Fragments of Fiction

Editor’s note: I wrote this a while back on a different blog. Since that blog isn’t self-hosted I figured it is safer and smarter to put a copy here to protect it.

One of the strangest things to happen me was to realize that what I missed most about Ann was her friendship. It might sound silly to some of you but you have to understand that it surprised me.

Surprised me because I have been blessed with many friends who are the kind of people that others want to be. Stalwart companions that you can always rely upon. They come through when times are hard and are there when times are not.

They aren’t the fair weather sort and that is something that has always touched me and been a source of pride too. If you wanted good role models you would find them among my crew.

I mention this because had you asked me what I thought I would miss I probably would have listed other things than her friendship, but maybe it is a sign of maturity now that I don’t list the “x-rated” material first.

Ann was my best friend. She knew me in ways that no one else ever has and maybe no one ever will. There was a depth to our friendship that you rarely if ever see and that was what everything else was based upon.

We liked each other. We made each other laugh. That is one of the things that I miss about her, that laugh. Or the sound she used to make when I would surprise her, the way she would suddenly inhale. I sometimes called her “airsucker.”

People used to remark upon it because they thought it referred to something else and I used to just laugh. I never said yes or no, never told them whether they were right because it didn’t matter.

What I miss is the way she and I were able to create our own world. We could be in the middle of a crowd and get lost in each other. It wasn’t something that disappeared either. There was never a honeymoon stage. The lust and physical need for each other never disappeared or dissipated.

Looking back I attribute that to that friendship and to the enormous trust we had. I miss talking to her about everything. It sounds silly, but if she thought I could do something it always gave me a little boost, a lift.

And that comes from someone who hasn’t ever lacked confidence in his abilities.

Maybe that is why I am so torn. Maybe that is why I have this stutter/start thing about trying to reconnect and rekindle.

There is this part of me that wonders about a million things. I have this image of seeing her at the office. She is downstairs eating lunch under a bright blue sky. I walk over and sit down next to her. We don’t say anything and just eat our lunches.

We finish eating, stand up and walk away holding hands- no words have to be spoken because that magic connection has never left. There is a part of me that consistently wonders what would happen if I kissed her. Would that electric feeling shoot through my body again.

I know what my heart says, but my head says don’t be a fool. Don’t write these things down because you sound crazy. Don’t open the door and don’t look back.

But you don’t become a writer unless you know how to dream. And the very best dreams come from the heart- source of passion, power and magic.

For now we’ll wait to figure out whether to follow my heart or listen to my head. But I’ll admit that sometimes in the dark of the night when I stare at our moon I say her name out loud and strain to hear her saying mine back.

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.

+++++

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, the girl he shot would still be alive and I wouldn’t feel so miserable.

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.

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.

She was dead because Georgie had proven to me that I was weak and  lacking in value and worth. Really it was my fault.

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.

Georgie’s influence was profound in the worst way. He claims he saw potential and did nothing more than tap into it.

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.

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.

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 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 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.

The end result was 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. 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. 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. I should have fought back, 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. 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.

+++++

The police didn’t arrest me but they should have.

I might not have killed her but it is my fault she is dead. Call it the domino effect. He hit me, I hit him and then he shot her.

Georgie would have loved it. He would have laughed his ass off and told me he was proud of me. He would have clapped me on the back and congratulated me for breaking the mugger’s jaw, but he would have been wrong.

I didn’t hit the mugger. I hit Georgie. Years of abuse came to a head and I snapped. Genetics made me strong, but Georgie made me mean. Georgie made me do things no one should ever do. I knew better, but I still did them.

Yet everyone has their breaking point and Georgie made sure I found mine. It happened during a trip into the mountains.

I didn’t know why we went there, other than Georgie’s comment about needing to see someone. I wasn’t happy about it either, but Georgie wasn’t the kind of guy you complained to, let alone about. So I shut my mouth.

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.

Georgie stopped in front of a beat up Toyota Camry and motioned for me to wait. I couldn’t hear the conversation but judging from the wild gestures coming from Georgie he was not happy. We were moments away from one of his violent outbursts.

