Party People.

In the parking lot of the department store where we have come to kill fifteen minutes my wife speaks to me.

"Dude, I think she shit."

Grace and elegance in a murder/suicide.

"Really?" I respond. With an experienced hand I move in to slip the diaper back a tad, have a look.

"Watch out or you'll get PoopFinger", she blurts.

Ahhh yes, PoopFinger. Not today, not here. I barely pull back the plastic ruffle with the very tips of my fingers. I'm edgy this morning...I have no idea why, a bad Zoloft maybe. Whatever. A dunk in the kid's swamp is not what I'm needing.

"Yep, there's shit! Holy shit! Dude, there is an exploded star in here!"

Things are put into motion without words. I spin backwards around Monica as she pushes towards Violet in her car seat. We ballet. I open the back door of the Honda, glide to the left like a windblown Fiver, and pause in refined observation of my partner in life as she lays the vinyl changing pad down on the bendy plastic Honda Filthy Pet tray as if she were fluffing out a picnic blanket onto a French hill.

Violet ganders at her Mama, then over at me. Her eyes shine with love.

I pirouette to the side of the vehicle and fetch the stroller, unfold it, and return in one buttery slide. Monica's arms are pure theater as they move so swiftly that she appears to be an Octopus.

Whats this!!!!???

From her swarm of activity there pops up a miniature white balloon: the diaper! I pluck it from its sky path and pull it to my chest.

Then just as quickly, I jump and twist my way back to the front of the store where the trashcan is. I Air Jordan the thing, and leave a little bit of my daughter/a little bit of me: outside the Kohl's in Sandy. Then I flutter back to our parking spot. Violet is all changed when I get there; she's playing with her toes in the stroller.

We go in the store together to not buy anything.

After a few minutes wasted we leave having not bought anything. My spirit is kicking at the Blue Wall.

We go to a birthday party. Even with all the poopy diaper ballet dancing poking around ghostly empty box store with no money...we are still the first ones at the party. We cannot be fashionably late. No matter how hard we want it. Even at a three year old's Birthday Party, we are first.

We move through the quiet house into the empty yard. We regard each other nervously, uneasily, with politely raised brows. We want to blame each other for this ridiculous early shit.

Then, the surroundings come in to focus. My spirit soars.

A massive trampoline stands epic in the sun; The Coliseum in the morning mist, before the Gladiators.

A plastic inflated palm tree leans against a railing taped up with electric blue shiny streamers that crackle and whisper when the slightest breeze passes by.

The grill stands alone. Uncovered. A rocket ship on launch day.

There is a dry yellow Slip'N'Slide lying on a steep bank like a dead giraffe.

The magical tang of anticipation wafts across this summer place. Beneath the majestic Wasatch gaze, I stand upon this backyard's hill and I look down across the sweeping spectacle of suburban rooftops, one after the other, as far as the squinting eye can see. I look down and across and I see the future and the radiant flashing glints of the distant electric colored streamers of so many summer days yet to happen. Ice cream days. Days of cake and pale ale. Days in which other parents, people I barely even know, will look at me with sympathetic eyes and chuckle at my Daddy jokes, hand me a cold can. I will accept that can, good sir. And all that it says.

What begins with a celebration of the mundane and slightly stinky in an empty parking lot can indeed end up a festival of sweet young life. Of the wonders of youth. But you need to let it happen, you see. This was a special day. For Violet. For Monica. For me. This was the first birthday party we were invited to, as a unit/as a squad. We are The Bielankos. And we have come to party in the new old way.

Now. Who else do we know with kids? And a trampoline?

Frequent Cryer.

I logged some big hours on my favorite river over the past few days. Caught a lot of trout. I caught a monster on Friday on a San Juan Worm on 5x tippet. Does that excite you?

We took Violet to her first Birthday Party. I ate a lot of jelly beans. I couldn't stop shoving them in my pie-hole. The weather has turned summer-y,finally. In other words, I haven't slowed down long enough to write anything new. I'll hit that this afternoon when Violet naps.

Right now, I have to go mow some lawns. So I wanted to put this out there. At the end of this week we're taking Violet on her first plane journeys. We're all really excited to be gettin' outta Dodge for a long weekend, but the plane ride thing has got me wondering. And so to those of you with some frequent cryer miles, maybe you can share the wisdom...

Do you take your own stroller/car seat? Does your diaper bag count as a carry-on? Do you board early or just wait until the last minute to avoid a fidgety kid? What sort of ID does a baby need? Is it acceptable for the dad to enter the airplane bathroom above Colorado and exit it just before landing in Detroit? What are is the over/under for me to score a Mile High Club point on this flight? How does a baby in your lap usually react when massive jet engines kick in all around her? Is a bottle or a binky better to keep little ears from popping? What else? Everything else!!

If you have any good tips on air travel with a baby, let me know here today.

Afternoon Applesauce Spaceship Blues.

I lean against the kitchen counter dipping hunks of chicken in hot sauce and watch my daughter from behind. She sleeps in her swing. Forward and backwards over and over, her little heart chambers and her living soul and her candy ears and her tired eyes: they move to the sound of the built-in babbling brook. I am ten feet away, just watching. I am madly in love.

Miles from us, Monica sits in front of some computer. People ask her stuff, I guess. And she must answer them. Phones ring/stop/ring again. Scanners crackle and squeal. People lost in the mountains, people backing up their SUVs over their toddlers, people driving into other people. Local news. She must look at the pictures I gave her for Mother's Day...of Violet. And she must wish she could be the one at home with her instead of working. She is madly in love and a little mad.

