Thursday, November 6, 2008
125 Dream: A True Accounting
I had an extremely vivid dream last night and it's unusual that I remember the details so well.
We were driving down Highway 9, heading west, maybe to Norman. I was in the driver's seat and it was in broad daylight.
There was a small group of three, maybe four motorcyclists in front of us. One of them swerves a little too far to the left and when he corrects himself he smashes into another rider until everyone of them has crashed and burned. I drove on. I knew there was something I should do...maybe call 911, duh? But for some reason I didn't.
Then it happened again. Another set of bikers. One moment they're tooling down the road without a care. Then, sure enough, they hit the ground, too, their cycles spinning gravel, careening, riderless, into the ditch like chickens with their heads cut off. And once again I scooted on with only a modicum of concern as to their welfare.
They say the third time's the charm...well, not in my dream, not if you're on a chopper. That's right. Yet another small posse of bikers took a fall.
I feel I should point out that when I use the term "biker" I don't necessarily want to suggest the stereotypical "biker" with the Hell's Angels jacket, the countless tattoos featuring the world famous Harley-Davidson logo that likely cover his beefy frame, their proclivity for dive bars, pool tables, cheap beer and swag smoke, free spirited women who don't think twice about flashing a tit in public, especially if it's during a rally. I love this sort of biker and have always respected and looked up to them. But alas, these cyclists were not of that stripe...obviously. A true blue "Fuck-taking-a shower-let's-roll!" biker would not have wiped out like the pussies in my dream.
Getting back to that dream...these three guys may or may not have been pussies. What they were, for sure, was HURT when their skulls met the tarmac and the blood began to flow. They scooted down the gravelly highway like hockey pucks on ice.
I don't think this instance was any worse than the previous ones...I mean it's hard to think of cycles crashing at high rates of speed in degrees of severity. But for some reason I decided that this time I would get out the cell phone and call 911.
Some lady answered the call, informing me that she represented the local 911 rescue service. She asked me what the problem was.
I said, "Well, we've got a pretty nasty bike wreck here. Three or four guys went down and they don't look so good. They don't look too good at all."
"Okay, sir. What is your location?"
And THIS is the detail I can't believe I recall because it seems so insignificant. I looked behind me and saw the mile marker sign. 125.
"We're at the 125 mile marker on Highway 9 headed west."
And that's it. That's all I remember. I have been puzzled all morning as to what the number "125" signifies, if anything. I have a pretty good idea of why I left the scenes of the accidents in the dreams, but I don't know why there were three of them or why they were all motorcycles wrecks instead of cars or a combination of 2 wheelers and 4 wheelers. Why didn't I call 911? Or maybe it would be better to ask, in light of my failure to do so for the first and second set of victims, why did I opt to call for the third?
It's got to mean something. I'm sure of it. I can only hope that it does not portend something sinister. I can only pray that it is not a harbinger of ill tidings.
Hopefully, like life itself, it was only a dream.
Only a dream.
125.
We were driving down Highway 9, heading west, maybe to Norman. I was in the driver's seat and it was in broad daylight.
There was a small group of three, maybe four motorcyclists in front of us. One of them swerves a little too far to the left and when he corrects himself he smashes into another rider until everyone of them has crashed and burned. I drove on. I knew there was something I should do...maybe call 911, duh? But for some reason I didn't.
Then it happened again. Another set of bikers. One moment they're tooling down the road without a care. Then, sure enough, they hit the ground, too, their cycles spinning gravel, careening, riderless, into the ditch like chickens with their heads cut off. And once again I scooted on with only a modicum of concern as to their welfare.
They say the third time's the charm...well, not in my dream, not if you're on a chopper. That's right. Yet another small posse of bikers took a fall.
I feel I should point out that when I use the term "biker" I don't necessarily want to suggest the stereotypical "biker" with the Hell's Angels jacket, the countless tattoos featuring the world famous Harley-Davidson logo that likely cover his beefy frame, their proclivity for dive bars, pool tables, cheap beer and swag smoke, free spirited women who don't think twice about flashing a tit in public, especially if it's during a rally. I love this sort of biker and have always respected and looked up to them. But alas, these cyclists were not of that stripe...obviously. A true blue "Fuck-taking-a shower-let's-roll!" biker would not have wiped out like the pussies in my dream.
Getting back to that dream...these three guys may or may not have been pussies. What they were, for sure, was HURT when their skulls met the tarmac and the blood began to flow. They scooted down the gravelly highway like hockey pucks on ice.
