too old for the scene

I knew I was getting too old for the scene when I complained of the entire show being an underage event. No 21+ balcony, no bar scene for the adults, no place to lounge and enjoy a beer while watching the music and the kids go crazy.

I used to be one of those kids. Sixteen, seventeen, twenty years old, and full of aggression. Full of rage, of anger, of passion for life, maybe just passion for youth and all the recklessness of ‘living for the now’ that goes with it. I used to sit through high school seething, insecure with raging hormones and raging emotions. Perhaps perceived, partially in truth, I was an outsider. I didn’t have great friends, and I didn’t really want them either. At the shows though, we were all the same. Our own group of outsider teens, each with our own energy, vibrating at the highest of frequencies, needing to connect. Needing, craving physical interaction, even if through violence, our needs were met. And the music was the backdrop, cliché as it sounds, the bands provided the soundtrack to the violence of our interaction.

But that was years ago. Now I wanted to enjoy my whiskey ginger and not worry about swinging elbows and falling down. And I definitely did not want to do this from the far side of the club where the bar was located, but truth be told, I just didn’t have the energy to fight my way to the front anymore.

The music was good, not great, as they played the songs I knew they would. But as the show went on, I started to get back into the old spirit, bobbing my head with the music, jumping a little in place. Excited, I could have been seventeen again for a minute. A friend gave me a shove, and it was on. I ran towards the front, just like the old days, knocking people out of the way, throwing elbows and furious glances in the direction of anyone who wouldn’t let me easily pass. And then I broke through, out of the crowded masses and into the violent chaos of the mosh pit in front of the stage.

I staggered for a moment in the sudden brightness, so close to the stage, the back lighting creating silhouettes of the band screaming only feet away.

I smiled.

And then it was madness, the perfect madness of fifty kids jumping and sweating together in time to the music. Very loud music, played very fast. Pushing and shoving, elbows flying, legs flailing, people falling all over each other, connecting in unison. And I was in the middle of it with a huge smile on my face, sweating on, and being sweat on, one of the pit’s elders, losing myself in time to the music as the show came to a furious close.

I was being pushed, spun around with the other kids as the strobe lights alternately lit us up and then pitched us into blackness with the final crescendo of heavy guitar wailing. It was one of those passionate moments, just to enjoy life in the crowd. Light and I was able to see the singer finishing his screams into the microphone, dark and nothing as I spun. Light and I could see the smiles of the shouting kids, applauding a passionate performance, dark and nothing again. Light and I was able to make out a face, a girl, spinning in the pit with me, her face rapidly approaching mine. Darkness and nothing.

And then she hit me.

All five feet and one hundred pounds strong, she head-butted me with a fierce determination found only in teenage punk rock girls. And it hurt. In the darkness, I thought back to the hundreds of shows I had been to in my 25 years alive, and the relative luck I’d experienced in never really getting hurt in the mosh pits. A couple bumps and bruises, I had always been fortunate to give out a lot more punishment than I had ever received. And now this, I was too old for this.

As the house lights came up, I was able to see my attacker being picked up off the floor by a group of her girlfriends, all dressed in their punky chick uniforms. Christ, she looked to be about 15 years old. Blood running down her face from a gash in her forehead, she appeared vaguely dazed, and then she saw me. She focused for a moment on unsteady feet and smiled. Amazing. I smiled back, the action further opening the cuts on both my split lips, the pain mixing with the adrenaline from the show creating a euphoric feeling as I walked toward the exit, my own face covered in blood.

I felt for my teeth, all still there, though some definitely knocked a little loose. I smiled to myself as I knew I was getting to be too old for mosh pits, but I knew I’d never be too old for the shows.

Spotlights at the Circus

Mists spread across the arena, braced by steel scaffolding and safety ropes. Catapulting through the haze: performers with blue sequined eyes and clothing vacuum-sealed against their bodies. Complex lighting arrangements hang like egg-sacs from the ceiling; big brained things that swivel and glare across the expanse. Beyond that, in the shadows: the four of us. We see action and, like spiders, trap and release it in our lights.

There are four of us attached to the umbilical contraption called a headset. We are each in our own corner, high up in the rafters of the domed circus canopy. Dressed in black and hidden by the darkness, we are each a featureless silhouette to one another and to the audience below. Gripping the hot metal cones of our spotlights, we are an awesome disconnect of the senses. We are a rush of signals through the radio. We are the optic lens of the spectator, widening and narrowing our irises to define action that we are not a part of.

While performers leap and glide across the stage, performing inhuman acts of skill and daring, we remain in the rafters, shadowing their movements with long strokes of our arms. We are attached to these athletes, to the strain of their muscles and the shading of their skins. We tense in wait to follow, tracking the tautness of each elastic tendon. They are cats preparing to pounce. We are their shadows.

We are in the action, but we are also outside of that action. We form a web of communication outside of it, like an external nervous system in sympathetic movement with the primary atoms. We are part of the complex network of machinery, among fabulous contraptions like the Russian Swing, the German Wheel, and the Shoot-Through Ladder. We cross-light during the Spanish Web and scissor acts with inexplicable names like Adagio and Pas de Deux.

We are in darkness, invisible, and detached from others. It is sensory deprivation, but it is also an overstimulation of the senses. There is an otherness present – a sense of being fully in tune with the movement of strangers. It’s like being a third species, with a peculiar awareness of what it is like to be more than one person. Like homunculi at the circus, our impressions are distorted and surreal. We have enlarged sensory organs, with afferent nerves wrapped around the four corners, swallowing the crowds inside of us.

ESL princess

It’s a horrible thing to wake up tired, to attempt to rationalize an extra three minutes of rest, and the first thoughts of the day to be along the lines of “how long until I can get some real sleep?” That was this morning, that is every morning of mine during tax season. That was eighteen hours ago, I’ve finally made it into my driveway, minutes away from bed. My mood would border on ecstatic, that is if I wasn’t tired to the point of numb.

Turn the knob slowly, quietly, so close to the end. Down the hall, last door on the left, open that door slowly too, as Christine would already be in bed. She works long hours too, but her agency has the decency to cease work early on Friday afternoons. An empty wine glass and a book on her night stand, sound asleep with a half smile on her face. I pause for a moment to admire her beauty, exhaustion replaced by contentment as I undress and climb into bed with her. I smile to myself as I wrap my arms around her and settle into comfort, feeling reassured that sometimes life wasn’t so bad.

Christine stirred slightly, and snuggled into my arms, “how was your day?”
“Long, yours?” I say with the relaxation I had been so craving all day.
“It was nice, you’ll never guess who I ran into at the grocery,” more asleep than awake.
“Who’s that?” I ask, not caring in the least, so very happy to be in bed.

“That girl you used to see in college, Sylvia,” she smiles in a teasing fashion. With decent reason too, I’d dated Sylvia back when she was college roommates with Christine, Sylvia was beautiful and a lot of fun besides, but one night at her apartment she introduced me to Christine, and I knew that I had just met the girl I was to spend the rest of my life with. Christine still loves to tease me about Sylvia. I was too tired to put up a fuss tonight.
“Oh yea? What’s new with her?” I asked, again not caring much.
“She just got engaged.”
“I didn’t know she was really seeing anyone.”
“Apparently it was fairly sudden, you knew she took a job teaching ESL at that center off Franklin?”
“Right yea, what’s that have to do with engaged?”

“Well, apparently she had this student from Korea, you know how that area is mostly East African?”
“Yea, I guess I read something about there being a small Korean neighborhood randomly over there, but what’s that have to do with Syl?”
“Shhh, I’m telling you. So Sylvia has this student from Korea, and his English is already pretty solid, much better than the rest of her students, and they get along really well right from the start. He’s like her star pupil, which is funny to say, seeing as she’s 25 and he’s maybe thirty or just under. Anyway, he politely asks her out to coffee after class, and they end up talking for like five hours at the Korean coffee shop over by Zipp’s.”
“Jeez” I murmur, as content to be in bed as I can ever remember being, more asleep than awake..
“Right? So anyway, they go out again for coffee the next night, and for dinner the night after. They are just hitting it off perfectly, and she’s really starting to be a little smitten for this student of hers, which is a problem because though they’re both adults he’s still her student, and there are rules at this ESL school and all that.”
“Sylvia used the word smitten?” I tease.
“Well no, shut up, that’s not the point,” a little more animated now, “as I was saying, they are just hitting it off famously and somewhere after desert he grasps her hands, looks deeps into her eyes and tells her in his broken English that he loves her.”

