15

Apr

Feel Your Wounds

__feel your wounds__

(a fiction)

 

“You pay them, but sometimes they like it too. And feel your wounds more eagerly than they feel you.”—Ernest Hemingway

 Lynn was trying to figure out whether she was a prostitute. The fact that men had been paying money in order to spend 15 naked minutes with her was without question. The question was, did her profession define her life?

 She knew she didn’t like it. She also knew she was making more money in six weeks than she’d made in the six years after graduating high school. And that felt good. The power over men felt good—power to create their sick, contorted faces. Business men and married men and local politicians. Outside of her house they wouldn’t have spoken to her. But inside her room they were confined to her.

 She and her friends, when they had money and were growing up, had laughed about prostitutes like they were animals. Like being a prostitute was the very worst thing and the very last job you’d ever do. But she knew better. For starters, she knew the worst thing was being without money. Being without money meant being truly desperate. And at least with this, she didn’t feel desperate at all. She only felt worn as a boxer’s fists feel worn. Only as sore as a railroad builder’s arms. So what if it was her legs that hurt instead of her arms? Was there so much difference when in the end everyone sacrificed their bodies for a day’s wages?

 Besides, at least she was able to admit the way she spent her time. The men who came to her, the men who had to hide it, they were the ones that were living the lie. And of course to keep your soul was better than keeping your body. In the end all our bodies are taken. The soul is the only thing you get to keep.

 

So, for now, yes. She was a prostitute. And she hated it. But she hated life a little bit less because of it. 

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14

Apr

Leningrad (The Clown)

(a fiction)

__leningrad (the clown)__

The wolf mask was fucking hot today. But Joel Pickett knew he had a job to do. Okay, so it wasn’t really a job. It was like this thing he did sometimes on Saturdays and Sundays and sometimes people gave him tips. The tips helped pay for things like eating at better restaurants on the weekends. Like, Red Lobster or the Olive Garden.

That was the thing. It wasn’t about the money. The money was just something that happened. It was about making kids laugh and allowing them to be kids while there was still time. He played the violin while wearing the wolf mask because it was fucking random. And it was more than that though. It was unexpected in such a way that no one had any right to expect it. WHY WOULD A WOLF BE PLAYING THE VIOLIN? He didn’t know. But it was a good question. And it led into similar questions like, “If a wolf can play the violin, is it possible that there also is a way out of this mess I’ve gotten myself into?”

“Is it possible that my son will find a job and can move out of my house?”

“Is it possible someday I’ll find a way not to hate myself?”  

There was a reason behind it. And the real reason was, if people could appreciate the fact that two things which should have never happened actually did happen, then maybe people could hope that it was also possible to work through unworkable life stories, these stone blockades.

Stone blockades like sexual depravation. Alcohol. Never having gone to college and being stuck in fucking retail sales and no one is fucking hiring for a decent wage.

Like finding sunlight at the bottom of a mine shaft. A breath of air while facedown in your bathtub. “If he can do it, so can I.”

“If the wolf can play the violin then maybe just maybe I can un-fuck my own life.”

Joel Pickett played for all the people who needed to believe the unbelievable. 

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13

Apr

Taking Inventory

“They would gladly trade places with you,” my father told me. We’d been talking about the men he knew who had died during the Vietnam war. Some of them U.S. Marines that as a medic he had treated. Some of them boys, 18 and 19 years old. I think I was around that age when we had this talk.

I’d been saying that I felt guilty sometimes. That I’d never been forced into war. Never had a fear of a draft. And some of these boys hadn’t had a choice in the matter and their time on earth had been cut short because of it. I couldn’t understand why I’d had the chance to live longer.

There is no good reason, of course. You can make yourself feel better about it by suggesting the awful notion that maybe you were meant for something. As if becoming one more etched slab of marble in a green field had ever been their purpose.

What was the last thing Captain Miller, before he died, had said to Private Ryan in his movie? “Earn this,” he said. “Earn it.”

Looking back I see how my life over the last four or five years has been defined by the notion of trying to earn it. I know I do some good things but it is never enough. I know I help people but that’s like trying to drain a sickly ocean with a jelly glass. I don’t want a pat on the back, and I don’t compare myself to what anyone is or isn’t doing. I have zero concern for comparisons. I decide for myself whether or not I’m satisfied with what I’m doing. And I am not satisfied with what I’m doing.

I came to the Tampa airport today to try and clear my head. You can’t write about the desert while you’re in the desert. You don’t notice anything anymore and you can’t see the differences because there are no differences to see. Like how any noise eventually becomes white noise. Any smell eventually becomes no smell. I feel like I need to take a step back and sit down for a second. I need to stand back in a clearing and find an undistorted view of whatever it is I’ve been trying to build. Because as you’re laying bricks you’re way too close to decide what the actual shape of the structure is looking like.

How did Captain Price put it? “The healthy human mind doesn’t wake up in the morning thinking this is its last day on Earth. But I think that’s a luxury. Not a curse. To know you’re close to the end is a kind of freedom. Good time to take…inventory.”