I don't think this instance was any worse than the previous ones...I mean it's hard to think of cycles crashing at high rates of speed in degrees of severity. But for some reason I decided that this time I would get out the cell phone and call 911.
Some lady answered the call, informing me that she represented the local 911 rescue service. She asked me what the problem was.
I said, "Well, we've got a pretty nasty bike wreck here. Three or four guys went down and they don't look so good. They don't look too good at all."
"Okay, sir. What is your location?"
And THIS is the detail I can't believe I recall because it seems so insignificant. I looked behind me and saw the mile marker sign. 125.
"We're at the 125 mile marker on Highway 9 headed west."
And that's it. That's all I remember. I have been puzzled all morning as to what the number "125" signifies, if anything. I have a pretty good idea of why I left the scenes of the accidents in the dreams, but I don't know why there were three of them or why they were all motorcycles wrecks instead of cars or a combination of 2 wheelers and 4 wheelers. Why didn't I call 911? Or maybe it would be better to ask, in light of my failure to do so for the first and second set of victims, why did I opt to call for the third?
It's got to mean something. I'm sure of it. I can only hope that it does not portend something sinister. I can only pray that it is not a harbinger of ill tidings.
Hopefully, like life itself, it was only a dream.
Only a dream.
125.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
"Livin' Thing 8-9"
8.
I need to know something. I don’t know if you want to tell me or not, but I really don’t care. You’re gonna tell me or you’re gonna find yourself in a world of trouble. I’m already pissed and it won’t take much to push me over the edge into dangerously angry territory.
No, fuck it. Never mind. I’m ALREADY in “dangerously angry territory”. No, it wasn’t your fault. I was already close enough I could see the other side of reason before you came along.
But it would still be nice to know, if you’re willing to tell me. I mean, I’m not going to force it from you. That was the plan just a moment ago, but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided that my bitterness is not your fault. I won’t make you pay for it.
Yet I do feel as if it would do me a world of good to know.
Where were you when I was falling in love?
Were you sitting in a back seat of a crowded subway train with a cup of Starbucks coffee in one hand and a copy of “The Catcher in the Rye” in the other, holding it in front of your face as if it’s pages were a fascinating mirror? Was there an old man sitting next to you who turned to look at you every so often to the point where it creeped you out? Maybe you eventually said something to him, like “Excuse me, but is there something you wanted to say to me?
“Why would you get that idea?” he would ask, as if he were totally oblivious to his invasive nature.
“I don’t know…you just keep looking at me and I wondered if there were a reason for it.”
“Nope. Not that I can think of.”
Did you smack him real good right then? Did you draw blood? I hope you did. I hope the driver had to stop the train to come back and drag you off of him. It would have been a real drag if the police were called in, but on the other hand, wow, how erotic the thought of you resisting arrest.
Or did you cower into your corner, turn a page in your book and let the lecherous bastard carry on? I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. I don’t think that’s the kind of girl you are. I think you’re a firecracker.
And I think that wherever you were when I was falling in love is not where I wanted you to be.
Because I fell in love with a robot. Who knows why I fell in love with an ottoman? I didn’t know she was one at the time. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to fall in love with a machine? No, she was flesh and bones when I met her. She seemed normal, like all the other women I’ve ever seen or known.
But then she started smoking cigarettes. She carried them around in a little soft leather pouch that could be mistaken for nothing other than a case for holding the little fuckers. God I hate cigarettes. I hate the smell of them, whether they’re lit or not. I hate the dark tan color of their filters with the little white dots speckled randomly. I hate the cotton that stuffs those filters. I hate the white paper with the almost imperceptible stripes banding around their length. I hate how the brand is stamped close to the base of the things. I hate the packages that they come in and the cellophane that wraps them. I hate how stray flecks of tobacco gather in the bottom of the boxes and the wrappers, too. I hate how they make a person’s breath stink. I hate how they make a person’s clothes reek. I hate the way they look in a shirt pocket. I hate the way they look between people’s fingers and in their mouths. I hate the way they burn down to the nub and the ash that they leave behind. I hate pitch black nicotine stains on hardcore smokers’ hands. I hate the way some people put one between their ear and noggin and actually think it makes them look cool. I hate how smokers seem to have some code of sharing, how it’s always “Hey, can I bum a smoke from you?” and 99 times out of 100 the answer is “sure”. It’s never, “Okay, but you gotta pay me back.” Oh no, Smoker’s Karma is at work here. I hate the way too many people call ‘em “smokes”. “I’m off to get a pack of smokes.” Good God, I think that’s lame. “Smokes”. Ha. I hate the way smokers bitch about laws that prohibit them from smoking in public and how so many of them have absolutely no regard for non-smokers who not only can’t stand the smell of the bastards but would just as soon not chance even the most remote possibility of getting lung cancer caused by second hand smoke. I hate how smokers would tell that person, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The chances of that happening are one in a million.” So what? Fuck you. Fuck you with your nasty cancer sticks and fuck your tar-lined wheezing lungs, too. Fuck the death bed you will lie on when emphysema steals your last breath. Fuck the oxygen tanks that cost almost as much as all the cartons of cigarettes you have wasted your money on the last who knows how many years of your life. Fuck all your attempts to quit. Fuck the feeling of disappointment that overwhelms when you fail once again, as Mighty God Tobacco hugs you, strokes your wet hair, wipes the sweat from your forehead and the tears from your eyes. Sweet summer sweat. The tears of a clown.
