This started out as a point my character, Bryce, is making about the need for a revolution within his generation...it went a lot further--God started speaking to me, and I was very privileged to record it! Please read with an open mind. Then go to zeitgeistmovie.com and watch the two films provided, especially Addendum. Thank you and may God grant us pardon for all the wrong we have done!
To call the three of us average teenagers would be a vast understatement. I thought of us as the founders of our generation’s revolution. It had to start somewhere. And I really doubted it would effectively come from a place like MTV or YouTube or any other venue for brainwashing the masses, and selling them crap they don’t need. Everywhere I looked in the world, I found lost souls. A bunch of robots, who do the same fucking thing as everyone else, every single day of their miserable fucking lives. Sorry for the language, but this is a sensitive subject to me. Somewhere in time, the human race was imprisoned by a very small number of people who thought of a simple yet brilliant scheme to enslave people worse than they have ever been enslaved, at the cost of their lives, and for the monetary benefit of this select few. The most endangered, and the most targeted mass of people is those of adolescence. If there was anything that I could be happier about, in terms of my relationship with Ashton, was the way he taught me how to think for myself—to recognize the ploys of those who wanted my soul, and to fight them. That’s what we were doing—fighting the miserable, greed filled hearts that seemed to own everything in the world but happiness.
What a sad thing it is to depend on money for happiness, because it is utterly impossible to fill one’s heart with bank statements, horsepower, cashmere scarves, and bottles of vintage wine that could feed an entire village in any one of the many third world countries. What a sad and discouraging grip the Devil has on so many people—most of which have no idea that it is purely the work of all things wicked, what they strive for, how they get it, and who ultimately pays the price. Foolish! We are so foolish when we try to put our heads together, and he or she who tries to speak the truth is made an outcast, un-American and tyrannous. What a pitiful reality it is that we send our sons and daughters off to foreign lands to shoot and kill other human beings who were less privileged to begin with—ALL IN AN ATTEMPT TO FREE THEM! WHAT A SAD, SAD, JOKE that has been played on all of us. In truth, we imprison more and more, from the top to the bottom, for the benefit of such a select few—THE BANKS!
Wake up from your dreams, and face the nightmare at hand. We our owned by a series of make believe numbers in a databoard in a computer somewhere. Yet we exhaust ourselves, neglect our families by working longer and longer hours, literally kill each other, even our sons and daughters, because we’re too proud to admit that we’ve been pawns in a horrifically brilliant scheme, for almost 100 years.
PLEASE WAKE UP!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Saturday, December 6, 2008
There's Always a Reason to Love...Ask Steven
If Steven could throw his arms around the world and hug every human being alive he would.
He is not an extraordinary man, with extraordinary talents, or an extraordinary history.
He is a man, and just that.
His mother died giving birth to him; his father died six months earlier, storming the beaches of Normandy.
He was raised by his aunt and her live-in boyfriend, who sexually abused him until adolescence.
He suffered from a special but minor case of Autism. He never saw a doctor. It was never treated.
Having great difficulty making friends, he constructed a basketball hoop out of a plastic milk crate, tied it around a tree in the nearby forest, and shot baskets every day with a used soccer ball on the walk home from school.
Winter came hard in 1955 and he caught pneumonia. He recovered but would never breathe without discomfort again.
He taught himself how to write and throw a baseball. In fall tryouts, he struck out every batter he faced, but did not make the team.
He was black.
After high school he was drafted by the U.S. Army and deployed to Vietnam.
He served two tours, and came home to no parade, no applause. But he did bring with him a Purple Heart.
He has lived alone, ever since, in an understaffed, undersupplied, and poorly financed Veterans Home.
If Steven could throw his arms around the world and hug every human being alive he would.
But Steven has no arms.
He is not an extraordinary man, with extraordinary talents, or an extraordinary history.
He is a man, and just that.
His mother died giving birth to him; his father died six months earlier, storming the beaches of Normandy.
He was raised by his aunt and her live-in boyfriend, who sexually abused him until adolescence.
He suffered from a special but minor case of Autism. He never saw a doctor. It was never treated.
Having great difficulty making friends, he constructed a basketball hoop out of a plastic milk crate, tied it around a tree in the nearby forest, and shot baskets every day with a used soccer ball on the walk home from school.
Winter came hard in 1955 and he caught pneumonia. He recovered but would never breathe without discomfort again.
He taught himself how to write and throw a baseball. In fall tryouts, he struck out every batter he faced, but did not make the team.
He was black.
After high school he was drafted by the U.S. Army and deployed to Vietnam.
He served two tours, and came home to no parade, no applause. But he did bring with him a Purple Heart.
He has lived alone, ever since, in an understaffed, undersupplied, and poorly financed Veterans Home.
If Steven could throw his arms around the world and hug every human being alive he would.
But Steven has no arms.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
"With A Little Effort"--A Short Short Story
Charlie was a prominent businessman at a very young age. He had everything—cars, women, money, a condo in downtown Chicago.
When I met him, he stood in front of me at the corner shop—two brown paper bags of junk at his feet. He leaned down and removed a five dollar bill from the inside of his green wool sock, and paid for the pack of off-brand cigarettes.
Charlie was nearly sixty-years-old and homeless.
“Sorry kid,” he said, apologizing for the long wait.
“It’s okay, sir,” I replied.
“Sir? Look at me…I’m a dirtbag!”
Then he walked out of the store.
As I exited I saw him fishing through the trashcan for a food.
“My name is Stephen,” I said to him, holding my hand out to shake his.
“Charlie,” is all he said, without looking up.
“Can I buy you a sandwich or cup of soup?” I asked him.
“You can buy me a beer,” he responded.
“How’s Rick’s?” I asked.
“What do you want from me, kid?”
“Your company.”
A smile came across his face.
And I knew, I had succeeded for the day.
When I met him, he stood in front of me at the corner shop—two brown paper bags of junk at his feet. He leaned down and removed a five dollar bill from the inside of his green wool sock, and paid for the pack of off-brand cigarettes.
Charlie was nearly sixty-years-old and homeless.
“Sorry kid,” he said, apologizing for the long wait.
“It’s okay, sir,” I replied.
“Sir? Look at me…I’m a dirtbag!”
Then he walked out of the store.
As I exited I saw him fishing through the trashcan for a food.
“My name is Stephen,” I said to him, holding my hand out to shake his.
“Charlie,” is all he said, without looking up.
“Can I buy you a sandwich or cup of soup?” I asked him.
“You can buy me a beer,” he responded.
“How’s Rick’s?” I asked.
“What do you want from me, kid?”
“Your company.”
A smile came across his face.
And I knew, I had succeeded for the day.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Asleep in the Grass
Ernie was a very simple man, with a mountain of guilt on his shoulders, which he would never overcome.
He wiped the dish sink dry with a rubber squeegee, flipped the switch on the industrial dishwasher from ON to OFF, and carried the last bag of trash through the back door of the kitchen, to the dumpster in the parking lot. Then he nodded his head, and waved to the manager, who, in turn, closed and locked the large metal door. Behind the dumpster was his bicycle—his most treasured possession. He hid it back there, because he could not afford a lock, and he would always say a prayer that it would still be there when his shift was over. He slowly lifted his 67-year-old leg over the frame, and sat down. The ride home was short, but always some of the most enjoyable minutes of his day. The night air in Key West was usually cool and warm, at the same time. And on most nights, there were stars in the sky—if only a few, there were more than he had seen in prison, the past 48 years.
Ernie was the proud new resident of a small, bug-infested room, in a mildew-ridden crack house. After his release from the St. Thomas Correctional Facility, he had stayed at the YMCA for two months, saving every penny he made at the restaurant, to obtain his new home. He was very proud of his room, which was complete with an army cot, small bookshelf, a lawn chair, and a small table, made out of plastic milk crates and a cardboard box—all of which he had found inside dumpsters in the surrounding alleyways. The only book he owned was his Bible—a gift from the warden upon his departure of St. Thomas.
Every night when he would arrive home he would remove a Styrofoam box from his knapsack, and eat his dinner—edible portions of leftovers from the plates that were slid across the soapy dish sink toward him that evening. He would eat while reading Bible verses. Then, when he was finished, he would wrap his rosary as tightly around his right hand as comfortably possible, and he would lay down to sleep.
When Ernie woke up on Wednesday, October 29th, his day began and followed exactly how it had every day since becoming a free man again. It would not be until he left the restaurant that night that everything would change.
At 6 A.M. he brushed his teeth, combed his white hair with a part down the right side, dressed himself for the day, and grabbed his knapsack and Bible before locking the door behind him. He walked down the steps to the first floor, and onto the front porch. He hid his bicycle off of the left side of the house, behind a bush and several large trash cans. On this morning it was not there. Someone had found and stolen his most treasured possession.
“Ah bien. ¿Qué hace usted?” “Oh well. What do you do?” he said to himself, and started walking up the driveway toward the road.
He would run a little behind schedule on this day, because he walked significantly slower than he rode the bicycle. This would not deter him from accomplishing all of his tasks, though. He just continued down the road, dragging his right foot a bit—the consequence of an injury he endured while defending his cellmate in a fight 35 years previously. He saved his friend’s life, but his Achilles tendon was snapped like a rubber band by the makeshift shank. He had never walked the same since that day. He was proud of his limp. It reminded him of that day, and the friendship he had with Juan.
He arrived at the food bank around 7:10 A.M., which was fifteen minutes later than his usual time. Due to his tardiness, the only food left were a few pieces of toast. Before he took a bite he bowed his head and said, “Gracias Dios para este alimento. Gracias Dios por este día.” 2 “Thank you God for this food. Thank you God for this day.”
He ate slowly and quietly. He liked to be very mindful of every bite, to thank God thoroughly for his blessings. As he chewed, he would think about the wheat, flour, water, sunshine and human labor that all worked together to bring that piece of toast to his mouth.
When he finished, he gathered his Bible and knapsack, and began walking to his second destination of the day. When paced correctly, he could arrive at St. Mary’s with enough time to say his morning rosary and novena before 8:15 Mass. On this day, he walked in late, but was very appreciative to have made it in time for the Gospel—his favorite moment of every morning. Confession immediately followed the celebration of the Eucharist, and he was always the first one in line—usually the only one in line.
Every day he entered the confessional and said the same thing. “Please forgive me, father. I have let my wife down, and for this, I am greatly sorry.” They were the only sentences he had ever been able to put together in English. If ever asked to give a further explanation, he would respond, “No comprendo.” 3
Then he would say his penance at the feet of the Virgin Mary statue, light a candle, and continue on in his day.
He left St. Mary’s around 11 A.M., and he began his walk to the pier. On the way, he stopped at Sam’s, and purchased his lunch—the same lunch every day—an apple. When he got to the pier, he walked to the very end, and slowly sat down, so that his legs dangled off toward the pearly blue water. He took great pleasure in his two hours of ship watching. And just as he ate his breakfast, he would slowly chew each bite of the apple, thinking of the fertile soil, the strong tree roots that supported the trunk, the branches that supported the growing fruit, and everything that God provided to make that meal possible. One by one, he watched the ships come and go. Sometimes it was a cruiseliner; other times it was a fishing boat. No matter what the size or significance of the ship was, he would entertain himself, wondering what it must be like to be the captain. When the two hours were over, he would slowly rise to his feet and continue on his journey.
