Living My Dreams

I could never have imagined that one day I would wake up and not have you by my side. It still seems improbable, inconceivable and simply unbelievable.  This can’t be real because the Greek tragedies aren’t true stories. They are myths and tales that are man made- not reality.

Yet, here we are living life alone and apart. Separate homes and separate lives. You were the guardian of all my secrets and the woman that I allowed to walk unfettered and unencumbered through my heart. I had every opportunity to treat you like a piece of meat but I didn’t.

It wasn’t because you prevented me from doing so. You gave yourself so willingly to me that I knew I could ask you to do anything and you would. It was part of the magic of our bond. Sometimes I think that you were offended that I didn’t take advantage of the situation. Sometimes I think that you were offended that I didn’t take every moment to ravish your body.

That didn’t happen because I have never seen a woman who is more beautiful than you are. I have never been closer or more intimate with anyone than I was with you. You know this because I told you so but I would like to tell you again.  Not by phone, text, email or IM but in person.

The things we did and the experiences we had were real. They were magical and mysterious. They had a depth and purpose that cannot be properly expressed through words alone.

You are the song of my heart. Even now so long after we parted I still hear your melody being played in places too deep to ignore. I can still feel your touch and taste your lips. Your scent is not forgotten nor have I forgotten the grace with which you move.

Remember how I used to stare at you and how I enjoyed just listening to you breathe. Sometimes you would shy away from my look and tell me that I was too intense but you always said it with a smile.

There are so many stories that I could tell and so many memories that I could share with you. I still can’t believe that I have started listening to some of those Barry Manilow songs you used to talk about. Remember how I teased you about his elevator music and said that thirty somethings weren’t old enough to listen to him. You rolled your eyes at me and accused me of having no taste.

Now I find myself quoting his songs and wondering if maybe they foretell a future that is yet unwritten. When he sings about finding the right love at the wrong time I nod my head in frustration and ask why us. When he talks about walks down long rocky beaches and starting a story whose end will have to wait I smile.

Yes, I admit it. I smile because it gives me hope that maybe we’ll find our way back to each other. But sometimes I don’t let that hope inside my head or my heart. Sometimes I stuff it back down into the cage it came from and think of reasons to be angry with you. That anger helps to hide the sadness and makes me forget how much I miss you.

I am just a boy asking a girl for the chance to hold her hand again because I can’t imagine not having you in my life. I’m just a man who remembers a time when he kissed a woman and then the whole world shifted.

These words are bittersweet. I remember writing them- both those above and those below. I see a guy who was walking a tightrope and trying not to fall. Sometimes he was tough and sometimes he was weak.

Sometimes Things Happen

Sometimes things happen that make you shake your head in wonder and disbelief. There is nothing especially profound or insightful about that. Fact is that most people would look at such a sentence and move on to the next thing without a second thought. Why? Because it sounds obvious and seems to be the kind of throwaway line that people use to fill empty space in a Bluebook.

I am not one of those people. No, not me. I am a muckraker, shit stirrer and gadfly who knows that the significance lies in what feelings you had when you shook your head. It could be disgust. You might roll your eyes at something, crinkle your nose and wonder how someone so stupid hadn’t mentioned to kill themselves. But then again you might shake your head in disbelief and wonder because you are in shock over what you just saw or experienced.

And that my friends makes all the difference. That sense of wonder and amazement is part of the intangible that makes a relationship move from just friends to in love. It is the secret sauce that powers the motor and if you could bottle and sell it you would be quite wealthy.

I suppose that wealth fits into this sort of different way of looking at things too. Wealth doesn’t have to be about finances and real estate. It could just as easily be about your personal feelings regarding what you have. There have been times in my life where I had ample funds to cover whatever I wanted but I never needed material things to make myself feel good. Peace of mind didn’t come from a place called Bloomingdales, Macys or 14 Carat.

There have been moments in time where I barely had enough to make ends meet and moments where I had more than I could spend. All part of life’s roller coaster and I am good with that.

Ok, that is not entirely true I get tired of life’s roller coaster and ask for the mundane and routine to become a regular and consistent place but that doesn’t happen. Or if it does it doesn’t happen to me and that is why I am ok with it.

Peace of mind comes from learning how to play the hand we are dealt and from acceptance that there are some things that can’t be changed.

Of course that has never been easy for me. I don’t look at my situation as being static…ever. I figure that if life is going to be fluid than I might as well use it to my advantage. The thing is that I look at that fluidity and try to apply it everywhere.

I am the guy that looks at the hurricane and figures hell, I can waltz right through this sucker- all I need to do is find the eye of the storm and all will be well.

Suppose that explains a lot now doesn’t it. Some would say that is the definition of a schmuck and others call it part of being a hero.  Beats the hell out of me what it is. All I know is that I hate labels.

But history is a different thing altogether. History is something that I love and appreciate. History is something that I enjoy studying. I like looking at my past. I like trying to learn from it.

Maybe that is the reason why I find myself digging through these old tomes. Maybe I am in search of answers but I am not really sure if I will find them there.

Alone In The Stacks

It was 1980 something or maybe it was the early 90s- I can’t really remember and I don’t care. What I do remember is walking through the library…with Ann Stacey. We were in the Stacks looking for some tome that we needed for a group project we were walking on together. The space between the shelves was quite narrow preventing two people to walk side by side. In an effort to be a gentleman I let go first and I followed right behind her.

She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and had long black hair that was caught up in one of those scrunchy things the girls wore back then. I’ll readily admit that I chose to walk behind her so that I could stare at her without fear of being caught. But it was also done for self preservation, she made my heart pound and I was afraid that I might trip over my big feet and knock myself unconscious.

While I was confident in my abilities to woo a woman I couldn’t think of a clever way to knock myself out and get the girl. It seemed like a great move for some John Hughes movie, except in that one I would be some nerd who would end up with the girl I thought was just a friend. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but this was real life and I was enamored with her that the thought of ending up with someone else just seemed wrong.

The woman walked with purpose and moved quickly down the rows of books and magazines. Periodically she would speak and I would wonder if she had a part time job as a an auctioneer- she spoke so very quickly.  Who knew that she would also stop moving as quickly as she started. I suppose that if I hadn’t been enjoying the sweet scent of her perfume or admiring the swish of her hips I might have been aware that I was about to crash into her.

If nothing else I wouldn’t have smashed her face first into some dusty book causing some other books to fall off of the top shelf and plummet towards earth. Ok, they would have hit earth but instead they smacked her on the top of her head. Looking back on it I realize that this had turned into a John Hughes movie, except instead of me being the one who hit the dirt it was her.

For a moment we stood in silence and disbelief. I didn’t know what to say or what to do. Her face was inscrutable and I suddenly found myself fighting back gales of laughter. I really liked her and I didn’t want to wreck a future by laughing at the wrong time. The worst part of it was the feeling that I shouldn’t laugh. The idea that I shouldn’t made the urge so much stronger. So very strong that I was certain that if I didn’t do something I would laugh so hard I would fall down.

So in an effort not to laugh I just reacted. I tucked an arm around her waist and pulled her towards me. When she was close enough I wiped some dust off of her forehead and kissed her on the mouth. She didn’t kiss me back nor did she push me away. For just a moment we stood there with my lips pressed against hers. When I didn’t feel her return the kiss I began to panic and I got really nervous and began to mutter some kind of apology.

I remember thinking that this kind of crap never happens to Humphrey Bogart. Don’t bother me with silly details about him being dead or that all I saw him in were movies. I know that they were following a script- I already told you to stop bothering my with technicalities and details.

In retrospect I bet that less than a minute had passed but to me it felt like it had been hours. I took my mouth off of hers and looked at her face. She looked back into my eyes and asked me why I had stopped. Fortunately she wasn’t scared off by the Cheshire Cat grin that graced my lips or worried that kissing me would lead to being brained by a 50 year old dictionary.

Alone in the stacks we gained a different sort of education than the one that he had set out to find, and far more enjoyable.

And then I stumbled onto one of the letters that my daughter had discovered. She came to me with tears in her eyes and told me about it. At first I thought that she was upset because it wasn’t about her mother and then I learned otherwise.

I had a dream. I dreamt of a place that I had never been to but always wanted to live in. You were there and your arms welcomed me to a place that until then had always lived inside me. You unlocked the passion and the fire that burns inside me.

You helped me to remember that love is meant to sting, that to be apart is to feel an ache that no drug can touch and to be together is to know the meaning of union.

You are my drug of choice, an addiction that I cannot give up. My air and my blood, the wind that fills my sails and were I to lose you I would be forced to revisit that dark place that I used to live in. I would be hollow inside, an empty shell and who knows what might choose to occupy that place.

I knew the day that we kissed that life was going to be different. Few people understand because so few have had the experience and even then few walk that path. When you walk through fire you risk being burned but you also open yourself up to untold rewards.

When just holding hands brings incredible pleasure, when whispers and caresses offer the height of joy and passion there is something special.

When I kissed you I felt your legs go weak and I held you tightly but I was not concerned because my arms were made for holding you tight and feeling your heart beat against mine gives me all the strength that I require.

I had a dream that became reality.

She cried because she thought that it was romantic and because she wanted someone to write her a letter like that. I tried to brush it off as being some cheesy note that I had once written but she didn’t let it go.

“Dad, you would never say something like that to just anyone. Who was she? What was her name? What happened to you guys and have you tried to find her?”

I told her to take a breath and she laughed. Told me that she couldn’t help it, had a million questions about who could make me feel that way. Naturally I faked having to use the bathroom and ran for cover.

Twenty minutes later I emerged to an empty room and found a note saying that she and a friend were having dinner. Had I spent any time thinking about it I would have realized that her disappearance didn’t mean that she had forgotten about this. Fact is that I would bet dollars to donuts that she had called Sheri that night and asked her to fill in the blanks.

I don’t know what Sheri told her but she probably left out the part where I was heartbroken or how a few of the women that came later wondered if I did anything besides have sex.

On second thought I couldn’t say that Sheri had edited the details of that time as closely as I would have liked. Women have funny boundaries and something told me that those two probably shared more than I thought.

A million questions were racing through my own mind but I didn’t have time to deal with those. I was on deadline and had to focus. The problem was that I had opened Pandora’s Box and a million different memories were fighting for my attention.

I took a deep breath and decided that I would read the next two entries and then resume working.

Two Souls

She is out there, my other half. Can’t say what she is doing or who she is doing it with but I know that she is out there.

Her physical absence is palpable and impossible not to notice. Sometimes I turn and expect to see her standing there with that look I know so well. Sometimes I turn and wonder why those dark eyes aren’t looking back at me.

I pick up the telephone and expect it to ring like it always did before. I dial the numbers and laugh because I know that she is going to say that she was about to call me. I hear the smile in her voice, except I don’t do it. I don’t dial.

Instead I hold the phone and close my eyes. I hold the phone, close my eyes and feel the hole and the emptiness. I  hold the phone, close my eyes and wonder if that chasm is one sided and then I feel this twinge.I feel this twinge and a silent bell rings inside my head and I know that she is thinking about me and us. I hear the bell and I know that somewhere she feels what I feel and that this is how and what it is for now.

Necessary. Lonely. Hard. Long. Rough. Required.

I close my eyes and try to center myself. I close my eyes and try to turn off the noise and focus on what is. And then just when I feel like I am truly alone I feel something touching me in a place that fingers can’t reach and arms can’t hold.

I close my eyes and I try to run from it. It is more intimate this touch and the feeling scares me a little. It is the place that only one has been and then I realize that the visitor is the same one who was there before.

Slowly I relax and realize that two souls have shed their bonds and found each other again. They always find each other. And for a brief moment I am completely relaxed and lost in a place that I cannot describe. Reality will intrude and I’ll convince myself that I have seen/felt what I wanted to.

But later in the silence of the night I’ll accept that two souls have done what the bodies and minds can’t. And for a moment I’ll let myself wonder if can’t refers to now or forever.

She is out there and so am I.

It wasn’t easy reading those words. It brought it all back to me and I remembered what it was like to feel like I had found and then lost my other half. What it told me was that I needed to set aside time to think about it all. Maybe I was just lonely. I hadn’t been single all that long but at the same time it had been long enough that the friends with benefits weren’t as exciting as they used to be.

On the other hand there was something to be said for sex with no strings attached. Had it been this easy to get laid in high school and college I might not have ever gotten married. Well, that was something to think about. In the interim I intended to follow through on my promise. I had one more letter to read and then it was time to focus on work.

Dreams I Have Never Had

Sometimes I dream about things that never were and places that I have never been. These dreams I have are bold and bright filled with beauty, mystery and sometimes fear. Sometimes I see the echoes of a future I hope to have and fragments of a past that was. There are dreams that I can’t quite describe but I can’t tell you why that is.

Maybe it is because trying to remember a dream is bit like trying to hold water in the palm of your hand. If you squeeze too hard it quickly pours out all the nooks and crannies and all you are left holding are a few lonely drops. But even if you hold absolutely still you still find that in a short time most of it will still have found a way to escape. Drips and drabs slide down the sides and between your fingers.

Dreams are like that water. Concentrate too hard and the memories simply evaporate. Sometimes I think that I can fool my dreams. If I pretend not to look at them they won’t run away and so I use my peripheral vision to try and take it in. Out of the corner of my mind’s eye I take note of what I see and try to make sense of it.

But it never quite works out the way that I want it to. Just as I feel like I almost have it within my grasp the memories fade and or become blurred with fragments of awareness of what is really going on around me. Dreams of holding hands and walking through our secret garden are vivid to me. So much so that sometimes I wake up and wonder how it is that I can still smell you and feel your hand in mine.

Sometimes I find myself lying in bed awake and aware that it was a dream but for a moment I refuse to open my eyes. In that refusal to acknowledge awareness of what was and what is I find a way to hold on to the dream for a moment more.

Blame it on a selfish attempt to continue to walk with you through our secret world and the belief that maybe the answers we search for lie in the subconscious. That feeling of the answers lying just beneath the surface is there frequently and I find myself giving in more frequently to the urge to explore it.

For a while I refused to do so and wrote it all off as being something that wasn’t based upon logic or reason. It didn’t seem like the smart thing to do so I refused it, but as time passed doing the smart thing grew more complicated. And so I think that I have reached a place where I understand that one piece of the puzzle is finding the way to answer the call of my heart.

Only time will tell whether the call of my heart is in synch with the truth of the dreams I have never had.

Readers

Readers. Readers are the best and worst part of being published.  Most of the columnists at the paper look at our readers with a certain amount of disdain. I suspect that it is because we usually only hear from the people who are retired, unhinged or retired and unhinged.

Some of you might think that I shouldn’t say that because it is like biting the hand that feeds me, but you don’t get the letters. You don’t get 16 typed pages, single spaced of course about why the CIA had to kill Elvis. I’ll spare you the pain of having to read the entire thing and tell you that it is because his music made girls crazy and Kennedy couldn’t take it.

Nor do you get the letters where Mrs. Maxipad explains that she thinks you hate women and that you use your column to pretend to be nice. That always makes me want to devote a column to her and her cat entitled “The Only Pussy That is Getting Fucked in This House Has a Tail.”

For some reason that powers that be simply won’t let me do that.  Big Ed tells me that given some time my misogynistic tendencies will wear off. I told him that given a lot of meaningless sex would make it happen faster and he just stared at me.

I don’t get it. It wasn’t like I was talking about his sister. Oh wait, I did say something about his sister. She is hot. I mean she is really hot. In fact she is so attractive I suggested that they might not be related by blood.

My guess is that he didn’t mean to call me a misogynist but couldn’t come up with anything else. Did I mention that he sort of stammers and stutters when he is angry. As PSA let me suggest that you not say something like “C’mon spit it out” to him during one of those moments as he just doesn’t deal very well with it.

Novels are a different animal altogether. I want to say that I am different than most columnists and that my books are fiction except I don’t know if that is true. However since I like to live in my own world I might declare it to be true and let the chips fall where they may.

Speaking of which I never did understand that expression. Maybe I take it too literally, but every time I hear it I picture potato chips covered in sour cream falling upon the floor. It is pretty messy and I am happy that I don’t have to clean it up.

Did I mention that the people who read my novels write me letters too? Well, they do and they like to ask questions. Some of them want to know if I can help them become published authors like myself. In the old days I used to try to answer every one of those letters. It seemed like the proper thing to do but that is not how it works any more.

Part of the reason I stopped was because the tail end of my marriage and the entire divorce took a lot out of me. I only have so much bandwidth and I just didn’t have enough to explain to Madam Spanner that I didn’t have time to read her manuscript “Felix.”

But the good news for Spanner and company is that thanks to the wonders of modern technology I have a blog that they can visit. It is filled with little anecdotes about this and that, fragments of fiction that I might one day include in my stories and assorted knick-knacks of information.

Most of the content there was written by me but there are a few sections that my agent/publicist and attorney had me include. Don’t read that stuff, it is really boring.

If you really want something interesting do yourself a favor and read some of the random entries in there. I don’t make any promises that anything you see will be included in future work but you never know. Besides, the blog is open for comments and in theory I might see them.

I never see what you write in my book and truth be told I am happier that way. My books are a bit like my babies and I am rather protective of them. Writing in my book is like giving my baby a tattoo and that makes me mad. Don’t make me mad, you wouldn’t like it when I get angry.

I Hear Music

“Some need gold and some need diamond rings
Or a drug to take away the pain that living brings
A promise of a better world to come
When whatever here is done
I don’t need that sky of blue
All I know’s since I found you, I’m happy when I’m in your arms
Happy, darling, come the dark
Happy when I taste your kiss
I’m happy in a love like this”

Happy- Bruce Springsteen

My seventies girl is tall. She has long graceful legs, jet black hair and delightfully dark eyes. Sometimes when she smiles I think that I hear bells ringing. We are lying in bed listening to music. Her head is on my chest and her hair is splayed across my face. I keep moving it because it makes my nose itch. Every time I do she moves with me so that it tickles my nose again. I don’t have to see her face to feel her smile. She likes to tease me. As  I start to relax and my breathing becomes more rhythmic she takes a finger and traces it along my body.

It is a special kind of tickle that makes me jump. I roar with feigned exasperation and quickly roll on top of her. I pin her arms above her head and start tickling her. Two can play this game.

She squeals with laughter and squirms beneath me. “Ok, ok, ok. You win,’ she cries. We return to our prior position of me on my back and her head on my chest and talk about the future.

“There’s a house upon a distant hill
Where you can hear the laughter of children ring
Guardian angels, they watch from above
Watching over the love that they bring
But at night I feel the darkness near, I awake and I find you near
I’m happy with you in my arms
I’m happy with you in my heart
Happy when I taste your kiss
I’m happy in love like this”

I stare at the ceiling and listen as she describes the house she wants to live in. She loves flowers and tells me that she has Laura Ashley sheets that would be perfect for our bedroom. There will be two stories and multiple bedrooms. The master will be upstairs and while the kids are young so will they. I close my eyes and listen as she talks about how many kids she wants and some of her favorite names. Suddenly there is a pause in the conversation and I know that she expects me to respond to her thoughts.

For a moment I am lost. I have paid a lot of attention to what she is saying but the truth is that while her hand has been rubbing my stomach and chest I have gotten other ideas. The scent of her perfume is strong but not in a bad way and biology is having an impact upon me. Now I am more than lost in her scent. I am trying to remember what she was saying but all I can think of is pheromones. She asks me what I think but at the moment I can’t tell her what my name is. She turns her head to face me and we kiss.

“Honey, you like that,” she asks. I tell her that I love when she kisses me. She makes a face and asks me a question again. I roll onto my side and kiss her. She looks at me, eyelids slightly narrowing. Somewhere in the back of my head I hear a bell clanging and a soft voice whispering “answer.”

