Sunshine on an Open Tomb. Tim Kinsella

at the gate of the playground.

      What depths of insecurity and self-loathing could prompt such a desperate compulsion to dedicate yourself to so total a transformation, to warp your own body so that its every detail achieves its most intimidating potential, all the labor oddly on display?

      The glum monster had veins up his neck thick as fingers.

      And when I forgot my lunch one day, I approached him.

      He put a finger to his ear and whispered into his collar, his expression flat.

      Without even glancing down at me, he unfolded a crisp bill from his pocket—50 Big Georges—and handed it to me.

      He told me to see what I could get in the cafeteria, run along, I’m not supposed to come to the edges of the playground.

      Aaron is soft and pokey.

      It was honing my erotic manual dexterity and ear nibbles that next provoked me to directly address Secret Service.

      And then our contact was suddenly frequent.

      They’d insist, We’re parked right over here. No one’s looking inside your car.

      Thru those steamy aerobic moonlight grapples, they guarded me while I blossomed.

      I was an alligator, switchblade hard with blood.

      Those guys could identify a bone by the sound of its snap.

      And they guarded me so that I was free to discern and dissect the workings of the raging dawn of my sexual urges in backseats muggy as tombs, elbows and knees knocking awk as rolling over in a coffin.

      My dawning sex life protected by thugs felt like I was the Division A state football champions celebrating The Renaissance.

      My dawning sex life protected by thugs felt like I was The Birth of Venus in shoulder pads calling a flea-flicker play after play.

      My dawning sex life protected by thugs felt like Myth, History, and the invention of Perspective driving down the field, even faking a punt.

      Those were the nights I’d later recall in that SkullnBones coffin, pulling my numb and spongy King Charles with my chalky palm, narrating in candlelight for the brothers under the skin and Don Quixote.

       CHAPTER 13 Re: The Bloodline

      The blue blood Good Men all established their legacies by running drugs and slave-trading and strategically marrying.

      But Good Men can never be Bloodline.

      Every Good Man a Manchurian Candidate, none of them able to comprehend the scale of the actual project.

      The Bloodline built the pyramids.

      We are in The Code of Hammurabi.

      We count Charlemagne and the leaders of The Holy Roman Empire amongst our own.

      I’m cousins with 34 Prezs.

      We are related at least distantly to every European monarch on and off the throne, kin to every member of The British Royal family.

      My 13th cousin once removed is the heir to the throne.

      In The 12th Century, our guy King Henry I, son of William The Conqueror, along with other lesser-known relations, was formative in the founding and unification of The UK.

      And The Jesuits charged with the failed “Gunpowder Plot” to blow up The British Parliament in 1605: they would’ve been carving our Christmas suckling with us too.

      And Churchill.

      We were The Dutch East India Trading Company colonizing South Africa.

      And William The Orange, creator of The Bank of England, famous for first charting out the global banking industry, of course.

      Neanderthals went extinct cuz their eyes were bigger than human eyes.

      They expended all that brain-energy struggling to see in the dark while we Homo Sapiens were figuring out how to skin animals and make advantageous connections.

      You know who was selling those coats, and calling in favors for access to fire, sculpting systems and rituals for the evolutionary benefit and psychological survival of the group?

      You ever notice The Family’s squinty, beady little eyes?

      Tuck-pointers conceal the seams.

      But nothing touches The Bloodline.

      The Family often retold a favourite romantic fairy tale of a low-ranking SS officer saving the family of a young Jewish girl he wanted to impress.

      The Bloodline required genealogical quarterings all the way back to 64 great-great-great grandparents, 300 years.

      Everyone always checking out those Medici sisters and The Bonaparte girls.

      Ha! I should line up to compete for one of them?

      Pops loved to play matchmaker: the espionage of romance, the power to steer instinct, the obsession with purity.

      Junior habitually lied about being an Air Force officer to impress women.

      Master of the backwards compliment, he’d say: I don’t like natural beauties. I’ve always preferred women like you.

      My Mother George Washington forced Junior to call off his first engagement cuz the girl had a Jewish stepfather.

      The girl blabbed to everyone re: Junior’s vivid insecurities that he’d never amount to anything thanks to The Family’s pampering.

      Junior got her pregnant in ’71, but they didn’t see the term thru.

      And after the surgery, she never saw Junior again, not once.

       CHAPTER 14 How’d It Taste?

      Afternoon cards with O’Malley and The Greek with chains of mudslides.

      Hands folded across his front, Aaron’s mirrored shades reflected the blue pool.

      Supper time we’d head to The Other Greek Place: a place where when you sat on the toilet in the men’s room, you’d feel a bump when, on the other side of the wall, someone sat on the toilet in the ladies’ room.

      We’d eat at the bar, smoking between bites of dry burgers and pork-chops with soft fries.

      Quiet time with the flicker of The Game on ze Tube.

      Aaron stood stationed at the door but sat lonesome at the far end of the bar to eat.

      The squeaky bartender, That Mike, lifted himself up on his toes when he spoke and grimaced anytime anyone but him voiced a word.

      After supper, one of us inevitably deigns to cross the room to the jukebox to play some song that makes you feel young again, cuz even if no one remembers liking being young, everyone likes remembering it; I mean, you don’t remember being happy when you were young, but seeing some past version of yourself, naive, is endearing.

      O’Malley always danced a concentrated little twist in the middle of the room, his weird arms strong like a small dog’s.

      The Greek would impersonate him and that was all the permission I required to bop along.

      Many of my happiest moments have been standing near people dancing.

      And My Diana hanging on that flimsy closet door, in profile in her patriotic bikini, the moon huge and low behind her.

      By the time we got to The Other Greek Place each day, it was always dusk, so naturally the active content of our camaraderie darkened a little.

      Primary colors softened and blended.

      Daylight no longer stood in judgment.

      And