“Ha, I bet that threw her for a loop.” She used to be such a drama queen sometimes.
“That’s what I said, but she said she looked deep into his dark brown eyes and realized that she loved him too. Three dates, can you imagine? She used to be such a player, always with a couple guys lined up to take her out, and another couple from out of town always visiting.”
“That’s wild.” I say.
“Right? That’s not even the wild party yet.” Really excited now, there’s no way she’s going to let me sleep until we finish this story of Sylvia and her ESL lover.
“What more could there be?”
“So this student of hers goes on to tell her that he loves her, and he’d rather die than spend another day without her as his wife, yada yada, he asks her to marry him and she says yes.”
“Wow, that’s something.” Sarcasm.
“That’s nothing. So she accepts this Korean guy’s proposal, and they’re both laughing and crying and carrying on and the whole restaurant is going crazy cause they’re both so happy, right?”
“right…”
“So the Korean guy then goes on to tell her that they have to leave immediately to go back to Korea to tell everyone and make the arrangements, and how its going to be such a big deal to his people. His People. This is where things get a little strange.”

“What about this hasn’t been a little strange so far?” I ask, slightly annoyed now.

“It turns out this Korean ESL student of hers is the crowned prince of South Korea, next in line for the throne,” Christine exclaims, wide awake and now out of breath, “he was in the states to learn English and gain an appreciation for our culture, he took Sylvia’s ESL class just to the experience life as a common Korean immigrant in America.”

Silence.

“Christine,” I whisper into the silence, “I’m sorry for not taking you seriously when you used to whine about what a princess Sylvia used to be back in college.”

Anonymous Pregnant Woman

I liked being an anonymous pregnant woman in public. However much I suffered from loneliness and fear in my own world, when I stepped out into the street, I was just a pregnant woman like any other you might find in a magazine. Being pregnant made me feel invincible, powerful; like a protected species.

There was a game I liked to play when I went on walks. Head up, I looked neither left nor right. With complete steadiness and total disregard for the traffic around me, I would step off the curb and onto the street without looking, confident that nobody would hit me.

Even if a car happened to collide with my body and kill it, so what? I would have died in honor and been doubly missed, like a valiant warrior fallen in battle and destined for an afterlife in Valhall. Because of pregnancy, my death would have been more meaningful than that of any other pedestrian. My life would have had more value somehow.

Headlines would read, “Expectant young mother fallen, life cut short” or something of that nature and people would say in passing, “How sad? Isn’t that sad? She had so much to look forward to.” It’s true. People take it real hard when a pregnant woman dies. Any pregnant woman.

So I would step off the curb and, staring straight ahead, listen to the delicious sounds of squealing tires and apologies shouted out in panic. No one ever even so much as honked at me. It felt good.

I could have been any pregnant woman out of a magazine, with a flush on my cheek and new clothes blossoming out over my stomach. All I had to be was a body, a passageway from the past to the future. Could have been anyone, or no one, even.

Always Enjoy Responsibly

I am drinking a bottle of beer. The label on it reads, “Always Enjoy Responsibly,” with the first letter of each word capitalized. I’m slightly over the edge of tipsy and it’s reading true to me, now. Each word is capitalized for a reason.

Always. That means: be consistent. That means: there’s a life history there that needs to be accounted for. That means: you know you always go overboard with this stuff, dammit. Learn the fucking lesson already.

Enjoy. That means: there’s a fine, orgasmic line between enjoyment and terror. Enjoyment is when you’re engaged and having a good time. Terror lies just beyond that, when the enjoyment is gone and all that’s left is this uncontrollable ride from which you cannot get off.

Responsibly. That means: Watch Out, because what’s coming up next is gonna knock you on your ass. It means that wild careening at the end of Snow Hill is going to have Ethan Frome-like consequences. It means that someone – probably you - will end up paralyzed with bitterness and pain.

Yes. I’m drinking the beer and thinking about how beer tastes like a mixture of semen and water and bread. In my mind, semen is equated with ego, water with mindless work, and bread with warmth. It’s idiosyncratic, I know, but there it is. It makes me think about how I’m being fucked.

I’m thinking about how I want to quit my job because I’m not having a good time anymore. It’s turning into a bad trip. I want to bail. I can’t even remember why I used to think it was fun.

I tell my husband this over my fourth beer and he says, “You’re so predictable. You’re just getting burnt out, that’s all. Think it over for awhile.”

That brings me back to Always. I’m just going in circles here.

Waiting

Waiting. I think of my life now as waiting for something to happen. Waiting for some opportunity to come along. I feel very much like I am passing the time, waiting for something important.

When I was little, I spent a lot of time waiting. We didn’t have a car and my mother would coordinate these complicated bus passages around town, sometimes with one or two hours wait between transfers to some unheard of suburb. I didn’t understand – and still sometimes don’t – why we would go to the trouble, just for some half-hour rehearsal segment for choir or two-bit dance recital in a mall no one ever went to. Maybe she was bored.

But I remember waiting. Waiting for the last bus on summer nights or worse – on winter nights, when the cold was so fierce that I would lose sensation in my toes. It’s very real to me – I can close my eyes and see snowflakes swirling down about me in the glow of streetlights and my humid breath condensing into droplets on the wool of my scarf, pressed close against my cheeks and lips.

I remember one time waiting late at night at outside a bus shelter and watching a woman masturbate inside. She was developmentally delayed and laughing insanely as she reached up into her skirt. She was masturbating, I suppose, just to pass the time. I was only ten years old or so at the time, but I remember thinking that I guessed she had find some way through all that waiting.

Dig You in Deep

Three little girls and a youngish mother are standing in the sandbox at the playground. Jane (5) and her mother are well dressed. Lulu (7) and Betsy (5) are sisters, dressed in clothes that are slightly too small and somewhat out of style.

Mama: Come on! Don’t you want to make another sandcastle?

Jane: I have an idea! I’m gonna bury you, Mama.

Mama: Bury me? Oh noooooo! Don’t bury me!

Lulu: Can we play?

Jane: C’mon! Let’s bury her!

Betsy: Yeah! We’re gonna bury you!

Lulu: We’re gonna dig you in deep!

Mama (playfully): NO! Oh no! How ever will I get out?

Lulu: We’re gonna dig you in so deep, you’ll never get out.

Betsy: You’ll stay there forever and ever!

Jane: Yeah. Forever!

Mama: But what if I get hungry? Or thirsty?

Betsy: That’s too bad.

Jane: Yeah, that’s too bad.

Lulu: No food for you. We’re gonna dig you in so deep, you won’t even get food stamps.

Mama: Someone will rescue me.

Jane: Oh no they won’t. We’ll tell them not to.

Betsy: We won’t let anyone rescue your mom.

Mama: My fairy godmother will come and break me out!

Lulu: Oh no she won’t. There ain’t no such things as fairy godmothers.

Betsy: Yeah. They’re not real.

Mama: Well then a giant earthquake will rumble underground and crack me outa this sand.

Jane: Uhuh.

Betsy: There aren’t any earthquakes here. That won’t work.

Mama: Well, your Mama will come and dig me out.

Lulu: Na-ah. Our Mom’s not here. She’s at home ‘cuz her boyfriend’s over.

Betsy: We might hafta move to another apartment.

Mama: Well, then. When the sky gets dark and everyone else goes home, the trees will start moving around. They’ll see me stuck in here and feel sorry for me and pull me out.

Betsy: Trees don’t move!

Jane: Yeah! Trees don’t move. That’s silly.

Mama: Well, then giant turtles underneath the sand will wake up and lift me out of here.

Lulu: That’s silly. Only God can lift you up!

Betsy: Yeah! And God is dead!