I want to answer, I really do but something is messing with my head. I feel fuzzy headed and I try to buy time by saying “I love you.” She knows me well enough to know that it is not a line and she says “I love you too.” There is music. I hear music. I tell her that every time we kiss I hear music. She rolls her eyes at me and says that lines aren’t necessary any more. I say, ‘no, I really hear music.” She doesn’t realize how sexy she is or that I find her intoxicating. I tell her that I can’t believe we found each other. Unsought and unexpected but ever so grateful. We grew up in different worlds and different places but somehow here we are.

It is dark now. All we can see are outlines of our bodies and images of the world that we want to create. We’re uncertain and unsure about many things. Life has a way of getting in the way.

“In a world of doubt and fear
I wake at night and reach to find you near
Lost in a dream, you caught me as I fell
I want more than just a dream to tell”

She is not sure that we can overcome the challenges and I am not sure that we can truly live apart. Words are exchanged, some soft and some harsh. Fear, doubt and insecurity intermix with hope.

“We’re born in this world, darling, with few days and trouble never far behind
Man and woman circle each other in a cage
A cage that’s been handed down the line
Lost and running ’neath a million dead stars
Tonight let’s shed our skins and slip these bars
Happy in each other’s arms
Happy baby, come the dark
Happy in each other’s kiss
I’m happy in a love like this”

Later on I’ll be alone and think  about this time, this moment and how these moments are woven together to create a patchwork quilt called life.

Story Notes

Johnny looked out the window and watched nothing in particular. In the background he could hear the flight crew run through their safety checklist. He looked away from the window and towards the front of the plane and made a point to identify where the emergency exits were. It wasn’t like he expected there to be a reason for him to exit in anything but the normal way, but you never know what can happen.

The captain instructed the crew to prepare for takeoff and he resumed his watch out the window. The past few days were a blur and he was trying to take it all in. A few days before he had been sitting in his office marveling over an empty travel schedule. The early part of the year had consisted of airports, hotels and meetings and he was ready to spend some real time at home.

It was going to be nice to become reacquainted with his bed and his stuff. For a short time the business world would survive without him, besides if they needed him they had his cell phone and email address. And there wasn’t any doubt that they would use all of them to contact him.

When he was on the road he was responsible for entertaining clients. A healthy expense account helped to make that happen. Out on the road he ate at the finest restaurants and lived a lifestyle that he couldn’t afford on his own. It was nice, but it grew old quickly. One hotel looked pretty much like another. It didn’t matter how they decorated the room, there was a sterile uniformity to it.

Needless to say Johnny wasn’t thrilled when the call to head out again came in. He had barely unpacked from the last trip, but this time was different. As it happened June was going to be there at the same time. It was a happy coincidence, what is that word they use, serendipitous.

So he booked a flight and threw his gear into a bag and headed off to the airport. Upon landing he turned on his BlackBerry and listened to the angry buzzing noise it made. The way it kept beeping you would have thought that it had been turned off for a week and not five hours.

One hour later he had picked up his rental car and checked into his hotel room. He had thirty minutes to shower, change and head out to his meeting. In the midst of it all he realized that he had forgotten his razor. With a silent curse he called downstairs and asked them to send a blade and some shaving cream up.

While he waited the phone began buzzing again. June was checking in with him. She was a planner and wanted to figure out when they’d have time to see each other. Johnny could hear the smile in her voice and it made him smile back. He told her that he had an afternoon flight but that he was sure that they could find some time to catch up.

And here he was a relatively short time later, waiting for the tower to greenlight the captain. Soon enough the hum of the engines turned to a roar and the plane went flying down the runway. The blur outside the window was fitting because that is how the last 18 hours felt to him.

As the plane climbed into the sky he closed his eyes and thought about it all. There had been a last kiss goodbye and a lingering hug. Saying goodbye to June had been far more difficult than she had realized. There was a silence that begged to be filled, but he had been unwilling to fill it.

It wasn’t for a lack of desire or an inability to do so. He knew what he wanted to say, but sometimes these things come with a price and Johnny was afraid of what that might be. It wasn’t a fear of what would happen to him but of what it would do to June.

She was smart. She was tough and she was brave. She was a million things that he couldn’t describe but treasured nonetheless. He feared the price because he wasn’t sure what it would do to June and the thought of her hurting made him ache.

So he rolled the dice and hoped that they would find a way to get back to that place. He was a gambler and a dreamer. He would fight for her. He would endure the pain and hope that his decision hadn’t been a mistake.

Alone on the plane he smelled his hand and smiled. He could still smell her. His June, his girl, her scent, his hand. It made sense. Anytime they had been through a rough spot he had told her to take his hand and they had promised to work through it all together.

In spite of the hum of the engines he could feel that quiet place they shared and he took refuge in it. The decision had been made. Now he had to live with it. The hardest part was knowing that he had virtually no control over what would happen next.

The next part was up to June. She needed time to work on some things. Time to take care of some stuff and get centered again. For now that was just how it had to be. June would do her thing and Johnny would do his.

At least that was what he had said to himself and he had tried. Made more than a few promises to himself to walk that tightrope but he had fallen more than once.

Hawkeye: No, you submit, do you hear? You be strong, you survive… You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you.

Last Of The Mohicans

If you had seen his face you wouldn’t have known that the ghosts of his past had woken from their slumber and begun to rattle their chains.

They were supposed to be nothing more than words on a page, just a simple movie quote that Johnny had once shared with her many years before. They weren’t supposed to tear the scab off of a wound that had never healed. They weren’t supposed to stop him in his tracks and make him remember things best let forgotten, but they did.

They did because they were more than just words. It was a promise to someone who had long since left his life and a symbol of what he was willing to do for her.  It shouldn’t have hurt to read them, but it did. It did for a thousand different reasons not the least of which was the memory of how something beautiful had been broken. It did because he had meant it.

These were not words that he took lightly. He remembered the day that he had written the letter that contained those words and the thousand that came after them. She had read it twice and called him in tears demanding to know what it meant. He remembered it all and how she begged him not to give up because they still loved each other and he hadn’t.

That letter wasn’t supposed to be taken that way. He wasn’t trying to push her away. All he had wanted to do was be her hero but circumstances had come between them and he felt like she needed to take care of the things that only she could. It broke his heart to write it but it was also supposed to be comforting to her. It was supposed to be reassuring- something that she could hold onto when things got tough.

Neither one of them could have predicted just how tough it would become. They never believed that they could be ripped apart and forced to live separate lives. Yet that was what had happened and the world had not come to a screeching halt. The sun hadn’t exploded nor had the earth begun to spin backwards.

*****

Sometimes he wondered if the universe really did send messages and or signs to people. He had been searching his files for business purposes and it had just popped up as part of the search results. Since so much time had passed he hadn’t thought twice about opening it. It was supposed to be fun. His intention was to glance at it and resume working but good intentions often go astray.

So he found himself remembering what was and wondering about what could have been. In the silent of the night he had sent her his blessing and asked the heavens to carry her in the arms of the angel.  It wasn’t easy to walk away but he had cloaked himself in hope and faith that the future would be better.

And now years later he discovered to his chagrin that some flames are never completely extinguished. The real question was whether to try and quench the flames or follow the path that his heart was constructing for him.

*****

Gladwell writes in one of his books that expertise comes after 10,000 hours of practice. I want to prove him wrong and demonstrate that I became an expert after only 6,000 hours. I am sometimes adversarial  like that.

You know how your parents give you that speech about how famous people are no different than we are. It is the one where they say that everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time. Well, I don’t do it one leg at a time. I do two legs at a time. Sorry, I am funny that way.

No really, more than a few people have told me that I am funny and none of them respond to mom. That is not to say that they aren’t mothers because they most definitely are but none of them are people that have the pleasure of having birthed this one time bouncing baby boy of almost ten pounds.

Did I mention that many of mom’s friends told me that because of me they almost didn’t have children. If you believe the stories old Jack was busier than a barrel full of monkeys and capable of destroying a home in less than five minutes. That is probably why my father laughs so hard when he hears stories about how his grandchildren make me lose my hair- payback or some such thing.

Blog Entry #234 Material for next Book- Better Known As Marketing Material for The Readers

Johnny snorted out loud and rolled his eyes. It was the middle of the day and he was ensconced in the back of his favorite dive bar. Just himself, a booth and a beer to keep him company. Across the room the object of his derision desperately tried to convince the waitress to pass along her telephone number.

Dressed in painter’s clothing in dire need of a shave and a haircut the guy continued to plead his case. A short time earlier he had followed Johnny into the men’s room and babbled something about being the ultimate ladies man.

Johnny appreciated bravado but had heard far too many stories from men about their exploits and experiences with women. It wasn’t particularly interesting to him. Nor was he interested in hearing suggestions about the best place to get a lap dance either. Johnny didn’t like strip clubs.

It wasn’t because he didn’t like women or had some moral objection to it.  The way he saw it as long as the women who worked there were doing so because they had a choice there was no problem with it. His real issue was that he didn’t see a need to pay to be teased by a woman who didn’t care about him. What was the point.

So he couldn’t help but laugh a bit watching the little dutch boy flail around wildly trying to get her attention. If nothing else it helped distract him from his own problems with women.

It had been months since he and June had a real conversation about anything of substance and longer since he had seen her. Some of that was by choice and some by circumstance.

At first it had been exceptionally difficult to stay away. Each day had been long, but he forced himself to keep walking. Every step away from her was one step closer to not missing her or so he told himself. For a while it worked and he wondered what that meant, if anything.

How could two people who had been so close and so very in love just fade away. It made him question it all and he began to wonder if maybe he had fooled himself. Maybe it hadn’t been what he had thought it was.

But life has a way of keeping people off balance and forcing them to reevaluate things. One morning he woke up and read a story about a terror attack that had been thwarted. The target was walking distance from June’s home.

It stopped him in his tracks. Walking distance from June. Had it been successful she might have been a victim. It was chilling. For a moment he stared in the wall and thought about it. It was one thing not to be with June, but another not to because she was gone.

And that was when Johnny realized that the feelings had never really disappeared. He had just buried them because it was easier that way. The flames hadn’t been quenched, they were just turned down.

The news and realization made him angry, frustrated and scared. Scared because he realized that he couldn’t imagine life without June. He didn’t really know what that meant, but it was enough to fuel the anger and frustration that followed.

Anger with the man who had tried to do this. Johnny remembered telling June that he would always be her hero. Whenever she needed him he would be there, her knight, her champion. He remembered blushing deeply as he said it. It has sounded so silly and so melodramatic. She smiled at him and kissed him.

That was part of what made him fall so deeply in love with her, she accepted him for who he was.

Back in the present Johnny realized that his jaw and fists ached from being clenched. He hadn’t had any contact with June in quite some time, but he knew that he had to reach out to her now. It didn’t matter whether she wanted the contact or not, call him selfish, he knew that he couldn’t rest until he did.

So he sent her a short note and she sent him one in kind. They went back and forth making a bit of small talk until he couldn’t restrain himself any longer and told her how relieved he was. He wanted to remind her of that day when he had promised to be her hero. He wanted to say it so that she would feel safe and remember that what was could be again and that was it.

But he couldn’t quite bring himself to that place. He wasn’t ready to be that vulnerable with her again. And besides his gut told him that she knew. And really knowing that she knew was enough. For now he had plenty of other responsibilities and things to take care of. For now he’d keep doing what it was that he had to do.

Still, there was more than one night where he stood under a moonlit sky and whispered into the wind the things that he wished for. Sometimes while he stood there staring upwards at the sky he thought that he could hear her whisper back.

It might not have been anything more than his imagination, but it made him smile. Maybe those nights long ago where they talked about how one kiss could change everything were out there waiting. He didn’t know for certain. He just knew that sometimes heroes fail and sometimes they succeed, only time would tell.

I really shouldn’t do anything to antagonize the readers. It is bad form and it fits into the category of biting the hand that feeds you but sometimes I can’t help myself. They love feeling like they have been given insight into a world that others don’t have access to. That is why I pepper the blog with posts like that one and the one just below this.

She put him out like the burnin’ end of a midnight cigarette
She broke his heart he spent his whole life tryin’ to forget
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind”

Whiskey Lullaby– Braid Paisley and Alison Krauss

The police tell you that the best thing to do is give a mugger your wallet. Don’t argue and don’t fight. Money and valuables can be replaced, but your life can’t. Unfortunately I have never been real good about listening to advice…from anyone.

We were older when we met but by no means were we old. Rather we were both old enough to have drunk deeply from life’s wine bottle and had more than enough life experience to feel like we knew something about ourselves and what we wanted. Neither one of us expected to fall in love and certainly not with the kind of passion that we felt. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it felt as if we had rediscovered that feeling you got with your first love.

The days were filled with magic and mystery. Sometimes I would stop what I was doing and just stare at her. The intensity of my gaze often made her look away. So I would walk over to her and gently lift her chin and tell her to look in my eyes. “Find your reflection in my eyes and you will see why I get lost.” She’d blush and tell me to shut up. And then I’d laugh and tell her that she just needed to accept that she was beautiful.

Sometimes she’d get teary eyed and kiss me.

But the thing is that when you have the kind of passion and intensity that we have it can come out in other ways…and it did.

Sometimes you go looking for trouble and sometimes it comes looking for you. I can’t say whether I was or wasn’t looking for it because I don’t remember. When I left the house I was so very angry. Twenty some years ago I probably would have gotten in the car and gone flying down the road at high speed towards the closest refuge from whatever it was that I was getting away from. But not this time.

That’s not to say that I wasn’t spitting blood but rather maturity had taught me to go walk and clear my head. The park seemed like a smart place to go. It wasn’t quite 10 o’clock and the place had lights. I had been there a million times and never had a problem.

There were two of them standing on the grass. Just two skinny guys in t-shirts and jeans. One of them called out to me but I shook my head and kept walking- at least I have planned to.

Instead I found myself lying on the ground trying to figure out who hit me and how I fell. I felt a hand reach into my pocket and I grabbed it. Something hard and heavy hit me in the back but I didn’t let go…I twisted and pulled it underneath me…felt a body come down on top of me.

The strange thing was that the whole time I could hear her screaming at me and it just made me angrier.

We are wrestling this unknown assailant and I. It is not a holy experience like Jacob and the Angel. It is just Jack, the guy who had his heartbroken and some poor schmuck who is going to be savaged by me. He doesn’t know that the combination of fear, anger and adrenalin have made me numb. He doesn’t know that the shock of her leaving me has made me feel like I have nothing to lose.

But he is lucky because there were more than just two of them. The others pulled me off but I can’t tell you much about afterwards other than the cop that came to see me wanted to know where I learned to fight.

My Best Interests

She told me that her decision was in my best interests and than she wished me good luck. Her name was Katherine Rosebottom and she is the only teacher who told me that I shouldn’t become a writer. Good old Rosebottom, who used to eat raw sticks of butter refused to recommend me for a spot in the Advanced Placement English class because she felt it wasn’t in my best interests to be there.

I probably should have extended the same courtesy to her and yanked her fat fist out of her mouth so that she wouldn’t die of a massive heart attack at 50. That would have been the proper and gentlemanly thing to do but she didn’t like me and I didn’t like her either.  I can’t tell you what she had against me but I can give you a long list of reasons why I don’t like her.

Did I ever mention that sometimes I hold a grudge. It is not one of my finer traits but I would be lying if I said that it didn’t exist. Besides it is as good an explanation for why I still don’t like a woman who died years ago. In fairness some of that stems from her being unfair and unreasonable. The teacher-student relationship isn’t a level playing field and she worked hard to make sure that I understood that.

If you don’t believe me give Sheri a call and she’ll tell you that I am not making any of this up. She’ll also tell you that the reason Rosebottom was so hard on me was because I never let her have the last word. Did I mention that Sheri loves to say “I told you so.” Maybe that is the reason she is divorced. Do me a favor and don’t mention that I said that to her because I’ll never hear the end of it.

She’d probably say the same thing about me but what does she know. We have been friends for almost thirty years now which means that I remember when she didn’t need to wear a girdle and dye her hair. Actually she doesn’t have to wear a girdle. Good old Sheri scored big in genetics. You can’t tell that she gave birth three times.  She sometimes bitches to me about her hips being wider but I can’t tell if they are or not.

And as she’ll tell you, I would know. We spent countless hours together growing up and yes, I did try to convince her to sleep with me. I blame it on When Harry Met Sally. You know, that whole and women can’t be friends because the men always want to sleep with the women thing.  Allow me to clarify a few things for you.

1. I have female friends that I have no sexual interest in. Never have and never will. It is just not there.
2. I spent several years lusting after Sheri. She had this amazing body, a great personality and we hung out constantly

Did I mention that we there was a jacuzzi at her parent’s house. We used it all the time. Do you have any idea what it was like as a teenage boy to go through that. For reasons that were far too obvious getting out of that pool was no easy task and don’t think that she didn’t know why, but I digress.

Anyway, there was a point at time when I decided to confess my undying love for Sheri and suggested that maybe we should try slipping off the bonds of friendship. She told me that she was flattered and said that it wasn’t a good idea.

As you have probably ascertained I told her that I respected her wishes and made preparations to join a monastery. That thought lasted for about five minutes after which I told her she was being stupid and went home.

That led to a fight that almost didn’t get resolved. We never stopped speaking but for several months there was a lot of tension between us. Tension that I interpreted as being sexual in nature and like a good man I did my best to ignore it.

You see I thought that by ignoring it I would turn the tables on Sheri and that one day she would beg me to take her and end her misery. Years later I can see that I was an idiot but back then I didn’t have a clue.

Eventually I couldn’t contain myself and I said something and she exploded.  She screamed at me and told me how I was an insensitive asshole and then said something that blew my mind.

“Fine. Do it.”

I suspect that had my response been videotaped I might have made Porky Pig look like the world’s finest orator.After I finished stammering I asked her if she was serious and she nodded her head.

For a moment I stood there in stunned silence and then listened to her lay out the ground rules.

“You can have me. You can have me for two minutes, five minutes or five days. You can enjoy yourself for however long you can last and then you can go fuck yourself. Never call me again. I don’t want to hear your voice, see your face or know a thing about you.”

I don’t remember exactly what happened next. I know that she walked up to me and said that I had thirty seconds to make up my mind or get out. I remember feeling like my feet were stuck in cement and slowly walking out the door.

We didn’t talk for a while after that but I can’t tell you how long it was. What I do know is that during the time that we didn’t speak she met the guy who later became her husband.

About a month after I told her that I was getting divorced she told me that I probably should have slept with her that day. I asked her if that meant she and I would have gotten married and she rolled her eyes at me.

I still don’t know what that means or if it was supposed to mean anything at all. Women are odd creatures, too bad I am not gay. I understand men.

I’m Not Gay

Some years back I told Sheri that life would be much easier if I really were gay. She laughed and told me that I was as about as far away from being gay as a man could be.  “Should I thank you for saying that I am homophobic?”

She laughed again and told me to stop being so damn sensitive. “Jack, it is not an insult. You love women far too much to ever be gay.” I shook my head and told her that I still didn’t understand and she just rolled her eyes at me. “Is it the damn estrogen that makes you guys act like idiots or just plain stupidity.”

In a different setting that comment probably would have gotten me blasted but I was too busy recovering from the beating my heart took over a different woman. I really haven’t had my heart broken too many times but when it has happened Sheri has always been there for me and for that I am eternally grateful.

That conversation sticks out in my memory more for other things than for the tangent we took regarding which team I preferred to bat for. More specifically that was the night that I discovered that writing was cathartic for me. It is another thing that Sheri deserves partial credit for. She was the one who recommended that instead of getting drunk I try writing in a journal.

Initially it wasn’t something that I had any interest in doing. At that time I was focused on trying to become a sports writer and like many other men I considered the idea of keeping a journal of my feelings to be anathema.

