it began

with a story.
i wrote

a creative writing class
in 11th grade


a man comes back from Vietnam
and he's screwed up in the head.
furthermore
he's dirt broke and stuck in this greyhound bus station in Memphis

he has nothing to read
and he's sitting there just waiting
for his bus to come

and his eyes focus on this mole
on the back of some woman's neck

he begins obsessing over this mole

and ..
wants to use his pocket knife to it out
out of the woman's neck

this stupid little story
got all these teachers and stuff all concerned

 the next day
i'm takin out to lunch .
by this man in a very nice suit
first I'm thinkin that this man is part of the school.
but
he isn't...he's been notified is all

it was a business suit but
a business suit that
didn't look like it was for business...
but for being on tv

his hair also looked like tv hair

at the lunch

he said
he found my story not so much disturbing
as
disturbed

and asked me if I had more
more stories and thoughts like
the Mole story

i said i didn't know

he said try
try to write 3 more stories like the mole story
but to
imagine I was thinking
a strange story directly into someone's mind

and to try to write it like that

I tried to write
like that
...but
nothing was
like
"The Mole"

he said


he asked if I ever read  a perfect day for banana fish
i said yeah
everyone had

he said
that was to be my manual
that
salinger knew how to fuck with someone's mind
in a way
that "was"
direct neural interface

he explained
that madness
could be sent from one person's mind to another

and my story was
mad as a hatter

and
that
this
was a good thing

 a very useful thing

a gift...

and than he kissed me

-Perry Dallas