Just a morning ago I watched you eat little, round circles in milk. Hair poking out in all directions. Tank top wrinkled from bring wrapped in a loose sheet all night. I could see your smile even with head bowed down to meet the spoon.
You knew I wasn't eating...just watching you.
The tops of your cheeks rising a little higher with each grin you hid from me. Your hair hung just enough over your left eye to make you think I couldn't see.
The spoon would ring the bowl like a bell when you dipped near the sides to catch escaping O's, but silent as snow when you drank the milk from it.
One red lip arching out and holding the bottom of the silver to your tongue.
Pink. white. silver. brown.
Across the table, everything looked a thousand miles away, and so small...
It made me hungry for you. Watching you so distant.
Not being in your mouth.
Selfish desires to take you back to bed spilled out of my head into my eyes.
I was supposed to be eating, you reminded me.
I was supposed to be taking a shower and getting ready to leave.
Instead I sat there watching a drop of milk slide from the side of your lip to the center getting heavier and stretching down. I sat back in my chair to pull my hands from underneath where I had been sitting on them. Reaching out to touch that drop you saw me coming and thought I was up to no good.
Jerking your head back to avoid me was enough to make the milk drop away.
There I sat with my hand reached out to you looking surprised and grinning.
You didn't ask me why.
I didn't say.
I got up and walked to the bathroom hearing your head shake slowly in the morning silence. Or it could have been a cat shaking her paw on the couch in the living room as I passed.
Monday, October 24, 2011
It Was The Other Night
You woke in the dark blue of night and brought me along unwittingly. As I followed you out of the room, still blinking the dreams from my eyelashes, I followed your shadow through the hallway. I turned the corner and saw the lights of the city creating your silhouette. The clouds hung low over the city lights making a warm glow instead of a black canvas. I walked right up behind you and pressed myself against your pajamas to be able to look over your shoulder and out the window. such a strange glow to the night.
I could smell you. Your hair.
Neither of us made a move to acknowledge the other. Just my body pressed against yours. The warmth between us reminded me of little boy fingertips draped over rolls fresh from the oven.
Silence in the hallway interrupted only when someone opened their door letting the sound of a TV escape. Then the silence again. It surrounded us. Your breathing was the next thing I heard, and I wanted to steal it.
Wear it.
Drink it.
Have it someway in my mouth.
It smelled like warm tea and chap-stick.
In that moment as I watched your breath become fog on the window I tried reaching out to take it.
I woke with my arm reaching towards the ceiling. Laying there in my bed. Sweeping my arm out under the blankets searching for you, finding nothing.
I missed you, and I don't know you.
I could smell you. Your hair.
Neither of us made a move to acknowledge the other. Just my body pressed against yours. The warmth between us reminded me of little boy fingertips draped over rolls fresh from the oven.
Silence in the hallway interrupted only when someone opened their door letting the sound of a TV escape. Then the silence again. It surrounded us. Your breathing was the next thing I heard, and I wanted to steal it.
Wear it.
Drink it.
Have it someway in my mouth.
It smelled like warm tea and chap-stick.
In that moment as I watched your breath become fog on the window I tried reaching out to take it.
I woke with my arm reaching towards the ceiling. Laying there in my bed. Sweeping my arm out under the blankets searching for you, finding nothing.
I missed you, and I don't know you.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
A Long, Green, Station Wagon
i never rolled down the window when grandma drove us out to the gathering on thursday nights. it's not like i thought about it. i just wanted to rest my face half on the glass so i could stare non-stop at the whirring-by landscapes. young enough to never lose the neck strength, holding it in that uncomfortable position.
staring out at the ozark mountains big enough to a little boy, but small now to this man's mind.
the white farm houses propped against green, purple, and blue mountains breaking the patterns of fields, yards, farms. mesmerizing to me.
off in the distance little brown bumps of cows wandered through trees while others laid next to muddy ponds waiting for the farmer's tractor horn to beep the call to home. blurry white lines and barbed-wire fences next to half rotten wood fences rolling past, on and on forever.
i would ask myself why? why these fences? they seemed so unnecessary out there. the fields and the crops were so vast a cow, or a person, would be worn out trying to cross it to escape, and to what destiny? with wolves and woodpeckers waiting to take your last breath.
roads out there curved so often and so dramatically, i wondered if we really ever went anywhere or we just drove in circles around the same multicolored hills when at last we'd turn down a dirt road marked by the grain store sign, now mostly brown where the white paint and red letters had faded or peeled off, that signified the only real movement we accomplished.
we made our little, beige, fluffy clouds of dust with the rock popcorn-popping under the car deafening the radio. every second made my mind wander even further off.
the bucolic scene on the other side of the glass moved too quickly out of sight with the radio mumbling words about politics that meant nothing to a country boy like me.
bouncing around inside the wagon as grandma stared straight ahead, i learned to reach my left hand down and hold onto her stack of boxed harmonicas before they'd hit the floor. if i'd let them fall she'd immediately ask me to pick them up anyway breaking the spell of silence being cast over me.
pavlovian training served me well.
just past the canyon, furry with trees and brush, our last turn would announce arrival to the old church. as soon as we turned down that road i would take my head off the window and stare straight ahead at the church, almost hidden in the overgrown oak. anticipation mixed with anxiety.
dried deer bones sticking out of dark fur is what it always looked like to me. the windows not yet illuminated by lights and music. shadows ever unmoving during our approach.
"grandma, they havin' cookies tonight?"
"yes honey. someone always brings cookies."
"not always."
"shane, you weren't even there the time martha didn't bring cookies. i just told you about it."
"just checkin'."
we'd pull right up in front of the church and park partly off the road; since there never was a parking lot made for this place. it's zenith of attendance passing long before cars would come to this neck of the woods.
old, old dirt choking the bright green grass near the front steps swirled as i kicked rocks behind my grandma, walking in with tinfoil covered banana bread. every piece of wood inside had a dull shine, not from being cleaned or waxed, but by being polish-worn. every door creaked and every floorboard groaned, the electric wiring was exposed along with the bent nails holding them to the walls.
the pews had to been made by some carpenter a hundred years ago that believed god wanted you to suffer in as many little ways as possible. sharp angles, bizzare heights and depths in their design proved my case...at least to me. no one else complained, but they were old and grew up with these sorts of things.
no foam seat covers or ergonomic desk sets for these veterans.
old men wandered inside the chapel setting up chairs and instruments while old women jockeyed for display areas on the counter top in the anteway. hot items stored in the corner to keep prying hands from interrupting the serving cycle while appetizers and cookies were granted top access.
knowing better then to make my presence known while the ladies got the treats and sustenance organized i'd hide in the stairwell at the side of the room leading to a basement so dark i never ventured down for fear ghosts and bones coated the floor.
once the rush had passed and the bulk of the group had joined the men inside to tune instruments and talk about the week past i'd casually stroll up to the cookies and get two good handfuls before someone could remind me that candy would spoil this that or the other thing.
the selection was always so similar scanning for what i wanted to sample had become a lost cause. the cheap vanilla cream cookies and the occasional chips ahoy (if on sale) were my only concern. the cakes and the breads would have to wait until everyone was being served.
out the double doors down the stairs and into the fields behind the church i'd go. first to the graveyard to sit in the tall grass and watch the fireflies come as dusk creeped upon this little orb.
the gravestones were so old and worn with rain that reading them was more imagination then careful diction. dates were about the only thing i could ever be sure about...1865...1802...1911...
oh so long ago.
another age. muskets and horses. indians and campfires.
out here in the foothills of the ozarks these were real country folk. born, raised and died without ever crossing paths with Big Brother, social security, or world news. i didn't even know what these things were yet eitheri just thought it was rad that these people lived in houses without electric lights.