You know what? She never smoked before. I never would have thought she would pick up that disgusting habit, but she sure as hell did. Picked it up like it was a twenty dollar bill someone lost that she found on the side of the road as she walked to the smoke shop to buy another pack of Marlboro Lights.
There’s another thing I hate about cigarettes. “Smoke Shops”. Where the value-minded smokers purchase their wares. Not “Cigarette Store”. Not “Tobacco Warehouse“…oh, no. It’s a SMOKE SHOP. You’re going to buy some smoke, brother Jim. You’re gonna spend too much money at the 7-11 and it’s all gonna go up in smoke, but by the grace of God you are gonna save a couple of bucks by purchasing them at the “Smoke Shop” instead of the convenience store. You complain until you’re blue in the face about how ridiculously high the ciggy prices are at normal retail outlets, but when you run out of ‘em and the God-blessed “Smoke Shop” is closed ‘cuz it’s Sunday you’ll drive like a madman to Love’s and blow ten bucks because there’s a “Buy Two Get One Free” special going on. What a god damn good deal that is, eh, mister?
Furthermore…CIGGYS??? I hate how people call ‘em “ciggys”. But not nearly as much as I hate the word “cigarette”. I cannot stand to speak the word. I hate the way it rolls of my tongue. I hate the way the word sounds like it means “little cigars”.
I hate the way some smokers empty out their car ashtrays in the parking lot. I hate the way all the butts look lying there in a heap, a pile of paper soaked with the spittle of a hundred different mouths. And yet the nicotine python grips some desperate smokers so tightly that they will pick them up and try to smoke the last tiny flecks of tobacco from their crushed and blackened ends. I’ve even seen people extract the remaining weed from several discarded butts, roll it all up in a Zig Zag paper and smoke it. Don’t these people know what Zig Zag papers are for? (Or at least all they SHOULD be for)
“Butts”. There’s another word in the smokers lexicon that just sounds silly. “Smoke ‘er down to the butt, Jack, we’ve got more!” “I don’t have an ash tray, Terry, so just put your BUTTS in that half empty soda can over there on the table”…never thinking that there might be someone else at the party who might mistake that particular pop can for his own and take a mighty swig of it. Oh my God, the thought, it gags me. How nauseating it would be to feel one of those wretched things fall against your lips and…Egad…the flavor…
Fuck.
God help me.
She was not a robot when I met her. Oh, no, she was a beautiful, exciting, passionate loving woman with a heart of gold and a desire that was practically insatiable. Here…take a look, I have a photograph in my wallet. See what I mean? That’s right, daddy-O, she was a real dreamboat. I used to carry this picture with me wherever I went…I guess I still do, huh? But I don’t know why. I don’t know why I torture myself looking at it, remembering what was, all we had, our bright and glorious future wrecked and deserted by her newfound proclivity for smoking cigarettes. Yeah, my friend, she was a real keeper. But you know what? Fuck her now, y’know? Just turn her over and fuck her.
But hey…perhaps I’ve been to harsh on the smoker in general (if not to her…no, not to her). Perhaps I have exaggerated a bit. After all, some of my best friends smoke. It’s their business, not mine. Never has been mine. I know that. If they knew how I felt about the whole thing, whose to say they wouldn’t tell me to bugger off and not come back? Then again if they’re so shallow as to take any of this as a personal insult then maybe, just maybe they aren’t my friends after all. I doubt the robot would want anything more to do with me if she knew what a stalwart anti-smoker I am. But I thought she felt the same. She DID feel the same. She told me as much. Before she lost her soul. Before she started smoking cigarettes. Before she started bumming ciggys.
I got no time for changes in her life so now I ask you again…where were you when I was falling in love?
