CZ Studio and Radio Verte presents The Wild Wind by Corey Zimmerman.
Chapter 6
The Wild Wind
I did not watch Kennedy land on the moon, nor did I give a damn about the Cold War or lose any sleep over a nuclear winter.
By the time the last brick of the Berlin Wall was in place, America was utterly occupied by a suicidal standoff with communism,
a political theory advocating a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities in need.
In the meantime, the Nazis swooped in like vultures, while I was still under the impression the Allies left them to rot in trenches, spreading from Spain to Stalingrad.
When the blonde-haired blue-eyed nurse in her starched and stale uniform pushed Ricci out of Ward E. stiff with rigor mortis, right up to a hole a drunken Russian could have dug deeper in the frozen Siberian tundra and dumped him right in.
My dear Ricci, snapping like a twig. His cockeyed tombstone read 4824.
I suppose I could have straightened it out with a kick, but I walked away, the atomic blast tearing the flesh from my cheeks, red like a spanked ass, delighted in the comfort of the nuclear winter numbing my bones.
Ricci's family didn't attend the funeral. No one did. No one but me, three gravediggers, and a godforsaken priest in those nimble pages, wanting nothing more than to tear away in the wind.
It was then I spotted a stranger out of the corner of my eye staring over at me. I turned and walked away, unaware if Ricci's family knew of his timely death, or if they were dead themselves, the whole damn lot.
Whatever the case, Ricci was now amongst the nameless, the forgotten, as my shroud flapped about, crossing the tundra for the old farmhouse, creaking in the cold, howling hell like the joints of my knees.
It was 1962, but in reality, Ricci's mind died in the year 1918, and I faithfully gave over four decades to his breathing corpse, all the while, dreadful hope tearing my heart to shreds with its claws.
It was time to let go. It was time to forget all about hope. Ward E. in that damn chair.
It was time to forget about Ricci, as he had me when his mind marched off somewhere in France, or maybe Belgium. Who the hell knows?
Nonetheless, I had hoped he had come to his senses and made his way south for the sea, the Isles of Delos, Helios, or Mykonos, anywhere.
No more lips to feed soup, to wipe clean with a blinding white napkin, no blinding white windows, no pure white bedsheets, stained with blood and saliva.
Like a whisper into a deaf man's ear, we are gone before we even arrive.
Finality, the only truth ever told.
The first shovel full of dirt tossed on Ricci's pine box. Truth. A weight I carried since youth, like a mule. Truth.
Calloused yet gentle hands holding the ticket to No Man's Land, a ticket made of paper, yet as mighty as a tree. Truth.
Pleading silently to God, I want to go home. I walked on that frozen ground, and I shut the door behind me. No shame.
Nazi pills, all shapes, sizes, and colors, await.
The one worthwhile thing the doctors brought with them when they crawled out of those muddy trenches, put on white Hippocratic jackets, and invaded the hilltop with degrees and specialties, with hypnotizing colors, all shapes, and sizes.
After all, little white paper cups. A soft surrender.
The only war worth fighting is a war worth losing.
The poetry of pills, relishing in the strange and twisted numbness.
My old twisted mind, my twisted reasoning, branches of confused memories.
Frayed rope, a bolt of lightning bursting into flames.
I could see him staring over at me, yet I turned away.
I walked away from the crooked tombstone, said no goodbyes.
It made my way to the farmhouse, where I swallowed a red one, a yellow one, a blue one, two round, one oval, and I began to dust.
Dusting away memories, sneezing away the past, the future polished, keeping an eye off the reflection.
A single knock at the door, I opened it but an inch, broom in hand.
A ghost from the past.
I shut and locked the door, and waited for him to dissipate.
I laid upon my cold mattress and begged mama, please don't let me awake in the night, for I shall see the stars and remember who I am.
Please, I beg of you, don't make me nail my feet to the floor, mama. I fear you.
Beyond the curtain, the sun rose repeatedly, and the flowers bloomed every spring as the geese returned north.
Behind the curtain, my daily routine.
Scrubbing floors, washing already clean dishes, and splashing water on my face.
Lying down and trying to breathe.
Standing up and shaking my hands as my heart raced.
Splashing water on my face again.
Making tea.
Drinking it cold.
Drinking it scalding hot.
All the while the whole room spun around and round, and I thought I might die.
After the blazing heat of summer, the petals dropped one by one, and the elms shed like antlers in the ravine.