the chiggers would bite at my legs as i sat in the grass causing me to rustle and move around sometimes even getting up and walking over to another patch in hopes no little pest families lived there.
never such luck.
colored skies above. chatter and spots of music behind my back. blinking lazy lights surrounded me at head height. seated head height.
heavenly scents of honeysuckle covered the grasses. there were never any stems to pick as the kids living in the big house down the road a stretch passed down this way nearly every single day. it's alright...i used their tire swing all the time.
with just enough light left to see the dirt track leading to the pond under the dark oak i'd make my way to the tire swing.
pulling on the rope half dangling in the water i'd pull the tire to me and climb in and push off.
with the right tempo i could keep swinging for awhile until my ass was asleep from the tire edge cutting in.
i never cast a reflection on the water when i sat in that tire. the water was practically opaque with rotten leaves in the bottom and i never sat in the tire until sunset.
there i would swing and listen to my grandma and her friends strike up an old gospel tune and swing along into a folk song. sometimes i could hear a tired old voice sing out among the strumming, humming, thumping, and blowing.
it comforted me to be in that place as much as it did to lay across my grandma's lap while she slowly scratched strange designs into my skin.
i never was afraid there.
in the dark. over that pond.
i never thought of school or peer pressure. not one concern about my future or the dire situation in the middle east.
just floated in space. timeless.
young.
alone.
kicking my legs i would disembark from the tire and walk down the roads far enough so i couldn't hear the music anymore then i would turn back. my natural way of adjusting the volume in my life.
kicking rocks into the night and scratching alien letters into the dust with sticks found on the side of the road while investigating some sound or another.
at night the dirt road looked white and the trees seemed to be like giant t.v. sets tuned to static with their constant murmurings and shattered pieces of light shining through the leaves.
sometimes i would stare up into their boughs so long i would trip on my own foot or some variation in the ground and fall chest first on the brackish road. spitting away the taste only to punch myself in the arm for being stupid.
then latter enjoying the dirty little country boy look reflected in the tall glass under the lights in the church when i would return for the intermission and warm food.
there in a tight circle their chairs would be: old wood chairs men sit in to whittle; folding chairs from someone's basement; a piano that looked rusty. guitars of various age and use; in the center a wood-burning stove with several handcut pieces cracklin away.
the windows weren't stained glass. they weren't fancy neither, but they were tall and very dirty. the ceiling had the religious vault one always expects but fantastic expanses of exposed timber crossing hither thither and yon. spider webs big enough to catch birds seemed always on the verge of falling down upon me with the sheer amount of dust they held.
it was a church made of the bread of life. simple. strong. necessary. white walls unadorned and strong with hand-hewed lengths of wood still standing strong against the tides of time and nature.
a fort of the spirit.
staring out at the ozark mountains big enough to a little boy, but small now to this man's mind.
the white farm houses propped against green, purple, and blue mountains breaking the patterns of fields, yards, farms. mesmerizing to me.
off in the distance little brown bumps of cows wandered through trees while others laid next to muddy ponds waiting for the farmer's tractor horn to beep the call to home. blurry white lines and barbed-wire fences next to half rotten wood fences rolling past, on and on forever.
i would ask myself why? why these fences? they seemed so unnecessary out there. the fields and the crops were so vast a cow, or a person, would be worn out trying to cross it to escape, and to what destiny? with wolves and woodpeckers waiting to take your last breath.
roads out there curved so often and so dramatically, i wondered if we really ever went anywhere or we just drove in circles around the same multicolored hills when at last we'd turn down a dirt road marked by the grain store sign, now mostly brown where the white paint and red letters had faded or peeled off, that signified the only real movement we accomplished.
we made our little, beige, fluffy clouds of dust with the rock popcorn-popping under the car deafening the radio. every second made my mind wander even further off.
the bucolic scene on the other side of the glass moved too quickly out of sight with the radio mumbling words about politics that meant nothing to a country boy like me.
bouncing around inside the wagon as grandma stared straight ahead, i learned to reach my left hand down and hold onto her stack of boxed harmonicas before they'd hit the floor. if i'd let them fall she'd immediately ask me to pick them up anyway breaking the spell of silence being cast over me.
pavlovian training served me well.
just past the canyon, furry with trees and brush, our last turn would announce arrival to the old church. as soon as we turned down that road i would take my head off the window and stare straight ahead at the church, almost hidden in the overgrown oak. anticipation mixed with anxiety.
dried deer bones sticking out of dark fur is what it always looked like to me. the windows not yet illuminated by lights and music. shadows ever unmoving during our approach.
"grandma, they havin' cookies tonight?"
"yes honey. someone always brings cookies."
"not always."
"shane, you weren't even there the time martha didn't bring cookies. i just told you about it."
"just checkin'."
we'd pull right up in front of the church and park partly off the road; since there never was a parking lot made for this place. it's zenith of attendance passing long before cars would come to this neck of the woods.
old, old dirt choking the bright green grass near the front steps swirled as i kicked rocks behind my grandma, walking in with tinfoil covered banana bread. every piece of wood inside had a dull shine, not from being cleaned or waxed, but by being polish-worn. every door creaked and every floorboard groaned, the electric wiring was exposed along with the bent nails holding them to the walls.
the pews had to been made by some carpenter a hundred years ago that believed god wanted you to suffer in as many little ways as possible. sharp angles, bizzare heights and depths in their design proved my case...at least to me. no one else complained, but they were old and grew up with these sorts of things.
no foam seat covers or ergonomic desk sets for these veterans.
old men wandered inside the chapel setting up chairs and instruments while old women jockeyed for display areas on the counter top in the anteway. hot items stored in the corner to keep prying hands from interrupting the serving cycle while appetizers and cookies were granted top access.
knowing better then to make my presence known while the ladies got the treats and sustenance organized i'd hide in the stairwell at the side of the room leading to a basement so dark i never ventured down for fear ghosts and bones coated the floor.
once the rush had passed and the bulk of the group had joined the men inside to tune instruments and talk about the week past i'd casually stroll up to the cookies and get two good handfuls before someone could remind me that candy would spoil this that or the other thing.
the selection was always so similar scanning for what i wanted to sample had become a lost cause. the cheap vanilla cream cookies and the occasional chips ahoy (if on sale) were my only concern. the cakes and the breads would have to wait until everyone was being served.
out the double doors down the stairs and into the fields behind the church i'd go. first to the graveyard to sit in the tall grass and watch the fireflies come as dusk creeped upon this little orb.
the gravestones were so old and worn with rain that reading them was more imagination then careful diction. dates were about the only thing i could ever be sure about...1865...1802...1911...
oh so long ago.
another age. muskets and horses. indians and campfires.
out here in the foothills of the ozarks these were real country folk. born, raised and died without ever crossing paths with Big Brother, social security, or world news. i didn't even know what these things were yet eitheri just thought it was rad that these people lived in houses without electric lights.
the chiggers would bite at my legs as i sat in the grass causing me to rustle and move around sometimes even getting up and walking over to another patch in hopes no little pest families lived there.
never such luck.
colored skies above. chatter and spots of music behind my back. blinking lazy lights surrounded me at head height. seated head height.
heavenly scents of honeysuckle covered the grasses. there were never any stems to pick as the kids living in the big house down the road a stretch passed down this way nearly every single day. it's alright...i used their tire swing all the time.
with just enough light left to see the dirt track leading to the pond under the dark oak i'd make my way to the tire swing.
pulling on the rope half dangling in the water i'd pull the tire to me and climb in and push off.
with the right tempo i could keep swinging for awhile until my ass was asleep from the tire edge cutting in.
i never cast a reflection on the water when i sat in that tire. the water was practically opaque with rotten leaves in the bottom and i never sat in the tire until sunset.
