Lemonade

By DSK

Writing through Schizophrenic trauma, David has created an enduring fragmentary world. It is a written testament to the author's survival. There are tensions between empire and the subaltern, prohibition and liberty, the professions and freedom, North America and South America, and so on. I hope these tales delight, amuse, and entertain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781662487439

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Lemonade

DSK

Copyright © 2023 DSK

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 978-1-6624-8742-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-8743-9 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Book 1

Maestro on the Farm

Maestro in the Suburbs

Maestro in the City

Maestro in the City

Maestro in the Morning

The Bridge of Two Dragons

A Library

Maestro the Gutter Punk

Book 2

Midnight

1 a.m.

2 a.m.

The doorman had stepped into the bar and unplugged the jukebox. Last call for alcohol, and drink 'em up, he called out into the room now emptied of its music. The crowd clamored and surged heavily against the bar. Our group left, agreeing we did not want to vomit in the bar. One always purged, both physically and psychologically, with magic mushrooms. The two couples followed me out of the bar, past the alleyway, to the blasted tree at the intersection, and then to the pier beyond.

3 a.m.

4:00 a.m.

5 a.m.

Blind Luck

Book 3

Diogenes Quits

Stasis

Diogenes in Motion

Dio at Rest

Book 4

Konflagrations Revised

A Novella

Author's Preface Konflagrations Revised

Konflagrations was first conceived in East Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, Ohio in 1994. I am Konflagrations's sole original author. From where I sat at my well-traveled desk, in a section-eight apartment with roaches crawling over my toes, staring out over the rooftops of the city at a too-close-for-comfort aerial antenna, lights a-blink, I thought to write a thriller. I thought to write something that would be novel—something to make sense of myself to the world. I never knew what I was in for.

Part 1

Xiam

A Poetry Reading

A Coffeehouse

Zeverin

A Lamp Post

A Parade

Downtown

A Class

Zeitless

Urian and Xiam

An Opening

A Limousine

An Airport

A Big Box Store

Watch

Flight

Dale's Trip

River

Back in the Van

Back in the Boat

Urian's Purpose

The Market and the Scapegoat

The Interior

Part 2

Rescue

The Mountains

Hernandez

Book 5

Schizophrenia

Drover Sense

Book 6

Hacksaw Henry

Hacksaw in Repose

The Masseuse

Fun House

Book 7

George

The Organic and the Mechanical in Moby-Dick and the Pacific Rim

Part 2

Petunia

Book 8

Trip Drifter

Puff

Book 9

Grief

Book 10

When I Met Buddha

About the Author

Book 1

Maestro on the Farm

Knee-high by the Fourth of July, some say you can hear the corn grow. We had a wet spring and a late summer, so the corn was stewing in its own juices—not yet knee-high by the Fourth of July.

In this region, the mechanization of farming had led to severe depopulation. It simply took fewer and fewer people to work the ever-expanding farms. Traditionally, a farmer would arrange to split up his farm among his heirs when he retired and moved to town. So there was a pressure on the whole system to disintegrate as the farms went through the generations.

Over time, massive consolidation occurred as these smaller and smaller farms were bought up by the larger and larger farm owners who could afford the robotically-controlled and satellite-guided machinery—the means of production—needed to farm huge tracts of land. Our town's population had been gutted, but we, if you could call us we anymore, because we were so politically divided, still kept to the tradition of a Fourth of July Parade.

On the street, in front of the grandstand, there were marching beauty queens with batons. There were men riding go-carts in serpentine formations. The high school band played martial music while a parade of vintage tractors, organized by date of production, trundled past on the pavement. A calliope played harmoniously.

There were floats. The first chicken-wire and papier-mâché float was built in the form of a dragon eating its own tail. The float was very detailed. The dragon's eyes had red pupils. Each shiny red scale of the dragon's body had been applied by hand. This resulted in an overlap effect, an imbrication, that made the dragon's hide seem to be sinuous and alive.

