We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.

Biking to the afterlife

2011-03-18T19:01:00.000-07:00

Biking to the afterlife

Shiny expensive black car with suspicious tinted windows and sleek chrome accents is pulled up next to the curb. The body is mirror clean in this season when most vehicles still have a salt film on them. Driver standing near it keeps an alert watch because someone important expects a ride. It's just not yet their time.

People walk around dressed in green and, already at 4 pm, putting down pints of beer while singing jolly songs out of tune. Vestiges of green dye linger in the river. A brass band can be heard echoing through the canyon of down town Chicago.

It's sixty degrees and I've caught a chill wind. I'm cold, frozen from the inside out with bad news. A great woman, a patient woman, is gone from this world. I keep moving while this knowledge sinks its insidious fingers into my bones. I'm on the prowl, looking for a coat or some blanket of numbness that might pretend to protect me. Half a dozen cupcakes piled high with frosting? Playing with strangers in a dark bar? There's always the Vosges store. I can still use chocolate, right?

But no, I have no effective shield. Only now and now and now stretches in all directions. And now I answer phone calls and make arrangements. Now I head to the next appointment. Now I contain myself at work with a sober face. Now I look down at the happy color of my purple dress that felt right at 6 am but suddenly seems so incongruous with the day.

Reverend Erica was the most patient person I have ever met. I've sat in meetings watching her continually exhibit grace and gentleness to people who, by my estimation, seriously deserved a slap upside the head. I sat there stuck in self pity (that's the word I use for it now) while she patiently brought the many sides of confusion back to an understanding of next steps and solutions. I see why she did that. She truly believed in the presence of Christ in each and every person. Some folks had it buried pretty deep - so deep that not even they themselves knew of its existence. But she saw it and she always spoke to that as the reality within each person. Sooner or later she would tease it out.

Unless she didn't. I'm sure there were days. But pretty few people ever saw them. I never saw it, that's for sure. But she had doubts. And what explanation to you give your church when cancer cells invade the body? You could say it was the revenge of many years of gummy bears, junk food and take out. But something was welcoming that non-nutritious stuff into her being. Some part that was ready to complete its mission and was quite unwilling to age. Sure, it feels too soon to me. It feels to me like I've been deprived of that vitality, humor and grace far far too prematurely. But make no mistake about it. No one, NO ONE, leaves before the perfect time.

Still, I'm pissed.

It's about 24 hours after I first got the news when I feel the ice crack. It's a sharp snap in the center of my chest. A painful tear in the frozen river lets loose the dangerous flow from underneath. I'm sitting at my desk. I'm working. I can't stop sobbing. There's no stopping it. It won't respond to logic. Here comes the water, washing off eye makeup and professional composure. Reaching deep into my gut it wipes all the images of her smiling face across my insides, scrubbing all the fond, unspoken expectations loose. I'd have wanted her there on my important days yet to come. I would have wanted to share successes and happiness with her. I would have wanted to be closer. Did she know I loved her? Like a bystander some part of my mind stands at the riverbank pointing at the scene in awe. "Wow, look at that! That must be grief! Fascinating!"

I've been about as functional as I can be for one day. Two wheels and I'm out of here in a blaze of bike grease. Absent of a steel cage on me vehicle, I don't miss the chirping of birds as they attempt to wake the trees up. The scent of thawing earth fills the air like heady perfume. Here and there tiny green fingers poke through mud. The first bulb flowers rising. It almost seems indecent, so much life waking up, on today of all days which would seem, on the outside, to be about decay.

But of course. Why would you choose anything but to drink in the life of the day? Who should tell the birds to be silent because you're sad? Why would you waste the sight of a blue sky on thinking about bills? Why would one ignore the view, the terrain, to prefer some irritating mental conversation with someone who isn't there? Look at that jogger in her dayglo leggings and hot pink striped jacket - why - she's the miraculous product of billions of years of evolution. Why would you waste time hating that person when this life, this smell, these colors, are so sweet and we have just a moment to drink them before we're gone? Why would you not drink the chocolate milk? Why would you waste a moment thinking about your thighs when there is a genuine spirit in each person to be touched? Why would you wait by the phone for HIM to call when there is a world full of stories to be heard? Why would you not paint the painting? Why would you not show the love?

I screech to a halt. Busses sail past. Cars wait with blinkers on. Pedestrians step guardedly into the crosswalk. Look at us. Look at us now.

That's a pretty big baby...

2011-03-10T19:01:00.000-08:00

Maybe 7? 8? 9? I'm not sure any more. I wasn't in middle school yet but I was definitely bigger, at least starting to top 70 lbs, when I finally got out of the crib and into a normal bed. I had forgotten and it came up as an aside in therapy today. Not even sure how I got to that point in the conversation. Talking about clothes... I didn't pick out my own clothes for school because I got ready in the living room because I shared a bedroom with my brother...and while I was in that room I still slept in a crib.

A crib?

A crib.

How did it end up like that? I'm sure there were plans for some other arrangement for all of these bodies of children. For a long time I heard plans of the two oldest moving into the basement, me moving into the pink room with the other sister, and my brother having his own room ('cause he was a boy). But the good idea and its implementation stretched further and further apart. Through Kindergarden, first grade, second...? I heard it so long that it took on the quality of fantasy, like the vacation we never took. Inertia creeps up on you. The next thing you know you're repairing a crib meant to hold up to 30 lbs of baby because the mattress supports break regularly. 70+ lbs of child drop with alarm to the floor under the bed in the middle of the night. She cries with alarm. Hilarity ensues.

Hence flew the meanest arrow in brother's arsenal. Available for humiliation at any moment's notice. In the middle of being tormented by children on the school bus he would come out with "she still sleeps in a crib". Bringing his friends over to play, a show of my crib was a humorous aside. It made him cool.

Who even cares any more which dust speck started the storm cloud, which was the first hair in the ball or which flake inspired the rolling set of poor ideas and bad decisions. Does it matter what little thing inspired the years of self negation? Did the crib make me into an alcoholic or was it the carelessness of the parents who, night after night, put me in there, to squeeze myself in, curl up into smallness and pretend not to be a growing person? At 12 i was throwing a party of one before the glass cabinet where all the liquor was kept.

I've never come close to crying in therapy until today. Because there it was, written in the shock of a doctor's face, that leaving a growing child to sleep in a crib has an unmistakable strangeness about it. That's all I see, for now.

Sitting at home with a plate full of healthy dinner and the feeling. Negation. Here, finally, is that mysterious essence of "what's wrong with you" that has so violently isolated me from all of those other people I see living lives with a sense of purpose. It's called "not a person" and its raw. It tastes like cheap girl scout cookies coming back up your throat. It feels like an ill fitted polyester dress on a hot day. It looks like the one kid in the group photo who is most likely to have a sad look on her face. Why can't I wear jeans like the other girls? Why can't I be treated like a normal person? Why isn't anyone listening to me? We can keep that self-pity helmet encased around our head, lost to the thoughts of the past for days...years. Or not. It's on me whether I want to finish the job they started...or not.

It was a crib in the one bedroom with only 1 exterior wall. The warmest place in the house. It's love, dear, but not as we know it.

We're back

2011-03-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

Restricted self, fat self, now self.

What do you have to say to me?

Fat self: I'm afraid of change. I'm afraid of having the things I like ripped out of my hands. I'm afraid that there will never be enough. I'm sick of good things leaving. I don't like surprises, conflict or upset. I cling to what was and it clings to my body.

Restricted self: I'm sick of not being good enough. I'm sick of people being able to hurt me and finding a way to do that. I'm sick of never finding the way of being impervious to their bullets. I demand to be bullet proof. I demand to be good enough for once. No one will ever find a reason to reject me or hurt me again.

Dear fat self: No changes have ever come into our lives that weren't ultimately for the better. We can believe now that God is in the center of our being and that all things that come to us are for our highest good. Change only hurts when we fight it. And look, last year when we had that crash... big change. But there were angels and midwives all along the way. Nothing can hurt the real essence of us.

Dear restricted self: We have no power over what other people think. The more we try to take that power the further away it gets. This is something you should have heard a long time ago, like when you were being bullied by girl scouts on the bus. People are going to say and think whatever is in THEM to say and think. It has very little to do with the real you or even reality. You can listen to them and let them push you around, or you can make the choice to know Who You Really Are and live from there and not listen to them. Because the more you listen to them the more you will create a world in which you are wrong and must conform and pinch yourself. Other people will take our lead on how to treat us & who we are. If you don't listen to them. Well, you're free.

Freedom is a choice, ladies. Sanity is a choice. Health is a choice. Beauty is a choice.

I think we need to choose again. We have wasted too much time living for dying and make no mistake about it this is a time and a place where we will not survive if we permit those sorts of attitudes. We will be eliminated from the Earth equation. We have wasted too much time not living in the health, the power, the creativity, the beauty, the amazingness of the the truth of Who We Really Are. The time and energy wasted running from that truth, being afraid of that truth and staying stuck in the habits that kill us are too much of a drain. I, for one, am done!

I would like to make a decision to live in our real Self, our real power. To step into our true, goddess given role. I would like to make the decision to LIVE. Once and for ALL.

But, I cannot do this without the cooperation of both of you. We have to be in this together. I cannot leave you behind because you are the truth of me, too. I love you, I need you with me as I move ahead to be my warning harpies of when things could be dangerous or out of balance. Are you with me?

Here we go.

Hungry Lake

2009-11-13T08:42:00.000-08:00

I'm flying, but I'm just a sparrow under the vast sky. I'm tall on my new self powered machine but yet so small. The lake, starting just there, 4 feet to my right, marches off into the darkness all the way to the horizon. The black unmeasureableness of it mesmerizes me. In the morning, with that line of horizon punctuated by a round sun, I can easily quantify my presence and size against its glimmer. But after dark the sea monster emerges. Her big, black mouth, whose throat stretches thousands of miles away to the cold North Atlantic, might swallow me up so easily. In just one tiny bight of the those toothy windswept waves, I could be gone. Lost forever in that inky dream.

Hungry Lake Michigan reminds me every day that I am small; that it is hungry; of how hard I must work to maneuver just 9 miles of her shore. Lest I think that the zenith of power lies in the pumping engines of those cars on the highway to my left, her dark water rolls in the breeze, splashing over a barrier to make a reach for me. What is power when one embodies force?

dark

2009-10-23T21:29:00.001-07:00

It's that dark time. Time to pull the black air out of one's eyes. Along rain glistened streets feet shuffle like a marching shadow. We are reduced by winter to silhouettes. Shapes chasing desires into the night. From sleep to sleep.

fog

2009-08-17T14:52:00.001-07:00

I got funny looks heading out this morning. Rain poured down, the sky glowered a deep grey, and there I was, wheeling my bike out for my commute. Turning on the lights and heading the hissing wheels out under thick, boiling skies, I wouldn't miss this for the world. Shreds of some low clouds finger the skyline, tasting each building. How sweet is sweet home, Chicago?

A cold wind brushes in from the lake - maybe a interloper from Canada- and soon I'm not just alone out here but awash in a chill cloud. The normal vista breaks down into the chunks which reveal themselves in the orb of each light. Here a lonely trail, here an empty beach, here water still as bathwater. The air is full of this cold water - a mystery.

Love and death - two of the biggest how-to mysteries known to humanity. I'd like to think that, having failed at one, I might well avoid the other. But as the roots in my hair grow I see the dots of silver growing from my head. "Who knows", I tell the mirror, "who knows... You might just fall in love yet."

Why I like Monday

2009-08-10T08:07:00.000-07:00

In the silence of Monday morning I move through an abandoned world accompanied by just a few other hard-working ghost people. The lake shore is open and empty while the sand itself seems to heave sighs of relief. Evidence of two hot days of abuse - piles of broken bottles, soda cups, napkins and food wrappings, bags of junk left from cookouts - make mountains at her edges. The cyan light of morning opens its eye over Chicago to illuminate an exhausted relief. Thank god, the people are gone!

In the empty locker room I open a makeup case and my chosen weapons make clattering plastic sounds across the counter. In this antiseptic and air-conditioned world I erase the evidence of a weekend. Cover-up liquid will conceal dark circles under the eyes and some zits which grew from sweating out in the hot sun while working in the dirt. The little pot labeled "paint" will do the trick to hide the tiny purple dots which appeared all around my face when, disgusted with my own eating, I decided to purge up Saturday's dinner. The blood vessels that burst in my right eye during that process still leak brilliant red. It can't be fixed, so I change the part in my hair, snap the hairdryer out of the wall holster and re-style the coif. Now long bangs fall in front of the right side of my face and conceal the bloody evidence. I tell people I threw up because of heat exhaustion. I hide any traces leading to a different truth. I don't really care if there's anything wrong - any thing wrong with me or any injury. I only care that there be no appearance of my having slipped.

I open my blush compact carefully. The cake inside is shattered and sits in jagged, cracked piles that threaten to dump out of the container and make a mess at any second. It looks as broken up as I feel. I gently poke some color out with my brush and snap the little compact shut to hide the evidence within a smooth, black case.

I slip on the dress I toted along. It's a light, linen thing bought during a trip to Finland. That's the place to shop, for sure. For me, I have to go where all the women are built like linebackers to find clothing that won't yell "her shoulders are too big! Her legs are too stocky!" The more I bike to work the lighter the clothes I wear are becoming. Linen dress makes a neat line and as there's less on my hips to hold it up, it floats down below the knees. I review the evidence of yesterday's fast in the mirror. It made a good start in fighting back this disgusting mass of self. I step back to review the results of my efforts.

The weekend, with its terrifying stretches of unstructured time, is over. Back to Monday, I wake up extra early to the comfort of a schedule, times to work and times to eat, clear times to exercise and times to rest. Wrapped in paint and cloth, I'm ready.

Another dead drunk.

2009-08-06T19:42:00.001-07:00

Dog darts out in front of me, thick black hair flying as he intently chases a truck heading down Lake Shore Drive. It's a hopeless pursuit for the pup. I look around but find no owner in sight. But dogs are sprinting animals and it darted in front of me with no notice and poor calculation. Only a quick squeeze of the breaks saved it.

Further down the line I negotiate the turns at Fullerton and start down the long, flat stretch by North Avenue beach. It's a golden morning and the lake is as calm as bathwater. Up ahead there's something on the trail, a truck of sorts. Getting closer I see it's an ambulance. While a woman holds her bicycle up for inspection another figure, strapped to a gurney, head and neck in supports, little running shoes poking out the end, is lifted into the back of the waiting vehicle of mercy. It could have been one of those chance encounters - a tiny mistake which normally falls well within the margin of forgivability. But this time the math didn't add up together so well. Tiny mistakes, miscalculations of motion or distance at exactly the moment when the jogger tries to move abruptly without looking. There's no malice. Just... bam.

Bam! "Hey Caroline, congratulations - a few days late. In other news our friend Mario - one of our class of '98 group - OD'ed on Monday. Went to the wake tonight and the funeral is tomorrow".

Mario... He wasn't just on the perimeter of people I got sober with. He was a force. He piled us into his beat up car to drive to & from commitments. He showed up at my house every Sunday for 3 months in that big crown vic & by the end I had a driver's license. Then, one day, a different light appeared in his eyes. Rather, it was a sudden lack of light. Wasn't anything alarming, at first. He started chasing tail, doing guy stuff. Soon enough he just didn't seem as interested in people. He didn't talk or engage in conversation but his eyes made furtive movements as if looking around for something not offered by current company.

Last year when I visited Boston I asked after him and was told that he was "out there". He'd relapsed into his old life. And now? Another body dead. Dead in the dumbest of ways. Perhaps that body had more sense than his mind and knew that the only way cease the chemical abuse was to simply STOP. He over dosed. Sought pleasure until it killed him. Maybe it was planned. Maybe he wanted off the roller coaster and deliberately...

I don't know. I just know that the glint of clever blue eyes and that grin on a dimpled face are gone. Gravelly bass voice, gone. Why him? Why not me? I've made my share of bad decisions in sobriety. I've gone off the deep end with 'problems other than alcohol'. Why him, not me?

Bam! It all seems such a roll of hypersensitive cosmic dice. Maybe not me because it's not me, with my failings, that keeps me clean after all. Today it adds up. Just for today...

under the see

2009-08-05T20:05:00.001-07:00

Truly the unconditional love & romance I thought was outside me was never there. It was always hiding in the deep dark sea of myself. I have to be willing to dive, hold breath, hold on. Feel pressure and cold on the skin pushing me back to the surface. I don't belong on the surface of my own life. There's more life under the sea, in the deep.

mom-over

2009-08-05T20:00:00.001-07:00

Let's call it a mom-over. I catch myself warning myself about every little hazard only to subsequently react and swing hard in the opposite direction. I ride my bike fast and reckless. I've figured out how to swing my hips and swerve the bike at tight angles. In my head I hear myself reply to her. As I see my day my thoughts reach out to her in conversation.

"This is what I meant..." "Don't you think..."

Some of these mental conversations are painful as her attitudes about women or black people present themselves. Then I remember, I'm not allowed to talk with people who aren't there.

And some day she won't be. There will be no jam. There will be no one seeing me to the Buffalo airport - no reason to even fly there. I hear, in my gut, what she meant when she said that my siblings would be all I'd have when she's gone.

And she will go. Maybe it's something about people in their 7th decade. She could trudge along for another 20 years like her grandmother. But I have to hide watering eyes as I hug her good bye. After security, after I turn and waive and see that lone, boney hand in the air, I strut toward the gate in high heels, eyes flowing with tears.

I may never see her again. Who knows. But that voice will always be in my head!

If you don't like spats, don't start one.

2009-07-30T12:46:00.001-07:00

Ok, here are just two examples that provide a sample of what I mean.

Two weeks ago I put out a request for a 1-word description of me, which I needed for a questionnaire. You wrote that mom would call me fussy and then you said "princess dry me". First of all, I've never heard mom call me fussy and I don't believe you have the right to speak for her. Secondly, whatever possessed you bring up the dry-me thing? That was inappropriate. Facebook is not a private forum & that comment went out to people I see every day and to friends that I work with! I was so embarrassed!! How do you think it felt to have someone ask me about "this dry-me thing?" It escapes me how could you have thought that would be acceptable.

This is just one of a few instances where I was getting a string of positive comments and you followed up with something inappropriate and derogatory. It felt like you were slapping me in the face to make sure I didn't think to well of myself.

When I posted the NPR article about the rural medical camp I really DID just want to know if they have that problem in places with government run medicine. I have fb friends living in countries like Canada, France, Germany & the UK and hoped to attract their input. And I did get an answer to that question, actually. As I read the comments you left it became obvious that you had not even listened to / read the article!

I don't live in an echo-chamber of liberal politics and new-thought Christianity out here. I have some very close friends who are politically conservative and practicing different forms of Christianity or other religions than I do. And it's not that we "agree to disagree" or avoid certain topics. No, we embrace those differences and have a respectful exchange of ideas. I value how they see things different from me and receive the same respect. It has consistently been my experience that differences of opinion matter far less than comportment. Respect, kindness & tolerance frame my friendships, not opinions.

I know in the past that I have sent emails regarding religion and politics which endeavored to push my opinion upon you & disregarded your thoughts and experience. I was wrong to be so arrogant about what I think and truly regret having done this. So, for the past 2 years I've made every effort to move past how we are different but to honor your opinions and focus on how we're the same.

But, I feel alone in this effort. You always seem to be preaching at me or trying to change my mind. You seem to always be aiming to put me down - and I don't think you see it because when you say things that put me down you laugh like you think it's funny! It's not funny! I've never laughed!

Well, that's all I got. I'm on empty.

sisters...

2009-07-29T20:26:00.000-07:00

I thought my facebook page was my face book page. What I didn't realize was that these snippets I make become pieces of other people's pages. And, whatever shows up in someone else's space they feel the right to decorate in a manner of their own choosing. Unfortunately, the pieces that I made co me back to me covered with the graffiti of others' ideas. mm.

And all this to leave me wondering why, oh why, my sister is my sister. Why god did two people so radically different choose to be born from the same womb? I keep thinking that if somehow I could figure out the right words, figure out why someone like this is in my life, things would finally go smoothly.

Part of me, the part that's pretty tired of her being who she is and not who I think I should have in my life as a 'sister', wants to attack.

"where is this Christianity you keep talking about? I've been watching your actions for the past few years now and I just don't see it. You say Jesus is at the wheel - but who's the monkey at the keyboard?"

But I can't do that. She will only be who she has been created to be. I keep coming back to the notion that my siblings are in my life so that I might learn unconditional love. I don't get to decide who they should be and how they should act before I decide to show them love.

Unworthiness, Depression, Grief, Fireworks.

2009-06-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

Going to see them on July 4 was mandatory, or so it seemed. How could we NOT go out and watch fireworks on the night of July 4? We'd be missing out on something essential, surely. Now, when I got back to school in the fall no one inquired as to whether I had gone to see fireworks on July 4. I guess it's just that they were so rare. Like having your own orange in your Christmas stocking, fireworks came once a year and could not be missed.

But unlike the oranges, fireworks don't come from a store and don't come cheap. Village picnics and fairs which featured pyrotechnic shows tended to charge admission either in the form of an entry fee or by way of food vendors and games that dazzled children would instantly crave. Add to this the hassle of keeping track of everyone (at least one child would get in a huff and want to adventure off on their own) to the constant worry of having one's pocket picked and July 4 was no holiday for my parents. They tried all sorts of means to get around actually taking us somewhere but still sating the desire for fireworks. We drove and drove around. We parked on top of a hill in the dark and were told that we would be able to see all the fireworks shows in the different towns if we just looked real fast. This met with immediate complaint after the first few "look over there! quick! Now there's some over there!". Fireworks were supposed to be big! They should fill the sky and leave the sensation that stellar glitter would soon fall all over one's person.

Finally, my parents hit upon taking us to "Hamlin park". Hamlin Park housed a village picnic for East Aurora and every year they held fireworks. We drove down dark, deserted side streets into the parking lot of a nearby firehouse and watched the show that came up over the trees. I wondered why we were the only ones watching all these fireworks. I wondered why half the show didn't manage to come up taller than the trees. How was one supposed to view them? I sensed something was wrong but didn't realize this was a workaround for a few years. My by then high school aged oldest sisters would murmur about how it would be fun if we went "into the park". My mom began to stay home and not go at all. I couldn't understand how she would think of missing fireworks. That would be like skipping Christmas! But as an adult who has skipped a couple Christmases, I get it now. Something was slightly off. But no one really wanted to bother righting a ship so off kilter from years of habit. My mom wasn't missing fireworks at all. she and my father were routinely bickering over money and debt with sparks that rained down on all of us. I smelled the smoke early, I heard the angry percussions through the wall my bedroom shared with theirs, but didn't understand the burn. Soon enough I knew that any school activity that would require me to bring in money was instantly "no". Ski club membership? NO. Yearbook down payment? No. AFS trip? No. New cleats for field hockey? No. I didn't even ask after 10th grade.

In the summer before I left for college, I worked at the nursing home in East Aurora. I'd get off work at 3, my mom would get off at 5. So for 2 hours I would either go to the public library or walk around town to while waiting for her to ferry me home. One day, in my wanderings, I decided to follow signs to "Hamlin Park". A massive open space hedged along all sides by thick maple trees greeted my shock. Just then I realized the extent of the July 4 ruse. I saw the space full of bodies, vendors selling popcorn and cotton candy, stalls offering games of chance, and all the interpersonal shenanagens of a hot summer night. I realized that the fireworks we had seen from a parking lot were a way of not having to take us into a park where Dad might be pressed upon to spend money.

I wish he were here today to tell me that he meant for it to be better. I wish he could tell me that we didn't go into the park because I was unworthy but because of his own fear and financial insecurity. I wish I'd known how hard things were going for him and had been the kind of kid who would understand. I wish I hadn't wasted so much time twisting the repurcussions of his troubles into a mentality of un-deservedness. But I know where he is, Dad has plenty now. And today I do, too.

Like a puff the flame goes out and drifts into the summer night.

No "one"

2009-06-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

"Well, it all starts with a friendship. If you aren't friends first - what do you have?"

"I have you!"

He's on the other side of this mammoth bed, facing the other way. We've already been through another battery of pillow-talk questions. What do you like about me? Well, what do you like about me? I answer and ask those questions about this situation, this sex, while watching a pattern of street lights coming through venetian blinds dance across the ceiling. We've wandered into how things go with dating lives and online profiles. He's rolled away to stake out a position on the far side of the bed. The internet seems to be good for friends, but not for finding 'the one'.

"What do you mean?"

"You are here regardless of having sex or not. You are honest with me. I have a feeling that you would be there no matter what I needed."

"Well, I am your friend."

And it's true. Partly. I'm also, I suspect, his chump. I knew there was another woman he dated this spring. I knew because the few times I'd stop by there would be something different in the bathroom or two wine glasses in the kitchen sink. He says he told me, but he did not. I simply kept telling myself that my hope for him was that he'd be happy. And I hid my hand about attempts to date other men also. Now, he asks if I've been protecting him and I have to wonder, have YOU been protecting ME? I've been busy protecting myself.

"You are the only good thing to come from {that site}".

"You are the only person I've ever met on there that I'm still friends with."

"We'll do ok, just keep being honest with each other."

In the dark, no one can hear you smile. I'm not the one. I've never been anyone's "one" which is fine by me. It's never comfortable to feel the mantle of someone's myth fall over my shoulders. But it's true. He's not my myth or my solution, but my friend. I've realized that I already met "the one" right in my mirror.

At the gym I find myself dressing next to an African American woman. This could be the woman he dated. What was the dynamic of that? How did that end? Is he still talking with her? Is she in pocket, too, like I have been, at the ready for some future intimacy? I imagine him next to a dark skinned woman. So here I am, having sex with him again. Plunk, into the old rut we go, as if no time has passed between April and June.

Do I only have sex with him on the suspicion that at some point he'll come around and see me as being worth something more? Wouldn't I rather just be his friend? Part of me wants to smack him... look what you are passing up! Maybe he thinks I'm not interested in more? I know I've had too much to think, but one moment floats back into memory. One response still gives me pause.

"What do you like about me?"

"You are sweet."

"What does that mean?"

"You are accepting of what I want to do."

Suddenly sweet doesn't sound so hot. The man likes his sugar but this rots.

In the morning, after the usual 5:45 exercise of passion, he grabs my hand to keep me there. But I'm up and in the shower. Because all night one thing has forced me out of a sound sleep only to see him curled up on the opposite side of the bed. It's a cry. "Touch me."

hot

2009-06-25T14:40:00.001-07:00

Hot.

On the corner of Randolph and Upper Columbus I pass the artist formerly known as "purple coat lady". Her signature rolling luggage still sits at her side, but the heavy purple woolen coat has been traded down for a denim jacket. This garb also looks a bit hot for the weather. But her face is well tanned and almost looks to be happily turned toward the very bright morning sun.

For a few days i've been happily remarking on the return of the fat spider to the window outside my office. How they climb all the way up here and what they find to eat at this high perch I don't know. But she stretches her fine web across the window between the girders and grows fat and brown. today I hear the sound of thudding on the outside of the building and turn around to see the thin ropes going up the side of the building. in minutes smallish brown men with suction cups on their hands and only the smallest seat to secure thier tenuous ride up and down the outside of the building, have washed the windows clean. I look at them and marvel for a minute that they hang at such a height from such delicate threads, but to them this might be normal. Spiders of any size have learned not to look down.

Just for one more day I tell myself to look, observe, breathe and be. Not to think.

Monster under the skin

2009-06-15T15:06:00.001-07:00

A long walk down the lakeshore takes me out of the isolation of my home, further from the voices of crazy selfishness, into an afternoon like a modern take on Seurat's "Sunday after noon on Grande Jatte". Although in my version the people are plumper and far less likely to cover their corpulence with Victorian decorum. Sand in my shoes can be tolerated for just so long and I move to the edge of the surf, flirting with the water while the lake breathes.

White people play volleyball on Foster beach, Black men clog the one basketball court with a game of pickup. All manner of hair flies up and down the tiny concrete court. A tall man with his long dreds tied back, lifts his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. He's well fed.

Rounding the bend to head down the long stretch of Foster beach, I get lost in a new found throng of people. Bikes, scooters, children waddling from the water to the family blanket all criss-cross my path. I marvel at how over weight so many of the people, especially children, are. I pass families with crying babies, men nursing coal fires awaiting meat and marshmallows, women with beaded hair flipping their heads in conversation. Kids laugh. Three scabs talk about the various painkillers they've tried out. Single women read books. Volleyball nets go up, picnics are packed up. Soccer games fill every possible open lot of space. How do they do it? How do people collect families about themselves like this? And, listening to a tottler squaling, I wonder if I'm quite sure this is something that I want?

I check my phone again. Yes I have signal. No, he hasn't called. Stop it. Keep breathing. Just be present to what's around you, the canvas of human activity.

At long last I find myself on a bench 3 miles from home. Give me a sign, God. What should I do? Give up? Go home? Just then, he calls. Come on over here.

And here we are again. What do I do here? Am I being selfish? What could I possibly add to this man's life? My god, we're opening this book up again...but personally I'm on a different page of this volume called 'love'. Here I am again. It's not yet midnight and I'm sprawled on my half of the king sized bed listening to him purr en route to dream land. Tired, can't sleep yet. Roll over and watch his expression go lax, become placid. Watch his real face emerge.

He's so much easier to be around than he used to be. Maybe I've learned to translate his translation better. Maybe without the immigration stress he's able to open up more. Or, he's up to something. Hmmm.

Periodically through the night I wake up from fitful dreams of looking for a doll in London or running from one of those robots from the movie we saw tonight. I swim between the sheets and wrestle the monster. The monster masks itself as a sort of love, or maybe just adoration, during the day. But under this blanket, this blanket I curl myself in because it smells like him, the monster is loose. I know there's a body next to me, I want so badly to cuddle up next to it. But I don't. I don't interrupt his slumber. The monster's imperious urges wake me up with its continual curiosity as to weather the other body in this bed will feed it some attention.

It's 5 am and the octopus next to me wakes up.

It isn't what I want, I realize. I just want someone to enjoy being near me and to want to be close to me. Tell me that I'm worthwhile. Please, just touch me. It's so easy to walk away, to trade a casual bisou and 'good day' when the sunshine returns. But that solves nothing. For now I see that all the monster craves is to come in from the cold.

warm day

2009-06-08T19:56:00.001-07:00

The warm air plumps with the smell of bodies lying on the grass and pollens in the air. The breeze is warm like it carries the smile of every past lover on it and for a minute I need nothing. This was such a barren place just forty days ago. barren and lonely and now its full of bodies in newly resurrected summer outfits. You'd think winter never even happened. It's all just a dim memory of the way things aren't supposed to be.

A dreamer, just like dad

2009-06-07T20:23:00.001-07:00

That damned alarm clock.

I was talking with Dad, again, and he was younger. I saw a dad that predated me and an energy in him that had faded long before I knew him. Dad in the days of high testosterone. He was smoking. He was talking about boys to me. An he was telling me...

"Think about it Tootsie...Think about his man G~. He doesn't talk so much...sometimes a real hard read. Why do you still think about him? You know that hope for more lives on in your mind and you put it away but it rises back up, doesn't it? I'll tell you why. He's just like ME. Is that what you want? Do you want a man like your Daddio?"

And just then, 5:20am, the alarm clock cuts him off. damn.

There are so many reasons that I thought my dad was exactly the wrong type of man to be with. The music comes up in my ears as my feet pick up their trot down Sheridan toward the lake shore trail. It's that Beyonce tune what became my anthem around January 30 as I was kicking Bruce dust off my feet and thinking about meeting up with this nutty Italian for gelato. G~. "You must not know 'bout me!" Miss B snaps to the beat. I cannot see myself ever speaking this way to G~. Who knows where all this will go but he is my friend. Mostly.

He is a butterfly. The color he brings is the dream of life lived somehow differently. Gently, for a moment or a day, that dream comes to rest on my shoulder, volunteering itself as part of my life. We enjoy the moment of sunshine together but should I turn to touch or hold the butterfly - to offer it a more grounded love or attempt to define the relationship - it alights from me. Just as well. Touch to touch such gossamer wings would be death - to both of us.

I look down at the legs striding over the pavement. I see their strong shape. See my long fingers and tough shoulders. I see myself, the heap of DNA that has made me. Those reasons for not wanting a man like dad came from a mother who refused to pick up tools that might effect a working relationship. And for years her complaints filled me with guilt and shame because in truth, I look just like my dad. It's his cheekbones, dimples, limbs and shoulders echoed in my features.

Sr. G's cold is still sticking and he coughs a bit as we meet up. I must confess to being slightly happy at his convalesence as I've found him much more agreeable to deal with when ill. We listen to Dar sing as the moon comes up over the lake. I give him his birthday present. And we actually talk for a while. In that moment I feel like he could tell me anything and I would be ok with it. He could tell me he's seeing someone or done with me forever and I would accept it. Not like it, but accept it.

"I was looking at your website the other day. Everything about you, your training and experience, is 'artist'. I don't see where your job fits into this. And so why be shy about being artist more and getting art out there more?"

My gosh, he's right.

Almost four years ago we buried dad. At his funeral so many of the buddies from his small town band came forward and shared how they would have never tried to make music if it weren't for Dad. They never would have known quite for sure that, in fact, they have a tin ear. But Dad loved music and dreamed of being a great trombonist. And that dream got wedged into the margins around work that payed. He pursued the dream only to the edge of town. As his family we dealt with the second life and watched it take over all of our schedules.

And here I am, taking a paying job and wedging this art habit in around it. And I let myself get tripped up by...what? People not buying in a tough economy? I too have a second life. I'm just like him; just like Dad. And I think if Daddio were here he'd tell me to seize the dream before it's too late. This is what G~ sees when he looks at me. By his lights, I am the butterfly. He knows I have a spirit that flies and so he does not attempt to grasp at the delicate wings.

I invite him in for tea. I have no TV so we go through my bookshelves. I show him my worm box. He wants to rest his head in my lap again. I rub his shoulders and then feel a hand go around my waiste. And then... well...it's different this time. This time...we laugh.

Sniffling he heads back to his own home. I cannot close my fist on the certainty of any sort of relationship. He is my friend. He is a lover. And tomorrow is another dangerous day in which my brain will try to knit meaning out of a memory.

Don't plan, don't hope, don't fear. Just breathe.

My Improbable Friend

2009-06-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

A funny light in the morning sky, reflecting in different ways off the storm clouds, makes it seem as if the sun were rising in the north. It's an illusion, I know, but it gives the city a sense of being someplace different. Perhaps this morning I'm really running through Helsinki, not Chicago. Just the sense of being somewhere ELSE is refreshing.

Sometimes I wish I knew what his deal is. Is he seeing someone else, now? Do I finally get to be that female friend who is the underlying threat instead of being the nervously possessive girlfriend? He's sick, but he comes to meet me at the tennis courts and then wants to see a movie. A walk. Says we'll go for a walk. Right. We sit on the lakeshore, watching boats and chatting. And you know, the chat is good. We talk about siblings and parent and how I came out of mom's womb last and wrecked the joint. Maybe whatever cold medicine he's on has disarmed the system a bit - but I finally got a sense of him. What is up with this man who still wants to do things together but still does not want to date? It's been over five months.

He falls asleep with his head on my lap. Asks permission first, but puts his head on my lap. Out of instinct I rub his head and shoulders. I feel a hand go between my legs in familiar acknowledgement. There is the last vestige of our affection in one bizarre moment of physical ease. Sometimes we're just silent. And silent is ok. I hugged him goodbye at the end of the day, genuinely grateful for the time together.

Part of me wants to know, to squeeze some sense of the future out of this. But there's no sense. It was just one day in the sunshine. And for today, he is my friend. Funny, I don't think I ever really knew what that was like. Ghosts of affairs past drift through my mind and while I wish them well, I do wonder where they are. But for today, he has survived and he's here. My improbable friend.

