City of Morelia
Perhaps what I will remember most about Morelia is the constant ring of church bells across the city. At night I lay and listen as they sing to each other throughout the city like the creatures in the Zocalo treetops -- competing with one another, verse after verse, in an attempt to make their song heard above the noise of the bustling streets.
Mexico City
I am well on my way to "drunk," with my step-brother, in a small rooftop cafe, overlooking the biggest city in the world. You'll be so inspired, Big Ryan said to me...
City of Oaxaca
Cold showers in the morning sun. A seven hour bus ride with two Danish girls. Clouds so close -- pretty sure I could whisper and God would hear. Walking by an open window and have to stop at the sound of dozens of little school children yelling for their teacher's attention. Breakfast with a guy name Mike, from Seattle, and eggs with cheese, covered in a red sauce that tastes like nothing I've ever tasted. And an Internet cafe with a picture of the Space Needle on the wall next to a small sign that reads, in English, We don't speak English!!! And attached to the Samsung desktop computer below the sign is a mouse pad with a graphic of Mickey himself on it.
City of Oaxaca
Met a German named Simon who is twenty and lost his bag on the flight from Berlin to Mexico City. Met a Polish girl name Alexandra who loves Thievery Corporation and who wrote poetry in another language in my journal. Met a Kiwi (from New Zealand) who is dating a guy named Craig that reminds me of a guy back home named Chris Swisher. Met two Danish girls who stop every conversation around them when they laugh. Met another German named Andy who had his appendix removed in Guatemala. Met a Brit named Tony who we called "Bullet Tooth" and who paid fifty pesos for a tattoo in Central America. Met two German girls who were both vegetarians. Met a guy named Mike from Seattle who bought grasshoppers for all of us to snack on. Met two girls from Boston who hate the Yankees. Met a guy from New York who barged into our room at four AM, drunk, and got into a fist fight with one of our sleeping hostel flat-mates...
City of San Cristobal del las Casas
Moments of consciousness on a twelve hour bus ride. I think I just saw a whorehouse, Brandon says. And then we are winding down narrow mountain roads. And then I see lightning storms that flash from behind distant peaks to light up the clear sky above us. And then we are stopped at an oasis of lights, a small bus terminal, that is surrounded by the darkness of night. I wonder if we can get out, Brandon says. I shrug and close my eyes again. When I open them we are still at a small bus terminal, surrounded by darkness, but this time I see Brandon outside, walking back and forth and stretching. And then I realize that it is a different bus terminal, that three hours has passed since I last looked. And then we are winding along again. It is getting light and I can now see some of the richest colors -- reds and blues from the sky with every shade of green the Jumbo Crayon Box ever had to offer below. And there is this fog straight out of a fairytale -- white, thick pillows of fog that seem to steal the pre-dawn light and trap it within, creating an unearthly glow of morning purity. And then later, long after the twelve hour night bus, when writing about the pre-dawn world of San Cristobal... I still feel a shiver brush down my neck and across my arms at the memory of the images I have stolen from this magical land.
City of San Cristobal del las Casas
Have you ever seen one? Brandon points to a colorful depiction of Zapatistas standing in a corn field. Have I ever seen one, asks the guy working the desk at the hostel. Yeah, Brandon says, a Zapatista? His name is Fernando and his hands begin to nervously play with a pen. Yeah, I've seen one or two, he says. I saw them take the Zocalo, the town square, in '97, he says. And I saw truck loads of their dead bodies being hauled away after the army came and pushed them back out to the small villages around here.
Really, Brandon asks. Yeah, he says, we had to go hideout in my house (he points to his left) and from my upstairs I could see the... he pauses... how do you say... artillery? He says. We could see it as the army pushed them into the jungle. It was pretty amazing, he says. There were still bodies laying in ditches along the side of the road for a long time, he says. He looks away now but continues to fidget with his pen. Wow, Brandon says. Yeah man, Fernando says. There was a lot of death. The army even went into the hospitals, where these guys were laying there that had been shot in the arm or in the leg, and they would just walk along all the beds and... He can't go on with the story but he makes a gun with his thumb and index finger and points it downward, then recoils, then points it down again, and so on.
That must have been quite a terrible experience, Brandon says. Yeah man, he agrees slowly. We had a curfew and everything. If you were out past six they would shoot you. It is quiet for a moment. Wow, Brandon says with a whistle. There seems to be nothing else to say. Yeah man, Fernando says again. And now he's moving again, like the movement helps distract him from what he doesn't want to remember. Well, thanks for sharing that with us, Brandon says. No problem, he says. And then we walk out for breakfast. We walk for a while without saying anything. And then Brandon says to me, So should we eat breakfast at the same place or should we try something new?
The Other Half (Between San Cristobal and Palenque)
I wish you could be here
Brother, with me
In Mexico.
Every picture
Is missing its other half.
And for every empty
Beer, there sits
One unopened.
Someday, my brother,
You and your son, and me --
We will see the world.
Because today
I realized that seeing the world
Without you is like
Letting the world see
Only half of me.
Mayan Ruins at Palenque
What a moment this is. To be sitting under a thatched roof. Having a cigarette. In the middle of the jungle. With huge drops of rain flooding from the unseen sky. And a Santana song being plucked on an electric guitar and amplified by a ten inch speaker. While I scribble down pieces of tomorrow's memory. By the flickering light of a hand crafted candle.
Mayan Ruins at Palenque
Arrived around ten. Sopping wet. Slapping at mosquito's already. Thought comes to mind again that we still have no Malaria pills. Cross my fingers between slaps. Spot two Aussie girls we met in San Cristobal and one of them leads us down a trail through the jungle to find an open room. First place we find has nothing left. So we cross a river but the second place is full too. Finally we bump into this guy who can't habla Engles pero tienes dos mas... He shows us the rooms. We cuss and swear at our luck and then we pay him. He leaves. We drop our bags and go have a beer with the two Aussie girls. Just as we settle into a table we are asked to move the table back. Then two performers play the bongos while two more dance with burning torches. I finish my Corona. I'm not feeling 100%, still recovering from food poisoning two days earlier and the Corona didn't help. The place is shutting down and we all say goodnight. We walk through the jungle. It is coming alive with sounds of the night -- crickets maybe, birds, screaming monkeys... and a drunken local playing guitar and singing. We pass him on the way. The smell of weed wafts from the bar at which he plays. Hippies with dreadlocks hanging from beanies sing along. We get to our rooms, turn on the light and in unison both scream. The guy next door comes over and swats the massive roach with his boot. So we climb into bed, wrap up in our sheets and try not to think about all the wildlife that is sharing our room with us. But then we can't sleep because this drunk, and very high, local is belting out "Hotel California" for all he's worth. Brandon and I can't help it and we break into uncontrollable laughter. Then the local covers a Beatles song. And John Lennon's "Imagine" after that. He may have just nearly ruined the song forever and now I'm really starting to feel sick again, like the food poisoning is coming back. I walk to the bathroom. That doesn't help so I stand out behind our room until I get the dry-heaves. I give up on feeling better all together and decide to go to bed and fight the nausea laying down. I lay there, cursing the Corona, until I finally get tired enough to forget about being sick and then I fall asleep.
City of Playa del Carmen
Submerged in water -
Warm, salty, Caribbean.
Face up,
Watching - stars, lights
Of Cozumel, shadows
Of night. Water
Muffles sounds - of Brandon
The girls, drunk
American tourists and trendy
American music.
Can only hear
The sound of my heart
Pumping alcohol through
My bloodstream.
This moment feels
Spiritual - so quiet I think
I might be able to hear
A still, small
Voice. So I ask
And then I wait,
And I wait.
Then I feel it.
I don't hear it but
A chill washes through me, like
A wave - not a crashing
One but a rolling wave -
The words, I love
And then, you.
City of Playa del Carmen
This is truly paradise. White sands, Caribbean blue stretching out to the horizon and colliding there with the soft colors of the sky. A stiff, salty breeze and my hammock hanging in the shade of palm trees just feet from the surf. Three kids play contentedly, running back and forth between sand and waves, one of the little nino's shorts working their way down his legs as he runs. To the side the rest of the family has thrown up a couple of their own hammocks and sit in the shade playing with cards.
Just off shore, tied to a buoy, sits a small fishing boat with three friends laughing over a cooler of beer, waiting for the evening to head out once more and earn their day's keep. I suddenly think that if I were Cameron Gray... I might not ever return home either.
City of San Cristobal del las Casas (2n time, on our way from Playa Del Carmen to Puerto Angel)
I stand alone, a cigarette in my left hand, outside the small brick building that serves as the San Cristobal bus station, shivering in the chilled, rainy mist of the mountain air (in stark contrast to the warm Caribbean breezes) and I watch two brothers as they shove each other in laughter at their mother's side. They both carry small braids across one arm and cling to miniature baskets that hold little wooden carvings with their other hand. The two boys are mini-me versions of their mother. They follow her as she pedals her own armful of wares, lost in their own private game as they "work."
Back in a nearby village their father, and perhaps even an older brother or two, work the fields or some other task worthy of a man. And someday these two boys will leave their mother's side and join the world of men. Someday they will be forced, out of necessity, to toil endlessly in a field or with armfuls of bricks on some muddy hillside so that a light skinned Spaniard, or even a Gringo, can sit back and enjoy the life of the blessed upper class. And because of all this, or perhaps in spite of it, the endless attempt by one people to break the fee spirits of another people -- these two boys may someday pull long black masks over their faces and drape belts of ammunition across their chests and take up the rusty old weapons of already fallen comrades to follow in the footsteps of El Che. Or perhaps one of them will meet a girl earlier in life and have a family with her. And because of this family he will instead join the Policia de San Cristobal or the Mexican Army. And then these two brothers would be on opposite sides of an age old conflict, like Jacob and Esau, and then maybe someday these two brothers would unwittingly, or even knowingly, take up arms against one another...
But for now these two boys know nothing, nor care for, such complications of life in the state of Chiappas. They are content to laugh, arm in arm, as they spend just another routine day beside their loving mother.
And as I finish my cigarette, flicking it into the puddle at my feet, I suddenly feel an ache within me. An ache for my little brother and for my mother -- for the days when it was only the three of us. Those times when we would ride horses through the woods of our mother's childhood, or when we would follow her -- race behind her -- as she would lead us down the ski slopes toward lunch. Those times on the road, the three of us telling stories, singing and playing games. What a beautiful time in a broken childhood that was. A time when my brother and I knew nothing, nor cared for, the cruel reality that can be life. A time when our days were as simple as sharing a laugh about some private game, arm in arm, as we spent just another routine day with our loving mother.
City of Zipolite
This is a place to come to write a book, I said to Brandon. Later that day I met a guy from Colorado who works as a ski instructor during the winter and who lives here the rest of the year. There is actually several people who are writers who live her, he said to me.
Got me to thinking. What would I write, I wonder, if I actually came to a place like this, if I actually forced myself to finish something for once. It would be a story of two brothers, this I already know, have known for years now. It would be a tragedy too. But it would be a tragedy that gives birth to hope, to inspiration even. Yes, it would be a tragedy that is not -- or rather does not allow itself, to be just that -- a tragedy. The story is there, always there, just under the surface -- hiding, brooding, growing into its own. But I can never seem to grasp hold of it. It is as elusive as happiness itself -- a cliche, I know. But all the same, it is true. Perhaps a setting such as this would indeed help me to find it -- to find them both. Or perhaps only time will coax it from its lair. Never the less, this place really is a place you could come to write a book. If time is the answer, perhaps I will someday return here to do just that.
City of Zipolite
Walking on sand, by the light of a half moon, through ominous barriers of rocks and then you see it. In a soft Mezcal glow, the candlelight dots the elevated sands of a private fairy tale beach called the Alchemista. Stretching up and off to the left, the candlelight winds, like an iridescent serpent, and then nestles itself into the mouth of what can only be a Mexican Camelot -- reborn high on the cliffs, among palms that guard watch over this Pacific hideaway. The soft electronic sounds of a group you will hunt down months later on the Internet because of this very moment are hypnotizing and you sit, sipping your Bohemia in contented silence, on a piece of drift wood suspended by rope next to the bar. Hours later, as you fall asleep in your hammock, perched high in your own little castle, the world begins to fade far away. It fades, and fades, until all you are left with -- all you can see -- are those hundreds of candles. And then you dream.
City of Zipolite
Why are young men consumed by dreams of what will someday be? And old men consumed with stories of what have been?
There are two very different forces here: hope, and fear. Hope for what can be seen in this life, felt in this life, experienced in this life; and fear for none of it being enough, for none of it really mattering -- fear for leaving no legacy, for living a life that made no difference. These two forces work in opposition, like the waves of a mighty ocean, colliding with powerful under currents and shooting skyward -- reaching toward heaven in search of the truth, the reason for all of this. And like the necessary balance between wave and undertow, there seems to be no way to out think the transition from hope to fear, from young to old.
City of Puerto Escondido
Can't get myself to write anything. Won't give in to the journaling. Want to write about waves, a surf board, plans of a sailboat over a beer, surf girls that wear trucker hats and big sunglasses. Want to write about pro surfers, and walking barefoot everyday, the sunsets, the new friendships, the plans and the regrets. Want to capture the view from our hostel -- the palms, the white domed rooftops, the green hills, the sand and the blue Pacific Ocean. Want to capture the view from out beyond the break of the surf -- the jumping schools of fish all around, the steady lull of rolling waves, a Swiss girl -- I think her name was Petra, sitting on her board next to you, the city spreading out in front of you, two locals hurling themselves into flips off of sand dunes.
Want to write about all this -- feelings are so strong I could write a book on all this. But I can't. Only days left now, maybe that's why. Time running out. Best save the writing for the cold fog of the Walla Walla Valley. Best get some breakfast, grab my board and head for the surf.
North of Puerto Escondido (a small village with amazing an amazing surf break)
My friends will never understand, I say to the German girl laying in another hammock beside my own. Even if I try to describe it, I say, they just won't understand. By this I mean the safari trip to get to this place -- the small boat, laden with fruits, vegetables, eggs, a chicken, an old woman and her young son and six, white, excited backpackers with surf boards; and then the pickup truck that wouldn't run, that we had to push start; and then the ride in the back of this truck, down a rough, dirt road; and how Simon and I climbed out the back and stood up above the truck bed roof, the wind in our faces, the beach to our left and strange buffalo all around us, holding on for our lives and yelling with the innocent, wide-eyed excitement of small boys. By this I mean the modest village of huts that sit on the beach and the mixture of brown and black in the children who play just down the beach. By this I mean the twelve to fifteen foot swells crashing only feet from our hammocks and how the sun rises over the water to our left and sets over the water to our right, and how the sun paints the sky in both it's rise and its fall -- in reds and pinks that are so common to a tropical sunset.
And by saying this -- that no one will ever understand, I mean also the quick, natural friendships that have been forged between travelers, strangers and kindred souls. No, my friends will never understand, I say again, and Brandon begins to whistle in the background, I'm in heaven... In heaven...
That night I awake in a cold sweat -- shivering and damp. And it happens several times. But then Martin, the Austrian guy in another hammock next to me, wakes me up. Look, he says. And when I do I see a giant orb of red, still half buried by the Pacific Ocean, cresting the horizon in a single moment of pure brilliance that stretches on for what seems like an eternity. Neither of us says anything and as I roll over in search of one more hour of sleep I notice that I am no longer wet and no longer shivering.
City of Puerto Escondido
Bar Fly, on the roof,
The Milky Way
Overhead. DJ spins
Downstairs - drum and bass.
A low table, pillows,
A hookah,
With Manzana flavored tobacco
And nine new friends.
Feeling of being back
Home,
At the Green Lantern
With the boys.
And a girl -
Is there always a girl?
From Holland,
With dark skin, and still
Darker eyes
Who is twenty-eight and works
With children at risk
In Amsterdam.