We have this plastic contraption that holds all the used diapers. Its a good invention. But when I open it there is no breathing. No inhaling and no exhaling. Even after only a day or so stuff gets ripe. I yank out the full trash bag with lungs on pause. Violet's eyes stare at me in fascination, mostly because she's looking at me standing there behind her head; she's almost looking at me upside down. Her gaze is hard as I wrestle with the bag, tie it up. I wonder if she smells anything? I hope she smells summer berries and seashore...but I don't know where that would be coming from, to be honest.

At that moment, Monica's PMS hits her in her cooter with China Town numb-chucks. She is talking to some co-workers, trying to get to the bottom of a breaking rumor and WHAM!...she gets Ninja'd in Sergeville. She must act normal though. She must eat the pain/snort the pain/party with the fucking pain. She must waltz with the devilish mood. She must tiptoe through the enemy rice paddy. The show must go on. She wishes, though,that she could touch her baby's nose right then.

I touch my baby's nose. With a Pooh hand. Not a poo-hand. A Pooh hand. Winnie the Pooh. I caress Violet's blushy cheek with Pooh's soft left fist and whisper "Hello MilkDud!" and "You Hungry Yet ButterBean?" We are getting ready to ride to the walk in the woods. The afternoon seems timeless. Who cares what time it is? What time IS it? I dunno/who cares. I grab a Diet Coke for the trip, some shitbags for the animals. Me and Violet are a couple of good timin' drinkers of summer's booze. Out into the sun we go.

Under the air-conditioning vent, Violet's Mama uses iced fingertips as she half-heartedly steers herself down Facebook Street. Nothing new. Someone yells something at someone else across the freezing newsroom. A reporter asks Monica something about a story. Monica answers and the reporters walks on and Monica turns to see her daughter staring at her from a Target frame, smiling. The day is long in these parts.

I scoop out applesauce with a green rubber spoon and get lazy and try and scoop out a whole clump at once but it ends up on Violet's fingertips and some is actually in one of her nostrils because she insists on getting involved. I dab with her bib. With a towel I have planted perfectly on the high chair tray, I dab some more. I use my pinky at her nostril but it's too fat. She giggles and snorts in a speck of applesauce. My imagination kicks in and I see Violet's adorable little brain floating through the vast dark outer space inside her noodle. Then I see the Apple Sauce Spaceship pull up like the River Bottom Nightmare Band; loud Sabbath roaring from the rolled-down windows; weed smoke climbing out alongside frightening alley cats in spikes and leather; alley cats carrying lasers. I see the apple sauce she snorted falling onto her brain and that makes me a little antsy. She keeps eating though and nothing happens so I guess I'm out of the woods there.

At her desk Monica types something and me and Violet watch her on the web cam that points at her. "There's Mama makin' that sweet hard cash, honey," I whisper in her ear. My daughter's eyes are fixed upon the screen. Probably the lit up glow. It dawns on me, for the tenth time this afternoon, that it must suck for Monica to have to work while I'm home with our baby. Hell, I know it sucks. She tells me.

We watch Mama living her life at that moment in a room across town. We watch from the couch. One of us is in the others lap. One of us is nibbling on cheese chunks. We watch as the picture refreshes itself every few seconds and in each new frame there is our Mama still sitting still in her rolling chair at that computer. Each new shot moves new people through the background but Monica barely moves at all. Busy bee stuck in the honey. I guess there's worse ways we could see her on the web cam.

Violet looks at me and I kiss her face for her Mama. But I still feel awkward and shitty. I oughta be planning for the future, right? Training to be an apprentice or burning the other candle end with classes at the community college or something. Monica says I should have some sort of five year plan.

And I do, kind of.

In five years I'm gonna be three hundred pounds wearing an Old Navy American Flag tshirt/tarp and have two more kids and ride around Wal-Mart on one of those motorized carts made for middle age behemoths with buckled knees.

So there's the goddamn plan right there.

Bielanko/Bielanko

Days of Thunder.

Most of my days are samey lately. Five hours of mowing lawns in the morning, drive home/pull in the driveway, say hello to my wife as she passes me in the door on her way to work. I plow through some Rold Golds and a Diet Coke with Violet in my lap. I gobble on her ear: she smiles and tries to ignore me. We watch some CNN. We speak of Iran, of lands far away. We watch the guy on CNN read things from Twitter. We turn off CNN.

Later I apply greasy baby sunscreen to my daughter's nose and cheeks as she lays on the changing table. She opens her mouth wide and smiley as if she wants to eat the lotion. I tell her that when she gets older she can eat all the lotion she wants. But not this afternoon; not yet. We put on long sleeves in case the sun wants to bite. And little pink or white socks. I rub her tiny feet, buzz one in my mouth. She smiles big and laughs without sound. Her out loud laughs are still only here and there. They are coming though and I am crazy for their arrival.

I slip on a three inch sneaker. Pink Bobos. Violet coos and gasps and pops her lips as I tie up the dirty white lace. Then I do the other one.

The dogs run around the house clicking their hard nails on the wood. They get excited when I dress Violet. They know we're all going.

In the Honda we drive past strip malls and Pizza Hut. We put jazz on the radio and we turn it up loud. We pass Mormon churches and Subway.I watch Violet's face in the little mirror wrapped around the headrest she faces in her seat. I make puffy cheek faces in case she can see me in her mirror like I see her in mine. We pass a monument to a sugar mill that never even got built. We pass the Red Lobster where my wife and I had dinner the night we got married. I mention this. I tell her to look at the giant mountains in front of us. I never shut up.

