Night Encounter

    I was walking back from the bar. It was early, but the sun was already beneath the western horizon. The sidewalks were slick and shiny with black and grey ice; they were reflecting the yellow twinkle of the overhead street lights.
    I heard yelling on the street in front of me. It echoed off the dark houses and down the corridors of the ice capped alleyways.
    "Fucking bitch!"
    "Fuck you! Did you hear what I said?"
    A man slipped down the shadowy steps of the house, illuminated over with motion censor stoplights mounted to the facade of the almost-Victorian style home next to twelfth street.
    "This is all bull shit! Don't you come back here. My mom. My dad. My brother's will fuck you up."
    "Fuck me up! Fuck me up? Go ahead, fuck me up.
    I slowed my pace and stared, bewildered by the scene in front of me. The man who had fallen down the icy steps then turned to look at me. "Who are you?"
    I stopped. "No one."
    "Well mind your own fucking business."
    He walked off towards the river. I walked the other way.
    The next day, I read in the newspaper that a man had froze to death underneath the Columbia street bridge.

Aaron C. Molden

Gone Again

I woke up and found

her sleeping on the

mattress set out

in the front room.

All the floors in the house

are wood paneling,

except for the kitchen.

Contemplate the

logistics of this

reasoning.

She has a boyfriend

who is thousands

of miles away.

If she hadn't I

would have asked

her to sleep with

me in my bed,

only four hours

prior, when everyone

was trailing off towards

their bedrooms and

beds as quickly

as the could get there,

only an hour before

the sun would rise,

though none of us

would ever see it.

Gray skies

gray skies for days

gray skies for weeks.

Of course we were drinking

of course we were with

friends.

Of course.

I must have said good

night to her

because I know

I would never

allowed myself

not to.

In the morning

I found her still

sleeping on the

mattress.

I crouched down

by her head and

touched her shoulder.

"I have to go to work."

She grasped my hand.

"You should stay here."

She smiled.

She pulled my

hand to her cheek.

"Jesus, I'm going to

miss you."

"Visit me" she said.

"I will."

I kissed her forehead.

"Be safe."

I drove to work.

She got on a plane.

This is the truest

thing I have written

in a while.

This moment

cuts me the deepest.

No cum.

No cunt.

No matter.

The cum and the cunt can

come when they want.

After this,

my thoughts are on

tomorrow.

Caught in the Rain

For the life of me I cannot tell you
why my thoughts always return to you.
Everything I'm thinking of
while walking or riding,
but always still thinking,
inevitably return to thinking of you.
It makes the pedestrian in me,
who still gets caught in the rain,
okay.

It was raining when I had you so close
and it is raining now.
This is one way of getting caught in the rain
and that is another.

Most of my day was spent reading
about ancient Greeks (Mycenaeans)
and cleaning laundry.
I was waiting for the clouds to finally burst.
I tired of waiting; decided to take a gamble,
and ride my bike to the library.
I saw the wall of rain moving towards me
down State Street. The clearly defined front
of pouring rain was overtaking
the mere firmament of drizzle above me.

I tried to ride it out,
but it over took the meteorology
I was occupying.
There I was, caught in the rain,
but not at all upset;
awaiting a wane in the precipitation
under the awning of the market
down the the street from my house;
drenched with rainwater and smiling like a fool

I was told recently, if you are in Russia
and you smile an unprovoked smile at a stranger
you are generally regarded as an insane person.

When the down pour returned to a drizzle
I decided to walk my bike
the five or six blocks it was to my house.
Since I began writing, the rain has stopped.
My thoughts of you have not. Lucky me.