Feelings of driving
To Portland
And what its like
To talk to a friend,
Who is a girl,
For three hours without
An awkward
Pause.
The beach,
With two cold Dos XX,
Brandon and Simon,
An Austrian named Martin,
Two Swiss guys and
Two German girls who smile
In the darkness.
Surrounded by fishing boats
And covered by a blanket of
Stars overhead.
And a feeling of night,
Walking alone,
Smoking a cigarette and then one more.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Through the Years -- High School and Earlier
Goodbye Grandpa (Spring of '98)
When it rains it pours... the words to a song I had never heard before that day. Somehow they seemed fitting as I sat on my Shorty's skateboard in the middle of a deserted Tacoma skate park and watched it rain. I sat next to my little brother, watching cars splash by on the street and pretended that the drops of water that ran down my face were tears -- tears that would take away the blood that pounded through my head. I could still hear my dad's voice breaking as he had tried to tell me the bad news. Ryan... my dad died... The words haunted me as I sat there, hoping the rain could drown out the aching feeling in my chest, trying all the while to picture my grandpa's face.
"Screw this rain." My little brother, Shane, said.
I looked at him. His face was wet as well; I wondered if it was only the rain. He sat next to me, his "skateboarding is not a crime" hat loosely fit backwards -- he looked just like cousin Jay as he stared up at the falling rain. It hurt to watch him, like it had hurt to listen to my dad cry on the phone. I forced myself to watch him, forced myself to feel the pain, and still no tears came. What the hell is wrong with me, I thought to myself.
Finally I looked away from Shane, and stopped trying. I watched the cars again and wished that we had been able to find someone in the parking lot earlier to buy us some Boones.
"Fuck it." I said. "I'm gonna skate anyway. Rain or no rain."
Shane nodded and we both jumped on our boards. My body burned with adrenaline as I skated. There was an intensity, a passion, in those few minutes -- skating in the pouring rain, that I had never felt before. The faster I skated the flats, the higher I climbed the quarter pipe walls, the harder my bare arms and hands scraped against the wet pavement, the less I thought about grandpa. We skated until night came. Then, soaked, bloody and exhausted, we got in our car and silently fled the park.
It was still raining as we drove through Tacoma, taking the long way to the Interstate. Car headlights, a Chevron station, a Motel 6, even the soft glow of stoplights seemed to glare through the fogged up windows of our '85 Ford Tempo. I suddenly felt like I was in the middle of a dream. In the wet, foggy glare of the city nothing seemed real. The Smashing Pumpkin's song, Disarm, played from our stock stereo deck and I tried to convince myself that nobody had died, that this was all a dream. We hit the Interstate and I smiled at the dream world that was surrounded me. I was no longer driving, but now flying -- weaving my way through traffic in slow motion, every moment an eternity. And then Shane yelled, "cop!"
Just like that my dream ended. As I passed a Washington State Patrol car sitting in the dark on the side of the freeway I looked down at my speedometer. It read 85 mph.
"Shit." I said.
"Is he coming?" My brother asked.
I looked in my mirror and watched as the cop pulled onto the freeway, the words to the song I had heard this morning coming back to me. "When it rains it pours."
"Shit." I said again.
Shane looked back, and said, "Yep, he's three cars back. We're screwed."
"Not if I can help it." I said.
"Is there anybody in the next lane?" I asked him.
"No. You're clear all the way over." He said, reading my mind.
Hoping that the heavy traffic behind me would hide my maneuver, I swerved across four lanes, just barely catching the off-ramp in time. Once we got off the freeway I headed for a BP station a block away. As I whipped the car around the back of the building, I said, "C'mon bro, I'll buy you a coffee or something."
As we went inside I looked for the cop but didn't see him. Shane opened the door for me.
"Damn, that was close." He said.
"Too close." I echoed.
After we bought our coffee and sat in the parking lot for a couple of minutes, we started home again. We didn't see any more cops but we did drive the speed limit the rest of the way. As I drove with the stock radio on softly -- if we turned it up any louder you would hear the blown speaker buzz in the back -- I tried to again find the dreamy existence in which I was able to fly. Only this time it all seemed to real and all I could think about was how I had never heard my dad break down like that before and how I didn't want to have to see it when I got home. It wasn't until I went to bed late that night -- my chest still aching from the stress of the day, my eyes still dammed up -- that I finally found my dream world once again.
Straight Edge (Fall of '97)
"Hey bro, you ever had one of these?"
I looked up from my potato salad, fork in hand, to see what my cousin, Jay, was talking about.
"What's up?" I asked him. He tossed a pack of cigarettes at me and then lit the one he had taken for himself.
"Kools. Ever had one?" He said as he inhaled. I watched him hold it in, like it was a blunt, like it was the last breath he would ever take.
"It's good shit." He said, still holding in his breath. Finally he breathed out a long cloud of cigarette smoke and I looked at the pack lying on the picnic table in front of me.
"Can't say I've ever had one. What's so great about them?" I asked. Jay sucked in another deep breath.
"Just try one." He said. I put down my fork and took the pack of smokes.
"You need a light?" He asked. I searched my swim trunks.
"Yeah, I must have lost mine." I said to him. He tossed me his lighter, a yellow Bic.
"Mellow Yellow." He said, sucking in another breath of smoke. I looked at his cigarette. It was almost gone already.
"Whose are these?" I asked him, lifting a cigarette to my lips.
"Aunt Patty's." He said. "They're the best menthols out there." I lifted the lighter and turned slightly to shield the wind.
"Damn wind." I muttered. I had never smoked a menthol before.
"Yeah," he laughed. "Gotta love these killer Columbia Gorge winds. C'mon, let's take a walk." He said, jumping up from a lawn chair. "The boat won't be back for a while still and I'm sick of sitting on my ass."
I finally lit my cigarette, then ran barefoot to catch up to him.
"How do you like that smoke?" He said to me.
"Yeah, it rocks." I said. I took another drag and held it in like my cousin had. The brand name said it all. It tasted like I was smoking wintergreen gum.
We walked in silence after that, enjoying the late summer day, the afternoon wind swirling empty bags of chips and paper plates into an awkward sort of dance that followed us through the Riverfront Park. The sun had set low enough to cast shadows across the grassy park and we had to walk around them to keep in the warm sunlight. Finally I finished my cigarette and now wished that I had brought the entire pack with us.
"Damn, bro." Jay said. "It feels good to be clean." He had just gotten out of treatment last week.
I smiled. It felt good to hear him say that. I had been clean for six months or so and I was stoked that we were both clean. We had spent every day together that week -- riding motorcycles, skating, staying up late, talking, smoking... It had been just like old times. As I walked along the windy bank of the Columbia River with him now I wished that the week would never end.
"Straight edge." He said, jumping up onto a picnic table. "Only way to go, bro." I jumped up next to him and a squirrel ran out from under the table. Picking up a pine cone that sat on top of the weathered table, I flung it sidearm after him.
"Did you know that NOFX is a straight edge band?" Jay asked. I shook my head and watched as the squirrel stopped and came back to check out the cone I had chucked at him.
"No." I said. "Never knew that. I love that band though."
I could hear a smile in Jay's voice. "Yeah, we had some great times listening to that band." He said.
"Hell yeah." I said, looking back at my cousin.
"You remember that time we got drunk and went bowling in Seattle?" He said.
"Of course I do." I said. "That was the first time I ever heard them." It was also the first time I had ever been drunk. "You remember that porno with Terri Hatcher that was on TV in the hotel room that night?" I said.
He grinned. "Holy shit, that was classic." He said and we both laughed.
We then started singing our favorite NOFX songs after that. We stood on top of a worn out picnic table, the sun disappearing from the clear sky, the wind creating small tornadoes of garbage and screamed out NOFX at the canyon walls across the river until the boat came back to shore. It was a moment of innocent happiness, a moment that neither of us wanted to end, a moment that I -- and I think Jay too -- will always remember with a smile. But in the end it was only a moment.
Dream (Sometime Between '96-'97)
Life is a cigarette
Cradled in fate's hands.
It is my cigarette,
My fate,
My hands.
Such peace
I find in its breath,
Quieting life,
Awakening beauty,
Reminding me of you.
It whispers to dream,
Dream me alive,
Dream away pain,
Dream you are here,
Just dream.
Death Took Me for a Walk (Sometime Between '94-'95)
Death took me for a walk.
It would not reveal to me where
We were headed, or why.
But then again,
Death never does. As we walked,
Death showed me many things.
I saw a tree
On which hung delicious fruit.
But at it base
Dead grass grew.
I saw a young child laughing
Next to him an old woman in tears.
Where can this be,
I dared to ask.
It cannot be heaven
For a see pain and sadness.
But would hell hold
A young innocent child within?
This is life,
Is what Death said.
It holds within the key
To joy and the key to pain.
It is up to you
Which you will choose.
When it rains it pours... the words to a song I had never heard before that day. Somehow they seemed fitting as I sat on my Shorty's skateboard in the middle of a deserted Tacoma skate park and watched it rain. I sat next to my little brother, watching cars splash by on the street and pretended that the drops of water that ran down my face were tears -- tears that would take away the blood that pounded through my head. I could still hear my dad's voice breaking as he had tried to tell me the bad news. Ryan... my dad died... The words haunted me as I sat there, hoping the rain could drown out the aching feeling in my chest, trying all the while to picture my grandpa's face.
"Screw this rain." My little brother, Shane, said.
I looked at him. His face was wet as well; I wondered if it was only the rain. He sat next to me, his "skateboarding is not a crime" hat loosely fit backwards -- he looked just like cousin Jay as he stared up at the falling rain. It hurt to watch him, like it had hurt to listen to my dad cry on the phone. I forced myself to watch him, forced myself to feel the pain, and still no tears came. What the hell is wrong with me, I thought to myself.
Finally I looked away from Shane, and stopped trying. I watched the cars again and wished that we had been able to find someone in the parking lot earlier to buy us some Boones.
"Fuck it." I said. "I'm gonna skate anyway. Rain or no rain."
Shane nodded and we both jumped on our boards. My body burned with adrenaline as I skated. There was an intensity, a passion, in those few minutes -- skating in the pouring rain, that I had never felt before. The faster I skated the flats, the higher I climbed the quarter pipe walls, the harder my bare arms and hands scraped against the wet pavement, the less I thought about grandpa. We skated until night came. Then, soaked, bloody and exhausted, we got in our car and silently fled the park.
It was still raining as we drove through Tacoma, taking the long way to the Interstate. Car headlights, a Chevron station, a Motel 6, even the soft glow of stoplights seemed to glare through the fogged up windows of our '85 Ford Tempo. I suddenly felt like I was in the middle of a dream. In the wet, foggy glare of the city nothing seemed real. The Smashing Pumpkin's song, Disarm, played from our stock stereo deck and I tried to convince myself that nobody had died, that this was all a dream. We hit the Interstate and I smiled at the dream world that was surrounded me. I was no longer driving, but now flying -- weaving my way through traffic in slow motion, every moment an eternity. And then Shane yelled, "cop!"
Just like that my dream ended. As I passed a Washington State Patrol car sitting in the dark on the side of the freeway I looked down at my speedometer. It read 85 mph.
"Shit." I said.
"Is he coming?" My brother asked.
I looked in my mirror and watched as the cop pulled onto the freeway, the words to the song I had heard this morning coming back to me. "When it rains it pours."
"Shit." I said again.
Shane looked back, and said, "Yep, he's three cars back. We're screwed."
"Not if I can help it." I said.
"Is there anybody in the next lane?" I asked him.
"No. You're clear all the way over." He said, reading my mind.
Hoping that the heavy traffic behind me would hide my maneuver, I swerved across four lanes, just barely catching the off-ramp in time. Once we got off the freeway I headed for a BP station a block away. As I whipped the car around the back of the building, I said, "C'mon bro, I'll buy you a coffee or something."
As we went inside I looked for the cop but didn't see him. Shane opened the door for me.
"Damn, that was close." He said.
"Too close." I echoed.
After we bought our coffee and sat in the parking lot for a couple of minutes, we started home again. We didn't see any more cops but we did drive the speed limit the rest of the way. As I drove with the stock radio on softly -- if we turned it up any louder you would hear the blown speaker buzz in the back -- I tried to again find the dreamy existence in which I was able to fly. Only this time it all seemed to real and all I could think about was how I had never heard my dad break down like that before and how I didn't want to have to see it when I got home. It wasn't until I went to bed late that night -- my chest still aching from the stress of the day, my eyes still dammed up -- that I finally found my dream world once again.
Straight Edge (Fall of '97)
"Hey bro, you ever had one of these?"
I looked up from my potato salad, fork in hand, to see what my cousin, Jay, was talking about.
"What's up?" I asked him. He tossed a pack of cigarettes at me and then lit the one he had taken for himself.
"Kools. Ever had one?" He said as he inhaled. I watched him hold it in, like it was a blunt, like it was the last breath he would ever take.
"It's good shit." He said, still holding in his breath. Finally he breathed out a long cloud of cigarette smoke and I looked at the pack lying on the picnic table in front of me.
"Can't say I've ever had one. What's so great about them?" I asked. Jay sucked in another deep breath.
"Just try one." He said. I put down my fork and took the pack of smokes.
"You need a light?" He asked. I searched my swim trunks.
"Yeah, I must have lost mine." I said to him. He tossed me his lighter, a yellow Bic.
"Mellow Yellow." He said, sucking in another breath of smoke. I looked at his cigarette. It was almost gone already.
"Whose are these?" I asked him, lifting a cigarette to my lips.
"Aunt Patty's." He said. "They're the best menthols out there." I lifted the lighter and turned slightly to shield the wind.
"Damn wind." I muttered. I had never smoked a menthol before.
"Yeah," he laughed. "Gotta love these killer Columbia Gorge winds. C'mon, let's take a walk." He said, jumping up from a lawn chair. "The boat won't be back for a while still and I'm sick of sitting on my ass."
I finally lit my cigarette, then ran barefoot to catch up to him.
"How do you like that smoke?" He said to me.
"Yeah, it rocks." I said. I took another drag and held it in like my cousin had. The brand name said it all. It tasted like I was smoking wintergreen gum.
We walked in silence after that, enjoying the late summer day, the afternoon wind swirling empty bags of chips and paper plates into an awkward sort of dance that followed us through the Riverfront Park. The sun had set low enough to cast shadows across the grassy park and we had to walk around them to keep in the warm sunlight. Finally I finished my cigarette and now wished that I had brought the entire pack with us.
"Damn, bro." Jay said. "It feels good to be clean." He had just gotten out of treatment last week.
I smiled. It felt good to hear him say that. I had been clean for six months or so and I was stoked that we were both clean. We had spent every day together that week -- riding motorcycles, skating, staying up late, talking, smoking... It had been just like old times. As I walked along the windy bank of the Columbia River with him now I wished that the week would never end.
"Straight edge." He said, jumping up onto a picnic table. "Only way to go, bro." I jumped up next to him and a squirrel ran out from under the table. Picking up a pine cone that sat on top of the weathered table, I flung it sidearm after him.
"Did you know that NOFX is a straight edge band?" Jay asked. I shook my head and watched as the squirrel stopped and came back to check out the cone I had chucked at him.
"No." I said. "Never knew that. I love that band though."
I could hear a smile in Jay's voice. "Yeah, we had some great times listening to that band." He said.
"Hell yeah." I said, looking back at my cousin.
"You remember that time we got drunk and went bowling in Seattle?" He said.
"Of course I do." I said. "That was the first time I ever heard them." It was also the first time I had ever been drunk. "You remember that porno with Terri Hatcher that was on TV in the hotel room that night?" I said.
He grinned. "Holy shit, that was classic." He said and we both laughed.
We then started singing our favorite NOFX songs after that. We stood on top of a worn out picnic table, the sun disappearing from the clear sky, the wind creating small tornadoes of garbage and screamed out NOFX at the canyon walls across the river until the boat came back to shore. It was a moment of innocent happiness, a moment that neither of us wanted to end, a moment that I -- and I think Jay too -- will always remember with a smile. But in the end it was only a moment.
