You. Me. No adult supervision...

When God wants someone to be good, he makes them plain. When he wants a worthy adversary, he makes them beautiful.

2011-09-12T20:39:00.000-07:00

I can smell his cologne. Ghostly and faint after a long day of wear, but still there. The slightest whiff of Jack Daniels as he leans down to kiss me.

And I can’t. I lean forward, away from him and that smell, the smell that still has the power to make butterflies clang in my stomach. No matter how much it excites me, it also makes me sick and afraid. Like an alarm clock, I hit the snooze button on those feeling, five minutes, ten, fifteen, always knowing that it’s going to be right there for me to face when I stop prolonging the inevitable.

No matter where I am, he always finds me. In every moment of de ja vu, every time I feel someone’s eyes watching, each and every time, I’m sure it’s him. That kind of devotion could be called obsession. Or maybe loyalty, I’m not sure which.

I know what it’s like to be spooked. I know what it’s like to run so far away the roads all melt together; the faces all have the same questions, namely the kind that just can’t be answered. But no matter how far I run, how far away I go to lose myself, he always finds me. All it takes is that smell of cologne, just enough to taint the day. Just the faint traces of something that should be dead, and stay dead, but isn’t.

No matter how bad it gets, there’s always that part of me that wants to go back. Back to the beginning. Sometimes I spend whole days staring outside, just wishing I could go back, wishing I could change the course of things. Marty McFly my situation. But it stays the same. I get a little older, not much wiser, and it takes more whisky to hold me together. Just enough to let me sleep, but never enough to really forget.

It’s another Friday, and there’s a long weekend of nothing special. I make my usual trip to the liquor store, thinking inside that it can’t be good that the cashier knows me on a first name basis. Or my usual brand of poison.

At home, before the sun even goes down, I’ve had drinks one through four. No foreplay, because there’s no time to waste, and no work to go to tomorrow.
I want to be good and drunk before I start wading in a sea of might-have-been. I drink myself under the table in record time, and there’s nothing but whatever dreams I don’t remember.

I wake up feeling sea sick and disconnected. I can taste the remains of the bourbon I drank, dead and shriveled in my mouth. I want to just lay here, discarded snakeskin of a life surrounding me. Maybe if I don’t move, my body will just give up.

That last thought makes a laugh snort out of me. Self-pity isn’t like me.

When I go to the bathroom, it’s when I’m brushing that death taste out of my mouth that I notice it.

One of his t-shirts. I’m wearing it.

Maybe it’s just memory, or maybe it’s the actual smell, but whatever it is, I can smell him. In the room with me, how thick the smell of him is. Cloying. Clawing at my nose, my stomach, my heart.

After I throw up, eyes still crying a little, I run straight for the bourbon. Only amateurs have time for a glass. Today, there is no need.

After I’ve drank enough that my hands aren’t shaking and I don’t give a fuck about the shirt I’m wearing, I open up that floodgate.

The one that sometimes only spills over a little, just letting out enough to keep me sane. Tonight, the dam inside me breaks. I’m ruining this t-shirt, the last t-shirt of his, with my tears. Making it a little less his, and a lot more mine.

Striving to smell that last little bit of him trapped in the cloth. Trying to embed the smell and taste of him in my heart, where I’ll never lose it.

I sit and curse him, scream at him, hate him.

For the last little bit of him that I can't run away from. The part of me that misses him so much I just can't heal.

What's dead should stay dead. I know that.

I know it, but it continues to break me.

Predator

2011-09-05T07:36:00.000-07:00

I can't stop it.

I want to stop it, I tell myself I will, but I find myself here again. Same place, same time.

Here for the same fucking thing.

I've watched every Dateline Online Predator episode ever made. Chris Hansen taking out the pervs (and getting in some great one-liners) in whatever state they're filming in. Florida, which seems popular. Or, maybe, Florida is great for ratings. I haven't decided.

Men (and it's always men, have you noticed?) chatting online with underage girls and (occasionally) boys.

I watch those men getting caught in the same traps, the same stale excuses, and all I can do is shake my head in disgust.

Not at the men, or their actions. Not at the disgusting things they want the underage girls and boys to do, but at their ineptness. Their desperation.

They plan and plan, but still they get caught. They scheme, with the sweat rolling off their faces, wiping back the guilt, and hoping against hope that they'll get away with it. Just this once. It's just once, isn't it? Forever once.

But it isn't.

I hate myself, because I know about 'just once.'

--

I'm 28 years old, a single woman who works at a job defending innocence on a daily basis.

That makes it impossible to date. Every man I meet is a potential predator, a potential case I should prosecute. I ask them all the same questions, waiting for one misstep, one answer that puts them on the list.

And I'm the one who slipped.

--

Maybe it was his eyes, his expressive eyes that caught me. Maybe it was the way he brushed against me, making me draw in a breath. Maybe it was the way he looked at me, liquid innocence in those brown eyes giving me the okay. But it wasn't okay. He was only 15.

His mother was my best friend.

And one night, I stayed over, too drunk to drive. I stayed in his bed, because he was supposed to be at a friends house. What I didn't take into account was that he would come home early. To find me in his bed.

When I woke, he was there. Warm, solid, accepting. I slid my arm across his body, feeling him grasp my fingers and pull them closer to him. That should've been it. I should've left it there. Should've stopped touching him.

Couldn't stop touching him. Hands drifting lower on his chest, lower, lower, lower. Feeling him hard under my hands. Feeling triumphant, like some prize. Hands roaming lower on his hardness, caressing, gripping, stroking. Until he turned to me. Rutting against me until I felt that warm stickiness on my stomach.

Part of me was exultant, part of me sickened. Because I had what so many before me had burned for. Had thrown away everything for. A taste of someone else's innocence.

I had become what I hated most.

I had become one of 'them'.

what you say and what you said

2011-06-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

Live my life
Around a picture
Taken when we met
Spending all of my time
Chasing your silhouette

There are so many people who pass through a single life. Some are the concrete walls that hold us in, helping to hold us together, keeping in the good, or maybe helping us hold out the bad.

The people who are those well-read books with lovingly worn pages. You know those pages almost as well as the pages of your inner diary.

Some, who only stayed to write a single chapter in your life, but the kind of chapter that you couldn't have lived without.

Some you needed in ways you never even knew. Happy accidents of life, sunlight splashes peeking through the clouds.

Then, there are the mirage people. The ones who come into your life, looking so good, so beautiful, so achingly perfect that sometimes you wonder what it must like to be them. What it feels like on the inside to be interestingly, gorgeously perfect.

If you're like me, you might spend time chasing after one of those golden people. Chase, chase, chase, and chase some more. Telling yourself as you run yourself ragged that it will be worth it. It'll be worth it, because it just has to be.

Chase until you actually catch up to that glimmering oasis in the desert of people.

When you reach for it, to discover that everything you thought you saw was only a trick of the light. Golden dust motes floating through your fingers, what you were so sure was everything, turns into the nothing that was there all the time.

A trick of the light, a clever illusion and nothing more.

--

While I was looking down at the place in the road where I thought he would be, the place that I'd worked so hard to get to, standing in the midst of the nothing, the mirage, was when I found something so much more.

This time, no mirage. No smoke and mirrors. No empty words, no voids to fill where someone else had left a gaping wound.

And now...

There's this place inside of me that he lives. A film reel of moments that matter to only me.

Stolen moments in time.

The impossibly long sweep of lashes from those dark eyes, a color so deep, it's not brown. Couldn't be called brown.

Brown is for cocoa and earth and things that are plain, neutral, and to be forgotten.

Those eyes are a color so liquid and alive that no description of a color could ever capture it. It's a shade so luminous that not even the passage of time will ever be able to wipe it from my memory.

I call that color love. Two pools of light, banishing every bit of darkness inside me and leaving behind a sensuous warmth, a golden lamp glow of feeling. It fills up every particle of who I am, making me want to scream up at the sky in articulate joy.

For that feeling, there are no words.

For the fire between us, the feeling like a smell, a taste. Something deliciously rich, wanting to savor and devour it all at once. Wanting to draw it out for the fear it might not last, and needing to consume it ravenously to have all, to own it, to consume it the way it consumes me.

The best kiss of my life, the briefest. Just the pressing of two sets of lips, sweet seconds that play on a loop. Daring everything just for those seconds, not even a handful, where I was uncertain, tasting my heart in my mouth, crazy hopeful breath catching on the tattered lace of anticipation and finding purchase.

The callouses from mistakes past helping me to grasp exactly this.

Where that place exists, is the place it rains and never storms. The place where no matter how long I stay, it will never be long enough. And no matter what mistakes I've made, or what mistakes I will make, I will never forget that it was the mirage that led me to the rainbow.

And through the rise

and falling apart
we discover who we are

The Void

2011-03-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday wasn't a Monday, Tuesday, or any other day of the week. Yesterday was Hell.

When I say Hell, I don't meant that I'm whining about a bad day. People compare things to Hell, trivial things, never knowing that Hell is real. It’s not a long wait in line at the post office, it’s not a birthday party filled with screaming five-year-olds. It’s not seeing the person you love walk away with your heart, or a day at work that seems to never end.

That’s not Hell. That’s life.

My imagined Hell was the kind of place where AC/DC was the muted soundtrack, the devil walked around in red smoking jacket, occasionally burning you with a red hot poker and giggling with Jessica Rabbit, like it was more Playboy Mansion than perdition.

For the real thing, there is no apt comparison. None.

It's like a never ending series of dreams. The kind that bleed together, so it seems less dreamlike. It's finding that someone has had the time and patience to sew together the worst fears and nightmares of your life into a suit of clothes that you wear and can't take off. Hell.

----

Hell isn’t generic. It’s not a one size fits all kind of afterlife. Hell is handcrafted pain, exquisitely fine tuned to each individual. Hell is an Etsy store, the work of many skilled artisans; there’s something for everyone.

You’d think Hell would be about flesh pain, the agony of ripped flesh and torn tendons, bone and sinew roasting. But that would mean warmth.

It’s cold. Not freezing, but cold enough to make you hang your head, your shoulders slumped.

That cold that’s not so bad, if you could only warm up. This cold sinks in, a bite at a time, never cold enough to numb, just cold enough to hurt.
Plus, pain is something that comes from your mind, your soul. You don’t have a body when you get here, but your mind is intact. Mind pain is worse than body pain. The best torturers know that to get what you want, you break the mind. Feed on the fear, and drink it down.

Hell is the deep feeling of unease rolling through your stomach. The way your feelings are always determined by the way your stomach feels. Sometimes curling in on itself, sometimes feeling like a hot ball of dread was resting there, sometimes charring like a bit of paper, then crumbling away into ash.

It's a garden party of elegance. The taste of despair like a fine wine, instead of one course, or seven, it’s an infinity of tastes. Despair, horror, guilt, regret, trauma, dread, loathing, secrets, all seared in the juices of other wrongs, plated with a side of your worst memories. There’s no palate cleanser, so each taste piles up, like ashes.

You have something, though. Something that none of the rest of them have. You’re no murderer; you lived a good life. You were good to the people in it. You loved, you gave. If He hadn’t shown up at exactly the right time, you wouldn’t be here. And every time you live through something, you hold onto his eyes. Those green eyes. In your mind you’re still screaming for him. It’s where you go when the mind pain gets too bad. His eyes, green fire, lighting up a room. The way he’d look at you from underneath his eyelashes, pretending to be serious, but making promises and heating up the world with one look.

Even for all that, you hate yourself for wondering if it's worth it.

The worst days are the days when the Master wears his face. When he wears those green eyes, every word hits home. You know it’s not really him, you tell yourself its not, but the words, the inflections, the silver bright eyes are his. You choke on your guilt those days. You cry until your tears come out as blood.
This, this is your special Hell, the one bought and paid for, with that one word.

Yes.

----

There are some things you learn here; namely the history. Like the bands who traded part of their soul (not all) but part, for a shift in hell. Those that wanted fame so badly they couldn’t wait for their talent to catch up. Those bands you’ll recognize, because they all had one thing in common. I’ll name a few, just so you get the idea—Robert Johnson, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Johnny Cash, Van Halen, AC/DC, some others are more of an ‘a ha’ moment, namely the talentless. Kid Rock, Danzig, White Zombie, Motley Crue, Metallica.

There are two names you never want to mention: Charlie Daniels (because that song is an autobiography, and no matter how many years ago it happened, it’s still a sore subject) and God. Charlie Daniels is more forgivable. Say the G-word, and you’ll find yourself face to face with one of the snarling, silver-eyed angels.

I don't know what everyone else's Hell consists of, it's enough to try to live through my own.

----

Mine is a home, a beautiful home with this golden lamp light, that should feel warm, but instead feels like a handful of ice cubes against your skin. The walls and carpets are the finest you've ever seen. Carpet so plush your feet sink in. Furnishings so decadent they gleam. But each room has its own horrors waiting, no matter how beautiful the decor. Even the crimson carpet carries the leaden weight of despair.

The first room in my house, was a bedroom. No other furniture. Just a bed. Immediately, my mind goes to the worst possible place. I may have to fuck someone on this bed. Worse, it may be ten or twenty or ten thousand someones. I can feel my stomach twitch in disgust, trying to prepare myself for that as much as I can.

A soft laugh, and I can feel the heat baking off his body. Him, the Master. "Shhh...," he laughs softly, "It's only one person. Just one. Once you've come, you can get up from this bed."

I felt his hands softly sliding through my hair, "Most never get up from this bed," he whispered, "but you will. You're different."

And he was right. I did make it out of that bed. But all I remember about that, what Hell won't let me forget when I was finally able to leave that room; my father was crying.

----

Yesterday I made it to the bathroom. The most beautiful bathroom I have ever seen. The marble sink had an array of perfumes lined against the wall. Immediately, I went to smell them. Once I got a smell of the first, my stomach clenched in revulsion.

Each perfume smelled more wonderful than the last. Glorious, as if made of the air of Heaven.

But, this isn't Heaven. Those sparkling top notes were laced with an underlying tone that was the same of each and every perfume. Regret.

The time my cousin ran into the street, and I tackled him into the soft shoulder, feeling the hot breeze from the truck ruffling my hair.

The time I fought with my Mom, the last time I ever saw her, because she died in a car accident the next day.

Coming home to my family after I'd spent years away, trying to sort my life out.

"Does everyone have this many perfumes?" I managed to ask, barely a whisper. He clapped his hands together, delightedly.

"No. Not everyone has let down the people they love as much as you. This?" He picked up a perfume, closed his eyes while inhaling the fragrance, as if it was divine, "This is the time your brother almost drowned, while you were supposed to be watching him."

"This? My favorite. This is when you were in that terrible car accident and you came back to your family."

I felt my eyes burn, and with a throat thick with tears, barely managed to say, "I know I've let my family down a lot."

He tilted his head toward me, almost sympathetically, "You have, but not in the way you think. After your accident, you thought they invited you back into their lives with open arms and all that business. They reguarded you as a rabid dog in their midst. Your instability, your unreliability, your irresponsibility. Their only regreat was that you survived."

That was Hell yesterday, and Hell today. I don't know if I can face Hell tomorrow, but then again, I really don't have a choice.

That one thing, that one thought, like a mantra, that won't quit, that string of words that are almost as bad as this house.

(was it worth it? was it worth it? was it worth it? was it worth it?)

And Dear God, I just don't know anymore.

--

Absolution and Reprieve

2011-03-09T17:18:00.000-08:00

There is an unseen world all around us. Most people pass through it, like fog.

Then, there are others, like me, and instead of fog, it's a tangled web of invisible wire.

I've tried running from it, tried pretending, tried hiding. But the one thing I know, the one certainty in my life is this: you can't run from who you are.

There will always be something, or someone to drag you right back. You'll always end up facing yourself no matter how far you run.

No matter how far you run, you're only fighting yourself.

I wish I didn’t know that. I think of writing this, and I think of the disbelief of someone else finding it and reading it. Maybe shaking their head, maybe rolling their eyes in disgust, and I envy them, I envy them in their disbelief.

--

From what I’ve pieced together, there is a long history of that sort of thing in my family. It was the great unseen. That which never was spoken of.

There was the way my dad and my grandpa could speak to each other, without saying a word. The way they’d talk about me, sometimes thinking I was already
asleep.

They’d talk in whispers about this thing called ‘it.’ About whether or not I had it.

They’d discuss it late into the night.

I remember laying in bed, trying to figure it out, trying to understand.
Whatever ‘it’ was, I didn’t have it.

I’d puzzle it out during class, or recess, or anytime I had a spare moment to think. It was always there, waiting for me to turn it over in my mind, trying to make those puzzle pieces fit into a pattern that I understood.

On my last day of fourth grade, I was sitting on a bench, waiting for the recess bell to ring, once again turning it over in my mind. Trying to give it a name, so it was manageable.

The bell ringing startled me out my thoughts, and I started walking behind a fifth grader, noticing the contented humming of bees, the smell of honeysuckle, the drowsy warmth from the sun.
I watched her walk up the steps in front of me, and this dread, this terror seized me.

It felt like my throat was full of hot, packed glue. I tried to yell at her, I reached forward to grab the back of her shirt, but I was frozen in that spot.

The heat, the smell of flowers, it was too much. Every one of my senses was in the red. I knew what was going to happen, could feel it in every part of my body. Worse yet, I couldn’t do anything, all I could do was watch.

As soon as she reached for the door, someone else slammed it open. Her hand met the thick, tempered glass with a sickening crack. Time slowed down to the point of insanity, and I could see the drops of blood as they fell from her arm.

Time surged forward again, and slapped me back into reality. I remember my knees just folding and spilling me to the grass. I sat there, trying to breathe, trying not to throw up.

That was the day I found out what ‘it’ was.

--

You’d think something like that would be a gift. Who wouldn’t want to know things like that?

Me. I don’t like knowing things like that.

The upside of it is knowing when your friends or family are upset, and knowing what to say or do. Knowing exactly what they need. Knowing what they need to hear, and being able to say it. Those are the good days.

But the bad days, so many of them, so many thoughts invading the privacy of your mind. Most people know what it’s like to be alone with their thoughts. Imagine someone else’s thoughts, or panic or anguish invading your head. It feels like an ice pick lodged in tender flesh. It’s intrusive, and it burns. The more intense the emotion, the more intense the pain it brings.

You get used to it. But you never get completely comfortable with it.

It’s having something inside you that you can’t share with anyone else. You try telling someone “so, I can hear your thoughts.” Because most people don’t believe you. That’s okay. The ones who actually do, are even worse. It makes you a bad person, prying into something, being something you don’t want to be. And the worst thing is the look in their eyes. Like you chose this for yourself.

--

The worst part is knowing things, and knowing you can’t change them.

The first couple of times, I went through stages of grief and denial. Played accuse-a-palooza. Blamed who I was for what I couldn't change.

Now, I change what's in my power to change, and what I can't change, I think of on sleepless nights when there's nothing but the tick of the clock. Those nights when there's no such thing as minutes or hours, those nights when there's no time, only darkness.

--

The janitor, the one who has a smile for everyone, is going to fall down the stairs and break his neck. He'll lay there, the last few seconds of his life draining away, and his last thoughts will be of the daughter he never sees.

The girl I work with, three desks down, is planning to kill herself tonight. We’re not friends, we’re not even close, but I’ve tried to talk her into going out and having a few drinks. I’ve tried to do everything I can to distract her, but the thoughts in her head are getting louder and louder and I can’t drown them out anymore. She’s aching inside, her heart feels like someone poured gasoline over it and set the entire mess alight. My hands are shaking at how much she hurts.

There’s the woman who rides the same elevator I do everyday. She doesn’t know that today is her last day here. When she goes home tonight, she’s going to die. Aneurysm. I told her she looked beautiful this morning. Her eyes lit up like I was the best person in the world. I should've told her that everyday, just for the look in her eyes.

Days like today, I want to jump out of a plane with no parachute.

--

Instead of lunch today, I have errands.

The janitor first. I meet him on the staircase, just as he slips. I get a taste of his elbow in my side, as he falls into me. He's still thinking of that daughter he never sees, the one he abandoned; she's never far from his thoughts.

He thanks me when I keep him from falling, and I nod at him and go on.

Two phonecalls later, and I've ordered flowers for suicidal girl (The card is what will make her change her mind, I'm sure of it) and for the lady who's going to die.

I know flowers won't make up for the fact that there's nothing I can do, but I want her last day to have some distinction. I want to do something for her, as if that will make up for her forever nap.

--

Passing people on the street gives me a headache. It’s picking up the minor things that ride on the top of everyone’s subconscious. It’s like having a hundred radios tuned into the static, so loud, it drowns everything out. And no matter what I do, I can’t run away from it.

It’s like a fire, it rages and raves, and nothing can put it out. I walk past people and their lives just seep into me.

I used to want to save them all, and I ran myself ragged the first couple of years, just trying to do that.

And then I met him.

I was walking in the park, at night, the only time I can get away from things completely. I saw a man on the opposite side of the sidewalk, walking north to my south. As I passed him, I braced myself for the normal onslaught of thought bleed.

As soon as we passed, nothing.

Uncomfortable, church quiet.

When I turned to look at him, he was looking back at me.

“You can see me?” I nodded to him, slowly.

He ran back to where I was standing, and that awkward silence descended. I couldn’t hear anything he was thinking. Nothing.
--

1999

2011-03-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

That's a picture of my very first apartment. To you, it looks like the shit hole it was, and still is (I drive by there all the time, just to say hi).

I was 19. I was young, idealistic, and owned every MTV buzz bin tape ever made (grand total: 2).

And I had shitty taste in real estate.

--

It was in a year that still seems like a dream to me. 1999.

It seemed like every other song on the radio was Dishwalla's Counting Blue Cars. Lou Bega had a little bit of Mardi Gras in his life; before there was OMG, there was OMC...how bizarre.

In that year, there weren't a lot of people with cell phones, most of them had "Dr." before their name; the only text messages were those scrawled across a post-it, and coming home to find a voicemail on my answering machine was one of the best feelings ever.

What you can't see from this view is the Harley Davidson phone my roommate owned. When someone called, the headlights flashed, and the engine revved. You had to talk into the seat. We would've gotten better reception from trying to place a phone call from an actual Harley Davidson.

The floors were hardwood, and leaned to the side, like they were exhausted from thousands of feet walking across them. After living there a month, I recognized every creak, every groan, every grumbling complaint from the floor as I walked across it.

It seemed like every new friend I met knew someone who'd lived there before. Their first question was always "Is the bathroom still pink?"

It was.

Not a cute, ladylike pink, but more like a gaudy, whorehouse pink. The bathroom clashed with the rest of the house, which was apathetic; mediocre at best. It was as if the bathroom had decided to rebel from the rest of the house and instead of picking a respectable profession, it ran away and joined the circus.

Despite all these things, I loved that apartment with an intensity that I haven't felt since. It was my first place. Sometimes I'd come home and just hug myself with the sheer giddiness of being in a place that was mine. Ugly, creaky, no cable, and smelling of car exhaust, but mine.

I met a lot of questionable boys in those days. Those were the days that I thought it was rude to say no to a date if the boy wasn't an outright psycho.

I ended up meeting a couple of real winners.

There was 'try to move in after three dates' boy'; 'have a seizure in my bed while playing with a strobe light' boy; 'stalker boy (originally known as: try to move in after three dates boy)'; and '45 year old dad with two kids older than you' boy, just to name a few.

The 'stalker' was actually pretty entertaining. He'd leave notes on my car telling me I looked pretty. Sometimes he'd put a box of candy on the top of my car, and I'd find it, melted in the heat of summer.

As stalkers go, he wasn't fear inducing. Mostly, he just made me laugh. If he was a better quality of stalker, he would've been a Dr. Pepper, instead, he was the cheap knockoff stalker: trying to be Dr. Pepper, but forever just Dr. Thunder.

I think the worst thing the stalker ever did was leave a dozen dead roses on my doorstep. I wasn't freaked out, I just thought he was a moron. Throwing away money on roses, and then letting them get all dried up? Just dumb.

--

When it was time for me to move out of that apartment, I remember how heavy I felt. It was like ending a friendship. I felt like I was leaving a big piece of me behind.

I walked over the creaking floorboards, one last time, thinking about the next people to live here, how they'd probably frown at the way the floor leaned. Would they learn to love this place the way I had?

I still drive by there, just to make sure the place with so many of my memories is still there. Each time I see it, I breathe a little easier.

I wonder if houses have memories, the way that people do.

I wonder if the stalker boy still thinks I live there.

I wonder if the college age kids living there have as many crazy stories from that place as I did.

Most of all, I wonder if the bathroom is still pink.
--

Who I was

2011-03-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

I think of it as my other life.

That life I lived before I got here.

The times when I think about it, it seems like it happened to someone else. Those spectacularly bad decisions couldn’t really belong to me, could they?

But they did. And still do.

When I left, years ago, I didn’t tell a single soul. I left everything behind, hoping I could outrun the person I was becoming. Too many times, I’d look in the mirror, thinking about the decisions I’d made, the people I’d hurt, and I’d see my father staring back at me.

No matter how many times I’d tell myself that I wasn’t like him, it turned out I was. Hurting the people I love? Check. Running away from my responsibilities? Check. Drinking every single day, in an attempt to swallow who I was? Check and check.

It’d get to the point that I was drinking to mask the pain, and then waking up with my head about ten sizes too big, and drinking to make that go away, too. I drank to run away, and the only thing that changed was that I needed more to fill that empty space, that steely ache that was always there to meet me.

For what we’re running from, there’s not enough booze in the entire world.

I finally made the decision to move away, to either get better, which I really didn’t believe, or to find out what sort of life awaited people like me.

I met a guy, my first week living there. That was the first really bad decision I made.

The second was moving in with him.

I can still remember being so numb, that I couldn’t be bothered to care. Outwardly, he was fantastic. Attentive, loving, and wonderful. All those adjectives that make you want to roll your eyes.

It took about two weeks to meet the real him.

I don’t remember what I said, or did, but I remember how unexpected it was. I’d watched my share of Lifetime movies (the man hater’s channel, as I like to call it) and anytime a man had to spank a woman in the teeth, or give her a punch; she always had enough breath to say something shitty or ask him why.

I didn’t. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like being hit by a Mack truck.

I’d like to say that was the first time, or the only time, and that I hit him with a brick or cut his penis off and threw it in a field.

But it’s not a fairy tale I’m telling you. I’m telling you about a girl who had nowhere to go and no one she wanted to admit her stupidity to. So, it went on that way for awhile. I never believed that whole “I swear it’s the last time."

But I wanted to believe it.

I let that nightmare continue for another month or so, before my breaking point.

When I called my brother from the hospital after I’d gotten away, I remember hearing his voice, and I could feel the tears, shame at what I’d become, heating up my face. He sounded so safe, so sane, and so normal. If he would’ve asked, I would’ve told him everything. He never knew that I called him from the emergency room, and he never will.

I knew better than to call any of my friends. I ended up sitting on a hospital bed, talking to the Chaplain. He had the kindest eyes. I told him that the smell, the smell soaked into my pajamas was lighter fluid, like for barbeques.

I couldn’t say the rest of it, it was enough for me just to have made it through. I’d take the nightmares, too. Nightmares are for people still alive to have them.

I took that night for what it was. A second chance. A lesson who not to be, what not to become.

The better part of me made it out of that night, that's for damn sure. I know just how lucky I was.

Some don't make it out at all.

There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. -- Moby Dick

100 Words -- Michael

2011-03-01T09:23:00.000-08:00

Miguel McCoy. That wasn’t his real name, just what we called him.

Miguel could fuck up a wet dream.

How he ever made it to tech support, I’ll never know. They had to put at least three desks between him and his co-workers. He didn’t have an inside voice.

The best thing he ever said was to a customer that he was supposed to reassure.

“Yes, ma’am, having a firewall is like having a lock on your door to keep burglars out.”

“But, you know, “he continued on, “if a burglar really wants to get into your house, he will.”

Thanks to Mr. London Street and Bag Lady for the original 100 word post idea.

Ridin' into town alone by the light of the moon

2011-02-25T10:41:00.000-08:00

It's her first and only love; she only comes alive for those few days when the moon is full. The rest of the month is spent in emotional flat line.

Work and co-workers occupy that same shade of gray that is so easy to mute, like snow on a TV screen.

She only answers questions when someone reminds her there are questions that need to be answered. Other than the that, everything else in her life gets the volume turned down. She's the epitome of what Bob Seger sang about the Beautiful Loser.

There's no great trial or stumbling block in her life; no great passion.

She's just another nine-to-five Jane, working toward a quiet retirement, living out a gray existence, with her own quiet tale of desperation that would be darker, sadder, if so many didn't live the same life.

Her boyfriend of six months is just like you'd picture: entirely forgettable. She doesn't love him, but he is consistent, and he fills up her weekends.

He's the teacher you forget the instant the bell rings. He's disappears in his dockers and button-downs. He's a habit she's gotten used to, like taking the trash out on cold Tuesday mornings. He's a plaid and khaki placeholder.

When she comes home after a long Friday, drinks that first all-important glass of wine, and sighs into the life that she's created for herself, she ends up drinking a whole bottle and most of a second before she passes out. It's entirely unlike her, and her last thought is of the moon.

Waking up the next morning should feel terrible, but other than having a mouth that takes like someone shit in it, she feels fine. In fact, she feels like she's woken up from the dream that is her life, because she knows tonight the moon will be full.

Those nights, she cancels plans with her dough boy of a boyfriend, and spends the weekends alone.

It's harder to just accept the silent disappointment that she lives on those days the moon lights up the sky like a searchlight, calling her, making her take stock of just exactly what she's committed to. The moon seems to illuminate everything she wants to ignore about her own life.

It's just easier to be alone on those nights.

More wine, a couple of cigarettes, and she sits on the balcony of her apartment, surrounded by other worker bees living the same quiet lives of even quieter mediocrity; a hive of unremarkable. No one is loud here, there's a quiet respect of others that somehow underlines the tragedies that her neighbors (and her--she isn't leaving herself out) call life.

She finds herself staring at the moon for hours, only stopping to refill her glass, ignoring her phone with its unremarkable messages.

No great sin, no great tragedy, and that itself seems to be the worst. The endless disquiet of the things she's learned to accept, that inner tree of disappointment growing, knowing you were meant for something better, struggling to believe it, finally realizing that maybe good enough is as good as it ever gets.

Thinking this way, being this introspective is something this time always brings out in her, the way she's never able to satisfy that voice that asks why. It makes her restless, unsettled. Her quiet acceptance tastes like ash in her mouth.

When the moon finally starts to creep out of sight, she decides it's time to go in. After a few more glasses of wine, she undecides that last decision.

She's going to take a walk, to keep this feeling going, this delicious feeling of being alive and awake and aware. She slides into her shoes, pockets her keys, and while she's walking on the sidewalk, heart full, eyes bright, feeling wicked and dangerous, a laugh sneaks out of her.

The strangest thing about the next morning is that she can't remember her walk from the night before. She remembers leaving her apartment, the first few blocks, and then blackness.

There's a kind of dread around the corner of this feeling of awakening, closing in on all sides. The feeling that since she doesn't exactly remember last night, that she did something.

