Delta Punx: Installment I: Digital Cowgirl and the Shamrock Cafe

The sign says-

“Sorry, we’re CLOSED”,


which means, "We're OPEN" in this part of the universe.

We generally don’t move things in these parts. Call it PTSD.


Once they’ve been put down, they pretty much stay put. And we definitely don’t do any sort of advertising. So you can keep your Penny Savers and Midweek Value Shopper agents off my doorstep and outta’ my mailbox, K?

Here's another notion of interest you should know about the Shamrock Café and Boat House.


The redwood log dock ties laced with nautical rope look oddly enough in-place splayed out across this arid high-desert earth. Still attached to the 40 foot dock, scuffed from years of brawny logger's boots and skiffy deck shoes, are refurnished remnants of; a resting cabin cruiser, two cape islanders and four tugboats. All are "parked" out front without a drop of live water nearby. That's right- this here fine establishment used ta’ sit on the South Shore of the great Puget Sound, at the nook of Percival Landing in the North Western heart of Downtown Olympia.That is, before The Incident took place, it did. And so did I.

That’s just part of the problem with being a Superhero. Wait, let me take that back. That’s just part of the problem with being a known Super Hero…the general Super Villain tends to make it their job to screw with you. And if they can’t screw with your person directly, they’ll screw with all the shit you depend on, right down to the building you're standing in.

Anywho, you'd probably like to know about the night in question.


I’d been told that the Digital Cowgirl was the only way I’d find a trace of an answer to La Ti Da's identity. The Circus Obscura Collective had hired me on a short term contract with the understanding that if I could acquire a solid lead on the girl's identity I'd be branded and promoted to initiate status, allowing me entrance into the collective. And this is what I needed. Being a lone-wolf for the past 32 years had taken it's toll. I needed community.


So, I was out hustling information over hill and dale trying to get to DigiGirl 'cause rumor had it she held solitary access to the largest Superperson database and archive in North America. Little did I know that acquiring this information would come at such a huge cost to my freedom and her's, at least as we'd known it. But life’s weird that way. Even for Superbeing's, sometimes you have to lose something to gain something.


She was who I had to find and the irony of having to find the finder was not lost on me. No one could give me the straight dish on who and where she was, exactly. She'd maintained an elusively cloaked online existence minus the white-hat leeks she initiated. Luckily, like all good gossip there in lies snippet's of truth and from that I'd gold-panned a couple morsels; she loved fabric and the water and she was a notorious cameleon both online and in real-time. So I tossed caution to the wind and headed out towards the Pacific North West.

Digital Cowgirl's back story goes like this. D.C.was the daughter of a major direct marketing mail baron. He could get anything on anyone and wanted it that way, permanently. He started investing in nanotechnology before most citizens even knew what a modem was let alone microbial tracking devices. 

Here’s an example, by simply slipping a toothpick sized piece of nanofilm into each Direct Marketing catalog he could track every code that entered into a person’s house from the time of mail delivery to garbage removal; from UPC to VIN numbers and from accounts on checks to partial accounts series on bills.

You would be surprised how often people leave those annoying mailers laying around on their front porch or stack bills one on top of another inside their entryway and on the dash board of their friendly suburban sedan.

Now mind you, this experimentation the baron was doing was completely illegal and went undetected for years (except of course from select members of the Federal Reserve) making advertising a multi- trillion dollar industry for the Direct Marketing family of the Digital Cowgirl.

All this was unbeknownst to dear DigiGirl though. She thought her papsi's was just an unseemly advertising exec. Little did she know he was also the elusive and powerful Super Villain “Data Miner”, who had come into power deep in the heart of the 1950’s as advertising began to take shape under the burgeoning gaze of psychology.

As a member of the bra burning women’s right’s movement Demetra Matrilianos, as Digital Cowgirl was formerly known, wanted only revenge on her father for his sinister ways and she knew the only way she could do it was to turn on, tune in and drop off the face of the known universe-with very rare exceptions. Along the way she thought she might do an honorable service for the rest of us Super Hero’s since she needed a place to hide from her crazy papsi, and so did we.

And me? Well, I’m Brevity. And now, I run the Shamrock Café. Partly  ‘cause I can’t go anywhere else but mostly ‘cause all of us Super Hero’s need it. Without the ability to grab a good meal, talk to some of your own kind and blow off some serious steam going Chaotic Neutral for a while we’d have a universe full of a whole lot more Super Villains. 