On our walk we watch the dogs run and jump and swim. We stand by a bend in the creek and watch cutthroat trout suck mayflies off the glassy water. I get so excited when another fish splashes at a bug that Violet gets a sly grin. We like the same things.

Butterflies swoop down to say hello. Silkworms drop from the treetops, land on my daughter's sun hat. Other dogs pass us by with a nod and a wink. Quail march across our path and wave at their good friend Violet. Hawks circle above us and scribble her name on the thermal twists. Airplanes blink their lights at her. The sun hands her a root beer barrel, every afternoon....without fail.

Back in the Honda the smell is marinated dog. The heat of the locked up car slips out the open windows as our movement creates new cool. Sweat from the climb from the canyon to the car just cakes on my arms like wet sugar. Violet and Max and Milo and me, we listen to a Horace Silver song. The music is pie filling in our Honda pie. We are hunks of fruit just smearing ourselves with lotion and watching fishes and waving at the clouds and the grasshoppers and the baby birds in the trees by the side of the road that we whiz by in a Tasmanian Devil blur of Doppler Effect trumpets and incessant crazy barking.

Happy Father's Day.

The Young Wolves.

I still see us filing down the hill toward the lot where we played baseball with a raquetball summer after summer. I hear an aluminum Louisville Slugger clanking steadily on the blistered blacktop as someone used it as a walking stick. I feel the flutter in my ribcage when I first spot the wall of the church. Hit it in the air, its a homer. We'd hit hundreds. Thousands through the years. Each towering shot just as glorious to watch soar and fall as the last. I swear to you on all my shoes: I have a couple of those blasts etched perfectly on the back of my eyeballs. You'd be sort of freaked to know how many times a week I check 'em out.

There was usually six or seven of us to play. An odd number meant a steady pitcher. But no one wanted to do that really since dingers were flying out of the park fast and furious. We had fun. We sweated and laughed. We all played real Little League, but none of us shined too bright. We celebrated our dirt lot wins like they mattered, like anyone in the world gave a shit. Losses stung bad. Even though we were starting a brand new game after we ran to the candy store for cooler-cold Tahitian Treats.

But we were local terrorists as well. We'd terrorize each other in horrific ways. Cruel cruel words. Fat ass. Buck Tooth faggot. Fat Lard. We fought. Violence was fairly common, expected at some point in the week. Uncommitted slaps to the face. Arm punches. Mostly one upset kid chasing down another faster kid who usually escaped by running off the field, into back streets, and as far as he needed to go until shit cooled off.

Oh the pounding of your heart when it all went down. I was there. I chased and got chased; I still can feel those first electric flits of big fury ricocheting around my chest. And those early tastes of hard cold fear like metal around my tongue. Rarely have I been as frightened ever since. There is pure darkness in running as fast as your chunky twelve year old legs can possibly go. In knowing that your pursuer truely wants to hurt you. And mostly in knowing that you deserve to be hit; the things you said were nasty and mean and hurt as much as punches hurt. You are a brat and a punk and a wise-ass, born fast in the last five minutes, like some weird annoying bug. Your life span should end in a swat.

Familiarity breeds contempt, right? You better believe it does. Try crossing Texas in a hot van with five musicos you've been with for weeks. Or try playing ball every single day of the summer with the same half-dozen kids who live in the first half-dozen houses next to yours. The love is still there. Though you'd never admit it, or even recognize it. But it has turned teensy. And your long hot days are redwood high. Stuff becomes invisble.

When you're a kid all your steaming overworked valves need releasing. Old air needs hissing. All the mad wicked fabulous things you will become are just confused baby wolf pups rolling around nipping at your guts. Your majestic rise to grace is long. Your road less traveled is super fucking out of the way.

Summer fades, the bat's pinging echo fades. The sweaty twilight walk back up the hill to your house, to our homes fades.

And then poof.

It's gone.

The Vacation Is There Is No Vacation.

In a few weeks we are boarding an airplane with a baby. So, we'll be THOSE people for an afternoon. The ones with the screaming infant...ruining everyone's little bullshit dream of Coach Is Now First Class!

Hmph. People get to thinking to themselves: well, maybe the flight will be pretty empty! I hope so! I'd love to have a whole row to myself so I can slip my shoes off and hang my socky sausage toes out just an inch or two in the aisle so that everyone going back to take a piss can notice them and notice me sleeping the afternoon away high in the sky; a seasoned air sleeper on my three and a half hour jaunt to my economical four hour layover in Detroit.

F them.

I wanna fill one of Violet's diapers with Nutella. I wanna wait 'til she explodes into a sack of wailing tears at twenty-nine thousand feet. I wanna stand up in my cramped row so the people tsk'ing in the rows around me notice that one of THEM has risen. And I wanna eat the 'shit' right out of my daughter's diaper in all of its gooey clumpish glory. I want Nutella on the tip of my nose for effect. I want a possible Air Marshall dry heave.

Then, I want someone with some goddamn authority around here to bring me a plastic Captain's Wings for my sweet little pumpkin nugget, pronto.

Christ.

Anyway. I can't relax. That's my summer vacation in a Coke cap. Four days back east. To pass Violet around to her various peeps. Maybe deep-fry a Butterball by the garage. I wanna bring my fly rod but I know some kid in Cargo will slowly slip it out of its metal tube/out of its protective pouch and snap it over his thigh-front; and then just ice-ily/methodically slip it back into where he got it. Punk.

