Every now and then when I get melancholy, I write about the past.
I stumble through moments that have been bouncing around my head for years. I don’t even know where to begin, but I know I have to start somewhere.
Somewhere inside of me are stories I need to tell.
I don’t know if they are good stories.
I just know they are there, clamoring to get out.
The stories get jumbled up because they were jumbled as I lived them. The wishes that I reached for never quite lived up to what I wanted them to be. I got jaded early and didn’t think life was really worth it. Dreams never clouded up my expectations and life pretty much unfolded like it was scripted for an unsung collection of carbon and water like me.
I was just there.
The plot never thickened and the audience never roared with laughter. Nobody noticed when they missed an episode or cared about the story and I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a sequel in the works.
It was nothing but a montage of misplaced moments. Memories scattered and lost like specks of sand on an endless beach.
I was just there.
Nobody noticed and nobody cared.
And now I’m here.
I’m staring at the past and looking for words to type. I wanted to bitch about some shitty stuff that fucked up my youth, but something keeps distracting me. A shiny little spot sparkling in the puddle of my mind keeps diverting me from all the things I thought were shitty.
Someone did notice.
Someone took my hand.
All those milestones I took for granted like learning to read, or tying my shoes, realizing the dark isn’t that scary or finding the beauty behind every note. All those little things that the younger me learned came from my very first hero.
She didn’t know it or want it. Hell, she probably kind of thought of me as a pest. But somewhere in her hectic teenage life, her heart find enough time for me.
My aunt Margaret was a giant in my life.
I remember going to see her plays, I think she was in Our Town and Fiddler on the Roof, but I was really little. I remember wanting to see her so much when she came back from studying abroad in Russia that I went to the airport even though I was sick and was barfing everywhere.
The way she read stories made them come alive and she had the patience to teach me to read. She was my first piano teacher, but when I heard her sing, the world of music became the most beautiful thing.
There was one year I went to live with her out in Provo Utah. I hated everything. I didn’t know why I was there. Nobody wanted me. It was another year in a different place, another new school and another year of being the new kid. I was so sick of trying to fit in and tired of fighting all the kids that hated me just because I was new. Worst of all, all these kids in my new world were Mormon. That meant they did all they same stuff as other kids but lied about it and hated anyone that didn’t cover it up.
The whole year sucked.
It sucked for me and I’m sure it sucked for Margaret. I was a total prick. The world as I knew it was just a giant ball of shit. I was angry at everything and Margaret was collateral damage.
I was so happy to leave that hell and get back to the shit hole I was more familiar with. I’m pretty sure Margaret was happy to see me go too.
Not like she didn’t love me, I know she did, It was that I was such an asshole.
Thinking about it now, I’m kind of sad.
I was thirteen years old that year I spent in Provo. Thirteen years and that was the first time I felt what it was like to have a mother. I wish I could have been nicer, but I couldn’t.
Not then.
I’m not so angry anymore and life looks a lot different now than it did back then. I only hope that she can forgive me for what I was like as a boy and can smile at the man she helped me become.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Love, The Hitman
It may be a gun
It may be a knife
But either way,
You’re gonna lose your life
Love,
The Hitman
Those are the words I scratched out in black ink on the torn out corner of some notebook paper. I wrote them southpaw so nobody could identify my handwriting. I even waited until a few more rounds of bells ushered in and out some other classes. I slipped in, unnoticed among the cattle call of eighth graders getting herded out to their next class. I tossed the folded piece of paper onto Mrs Bauers desk in a casual but calculated way and it landed crease down, leaning against a blue coffee mug that housed an assortment of pens. The note went unnoticed for a couple of hours, until Ruth, snacking on a wedge of green apple, reached down and picked up the scrap of paper. She almost threw it out without cause, but something stopped her.
Ruth brought down the hand that was attached to the apple wedge, uncrunched by her knobby smoke stained teeth. She flipped open the fold and read the words. The apple wedged fell from her mouth, richocheted of her desk and landed two inches from the wall, unedibly coated in chalk dust and hair.
Ruth didn’t know what to make of it.
Her eyes bounced around in their sockets, desperately hoping to focus on something.
Anything.
She was frightened by the empty classroom in front of her, but simultaneously relieved there weren’t any students watching her, especially any student that would write down such angry words. She pulled open the right top drawer of her desk, yanked out an envelope, tucked the note inside of it and dropped it back into the drawer. She slammed the drawer so hard, that the metallic crunch frightened her into a scream.
I had placed similar notes in a dissimilar pattern, sporadically over the last three weeks. I didn’t tell anyone about the notes. Well, almost. I did laugh about it with my buddy Tim, as we practiced Cross Country after school. I know that was stupid, but we both had Bauer for English and we ran several miles together everyday. We had to talk about something.
He got a kick out of it.
