the palms of my hands

It’s a strange thing, really, to live for so many years so close to somebody that they’re clearer in your mind to you than your own ankle.

And, then, one day they’re gone, poof, lying there stiff on the bed. But, before you know it, you call to them,

"Do you want me to get you a glass of water, an apple. I know you like crisp apples."

"What’s that? you woke up and said you were thirsty an hour ago."

"What’s that, hey, whatcha doing in there?"

And, I walk back into the bedroom and give them a soft shake with my hands.

"C’mon it’ll be dinner time soon."

And then I touch her arm to wake her, and godamn, godamn she’s as cold as ice on my fingertips. Goddamn, goddamn. I shake her again, harder, but she’s not ever getting up...

And then the ambulance comes, and the people come in and go up the stairs and then out again, taking her with them. I call a friend and then sat down in the corner and cry, all alone.

Later, after the days had turned into a couple of weeks I think maybe well, it’s not so bad. And I remember that blessed and comforting verse from the book of Isaiah; after he screams that he had been forgotten, the ancient god responds:

"I will not forget you... Behold, I have you engraved on the palms of my hands ..."

So, I think, hey, maybe I am pretty solid, then, maybe we’re all pretty solid. And, lulled by the very words, I think, maybe, I will see them all again, and they’ll see me. Because really nothing can be forever. Not forever. Certainly not forever like this.

But this is only a claim, a conviction, because it is. I am never again going to see any person I had once known who is now dead. From St. John’s to San Diego there’s nary a soul to be found.

But I do want to see them again. I want to apologize for every mean son-of-a-bitch thoughtless thing I’ve ever done... Like skipping out without saying good-bye... or sneaking out in the evening... How many times did that happen, "

"Don’t go," she said, "Don’t leave me alone."

"I’ll be back," I said.

I came back to late.

And there the truth is, I was born into this world only to watch all the people that I’ve ever loved suffer, grow old and die and in the end only to lose my own life. So what’s to apologize for? Nothing but an acknowledgment that if there is one decent thing to do in this world it’s to contribute to the easing of this suffering... Despite public opinion that says otherwise, this is the exact opposite of what’s taught in the medical sciences. A doctor told me the other day that Freud wanted to help people. Well, if he wasn’t cutting off patients noses he was trying to fix their ego. Fix it! Like he’s gluing together a broken baseball bat. It’s defective man.

And, thrown ahead by my indecencies, I refuse to see reality and am crawling towards the grave. When the light of the world blinks out I can only struggle, but will ultimately fail, to rejoin the void.

Part II (a short travelogue continued)

Nothing left to do but watch the sun set and drown in the western waters of Lake Superior.

Too tired to sleep now he walked back to the car and reached around in the back seat for a bottle of beer and a flashlight. From the glove box he filtered through gas station receipts he was saving for no one and found a pen and a postcard.

Hands full he sat on the low grass and wrote a postcard to a wrong address. And, with the world dark and still, he stared at the half moon up there in the cloudless sky and dreamed about happy fire lit nights on the Minas shore far away from the lakes of this lonely interior wilderness. An old warm place that’s near dead now, freezing alone on the cold stones of the Canadian shield.

Ahh... how easy it is for memory to make a saint of history, he thought. And, anyway, tomorrow he’ll be near the height of land, arriving with nothing more than blood, bones and an automobile. At the place where the great plains and the exdous begins, the ancient savannah, the source of this burning desolation.

But, as from dust he and we were born, he will roll through it with two hands on the wheel. And, then, with the rocky mountains in his mind and the mileage ticking west, he'll look ahead to the myth.

A short travelogue in two parts

Part I.

Smooth, blue and sharp cliffs crowded the car on one side of the highway and the cold waters that spilled out of lake Nipigon splashed against the other. Anthony imagined that he was driving along the rim of some long since spent and deserted mine that a hundred years of rain had only tried to fill. Anyway, the view now was at least better than the stunted and decaying half-forest he had just sped through, with its stagnant bogs and weeping trees. Here the world refused decay, it stuck its bony limbs out in mocking defiance of rotting death.