While she's staring moodily around her apartment, another blue and hungover Saturday, she hears a knock at the door.

Maybe her boring boyfriend is coming over for some boring Saturday sex. She continues sitting on the couch and lets him get a little older.

He's persistent, for one thing and when she stomps over to the door and flings it open, she doesn't expect the flowers that are waiting for her.

When she reads the card, it's addressed to her, beautifully masculine handwriting (definitely not from her insignificant other), and the words on the card take her breath away.

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me,
all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

Under that, a scrawled signature.

The moon doesn't have its own light, it borrows the light of the sun. The moon goes from total darkness, to illuminating the night sky.

The name that illuminates her is only three letters, but it makes her heart race.

Ben.

Just for tonight

2011-02-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

I was okay, until I noticed that time was slipping away from us. We spent the first part of the night (when it seemed like all we had was time) laughing, reminiscing.

I didn’t want to notice the time, but it was nine p.m. We’d planned on staying up all night, and had a case of Red Bull to help us do just that. I remember how sobering that was; the undeniable hands of the clock, letting me know that soon this would be over. Once it was over, that was it. We both knew that.

You picked up your guitar, strumming it a little. You’d been humming one song all night, and I’d stop to think about it, how familiar it sounded, thinking if I could just slip into my thoughts for a minute, I’d figure it out. You asked me what I wanted to hear and I remember how bright your eyes were, like there were candles behind them, illuminating them. Beautiful.

“I want to hear the song you’ve been humming.”

So you started to sing, our eyes never losing contact. When I heard what song it was, I wanted to take it back. It struck too close to home. I’d liked that song, but hearing you sing it, hearing your mouth sweeten those words, making them like sugared strawberries, it made the song almost unbearable to listen to.

I could feel my heart beating, I could feel it drown out every thought in my mind.

All I could think about was how moments like this happen. Beautiful memories that can be made, or regret that can be carried.

I could feel the weight of your eyes, my heart pounding, because I was afraid.

There ain't nothing that I wouldn't do
Go to the ends of the Earth for you
Make you happy, make your dreams come true
To make you feel my love

It’s been so long since I’ve wanted. I could feel the warmth from your eyes, or maybe that was the burning of tears in my own. Maybe you felt it, too, because that was all you sang.

We both sat on opposite ends of the couch. I was thinking about the distance that would be between us all too soon. I could feel the ache of days ahead with no more you, and all the while, that song haunted me, I could still hear it. Worse, I could feel it in your eyes. Your eyes, so intent and intense, I could barely stand to look, but couldn’t stand to look away.

I did my best to try to swallow down the tears, like a fist in the back of my throat. I closed my eyes, tried to swallow all that emotion, and the next moment you were kissing me.

It wasn't soft or sweet, it was raw need. It was everything we couldn't say in words. It was years of love between us.

It was goodbye.

100 Words--Five Minutes

2011-02-22T10:55:00.000-08:00

He brings out the worst in me.

We passed a La Quinta sign, and he grinned. I already knew where this was going. "Hey, Sal, want to get a room?"

I looked out the window, and just let my mouth do its own thing. "I don't think they rent rooms in five minute intervals."

I felt him tighten up, and I didn't have to look to know that his lips were thinned down to invisibility.

"Are you mad because it's funny, or mad because it's true?" I asked, stifling laughter, knowing better than to make eye contact.

"Both," he said.

Tall

2011-02-15T22:41:00.000-08:00

Five feet eleven inches. One hundred sixty-seven pounds. Size six.

I was the freak. All the girls weighed a hundred pounds. A hundred five, at the most. Size zeroes all the way around, like they were holding a royal flush of attractive and desirable. Bitches.

When we had our physicals, it was a big deal, but not that big a deal. When all the other girls shared their weights, like winning lottery tickets, I cringed. I outweighed them all by at least sixty pounds. Not to mention the fact that I towered over most of them by at least eleven inches, but I never factored that into the equation. Those eleven inches didn’t matter, but my weight did.

I ran out of my physical, pretending sickness. I avoided the whole weight issue with grace (at least in my own mind.)

During basketball practice, I heard our coach praising someone. “I ask for one thing. I ask for you to get low, and the only one able to follow instructions is the biggest girl on our team.”

He meant me.

He never elaborated and said “the tallest girl on our team” which is what he meant by ‘the biggest’, but in my mind, he had just called me the thing I’d always called myself while looking in the mirror. The thing I dreaded most. The thing I knew was the fucking elephant in the room. Fat.

I was the only freshman to make the varsity team.

That didn’t matter to me. When I played, the only thing I ever thought of was that phrase. The biggest girl on the team. When my picture made the paper, I’d look at that grainy print and judge how big I looked, especially against the girls who were never more than five foot seven. Being good didn’t matter. Being good enough to be the only freshman on varsity didn’t matter either.

The only thing that mattered was that phrase, the one that was the last thing I thought of before I went to bed every night. The biggest girl on the team.

I exercised every day. I couldn’t be anorexic; I loved to eat too much. Bulimia was the worst kind of wastefulness; that too was a no-go. I enjoyed eating way too much to commit that particular crime. I had panic attacks every time I went on that court, thinking of every angle people could see me from, every disgusting angle which was probably making them pay more attention to how big I was, how I was the Sasquatch taking up room on the team of fragile non-sizes.

I quit.

My sophomore year, I met that coach at another school, the one with that God-awful phrase. He asked me why I wasn’t playing. I looked at him, his keg belly, hating him, and I said, “I couldn’t stand being the biggest girl on the team. Being the fattest.”

When he looked at me, he said, “Fattest? Who called you that?”

“You,” I said, “that’s why I quit.”

“You were the tallest,” he said, his eyes understanding, sad, “I just meant you were the tallest.”

Molly

2011-02-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

I will always think of it as the survivors' table. After you'd been here awhile, your last stop before you left was that table, gathered around just waiting to go home.

I wasn't ready for that table yet, so I sat with a few others like me, still reeling from actually being here.

Everyone has a reason, everyone has a story. I never really got into mine. I never really told anyone, but that's okay, because most people never notice if you don't talk about yourself. They only notice when you stop listening.

For me, it was wanting to feel something other than dread. That sense of doom, that everything good you've gathered is short-lived.

It's having everyone you love gathered in your home. Maybe you step outside to get the paper, to have a cigarette, and waiting for you outside is a tornado.

There's nowhere you can go, nothing you can do.
So you face it. And hope it's not too bad.

All of us in that facility were doing the same thing. Sifting through the debris. Finding what was salvageable in our own lives, and trying not to look over our shoulders. For the next tornado. Or the grass fire. Or the semi ready to run us down. To finish the job.

I was just sitting there at one of the tables, musing over the things in my life, the day I met Molly.

The first thing I noticed about her was that she was perfect. Beautiful, blond, petite. Then I saw her eyes. Eyes that looked like mine. Eyes that had seen too much and didn't know how to look at the world.

We ended up getting close, and when she finally opened up to me, her story brought tears to my eyes.

She had a good marriage, and a little boy. It was a few months before his birthday, when they'd gotten into the accident. She was fine, but he wasn't. She blamed herself, and instead of living, what she did was relive that day, the accident, what she should've done. Every day since she prayed that she could redo that one day, but he stayed dead, and her marriage and pretty much everything else she cared about died that day, too.

When I was discharged, she haunted me. Normally I'm optimistic, but with her, there was just this sense of doom, that the tragedy was still happening for her, that it wasn't over.

I gave her my phone number when I hugged her goodbye. I told her to call me, and one Saturday morning, while I was in the shower, she showed up at my house.

Saturday was the day that Cole and I always spent together. It was our day.

At this point, the relationship was still new enough that I thought he'd be angry, or snide that I was cancelling our plans to spend the day with Molly, who needed me.

See, this day that she turned up on my doorstep, crying and full of despair was one of the worst days to Molly. It was the day her son would've turned eight.

Faced with her grief, I didn't know what to do. I was out of ideas. While she sat on the couch, tears running down her face, Cole pulled me aside. "I don't know what to do, Cole," I said, starting to cry, "There's nothing I can do or say. I can't make it better, I can only make it worse."

I put my head against his shoulder, and he held me. "The worst part about today for her is that she doesn't want anyone to forget him. Forgetting him is like him dying all over again. He can't celebrate his birthday, so maybe you two should do it for him."

And that's what we did.

We spent the rest of the day riding go karts, eating Happy Meals, and when I got home, I thought Cole would be angry that I'd spent the whole day with Molly. I thought of past boyfriends who would've had that reaction. How they'd make me pay for being there for my friend, but I misjudged him.

When we got home, Cole was waiting. He'd had a few errands of his own, and on the dining room table was a birthday cake.

When Molly saw that, she immediately reached for Cole, and he held her. I could hear her tears, the choked anguish in her voice, when she thanked him.

Over her head, his eyes met mine, silverbright and impossibly green. I couldn't hold back my own tears, and when our eyes locked, I saw tears glistening in his eyes. Thank you, I thought to him. Thank you.

I didn't hear from Molly for a few days after that night. I kept calling her, worried.

It was her husband who finally called me back.

When Cole got home from work later that night, he found me sitting on the couch, head in my hands. Just sitting there.

Instead of words, he just slid his body behind mine, bracketing me like a warm, solid weight. He put his arms around me, pulling my back into his chest.

I remember how I let out that first, agonized, aching breath. The air seemed to burn my lungs and everything that was pent up, everything that had been caught behind my throat, everything I'd been carrying, just poured out of me.

Molly and her husband had a fight. He'd said the words, the one sentence that destroyed what was left of her heart. She blamed herself, and after that, she knew that he blamed her, too. He was the last thing she had in the world, and knowing that he blamed her, well, she couldn't exist another instant with the weight of that.

I don't know how long we sat on that couch. I thought of the birthday cake still in the refrigerator. I thought about how hell is always present tense. There's no yesterday, no tomorrow. Most of all, I thought about Molly.

Match in the gas tank, boom, boom.

2011-02-10T08:44:00.000-08:00

“Two grilled stuffed burritos, chicken, um…fiesta potatoes, and one of those burritos they show on tv,” she said, nodding to the girl at the counter.

I took a deep breath, swallowed that insane urge to burst into cackles, and immediately looked over at you. It was like our heads were connected on the same well-oiled ball bearing. You, on my left, my eyebrow curved up, wanting to make sure you heard that.

She really said that, your eyes confirmed. She wanted that burrito, but she changed everything on it, mine answered back. She doesn’t even like rice, your eyes texted back. Rice. The stuff dreams are made of.

That whole non-conversation took less than four seconds. As soon as it was over, we both huffed out whatever laughter we couldn’t swallow down, and you did that thing you do, looked down, like you were searching for your most earnest expression, and when you looked back up, you studied the menu like you were searching for something, but when I looked at you from the corner of mostly serious eyes, I knew as soon as we collected our tacos, we would resume this conversation. The one about how we’d just witnessed a hurdle, not exactly crossed, but maybe pushed over, at the tard-a-thon we call Taco Bell.

It’s a point we come back to almost every single time we hang out. It’s not the kind of conversation you’d think that two intelligent women might have. Seven words that we’ve gotten used to saying to each other. I think I say it more than you, mostly for your reaction. It’s regarding a movie that I think was the movie, that bridge that spans the age gap between you and me. That’s the real reason why it’s so important.

“Match in the gas tank, boom, boom.” Just typing that sentence, I can see the way you react to those words.

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is a movie that we both could watch on repeat. When Gilbert says that to an Arnie who has climbed to the top of the water tower, the best part is how Arnie considers those words. He contemplates them, one index finger curled against his face. When Gilbert repeats that mantra, Arnie almost nods to himself, like he understands that is part of things, he mouths it to himself, and he starts to climb down.

It sounds simple, but sometimes when things are getting to me, it’s those words that get me to climb down from my own water tower, because I know that you’ll be waiting on the ground, your embarrassment carefully put aside, because I need you. You say that mantra, eyes on mine, and I make it down

When you have the kind of bond we do, I think like anything, sometimes you take it for granted. I sat here, listening to some Creedence, laughing about the pizza we ordered today. The order took twenty minutes, because the guy I talked to was a special case.

When he asked me for the name on the delivery ticket, I gave him your first name while you listened, and to make you laugh, I gave him the last name of one of your favorite actors. Padalecki. I even spelled it for him.

When the pizza came, I pocketed the receipt. While we ate pizza and laughed about nothing and everything, I pulled the receipt out of my pocket. Read your name, read the last name and laughed so hard that no noise came out. I just held the receipt out to you.

Papalecai, the receipt proudly proclaimed. We both laughed until we cried. “I guess he just went for it, with that spelling,” you said. He couldn’t even spell forest, I thought.

I’ve been calling you Papa Lecai, and just like our many, many inside jokes, you snort, because I wait until you’ve settled into it just enough to let your guard down, but never long enough for the novelty to wear off.

You snort laughter out, and laugh while your side shakes and your pizza balances precariously on one knee. It’s the kind of reaction that will never get old. It’s the basis of who we are, the way I can always surprise the laughter out of you, the same way you always wear my shoes when you go outside to smoke. Your feet are about half the size of mine, and when you wear my shoes you look like a five year old trying on their mothers’ heels. You wear my shoes the same way I wear those seven words. The magic words. Not because they fit, but because it’s our bridge. No matter where I am, or where you are, those words always bring us to the same place. Where it is doesn’t matter. What we do, also, doesn’t matter. The only important thing is that we’ll both be there.

Play. Rewind. Repeat.

2011-02-08T09:20:00.000-08:00

They're like a playlist of my favorite songs. The absolute best of the best. The kind of songs that never get skipped in the shuffle. The kind of songs that not only light me up from within, but somehow touch the deepest parts of my heart. The kind of songs that make me intensely glad to live in that moment, being grateful just to have heard it.

When I hear a song like that, I carry it with me. When times get trying, I play a little piece of that remembered song in my head, and it makes me smile.

For today, I'd like to celebrate my own special playlist, the absolute best of the best (because face it, we all have favorites). The incendiary people I've gotten to know in the blogosphere, in no particular order. This day is all about you, and like Elton John sang, My gift is my song yeah, and this one's for you.

--

Sometimes you read something that someone writes and it's so good, that the words in your own head just disappear. For a couple of months, I read his writing, wondering how anyone could tell a story that good, making it seem effortless. The way the words moved, the language flowed, writing like that was always just out of my grasp, like trying to hold onto running water.

The wit was apparent in each post. It was subtle, and refreshing, like the smell of flowers in the rain. After reading his writing, I went through my list of blogs I followed, and unfollowed a great deal. When you read something that fantastic, it makes it apparent some of the cheaper tricks some people use, like street magicians. I guess the novelty of fool's gold grows old, after awhile.

When I finally gathered the courage to comment for the first time, I was completely bowled over by how incredibly receptive he was to feedback. His response was always laced with a pleasing wit, a humor that never failed to make me laugh, and then look around like someone was going to catch me at something.

That first comment started a friendship with one of the bloggers I respect the most, one of the bloggers who writes in a way, that you never notice how long a post is, until you've gotten to the end. You know it had to end, but at the same time, you're a little disappointed, because when something is really great, you never really want it to end.

----

Her blog is like coming home. I think of being outside in the snow, maybe walking through it, until I'm so cold I can't feel my nose. When I feel like I'm searching for something and I don't know quite what it is, when I'm looking for warmth, the kind that comes from the glow of a kind heart, I like to go to her part of the world, and even though I never leave Oklahoma, I feel like I stepped through some magic doorway into a place where no matter how long I stay, it will never be long enough.

I read some of the stories and find myself nodding. When someone has that incredible ability to put into words, the things that are in your heart, the things that maybe you don't have the words to express, it always makes you so grateful. It always makes you wonder just what lives inside that person that makes them so wonderfully intuitive, how they can capture in a sentence what you've lived.

I sometimes have to read things more than once, because I don't want to miss a single word. When I've done my reading, no matter what the subject, this woman has the ability to turn words into feelings. There is something so extraordinary about how you feel after you finish a post. Like you're a little closer to the center of the world, of the things that really matter. After reading her writing, I always end the same way. With a satisfied feeling, but impatient for what comes next.

----

Some people have a talent for fiction, and some people don't. He is one of the few with the gift of being able to write brilliantly about anything.

When I read a story he wrote about the relationship between a mother and a daughter, it was what he didn't say, but was able to infer of their relationship that completely captivated me. This man, was able to write about the relationship between two women, with an uncanny ability to get it just right.

You can always tell the mark of an excellent piece of writing, because it gives you enough, enough to make you care about the characters, maybe even to love the people that someone dreamed up in their own head. At the same time, even though it's a one shot piece of writing, sometimes I find myself thinking about that mother and daughter, that fictional mother and daughter and wondering how their relationship is doing today. I know they're not real. I know they're fiction, but when the story is that powerful, that real, the characters are brought to life by the incredible skill of the writer, and the story takes on a life of its own.

----

She writes these 100 word posts, the kind of posts that capture in a hundred words, what some writers couldn't capture in a thousand. Or a million. She amazes me with these posts, because despite the fact that they are a hundred words, they are never "simply" a hundred words, or "only" a hundred words.

I picture her writing these posts the way a sculptor starts a work that will result in something fabulous. She chooses these words, puts them together, chisels, steps back, looks, nods to herself, and takes away a little more. The result is something rich, decadent. Anyone else would water it down, subtract that rich texture of words and images, but somehow she does the exact opposite. It's the kind of post you can sink your teeth into and it feeds that inner hunger for those delicious words.

There are some things you can tell about people from the way they write. When they write about others, really, they're writing about themselves. Reading her writing is seeing the view from her eyes. I haven't known her long, but what I do know is that she's got an incredible heart. The things she writes about in her life, the things she appreciates, the way she looks at the world, makes me appreciate things that I sometimes overlook.

Visiting her is like the post she did about postcards from Istanbul. Each post, which in her own eloquent way, is a postcard from her, a postcard of her life, and no matter what she faces, she deals with things with a grace that not many could match.

----

Maybe I left her for last because I knew it would be the easiest to write, but also because I have so much I wanted to say.

I think she and I have been reading each other's writing for longer than just about anyone. I remember the first time I read some of her writing. After I finally stopped laughing, I thought to myself, my, my. She's really got something.

The more I read, the more I found myself thinking that this woman really was extraordinary. No matter how many bad dates, no matter how many twists and turns life threw at her, she'd just grin, shrug, and turn it into a joke.

After awhile, she got the courage to write a serious post or two. She'd always apologize about it, and then resume her usual brand of hilarious, which didn't have to try to be funny, it just was.

Since I have the floor, I'm going to tell that girl something I've wanted to tell her for a long time. Something the greatest love of my life told me, and I'm passing it on, because these words belong to her now. She earned them.

"It's your vulnerabilities that make you beautiful."

When she's writing about something important, her family, her life, the serious side, that is when her writing absolutely kills. When I get a glimpse into who she is, that person that is stronger than she thinks, that woman that has got the kind of heart that has weathered enough heartache to know what's worth having, that woman who writes things that make cry, or fist pump like I'm on the Jersey shore, whatever facet that woman is showing me, it's beautiful.

Seeing that vulnerability doesn't take away from her in the least. In fact, that opening up is what shows you just how fucking brilliantly she shines. If you know her, then you know how amazing she is. And she is a writer.

----

I've got emotion dripping out my pores and I thought I would let you know.
You are the night light, ripping through my wicked world.
How you make it sparkle and glow.
-- Motion City Soundtrack "This is For Real"

Forgiven

2011-01-11T11:13:00.000-08:00

Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. ~Mahatma Gandhi

----

I've sat here a few times, trying to write you, trying to find the combination of words that would tell you all of the things that matter. I fail repeatedly, but I always return.

Occasionally I drive by your apartment, not in the creepy "I hope I can steal a glimpse of her between the crack in her curtains" kind of way~ but you know me with the driving and my loop hasn't changed. I wonder about you. I imagine what you might be doing. Who you might be making laugh. Whose uniform you may have taken ransom. Mostly I just hope that you are alright. I miss you.

I've decided that to me and most certainly others, you are like the magic trousers from that movie "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants". *pause* Before we go any further past this statement, let me assure you I have never seen that gay movie, but I believe I get the basic premice. Girls of all sizes ship the pants around, they magically fit them all from the stick chick to the thick chick and make marvelous things happen in their lives. Cue the music. ~~Anyhoo. You are pants. You enter lives of so many people who seemingly have nothing in common in all shapes and forms, and you just fit them.

For me, I always look for the "why". Why were we friends and then why did you go. You came into my life in the middle of my downward spiral. I didn't know who I was or what I was doing or where I'd end up. I was just blindly running through the dark, desperately seeking a way out and then you were there. You didn't show me the exit. You just walked with me and calmed me and told me everything would be ok. And I believed it. You always let me be who I was, no matter how insane that person was. To be honest, sometimes looking back I wonder if you were real.

When you disappeared it was at the beginning of my divorce and I often wondered why that was when you chose to make your exit, because I felt as if I needed you and you just walked away. Now I know the truth. You had taken me as far as you could and I had to take it from there. I had to stand on my own two feet and thanks to you, I felt like I could. I did. I made it through.

I love you Sally Sal. I think about you often. Sometimes I just want to tell you my stories so that I can hear you repeat them back to me and make them so much more entertaining, like you always do. I think of you almost everytime I hear the word beef, because I think of beef water and it makes me giggle. I think of you for 10 millions reasons and some of them wouldn't even make sense to you, so I think I will stop babbling now.

Please be ok.

White

2011-01-10T09:31:00.000-08:00

It was a word I heard a lot growing up. The almighty N-word.

Where I grew up, it was just a way of describing the worst, a way of describing every ethnicity from yours to mine.

Going to school there was more of the same. If you heard the n-word at least twice a day, well, that was a slow day at public school.

If I could go back to my then-self, and all ethnic children around those parts, what I’d tell them and myself: “If the worst they can call you is what you are, then they really don’t have much.” Which wouldn't have taken away the sting from that particular word, or the contempt it was always spat out with.

My friend Walt told me this story, at a party. He went to school one town over. When I heard it, I frowned. Until I heard the end of it. In David Allen Coe form, I realized that my friend had written the perfect racist story.

----

It was the same sort of morning, cold dew on the lawn of the high school, cheerleaders and jocks standing outside, all the beautiful people, impossibly perfect in their letterman jackets and tight jeans. Beautiful people with hateful smiles and beautifully made-up eyes, all waiting for you to fall, to stumble, to drop your books. Waiting for you to fuck up, their laughter ready to greet your mistakes.

Finally inside, you draw a deep breath, because you aren’t one of the impossibly perfect.

You’re just you, with your blemishes, your homework done inside your backpack; you’re safe and sane inside your own imperfect, lonely shell.

As you approach the water fountain, you notice the sign, as if you’re exquisitely attuned to it.

That one sign, the sign that says everything you’ve felt the whole time you’ve gone to this school. The sign on this water fountain that bears the hateful words “WHITES ONLY.”

The bathrooms are both marked the same. WHITE ONLY.

The year is 2008. You check the bathroom again, but the sign remains the same. You’re so aware of how brown your skin is, how dark and un-white.

You want to find somewhere to hide from those words, but there is no refuge, so you go to class with your face burning, your embarrassment, knowing that someone there, maybe a couple of some ones put those signs up. But you never know who. You have your suspicions, but you never really know.

The principal does his duty, which is to round up all the usual suspects, those boys with wranglers, that circular skoal tattoo that’s washed and faded into their jeans, and he questions them. He questions them, but you wonder. You know this school better than he does, better than he ever will. You know that at least four of the ten he called into his office are already racists.

Three days later, and all his interrogations find nothing. Three days later, and even though those signs are gone, you flinch every time you drink from the water fountain. You flinch every time you piss into one of those impossibly white porcelain toilets. Those whites only toilets.

The atmosphere in the school has reached a fever-pitch. Everyone can feel the word NIGGER resounding in the halls. The racist skoal jockeys have stopped making their jokes, the teachers all treat you with a new brand of kindness. The principal smiles at you in the hallways, as if to tell you that he’s going to find out who did this.

This may be some backwater school, but goddamn it, we’re not the fucking KKK. Even as he smiles at you, it makes you sick in the pit of your stomach, because he’s never even acknowledged you before.

With a sinking stomach, you decide that you need to fess up. You need to confess to him, because you know exactly who the racist in the school is. You know who put up those signs; you have no doubt, because you were there when they went up.

When you walk into his office, your brown skin looking harsh and unlovely in the fluorescent lights of his office, you tell him. You tell him who put those signs up, you tell him why. You try to tell him what kind of school he’s been in, but when you tell him who put those signs up, he doesn’t hear anything else. You can see the anger in his face, and you’re not surprised when you look down at your shoes.

You’re not surprised when he suspends you from school for three days.

You’re not surprised.

Because it was you who put those signs up.

The Road So Far

2011-01-07T06:25:00.000-08:00

Every time you celebrate another birthday, I think of when you were six. Six years old, and you were so sick, we didn't know what was wrong with you, until the doctors came back and told us.

Meningitis. It sounded like a death sentence. I remember how high your fever was, how I overheard one of the doctors talking, saying that if by some miracle you lived, that you would most certainly be...damaged. All those afternoons we spent, you telling me things that only a six year old could know, the way I could make you laugh so hard you couldn't breathe, the one time at four you had taken my hand, and whispered, "I exist. I'm a person. I'm real," and how amazed I was that such a small body could hold such a big heart, a soul like yours.

You made it through. We all prayed that you would, and I refused to believe that you would die. I refused to believe that anything could happen to you, and when you woke up, you were fine. Smart and sassy as ever.

It's hard to believe that I was there when you were born. I held you in my arms more times than I can ever count. I rocked you to sleep, on that front porch swing, your tiny arm around my neck, trusting that I would hold you and keep you safe.

Keeping you safe was a full-time job, kid, believe me. You never walked for a single instant, you ran everywhere, as if knowing how fast life goes, and you didn't want to miss a single instant of it.

We were at your aunt's house, swimming in their new pool for the first time. Everyone went inside to get dried off, and I heard the back door slam. And I knew, I just knew, and I took off running. I didn't see you outside, and I didn't see you by the pool, but I ran over to it anyway. You jumped in, and when I got to the side of the pool, I saw you looking up at me, underwater. You reached for me, and I pulled you out. The trust in your eyes, the way you looked at me, the pure love was the most precious thing I had ever seen. But it didn't stop me from spanking you.

I remember watching you go out with boys, hating it, because I knew that was something I couldn't protect you from. I couldn't shield you from any potential hurt, the way I could when you were three and trying to scuba dive. I remember meeting your potential boyfriends, smiling at them and thinking to myself, If you hurt her, buddy, I've got a shovel and a hundred acres that says nobody will ever miss you.

It was inevitable that I would never be able to really like anyone you dated, because you are my heart, and no one ever born is really good enough for who you are. Two years ago we started to get really close, sharing things about our lives, our experiences. Instead of sisters, we became best friends.

As your best friend, I knew before you did that your relationship was over. I never told you, because I knew you'd figure it out. So, I came over more often, we would spend long, hilarious weekends drinking and watching our show. That perfect show, about two brothers who were all they had in the world, the kind of siblings who would do anything for each other. Like us.

When that relationship died, you handled it with a grace I only wish I had. You put as much of it behind you as you could, and dealt with the rest head on. I remember looking at you, and wondering just when my baby sister had managed to grow up into this woman that continually managed to amaze me.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow you'll be twenty-one. Twenty-one years of your life that I have had the chance to witness. I can't decide what's better, being your hero in your single digit years, or your best friend now.

What I do know is that I love you. We don't always say it the same way as other people. Sometimes it's me calling you Retardo Montalban for driving on the wrong side of the road, or teasing you about being short, or about how you can buy your shoes in the kids section. Sometimes it's you calling Pete Wentz (who I do not love, btw) my boyfriend, or how I got your share of boobs plus mine. Same with height. Sometimes it's punching each other in the boob to say hello. Sometimes it's creating a drinking game to your favorite childhood movie, The Little Mermaid. Whatever 'it' is, we make it our own.

And of course, we fight. We fight like girls, but make up like boys. I love that about us. I like how after we've had one of our fights, one of us will say, "We good?" And that's that. Are we good? And the answer is always yes.

Tomorrow. You're going to be twenty-one years old tomorrow, LaChance. Twenty-one. I almost feel like I fell asleep on duty and just woke up to this, because I'm not ready for it. If you can turn twenty-one, then you can turn thirty. Thirty, like me. But not like me, in the ways that matter.

When you're happy, you shine so goddamn bright. Like you're going to shine tomorrow night. And I will wonder how in the world we ever got here.

The Catalogue of Embarrassments

2011-01-05T12:24:00.000-08:00

Page 176., Item #FU37815 Model : Josh/ A million ways to be cruel

One of the places I worked a year or two ago was a center for the developmentally disabled. It takes a certain type of person to work there. You can't be easily embarrassed, and you've got to have a pretty thick skin. What you don't expect is how rewarding that kind of work can be.

Unfortunately, this won't be one of those stories.

I had just gotten out of training that very day, I was walking toward the home I would be working in. There were around ten or twelve of these houses, set up to be self-sufficient.

As I was walking toward my first day on the job, instead of just giving mannequins CPR, (like in training) I was actually going to interact with the clients. I was balls deep in my own thoughts, a mind movie of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest mixed up with The Departed starring me as a tough but compassionate orderly with a heart of gold, and the kind of stare that let the patients know that I was stern, stern but fair. And that no matter what--

And that's when he crossed my path. Drove right across it. He was driving some kind of vehicle that probably only exists in Oklahoma: part lawn mower, part four wheeler, bearing the bastard logo of John Deere. I started to be a little pissed at him, for just cutting me off from the sidewalk, lawn mowerish vehicle idling.

I wasn't pissed, though. He was instantly forgiven, because even though he drove for shit, he was gorgeous. He introduced himself to me, asked me if I was new, and asked which house I was working in. When I told him, his face just lit up. "Guess I'll see you later, then," he said, winking at me.

My step picked up considerably, at the the thought of working with Josh. I made my way into the house, got acquainted with some of the patients, most of which didn't seem developmentally disabled in any way at all.

I started getting stuff out to make dinner, when Josh sauntered into the kitchen with me, donned an apron and we started getting things prepared. While I chopped, he distracted me, teasing me, basically flirting and just kind of playing verbal grab ass in the kitchen.

I was imagining Josh, naked except for his apron, when the front door of the house banged open. I thought it was just another one of the guys who lived in this particular house, but it was another worker. I started laughing, "So, there are three people that work in this house?" I remember asking him, making flirty eyes at Josh.

The other guy looked at me, then over at Josh, then back to me, and said slowly, "No, it's just me and you."

----

Page 209., Item #FU65895 Model: John/I wanna sex you up

I make no secret about my mental illness, and to me it's not sad, because some of the funniest fucking things have happened during this whole magical mystery tour. If trading the crazy means having a normal, boring, vanilla life, I choose to keep the crazy.