Dream (Sometime Between '96-'97)
Life is a cigarette
Cradled in fate's hands.
It is my cigarette,
My fate,
My hands.
Such peace
I find in its breath,
Quieting life,
Awakening beauty,
Reminding me of you.
It whispers to dream,
Dream me alive,
Dream away pain,
Dream you are here,
Just dream.
Death Took Me for a Walk (Sometime Between '94-'95)
Death took me for a walk.
It would not reveal to me where
We were headed, or why.
But then again,
Death never does. As we walked,
Death showed me many things.
I saw a tree
On which hung delicious fruit.
But at it base
Dead grass grew.
I saw a young child laughing
Next to him an old woman in tears.
Where can this be,
I dared to ask.
It cannot be heaven
For a see pain and sadness.
But would hell hold
A young innocent child within?
This is life,
Is what Death said.
It holds within the key
To joy and the key to pain.
It is up to you
Which you will choose.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Through the Years -- A Piece of Published Work
No Other Picture (Published in the WWC Gadfly, '02-'03)
This boy sits, crossed legged on a hard wooden floor -- on the other side of the window, staring at a white canvas. Wet pools of color -- reds, yellows and blues lay next to him, drying minute-by-unused-minute. Screams of laughter pierce the thin glass that separates him from inspiration. Smoke from a cigar seeps through the closed window and within his reach; and he blinks, lowers his head and runs a clammy hand through his shaggy, uncombed hair because of it. He then glances around his studio-bedroom. There are dozens of paintings -- some on the wall, some merely resting against it on the hard wooden floor. All of them are of a girl... the same girl, really. The only difference in any of the paintings is the color of the girl's eyes. With a long, slow sigh the boy turns back to the white piece of canvas in front of him. A Harley roars by beneath his window and he runs his hand across the canvas -- feeling for something he can't manage to see, or hear, or smell; and yet something he knows to be there -- hidden, hiding. A band finishes their set and another begins their own at the small bar across the street. The same Harley rides by, going the other way this time, and still the boy searches the white canvas. Finally he gives up, letting his hand drop to the paints at his side. Knowing there is no other picture he can paint, the boy closes his eyes to remember, and picks up his brush. This time, he decides to begin with the eyes.
This boy sits, crossed legged on a hard wooden floor -- on the other side of the window, staring at a white canvas. Wet pools of color -- reds, yellows and blues lay next to him, drying minute-by-unused-minute. Screams of laughter pierce the thin glass that separates him from inspiration. Smoke from a cigar seeps through the closed window and within his reach; and he blinks, lowers his head and runs a clammy hand through his shaggy, uncombed hair because of it. He then glances around his studio-bedroom. There are dozens of paintings -- some on the wall, some merely resting against it on the hard wooden floor. All of them are of a girl... the same girl, really. The only difference in any of the paintings is the color of the girl's eyes. With a long, slow sigh the boy turns back to the white piece of canvas in front of him. A Harley roars by beneath his window and he runs his hand across the canvas -- feeling for something he can't manage to see, or hear, or smell; and yet something he knows to be there -- hidden, hiding. A band finishes their set and another begins their own at the small bar across the street. The same Harley rides by, going the other way this time, and still the boy searches the white canvas. Finally he gives up, letting his hand drop to the paints at his side. Knowing there is no other picture he can paint, the boy closes his eyes to remember, and picks up his brush. This time, he decides to begin with the eyes.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Through the Years -- Excerpts from 2000-2002
His Girl (5/13/00)
Pictures are being taken
Again of couples --
My brother with his.
Jen laughs at them,
Calls them sick
Then accuses my cousin
of never touching her
Like that anymore --
like my brother touches
His girl.
Dreams (10/12/00)
"Hell yeah." Cam said. "We'll do it for sure."
It was March, the snow was melting, girls were wearing less clothes -- it was as good a time as any for dreaming.
"We can take off in the late fall." I said. "And spend the winter along the Mediterranean somewhere."
Cam was single again, I had not yet met my now-ex-girlfriend and we were both dropping out of our classes.
"Then we can travel up north when it gets warmer." I said.
"Just you and me." Cam said.
"We have to do it." I said.
"For sure." Cam said.
It is late fall now. I am in Spokane, living with my mom. This week I found a job. Next I look for a car. Cam is here too, for now. He will soon go back to Walla Walla and I will stay here to dream alone.
Untitled (10/26/00)
It is just after ten AM, Thursday. Warm sunlight flashes across white Ford trucks. Air is frosty, snow is on it's way. Irish Cream and mocha, the usual, a used art textbook, notes, my journal. Mornings like this one -- coffee tastes better, soft background jazz sounds live. Blankets of leaves -- even death is warm and comforting in the fall. Was Seattle ever so colorful? All I can remember now is the rain.
What do I Want from Life at Age 20? (10/26/00)
I want to know God. Not my parent's God, not my church's God, not my ex-girlfriend's God. I want to know my God. I want to know people. I want to know friends. Not fuck-buddies, not party favors, not single servings, not lab partners, not weekend getaways. I want the boys. But I want my best friend to someday be a girl. I want reality, not Dazed & Confused. I'm tired of parties that won't end, one-night-stands, pretty-boys and daddy's-girls. I want life. I want to see the Mediterranean and the Irish coast. I want to live out of a backpack and not shave for six months. I want to live in a four bedroom house on South Hill, or in an apartment in West Seattle, with a view of the city skyline in my living room window. I want to drive a silver, or maybe a black, Audi S-4. I want a soul mate, not a wife. I want kids, but not until I am ready to leave the city lights and the rush hour traffic, or the Thursday night live jazz, or the weekends at Schweitzer, Mt Hood or Whistler-Blackcomb. Then I will be ready to "grow up." Then I will be ready to have a family, to teach freshman writing classes. Then I will be ready for the Volvo wagon, and a chocolate Lab, or a Golden Retriever. But not yet.
Untitled (11/07/00)
Sky is gray today, and cold, settling down like a crisp, newly-washed sheet. There was snow painted in patches of white on the hills above your house this morning. A bird flies overhead, chirps to stay warm I think, to remind itself that it must hurry now, that winter is coming.
You sip your mocha between drags off a clove cigarette. You smoke much like that bird's sharp chirp and think about your brother's offer. You wonder if it would be any different -- life? You?
You forget to sip your mocha, light another smoke instead. No wind this morning. Just the chill of an oncoming Eastern Washington winter. You'll be wearing your coat to town soon. When you can't take it anymore -- the frost on your face, your cigarette, the hippie couple wandering by... you go back inside.
Church (11/12/00)
As I drove home from work tonight I began to think about what happened in church earlier today, and about how that blubbering old fool -- with his gray beard and thick glasses, had sobbed his way through the alter of prayer, and about how we had all knelt there -- eyes closed and heads bowed, and how I had, between his sobs -- in those brief seconds of sniffled intermission, been oddly reminded of a time when I was ten and slept on my parents floor -- only to awaken in the cold, moon-lit bedroom to the sounds of their love making.
I don't know why exactly my thoughts went back to that night when I was ten and was too afraid to sleep in my own bed... Only that this sobbing wreck of a man was kneeling up at the front and that I wished he would just stop, even prayed that he would stop. Please. God. Stop.
Untitled (1/24/01)
Wednesday morning... well, almost afternoon now. Sun came out this morning - made the snow seem brighter, more pure, almost hopeful. You sit, alone at the Mercury Cafe, the usual in front of you -- Irish Cream mocha, journal, cigarettes. How have you been, asks the guy who made your coffee. The owner? You suddenly find it odd you have never learned his name. You really ought to pay more attention to these sort of things. Watching cars, dusty cars -- a Jeep, Subaru, Honda, a city bus -- reminds you again of the drive home from Seattle last night. Listening to Counting Crows as you climbed the mountain pass and headed East. Leads you to think of the movie, Snatch -- with Brad Pitt, for some reason. And of gypsies, rogues without a home. You are sympathetic. Not a bad road to travel... a security of it's own. Still, five hours on Interstate 90 in a civic... that drive never felt so long with Andy and Jason. Or with Shane. Or Brandon. The good thing about gypsies is that they travel in numbers, with Winnebago's, and dogs.
You watched 60 Minutes last night, killing time before you called your cousin, Matt... the story of the Dave Matthews Band. You laid on the couch, about to fall asleep. But a producer for the band said something that made you sit up, made you forget about how early you had to get up tomorrow morning. Most people wait for inspiration to strike them, he said. He grinned then, under his thin white beard, and said, you end up spending a whole lot of time waiting... You have to go in search of inspiration, he said. You nodded to yourself and then laid back down on the couch. That makes sense, you thought to yourself. And then you went to call Matt, and found out that Fawnia was is jail. A DWI, he said. Her second offense, you said. Damn, that sucks.
The sky is clouding over now. Even so, the businessman who strolls by your window smiles at you, or perhaps just to his own reflection. He smiles in spite of the clouds. Perhaps the sun is fading into a gray light that blankets this snow covered city, but he doesn't seem to notice. The glory of the morning sun is still fresh in our memories. For today it is enough -- the memory of a brilliant morning.
The College Church (2/26/01)
I have this recurring feeling, like a dream but less tangible. It is like I am at the College Church, after vespers. Everyone is there -- Zach, Brandon, Holley, Jeremy, Stefan, Cam and Marshal, Swisher is there, Giovanni, Mascarenas, Anni, her fiance. There are more too, like there always is after vespers at the College Church. I roam from circle to circle. There are hugs, handshakes, even kisses. They are all making plans, for tonight, for tomorrow, for next year. I am invited. But I can't go, I say. I have plans. Plans of my own. They can understand. I mean, after all, we all have to do what we have to do, right? There are more hugs now, more handshakes. Take it easy, I say. We'll miss you, they say. And I turn to leave. But once I leave the room I realize that I've used the wrong door. I'm in the bathroom now, or the sanctuary -- it doesn't matter. So now I have to go back inside. That's what matters. And here is the thing. This doesn't happen just once, or twice. After enough times nobody takes me seriously anymore. I am stuck in this room and I can't seem to find the door that leads away from here. And my biggest fear is that by the time I find the door I want it will be too late, that I will have given up on leaving all together, that I will have gone to Holley's or to Fackenthalls, with them, and their plans, not mine.
An Old Movie (3/09/01)
Sherry's restaurant. Sometime after 2 AM. You sit in a corner booth with your cousin and a girl you don't know. Drinking coffee and smoking. Reminds me of the good 'ole times, high school. When this was enough. Coffee. Black. Two ashtrays, three packs of Camels. Cell phones lying silent, a fact you are strangely OK with tonight. Chapstick. Lighters. Empty packets of sugar. Dust size pieces of ash that dance across the table when you laugh or when this strange girl sweeps her hand out and flicks habitually at the full ashtray. She tells you this -- that she is strange. Some story about her best friend calling her such. You make a smart ass comment about it and then she starts to tell another story. The seconds seem to slip into slow motion every time she smiles. It's an infectious smile and for the better part of the night the three of you are all just smiling stupidly at each other because of it. At some point you think this girl reminds you a lot of Rebekah.
Anyway. Hours pass and still the three of you just sit there. Talking. Smoking. And drinking coffee. You watch your cousin as she talks. There is a sparkle deep in his left eye. It carries over -- brightening his right one also. His face glows too. And he keeps grinning at her. Like he's drunk or something. Only he's not. Later he tells you that as he sat there and watched this girl he couldn't help but wonder if this is how Ryan and Audra felt when they met. But anyway, like I said -- you sit there now. There is a cigarette in your right hand. And you watch your cousin as this strange girl talks. When she is done your cousin talks for a while. And then she starts again. At some point the scene before you begins to fade. Until it seems they are only whispering to each other. Until everything becomes black and white. Like a memory. Or an old movie. You see them now -- in black and white, whispering to each other. They are alone there, on the other side of the bench. You can't help but think of Jason Lee, and two chicks tonguing each other. "Now that, my friend, was a shared moment." And yet that simple explanation seems cheap at this point. Finally the moment is broken. This strange girl turns to you and asks, "so what about you? Ever fallen in love?" You give her a smart ass reply and she smiles. You can tell she wants to press it, but she doesn't. She instead turns back to your cousin and once more the scene fades into black and white.
Hoping it is Enough (1/08/02)
Lying on Shane's bed, reading the last twenty pages of a book. Brandon sits nearby at the computer. I try to ignore the intermittent curses mixed with sighs of relief. At times he even cries out in glee. I've just turned over a new page when Shane walks through the door. I glance up at him as he steps past me. He holds his cordless phone in his right hand, like it's a bad report card. His face is expressionless, the color of ash collecting on a snowy grave. Moisture clouds his blue eyes. "Where's my cigarettes?" He asks. Brandon hits the escape key on his keyboard and pauses his video game. "Hey buddy," he starts to say. The smile disappears from his face as he turns to Shane. "Bad talk with Sam?" He asks. Shane closes his eyes, running his hands through the dirty-blond shag that covers his head. "Fuck." He exhales. "What the hell happened?" I ask. I start to say something more but he cuts me off. "Please," he says. "Just... don't." I close my book. Shane grabs a pack of Camel lights off of his computer. He takes one out and sticks it in his mouth. Brandon and I glance at each other. I shrug. For a moment no one says anything. No one moves. The three of us just wait. Brandon and I wait for Shane. Shane I think seems to look much like someone waiting to wake up from a dream. "Sam's pregnant." He says. With that my little brother turns and heads for the front door. After what he's just said finally sinks in I abandon my book all together and follow after him. Brandon tries to comfort the boy as the three of us stand out on the porch to our college housing apartment. I light up a cigarette and smoke in silence. No words seem adequate, so I just smoke, and listen -- hoping it is enough.
Jazz (10/25/02)
Need to say something
About this very moment. But
To do it justice
Would take more, I fear,
Than this tired poet
Can conjure at such an hour.
Just something
In the Jazz - a Coltrane like feel,
Southern Comfort
In piano keys, a bit
Of dance in the way the saxophone
Plays, with a snare
That makes your eyebrows raise...
Tap-ta-tap-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta
Tap.
Leaves (11/14/02)
Leaves dance playfully, intertwined
In a soft wind-blown
Free fall. For a moment
There are hundreds of them, floating
In orchestrated patterns --
Giant, golden snowflakes that come to rest
Lightly on one another,
Creating a warm blanket
In the brisk, waxing sunlight of fall.
Rain has passed on
To fields not so green
And yet the taste remains.
A squirrel leaps from leaf
To leaf -- an acorn the size of his head
Held somehow in his mouth -- looking
Much like a small kitten
Experiencing snow
For the very first time.
Untitled (11/14/02)
Long before his tongue pushes past her soft, playful lips their eyes meet in an embrace not so unlike their first kiss. They have tried to hide it, to deny that there is an it, but they know it -- have always known it -- and not that it can never be, but that they can never control it. But it is the earlier of the two notions, that it can never be, which prompts him to pull away. Only for a moment though, because her hands pull him back down on top of her. The taste of her mouth is much like the empty eight dollar bottle of Merlot on the desk next to her bed. His head is swimming now and he blames the wine. It is easier that way -- more convenient than the alternative. The world outside the locked bedroom door grows awkwardly quiet until all he can hear is the quick beat of this girl's heart. When they are both tired, when the alcohol has worn off, when it goes as far as it will -- on this night at least, he climbs off of her. She lays there and watches his shadow as he gets dressed without a word. When he is clothed he goes to the door, then pauses there. "Don't tell anyone. Please." He says. And then he turns and walks out through her bedroom door.
A Random Starbucks Quote (Unknown, self-professed 84 year old man)
"I'm open to girls from the age of 16 to 83 and their is a standing offer for a free orgasm lesson in the backseat of my Ford Focus. If they orgasm, it's free. But if I orgasm, they charge me $7.50. It's like a French whore. Business is business and love is bullshit."