Artist statement for June - July show

2009-06-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

Holon: and entity that is at once a whole and simultaneously part of some other whole entity

I've long enjoyed observing how the geometry of such tiny structures as molecules or delicate sea creatures is mirrored on the macroscopic scale of geological and cosmic formations. Exploring the relationship between geometry, discreet parts and the "wholes" has consumed my artistic efforts for quite some time. For while a great whole is comprised of many parts, that whole is itself present within each of the parts. And what is a "part" but merely where I decide to draw the line? I find myself making art which is really a map of relationships & influence between characters both tiny and great; primitive and sophisticated; matter and spirit; deductive and intuitive. Yet, the more I map, the more frontier appears just beyond the scope of my latest work.

A friend once asked me "why don't you just paint things as they really are...just as they look?". The truth is, I do just that all of the time. I simply stopped trusting my eyes a long time ago. My work re-presents discussions, humor, flavors, interesting shapes & textures all nabbed from unsuspecting donors. I have found that everything I re-present mirrors an evolving interior relationship with something bigger.

For some reason I'm always drawn to art media which force me to release control of the outcome. I always enter my studio with a head full of technicolor dreams intending to push pigment, water, or epoxy around. For an hour or most of a day I do my part. Then, I wait. I have to step back to allow the inherent nature of the material to take over to and dry, bleed, ooze, contract, cure, heat up or cool down. I get to shape the experience, but I don't get to force things. On a good day, this is a beautiful partnership. The finished product contains pleasant surprises I could not have planned and serves the medium much better than sitting in a can on my shelf would have done. While painting in watercolor and casting in plastic may seem like an improbable combination of media for one artist, this invitation to creative partnership is the common denominator for all of my work. The real medium is "self".

because they told me to

2009-05-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

People wonder why I run. They wonder why I insist on going so far, and then farther still. Two miles used to be my max. It's not even a workout, now. I'm juicing up my ipod for the morning, adding new songs to do a quick 5 miles at 7 am. 5 miles is nothing now. Better make it 6:30.

Indoor gym. I get flashes of the early morning activities as I round every corner. At first cute man conceals himself in a corner to do his ab work. But soon that little woman who has started following him around has discovered this hideout and comes to chat next to him. They sit like that for 15 laps. He's cute, sure. But, whatever. I don't need that guy or his recognition. I focus on my feet, making sure that my toes always point forward, making sure my weight doesn't start to sway from side to side. Everything must point straight on to the goal. Rounding another corner I see my own reflection in a safety mirror. Lest we forget, there, in those sculpted features, is the goddess.

But that's not why I run. I run because they told me to.

"Run back there and tell them to get out of that pond!" The moms yelled, upon finding out that their tween-age sons were back catching frogs at a pond deep in the woods. They were worried, the boys were not. The great disadvantage of the whole conversation was that messages of warning and responses of rebellion were all being conveyed by me. Neither party really wanted to listen to me. So the argument between mothers and sons continued and all that hot summer afternoon I ferried messages between them, running through the woods. Finally, when I came back panting and sweating, Mrs. Schiltz looked at me and asked "are you RUNNING?". The argument promptly stopped.

"Go get your brother! NOW! I need his help!" Something was wrong with Dad. He had mentioned earlier that day how his stool was coal black. Mom took one look at him and knew he had better to go into the hospital. No one knew it would get serious so fast and she wanted him to take a bath, first. But in the bath dad lost all strength and mom couldn't handle his bulk. Oh yeah, he was still big, then. She yanked the door open and yelled to me and something in those words told me this was serious. So I ran. I ran the mile to the CCD building as fast as I could and demanded my brother be released from class. When he saw me, he started to run, too. We were back home in under 20 minutes.

A mile. That's just 12 easy laps around this silly little track. A mile is nothing. I could sprint that, now. I could make that dash for help faster, now.

At seeing us home so fast mom turned to me with incredulity "you ran!" I've since wondered if he knew. Did Dad know that I ran out of fear for him? The only private moments we get, now, me & his stone, come when I escape the house to go for a run. The route takes me about 5 miles. But at 4.25 is the cemetery.

The term for all this activity - at least the way I use it in my life- is called "athletica nervosa". But they just don't understand. Someone has to run. Someone has to be the go between who holds the works together.

Chef

2009-04-24T22:18:00.001-07:00

I watch the silicone spread through the mold. Seeing the thick fluid ripple out of the container I can't help but remember being small and watching mom cooking. Egg and flour batter, whisked up to a high viscosity every Sunday morning in the plastic mix & pour bowl, descended into a thick liquid onto the grittle and spread out in neat circles. Cake mix would emerge from the electric mixer after the noise was over and fill in the waiting baking pan. I was at her elbow, waiting for tastes, a bowl to lick, and watching the powders and eggs and milky liquids become spongy, consumable solids.

And here I stand in my bathroom. There's no one to make birthday cakes for. No one is there for a Sunday breakfast. It's just me and in my mixer is silicone rubber. After combining silicone with hardener the thick fluid takes on a dried blood color. At the end there is no bowl to lick and the stains up my arms look like those of a demented surgeon. All the finger prints I leave are anonymous glove smears. The garbage of casting paraphernalia looks like something fowl and bloody has just happened. But it's just me, mixing up the solitary recipe for what I make to bring some happiness into the world. Mom cooked eggs and milk and flour and sugar. I cook chemicals into art snacks.

Life is a 4-letter word with a big 'if' in the middle.

2009-04-23T20:53:00.001-07:00

Plastics packaging dumps endocrine inhibiting chemicals into our children. Fragrances fatten with pthalates. Soap phospates in Chicago that deaden the Gulf of Mexico. Less fresh water draining into our oceans. Bears swim too much, their bulk drowning in pursuit of a meal. Coal from China rains acid over the midwest.

For what? So we can continue the inertia of our consumptive lives - pushing the present moment to a cushioned distance? Our cushion fluffs itself to the great discomfort of our future.

Why was I born into this world? I wish I could just absent myself from this craziness, I swear. Put on my sneakers and just run right off the edge of the whole thing to some better, cleaner, less fucked up place. Why am I here? Why do we do these things?

But yet, here I am. Not to judge it, not to pity it at all, but to love and revere the life even as the life is a mess. This life as it has been handed to us is a four letter word with a big 'if' in the middle.

Slowly, maybe first heeding the call of fad and fashion, minds pull themselves from the sludge of craving. Like first seeds maybe they will turn to the light and grow in a new way. It's a start. Every day must start at midnight. Even Earth day.

Girl with horn

2009-04-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

The cleaning kit finally arrived and, finding myself with a pocket of time, I plunged Dad's coronet into hot bath water. We used to get into all sorts of trouble for playing these things when we found them in the basement. Now, it's MINE! I pull apart the one valve and yank out the tuning slide. Snaking the cleaner through pipes I watched as dark green clouds of old filth billow out. The valve is still missing a spring so it won't work to shift the key. This instrument is caked with slide grease and valve oil that have gone sticky and picked up basement gunk. The surface is dull and just looks like neglect. Soap. never had to soap a horn before but this needs it.

Then, it's time to put it together. At first I wonder if the horn is still dirty inside as it's tough to get air through. Then, I realize it might be my lungs that are out of shape. I figure out its intervals and briefly contemplate waking my party animal neighbors with a reveille at 5 am after their next late night fete.

As I take a cloth and polish the sediment off its surface a lovely silvery horn emerges. Like loosing the genie from the lamp I know I'm not alone in the room. Dad smiles over my shoulder. The brighter the horn shines the more clearly I can see his face. I put the new mouthpiece in and make sounds, experimenting with the few bugle calls I remember, and he plugs his ethereal ears.

After a few shots, my breathing comes back, my mouth remembers its "oo" arbrasure and the sound gets clear. "Next time you go home," he whispers "find my trumpet."

the spring merit badge

2009-04-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

I look down at my arms and notice the scratches around wrist and elbows have turned red. By tomorrow these lines will fade down to small scabs looking like they were drawn with a ruler. But I know what they are. These are my merit badge that spring has started.

Crouched close to the dirt, clipping away at dead grass and pulling out leaves, I listen to the sound of a plane going overhead and the children playing at the adjoining park. Basketball, screams, games of interpersonal chance float in percussive syllables over the soft spring air. The smell of melted dirt fills my nostrils. For a split second it clicks back into place. This is the garden. Five months of snow and persistent cold have kept me away, but here it is again.

I see the garden as it was last season. The day lilies which towered and bloomed persistently until October are now just a few dried leaves and husks on the ground. The marigolds which insisted on growing into bushes make ecru skeletons clutching the dirt. The rose bushes, ah my precious wild roses, are a mange and chaos that cannot be ignored. The discipline of my clippers is met with thorny protest. The beauty I've wrestled with has left me looking mauled as though by a beast. Last season was indeed lovely. But it's done. Spent bushes and plants left to seed must be removed. Dead leaves applied for winter warmth must be raked away. Dead grasses clipped. It was beautiful. And now it's just time to start again.

Each year I start this process hoping to head off any weedy chaos at the pass. But tending this patch is nothing like cleaning a kitchen counter. It would seem the same rules apply, to set up a system of organization, to create clean surfaces, but it doesn't. There's too much letting go and waiting in the process for it to be anything like neat and easy. I know what I'm doing - setting myself up for more work! I spend 4 hours clipping and raking and hauling. And I know as I do this that there is no guarantee in this act of preventing work later on. I'll be here, playing catch-up with nature, every week, all season. I already know what I have to do when I come back next week.

Gathering clouds part for a bit and I see the flower bed, now flat and bare save for the first few patches of plants coming up. There's the daffodils, ringed by day lily, some bearded iris, the poppies, the dianthus, the holly hocks, and the roses. Other surprises await. Will the marigolds and zinnias I let go to seed come back? In a month so much more life will have exploded from the dirt you'd be hard pressed to say its the same place. In two months the day lily will start blooming and the roses will be out. Sounds a bit like I know what will happen. But I don't. The blooming is like a christmas present I get to open over and over. I can barely wait.

Water normal

2009-04-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

In the wind whipping off the lake this morning, the water works itself into foamy waves that march toward the the shore like rows of shark teeth. You'd think the land didn't stand a chance. But, at the last second each icy peak shatters and sprays into a million pieces like angels falling to earth.

The taste of water in my mouth. Neutral, wet, even and unthreatening, like a constant to come back and visit after so many visits to countries sweet and acidic. The water pretends to offer no answers and has no agenda of results. It just is for the consuming for anyone wanting to come home. Much like love.

We've talked for hours on the phone. We finally met f2f and while on one hand I enjoyed myself, I couldn't help but suppose afterward that I'd screwed everything up. Signals, men want signals. What does a signal look like? Where is the instruction manual for all of these feminine wiles I'm supposed to wield? Is that what all of those men who decided I wasn't for them wanted?

What did they want? Why didn't they stay? Or was it me? How many times did I hop off the rolling train when it passed through a tunnel? Was I supposed to want something? get something? Marry someone? The tide of self doubt comes in again, nibbling at my shore. I always come back here, to gnawing doubt and a subtle but pervasive unworthiness. The waves roll back to reveal what detritus lives under every life tide: suicidal depression.

Self pity comes easy. Just because that derelict of mental crashes remains in the deep sand doesn't mean I need to go excavating. I could. But today I keep it at a distance. I keep at a distance the way he asks so many questions and how many long pauses fill the conversation. I keep at a distance that line I've heard so many times "I'm not ready for a relationship." I won't dive in there, today, but keep running.

People wonder why I spend so much time alone. It's just that it's like water - a formless sense of normal that seeps in and where I don't feel expected to be anything. I just can't help but drink.

Winter relapse

2009-04-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

I can't tell if it's about to happen or if I've already missed it. I stare into the yellow glow on the horizon, trying to pick out the round form this morning's haze might conceal. Just as I turn to keep running the sun sneaks over the horizon in a blaze. The yellow ball burning through clouds is the same color as amber LED's on the front of a bus. Here she is, driving over the horizon on a west bound route, the #1 vehicle upon which we all hitch a ride through space.

On a whim I asked how she's doing and got back a flooding response. In the middle of a divorce, anyone who asks such a thing is a welcome chance to unload. Anyone who asks better be willing to show up for the whole story. You don't ask a soldier how they are and expect to run off. And she is a veteran of the heart wars. So this is what marriage and children can look like. It doesn't have to, but this is the picture I bolster myself with when too many popular voices upbraid me for staying single. You may say I'm selfish, but I'm quite happy.

Patches of snow remaining from winter's relapse remain like frozen sundials on the east side of trees and hills. The sun didn't come out yesterday until after leaving its zenith. All through the pounding wind, sleet and snow I was amazed at the sounds of birdsong, as if they were trying to keep the trees awake and reassure them that spring was not a joke. Would that they could wake us all up.

Meeting him today. After how long? A month? 3 weeks? of nothing but phone calls. "No pressure no pressure" became "dammit when are we going to meet?" Somebody got frisky, maybe. This should be interesting. Will it be a lecture on TM or a conversation about sex? I could use a nap. "Don't kid yourself" I say. exchanging words isn't knowing. Don't try too hard. Look good enough to feel happy about yourself but not too..sexy.

Feet don't want to move as fast today. Darn it. Must need more sleep. Push through. Seagull screeches leak through the audio fill of new ipod. Hop over melt off rivers. I thought we were done with seeing these weeks ago. Spring is back at step one, trying it again.

Metallic carnage that sustains our life starts to clang and thump to life. Arterial highways carry corpuscules of steel and rubber into the city. Is this really life? Are we really living if our actions enslave? We could be seeing the decline of human dominance. Soon we will negotiate our treaties not with cultures of other countries but of other species. Dolphins will tell us where we can go in the ocean and birds will discipline us in the forest. Will we be left to the cities or will our cities cease? What if there were fewer of us?

Coming through the door at home I see the full buds on branches, days, maybe minutes, from exploding. Hey birdies, it worked.

Social Nigger

2009-03-27T20:19:00.001-07:00

"Alcoholic"

It's like social speak for 'nigger'. Some folks will understand, maybe even accept you. Some will be astonished by the quality of your personality and intelligence despite the obvious flaw. But among the normies, among those that ain't your own, you're sitting on the back of the friendship bus. You're giving up your seat as mate or girlfriend when a 'normal' person presents similar (maybe even a few less) strategic qualifications.

So we stick to our own, make more of our own, get together and share our tribal stories and have our rituals. We have our private picknics with burgers and watermelon in the summer where we laugh at pain and tell stories in a lingo nobody but us understands. But, quite without pointing fingers we can see lots of niggers in hiding amongst the legions of 'normal' folks. I see my same disease festering just below the surface of a culture crazed by entitlement and the pressure of 'more'. I see it boiling over into stress and spiritual crisis now that consumptive wings have been collectively clipped by the tumbling tower of lies. Just as humanity all came from Africa if you dig back far enough, we all proceed in our various incarnations from a sacred wound which bids us to re-member Who We Really Are through as many paths as, well, humanly possible.

Can't you see past my disease? It is NOT a "lifestyle choice"! I didn't ask for this. But it has been my curriculum to God. Love doesn't have a color and certainly doesn't show up with a menu of demands.

I'll show you. I'll show you I'm as good as and someday your children, the children you didn't want to have with me because of these two scarlet letters - "AA" - will look at you in shock and disappointment that you would put a person of my caliber to the back of your bus. "How could you expect a perfectly capable human being to settle for such treatment?"

When they ask that, I want you to tell those children quite plainly that I DIDN'T.

Ciao bella

2009-03-26T15:18:00.001-07:00

Clouds dry brush the sky with steel and indigo. The approaching sun peeks through in pastel drawn lines of pink and red. It's not like last week's clear, perfect sunrises. But somehow it's even better, as if the clouds, the steel sky and blue shadows make something even more clear. Push through the wall that's coming to meet me after just two miles.

My earphones aren't interfacing properly with my auditory canal. Something about the vacuum it forms lets no sound in from the left. Instead, the morning leaks in, the echo of no traffic & bird song.

Here it comes; the glycogen wall. I will my legs to keep up the pace.

So I told him. I told him about my past as an addict and decade plus of sobriety. He wished me well, puzzled, and then said "It's ok for friends, I respect this was your lifestyle choice, but for a mate - someone I might even have children with - is unacceptable...Why are you telling me now?"

"I thought, based on what you said during that conversation we had while driving to Home Depot, that you wouldn't talk to me anymore. I finally just decided that I couldn't hide it anymore. Being a sober person is a big part of my life and I decided that if you don't want me around because of that well, you should be able to make that decision. I was afraid. There have been times I've told people and they said it was cool, but they disappeared. No returned phone calls, gone."

"No no, I don't disappear. I'm attached to you. Not going away." But again, I don't trust it. Attached... check your dictionary again. In subsequent days since this conversation? Silence. Better to know the truth, I guess. So I guess that's it. Done. Over and out. Ciao bella.

Right now, as birds scream around me, I want to yell at him. I want to shake him until his brains rattle and ask "Since when is having a disease a 'lifestyle choice'? It's a sickness! A pre-existing condition like any cancer. So fuck you! Every day for 10 + years I've had to dig down & tap a greater source just to stay alive! If you want to have a negative judgement about that it's your problem! My journey has been a blessing! You want to walk away? Fine. FINE!! You're selfish and I hate the way you make humor by putting me down, anyhow! Ciao!"

The flock of seagulls mingles, squaks and swarms, conversing with jets flying low. Our birds eat McDonals and our waterlife takes unwilling doses of ridalin & antidepressants. It seems like too much, for a minute.

I feel the volume of my heart, pumping away in my chest. Pushing through I get that power and it carries me all the way home.

A drift

2009-03-22T20:12:00.001-07:00

"How long are you going to hang out on that glacier? How many more years to cling to that frozen landscape you've called a heart?"

I'm floating, again, in the sapphire sea, adrift on my rock of ice. It's a comfort, this cold stillness that I can cling to, like the cool side of the pillow on a hot night. I come back here for solace, for knowing, despite knowing that there is no truth on this glacier.

It's melting. I've given it permission to melt. I've asked for it to be warmer, here, in this environment I call a soul. But as I watch large chunks calve into the blue void and leave me, I can't help but to be filled with grief. Less and less space is left for me to act out the old play. Old roles and actors leave gaps in the mental drama after they've gone. And as I watch another piece float away part of me accepts the departure, part of me screams with grief.

Yet another addictive facet of me instantly it melts into the warm, understanding sea like an ice cube in bath water. There it goes. I pretzel my self, twist stories and bend truths just to look good enough to get that measure that means approval. I just want to be in this whatever we're calling it today (friendship? relationship?) so that I can take the satisfaction I want. I'll exert whatever verbal calisthenics are necessary to come out looking justified and right. And now all 'needing to feel good about myself by what you tell me about me' all of the 'I'm nothing unless I can take what I want from you' chunks off with a base thud and a quake - gone. With it go the fairy tales of what life should bring to ME. Me me me wants someone to say "I love you" just once, wants someone to think about her before they go to sleep, wants to be right, just wants.

Want has drifted off. I'm left on an even tinier island of my ice. What will be left of me, now. What do I become now if I've hit the point of truly realizing that I need nothing from another person - neither sex nor approval nor cash - to be Who I Really Am. I was born to give, not to take. I knew this... KNOW it in my head. But now, taking it into being and behavior and saying yes to that truth feels like dying.

"Maybe that's ok. Consider that something has to die for something wonderful to be born. Without the disintegration of fall and death of winter no new seeds could be born into fresh growth."

For now I ride in the bluest ocean, clutching what remains. What remains? I don't even know yet what sediments lie under the surface of what's left. I shudder to think of what life will look like without these few old things to cling to. My shrinking glacier is a cold, hard and barren turf. It is a lie of a landscape. But, it's what I know. And when its gone I will be left in this big, empty ocean drowning in the sea of feelings. I will die. I will absolutely die.

"No. You will not die because you cannot be killed. Let go of the ice and you may find that you've known how to float all along."

designer dawn

2009-03-19T13:05:00.001-07:00

Some days she paints and the mushy, watery pigments of nature blend in edges of mystery. Today, though, mother designs. In the pantone blue west a half moon glows as if stenciled on with a 20mm deckle. Schaedler precision rulers set the deep aqua lake apart from the neat gradient of encroaching dawn in a perfect horizontal line. Eastern sky could be called a "rainbow" but the mesh is more complicated. In the moving mix shades of grape juice, apricot jelly and strawberry candy present fleeting overtones. I can see the caption written out, in perfectly kerned Helvetica. "Dawn" - neatly punctuated at the end by a water pumping station resting on the horizon.

I was tardy for the iPod parade this morning, taping the feet up took a bit longer. After the last run I managed to rip all the skin off the top of my foot. Fuckin nice! Have to be more careful, now. Today the feet send back no messages of pain whatsoever. All systems are go.

"And so what? I am a rock star! I got my rock moves! And I don't need you!"

Out here the dark silhouettes of trees are fast becoming old fashioned. In an hour, charcoal shadows will seem so passé. Why, dark is so night time! Naked limbs expose brown clumps of abandoned birds' nests. I can hear the ticking in the trees. In each branch a countdown nears the zero point when green will explode on the earth. In some day to come we will be shocked with the sudden blessing of leaves.

"I'll be eaten by the worms, and weird fishes. Picked over by the worms, and weird fishes. Weird fishes..."

I look up at soccer hill, opting for the longer path around its circumference today. 8 runners use it to train; I see their black creature-ish silhouettes against the sky. They each go down the hill, then up, then down a different direction, then back up. Together at the top, then breaking into a chaos and then converging at the crest, they are a perfect swarm.

"It's all and illusion. There's too much confusion. I'll make you feel better..."

Rounding that bend which could hook me back north or feed me further south, I take in the perfectly crafted vantage point of Montrose Harbor. My feet yell "next stop: Belmont harbor!" But I look at the time and force them northward, promising that on Sunday we'll go for 10 miles. I promise! From this spot on this clear morning, I can see all the way to Navy Pier. "Navy Piers" he calls it. Silly Italian, he pluralizes everything. "Piers", "Cereals"...

"Something is going on at Navy Piers this weekend I thought maybe we could do that..." Later I get an SMS updating the suggestion to one of going to galleries - a genius stroke. Someone has been doing his homework. He's being awfully friendly; awfully kind and even, maybe, sweet. It's dawning on him that I don't need him, maybe. Maybe he's realizing that I can be pleasant company, after all. But, something has shifted. I'd love to trust the kindness, but I don't. I can't. We'll see how he acts once the green card issue gets resolved.

"I woke up this morning the sun shining brightly I put on my happy face..."

Dawn doesn't just happen at the horizon. The whole sky participates in sunrise. The west takes its cues from the refracting atmosphere and accepts the hug of long pink and purple arms, gently waking the whole dome. A gold glow above the horizon, an atmospheric revealing the hideout of angels, marks the location to watch. There, in moments, the thinnest pink line appears. Line grows into a mound like a bright pimple on the water. Soon, there she is. Blink and you see every step of the sunrise still framed in the retina burn of your eyes. Look at that, will you. Look at that color and drama and tell me it isn't natural for humans to adorn themselves and seek beauty.

Nature itself rolls the drum - such a showoff.
On the other side of me, the drive is starting to fill with southbound traffic. Off to markets and jobs, man rolls the dice - another day.

pinch me

2009-03-18T10:10:00.000-07:00

She sounded so excited on the phone yesterday, and I mean excited not in a good way. Like her world just got put on a merry go round and run in circles too fast after lunch. So I took her a little something this morning to brighten up the workspace. Get rid of that "twilight zone" feeling of watching all of the people and departments you work with the most get disappeared. She's the only one who would, here, and she refrains, from making a weight comment. Hiding half of me behind a counter helps. I don't like the comments. There's a subtle criticism to them, I think. Some small disapproval of the change. Oh but the change is coming. Just you weight.

I pinch myself. Hiding in the dressing room at the gym because I don't like being subjected to the nattering on of other women, I pinch and find the pockets which will be the target of next ten pounds. Outer thigh, not so bad. But inner thigh still has parenthenthetical adipose tissue. That must go. Arms don't suck, just need more muscle to shape them out. Inside of knees... how does one loose the inside of the knee fat? Belly, not so bad at all. But there's this persistent pocket, like a guffle of bread made out of fat, that rides on the back of my hip bones. It's neither butt fat, nor waist or hip it's just... back fat.

On a pig that would be called the "leaf lard". It's a persistent little storage depot, I can tell. Furthest back ancestors foraging across Africa would be proud. But 21st century woman gets a less positive judgment when the fat pocket puckers out from her side like an anatomical interloper during prayer twist pose. Well, you're next. I'll think of you every time I'm hungry enough to eat my fingers. With herbal laxatives, fiber supplements, protein powder and pickles for dinner, I'm coming for you, leaf fat. Leaf lard is supposed to be the highest quality. "Aren't you eating anything?" Why yes, I'm eating the best bit of fat on earth.

On line at Livestrong.com obsessing over which foods spiked my carb intake and how to classify my homemade chicken with no noodles soup. The system has popped me down to 1600 calories a day outside of tracked exercise which I don't enter until I go to bed so that it doesn't suddenly start telling me I can eat way more calories. I stay at least 200 below what they allot me, as a rule. Down too much too fast and I open myself up to bingeing. If there's nothing else I've done right in a day I've done hunger properly. There are charts where I can watch the graphs of what I eat and what I do and what I lose and the best part? No one is admonishing me. The computer just watches in mute anonymity. Thank you for the data, user "meatball".

Down just 15 lbs. from Jan 23. BMI at 22. Fuckin not enough! I remember that day. On that day I said 'no one will ever reject me again!' I'll never be not good enough again. It was all the fat's fault, that artificial layer of ick that is not part of the real me, I'm sure of it. No sir, from now on the ball is in MY court! She who is perfect gets to call the shots! Just another 20 lbs. to go. I fiddle with the numbers on the BMI chart. Well... 23. 23 pounds to go before the BMI raises official eyebrows. 23. How is that for symetry?

I'm going to live today

2009-03-17T08:51:00.001-07:00

5:55 am. On with sneakers. On with iPod. Out the door. There's more what's awake at this hour than a normal person would believe. But somewhere folks are already at work or assembling for a 6 am aerobics class. The day to come is just a faint amber glow to the east of an ink blue sky.

Descending in the west, the ancient overseer glows, still, though her eye is half shut from a month's tiring work. The path is dry as there is no more snow left to melt. Already one can feel it. This will be a good day.

My belly complains. 40g of prunes and 2 tsp. of honey didn't shut it up at all. They compound with yesterday's total intake of 1200 calories to mock my effort. But just that much sugar is turning the trick & I hit a stride with pure octane pumping the engine. Feet go, legs leap, no wall in sight.

I weighed in at 146 lbs. at 5:15 am. I checked. That's down 15 lbs. from January 23. People keep asking if I'm loosing weight and I retort with a surprised "no!". Why it's so impolite to comment about weight - no one would say shit if I were a man! But the numbers don't lie - not like I do. After the weigh in I pulled my thinspiration out of hiding and compared again. Down 15 lbs. and still there is a bit of a tire around the middle! Of all things my tits get smaller! But for now I take the hunger in stride. That pain in the gut is a comfort, telling me I'm still alive - as does the twinge on my feet from the tape which holds them together.

The glow brightens. The lesser light bows down as a rosy stain spreads across the big bowl of sky. Spaceship Earth is turning. I can feel it - slightly different moment by moment under each foot fall. Cue dawn.

Maybe this morning I'll run over the hill between the soccer fields. From Cahokia to Giza, humans have pulled higher vantage points from the flat earth, seeking mountaintop experiences where nature provided none. Some theorize this stems from a common spirituality or a synchronicity. Perhaps it's just the instinct brain expressing a vestige from when our souls were bird soul. We go up because we must leap. We leap, once knowing but now just hoping, that a thermal will catch our frail selves and buoy us on.

"I wanted to take you out to dinner. Not well planned, I know. I wanted to do something nice together other than just me relieve stress at you..."

'Relieve stress'. Is that what the kids are calling it these days? What's so terrible about stress relief? But he's right. I'd rather just talk, sometimes. Sometimes I wish breakfast together lasted longer. He has been awfully nice lately. Knit one eyebrow. He also still needs that green card. But then, he must know I suspect him of being up to something. Knit one eyebrow, pearl two. Maybe he wants to feel different about himself? Maybe being nice is his way of stepping away gently? No idea. Knit two eyebrows, pearl one. I'd still love to put him in my pocket and protect him forever. But I know what happens next. It's time to pull back the curtain, show him who I really am... and wait to see if he stays or runs.

I make myself run until the flat top of the hill levels out. Around me city towers encircle like a glittery Stonehenge. Brightly lit birds, on wings of American and United, fly off to the east. It is a good day to wear green and have a holiday. It is a good day to heal. I look over the morning rituals of other humans subjecting themselves to this early exercise and glory. Some run in tandem, others in circles. Some walk with arms pumping while others skirt along on two wheels. I stretch.

And then, through an invisible gap in the horizon's blue curtain, the sun steps through. First, she demurs with an artsy smile. Then in red roaring glory that arrests the eye, she makes the heavenly demand for pause. This is the day. I'm going to live today.

sketch of a day

2009-03-12T16:00:00.001-07:00

Inky sky in the frigid morning gives way to slate grey and snow. Soon it will be spring, but not yet. Today, still, the wind blasts me in the face like a power drill forcing its way into every pore. Someone leaves their takeout on a post box and it has frozen faster than a hungry mouth could find it. The barker selling papers on the corner makes a "wooooooo wooooo" song that he does when the wind whips up real cold. Sometimes, on particularly warm mornings, he's out there singing a tune at 7 am, but he pipes down when someone gets close. I've started saying "good morning" when I go by, even though he seems to ignore me.

I walk into the gym, the same song comes through the speakers as was playing when I walked out yesterday morning. In the locker room I run into the "running granny" as I call her. She's in her 60's, runs marathons, skinny as a bird. Today I'm a bit earlier and she's just stepped out of the shower. Perhaps I've surprised her but we look at each other for a long second. Hair wrapped in a towel, the bones of her face seem to jut out further and I see how dark and sunken are her eyes. Is that where I'm heading by going on 5 hrs of sleep a night?

That same PM at work has been offering me beers for over a year now. Finally just tell him "allergic...sorry". Maybe the allergy theory of alcoholism is bunk, but I happen to like it and have repurposed it handily to circumnavigate events I don't wish to attend. Company lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I could do that, consume almost 1000 empty calories and spend 2 hours in awkward conversation not working - or I could just beg out thanks to an MSG allergy. Pizza? Gluten intolerant!My rarified system can only tolerate the finest sashimi and European chocolate!

Now if only I could beg off being allergic to silliness and stupidity. It still chaps my hide, that person who seemed so shocked at my suggesting they take the CTA."I'm from Texas! We don't have trains there!" Yet you've lived in a city WITH trains for long enough to get a medical degree. I moved from a tiny town of 900 to New York City in 1988 and after 5 minutes with a map - I spoke 'public transit'. Ok ok, drop it.

It's light out at 6, but sooner or later the sun must slide under the bend in the Earth. Night like a stain that won't go away. Dark that one has to wipe out of your eyes upon finally arriving home.

1300: Over the moon

2009-03-05T21:09:00.000-08:00

Another abnormally warm late winter day. Waxing gibbous overhead reaches its zenith in the early evening sky as I turn onto the lakeside path for a run. Remnants of melted snows catch her like many tiny mirrors and I step over the moon.

The lights on top of the Hancock have gone back to white with the passing of Valentine's day. It's like a big fake moon hanging over the city. And at 11pm, the moon shuts off. In the darkness I hear the purring next to me. Man - cat sleeps happy.

At Foster beach I take the unpaved, unlit path next to the water. In the eastern sky approaching stars move and weave as they come in for a landing at O'Hare. Our conversation keeps running through my head. His constant worry is his green card. While we watch the telly a birth control commercial comes on and I hear myself making the comment about how I hate the pill - how it felt like having the steering wheel to one's brain stolen by an angry monkey.

Then, he says it. "If you got pregnant I could get my green card."

"Neither of us needs that mess."

"But I could get my green card!"

"You run that idea past your momma, see what she says." Me, I know what mine would say. I know what she'd do and how she'd feel. It's the wrong reason. Of all the ways to fall of the horse of independence that would be the worst. What if he tricks me and sabotages the birth control?

The melt off has left puddles in the pathway which do not refreeze now that night has come. I'm hitting the wall a little early and my legs feel weak and light. Still, I step over the moon.

It's tempting, though, if for no other reason than it's nice to have the brief illusion of being wanted. In the early morning, before the sun has arisen, his form covered with soft skin finds me. His arms feel good. His back feels good. His head rubbing against my neck feels good. His cock feels good. Afterwards we both lay silent, playing possum, when I hear the whisper.

"You awake?"

"yes"

"Tell me, what makes me such an irrisistable lover?"

"Hm. Let me think about it."

"Ok, talk to you later."

"Ok, I'm just going to go to sleep and take over the whole bed now. That's my German half that does that!"

I roll over to fall asleep. The smell of his sweat is on my skin. I love it and feel sorry to have to wash it off in the morning. I don't know what it is that makes him irresistable. He's like catnip.

The wind along the lake is terrific. It pushes me backwards and threatens to tear the hat off my head. I turn back and finally hit a groove. In the dark the puddles collect her silvery light. I know she's high over my head, and leaping over water, I step over the moon.

Can I trust his being kind? Now that the idea is out there, that the green eyed lady could double as a green card lady, how do I know that the friendliness is genuine? He wants something. But then, we all want something and pose hard to the side that will get us what we want. He won't be content to be my hostage for long. In the morning I come to the end of the cereal. Do I buy more cereal or stop coming over?

By the elevator I grab his chin to kiss him goodbye. "oh, your question..." He seems a bit baffled that I would answer it there! "I need to do some more experimenting!"

The walkway to my front door is terrific for collecting water and so her reflection lights my path like a celestial guide. Coming home to independence, to strength, to me, I step over the moon.

When the cereal runs out

2009-02-26T16:21:00.001-08:00

I wonder who will tire of this first? I don't wish for the affair to end - but I don't care to be the curb kick-ee either. Sometimes I wish I could fold him up and put him in my pocket. Sometimes I'd like to just knock his block off. No matter what we try to go out and do he sits there looking bored. I'm far too nice. I've done "relationships" enough to know what I don't like so much. And this? Could be courting disaster once again or - not. Freewheeling. Just deciding to feel differently about some similar circumstances is all.

Who will phone whom first? Was two nights in a row too much? Too close? We run back to our solitary routines in a hurry lest any closeness creep in. Back in loneliness I buttress feelings and remind myself to not drink of the tempting offer to hope for more. There is no more. There never really has been, ever, in any one's arms, just a cosmic tease of a dream that is in fact, a mirage. I stop and ask, where is it? Where is this love I hear so much about? I don't see it. It cannot survive a face without makeup, morning breath, funny digestive noises, sour pusses, sms messages that go misinterpreted. Thank you for not being too nice. Now I don't have to worry about being in love with you. I don't have to worry about making something last or making sure you love me. I can put on those 4" heels that make me just a bit taller than you - and walk. Whenever I feel like it. Maybe tomorrow.

Does he make sure there is milk for my cereal because he cares or because he's unable to prevent himself from planning everything? Does he fix me breakfast out of courtesy, caring, or because he just doesn't want me dickering around in the kitchen, spilling the chocolate milk and making him late? Why did he make sure to stash some of this tea he knows that I like - yet point out its procurement with such show? When my gluten-free cereal runs out - will the affair be over?

Blue run

2009-02-25T19:36:00.000-08:00

I had forgotten how it feels, those first few runs in the spring when the air is still cold but the ground is just melty enough. The encroaching evening is kind and doesn't threaten to freeze the slush beneath me into anything frightening. I ease in for a fast run. It's hard to believe this is a workout - it feels too easy.

From the east, through the thickening aqua air, a moving constellation approaches. First Big Dipper, now Orion's belt, the stars fasten their seat belts, put up tray tables and prepare for a landing. Hello Boston, hello New York, hello London, welcome home.

Lighter than air I chase ovals of amber light down the lakeshore, finally turning. Turning from pavement to the slushy path, abandoning the lights, i trot off into the blue cloud of encroaching night and take the way of trust.

Wise monkey, foolish heart

2009-02-24T10:53:00.000-08:00

If we are the "wise" monkeys, why do we keep making such dumb decisions?