The man in the Camry got out and walked off into the forest. I watched as Georgie followed him. Several moments passed and I decided to return to the car. Georgie was on his schedule, not mine. Might as well try to relax.

Of course that wasn’t ever going to happen, not while I was waiting for Georgie.

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. 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 followed 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.

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 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.

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 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.

+++++

Someone once said there is no satisfaction in murder, but they were wrong. I am sorry to say I know this to be true from personal experience but not sad to say I did it.

It took a long time to get to a place where I could say these words out loud and not feel pangs of guilt and disgust, but I am here….now.

Georgie deserved to die.

That day in the mountains was the end of one journey and the start of another. It wasn’t something I had planned but it wasn’t unexpected.

People had been telling me since high school that Georgie would end up dead, but none of them had thought I would have a thing to do with it.

They had warned me to stay away. They had told me he would take everything from me but I didn’t listen.

I was wrong.

Georgie took all that was good in my life and I helped him.

That day on the mountain things changed.

I didn’t know why Georgie did what he did to the guy tied to the tree and I didn’t want any part of it.

Georgie wasn’t used to me saying no to him. When I refused to take the knife I knew there would be consequences.

He might let me get off of the mountain, he might not do anything for a while, but sooner or later his anger would boil over.

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.

I couldn’t escape the feeling of dread that was wracking my body. I was scared and I didn’t know what to do.

Georgie wasn’t going to ignore the man tied to the tree and he wasn’t going to walk away. He wasn’t about to let me walk away either.

I didn’t know whether the guy tied to the tree would survive his wounds or if his friends would come looking for him.

My options were limited. I could walk back to the car and leave the guy tied to the tree to his own devices. I couldn’t talk about what I didn’t see, now could I.

I couldn’t do that because I knew what was coming for him. I wasn’t going to be considered an accomplice to murder.

And then it happened.

Georgie hit me in the head, knocking me backwards over a stump. I grunted as I hit the stump and fell in the dirt. A boot slammed into my ribs.

I wished this was a movie or 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.

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. 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 it took a while for me to realize that it had 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…

Now what.

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 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.

But I knew it wouldn’t happen this time.

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. The man was still tied to it, 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 and demanded he answer me.

His silence mocked me and I couldn’t deal with it.

I hit him in the mouth. I felt his head snap against my fist and then the tree and I swear I heard him groan.

“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 other man, how could I explain that.

Does Your Past Dictate Your Future?

 

I Want To Die
It was more than a little shocking to hear those words spoken aloud.

“I want to die.”

The pregnant pause afterwards confirmed that they were completely flabbergasted. No one had expected to hear that and the lack of protestation confirmed that they didn’t believe in the speaker’s sincerity.

Because you know that if they had taken it seriously there would have been an immediate response, they would have followed up on it, tried to ascertain what the problem was and how they could help.

At least that seems to be the obvious expectation, friends don’t sit there while you declare your readiness to end your corporeal existence. And if they do, well either you are a drama queen or you need to get new friends.

A cry for help is a cry for help. Silence is not the answer, but then again maybe it is. After all they say that people who are truly intent on committing suicide don’t really spell it out, they do it. They act upon their desires.

And the desire to kill one self can be far more powerful than anyone cares to admit or believe. When you don’t have a concrete reason to believe that there is anything after this it makes it much easier to see death as being a respite from the pain, a well-earned vacation.

“I want to die.”

It is one thing to think it, but once you verbalize it, actually speak the words it takes on new meaning. It becomes more real and you find yourself considering the various methods you can use to commit the deed.

Having a morbid sense of humor it is easy to see what the police would call it:

Homicide against yourself

C’mon now, you know that it is worth a chuckle. Ok, maybe not, but life is lacking, you’re not exactly burning up the fun meter. Sadness, depression, frustration and anger are different, you own those feelings, and you just know that somewhere there is a dictionary with your picture in it.

For a time there are the thoughts about what your loss would do to the family and the world. Suicide may not be as painless as advertised. You think about how the wife and kids will fare and wonder if your parents will feel responsible. It is almost enough to keep you from trying to pull the trigger. It is almost enough to prevent you from making that first cut, but the blistering pain and the empty, hollow feeling push those thoughts out of your head.