On the walk from the pier to the cemetery, he would stop at the flower shop on Simonton, and he would purchase one rose, for one dollar. Then he would continue to Olivia Street, where he always entered the graveyard from the southwest corner. When he arrived at the headstone, he knelt down, placed the rose on the weathered marble, and said the same thing, everyday.
“Perdóneme, mi amor. Yo le falla, y para este soy mucho arrepentido.” “Forgive me, my love. I have let you down, and for this, I am greatly sorry.”
Then he would remove a small pair of garden shears from his knapsack, and he would clip the grass around the headstone, so that it was level and short. Once he was done, he would kiss the stone, and rise to his feet, to continue on his way. He never spent much time at the gravesite; it hurt his heart too much.
So he walked up Olivia, to White, and then two blocks to Truman. Slowly but surely he made his way to work on time, and at 4 P.M. his apron was tied, and he stood behind the soapy dish sink, waiting for the dishes and cups and silverware to start sliding toward him.
No one at the restaurant talked to Ernie. Even though a great deal of the staff spoke Spanish, they made no attempts to hold a conversation with him. The extent of their exchanges would come when they made fun of his being 5 foot 4 in height. Also, Ernie could not speak English, but he could understand it when spoken by others. Openly, the others would talk about him. They would make fun of him, and call him a killer, or a psycho, or a jailbird.
When this happened he would close his eyes for a moment and say, “Deme por favor fuerza Dios.” “Please give me strength, God.”
Hour after hour, the dishes would stack up, and the silverware would slosh the medal pans of sanitizer water into the air, and all over him, and without a doubt, he would be covered up to his shoulders and neck in dirty water and half eaten food. He never complained, though. He just washed them all—one by one—until the final rack of glassware emerged from the industrial washer. And this night, October 29th going on the 30th after midnight, was a very special night for Ernie.
He wiped the dish sink dry with a rubber squeegee, flipped the switch on the industrial dishwasher from ON to OFF, and carried the last bag of trash through the back door of the kitchen, to the dumpster in the parking lot. Then he nodded his head, and waved to the manager, who, in turn, closed and locked the large metal door. When Ernie looked behind the dumpster, he remembered that his bicycle was not there. So, on he walked with his limp, ever so surely and slowly, back to the cemetery.
Although Ernie was a free man for just over two months, he had been imprisoned by this date, October 30th, for 48 years. He would remain imprisoned by this date until the day he died. So he did the only thing he thought would make him feel free; he lied down next to his wife—in the cold grass, without a pillow or blanket.
On this night, October 30th, forty-eight years ago, Ernie lied next to his wife in bed. It was just past midnight, when he arose in their small one room apartment. The shipment would be ashore very soon. So he dressed quietly as she slept, and locked the door behind him as he left. He met his business partner and co-smuggler at the pier, just as their ship rolled into harbor.
“Hola,” a man said to him as he walked off of the small boat.
“Hola, senor,” a very young Ernie responded, and then handed him every dollar he had to his name.
The man pointed him to a large bag, fifty pounds in weight, at the portside corner of the boat. Ernie and his friend walked over to the bag, opened it, grabbed a handful of the Cuban coffee beans, and held them just under their noses.
“Muy bien!” Ernie said to his friend.
“Si. Maravilloso!” his friend responded.
They each grabbed an end of the bag, and they carried it through the dark and quiet streets of Key West. When they arrived at his friend’s home, they put the bag inside of the small shed out back, and locked it.
Cuban coffee had become illegal, along with all other forms of Cuban goods, just ten days earlier. On October 19, 1960 the U.S. government posed an embargo on Cuban goods, to counter the new Cuban dictator’s expropriation of American landholdings in Cuba. Coffee was Ernie’s business. It was his way of life. And now that Cuban coffee, in particular, was illegal, he could sell it to his customers, under the table, at an exorbitant price. He and his friend were sure to make a fortune. So they said farewell to one another, and parted ways.
When Ernie arrived home, the door he had locked was wide open.
“Rosa?” he said as he walked in. “Rosa!” he screamed as he rushed to her bloodied body.
She had been savagely murdered. Stabbed and strangled to death. Sobbing, he held her, and cried out, “¿Por qué? ¿Dios, por qué?” “Why? God, why?”
Then the sirens came. The police rushed up the stairs, into his apartment, and without asking even one question, arrested Ernie. In such agony, despair, and feeling of worthlessness, he could not muster the words to defend himself. He just continued to cry as he was dragged away from his wife, and off to jail.
Ernie’s friend and business partner had set him up. While they were at the pier, smuggling the bag of coffee, he had sent an assassin to Ernie’s house, to murder his wife. Then, a few moments after they had hid the bag of coffee beans in the shed, Ernie’s friend called the police, and reported that his friend had just come to his house and confessed to murdering his wife. The testimony held up in court, because the judge was promised 20% of all earnings made from Cuban coffee from that point on.
Ernie went to prison. Rosa went to the graveyard.
Forty-eight years later, Ernie lied alongside of his wife, like he had wished he would have every day for those forty-eight years. As tears welled up in his eyes, he spoke to her.
English Translation:
“My dearest Rosa. My Love. It has been too long since we have lied next to one another. That is all my fault. I can never forgive myself for what happened. I do not expect you or God to, either, but I pray for it every day. I served 48 years in prison, and I would serve it again and again and again, if it meant you would have life. I let you down, my love. I should have never left your side. I should have been a good husband. I should have protected you. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I love you. I love you. I love you. I will never leave you again. I will never leave you again. I promise.”
Ernie fell asleep to tears streaming down his face, and images of his young bride in his mind. When he awoke, he returned home. At 6 A.M. he brushed his teeth, combed his white hair with a part down the right side, dressed himself for the day, and grabbed his knapsack and Bible before locking the door behind him. He started his day the same way as the day before. And he continued it the same way, as well. In fact, the only way he changed his day to day routine, was the way he ended it.
Every night, for the rest of his life, Ernie lied down in the grass, alongside his wife, and said the same thing, before closing his eyes, and falling asleep.
He wiped the dish sink dry with a rubber squeegee, flipped the switch on the industrial dishwasher from ON to OFF, and carried the last bag of trash through the back door of the kitchen, to the dumpster in the parking lot. Then he nodded his head, and waved to the manager, who, in turn, closed and locked the large metal door. Behind the dumpster was his bicycle—his most treasured possession. He hid it back there, because he could not afford a lock, and he would always say a prayer that it would still be there when his shift was over. He slowly lifted his 67-year-old leg over the frame, and sat down. The ride home was short, but always some of the most enjoyable minutes of his day. The night air in Key West was usually cool and warm, at the same time. And on most nights, there were stars in the sky—if only a few, there were more than he had seen in prison, the past 48 years.
Ernie was the proud new resident of a small, bug-infested room, in a mildew-ridden crack house. After his release from the St. Thomas Correctional Facility, he had stayed at the YMCA for two months, saving every penny he made at the restaurant, to obtain his new home. He was very proud of his room, which was complete with an army cot, small bookshelf, a lawn chair, and a small table, made out of plastic milk crates and a cardboard box—all of which he had found inside dumpsters in the surrounding alleyways. The only book he owned was his Bible—a gift from the warden upon his departure of St. Thomas.
Every night when he would arrive home he would remove a Styrofoam box from his knapsack, and eat his dinner—edible portions of leftovers from the plates that were slid across the soapy dish sink toward him that evening. He would eat while reading Bible verses. Then, when he was finished, he would wrap his rosary as tightly around his right hand as comfortably possible, and he would lay down to sleep.
When Ernie woke up on Wednesday, October 29th, his day began and followed exactly how it had every day since becoming a free man again. It would not be until he left the restaurant that night that everything would change.
At 6 A.M. he brushed his teeth, combed his white hair with a part down the right side, dressed himself for the day, and grabbed his knapsack and Bible before locking the door behind him. He walked down the steps to the first floor, and onto the front porch. He hid his bicycle off of the left side of the house, behind a bush and several large trash cans. On this morning it was not there. Someone had found and stolen his most treasured possession.
“Ah bien. ¿Qué hace usted?” “Oh well. What do you do?” he said to himself, and started walking up the driveway toward the road.
He would run a little behind schedule on this day, because he walked significantly slower than he rode the bicycle. This would not deter him from accomplishing all of his tasks, though. He just continued down the road, dragging his right foot a bit—the consequence of an injury he endured while defending his cellmate in a fight 35 years previously. He saved his friend’s life, but his Achilles tendon was snapped like a rubber band by the makeshift shank. He had never walked the same since that day. He was proud of his limp. It reminded him of that day, and the friendship he had with Juan.
He arrived at the food bank around 7:10 A.M., which was fifteen minutes later than his usual time. Due to his tardiness, the only food left were a few pieces of toast. Before he took a bite he bowed his head and said, “Gracias Dios para este alimento. Gracias Dios por este día.” 2 “Thank you God for this food. Thank you God for this day.”
He ate slowly and quietly. He liked to be very mindful of every bite, to thank God thoroughly for his blessings. As he chewed, he would think about the wheat, flour, water, sunshine and human labor that all worked together to bring that piece of toast to his mouth.
When he finished, he gathered his Bible and knapsack, and began walking to his second destination of the day. When paced correctly, he could arrive at St. Mary’s with enough time to say his morning rosary and novena before 8:15 Mass. On this day, he walked in late, but was very appreciative to have made it in time for the Gospel—his favorite moment of every morning. Confession immediately followed the celebration of the Eucharist, and he was always the first one in line—usually the only one in line.
Every day he entered the confessional and said the same thing. “Please forgive me, father. I have let my wife down, and for this, I am greatly sorry.” They were the only sentences he had ever been able to put together in English. If ever asked to give a further explanation, he would respond, “No comprendo.” 3
Then he would say his penance at the feet of the Virgin Mary statue, light a candle, and continue on in his day.
He left St. Mary’s around 11 A.M., and he began his walk to the pier. On the way, he stopped at Sam’s, and purchased his lunch—the same lunch every day—an apple. When he got to the pier, he walked to the very end, and slowly sat down, so that his legs dangled off toward the pearly blue water. He took great pleasure in his two hours of ship watching. And just as he ate his breakfast, he would slowly chew each bite of the apple, thinking of the fertile soil, the strong tree roots that supported the trunk, the branches that supported the growing fruit, and everything that God provided to make that meal possible. One by one, he watched the ships come and go. Sometimes it was a cruiseliner; other times it was a fishing boat. No matter what the size or significance of the ship was, he would entertain himself, wondering what it must be like to be the captain. When the two hours were over, he would slowly rise to his feet and continue on his journey.