Pictures are being taken
Again of couples --
My brother with his.
Jen laughs at them,
Calls them sick
Then accuses my cousin
of never touching her
Like that anymore --
like my brother touches
His girl.
Dreams (10/12/00)
"Hell yeah." Cam said. "We'll do it for sure."
It was March, the snow was melting, girls were wearing less clothes -- it was as good a time as any for dreaming.
"We can take off in the late fall." I said. "And spend the winter along the Mediterranean somewhere."
Cam was single again, I had not yet met my now-ex-girlfriend and we were both dropping out of our classes.
"Then we can travel up north when it gets warmer." I said.
"Just you and me." Cam said.
"We have to do it." I said.
"For sure." Cam said.
It is late fall now. I am in Spokane, living with my mom. This week I found a job. Next I look for a car. Cam is here too, for now. He will soon go back to Walla Walla and I will stay here to dream alone.
Untitled (10/26/00)
It is just after ten AM, Thursday. Warm sunlight flashes across white Ford trucks. Air is frosty, snow is on it's way. Irish Cream and mocha, the usual, a used art textbook, notes, my journal. Mornings like this one -- coffee tastes better, soft background jazz sounds live. Blankets of leaves -- even death is warm and comforting in the fall. Was Seattle ever so colorful? All I can remember now is the rain.
What do I Want from Life at Age 20? (10/26/00)
I want to know God. Not my parent's God, not my church's God, not my ex-girlfriend's God. I want to know my God. I want to know people. I want to know friends. Not fuck-buddies, not party favors, not single servings, not lab partners, not weekend getaways. I want the boys. But I want my best friend to someday be a girl. I want reality, not Dazed & Confused. I'm tired of parties that won't end, one-night-stands, pretty-boys and daddy's-girls. I want life. I want to see the Mediterranean and the Irish coast. I want to live out of a backpack and not shave for six months. I want to live in a four bedroom house on South Hill, or in an apartment in West Seattle, with a view of the city skyline in my living room window. I want to drive a silver, or maybe a black, Audi S-4. I want a soul mate, not a wife. I want kids, but not until I am ready to leave the city lights and the rush hour traffic, or the Thursday night live jazz, or the weekends at Schweitzer, Mt Hood or Whistler-Blackcomb. Then I will be ready to "grow up." Then I will be ready to have a family, to teach freshman writing classes. Then I will be ready for the Volvo wagon, and a chocolate Lab, or a Golden Retriever. But not yet.
Untitled (11/07/00)
Sky is gray today, and cold, settling down like a crisp, newly-washed sheet. There was snow painted in patches of white on the hills above your house this morning. A bird flies overhead, chirps to stay warm I think, to remind itself that it must hurry now, that winter is coming.
You sip your mocha between drags off a clove cigarette. You smoke much like that bird's sharp chirp and think about your brother's offer. You wonder if it would be any different -- life? You?
You forget to sip your mocha, light another smoke instead. No wind this morning. Just the chill of an oncoming Eastern Washington winter. You'll be wearing your coat to town soon. When you can't take it anymore -- the frost on your face, your cigarette, the hippie couple wandering by... you go back inside.
Church (11/12/00)
As I drove home from work tonight I began to think about what happened in church earlier today, and about how that blubbering old fool -- with his gray beard and thick glasses, had sobbed his way through the alter of prayer, and about how we had all knelt there -- eyes closed and heads bowed, and how I had, between his sobs -- in those brief seconds of sniffled intermission, been oddly reminded of a time when I was ten and slept on my parents floor -- only to awaken in the cold, moon-lit bedroom to the sounds of their love making.
I don't know why exactly my thoughts went back to that night when I was ten and was too afraid to sleep in my own bed... Only that this sobbing wreck of a man was kneeling up at the front and that I wished he would just stop, even prayed that he would stop. Please. God. Stop.
Untitled (1/24/01)
Wednesday morning... well, almost afternoon now. Sun came out this morning - made the snow seem brighter, more pure, almost hopeful. You sit, alone at the Mercury Cafe, the usual in front of you -- Irish Cream mocha, journal, cigarettes. How have you been, asks the guy who made your coffee. The owner? You suddenly find it odd you have never learned his name. You really ought to pay more attention to these sort of things. Watching cars, dusty cars -- a Jeep, Subaru, Honda, a city bus -- reminds you again of the drive home from Seattle last night. Listening to Counting Crows as you climbed the mountain pass and headed East. Leads you to think of the movie, Snatch -- with Brad Pitt, for some reason. And of gypsies, rogues without a home. You are sympathetic. Not a bad road to travel... a security of it's own. Still, five hours on Interstate 90 in a civic... that drive never felt so long with Andy and Jason. Or with Shane. Or Brandon. The good thing about gypsies is that they travel in numbers, with Winnebago's, and dogs.
You watched 60 Minutes last night, killing time before you called your cousin, Matt... the story of the Dave Matthews Band. You laid on the couch, about to fall asleep. But a producer for the band said something that made you sit up, made you forget about how early you had to get up tomorrow morning. Most people wait for inspiration to strike them, he said. He grinned then, under his thin white beard, and said, you end up spending a whole lot of time waiting... You have to go in search of inspiration, he said. You nodded to yourself and then laid back down on the couch. That makes sense, you thought to yourself. And then you went to call Matt, and found out that Fawnia was is jail. A DWI, he said. Her second offense, you said. Damn, that sucks.
The sky is clouding over now. Even so, the businessman who strolls by your window smiles at you, or perhaps just to his own reflection. He smiles in spite of the clouds. Perhaps the sun is fading into a gray light that blankets this snow covered city, but he doesn't seem to notice. The glory of the morning sun is still fresh in our memories. For today it is enough -- the memory of a brilliant morning.
The College Church (2/26/01)
I have this recurring feeling, like a dream but less tangible. It is like I am at the College Church, after vespers. Everyone is there -- Zach, Brandon, Holley, Jeremy, Stefan, Cam and Marshal, Swisher is there, Giovanni, Mascarenas, Anni, her fiance. There are more too, like there always is after vespers at the College Church. I roam from circle to circle. There are hugs, handshakes, even kisses. They are all making plans, for tonight, for tomorrow, for next year. I am invited. But I can't go, I say. I have plans. Plans of my own. They can understand. I mean, after all, we all have to do what we have to do, right? There are more hugs now, more handshakes. Take it easy, I say. We'll miss you, they say. And I turn to leave. But once I leave the room I realize that I've used the wrong door. I'm in the bathroom now, or the sanctuary -- it doesn't matter. So now I have to go back inside. That's what matters. And here is the thing. This doesn't happen just once, or twice. After enough times nobody takes me seriously anymore. I am stuck in this room and I can't seem to find the door that leads away from here. And my biggest fear is that by the time I find the door I want it will be too late, that I will have given up on leaving all together, that I will have gone to Holley's or to Fackenthalls, with them, and their plans, not mine.
An Old Movie (3/09/01)
Sherry's restaurant. Sometime after 2 AM. You sit in a corner booth with your cousin and a girl you don't know. Drinking coffee and smoking. Reminds me of the good 'ole times, high school. When this was enough. Coffee. Black. Two ashtrays, three packs of Camels. Cell phones lying silent, a fact you are strangely OK with tonight. Chapstick. Lighters. Empty packets of sugar. Dust size pieces of ash that dance across the table when you laugh or when this strange girl sweeps her hand out and flicks habitually at the full ashtray. She tells you this -- that she is strange. Some story about her best friend calling her such. You make a smart ass comment about it and then she starts to tell another story. The seconds seem to slip into slow motion every time she smiles. It's an infectious smile and for the better part of the night the three of you are all just smiling stupidly at each other because of it. At some point you think this girl reminds you a lot of Rebekah.
Anyway. Hours pass and still the three of you just sit there. Talking. Smoking. And drinking coffee. You watch your cousin as she talks. There is a sparkle deep in his left eye. It carries over -- brightening his right one also. His face glows too. And he keeps grinning at her. Like he's drunk or something. Only he's not. Later he tells you that as he sat there and watched this girl he couldn't help but wonder if this is how Ryan and Audra felt when they met. But anyway, like I said -- you sit there now. There is a cigarette in your right hand. And you watch your cousin as this strange girl talks. When she is done your cousin talks for a while. And then she starts again. At some point the scene before you begins to fade. Until it seems they are only whispering to each other. Until everything becomes black and white. Like a memory. Or an old movie. You see them now -- in black and white, whispering to each other. They are alone there, on the other side of the bench. You can't help but think of Jason Lee, and two chicks tonguing each other. "Now that, my friend, was a shared moment." And yet that simple explanation seems cheap at this point. Finally the moment is broken. This strange girl turns to you and asks, "so what about you? Ever fallen in love?" You give her a smart ass reply and she smiles. You can tell she wants to press it, but she doesn't. She instead turns back to your cousin and once more the scene fades into black and white.
Hoping it is Enough (1/08/02)
Lying on Shane's bed, reading the last twenty pages of a book. Brandon sits nearby at the computer. I try to ignore the intermittent curses mixed with sighs of relief. At times he even cries out in glee. I've just turned over a new page when Shane walks through the door. I glance up at him as he steps past me. He holds his cordless phone in his right hand, like it's a bad report card. His face is expressionless, the color of ash collecting on a snowy grave. Moisture clouds his blue eyes. "Where's my cigarettes?" He asks. Brandon hits the escape key on his keyboard and pauses his video game. "Hey buddy," he starts to say. The smile disappears from his face as he turns to Shane. "Bad talk with Sam?" He asks. Shane closes his eyes, running his hands through the dirty-blond shag that covers his head. "Fuck." He exhales. "What the hell happened?" I ask. I start to say something more but he cuts me off. "Please," he says. "Just... don't." I close my book. Shane grabs a pack of Camel lights off of his computer. He takes one out and sticks it in his mouth. Brandon and I glance at each other. I shrug. For a moment no one says anything. No one moves. The three of us just wait. Brandon and I wait for Shane. Shane I think seems to look much like someone waiting to wake up from a dream. "Sam's pregnant." He says. With that my little brother turns and heads for the front door. After what he's just said finally sinks in I abandon my book all together and follow after him. Brandon tries to comfort the boy as the three of us stand out on the porch to our college housing apartment. I light up a cigarette and smoke in silence. No words seem adequate, so I just smoke, and listen -- hoping it is enough.
Jazz (10/25/02)
Need to say something
About this very moment. But
To do it justice
Would take more, I fear,
Than this tired poet
Can conjure at such an hour.
Just something
In the Jazz - a Coltrane like feel,
Southern Comfort
In piano keys, a bit
Of dance in the way the saxophone
Plays, with a snare
That makes your eyebrows raise...
Tap-ta-tap-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta
Tap.
Leaves (11/14/02)
Leaves dance playfully, intertwined
In a soft wind-blown
Free fall. For a moment
There are hundreds of them, floating
In orchestrated patterns --
Giant, golden snowflakes that come to rest
Lightly on one another,
Creating a warm blanket
In the brisk, waxing sunlight of fall.
Rain has passed on
To fields not so green
And yet the taste remains.
A squirrel leaps from leaf
To leaf -- an acorn the size of his head
Held somehow in his mouth -- looking
Much like a small kitten
Experiencing snow
For the very first time.
Untitled (11/14/02)
Long before his tongue pushes past her soft, playful lips their eyes meet in an embrace not so unlike their first kiss. They have tried to hide it, to deny that there is an it, but they know it -- have always known it -- and not that it can never be, but that they can never control it. But it is the earlier of the two notions, that it can never be, which prompts him to pull away. Only for a moment though, because her hands pull him back down on top of her. The taste of her mouth is much like the empty eight dollar bottle of Merlot on the desk next to her bed. His head is swimming now and he blames the wine. It is easier that way -- more convenient than the alternative. The world outside the locked bedroom door grows awkwardly quiet until all he can hear is the quick beat of this girl's heart. When they are both tired, when the alcohol has worn off, when it goes as far as it will -- on this night at least, he climbs off of her. She lays there and watches his shadow as he gets dressed without a word. When he is clothed he goes to the door, then pauses there. "Don't tell anyone. Please." He says. And then he turns and walks out through her bedroom door.
A Random Starbucks Quote (Unknown, self-professed 84 year old man)
"I'm open to girls from the age of 16 to 83 and their is a standing offer for a free orgasm lesson in the backseat of my Ford Focus. If they orgasm, it's free. But if I orgasm, they charge me $7.50. It's like a French whore. Business is business and love is bullshit."
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Miracles and Steve Largent -- A Short
The crisp Autumn afternoon air forces me to pause and catch my breath as I step through the automatic doors and onto the sidewalk in front the hospital. My ears continue to ring -- like a gun has just been fired next to my right ear -- as I look up and down this quiet, small town street. I watch a red sedan, driven by a small man with white hair, pass slowly in front of me. I feel the falling sun against my cheek and breathe in the smell of a nearby wood burning fireplace. I look around and find two large potted plants to either side of the walk and for a moment I consider throwing up on one of them. My heart is boxing the inside of my chest with the speed of a flyweight champion. My legs wobble as I steal a glance back through the hospital doors.
"I'm gonna take a walk." I say to no one in particular before staggering off the sidewalk and down the street.
The mountain breeze has a sting to it and I zip my softshell jacket up around my neck to block it out. I walk down Adams Avenue -- I see it in white lettering on a green sign as I cross through an empty intersection. It's an avenue that is etched in childhood memories but is surreal and foreign on this day. I look up at the Cascade foothills that loom just beyond the rooftops around me and I swallow hoarsely. The golden, copper and ruby colored leaves glow against the backdrop of the Evergreens. This was once my favorite time of the year, I think to myself.
The doctor's voice echos in my head but already I cannot remember his words, only his tone and the long pauses between his sentences. A shiver, riding a gust of wind, finds its way underneath my jacket to run down the back of my neck. I picture my wife lying on a table with blood stained sheets between her legs; I picture the still form of a fetus being stolen away and I clinch my teeth to hold in the scream that has caught in my throat. There is a church ahead on the corner, its steeple pointing sharply like a middle finger to the sky. Not knowing where else to go, I point my steps in the direction of the hauntingly dark stainglass windows that cover the building.
The church parking lot is deserted and I suddenly find it difficult to stay on my feet. I find a curb and collapse to it. And then I see them, two boys playing in the empty field next to the church. From this distance they look to be twelve or so, although one is slightly taller than the other. They have a football and, play-by-play, they work their way from one end of the leaf covered field to the other. The smaller one hikes the ball to the taller one and then runs in a pattern. The taller one backs up a few steps, pumps his arm once and then throws the ball up against the backdrop of the setting sun. I watch as the smaller one then runs underneath the long pass. They repeat this again and again, frantically "marching" up and down this field against some unseen opponent; their feet kicking up a trail of golden leaves behind them as they play. I can hear the muffled sounds of the older boy announcing the score, the down, the time left on the game clock, the pass, the yards gained -- every angle of their private game.
But then they notice me.. quietly taking in their performance from the sideline. They watch me for a moment and then the smaller one scampers over in my direction.
"Hi, Mister." He says as he gets close. "Can you play with us?" I try to respond but my voice fails me. There is only the howl of the wind and the distant hum of logging trucks on the highway.
"We could use someone to play defense. Please." He says.
"OK." I say. "Just for a couple plays." I say.
"Alright!" He says and then he turns and runs back toward the taller boy. "He's gonna play!" I hear him yell as he runs away from me.
Slowly I pick myself off the curb and walk toward the two boys. They are huddled up with the ball sitting on the ground a few feet away. The taller one draws a line in the palm of his hand and the smaller one nods excitedly.
"So what's the score here?" I say. They finish their huddle with a synchronized clap and turn toward me.
"It's Super Bowl XL." Says the taller one.