Besides, it wasn’t like I was the only one fucking with her. Well, maybe I started it, but like I said, nobody knew… at first.
It turns out the lady was a nut job and prebucent teens can be the evilest pieces of shit in the world.
I’m sure all of us that tormented that women just thought we were being funny.
I’m sure that woman didn’t think us tormenting her was funny at all.
She somehow let her personal diary get out into the school population. Her deathly fear of cats and dalliances with her personal Psychiatrist, Dr. Fishbine became the fodder for every atrocity a teenager could think of. Nightly crank calls, notices of her infidelities burned into her front lawn and the run of the mill TP’ing and egging plagued her the entire year.
Oddly enough, my little prank went on in the beginning of the year and ended before the
I had completely forgotten about the notes, four in total, that I had slipped onto Ruth Bauers desk. They were just a joke and I thought she would get it because one of the book she had us read was by Paul Zindel. That is why I was shocked to see my dad standing in the Main Office as I went to the Library. I knew I was in trouble…fucking duh…but I was trying to figure out what exactly I had been caught doing. I had skipped a few classes, my math teacher caught me smoking and had moved the librarians car down to the IGA when she gave me the keys to put some boxes in her trunk. All of those things could have been enough to bring Dad down to school.
I wasn’t surprised when I was called out over the schools PA to “Come on down to the Front Office.”
I was surprised, a little, that I didn’t have to park my butt for fifteen minutes in one of the green vynled chairs with metal arms that are riveted together agains the glass wall that shields all the administration staff from the populace. I was told to go right in.
Nothing sucks more than walking into a room full of cops.
They even had an F.B.I. agent and a handwriting expert.
They all admitted they couldn’t pin it on me but a bunch of people had said it was me.
I looked at my dad.
I didn’t give him that “Save Me Daddy!” look.
I just looked at him and saw his expression. He didn’t want to be there. He hates cops. I know he hates cops.
I looked at him and I knew he knew I did it.
That feeling was more punishment than any of those jarheads could bring on me.
I confessed.
I was then promptly handcuffed and led out the front doors to a squad car.
As I was escorted to the squad car, my buddy John Chase yelled out from his classroom window, “Hey Ferguson, How does it feel to get cuffed and stuffed.”
For a second it seemed pretty cool, then I wondered if it was really worth it.
The officer palmed the back of my head and pushed me into the backseat of his squad car. I heard the cackle from the radio under the dashboard. I looked out the window and saw a bunch of adults pretending that any of this will matter in a hundred years. It was just some words.
Placed in the right order, at the right place and at the right time, words can mean everything.
Was it worth it?
Yeah, it was.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The Song
The song
Oisin screamed himself awake and bent upright, his veins swollen hard with angry blood. Every muscle tensed with panic and his throat dried up. Sweat streamed from all his pores, glistening in the moonlit dark and pasting the sheet opaque across his chest.
His eyes flared crazy wide.
The white part watered up and then gave way to the tiny veins bleeding them into red. Both of his orbits expanded against his cheeks and forehead and his bright blue irises struggled to contain the exploding black of his pupils.
He stared out at the world.
It was dark and silent, but it was real. He almost got a glimpse of the fading dream he’d just left. Oisin's heart stalled then pushed out twice as much blood as normal, losing it's rhythm and his lungs forgot to inhale. The moment hung there, suspended in what he wanted life to be, then it crashed into what life really was.
He got it.
Oisin opened his lungs and sucked in a giant gasp of night air. Time crashed around him as his reality caught up with the world. He pushed open the bed sheet and flung himself out of bed. The cold of the floor stung his flesh when they met, but it felt good. It reassured him that he was awake.
He finally got it.
He'd always known he would.
Giddiness started to tickle his insides. Light as a feather at first, it circled around a spot just above his stomach and below his ribcage. It spiraled out and intensified. Now his whole body shook. He could not walk. He knew the room he was trapped in like the back of his hand, but he lumbered across it, almost incapacitated by anticipation. Each square of the checkered floor seem to drag under him unbearably slowly. Even the air thickened around him like drying plaster, slowing him down, pulling him back to bed. But Oisin was determined. He pushed on.
He had it.
He had been wrestling with it for so long now. It had become an obsession. Entire days were spent on it, maybe even months. It had been so long; that Oisin had even forgotten when he first started thinking about it.
Yea, he forgot when it began, imagine that, but he couldn't let it go.
It haunted him, like the ghosts of all the men he had seen die.