there i would swing and listen to my grandma and her friends strike up an old gospel tune and swing along into a folk song. sometimes i could hear a tired old voice sing out among the strumming, humming, thumping, and blowing.
it comforted me to be in that place as much as it did to lay across my grandma's lap while she slowly scratched strange designs into my skin.
i never was afraid there.
in the dark. over that pond.
i never thought of school or peer pressure. not one concern about my future or the dire situation in the middle east.
just floated in space. timeless.
young.
alone.
kicking my legs i would disembark from the tire and walk down the roads far enough so i couldn't hear the music anymore then i would turn back. my natural way of adjusting the volume in my life.
kicking rocks into the night and scratching alien letters into the dust with sticks found on the side of the road while investigating some sound or another.
at night the dirt road looked white and the trees seemed to be like giant t.v. sets tuned to static with their constant murmurings and shattered pieces of light shining through the leaves.
sometimes i would stare up into their boughs so long i would trip on my own foot or some variation in the ground and fall chest first on the brackish road. spitting away the taste only to punch myself in the arm for being stupid.
then latter enjoying the dirty little country boy look reflected in the tall glass under the lights in the church when i would return for the intermission and warm food.
there in a tight circle their chairs would be: old wood chairs men sit in to whittle; folding chairs from someone's basement; a piano that looked rusty. guitars of various age and use; in the center a wood-burning stove with several handcut pieces cracklin away.
the windows weren't stained glass. they weren't fancy neither, but they were tall and very dirty. the ceiling had the religious vault one always expects but fantastic expanses of exposed timber crossing hither thither and yon. spider webs big enough to catch birds seemed always on the verge of falling down upon me with the sheer amount of dust they held.
it was a church made of the bread of life. simple. strong. necessary. white walls unadorned and strong with hand-hewed lengths of wood still standing strong against the tides of time and nature.
a fort of the spirit.
Mighty Sweet Tomatoes
Living in Vegas is a hard thing to do. So much action and strangeness to be had at any moment leaves the head reeling and ready for an attack of the senses. Finding good places to hang out and healthy places to eat can be even harder; especially if you are a "local" and want to avoid the swarms and traffic on the strip.
I got lucky when a condo right on the edge of the good part of town came available and was in my price range. Allowing me to avoid paying the terrible taxes but still able to roll in the heavenly trough of the rich.
My healthy dining choice was Sweet Tomatoes, an all-you-can-eat salad bar. It was so fantastic that patronizing there several times a month was not a problem. When I had guests come in to town visiting often I would take them there. Damn man!, it was like a four star restaurant to me.
Anyway, this story starts when my friend from japan moved back to the states and stayed with me on her way to live in Arizona.
It was another sunny day in fabulous Las Vegas and we went out to my favorite joint for dinner. We'd been eating and enjoying ourselves for an hour or so when the urge to hit the boy's room came upon me. I excused myself and meandered through the place to the back where restrooms are normally hidden.
Pushing open the door I immediately encountered a middle-aged man dressed casually standing by the sink almost blocking the entrance. The bathroom was rather small and I practically had to squeeze past him excusing myself as tried not to make eye contact on my way to the urinal (per the male custom). Man, this bathroom was tightly packed! The sink was close enough for me to kick my leg backwards and touch it and the middle-aged guy just standing there. The toilet stall was in arm's reach. Claustrophobia anyone?
This guy was patiently standing not two and a half feet behind me. Standing. Silent.
After I got my feet positioned, in the proper peeing stance, perfectly distanced from the porcelain to avoid splashing I started to unzip my pants when I heard the middle-aged guy's voice.
"You need any help?"
I froze.
My eyes were looking straight-forward at the wall in the traditional manly position. My one hand holding the side of my jean opening and the other forming a claw clinched on the zipper itself.
My mind began racing through aisles and aisles of responses: no thank you, shut the fuck up, i will kill you, it's not that heavy, etc.
My mouth started to open to utter a response that I wasn't even sure both halves of my brain agreed upon, and for a second the thought of just whipping around and doing some kung-fu kicking shit might solve the problem I was facing as well...when...
A tiny, little voice came from the toilet
"No dad, I got it."
I shut my eyes in relief.
I didn't see anyone in the stall when I came in because the boy was so short his legs didn't touch the floor.
His dad had been standing there waiting for him.
I was an intruder in their small moment.
I was able to actually pee and get the hell out of there, despite the performance anxiety. I wanted to wash my hands but I couldn't look at the guy in the face after thinking all of those bad thoughts so I just walked out.
Thank goodness my friends were already standing by the door and ready to leave.
I walked out of that place a freer man than when I had walked in.
I got lucky when a condo right on the edge of the good part of town came available and was in my price range. Allowing me to avoid paying the terrible taxes but still able to roll in the heavenly trough of the rich.
My healthy dining choice was Sweet Tomatoes, an all-you-can-eat salad bar. It was so fantastic that patronizing there several times a month was not a problem. When I had guests come in to town visiting often I would take them there. Damn man!, it was like a four star restaurant to me.
Anyway, this story starts when my friend from japan moved back to the states and stayed with me on her way to live in Arizona.
It was another sunny day in fabulous Las Vegas and we went out to my favorite joint for dinner. We'd been eating and enjoying ourselves for an hour or so when the urge to hit the boy's room came upon me. I excused myself and meandered through the place to the back where restrooms are normally hidden.
Pushing open the door I immediately encountered a middle-aged man dressed casually standing by the sink almost blocking the entrance. The bathroom was rather small and I practically had to squeeze past him excusing myself as tried not to make eye contact on my way to the urinal (per the male custom). Man, this bathroom was tightly packed! The sink was close enough for me to kick my leg backwards and touch it and the middle-aged guy just standing there. The toilet stall was in arm's reach. Claustrophobia anyone?
This guy was patiently standing not two and a half feet behind me. Standing. Silent.
After I got my feet positioned, in the proper peeing stance, perfectly distanced from the porcelain to avoid splashing I started to unzip my pants when I heard the middle-aged guy's voice.
"You need any help?"
I froze.
My eyes were looking straight-forward at the wall in the traditional manly position. My one hand holding the side of my jean opening and the other forming a claw clinched on the zipper itself.
My mind began racing through aisles and aisles of responses: no thank you, shut the fuck up, i will kill you, it's not that heavy, etc.
My mouth started to open to utter a response that I wasn't even sure both halves of my brain agreed upon, and for a second the thought of just whipping around and doing some kung-fu kicking shit might solve the problem I was facing as well...when...
A tiny, little voice came from the toilet
"No dad, I got it."
I shut my eyes in relief.
I didn't see anyone in the stall when I came in because the boy was so short his legs didn't touch the floor.
His dad had been standing there waiting for him.
I was an intruder in their small moment.
I was able to actually pee and get the hell out of there, despite the performance anxiety. I wanted to wash my hands but I couldn't look at the guy in the face after thinking all of those bad thoughts so I just walked out.
Thank goodness my friends were already standing by the door and ready to leave.
I walked out of that place a freer man than when I had walked in.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
She Could Dance
We were soldiers once...and young.
Personally, I was an Air Force Munitions Specialist serving in the great desert not long after the first American war in these land, and long before the current one. I was still fresh to the world and boggly-eyed at every new place I went. What made this place even more intense to be there was that our forward operating location was as remote as you could get. Located in the plains west of the Gulf of Oman in the great, sun-scorched stretches where our ancestors brought forth the seeds of humanity.