There was red, white, and blue cotton candy. Shaved ice cones were only available in those patriotic colors for this special day. But red and blue had become ambiguous colors. The color red used to represent the left: the mighty red hammer and the decisive red sickle. Now, the left, in the American corporate media, is represented by the color blue. They have good reason to be blue. On the television news shows, with their huge computer screens, red now denotes the right wing.

Our town was, traditionally, a conservative town. It was a red meat red town. It was anti-liberal to the extreme. Love it or leave it—here—seemed to be the order of the day.

There was tension in the land. The leftists called the conservatives fascists, and the right wing called the left wing terrorists. But this was the Fourth of July and a temporary cease-fire had taken place in the politics of the region. Everyone enjoyed the parade.

The second float had been built, sort of, by a group of infants. The float was a carefully walled playground upon the colorful papier-mâché floor of which babies crawled to and fro. Above the babies, fans blew ribbons into and out of a multicolored tube.

The grade school float was a figure of a boy on tiptoes pressing his nose to the center of a white chalk X marked on a green blackboard.

A voice over the loudspeakers in every hall and every room said, No more pencil wars! This was in grade school, and broken pencils littered the hallway floor. They collected in the corners.

In pencil wars, one combatant, the challenger, would hold his pencil firmly between his fists. The other combatant would then flick down vertically his pencil on the challenger's horizontal pencil. If the pencil didn't break, they would switch sides until the loser had his pencil broken. The object of the game was to break your opponent's pencil. The winner kept the intact pencil and could play again with his now storied pencil.

The high school had eschewed a float. They opted instead for a squadron of sporty convertibles driven by pomaded jocks accompanied by platinum blonds.

After the parade, we returned, driving along gravel roads, beyond where the pavement ended, to the farm for the sunset. We had a beef dinner with baked potatoes. The beef was from our feedlot; we had fattened the cattle ourselves. The potatoes were from the garden. We washed the dishes and then retired to the front lawn for the sunset and then the fireworks.

The kids were given black worms and sparklers. When the five hundred-milligram pill-sized black worms were lit, they expanded as they burned to five inches or more. The worms gave off an acrid odor. They left black marks on the gravel driveway.

The sparklers' white-hot cores blazed blindingly as we kids ran back and forth, laughing, leaving comet trails.

The adults of the group took control of the bottle rockets and Roman candles. They were worried that, if the kids had permission to set off the bottle rockets and Roman candles, there would be a fireworks' war.

Maestro in the Suburbs

After he lost his wife and sold the farm, my father moved us to a cul-de-sac about twenty-five miles from the city. We kids pivoted around the dead end's open space like dervishes.

One of my neighbors had built a skateboard ramp in his driveway. We would ride up the ramp, switch directions at the crest, and then ride down the ramp and back into the cul-de-sac below. It was our own permanent wave. It was the epicenter of the cul-de-sac: it was our own personal interface with agility, gravity, and grace.

When I was skating, I wasn't allowed out of the house without a helmet and body armor. The armor consisted of kneepads, elbow pads, and wrist and palm protecting gloves. This armor, a gift, was my father's only comment on my desire for a new skateboard. I also wore the helmet and armor when we kids played street hockey.

Frisbee, though, was my favorite activity. The connection of the perfect throw, one where the catcher did not have to move at all to catch the Frisbee, was as close as I liked to get to any of my neighbors—the perfect balance of distance and companionship. I was always identified, and self-identified, as from out of town.

I was wary of my neighbors. We had moved from a rural region (where our closest neighbor was fifty miles away) to the suburbs (where our nearest neighbor was fifty feet away). I never got used to this situation. I don't think my father ever did either.

Newly a widower and flush, he started to drink. At first, he would wait to drink until after dinner; but soon he was spiking his morning coffee with liquor. He was lit by noon.

He had sold his truck and bought a large television and an expensive American luxury car when we moved to the suburbs. He would rant and rave and gesture at the new television as he drank. He had become a crank.

Maestro in the City

The bus finally ground to a stop at my destination in the city. I grabbed my bag and lurched to my feet. I felt exhausted and a bit giddy.

I found a recessed doorway in an alley to crash in for a while. It was early morning, hours yet before the dawn. The city, at this time, was nearly silent, just a low electrical hum laced with distant sirens, static, and horns.