I have no plans to die, but I’m not afraid of it either. Maybe that’s only because I’m still (relatively) young.

Either way, it’s time to take stock and decide what’s worth living for.

 

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12

Apr

The Day My Nano Died

My wife’s grandfather Nano died today. This morning. I know it but I can’t believe it. All the good memories cycle past my eyes like a revolving carousel.

I was there when they told his wife, Nane. The first thing I could make out her saying was, “He was so good to me, he took care of me.” And he was, and he did.

His love for his grand-daughter, my wife, was something you could touch. And vice versa. How his eyes lit up when she kissed his cheek. How her eyes would stay focused on his face when he needed something.

I’m so glad I took him to the Largo Military Museum while he could still walk. So glad and grateful for every meal I had with him. Pop and Son’s on Dale Mabry Highway. Chile’s (he got the Big Mouth Burger). Arco Iris Cuban Restaurant. Buying Cuban bread from La Segunda Central bakery on Christmas Eve.

I love you, Nano. I pray to see you again when I die. I pray that you are back with your old family now. Or at a table with your brother and friends, whiskey and cigars, dominos and old stories you had forgotten. I miss you here. I am selfish and would bring you back if I could, if only to clasp your warm hand for five more minutes, tell you I love you over and over. You are loved. You will live on. And I will take care of your grand-daughter here. I love you, Nano.

I imagine you walking down the old streets of Ybor City. Rundown houses, boarded up windows. Broken sidewalks. Everything you knew before is gone.

Then, a front porch light comes on. An old friend you haven’t seen for what, forty years? Then another porch comes on, another. And the windows aren’t boarded up anymore.

Step by step the street lights come on, now it’s lined with old friends. Welcome home, Phillip. We’ve been waiting for you. 

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12

Apr

Mark

Step into the forest and keep walking,

So far in that your cell phone dies

And your iPod dies

And finally listen for the sound of my breath.

 

You who pray for distractions

For a reason to look away

Finally here is the one tree

That you may not look away from.

 

A boy hanging, his neck disjointed

This man who cared so much for his friends;

The souls he loved

They hated him for it

And now we’re all that much poorer.

Love is a choice

And caring is a choice

And in the end just taking one breath after another is your most basic form,

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

But you can’t retrace your steps anymore.

 

How could you kill the world’s last prophet and protector?

And how could he could he finally let it happen?

It happens when we lower our eyes.

It happens when we turn our music up.

It happens when we stop speaking up,

When we stay quiet to avoid anyone looking at us funny.

 

Some of you are still in the left in the game.

If you don’t make a conscious decision,

The mob will gladly make it for you.

 

Reach out for others; they need it and you need it.

Or eventually there will be no one left

To speak for you.

 

It’s so quiet in the forest.

It’s too quiet in the forest.

“The forest is in the heart of your brother.”

The mass of trees is closer than you think.

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10

Apr

You Push and I’ll Pelt

 Helping someone you love move away is such a strange feeling. I don’t mean packing up the boxes. I mean taking the trip with them to the new place and helping them move in. Helping them leave you behind. Of course the very worst thing of all is to be the other one, after it’s all over, as your friend drives away and you are left alone in the weird echo silence of the new place. Ears perked up, tail between your legs,  brow furrowed at all the new noises. At least if you are the one who helped them move, then you occupy yourself with driving back and the changing roadside views, and when you get home at least you have your old stuff to distract you.

The argument can be made both ways. But I know the truth. The truth is that the one who’s worst off is the one who is left while the other drives away, on both sides of the table.

I remember helping my brother Matt move to Gainesville to attend grad school at the University of Florida. Cardboard box after cardboard box. And when it was done we had Papa John’s pizza and Sol (Mexican) beer. If you don’t have pizza and beer after moving then you’re not doing it right.

And I remember driving a U-Haul truck with Robb up to D.C. and stopping at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond. Looking for my great-great grandfather’s battle flag. What did we eat that night? I have no idea. Strange I can’t remember.

And of course I remember helping my (ex) girlfriend move up to Gainesville as well, before either of those. Lugging boxes upstairs into the Jennings Hall dorms. I cried like I’d been whipped as I began driving away. My buddy Justin sitting in the passenger seat handed me a fried chicken sandwich and I packed it into my mouth, chewing and crying. Ahhh…stress eating. Like an old friend come to see me again. Okay that one doesn’t sound strange anymore. It just sounds like a funny story.

Sundays have always been the worst and everyone knows it. Because the next day is Monday and we’re back to doing what we hate. Sun shining on the day before Monday when you’ve just been left alone is a crappy feeling. You wish it would just storm and rain on down so that the whole town can feel how you feel.

“The rain to the wind said

‘You push and I’ll pelt’

And so smote the flower bed

That the flowers actually knelt.

I know how the flowers felt.”

–Robert Frost

Good simple poetry like Mr. Frost’s, on the other hand, is the best thing in the world. Because it reminds you that you’re not crazy and you’re not the only one who’s ever felt that way. And we all need to be reminded of that once in a while. Thank you, sir, for that. 