I stayed away from most of the other patients. Some of them liked to yell, some of them were attention whores, some of them liked to take their clothes off, and some of them were just plain annoying. Instead of socializing, I made conversation with my crossword puzzle.

A few words into it, the lead on my pencil broke, so I had to go to the front desk and ask for a pencil sharpener. As I walked over, John, who looked like Ichabod Crane, with his large beak of a nose, scrawny body, almost as if he was the human equivalent of a vulture, followed closely behind me.

I stood at the desk, waiting, feeling John's body heat, because not only was he crazy like me, he had no idea of a little thing called personal space. When no orderly had shown up, I turned to John, mostly to get him to back the fuck up, and asked what he was waiting on.

"I want to come," he said, a small smile on his lips, like we were sharing an amusing secret.

I took a deep breath, struggled with my temper, and thought 'fuck it' and let him have it. "What in the fuck makes you think it's okay to say that to me?" I asked, my voice rising, fury baking off me in waves.

John took a step back, looking at me like I was a dog that had started foaming at the mouth. "What?" he asked cautiously, "I want a comb?"

----

Page 307., Item #FU95684 Model: Jase/ My baby's got a secret

A couple of years ago I went through an intense period of dating. If you were a man and you asked me out, we dated. Maybe more, if you played your cards right.

I ended up meeting a guy who was incredibly sweet, shy, and touchingly innocent. We went out on a few dates, he had finally summoned the courage to hold my hand, and with his eyes in his lap, asked me over to dinner with him to meet his family.

I ended up really liking him, so I said yes. The night of the dinner, I took special care in getting ready. Since I was meeting the parents, I decided no cleavage, nothing that said that I might be taking their son's innocence on a joyride.

When we all sat down to dinner, waiting for the dad to get home, I remember him squeezing my hand under the tablecloth, his smile big and pleased; his mother loved me.

When his father walked in the door, my heart just sank. I don't think I've ever been so disappointed.

I knew that I would not be seeing Jace ever again. Because I had dated his dad a few weeks before.

Dear Dad,

2011-01-04T06:52:00.000-08:00

I never really make New Year's Resolutions. This year, I decided to change that. I have a list.

The first thing I decided to resolve was something I'd been putting off for a very long time. A letter I needed to write.

Sometimes it's so hard to let go of who you were, that person who let others down so much it was expected. The person who makes promises to themselves knowing that hurting others is just a part of who they are.

1. Letting go. In specific, my dad. I wrote him a letter. It wasn't more than a page, but it was the hardest letter I've ever written. I put it out to be mailed, then ended up yanking it twice before I could finally let it be mailed.

I had to send it general delivery, but he lives in a town of less than 200, so odds are pretty good it will find him. Plus, like me, he has a pretty distinctive name. No John Smiths in our family.

The letter? It wasn't lashing out or should'ves, it wasn't placing blame, because I know what shame is. And I know all about regret. The basic tone of it was "I forgive you."

The one part that is absolutely burned into my heart, in my soul, is where I wrote: I just wish you knew that buying a car, your apartment, what jeans you wear, what food you eat; these are all choices. Who you choose to love isn't. I forgive you.

Forgiving you is like the day you taught me to ride that bike, Dad. I don't know if you remember it. The scraped knees, the way I kept falling, how I wanted to give up because I couldn't get there. Then, I looked over to tell you, and I was riding, all by myself. You were so far behind me, but I could see your smile, fuck it, the big ass grin on your face. It took me forever to get there, but I did. How scary and exhilarating, that feeling of letting go. Just like this.

I forgive you.

If it snows

2010-12-17T09:58:00.001-08:00

For the first time in the five years he's been gone, I feel it lifting.

I miss him a little bit every single day, and sometimes there's a darkness to it, a hurt place that just can't heal. When I think of him it gets twisted up in my heart and my throat, and I can't swallow and I can't breathe and I can't think.

But today, it might snow. Probably it will. And I can remember the time we built the snowman. We built the snowman, because we were both home from work. Some kids from the neighborhood came over and helped us gather snow, and I can remember how red his nose was. I remember how he laughed, and threw snowballs at me. How he tackled me into the snow, and tickled me until I couldn't breathe from laughing so hard. The wind was so cold, his hands were cold, but I was warm.

I hate December, and it's an unfair hatred. December never did anything to me, but it was the month that missing him ate me up from the inside.

It was looking at the presents I had for him, and not knowing what to do with them. I kept them for months afterward, almost like I thought he would be back, and to throw them away or give them away would be me betraying him.

December was a thousand different things, but mostly it was the glaring whiteness of nothing. I'd always thought that nothing would feel empty, but the weight of nothing was heavier than I could bear. The nothing spilled out into days that seemed to last for years. The minutes agonizing, each hour pounding away at my temples, beating me into the ground with the weight of nothing.

Today it might snow. And the thought of snow is what brings me here, to this place that I never thought I'd get. Not healing, because you can't put a band-aid on heartache, but something more. Something like acceptance. Something like peace.

It might snow today. I'm hoping that it does, because I'd like to walk in it, the flakes dancing on the wind. I'd like to just watch the way people slow down when it snows, the way that people are kinder to each other when it snows, as if the weather brings out the courtesies we normally avoid. I'd like to walk in that snow, the only thing to accompany me being whatever is in my pockets and the last three or four footprints behind me.

I'd like to tell him that he changed the way I look at every single thing, but he probably already knows. I'd like to tell him how much I miss him, to thank him for showing me what love could be. I'd like to be able to just bury my face in his shoulder, to feel him hug me one last time.

I'd like that a lot. But I no longer need it.

It might snow. Might. And for now, that's enough.

The Rocking Horse.

2010-12-14T09:40:00.000-08:00

I've always been amazed at how life works out sometimes, just a random brushing of one life against another, and how it sometimes yields the most heartfelt results.

One of the best things I've ever done for anyone was the time of the rocking horse.

I was 17, it was my senior year in high school, and I worked part time at a nursing home. That's where I met Marcy. She was a single mother of two, raising two boys and a husband.

A few days after Thanksgiving, she told me that she'd looked everywhere for a rocking horse for her son, but hadn't been able to find one. That was the one present he wanted, he talked about it daily, that Santa would bring him a rocking horse. Because, dig it, he had been a good boy.

She was stressing about it, freaking out, and she'd looked everywhere for this particular present. She even went as far as to go to a man who did woodwork, but he wanted $400 to custom make the horse. When she got to that part of the story, she trailed off, shrugged, and I could see tears in her eyes. Four hundred dollars made that horse damn near impossible.

But I knew she would have that horse. Because it just so happened that I was taking woodshop in school.

When I told her I could make that rocking horse for her, I can't describe to you how beautiful she looked. That one statement wiped the defeat from her eyes, and with hope shining from them, she became a completely different woman.

----

November ended, and December rolled around, and I started to think about the rocking horse, to plan out what day I would start my project. I had about two weeks until Christmas vacation. Plenty of time, I thought. I'll start it tomorrow.

The next day a couple of the boys talked me into drinking a beer with them (in the girls bathroom), so that day was a wash. The day after that, I learned how to weld.

The next week I got distracted by something, and the next time I looked at the calendar, it was the day before Christmas vacation. The fucking day before.

It was also the day I felt my first panic attack. How had it gotten so late so fast? How had I just fucked the days away playing grabass and drinking illicit beer in the bathroom?

Fuck.

That day, I skipped every class I had and stayed in the woodshop. I cut pieces of wood, and in my panic, the first rocking horse I made looked shit-terrible. There were nails poking out, and when one of the boys in my woodshop class came over and sat on it, the fucking thing fell apart.

I yelled at him.

Then, I sat there and cried. It was about lunch time, I was starving, so I headed over to the cafeteria (sniffling) in time to see my best friend. I ate lunch with her, telling her about my inability to get the horse made, so she then decided to skip the rest of the day with me, and help me make this rocking horse.

Immediately I felt better. When we walked back into the woodshop building, I saw Ricky (the boy I yelled at) standing in the office. He was grinning at me, and when I told him I was sorry for yelling, he just grinned at me and shrugged.

I took a deep breath, started cutting pieces out again, and by the time I had everything cut out, ready to nail this bitch together, Ricky tapped me on the shoulder. Again, that irritation flared up, and I was ready to take out some of my frustration on him. Until I saw what he had carried over.

It was a rocking horse.

"You just need to paint it," he said, looking down at the floor, "and look," he grinned, sitting on it. "It's tough."

--

After it was painted, and packed up in my mom's truck, I thought of all the possible ways I could tell Marcy she could come pick it up. I thought of the dramatic, me pretending to be modest, but secretly eating up the attention, I thought of dropping it off at her house, but in the end I called her and told her it would be on the front porch, and that I had somewhere to be.

When she drove up with her husband, I remember peeking through the blinds, wanting to see her unbiased reaction to the gift that Ricky and I had created. When they drove up, she and her husband were standing on my porch, studying the rocking horse, and I thought they were disappointed. Part of me sighed deeply, feeling disappointed, until I saw her hug her husband.

She was crying. Her husband smiled, and said the words that I can still remember. "It's fucking great, isn't it?" She wasn't able to answer, but she nodded her head.

I had to agree with them, wiping my own tears away, it was fucking great.

The one about redemption

2010-12-07T13:53:00.000-08:00

Every year, when August gets here, I know that December is just around the corner. And I dread it. December is like swallowing all the regret I've had for every year before. It weighs me down.

In August, when it hits triple digits every single day, when the sweat pops up at just the thought of going outside, I know that I'll blink my eyes, and December will be here.

Sometimes I feel like hiding inside, as if that will keep big, bad December away. I know it's supposed to be that magical time of year when you're with family on Christmas. It's the last month of the year, it's the ending, counting down to the beginning of something new.

But, December.

December always sticks around for far too long for me. The days drag by, this very last month, the very last of the year, where you see people in twos, always in twos, and here I am, forever a one some, just a little bit of leftover that hasn't yet been cleaned up.

December is when I hold on with everything I am, with every bit of my will. December is when I shine it on the hardest, December is the make or break month for me.

It feels like being on an icy pond, wearing slick soled shoes. I keep trying to move forward, to walk, trying to get off this place, trying, trying, trying, and I keep falling. I keep falling, and maybe I'm able to move forward the tiniest bit. But I keep trying. That's the important thing, isn't it? I try, and I get back up. And I fall. But I keep trying. And keep falling. I have the bruised hands and knees to prove it.

But I can't be sad. Never. Never in life. Because some people don't know the difference between sad and depression. If I could tell them, I'd tell them that sad is normal. Sad is only three or four jumps from happy, most days. At least sad means I'm feeling. Depression is that well that everything ends up falling into. Emotions, friends, and the things I want the most.

Bad is getting lost in that fog, because once you're in it, lost and caught up, it's easier to just hide there. It's easy to hide, because otherwise, there are things to face that make the depression seem almost like a vacation.
Those deceptively idle insults, things about state of mind and did you take your medicine today. It feels like a rock hitting a wound that has just started to heal. It's reaching for the most vulnerable of hurt places, and twisting. It's a slap followed by a kiss.

It hurts.

And even as I've told him about all this, things about how some of the best people I've ever known were people like me, stories I can't tell anyone else, names I will never forget (Ronnie Sam Jamie Levi) because of the look in their eyes. Judgement. Contempt. Condescension, that vaccination against compassion.

I get to the end of it, I tell him, and I'm exhausted with the telling of it. I'm exhausted at showing the wounds, the scars, the names of people who were there for me, the names that might as well be carved on my soul, for the debt of gratitude I owe them.

I get to the end of it, and he says the most beautiful words. Words that cradle the broken places, places I've patched over with my very best efforts. You hold hands until they can let go, not when you need to.

Somehow, instead of seeing what the mirror tells him, he was able to really see. It shouldn't be able to take away the bruised places, the words, like a kiss on a bruise, shouldn't be able to make them ache any less, but it does.

Just like that, he helps me up off that ice, helps me until I'm ready to let go, because he knows December is my worst month. He knows that I am a broken mirror that's been glued back together.

He knows that thing that I've been trying to tell myself, that I've been trying to hold onto. The one about hope, how if you only have a little, then a little is enough.

I remember seeing people who looked the way I used to look, and how I was never too busy to reach out a hand to them, a hand to steady them, not because I'm brave, but because sometimes you're off balance without knowing it. Sometimes I reach out as much to steady myself as to share what I have to give. And he somehow...knew.

Just that one brush of a life against another one. So soft, so tenderly meant, the words that were the kiss that took the ache away. And when it was all over, it was his hand that pulled me away from that patch of ice.

Thank you.

This time together

2010-12-06T12:12:00.000-08:00

The first time was when I moved into my first apartment. Everything was packed, loaded into the car, just waiting to fill up my new life.

I was standing in the kitchen with her, not wanting to leave, because I knew once I left, once that door closed, this wouldn't really be my home anymore.

We stood in the kitchen, living out the last little bit of my childhood, her drinking coffee, me not knowing how to say goodbye.

She moved to get another cup of coffee, her face half-hidden from me, and that was the first time she sang it. Soft and slow, and when I was finally able to hug her goodbye, I tucked that song away. For later.

--

When I brought my first "real" boyfriend home to meet her, we stood in the kitchen while she worried over the weight I'd lost. She started packing up things from the pantry, the refrigerator, the cabinets.

While the boyfriend took these things out to my car, I hugged her goodbye. While we stood there, she sang it to me again.

--

The third time was about six months into my one year lease. My room mate met some guy one night and by the next morning decided to get married.

I was working about sixty-five hours a week, and I called her, thinking how she'd soothe me, tell me I would be all right. How I could say those words to myself, but somehow when she said them, they meant something more. Her words would mean that it really was going to be all right.

As soon as she answered, I asked her to sing the song. As she did, I sank against the wall, phone in hand, silent tears running down my face. "Better?" she asked. "Better." I agreed. And it was.

--

A couple of weeks ago she had to have some tests. For her heart. There's always the denial that comes with news like that. It's nothing, nothing's wrong, just some tests, it'll be okay. Then, the bargaining. Please don't let anything be wrong, please God, me, not her. Anything.

She started treatment, started taking meds, and when I saw her, it wiped out every hope I had.
Her blond hair was lank and lifeless. Her skin, normally soft and radiant, was like paper. Touching her too firmly would leave a black bruise.

Worse, when I was helping her get groceries, I asked her about the song. "What song?" she asked, not even turning. "It doesn't matter," I said.

But it did.

--

I decided to visit her at work. The way she looked that day in the grocery store had me worried.

When I walked toward the back stairs, I saw her. And I couldn't hold back my tears.

Her short blond hair shone in the sun, the color of dark honey. Her hazel eyes, so alive and aware, were sparkling at the sight of me.
When she saw my face, saw my tears, I saw concern and love and she asked what was wrong.

I hadn't realized how I'd resigned myself to her death. I thought I was going to lose her.

I hadn't even been able to look at myself in the mirror, because of how much we look alike. I don't have the beautiful kaleidescope eyes, that shift from brown to green, or the lovely blond of her hair, but the go-to-hell grin on my face is hers.

When she hugged me, I was shaking, because she was going to be okay, she was going to live.
Although my voice was shaking, and I cried through it, I sang the song to her. She joined me, and we ended up singing it together.

Sometimes that song was our way of saying goodbye, or I miss you, or it's gonna be okay. No matter what else it said, it was always I love you.

No matter how many times I hear it, the words never get watered down. It always hits me right in the heart.

She's not always there to sing it to me when I need it most, but she doesn't have to. If I listen really hard, and concentrate, I can remember the very first time.

--

I'm so glad we had this time together,
Just to have a laugh, or sing a song.
Seems we just get started and before you Know it
Comes the time we have to say, “So long".

There's a time you wanna sigh for dreamin.
And a time for things you have to do.
The time I love the best is any evening
I can spend a moment here with you.

When the time comes and I'm feelin' lonely
And I'm feelin' oh so blue.
I just sit back and think of you only
And the happiness still comes through.

That's why I'm glad we had this time together.
Cause it makes me feel like I'm along.
Seems we just get started and before you know it
Comes the time we have to say, "So Long".

Spiders, Truffles, and Virginity

2010-12-03T08:26:00.000-08:00

When I met him, it set off a countdown. I knew how I felt about him, how I was halfway to being in love with him, so that little problem I'd ignored, that little problem I'd been putting off, like the Christmas tree that stays up way too long, I knew it was time to take care of it.

The virginity had to go. I'm sentimental about a lot of things, but losing my virginity wasn't one of them. I handled it like a bill that needed to be paid, a business merger, or maybe, taking out the trash.

I'd heard that shitty old threadbare excuse from most of my friends about how they thought they loved a guy because he was their first, and so on and boo hoo. These friends would usually end up telling me this after being in the relationship long after it passed its expiration date.

I had decided that before I got with this really great guy, that I needed to go out with not so great a guy, the understudy, so he could help me. I figured what I needed was a warm-up, to pre-game it with this guy so I would at least have a comparison between sex-sex and sex-love. Kind of like eating a burger, then eating a burger with cheese. I wanted to be able to sit on both sides of the fence.

I figured I had at least a solid week before Sumner (the lead, not the understudy) decided we should date. Then, on Friday, after work, Sumner asked me if I'd like to go out on his next day off, the following Friday.

Fuck.

That meant I needed to step up this plan. That meant I needed to get this shit done, so I called my best friend, Shayna (not her actual name, but I like to protect the guilty).

We planned to go to a party over at our friend Joe's house. We even brought my good friend, Jose, along with Jim, Jack, and Pierre (Smirnoff).

The understudy was there, and I remember sizing him up as I downed my first shot. Taking a deep breath (and shot number two) I sat beside him, feeling like I could see that game clock counting down. The sooner the better, I thought.

After about an hour or so, when we were both relaxed from alcohol, I still hadn't figured out how I was going to separate this sheep from the rest of the herd. My car? I didn't have tinted windows. The bedrooms? Out of the question. It would have to be the bathroom.

Just then, I figured out the perfect excuse. "I think I'm going to be sick," I said to him, "Would you show me where the bathroom is?" He even walked me to it, and as soon as we got to the bathroom, I pushed him in, and shot the bolt across the door.

"I'm not really gonna be sick, I just wanted to have sex," I said. I could see his head spinning.

Since it was my first time, there was quite a bit of awkward. I took my pants off, underwear, too, but I felt the need to leave my shirt on. Coat, too.

I laid down on the floor, looking up at the ceiling and waited.

What happened next I wasn't really prepared for. He was a nice enough guy, and instead of just jumping on the main course like I'd expected, he'd decided to try going down on me.

While he was down there, I remember all I could think about was the way he was sort of making these...snuffling sounds, and his nose would hit my thigh every once in awhile, and the most God-awful image came: a pig, a tiny little pink pig, hunting for truffles in a forest. I had to put my arm across my eyes otherwise I was going to lose it.

His next move was to try to put me on like an oxygen mask, so I sat up, condom in hand, and decided that I would get things back on track. Only...when I tried to put the condom on (and I had practiced, that very day. I had some old popsicles, and I used some of the colored condoms I had, I had practiced on them because they were the only dick-shaped things in my apartment) I almost put it on his finger. At least, it felt like a finger.

He took it from me, put it on, and finally, the previews were over, and the show was starting.

I thought I might feel some pain, but I didn't expect to feel almost nothing. It really was the size of a finger. A pinky finger.

At that point, I turned my head to the right, noticing the handsoap, the brushes, and in the corner of the bathroom, a little spider who'd stopped by to enjoy the show. After it was over, I was still looking at that spider, expecting him to hold up a sign like and Olympic judge. 3, or 2, or maybe .5, before scurrying away. Or maybe the spider was just waiting for me to bite his head off.

After that, I joined by best friend back at the party and we drank the rest of the night away. I remember deciding to pass out on a futon, facing the wall in Joe's bedroom.

I woke up the next morning, hearing a weird slurping noise. I was turning over to see what the hell was going on, when I heard Joe, our friend Joe.

I stopped myself from laughing, but couldn't stop my body from shaking, from holding in the laughter. I can't wait to tell Shayna, I thought. Then, Joe started to vocalise. I had to bite my lips together to hold the laughter in.

At the end of it, he managed to choke out five words. "Oh shit....oh damn....Shayna!"

And I snorted laughter out of my nose. I couldn't help myself. Shayna and Joe? I tried to make my face still. I heard Shayna jump out of bed. She ran over to me and kept asking me if I was awake. I pretend-snored, and mumbled something semi-intelligible.

After awhile of shamming sleep, I really did fall back asleep, and then Shayna was shaking me awake. On the drive home, I told her what happened, about the spider, about the truffles he didn't find, and we ended up laughing about it.

When she got out of the car, I rolled the window down, called after her. "I think Joe might have a crush on you," I said, gauging her reaction. She blushed a little, and asked me how I knew.

"Oh shit...oh damn...Shayna!"

----

This time, the spider held up a 10.

Spotlight

2010-12-01T08:34:00.000-08:00

She loves like a child, like a child that has never known hurt.

Adult love is different. Adult love is love that has known hurt, disappointment, loss. Adult love is reserved, held until we realize that it's okay to love.

We call it adult love, because we open up when we think we're safe, but in love, no one is ever really safe. We call it adult love because it involves our heads more than our hearts.

It's an endless walk on a tightrope. Those who walk it, realize that there's no safety net.

That's true for us all.

When love disappears, so does the rope. And the pain is there to meet you.
It rushes up,
the sickening plummet of your stomach as the ground rushes up
rushes
and the pain is there to meet you

Even knowing that, I'd still go.
I'd walk it, for the spotlight, for that warmth, because hell is cold, but love is warm. And it's the warmth that we can't help but reach for.
In love, it's the spotlight that we find ourselves surrounded in. Sometimes you just can't see, because of the spotlight, but just because you can't see doesn't mean you don't trust.

Each step easier than the last.
Head held high,
arms out
slow
steady
Trusting the rope
buying into something more than you
buying into the hope
the hope that the spotlight
will
(might)
will always be there

The spotlight will always hold you
And the drop?
The drop is for other people

While the spotlight holds
well,
I could walk forever.

Niiiice

2010-11-30T08:19:00.000-08:00

While blogsurfing this morning, I made my way over to one of my favorite bloggers, Bluz. Part of it is that he's just so balls to the wall truthful, about all manner of things. This is what caught my eye:

Bluz Mother: Tell Uncle Bluz what you did in Sunday School.
Sammy: I busted one.
Bluz: What did the other kids say?
Sammy: Niiiiice.

----
His post got me thinking.

When I was younger, I was obsessed with farts. Trying to make them loud, trying to make them quiet, trying to make them last, trying to make them go away.... Then one magical day (after a story my mom told us, God love her) me and my brother stumbled onto this idea so magical, so brilliant that it must've been handed down from God himself.

We were going to try to bottle and save a fart.

There was a lot of trial and error in this process, let me tell you. We tried Folgers containers(good to the last drop!), mason jars, plastic bags, but nothing really worked. Farts are sly. Farts are sneaky. Somehow, they just...leaked out.

Then, as we were about to scrap this whole idea, enter the plastic bubble.

You know those quarter machines? They dispense all kinds of shit-terrible prizes, encased in those plastic bubbles? Yeah.

We had three or four of those, and we both went to work. You had to be quick, and cap them almost instantly.

We spent probably a whole day doing this. Then, we just sort of...lost track of those bubbles.

It was about a year, maybe even two years later when we located one of those plastic bubbles. We could tell it was one of our 'special' ones, because my brother had considerately written 'fart' across the bottom.

We studied it, like an artifact from an ancient culture. There was never really any doubt that we would open it. We argued over who would do the sniff test, though. We finally decided to open it with both of our faces crowded close together.

I could describe the smell to you, but I'll leave you with just one final thought.

Let me just say... Those things keep.

Blackbird Song (20)

2010-11-30T07:24:00.000-08:00

Today love smiled on me-- Red Hot Chili Peppers (Soul to Squeeze)

Sunday.

Jenna wakes up early that morning.

After a disagreement with Jared, she always feels closer to him. Maybe its the way he goes about it, being insistent, but never critical. He never fights dirty, never hits below the belt. He doesn't hurl accusations or try to make her less. When they argue, there's a reason behind it. He genuinely wants what's best for her.

Jenna lingers another minute, loving the sight of Jared sleeping so peacefully. She feels a warm contentment low in her stomach, leans over and softly kisses one of his outstretched hands.
When a single tear slips down her cheek, it's okay. Her heart is full at the sight of him.

Quietly, she goes downstairs. She has business to attend, and the first thing on her mind is to call Mama C. She's put it off far too long.

Part of her is ashamed that she's waited this long to make contact. The apathy that shrouded her was like being wrapped in layers of insulation. It didn't hurt, but she didn't feel. Jared seemed to know this, and when he made her face it last night, it was the compassion in his voice, the way the kaleidoscope eyes of his turned a dark, slate blue, the color that meant he was worried, worried about her that finally got through.

"You shut everyone out. It's like you're still his captor. Fight it. Tell me what I can do to help you fight it," he'd said, his hands on her shoulders. Jenna wiped her eyes, and pushed those words away. She dialed Mama C's number from memory, waiting and then hearing her cheery 'hello' on the other end was enough to make tears stand in her eyes again.

She can hear the delight in Mama C's voice, and the occasional sniffle. They talk for a few minutes, Mama C inviting Jenna and Jared over for Sunday dinner. Jenna surprises herself when she accepts the invitation.

When they hang up, she cries a little more. Last night's talk with Jared opened up a floodgate of emotions inside her, and she's been steadily leaking around the eyes. Tears are better, Jenna decides. Much better than being wrapped in apathy. That apathy had divorced her from reality. She knew there was hurt waiting for her, but there was also happiness.
There were friends, Sunday dinner, Mama C, and most importantly, there was Jared.

As she walked back upstairs, she thinks about Jared. She hasn't known him long, but she loves him more than she's ever loved anyone. He refuses to give up, he refuses to let her give up. He goes looking for reasons, for ways to pull her back into the world. And here the truth is, hurtfully, hopefully: she couldn't live without him. There is no way she could be whole without the space he fills in her heart and life. Soul mate? Doesn't fit what he is to her. Jared is her forever mate, the safety net that lets her fly safe and sure, because having him is having everything that matters not only in life, but in love.

All the wishes she made, thrown down into some forgotten wishing well, all the prayers for something wonderful, they all led to Jared. He is more than she's ever even thought to ask for. The realization of his love, that he isn't giving up, hits her so hard that for the first time, she breaks down. Sitting on the top stair, Jenna cries until she aches.

Loving someone is having a home to come to, she thinks. A home where you're safe. He is the walls that keep the storms out. He is the roof that shades her. His love is her safe haven. His love doesn't have an expiration date, it doesn't have conditions or terms or limitations. He loves her. He loves her.

When she's gotten past the worst of it, she gets up and walks into their bedroom. She decides that she's going to kiss him awake this morning. She's going to kiss him, and she's going to feel the strong beat of his heart next to hers. She's going to soak in the feeling of being close to him, she's going to look at him, and she's going to love him.

She isn't better, she isn't fixed, but she's on that road. She found okay, and she's sure that somewhere down the road, she's going to find a sign that says : Great, 5 miles ahead, please have i.d. ready. Jared will be in the car beside her, she has no doubt, matching grins on their faces. It's only a matter of time.

----

*Oh yes, there is a ~~next~~.

The best sign in the history of the universe.

2010-11-29T12:11:00.000-08:00

After hearing about something craptastic that happened, my good friend Mr. Wilks made me this sign.

This sign makes up for that incident. I haven't been able to stop laughing since.

Who got the Hooch?

2010-11-29T09:53:00.000-08:00

Who got the hooch, baby
Who got the only sweetest thing in the world
Who got the love, who got the fresh-e-freshy
Who got the only sweetest thing in the world

Sweetwaters.
We spent so many Fridays, Saturdays, and the occasional Monday that just didn't know how to be over in that place.

It was just a little hole in the wall bar outside of Moore, OK. It was the kind of place that was easy to miss, if you'd never been there. It was the kind of bar that was hard to stay away from, once you'd been there a few times.

It was our Cheers, maybe everyone didn't know our names, but they sure as hell knew our faces. We had bonds stronger than blood. We had the bonds made of beer, pool, and cigarette smoke.

Dina would dominate one of the pool tables, playing men for beer (and bragging rights) while I sat in one of the scarred wooden tables, tracing my fingers over the names, the hearts, the stories that these high-backed benches had seen.

It was a Friday, Dina was in her heaven, kicking ass and throwing beers back like water. I was watching her clear the table yet again, when I met Kyle.

I say I met him, but what happened was he sauntered over to my table, sat a beer in front of me, then sauntered back over to his place leaning against the bar.
Dina watched this little interaction, frowning, and when she came over, she said, "He's an asshole. Don't waste your time."

Asshole or not, he didn't try to throw down any of the typical Friday night bullshit. He bought me a beer, and walked away. I was intrigued.

A few beers into the night, he sauntered over to Dina and asked her for a game.

When she looked him up and down, leaning on her pool cue, she asked, "What're we playing for?" Returning her assessing look, he said, "How about a kiss?"

Behind them, watching this byplay, I choked on my beer and started laughing. "I'm not kissing you," Dina said, lips thinning out into a frown. "Who said I wanted to kiss you?" Kyle threw right back. "I meant your friend."

Fuck. That meant me.

Neither one of them consulted me, or looked in my direction. "Fine," Dina said, sure she couldn't lose.

Until she lost.

Determined to just get it over with, and shooting Dina a 'fuck you' with my eyes, her mouthing 'I'm so sorry', I walked over to Kyle.

He looked amused, and when he leaned into me, I could feel my heart pounding so loud, I was sure he heard it. He leaned closer, until we had maybe a gasp between us. One hand on my hip, he said, "I think I'll let that kiss earn interest." And he walked away.

As I watched him walk away, and I was finally able to take a deep breath, I felt something...unsettling. Was I disappointed?

So, every night after that, every night at Sweetwaters, Kyle would saunter over, lean in close, and do nothing.

Fuck.

It got to where I needed that kiss in ways I cannot even describe to you. I thought about that kiss more than I thought about anything else. I thought about him and wished he'd just. fucking. kiss me. already.

It must've been Saturday, yet another kissless Saturday at Sweetwaters. Kyle and Dina were talking shit to each other, I went up to the bar for another round of beers, when a drunk guy grabbed me. No biggie, he was handsy, but I think he was trying harder not to fall over than anything else.

Kyle was a lot of things, but he got pissed anytime men needed more than one 'no' to cease and desist. He ended up shoving the guy off me, before going back to his pool game.

Several more beers, and a trip to the bathroom later, I passed Kyle on my way in, his way out. I stumbled over the carpet, he caught me, and I fell into that kiss.

I fell into it, and he fell into it with me.

He was right, it had earned interest.

Let's get real, let's get heavy
Till the water breaks the levee
Let's get loose, loose, who got the hooch

2010-10-09T00:08:00.000-07:00

What you don’t know about me, what you take for granted the most is when you tell me stories.

When you tell me the things about your life, you think I’m like everyone else. You think that I’m only listening politely. You think that I’m just waiting for my turn to talk.