“Have you ever considered writing about your feelings?”

“I was going to do it in between the drum circle and singing Kumbaya with the other losers.”

She ignored the heavy sarcasm and continued, “It is a really good way to understand how you are feeling and why.” “You really should take it more seriously.”

In response I flung a bottle across the room and told her if she really wanted to help she could ask one of her friends to sleep with me. As an alternative I suggested she call Bob and get his blessing to provide me with desperately needed medical care. I suppose that this is another example of how good a friend Sheri has been to me. She ignored the bottle and the thinly veiled request for servicing and pushed me again to write.

“Jack, you are a really good writer and there is no reason why you shouldn’t benefit personally from it. Promise me that you will try writing a few paragraphs about your thoughts.”

I nodded my head and fell on the couch. I remember her covering me with a blanket, kissing my forehead and leaving. Had I been sober I might have actually tried writing that night. Instead I made my first few entries the next day. I’ll let you decide whether the raging hangover made them more bitter than they would have been had I been sober.

Sometimes I Hate Editors

Most of my former students will tell you that a central theme of my course is that a good writer understands that writing is rewriting. And if I were a smarter man I would listen to Professor Jack and spend more time editing and reworking my columns than I do now. Professor Jack would tell you that Writer Jack rarely allocates more than three minutes per column to editing and that if he took things more seriously he could make a significant improvement upon the quality of his work.

The thing is that Writer Jack has a problem with authority and given a chance would kick Professor Jack’s ass.  I imagine that it would be the kind of fight that some would call a battle for the ages. The fine folks who handle the pay-per-view boxing matches would be well served to get in on that. Just imagine how much money a fight like that would gross. It would be epic.

This raises two important points. The first is that epic is overused and consequently the word has lost all impact. Everything is described as being epic and if everything is epic than nothing is important, significant or meaningful. That makes the use of that word an “epic fail.” Secondly, since Writer Jack and Professor Jack are the same person the only way that fight can take place is in imagination or some sort of science fiction novel.

I would take that idea and file it away but it bears a striking resemblance to Fight Club and the first rule of Fight Club is there is no talking about Fight Club.

That is a very different approach to the first rule of writing which is that writing is rewriting. It sounds far too obvious and as sensible as saying that water is wet but it is true. Good old Harold, the bald is beautiful boy wonder of writing, he who hates these inane descriptions of himself would be pleased to see me spend more time editing my copy. We have an ongoing fight in which he tells me that I am not serving my soul by providing these clean but sterile columns.

He knows damn well that my columns are anything but sterile. I don’t do safe, plain or vanilla. I let it all hang out there and that is part of why people love/hate me. It is one of the benefits of being ridiculously intense. Someone once described me as being inconsistent in my inconsistencies and as subtle as a freight train. I don’t know what the hell the first part of that description means but I can confirm the second.

You know when I am happy, sad or angry. The boys think that this is why I don’t play poker with them very often. They tell me that they know all of my “tells” and suggest that if I played they would go home with fatter wallets.  I haven’t bothered to point out that the last three times I played with them I was the big winner. Every now and then I think about using the fellas and the poker game in one of my books.

There are a million different angles that I could use with it. It might be kind of fun to write about a bunch of Jewish kids who have limited athletic ability but are freaking geniuses at making money. Come to think about it that is the sort of story that I should use in one of my columns and not a book.  Harold and the newspaper are far more worried about liability than my publisher.

You might think that is precisely why I should use it in the book but that is exactly why I won’t. That juvenile part of me can’t pass up an opportunity to tweak Harold. The look on his face would almost be worth the lecture that would come with it.

I Don’t Love My Husband Anymore

The telephone call came from out of the blue. I can’t tell you how long it had been since we had last spoken, could have been months or it might have been years. People get busy and live their lives. It is not personal, it is just life. Hell, most days I have trouble remembering my own name.

Our conversation began in the usual manner with small talk about our jobs and other little things about life. Slowly it progressed into some more serious matters sprinkled in with a couple of jokes here and there and then she hit me with the bombshell.

“I don’t love my husband anymore.”

For a moment I was silent, unsure of how to respond I let the words linger in the air. I said that I was sorry and asked her what she was going to do. She told me that she wasn’t sure. She thought that she’d try to hang on for a few years, until her boys were older.

I said that sounded like a good idea. This time the silence was her doing. I felt an obligation to try to help so I asked her a few questions about how she got to be where she was. She told me that he wasn’t a bad guy, that she had made a mistake in marrying him. I told her that I didn’t want to be rude but I didn’t understand why she had children with him.

So she explained that she thought that they were going through growing pains and that she always figured that they would work through them, but they never did. So here she was ten years later wondering how it was that she had come to be trapped in a life she no longer wanted to live.

When I suggested that she consider getting out sooner than later she grew agitated and told me how it was different for mothers. Mothers have different standards than men. I wasn’t sure if I was being insulted but chose to remain silent.

So I asked her a few more questions and suggested that maybe it wasn’t so bad. He sounded like a decent guy. She snorted and told me that I was being a man. I asked her what that meant.

“You don’t understand what it is like to be intimate with him. I feel like I am being violated. I hate kissing him, it makes my skin crawl.”

I was more than a little surprised by her candor and told her that I didn’t understand how she could equate intimacy and kissing. She snorted again and told me that I was a man and that I probably wouldn’t understand. I agreed with her, I didn’t quite understand how it was easier to have sex than to kiss him.

In an exasperated voice she told me that men could just stick it in anywhere and that most of us saw kissing as a means to an end which was why I didn’t understand.

She probably wouldn’t have liked the way I rolled my eyes, but she couldn’t see that. I told her that they would take my man card away for suggesting that she not be intimate with him and she laughed again. It wasn’t a happy laugh.

He wouldn’t put up with that.He didn’t demand it constantly, but he was a man and if she didn’t work to meet his needs he might try divorcing her. I told her that was the most backwards thing I had heard in a long time and received another long sigh.

“Mothers are held to a different standard than fathers. And I would feel such guilt if my children were hurt by me doing this. They love their father.”

There was more silence and then the conversation resumed, but it was different.The moment of sharing was gone and I knew better than to bring it back up again. We said our goodbyes and hung up the phone. As I sat there cooking my dinner I thought about what she had said, echoes of “I don’t love my husband anymore” playing through my mind.

Can’t tell you what made me think of that particular call but thinking about it made me wonder when my ex-wife began feeling that way.  I couldn’t help but wonder how many times she lay there hoping it would end sooner or how many nights she made a point to fall asleep before I climbed into bed. Relationships are such a funny thing.

We weren’t always bad. There was a time when she would have gladly woken up to my advances. Not to mention that I can think of a few times where she woke me up.   I know that I am not the only one to have gone through this sort of thing. Friends tell me that all relationships go through ups and downs and with the exception of she who I am trying not to think about that had been the case.

Or maybe it was the case. Maybe I had forgotten what it was really like to be with her. It was a million years since Ann Stacey and I had been something other than a memory.

****

Ten thousand years a boy asked a girl if she would take his hand and let him love her. Ten thousand years ago he kissed her once and wondered how he had ever said I love you to any one else.

He wondered because he had never felt so much love for anyone else. Not for his first love or any other. This was a feeling like no other he had experienced. That scared the boy more than he could articulate, describe or understand.

The girl in the story had no such troubles. She knew what she felt and knew what she wanted. She didn’t need to process or sort through her feelings. Sometimes it frustrated her to see the boy she said was the love of her life be so close and yet so far away.

But she knew that sometimes boys needed more time than girls and she was willing to wait. It was just a matter of time before he realized that no one else could take care of him the way that she could.

That didn’t mean that he didn’t make her crazy because he did. He was a master at annoying her and he knew it. Normally that would have been the kiss of death for him except she couldn’t stay angry at him. It was uncanny how easily he charmed her.

He knew how to press all of her buttons and he knew how to make her feel simply….wonderful. It was infuriating not to be able to stay angry with him.

But how can you stay angry with someone who knows how to open your heart with a word and whose presence soothes your soul. You cannot and you don’t.

At least that is what you think and what you feel- but sometimes things happen.

Go Your Own Way- Fleetwood Mac

They say that hindsight is twenty-twenty but whether that is true or not remains in the eyes of the beholder. Really it all comes back to perspective and the man who had been the boy readily admitted that he didn’t have as much of that as he wished.

The girl and the boy who had loved each other with passion and promises never to let go had moved on and let go of that which had kept them together. The faith they held in each other had been tested and they had failed the test.

When push came to pull and pull came to shove they had fallen. Fingers that had been intertwined and hands that had been held were no more.

Time passed and the man wondered and wandered where it was he would bereft of the rock that had kept him centered. Slowly he crafted a witches brew of sadness, frustration and anger not recognizing that every drink was a poison that hurt his spirit and harmed his soul.

She was gone and though he had chased after her she had refused to listen. His heart told him that she wasn’t really gone and that her silence was her defense. It argued against letting go and told him to give it time.

But his head called his heart a fool and named him weak and worthless. It deemed him a dupe, a chump and a silly knave who needed to get his priorities straight.

Time passed and the war between heart and head continued. Heart swore that some nights under cover of darkness she would come looking for him. It said that if he closed his eyes and held still he would see her come looking for him.

Head laughed at this but heart cursed and swore again that it was true. “She loves us still. Remember she told us that she would never be the first to say I love you. This is the same. She is waiting for us to contact her.”

Head laughed again and told heart that he was a bigger fool than he thought. Later on in the quiet of the evening as the lights went out and the world went dark heart and head heard soft singing. As they drifted off to sleep head conceded that maybe there was something more to what heart said, but when daylight came head pretended that he had never admitted that perhaps heart was right.

******

They say that you shouldn’t waste time looking at the past because it prevents you from living in the present. They also say that those whose forget the past are doomed to repeat it. The contradictory nature of these two messages makes me want to find the mysterious “they” and beat them silly. Or at the very least force them to pick a position and stick to it.

Don’t they know that Yoda said, “Do or do not.” That is the kind of advice that I like. It is simple, direct and easily understood. Much as I enjoy reading the profound and mysterious statements of the wise and learned it is always easier to follow what Yoda says. Don’t bother trying to convince me that he is a fictional character because I won’t listen. The little green monster is an 800 year-old Jedi master. More importantly I never scratch my head and try to figure out what the hell he meant.

But because I am sometimes prone to making rash decisions I took Yoda’s advice to “Do or do not” and did. In plain English that means that I pulled out more old letters and journal entries and tried to use them to help me make sense of all this.

I Loved Her Once

I loved her once. She was tall, with dark hair and dark eyes that sparkled. Her smile lit up her face and her laughter was infectious. But I didn’t love her because of physical gifts or actions. She was smart and ever so quick. One of the few who got me, who understood me on a different level and in a different place than the others. But I didn’t love her because of that either.

Nor did I love her because she was the one who I trusted completely and felt safe with. Didn’t love her because of soft kisses and sweet whispers.

I loved her for all of these things and more. It was complete and consuming this love. Didn’t matter that she wasn’t as logical, rational or together as she claimed. Nor did I care that sometimes she would flip out and go off about crazy stuff. Damn woman found her way inside my head and heart so I took the good and the bad. We called it a mature love, deeper and more powerful than any we had ever experienced before.

But the gods laugh at those who aspire to climb the heights that we found ourselves upon. Icarus flew too high and his wings were shorn off causing him to fall into the the abyss. When his wife died Mighty Orpheus marched straight into the underworld and negotiated a deal with Hades to secure her return to life. Just moments away from their goal he failed in his resolve and lost her again to the underworld.

So if you ask me if I refer to us as a Greek tragedy than I say yes, I do. I do because you cannot share the things that we did, say what we said or feel such things and then fail to find a way to be together. I say it is a tragedy because to view it in other terms either diminishes it or calls into question the integrity of another. And so I have found myself alone and apart, dancing in the fire for untold ages.

I loved her once. She, who I speak of was the dearest part of my heart and the essence of my soul. I stare into the blackness in silence and replay that which once was. I think of Elizabeth Browning and Bertrand Russell. I see math, science and poetry. I hear the music and the whispers. There are moments where I feel her still, sense her close by, can smell and taste her.

But she is never there and now in my darkest hours I witness the entrance of anger. I acknowledge doubt and wonder if I am a sucker who misunderstood it all. Wonder if I saw only what I wanted to see. But I take a deep breath and recognize that the anger masks the hurt. The anger is a mask that I wear because it allows me to say that I loved her once when the truth is that I love her still.

And in the silence of the night lost in the shadows are the things that tell me that I wasn’t a sucker or a fool. The evidence isn’t based upon formulas or science. You cannot build your castles upon the foundation that we built, at least not those made of brick and stone. But you can find something more durable and lasting. The love that built what once was is more powerful than one can measure or imagine. And if you open your heart to it you will find that the person you never knew you needed hasn’t disappeared or gone away.

And in the silence of the night you might find your fingers interlocked with theirs and your breathing in rhythm as the heart you share still beats for both of you.

The Past Is The Present

That last entry doesn’t have a date upon it. If you are one of those people who believe that the universe sends us signs you can interpret that to mean that the torch I carried for her never did burn out. Or you can go to the land of TMI and listen to me tell you that she was phenomenal in bed. While you are there do me a favor and find out if TMI has information about whether she felt the same way. That could be important.

If I am to believe Sheri she says that many men are pathetic lovers who haven’t the foggiest idea of their actual skill in the bedroom. I tend to blame women for creating this problem. If you would be honest with us about what you want and whether we are getting it done than you might find more satisfaction there. And on a side note let me tell you that quite a few of you suffer from your own illusions of grandeur.

You may think that touching us down below the equator automatically makes us smile but that isn’t necessarily so. I might have had a few experiences with women who thought that the way to make a man happy was to simulate milking a cow. On behalf of men everywhere let me say this isn’t so. Bessie the heifer requires a different sort of touch and I’ll leave it at that. Some trauma doesn’t need to be revisited.

And that my friends is part of why Facebook sometimes makes me crazy. Some people have a need to try and collect as many friends as they possibly can which is why you sometimes receive friend requests that you can’t help but classify as…odd. There is nothing more satisfying than knowing that Shelly Finkelberg wants to be your Facebook friend. Surely you remember Shelly. The two of you had a two hour relationship at summer camp.  Never mind that you were 13 and didn’t do more than hold hands- that was enough to make Shelly want to use technology to catch up with you.

Sorry Shelly, that time of my life is over and I don’t feel a need to revisit it which is why I ignored your request. Not to mention that you laughed at me when I said that we ought to sit on second base and try to go to third. I was 13 years-old and didn’t know a damn thing about how to talk to girls. Karma is a bitch and that is probably why you gained 298 pounds. Or maybe that is what happens when you have 1,983 children and sit around the house eating donuts.

Oops, there goes that grudge thing again. I told you that it is not one of my finer traits but I am working on it. It is not like I told Shelly that the years hadn’t been kind to her.  Actually that isn’t true. I did say something to that effect. We were in college and I was drunk with a capital ‘D.’ She laughed at it and told me that I was still funny. I don’t remember if I smiled but I do remember trying to tell her that I wasn’t kidding.

Confession time. I keep  saying that I am not going to keep reading all of the old love letters we wrote each other. I keep promising myself that I won’t read all of the notes I wrote about us and yet here I am, doing it again.  It sort of scares me to see just how much is there. It makes me question a million different things like why the hell did I get married.

That is the sort of question that I tend to avoid because you can’t go back in time and look at things as you once did. Life experience provides a sense of clarity that you can’t otherwise experience. That single guy didn’t know a damn thing about life. He thought that he did but what did he know about being a father or husband. He didn’t know about the responsibility and pressure those things brought about. He didn’t know about unconditional love for his children and how you subjugate yourself to help them live the lives they dream of.

Really, it is unfair to ask ourselves what we were thinking but most of do so anyway. So here I am digging through boxes, reading and remembering what once was.

Johnny loved his Junebug. She was his air and his sunshine. He started and ended each day with a silent prayer of thanks to the lord for sending June into his life.

Johnny had been in love before. He had had his heart broken more than once and he had survived. He hadn’t just survived; he had fallen in love again and moved on. That is what Old John did. He survived.

When life knocked him down he dusted himself off and picked himself back up again. He reveled in being a tough guy and enjoyed telling stories that portrayed himself in that fashion. What he didn’t realize was that the tough guy persona was something that he used to protect himself. It was a way of trying to keep people at a distance.

He was good at it. If you didn’t let people in you weren’t ever at risk for getting hurt.

The funny thing was that June just walked right in. He couldn’t tell you how it happened. Couldn’t describe exactly how, why or when she became his best friend. All he could do was acknowledge that it had happened.

So it really isn’t all that surprising to write that one day he woke up and realized that he was madly, passionately in love with June. It wasn’t the plain old garden variety of love either. Johnny was devoted to her.

When they were apart there was a physical ache in his side. He didn’t just miss her, he MISSED her.

Johnny didn’t like feeling so dependent upon anyone. It wasn’t just that it didn’t fit the tough guy image, it scared him. He never would have admitted it, but he was truly afraid of what life without her would be like.

Most of the time he didn’t worry about that. His Junebug did a fine job of expressing herself. He always felt her love and her warmth. It gave him strength. She thrived off taking care of him. She doted upon him. He got that special smile that no one else got. Her best was always reserved for her Johnny.

Not unlike many women, June was always concerned that she look good for Johnny. She loved seeing the desire in his eyes and knowing that he wanted her. If you left it at that you might think that it was shallow, but the truth was that it was more than that.

June loved Johnny because he understood, accepted and appreciated her. She felt comfortable around him in a way that she never did with anyone else. June loved her Johnny for that.

When things were good with the two of them they were really good and when they were bad, well it is not an exaggeration to say that the world felt cold and dark.

The funny thing if you will about Johnny and June was the matter in which they met. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that it was uncommon and unsought for. But what surprised them more than that was how fast they fell in love with each other.

If you were to ask them how it happened they’d supply you with standard answers about having discovered someone who completed them, fulfilled them etc. But that really wouldn’t explain the deep connection that they felt. It wouldn’t tell you that their relationship had a depth that exceeded all that they had ever felt before. They shared a level of intimacy that few couples ever get to and most could never understand.

That intimacy made June exceptionally happy and exceedingly confused. She prided herself upon living a life based upon logic and order. Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t some kind of robot. She loved to smile, loved to laugh and generally loved life. June was a happy girl. Part of that happiness was feeling like she understood the world around her.

Johnny took that organized, picture perfect world and turned it upside down. June struggled to figure out how her Johnny could make her stammer like a school girl. It had been a long time since someone had made her heart pound. It was unsettling to her and she didn’t like being unsettled.

She was always the rock. People relied upon her, depended upon her for being steady. Her Johnny had an uncanny knack for wreaking havoc. He used to kid around about how storms followed where he walked. The first couple of times he said that had made her roll her eyes, but over time she had come to agree with it.

It wasn’t always easy. Sometimes June would pick a fight with Johnny. She didn’t like feeling so unsettled. But the fights never lasted all that long. She couldn’t stay angry with him. That infuriated her even more and at the same time made her even happier. It was a crazy contradiction.

Johnny used to tell her to just relax. She hated that, especially when he’d start laughing. But part of her loved him all the more, just because. It was the “just because” that made it harder. She really, really wanted to understand how he could send her over the edge.

Over time June began to see that she had the same impact upon her Johnny. It helped to soften some of the edges, but it also caused a few to become frayed as well. The passion between them had such intensity that they were amazed that it never seemed to fade.

Intermixed with all of the notes and letters are fragments of fiction I had intended to use for my first book.  Some of these aren’t bad and some are simply horrific.

Redemption. That is what I was looking for. It took a while for me realize it. It took time to accept that I was capable of hoping for something more. But the thing that took the longest time was accepting that I deserved better.

