Tuesday, February 15, 2011

the inside of the outside - kiler davenport (to be continued)

little aborted fetuses laying in my morgue in dolls clothes, in little red ski hats, like little shriveled prunes, eyes squinched, mama says don't they look so precious. i'm thinking to myself 'we should just throw them away'. that is what we do with most fetuses. mama wants a proper burial. so we give it to her. fetus after fetus after fetus. like little alien beings from another planet. i held them in the palm of my hand. and i said God where are you. standing among stinking rotting decomp, swollen, oozing bodies of all race and age. the smell on my clothes forever embedded. just can't seem to get that stink off.

call after call after call. sometimes you think you are in hell. life is hell. but you just gotta keep on keepin' on. it's in your blood. the guts. the gore. the stench. the stink. that next scene. i just gotta go to that next scene. fat man stuffed himself in camper box blew a perfect Texas star right between his eyes. laid there ten days before we got to him. hundred degrees plus. i knew those parts were gonna fall off. first a leg, then an arm. ain't no body bag gonna contain this fat ass. suicide. 19 years old stuffed in a camper box.

being connected to the crematorium just made everything worse. cooking body, after body, after body. raking what's left in my little tray. picking out the metal with a magnet. crushing those final bones down to powder. oops gotta check one in the oven. brains haven't fully cooked out yet. gonna leave him in another 30 minutes. ever seen a body explode and go bad in an oven. somebody's got to clean up the body fluid. somebody's got to slip and slide in it. how do you clean this shit up? with a mop that has been used over and over and over, again and again and again.

we got a thousand toe tags stuffed in the back room next to the old wood stove where they used to burn babies. back before we had the big fancy ovens that sound like a 747 when you push the blow button. assholes used to burn two bodies at a time until they got their ass kicked. all kinds of nasty shit goes on in this place. i could give a box full of crushed pinto beans and tell you it was your daddy. and it really wouldn't make a fucking bit of difference. you never get the exact amount of ashes of your loved one anyway. you are just mixed in with all the others bodies in the oven. one after one after one.

bones flickin' and flyin' in every direction. that shit goes up your nose and in your hair. you breath it down into your body. i kinda miss that smell. it is an odd kind of natural organic smell. i loved working at the morgue. it gives you a strange sense of power. i used to wonder what some of the young, fucked up embombers did to young pretty women freshly dead. some of these guys are really kinky. they stay drunk and fucked up most of the time. and hell you can't blame them. the shit we see is too much for any one person to bear.

one fucked up deal was a little fetus laying up on top of the vagina all dressed up in doll's clothes. the black girl who aborted this child was only 18 years old. it's kind of a functional sense of eroticism to see a scene like that. it is hard to explain if you haven't been there. vagina, fetus, oozing shit coming out everywhere. it just don't make any real sense.

we used to sling bodies around in the morgue like potato sacks. this ain't no secret in the business. sometimes we would get so busy we would have to sleep with the bodies in the ambulance room. i used to be scared shitless of that but i would never tell anyone about that for fear of being called a pussy. throwing babies in the floor board. hauling ass back to the funeral home. oops gotta another call. mine as well pick thissun up on the way it is a homicide. can't wait to get there to see the cause of death. that is what keeps us going. the different ways people get whacked. the different ways people commit suicide.

cutting bodies down swinging from the rafters at 19 years old is not something i recommend to anybody. especially when their eyes are open, they are stiff as a board, and dripping shit out of their asshole. foamy, frothy mouth and noses. it is a scene right out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

my years in this business have taken a toll on me. i have seen it all. i've heard it all. homicide was one of the worst experiences of my life. i am tired now. i still have flashbacks every night. the bodies creep and crawl around my bed. i've got fucking post traumatic stress disorder from hell. very few of my friends know or even understand the pain i feel inside. it is hard for me to interact with a lot of people. because people just don't want to hear this shit.

i am telling this story because you want to know what is on my mind. i am 54 now and i have to say i miss the business. the business of death. the business of chaos.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Who Is Kiler Davenport - This is Me

i can be all things to all people. in my 54 years i have dealt with every personality imaginable in the human race. as you may already know my life's work has been caring for the elderly, advocating for them, and supporting them in this money driven and corrupt long term care system. i took care of my mother day and night along with my wife for twelve years. she was my shining star. as much as i loved her i still developed a severe case of caregiver burnout.

