The Year That Everyone Died - Part 20 - Are You Ready For Some Foosball?

follow the adventure of Steve Wilson in WWD’s new series The Year That Everyone Died

Most people haven't been to Ashland and unless you like camping or hunting or hanging out in an old woman of a town.

But I guess by that logic nobody in the world or in time has really been anywhere because collectively we haven't collectively been anywhere-

of course you could say that in that same token - we have all been everywhere. But some glasses are one way and some the other.

I drive into Ashland on highway 2, man thats a little number for a highway. Does that mean it was the second highway ever?

If I find the first i can trace history.

For a while I drive along side of Lake superior which is an arrogant thing to call one of the Great Lakes - They’re all great right? It really is magnificent though. I stop and get out for a minute and breath the lake air. Huts sit on the ice as far as I can see and I long for the solidarity of one small shack, a twelve back of beer and a mini television - shit, I prolly wouldn't even drill a hole in the ice.

I’ve been stalling long enough, wasted enough time. Twenty Five years to be exact.

It’s time to find him. Lester Puloski, what kind of fucked up name is that? Sounds like a character Gabriel Byrne would play.

There is a swooping main street that leads down a long hill and back up towards a school behind swaying branches and high power lines. And I hit the gas station and buy a butterfinger and ask the gas station attendant if they know Puloski.

“Sure” the attendant says. “Good guy. Runs the taxidermy half mile from here.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

“Well, super bowl is tomorrow. I don’t know if you’re from here but the Packers are playing.”

I don’t tell her I am a Vikings fan. Its a good way to get lynched when the Packers are in the playoffs - which is a bit of a stretch - but natives may feel genuine disdain for who you are and everything you stand for - its like that.

I nod and say “I know”

“Well, all the old timers been drinking all yesterday, all today, all tomorrow and all monday. And if the Pack wins they’ll keep it going for a few days after that - till one of them dies or has a stroke.”

“Devotion” I say.

“Devotion” she says.

-

“McCoy’s” it was called and snowmobiles and pickup trucks surrounded the tiny structure. Behind the bar streams separated a system of lonely drifting fields. The wind swirls and mashes against itself as the sun turns towards the horizon. Pulling my hood over my head I run inside.

Carter would be fine in the car. He liked the car.

-

Wisconsin doesn't fuck around when it comes to the Packers.

Inside McCoy’s two plasma televisions replay the Packers three previous playoff games. And old timers and young timers cheer as Jay Cutler pouts on the Bears bench.

and the wings are going around and the pitchers are emptying as faster than they can be filled.

And if I wasnt looking for some grave information this could be the coolest day of my fucking life.

But I walk to the bar and ask the tender if Puloski is in the bar. He motions with an arthiritic hand to a hallway that leads to another smaller room toward the back of the bar.

I walk alone down the hallway and turn the corner to see three dusty old dudes sitting under a giant poster of Elsa Benitez - who is painfully hot...

Don’t get distracted Steve.

I clear my throat as I approach three men in Carhart jackets and say “I need to ask Puloski a question, which one of you is Puloski?”

“I am.” Says a man with thick glasses and a Powers Boothe grill.

“Someone sent me to ask you a question.” I say.

“Who?” he asks.

“I can’t remember her name.” I say “But I think you stole her heart.”

And his eyes flare like a dragons nostrils.

And then I’m struck in the back of the head. I go under.

Not sure what’s going on? Click here for the pilot episode of The Year That Everyone Died

are we here now, where the futon tends to fly?

the spine of days

from the shift freedom overword experiments:

a cowlicked lemondrop's
hiatus on the plain,
scorpio-haggled tentpole stars
shroud his stallion loose again

his minute marriage's climax
to he table of catawampus sand
as the moon steeps in mountain peaks
compañeros sojourn from their bivouac again

The Year That Everyone Died - Part 19 - Monster Sandwich

follow the adventures of Steve Wilson in WWD’s new series The Year That Everyone Died

“Hello” I say and the wind and snow streams between me and a cloaked figure. It’s so small and doesn't say anything to me. It wears a coat with a fur around the hood. Over the wind I can barely hear it say:

“Don’t worry, I’m a woman not a man.”

Which was weird because I wasn't worried about that.

“You should come with me. It isn't safe here. I heard over the radio it won’t stop snowing tonight.”

I don’t know her. Or anyone and it’s getting darker. So fuck it.