On the walk from the pier to the cemetery, he would stop at the flower shop on Simonton, and he would purchase one rose, for one dollar. Then he would continue to Olivia Street, where he always entered the graveyard from the southwest corner. When he arrived at the headstone, he knelt down, placed the rose on the weathered marble, and said the same thing, everyday.
“Perdóneme, mi amor. Yo le falla, y para este soy mucho arrepentido.” “Forgive me, my love. I have let you down, and for this, I am greatly sorry.”
Then he would remove a small pair of garden shears from his knapsack, and he would clip the grass around the headstone, so that it was level and short. Once he was done, he would kiss the stone, and rise to his feet, to continue on his way. He never spent much time at the gravesite; it hurt his heart too much.
So he walked up Olivia, to White, and then two blocks to Truman. Slowly but surely he made his way to work on time, and at 4 P.M. his apron was tied, and he stood behind the soapy dish sink, waiting for the dishes and cups and silverware to start sliding toward him.
No one at the restaurant talked to Ernie. Even though a great deal of the staff spoke Spanish, they made no attempts to hold a conversation with him. The extent of their exchanges would come when they made fun of his being 5 foot 4 in height. Also, Ernie could not speak English, but he could understand it when spoken by others. Openly, the others would talk about him. They would make fun of him, and call him a killer, or a psycho, or a jailbird.
When this happened he would close his eyes for a moment and say, “Deme por favor fuerza Dios.” “Please give me strength, God.”
Hour after hour, the dishes would stack up, and the silverware would slosh the medal pans of sanitizer water into the air, and all over him, and without a doubt, he would be covered up to his shoulders and neck in dirty water and half eaten food. He never complained, though. He just washed them all—one by one—until the final rack of glassware emerged from the industrial washer. And this night, October 29th going on the 30th after midnight, was a very special night for Ernie.
He wiped the dish sink dry with a rubber squeegee, flipped the switch on the industrial dishwasher from ON to OFF, and carried the last bag of trash through the back door of the kitchen, to the dumpster in the parking lot. Then he nodded his head, and waved to the manager, who, in turn, closed and locked the large metal door. When Ernie looked behind the dumpster, he remembered that his bicycle was not there. So, on he walked with his limp, ever so surely and slowly, back to the cemetery.
Although Ernie was a free man for just over two months, he had been imprisoned by this date, October 30th, for 48 years. He would remain imprisoned by this date until the day he died. So he did the only thing he thought would make him feel free; he lied down next to his wife—in the cold grass, without a pillow or blanket.
On this night, October 30th, forty-eight years ago, Ernie lied next to his wife in bed. It was just past midnight, when he arose in their small one room apartment. The shipment would be ashore very soon. So he dressed quietly as she slept, and locked the door behind him as he left. He met his business partner and co-smuggler at the pier, just as their ship rolled into harbor.
“Hola,” a man said to him as he walked off of the small boat.
“Hola, senor,” a very young Ernie responded, and then handed him every dollar he had to his name.
The man pointed him to a large bag, fifty pounds in weight, at the portside corner of the boat. Ernie and his friend walked over to the bag, opened it, grabbed a handful of the Cuban coffee beans, and held them just under their noses.
“Muy bien!” Ernie said to his friend.
“Si. Maravilloso!” his friend responded.
They each grabbed an end of the bag, and they carried it through the dark and quiet streets of Key West. When they arrived at his friend’s home, they put the bag inside of the small shed out back, and locked it.
Cuban coffee had become illegal, along with all other forms of Cuban goods, just ten days earlier. On October 19, 1960 the U.S. government posed an embargo on Cuban goods, to counter the new Cuban dictator’s expropriation of American landholdings in Cuba. Coffee was Ernie’s business. It was his way of life. And now that Cuban coffee, in particular, was illegal, he could sell it to his customers, under the table, at an exorbitant price. He and his friend were sure to make a fortune. So they said farewell to one another, and parted ways.
When Ernie arrived home, the door he had locked was wide open.
“Rosa?” he said as he walked in. “Rosa!” he screamed as he rushed to her bloodied body.
She had been savagely murdered. Stabbed and strangled to death. Sobbing, he held her, and cried out, “¿Por qué? ¿Dios, por qué?” “Why? God, why?”
Then the sirens came. The police rushed up the stairs, into his apartment, and without asking even one question, arrested Ernie. In such agony, despair, and feeling of worthlessness, he could not muster the words to defend himself. He just continued to cry as he was dragged away from his wife, and off to jail.
Ernie’s friend and business partner had set him up. While they were at the pier, smuggling the bag of coffee, he had sent an assassin to Ernie’s house, to murder his wife. Then, a few moments after they had hid the bag of coffee beans in the shed, Ernie’s friend called the police, and reported that his friend had just come to his house and confessed to murdering his wife. The testimony held up in court, because the judge was promised 20% of all earnings made from Cuban coffee from that point on.
Ernie went to prison. Rosa went to the graveyard.
Forty-eight years later, Ernie lied alongside of his wife, like he had wished he would have every day for those forty-eight years. As tears welled up in his eyes, he spoke to her.
English Translation:
“My dearest Rosa. My Love. It has been too long since we have lied next to one another. That is all my fault. I can never forgive myself for what happened. I do not expect you or God to, either, but I pray for it every day. I served 48 years in prison, and I would serve it again and again and again, if it meant you would have life. I let you down, my love. I should have never left your side. I should have been a good husband. I should have protected you. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I love you. I love you. I love you. I will never leave you again. I will never leave you again. I promise.”
Ernie fell asleep to tears streaming down his face, and images of his young bride in his mind. When he awoke, he returned home. At 6 A.M. he brushed his teeth, combed his white hair with a part down the right side, dressed himself for the day, and grabbed his knapsack and Bible before locking the door behind him. He started his day the same way as the day before. And he continued it the same way, as well. In fact, the only way he changed his day to day routine, was the way he ended it.
Every night, for the rest of his life, Ernie lied down in the grass, alongside his wife, and said the same thing, before closing his eyes, and falling asleep.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Good as Gold
Jimmy was a dreamer. He was born that way. When he looked into the sky as a child, and saw the stars, which shone brightly in the sky, he was sure he’d soon view them from the moon…and then Mars…and then Jupiter…and so on. Of course, he grew up a little bit, realized that a trip to outer space was not so easily obtained, and settled for being the greatest quarterback in the history of football. His body did not cooperate with his aspirations, however, and his growing ceased to continue when he was just 5 foot 10 and 170 pounds. At this point he settled for the less glorious occupation of being a movie star. His mother told him he had a knack for the spotlight—at the very ripe age of 6—he just kept believing it, all the way into his early 30’s. So he gathered all of his money and moved to Hollywood, sure as day that he would be the next big thing.
Within 3 months he was nearly penniless, worried about the eviction notice on his front door, and positive that his next paycheck from the corner gas station would not be enough to keep him from going homeless. So he packed everything he could in a backpack, and took the bus to the Greyhound station. A one way ticket back to Boston cost him everything he had, save for ten bucks, which he could hopefully stretch out for a couple meals on the long road home.
When he arrived, his mother greeted him with open arms. “My baby boy,” she said as he buried his head in her chest, sobbing and embarrassed. “Why are you crying? You should be proud of yourself for trying.”
The only words he could muster through his cries of pain were, “I’ve failed…I’ve failed at everything.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “You’ve been a daring explorer, and besides, you don’t want to be one of those movie stars…all of the good ones die young, and I need you to take care of me.”
Those words were a healing solution for his heart’s present troubles. She was older, indeed, and since his father had passed there was no one else to aid her. So he moved back into the room he had occupied as a boy for two decades. He was not the slightest bit surprised when it was exactly as he had left it, 14 years previously.
“Jimmy,” his mother said as she handed him a warm breakfast on his first morning back, “You’ve always been such a good story-teller. Why don’t you be a writer? You can inspire people, talking about the things you’ve done and the places you’ve been.”
He picked up a pen and began jotting down ideas that afternoon.
A few weeks later, his mother became ill. She was getting older, and her body’s resistance was weakening daily. Money became tight, due to the doctor visits and prescription drugs, and Jimmy was forced to put down the pen and pick up an apron. He was in his mid-thirties, waiting tables at a Martini bar near Harvard.
Every day was a challenge, both physically—having to attend to his mother nearly twenty hours a day, and mentally—having to serve over-priced drinks to well-off Ivy League academics, who condescended him by the very way they demanded round after round, rarely leaving less than a 40% tip. Of course he needed the money more than they did. Look how old he was, and what he was doing.
Jimmy’s lone friend was a woman, close to him in age, who also worked as a cocktail server. Sarah was every bit his fancy. She was pretty, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and an optimistic approach to the tasks in front of her. She loved listening to his stories, and admired his youthful dreaming, despite the obstacles that always seemed to overcome it. She, too, had seen her share of troubles. When she was just 16 she lost all of her living family members in a plane crash, and had been on her own ever since. She refrained from telling him, because she preferred not to speak of it. Looking forward, for her, was always the more comfortable thing to do.
Evening after evening they would pass each other, back and forth, left and right, as they relayed orders and overflowing glasses of gin around the dimly lit bar. Night after night they would sit down and have their shift drink. She would have a vodka martini, up, with a couple olives; he would entertain a gin gimlet martini, with a twist of lemon. Most nights they would gripe and complain to one another about something that was said to them, by an intoxicated kid, in a derogatory way of putting them down—putting them in their place.
This night, the night before Christmas Eve, they talked about what they would like, if Santa Claus were to actually exist. Despite Jimmy’s nature, he asked for a time machine.
“Why a time machine?” she asked.
“So I could go back to when I was a young man, and do everything differently.”
He was worn down. He was out of dreams. He was a pessimistic realist of epic proportions. He needed to be relieved of the burden of failure that plagued him for so many years.
Sarah stroked his back lovingly and said, “If everything on Earth was perfect, we’d have no need to strive to be with God…in Heaven.”
“So how about you?” he asked.
“Me?”
“Yeah. What would you like if Santa Claus really existed?”
“I’d take a martini…just like this one—
“That’s all?”
“I wasn’t finished,” she continued. “I would take a martini just like this one…but instead of it being after a night of serving, it would be at my very own place.”
“So you would like to own a martini bar?”
“Exactly.”
“Why a martini bar? Don’t you hate this place, like I do? Putting up with crap from people ten years younger, who have ten times more money?”
“I don’t hate this place. It provides me a living. I can afford food and a home and money to buy the things I need. Besides, I’d be the owner. I wouldn’t have to serve anyone that I didn’t want to.”
“I’ll tell you what,” he began. “I’ll buy you a martini bar. I promise.”
In an instant, the dreamer side of Jimmy was ignited. He desired greatness again. But something was different. This time, he desired greatness, not for himself, but for someone else. And this time, what he desired felt like more of an obligation than a goal.
