He placed the guitar down on the sandy floor, stood from his chair and walked slowly towards the porch.
Jeremiah walked as if his spine was curved and as he sauntered forward from side to side it would slowly straiten out into the exclamation point that he lived in. When reaching the doorframe to the back porch he placed his leathered hands upon the weathered wood and looked out into the great expanse of blue and silver ribbon swaying on the horizon.
Breathing a sigh, he looked down to see his pup lying on the sun-bleached boards of the porch. The dog was panting and goo was running from his jowls like marmalade form the jar; he looked up at his master, his father. The old man slowly bent over and touched the course hair on his dog’s neck commenting to him lovingly, telling him how swell he was and how much of a good boy he was. Then stepping out onto the deck and off into the sand that surrounded the old wind worn house he steadily strode towards the water that he so longed for. The water that called his name every night while he laid in the bed that he shared with her.
As he walked to the water’s edge his mind remembered her and the soft straight hair that wove itself all the way to the small of her back and how he would brush it for her every evening at dusk. And sometimes how he would wake in the middle of the night tangled within it and how he would be utterly frustrated at it. But then he would remember how much he loved this and her and everything that he got to live in everyday. He thought of her fingertips and how they made him feel like a young man whenever they would touch his aged skin. And how with each touch, she brought back a small piece of his high school days and she helped him remember how strong he was and how capable was a word that one could use to describe him.
Jeremiah stopped walking and looked back at the house. It stood proudly as if it had been there since the dawn of the age as if maybe cavemen had once cut open mastodons behind his bedroom. His dog, still sprawled on the deck, panting and drooling, looked at the old man as if this were his last day. Then, for the last time, the old man breathed a sigh of relief and sorrow and joy and heartache all at the same time for his lost love and began walking slowly towards the blue mirror that lay out in front of him.
The water taunted him like a child wanting to be played with. It called to him, beckoning him to its edge and further. Reaching the edge the poor old man looked down to his feet and watched the water splash back and forth onto his wrinkled toes. He stood there for what seemed like an eternity; never taking his attention from the water that rippled and swirled ever so lightly around his feet. Gently and somberly he began to step out into the water and feeling the sand on the floor of the sea rise between his toes put one foot before the other. Soon the water was at his waist and he stretched his tired arms out over the oceans glass tabletop; he started gently caressing it with his fingertips just as his love had often done before him. He would lift his hands and drip the salt water from his fingertips back into the ocean. He did this over and over and over again. He wondered if she could be in these drops. He wondered if she knew he was here, waist deep in the sea. He wished that she could be with him and yet she was all around him.
Jeremiah stopped and started walking again, trudging, sifting his feet along the bottom of the ocean. As the water rose around his shoulders he stopped and looked to the blue sky above, searching for something. Slowly, a tear rolled from his eye down to the bottom of his chin. Time seemed to stop for a moment and as if God himself was going to catch it the tear plopped down into the sea, into the salt and into her. The man then took one more deep breath and plunged himself down beneath the water’s surface and remained there, where he wanted to be. It was there that he would find the one who he had lost and it was there that he would find his heart once again.
As the sun set on the house, the old dog, shaking, slowly made his way back into the house and lay down again on a pile of old newspapers. The dog would pass on, as did his master, and his love before him, but the house would remain. It would stand on the shores of the Pacific preserving its stories within its walls for the remainder of its life, never to be told. And as wood began to rot, and windows became too sandy to peer through, the memories still lay soundly within it. For it was not those things that made the house what it was, but of those who lay within. Those few forever remaining in the place where the water met the sand and where souls longed for one another.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
My Home
The sun shines a light orange-yellow blanket of bird breath as it sets in the weary thickness.
It’s definitely far enough along in the season for it to be cold, but tonight the weather feels perfect. It’s that type of air, that type of temperature that ones skin cannot discern whether there is even an atmosphere around it, touching it, holding it.
The sky is a plethora of colors as the sun reflects off the remnants of the clouds that crawl through shallow pool of blue. The main street of the town resembles paint cans that have exploded in a room of cabins and church steeples and post offices.
The sun has been placed behind a set of hills. Tall, living, breathing and menacing trees tower above the horizon as if to make one last attempt at heaven.
The street is black like the murderous night but the sun; the sun hits the face of the earth like a bomb. The buildings are no taller than two stories and are all painted with white wash and have stoops and porches and rocking chairs on their fronts. The town’s street lamps have just flickered on and the smell of dinner lingers in the air as if to taunt the hungry. To the left is a park perfectly strewn with full and billowing oak trees and carpeted with a hue of grass that has not yet been created. A winding path makes its way through the park and is spotted with benches built from the wood found in the tall and proud trees that cover the hills. The light from the sun shines from the side and weaves its way through the leaves of the oaks as if to be searching for something it had lost.
I stand as still as a mountain and my hands lie still in my pockets. My breathing is as calm as the breath of God and my mind is as free as the day it was created. My soul finds itself souring out of its binding and able to explore the glory that lies before it and my eyes glaze and come to rest on the sun before me. I stare and stare until I can stare no more, and then I stare until I am blind; it is uncontrollable; it’s unbearable. I stare until I leave my body and see myself standing on the rain-covered street below with my lips coming together and then curling at the edges as I continue to stare off into the sun. I continue to rise above the street and the sun begins to come closer and closer and finally I am engulfed in a light so brilliant that my words come to a failing point.