Sometimes I wish you could see what happens to me when you start to tell another one of those amazing stories about you, about the one person I love to hear about more than anyone.

When you start to tell me a story about you, about a time in your life that I wasn’t there, that’s the time that it happens.

I creep behind your eyes, I listen to your words, and while you’re painting me a picture of how it was, while you’re telling me about how his eyes looked, what words he used, what happened while you were reliving the best memories of your life, while your eyes get far away, the shine of memories upon them, your eyes smiling brightly into a past only you know, that’s the time it happens.

That’s when I creep behind your eyes, and the story plays like a movie in my head. You are always the star, the hero, the reason behind everything wonderful.

And I wonder if my stories ever sound this way to you.

But I don’t want to know, because they probably don’t. My stories probably don’t do much more than hit your eyes, then die on the floor.

Blackbird Song (20)

2010-09-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

1988-- Mad bull lost its way

Now I'm on my feet again
Better things are bound to happen
All my dues surely must be paid
Many miles and many tears
Times were hard but now they're changing
You should know that I'm not afraid —Bad Company

Carla Moriarity works days at a mental hospital. She's one of the rare few who love her job. It isn't just a paycheck to her. Carla isn’t just counting the hours. She isn’t just waiting to go home; this isn’t just an exercise in futility to her. This isn’t just what she does until the weekend rolls around.

For one, she doesn't look down on the people in her charge, like most. She doesn’t see herself as above them. More importantly, she has compassion for the people who walk through those doors from the outside world into her world; the one where crazy is an everyday kind of occurrence.

She sees that most of these people have been hurt, misunderstood, and judged enough by the time they get to her, so she spares them that. She spares them the judgment, they spare her the lies they’ve learned to feed people in the Real World. The world where lies are as common as breathing.

In turn, people love her. She's never gonna be what you'd consider beautiful, but she is calm, capable, and her genuine goodness shines through every time she smiles. When she smiles, she's radiant. It's like the sunlight breaking free of the clouds. It's almost a physical thing, the warmth of her smile.

Today, she's talking to a new admit. He's trembling all over, sweating, and his eyes are wild. When she slips into the chair beside him, he flinches away. She talks to him softly, doesn't try to touch him, just speaks to him softly until he stops shaking.

His eyes don't meet hers, they slide away, skittishly, but he has begun to relax. Carla smiles at him, and even though he doesn't return it, his eyes keep returning to her, as if trying to make sure she's real. His eyes steal glances of her smile, shoplifting images of her profile, and he studies her, as if trying to gauge the genuineness of her smile.

She's already adopted him as one of 'her' patients. After reading part of his history, she's decided to do whatever she can to make his stay better.

His name is Gerald, and he's done the grand tour of hospital time. She can't help but feel an inner twinge of pity at all he's been through. Her heart aches when she sees his eyes sneaking towards anyone who raises their voice, his posture tensed his eyes sad and fearful.

She peeked at his chart, and there are things in there that make her want to hug him to her, to somehow shield him from his past and all he's endured. From what she’s read, a little kindness toward Gerald is long overdue.

Before the end of her shift, she finds Gerald Lee one more time, talks to him softly, not asking him questions, but only telling him that if he needs anything, she will be here another hour. She finds him staring blankly outside. She smiles softly, and says, “I'll see you in a few days, Gerald Lee. I left you a couple of Cokes to get you through the weekend.” He doesn't acknowledge her, but his eyes lose their blank stare, and he looks down at the floor.

He doesn’t acknowledge her then, but that will come later.

------

Carla is looking forward to her weekend, the way she looks forward to everything good in her life. Carla is one of those rare people who is happy, truly happy. She knows that happiness isn’t in wanting, but wanting what you’ve got, happiness is in appreciating what you have.

Carla has twins, and the apple of her eye is her son, Parker.

He’s a twin, and he looks exactly like her grandfather, the man who raised her. Not only does Parker look like her Papa, he has the same young/old/timeless wisdom her Papa always had. Somehow that kind of world knowledge never seemed young, or old, only necessary, and ever present.

Parker plays with all the children on his street, and once, when all the other children disdained a girl name Melissa Ketcherside, who was poor, and dirty, it was Parker, with his big brown eyes, his easy grin, Parker with his Papa’s smile; big hearted Parker who invited her home with him. To dinner, no less.

Later, when Carla asked him why he invited her, his five year old eyes on hers, eyebrows closely knitted together, mouth drawn in a protective grimace, he tells her. “Mama. Nobody likes her, because she’s poor. She just wants us to like her.”

When Carla hears her Parker say this to her, she’s taken back to the dinner table with her Papa. When Papa reminded her of almost this same fact. Her Papa’s words were on a woman his son brought home, this woman who was less than desirable. She was street trash, tattooed, dressed sluttily for their table, but when she (Verma, her name was Verma) sat down to the table with Papa, his sons, her boyfriend, and Carla, Verma’s eyes never left her plate. Apparently Verma had been reminded of her place before, and expected the same at Papa’s table. Instead, Papa’s warm brown eyes smiled on her, and said, “Verma, would you pass me the cornbread, darlin’? Thank you for dressing up our table. None of us dress up for dinner, but you’re so pretty you could be the centerpiece.”

Later, when Carla asked Papa how he could be so sweet to Verma, Papa answered her without a beat, shucking the corn in his hand (and this is how she always remembered him, shucking corn, picking tomatoes, digging potatoes, forever in his garden, smelling of earth/hay/goodness/life), he said, “Sis, she was sitting at that table, just wanting to be liked. She wanted what everyone else wants. Just to be liked.” And when Papa grinned up at Carla, she grinned back. Because Papa had ways of making everything in the world make sense.

He was the salt of the earth. Papa was much more than anyone else than Carla had ever known. He never finished school, he hadn’t been to college, but he made more sense than anyone she had ever known.

He had a natural understanding of human emotion that was damn near intuition. He was more than the earth’s child. Papa was the only person Carla was firmly convinced would end up in Heaven. She didn’t necessarily believe in such things, but when you’d grown up with Papa, it made you believe in things like Heaven. In Forever.

In every good thing that ever crossed your mind. In every daydream you ever had, the kind where you ended up smiling into the sunset.

If there was such a place, Carla knew that Papa would be up there, tending his garden every single day, shucking corn and grinning into the golden light of forever, waiting for those he loved to show up so he could pull the hot cornbread out of the oven, sit down at the dinner table and tell you how you were right where you belonged. With family. With those who loved you. With one of his strong, warm hands on your shoulder while you blinked back tears of happiness, because you were home and safe.

Parker reminded her of Papa every single day.

Her other twin, Genevieve, (named after her grandma) was the exact opposite. She was her own. She never brought home the neighborhood’s poor children. ‘Vievy’ (pronounced V.V.) as Parker called her, was more about her toys, her limited five year olds world. When Parker brought Melissa over for dinner, he ended up giving her Vievy’s two favorite dresses.

Vievy, of course, was livid--when she found out. Parker ended up being grounded for giving away something that wasn’t his—and got a very serious lecture about stealing—which Carla couldn’t take seriously, when Parker ended up saying to her, “Vievy has lots of dresses, Mama. Melissa doesn’t even have one dress. I didn’t steal ‘em, I just gave ‘em. Isn’t that what the Revrun told us we should do? Give to those who need?”

When Carla heard that, instead of wanting to punish Parker, she wanted to cry a little and hug him. He had the biggest heart, her Papa’s heart, and for that she could never punish him without feeling like she was doing wrong.

When Carla’s weekend was over and it was time for her to go back to work, she finds herself thinking of her Papa’s words coming out of Parker. She just wanted what everyone wants , the words clanged in her head. She just wanted to be liked. To be liked.

With that, Carla makes her way over to Gerald Lee, sat down beside him, and asked him how his weekend was. According to the other orderlies, Gerald is showing some signs of coming out of the fugue he was in. He ate, got up, took his meds, but stayed away from the other patients.

While Carla is talking to Gerald, she finds herself mentally taking stock of him. He has these soft, sparkling brown eyes that don’t meet anyone else’s but her own. His eyes are the most beautiful part of him, golden brown, expressive eyes that are shadowed with things that she’s only read about in his file.

While she’s sitting next to him, trying to find that opening that will let a bit of her sunlight into his eyes, he looks at her and says, “You look exactly like my mother.” With that, his eyes find his lap again, and a slight embarrassment pinks his cheeks. From his file, Carla knows that his mother is the one person who loved him, before.

Before he became the man that hurt carved into someone else. That two syllable word for who Gerald Lee is now.

Before.

In Kerouac’s words, “the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn”

Gerald Lee burns. His eyes, his desires, his obsessions… They all burn.

When G.Lee is discharged from the hospital, he starts to burn again. For him, it’s a new reason to live. To hope.

To burn is divine, the way that hope is divine. The way that new love is divine. The way that three beers into your Friday evening is divine.

He can’t let it go.

The first time he comes to her house, he brings her flowers. When she answers the door, she thanks him. She also asks him not to come around anymore.

He makes her nervous. She makes him exhilarated. For him, it’s like being reborn. Loving her makes him burn.

This is the beginning of his obsession. This is the beginning of her nightmare. It will also be the beginning of her daughter’s nightmare, years later.

Carla’s kindness is what opens the door. Her kindness and the words of her Papa. It was as much her goodness as her resemblance to his mother that kills her.

The next time he comes, he takes care of her and her family. Save one. But he’ll meet her years later, in a newspaper article. He sees both his mother, and Carla staring back at him from the printed page.

She will never know him as her mother did, but she will recognize his eyes. Madman’s eyes.

She will recognize that she’s seen him once before. Just once, just long enough to see his eyes.

Long enough for him to change her world, to take away her brother, to kill her mother.

She won’t remember what happened that day, except in her deepest nightmares. She negates it the way that some people negate Santa, or love, or religion.

She only saw him once. Just the faintest embrace of their eyes in passing, but it was enough.

H2OMG

2010-09-24T21:53:00.000-07:00

I remember getting for the party that night, checking my reflection in the mirror while my sister and her friend got ready. I remember laughing, then doing the final mirror check before time to leave. That final mirror check where I ran my fingers through my hair a couple of times, grinned at my reflection, drank the last of my beer, and didn’t expect much. A few drinks, a party full of strangers. A party of potential fun, and more likely, great stories.

On the way over, my sister’s friend said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we met someone who turns out to be just what we’re looking for? What we’re missing out on?”
I smiled to myself in the back seat, thinking that it never happens that way. You make that kind of statement, and it just doesn’t happen like that.

I was wrong, though. That night, I met Jesus at a party.

Not the real Jesus. That might’ve been truly awkward. But he looked exactly like Jesus.

When I saw him, he was standing there, like everything beautiful you ever imagined, somehow cohered at the same time, in one person. It was miraculous, really. You know what it’s like if you’ve ever seen someone that was so unbearably beautiful that you don’t want to look, but can’t bring your eyes to look away. I couldn’t do much else but just look. He was that beautiful. He wasn’t even the type of guy I normally go for, but his beauty was so complete, so perfect, that anyone would’ve thought he was beautiful. He was so unbearably attractive, that I couldn’t see why anyone else at the party could do anything, make conversation, think, even breathe while he was in view.

We ended up getting drinks from our host, and I was so taken with J.C., I didn’t even want to know his name. He was, simply, Jesus.

I made a few jokes about him to my sister, something romantic to the effect of, “I wonder if Jesus says his own name during sex.”

I had a sort of daydream about actually touching, maybe even kissing him. That thought was enough to make my cheeks feel hot. I shrugged those thoughts off. If anyone had a chance with someone that gorgeous, it was my sister. She’s the beauty of the family, and usually, the beauty of every outing we go to.

Now, I’m a truly flawed human being, in a lot of ways, but one thing I can say is that jealousy is not one of my character flaws. My sister is a knockout. Big, beautiful blue eyes, long, lush lashes, and even without a stitch of makeup, she’s got this universal beauty. A kind of translucent, big-eyed, gorgeousness that makes men take notice. How could anyone be jealous of that? It makes me proud. In any crowd, she is the beauty. She’s the light that shines, without any effort. Just having someone like that in my life makes me want to sing, to nurture that beauty in any way I can. It would be selfish to ever feel jealousy. What I usually feel is pride. When you see something beautiful, it should be appreciated, revered. Protected. So, no. Jealousy never factors in to it.

By comparison, I’m an acquired taste. Not what everyone would consider attractive, but my strengths lie in other directions. I’m tall, where she’s that lovely height that’s petite. My eyes are an ordinary shade of brown, while hers are a kaleidoscope of green, blue, and gray. In the physical sense, we’re almost exact opposites. I’m average, and she’s as lovely as summer rain.

So, I thought, if Jesus has good taste, he’ll choose my sister over any of these other girls at this party. With that thought, I drank my first drink.

That night was full of drinks, full of laughter, and I have to say that when I think of a party, that is one that I wish could be cloned, to be repeated, spun out again and again, because that kind of night doesn’t happen often. The music was perfect, ridiculous, amazingly catchy, and had everyone singing along. We were all mingling, drinking together, singing. There was a feeling of camaraderie, almost as if we’d walked into a party where everyone was our friend. No bullshit, no drama, just good feelings.

A few more drinks into the night, and we all gathered around the table to play a drinking game. As I was sitting there, Jesus wandered up and introduced himself to me. He shook my hand, and then introduced himself to my sister. I remember whispering to my sister that it didn’t matter what his first name was, his last name was Christ.

We sat around that table, playing our drinking game, singing loudly to music, and when people started to move outside to smoke, I found myself close to Jesus. At one point when he was outside smoking, I saw him through the window, waving to me. It made me laugh, and when he saw me laugh, he started dancing along to the music.

We ended up running into each other in the kitchen a few times, me and the savior. At one point, he took his shirt off because he spilled something on it, and at the beginning of the party, I thought it was impossible for him to be any better looking. How wrong I was.

He had this long, shoulder-length brown hair, golden brown eyes, and this smile that made me feel butterflies clanging in my stomach. It was uncomfortable how much he affected me, but it was excruciating in a good way. He looked like a Joseph Gordon-Levitt Jesus. His tanned skin went perfectly with his long hair, his long hair sometimes escaping the ponytail he was wearing to touch those gorgeous eyes, his hands carelessly brushing those strands back, his smile so big and unguarded, the warmth from it was a physical thing. Every time he smiled at me, I could feel the warmth of it. And I would smile back, holding his eyes for a moment, before dropping my own. He was beautiful.

As the night wore on, we ran into each other more and more. Every single time me and my sister went outside for a cigarette, he was there. Sometimes, he’d just finished smoking, and then he’d be right back outside.

One of these times, my sister and her friend went inside to go to the bathroom. I wish I could say I remembered when one moment melted into the next, I wish I could say I know exactly what happened, that I catalogued it and filed it away, but I didn’t. I was tipsy at this point, but nowhere near drunk. It happened, and maybe sometimes the things you want so badly, when they happen, maybe your mind overloads from that want. Maybe getting exactly what you want, not even expecting that want will be completely satisfied, maybe it causes sensory overload.

My next memory is that he was kissing me. Not drunk, sloppy, getting licked in the face by a dog kisses, but the kind of kisses that make my knees turn to water just writing about them. Somehow, someway, this perfect, gorgeous man was kissing me. Kissing me like he was dying for my breath, my mouth, my lips.

I remember releasing his hair from the ponytail that was holding it back, and sliding my fingers through those silky, impossibly soft strands. For the next couple of minutes, hours, days, weeks, I spent them kissing him. Touching the silk of his hair, with his arms around me. I completely lost track of everything else. Time, people, everything. The only thing that was real was the warmth of his lips, sharing his air, his hands touching me softly, always softly, and I remember when one of his hands found its way inside my shirt, I was surprised at it being there, because I never noticed it until he pulled it away. I’ve never encountered that kind of gentleness.

My sister had left to go with her friend, so I ended up alone with Jesus on the porch. A few people were outside, but we were alone. Later, I’m not sure how much later, we finally noticed that everyone was gone, and we both laughed. The moon was out, and I could see it shining down on us. The night had gotten cold, so we went inside. I remember laughing a little when we found out that all of the other rooms were occupied.

We ended up sharing a sleeping bag in front of the fireplace, his arms around me, and here’s the point where I would’ve probably decided to have sex with him. But I didn’t. Couldn’t. We lay there together, kissing, his hands touching me with that unearthly gentleness. I could feel the kindness in those hands. And I couldn’t.

Part of me wishes that I would’ve, but the better part of me is glad I didn’t.

I don’t have the words to tell you how it felt, how perfect it was, like some dream I had just walked up to me and kissed me. Like everything I’d ever wanted, and quite a few things I’d never even imagined just walked up to me one night and into my life.

Part of me knew that to take it any further would be to lose that sweetness. That’s what I keep coming back to, how incredibly sweet, how unexpectedly wonderful it was. To have taken it any further would’ve been to turn that sweetness into something ordinary, everyday, to turn that sweetness into something without a taste at all. Like trading honey for water. And that seemed…blasphemous.

I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted that night to stretch out for years. But, I knew that leaving before the magic was over would let that magic live, yet a little longer.

I kissed him goodbye, felt one last caress of those marvelous hands on my face, and I walked away. I knew that I might never see him again, might never see that beautiful face again, might never kiss him, touch him, or smell that delicious scent of his warm skin. I knew that, and somehow I was able to walk away.

That night, I had exactly what I wanted. I can say that. That one night, I touched beauty so unexpected, so warm, so real that I still find myself thinking of him.

Yes, it was enough.

A.J.

2010-09-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

A.J.

Driving down highway 3W was when I caught my first and last glance of A.J.

Living out in the country, you see a lot of animals get unlucky on the highway. A.J. wasn’t the first animal, or even the first raccoon I saw taking a forever nap on the side of the road, but he was the only one I ever saw who was spooning with a Dr. Pepper can.

Just that one image stuck with me for the rest of the day, and wouldn’t leave. What happened next was one part alcohol, one part pure dickery on my part, and the rest is just my personality.

The story of A.J.

A.J. ambled across highway 3, just like any other night, watching carefully for cars (and coyotes) and waddled across the fat yellow line that divided lanes. He was on his way to a house he knew well. This particular house A.J. had come to think of as his own personal vending machine.

The bonus part was that this house had a dog, which meant a dog door in A.J.’s furry little mind. As he walked toward the house, sniffing the breeze for scent of the dog that lived inside, A.J. couldn’t smell him at all. When A.J. crawled through the dog door, his black bandit eyes peering into the darkness, slowly, slowly, he walked over to the most beautiful man-made invention he’d ever seen. The refrigerator.

As he pulled on the handle (accidentally hitting one paw on the ice dispenser and getting hit on the head by a solitary ice cube) he noticed something in the refrigerator that he’d had before. Something that was like finding an oasis in the desert. A.J. saw a can of Dr. Pepper.

Now, he’d smelled the deliciousness of this particular carbonated beverage in many trash cans, had tasted it, but never had he seen a full can of this magical and delicious drink.

Heart racing with want, A.J. quickly grabbed one can and ran; his heartbeat racing at the thought of a WHOLE CAN of that deliciousness. As he crossed the threshold from house into the night, Dr. Pepper clutched tightly to him, he planned where he would drink this magic in a can to celebrate.

When the house got far enough away that A.J. could hear the sounds of semis droning by, he stopped on the side of the road, the can of cold soda perspiring beautifully, as if anticipating the possibilities of that moon drenched night.

It took a few tries, but when A.J. finally popped that tab top, heard the hiss of carbonation, his mouth started to water.

The first taste was even better than he imagined. It slid down his throat like cold brown silk. The taste of heaven, the desire of something entirely wanted, a passion totally satisfied. And it was cold.

Before he realized it, he had consumed that entire cold, delicious can. As he sat on the side of the highway, watching the moon sneak down into the tree line, watched the cars with their bright eyes, relentless speed, and endless miles, he felt content.

As he sat on the side of that road, clutching his Dr. Pepper can, he felt himself thinking the most beautiful, wondrous thoughts. Thoughts of brightness, of hot days with the sun in his fur, finding bright shiny things in the grass. The time he found his first mate.

All those lovely, marvelous thoughts.

And then, darkness.

Because A.J. had a secret. Being an animal, it didn’t affect his life much, because animals don’t have commercials with Wilford Brimley discussing ‘diabeetus’. But when A.J. met that can of Dr. Pepper, it came rushing up to meet him.

A.J. drifted away slowly, a smile on his muzzle, Dr. Pepper firmly clenched against him.

If A.J. knew what music was, he would’ve undoubtedly have heard the gorgeous strains of Etta James that night.

…and here we are..in heaven…for you are mine….at last

Blackbird Song -- Intermission

2010-04-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

I'm hanging on
Here until I'm gone
I'm right where I belong
Just hanging on

Sometimes all we can do is hang on. When there's nothing, when the emptiness fills you, fills your thoughts, your chest, your heart, it gets harder to hang on. Chest like straw, heart like a leaden weight, empty, but with sharp edges that remind you of that lack. The emptiness that only the truly lonely know, the lost, the hopeless. Those souls who have lost everything and live to tell the tale, they know. All you can do is hang on.

Sometimes your hands slip, you lose your grip, but if you're lucky, you have someone in your life who holds you and them both above water. They hold you up, even though sometimes you wish they would just let go. Let you go. Let it all go. Let you drown in your misery.

Because the darkness has its own perverse kind of romance. There aren't love stories or movies about that kind of romance, but it exists.

The never hurt don't understand that. The once hurt/now healed know it, it's not one of those lessons you learn in school, or from your parents, or from a public service announcement. It's the kind of lesson that your parents pray you'll never know.

Hanging on.
Just hanging on. That's where we are right now. Just hanging on.

Blackbird Song (19)

2010-04-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

This one's for Aly .

When Jenna comes to consciousness she doesn't mention him again. She doesn't answer the questions, she doesn't engage in conversation. She doesn't say anything to the friends and family who've come to visit her. She just looks out the window, her eyes looking for something, relentlessly scanning the horizon. For now, Jenna has shut them all out.

Jared sits with her the whole time, waiting for her to be well enough to leave. When she asks him once if she's going to get better, her voice breaking a little, he nods his head. He nods his head, but what he means is yes, you'll get there, what he means is I'm by your side, forever, what he means is I'll never leave. Those are the words that just won't come, but they don't make it any less real for him.

Nothing has ever felt this horrible, seeing her so broken inside, knowing that there is nothing in his power to help her, that he can't touch her. He's tried to find her, to lead her out of the darkness, but she's gone too far for him to reach.

Inside, where it doesn't show, she continues to cry. Inside, where no one can hear her, she's still calling for help.

It's from these thoughts that she turns away. Maybe sometime later she'll be able to examine this, catergorize it, explain it away, but now it's so fresh that she can still feel the rope burn on her wrists.

Jared looks at her. He looks at her sometimes, and it fills him up. It touches the ragged part of his heart, the part that aches for her, that wants her to just laugh once, to smile, to show some sign that there might be healing. But for now, he looks at her, and it's enough.

--------

The days pass. About a week later, the doctors decides Jenna is well enough to go home.

It feels surreal to her. This hospital has become home. It's safe, sterile, anonymous. There's a structured environment that she counts on. The routine never varies, and that is something she has counted on. Routine is safety. Structure is security.

The thought of going home, of the outside world makes her feel sweaty and unfocused and very, very small.

She packs up her few belongings, just as she's waiting for her discharge papers, Deputy Cole walks in. He smiles at her shyly, and before she realizes what she's saying, she asks him to drive her home. She sees him square his shoulders and grin at her. She feels the corners of her mouth quirk up in response to his genuine goodwill toward her.

On the drive to her house, there's a companionable silence between them. He doesn't try to question her or make her talk, he just drives. Every once in awhile, when Jenna catches his eye, he gives her that great big grin, and it's okay. Not great, not wonderful, but okay. She finds herself wanting to grin back at him.

When they pull up to her house, she lets out a big, shaky breath, and she wants to run away. To just run and never face it. To run and run and run.

But that's not who she is. She slowly walks up the stairs, and she's surrounded by her best memories. The times when she was happy. The times when she just couldn't hold back her laughter. She's surrounded by Jared. Those memories slap at her, remind her of where she is, what she lost, and her heart has never been heavier.

When Cole asks her if she's okay, she tells him she is. She walks past him into the house, and into the wreck that is her life. She walks toward the life she has with Jared.

Cole walks her in, sets her bag down by the door, and she turns to him, thanks him for seeing her home. He shuffles his feet, and tells her that if she needs anything to call him. He hands her his card, with his cell phone number scrawled on the back.
Jenna takes the card, thanks him, and turns away from him.

She turns toward the ruins of her life, trying to decide where to start.

Two hours later, she's still standing in exactly the same spot. She wanders over to her stereo, finds one of her cds and listens.

She finds a song, and it's the right song, because it opens up something inside her, it soothes and hurts at the same time. It opens her up, and she sits in the big picture window in front of the house, looking out, trying to find something to hold onto.

----

Jared gets home about an hour later, he finds Jenna sitting in the window. She's wearing a pair of white cotton drawstring pants, and a pink tank top. With her dark hair shining, the set of her shoulders and the straight line of her back, he doesn't think it possible, but he falls in love with her all over again.

She's sitting in the window, music playing softly in the background. Jared catches a few of the lyrics:

Even though
I pass this time alone
Somewhere so unknown
It heals the soul

and finds himself walking toward her. Something about her just draws him. He says her name before resting one hand on her shoulder.

Jenna watches him approach, his face reflected in the window, and she stifles the words that she's been thinking, the words that play on repeat in her mind, "Maybe if I sit here long enough, the world will start to look good to me again," she thinks, turning to face Jared.

Some things are worth fighting and dying for. Somethings you just can't live your life without. That's how Jared feels about Jenna's smile, and her laughter, her happiness. Just because this happened, it didn't change the quality of his love for her. If anything, he loved her more, he was just going to have to try harder.

“I’m not going anywhere," he says to her, his hand resting on her shoulder, warming her skin. Somehow, forcing his way through his embarassment, he finds the words that have been on his mind every single day. He promised himself that when she came back, he would tell her. No matter how awkward he felt.

Jared takes a deep breath, and feeling his heart beating in his throat, says, "You gave me everything I ever wanted and never thought I could have, and you didn’t ask for anything in return. Whatever happens next, we're in this together. You, me, us."

The sound of Jenna's voice knocks Jared off balance, when she asks, "Which is what, exactly, Jared? What happens next?"

She continues on, her brown eyes seeming to glow in the soft light, "Do I get better? Or am I going to always feel like he's just waiting around the corner for me? Waiting to hurt me and humble me and make me beg?"

Her eyes are intent, her irises a smoky, golden brown. She's waiting for him to answer, and when he doesn't, when the words won't come, she turns away from him, back to the window.

To watch.

To wait.

To see if she drowns in her memories or lives.

When the window has her whole attention again, he takes a deep breath. He wants to forget that look in her eyes, the furious fire saying everything, that he was losing her, that she was slipping away, the words tasting of despair, and feeling of defeat.

He also knows he can't let this go. He's let too much go already. If he wants to keep her, they're going to have to have this fight.

With a deep breath, he reaches for her shoulder, and steels himself for what's next.

He's not expecting her to jerk away from him, but she does. And when she whispers to him, "I don't want him to hurt you," he feels his heart clench, his stomach knots itself up, and he does the only thing he can do.

He doesn't let her go.

~~next~~

Translate me

2010-04-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

When you first meet someone, a friend, a lover, an unknown, they have one smile.

The longer you know them, you realize that they have one genuine smile, and other smiles in varying degrees of emotion.

The 'I'm unhappy but hiding it' smile.

The uncertain smile.

The 'I have a secret that you're going to just love' smile.

Loving is about knowing. About translating the expressions until that person has no expression that you can't crack.

You translate them.

Translating is turning the mystery into the tangible. You love them enough that you can read every sigh, every turn of the eyebrow, every look, and you speak their inner language so fluently that nothing is lost on you.

Love. Beauty. Understanding.

It's all there. When it's right, nothing is lost in translation.

I'm marrying my best friends

2010-03-31T07:53:00.000-07:00

They didn’t fit, and I loved them for it -- Mr. London Street

I don't fit.

Sometimes the flow of friends in my life is like a tide. There's an ebb and flow. Sometimes, they're there, sometimes not.

About a month ago, I had the most amazing thing happen to me. The tide washed up two people I don't know how I ever lived without. I'm talking about Ash and Whit.

Now, me and my sister are best friends, and the reason we get along so well together, is that the relationship isn't work. It just is. We laugh, we sing, we drink diet soda.
There are no expectations, we just enjoy each others company.

With Whit and Ash, it was the same. Immediately, it felt like we'd known each other for years. Like a resumption of something meant or destined.

One of my friends said about me once, "With you there was no waiting period for you to be a good friend. You just always were." That's how I feel about the two of them.

We've spent weekends rocking out on Rockband, laughing at ridiculousness. And I even found myself telling Ash about Cole. I just felt that I could trust her with that part of my life.

I haven't told anyone else about Cole except my sister. There just isn't anyone else I trust with that. Sometimes people don't listen, and I keep him to myself, rather than share him with someone who is only waiting for their turn to talk.

So, yesterday when I got into work, Ash and Whit were both grinning at me, and of course, I answered back with a grin of my own.

Whit immediately asks me for a big favor. Of course, I immediately say yes. They'd do the same for me.

When she tells me what it is, I have to ask her to repeat it two or three times.
When it finally sinks in, I'm touched, and fucking ecstatic.

See, Ash and Whit are a couple. They've been together for over two years, and it's one of those relationships that lets you see what happiness is. I see me and Cole in them, with the little considerate things they do for each other, the way the love shines in their eyes even when they're both not feeling good. What they have is rock solid.

And yesterday, they asked me if I would officiate their wedding. Me.

Of all the people they could've asked, they both decided there wasn't anyone else that would fit the bill.

I said yes.

I said yes, and meant 'you guys are my best friends.'

I said yes and meant 'I wish Cole were here to be excited about this with me.'

I said yes and thought of how their life together is just starting, how they have all that happiness in front of them.

I said yes and thought that they probably knew all of the above about me already.

I don't fit, and they love me for it.

Jim

2010-03-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

I'm the girl on the other end of the phone.

I'm the girl who gets it done. If it needs fixing, I fix it. I'm a doer.

I'm also a little piece of the puzzle that holds society together. If your cell phone doesn't work, you can't function. If your cable goes out, and you've got a houseful of screaming Spongebob fans, you need that fixed pronto.

That's where I come in.

I like what I do. That's the essence of it. I like talking to people, and I like fixing things.

There's not a whole lot of 'thank you' or 'you did a great job' in my line of work. Most of the time when people call, it's because something's fucked up.

Now, if you expected a lot of fanfare over a job well done, you'll be sadly disappointed. More often than not, I get a whole lot of 'fuck you' even if I've helped someone. But I don't need affirmation to do a good job. I do it because it's who I am. If I didn't do a good job, you wouldn't know it, but I would. And that would keep me up at night.

Anyway, the other day I was thinking about some of the people I've talked to over the years.

There have been lots of bad calls, angry customers, and times when shit got real.