I dream. I dream of two or three weeks of Europe the right way. Escargot in a clandestine dive: butter sauce under a single nude light bulb. Airy white wines at a picnic table in a beer garden of chattering locals. Rambling over afternoon moors under a rainbow in a spritz. Canals with swans. Cobblestone street strolling, holding the milksoft hand of the woman I love. Making a phone call to Monica every afternoon. (Psyche! She's with me in all my travel dreams.) Pizza with a knife and fork. Lunch meats for breakfast. Summer romance with an endless fat clump of Euros riding shotgun in my H&M man-purse. Sex in the morning before the museums.

Either way: not happening.

So where you headed this summer? Tell me. I can take it.

On Sunday I Drove Us Past The Devil's Place.

Sometimes you chuck a fat knotty stick and it lands in hell. Not often, but sometimes. There I was in Dog Canyon at the edge of the creek with Monica and Violet behind me. First stick I see I pick up and toss it without really thinking. Max and Milo are two stallions in a great western: leaping through creek water. Majestic splashes rise like ghosts in the wake of their perfect arcing figures. They follow the stick. The stick hits the fifteen foot high debris cage, rolls a little, and slips through the small opening designed to let high water trash and branches and shit to pass. The stick hits the hard fast water there and slips on through.

Max hits the same water and tries to stop but goes through.

Milo hits the water there and probably doesn't even try to stop. Little bastard goes through.

I hear Monica screaming. But a lot of the sound in the world around me is sucked away. I hear my wife screaming and some of the sound of the slashing creek as it slams head on into the iron grates of the tunnel entrance. Mostly though I go deaf.

I know Max and Milo can swim good and there is this mid level step where they've ended up instead of flushed right into the dark whale's open mouth. But in an instant of life I can see plainly that there isn't much to be optimistic about here. Both fellows are barking, they're scared. Max has managed to swim toward the hole in the grate, but he's now too far below it on that next tier down. Plus the white water ripping through it ain't about to let some fucking dog conquer it. Behind Max, Milo is paddling/treading with all of his giant heart just to keep from slipping back the two feet to the place the strong spring current wants to deliver him. I see the horror in his eyes. And Max's.

"Serrrrrrrge get them out!" Monica is blaring. The sound slips into my silence bubble. "Do something!" She's crying: I can tell. Violet is strapped to her chest and she too must be feeling the sizzling panic shooting up and down the bank all around us.

My mind wanders over to re-watch the evening news from two nights ago. I put my feet up like I like to do and sit back with some imaginary snacks and watch the story of the lady across town whose German Shepherd went splashing in his local creek. He got pummeled by the sneaky sly current. Just washed away. His owner didn't think twice, she went in with/after him. They found her a good mile or so downstream wandering around the street above the gushing water, soaked and shocked and sad. The dog is still gone.

It must occur to me that I need to shut off the damn TV in my head. It must occur to me that Violet's watching. All of my body's blood is chooglin' across my heart; I am feeling mighty stoned on currently unfolding events. I love my dogs so much.

The water is made of old snow so it has to be as cold as a tomb but I don't feel it. I think a moment about the fact that I need to try and do whatever I'm about to do without slipping through the hole myself. I don't need that type of Sunday afternoon bullshit: riding a black river through a dark vein under the city. I'm not dressed for that. We're supposed to have hot dogs and sauerkraut and watch THE WRESTLER later. Plus, I don't wanna die.

At the hole I lean hard against the grate as the water pounds past me. Somehow Max has drifted back, and Milo is now under my face. I catch Max's eye/he winks. What would happen if they were gone? Both of them, on the same walk? A comet would slam into our world, I know that much. A fiery comet with steel spikes and pepper spray and bad bad vibes forever. I threw the fucking dumb stick. I need to make this happen.

I speak to my God. I reach through the hole and past Milo's petrified gasps, and I grab a hold of his blue collar and his neck scruff and I clamp in with all the dig my hand's ever had. I tell myself that it might be a good thing that I found Milo staring at his collar on the floor at the house a few days ago. I made sure I tightened it when I slipped it back 'round his head.

In Milo's eyes I see anticipation and looking forward to Frisbee. Dogs are beautiful soldiers. They never think of death. The notion escapes them. That's why its so sad when they die. They had no clue that was ever an option. I drag him hard, all 75 Country Ham pounds of him, and I mumble pray "Please let that collar stay tight."

He comes to me. I throw him hard behind me and shove his ass away toward the bank so he knows I mean business. I love Milo, but I could see the little fucker sailing right back by me through the hole as I'm trying to coax Max over.

As it turns out, Max needs no coaxing. He fights the current with whatever energy he's been ware-housing and moves towards me, towards the hole. Max is my best friend in the world. In his face I see his frustration, his questioning my aim. When he nears me I lean in, slide my arm under his long torso and just grab and pull and heave at everything, with everything I'm made of. He budges. Then he slides upward, through the rough boil of cold mountain tumult; first his head, then his shoulders as he grabs for me, and then he is there, in my arms...outside of the hole.

I throw him somehow. To the bank.

I wade backwards away from the gate. I turn my back on this vicious place. Monica is crying, sobbing. Milo is leaping around as if nothing different happened here. We all walk slowly past the five or six people who stood and watched. No one says anything.

I run my fingers through my hair/through my new haircut. I look like a fat Harry Connick Jr. Tomorrow morning AT&T will shut my phone off because we're a little behind with stuff this month. But whatever. Today I can walk around in minor shock and enjoy myself and my wife and kid. My dogs. My hot dogs.

And mark my words: whenever they tell this tale centuries from now no one's gonna care who threw the stupid stick in the hole.

Boxcar Dust.