Were you sitting in a Pentecostal Holiness church on a hard pew early Sunday morning before the service began thumbing through the hymnal looking for one that best expressed your feelings of devotion at that point in your spiritual journey? And what would that hymn have been? “Onward Christian Soldiers”? “Peace in the Valley”? “In the Garden”? “Smoke on the Water”? “Hotel California”? Maybe some obscure Black Sabbath song tucked in at the end of the book next to the Doxology?
Did your hair shimmer, reflected in the light that poured through the stained glass window just behind you? Did you feel it’s heat on your neck? Did it draw out beads of perspiration there, glistening? Would you have let me lick them and taste their saltiness even in the sanctuary of the church building? Probably not. But I don’t think the idea would repulse you like it would some other bonnet headed midi-skirt wearing holy rollin’ bitch.
Maybe I would have asked you outside so that you might feel a little more comfortable with what I’d had in mind.
And maybe you would have told me “no”. I couldn’t blame you for that. No, I wouldn’t. It’s only natural for a real woman to guard her integrity in situations such as this one. I could not hold that against you.
Is that where you were? I need to know. Where the hell were you when I was falling in love?
9.
How could this have happened? She lay on her bed with a steady stream of dark, smelly blood dripping from her ears. The pain in her head was debilitating. It consumed her and dumbed down all thoughts except for one:
“Is it possible to love a man who takes out his frustrations in the bed?”
She didn’t know the answer to that one, though she’d had several occasions upon which to ponder the question when the inspiration for it was still fresh and painful.
Maybe she just didn’t know what love was and she needed someone to show her. Her old man sure enough hadn’t. She wouldn’t accept that he was a cruel taskmaster whose compassion was corrupt. In reality he had served up a huge helping of abuse and told her to take it or leave it. Until now she had chosen to keep it.
This morning she wasn’t so sure.
“It’s been my understanding,” she told a friend on the phone later that afternoon, “that life is seldom fair.” She said this with conviction. As if she were the only one who cared.
But by the time “Must See Thursday” had come around to “E.R.” he was back. Sprawled out on the genuine leather La-Z-Boy her father had given them as a wedding present 3 years ago.
“Goddamit girl, I needs me another can o‘ Coors. What the hell are you doin’ in there? Turn off that damn stereo. You know how much I hate R.E.M. What are you doin’ listenin’ to that shit anyway?”
She was going to do what he told her to do, that was certain. She knew that. She knew better than to do anything else. But not until that last verse of “Everybody Hurts” played out.
And so the night dragged on. From one can o’ Coors to the next can o’ Coors until there were no more cans o’ Coors left and it didn’t matter because he was knocked out flat until 3 or 4 in the morning when he’d wake up and feel like having a little fun. Havin’ a little bit o’ HIS brand of fun, he’d tell you.
She woke up the next morning in an unfamiliar room. At least that’s how it seemed. She tried to sort out the fiction from the truth but it wasn’t easy because that pain in her head was back. There were broken bottles on the floor, scattered from the bed to the bathroom…
And there was a body beside her.
She said a little prayer, grabbed her clothes and hit the door.
And that’s how it went down.
I need to know something. I don’t know if you want to tell me or not, but I really don’t care. You’re gonna tell me or you’re gonna find yourself in a world of trouble. I’m already pissed and it won’t take much to push me over the edge into dangerously angry territory.
No, fuck it. Never mind. I’m ALREADY in “dangerously angry territory”. No, it wasn’t your fault. I was already close enough I could see the other side of reason before you came along.
But it would still be nice to know, if you’re willing to tell me. I mean, I’m not going to force it from you. That was the plan just a moment ago, but I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided that my bitterness is not your fault. I won’t make you pay for it.
Yet I do feel as if it would do me a world of good to know.
Where were you when I was falling in love?
Were you sitting in a back seat of a crowded subway train with a cup of Starbucks coffee in one hand and a copy of “The Catcher in the Rye” in the other, holding it in front of your face as if it’s pages were a fascinating mirror? Was there an old man sitting next to you who turned to look at you every so often to the point where it creeped you out? Maybe you eventually said something to him, like “Excuse me, but is there something you wanted to say to me?
“Why would you get that idea?” he would ask, as if he were totally oblivious to his invasive nature.
“I don’t know…you just keep looking at me and I wondered if there were a reason for it.”
“Nope. Not that I can think of.”
Did you smack him real good right then? Did you draw blood? I hope you did. I hope the driver had to stop the train to come back and drag you off of him. It would have been a real drag if the police were called in, but on the other hand, wow, how erotic the thought of you resisting arrest.
Or did you cower into your corner, turn a page in your book and let the lecherous bastard carry on? I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. I don’t think that’s the kind of girl you are. I think you’re a firecracker.