His mind swirled into a scrambled hash, serving up memories in rapid disjointed flashes. Screaming friends with their intestines spread out across the battlefield, begging him not to let them die , and dark-skinned strangers ripped lifeless by the bullets he had fired into them collided, and his dreams became nightmares. Through it all was a melody. A melody he heard snatches of, but could never finish. Oisin thought that if he could finish the song, the nightmares would stop. If he could just resolve that last melody, he could make it through the night without waking up in a sweaty scream. It seamed so easy, but the melody was so haunting that the resolution eluded him. He couldn't just end it any old way. It had to be the right way. It had to be those three perfect chords. Three chords that would masterfully vibrate down the fret board, swirl around briefly in the body of his guitar, then explode out the sound hole in a monumental conclusion to his masterpiece. Three chords he knew he would find, but had been eluding his fingertips.
Until now.
He had heard them in a dream. He saw them. He watched, amazed, as his own fingers spread across the rosewood neck of his guitar. Oisin knew what he needed to play.
It seemed like centuries since he woke from his dream, but he had finally struggled across the floor and into his chair. He picked up his guitar and strummed the strings to make sure they were in tune. He tightened up the G string because it was a little flat. Satisfied, Oisin strummed a couple of chords, then reached out to the music stand and grabbed a pencil. He scribbled in the conclusion of his song across the staffs of the sheet music in front of him. It looked good; it felt right. A smile curled up into his eyes.
Oisin started to play.
His hands floated up and down, dexterous fingers brilliantly pulling their assigned stings. It all came together. The puzzle was complete! Oisin played harder and louder. The music poured out from his guitar and melted all over him like a warm summer rain. He couldn't remember ever being this happy. All his life, since he first tried to wrap his tiny four year old fingers around the neck of a guitar, he had dreamed of writing his masterpiece. He had finally done it.
Oisin closed his eyes and played. He played and played. The sun came over the mountains to the east, but Oisin never noticed. He just kept on playing, joyously lost in the masterpiece he finally completed. He didn't here Jose come into his room and start yelling at him.
"Oisin, what the fuck are you doing?" Jose crossed the room and grabbed Oisin, hoisting him up by his waist, "How did you get over here?"
Oisin ignored him and kept playing.
"I don't know what you think you are trying to prove," Jose said as he flopped Oisin 's rebellious body back into the hospital bed. "But I swear, if you keep getting out of bed, you'll be the first guy with his arms and legs blown off that this VA hospital ever had to constrain."
Oisin ignored him and kept on playing.
Oisin screamed himself awake and bent upright, his veins swollen hard with angry blood. Every muscle tensed with panic and his throat dried up. Sweat streamed from all his pores, glistening in the moonlit dark and pasting the sheet opaque across his chest.
His eyes flared crazy wide.
The white part watered up and then gave way to the tiny veins bleeding them into red. Both of his orbits expanded against his cheeks and forehead and his bright blue irises struggled to contain the exploding black of his pupils.
He stared out at the world.
It was dark and silent, but it was real. He almost got a glimpse of the fading dream he’d just left. Oisin's heart stalled then pushed out twice as much blood as normal, losing it's rhythm and his lungs forgot to inhale. The moment hung there, suspended in what he wanted life to be, then it crashed into what life really was.
He got it.
Oisin opened his lungs and sucked in a giant gasp of night air. Time crashed around him as his reality caught up with the world. He pushed open the bed sheet and flung himself out of bed. The cold of the floor stung his flesh when they met, but it felt good. It reassured him that he was awake.
He finally got it.
He'd always known he would.
Giddiness started to tickle his insides. Light as a feather at first, it circled around a spot just above his stomach and below his ribcage. It spiraled out and intensified. Now his whole body shook. He could not walk. He knew the room he was trapped in like the back of his hand, but he lumbered across it, almost incapacitated by anticipation. Each square of the checkered floor seem to drag under him unbearably slowly. Even the air thickened around him like drying plaster, slowing him down, pulling him back to bed. But Oisin was determined. He pushed on.
He had it.
He had been wrestling with it for so long now. It had become an obsession. Entire days were spent on it, maybe even months. It had been so long; that Oisin had even forgotten when he first started thinking about it.
Yea, he forgot when it began, imagine that, but he couldn't let it go.
It haunted him, like the ghosts of all the men he had seen die.
His mind swirled into a scrambled hash, serving up memories in rapid disjointed flashes. Screaming friends with their intestines spread out across the battlefield, begging him not to let them die , and dark-skinned strangers ripped lifeless by the bullets he had fired into them collided, and his dreams became nightmares. Through it all was a melody. A melody he heard snatches of, but could never finish. Oisin thought that if he could finish the song, the nightmares would stop. If he could just resolve that last melody, he could make it through the night without waking up in a sweaty scream. It seamed so easy, but the melody was so haunting that the resolution eluded him. He couldn't just end it any old way. It had to be the right way. It had to be those three perfect chords. Three chords that would masterfully vibrate down the fret board, swirl around briefly in the body of his guitar, then explode out the sound hole in a monumental conclusion to his masterpiece. Three chords he knew he would find, but had been eluding his fingertips.