And as I pass through and my mind empties and I lose my memories, pain becomes something that I once believed in and is now nothing more than a single, solitary fairy tale that once was. I am unashamed and my hands begin to rise upwards and the hands of heavenly glowing creatures seat me in a throne and a crown is placed upon my brow.
I look all around and see kings and queens seated all around me and before us all is a Glorious Creature wielding a sword of fire and looking upon us all with eyes of the purest white light. He holds out his hands and fire comes form His mouth and a thousand angles fall from on high. Then, as if it were the most natural of things, a million voices rise in unison and shout and sing and yell in the truest of jubilations.
And it is here that I realize…
It’s definitely far enough along in the season for it to be cold, but tonight the weather feels perfect. It’s that type of air, that type of temperature that ones skin cannot discern whether there is even an atmosphere around it, touching it, holding it.
The sky is a plethora of colors as the sun reflects off the remnants of the clouds that crawl through shallow pool of blue. The main street of the town resembles paint cans that have exploded in a room of cabins and church steeples and post offices.
The sun has been placed behind a set of hills. Tall, living, breathing and menacing trees tower above the horizon as if to make one last attempt at heaven.
The street is black like the murderous night but the sun; the sun hits the face of the earth like a bomb. The buildings are no taller than two stories and are all painted with white wash and have stoops and porches and rocking chairs on their fronts. The town’s street lamps have just flickered on and the smell of dinner lingers in the air as if to taunt the hungry. To the left is a park perfectly strewn with full and billowing oak trees and carpeted with a hue of grass that has not yet been created. A winding path makes its way through the park and is spotted with benches built from the wood found in the tall and proud trees that cover the hills. The light from the sun shines from the side and weaves its way through the leaves of the oaks as if to be searching for something it had lost.
I stand as still as a mountain and my hands lie still in my pockets. My breathing is as calm as the breath of God and my mind is as free as the day it was created. My soul finds itself souring out of its binding and able to explore the glory that lies before it and my eyes glaze and come to rest on the sun before me. I stare and stare until I can stare no more, and then I stare until I am blind; it is uncontrollable; it’s unbearable. I stare until I leave my body and see myself standing on the rain-covered street below with my lips coming together and then curling at the edges as I continue to stare off into the sun. I continue to rise above the street and the sun begins to come closer and closer and finally I am engulfed in a light so brilliant that my words come to a failing point.
And as I pass through and my mind empties and I lose my memories, pain becomes something that I once believed in and is now nothing more than a single, solitary fairy tale that once was. I am unashamed and my hands begin to rise upwards and the hands of heavenly glowing creatures seat me in a throne and a crown is placed upon my brow.
I look all around and see kings and queens seated all around me and before us all is a Glorious Creature wielding a sword of fire and looking upon us all with eyes of the purest white light. He holds out his hands and fire comes form His mouth and a thousand angles fall from on high. Then, as if it were the most natural of things, a million voices rise in unison and shout and sing and yell in the truest of jubilations.
And it is here that I realize…
Monday, February 22, 2010
Angels of Fleet.
Slow down you speed demons.
You have the wholeness of the field before you,
The true grain at your feet's bottom.
The rye calls and groans for you,
yet there is so little they need.
Slow down you angels of fleet.
Who told you to hasten?
Was it I, or are you acting alone?
Why so abrupt in your movement?
Why so like the soloist?
Slow down you children of the quick.
Your mother's are calling,
Your father's are searching.
Do you know that your brothers miss you?
Your sisters long in waiting.
Slow down you spirits of the air.
Your gowns whip in the after flow,
Your loves lead you onto the promised land.
You have so much to see.
You have so much to know.
All you fastest of the fast,
All you quickest of the quick,
Lay down your wings of twig and ember and long;
Long for stillness and quietness,
Long for solitude and absolution.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
A preemptive writing on Summer.
Winter is shit. It is the earthly culmination of death. Leaves fall, flowers wilt and bears hide in caves. Summer does not bring with it the burden of tire chains or snow plows. It doesn't bend electrical wires to its will and shut people in. And it surely doesn't take the gloriousness of water and paralyze it into dance floors. Winter creates in us the desire for more coats and scarves, all the while leading us further and further from the original state of Adam.
Summer frees and exonerates and loosens the fetters of warm breeze lovers and, with the glancing sweep of one sea birthed billow, allows for the children of God to run freely within the confines of His playground.
How dare you confine us winter.
Shame on you.
Summer frees and exonerates and loosens the fetters of warm breeze lovers and, with the glancing sweep of one sea birthed billow, allows for the children of God to run freely within the confines of His playground.
How dare you confine us winter.
Shame on you.
In the Purple Clouds (Part 1, Revision 1)
This is the first installment of a short story I have been working on. Enjoy.
Part one. White Box.
Originally Patty had moved out to New Mexico to find herself or something to that effect. The desire for self-fulfillment and the finding of ones soul sounded all too enticing, so she left. It was heartbreaking though because the summer that she left was our best ever. It was also the summer that I legitimately, intentionally and hopelessly had fallen in love with her.
At the crash site they found her red sunglasses and her scarf. Searching through the backseat they found her wallet and the camera and a couple of rolls of film. But they never found her body or blood or hair or skin. It’s like she was never even there for the crash. When the authorities called in her family to pick up her things they brought me along with them. To this day I am still unsure as to why they did this. Maybe it was out of their knowing that I loved her. Or maybe it was because I had basically been a part of the family since I was five. But I suppose at this juncture in the story it doesn’t really matter. But what did matter was the reality that I was in the car with her mom and dad and two brothers headed to the coroners office in Alamogordo, New Mexico.
