He told me used books were imprinted with the last reader's dreams (through the oil in their grubby hands!) and I was bringing them into the house. He could feel them in the air. It was thicker, older, bringing more shadows and magic dust mites. This made him anxious, rebellious, fatal, and sad. A terrible combination he continually summed up with the word "puke" repeated through the house like chimes from a clock.
Other people's dreams were useless - powerful but useless (another oxymoron to his every growing list?) - like the mirrors he conscioulsy avoided ("horrific objects with a penetrating gaze that can turn you inside out once in their presence"). "Denial. Denial. Denial!" He says its the most the effecient and successful way to live in these modern, quick fix on the rim of Armageddon, times.
He associates love with pain. There are mornings I hear him up early by the back window smoking like a beaten prisoner, hunched and frail, muttering, cursing. When he's upset a slew of "Hail Mary's in quick succesion tempers his anxiety. Love/hate mediation to ease the soul? Someday, it will be my job to pull the plastic bag off his head so only I find him dead cold ovrerdosed and suffocated with a bag on his head.
I tell him dignity in death is another oxymoron for his list. I respect his wishes and he respects mine. The world is always in balance so order is maintained. He worries his teeth are decaying at an unfathomable rate. He reflects on the philosophical meditation that this is "the best of all possible worlds." His deep dark secret is that his blood is poisoned, just like his mind. He losses breath easy. Everything he knows about human relations he learned from TV and therefore never trusts anyone. He frames all thoughts with nostalgia. He is unforgiveably hard on himself and this translates to his friends.
But I love him. We get along. We can sit for hours in the kitchen. Drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes listening to music and talking, talking, talking. His eyes changing from hard to sad and back again.
He secretly hates humanity and the world in general. He often confides in me his reason, "this is the best we can do? Cubicles and the idea that work inside an arbitary hierarchy is noble? Fuck that." He says some days he doesn't know how much longer he can do it, the endless work down the deserted highway with blurred landscapers living on memories and hope. He is wound tight. It pulls his face back into a frown.
He dreams of his Queen City. The mystic place of his birth he has been exiled from. He longs for those ancient memories of generic hardworking people and families he believed he knew. Hard drinking men and women who loved friends and strangers the same. Who spoke a common language of cynicism and laughter.
He has lost his angel. He keeps his anger inside. Holds it down like suffocating a geyser. It's there everyday, from the hot oven flare of emotional chaos to the stubbed toe letdown of the everyday mundane and pointless.
The boredom is the worst. He often tells me the hardest part of life is the the realization that the you are nothing special and the world is indifferent. He has dizzy spells.
He isn't waiting to die, he is counting on it.
Showing posts with label Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stories. Show all posts
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Thursday, May 27, 2010
THE OLD YEAR (Part 6)
“You’re coming.”
Cable guy and friend push their way in.
“This is Justin. My friend I was telling you about.”
“What’s up. You’re coming out with us.”
Justin is loud like bright colors and a few inches shorter than me. He is skinny with a wire frame. He has on jeans and an over-sized t-shirt. He has a cap pulled low and blonde chin hair like a sad neglected lawn. His eyes flash when he speaks. He has a twisted grin.
“Hey, what’s up man. Like I told Derrick, I can’t go. I’m too fucked up.”
“I don’t want to hear it. I’ll fucking drag you out if I have to.”
My heart stops a split second. I try to comprehend his statement. Did he just threaten me?
“Seriously dude. I’m a mess. I smoked some shit from these dudes at Wolf’s. Now I’m freaking out.”
“It was probably laced with something. So what. Get ready. We’re going.”
“Naw, man. No way.”
“This is a nice place you got here. I like your guitars. You jam.”
“Yeah. A little.”
“Play us something. What kinda music you into?”
“Everything. I can’t. Dude, I’m fucked.”
“You said that.” He walks over to my microphone stand and pulls the mic off. He starts swinging it like a small lasso.
I look at him. His eyes are menacing and his body language threatening. I look over, across the room, to the kitchen, and where the knife resides out of sight.
“Get up. We’re going.”
“What don’t you understand.” I turned to Derrick. “What’s with this guy?”
“I’m just bustin’ yer balls.” Justin chuckles. “Man, I really like your guitars. I’m gonna have to come over one day and play ‘em.”
I sense I will need to forcible move this man out of my home. He walks around eyeing all of my things, mic in hand. My heart is beating fast, it’s still hard to focus. I’m unsure if I’m interpreting everything that is going on around me correctly.
“You told Derrick you were coming out. So come on, get up.”
“Look…”
“Speak into the mic!” Justin puts the microphone in my face.
“What the fuck, man”
“I’m just messing with you.”
“Look, you guys gotta leave. I need some quiet. Maybe I’ll meet up with you?”
“You won’t. Besides, you’re coming now.”
I turn to Derrick again to see if this is real, if things are really going this way.
“Come on, Justin.”
“No, if anything, I’ll drag his ass outside and I’ll live here.”
“So this is how it’s going to be…”
“Speak into the mic!”
“Get that fucking thing out of my face!”
“I’m just fucking around man.”
“Listen. I told you. I’m fucked up. I’m not going out. You guys have to leave.”
“Why are you getting so upset?”
“I want you to leave!”
“Okay, okay.” He moves towards the door, stops and looks at me. Then he gives big grin and says, “I’ll see you later, man.”
I close and lock the door as the thuds from their feet on the stairs fades. I go and pick up the knife and check the lock again. I am convinced they will be back to loot my place. Things will get violent. I pace the room for awhile and then sit and listen for noises. I wake on the couch New Year’s Day, knife in hand.
Cable guy and friend push their way in.
“This is Justin. My friend I was telling you about.”
“What’s up. You’re coming out with us.”
Justin is loud like bright colors and a few inches shorter than me. He is skinny with a wire frame. He has on jeans and an over-sized t-shirt. He has a cap pulled low and blonde chin hair like a sad neglected lawn. His eyes flash when he speaks. He has a twisted grin.
“Hey, what’s up man. Like I told Derrick, I can’t go. I’m too fucked up.”
“I don’t want to hear it. I’ll fucking drag you out if I have to.”
My heart stops a split second. I try to comprehend his statement. Did he just threaten me?
“Seriously dude. I’m a mess. I smoked some shit from these dudes at Wolf’s. Now I’m freaking out.”
“It was probably laced with something. So what. Get ready. We’re going.”
“Naw, man. No way.”
“This is a nice place you got here. I like your guitars. You jam.”
“Yeah. A little.”
“Play us something. What kinda music you into?”
“Everything. I can’t. Dude, I’m fucked.”
“You said that.” He walks over to my microphone stand and pulls the mic off. He starts swinging it like a small lasso.
I look at him. His eyes are menacing and his body language threatening. I look over, across the room, to the kitchen, and where the knife resides out of sight.
“Get up. We’re going.”
“What don’t you understand.” I turned to Derrick. “What’s with this guy?”
“I’m just bustin’ yer balls.” Justin chuckles. “Man, I really like your guitars. I’m gonna have to come over one day and play ‘em.”
I sense I will need to forcible move this man out of my home. He walks around eyeing all of my things, mic in hand. My heart is beating fast, it’s still hard to focus. I’m unsure if I’m interpreting everything that is going on around me correctly.
“You told Derrick you were coming out. So come on, get up.”
“Look…”
“Speak into the mic!” Justin puts the microphone in my face.
“What the fuck, man”
“I’m just messing with you.”
“Look, you guys gotta leave. I need some quiet. Maybe I’ll meet up with you?”
“You won’t. Besides, you’re coming now.”
I turn to Derrick again to see if this is real, if things are really going this way.
“Come on, Justin.”
“No, if anything, I’ll drag his ass outside and I’ll live here.”
“So this is how it’s going to be…”
“Speak into the mic!”
“Get that fucking thing out of my face!”
“I’m just fucking around man.”
“Listen. I told you. I’m fucked up. I’m not going out. You guys have to leave.”
“Why are you getting so upset?”
“I want you to leave!”
“Okay, okay.” He moves towards the door, stops and looks at me. Then he gives big grin and says, “I’ll see you later, man.”
I close and lock the door as the thuds from their feet on the stairs fades. I go and pick up the knife and check the lock again. I am convinced they will be back to loot my place. Things will get violent. I pace the room for awhile and then sit and listen for noises. I wake on the couch New Year’s Day, knife in hand.
THE OLD YEAR (Part 5)
The men from the truck with no hood are laughing and I assume it’s at me. Amber is across from me behind the bar and seems far away – twenty feet at least, like a portrait on a mantle across the room, her face young and white and helpless yet certain. She asks me something but I don’t make out what it is. I say, “I know.” I keep glancing over my shoulders to know who’s around me. My spine is an iron rod. There is a hum and tension that is loud like gigantic electrified pulsating cables that I can’t see but know are there. I am perspiring.
I look down. The video machine screen emits gibberish as it vibrates and drones like sick electricity. Floating transparent playing cards turn to dust and return to the glow from which they came. Everything is alive with popping atoms and fluorescent trails. I begin to question what was in the weed. I am convinced I’m on acid. Everything is happening in circles, on repeat. All experience happens five times before it appears to actually happen. The noise in the bar is roaring like tons of garbage dropped off a skyscraper and splashing on top of a parking lot of old fords.
Words are randomly coherent above the noise. “Raven.” “Wood stain.” “Baby carriage.” Possum.” “Crockpot.” What does it mean? My feet are sweating so much I think my shoes will fall off. It takes all my strength (courage?) to get up and leave. I turn to those who got me here. They look old and senile.
“I have to pick up some friends, be right back.”
I don’t wait for a response. I muscle my way out the door and start walking as fast as I can. I am afraid to turn around. I just go like a rolling garbage can down a San Francisco hill. Suddenly, I am a coward scared of all the unknowns and uncertainties and unimagined thorns.
I am feet from my apartment. My throat is wide and clear. Success captures me in her grips, hand on back as if to dance. I am safe. The confines of walls that hide instigate in me a new euphoria. I can relax and deal calmly with the mind altering drugs rattling my chemistry. Is it the drugs? I may be less erratic straight, but no less paranoid. Remember passing out on the plane? My mind became of a hot furnace of anxiety I could not name.
Home safe, I turn on all the lights. I sit on the couch in silence and try to get a grip. I rub my hand on the back of my neck and let out a big sigh. For a moment the world stops. In the silence I feel a welcoming embrace. I reach to old friends in my mind when we played cards and drank and thought we were invincible and wise. I would sneak off with Mary and then smile at her smile smiling back at me. Youth is a faded newspaper, usually proven wrong or forgotten over time.