Aaron C. Molden

Maxwells

    Maxwell looked up from his bar stool to see his own face staring back at him: a picture on the local evening news.
    For all the wicked things he had done in the name of his own pleasure, natural or perverse, he never believed that he would not know what to do next. Suspect at large. Rape. Double murder? This wasn't suppose to happen.
.  
    He didn't know her when he met her. She was drunk at the bar. He saw her as soon as he walked in and he smiled because he knew from her face that this was going to be easy. Her eyes were half closed and the smirk on her face, scanning around at the men's faces staring back at her, who were paying more attention to her than anyone else at the bar. She gazed at the men in front of her with blissful detachment. One of the men handed her a drink and she looked up at him, jutted her shoulders towards him, embraced the glass she was handed and said "For me?" in a voice that raised an octave within the two words.

    Rebecca Figg, the news banner read. He looked down at his drink. What had happened? What went wrong?
    On the television, a one Clayton Barbee, a friend of Rebecca Figg (bullshit, he was just trying to get into her panties) was being interviewed by WLFI reporter Mike Priggett. Clayton told the news reporter that he last saw Rebecca alive, leaving the KnickerBocker -supposedly the oldest bar in Lafayette- with Maxwell. The crime lab was testing the DNA found on her (of course, because he ejculated on he tits, but it wasn't fucking rape.) Her body was found by her neighbors who lived in the apartment downstairs; a historical house built in the 1890's, now sectioned into three apartments; a Midwestern Victorian mansion with a lot of character and drafty windows. Maxwell had left the door open when he ran out of the apartment in the middle of the night. He panicked. He honestly never thought it would come to this.

    Maxwell walked towards her. She was scanning the leering and adoring eyes of the men in front of her. By accident she caught eyes with him, walking towards her. She held her gaze for a moment. "What are you looking at?" She asked with a tone of conceit.
    Maxwell's lips curled up in amusement. "You" he answered.
    She furrowed her brow and sarcastically asked "and you are?"
    "What do you care?" Maxwell stopped walking, but continued to stare into her eyes.
    She looked down at her drink, smiled, the sighed.
    One the other men standing in front of her turned to Maxwell. "Is there a problem buddy?"
    "And you are?" Maxwell asked in a darkly inquiring tone.
    "What the fuck do you want to know why name for?" The man asked with the aggression in his voice beginning to rise.
    "I'm sorry." Maxwell said in a condescending tone. "I like to greet the strangers I am conversing with when I meet them for the first time." Staring into the man's eyes. "My name is Maxwell." Maxwell looked down and took a sip of his drink. He looked up again at the man and barely extended his free hand. "Please to meet you."
    Rebecca giggled, then took a sip of her drink. The man, with a vein pulsating visibly out of his forehead, stared at Maxwell. Finally, he turned to the bar and yelled "Christ! What does it take to get a drink in this place!" A couple of people in the bar laughed on impulse at the cliche, but most simply sighed or sneered for a moment before returning to their own conversations; their personal lamentations or exultation of that particular Saturday night; discussing politics; complaining about work and significant others; congratulating professional accomplishments with shots of Jagermeister or Fireball; etc.
    Maxwell turned his gaze back to Rebecca, who had been watching the whole interaction between suitor number four, we'll say, and Maxwell. "And you are?" Maxwell asked with a grin to match hers.
    "Rebecca" she sighed. She slightly bowed her head towards the drink in her hand. She finished the last drink of it and rattled the leftover iced in the glass. "Buy me a drink?"
    Maxwell's eyebrows raised deviously. "Let's find a table Rebecca."
    She was all over him after the third drink; vodka and soda with a splash of ginger syrup. She was quietly murmuring to him with drowsy eyes. Her arm was around his shoulder and his arm was around her breast waist or hip depending on where he was groping at the moment. She rested her face on the nape of his neck. She turned her head towards the hot and balmy flesh of his neck and kissed it with her blushing lips and slightly smeared mauve lipstick. She tasted the salt of his sweat on her lips as she pursed them against her vodka soaked tongue. He grabbed her upwards to catch his eyesight with hers. He was staring at her. Those devious eyes of his. She pushed upwards to finally kiss him on the lips. All the groping, all of this subtle pawing. It was finally time that they kissed. He pulled her head back. "I'm not going to kiss you. Not yet."
    She stared up at him for a moment with a dull and annoyed look on her face. His cocky smile had fallen away, but his eyes still stared into hers. Then his eyes dropped for a moment, staring at the cleavage of her breasts, pushed together by her shoulders in a voluminously ample manner. The were bare nearly to the nipples in her low cut dark green dress. He looked at her hips stretching against the elastic fabric of her dress, then scanned back to her breasts. She didn't have huge tits, but she did use hers to her advantage. She knew they could work nearly as well as a supposedly winning smile. She had a good smile, but she was too drunk to care at the moment. It would have been foolish not to take advantage of those tits from time to time. And her hips. Great hips. She smiled when she saw his eyes drop away from hers.