But for what he gained in scenery he lost in time. The highway, hemmed in as it was by these natural obstacles followed no straight lines. All twists and turns. So as chance and luck would have it, it wasn’t long before he found himself tight up against the bumper of a lazy driver. He fell in behind a red Pontiac for what seemed like an hour before at last the highway climbed a long steep and straight hill taking him out of the depression of the lake waters. As he sped by the red machine at what was now a new altitude he also noticed that the highway was taking a change in direction, heading more towards the south than the west. And the change in direction was reflected in the scenery too, the trees were getting greener, taller and the air warmer.

All alone now coasting on the vacant road he took a look at the map and thought that Lake Superior must only be sixty miles away. As fine a place as any to spend a night, he said to himself. Although it was now after eight in the evening, eastern time, the sun was still pretty high in the sky. And this too despite that Montreal, not to mention New York city, was now hundreds and hundreds of miles behind him.

It was just after nine when he rolled onto the lake shore. And even at such a late hour he found that the beaches and cliffs were still populated with the summer timers. Middle aged men and women mostly. Quite a spectacle. He’d find no privacy on this road. All these bicyclists and dog walkers spread themselves out as a plague on the rim of the sea. That’s where they start. Funny thing is that as he passed by they looked at him as if he had murdering on his mind, the murdering of their dogs, their children, their investments. Evidently, as their smugness reflected, it took only a cruel glare to thwart his plans. Now that’s something to invest in.

Anyway, at the edge of the summer vacation and where the road ended and rounded out he noticed a clean stretch of ground off to the left, shaded by a ring of fir trees. So Tony parked the car in a way that would shield the site from the road and reached into his backseat, grabbed his tent and rolled it out onto the ground. In no time he had the poles extended, fed through the nylon hoops and pegged to the ground. He reached again into his back seat and felt around for a blanket and a sweater, unzipped the fly of the tent and tossed them both inside.

dream movies, 2

I guess I should watch what I wish for. So, I finally get my ex-rated dream and it turns itself inside out.

Roll the film...

The scene is some mild house party at the house of some unnamed and faceless friend. In typical fashion I over indulge and am out on the couch before the crowd leaves. At some point in the night I wake up and there is a girl lying there with me. How did this happen I thought? I do not remember this, and in fact I do not remember this girl from the party. Oh, but then she rolls over and I can’t mistake her face, I know her alright, Angela was her name.

I knew her in real life, she lived down the road from me when I was in elementary school. She was a year older than me, she was pretty, she had blonde hair and blue eyes. Now, I know what you’re thinking but the thing is I never did and still don’t have much of an attraction for blondes. However, the thing about her when I was a kid was that there were no other blondes around, I mean there were probably only fourty girls in the whole school and every one of them brunettes. So she looked different and that can go a long way when you’re kid.... But it wasn’t until after my first brand new bicycle that she first impressed herself on me. You see, when I brought that bicycle home from Canadian Tire every child on the street wanted to test it out.... By the way, that was the first and probably the last time I ever had any degree of popularity... So, in the midst of the glow of my new found adulation, Angela comes up to me and says:

"I’ll be your girlfriend if you let me ride your bike."

I declined the offer, though more from embarassment than lack of desire. But it was at about that point that I was forcefully made aware of the power that girls have over guys and that hung around me for awhile before I was able to get the thought to see through it.

.... Angela turned out to be a strange girl, I had heard that she had gotten pregnant right out of high school and managed to hide the whole affair from her family. And, then, one day she got up called a taxi to the hospital and then came home with a baby girl. Surprise Mom!

So, back to the dream, there I am about to make it with oddball Angela... Oh, brother, but hey I get revved up anyway, and so we just get started and then she screams... "Assault"

Oh brother, oh brother, oh brother this isn’t going to be good... I thought...

And, sure enough it was not good. Someone comes running in from some room in a blitzed frenzy, and then more people come running, all lunging at me... while they are all wailing on me she calls the police...

The next thing I know I’m on my way to jail. And, everyone I know is thoroughly disgusted with me, I see my friends through the window shaking their heads. Excepting my mother, surprise, surprise, somehow she made it to the jail, and I can her lobbying for me at the end of the long corridor, praising me, 'such a good boy, they’re all out to get him, It’s a setup she was saying'... This of course does nothing to help me and in fact only serves to further embarrass me.

The next morning the police are pulling me through the corridor and into the courthouse, I’ve no lawyer, evidently no one would deign to defend me. But the show must go on, so I start into my defense...