The quiet breaks. A banging on the door gives me a jolt. I stand and stare at the door like a foreign object. A new round of rapping like gunfire sounds. Then it hits me, it’s Cable Guy (his profession). I told him I would go out tonight.
A shaky, white hand pulls the door open.
“Hey, man,” I stammer.
“Where’ve ya been? I was here earlier and there was no answer. I thought maybe you were in the shower so I came back.”
“I want out already. Down to Wolf’s with Boyle.”
“You coming out? Me and Justin, my buddy from Florida, are having drinks over at my place.” He talks in half-time with small glassy eyes in the middle of a sleepy dumb face.
“I don’t know. I’m really fucked up. I smoked something I thought was weed. I’m having a hard time dealing.”
“Fuck that. You’re coming out.”
“No. Seriously, I’m really fucked.”
My legs are exhausted from the haul. I move to the couch and sit down. I let out a breath and pray to be alone (the only thought I can hold on to). Cable Guy stands above me authoritatively looking down. He is round and moves slow. I sense tension. I begin to sweat.
“You’ll be fine. Come on.”
“I don’t know. I need a minute. My heart is racing and I’m kinda freaking out.”
“Screw that. Let’s go.”
“Seriously, I can’t. Give me an hour or so. I’ll let you know.”
“You won’t let me know. After you close the door I won’t hear from you. Come on over to my place.”
After more debate I convince him that I can’t make it right now and will let him know in an hour what my next move is. During the conversation I hear my words come from my mouth electronic and amplified. The veins in my neck are now pulsating. A pain radiates in my back where my kidneys reside.
I sit back on the couch and slowly breathe easier. I tell myself the worst is over. I pick up a guitar to shield my mind from the troubling thoughts that keep invading. I lose myself in the raining harmony of notes. I see neon numbers on infinite steps.
The phone rings. It’s my mother wishing me Happy New Year. I return the wish and she asks what’s wrong. I force a cheery, animated disposition (similar to Kari and I finally emerging, on mushrooms, from Scott’s basement to the loud and gregarious multitude on New Year’s Eve a decade earlier – later we hide in the upstairs bathroom and lay on the floor together like the only two people alive, my finger twisted around her light brown hair). She showers cherished sentiments before passing the phone on. I talk to 12 or 13 different friends or relatives, all drunk, all spending the holiday at my mother’s tiny home in South Buffalo. I still have 3 hours left in my day. My current status: locked away in my apartment, scared of the world.
Off the phone, I return to the couch, to safety. The drugs have taken a new turn. Everything is in soft hues and looks far away, but still. My hearts starts its familiar racing and my stomach aches. I feel nauseous. I convince myself my Achilles has snapped and balled up in my calf. I’m searching with my hands when the door starts banging again. Panic lights over me. The knock screams danger. I look to the kitchen and think of the huge knife sitting in the drawer. I walk over to the kitchen, open the drawer and pull it out. The shine of the knife looks like a still pool of water. It feels light in my hand. I hold it up and swing it around with feigned death thrusts. Then, the door booms three more booms. I put the knife down beside the fridge.
I look down. The video machine screen emits gibberish as it vibrates and drones like sick electricity. Floating transparent playing cards turn to dust and return to the glow from which they came. Everything is alive with popping atoms and fluorescent trails. I begin to question what was in the weed. I am convinced I’m on acid. Everything is happening in circles, on repeat. All experience happens five times before it appears to actually happen. The noise in the bar is roaring like tons of garbage dropped off a skyscraper and splashing on top of a parking lot of old fords.
Words are randomly coherent above the noise. “Raven.” “Wood stain.” “Baby carriage.” Possum.” “Crockpot.” What does it mean? My feet are sweating so much I think my shoes will fall off. It takes all my strength (courage?) to get up and leave. I turn to those who got me here. They look old and senile.
“I have to pick up some friends, be right back.”
I don’t wait for a response. I muscle my way out the door and start walking as fast as I can. I am afraid to turn around. I just go like a rolling garbage can down a San Francisco hill. Suddenly, I am a coward scared of all the unknowns and uncertainties and unimagined thorns.
I am feet from my apartment. My throat is wide and clear. Success captures me in her grips, hand on back as if to dance. I am safe. The confines of walls that hide instigate in me a new euphoria. I can relax and deal calmly with the mind altering drugs rattling my chemistry. Is it the drugs? I may be less erratic straight, but no less paranoid. Remember passing out on the plane? My mind became of a hot furnace of anxiety I could not name.
Home safe, I turn on all the lights. I sit on the couch in silence and try to get a grip. I rub my hand on the back of my neck and let out a big sigh. For a moment the world stops. In the silence I feel a welcoming embrace. I reach to old friends in my mind when we played cards and drank and thought we were invincible and wise. I would sneak off with Mary and then smile at her smile smiling back at me. Youth is a faded newspaper, usually proven wrong or forgotten over time.
The quiet breaks. A banging on the door gives me a jolt. I stand and stare at the door like a foreign object. A new round of rapping like gunfire sounds. Then it hits me, it’s Cable Guy (his profession). I told him I would go out tonight.
A shaky, white hand pulls the door open.
“Hey, man,” I stammer.
“Where’ve ya been? I was here earlier and there was no answer. I thought maybe you were in the shower so I came back.”
“I want out already. Down to Wolf’s with Boyle.”
“You coming out? Me and Justin, my buddy from Florida, are having drinks over at my place.” He talks in half-time with small glassy eyes in the middle of a sleepy dumb face.
“I don’t know. I’m really fucked up. I smoked something I thought was weed. I’m having a hard time dealing.”
“Fuck that. You’re coming out.”
“No. Seriously, I’m really fucked.”
My legs are exhausted from the haul. I move to the couch and sit down. I let out a breath and pray to be alone (the only thought I can hold on to). Cable Guy stands above me authoritatively looking down. He is round and moves slow. I sense tension. I begin to sweat.
“You’ll be fine. Come on.”
“I don’t know. I need a minute. My heart is racing and I’m kinda freaking out.”
“Screw that. Let’s go.”
“Seriously, I can’t. Give me an hour or so. I’ll let you know.”
“You won’t let me know. After you close the door I won’t hear from you. Come on over to my place.”
After more debate I convince him that I can’t make it right now and will let him know in an hour what my next move is. During the conversation I hear my words come from my mouth electronic and amplified. The veins in my neck are now pulsating. A pain radiates in my back where my kidneys reside.
I sit back on the couch and slowly breathe easier. I tell myself the worst is over. I pick up a guitar to shield my mind from the troubling thoughts that keep invading. I lose myself in the raining harmony of notes. I see neon numbers on infinite steps.
The phone rings. It’s my mother wishing me Happy New Year. I return the wish and she asks what’s wrong. I force a cheery, animated disposition (similar to Kari and I finally emerging, on mushrooms, from Scott’s basement to the loud and gregarious multitude on New Year’s Eve a decade earlier – later we hide in the upstairs bathroom and lay on the floor together like the only two people alive, my finger twisted around her light brown hair). She showers cherished sentiments before passing the phone on. I talk to 12 or 13 different friends or relatives, all drunk, all spending the holiday at my mother’s tiny home in South Buffalo. I still have 3 hours left in my day. My current status: locked away in my apartment, scared of the world.
Off the phone, I return to the couch, to safety. The drugs have taken a new turn. Everything is in soft hues and looks far away, but still. My hearts starts its familiar racing and my stomach aches. I feel nauseous. I convince myself my Achilles has snapped and balled up in my calf. I’m searching with my hands when the door starts banging again. Panic lights over me. The knock screams danger. I look to the kitchen and think of the huge knife sitting in the drawer. I walk over to the kitchen, open the drawer and pull it out. The shine of the knife looks like a still pool of water. It feels light in my hand. I hold it up and swing it around with feigned death thrusts. Then, the door booms three more booms. I put the knife down beside the fridge.
Friday, April 2, 2010
THE OLD YEAR (Part 4)
Boyle’s wife is calling in ten minute intervals, like markers on a highway. Click… Click… Like those afternoons when I was unemployed and used to bar hop through Kaiser Town with Kari’s dad, with his small hands and beady eyes and con-man smile hiding secret after secret, as his ringing phone interrupted with an offensive shrug and would always come when I finally got a chance to tell a story. He proudly held his importance over me. I was secretly embarrassed. He was full of surprises and petty scorn. He was an egomaniac. I had no idea who I was.
Boyle is leaving to spend the last night of the year with his wife and child. I decide to stay because I have no where to go and no one to see. Besides, the alcohol is giving me what I need (energized numbness and delirious hope built on unfounded declarations). I give in to the universe of possibility. Boyle buys me a shot, we shake, and his large frame with the baby face is gone.
In the restroom I stare into the mural-size mirror. I move my face in a way to present/exhibit all angels and perspectives. I look so different with every turn, not even the same person. There are some universal truths. My nose is bigger than I care to notice. The scar under my left eye is worn and sad instead of rigid and tough. The skin above my right eye is saggy and invades my ocular cavity in a way that mocks the color of my blue eyes.
My hands are beginning to sting. I flex them in rapid succession. The moon is still big behind me and watches me as I watch my shadow in front. I can’t tell if my shoes are covered with dirt. When I look down I get dizzy. I stare ahead into the blackness, out towards the hidden blank landscape rugged but flat, vast and barren. Where are the curbs and corner stores? Where are the people and their history embedded in stacks of photographs? Where is my sick lake and rust colored fumes? Where are the ashes of generations sleeping in the cracks of the sidewalks? Where are the shamrocks?
“Meditation is pretty cool.”
“I meditate. TM. It’s pretty powerful.” I chime in.
“TM?”
“Transcendental Meditation. It’s pretty fucking awesome.”
“I’ve heard about that. What’s it like? I just do regular mediation, where you clear your mind and shit.”
“You just repeat your mantra. You’re supposed to get your mantra from a teacher, but I just read book. I say ‘Ram’ (rhymes with ‘bomb’). You say it over and over. It’s crazy. Your mind starts to drift to thoughts and smells and feelings you haven’t ever thought of but experienced. It’s more powerful than drugs.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And you are so rested and focused after. You do it for twenty minutes two times a day. And the twenty minutes flies by.”
The path I am taking is straight. I forgo the navigational awareness of dirt roads for straight line efficiency, no matter the terrain. I surmise the walk from the bar to be over two miles. I do not pass a house. There are no telephone poles, no trees. I am surrounded my mountains on all sides in a valley (whose name means ‘water rock’) with an area of 364 square miles and sits 2695 feet above sea level.