They drove an old Chrysler station wagon with the backwards-facing seat in the rear. They let me sit in it alone while her brothers sat in the middle. I stayed there, sitting in that seat, for the entirety of the trip. It became my haven on a trip to hell. The trip from Marfa was about eight hours with stops. I didn’t speak one single word the entire way.
When we were younger, she and I would hide from everyone in the backseat of the station wagon and fall asleep until my dad would come pick me up and take me home. And as we grew older the seat became a place where secrets and kisses were shared and where my heart for her grew. She probably never knew about this fact. I never told anyone. Maybe she knew, I don’t know.
Right before she left I gave her my mom’s old camera that she had used when she was in college. Patty loved pictures and how, when you really looked at them, you could make up any story that you wanted about them. She loved how, in some pictures, you could tell people really wanted to be somewhere else or that they really wanted to be in that particular picture with someone else. I loved that about her. To thank me she kissed me on the jawbone and then jumped into the driver’s seat of the ’78 Chevelle, waved goodbye and drove away towards the west. I went home and cried in my back yard for fifteen minutes, wiped my face, then walked inside for dinner. I never made a big deal about again until today.
-
Alamogordo is not a place you would go to have a roaring Friday night. Well, neither is Marfa but that is beside the point. That is unless you like beer and talking to old men with fifty years of stories that have been told again and again. In that case, pack your bags.
When we finally did roll into the town I felt like I was entering a chapter of a book. In this chapter there would be a boy and a family and some grieving and some tears. There might be some yelling or something like that. But all in all, this entire chapter would be entitled something like ‘Grief ‘ or ‘The Lost Girl’ or ‘That Shitty White Box’.
Patty’s dad pulled into the coroner’s office parking lot, placed the car in park and turned it off. Once the car was off the silence was, in a very cliché way, deafening. We sat, quietly, for what seemed to be an hour in the warming heat of the New Mexico sun. Finally, Patty’s dad opened his door and stood outside the car. He stretched his legs and flexed his fingers back and forth. Dale and Charlie, the twins, followed suit and went and sat on one of the parking barriers near the car letting the sun thaw out their pale white thighs.
With hesitation I opened wide the huge back door of the station wagon and climbed out onto the gravel-strewn parking lot. Stretching, I surveyed the place that we had arrived in, stared at the sun and then went and sat next to Dale. Their mother was not so quick to exit the car though. I think maybe it was because if she did get out and go into that office then the fact that her daughter was gone or dead or some variation of the two would become factual and true. She couldn’t deal with that right now. So Patty’s dad told us to stay put and he walked slowly into the office to check out the situation.
-
When Patty’s dad called us in we all made our way to a cramped sitting room with metal chairs and linoleum flooring and a picture of a waterfall on the wall. A man entered with a half eaten sandwich in his hand and told us that we could come back. With hesitation Patty’s mom rose and the five of us walked through the heavy metal swinging doors and into a big examination room. There were five or six big metal tables, two of which had bodies covered by sheets on top of them. It made me feel sick. I wanted to leave. Knowing that Patty might be lying on a metal table somewhere made me nauseas. But she was not here. She was not in this room or in this building or in this godforsaken town.
The man with the sandwich told us to wait as he had a box of Patty’s things to give to us. We stood there waiting, no one saying a thing. I could see silent tears rolling down the face of Mrs. Bersham, Patty’s mom. She just kept staring out the one singular window that was placed at the far end of the room. She stared into it as if Patty was standing on the other side. I wish she had been so that I didn’t have to watch her mom cry anymore. I wish so badly for Dale and Charlie and their dad, but mainly for Patty’s mom. I loved her very much. She was a good woman.
Finally the man came out from a room in the back carrying a white box. He looked at Patty’s dad, mouth full of sandwich, nodded and walked back into the office. No one moved. Nothing was said. We just stood there looking at the box and wondering all of the things that should have been wondered. I wished that she had been in the box and that I would be able to just reach in and grab her and bring her back. But that wasn’t reality and this situation was the definition of reality. Finally Patty’s dad grabbed the box with both hands and told us to get in the car.
The box sat in the middle seat between Dale and Charlie while we drove. It was weird because Patty always sat there when their family would go on trips or out for the day. She liked that spot, it made her feel safe. Charlie just stared out the window, his eyes glazed over, his left hand resting on the box. I just sat in the back, watching the lines on the road run away from the car. I wondered if she was looking at something beautiful. I wondered if she had turned into something beautiful. I wondered a lot of things and wished for a lot of things but mainly I just missed my friend. I missed her very much. I missed her because she was the one female on earth that found me suitable enough to kiss. I was easily one of the luckiest boys on earth to have known her.
-
Mr. Bersham pulled the car into a rest stop on the side of the highway. It overlooked the desert and a couple of cacti. We all made our way to a picnic table and opened up some potato salad and sandwiches that Patty’s mom had made. It felt good to be in the sun again sitting on the bench next to her family. Lunch was good. I like potato salad.