But before I can get really going it’s suddenly somehow clear to me that it is not assault that I’m on trial for rather it is for the desire to have sex itself. So the whole show turns into this scopes monkey trial with me defending sex... Which is very strange as in real time I more often than not take the opposite point of view... But, like I said, the show must go on, and I don’t hold back, I’m pleading my case, I’m jumping up on the table, pointing at the jury dancing for the judge, and screaming all the cliches, "it’s only natural," "Look, what do all of you desire to do in the dark night, and some of you every other second," I yell at the gallery... "You can’t tell me I’m wrong, you just can’t," I’m still screaming... Oooh’s and Ahh’s follow, some laughs and I get some applause. It is at this point that the mood of the whole room starts to turn in my favour. And, then, Angela, losing her popularity, screams from the witness stand, "it was just sex, and sex anyway, it really wasn’t that bad, I suppose."

I was surprised she switched stripes so easy, but hey it got me outta there, and in seconds flat.

So, I guess I was vindicated, eh. I guess, but I don't find it a lot of fun spending my time trying to escape from something I shouldn't have to know anyway.

home

Hey, thanks a lot Johnny, it's all I could do to drag the needle across this tonight. I'm pretty much through with caring about much else (for at least a little while).

"It got so hot, last night, I swear, you couldn't hardly breathe,
Heat lightning burnt the sky like alcohol,
I sat on the porch without my shoes, and I watched the cars roll by,
As the headlights raced to the corner of the kitchen wall ....

My God! I cried, it's so hot inside, you could die in the living room,
Take the fan from the window, prop the door back with a broom,
The cuckoo clock has died of shock, and the windows feel no pane,
The air's as still as the throttle on a funeral train ...

Mama dear, your boy is here, far across the sea,
Waiting for that sacred core that burns inside of me,
And I feel a storm, all wet and warm not ten miles away,
Approaching my Mexican home."

- Prine's Mexican Home

glorious and free

Why does the skin on the nose pinch in like that? My mother’s did.

And, the ears, why do they tuck back like that? That’s the way my Dad’s are.

And, how did these lips get to be so thin and curled up? I think my grandmother’s did the same.

Why is it so cold up here in January? It's the North.

dream movies

If I’m not dreaming about my own death I’m dreaming movies. Either way I’ve a show playing every night, I wish I could invite you. However, you may quite understandably want to refuse.

The other night I was living in the early twentieth century and somehow, I guess to make some quick money, or so I thought, had gotten onto this old wooden freight ship that, so I was told, was making runs up and down the Atlantic sea board. Oh, but it was no local run. For some reason unknown to me it was bound for the Pacific. So we go all the way around Cape Horn and the land of fire and the angry natives. And, man, am I stuck with this ship, every attempt I make to jump the thing at port is thwarted, which has the result of making me progressively disliked by the crew.

Nevertheless, it’s around the horn and into the Pacific for all of us, and the next thing I know we’re traveling through a badly equipped Japanese navy, which does not seem terribly pleased to have us cruise through, but luckily for us everyone keeps their cool. Next thing we’re stopped by a serious looking Russian ship. And, these Russians board our boat and ask about the location of that Japanese navy we just passed. Everyone’s pretty jittery and afraid of these cats so we tell them what they want to know, and satisfied, I guess, they let us go, but in the tension of the scene I manage to stow away on their boat. (I do not know precisely why I did this)

So, now I’m manning some Russian gun as the ship I’m on goes to reconnoiter with the rest of the fleet. And, when I see the size of that Russian armada, I remember the miserable state of that Japanese navy, and think, shit there’s gonna be a lot of dead Japanese if they are still where we left them. And, unfortunately for them, they are. Now, at the onset of the battle, I have no desire to use the gun I was assigned so when the bombs go off I’m overboard in some sort of raft. In no time I’m left in the dust of the war. Next thing I’m on the coast of Oregon working as a fur trader in some company and somehow become deeply involved in a rivalry between two Indian chiefs.... and that’s where I left the saga, I either forget what happens next or nothing did.

-----

In addition to the travelogue genre, of which the above story serves as a prime example... the sports genre is a popular one too. Baseball and hockey semi-heroics feature prominently.

You know, if I’m going to run these features and be up the night anyway, I wish I’d play the occasional x-rated film. That can’t be too much to ask.