Editor’s Note: Below You’ll Find A Collection of Fiction and Reality. I am working on a longer piece and trying to weave some things together. Here is the first run.
There is a strange dichotomy that lies between trying to bare your soul online without sharing all of the skeletons that make you look like a raging asshole in dire need of anger management.
Don’t know where this post will take me or what sort of truths I may or may not let loose, I can only tell you that I just popped open a single bottle of Shiner Bock and that it will be the only alcohol to pass through my lips tonight.
*****
Have you ever noticed how you can take an instant like or dislike to a person based solely upon a split second look at or introduction to them?
Well there is a pasty-faced fellow who is about two years younger than I am, a guy that I really only know of and about that fits that bill.
It might not be right or fair of me to feel like I could improve his appearance by kicking him in the teeth and punching him in the throat but that is just what his stupid looking expression brings out of me.
I have more than his “is so pale he would be sunburnt in a cave” looking face to help me feel like I could do a better job on him than any plastic surgeon.
Yeah, I have a solid reason for wanting to demonstrate what it means to get this kind of special attention from me but I am not going to share that here.
Not going to give you more specifics because if you have any ability to feel the energy radiate off of a page you already are blanching and if you can’t, well consider this one man’s hyperbolic expression.
I Just Wanted To Make You Jealous
Got my beer sitting next to one of the meaty paws I call hands, headphones streaming Ray Charle and Count Basie singing Come Live With Me and in just a moment they’ll move onto their cover of The Long and Winding Road.
Images of a girl/woman I once knew float through my mind, her voice telling me how she just wanted to make me jealous and the fire that flowed through my veins because of that.
A mix of frustration and pure anger knowing how and why she was trying to manipulate me and the awareness of how badly I wanted to rip him apart for getting in between.
Frustration with myself because what I knew I should and must do required more self-control than normal.
You see, I knew she wanted my attention, wanted a particular response but didn’t quite understand that in this particular instance it would set me on fire.
And I knew that if I was face-to-face with him there was a chance I would manhandle him in the kind of way no man ever wants to be handled.
He would be a rag doll and I would be the bear.
I never saw him. Never met him. Never spoke with him.
It was intentional.
I wanted to be angry with her.
Wanted to show her my back as I walked away. No response and no reaction for her.
She would learn the hard way I wouldn’t tolerate any of that nonsense, except I couldn’t be angry, at least not for any length of time.
I loved her far too much and the idea of just walking was more painful than saying we could work through whatever hiccup we had encountered.
So I sent her a note, thanking her for breaking my heart multiple times and for proving women weren’t to be trusted.
She told me I overreacted.
I told her not to try and make herself feel better by saying my feelings weren’t valid.
“I loved you before. I love you today and I’ll love you tomorrow. But I hurt. I ache and I burn. Maybe that is my fate. Maybe it is not. I don’t care. Don’t take advantage of my love. I see and know more than I say. You’re worth it, even when you are a giant pain in my ass.”
Whom The Gods Ignore
A flash sparked across the sky but it wasn’t interesting enough to make the men look up. They were too busy playing cards and thunderstorms around here are no different than the million feral cats wandering through the neighborhood.
They come and go as they please and if you get in the way you are as likely to be scratched as ignored.
I didn’t like the cats and if I had my way the people that fed them would be fined and or shot. Take away the bowls of food and water and they would disappear, problem solved.
But the cats didn’t bother me half as much as the storms did. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have given a damn about the cats except for the way the lightning made them show up in something that resembled a pack.
It was weird and unnatural seeing them like that. Cats aren’t pack animals, they don’t move in groups, but these ones did.
I didn’t like it, but you already knew that.
What you don’t know is what happened that Labor Day weekend nine years ago. You didn’t see us walking down the street, holding hands and dancing in the rain.
You didn’t see me lift my face to the sky, jaw opened wide, lapping up the rain and laughing.
You didn’t hear her tell me that it wasn’t safe to be outdoors when the lightning was being tossed about.
“It is dangerous out here, we need to get inside.”
I laughed and told her to relax, nothing was going to happen.Watch what happens when I tell Zeus I want to play catch with one of his bolts.