My gait is shortening and my chest is leading the way. The wind (a mild gust) is unrelenting and makes me frustrated. It is stubborn and beyond my control. My mind is electric. Thoughts are moving in and out like people to a revolving door in a skyscraper stabbing the clouds. I’m the door man, but everyone is passing by too quickly. Everyone is in a hurry and can’t be bothered. They are faceless and I am not noticed. I speak in half-starts and double-takes.
“You want to go out and smoke?”
“Serious?” I ask. My mind is instantly racing, weighing the consequences, sizing my acquaintances up.
“Yeah. Come on.”
We walk out into the brisk night.
“I’m over there.”
The pickup is a faded orange with a thick dirty white horizontal stripe in the middle from headlight to taillight. As we approach, I notice there is no hood. The engine sits exposed reminding me of a plastic medical model of the human body. We get in, three to front seat. I’m in the passenger’s seat next to the window. The short guy is in the middle and the lanky long haired one, the owner of the truck, is behind the wheel. The driver pulls out a huge joint. The one next to me draws from his pocket a one-hitter. We start passing the dope around.
“This shit is good, powerful California weed.”
“Cool.” I say.
“What do you do, man.”
“I’m a teacher. What do you do?”
“Unemployed. Stay at home dad.”
“Cool. I would totally be a stay at home dad.”
“It’s alright. I get to play video games when the kid takes a nap.”
The pot is moving from hand to hand quickly. I am never without some in my hand. The cab is full of smoke. The typical stoned awareness of your body, your hands, the back of your neck, begins to hit me. My mind fogs up. Trails and vapors form.
“Oh shit, people!”
“We gotta go.”
I look to see a group of well-dressed thirty-something couples getting out of a sedan. My two companions are quickly exiting the cab. I reach for the door handle. It’s missing the knob.
“That’s a rape door.” The driver yells back to me from outside the truck.
“A rape door?” I ask and giggle.
“Yeah, you can only get in, you can’t get out. Only the handle outside works. If you want to get out that way, you hafta roll down the window.”
We walk back to the bar. The pavement seems a long way down but the pebbles lounging before me seem huge. I tell myself to keep it together, repeating it like a mantra. My chest is tight. The bar inside is packed. My head is continually down as I walk back to my place at the bar. I bump into people and excuse myself. My half pint of beer welcomes me. I drink it with a thirst. My money is still in the machine, waiting, but I can’t make out the numbers. How much do I have left? I begin to hallucinate.
Boyle is leaving to spend the last night of the year with his wife and child. I decide to stay because I have no where to go and no one to see. Besides, the alcohol is giving me what I need (energized numbness and delirious hope built on unfounded declarations). I give in to the universe of possibility. Boyle buys me a shot, we shake, and his large frame with the baby face is gone.
In the restroom I stare into the mural-size mirror. I move my face in a way to present/exhibit all angels and perspectives. I look so different with every turn, not even the same person. There are some universal truths. My nose is bigger than I care to notice. The scar under my left eye is worn and sad instead of rigid and tough. The skin above my right eye is saggy and invades my ocular cavity in a way that mocks the color of my blue eyes.
My hands are beginning to sting. I flex them in rapid succession. The moon is still big behind me and watches me as I watch my shadow in front. I can’t tell if my shoes are covered with dirt. When I look down I get dizzy. I stare ahead into the blackness, out towards the hidden blank landscape rugged but flat, vast and barren. Where are the curbs and corner stores? Where are the people and their history embedded in stacks of photographs? Where is my sick lake and rust colored fumes? Where are the ashes of generations sleeping in the cracks of the sidewalks? Where are the shamrocks?
“Meditation is pretty cool.”
“I meditate. TM. It’s pretty powerful.” I chime in.
“TM?”
“Transcendental Meditation. It’s pretty fucking awesome.”
“I’ve heard about that. What’s it like? I just do regular mediation, where you clear your mind and shit.”
“You just repeat your mantra. You’re supposed to get your mantra from a teacher, but I just read book. I say ‘Ram’ (rhymes with ‘bomb’). You say it over and over. It’s crazy. Your mind starts to drift to thoughts and smells and feelings you haven’t ever thought of but experienced. It’s more powerful than drugs.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And you are so rested and focused after. You do it for twenty minutes two times a day. And the twenty minutes flies by.”
The path I am taking is straight. I forgo the navigational awareness of dirt roads for straight line efficiency, no matter the terrain. I surmise the walk from the bar to be over two miles. I do not pass a house. There are no telephone poles, no trees. I am surrounded my mountains on all sides in a valley (whose name means ‘water rock’) with an area of 364 square miles and sits 2695 feet above sea level.
My gait is shortening and my chest is leading the way. The wind (a mild gust) is unrelenting and makes me frustrated. It is stubborn and beyond my control. My mind is electric. Thoughts are moving in and out like people to a revolving door in a skyscraper stabbing the clouds. I’m the door man, but everyone is passing by too quickly. Everyone is in a hurry and can’t be bothered. They are faceless and I am not noticed. I speak in half-starts and double-takes.
“You want to go out and smoke?”
“Serious?” I ask. My mind is instantly racing, weighing the consequences, sizing my acquaintances up.
“Yeah. Come on.”
We walk out into the brisk night.
“I’m over there.”
The pickup is a faded orange with a thick dirty white horizontal stripe in the middle from headlight to taillight. As we approach, I notice there is no hood. The engine sits exposed reminding me of a plastic medical model of the human body. We get in, three to front seat. I’m in the passenger’s seat next to the window. The short guy is in the middle and the lanky long haired one, the owner of the truck, is behind the wheel. The driver pulls out a huge joint. The one next to me draws from his pocket a one-hitter. We start passing the dope around.
“This shit is good, powerful California weed.”
“Cool.” I say.
“What do you do, man.”
“I’m a teacher. What do you do?”
“Unemployed. Stay at home dad.”
“Cool. I would totally be a stay at home dad.”
“It’s alright. I get to play video games when the kid takes a nap.”
The pot is moving from hand to hand quickly. I am never without some in my hand. The cab is full of smoke. The typical stoned awareness of your body, your hands, the back of your neck, begins to hit me. My mind fogs up. Trails and vapors form.
“Oh shit, people!”
“We gotta go.”
I look to see a group of well-dressed thirty-something couples getting out of a sedan. My two companions are quickly exiting the cab. I reach for the door handle. It’s missing the knob.
“That’s a rape door.” The driver yells back to me from outside the truck.
“A rape door?” I ask and giggle.
“Yeah, you can only get in, you can’t get out. Only the handle outside works. If you want to get out that way, you hafta roll down the window.”
We walk back to the bar. The pavement seems a long way down but the pebbles lounging before me seem huge. I tell myself to keep it together, repeating it like a mantra. My chest is tight. The bar inside is packed. My head is continually down as I walk back to my place at the bar. I bump into people and excuse myself. My half pint of beer welcomes me. I drink it with a thirst. My money is still in the machine, waiting, but I can’t make out the numbers. How much do I have left? I begin to hallucinate.
Monday, March 22, 2010
THE OLD YEAR (Part 3)
The air is turpentine and burns my nose. I have a mouth sucked dry of moisture and peddles of sand between my teeth (where my tongue is a serpent searching for mice hiding in a row of ragged rocks). My legs warm with devious soreness and my heart beats faster than exertion dictates. I can feel the blood pulsate in the skull my skin cannot seem to fit around. What a mess I got myself into!
I seem to be making no distance at all as the desk lamp (the moon) above me is getting brighter. Is it getting closer? Ashen moon gravel and alabaster chalk dust is spread out over the undefined path in front of me. I tell myself fifteen more minutes until refuge behind my apartment walls. It is my only focus as fleeting as it is (thoughts like weak sea legs on a tumultuous sea). Rocks try to birth into my shoes creating faint angry screams of collision. The earth is pushing up into me as hard as I am pushing down on it.
Cold snot runs from my nose and my eyeballs are solidifying. Petrifying? My chest holds ephemeral bursts of anxiety. Black-inked waves on a purple ocean crashing on a gray shore. Will I ever make it across this desolate expanding land? My mind stops to catch its breath. Suddenly, I am encouraged by the prospect of a flash flood washing me away. Thick muddy brown water like melted ice cream escorting me down predetermined land scars. Sometimes things happen that you cannot stop. Where is that rainy prison cell street walled with old stone buildings and the hand of my next love?
I cough a dry cold cough. I try to focus again on something to ease the anxiety of never getting home and begin to wonder about Bethlehem Steel and the pink and lime green pools of liquid Popp saw on patrol. Those toxins killed Scott’s father (and many men just like him). I can still smell the sulfur from the bronze dust snow that blanketed my father’s dark blue Cadillac as I dug holes with trucks under a gold morning sky. Instantly, I long for the giant rusted thimble that sat behind Madison Wire. I remember those gray days where we would sit inside it and talk about our future not knowing if the soil below the cracked cement was saturated with poison. Those stalwart toxins fed families and bought cars and gave vacations out to the lake it contaminated. I relive my father setting down a plate of pork chops a dozen high for our family of five. It’s all too much to think about. My cheeks sting from the desert whiplash wind.
Boyle picks me up and I decide to act drunker than I am in order to mask the depression that has taken the clarity of my senses away. I feel sick from the mushroom pizza I ate too fast (like a dog). Walking out the door, I imagine the green and brown bubbling fungus foam expanding in my belly when my appendix burst and I was too afraid to wake anyone in the middle of the night. The pain was so white hot it stopped hurting and was replaced swollen numbness and the fear of death. When I returned from the hospital, Ma and Nan made my room so sterile and clean that my personality was almost completely scrubbed away, except for the cracked plaster holes in my sky blue walls the size of my fist. My first act home and healthy was to sit at my desk and weep. The sun poured into my room on that quiet afternoon during the last days of winter as my abdomen stitches itched with warm tingles.
I was content to hide this New Year’s Eve but I know that is not human. I must be a social being. We are social beings (from parlor tricks to speeches of state) that entertain and act out in order to revive our own self worth. I walk down my pebbled stairs and out to Boyle’s truck. I see him sitting there and a sudden sharp anger comes over me. I pull open the door and hop in the cab. We start to talk and I feel better. The tension leaves like the quick dimming of a TV screen before it goes dark. But the day is still light. Seven hours until the New Year. Who was it that broke the mirror at my mother’s house that one New Year’s Eve?
“Should we see what the rest of the cronies are up to?” I ask.
“To be honest, I want nothing to do with them. Oh, they have to check with you and if you’re not coming over they’re not. Fuck that.”
On the drive, I hide behind my sunglasses, afraid to show my eyes. The afternoon is bright and indifferent. We move down rugged twisted roads and pass the remains of the various communes that once infested this valley. Old crooked sheds with faded plywood walls, lounging relics, are surrounded by sad wire fences. Empty chicken coops with failing roofs, forty year old rusted and dismantled pickups, unrecognizable scrap metal sculptures dot the dust lots. Memories lay and die in the shade. Brown thin branches to bare bushes (soon to be tumbleweeds) quiver in the breeze. Some scream. Others sigh.