I left him cool his heels for a week. Didn't tell him about Aunt Flo, just left him wonder why I wasn't picking up on any of those subtly placed "So...!" trailers he dropped in conversation. I don't have to really know where anything is going or for how long; I've yet to see any amount of hope or determination pay off in a relationship. When push came to shove and the truth got dragged out from behind the curtain of sweet gestures - they were all just friends with benefits. We've only got but just one day. I don't even want to know about tomorrow.

So on this day, after 7 nights of waking up in that big apartment alone and finding the expanse of a king sized bed to be too much for one person, he lights up my phone like a Christmas tree. Voicemail, SMS, begging, "I need your company". Of course you do. It sucks to be alone, to waste this flesh on empty sheets, to know that no one listens and wonders if you twitch from a nightmare or wake up in the middle of the night thirsty. I know. I take some persuading. I have to wash my hair, after all. But... ok. I'm far too nice to you, but OK.

I can make the requisite turn through my home in under an hour and a half. Make a 250 calorie smoothie for dinner, take a shower, blowout hair, change the clothes, pack the bag, grab the mail.

Hey! puffy envelope!!! It could be the proof for my novel come from the publisher! How exciting! I flip the package over and...shit. It is the return of a borrowed novel from the former hostage of my affections. I had completely forgotten about that whole deal as for over a month he'd been only an electronic presence. SMS messages telling me I meant nothing. Indicators on a singles site telling me that he never stopped looking over his shoulder for something better. Emails holding to the politest line of information exchange. This envelope is, at last, the caboose. But it's still funny to see his scratches on the envelope. I'm grateful that there is no awkward attempt at personal communication inside, but I do find a discarded bookmark in the pages. It's a ticket stub to a broadway show dated Jan 21. So that's what you were up to when not returning my calls. For a second a vision of a gesture, the way he looked standing in my vestibule, a scent, wafts through my mind. I let it pass through like a breeze. Not catching it to squeeze forth any meaning, I just let it go, let it pass into the thick forest of memory. Let it mean nothing.

On the bus I send an sms indicating my arrival time. The trail of messages, collected here over weeks, is like a sieve run through our relationship and coming up with the grosser chunks of truth. Here is encouragement, here is longing, here is capitulation. Here I go again - making the same situation that somewhat resembles a potential mess despite what experience has taught me. Smart. I'm on this bus because my apartment is big and lonely, too. I'm on this bus because a destructive spring full of fairy tales about love still bubbles and seeps under my rocky exterior. I'm on this bus because I want something and haven't quite put my finger on just the way to not need it anymore. I'm on this bus because something in my nature always says "full steam ahead" forgetting it's the engine, not the caboose, that kills you when it strikes. I'm on this bus because, today, it just doesn't feel like the most loving thing to stay alone.

tasca

2009-02-20T17:03:00.000-08:00

Let me stick you in my pocket. You'd be warm and cozy and well contained in there. I would feel you curled up at my hip and pat you softly with silent contentment, knowing that you are safe.

Your dimples and soft skin need meet no more harsh gusts of reality. They need face the possibility of judgment and rejection no more. The guarantee of regular visits from adoring fingers seeking your warmth would be the only surprise. But these would come often to curl up in your flesh. I know you're not a cat, and that a life of safe contentment isn't the vision you hold for yourself. But then why do you purr in your sleep?

No, this isn't a proposal of love; we're both too selfish for that. But no one wants to go through life with empty pockets and find their heart shivering out in the cold.

child of god

2009-02-18T20:12:00.000-08:00

Empty 2 quart bottle next to him on the floor. Stink and cloudy gaze cast hazily about the fellow passengers. On a crowded train where people are standing, the seat next to him is empty. His pants aren't all the way up because there's no belt. It could be some fashion statement, or he could really be 'jailin' as the smell of him denotes a stint in the clink during recent hours.. But as he sits it's obvious the waistband stops well short of the tighty whities. It's this, more than the smell and curious, hazy begging in his eyes that keeps that seat empty. One might sit down and find yourself in contact with that naked bit of upper thigh.

The fragrance of hard liquor on breath is broken up by the aroma of tomato sauce and oregano coming from the take home pizza a woman boards, clutching in her hands. He points a dirty finger toward the box, asking if he can have her leftovers. By the looks of her, she's chubby enough to not warrant needing anything in that box, but she refuses. Turns to keep the box away from him.

It takes him minutes to stand up and get ready for the next stop. I keep hoping that those pants timidly holding to his thighs won't fall. He picks up his empty bottle and tries stuffing it under the mass of his many layers of shirts, dropping it once. When the doors open he lurches out and we all hear the smash of that bottle onto the platform. Passengers react, shake their heads. He staggers off down the platform, child of god.

49 on 13

2009-02-13T19:04:00.001-08:00

49 People.

Just fifty less one people on a plane into a relatively nowhere city. When you say you're flying into New York City, Chicago, or San Francisco the response usually amounts to an excited "oooo!". But say you're flying to Buffalo and you get "oh". Oh, you must know someone there. Oh, you must have a darn good reason. Oh, now where is that?Is that in Wyoming?

Yet on that plane, in those 49 people who sat in seats and landed in flames, were a cantor, an activist for 911 families' rights, an activist who was among the first in this country to sound the alarm on Darfur, an aunt of one friend, & the colleagues of another. Just 49, like taking a metal scoop, dipping it into the giant well of humanity and look what you come up with. Probably there were more than a couple sinners on there, too, like people who might have been unfaithful to a spouse during their sojourn in New York City. Even the saintly among them might have lied to get out of an extra $20 charge at the hotel. "Internet? I didn't use no internet!" Sure, we know who all was on that flight, now. But did THEY know?

But it makes me pause, just to think of what kind of calibur was among just 49 humans flying around in one tin can. Of all those planes I've been on in the past year... who was on there with me? What were their stories? I remember the screaming babies, for sure, and the daffy-professor type who sat next to me coming back from London. But then, too, there was the skinny little man with his even skinnier and littler family, exhausted from having traveled all the way from Myanmar. They were refugees from the typhoon. He held out the large card hanging from a string around his neck to explain himself to me. I could only frown as my imagination filled in the gaps. I said "oh". I made sure he had lots of water and pillows. That was the flight back from... Atlanta? San Francisco? New York? Shit.

It gives me something to think about as I eyeball my fellow fliers for she who clearly brought on luggage too large to be a carry on and he who obviously ate beans for lunch before getting into the seat in front of me. Who are they all, really, beyond the normal sensory offenses which make convenient excuses for distance?

I'm the "one"

2009-02-11T14:25:00.000-08:00

Do not look at that oracle again. Do not pick it up. Do not ask the same question you ask every damn time. For just one moment of one day, let it go.

I've had my opinions about what I thought should happen in one situation and what I thought should have happened in another. I wouldn't even have called them opinions at the time, but they were; they were judgments. I thought B~ was a horrible disappointment and that events revealed hideous flaws of character. But I thought that because of my hope and expectations about the direction of our relationship. I really thought we would be in a long term relationship. I could envision him meeting my family or worse, making one. And that will never happen. I can see, now, how my expectations of him proved to mismatch the character he brought to the table. Expectation and hope were the only offenses, really. He was who he was and I came in with an unvocalized demand that the picture we make together look a certain way. Sure, I was willing to do my part to make that happen. But THAT had to happen. This has been the ripple underneath all of my dating escapades - stay with me.

And why do I crave this? It's like some odd obsession whose origins I cannot pin down. It's a chain tethered to some undisclosed location which constantly yanks my thoughts back into the same old rut. Please love me, please stay with me. Not only do I not need this thing I crave, seeking to sate it would be to my great detriment. What if I had married any of those various men I'd pinned hopes and time upon in the past? I'd be miserable! None of them were someone I could have been with for a long time. None of them were 'partners'. And have I ever really wanted a partner? Open the dirty, dark chasm of my mind and what hides in there is a woman shivering with fear and hoping to not face life. She wants someone to hide behind, protect her, hold her hand. That frightened form is a lie.

I feel it already with the Italian. I'm wondering why we don't talk about this or that... go do this or that... why it doesn't feel THIS way. Frankly, it's not supposed to look like anything! He's never ever going to fulfill that secret and unacknowledged fantasy of permanent security. He will never be the perfect partner. He will just be G~ and he'll be around for as long as he or I care to be. I don't know what his soul is up to in this. I don't know what B~'s soul was up to. There's nothing I can take from them. I don't need them to be who I am. What I am here to express will come out regardless. I'm slowly realizing that I'm just simply not here to judge and in not judging I save myself from expectation. In not expecting I take us all off the hook for results.

For a day I give myself a break. I don't let my imagination run anywhere. I don't think of certain people when song lyrics come up. I remind myself that there is no future. And for a bit I feel clean.

I am welcome

2009-02-10T12:43:00.001-08:00

At 11 pm the row of lights atop of the Hancock tower blink off. Up here I can look passing clouds in the eye. Up here I look down over buildings as windows shut their eyes and go dark for the night. It's that time again. Time again I'm listening to the sound of him sleeping next to me, sounding like the soft purr of a giant cat. It's time again I look out over the skyline, over the night city, and wonder.

I never know how to figure these out. I can lie here suspecting that this man just won't understand certain parts of me. But roll the tape back even one month to a man I thought did understand. Re-hear his talk; the sweet and understanding language. Hold his subsequent behavior up to the light and observe what hideous revelation of character eventually brought into view. His soul rotted in self-pity, his mind full of drink: it's sad to watch someone fall so perilously far short of the person they could be. Sad for him. I step over the body and move on with amazing alacrity.

Perhaps expecting someone to "care", to "understand", is simply too much and too gooey a goal to really understand in physicality should it arrive at the door. What does this understanding look like? What does it sound like? What does it ACT like? Perhaps it's a gift one only gives yet truly releases the strings. Maybe the math on feeling "known" will never balance out. It's fruitless effort on an impossible equation. I look around my full life and don't know what it is I want or somehow think I need. There's nothing, really, nothing I need. But the question of how can I just not hurt one more person with selfish behavior for one more day persists. I'd like to say that I would like someone to be good to. But is that, too, selfish? What spark of my own happiness am I expecting to come flying out of some man? Why am I here? The horns atop the tower blink red, warning planes and keeping a pace for all insomniacs of the city. What do I do here, god? How am I to be authentic, here, today?

Roll over and watch him sleep, face relaxed in an unconscious lack of expression. It's the same face I see as he answers the door or cleans up after me when I spill precious chocolate milk in the kitchen. He wears only his own face and there's no denying it's simply beautiful. He shuffles slightly, perhaps sensing my regard from the distance of his dream. Settling back in, his purring returns. I hate to admit it. It will feed right into that big Italian ego, but he really is the best lover. I doubt the oracle telling me to 'go ahead with this' every day, but when has certainty ever been a guarantee? Never.

I retrieved the cracked offerings of my affection from him who tossed them back so carelessly. And I'm fine. It was mine to keep all the time & I'm certainly not less anything in the attempt. Maybe I try too hard to give away that which I should be keeping.

As we part in the morning, wishing each other good day with a peck, it hits me just what I'm seeking. I want him to tell me outright, in that very moment, that he wants me to see me back as soon as possible, wants to call me, looks forward to seeing me again. I'm just looking for a welcome. Just another person hoping their heart doesn't die homeless. So that's what it is.

Unusually warm air kisses my face as I step out into a sun drenched morning. Saunter down the street like a soft jazz song plucked on a Les Paul. Despite all my thinking, who couldn't smile, now?

Mi dispiace

2009-02-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

"Can I make a request?"

"Sure...."

"Can you wear nice shoes? A skirt would be nice, but can you wear nice shoes?"

What?! My comfy sneakers and earth shoes aren't so appealing? Those birkenstocks I wore on Saturday didn't turn him on? I know where it's coming from. He's trying to say "I like you to look sexy... and you mostly do... but you're missing a spot" I know I've worn rather overly comfortable shoes each time I've been near him - mostly because those are the shoes that won't make me too tall. I don't like to feel big. Well, if he wants to see what happens when I turn on the power of tower... god help him. But I'm no fashion maven and suddenly every pair of shoes in my closet falls into question. Are you a 'nice' shoe? I have one pair of Italian leather boots...maybe those...? What will go with those? what skirt? Darn it! It's never just about the shoes!

It says something when the first words you make the attempt to learn in your new lover's native language are "I'm sorry". Mi dispiace. Even worse that I figure how to get the pronunciation right from a Madonna song.

The fun might wear off at some unknown point and then we're two people wondering what we're doing together and what happens, exactly, when we're apart. Does she see other people? Is he still on the prowl? At this point in life you'd think I'd be better at pushing these questions early. But this isn't about knowing - I don't want to know shit. It's about forgetting. It's about forgetting those people who've kicked us both to the curb in favor of wallowing in their own drama and self pity. Those people made the mistake of not reciprocating such freely offered adoration. It's about not looking over our shoulder at the world collapsing outside. We've picked up what's left of our souls and come to this place 47 floors up to watch the sun rise over the lake. Here on this island we're happy and have hope that pleasure can outlast erosion.

Purple coat lady

2009-01-29T18:50:00.001-08:00

I see her again at the corner. Same purple coat, same rolling backpack and hand bag next to her. She walks back and forth, back and forth, never getting on a bus, never walking into an office. I ran into her the other night in the Cultural Center. I was marching toward some lecture, she was marching toward a warm seat. We show up in many of the same places, both of us in our long coats and toting worldly goods for the day. But the subtle differences make a world of difference. One of us looks like our steps have a purpose, the other actually has one.

On some days the differentiation is slim. I could dissect and twitter myself endlessly, trying to outline a life but find it to have been thin on purpose as I put head to pillow in the end. What goes through her head, I wonder? I notice her at her corner just after I finished playing chicken with a cabbie who proves to not possess the stones to send me into the afterlife. I'd like to stay with her, on that corner, pacing next to her, to see what it's like. I'm sure my head would not be empty at all but would soon fill with demons a-plenty. The tide of mental pollution I push away with purpose, a prayer and a job title would rise and flood my mind. The rush might drown reason but also cover a multitude of sad and sorry-smelling sins.

"I wish he'd just get off the pity pot, wipe his ass and live - plenty of people's father's get cancer. I hope he remembers to give me my book back.

I wonder how she is today. The furnace just go replaced, next the roof needs insulation, the well needs to be re-dug and the bathroom walls - shit the bathroom walls.

If that bitch bugs me about my weight again I'll scream! Don't people know how rude it is to comment about another person's weight? Jees!

I shouldn't have said that, or that or that. Shit it's 9 am and I haven't managed to do a single thing right today."

Soon enough my simple bag would also spill over with the detritus of life that must be carried around. What would the world look like? Would it be more frightening or would it in fact prove to be a simpler landscape of impressions and associations? Absent of the details of the day I could wander in a city of my own thoughts - lost. I want to know, for real, but don't have the time to find out.

Past purple coat lady I push up the street to the office building where I work. She didn't start out as the woman who wandered around downtown, I'm sure. Did she start like me and simply find the slippery tide of depression and confusion too tempting? Hard to say. That fall lands us all in different places somewhere between loss of appetite to loss of mind. I run into her at a corner sometimes. Out of habit or concern she looks both ways before crossing the street. Me, I've stopped bothering to look.

The dirt of winter

2009-01-25T19:51:00.000-08:00

I don't much mind the dead of winter, it's the dirt of winter I take issue with. Snow, rock hard from days of varying temperature never getting quite warm enough to melt the lot but merely render it into a colder kind of concrete, is like a blank sheaf of paper. Each page dropped from the sky successively records the detritus of the day. A cross section, on view maybe against the glass wall of a bus stop, reveals the sedimentary layers of city in winter. Snow bergs rise from the dirt, the dusty chalk of Chicago air and snow frozen and refrozen into ice.

Its safe to go out with just shoes on for even though two feet of snow still lay upon the ground the works is packed down enough by feet that one can make a way down the street. It's not just the cold that restricts the motion, though. Jaywalking, straying and cutting corners are not options on sidewalks hemmed in by piles of snow yick. More and more the page is dotted with yellow-orange stains and dog poos left behind in favor of hurrying home out of the cold. Someday when the works melts it will liberate months worth of garbage, doggy do, and things long ago dropped and unable to locate in the snow. Someday the grit held in the snow will lie all over the grass, all over the sidewalk and street. It will be as if the sky had rained grit and poo. It will be worth it just to jay walk again.

How fortunate are we

2009-01-24T17:03:00.000-08:00

When it comes in great torrents, it's so easy to confuse the blessing of fresh water falling with a curse. But the rain, each drop, is only in and of itself intending to bless. Its volume, its timing, merely makes us confused. What it washes away, the attachment and appearance of things hoped for, longed for, worked for, these are the curse we place rain upon our own heads.

But am I brave enough to hang there, let this rain flood my life, erode those things not anchored too tight in the truth? I'm afraid. But what does that prove? If fear constantly won over creativity we'd still live in caves.

How fortunate to have employment to loose, how fortunate to have the love that might relocate, how fortunate is the healthy body sweating its way through 2 hours of yoga. Being is the blessing - its appearance, whether in him, her, it, or that, merely changes shape and appearance as it reflects our life. It will always find some new circumstance in which to manifest, should one get washed away. Life reflects being like the raindrop falling, always falling, to ground.

Life in the balance

2009-01-22T19:43:00.000-08:00

Thirteen miles of island packed with history and memory fills with strange ghosts. Generations of the artsy, eclectic, ancient and insane flood the night spaces between clatters of train, honk of cars, crackle of garbage and rustling of blanket to find two. Two of so many people on this old island, many doing much the same thing for so any variety different reasons. Two are lost. Lost to the world of honk, clatter and crackle their feeling bleeds them into the silent space of those ghosts who are left to watch. They’re lost in the fleeting touch and the elusive taste of consuming one another in reunion.

Our ancestors tried to kill each other, but here we’ve come to this. Not bad, not bad at all for human progress that, having fallen from the trees like some overripe fruit, to then prodigiously stand upright and now to dance. We dance the repose of drinking from each other is if both were the tap of the fountain of life. Not bad for human progress at all.

It’s taken us billions of years to get here, me and you. Through primordial ooze, ancient forests and burning skies; through lost on the subway and cold streets we’ve come to balance on a single strand of time. Here butterfly cheeks surrender to mammalian mouths and human hands each grasping, pulling, biting to sate our ancient hunger.

I always worry a bit that it won’t work.

yet still, we dream

2009-01-20T15:19:00.000-08:00

7 am & the express bus slowly fills its belly for the long haul downtown. Faces look tired & distant, it's an early morning after a long weekend. Some read papers while others dab on makeup. Then she gets on, this African-American woman, her faced wreathed by a scarf, wearing an incurable grin. It's not just a passing ray of sun through the clouds, this smile sustains her. Her face says it all, today changes everything.

Across from me a man holds up a paper upon whose front cover is a photo of Obama's head, from behind, against an American flag. Robbed of the personality and charisma that his smile commands, this picture lays out the simple facts. With nappy hair and tawny skin, with thicker lips and wider nose, this head is the man we have elected president. And the legions who have avoided playing in the sun so as to preserve "good color"; who have spent hours in the salon or barber submitting to heat and chemicals in the struggle for "good hair" or those who have pursed their fleshy lips can at last put down the mirror of self conscious inspection, look into their hearts and deem themselves "good".

Does this mean that the scale of justice has settled in perfect balance? No. I have a mother who still thinks "colored" is a polite word to use. She still identifies newscasters, singers, even friends of mine as "the BLACK one" each time saying "black" as if she'd just found a rodent in her larder. As long as words like "nigger" and "shwarster" exist, we have a way to go yet. As long as people avert their eyes from African American men they meet on the street lest he pose a danger; as long as little old ladies move their purses to their opposite side when a black person sits next to them on the bus, we are not done. As long as race is a measuring indicator of personality we are a long way from the goal. We who believe in freedom cannot yet rest while any single one of us remains in harm's way due to ignorance or prejudice.

Yet still, we dream. Today our dream is sweet because though we trudge the road of history and destiny, it's nice to be on a flatter stretch. We dream, still, because we know just a little more than yesterday about what we are capable of and where our attitudes come from. It's not enough to think different, or even to act different, it's a matter of understanding the assumptions of our past in a new way.

Five years ago I moved to Chicago from Boston. I left a job, an apartment, a full & good life. Packed it all up and moved 1500 miles to find myself in school, again. In those first days I needed so much. And, Yankee will power in hand, I was going to get it. Trips to the ID office took me to Accounts Payable which sent me to Financial Aid, then on to the Registrar, back to Financial Aid and over again to Accounts Payable before I had my card. Then it was time to get a train pass, which took me through a few more lines and offices and burocracy. Each point on the journey left me waiting and hoping yet suspecting that the person behind the counter didn't really understand what I was asking for. Finally, after three days of battling it all out, I went to grad student orientation and met the head of the department. I was greeted by a middle aged man with round, pink features and instantly felt a wave of relief. Then came the guilt. Looking back over my first few days I realized that part of the source of my stress was that no one in any of these offices, where I came knocking with my many needs, looked like me. Unlike monocultural Boston, Chicago is diverse and the office workers at SAIC are primarily African-American (a ratio that swings the other way when it comes to faculty and students). The undercurrent to all my discussions across desks and through glass was that I didn't think that person would take care of me or that they were judging me. Did any one of them fail to help me? NO. Was I fine? YES. Would I have consciously admitted that race was an underlying stress factor in any of those meetings? NO. But there's something about approaching a person in a position of power and influence, however small, and seeing visual cues of same-ness that put one at ease knowing he or she in power identifies with one's plight.

"Yes, we can" was Obama's campaign slogan of note. Well, many always knew, in an academic way, that they could. But that gut level understanding that "Yes, we MAY" remained elusive, lacking a symbol or a visual affirmation to match the words, until now. And so, yet still, we dream. We dream, now, just a little bigger than yesterday.

sick of it

2009-01-15T15:55:00.001-08:00

The river pauses, completely frozen over. It's just a chalky line separating the north and south banks, now, unable to rush anywhere. Every building sits in the pink late afternoon light exhaling puffs of purple steam as if exhausted by the effort of keeping all inhabitants warm. I put my hand up to the glass, feeling the tingling chill of that smooth surface. Birds, rodents, raccoons and squirrels must find ways of protecting themselves from the bitter drop in temperatures. But, not us. From Home to bus to pedway to office and back, I really don't have to be confronted by these elements if I don't care to be. How ancestors survived in such temperatures, how I might survive were life suddenly to be stripped of all modern convenience, that's not something I really have to think about much. My hand rests on the glass, less than an inch from the bitterest of temperatures, in warm safety.

The bus I ride to and from downtown everyday has plenty of windows to view the passing scene. But while they are wonderful for leaking out heat, lately they let in no clue of the world outside. A thick, grey crust of dried on road spray and puge has turned these windows into walls. Passengers ride along, listening to ipods, reading, chatting on phones, collectively ignoring each other. Confined into this space for up to an hour out of our day, we try not to stare. This is what life in the city has become - a self contained echo chamber of humanity staring at itself while all bouncing down the road of time. Our egos bump and grate and get in each other's way such that I must wonder if, in fact, humans were truly meant to live in such massive, tight proximity to one another. Outside temperatures drop below zero and such cold makes snapping, snarling sounds in tree branches. Outside is a diminishing nature where species die off unnoticed.

I think I'm sick of living in the city. I'm sick of living in a people-scape rather than a landscape. I'm sick of the collective attitude which pushes nature to the perimeter of life. The earth is not seen as something which sustains us at all. I see how she's framed as a backdrop to busyness and doing-ness. She's ignored, beaten down, indentifiable only as a pigeon, park squirrel, or something in the produce section.

And now, people are so MAD at nature. They're quite annoyed with winter's interruption to routine and human flow. How dare the snow. Below zero? How dare the cold! But in the piles of snow, encumbering body wrappings, slippery surfaces and crunching cold I hear what she's trying to say.

"Slow down, you go to fast. Stop and look, you never regard each step enough. Ask for help, it's too cold for you to think this can be marched through alone. Go within, you're always running out. It's ok to have a season of stopping. All creatures and creation take this time to rest. They live off stored wealth and prepare for another chance to grow. You are such a creation. Stop. Wait. Be still and know that 'I am'."

But we don't have that anymore. We neither listen nor entertain the proposal that life has a cycle to be honored. Our routine is conveniently shortened to a daily treadmill of tasks. Sick of it.

It's supposed to snow in January

2009-01-14T11:31:00.001-08:00

"This is one of the worst years ever, don't you think?" She asks me as we both peal off our winter wear and disrobe at the gym.

"Well, no, it's just winter." I return. Granted, a conversation about the weather is right up there with a discussion about eyeball injuries on my list of interesting topics. I can be accused of trying to head off a needless, dramatic discussion with someone I'd prefer not to interact with. I'm here to exercise, not get wrapped up in any of those insipid "woman conversations". These often plague my ears during that margin of locker room time bookending my workout. But, much to my chagrin, my response necessarily sets of what she calls a "debate" in which she must find ways of making herself right. I do wonder how long it takes her to realize that there is only one person talking during this 'debate'. I finally stop her with "I grew up in Buffalo, anything less than four feet falling in one day is chicken shit."

It happens every year, starting in about December. The temperature drops below freezing, making occasional further descents into the single or negative digits. These dips last for a week or so. To boot, snow falls. Sometimes it falls down, sometimes it comes with a wind that makes it blow sideways. This snow fall will happen two to three times per week.

I look outside, I listen to the weather report, and I go to my closet to make appropriate decisions. Below freezing? No skirts. Below 20? down jacket, hat, leather gloves, earmuffs for over hat. Below 10? Silk long johns under clothing, thick socks, stuff leather gloves into wool mittens and wear both together, consider putting head scarf around head and neck. Around zero? use scarf to protect face, consider switching to long coat to protect legs. If there's snow, put on boots. If this weather didn't happen every damned year, if this year is so much worse than previous years, they why oh why do I have the gear and the routine already in place to deal with it?

When I first moved to Chicago, it snowed in December and, as was not normal for Boston, snow remained on the ground until March. Yay! a real winter! But, everyone said "Oh! this is so much worse than last year! This is a bad year!" But, that same weather came back the next year, and the next and the next. With each return of snow the complaints choir voices their continual refrain of 'how terrible this winter is". They persistently react with astonishment at the plummeting temperature and the sky's temerity to drop this white stuff upon them. They're shocked that nature refuses to restrict herself to that role of a pleasant background for their busy lives.

To all those people I hear on the bus or at the gym reacting to this weather, I have news. Snow is not a plague. It is not a curse. It does not mean that the gods are angry with you and it does not mean anything is going terribly wrong with the planet. This is supposed to happen. So it gets in your way, slows you down. Forces you to take public transportation. So what. There's nothing to fear. So, zip up your coat, get some decent boots, watch your step and knock off the dramatics.

I head through the falling & blowing snow to work, picking through the "yick" on the sidewalk for good footing. The lady in the purple coat with her rolling back pack and flowery hat is there, just like every day. She looks like she's going to work. Each day she stands at the corner of Lake and Upper Columbus with an expectant gesture of waiting for a bus or for the light to change so she can be on her way. In an hour or so I'll look down at this corner from my cubicle with a view and she'll still be here, waiting. To my friend running the news stand in the pedway, today is just another windowless day. Only the mastheads differentiate January from July.

It's all just normal. If you don't like it then, next time July roles around, pop your busy head out of your ass long enough to enjoy the sunshine.

Change at the door

2009-01-12T19:21:00.001-08:00

The cold has crept through my bones and no longer feels like a stranger bumping into me as I walk out the door. It's twenty degrees and my coat is open. I start to wonder why I bother with the down jacket. Gloves? Those are for the single digits.

Stepping through what is technically known as "yick" forces me to shoe gaze as I pick my way down the sidewalk. I remember this is a cursed gesture to all those insisting we don't raise our eyes and allow some inspiration in more often. So, I look up. Sky like a marble quarry, urban world like a grey canyon, every thing and everyone stiffened in the cold and encumbered by snow and clothing to protect from snow. So this is January and we choose to live with it and manage to not jump clean out of our skins or move south once and for all. I joke with coworkers in Atlanta that this is the subtle fee we pay for living in the best city in the world.

January. Comes from "Janus", a figure guarding the doorway; the two faced god who looks both ways. And in this passage we do need some guard, some guidance. We are split wholly over the mistakes and culpability of what was, the anxiety and hope for what will be, leaving only a strange and rootless excitement over now.

I listened to Bush give his final press conference and felt a bit bad for him. If he'd been elected in a less complicated time, say, 1892, he might have drifted into history as one of our less controversial presidents. If he had managed to surround himself with people of a more trustworthy and less power-hungry caliber, he might have done fine - slipping into history as a name fifth graders must memorize on a list. He's not a bad man at all. I'm sure everyone of us could find in him a friend were we to sit down and chat. But, at the turn of the twentieth century, America didn't need a buddy. It needed a miracle. And now he's leaving, taking his mixed record with him and leaving the "yick" behind. There really are people on the planet who are better off for George W. Bush having stepped up to the plate and found a way to do what is right on occasion. But no one will forget his surprising role as the shoe target.

On Bush's heels, history sweeps into the oval office. The wind doesn't get me much but this, just thinking of it still gives me a chill. I still worry that an alternate universe where the election turned out differently will push forward into my experience. But no, this is real, it's safe to open my eyes and believe, for once, that the dream of american freedom is a reality. For a minute we are launched beyond the reach of gravity. We step from the nasty known onto a sweet dream of future. And in that doorway lies the danger. It is a dangerous moment where we surpass the ability to be defined with words because we will step through the other side changed. But into what only heaven knows.

And this is why our gate needs a guard, a Janus, someone to look both ways while we forget ourselves for a minute and step out into blinding light or gusting wind. Someone to call our names and help us to find a road back home through fear and doubt, through hope and change.

You say goodbye, I say hello

2009-01-01T17:33:00.001-08:00

Dec 31 2008

How long does a day last? Twenty four hours wherever it lays its head. And it crawls across the globe for a full twenty four, testing the pillows and mattresses of every new country it passes. It rests on straw, on hay, on water, on sealy and certa. That day, once it’s done, take most of 48 hours to finish its work. Take a year of such days? Could last for damn near like forever.

This is the day to say ‘goodbye’ to a year that has lasted far too long and what many folks blame for dragging them through the mud of economic chaos and the constant exposée of worsening revelations. Folks just couldn’t seem to dig low enough this year. Will someone please just get out a gun and shoot that damned bear? Will someone please just tell 2008 to go the fuck away?

Well, today is also my mom’s birthday. Slowly, sadly, I realize that I’m bidding adieu to the powerhouse, the fierce hen, the mother that I once knew. The mom I watched go to battle with school teachers, bus drivers and whole fleets of nurses fades into a woman who’s imagination and worry now operate on too feeble a set of inputs from eyes and ears. She hears people at the back door when no car is in the driveway. She can’t see a cell phone screen that goes into screensaver mode. She hears “green” when I say “Prius”. Less and less is she the steward of her own story and I worry that the details, the facts, will be stirred into a stew of confusion where hidden fears are treated as real events and the reality of her life slips into truncated anecdotes that really, really do not capture who she is and what she has meant to the people she’s touched. My mom is not some great woman. But, she’s my mom. My god but hasn’t she put up with whatever it takes to make sure her family came through. I worry that people like that just don’t get made no more – that the tough gets Nintendo-ed and Tivo-ed and made in China affordably priced out of us all way too young. Now, now especially we need those people like my mom who won’t throw away glass jars, deli containers, rubber bands, plastic bags or tinfoil because deep in the folds of their brain is an indelible memory of the Great Depression. My god, where has the tough side of America gone when we are so unconsciously preoccupied with measuring up to some social policy of “thou must have xyz stuff” that we fail to honestly stick our necks out for the truth? We’ve subconsciously cheated OURSELVES out of our first amendment rights.

Jan 1, 2009
The radio is filled with happy hellos for a new year. Things will get better. We will have our shiny new president. The economy will recover. A new day dawns.

Do we want the economy to recover? I don’t. I don’t wish to see us move back into that place where the livelihood of many floats on the surface of a balloon of speculative fantasy. That balloon always pops and the folks suffering the explosion are never those whose hot air blew it up in the first place. I would wish that a country of consumer culture addicted to cheap goods from China where there are no manufacturing jobs and where we spend and spend and spread and get fatter beyond belief would not return. We could stand to tighten our belts –WE’RE FAT. I think we should bid the whole lot a firm good-bye, slam the casket shut and say hello to a more rational and honest means of operating. That economy we had? I don’t wish to see it bounce back at all. I’d like to see us move on to something better – better for ALL of us.

The difference is in the story that we hold forth about ourselves. Are we crumbling with fear and panic and age? Or are we merely drawing in, reevaluating this new stage of life that greets us with a big bear hug, and deciding what the next chapter of our story is to be? It’s in our hands. It’s in our hands to punish politicians and ponzi schemers. It’s in our hands to be angry; to blame the players of financial instruments, the mortgage brokers or the people who shouldn’t have had drivers licenses much less have owned homes. It’s in our hands to admit our collective guilt – that we all enjoyed the fruits of dishonesty and bloat in our lifestyle no matter what our personal choices of consumerism. We are the stewards of this story.

You say goodbye, I say hello

2009-01-01T17:33:00.000-08:00

Midnight is where the day begins

2008-12-29T19:24:00.001-08:00

Day 2:
The temperature has risen into the 40’s overnight and I can hear the eaves dripping with melting snow. The luggage delivery elves from United Airlines rouse me from bed just before mom sets off to read at the early mass. She wants me to get up and get ready for the later service, knowing I’d rather go up to Sheldon than St. Mary’s any day. Just after she her car clears the end of the driveway I look out through the kitchen window and notice that just enough snow has melted to reveal the beaten up pound cake in the middle of the yard. Shit.

Donning the bright red house coat from the closet (which was a gift to mom in 1993), and some boots, I go punching through the snow. Collecting the sloppy pastry, I carry it toward the tree line at the edge of the property. The land dips a bit as the lawn halts it’s march greet the woods and so can’t be seen from the back window. I give the cake another toss into the thick collection of trees.

She’s driving me a little nuts already with the minute details regarding exactly how to walk out the driveway to tape a sign onto the penny saver box bearing our house number so that when Santa delivers my luggage he can find the right place. You’d think I’d never seen ice before, had never walked up that driveway, or that I had no experience with these things called ‘feet’. I want to snap her head clean off, but I don’t.

Church saves my sanity a bit. I never chant along with the prayers or songs as its never been quite my bag to call myself a sinner or to proclaim belief in “one holy catholic apostolic church”. I stay silent and meditate to myself. Slowly I feel it deflating lik a balloon that’s been poked. I’ve been trying to manage too much, insisting that I know what’s right rather than simply accepting. Accepting that I’m lucky I got into town with just 3 hours of flight delay and one day of delayed luggage. Accepting that there’s nothing I can do to make this situation different or “better”.

As I relax into the mass the words come to me: “to see how something is put together, look at how it falls apart.” How I’m watching mom’s mind fall apart tells me much about the expectation and structure that has held it together for decades. As each repetition of directions or whining in the kitchen starts to irritate me I follow the strand back as far as I can to some comprehension of the fear what’s held her world in place and the force-structuring her thoughts had at the hands of pre-Vatican II Catholicism. When she insists that there are people knocking on the back door and starts running around frantic, I show her the driveway containing only her car. She’s expecting people coming over and every little thud or bump that meets her dim hearing maps itself to that expectation. I realize that she’s not getting to me like she did even a few hours ago. But, I’ve never been so happy to see my siblings show up!

Day 3:
I wake up to the sound of mom exclaiming at the presence of deer in the back yard. They have their dark winter fur on, which surprises her.

“Usually they walk up through but this time they were just standing around over by the trees, straight back from the house. I wonder why?”

Yeah, gee, I wonder.