It was one of those days, I'd just finished up with a real shit stain of a caller, when the next call came in.

Immediately, I rolled my eyes, asked them how I could help them.

His name was Jim. And he wasn't happy.

His first sentence to me "This is Jim, and I'm not happy."

Great.

Apparently he'd been signed up for service that he didn't authorize. Another eye roll. I heard that about every other phone call, and when I'd check the usage on the account, guess what? They used it up like it was toilet paper and they had explosive diarrhea.

So, as I'm making appropriate soothing noises, diffusing the bomb that is Jim, I check his account usage. None at all.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a truth teller.

I've already decided I'll issue credit to his account, because I like it when people are real with me.

As Jim continues talking, he's telling me that there is no way he's used the account. I tell him there's no usage on his account, and that I can definitely cancel it and issue a refund.

Jim is a nice guy, and he thanks me as I'm cancelling out his account. He also says to me a sentence that stops me in my tracks, and forever changed the direction that my life would go that day.

With no fanfare, Jim tells me, "You know, I really appreciate this, Sal. I'm homeless, living out of the back of my van, and $20 is two days worth of food for me."

Immediately, I was ashamed. Humbled. Saddened.

He wasn't trying to get anything else out of me, he had simply shared his circumstances in a way that was straightforward, and honest. If that had been me, I don't think I could've offered that up to anyone.

When he said that, when he was sincerely thanking me, telling me how much that money meant in his life, a single hot tear tracked down my cheek.
I could feel my eyes brimming over, and somehow managed to blink them back.

After looking his account over some more, I found that he had been charged six more months of service that he didn't know about.

So, I placed Jim on hold, walked over to the billing supervisor, and talked her into issuing credit for all those back months. It was a total of over $120 that Jim would get back that day. I even pestered her to put a rush on it, because Jim really needed that money.

So, when I went back to Jim, I told him that he'd been charged for a couple months that he didn't catch. When I got to tell him that we were putting over $120 back on his card, it was one of the best moments in my life. He was so stunned, so thankful, that he cried a little.
It was okay, though, I was crying too.

All he could say over and over was 'thank you'. He told me that I had no idea what that money meant to him. That money meant he could eat. He could buy gas for his van so he would have a place to sleep. That money meant he would be warm, and fed, and safe.

When people ask me why I do what I do, I usually give them some canned answer, but inside, where I'm honest with myself, I do what I do because of people like Jim.

*When I got paid later that week, I sent $150 to Jim's P.O. Box. I imagined his eyes lighting up over that anonymous envelope stuffed with money. I imagined how just for a moment, he felt that someone, somewhere really cared what happened to him. I hope it helped him out.

Goodbyes

2010-03-22T08:13:00.001-07:00

As we look into the future, it's as far as we can see,
So let's make each tomorrow be the best that it can be.
--George Strait

Letting go of someone is like saying goodbye to your favorite city.

The lamppost where you hailed a taxi while the rain poured and you just couldn't make yourself care that it was raining. Because the two of you were against the world, so wrapped up in each other, that you somehow negated the rain.

Your love is stamped into the bricks of the sidewalk, and as you walk past it one last time (you tell yourself it's one last time, but inside you know better) and it makes you wonder who else has loved those bricks the same way you have.

And when you think about leaving, you feel the familiar pull of your heart. The tears burn close, but you blink them back. This isn't the time for grieving, this is the time for remembering.

remembering......

The bridge on the park where the lights were muted, your breath turning white and then disappearing. You were too busy watching your breath fade into the night to realize that he was leaning in close, and then he was kissing you. Kissing the cold away.

You kissed him back, and you tasted forever tinged with something else, but you never let yourself think too much on it. You knew he wasn't yours to hold, but you knew you would love him as much as you could for as long as you could.

You knew that maybe he even wasn't his own. And you accepted it. You took your memories of the good days and that's how you defined your relationship.
He deserved that, even more when you realized how little he knew you.

You'll always have the way his eyes looked, the way you could make them shine. That time you spent $700 on a camera for him back in a year that's long past.

He knew you couldn't afford $700, and when his eyes met yours, you saw that shine, that was part tears, part 'how did you know?'
You felt how full he made your heart, and you wanted to tell him that. You wanted to tell him that you saved, you worked extra shifts, and that you would've done it a thousand times over, just for that look in his eyes.

Even now, as I kiss those memories one last time, chase them to the place they will be safe for someone else to find, because I don't need them anymore, I can't help but feel a little sad.

It's not wanting him back, but it's wanting to kiss him one last time. The goodbye kiss that I wish I knew was goodbye. I know there's someone else putting that shine in his eyes, and that's all I could ever want. So, I'll drink one last drink to that beautiful shine in his eyes. I'll hold him tightly, and then when I let go, I'll let that memory live somewhere else. In someone else. Because that's where it belongs.

Against the wind.

2010-03-17T07:04:00.000-07:00

If you don't love yourself, you can never really love anyone else. If you don't love yourself, then even the most perfect partner will never be enough.

You may be wondering why I wrote that. I know that sentence perfectly, because that used to be me.

I've always tried to be the kind of person who is responsible for their own actions. I don't get into that whole 'I'm this way because my parents didn't give me enough toys' crap.

I've always tried to be responsible for me, to not absolve myself of my own actions by blaming it on other people.

But the thing is, no matter who you are, I believe that each of our lives are dictated, shaped, formed by the people we come into contact with. We define ourselves through other people.

Some people are shining examples, the teachers, grandparents, friends. Those people who you want to be like, you want to emulate.

And then there are others who you hope you never become.

When I was young, my father was the most important person in my life. I truly felt that the sun rose and set on his laughter.

Making him smile was my heart's desire. He was the one person in my life who I wanted to be exactly like, I wanted to laugh like him, I wanted to act like him, I wanted to make him proud of me.

I guess you could say that my first love was my dad. In my eyes, he was perfect. He was my hero, and I loved him more than anyone else in the world.

He used to take me fishing, hunting, and was always proud of me when I caught a bigger fish than him, or when I did something clever.

When I was around him, he made me feel like everyday counted, like the light just shone brighter when he was around. When someone like that is around, the day seems better. When they're not, the hours grow into days.

What I remember of my dad and what my mom remembers of my dad are two different things. Both of our perceptions are accurate, because he was two different people. One was the father I adored, and the other was the man who drank too much to quiet his demons.

Even worse than his drinking was the fact that he hit my mom. Being six years old and trying to understand the why of it all, was impossible. Every time I tried to understand, it was like swimming out over my head. I just wasn't ready to understand, and maybe deep down, there wasn't any way I could understand.

One one hand was the father who loved me, who I loved, and then there was the man who came home smelling like whiskey, looking for arguments that weren't there.

I used to lay awake at night, praying that he wouldn't come home with that angry smell on him. That he wouldn't hit my mom.

And each time, it would happen again.

I remember him promising that each (and everytime) was the last. And I believed him. I believed in him. I wanted each time to be the last.

But each 'never', every 'it'll never happen again', one more 'this is the last time' and finally, it was just too much.
I was pretty sure they were going to get divorced, but even knowing that didn't make it hurt any less.

I remember the last time my dad took me fishing. Just me and him. We sat on the bank, casting our lines out for that perfect spot. I remember this like it happened yesterday, instead of twenty-three years ago.

He put his fishing rod down, he turned to me, the setting sun in his eyes and he said, "Sis, me and your mom are getting divorced. But I promise you I will never leave you. I love you and your mom and your brother so much. I just need to get better. Will you pray for me? Will you do that for your dad?"

I remember crying, like I'm crying now, and nodding my head. If my dad asked me to do it, you could take that shit to the bank.

I remember the smell of his shirt, the way he hugged me while I cried, and how his eyes looked when he promised me.

What I didn't know then, thankfully, is that when my mom and dad divorced, he also divorced me. And he never looked back.

----

This year, I had to go into the hospital again. The mental hospital, to be perfectly frank.

My medications stopped working, and it happened so gradually, that when those black thoughts crept in, like a gray fog, it snuck up on me.

Hello, darkness, my old friend.

The thing is, when they ask you about your family, I tell them I had a good childhood.

I had a good childhood because of my mother. My dad, I really don't even mention. I gloss that part over, make it seem less than it is, because I don't want anyone thinking I'm this way because the father I loved abandoned me and never looked back.

But I was tired of carrying that. I was tired of letting him off the hook for that one, the way I'd been doing for years.

Sometimes it's just too easy to blame things on someone else. Sometimes it's too easy to blame my own shortcomings on my dad.

Carrying that weight was just too much, so for the first time, I talked about him. I admitted to what I never talk about.

I finally realized that by pushing everything down, by pretending that I'm fine when I'm not, things had come full circle. I had become my father.

So, on the last day of my old life, I was sitting in class, and I just couldn't pretend anymore.

I couldn't paste on a smile for another second.

I got up out of my old life, and I walked out. I ended up walking toward my mom's job, not knowing how I was going to find the strength to ask her, to beg her to help me get better.

Instead of thinking about that, I just walked to her job. I remember pulling myself together enough to walk into her office. I had the rehearsed words on my lips, but when I saw her eyes, saw the concern in them, I broke down completely.

In that instant, I realized that despite all my intentions, I had become my father to this wonderful woman in my life. I never hit her, but the words I'd said to her in years past all came rushing back. Unlike a bruise, those words never faded. They never healed.

Despite all that, despite everything that had happened in my life, my mom dropped everything for me. She dropped everything, and took me to the hospital.

I got better. I can't say that I'm cured, because this thing is something that I'll never be cured from. I can be treated.

Today is good, and maybe tomorrow I won't be okay, but that's tomorrow.

Today I'll bless the slack I've been given, and I won't think about the drop.

And I won't ever be my father again.

Against the wind
Little somethin against the wind
I found myself seekin shelter against the wind

I said Are you gonna be my girl?

2010-03-11T08:09:00.000-08:00

Couldn't move.
Couldn't breathe.
Couldn't think.

It was that intense.

There was that slippery warmth in my belly, making my skin tingle, and my hands shake. It was the warm wetness of his lips, the way they kissed me until I had no idea where we were.

It was the electric feeling of his hands gently cradling my face. Those big, strong hands touching me so gently, thumbs brushing my jaw.

It was his eyes, a gorgeous chocolate brown, with tiny flickers of gold, like his eyes had pieces of the sun in them.

It was the baked furnace feel of his hands touching me, like his touch left an imprint, a tattoo, a burn.

It became his hands buried in my shoulders, when I tried to (reluctantly) push him away.

It became me wanting him to bruise me with his handprints, to mark me with the force of his kiss.

When the hotness of his mouth trailed fluttering kisses down my neck, to my collarbone, burning me from the inside, I looked at him, really looked at him.

His lips were swollen from our kisses (they looked like mine felt) tender and pink and oh so enticing.

I stood there, shaking, his hands holding my shoulders, and in that instant, I felt that ache of how long it's been since I've felt, since I've let myself feel, since I had the courage to just let go.

When I looked at him again, our eyes caught, and I felt the electricity between us. I felt the warmth coming off him in waves.

He slid his hand against my cheek, and ran the ball of his thumb over my lips.

"Your mouth--" he said wonderingly, his eyes moving down to my lips, before returning to my eyes.

And he kissed me again.

Post Apocalypse Barbie-- Chasing the Day

2010-03-09T07:34:00.000-08:00

We as people often go back to the hurt places. We tease those hurt places like they're a tiger in a cage, and when they bite us, we act surprised.

I'd like to say that this Barbie right here is different, but I'm not.
I'm just as guilty as the next person, reliving the past, and relishing the hurt.

Even as I sit here, spinning the cap off the bottle of Johnny Walker blue-- these days, the booze, the cigarettes, the ideas are all free-- I find myself teasing that tiger again. Sometimes, I want it to hurt, because even the hurt is better than feeling nothing at all.

Sometimes I find myself tonguing a sore in my mouth, to the point where it doesn't heal. When it finally does, when something else has distracted me, I'm sad to find it gone. I miss the hurt. Which is pretty much all I need to say about my own fucked up character.

So, I spin the top off the bottle again. I spin it off, chase the last part of the day into the bottom of the bottle.

Most days, the bottle ends before the day does. Most days, I find myself still awake, watching the sky change from midnight to cobalt, to sunrise. By that time, most of me is at the bottom of the bottle. Too sober to face the day and too drunk to stop chasing the hurt.

I chase the day, chase the pain, smoke it down to the filter and bury myself in the past. I do all these things, hoping somehow that this is just one bad dream I'll wake up from.

There's no way that a whore like me can possibly matter in this world where rats are king. With that kind of logic, I think that it's best if the human race would just die out.

A prostitute, a post apocalyptic Barbie, for Christ sake. Even if I did manage to hold everyone together, to make this shitty town run again, what after that?

I somehow become a better person? Frankly, I don't see that happening. So, I chase the hurt. I chase it down to the filter, and down into that dark liquid that just clears my head enough for me to see what a colossal jam we're all in.

Blackbird Song (18)

2010-03-09T00:36:00.000-08:00

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
--Trent Reznor--

While Jared's sitting at Jenna's bedside, keeping a constant vigil, he waits. While he waits, Jenna dreams.

In her dreams, it's the first time she tried to escape. Always that failed first time, when she screamed until she thought her throat would rip open from the force of her rage.

The first time she escapes, she gets an idea of just how desperate her situation is.

When she makes it outside, it's snowing. She's barefoot, it's cold, it's snowing, but that doesn't stop her.

She plunges into the snow, running, her heart racing, her feet aching from the cold, but she's outside, she's running and she's outside, and she's going to run all the way back to the life he stole from her.

For the first time in days, she lets her mind think of Jared, she lets herself take a deep, sobbing breath, and she feels that hollowed out part of her chest where she hasn't even let herself think of Jared.

As she's running, she imagines that she's running to Jared. She knows how warm his arms will be.

She doesn't even realize it when she starts crying, and the tears make cold tracks down her cheeks.

She runs, but he ends up catching her anyway.

----

When she fights against him, she can hear him laughing softly.

The sound of his laughter, that he is amused makes her rage come boiling over the top. She hits him, struggles with him, fights against him.

She feels him draw back, and when the needle punches into her arm, she leans forward and bites him

She tastes his blood in her mouth, and even as she's relishing this, her muscles start to sag, and her legs spill her to the ground.

----

Whatever he's given her makes her unable to move, but she's awake and aware.
He picks up her body, carries her back, and when they're inside, he starts to take her clothes off.

She's tried to brace herself for the fact that this might happen. She's told herself that just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't happen.
She can't feel the tear that slips down her cheek, but she does feel terror.
She's so certain that he's going to rape her, she doesn't know what to do when he doesn't.

Instead, he's dressing her, putting a coat on her, shoes, and then he's carrying her out to his car.

----

He settles her body into the passenger seat, adjusts it so that she's reclining, and he puts a pair of very dark sunglasses on her.

He buckles her in, covers her with a blanket, and then they're driving.
She can hear the radio, low and unobtrusive. She tries to talk, and finds that she can't. She can't say a word, and the sense of claustrophobia grows.
She can't move, she can't feel, she can't speak.
She can only think.

Worse, that first time, that first time she tried escaping, as her captor packed her up (pretty) to take her to another location, even as they're driving, Jared passes them in his search for Jenna. Mercifully, neither of them ever realize this.

----

While she's reliving her escape, Jared watches the calm set of her face, and he waits.
He waits for her to open her eyes, he waits for her to look at him, he waits for her to see that she's safe. He wants her to know it, to know that she's safe. He wants her to know that it's not just a word, but something tangible. He wants to make it real for her.

He waits to tell her that he loves her, that he is going to live up to the promise of that one word. Forever.

He waits.

----

While he's waiting, he wets her lips with the corner of a washcloth. He wipes her face, he makes her as comfortable as possible, while being careful of her ribs, her back, the scratches on her hands.

As Jared's sitting at her bedside, intent on the rise and fall of her chest, he hears a man clear his throat.

Jared looks over, and it's a cop. It's the cop who found Jenna. Jared can never remember his name, so he just thinks of him as 'the cop.'

He's standing in the doorway, twisting his cell phone in his hands. He looks at Jared and asks, "How is she?" Jared looks down at his hands, fidgets, and with a deep sigh, his eyes on the floor, says, "The same."

Deputy Cole Alston is his name, and he's checked in on Jenna every single day. The deputy has even sat with Jenna while Jared has gone to get a sandwich, or coffee.

After standing in the doorway for a few minutes, Cole finally turns and walks away.

The next day, when Cole walks in, he brings coffee for Jared.
They both sit, watching the steady rise and fall of Jenna's chest.

Jared is starving, so he asks Cole to sit with Jenna while he grabs a sandwich from the cafeteria.

While Cole's looking at Jenna, he wonders yet again how this woman managed to escape. How she managed to live through the hurt enough to keep fighting. He marvels at her strength of spirit, her ability to survive.

He's never heard her speak, but he already admires her.

As he's sitting there, lost in his thoughts, a nurse comes in with a washcloth.
Usually, it's Jared who carefully sponges off her face, talking to her the whole time.

Since Jared isn't there, the nurse gently wipes Jenna's face, her cheeks, her neck. She talks to her as she's caressing that luminous skin. "You're such a pretty girl, Jenna," the nurse says softly, "Will you open your eyes for me?"
"Come on pretty girl, open your eyes," the nurse says.

Deep in her head, Jenna hears that word. The dangerous word, the one she tried so hard to escape. She remembers running barefoot in the snow to escape that word. She remembers locking that word in her cage, along with her captor. She was so sure she escaped that word, that to hear it now is too much.

As the nurse is talking, cajoling, asking Jenna to open her eyes, a single tear tracks down her cheek. Pretty. Pretty. Pretty.

Jenna rises to consciousness, rises to the pain in her body and she can hear someone screaming. She's too disoriented to realize that she's the one who's screaming.

The nurse yells for the doctor, as Jenna is tearing the i.v. out of her arm, as she's flailing and screaming and trying to get away.

As her bare feet touch the cold floor, her legs buckle. Cole manages to catch her, and he can feel her heartbeat jackhammering in her chest. Even as the nurse is sedating her, Cole holds Jenna, and for the second time, she faints into his arms.

Jared enters the room, sandwich in one hand, and his mouth is a shocked o of surprise. He drops his sandwich, and runs over to help Cole hold Jenna up.

Even as she's sagging into their arms, tears streaming down her face, the shot slowly taking effect, she meets Jared's eyes.

She says to him, "I was in the dark --I couldn't find you. I was lost--I followed your voice. I--" and with that, she sobs weakly, her chin resting on her chest.

She takes one deep, hitching breath, and her breathing evens out. She's mercifully unconscious, even as a few tears slide down her cheeks.

Jared picks her up, puts her back in bed. The nurse hooks her back up to the i.v., and they try to put her room back to rights.

----

The next day, in a room full of women dressed in scrubs, Jenna wakes. She looks at a woman in Strawberry Shortcake scrubs and closes her eyes again. The scrubs prove it's a dream.

She doesn't want to look, doesn't want to see. If this is a dream, she'd rather be sleeping.

But she can hear them talking. About her.

She tries opening her eyes again. She feels dizzy, the room is so bright it hurts. Jenna moans and tries to lift her arms.

There's an ache in her side, in her arm and she's breathing hard with the effort. She feels tears wetting her cheeks, and she sighs softly, so that ache in her ribs won't bite her again.

Even as she's drifting off, she hears Jared. With a supreme amount of will, Jenna opens her eyes, finds Jared, and even as she's drifting, her eyes feel like they have weights attached to them, she manages to smile at him.

She hears Jared tell her that he loves her, that she's safe. He tells her that he's here. With remarkable effort, from the world of the unconscious, she tells him that she loves him too. As sleep claims her, there's a small, satisfied smile on her lips.

She dreams again of that room. The one with holes in the ceiling, the holes that let the sunshine pour through.

She dreams of the man who brought her here, and instead of trying to get him to talk to her, Jenna simply sits in the sunshine and enjoys the way it skates down her forehead, kisses the tip of her nose with warmth, and blooms a smile on her mouth.

Even as she's enjoying this little vacation in her dreams, black clouds roll across the sun, taking away the sunshine and her joy.

She looks up, looks into the blackness, which could be compared to the face of her captor. Entirely without sunshine, entirely without light, oh God, he's in that room, he's in that room where she left him -- it's been days, and he's in that room--

Jenna wakes with a gasp, and she starts yelling, yelling at Jared, running her words together. Even as she's gesturing, yelling, setting off the machines that are attached to her body, the nurse on call rushes in, and puts something in her i.v. that makes her unable to talk, unable to move, and she falls back against her bed.

Even as she's drifting off, she tries to hold onto that one thought, her captor in that room, for days with no food, no water. The room he left her in, the room where he whipped her back bloody, where he did unspeakable things to her. Even knowing all that, she tries fighting one last time, tries making herself heard.

No matter what he's done to her, he doesn't deserve to die in that room. In that room, there are no chances, there are no ways out. In that room, he's left with his insanity.

In that room, he's the pretty.

----

~~next~~

The Fish Story

2010-03-08T09:02:00.000-08:00

Memoir Monday, y'all!

I have something special today. Not a story from me, but from my good buddy Bluz.

Bluz has tackled such topics as why Jesus should have a snowcone stand, and the repercussions.

Bluz likes classic rock, and getting caught in the rain. Okay, I made that last part up, but he told me this story, and I thought it was too good not to share, so for my memoir monday, I give you the lovely, the talented, the Bluz.

----

Thank you to our host Sally-Sal, for allowing me the opportunity to tell you this story. She will be back shortly to continue with her amazing stories.

*****

While I was on vacation last August, in the farmland outside Toledo where I grew up, I had a chance to do a little pond fishing. Talk about one of life’s simple pleasures… We were just catching and releasing… My buddies and I caught a couple bass and a whole mess of bluegills… Big fun down on the farm! But it reminded me of another time back in my youth… waaaaaay back in the day… when we crossed pond fishing with a commando raid and it produced this story.

The Fish Story
One summer, my parents went on a trip to visit relatives, taking my younger brother and sister with them. Because I was the oldest and had a part time job, I was allowed to stay home. (Rank has its privileges.) I was just out of high school and this was the summer before college started, so it was a given that there was going to be a party of some kind. It was just a small one… a few of me buds and some neighborhood folk.

One of us got a wild hair and decided we should have a breakfast fish fry the next morning. Catching the fish would be no problem. Our neighbors directly behind us had a pond, in which we were allowed to fish. In fact, we helped stock it by depositing in it catfish, bass and bluegills that we had caught elsewhere. But why do something we were allowed to do, when instead we could have an adventure? See, there was a pond behind theirs belonged some other neighbors who never let anyone fish or swim in their pond. You could see the fish in there; bluegills the size of a loaf of bread, enormous bass… all kinds of things, doing all but poking their heads up out of the water and going “pppbbbbhhhhhhhhhtt!” We had no choice. We were provoked.

So about 10:30 that night, we staged our little fishing raid. A handful of us crept out, rods and lures in hand, and began stealthily fishing in the pond. We could see Mr. And Mrs. Neighbor up in their house, about 75 yards away. The lights were on inside, so while we could look in, they couldn’t see us out in the dark.

We began pulling bluegill out of there immediately… it was just too easy. It was much easier, in fact, than getting the hooks out by moonlight. We had a big bucket that we threw them in, once freed, and in no time we had about 5 or 6 in the can. At some point, we saw some motion up in the windows, so not taking any chances, we made a dash for it, grabbing up the bucket and hauling ass. I didn’t even take my line out of the water. I just ran, with the line dragging out behind me, the hooks pulling up little chunks of grass behind me.

Anyway, we got back to my house and counted up our half dozen monster fish. The fish fry was on, so now, who knows how to cook a fish? (We weren’t much for thinking these things through in those days.) We knew how to filet and bone it, but we wanted a little something extra. Our friend Rob, who worked with me at the neighborhood grocery store, said he’d call home to his mom and ask for a good breading recipe. Of course, she wanted to know why, so he told her about our night and came away with the goods. The next morning we had a tasty little bluegill feast.

My parents came home that evening and over dinner, I told them about our little party. Near the end of dinner, the phone rang and the caller asked for me. It was Mrs. Neighbor, who proceeded to tell me she saw me out there fishing last night and wanted me to pay for the fish we pulled out. She said something like she wanted a dollar a pound.

Of course, I denied everything. “What fish? I wasn’t fishing?” She proceeded to describe what I was wearing, right down to the hat on my head. Still denying I was out there, that I was fishing and that I even owned a hat, I finally said something brilliant like, “even though I didn’t take any fish, I’ll still pay you for them if I have to.”
I sat back down, and then told my folks about the fishing part of the party, which I had neglected to mention earlier. They basically said, “she gotcha, now ya gotta pay up.” I was resigned to my fate.

Before the table was even cleared, Rob and my other friend Rik pulled up in the driveway. I dashed out of the house and told them everything… I mean, I wasn’t the ONLY one out there and I wasn’t going down alone. Then I started noticing, as I described the phone conversation, how neither of them would look directly at me. They seemed to be biting the inside of their cheeks. I stopped talking and looked at them, and they just exploded with laughter. I gave them a right good cursing out, but ended up laughing along with them. It seems it was Rob’s mom who called, who described what I’d been wearing and heard me lie my ass off to her. Actually, I was relieved not to have to go show up at Mrs. Neighbor’s door.

I ran inside to tell my folks the good news, that it was just Rob’s mom yanking my chain. My dad said, “Now, what are you going to do to get back at her?”

Hmmmm. I agreed that I couldn’t take this lying down. Then my dad gave me the best advice I’d ever received. He said, “The best revenge for a practical joke is to make it seem that it worked too well.” Genius!

We sent Rob back to tell his mom that my dad got so mad at me that he marched me right over to the Mrs. Neighbor’s house and made me pay her off. Then he grounded me from the car for a month.

She was crestfallen when Rob told her the story… she never meant any harm. Rob must have given quite a performance too… she even woke him up late that night, trying to see if she could shake his story while he was half asleep. Rob held up though and stuck to the plan.

So, cut to the following weekend, when we were both working at the grocery store. She came in for her regular weekly shopping. I knew she’d want to ‘fess up, busting with guilt. Naturally, I did everything I could to avoid her. She came up once, with big sad eyes and a mournful look. I put on a look like someone just killed my puppy, all sad and forlorn. She asked me how I was doing.

I just said, “not so good Mrs. B., I got in pretty big trouble this week, but listen, I can’t talk now… I gotta go.”

That’s how it went for the next half hour: her stalking me to try to confess, and me trying to avoid her.

The payoff was set for when she checked out. I arranged to bag her groceries and this was the day and age when bag boys still took your stuff out and packed your car. As we went out to the car, she just spilled it.

“It was me on the phone,” she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. I’m sorry, it was just a joke, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

I just stood there, jaw dropped open, looking shocked.

Finally, I smiled and said, “that’s OK, Mrs. B, because I didn’t really get in any trouble, I was just getting a little payback.” Her response was typical of her upbringing as an Italian mother from Brooklyn.

“YOU SONOFABITCH BASTID!” she screamed at me in her high-pitched Brooklynese. “How can you do that to a poor old woman? I oughta kick you right in the ass for that, you had me up all night with guilt…”

We ended up having a great laugh and happily called a truce. Meanwhile, I was giving mental high fives to my dad. He was most pleased by the way it played out, when I told him the story.

I went on to employ this tactic on numerous occasions, although it was often in the form of advice to others who’d been tricked. It has never failed me yet.

Note: All photos courtesy of ME, although they were most certainly NOT taken at the time of this story. Digital cameras were not yet invented, nor were Window PCs, CDs, MP-3s or string cheese. We had nothing to do back then but think up new ways to torture each other. Those were the days…

Post Apocalypse Barbie: The Rats

2010-03-05T06:34:00.000-08:00

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

T.S. Eliot -- The Hollow Men

The rats.

I know I mentioned it before, and just kind of avoided talking about it completely. I guess the idea of it is so laughable, that I sometimes tell myself, "You're dreaming, Barbie. This is one bad dream you're going to wake up from. And no more eating right before you go to bed."

The rats are real. And I guess you want to know why.

That's the curse of our race, you know. Why. It goes all the way back to Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel. "Don't eat this apple, Eve."
"Why?"
"Don't kill your brother, Cain."
"Why?"
"Don't sell Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, Judas."

The curse of being human is the curse of expectation.
I think our downfall isn't our own fucked up nature, which is to kill ourselves, but our downfall can be summed up in that one word. Why.

Why rats? The story I heard is that rats make the best test subjects. We test new medicines on rats, we test surgery procedures, we test the 'why' on them.

In this particular case, it was some new fertility medicine. Because, the longer we live, the more we mess with things, the less likely we are to reproduce. Maybe God is trying to tell us something, folks.

Anyway, the fertility medicine worked like a charm. The rats that took the drug were able to have litters of hundreds. But that's where it stops being good and starts getting really bad.

Because the side effect of that particular drug was particularly nasty. The litters of the rats wouldn't die. And worse, they became full blown adult rats within about an hour.

So, picture eighty test rats, each pregnant with a hundred babies. In one hour, eight thousand test rats, pregnant with a hundred babies. And eighty thousand rats pregnant with eighty thousand babies. Keep going, until you see the big picture. The one where the end of the human race is the only picture playing at the movies. But there's nobody in the audience, folks. Unless you count the rats.

The side effect of the fertility drug was some strange kind of immunity, where the rats were able to eat just about anything (including poison) and survive.

Entire cities were eaten alive by a wall of rats, rats invading, destroying, conquering.

Pretty grim.

I did mention that there is one thing that kills the little fuckers. I imagine God is upstairs laughing his ass off at this one, because this whole thing is brought to you by an act of pure human fuckery.

Cocaine.

That's right. Probably one of the only things that we humans haven't tested on the little bastards.

So, picture the Vegas you used to know, the one with the lights and the showgirls, hell, picture your favorite sin, live and available twenty-four hours.

Now, picture Vegas without lights, without power, without running water.

We've gotten together, we've huddled together at the MGM Grand, and on the tables where blackjack dealers were more than happy to let you spend your rent, your mortgage, your children's college funds, on that green felt, now turned white, is where your salvation lies.

Post Apocalypse Barbie

2010-03-04T18:54:00.000-08:00

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

--T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

When the world ended, it wasn't by frogs raining from the sky, and sky net didn't take over. It wasn't artificial intelligence, it wasn't robots, it wasn't dinosaurs.

It was rats.

So, the downfall of the world wasn't something hi-fi, with a killer soundtrack and special effects, it turned out to be more The Pied Piper of Hamelin than Terminator. Instead of losing our children, we lose everyone.

Everyone who isn't in Vegas, that is. As far as Bible stories go, I would've thought that Vegas would be the first place to wipe off the map. As far as towns, it makes Soddom look like Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.

I'm Barbie, by the way. Let's get that out of the way so you can make your jokes about my name, and we can move on.

Barbie is my honest-to-God name. Maybe my parents could see into the future, where I would be a high priced escort. Maybe they had a sense of humor. Or maybe I was a bet they lost. Either way, I'm the one who's going to get you through this.