Not only was our little compound far from life as I knew it, but my particular place of employment was even more remote from the base itself. For example, each morning I would wake up in tent city and walk to the shower tent to get my "shit, shower, and shave" on...in military parlance. With a towel wrapped around me, sandals on my feet, dust kicking up in the morning breeze I would walk back to my tent and then dress in my little sheet-draped slice of heaven. Then would come the four minute walk to "motor pool" weaving between barbed wire and barricades to check out a truck for the drive across the desert. I'd get the vitals and sign-off the daily check sheet so like a good, little soldier. During this deployment I was a part of the administrative elite and thus granted the privilege to drive a small pickup which only ferried officers or other members of the administration. This would entail picking up whoever had made arrangements the day before with me. With my passenger on board it was then off to the first of five security checkpoints just to get the half mile off base. All the badge passing and password muttering took about twenty minutes. Once outside the main base it was a silent 35-50 minute drive across the desert basin with only two turns on an open four lane road inhabited by military vehicles, wild dogs, and white jalopy pickups with occupants of unknown origin.
Out there it was as flat and open as a nightmare. Brown and blue forever.
No flowers.
No bushes.
No birds. Just flies and the occasional mesa (which i don't think is the correct term since this was another world).
It was on this long and empty drive that one of the sweetest gifts I have ever been given by nature came to me.
On this particular day Command wanted me to deliver some packages to the main base and pick up a fellow troop that had missed the bus. Since it was early enough that I wouldn't miss lunch I took off without much ado (they would have made me do it anyway but if you miss lunch out there you truly miss lunch). It was after I picked up the arrant troop and passed over the wheel (because I out-ranked him...ha!) for the long drive back that destiny tapped on my passenger door.
We had passed the last checkpoint and the wide open desert lay before us. The heat of noon was running across the flat plains towards us and the ground began to shimmer and bend. During the summer months the heat is so pervasive and intense quicksilver makes an ocean of the hard scrabble. The whole desert floor shakes with it.
Now, I don't know enough science to backup this statement, but it appears like the concave shape of the earth and reverses it. Instead of rounding off at the corners and away towards China it would make the edges of Earth curve skyward. What once was hidden just past horizon's slope would now be raised towards the clouds. A hidden city hours drive away now sparkled off in the distance. The sunlight burning white hot on the top of the highest buildings. Bright fires burning the magical floating kingdom of my inner boy.
The troop driving was talking about something I couldn't tune into. Probably because I had rolled down the window letting the amazingly hot air blow over my head and gush in my ears.
The repetition from having traveled this road without event day after day, after month had me already filing away the moments to a circular file in my head. Just another day down and one day closer to home.
Just waiting to get to somewhere else.
I was looking east out my window arm slung over the window sill and slumped in the worn out bench-seat trying to give my tired rump a break from the bumps in the road. Being tossed around because of the worn out springs in that government-issued dried turd of a truck was literally a giant pain in the ass. The sad state of the trucks, Humvees, buses, and tractor trailers cannot be overstated nor can the woeful negligence of the dirt roads we drove on daily.
Back in the cab of the truck the driver's voice had stopped. I didn't even notice until I heard him utter a second "Whoa!".
I just glanced with my eyes to the left trying to avoid looking interested in anything so he wouldn't take it as a signal that I wanted to talk when I saw the apparition.
Not fifty yards away a dust twister was winding up for some action.
The driver slowed down and I started to slide up in my seat. Not but a few seconds after he uttered his sound of surprise the twister jumped the road in front of us and tripled in size.
Tall and skinny she was.
Almost a hundred yards tall. She shimmied across the hard sand like a belly-dancer bending at the middle and side to side rhythmically. I could almost hear the cymbals shaking to her tune.
She was carmel and milk in color.
Her smell was ancient tombs disturbed by robber's feet.
My mouth started to hang open in amazement and the truck had come to a complete stop without my acknowledgement.
Thank goodness for that, otherwise I would have collected at least a tablespoon of sand in my gaping maw.
Across the endless stage we were parked in she danced. Getting taller and bending ever more dramatically as if she needed to impress us more. The tiny feet of the twister barely seemed to move but as my eyes traveled up her length the bends, twists, colors, and size multiplied and divided at rates I lack the words to describe.
Looking up the twister's length like a lascivious strip-show gawker I finally came to the dancing queen's crown.
As she skirted across the desert floor she was sucking up the sand, stones, and the diamonds. yes, I said diamonds. In this massive desert the sand and stones are blown for so long and get so hot that they can fuze together with other grains. As they keep on rolling for lengths of time I cannot measure or postulate they undergo something similar to the heat and pressure that real diamonds go through. Some soldiers take them to the Arabic jewlers to get cut and polished and afterwards you can't tell them apart from the real thing.
There I was, sitting in that dingy truck looking at this epic dance. Waiting for the grand finale.
It was like fireworks coming out of the top of this enormous dust tornado. I could hear the heavier stones landing all across the ground at fantastic rates of speed, but in my mind I heard only the sparkling of those diamonds high up in the azure firmament like fizz in a champagne glass.
Shots of white light numbering in the hundreds against a blue palate.
I wanted to get out of the truck and go dance with her. Shed my spectator's skin and become like the risk and the dream. Wrap my arms around her dainty foot and feel her pull me up inside like a lover...like a dancer.
That was the brave me. A dreaming hero.
The real me sat in the truck and watched.
On and on she went twisting, bending, and dancing for almost three minutes until she started to fade into the east getting skinnier and shorter until at last I couldn't see her in all the dust she had kicked up. A dream lost in the dust.
"tre um boi"
The driver had already started us rolling again as I watched the scene fade behind me and eventually become a distorted image in my rear view mirror.
That moment in time will forever more be stamped indelibly in to my brain. I hope some day she and I will get to meet again. This time I won't be scared to dance.
Personally, I was an Air Force Munitions Specialist serving in the great desert not long after the first American war in these land, and long before the current one. I was still fresh to the world and boggly-eyed at every new place I went. What made this place even more intense to be there was that our forward operating location was as remote as you could get. Located in the plains west of the Gulf of Oman in the great, sun-scorched stretches where our ancestors brought forth the seeds of humanity.
Not only was our little compound far from life as I knew it, but my particular place of employment was even more remote from the base itself. For example, each morning I would wake up in tent city and walk to the shower tent to get my "shit, shower, and shave" on...in military parlance. With a towel wrapped around me, sandals on my feet, dust kicking up in the morning breeze I would walk back to my tent and then dress in my little sheet-draped slice of heaven. Then would come the four minute walk to "motor pool" weaving between barbed wire and barricades to check out a truck for the drive across the desert. I'd get the vitals and sign-off the daily check sheet so like a good, little soldier. During this deployment I was a part of the administrative elite and thus granted the privilege to drive a small pickup which only ferried officers or other members of the administration. This would entail picking up whoever had made arrangements the day before with me. With my passenger on board it was then off to the first of five security checkpoints just to get the half mile off base. All the badge passing and password muttering took about twenty minutes. Once outside the main base it was a silent 35-50 minute drive across the desert basin with only two turns on an open four lane road inhabited by military vehicles, wild dogs, and white jalopy pickups with occupants of unknown origin.
Out there it was as flat and open as a nightmare. Brown and blue forever.
No flowers.
No bushes.
No birds. Just flies and the occasional mesa (which i don't think is the correct term since this was another world).
It was on this long and empty drive that one of the sweetest gifts I have ever been given by nature came to me.
On this particular day Command wanted me to deliver some packages to the main base and pick up a fellow troop that had missed the bus. Since it was early enough that I wouldn't miss lunch I took off without much ado (they would have made me do it anyway but if you miss lunch out there you truly miss lunch). It was after I picked up the arrant troop and passed over the wheel (because I out-ranked him...ha!) for the long drive back that destiny tapped on my passenger door.