They closed the bar, and both Jimmy and Sarah went their separate ways. When Jimmy arrived home, he did as always and entered his mother’s room. The television set still beamed, illuminated by the pixels, which made up the moving images. This was not like his mother. She always managed to turn off the TV before going to bed. Worried, he walked down the hallway toward the bathroom.
“Mom?” he called out as he pushed open the door. “Mom!” he shouted, as she lay motionless on the floor.
He knelt down and lifted her body off of the cold tiles. She had no pulse. She had no life. He sobbed as he held her. And as he buried his head in her chest the only words he could muster through his cries of pain were, “I’ve failed…I’ve failed at everything. I should have been here. I’ve failed you!”
He stayed like that, embracing her until the paramedics came and took her away.
He did not sleep that night. Instead, he began drinking. He began drinking hard.
When he awakened it was mid-afternoon, and he was lying on the bathroom floor, aside the toilet, exactly where he had found his mother. He first looked down at the floor, where he had carved with a knife the words, “I have failed,” into the tile floor. Then he looked up, and saw the noose, tied tightly around a hook in the ceiling. He could not recall his suicide attempt.
So he pulled himself up—first to his knees, and then to his feet. He looked at the noose and thought, “I have failed at everything.” So he turned the footstool upright, and began climbing to the top of the three steps. “Alast,” he thought, “I will succeed.” As he turned on the top stool so that the noose would fit tightly around his neck, he caught a glimpse of a gold Crucifix, which hung next to the door.
Then he remembered the last time he saw a gold Crucifix. It dangled off of Sarah’s neck the night before when she said, “If everything on Earth was perfect, we’d have no need to strive to be with God…in Heaven.”
The grim and painful look on his face turned into a smile, and then a tear. All he could think of was his promise to her. She was all that he had, and even though he did not know it, he was all that she had.
He loosened the rope from around his neck, and stepped down from the stool. His heart was beating with a burning desire to succeed for her.
So he washed up, changed clothes, and went to work. It was Christmas Eve, and he was happier to be there than ever before. Much to his delight, the owner of the bar had reserved the upstairs room for a family Christmas party. Although they had never even met before, Jimmy asked the owner to step aside. Then he told him everything—all of his dreams that were shattered—all of his attempts for success that were sidetracked—all of his previous failures in life. He told him of his mother’s death, and his subsequent attempt of suicide the night before. He told him of his awakening upon seeing the gold Crucifix. And finally, he told him of his promise to Sarah. When he was done with the story, he asked if he could buy the bar.
Without hesitation, the owner agreed. He said, “We close at midnight, and you re-open at midnight. I will sell you the bar for ten minutes, at a dollar per minute.”
Amazed and totally astounded by the graciousness of a near stranger, Jimmy had to ask, “Why? I mean, thank you! But why are you so eager to do this for me?”
“Because,” the owner said, as he removed a chain from around his neck, “It’s Christmas. And Christmas is about miracles.” Hanging from the chain was a gold Crucifix.
So, Jimmy and Sarah closed the bar down as they always had—flipping chairs and stocking glasses before turning the lights nearly all the way off. Jimmy waited anxiously as the minutes slowly ticked away. Finally, it was midnight.
“Care to have a drink?” she asked.
“It’s up to you,” he said. “You own the place.”
“Sure I do,” she laughed. “In my wildest dreams.”
“No, really,” he declared. “I bought it for you.”
“Have you been drinkin?” she asked.
Then the owner came down from his party upstairs. He walked over to Sarah, and handed her the key.
“Take care of the place, huh?” he said.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“You own the joint now. And you’ve got nine and a half minutes until it’s mine again. So enjoy the drinks while they’re free! And please, lock up behind you.” He turned and winked at Jimmy.
By the time it was said and done, the barkeep had fixed their drinks. She had a vodka martini, up, with a couple olives; he entertained a gin gimlet martini, with a twist of lemon.
My father did not propose to my mother that night. He told me it occurred some time shortly after. But a plaque still hangs in my bar, directly above the two stools they sat in that night, which reads:
“Jimmy was a dreamer! I’m living proof of his success!”
Within 3 months he was nearly penniless, worried about the eviction notice on his front door, and positive that his next paycheck from the corner gas station would not be enough to keep him from going homeless. So he packed everything he could in a backpack, and took the bus to the Greyhound station. A one way ticket back to Boston cost him everything he had, save for ten bucks, which he could hopefully stretch out for a couple meals on the long road home.
When he arrived, his mother greeted him with open arms. “My baby boy,” she said as he buried his head in her chest, sobbing and embarrassed. “Why are you crying? You should be proud of yourself for trying.”
The only words he could muster through his cries of pain were, “I’ve failed…I’ve failed at everything.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “You’ve been a daring explorer, and besides, you don’t want to be one of those movie stars…all of the good ones die young, and I need you to take care of me.”
Those words were a healing solution for his heart’s present troubles. She was older, indeed, and since his father had passed there was no one else to aid her. So he moved back into the room he had occupied as a boy for two decades. He was not the slightest bit surprised when it was exactly as he had left it, 14 years previously.
“Jimmy,” his mother said as she handed him a warm breakfast on his first morning back, “You’ve always been such a good story-teller. Why don’t you be a writer? You can inspire people, talking about the things you’ve done and the places you’ve been.”
He picked up a pen and began jotting down ideas that afternoon.
A few weeks later, his mother became ill. She was getting older, and her body’s resistance was weakening daily. Money became tight, due to the doctor visits and prescription drugs, and Jimmy was forced to put down the pen and pick up an apron. He was in his mid-thirties, waiting tables at a Martini bar near Harvard.
Every day was a challenge, both physically—having to attend to his mother nearly twenty hours a day, and mentally—having to serve over-priced drinks to well-off Ivy League academics, who condescended him by the very way they demanded round after round, rarely leaving less than a 40% tip. Of course he needed the money more than they did. Look how old he was, and what he was doing.
Jimmy’s lone friend was a woman, close to him in age, who also worked as a cocktail server. Sarah was every bit his fancy. She was pretty, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and an optimistic approach to the tasks in front of her. She loved listening to his stories, and admired his youthful dreaming, despite the obstacles that always seemed to overcome it. She, too, had seen her share of troubles. When she was just 16 she lost all of her living family members in a plane crash, and had been on her own ever since. She refrained from telling him, because she preferred not to speak of it. Looking forward, for her, was always the more comfortable thing to do.
Evening after evening they would pass each other, back and forth, left and right, as they relayed orders and overflowing glasses of gin around the dimly lit bar. Night after night they would sit down and have their shift drink. She would have a vodka martini, up, with a couple olives; he would entertain a gin gimlet martini, with a twist of lemon. Most nights they would gripe and complain to one another about something that was said to them, by an intoxicated kid, in a derogatory way of putting them down—putting them in their place.
This night, the night before Christmas Eve, they talked about what they would like, if Santa Claus were to actually exist. Despite Jimmy’s nature, he asked for a time machine.
“Why a time machine?” she asked.
“So I could go back to when I was a young man, and do everything differently.”
He was worn down. He was out of dreams. He was a pessimistic realist of epic proportions. He needed to be relieved of the burden of failure that plagued him for so many years.
Sarah stroked his back lovingly and said, “If everything on Earth was perfect, we’d have no need to strive to be with God…in Heaven.”
“So how about you?” he asked.
“Me?”
“Yeah. What would you like if Santa Claus really existed?”
“I’d take a martini…just like this one—
“That’s all?”
“I wasn’t finished,” she continued. “I would take a martini just like this one…but instead of it being after a night of serving, it would be at my very own place.”
“So you would like to own a martini bar?”
“Exactly.”
“Why a martini bar? Don’t you hate this place, like I do? Putting up with crap from people ten years younger, who have ten times more money?”
“I don’t hate this place. It provides me a living. I can afford food and a home and money to buy the things I need. Besides, I’d be the owner. I wouldn’t have to serve anyone that I didn’t want to.”
“I’ll tell you what,” he began. “I’ll buy you a martini bar. I promise.”
In an instant, the dreamer side of Jimmy was ignited. He desired greatness again. But something was different. This time, he desired greatness, not for himself, but for someone else. And this time, what he desired felt like more of an obligation than a goal.
They closed the bar, and both Jimmy and Sarah went their separate ways. When Jimmy arrived home, he did as always and entered his mother’s room. The television set still beamed, illuminated by the pixels, which made up the moving images. This was not like his mother. She always managed to turn off the TV before going to bed. Worried, he walked down the hallway toward the bathroom.
“Mom?” he called out as he pushed open the door. “Mom!” he shouted, as she lay motionless on the floor.
He knelt down and lifted her body off of the cold tiles. She had no pulse. She had no life. He sobbed as he held her. And as he buried his head in her chest the only words he could muster through his cries of pain were, “I’ve failed…I’ve failed at everything. I should have been here. I’ve failed you!”
He stayed like that, embracing her until the paramedics came and took her away.
He did not sleep that night. Instead, he began drinking. He began drinking hard.
When he awakened it was mid-afternoon, and he was lying on the bathroom floor, aside the toilet, exactly where he had found his mother. He first looked down at the floor, where he had carved with a knife the words, “I have failed,” into the tile floor. Then he looked up, and saw the noose, tied tightly around a hook in the ceiling. He could not recall his suicide attempt.
So he pulled himself up—first to his knees, and then to his feet. He looked at the noose and thought, “I have failed at everything.” So he turned the footstool upright, and began climbing to the top of the three steps. “Alast,” he thought, “I will succeed.” As he turned on the top stool so that the noose would fit tightly around his neck, he caught a glimpse of a gold Crucifix, which hung next to the door.
Then he remembered the last time he saw a gold Crucifix. It dangled off of Sarah’s neck the night before when she said, “If everything on Earth was perfect, we’d have no need to strive to be with God…in Heaven.”
The grim and painful look on his face turned into a smile, and then a tear. All he could think of was his promise to her. She was all that he had, and even though he did not know it, he was all that she had.
He loosened the rope from around his neck, and stepped down from the stool. His heart was beating with a burning desire to succeed for her.
So he washed up, changed clothes, and went to work. It was Christmas Eve, and he was happier to be there than ever before. Much to his delight, the owner of the bar had reserved the upstairs room for a family Christmas party. Although they had never even met before, Jimmy asked the owner to step aside. Then he told him everything—all of his dreams that were shattered—all of his attempts for success that were sidetracked—all of his previous failures in life. He told him of his mother’s death, and his subsequent attempt of suicide the night before. He told him of his awakening upon seeing the gold Crucifix. And finally, he told him of his promise to Sarah. When he was done with the story, he asked if he could buy the bar.
Without hesitation, the owner agreed. He said, “We close at midnight, and you re-open at midnight. I will sell you the bar for ten minutes, at a dollar per minute.”
Amazed and totally astounded by the graciousness of a near stranger, Jimmy had to ask, “Why? I mean, thank you! But why are you so eager to do this for me?”
“Because,” the owner said, as he removed a chain from around his neck, “It’s Christmas. And Christmas is about miracles.” Hanging from the chain was a gold Crucifix.
