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the long version:
when i was 1 it was 1967. i don't remember.
when i was 2 my sister sarah was born. my mom left my dad and took me on a train to mexico. chucka-chucka-chuck, chucka-chucka-chuck. she met a good man named raul. i ate paint and almost died. i don't remember.
when i was 3 in mexico my mom saw a poltergeist lift me into the air six feet. sarah was next to her sleeping. i don't remember.
when i was 4 i crossed railroad tracks in what seems like a dream with my sister, my mom and step-father. the sun beat down upon us. we were shadows. i watched them as i stood behind, watching me with them. we moved to LA. i remember.
when i was 5 the sound of the train we rode that night frightened me. it screamed my name at me over and over. my kindergarten teacher put frowns on my schoolwork. i hid from my dad once during a visit. the police couldn't find me. sarah found me. she didn't tell.
when i was 6 i was stabbed in the eye with a spoon for a spot in the sandbox i wouldn't give up. one day i came home and tore up the sliding screen door with a rake and smeared charcoal on the walls inside. i went to a child psychologist who made me walk down suddenly changing, mirrored and black hallways like alice in wonderland, blind. i had to crawl through a small door into a black room with a spotlight on a blowup punchbag bozo the clown. i always had to punch bozo and tell him why i was mad. he always bounced back for more. the fucker. then the doctor, who i thought was colonel sanders because he always dressed in white with a black bowtie and grey hair, would want to talk with me in a huge, bright room with games. i preferred to look out the window. stupid clown.
when i was 7 i liked to sing alone with earphones on in the closet. door closed. harry nilsson and jim croce.
"sit beside the breakfast table, think about your troubles..."
when i was 8 we moved three times. three schools. my dog was run over but lived. a few days later he ate oleander and died in my arms. i felt like a huge, thin balloon sometimes. i felt infinitesimally small those times.
when i was 9 we moved two more times. my mom and raul divorced. we lived in scottsdale. i couldn't find a friend. i wore a purple ski cap. an older neighbor boy, his younger sister and i snuck into an empty townhouse so i could have sex with her. i had no idea what to do and what happened was definitely not sex. it kinda freaked me out when it was over. the older neighbor boy just stood and watched. my mom met al. he was 21, an ex-marine and straight out from two years of prison in pennsylvania for crippling a man who kept coming on to him in a bar. in court the man showed up in a wheelchair and priest's collar. my teacher wrote that i'd be famous if i kept writing.
when i was 10 i stayed away from al. we moved to montana. we lived on a christmas tree ranch. 40 acres. i started to write journals.
when i was 11 i did not belong anywhere with anyone. i wanted to be a starship captain. i designed spaceships. my relationship with my mom grew distant.
when i was 12 i made a friend from boy scouts at the mormon church. we hung out a lot and went camping with his older brother and had sleepovers at his house. we invented "geechking." we had adventures and killed rabbits we ate. al called me "captain jack." for punishment i had to write out the entire book of genesis. "cursed is the ground because of you." al begat resentment and resentment begat rage. he did not know a thing i could do.
when i was 13 my friend moved away without telling me. i had not visited my dad in almost two years. my mom was excommunicated from the church for "living in sin." i learned to distrust religion. i didn't have a friend again. i heard "come together" on the radio and my life changed.
when i was 14 al burned everything i owned.
when i was 15 i ran away to live with my rich father in phoenix. sarah knew. she did not tell. then sarah died. a train and fire. smoke. a tractor-trailer met by a pickup truck without seat belts. my mom told me it was my fault. they were looking for me.
when i was 16 i was punk rock. i learned a lot about cocaine. then i lived with foster parents. i wrote funny stories.
when i was 17 i dropped my pants for a speech on insanity. i got an A and detention. i wrote for the school paper and yearbook. i was the only student with a mohawk. i had many friends. i was in jail on prom night. a skeleton was found buried in the yard of the house in mexico with the poltergeist that lifted me. i wrote love poems.