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08

Apr

Friction, Gloss, and Blood in the Sand: Remembering Skimboarding

So many times when I am driving home from work now, I’m too tired to drive the extra 90 seconds and park at the overlook on Boca Ciega Bay. But when I do, I look south to the Treasure Island Bridge and think of the 100 times that either me and Robb or me and my brother Matt drove over that bridge to go skimboarding on Treasure Island Beach, just south of John’s Pass.

The good feeling of sprinting over the sand, your heels barely sinking in. Barely two steps wet and then that 1/8th of a second feeling of flying, of taking off. Two ankles and two feet perched for the quick-step landing on the fiberglass skimboard. At this point, for me at least, this would often be the end of the dream. Reality in the form of gravity would arrive–I would then feel firsthand the coefficient of kinetic friction as it relates to sand grains over human skin. More or less like someone pressing a belt sander to your calf, or your knee, for just a drawn breath’s moment. Like a bzzzt it’s over but then here comes the blood.

But on the good waves, the good rides, the dream would go on a little bit longer. There would be this lovely forward momentum as you approach a glossy wave. The rendezvous is guaranteed now—it’s all anticipation and licking lips—moving wave set to interact with moving body. The point was to interact in the right way and make something better than either one could be on their own. Slick fiberglass coasting over tiny bubbles and ripples, pockets of air and saltwater shimmering as they pass underneath the board. And maybe for a tick you could trail your fingers in the water, taunting it in a “come hither” motion.

If it was really good then you’d look back and your friend would be watching you, nodding his head excitedly even as his stare went out to the ocean horizon, watching out for that next little set to be coming in. And when you drove home over the Treasure Island Bridge, talking about how you’d have it made if one day you could ever live this close to the ocean, the circle closed because you talked about the ride again and it became this compact memory before your boardshorts were even dry.

The best part of all though is the lasting part. The little feeling of the board gliding over the water stays inside your head. And when you’re 32 years old and won’t be going skimboarding again any time soon, sometimes that’s enough. 

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07

Apr

Choose Your Own Adventure

I was on the second floor, directly above the conference room, when someone I did not particularly like anyway was getting fired. I could hear the tones of the conversation, could hear two of my bosses in the room and then the lady answering back in quiet tones. I figured they were just reprimanding her because of the low-key nature of her responses. Nope. 

At the car wash this morning, I was pulling up in my Mustang in order to have it squeaky-cleaned by someone else’s hands. The man vacuuming out the cars was obviously Native American, very strong features of the western Indians. He even had the long braided ponytail down the back. And I remember thinking, gosh, you have such a proud heritage in your background. Yet here you are. 

And then there I was. 6:30 PM at the office. The last one there, like so often happens. I stumble out of the office door after (I imagine) lots of other good people are at home watching TV or reading a book or huff-puffing an active 1/2 mile lap around their neighborhood. 

It’s sort of ridiculous how much TS Eliot knew. I was about to say “predicted” but then I caught myself. 10 or 15 years ago seems like the good old days. How much more so would the 1940’s or 1950’s! Yet when you read his poetry you understand just how many wasted lives and wasted hours there were back then as there are now. LIfe sucks. But don’t worry, that didn’t start in the 1990’s. Or at the (this) turn of the century. It was that way before you were born too, so don’t feel too bad. 

Excerpts from “The Hollow Men” by TS Eliot: 

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us – if at all – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

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19

Jan

Love Song

It’s too easy for me to forget just how necessary you are to my life. Just like I forget to remember how nice it is to have my own home. I forget to be grateful for my good heart as long as it’s beating strong. Who is conscious of thirst when they’re swimming in a lake?

But if I’m away from you for long enough, then my need spreads through my arms and chest. A vacuum collapses my veins. My eyes sink back into my head because my body needs more to fill it up than just blood and water. It needs your scent in my nostrils, your laughter bright and encouraging, dappled sunlight on winter’s shaded path.

Without you here the earth is a prison, the sky is just the top of a jail cell. And every door seem closed. Wine becomes like drinking pan grease, and sleep is just a rehearsal for death.

 Bring my life back to me. Come home from work and let’s eat together. Take my hand and squeeze it, restoring the pulse with the pressure from your hand.

 

 

 

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19

Jan

I Miss My Friend Mark

Looking up at the open egg-blue sky this morning, I thought it strange how I’m still moving forward in time but left you behind. You’re timeless now. Let’s say it fancy: eternal. Frozen in the crystal of my memory, dead but not gone, silent but speaking. 

The man Robert Frost said it better, he said it cleaner once the noise is filtered out: 

 

“I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain

Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained—

And one thing more that was not then to say:

The Victory for what it lost and gained.”

 

“You went to meet the shell’s embrace of fire

On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day

The war seemed over more for you than me,

But now for me than you—the other way.”

 

Somewhere there’s glasses of red wine being poured, full and sloppy and open mouthed as a laughing regent. Meat sauce is simmering on the stove somewhere, making lasagna the slow way for friends coming over tonight. Somewhere there’s promise and possibility. Your message repeats, it hasn’t changed, it will never change. Except for the way it sounds to my ears as I grow older. 

I’ll see you everywhere. 

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