And I think that wherever you were when I was falling in love is not where I wanted you to be.
Because I fell in love with a robot. Who knows why I fell in love with an ottoman? I didn’t know she was one at the time. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to fall in love with a machine? No, she was flesh and bones when I met her. She seemed normal, like all the other women I’ve ever seen or known.
But then she started smoking cigarettes. She carried them around in a little soft leather pouch that could be mistaken for nothing other than a case for holding the little fuckers. God I hate cigarettes. I hate the smell of them, whether they’re lit or not. I hate the dark tan color of their filters with the little white dots speckled randomly. I hate the cotton that stuffs those filters. I hate the white paper with the almost imperceptible stripes banding around their length. I hate how the brand is stamped close to the base of the things. I hate the packages that they come in and the cellophane that wraps them. I hate how stray flecks of tobacco gather in the bottom of the boxes and the wrappers, too. I hate how they make a person’s breath stink. I hate how they make a person’s clothes reek. I hate the way they look in a shirt pocket. I hate the way they look between people’s fingers and in their mouths. I hate the way they burn down to the nub and the ash that they leave behind. I hate pitch black nicotine stains on hardcore smokers’ hands. I hate the way some people put one between their ear and noggin and actually think it makes them look cool. I hate how smokers seem to have some code of sharing, how it’s always “Hey, can I bum a smoke from you?” and 99 times out of 100 the answer is “sure”. It’s never, “Okay, but you gotta pay me back.” Oh no, Smoker’s Karma is at work here. I hate the way too many people call ‘em “smokes”. “I’m off to get a pack of smokes.” Good God, I think that’s lame. “Smokes”. Ha. I hate the way smokers bitch about laws that prohibit them from smoking in public and how so many of them have absolutely no regard for non-smokers who not only can’t stand the smell of the bastards but would just as soon not chance even the most remote possibility of getting lung cancer caused by second hand smoke. I hate how smokers would tell that person, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The chances of that happening are one in a million.” So what? Fuck you. Fuck you with your nasty cancer sticks and fuck your tar-lined wheezing lungs, too. Fuck the death bed you will lie on when emphysema steals your last breath. Fuck the oxygen tanks that cost almost as much as all the cartons of cigarettes you have wasted your money on the last who knows how many years of your life. Fuck all your attempts to quit. Fuck the feeling of disappointment that overwhelms when you fail once again, as Mighty God Tobacco hugs you, strokes your wet hair, wipes the sweat from your forehead and the tears from your eyes. Sweet summer sweat. The tears of a clown.
You know what? She never smoked before. I never would have thought she would pick up that disgusting habit, but she sure as hell did. Picked it up like it was a twenty dollar bill someone lost that she found on the side of the road as she walked to the smoke shop to buy another pack of Marlboro Lights.
There’s another thing I hate about cigarettes. “Smoke Shops”. Where the value-minded smokers purchase their wares. Not “Cigarette Store”. Not “Tobacco Warehouse“…oh, no. It’s a SMOKE SHOP. You’re going to buy some smoke, brother Jim. You’re gonna spend too much money at the 7-11 and it’s all gonna go up in smoke, but by the grace of God you are gonna save a couple of bucks by purchasing them at the “Smoke Shop” instead of the convenience store. You complain until you’re blue in the face about how ridiculously high the ciggy prices are at normal retail outlets, but when you run out of ‘em and the God-blessed “Smoke Shop” is closed ‘cuz it’s Sunday you’ll drive like a madman to Love’s and blow ten bucks because there’s a “Buy Two Get One Free” special going on. What a god damn good deal that is, eh, mister?
Furthermore…CIGGYS??? I hate how people call ‘em “ciggys”. But not nearly as much as I hate the word “cigarette”. I cannot stand to speak the word. I hate the way it rolls of my tongue. I hate the way the word sounds like it means “little cigars”.
I hate the way some smokers empty out their car ashtrays in the parking lot. I hate the way all the butts look lying there in a heap, a pile of paper soaked with the spittle of a hundred different mouths. And yet the nicotine python grips some desperate smokers so tightly that they will pick them up and try to smoke the last tiny flecks of tobacco from their crushed and blackened ends. I’ve even seen people extract the remaining weed from several discarded butts, roll it all up in a Zig Zag paper and smoke it. Don’t these people know what Zig Zag papers are for? (Or at least all they SHOULD be for)
“Butts”. There’s another word in the smokers lexicon that just sounds silly. “Smoke ‘er down to the butt, Jack, we’ve got more!” “I don’t have an ash tray, Terry, so just put your BUTTS in that half empty soda can over there on the table”…never thinking that there might be someone else at the party who might mistake that particular pop can for his own and take a mighty swig of it. Oh my God, the thought, it gags me. How nauseating it would be to feel one of those wretched things fall against your lips and…Egad…the flavor…
Fuck.