The bar counter is sticky. An empty package of cigarettes is torn to pieces and spread around the video machine sunk flush into the counter top. Amber, with her hefty chest and young girl (unfamiliar with the world) smile, is picking up the scraps of paper one piece at a time. We sit down and Boyle quietly taps his wallet on the counter as he stares up at the TV. He buys the first round. I watch Amber pour the drafts and begin to feel useless.
“How you holding up?” I ask and take a sip.
“Alright. I guess. I just want the holidays to be over. You know? Just get passed them.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I just don’t have it in me. I told Lizzy to go and buy all the presents for Benny. I wanted nothing to do with it. With him gone, I just don’t give a shit.”
“It’ll get better. Spring, man. Wait until spring.” I raise my glass to Boyle and then chug the pint. I wipe the suds from my lips with the back of my hand. Boyle continues on about the loss of his father and the effect it is placing on his wife, young son, and scattered soul. All the while I stare at drips of beer on the counter, tiny isolated villages containing universes within themselves flickering from yellow to orange under the light. I nudge my mind back to Boyle, to listen and empathize, because it is the right thing to do.
I seem to be making no distance at all as the desk lamp (the moon) above me is getting brighter. Is it getting closer? Ashen moon gravel and alabaster chalk dust is spread out over the undefined path in front of me. I tell myself fifteen more minutes until refuge behind my apartment walls. It is my only focus as fleeting as it is (thoughts like weak sea legs on a tumultuous sea). Rocks try to birth into my shoes creating faint angry screams of collision. The earth is pushing up into me as hard as I am pushing down on it.
Cold snot runs from my nose and my eyeballs are solidifying. Petrifying? My chest holds ephemeral bursts of anxiety. Black-inked waves on a purple ocean crashing on a gray shore. Will I ever make it across this desolate expanding land? My mind stops to catch its breath. Suddenly, I am encouraged by the prospect of a flash flood washing me away. Thick muddy brown water like melted ice cream escorting me down predetermined land scars. Sometimes things happen that you cannot stop. Where is that rainy prison cell street walled with old stone buildings and the hand of my next love?
I cough a dry cold cough. I try to focus again on something to ease the anxiety of never getting home and begin to wonder about Bethlehem Steel and the pink and lime green pools of liquid Popp saw on patrol. Those toxins killed Scott’s father (and many men just like him). I can still smell the sulfur from the bronze dust snow that blanketed my father’s dark blue Cadillac as I dug holes with trucks under a gold morning sky. Instantly, I long for the giant rusted thimble that sat behind Madison Wire. I remember those gray days where we would sit inside it and talk about our future not knowing if the soil below the cracked cement was saturated with poison. Those stalwart toxins fed families and bought cars and gave vacations out to the lake it contaminated. I relive my father setting down a plate of pork chops a dozen high for our family of five. It’s all too much to think about. My cheeks sting from the desert whiplash wind.
Boyle picks me up and I decide to act drunker than I am in order to mask the depression that has taken the clarity of my senses away. I feel sick from the mushroom pizza I ate too fast (like a dog). Walking out the door, I imagine the green and brown bubbling fungus foam expanding in my belly when my appendix burst and I was too afraid to wake anyone in the middle of the night. The pain was so white hot it stopped hurting and was replaced swollen numbness and the fear of death. When I returned from the hospital, Ma and Nan made my room so sterile and clean that my personality was almost completely scrubbed away, except for the cracked plaster holes in my sky blue walls the size of my fist. My first act home and healthy was to sit at my desk and weep. The sun poured into my room on that quiet afternoon during the last days of winter as my abdomen stitches itched with warm tingles.
I was content to hide this New Year’s Eve but I know that is not human. I must be a social being. We are social beings (from parlor tricks to speeches of state) that entertain and act out in order to revive our own self worth. I walk down my pebbled stairs and out to Boyle’s truck. I see him sitting there and a sudden sharp anger comes over me. I pull open the door and hop in the cab. We start to talk and I feel better. The tension leaves like the quick dimming of a TV screen before it goes dark. But the day is still light. Seven hours until the New Year. Who was it that broke the mirror at my mother’s house that one New Year’s Eve?
“Should we see what the rest of the cronies are up to?” I ask.
“To be honest, I want nothing to do with them. Oh, they have to check with you and if you’re not coming over they’re not. Fuck that.”
On the drive, I hide behind my sunglasses, afraid to show my eyes. The afternoon is bright and indifferent. We move down rugged twisted roads and pass the remains of the various communes that once infested this valley. Old crooked sheds with faded plywood walls, lounging relics, are surrounded by sad wire fences. Empty chicken coops with failing roofs, forty year old rusted and dismantled pickups, unrecognizable scrap metal sculptures dot the dust lots. Memories lay and die in the shade. Brown thin branches to bare bushes (soon to be tumbleweeds) quiver in the breeze. Some scream. Others sigh.
The bar counter is sticky. An empty package of cigarettes is torn to pieces and spread around the video machine sunk flush into the counter top. Amber, with her hefty chest and young girl (unfamiliar with the world) smile, is picking up the scraps of paper one piece at a time. We sit down and Boyle quietly taps his wallet on the counter as he stares up at the TV. He buys the first round. I watch Amber pour the drafts and begin to feel useless.
“How you holding up?” I ask and take a sip.
“Alright. I guess. I just want the holidays to be over. You know? Just get passed them.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I just don’t have it in me. I told Lizzy to go and buy all the presents for Benny. I wanted nothing to do with it. With him gone, I just don’t give a shit.”
“It’ll get better. Spring, man. Wait until spring.” I raise my glass to Boyle and then chug the pint. I wipe the suds from my lips with the back of my hand. Boyle continues on about the loss of his father and the effect it is placing on his wife, young son, and scattered soul. All the while I stare at drips of beer on the counter, tiny isolated villages containing universes within themselves flickering from yellow to orange under the light. I nudge my mind back to Boyle, to listen and empathize, because it is the right thing to do.
Friday, February 26, 2010
THE OLD YEAR (Part 2)
I draw three queens and hit the button as I hope for a fourth. No luck. I know the microchips that sit beneath the bar counter are against me. The random number generator has a conscience but it is evil. I find hopeful amusement and subsequent despair in the heavenly wagers I make with the universe, ‘if I hit this flush everything will be fine.’
“Intelligent design is an excuse, a candy-ass way, to circumvent the constitution and proselytize the masses.”
“Right. It’s Christianity’s way of combating Darwinism. That’s all.”
The men next to me in faceless voices (because of my trance on the video screen) are raving like Ivy clad intellectuals. I imagine elbow patches and manicured nails at the end of soft white slender fingers. I see corduroy and plaid and clean virgin white pressed shirts. Finally, due to the fact that my eyes are beginning to sting, I look over and see desert kids – dirty in jeans and t-shirts, with brown faces of stubble and blood shot eyes. They are young but made worn by the unyielding current of poverty. One is short with a chubby face and short brown dirty hair. He has acne like little volcanoes in a ring of fire lining his chin and jaw. He appears to be in his mid-twenties. Roughly the same age, a tall fresh faced boy is wearing round thin-rimmed glasses and has shoulder length brown hair. He is skinny with sharp angles to his joints. A robust blond with a smushed face sits between them gambling and interjecting from time to time. I turn pack to the video poker laid before me like a plate of bright colors; rays of light exploding up like a fountain.
“Science is the future. It will solve all our problems. And Christians refuse to believe that. They paint Darwin like some lunatic. It’s fucking disgusting man.”
“I know. I’m so sick of the rhetoric.”
As people, our relationships are thin strands of onion made of paper dipped in water colored by ego. We hear what we want and jump ship often. Connections are not real. They can stop at any moment, through death or stupidity or ignorance, but most often they end through weakness. When I look too closely at people, into their eyes (the starving), at the shape of their bodies (the loneliness), I am overwhelmed with despair and want to plunge knives into my pin cushion abdomen.
I play for the straight. No dice.
“It’s like with freemasons, they were born from the oppression of Christianity.”
“I once heard the Red Cross are the freemasons in disguise because the symbol for freemasonry is a rose wrapped around a cross”, I interject.
“I heard that too.”
I turn back to my plate of hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds. I hit two pair and follow it with four jacks. A swirl of satisfaction balloons in my chest. A house built with electronic cards.
“Intelligent design is an excuse, a candy-ass way, to circumvent the constitution and proselytize the masses.”
“Right. It’s Christianity’s way of combating Darwinism. That’s all.”
The men next to me in faceless voices (because of my trance on the video screen) are raving like Ivy clad intellectuals. I imagine elbow patches and manicured nails at the end of soft white slender fingers. I see corduroy and plaid and clean virgin white pressed shirts. Finally, due to the fact that my eyes are beginning to sting, I look over and see desert kids – dirty in jeans and t-shirts, with brown faces of stubble and blood shot eyes. They are young but made worn by the unyielding current of poverty. One is short with a chubby face and short brown dirty hair. He has acne like little volcanoes in a ring of fire lining his chin and jaw. He appears to be in his mid-twenties. Roughly the same age, a tall fresh faced boy is wearing round thin-rimmed glasses and has shoulder length brown hair. He is skinny with sharp angles to his joints. A robust blond with a smushed face sits between them gambling and interjecting from time to time. I turn pack to the video poker laid before me like a plate of bright colors; rays of light exploding up like a fountain.
“Science is the future. It will solve all our problems. And Christians refuse to believe that. They paint Darwin like some lunatic. It’s fucking disgusting man.”
“I know. I’m so sick of the rhetoric.”
As people, our relationships are thin strands of onion made of paper dipped in water colored by ego. We hear what we want and jump ship often. Connections are not real. They can stop at any moment, through death or stupidity or ignorance, but most often they end through weakness. When I look too closely at people, into their eyes (the starving), at the shape of their bodies (the loneliness), I am overwhelmed with despair and want to plunge knives into my pin cushion abdomen.
I play for the straight. No dice.
“It’s like with freemasons, they were born from the oppression of Christianity.”
“I once heard the Red Cross are the freemasons in disguise because the symbol for freemasonry is a rose wrapped around a cross”, I interject.
“I heard that too.”