After we were done we all just kept quiet and kept staring at the box that sat in the middle of the table. Patty’s mom finally just grabbed the box and opened it, throwing the top down on the ground behind her. She looked into the box and stuck her hands inside and rummaged through the things that the police had found. She told us to come and look, so we all stood up and huddled around her. There was a scarf and a pair of sandals that were worn down and her red sunglasses. Her wallet was completely intact and all of her money and cards were there. It was almost as if she just left these things at the crash and walked off into the desert. Mrs. Bersham lifted the camera out of the box and looked directly at me. She looked back into the box to find four other rolls of film and then handed it all to me. She knew that these things were not meant for anyone but me. So I took them and placed the rolls in my bandana and the camera in my backpack. I went and put the pack into the car and shut the big back door. Then, without saying anything I just walked over to the barbwire fence, fell to my knees and cried. I cried loud. I cried for the fact that my best friend was gone. I cried for her family. I cried for the world that would not get to know her or the things that she loved. I just cried.
Patty’s dad came over once everyone had had enough, lifted me up by my arms and told me we were leaving. I got into the back seat, held my backpack in my lap and slept the entire way home.
Part two. In the Purple Clouds.
I live in a house that backs up to a dry creek bed on a farm on the edge of town. I live with my mom and dad. Patty lived about a mile away. Our senior year we would walk together to school and talk each other or not. Either way we just liked walking next to each other and finding our way to school.
When the Berhshams finally dropped me off at my house it was about two in the morning and I was very tired. Patty’s dad came to back of the car while I was opening the big back door and grabbing my pack and bandana. He just stood there as I shut the door and when I turned around he grabbed me, hugged me and then walked back to the drivers door. We caught eyes one last time and that was it, they drove off.
I watched the red dot brake lights fade off and then walked up to my porch and opened the front screen door. Drudgingly I mounted the stairs up to my room, plunged onto my bed and fell asleep in my clothes.
-
I woke up to my mom cooking. She never cooks…ever. In reality she is not even my real mother. She is my dad’s wife. She is nice and she loves me but never cooks or cleans or plants anything in the ground. So I found it quite odd that she would be cooking. But this is severely beside the point. Once, when I was eight my mom (my real mom) got caught up with a motivational speaker that she went to hear speak in El Paso. When she got back home from the conference I could tell something was different. She started staring out of windows for long periods of time and reading romance novels. If you knew my mom, you would know that this was very outside of her normal character. After about a month of this behavior she told my dad and I that she was going to hear him speak once more in San Antonio before he left to speak on the west coast. She never came back.
-
I woke up and sat on the edge of my bed with my face in my hands. It was almost as if I didn’t stand a chance that day. I didn’t stand a chance against these feelings. I didn’t have the motivation to go anywhere or do anything or talk to anyone. So I went and did all of the above. I walked down stairs and talked with my dad and Jill. I ate her breakfast. Then I grabbed my bandana with the film in it and walked out the kitchen door and into town. I had to get the film developed.
The general store in town is run and owned by Mr. Billy Flannigan. He is a short man. He is very unpleasant. He wears glasses that his wife used to wear before she died. He wears suspenders everyday and the same pair of brown banking shoes with the broken laces. A local woman by the name of Roberta Robin went to him in the early 90’s and convinced him to let her open a photo lab in his store. For him the convincing factor was the revenue increase. Roberta was OK with this fact. I walked in, waved to the surly Flannigan and made my way over to the back corner of the store.
Ms. Robin was a very nice woman and I imagined that she was the older version of Patty. I suppose that this was why I loved going into the store and talking to her on the weekends. But, I gave her the six rolls of film and she said they would be ready the next day. This made my anxious but I told her that was fine and walked back home.
When I finally made the fence line a storm was just rolling in. You could see it for miles and miles across the chest of the land. It was like a deep purple blanket being draped over the fields and desert lands. I walked into the house, grabbed a coke and walked back out onto the porch and sat on the boards that my father had hammered. In the subtlest of ways the wind began to lightly brush the house and my face and the grass began to move ever so slightly. Light drops began to fall and lightning split the sky open so as to show the heavens that lurked behind the clouds of purple. I just rested on the planks of oak and drank my coke and watched as the land was washed clean and the dust was settled and the water collected. Finally my dad and Jill came home from town and ran inside the house, hiding from the rain. Jill and dad made dinner and we laughed about some old stories and ate and drank and then I went to bed. It was hard to fall asleep. I was thinking about the pictures and her.
The next morning I woke with my feet resting uncovered in the cool fall air of my room. My face felt warm and my whole body was in a state of sinking. I lay there, on my bed, thinking of the pictures. I wondered about what they would show and if they would tell the story of her last days. After about twenty minutes of dreaming and wondering and creating stories in my head I sat up and rubbed my face and scratched my eyes. I got up, put on my white t-shirt and my pants and my old grey shoes and walked down stairs. Without even acknowledging dad or Jill I walked out the door, down the porch steps and out onto the gravel road. Walking to the store I debated with myself as to whether I actually wanted to see the photographs. What if they shown things that I didn’t want to see? What if they were plain and uninteresting? What if, from them, I was unable to re-create any story at all? This scared me and I stopped for a second in the middle of the road. I looked at the store up ahead and then back towards my house then at the store and again back towards my house. Then, as if someone were standing right next to me, I heard a voice tell me to keep going and to see her story.