Now all you really want to do is find an escape from the madness. It doesn’t matter whether you are truly mentally ill or something else. The pain and misery make you spend much of the day doubled over, wishing you were comatose.

The light of the sun isn’t a pleasure, it is torture. Laughter and smiles from others torture your soul further. Your anger is fueled by seeing how others are happy and knowing that you can’t share in their happiness.

So the moment comes when you start to entertain the idea of letting go. You play around with ways and means, consider what your note will say, if anything. You can’t really explain it, so you don’t bother to do much.

A simple note that says “Elvis has left the building” will suffice. Or maybe it should read “will the last person to leave remember to turn out the lights.”

End of story; fade to black and utter silence.

+++++

Suicide is supposed to be painless and maybe if I believed it to be true I might consider it more seriously, but I don’t.

I don’t really want to die but I don’t have too many options. The man on the other end of that call isn’t going to let me stick around. I don’t care what promises he makes or whose life he swears upon.

He is lying and I know better.

I know it because I used to be him. The guys he works for are the same men I used to report to and they won’t ever forget what happened or let anyone else think I got over on them.

This can only go one of two ways and no matter how it goes death wins. That old bag of bones is going to get his quart of blood and then some.

It is just a matter of time before they force me out in the open or before I decide to take action.

All I can do is weigh the pros and cons and try to decide what gives me the best chance of making it out.

This isn’t like the movies. I won’t be able to go in guns blazing and kill all the bad guys. I can’t call my old army buddy, the one who managed to stay out of trouble and just so happens to a colonel who can call in an air strike.

All I can do is make them bleed and hope it is enough to make them go away. I suggested as much on the telephone and the new guy laughed.

Can’t say I was surprised because I would have laughed too. It is part posturing and part reality. One against a 100 isn’t ever something that works in real life, especially when they are willing to use your family against you.

I have seen hard men go soft. Unless they are a true sociopath they always give in.

The guys I used to work for learned from the Taliban. Make a man cook his kid and eat them and they will do what you want.

Sick and gruesome doesn’t describe it.

+++++

Sometimes death is preferable to facing this sort of decision, but I am too stubborn and maybe too stupid.

I called him back and told him I was coming to visit and then the doorbell rang.

They were here.

 

You were there. You stood next to me, our fingers intertwined staring at the masses. It was Friday night and the plaza was packed. My eyes were closed and I was slowly rocking back and forth, unconsciously giving thanks for having been given the song of my heart.

We were 15, we were twenty, we were 50 and then we were 80. I saw it all. I saw us alone.I saw us together. I saw our children and I saw our grandchildren. We stood together and shared those moments in time. Single, married, children, Bar Mitzvahs, weddings, grandchildren and then we were gone.

It was just myself and the wall. Just myself at the Kotel, head resting against the stone, alone in the night and lost in the thoughts that we think.

****

I have been dreaming of the children of Jerusalem and broken promises.  I have been lost in moments that once were or could have been, wondering what it means, if it means anything at all.

Because you were there. You, the song of heart who no longer sings her song to me were there. You who once promised to walk with me wherever it was we chose to walk are there no longer.

You have gone away and left me alone…and apart.

You who helped me to remember that love burns and that two are more than one….is gone.

*****

But though you have left me you are not really gone. You have never quite left. I still see you. I still feel you….and I know.

I know that the ache is not mine alone. I know that the absence of your presence is a pain that we share for you know the loss of mine as well. Your stubborn nature won’t permit you to admit it or to ask for shelter in my arms. You won’t let yourself admit that you feel what you feel.

But I know things. I know things about you. I know things about me. I know things about us.

*****

It is an uncertain certainty…this feeling of mine. I don’t have to see you, the song of my heart, to hear you singing our song again. I don’t know if you are conscious of it or aware that it is happening…but it is.

I know these things because I feel them in the places that have been both full and empty. I know these things because I feel my heart harmonizing with yours and I tremble. Fear and anger rise up more frequently than faith.

It is a battle between heart and head. This uncertain certainty that you wish to renew and rebuild.

So now I wait and wonder if this feeling is fake and if my heart has been found false. It is uncomfortable, awkward and uncertain. A contradiction it is, this uncertain certainty.