A snake shed their skin in the rocks near the tracks below.
Then the geese returned south, guided by the winter winds.
Soon, the hilltop again would be blanketed in a fresh layer of snow.
Time frozen over, while below, an icy crust of denial, and the truth carried on.
The fish grew older, and the undercurrent washed away secrets to the sea.
With the arrival of spring, the geese circled back around again, and the rabbits scurried about.
The deer frolicked, yet frozen at the sight of a Nazi doctor or a lazy nurse.
White, sterile, and starched, as cold as winter, as the oddballs no longer made snow angels.
Their sad, empty eyes peering out from behind graded windows at the budding trees once more.
The cars coming and going through the mud, mudkicking the soles of my shiny black shoes.
Year after year coming and going.
Back and forth.
Round and round.
South to north.
East to west.
West to east.
North to south.
My old worn out tiny feet slopping through the mud.
In time I learned to blend in with the oddballs, screaming and moaning and cursing holy hell.
As I stared with empty hollow eyes.
As the animals of the zoo were released into the thicket to run free.
As man was once again imposed behind bars.
Locked doors.
Stray jackets.
And doped up on stupefying pills.
Seeing that so many patients roamed about in a skeletal nude out of their damned minds.
There was little about myself to gain any notice.
Disheveled.
Disoriented.
None too troublesome.
Yet just enough.
None too dangerous.
Yet just enough.
With hands trembling.
I anxiously waited my turn to grab a paper cup of pills off the tray and scurry away unnoticed.
Ass bare in a stolen gown.
The metallic taste of the pills drowned out the smell of feces smeared on the walls.
And when a Nazi doctor passed by.
I froze like a deer and let a tit slip from my gown.
A little drool pooled upon their lip.
A little froth upon my own.
One of the long lost and forgotten.
I fit right in.
A lab rat wandering about the lazy maze of nurses smoking their cigarettes.
Gossiping about Friday night.
And Dick.
Dignity had been tilled under with Dr. Zola's death.
Someone must have been counting his days.
Waiting around with a shovel.
Flicking ashes.
Checking out nurses asses.
With thick globs of red lipstick and legs uncrossed.
And before Zola was even cold in the ground.
The hilltop had become a place to sit freely in your own piss and shit.
At the same time.
The Nazis acted out their sadistic fantasies.
Displacing their inferiorities.
And aiming their ice picks at the weakest and most vulnerable of us all.
Cross-haired dicks.
That kicked the weak while they were down.
Shiny shoes.
Right in the gut.
Ribs and soul.
Broken and bruised.
The wailing terror filled screams of the strapped down.
And rolled away where lit up or picked like ice.
Silenced.
Stupefied.
Undone.
And sat in a chair by a window.
Birds chirped on the other side of the plane of glass.
As fragile as reality.
Covering in a grating to prevent said reality from shattering.
Paper cups were arranged.
And I grabbed them freely from trays and carts and counters.
Rats scoured about.
Snakes wrapping around the willing and unwilling.
And unconscious.
Making their way around legs for the sweet spot.
For the mind.
A dark wave heading for the heart.
Where it would leave an institutional wasteland.
In its wake.
I moped about in a desert of misery and stupor.
With my tit hanging out to appease the doctor.
With perverse anonymity.
Until I could scurry off back to the farmhouse.
At an endless gray.
I looked up and asked.
However.
The breeze carried no answer.
As a blue dust in my eyes with a whisper.
Go mix your wild drugs.
Circle daughter of the sun.
So I popped four red ones.
Shiny and round.
And I scrubbed my flesh raw of filthy humanity.
As the moon rose somewhere beyond the curtains.
I crawled upon the cold mattress wishing mama good night.
I wish not to hear your whispers tonight mama.
But as I might.
I shall nail my feet to the floor.
Civility.
As thin as an old crone's skin.
As thin as the silver plating brushed upon the skull of a coyote.
Of which I gnaw.
As thin as the air upon which the rain crows circle overhead.
Teetering upon the tip of the needle of righteousness.
Of sin.
Of shame.
Of redemption.
Of madness and reasoning.
Of life and death.
Of man.
And beast.
Of truth.
This journey.
This world fabricated by the mind.
By dreams.
By nightmares.
By worms in the brain.
Truth.
Drool.
Frozen limbs.
Empty skulls.
Lies flies foes and fleas.
Truth.
Disturbed souls.
Sleepwalking in immense heartache.
Loss and desperation.