-

She leads me and carter through the blizzard to a shack settled in a cluster of trees and with some effort slides open a door. I shut the door and the world outside turns to nothing. It is silent and the figure pulls down her hood.

She had a small wrinkly head and tight curls of shock white hair. She looked at me for a moment before smiling and winking her one dead eye.

“What happened to your eye?” I asked “I’m sorry, that’s rude.”

“It is, a little” she said.

-

It was a small shack but cozy. I must say, I always wanted a shack. She’s got some canned goods a bed a radio. A tiny black and white television flutters near the center of the room behind that a wood stove and a little cupboard area with a sink.

The was a also a shit ton of water filled jugs lining the wall.

She turns the dial to an episode of the Lawrence Welk Show. She stares for a while at the screen before motioning to a chair to the left of the television. I sit.

“I saw Lawrence Welk once as a girl. He was doing a show in Milwaukee. Me and my sister ran up and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled and hugged us. That was some night.”

I nodded. it sounded fun.

“Would you like some of my sandwich, I bought it from the store, can you believe they only charge six dollars for this” She produced a mammoth sized sandwich.

“I know” I said. “Makes you feel stupid for getting anything else.”

We shared the sandwich and drank some Pabst she had dangling off the back door knob.

“What are you doing out here? didn't you know the snow was coming?” She asked.

“Paying attention to shit was never my strong suit.”

“Fair enough.” She said.

We were silent for a while.

“I’m stalling.” I said after a while.

“It’s dangerous stuff.” The one eyed woman said. “You’re life isn't individually precious. Individuality is the worst thing to ever happen to this world.”

I chuckled a little bit even though I knew she was serious.

“You excited for the super bowl?”

“Yeah! What day is today?” I ask.

“Friday.” She shook her head. “Kids these days.”

-

And we talked for a while about how I’m stupid and how her dad was an alcoholic and how booze couldn't kill north woods petrified wood - whatever that means

Then she cackled for a long while and screamed:

“WISCONSIN BORN, WISCONSIN BREAD, AND WHEN I DIE - I’ll BE WISCONSIN DEAD”

and we both laughed our asses off.

And I fell asleep.

-

And I dreamt there were more. Clamoring towards me - telling me the work is never over.

-

I woke and the one eyed woman was shaking me. It was roasting in her cabin. little fire has a lot of power contained like that.

“C’mon son. I had my cousin come down and plow the road. Storm is over. Time for you to go, stop stalling.”

And me and carter staggered out to the car and got in. The one eyed woman knocked on the window and I rolled it down.

“I’m Carolyn and you’re welcome here anytime you want.”

I nodded and looked down at my lap.

“Thank you. I’m Steve.”

“Son, I don’t think you have a clue what you are.”

And she walked away. And I drove toward Ashland.

Not sure what’s going on? Click here for the pilot episode of The Year That Everyone Died

Sven Briar, '87 Fleetwood, I-77 S

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In the backseat, resting on the soft fabric of someone next to you's sweatshirt and you're mostly gone, but sometimes occasionally the headlights of oncoming cars break into your dream and some part of what's playing on the radio, maybe just the bass or the backup singers' part seeps into the snowglobe world behind your sealed eyes and feels like something vibrating out the surface of your brain instead of thundering in from outer space.

Maybe you wake up and it is true night, the kind that doesn't exist in a home, the time where there is no time, when the numbers on the radio are green blurs and your head feels stuffed with old quilts.  It is like a dandelion seed knocking around in the breeze, it's free.  You're nostalgic for what you've left and hopeful for what you approach.  You're the light from a dying star on its journey to the big wet eyes of a fluffy young stargazing earthling dog, on an infinite journey, half-conscious and taking in the view.

You could put a potato chip in your mouth and crunch it against the roof of your mouth with your tongue, let the sound and the texture and the flavor dissolve into your nerves together, anonymously strumming on your senses.  You could smoke a cigarette right now and it would perforate your soul like a shot of heroin and let the night wind make concourse inside of it.  Your soul is on a zipline and the real bottom is death, that is the sub-basement below sleep that you know by its scent, fruity and decrepit, in this earthy cellar of sleepiness.  Death is a silver pool, cold and cushy, but that's not where you're going.  You can't grasp the handle that long.  Something may occur to you.  Just an idea, but one that's dense, it is a hub of other ideas that turn on after its activation, it's a domino figure 8 or a design painted in gasoline after just one corner is ignited and then your whole head is on fire and you have to remember that you have a name and a place that belong to you, that you've cuffed yourself to rails and bedposts all over town, not even that you've made mistakes, just that you made decisions, that you steered the rudder instead of floating up and with the wind like a helium balloon to be hugged by vapors and gawked at by gulls.  You have a pair of pants and a toothbrush with your spit drying on it, there are papers, hundreds and thousands of them, that bare your name.  You take up space instead of spiriting through it.