i grew up a baptist, sunday school, church, vacation bible school the whole nine yards. went to a catholic school for awhile. elementary, highschool, college, blah, blah, blah. and i have seen my share of blood, guts, gore, chaos, violence, hate, and disaster. i have been a emergency medical technician, advanced life support paramedic for many years. i worked in forensic science dead body pick up. i grew up working in the embalming rooms of funeral homes. and i have burned over 300 bodies at the crematorium. i have held many a decapitated head in my hand - children, young adults, and old. I have worked two major plane crashes in the U.S. with all dead on board stacking bodies in diesel trucks to the max. I have worked on trauma teams, search and rescue and special operations.

i am a former investigator consultant to one of the largest news organizations in the world. the focus of my story was elder abuse. i have had three half way houses that housed over 150 people. and had my share of failed and successful businesses. i am an ordained minister. i study world religion including Zen, Hinduism, and other forms Eastern Mysticism.

I like to shake people out of their comfortable tree, knock them off balance, keep them on edge. that is what makes the world turn. So there you have it a little bit about me. what about you.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

The Canyon - by Pat Berardini

Thought the realms wondrous oblivion I roam and sometime I fall. The sweet cherry-plum madness the we all seek are the soft lit halls I stroll. Yes life is strange on the edge of a canyon, where the land and sky come together in a holy matrimony, where each is still wildly curious about the other. I hear the sirens of the trees and canyons beckoning me on, so when the dream came I held my breath with my eyes close. Clouds wrap around the canyon in a shrouds off color light. Untethered clouds like to play hide and seek with the fair sun in the boundless and uncharted sky. The canyon lays in front of me with all of it's glorious splendor. With each step crosses in the realms of the unknown in to the life and death drama Nature. In Nature there are no celluloid hero's, just the one who have figured out and mastered Darwin's problem. In splintered sun light are hidden treasures of unimaginable beauty just waiting to be seen. Some think the canyon is Valhalla, others a once in a life time swift glance and a celluloid moment, frozen in time. In the canyon time gets lost but finds its way, to glimpse in to the forays of tomorrow.Time is the opponent of rock and earth.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

A Prelude to Fairy Tale written by: Pat Berardini

A prelude to fairy tale

A fairy tale is mystical journey on Pegasus (the flying horse) from the steep banks of reality, to the fertile shores of imagination. This will be an adventure of the mind. Lets hop on Pegasus, if not Pegasus, a cardboard box will do, and leave all your worries and this crazy mixed up world behind. Hold on tight; we are moving at the speed of light and as slow as a turtle all at once. We are heading straight for the Island of Europa. Europa is the serendipitous place you've heard of in the whispering wind in the back of your imagination.

See the world through the imagination of a child
Sit down besides a tall shade tree for awhile,
And greet the new day with a smile,
Become imagination's stepchild.

Let the day slip away tied with your cares,
Your barriers are down,
Pick yourself up off the ground,
The first act is just beginning and listen to the fanfare.

All around us now on the Island of Europa, the tangerine orange sky has only a hint of electric blue and the sun plays hide and seek with billowing, puffy white clouds. Europa is surrounded by vast azure oceans. Whispering in the wind are the soft voices of crayon angels each holding a waxy green lit candle. The mountains are frosted alabaster white and icicles hang down as if great ominous stalactites. Europa is truly an Eden in paradise and treasures are awaiting for a wondering mind. The treasures are not gold or diamonds but faith, hope, and the greatest of them all is love. The fruit of the lemon trees are not tart but subtly sweet. Nights have to be seen, as the stars wonder their weary paths and strum the galaxies in a grand and harmonious cosmic dance. If you listen quite intently you can hear the melodious rhapsody of leaves falling down from pomegranate trees. A painters palette of flowers shine luminescent, while sending out a wave of radiate colors that light up a path leading to an emerald fountain of youth. Oh my... there's a licorice tree! Observe carefully, you may spy a wishing well where wishes are granted and dreams come true.

As a harvest moon passes a star dappled sky,
So it has been written and so it has been said
Take the path less traveled instead
From Galilee to Galapagos to Shanghai

Written by: Pat Berardini 2011