We had passed the last checkpoint and the wide open desert lay before us. The heat of noon was running across the flat plains towards us and the ground began to shimmer and bend. During the summer months the heat is so pervasive and intense quicksilver makes an ocean of the hard scrabble. The whole desert floor shakes with it.
Now, I don't know enough science to backup this statement, but it appears like the concave shape of the earth and reverses it. Instead of rounding off at the corners and away towards China it would make the edges of Earth curve skyward. What once was hidden just past horizon's slope would now be raised towards the clouds. A hidden city hours drive away now sparkled off in the distance. The sunlight burning white hot on the top of the highest buildings. Bright fires burning the magical floating kingdom of my inner boy.
The troop driving was talking about something I couldn't tune into. Probably because I had rolled down the window letting the amazingly hot air blow over my head and gush in my ears.
The repetition from having traveled this road without event day after day, after month had me already filing away the moments to a circular file in my head. Just another day down and one day closer to home.
Just waiting to get to somewhere else.
I was looking east out my window arm slung over the window sill and slumped in the worn out bench-seat trying to give my tired rump a break from the bumps in the road. Being tossed around because of the worn out springs in that government-issued dried turd of a truck was literally a giant pain in the ass. The sad state of the trucks, Humvees, buses, and tractor trailers cannot be overstated nor can the woeful negligence of the dirt roads we drove on daily.
Back in the cab of the truck the driver's voice had stopped. I didn't even notice until I heard him utter a second "Whoa!".
I just glanced with my eyes to the left trying to avoid looking interested in anything so he wouldn't take it as a signal that I wanted to talk when I saw the apparition.
Not fifty yards away a dust twister was winding up for some action.
The driver slowed down and I started to slide up in my seat. Not but a few seconds after he uttered his sound of surprise the twister jumped the road in front of us and tripled in size.
Tall and skinny she was.
Almost a hundred yards tall. She shimmied across the hard sand like a belly-dancer bending at the middle and side to side rhythmically. I could almost hear the cymbals shaking to her tune.
She was carmel and milk in color.
Her smell was ancient tombs disturbed by robber's feet.
My mouth started to hang open in amazement and the truck had come to a complete stop without my acknowledgement.
Thank goodness for that, otherwise I would have collected at least a tablespoon of sand in my gaping maw.
Across the endless stage we were parked in she danced. Getting taller and bending ever more dramatically as if she needed to impress us more. The tiny feet of the twister barely seemed to move but as my eyes traveled up her length the bends, twists, colors, and size multiplied and divided at rates I lack the words to describe.
Looking up the twister's length like a lascivious strip-show gawker I finally came to the dancing queen's crown.
As she skirted across the desert floor she was sucking up the sand, stones, and the diamonds. yes, I said diamonds. In this massive desert the sand and stones are blown for so long and get so hot that they can fuze together with other grains. As they keep on rolling for lengths of time I cannot measure or postulate they undergo something similar to the heat and pressure that real diamonds go through. Some soldiers take them to the Arabic jewlers to get cut and polished and afterwards you can't tell them apart from the real thing.
There I was, sitting in that dingy truck looking at this epic dance. Waiting for the grand finale.
It was like fireworks coming out of the top of this enormous dust tornado. I could hear the heavier stones landing all across the ground at fantastic rates of speed, but in my mind I heard only the sparkling of those diamonds high up in the azure firmament like fizz in a champagne glass.
Shots of white light numbering in the hundreds against a blue palate.
I wanted to get out of the truck and go dance with her. Shed my spectator's skin and become like the risk and the dream. Wrap my arms around her dainty foot and feel her pull me up inside like a lover...like a dancer.
That was the brave me. A dreaming hero.
The real me sat in the truck and watched.
On and on she went twisting, bending, and dancing for almost three minutes until she started to fade into the east getting skinnier and shorter until at last I couldn't see her in all the dust she had kicked up. A dream lost in the dust.
"tre um boi"
The driver had already started us rolling again as I watched the scene fade behind me and eventually become a distorted image in my rear view mirror.
That moment in time will forever more be stamped indelibly in to my brain. I hope some day she and I will get to meet again. This time I won't be scared to dance.
Assault or Compliment?
I have come to the realization that I have a different definition for most things than my peers, and from culture in general I suppose. For instance, the short story I am about to retell will allow how I perceived a past event juxtaposed against your comments (if there are any).
When I was 19 and fresh into the Air Force I put on my list of duty assignments "Worldwide Volunteer" in order to take the last ticket out of banality. I wanted a small "me" sized piece of excitement. So, when our last week at the months long training came the instructor arrived at the dorms with a handful of assignments. This is it! I knew finally my time had come. I was out the box and into something new!
"Davis!" he finally called. I marched right up and took my manilla envelope and smiled turning away and tore off the seal to my destiny. Fingers almost shaking I pulled out the orders stating my first duty assignment!
Oh yeah...
"Airmen Mark Davis you are hereby ordered to report to duty station Minot, North Dakota by 3 January."
What the FUCK!
North Dakota...that's worse then plain old America. That's where they send criminals and Indians to wallow away into madness. Damn.
Truthfully, I had never been there before so I didn't know for certain but at least it was going to be something new. At the end of the week off I went to my frozen paradise.
Fast forward to month seven in my strange new world.
I started going to the gym with my red-headed extrovert roommate named Zack. He was rather interesting and charismatic and so I toke to him right away. The girls liked him and so I decided that I should follow in his footsteps to learn a few things. I know, classic chauvinistic patterning but like I said, I was young.
Going to the gym was step one in what I hoped would be a reinvention of myself. Get strong, wear a uniform and the love would just fall in my lap. So I thought.
I digress. The gym on base was rather average with all the normal acuterments you would expect. I have to interject one fact that plays a major role in the development of this story and it is that Minot Air Force Base is a homestead base. This means that military families that normally have to take new assignments every three to four years can elect to stay at this base (since it is so unfavorable) for as long as they want. Why this plays a role is that like any small town certain things become familiar to the average denizen of the base like odd people, criminal activity, boring locations. But, for people like me...everything was new and unexpected.
Wednesday, a normal day and Zack wasn't back at our room. I assumed he was already at the gym, and so I headed on over to catch up. I hit the locker room to start changing. A teenager that I had seen in the gym numerous times before, but never talked to, was already there and drying off from his after shower workout. I noticed he had an atrophied arm that must have been caused from some birth defect or whatnot. He looked over at me and smiled and I replied easily "How ya doin?" which he said "Good." and that was it. I got the last of my clothes off, wrapped a towel around my waist, and headed for the steam room (I like to loosen up before I workout). After a few minutes in walks this kid with the same towel used a few moments before to dry off.
He sits just within eyesight as the steam began to fill the room. I can see his form in the midst. No sound but the "phsshhh" of steam for five minutes. Right before the steam turned off I noticed an underlying sound. Like feet slapping against the floor. I ignored it and got up to leave.
As I was exiting I noticed that the form was mirroring me so I decided to try and shake him by going immediately into the sauna.
My thought process was that no one in the right mind would go from a steam room to a dry sauna.
I walked right in and began suppressing my bodies urge to heatstroke. After winning that small battle I laid back against the wall. Seconds later in walks the teenager. I could tell he was searching my face, but I had already hung my head to avoid conversation.
He sat closer this time.
After about four minutes I heard that noise again...a little different, but a pattern nonetheless. I didn't want to awknowledge him or look around the room so I just got up and left.
I stood out in the anteroom between the sauna and the steam room trying not to faint with all the spinning my head was doing from the heat and out walks the teenager. He starts to make small talk and I oblige for a few sentences but I felt creeped out by this guy. His speech was fine. His motor control and aptitude were like any other guy.
It dawned on me that this kid wasn't handicapped or suffering from Down's Syndrome at all. He just had this crippled arm.
