We’re going to spread Mr. Internicola’s story “Train Robbers” over a next few days, for it is long. This is a great story. Enjoy.

"TRAIN ROBBERS (PART 1)"
by Michael Internicola

Back then I was alive. I was learning. My ass was in business. I was fresh then--free. I knew answers. I had things I knew I really wanted to do. Had my good friends around me. I believed in true love. Romantic 14-year old girl/boy love. I didn't smoke and people listened to me. I could feel pain then. Could appreciate a great time. Never could fly into a rage. I wanted to explore. My life was more difficult than it is now and I knew I was changing. I was first witness. Wasn't sick of myself then. Like if someone dates somebody too long and gets overly used to them: their maneuvers or mannerisms, their ways. The sex wasn't boring and everything else didn't piss me off or complicate my style. Back then Emmy kissed me when I wasn't looking. She encouraged me to write. She cried happy. She conquered time and had a good voice. My old stories were new and nobody was tired of them yet.

I didn't think I could manage time with someone so long without wanting to be with somebody else--someplace completely above the spot I was in. Back then the old man gave me a Cuban cigar for that special moment when something great was going to happen to me. I smoked it with HASH my first night of a two day stay in Paris--traveling the rest of the time in Europe.

It was my 19th month in New York, regardless of the year, and Rochelle and I were over.

I would have never wanted to go back to Paris if it had not been for **********, for Lawrence, for Char, Black Jack Woman (you know who you are), et cetera...my drinking, attempting to murder the book by December, sleeping, reading and of course Emily Frances. I told myself that other man would never enter my body again. He disappeared ten months ago with twelve unfinished chapters, undisturbed disguise--like for weeks on end...I'm not kidding. The best years of his life are gone by. Now besides the Complete Idiots's travel Guide, which I really am carrying, I find myself examining a note stuck into page 79 by good OL' HASH. See my best buddy, HASH beckons, "Well, while I sit around and sweat thinking about all the good times I wanted to drop you a letter. I'm glad your finally getting back over there and have some time to walk around solo and check things out. It's too fucking hot for me to even think about something creative to say. I wish you all the luck. I want you to lead the way for us. My man, this is where you open up your life. I still believe our place is over there. You've got nothing to hold you back now. I know we haven't been able to spend that much time together but I feel it doesn't matter. Our friendship is the important thing. Don't worry about me. My thoughts are still in the right place. I think about Europe everyday. I won't get caught up in the bullshit over here. Anyway, best of luck. Bring back my baby. You got to, Jules...if one person on earth...let me know what's going on. P.S. Because I'm coming."-and I put that down.

I'm as lonely as I can be invading France like I am. Help me. Wind the purple yo yo back to the original state and help me and help me, God dammit.

The times are changing, HASH. All the great ones talk about their dreams. I was born in the fields roaring drunk. All the young people were dressed in strength and maturity. I ate tree bark and killed wild beasts then. I had many moods, I tell you, even before I left those swift creatures I had an understanding of how certain things in my life should be. It goes without saying I sought to maintain the principal here. I consumed the intellectual seventh sense, denying the common ones that never empowered me. The roses died and I challenged myself boldly. I found myself there. I was born to be the savaged man. Now when HASH had written the above portion of that letter he was pleased for me. Behind much of these words, especially the ending, is love. I will show HASH. HASH the pool player. HASH the dancer. HASH being nothing in the Hamptons. HASH being funny. HASH being sad. It's incredible the bastard is still out there singing something will pan out. He's like furniture in that fucking cush apartment with the twenty thousand burning holes in his pockets. Not letting himself do jack. The moment he touches shit it turns to half tint gold but I couldn't be happier for him. He takes off from home and visits my place. Comes to write three minutes worth in my red book on a visit to the room where punishment happens, sticks it to the mattress on the floor and proclaims to the world in the name of himself and his girl that he will share with you the deeds of great great crap. This is the man to which everything is supposed to be known. The God's gave him secret things. Gave him favors like a strong family and a perfectly tall body. God's gave him a gift he's wasting. Fucker gave me a colored rubber ball.

Her long feminine hair looked the same as it did in 1998, "Let me guess..."-I said, poking lazy fingers around Good Luck Charlie's ear at East 11th Street where it all began, "Let me guess. You're seeing someone and you decided to be a little adventurous and meet me out tonight. Things are going good and now your totally realizing that your having a little more fun then, let's say, your supposed to. Okay. Okay, that's cool. So, I'm not going call you again until you call me and I'm not going kiss you again until you kiss me. Why don't you do this...you iron out the kinks and let me know okay?"-and she gives me an unwavering stare. Laying eyes on her new pal.

Charlie laughs certainly in front of me, "I would, Mr. Jules..."-she expounds, holding that pool stick without comprehension, ..."but those little kinks are one huge knot and he's flying in from London to see me in four hours."-Cutie doll's cheeks are full of flickering shifts, seen and not seen. I smile a lot. She makes reference to her siblings in Columbus, Ohio taking natural breathes...quick and expanding sounds until she comes closer.
Her heart is made of silk. Her lips are soft cushions or soggy coco puffs.

Her eyes are dark rugs underneath the whole bar. Her eyes, in front of her new ex-boyfriend, now simply put belong to me. Char calls me the next day, "Just wondering if you're as tired as I am."-we talked the whole week discussing the fleas I had gotten in my leg hair. The next weekend we went out again.

[More of "Train Robbers" will come tommorow. . .]

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Michael Internicola lives in New York City.

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