If you don't particularly love babies or hearing about one then I could see where the whole Thunder Pie thing could get old fast. But, honestly I can't help it. Everything I once was or knew or pretended to know got dropped into a puddle of baby drool. When I picked it all back up: it wouldn't wipe off.

Not that I want it to. But all the rock/roll stories, all my real serious portrayals of down and out and blue, all the tales I planned to tell one day before it gets too late...they all got slipped under the bed with the dust for awhile. You get the kid into the house or the apartment for the first time and like a preacher high on good sermon, you stand at the door and shake hands/say goodbye to Mr and Mrs FreeTime, The Widow SexLife, dear old Mrs WildFridays, and the good CountryDoctor with the deep pockets of herbs and brandy. (I just have been needing to say Country Doctor, that's what that last one is all about. I've been watching FROM LARK RISE TO CANDLEFORD on PBS). A moment of small talk, a hunk of squid handshake, and they're out the damn door with a bewildered puzzle on their sheltered faces. All they known is me, so now they're just as lost...staggering into telephone poles and wandering out into traffic.

Me? I miss them. And they weren't anything great to begin with. If you know me that's probably what you're saying to yourself just now. Damn, Serge: don't flatter yourself. It'd been a long time since anyone's seen you swinging from the Tiffany lamp down at the saloon! And you weren't exactly running out of moves in the bedroom when the wife showed up with one in the oven, eh? The truth is, Serge, if it weren't for the kiddo you very well might have found yourself in the parking lot of some Sheraton some rainy Sunday morning, staring at the marquee through the drizzle rolling down the windshield. ROCKY MOUNTAIN BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA CONVENTION AND SYMPOSIUM. You were not doing all that much, man. Seriously.

I know, I know. And thanks for the stingy reminder.I know all that. But the thing is: whenever something changes so much you try and change with it, out of the need for adaptive survival skills, right? Right. The last few years I have changed or been forced to change a lot. Loss of home/new home. Loss of friends/new friends/no friends. Loss of passion/YouPorn. Loss of Rockness/there is no new Rockness. Well maybe I could put Loss of Rockness/weekly paycheck! My point is this. I sort of suddenly have a precious baby girl who I want to raise to know my guts and my heart and my mind for what it is...or has been for a very very long time. A life influenced by music and mountains and books and cities and beers with people I onced loved and conversations in the corner of a smoky backstage room around a campfire of picked-over lunch meats and flung-about celery sticks.

If I adapt too much, get towed too far by the Tide of Super Change...I will be a different man. Violet will hear a different voice. My stories might get told differently than they should. If a hobo has a baby...that baby needs to be part Hobo. It might not be all cupcakes and lambs all the goddamn time, but it needs to happen.

Here, stick some of this boxcar dust up yer midget nose. Smell my life darling.

I need to tell you that you come from me and all my horrific misfortune and all my lucky pennies and I wouldn't want you to ever forget that I loved you more than the sun loves the sky if I ever wasn't here to tell ya' that, my sweet little peanut butter cup.

The Ballad of Rambling Hazel Eyeball.

I've seen some things.

One sweltering New England afternoon I emerged from crawling through a tunnel of thick vines and mosquitoes and pricker bushes to find what I'd been scratching around for since I'd dabbled in community college free thinking civil disobedience, or weed. Walden Pond. Just shimmering all flat out there in the summer sun like a freshly shot star. It was awesome but would've been more awesome with a Slurpee.

Another time I stood outside the house of Mr. Jerry Lee Lewis in Mississippi and read the graffiti on his low wall. Things like "Jerry Lee is The Devil" and "The Killer Kissed My Grits, Tuscaloosa '66". That wall at Graceland is a child's puffy book by comparison. Jerry Lee never came out to say hey but his dogs were scampering all over. Little pom-pom type dogs. Strange but right.

I've seen flipped cars on highways, lonesome bodies laid out in the tall grass. I've seen bald eagles on power lines. Once in a Lawrence pizza joint I watched for an hour as so many clusters of radiant Kansas women with Norwegian features filed into the place in threes and fours that it seemed comically unsettling, like an SNL skit. Deer doing it: I've seen 'em. Chuck Berry mid-song surrounded by a throng of drunken fans he invited up on stage and he yells out "White Pussy!". I've seen it. Don't believe me, it's cool. I know what I saw.

I've seen small steam rise up through golden leaves from a shot squirrel's slit belly. It did appear that I watched a soul ascending. I've seen grown men fight with the belts they pulled out of their filthy pants; fresh scarlet welts outside the Ladbrokes; half-drunk cans of lager waiting for their masters over against the wall. I've seen gorgeous women slip off their tops under werewolf moonlight. I've seen the inside of apartments I knew I'd never see again. I've seen many coffee cups just once.

Leonardo DiCaprio emerging from a Prius in Midtown Manhattan: I've seen it. A Pennsylvania country sky swarmed with meteors: I've seen it. The box Emily Dickinson hid her poems from the whole world in...seen it. The bloody pillow from under Lincoln's mortally-wounded head...seen it. Long lines of women all calling out to me/TO ME! one crisp autumn Euro afternoon: I've seen it (prostitutes, Hamburg Street/St. Pauli). A rainbow from a freezing morning ferry deck...above the Cliffs of Dover...I've seen it. A loved one's mugshot, an eight pound largemouth slamming a buzzbait, my dog walking into the Manhattan skyline...I've seen it.

It's all been so wonderful. So insane. Our eyes get so used to all of that other stuff, regular everyday stuff. So its even more sweet/bittersweet when the pattern is broken up by some awful or fabulous or strange sight. Even if we only realize it all in retrospect. I think so anyways.