----

I'm a call girl, first off. Call me a whore, call me a prostitute, call me a fuck Barbie, I've heard it all. And none of it bothers me. A thick skin is one thing you have to have in my line of work.

The one thing common factor from all the men I've known is that they all think they're the one. They're the one who can fuck me into love. They all think that, and part of what I sell is that I let them believe it, for a price.

Between you and me, it's all flesh. It's all the same. Sometimes it's dressed up, sometimes it's dressed down, but when we get down to it, flesh.

Since everything that's happened, I've changed. I guess the same can be said of everyone else.

I'm no longer that same Barbie.

Which is my way of telling you that I don't fuck strangers for money anymore. I figure, with the world ending and all, maybe it isn't too late for a girl like me to change my ways. Plus, there's not a whole lot of reason for people to want to bury themselves in sex, at least not that of the store-bought variety, because there are bigger things to worry about. Like the rats.

Now, if you're laughing and probably wondering how the holy fuck could the world be destroyed by something like rats, that's fine.

Get your laughing out of the way. Believe me, you're not the only one who thought it was fucking ridiculous.

I mean, rats? Buy some rat poison, sets some traps, right?

If it were that easy, I wouldn't be writing this, and you wouldn't be reading it.

These are the rats that managed to wipe out New York, Atlanta, Dallas, Ontario. These are the rats that ate their way through buildings, cars, concrete. These are the rats who are feeding on the people who have no way to get to Vegas, where we've managed to get together, to find the only thing that works to kill those fuckers.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

For now, go ahead and laugh. I'd laugh with you, if I were in your shoes. In fact, I wish I could laugh.

So, you've bought your ticket and paid for your ride. Are you ready?

Blackbird Song (17)

2010-03-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

In these broken places, hope may arise.

[Narrator]

Jared isn't prepared when he finally is able to see Jenna.

He isn't prepared for the hurt that has been inflicted on her body. Worse, the fact that she's in a medically induced coma so they could set the broken bones in her arm, and she hasn't spoken a single word, even when she was conscious.

He doesn't know if the broken bones are from the car accident, or something worse. The something worse being her abductor.

The mess of stitches on her back, those he knows are from that bastard, who took it in his head to cut her back open with what looks like a horsewhip.
At the thought of that, at the thought of him hurting Jenna, beautiful, kind, warm, caring Jenna, he feels his jaw clench and his hands roll into fists.

Worse still, the time he put his hand on hers, she flinched in her sleep, and pulled away, a hurt moan low in her throat.

When he talks to Jenna's doctor, and the doctor mentions the worst fear in Jared's heart, his expression changes into something like horror. His worst fear is that he raped her. That he somehow broke her spirit as badly as he tried to break her body.

The doctor assures him that there is no sign of rape, but he lists her numerous injuries until Jared's head reels.

As Jared sits watching Jenna, and not touching her, it's enough to just look at her.
It's enough to know that when she wakes up, he'll be here to tell her that she's safe, that he loves her, and he's going to spend the rest of his life making up for whatever happened.

Jared just wanted to do what he could to take away her burdens, to make them his. In that instant, he prays that she will find the ability to move past this, to get over it, to recover. He promises her sleeping body that he will be with her every step of the way. He promises that when she's at her breaking point, he will be there.

He leans forward, intent on the rise and fall of her chest, the line of her profile in the fluorescent lights, and he starts to sing to her, softly, to ward off those bad dreams. He sings so softly that it's like a caress, and deep in her coma, Jenna hears him. She hears him, and all at once she's searching for him in the dark, searching for him by the sound of his voice.

He sings the only song that would be able to reach her, and as she's just given up on finding Jared in all the dark, she sees him in her dreams.

As he continues singing, he sees her face relax, and one corner of her mouth quirks up, the ghost of a smile on it.

He sees that, and doesn't even realize it when a single tear tracks down his cheek. He just keeps singing, because where ever she is, it may be dark, and he wants her to know he's with her.

next

Blackbird Song (16)

2010-03-04T10:46:00.001-08:00

[Narrator]

Today is the twenty-ninth day she's been missing. For the first time since she disappeared, Jared didn't wake with this thought in his head.

When he and Mike set out to canvass some abandoned buildings in the woods, Jenna has firmly made up her mind that it's her time to die.

She's always heard the phrase 'so and so died happy'. She firmly believes that's a crock of shit. Nobody is happy to die. But she's made her peace with death. Death is preferrable to the hell she's found herself in.

This time, when she looks at the door leading out of what he calls her room, and she thinks of as her cage, she sees the door slightly ajar.

Last time, it was a test. Or, more likely, a game.

Last time, blind panic and fear were with her.

This time, she's made up her mind that she will get out of this room, or she won't. The look on her face is something like peace.

If it's her time to die, she's made her peace with it. She'll carry Jared with her. Even though he's miles away from her, Jenna knows he'll be right there with her. She has begun to cry quietly, taking one last time to think of Jared.

She remembers him laughing at her, sitting beside her in the Blackbird, kissing her, loving her.

She knows that he is the great love in her life. He is her love, her heart, her happiness.

She's going to leave this room, and every step she takes is one step she's taking toward Jared, toward home, toward love and sanity and happiness.

She takes a deep breath, wipes her eyes, and slowly opens the door.

----

[Jared]

Since Jenna has been gone, Jared gets one classic rock song after the other stuck on a loop in his head. Today is no exception.

Today's song is Tuesday's Gone, which is one song that makes Jared quiet, withdrawn, and he ends up singing it under his breath as he walks along, looking for Jenna. Always looking for Jenna.

Train roll on many miles from my home,
See I'm, I'm riding my blues away, yeah
Tuesday, you see, she had to be free

Realizing that he was singing out loud, Jared laughs, although he knows that in five minutes time, he'll be singing the same song.

----

Seven hours later, and they still haven't found shit, so they decide to go eat dinner. Mama C has been keeping them fed since the night of Jenna's birthday, and she insists that they both take lunches on the rare occasions she isn't there to fill them up with her home cooking.

As Jared climbs into the passenger seat of Mike's pickup, he gets a call on his cell. It's a number that looks familiar, but isn't saved into his phone.

He answers.

----

[Narrator]

On a long stretch of dirt road, Deputy Cole Alston is running radar. That's his official reasoning. Unofficially, he's texting.

As he reads the latest text message from his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, he sends back an angry reply. He's told her before that he can't always answer her immediately, and they're having this fight. Again.

He's boiling mad, and as he throws his phone into the floorboard (knowing that the next time it chimes with a new text, he'll be picking it back up), he notices something from the corner of his eye.

Something moving in the woods. He sees a flash of white, thinking it might be a deer, and is shocked when he sees it's a young woman.

He gets out of the warm cruiser, and just as it starts to snow, she stumbles toward him, looks directly into his eyes, and faints.

----

When Jared answers his phone, it's Trooper Northcutt. Jared has told himself this call might happen, but he's not prepared for it.

He's so sure that Trooper Northcutt is telling him that they've found Jenna's body, that he says, "Wait, wait, wait." It's all he can say, and when Mike takes the phone from him, he lets it go.

He sits as Mike listens. When Mike hands him his phone back, he twists in the truck to look at Jared. He takes Jared by the shoulders, and says, "Jared. They found her. They fucking found her."

Jared grabs Mike's shoulders, and they both shake each other, whooping and yelling. Jared feels the weight in his stomach lift. He's starving. He's happy, and he can't quit grinning.

Mike guns the engine and they drive toward the hospital.

Goodbye, Tuesday.

----

next

Blackbird Song (15)

2010-03-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

[Jenna]

If I had the words, I'd tell you what it's like to measure your life out in miles, the way that I do.

I've woken up before, wondering with some kind of intoxicating happiness just how exactly I got here.

But those days are miles and miles behind me.

Right now, I'm in a room that I feel I'll never leave.

I'm in this room, and I've never felt so clearly that time is something that is running out of an hourglass, and instead of years, it's days, maybe only minutes that are left.

I've resigned myself that I may die in this room. Probably, I will.

Pain is close, but death, closer still.

If I ever get out of this room, I will never get out of this room.

Do you know what it's like to be broken? Bled?

Do you know what it's like to feel pain until you wish, you pray, you hope for a death that never comes? I pray that you never do.

I tried escaping once, and even while I was running, I knew that it was some kind of test, a trick.

It was.

And I paid. Oh, sweet Lord, how I paid.

I paid in screams and blood and pain that cut into me like merciless silver eyes. That time, I thought I'd rupture my throat with my screams.

No more.

If there is to be death, it's going to be of my own choosing.

If I get the opportunity, I'm getting out of this room, even if it means that he will haul my bleeding body out of here and bury me in some anonymous grave.

If I get the chance, I'm taking it.

If I can get out of here, I will.

If I have to pay with my life, so be it.

The killer awoke before dawn, he put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall...

next

Blackbird Song (14)

2010-03-01T09:44:00.001-08:00

In life, there are so many doors to choose from. There are the doors that keep us out, the doors that let us in. There are the doors that open to the dreams we only glimpse when our hearts ache for happier times.

Doors that open to warmth, welcome, love.

Doors that close and bring cold, uncertainty, pain, loss.

The chapters of any life path can be determined not so much by what your doors keep out, but with what you have the strength to let in.

----

[Narrator]

Mike turns out to be a God send. He's not only efficient, disciplined, and highly organized, he has an intensity that keeps both of them going long after they're both exhausted.

Mike doesn't have an ounce of quit in him.

On the second day that Mike joins Jared's search for Jenna, (the thirteenth day she's been missing) he packs them both supplies, GPS, maps, and they continue searching.

They continue searching on the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth days.

And the seventeenth, which somehow turns into the twenty-fifth day.

They plot out their course each day, waking at 5 a.m. and searching until almost midnight each day.

At first, Jared merely tolerates Mike's presence. After their fourth day of searching together (and two weeks since she's been gone) he's grateful for Mike, not just for his help, but his unwavering conviction that they will find her.

Their shared belief that she's alive, the days they both spend searching, their combined exhaustion, all of these factors are enough to make them friends.

----

Twenty-seven days.

It's a Sunday.

Jared has pushed this date back in his mind. He's refused to think about it (or so he tells himself). It's the kind of thought that creeps in at every opportunity. It's the sore place in his heart that his mind just can't leave alone so it will heal.

It's the thought that has nagged him out of sleep, that has ate at him, this is the thought that his frantic mind has worried over, lost sleep over, and it's the thought that urges him on, when he's too exhausted to see.

Today is Jenna's birthday.

----

By mutual decision, Mike and Jared have both decided that this is their day of the week to rest.

Neither of them mention the significance of the date, but it's at the top of both of their minds.

Mike invites Jared over to his parents house, Jenna was close to both of them, (Mama C and Daddy G, Jared thinks) and they were family to her.

He wants to go, because that's what Jenna would've wanted, but at the same time he doesn't want to see anyone. He wants to sit here in this house, he wants Jenna to come home, he wants to tell her he loves her, and he wants to never let her out of arms reach.

He tries getting up, then sits back down.

He stands up again, walks over to the radio, and turns it on. He's dialing through the stations, when he hears a knock at the front door.

Standing outside is Mike's mother. Otherwise known as Mama C.

Jared manages a half-hearted smile, and invites her in.

Before he realizes what's going on, she's marching him towards the door, then towards her car, and telling him that she's taking him to her house for Sunday dinner. This 5'1 woman is marching his 6'4 frame out the door as if he was a wayward eleven year old.

Before he knows it, he's buckled into her passenger seat, and they're on their way to her house.

----

On the drive over, she tells him, "Sugar, she wouldn't want you to be alone. And she's not here to celebrate her birthday. Trying to forget it isn't going to help, either. We're going to celebrate her birthday for her, since she can't. You know that's what she would want."

Hearing her say the words that he's been dreading, Jared nods. He clenches his jaw, and looks out the window, determined not to cry. He blinks back the tears that are scalding his eyes, just barely, then he manages to say, "Okay."

----

At the farmhouse, Jared and Daddy G are standing on the front porch. Mike hands Jared a beer as soon as he walks up, and Jared murmurs a quiet thank you.

Mama C ushers them all into the living room, and tells them that her birthday present to Jenna is this old video Jenna found.

The original video was too badly damaged to play, but Mama C was persistent. She found a place that salvaged the video, and converted it to DVD.

She was telling this story, even as she lowered the lights, and started the DVD player.

On the tv screen, Jared could see baby Jenna. He saw her big brown eyes. Her hair in soft curls, that bounced brightly, as she ran after a dog.

The way she threw back her head, even as a toddler, and laughed with her whole body. He sat there, his heart beating so loudly, he was sure they could all hear it.

He saw her, his love, at the beginning of her life. He saw even then, just how beautiful she'd always been. She was perfect, and good, and true.

She was the kind of person that you couldn't help but like, after meeting her, and the kind of person that you couldn't help but love after knowing her.

And she wasn't here.

She wasn't here to see how much everyone loved her. Jared felt his chest hitch, and something that had been squeezing his heart tore loose. He got up, determined to try to hide his tears, when he ran into Mama C. She pulled him close gently, whispered, "Shhh, sugar. It's okay. Shhhh. You don't have to hide your tears with us."

He wrapped his arms around her, cried soundlessly. The tears poured out of him, and he felt the hot tears wetting her shirt.

Her calm, cool hands soothed him, and after a few minutes the worst had passed. He looked down at his feet, embarrassed, until he saw Mike and Daddy G, both with suspiciously wet eyes.

Mama C took Jared's hand, and sat him beside her at the dinner table.

----

Around the dinner table, it's a glum affair. Everyone is picking at their food, until Daddy G says, "Did I ever tell you about the time Jenna helped me haul hay?"

Jared raised his heard at that, exchanging looks with Mike. Neither one of them had heard this story.

Daddy G continued on, "Yep, It was the summer Mike went down to Ft. Benning to do his basic training. I had the hay baled, and I was looking for some hands. Jenna was here with Cathy, they were making some Sangria, and --"

That's when Mike interrupted him. "Mom! You drank sangria?" Cathy (Mama C, Jared thought) blushed. "Well, Jenna wanted me to try it. It didn't taste like any alcohol I ever had, and it was good," she added defensively. "It made my face warm, and it made me giggle," she said, winking at Daddy G.

He grinned back at her, and then continued on, as if the interruption never occurred.

"Jenna heard me making my phone calls, and she told me she'd help me."

"'Course, I asked her if she had any experience hauling hay, and she just laughed at me. 'Daddy G, I grew up on a farm, she said." "And that was that. I told her to be ready around 4 a.m. and we'd just haul us some hay." He took a drink of his coffee, his eyes wistful, amused.

"When I went to pick her up, she was wearing overalls, had her hair tied up in a bandanna, like some kind of a gangster, and she was wearing a tank top."

Mike, and both of his parents burst out laughing at this last little bit. Daddy G looked at Jared, "Anyone who's ever hauled hay knows that you want long sleeves," he explained. Jared grinned, thinking of Jenna and the way she would help in any way she could. She probably knew that Daddy G would never let her help, especially knowing she'd never hauled hay before. She also knew that he needed her help.

Jared found himself grinning, even as tears burned in his eyes.

When someone like that is in your life, you get used to having them around so much, that if they leave, it gets you in a thousand different ways. Just when you think you've braced yourself, it hits you again.

When Jared looked up from his hands, Daddy G was watching him. Jared could see him waiting to go on. Jared nodded to Daddy G, and he continued.

"She'd said to me 'Daddy G, I grew up on a farm', not 'Daddy G I've hauled hay before," Daddy G grinned at Jared, and Jared shook his head, laughing.

"I told her, 'you're gonna need something to cover your arms, sis, or that hay's gonna rash you up."

"She got herself into some long sleeves, and she brought out a thermos of coffee for me, and some of those bull drinks. Red bulls, I think she called 'em. She gave me one, but it just tasted like cough syrup mixed with sprite," he grimaced. "When we finally got to the hundred acres, I tried to talk her into driving the truck while I stacked the hay."

He paused, for effect. "But you know how she is. She insisted on me driving," he laughed. "She actually did a bang-up job. Once she'd made her mind up to be good at something, she just was," he recalled fondly.

"In fact, she had me convinced that she might've hauled some hay before."

"Anyway, it was about noon, and we'd gotten all that hay put up in the barn. I remember looking back at Jenna, when I turned around, I saw her just fall backwards off the truck."

"I ran around to see if she was okay, and she was jut laying there. She'd managed to get herself heatstroke."

"When she came around," his eyes gleamed mischievously, "She said to me 'Daddy G, I wasn't meant to be a fucking farmer."

Jared and Mike broke up laughing at the same time. Mama C tried to hold out, but she ended up laughing until tears spurted from the corners of her eyes.

A few times, Jared tried to guilt himself into feeling bad, but Mama C was right there to nudge him. Once she even said, "Jared, you know she'd want you to celebrate her birthday for her, since she's not able. She'd be mad at you for feeling guilty." Jared nodded, and Mama C hugged him close.

As the night wrapped up, Jared found himself feelig warm for the first time since Jenna went missing.

For the first time, he felt a part of himself relax. For the first time in twenty-seven days, he could breathe.

Even though he couldn't see her, he wished with all his heart that she knew just what she meant to him.

He wished for her to somehow break free of where ever she was, to find him, to find her way home.

With that wish firmly in his mind as he drifted off, he fell asleep.

----

Jared's wish didn't come true on Jenna's birthday.

It happened two days later.

next

Blackbird Song (13)

2010-02-15T17:15:00.000-08:00

[Jared]

She might call. She might.

She's been gone for eleven days and all he has is an ache inside his chest that refuses to go away.

Eleven days, and each day stretches out impossibly long. The hours of no Jenna seem endless.

After he's searched for her all day, he's exhausted, and when he goes home, instead of pacing and plotting out where he's going to look for her tomorrow, he ends up falling asleep. He falls asleep, his head resting on his arms, his arms resting on the map, the map where he's resting all of his hopes of finding her. She's somewhere on that map. He just has to figure out where.

His last thoughts on this side of consciousness are of Jenna. And Jenna. Always of Jenna. And he dreams of her.

----

[Narrator]

His first attention is neglect.

He leaves her in that room with only her broken thoughts, and bruised body.

She thinks of Jared. She can almost see him sitting there with her, telling her that she's going to get out of here. He tells her she's going to be home soon, he tells her to fight, to not give up.

She thinks of Jared, and she pulls her knees up to her chest, hugging them closer to her. She hugs her knees and she thinks of how warm Jared's arms feel when they're around her.

She knows that this is bad, that it may get worse, but she holds her determination with both hands. She holds the image of Jared's face close, and it's thinking of him that she drifts off.

It's the first time she's slept, really slept (instead of just drifting in and out of consciousness) in days, and when she dreams, she's far away from these walls.
She's far away from the cold that sinks into her bones, and aches, she's far away from the broken ribs that stab at her each time she breathes, she's far away from the fear that eats into her heart a bite at a time.

In her dreams, she's warm. In her dreams, the circle of Jared's arms are around her, and he says her name. He says her name and he's looking into her eyes, and she's never noticed just how expressive his face is.

She can read every emotion in his eyes. She sees exhaustion, worry, and love mixed together. She feels his tension, and she raises her hand to his forehead, to soothe the lines away.

She hasn't realized that it's been eleven days, because to her, it feels like eleven years.

For the first time since she woke up here, she's happy. She smiles in her sleep, blessedly unaware of where she is. She takes Jared's smile and holds it as she slips deeper into sleep.

Eleven days in, and they share a kiss in their respective dreams. It's so real that they both remember it after waking.

----

[Jared]

When Jared wakes up, it's light outside. It's light outside, and he's wasting time sleeping.

While he's showering, he realizes, with a jolt, that he's slept until noon.

As he's yanking a t-shirt over his head, throwing on the jeans he wore yesterday, he hears someone knocking at the door.

His heart jumps, and tells himself not to automatically think it's her. He tries to bury the hope, but ends up running down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

He's racing downstairs, his legs are racing, and his heart is racing, his mind is racing, as he slides into the front door, he sees that it's most certainly not Jenna.

It turns out to be Mike.

He can feel his disappointment weighing on his chest, and he scratches his head, while wondering what in the world Mike could want.

As it turns out, Mike wants to help.

next

Blackbird Song (12)

2010-02-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

[Narrator]

Everything in both of their lives comes back to this. Hell.

In hell, time all but ceases to exit.

With no light to determine the time, with no clock to break the time into neat, structured blocks, Jenna finds herself slipping.

When she's finally able to sleep, she finds the lack of knowing just what time it is disorienting. It makes her dizzy, and nauseous. She can sometimes feel it slipping away from her, and it makes her want to scream in frustration. The times she sleeps, she simply loses track.

Minutes, hours, days. There's no way to tell.

In hell, the hour is always none.

In hell, there are no names. The closest she gets is hearing him call her 'pretty'. The sound of that word makes her flinch, grit her teeth.

That word has a reddish feel to it. Tacky, maroon, and it smells like copper. That word tastes like death and ashes in her mouth. It twists her stomach into rolling knots.

Pretty.

Like she's a vase or a rug or a string of pearls. Like she's a goddamn possession.

He says it so often that she hates the sound of it almost as much as she's begun to hate him.

She sharpens her hate against that word.
She loses track of days.
She loses track of time, but it's her hate that keeps her from giving in.

The one constant is that in hell, it can always get worse.

----

It's maddening at first,then infuriating, and finally, a little scary when Jared can't stop hearing In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida playing on a loop in his head.

Hearing that brings his worst fears, and darkest thoughts about what's happening to Jenna to the surface of his mind.

He lies awake hearing the beginning of that song, and imagines Jenna screaming for him. He pictures her dying thousands of horrible deaths.

He sees her face frozen in agony, he hears her begging for her life, he imagines torture so vivid and gut-wrenching that it makes him physically sick.

Hell isn't something that Jenna is going through alone. Jared is right there with her. Not in the same level, but definitely in the same facility.

His torture is being without her. His pain is brought on by the thought of her being afraid, hurt. His agony is thinking that she might give up.

He prays to a God he isn't sure he believes in. He prays for her. He has no idea if God hears him, but he prays anyway.

When he lies there, watching the minutes on the clock glowing in the dark, when he watches three a.m. become four, and four become five, he finally gets up, rubbing his eyes, which feel like they have sand in them.

Jared decides to take a shower, because, yeah, it's been about three or four days, and it's just kind of slipped his mind.

When he gets out of the shower, he doesn't feel better, but he feels clean. When he passes the mirror over the sink, his heart just about jumps out of his chest.

From the steam, he can read one of the messages that Jenna had written on the mirror. When he sees that, it somehow makes it real.

Jenna isn't here to write messages for him to find after he gets out of the shower.

She isn't here to steal his t-shirts or share a coke with him.

She isn't sleeping in or making breakfast or doing any of the thousands of things that made up their relationship.

She's gone.

She's probably hurt, and afraid, and maybe she's counting on Jared to find her.

If their places were reversed, she'd be out there searching for him. She wouldn't give up. She wouldn't sleep. She wouldn't stop until she found him. Impossible just isn't in Jenna's vocabulary.

While Jared's dressing, yanking a shirt over his head, throwing on a few more layers, and stepping into his jeans, for the first time in days, he's stopped hearing that song. For the first time in days, he's got a sense of purpose.

Before he leaves the house, he goes back into the bathroom, and runs the shower until steam floods the room.

He needs to see that message one more time. He needs it, because he isn't going to give up. He's going to find her. He's going to bring her home.

But first, he needs to see that message again. He needs that little bit of her to carry with him.

He stares at it like a man dying of thirst in the desert. He drinks it in. He can almost see her grinning while leaving this message for him.

He takes a deep breath, and walks out.

----

The steam is almost completely gone, and on the mirror, that last note from Jenna.

There's her hand print, and one word.

Forever.

Everything in both of their lives comes back to this.

~~next~~

Blackbird Song (11)

2010-02-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

[Narrator]

When Jared gets home, he doesn't see Jenna's car.

He waits inside for her, convinced that she'll come home.

Any minute, she'll come into the house, bringing a draft of cold air, and an explanation. She'll tell him she was 'just' doing this or that.

Twenty odd minutes later, he's not convinced. She's hardly ever late, and she's never late without calling.

He calls her phone repeatedly, only to have it go to voicemail. Straight to voicemail. Like it's turned off, or dead.

No, not dead, he amends. It's just not charged. He hates himself in that instant for thinking the word 'dead', even if it was only meant towards the battery of a cell phone.

----

That bad, sick feeling returns with a vengeance when he sees a police car pull up to their driveway, as he's pacing in the living room. He sees two troopers get out of their car, and his dread grows when he sees one of them take his hat off, run his fingers distractedly through his hair.

News bad enough for the trooper to leave his hat in the car, that symbol of unwavering authority, that's bad.

The way he runs his fingers through his hair, worse. Like he's steeling himself to deliver a blow. When he looks over at his partner, nods, and they both take deep breaths, Jared is convinced that it's as bad as it can get.

Jared knows from experience, that no matter how much you brace yourself for bad news, it's never quite enough. You can tell your mind to expect the worst, but there's always a part of you that says "It can't really be that bad. Please, don't let it be that bad."

Instead of waiting for them to walk up the stairs and onto the porch, he's taking the stairs two at a time, and running towards them.

[Jared]

"Is she okay?" Somehow I managed to ask. My voice didn't sound like me, it sounded far away, tinny. Canned. The voice of an actor speaking the dialogue of my life. From the next universe, maybe.

When I asked, I saw them exchange a look. That look was enough to make my stomach plummet to my feet.

That look said everything. It said 'It's not okay. In fact, it's pretty fucking bad, but we don't want you to go batshit crazy."

"Mr. Boone," the older of the two said, "I'm Trooper Jakes, and this is Trooper Northcutt. We're here because your girlfriend's car has been in an accident."

----

It felt like being shocked. Like grabbing a frayed electrical wire with wet hands. It was a jolt that went straight to my heart. It was emotional overload, a sick flailing for words that wouldn't come. It was the words can't, doesn't, shouldn't, wasn't, isn't, no, no, no, no, playing over in my mind.

They asked me questions. They had to repeat themselves, but the kindness of these two men, their careful courtesy kept bringing me out of the shock I wanted to drown in.

From what I pieced together, Jenna wasn't dead. They hadn't found her. Not her body, anyway.

There was an accident, there was blood, lots of blood, but no Jenna.

I remember arguing with them, shouting at one point, "You haven't found her body, you just need to look harder!" I kept on in that vein, finally yelling at them that if they weren't going to look, that I was.

I even got so far as to put on my jacket, and grab my keys, when Trooper Jakes put one of his hands on my shoulder.

"Mr. Boone, I need you to listen to me. We found her car. We haven't found her, but," he glanced over to Northcutt, sighed, and continued, "We think she was abducted."

next

Blackbird Song (10)

2010-02-08T13:01:00.000-08:00

One month later.

[Narrator]

We never know the moments that are going to change our lives. When we wake up in the morning, expecting one thing, maybe just expecting our lives to roll on like they always have, those are the days it happens.

We never know.

[Jenna]

"I think he's going to ask me," I confided. I held the phone away from my ear while Liz got her squeeing out of the way. "Listen, my phone's fixing to die, but I'll call you back as soon as I get home. Yeah, yeah, you're a dirty whore. Love ya too. Bye"

I turned up the radio, which happened to be playing Styx. Renegade. I started belting it out, drumming on the steering wheel, singing with all my might, and just feeling wonderful.

I adjusted the rear view mirror, and instead of seeing my reflection, I saw his eyes. Madman's eyes.

An instant later, I felt coldness against my throat.

"Pull over, pretty," he said, his eyes empty, blank.

"No."

He sliced the blade into my collarbone, the flesh widening into a grin, and I felt the front of my shirt hot and sticky against my skin. But I couldn't make myself pull over.

"Pull over, now," he said, no inflection in his words.

Meeting his eyes in the mirror, I stomped the gas, causing him to slide back into the leather of the seat.

The next instant, his hands were in my hair, yanking my head back, the knife pressing against my throat.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," I thought, as I felt the knife cutting into me again.

I mat the accelerator to the floor, and swerved into the tree looming ahead. I know that it probably won't end well for me. I know that, but I know whatever he's got planned for me will be so much worse. You see, I know him. I know that whatever lead him to make this plan, it's going to be so much worse than a few broken bones and bruises.

In this moment, I've made my peace. I may die, but I'm not going to die at the hands of a madman. I'm thinking these thoughts when we hit the tree.

Darkness. Darkness. Darkness.

[Narrator]

As the strains of the song fill the air, dust caught in the headlights, blood dripping down Jenna's face, there's the smallest of sounds.

The rear driver's door opens.

Then, the driver's door.

Jenna doesn't feel her body being moved out of the wreckage that was her beloved Blackbird. She is mercifully unconscious as he grunts with her weight, and starts dragging her away.

She doesn't wake until days later, and when she does, she's in hell.

next

Blackbird Song (9)

2010-02-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

[Jenna]

Three months.

Three months, and I can't remember life before you.

On our way home, it started snowing. The snow just seemed to glide from the sky, the flakes dancing down, twirling, and I remember asking you if we could pull over.

----

We ended up walking around the park, and when you swept me into your arms and carried me, I remember laughing with my head thrown back, white plumes of my breath in the air.

In that moment, it was just me and you. It was our moment, and I have never loved you more.

----

When we were walking back to the car, hands linked, we met a a woman, so pregnant that she wasn't really wearing her sweater, her belly was straining to hold it in. It looked like a suspended avalanche. She had a little girl with her.

She had gotten her car stuck, she said, and asked us for a ride. Jared, being the white knight he is, offered to get her car out of the mud and ice. He walked with her up the hill, one of his big hands against the small of her back, his other hand guiding her elbow.

As they walked toward the car, he turned toward me, eyes big, and mouthed "Very pregnant." I ended up grinning at his awe, and looked out toward the ice, where snow was building up. It looked like a white carpet across the lake.

I glanced over toward her daughter, all of six years old, and just beautiful. She had this red ball, she kept bouncing it, intentionally ignoring her mother's comments to 'sit here, and be careful while we get the car unstuck.'

I grinned to myself, stuck my hands deep into my pockets, and watched as Jared attached the chain from the Blackbird's trunk to the frame of her car. He got her car out of the mud after only two tries, and was talking to the woman who was profusely thanking him, when I looked over to her daughter.

I didn't see her, or that red ball. I looked over toward the pier, and sitting on top of the ice was that red ball. In all that white, it was hard to miss.

The little girl was nowhere in sight.

It was just sitting on top of the ice, hateful, smug, sucking all the breath out of my lungs. Seeing it, I got the worst feeling. My stomach felt like I had swallowed a hot stone of dread.

I didn't even know I was running, but in the next instant I'd almost reached the pier. As I ran across the planks, I could feel my heart beating so loudly it drowned out all other sounds. I looked down, knowing what I would find, and still hoping, praying, begging that it wouldn't be there.

There was a small hole in the ice.

I did the only thing I could do. I dove in.

The next instant, I was surfacing, gasping from the cold that stabbed into my body. It felt like knives stabbing the breath out of my lungs. I remember sobbing and gasping, and as soon as I was able to get another breath, I dove down again.