The things that we do each day turn into habits. What we eat, how we think, how we dress. They are all habits. We may be human, but we’re not all that different from Pavlov’s dog. Ring the bell and we come running to eat.

I was no different, aside from having convinced myself that I was responsible for all of the bad things that had happened and that I deserved it. Actually that is not all that different from a lot of people. We all feel alienated. From time to time we all feel like losers who don’t fit in.

Don’t I sound like the motivational speaker.

But I am not that guy. I don’t buy into that crap. Maybe it is because of my own provincial mindset, or maybe it is because I see too many of those charlatans robbing people. But then again if you refuse to think for yourself you set yourself up for disaster.

That has never been my problem. I know my what my problems are. I know my weakness. All I can do is try to avoid making the mistakes of the past. Let them stay where they belong. Let them haunt my soul and serve as a warning, whatever. Just let them be far away from my conscious mind.

I can’t tell you when the change took place. I can’t tell you why or how. I just know that when hope returned I lost some of my edge. I no longer constantly felt angry, frustrated and edgy, but not always angry.

Little things that used to throw me into a rage stopped infuriating me. And it was all because of hope.

Once I began to believe in myself I started to dream about getting her back. I allowed myself to remember the joy she used to fill me with and considered the possibility of having it again.

We had promised each other that we would never let go. We said that if we held onto each other we could beat whatever had come between, in front or behind us. Somewhere in time there still lived a boy and girl who believed in that.

The girl I had loved was a hopeless romantic with such sweet lips. Men don’t normally say things like this, but I loved kissing her. I didn’t view it as a necessary step to get into her pants. I really loved it.

Somewhere in time there lived a boy and a girl who would do all in their power to find their way back to each other. I really believed it and I had to believe that she believed it.

The bigger question was not whether she did, but where she was. We had lost touch. It had become far too painful and I had let her slip away. I didn’t know if she was married. Couldn’t tell you if she had kids.

All I could tell you was that I knew she was alive. As stupid as it sounds the heart that had been broken just sensed that she was somewhere.

It was a start, a beginning that I could work with. I didn’t know what would happen or how. I just knew that redemption was possible.

You can’t see me now but if you did you would see a sort of bemused look on my face. I just found a notebook that is overflowing with the rough draft of my first novel.  Get a load of this:

A Beginning

I was almost 25 when I left the city of my birth. It was time to go, time to move on and get away. There were new experiences to be had and the pain of what I had once been, what I had once had was too much. Everywhere I looked there were signs of the glory and the fall.

For most of my life I had been a scrapper, never afraid to fight, never willing to give up and not smart enough to get out. It was a self imposed punishment for sins that I had committed but was unwilling to discuss.

It is not much of a description, not very colorful at all. In fact it is rather ordinary, but that is ok, I am ordinary and I prefer it that way. If you stuck me in a crowd full of people you would be hard pressed to pick me out. It was like that in school, never did or said much in class. No need to draw attention to myself I did what I needed to do to get through and nothing more.

And for the longest time that had been enough, an average, nondescript existence. It suited me fine to be a guy who punched a time clock. But sometimes even the average man find himself in a situation that is beyond his control,a time in which he becomes something more than he has been.

But the question is not what he does to elevate himself but how he handles the elevation.

It was Friday night and I had just finished my shift at the plant. There was no rush to get home because there was no one to get home to, no wife, no family, no girlfriend, not even a dog. Just an empty house that was sparsely furnished.

Friday nights were not much different than any other night of the week. I’d go home, pop open a can of beer and stare blankly at the television screen content to let my brain turn to mush.

On this particular night I decided to stop at an ATM. I wanted to order a pizza and I had nothing but the spare change from the last time I had visited the liquor store. It wasn’t enough to buy a pack of gum, so I was forced to go to the bank.

There were two people ahead of me in line, a man and a woman and behind me there were a couple of teenage boys.

I didn’t see him approach. I didn’t notice anything about him including his presence until he was standing in front of us, waving a gun and shouting for our wallets. I have a bad habit of giggling when I am nervous. I don’t like being the center of attention and now was certainly a bad time to laugh, but laugh I did.

5’8 or so and about a buck twenty sopping wet with a bad haircut and a Judas Priest shirt, that is all he was, oh and he had a big gun and an even bigger attitude. He grabbed my collar and asked me what was so funny. Before I could answer he had grabbed the woman in front of me.

She cried as he pulled her in front of him and asked me if I thought that this was funny. I choked back a snigger and told him that it wasn’t. He told me that if I so much as smiled he would kill her. I wiped the smile off of my face.

It was the wrong thing to do, but I didn’t know it. The jackass cuffed me in the side of the head and laughed. It infuriated me, brought back memories of years of being teased and tortured by my someone who had been like an older brother to me. So I just reacted. I kicked him in the balls and smacked him in the head.

In the movies the gun falls and the hero (there has to be a hero) grabs it. Not here, not in my world. In my world when I slap him there is a flash of light and a loud noise. I am splashed with something, but it feels like hours before I realize that he just shot the woman, and that he did it involuntarily. The wetness I feel on my face is her blood.

I stand there in shock, numb and not really aware anymore of what is happening. The guy she had been with is beating the crap out of the jackass, the Judas Priest shirt is stained now, but it is with his blood.

There is a cop speaking to me, but I don’t answer. The real hero is lying, telling the officer that I saved everyone’s life, that if I hadn’t hit him the guy would have killed us all.

I didn’t hit him, I hit Georgie. It was Georgie I saw in front of me. It was Georgie taunting me, I just snapped and reacted. But I guess that somewhere inside I began to hear and to believe that I had been the hero, that when the bell rang I had come out swinging.

And that was really the beginning of the end.

Two Kinds Of Pain

Life offers two types of pain, one physical and one mental. Man still hasn’t found a tougher prison than the one he encages his mind in. There is no greater pain than the mental anguish we inflict on ourselves and there is no tougher warden than the person we see in the mirror. For some there is no midnight reprieve, the governor doesn’t offer clemency. There is only one way out and no two people can share the path.

We all live in our secret worlds, but some of us never have the strength to leave our shelter and walk under sunny skies.

I used to.

I used to live in a place I called paradise. I could look out on the world and from my window and gaze upon waters that called out to me. Deep blue seas that embraced me like a child in the womb. The seas were always calm and at night they would gently rock me to sleep.

But it wasn’t real. I didn’t live on a boat. I didn’t live on the beach or remotely close to the water. It was all an illusion, a mindfuck that I created to make myself happy. The problem was that I hadn’t realized it. I didn’t have a clue as to how precarious my own happiness was and once that was shattered I knew nothing but darkness. I wandered aimlessly in a fog, not knowing where I was going or what I was doing. It didn’t matter, I didn’t care.

I said it before, there are two kinds of pain and mental is far worse than physical. You can always find a way to escape physical pain, but you can’t run from your own mind. Philosophers had long ago figured out that hell existed, that there was a devil, except he wasn’t a guy with horns, a pitchfork and a tail. The church had made that guy up. The devil was someone familiar with you, someone who knew your most intimate secrets and your darkest fears. The devil knew you, knew how to torment your soul.

The devil knew all this because he was, he is…you.

That’s right, the devil is not supernatural. There is no Lucifer, no Satan, and no Beelzebub. It would be better for us all if he did exist. No, the devil is just a man, a person that lives inside us all.

See when they wrote the bible and told the story of getting banished from the Garden of Eden they were not talking about a mythological place, they were referring to the end of innocence. They were talking about that time when life hits you in the mouth, knocks you down and beats you senseless. They were talking about getting hurt in places that bandages don’t stick, cuts that you cannot stitch, they just keep bleeding. And even if you manage to stop the bleeding that stinging sensation never really does go away.

Stumbling Through Life

The truth will always come out, or so they had taught us in school. One way or another it would find it’s way to the surface. The problem is that sometimes the truth had all the beauty of a victim of drowning. The weights that anchor the body slip off and it shoots to the surface where it floats and bobs upon the water.

Face up or face down, it doesn’t make a difference until you get close enough to take a closer look. And the smell, the smell is something that you never get beyond. There is a putrid stench that sticks with you, gets locked in the back of your throat and grabs a hold of you like some alien parasite.

Anyway you look at it, that body is not pretty, not graceful, not anything but ugly. And that is what the truth can be like, ugly. Our teachers would have use believe that there was something noble and majestic about it. Movies portray the hero as someone who never falters, who uses the truth to defeat the bad guys. I was a streetwise guy. I knew that the truth was never black and white, that there were shades of gray, but even a mug like me can get caught up believing his own hype.

I wanted to blame the jackass at the ATM for bringing this shit storm down upon my head. If he hadn’t tried to rob us all, if he would have been honest, if he would have done a million other things the girl he shot would still be alive and I wouldn’t feel so miserable.

And then again she might still be alive if I hadn’t reacted like the frightened little boy I had been and maybe still was. If Georgie hadn’t spent years tormenting me, picking, poking and prodding me, she might still be walking. A father wouldn’t miss his daughter and a mother wouldn’t cry herself to sleep.

Maybe if I would have learned how to deal with the bullying I could have stopped myself from just reacting. Goddamn Georgie, he was dead too. Gone for years and still I could hear him mocking me, feel his presence. They say sometimes the absence of someone is palpable. The only thing palpable about Georgie’s presence was that even in death he still walked alongside me.

If I believed in G-d I would have prayed for something, forgiveness, death, anything, something to give me peace of mind. I hadn’t had it since I had left home, if not longer. The very thought of prayer was laughable. Any faith that I had possessed had been beaten out of me.

She was dead because Georgie had proven to me that I was weak and that I was lacking in value and worth. Really it was my fault. Georgie was right, kick a dog enough times and he’ll evolve. He’ll pass through stages of confusion, denial, anger and then he;ll reach a point where he just doesn’t care what happens, he’d just as soon bite you as crap on your porch.

Georgie had made sure that I experienced all of it. He said that he was helping me and I wanted to believe him. He said that he was making me into a man, making me tough enough to deal with a world that bent you over a hot stove and laughed at you.

The first time Georgie beat me I was scared. I didn’t defend myself. I didn’t try to, I just let him kick and punch me. And when he stopped I looked at him through teary eyes, not sure what to expect. He gave me a handkerchief and stuck out a hand to help me up.

I was wiping the blood off of my face when he hit me again. I didn’t see it coming and when I came to I was lying in the dirt and he was gone, as were three of my teeth. Georgie didn’t believe in giving or accepting help, to him it was sign of weakness and he couldn’t have that.

A Burning Anger

Georgie taught me about burning anger. It was he who trained me, rather molded me into someone who was angry all of the time. Prior to his entrance into my life I was just another Joe, nothing particularly noteworthy about me, but Georgie placed me on his forge and made me into something different. Not someone, something, his words, not mine.

Georgie’s influence was profound in the worst way. He claims that he saw potential and did nothing more than tap into it. And in my darker moments I tend to believe him, but most of the time I think of it differently. Georgie made me mean the way you prepare a pit-bull to be a fighter. Stick glass in his food, kick him, beat him and do what you can to make him feel battered and bruised. Place the animal in a position that makes it feel like it is never safe and never secure.

But humans are not animals, maybe at our most basic level, but even so there is still something more there, a sentient being who can go one of many directions. Georgie once told me that the fact that I wasn’t catatonic said a lot about me. He said it with the sick smile he used to wear when he thought that he knew a secret that no one else knew.

If it had been about something else, someone else, I would have felt differently, but this was about me and that made it worse. No one wants to think badly of themselves, even Charles Manson wants to believe that he is just a misunderstood soul. It was just another one of the wounds Georgie inflicted on me. It would have been better if he had hit me, I had grown accustomed to that, was familiar with the pain, but the mental torment never left me. I could drink or smoke the other pain away, but I couldn’t find a bottle big enough to take the edge off that cut, it was too deep.

Writing Is Rewriting

Writing is rewriting. I know that you are probably as sick of hearing that as I am but it is true. Every time I go back into these old papers I see things that I think I should fix or adjust. Got to tell you that sometimes it is exhausting. Sometimes I wish that I could look at my words and see perfection.

Perfection is like my Moby Dick. I am constantly at sea searching for my own white whale. Constantly scanning the horizon for flickers of hope or signs that perhaps today might be the day that I spot him.

It scares me a little bit. There are these whispers inside my head that tell me that it doesn’t matter how long, hard or how far I am not going to find that freaking beast. You might think that it is because perfection doesn’t exist but I would tell you that you are wrong. You are wrong because I have danced with perfection and been mesmerized by its fickle charms, but only for a moment.

That is because I have been privileged to have experienced a few perfect moments so I know they exist. I know that perfection exists.

My fear isn’t based upon anything other than this nagging feeling that I won’t recognize it. It might sound silly to you and seem contradictory. After all how can I say that I have experienced perfect moments and then suggest that I won’t recognize the perfect words. Well, I am not searching for just perfect words. Perfect words are like perfect moments. I can come up with perfect words.

I want to come up with the perfect story. I want to write a book that is so good that I cannot find a single thing that I want to change. I want to write a book that is majestic, magical and mystical.

And I want you to feel that. I want you to see that. I want you to share the adventure with me. But I haven’t made it there yet. I haven’t reached that place or scaled those heights.

Part of me says that it is ok to feel this way. Part of me says that it is healthy to have something that motivates and drives me. I need that push. I want that push. I can produce “good enough” with little to no effort. It seems shameful to not try harder so I do.

But perfection is so elusive yet I have this feeling that it is attainable. The contradiction there just kills me. I stare at it, study it and ask myself if it wouldn’t be easier to label myself a masochist and find some leather clad honey to beat me over the head.

Side note. I wonder about people who seek out a beautiful master or mistress and ask to be punished. Do they retain their beauty or after a while do you look at them and see an ugly, mean creature who has been given authority to treat you poorly.

Well, I am not a shrink nor am I paid ridiculous amounts of money to play on screen, on air or on stage so I’ll have to let that question go for now. The nice thing about being a writer is that if I want I can answer it later on. All I need to is create a character who has the authority to provide an answer and voila, it is answered.

One of the many lessons that I have learned from the writing is rewriting creed is that it is useful to save my work. I am not talking about saving files so that you don’t lose them to a virus or computer disaster of some sort. No, I am talking about the value in saving rough drafts of my work. I save almost everything. I do it because I have learned that more often than not I can take pieces and portions of those drafts and integrate them into other pieces that eventually published.

That last remark is one of my favorite tricks of the trade but there is a caveat to it that my students know well. You can’t keep using and reusing the same pieces because eventually your readers will notice and they will not like it. If you are writing for a newspaper or a magazine you can count on your editors noticing it and they won’t react favorably.

You can count on that biting you in the ass. It is not unlike calling a woman by the wrong name. You may manage to blow that by her once or twice but if she notices there will be hell to pay. And they always notice.  That reminds me that I should write a column or a book about the things that women notice and why most of it is trivial, useless and a waste of time.

Hah, I am laughing just thinking about the reaction that would get. I could tie it into some treatise about how it has become common for women to make fun of men and portray us as buffoons and airheads. That might work with a lot of people but I can guarantee that I would get a telephone call from my mother who would tell me that two wrongs don’t make a right.

I can’t tell you how often I heard that growing up. I sometimes responded by saying that two rights could make a wrong or a trapezoid but no one ever laughed. Mom said that I came up with that when I was about eleven. It really isn’t particularly funny or witty but it has stuck with me all these years. That is another trait of good writers- we remember things.

Some of us remember things far too well and with far too much clarity which is probably why thoughts about that damn woman keep floating around inside my skull. That is a topic for a different day. We’re probably better served to see a sample of a draft of a column that I may use one day.

The Wizard Is Just A Man

I don’t remember who said that the wizard is just a man but I am pretty sure we wouldn’t hear it today. I grew up in a time when it was a big deal to see a major movie like the Wizard of Oz on television. Mom would make popcorn and we’d all gather round the television and watch Dorothy try and find her way home. And every year we’d be disappointed to see that the wizard was just a man.

He didn’t have real power. As children we weren’t interested in any of the grown up messages in the movie. Didn’t care that the Lion always had courage or that the Scarecrow always had brains. I won’t mention that there was a time when I thought that I had turned into the Tin man and had lost my heart. That is a story for a different day.

Instead I’ll share other thoughts and talk about how my readers love seeing my stories evolve. It is similar to all of those cooking shows you see on television. People like to see what happens behind the scenes. They like to learn about how the magic happens so that they can try to recreate it themselves. That is an important point to bear in mind.

The modern writer is not just a writer but a marketer too. The men and women who came before me didn’t have to fight as hard to catch the eye of a reader nor was it as tough to keep their attention. They didn’t have to battle a million different distractions which is why smarter writers learn how to engage and interact with their readers.

That is one of the lessons that I try to impart upon my students. I let my readers see that the wizard is just a man and in doing so I build a bond and create a connection between us. When I show them my mistakes and talk about how hard it was to get to this place I let them feel like I am one of them. It is not entirely true but it is not entirely false either.

I am a published author who has a daily column in a newspaper and has been offered a talk show. When you hit this level you don’t have to work as hard as you did. Opportunities are presented to you…daily. The problem is that it becomes far too easy to become complacent and your work suffers. That is not earth shattering news or remotely insightful.

Nor is it something that only writers have to worry about. Professional athletes fight this battle all the time. Don’t get me started about this or you will hear me rant for hours about how poorly some of them play after they receive the big contract.

Lost In The Parking Lot

She told me that Jesus loves me and offered me a smile that would make the Cheshire Cat look like he was frowning. I smiled back at her, said that I play for other team but didn’t walk away.

“No, you don’t. We all play for the same manager. You just haven’t realized it yet.”

I laughed. “I don’t think so. My manager hates me.”

Her smile evaporated and a look of genuine concern appeared, “are you ok?

“No, not really. Been a long time since I was ok.” My friends will tell you that I don’t hide my feelings but I am not usually so forthcoming.

“I am sorry about that. I really should get going.”

She put a hand on my forearm and said that it was ok. “God never gives you more than you can handle.”

“No but he doesn’t give me what I ask for either.”

She smiled softly and said that sometimes we thank god for unanswered prayers.

I nodded my head and said that I didn’t think that was true but appreciated her time. She didn’t argue, just flashed that beauty queen smile again and told me to watch out for traffic.

What she should have said was watch out for the shopping cart because that was what I almost tripped over. It was the very same shopping cart that a few moments earlier I had been walking towards.

Had she not called out to me I would have grabbed it and already been inside picking up some groceries.

Instead I was outside in the parking lot rubbing the side that had clipped the cart and wondering where she had come from. I made a mental note not to tell my daughter about it or she would have a field day making me eat my words.

I can’t count the number of times I have told her that she must always be aware of her surroundings.

“Drivers aren’t paying attention. It doesn’t matter if the pedestrian has the right of way because the pedestrian always loses that fight.”

I am guessing that if you asked her to share my favorite lines she would give you that one and the one about girls having to pay extra attention to their surroundings, especially at night.

That second admonition really sets her off. I can’t tell you how many times she has told me that it isn’t fair and that her brothers have more freedom than she does.

The only thing that makes her angrier is what she calls my ridiculous behavior around boys.

I told her that one day when she becomes a mother she’ll understand and then I said that I am far too young to become a grandpa but I am not worried because she is not allowed to date until she is 87.

When she was really little she would scrunch up her face and tell me that 87 is too old. “Daddy, what about 36. Can I date at 36 or 41?

I would smile and say yes and then she would throw out a couple more ages. Sometimes they would be higher and sometimes they would be lower. When you are 8 years-old there is not much difference between 17 and 27. They are both far older than you.

Needless to say as she got older and gained a better grasp of age I began to hear a range that went from 14-16. You can probably guess how those discussions went.