We recover from the prep for the holiday. Feast on a few pieces of candy. It’s amazing how quickly this place, this pace of life filters into the cracks of my consciousness. It’s funny how fast lessons can go unlearned, again. I whinge about tolerating my family and the conservative siblings without any thought of how many times mom’s “mhm” over my liberal talking points might be her own form of tolerance. We know we both mean well and slowly give in to the compulsive helpfulness. We each try to fix but still hold on – as if our identities depend upon those parts of ourself which the other sees as broken.

But there is a last time for everything. I stop holding back from those talking points that might cause upset. I refuse to pretend that I practice anything like Catholicism on my own, although I do respect it. I don’t pretend to be sexually inexperienced even though I don’t need to go into the details with her. I’m done playing reindeer games.

There's a last time for everything

2008-12-28T21:12:00.001-08:00

Day 1:
Listening to the minutia of directions coming through the phone, I already felt the rage coming on. Nothing is where she says it is. She really hasn’t the first idea where anything really is in this entire house unless she wanders around it talking to her “angels”. It’s a mess that can’t be fixed. Everything one needs to use gets ‘safely’ tucked away in some mysterious location before you’re really done using it while the counters and corners of each room explode with garbage like plastic bags, six month old church missals, old penny saver magazines, tattered shoes and broken shit.

My luggage got lost. United Airlines has made sure I showed up for this holiday completely unprepared. Everything I sent ahead that I might give anyone for Christmas is lost somewhere in this house and I am really loosing it.

“Where’s the box from See’s?” I ask her.

“Oh!…” she proceeds to give me several locations of possible search for the various items, all of which prove to be false. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing on top of that refrigerator in the basement (where I specifically told her NOT to put the chocolate) except a pineapple. There’s nothing on those shelves in the freezer, where my cooking ingredients were supposed to have been stored, but butter and venison. There’s nothing anywhere but shit wrapped in plastic bags. If I see one more plastic grocery bag wrapped around some item I’m going to…

“ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!” snap and scream.

I begin pulling items from the chest freezer (this is the third freezer in the house) and throwing whatever I grab with all of my might. Frozen pork roasts sail across the cluttered basement and crash into the washer and dryer that haven’t worked since I was in high school. A chicken bangs into the side of the furnace. A $2 pound cake, packed in a plastic deli container and two plastic grocery bags, goes for a sail and crashes against the wall. I spy that pound cake. You’d think this was some sort of delicacy the way she has it so carefully stored for future use. It’s just a cheap fucking pound cake! These things taste like sweetened foam! Its container has already shattered from the force of throw and impact. So, I jump on it. I jump on the cake and stamp on its slippery, gross larva form as it squirms around the cement yelling “NO MORE CHEAP SHIT WRAPPED IN PLASTIC!!”

For a moment I calm down and attempt to reassemble the freezer, only hesitating to beat the $1.99 a pound pork roast into the floor a few times before returning it to the chest. I throw the smashed remnants of the pound cake into the snow in the back yard with as much force as I can muster. It lands somewhere out there in the field of white between the house and the woods.

But the rage isn’t passed. Just looking for tape, and I can’t close a kitchen cupboard for all of the crap in there. Seconds later a plastic container of crap flies from the kitchen into the living room, spilling it’s contents all over the red rug: replacement staples for a stapler probably long gone, zippers taken off pants before they were tossed, a bit of string, and nameless and formless –

“PILES OF USELESS CRAP!!”

In the living room, hovering over the landing sight of my latest rage victim, I look around. A display of fall gourds has been left to rot in the basket on the coffee table – the coffee table which has a broken leg and which will fall over if leaned on in just the wrong way. This room, this was the room we were not supposed to ever ever enter as it was full of all those items so precious: picture windows, wall mural, hardwood floor, nice sofa, red carpet. I grab the rotted gourds and heave them at each of these features.

“I’M SICK OF THIS! I’M SICK OF EVERY THING LEFT TO SIT AND COVERED WITH DIRT AND DUST AND ROT UNTIL IT’S CRAP! I’M SICK OF EVERY NICE THING BEING LEFT TO SIT UNTIL ITS USELESS! WHY DO YOU DO IT? WHY DO YOU REJECT EVERY NICE THING? I’M SICK OF ALL OF YOU! YOU’RE FULL OF SHIT! NEVER COULD SAY A NICE THING AND WHO THE FUCK WERE YOU? IT’S NEVER BEEN NICE BEING HERE! IT’S ALWAYS BEEN A PLACE WEHERE NICE THINGS COME TO BREAK AND DIE!”

Gourds crack and bounce off the picture windows. Gourds smash into the red carpet and break open against the floor.

“YOU CAN’T MAKE ME EAT THIS! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME CHEW IT AND TAKE IT IN! I REJECT THIS! I’M DONE! THE WINDOWS DON’T MATTER! THE CARPETS AND THE HARDWOOD FLOORS DON’T MATTER! WE WERE THE LIFE IN THIS PLACE AND WE SHOULD HAVE MATTERED MORE!!”

When I finally run out of squash to throw I come to a rest, face pressed against the cold glass of the picture windows. My throat is hoarse from shouting against the dusty air. Years of expectation and disappointment pour out of my eyes. So this is Christmas.

This is “getting together to trim the tree” degrading into an upset argument over strings of lights that don’t work. “They worked last year!!” Dad would bellow. The first time in my adult life that I bought a string of lights and read on the box that these were ‘not intended to last more than one season’ I seriously thought I was going to hit something. Why the fuck couldn’t you people just go out and drop $10 on a couple new strings of lights each year?

This is sitting down to decorate Christmas cookies and getting yelled at for making all the cookies the wrong colors. I had made a green Santa, and as an even worse sin, my stars were red! Red stars were communist (never mind that they tasted better). Stars were blue or yellow, Santa wore red, neither creativity nor communism in colored sugar were appreciated.

This is people sitting around the tree making conversation while mom bangs pots and pans in the kitchen. She’s spied something none of the rest of us sees yet. A diamond ring on a finger.

So this is the living room, the stage of so many moments around the tree, around girls going off to prom or around a bride. This was setting of many a smiling photo and much tacit animosity.

I get up and start cleaning the living room of crushed and smashed bits of squash. I start to put the tree together, using the two strings of lights that work, the antique ornaments and the new tinsel I found last January (finally allowing us to throw away the crinkled tinsel which has been in use since the late 60’s… not joking).

As I plug the works in and tidy the room I think “there’s a last time for everything”.

Economic Recovery Plan

2008-12-17T20:34:00.000-08:00

It’s a phrase that’s been getting bandied about more and more lately, and today I finally heard it with more than just my ears. My mind took in the magic words: “Economic Recovery Plan” as the President-elect spoke them. This plan is supposed to make us all feel better, like those guys in charge have just the recipe for national money that will put us all at rest. Soon we’ll be able to shop again, right? I can confess to feeling a bit reassured by the onset of a new administration with the word “plan” on their lips and the gaggle of experts in the back pocket. But suddenly, today, I focused in on another part of that oft heard phrase... “Recovery”.

Recovery, really? Do they mean that? Could a plan for recovery really work for us? Let’s match up recovery and the economy.

January 21, 2009. Step one. We admit that we are powerless and that the economy is completely unmanageable by us.
If this is news to anyone alive between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans then this person needs serious rehabilitation, preferably in a battered women’s shelter that's facing foreclosure. Our every attempt to theorize about and resuscitate the economy has brought about still greater mocking failure. Give up, America. Put your busted paws in the air and surrender to collective culpability. We’re all going to each have to do this economic recovery together.

Step two. Come to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Whoa. Sounds extreme. We’ve already got “in God we trust” printed on the money. Isn’t that enough? Maybe the greater power isn’t some abstract and fluctuating diety. but a core belief that we are each no better than the other at heart. Maybe we just need to see that, while we cannot and do not wish to all be literal ‘equals’ in choice and lifestyle, no one deserves to be hurt or exploited for another’s comfort. What hurts one of us hurts all of us. That’s not so bad. It’s actionable – do no harm.

Step three. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the higher power as we understood it.
Not so unrealistic, really. We’ve been blindly doing that all along, trusting the government or the job to take care of us, with the gleeful side effect of being able to blame and whinge when we don’t get what we want. Perhaps the bigger challenge of this step in our collective economic recovery is for all citizens to DECIDE and to UNDERSTAND.

Step four. Made a searching and fearless inventory.
Ok, it all comes out eventually. Tricky Dick got caught, as did governor Blago and that rich fellow with his ponzi scam. There can only be one Jimmy Hoffa. Do we want to find out about this stuff generations from now, when the tapes have been combed over and the analysis done, just in time for our children to get busted making the same mistakes? Wouldn’t we rather have some transparent exposure now? It’s like the difference between pulling the band-aid off slowly or letting your big sister yank it off real fast. Pick the speed of your ouch. Money can be more difficult for folks to come clean about than their sex lives. But, its about more than just the games we play around money, fearing that there won’t be enough and that someone will take what we have. It’s a concise history of those moments when fear, selfishness and self pity have ruled the day and sacrificed the angels of our better nature like a sheep in the temple.

Step five. Admit to everyone the exact nature of our wrongs.
Admit the mistakes, the greed, the intention of harm and selfishness before you end up on Jerry Springer next to that overweight bit of trailer trash who wants to start a fight. Admit, as a nation, that while we are not all guilty of the specific acts that have made such a mess of the economy and our relationship with the world in general, we are all responsible. We all got quite used to things being this way and played the game just as much as any high roller. We all contribute to the problem just by being here.

Step six. Became willing to have these defects removed.
And we must pause, here, as some of these naughty little things we do are quite enjoyable. They’re NATURAL. We’ve done things like his for so long… what do you MEAN change? Give it up? Huh. I’ll get back to you on that.

Step seven. Ask a higher power to remove all these defects of character.
If we meant it when we did step six, then, well, nuff said.

This bit should take us until the end of the first Obama administration. And things will be looking and feeling much better. We may all well like our country much more. But it’s important not to stop. Hopefully by the time we vote him back in, the process of change will be so ingrained that no one will remember the days when it was the favorite buzz word of electioneering. Change will be an American addiction, but not a bad one like we have to fat, sugar and cigarettes. It will be a good one, like our addiction to air.

Step eight: Made a list of all persons or entities that we had harmed and became willing to make all of those situations better.
Well, we’ve had our mits in just about every pie all around the planet since the day after the ink on the constitution dried. So, this should be fun. Whom did we harm? Hm. The native American nations? The middle east? Southeast Asia? Africa? South America? The line between “that was selfish of us” and “the bastards deserved it” is pretty much a fractal. It gets more and more complicated the deeper we go. They WERE shooting arrows at us. They WERE pirating our ships. They DID kill our young boys. They DID send planes into our buildings. So lets just start by erasing “them”, whoever they were, from the equation because other people’s shit doesn’t belong on our balance sheet. In liberating our minds of what “they” did, we’ll see how collectively we’ve made decisions based upon self-interest that later placed us in positions to be hurt. WE wanted more land. WE wanted more money. WE wanted more of what was proportionally due us by nature and when we found there were people in the way of what we wanted, we figured out a tidy democratic way of saying “so what”. That right there? That goes on the list.

Did anyone notice, yet, that all this means economic recovery isn’t really just about money? Yeah. It hasn’t really been about money since step 1.

Step Nine:
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Important note: “Others” = other countries. There is no “other” who can point to any patch of dirt (or concrete) inside the US and call it home. Nobody gets to absent themselves from reckoning because their gender, race, orientation or union membership has caused them to appear at a disadvantage. Get off the pity pot, wipe your ass and get on with it. You’re an American, too. So, sorry, no remunerations for folks who can point to a slave in their lineage because we’d all be surprised how many ‘white’ folks fall under that umbrella. By way of slavery & indentured servant-hood, that categorization is another historic fractal. But, we do owe West Africa a great debt for having ripped their cultural fabric into unrecognizable shreds. It does mean that we publicly admit that we are often selfish, dishonest and wrong. What does it mean to do things differently, now? What would it look like to live in a way that does no harm? It might cost us much less than we feared and reward us much more richly than we’d ever dreamed. And won’t it be easier to stop covering up all the facts? But that’s just it. We start tasting the rewards here. Not after step 1.

Step Ten: continue to take inventory and when we are wrong, promptly admit it.
Note the word promptly. That means now, not in the next election cycle.

Step Eleven: Continued to make conscious contact with a higher power, asking only for knowledge of its will an for the strength to carry that out.
I know, scary. Why, now I give every nutter hearing voices a license to set off car bombs in the name of their God. But that’s not what this means. The God we seek to get in touch with here is that which is present within all other people; a collective spirit. And when we reach a state of behavior so as to treat our fellows in an un-hurtful manner, it will be far easier to see a god in them. There’s one bar against the acting out of odd “god inspired” craziness. Ask: will it do any harm?

“But if we “do no harm” there will be nothing that we’re capable of doing anymore! We won’t be able to take two steps without causing harm to some microbe? We’ll all look like Jains!”

Really? Aw c’mon. Use your imagination.

Step Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening, we continue to practice these steps and to carry the message to others.
This should take us into the last year of the second term. Too bad we’ll have to say good-bye to Obama so soon. But think of what more can now really be done? This, THIS is the wonderful world Louis Armstrong warned us about in that song that still makes me cry.

I’m idealistic, I know. How in the heck to get Americans to stop pointing fingers long enough to accomplish such a task? Easy. Our life depends on it. The survival of our species on this planet in a manner that looks anything like “life” hangs in delicate balance. The alternative is a world that looks like Haiti: stripped bare of resources, crowded, underfed, chaotic.

How? Well, H.O.W. –honesty, open mindedness and willingness… these we have to find in ourselves, first.

Great pets

2008-12-15T20:45:00.001-08:00

I go for a jog, just to celebrate the rare day of above – forty degree weather. I learn a few things. For example, the trail I ran all through the summer may be too messy for mid December. Gotta stick to the main drag that they keep plowed for the fire access vehicles. By the time I’m coming back the dog walkers are out. Along Sheridan it’s mostly little dogs not being kept on tight enough leashes. The lady in the fur coat wanders down one side of the sidewalk, possibly still in last night’s stupor. Her fido generally takes a path at the opposite side of the walk, effectively creating a neat snare for other pedestrians or, say, me. A hefty woman passes in front of me holding two lhasa apso’s on leashes. The dogs are each wearing mink doggie coats.

Hey lady, can I be your dog? In fact, while we’re at it, I think there are a few hundred people who have just spent a dozen cold, hungry nights wandering the streets of Chicago who find your pouch’s predicament quite enviable.

Why, really, must we have these strange beasts, with whom communication is so much left to guess work and whose bodily functions require so much vigilance, in our homes? What’s the payoff? How can the devotion of such fuzzy cuteness possibly outweigh the hassle of walkies on cold mornings, visits to the groomer and the cost of kenneling when one must go to the Bahamas for those two weeks in February?

Why not adopt homeless people as pets? I know it sounds horribly crass, like I’m talking about treating the disadvantaged like beasts. But come on. Take a walk through the Loop during tourist season or during the holidays and count, for once, those people on the margins who are so easy to ignore despite the cup full of coins they rattle. Sometimes I stop and give them money and ask them their name. They look at me in shock, and hesitate, as if they’ve forgotten they had one. They’ve compressed their own personhood down to so unrecognizable a form that it takes a second or two to cough out those couple of syllables that make up their label. Treat them like a dog? If that means a warm corner of a house, decent food out of one’s own bowl twice a day and maybe even a mink coat for taking a walk in, that is a fat upgrade.

Those two lap dogs were allowed more personality and identity than the average homeless person. Their quirks, perhaps a tendency to drink from the loo, defecate in the marble entryway, bark at the slightest noise and chew expensive shoes (a crime punishable by death in my book) are met with more tolerance than is shown the average human, especially one that we can perceive as being down on their luck.

So why not have homeless people as pets. I’d wager they can be trained to suit any household. Even the most mentally ill person can muster greater sense than a beast who speaks no verbal language. If the dog’s purpose lies in its fuzzy factor, then simply refrain from having the homeless person shave the beard that living on the street has caused to grow. They can shower themselves without the expense of a trip to the Bark Bark club. They can use a toilet. How great would that be in the middle of February when it’s all of zero outside. Oh wait, you’ll be out of town. Well, you’re pet person can watch the house or even come along on the trip! The advantages are countless. All for the cost of some love…

And what’s so bad about this idea? I mean, we may as well let the concept sink into our consciousness now. Once the Martians tire of playing with the toy robots we keep sending them as friendship offerings, they will ride on over to pay our twinkly little world with it’s orbiting trash ring a visit. And they will probably take one look at how the lot of us have mismanaged things and decide that we’d just make good pets.

Present for mom

2008-12-11T15:35:00.001-08:00

“Hemp”, I thought. Hemp is plenty strong, there’s no way she’ll be able to destroy this cargo tote bag. Not only is it already pretty tough by design (I have 3 myself), I deliberately ordered a stronger fabric for the side panels and straps. So, two side panels of black hemp and a center in blue fabric, recycled polyester. Well then I guess the gift is ‘green’ too. I picked out the liner inside be brilliant orange. “Why that color? That doesn’t match the outside!” She’ll say. And I know this. It not only clashes with the outside but it is a color that nothing she puts into that bag will have. So that way she can find her shit and nothing going into the bag will fall into the dark abyss that makes her sound so frustrated when its time to locate something. One fat credit card charge later, Timbuk2 is now in charge of mom’s Christmas present. She can stuff her shoes and lunch into it, drag it through the grocery store, throw it around in her car and it will hold up. Good. She will have something durable to use instead of that stupid knitted bag that’s been falling apart for years and which I swear is magic as everything ever entered into it can never be recovered. Finally, mom will be able to carry her belongings in a bag that, while not haute couture, won’t scream “nouveau homeless”.

Wrong.

I think through the expensive and well-intentioned Christmas gifts of years past we’ve given her to meet painfully obvious needs. The warm LLBean coat got returned. The warm slippers still sit in their gift bag in the living room, inches from where she placed them after opening the present last Christmas. Isotoner gloves sat on top of the refrigerator unused, right next to the new tea pot from 3 years ago. The thick terrycloth bathrobe that I got her in 1993 hangs in the closet, ready for me to use when I visit, while the ratty, threadbare thing she always wore-she still wears. When will we learn?

Mom doesn’t want new things that serve her purposes exceptionally well. She doesn’t want to receive the top of the line goods. She doesn’t really take to getting anything, perhaps doesn’t know how to incorporate this sudden possession into her life. She wants to find things. She wants to discover a coat long discarded by the child who grew out of it. She wants to find the sweater that has sat in a drawer and could yet yield a few more wearings. She wants to use her old broken things until they disintegrate beyond recognition. The shoes are worn well beyond the point when her toes poke out wide holes. They are put onto her feet until nothing is left but the foot itself. And that is satisfaction. Knowing that she has squeezed the last bit of usefulness out of an item, whether it be an old coat, shoes, or the teabag she presses for a fourth cup, is what makes her happy. Never mind that the old coat is too thin for a Buffalo winter. Never mind that the shoes no longer protect her feet or provide traction. Never mind that while the second cup of tea may taste better, the fourth is surely too weak. Never mind comfort. The greater comfort is in knowing that every red cent’s worth of use has been gained. When the stuff is used to the point of disintegration, she wins.

When asked for an explanation all she says is “oh, I want to keep it nice!” FOR WHAT? FOR WHOM?

I call her up at work to tell her that a package is coming. “It’s coming from San Francisco.”

“OH! Is it See’s?”

“What? The chocolate?” Apparently, in my various trips through SFO looking for a souvenir, I have created a monster.

I go to See’s Candies online and make her up a custom box – nothing too chewy or hard and heavy on the maple walnut truffles. So, I can stop, now. I guess I knew what she really wanted all along. It's my problem that I haven't been able to bear getting a gift that doesn't try to fix anything.

in the snow

2008-12-09T20:45:00.001-08:00

12 hours of rain, followed by a sun-down freeze plus continuing gusts of powdery snow and the sidewalk looks and feels like sugar coated slop. It’s like walking on butter cream frosting and I haven’t worn proper shoes. Step, step, slip. Step, step, slip.

My umbrella isn’t much protection against the snow gusting from all directions. The wind continually grabs at this feeble protection, giving it a hard yank. It wants in. It wants into the downy folds of coat where I hide. It wants in to my imagination for some empathy. It demands that, just before my legs and fingers go numb, I experience some empathy for all those mice I dispatched to rodent-after-life via my freezer. I’m lucky, I have a warm home that I rush toward. The powder filled wind demands that I consider the condition of those with no warm destination. Many wander with only this cold as their abode.

Some wander off and the world goes cold around them. It wasn’t this frigid 11 days ago. On that day a little old lady with some mild confusion wandered out of her nursing home. Maybe she just went out for cigarettes and took a wrong turn up the straight road leading back home. Maybe something caught her eye and she simply forgot for a little too long. Her senses come and go and usually when she meets up with them she doubles back and returns to her destination. She comes back to 3 meals a day and a warm quarter of a room. But this time, perhaps before logic could kick in, but after she’d just walked far enough away, the temperature snapped down. “Where did the weather trap my wanderer?” I ask of the growing powdery drifts. Surely she’s been seen by some snowflake. Can’t any of you tell me?

But as the snow covers evidence and muffles sound, it returns only silence. In it I see only my search.

statement...again

2008-12-08T19:30:00.000-08:00

Another crack at an artist’s statement because someone shot me an email today and asked me to apply for an exhibit. Apply? Oh well, at least there’s no fee. I’ve procrastinated on this for 40 minutes, so that means it must mean something to me. Ok. Here goes.

I tend to start each painting from a single impression. This could be a desire to explore a particular set of geometric relationships and colors. It could be an odd congruity popping into my mind that comes from having been raised with heavy doses of both Catholic iconography and 1970’s advertising. But, like a joke igniting a conversation with a stranger, with concentration and time each piece expands on its founding premise to form a relationship. In each I feel that the paint and I together hash out a particular idea, mapping its depth and breadth and discovering the strange creatures that live in its terrain.

Painting in watercolor, primarily employing a wet-on-wet technique, forces me to relinquish a certain measure of control over each painting’s results. I bring my ideas to the composition and hopefully the paint dries in a manner that agrees with me. It feels a bit like making a deal with the devil when things work out in a pleasing manner. Often after I’ve created a solid bed of color by bleeding paint into controlled shapes on the paper, I will work ink or graphite into the composition. This brings more depth, texture and heat into the finished painting.

..ok, that’s enough self talk for one day.

nanowrimo - 25-28. End of the book!

2008-11-28T13:04:00.000-08:00

“So where we going next?” Wolf asks as he piles into the back seat as if this is some sort of holiday excursion.

This time, I have the keys and Jack merely shrugs and waives his hand. “Driver’s choice.” He wasn’t too willing to give up the reigns to me, but there’s no way I would put up with another evening of him grumping about after spending 12 hours at the wheel. For some reason, put a man at the steering wheel and all privileges to stop, get out, and stretch are cut off.

“Massachusetts!” I announce.

“Awww why there!” Jack whinges. The man handles loss of power badly, I’ve noticed.

“What dere?” Wolf pops his head over the seat to ask.

“What’s there is some of the oldest towns and buildings in this country. History my boy! It’s not often I meet things in this country that are older than I am. Besides, as long as we have you playing hookey from school, we may as well see to it that you learn something.”

“Aww c’mon I don’t want to go to moldy old New England!” Jack complains again.

I attempt to dangle a carrot before him. “Boston has a pretty vibrant gay community.”

“Oh!”

“What!! Wait a minute! Is you a fuckin’ fairy?” Judging by Wolf’s reaction, you’d think someone in the front seat had just pulled the pin on a hand grenade.

“Wolf! He’s no more a ‘fairy’ than you are a ‘nigger’! We do not use words like that!”

“I don’t want to be ridin around with no... what I call him iffen I can’t say ‘fairy’?”

“Homosexual!” Jack is red in the face and I know he’d have slapped Wolf straight into the trunk by now had he not spent centuries perfecting his restraint. “The term is ‘homosexual’ or ‘gay’, my dear AFRICAN AMERICAN friend. And for all your upset over finding that out I’d wager that I was probably the first openly gay man you have ever had the pleasure to meet. So ditch the superstition and bigotry! Because from what I can tell so far this fairy, fag, poofter has thus far done a pretty fine job of saving your black ass!!”

“Yeah, not bad for two honkeys, if I must say so.” I add. “Besides, what divides us, what we are on the outside, woman, gay, black, is feeble compared to what connects us underneath.”

Wolf’s eyes get large like two eggs and he makes a silent “oh” with his mouth. Oh here we go, here come the identity politics.

“Now I gets another sermon, huh? How you think I feel knowin here I am just another black man wit not much educatin and ridin’ around bein’ taken care of by you two spooks. Peoples already look at me strange. All my life I seen lil’ old ladies pull they purses away when I sits nearby on da ‘L’, peoples look down cause they afraid to make eye contact wit a black person. They afraid I might be one a dem ANGRY niggers. They afraid I gone hurt them o take dey stuff and all a ma life I hoped I’d be the kinda man ta prove dem wrong. And HERE I IS!! A big ole black man what hasta kill people to stay alive. If dat ain’t whitey’s worse nightmare come true I don’t know what is!”

Jack busts up laughing. Not just sniggering but laughing uncontrollably. “Wolf! Dude! Get over your bad self! We are all, each of us, someone’s worst nightmare in some form or another! Mum here is a liberated woman who goes on a killing rampage when she doesn’t get to eat enough bacon! She could snap a man in half! If I weren’t gay and her son I’d probably be dead by now!”

“Especially with your lip, sonny boy.”

“You dat scarey?” Wolf looks at me in shock.

Not wanting to lose the theater of the moment I shoot him a low look over my shoulder. “I see a diner down the road. You’re gonna drink coffee. I’m gonna eat bacon. Got it?”

“Woooo yes ma’am!” and he lies back down in the back seat.

It’s early yet and through the windows we see the diner holds only a small crowd of regulars and a few loners. Jack and Wolf goof around on the way in.

“So a nigga, a fairy and an ole lady goes walking into this diner in a middle a no place...”

“Can’t wait to hear the punch line on this one.”

“Me neither. Maybe iffen I’se lucky someone in here mistake me for Michael Jordan and we gets our coffee for free.”

“You know, you don’t all look alike!”

“I probably be the first black man these here folks ever done laid eyes on!”

“I don’t know who all you lot are calling the old lady!” I interject.

“ohh m’sorry m’sorry ma’am. Did I say ole lady? Nuh uh! I mean ODD LADY!”

They bust up again.

“I know it’s tough. But you lot could at least attempt to act a wee bit closer to normal! Don’t attract attention!” I know they register a collective complaint as I usher them through the front door.

Immediately through the door it is obvious, however, that stares are going for cheap around here.

“What dey all lookin at?” Wolf mumbles under his breath. “I done took a shower today.”

“Well if its any comfort I think you clean up real nice!” Jack tells him, with an extra effeminate affectation to his voice.

“Don’t be tellin’ me dat!”

Some of the gents seated at the counter glance over their shoulder at us and turn to chat with each other. But, I don’t sense trouble, and the waitress pops over to us with menus soon enough that I can relax.

“Whacha havin’ this mornin’ folks? Can I get ya’s started with 3 coffees?” she asks as she slaps 3 menus down onto the table.

“Yes!” Jack and I chime in unison.

“Coffee?” Wolf wrinkles his nose. “Man I never understood why you folks drink dat shit!”

“Hey, watch the language here.” I admonish him as I seem to have turned into the authority figure, here.

“Well what do you want young man? Hot cocoa?” Jack teases him again.

“Hey!” he brightens up. “I likes cocoa!”

“Cocoa it is! Comin right up!” and the waitress is gone.

Jack isn’t done ribbing yet. “Cocoa! Man how old are you, twelve?”

“I be thirteen nes’ month. Sides, what’s wrong wit cocoa? I likes chocolate! It be good for my complexion!” And he smoothes a hand over his ebony cheek.

“You two are like peas in a pod!”

“I’ve never actually tasted chocolate.” Jack muses.

At this, Wolf is incredulous. “What! Man how you live as long as you have an’ never tasted no chocolate! It against yo religion or somthin? Man dat makes me glad I ain’t white!”

“Wolf, I think what Jack means to say is that he can’t taste chocolate.”

“Right. I’ve stuck it in my mouth and swallowed it, but it doesn’t have a taste for me.”

I try to explain “Most mortal food is just, well, grey. It has no flavor and doesn’t really effect our satiety. You know what I’m talking about, if you think about it. Can you remember how anything besides chocolate tastes? But, each of us has certain foods that we DO taste. And that’s good to know, because that food can hold you over when you need to feed but perhaps can’t.”

“So, for you, obviously, that food is chocolate.” Jack continues.

“What be yours?”

“Mine is bacon!” I offer. “Jack? What’s your food?”

He blushes briefly before offering a sheepish answer. “Well, it’s mustard.”

“Mustard! Eiw! That be nasty! Like that paste they put on hot dogs! Aw man!”

“I know! I know! I realize it’s odd. I once baked Damien a cake for his birthday and frosted the whole thing with mustard! I thought it was quite tasty! But I found out real quick that this was just the wrong thing to do!”

We all die of laughter. Wolf is in tears.

We quiet down once the food comes. Wolf gets pancakes onto which he squirts abundant quantities of chocolate syrup. I get a pile of bacon. Jack’s fried eggs are soon drowning in mustard from the squirt bottle on the table. Nibbling at my bacon I look up at a woman stuffed into a booth nearby. Her belly strains against the table. Her neck is so portly that her head seems to merge with her shoulders. What strikes me the most is how she adoringly focuses upon the breakfast sandwich in front of her. Lovingly the food is cradled in her hands. As she takes bites from it she turns and eyeballs it from every angle, careful not to let a single morsel drop to the plate. Her world, one can see, has shrunk down to the size of her meal.

Wolf spies me watching her and whispers in my ear. “So dat be the normal you want us to look like?”

I just shake my head. “It just disgusts me what mortals sink to sometimes. You’d think that food was the only thing that ever loved her back.”

“Look like it be lovin her back a LOT. Mownin noon an night. m-hm!”

This time when we get back into the car, both Jack and Wolf sit in the back seat. As the road wears on I hear them goofing and chatting. Wolf asks questions, Jack answers – mostly seriously. He explains everything he can about living as a once born as well as answering various questions about the logistics of being gay such as “how do two men actually DO IT? Know whatta mean?”

Just outside of Albany I eyeball the two of them back there and it occurs to me, Jack actually loves this guy, maybe romantically, but definitely deeply. There’s a gift in teaching another one that no thing on Earth can possibly match. This must be a bit of how Zoltan felt in teaching me. That is, if I’m lucky. I wonder too if something about the act of teaching diminished him a little bit. Perhaps soon enough I’ll get to Paris and find out.

Winding into western Massachusetts the road grows narrower and the dark creeps in from all directions. We settle for the night in the Berkshires. I toss Jack the keys and rib him a little. “So wasn’t it more fun to give up control for a day?”

The air has the fragrance of spring’s melt in it. The ground’s icy crunch relents to a goosh under our feet. We all three take deep lung-fulls of air as we look around outside of the inn we’ve found.

Wolf marvels at the stars and stands in the middle of the parking lot, head turned up. “Holy shit man! Lookey all dem stars! Where dey all come from? I ain’t never seen so many like that befo!” After circling around in awe, he throws back his head and lets out a howl befitting of his name.

The spirit of the group is much improved from last night’s tense self-consciousness. But still in the middle of the night I’m awoken by the unmistakable sound of Wolf crying to himself in the corner. I move to get up and go talk to him when my arm is seized. In the dark I hear Jack say “no, mum”.

He’s right. This is for Wolf to heal in himself. No one can take him to his own truth. The best we can do is point the way.

Maybe it’s the exhaustion from all of the driving, but I sleep like a rock, dreamless and deep. Only Jack shaking me wakes me in the morning. “Mum! Wake up!! Wake UP!”

“Are you alright? What’s the matter?”

He rattles a piece of paper around in his hand “Wolf’s gone! He’s gone! Run off! Mum! We can’t just let him do that!”

He races out the door and before I know it, I’m throwing shoes on and running after him, out the inn’s back door, past the covered pool, toward the woodlands that back up onto the property.

“Artie! Artie where are you?” Jack shouts into the trees.

In the fresh spring snow that has fallen overnight I spy a clue and grab Jack’s attention. “Jack! Footprints!” I point to the marks made unmistakably by the sneakers we bought for Artie back in Indiana.

But Jack is too frantic to hear me and continues to yell at the top of his lungs, running into the trees. “Artie! Artie come back! You can’t run off like this! ARTIE!!”

I follow the prints as they lead from the manicured property onto the dirt path through the trees. Normal at first, they spread further and further apart, swishing in the snow as the walking man began to run. I follow the steps further and further into the trees as they mark strides that became a fixed gallop. And then, the two-legged prints become four legged paw prints. I can follow their direction for only a short while before the clutter of leaves on the forest floor obscures the trail.

Standing up, I take a lung full of chill air and let out one call. “Wolf!”

From somewhere in the hills full of trees, deep and directionless, muffled by snow and wood, the lone howl of a wolf returns to my ears. The sound commands a quiet reverence and for a second or two even the wind hushes itself.

Jack, too, has heard the sound. I find him resting against a tree, panting steamy gusts of air in and out of his lungs.

“He’s gone, Jack. The boy isn’t coming back.”

“Why?”

“He has to find his own way. We’ve done all we can for him. Come on, it’s cold out here” But Jack won’t budge and the wiggling chin reveals a nearness of tears so I come up to him and put my arms around him as best I can.

In seconds he’s sobbing. “Why? Why did he have to run away?” He’s not just crying over Wolf, we didn’t know the boy that long. A compounded sorrow wracks his shoulders and pours out of his eyes. It’s an answer to end all answers that he’s seeking. Wolf, with his running off to his own destiny, is the latest abandonment in a parade that I, myself, headed up.

I grab him and make him look at me. “I don’t know, Jack. But from my life I do know that it’s easier to run off alone to mould one’s destiny than to make yourself stay and feel something like love.”

“That makes no fucking sense!” He barks. But, he doesn’t release his hold on my shoulders and continues crying. Now who would be content to settle down in a small Midwestern town and let themselves fade away, I wonder.

We’re silent as we pack up the room, check out, and get on the road eastward to the coast. I spy a roadside greasy spoon that promises to have the kind of bacon and mustard to tide the both of us over. I motion my head towards it, Jack nods, and we pull over for food.

Both of us clutch heavy diner mugs filled with steaming coffee and stare out the window in silence.

I voice the first coherent set of words to enter my mind all morning. “Tell me what happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“After I left, with your father, tell me what happened.”

He sighs and just looks at me for a bit, eyes full of doubt. “You sure you really want to know?”

“Just tell me. If it’s ugly, I deserve to hear it.”

He sighs and shuts his eyes for a long pause to call forth the memory. “Do you remember Mister William? Father’s ‘best boy’?”

“I remember someone running around, always at your father’s elbow. I remember that his company was much preferred to my own, especially in Mr. Fitz’s bed.”

“Yes, well that man was put in charge of my upbringing. It was he who was charged with arranging all tutors and riding lessons. He was charged with meting out all discipline should I falter in my efforts to study or to carry myself as a proper young gentleman. And he was quick with the switch, to be sure. Well, as I got older, about thirteen or so, and began to mature, Mister William began to make me get dressed and undressed in front of him. He claimed that it was to make sure I was putting my waistcoats on in a proper fashion for a young gentleman. But, I was ill at ease about it and tried to resist this supervision when I could.

“Then came the day when he began to touch me, said he wanted to show me a little game that gentlemen played together. It was to be a secret, just he and I could know, no one else. And after he had… touched me… I didn’t care to have anyone else know. I felt absolutely – soiled to the soul. And this went on for a few years. Father was arranging all manner of young ladies for me to meet with an eye to marry and I knew that marrying a woman was a commitment to somehow soiling myself with her for eternity. I couldn’t bear to look at them. I couldn’t bear my own body and it’s utterly tasteless responses and whims.