Hands grasping, reaching, fingers seeking, I willed my body to find her. I surfaced yet again, long enough to get a breath, then back down.

Furiously my mind was screaming at me "Find her!" "There's no time!" "Find her!"

I surfaced again and again, hands reaching, searching, my mind working against me, screaming at me to find her.

I couldn't feel my feet anymore, they were numb, distant, no longer cold. I dove under, and this time I felt the slippery fabric of a coat.

My fingers closed around that swatch of fabric, and I pulled, yanking her to me, pulling her out of the water.

Jared and her mom were on the pier, Jared holding her back from jumping into the water, while pulling me and the little girl up.

I put her on the pier, face ashen, lips blue, and started CPR. I breathed into her mouth, willing her to live. Live, I thought to her, breathe.

I kept doing CPR, refusing to believe that she was dead. I could feel her mother shaking me, telling me to make her daughter breathe. Screaming at me. Threatening, cajolling, and finally, begging.

I kept on, tears starting to run down my face, because this little girl was still not responding.

I kept on, and it was in the middle of the millionth chest compression that she ended up coughing up a mouthful of water into my face.

It was right about this time that the paramedics came running toward us. They took the little girl (and her mother) and bundled them into an ambulance.

One of the EMTs wrapped me in a blanket at some point that I didn't remember, and now that the adrenaline started to ebb, I felt cold, tired, and I couldn't stop crying.

I looked up into Jared's face, seeing his eyes huge, felt his hands chafing my hands, my shoulders, warming me up.

When I realized what had just happened, I turned away from him and threw up all over that nice EMTs blanket.

----

next

I made copies.

2010-02-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

So, for once, I was going to do Trav's Memoir Mondays. But since I'm a tard, I forgot that it was picture time. Anyway, I wrote this for you, Papa Bear.

Sometimes a song can take you back. When I think of a song taking me back, most of the time it's something romantic. Meaningful.

Not this time.

I heard this song last night. And before you make any judgements, this song is officially on my 'songs of shame' list, circa 2001.

Anytime I hear this song, I can feel the ghost of hangovers past, even if I've had nothing in the world to drink.

At that particular point in my life, I shared a house with two of my cousins.

One was kickass, my best friend in life ever, and the other was...and there's no nice way to say this-- a cuntessa.

Me and B (the good cousin) would go out, get shitfaced, and come home. The cuntessa was heavily into all kinds of boy bands. Aaron Carter, Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, Britney Spears, and their associated candy ass friends.

So, after we'd spent the night getting our drunk on, the cuntessa would wake us up to one song. One song was the soundtrack to all of our hangovers. It was the Backdoor Boy's Larger Than Life.

She even had a kind of weird ritual with that song. I remember how the beginning of the song would inCREASE in volume, to just short of ear-shattering.

I remember the canned laugh that's in the song, and how everytime I heard it, it would bring me fully awake, bleary, red-eyed, dry of mouth, and resentful.

I had to give it to bitcherella, she had perfect timing.

On this particular morning, I remember B using her sweetest reasoning skills. "Turn that off, or I'm going to kill you!"

The song finally ended, after bitchy macdickerson had played with the volume awhile, and finally got tired of our weary acceptance of the song.

----

Me and B worked at the same place, where we were both waitresses. We got paid minimum wage plus tips, which was pretty awesome, because our checks covered our bills, and whatever tips we made fronted our necessities. Beer, mostly.

I remember at the start of every shift, she'd give this big, weary, put-upon sigh. Her shoulders would slump, and I knew she was thinking of the next eight hours we had ahead of us. That was my cue to give her 'the talk.'

The talk was like the pep talk a coach would give you before the start of the game. If done right, it would pump you up, and you'd carry a little bit of it with you throughout the night, when you needed it most.

My talk went something like this:

B. I know our shift is just starting, but just think of it this way: whatever money we make tonight, that's ours. We can do whatever we want with it. Ponies, cowboy hats, dinosaurs, chocolate milk, sparkly stuff, or, beer.

I know you're going to make at least, at least fifty dollars tonight. You can do it. You look hot. You're gonna sell that shit, but first [and this is the point where I'd reach toward her white button up shirt] I'm gonna help you out a little.

I know you hate this part, but it works, doesn't it? She'd nod her head, and then I'd unbutton the top three buttons of her white shirt, because she was a fucking breastasaurus rex.

I never knew her exact bra size (she refused to tell me) but I knew how embarrassed she was when we'd go try on bras, so I had it figured out that her bra cup would fit mostly over my head, yarmulke style, with a little grazing the top of my ears. (This saved lots of changing room embarrassment incidents, because I had no problem putting bras on my head in public.)

Once we'd done the unbuttoning, we had the talk, we were ready to be charming, sexy waitresses, and make our money.

Before we left the bathroom, we always had one final ritual. We'd say to each other, in unison "Make that money, gurrrrl." And then we'd laugh, and go to our night.

----

The difference in B's waitressing style, and my waitressing style was that she somehow managed to find the guys who wanted to get handsy.

I never had that problem.

She asked me once how I did it, and I tried to explain to her that it was a fine line. You had to be charming, a pinch of sexy, heavy on the sarcasm, while somehow giving a 'no touchy' vibe.

For me, that came easy.

For B, she was forever dodging restless hands.

Anyway, on this particular night, I think I ended up with about $80, and she had about $20. Even though B always made less in tips than me, she earned that money probably twice over.

We always put our money together. That's what I remember best. There wasn't really any 'my' or 'yours', it was 'ours'.

When I counted up our money, I smiled and said "We have $100. J.R.'s having a party, wanna go?"

God, I miss her. Her answer to any sort of 'do you want to have a good time/lots of laughs' type of question was always yes. I didn't have to worry about who was gonna be there, because she was one of the most easygoing, low maintenance friends I've ever had. We both pretty much got along with everyone, which made for a lot of kickass social gatherings.

So, we went. We stayed a little while, decided that it wasn't really where we wanted to be, then went to punch our clock, because it was Miller time.

That particular night, we parked the car, and walked two blocks to this little park that no one ever went to. It had this gigantic tire, where we'd sit, take off our backpacks (each heavy with beer) and drink.

Those were the best times. Me and her. Beer.

We'd sit on that old tire, and laugh about everything. We'd mostly laugh about the dumb stuff we'd done in grade school, high school, and more often than not, last week.

When our backpacks were light, and we were both pleasantly buzzed, we'd walk back home.

On this particular night, we went back to our house, and somehow managed to talk the cuntess (who was a non-drinker, for the most part) into drinking a few with us.

That night, I decided that maybe I'd been too hard on bitchzilla. Beer brought out the best in her. She was affable, joking, and when B started singing, she decided to make a request. A Patsy Cline number that B belted out with gusto, but not much else.

The three of us ended up falling asleep in our living room (without the aid of the Backstreet Boys, I'm happy to report.)

----

The next night, B and I invited the cuntessa out with us, which she declined with as much hauteur and bad grace as she could. In other words, she was being herself.

We left the car, choosing to ride with one of our friends, and we both told her to leave either the front or the back door open.

----

When we finally got back that night, we were both laughing, happy, and ready to just watch some tv.

The front door was locked.

So was the back door. And the cuntessa wasn't answering our knocking.

I'd kind of foreseen this, so before we left, I had unlocked our window.

I remember looking at B, and saying, "I left our window unlocked so we could get in." She looked at me like I was Jesus, and we walked around back to our room.

Right beside the house was this old ass exercise bike. I stood on that, while opening the window, and pushing the blinds aside.

While I was trying to ease into the window, I saw her. Bitchzilla was watching me climb into the window, and didn't offer any kind of help.

Instead, she had the remote to her stereo in her hand, and I heard her start the current tape in the deck.

What happened next was possibly the best incident of my life.

Right as I was leaning into the window, I heard B singing Patsy Cline's Crazy. No, it wasn't B standing behind me, randomly bursting into song. The cuntess of bitchingham had taped B singing that song, the night we all had a few beers together. She had taped it and probably had this evil scheme in her mind, even as she sipped beers with us.

When sober me heard drunken B belting out Patsy Cline, I lost it. I was halfway in, halfway out of the window, and I just kind of fell, my stomach slamming into the window ledge.

The cuntessa decided to rewind the last part I heard, where B's voice was all over the musical map. I was laughing so hard, that I couldn't move. My top half was warm from the heat, my ass was freezing from the cold, and all I could do was laugh.

I would probably still be there, laughing, if B hadn't shoved my legs through the window, screeching at bitchingham to STOP THE GODDAMN TAPE!

I was to that point in my laughter, that I couldn't stop. It didn't help that the cuntessa was rewinding the part where B sings "Wondering what in the world did I do?" over and over and over.

B finally managed to crawl through the window, and when she did, she ran right for the tape. The cuntessa made no move to stop B when she ripped the tape apart.

"It's okay," she smirked, "I made copies."

Me.....and....Mr. Torn....We've got a thing....

2010-02-02T14:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Rip,

First off, let me say that I've loved you for many, many years.

It all started when I saw Defending Your Life back in 1992ish. You had me from the words "Tastes a little like horseshit, doesn't it?" That, and you calling Albert Brooks a "little brain."

That was the start, Rip. That's how great love begins.

Then, you were on the Larry Sanders show, which I really didn't watch, because I was kind of young, and then this thing happened with Billy Corgan, that I don't like to talk about.

I was young, Rip, young, and impressionable. It was that song Today that grabbed my ears, and took me away. Don't be mad, Rip, even you have to admit that opening riff is amazing. Like the way the last drink of Jack Daniels is amazing.

My little brain got turned around by that song, Billy Corgan in an ice cream truck, and just when I was about to kick his ass to the curb, you guessed it, Bullet with Butterfly Wings.

Once I moved past it (it was mostly his fear of sunlight, and the resulting paleness), you were there. You wooed me back with talk of "hosting an intergalactic kegger." Those are words after my own heart, Rip. Intergalactic kegger = forever.

Then, you stepped it up. You were in a movie about fingering someone. Freddy, wasn't it? You brought the lols, old buddy. And anyone who can insult someone including the words 'roast beef' is someone I want to spend forever with.

"Boo-hoo. Little Lord Fauntleroy's tummy hurts because there's too much roast beef in it."

I know we've had a good run, and just when it started to get a little stale, you drop kicked your drunken shenanigans into a bank. On my birthday, no less.

Thank you, Rip. Thank you for making my day...memorable.

I just wanted you to know that I'll be here for you, while you're in rehab, Big Daddy Rip. I'll write you a letter every single day, and before I seal the letter, I'll take a shot of scotch, and blow the fumes in the letter. I know that's how you'd want it.

I know all those people are giving you shit about how you broke into that bank, but I'm on your side. That bank looked like a fucking house to me, too, and I've only had a few shots of Listerine.

As soon as you get out, I'm going to make you your favorite dinner. Just the way you like it.

Love ya!

Sally-Sal

Blackbird Song (8) Jenna says...

2010-01-26T14:42:00.000-08:00

[Three weeks after the night that never happened]

I'll do it -- I can't -- I shouldn't.

We're at a party together. I hear you telling one of our stories, and it makes me smile. You look over at me, raising one eyebrow, your way of asking if I'm okay, and I nod back.

When your hand grazes mine and it feels like an electric shock, I tell myself that it's accidental, while hoping against hope that it wasn't.

I'll do it -- I can't -- I shouldn't.
I don't.

We end up staying the night with a few of your friends, we've both achieved that state of near perfect drunkenness, where everything is wonderful, and the world is colored with a haze of alcohol that makes everything seem fantastic.

Or maybe it's not the alcohol that makes everything feel that way.

You hug me, and if your hand lingers a little longer than usual, I don't think about it. Or at least, I tell myself that I'm not thinking about it.

I'll do it -- I can't -- I shouldn't.
I won't.

We end up sharing a bed. We both laugh about it, while taking off our shoes and if we lay a little bit too close, it's just because it's cold. Yes, it's cold, that's why we end up laying too close, and sharing a pillow.

When your hand finds mine in the dark, I try to hide my smile, even though you can't see me. I try to hide my smile from me, because it's cold, and maybe your hands are cold. It doesn't mean anything.

I'll do it -- I can't -- I shouldn't.
But I want to.

Tonight, when we're sitting in your truck, laughing, I tell myself that you're a good friend. You care about me, as a friend. You look at me like a friend.

It's hard to swallow down what I'm feeling, but if I turn the volume up on the radio a little, it helps me remember that word. Friend.

I'll do it -- I can't -- I shouldn't.
But it's getting harder.

You only see what your eyes tell you. You think that you're ordinary. But I see everything else, and there is nothing ordinary about you. You shine with such brilliance, that sometimes when I look at you, I feel like my eyes can't handle it. If I could make my mouth say something worthy of who you are, I'd tell you that.

I'm not as broken as you think I am.

I'll do it -- I can't -- I shouldn't.

And then I do it anyway. I tell myself that I'll pretend to be sorry afterwards.

If I have to.

next

Brian gets the green light.

2010-01-26T09:20:00.000-08:00

I never admitted that me and Brian were friends, until the thing with Sooner happened.

Brian was always waiting outside my dorm, waiting for me to come outside, waiting for us to go to dinner together, waiting to show me how he wasn't going to decapitate me with snowballs.

On this particular day, he was outside, tossing a football around with one of the senior guys, who we all called "Sooner".

As soon as I stepped outside, Sooner saw me, winked, and told Brian, "Hey man, go long, and I'll throw it to you." Brian took off running, and when he got about five feet from Sooner, Sooner threw the football and hit Brian in the back of the head.

Normally, I probably would've cracked up laughing, and part of me actually had to snort back laughter a little bit, because remembering that shit is funny.

At that time, I was fucking pissed. Sooner was a complete dick, and thought he was God's gift to a vagina.

I went over to where his football was just sort of rolling around on the sidewalk, and picked it up.

I took that football, and kicked the shit out of it. I remember feeling such an intense satisfaction as I watched it sail away, and land right in the fucking dumpster.
Then, I turned around, and said in the most scornful voice I could muster, "You're a dirtbag."

Sooner turned and walked away, and I watched him go, while Brian came over to where I was. He looked at me, with what I thought was gratitude at my dickery on his behalf.

Instead, he said, "Um, Sal...That was my football."

----

2010-01-25T14:52:00.000-08:00

That whole summer, when I didn't know where you guys were, when you just disappeared off the face of the earth, I heard that song.

Everywhere.

When I let my guard down.

When my guard was up.

When I had just started relaxing at a party, three beers into the evening.

When he told me he loved me for the first time.

When I found myself aching inside so much that it felt like the grief would claw its way out of my heart.

That song kept me hoping. It kept me trying. It kept me going on.
It became a friend, a confidant, and no matter where I went that summer, it was never far from me. So, I wasn't really alone.

I made myself believe that every single time I heard it, it was a note from you, telling me not to stop believing. It was you reaching out, the breeze blowing my hair away from my face, telling me that you were alive, even though nobody had heard from you.

It was the lifeline I clung to.

And it brought you home.

Words of love?

2010-01-22T09:01:00.000-08:00

"Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love."
~Hamlet's letter to Ophelia

What if there were no more words?

I remember thinking that, one night when the hour was none, when I was just laying in my bed, listening to the soft, secret sound of the rain.

When you're alone, rain can sound like the beginning of a loneliness that reaches toward forever. It can be cold, and unforgiving.

When you're with someone, when you love, rain takes on a whole different meaning. It's a long sigh of contentment, it's the two of your bodies together in a warm house, safe and sleepy and together.

I could feel him shift behind me, and pull me close. I remember smiling, knowing that his body was right there behind me, that the rain was falling outside, and it was our secret.

I felt my eyes burn a little, my throat tightened with appreciation at what I had lying next to me. I was so grateful in that moment, so happy, that I couldn't sleep. I didn't want it to slip away. I wanted to savor it, to appreciate it for everything it was. I wanted to listen to the rain, to the soft sounds of him sleeping, sharing the night with me, loving me. With those thoughts at the top of my mind, I fell asleep.

----

The next day when we were watching tv, I turned it off. I just couldn't shake this idea, so I said to him, "If we could never say another word to each other again, if that happened, do you think you'd still know that I love you?"

He looked at me, seriously thinking about it. Finally, he nodded. "And if I could never talk, I'd want you to know that I love you just as much," he added, "probably more," he grinned at me.

So I said it. I asked him to go along with an idea I had. I expected him to laugh, because it was laughable, but when I said it, his eyes were thoughtful, and he agreed.

We'd refer to it as the quiet game.

The first time, it was only for the space of about twenty minutes. Neither one of us could talk, but we could laugh. Telling me I couldn't laugh was like telling me I couldn't breathe.

It kind of became our thing.

I know it sounds silly, but it was anything but. The idea was to convey what you were feeling with no words. Sounds easy, right?

It wasn't.

The first time we just kind of sat there and looked at each other. Laughing, mostly. But, after awhile, it was a game we played together. Often.

----

The most memorable time for me was the time we had a fight. We had that fight, the kind that can end a relationship. We just couldn't get past it, and neither one of us was willing to leave it alone.

Afterwards, we were both emotional.

He took my hand, and said, "Let's play the quiet game." I nodded. As fragile as things were between us, words were too easy to use to cut each other.

He got up, turned on the cd player in his apartment, and played me this song:

It was the first time I'd heard that particular song, and as the song played, I remember my eyes filling up with tears, the way they're filling up right now.

Sometimes he just didn't understand, but sometimes it was like he could see into that place in my heart, the place where I keep all my secrets.

He sat on the couch next to me, took my hand, and placed it firmly over his heart, covering it with his own. I could feel the strong, steady beat. It was a promise, it was his silence telling me everything important. I stopped listening to the jagged beat of words in my head, and I listened with my heart instead.

He didn't always say the right thing, sometimes there just aren't words, I've since learned. It was what he said with his silence, with touches of his hand, his eyes saying everything that his mouth couldn't.

So, I did the only thing I could do. I took his other hand, and put it over my heart.

We didn't need words, we never did. I'd forgotten that sometimes words can negate love. So, he reminded me.

We said our apologies with our eyes, with our hands. We said our 'I love yous' with each beat of our hearts. Our silence was the beginning of forgiveness.

Admiral Brian Obvious, of the S.S. Oblivious

2010-01-20T16:29:00.001-08:00

After we fell down the hill together, Brian ended up pulling up a chair to my friend's table in the cafeteria. Very much uninvited.

He even managed to seem completely oblivious to the hostile stares of everyone else around him, and demolished his breakfast. Uncomfortable silence didn't faze him a bit, and when he left he even threw a cheery, "See ya!" over his shoulder.

The next morning he was waiting outside my dorm. When I saw him, I just instinctively cringed, and then flipped him off with both hands.

I heard Mrs. Chang say from behind me, "If you don't have better things to do with your hands, I can find you a mop, Sal," I put my fingers down, at least until she turned her back, and then gave her a double helping, too.

Instead of beating me down with snowballs, he just walked alongside me, to breakfast.

That was how it started. With breakfast.

----

After that first day, it became routine. Brian was always waiting outside to walk me to breakfast.

At lunch time, he'd find me, and sit with me. Dinner, same.

It even got to where my friends and I would wait on him if he was late. We'd save him a seat at our table, and he became one of us. Little freshman Brian, sitting at the grown folks table.

Now, don't go thinking that he was all sweet and sensitive. He wasn't. He was a turd. An obnoxious, oblivious turd, and his retardery knew no bounds.
But he tried. He honestly tried, so we all kind of took him in, and tried to help him out.

He just kind of grew on me, and I wanted to see him do well. So, I'd just tie on his bib when he got messy, I'd remind him that his first two fingers were not a substitute for a spoon, and that telling a girl she had a camel toe never went anywhere good.

He eventually progressed from these little crayons of social etiquette to pencils, occasionally backsliding like any sinner. He graduated (although very slowly) from a booster seat to an actual chair.

Looking back, those are some of my best memories. Of Brian losing his training wheels.

----

Somewhere around 18, I think.

2010-01-19T08:22:00.000-08:00

Boarding school. Senior Year.

On this particular day, it was snowing. I'd just started walking back to the dorms with my friend Mary. We were both carrying soft drinks, feeling pretty good, and throwing the occasional snowball at boys.

About twenty feet from the girls dorms, it happened. A snowball hit me right in the jaw.

Now, it wasn't a love tap kind of snowball hit and run. It was more like Chuck Norris summoned all his roundhouse kicking skills into snowball form and smashed it into my jaw.

It hurt.

I didn't cry like a little girl, I didn't say how badly it hurt. I went from surprised, to hurt, to livid in the span of about 2.5 seconds.

Everything in my field of vision turned red. It was like having Terminator vision. I was scanning...scanning...scanning...

And then I saw him, running away from me. I had no thoughts at this point, other than to catch him, and maybe punch him a little.

I remember running after him, seeing my hand reach out, almost enough to grasp the back of his jacket, and then he disappeared into the boys dorm.

Instead of letting it go, I waited outside behind one of the pillars. I'm not sure how much time passed. Ten minutes, fifteen, maybe? It didn't matter. The anger that I felt didn't quiet, it didn't leave, it didn't let go. It had its own demands. Mostly, that I wait for him to come out. In return, it kept me warm.

----

My patience paid off. I saw the door open, and as he trotted down the steps from the dorm, I was ready for him. I'd pulled the lid off my coke, and just as he turned around, he got a faceful of soda, not to mention pellets of ice bouncing off his face and jacket like buckshot.

I then turned and ran for my dorms, laughing uncontrollably. The satisfaction of seeing his complete surprise, seeing those big pellets of ice bounce off his face and nose...his face colored with coke (and surprise) was out-fucking-standing.

I made it in my dorm, laughing, out of breath, when I heard someone yell behind me "Hey!"

I turned around, and he was standing there, in the doorway, snowball packed in his hand.

He threw it, and just as it left his hands, I did the only thing I could think to do. I fell to the floor, crumpling up like a paper sack.

He didn't hit me with the snowball, but his projectile hit one of our matrons, Mrs. Chang. It smacked right into one of those artillery shells she called tits.

She ended up chasing after him, but he got away.

----

Mary and I ended up talking about the incident with that boy before lights out. We were still laughing about it, when my friend Jan happened into our room.

Jan was so tiny, she was like a little bird. Fragile, but perfect.
I'd started calling her Magpie, because everything about her was just birdlike and adorable. The way she'd chatter happily, or cock her head to the side when she was listening to you, it was all of these things that had me convinced she had a birdbath hidden somewhere in her room.

Anyway, she'd come by to remind me to get her for breakfast in the morning. After she'd made me promise three or four times, she left.

----

When my friends and I had all collected in the lobby to go for breakfast, I still somehow managed to forget Jan. I ran back to get her, while my friends shuffled out the front lobby to wait for us.

When we were walking to catch up with my friends, Jan chattering happily about something or the other, I saw him. The snowball assassin.

Jan was in front of me, the door open, and I saw him wind up and throw.

All I could think was Jan's poor little tiny fragile bird bones taking one of those snowballs to the face. I reached out, grabbed the back of her coat and yanked her out of the way with one hand,

and grabbed the lobby doors with the other, yanking the door closed, where the two snowballs (one about 5'9, and one about five nothing--magpie sized) smashed against the glass.

Mrs. Chang heard those snowballs hit, and she took off after him.

I looked over at Jan, who was sprawled next to a potted ficus. I reached down, and helped her up. "Thanks, Sal," she said, meaning 'thanks for not letting me get tagged by a snowball.'

I figured that the guy was probably on his way to breakfast, so I let my guard down a little.

When we'd just gotten to the football field, he jumped out from behind a building, a snowball in each hand.

My friends just scattered. Screaming. I didn't blame 'em.

He threw both snowballs, one hit me in the chest, and instantly ignited my rage. Again.

I ran forward, meaning to tackle his ass to the ground, and I think he was pretty surprised about that, because he just stood there.

When I was about three feet from him, I jumped, grabbing for his midsection. It was at this exact moment that he stepped back, and my aim was off. Instead of grabbing him around his chest, my grip slipped to just above his waist.

This caused him to fall, and just like anyone who's falling, he reached out for me.

Plus, we were standing at the top of the hill leading to the football field. A big fucking hill.

It was all of these factors, that turned my fail tackle into me and him, falling down that hill, together.

My hands were fisted into the fabric of his coat, his hands were gripping my shoulders to break his fall.

As we fell, embracing each other, it started our tumble down the hill. At this point, all we could do was cling blindly to each other.

I remember seeing the white of the sky, hearing a crunch, smelling a Coca-Cola soaked jacket, a whisper of fabric, thud. White, crunch, coke, whisper, thud. All the way down the hill.

My blood was up so much, that it was strangely exhilarating. Was I enjoying myself?

When we finally made it to the bottom of the hill, I was laughing, and so was he.

He reached down, and helped me up. Our little roll down the hill had lasted maybe twenty seconds, but it was enough time for us to stop hating each other.

Even though he reminded me of Tarzan, with his blurting issues and apish ways, in that instant, he started to grow on me.

Eighth grade me was heavily into the almighty brown bag.

2010-01-13T17:46:00.000-08:00

Embarassment trading cards. That's how I think of them. And let me tell you, I have quite the collection.

Some of my best came from my 8th grade year forward. Eighth grade was when I picked up a best friend we'll call Jasmine.

Jasmine became my best friend, because she was one of the funniest girls I knew. We could just look at each other from across the room, and start laughing.

I blame that friendship on the power of laughter. Because, other than that, it had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Unless you count constant humiliation. And even that was better than sitting in the lunch room alone.

In fact, it was more like the relationship between Charlie Brown and Lucy. Jasmine was always encouraging me to kick the shit out that football. And she was damn good at it.

"Come on, Sal," she'd say, "I promise I'm not going to pull it away at the last minute. Just kick it, and then we'll go to the laughing part. Okay?"
And like that naive, trusting soul I was, I'd go for that goddamn football everytime. And afterwards, she'd laugh. Laugh, and laugh, and then laugh some more.

----

Our freshman year, I had a crush on this boy named Brad. I'd get up every single morning, look at myself in the mirror, and check my outfit to see if it was Bradworthy. I'd even stand on the tub in the bathroom so I could check my outfit from head to toe. I mean, you never knew if maybe the Nikes I was wearing would seal the deal with Brad or not. I couldn't take the chance that they might throw him off. Maybe he was an Adidas man. Anyway...

Somehow, Jasmine got the information out of me about Brad. She promised not to tell anyone. She even pinky-sweared. Which meant that she probably waited all of an hour before telling someone else.

She even offered to go up to bat for me, to see if Brad had any interest.

After a long conversation about it in gym class, where I admitted every look, every moment of eye contact, the time he held open a door for me, and oh yeah, that one time he said "Hi, Sal," but probably meant, "Hey, Sal, I love you," she agreed that yeah, he probably liked me.

This investigative process of hers took all of about a week. Jasmine was good. She even spent time with Brad, what looked like flirting, but was probably her just doing a good job. She even went so far as to spend time with Brad's cousin, who was his closest friend.

She'd keep up the encouragement, too. She'd say, "He's looking at you, Sal, I can see him!" And we'd giggle, and I would deliberately not make eye contact. Because the way to show you really like a boy is by pretending that you do not like him at all. Right, fellas?

So, Thursday morning, after my first couple of classes, imagine my complete surprise, when I found a note in my locker. From Brad.

My heart just about stopped. When I could breathe again, I opened the letter as if it was made of butterfly wings instead of a sheet of college ruled paper. He even tore the edges off. After I noticed his attention to detail, I opened the letter, my heart beating so loud I thought everyone could hear it.

I even looked behind me to make sure no one was reading the Brad letter. When I opened it up, the first thing I noticed was that he spelled my name right. My face immediately went red hot. I crushed that letter to my chest, swooning. He spelled my name right....sigh.

When I was finally able to read the rest of the letter, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was Brad asking me to be his girlfriend. Me, Sal! And he wanted me to leave a note in his locker with my answer.

Before I started drafting my reply (on pink paper, no less) I showed the letter to Jasmine. She grabbed it out of my hands and read it, then started jumping up and down in excitement for me. She even managed to find out what Brad's locker number was, since he didn't put it in the letter.

So, after I'd written a very gushy acceptance letter, I walked over to Brad's locker, and slid that note in.

Then, for the next two classes, I practiced writing our names together. With hearts.

Sal and Brad. Brad and Sal. Mr. and Mrs. Brad Sal.

I even started this little daydream where Brad pulled up to my house (neither of us was old enough to drive yet. I dreamed big, even back then) in a convertible, and we drove off to the Sonic, and we had a brown bag special. Because a) I live in Oklahoma and that is the epitome of redneck romance, b) two burgers and fries in one bag is pretty much the sign of commitment, and c) they made fancy drinks. With vanilla and cherry and shit.

My daydream was rudely interrupted, when Brad came over to me during class. He sat in the desk in front of me, turned around and told me that he wasn't the one who left that note in my locker. And that he didn't want to be my boyfriend.

That burn was so epic, I'm still buying aloe for it.

When he said those words, I looked over at my best friend, who had somehow pulled off this terribly embarassing prank of epic proportions. She was hands down, the queen of manipulation. She'd masterminded this whole thing, and then just sat back and enjoyed the show. My best friend, who was now laughing, and even managed to choke out a "I can't believe you fell for that, Sal!"

Yes. I fell for it. What's worse, is that bitch talked me into kicking that fucking football at least two more times.

Two more times was all it took, and then instead of the football, I kicked her ass to the curb. Dropped her like a bad habit. And I did not relapse.

The end.

Blackbird Song (7)

2010-01-12T12:14:00.000-08:00

[Narrarator]

His name is Professor Michaels, and he takes a special interest in Jared.

Every great once in awhile, a "Jared" will show up in one of his classes. He (or she) is ornery, witty, charismatic, and in an almost offhand way, like an afterthought, a p.s., a pause, just has this--spark.

For this Jared, mostly, it's in his eyes.
He's early twenties, but his eyes are so much older. As if they've seen things, experienced things that most people his age have to have a few more years on them to comprehend.
He glows more brightly than the rest of the students, and has an answer for everything. He's a wiseass, but he grows on you.

----

[Jared]

Professor Michaels. Man, he was tough. He was tough, but he was fair. Smart as the devil, and persuasive as hell.

He was completely together, laid back, and almost invincible. Nothing got by him. He had this genius mind, and cop's eyes. Those eyes demanded the truth.
He could smell a lie, like a shark scenting blood in the water. Believe me, you'd rather chance the shark. Michaels would cut off your cock and leave you for dead, while smiling his polite, cocktail party smile.

I was late for his class once. Once. That's all it took, even though his class was at the impossibly early hour of eight o'clock. He hated lateness. Said it was disrespectful.

On this particular morning, I was hungover and just hoping to quietly sneak into his classroom, thinking that maybe, just maybe...he hadn't seen me...

As I slipped into a desk, congratulating myself on my sneakiness, his back to me, Michaels said, "So glad you could stop by, Mr. Boone. And that cologne. Magnificent. What do you call that? Is it Anheiser, or Miller?"

I knew that the quickest way to end this was just to tell the truth. "Jager," I sighed, hoping that he'd lose interest in me.

