title: The Aftermath, etc.
author: Get in the car Helen
description: The Aftermath, etc. is a rare look at the broken man in his natural environment: a wasteland of pizza, shark flicks, porn and beer . . . his only escape is through the pen, and if it were not so, the fine art of handmade explosives. --Andi Todaro<br /><br />The Aftermath, etc. goes after the topic of romantic love with a meat cleaver and a machete. --Olatundji Akpo-Sani, Baobob Tree Press<br /><br />In The Aftermath, etc. , poet Rob Geisen (writing as Get in the car, Helen) mounts an astoundingly affectionate all-out assault on heterosexual male grief and loss and does so in a way that draws upon an array of comedic surreal phanopoetic vernacular traditions. Amped up by accurate, lyric, mass media hysterics as well as a naked, private despair, this series of poems to/of 'Helen' simultaneously appear as glittery and vapid as an extended Geico commercial, yet as rich and transformative as the 'idiot' Trungpas of the Mishap Lineage. --Jim Cohn, author of The Ongoing Saga I Told My Daughter<br /><br />The Aftermath, etc. goes after the topic of romantic love with a meat cleaver and a machete. --Olatundji Akpo-Sani, Baobob Tree Press<br /><br />In The Aftermath, etc. , poet Rob Geisen (writing as Get in the car, Helen) mounts an astoundingly affectionate all-out assault on heterosexual male grief and loss and does so in a way that draws upon an array of comedic surreal phanopoetic vernacular traditions. Amped up by accurate, lyric, mass media hysterics as well as a naked, private despair, this series of poems to/of 'Helen' simultaneously appear as glittery and vapid as an extended Geico commercial, yet as rich and transformative as the 'idiot' Trungpas of the Mishap Lineage. --Jim Cohn, author of The Ongoing Saga I Told My Daughter
zlib_text: DEDICATION
  For my husband, Albert. This was all your fault.
   
   
   
   
  ONE
  Helen could see what she guessed was the River Styx just off to her left. It was a roaring torrent,
  riddled with icebergs. No sane person would dare swim across it. Feeling stranded, she limped around
  in a tight circle. A quick scan of the horizon showed that there was no one else on the barren plain.
  “Damn it,” she swore to herself, her voice breaking. Her vocal cords were not completely healed. Less
  than an hour ago, Ares had slit her throat, and although it still hurt when she spoke, cussing made her
  feel better. “So typical.”
  She’d just made a promise to her friend Zach. He was dying in her arms, and she swore that she would
  make sure that he drank from the River of Joy in the afterlife. Zach had sacrificed himself to help her,
  and in his final moments, he’d given her the clue that allowed her to kill Automedon and save Lucas
  and Orion.
  Helen intended to keep her promise to Zach even if she had to carry him to 