And so it begins.

“You can’t write that shit.” Hank mumbled over my shoulder. “And you know it.”

 “I just did.” I replied, lighting another cigarette.

 “They will think you have gone soft.” He reaches around and takes my cigarette from my mouth and smokes it himself.

 “I really don’t give a shit what “they” think.” I light another.

 “Yes, you do.”

 “The fuck-all I do! I am so sick of writing the same old shit just because it is expected. Drug dealers and midgets and blood and psychotic rednecks! I even try to write sensitive poetry, from the bloody heart of me and all “they” can say is, Where are the whores? Where is the drunken Zen master and the rock band strung out on heroin? I am sick of it. Sick of the dregs and the flotsam of society living in my head.”

 “Maybe you should find a better class of friends.” Hank mumbled, heading toward the ladder that would carry him to the lower deck. “Write what you want, hot shot. You are going to anyway. I am just telling you that no one is going to want to read that bullshit. It is too real, too visceral, and way too, ummm, gay. No one wants to hear your personal thoughts and feelings.” He turns and begins climbing down.
“If “they” want whores, give them whores. Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke, my Granddaddy used to say.”

 “Fuck “them” and their whores!” I yell.

 “That’s the spirit of obscene indignation! Now use that! Write it down!”

 “I hate you.” I mumble.

 “I hate you too, jackass. You want a sandwich while I’m down here?”

 “Peanut butter and onion.”

 “You are a strange man, boss.”


 I live on a houseboat in the Florida Keys. I am a recovering alcoholic, a writer, and I have an imaginary companion named Hank whom I talk to when no one else is around. I refrain from calling Hank my imaginary “friend” the same way I refrain from saying “recovering” alcoholic. How exactly do you “recover” from allowing yourself to become such a little bitch over an inanimate object? How do you call someone you cannot stand and does not, technically, exist, a “friend”?

Let’s just say he has been around a while and shows no signs of leaving.

 And maybe inanimate is not the correct word either.

 Anyway, I live on a boat in Paradise and I talk to myself and make a living selling articles to websites and small printers. Most are tiny magazines read only by granola hipsters in skinny jeans who chew on my bits of stoned wisdom while chewing biscotti made with free-range almonds. There is one bookstore in Asheville, NC who pays me for short articles about obscure musicians for their hipster chapbooks that they print themselves in some magical backroom somewhere.

 I had some fun with them a while back when I wrote a review for a jazz/blues duet that did not exist. It described the pair in such a mysterious glow that the buzz around them nearly turned into a frenzy. People claiming to have seen the musicians play live were trying to describe the etherealness of the crunchy grooves to those who were honest enough to admit they had never heard of “Kerouac’s Footstool”. The denial of the local club where they were reported to be playing the coming weekend only led to the mystique surrounding the elusive geniuses of jazz.

 Saturday night at the Orange Peel and 300 people were standing outside the front doors waiting to buy tickets. In order to save face, the manager had only the option of telling the indignant crowd that the band had cancelled because too many people knew about the show and they had expected a much more intimate venue. The result was that the owner sold a bunch of tickets to the Ben Prestage show, which was the already scheduled act. The remainder of the crowd turned on themselves, blaming each other for being the big mouth that ruined everything. Three fights broke out and the publicity was so spectacular that the Orange Peel doubled their advertising dollar on the tiny magazine.


 I paid 2000 dollars for this rusty piece of shit. It leaks everywhere but I figure even if it sinks, it sits in such shallow water that I can just move everything upstairs and live up here. The 9 foot dinghy I use to get back and forth to shore is dirty and rust stained plastic. It has a trolling motor but I never use it. I am not a big fan of mechanical objects. They always break on me and I never cared enough to learn to fix them.

 The same with this boat. It will probably sink to the bottom before I get around to fixing it.

 I live out here with my wife, Sam and her teenage son, Moon, an ugly dog named Lulu, a calico cat named Mango, and Hank. The houseboat is huge and we have plenty of room to move about. Especially when one of us takes up no space at all.

 Hank moved in after I gave up drugs a couple of years back. He just materialized one day like he had always been there and said, “What have you got to drink around here? Oh, and you suck, by the way.”

 For some reason I was never startled or surprised when he showed up. Even though I live a good quarter mile offshore and I did not know this old man.

 “Why do I have to suck?”

 “Because you were much more fun when you were high all the time. You are kind of a stick in the ass now.”

 “Fuck you very much.”