that there is also a hierarchy of beards within the beardhood, if we are to understand the beardhood and its brethren fully. It is as follows:

FULL, HANGING, LUCIOUS BEARDS THAT SWING ALONGSIDE HANGING DARK HAIR REACHING ONE’S SHOULDERS (THINK WHITMAN OR THAT HELL’S ANGEL THAT YOU SAW ON THE HIGHWAY LAST WEEK; BEARD FLAPPING OVER HIS WORN LEATHER HELMET)

A TRIMMED FULL BEARD THAT ALLOWS A MAN TO ENJOY THE COMFORTS OF BEARDLINESS WITHOUT FORKING OVER PROFESSIONALITY

FIVE O’CLOCK SHADOW (HEAVY)

GOATEES WITH A MOUSTACHE

GOATEES WITHOUT A MOUSTACHE

FIVE O’CLOCK SHADOW (LIGHT)

Once again, I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but it is simply the way things are.