"You're the Pittsburgh Steelers." Says the smaller one. "You can be Troy Polamalu." He says.
"I'm Matt Hasselbeck." Says the taller one. "And my brother is Bobby Engram."
"Am not!" Says the smaller one. "I told you, I'm Steve Largent!"
"Steve Largent retired before you were born." Says the taller one. "He wasn't even in the Super Bowl."
"I don't care." Says the smaller one. "Dad says he was the greatest of all time... And I'm gonna be the greatest, just like him." He says.
I smile in spite of my day. "OK." I say. "Hasselbeck and Largent... What's the score?" They both turn back toward me, letting the debate go for now.
"Steelers are up twenty-one to seventeen." Says Hasselbeck. "There's three seconds left in the fourth quarter and it's Seattle's ball, fourth down, at the Steelers thirty yard-line."
"This play is for all the stuff'n!" Says Largent.
My eyes are watering, mostly from the wind. "Let's do this." I say to the brothers.
Largent leans over the ball, looks left and then looks right. Hasselbeck calls out, "Blue thirty-two! Blue thirty-two!" Largent points to me with his free hand, I suppose to make sure one of his imaginary linemen remember to pick me up in case I blitz. "Hut one!" Calls out Hasselbeck. Largent lowers his head and looks back between his legs to Hasselbeck. "Hut two!" Calls out Hasselbeck, raising his right leg in the air and planting it back down in a fluid motion. And then the smaller one hikes the ball and bursts past me.
"Hasselbeck is back to pass." Says the taller one. "The Seattle offensive line picks up the blitz." He says. "Hasselbeck looks left into double coverage." He says. "Nothing there. Hasselbeck scrambles out to his right. He has a man wide open down the sideline!" He says. I watch as he plants his feet and coils his right arm back. "With time running out... Hasselbeck throws deep..." He arches his body and then unleashes the deep ball down field. I turn and watch as the smaller one tracks the flight of the ball from the ground below. His legs find another gear as he runs down the deep pass. Then, as the ball sets on the horizon like the late afternoon sun, Largent launches out above the field, his body perfectly parallel to the ground, his arms reaching out for the football. "Largent dives for the pass!" Says the taller one from behind me. Time slows and I hold my breath as Largent plucks the ball from mid-air, tucks the ball under his chin and then crashes down onto the field of leaves.
"Touchdown!" Screams the taller one. "Touchdown! Touchdown Seahawks!" He yells. I look back to him. He has his arms raised high and he runs past me and toward his brother. "Do you believe in miracles?" He yells out. "The Seattle Seahawks have just defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XL!" He yells. "I don't believe what I just saw!" He yells. I can't help myself. I raise my arms above me and let out a yell of my own as the two brothers run and collide with each other in celebration. "I don't believe what I just saw!" Yells Hasselbeck one more time. The three of us run from one end of the field to the other as the sunlight drains from the sky and the words repeat in my head, again and again. "I don't believe what I just saw..."
"I'm gonna take a walk." I say to no one in particular before staggering off the sidewalk and down the street.
The mountain breeze has a sting to it and I zip my softshell jacket up around my neck to block it out. I walk down Adams Avenue -- I see it in white lettering on a green sign as I cross through an empty intersection. It's an avenue that is etched in childhood memories but is surreal and foreign on this day. I look up at the Cascade foothills that loom just beyond the rooftops around me and I swallow hoarsely. The golden, copper and ruby colored leaves glow against the backdrop of the Evergreens. This was once my favorite time of the year, I think to myself.
The doctor's voice echos in my head but already I cannot remember his words, only his tone and the long pauses between his sentences. A shiver, riding a gust of wind, finds its way underneath my jacket to run down the back of my neck. I picture my wife lying on a table with blood stained sheets between her legs; I picture the still form of a fetus being stolen away and I clinch my teeth to hold in the scream that has caught in my throat. There is a church ahead on the corner, its steeple pointing sharply like a middle finger to the sky. Not knowing where else to go, I point my steps in the direction of the hauntingly dark stainglass windows that cover the building.
The church parking lot is deserted and I suddenly find it difficult to stay on my feet. I find a curb and collapse to it. And then I see them, two boys playing in the empty field next to the church. From this distance they look to be twelve or so, although one is slightly taller than the other. They have a football and, play-by-play, they work their way from one end of the leaf covered field to the other. The smaller one hikes the ball to the taller one and then runs in a pattern. The taller one backs up a few steps, pumps his arm once and then throws the ball up against the backdrop of the setting sun. I watch as the smaller one then runs underneath the long pass. They repeat this again and again, frantically "marching" up and down this field against some unseen opponent; their feet kicking up a trail of golden leaves behind them as they play. I can hear the muffled sounds of the older boy announcing the score, the down, the time left on the game clock, the pass, the yards gained -- every angle of their private game.
But then they notice me.. quietly taking in their performance from the sideline. They watch me for a moment and then the smaller one scampers over in my direction.
"Hi, Mister." He says as he gets close. "Can you play with us?" I try to respond but my voice fails me. There is only the howl of the wind and the distant hum of logging trucks on the highway.
"We could use someone to play defense. Please." He says.
"OK." I say. "Just for a couple plays." I say.
"Alright!" He says and then he turns and runs back toward the taller boy. "He's gonna play!" I hear him yell as he runs away from me.
Slowly I pick myself off the curb and walk toward the two boys. They are huddled up with the ball sitting on the ground a few feet away. The taller one draws a line in the palm of his hand and the smaller one nods excitedly.
"So what's the score here?" I say. They finish their huddle with a synchronized clap and turn toward me.
"It's Super Bowl XL." Says the taller one.
"You're the Pittsburgh Steelers." Says the smaller one. "You can be Troy Polamalu." He says.
"I'm Matt Hasselbeck." Says the taller one. "And my brother is Bobby Engram."
"Am not!" Says the smaller one. "I told you, I'm Steve Largent!"
"Steve Largent retired before you were born." Says the taller one. "He wasn't even in the Super Bowl."
"I don't care." Says the smaller one. "Dad says he was the greatest of all time... And I'm gonna be the greatest, just like him." He says.
I smile in spite of my day. "OK." I say. "Hasselbeck and Largent... What's the score?" They both turn back toward me, letting the debate go for now.
"Steelers are up twenty-one to seventeen." Says Hasselbeck. "There's three seconds left in the fourth quarter and it's Seattle's ball, fourth down, at the Steelers thirty yard-line."
"This play is for all the stuff'n!" Says Largent.
My eyes are watering, mostly from the wind. "Let's do this." I say to the brothers.
Largent leans over the ball, looks left and then looks right. Hasselbeck calls out, "Blue thirty-two! Blue thirty-two!" Largent points to me with his free hand, I suppose to make sure one of his imaginary linemen remember to pick me up in case I blitz. "Hut one!" Calls out Hasselbeck. Largent lowers his head and looks back between his legs to Hasselbeck. "Hut two!" Calls out Hasselbeck, raising his right leg in the air and planting it back down in a fluid motion. And then the smaller one hikes the ball and bursts past me.
"Hasselbeck is back to pass." Says the taller one. "The Seattle offensive line picks up the blitz." He says. "Hasselbeck looks left into double coverage." He says. "Nothing there. Hasselbeck scrambles out to his right. He has a man wide open down the sideline!" He says. I watch as he plants his feet and coils his right arm back. "With time running out... Hasselbeck throws deep..." He arches his body and then unleashes the deep ball down field. I turn and watch as the smaller one tracks the flight of the ball from the ground below. His legs find another gear as he runs down the deep pass. Then, as the ball sets on the horizon like the late afternoon sun, Largent launches out above the field, his body perfectly parallel to the ground, his arms reaching out for the football. "Largent dives for the pass!" Says the taller one from behind me. Time slows and I hold my breath as Largent plucks the ball from mid-air, tucks the ball under his chin and then crashes down onto the field of leaves.
"Touchdown!" Screams the taller one. "Touchdown! Touchdown Seahawks!" He yells. I look back to him. He has his arms raised high and he runs past me and toward his brother. "Do you believe in miracles?" He yells out. "The Seattle Seahawks have just defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XL!" He yells. "I don't believe what I just saw!" He yells. I can't help myself. I raise my arms above me and let out a yell of my own as the two brothers run and collide with each other in celebration. "I don't believe what I just saw!" Yells Hasselbeck one more time. The three of us run from one end of the field to the other as the sunlight drains from the sky and the words repeat in my head, again and again. "I don't believe what I just saw..."
-------------------------------------------------------
The long dining table stretches out from one end of the room to the other. My wife and I sit alone at one end, the backs of our chairs pressed up against the wall. Our family sit in front of us. Their conversations are warm; their faces are bright. But I can only stare at the thermostat on the far wall, wishing that there was enough room at my side of the table to take off my wool sweater. I roll my sleeves up as far as they will go and pull at my neckline. I watch my wife as she stares at the large cooked bird on the table top. She is a vegetarian and I imagine that if she had the energy she might pull at the neck of her sweater too.
"There is a family tradition in this house." Says my dad from the other side of the table. My mom comes in from the kitchen and sets down two more trays of food before sitting next to him. My dad continues to talk. I watch my wife's blank stare and feel my chest twist on itself underneath this damn sweater. I picture her in another time -- her smile, her laugh. I watch her now and I wonder how long it will be until either of us can smile, really smile, again.
"Son." My dad's voice pulls me back to the dinner table in front of me. "Would you start this year?" He asks me. He smiles warmly and for a moment I think about telling him, telling them all. Instead I take a deep breath and pull at my neckline again. I think for a moment about what I can possibly say on this day. They all watch me and wait for me to say something, all except for my wife who still stares blankly at the dead meat on the table in front of her.
"Tell us what you are thankful for this year, son." Says my dad. I reach under the table and take my wife's hand in my own. She squeezes my hand, blinks and takes a sip of apple cider from the crystal glass next to her plate. I raise my head and look around the table at them.
"I'm thankful for my family." I say. They all smile. "My wife." I say. They all smile again and look at her. I pause for a moment. My wife squeezes my hand again under the table.
"I'm thankful for miracles." I say. My throat tightens and my eyes blur with moisture. "I'm thankful for Matt Hasselbeck. And for Steve Largent." I say. They look at each other and my dad shrugs.
"I'm sorry." I say. "I know it's random. But it's what I'm thankful for on this particular day." I say. "For miracles... and for Steve Largent."
My wife slips her arm inside of mine and we hold each other softly at the end of my parents' dining room table. I look out their window at the night and think about the winter season that is coming. I lean in and kiss my wife lightly on the neck. It won't last forever, I tell myself. Spring will come, I tell myself. And maybe this can even be my favorite time of year again. Maybe someday, I tell myself.
Someday.
-------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, October 16, 2010
A Loaded Gun -- A Short
What Sean hated most about this place was the fog. He watched it with a blank stare as it stole the outside world into a heavy, wet, purgatory existence. Occasionally he could see a pair of muffled headlights as a car slowly floated from window to window. Sean blinked and shook his head. With a deep breath he turned back to the cold Heineken in front of him. He sipped his beer while he finished closing out the open tabs from the night. He was scribbling down the totals for the day when his cell phone buzzed on top of the bar.
"Jason." He said. "What's up my man?"
It had been a good day, he thought. The bar had grossed over six hundred more than their average from the last couple years.
"Yeah, I'm still here." He said. "Just finishing things up."
Sean looked over at the clock on the wall behind the bar and nodded. Bar-time read a quarter to four.
"Yeah, for sure dude. C'mon down. I was gonna have another beer anyway." He paused. "Is everything OK?" He asked. He scowled and looked back to his beer. "Alright." He said. I'll see you in a few."
After pounding the rest of his Heineken Sean stepped into the walk-in and grabbed another bottle, then slammed the heavy door shut again. On his way back out to the front of the bar he reached his left hand into the office and killed the remaining two lights out front. Despite the fog outside, he couldn't help but smile to himself as he stepped out from behind the bar and sat down on a bar stool. Save the constant buzz of the cooler, there was only silence. The white Christmas lights that lit up the windows and the brick hearth downstairs gave off just enough light to fill the room with a soft glow. The effect was disarming but did little to ease his mind about the phone call from Jason. As he cracked open his beer he thought of calling Amy. But not wanting to wake her, he decided to enjoy these rare moments of silence alone.
"Jason." He said. "What's up my man?"
It had been a good day, he thought. The bar had grossed over six hundred more than their average from the last couple years.
"Yeah, I'm still here." He said. "Just finishing things up."
Sean looked over at the clock on the wall behind the bar and nodded. Bar-time read a quarter to four.
"Yeah, for sure dude. C'mon down. I was gonna have another beer anyway." He paused. "Is everything OK?" He asked. He scowled and looked back to his beer. "Alright." He said. I'll see you in a few."
After pounding the rest of his Heineken Sean stepped into the walk-in and grabbed another bottle, then slammed the heavy door shut again. On his way back out to the front of the bar he reached his left hand into the office and killed the remaining two lights out front. Despite the fog outside, he couldn't help but smile to himself as he stepped out from behind the bar and sat down on a bar stool. Save the constant buzz of the cooler, there was only silence. The white Christmas lights that lit up the windows and the brick hearth downstairs gave off just enough light to fill the room with a soft glow. The effect was disarming but did little to ease his mind about the phone call from Jason. As he cracked open his beer he thought of calling Amy. But not wanting to wake her, he decided to enjoy these rare moments of silence alone.
--------------------------------------------------------
The first thing that Sean noticed about his roommate when he met him at the back door were his red eyes and smeared cheeks. And then that he was visibly shaking. It seemed to him that Jason was on the verge of collapsing to his feet at any second. What he did not notice was his friend's right hand and what dangled from it.
"Yo, Jay." He said, moving aside so that his friend could step past him. Sean swung the door shut and latched it.
"You look like you could use a drink." Sean said. Jason looked around at his friend's bar. Sean watched him, thinking it odd how lost his roommate looked in such a familiar place.
"I think I need to sit down." Jason said quietly.
"For sure." Sean said.
Sean could feel his arms tingle and his breath tighten as the two settled into the closest booth. But it wasn't until his friend dropped the forty-five caliber on the table between them that Sean realized his fears. The silence that followed the heavy knock of the metal gun on the oak table top, a sound that continued to repeat itself in waves -- much like a gavel does in a marble covered court room... The silence that followed was much the same, a unanimous verdict in which the world passed judgement in slow motion and Sean was left with the undeniable certainty that life would never again be the same.
"Holy shit." Sean said, his voice cracking. "What the hell, man?" Jason's hand still clutched the gun.
"I can't let it go." He said weakly. "I want to so bad, but I can't..."
Sean concentrated on his friend, feeling the rest of the room tilt just out of focus. Jason sat across from him, his blond curls sticking out from beneath his white pin-striped hat, his shoulders slumped forward, his left hand shaking as he lifted the sleeve of his hooded sweatshirt to wipe his eyes and nose. His face was a reflection of the white Christmas lights that lined the hearth nearby. Behind his glossy stare was an emptiness that was haunting.
"I should be in jail right now." He said softly. "I shouldn't be here." Sean reached out slowly and rested his hand on his friend's.
"Here." He said. "Let it go."
Jason continued to tremor as he stared back through Sean, through the wood paneling and framed black and white photos that covered the walls behind him, through the darkness and the fog outside.
"I shouldn't be here." He said again.
"Let it go." Sean said. Jason stared. "Jason." He said again, this time almost at a whisper. "Let go of the gun." Jason looked at him now, slowly shaking his head.
"I'm sorry." He said. "I can't."
Sean looked down at the forty-five still clutched in Jason's right hand. His friend's knuckles were pale with empty veins tracing the top of his hand. He watched his roommate's hand quake slightly, even with the weight of the gun anchoring it on the oak table top, for several long seconds. When Jason did not offer any further explanation Sean tried a more direct route.
"Alright. Then what happened." He said as he pulled out his last two cigarettes. As he lit them both he noticed that his hands were also shaking. He handed a cigarette to Jason.