God help me.
She was not a robot when I met her. Oh, no, she was a beautiful, exciting, passionate loving woman with a heart of gold and a desire that was practically insatiable. Here…take a look, I have a photograph in my wallet. See what I mean? That’s right, daddy-O, she was a real dreamboat. I used to carry this picture with me wherever I went…I guess I still do, huh? But I don’t know why. I don’t know why I torture myself looking at it, remembering what was, all we had, our bright and glorious future wrecked and deserted by her newfound proclivity for smoking cigarettes. Yeah, my friend, she was a real keeper. But you know what? Fuck her now, y’know? Just turn her over and fuck her.
But hey…perhaps I’ve been to harsh on the smoker in general (if not to her…no, not to her). Perhaps I have exaggerated a bit. After all, some of my best friends smoke. It’s their business, not mine. Never has been mine. I know that. If they knew how I felt about the whole thing, whose to say they wouldn’t tell me to bugger off and not come back? Then again if they’re so shallow as to take any of this as a personal insult then maybe, just maybe they aren’t my friends after all. I doubt the robot would want anything more to do with me if she knew what a stalwart anti-smoker I am. But I thought she felt the same. She DID feel the same. She told me as much. Before she lost her soul. Before she started smoking cigarettes. Before she started bumming ciggys.
I got no time for changes in her life so now I ask you again…where were you when I was falling in love?
Were you sitting in a Pentecostal Holiness church on a hard pew early Sunday morning before the service began thumbing through the hymnal looking for one that best expressed your feelings of devotion at that point in your spiritual journey? And what would that hymn have been? “Onward Christian Soldiers”? “Peace in the Valley”? “In the Garden”? “Smoke on the Water”? “Hotel California”? Maybe some obscure Black Sabbath song tucked in at the end of the book next to the Doxology?
Did your hair shimmer, reflected in the light that poured through the stained glass window just behind you? Did you feel it’s heat on your neck? Did it draw out beads of perspiration there, glistening? Would you have let me lick them and taste their saltiness even in the sanctuary of the church building? Probably not. But I don’t think the idea would repulse you like it would some other bonnet headed midi-skirt wearing holy rollin’ bitch.
Maybe I would have asked you outside so that you might feel a little more comfortable with what I’d had in mind.
And maybe you would have told me “no”. I couldn’t blame you for that. No, I wouldn’t. It’s only natural for a real woman to guard her integrity in situations such as this one. I could not hold that against you.
Is that where you were? I need to know. Where the hell were you when I was falling in love?
9.
How could this have happened? She lay on her bed with a steady stream of dark, smelly blood dripping from her ears. The pain in her head was debilitating. It consumed her and dumbed down all thoughts except for one:
“Is it possible to love a man who takes out his frustrations in the bed?”
She didn’t know the answer to that one, though she’d had several occasions upon which to ponder the question when the inspiration for it was still fresh and painful.
Maybe she just didn’t know what love was and she needed someone to show her. Her old man sure enough hadn’t. She wouldn’t accept that he was a cruel taskmaster whose compassion was corrupt. In reality he had served up a huge helping of abuse and told her to take it or leave it. Until now she had chosen to keep it.
This morning she wasn’t so sure.
“It’s been my understanding,” she told a friend on the phone later that afternoon, “that life is seldom fair.” She said this with conviction. As if she were the only one who cared.
But by the time “Must See Thursday” had come around to “E.R.” he was back. Sprawled out on the genuine leather La-Z-Boy her father had given them as a wedding present 3 years ago.
“Goddamit girl, I needs me another can o‘ Coors. What the hell are you doin’ in there? Turn off that damn stereo. You know how much I hate R.E.M. What are you doin’ listenin’ to that shit anyway?”
She was going to do what he told her to do, that was certain. She knew that. She knew better than to do anything else. But not until that last verse of “Everybody Hurts” played out.
And so the night dragged on. From one can o’ Coors to the next can o’ Coors until there were no more cans o’ Coors left and it didn’t matter because he was knocked out flat until 3 or 4 in the morning when he’d wake up and feel like having a little fun. Havin’ a little bit o’ HIS brand of fun, he’d tell you.