Voice (offstage): Lulu! Betsy! Git your butts back in the house before I hafta come after you! Quit buggin’ that woman and git over here!

Lulu: Ok ok. We gotta go.

Mama: Well, it was nice playing with you girls? Wasn’t it, Jane?

Jane: Yeah. It was nice playing with you.

Betsy (threateningly): You better be here when we get back tomorrow. We’re gonna dig you in all the way up to your eyes!

Betsy and Lulu run offstage.

Jane: Mama. If your fairy godmother doesn’t come, I’ll dig you out.

Mama: Thanks, pussycat. She’s probably just a little busy right now. The end of the month is real busy for fairy godmothers.

99% A True Story

I’m going to tell you a story, 99% of it true, and the other one percent isn’t necessarily a lie. The other one percent is more of a disclaimer. You see, I didn’t realize that the story was actually a story worth repeating until after it happened. Had I been cognizant of the fact that I was in the midst of a story that I would be retelling, well, things would have been different, I might have taken notes or something. Cross checked my references for accuracy, you can never be too careful when it comes to accuracy.

So my story starts out in a rush, more accurately, I was in a rush. See, already with the accuracy. So I’m in a rush, in a rush because I’m late. Now. I really don’t like to be late, I don’t so much mind it in other people, but personally, I don’t like it when I’m late. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to wait until the last minute to do anything, which often leads to me being in a rush. This time though there was an added consideration on my mind, and this weighed even more heavily than the rush, this was a haircut, not just any haircut mind you, the haircut in question was in the shape of a Mohawk.

A bit of background now. Having worn Mohawks of various styles in various settings, I consider myself to be not quite an expert, but definitely a seasoned participant in the great Mohawk hair game. One has to take into consideration all sorts of factors when deciding what style and shape of Mohawk to sport. There’s nothing worse than sending an unintended message due to carelessness. My usual style consists of three to five inch spikes with a quarter inch or so of hair on the sides. I find that this sends out a punk vibe, but at the same time is fun and subversive, not necessarily anarchic or intimidating. I find that shorter on the sides lends to more of a Nazi-punk, skinhead feel, something I desperately try to avoid. So I leave a little on the sides, I’m just not that tough.

Now, this background comes into play as I attempted to clean up the sides of my Mohawk, and with the help of a friend and my trusty beard trimmer, did just that. The problem is that I set things up a bit off. Instead of a quarter inch, the sides of my head were sporting more of a five o’clock shadow look, very short. We’re talking millimeters on the sides, we’re talking Nazi-Punk Skinhead Mohawk. After analyzing it in the bathroom for about a half hour, I came to the realization that there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. My only option was to go from skinhead Mohawk to straight up skinhead, and I’ve got kind of a misshapen head, so shaved all over was ruled out. Anyway, all this self-evaluation lead to me being a bit late to meet up with my friends for a Friday afternoon happy hour. And I love Friday afternoon happy hours. So I quickly grabbed my wallet and keys out of my work pants and threw them into the jeans I was wearing. This is important because had I worn my work pants (which I almost did) I would have had my wallet and keys and also my Switch Blade Box Cutter Knife. This move comes into play later.

So, there I am, late, but not too late, headed into St. Paul to meet up with my friends. It’s a beautiful Friday afternoon, the sun is shinning, the temperature is rising, I’m in an excellent mood and excited to see my friends. On the fifteen minute or so drive into St. Paul I talk on the phone with an old friend who had broken up with her boyfriend some months earlier. She exclaimed that even though she knew she was better off without this relationship, she still missed her ex-boyfriend. I empathized and together we theorized that it wasn’t the specific people we were missing, more the intimacy and familiarity. It was an interesting conversation about human interaction and emotion. She assured me that my haircut couldn’t be that bad.

So I get to St. Paul, and it’s a beautiful day on Grand Avenue. The sun is still shinning, there are tons of people out and about enjoying all the various attractions that Grand Avenue has to offer. This is important to the story, because when Grand Avenue is busy (like it was at the time) traffic moves slowly with all the parallel parking and pedestrian crossing and whatnot. Top speed is maybe 25 mph, and there are lots of stoplights. So I’m cruising on Grand, enjoying the beautiful day, watching the happy people, pondering this interesting conversation, and I see my bar, The Wild Onion. The Wild Onion happens to be one of the few places on Grand Avenue that has off street parking, and as early as it was in the day, there was a good chance that I could get a spot in the lot. As I pull towards the lot, I notice a car inching out onto the street, trying to see around the parallel parked cars that obstruct the view of oncoming traffic. Being the nice guy that I am, I slow up, put on my turn signal, and motion for this car to make his turn onto the street so that I can make my turn into the lot. He waves a thank-you, makes his turn, I make my turn and quickly find a spot right in the front of the lot. Excellent. This is where things take a turn for the weird.

So I park the car in an excellent mood, despite my semi-scary Nazi-Punk Skinhead haircut. I got a great parking spot, I’m meeting up with good friends, the weather is beautiful, people are out and about, I had a stimulating conversation with an old friend, life is good indeed. I get out, lock the car, and turn to face a strange looking guy about my age, maybe a little older. He’s definitely one of those Grand Avenue St. Paul Hipsters; he’s wearing that sort of uniform in scruffy jeans, a black sport coat over some old-styled black t-shirt that you know he just bought at Urban Outfitters, expensive black sunglass, styled messy hair. This guy spent a lot of money to look broke. Slightly bigger than me, not intimidating in the least, but he looks pissed. Angry.

And then he starts screaming at me. I’m startled because I’m in a great mood, and this is completely unexpected. The guy is screaming about turn signals and stopping suddenly and something about not knowing how to drive. I’m bewildered. Where is this coming from? Do I know this lunatic? Will violence transpire? Strange Hipster fellow proceeds to scream at me for 15 seconds or so and then turns around, to head back to his car. I’m amused, still in a good mood. What was this guy’s problem? I’m not really scared, because I’m pretty sure I can take this guy in a fight and also because if he was going to take a swing at me for whatever he felt I did wrong, he already would have. Almost laughing, but a little bit serious, I say to Strange Angry Hipster,

“Do you feel better now? Do you feel like a big man?” This apparently set off some sort chemically reaction in Strange Angry Hipster’s brain because he proceeded to unscrew the lid off his travel cup and throw the contents into my face. The contents of this particular travel cup being hot coffee. In my face. I am livid, I am furious, I am mayhem.

Another side note, I’m wearing a green Puma zip-up that I bought for St. Patrick’s Day. I had only previously worn it on St. Patrick’s Day. So this almost brand new green Puma zip-up is covered, and likely ruined, by the hot coffee thrown onto me by Strange Angry Hipster. My face is slightly burned, but I didn’t feel it at the time due to an extreme rush of adrenalin throughout my body.

Dripping hot coffee, I wind up and lunge at Strange Angry Hipster who by this point likely realizes that he crossed some sort of line that clearly states strangers do NOT throw hot coffee into the face of another stranger, especially when stranger on the receiving end of aforementioned hot coffee is some sort of Skinhead Nazi-Punk. I am pissed, and I am one step away from hitting this Strange Angry Hipster, literally three feet and closing fast, when suddenly some sort of small blonde creature comes flying out of nowhere and wraps me into some sort of violent embrace. The Small Blonde Creature is shrieking at me.

“Don’t hit him! Don’t hit him! It’s his fault, we’re sorry, please don’t hit him!” Turns out that the Small Blonde Creature is Strange Angry Hipster’s girlfriend. I take a deep breath and politely ask Small Blond Creature to let me go. She looks deep into my eyes, pleads with me one more time not to hit him, and lets me go, careful to stay between me and Strange Angry Hipster. I smile a wicked smile, still dripping hot coffee, and tell Small Blonde Creature that Strange Angry Hipster is a very foolish person, but I’m not going to hit him.