I got to the store, saw Ms. Robin, paid my money and walked out of the store. But just before I could get to the door Ms. Robin called my name and I turned around to face her. For a long while she just looked at me and then she just said, “Good luck with those boy.” And that was it. I walked out of the store and made my way back out to the road and walked back home.
-
Every summer Patty and I would wait for the rains to come sweeping across the west Texas plains to fill the creek behind my house. The creek would swell and bulge and groan with the pains of summer wetness. Once the rain would start to fall she would run over to my house and come grab me out of my room. She would always be wearing a dress of some kind. Usually something that made me fall in love with her even more. Everything that she wore resembled the sunsets that would fall to the west of us. Some of her white summer dresses were like the pure silk fog that would come in and sway across the land. She would come and tell me that it was raining and she would drag me down to the banks. As the minutes would pass and the creek would swell her anxiousness and excitement would grow in equal correlation. Finally, once the water was at the perfect height she would wade out and float on her back, letting the rain fall on her cheeks and lips. On occasion I would join her and I always loved the coolness of the water. But, for the most part, I just loved watching her. I think she knew how much I loved watching her in the moments where she felt most alive. This was the last thing that we had done together before she left. That day the rain was exceptionally warm and the creek grew rapidly. She laid face up for almost an hour in the warm, murky water. And when she climbed her way up the bank of the creek she made her way towards me. When she had clawed her way out of the mud she fell into my lap and kissed my mouth. We lay there for a long time, in the rain, wet from head to toe. She was still in her dress and I in my jeans.
She whispered in my ears and told me the sweetest of things. She kissed my neck and I hers and we talked about the future and God and friends. We lay in my father’s barn, hidden from the elements, speaking of things that deserve high places in the hearts of men. I learned the curves of her hip bones and she the arches of my feet. Then, as quickly as the sun rose she was gone. She had to finish packing and I told her I would come to see her off at her home. Once we had said our goodbyes and waved at one another I walked back to the creek. I sat looking at the scrape marks that her hands and fingers had made as she climbed the bank of the creek, the marks that led to me, to my lap, to my lips.
-
When I walked into the house from the store Jill asked me if I was OK; I wasn’t. I sometimes hated the fact that I was old enough to think and react and live and grow on my own but still not old enough to run away. I was still not at a place where my feet were free. O’ the free heart.
-
I did not want to open the small, white, paper flap that held those pictures. I do not want to know that she, in reality, had captured nothing. I didn’t want to find out that she had been lonely or that she was scared and I believed that these pictures might depict that. I did not want to know these things. I did not want to hurt for her any more than I already did.
...
Part one. White Box.
Originally Patty had moved out to New Mexico to find herself or something to that effect. The desire for self-fulfillment and the finding of ones soul sounded all too enticing, so she left. It was heartbreaking though because the summer that she left was our best ever. It was also the summer that I legitimately, intentionally and hopelessly had fallen in love with her.
At the crash site they found her red sunglasses and her scarf. Searching through the backseat they found her wallet and the camera and a couple of rolls of film. But they never found her body or blood or hair or skin. It’s like she was never even there for the crash. When the authorities called in her family to pick up her things they brought me along with them. To this day I am still unsure as to why they did this. Maybe it was out of their knowing that I loved her. Or maybe it was because I had basically been a part of the family since I was five. But I suppose at this juncture in the story it doesn’t really matter. But what did matter was the reality that I was in the car with her mom and dad and two brothers headed to the coroners office in Alamogordo, New Mexico.
They drove an old Chrysler station wagon with the backwards-facing seat in the rear. They let me sit in it alone while her brothers sat in the middle. I stayed there, sitting in that seat, for the entirety of the trip. It became my haven on a trip to hell. The trip from Marfa was about eight hours with stops. I didn’t speak one single word the entire way.
When we were younger, she and I would hide from everyone in the backseat of the station wagon and fall asleep until my dad would come pick me up and take me home. And as we grew older the seat became a place where secrets and kisses were shared and where my heart for her grew. She probably never knew about this fact. I never told anyone. Maybe she knew, I don’t know.
Right before she left I gave her my mom’s old camera that she had used when she was in college. Patty loved pictures and how, when you really looked at them, you could make up any story that you wanted about them. She loved how, in some pictures, you could tell people really wanted to be somewhere else or that they really wanted to be in that particular picture with someone else. I loved that about her. To thank me she kissed me on the jawbone and then jumped into the driver’s seat of the ’78 Chevelle, waved goodbye and drove away towards the west. I went home and cried in my back yard for fifteen minutes, wiped my face, then walked inside for dinner. I never made a big deal about again until today.
-
Alamogordo is not a place you would go to have a roaring Friday night. Well, neither is Marfa but that is beside the point. That is unless you like beer and talking to old men with fifty years of stories that have been told again and again. In that case, pack your bags.
When we finally did roll into the town I felt like I was entering a chapter of a book. In this chapter there would be a boy and a family and some grieving and some tears. There might be some yelling or something like that. But all in all, this entire chapter would be entitled something like ‘Grief ‘ or ‘The Lost Girl’ or ‘That Shitty White Box’.
Patty’s dad pulled into the coroner’s office parking lot, placed the car in park and turned it off. Once the car was off the silence was, in a very cliché way, deafening. We sat, quietly, for what seemed to be an hour in the warming heat of the New Mexico sun. Finally, Patty’s dad opened his door and stood outside the car. He stretched his legs and flexed his fingers back and forth. Dale and Charlie, the twins, followed suit and went and sat on one of the parking barriers near the car letting the sun thaw out their pale white thighs.