But listen up. I have never seen anything as powerful or crazy as watching my five month old daughter, Violet, nibbling on her own toes or squinting and grunting as she poops. How did this happen? I keep asking myself that. I used to think the things I'd seen were badass things to be seeing. My eyes held secrets I was proud of; a pair of used silver pistols. But they hadn't really even begun to see all that much.

This week I'm seeing a coconut-sized head with MY face on it turn to me on the couch and grin when I blurt out goofy sounds.

And oh-the-happy-face-that-shines when I put her up on my knees while I lean back on the couch and sing...

" Violet's on top of Daddy Mountain
Violet's on top of Daddy Hill
Violet's on top of Daddy Mountain
Whatever Violet wants to get.....she will!"

......a dumb made-up song that makes no sense yet perfect sense.

My daughter looks down at me and those lips begin to rise and those cheeks rustle and then it's on. Her smile rushes into the room and down all over me like a tasty mudslide and I just cannot fucking believe how good all this seeing is getting.

It would take a damn good Virgin Mary in robin droppings on the hood of the Honda to even come close.

Once Around The Block.

We've had so many thunderstorms lately that they've totally lost their romantic summery vibe. Instead they have become these sickly shitting elephants that storm around all drunk on their own fat juice, ruining otherwise perfectly good afternoons for what? For to piss me off, that's what. So yesterday when the sun appeared in the sky after hours of ominous thunderstorm darkness, I grabbed Violet/strapped her to my chest/leashed the dogs and we all went out in the world.

Flower petals dripped. The roads were streaked with silvery wet. Tree barks were grown darker. Max and Milo aimed at puddles and plopped through them. I navigated some alleys, took us past a flock of rose bushes in explosive bloom. Yellows, pinks, whites. I let Violet stick her teeny fingers into a wet red one. She tried to eat the fallen rain, of course.

We walked the walk we walk when we have to. When the rain is too much to go down to Dog Canyon and we have to just stroll around our 'hood instead. Birds had begun to sing again. I told her to listen to their warbles. I can't tell yet whether she really notices bird songs or not. As we passed a stoplight at a busy intersection I noticed a young dude in his Volvo leaning toward his passenger seat so he could view us better, us After Rain People. At first it creeped me out a bit/getting gawked at on our walk. Then it occurred to me that here I am, a grizzly looking bearded paint-splattered pants-wearin' fellow in a camo bandanna lugging around a precious pale bambino in a pink pajamas. AND I have two big black dogs bobbing and weaving out in front of me...both of them hooked up to bright red leashes that they tangle in constantly.

And we're the only ones walking down the street at the tail end of rush hour. So, ok, I could understand this guy and a couple other people staring at us. Smiling. A baby makes people happy. Going home makes people happy. Two dogs with lapping tongues makes people happy. So what if camo bandanna guys by the curb makes people see if they have any extra change in the cupholder. I"M WITH THEM, DICKWEED! THEY'RE STRAPPED TO ME!!! Jeezus.

Twenty minutes later as our Motley Wagon Train pulls up on the house, I notice Monica sitting in the car in the driveway. She is staring at us and even from half a block away I can see she's smiling big.

I puff out my chest and lift Violet high. I yank the leashes to give shock the dogs into cool submission. My wife gets out and starts coming at us.

"I went to tan on my lunch and stopped in here and got freaked out because the stroller is still here, your car is here...", she says as she kisses Violet and stuff.

"We needed to get outside after all the rain," I answer.

"You guys are so cute coming down the street...(looks at Violet) You love that Papa huh?? You love walking with that Papa! (looks at me) She is smiling huge right now."

"You look like George Hamilton," I say. Just for the fuck of it. I am ignored.

"I gotta go....gimme a kiss." She leans in and kisses me. The world stops. That doesn't happen much/ever. I spin kinda. I got kissed. Me. By Monica. On the lips, yo. She seems so casual about it too. What the fuck?

She leaves back to work. We all head in the house. Me, licking my lips. I have been admired on the streets this evening. And kissed on the mouth. I tell Violet we need to be seen in public more. Together.

She cries for her food. I go to get it, no questions asked.

Trout and Root.

Yesterday around ten in the morning. In my right hand I am gripping my fly rod which happens to have a thirteen inch brown trout attached to it out there in the river. With my left hand I am gripping a complex assortment of submerged tree roots beneath the surface of the very cold river. My whole left side is in the water, but I am trying to be casual about it in case any other fisherman have wandered into view. Plus, to be honest, I fall in to the rivers I fish on a fairly regular basis...so this whole scenario is typical for me. Routine. Standard. At least I'm playing a scrappy brown in the midst of all this self-preservation, I tell myself. Ugh.

As the rough spring water rushes into my waders and up my sweatshirt sleeve my thoughts turn to where they always seem to these days. To Violet, my baby. I imagine what it would be like for her to grow up not ever knowing the daddy who loved her so much. Would Monica do a good job at making certain that her daughter knew her Papa was wild about her, that his spirit was everywhere she went...trying to get her little advantages in the world: incorrect change with a couple extra bucks/straight to voice mail for guys trying to call her cell.

My ear touches the river and this is a deep drag of menthol for my skull. The chill is pure wickedness. For a moment I envision a demise that uncomfortable. Fuck that. I lift that watery side of my face a little to make sure this root jumble isn't some goddamn tumbleweed tumbling it's way toward the Pacific. I have never been in the Pacific and this isn't the way that I wanna make that happen. I deserve lotion, a belly full of fresh seafood, an Eastern Euro Speedo to make California quake. Not my pale'd mushy skin'd body all covered in Gore-Tex sliding out into the great Western Sea some spectacular evening months from now, as the sun sinks low on the horizon. Here is a sea lion. Here is a whale. Here is a pickled trout fisherman from deep inland still holding a rod that he has been walking a small fish on for weeks now. Here is a Great White refusing the Sad Soft Giant Sardine that just drifted by him pathetically.

