I was scratching at the surface

Perfecting living in my head.

So much the devil in the details.

More like the words you hadn’t said.

I am finding the escape route.

That may be here, but we don’t know.

I just know that if I follow you.

There’s nowhere for me to go.

So keep on what you’re doing.

Me? I’ll be just fine.

Meditate on that Mofu.

See you at the finish line.

There was peace in understanding.

Though all love was short supply.

There’s no sale without rebranding.

Somewhere deep, I had to try.

There’s no hope in no forgiveness.

You can’t stand in yesteryear.

You took it all. It was your business

And you hardly shed a tear.

There is no badge with all this honor.

Just the gold of peace of mind.

I don’t look the gift horse in the mouth…

You’ve been so much more than kind.

I got so God damn tired.

Working. Banking. Chasing Quest.

Even the fortune telling lady.

Said, “Stop, son, might I suggest?”

I was dreaming in the meadows.

With milk honey, maybe more.

Where all the sales are on discount.

Nothing’s rotten to the core.

I was running, waking breathless.

My cock was in my hand.

I was lonely but well rested.

And nothing more was planned.

When men feel stress, they process.

When women feel stress, they talk.

Generally speaking, women feel uncomfortable with the men’s process because it happens in silence.

For a man to talk when he’s stressed only increases his stress.

I’ll just leave this here and go away for a while and write…

Talk among yourselves

OR

Process by yourself.

I was rolling in the darkness.

The winter turns to spring.

Not much more than plenty.

I guess I didn’t need a thing.

I see her growth in real time.

Sometimes, I witness all.

Take it in and keep in stride.

And just pray I don’t appall.

The light is on horizon.

I am almost out of bed.

There are reasons to be hopeful.

For less reasons than you said…

A dory is a small row boat used by fishermen.
I knew we were in trouble when I couldn’t get Dexter to sit down as he tried to untangle the net, rocking the dory; taking on river water.
My warning,
“We’re going to sink if you don’t sit down . ”
This seemed to fall on deaf ears.
I remembered Harold’s wise words.
“If you think you’re going under, remove your rubber boots, or you will drown.”
I was sitting in my socks in the middle of the river, bailing water with a rubber boot as the dory disappeared beneath me. We had reached the tipping point.
The Atlantic Ocean water is cold in late October and adds weight to sweaters made of wool.
I heard Dexter splashing. However, my main focus early on was to not get tangled up in the net. When I was sure I was clear, I was dog tired and decided to allow my body time to recover for another push to shore. This required holding my breath and allowing myself to sink to the bottom Deception River.
It was here in the estuary with approximately 10 feet of the Atlantic Ocean over my head that I realized that it had been perhaps decades since I had prayed and this might be an opportune time to return to the practice. The prayer went something like this.
“Dear God… If you get me out of this; I will never drink again. ”
I pushed off the river bottom and swam towards shore in the darkness. I remembered Persy’s warnings,
“Don’t panic… to panic is death.”
I sank, stayed calm and reached dry land .
Dexter yelled from the opposite shore.
I sat for a moment cold and grateful to be alive and thought to myself… If I don’t get out of here, I’m going to die.

Dennis Mantin

While I was making peace with the Cockroaches in my Hotel Room, I was making love with another tenant, who was a lovely native Indian woman from Vancouver Island.

I found a job working at a car wash and marveled at how much smoother the paint was on higher end cars like Rolls Royces or Jaquaurs.

Then I got an evening job in the kitchen at the ‘Town Pump’, a venue for great live music and average food.

Then I got a midnight to 8a.m. job at Hambrger Mary’s, a 24 hour fast food joint that catered Hookers, Transvestites and a very colorful yet dangerous brand of streetlife.

I was working my way out Vancouver. I gave up the Welfare cheques. I gave up the car wash in the cold and wet, slept during the day and worked from 4p.m. until 8a.m.

Bill Kennedy the Hustler could not grasp why I worked so much. In this world of Skid Row; an honest God Fearing, hard working individual like myself was seen as peculiar, I think.

Bill suggested I take a look in the welfare office… He thought there would be cheques there with my name on them.

He was right.

I wasn’t so honest after all.

I traveled east by train.

Dennis Mantin

I arrived in Vancouver by train in the morning as the sun came up, and found a crumpled 5 dollar bill in my back pocket. I was 28, hung over and in a new city, but I wasn’t broke.

You could go to the welfare office, get a check and pay for a hotel room all in Vancouver’s east end, all in the same day.

I did that.

The Hotel Manager was a German named Frank with a severe limp and major anger issues on East Hastings Street.

My room was in the 3rd floor and there were about 200 rooms on 4 floors. There was a sink and mirror as soon as I opened the door and the light forced the cockroaches to scatter.

I had never seen a cockroach before. Things were looking up. A double bed sat just beyond the sink and a window to a back alley world beyond that… I had arrived on skid row!

The first night I got quite drunk on the few dollars I had left over from what Frank the angry German didn’t take for rent; and made a speech to the ‘COCKROACHES’

“I will be on the side of the room with the bed… You guys can have the sink and I will leave some food for you on the floor under the sink. Cross this fucking line!”

I made several lines with my hands and gestures. (drunk)

“And it will be war. Don’t cross the line and we will be OK. “

That was in October 1985. I left skid row in March 1896 just before Expo 86 began.

No cockroaches were harmed during my stay.