He started smiling at me all happy-happy joy-joy...and that didn't make me feel happy or joyous. I wanted to get the fuck out of Dodge.
I started to walk towards the steam room for another attempt at shaking him only to be intercepted by this kid going in first.
I stood there for a second and realized that this kid is definitely following me. I made a beeline for the locker room to get my gym clothes on so I could get out into the public domain. Once at my locker I realized that I was still soaked top to bottom with steam and sweat. It would gross everyone out, even me, to try and use equipment while dripping ear to ear with sweat. So I make a break for the showers.
A minute later in walks the teenager and he starts to shower... again!
One showerhead away from me.
I slouch forward a little to get water in my face and down my neck to make it look like I am in relax-mode. I stay that way for a few minutes until I hear that familar sound again (feet slapping against a wet floor).
I peek to my right to see what is happening with strange boy and there it is.
Horror of horrors!
Dude is masturbating with the shower soap. He wasn't looking completely at me just up at me and then back to the wall to get whatever image he wanted refreshed.
In my terror I noticed that he was not only masturbating next to me, and most likely to the thought of me, but he had one of the largest dicks I had ever seen on screen or in real life.
The soap bubbles were getting thicker and he was starting to make more sounds. That's when I broke.
I took off out of the shower running to my locker. I put on all my stuff wet.
I ran out of the locker room and out of the gym altogether.
I at first wasn't sure if it was by accident that all that happened and it all became quite clear after I got back to my room. When I told Zack my frantic story he only nodded. He described the kid to me and said he too had an encounter, a strange conversation while at the gym, with this kid a month before but had dismissed it as plain unusual. Something slightly off key and sexual but not enough to make him make special note of it.
Now as I sit here and wonder "How many young bucks encountered this fellow before someone
took it seriously, or took him up on it?"
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Devil Worshiping and the Gay Mafia
Those are two things you would never expect to see together. I am not insinuating that gays are into devil worship, or that devil worshipers are gay. Rather, I have two stories that shared a starting point, a home shall we say.
I was introduced to the gay mafia via one of my roommates when I started renting a room near the campus where I worked.
(I don't want the specifics of what I now call the "Hell House" to loom large in this story as it deserves it's own literary space, which I will grant at a later date.)
I was hanging out in the living room of the house I just moved into, watching a movie when one of my roomies, let's call him "C', came in and started to shuffle papers on the desk near me. The effort was done only to attract my attention as he kept stealing glances at me while he ruffled the pages like a news reporter at the end of a segment. Every curious and someone that likes getting to know people, especially ones I will be sharing my living space with, I started some small talk. I started asking about him about employment, classes, and such as he reciprocated. We talked about the fact that I work at a university that we both attended. He asked me if I ever met this particular guy, who's name I cannot recall, and as chance would have it I did. This guy would be in one of the labs I administer once in awhile and asked me questions about printing not six months prior. Upon hearing that I knew this guy my roommate's countenance changed. Clouded over and with storm clouds no less. He started to ask me why I moved in here and if I still talk to this guy. I reaffirmed that I only met this guy in passing as I meet a lot of people day to day. I went on to state that I moved into the house we were currently in because it was across the street from my work. At this he chuckled his tongue. He preceded to tell me that I was sent her to monitor him by this guy (that I talked to once).
He then related his tale:
He had lived in a house not far from the very place we were now with this guy almost two years ago. Everything was fine until this guy started making advances towards him. He rejected the advances and the guy began an emotional war on him. He began telling other people my roommate was gay and all sorts of other drama. After a few months my roommate could take no more of this and decided to pay the remaining rent he owed on his lease and move out.
Now here I am back to spy on him.
I promised that I did not really know this guy and me moving in here was coincedence. I had no interest in harassing anyone and I didn't care what sexual persuasion he was anyway. Then my roommate pointed at the ugly loveseat I was sitting on and asked was it coincedental that the same style loveseat the old roommate that harrassed him had was here now? I asked what that had to do with me...which he replied that our other roommate had brought it in when he moved which makes him an accomplice as well. He began a small tirade that this old gay roommate had not only sent our other roommate here to spy on him but now I was his backup.
I again said that I don't care about that kind of scene and that I am not apart of any gay mafia here to stalk him.
He chuckled and said..."well, I will be watching you." which I could only reply "Have fun with that."
*Note - This roomate who complained of mistreatment from a supposed gay man has some idiosyncrasies I would like to mention to spice up this tale. This roommate has a stack of Cosmo' magazines on the shelf in the living room. He dresses impecably and goes out to clubs far, far, far from here. There is only one flyer on our refridgerator and that is from the Necto in Ann Arbor...a gay bar. His nationality is well known for the pressures family place on them. He doesn't talk to women, have a girlfriend, or keep pictures of women up in the house (and this is a college house). He periodically buys poster boards and cuts out clippings of fashion and beach scenes and stands them up on a bench in the house for a few days only to take them down and throw them away. Hmmmmm.
Just the other night my other roommate, we shall call him "M", came to the open door of my room while I was up in the loft. He looked a little scattered and tired hiding halfway behind the door frame. He asked me from below "Hey, do you know what might be making me feel weird?" which totally surprised me.
I asked him what he meant which he replied (here is where I will paraphrase the rest of the conversation).
"Well, have you put anything in my food?" - M
"Um. No." - me
"Have you drugged me? Are there drugs that can make me go crazy?" - M
"I don't really get in to the whole drug scene and wouldn't be giving you anything if I was. That's a criminal act." - me
"Well, there are some high doses of acid that can make you lose your grip on reality and several other intense drugs that can rob you of your ability to think clearly." -M
I sat there blinking at him. I agree that this is true but anything I spoke from here on out would only hurt my chances of getting out of this conversation quickly and without hurting this shaggy, neo-hippy.
He asked me again if I had been giving him anything without his knowledge. I replied that it would be a crime to do so...so No.
I would like to stress again that all this banter occurred with me sitting up in my loft looking down at him standing half in the doorway. He never made eye contact with me. His eyes were rolling around in his head and searching my room all at the same time. At times he would be talking and stepping out of my doorway and back into the hall as if he was done only to continue to ask me questions out of view.
"M" had been ill a few weeks ago and so I understood his concern for not feeling well still, but I was clueless as to why he thought I was the source of his lack of well being.
He then stepped back in, almost, and asked if I remembered the time when he and I were talking about metaphysical topics while watching Waking Life.
"Of course", I said, remembering back to one of only two nights we sat together in the shared living room.
He asked if I believed in ghosts. I replied that I couldn't really say as I think there are a lot more things happening in the universe then what our human minds can understand. He then asked if I thought there were ghosts in the house to which I said no.
He then asked if I knew of ways to hurt someone through magic. I said I don't really think that would be possible but I mentioned that voodoo and devil worshiping were ways I knew of that people can try magically to get back at people. He then asked me if I had cast a spell on him which I again said no to. I followed that up with a statement that I don't really practice a spiritual way of living in any measurable or structured way.
"I am not a christian or a devil worshipper." - me
"Do you have friends who practice magic?" -M
"Yes, but they were Wiccan and that the mantra of wiccan religion is 'do no harm to others'. - me (shit! why did I just say that?)
He began to get agitated that I wouldn't confess to using drugs, poison, or magic to make him lose his mind.
This went on for about 20 minutes. Him asking me random questions about magic, poisons, bad food, and ghosts...and at points he would ask the same question over again in hopes that I would change my answer.
I was beginning to think I would have to come down and look him right in the eyes and tell him to get over his fear that I was instrumental in causing his dementia or take him back to the hospital by force.
Suddenly his phone rang and he answered the phone in a chipper tone and walked out of my room as if we weren't even talking. I heard him downstairs talking on the phone about getting a B-B-Q going and that they should get right over and start it up.