"Very nice. And you wear it so well," his voice not just laced, but dripping with sarcasm, "And what kept your attention so early this morning, that you are," he glanced down at his watch, "thirty minutes late? I'm sure we'd all love to hear what was so fascinating." He folded his hands, and cocked his head, ready to listen.

I tried to think of something, anything, but the only thing that I had in my hungover mind was the truth. So, I took a deep breath and went with it.

"I woke up in the road." I heard a few laughs from the back of the room. Michaels raised an eyebrow, "You're lucky you didn't freeze." His tone indicating exactly the opposite.
I continued on, "I was in a car, with a girl I've never seen. We were both naked. It wasn't my car, but the keys were there, so I drove here."

"The car's still parked outside," I offered.

"Well, I hope you at least covered her body," he remarked, and then went on with the lesson. And that was that.

A few weeks into the semester, he'd become a mentor of sorts to me. He had great insight into the heart of just about anything. He managed to see things, to have this perspective that most people were lacking.

Before I knew it, I'd come to him about the things in my own life. We'd talk, he'd tell me these stories about how he grew up, and I realized one day, that when you meet a man like Michaels, the man who should've been my father, I couldn't call him that. I couldn't make him my father, no matter how much I wanted to, so I did the only thing I could do. I made him my friend instead.

He would've probably said something meaningful, maybe reminded me that family doesn't end with blood. Or maybe if he knew what I was thinking, he probably would've told me he wanted a daughter just like me.

After awhile, I recognized his sarcasm for what it was. That was the way he showed me that he cared.
If he cared about you, you got the sarcasm. If he didn't, you got nothing. On the whole, the sarcasm was much better.

If it wasn't for Michaels, I never would've met Jenna.

Looking back, that doesn't surprise me one bit. The punishment he created with that wickedly logical mind of his managed to give me the one thing I never knew I was missing. Almost as if he planned it. Even better, was the lesson there. That sometimes, out of the worst moments in our life, we find exactly what we never knew we were looking for. Without the pain of regret, the reward of happiness just wouldn't taste as sweet.

Maybe he did plan it. I wouldn't put it past him.

----

next

Blackbird Song (6)

2010-01-11T10:15:00.000-08:00

[Jared]

I decided to leave to go get pizza, so I could give her a chance to put herself back together. Shower, maybe. Call Mike, probably. And maybe to try to figure out exactly what happened between us. And maybe so she could figure out what she wanted to do about Mike.

I remember getting in her car, and just sitting in there. Surrounded by her. I wanted to replay everything in my mind, to examine it, to relive it. I wanted to just live in what we had, even if that's all that would ever be--past tense.
For one brief moment she was mine. I just kept seeing those eyes, the trust in them, that fierce tenderness, her hunger, that need.

She wasn't mine, though. She wasn't mine, no matter how much I wanted her to be.

Resolutely, I put those images away, and started the car.

----

When I got back, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing only a towel, one hand touching the side of her mouth, eyes intent on the movie she was watching. One of her favorites, although she was more of a Reservoir Dogs kind of girl. Never Been Kissed. She'd even made me watch it a time or two.

When she heard me come in, I saw her eyes find her lap, then she looked back to the tv screen.

----

Over pizza, she told me what happened.

I expected it to get ugly.

"When I woke up this morning, he was in the shower," she began. I breathed a deep sigh, if I was listening, then I wasn't thinking about the taste of her mouth.

"I decided to check my email on his laptop, to take my mind off of how badly I needed to pee, and so I could send you a message. My phone was completely dead."

"I read his messenger messages. Maybe that was my intention in the first place," she laughed ruefully, her eyes looking up at me, "maybe I wanted to find something. Anyway, I did find something. His ex-wife. In this hotel, no less."

"She sent him a cutesie fucking message about last night. And blah, blah, blah, her room number. So, I went. I had to see for myself," she said, her voice breaking, "I just had to fucking see for myself. Because that couldn't be happening, Jared. He couldn't want to fuck his ex-wife, especially after everything that she's done. He couldn't want to do that, especially after making me wait a whole year."

"I found her room. Part of me just wanted to walk away, because I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like what was on the other side of that door."

"I ended up standing outside for like, ten minutes. Finally, I knocked. I covered the peephole first, though."

"Want to know what she said?" "She said, 'Back for more?," Jena's tear choked voice managed to make out the rest of the sentence, "MORE! Can you fucking believe that? So, I left."

"I couldn't think of what to do next. I walked around to the Blackbird, and I sat inside and just cried. I cried until I couldn't breathe. I cried until it hurt. When I was able to stop crying, I came here. I just-- I just needed you."

And, incredibly, she laughed. Even as she wiped the last tears out from under her eyes, she laughed. I jerked my eyes back to her face, expecting more tears, maybe lingering sadness, but she was laughing. It wasn't bitter, and it wasn't caustic, it was her real, honest laugh.

She leaned over into me, still holding her slice of pizza. "When I saw his ex-wife, I thought how ugly she made me feel. How small. How...ordinary. She's this beautiful, blonde, perfect Barbie of a woman. Even at eight in the morning. I bet she doesn't even shit. That it's somehow...beneath her," Jenna mused. "That hurt. This whole big shitty mess--hurts. I'm going to cry a lot, Jared. I'm going to drink my feelings, and I'm going to be angry, and I'm going to probably eat my weight in chocolate. But as long as you're here," her eyes went to her hands, "as long as you're here," she looked up at me, tears in those beautiful dark eyes, the kind of eyes that will always be the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen, as dark as midnight, and as beautiful as forever, "I think I'll figure out how to be okay."

----

When she looked into my eyes again, she looked calm. Radiant. Not happy, but the worst had passed. She would still let out a shaky I-just-cried-really-hard breath, and her eyes were puffy, but she had this quiet acceptance. Grace. She was gathering up the broken pieces. She wasn't ready to try to piece them together, but she wasn't trying to cut anyone else with them, either. She was dealing with this in a way no one I knew, man or woman, would've been able to.

----

When we finally went to sleep later that night, she leaned into me, her fingers finding mine in the dark, and whispered, "When I watched the ending of Never Been Kissed earlier today, it made me sad. I wanted to cry."

"When Josie's standing on that plate, waiting, and waiting, and waiting, I felt like that. Only my happy ending didn't show up. I was left waiting on that mound, with no time left on the clock," she paused, the silence growing louder, until she finally spoke again, "that's the worst feeling. Being left."

"But then, when I was trying to figure out what to do next, I knew that there was one person I could count on. But since Jesus is in heaven," she laughed, "and busy... I knew I could let myself come to you, and that you'd be there.
"Thank you," she said, her voice breaking a little. "If I didn't have you, I don't know what I'd do right now. And just like the song says, I could not ask for more. Nite, Jared."

----

next

Blackbird Song (5)

2010-01-10T14:59:00.000-08:00

I tell you love, sister, it's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
Kiss away, kiss away

[Jared]

I put my hands on her shoulders, so I could hold her, I knew that she probably wasn't thinking clearly, I swear, I just meant to hold her.

Being that close to her, I could feel how warm she was, her skin was so warm, and the moment my palm touched her face, to wipe those tears away, tears of shame, for which she had no reason to feel, I was lost.

One moment, I was telling myself that this is as far as it would go, that I wouldn't take advantage of her pain, I wouldn't do that to her. Even as I was making this promise to myself, I found those lips, those beautiful heart shaped lips, those lips that had offered what she couldn't say. She asked me. She wanted me. And I kissed her. I kissed her, and I lost myself.

I lost all my good intentions, I lost everything but the sweet taste of her, the silk of her hair under my hands, the strong beat of her heart.

I couldn't get enough of her. I could not get enough of her. I kissed her, I touched her, and it wasn't enough. She made forever seem like an instant.

What I wanted to say to her was "tell me, tell me how I can make it good for you, tell me what you need, so I can give it to you, I want to make it beautiful for you, I want to give you everything, anything, you're beautiful, you make me ache, you make me want, I can't get enough of you, I'm drowning in you."

I wanted to say those things. I wanted her to know just how beautiful she was, I wanted all that, but the only thing I could say was her name.

i held her hands so tight
'cause words don't come out right
and she sees things at night

me, i'm closer to the door
i don't get scared no more
but i don't know the score

if i could hold them in my hand
i'd make them understand

i'd do it if i could
i hope you know i would

i'd do it if i could
i hope you know i would

i'd do it if i could
i hope you know i would

i'd do it if i could
i hope you know i would

next

Blackbird Song (4)

2010-01-10T12:28:00.000-08:00

[Jared]

As much as I wanted to tell her that I loved her, I couldn't. See, there was this obstacle. A big obstacle. His name was Mike, and he was Jenna's boyfriend.

Even better, he seemed to be a pretty great guy. He was in Iraq, shooting children, burning shit, hell, he was probably making sure every Iraqi child had their own kitten, from the way Jenna talked about him.

So, I came into the whole Jenna/Mike movie into the middle, and tomorrow is the day that Mike comes back. Somehow, she'd talked me into going with her to meet him at the airport.

She wanted me to drive with her, keep her company on the two hour drive. I wanted to say no, I wanted to find some excuse, (diahrrea would work) but when she looked at me, and said "please?" I never even hesitated. I said yes.

----

I had just finished burning a cd for her when she burst into my house. She had this look, this excited, happy... fuck, call it a glow, because that's what it was. She was almost on fire, she was so happy.

I stood up, and as soon as I did, she ran toward me. When she was about three feet away, she jumped and wrapped herself around me. A full body Jenna hug.
I laughed, and hugged her back, trying to will myself not to have an erection, thinking about those long legs wrapped around me.

When she finally let me go, I handed her the cd I'd burned for her. It was all the songs I knew she loved, the ones that made her sing, and I needed that if I was going to prepare myself for this Mike guy.

For at least another two hours, she was going to be just mine, and I wanted to sit in that passenger seat, storing up images of her, happy, singing, and for the next two hours--just mine. Me, her, and the blackbird, with no Mike in sight.

----

Jenna ended up loving the cd. I was pretty sure she would.

The first song was one that I'd heard her sing many times, but it never got old. She would really get into it, fist-pumping, hitting the high notes, and her voice almost became the singer's.

When this song came on, she rolled down the window, yelled "Whooo Hooo!!!!!!!!!" out the window. "Now don't you wait, or hesitate. Let's move before they raise the parking rate" she sang along, her voice becoming husky and sweet, splintering the words the same way the singer did.

"I said "Slow, don't go so fast, don't you think that love can last?"
She said, "Love, Lord above,
now you're tryin' to trick me in love."

I happened to look over at the speedometer, and Jenna saw me looking. She shrugged one shoulder and said "My baby feels like going fast today." And that was that.

When her hand found mine a few songs later, I told myself that it was just her excitement to see Mike, spilling onto me. She didn't even seem to notice our fingers intertwined that way, but i found it impossible to think of anything else.

----

I thought I had prepared myself for meeting Mike, but there was no preparing that I could do for seeing him swing her into his arms, seeing her kiss him. They fit together so perfectly, I felt like I was trespassing on their moment. I'd never felt so alone, so single, so unattached, as seeing him touch her hair, and seeing her eyes closed, tears spilling over, the emotion that he created within her.

I just wanted to get away from them as quickly as possible, and go straight to drunk, with no side stops.

I drove back to the hotel with them, then told Jenna that I was going to hit up some of the clubs that were close. I pasted a big grin on my face, showing just how alright I was.

----

After the fifth shot, everything else is a blur. I remember laughing, throwing up, and then I woke up in my room. My head felt about three sizes too big, and I smelled like well used Jack Daniels. After I crunched through three aspirin, I decided I needed to shower off some of the stink.

When I was toweling off, I heard my laptop. I hadn't remembered starting my playlist, but apparently I had. Gimme Shelter. Not bad.

If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away

I started singing along, and then I saw her.

----

I almost didn't recognize her. I'd never seen her eyes look so sad, so wrecked, so completely hurt. If this is what pain did to her, I never wanted to see it again. Just seeing her like that, broken, aching, brought tears to my own eyes.

She had mascara smeared under her eyes, and there were tear tracks down both cheeks. She seemed completely unaware of it, and even if she was aware, I had the idea that she really didn't give a fuck.

Before I could say one word, she said, "It's over." The words fell from her lips like stones. I could feel the weight they brought, the pain, and as much as I loved her, I never wished for this.

She stood up, walked over to where I was standing in the doorway of the bathroom. "It's over," she repeated dully, as if I hadn't heard, "I'm so sad, I feel like I'm broken into a thousand pieces."

Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way

"I waited for him. A whole year, Jared. A whole, fucking year."

As much as I wanted to say something, to comfort her, I couldn't think of two words to put together. Her pain had stolen every word, her hurt, her grief was so big it consumed everything.

"I spent that whole last year just waiting. Doing everything in my power to make things better for him. I-- I waited, I wanted, I needed. But I told myself that I'd get through it, that when he got back, we'd make up for everything."

War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away

She continued on, her eyes never leaving mine, "And the thing is, I'm so angry, and I'm hungry, and I'm pissed the fuck off. That's not the best part. Or the worst part. Or whatever. The worst part is that I've waited a whole fucking year to have sex," this drew a bitter laugh out of her. "That's the one thing that pisses me off the most. And that's all I can think about."

One single tear rolled down her cheek as she said that last part. She looked at me, seemed to look into me, and her voice became a whisper. "Don't make me ask you," she said, her voice filled with tears, "Please don't make me ask you."

For the first time, her eyes left mine and she looked down at her hands, as a tear trickled down her cheek.

"Don't make me ask."

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Blackbird Song (3)

2010-01-08T13:29:00.000-08:00

[Jared]

"Have you ever seen Mannequin?"
After I finished laughing, she was still looking at me. "No, seriously, Jared, have you ever seen that movie?"
I shrugged, and admitted that yes, I had seen Mannequin. "Good," she sighed out, "because that's kinda what love is like. The right person comes along, and just sort of makes you come to life. One day, you're standing in a department store window, being dressed by Hollywood, then your Jonathan comes along, and brings you to life. That's what love is like. My version of it, anyway.
One day you're just standing in a department store window, everyday bleeding into the next, until you can't tell the days apart. Then, if you're lucky, and really, really brave, you take that chance, you take everything you're feeling, those emotions that make your heart beat faster, those emotions that take you from nothing to everything. You take those emotions, and you do the only thing you can. You have to say it, you have to say it, because it becomes a part of who you are. That's love."

I looked at her while she was telling me this, and the thing that I have to tell you is that she was so many things. She was this mixture of sentimental and ridiculous. Even as I listened her explain what love was like, as absurd as using a movie like that to explain her feelings, I couldn't help but be touched by it. She was so naive sometimes, so worldly at others. She was this mixture of all these qualities that you couldn't help but be amazed at. All these wonderful qualities existed in one person. Sometimes it made me dizzy.

She wasn't what you'd consider beautiful. She was only a step or two up from being plain.

If you saw a picture of her, your eyes would skate across it and dismiss it. In person, it was so much different. In person, once you saw her, you could barely tear your eyes away. Everything about her drew your eyes, your senses. She was so appealing, and not just to men. To everyone.

One of the other girls I knew, Liz, was absolutely beautiful. One look at her, and you were on your way to falling in love. She had this gorgeous red hair, big gray eyes fringed with long, thick lashes.
The funny thing is, the longer I knew Jenna, the more I started to notice about her. Just the little things. Her radiant smile, her laugh, the way it was like a boomerang-- it started off quiet, and got loud, and then boomeranged back to being quiet.
I heard her laughing, and happened to glance over at her leaning against Liz's desk. And just for a moment, when she was laughing, she made Liz look average. She outshone the most beautiful girl, simply by being Jenna.

As far as love goes, she had it absolutely right. As she explained that to me, in that moment, my heart no longer belonged to me.
In that moment, Jenna stole my heart away like an experienced pickpocket. She took it, transferred my heart from me to her, and I never even felt the exchange.
It had been building in me for a long time now, but that was the moment it all clicked together. The dancing light in those golden brown eyes, the way I felt better simply by being around her, the way I looked forward to every moment with her. I knew it must be love. Take it away, Etta.

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Blackbird Song (2)

2010-01-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

[Jared]

She used to say that she spent most of her time driving around, because it was easier to hear the Blackbird's song that way. She firmly believed in it, as if it was a real thing, something tangible, like wringing water from a wet cloth.

She believed in it the same way she believed that flipping her t-shirt inside out gave it a 'b-side'. As in "I like the a-side of this shirt, but the b-side is much better."

----

The first time she said that particular phrase to me, about the song of the blackbird, I didn't understand what she meant. I just looked at her, gauging her expression, wondering if she was joking. I didn't know then what she could possibly mean by the blackbird's song. Understanding would come later.

----

The blackbird was her baby. It was this shiny, black vintage thunderbird. It was never 'the thunderbird' or 'my car', it was simply the blackbird, or the 'bird. As in "Hey, you wanna go get a few beers? We can take the 'bird."

We spent our weekends driving around in that car, the engine a warm rumbling purr, ready to take us anywhere.

Blackbird time was different than regular time. The time we spent in that car, listening to the wind come in over the windows, listening to classic rock, sometimes singing along, sometimes content to just enjoy the quiet rhythym, why, that time we spent listening to the blackbird. Listening to her song. Jenna said her song wasn't the same for everyone, but if you listened, if you really listened, you'd hear it. Singing just for you.

Sometimes it was looking out the window and falling into your thoughts. Sometimes it was seeing something that made your chest fill up with warm happiness, sometimes being in the warmth of that car was like finding the good things in your life that you'd forgotten you had. The memories that were so long ago, that remembering them was like living them all over again.

Jenna would always say that 'was the power of the Blackbird'. She really believed it. What she didn't realize, what I would've told her, if I could find the words that would make it as beautiful as she deserved was this: it wasn't the blackbird's song she was hearing. It wasn't the blackbird that made that sweetness, like honey and roses and sunshine. No, it was something much more than that. What I wanted to tell her so many times was that there was no Blackbird Song.

That sense of peace that came along on our drives was Jenna. It was always Jenna. That sunshine, that sweetness, was her. She was the warmth of forever. She made you ache in that good way, the way that after the hell you've just been through is over, crying your heart out, only to find it within yourself to laugh, to be filled up, to be made whole.

She was the welcome waiting for you on the other side of the door. She was the embrace that holds you everywhere you needed to be held. She was the feeling of coming home, of loving, of being lost and finding your way. She was like breathing light, she was finding what was lost, she was every good thing you'd never expected to find. She was hope, and truth and everything good and beautiful and pure.

No, that song wasn't the Blackbird's. It was Jenna.

Blackbird Song: Master Post (1)

2010-01-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

The other day, it was snowing. I've always loved the snow, it has a way of blanketing everything, and making it beautiful.

I ended up pulling a chair up to the big window in the living room, and watching those flakes fall.

As I was sitting there, it was almost like I heard a voice. It was small, quiet, but compelling. It (or rather, he) said, "Sal! Hey, Sal. Do you want to hear a story?"

And I did.

----

[Narrator]

The first thing I need you to do is to close your eyes. Sometimes it's easier to see to the heart of things that way, and I don't want you to be distracted. Just close your eyes, and open your heart. Because I want you to listen. There are things you need to hear, and feel.

Listen.

----

[Jared]

I never thought I'd be sitting here, outside of Jenna's house. Just sitting here, trying to find it in me to get out of the truck, to walk up to the door and see her. To look her in the eyes. Trying to find the courage just to look at her.

I won't even try to offer a 'sorry', because that one word never makes things better. Saying it hurts, but having it said to you is much worse. It cuts, and it's never enough.

There are so many things I want to say, but I'll settle for just looking at her. If I look at her, then I'll know if she's happy. I can't say that it won't hurt, and maybe I'll spend the rest of my life looking back and wishing I'd done things differently, but if I know she's happy, I can live with it. I can live with anything if I know that.

----

I remember reading the paper, listenin to my buddy Jack rattling on about his weekend, drinking my coffee, and then paging past the anniversaries, the birth announcements, and seeing her face looking back at me. In the engagement section.

It was like someone had sucker punched me. I was that stunned. All I could hear was my heartbeat, drowning out Jack's words, pounding, as if the silence in my head had been turned up so loud that it was deafening.
Seeing her name, together with another man's name, that was never how this was supposed to work out. I couldn't put the paper down, I read it over three or four times, hoping that somehow I'd misread, misunderstood.

In all the ways I'd pictured it, that had never factored into things. That she might move on, that she might salvage the pieces of her life, that she might make something new, better, something without me, that was something I never even imagined. The fact that it was staring me in the face, coldly, spelled out in black and white made it worse. It made the horror of what can happen real.

I did the only thing I could think to do. I got up, ignoring Jack's questions. I got up, I walked out, and drove until I found myself here. In front of her house.

----

I turned the radio on, hoping for some courage, some song that would set me on my way, maybe something that would calm my madly beating heart.

I remember Jenna, who refused to own an iPod, telling me that she only listened to the radio. "Have you ever noticed," she said, "you can own a cd, but hearing it on the radio makes it sound so much better? It makes you appreciate it. It's a gift."
I smiled to myself, and this is what found me:

When I'm lonely, well I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who's lonely without you
When I'm dreaming, well I know I'm gonna dream
I'm gonna dream about the time when I'm with you
When I go out (when I go out), well I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you
And when I come home yeah I know I'm gonna be
I'm gonna be the man who comes back home with you
I'm gonna be the man who's coming home with you

With the Proclaimers still playing in my ears, I got out of the truck.

----

Her house hadn't changed at all. I saw some kind of big SUV, but there was no sign of the vintage thunderbird she'd driven when I knew her, about a year and a half ago.

It made me wonder, uneasily, what else had changed.

I walked up to the house, knocked, and waited.
And waited.
Finally, I knocked again.

I walked down the steps, feeling heavy, feeling the weight of the decisions I'd made, and just couldn't bring myself to leave. I walked around to the back of the house, hoping. Hoping that maybe she was out here, reading, lounging, and that I might get a glimpse of her.

----

Walking around to the back of the house, I was sure that she didn't live there any longer. For one, there was a swing set. The Jenna I knew didn't want children. Second, there was a woman with long brown hair chasing around a beautiful little red-haired child. Jenna's hair had always been short.
I felt like I didn't belong in this happy backyard suburban scene. I turned to walk away, when I heard her laugh.

Jenna.

I turned back around, and all I had were questions. When did her hair get that long? Was that her child? Was she babysitting?

I was frozen to the spot I was standing. Frozen, watching Jenna, my Jenna.

She ran after the little girl, grabbed her, and the little girl's laughter joined Jenna's. I stood there and watched them, laughing, happy, whole.

She was happy. Someone was making her that happy, and it wasn't me. Sometime in the time that I had left, she had moved on, she'd healed, and seeing her, seeing what I had lost, it all came flooding back.

When someone like that comes into your life, someone that extraordinary, after awhile, you can't remember what your life was like before. I'd find myself wondering how I ever functioned without her.
Jenna coming into my life was like the scene in the Wizard of Oz, when the tornado whisks Dorothy out of the black and white of Kansas, to the glorious technicolor of Oz. That was what Jenna was to me. She was color, she was life, she was hope, happiness, and joy. I was a man of many colors, but Jenna was the motherfucking rainbow.

I didn't so much feel my heart break, as I felt it rip open. I hadn't really been living since I'd left her. Everything in my life had reverted back to Kansas. Black and white.
I was just a stranger, trespassing on her happy moment, feeling the technicolor of Jenna spilling over onto me.

I felt tears, hot, and scalding on my cheeks. They hurt. I felt every single one, felt them burn, and I didn't care. I lost her. I lost my heart, but more importantly, I lost Jenna.

Nothing had been the same since her. Every good thing stemmed from the love she had created in me. I had myself convinced that I'd moved on, but I'd only been lying to myself. I hadn't moved on, I had only taught myself to forget her, I'd closed off that part of myself.

At that exact moment, Jenna looked up and saw me.

She froze. Tension shaded the lines of her body. She didn't smile.

I don't know how long we stood there, our eyes locked, frozen in that backyard. I only know that one minute I was standing there, and the next I was walking away. Then, jogging, and finally, sprinting for my truck.

I managed to make it inside and slam the door, telling myself "She'll run after you. She'll follow you. Any minute, you'll see her."

After twenty minutes had passed, and no Jenna, I somehow made my trembling hands start the truck.

I drove away, constantly looking in the rearview mirror. Still, no Jenna.

----

[A year and a half before]

Baby you're the only one that's ever known how
To make me wanna laugh like I wanna laugh now

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***Special thanks to my good friend, Jerrod, who encouraged me, read my drafts, and gave me the courage to write this

Wilbury's

2010-01-06T10:43:00.000-08:00

So far 2010 has been out-fucking-standing. I just wanted to share a song with all of youse guys today, probably from a band you've never heard of. The Traveling Wilburys. A.k.a Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Jeff Lynne.

I've loved this particular band for many, many years. Today I just happened to run across one of their songs on youtube. Kind of sums it up for me. Enjoy!

Saying goodbye.... Thanks Boston, you've been great.

2009-12-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

I love this song. Just hearing it, I can think of some of the things I got up to when I was still young enough to believe in following my heart, just my heart, and nothing but my heart, which is a lot like closing your eyes and going by what you feel is true. It's like being blind, maybe, but being able to see exactly what you should, without being distracted by things in shiny paper, sparkling lies made up to look like forever. Maybe that's the reason it's so much easier to believe, to have faith in things like Santa, God, that monsters can't get you if you remember to keep your feet under the covers (truth), goodness, anything.

Everything.

Maybe growing up isn't growing wiser, but about trusting what you see instead of what you feel.

---------

I didn't mean to get off on a tangent like that, I've been cooped up for the past week or so, and the introspection sets in. The good part about that is remembering some of the shenanigans of my younger days. I say my younger days, but if caught in an honest moment (like this one), those shenanigans never really stopped. It's a fuckery without end, Amen. And my younger self, claps and laughs with glee. In remembrance of who I was, who I am, and partly, who I always will be.

That younger self, who is now still in there somewhere, that younger version of me who did things that I can now laugh about.

--------

*Digging a 'pool' in my front yard, which as I'm sure you know, my parents just loved. Especially when the pool turned into the great front yard tsunami of '87.

*My aunt telling me that if I looked at a dog's lipstick for too long, I'd go blind. (Btw, Aunt Jamie, I looked. I put on your sunglasses so you wouldn't notice, and I stared at that dog's red rocket for as long as he had it out, and you know what? I see just fine.)

*My grandma telling me that if I swallowed watermelon seeds that I'd grow a watermelon in my tummy. Fail. Screw you, granny. I swallowed seeds like crazy, and when I remembered like a month later (and was pretty pissed), no watermelon. Although, if that was true, I imagine that I'd look like a pregnant six year old, which is awkward. But then again, granny did live in a trailer park, so maybe they would've rewarded me with a carton of marlboros, and a bottle of Boone's farm. Make it Strawberry Hill, please.

-----

It's been such a long time
I think I should be goin', yeah
And time doesn't wait for me, it keeps on rollin'
Sail on, on a distant highway
I've got to keep on chasin' a dream
I've gotta be on my way
Wish there was something I could say.

-----

So, I guess this is my absurd Sal way of saying goodbye to 2009. Like everything that comes to pass, when the year is done, I try to remember it with fondness. I hold it close, giving it one final embrace, a long kiss, then put it to bed. The good times are carefully recalled, inspected, held up to the light like a glass of champagne. Sipped, savored, treasured.

The not so good times put away, the lessons carefully gleaned, put away so that the sharp edges won't cut, like a useful tool you hope you never have to use.

-----

-----

It's been such a long time. It's been such a long time.

Well I get so lonely when I am without you
But in my mind, deep in my mind,
I can't forget about you
Good times, and faces that remind me
I'm tryin' to forget your name and leave it all behind me
You're comin' back to find me.

------------

------------

There's a long road, I've gotta stay in time with
I've got to keep on chasin' that dream, though I may never find it

--------------

And that's where 2010 will find me. Chasing that dream. Like Charlie Brown, I will forever go after that football Lucy is holding. I will always tell myself that this time....maybe this time....it's gonna be this time....I just know it's this time...gotta be this time...for sure, yeah....this is the time...

----------------

It's been such a long time. It's been such a long time.

--------------

2009-12-18T08:39:00.000-08:00

So...lately I've been dreaming about the devil. A lot. Almost nightly. And part of me doesn't even want to admit that, because it's embarrassing.

Because, in my dreams, the devil is my boyfriend.

Yeah. So, there's that.

------

Last night, and pretty much every night, the devil picks me up in this car:

Because that's my favorite car, and I guess, that's just how the devil rolls. In a Dodge Challenger.

The other thing I should mention is that I enjoy his company. I enjoy it way too much, especially since I know who and what he is.

And then, there's the fact that I'm attracted to him, because this is what he looks like. (I blocked his face out, because he's kinda private.)

So, what does one do in the company of Lucifer? Last night we got ice cream. Apparently someone has a real sweet tooth.
I end up asking him, again, why exactly he comes to me in my dreams. Of course, he doesn't really tell me. Apparently my boyfriend is allergic to straight answers.

"You wouldn't believe me. You're convinced that I'm manipulating you in some way. Let's just say that I enjoy your company," he says with an irresistible grin on his face. Which makes me grin back at him, but I do my best to smother it under my hand.

"What should I even call you? Lu? Mephistopheles? Beelzebub?" He ends up laughing at all of these. "What do you want to call me?" I shrug, and let it go. For now.

-------

I'd like to be a note, the kind
You could sing but don't because you're shy
That way I live inside your throat
And hang from every word you...spoke

2009-12-17T11:29:00.001-08:00

My dreams stick with me sometimes, long after I've woken up. Last night was one of those nights.

I dreamed that I met up with one of my old friends, went to spend time with her and her four girls. We watched one of her daughters play soccer, and as I was sitting on a blanket, smiling and happy, he came and sat down beside me.

I don't know who he was, but I felt that I knew him. He sat next to me, put his arm around me and pulled me close. And it was so comfortable, so natural, that it felt like it had always been that way. Me and him.

I remember that anytime I was more than an arms length away, he'd pull me close. How it felt to have his arms there, protecting, encircling me, keeping me near, I can't even begin to put into words. It's like knowing that everything is going to turn out alright, that the good is meant to last for years and years.

We never spoke. We never said one word to each other. I think sometimes words can take away from the moment, can lessen the meaning. Sometimes it's just better to feel. Sometimes what's so beautiful, and so fulfilling is knowing that no words can express the depth of love and contentment you feel inside. Just feeling them is enough.

The best memories are the ones were you simply exist in them, drinking them in, trying to catch every single thread of that brilliance, captured in your memory, to store it away for the future. Maybe to sip it slowly, to savor it, to exist in that one beautiful, perfect beginning, of knowing, of true understanding which is the beginning of love.

The things I felt, the love, the warmth of him, the way his eyes looked into mine and said everytime, without a word "I love you", the promise of forever, the promise of good things, of happy times and memories waiting to be made was one of the most wonderful things I have ever experienced.

And I wanted to share that with you.