Until now.
He had heard them in a dream. He saw them. He watched, amazed, as his own fingers spread across the rosewood neck of his guitar. Oisin knew what he needed to play.
It seemed like centuries since he woke from his dream, but he had finally struggled across the floor and into his chair. He picked up his guitar and strummed the strings to make sure they were in tune. He tightened up the G string because it was a little flat. Satisfied, Oisin strummed a couple of chords, then reached out to the music stand and grabbed a pencil. He scribbled in the conclusion of his song across the staffs of the sheet music in front of him. It looked good; it felt right. A smile curled up into his eyes.
Oisin started to play.
His hands floated up and down, dexterous fingers brilliantly pulling their assigned stings. It all came together. The puzzle was complete! Oisin played harder and louder. The music poured out from his guitar and melted all over him like a warm summer rain. He couldn't remember ever being this happy. All his life, since he first tried to wrap his tiny four year old fingers around the neck of a guitar, he had dreamed of writing his masterpiece. He had finally done it.
Oisin closed his eyes and played. He played and played. The sun came over the mountains to the east, but Oisin never noticed. He just kept on playing, joyously lost in the masterpiece he finally completed. He didn't here Jose come into his room and start yelling at him.
"Oisin, what the fuck are you doing?" Jose crossed the room and grabbed Oisin, hoisting him up by his waist, "How did you get over here?"
Oisin ignored him and kept playing.
"I don't know what you think you are trying to prove," Jose said as he flopped Oisin 's rebellious body back into the hospital bed. "But I swear, if you keep getting out of bed, you'll be the first guy with his arms and legs blown off that this VA hospital ever had to constrain."
Oisin ignored him and kept on playing.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Thinking of Grandma and Grandpa
This is a song I wrote for my grandparents a couple of years ago for their anniversary. I played it for them and they smiled politely. Grandma took my hand and said it was nice. I don't think they got it, but it felt good to sing it for them.
I've been thinking about my grandparents a lot the past couple of months. They are getting very old and I realize how much I will miss them when they are gone.
Anyway, I dug it up and been playing it a bunch lately. It's a simple song. I just walk the the chords all from a G position sort of using an alternate finger picking.
Verse G B C D
Chorus C B A G holding the A second time around with no G
We've been together so long my love
Much longer than I’m deserving of
I’m so happy to have you in my life
And the happiest day
Was the day that you were my bride
And we were husband and wife
The house that we have has become a home
And the children we raised well they all have grown
The years pass so quickly but I have no regrets
Because I know I haven’t seen
The best of it yet
The best of it yet
Dust may collect now
Under our shoes
But the things I see in you
Are still brand new
The moments, the memories, the happy, the sad
The angry, the crying, the good and the bad
I got no regrets and my troubles are few
It’s my song and my story
It’s my life spent with you
My life spent with you
Dust may collect now
Under our shoes
But the things I see in you
Are still brand new
Dust may collect now
Under our shoes
But the things I see in you
Are still brand new
They're shiny and new
I've been thinking about my grandparents a lot the past couple of months. They are getting very old and I realize how much I will miss them when they are gone.
Anyway, I dug it up and been playing it a bunch lately. It's a simple song. I just walk the the chords all from a G position sort of using an alternate finger picking.
Verse G B C D
Chorus C B A G holding the A second time around with no G
We've been together so long my love
Much longer than I’m deserving of
I’m so happy to have you in my life
And the happiest day
Was the day that you were my bride
And we were husband and wife
The house that we have has become a home
And the children we raised well they all have grown
The years pass so quickly but I have no regrets
Because I know I haven’t seen
The best of it yet
The best of it yet
Dust may collect now
Under our shoes
But the things I see in you
Are still brand new
The moments, the memories, the happy, the sad
The angry, the crying, the good and the bad
I got no regrets and my troubles are few
It’s my song and my story
It’s my life spent with you
My life spent with you
Dust may collect now
Under our shoes
But the things I see in you
Are still brand new
Dust may collect now
Under our shoes
But the things I see in you
Are still brand new
They're shiny and new
Sunday, May 9, 2010
It was just a shirt
It was just a shirt
I was wearing a black tee-shirt that let me advertise Jack Daniels to everyone I came in contact with. I was eight years shy of being able to drink legally, but the shirt was black and the giant Jack Daniels label made it wicked cool. Jack Daniels got a four foot nine billboard. I got a cool shirt. It was a win win situation.
The plastic white lettering adorning the front was cracked and starting to chip from multiple washings and a tree branch had stabbed a hole into the left shoulder. It was slightly ragged, but I loved it.
I had been swimming all day and the bottom sagged into a damp gray just below my waist where it clung to my still clammy bathing suit.