So, Jimmy and Sarah closed the bar down as they always had—flipping chairs and stocking glasses before turning the lights nearly all the way off. Jimmy waited anxiously as the minutes slowly ticked away. Finally, it was midnight.
“Care to have a drink?” she asked.
“It’s up to you,” he said. “You own the place.”
“Sure I do,” she laughed. “In my wildest dreams.”
“No, really,” he declared. “I bought it for you.”
“Have you been drinkin?” she asked.
Then the owner came down from his party upstairs. He walked over to Sarah, and handed her the key.
“Take care of the place, huh?” he said.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“You own the joint now. And you’ve got nine and a half minutes until it’s mine again. So enjoy the drinks while they’re free! And please, lock up behind you.” He turned and winked at Jimmy.
By the time it was said and done, the barkeep had fixed their drinks. She had a vodka martini, up, with a couple olives; he entertained a gin gimlet martini, with a twist of lemon.
My father did not propose to my mother that night. He told me it occurred some time shortly after. But a plaque still hangs in my bar, directly above the two stools they sat in that night, which reads:
“Jimmy was a dreamer! I’m living proof of his success!”
Thursday, October 30, 2008
An Enduring Truth
Flowers are my favorite miracle of nature. They are like the inner-beauty that every human possesses but rarely can show. We all have a direction in society—a job, an education, a family—but these are all man-made goals and accomplishments during our time on Earth. What is most real and authentic and natural is that which God has made. Our beating hearts, our breathing lungs, our mindful sympathy and love for people, not things. What I find to be one of the biggest ironies in this world of ours is that which appears concrete and real is, in fact, the most expendable and perishable—the most non-existent. And that which one cannot see with his or her eyes, but must feel with his or her heart is what God promises will be with us for eternity. I heard a very admirable and humble priest once end his homily by saying, “For the Christian, love is all encompassing. It is the ONLY reality.” My heart leapt with joy. However, God has not only made Christians with this quality. Instead, every soul He has ever created has been created the same, and must be treated the same. Force does not defeat force. Nor does hate defeat hate. In the end it is LOVE which will conquer ALL. Because God is LOVE!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
In My Opinion
In my opinion, it does not really matter who is voted in as president of the United States in one week. It’s hard to pick the lesser of the two evils. The common misconception among the American people is that there are core differences between the Democratic and Republican parties. The sad and discouraging truth is that politicians are…well, politicians. I will not go as far as generalizing and saying that every politician is a liar and completely self-obsessed. But I will admit that a great deal of them are in the profession for the same reason that people are in many other professions—to make money—as much of it as possible.
Take for instance, the recent $850 billion bailout proposed and granted by the U.S. Congress, which did nothing to improve or benefit anyone but the criminals that caused it, and the criminals that passed it. Although we, as a people, are definitely guilty of living above our means, there should still be a great deal of blame to be placed on the shoulders of individuals who should have foresaw the ultimate crash, but for personal financial gain, did nothing but encourage it. Let’s practice some common sense right now—many people saw a loophole, a chance to benefit greatly off of a great number of people’s misfortunes, and they grasped the opportunity—causing an enormous economic downfall, which has affected everyone in the country but the extremely wealthy. Then, when those companies began to implode due to their own follies, they begged for help to Congress, which then decided to grant them the money (our money, via taxes) to get them back on their feet. So, if I am correct, the man or woman who could not afford to pay for the house they were approved financing for, and subsequently lost, still has to pay for it, and on top of that, must additionally pay money to stabilize the very company that swindled them out of that home. I could be wrong, but I do not think any one single member of Congress lost their home because of this scam. However, each member of Congress who approved the astronomically high (with no statistical basis of how high it should be) bailout, will in turn, benefit from it. That, I guarantee!
CONGRESSMAN: Hi, Mr. Banker who promised a family of five that they could afford that four bedroom, two and a half bathroom, home in the suburbs for $300,000, even though they bring in $50,000 a year in salary.
MR. BANKER: Hi, Mr. Congressman, who has embezzled thousands, if not millions, of dollars from taxpayers on various government projects which were granted to companies with higher bidding prices, because the CEO of that company is a “close friend” of yours.
CONGRESSMAN: How’s that housing scam going for you?
MR. BANKER: Great! We’ve suckered hundreds of people into thinking they can afford these houses. You should see the look on their faces when they’re told that they’re approved for the house of their dreams.
CONGRESSMAN: But they’ll eventually be foreclosed on…it’s only a matter of time.
MR. BANKER: Not my problem. They’ll pay for the house whether they live in it or not.
CONGRESSMAN: But won’t all of those foreclosed houses eventually cripple you when no one can afford to pay for them?
MR. BANKER: Like I said, they’ll pay for the house either way. I’ve got a suitcase full of cash, or a big check—Pay to the Order of: Mr. Congressman’s re-election campaign—that says you’ll pass an $850 billion bailout to save our ass.
CONGRESSMAN: Not only that, but when the Stock Market hits near rock bottom, we can buy up all of the stocks at unbelievable discount rates. Eventually they’re bound to go up, so long as my colleagues and I keep approving taxpayer bailouts to keep the companies from going under.
MR. BANKER: Now we’re on the same page! We should take a trip to my yacht in Martinique during one of your 6 weeks of vacation time this year.
CONGRESSMAN: Sounds good. I’ll see you there.
Sometimes you have to put things into fictional dialogue to get your point across. I hope you understand now. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The country that we live in is not very different from Rome. Corporate America is the savage and brutal captor and possessor of all of our freedoms. We are merely slaves to that captor. We work ourselves to death to serve the most evil of forces, but make ourselves feel better by claiming we only do it to house and feed our families. That is true, and it is also very admirable and honorable. However, it is still assisting the monster. There is nothing wrong with crunching numbers as an accountant, or proofreading text for company pamphlets, or hammering nails to build the frame of a house. Like I said, those are very necessary and important things to be done. What I have a problem with is the people on top. The leaders of these companies are held to different standards than the average person on the street. On top of that, the lawmakers who are supposed to enforce and penalize these people, are often close companions of the crooks.
We place entirely too much faith and trust in who will be the next President and Vice President. We are fools for thinking that either one will make a drastic difference. If anything, nothing will change at all. I laugh at the idea that there are two parties. In reality, there is one party, with two subdivisions. Every single time a third party has tried to rise in power and notoriety, the Republicans and Democrats have immediately began working together to crush that party. That does not sound very American to me. A man or woman who is truly devoted to the American dream and ideals set up by the founders, would welcome and encourage as many different political parties as possible. Our current leaders are not leaders at all. They are not free-thinkers, whether Democrat or Republican. They are puppets and followers, working together to ensure themselves employment every 2 to 4 to 6 years. There are over 20 former U.S. Congressmen and Congresswomen who are convicted felons, but still receive federal pensions. Most notably Senator Stevens from Alaska who has been recently convicted but will receive $122,000 annually. Think about that. If you are a member of Congress you can commit a federal crime and, despite spending time in jail, you will still receive annual compensation (taxpayer based) for time spent conducting criminal activity.
I hope and pray that a drastic change will take place in our country, but to be completely honest, I consider myself a child of God first and foremost. I do not think God prefers one man-made nation over another. I believe we are obnoxious and foolish for thinking so. There are a great number of good people in this country, and there is a great number of daily works that these people do, which makes God proud. But if we do not begin to rise as the people, in revolutionary form, against our oppressors—to create a multi party system, we will all suffer from it. That, I guarantee.
Take for instance, the recent $850 billion bailout proposed and granted by the U.S. Congress, which did nothing to improve or benefit anyone but the criminals that caused it, and the criminals that passed it. Although we, as a people, are definitely guilty of living above our means, there should still be a great deal of blame to be placed on the shoulders of individuals who should have foresaw the ultimate crash, but for personal financial gain, did nothing but encourage it. Let’s practice some common sense right now—many people saw a loophole, a chance to benefit greatly off of a great number of people’s misfortunes, and they grasped the opportunity—causing an enormous economic downfall, which has affected everyone in the country but the extremely wealthy. Then, when those companies began to implode due to their own follies, they begged for help to Congress, which then decided to grant them the money (our money, via taxes) to get them back on their feet. So, if I am correct, the man or woman who could not afford to pay for the house they were approved financing for, and subsequently lost, still has to pay for it, and on top of that, must additionally pay money to stabilize the very company that swindled them out of that home. I could be wrong, but I do not think any one single member of Congress lost their home because of this scam. However, each member of Congress who approved the astronomically high (with no statistical basis of how high it should be) bailout, will in turn, benefit from it. That, I guarantee!
CONGRESSMAN: Hi, Mr. Banker who promised a family of five that they could afford that four bedroom, two and a half bathroom, home in the suburbs for $300,000, even though they bring in $50,000 a year in salary.
MR. BANKER: Hi, Mr. Congressman, who has embezzled thousands, if not millions, of dollars from taxpayers on various government projects which were granted to companies with higher bidding prices, because the CEO of that company is a “close friend” of yours.
CONGRESSMAN: How’s that housing scam going for you?
MR. BANKER: Great! We’ve suckered hundreds of people into thinking they can afford these houses. You should see the look on their faces when they’re told that they’re approved for the house of their dreams.
CONGRESSMAN: But they’ll eventually be foreclosed on…it’s only a matter of time.
MR. BANKER: Not my problem. They’ll pay for the house whether they live in it or not.
CONGRESSMAN: But won’t all of those foreclosed houses eventually cripple you when no one can afford to pay for them?
MR. BANKER: Like I said, they’ll pay for the house either way. I’ve got a suitcase full of cash, or a big check—Pay to the Order of: Mr. Congressman’s re-election campaign—that says you’ll pass an $850 billion bailout to save our ass.
CONGRESSMAN: Not only that, but when the Stock Market hits near rock bottom, we can buy up all of the stocks at unbelievable discount rates. Eventually they’re bound to go up, so long as my colleagues and I keep approving taxpayer bailouts to keep the companies from going under.
MR. BANKER: Now we’re on the same page! We should take a trip to my yacht in Martinique during one of your 6 weeks of vacation time this year.
CONGRESSMAN: Sounds good. I’ll see you there.
Sometimes you have to put things into fictional dialogue to get your point across. I hope you understand now. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The country that we live in is not very different from Rome. Corporate America is the savage and brutal captor and possessor of all of our freedoms. We are merely slaves to that captor. We work ourselves to death to serve the most evil of forces, but make ourselves feel better by claiming we only do it to house and feed our families. That is true, and it is also very admirable and honorable. However, it is still assisting the monster. There is nothing wrong with crunching numbers as an accountant, or proofreading text for company pamphlets, or hammering nails to build the frame of a house. Like I said, those are very necessary and important things to be done. What I have a problem with is the people on top. The leaders of these companies are held to different standards than the average person on the street. On top of that, the lawmakers who are supposed to enforce and penalize these people, are often close companions of the crooks.