   Maxwell Call was the name of the other victim in the apartment. The shadowy figure he could not put a name to until he saw it on the television. The one that came at him with a knife after this rebecca girl and he had just had sex. Staring at the television screen behind the bar, it was the first and last time he had a clear view of his face. Maxwell. The same name as his.
   Rebecca. He was starting to remember something about that name, but he hadn't yet realized why.

   Maxwell was putting on his clothes with the intention of leaving the apartment while Rebecca slept (or pretend to sleep.) He was quiet, as he was always quiet in attempting to leave a random hookup from the night before. But while he was lacing up his shoes he had the since that he and Rebecca were not alone in the room. A barely audible shuffle. A bend in the flat darkness and the minuscule midnight light in front of him. The darkness had augmented the keenness of his senses.
    "Motherfucker!" The dark figure yelled as he lunged towards Maxwell.
    Maxwell side stepped the shadowy arm holding the glinting white blade moving towards him. He chopped the arm down and grabbed hold of the head neck or torso of the dark figure and pushed it down towards the bed. The blade, with the man, fell into the bare right leg of the nude Rebecca Figg, laying on her stomach in the bed.
    She screamed.
    Maxwell stood straight up and stared into the murky grayness of the bed in front of him. He was beginning to see a deep crimson spot in front of him.
    "Goddamnit!" She shrieked. "Maxwell!"
    "Motherfucker!" The other Maxwell screamed as he pulled the knife from the back of her thigh and swung it towards him.
    He jumped back and threw a hard right into the darkness that had the chance of being a merciless human sneer of a face. His fist connected with a no longer hypothetical face. The other Maxwell dropped the bloody knife and fell to the wooden floor with a rattling thud.
    "I'm bleeding." Rebecca cried, grasping the wound with her right hand, feeling the wetness of her own blood ebbing and flowing with her heart rate. "Badly!"
    The other Maxwell grabbed his legs and dropped him to the floor. Before him, on the ground, shined the knife that so recently rattled out of his opponent's hand. Maxwell took hold of the knife and slammed it into the other Maxwell's upper back, pounding his fist against the other Maxwell's ribs and spine and shoulder blades as the knife split the skin and fatty tissue and muscle and organs of the man grappling him by his legs. Every time he pulled the blade from the other Maxwell's back it made a wet sucking sound; it was a quiet sound, but the keenness of his hearing in the darkness heard it.
    The other Maxwell was laying limp. He and Rebecca were quiet, breathing heavily for a moment.
    "Motherfucker!" She screamed, then jumped on his back and grappled her arms and legs around him. Her right leg was still oozing and pumping blood.
    Maxwell took hold of her and wrenched her grip of him. She dug her finger nails into his sides with enough force to tear his shirt and in some places leave scratches. He threw her to the bed.
    "Motherfucker" she muffled. His free hand grasped her face and was pressing it into the bed.
    There she is, that bitch. He raised the knife. Then he heard the baby cry. There she is, Rebecca Figg. Maxwell Call. He heard the baby crying. Had it been crying the whole time? He slammed the blade into her chest. Not like a knife. Not like a careful incision. Like an ax, over and over. And then Maxwell heard the baby crying. He panicked. He didn't close the door.

    Maxwell sat at the bar. His head was down. He didn't what to look up at the television. He never thought he would not know what to do next.