"I'm telling you, bro..." Jason took a deep drag from the cigarette. "I should be in the pen right now."
Sean nodded toward the forty-five on the table between them.
"Did you use it?" He asked. Jason swallowed with difficulty.
"I knew she was fucking him." He said. "She swore to me she wasn't. But I knew it."
Both friends took long drags from their cigarettes. Sean let the smoke float up in front of his face. Through the smoke he watched his roommate hold in his breath like he did when he smoked a joint. Finally Jason exhaled.
"I saw them walking together down Alder when I was driving home from Perry's party. I don't know what I thought I was going to do. Anyway, I parked behind the mini-mart next to her place. And I let myself in."
Jason took another drag. Sean jumped up and grabbed an ashtray from the bar.
"I climbed into her closet." He said. "And I brought this." He rapped the side of the gun on the table top in a tired clunk... clunk. Sean wondered for the first time if he really wanted to know the rest of the story.
"How long were you in there?" He asked. Jason swung his right arm up and wiped at his eyes with his sleeve and Sean instinctively flinched as the barrel of the forty-five passed his face. His roommate didn't seem to notice.
"It seemed like a couple of hours." He said. "After a while they came in together. She left the light off. And I could hear them. I mean, shit. I could really hear them. It was so dark in there. I just sat there, on a pile of her shirts, and listened to every movement, every lick, every smack, every groan, every..." His voice cracked slightly. "every... single..." He was shaking his head now. The gun was trembling in his hand. "every fucking sound." He said.
Sean's chest ached as he watched his friend. He took a last drag and then pinched the butt of his Camel cigarette into the black, plastic ashtray.
"That's some real heavy stuff to deal with, Jay." He said. "I'm sorry, man." Jason nodded. He looked up at Sean for the first time since he had started talking. His eyes were still swollen but the hollow stare was gone. Sean became aware again of the buzz from the walk-in cooler. He turned from his friend's gaze and watched a faint pair of white headlights float from left to right in the fog beyond the windows. His left hand followed the deep grains in the oak table top as he closed his eyes and took a purposeful, deep breath.
"Do you want a beer?" He asked. "I think I'm going to have another beer." Jason shook his head. Sean nodded but didn't move.
"Then what do you want?" He asked.
Jason held the forty-five caliber up between them.
"I want to squeeze this trigger." He said. "I want to empty this whole clip." He said. "I want to stand there in her room and reload the clip and then empty it again."
Sean held his breath.
"Don't worry, I already had the chance and I didn't do it. I just want it to stop hurting. I want to be able to let her go." He said.
Sean exhaled very slowly.
"What stopped you?" He asked.
The two friends stared at each other. Sean did not get another beer. Jason did not say anything. There was only the buzz of the walk-in, the soft glow of Christmas lights and the fog outside.
--------------------------------------------------------
Sean looked out the window again. The Christmas lights were gone. The hum of the cooler was gone. They had been left behind and along with the pub had faded with the darkness of the early morning. The flat light of dawn had returned the two friends, with help from Sean's green, '68 Beetle, to a pair of mismatched couches at their house on East Rose. What had remained was the fog. Sean stared at it. There were arbitrary outlines that emerged as hints of what lay hidden in the gray beyond. Tracings of a maple tree, the corner of a house, a telephone pole -- their lines faint, blended into cloudiness. He searched the scene and wondered what answers he might find on this kind of morning.
Jason lay stretched out on the other couch. He had a knit blanket draped across him. His eyes were closed. He was still wearing his hat and from time to time he snored softly. The coffee table between them supported various pieces of evidence. There was a fresh pack of Camels and a glass ashtray with three orange butts planted in the ashes. There was a splintered wooden cutting board with crumbs and a single piece of pepperoni pizza laying cold on it. There were two empty Heineken bottles and one that was still half full. There was the loaded forty-five caliber. And next to the gun, there was a black, leather-bound Bible.
Sean reached down to the table and picked up the gun. He tilted it to the side to make sure the safety latch was on. It seemed heavier. Closing one eye, he pointed the gun at the pool table in the next room. One by one he silently picked off the yellow, four ball and then the white, cue ball too. Sean lowered the gun and looked back to his friend. He watched him for a couple minutes. There was a simple expression of clarity on his face as he slept. Sean wished he could sleep like that. He couldn't remember sleep like that. It was possible, he thought, that he had never slept as soundly as his roommate now did.
Sean picked up his beer and took a drink. When his beer was empty and a fourth cigarette butt had been pinched into the ashtray, and still the fog remained heavy as ever, Sean reached out and carefully laid down the forty-five caliber on the coffee table and reached for the black, leather-bound Bible.
--------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
A Conversation -- A Short
We sit alone on a peak overlooking Chinook Pass. The mountain breeze whips around us and we both pull our hoodies over top our heads and turn our backs slightly to block it out. Below us Highway 410 cuts a seam into the side of the mountain as it winds up the East side of the pass and then back down the West side. We sit here, at some 5400 feet of elevation, between two worlds. To the East are rolling hills, apple orchards, Ford Broncos, horses and a big blue sky. To the West are mighty evergreens, city lights with coffee shops on every corner, BMW dealerships and somewhere beyond in the night -- the raw power of the Pacific ocean. Sitting in the quiet solitude of the late summer afternoon, surrounded by mountain peaks and whisps of clouds, we somehow are a part of both and neither at the same time.
"So what do you think?" He says to me.
"About the job offer?" I say. He nods his head.
He reaches into his his sweatshirt and pulls out a pack of Backwoods Sweets and a green lighter. He offers one of the cigars in my direction.
"I'll share yours." I say to him. He leans down and I cup my hands to block the afternoon wind as he lights the cigar. He then hands it to me. I take a long puff and let the smoke linger on my lip until it catches the breeze and disappears.
"It's a freaking dream come true." He says. "I mean, this is life changing money we're talking about here."
"True." I say. "No denying it."
"Then why do I feel like you're not on board." He says. I look down at the pass and watch the occasional car climb the last quarter mile to the summit before crossing this imaginary line on which we sit and then beginning the decent down the opposite side.
"I can't explain it, really." I say. "It's just that I feel my stomach in knots when I picture living the next 20 years locked up in a corporate high-rise, tucked away nicely from everything that really matters in life as I make some schmuck more money in a year than I'll ever see in my lifetime. I guess I'm just not cut out for the 9-5 shit."
I can feel his look of frustration without having to see it. We sit, quietly, for several minutes. The wind whistles softly as we share our cigar in silence. Below a mini-van stops at the lookout view overlooking the East side of the pass. Finally he breaks the silence again.
"Yeah." He says. "Well, I have a family now. It's not as simple as it used to be." He says. "At some point you have to grow up, bro. At some point you have to put childish things behind and step up and be a man." He says.
I watch the cigar until he stops talking and then I take another drag.
"If growing up means dying inside each day because I long ago traded in my dream for the 'American Dream'..." I say. "Well, then... no thanks, friend. I pass." I say.
The sun is sinking dangerously close to sharp, rocky peaks over the West side of the pass now. The wind is picking up too, a warning that the warm season is almost gone. Soon this pass will be snowed over. Soon it will be closed for the winter all together.
"Man time flies." He says to me. "Do you remember all the times we've sat in this very spot, as kids? Where did it all go?" He says.
"It just goes." I say. "It never stays; no matter how much you pray for it to stay... time always goes away."
I notice a scent of some purple wildflower around us and I sneeze because of it. I hand him the cigar as he rubs his own nose with his other hand.
"So what's your answer then?" He says. "You seem to have all of them."
"It's pretty simple for me." I say. "I'm not going to let anything distract me from my dream. I know why I was put here and what I am supposed to do. And that's what I'm gonna do." I say.
He takes a puff off the cigar and hands it back to me.
"Even if that means that everyone around you has to support you while you chase your dream?" He says. It's not really a question, more of a statement. I don't say anything. Instead I take a drag from our cigar.
"Look at Uncle Johnny." He says. "The man should be on the verge of retirement. But instead he's still insisting that his big break, his dream, is just around the corner." He pauses.
"I don't want that for us." He says. "This job offer is the ticket to our dream. Once I stack enough cash then we will be able to do what we always talked about doing, since we were kids." He says. "Besides, I am good at what I do. There's something meaningful about being good at what you do. You know?" He says.
The sun is a giant fireball of orange against the white and gray of the rocky mountain peaks and it sets the meadow below ablaze in golden light. The evening breeze is picking up its pace and I have to yell a little to hear myself above it.
"You don't have time for it all." I say. "Life gives us a choice. But it's just that... a choice. You don't get it both ways. You never will." I say. "I don't have it all figured out like you do." I say. "But I don't need to have it all figured out. I have faith that the road less traveled will be the more meaningful road... in the end."
The cigar is nothing more than a stub between my thumb and index finger now. The sun is setting. A couple hours drive still awaits. We cannot afford to linger in this no-man's land much longer.
"We have to make a choice." I say.
We pause, praying for this moment to stay... just a little while longer.
"What are you going to choose?" I say.
"I don't know." He says.
The words ring in my ears as the wind howls around us. Nothing more needs to be said that hasn't already been said before. Quietly we push ourselves to our feet. As we walk down the side of the mountain, toward the car, we leave behind a single set of footprints. As the sun sets to our left, a single shadow stretches out behind me and to my right. He and I are two sides of the same coin. Life is giving us a choice. One road leads East -- toward art, toward spirituality, toward world travel, toward the road less traveled; and one road leads West -- toward the corner office with giant windows, toward a home with a white picket fence, toward real estate investments and a 401K, toward roads that are more like veins, ceaselessly pumping lifeblood through cities that never sleep.
In the end, we can't have it both ways. We never will.
"So what do you think?" He says to me.
"About the job offer?" I say. He nods his head.
He reaches into his his sweatshirt and pulls out a pack of Backwoods Sweets and a green lighter. He offers one of the cigars in my direction.
"I'll share yours." I say to him. He leans down and I cup my hands to block the afternoon wind as he lights the cigar. He then hands it to me. I take a long puff and let the smoke linger on my lip until it catches the breeze and disappears.
"It's a freaking dream come true." He says. "I mean, this is life changing money we're talking about here."
"True." I say. "No denying it."
"Then why do I feel like you're not on board." He says. I look down at the pass and watch the occasional car climb the last quarter mile to the summit before crossing this imaginary line on which we sit and then beginning the decent down the opposite side.
"I can't explain it, really." I say. "It's just that I feel my stomach in knots when I picture living the next 20 years locked up in a corporate high-rise, tucked away nicely from everything that really matters in life as I make some schmuck more money in a year than I'll ever see in my lifetime. I guess I'm just not cut out for the 9-5 shit."
I can feel his look of frustration without having to see it. We sit, quietly, for several minutes. The wind whistles softly as we share our cigar in silence. Below a mini-van stops at the lookout view overlooking the East side of the pass. Finally he breaks the silence again.
"Yeah." He says. "Well, I have a family now. It's not as simple as it used to be." He says. "At some point you have to grow up, bro. At some point you have to put childish things behind and step up and be a man." He says.
I watch the cigar until he stops talking and then I take another drag.
"If growing up means dying inside each day because I long ago traded in my dream for the 'American Dream'..." I say. "Well, then... no thanks, friend. I pass." I say.
The sun is sinking dangerously close to sharp, rocky peaks over the West side of the pass now. The wind is picking up too, a warning that the warm season is almost gone. Soon this pass will be snowed over. Soon it will be closed for the winter all together.
"Man time flies." He says to me. "Do you remember all the times we've sat in this very spot, as kids? Where did it all go?" He says.
"It just goes." I say. "It never stays; no matter how much you pray for it to stay... time always goes away."
I notice a scent of some purple wildflower around us and I sneeze because of it. I hand him the cigar as he rubs his own nose with his other hand.
"So what's your answer then?" He says. "You seem to have all of them."
"It's pretty simple for me." I say. "I'm not going to let anything distract me from my dream. I know why I was put here and what I am supposed to do. And that's what I'm gonna do." I say.
He takes a puff off the cigar and hands it back to me.
"Even if that means that everyone around you has to support you while you chase your dream?" He says. It's not really a question, more of a statement. I don't say anything. Instead I take a drag from our cigar.
"Look at Uncle Johnny." He says. "The man should be on the verge of retirement. But instead he's still insisting that his big break, his dream, is just around the corner." He pauses.
"I don't want that for us." He says. "This job offer is the ticket to our dream. Once I stack enough cash then we will be able to do what we always talked about doing, since we were kids." He says. "Besides, I am good at what I do. There's something meaningful about being good at what you do. You know?" He says.
The sun is a giant fireball of orange against the white and gray of the rocky mountain peaks and it sets the meadow below ablaze in golden light. The evening breeze is picking up its pace and I have to yell a little to hear myself above it.
"You don't have time for it all." I say. "Life gives us a choice. But it's just that... a choice. You don't get it both ways. You never will." I say. "I don't have it all figured out like you do." I say. "But I don't need to have it all figured out. I have faith that the road less traveled will be the more meaningful road... in the end."
The cigar is nothing more than a stub between my thumb and index finger now. The sun is setting. A couple hours drive still awaits. We cannot afford to linger in this no-man's land much longer.
"We have to make a choice." I say.
We pause, praying for this moment to stay... just a little while longer.
"What are you going to choose?" I say.
"I don't know." He says.
The words ring in my ears as the wind howls around us. Nothing more needs to be said that hasn't already been said before. Quietly we push ourselves to our feet. As we walk down the side of the mountain, toward the car, we leave behind a single set of footprints. As the sun sets to our left, a single shadow stretches out behind me and to my right. He and I are two sides of the same coin. Life is giving us a choice. One road leads East -- toward art, toward spirituality, toward world travel, toward the road less traveled; and one road leads West -- toward the corner office with giant windows, toward a home with a white picket fence, toward real estate investments and a 401K, toward roads that are more like veins, ceaselessly pumping lifeblood through cities that never sleep.
In the end, we can't have it both ways. We never will.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
A Bad Trip -- A Short
The force of the damp, heavy air caught in Cam’s throat as he stepped out from the air conditioned car and into the dimly lit parking lot in front of the Creekside Apartments. Crickets called to him from the long field grass that covered the undeveloped lot next door. He wiped the sweat already beading on his forehead with his free hand and turned back to the car.
“You sure you’re cool with this?” he said.
She was reaching back across to the center console and didn’t say anything until she stood and swung the driver side car door shut. She looked at him and her eyes sparkled, her mouth curled with mischief.
“It’ll be fun.” she said.
He watched her as she tucked her dark hair behind her ear and adjusted her top. There was a hint of onion on the warm autumn breeze. Cam pulled a can of PBR from the box in his right hand, cracked it open with his front teeth and turned toward the apartment.
“Let’s do this.” he said.
She walked next to him as they crossed the lawn, curling her arm inside of his and setting her head against his shoulder. He gave her arm a squeeze and chugged the beer.
“I guess I’m driving then, huh?” she teased, looking up at him. He nodded his head and crumpled the empty can.
“You wouldn’t dare let me drive Daddy’s Benz.” he mocked.
She laughed and winked at him. “Oh, whatever. You drive it all the time.”
Cam dropped the empty can back into the box and knocked on the front door. He could hear the muffled sounds of conversation coming from inside. He had to knock again before the door finally swung open and his old roommate was standing in front of him, holding a fifth of Jack and laughing.
“Steven.” Cam said.
“Cameron. Rachel.” his friend said, mimicking his formal tone. “Welcome to another Tuesday night in paradise!”
“Stevo!” Rachel said. She laughed and leaned in to give him a hug. Cam followed her through the door and into the kitchen. His friend shut the door behind him and offered up the bottle of whiskey. Cam smiled and raised his case of PBR.
“OK, hand one over then.” Stevo said. “Probably about time to switch out from the hard stuff anyway.” he said.