She woke up the next morning in an unfamiliar room. At least that’s how it seemed. She tried to sort out the fiction from the truth but it wasn’t easy because that pain in her head was back. There were broken bottles on the floor, scattered from the bed to the bathroom…
And there was a body beside her.
She said a little prayer, grabbed her clothes and hit the door.
And that’s how it went down.
"Upon Waking"
Then one day he woke up
...and the realization hit him like a bolt of lightning into the darkness
He had forgotten
The sound of the wind
The coolness of a gentle breeze
Against his skin
From the south, blowing through his hair
From the north, chilling his bones
How the Spirit is ushered by the east wind
Spirited away by the west
All these things he had forgotten
And more
The wonder of the stars and their unique placement in the sky
"Holes in the floor of heaven"
His grandmother used to call them.
Lately he'd come to believe
That she was a liar
How far away, how far
The face of the moon, smiling down or frowning
Depending on why he was looking at it
On that day
As he lay
Face buried in his pillow
He finally understood how low
He'd sunk
Into a cauldron of apathy
How easily he had snuffed out the light
How painless it turned out to be
In the numbing of his compassion
He felt as if there had never been much compassion there in the first place
His belief, his desire, his faith, his innocence, his wonder
It had all moved out of his heart
And into his head
Where, co-mingled with fear,
Stagnation completed it's hard labor
Of hardening his heart
Turning it from flesh to stone
Or maybe diamond to glass
It plucked the lotus petal
Tossed it into a muddy pool of quicksand
He woke up that morning and it all came crashing in
Like coming out of a bad dream
As it was
So he closed his eyes again
Welcomed another realization
He was granted a wish for more sleep
And when he woke up from that slumber
He wrapped his arms around the moment
He held it like it was a long lost daughter
Or a prodigal son
He paid the closest attention
To each beat of his pumping heart
And knew that it was not blood that flowed through it's chambers
But life
And the love of God was the engine that kept it going
Life, love, ever dying, ever glowing, ever re-creating
He turned his attention to his breathing
And marveled at the will with which
He filled his lungs with air
How the inhaling felt like a re-filling
How the exhaling felt like a giving-back
A catharsis that he had taken for granted
For so long
Now he was overcome with gratitude
For the Mechanism that made this miracle possible
This time he realized
That the moment
Is smaller than a single atom
That it comes and goes at a rate that cannot be measured
The speed of light times infinity
But enlightenment only comes
When the moment is realized
When it is caught
When it is seen
Then freed
On that windy morning in early November
He woke up from a dream
That lasted for centuries
And yet,
He had only been asleep for a moment
...and the realization hit him like a bolt of lightning into the darkness
He had forgotten
The sound of the wind
The coolness of a gentle breeze
Against his skin
From the south, blowing through his hair
From the north, chilling his bones
How the Spirit is ushered by the east wind
Spirited away by the west
All these things he had forgotten
And more
The wonder of the stars and their unique placement in the sky
"Holes in the floor of heaven"
His grandmother used to call them.
Lately he'd come to believe
That she was a liar
How far away, how far
The face of the moon, smiling down or frowning
Depending on why he was looking at it
On that day
As he lay
Face buried in his pillow
He finally understood how low
He'd sunk
Into a cauldron of apathy
How easily he had snuffed out the light
How painless it turned out to be
In the numbing of his compassion
He felt as if there had never been much compassion there in the first place
His belief, his desire, his faith, his innocence, his wonder
It had all moved out of his heart
And into his head
Where, co-mingled with fear,
Stagnation completed it's hard labor
Of hardening his heart
Turning it from flesh to stone
Or maybe diamond to glass
It plucked the lotus petal
Tossed it into a muddy pool of quicksand
He woke up that morning and it all came crashing in
Like coming out of a bad dream
As it was
So he closed his eyes again
Welcomed another realization
He was granted a wish for more sleep
And when he woke up from that slumber
He wrapped his arms around the moment
He held it like it was a long lost daughter
Or a prodigal son
He paid the closest attention
To each beat of his pumping heart
And knew that it was not blood that flowed through it's chambers
But life
And the love of God was the engine that kept it going
Life, love, ever dying, ever glowing, ever re-creating
He turned his attention to his breathing
And marveled at the will with which
He filled his lungs with air
How the inhaling felt like a re-filling
How the exhaling felt like a giving-back
A catharsis that he had taken for granted
For so long
Now he was overcome with gratitude
For the Mechanism that made this miracle possible
This time he realized
That the moment
Is smaller than a single atom
That it comes and goes at a rate that cannot be measured
The speed of light times infinity
But enlightenment only comes
When the moment is realized
When it is caught
When it is seen
Then freed
On that windy morning in early November
He woke up from a dream
That lasted for centuries
And yet,
He had only been asleep for a moment
"Upon Waking"
Then one day he woke up
...and the realization hit him like a bolt of lightning into the darkness
He had forgotten
The sound of the wind
The coolness of a gentle breeze
Against his skin
From the south, blowing through his hair
From the north, chilling his bones
How the Spirit is ushered by the east wind
Spirited away by the west
All these things he had forgotten
And more
The wonder of the stars and their unique placement in the sky
"Holes in the floor of heaven"
His grandmother used to call them.