Daughters can be challenging. The first inkling I got of this was from Tom, a fraternity brother of mine. When we were twenty he knocked up his girlfriend and by the time we were twenty-one he was changing diapers on a baby girl they named Rachel.

We weren’t real tight so I would only see him at the yearly reunions. But I won’t ever forget what happened at one when we were around 35 or so.

It is a blustery afternoon at the park and the place is packed with current members and alumni. We are all there for the Thanksgiving day football game we call Turkeybowl.

Tom and I are part of a group of four or five people. We are making the usual small talk about life and what ours is like when Tom barks, “Rachel!”

We all turn to see who he is talking to and spot a very attractive girl talking to a couple of the actives.

‘Is that Rachel?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Dude, she is hot,” says Mark.

It was the wrong thing to say. I am pretty sure that Mark didn’t mean to be offensive. He was just busting Tom’s chops but it didn’t go over well.

Tom glared at Mark, muttered something and pushed by him. When Rachel saw her father walking towards her she gave him a look that could have melted steel, flipped her hair and turned back.

It didn’t take a genius to know that the look the boy was getting was far different from the one her father received.

I don’t know if Tom and that particular active knew each other or what they said to each other. What I can tell you is that Tom provided that 19 year old boy with the kind of education his parents hadn’t paid for.

Fifteen minutes later Tom and Rachel were standing off to the side screaming at each other while the rest of us tried to figure out what had just happened.

I found out later on that earlier that week Tom had walked in on Rachel and some boy in bed. That is the sort of thing that no parent wants to discover, especially a father.

******

I took my bruised hip and started pushing the shopping cart towards the store. It goes without saying that I found the one with the busted wheel.

Inside the store I wandered up and down the aisles and tried to figure out why I had responded the way I had to the woman in the parking lot.

The words had just spilled out of me and I realized that it wouldn’t have taken much more prompting for me to have said a lot more. That moment marked when I realized just how miserable I was and how desperately I needed to make a change.

It probably also is when I decided that it was time to start thinking about that dread ‘D’ word we call divorce. Up until that point it had been something that other people did, but not anymore.

Divorce

I never thought that I would be the guy to say this, but the failure of my marriage made me feel like a failure. That doesn’t mean that I wanted to stay married or that I didn’t want to get divorced because that is simply not true. We went as far as we could go and had we tried to make it last any longer it is probable that we would have had hit that ugly place that so many other couples hit.

That was simply unacceptable to me. My children didn’t need to have parents who hated each other and ending it when we did made it easier to ensure that they didn’t witness some very unpleasant and ugly exchanges. I don’t talk to them at the specifics and particulars of why we decided to end it. That hasn’t prevented them from asking for more information than I am comfortable discussing with them but I simply refuse to answer.

I told them that it is private because it is.

It is not a situation where we can point fingers and say that one of us is/was so horrible it became impossible to live with them. No one was abusive or being abused but neither were we loving or in love.

Look, I understand that relationships are filled with ups and downs. The “experts” and assorted friends have told me that you don’t stay “in love” with your partner throughout the entire relationship. They tell me that during the ebb and flow there are moments where you love them but that is it.

That is something that just never made a lot of sense to me. I don’t know what to make out of the ‘I love you, but am not in love with you” line that so many people have shared. What I know is that I reached a place where I didn’t have anything to say to her anymore. If it didn’t involve the children or some sort of household matter I didn’t speak to her.

It wasn’t because I was trying to be mean either. I truly had nothing to say. I don’t really know why that is. I have tried to figure it out but haven’t come up with anything that makes sense to me. Maybe I need more time to pass so that I can gain more perspective. Maybe I should give it a few years and I’ll be able to gain more clarity and provide a more substantive answer or maybe not.

The thing is that I just don’t care. It doesn’t bother me. I don’t feel a need to understand it well enough to express it.

But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t upset or that I didn’t feel sad about it. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t mourn the end of the relationship. It feels a bit goofy to say that but it is true.

I didn’t wait to start dating until the divorce was finalized but I didn’t go racing off to find a new partner either. It surprised me a little bit.  Back in the good old days when I was a happily married man I used to kid around that if I was ever single I would be like a kid in a candy shop. I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it but it seemed natural to say.

As a man with a very healthy libido and a strong appreciation for women it seemed quite likely that I would go off and sow my oats for a while but then it happened and I didn’t. In part it was because I didn’t feel like I had the energy to go and learn about someone else. There wasn’t any motivation on my part to listen to someone tell me their life story and to share mine.

It probably would have stayed that way for a while except I started feeling a bit squirrely. You know, that whole “be fruitful and multiply” thing is going on and I suddenly gained enough patience to listen to a few stories.

I made a point not to say anything to any of my thoughts. I love my friends but I wasn’t in the mood to hear the boys tell me about dating. No cracks about what it is like to get back in the saddle or smart remarks about the need to bring along a little blue pill. I don’t need the damn pill and I don’t need to to get to revisit our high school locker room days.

That might be a little unfair to some of the guys but I am ok with that. I did all this because it was time and because I am taking care of myself. And along those lines I definitely didn’t say anything to the girls because I didn’t want them to start the “can I set you up” game. Correction, that started almost immediately what I didn’t want to do was give them any more ammunition or reason to talk about it.

And I especially didn’t want to hear Sheri lecture me about how I should dress, what I should say or how I must find a woman who is at least 35. Good old Sher says that she doesn’t want me wasting time sleeping with some twenty something year old girl. Why does she say this?

Well my dear friend says that she is looking out for the girl’s best interest. She fears that I will find some young, nubile thing and have outrageous amounts of meaningless sex that will lead the girl to become very attached to me and that she’ll end up getting hurt when I dump her. I told Sheri that she was very far too presumptuous and that she was hurting my non existent sex life with the hot twenty something year-old babe who can’t stop drooling when she sees me.

“Jack, it is a complete waste of time. You will have nothing to talk about and the sex will get old.”

“That is ok. I don’t want to talk to her. I am interested in lots of meaningless sex with a girl who won’t require three ibuprofen after a night of being bent every which way.”

I probably shouldn’t tell you how hard Sheri laughed and how she said that I would be the one who would require the medical assistance afterwards. ”I don’t think that you appreciate the position I am in here. Why not just support me.”

“That is not really a question. Besides I can assure you that a woman in her forties is more than capable of blowing your mind sexually. Chances are that she will be better than that girl you want to waste your time with. That whole talk about women becoming more comfortable with our bodies isn’t a myth.”

I thanked her for advice and reminded her that we weren’t on Oprah or Dr. Phil. There wasn’t going to be any cheering from the studio audience.  She stuck out her tongue at me and I told her that unless she put her tongue to better use it was time for her to go.

“It is not surprising that your divorced. Your mouth always gets you in trouble.”

“I only wish that I was as skilled at using my tongue as you are so that I could get out of it”

She turned to face me and said that she hoped that one day I would let myself be open to the possibility of falling in love again.

“Where the hell did that come from?”

“Jack, you like to pretend that you are a much bigger jerk than you are. You deserve some real happiness and you do a half ass job of taking care of yourself.”  I nodded and watched as she walked out the door and down the hall.

I don’t know if hindsight really is 20-20 but looking back on that conversation now I realize that she had already made up her mind about trying to get me to call the ex-girlfriend. If I were a bitter and angry man I would say that this was a prime example of the conniving woman who tries to manipulate the man. Thing is, I could say it just like that and she would nod her head and laugh.

Well, she really does care for me and is the kind of friend who you can call at any time so I suppose that I’ll let it go. Not like I had a choice, apparently she is two steps ahead of me.

She also gets partial credit for helping me to come up with new material for an upcoming book. Don’t ask me to tell you what book the section below will be used in because I haven’t the foggiest idea. Sometimes I get an idea and I just run with it and see where it goes. That is part of the joy of being a writer. You create worlds and you never know what they are going to look like.

You may have a rough idea about them but you never really know what they will look like or what the characters will be like until that final draft is done. Here, I’ll share a couple of examples of what I am talking about. The first version is more of a first person narrative as opposed to the second which uses a few characters to set the scene.

I Never Stop Thinking About You

“Oh, I know (oh, I know)
That the music’s fine
Like sparkling wine
Go and have your fun
Laugh and sing
But while we’re apart
Don’t give your heart to anyone
But don’t forget who’s taking you home
And in whose arms you’re gonna be
So darlin’, save the last dance for me, mmmm”

Baby, don’t you know
I love you so
Can’t you feel it when we touch
I will never, never let you go
I love you oh, so much

You can dance (you can dance)
Go and carry on
‘Til the night is gone
And it’s time to go
If he asks if you’re all alone
Can he take you home you must tell him no
‘Cause don’t forget who’s taking you home
And in whose arm’s you’re gonna be
So, darlin’, save the last dance for me
Save The Last Dance for Me- The Drifters

“Just another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody
I’ve got some money cause I just got paid
How I wish I had some chick to talk to
I’m in an awful way”
Another Saturday Night & I Ain’t Got Nobody– Sam Cooke

“Action speaks louder than words
And I’m a man of great experience
I know you got another man
But I can love you better than him

Take my hand, don’t be afraid
I’m wanna prove every word I say
I’m advertisin’ love for free
So, you can place your ad with me”
Hard to Handle– Otis Redding

In a different life a woman once told me that because men weren’t as in touch with our feelings it takes us longer to figure out what women know in less than half the time. It was the sort of comment that most men dislike hearing at any age, but as a twenty-something I was even less interested.

The future was nothing but endless highway filled with opportunities. I couldn’t see anything but pots of gold waiting to be discovered. Not to mention that an overblown fragile male ego was completely unprepared to do more than feign being interested in the conversation.

Can’t tell you exactly what happened after that, but I can remember a few things. She said something, I said something in reply and went straight into foreplay. Decades later I realize that her participation in the festivities was not tacit approval of the aforementioned non response. If anything it was a check mark that she used on the wrong side of the mental list of things she like and didn’t like about me.

But like I said, I was young and foolish. Who knew. Time passed and she and I found ourselves entangled in a weave of differing interests. She wanted to pursue her dreams in different cities than I did. We talked a lot about what we wanted as individuals, at least that is how I remember it. She might see it differently, might even claim that I am engaged in revisionist history. But I truly don’t remember talking as a ‘we.’

The end result was that we went our separate ways. It wasn’t because of major issues with each other, just bad timing.

Some years later we found each other and picked up where we had left off. Being a child of technology and history I call it relationship 1.5. It started out relatively quietly. There were a few emails and then some conversations followed by a meal.

We met in front of the restaurant and hugged each other. I didn’t realize until we got inside that I had buried my nose in her hair. It was instinct really, she always smelled good. Three minutes later we sat down and I got lost in her. I know that sounds goofy, pull my man card. But I did. Her scent was still stuck in my nose and all I could think about was taking her home as quickly as possible.

Apparently I wasn’t alone in my thoughts because right after we ordered she suddenly came down with a migraine. At least she thought that is what it was going to be. While we waited for the waiter to box our food I offered to walk her home and she said yes.

Along the way she told me that the night air had helped to clear her head and asked if I wanted to come up and eat at her place. Did I mention that it took me until the next day to realize how she had set me up. I spent most of the walk back to her place silently lamenting the crash and burn of the evening.

Anyway, we set the table, enjoyed a bottle of wine with our meal and then woke up together. As I said earlier it was part of relationship 1.5. And if you haven’t guessed it didn’t last long. Her company transferred her to an office in the Southwest. I was climbing the corporate ladder and too close to a major promotion to move.

Time passed and we drifted apart again. Another case of two people who probably could make it work if they could find a way to be together.

And now I find myself saying that more than I’d like to. Two people who could probably make it work if they could find a way to be together. Oh, did I mention that relationship 1.5 was the most intense that I have ever been in.

It was the kind of love affair that makes you write stupid poetry and plays. Did I tell you that I apologized to her for being so stupid when we were younger? Well I did. I told her that I wished that I had never let her go. I said that it was the mistake that haunted me and that she really was the love of my life.

She told me that was great and that she wished that I had said it earlier but that we missed our window. And then came the fights and accusations. The hurt feelings built up and over time we stopped communicating. That is sort of the filler part of what happened when relationship 1.5 moved on.

So I find myself in quiet moments thinking about my girl. Not sure that it is right or fair to say that, but I can’t help it. I like to think that she still thinks of herself that way. I like to think that sometimes she thinks about me and wonders if maybe someday we can find a way.

Although we can give the standard laundry list of he said, she said issues the reality is that we didn’t really end things because of issues with the other. It didn’t fall apart because I stand her incessant need to make lists for everything or desire to keep Laura Ashley in business. The things that killed us were external issues and those can be dealt with.

Maybe it is one of those once in a lifetime opportunities in which you grab that brass ring or you don’t. Maybe it is something that I’ll look back upon and smile. But I hope not. For a long time she was more than my best friend. I am still holding out hope that she can be again because I never have stopped thinking about her.

And as promised here is the second version:

Johnny sat on his couch, a bottle of Fat Weasel Pale Ale in hand and a goofy grin on his face. For more than a while he had this feeling that someone was trying to send him a message, but he was never clear about what it was or what he was supposed to do about it. He was a man who liked to base his beliefs upon science and the tangible, or so he would tell you. But sometimes in the quiet of the night he would stare up at the moon and feel like there was something more than science out there. He’d lie on his back and look for shooting stars and just open himself up to the possibility that maybe the universe did send you messages.

It wasn’t always easy for him. He was a skeptic who sometimes straddled his disbelief by silently reviewing the reasons why something or someone wasn’t really meant to be. It wasn’t hard to poke holes in these dreams. If you would have asked him he would tell you that it was easy for con artists to take your money. The old gypsy woman who sold Love Potion Number 9, the psychic and mediums who told your fortune knew that most people visited them because they wanted help with their love life or finances. All you had to do was give people an opening and they would practically write the story for you.

And yet he had experienced things that made him wonder if perhaps he was wrong. There were moments in which those signs were as clear as a grapevine or that yellow rose of Texas. He took a swig of the Fat Weasel and sung softly, “The stars at night, Are big and bright, Deep in the heart of Texas…” He wasn’t so sure what made him think of Texas, but in an odd, convoluted way it sort of fit. The song did talk about stars and he did like to spend time staring up at them. He had told June more than once that if she wanted the moon he would find a way to get it for her. He smiled again and muttered something about not knowing who was crazier, him or June.

It felt like forever since he had spoken with June and had you talked to him a week or two earlier he would have told you that he was done. He was tired of it all, worn out, exhausted and ready to say that it was fun while it lasted. These weren’t just words to him. He meant what he said and he had intended to do what he had to do to walk. So he drew a mental picture in his head of himself standing in a room and then pictured himself turning out the lights, pulling the shades and walking out the door.

That mental picture wasn’t easy to come up with, but it seemed to be the right thing so it was what he did. And with a simple click he locked the door and took the first steps to an unknown future. At least that was what he had intended to do but life has a funny way of taking your intentions and turning them inside out or upside down. If life were made by Hollywood the scene would have been easy to script. All that he described would be performed by skilled actors who would make it clear that this wasn’t a part of some formulaic romance. It was real and it was true. And just when the audience bought into the story something would happen that would lead the two of them back into each others arms.

But it wasn’t Hollywood- it was life and sometimes the hero stumbles or the villain gets the girl. And Johnny, our closet skeptic wasn’t willing to open himself up to the possibility that some of this was part of some larger master plan. Sure, he wanted to believe that there was something more but it really didn’t make sense so he didn’t bother to consider it as even being an option. At least that is how it started and maybe if were a different person that is how it would have stayed. But things happened, weird moments that he couldn’t explain as being anything other than signs that maybe someone or something was trying to speak to him.

At least that is what he was beginning to think. Still it wasn’t a comfortable thought so he fought it down and read the newspaper. And just when he had pushed it out of his head he heard the opening to Helter Skelter.

“When I get to the bottom
I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and turn
and I go for a ride
Till I get to the bottom and I see you again
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Do you don’t you want me to love you
I’m coming down fast but I’m miles above you
Tell me tell me come on tell me the answer
and you may be a lover but you ain’t no dancer”

He smiled and shook his head again. He didn’t know if the universe was tapping him on the shoulder but he couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere out there June was silently asking him to call. It would be fitting, damn woman used to tease him that she only let him think that he was in control when in reality she was. So he sent out a silent message in response where he told her that he heard her calling and that if she wanted to talk her damn fingers weren’t broken. Dial the damn phone woman and I’ll talk to you.

With a snort and a smirk he finished his drink and wondered if the universe worked that way. He figured that if there was anything to it he would find out, because if the universe really does speak to you, well he is listening or it seemed.

The Next Column

Intermixed with all of the reminiscing and speculation about whether true love lasts forever and whether the crazy woman would take my call I remembered that I am on deadlines. Yes, I know that sounds like hell and is grammatically incorrect but I don’t care. This isn’t being graded nor is it being distributed to the general public that we also refer to as my readers.

And in case you have forgotten they always tear apart my work. Not sometimes, not occasionally but always. It is part of being published and something that every published writer experiences. I tell me students that if they want to be published they must have or develop a very thick skin. The professional critics will always have something to say about what you did wrong, didn’t do or could have done better.

Sometimes their comments are ridiculous and you wonder if they are mentally ill and or incompetent. Those last two dispositions don’t have to be mutually exclusive. My personal preference is to be able to say that ridiculous comments were written by a critic who is mentally ill and incompetent. It does a better job of protecting my fragile male ego than acknowledging that their might be validity to what they say or suggesting that they just hate me.

Ok, they might actually hate me. Not all of them but a few. I might have had words with a few of them…once or twice. I can’t quite remember but I think that I might have suggested that Mary Peters enjoyed being sodomized with a broken broom handle and that Chris Tields was a pussy who had gotten his ass kicked by his stepson. Ok, I can’t say for certain that Mary enjoyed being sodomized or even that she was but I know for a fact that Tields was beaten silly by his stepson.

I wonder if the crazy woman who might be my true love saw any of the news stories that were published about Peters and Tields. I don’t know who tipped off Peters about my being irritated but she heard that I said she was riding a broom and thought that I was calling her a witch. In the interest of making sure that I wasn’t misquoted and that my intent was not misunderstood I explained to her that it was fair to say that I described her as riding a broom, just not in the manner she thought.

Come to think of it she might be a little bit nicer if she got a little broom action. I may be biased but I think her best features are….hell I can’t think of anything that I would call her best feature. If I was forced I might say I like her best when unconscious. I certainly haven’t seen her that way but it has to be an improvement over her waking state.

Alternatively I might suggest that thinking of her naked or in any sort of sexual terms would be the fastest way to scare my man parts into hiding. That gives me an idea. We could use an 8×10 glossy of her to help men who are suffering from extended erections.

Did I mention that some people say that I have a mean streak. There might be some truth to that but do me a favor and try not to talk about it around my mother. She likes to think that her baby boy has grown up a little bit. She also thinks that Mr. Tields is lucky that I didn’t give him my full attention.

Tields and I have a bit of a history but I can’t tell you exactly when it started or who said what. What I know is that at some point in time I told him that man his age wasn’t supposed to have a nose that could be described as bulbous. He kind of scrunched up his face and I suggested that it was a bad idea to try to look like W.C. Fields and that Fields had talent.

Good old Mr. Tields told me that he took umbrage with my statement and demanded an apology. I apologized by pulling off a move that probably would have been perfect in an episode of the Three Stooges. Unfortunately it is not on tape nor was it witnessed by anyone other than Tields and I so you will have to believe me when I say that it was hysterical.

Tields didn’t think so and told me that I was a rank asshole. Not long afterwards he wrote a column in which he went after my family in a very nasty way. It created a problem for my kids and I ended up demanding that Tields apologize in print. He refused and I ignored my better judgment and engaged in what W.C. Fields might have referred to as “fisticuffs” with him.