I turn back to my plate of hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds. I hit two pair and follow it with four jacks. A swirl of satisfaction balloons in my chest. A house built with electronic cards.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
THE OLD YEAR (Part 1)
I remember the abandoned chemical factory, with broken windows like missing teeth and half-burnt walls and graffiti floors, or that now desolate empty pothole spotted parking lot that housed the drugstore I worked at and laid open the imaginary field where I played touch-football with Dean and Felschow and Goobs and grew to over six foot sitting against the paint chipped wall under a winter gray sky with a soccer ball between my feet as I sang to pretty redheads. I want to dream of anywhere but this desert dirt bright white from the sad-faced full moon. Every step I take the world around me expands like I’m standing on the caboose of a train, arms outstretched for a past gone by. I can smell the burning electric of my toy trains as the battery overheats.
The scissor wind cuts through my plaid sports coat. I drift back to my mother’s kitchen, to the smell of potatoes and carrots and ham and cabbage (the same smell of Nan’s kitchen) as I linger in the warm vibrations of safety as the snow piles up outside. I sidestep to the massive driveway in Depew and the early morning work with a bent metal shovel and mounds of snow with nowhere to go, stoned and listening to sports talk radio on a walkman with a missing cassette door and my stinging exposed back aching.
The desert is the moon. As I walk over small dunes and dips, my right leg seems longer than my left. Things blur before they focus, my eyes a cruel, thoughtless lens, a world of blurred photographs. I need to set my mind on something other than the weight of itself. I see a pool of blood before me quiver, dirty blood no longer hidden behind the innocence of skin and tissue. I think of Patrick in Fredonia in the Chinese restaurants raving that he could see the floor breathe.
I get angry at these invading thoughts and lash out at the reality I am in. I try to scream my dizzy head away. I know when I get back to my apartment I will shout, “I’m home”, to an empty cigar box that reeks of desperation and fallen dust. “You didn’t miss much, baby. It was a quiet night.” I can see disease. I have burdening x-ray eyes.
The moon, the searchlight, hangs over me like an interrogation lamp. Accusing white light brings me back to the crisp fall nights playing soccer with the Germans behind the burned out, boarded up buildings of Philadelphia where the Police helicopter’s spotlight directed police cars six in a row down the narrow, dark streets. Those nights we would drink until we were sick and laugh as we carried each other to our beds. The next day Scott would refuse to leave the only couch and bribe me with money for food so he could use the bathroom while I was gone to the corner deli.
I think I can feel the stones through my brown boots, but I’m not sure. Bursts of hot pain on my arches. Each step delivers a long twang up from my feet like a vibrating rubber band. The mountains around me are crooked houses with mad grins slanted and looming but far away. I miss sidewalks and curbs and corner stores. I forsake the present for the past and her warmth. The comfort in knowing you survived.
Luckily my sense of direction is still intact. Off in the distance, a mile or two, I see my apartment nestled in a group of two story buildings standing like bums around fire. With cold hands and a runny nose and sore legs, I march on with thoughts of Jews running half naked in that book I read in high school.
The scissor wind cuts through my plaid sports coat. I drift back to my mother’s kitchen, to the smell of potatoes and carrots and ham and cabbage (the same smell of Nan’s kitchen) as I linger in the warm vibrations of safety as the snow piles up outside. I sidestep to the massive driveway in Depew and the early morning work with a bent metal shovel and mounds of snow with nowhere to go, stoned and listening to sports talk radio on a walkman with a missing cassette door and my stinging exposed back aching.
The desert is the moon. As I walk over small dunes and dips, my right leg seems longer than my left. Things blur before they focus, my eyes a cruel, thoughtless lens, a world of blurred photographs. I need to set my mind on something other than the weight of itself. I see a pool of blood before me quiver, dirty blood no longer hidden behind the innocence of skin and tissue. I think of Patrick in Fredonia in the Chinese restaurants raving that he could see the floor breathe.
I get angry at these invading thoughts and lash out at the reality I am in. I try to scream my dizzy head away. I know when I get back to my apartment I will shout, “I’m home”, to an empty cigar box that reeks of desperation and fallen dust. “You didn’t miss much, baby. It was a quiet night.” I can see disease. I have burdening x-ray eyes.
The moon, the searchlight, hangs over me like an interrogation lamp. Accusing white light brings me back to the crisp fall nights playing soccer with the Germans behind the burned out, boarded up buildings of Philadelphia where the Police helicopter’s spotlight directed police cars six in a row down the narrow, dark streets. Those nights we would drink until we were sick and laugh as we carried each other to our beds. The next day Scott would refuse to leave the only couch and bribe me with money for food so he could use the bathroom while I was gone to the corner deli.
I think I can feel the stones through my brown boots, but I’m not sure. Bursts of hot pain on my arches. Each step delivers a long twang up from my feet like a vibrating rubber band. The mountains around me are crooked houses with mad grins slanted and looming but far away. I miss sidewalks and curbs and corner stores. I forsake the present for the past and her warmth. The comfort in knowing you survived.
Luckily my sense of direction is still intact. Off in the distance, a mile or two, I see my apartment nestled in a group of two story buildings standing like bums around fire. With cold hands and a runny nose and sore legs, I march on with thoughts of Jews running half naked in that book I read in high school.
Monday, October 19, 2009
ONE MAN ARMY - Part Seven: The End
The end did not come quick. It was many years of savage debauchery and danger. During which Jackie completely lost his mind and suffered terribly. He began to realize he was too ill. Everything became hopeless to him. Life was no longer in him. He would put himself down and say he was no good. He started to hate himself. He talked about death a lot.
One autumn evening, Jackie chased people around the neighborhood with an ax. He left marks in trees and wood fences. No one knows why he did it or what set him off. All that was certain, he was becoming a danger to other people and not just himself. This was a definite change in Jackie’s character. The police came and Jackie was gone a little longer this time.
Not soon after Jackie returned, he was at the corner store. He convinced a young girl to go for a ride with him on his bike. He took her back home. Around 11 pm, he asked her if she wanted to stay over. He told her she better call her parents and let them know. The girl did. The parents called the police and they broke down the door and took the girl out. Jackie must have realized what was going to happen, because when the cops showed up he was gone.
It was reported around the neighborhood that the girl was fine. Rumors spread among us kids that she had horrible nightmares that would last for years. I imagined Jackie just sitting with her. They talked and had a good time. Maybe they had a tea party?
Jackie left the door off its hinges. When I asked why he’s didn’t fix the door, he told me, “so next time, it’s easier for the cops.”
Mrs. Quinn passed away and Jackie was without a home. I would see him sometimes up on Seneca Street walking by himself. I would talk to him, but he didn’t seem to recognize me. It was more like he knew he should know me. He would talk pretty incoherent, changing subjects like flipping through pages of a book. He was dirty and most likely homeless.
Often, he would go back to his mother’s house and scare the new owners. Once, he walked inside and sat down like he still lived there. The cops would come and take him out. He would spend some time in the system and then be back on the streets, lost and confused.
Then, he was gone. I didn’t see him any more. I thought he was dead. I assumed he was dead. But he wasn’t. I thought the wind just carried him away. But it didn’t. I have to hand it to him, he never gave up. He never stopped living. As tortured as I knew he was, he stayed with a life trying and terrible and lonely, with a head full of ideas and a heart full of gasoline.
Who knows where he was? But he wasn’t dead. He died a few years later. He froze to death behind a dumpster.
One autumn evening, Jackie chased people around the neighborhood with an ax. He left marks in trees and wood fences. No one knows why he did it or what set him off. All that was certain, he was becoming a danger to other people and not just himself. This was a definite change in Jackie’s character. The police came and Jackie was gone a little longer this time.
Not soon after Jackie returned, he was at the corner store. He convinced a young girl to go for a ride with him on his bike. He took her back home. Around 11 pm, he asked her if she wanted to stay over. He told her she better call her parents and let them know. The girl did. The parents called the police and they broke down the door and took the girl out. Jackie must have realized what was going to happen, because when the cops showed up he was gone.
It was reported around the neighborhood that the girl was fine. Rumors spread among us kids that she had horrible nightmares that would last for years. I imagined Jackie just sitting with her. They talked and had a good time. Maybe they had a tea party?
Jackie left the door off its hinges. When I asked why he’s didn’t fix the door, he told me, “so next time, it’s easier for the cops.”
Mrs. Quinn passed away and Jackie was without a home. I would see him sometimes up on Seneca Street walking by himself. I would talk to him, but he didn’t seem to recognize me. It was more like he knew he should know me. He would talk pretty incoherent, changing subjects like flipping through pages of a book. He was dirty and most likely homeless.
Often, he would go back to his mother’s house and scare the new owners. Once, he walked inside and sat down like he still lived there. The cops would come and take him out. He would spend some time in the system and then be back on the streets, lost and confused.
Then, he was gone. I didn’t see him any more. I thought he was dead. I assumed he was dead. But he wasn’t. I thought the wind just carried him away. But it didn’t. I have to hand it to him, he never gave up. He never stopped living. As tortured as I knew he was, he stayed with a life trying and terrible and lonely, with a head full of ideas and a heart full of gasoline.
Who knows where he was? But he wasn’t dead. He died a few years later. He froze to death behind a dumpster.
ONE MAN ARMY - Part Six: Naked
Things began to deteriorate. Because it happened slowly over many years, it wasn’t noticeable. His madness was a continental shift. One day we noticed he was somewhere else. Things had just gotten real ugly. Jackie was no longer the carefree hippie signing songs barefoot up and down the street. There was a darkness enveloping him.
I was maybe thirteen. Jackie had come back from one of his visits to the hospital. This time he brought with him a fellow patient. No one knows if she escaped or was released, but she seemed deranged. She uttered obscenities and spit randomly. She would constantly kick her shoes off, put them back on, and kick them off again. She was ornery and oblivious and constantly scratching her arms. She had dark eyes and a giant cloud of black hair.
One morning I came out the back door to find Jackie and his new friend humping butt naked in his backyard. The sun was a spotlight on them. I stood at the chain link fence watching the tangled limps. There was so much flesh. Her legs were in the air and Jackie was between them. It was very ritualistic.
For a week or two they were inseparable. They wandered around the yard holding hands and fondling each other. I never saw Jackie so happy. He showed her off to any one he could. She would grunt and spit and say nonsensical things. He would look at her adoringly and pull out one of her tits.
Then one day she was gone. Jackie never said what happened. He would give vague, mysterious answers. He turned a darker shade after that. His bouts of sadness seemed to last longer. He withdrew. He spent more time in the house or the garage and didn’t bother the neighborhood as often, at least face to face.
My little sister and her friends would have to endure Jackie and his new found anger with the world. They would be hanging out and would hear a bang from Jackie’s window. They would look up to find Jackie naked, masturbating. My sister and her friends would scream and run off leaving Jackie alone at the window holding himself.