Truth.
Tracks that lead to endless trenches.
Truth.
Scurrying off like a rabbit at every drop of a hat.
Truth.
In the dark thicket of lies.
We float about like ghosts.
As the owls watch wide-eyed.
As we chew the edges of pure white pages.
Like nervous filthy rats.
Truth.
The swirling stalking spirit spoke through me.
Unique speech once spoken in family homes.
Words and phrases only loved ones could comprehend.
Truth.
Haunting thickets where the floor of the dead and the sun never meet.
Truth.
Rocking chairs and turning tables.
Truth.
Pages twirling and twisting in the wild wind.
Truth.
Wide-eyed children with rotten teeth.
Souls blown away long ago.
Swearing and pissing upon gowns.
In graves called beds.
Truth.
Checkered tiles of black and white, good and bad, angels and demons.
Men squat in corners.
Shitting and spewing chicken blood.
And God knows what else.
Truth.
Vomit.
The drink of demons.
Truth.
The truth is that some wander wearily through vast deserts.
Some seek refuge in dark corners, in shadows, cracks and crevices.
Under night stands from vessel to vessel.
It is true that night indeed speaks aloud.
Fingers and hands like a briar patch.
Latching onto anything and anyone within grasp.
Lonesome and pathetic.
Gows ceaselessly feigning for tongues to whisper.
Leaving me to ponder.
What horrid words are whispered into our ears in the dead of night.
Mama you haunt me.
Mama let me be.
The old farmhouse creaks and breathes shallow breaths through sullen nights.
As the old grandfather clock stands tall.
Yet silent and dead.
Face buried in the wall.
The merciless wind thrashed the tiles from the roof.
The shutters.
The peeling paint as I wondered about the fate of the widow down the road.
My dry breath chapped my lips.
And tucking my knees into my sunken chest.
I sought to ignore mama.
Why do you whisper such wretched things I asked?
The hoot of an owl sending chills down the spines of wide eyed rats.
The chirping baby chicks with bellies as empty as my own.
Somewhere beyond the curtain sang of sunrise.
A single knock on the door.
It is Saturday.
No postman today.
Nervous hands.
Dead in a blue.
A single knock at the door.
I opened it but an inch.
Broom in hand.
As my eyes adjusted to the light of day.
Before me stood a ghost from my past.
I shut the door and waited for him to leave.
Peeking through the curtain.
I noticed two grocery bags on the porch.
I tore into the bags throwing a few awful things to the crows and strays.
I scribbled off a note and nailed it to the door.
More bread and butter.
I popped a yellow one that swept me off my feet like a broom across the room.
The floor, the walls, the furniture, the chair, the bed, the pillows.
The cold mattress.
The voices, the words.
My child, let me be.
Reagan was nearly killed by a young man with the disease.
Nonetheless, old Ronnie, born right here in the state of Illinois, star of the film Brother Rat, didn't much believe in schizophrenia.
And closed the hilltop down in no time.
I awoke to a loud clap of thunder on a sunny day.
As the lonely cat's cry of the night was replaced by songbirds.
The rooster's crow.
A barking dog.
And from afar, the whistle of a train.
A daydream of the days when the squeaking brakes of a truck once delivered warm bread across the hilltop.
But the Nazis, they knew nothing of bread.
And it was rumored that they had used the ovens as crematoriums.
As the bastards herded, carried, and wheeled the last of the patients out of the doors and chained them shut behind.
They abandoned ship, leaving all to tread water in the middle of the sea.
The patients succumbed to wandering about the lawns and gardens confused, disoriented, walking about in circles, pleading with themselves.
With straps of leather cinched tightly and buckled around their minds.
Birds searching desperately for a cage.
While others sat motionless in wheeled chairs, content to die.
Content not knowing why.
And I thought of Ritchie.
Long perished in the earth.
I felt freedom.
I felt pity for the utterly lost souls afraid, abandoned by the state.
With winter fast approaching, soiled gowns blue in the breeze.
Shitty butt-sheets exposed to the chill. Goose pimpled.
Lightning white static hair of disheveled old women uttering the names of their long-dead husbands and estranged sons.
With memories forgotten, shivered in the nude, vile and blue.
Erased by the overexposure of light.
Unable to place one foot before the other.
The blank slate before them.
All the same.
Empty.
Unknowing.
Foreign.
Dislodged and distorted.
North, south, east or west.
No longer arrows pointing any which way.
Not toward homes of uncles nor aunts.
