Margold Breaks His Arm

The morning of the third day out Margold woke with a jolt as the boat took a sharp roll to starboard, then rolled to port. He went topside to see what was going on. The air was noticeably cooler, the sky darkly overcast, and the seas the color of slate, heaving in the wind.
“We have a bit of a storm brewing,” the captain said.
Jeffrey was busy hauling in sail.
“How bad?” Margold asked.
“The report shows a tropical depression forming south of us. We will try to sail around it, but things could get a bit hairy.”
“What can I do?”
“Stay below for now and let us do our thing. Make sure everything is stowed and secure.”
“All right.”
“And take your seasick pill.”

Margold Starts the Tattoo

    “I can do that,” Clyde said. “I’m real good at special 3-D effects. I can make it look like you’re split wide open, showing guts and all, with an arm coming right out of the midst of it, giving the finger.”
    “Great, that’s what I want.”
    “That’ll cost you extra. I gotta do a whole new drawing and . . .
    “You don’t have to explain, I understand.”
    “Thanks.”
    “The only other thing I want to make clear,” Margold said, “is that none of it can show when I have on a dress shirt with the sleeves down.”

Margold Meets the Tattoo Artist

Chapter 10


That afternoon he went back to the bar and talked to the bartender about the tattoo. The bartender told him that it was not a shop on the street, but an “underground” place where they did the best work in town. That was okay with Margold, so long as he didn’t catch anything. No problem, the bartender assured him.
He led Margold down the street and around the corner to a door without any kind of markings. The bartender knocked, someone looked out a little opening in the door, then let them in. The person led them to the top of a dark stairway into another door. There was a

Margold Completes the Peyote Ceremony

     He started to row toward the large ship. At first the water was calm, but after a few minutes large waves came up, tossing the little row boat around violently. He could no longer see the large ship, but rode up and down on huge waves. At the crest of each wave he could look over the side of the row boat and see down to the trough of the wave, seemingly hundreds of feet below him. He knew from experience that he easily became seasick, but because he was sitting down the effects were

What I Wrote Yesterday (6)

      At first, the effect was subtle–more like a feeling. He felt a strong emotional attachment to everyone at the fire, although he didn’t know any of them very well. Jim could see by the look on Margold’s face that the peyote was starting to affect him.
      “Keep looking into the fire,” Jim said.
      Margold looked into the fire, which Jim kept blazing brightly. In the flames he saw a hawk flying, as though far away. The bird flew around in circles in the distance over a barren terrain, flapping its wings to gain altitude, then circling about without moving its wings,

What I Wrote Yesterday (5)

      The next morning Margold worked on several paintings. The peyote ceremony was not scheduled until around sundown, and would continue through the night, so he had some time. Since not eating or drinking booze for a few days he was thinking clearer than he had in a quite a while, i.e., since he was about seventeen. He was even losing a little weight. Although he could have used a nice big steak, he felt surprisingly good.
      He lined up five canvases on which he intended to paint a Francis Bacon-like set of self portraits, something along the lines of the Screaming Pope. That’s it, he thought, the perfect setting. He would paint

What I Wrote Yesterday (4)

As always, this is unedited copy as I wrote it, so don't bust my balls if there are typos, grammatical errors, or choppy sentences. The final version will likely be somewhat different. By the way, I write on the Atlantis word processor, which costs about $35. I love it because it is better than anything else for ten times the price, and it has sounds. When I write I like to use typewriter sounds. The one that comes with the program is not that great, but you can find others on the web and substitute them. The other thing is that the support is great--very responsive. I also use a typewriter font--kinda like the way it looks.




      Margold took a shower to get the stench of cigars, sage and cedar smoke off his body. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling. He was a bit thinner than he had been in a while because he hadn’t had anything to eat and no booze to drink in a couple of days. He actually felt more awake and clear-headed than he had in years. He