when i was 18 i moved to phoenix and went to college. i asked my high school girlfriend to marry me. she said yes but lied. i dropped out of college. i got a job in construction. i kicked ass. i had no friends. i bought an an old volkswagen microbus. chicks dig microbuses. i bought my first guitar. chicks dig guitars. for months, i drove into the desert at night and practiced my songs for coyotes and owls. i went to my first strip club. i wrote love songs.
when i was 19 i went back to montana. my mom told me to never play with ouija boards. my childhood friend returned but he was a prissy gay boy and called himself a model. i wondered what he was doing in montana. al cried and told me he loved me. i bought my first motorcycle and worked in yellowstone park. chicks dig motorbikes. i bought a 4-track recording machine. i wrote love songs.
when i was 20 i moved to LA to be a rock star. there was a huge fire in yellowstone park. i waited tables and worked in a furniture warehouse. i made friends. i read kerouac, henry miller and william s. burroughs. i wrote love songs.
when i was 21 i wrecked my motorcycle. i fractured my skull and wrist and lost five pints of blood when my carotid artery was sliced open. i died. sarah appeared as i rose above me. she took me back. doctors told my family i'd never be able to converse intelligibly again. chicks dig scars. i wrote love songs.
when i was 22 i knew i was chosen. i was wild and raging with mad laughter. i was reckless and invincible. i got my first tattoo on halloween. a dragon. chicks dig tattoos. i went to strip clubs when i was lonely. i wrote love songs.
when i was 23 i played my songs in coffee houses. i let eight people live in my studio apartment. some of them ended up hating me. some of them were briefly famous. some of them are dead. i dated the daughter of a famous actor. he put me on his TV show where i played a troublemaker. i wrote love songs and one about cockroaches. yeah.
when i was 24 i went back to phoenix. i tried to save my relationship with my dad. it didn't work. i started a band. i went to sound engineering school. i sold my truck to pay for rent. i read more kerouac, henry miller and william s. burroughs. lipstick traces and herman hesse. i moved in with a woman who was 12 years older. she had two boys, 9 and 7. i helped a fractured family love each other. i wrote an experimental book called "thrust." i wrote love songs.
when i was 25 i broke her heart and moved back to LA. the innocent coffee house artists were gone. i was a telemarketer. i drank. i did a lot of drugs. everything. simultaneously. i read charles bukowski and goethe. i was homeless one summer in hollywood. a friend named gabriel helped me get a job. he disappeared one day. i wrote love songs.
when i was 26 i was drunk or stoned all day. i called myself an artist. i hung out with timothy leary a few times. i painted a question mark on the back of my sharkskin dress jacket. i tore a sleeve off and re-attached it with safety pins. timothy liked the photo of bowie and burroughs on my lapel. i wrote love songs.
when i was 27 i got sober. i was fired on valentines day. i painted huge self portraits i gave away to friends. i turned "thrust" into a play. the main character, jack bosatus, had a girlfriend named mary and three corporeal voices in his head; bozo the frown, satan the clown and jesus schmesus. i moved to san francisco. i wrote love songs.
when i was 28 i painted a huge crucifixion scene in three canvasses. i worked at a book store. i read philosophy and philip k. dick. i played my music in coffee houses. i met a girl named maria and we moved in together. we took off to fresno to be with her friend michelle, who we watched die from leukemia. she was scared when she went from us. maria told me she did not love me any more the next day. i took a train back to san francisco. it kept saying my name. i took another train to tennessee to see my mom for the fiorst time in eight years. i woke in the middle of the night, in the middle of nebraska, screaming "STOP!" from a dream. my mom's new boyfriend was a drunk and a thief. i punched him in the mouth. i wrote love songs.
when i was 29 i was going to be a rock star again. i moved to phoenix to play my music with my half-brother. we kicked ass. i started writing dream journals. they predict the future. i was shot at by a robber but the gun just clicked and he ran. i was a bouncer and dated cocktail waitresses. i worked at kinko's and fucked female co-workers. this one girl had tits that i swear weighed 20 pounds. the band broke up after my half-brother and i got into a fight. i got thorny roses tattooed on my arms. i wrote love songs.