I have a plan. Small Blonde Creature said not to hit him, and so I wouldn’t. I reach for my left pocket instead. I’m going to stab Strange Angry Hipster with my trusty Switch Blade Box Cutter Knife! And then the realization hit me…I left the knife in my work pants! What a rookie mistake! I should have known upon leaving my house, all happy and in a rush that I would be accosted by a Strange Angry Hipster and the contents of his travel mug. By this time people are rushing from the patio out into the parking lot. Plenty of witnesses offer to back up my story if I want to press charges. I was assaulted they say. Sadly enough, none of these potential witnesses happen to be carrying a Switch Blade Box Cutter Knife, at least none that I could borrow for a moment.

I sigh. I smile one last time at Strange Angry Hipster, a wicked smile, hopefully conveying just how close he’d come to mayhem, and I walked into the bar. It was Friday Afternoon Happy Hour after all, and I love a good Friday afternoon happy hour.

The Cattle Chute

Evelyn had squeezed herself into a little box. It was more like a cattle chute, actually. Nobody was there to prod her onwards except herself and an imaginary clock that told her she had to keep going. She didn’t know where the chute led, and the light flashing off the metal siding distracted her so that she mostly forgot what was behind. But the feeling of the metal shifting beneath her feet, the sunlight blinding her as she turned the narrow bends, led her to suspect that there wasn’t anything at the end of that chute but a steep drop-off. Maybe there was a pit down there, filled with all the other people who had gotten to the ends of their own cattle chutes.

She remembered the slide at her elementary school playground. It was spiral and fitted together with metal scales that burned bare thighs when the sun was out. Bare-kneed children jostled one another at the top, pressing hard at her back when it was her turn so that she had to let go. She’d hear a boy launch just behind her and would be stricken with the realization that there was another girl just below. She’d think to herself that there was a fifty-fifty chance that at the bottom of the slide, she’d feel the rubber of her shoes smacking against that other girl’s head. And there was a fifty-fifty chance that the boy behind her would smack into hers.

Once, she had tried to slow herself down. Her shorts that day were riding up as she flew down the slide and she found that, by pressing her bare thighs against the metal, she was able to slow down the velocity of her own pudgy body. The friction created a resounding farting noise that her classmates claimed could be heard all the way over to the baseball diamond. The boy behind Evelyn had banged into her anyways, and then kicked her in his haste to turn and scramble back up the slide, complaining loudly about the smell. The other kids teased her cruelly about it until the snow came and buried the slide from view. Eventually they all forgot it ever happened and Evelyn never did it again; never tried to brake or control her speed. But now it seemed that she had been in the cattle chute for some time and she was starting to get worried about what she’d hit when she got to the end.

ex-wives

“One last thing folks, real quick. I want to you to complete a simple exercise with me here. I want everyone to close their eyes, go ahead, close them. Now I want you to visualize yourself five years from today. Where are you working? Where are you living? Who else do you see in your life? What do you do in your free time? Are you happy, are you successful? Open your eyes.” The face looked up at us like he had something monumental to share.

“Now go get it.”

The face beamed at us from the front of the lecture hall. Silence. Then a smattering of half-hearted applause echoed more forced than enthusiastic.

“Alright ladies and gentleman, that’s all I’ve got for you, you’ve all been a terrific audience, good luck with finals.” Anything more that he may have said was lost as eight hundred college students and a handful of professors got up to exit the auditorium. It was Friday afternoon, after all, and people had places to be. A couple of business school overachievers rushed to the front, eager to shake hands and make connections. Pricks.

What a fucking tool. Standing up there with his immaculate suit, his shit eating grin. I hated him before he even opened his mouth. Lecturing us about responsibility and drive. I wonder how much the school shelled out for this waste of time. I almost laughed out loud when he asked us to close our eyes and visualize our future, but then I realized that most of my fellow students were actually participating. Was I missing something?

Well, at least with most of my fellow scholars buying into this guy’s rubbish, I got the chance to fully appreciate that brunette one row back. Short dark hair, edgy, definitely the artist type. I bet she had dark eyes to match too, hot. I think she was in my dorm freshman year, but as with most of freshman year, that memory was a little fuzzy. I wonder what she’s into. If there was ever a time in my life when I needed to meet someone new, this was it.

“aye, Lonnie, what’s up man?” I turned towards the voice coming from the back of the auditorium.
“ah Kristian, not much mate, how you doing?”
“much better now that we’re done with that schmoo, and I’ll be better still when you buy me that that pint I won last night.” He said, grinning from ear to ear.
“fuck you, you Aussie fuck, let’s get drunk.”

Kristian. Orignially from Melbourne, Australia; he’d come to the university on some sort of crew scholarship. Kristian had lived in the freshman dorms, one floor above me with the rest of the athletes. This Aussie transplant was ambitious enough to get kicked off the crew team a month into his first semester of college for drug possession. Caught with marijuana three times in one month; weed he bought from me. Since then we’d been pretty solid friends the last four years or so, having our share of fun, usually staying a half-step ahead of trouble. While he’d lost his scholarship, he’d managed to avoid being kicked out of school, they figured the loss of athletics punishment enough. Kristian came from a rich family, generations of Australian sheep farmers or some such rubbish, and his parents were more than happy to pay for him to stay and get an American education. Kristian saw it as a chance to sleep with every American college girl he could meet, and with his boyish good looks, and that damn accent, he succeeded a lot more than he failed.

The pint he was referring to had been won last night at the bar, when he’d made the wild accusation that our server absolutely had to be wearing black panties. Kristian makes wild accusations like this sometimes, and I called him on it. Proceeding to chat up our server all night, he disappeared into the bathroom with her just before bar close. This was the first I’d seen of him since. Fucking Australian accents.

“safe to say you had a decent night?” I asked, knowing full well the answer I get as we left Wiley Hall and crossed the street towards Grandma's bar.
“fuck me mate,” he fairly moaned, “I think I met my future ex-wife,” Kristian was always meeting his future ex-wives. “speaking of though, you talk to Tasha?”
“naw man, I’m too mad. Anything I say now would come out a lot worse than it should.”

That bitch.

“dude, she cheated on you. You walked in on her and the other dude getting dressed, I would have cut his fucking head off. I’m not sure she deserves your understanding on this one.”

He had a point.

"fuck it man, maybe you should buy the first round."

Poke You In The Eye With It. My Shadow, That Is.

I had broken the spell of the man’s obession with my shadow. Travis stood now, crestfallen, against the brick and mortar tavern. A flourescent Budweiser light flickered behind the darkened glass at his shoulder.

“Susan,” he muttered, “Susan Whist.”

“We’ve all got our dark sides. I’m no different from anyone else,” I said.

The chocolate brown t-shirt he wore would have blended with his skin had it not been for the fresh stains of moisture beneath the collar. He spit once, now, but without the energy to expell the gob forcefully, it dribbled down his chin. I watched it slip into the shadows of his jawline.

My friend Bill emerged for a cigarette, noticing us as he cupped the lighter in his hand. “Everything ok out here, Susan?” he asked, with a wary edge to his voice.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Yeah, I think so.” Travis mimicked me. “Sho’ nuff, Bill. Everything be jess’ fine.”

“He givin’ you a hard time, Susan?”

“Naw. It’s ok.”

“’Cuz if he is, I can take care of him for you.”

Travis spit again, leaning over his belly this time, to spatter the pavement. “Watcha think, Susan? Black man can be dangerous once ya take the malt liquor outa his hands.”

He stared me straight in the eye now. Hurt. Defensive.

“Go on Susan, you know all ‘bout black men, don’t you? Why don’t you tell Bill here what all you know about black men?”

“I don’t know anything about black men, Travis.” I shrunk away from him, wishing Bill would go back inside. “Bill’s got better things to do.”

Exhaling, Bill flicked his cigarette into the gutter. “Susan, c’mon inside with me. I’ll buy you a beer.”

Travis slid heavily against the wall, intentionally blocking the windowless door. “How’s that commercial go? Love the shade you got? Not so hot.”

“Travis, just leave it alone. It’s nobody’s business but yours and mine.”

“That’s right. But tell me, Susan, what is it that you don’t want Bill here to know? That you like to dick-tease black men? Or that you’re a goddamn racist whore?”

“Allright, that’s enough. Susan, c’mon inside.”

“Shut up, Travis. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Susan. Inside. Now.”