Or will Monica help Violet to grow up loving whatever other man becomes her Dad? If I just slide away here forever, I can't honestly expect my widow not to ever love again. Although I deserve that too. Her body should never be touched again. A Memorial to The Great Love. But, whatever. She'd likely meet some Bradley Cooper fuckface. With money. And a sweet man ass. God, I would throw lightning from on high. Ok, though...to be fair Violet needs a Daddy and if I'm off to the sea it ain't gonna be me.

Now I am sickened by myself. I taste my own bile.

There is NO WAY IN HELL that I am going to succumb to the raging waters. To drift away from the peanut waiting for me in her Jungle Jumper at home. I speak in echos to the Thor who lives in the deep forest in my gut. I wake his sleepy ass. He hollers to me what to do.

Show time.

With my rod hand I set the hook deeper into the fish's steely jaw. I lift hard. He pulls. My side begins to rise.

I'm coming Violet! Daddy's coming home!

With my root hand I push with steam engine rage. The rushing sound of the water fades to silence. The sound of the dive-bombing swallows fades to silence. My desperate grunts fade to silence. There is only my body, a tangle of roots, and a magical trout. I push and begin to move.

At home...in our bed...Bradley Cooper is run through with a spear inside her dreams.

River explodes around me. Mountains rumble. Lush trees twist in an electric wind. Like a furious hound of hell my trout is so incensed by my stinging hook that he pulls me up as I shove off of the roots and find my feet once again.

The cold now hits me, a frozen sledgehammer dipped in ass-kicking pain. But I am alive!

What Stone Age strength, what Super Powers emerged from the mere vision of my Violet on the screen up in my head. I am so buzzed on survival. I now know the feeling of God-Like. The river swirls strong around my legs but it cannot tilt me again. What was only seconds seemed like hours, like days.

I compose myself. Reel in the magic trout, thank him. Pet his head. Release him back to his life. To his Violet.

Soaking wet and cold, I think I should probably get back to the car and the heater. But, I fish on. I justify staying.I have been waiting all week to fish. Violet will have her Daddy back. I fall in the fucking river often. And because whenever I do, it isn't really ever as bad or as exciting or adventurous as it seems. But, whatever.

Sky Walker.

Snake.

A few days ago Violet is strapped to my chest under a fiery western sun. Its high afternoon and we are on the upper rim trail at Dog Canyon following behind Max and Milo. I sing a little to Violet as we roll. COMIN' ROUND THE MOUNTAIN (all six verses with a first verse reprieve) into the first few lines of SCENES FROM AN ITALIAN RESTAURANT.

"A bottle of red (I squeeze her finger)....a bottle of white (i.s.h.f.)...any kinda mood you're innnnnnnnn to-night(I get a finger squeeze back!)"

Other song fragments blow through our hike like windy trash. MONEY TALKS (AC/DC). SHOTGUN WILLIE (Willie Nelson). A little RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER because it is now forever ingrained in my conscious.

So through the woods we go, care-free and whimsical; shall we take the trail by the creek or shall we throw a stone at a tree? What we do is our business, thank you very much. We are settlers of the west awash in summertime liberties. Milo eats some sage brush and gags. The west can be cruel.

We slip down by an old gorgeous aqueduct and I read Violet the historical marker that stands beside it. She makes spittle with her lips to show her massive boredom. Under the canopy of cottonwoods Max chases some yesterday scent. A squirrel or a quail maybe. Nothing comes of it. The dogs run ahead toward a small crick for a drink as the kid and me are singing some GUESS WHO (NO SUGAR TONIGHT); we start down a short hill and snake!

Snake. Big one. Three feet. Four? My heart considers yesteryear's light cocaine abuse, 80,000 cigs, the mozzarella sticks of my long drawn out adolescence. My heart has every right to M80 itself right now. A decent firecracker popping off in a plum. But she doesn't somehow and thank God 'cause I'm not the type who's gonna have a coronary and still be able to eek out one last hero's crawl up a mountainside so someone can rescue my baby. I go down, she goes down. I'm certain of that much.

So, snake. Bastard is long and right now very very still. Parked smack dab in the middle of the trail. I look around for another hiker so I can be all mountain man and tell 'em there's a snake here.

"Woman, there's a snake here. A got-damn'd diamondback as long as this musket. Poison drippin' off it's fangs like a melted stalagtite. Stay the hell back, woman...I'm gonna pick it up."

There's no one around though. And there's no rattle on the snake. Still, I'm jazzed on outdoorsy adventure. I decide I should use this opportunity to practice with my wise dogs. How would we fare if she was a big mean rattler?

Somehow, the dogs have already passed the snake without any of the three beasts seeming too interested or bothered. I let that little nugget pass me by.

I call carefully for Milo. He begins to come my way. Good boy, Milo...over here: i use my arm to veer him away from the snake. Max joins Milo out of curiosity. They are now Ponch and Jon in super danger. Milo's tongue hangs low and wet; his face is happy goofball. I steer him from afar with my voice and my arms. My dogs are crafty, I tell myself.

Milo comes on like a high school linebacker closing in on a half-keg in the woods. He steps directly on the snake's face.

Max does it too.