It appeared he completely stopped taking his medications and crawled up inside his illness. He became even more fatalistic, which didn’t seem possible. He seemed tired a lot and would constantly say things like “what’s the point” and “it’s no use”. He would walk around hunched over, his hands in his pockets, staring at the ground. He was no longer out going and charming in his unique way. He was more like a shadow than a human being.
He would often ring our doorbell in the middle of the night to ask my mother or father for a cigarette. When one of my irate parents started to scream at him for his inappropriateness, he would tell them it was going to his last one. He was going to kill himself. My parents would tell him to not talk stupid and then hand him a cigarette, until the next time he was going to die.
I was maybe thirteen. Jackie had come back from one of his visits to the hospital. This time he brought with him a fellow patient. No one knows if she escaped or was released, but she seemed deranged. She uttered obscenities and spit randomly. She would constantly kick her shoes off, put them back on, and kick them off again. She was ornery and oblivious and constantly scratching her arms. She had dark eyes and a giant cloud of black hair.
One morning I came out the back door to find Jackie and his new friend humping butt naked in his backyard. The sun was a spotlight on them. I stood at the chain link fence watching the tangled limps. There was so much flesh. Her legs were in the air and Jackie was between them. It was very ritualistic.
For a week or two they were inseparable. They wandered around the yard holding hands and fondling each other. I never saw Jackie so happy. He showed her off to any one he could. She would grunt and spit and say nonsensical things. He would look at her adoringly and pull out one of her tits.
Then one day she was gone. Jackie never said what happened. He would give vague, mysterious answers. He turned a darker shade after that. His bouts of sadness seemed to last longer. He withdrew. He spent more time in the house or the garage and didn’t bother the neighborhood as often, at least face to face.
My little sister and her friends would have to endure Jackie and his new found anger with the world. They would be hanging out and would hear a bang from Jackie’s window. They would look up to find Jackie naked, masturbating. My sister and her friends would scream and run off leaving Jackie alone at the window holding himself.
It appeared he completely stopped taking his medications and crawled up inside his illness. He became even more fatalistic, which didn’t seem possible. He seemed tired a lot and would constantly say things like “what’s the point” and “it’s no use”. He would walk around hunched over, his hands in his pockets, staring at the ground. He was no longer out going and charming in his unique way. He was more like a shadow than a human being.
He would often ring our doorbell in the middle of the night to ask my mother or father for a cigarette. When one of my irate parents started to scream at him for his inappropriateness, he would tell them it was going to his last one. He was going to kill himself. My parents would tell him to not talk stupid and then hand him a cigarette, until the next time he was going to die.
ONE MAN ARMY - Part Five: Burning Bed
Jackie called from this mother’s room, out the window facing our driveway.
“Fire!”
My mother was in the kitchen, which also faced our driveway. She heard Jackie and thought, ‘what now?’ But there was something different in his voice this time. She looked out the window. Smoke was coming from Mrs. Quinn’s room like a flag waving.
My mother ran to the Quinn’s house and went inside. Jackie was in his mother’s room fanning the flames with a towel. Embers arched away from their source like a sprinkler. The bed was on fire.
Mrs. Quinn was on the bed. The bottom right corner was on fire. She was naked. There was no sheet on the bed and it was soiled and stained with feces and urine. Jackie keep flaming the towel frantically.
“Jackie, stop that! You’re making it worse! Help me get your mother out of bed.”
Jackie looked at her, dumbstruck and continued fanning frantically. My mother went to Mrs. Quinn. She was curled up and disjointed, a frail body of flesh and bone. Bruises dotted her body from head to toe. My mother got a robe, scooped her up, and took her out of the room. She laid her on the couch and left her softly moaning. She went to the kitchen and filled a pot with water. Back in Mrs. Quinn’s room, Jackie was still fanning the flames. My mother drenched the mattress. The fire was out.
“How did this happen?” my mother asked.
“I don’t know.” Jackie shrugged and pushed the hair out of his eyes. He was out of breath.
“You don’t know how this happened?”
“No, I was just sitting here having a cigarette and talking to my mom.”
“Fire!”
My mother was in the kitchen, which also faced our driveway. She heard Jackie and thought, ‘what now?’ But there was something different in his voice this time. She looked out the window. Smoke was coming from Mrs. Quinn’s room like a flag waving.
My mother ran to the Quinn’s house and went inside. Jackie was in his mother’s room fanning the flames with a towel. Embers arched away from their source like a sprinkler. The bed was on fire.
Mrs. Quinn was on the bed. The bottom right corner was on fire. She was naked. There was no sheet on the bed and it was soiled and stained with feces and urine. Jackie keep flaming the towel frantically.
“Jackie, stop that! You’re making it worse! Help me get your mother out of bed.”
Jackie looked at her, dumbstruck and continued fanning frantically. My mother went to Mrs. Quinn. She was curled up and disjointed, a frail body of flesh and bone. Bruises dotted her body from head to toe. My mother got a robe, scooped her up, and took her out of the room. She laid her on the couch and left her softly moaning. She went to the kitchen and filled a pot with water. Back in Mrs. Quinn’s room, Jackie was still fanning the flames. My mother drenched the mattress. The fire was out.
“How did this happen?” my mother asked.
“I don’t know.” Jackie shrugged and pushed the hair out of his eyes. He was out of breath.
“You don’t know how this happened?”
“No, I was just sitting here having a cigarette and talking to my mom.”
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
DUST
Some people called her ‘Plain Jane’. Others named her ‘Skeleton’. I found her graceful. She was a skinny and frail girl who held her head high and carried a subdued confidence that walked slow and tired. She worked as a waitress and wore the bruise of poverty. In the desert, the poorest people never really look clean. Dust is another part of your wardrobe. It hangs on you and falls asleep.
I would watch her as I drank and played video poker. She fascinated me. She seemed very young. But the dust made it impossible to tell her real age. Up close, she looked older than I believed she was. Heavy make up unsuccessfully covered the acne on her chin and jaw. Her eyes were dull, but could tighten and darken when engaged.
There was something in her that I gravitated towards. I could not name or describe this gravitation but it was there. She reminded me of Audrey Hepburn. Something magnetic living and breathing was inside her bright and neon. I tried to envision the glow humming and buzzing in her chest. I knew it was there; surrounded by a fence of smooth, white ribs. I wanted to be near that glow.
We would talk to each other sweet and nice. The conversations wouldn’t last long. They were defined by an uncomfortable feeling that neither of us wanted to say anything more and ruin the pleasantness. It was as if neither of us had faith in words and gestures and nervously took what we could and then retreated.
We started to make plans to meet places. Every time, one or both of us wouldn’t show. It was a strange dance of refusing commitment based on fear of rejection. But we kept making plans, hitting our head against the wall. It became our thing, a dark and sad and twisted game of flirting; each of us taking turns extending our hand and then pulling it away.
People would tell me how she had been seen out on the edge of town. A guy I knew from the electric company told me a story about her. He was called to a transistor outside of town – out where there is nothing but stoic rocks and angry dirt and hot screaming winds you can not hide from and pretentious mountains that stand with their backs to you. When he got there, a red pickup truck was sitting next to the transistor. He swears to me that ‘Plane Jane was blowing this guy that had to be seventy years old!’
Part of me didn’t believe him and part of me thought it made sense. This desert town is so remote and other worldly, anything is usually possible. It is a land of dark magic that hides in whatever shade is found. A place marked by dried and cracked open wounds that mirror the landscape. How you ended up here is predominately the reason why you do the things you do. There are no excuses here, only the fact that everyone is broke.
It is a place not just unforgiving, it doesn’t seem to notice. The constant sun melts your strength like a box of crayons and all the colors become one – survival. The heat yelps in your ear as it rides your back. Faith must be taken away and buried deep in the earth in order to stay cool because the hot dust covers your eyes and coats your lungs and paints your brain. In no time at all, things begin to become so real, so stark and primordial, that you believe them to be unreal. All hope is lost in the middle of nowhere, saturated by poverty and dirt. The only thing to do is to see how far you can go in the only direction available, the wrong one.
I would watch her as I drank and played video poker. She fascinated me. She seemed very young. But the dust made it impossible to tell her real age. Up close, she looked older than I believed she was. Heavy make up unsuccessfully covered the acne on her chin and jaw. Her eyes were dull, but could tighten and darken when engaged.
There was something in her that I gravitated towards. I could not name or describe this gravitation but it was there. She reminded me of Audrey Hepburn. Something magnetic living and breathing was inside her bright and neon. I tried to envision the glow humming and buzzing in her chest. I knew it was there; surrounded by a fence of smooth, white ribs. I wanted to be near that glow.
We would talk to each other sweet and nice. The conversations wouldn’t last long. They were defined by an uncomfortable feeling that neither of us wanted to say anything more and ruin the pleasantness. It was as if neither of us had faith in words and gestures and nervously took what we could and then retreated.
We started to make plans to meet places. Every time, one or both of us wouldn’t show. It was a strange dance of refusing commitment based on fear of rejection. But we kept making plans, hitting our head against the wall. It became our thing, a dark and sad and twisted game of flirting; each of us taking turns extending our hand and then pulling it away.
People would tell me how she had been seen out on the edge of town. A guy I knew from the electric company told me a story about her. He was called to a transistor outside of town – out where there is nothing but stoic rocks and angry dirt and hot screaming winds you can not hide from and pretentious mountains that stand with their backs to you. When he got there, a red pickup truck was sitting next to the transistor. He swears to me that ‘Plane Jane was blowing this guy that had to be seventy years old!’
Part of me didn’t believe him and part of me thought it made sense. This desert town is so remote and other worldly, anything is usually possible. It is a land of dark magic that hides in whatever shade is found. A place marked by dried and cracked open wounds that mirror the landscape. How you ended up here is predominately the reason why you do the things you do. There are no excuses here, only the fact that everyone is broke.
It is a place not just unforgiving, it doesn’t seem to notice. The constant sun melts your strength like a box of crayons and all the colors become one – survival. The heat yelps in your ear as it rides your back. Faith must be taken away and buried deep in the earth in order to stay cool because the hot dust covers your eyes and coats your lungs and paints your brain. In no time at all, things begin to become so real, so stark and primordial, that you believe them to be unreal. All hope is lost in the middle of nowhere, saturated by poverty and dirt. The only thing to do is to see how far you can go in the only direction available, the wrong one.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
ONE MAN ARMY - Part Four: Protesting What Exactly?
Jackie came out of the garage with a burlap sack on his head. Wrapped around the burlap sack was a bike chain fixed to his head with a padlock. One hole was made in the sack about an inch wide. His right eye peered through the opening.
The summer heat sat down in the middle of the neighborhood. Jackie stumbled up and down our street. His head baking like a roast. A group of the neighborhood kids followed him.