when i was 30 i drank again. i moved back to san francisco. i wrote "untitled book for the masses #1" on a 1929 royal typewriter in 40 days. i bought my second motorcycle. i met a young woman with a son who saw christ in me when she read "untitled." i married her. i got the chinese letter chen, hexagram 51 of the i ching, tattooed on my neck. i bought a computer and practiced graphic design. i stopped writing songs.
when i was 31 she asked me to take her from san francisco and her problems. i was a mad scientist with the eyebrows to prove it. i threatened to slice off the heads of everyone at the phone company. that turned out to be a felony. i moved her and her boy to phoenix. she was young and i was intolerant. i got her tattooed on my arm, the nickname of god in her shadow. i asked my mom why she blamed me for sarah's death. she did not remember. i stopped playing my guitar.
when i was 32 my wife lied. she did not know a thing i could do. there were days i wished i was dead. i got jeremiah 29, verse 11-14 tattooed on my chest. on sunday, october 31st, i opened my soul to god and was born again.
when i was 33 i was divorced. back in san francisco, i had a career as a web designer. an angel of god saved my life one very stormy day as i rode my motorbike on the bay bridge. i flew around the nation looking for love. i saw the chili peppers live for the first time. i got tattoos all over. women fell in love with me. i did not. i was lonely.
when i was 34 i made 80 thousand dollars. i gave 30 thousand away. i was an art director. i moved to houston for all the wrong reasons. she loved me. i loved her but wasn't in love. i was lonely.
when i was 35 i wept and gnashed and raged and hurt. i was a custom motorcycle designer and accessory manufacturer. i was a freelance web designer. i was often broke and lived in a dump for a while. i drank and vomited. i tried lost causes of my own creation. i saw the chili peppers live again and wept for the first ten minutes of the gig. i worked and prayed and worked and waited and worked and prayed and worked and waited and worked and waited and it seemed nothing good was happening...
when i was 36 i met her on halloween. it was love at first sight. indigo and i lit a building on fire by looking at it because we were in love. we had no matches. she has a daughter. i call her the punk kid. her mom was a student at the university of new orleans. she became pregnant. it was the happiest day of my life when we said "yes. lets...." the next day, our baby began to die. we hurt and she hurt. i moved to be with her in new orleans. i got her tattooed on my back across my shoulders. she is beautiful even though she has bad teeth we are going to fix some day. she has shown me what is important; my writing and the brightness of my soul. i dream to give her everything she needs from all the things i can do. i saw my mom for the first time in eight years, again. i was still angry.
when i was 37 we moved to honolulu, where a friend offered me a job in his tree nursery. i left my motorcycle in houston with a biker guy i knew. the friend with the job did not pay. my girl got a job dancing at a strip club. i got a job at the hostel where we had a room with her magick books and my typewriter. i began to write a lot. we moved back to new orleans in june of 2005. i could not find work. i played my guitar again abd wrote a beautiful song for her. we were poor. we did things because we had no other choice. then the hurricane. our roof blew off and our ceiling caved in. we rescued a cocker spaniel on our way out. we call him "kat" but he also answers to "poopy puppy." we ended up in austin. people were nice for a while to relieve their guilt. very few are still around us. my walking dream wanted me to write. she believes in me. i wrote a lot.
when i was 38 i was torn between the safety of a full-time job and being a poor writer. i was hired and fired three times. the world keeps making me a writer. my love had another miscarriage. i punched holes in walls. i wrote a lot about the phoenix suns. my love got a job as an assistant producer in san antonio working with my ex-girlfriend at her ad agency. we moved to san antonio. i was published for the first time in small literary magazines from new york city, el paso and raleigh. my love and i have been through so much together. i wrote a lot.
when i was 39 i was paid to be published in online and print magazines from san francisco, denver, and los angeles. my words were for sale at city lights bookstore. i was separated from my girls when my love took a job in baltimore and the company took it back when she was half way there, driving. she went back to her family in pennsylvania. i got my motorcycle back and stayed with a friend in houston while i looked for work in a motorcycle shop. i found no work and went back to austin where i tried to sell harley davidsons. my landlord had his house foreclosed. i called my dad in phoenix, town of my birth, for the first time in 15 years. he helped us. i left texas for phoenix and got work as a graphic designer. six months after we separated, my girls came to be with me. we put thousands into fixing my love's teeth. we lived with my father and we saved and rented a clean, bright little home. i did not write as much as i wished. i was thankful for the safe and relaxing time but didn't show it. i drank a lot.