I am, of course, devastated. But also, I feel ill. And frightened. And I'm pondering deeply why the snake hasn't bothered to bite or hiss or even move at all. Still on the trail, still unmoved. My experiment having failed miserably, I shoo the dogs away, check to see that Violet could care less, and spin us all around.

Maybe the friggin' thing is dead, I think.

We go around and come back a different way five minutes later. The six foot long coral snake of death is gone.

What kind of a serpent lets good-timin' dogs trot all over his face?

My kind, buddy. The good kind.

Sweet Potato Closet Pie.

As I dip the pink plastic-coated baby spoon into the liquidish sweet potatoes, scoop up the last little bit, and help Violet spread them around her face...I am both nostalgic and sad. Gone are the days forever when Violet's little body was nourished solely on formula that we/her parents mixed for her. Healthy stuff we shook up with our own clenched fists.

This afternoon, with my daughter actually sitting in a highchair, I help smear the last of the containers contents up and down her mug; starting at her lips and then icing her tiny chin and her cheeks. A cherry for her sundae nose! A sweet potato earring! This is cutesy television commercial shit, a dad and daughter giggling through a messy little lunch. Except the daughter here is really my own...not a mini-actress racking up first credits toward her Screen Actor's Guild card. And me: I have no idea how to act the part required. I stare at times, fascinated. Then in a moment, I am saying things like:

"Sweeeeeeeeeeeet Potatooooooooooo! Sweeeeeeet Potatooooooo Piiiiiiie!"

Or:

"Here it comes, here's comes Daddy with the spoon, and ....No,honey...don't use your fingers! Ugh. Shit. SHIT!"

A couple seconds of sober clarity get squashed up hard against a long half-minute of sloshed-on-beauty. I see things for what they are: Violet is eating some so-called 'solid' food. I see things for what they aren't necessarily: Violet is slowly sipping this mesmerizing new taste from a dribbled creek on the side of my finger and the experience is being etched into the first pages of The Book Of Her Life with enough Forever Ink to ensure that she will always recall this first real meal with me. And a life of culinary wonders will entail. She could end up a famous chef. Maybe she ends up the next host of BIZARRE FOODS, who knows?

I try hard to keep perspective, but the truth is: for many hours a day it's me and an infant. No one else is chiming in. No one else is even walking past the goddamn house all afternoon. We're way way out there on an island, two specks on the sand to any search planes. So, perspective and all it's practical rewards are rare. Fucking-A rare. I speak to the sun in the sky. I need a dodgeball with a face on it.

And so I guess that's why when I'm making coffee this morning, I notice the cleaned-out sweet potato baby food container laid out atop the dishes I washed last night. Oh my/it's true.

Violet, once when you finished the first solid foods Papa ever fed you, he saved the food packaging. Put it in that giant Tupperware Museum he made for you. The one in the closet with your name block letter'd in purple magic marker. There's a lot of stuff like that in there, sweetie.

Do you wanna see it?

No? You're going to 'the library'? Oh, ok.

That's cool, that's cool.

Someday you might.

Wanna see it, I mean.

Laughing At The Battlefield.

Saturday evening we had thunder but then just spits of rain. Monica was helping me unroll sod in our yard which was nice and different since we rarely do any home projects together. Unless you consider gallons of red wine and four seasons of WEEDS a project. I don't. And the fact that we had gone to our very first marriage counseling session that morning sort of swirled a bit of hopefulness into the 7 o'clock atmosphere. Violet was over in her car seat, on the bricks. The dogs were rubbing their bodies in the cool new grass. Up til then the yard has been dust and stubby clumps of weeds.

The therapy thing had gone well if you're waiting to hear about that. We liked the lady enough. She wasn't old or uppity; she didn't seem to mind cursing. That's a huge one for The Bielanko clan: we're big swearers. After the thing was over and we were driving back down the mountain, Monica and I talked a little about it, but not really a lot. Inside, I believe we were both excited about the prospects. On the surface though, well, we aren't able to be that forthright yet. To get all giddy about an expensive counseling session would be very foreign to us. We're way too ghetto. We agreed to try to keep it going if we can swing the cost.

So, that evening out in the yard we unravel soft green . The whole idea is to have a place where we can watch Violet take her first steps some day in the not so distant future. A little place where she won't trip over a wad of dog crap and land on an old arrowhead. And maybe a place where we can all cook some pork chops and corn on the grill. Relax some.

At one point during our labors our daughter is grinning at her Mama's silly antics and just bursts into full-on laughter. High giggles and deeper amused gasps stop me across the yard. Violet is laughing out loud for the first time in her young life. True obvious laughter. I head over there and now we both tickle her feet with our manure'd fingertips. There's no time to wash...gotta keep this sensational chuckle alive. For awhile we do and it's one of the coolest moments of my life. Then Violet tires of the whole scene. Still. I hope it is the first in about a hundred years of constant laughter for her. I'd drain all my blood into a washtub this sec if I knew it would promise her that.

We finish up the yard. I go get some burritos. Then, the long day done, we watch some DEXTER and drink some wine: satisfied enough with our real Saturday projects to enjoy a spin on the couch for what it is. Tomorrow morning we will wake up and have another damn fight about whose getting up in the night to change and feed and whose working full-time and whose a c@#t and who isn't.

The whole new grass/new us/new dawning metaphor crossed my mind here. But we're not that graceful, me and her. We need the counseling AND the baby laughing. The wine on Saturday night AND the early rising on Sunday morning. We'll find our way, I figure.

At least we got a yard now, you know...in case it just all comes down to a flat-out wrestling match.