There I lay in bed wondering if I should lock my door, kill him in his sleep, call the psych ward, or just wait for the drugs he had to be taken to wear off.
Two strange roommates in the same house. What's the chances?
I was introduced to the gay mafia via one of my roommates when I started renting a room near the campus where I worked.
(I don't want the specifics of what I now call the "Hell House" to loom large in this story as it deserves it's own literary space, which I will grant at a later date.)
I was hanging out in the living room of the house I just moved into, watching a movie when one of my roomies, let's call him "C', came in and started to shuffle papers on the desk near me. The effort was done only to attract my attention as he kept stealing glances at me while he ruffled the pages like a news reporter at the end of a segment. Every curious and someone that likes getting to know people, especially ones I will be sharing my living space with, I started some small talk. I started asking about him about employment, classes, and such as he reciprocated. We talked about the fact that I work at a university that we both attended. He asked me if I ever met this particular guy, who's name I cannot recall, and as chance would have it I did. This guy would be in one of the labs I administer once in awhile and asked me questions about printing not six months prior. Upon hearing that I knew this guy my roommate's countenance changed. Clouded over and with storm clouds no less. He started to ask me why I moved in here and if I still talk to this guy. I reaffirmed that I only met this guy in passing as I meet a lot of people day to day. I went on to state that I moved into the house we were currently in because it was across the street from my work. At this he chuckled his tongue. He preceded to tell me that I was sent her to monitor him by this guy (that I talked to once).
He then related his tale:
He had lived in a house not far from the very place we were now with this guy almost two years ago. Everything was fine until this guy started making advances towards him. He rejected the advances and the guy began an emotional war on him. He began telling other people my roommate was gay and all sorts of other drama. After a few months my roommate could take no more of this and decided to pay the remaining rent he owed on his lease and move out.
Now here I am back to spy on him.
I promised that I did not really know this guy and me moving in here was coincedence. I had no interest in harassing anyone and I didn't care what sexual persuasion he was anyway. Then my roommate pointed at the ugly loveseat I was sitting on and asked was it coincedental that the same style loveseat the old roommate that harrassed him had was here now? I asked what that had to do with me...which he replied that our other roommate had brought it in when he moved which makes him an accomplice as well. He began a small tirade that this old gay roommate had not only sent our other roommate here to spy on him but now I was his backup.
I again said that I don't care about that kind of scene and that I am not apart of any gay mafia here to stalk him.
He chuckled and said..."well, I will be watching you." which I could only reply "Have fun with that."
*Note - This roomate who complained of mistreatment from a supposed gay man has some idiosyncrasies I would like to mention to spice up this tale. This roommate has a stack of Cosmo' magazines on the shelf in the living room. He dresses impecably and goes out to clubs far, far, far from here. There is only one flyer on our refridgerator and that is from the Necto in Ann Arbor...a gay bar. His nationality is well known for the pressures family place on them. He doesn't talk to women, have a girlfriend, or keep pictures of women up in the house (and this is a college house). He periodically buys poster boards and cuts out clippings of fashion and beach scenes and stands them up on a bench in the house for a few days only to take them down and throw them away. Hmmmmm.
Just the other night my other roommate, we shall call him "M", came to the open door of my room while I was up in the loft. He looked a little scattered and tired hiding halfway behind the door frame. He asked me from below "Hey, do you know what might be making me feel weird?" which totally surprised me.
I asked him what he meant which he replied (here is where I will paraphrase the rest of the conversation).
"Well, have you put anything in my food?" - M
"Um. No." - me
"Have you drugged me? Are there drugs that can make me go crazy?" - M
"I don't really get in to the whole drug scene and wouldn't be giving you anything if I was. That's a criminal act." - me
"Well, there are some high doses of acid that can make you lose your grip on reality and several other intense drugs that can rob you of your ability to think clearly." -M
I sat there blinking at him. I agree that this is true but anything I spoke from here on out would only hurt my chances of getting out of this conversation quickly and without hurting this shaggy, neo-hippy.
He asked me again if I had been giving him anything without his knowledge. I replied that it would be a crime to do so...so No.
I would like to stress again that all this banter occurred with me sitting up in my loft looking down at him standing half in the doorway. He never made eye contact with me. His eyes were rolling around in his head and searching my room all at the same time. At times he would be talking and stepping out of my doorway and back into the hall as if he was done only to continue to ask me questions out of view.
"M" had been ill a few weeks ago and so I understood his concern for not feeling well still, but I was clueless as to why he thought I was the source of his lack of well being.
He then stepped back in, almost, and asked if I remembered the time when he and I were talking about metaphysical topics while watching Waking Life.
"Of course", I said, remembering back to one of only two nights we sat together in the shared living room.
He asked if I believed in ghosts. I replied that I couldn't really say as I think there are a lot more things happening in the universe then what our human minds can understand. He then asked if I thought there were ghosts in the house to which I said no.
He then asked if I knew of ways to hurt someone through magic. I said I don't really think that would be possible but I mentioned that voodoo and devil worshiping were ways I knew of that people can try magically to get back at people. He then asked me if I had cast a spell on him which I again said no to. I followed that up with a statement that I don't really practice a spiritual way of living in any measurable or structured way.
"I am not a christian or a devil worshipper." - me
"Do you have friends who practice magic?" -M
"Yes, but they were Wiccan and that the mantra of wiccan religion is 'do no harm to others'. - me (shit! why did I just say that?)
He began to get agitated that I wouldn't confess to using drugs, poison, or magic to make him lose his mind.
This went on for about 20 minutes. Him asking me random questions about magic, poisons, bad food, and ghosts...and at points he would ask the same question over again in hopes that I would change my answer.
I was beginning to think I would have to come down and look him right in the eyes and tell him to get over his fear that I was instrumental in causing his dementia or take him back to the hospital by force.
Suddenly his phone rang and he answered the phone in a chipper tone and walked out of my room as if we weren't even talking. I heard him downstairs talking on the phone about getting a B-B-Q going and that they should get right over and start it up.
There I lay in bed wondering if I should lock my door, kill him in his sleep, call the psych ward, or just wait for the drugs he had to be taken to wear off.
Two strange roommates in the same house. What's the chances?
Personal Coping Mechanism
I asked Tony, a coworker, what he used to cope with pressure day to day as we poured our respective cups of coffee one morning not long ago.
"Aahh yes." said Tony, whilst popping a coffee bean into his mouth and gesturing to the very act and nodding his head.
"Seriously? Why do you eat coffee beans?" I responded. With the same tone and look he used to tell me that the creamer was behind the stack of foam cups he said "I started eating them after the night I almost shot four people."
In that instant I knew we were about to step out of the morning we were standing in and into a memory of a night some time long ago that would negate the purpose of knowing "why".
Thus spoke Tony:
"While I was on patrol, alone, eight years ago I came upon an all too familiar sight; two men fighting. The tussle was taking place near a parked car on the side road not far from the highway. I pulled over behind the car and hit the lights to advertising my arrival. The two men continued to grapple with each as made my radio call. Before I could finish my call over the radio another car flew in from the left, hit the curb, jumping into the grass. Immediately a man stepped out of the recently wrecked car and started to slap his chest while flinging his arms out in what looked like a "come on" challenge.
I opened my door to get out and start the "get on the ground" bark when yet another car coolly pulled in not ten feet behind me. My foot paused on the rim of my police car door frame as I looked through the mirrors at this new arrival. The occupant was visible as the driver's side door opened but then the head disappeared and the passenger door opened instead. I saw the top of the driver's head moving through the car to the opposite side.My stomach dropped to the depths of my body. My foot still hung in the air awaiting instructions to hit the ground or retreat back in to the police car. My eyes were jumping from window to mirror back and forth about four times a second. All moisture in my mouth evaporated with the heat rising dangerously in my face.