It didn’t go well for Tields and would have gone much worse had the parking lot attendants not gotten involved. Had Tields not involved my children Mom might have given me some serious grief about it all. Instead she briefly chastised me for risking injury and prison and then told me that she hoped I hit him twice as hard as he hit me. What can I say, mommy loves her boy.

All that background is just dandy but it doesn’t do a damn thing to help me write the column that I owe the paper not to mention the 5,000 words I owe my agent for the next book. I have a few ideas for both of them but I am having trouble focusing. Damn crazy woman keeps creeping into my thoughts.

I probably shouldn’t refer to her that way. She won’t like it and I don’t need to make life any more difficult for myself.

Facing My Fear

The best way to get over someone is to get angry. Make a list of things about them you don’t like and read it…repeatedly. Tell nobility and maturity to go fuck themselves and include every little detail about their personality and their looks that irks you.

And then read it, read it, read it and read it again.

The goal is to turn that mental image you have of them into a monster. Make it into something dark, ugly and nasty. Cover up the good and forget the things that changed you from a person to a couple.

I never wanted to do that with her. I never wanted to look back and think that I had made a huge mistake or had wasted a big part of my life spending time with someone who wasn’t right, good or healthy for me.

For a long time I tried to avoid going there. Initially it was because I didn’t believe that she could walk away and keep walking. I didn’t believe that someone could do that.

Intellectually I understood that someone could and that people did but that was something that happened to others and not to us. I thought that she needed time. Figured that with so many other things going on in her life it made sense to let her walk.

That is not to say that I didn’t fight it because I did. I didn’t just let go or give up but at some point I backed off a bit and gave her the space she said she wanted. Backed off and waited for her to be ready to come back and then she didn’t.

She didn’t come back and I realized that something awful had happened. Realized that one of the great fears of my life had materialized and wondered what the fuck I was supposed to do.

The things we did, said and shared were too real, too powerful and too big a part of me to think that it could really be over.

I kept waiting and wondering. After a while I tried to bring her back but she wouldn’t come. Wouldn’t listen or have any part of what I was saying. Instead she fed me venom and bile and told me that I was an idiot.

It was so very hard but I took the abuse because I had promised to be her hero and figured that she needed someone that she could unload upon. I was safe. It was ok to be more honest with me than anyone else. That was how it had worked in the past.

The hero was ready to dance in the fire and I was capable of doing that dance for her. So I took the abuse that she heaped upon me and wondered if she understood that no other could get away with this. Wondered if she understood that I didn’t do so out of weakness but love.

I took her pain because I loved her and I wanted to protect her. Took it because I was devoted and I wanted her to feel that devotion.

But after a while it seemed like it didn’t matter what I did. After a while it seemed like she had moved on and so I decided that I needed to move on to. I have an enormous capacity for dealing with pain and infinite patience for those I love but this seemed to be a zero sum game.

This seemed to be nothing more than an exercise in pain and I decided that I had given it enough time. It was time to walk and so I did.

I walked and kept on walking. Won’t lie and say that I never looked back because I did. Won’t lie and say that I never listened for her to call my name because I did. But she didn’t look and she didn’t call.

She didn’t do anything to make me believe that she missed me. She didn’t do anything to make me believe that she still loved me. And when you added a new man in to the mix I finally became angry.

And that anger made me move as it hadn’t before. Even though I couldn’t think of her being a bitch I managed to build a new fire in my belly. Even though I couldn’t think of her without remembering how smart and pretty she was I managed to start building a wall.

But all this time later I find myself being forced to face my fear. All these years later I find myself wondering if I ever stopped loving her and I fear the answer is no.

I fear that I have a fire in burning in my belly for a woman who might not feel the same. I guarantee that she remembers me and I guarantee that my name brings the occasional smile to her face but beyond that I cannot say.

So I find myself wondering what I am to do about this. Do I write her a letter, call her on the phone or show up at the grocery store. What do I do and what do I say.

Am I supposed to be nonchalant. Do I try to play it cool or do I go with my instinct to be a bit more aggressive.

It sounds ridiculous but there is a piece of me that wants to stand in front of her and call for an accounting. There is a piece of me that wants to walk up and kiss her. There is a piece of me that wants to write a letter saying that I know she is in desperate need of my affection.

She very well might reject me. A thousand years ago when I was single one of my female friends said that sometimes women reject men to see how hard they are willing to work for them.

We aren’t twenty somethings any more. Does that still apply or have things changed. The guys tell me that dating now is much easier and that women our age are interested in physical contact as much as we are.

I am tempted to write her a letter and dare her to prove that I won’t need to use Viagra with her.  Except part of me is afraid that she’ll read that and assume that I have some sort of erectile dysfunction and I definitely don’t want to give off that impression.

Maybe I should temper the letter with some sort of humor. “I have been with 145 women but only 100 of them were able to satisfy me. How would you like to prove that you still can.”

Something tells me that I would be better off calling out of the blue and asking for a blow job than using that last idea.

Ugh. I don’t know what to do. I am not sure that I can ignore this but I am afraid to put myself out there with her again. There is a reason why I shut down that part of my heart and closed off the portion of my soul she used to have access to.

I finally decided to set aside the question of what to do and went to the store. Man can’t make big decisions on an empty stomach. So I picked up a steak, some napkins and played the lotto.

Picked the following numbers 8, 31, 68, 59, and 69. Given a chance I think that combination could work.

During the ride back I thought about a draft that I had written for one of my books but never used. It was a piece that felt more than a bit appropriate for my situation.

I Won’t Back Down

“I’ve been tryin’ to get to you for a long time
Because constantly you been on my mind
I was thinkin’ ’bout a shortcut I could take
But it seems like I made a mistake

I was wrong, mmm, I took too long
I got caught in the rush hour
A fellow started to shower
You with love and affection
Now you won’t look in my direction”
Expressway To Your Heart- The Soul Survivors

There are more than a few stories about the experiences we have with the people who change our lives. Part of the beauty and majesty of the world is that we are given a lifetime in which to go find them. And if we are lucky we recognize them for who and what they are while they are a part of our lives and not afterwards.

But sometimes circumstances blind us. Sometimes life gets in the way or maybe it is our own fear of the future and the unknown. I suppose that you could say that it really doesn’t matter what the reason is because once that moment has passed you don’t always get a second chance to try to do it again. At least that is the rationalization that some people use.

Not I. I see the distinction between the two. No I have a perspective that claims that circumstances and timing can  blur those moments and create the appearance of an unmovable object. Yet when studied more closely you often find that there are multiple ways to get over, around or under it. You don’t have to be a Faraday or a Newton to find it.

All you need is time and determination.

“Your love’s a gathered storm I chased across the sky
A moment in your arms became the reason why
And you’re still the only light that fills the emptiness
The only one I need until my dying breath
And I would give you everything just to
Feel your open arms
And I’m not sure I believe anything I feel”
Without You Here- Goo Goo Dolls

I caught a glimpse of Jericho today. For a brief moment in time I found myself staring directly into her eyes. It was unheralded, unexpected and without fanfare but that isn’t surprising for Jericho. The woman tends to glide in and out of the room. If she heard me say that she’d probably blush, but that is ok. I have always been good at bringing that out of her.

The fire and the rain. I told her way back when we first me that where I walk storms follow. She threw back her head in laughter and told me that she wasn’t afraid of me. For a moment I was confused, wasn’t sure whether she was making fun of what. I must have looked away, can’t tell you if it was in sadness or anger, just that I did it.

And then she did something that caught me off guard and completely disarmed me. She put her head on my shoulder, squeezed my bicep once and then took my hand and intertwined her fingers in mine. Such simplicity tore down all the walls that I had erected around my heart and destroyed any resolve I had to stay distant.

It was endearing, charming and exceptionally frightening. To know that someone had decided to accept me unconditionally, to love me without exception and without question was among the most powerful moments I have ever experienced.

But that was then and this is now. Back then there was never any doubt that we would find a way to live the kind of life that others read or dreamed about. We were the couple that you hated. The man and woman who would couldn’t stop smiling at each other. The boy and girl who would tickle, tease and wrestle. The couple who couldn’t keep their hands off of each other.

We were all that and more. We were in love and on fire in the best possible sense of the expression.

And then….life happened. We got caught in a whirlpool of chaos and craziness. Pulled in a dozen different directions we found ourselves pulled apart. Separated by circumstances we found ourselves lost in unfamiliar territory.

We tried to hold on. We tried to keep it all from tearing us apart but life happened and we got lost in it. Mistakes were made. Things that under normal circumstances would have never affected us took on greater magnitude than normal and we slipped further.

Eventually we reached the place where we no longer spoke. The pain of the separation was significant. I was so very angry. I had always been there to protect and care for you. How many times did you see me go to battle for you. How many times did I wade into the thick of it and take on the hordes. I never cared how big or how many because I had your love to support me. No matter how badly I was battered or bruised I would come home to your arms and know that I was safe.

Oh did that fire burn inside of me. Woman, you know how brightly it burned. I waded back into the wars more than once knowing that the battles would keep me busy. Only this time was different. Now I fought to forget and more than once I intentionally bit off more than I could chew. It was part punishment, part crazy and two-thirds stupid. I know the math doesn’t work, but I don’t care.

“Well I won’t back down
No I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won’t back down

No I’ll stand my ground, won’t be turned around
And I’ll keep this world from draggin me down
gonna stand my ground
… and I won’t back down”
I Won’t Back Down- Tom Petty

After a while the anger and frustration faded and my head cleared and I began to carefully consider the situation.  You used to tell me that you were impressed by how calm I was under fire. Until you came along that was how it had always been.

I couldn’t help but laugh at my own stupidity and with that laughter I began to heal. Not just heal but recognized the little signs you had left for me, the simple notes that told me that this wasn’t forever. Oh, there was no guarantee that there would be another opportunity, but there were plenty of reasons to suggest being optimistic.

But you used to let me see you and I learned a lot about you, about me and about life. And because I know you love your puzzles I won’t say any more than that.

“I thought that I was over you
But it’s true, so true
I love you even more than I did before
But darling, what can I do?
For you don’t love me
And I’ll always be
Crying over you, crying over you”
Crying- Roy Orbison

You never saw me lose a fight. That is not ego talking, it is the truth. So you remember that and remember that I know that the fire still burns for both of us.

Blog Entry #235 The Red Dress

“I thought about you for a long time
Can’t seem to get you off my mind
I can’t understand why we’re living life this way
I found your picture today
I swear I’ll change my ways
I just called to say I want you to come back home
I found your picture today
I swear I’ll change my ways
I just called to say I want you to come back home
I just called to say, I love you come back home”
Picture- Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow

Sometimes the only explanation for the unexplainable is that there is no explanation. This is never more true than in what some people call affairs of the heart. When you are dealing with the heart there is nothing more frustrating than trying to apply the rules of logic and reason for no reason other than The Heart Wants What The Heart Wants.

It is exactly that simple. The heart wants what the heart wants and rational thought be damned. You can only fight it for so long before you realize that you can’t apply mathematical formulas to your relationships. No matter how hard you try you won’t find a scientific explanation that ties it all up in a neat little bow. But if your name is Johnny you have a thick head and a stubborn streak that won’t allow you to accept this.

So you’ll fight your heart and do your best to convince yourself that your head is capable of making good decisions, sound decisions that are based upon that logic and reason you so wish applied here. For a while force of will combined with a dash of anger/frustration will prove to be a recipe for some muted success.

During that time you will have managed to quash most thoughts of June or stuff them down so far that you don’t feel the hole that her absence has created. Time passes and it becomes a little bit easier to convince yourself that you are doing the right thing. Each day without contact serves its purpose in providing you with a check mark on the mental calendar that you keep to prove that you can live without her.

But that only works for so long. It is effectiveness is challenged by odd coincidences that remind you of her. You know, things happen that make you wonder if signs are real and you ask the universe to stop sending this crap your way because you don’t want to be made into a fool. And though you pride yourself on your strength to weather any storm you find that these signs are too odd to ignore.

They are combinations of names, people and places that you cannot associate with anyone else but her. You fight a bit longer to stay silent and to not scream at the world in anger. Anger because you can’t explain the unexplainable and frustration because that which you want is unavailable. Anger because just when you think you are fine you find out that you are not.

This Time you can explain/blame some of it on a red dress. A simple red dress that just happens to be worn by the very same woman you are pretending not to love anymore. A simple red dress that she wears with elegance and grace. A simple red dress that looks so good on her you know that she can’t walk through a room without other women silently cursing her.

It is not easy for you to see her from a distance. It is not easy because you feel a connection to her that never disappears. No matter how angry you might have been or how angry you may become with her that connection pulls you back in.

For a long time you sat in silence because you thought that was appropriate and because she gave you no reason to do other than that. You have told her more than once that you would be her hero and that you would storm any castle to rescue her. There are no dragons that you wouldn’t fight nor challenges that you wouldn’t take on for her.

But you cannot do it alone and you know this. You cannot give her the moon unless she is ready and willing to take it. Force of will isn’t enough to make her do what she will not do of her own accord. Though it pains you terribly to accept this you do because it is the only thing that you can do.

For the time being you must continue to play the role of the hero who cannot rescue the damsel in distress. For the time being you must walk a separate path that you hope will one day intersect with hers. For the time being you must continue to dance in the fire because that’s what is required.

But you can take solace and comfort that time is proving that you were right about many things. Right to let her go try to find her smile and to give her space to come back to you. And now if your gut instinct is to be trusted she is slowly taking steps in your direction. So while your instinct is to run towards her you stay planted where you are.

Planted in a place where she can find you and with open arms that will welcome her back to them. And in between it all you can’t help but smile at the mental image you have of that beautiful woman in the red dress. So you close your eyes to block out the outside noise and picture her walking towards you. Long legs, dark eyes and a huge heart stare back at you and you smile broadly.

For the moment that is all that you have, this memory and this picture. It makes you snort and smile, this thought of how very strange life can be. Who knew that a picture of your girl in the red dress could make your heart pound like this.

Oh Mary
Was it just a dream
That I dreamed the other night?
I saw you there
Standing right beside me
And we finally had it right
Oh Mary Oh Mary Oh
Mary Oh Mary Oh Mary Oh
Talkin’ out love
Mary Oh Mary Oh
No, I don’t want nothing in between
Mary Oh Mary
Don’t tie me to words that you don’t mean
Mary Oh Mary Oh
I’m looking for something I never knew
Mary Oh Mary Oh
Oh Mary you know I’m looking for you”
Oh Mary- Neil Diamond

Blog Entry #236

“Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs round these velvet rims
And strap your hands across my engines
Together we could break this trap
Well run till we drop, baby well never go back
Will you walk with me out on the wire
`cause baby I’m just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta find out how it feels
I want to know if love is wild, girl I want to know if love is real”
Born To Run– Bruce Springsteen

“Show me how you do that trick
The one that makes me scream” she said
“The one that makes me laugh” she said
And threw her arms around my neck
“Show me how you do it
And I promise you I promise that
I’ll run away with you
I’ll run away with you”
Just Like Heaven– The Cure

If you close your eyes and listen carefully you can hear the soft clink-clank of metal against metal. You’re so focused upon your task it is hard to say how long the rhythmic banging has been going on. You’re name is Johnny and you’re lifting weights in your garage. It is well after midnight and you can’t sleep.

You don’t feel much like talking to anyone and even if you did you’re friends are all asleep. It is a work night so you don’t really want to have a drink.Or maybe that is because you suspect that it won’t just be one drink and you’d rather not finish that six pack. Besides you don’t really want to drink alone.

So you decide that you are going to take your nervous energy and make use of it. You strap on your iPod and head outside to exercise because you know that you always feel better afterwards. And besides it will help clear your head.

Alone in the garage you start your workout and try not to focus on June. Been forever since she was a part of your life. But some days you can’t help but wonder what could have been. Sometimes timing is a bitch and that has you shaking your head. It seems more than a little unfair thatcircumstances could be the reason that a relationship doesn’t work.

As you focus on your form you can’t help but smile wistfully as you think about how unexpected it was to find June. Neither one of you could have ever predicted it. You grew up in different places and in different worlds. She used to tell you that she would never forgive you for not finding her earlier. You’d laugh and tell her that you could say the same thing.

Time would pass and you’d confess that you had never been more in love with anyone or more scared. This was the kind of thing that only happened in books and movies and that made you drag your feet. She’d tell you the same thing. And in no time you would forge a bond that was deeper and more powerful than any either one of you had known or experienced.

But life is not a book or a movie and things would happen. The world outside the one you shared would come to exert its influence upon you. The timing was off and no matter what you did you couldn’t fight it. You tried. You did what you could and when it wasn’t good enough you beat yourself up and wondered how it fell apart.

So sometimes late at night you’d wander outside and stare at the moon. Looking up at that giant white orb you’d sometimes smile and wonder if June was doing it too. Other times you’d stare at it and feel like howling in frustration and you’d wonder again if she felt like that too.

There would be good days and bad days. Moments when you were determined to walk away. You’d tell yourself that it didn’t matter why it ended or who was at fault or what. All that mattered was moving on with your life. But in the silent recesses of your heart you’d never completely let go.

The bond that you had forged was too strong and too deep. And once you acknowledged this truth of your heart you began to feel better. Once you accepted that you would always love June you were able to start living again. It wasn’t exactly what you wanted, but it was a start.

Because the truth was that your heart told you that June was still out there and that the end to this story had yet to be written. The promises you made were still valid. The love you shared still lived. And maybe, just maybe there might be chance to pick things up somewhere down the road.

And then you took off your watch and stuffed it in a drawer because the last thing you wanted to be reminded of was timing.

Column Ideas

Been bouncing around different ideas for the column that Harold wants me to write but haven’t come up with a definitive idea yet. Most of it is tied into all of this lost love and hope for a better tomorrow crap that I seem to be dragging around. It is like old luggage that I can’t seem to give away but I am not sure that I want to. That makes me a little nervous and I am not exactly sure why. I have some ideas but I don’t know.

So instead of wondering and worrying about it I sat down and typed out a few different sample columns to try out. It might sound ridiculous but it is a tried and true technique for me. I sit down at the keyboard and pound out a few thoughts and see how it feels. It is like trying on an old pair of jeans. Sometimes you put them on and you wonder when you gained 653 pounds and sometimes you marvel at how well that old pair fits.

The Love Of My Life

I don’t have any quotes or music to open this story with. It is not for a lack of ideas or access to resources. All it takes is point-click-cut-and-paste. Presto-change-o and you have some words of wisdom to share or a song that you know will melt her heart.

And that is what you want to do. You are writing her another letter here where you hope she’ll see it. Another letter in which you tell her how strong you are, express that you are capable of living a very happy life without her but that is not completely true.

Because the fact is that you love her. You miss her. You want her. You need her. These are not simple platitudes nor things that you bandy about. You don’t like such things. You prefer not to be so open and giving with the things that leave your soft side exposed.

It is easier to try to move on and pretend that it is ok. You look in the mirror and remind yourself that you don’t really have a choice. There are two people in this equation and you can’t control anyone but yourself. It doesn’t matter whether you say yes or no because unless she chooses to participate you are done.

And that is something that is as painful to write as it is to hear. She told you that you were the love of her life and you said that she was yours. But things happen and people change. And even if people don’t change sometimes there are situations that change, making it impossible to be with who you wish to be with.

Isn’t that what Crosby Stills Nash and Young said, “If you can’t be with the one you love, than love the one you are with.” That might not be a perfect quote but it is pretty damn close. Nice sentiment, good idea. If you are going to be with someone than you should love them. But loving them isn’t the same as being in love with them and that my friends makes all the difference.

Because when you are in love then you can take on the world. You don’t need much, just each other. That is the power, the beauty and the magic of love. Cue cheesy ’80s music and a scene from a John Hughes movie.