We place entirely too much faith and trust in who will be the next President and Vice President. We are fools for thinking that either one will make a drastic difference. If anything, nothing will change at all. I laugh at the idea that there are two parties. In reality, there is one party, with two subdivisions. Every single time a third party has tried to rise in power and notoriety, the Republicans and Democrats have immediately began working together to crush that party. That does not sound very American to me. A man or woman who is truly devoted to the American dream and ideals set up by the founders, would welcome and encourage as many different political parties as possible. Our current leaders are not leaders at all. They are not free-thinkers, whether Democrat or Republican. They are puppets and followers, working together to ensure themselves employment every 2 to 4 to 6 years. There are over 20 former U.S. Congressmen and Congresswomen who are convicted felons, but still receive federal pensions. Most notably Senator Stevens from Alaska who has been recently convicted but will receive $122,000 annually. Think about that. If you are a member of Congress you can commit a federal crime and, despite spending time in jail, you will still receive annual compensation (taxpayer based) for time spent conducting criminal activity.
I hope and pray that a drastic change will take place in our country, but to be completely honest, I consider myself a child of God first and foremost. I do not think God prefers one man-made nation over another. I believe we are obnoxious and foolish for thinking so. There are a great number of good people in this country, and there is a great number of daily works that these people do, which makes God proud. But if we do not begin to rise as the people, in revolutionary form, against our oppressors—to create a multi party system, we will all suffer from it. That, I guarantee.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
THE FIRST AND LAST PAINTING I EVER COMPLETED
My days in California were numbered to roughly over a week. I was thrilled about my opportunity to finally begin college, and even more jacked about the cross-country road trip I was never able to make. I was a little bit nervous, however, and a certain piece of me was disappointed about not sticking it out on the west coast. I knew it was best for me, but in an uncanny, and most characteristic way, I managed to grow extremely fond feelings for Rachelle.
We had been rather close friends since meeting each other at the surf shop in October, but somewhere through the course of those six months, our friendship began to progress. We never so much as kissed, and I think the closest we came was one night in January when we watched her favorite movie of all-time, Funny Face, with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. We sprawled out on the couch, pulled the coffee table close enough to kick our feet up, and we shared a blanket and a bowl of popcorn. At the end of the night she asked me if I wanted to stay over, but I declined, worried that things might go beyond a kiss or two. Most guys will cringe when they read this, but I am still glad that I made the decision to go home. It reassures me, even now, of my respect for her.
Anyway, like the rest of my new friends in L.A., she had no idea that I was returning to Ohio for college. I intentionally refrained from telling anyone, similar to when I left Youngstown, for two reasons: I don’t like endings, I never have, and so I would rather see an ending to one situation as a beginning to a new one, and the second reason is because I hate how people begin to act when they find out you’ll be leaving—it’s unnatural. Every time you hang out with certain people it is inevitable that by some point in the night everything will turn to Oh, this is so sad…This could be the last time we do this or that.
So I was sitting around the apartment one night with nothing to do. I didn’t want to watch TV, and I didn’t have any desire to go out, so I decided to paint. I had a couple of canvases that I obtained at some point in high school, but I never made any attempt to use them. So I rummaged through Bennie’s closet where he kept his artwork, and I found an unused brush set, and a set of oil paints. I didn’t think twice about it; I just painted.
I started on the top, doing my best to re-create a Van Gogh like sky. It was a rather lame attempt to say the least. But there’s something funny about painting. Even when you set out to do one thing, and it miserably fails, you somehow end up with something else that completely works.
After the sky, I started on the horizon of the ocean, and then the beach. I had no idea where I was going with it, but I kept going anyway. I worked fervently for five days straight, but at the end, something was missing. I thought about it, and within moments I knew what it was. So I painted a little girl, with red hair, right where the tide came rolling into the sand, holding up her white dress just enough so that the water wouldn’t touch it.
I finally finished the painting around 2 AM, and I only had about twelve hours left in California. I didn’t think twice about it, I just got into my car and drove immediately to the grocery store. I bought a bouquet of flowers, and continued to Rachelle’s place in Venice. When I got there she happened to be up, watching a movie.
I knocked, and she peaked out of the side window to see who it was. Then she opened the door.
“G.C. what are you doin?”
“First off, here you go,” I said as I handed her the flowers.
She smiled bashfully and said, “Thank you, they’re beautiful.”
“It’s not all that I have. Come on,” I said as I motioned her outside.
“Hold on, let me put on some slippers.”
Then we walked out to my car on the street. I didn’t even realize it when I began the painting, but her birthday was less than a week away, which was ironically the day before mine.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Just be patient, and close your eyes.”
She closed them, and I opened the door, reached in, and grabbed the painting. I turned it around so that it was right side up and facing her.
“You can open your eyes now.”
As soon as she did, they lit up, and I felt like a million bucks.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart.”
She took the painting, held it up, and I watched her as a single tear escaped the eye and began to run down her cheek. She set it on top of the car roof, and then reached in and bear hugged me.
“I love it! It is, by far, the best present anyone has ever given me.”
I just stood there and held her as close to me as I could. I smelled her hair; I smelled her skin; I ran my fingers across her back, but she didn’t know I was leaving in the morning. I remember not wanting the moment to end. I remember thinking, while she was still in my embrace, that maybe I could stay in California. Once we pulled apart, the magic that is intimacy, ceased.
“Hey,” I began, not so eloquently, “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“What?”
I tried, but at first I couldn’t get any words out of my mouth. All that I wanted to do was hug her again, close my eyes, and pretend that anywhere I was going she was going, too.
“I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“What? For where?”
“Back to Ohio. I got into Ohio State about a month ago, but I didn’t tell anyone.”
She didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything more. I just grabbed her and hugged her again.
“Well,” she began through a sniffle, “You gotta do what’s best for you.”
Once again, I didn’t have a response. I just led her down the street, to where the beach began, and I took the blanket she had been wrapped in, and I spread it across the cool March sand. Then we just laid there, not speaking much at all, until the sun came up.
When I realized I had better get home, I knew it was over. I walked her home, kissed her on the cheek, and I left. It was the first time in my life that I left someone.
Every now and then I wonder what my life would be like had I stayed in California. But when I do, I remember the first and last painting I ever completed, and I realize that a piece of me never really has.
We had been rather close friends since meeting each other at the surf shop in October, but somewhere through the course of those six months, our friendship began to progress. We never so much as kissed, and I think the closest we came was one night in January when we watched her favorite movie of all-time, Funny Face, with Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. We sprawled out on the couch, pulled the coffee table close enough to kick our feet up, and we shared a blanket and a bowl of popcorn. At the end of the night she asked me if I wanted to stay over, but I declined, worried that things might go beyond a kiss or two. Most guys will cringe when they read this, but I am still glad that I made the decision to go home. It reassures me, even now, of my respect for her.
Anyway, like the rest of my new friends in L.A., she had no idea that I was returning to Ohio for college. I intentionally refrained from telling anyone, similar to when I left Youngstown, for two reasons: I don’t like endings, I never have, and so I would rather see an ending to one situation as a beginning to a new one, and the second reason is because I hate how people begin to act when they find out you’ll be leaving—it’s unnatural. Every time you hang out with certain people it is inevitable that by some point in the night everything will turn to Oh, this is so sad…This could be the last time we do this or that.
So I was sitting around the apartment one night with nothing to do. I didn’t want to watch TV, and I didn’t have any desire to go out, so I decided to paint. I had a couple of canvases that I obtained at some point in high school, but I never made any attempt to use them. So I rummaged through Bennie’s closet where he kept his artwork, and I found an unused brush set, and a set of oil paints. I didn’t think twice about it; I just painted.
I started on the top, doing my best to re-create a Van Gogh like sky. It was a rather lame attempt to say the least. But there’s something funny about painting. Even when you set out to do one thing, and it miserably fails, you somehow end up with something else that completely works.
After the sky, I started on the horizon of the ocean, and then the beach. I had no idea where I was going with it, but I kept going anyway. I worked fervently for five days straight, but at the end, something was missing. I thought about it, and within moments I knew what it was. So I painted a little girl, with red hair, right where the tide came rolling into the sand, holding up her white dress just enough so that the water wouldn’t touch it.
I finally finished the painting around 2 AM, and I only had about twelve hours left in California. I didn’t think twice about it, I just got into my car and drove immediately to the grocery store. I bought a bouquet of flowers, and continued to Rachelle’s place in Venice. When I got there she happened to be up, watching a movie.
I knocked, and she peaked out of the side window to see who it was. Then she opened the door.
“G.C. what are you doin?”
“First off, here you go,” I said as I handed her the flowers.
She smiled bashfully and said, “Thank you, they’re beautiful.”
“It’s not all that I have. Come on,” I said as I motioned her outside.
“Hold on, let me put on some slippers.”
Then we walked out to my car on the street. I didn’t even realize it when I began the painting, but her birthday was less than a week away, which was ironically the day before mine.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Just be patient, and close your eyes.”
She closed them, and I opened the door, reached in, and grabbed the painting. I turned it around so that it was right side up and facing her.
“You can open your eyes now.”
As soon as she did, they lit up, and I felt like a million bucks.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart.”
She took the painting, held it up, and I watched her as a single tear escaped the eye and began to run down her cheek. She set it on top of the car roof, and then reached in and bear hugged me.
“I love it! It is, by far, the best present anyone has ever given me.”
I just stood there and held her as close to me as I could. I smelled her hair; I smelled her skin; I ran my fingers across her back, but she didn’t know I was leaving in the morning. I remember not wanting the moment to end. I remember thinking, while she was still in my embrace, that maybe I could stay in California. Once we pulled apart, the magic that is intimacy, ceased.
“Hey,” I began, not so eloquently, “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“What?”
I tried, but at first I couldn’t get any words out of my mouth. All that I wanted to do was hug her again, close my eyes, and pretend that anywhere I was going she was going, too.
“I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“What? For where?”
“Back to Ohio. I got into Ohio State about a month ago, but I didn’t tell anyone.”
She didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything more. I just grabbed her and hugged her again.
“Well,” she began through a sniffle, “You gotta do what’s best for you.”
Once again, I didn’t have a response. I just led her down the street, to where the beach began, and I took the blanket she had been wrapped in, and I spread it across the cool March sand. Then we just laid there, not speaking much at all, until the sun came up.
When I realized I had better get home, I knew it was over. I walked her home, kissed her on the cheek, and I left. It was the first time in my life that I left someone.
Every now and then I wonder what my life would be like had I stayed in California. But when I do, I remember the first and last painting I ever completed, and I realize that a piece of me never really has.