As usual, the apartment was packed. Stevo, his girlfriend and three other guys that Cam recognized from intramural soccer stood around the kitchen.
“What’s up, Cam.” one of them nodded. “You got an extra beer?”
Cam smiled as he walked to the fridge. “Fo sho.” he said, handing over a beer.
Stevo’s fridge was empty except for a bottle of ketchup, Tapitio and three different cases of beer. Cam shook his head, grabbed another beer and leaned back against an open spot on the kitchen counter. There were half a dozen faces, all that he recognized, sitting in the living room. Sam and Jonathan sat in their typical spots on the couch, duking it out on the X-Box. From what he could hear of it, the level of trash talk between the two players was already at a seven or eight of ten this evening. An audience always helped to fuel their video game rivalry.
“Hey friend.” said Courtney, bringing Cam’s attention back to the kitchen. Courtney sat on the countertop next to Stevo. “How have you been?” she said.
He looked at her and smiled. “Can’t complain.” he said. “I’ve been working a lot lately. It’s a good thing I’m only taking the one class this semester.”
“Cool.” she said. “How are you and Rachel doing?”
She grinned and nodded in the direction of the living room where Rachel had just sat down next to a guy she knew from her pre-med classes named Chase. Everyone in the kitchen turned and looked in their direction.
“I hate that fucker.” said one of the guys from soccer. “He’s such a tool.”
Cam nodded but didn‘t say anything. He watched Rachel lean on her knee as Chase talked. She laughed at something he said, reached over and squeezed his leg playfully. Her eyes twinkled and Cam remembered seeing the same look a few minutes ago outside.
“You two are still hanging out, right?” Stevo said. Cam Shrugged.
“It is what it is.” he said, looking back to his friend.
Stevo, Courtney and the guys from soccer all nodded. They drank quietly until Stevo stood up from the counter, dropped back to pass and hurled his empty beer can at the direction of the kitchen sink.
“Hun! You can’t take three steps and throw it in the trash?” said Courtney. “That’s so gross.”
Stevo laughed and pulled out a crushed pack of Camel Wides from his cargo shorts.
“Cam, join me for a smoke?” he said.
Cam finished his beer, crumpled the can and walked over to the trash can on the other side of the kitchen.
“Thank you!” said Courtney. Stevo laughed again.
“C’mon, Cam.” he said, handing his friend a cigarette as he opened the door. Cam smiled, took the cigarette and followed his friend out the front door. He did not look back at the living room.
The two friends returned to the kitchen and on cue, Stevo tossed his empty cigarette pack at the sink. His indignant smile lessened though when he realized Courtney was no longer in the room. It was quickly replaced by a look of pure joy, Cam noticed, when Stevo recognized the familiar smell of marijuana smoke wafting from the back bedroom.
“I believe that duty calls.” he said, motioning for Cam to join him.
“Be right there.” Cam said.
The kitchen was empty now. The living room crowd had thinned also. The X-Box rivalry had been put on hold and only a couple guys remained – neither of them talking as they sat in the corner and sipped their drinks. Cam pulled a fresh beer from the fridge, stuffed it in his cargo pocket and grabbed another one as well. He could hear a chant building from the back bedroom, “suck, suck, suck…”
Cam had to turn his shoulders to walk through the crowd spilling out of the bedroom doorway. The room was covered with a layer of blue smoke. A hookah stood center stage on a small coffee table next to Stevo’s bed. The “suck” chant was peaking as Cam spotted Rachel, with both hands wrapped around the hookah hose, taking a long, deep hit. Chase sat next to her on the bed. He was leaning over the coffee table with a lighter – roasting the bowl as Rachel took in the hit.
“Damn!” Someone yelled. “This girl is a born natural.”
Cam sipped his beer and watched from just inside the doorway. Finally Rachel pulled away from the hose, handing it off to Jonathan who sat beside her.
“Hold in that shit.” Chase said to her.
She held her breath for a couple seconds before coughing out a large cloud of smoke. Her audience cheered on the coughing fit as she curled her body forward, tears pooling in the corner of her eyes and then running down her cheeks. Once the coughing dissipated, Rachel sat up straight and rubbed her cheeks dry.
“How did that feel?” Jonathan asked her.
She didn’t respond. Instead she stared ahead blankly as her head wobbled slowly side to side. Then she threw her hands out wide and freefell back onto the bed behind her with a smile. The room erupted in cheers. Chase leaned back on the bed next to her. Cam turned and shouldered his way back out the door. It wasn’t until he was sitting on the step out front the apartment that the cheers faded to the sound of crickets.
Cam was half way through another beer when Stevo opened the apartment door and joined him out front on the step.
“Yo, Cam.” He said, nudging Cam’s shoulder with the back of his hand. Cam looked up at his friend.
“What up?” He said.
“You might want to check on Rachel.” Stevo said.
“Yeah?” Cam said.
“Yeah.” Stevo said. “She’s freaking out pretty hardcore.” He said.
Cam pushed himself to his feet and handed his friend his half empty beer. Stevo shook his head.
“Has she smoked before?” he asked.
“Just once.” Cam said.
“Damn.” Stevo said. “That’s no bueno.”
Cam nodded as he pushed past Stevo and through the front door. Sam met him in the kitchen. He pointed down the hall.
“She’s in the bathroom.” He said. “Got the door locked. Wouldn’t let me in.” He said.
Cam walked down the hall and stopped at the bathroom door. There was still a crowd in the bedroom and a couple guys turned back toward him and watched as he knocked once on the bathroom door. He leaned in close and then knocked again, softly.
“Hey.” He said. “It’s me.” There was no response. “C’mon, let me in.” He said.
The door knob turned and the door cracked open. Cam opened it just enough to slip through and then latched and locked it again behind him.
Rachel sat on the floor, her back resting against a draped towel that hung on the bathroom wall. Her knees were pulled tightly against her chest. Her eyes were wide, with tears smeared across her face. Her breath was near hyperventilation as she rocked back and forth. She did not look up at him as he settled down on the floor next to her. Her eyes were fixated on something far away, something far beyond the physical boundaries of the small apartment bathroom. Cam sat beside her in silence for a moment. After a bit her breathing began to slow.
“Do you hate me?” She asked him, her gaze still locked in front of her. Cam reached out and took her hand in his lap.
“Of course not.” He said. Rachel nodded her head.
“They hate me.” She said.
“The guys?” Cam said. “They don’t hate you, ‘Rach.’” He said.
“Not them.” She said. “Them.” She nodded her head toward something in front of them. Cam looked back to her.
“Who are you talking about?” He said. She nodded again.
“My family.” She said. “They’re watching me.” Cam squeezed her hand.
“It’s going to be Ok.” He said.
“Why won’t they talk to me?” Rachel said. “They’re so far away. Why can’t I be with them? Why are they so far away?” She said. Her breath began to shorten again in panic.
“Why won’t they let me go to them? Why can’t I stand in the light, with them, in the light?” She said.
“’Rach,’ calm down. It’s going to be Ok.” Cam said.
He was holding her hand tightly now with both of his. He pictured her family standing in a white light, out beyond some dark void. He pictured her father and his strong handshake, her mother’s guarded smile, her older sister’s shy waive, her younger sister’s warm hug…
“It isn’t real.” He said. “You just need to relax. Don’t fight it. Just relax.”
He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in against his chest. She didn’t fight, letting her head rest against him. Her gaze remained fixated ahead but her breathing began to slow once more. They sat there together in silence for several minutes.
“Do they love me?” Rachel said. Cam squeezed her shoulder.
“Yes.” He said. “They love you very much.”
“How do you know?” She said blankly.
“How could they not.” He said.
They were quiet again for several minutes. Outside the bathroom, Cam could hear the party move back to the living room, the X-Box rivalry resume. At one point there was a knock on the bathroom door. Cam and Rachel sat together in silence. Finally someone yelled from the kitchen, “just piss off the back patio, dude.” Finally, Rachel looked up at Cam. He smiled at her. She searched his face for a moment and then turned away.
"Do you love me?" She said. He didn’t answer right away. She waited quietly.
“Yes.” He said.
“Are you lying?” She said.
"Does it matter?" He said.
After a moment she looked back up to him. "Yes." She said. "It does matter."
He kissed the top of her head. "Then no, I'm not lying. I do love you." He said. They were both quiet for several minutes.
“I want to go home.” She said.
“Then let’s go home.” He said.
After twenty more minutes had passed with neither of them moving, neither of them speaking, Cam and Rachel finally pulled each other up from the bathroom floor and went home.
“Thank you.” She said. “Thank you for tonight.” She leaned up and kissed him softly.
“You’re welcome.” He said.
“Will you stay with me tonight?” She said.
“Of course.” He said.
He helped her out of her clothes and into her pajamas. While she brushed her teeth Cam cleared off the pigs and the pillows. Then he helped her climb into the far side of her bed, against the wall. Shedding his shorts and tee-shirt, he then turned off the bedroom floor lamp and climbed into her bed next to her. She cuddled up to him as he lay on his back. With her arm draped across his bare chest, Rachel slipped into sleep.
While she slept, Cam stared at the darkness that filled the bedroom. He pictured his own family and thought about what Rachel had said. Sometime later, when she rolled over in her sleep – turning her back to him – Cam quietly slipped out from under her feather-top comforter. In the darkness he retrieved his shorts and tee-shirt before letting himself out through her bedroom door. In the bathroom he pulled up his shorts and slipped into his shirt. Once dressed, he paused and looked at the mirror. On the shelf below the mirror sat three items, and Cam looked at them carefully. In the end, he decided to take two of the items but leave the third. With a sigh, Cam stuck the cigarette between his lips… put the keys to her Mercedes in his pocket… left his toothbrush sitting on the shelf… flipped off the bathroom light and headed to meet the guys at the bar.
“You sure you’re cool with this?” he said.
She was reaching back across to the center console and didn’t say anything until she stood and swung the driver side car door shut. She looked at him and her eyes sparkled, her mouth curled with mischief.
“It’ll be fun.” she said.
He watched her as she tucked her dark hair behind her ear and adjusted her top. There was a hint of onion on the warm autumn breeze. Cam pulled a can of PBR from the box in his right hand, cracked it open with his front teeth and turned toward the apartment.
“Let’s do this.” he said.
She walked next to him as they crossed the lawn, curling her arm inside of his and setting her head against his shoulder. He gave her arm a squeeze and chugged the beer.
“I guess I’m driving then, huh?” she teased, looking up at him. He nodded his head and crumpled the empty can.
“You wouldn’t dare let me drive Daddy’s Benz.” he mocked.
She laughed and winked at him. “Oh, whatever. You drive it all the time.”
Cam dropped the empty can back into the box and knocked on the front door. He could hear the muffled sounds of conversation coming from inside. He had to knock again before the door finally swung open and his old roommate was standing in front of him, holding a fifth of Jack and laughing.
“Steven.” Cam said.
“Cameron. Rachel.” his friend said, mimicking his formal tone. “Welcome to another Tuesday night in paradise!”
“Stevo!” Rachel said. She laughed and leaned in to give him a hug. Cam followed her through the door and into the kitchen. His friend shut the door behind him and offered up the bottle of whiskey. Cam smiled and raised his case of PBR.
“OK, hand one over then.” Stevo said. “Probably about time to switch out from the hard stuff anyway.” he said.
As usual, the apartment was packed. Stevo, his girlfriend and three other guys that Cam recognized from intramural soccer stood around the kitchen.
“What’s up, Cam.” one of them nodded. “You got an extra beer?”
Cam smiled as he walked to the fridge. “Fo sho.” he said, handing over a beer.
Stevo’s fridge was empty except for a bottle of ketchup, Tapitio and three different cases of beer. Cam shook his head, grabbed another beer and leaned back against an open spot on the kitchen counter. There were half a dozen faces, all that he recognized, sitting in the living room. Sam and Jonathan sat in their typical spots on the couch, duking it out on the X-Box. From what he could hear of it, the level of trash talk between the two players was already at a seven or eight of ten this evening. An audience always helped to fuel their video game rivalry.
“Hey friend.” said Courtney, bringing Cam’s attention back to the kitchen. Courtney sat on the countertop next to Stevo. “How have you been?” she said.
He looked at her and smiled. “Can’t complain.” he said. “I’ve been working a lot lately. It’s a good thing I’m only taking the one class this semester.”
“Cool.” she said. “How are you and Rachel doing?”
She grinned and nodded in the direction of the living room where Rachel had just sat down next to a guy she knew from her pre-med classes named Chase. Everyone in the kitchen turned and looked in their direction.
“I hate that fucker.” said one of the guys from soccer. “He’s such a tool.”
Cam nodded but didn‘t say anything. He watched Rachel lean on her knee as Chase talked. She laughed at something he said, reached over and squeezed his leg playfully. Her eyes twinkled and Cam remembered seeing the same look a few minutes ago outside.
“You two are still hanging out, right?” Stevo said. Cam Shrugged.
“It is what it is.” he said, looking back to his friend.
Stevo, Courtney and the guys from soccer all nodded. They drank quietly until Stevo stood up from the counter, dropped back to pass and hurled his empty beer can at the direction of the kitchen sink.
“Hun! You can’t take three steps and throw it in the trash?” said Courtney. “That’s so gross.”
Stevo laughed and pulled out a crushed pack of Camel Wides from his cargo shorts.
“Cam, join me for a smoke?” he said.
Cam finished his beer, crumpled the can and walked over to the trash can on the other side of the kitchen.
“Thank you!” said Courtney. Stevo laughed again.
“C’mon, Cam.” he said, handing his friend a cigarette as he opened the door. Cam smiled, took the cigarette and followed his friend out the front door. He did not look back at the living room.
-----------------------------------------------------
The two friends returned to the kitchen and on cue, Stevo tossed his empty cigarette pack at the sink. His indignant smile lessened though when he realized Courtney was no longer in the room. It was quickly replaced by a look of pure joy, Cam noticed, when Stevo recognized the familiar smell of marijuana smoke wafting from the back bedroom.
“I believe that duty calls.” he said, motioning for Cam to join him.
“Be right there.” Cam said.
The kitchen was empty now. The living room crowd had thinned also. The X-Box rivalry had been put on hold and only a couple guys remained – neither of them talking as they sat in the corner and sipped their drinks. Cam pulled a fresh beer from the fridge, stuffed it in his cargo pocket and grabbed another one as well. He could hear a chant building from the back bedroom, “suck, suck, suck…”
-----------------------------------------------------
Cam had to turn his shoulders to walk through the crowd spilling out of the bedroom doorway. The room was covered with a layer of blue smoke. A hookah stood center stage on a small coffee table next to Stevo’s bed. The “suck” chant was peaking as Cam spotted Rachel, with both hands wrapped around the hookah hose, taking a long, deep hit. Chase sat next to her on the bed. He was leaning over the coffee table with a lighter – roasting the bowl as Rachel took in the hit.
“Damn!” Someone yelled. “This girl is a born natural.”
Cam sipped his beer and watched from just inside the doorway. Finally Rachel pulled away from the hose, handing it off to Jonathan who sat beside her.
“Hold in that shit.” Chase said to her.
She held her breath for a couple seconds before coughing out a large cloud of smoke. Her audience cheered on the coughing fit as she curled her body forward, tears pooling in the corner of her eyes and then running down her cheeks. Once the coughing dissipated, Rachel sat up straight and rubbed her cheeks dry.
“How did that feel?” Jonathan asked her.
She didn’t respond. Instead she stared ahead blankly as her head wobbled slowly side to side. Then she threw her hands out wide and freefell back onto the bed behind her with a smile. The room erupted in cheers. Chase leaned back on the bed next to her. Cam turned and shouldered his way back out the door. It wasn’t until he was sitting on the step out front the apartment that the cheers faded to the sound of crickets.
-----------------------------------------------------
Cam was half way through another beer when Stevo opened the apartment door and joined him out front on the step.