So the question is why aren’t you with the one you are in love with. It is understandable to be fearful of the unknown. It is a valid response, but it is not always enough. It is not enough to say that circumstances are too hard or the situation is too difficult. It is simply unacceptable.

At least these are things that you tell yourself, truths that you say you believe. You still maintain that in a world of billions there have to be millions who could make you happy, but only a very few who can make you seriously happy. And even fewer who can make you as happy as she can and did.

So you wake up each day and stay busy. You occupy yourself with things that will make your life better. You push yourself to get in better shape, to get ahead at work and to improve your life. You don’t do it for her, but for you.

The idea is that regardless of whether you find your way back to each other you will be in a better situation. You fervently believe everything you are writing and are confident that even if you don’t find each other life will go on and you will be one happy dude.

But in the quiet of the night you admit that the light that flickers inside your heart does so because you still carry her torch. Unlike the Olympic Flame this sucker never gets extinguished. That is part of what is so intriguing to you, this has never happened before.

So sometimes you find yourself staring at her picture and remembering things. Soft touches, gentle whispers and someone who you let see you as you are, not as you wish to be. And in those quiet moments when you look inwards you find yourself convinced that somewhere out there she remembers those things and that sometimes she thinks of the boy who loves her still.

It didn’t take more than a few minutes of writing the second attempt at the column to realize that I had blown it. It can’t be published in a newspaper, a book yes, but the newspaper- not so much. It is not edgy enough for me or really even close to my normal style. In fact I guarantee that people will be up in arms about it and I can only imagine what that will look like.

I am also tempted to try to push it through just to see what sort of response I get from it. Some of those letters are far too much fun.

Dreams

‘And still I dream he’ll come to me,
That we will live the years together,
But there are dreams that cannot be,
And there are storms we cannot weather!

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living,
So different now from what it seemed…
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed…”
I Dreamed a Dream- Les Miserables

Sometimes I reach into my chest, pull out my heart and drop it into the fire. And then while the flames attempt to consume I bite my lip, pound the table and punch the wall. The pain is excruciating but it is better to feel than to be empty and hollow.

I question the wisdom of sharing such thoughts here and hope that you understand why I write these words. I worry that you will misunderstand my intent and that this will cause you distress. That is not my intent or desire. But as you have heard me say so many times sometimes good intentions go astray.

It is not easy to walk the path that I find myself upon. It is filled with unseen hazards and challenges that I cannot always prepare for. There are creatures that live here in the dark that feed upon my insecurities and feast upon my doubt.

But if you know me as well as I think you do you understand that I was built to be the warrior and bred to be the knight protector. It is part and parcel of why I sometimes patrol the woods by your castle. I may not be able to see you now, but I can help to keep the wolves, brigands and roustabouts from making their homes near yours.

Such are the dreams of a man who wishes to be your hero. Ah, but some of this sounds so silly, so foolish and so melodramatic. Maybe it is more appropriate to say that I have clothed myself in hysteria and over blown drama.

Or maybe not. Maybe it is fair to share some things, to tell you that there are moments where I am certain you are around and nights where you take center stage in my dreams. I remember a conversation about dreams. I remember telling you in graphic detail about where we were and what we did. I remember the smile on your face.

The lights flicker and the scenes change. We are somewhere else and the intimacy has changed. You tell me that you can’t understand why I am so in love with you and worry that when age catches up with you I will lose interest. I do my best to assuage your concern but I am not sure that you accept it.

I know that look- the skepticism in your eyes speaks volumes. You want to accept and believe but your faith has been shaken and you are uncertain. I don’t know how to overcome that. I am unsure how to convince you that I mean what I say. I take your hand and put it over my heart- tell you to feel that beat and ask you to recognize the meaning behind it.

Don’t know if it worked- maybe it didn’t because you are there and I am here and that means we are not together. Or maybe it just refers to the physical. You told me that we are inextricably linked and it is hard not to believe that.

You spent an hour or so hanging out in a place you don’t frequent often but one that I do. I saw you there. Caught your profile with the red dress and instantly recognized you. You looked stunning. It took an enormous amount of discipline not to come pull you into my arms.

But I wasn’t convinced that you were ready or wanted that. I don’t completely trust my heart. I fear that it tells me what I want to hear and not what is real. But then again I know that matters of love are not based upon logic or rational thought. Nor should they be- sometimes you have to jump into the storm and ride the wind.

I blame you for that. It is one of the many lessons I learned from you. It is part of why you still appear in my dreams and why I remember what it was like to kiss your lips. I am not really sure what it is I am supposed to do. Don’t know what path I am to take or where the road leads.

All I know is that I still wish for you to come live with me and be my love. Come dance with me in the rain and under the moonlit sky. Walk through our kingdom and let me do what I do best, love you.

The good news is that it gave me an idea that I think I am going to run with.  What I am probably going to do is take a section that wasn’t included in one of the books and rework it so that it fits what I need. This piece about a former couple and an instant messenger isn’t ready for a newspaper but with a few tweaks it will be. I’ll modify it so that it is more general and than talk about relationships and technology. That is a series that is timeless.

Instant Messenger

Can’t remember the last time I signed into the good old Instant Messenger and there you were. I wondered if it was a sign or just coincidence.

Anne Stacey. There you were. A little picture of your smiling face flashed up at me and I smiled back. For a moment I just stopped and stared. Watched and wondered what to do. You told me to give you some space and I had done that. But the truth for both of us is/was that space is a funny term.

Throughout the years there have been a few brief moments where we felt that we needed some time away from each other. Moments of anger and or frustration. Moments of confusion when we tried to catch our breath and figure it all out. But throughout it all we always found that it was impossible to completely forget the existence of the other.

It is a hard thing to explain, but we always feel better when we allow the contact. And when we are separated intentionally or otherwise we have a tendency to seek the little things that connect us. There is a comfort in those things. We passed the point many years ago when we could truly say that we were all by ourselves. Now the connection is always there.

Most of the time it is a wonderful thing. Most of the time it is an incredible feeling to know that the missing piece to the puzzle is not just out there, but identified and recognizable.

Most of the time we find ourselves smiling and secure in the knowledge that our best friend is our greatest love and truly the star we follow in the dark night. But sometimes it is hard. Sometimes it is painful to accep that the person we wish most to be with is separated from us.

Sometimes we compensate for the pain and frustration by coming up with reasons why we are angry with the other. Sometimes we fuel the fire with imaginary hurts and slights and or make lists of all of the reasons why it cannot work. Sometimes we run from the truth because it is too painful to accept.

There are those who suggest that sometimes love isn’t enough. There are those who say that the best thing you can do is just accept this and move on. But you know that I have never been one to just accept these things. I push and pull. I tug and shove and bang and knock. Tell me no and watch me prove you wrong.

Ok, so not everything is possible. I can’t fly and I can’t stop time. But if it was possible to do so than you know that I would. If it was possible to alter the good old space-time continuum for my Anne Stacey I would. But even though I cannot it doesn’t mean that the future is an impossibility.

I don’t allow myself to be constrained by purely linear thinking. I don’t live based upon what can’t happen, but upon what can and what could be. I am not Don Quixote attacking windmills, but if I did it is a certainty that the windmill would fall.

That is the power of the certainty of a deep and mature love. It fuels a fire that burns bright and deep. It powers an engine that has the strength to push through slings and arrows. I suppose that we could continue this line and ride some sort of cliche filled story where I woo you by using math and science. You know, talk about how there is a new element to add to the 106 in the periodic table. Or compose some sort of word problem that illustrated in math terms the proof of our love.

We’ll save that for a different day. Instead we’ll circle back to the moment that inspired the note. The completely unexpected appearance of your picture in my instant messenger box. It caught me off guard. I was unprepared to see your smile and the sparkle in your eyes. It was a pleasant surprise and I am sure that you’d be pleased to know that after all this time the flames inside are still smoldering. It wouldn’t take much to start a full blown fire.

But I refused to give into the urge to contact you. I refused because you asked for space and I intend to give it. Besides the hopeless romantic that lives inside believes that something will happen. There will be a moment, an incident, a something that makes you reach out to me and ask me to help. And that is key.

That moment is going to be part of a number of events that help everything fall into place. It is the keystone in the arch. Or maybe it is just the fantasy and burning desire of a dreamer who believes that our potential doesn’t have to go unrealized.

I can say one thing without hesitation. Everyone should experience the kind of love where a thought and a smile provides a charge that makes your entire body tingle. A charge that makes you close your eyes and bathe in the thoughts and memories of what was and what will be. The memory of your scent is intoxicating.

More than this I dare not say or write.

Since I seem to be trying to use the words of my past to create the words of the future I went back to the notes from my first book and looked for some solid material to send to my agent. I was more than pleased to find a veritable goldmine of material. I should qualify that last statement. I think some of this is pretty good but in spite of all my experience I am no different from many other writers.

My work falls into one of two categories know as shit or amazing. It really shouldn’t be an either/or proposition but that is how I usually see it. I love my words or I hate them and wonder why I can’t just make them work for me. Fortunately I feel pretty good about what I came across. I had intended to do a lot more with the characters in that first book but it ran a bit long so I had to cut out some larger sections.

But if you believe that everything happens for a reason you’ll see that I sliced and diced way back when so that I would have these words ready and waiting for today.

Georgie

The funny thing about my relationship with Georgie was the way we looked together. Georgie was only about 5’7 or 5’8 and he couldn’t have weighed more than 165 pounds or so.

On the other hand I was almost 6’4 and weighed a solid 230 pounds. If you looked at us you would have never guessed that for years I had been scared of Georgie, afraid in a very real and tangible sense. And he knew it, he could smell it in my sweat, or so he claimed.

I can’t explain what it was about him that frightened me so, I just know that he did. It might have had something to do with the time he beat David Jackman with a tire iron, or the time that he hopped over the counter at the mini-mart and beat the shopkeeper up for insulting him by asking for proof of his age. He was like a mini-volcano, ready to blow at any time and unpredictable.

In some ways my size had put me at a disadvantage. I had always been bigger than everyone else. In school the bullies had avoided me as had most of the other kids. No one wanted to risk having their head handed to them. The end result was that because I never had any fights I was afraid of what would happen, worried that I could get hurt and quite concerned about what a fist to the mouth would feel like.

Georgie never had those fears and I don’t know why. He came from a middle class home. His mother was a housewife and his father was chief mechanic. It was a blue collar job that paid enough to provide white collar lifestyle. Georgie’s father never hit him, never used any sort of physical threat to control him, so who knows why he turned out as he did.

Psychologists and social workers get paid a lot of money to improperly diagnose people like Georgie. I won’t waste my time trying to do their job, and who cares what made him the way he was. The more important question was how to stay on his good side because he was mean and proud of it.

Georgie bragged about the fights he got into, showed off his scars and told stories of the past hurts and battles like they had just happened. The chip on his shoulder was never very far from his present.

We must have been around 20 or so when Georgie decided to teach me his life lessons. At first I was shocked and confused. I couldn’t believe that he was hitting and kicking me and then I was too bloodied and bruised to do anything but curl up on the floor and try to protect myself.

If I had any sense he beat it out of me there because the smart thing would have been to just walk away and not speak with him again. Alternatively I could have fought back, hit him, the lack of resistance only encouraged him to continue to batter me longer and harder.

This went on for a couple of years, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. I was in a funny place then, so time really didn’t have much meaning to me. It would probably still be going on if not for the accident.

It was a Saturday morning. Georgie showed up at my apartment at around 9 am, sat there kicking and yelling at my door. When I answered it he told me to get dressed, we were going out.

I threw on a pair of jeans, some Timberland boots, flannel shirt and topped it off with a baseball cap turned backwards and followed him to his car. We were heading into the mountains to “see someone.”

That was bad news for someone. Any time Georgie said he wanted to “see someone” it meant that he wanted to see them bleeding, preferably because of him. I didn’t bother to ask who or why, it wouldn’t matter and it wouldn’t change anything. Georgie would do what he did just because and that was the fact of the matter.

Georgie in the Mountains

Three hours later we joined a half dozen other cars in a campground turned shantytown. If I had been a photographer for Newsweek I could have composed a photo essay about the working poor. The people roaming through the grounds couldn’t have been much older than their mid-thirties, but the tired and weathered looks upon their faces told a different tale. Callused hands and leathery skin spoke of untold hours engaged in manual labor.

I still didn’t know much about why we were here, other than Georgie’s comment that morning about needing to see someone. I wasn’t real happy about it either, but Georgie wasn’t the kind of guy you complained to, let alone about. So I shut my mouth and followed him out of the car.

It was late afternoon and the sun had begun its journey to the other side of the world but somehow no matter which direction we walked I was squinting. I tripped over a pile of empty beer bottles and found myself face down in the dirt. Among other company this might have generated a laugh or two; with Georgie it earned a look of derision and a muttered curse.

In the distance someone was singing along with Springsteen’s Born in the USA. To the right of me a woman was trying to mediate a fight between her children, it can’t be easy when threatening to send your child to their room means the back seat of the car. More sounds drifted in, laughter, a dog barking and something that sounded like the pop pop pop of a pistol being fired.

Georgie finally stopped in front of a beat up Toyota Camry and motioned for me to wait where I was. I couldn’t hear the conversation but judging from the wild gestures and curses coming from Georgie he was not happy. If I knew Georgie we were moments away from one of his violent outbursts. It might have been warm for everyone else, but I felt a definite chill in the air.

The man in the Camry got out of the car and walked off into the forest. I waited as Georgie followed him. Seconds turned into minutes and I became very conscious of just how long I had been waiting for Georgie. It wasn’t unusual for him to just leave me somewhere with no instruction on how long to wait so I kept waiting.

It was sunset and now there was no question about a drop in the temperature, it was getting colder. Georgie had driven up here and taken the keys with him. I began to grow concerned about how I was going to get back. It wouldn’t have surprised me to have found out that Georgie had gotten back in the car and left me here. There was only one person that he cared about and it wasn’t me.

But running off into the woods to find him had its own problems. To begin with I had no idea which way to walk and for how long and then there was Georgie. With his paranoia issues there was no way to tell how he would react. But I feared a beating less than I feared being stuck out here so I began to follow the trail that he and the other guy had taken.

It didn’t take me long to find them. I had seen Georgie do some horrific things, but this one surprised me. Georgie had tied the guy from the Camry to a tree. His head was hanging and I could see him take a shallow breath. Georgie was talking into his hand, whispering something that I couldn’t quite make out.

That was when I realized that Georgie was not talking into his hand, he was talking into the ear of the man tied to the tree, except the ear was no longer attached to him. Neither were his thumbs or the middle fingers on both hands. They were lying on a rock in front of the man.
But that wasn’t the worst part of it. Next to the fingers and thumbs was a slice of bread, ketchup and his tongue. Suddenly Georgie’s mumbling started to make more sense, he was promising to reunite the man with the “pieces of flesh he had liberated.”

I must have coughed or gagged because until that point he hadn’t been aware of my presence. And then there he was, standing in front of me, prodding me to take a turn, pushing me to show him that I had learned something. I felt sick inside, but I let him press the knife into my hand.

Like Two Prizefighters

I stood there and looked blankly at the man, my arms dangled at my side like two sides of beef. It was overwhelming me. I stood there knowing that this man had been tortured, knowing that Georgie expected me to torture him some more. And the worst part of it was that part of me was curious about what it would be like to do it. What would it feel like, would I get some kind of rush of adrenaline or would it be the beginning of a nightmare that would haunt me.

It would have been nice to say that I was a nice guy who had never done anything wrong, but that wasn’t true. It would have been nice to blame it all on Georgie and to say that he was responsible for the violence that I had been a part of, but that wasn’t true. He may have gotten me involved, but I always had the chance to walk away, to say no and I never did.

The reality was that I blamed myself for the way my life had turned out and even though I knew that Georgie played a large role in it, I still beat myself up about it. Even though I knew that had I tried to walk away there would have been an ugly confrontation I still thought that I should have, could have done better.

Georgie came up behind me and guided the hand holding the knife to the battered remains of the victim’s face. As he suggested that I cut out an eyeball I realized that this time would be different. I had had enough that much was clear by how I thought of this guy. In the past I never would have used the term victim to describe the people we had hurt. But that was a different time.

I pulled my arm out of Georgie’s grasp and flung the knife into the woods. He grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and asked me “to tell him what the fuck I was doing.”

I knocked his hands off of me and told him that I couldn’t do this. Enough was enough. He spat at the ground in front of me and said that pussies like me deserved whatever happened to us. For a moment his face softened and he asked me to reconsider, told me that the guy was going to die anyway and that we might as well enjoy ourselves.

And that was when I knew that I had to kill Georgie. There was no way that he was going to let me live. Oh, he might let me get off of the mountain, he might not do anything for a while, but sooner or later he would come for me and I knew it.

For a moment we stood there starting at each other, like two prizefighters sizing each other up we shared a moment of silence. Georgie was an animal who could hurt you badly without thinking about it. I was someone who had participated in acts of violence, but I couldn’t escape the sick feelings that accompanied it.

And I couldn’t escape the feeling of dread that was wracking my body. I was scared and I didn’t know what to do. I knew that I didn’t have long. Georgie wouldn’t let this impasse last for long and for all I knew the Tree Man (as I had taken to calling him) might have friends come looking for him.

I knew that in the glove compartment of Georgie’s car there was a .38 snub nosed revolver and I knew that it was always loaded. Of course I had the simple problem of what to do about the Tree Man and Georgie. There was no way that Georgie would just let me walk away and I hadn’t a clue about the Tree Man. He might not survive his wounds and given that Georgie said that he was going to kill him anyway he could potentially be factored out of the equation.

But that left me as an accomplice to murder and I wasn’t real keen on that. Neither was I happy not knowing Tree Man’s history. Maybe I had read too many books or seen too many movies, but I was concerned with whether his death might create trouble for me outside of the many legal problems it presented.

And then it happened. Georgie hit me in the head, knocking me backwards over the stump. I grunted as I hit the stump and fell face first in the dirt. A boot slammed into my ribs. Again I wished that this was a movie or at least a dream. Nightmares ended with you waking up panting and short of breath, but at least you had escaped the monster. I was not so lucky.

This wasn’t a dream, I wasn’t going to wake up and no one was going to help me. It was nightfall and the moon had not yet risen so it was dark. I scrambled to my feet and tried to run only to be tripped.

I fell down again and again I was rewarded with another boot in my rib cage. I stood up and Georgie hit me hard, but this time I fell into him. I’d like to say that I planned it, but it would be a lie. Together we fell in the darkness. I landed on top of him and began punching him, screaming and shouting I pummeled him. I don’t know how long I hit him for, but I know that it took a while for me to realize that it had all been unnecessary. When we fell down the back of his head had landed on a rock. All I had done was make him more dead.

When I stood up I was shivering. Georgie was dead, Georgie was dead, Georgie was dead, Georgie was dead.

Now what.

The thing was that Georgie had been like family to me. In some sick, twisted and perverse sense of the word he had been like my older brother, the guy hadn’t always been bad, he hadn’t always been this way, had he. I couldn’t tell, I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t even really sure that he was dead, maybe he wasn’t, maybe he was just hurt, maybe he was just unconscious, knocked out like one of those cartoons we used to watch.

Maybe it was like when Bugs Bunny stuck his finger in Elmer Fudd’s gun and he would sit up, his face covered in black dirt.

A Pair of Corpses

But I knew that wouldn’t be the case, knew that this time he wouldn’t get up. Part of me wanted that to happen so badly, even knowing that there would be one hell of a beating involved.

To this day I don’t know how long I lay there on top of Georgie, panting, shivering and in shock. My shirt and hands were sticky with blood, Georgie’s blood. I stood up and walked over to the Tree Man. He was still tied to the tree, but he wasn’t moving, dried blood marked his body and when I grabbed his head in my hands it felt cold and limp. I shook him, told him to wake up, demanded that he answer me.