*****

We were 15, we were twenty, we were 50 and then we were 80. I saw it all. I saw us alone.I saw us together.

(Editor’s note: This originally ran here. Felt like running it again with a new picture and headline. We’ll see what happens. More posts coming later tonight.)

I wonder who puts a ‘Jesus Saves’ bumper sticker on an $100,000 car.

Truth is I can’t say for certain how much that car costs but I know enough to make an educated guess and it is definitely more than the two baristas working the counter collectively earn each year

Some Texans might hear this story and think that only someone from L.A. would think about how much a car would cost while some Angelenos would say that only in Texas would someone put a ‘Jesus Saves’  bumper sticker on a luxury car.

None of this of particular significance or import. It has about the same meaning as trying to figure out if I a stormtrooper is smiling or frowning.

Don’t ask me why I think about that or how every time I see stormtroopers twerking I wonder if they are enjoying it or if it is just part of the job.

I am parked on my ass in the far corner of the shop, tempted to sit outside and enjoy some of the vaunted Texas sun but not interested in smelling like I smoked a pack of Marlboros.

The memory of my last visit here still sitting in the back of my mind wondering if either of the kids at the counter recognized me, but certain even if they didn’t they heard about that moment.

There is a certain amount of pleasure taken in saying it took three officers and a love tap from the stick to put those silver bracelets upon your wrists but upon general reflection the amount of time it took for the bruises to go makes you realize it just wasn’t worth it.

You don’t have to ask your mom what she thinks about your having politely asked the guy in the hat to stop smoking because she will say you should have walked away.

Dad is stuck between a rock and a hard place because part of him is proud of his son. He understands that when someone tosses a coffee at you there is going to be a response and he secretly loves that guy requires the use of a straw and a crutch.

But he still wants to know when you are going to realize that your hell raising days should be long behind you and wonders if you have figured out that dumb luck is what prevented your own serious injury.

You tell him that ‘Jesus Saves’ and he glares at you because nice Jewish boys don’t say that kind of thing but mostly because he is not interested in sarcasm or snark.

“Sorry dad, I shouldn’t have said that. I probably should have walked away but the coffee was just hot enough to burn and that shit eating grin on his face made it clear I am not the first person he has done this too.”

Dad nod his head and asks how many times I have ever seen someone drinking from a real glass at one of these coffee shops.

“I don’t know. I think he was using a paper cup and that is what he hit me with but the mug I hit him with, well I think it might have belonged to the lady sitting with him.”

Can’t tell you if that guy has ever been hit with a mug or any sort of glass object before but it wasn’t like one of those saloon fights you see in old Westerns.

That mug didn’t break until the second time I hit him with it. If I was a tennis player I would have described it as being a forehand followed by a backhand.

I have to give him credit for being tougher than I expected because he still managed to get up and come after me. I wanted to throw his ass over the counter or through the plate glass window but I couldn’t quite manage to do that and protect myself from the guy who had grabbed me from behind.

Thankfully the judge said I wasn’t fully responsible for that guys injuries because he inserted himself into the middle of things. I am not quite sure if that means I am responsible for just the stitches he received or from breaking his arm and hand.

Folsom Prison

And I still haven’t figured out yet if someone was playing Folsom Prison blues or if I just heard it in my head.

I probably should be grateful that I didn’t end up getting to see the inside of somewhere unpleasant like that. Truth is I didn’t try to kill that guy but I can’t say I would have been upset if I had or that I feel badly about busting him up.

When I asked him to stop blowing smoke in my face I said please and did so with a smile on my face. Maybe I am morally flawed or have some other issue but when you poke the bear you risk getting mauled.

Anyway all that happened just long enough ago to feel far away but not so long for it not to still be vivid in my head.

Got my coffee in my hands, earbuds in my ear and some mix of relaxing classical tunes to keep me smiling.

Of course the secret anger that lies just beneath the surface isn’t such a secret anymore and the more rational parts of me wonder if coming here is like playing with fire.

Mozart fills my head and I look up in time make eye contact with the barista who made my drink. He is not the guy who took my order.

That guy had no idea who I was but this one clearly does. I can see in his eyes that he recognizes me and that he is trying to play it cool.