“About this time, the urge began to arise in me. I didn’t know what it was. It started like a low boiling in my belly, like an angry seed. As it grew there would be times when my whole mind was consumed with the thought of killing and feeding to be free of all torment. One day, Mister William and I were isolated in my chamber. He was… he was touching me, forcing me to arousal, and the maddening burn grew inside me rapidly. I could think of nothing else but consuming my tormenter. I seized upon him and, before I understood what I was doing, I drank his blood.

“The strength and elation I felt after that incident were the most pleasant sensations I’d ever experienced my life to date. I had to have more. That’s all I knew.” He finishes, staring off in his coffee.

“It never gets much better than that first feed.”

“No! no it doesn’t!”

“Look Jack, I don’t know how to put it after this long, but I was wrong to have left you alone.”

“Don’t! Don’t start apologizing!”

“I’m not apologizing. I’m not sorry! I just know that I was doing my best and I can see now that my judgment was wrong. But nothing I did or didn’t do was bigger than the life you were supposed to have, the experiences you were meant to go through and the man you were meant to become.”

He just looks at me in surprise. “Is this another sermon, Minister Eleanor?”

“I’m not bigger than God. You were always god’s child, not mine.”

“I wanted you.”

“Yeah, well, be careful what you wish for. Whatever it was you wanted, I was guaranteed to disappoint.”

“Are you disappointed with me?”

“Why would I be?”

“Because I’m gay, because I’m a once born, because… I don’t know what else.”

“Because you couldn’t defend yourself against a man who wanted to use you cruelly before you were old enough to really understand what was going on? A man you were supposed to trust and obey who abused the situation?”

He pauses and looks at me in shock. “Yeah, maybe that too.”

“That’s not who you are, it’s who you were, and you did the best you could. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of the man you have become. I watched you with Wolf yesterday and I saw the rare man capable of genuine honesty and a nurturing kindness. That spirit came from you, Jack, inside of you. Not from being gay, being an old once born, not from being my son, it was yours all the time. You don’t see it, yet, because you like to push people’s buttons so much, but you have such a big heart.”

He drowns his ham and eggs in mustard and stuffs a few bites in his mouth to hide the fact that he doesn’t have words to articulate whatever nebulous feelings float in his gut. After a few minutes he pauses and says “I think I’m going to go, too.”

“I don’t see why not. It’s your car. Just drop me at the bus station in Amherst.”

“You sure, mum?”

“I’ll be fine! And I’m not leaving you, you know that. You know I’ll be there when you pause to reach for me.”

“Do you have enough money? I mean, to go where you need to go?”

“I have my stash of greenbacks, some gold and some antiques. I’ll do ok. The universe always provides if you don’t get too caught up in how.”

“Huh!”

“Where you think you might head off to?”

“New Orleans!” he says with a big grin.

“A-haa! Time for some much needed fun, I see?”

Imitating a drawl he says “Why yes ma’am!”

Tires on damp pavement hiss as the black Jetta pulls away, dropping me at the Greyhound station. I watch him waive over his shoulder as he points the car back westward. He’d have hated Boston, anyhow.

From the bus window I watch the tree filled hills of western Massachusetts wind their way down to towns, flat stretches, and finally fat highways that pumps vehicles toward the hub city like metal corpuscles feeding an urban heart. Boston in March is still grey and subject to unforgiving winds off the ocean. But, there’s a refreshing familiarity to the aged quality of buildings. Those bricks what have stood their ground for over 200 years reach out to my spirit in recognition. It feels like home, not so much in place but in time. I find the “freedom trail”, a red stripe leading all tourists past both history and locations where they can feel at liberty to spend money, and follow it through the streets that wander and wind with an old world nonsense. I was on the other side of this battle for freedom, sixteen years old and hearing gentlemen guffaw over cards at the audacity of the North American colonies to think they could rule themselves and declare independence. We both spent the next seven years at war with those powers set on keeping us under thumb. They inked the treaty for their own freedom just as I stepped onto a Scottish ship headed for the French coast. I could flatter myself into thinking that this country has been my true home all along, that we are kin of liberty. But I’m not willing to sink with her into the encroaching darkness, which is sure to come if these people don’t push their collective paunches back from the fast food table and wake up. In a small box what’s been banging about in my possession for almost 200 years, there is a gift I must return, if possible, to its original owner. I must return to Paris.

I pause along the trail to touch a building dated “1639”. Here was the riot that started the war and the road for independence. The cars, the sidewalks full of modern folk rushing to and fro in their daily tread mill of life, all fall away. Through the folds of time I hear the shouts of children and see the snowballs filled with stones fly through the tense atmosphere. Whigged, propped up for the king and poorly paid, the string of redcoats looses the thin hold on all composure. Musket balls fly through the air. Smoke rises, feet scatter, screams sound from rebel throats, and a black man lies in a pool of blood. I think of Wolf, his strength of body and wild eyes. I think of the Robert Taylor homes filled to the rim mostly with African Americans all pushed to the margins of poverty and anonymity. Always this country has hinged the measure of its freedom on the life and death of the black people it refuses to own. Here, in what time has turned into a busy urban intersection, the memories will fade but the truth will not be stamped out. A black man died to begin the march toward a freedom what has yet to be found, not for any single citizen. America is a family with too many bastard children begging for a place at the big table. Words comes through the air like a whisper. “But not for long, dear country, not for long.” I feel it in my bones that this darkness of spirit cannot and shall long endure, for across the heartland, as sure as nature turns all things in proper order and good time, dawn is breaking. These dark hours of spirit cannot conceal that it is morning in America.

The centuries fold back their pages over memory, the musing fades as modernity returns. Beep-beep, Honk-honk, excuse me miss, time must march on. I wander through the old North End over to Rowes warf, finding one spot along the edge of a continent to pause, look over the bay and breathe in the briny air. The smell of salt water and fish always makes one think of leaving. Time to go.

I have cash enough for airfare, but it’s time to trade in something I’ve carried around for far too long. I spend a few hours inquiring about Downtown Crossing as to the best place to get a good price for antiques, and when I finally enter the tiny den of gold complete with tiny old man I know I’ve hit the mark.

“Do you buy antique pieces of jewelry?”

“I’ve been known to, whatcha got, missy?” he raises a snowy head and lowers the extra piece attached to his specks.

From my pocket I produce a box so small that I’m amazed, holding it in my hand, how I let the memory weight me down for so long. Raising the tiny container to the light on the counter, I crack it open, revealing two gold bands. “Two antique wedding rings. They were crafted in 1815 by a goldsmith in Baltimore.”

Immediately his face forms a frown and his mouth makes an “oh”.

“Oh my my my! Oh lets look at these!” Under the light he can see the craftsman’s stamp. He takes out a strap to test the stone set in the tinier ring. It’s a bit difficult to watch what I’ve so long treasured get handled and roughed up, but it must prove its worth. After a few minutes he comes back to me, picking up the box. “This is the original box! How did you ever get your hands on these?”

“They’ve been in my family.”

“Honey, are you sure you want to part with these? I can give you a lot of money for them, sure. But, you might regret not having them. These are family treasures!” The concern of the old not willing to part with those things that lend life a permanence and value shines through any of his commercial interests.

I love him for it, I bet we’d have a great time talking over coffee about how things used to be, but I have to keep moving and I can go no further carrying the rock of failure. For no matter how tiny that stone was, we’ve just proven that it was genuine. “I appreciate your concern, really, but it’s time for me to let these go.”

He almost looks a little sad for me despite the enthusiasm for this find. I sign certificates, hand over rings and memories and old ideas about myself once and for all. He puts lots of money in my palms. After giving me the last bill he reaches out to shake my hand and thank me. But the handshake goes long as he shoots a sharp look over the top of his bifocals. “Was your ring wasn’t it?” I give him a quick nod. “Well god bless ya, old woman!” and with a wink he releases me.

I don’t want a return ticket, I’m only going one way. I don’t wish to end up connecting through London, no matter how much cheaper the ticket. In a matter of hours I peak out the window of a 747 bound straight for Paris. As the plane turns up a runway lined with blue lights I watch the landscape speed by. When the great, grey bird lifts its metal feet from the ground I feel instant relief and turn to bid America good-bye.

“Have you ever been to Paris before?” I ask the elderly lady in the seat next to me as our meals arrive.

“Why yes I have! Just once a few years ago I traveled over for my daughter’s wedding. I’d never even been on a plane before in my life!”

“So what takes you over this time? Visiting your daughter?”

“Yes, she just had a baby so I’d like to see my new grandson. And …” she holds herself up with a bit of pride “it’s going to be my 75th birthday in two days! So I wanted to celebrate in style!”

“Well, happy birthday, ma’am!”

I get her talking about her family, her children, her life, mostly because I just want to know. I hear stories about being a little girl during the Great Depression. “We lived out in the country so it wasn’t as bad for us. Dad would find work when he could but Mom would always raise a vegetable garden and we’d can all through the fall, all the tomatos, corn and beans and vegetables. Corn isn’t real acidic so you had to boil it for a long time to can it good. Squash you just had to keep cool and watch for spots, can’t can squash. But there weren’t these big freezers like folks have now so if you wanted to eat it, you had to can it. Then Dad would raise chickens and so we would kill and dress those and sell those. I remember when we got a machine to take all the feathers off, because we had been doing it by hand in hot water, you know, and mom went to use it for the first time. It was just a wheel with all these little suction things on it to pull the feathers. Well, she didn’t have a good enough hold on the chicken and it went flying across the room! Ha ha! They were such good people! It was such a shame that they had to die so young. But they were smokers, you know.” She goes on to talk about her other daughters and through the conversation a disappointment begins to seep through. None of the children stayed with the Catholic faith she tried to give them. One even married a “black” man – a word she spits out as if it were a cuss. She never visits that daughter, won’t hold that grandchild. “What is it?” She asks. “What could it ever become?”

Despite some discomfort, I don’t editorialize on any of her attitudes. It’s more important, with an old one, to simply let them talk and to listen fully. As she goes on it occurs to me that those confines of culture and religion against which I chafed actually provided structure and solace for other women. But I look at her fuzzy little head full of graying hair and just wonder how well she’d do against those chains of gender and religion if she were looking at the prospect of living with them for more than just eighty years or so.

“Tell me, what is your favorite memory?”

“Oh, taking trips with mom and dad! We’d plan where to go, mom would pack the basket full of food, I’d get the car checked out. Dad and I would pool our money and we’d take off for West Virginia or Texas or all over the country.” She trails off telling me about buying goober peas and picking up stinky turtles.

At Charles de Gaulle my little grey lady slips into the receiving crowd and back to her own life. I’m sure she’ll have a grand time going around all of Paris’s great cathedrals. I hoist my old pack onto my back and find an Air France bus into the city. The place has grown so big! Neuilly, which was once a distant town, now abuts the western border of the city. The little round map I remember has fattened and fattened through the years like a tree adding more rings to its girth. The outer arrondissements, with their boulevards netted together by winding streets, confuse me. I keep finding myself back at the Ile de la Cité and trying to make my way to somewhere that feels the same. No spirit here reaches out to recognize me. I go through museums to visit the articles and attitudes of the Paris I remember. I return to the Louvre only to have difficulty finding the entrance. A pyramid in the middle that takes one into the basement is the lobby? Why not just let the door be the door! The whole construction almost outlandish enough that I’d attribute it to Napoleon’s tastes if it weren’t so bloody modern.

My French is a wee bit rusty and antiquated. I lack the vocabulary for many modern items and speak in an older idiom. I collect funny looks just as if I were to land in New York speaking Elizabethan English.

Within a few days I grow accustomed to using the Metro to get about town and decide to brave a journey to the Bastille. So this is where the whole bloody terror started. And now it’s filled with coffee shops, youth lounging about, and a street musician abusing a saxophone for the sake of torturing some Euros out of the tourists. Currently said musician stands poised in front of an older woman who has merely stopped to rest her feet. From the sour look on her face I can tell she will soon toss him some coin simply to leave her in peace.

Over a week of searching, and I have found no sign of Zoltan. The location where once we enjoyed our abode was long ago blasted through by Napoleon to pave the way for a boulevards. I’ve come to this old place in hopes to find some familiarity, to let the narrow streets wind around me and weave me toward some setting where I feel known and connected to a people. I pass through the gates of Place des Vosges and breath a sigh of relief. “Home again.” Modernity and commerce go on, but the air here is pregnant with memory. Parisians take in the early spring’s warm day and enjoy the wide park. This used to be homes. Tradesmen sympathetic to the Revolution bustled their wares and renamed the square. This covered entry still echoes with the wheels of horses and carriages carrying men and knights to tournaments and games in the center. Breathe deep and you feel the time open its pages to all welcoming eyes. Do you remember me, old city? Do you hold a place for an old woman who just wants to come home?

I collapse onto a bench under a tree. Children chase a ball around me, parents call out to them. I reach through the carpet bag I’ve been toting around and pull out a now battered brown package. Maybe Zoltan really meant this for me, knew Agnoletti would refuse the gift and that I would only open the present at that moment when I could truly accept it?

I toy with the box in my hands, looking at the mangled corners, feeling the subtle jostling those contents inside of it. Hope it wasn’t a breakable gift.

“Open it” something whispers in my head.

Should I really do that, though? What if I’m wrong – just deluding myself? What if I’m just rationalizing?

“OPEN IT!” The whisper turns into a chorus.

I turn the box over again and spy a tiny tear in the enclosing paper. This is all the invitation I need and in seconds the wrapper comes flying off. The box inside consists of thin wooden slats that slip apart easily to reveal wood shavings. Fishing through the shavings, my fingers sense a swish of silk in their midst. I grasp and pull gently. A silk bag containing something hard emerges. This must be it. I open the bag to find a simple gold goblet inside.

“A cup?” I have to say out loud. I’ve been carting around a cup since 1808? I shake my head in disgust for a minute. All that trouble over an empty cup! Then, figuring that it’s at least gold and may have some trade value, I hold it back up to look at it more closely. It is gold, for sure, my fingers tell me that much. And while the work on it is fine, it lacks the sort of crafted symmetry of surface that post-medieval pieces possess. It’s old. It’s VERY old! But what is it? I look at the markings stamped into the surface. After some inspection I realize that in Hebrew, maybe Aramaic, it bears the tetragram of God’s name. “Zoltan, what on Earth is this?”

With a click the answer dawns on me. This is a seder cup. This is the seder cup used by his good friend Yeshua in the celebration of his final Passover meal. This stupid box I’ve been carrying around contained the holy grail. The vessel fairly rings in my hand, vibrating its recognition. Somewhere, I hear Jack laughing himself silly.

I want to jump up and run around from a mixture of excitement and panic. Yet I can’t move, frozen in place with horror. When you find yourself in possession of one of history’s most sacred objects of lore, what do you do? How do you explain how this thing came into your possession? The truth would be stranger than any story I could make up. All that I can do with this most esoteric of gifts is to simply, well, sit here and hold it.

I stare into the goblet, mesmerized by the frail bits of spring sunlight refracting around its curves. What is the true legacy of Christianity? What is the imperative of the Christ? After all Yeshua’s calm words and miraculous acts what are we left with, really, but an empty tomb? No sun reigns in the sky as a daily vestige of a god’s protecting its people. The moon no longer pretends to watch over her children each night. No bird takes wing from the ashes and flies again. No single thing survives the gospel as a true symbol rich in meaning. There are flowers and butterflies and items of nature which emulate the resurrection but do fall short under the curse of the flesh. The cross? It’s just a relic of torture; a slap to the face of each true seeker craving something to clutch in an hour of need. Nothing is left for a Christian to grasp but save for an empty black hole in the ground and the myth of an empty cup. “Christ” quantifies no thing. Christ is emptiness.

Observe my reflection in the curving gold. I glimpse Wolf racing through snowy tree-covered hills of North America morphing from man to beast with a grace no one could have taught him. I follow Jack, smiling his charms upon an unsuspecting lover. I see Zoltan fading off to a gentle sleep, handing me a box that through time would convey one last lesson that he was too weak to say in words and knew I was too stubborn and young to hear with my heart.

After all the ages I have survived and fits of emotion I’ve force marched myself through, my present is an empty vessel. Sitting on this little bench, surrounded by the wreckage of discarded packaging I gaze into that void. It is there, in the refracted beauty of empty, that at long last I recognize priceless gift of now.

Nanowrimo - 24

2008-11-24T20:29:00.001-08:00

Pennsylvania finally provides a vista with some variety from the flat-scape we’ve been crawling through. I never thought I’d be glad to just see hills again. This is also a state with two major urban areas book-ending a whole lot of backwater. So, when it’s time to stop and get a motel room we tell Wolf to crouch down in the car (with extra orders to stay there no matter how much he wants to get his wild animal self on). I feel horrible asking him to hide, but the lady running the place even gives Jack and I a funny look as we ask for a room. She eyes our left hands with a theatrical suspicion and provides us with the keys to a room containing two single beds. Knowing what I do about mortal sexuality, this attempt at control seems a rather futile gesture. Oh well, if all she has in the world to obey her orders are the crumbs, let her have at it. I’m just glad that the room is at the end of the low, ranch style building. Without much effort we sneak Wolf into the room under the cover of dark.

Even curled up on the cat-scented floor and despite the parched air of the room, I drift off into a dead sleep within minutes. At times I’m dimly aware of the television’s noise. The boys are scouring the channels to see if there is any national news about “vampires”. I’m resting, blissfully lost in the soft blackness of night when something that feels like the ground shaking calls me back.

Against the window I see what looks like a boulder, rocking back and forth and producing a mewing sound. For a few minutes I stare at the shape, wondering if it’s just a branch moving outside? Sleep does funny things with perception. I don’t register that it’s Wolf until I’m right next to it and that familiar musk of sweat and French fries on his skin greets my nose. He’s curled up in a ball, sobbing.

“Artie! What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” I try to put an arm around him to calm him down. He just seems to start crying harder.

The booming male voice of daylight hours twists in his throat and he can only manage to let out a squeal. “I killed my momma, miss. I did that! I couldn’t stop myself and she didn’t even know what hit her. I can’t believe I killed my own momma!” From there his words break down into incoherent pleas for his mother to forgive him.

“Listen, Artie, you didn’t understand what you were doing, yet!”

“I done sent her to hell! She belong to the devil now!”

“NO! Listen to me! We are not creatures in league with Satan! That’s just the same superstition that people used to have about black folks. Saying they had no souls. Or how they used to say that women were all in league with the devil because of Eve’s sin. It’s just some limp piece of mythology called out in the service of a whole lot of fear and ignorance. Listen to me!” I grab his chin and make him look into my eyes. “There is no devil. The only devil in the world is in our own mind. It’s those thoughts and actions that keep us from getting closer to God. There’s no way you could have sent your momma to the devil be cause hell and the devil DO NOT EXIST.”

“You said you is a minister.”

“I am. I’ve been a Unitarian minister for, well, almost one hundred fifty years now. I’ve seen a lot of what folks might call evil in my day. But I don’t see that in you, Artie.”

“But how could I have killed my own momma! What wrong wit me? What kinda monster I become?” his chin threatens to break into sobs again.

“You didn’t kill your momma, Artie. You can’t really kill someone. None of us ever dies. You ended her time in an earthly body that she had been using, but she was never just a body. None of us is. The bigger part of her is soul and that soul lives on. And where her soul lives is a much nicer place that what we experience while in our bodies.”

Even through the dark I still see some doubt in his eyes. But he’s calmed down enough to listen to me. “If the soul place be so nice, why come to earth at all. Why not just stay there?”

“Now there is a month of Sunday talks in that question! I wish I could put it real simple for you. But the soul place lives always inside all people. They come to earth to feel what it’s like to get in touch with it again for the first time. Like falling in love all over again.”

“I don’ gets it.”

Of course not, I realize. He’s really just twelve. The man’s never fallen in love before.

“I know. I know. It took me a long time, too. But, Artie, listen to me. Your momma forgives you and wherever she is, she’s blessing you. The love of a momma can’t be killed.”

“OK, miss.” I’ve managed to calm him down some. But somehow I’m not sure if I’ve really reached him, at least not yet. I’d like to convince him of his own comfort, but he has to earn that within his own mind.

I let him be in his own silence and return to my patch of carpet to sleep, again. From the other bed I hear a soft sound of irregular breathing. Jack is crying.

Nanowrimo - 23

2008-11-23T19:30:00.001-08:00

There’s no question about it. Our little mummy and son adventure has just taken a different turn entirely. No trip to Paris for us, just yet. We both exhibit some bad behavior in our dismay over postponing some much needed fun. Eventually our nice hotel room is relinquished, bags get packed and more gold is parted with in order to get a used car.

“A Jetta?” I ask as Jack pulls up to snag Artie and me from our secure location.

“It gets 30 miles to the gallon and only cost three grand, so stuff it, mum!”

“Why he callin you ‘mum’?” Artie asks as he crouches into the back seat. I notice him folding himself to fit in and find it odd. Jetta’s aren’t that small.

“Because I’m his mother, that’s why. We’re both over 200 years old. I’ll explain more later.” He makes some baffled noises as I slam the door shut and pile into the shot gun seat.

Knowing how every toll booth and rest stop along the interstates to be blanketed in security cameras, we wind around on side roads. There’s sure to be a notice out for Artie by now. As it is we order him to lie down in the back.

“Where you takin’ me?” He asks with more curiosity than concern in his voice.

“We don’t know, but this is not a good place for us to be. There’s more eyes here than in a forest full of Indians!” I tell him.

After enough driving on side streets and small streets to be well outside of the city limits, I tell him it’s ok to sit up. Not wanting to continually turn around I commandeer the rear-view mirror, bending it so that I can see his face in it as I talk. “Ok, listen. I’m going to go through some basics for you so that you can separate some of the fact from fiction about what you are. Got it?”

“Yes ‘m.” He says. In the reflection his dark eyes aim at me like two smoldering coals.

“Very well, then. First, the proper term for what we are is “once-born” because we are born once, unlike mortals who must continually reincarnate onto the earthly plain over and over.”

“And who generally end up making the same mistakes over and over” Jack interjects.

“Well, that’s not far from the truth, actually. But we don’t use the term ‘vampire’ as it’s considered a bit, well, prejorative.”

“Prejawhat? What does that mean? What’s wrong with ‘vampire’?”

“It’s the difference between calling someone an ‘African American’ or a ‘nigger’.” Jack interjects again.

“Right, it’s a bit insulting. Shows a lack of understanding.”

“W-w-wonce born?”

“That’s right.”

“I ain’ never goin’ die? Not even if someone hurt me?”

“That’s right. You are the only one who can decide to end your life. If someone hurts you, stabs you or shoots you, your body will heal much more quickly than it can bleed to death.”

“Never die… hm.” He repeats as he looks out the window.

I continue “Also as you may have noticed, going around in the daytime does not kill you. That idea is part of the mythology. The only truth it may have to it is due to the fact that many once borns prefer to do their business at night so as to avoid contact with mortals as much as possible. Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah! Yeah I am.” He jolts his eyes back toward me. “I’se just lookin outside. Never been out of Chicago before.”

“Never? Huh. Well, there’s a whole lot of flat out there to see! Anyhow, back to what I was saying…”

“Look miss,” Artie interrupts, “I is real tired. I’m a lie down and rest for a bit if it’s ok whit chu.”

“Oh, sure, sure that’s fine Artie.”

In a matter of minutes we hear his rhythmic snoring coming from the back seat. Jack is being awfully quiet, keeping his eyes locked on the road. There’s a rancor in the atmosphere I can’t quite sit at peace with.

“I should have been there to help you like that.”

“But you most certainly were not. You had to run off and leave me.”

“I didn’t have any of this to help you with back then. It took decades and decades before I had the simplest tools to help myself. I wasted a lot of years doing everything wrong.”

“Tell me, I heard you tell him yesterday that you had made big mistakes, too. What were your mistakes? Tell me your biggest regrets.”

“Oh where to start. From a very early age I was aware that being a female put me at a great disadvantage in this world. No matter what ideas I had for myself or what thoughts I had in my head, everyone seemed determined to tell me that I had no right to think or act on my own. It was driving me mad before I was even sixteen. That’s when my marriage to your father was arranged. He was the unkindest person I’d ever met. His manner refused to respond to any human kindness I offered. Again, I was a woman and therefore immediately a failure. Part of my realizing that I was a once born came from my desperate desire to prove my own worth and strength to him. He was demanding an heir, yet he refused to lie with me. After I had fed for the first time I possessed a strength he could not resist. I forced him to know me. I guess my first regret was that I had to become this something else, this beast, in order to gain what I wanted.

“I regret having been able to stand up for my child and demand that he be kept close to me. I regret that I listened to his influence over me, telling me that I had nothing to offer my own baby. I left because I really thought I was going to spare you becoming what I was. Every time I thought of my baby through the years, my hope was that he had lived a normal life. I mostly regretted that I had no ability to be a normal mother. Perhaps it was out of missing that normal, nurturing role that I turned to the ministry. But that was only after I was already at least 80 years old.”

“I was lucky enough to find Zoltan once I arrived in Paris, he nurtured me through the early years. All of the things he warned me not to do, I went ahead and did. Probably just like every other once born out there.”

“Mistakes like what, tell me.”

“Oh… I fell in love.”

“Love? You?”

“Yes even my icy old heart can find love! Thank you very much! Maybe it was just the circumstances. I landed in Baltimore around 1810 and the air and space over here were absolutely intoxicating. Pretty soon I met him, Gabriel McClean, God’s prettiest man. He had a wide smile and a kind nature. But mostly he was just real tall and real strong and I’d have followed him anywhere, just like some kind of puppy. He just seemed like, well, a real man. He didn’t need to put me down to prove himself. He didn’t much mind what others thought of him because he just had this air of confidence about himself. He had me swooning at the first smile.”

Jack finally unglues his eyes from the road to glance over at me. “He sounds real nice, I’d have followed him too, I imagine!”

“Oh my yes. Well, he was heading into the frontier, through Indian country, doing his trading and trapping. So, off I went into what was then wilderness. Now it’s just ‘Ohio’! Well, after the Federals cleared the natives out the whole area got more settled. We ended up settling down but I could tell that’s not where Gabriel’s heart was at. He was a man who needed to wander.”

“What happened?”

“What happened was that I fooled myself. A man can be as kind and as generous as peach pie and still have a heart so stony no love can make a dent on it. I thought that man loved me. Hmmm. Nope. He had it in his mind to head out west. Wanted to see the territories where no people were living. He needed to be in those wild places and felt the wringer of age creeping up on him. One day he was just gone. No note. Nothing. His stuff was gone, his horse was gone, he’d up and left.”

“What? Well you must have seen that coming, didn’t you? Even a mortal doesn’t make up his mind that fast.”

“Oh the signs were there when I looked back for them. He’d be reading the stories about the goings on with the western territories out of the papers. He slowly became a little less, well, affectionate. He started looking at me funny. Like he was suspicious.”

“Were you continuing to feed?”

“Yes, so I wasn’t aging. He didn’t quite know what to make of that. I told him that it was my French origins, our skin ages less quickly. Didn’t matter. He was gone. After that, I went on a rage. My urges were completely out of control. I must have killed dozens of people.”

“You? You who up until a week ago was so squeamish about feeding?”

“Well, I personally don’t believe this urge can be so well trusted as I’ve always been taught. I’ve found that it can be manipulated by emotions. It’s not always at hand for our self preservation, it can be greedy, too. Well, I would catch someone, mostly men, alone in a barn or something and I got them in the most awful of ways. I’d let the venom into them but not drink them right away. I’d put just enough in to paralyze them, not enough to really sedate them. Even without being able to move a muscle their eyes still registered fear. I would kill them slowly, relishing the fear. Letting them feel the life draining out of their bodies.”

“Mum, that’s absolutely horrible!”

“And that’s what I regret. I regret loosing control. I don’t trust the urge. I don’t think feeding is always merely life sustaining. Sometimes I think feeding merely keeps alive something horrible that lives inside of me that would be better dead.”

Jack is drives on in silence, but the strained atmosphere has slackened. Noises of dreams, grunts and even animal growls come from the seat behind us as Artie struggles through dreams.

“Tell me about you. Did you ever fall in love, Jack?”

His face melts into a bit of a grin. “Why yes I sure did ma’am. I was in New Orleans in the late nineteenth century. I just loved New Orleans, still do. There are more of us there than just about anywhere else, you know, except maybe Paris. Well, anyhow, I met this boy, Damien, a beautiful octoroon with honey colored skin and lovely green eyes. He had me wrapped around his finger from the start. Same as you I just followed him right home. I just wanted to be with him and do everything with him all the time. It was nice, for a while. Being able to be seen out in just about the only place on Earth where that was allowed was like a breath of fresh air. We could hold hands on the street. Go out for a brunch. Our colors didn’t matter, our gender didn’t matter. What mattered was our love an that’s what folks on the street responded to.”

“Alright, what happened.”

“Damien just got tired of me after a while. He didn’t like the close comfort of being with the same man day after day. And I guess I began to sense that – that growing distance. One day it was just time for me to move on, I guess. I saw him in a café flirting with another man and realized that it didn’t bother me so much at all. Not like it would have years earlier when we started.”

“So you left?”

“I did. I guess I’d have been the bad guy in your story.”

“hm. I think mostly I was jealous of Gabriel’s ability to leave. As a man he could do that, make up the rules as he went along and not worry about anyone else. I always envied men’s social license to do that.”

“Still feel that way?” He turns to look at me.

“Yes”

The air is silent for a while as we pass through yet another small Indiana town.

“I guess this is what we really wanted after all.” He volunteers

“Indeed.” For a second we share about the only honest grin to pass between us thus far.

The growling in the back seat has grown quiet again. Soon Artie wakes up and sits up in the back seat.

“Nice nap?” I ask, looking into the rearview mirror. But, to my surprise where I once saw his dark eyes staring back at me, I now see the top of a chest and an adam’s apple. I turn around and am shocked to find a fully grown, strapping black man sitting in the back seat and busting out of Artie’s clothes. “Artie?”

“Don’t be calling me ‘Artie’ no mo. My name be ‘Wolf’.” Booms the base voice of the man.

“Well!” Jack says “I guess we don’t have to worry about harboring a minor anymore!” and he aims the Jetta for the interstate.

There’s something not right here, something not right about the way he’s transforming. Both Jack and I know this. I’ve never met a once born who was born after the 1950’s and wonder if perhaps the change in human blood that has affected our reaction to drinking may have also changed the entire nature of new ones of us that emerge upon this earth? I can sense that neither of us are sure, but it becomes abundantly clear that this new creature, Wolf, is not like any of the older once borns we have known. And despite his adult stature, the man is still only twelve years old.

We stop off at a shopping mall to get Wolf some clothes that will fit his grown body. Quickly he proves that the juvenile delinquent lives on inside of him. We go to the mens section to pick out clothes for him to wear. But, rather than participate in the activity, Wolf lies on the floor lighting matches and letting them burn down to his fingers before blowing them out. He just lies under the racks of clothing, humming and mumbling to himself with a pile of stubbed out matches growing next to him. We hurriedly buy extra large sweat clothes and drag him out of the store.

We’re almost to Cleveland when we realize that we need gas and so we get off the highway and pick one of the smaller gas stations in the area to fill up. Wolf says he wants to stay in the car. But, once Jack and I are inside the mini-store paying for the gas we hear shrieks from outside. A woman comes rushing in screaming “there’s a wolf in the parking lot!”

I race outside, ignoring the yells of people around me to ‘not go out there’. Sure enough, there is a lone grey wolf growling and leaping around the lot of the gas station. He zeros in on a car full of shrieking children and circles the vehicle, menacing look on his face.

Slowly I come up behind the beast. “Wolf!” I shout.

When he hears my voice he turns around and his ears turn back. But he holds his ground. I advance towards it. I can only call on some greater power within me, that which all once borns share, that which binds us together, I bid that esoteric power to speak through me in that moment. I shut my eyes and feel it rush forward, from an ancient and deep well. As I open my eyes I know that from them comes the ancient glow. I can feel my teeth emerge, this time not to feed but to protect and challenge a misuse of power. From my own throat a deep growl emerges, simply saying “No”.

“No” the voice repeats through me as I continue moving toward the animal. “NO!” I’m within three feet of him. The rest of the world, the squealing children and onlookers shouting “what is she doing, lady get out of there!” fade to nothing in that moment where the old power inhabiting my features locks eyes with the wolf. Its ears back, the beast relents and runs away, tail between its legs.

In a matter of seconds I feel the power recede and dim. My teeth disappear and I see the world around me with fully human eyes again.

I turn around to see astonished faces coming from car and store windows. “Lady, how did you do that?” a man runs up to me asking feverishly.

“Something I learned while living on an Indian Reservation.” I tell him, eager to get out of here.

Jack meets me at the car wearing a panicked look. “He’s gone! You don’t think…”

I raise a hand to cut him off. “Wait” is all I say.

We sit silently in the car for a few minutes. Jack looks nervously at a map, hoping we don’t attract more attention and trying to ignore the people who are talking and pointing over toward our car. Soon enough I see the tall figure of Wolf come loping towards us from behind the gas station. He gets in the car, settling quietly in the back seat as if nothing has just happened.

I grab the rear view mirror and re-adjust it to find his eye level again. “No more tricks, young man.” I say to the dark eyes in the mirror.

“Yes ma’am” is all I hear from the backseat. We head off toward Pennsylvania in silence.

Nanowrimo - 22

2008-11-22T16:47:00.001-08:00

Apprehension rises out of my gut like bees swarming from a hive, but I cannot avoid this boy.

Jack tugs on my arm “Let’s just go!”

I turn to him briefly, shaking my head, and step over to intercept the boy. He notices my shadow on the concrete before him before he notices me standing there. Looking up, the sunlight makes his face squirm and he squints to make me out. “Hello” I volunteer.

Must be not even 12. He certainly hasn’t had any sort of growth spurt, yet, and he certainly doesn’t exude the milk of human kindness. He steps back, keeping his arms folded tight at his chest. “w-chu wawn, lady? You another social worker comin round here to pester me and ma momma?”

“No, I’m not a social worker at all. My name is Eleanor, and I think you will find we have quite a lot in common. What is your name?”

“I gots nothin’ in common whit chu lady! What you come draggin’ yo sorry white ass around heya fo? You is a social worker, I can tell.” And with this he tries to push past me. But, I’m a little tougher to push aside than he realized.

“You’re not like other kids, are you? They’ve always seemed to stay away from you and you don’t know why. You think maybe its something you did or how you talk, or maybe you smell, but you don’t know.” He slows down a bit. “You have violent dreams in which you are a wild animal and you often wake up to find that you’ve destroyed the room where you sleep. Torn things up. Chewed on things. You don’t eat food. It tastes like nothing. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t hungry, does it? Sometimes you crave something to eat but know it would be unacceptable” He has stopped and looks up at me, still suspicious but interested. “Your top jaw sometimes aches. You wonder what blood tastes like. You see it spattered around in a TV show and it just looks sooo delicious! Doesn’t it?”

“What chu tryin to say? How you know ‘bout all that?”

“ I went through it, too. So did Jack, here. We, all three of us, have the same nature.”

Black eyes like two beads dart back and forth from Jack to me. “Whuzzat? What nature is zat?”

“First, my question. What is your name?”

After yet more hesitation he volunteers “m’names Artie. Now wha chu talkin’ about? What my nature?”

“Artie,” how does one explain this to a 12 year old? “We’re what you would call vampires.”

“WHAT!!! NAW SUHH! You is crazy! Nuh uh!!” I guess I should have expected that explosion. “You git on outta here!” he starts to back away, as if to run away from us.

Jack steps in to intercept him “Listen to us! You know it’s true. Think about it. Think about what you find yourself craving to eat – you want blood, don’t you? Tell me I’m wrong and we’ll leave you alone, but I’m not wrong – am I?”

He stops backing away and I see the incredulous fear in his eyes melt into recognition. “You means other folks get that way?”

“Yes, lots of people actually. We two, you, many many others live off human blood. We’ve always existed. It’s just the way we’re born.”

“I was born wit dis? Like I caught it from someone in my family?”

“It’s not a disease! It’s as natural as the fact that you’re a boy.”

“You twos is vampires?” He asks incredulously.

“The proper term is ‘once born’.” I inform him.