His silence mocked me and I couldn’t deal with it. I was out of my mind, overwhelmed with emotion and I hit him in the mouth. I felt his head snap against my fist and then the tree and I could swear that he groaned. “Hey, hey asshole, answer me, say something,” I screamed, but no words came out of my mouth and so I grabbed him and shook him again. But again his silence mocked me.

“Georgie, you better stop playing,” I shouted and then I kicked him over and over, slapped his face and grabbed his throat and began squeezing it until I realized it wasn’t Georgie. Georgie was dead, his body lay a few feet away.

I started to laugh and shake, giant gales of laughter wracked my body. There in the dark I stood the world’s newest murderer. Life hadn’t been great, but now it was distinctly worse. Georgie’s death was an accident, it was self-defense. He had been trying to kill me, but the Tree Man, how could I explain that.

How could I tell anyone about this. Who would believe me? When they saw him they would look at me and that would be the end of it. I couldn’t imagine any scenario that didn’t end with me in a cage and that wouldn’t do, couldn’t do, it just wouldn’t.

That sick cackle that had been emanating from my mouth returned, bubbled forth like the hiss of air escaping a punctured tire and then it turned into sobbing. Beneath the moonlight I lay in the dirt and cried. A soft wind blew through the trees and the rustling of the leaves painted a picture of desolation. What else was there besides me and the two corpses, my world was destroyed.

And then I heard Georgie’s voice. Even in death he taunted me, ridiculed me for being weak. I could see him standing in front of me, grinning at my pain, the contempt he held me in apparent for all to see. Except that he was dead and I was alive and in hell.

But like so many times in the past the self-pity turned to anger and I stood back up, sucked up the anger and stuffed it back into the pit in my soul it came from. I had to go, had to get out of there and off of the mountain. Now all I needed to do was figure out what to do with Georgie and the Tree Man and go home.

Grocery Stores

Work as a professional writer at my level creates odd bedfellows and some strange roommates. I have achieved a certain level of fame and notoriety that I am not entirely comfortable with and as a result I find that I relate to certain celebrities in ways that I never expected to. I almost understand and appreciate why some members of the paparazzi have found themselves confronted by the very people they are trying to film/photograph/talk to.

I am still a card carrying member of the press. Although I may not work a specific beat any more I still get paid to comment on the news and not in a Jon Stewart comedy sort of way. I don’t think of myself as being famous but my mug has been shown in enough places that it has become more commonplace than I would like to be recognized in public. I didn’t become a journalist to become famous.

There is a reason why I never tried to become the anchor of a television news show. I don’t fault the David Gregorys and Tom Brokaws of the world for their choice but it is not especially interesting to me. They chose to be in front of the camera and presumably accepted that they were going to have to give up being able to walk around unaccosted.  Maybe that it is an extreme example, I don’t think that my name has the same sort of cachet as theirs but experience has taught me that I am not anonymous either.

It is not uncommon for people to approach me in public. Sometimes they just want to shake hands, say hi and or ask for an autograph. But there are others who are less friendly. Some of them have used very colorful words to describe their disagreement with me.  Years ago I might have responded quite aggressively to some of them but age, maturity and concern have tempered that approach.

Call it paranoia but I can’t help but wonder if some of them see me as a potential source of income or fame.. It is not far fetched to suggest that someone might like me to throw a punch so that they can sue me. I can’t express how irritating that is but I suppose that during a time when we celebrate reality television it is not such a ridiculous thought to worry about.

Maybe I ought to consider creating sort of a utility belt like Batman has. I could store all sorts of useful things in there. Maybe there could be a compartment for banana peels. If people get too close I could yell “look over there” and then drop one of the peels at their feet. While they are trying to pick themselves up I could make my escape. Of course with the prevalence of camera phones I a can almost guarantee that someone would film it.

That ought to make for some really good times. Maybe I ought to just stick with the pepper spray. If I am going to get busted I might as well go bigger than a banana peel. People wouldn’t really get that upset with me for using it to defend myself, would they. It is not like I sprayed a bunch of innocent college kids with it.

I know. Some of you think that it is all ridiculous but life proves that truth is stranger than fiction. Read this account of a man who got arrested for using processed meat to defend himself.

She insulted my manhood and said that if she had a gun she would shoot me. I told the clerk to call 911 and asked them to bring the manager over.  When he didn’t move I calmly repeated my request and told him that I didn’t want any trouble. She looked at him and said that if he picked up the phone she would kick his ass.

Hindsight is 20-20 but that was probably the moment I should have walked away. There are lots of other grocery stores to choose from and a smarter man than I would have found one. But I didn’t take her threats seriously so I stood there calmly and proceeded to scan my items, taking care to place them in the bags in the bagging area.

Did I mention that grocery stores are the source of one of the great mysteries of life.  I want to know why they bother to set up 27 checkout stands but only have two or three of them manned by a cashier. I suppose that the growing number of self checkout stands proves that the stores have finally realized the folly of providing so many unmanned registers.

Who knows. What I do know is that that the problem started when she told me that the sign said that the line was for 12 items or less.  She told me to get out of line or put something back. I smiled and said that I would be just a moment longer. “No, you put something back now or get out of line!”

I nodded my head and kept scanning my groceries.

“You selfish asshole, get the fuck out of line. You have too many things!”

Had she been a man I probably would have responded differently, but she wasn’t physically threatening to me. A medium size woman in a pair of flip-flops and a blue sundress. What reason did I have to worry. I was substantially bigger than her and certain that in less than two minutes I would finish checking out and be on my way to the car.

That would have been how it went except that the universe has a funny sense of humor and decided life would be far more interesting if it caused the machine to stop working.  She told me to “stop fucking ignoring her” and I turned my head.

“Relax, I don’t respond to hysterical bitches who can’t count.”

If I told you that I wasn’t trying to irritate her you would accuse me of lying and I would say that you were right.  Experience has taught me that the combination of “relax and hysterical” will have the opposite effect.

I like to describe moments like that as having occurred because my “brain slipped into neutral.” The motor is running but we’re not going anywhere. Correction, we’re going somewhere and we’re moving quickly.  We’re heading towards a cliff at a million miles per hour. The question is are we running there as The Road Runner or are we Wile E. Coyote.

And Then Things Took A Turn

When the scanner didn’t pick up my items I looked up and called the clerk over to help. It was the same kid who had ignored my requests to call 911 but this time he responded. “I don’t know how to fix this, let me find my manager.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear Robbie the Robot yelling Danger “Will Robinson!” but I am not Dr. Smith or that damn coyote so I stood there and waited for the manager.

Short, dumb and stupid screamed at me and then promised that her boyfriend would kick my ass. “I think you left your boyfriend in the produce section.” I couldn’t help but laugh at that line but I did note that instead of screaming at me she was screaming into her cellphone.

The guy that walked in the store wasn’t exceptionally tall but he was wide and heavily muscled. He must have been sitting in the car or maybe Scotty beamed him down because seconds after short, dumb and stupid finished screaming she gleefully announced that her boyfriend was going to “kill me.”

As he lumbered over I took a hard look at him and tried to decide if the better course of valor would be to exit stage right. And maybe I would have walked away.  In a different time and a different place I might have chosen to handle things differently, but today was not that day.

No, today was the day that the guy next to me had a large salami in his basket. I looked up at the ceiling, thanked god and then took my impromptu Hebrew National hammer and walked towards the boyfriend.

Oh No You Didn’t

Oh yes I did. I took that salami and I told him to step back, turn around and leave the store. He sneered and kept advancing. I looked at the crowd and announced that I didn’t want trouble.

“Too late asshole, I am here.”

He probably should be grateful that I didn’t have a frozen leg of lamb because I didn’t hesitate to meet his charge. As he ran towards me I gracefully stepped to the side and smacked him in the back of the head with my salami. It wasn’t hard enough to knock him or slow him down which is why I found myself wrapped in a bear hug.

My friends, let me assure you that the last thing you ever want to emulate his technique. A bear hug is no match for an angry man with a salami. For I took said salami and proceeded to beat him silly with it. Fortunately I was smart enough not to hit the two cops who came ostensibly to break up the fight.

The same two cops who gave me the gift of silver bracelets that I wore behind my back. The same two cops who couldn’t stop laughing about the guy who got his ass kicked by a man with a salami. Something tells me that this story is going to become a station house legend.

Even so, it really wasn’t worth getting arrested.

If that doesn’t make you shake your head and ask what is wrong with people I don’t know what will.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Somewhere inside my head there are two men running around in circles. One is screaming at me to listen to the warning sirens that  the lizard brain is sending out and the other is threatening to kick that little pussy’s ass. You see when the girls told me that the lost love might be available something clicked inside and that is putting it mildly.

If you haven’t figured it out she was the one who ended things with me. Way back in the dark ages of time when she  first cut it off I went through a little bit of a rough patch. Initially I didn’t believe that it was over. It seemed inconceivable to me that we could actually be done. I was certain that it was more of a bad timing kind of thing. There were lots of external influences weighing down upon both of us and it seemed like she just needed time to deal with it.

It was hard because I really wanted to help with those things but they were in an  area that I couldn’t touch. It wasn’t my place and it wasn’t something that I could do. All I could do was tell her that I loved her and that I would support her. I had thought that would be enough, but it soon became apparent that it wasn’t. It didn’t seem real. The silence was deafening and her absence was palpable.

So I took my normal course of action and began writing and writing and writing. This piece is a decent example of some of it.

“But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything,” Good Will Hunting

I have always liked the line I quoted above. Some people get it and others understand it. But I kind of suspect that only a few really get it. That is a special sort of love. A different kind of love and if you have had it I hope that you were smart enough to recognize it while you did.

Because if you lose it than you start to understand a different sort of loss. Than you start to understand that there is an ache that never goes away and a hole that can’t just be filled. There is an empty place in your heart and no matter what you do or where you go the loss goes with you.

If you are lucky it is a temporary thing. Circumstances or some such thing pull you apart and you are given the hope that maybe, somehow, someway you can bring it back. Sure, there are no guarantees. It may not ever happen. It might be something that becomes a memory of a special time and place.

But then again maybe not. Maybe it is something that can be done. Because if two people love each other in that way and have that sort of you know in your gut it is real magic then maybe there is enough stardust still floating around to bring it back.

At least that is what I think. Because in the end I believe that there are people you fight for. There are relationships that are so important you jump into the fire and burn so that you have the chance to look them in the eye and see how they respond when you tell them that you love them and don’t want to miss out on life.

So that you can look them in the eye and see if the flame still burns or if it is truly extinguished.

Relationships are funny things and not always in the way that makes us laugh. Sometimes you have to shake up the dynamic. You have to walk away to regain your perspective no matter how much it hurts. You walk away so that you can catch your breath and recharge your batteries so that you are strong enough to carry the two of you.

And maybe, just maybe you’ll be proven right. Or maybe you’ll find out that you were wrong. But the bottom line is that you have to figure out what it is that you need to do so that you can sleep at night.

You have to be able lie in the dark and know that no matter what happens you did your best. And though it is certain that you have made mistakes, in the end you’ll rest more comfortably knowing that it is better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all.

Good old Jack, dude was trying hard to reconcile what was happening. Engaged in a bit of second guessing to try and figure out where he had fucked up and wondered if he had done all that he could do. Tried to be tough so that if things didn’t go as he wished he could live his life feeling like he had done his best.

Don’t you just love it when I talk about myself in third person.

The thing is that I never completely let go or gave up on us. I can’t tell you why. I can only tell you that the connection was so strong it seemed like it could never be broken. And here we are years later with a ton of life experience and baggage. I don’t know who she is now. I remember the woman who told me that she loved being my girl. I remember a lot of other things too which is why those two guys are running around inside my head.

Because the honest confession is that in the midst of the little whiny man shouting “be careful” there is another guy saying do you remember what she could do to you with her….They say that a gentleman never kisses and tells but let me tell you that our bodies were made for each other. I am old enough now to say that there are women out there who probably wouldn’t list me as their best lover. There are probably some who say that I was among the worst.

She isn’t among them. If she didn’t list me at the top or really close I’d be in complete shock.

Part of that is because of that connection I mentioned earlier. We were in sync in a thousand different ways. I think that the depth of our love took our physical relationship and put it in a place that few people can reach.

But I wasn’t and am not going to tell my daughter that the woman she wants me call could do any of the things that I remember. I can’t because if my daughter responds in a way that suggests a boy or boys have helped her experience this….Well let’s just say that it might not be safe for anyone with a penis to be around her. She is daddy’s girl and I still see her as being this young, innocent angel.

She’ll make me a grandfather one day but it will be by immaculate conception. I expect by the time that happens I’ll be more rational about the possibility that she got pregnant the old fashioned way, but for now I can’t think of it. Oy.

Preserve your memories

The year was 1980 something and the lovely Anne Stacey had chosen to grace me with her presence. I had spent countless hours unsuccessfully wooing the woman. Cards, chocolate, flowers, and a barbershop quartet had all failed to do the trick but I couldn’t tell you why. All I knew was that the girl who had gone to prom with me had chosen to withdraw her favors and spend time with a man I dubbed the scoundrel. I once tried to tell her this and she suggested that my ill feelings towards him had to do with jealously. Now I won’t say that this is true but I admit to suggesting that if she hoped for more than simple companionship she might consider spending time at the produce market.

Apparently this is not advisable nor is suggesting that he would probably die in robbing a drug store for used condoms. Don’t ask me to explain why I said these things or what they mean because I won’t answer nor will I admit to wanting to defenestrate him. Women make men crazy and love just exacerbates the craziness we feel.

Weeks of rejection turned into months but I refused to give up. I can’t explain why other than to say that every time I saw her I heard music and it made me believe that one day she would dance with me again.

One day I sent her a card with some of the lyrics to Get Down Tonight by K.C. & The Sunshine Band.

“Baby, babe, let’s get together.
Honey, hon, me and you.
And do the things, ah, do the things
That we like to do.

Do a little dance, make a little love,
Get down tonight.
Do a little dance,
make a little love,
Get down tonight.”

P.S. Come over and find out if I really am a better cook than you are. I’ll make it worth your while.

I had been rejected so many times that I was beginning to wonder if maybe I was swimming down the river of denial but was pleasantly surprised to receive a telephone call from her asking why she should come. Needless to say I was nervous because I knew that the wrong words would result in another no. Yet something told me that it was time to be bold so I told her that I was going to pick her up at 10 am so that we could go to the farm to pick fresh fruits and vegetables for dinner. Two days later she walked out of her apartment and into my car.

For a few moments we drove in silence and listened to a mix tape that I had made for the occasion. Good old cassette tape technology, a soft hissing noise in the background accompanied us on our ride. The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, Joe Cocker and Springsteen serenaded us.

A short time later we arrived at the farm and began picking out the items we wanted for our meal. She made a crack about me making her work for her food and I said that remained to be seen. Every time she bent over to pick something up my eyes were drawn to her. I was completely entranced by her- not just because I thought that she was beautiful but because she was so very smart. I attribute my love for carrots to that day. Somewhere I have a picture of her holding one close to her mouth, pretending to be Bugs Bunny.

And had anyone heard the music that played inside my head at the moment they would have heard Bookends.

“Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you”

I can’t tell you when I fell for her or when she fell for me. Don’t know what did it, how, when or why and I am not sure that it matters. Scratch that, it will matter to her. Call me a full blown chauvinist but she is female and she’ll care about that for the same reason that women care about how big a baby was. It is one of those mysteries of the sexes. Men want to know if the baby was healthy and what their name is but that is not enough for women.

Oh no, they want to know all sorts of other details and if you don’t provide them you might get a look or hear an exasperated “men” slip from between their lips. I suppose that if I had actually given birth I might have some more interest in the extraneous details but since that is not going to happen we won’t know. But for the sake of argument you can be assured that if men were capable of giving birth we’d get through it with half the screaming and far less mess.

Hee hee. That is the sort of throwaway line that we troublemakers like to let slip. I have yet to find a mother who let’s that go without a retort. Suggest that labor is easy or overblow and you can rest assured that a nice kerfuffle will develop. Push hard enough and some woman will tell you that your words are the reason that you aren’t getting laid.

As a PSA to men I usually suggest that you always smile and laugh at that remark. Do this two or three times and then when she is really steamed tell her that your wife/girlfriend/paramour/escort refuses to spit because they consider your boys to be a rare delicacy. Incidentally I bear no responsibility for the consequences of speaking those words out loud.

And now back to our trip back to the time when I had a full head of hair and a body that was tan, hard and cut.

“Jack, you are a much better cook than I expected.”

“That’s good because you are a much better eater than I expected.”

As the words spilled out of my mouth I suddenly realized that they might be open to misinterpretation and my brain kicked into overdrive. Looking back now it is easy for me to see that I was already crazy about her. I don’t say that because of what I said but because of the moment of fear I had when I realized that she might not take it well.

“Ya know, calling a woman fat isn’t the best way to get what you want.”

She was smiling when she said it but for a moment I wondered if there was something else behind it. Smarter men than I would have played it safe but I gambled.

“Stand up and let me get another look at you and I’ll you know.” She laughed, “you are pretty confident, aren’t you.”

“Come over here and I’ll show you how confident I am.”

She stood up and walked over and suddenly my heart started beating harder than it had been. I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. Technically it wasn’t our first kiss, that had come in the stacks but that had been quite some time before.  That moment in the stacks had been good. Hell it had been better than good but it didn’t go very far. Time and circumstances had seen to that.

Several people showed up midway through our moment and any hope I had of taking things farther there was spoiled by their intrusion. The chemistry between us was electric and I know that she felt it too because she made a point to remind to me to call her. I can still picture the way she held onto my arm and told me that she would be disappointed if I disappeared like most guys did.

I told her that I had no intention and she smiled. “There is a lot that I want to show you.” I asked her what that meant and then she laughed and told me she was late for class. This time I didn’t hide the fact that I was staring at her but it didn’t matter because those long legs carried her out of there in seconds.

And I did call her- several times. She took all of my calls and we talked…a lot. But the timing was bad. I had to go to my cousin’s wedding. Had it not been family and already paid for I might have skipped it. Instead I spent two weeks on a family vacation and she didn’t wait for me. I can’t blame her or say that she was wrong.

We weren’t anything close to being boyfriend/girlfriend but I think that I knew then that I had found someone special.

The problem was that while I was gone she found someone too…but he wasn’t me.

Not Me

Not me is a good description for most if not all of the men she dated and to the best of my knowledge…married. They weren’t anything like me. They didn’t look like me at all. If I told you they were mostly tall Aryan nation wannabes I’d be called bitter and jealous or at least that is what she said.  She told me that it wasn’t very becoming to describe them as stupid rednecks or junkies who were one fix short of getting toe tagged.

I told her that it was the ‘coming’ that bothered me most and that I would have been happier had that not been involved at all.  Blame that on the joys of being a writer.

One of the reasons that I am good at this is because I have an imagination that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If Stephen Spielberg could make the movies I see in my mind he would sweep the Oscars and his movies would make millions. Ok, let’s adjust that and say that they would be impossible to forget and make billions.

Hell, the problem is that when you tell me something I see it in my head. And even if you don’t tell me I still see things in my head, sometimes even when I don’t want to. So if I know that Joe Blow used to date you I can’t help but picture Joe getting his blow and….well I don’t really need to go further. But since I never leave well enough alone let me go the rest of the way.

If I know that you were sleeping with some guy it is hard for me not to picture it so sometimes I compensate by making fun of him. I said sometimes, not all the time. If I really care about you there is a good chance that I might say that he is a buffoon in need of a more complete circumcision.

I never pretended to be a saint nor did I ever claim to always take the high ground. I am trying though.