My bike was almost on auto pilot as I glided into my driveway. I pushed back on the right pedal and skidded sideways across the gravel. My fists let go of the handlebars and my bike slid flat against the ground. Hopping over the frame, I grabbed my mailbox to balance my body into a stop. Some older kids were driving by just then and screamed a bunch of unintelligible taunts at me. I folded my fist and flipped a bird high into the air.
"Fuck You!" I screamed like I didn't mean it and waited for the screech.
Waited.
Waited.
Nothing happened, just a fading hiss from bald tires.
The car kept on going.
I pulled my shirt over my head.
The wet part, cold and clingy, stiffened my tiny boy nipples into angry pimples and pointed both of my chest hairs out at right angles. I flapped my arms trying to shake off the goose bumps and then spread prostrate on the soggy ground, just past where the gravel met the grass. I reached down into the small metal tube that tunneled under the end of our driveway and pulled out a small plastic shopping bag. The bag contained a plain white tee shirt. I pulled the white tee shirt out and replaced it with the half damp cotton advertisement, then pushed the bag back into the tiny tunnel.
I had to do that just so I could keep the shirt. If I brought it home my grandmother would surely find it and confiscate it under the pretense of trying to save my soul.
Never mind that my father was an abusive alcoholic or that my mother was a heroin addicted prostitute down in New Haven. No, that shit wasn’t going to ruin me. Beer labeled cotton was going to lead me right into Satan’s arms.
I had given up trying to illuminate the outdated monolith that was my grandmother with my teenage wisdom. Her mind was closed tight around her ignorance. She paraphrased partial scriptures and misquoted anecdotes, trying to piece together a religion that would justify her crazy. I knew her religion better than she did. I actually read the books several times and could correct all the erroneous quotes she used to justify her psychosis. She was nothing more than a control freak.
But, she was the one making the rules. She had my father, my grandfather and all my uncles quivering under her egomaniacal regime. Any protest I spouted fell on deaf ears, so I did the only thing I could do.
I followed the letter of her law to a T, but exploited all the loopholes so I could still be me.
Well, the me that snuck around and changed his clothes at the end of the driveway at least.
I pushed my head out the neck hole and wiggled my arms out the sleeves. Just then, the postman pulled up to my mailbox and stuffed it full of mail. He glanced into my stare and we met briefly with our eyes. He gave me a two finger salute and a casual nod as he leaned out from his jeep to stuff a wedge of mail into our box.. I responded with a half-assed wave. Pulling back the pornstache from his corn nibblet smile, he offered out a cigarette yellow grin.
I must have looked like I just sniffed in a rancid fart..
He caught my reaction and slammed his mustache down around a fast formed frown. His right arm sailed out and grabbed the gear shift, grinding it around until it landed into first, then he floated out the clutch. He slolwly sped off at full mail jeep speed, down the road and around the corner, out of site.
It’s funny how that moment was more embarrassing for him than it was for me, but I’m the one who remembers it after all these years. He probably beat himself up for a bit then let the whole incident fade into the soft pickled fog of his middle aged mind. I can’t seem to keep that memory from popping up every now and then. It makes me giggle for a second and then pauses me with the wish that I could let him know I was....never mind I just giggle when ever I think about our mailman with that giant bushy pornstache.
I pulled out the chunk of mail and cradled it in my left arm as I pushed my bike up the driveway. I got to the top and leaned my bike up against the porch, making my way up the steps and through the side door to the kitchen. Flippin through the delivery pile and smudging all the corners with dirt from my play stained fingers, made me glad I wasn't an adult. It was mostly junk and stuff that looked like bills, but a cream colored business envelope had my name on it. I pulled that one out and tossed the rest of the pile onto the counter. I tore off one end and shook the folded contents out into my palm.
The paper was heavy and milled thick. Off white and important looking, the stationary seemed too fancy to be carrying words meant for a thirteen year old. The two pages were creased perfectly into thirds and I balked at opening them.
I knew what it was.
I even knew what it going to tell me.
I was glad the only one home. I didn’t need any of my self hating relatives rejoicing in the fact that I had been pushed back down into the puddle of failure they were content to wallow in.
I had tried to get out. Out of the crazy.
I applied for a scholarship to Oak Ridge, a military prep school in North Carolina. My dad couldn’t afford it, but they took one charity case every year on merit. Dad said I could go if I got the money. I applied thinking that I would get in easily. I was smart; got straight A’s and was in the program for gifted kids. I never expected the level of competition I ran into. My grades test scores and extra curricular activities got me into a final field of fifteen that were invited in for an interview. I went down there with my aunt and all the finalist were sent home with assignment of sending in a five page essay on why we should be chosen.
I thought my essay rocked.
I freaked a little when I sealed it up in an envelope put it in the mail. I thought that maybe I could have done better.
Big Breath.