“Jackie, why do have that on your head?”
“It’s to keep all my thoughts to myself.”
I rode off down the street to the corner store for a Freezy Pop and some Boston Baked Beans. Jackie always fascinated me, but I knew there would always be something else down the line just as interesting. Life didn’t have to be put on hold. On my way back, Jackie was lying in the middle of the road like a speed bump, burlap sack and all. He was lying straight across the street. His arms to his side, legs extended. He was perfectly still. He had on jean shorts, a white muscle shirt and a sack on his head.
Cars were honking when I pulled up. Our street was narrow, and with a parked car on it, two cars could barely pass each other. Jackie put an end to traffic down our street. He refused to get up.
“Jackie, get out of the road!” someone yelled.
Jackie said something but it was inaudible with the sack on his head. I remember thinking, ‘is this a protest?’ Now, cars where two and three in a line, waiting. More honks, and more screams from drivers and neighbors, brought the street to life. It was like a parade, only it wasn’t moving.
Finally, two men got out of a car, picked Jackie up like a sack of sand and threw him on his lawn. A few minutes later, when the police finally showed up, Jackie was sitting in a lawn chair outside the garage, the “For Sale” sign over his shoulder. His legs were crossed, dignified. He was reading the newspaper with a scuba mask on.
The summer heat sat down in the middle of the neighborhood. Jackie stumbled up and down our street. His head baking like a roast. A group of the neighborhood kids followed him.
“Jackie, why do have that on your head?”
“It’s to keep all my thoughts to myself.”
I rode off down the street to the corner store for a Freezy Pop and some Boston Baked Beans. Jackie always fascinated me, but I knew there would always be something else down the line just as interesting. Life didn’t have to be put on hold. On my way back, Jackie was lying in the middle of the road like a speed bump, burlap sack and all. He was lying straight across the street. His arms to his side, legs extended. He was perfectly still. He had on jean shorts, a white muscle shirt and a sack on his head.
Cars were honking when I pulled up. Our street was narrow, and with a parked car on it, two cars could barely pass each other. Jackie put an end to traffic down our street. He refused to get up.
“Jackie, get out of the road!” someone yelled.
Jackie said something but it was inaudible with the sack on his head. I remember thinking, ‘is this a protest?’ Now, cars where two and three in a line, waiting. More honks, and more screams from drivers and neighbors, brought the street to life. It was like a parade, only it wasn’t moving.
Finally, two men got out of a car, picked Jackie up like a sack of sand and threw him on his lawn. A few minutes later, when the police finally showed up, Jackie was sitting in a lawn chair outside the garage, the “For Sale” sign over his shoulder. His legs were crossed, dignified. He was reading the newspaper with a scuba mask on.
ONE MAN ARMY - Part Three: War Casualty
It was believed, things when downhill for Jackie when his brother died in Viet Nam. Before that he was a just a troubled kid who lost his father young in life. After his older brother died, he started to become increasingly uncontrollably unstable. Attachments were severed and never repaired. His mind became cut cables and snapped bridges. He stood and looked to a distant land, a river of fire separating the two.
Jackie’s life was a war. His eyes saw smoke and detached limbs and blood stains and craters. A life defined by an unusual, perverse, and melancholy testament of violence and destruction born in his past and echoed in the ever burdening present.
I had seen him get the shit kicked out of him many times. At any moment during any day, it was possible. The majority of the time he provoked it. The list is long too. I watched cops, friend’s fathers, his own siblings, and teenagers inflict violence on Jackie’s skinny frame. I never understood why he would mouth off to someone to the breaking point and get punched and kicked. His eyes and his words told me it was a necessity.
My grandmother, my little sister and I used to sit in the kitchen with the lights off like owls. My grandmother was a busy body and we were her students. We would stare out the window into the Quinn’s yard. All the Quinn boys and girls would be having a party. I remember seeing Mrs. Quinn out in the yard with them. She would be young again. She would be in her chair laughing and smoking, with a case of Genny Pounders at her side. She was one of the gang in a carnival of celebration.
Over the loud music, a fight would always break out and Jackie would be in the center of it. From the kitchen, in the dark, we would watch. Jackie’s brothers would beat him with wooden chairs and coolers from the back yard to the middle of the street. Every party, Jackie would be tarred and feather as the one who ruined the fun. The price to be paid for such a transgression was a cup of blood.
Jackie’s life was a war. His eyes saw smoke and detached limbs and blood stains and craters. A life defined by an unusual, perverse, and melancholy testament of violence and destruction born in his past and echoed in the ever burdening present.
I had seen him get the shit kicked out of him many times. At any moment during any day, it was possible. The majority of the time he provoked it. The list is long too. I watched cops, friend’s fathers, his own siblings, and teenagers inflict violence on Jackie’s skinny frame. I never understood why he would mouth off to someone to the breaking point and get punched and kicked. His eyes and his words told me it was a necessity.
My grandmother, my little sister and I used to sit in the kitchen with the lights off like owls. My grandmother was a busy body and we were her students. We would stare out the window into the Quinn’s yard. All the Quinn boys and girls would be having a party. I remember seeing Mrs. Quinn out in the yard with them. She would be young again. She would be in her chair laughing and smoking, with a case of Genny Pounders at her side. She was one of the gang in a carnival of celebration.
Over the loud music, a fight would always break out and Jackie would be in the center of it. From the kitchen, in the dark, we would watch. Jackie’s brothers would beat him with wooden chairs and coolers from the back yard to the middle of the street. Every party, Jackie would be tarred and feather as the one who ruined the fun. The price to be paid for such a transgression was a cup of blood.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
ONE MAN ARMY - Part Two: I'm Returning This Hamburger
Jackie Quinn would walk the neighborhood, his acoustic guitar tight to his chest. He would improvise songs about what was going on around him. “It’s a sunny day/Aaron’s drinking pop/if the pop goes flat/it turns into to communists.”
I knew Jackie as long as I can remember. I watched as his light brown hair turned gray. He was always around like a member of the family. He was there when I learned to ride a bike and when I got my first job. When I worked at the drug store, he’d try to return hamburgers for cash.
“I’m not satisfied with this. I would like to return it.”
“Ah, come on Jackie, I’m trying to work.”
“Are you saying the customer is wrong?”
Jackie spent his life in and out of the mental hospital. He would typically spend a few weeks there and then return. He would behave for awhile and then get sent away again. I asked my mother once why this was.
“They don’t know what to do with him. The doctors treat him and then ship him off. He can’t stay there forever. Who’s going to pay for it? It’s really sad. And with all those brothers and sisters, no one wants him.”
After Mrs. Quinn died, Jackie would still return to the house, even after it was sold to new owners. He had no where else to go.
It was a sunny summer day. I was sitting on the porch, skateboard at my feet. I heard a bending of metal. I looked to the Quinn’s house and saw Jackie prying the screen from the window with a butter knife. He was in his room on the second floor. Suddenly, a steady stream of debris came rushing out of the window. I watched as papers, boxes, clothes, drawers, and even a lamp shoot from the window like fireworks. Each item hanging in the air for a split second before coming to rest on the lawn. I looked up to catch glimpses of Jackie with armfuls of junk. He would extend his arms and then recede for another load. My mother came storming out of the house.
“Jackie! What in God’s name are doing?” she called up.
“My mother said to clean my room.”
“Knock it off. Don’t be such an idiot.”
“Okay.”
“And get down here and clean this up. And stop tormenting your mother.”
“Okay. You’re right. I know.”
Jackie always listened to my family, especially my mother. He was a pacifist who seemed to always get himself in violent situations. He always seemed to force himself to the edge of destruction and it was consistently my family who was able to talk him back on step at a time.
Once, he was in a standoff in his driveway with police. Three cops were surrounding him. He was holding them off with a screwdriver. Before the cops could pounce, my mother walked up and snatched the screwdriver out of his hand. She gave him a stern look of disappointment. Jackie dropped his head in shame before being hauled off once again. He made sure he said goodbye from the back of the police car.
I knew Jackie as long as I can remember. I watched as his light brown hair turned gray. He was always around like a member of the family. He was there when I learned to ride a bike and when I got my first job. When I worked at the drug store, he’d try to return hamburgers for cash.
“I’m not satisfied with this. I would like to return it.”
“Ah, come on Jackie, I’m trying to work.”
“Are you saying the customer is wrong?”
Jackie spent his life in and out of the mental hospital. He would typically spend a few weeks there and then return. He would behave for awhile and then get sent away again. I asked my mother once why this was.
“They don’t know what to do with him. The doctors treat him and then ship him off. He can’t stay there forever. Who’s going to pay for it? It’s really sad. And with all those brothers and sisters, no one wants him.”
After Mrs. Quinn died, Jackie would still return to the house, even after it was sold to new owners. He had no where else to go.
It was a sunny summer day. I was sitting on the porch, skateboard at my feet. I heard a bending of metal. I looked to the Quinn’s house and saw Jackie prying the screen from the window with a butter knife. He was in his room on the second floor. Suddenly, a steady stream of debris came rushing out of the window. I watched as papers, boxes, clothes, drawers, and even a lamp shoot from the window like fireworks. Each item hanging in the air for a split second before coming to rest on the lawn. I looked up to catch glimpses of Jackie with armfuls of junk. He would extend his arms and then recede for another load. My mother came storming out of the house.
“Jackie! What in God’s name are doing?” she called up.
“My mother said to clean my room.”
“Knock it off. Don’t be such an idiot.”
“Okay.”
“And get down here and clean this up. And stop tormenting your mother.”
“Okay. You’re right. I know.”
Jackie always listened to my family, especially my mother. He was a pacifist who seemed to always get himself in violent situations. He always seemed to force himself to the edge of destruction and it was consistently my family who was able to talk him back on step at a time.
Once, he was in a standoff in his driveway with police. Three cops were surrounding him. He was holding them off with a screwdriver. Before the cops could pounce, my mother walked up and snatched the screwdriver out of his hand. She gave him a stern look of disappointment. Jackie dropped his head in shame before being hauled off once again. He made sure he said goodbye from the back of the police car.
ONE MAN ARMY - Part One: Garage For Sale
“Don’t ever grow up Aaron. Your heart can’t take it.”
Growing up I had a neighbor named Jackie and he was crazier than a sack of kittens. I loved him. He was loyal and generous and funny and creative. He was whip-smart. I recognized in him a constant frustration with the world because things didn’t add up right. For a long time, I worried I would end up like him.
Jackie was the fourth youngest of fourteen children. On their driveway, all fourteen kids wrote their name in the cement. I often stared at the list. Jackie’s name was the biggest with long jagged lines. The letters were funny to me, but I didn’t know why.