Dude just pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and I am curious to see what he is going to do with it.

As he starts to dial it occurs to me that I probably have that look on my face and that it is not going to make the kid think of me as being like a friendly uncle.

I probably should just leave but that voice that always told me to keep pushing the envelope says I should wait and see what happens.

A few minutes later a police car pulls into the parking lot and now I am curious why they are there. Might not have anything to do with me, but then again it might.

Now the decision is made. I am not leaving until I am good and ready to go.

The first officer opens the door, takes off his sunglasses and looks right at me. Guess in a moment I’ll know for certain why they are there.

I know how to use words to tell a story and I know that a picture is worth a 1000 words so what you see in this post might be considered a 10,000 word plus tale about the places we’ll go.

If you click on the photos they should turn into a slideshow but know before you do that some of what you see is the actual place I want to take you and that some is a symbol or photographic representation of a place or idea I want to share with you.

Ask me to talk with you about my dreams and one of them is to become a better storyteller not just for professional but personal reasons.

It is both craft and compulsion and that is part of why I want to learn how to weave images and music into the tales I try to tale. I need to try and show you what it is I see and what it is I feel but always with the understanding I will fail more than I succeed.

Dance In The Fire For However Long It Takes

You may not ask or want me to dance in the fire but I will do it for however long it takes because it is my choice to do so and I will not allow someone else to make this decision for me.

Some decisions are far too personal in nature. Some are tied into who we are at our core and you cannot remove them without tearing out the foundation that makes us who we are.

And this I suppose is tied into the structure of the places we’ll go because life is about sharing experiences with people and creating moments in time that you can enjoy while they happen as well as afterwards.

Sometimes people ask me if I understand the difference between now and then because they wonder if I am lost reliving the Glory Days but I don’t think they always recognize my ability to do both.

I can look back and enjoy what I have been through and still be aware that was then and this is now. Sometimes is the ability to look back that provides the layer that enables me to appreciate what is happening now.

When you have been through challenges it makes whatever you have obtained because of them sweeter.

It is all tied into why I sometimes roll my eyes when people talk to me about differences and how they impact who we are friends with and who we love.

Differences in opinions and beliefs are usually part of what make people interesting to me. Sure you can find beliefs I consider extreme and create situations that make it difficult or impossible for me to like someone but those are at the corners.

And the truth is I am judgmental and intolerant of much so I always notice when I accept someone for who they are and don’t care if they like every movie or musician I do.

Politics and religion or lack there of aren’t necessarily going to be the thing that pushes you away from me or makes me pull you closer.

Possibility Leads To Opportunity

Today I look for possibilities I can turn into opportunities and think about the adventures that are waiting to be had. I smile because I feel them waiting for me to notice them and think about the stories that will come from these moments.

Some of them will be things to be written about.  Maybe those tales will include pictures and a soundtrack to help you see what we saw or maybe they won’t.

That is because sometimes the very best stories are the ones you share with just one other person and never tell to another.

Most people don’t know that the largest traffic jam in the history of Los Angeles was caused because I dumped a plate of eggs on someone.

Something tells me thousands of people wouldn’t care why I did it or that I look back on this experience as being among the scariest and best times of my life.

Nah, they wouldn’t want to hear me tell them about how a flannel clad bald man stuck his leg out at the diner and tripped me. They probably wouldn’t want to hear about how he laughed and offered to send me on another trip.

If he hadn’t laughed so damn hard I might have thought it was a mistake but there was something about the gleeful look on his face that set me off.

When I glared at him he told me to “fuck off.”

I smiled and asked him if he was enjoying his meal.

“Yeah, it is pretty damn good. Now fuck off.”

I smiled again and stuck my hand down the front of my pants and made a point to wiggle my fingers around.

When I pulled my hand out I wiped it across his face and asked him if he liked another serving of “Sweaty balls.”

And then I hit him in the head with his plate and watched the eggs run down the front of his shirt.

“You ought to take a trip you fat fuck. Get the fuck out now and I won’t carve my name into the side of your head.”

If this were a movie he would have meekly nodded his head and run out the door, but it wasn’t and he didn’t.

This is precisely the time that I should have heard warning bells inside my head and gotten out of there. Except I didn’t hear any bells and my ego made me stroll away.