“Yo, Cam.” He said, nudging Cam’s shoulder with the back of his hand. Cam looked up at his friend.
“What up?” He said.
“You might want to check on Rachel.” Stevo said.
“Yeah?” Cam said.
“Yeah.” Stevo said. “She’s freaking out pretty hardcore.” He said.
Cam pushed himself to his feet and handed his friend his half empty beer. Stevo shook his head.
“Has she smoked before?” he asked.
“Just once.” Cam said.
“Damn.” Stevo said. “That’s no bueno.”
Cam nodded as he pushed past Stevo and through the front door. Sam met him in the kitchen. He pointed down the hall.
“She’s in the bathroom.” He said. “Got the door locked. Wouldn’t let me in.” He said.
Cam walked down the hall and stopped at the bathroom door. There was still a crowd in the bedroom and a couple guys turned back toward him and watched as he knocked once on the bathroom door. He leaned in close and then knocked again, softly.
“Hey.” He said. “It’s me.” There was no response. “C’mon, let me in.” He said.
The door knob turned and the door cracked open. Cam opened it just enough to slip through and then latched and locked it again behind him.
Rachel sat on the floor, her back resting against a draped towel that hung on the bathroom wall. Her knees were pulled tightly against her chest. Her eyes were wide, with tears smeared across her face. Her breath was near hyperventilation as she rocked back and forth. She did not look up at him as he settled down on the floor next to her. Her eyes were fixated on something far away, something far beyond the physical boundaries of the small apartment bathroom. Cam sat beside her in silence for a moment. After a bit her breathing began to slow.
“Do you hate me?” She asked him, her gaze still locked in front of her. Cam reached out and took her hand in his lap.
“Of course not.” He said. Rachel nodded her head.
“They hate me.” She said.
“The guys?” Cam said. “They don’t hate you, ‘Rach.’” He said.
“Not them.” She said. “Them.” She nodded her head toward something in front of them. Cam looked back to her.
“Who are you talking about?” He said. She nodded again.
“My family.” She said. “They’re watching me.” Cam squeezed her hand.
“It’s going to be Ok.” He said.
“Why won’t they talk to me?” Rachel said. “They’re so far away. Why can’t I be with them? Why are they so far away?” She said. Her breath began to shorten again in panic.
“Why won’t they let me go to them? Why can’t I stand in the light, with them, in the light?” She said.
“’Rach,’ calm down. It’s going to be Ok.” Cam said.
He was holding her hand tightly now with both of his. He pictured her family standing in a white light, out beyond some dark void. He pictured her father and his strong handshake, her mother’s guarded smile, her older sister’s shy waive, her younger sister’s warm hug…
“It isn’t real.” He said. “You just need to relax. Don’t fight it. Just relax.”
He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in against his chest. She didn’t fight, letting her head rest against him. Her gaze remained fixated ahead but her breathing began to slow once more. They sat there together in silence for several minutes.
“Do they love me?” Rachel said. Cam squeezed her shoulder.
“Yes.” He said. “They love you very much.”
“How do you know?” She said blankly.
“How could they not.” He said.
They were quiet again for several minutes. Outside the bathroom, Cam could hear the party move back to the living room, the X-Box rivalry resume. At one point there was a knock on the bathroom door. Cam and Rachel sat together in silence. Finally someone yelled from the kitchen, “just piss off the back patio, dude.” Finally, Rachel looked up at Cam. He smiled at her. She searched his face for a moment and then turned away.
"Do you love me?" She said. He didn’t answer right away. She waited quietly.
“Yes.” He said.
“Are you lying?” She said.
"Does it matter?" He said.
After a moment she looked back up to him. "Yes." She said. "It does matter."
He kissed the top of her head. "Then no, I'm not lying. I do love you." He said. They were both quiet for several minutes.
“I want to go home.” She said.
“Then let’s go home.” He said.
After twenty more minutes had passed with neither of them moving, neither of them speaking, Cam and Rachel finally pulled each other up from the bathroom floor and went home.
-----------------------------------------------------
When they were standing in the middle of Rachel’s bedroom, a floor lamp softly illuminating a dozen stuffed pigs piled beside them on top of her feather-top bed cover, Cam pulled her into a hug. She hugged him back, wrapping her arms around his waist.“Thank you.” She said. “Thank you for tonight.” She leaned up and kissed him softly.
“You’re welcome.” He said.
“Will you stay with me tonight?” She said.
“Of course.” He said.
He helped her out of her clothes and into her pajamas. While she brushed her teeth Cam cleared off the pigs and the pillows. Then he helped her climb into the far side of her bed, against the wall. Shedding his shorts and tee-shirt, he then turned off the bedroom floor lamp and climbed into her bed next to her. She cuddled up to him as he lay on his back. With her arm draped across his bare chest, Rachel slipped into sleep.
While she slept, Cam stared at the darkness that filled the bedroom. He pictured his own family and thought about what Rachel had said. Sometime later, when she rolled over in her sleep – turning her back to him – Cam quietly slipped out from under her feather-top comforter. In the darkness he retrieved his shorts and tee-shirt before letting himself out through her bedroom door. In the bathroom he pulled up his shorts and slipped into his shirt. Once dressed, he paused and looked at the mirror. On the shelf below the mirror sat three items, and Cam looked at them carefully. In the end, he decided to take two of the items but leave the third. With a sigh, Cam stuck the cigarette between his lips… put the keys to her Mercedes in his pocket… left his toothbrush sitting on the shelf… flipped off the bathroom light and headed to meet the guys at the bar.
-----------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
A Proposal -- A Short in Three Parts (Concluded)
~ First written on December 2nd, 2005 to my now wife, Julie Anne McKown and broken into three parts and shared today in honor of our four year anniversary. Happy Four Year Anniversary Jules!~
It was the subtle sound of wood striking wood that brought Cameron back to consciousness. It was the first thing he noticed, even before he opened his eyes. And then he opened them. The storm had passed, as had the night. The clear blue sky overhead was the second thing he noticed. And then he moved, and couldn’t help but notice the pain that wracked his every muscle and every bone. As he pulled himself into a sitting position he looked around, taking note of the damage. The boat was in pieces. Random planks of wood lay in chaos. It was a miracle the boat was still afloat.
Cameron was wondering how he was still alive when he heard the dull thud of wood on wood once more. Slowly he dragged himself to his feet, turning toward the sound. As he looked over the side of the boat, at the calm water below, his heart stopped. His jaw dropped. A chill ran down his spine. His hands began to tremble. Lying below him, face up on a floating piece of wood was the most breathtaking girl he had ever seen. She had long, brown hair and deep, mysterious brown eyes. Wrapped about her shivering body was a brilliant green dress. Cameron recognized her immediately. She was the girl in his dreams, there was no doubt.
A fearful excitement began to stir his cold heart. The air seemed fresher now. The sun shown brighter. His body didn’t ache as badly. In an instant everything was different and somehow Cameron knew that nothing would ever again be the same. The brown eyed girl looked up in a daze, soundless words on her lips.
“Help… me… please…” Cameron jumped into action. After finding a length of wood that could reach to the water, the boy guided the floating castaway to the stern of the boat where he then pulled her aboard. With the girls head lying softly in his lap, Cameron helped the girl to a jug of fresh water that he had found below deck. After a few minutes the girl spoke.
“Thank you.” She said hoarsely. Cameron nodded.
“What’s your name?” He asked her softly. She smiled.
“Haley.” The girl said. They looked at each other for a moment and then Cameron grinned.
“Hello there, Haley.” He said. “I am Cameron.” The girl smiled again and closed her eyes, and slept. She slept for several hours there in his lap. He watched her sleep, running his hand lightly across her face and through her hair. Over and over the boy mouthed her name, as though it were a prayer that he had always known, but never before said. Haley. Haley. Haley…
With the next dawn, Haley traveled home to find her family and let them know that she was safe. But over the next few months the two remained in touch and their friendship quickly became something much more. In the spring of the next year, Haley moved in with Cameron into the home of his childhood. The two were head-over-heels in love with each other. One was rarely seen around town without the other. Every day the boy thanked God for bringing them together like He had. And every night, in his dreams, Cameron still dreamed of the same girl – the brown eyed angel that he had always dreamed of, the girl who had saved him, the girl named Haley.
And then on a snowy day in early December, their lives were changed forever. The day started like any other day. The two love birds awoke in the morning next to each other. Cameron took a shower while Haley lingered in bed. He dressed, kissed his girl and hugged her goodbye. And then Cameron left for work for the day. Haley went about her day as she always did. Everything was as it should be, until late that afternoon. It was then their world was turned on its head.
A knock pulled Haley away from a book she had been reading. When she opened the door she was greeted by the village mailman.
“Package for ya, Miss.” He said, smiling. Haley took the blank, oversized envelope.
“Thank you.” She said pleasantly.
“Pleasure.” He nodded. “Good day now.”
With that, Haley shut the door. Sitting down at the kitchen table, she examined the package. There were no clues on the outside, other than the words, “My Best Friend” printed in a familiar handwriting on the front. Curious, she opened one end of the envelope and reached inside. Upon emptying the package, Haley found only a handmade journal with a second, smaller envelope tucked inside. On the journal’s cover were the words, “A Proposal.” Confused, she pulled out the smaller envelope. On it was a warning not to open until she read from the journal. Excitement began to fill her as the girl realized she had seen the journal once before, accidentally, in Cameron’s bag some time back. With her heart in her throat, the girl opened the book and began to read. She immediately recognized Cameron’s nervous handwriting. Her hands began to shake as she read. She found herself shivering although a warm, wood burning fire lay only several feet away in the living room. Her breath came more quickly and it was all that she could do to remain sitting long enough to read what he had written.
The journal was filled with his thoughts, his fears, his loves and his dreams. In those pages Cameron told Haley that she was his best friend and that his entire life had been leading him to one single day, one single moment, one single question. In those pages the boy told his girl that she had put a name to the face he had always known he would someday find. He told her that now that he had found her, he never wanted to let her go. In that journal Cameron told Haley that he wanted her to have his children, that he wanted to grow old by her side. And when the girl read the final words that he had written, she screamed. They said boldly, and simply…
WILL YOU MARRY ME?
The story ends here, my sweet Julie Anne, but this is not the end of the story. This is the beginning. If you turn this page there are countless more that are blank, that are waiting to be written on. We have the rest of our lives to finish writing our story. Just as Haley found once she opened the white envelope that was tucked in the pages of the journal, you will find a ticket inside. Please take this ticket and come join me so that we can finish writing this story, our story, together. I love you so very much! And if you come find me, I have a question that I would like to ask you…
A Proposal, Part 3
It was the subtle sound of wood striking wood that brought Cameron back to consciousness. It was the first thing he noticed, even before he opened his eyes. And then he opened them. The storm had passed, as had the night. The clear blue sky overhead was the second thing he noticed. And then he moved, and couldn’t help but notice the pain that wracked his every muscle and every bone. As he pulled himself into a sitting position he looked around, taking note of the damage. The boat was in pieces. Random planks of wood lay in chaos. It was a miracle the boat was still afloat.
Cameron was wondering how he was still alive when he heard the dull thud of wood on wood once more. Slowly he dragged himself to his feet, turning toward the sound. As he looked over the side of the boat, at the calm water below, his heart stopped. His jaw dropped. A chill ran down his spine. His hands began to tremble. Lying below him, face up on a floating piece of wood was the most breathtaking girl he had ever seen. She had long, brown hair and deep, mysterious brown eyes. Wrapped about her shivering body was a brilliant green dress. Cameron recognized her immediately. She was the girl in his dreams, there was no doubt.
A fearful excitement began to stir his cold heart. The air seemed fresher now. The sun shown brighter. His body didn’t ache as badly. In an instant everything was different and somehow Cameron knew that nothing would ever again be the same. The brown eyed girl looked up in a daze, soundless words on her lips.
“Help… me… please…” Cameron jumped into action. After finding a length of wood that could reach to the water, the boy guided the floating castaway to the stern of the boat where he then pulled her aboard. With the girls head lying softly in his lap, Cameron helped the girl to a jug of fresh water that he had found below deck. After a few minutes the girl spoke.
“Thank you.” She said hoarsely. Cameron nodded.
“What’s your name?” He asked her softly. She smiled.
“Haley.” The girl said. They looked at each other for a moment and then Cameron grinned.
“Hello there, Haley.” He said. “I am Cameron.” The girl smiled again and closed her eyes, and slept. She slept for several hours there in his lap. He watched her sleep, running his hand lightly across her face and through her hair. Over and over the boy mouthed her name, as though it were a prayer that he had always known, but never before said. Haley. Haley. Haley…
----------------------------------------------------------
When the girl awoke once more, she told Cameron of how she came to be lying on a piece of driftwood in the calm after the storm. It was an amazing tale in itself, but a tale to be told another day. Let us just say that it was a tale much like the boy’s in many ways. And as the girl told him of it, the boy’s heart melted, and his anger faded. Cameron, who had never had direction, never had a purpose, suddenly realized that somehow his entire life had led him to this day, to this moment. And in the time it took to limp the boat into the harbor, the boy and girl had become the best of friends. As they stepped back onto the safety of dry land, the two survivors marveled at how they felt they had already known each other their entire lives, and not just mere hours.----------------------------------------------------------
With the next dawn, Haley traveled home to find her family and let them know that she was safe. But over the next few months the two remained in touch and their friendship quickly became something much more. In the spring of the next year, Haley moved in with Cameron into the home of his childhood. The two were head-over-heels in love with each other. One was rarely seen around town without the other. Every day the boy thanked God for bringing them together like He had. And every night, in his dreams, Cameron still dreamed of the same girl – the brown eyed angel that he had always dreamed of, the girl who had saved him, the girl named Haley.
----------------------------------------------------------
A knock pulled Haley away from a book she had been reading. When she opened the door she was greeted by the village mailman.
“Package for ya, Miss.” He said, smiling. Haley took the blank, oversized envelope.
“Thank you.” She said pleasantly.
“Pleasure.” He nodded. “Good day now.”
With that, Haley shut the door. Sitting down at the kitchen table, she examined the package. There were no clues on the outside, other than the words, “My Best Friend” printed in a familiar handwriting on the front. Curious, she opened one end of the envelope and reached inside. Upon emptying the package, Haley found only a handmade journal with a second, smaller envelope tucked inside. On the journal’s cover were the words, “A Proposal.” Confused, she pulled out the smaller envelope. On it was a warning not to open until she read from the journal. Excitement began to fill her as the girl realized she had seen the journal once before, accidentally, in Cameron’s bag some time back. With her heart in her throat, the girl opened the book and began to read. She immediately recognized Cameron’s nervous handwriting. Her hands began to shake as she read. She found herself shivering although a warm, wood burning fire lay only several feet away in the living room. Her breath came more quickly and it was all that she could do to remain sitting long enough to read what he had written.
The journal was filled with his thoughts, his fears, his loves and his dreams. In those pages Cameron told Haley that she was his best friend and that his entire life had been leading him to one single day, one single moment, one single question. In those pages the boy told his girl that she had put a name to the face he had always known he would someday find. He told her that now that he had found her, he never wanted to let her go. In that journal Cameron told Haley that he wanted her to have his children, that he wanted to grow old by her side. And when the girl read the final words that he had written, she screamed. They said boldly, and simply…
WILL YOU MARRY ME?
----------------------------------------------------------
The story ends here, my sweet Julie Anne, but this is not the end of the story. This is the beginning. If you turn this page there are countless more that are blank, that are waiting to be written on. We have the rest of our lives to finish writing our story. Just as Haley found once she opened the white envelope that was tucked in the pages of the journal, you will find a ticket inside. Please take this ticket and come join me so that we can finish writing this story, our story, together. I love you so very much! And if you come find me, I have a question that I would like to ask you…
----------------------------------------------------------
And thus ends A Proposal, Part 3.
The rest of the story... Well, that is still in the midst of being written.