With hesitation I opened wide the huge back door of the station wagon and climbed out onto the gravel-strewn parking lot. Stretching, I surveyed the place that we had arrived in, stared at the sun and then went and sat next to Dale. Their mother was not so quick to exit the car though. I think maybe it was because if she did get out and go into that office then the fact that her daughter was gone or dead or some variation of the two would become factual and true. She couldn’t deal with that right now. So Patty’s dad told us to stay put and he walked slowly into the office to check out the situation.
-
When Patty’s dad called us in we all made our way to a cramped sitting room with metal chairs and linoleum flooring and a picture of a waterfall on the wall. A man entered with a half eaten sandwich in his hand and told us that we could come back. With hesitation Patty’s mom rose and the five of us walked through the heavy metal swinging doors and into a big examination room. There were five or six big metal tables, two of which had bodies covered by sheets on top of them. It made me feel sick. I wanted to leave. Knowing that Patty might be lying on a metal table somewhere made me nauseas. But she was not here. She was not in this room or in this building or in this godforsaken town.
The man with the sandwich told us to wait as he had a box of Patty’s things to give to us. We stood there waiting, no one saying a thing. I could see silent tears rolling down the face of Mrs. Bersham, Patty’s mom. She just kept staring out the one singular window that was placed at the far end of the room. She stared into it as if Patty was standing on the other side. I wish she had been so that I didn’t have to watch her mom cry anymore. I wish so badly for Dale and Charlie and their dad, but mainly for Patty’s mom. I loved her very much. She was a good woman.
Finally the man came out from a room in the back carrying a white box. He looked at Patty’s dad, mouth full of sandwich, nodded and walked back into the office. No one moved. Nothing was said. We just stood there looking at the box and wondering all of the things that should have been wondered. I wished that she had been in the box and that I would be able to just reach in and grab her and bring her back. But that wasn’t reality and this situation was the definition of reality. Finally Patty’s dad grabbed the box with both hands and told us to get in the car.
The box sat in the middle seat between Dale and Charlie while we drove. It was weird because Patty always sat there when their family would go on trips or out for the day. She liked that spot, it made her feel safe. Charlie just stared out the window, his eyes glazed over, his left hand resting on the box. I just sat in the back, watching the lines on the road run away from the car. I wondered if she was looking at something beautiful. I wondered if she had turned into something beautiful. I wondered a lot of things and wished for a lot of things but mainly I just missed my friend. I missed her very much. I missed her because she was the one female on earth that found me suitable enough to kiss. I was easily one of the luckiest boys on earth to have known her.
-
Mr. Bersham pulled the car into a rest stop on the side of the highway. It overlooked the desert and a couple of cacti. We all made our way to a picnic table and opened up some potato salad and sandwiches that Patty’s mom had made. It felt good to be in the sun again sitting on the bench next to her family. Lunch was good. I like potato salad.
After we were done we all just kept quiet and kept staring at the box that sat in the middle of the table. Patty’s mom finally just grabbed the box and opened it, throwing the top down on the ground behind her. She looked into the box and stuck her hands inside and rummaged through the things that the police had found. She told us to come and look, so we all stood up and huddled around her. There was a scarf and a pair of sandals that were worn down and her red sunglasses. Her wallet was completely intact and all of her money and cards were there. It was almost as if she just left these things at the crash and walked off into the desert. Mrs. Bersham lifted the camera out of the box and looked directly at me. She looked back into the box to find four other rolls of film and then handed it all to me. She knew that these things were not meant for anyone but me. So I took them and placed the rolls in my bandana and the camera in my backpack. I went and put the pack into the car and shut the big back door. Then, without saying anything I just walked over to the barbwire fence, fell to my knees and cried. I cried loud. I cried for the fact that my best friend was gone. I cried for her family. I cried for the world that would not get to know her or the things that she loved. I just cried.
Patty’s dad came over once everyone had had enough, lifted me up by my arms and told me we were leaving. I got into the back seat, held my backpack in my lap and slept the entire way home.
Part two. In the Purple Clouds.
I live in a house that backs up to a dry creek bed on a farm on the edge of town. I live with my mom and dad. Patty lived about a mile away. Our senior year we would walk together to school and talk each other or not. Either way we just liked walking next to each other and finding our way to school.
When the Berhshams finally dropped me off at my house it was about two in the morning and I was very tired. Patty’s dad came to back of the car while I was opening the big back door and grabbing my pack and bandana. He just stood there as I shut the door and when I turned around he grabbed me, hugged me and then walked back to the drivers door. We caught eyes one last time and that was it, they drove off.
I watched the red dot brake lights fade off and then walked up to my porch and opened the front screen door. Drudgingly I mounted the stairs up to my room, plunged onto my bed and fell asleep in my clothes.
-
I woke up to my mom cooking. She never cooks…ever. In reality she is not even my real mother. She is my dad’s wife. She is nice and she loves me but never cooks or cleans or plants anything in the ground. So I found it quite odd that she would be cooking. But this is severely beside the point. Once, when I was eight my mom (my real mom) got caught up with a motivational speaker that she went to hear speak in El Paso. When she got back home from the conference I could tell something was different. She started staring out of windows for long periods of time and reading romance novels. If you knew my mom, you would know that this was very outside of her normal character. After about a month of this behavior she told my dad and I that she was going to hear him speak once more in San Antonio before he left to speak on the west coast. She never came back.