When I awoke, I could feel the contours of the doorway pressing against my body except for where my backpack had acted like a cushion. It had shielded me. I had slept deeply because of my exhaustion. I was keenly aware of the vulnerability of my situation.

I was lost. The alley went in two directions in the shape of an L. I took a direction at random and began to walk. I groaned with pain, but when I settled into a steady pace, my muscles began to stretch and the pain began to subside.

My hunger, though, began to increase. My stomach felt like it was the size of a walnut. It pulsed painfully. I sensed the scent of food. Guided by the scent of meat grilling, I soon arrived at a burger franchise.

Maestro in the City

Maestro left the bus as it kneeled when its air suspension bled air with a whoosh. One of his feet jarred as it hit the pavement. Oh! His feet were sore. They had swollen a bit after a long day walking the sidewalk and then riding on the bus.

He recalled an old man sitting on a cane seat on the sidewalk near the bus station. This cane device was a cane with a flip-down seat. The man wore a green suit buttoned to the neck and a teal tie. His suit was cut loose. I had noticed the opening between his buttoned shirt and his neck. He was comfortable.

Better yet were the walkers with seats attached. You could flip the direction of the walker and then sit on its wide and cushioned seat for hours. If you were old enough, you could get away with it—just one more actor in the street parade.

Now it was nighttime.

He headed for the only homeless shelter he knew in these outskirts of town. It was closed. He sat down befuddled on the ground. He was uncertain what to do. He was contemplating bivouacking right there on the shelter's front lawn, when someone came around the corner of the building and said, You can't stay here. Everyone has been fed and put to rest.

Oh.

I'll take your name and number for tomorrow's lottery if you want to give them to me.

He shook his head. He didn't have a phone.

He walked back to the center of town. Got to get me a phone. His belly growled. With what? he wondered.

In the center of town, he found an empty bench. He leaned his backpack against the bench and sat down heavily on it. He was fatigued. His feet hurt. He leaned over and curled up on the bench. He fell immediately into an exhausted slumber but was soon and abruptly jarred awake by someone shaking his shoulder.

It was a young woman. He sat up and brushed her hand from his shoulder. He shook his head to free it from its cobwebs.

The young woman's companion said, He says you can't sleep here. It's private property. He gestured to a man in a uniform holding a clipboard. The man wasn't a cop, he was glad to note, but the uniform looked official.

Maestro rose, pulled on his backpack, and began to stagger toward the park in the center of town. There, a covered amphitheater blazed, illuminated in the night. Three people sat in a circle on the stage of the theatre. He had to look closely. There was a woman and two men. Both of the men had long hair. Three sleeping bags had been unrolled under the high curved ceiling of the amphitheater.

He sat down in one of the seats farthest from the stage, in the dark shadow of a tall pine tree, and began to watch them. They were talking animatedly with one another, but he could not hear their words in the wind.

The amphitheater's lights blinked three times, and a police cruiser drove slowly off of the road and parked on the cement pad between the first row of seats and the stage. The cruiser's flashing lights illuminated, as the lights to the amphitheater were extinguished for the night.

Two cops got out of the cruiser. One got out and leaned against the cruiser's open driver's side door, while the other climbed the stairs to the stage and casually addressed the threesome. They got angry and began to gesticulate.

The cop got formal and pulled out his ticket book. They began to roll up their sleeping bags and to pack their backpacks. Only after they had left did the cops leave. They had missed him where he sat in the dark under the boughs of the pine tree. He soon fell asleep.

Maestro in the Morning

Maestro awoke stiff and cold.

One lower rib ached where I had slept on it. I rose up and tried to shake the ache out of my bones like a scarecrow in the wind. I slowly pulled my pack up and over my head so that it rested on each shoulder. My shoulders screamed in pain, so I cinched up the waist belt so that about 80% of the pack's weight rested on my hip belt—as recommended. This relieved the pressure on my shoulders.

I began walking toward the river that divided the town. Before I got to the river, I saw a group of people setting up a big tent further into the park. I slowly trudged toward them.

When I approached to within speaking distance, two of the group