I flattened out the pages and splashed down into the ink black words that were all well coifed and double spaced for clarity. A few pleasantries and a “Thank You for trying” trickled into the meat of the matter that let me know that I didn’t make it and that I could apply again next year.
Next year?
Next Year?
Yeah Right!
There was no way I was living with Grandma and all her crazy for another trip around the sun.
I was going to find a way out now.
That’s how I ended up in Utah.
I was wearing a black tee-shirt that let me advertise Jack Daniels to everyone I came in contact with. I was eight years shy of being able to drink legally, but the shirt was black and the giant Jack Daniels label made it wicked cool. Jack Daniels got a four foot nine billboard. I got a cool shirt. It was a win win situation.
The plastic white lettering adorning the front was cracked and starting to chip from multiple washings and a tree branch had stabbed a hole into the left shoulder. It was slightly ragged, but I loved it.
I had been swimming all day and the bottom sagged into a damp gray just below my waist where it clung to my still clammy bathing suit.
My bike was almost on auto pilot as I glided into my driveway. I pushed back on the right pedal and skidded sideways across the gravel. My fists let go of the handlebars and my bike slid flat against the ground. Hopping over the frame, I grabbed my mailbox to balance my body into a stop. Some older kids were driving by just then and screamed a bunch of unintelligible taunts at me. I folded my fist and flipped a bird high into the air.
"Fuck You!" I screamed like I didn't mean it and waited for the screech.
Waited.
Waited.
Nothing happened, just a fading hiss from bald tires.
The car kept on going.
I pulled my shirt over my head.
The wet part, cold and clingy, stiffened my tiny boy nipples into angry pimples and pointed both of my chest hairs out at right angles. I flapped my arms trying to shake off the goose bumps and then spread prostrate on the soggy ground, just past where the gravel met the grass. I reached down into the small metal tube that tunneled under the end of our driveway and pulled out a small plastic shopping bag. The bag contained a plain white tee shirt. I pulled the white tee shirt out and replaced it with the half damp cotton advertisement, then pushed the bag back into the tiny tunnel.
I had to do that just so I could keep the shirt. If I brought it home my grandmother would surely find it and confiscate it under the pretense of trying to save my soul.
Never mind that my father was an abusive alcoholic or that my mother was a heroin addicted prostitute down in New Haven. No, that shit wasn’t going to ruin me. Beer labeled cotton was going to lead me right into Satan’s arms.
I had given up trying to illuminate the outdated monolith that was my grandmother with my teenage wisdom. Her mind was closed tight around her ignorance. She paraphrased partial scriptures and misquoted anecdotes, trying to piece together a religion that would justify her crazy. I knew her religion better than she did. I actually read the books several times and could correct all the erroneous quotes she used to justify her psychosis. She was nothing more than a control freak.
But, she was the one making the rules. She had my father, my grandfather and all my uncles quivering under her egomaniacal regime. Any protest I spouted fell on deaf ears, so I did the only thing I could do.
I followed the letter of her law to a T, but exploited all the loopholes so I could still be me.
Well, the me that snuck around and changed his clothes at the end of the driveway at least.
I pushed my head out the neck hole and wiggled my arms out the sleeves. Just then, the postman pulled up to my mailbox and stuffed it full of mail. He glanced into my stare and we met briefly with our eyes. He gave me a two finger salute and a casual nod as he leaned out from his jeep to stuff a wedge of mail into our box.. I responded with a half-assed wave. Pulling back the pornstache from his corn nibblet smile, he offered out a cigarette yellow grin.
I must have looked like I just sniffed in a rancid fart..
He caught my reaction and slammed his mustache down around a fast formed frown. His right arm sailed out and grabbed the gear shift, grinding it around until it landed into first, then he floated out the clutch. He slolwly sped off at full mail jeep speed, down the road and around the corner, out of site.
It’s funny how that moment was more embarrassing for him than it was for me, but I’m the one who remembers it after all these years. He probably beat himself up for a bit then let the whole incident fade into the soft pickled fog of his middle aged mind. I can’t seem to keep that memory from popping up every now and then. It makes me giggle for a second and then pauses me with the wish that I could let him know I was....never mind I just giggle when ever I think about our mailman with that giant bushy pornstache.
I pulled out the chunk of mail and cradled it in my left arm as I pushed my bike up the driveway. I got to the top and leaned my bike up against the porch, making my way up the steps and through the side door to the kitchen. Flippin through the delivery pile and smudging all the corners with dirt from my play stained fingers, made me glad I wasn't an adult. It was mostly junk and stuff that looked like bills, but a cream colored business envelope had my name on it. I pulled that one out and tossed the rest of the pile onto the counter. I tore off one end and shook the folded contents out into my palm.