-
I woke up and sat on the edge of my bed with my face in my hands. It was almost as if I didn’t stand a chance that day. I didn’t stand a chance against these feelings. I didn’t have the motivation to go anywhere or do anything or talk to anyone. So I went and did all of the above. I walked down stairs and talked with my dad and Jill. I ate her breakfast. Then I grabbed my bandana with the film in it and walked out the kitchen door and into town. I had to get the film developed.
The general store in town is run and owned by Mr. Billy Flannigan. He is a short man. He is very unpleasant. He wears glasses that his wife used to wear before she died. He wears suspenders everyday and the same pair of brown banking shoes with the broken laces. A local woman by the name of Roberta Robin went to him in the early 90’s and convinced him to let her open a photo lab in his store. For him the convincing factor was the revenue increase. Roberta was OK with this fact. I walked in, waved to the surly Flannigan and made my way over to the back corner of the store.
Ms. Robin was a very nice woman and I imagined that she was the older version of Patty. I suppose that this was why I loved going into the store and talking to her on the weekends. But, I gave her the six rolls of film and she said they would be ready the next day. This made my anxious but I told her that was fine and walked back home.
When I finally made the fence line a storm was just rolling in. You could see it for miles and miles across the chest of the land. It was like a deep purple blanket being draped over the fields and desert lands. I walked into the house, grabbed a coke and walked back out onto the porch and sat on the boards that my father had hammered. In the subtlest of ways the wind began to lightly brush the house and my face and the grass began to move ever so slightly. Light drops began to fall and lightning split the sky open so as to show the heavens that lurked behind the clouds of purple. I just rested on the planks of oak and drank my coke and watched as the land was washed clean and the dust was settled and the water collected. Finally my dad and Jill came home from town and ran inside the house, hiding from the rain. Jill and dad made dinner and we laughed about some old stories and ate and drank and then I went to bed. It was hard to fall asleep. I was thinking about the pictures and her.
The next morning I woke with my feet resting uncovered in the cool fall air of my room. My face felt warm and my whole body was in a state of sinking. I lay there, on my bed, thinking of the pictures. I wondered about what they would show and if they would tell the story of her last days. After about twenty minutes of dreaming and wondering and creating stories in my head I sat up and rubbed my face and scratched my eyes. I got up, put on my white t-shirt and my pants and my old grey shoes and walked down stairs. Without even acknowledging dad or Jill I walked out the door, down the porch steps and out onto the gravel road. Walking to the store I debated with myself as to whether I actually wanted to see the photographs. What if they shown things that I didn’t want to see? What if they were plain and uninteresting? What if, from them, I was unable to re-create any story at all? This scared me and I stopped for a second in the middle of the road. I looked at the store up ahead and then back towards my house then at the store and again back towards my house. Then, as if someone were standing right next to me, I heard a voice tell me to keep going and to see her story.
I got to the store, saw Ms. Robin, paid my money and walked out of the store. But just before I could get to the door Ms. Robin called my name and I turned around to face her. For a long while she just looked at me and then she just said, “Good luck with those boy.” And that was it. I walked out of the store and made my way back out to the road and walked back home.
-
Every summer Patty and I would wait for the rains to come sweeping across the west Texas plains to fill the creek behind my house. The creek would swell and bulge and groan with the pains of summer wetness. Once the rain would start to fall she would run over to my house and come grab me out of my room. She would always be wearing a dress of some kind. Usually something that made me fall in love with her even more. Everything that she wore resembled the sunsets that would fall to the west of us. Some of her white summer dresses were like the pure silk fog that would come in and sway across the land. She would come and tell me that it was raining and she would drag me down to the banks. As the minutes would pass and the creek would swell her anxiousness and excitement would grow in equal correlation. Finally, once the water was at the perfect height she would wade out and float on her back, letting the rain fall on her cheeks and lips. On occasion I would join her and I always loved the coolness of the water. But, for the most part, I just loved watching her. I think she knew how much I loved watching her in the moments where she felt most alive. This was the last thing that we had done together before she left. That day the rain was exceptionally warm and the creek grew rapidly. She laid face up for almost an hour in the warm, murky water. And when she climbed her way up the bank of the creek she made her way towards me. When she had clawed her way out of the mud she fell into my lap and kissed my mouth. We lay there for a long time, in the rain, wet from head to toe. She was still in her dress and I in my jeans.
She whispered in my ears and told me the sweetest of things. She kissed my neck and I hers and we talked about the future and God and friends. We lay in my father’s barn, hidden from the elements, speaking of things that deserve high places in the hearts of men. I learned the curves of her hip bones and she the arches of my feet. Then, as quickly as the sun rose she was gone. She had to finish packing and I told her I would come to see her off at her home. Once we had said our goodbyes and waved at one another I walked back to the creek. I sat looking at the scrape marks that her hands and fingers had made as she climbed the bank of the creek, the marks that led to me, to my lap, to my lips.
-
When I walked into the house from the store Jill asked me if I was OK; I wasn’t. I sometimes hated the fact that I was old enough to think and react and live and grow on my own but still not old enough to run away. I was still not at a place where my feet were free. O’ the free heart.
-
I did not want to open the small, white, paper flap that held those pictures. I do not want to know that she, in reality, had captured nothing. I didn’t want to find out that she had been lonely or that she was scared and I believed that these pictures might depict that. I did not want to know these things. I did not want to hurt for her any more than I already did.