 So stop by some time if you know how to get here. Were at 6-52755.

It's complicated.

It's complicated.

Man and woman wrapped in life,
wrapped in life's most infinitesimal details.

Surrounded by the bells and whistles,
the old structures
and those in the etheric.
Those unseen
heavenly and ancient
forces far beyond the simplicity of government rule and law.

Feel their hearts pulse together in rhythm.
Feel them sync up as one.
Long.
Slow.
Soft.
In-love,
for the moment.

Then,
in the moment next to that moment
love's cadence begins to clash.

Suddenly electrical and brash,
Two heart's lustful designs undulate
and syncopate.
Mismatched patterns of chaos.
Rebuke.
Revoke.
Resist.
And just as easily reincarnate.

One angry
then two mad.
Both rabid towards
the other.

Wholly un-together,
sliding past each other,
wooden floors on tilt.
Splinters graze their bellies.

Her blouse pulled over head,
flesh devouring floor.
His knees knock about bruising and scrapping
leaving assorted repairable damage.

Until finally,
the reverberation catches itself
somewhere
between chaos and harmony.

Grace enters the space and

Slandered love makes an about face.

The room stops it's ramshackle destruction and hearts pulse
again through the clutter.

A clambering.
A racket.
A sweet kiss.

It's complicated.

How I Learned about Vice.

No doubt that horses and vice have been interconnected for thousands of years.

Twitch a gelding’s lip with a chain looped steel rod when your 7 years old and you realize real quick that there might not be such a fine line between violence, force and control. 4”2 and a twist of the arm-between he and you- suddenly an asymmetry exists that isn’t mimicked in the rest of society.

Small overpowers large.

Weak controls strong.

Female subdues male.

Walk down the centerline of a double-barreled barn at dusk, with horses stabled to your left and to your right, the concrete and stone still damp from the mornings mucking and pieces of sawdust floating through the air, momentarily captured in the spotlight cast by the setting sun breeching through tiny cracks in the stall doors and listen.

STAMP.

STAMP.

KICK.

STAMP.

STAMP.

KICK.

Like a dragon in a cave you’ve heard the echo of the stud down the corridors all day and for hours have wondered what he looks like. Your imagination has begun to get the best of you at 9. Fire breathing and cloven hoofed this fear, this unknown, excites you.

Approaching his stall, making sure no one spies you falling prey to the temptation of his ferocity and beauty. Lying at the furthest edge of the barn with a buffer of empty stalls placed around him, a veiled protection for the mare’s nearby who send him into an untamable rage with even their slightest tail swish.

Feigning innocence as you near him. Moving in towards the door as you approach. Tension builds as the hoof slamming pauses and you rise up slowly onto the tippy toe’s of your stained red stripped Sperry’s to see in, holding your breath as though you were underwater.

His nostrils pulse. Opening and closing rhythmically. He takes you in with the wild whites of his eyes and curls his lip into the Flehman Response. With his arching crest stretched high into the air as though he was blind and searching he begins to pitch about the stall snorting and clopping his hooves onto the revealed mat below As if to greet you he smacks the door sending a vibration of energy through your fingertips deep into your bones.

Later that night as your dad drives you home in his 1984 Thunderbird you stretch your hand out the window against the force of the air listening to the gears move from 3^rd to 4^th to 5^th and notice that the vibration of the stud still purrs with power in your bones.

Remnants.

The ache is long and deep.

A gift from the ancients.

Rattle the gourd.

Light a candle.

Go inside.

Photograph of your Mother by the edge of the pool. 1955. Her notation on the reverse. You always loved the way she wrote her capital B’s. You run your finger along the scalloped edge of the photo, in awe of her.

You’ve never seen such blue water. And such a perfectly fitting white bathing suit. Never seen her this pretty and happy in the same place at the same time in real time.

Curse of the ancients.

The person in the picture is fictional.

Even though she stands right in front of you.

Find parts of her in the mirror. Patchwork of color, pattern, texture and fabric.

Deep set eyes.

Tiny perfect ankles.

Bitten down nails.

The story of your life put together from items thrifted and placed a particular distance from each other. Place her a particular distance from you. Fictionalize the parts she never shared. Make them more vivid than she ever did. Use the remnant leftovers from the past to color her story, creating your story.

The ache is long and deep. A gift from the ancients. Rattle the gourd. Thank them.