“Once-wha? I don’t gets it. Aren’t vampires supposed to wear black and have pointy teeth? You folks look like ten miles of bad road!” And he breaks into laughter. Ok, so I didn’t clean up too good after my morning feed and the patchwork quilt coat and denims are a bit, well, Iowa. Jack just looks like a bit of a dandy.

“Well, black isn’t really my style. We only need our teeth when we, uh, feed.”

“YOU kills people?”

“When I need to drink, yes I do. We all do.”

The twist this takes in his little mind surprises even me. From a skinny, shy, distrusting kid, right before our eyes he morphs into a little megalomaniac with dreams of terrorizing the neighborhood. “Cooool! This means if anyone bug me I can just kill ‘em! I’m a have super human strenth! I’se can fight now and throw people aroun’! An if anyones bugs me I just show em the fangs! AHHHH! An I make people pay me to not kill ‘em!”

While Artie jumps around with excitement planning his oligarchy of terror over the Robert Taylor homes, Jack turns to me. “I knew we should have just left him alone. God! I hate dealing with kids.”

“I know what you mean!” I share as I grin back at him. “We have to do this, Jack.

Finally, I catch Artie’s attention. “Look, Artie, man you gotta calm down. It’s not like that. It’s not like the movies at all – those are just stories people have been pulling out of folk tales for centuries. It’s just entertainment, not real. And most of that is just about repressed sexuality, anyways. And it is certainly not something you want to have attention called to. ”

He looks so disappointed. “You means I won’t be able to kill people I hates?”

“You will only kill to preserve yourself. The same way mortals eat. No one kills chickens for pleasure. Even normal people kill to eat.”

“Won’ I git super human strenth?”

Jack steps forward. “You can be strong but you’re going to spend a lot of time being hyper sensitive and grandiose.”

“Whazzat mean?”

“It means you have a lot to learn, young man.” I volunteer

“It means you can’t stay here, not for long. You need to be around your own kind, at least for a while.” Jack continues. And then Jack makes the kid an offer, which surprises me. “You must come with us. Now. Now that you know what you are things are only going to go badly for you here.” And he extends a hand for Artie to take.

But Artie slaps the hand away. “I ain’t goin wit no white folks. Can’t just up an leave momma like that! Nuh uh! I’m a stayin here! Make people afraid of ME! I’m a be rich and famous!”

“Look, I know that’s not going to work. We’re not going to force you. But if you change your mind, here’s my cell phone number.” And Jack hands the boy a slip of paper. “C’mon mum, lets get out of here.”

He grabs my elbow and aims us back toward the elevated train. We get on heading back downtown. “Someday, just someday, I’d like to go somewhere and not step into a hornets nest of trouble!” he whinges just after we find seats on the train.

I lean over, rubbing his shoulders “that’s part of reinvention, isn’t it? The alternative is death, remember? Or worse, Iowa.”

We find a decent hotel near downtown where I hole up in the bathroom, taking a long bath and shower, for about 2 hours. Embarrassed about my country-wear, Jack insists that we go shopping. Fashion and I have never gotten along too well. I like some of the new things but simply find the old more comforting. The absence of pinching tight undergarments cinching me into place still feels odd. After our spree is over, we’re passing through a drug store, bags in tow, to get some makeup for me when Jack nudges me and chuckles.

“Heya mum, it looks like your stunt made the papers!”

Sure enough, across the front a paper at the checkout the title “Vampires attack small town in Iowa!” is sprawled.

“Ah, the Weekly World News, now I’ve made the big time! I’m famous!”

The next morning Jack is trying to show me how to put all the make up onto my face when his cell phone goes off. After listening to the caller for a second he hands it over to me.

On the other end of the line, it’s Artie Jones. “M-miss Eleanor? Dis Artie, you remember me?” He’s sobbing.

“Yes I remember, of course. What is it? Did something happen?”

“I-I killed my momma! I didn’t know what I was doing, couldn’t stop myself. When I wuz done I realize I done killed momma! What I gonna do!”

Shit.

“Artie, calm down. Listen to me. Do you have a safe place? Do you have a place where you can go and no one finds you?”

“yes, I does. It’s under the overpass.”

“We’ll meet you there. Don’t worry, we’ll find you.”

I’m sure Chicago is a lovely city, but I continually manage to arrange these tours of its unsavory underbelly. Under the overpass leads us straight through a no-man’s land filled with the roar of cars. Artie crouches at the edge, looking so small I could miss him if I weren’t careful.

When he sees us he comes running up to me, then proceeds to start screaming and hitting me with his flailing arms. “It’s you fault! You fault I kill my momma! You hadn’t a come around with your ideas she’d be alive now! You fault!”

“Stop it!” I grab his shoulders. For the time being, I’m still stronger than he is. “We gave you the opportunity to come with us and we TOLD you that you had best leave. You made the choice not to listen! YOU did that Artie!” The struggling rage relents into shame and grief. I pull him close and hug him to me while he sobs. “Oh young man, if only the nature and the strength came with super intelligence, but it don’t. We never get past making mistakes, we just live long enough to work it out. I did something horrible, too. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Nanowrimo -21

2008-11-21T19:34:00.000-08:00

It all moves so fast. And I’m used to fast by now, I do drive, after all. But there’s so much of it, in every direction the eyes turn. Highways pump masses of cars along like mechanical arteries. Planes descend overhead at regular intervals like artificial eagles coming home to roost. The train whizzes along, making a blur of objects in the foreground. A knot is forming in my gut as the grey mass of city takes over the landscape around us. I can feel the immense density of its humanity. Millions of thoughts, feelings, hopes, despairs, little deaths, all mush and press and layer and inter-fold upon one another. The air itself feels pasty and hard to breathe.

“I don’t like big cities.” I confess to Jack.

“I know. But it’s a necessary evil for continuing our adventure, mum.”

He seems awfully chipper about all of this. What is he up to? “Do you like it here?”

“I like what I can get here.” I glance over at his grin & it’s slightly reassuring.

Once exit the train station downtown, everyone seems to be in such a terrible hurry; in a hurry to wind through the rat’s maze of their own making. Jack grabs my arm as my head starts to bob and follow each manic passerby.

“This way” and he heads me down a street and up a set of stairs. Above the street trains clatter and screech along on elevated tracks. Whoever thought this up had no consideration whatsoever for the humans who would inhabit this space. This is the city of machines and one must lend one’s body and time to the machine that they may survive, get what one needs and get out with a margin of life left.

At the top of the stairs we are greeted by turnstiles barring our entry onto the train’s platform. I step over to a booth where a woman sits behind thick glass and ask for a ticket. At first she ignores me. Then she shouts something to me that is incomprehensible through the barrier between us. Several confused looks and “I can’t hear you’s” later she points to a machine behind me which dispenses passes for riding. Why do they have someone sitting in a booth if there is no need to sell tickets? We dicker over the machine for a few minutes.

“I thought you said you had been here before!”

“I was, but they changed the system since I was here. Last time they just took cash.”

“Do you know where to go once we get in?”

“Yeah I’m pretty sure. They haven’t changed the train lines around really for decades.”

“When is the last time you were here?”

“The early 90’s. It sure has cleaned up since then!”

This is clean? I want to ask out loud but I stop myself. No sense starting trouble now. “Where are we going, by the way?”

“South side.”

“South side of Chicago.”

“Yup.”

“You are dragging me to the South Side of Chicago, as written about in such fine tomes as ‘Ain’t No Makin’ It’ and ‘Chicago’? That south side?”

“Will you quit worrying? Jeees! Mum you are starting to be a real drag. We will be fine.”

“I’d rather be a drag than in the hot seat. Sometimes being a drag is just plain being the smart one. Look at us, Jack! We’re among the whitest of the white on Earth. We don’t belong on the South side of Chicago, not if it’s anything like what I’ve heard about.”

“I can’t believe you are such a racist! YOU! How can you hold race up to make such a big difference when you yourself were born so terribly different with a trait no one can see on your skin!”

“I’m not talking race. I’m talking territory. I’m talking about culture. We are invaders and we are going to be walking targets!”

“For what? What? What could possibly hurt you?”

I hold my tongue. We’re already on a southbound train. The question is more one of ‘whom could we possibly hurt’? I look out the window of the elevated car as it rocks along the tracks. Directly below us houses, squeezed together cheek by jowel, pass by. Laundry hangs off ropes tied across back porches. Toys lay strewn in backyards left deserted by winter. The train turns briefly and I see my own reflection in the glass mapped across the skyline. It’s so easy to end up entirely alone in a maze this jammed with people. From a distance the tall buildings of downtown remind me of a Jewish cemetery with all of its headstones packed together tight.

We get off at 47th street and start heading down a street filled with bedraggled remains of once fine houses and floating bits of trash. Then I see them. Mile after mile of homogenous concrete buildings stretch north to south. There’s a sinister nature in their lack of diversity. Character is not given through artistry or architecture but through the scars each edifice has earned. Burn marks streak the sides of one building. Windows are broken, façades pocked with bullet marks on another. Each looks like a whole lot of the bad life beat it up and left a nasty bruise.

“C’mon” Jack grabs my arm and heads toward it.

“I am NOT going in there!”

“Well you’ll be in bigger shit if I leave you standing out here on your own! Now come on!” This time he seizes my elbow in a most unforgiving vice and I lurch along behind him, whingeing all the way. “Look, we want passports, right? Well the type of people who make nice passports for people who aren’t nice do not live in bloody Lincoln Park. They live here. Welcome to the projects.”

He is hell bent on aiming us into one of the buildings when a tall, black man with a shifty gaze steps in front of us. Under his breath Jack warns “not a word out of you.”

“ w’chu wawn?” He never quite opens his eyes more than halfway and seems most intent about chewing on the toothpick in his mouth. But with arms folded and legs in colossus stride, it’s clear there’s no getting past this man. Man? Upon closer inspection he looks like more of a very tall boy.

“Looking for Stubs.” Is all Jack says.

“What bidness you got wid Stubs?”

“Private business. He’s usually quite pleased to see me.”

“We don’ like folks just comin on in here that don’ belong here.” He looks us over good, giving us his best evil eye and persistently chewing that stupid toothpick. I want to yank it out of his mouth and order him to pull his pants up. Maybe Jack’s right. I am a racist.

“Perhaps you could tell Stubs that ‘Jack Black’ is here?”

“Whatin-a hell kinda name i-zat? ‘Jack Black’! Donchu come roun here makin like you is all gangsta and shit. I look like yo foo? I look like I your messenger o’ sompin? Who you think you is comin in here treating me like a nigga?? You think ah’m yo nigga mista white an’ mighty?”

I’m way too old to put up with his lip. “Hey! Who asked you to step in our way, you moron!” I shout. “You own this place that you can stand in front of the door like a troll or are you just bored? If this is your turf then why don’t you get busy and start fixing it up?”

His jaw drops only briefly before he pulls a revolver from the front of his pants yelling “BITCH!” I don’t know where the speed or gumption comes from but I lunge forward and grab the wrist of the gun arm, pull him toward me and set fangs into him. I don’t go in deep enough to drink, just to put in the first shot of venom. He drops to the concrete like a lump. I keep the gun.

“After that cry-baby act I didn’t think you had it in you.” Jack crouches next to the body to examine the boy. “Nice work! Very neat. And to think you were scared.”

“Eh… He had a shitty gun-hand. Kids these days! They expect that fancy high-powered, semi-automatic assault weapon to do all the work for them. Not a one of them learns to handle a gun with a real fighter’s grace. Shame what things come to.” Lying on the ground without his tough expression, I can see he’s actually quite a handsome young man, almost beautiful. But here he is, in this giant concrete filing cabinet where the government stuffs people it can’t understand.

“How long do you think he’ll be out? How much did you shoot in there?”

“Enough to leave him looking like a helpless girl on the ground for a few hours. Now, we got someone to see here or not?”

Stubs home, or cell, depending on your perspective, is piled high with ledgers, paper stocks, and computers of all different models. The clatter, whiz and hum of printers emanates from another room. A few dim fluorescents hang from the ceiling. Most of the light in the room is emitted by spot lights that hover over desks with lenses attached to their necks.

“That you Jack Black?” A voice calls out as we let ourselves in. In the kitchen, fixing some tea is a portly old man in long underwear and pants held up with suspenders over the top. As he turns I see spectacles, with a jewelers’ lens attached, balancing on his nose. He looks like an African-American Santa. “I heard that commotion and I figured it was you. Someone giving you trouble out there?”

“Nooo sir, not at all. Just a fine lad trying to protect the door is all.”

“Oh, that be Elmur. Didn’t hurt him too bad did you?” And he chuckles.

“I didn’t touch a hair on his head. But mummy here kicked his ass!”

“yo muthuh?” And old Stubs bends over in a laugh that sounds more like a cough. “Ha haa! That is jus’ too good! Now whut chew come on over to see Stubs fo?”

“Well, we, my mother and I, need some identification.”

“m-HM! I see I see. Where you goin off to this time?”

I almost volunteer an answer to his question when I realize that honesty is probably not a good idea here. I hold back and decide to let Jack do the talking. I’ll stick to the fighting!

“Oh all around. Mexico, Cuba, maybe off to the Carribean.”

“Ha! You won’t make it out of Tiajuana! Alrighty then. You need passports and what else?

“Driver’s license” Jack offers.

“And birth certificates” I add on. Hey if this guy is that good, why not?

A few hours later and some less some gold, we each emerge with our new identities in hand. My new passport rests inside my shirt, bearing my new name “Eleanor McClean”. That was Gabriel’s name and I do sometimes miss wearing it.

“Hm. Irish. Well, if anyones can pull dat one off its you, ma’am!” was Stubs final call on the monicker.

Jack had wanted me to give up ‘Eleanor’ as well, but he also knew better than to fight me on it. Showing his own flair, Jack became “Blake Breton”.

“May I continue to simply call you ‘Jack’?”

Outside the afternoon is wearing on. The season is starting to relent and the few patches of what passes for grass squish under our feet. School is out for the day and throngs of children rush past, making all sorts of noise and chatter. From the herd wafts a scent of sweat and fried food.

Just then we notice another sullen figure coming up behind them. Walking slow with his head down, he’s the real reason we’re here.

Nanowrimo - 20

2008-11-20T20:41:00.000-08:00

In the nook of space behind the drivers seat, I'm cradled and rocked off to sleep by the motion of the car as it bumps down the road. The sounds around me drift away as if I’m sinking under the surface of the sea. The water is warm and dark and still. Nothing can get to me down here. No lost thoughts, no memories, no animal visions, no images. I rest in the deep darkness.

How much later, I don't know how long, a terrific howling pulls me from dead slumber. A racket comes from the direction of the front seat. After a minute of confusion I recognize the source. It’s Jack howling along with the radio.

"Beyoncé?" I ask. Pulling myself up to see.

"Good catch! Not bad for an old fart.”

“I’m not so very much older than you, mate.”

“ True, very true. How are you feeling? You went to sleep like a baby after its bottle!"

"I feel ok. At least physically. My body feels great."

"Good, climb up front and lets talk about how we're gonna get out of this mess."

I pile over the passenger seat, getting stuck only briefly when I manage to wedge myself between the seat and the roof of the car, which brings Jack some indelicate moments to laugh at. Finally I land in place and belt myself in, which makes Jack look at me funny until I remind him that driving without a seat belt on invites in the law. With this he fastens his own.

"Is this really such a good idea? Me sitting in front? Aren't they going to be looking for me?"

"Even if someone has discovered your home yet, which I doubt, they're going to be on the hunt for a woman in her 50's." He flips down the visor and opens the mirror. "You're not that woman anymore."

The face staring back at me causes me to catch my breath up short. I had grown so accustomed to the dry, spotting skin, the face that quoted each smile with lines about the eyes and mouth and the silver weaving its way through my hair. So strange to see her face again, young as the day I was married to Fitz, she is, and smooth. My hair is thick again and bright in color. I feel down my body. The parts which had begun to migrate with age are firmly back in their original locations. Jack just grins as I make my discoveries. Suppleness has returned, scars have disappeared. It feels right to be in my own skin, again.

"And to think you wanted to give this up." He grins. I won't award him the satisfaction, of a reply, not yet.

He continues "I've been staying on back roads to avoid places where they photograph the car. Bloody good deal you drive a Prius. We won't have to worry about stopping for gas. But we're going to be nearing Chicago soon, so we have to loose these wheels."

"I'm surprised they aren't already after us."

"Probably no one will notice until she who became your breakfast doesn't come home in the evening."

"Any number of things can happen. A delivery person could come by, or if enough calls get ignored someone might drive over. I don't think I had any appointments today where I'd be missed."

"Whatever it was, the urge knew it was the right day."

"I suppose. It didn't take long to find Jones, though, and he was a shut-in."

"I called 9-1-1." He blurts out the confession as if he were saying 'I have to stop for cigarettes'.

"What?"

"I told you! I called Emergency. As soon as I came down from the high I rang them up and scooted. What's the big deal?"

Just as we were seeming to get along, all the reasons I'm angry with him come flying forward. "How could you have done such a thing to such a sweet man!"

"Stop it. You know how. You did the same thing not three hours ago."

"I saw his body! You had him drawn and quartered and broken like - like I used to watch them torture criminals! It was horrible! Absolutely disgusting and frightening! How could you have done such a horrible, cruel thing?"

"The same way you smashed up your house, woman! I don't even remember doing it! I just remember... I remember how it felt. And I remember how it felt to sense you finding his body. Look, I know how sad it makes you to think about it but he didn't die in pain."

I hold my tongue for a long while. 'Sad' is not the word to describe my feelings. Finally I peel my eyes from the winter landscape and turn to him. "How did he die then? Tell me."

"I'll tell you if you tell me the juicy tale what finally made your resolve slip up."

"Deal. Tell me all of it."

"Alrighty. Just after you left I flew back over there."

"As the Corax? He saw you as the Corax?"

"Yes, now don't interrupt. After you left he remained sitting at that kitchen table for a while, staring off into space. He was looking out at his garden and missing his wife. You could feel it coming through the walls so great was his longing. He couldn't understand why he had been left on Earth so long while everybody else had transitioned on to heaven. He was lonely. So, I flew over to the kitchen window and tapped on the glass. He saw me and came over, talking to me through the glass. 'Hey there old man' he said, 'you come to keep an old fella company?' And he opened the window for me.”

“Hm, Fella… that’s a word he would use.”

"I just hopped in. He brought over the remnants of the soup in his plate and fed me some chicken. He was very sweet, very gentle. He never saw me coming. When he turned to put the dish into he sink I morphed and took him from behind. He felt maybe only a moment's sensation. That's all."

I'm crying and he tries again to console me. "There there! He barely felt a thing. Mummy, I was much gentler than the heart attack heading for."

As much as I hate it I have to credit that discernment. "hmm. all that canned food. You're right. It shits me how mortals are so terrible at keeping themselves alive. Even the nice ones."

"So, your turn now. What happened this morning?"

"Well, I had the urge before I was even awake. I was having this dream that I was a fox, running from the hounds. And when I woke up those pointy little fox teeth were still in my mouth. The urge had me in its grasp and I was struggling for control. It kept dragging me around, down the stairs, toward something. But, I have some ways to control it that usually work. I was using those, or trying to, although it was a battle against my own limbs to do so. I even bit at my own hand."

"How can you RESIST it?" He's incredulous. "Especially after so long? How do you do that?"

"Well, I listen to U2 and eat bacon." After a stunned pause he laughs so hard the car almost goes off the road. "Easy! Easy! Don’t wreck us out here because I don’t plan on drinking any more Midwesterners."

"I’m terribly sorry, please continue" He says with a flutter.

"I managed to get to my iPod and get the music on. After that I started to calm down enough to go fry up some bacon. So, I'm standing in the kitchen, still in my nightgown, which is drenched with sweat from the battle, eating sizzling-hot bacon straight out of the pan, teeth still protruding, when the bitch comes up behind me and startles me."

Jack cannot contain himself for a second. He's beginning to titter. I never realized that this could be so funny. "He he he! You must have been a sight!" he says in a high voice.

"So, I'm all startled, I turn around and realize that she's seen me with the whole fangs and eyes thing going on, not to mention that I've got grease all over my front side and I'm sweating profusely. What could I do? I had to take her down! Bitch deserved it. No one catches me in a moment like that and gets to live!"

We're both in hysterics for minutes.

"That has to be the funniest feed story I have EVER heard! Ahhhh finally! Proof that you're my mom!"

We laugh for a few more minutes, guffawing over Eileen’s pathetic last words on Earth “you have an ipod!” before I have to ask "so, why are you helping me? I thought you were mad at me. I thought you wanted to fight."

He lets out a long sigh. "Oh mummy, anger just makes time go slower. I’ve not spent all of these years chasing you for revenge. That’s so mortal! This was all I wanted!”

He smiles but I catch the faint scent of doubt under his words. He may want to believe what he’s just said, but he doesn’t know he’s not 100% there yet. No matter. We’ve got to much time between us to reconcile for anyone to be 100%, yet.

“So, what’s in that box? You ever going to open it?”

“It’s for Agnoletti. A gift.”

“Why didn’t you give it to him?”

“He refused it.”

“So why don’t you open it for yourself? What you got in there, the holy grail or something?”

“Not mine. Belongs to Zoltan if Agnoletti doesn’t want it.”

“Zoltan.. I know that name.”

“Yes, he lived in Paris. I found my way to him after leaving… after I abandoned you and your father. He trained me. I left him just before he died. He starved himself to death. I tried getting him to feed but, after 2,300 years he decided that he’d seen enough.”

“Zoltan… died? Really?” There’s a note of doubt in his voice. “Have you ever gone back to Paris to check?”

“Need a passport. I got a fake birth certificate and driver’s license, but passports are another story. They get out the proctoscopes when you come calling for one of them. Especially now. And I suppose I got set in my life, didn’t want to move on or face the many challenges that regular reinvention brings on.”

“They don’t chop off people’s heads in the town square, anymore. And to boot it hasn’t been a war zone in years! You’d like Paris, Mum! Hey, I know a fabulous forger in Chicago - top of the line! He can hook you up with a passport in a snap!”

“And if they don’t? We get carted off to jail.”

“And if that happens we’ll solve that problem the same way once borns have always gotten themselves out of tight places… we’ll EAT our way out!”

“I don’t like it.”

“Oh Come on! You’ve let Iowa get into your head! C’mon mum! We only live once!”

I have to hesitate, this could be fun or it could be trouble. But, Jack looks so excited so I concede. “ok!”

“Great!” he grins and drives a little faster.

Winding around on side streets to avoid any intersections that might have lights and, therefore, cameras, we drive to the furthest reach that one of Chicago’s Metra lines sends out into the countryside on spidery legs. We park the car on a residential street and walk to the station, hopping the next train downtown. As the grey, toothy skyline of Chicago rises out of flat land, Jack and I both start to sense it. We are coming to Chicago for more reasons that we originally bargained for.

Somewhere on the south side of Chicago, hiding away in the Robert Taylor homes, sits Artie. Little Artie Jones doesn’t socialize well with the other children. His teachers think it’s because he lives in the projects and his dad was a junkie who deserted the family after selling off everything they owned for dope. His momma figures it’s because of the mistreatment he gets at school. Sometimes she tell him “don’ be so SENSITIVE! Boy you can’ listen to what mess they be talkin’!” Some times she figures that he really just needs a father. It’s just that there’s few father figures to be had. At least where she is and how she sees the world. But on this day, little Artie Jones is hiding out in his room. Late winter sun filters through the dirty window and an acrid smell fills the air. He’s taken the cigarette lighter from his momma’s purse, which he employs in the sinister act of melting the face off of a GI Joe that he has stolen from the toy box at school. Under his bed he conceals the melted, exploded, tortured remains of many purloined action figure. More than a few of these remnants are covered with strange chew marks. Sometimes Artie will wake up with one of the dolls in his hand, looking like dog just ate on it but they don’t have a dog. Sometimes he dreams he’s a wild animal and he wakes up to find the sheets torn up. He hides the torn sheets and steals new ones from the lady next door when she hang hers out to dry.

Artie knows something about him ain’t right like the other kids but he can’t place it. The blame won’t squarely fit on any one source. And today, thirty miles to the south of the Robert Taylor homes, two once-borns approach to collect one of their own.

Nanowrimo - 19

2008-11-19T21:21:00.001-08:00

I no longer fly in slumber. My imagination lost its strength long before my spirit. Dreams are not something one catalogs. They’re just markers on the journey. And just as one can travel along for miles and turn to wonder when the countryside suddenly became so dry, one day I wondered when I went from a windborne creature to runner and a swimmer. These boundaries look so definite on the maps drawn in retrospect, but I never see myself passing over them.

I run close to the ground, tall grass whipping at my face and feet spurred on to their fastest pace by the baying of hounds behind me. Men on horses seek only an afternoon of pleasure, riding about in the woods. Capturing the little red fox is merely a portion of the enjoyment they derive from getting out of the house and away from the women. For them my evasive moods are a puzzle and the dogs which torment me are the pawns sent out to do their bidding. Canine foot soldiers pursue the enemy through the countryside never realizing that the real threat to their soul and safety lies behind them, enthroned upon the horses. It’s cloaked in the political rhetoric of survival, but all war is merely a game the powerful play and there will always be wars, hunts, and those dogged pursuits to kill what is other or unknown until the day the powerful become supremely bored with the game of ages. Perhaps then they will simply go home and suck the life out of their own selves for once.

My legs are tiring. The dogs are sounding nearer. I zig zag through puddles and streams in attempts to throw them off. I’m gasping for air and can feel the blades of grass strike at the tongue hanging out of my mouth. I’m panting wildly but I refuse to stop. I refuse to give in to this misguided battle of beasts. At long last I see the small dark opening of a warren and dive in. The hounds bark and paw at the opening, still hoping to retrieve me, but I am quite beyond reach. Hunting trumpets call the beasts home leaving me, the little red refugee, in the dark.

As I return to the body in the bed from the fitful land of dreams the beastly teeth stay in my mouth. The urge is upon me even before I’ve woken up. I slide from the bed onto the floor, dripping with sweat and crawling on all fours. Around me the room spins like a bright red tunnel and I feel pulled along as if someone has put a hook into my belly and yanks me toward the prey like an unwilling catfish.

“Noooooo.” Is all the sound what comes out of my mouth. No, not now. I can’t do this now. Crawling down the stairs, panting and aching from a run, my mind is still mingled with the fox. “The fox is in the hen house… the fox is in the hen house,” keeps rolling through my brain like a taunt. I try to push myself backward on the steps and banisters but I’m unforgivably pulled downstairs. At the bottom I get a brief respite and the hot tunnel widens just big enough for just long enough for me to spy my iPod. I lunge at it, snatching it and stuffing the earphones into my ears quickly. My body rebels what it knows is coming next. It screams and lurches and yanks toward the door. My own fangs gnaw at my hand trying to stop it from turning the dials.

But I win. In seconds “The Fly” is blasting through my ears and the urge is losing its grasp just enough for me to stand upright and get to the kitchen. Pots and pans clatter their complaints that I so indelicately disturb their repose. But soon the skillet is on the stove and the bacon is on. Just the smell of it is making me pant. My teeth are still hanging out and my nerves writhe. Everything in my mind is saying “drink”. Every last cell in my body wants to drink. A drink would make all this struggle go away. Why, it’s been coming on more frequently. It used to be once a month or so, it’s almost daily, now.

“It’s not natural to starve yourself. Trust the urge! It’s there to keep you alive! It’s there to lessen the pain. You should let yourself feed.” A sinister voice whispers in my ear.

And once again I fight. I fight it all reaching for that one shred of humanity left in me. I listen to that one cell who rebels against the whole to say “NO!!!”

“No! I will not do it! I will not feed! I don’t WANT to stay alive! It’s my time to DIE!! If I feed all I will do is delay the inevitable reconning.” I shout into the air, into the tunnel constricting itself around me, pulling at me.

It comes back up in me in heaves and starts. By the time the bacon is done enough I need it so badly that I grab it from the frying pan with my bare hands and begin cramming the strips of meat, still sizzling and popping, into my mouth. Almost done, I breathe, almost done.

Just then a voice sounds from behind me. “You have an iPod!” I turn to see Eileen, who has arrived early to finish the paperwork that went neglected yesterday afternoon when we both became highly engrossed by my antiques.

And she beholds me, still wearing sweaty bed clothes, bacon grease dripping down my chin and holding the iPod aloft. And then I realize what else she sees. Behold, the fangs of the vampire and the clouded over eyes of one lost to another dimension. Her eyes lock on my face and I watch her puzzlement yield to horrified disbelief.

“You!”

It’s the only word she gets out. It’s the last word this mortal will utter on the earthly plane. In a second I’m on her. My teeth dig in with purpose and the sweet nectar rolls down my throat. She’s been eating doughnuts and coffee, had ham for dinner last night with mashed potatoes and creamed corn. The mélange makes a heady wine. Well before she’s fully dead I feel the high coming on. Out of possession of my own senses and better thinking I gulp all 3 liters down like a thirsty man at his first visit to an oasis.

When it’s done and the white body lay prone halfway between the living room and the kitchen my ecstasy is uncontrollable. With new vigor and strength pumping through them my limbs thrash and jump about. Their newfound power is exerted upon any object or surface that might wish to resist. The smashing feels good.

After an hour of the high, most of which I barely remember, I sit on the floor of the living room, surveying the damage. Everything, absolutely everything in the house is broken. Banisters, bookshelves, chairs all make heaps of tinder on the floor. The couches are torn open as if by a clawed beast. The windows are smashed. I look slowly over the piles of stuffing, fabric, books, busted wood, kettles whose handles have been ripped off, chards of glass that used to be fine pieces, ripped up paintings and the white heap of body that used to live and breathe and be Eileen. It slowly dawns on me what I’ve just done. And then I rest my head back to sob.

“There’s something that’s been in their blood since the 1950’s that produces these particularly violent states of post feed highs.” A voice says above me. I hear the clunking of heavy boots making their way through the debris.

“Jack”

“Some say its food additives. But I have another theory.”

“I was so afraid that you would kill. But then I did it. I did this horrible thing!”

“All the surviving superpowers after World War II performed extensive nuclear testing in the 1950’s. Thousands of bombs exploded in the atmosphere. The planet was a Petri dish for what perfect method would kill the best. All that nuclear activity changed the carbon in the atmosphere from C-12 to C-14. This essentially morphed the chemistry of a fundamental building block to all life on this planet. And now, here is part of the result.” He steps over an upturned coffee table and comes to crouch in front of me. The morning haze hits his face and in his eyes I see my own brilliant green color. “Some call it the nuclear high, which I must say is apt. It sure looks like a bomb went off in here.”

“I didn’t want to do this!” I’m simply sobbing uncontrollably and the words have to heave their way out of my throat. “I was so mad at you about Jones. I was so worried that you would kill. I was so worried for the people around here.”

“I know! I know.” He puts a hand up to my mouth to silence my blubbering ramble. “But it wasn’t me that brought you to this. It was your own nature. And your nature isn’t bad. Take into your own heart some of those sermons you reassure the congregation with.” As he says this I start bawling again. “Oh Mum.”

He leans forward and puts his arms around me. We settle there for a great while, just rocking back and forth.

“We have to go, now. He says eventually, releasing my hold. Get dressed. Pack a valise. We’re leaving.”

“Where on earth am I going to go? What do I do now?”

Just pack! He orders. And I bound up the stairs with an odd strength to collect a few things quickly. I pull an older bag from the back of the closet knowing that the police will instantly remark on the disappearance of a new one. For some reason I keep thinking of how I’ll talk around this, but it’s no use. Jack only started what I just did a perfectly good job of finishing. I can’t come back here, not anymore. Destroyed house or no, I’m the prime suspect, public enemy number one.

At the door I turn back. “Wait!”

“What IS it? Mum, we have to hurry up!”

I race back into the house and from the piles of wreckage where a bookshelf once was I retrieve a brown package, tied with string.

“What’s that?” Jack asks

“A gift for someone that I’ve been carrying.”

“Gods! The once born can be such packrats!”

“Well, there’s comfort in stuff, sometimes.”

He scoffs and jumps into the driver’s seat of my car. “Get in the back and get down. We don’t want someone spying you leaving.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, crouched behind him. “What do I do now?”

“You’re going to reinvent yourself, Mummy! You’ve been stable for too long!”

I feel the car skid around on the gravel. The stones crunch and hiss as if to say “go on now!”

Nanowrimo - 18

2008-11-18T21:28:00.001-08:00

I can still feel the weight of him. How it felt to pick him up. As he grew weaker the falls became more frequent to the point where he came to seem like a tiny bird, all bones and skin.

One day I heard those words came out of his mouth what I feared had been forming in his mind. "I must die alone. You must leave now."

"I can't leave you like this! Zoltan, you can barely get around. I must stay and help you."

"I'll have none of that!" he yelled thinly with whatever power was left in his lungs. "I've managed perfectly well for over twenty four hundred years now. I'll be fine. Don’t need help! I wish to be alone." Then, perhaps sensing my anguish, he rested back and looked at me squarely, allowing a hint of sadness to steal across his face. "It's time for you to go anyhow. You must go have your own life, make your own mistakes. Do it all wrong and patch it all up again. You have all the time and all of the world ahead of you and I cannot be so selfish as to keep you under the shelter of my roof for a minute longer. Go."

"I can't"

"You will. In fact, there are some things I want you to take with you for your journey. I've put them together." He motions to a bagged bundle next to the bed that I hadn’t noticed before.

"I can't take your possessions."

"ohhh, I shall hardly run out of them! It's just a few things that I think you will need. And besides, there is a journey you must take for me, to Agnoletti."

"The Neapolitan living as a monk."

"yes, that's the one. You must take him this." From the bedclothes balled around his legs, Zoltan produces a box wrapped up in brown paper and tied. My first suspicion is that this will be the return of the illuminated manuscript, but it proves to be too light to be such a thing.

"How will I..." I start to ask, but I know better than to finish such a question. I'll know how to get there easily enough. Just follow.

And Zoltan was right, it was time for me to make the great mistakes. I spent the next few decades inadvertently ticking off each one of them in a row. Falling in love with a mortal? Check! Settle for animal blood? Indeed, I tried that whilst ship board to Portugal. Some I continue to make, such as my insistence on ignoring the urge. I envy his commitment to seeing life through to an end. I've only begun to feel the nip of the wringer and find myself staving off the pains with bacon, which, it turns out, lessens the craving to feed and keeps one stronger than having nothing would. I look back over my life some times and feel like such an enormous failure at all things. Years of broken and torn relationships hilite my failure to truly love. Many failed attempts to become something better have merely amounted to creating this, a blackened heart in the middle of a blackened heartland. So I've begun the long process of merely marking time until the end comes. For what was I born? Why am I thus?

"You, too are a creation of God." Agnoletti said in his fruitless attempts to comfort me. To arrive at his hovel I had to cross a continent exhausted by Napoleon’s ambitions. Outside one village lay a heap of bodies dead from illness. They swell and rot in the sun, yet despite the fetid odor a pack of wild dogs besets the pile, scavenging for meat. Fields stretched on and on filled with thin workers scrapping at the ground for life. Everywhere the people were pinched by the expenses of war and heart sore at sending their sons off to fight a continual enemy, which advanced from every corner of the continent. I saw many mortals just as gaunt and frightened into submission as I had observed before the revolution. All that blood, all those headless bodies had merely succeeded in shuffling the decks of power. The face cards still held all sway. It was all the madness of ambition for power. Then, for once I wanted to do something to provide them some comfort. But I could not. Their torture ultimately grew from the twisted roots of poverty in their souls. “Why am I such a creature if I must stay in the shadows. Why could I not lead them to peace?"

"Some take great assurance in their suffering. Even though they suffer, their suffering is their only understanding of life!" He told me. My attempts to present him with Zoltan’s gift were spurned. “No no! I have taken a vow of poverty! I cannot keep such material possessions as did our Zoltan! You must keep it. It must be something he meant for you but he could not hand it to you outright. I know it is a gift far to powerful for me, I can feel it. You must keep it and be careful that it does not attract the greed of the ignorant.”

