Everything's Negotiable

When I was in high school, we used to drink Everclear and purple Kool-Aid. We called these charming beverages Puple Jesus, and they were a great alternative to wine coolers, that wonderful elixir of the 1980s. Drinking these assured one a swift journey to the promised land of oblivion. Sometimes we'd go out to Fort Walters, the decommisioned army base that served as a haunted playground for us. Part of Fort Walters contained an abandoned VA hospital, the top floor being a mental ward that was reputed to be pure evil. Breaking into this place wasn't that difficult -- it was surrounded by wildflowers and a chainlink fence. Nothing ever happened that I remember except that we scared ourselves half to death with our own shadows. I guess that's how it always works.


Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Everything's negotiable." Margaret to Claire in Six Feet Under

Purple Jesus Shot

Grape Jello made with half water/half vodka

Benedictions and Maledictions

First published in Madison Review:

Chiggers

All that August I had them,
insects burrowing deep into my legs.
I itched until I bled, nails digging
into tanned skin while my best friend
and I watched Nadia Comaneci score
perfect tens. We wanted to be
her, tumbling through the air without
a mistake. In the evenings, we’d practice
cartwheels outside her dad’s trailer, careful
not to stray too far because we’d been warned
that a woman had been gang raped four trailers over.
After second shift, her dad would pull up, yelling
at us to get inside, Johnny Cash blaring from his truck,
I’m stuck in Folsom Prison and time keeps dragging on.
When he saw my sores, he painted them
with fingernail polish, telling me that the chiggers
would suffocate and die. I remember his touch,
killing what was living, leaving only scars
that would stand out in the sun when the light was right.