Bill made as if to nudge Travis aside, but Travis had already stepped away. He walked purposefully into the street, despite approaching cars, and began to weave back and forth, as if he could not make up his mind to stay or go.

“Travis. Get outa the street!” I called, “The light’s green, dammit. Let those cars go!”

But Travis planted his feet wide, ignoring the cars that edged up cautiously behind him. The sound of automatic locks being flipped was audible.

“I’ll go, Susan, soon as you tell Bill and me why you ‘don’t feel right’ about bringing a black man home to your mama.”

“Travis.”

“Go ‘head, Susan. Tell us.”

“Fuckin’ A, Travis.”

“We’re listening.” Travis shrugged his shoulders. “You waiting for them to roll their windows down too?” He asked, gesturing towards the cars, “Want me to axe ‘em to roll their windows down so they can hear?”

Bill lit another cigarette. His moment to come to the rescue had passed for the time being.

“You fuck. Fine. You wanna fucking know why? Fine. It’s not your goddamn skin color, that’s for sure.”

“Ok Susan, it’s the dick isn’t it? You afraid I’m gonna poke your mama in the eye with it?”

“Travis, I’m not bringin’ anyone home who can’t pronouce the fucking word ‘library.’ It’s not your goddamn skin color; it’s the shadow it casts. So don’t you goddamn get off callin’ me a racist whore. If you goddamn call me anything, you call me a classist ho, you mysogynistic fuck. And if you don’t goddamn know what that means, why don’t you go fuckin’ axe ‘em at the liberry.”

“C’mon Susan. Let’s go inside.” Bill took me by the shoulders and swiveled me towards the door.

From the street, Travis laughed, “My shadow, huh? Whaddya think, lady, you scared of my shadow too?” He drew his arms up above his head like a rearing bear and advanced toward the waiting car. The woman behind the wheel took fright and stepped on the gas, cutting across the curb in her haste to get away.

Travis chuckled as he swaggered away, “Shit, Susan. I’m scared of your shadow too.”

Gotta Go

“I’m so tired, so tired,” I say and think to myself that I would like to sink back into my dream, even though it made me sad. I remember dread and that something or someone horrible was about to turn the corner into my room. Something is still happening in my dream and I am going to miss it.

“I have to go potty,” she howls, her face scrunched in irritation, “I have to go potty now!” Margot has an unnaturally loud voice and I realize as she begins to claw at the blankets that I’m going to have to get up. She is insistent. I’m groggy. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it all the way to the bathroom.

Margot seizes me by the hand, “I’ve got to go” she whines with some immediacy. “Okay, okay. I’m coming.” My mind makes the decision for me, snaps itself out of sleep and the nest of tangled thoughts I lay in. We walk together towards the bathroom and cat eyes glint up at me as if to say, “Where have you been all this time? She has to go.” They look concerned and I think maybe I have been sleeping too long again.

We push aside the creaking wooden door and I stumble to a seated position on the toilet. My head is cloudy; it is pulling me down to the ground. I reach over to help Margot with her pants. Though she is dancing beside the bathtub, she has abandoned her air of urgency.

“No,” she slaps my hand away. She smirks and continues dancing.

“Come on,” I say, “you said you had to go.” Her little toddler legs pump up and down with delight. Mirth can be detected in her eyes. “I’m waiting for Horace and Florence,” Margot says. She indicates with an outstretched hand the prancing figures of her imaginary friends. “There’s a line,” she explains.

Hands

The day she graduated from college, he text messaged her. Standing on a wooden bench to see above the crowd of parents and students, she tore off her awkward cap and pulled at her stubborn polyester gown. She was looking for someone, anyone really to hug like all the others. But she only saw the shiny smiles of strangers. She didn’t want to look lonely high upon that bench, so she pulled out her cell phone and saw the message. It didn’t make sense.

The truth was that it wasn’t intended for her. Her name was nestled next to another name within a directory of numbers. It was an accident, a message meant for another girl whose name started with the letter E.

It was impossible for her to piece it together, to make sense of how it all began, how they always ended up in the same bed right before the birds began to stir. Staggering up stairs, clumsily collapsing under soft covers, they found themselves time after time tucked up in her room with all of their clothes on. Lying next to one another with the scratchy leg of his jeans pressed up against her cotton dress, they reached for one another’s hand. It was a simple gesture, a natural motion as if they had been reaching towards one another in the dark their entire lives. In the morning, neither of them said a word like an embarrassing one night stand that needed to be put out of their minds. They ate eggs and drank vodka tonics and felt their heads ache in the early afternoon.

Their meetings were never quite planned, never orchestrated or official. No pressure to impress, just casual drinking friends who wasted away late nights because they had nothing better to do. She liked him because he bought her drinks and never tried to kiss her. He stared at other women who swept through bar after bar, discussing the finer points of shapely asses, tits, and legs. When they weren’t together, he’d often find himself passed out in his bed with naked women whose names or hobbies he couldn’t quite recall. They’d pull the sheet over their breasts, eyes turned away from the afternoon light that tore at their blood shot eyes. They’d turn red, sheepish when they confessed they had a boyfriend.

He bought her drinks with funny, fruity names she had never tried and eventually couldn’t even taste. Each one reminded him of a particular girl, a particular night, a particular article from the past. Sometimes he’d shout above the screechy guitars and the raucous thumping of wooden sticks on drum heads. He’d start to tell a story about the pink drink he placed in front of her, about a blonde with big tits who talked too much, a hippie who loved to talk about her period. She heard select phrases, clauses, losing coordinating conjunctions between major chords and keyboards that tried to sound like a violin.

He was an expert drunk driver who took side roads. He always got her home safely. So they made their way up the narrow stairs to her bedroom littered in dresses and tights, discarded panties shoved into the corner of her room. But her sheets were always clean as if she was expecting someone, anyone. Under the lacey comforter, they lay like stiff soldiers until he reached for her hand even though he had shoved the leggy girl’s phone number in his pocket, and she had flirted with the Jewish guy with the Buddy Holly glasses. He got her home safely; he stayed by her side with his rough construction worker hands interlocked with her soft, diminutive fingers. They both knew they could have pursued other forms of empty intimacy. He could have woken up next to the slim brunette with the red stilettos he fantasized about. She could have collected the geeky boy’s number on a slip of paper or scratched it into the cardboard of her empty cigarette pack. They knew they would never have a chance with one another, but he had a key to her house, to her car, and an empty hand that promised to hold hers through the night.

Fox Urine

“What you need to do is squirt some of this fox urine onto a piece of cardboard. That’ll get the squirrels outa there fast.”

This is what the guy at the camping store tells me. His name is John.

“It beats using a squirrel cage,” he adds, handing me the package. “You gotta use their own instincts against them.”

I read the directions on the back:

Spray ten to fifteen drops of authentic fox urine onto scent wick. Place wicks onto trail. The fox urine will mask human scent. Deer may even follow the trail straight to your hunting blind!

“So, they use this for hunting in the woods?” I ask.

“Yep,” says John, “Gets the deer every time.”

John assures me the stuff will work in a duplex too.

When I get home, I tear a sheet of cardboard into six pieces and saturate each piece with urine. The odor is strong and rank. My cat approaches to see what I’m doing and her tail bushes out with suspicion. She skitters away when the exhaust from a city bus fires.

Before I open the door to the attic, I listen. Usually they’re up there chasing each other across the loft. They sound like midget ballerinas, tumbling around on the floorboards. They’re quiet now, taking an afternoon nap.

Apprehensive, I enter the stairwell. They’ve torn the insulation to shreds. I’m worried that they’ll jump out at me from above. Rabid squirrels. Tenement squatters. Creepy fast moving things.

I don’t sense any movement but my own, though, and so I proceed. I lay the cardboard shims at regular intervals across the splintered floor. “Yaaaghh!” I scream out, hoping to scare them off, “Yaaaghh!”

There are clumps of insulation everywhere. Strands of it hang from the ceiling, rustling with each scream and bending shadows around my peripheral vision.

The next morning, the sun breaks into my bedroom. I awaken, sweating. This is usually their peak time for dancing, for their bony graceless rapping on the floor.