when i was 40 my first book was published. it is called "shoot forth thunder." i worked as a graphic designer. i lived with the girls in our clean little home. we spent christmas together for the first time in three years. then she left me, taking her daughter and her dog. for months i cried every day. i was accused of sexual harassment at a new job. that made me angry. they asked me to resign after i stood in front of a dozen co-workers and called the boss an idiot and asshole. i worked as a freelance graphic designer. i was heartbroken about everything. i adopted my own cocker spaniel who was going to be put to sleep. he followed me everywhere. when i was sad, i'd hold him close and he'd rest his head on my chest. i enjoy his presence in my life. she told me she loved me and i stopped crying every day.
when i was 41 i was a bail bondsman, a bounty hunter, a freelance web and graphic designer, a doorman/bouncer, and a janitor. she wanted me back so i moved from phoenix to austin where i discovered my inheritace; a deficiency that clots my blood. thanks, dad. had a pulmonary embolism, a stroke, and heart surgery all within three weeks. my love brought me beer and home-cooked meals. i am numb in places on my right arm but i can do everything i've always done, like drink, write, ride, and fight. i beat up indigo's ex, laying him on the floor in the fetal position. he doesn't mouth off to me any more. my best friend from phoenix came to town with his bike and we were madmen for a few days. in july, i was run off the road on a freeway onramp and wrecked my motorbike. i'll never ride without gloves again. i've made great friends in austin and i've drank a lot of beer. i got angry often. i didn't pray enough.
when i was 42 i became editor of an online motorcycle magazine and started planning for world domination. the saints won the super bowl. i sobbed because i love new orleans and got really drunk every day for nine days. lombardi gras! then i gave up drinking for lent. i am much less angry when sober. i'm building a chopper with help from people i've met as editor. the punk kid is 15 and smokes pot and has sex and it freaks me out. i think i might be a hypocrite. i was too enthusiastic in trying to kill a fly on the window and sliced my right arm in half when i punched through the glass, severing tendons, nerves and muscle to the bone. now for a few months of physical therapy so i can operate my hand again. indigo has quit smoking and is ready to go back to school. we talk about moving back to new orleans. she loves me, inexplicably. i love her and am lucky to have her. i write and laugh and try every day to see her dreams come true. i work to succeed at what makes me happy.
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the short version:
Trent Reker was born on a train in the Arizona desert. He's been dead and has a cool scar across his neck to prove it. Waking miraculously from a 24-hour coma, doctors told his family he'd never be able to converse intelligibly. It's arguable they were right. Two months later he put together his first sentence, "Can I have pickles?"
Living in New Orleans when Katrina blew in, Trent walked the city four days with his little family praying, eventually hitchhiking back roads along the Mississippi. As they sobbed, he dragged them along toward inevitable rescue.
His first novel, "untitled book for the masses #1," is the story of a passionate man named Jack who is barely making a living off playing card tricks as he struggles to come to terms with his calling as a musician. He drinks and smokes and causes trouble, frustrated with his desire to be more and haunted by a vision gained during a near-death experience. What happens will change the world, but is it at the cost of Jack's sanity?
Trent’s work has appeared in:
Reactor Press (San Francisco, CA) published Trent's book of shorts "shoot forth thunder" - August, 2007
Swallow Magazine (San Francisco, CA) published "poor writer, beautiful stripper" - May, 2007
20 Dissidents (Raleigh, NC) published "beer bubble blowjobs for fun and respect," "beer bubble blowjobs for fun and disrespect," and "bebop blues in a busted stereo speaker" - March, 2007
Underground Voices (Los Angeles, CA) published "poor writer, beautiful stripper" - December, 2006
20 Dissidents (Raleigh, NC) published - "June through August 2005 in New Orleans" - August 2006
Atonal Apples (Long Island, NY) published "05.13.05" - June, 2006
Border Senses (El Paso, TX) published "this kind of summer" - May, 2006
Trent is the editor and art director for bikerMetric.
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