The paper was heavy and milled thick. Off white and important looking, the stationary seemed too fancy to be carrying words meant for a thirteen year old. The two pages were creased perfectly into thirds and I balked at opening them.
I knew what it was.
I even knew what it going to tell me.
I was glad the only one home. I didn’t need any of my self hating relatives rejoicing in the fact that I had been pushed back down into the puddle of failure they were content to wallow in.
I had tried to get out. Out of the crazy.
I applied for a scholarship to Oak Ridge, a military prep school in North Carolina. My dad couldn’t afford it, but they took one charity case every year on merit. Dad said I could go if I got the money. I applied thinking that I would get in easily. I was smart; got straight A’s and was in the program for gifted kids. I never expected the level of competition I ran into. My grades test scores and extra curricular activities got me into a final field of fifteen that were invited in for an interview. I went down there with my aunt and all the finalist were sent home with assignment of sending in a five page essay on why we should be chosen.
I thought my essay rocked.
I freaked a little when I sealed it up in an envelope put it in the mail. I thought that maybe I could have done better.
Big Breath.
I flattened out the pages and splashed down into the ink black words that were all well coifed and double spaced for clarity. A few pleasantries and a “Thank You for trying” trickled into the meat of the matter that let me know that I didn’t make it and that I could apply again next year.
Next year?
Next Year?
Yeah Right!
There was no way I was living with Grandma and all her crazy for another trip around the sun.
I was going to find a way out now.
That’s how I ended up in Utah.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
10
"Fuck this!" Sapphire screamed, the hot vinyl cover of the front seat scalded her upper thighs and the few inches of ass that escaped out from her thong. The cootchie cutter skirt got her the lift, but there was no way she was going to fry her poontang all the way to Detroit, or wherever this douchebag wannabe was going to drive her. She was just happy to not be walking.
Sapphire flipped down the visor and studied the rectangular reflection tossed back at her from the tiny mirror. She hated her high forehead. It reminded her of her dad. Not the good dad or even the dad that was around for most of grade school. She thought she looked like her real Dad. Not that she could remember him or even pull out an old photograph to cuss at. It just wasn’t her mom’s forehead and it was the one thing she could definitely blame on him.
Her mom gave up the sad tale one day over some toasted Leggo’s and told Sapphire the story between syrupy bites and vodka sips. Sapphire got the gist of it, but the ending was a bit slurred and somewhat vague.
But it went something like this;
her dad had worked the midget wrestling circuit because he could never catch a break in Hollywood. He was too tall, according to all the casting agents, to play the traditional little people roles. But at four foot six, he couldn’t land any other part. He starved on The Strip for a bit then hooked up with this cat name Big Al.
Big Al bought him some drinks one night and told him he could make a fortune wrestling. He would be the biggest little guy East, West and North of the Pecos (He couldn’t guarantee South, because that was out of his licensed area).
Sapphire’s dad jumped at the chance and signed his name to a contract written on a cocktail napkin. He squirmed into some spandex, donned a cape and called himself The Jumbo Shrimp. A legend was born.
Not quite.
Jumbo Shrimp got his ass kicked on a nightly basis. Night after night he was swung around by his ankles and pile driven onto the mat, his face clenched against two testes and a veined sausage by the muscular thighs of a guy twice his size. Three years of this found him at the end of his rope when the tour pulled into the Hartford Civic Center.
That night he wasn’t going to take any more.
That night, when the script called for him to be scrotum squashed and hammer headed into hell, he lashed out and bit off the left nut of Kyro The Giant. Kyro grasped at his bleeding groin and fell to the canvas. Jumbo spit out the man egg, flipped off all four corners of the stadium and made a short legged dash to the eastside exit. Everyone witnessing the event was too stunned to even notice the four and a half feet off flesh and bones running away.
Jumbo was twenty blocks away before he stopped to catch his breath.
That’s when he met Sapphire’s mom.
She was on the side street next to the Dada Mart, freaking out because she had just shoplifted her first bag of Fritos. All of a sudden, this midget wearing a cape opened up the passenger door and hopped in the front seat.
“Take me to Vegas and I’ll make you rich!” he screamed.
Sapphire’s mom, all high from the Frito heist, acted on impulse and hit the gas pedal. She sped down the side streets like she was in the chase scene from The French Connection. Not a soul was following her but she drove her car as fast as it would go to the freeway. She must have gone a hundred miles west on Interstate 84 before she even realized what was going on.
“What the fuck!” she suddenly panicked.
She looked over at the spandex wrapped midget breathing heavily next to her.
Anxiety softened and she felt pity.
He looked so harmless, even with the cape and mask. His tiny midget legs stuck out straight over the edge of the seat.
They made it to Vegas in three days, only stopping one night in some mangy mom and pop motel off of Intestate 80, somewhere out the most desolate backwoods of Nebraska.