Lately he'd come to believe
That she was a liar
How far away, how far
The face of the moon, smiling down or frowning
Depending on why he was looking at it
On that day
As he lay
Face buried in his pillow
He finally understood how low
He'd sunk
Into a cauldron of apathy
How easily he had snuffed out the light
How painless it turned out to be
In the numbing of his compassion
He felt as if there had never been much compassion there in the first place
His belief, his desire, his faith, his innocence, his wonder
It had all moved out of his heart
And into his head
Where, co-mingled with fear,
Stagnation completed it's hard labor
Of hardening his heart
Turning it from flesh to stone
Or maybe diamond to glass
It plucked the lotus petal
Tossed it into a muddy pool of quicksand
He woke up that morning and it all came crashing in
Like coming out of a bad dream
As it was
So he closed his eyes again
Welcomed another realization
He was granted a wish for more sleep
And when he woke up from that slumber
He wrapped his arms around the moment
He held it like it was a long lost daughter
Or a prodigal son
He paid the closest attention
To each beat of his pumping heart
And knew that it was not blood that flowed through it's chambers
But life
And the love of God was the engine that kept it going
Life, love, ever dying, ever glowing, ever re-creating
He turned his attention to his breathing
And marvelled at the will with which his breath
Filled his lungs
How the inhaling felt like a re-filling
How the exhaling felt like a giving-back
A catharsis that he had taken for granted
For so long
Now he was overcome with gratitude
For the Mechanism that made this miracle possible
This time he realized
That the moment
Is smaller than a single atom
That it comes and goes at a rate that cannot be measured
The speed of light times infinity
But enlightenment only comes
When the moment is realized
When it is caught
When it is seen
Then freed
On that windy morning in early November
He woke up from a dream
That lasted for centuries
And yet,
He was only asleep for a moment
...and the realization hit him like a bolt of lightning into the darkness
He had forgotten
The sound of the wind
The coolness of a gentle breeze
Against his skin
From the south, blowing through his hair
From the north, chilling his bones
How the Spirit is ushered by the east wind
Spirited away by the west
All these things he had forgotten
And more
The wonder of the stars and their unique placement in the sky
"Holes in the floor of heaven"
His grandmother used to call them.
Lately he'd come to believe
That she was a liar
How far away, how far
The face of the moon, smiling down or frowning
Depending on why he was looking at it
On that day
As he lay
Face buried in his pillow
He finally understood how low
He'd sunk
Into a cauldron of apathy
How easily he had snuffed out the light
How painless it turned out to be
In the numbing of his compassion
He felt as if there had never been much compassion there in the first place
His belief, his desire, his faith, his innocence, his wonder
It had all moved out of his heart
And into his head
Where, co-mingled with fear,
Stagnation completed it's hard labor
Of hardening his heart
Turning it from flesh to stone
Or maybe diamond to glass
It plucked the lotus petal
Tossed it into a muddy pool of quicksand
He woke up that morning and it all came crashing in
Like coming out of a bad dream
As it was
So he closed his eyes again
Welcomed another realization
He was granted a wish for more sleep
And when he woke up from that slumber
He wrapped his arms around the moment
He held it like it was a long lost daughter
Or a prodigal son
He paid the closest attention
To each beat of his pumping heart
And knew that it was not blood that flowed through it's chambers
But life
And the love of God was the engine that kept it going
Life, love, ever dying, ever glowing, ever re-creating
He turned his attention to his breathing
And marvelled at the will with which his breath
Filled his lungs
How the inhaling felt like a re-filling
How the exhaling felt like a giving-back
A catharsis that he had taken for granted
For so long
Now he was overcome with gratitude
For the Mechanism that made this miracle possible
This time he realized
That the moment
Is smaller than a single atom
That it comes and goes at a rate that cannot be measured
The speed of light times infinity
But enlightenment only comes
When the moment is realized
When it is caught
When it is seen
Then freed
On that windy morning in early November
He woke up from a dream
That lasted for centuries
And yet,
He was only asleep for a moment
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