...
Monday, February 8, 2010
The Smell of a Woman.
Why is it that women smell so much better than their male counterparts?
I truly don’t believe that it has even the slightest to do with washing or showering or being misted with perfumes. I believe that this phenomenon is the product of women simply being in the presence of the best of things.
While small girls they lie in their mothers arms that have, like their mothers before them, come to drape themselves in the fragrances of life. These are the things that men tend to pass by and forget or all together lack experiencing. These are the things that men miss. But women embrace these things, whether consciously or not, in such a way that they become them.
Women are the flowers and the soap. They are the washed clothes and the fresh bread. Women are the rain and the branches bark and the warm soup. They are the plant that they grazed with their thigh and the coffee that they drink. Are these not the best of things? Are these not the simplicities in which we all long to be enraptured with? And yet I continue to contend that it is the obliviousness of women’s knowledge of this fact that makes it all the more attractive.
When men lie next to women it is as if they are being given their blessing for the day, their portion. It is as if they are in the deepest field of lilac that they have ever known. And yet, I continue to state soundly that this reality is so natural to women that they will never understand how precious this really is to men.
Even in their minds women place themselves in the sweetest of smells and the best of fragrances. While men daydream of oiled motors and gunpowder, women, in their minds, rest in flower shops and bakeries.
Pass by me one more time you woman of aromatic pleasantries. Your fragrance displaces me to ecstasy.
I truly don’t believe that it has even the slightest to do with washing or showering or being misted with perfumes. I believe that this phenomenon is the product of women simply being in the presence of the best of things.
While small girls they lie in their mothers arms that have, like their mothers before them, come to drape themselves in the fragrances of life. These are the things that men tend to pass by and forget or all together lack experiencing. These are the things that men miss. But women embrace these things, whether consciously or not, in such a way that they become them.
Women are the flowers and the soap. They are the washed clothes and the fresh bread. Women are the rain and the branches bark and the warm soup. They are the plant that they grazed with their thigh and the coffee that they drink. Are these not the best of things? Are these not the simplicities in which we all long to be enraptured with? And yet I continue to contend that it is the obliviousness of women’s knowledge of this fact that makes it all the more attractive.
When men lie next to women it is as if they are being given their blessing for the day, their portion. It is as if they are in the deepest field of lilac that they have ever known. And yet, I continue to state soundly that this reality is so natural to women that they will never understand how precious this really is to men.
Even in their minds women place themselves in the sweetest of smells and the best of fragrances. While men daydream of oiled motors and gunpowder, women, in their minds, rest in flower shops and bakeries.
Pass by me one more time you woman of aromatic pleasantries. Your fragrance displaces me to ecstasy.
Morning.
There is a buzzing next to my ear
I lie under my sheets unbelievably unwilling
rustling I know that sleep has passed
I jump down, stand up and stretch.
I don’t own coffee or a press
so my day starts with my other caffeine
reading a book I continue to rub the sleep from my eyes
others awake and day is begun.
I leave my home knowing that it awaits
my bed becoming dormant and deathly
so soon I will return
so soon I will be under the covers.
I lie under my sheets unbelievably unwilling
rustling I know that sleep has passed
I jump down, stand up and stretch.
I don’t own coffee or a press
so my day starts with my other caffeine
reading a book I continue to rub the sleep from my eyes
others awake and day is begun.
I leave my home knowing that it awaits
my bed becoming dormant and deathly
so soon I will return
so soon I will be under the covers.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
I Lay on the Floor.
I lay on the floor, prostrate, with shirt torn and slacks loosened around my waste. My cufflinks had been undone and I had spied my tie not ten feet from me set atop an armchair across the room. Inside my lower lip along my gum line I felt swelling and my tongue tasted the slightest traces of blood. My skull felt horrific and my sight was blurred. Although, at this moment, I did attribute this to the lack of sunlight within the room. Wooden slated shutters covered each window and expelled a great percentage of the light from the room. The other attribution to my lack of sight had to have been the large, swelling gash that I had procured over my left eye sometime between nine the prior night and eight twenty seven this very morning.
The room. Yes, where was I?
Rolling to my left I sat up quietly and rested there for a moment gauging my surroundings and attempting to place myself, but to no avail. The room, the furnishings, the decorations were all unrecognizable to me. Finally I staggered to a near window and opened, ever so slightly, the slats to allow only the most miniscule amount of light to enter. With my left eye half shut I proceeded to place myself back together in the most manageable way possible. Buttoning buttons and tying laces it struck my mind that I would, in the very near future, have to venture outside of this rooms walls and enquire as to where I was. But for now I was to continue to generate upon myself the most adequate image of a gentleman that I could.
The room. Yes, where was I?
Rolling to my left I sat up quietly and rested there for a moment gauging my surroundings and attempting to place myself, but to no avail. The room, the furnishings, the decorations were all unrecognizable to me. Finally I staggered to a near window and opened, ever so slightly, the slats to allow only the most miniscule amount of light to enter. With my left eye half shut I proceeded to place myself back together in the most manageable way possible. Buttoning buttons and tying laces it struck my mind that I would, in the very near future, have to venture outside of this rooms walls and enquire as to where I was. But for now I was to continue to generate upon myself the most adequate image of a gentleman that I could.
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