I began to squeeze the trigger of the radio mic still in my hand and with as much control as frenzy would allow I yelled "Get me some backup now! Surrounded. Can't get out of my car without losing cover."
Meanwhile the two guys fighting by the car have now stopped and are making manuevers to move out of my sight.
The guy who hit the curb and came to rest in the grass is still standing there making the "Bring it!" motions when suddenly he starts reaching down the top of his shirt for something that shines metallic. I jump out the door and land on my knees yelling to the guy to "STOP" while I pull my gun. Now, spinning on my knees trying to cover everyone, I make demands that nobody move.
One of the fighters is starting to fade from view and I make another announcement for everyone to stop immediately, this time louder and with all the "ominous" I had left in my voice box.
My finger is moving off and on the trigger as I turn to my extreme left to motion at the person with my gun who is now hiding behind their passenger side door. I yell something about stand where I can see you or get back in the car, I can't remember. Sweat is running into my eyes and my heart is racing. I can't see what the person hiding behind that passenger side door has...what they are doing...and they don't seem to hear anything I am saying. I can just see the top of their head and shadows where I should see eyes. The sun has set behind them. Shadows are everywhere...not good.
The guy with his hand down his shirt is starting to move again.
"Not now. Not here." I thought to myself, rapidly. Chanting.
"Don't let me die alone. Don't make me kill someone.", slowly.
Minutes. mere minutes.That's all the time this encapsulated.
Someone could have painted this scene on canvas with the time I felt it was taking for backup to arrive.
Finally!, I could hear them coming. Distant wails getting closer. God bless the Doppler effect.
Cop cars zoomed in; even a fire truck made it to the scene.
My cavalry had arrived, the voice heard over the radio (mine) had scared everyone.
(editor's note - Tony is a large man. 6'5. 300 pounds of muscle and a little fat. A black man with a voice booming with authority.)
When the smoke cleared everything became a comedy of coincidences. To wit: the two guys had been fighting for sometime and were aquitances so nothing dramatic. The arm waving guy who hit the curb so hard was a drunk driver. He had seen my lights and thought it was all over and tried to pull himself over. Earlier that day he had been fighting with his girlfriend and decided to drink away some pain and the thing he was reaching for was one of those wallets on a chain. The car behind me turned out to be a woman that had driven by the two guys fighting and wanted to tell me about it, you know, be a witness and all that. When she pulled up behind me she thought it would make me less nervous to get out pf the passenger side to approach.
I had pulled a gun on everyone and no one knew what to do. Not even me.
My fireman friend wanted to calm me down afterwards so we went to a coffee shop nearby. He ordered us some coffees but my teeth were still chattering and I wanted something to clench my teeth on. As I was watching them grind the beans I thought to myself " I need something between my teeth to crunch on."
I really just wanted to stop the chattering. So I asked for a handful of roasted coffee beans which the Barista nonchalantly handed over and popped a few in my mouth. As I crushed them to bits and the sounds of an earthquake filled my head I started to feel better.
From that day on, I crunch on coffee beans."
There I stood having only asked my question in passing now storing away an indeliable memory.
"Aahh yes." said Tony, whilst popping a coffee bean into his mouth and gesturing to the very act and nodding his head.
"Seriously? Why do you eat coffee beans?" I responded. With the same tone and look he used to tell me that the creamer was behind the stack of foam cups he said "I started eating them after the night I almost shot four people."
In that instant I knew we were about to step out of the morning we were standing in and into a memory of a night some time long ago that would negate the purpose of knowing "why".
Thus spoke Tony:
"While I was on patrol, alone, eight years ago I came upon an all too familiar sight; two men fighting. The tussle was taking place near a parked car on the side road not far from the highway. I pulled over behind the car and hit the lights to advertising my arrival. The two men continued to grapple with each as made my radio call. Before I could finish my call over the radio another car flew in from the left, hit the curb, jumping into the grass. Immediately a man stepped out of the recently wrecked car and started to slap his chest while flinging his arms out in what looked like a "come on" challenge.
I opened my door to get out and start the "get on the ground" bark when yet another car coolly pulled in not ten feet behind me. My foot paused on the rim of my police car door frame as I looked through the mirrors at this new arrival. The occupant was visible as the driver's side door opened but then the head disappeared and the passenger door opened instead. I saw the top of the driver's head moving through the car to the opposite side.My stomach dropped to the depths of my body. My foot still hung in the air awaiting instructions to hit the ground or retreat back in to the police car. My eyes were jumping from window to mirror back and forth about four times a second. All moisture in my mouth evaporated with the heat rising dangerously in my face.
I began to squeeze the trigger of the radio mic still in my hand and with as much control as frenzy would allow I yelled "Get me some backup now! Surrounded. Can't get out of my car without losing cover."
Meanwhile the two guys fighting by the car have now stopped and are making manuevers to move out of my sight.
The guy who hit the curb and came to rest in the grass is still standing there making the "Bring it!" motions when suddenly he starts reaching down the top of his shirt for something that shines metallic. I jump out the door and land on my knees yelling to the guy to "STOP" while I pull my gun. Now, spinning on my knees trying to cover everyone, I make demands that nobody move.
One of the fighters is starting to fade from view and I make another announcement for everyone to stop immediately, this time louder and with all the "ominous" I had left in my voice box.
My finger is moving off and on the trigger as I turn to my extreme left to motion at the person with my gun who is now hiding behind their passenger side door. I yell something about stand where I can see you or get back in the car, I can't remember. Sweat is running into my eyes and my heart is racing. I can't see what the person hiding behind that passenger side door has...what they are doing...and they don't seem to hear anything I am saying. I can just see the top of their head and shadows where I should see eyes. The sun has set behind them. Shadows are everywhere...not good.
The guy with his hand down his shirt is starting to move again.
"Not now. Not here." I thought to myself, rapidly. Chanting.
"Don't let me die alone. Don't make me kill someone.", slowly.
Minutes. mere minutes.That's all the time this encapsulated.
Someone could have painted this scene on canvas with the time I felt it was taking for backup to arrive.
Finally!, I could hear them coming. Distant wails getting closer. God bless the Doppler effect.
Cop cars zoomed in; even a fire truck made it to the scene.
My cavalry had arrived, the voice heard over the radio (mine) had scared everyone.
(editor's note - Tony is a large man. 6'5. 300 pounds of muscle and a little fat. A black man with a voice booming with authority.)
When the smoke cleared everything became a comedy of coincidences. To wit: the two guys had been fighting for sometime and were aquitances so nothing dramatic. The arm waving guy who hit the curb so hard was a drunk driver. He had seen my lights and thought it was all over and tried to pull himself over. Earlier that day he had been fighting with his girlfriend and decided to drink away some pain and the thing he was reaching for was one of those wallets on a chain. The car behind me turned out to be a woman that had driven by the two guys fighting and wanted to tell me about it, you know, be a witness and all that. When she pulled up behind me she thought it would make me less nervous to get out pf the passenger side to approach.
I had pulled a gun on everyone and no one knew what to do. Not even me.
My fireman friend wanted to calm me down afterwards so we went to a coffee shop nearby. He ordered us some coffees but my teeth were still chattering and I wanted something to clench my teeth on. As I was watching them grind the beans I thought to myself " I need something between my teeth to crunch on."
I really just wanted to stop the chattering. So I asked for a handful of roasted coffee beans which the Barista nonchalantly handed over and popped a few in my mouth. As I crushed them to bits and the sounds of an earthquake filled my head I started to feel better.
From that day on, I crunch on coffee beans."
There I stood having only asked my question in passing now storing away an indeliable memory.
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