His quarters were indeed spartan. A small cell hardly large enough for one body to move around, its sole furnishings were a straw bed and a table. The only adornments were a wooden cross over the bed, underneath which the monk would kneel to pray regularly, and a candle holder.

I curl up on the floor of his cell to sleep and conceal my traveling bag underneath his bed. “Did Zoltan ever speak to you of the man Jesus?” I ask into the darkness while we try drift off for the nightly repose that passes for slumber.

“Yes, we had many great, windy discussions. It always came down to my scripture versus his memory. Ah but the scriptures themselves are merely dim memories. Still, it was fascinating to talk with someone who had known the man, had known what it felt to be near him. I can only hope to invite that same sensation in those who come into contact with me.”

“I feel perfect here, if that is any consolation. For a small bit I feel free of the upset and confusion in my mind.”

“That is good, child.” He said as his spirit drifted off into the darkness.

At night we take flight. Sometimes the journey leads through memory. Sometimes it takes us through the land of memories yet to be experienced. As the body relaxes I feel the spread of wings and the lift of spirit body from the confines of flesh. In the recurring night life experience which haunted me I would find myself soaring over vast amounts of dark, briny water. For as far as I could behold there would be not a spot of land in sight. Then, below me, I would see the ellipse of a tiny wooden water faring vessel like tiny container of life fighting against the vast ocean of emptiness. As I circled and circled around the ship, getting lower and lower and finally low enough to hear the voices of its passengers, I would always become aware of the sound of screaming. A red stain spread across the deck below me and I would instantly busy my soaring wings in the act of flapping to the heights for escape.

The vision troubled me, but I did not wish to disturb Agnoletti with such stories. Still, he sensed something. His morning meditations were growing increasingly disturbed and at times he would even cut them short, shaking with anxiety. “Something is on its way here.” He would confide.

When the blackbirds descended upon him, neither of us were really quite prepared for the deep fear that would shake us. We were not so much in the habit of feeling fear and such powerlessness. Within a turn of the glass I was gone from his place, carrying the pack of strange worldly possessions with me.

All manner of strange baubles and coins were traded for my passage to Baltimore. Still, some things clinked from my pack and the strange box bounded around. Some of the items became gifts to people who showed me great kindness, such as the Unitarians in New York State. But still, even through the frontier, the rage, the pilgrimages, through all of the pretend lives, Agnoletti’s box stayed with me.

“What’s in that box?” Eileen asked one day, pointing to the now quite man-handled and dirty package resting prominently upon one of my many bookshelves. I had yet to realize just how meddlesome she could be when I hired her. That must have been a bad day for the intuition.

“It’s was a gift.”

“Aren’t you, like, supposed to open gifts? Like, you left it wrapped up so how is the giver supposed to know if you liked it at all?”

“It wasn’t a gift to me. It’s something I’m carrying to another person.”

“Well, you might wanna re-wrap it before you turn it over. Looks like hell.”

I look at her, a plump, overfed figure with strangely colored hair and bright red nails that pour through the pile of papers on her lap, and marvel that all the millennia of human evolution has merely resulted in this. “Thank you.”

I’m no old fart. I love the new gizmos that beep and shine and speed life’s pace to an exhausting frenzy. Eileen badgers me for not having a cell phone or a laptop computer. But, I don’t believe in sending technology to commit those acts that my senses are perfectly capable of performing. I’ve never told the plump miss that I own an iPod with which I happily download the music of all the ages I have visited.

Sometimes I land in my bed from slumber only to find the most uncontrollable urge to feed overtaking me. I refuse to submit. I refuse to be driven to the point of such beastly loss of control. At such times my only recourse is to listen to lots of U2, eat bacon fried extra crispy, and wait for the insanity to pass. I’ve thought of sending that story to Apple as a possibility for one of their goofy ads. “The iPod tames the beast and saves lives!”

Nanowrimo - 17

2008-11-17T20:33:00.001-08:00

He’s full of anecdotes and old tales, this one. Regularly he opens an exceptionally ornate copy of the Bible to expound upon his version of events. It’s fascinating and hilarious, really. And I guess it’s only fair as he was around for most of it. He’ll read the Sermon on the Mount and annotate with completely different translation. “None of these translations truly capture what Yeshua was saying. Pity there weren’t more scribes back in that time. What ever did he expect by expounding like this before a mass of illiterate bumpkins! The fig trees would have been a better audience. It was all much more, well, active, than it has been translated here. Such a pity that those lovely words have been reduced to this scabby text so easily abused in order to keep the masses poor. Tsk! Tsk!”

He reads the story of the feeding of the five thousand. “Well, 4,999, actually. I fed too!”

“How did you manage to know Jesus?”

“Yeshua, my dear. Jesus is what they called him when the story got to Greece and cross pollinated with Zoroastrianism. ‘Cross’ pollinated… ha ha ha! But any how I was a bit bored with Babylon after a couple hundred years and a few armies marching through the place to reshuffle the rulership. Really if one never dies one simply cannot expect to stay in one place. People start asking questions. So, every 30 years or so I would move on. I followed the Babylonian trade routes Eastward to Arabia and on into Egypt. And then for some awful reason I got stuck in Palestine. I had perhaps followed some prey onto a ship and got carried away. But the place was simply horrible. The fighting was constant. Always there were thefts and attacks from zealots – a real viper’s nest. What on earth the Romans wanted from such a dry little land full of religious fanatics I will never know. But I had learned some Hebrew in Babylon from the slaves and retained a basic sense of their leanings. So, I did very well for myself. Then, this MAN began roaming the countryside making the most fantastic statements. There had been Hillel before him, but Hillel didn’t preach and gather the same quantities of attention as this new one did. Yeshua. Yeshua ben David. All manner of stories about him were told in the streets; that he was Elisha returned, that he was a new king from the line of David come to free the people from Rome, that he was the anointed of God. I had to find him out. There weren’t paintings of such a man like there would be now. And the only news was word of mouth. I wandered all about listening to rumors of where he would be. Finally, I was on the road to Bethany, hot an parched, when I came upon a group of simple travelers resting under an olive tree. I decided to stop, too, to see if they knew where I could find the man Yeshua. But I could not ask. As soon as I approached them this simple man welcomed me and, I just knew. He did not look so special. But something about his face shone. Something about him spoke to me in my heart and I could feel my heart sing back. He welcomed me to the gathering like no human had ever welcomed me. I could not help but to follow him!”

“Oh, but the following he drew troubled the Romans. They’d had more problems with zealots in Palestine than gnats on a summer night in the swamps of the Nile. It’s such a pity, his words are so poetic and sweet. But no one listened to his words, they just wanted a king and freedom and from their need he was killed. His apostles had all been approached with the possibility of betrayal. All of them. And that sweet life was sold off for such a tiny amount of money simply because one of them thought he would force Yeshua to show his power ascend to the throne. They weren’t concerned about souls at all. They wanted to be knights to a king! Such selfishness! What a pity indeed. Even more of a pity how lost is his truth and twisted are his words.”

Zoltan flips languidly through his hand-scripted, illuminated Latin Holy writ. “How did you get this Bible?” I ask. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen. I’ve never once come upon one that was entirely scripted out in such a beautiful way.”

“Hmm. It’s from before the printing press. I’d imagine that you wouldn’t have seen one such as this, you’re so young. Agnoletti, a once born living as a Monk in the Neapolitan countryside created it. We helped each other evade the superstitious mobs that roamed Europe during the Black Death hunting for the demon culprit, and this was a gift of brotherhood. And really, if one is a monk and once born, there’s all the time in the world to paint a Bible!”

“How long did it take him?”

“Oh, about 150 years. Lovely, just lovely.”

“Yes.” I rest back from the stand where the book is on display. “I still don’t understand. I’ve heard so many stories that we should have cold skin and fear daylight. That we should sleep with the dead and rise every night to kill. Are you sure I’m one such as you?”

Zoltan maintained an expert talent for expressing himself with eyebrow motion. He now crooked them at me and considered me archly for a while before answering. “I can tell you what you are for decades, child. You will not understand the truth of my words until you have had your own experience.” Turning back to the Bible to admire some lettering in Matthew’s gospel he continued. “What you describe is the folklore of a vampire. This does not come from reality at all but rather it rises straight from mortal’s fears of death. The monster you describe is their imagining, don’t enrobe yourself in this false reality. You are clearly not cold and clammy – why our skin is most sanguine. We don’t hide by day, although many prefer the comfort of night because the antics of mortals in sunlight can be quite offensive to our tender emotions. Clearly we do not sleep in coffins, nor do we feed every night. We are natural as any human, feeding off the life concentrated in another being’s flesh. We just happen to prefer humans as our diet and, well, we don’t die.”

“We never die?”

“No, indeed not. Never.”

“Not even if someone shot us with a musket or sliced us with a sword?”

“What in heaven’s name would you want someone to do that to you for? No! Not even then. We heal up too quickly.”

“There is absolutely nothing that will ever kill us?”

“Well,” he hesitates for a second, theatrically pondering the text before him. “There is one way. Just one way.” With this he closes the great, thick text. Grabs his candle announcing “that is enough talk for one night!” and he’s off to bed.

Daily the pronouncements and lessons continue. “Don’t ever fall in love with a mortal, it will only break your heart because they simply lack the sensitivity to understand you. And you never know when you’ll wake up hungry and feed from your mate by mistake.

“Never settle for animal blood, it will merely make you horribly sick. Sheep, I can tell you, are especially wretched.

“Trust your urge to feed. The urge is bigger than your solitary senses. It’s bigger than all of us; it’s what binds us and keeps our kind alive.

“Live a quiet life, avoid getting mixed up too much in human affairs unless you can extricate yourself in a timely way.

“Be choosy about who you feed upon. Someone who is very unhappy will deposit their unhappiness into you.

“Every thirty years or so, move on to a new location.”

“Are these things you know because you made the mistakes yourself?” I cannot resist the temptation to ask.

He pauses, of course, cocks his eyebrows, of course. “You do ask quite a lot of meddlesome questions for and Englishwoman! If you must know, yes, I have forced myself to feed upon an animal when I was worried that there wouldn’t be a suitable human and I did not trust the urge. It brought the gorge up for three days! I have encumbered myself in human affairs when the moment came that I thought someone with my talent for oratory and perspective would be of great service. I was greatly mistaken in this. Mortals do not truly wish to have great leaders because they are each incapable of being greatly led. And, if you must know, yes, I did fall in love. I fell deeply in love with an Egyptian woman so sweet and fair I could barely contain it in my heart. She couldn’t hope to reciprocate the magnitude of my emotions. Perhaps that is how I ended up on that boat to Palestine!”

Outside the world was tearing itself apart. The people were growing thin with famine from several bad growing years and the ravages of war. Nothing from the royal coffers was left to allay their lack. So the masses of starving people began to write angry flyers. Then they started to march. Then they started to revolt. And then they started to kill.

I have to confess that seeing the greatest and worst of French men and women ridden in shame to death at the guillotine gave me a slight sense of relief. Any of my former guilt over notions of my being a murderer faded away when I persistently watched as the again and again the blood stained blade rose into the air. Again and again it would fall with a “chop!” and crowds would yell and cheer as another gruesome visage was held aloft. In a sort of political poetry, those who commanded the killings eventually met the blade of their own accord.

“I don’t understand why you go must continually observe that insanity! I simply cannot stand such folly!” Zoltan exclaimed as I returned home one evening.

“It reassures me that I’m not so bad a soul to feast on these beasts.”

“BAH!” He retorts, fumbling with his robe and his cane.

“Have you seen it? This guillotine? It’s amazing how much less cruel this is than the torturous executions of the wheel or being drawn and quartered. The lack of shrieking is a great benefit.”

“That’s simply because they need to be fast about it! There’s a queue! It’s gastly I say!” Just then, as he’s shaking an expressive fist at me, Zoltan collapses to the ground. I rush over and attempt to lift his great weight up. I succeed only in pulling him onto my lap. In the light I can see that he is pale.

“My heavens! Are you ill? You are pale! What has happened to you?”

He pats my clutching hand in comfort. “Now now. This is just what happens, you know. I’ve been getting weaker and weaker and now it’s getting the better of me.”

It’s true, I had noticed that his skin, his features, were all aging quickly but was reluctant to mention such a thing. Now that I hold him close to support him, I see the extent of whitening hair and spotting skin. “What is making you weak? Are you sick? You said nothing could kill us!”

“Ahhh you were not listening. I said ONE thing could kill us.” He looks up at me with an exhausted expression. “And I have been doing that one thing. I haven’t fed. I haven’t fed in over fifty years. I can’t watch anymore, Ellie, one must die sometime. You can carry on what I’ve learned. But I simply cannot watch life anymore.”

His voice grows thin and he rests back in my arms more for comfort than support. I want to extort him to stop this nonsense and get back his strength. But I feel what he’s saying. If he would feed he lacked the strength to do so. I simply hold him close in my arms.

Nanowrimo - 15-16

2008-11-16T20:41:00.000-08:00

“What have I just done?” I ask the distinguished gentleman in fine robes who emerges from the darkness on a Parisian street. “I don’t understand why I do this thing. I don’t want to kill people.” I stagger toward him, still delirious and high.

“Ahhh I know. But that is what has brought you to me. Come!” He reaches out his hand for me to take it. Following feels like the most natural thing, as if I have seen this face in dreams since I was a child. But the distrusting Englishwoman in myself rises up.

“Why should I follow you? Who are you, anyways?”

His eyes shift from side to side briefly before he answers in a hushed tone. “There are lots of people on this street who would love to know who I am but should not, so I will refrain from answering. And you should follow me because left to your own devices in these streets you will be in great danger very soon. You will call attention to yourself. So, take my hand.” He grabs my hand and puts it over his elbow. “And follow, now. See? Not so terrible.”

The streets wind around higgledy piggledy with none of them making a straight course between any two points. We turn left, then right, then up a narrow street, then left down a slightly bigger one, passing all manner of people. Beggars litter the byways with their gaunt bodies. Bakers sell bread from carts and stalls and crowds of the hungry lurk nearby, hoping for the seller to be distracted just long enough for them to procure a biscuit or two. There are groups of men, their bellies full with too much drink, raising their cups and carousing as they make their way home or toward their next den of iniquity. Hungry and tired, children cry and run about the street. Some clutch the skirt of a mother, but many are alone. The smell of the place is rotten.

At last, coming down a narrower and quieter lane, we come to a door, which he turns to unlock with a great key that dangles about his neck. “Come! Come now!” he takes my arm and pulls me through the door and into the darkness it has kept contained.

As my new companion lights a lamp the strangest scene unfolds around me. Brightly patterned carpets stretch across the floor. The furnishings seem a bit mis-matched but are all covered with the most exquisite fabrics. Objects strange and rare rest on every table or surface or protrude from every wall. Vases, paintings, fine swords, crystal, and some statuary too strange in form to identify, come from the darkness as he continues going about lighting lamps.

“Are you rich?” I can’t take my eyes from a metal form depicting a woman with four arms, large, round breasts and a cruel look upon her face.

“That is Kali, do you like her? She’s the goddess of death who dances in her drunkenness upon the blood of her enemies. I’m not really rich, I’m mostly just very very old.”

I peal my eyes from the statue to look back at him. “You don’t look old.”

“Ahh, there is much for you to learn. And to answer your earlier question, my name is ‘Zoltan’.”

In all my hours spent musing the contents of his home I’m not quite sure I was ever able to take it all in fully. “This does not even begin to scratch the surface, cheri. I have this house, I have a small fort in Transylvania, a cave in Persia as well as a catacomb in Rome taken out for the purpose of interring my dead body but, well, holding my body of goods, instead.”

“How do you have so many possessions? And why is it all so far away from you? It would take forever to get to Rome and Persia both, I would think.”

“Hm, I will answer your questions but, well, not in that order. I do not worry that my wealth is at a distance from my person. It may well require weeks or even months to journey to some of these places. No matter! I have PLENTY of time to make the journey. I like to have it all tucked away in neat little pockets so that no one may, at any time, get at the whole lot. Now, I have been around pack-ratting for quite some time so I have collected quite the lot of antiquities. It would simply be folly to have it all visible and in one place due to the risk of theft or nosy visitors. And all I own would stuff this building completely to the gills and make it all quite messy. Why, there would be no room for me to live in such a place! And to your first and last question, I have come to own much because I have simply been so many places and have been around for such a long time!”

“You can’t be that aged, you don’t appear to be so terribly old at all!”

“Well, there is much about your own self that you simply do not understand! I was born in the city of Babylon during the Chaldean times. I am, by the reckoning of the present calendar system, 2,383 years old! Now, that number is off by about 25 years because the engineers of the Gregorian calendar miscalculated grossly in their effort to center the counting of all time upon a nebulous historic event. But, let’s just say, I am quite old, do not plan to die soon, and tend to be easily bored. So, I travel from place to place and as I travel, well, things just come into my hands.”

He sits back in a chaise, arm draped out beside himself, relaxed and resplendent in his robes. This home is astonishing. From every corner fine fabrics and exotic forms beacon to my eyes with their sensuous marvel. But, this man is clearly insane. I have to get out of here. It is not at all proper for a woman alone to be in a strange man’s home. What was I thinking, coming here? I must leave at once!

My panic is barely verbalized as a cloud across my face when Zoltan raises his hand. “Stop. Do not run out of here into the night. You don’t know enough about yourself to survive and the attention you might attract will endanger more than yourself. Many like us live in this city and our secrecy must remain paramount. Stop, sit down, stay. You will soon realize that it is much more of a benefit than a danger to remain here.”

“How could I hurt them? Who are they?”

“Others here who share our nature, we are all connected deeply through intuition. Much more so than mortals. Living a life untrained would be psychic warfare upon our kind.”

“What is this nature you refer to, that which we share?” I slide into an ornate and slightly overstuffed chair.

He plays with his glass of wine, dipping a finger into the bloody liquid and tasting it in his mouth. “What you just tonight out there in the street. Did you understand it?”

“I know that I was overcome by a most uncontrollable urge. It felt as if I were being guided along by a force I did not understand to find that man, all alone. I felt, strange, as if I were not myself but somehow MORE myself than ever before. After I finish I feel the strangest elation, like nothing I’ve felt before.”

“You’ve done this before. I take it. I’m assuming that is why you left your native shores and thrust yourself onto the whims of chance.”

“Yes, I did. It was once, three years ago. I was at a ball with my husband when I found myself strangely attracted to a young man. But, when we were alone I found the strangest passion rising in me. I, well, I drank his blood from his neck. It was the most horrid thing, but also quite satisfying, quite elating.”

He crooks an eye and leans forward. “You have a husband?”

“Yes, I deserted him in London. He wants nothing to do with me. I’m merely a female bauble to hang from his arm in public and to produce an heir. I wants nothing of me.”

“Produce an heir?” The pitch of his voice is getting higher with each question.

“Yes, in the fury after that – incident – I forced my husband to submit to me. As a result I had a son.”

“A SON!” He fairly explodes out of his chair.

“Yes, yes I had a little boy. My husband would not permit me to come near the child. Neither would he condescend to make the effort required to create another child. So, I left.”

“You left.”

“I left. I will not be missed.”

“Oh that is not true! Your husband may not miss you in his bed but his pride will miss you in his house! Did anyone else know you were leaving?”

I shake my head ‘no’.

“Did you share your plans to come to Paris with anyone? Even a maid?”

“No, I did not. I just left. I took boats to the coast and found a Scottish vessel to Calais. From there a series wagon carts brought me here.”

“Astonishing. Why here?”

“I heard talk at some of our card tables about the chaos in France as well as the upset over the King’s spending money to assist the North American colonies in leaving the crown. I, well I don’t know. It just sounded like it would be easy to disappear here, to be untraceable. And once I found French soil I was drawn to Paris.”

He sighs and sips his wine. “Well, you’re safer here than just about anywhere in Europe. For now. Oh it’s terrible the way that foolish young Louis bankrupted the coffers just for some spite of old King George. But those ‘Americans’ as they call themselves, they are quite interesting. The same liberté has, unfortunately, not been so extended to the French masses. This you no doubt saw in your journeys. Well, you will have to make a new name for yourself, just in case your inattentive husband decides not to play the wronged gentleman and comes on the hunt. Did you give anyone your name during your travels?”

“No”

“Good. Although my senses are telling me that the existence of this son will be problematic.”

I don’t need anymore guilt about abandoning my child. “You still haven’t explained to me what it is I am, or we are.”

“Ahh child. Amongst ourselves, we are called the ‘once born’, for we do not die. We can live forever on the material plain in vigorous health and vibrant youth. We possess the greatest strengths and intuition of all human kind. But, there is a caveat. Unlike other humans who live fifty or so years and then die, ‘mortals’ we call them, and who live by consuming the fruit of the earth, we must live by consuming the life blood of men.”

He notes the look of surprised horror across my face. “I know it sounds wicked, but it is true. We feed on our fellow travelers of Earth. But it is not so horrible. Mortals themselves survive by taking the lives of creatures.”

“But, this just can’t be true! I’m a normal person, I eat food! I am not such a wicked creature as this!”

“Now, now, listen to your heart. Listen to the silence whispering inside of you. In there you know that what I say is true. Think back to every dinner you’ve ever had, every supper plate in front of you. At the end of the meal was that plate empty? It was not, was it? Do you remember the taste of food? All through your journey from London to Paris did you once crave for a simple loaf of bread to stave your hunger? Tell me true. Did you eat so much as a morsel between London and Paris?”

“I did not.” I confess. “But then, what you are saying, that makes me a vampire! I am a monster!”

“No! No no, we do not use that term. That is their term for us and it comes straight from misunderstanding, fear and folklore. We are merely ‘once born’, and if you want to see a real monster, find yourself a tax collector and follow him about on his rounds. Watch how he mistreats the poor, old and sick. There’s your monster. We are not killing to murder. We are merely feeding to survive, just as God has appointed all creatures to do.”

“But, why me? Wherefore am I thus? Was it some sin of my youth? Was I not baptized properly? What has turned me into such a creature?”

“Stop with his theatrical nonsense! You need to think! Think back to your own youth. Were you ever a gregarious child with many friends? Did people warm up to you?”

“No, they did not.”

“Think back even further, you can recall your infancy, can you not?”

“yes, I remember being very small, in my nurse’s arms.”

“did anyone ever tell you that is not typical of children?”

“I was scolded several times for sharing memories that my mother insisted I would have been too young to know, yes.”

“That’s because our brains are more! We are the ultimate humans! God’s more perfect creation in his own image! Now those memories, do they include many scenes of loving care at the hands of your mother?”

“They do not. In fact, I was weaned quite young.”

“Some of them can sense it and they draw away. That’s the normal reaction of ignorants in the face of their superior.”

“But what made me into this? You didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh, you never became a once born, you were born as one. Possibly there was a latent gene in your lineage or another one such as us in your family.”

I sit pondering this silently for a length while a sphinx stares back at me. I dig back and back through memory to recollect a childhood gathering. My father’s brother, Uncle Robert, was a most strange man full of an oddly youthful vitality. As his siblings were showing signs of age with graying temples and fragile skin, Robert was not. His hair remained black and his complexion hearty. I remember father talking about him, in the one moment when I was able to extract some facts. “He did a lot in his life, most of which he ought not to have done.” A consistent and pervasive distrust of Uncle Robert permeated the family. Perhaps that is why I preferred him and he doted upon me. We were both just as rejected.

And then he disappeared. I was still not even thirteen and so my parents kept the details hushed. I only knew that suddenly my jovial Uncle was gone without trace or mention.

“Yes, I see him. I know there were more.”

“See? It’s not such a bad thing. Once you come to master your urges, you will find this life quite a pleasure. There is one other possible draw back to our state.” He hesitates and looks quite serious for a spell. “When you drink of a mortal, you gain more than just life and strength from their blood. Their life’s emotions become a part of you. Their feelings mix with your feelings. So…” he looks down at his wine glass, swirling the contents about “you might wish to refrain from feeding upon indigents again. Or else, your life will come to feel very long indeed.”

Nanowrimo - 14

2008-11-14T20:51:00.000-08:00

“I often find myself coming to Emerson in those moments when I just feel like I need to hear the voice of an old friend. And this week was one of those times. Some of you have heard that one of the quiet hands behind this community, Jones Martin, made his transition this week.” Some of the faces I look over register a note of trauma and grief. But, many are wear blank expressions. “He wasn’t very loud, you’d never see him at a town hall meeting, but he always had a kind word to share. If you have been coming here for a while, and you brave handful know who you are, you’d see him going around here every Saturday between March and November. He tended the garden that surrounds our lovely spiritual home. And he did it for no pay. His payment, he told me once, came from the many things he learned from our weeds and roses. Although he did once confide that the weeds were far better teachers.” A collective chuckle ripples across the room.

It’s standing room only. Bodies are silhouetted and black against all of the windows at the perimeter. I know not all of them have come to hear a lick of what I say. I spy the minister from the Baptist church down the street sitting about halfway back in the center. His arms are folded high across his chest in defiance. His chubby, pink body looks like someone poured him into that arrow collar shirt and polyester pants and then forgot to stop. Next to him at least five seats are filled with equally disdainful and stiff looking folks. They’ve come in under the ruse of showing some solidarity in the wake of this week’s brutal crime. I know what they’re up to. Come to see who’s draining off their crowd, they have. But it’s not me who is making the leak in their tithe baskets. It’s the comfort people feel when someone stands up at a pulpit and, rather than condemning them to eternal punishment for so much as letting a vegetable rot in the refrigerator, says out loud what deep down they have known all along to be truth and have been too afraid to admit. It is just that, though they burn out quickly, these bright stars are the glint in God’s eye.

“Jones was almost ninety years old. He couldn’t get around as well in these last couple years and so the precedent of his volunteer service has been passed on to new people with their own lessons to learn at the hands of nature. But he was bright and happy up until his last day. I sat with him on his last day, and we talked about his roses. Unfortunately, a few hours after our chat, I was called back to his home for a much less happy reason. It was then I saw what I hoped never to see. Our good friend and humble fellow traveler had been murdered.” Now comes the wave of gasps and knitted brows. None of this is for Jones, it’s worry for themselves that has them clutching the arms of a loved one and making eye contact with friends. In the back I notice the porcine figure of the Police sergeant shift his weight from leg to leg. Obviously not a regular church-goer, he arrived too late for a seat.

“He was not the type of man to wish for any sort of memorial service. He didn’t much care for attention being drawn to himself. In fact I think if he were in this room right now he would probably blush and hurry out the door! But I believe we can do him just as great an honor by turning our attention to the nature he loved.” And while I’m at it, why not get in a jab at that Baptist preacher?

“Ok, just by show of hands, how many of you, when you found this church community, cried your first time here?” At least half the hands rise into the air. “Ok. How many of you felt like you had finally found ‘your people’?” More hands shoot into the air, with less reluctance about the gesture this time. Well who wants to admit they cried?

“I bet I know why. I didn’t tell you anything new under the sun. I simply said the words that you knew to be true in your hearts. For all your lives you had been asked to render life from what Emerson calls “the dried bones of the past”. You were supposed to fashion the ‘armor of God’ from these worn and faded robes. You were bidden to serve at the altar of religion and denied the truth of your personal revelation. Your parents, well meaning and living out their own imprint of God and maybe some fear, warned you of all sorts of behaviors that would put you squarely on that God’s bad side and get you into trouble. Don’t talk back; be seen, not heard; be a lady; act right or the devil’s gonna get you; and most of all you must never EVER touch yourself! Am I right?” The room ripples with laughter.

“And probably a lot of you went in exactly the opposite direction as soon as you could! Am I right? I did. Heck yeah. I went to Paris! And the magic ingredient we were searching for was for once not to be told but to really experience something. I wanted to break the rules but mostly I just wanted to KNOW.”

“I don’t know about you, but no one ever told me that this curiosity I had in my mind was natural, was God-given. No one ever told me that it was ok to trust my experience, or my gut instinct. You women out there know what I’m talking about. How many of you had your life decisions taken away by a well intentioned father or husband or brother or had your intuition treated like superstition?”

In the back a tawny-skinned woman yells “amen!” I love it when they get fiery.

“Listen to what Emerson has to say: ‘We must trust the perfection of the creation so far as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy. Every man’s condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those inquiries he would put. He (or she) acts it as life, before he apprehends it as truth.’ So he’s saying that God’s gift to us, that the great teacher we have each chosen is not in a monument to religious tradition but our experience - as our own inner nature unfolds it to us.” I’m quoting Emerson and not the man known as Jesus and I can just feel that Baptist start to boil. Fuck him.

“How does that hit you? Hm? Wouldn’t you just rather have a devil to blame? Wouldn’t it be easier if I submersed you in water and just washed all of that junk out of your life?” I get another round of reluctant ‘amen’.

“But I can’t do that to you. I would be denying you the divinity of your true nature to create the life from which you must learn – from which you must remember, re-member, that God is in you as you are in God. That YOU are the creator. And that nature, your nature, your desires, are god-given and can be trusted.”

“How does that feel? How many times have you been told that it’s ok to trust yourself in mainstream churches? Hm. It’s a lot of responsibility all of the sudden, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” they shout back as one chorus.

“We live at the crest of an awfully inquisitive and materially progressive wave in human thinking. Our chemists, our doctors, our researchers and scientists have poked at nature and truly believe that they have forced her to relinquish her secrets. But are we any closer to understanding ourselves as people? Are we any closer to loving each other? We can see the wood that will build homes and make our Sunday papers but are we any better at seeing the trees? We all can look out our windows or drive down the road and know who owns what land around us, but who among you owns the horizon? We can go after nature, investigate her, divide her up into boundaries and buy her and sell her, but none of us will ever own the her best part. Who owns the sunset? Who owns the starry sky? Who owns the smell of the flowers? The one who owns these is simply the one who perceives them. Who stops to drink them in. And there is God, in that momentous evening light, in that fragrance, in that twinkling. Today. Now. Calling out to you to pause and simply allow yourself to be taught by that natural wonder that we are so good at pushing to the perimeter of our lives.”

“And this is what Jones Martin found in those rose bushes. Again as Emerson says: ‘The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.’ In every thing he found a delight. One time I was hustling along to the parking lot, running off to some meeting or another, and he came running up to me all excited. He was holding out something he had just yanked out of the ground. ‘Look!’ he said, ‘I just pulled this up! This is what I saw popping out of the dirt.’ And he showed me this little bitty green sprout about two inches long. ‘And THIS is what I pulled up when I decided to take it out of there!’ And he held out a root system that honestly was at least four feet long! Little bitty green sprout – Four feet of roots! Does that remind anybody of anything? How many little things you harbored in your mind that you didn’t really WANT the Lord to heal you of? Well it’s just a little resentment and she deserved it! It was just a little bitty lie and it was for the good. No one will know! But below the surface that little bitty thing is connected to a whole web of issues and other lies and resentments and dirty stuff that needs redemption. Those roots run deep and flourish in our psyches if we don’t tend to them regularly. Do you hear what I’m saying? It’s on us to cultivate our god nature.”

“Emerson continues to say: ‘Nature, in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the process and the result’. And I know, everyone figures well that guy was writing in the early 1800’s. Things are different now. But, not necessarily; not so fast my friends. This man was living in Massachusetts where he saw the industrial revolution rapidly remaking the landscape. In addition there were a lot more farms back then and as a result there was wide spread de-forestation. There are more trees in the Northeastern United States now than at the time of the Civil War. He’s beseeching people of his OWN time to not go too far, to find nature in their hearts – to experience directly and live deeply in the moment.”

They’re awful quiet. “So next Saturday I expect to see all of you out here planting petunias!” And they finally lighten up with a roll of laughter. “Hey, I’m serious! It’s almost the season! Just another month or so now.”

“So lets settle into our chairs, relax, and get in touch with that wise silence within. As you quiet your mind feel that still pool in your center. The presence of divine spirit within you is stronger than any calamity around you. Rest in that place and for a minute, let’s just allow God to love us…”

And I lead them through their meditation. Halfway through I open my eyes to see Jack seated near the front. He smiles as I spy him.

In my ear I hear him “Death may be natural, but not drought. You must choose to live.”

I have to kill or he will. What’s natural about that?

Nanowrimo - 13

2008-11-13T21:01:00.000-08:00

He continues to talk, which is good because my breath is completely gone.

"All my life I've heard this sweet voice of a woman in my head; nice and soft and steady and always seeming to make sense of those things which made no sense at all. Yet every time I tried to draw near to her, she disappeared. Every time I thought I'd found her, she was gone again. In moments of loneliness I would fly toward that loving voice. But then, POOF! Just like that! Vanished! I just wanted to put the world together in a way that made sense. It was you, wasn't it? That voice was you, Mummy!"

"I-I had no idea that you were once born. I had no idea.... I thought that by my leaving I might..."

"Yes!” He interrupts. “Yes, that is another juicy subject, isn't it? You up and leaving me when I was just a wee child of two years old! And to the care of that boorish man with his peevish fleet of nurses and maids, tutors and horse riding teachers! I was subjected to learning lots of stuff, which I was quite sure mattered little. And I know how to ride a horse into battle. A skill that still serves me well, as you can just imagine. But, no one, none of the lot of them, understood me. No, none of them could figure out that little boy at all. They all figured my moodiness was a side effect of my motherless condition. But that didn't stop them from applying the switch to my back for every sullen attitude or roguish wit. All I had, the only connection, what this thin voice I would hear in the silence. I used to lock myself into the closet and dig deep behind the coats just to have the silence and to year that comfort. I thought if I could just find the owner of that voice, all my misery would stop. And here you are!"

I'm beginning to despise his theatrical manner. What century does he think this is? I hold my head between my palms. The thumping in my temples seems like to explode. Breathing deeply, I can only push out one sentence at a time. "I did think of you often, imagining how I would talk to you if you were with me, if I was allowed to treat you like I wanted to. But that man, that horrible man, he yanked you from my arms within minutes of your birth. I wasn't allowed near my own child. I couldn't nurse you, touch you."

"And leaving looked like a good solution to you? For whom was this solution of yours supposed to be of any benefit? You should have fought! You should have demanded to take care of your son!"

"DON'T YOU DARE JUDGE MY ACTIONS! Don't you dare judge my yesterday using today's yard stick! You have NO IDEA what it was like to be a woman back then. I wasn't a person, I was chattel! When Mr. Fitz... whatever his name was married me he as good as bought me and I, my offspring, my very body belonged to him! I had no voice! I had no rights! I had no wealth or political ties of my own to fall back on and certainly lacked the social graces to be gay in public company. One word from him and I could have been out on the street with nothing and no one to fall back upon! I couldn't even leave my door unaccompanied without incurring condemnation. I COULDN'T WALK DOWN THE STREET! You have no idea! NONE!" He waits in silence while I catch my breath.

“Are you a homosexual?”

“Oh don’t tell me you have a problem with that! Now YOU need to move that attitude into this century!”

“I have no issue with it as long as you are honest. Your father was a homosexual. I was convinced of it even as naïve as I was back then. He despised having to be married to me. It was only in a heated moment after my first feed that I managed to conceive you. I don’t think he made anyone’s life more pleasant save for his lover. So I’m asking you. Are you a homosexual?”

“Yes, indeed I am.”

“Good. You know what you are, then. And I knew what I was, although I didn't know that much about it. I had fed. Sure, I had fed once and felt that inexplicable rush of pleasure. I was as much frightened as delighted. Like the first time you touch yourself as a child and it feels good even though it’s a bit new and unnatural. You like it but instinctively know that you’ve done something mommy would hate. I had, as of yet, no idea where this had come from, thought I had perhaps done to cause it. I looked at you in your crib and saw my shadow pass over your face. I figured, wrongly - obviously, that by leaving I would spare you turning into what I had become."

"I've been looking for you for over 200 years! So many times I thought through just what I might say. I’ve wasted hours crafting what exact words I could say that would ...pierce your heart just as mine has been! And now you're here and you're just so... disappointing! Look at you! You're tired. You have bad hair. You deprive yourself the feeding you need for the most maudlin of reasons. And that is all you have to say to me? These excuses?"

"You're angry."

"Nice catch, that. How ever did you guess?"