These proteins that are vehicles for your images and thoughts slide into slots like numbered balls in a lottery drawing and it burns your head like when your arm wakes up and the blood stabs back into your veins.  And then you're just a man in a car and it's late and you're tired and there's 8 more hours to go.

The Year That Everyone Died - Part 18 - Snow Globe

follow the adventures of Steve Wilson in WWD’s new series The Year That Everyone Died

Fucking Snowstorm. I should have known.

The day I decide to get serious (not the first try, but the best try) and there are endless milky drifts and waves of car killing frostbiting snow.

and i m in the middle of it. I took a detour right around some place called Ironwood. And it was real pretty and I lost track of what I was doing.

It must have been twenty minutes or so, just driving through the state forest and I realized I was lost...and then the fucking snowstorm and I’m just sitting around.

And I think I’m in MIchigan. Yep, Michigan.

Maps man, maps. They’re trusty guys when you can read em right. So after a half hour or so I figure out where I am. Not matter now though, the fucking snowstorm.

Now, I know that I’m a wooded area, I know that I’m still on the road, I know that there is a world around me, I know this but my eyes can’t see it. That’s for sure.

It’s empty, all white and howling and lonely. All around the world has turned to static. I’m fucked.

-

Luckily, (in an uncharacteristic act of preparation) I packed blankets and extra coats and I have plenty of soda to drink and a few good snacks to eat. I picked up some peanuts, cheesy popcorn, two Charleston Chews, pack of string cheese, taco style Doritos, and a six pack of Mountain Dew. I also had one of those large XXX Vitamin Waters but that was mostly gone.

Some things are just too good all the time. The Onion and Vitamin Water - I don’t know how they do it.

So good.

So good.

-

And in the store, i watched the guy next to me. He was wandering and searching and picking snacks.

Chex Mix and candy bars and Twinkies, and it was the fools party. I burned everything I had for Ricky Williams salary.

fuck it.

If I was half the person Ricky Williams was, I would be set now, I’d be done now. But I’m not, I wont be.

He is obviously better than me.

But I watched this guy next to me buy some snacks...and I judged his choices. And he passed - did very well.

He got Cheeseits and Oreos and some chocolate milk. Inside I think he didn’t know - but I did. He did a great job. - and is that what it is?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Sorry, I almost died. It’s cold here.

I pull the blankets up to my chin. I lay some blankets over Carter. I say:

“Sometimes there is only hope, what a pitiful nightmare? What a shame but I can’t stop what I am. If you can’t be yourself, then honestly you arent anything. If you can’t stand up for yourself, then you can’t stand up for anything. If you can’t kill, the you arent worth it. I can kill, I can kill. “

“When pressed between murder or not, you choose. I’ve chosen.”

And Carter looks at me. He’s stoic, he is absolutely the best.

“Sometimes” I say “You are just mean.”

-

There is a knock at the window, and I’m almost covered in snow, the car is almost gone.

-

Times like these, snow days, these moments are mine. This is my time to shine. Eat frozen pizzas, drink juice, cook some Ramen (do you know what Ramen is?)

But I can’t. I sit in my car with the snow piling up and I hear the knocking on the window.

I won’t be Kurt Vonnegut or Ernest Hemingway or any literary genius, or Reggie Miller - or above all else - Ricky Williams - He’s better than you and me - he is, admit it.

-

And the knock at the window. I open the door - cause fuck it.

Not sure what's going on? Click here for the pilot episode of The Year That Everyone Died

throw out those LA papers, moldy box of vanilla wafers

i just dug out our sidewalk.  i dug at two feet of snow.  i don't remember ever having seen this much snow before. first I broke off the heavy top tier in chunks and flung them to the side.  underneath, the snow was airy and it gave way to the shovel's edge like sand and i lifted out in long, shallow digs.  i excavated to our southerly neighbor's, left a jagged wall at their border, turned, and chipped away to the north.  i dig-dugged, pushed for twenty minutes until i had freed myself onto our other neighbor's sidewalk.  the only trace of snow on their side was a damp sheen.  the white walls on either side were straight as a shopping mall's corridor.  i should have paid them to do ours.