“Zeus! Zeus, you big pussy, show me something. Toss me a bolt and I’ll throw it back, we’ll play catch.”
I laughed again and did a cartwheel in the street.
Seconds later I opened my eyes and tried to figure out why I was lying in the mud.
The old men told me that they saw three bolts of lightning hit the ground, right where we had been standing.
“Oh god, we. Right where we had been standing. Where was she!”
I looked around, but I didn’t see her. All I saw was a lone shoe.
Twenty feet away from there those damn cats were meowing and climbing over something, at least I thought it was something. It took my head much longer to process what my heart already knew.
That wasn’t something, it was someone and I knew them.
She was gone and it was my fault. I was the one who refused to go inside and who called down the thunder.
And now every time it rains I run outside and beg to play catch again. The bolts come down but they never hit me.
But others are not so lucky.
No one talks to me anymore, the only living creatures that come close are those damn cats.
Maybe one day I’ll get lucky and lightning will strike again, or maybe not.
****
Eyes close, lips brush…time stops. Eyes open…empty room…Empty heart. Hope that echoes of the past become reality of the future. #loveburns
A Fire In The Sky
The middle of the night is supposed to be dark, especially when you are outside the city limits. Away from the city lights the night is supposed to be lit up with a full moon and twinkling lights that we call stars. You are sixteen years old and in a short time you are going to be part of a group that is leaving the states to spend the summer in Israel. That dark night sky is your friend. It speaks of of potential and that girl you like thinks it is kind of romantic to walk under the stars and talk about the things that teenagers discuss.
You feel lucky. You feel old. You feel a million different things at once. It is hard to believe that your parents are sending you on this trip ten thousand miles from home, but they are.
The week before you leave is spent at the camp you grew up at. It is like a second home to you and you are quite comfortable under that same night sky. The twinkling lights you stare at are easily identified. You can point out the Big Dipper and other constellations and you do. You like walking with that girl and talking to her. She might like you too but you are not positive. Every night she finds you just before bed and hugs you goodnight. Sometimes she stares at you like she is waiting for something, but you are not entirely sure. You hope that she wants you to kiss her, but she doesn’t do anything to encourage you so you hold back.
A few days before you are supposed to leave ash falls from the sky. It comes from a fire that appears to be far away. You stare off at the hills in the distance and see the black smoke but you don’t see any flames so you don’t really think about it. Time passes and your friends and you notice that now you can see specks of orange flames dotting the hillside…far away. But you don’t worry because you are sixteen and invincible. You don’t worry because you are too busy wondering what it will be like to be in Israel, to see your family and to have this adventure with your friends.
Later that day the camp holds a fire drill. You have done this a million times before. The siren is loud and annoying. Out on the baseball field the director tells you that he is not afraid and that none of you should be either. During the camp director’s speech you’ll look at that girl and smile. She’ll smile back and you think that maybe tonight she’ll let you kiss her.
Evening comes but it doesn’t bring the twinkly lights. Now many of them are obscured by black smoke. . Your counselors keep you busy and at the end of the night activity they push you back to your tent insisting that it is important to get some sleep. A hot wind blows across the camp and for the first time you truly wonder if the fire is coming.
But you are sixteen and living in a tent with 18 other sixteen year old boys. No one talks about fear. The usual discussion about the girls is taking place. You listen carefully to see if any of the other guys are interested in the girl you like but no one says anything and you remain silent. Slowly you all drift off to sleep.
The loud and annoying siren wakes you from your slumber. Your counselors are moving from bunk to bunk telling everyone to get out of bed, this isn’t a drill. The fire has come. So you roll out of bed wearing your shorts, grab the first two shoes you find and your glasses. As you walk outside you notice the hot wind and quite a scene.
The hills are alive not with the sound of music but with flames.
Buses roll into camp and are quickly loaded with children. Some of them are crying. Little brothers and sisters call out to their older siblings and are told to get on the bus. We turn to each other and say stay strong- don’t make the little kids nervous. All of the buses leave and we aren’t on them.
They tell us to start hiking up the road. I am at the back of the line. I turn around and look back…camp isn’t burning but the hills just above it are.
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