I am in the garage and I am listening to recordings and it is nighttime and while I am adding water to cement someone knocks hard on the garage door. 

"Who is it?" I say then removing my safety glasses.  I'm still sitting on the floor but I'm not moving or making any sounds and while I'm not moving or making any sounds someone says:

"C'mon Norm it's me."

Usually when someone knocks or rings my doorbell I don't answer especially after getting served a temporary restraining order a while back by a doped-up bitch with a personality disorder and a host of other mental issues but I figure she's heard me working in the garage (maybe listening for five minutes or more before actually knocking).

I say:

"That you Lee?"

"Let me in," she says.

I know better than to let her in.  She won't like what I'm doing and she'll hammer me with a lot of questions and when I answer them to the best of my ability she'll sit somewhere near me and she won't say anything for a long time and eventually when I look up and into her eyes I'll see a woman that feels sorry for the man that she's looking at and somehow it'll lead to the two of us fucking between my homemade electric lawnmower and my plywood go-cart or maybe atop the nylon reinforced garden hose but most likely we'll stand and fuck against the garage wall and while we're fucking I'll recite impromptu poetry into her girl ear.


There's a bug on the wall,
going somewhere.
He's by your head,
His feet are red.
He thinks we're an
obstacle to get around
or go
over.
He doesn't know
we're
two
obstacles.
My dick is
inside
an
obstacle.


When I open the door she says:

"How ya doing?"

I say: 

"Real good c'mon in."

When she steps in I go outside and look to the left and then to the right and then I move to a dark area and I stand inside the dark area and while I'm standing in it I'm watching for movement and when I feel there is no movement I head back inside the garage locking the door behind me.

"All clear?" she says.

"Just making sure," I say.

She says:

"Watcha working on?"

I say:

"Something for Halloween."

"You live on an island Norm.  How many trick or treaters do you get?"

"Last year and the year before last someone kicked in my jack o' lantern.  Not this year," I say. 

 She says:

"There's bad shit going on in Sudan's Darfur province, we've got serious issues with the homophobic Iranian president, there's the U.S. sanctioned 'round the clock Helter Skelter Iraq dinner theatre murder show going on and someone has gotta take out Hillary Clinton and here you sit in your underwear working on a pumpkin?"

I say:

"You forgot to mention that Jessica Alba has herpes and that the Church of Scientology killed the guy that was trying to extort a million bucks from Tom Cruise and that the iPhone is in actuality kinda like one of those portable wireless charge card swipers they use at Apple stores."

She says:
 
"What is that thing?"

I say:

"It's a pumpkin I made using cement and it has inch thick walls reinforced with quarter inch steel rebar and I'm going to cover it with pieces cut from a real pumpkin so that when some spoiled American punk kicks it in this year they'll break their fuckin' foot."

Maybe a minute passes and while the minute passes we're not talking and while we're not talking I'm cutting triangular eyes into the cement using a Bowie knife and when the minute is up I say:

"You wanna cut out the other eye?"


-David Schmidt 47, was found dead in his Arizona townhouse on September 28.


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