When they got to Vegas, Jumbo made her drive around town for a while until he finally barked at her to pull into some creepy motel that was clinging onto a fading philandering salesman clientele, far from the jingling slots and electric neon sunshine. He said he would be right back and climbed over the wooden fence behind the car. Sapphire’s mom waited for almost three hours before she gave up and made the long lonely haul back to Connecticut.
It was even lonelier when she gave birth to a baby girl and her parents not only refused to come but made it clear they would hate anyone that did.
Mormons suck that way.
Mom married the man she always knew as her dad because her parents made her.
Sapphire hated her mom for making her put up with that touchy creep just because she thought he was her father.
She hated her fake dad for being a loser creep.
Sapphire had to get away.
She just had to.
That’s why she did.
Sapphire hated her high forehead.
She hated her real dad.
She hated the fact that she had been conceived in Nebraska.
She wondered if she had any midget in her.
Sapphire flipped down the visor and studied the rectangular reflection tossed back at her from the tiny mirror. She hated her high forehead. It reminded her of her dad. Not the good dad or even the dad that was around for most of grade school. She thought she looked like her real Dad. Not that she could remember him or even pull out an old photograph to cuss at. It just wasn’t her mom’s forehead and it was the one thing she could definitely blame on him.
Her mom gave up the sad tale one day over some toasted Leggo’s and told Sapphire the story between syrupy bites and vodka sips. Sapphire got the gist of it, but the ending was a bit slurred and somewhat vague.
But it went something like this;
her dad had worked the midget wrestling circuit because he could never catch a break in Hollywood. He was too tall, according to all the casting agents, to play the traditional little people roles. But at four foot six, he couldn’t land any other part. He starved on The Strip for a bit then hooked up with this cat name Big Al.
Big Al bought him some drinks one night and told him he could make a fortune wrestling. He would be the biggest little guy East, West and North of the Pecos (He couldn’t guarantee South, because that was out of his licensed area).
Sapphire’s dad jumped at the chance and signed his name to a contract written on a cocktail napkin. He squirmed into some spandex, donned a cape and called himself The Jumbo Shrimp. A legend was born.
Not quite.
Jumbo Shrimp got his ass kicked on a nightly basis. Night after night he was swung around by his ankles and pile driven onto the mat, his face clenched against two testes and a veined sausage by the muscular thighs of a guy twice his size. Three years of this found him at the end of his rope when the tour pulled into the Hartford Civic Center.
That night he wasn’t going to take any more.
That night, when the script called for him to be scrotum squashed and hammer headed into hell, he lashed out and bit off the left nut of Kyro The Giant. Kyro grasped at his bleeding groin and fell to the canvas. Jumbo spit out the man egg, flipped off all four corners of the stadium and made a short legged dash to the eastside exit. Everyone witnessing the event was too stunned to even notice the four and a half feet off flesh and bones running away.
Jumbo was twenty blocks away before he stopped to catch his breath.
That’s when he met Sapphire’s mom.
She was on the side street next to the Dada Mart, freaking out because she had just shoplifted her first bag of Fritos. All of a sudden, this midget wearing a cape opened up the passenger door and hopped in the front seat.
“Take me to Vegas and I’ll make you rich!” he screamed.
Sapphire’s mom, all high from the Frito heist, acted on impulse and hit the gas pedal. She sped down the side streets like she was in the chase scene from The French Connection. Not a soul was following her but she drove her car as fast as it would go to the freeway. She must have gone a hundred miles west on Interstate 84 before she even realized what was going on.
“What the fuck!” she suddenly panicked.
She looked over at the spandex wrapped midget breathing heavily next to her.
Anxiety softened and she felt pity.
He looked so harmless, even with the cape and mask. His tiny midget legs stuck out straight over the edge of the seat.
They made it to Vegas in three days, only stopping one night in some mangy mom and pop motel off of Intestate 80, somewhere out the most desolate backwoods of Nebraska.
When they got to Vegas, Jumbo made her drive around town for a while until he finally barked at her to pull into some creepy motel that was clinging onto a fading philandering salesman clientele, far from the jingling slots and electric neon sunshine. He said he would be right back and climbed over the wooden fence behind the car. Sapphire’s mom waited for almost three hours before she gave up and made the long lonely haul back to Connecticut.
It was even lonelier when she gave birth to a baby girl and her parents not only refused to come but made it clear they would hate anyone that did.
Mormons suck that way.
Mom married the man she always knew as her dad because her parents made her.
Sapphire hated her mom for making her put up with that touchy creep just because she thought he was her father.
She hated her fake dad for being a loser creep.
Sapphire had to get away.
She just had to.
That’s why she did.
Sapphire hated her high forehead.
She hated her real dad.
She hated the fact that she had been conceived in Nebraska.
She wondered if she had any midget in her.
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