Today, it’s silent.

Confidence grips me, draws me out into the kitchen to fix myself a pot of coffee. I’m spooning out the grounds when I hear a quick clattering noise from above. I stop to listen, but hear nothing, so I turn the faucet on to fill the pot. Again, a loud clack-clack, clack-clack. It sounds like someone tap-dancing up there.

I turn the faucet off. Clack-clack. Clack-clack. Clack-clickety-clickety-clack. I open the attic door and edge myself up along the stairwell to peep over the ledge.

Clack-Clack. Clickety-Clickety-Clack Clack.

Peering into the darkness, I see nothing at first. Then gray shapes separate from the surrounding blackness. A sharp breath sounds, then a turn – click-clackety. A full-grown buck swivels towards me, a tuft of insulation hanging from his left antler.

“Yaaaghh!” I scream, and am afraid. This is a kamikaze deer, with no hope of survival up here. It’s got nothing to lose.

“Yaaaghh!” I scream again. It’s looking at me like it knows something I don’t know. I raise my arms above my head, trying to make it appear as if I have antlers. Then I run downstairs and slam the door.

The walls here are like cardboard.

My downstairs neighbor is banging on the ceiling. Through the pipes I hear him screaming. “Cut out that racket! What the hell are you doing up there?”

The Shave

“My princess,” Gerry says with a dramatic sweep of his hand, “Your throne awaits.” Sheila sits on the toilet, the palms of her hands rubbing against her pants, trying to get the sweat off. It was an honor to be in his bathroom, sitting on her make shift throne, watching him perform his ritual.

This moment was hard for the both of them. Each had made sacrifices, pushing through their fears and handicaps in order to reach the second story bathroom. The narrow stairs were cramped, peeling yellow wallpaper brushing against some of the wooden steps. Sheila’s large frame and lame leg made it difficult to reach the top. She was afraid her knee would buckle and imagined herself tumbling backwards down the stairwell with no one to catch her.

Gerry had not let anyone in his house in the ten years since he found his mother dead on the couch. He never forgot the way her head lolled back like she was snoring, a book of large print crosswords in her lap. It taken him hours to pick up the phone and call an ambulance. When they came, he played with the doorknob and deadbolt for fifteen minutes, clicking the cold metal back and forth before letting them in. There was no way the gurney could be rolled through the labyrinth of papers, cups, and magazines Gerry had so carefully placed around the house. The paramedics had to carry her limp body rolled in an afghan out the door, knocking down a stack of newspapers on the way out.

They ran into each other in the middle of the night at the 24-hour store. She haunted the aisles when she was sleepless and lonely, looking for small items to rip-off, slipping them into her calico cloth purse. He was there only out of necessity, stocking up on toiletries, Styrofoam cups and gummy bears. If there was ever a moment where Fate’s hand pushed them together, that was it. Gerry hadn’t been to the store in over four months.

His shopping cart was full. Sheila’s was empty except for a lamp shaped like a wagon wheel she considered buying every time she was there. She shuffled around the store with it in her cart, but neglected to get it because it wouldn’t fit into her purse.
They had a shared history before she was crippled and overweight, before he looked like a homeless train hopper, wearing three flannels at once over his thinning overalls. They dated for a few months thirty years prior, making it once in the back of Sheila’s Honda hatchback at the drive-in. The drive-in closed and became horse ranch, but the tall white screen remained like a ghost.

What was said was unimportant. Gerry had never forgotten her, was able to see her younger face hidden behind the fat. She had been his only lover and could still feel the warmth of her body in his mind. She somehow was able to recognize him underneath his untrimmed beard as the strange man she dated before her crappy marriage.

He opens the old medicine cabinet and begins removing the necessary items: shaving cream, a new razor blade still in the package, miniature Band-Aids, after-shave. He pulls an old towel from the bottom of the bathtub, a place he uses as a closet since he never takes baths or showers. He fears large quantities of water, hates the feel of water streaming out of the showerhead like blunt tipped spears against his skin. He only uses folded washcloths dipped in a bowl to clean up.

Sheila watches him prepare like a meticulous doctor before heart surgery. His hands are steady and smooth as he begins to cut his beard with the silver scissors. His coarse hair falls into the sink, onto the ceramic floor in loose piles, mixing with the hair leftover from his last shave. His face tells time, not by the crisscrossing lines but by which stage of growth his beard is in. Every six weeks he shaves clean.
She watches him, feeling guilty and turned on like she is peering into a strangers window while they have sex.

She sees Gerry in all of his vulnerability, narrow strips of flesh exposed like an airplane runway. One smooth line cascading upon another until the light from the naked bulb overhead reflects against his wet skin.

He sees Sheila’s image in the mirror as he shaves, fleshy and fat. He dips his razor into the bowl of water, shaving cream and stubble rising to the top like cream. He wonders how the paramedics will get her out if she ever dies. He doesn’t want anymore newspaper towers tumbling, scattering his life’s work all over the hardwood floor.

a 12 step start

I used to embrace my hangovers. I used to wear my bloodshot eyes as badges of honor, a reminder of how hard I had partied the night before, how far I was willing to push myself. I used to enjoy my next day on the couch, or the bed, or the bathroom floor, foolishly thinking that it was the price to be paid for having a good time. I used to honestly believe that the pain was necessary, the guilt and shame that accompanied it were just parts of life. I felt this was something I had to go through on a regular basis in order to feel some sort of emotion. Maybe not happiness or even good at all, but at least it felt real.

When I was in high school my life changed. No one died, I didn’t get sick, nothing outwardly tragic happened. I moved. I left the place that was familiar and comfortable for a place that was foreign and cold. Eagan's a cold place to newcomers. Not that big of a deal, I know. Tons of high school kids do it every year, a lot of my good friends moved in high school and were fine. Then there was me, I didn’t want to make friends, I didn’t want to fit in. So I didn’t. I taught myself how to be cold, how to get along alone, how to forget about caring. To largely forget about what it meant to be happy. And that’s still a huge part of my life. To be unfeeling, uncaring. If you don’t get attached, you don’t get hurt. Every young adult understands this lesson to some extent. When you don’t get too up in life you can’t fall that far. I fell that far in my own way, and never wanted it to happen again.

So time passed, and I made new friends, really good friends. I’m beyond fortunate to call some of the best people in the world my good friends. But I never let up with trying to keep myself distant, not caring, not being let down. And somewhere in towards the end of high school and the beginning of college I discovered alcohol. Here was an escape, a path allowing me to feel something, be it a euphoric high or a horribly depressing hangover. But at the same time, I didn’t have to get too close. I could always blame everything on being drunk. Drinking itself doesn’t interest me, it’s the being out of control, the allowing myself some emotion, and some feeling that I’m so into. I think it’s time I let go of alcohol and figured out how to feel something without 15-30 drinks beforehand. I have, even before drugs and alcohol, a really self-destructive streak. Maybe its for attention, I’m not entirely sure. I want to see how badly I can fuck up, to get someone, anyone to pay attention to me. Which leads me to doing incredibly stupid things. I am exceptionally talented at fucking up the good things I have going in my life. The worst part about it is that when I know that I’m fucking up, and I make no attempt to change my actions.

This last month has been a really horrible one. I’ve managed to offend just about every single one of my good friends. I’ve offended friends of friends. Cab drivers. It takes a lot to get kicked out of First Ave. Bartenders, servers and bouncers. Old friends and new alike, it’s made no difference. I’d met the most wonderful girl, the first new girl that I’ve met in so long who made me feel something, and I’ve completely pushed her out of my life. I was afraid. I was weak and immature, and as soon as things didn’t go exactly how I wanted them to, I freaked out. I was so mean, so hurtful, that it wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t want to be friends at all, let alone something more.

I’m sorry to every single one of my friends. I’m sorry to my family. I’m sorry to the people I’ve hurt directly, and those I’ve ignored. I am a better person than this. You deserve better from me.

They say you have to hit rock bottom before you can get better, I think this is as far as I want to go.