Aaron C. Molden 




   

Absurdism

Here in lies the problem:
You think you have friends,
but they are putting up with the same shit you are,
day after day and disappointment after disappointment.
No matter how trivial or profound they may be,
your friends or lovers or family members
-genetic or otherwise-
are not thinking about you.
They are not thinking about you all of the time.
They maybe thinking of you rarely or barely
or, depending on the circumstance, never.
If someone were to take a statistical inquiry
they would probably find that the ones
you were hoping and praying are thinking about you,
because you hoping and praying and thinking about them,
are, in fact, not thinking about you at all, at the moment.
These thoughts can be toxic.
Toxins brought on by totally rational
(or irrational) emotions.

But it is okay.
This is only this moment
and it is not true all of the time
because you are you
and you have made some kind of memorable impression,
possibly on someone that you may have never expected.
You must take this all in stride.
It is the only choice,
even if you know,
at your most nihilistic and suicidal inevitability,
that it is not the only choice.
Feel free to kick up a mess
in your path of refinding your stride
or discover a new and improved stride,
but please find your stride.

Save most of your metaphors for poetry
or stream-of-conscience writings such as this
and/or other personal or rational examples of the written word.
And maybe save it for a less self-reflexive exercise.
I just made myself smile
because I know I am talking to myself
as well as you, whoever you might be.

Honestly, take a look around.
Get the fuck out of your own head
and pay better attention.
I'm addressing you Average American
man or woman
black or white or anywhere in between.
History; social justice (or lack there of.)
Media; honesty.
Science; art: all the subdivisions.
Math; writing: all the subdivisions.
Forward thinking. Love.

Backward thinking
Choosing the option of not thinking.
Choosing to stop translating.
Believing you have learned enough.
Believing others have learned enough
because you believe you have learned enough,
and that is that.
Eras of mental, physical, philosophical
and psychological terror.
Eras of wars on terror.
All Awful! Rise up against it!
But who?
See, you have a reason.

Aaron C.Molden

Losing My Wallet.

I am tire of this.
I am tired of wasting my time
because of family or friends
or ambitions (or lack there of)
or psychological hang ups
caused by childhood trauma
or religious upbringing
or boredom and pathos
or daily assaults and barrages
of stimulating mental and media fodder
or love, that most stupid of human hang ups
that eventually hangs us all up now and again
even though we believed we were too smart
for that shit these days.
I have fallen for women before
and when I loved them
I always believed that they loved me back.
But I really don't know if they actually did.
There is no way of truly knowing.
And I lost my wallet.
I can't find it anywhere.
It's not that important.
All I really need or desire to have from it
is a driver's license
a bank card
and a library card,
all easy or somewhat easy to replace.
Two forms of a ID here,
a PIN number and account there,
a proof of residence and snap,
I have everything back that I care about.
It's not that important, but still
It seems important to me.
I nearly lost my mind trying to find that wallet today.
What a foolish thing to lose one's mind over.
It's like torture without any real physical suffering.
Sometimes I hit things with my fist
as hard as I can.
Sometimes that thing is my head.
I do it to jar thoughts in my head
that I cannot seem to let escape.
I did not do that today after I lost my wallet,
But I came close after scanning for it
for the third time on the same stretch of mile.
It was after the third time,
when I was feeling so completely sorry for myself
that I also thought about the women and men
in my life that have brought me to hitting my own head.
The love and grief and frustration and anger and catharsis
I have felt with them or for them or by them.
All living and breathing flesh and blood and bone and thought.
These are the people and they are not things
and sometimes they have driven me head jarringly crazy
and this is when the car pulling out the parking lot I was crossing
whizzed passed me going fast, too fast, nearly fifty miles per hour,
almost hit me as I was looking down, still scanning for my wallet.
Impulsively I yelled "Slow the fuck down, asshole."
The driver yelled, but clearly could not think of a cohesive and literate rebuttal.
I keep walking as the car pulled around the corner, then stopps parallel to me.
"Learn to walk on a sidewalk, you prick" is what the driver yells back at me.
All I can do ss laugh to myself.
I lost my wallet.
But it's not that important.
It's just stuff. Stuff I can replace.