"I was angry for a long time. And we do not feel emotions like mortals. Even if you're passing, there's no one who can hold your hand while that wave hits. I’ve felt that tide roll in and hit me like a wall, damned near drowning me in a see of hatred. I killed a lot of people, wanting to watch them hurt. But this, too, shall pass. The tide just as surely flows back out, and hopefully there is not too much wreckage in its wake to tidy up."

"When was that? Was that when I lost track of you?"

"Hm. From before the Tecumseh wars on to the begin of the Mexican war. 1810 maybe? The details, you know, get fuzzy. Counting doesn’t matter so much after a while."

"They wouldn't if you would feed. It is in our nature to feed! Why do you deny yourself what is natural? Vampires make terrible nuns, you know."

"It doesn't exactly go with my job title."

"And what are you doing playing minister to these foolish mortals? They're so peevish and trite! I don't see why you bother with them so much!"

I stomp my foot on the floor, rattling the furniture and windows. "The man you killed tonight wasn't trite. He was a good person."

"That old bit of gristle tasted like canned food." He muses, theatrically picking his teeth.

"You are not funny!"

"Oh! What are you going to do, Mummy? Take me over your knee?" his sarcasm catches me up short. Must have gotten that trait from his father. "you can't because you lack the strength to do anything about it. But you’re not totally spent on life yet, I can see that."

"I do not wish to feed, anymore. I wish to be done. I've seen enough."

"Well, you better start, because you're going to need some energy. I'm not done with your little country town just yet. And no mortal can stop me, so you're going to have to come after me yourself! It will be like all the fun little games we never got to play! Catch me if you can!"

"You - you're not going to kill again, are you? How could you?"

"I feed and kill in the way God intended me to, just like you. When we don't do what we're meant to do, we get unhappy. Wasn't that in one of your Sunday talks?"

"But this is not right! It's one thing to feed but you can't just treat their lives as if they don't matter! Life is not a game! Mortals are not toys!"

"OH please! Look in the mirror next time you toss out the platitudes! Je-SUS! The four fifths of them who won't be 'terrorized' will be eagerly watching the evening news! Not a few will even hope to be my next victim! See, the human brain is wired to enjoy violence. Think about it, they had to be, for violence is necessary to survival. It is mandatory that one do violence to an animal or a tree in order to procure food and shelter. Those ape men who recoiled from wielding the club or flint simply didn't survive. They didn’t live long enough to put their drop into the river of DNA. That's why the English loved watching the criminals be hung, drawn & quartered. That's why Parisian crowds watched eagerly while person after person went to the guillotine. That's why the mobs gathered for lynchings in America like it was a Sunday outing. That’s why nation after nation continues to make war and make movies about war and why people line up and pay good money out of love for gory, violent movies. And now that most people don't get the opportunity to kill in order to eat, now that dinner is just a trip to the refrigerator and just some plastic wrapping away? They're bored and depressed. Don't worry mummy! They're going to love me!"

"You're a monster!"

"And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!"

"STOP THIS! If you're angry at me then take it out on me! What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry? Sorry doesn't even cover how either of us feels. I was wrong! I was young and foolish and selfish and wrong. I can't expect you to forgive but don't take your anger out on these people!"

"Then why don't you stand up, wipe your bony ass and get off the fucking pity pot?! Live, damn you!"

"Because I'm tired! I am so, so deeply tired right down to my bones. I just can't."

Thick quiet fills up the air. It's a while before he breaks it. "I saw you once. You were soaring above the mountains, riding the air, and hunting with ease. That is the picture of you I have held." He makes for the window, fixing to leave.

"Wait. Before you go. What is your name? I didn't have a say in naming you, and time has taken it from me. I know I’m a terrible mum, but please just tell me your name."

A sly smile curls across his face. "You can call me 'Jack'." And in a flash of dark wings, he's gone.

Nanowrimo - 12

2008-11-12T21:03:00.001-08:00

Our fearsome travel on the westward trails, picking through wilderness, watching for bears, bartering with friendlies or avoiding hostiles, keeping our powder dry in rain, fording streams and rivers, every day an gamble to survive, hunting for food and sometimes going hungry, lives mixed in memory with Gabriel. The frontier or the man, I gave myself over to each with what proved to be a careless amount of abandon. Making a warm fire under the stars where we could sleep and enjoy each other’s bodies, wandering through this country alone doing our trading and trapping, we were a nation of two.

Eventually the Ohio valley became more and more settled. Our little world was interrupted by Tecumseh’s terrible Indian wars and our frontier became peopled. In making our trails we had accidentally blazed a path toward the interior for opportunity starved masses. Our lives became settled, set in place with bands of gold. And our lives together stretched on for years. But, Gabriel was a man who needed to conquer. He needed wide, wild spaces accompanied by things unknown to maintain his sense of cheer. He was happiest on his horse, gun in hand and facing a risk to his life. I had gone from being part of his adventure to his albatross. And so, I finally understood what Zoltan had warned me about while I was still very young and under his tutelage. These mortals don’t have long on this Earth and so have no patience for life’s unfoldment. Their little hearts turn on a dime.

My first determination was never to forgive him. I would never condone this wasting of my time and energy in the absence of any true love. I would never pardon the walking out which lacked discussion or reason. “How dare you pay for your freedom with someone else’s sanity? How dare you demand perfection yet offer so little. How dare you sweep away any fond memory with one bitter gesture?”

“Plink! Plink!” The sound two gold bands make while I play with them draws me from reverie. I find myself at the roll top desk, toying with the rings and staring out a black window. This is ridiculous. I plop them back into their tiny drawer and shut the desk up. It’s always easier to rehash those moments when one could be perceived as having been wronged. Those other many moments when I was the aggressor are bastards of memory – only owned when pressed.

My grief was a rage. I killed for the first time not for the sake of feeding but for the sheer joy of squeezing all life out of a living man. I began to do the deed in stages, starting with the first immobilizing bite and watching their eyes beg for mercy at every turn. I wanted to see the absolute terror in their eyes. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted someone else to feel pain like I had felt pain. The more I fed and killed, the stronger my rage did grow. In anger, I was wild as a beast, invincible, and at a loss for all human dignity.

I could have destroyed myself forever carrying that grudge. When suddenly I came to my senses three years had passed. I ceased this reign of terror on the countryside and moved to upper New York State to start over. This time I had nothing to buy or sell and no one upon whom I could rely for security. The kindness of strangers extended there became my first introduction to the Unitarian church. I soaked up the ‘The Dial”. Emerson’s words became a balm to me and I vowed to love no human more than these divine principles.

Ten years a go, I welcomed the chance to come here, in the role of minister, to the heartland where population was sparse. This was partially to feel the air and room around me but also to know that here was a place where no people slipped off the edge. A crowded metropolis, filled with the inter-mingling feet of strangers, lends itself to widespread anonymity. No one might notice one person missing. But out here, every person matters and every body is counted.

I thought this would be a guard against the urge as it could not arise in safety. I wanted to be in a place where I was guaranteed to wither and die like a normal person. I never counted on another once born entering this world and throwing the balance off entirely. But someone has arrived, someone strong and aggressive, and I lack the strength to do anything about them. That is, unless I feed.

It hasn’t been easy to abstain. With the improved mortal diet through this last century it’s less necessary to feed, but still the hunger is there. And I love the hunger. I love that pain of emptiness in my gut because in a world that grows more and more stale with each passing age that gnawing at my core is the only thing that tells me I am still alive. A life defined by a discomfort and denial of life itself is the one factor that makes me feel like a real human. I starve, there fore I am.

And now this dark blanket is being ripped from me. The ruse is over. “Woman, what art thou?” asks the black night as it creeps through the window and into the room, filling every corner.

And to it I can only render the most feeble of answers. “I am that I am. I know not whither I come.”

I collapse onto the bed for another night of restless travels through memory. Drifting off those distant words echo in my mind. “Hello, Mummy.”

“Peck Peck Peck” I hear the percussive tap and the rattling of the window in its frame. I feel my eyes open but cannot sense that this has had any effect. Eyes closed, eyes open, all is black.

“Peck! Peck!” I raise up, and in the dim square that is my window I make out the outline of a raven, tapping its beak on the glass, looking in at me. I’m not ready for this moment as much as the moment is ready for me.

“Peck! Peck! Peck!” He knows I’m awake and becomes more insistent. Is this how you got into my friend Jones house? Agitating him at the window? And you’re here to destroy me now?

I stand up and look at him in the eyes. Only the glass separates us. “I just want to talk” comes through the ether.

“That’s good, you’ve got some explaining to do.” The lock is stiff with the cold and takes some effort to give way, but as soon as I have the window open a couple inches the corax flutters through.

I push the window shut, reach to turn on a light and when I turn back around before me stands a grown man. His face shines with the health of the newly fed. His hair is thick and dark and something about his features is oddly familiar.

“Don’t you recognize me?” He bellows, holding out his arms.

I scan his features but can only frown.

“I’m shocked that you would fail to recognize your own son!”

Nanowrimo - 11

2008-11-11T21:17:00.001-08:00

Tall clipper ships crowded Baltimore harbor, their masts like a strange, leafless forest. Their bellies bobbed with the tide. I couldn’t fill my lungs with enough open air and my feet were most grateful to at last stand upon unmoving soil. I had no idea what to do or where to begin. How could I make my way toward the vast interior? Into this bright haze and mental intoxication of my early arrival walked Gabriel. He smiled, cocked his hat and something in my head said “follow him”. I was but fifty years old by the calendar, still so young in my thinking and hopeful in expectation.

In his voice was a singularly unusual drawl what sounded as if words were in no hurry to leave his lips. His dress, fur cap and homespun clothing was utterly unsophisticated and unlike any thing I had seen in Europe save a weary peasant. But, his walk was confident and his expression adventurous. His eyes danced with the color of a pond in the sunlight and he seemed at the ready to pluck the whole world from the bough of a tree and take a big bite.

At first, I couldn’t make out what he was asking me.

“Wus yaw name, ma-dam?”

I’ve never been in the position to do my own introduction. As I was married, I transitioned from being someone’s daughter to someone’s wife with out much acknowledgement of my own personhood. I was whosever I was. And the others, Zoltan, Agnoletti, none had ever needed a title to understand.

“My name? Why, My name is ‘Eleanor’.”

“Why tha-at is jus’ a lovely ole name. Named after someone were yew?”

“Indeed I was, after Eleanor of Aquitane, the queen of England who rode bare-breasted into battle during the crusades.” At least that was the historical marker I had chosen. Much more interesting that my croupy grandmother.

“Well, Well! I mus’ say! Nahw yew got a nother name Miss Eleanor?”

I had prepared for such a moment long ago to avoid being found by my husband. Upon passing the interred bishops in a Parisian church I chose a surname. “Durat.”

“Why that is just lovely there. Sounds French. Yew French nahw?”

No, I am not. “Why yes, indeed.”

“Well that’s niiice, I never met a French person up close before. Though I sho’ shot some when they took to wanderin’ into my trappin’ territory.” He laughs at his own humor. “Now what are you going to do with yourself here in Baltimore? You got family here to find? Yer husband already over here?”

“No, no I haven’t anybody over here. I have no husband.” The old boy is probably dead by now, I figure.

“Ah see. You indentured then, working some fo you can pay to be free?”

“No, no I’m not here in anyone’s employ.”

His face turns baffled and skeptical. “Well whacha come all the way over for?”

“I grew tired of running from Napoleon’s wars. I lived on a battlefield. Everything I had was destroyed or dead. Everything. I had nothing left to stay for, so –.”

“So you come to Baltimore.”

“I came wherever a ship would take me for the passage I could pay.”

“You come awn over heyah all by yew lonesome?”

“Indeed.”

“Huh. Well here you is.”

“Not for long. I’ve seen enough of cities and their crowded squalor. I’m should like to travel west. I want to see the open land.”

“How yew fix to do that, now?” The smile he wears is one of those knowing grins, like he knows the outcome and finds me amusing. “This here country is big, full of wild Indians! Can’t just go out for a stroll and see it in a day yew know.”

“I know. That’s why I’m coming with you.”

“Nahw what in the name of heaven makes you think ah want tah be travelin’ around with some woman? That just ain’t right! Why you fresh off the boat an’ all yew cain’t survive a day out in the wild. I can’t be doing my trappin an’ takin’ care ah yew!” My jaw is quite set so he persists. “What in the name o’ God can yew do tah survive out in the wild? You cain’t hunt. You cain’t trap none. I figure you cain’t hardly shoot a gun or make a fire. How yew think yews goin’ ta survahve?”

“I survived the marchings of an army across my country like a swarm of locusts stealing every last bit of life from the land. Your wild territory doesn’t really frighten me.”

“Darndest woman I ever saw. Well it just ain’t right! I can be taking a woman! Mebbe yew din’ have the same kinda morals ovah in France be heyah we don’t just take up with folks!”

“Unless you want to.” I look up into his broad and open face and watch it slowly curl into a smile.

With one horse loaded with trapping equipment we head westward, walking along the Cumberland trail. The land is open and the air is wildly fragrant. As we proceed the plumes of smoke from various settlements grow more and more sparse while the terrain becomes hilly, then rock, then quite steep. This, at last, is how a human is supposed to live, to really live, wild and free. I can only marvel at what each bend in the road offers.

Our first encounter with a native comes as we cross the mountains and he is the most singularly unusual sight. In dress he resembles the people of Baltimore. But his hair is long and dark like a raven’s, refracting hundreds of shades of black as it plays in the sunlight. His skin is deep, almost fragrant in color. While the native exchanges a friendly greeting with Gabriel, introducing himself as “John”, he eyes me warily. But, he is a “friendly”, a Cherokee, and civilized and we are welcomed to his home for a supper and a warm bed for the night.

Indeed John does live in a home not terribly unlike those cabins that we have passed. As we arrive, his family greets us warmly at the door. Then, all at once, I hear a tiny voice shouting from the interior of the cabin. The same few syllables are repeated but I cannot make them out.

“Oh that is my grandmother.” John explains.

At once in the doorway an old woman appears with the same deep skin and a head full of long, white hair. Holding herself up on the frame she looks around, sets eyes on me, and shouts her incomprehensible utterance again.

“My grandmother keeps to the old ways. She still practices the old faith.” He’s explaining with a bit of an embarrassed tone.

“What is she saying?”

John hesitates, then ventures in a low voice “she calls you ‘skinwalker’. It’s, well a human that is an animal, one living by power of what you call witchcraft.”

On the wrong day, her hunch would be accurate. But I have not the slightest inkling of the urge in me. “Say whatever you must that she may know her home is safe from all witchcraft.” I make eye contact with the old woman while John translates my words. We regard each other for a long second and then she nods and with a grunt waives me into the house.

After our meal the old woman motions me toward her by the hearth. For a minute she simply breathes deeply, looking into my eyes. Her every gesture is introduced by a grunt and a nod. She throws some fragrant branches and leaves into the fire, which in turn set loose a sweet smoke. In her hand she holds two crossed feathers from a colorful bird. Circling them over my head she chants for several minutes until the scented smoke has dwindled. And then, with a grunt and a pat on the head, this little ceremony is quite finished.

As I sleep I seem to travel this vast land, but from above. I soar and circle wide, colorful valleys past mountains and forests. I call out in wonder but only a screech comes from my throat. Suddenly, I spot something below and I’m uncontrollably drawn toward it. I have no conscious understanding or recognition for what draws me. Diving lower and lower I speed along the surface of a mountain lake until all at once I reach down and snatch a fish from the water. When I come to settle on a rock I immediately subdue my quivering captive with sharp claws. I tear at the slippery flesh, consuming the lot.

We depart early in the morning and John sends us off with a courtesy any English gentleman would envy. As we stride away I spy the tiny, white haired frame of a woman watching us.

In the days and weeks after leaving John’s home we head into Shawnee territory. These natives are not friendly at all in Gabriel’s estimation and he is visibly apprehensive. He orders me to stay close. For the most part it seems we are out here, in this wilderness, by ourselves. We track beaver, watching trees for gnawing and setting traps. The meat is decidedly greasy but their fur is thick.

As the days become hotter I begin to sense the presence of eyes around us, deep in the trees. The woods have an intelligence within them, which regards us two travelers warily. I can feel it. I can feel the mind of these observers grow malevolent as we proceed further and further. I feel the eyes drawing near.

And then it comes. It starts as a flutter in my stomach and transforms into a burn. The woods pulse with loud intensity. I can hear every foot fall of every insect and the wing flapping of every bird. One minute we quietly regard the land for a place to set traps and in the next my world is going black save for the urge to feed. I feel my teeth drawing out.

“I’m going to check up by that creek.” I shout over my shoulder to Gabriel.

“Don’t wander far off now! I cain’t have you yellin’ up a storm cause yew get lost.”

With that admonition I tramp off into the forest. The thick trunks of trees make a veil between us. My blood boils I my veins. The food is near, it’s –

With the sound of a wild screech I turn to see a man, masked and dressed like I’ve seen no human attired, leaping down onto me from the trees and holding a weapon aloft. With a growl I snatch him from the air and bite into his deep flesh. The flavor is rich, sweet, stronger than any I’ve had.

The ecstasy is unbelievable. All colors of the forest invade my eyes with their brightness. For a minute I can understand what the birds are communicating. I hear their many little voices each saying “I’m here! I’m over here! I’m here! I’m here!” An old tree holds me up. It talks to me slowly and softly, telling me my secret is safe in its branches. I regard the native’s drained body, his painted flesh and feather adorned person. He, too, is part animal. In different circumstances, we could have been friends. But out here if one is to live, another must die.

“Nothing over that way.” I tell Gabriel, upon my return.

“What was all that noise I heard?”

“Oh, I surprised a turkey hen and she made quite the noise. Darn near scared me out of my skin.”

He just nods and returns to his silent wait for an animal to land in his trap. The woods relent; the eyes recede. We are safe.

Nanowrimo - 10

2008-11-10T19:33:00.001-08:00

Looking around the house I frame the disarray in a whole new mindset. The furniture and possessions thrown around the room, holes punched in walls, it’s all the mark of a once-born high on freshly consumed life blood. Dammit! I had sensed another one drawing nearer. I should have started taking precautions. But, I’ve never encountered another on of us and had it go so badly. “Mummy…” Could it be?

Skeptical, the sergeant at the scene orders the body lifted. “The blood pools underneath the body if the wounds were inflicted while it was lying down. Those fang marks are some stupid prank! Vampires! Of all the god damned stupid things you’re talking like a bunch of school girls! But BE CAREFUL! Don’t destroy the evidence! Gently! I’m only letting you do this so you shut up!”

He’s trying to bring some calm to a room where the faces of his most hardened officers have turned to paper white. These tough guys think they’ve seen everything after a few traffic accidents and domestic disputes. “You lot haven’t seen anything until you’ve lived in a culture without a television in every house to pacify the mob.” I think to myself.

Two rubber gloved officers lift Jones body ever so slightly in pursuit of said pool of absent blood. Idiots. Jones is a skinny man, his body would never be large enough to conceal 3 liters of liquid. And with those wounds this room should be spattered and red.

“Sir there’s no blood underneath him!” They drop the corpse and leap back.

“Dammit! Be careful!” He bellows, wiping the sweat from his head. “Dammit!”

As much as I don’t believe in doing this, I start to perform the task I was called here to do. I open my Bible to the spot in the New Testament where Jesus casts a legion of devils out of a man. I close the book, repeating those words out loud. I then walk from room to room sprinkling my (supposedly) holy water and saying a blessing, finally rubbing the water all about the entire frame of the back door, the smashed in point of entry for the murderer. Some of the officers come up to me, asking to be anointed so that the evil spirits don’t catch them, too. I do. I bless them. And then I tell them to make sure they are never alone.

“Jones didn’t have anyone here with him. He was an easy target for whatever or whoever did this. Stay together.”

The sergeant corners me asking “Do you REALLY think that this was really done by some demon-crazed monster? Some vampire?”

“I don’t know. But I do know that history is littered with tales of secluded townships gone mad with fear. Whatever nut did this we have to make sure that fear doesn’t keep the rest of us from doing the same to each other. If people feel safer and closer to each other with holy water and exorcisms, then that’s what I’ll do. They’re less likely to feel afraid if they are in a group. Look at Mr. Jones circumstances, old, alone, feeble. For their own mental safety we must make sure people take steps to see that their lives look nothing like his.”

“I’ve got enough on my hands investigating this! I can’t run around holding everyone’s hands so they don’t get scared of the dark!”

“How many monsters do you want to have on your hands? Fear is that powerful.” I turn to leave and pause in the kitchen. This is one area of the house not crawling with police. The blue ceramic plate upon which I served his dinner on is smashed on the floor, chicken bones scattered about it. Thanks to the window left ajar, a chill runs through the place.

The window. I look up at it, I look over to the smashed in back door, then back to the window. I replay my memory of the corax. Did Jones, ever loving soul that he was, open the window to talk to that bird and welcome in his own killer? Did that clever raven pick the latch?

“I thought you’d left.” The sergeant says from behind me.

“This window is open.”

“So it is.”

“Why would a skinny old man who can’t pay his heating bills and who always wore long underwear, flannels and coats to stay warm, even while indoors, during the winter – leave a window open in February?” He just frowns at me. “Listen, I was here this afternoon, I left about 2 pm. Before I left I emptied that garbage can because it was brimming over with empty, dirty soup cans. After I was done I washed my hands at that sink, right by that window. And that window was closed up tight.”

“That window is eight feet off the ground outside and it’s small!”

“This window is how the killer got in, not your back door. That pile of matchsticks is just plain theater. I can feel it.” I step closer to him, hoping to make a dent in his ridiculous ‘hard boiled cop’ persona. “In my line of work I come in contact with a fair amount of criminals. It’s part of my job. I’ve been into prisons to talk to killers on death row and some of their escapades do near the humanly impossible. I’m telling you that in my gut I know this window is where the crime started.”

“I see a lot of criminals in my line of work, too.” His head rocks back in a skeptical gesture reminiscent of ‘the Lone Wolf’. Except this wolf is more of, well, a pig.

“Check the area.” He tells another officer. “Thank you Miss Durat, excuse me, Reverend Durat, we’ll call you if we need any further testimony.” He delivers this with a ‘you can leave now’ in his voice. He doesn’t like someone meddling in his investigation. He doesn’t like exorcism or advice. And I’m probably his number one suspect, to boot.

As I step gingerly around the house. Avoiding wreckage to exit the scene I hear the officer in the kitchen exclaim “Morton, there’s drops of blood on the floor.”

Oh but something tells me that this is not where the crime started at all. Not really.

“You must go now, something comes for you. Something evil.” Fr. Agnoletti, a once born living as a monk, makes this breathless announcement, slamming the wooden door of his hovel behind him. His chubby frame heaves with his attempts to catch a breath. “I was just crossing the fields, returning from the abbey and these great, black birds came upon me. Chased me on the ground they did and flew down real close to me, like so!” He mimics a winged creature flying in close proximity to his skull.

“Perhaps they could smell some bread in your pockets?” I venture an explanation. I’ve escaped France, Napoleonic wars and revolutionary insanity for Campania and only just recovered some health and feeling of normal.

“I have no bread! This is terrible! Dios mio this could draw attention to me and I can’t have that. I have a good life in this abbey, nice and quiet. I keep to myself and study and I like it here. These birds, whatever they bring I could end up on a pike! I tell you these are not normal birds. Someone is looking for you and I don’t have the strength to fight off whoever it is! Go! You must go!”

“Where am I supposed to go to now? Everywhere I go there is war.”

“The war will be here soon enough, too! You go to Napoli and get you onto a ship. Go wherever it take you. Maybe across the ocean to New Spain. Go!”

And so I fled again. Always I seemed to be running from something. In Naples I found a ship to Portugal, which seems to be leading me back into Napoleon’s jaws. Damn that little man! I find a ship heading across the ocean. The urge to feed is unstoppable whilst in transport and I dispatch of some rope monkeys. It’s dangerous to do in such confined quarters. There’s nowhere to run. I cannot drink of the lifeblood in safety at all but the cravings are uncontrollable. I make a bit of a spectacle, a woman traveling across the ocean alone. Every other passenger comes with a huddle of children and clutching spouse attached. The decks are packed as few ships make the trip now. Another factor for which we can all thank Napoleon. Many passengers have sold their entire world’s possessions to afford the journey. I had to employ a great amount of my remaining gold jewelry plus what Zoltan had gifted me to afford passage and food for the journey.

For weeks we float about over the turbulent sea, unfathomable is the blue deep spreading for as far as the eye can behold. Finally, to the west a thin strip of land appears along the horizon. Everyone, from passenger to ship mate, pushes to the edge of the vessel in anticipation. At long last we set land in Baltimore. We pull into a harbor bright with a haze filling the air, giving one the strange sense that we have landed in a city of light. Baltimore is a port city, but its size more nearly resembles that of a town. Most intoxicating is the air. I breathe and the scent of many trees, each contributing its perfume to the wind as it flows over land, greets my grateful senses. The streets are far from the cramped affairs of Europe with their fetid odors and gutters of filth. Instead I have the sense that I stand on the edge of a land vast, wild and ripe with possibility. At long last there is someplace to go unpremeditated by the confines of church and empire.

I thought of the ship I had just disembarked. More will come, filling this land with their families and bodies. I had to go into it, take it in and taste it before it was gone entirely. Finally, perhaps, fate had handed me a chance to be truly free.

Nanowrimo - 9

2008-11-09T21:07:00.001-08:00

I find Jones out behind his house, contemplating the withered beds of his garden. In four months this plot will explode with color and life. But, you wouldn’t know that to look at it today. Dirty mounds covered with dead leaves are populated by dried, dead looking remnants of rose bushes and the scraggly husks of what used to be marigold & zinnia. Like a flannel question mark, he supports his thin frame on a cane while bending down to look over the spot where last season’s salvia lived. He hears me coming, but can’t right his back fast enough to make a proper greeting. Instead I just get a turn of the head and a “Hello, hello! Well if it isn’t the dinner-fairy!”

“Hello, Jones. Just bringing by some dinner I made for ya.”

“Yes yes I see that. That’s nice, that’s real nice there.” He makes his way back to straight again with a sigh. “ahhhh, just lookin things over here. Won’t be too much longer I’ll have my flowers back.”

“You miss them during the winter, do you?”

“Ohhhh if I could tug at the plants to make the spring come faster I would. My old bones can’t take much more of this cold. Maybe some day I’ll be one of them snow-birds and head down south for the winter!”

“With the kind of plants they have in the south? We’d never see you again! I bet you’d be off farming passion flowers in no time.”

“PASSION flowers? He heeeee, no ma’am I don’t think so. I’ll stick to these here roses.” He waives his cane briefly toward the brown stems popping out of the ground in V-shaped clusters. He does have the loveliest rose bushes. The bank of wild roses along the front of his house bloomed clear into November. “C’mon in, now. Don’t want my dinner getting cold!”

Walking into the ranch house behind Jones happens at such a delicate pace that it almost feels like a ceremonial procession. Inside he slides his bones onto a vinyl chair at the kitchen table while I take the liberty of rummaging through the cupboards to find a plate for his dinner. Difficult to find a bit of china without some chips or cracks in it, but I locate a plate with only few nicks along its edge. “It’s still hot.” I put the plate in front of him and sit down.

He looks at the plate, looks up at me politely, looks back at the plate, looks up at me with raised eyebrows, and then starts to grin.

“Shit, you need a fork!” I always forget that all people use silverware, now.

“A knife too, if you can locate a clean one.”

“Yes, yes, there’s a setting right here in the drawer.”

“Don’t bother none about wiping ‘em. If there’s dirt on them it’s all my dirt.”

I place the flatware within his reach and sit down. Like a hungry dog, he dives into the food. He doesn’t get much from his social security, just enough to keep a roof over his head, I bet. Food stamps help some. But what he buys is the cheap stuff in cans. The contents of his grocery bags tend to be the easily cooked, canned food. The heap of cans attracting flies around his garbage bin is a testimony to poor eating habits.

“You want me to take those cans outta here? They’ll be stinking in another day or so.”

“If that makes you happy miss, you may do so.” He eats with a meditative intensity. “hmmmm, good good food. Like real cookin’. Where’d a young lady like yerself learn to cook like that?” As he looks up I notice the spatters of chicken grease across his glasses.

From an 800 year old Italian monk is where I learned it. “I learned by hanging out with folks like you! That and watching Julia Child.”

“he he, Julia Child. Wife loved watching her. ‘cept some of her later shows. I think she was drunk in some of them. Heh. Sampling the cooking wine, maybe. Heh.”

“Maybe your wife cooked too well? If she’d burned dinner a few more times maybe you’d know how to eat something besides canned food!”

“She did burn dinner, that’s how I know how to open a can.”

For the span of at least five minutes we are helpless with laughter. When the last chortles have spent themselves out, he adds “well, the prettiest of roses all comes with thorns.”

“I might have to use that one of these Sundays.”

“I want royalties.”

“I’ll make sure the board comes straight to you with their editorial.”

“They at it again, huh?”

“No more than the usual. Wait until next week when I celebrate Ash Wednesday by telling everyone that they are atheists and prostitutes.”

“So it’s the Catholics been having all the fun all these years? Didn’t know that! I’d have left the Baptist church long ago had I known that.”

“Oh yeah man, and their communion wine is the real thing! Not just grape juice.”

“So maybe Julia Child just did her shows after going to church!”

“Maybe so old friend, maybe so.”

I get up to start fishing under the kitchen sink for a proper garbage bag to put the cans into. They make a terrific clatter once the bag is full. Jones doesn’t rinse the cans before tossing them aside so by the end of the task bits of noodles and drippings of slightly moldy mushroom soup cover my hands. I will never understand what some folks call food.

I head over to his kitchen sink and squirt a bright green liquid into my palm. Soap, amazing. I can’t help but play with this color for a bit before washing. Through the window before me I see the choke cherry tree, it’s limbs bare and grey except for the few bright red balls still hanging from its limbs. At first I only dimly register the raspy call of blackbirds. Then, at once, five of them appear in the yard. Large and robed entirely in black, their color commands a silent moment of awe. This darkness they wear seems tinged with thousands of midnights. Can’t help but whisper their name silently “Corax…”. All at once they take flight, their large wings casting a shadow over the garden. But one stays behind. Turning, he marches determinedly toward the house, aiming his beak up at me as I look out the window as if to make eye contact.

“Raaaaak!” It calls out. “Raaak! Raaaak!” He seems to be yelling at me, trying to say something. With a flap of wings like a flowing cape he comes to rest on the window ledge just outside. The ledge is narrow, but he manages to turn and point his beak straight towards me. Our gazes lock, he seems to regard me most intently, almost as if this creature were sent to detect…

I bang on the window, stunning the bird. He flies off, airing his complaints. “Raak raaak raaak!”

“Whatcha tryin to do there? Break my window?”

“Sorry, that bird was just, I don’t know, getting too close. Ravens are kinda weird. Like they’re too smart in their heads to still be stuck in bird bodies.”

“Well they used to be revered as gods.”

“Or seen as the souls of those unhappily deceased.”

“I like my version better!”

I try to hide it, but the raven’s visit has put a distinct uneasiness in my stomach. As I leave the house, clinking bag of cans in tow, I inspect the skies. The uneasiness grows into a distinct apprehension over the next few hours. Fear. I haven’t felt fear in a great while, and this overtakes me utterly. At home I rummage through my desk, I try writing, I try cleaning, all in attempts to stuff this strangely ominous sense of doom.

As night creeps in the faces start to haunt me. An English gentleman, a waif, a Jacobin, a reformer, a ship hand, a pioneer bent on killing a village of natives, a soldier delirious from battle and wandering far from the field, they start slowly, like a haunted parade. Yet soon they rush in, old faces, young faces, all surprised and angry and pleading with their eyes to be spared. I can’t shut my eyes and make the visions stop. The Canadian, the hippie, the Italian who liked to steal old ladies’ purses (so that’s what pizza tastes like?), the hitchhiker, the burglar, the business man from New York who thought he was going to get a neat little liaison, the law student, that big, dumb lawyer, the ski racer, the lot of them assail me with their faces.

“That is why!!” I shout into the air. “That is why I stopped! That is why I want to be the one to die now!!”

“I am weary of your baleful whingeing and self-deprivation.” Is all I hear back from the darkness. And so, all goes silent.

The phone rings. It echoes foreboding through the house. I reach for the receiver feeling it burn in my hand.

“Reverend Eleanor” says a panicked voice from inside the line. “You have to come quick, it’s Jones.”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Missy! Your chaplain!” The upset voice sounds hurt.

“Calm down Missy, tell me what has happened.”

“We don’t know! We don’t know but it looks awful and he’s dead! Something killed him! There’s demons in his house I tell you! You got to come over and cast out the witches and demons! It’s terrible! I tell you you got to get over here!

I can’t slap her through the phone. Maybe by the next century they’ll do something to perfect that. “Missy!! Get a hold of yourself! You’re talking nonsense! Now what do you see?”

“It’s terrible! It’s pure evil!” And thenceforth she is merely incoherent and tearful. Shit.

“ok! Ok! I’m coming right over. I’m coming to Jones house? Is that it?”

“yes! Yes! Come quick!”

“ok, I’m on my way. Try to stay calm and stay with other people. Don’t let anyone wander off on their own. Do you understand?”

“y-yes.”

“Good, I’m on my way.”

Where my advice comes from I’m not even sure. But, I have a feeling from the sound of her voice that I know what I’ll find. Dammit! Why Jones? He was such a sweet man!

I can see my destination from a good mile off. It’s a bright square of police lights and emergency floods like a postage stamp on the black night. As I arrive the people who have gathered rush toward me. I try to calm them down and find the police.

“Good evening officer. I’m Reverend Eleanor Durat from the Unitarian church in Farmersville. I got a call to come over here.”

“You know Mr. Jones?”

“Yes, I visited him weekly. I brought him food and we’d sit and talk.”

“When’s the last time you were over here?”

“Just this afternoon. I brought him a chicken dinner and removed the pile of cans he had in his kitchen.”

“you notice anything funny about the place while you were here Reverend?”

“Nothing funny just…” the officer leans in as if I might be withholding some valuable detail. “Only a murder of ravens gathering in the back yard. We don’t usually see those around here.”

“hm!” He seems awfully disappointed with my contribution.

“May I see him?”

“What?”

“May I see Jones? Some people here have called and asked me to cast out demons.” I hold up a Bible and a bottle of water for him to see. No one needs to know that it’s just evian.

“you say you were here just this afternoon?” He holds his face in the same pinched, pug like expression he looks at the bottle and looks at me.

“Yes, not even eight hours ago.”

“Well, come take a look” he raises the police tape blocking entry. “Just keep in mind that this is a murder scene. Do not touch anything. I’m going to have to ask you to put these booties on your shoes so no evidence gets destroyed.”

The scene inside the house is ghastly. Tables are upturned, furniture is ripped and upended, curtains are stripped from their rods as if clawed off by giant hands. I can only gasp and look around in surprise. “It didn’t look like this!” I keep repeating this as I pass shelves whose books have been thrown to the ground, a busted TV, and holes punched into the walls.

“This way.” The cop steers me toward the bedroom. Amidst the fluttering bits of cotton batting and springs a torn open mattress belches into the room, lies old Jones. Naked, spread eagled on the floor his chest has been carved open and he holds his heart in his own left hand. Entrails spill out of the body cavity. He has been castrated and I don’t want to know where that part went. His bones are broken.

My eyes slam shut from shock. The scene is just so, it’s so OLD. I haven’t seen a man die with his body beaten and drawn in such a manner in almost 200 years. Who would even think to do such a thing? But as I contemplate this, my spine goes cold. I open my eyes and survey the scene again. Something is exactly wrong.

“There’s no blood.”

“What?” One of the officers turns to look at me.

“There should be blood. There is no blood.”

Those who have been dusting and photographing at a distance to avoid coming too near now draw in. “Holy shit, she’s right.”

I step over the debris to come near, standing next to my old friend’s body. I bend down and gently take his head between my palms. Looking up briefly at the officers for acknowledgement I slowly turn his head to face the other direction. On his neck appear two neat little poke marks, just a thumb’s length apart. I hear the room reacting. But with my ears that hear no human sound comes another voice.

“Hello – MUMMY!!”