Monday, March 31, 2008
a nightly constitutional
walking, wondering, praying, hoping
thinking, worrying, quaintly joking
twenty roses buried against my chest
seeking only a smile to ease my unrest
sweaty palms, glistening through the frost
I'd give it all away, no matter the cost--
to see her again, what a magnificent notion
my life, I'd give to her, with every devotion
places I've been, sights I have seen
humble to her, my beautiful queen
walking, wondering, praying, hoping
thinking, worrying, quaintly joking
thinking, worrying, quaintly joking
twenty roses buried against my chest
seeking only a smile to ease my unrest
sweaty palms, glistening through the frost
I'd give it all away, no matter the cost--
to see her again, what a magnificent notion
my life, I'd give to her, with every devotion
places I've been, sights I have seen
humble to her, my beautiful queen
walking, wondering, praying, hoping
thinking, worrying, quaintly joking
The Drum of Demand Has Sounded
I would like to reassure all of my readers that I am returning to my daily posts as of today. I had taken some time off of my daily short stories to pursue my second, third and fourth novels. Although the work is not nearly done on any of those, I feel it is necessary from a literary perspective to re-commence my day to day storytelling endeavors. I hope you look forward to reading as much as I do to writing. Thank you for your patience.
aPv
aPv
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
My Last First Day and a Book of Unwritten Pages
Hamlet was a coward, Gatsby a fool, and Holden Caulfield a hero; at least that’s the way I saw it. I was probably the only junior in high school whose best friends were fictional characters. That happens when your old man is in the military, and you’re moving around so often that you don’t spend more than one year in one place. I was rebellious—about as rebellious as one can be when the consequences consist of a Captain in the Marines wailing on you for receiving a B in advanced Trigonometry. When I was young, around thirteen or so, I often thought about running away, but I always imagined the horrific outcome with my Pop after being found. So, I nestled my nose into every F. Scott Fitzgerald, J.D. Salinger and—God forbid if they were to be found—Hunter S. Thompson book I could get my hands on, and I made friends with the people whom I could never leave, rather take with me, every time my life was uprooted and transported to another town.
I have an older brother, Nicholas, an established novelist, living in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Our mother divorced our father just a year after I was born, and it wasn’t until three years later when she was killed in a car accident that it became just me and my old man. Nicholas, who is thirteen years my elder, was lucky enough to be on his way to college, never having to receive the abusive fate I inherited. When my father finally remarried—to a woman who never wanted kids—I was Seventeen, working on my first novel, and eager to cause whatever hell was necessary to be relieved from my father’s grasp. So, on my first day of school at Fork Union Military Academy, in a suburb outside Washington D.C., I dressed up as Adolph Hitler, marched right through the front doors, and made it no further than five steps before being assaulted by a half dozen proud-to-be future American soldiers. I made it all the way home before receiving my first broken bone—a cracked radius in my left arm as I tried warding off my father who violently swung at me with a 2 by 4. I’m still not very proud of it—definitely the most un-American thing I have ever done—but it worked, earning me a free pass to move in with Nicholas, after children’s services came in and cleaned up the mess. Anyway, I could get into a great deal of unneeded details about the life I wish to forget, but it’s painful, and I’d rather recount the first day of the life I could have never imagined. My name is Bryce James, and this is the story of my first day of school—that’s what I like to call it, because it was the day my life started anew.
Morning had finally come for my first day of classes at Charles F. Brush High School, a co-ed, public institution, yielding kids from the neighboring East Cleveland suburbs of South Euclid and Lyndhurst. Nicholas let me drive his 1974 Pontiac Firebird GT, with a four-speed transmission, a jet black exterior, and tinted T-Tops. It was his summer time, Sunday drive kind of car, which he never even thought to expose to the brutality of winter streets. He said he’d let me arrive in style on my first day, but I think he felt guilty for all of the time missed throughout our short lives.
He followed me to the school and pulled around to the visitor’s lot while I parked in the student one. Getting out of the car was an entirely new experience. First off, I had never driven to school before, let alone in a classic muscle car. Secondly, I couldn’t believe that girls were actually filing in the same doors as me. It was winter time, and there was at least a foot of snow on the ground, causing the vibrant energy and youthful fanaticism of teenagers to be expressed by hurling pineapple sized snowballs at one another. A couple flew right past my head, and I was praying to God that I could somehow escape the onslaught until I reached cover at the back doors. I was the new kid, and everybody already looked at me funny, so getting nailed by an iceball wasn’t first on my “to do” list.
I filed through the doors with hundreds of other kids, pretending I had gone there all along. I had no idea where I was going, and I didn’t want to ask anyone for directions. Then I saw Nick and a great feeling of relief enveloped me. He helped me get registered in the main office, signing all of the necessary paperwork and medical forms. Then, like that, he was gone, leaving me completely and utterly alone. After I received my class schedule from Mrs. Murdock, the guidance counselor, I stepped out of the office and looked down a hallway which seemed never-ending. I had to go to room 222, which couldn’t have been further away.
I swear to God, I couldn’t have looked like more of a nerd. I wore a pair of stone colored Dockers, much too short to exhibit any real fashion sense, a yellow three-button down polo, and a pair of sneakers that were so white you’d think angels came down and polished them overnight. I didn’t know what to wear, I had worn boarding school uniforms all of my life. I breathed in and out as I approached the door. I looked at my schedule at saw that it was European History. I slowly turned the knob and entered. As I made my first step inside the classroom I encountered Mr. Cherney, a short, chubby guy with thinning hair and glasses which encompassed the entire top half of his head.
“GO BACK AND KNOCK! YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST BARGE INTO MY CLASSROOM?”
My heart hit the floor. That was my first impression for twenty five kids who just stared at me, shaking their heads. So I left the room, shut the door, and knocked. He called me in, and then slightly lifted his pudgy left arm off of his desk top to call me over.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yes, my name is Bryce, and I believe I’m in this class,” I said with a nervousness so extreme my hands began to sweat.
“Do you believe you’re in my class, or do you know?”
“It says here on the schedule, room 222, Mr. Cherney…European History—
“Well, you’re lucky I failed O’brien last week, or else you wouldn’t have a seat.” I assumed he was pulling my leg, but he said it with such a smirk on his face that I had to believe there was some truth to it. “In that closet over there, you’ll find a book…treat it like the Bible.”
I grabbed a book and walked back to my seat. I was lucky enough that O’brien sat behind the center on the basketball team, because I planned on slouching as far down as possible, hoping to avoid any interaction with Cherney. Honestly, you had to picture this guy. When he lectured he sat on an old leather chair stool, which rose a few feet up in the air, and his chubby legs dangled off the edge—too short to reach the ground. In front of him was an old, weakening wooden podium. Just like the chair, it rocked back and forth as he leaned his weight on and off of it. Every once in a while you thought the momentum was gonna cause him to fall right to the ground, and he must’ve weighed at least three hundred pounds, so if he did plummet he’d shake the whole goddamn world. His face had about three chins and he even had thick bags under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in a week. He’d belt out speeches that the gym class could hear from across the school.
After doodling in my notebook for a half hour I peeked around the wideness of the guy in front of me to see what Cherney was up to. There was a silence in the room, which was totally unlike him, because you could tell he was the sort of guy to lecture for forty-five minutes straight. Kids all over the room were holding their writing hands as if they just preferred them to be cut off. Old man Cherney, on the other hand, was eying one of his many doses of fat intakes for the day. Then he did something I couldn’t believe I saw. He took four peanut butter cups, stacked them on top of each other, opened his chubby little mouth, and devoured all of them with one bite. I thought I was watching Garfield. Then, he raised his 22 oz. cup of water and with one breath of air he took in every last drop. And if it couldn’t have gotten any worse, he attempted to talk before it all settled, and as I passed him on my way towards the door, he belched, and with it came a few airborne drops of peanut-buttery backwash, landing square on the left side of my neck. I made no motion to wipe it off until I reached the hallway.
I immediately walked across the hall to the boys’ bathroom. I leaned over the sink and thoroughly washed my entire face and neck area. Once I gathered my composure I looked at my schedule and re-entered the hallway. English with Mrs. Kubicek was next on my agenda, room 117. When I turned left to walk towards a set of stairs I was instantly face to face with the most gorgeous blonde haired, blue eyed, freckle faced girl I have ever seen. Due to my surprise and lack of space to even move an inch, I stopped.
“I’m Alison.” She reached out and forced me to shake her hand. “Pretty rough first impression,” she said, with the cutest half smile on her face. I just stood there, speechless. “So, you must be new.”
“Yeah, why? Are you gonna beat me up now and take my lunch money?”
Oh my God, I couldn’t believe that those were the first words out of my mouth. I was a total idiot. Worse. I was a dork, with absolutely no communicational experience or skills with the opposite sex.
“No,” she responded amidst a giggle. “Let me see that,” then she grabbed my schedule from my right hand. “Ooh, pretty rough set of classes.”
“I guess so. I didn’t really know what to take…I’ve only ever gone to boarding schools, and they don’t really give you a choice.”
Mrs. Murdock automatically put me in the four basic required classes of English, French, European History, and Trigonometry, and I figured that Journalism, Piano, and Film History would be a lot better than sitting in study halls.
She handed me back my death sentence, so to speak, and added, “You have a couple with me.” It was single handedly the best news I’d received about school since kindergarten, when we were granted time to take naps.
We began walking, away from the staircase I was first headed towards. I didn’t say anything, I figured she knew better than me where room 117 was.
“So what brings you to Brush?” she inquired as she removed the legal pad from my right hand, and began flipping through it.
“I decided to move in with my brother…my dad is in the Marines, and we moved around a lot.”
“So do you play any sports or anything?”
“No, I never really got the chance.” Truth was my coordination skills lacked from the day I was born. Also, my old man couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn when it came to pitching me batting practice, so I just got beaned all the time, and I couldn’t understand, at the age of seven, why anyone would want to play a game where you stood defenselessly, outside of holding a thin tube of wood, as a tight wound ball of string and cowhide was pelting you anywhere from your head to your feet.
“I’m a cheerleader, but don’t go thinking I’m a flake…I hate that.”
“I wasn’t gonna—
“So…what’s this?” she asked, referring to my novel, which was only about fifty pages, and still written in long-hand.
“It’s just some of my writings. I like to write in my free time.”
We kept walking for what seemed like a mile. I watched the classroom numbers gradually increase, and were still on the second floor. The time was rapidly running out between classes, and I could only imagine what was going to happen in Kubicek’s room—after the Cherney incident, that is. So I went to say something, and that’s when she grabbed my hand, dragging me toward a door that looked like a janitorial closet. She opened it, then yanked me in real fast, and shut the door behind me. It was complete blackness as she guided me through another door, and shut it while flipping a light switch.
“This is our little secret,” she said. “Hardly no one knows about it…it’s the second floor dressing room for the Auditorium below. It’s never used anymore, and it’s the perfect place to have a…” she stopped as she dug through her purse. “To have a smoke.” Then she removed a Marlboro Red from its pack, offered it to me, which I quickly accepted, before removing one for herself.
That was the first cigarette I ever smoked in my life, not inhaling a single hit. She talked, mostly about Cherney, and how to skip class and get away with it, and smooth talk your way out of getting detention if ever you’re caught. My heart raced like the Indianapolis 500 on a cocaine overdose, but somehow, knowing I was with her, I felt calm despite of it. We spent the entire period in there, sneaking back out just minutes before the bell would ring. I skipped the first class of my life, with the first beautiful girl I can honestly admit to holding a conversation with, and just minutes after first meeting her.