Aaron C. Molden

Interview

Small Space Lafayette Transcription.

Here are my questions about your riot police piece outside Sylvia’s Brick Oven:

Q:What is the title of the piece?

 A:   The piece did not have a title yet. In fact, it was not a complete piece. It was the first step in what was (or will be) a much broader and more complex piece, meant to reflect the current transition of what it once meant to be law officer in the United States compared to what it means today and possibly the future. 

Q: What’s your take on the recent proliferation of images of a militarized police in Ferguson?

A:    Mostly confusion. I (like anyone paying attention to American media) have been bombarded with images and coverage of this incident and its reactions. But honestly I have yet to find a truly objective stand point on what actually happened there, which is kind of terrifying if you think about for a moment. A lot of people are quick to jump to one side on a gut reaction. I'm guilty of the feeling, as I assume we all are from time to time. But I believe the truly responsible thing to do with that is to reflect on that initial gut reaction in whatever way we can. I  draw and write most of the time. The one thing I'm firm on; a family's child is dead, and no matter what this deceased person's conduct was before their death, the family deserves some answers, even if they do not ever truly get any. 

    To be honest, though, this whole idea of what I planned on making, really, wasn't suppose to be about Ferguson. Ferguson, like any sensationalized media event, is more of a catalyst to think about things that we usually like to pretend we do not think about.  Law officers are being militarized in this country and I believe (because every time I see it, it scares me) that leads people to an us versus them mentality when it comes to police officers. I will never have that thought because I was raised by a police officer -my father- and I know he's a good man. When I decided to draw that image, what I saw was a man, no doubt tired, but still completing his duty, whether he liked it or not. When I draw things, my ultimate goal is not to glamorize what I'm drawing, but ground them directly in reality and humanity. Sometimes I'm successful. Sometimes I fail. It's not going to stop me from what I do, though.

Q: Do you think police departments in the U.S. have a “bully cop” mentality issue among some cops?

A:    I do think some of places do, but not around here. I've been around enough places in the United States to know that Lafayette and West Lafayette are pretty safe places to live. I think police misconduct around here is more of result of frustration and human error. You do not have a choice as a police officer to deal with only the people you are compatible with. But because of that reason, it seems imperative that you know how to deal with those others that you are confronted with in the most rational manner.
  

Q: Why do you believe your piece was ultimately covered up?

 A: I would guess mostly frustration. I'd imagine, in a nation so plugged in as ours is to the free reign internet media, that many average Midwestern cops, who go about there day simply hoping they can get back to their home and families, are tired of being demonized by what something someone else has done. I put up  the beginning of that piece up for a reason, as you must already know. It's a police officer in a riot helmet facing a police station. It was just his face with that helmet on. In many ways it is benign,  but it raises a lot of unanswered questions about our current social environment as Americans (or at least I hope it does.) I'm really okay with that because it means that people still care; they are not always apathetic, even if what they believe is not what I believe. We are a part of history; we are a part of American history (and forgive the hyperbole) but I want to be a part of that American history in whatever way I can, no matter how minor. Is it a success or failure? No matter. As far as I can tell, it doesn't stop me from paying attention and translating what I see in someway that fits me, and ultimately, hopefully, it helps me understand the world I see around me. And having a platform makes me feel a little bit better 

 Q: What would you like to say to the Lafayette police officers who called to have the piece taken down?

A:   I would like to say, as I would say to anyone (police officer or not) "Please take a second to look at what you are actually seeing and let it set in before you jumped to conclusions." I have an art degree and the main thing I was taught about art in our times -beyond aesthetics and purity- is that great art inspires discussion, discourse, debate, anything but apathy. Whether it lasts depends on how history unfolds, but I'm not worried about that.  It won't stop me from what I do as pure meditation. The value of that is intrinsic to me.

Aaron C. Molden