Nor distant cousins.
No homes with doors to wrap upon.
Let alone step forth within.
As the medications wore off, their subdued minds awoke and the disease took hold once more.
Full-blown hallucination.
Hunger.
Enraging thirst.
Joy.
And paranoia.
In time the patients went down with the ship.
Making their way by the law of gravity.
Down the ravine to the old wagon trail.
Train tracks.
Roadside.
In the river below.
Many swam for it.
Or strolled along the shoulder in tattered gowns.
Tractor trailers rasping at the fresh layer of tar.
The draft leaving genitalia exposed.
The twisted necked children in the back seats of station wagons.
And bewildered mothers covering innocent eyes to the undesirable fallacies of society.
Fallacies escaped from the shadows.
Faces with their wild eyes.
An army of madness let loose by old Ronnie.
An absolute lack of reasoning haphazardly making way for the city of Grandview.
A tidal wave of unreality.
A reckoning.
An assault upon the senses of the light of day.
Upon the sidewalks which man walked in suit and tie.
Man in denial of his own misdeeds.
For the sake of pseudo-sanctity and civility.
Huddled down in the stoops and alleyways.
The diseased were forced to eat from garbage cans and dumpsters like strays.
Like beasts left to their own means in ultimate demise.
Ruin as the whole community awaited winter to purify the streets.
And when winter did arrive.
The blue lipped, blue toed and frozen solid were carried off by those hoping the lice neither withstood the freezing January night.
Once nailed shut within the darkness of plain pine boxes.
The forgotten were buried in back corner popper plots.
Where no stones were placed.
Nothing but mounds of dirt that sank back into the earth with the melting snow.
Souls not laid to rest but tossed.
And tossing and turning about.
Hollowed bones shattered as new holes were dug.
A casserole of the unwanted by all.
All but the worms.
With a heart grown as cold as January.
The city itself fed those worms.
Which fed the earth.
And come spring buds.
Blossoming flowers perfumed with the stench of great shame.
Those who survived the harsh winter.
Burrowing down in boxes and back alleys.
Lived to become targets.
As open hunting season began for the moralists.
And hate fueled drunkards.
And teens to run down in the night.
Flattening the mad like toads.
Under the tires of their chevys and fords.
A curse that undoubtedly been cast upon the city of Grandview.
A plague unleashed.
Revenge.
As the spirits never forget nor forgive.
Nor had I ever stopped wondering just who were the diseased.
Mercy had been pawned for an acceptable currency of cruelty.
At the trading post of the crossroads.
The disease had not only swept across the city.
But the nation from coast to coast.
America, America.
God shed his grace on thee.
And crowned like good with brotherhood.
From sea to shining sea.
Brother rats stepping over brothers.
Sisters, husbands, daughters, aunts, uncles, wives, neighbors and sons.
Ravaging upon each other in unthinkable ways.
Whirling about in one shoe.
Neither going to nor fro.
As out of the corner of the eye.
The vast blue had turned gray.
As the sun nestled into the trees for the evening.
I made my way for the graveyard and what light remained.
The towering elm budding high above the silence at my feet.
I placed my palm upon the rough bark and felt his soul within.
I wiped my teary eyes on my sleeve.
And carried on to the old twisted tree.
Spun like the rope that mama once swung from.
Long frayed to nothingness.
My heart sank as I noticed the tombstones in the ravine.
I scampered through the fallen branches.
Crossing the tracks and the highway.
Then through the willow to the river.
Swollen high above its bank.
The days of old steamers braving its swift currents long past.
Made way for the slow convoy of rusty barges.
Bolts of light searching their way through the night.
Groping the shoreline.
The blinding brightness illuminating the dark swirling in the eddies of the mind.
I bowed my head with a nestled geese.
Snug in tall grass.
In ease in a sense of peace.
The moonlight reflected off the tide.
The moment shined bright and I grabbed a handful of clay.
I rolled it between my palms into a ball.
And with a great slap I flattened the clay into a Swedish pancake and tossed it in the Illinois.
A large catfish leapt just high enough above the water surface to gaze its dark eye upon the stars.
Before plummeting back into the muddy abyss with a splash.
A ripple across the current of time.
In the stillness that was night.
My own reasoning by the great hour had long washed away for the sea.
Yet words nonetheless circled round and round like that ferris wheel at the St. Louis World's Fair.
And I listened and I heard and I felt sad poetry.
A Physician Red