And by stroll I mean strut or maybe sashay, I am not really sure how to describe it as being anything other than the walk of arrogance.

Moments later I would put on my seat belt and pull out onto the street heading towards the freeway.

Somewhere during those moments he left the diner, got into his semi and came after me.

I heard him long before I saw him.

He didn’t bother with signals, stop signs or lane changes. He just drove though the cars towards me.

Hell on Wheels

A thousand years ago when the boys and I were in college we watched Saddam Hussein help himself to Kuwait and listened to our president and other world leaders encourage Saddam to let go of his toy and go home.

He didn’t and so a bunch of the fellas got called up which is the reason we started throwing our Hell On Wheels goodbye parties. Back then the Cold War had barely ended and there wasn’t any question about the U.S. being the big dog.

It was in the days before 9/11 and none of us had a clue that a day would come when we would talk about what we could have or should have done during the first Gulf War.

We just knew that we were going to put a beating on those guys over there and that life would go on. I look back on it and think about how naive we were and how different life had become.

But when you are 21 you are invincible and you don’t wonder or worry about things going wrong. And if truth be told when you weren’t being sent overseas you didn’t worry about your own skin and even though you told your buddies to keep their heads down you both laughed about it.

“Someone better tell the Republican Guard to do the same because we are hell on wheels and we are going to kick them so hard in the nuts they’ll spit those babies out.”

We all laughed, especially those of us who weren’t in the service because the stories we had heard from our buddies in tanks made us believe it.

Besides a few of the guys were jar heads that had been to Panama and seen some action so all we knew were good stories.

But those stories were old and they were laughed at by a guy who wasn’t a father and didn’t have any responsibilities. That guy hadn’t lost any friends to terminal illness or experienced any of the real crap that life can throw at you.

Maybe more importantly that guy drove a ’77 Camaro. If that car would have had wings it would have flown and he wouldn’t have cared about a crazy man driving a big rig over and through cars.

He would have stepped on the gas, gone airborne and then for good measure buzzed the semi just to piss him off more.

That would have been great and it would have been a hell of a lot better than driving a 14 year old Honda that didn’t have any guts in the engine.

He wouldn’t have been worried about being on the wrong side of hell on wheels but he was and if there was one thing he was good at it was dealing with reality.

And the current reality was that if he didn’t find a way to put some distance between him and the truck things were going to get ugly in a hurry.

Maybe A Gun Would Have Helped

He blew through two stop signs and played around with jumping on the freeway but decided against it. If it wasn’t moving there wasn’t any doubt that the mad trucker and his lap full of eggs was going to catch up with him. That guy was plowing through everything in his path.

Three SUVs, two minivans and an assortment of sedans hadn’t slowed him down nor had the shopping carts and pedestrians he flew by in the shopping center he cut through.

The truck hadn’t been bothered by a lack of a driveway. It just went over the curb and kept going.

“Well Jack, I hope you are happy now. He enjoyed your helping of ‘sweaty balls’ so much he is chasing you down for some more.”

Yeah, I know I have a twisted sense of humor. It is part of what makes me beloved by one and all. I suppose that might not have been the best move. I probably should have ignored his trying to trip me or responded by giving him a proper ‘ass kicking’ because that would have worked out so much better.

Instead of being chased by a mad trucker I might have gone home or received a pair of silver bracelets from LA’s finest.

The crackle of the radio interrupted my internal conversation and I heard a teaser for the next segment. Someone was talking about how giving teachers guns might help stop school shootings.

A woman’s voice came across “maybe a gun would have helped make sure those kids survived.”

There wasn’t any time for me to listen and ponder whose side of the gun fight I was on now but truth is if you had asked me then I am sure I would have agreed that given my situation maybe a gun would have helped.

But we won’t ever know the answer to that because I was too busy fish tailing around corners and looking for low hanging overpasses that would prevent him from following me.

I could hear horns and sirens blaring behind me not to mention the kind of noises that were usually movie sound effects coming from all around me but I didn’t stop to look around.

The car was shaking, windows were rattling and I was barely in control of it.  All I needed was another moment and I would be safe or so I hoped.