A few years ago, I saw a psychiatrist for awhile, was on medications for depression and anxiety. Not a lot of people know that. Now a lot do, and I’m ok with that. I’d even recommend therapy to most people. I had a lot of family issues, I resented my parents for moving me in high school, and haven’t really gotten along with them since. I was having trouble with school, work, friends, and for the first time, drinking. The meds might have helped, maybe not, but I wasn’t really getting any better, so I ran away. That’s something I’ve learned, it’s easier not to get close to people, to allow them to get close to you if you’re not around them. So I ran, and felt better for awhile. Eventually things got worse, so I ran away again and got better.

When I take off, it’s because I can’t handle my situation anymore. School, family, friends, work, girls. I quit school because I couldn’t handle it. Not the work, just the routine, the normalcy, the fact that it made me a functioning person, it made me normal. I could only do it for so long before I started getting restless, drinking more, drinking harder. The same thing with my friends. My wonderful friends make me feel so good, better than I feel myself, I couldn’t handle them. There’s a really good Henry Rollins’ quote talking about his fans, strangers, who love his music, “I don’t like myself as much as they like me. How fucked up I am these days.” That’s exactly how I’ve felt for so long. I have such amazing friends, the best people in the world. I don’t like myself, so how can they like me? And so I drive them away, and if that doesn’t work then I run away.

I had always thought I was searching for a home, someplace I’d feel like I belong. Somewhere along the way I realized that you have to feel right inside before you can feel like you belong. I haven’t felt right on the inside for as long as I can remember, but I don’t feel like running anymore. So I’m not going to. This has to stop, I need to feel good again.

This is my declaration to everyone I know.

I’m going to be a better person. And I know it’s going to take time. I’m going to lay off the drinking to get trashed and out of control. I’m going to stop the destructive behavior as a way to get attention. I probably won’t go out very much for awhile, I don’t know that I can have just one beer or even a couple beers without having a dozen beers. I’m tired of my hangovers and the shame of trying to figure out just who I need to apologize to the next day. As ridiculous of a job as I have, I like it because it’s steady. I like the normalcy, the routine. It makes me feel like an adult. And I want to be a writer, so I’m going to work on that, but I’m going to keep this job too. I’m going to start working out more regularly, eating healthier too. I’m going to start going to church more regularly. I know that I probably don’t believe all of it, but I do know that it gives me a sense of peace, maybe it’s the routine, but maybe it’s something more. I’m going to be as sweet as I can to that girl, maybe it’s not too late. And if it is, I’m going to work on being alright with that. I’m going to get right with my family, they deserve better from me. I’m going to get right with myself.

I’m going to be a better person.

This is going to take time, but I’m going to work at it. I’m ready to be happy. Thank you for all you’ve done for me.

The Dragon

They’re messing around in her car, with the passenger seat all the way down. The engine is turned off and they stay warm from the steam that’s rising off their bodies and coating the windows with an opaque screen. There are people coming out from the bar, smoking cigarettes and shuddering in the cold. They notice movement in the car, but avert their eyes.

“We can’t make it another late night again,” he groans, “I’ve got to go to work in the morning.”

“I know,” she says, “I can’t show up with bloodshot eyes again.”

But she keeps straddling him, her leg jammed against the gearshift. She unzips his jeans and lets her fingers creep in through the opening. He looks around, thinking suddenly about the smokers outside and about how he’s showing skin.

“Don’t worry,” she says, “They can’t see us.” She turns and purses her chapped lips to breathe new frost onto the window. She is like a dragon from medieval Japan, smoke tendrils curling out from her nostrils.

He thinks about his wife at home and for a moment has the inexplicable urge to tell the story about how his wife almost caught him once, making out with a girl from the martial arts center. He draws his lips together to keep the words from coming out.

She tugs the hood of her coat up, so that a vast blanket of material covers their bodies. Her face disappears into darkness and the cloak begins to rise and fall. Her back and shoulders seem continuous with the outside, with the line of loitering smokers who clutch at their bodies and rock against the tipsy wind.

Soon, she crawls up the length of his body and whispers, “Next time, let’s do this at your place. I’ll spend the night.”

“Promise?” he murmurs. Then he studies her face for faults and resolves to slay the head of the dragon. Outside, the smokers shift in place, stumbling drunkenly against one another.

my son

Tell me my son, why are you here?

Girl troubles Father, girl troubles.

So tell me my son, what are your troubles?

Fuck me Father, where do I start.

Well my son, you said you had girl problems, what are the roots of yours problems?

Troubles Father, I have Troubles, that’s a different story than problems.

You’re right my son, tell me of your troubles.

I’ll tell them to you Father, let’s sort this out together. Fuck me, I haven’t been to confession in ten years, but I can’t sort this out on my own, what can you do for me?

I can show you what you already know. I can lift the veil of confusion.

Father forgive me, but you have to understand my skepticism. I haven’t been to the church in ten years, but Father, I have read the newspapers in the interim. I understand about things, and about sins that the church has committed, but Father, I don’t condemn you, if your conscious is clear, that’s good enough for me.

Go ahead my Son.

Well Father, like I said, girl troubles. You see, I’m in love. Enamored, I have this crush. And it leaves me at a loss.

Some would say that this isn’t a trouble at all, more of a joyous occasion.

Not me Father. Don’t get me wrong, I love women, I love the way they smell and the way they smile, but I love women Father, plural. And it fits my lifestyle. I don’t know that I have the time or the patience, my lifestyle dictates a certain amount of discretion, and it’s just easier not to get too attached to a single broad.

What lifestyle is that my son, that your life would not be improved by the love of a good woman?

Let’s not get too deep here Father, the lifestyle isn’t what bothers me, it’s this love thing. I deal with a lot of unsavory characters, I tend to keep odd hours, I may not be the most…respectable of people. Let’s say this love thing did go somewhere, I’d be worried to meet her parents, I’m not the guy that parents would normally choose for their daughter to bring home.

Are you a criminal of some sort?

Not exactly, I just know a lot of people. I’ve kind of been on the edge of everything. And it is something I’m working on Father, I’ve done some moving around, and I’ve seen a lot of things, and I think I’m ready to become a respectable person, a grown up, if you will Father. But I’m not there yet. I’ve got a decent job, it’s a tough job, but the pay is decent, I live in a respectable place, and I have wonderful friends. I don’t keep in contact with those old friends, the ones that kept me on the edge of things, I’ve found writing Father, it helps for me to have a creative outlet, and I’m even fairly decent at it. But I’m sort of new to this respectable life. I like it, in fact it’s wonderful but its also unfamiliar. And what’s worse, this is the type of girl that a guy dreams about. I’m worried Father, that this is too good of a thing to pass up.

What is it that draws you to her?

Oh man Father, where do I start? She’s beautiful, and that’s initially what caught my eye. She’s a good friend of a good friend, so her references check out, I’ve had problems with dating shady girls in the past, so this is important to me now. Maybe she was too good to start, because all my boys had their eyes on her too. And I deferred, even after I heard that she wanted to get to know me better.

Why?

It’s cliché, but I honestly thought she was out of my league. It was a lot of easier to defer to my boys and let them take their shot.

On the one hand, it was good of you to respect your friends, on the other you come off as cowardly, my son.

Ho! No need to break my balls here Father, I know what I did. It wasn’t easy, but a large part of me was hoping that this girl and one of my friends would hit it off fantastically. Look at it this way, at the time, I didn’t even know her, I had just broken off a fairly unhealthy relationship and what’s more, I like to see my friends happy.

Justify it as you may, but I think if you look inside yourself, you’ll find that you were more scared than anything. Scared of this grown up life you’re trying to create, and how it all fits together. But go on, how do things play out with this girl? And you haven’t really answered my earlier question of what draws you to her.

Interesting. As for what draws me to her, that’s a bit more complicated. I like her because she’s strong, she’s independent with a touch of a stubborn streak. She’s so smart, and she’s done the school to job thing so well. I like her because she’s a professional, but she can still procrastinate. I like her because she likes music, even though it’s definitely different from most of the music I like. I like her because she likes to cuddle, and how her room smells, and how she holds onto me so tightly when she’s asleep. I like her because she likes me back.