He looked like John Lennon. He had long light brown hair and he wore the infamous round-rimmed glasses. He carried around an acoustic guitar. The standard outfit he wore was cut-off jean shorts with a white t-shirt and a black leather vest. He was usually barefoot.
He lived with his mother. He was the only one who stayed. It was his job to take care of her. His mother was confined to a wheelchair. She suffered from severe arthritis. Each finger was a dead man’s curve, twisted licorice that caused her great pain. Her legs were two straws connected by an orange for a knee joint. She was frail and gaunt and half deaf. She smoked Pall Malls fiendishly and requited oxygen.
Jackie’s mom, Mrs. Quinn, used to send me to the corner store for cigarettes. I was seven. She would write a note. I saw the pain on her face. I would watch as her hand shook. It was difficult for her to even hold the pen. Her knuckles were swollen and her fingers bent the wrong way. But I got to keep the change.
The man at the corner store was almost totally blind. He used a magnifying glass to read dollar bills. But he knew me and Mrs. Quinn. Later, when I was in fifth grade, I worked for him. Everyday, I worked two hours in the evening. I was paid fourteen dollars a week. I stocked the shelves and watched the older kids rob the place by filling their pockets.
Jackie and his mother constantly fought. She continually scolded Jackie like a twelve year old boy and not the thirty of forty something man that he was. Not that this anger was unfounded. Jackie was always doing something, and it swayed between utter nonsense to federal conspiracy. Once when Mrs. Quinn kicked Jackie out of the house, he moved into the old, slightly slanted garage. He draped a huge American flag on the wooden door. He sold pot from it to the neighborhood. And when he was low on cash, he put the garage up for sale.
A simple white piece of paper tacked to the door that said in bold black hand-written lettering: for sale.
I passed the driveway on my bike. Jackie waved me down.
“Hey Aaron, you want to buy a garage?”
“No thanks Jackie.”
“You sure, it’s a nice garage. It can be your bachelor pad.”
“Um, no, that’s okay. Why are you selling it anyway?”
“I’m tired of it. I want a new one.”
Growing up I had a neighbor named Jackie and he was crazier than a sack of kittens. I loved him. He was loyal and generous and funny and creative. He was whip-smart. I recognized in him a constant frustration with the world because things didn’t add up right. For a long time, I worried I would end up like him.
Jackie was the fourth youngest of fourteen children. On their driveway, all fourteen kids wrote their name in the cement. I often stared at the list. Jackie’s name was the biggest with long jagged lines. The letters were funny to me, but I didn’t know why.
He looked like John Lennon. He had long light brown hair and he wore the infamous round-rimmed glasses. He carried around an acoustic guitar. The standard outfit he wore was cut-off jean shorts with a white t-shirt and a black leather vest. He was usually barefoot.
He lived with his mother. He was the only one who stayed. It was his job to take care of her. His mother was confined to a wheelchair. She suffered from severe arthritis. Each finger was a dead man’s curve, twisted licorice that caused her great pain. Her legs were two straws connected by an orange for a knee joint. She was frail and gaunt and half deaf. She smoked Pall Malls fiendishly and requited oxygen.
Jackie’s mom, Mrs. Quinn, used to send me to the corner store for cigarettes. I was seven. She would write a note. I saw the pain on her face. I would watch as her hand shook. It was difficult for her to even hold the pen. Her knuckles were swollen and her fingers bent the wrong way. But I got to keep the change.
The man at the corner store was almost totally blind. He used a magnifying glass to read dollar bills. But he knew me and Mrs. Quinn. Later, when I was in fifth grade, I worked for him. Everyday, I worked two hours in the evening. I was paid fourteen dollars a week. I stocked the shelves and watched the older kids rob the place by filling their pockets.
Jackie and his mother constantly fought. She continually scolded Jackie like a twelve year old boy and not the thirty of forty something man that he was. Not that this anger was unfounded. Jackie was always doing something, and it swayed between utter nonsense to federal conspiracy. Once when Mrs. Quinn kicked Jackie out of the house, he moved into the old, slightly slanted garage. He draped a huge American flag on the wooden door. He sold pot from it to the neighborhood. And when he was low on cash, he put the garage up for sale.
A simple white piece of paper tacked to the door that said in bold black hand-written lettering: for sale.
I passed the driveway on my bike. Jackie waved me down.
“Hey Aaron, you want to buy a garage?”
“No thanks Jackie.”
“You sure, it’s a nice garage. It can be your bachelor pad.”
“Um, no, that’s okay. Why are you selling it anyway?”
“I’m tired of it. I want a new one.”
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Fish and the Nurse
It was late evening. The last few rays of light whispered from behind the houses in front of us. We were sitting on a curb. There was a heavy Sunday night feeling hanging over us. The streets were empty, quiet, dead, and depressing. Our freedom was ending.
We sat speculating on what it was going to be like. We worried about how severe the hazing would be. How would the older kids welcome us? There would be the traditional knocking of books out of hands. The smaller kids would be put in lockers, no doubt. Harmless stuff, we convinced ourselves. There was nothing to worry about.
Then Fish came towards us. He was called Fish because he worked at Trautwein’s Fish Market on Seneca Street. He always reeked of fish, hence, Fish. He came out of the house across the street.
He walked on the balls of feet which made him bounce as if at sea. He wore glasses and had a thick blonde mustache. His head swiveled and his arms dangled. He was smoking a cigarette. As he walked towards his red Trans Am, he looked over at us.
“You fuckers better not scratch my car with those fucking skateboards,” he hissed.
“We won’t,” we said in unison.
He stopped and eyed us with a mean stink eye. Then he walked over. My balls tightened. Fish went to the Senior High but looked as old as my father.
“What are you shits doing out anyway? Don’t you have school tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” I said. My voice shook a little.
“What grade you going into anyway?”
“Seventh.”
“Shit. That right? Man, are you ready for the nurse?”
“What about the nurse?”
“You don’t know about the physical the first day of Junior High? Shit. I can’t believe you don’t know about the nurse. I hope you’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“She’s gonna pull you into the Nurse’s office, take you behind a screen, and make you pull your pants down. You’re gonna have to stand there with your little dick hanging there in front of the nurse. Then, she’s gonna make you look at a nudie mag. Now, if you don’t get a boner, there’s something wrong with you. It means it doesn’t work.”
“You’re lying.”
“You think I’m fucking lying!” Fish took a step at us like he was going to throw a punch. We all fell onto our backs. “If you’re dick doesn’t work, they’re gonna call your parents and send you home. You’ll find out tomorrow. You better hope you get a boner.”
We sat speculating on what it was going to be like. We worried about how severe the hazing would be. How would the older kids welcome us? There would be the traditional knocking of books out of hands. The smaller kids would be put in lockers, no doubt. Harmless stuff, we convinced ourselves. There was nothing to worry about.
Then Fish came towards us. He was called Fish because he worked at Trautwein’s Fish Market on Seneca Street. He always reeked of fish, hence, Fish. He came out of the house across the street.
He walked on the balls of feet which made him bounce as if at sea. He wore glasses and had a thick blonde mustache. His head swiveled and his arms dangled. He was smoking a cigarette. As he walked towards his red Trans Am, he looked over at us.
“You fuckers better not scratch my car with those fucking skateboards,” he hissed.
“We won’t,” we said in unison.
He stopped and eyed us with a mean stink eye. Then he walked over. My balls tightened. Fish went to the Senior High but looked as old as my father.
“What are you shits doing out anyway? Don’t you have school tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” I said. My voice shook a little.
“What grade you going into anyway?”
“Seventh.”
“Shit. That right? Man, are you ready for the nurse?”
“What about the nurse?”
“You don’t know about the physical the first day of Junior High? Shit. I can’t believe you don’t know about the nurse. I hope you’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“She’s gonna pull you into the Nurse’s office, take you behind a screen, and make you pull your pants down. You’re gonna have to stand there with your little dick hanging there in front of the nurse. Then, she’s gonna make you look at a nudie mag. Now, if you don’t get a boner, there’s something wrong with you. It means it doesn’t work.”
“You’re lying.”
“You think I’m fucking lying!” Fish took a step at us like he was going to throw a punch. We all fell onto our backs. “If you’re dick doesn’t work, they’re gonna call your parents and send you home. You’ll find out tomorrow. You better hope you get a boner.”
A week's too long to do any one thing.
“C’mere a minute.”
Not very eloquent, but he was not a very eloquent man. He was a simple man who dressed in flannel and played in a going-nowhere band with his buddies on the weekends. But he mostly smiled and was always nice to me when I was a guest in his home. His eldest son and I were best friends, so I was there often. He wasn’t smiling now.
I don’t think he grabbed my arm, but he might as well have. He led me to a far corner of the park. Away from my friend, away from the rest of his family, away from my comfort level. This was the first time all week I had seen him like this. I was a guest on his family’s vacation and had apparently done something terribly wrong.
“If you ever put your hands on my son again…” He searched for an ending. Then he just looked at me.
What I thought was normal, boyish horseplay, I was now seeing through the eyes of a father with a skinny, not terribly popular son. A father who had obvious marital problems. A father who was trying to use this weeklong getaway to reassure his life. A father furious at a 12-year-old boy who was ruining everything.
He got a bit of control over himself. It might have been due to the fact that I looked like I was about to cry. Most 12-year-olds do when confronted by an adult.
I looked around for help. Off in the distance, my best friend had his back to us. He was mad too, but he’d get over it the way kids do. And this man’s wife? She was 200 yards away on top of a picnic table, puffing a cigarette. She looked at us, half disgusted, half disinterested, and then averted her eyes. It seems like every memory I have of her on the trip is this one.
“He’s half your weight. And there you are, tossing him around like a doll.” He started to get mad again. Maybe a camping trip wasn’t the answer to all of life’s problems. Certainly not when you bring ill-behaved guests along. But I might remind you, I was 12. And just discovering girls and myself. It was all adrenaline, all the time. And yes, there was a girl I was trying to impress by wrestling my best friend who clearly had no chance.
But I was wrong. And it’s an odd thing being scolded by a parent whom isn’t your own. Especially when you realize he or she is right to do so. I went from scared to sympathetic to ashamed in a minute flat.
“And for you to pull his pants down…” Now he was getting very mad. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea. The whole trip. The whole family. The whole marriage. I could see it. Could he?
“Sorry,” was all I could muster. It was over. The sun was setting. We’d return to the campsite for an uncomfortable evening by a campfire that this August night needed no part of. And I would go from ashamed to angry. “Wait until I tell my dad,” I thought. “Who does this guy think he is?” And “It’s not my fault Andy wasn’t wearing underpants.”
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