This all sounds wonderful my son, where do the troubles come into play? Because unless you have a distorted view of her, it sounds like she likes you, and if she does then she’s going to accept you for who you are. This doesn’t sound like much trouble at all.

That’s just it Father, I don’t know. We have our days where everything seems so wonderful, and then a day later she seems to reject me. She is so busy, and so am I, but in different respects. Sometimes it’s hard to see each other. And it seems like if we can manage to get some quality time together, the next day she makes up for it by rejecting me. Sometimes we hang out in big groups, and she hardly acknowledges me. And then other times when we’re together, she makes me feel like the most special person in the world. It baffles me Father. The uncertainty hurts me. And what’s worse, I don’t usually open myself up to other people, I’m private and independent and stubborn too. I’ve been hurt pretty badly and so it’s a lot easier to keep things to myself, to stay guarded, to not get too close, not let anyone in. As consequence, I’m not used to this sort of thing. Though I don’t know for certain, I suspect she’s been hurt pretty badly too, and it makes her nervous to get close to me.

We are often attracted to those with whom we share common bonds. It seems to me that you like her because you’re the same, but that she also possesses a lot of qualities that you wish to possess yourself. You wish to learn from her.

You make me out to be so selfish Father.

That’s not it at all. You wish to better yourself, so that in turn you can be better for her. You’re trying to be apart of her world, it’s only natural that you would want to fit in.

That’s hardly reassuring. So now what?

Give her time. It sounds like you two have something special going on here. It would be a shame not to put yourself into it, not to give it a fair shot. Wait for her, she’ll figure herself out.

Yea, thanks Father, that’s what she said.

She sounds like a smart woman.

Christmas Sweaters

Eric and Liv have snuck outside to enjoy a smoke break. Christmas lights adorn the roof of their parents’ house and the wholesome sound of music and laughter can be heard inside. Eric is in his late forties. His sister Liv is in her early forties.

Eric: Want to try a menthol? I roll my own now.

Liv: Sure. I used to smoke Salems.

Eric: Me too.

Liv: I know. I used to steal yours when we were kids.

Eric: I guess I knew that. Cheaper to roll your own nowadays, though.

Liv: Doesn’t Mom smoke anymore?

Eric: Nope. She quit. Gave it up three years ago, I think.

Liv: Funny. I can’t keep up with this stuff when we only see each other once a year.

Eric: Yeah. It’s a nice Christmas party, though.

Liv: Yeah. I’m getting a kick out of Dad’s reindeer sweater. I can’t believe she got him to wear that.

Eric: You and Don still together?

Liv: No. Not for a long time. Are you still seeing Madeline?

Eric: It’s almost ten years, now.

Liv: Serious? Ten years?

Eric: Yep. Ten years and three abortions.

Liv: Ouch. That’s hard.

Eric: Yep. Good thing, though. I’m too old for that now. And they would have had weird defects, you know, extra arms and stuff like that.

Liv: What?

Eric: Yep. Madeline’s a crack whore. She doesn’t need to have crack babies around.

Liv: Oh. Really? A crack whore?

Eric: Yeah. I pay her for sex. We have sex. I give her cash. She goes out and buys crack. It works, though. It’s more fun that way. There are no expectations. Better than being married.

Liv: Oh. Sure. No reindeer sweaters, I suppose.

Eric: Yep. It’s the anticipation, too.

Liv: So. Three abortions? They’re…So, she’s…Would you say that you’re monogamous?

Eric: Yep. At least, I think so. Want to be careful, you know. Don’t want to spread anything around. Of course, spreading things around isn’t as bad as catching something.

Liv: But three abortions?

Eric: Yeah. Condom broke. My fault – we rushed and she wasn’t completely lubricated.

Liv: Oh. Well. I guess we don’t need to go into too much detail. Ten years is a long time. I’d like to meet Madeline sometime.

Eric: Well, I can’t really bring her to the Christmas parties. What with the kids and Mom and all.

Liv: No. Some other time then?

Eric: Sure. My place is a mess, though. We’d have to meet at a restaurant or something.

Liv: Ok.

Eric: Just don’t call her a crack whore to her face. She wouldn’t like that.

Liv: Yeah, well. I guess we should get in, huh? They’ll want to start opening presents, I suppose.

Playing the Spoons

I make the superintendent open the door on Christmas. Derek has been missing for several days, neglecting to show up at parties with shrimp cocktail and artichoke dip. He missed the kid’s holiday concert. I just plainly missed him.

Last Monday was the last time I saw him. We ate cheap ice cream in his new apartment. He only had one bowl and two spoons. He scooped the fluffy pink and green ice cream into the bowl for me and onto the lid of the container for him.

“For experienced ice cream addicts,” he said pointing to his makeshift bowl.

“Don’t eat it all,” I playfully said. “I plan on coming by this weekend to finish it, Mr. Addict.”

I lit a cigarette with my final match and took bites between drags. “Where’s the ashtray?” I asked.

“Oh… you’re eating out of it. I washed it though,” he responded with perfect timing like we were in some Laurel and Hardy routine.

We listened to Johnny Cash and Nick Cave. Derek picked up his old Silvertone and played me a new song with no lyrics. His upright bass was standing in the corner. His new place had no rugs, only beige tiles with a few squares of blue haphazardly thrown in. It used to be a nursing home but now it was an apartment building for people with disabilities. The walls were toothpaste white. He had a single bed tucked in behind the bathroom door. Balled up in the corner was a tiny blue throw that shed bits of lint. I wondered how he stayed warm at night, but he liked to sleep in his wool overcoat, and the apartment air burned hot from skinny radiators nestled into the baseboards. This was his first place since we broke up last year. His first place that wasn’t under lock and key or supervised by nurses who watched him swallow his psych meds in paper cups. He finally had his own stove, which he used to light my cigarette.

“I hate electric stoves!” he said as he jammed the end of my cigarette onto the screaming red coil. It took forever to light, but he was patient despite the tremor in his hands. He wore a new western shirt, black with silver embroidery. It was the most elaborate in his collection, swirling figure eights melding into flowers with pearly buttons. His hair was shaggy, hanging awkwardly over his the rim of his square glasses.

On Christmas I wait as the Super takes the sluggish elevator to apartment 216. I wait in the lobby on a scratchy plaid chair. I had tried to visit Derek all weekend, looking up towards his window when he wouldn’t answer his door. All the other residents were jealous because he had a corner apartment with perfect sun, though he complained about the constant whir of the elevator. I saw that he had put up new chiffon curtains and houseplants lined the window sill, soaking up the highly coveted winter sun.

I wait on the stiff chairs, looking at the lobby phone that makes only outgoing calls. It looks like an old office phone, all beige and dingy with blackened marks from the countless residents who grip its plastic neck. The curly cord trails down like a tendril, brushing the red, thinning lobby carpet. I could see Derek sitting in this same spot, talking to me while his nervous foot kicked the cord, watching it swing back and forth. He was waiting for some money to get a cell phone so people could get in touch with him. I wanted to get in touch with him. It was Christmas, and he never came for the free coffee or crappy cookies.

In between the entry doors, the Super coaxes me in as residents funnel in and out with packages, sodas, and cigarettes.

“I’m sorry. He has passed,” he says as he stares at the entry rug covered with slush and sand. The whirlwind of time makes no sense, filling the following minutes with flashing blue lights and an incoherent phone call to his mother smothered in sobs. I hear the Super on the phone saying that he was sure Derek was dead. “He is green,” he tries to whisper to the police. I can hear my heart pounding in my head, saying no, saying that I just saw him, saying that he promised to leave some ice cream for me. I hear the blue and the red of the ambulance lights and the footsteps of paramedics with heavy black bags. The whir of the elevator. The gray gurney with squeaky wheels. The voices of the cops called out on Christmas asking me what happened, do I know what happened.

The cops find needles in his apartment. They find heroin. They find a tourniquet. They find only one of Derek’s two spoons lying next to his lifeless body all crumpled up on his new area rug he bought at Ikea. The other spoon is shining and polished, standing upright in the dish drainer, waiting for me like he promised.