“Well Bryce, I’ll see you around,” she said just as the bell rang, classroom doors swinging open and kids engulfing us from every direction.
I struggled to keep my mind off of her as I finished the morning. Third period was Piano class, and I must admit, I couldn’t as much as play Chopsticks. There were only three others in there, and two were in my previous classes, so they didn’t pay me much attention. The other kid was a pretty nice guy that offered to show me around town if I wanted. His name was Ashton, and he was also a junior. He was the only kid I had seen all day who didn’t plaster his hair to his head with styling gel. He also looked like he was under quite a bit of stress. Like he hadn’t slept more than an hour or so the night before. He wasted no time opening up to me, explaining his disdain for anything Pop Culture or mainstream. He encouraged me to read Whitman and Thoreau, imploring that no one has thought like either one of them since their respective deaths. By the time the bell rang, and it was time for lunch, I was ready to make a run for the woods, I was just waiting for Ashton to lead so that I could follow.
The lunch period was set up so that the first half of the alphabet ate for twenty five minutes while the second half either went to study hall or the library, and then vice versa. I was always a sucker for books, and I hadn’t had the chance to peruse the library yet. So, without knowing that the cooler half of the high school population would rather read comics and throw spitballs at one another in the auditorium, I found myself in a sanctuary for the popularity challenged—which, I guess you could say, was quite fitting.
My actual lunch half scared the hell out of me. I was just worried that I was going to take someone’s seat, or not find one at all. The sort of stuff that should worry you as a freshman on your first day. Walking over to the cafeteria felt like an eternity. I8 was surrounded by the dorks. I’m not kidding. Seven or eight nerds suffocated me into a small pocket while walking down the hall. I felt like their chosen one. Worst of all, I looked like their chosen one. I had to diverge a plan as we neared the main hallway, which was clogged with kids. Just as we approached the intersection of the hallways I spotted another bathroom. I crossed quickly and entered it. Ashton was standing in front of a mirror.
“Bryce, what’s going on man?”
“Ashton? Do you have lunch now?” I asked, praying for him to say yes.
“Yeah, man, I do.” By this point I was leaning over the sink, splashing cold water on my face. “There’s an empty seat at my table if you want to join me.”
“Sounds great, I’d love to.”
He began walking, and I followed closely behind.
We walked into the cafeteria of about 300 kids, and I was shocked that there wasn’t a goddamn McDonald’s in there. It was probably twice the size of any other cafeteria I’d been in. He led me directly to a table along to far left wall. Three other guys sat a few seats down, but Ashton made no effort to acknowledge them.
“I usually just sit and read, but I can’t turn down company,” he said while placing his books on the table top. “You want something to eat? I’ll buy.”
“You don’t have to, really…I can—
“Don’t worry about it, I want to…you’re not a vegan are you?”
I didn’t know if he would take offense if I said yes, but I was starving, so I didn’t really mind if he brought back a large bowl of guacamole, I would have still scarfed it down. “Not particularly,” I reluctantly responded.
“Just stay here and check out some of these essays by Thomas Wolfe I was telling you about. There’s no need for both of us to wait in line.”
I hadn’t the slightest bit of desire to read any Thomas Wolfe at the time, so I began scanning the cafeteria. Then I spotted Alison. She was about ten tables away, sitting with a group of hormone ridden jocks and desperately anxious to look pretty female socialites. She might as well have been sitting by herself, because she made no attempt to partake in their conversations. She looked so perfect, sitting quietly, reading a book and casually eating one grape after another. I fought like hell all morning to rid her from my head, and when I finally thought I found closure, there she was, right within my vision, absorbing me again. I didn’t want to be caught staring at her, so I began flipping through the hardbound book of essays Ashton had mentioned.
“Here you go man,” Ashton said as he set a toasted turkey club sandwich in front of me.
“Thank you so much…but let me give you some money, I feel bad.”
He just waved me off, and sat down. We hardly talked during lunch. He mentioned that he liked to be as mindful as possible, chewing at least thirty times with each bite, spiritually taking into mind everything from the earth that went into providing that meal for him—a Buddhist practice he started after reading a Thic Nhat Hanh book. He was some guy, hard to get your hands around, but I very much liked that about him.
After lunch I went to my afternoon classes. Just as I figured when Alison told me we had Film History together at the end of the day, I spent an entire forty five minutes just observing her. I was weakened by a high school cheerleader worse than my military father ever could through vicious physical punishments. She drove me crazy. When the final bell sounded, I went to my locker, grabbed my coat and proceeded out of the back doors to my car. I got going after I had warmed it up for at least ten minutes—Nicholas’s orders. I took the same route home that Nick showed me in the morning, and as I turned onto a street I noticed a short blonde nearly shaking her legs off, walking along a snow covered sidewalk. I pulled over out of courtesy, because it was nearly zero degrees outside, no one should have been subjected to such weather. As I rolled the passenger window down, she turned to look. It was Alison. Just as if I had been walking out of the boys’ room to wash my neck from Cherney’s backwash, we were once again face to face.
“Bryce,” she said with a smile. “Nice car.”
“Come on…hop in, it’s freezing out there,” I said as I opened the passenger door.
She took the invite, making me immediately so nervous I forgot how to work the clutch.
“How’d you score this?” she asked, scoping out the interior from back to front.
“It’s just for the day…it’s my brother’s.”
We talked about my day in between the directions to her house, and how I liked Brush, and all that chit chat sort of talk you have with someone you hardly know. It was different, though. She cared, unlike every other stranger you first come across.
“Here it is…on the right,” she said before pointing at the prettiest house on the street. “Thank you so much…I’ll see you tomorrow?” Then she took her left hand and ran it across the top of my head, messing up my hair before she got out.
I wanted to just sit in her driveway for hours, looking at the pretty white fence, and the pretty bare trees, and everything else that was pretty. But I didn’t want her to think I was a lunatic. So I drove home and did it. Nicholas must have thought I lost my mind, sitting in the car, taking in all that had just happened to me.
I was gifted, God had blessed me with chapters of blank pages, and friends who weren’t susceptible to being put on a shelf, hidden behind the cover of a book.
I have an older brother, Nicholas, an established novelist, living in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Our mother divorced our father just a year after I was born, and it wasn’t until three years later when she was killed in a car accident that it became just me and my old man. Nicholas, who is thirteen years my elder, was lucky enough to be on his way to college, never having to receive the abusive fate I inherited. When my father finally remarried—to a woman who never wanted kids—I was Seventeen, working on my first novel, and eager to cause whatever hell was necessary to be relieved from my father’s grasp. So, on my first day of school at Fork Union Military Academy, in a suburb outside Washington D.C., I dressed up as Adolph Hitler, marched right through the front doors, and made it no further than five steps before being assaulted by a half dozen proud-to-be future American soldiers. I made it all the way home before receiving my first broken bone—a cracked radius in my left arm as I tried warding off my father who violently swung at me with a 2 by 4. I’m still not very proud of it—definitely the most un-American thing I have ever done—but it worked, earning me a free pass to move in with Nicholas, after children’s services came in and cleaned up the mess. Anyway, I could get into a great deal of unneeded details about the life I wish to forget, but it’s painful, and I’d rather recount the first day of the life I could have never imagined. My name is Bryce James, and this is the story of my first day of school—that’s what I like to call it, because it was the day my life started anew.
Morning had finally come for my first day of classes at Charles F. Brush High School, a co-ed, public institution, yielding kids from the neighboring East Cleveland suburbs of South Euclid and Lyndhurst. Nicholas let me drive his 1974 Pontiac Firebird GT, with a four-speed transmission, a jet black exterior, and tinted T-Tops. It was his summer time, Sunday drive kind of car, which he never even thought to expose to the brutality of winter streets. He said he’d let me arrive in style on my first day, but I think he felt guilty for all of the time missed throughout our short lives.
He followed me to the school and pulled around to the visitor’s lot while I parked in the student one. Getting out of the car was an entirely new experience. First off, I had never driven to school before, let alone in a classic muscle car. Secondly, I couldn’t believe that girls were actually filing in the same doors as me. It was winter time, and there was at least a foot of snow on the ground, causing the vibrant energy and youthful fanaticism of teenagers to be expressed by hurling pineapple sized snowballs at one another. A couple flew right past my head, and I was praying to God that I could somehow escape the onslaught until I reached cover at the back doors. I was the new kid, and everybody already looked at me funny, so getting nailed by an iceball wasn’t first on my “to do” list.
I filed through the doors with hundreds of other kids, pretending I had gone there all along. I had no idea where I was going, and I didn’t want to ask anyone for directions. Then I saw Nick and a great feeling of relief enveloped me. He helped me get registered in the main office, signing all of the necessary paperwork and medical forms. Then, like that, he was gone, leaving me completely and utterly alone. After I received my class schedule from Mrs. Murdock, the guidance counselor, I stepped out of the office and looked down a hallway which seemed never-ending. I had to go to room 222, which couldn’t have been further away.
I swear to God, I couldn’t have looked like more of a nerd. I wore a pair of stone colored Dockers, much too short to exhibit any real fashion sense, a yellow three-button down polo, and a pair of sneakers that were so white you’d think angels came down and polished them overnight. I didn’t know what to wear, I had worn boarding school uniforms all of my life. I breathed in and out as I approached the door. I looked at my schedule at saw that it was European History. I slowly turned the knob and entered. As I made my first step inside the classroom I encountered Mr. Cherney, a short, chubby guy with thinning hair and glasses which encompassed the entire top half of his head.
“GO BACK AND KNOCK! YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST BARGE INTO MY CLASSROOM?”
My heart hit the floor. That was my first impression for twenty five kids who just stared at me, shaking their heads. So I left the room, shut the door, and knocked. He called me in, and then slightly lifted his pudgy left arm off of his desk top to call me over.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yes, my name is Bryce, and I believe I’m in this class,” I said with a nervousness so extreme my hands began to sweat.
“Do you believe you’re in my class, or do you know?”
“It says here on the schedule, room 222, Mr. Cherney…European History—
“Well, you’re lucky I failed O’brien last week, or else you wouldn’t have a seat.” I assumed he was pulling my leg, but he said it with such a smirk on his face that I had to believe there was some truth to it. “In that closet over there, you’ll find a book…treat it like the Bible.”
I grabbed a book and walked back to my seat. I was lucky enough that O’brien sat behind the center on the basketball team, because I planned on slouching as far down as possible, hoping to avoid any interaction with Cherney. Honestly, you had to picture this guy. When he lectured he sat on an old leather chair stool, which rose a few feet up in the air, and his chubby legs dangled off the edge—too short to reach the ground. In front of him was an old, weakening wooden podium. Just like the chair, it rocked back and forth as he leaned his weight on and off of it. Every once in a while you thought the momentum was gonna cause him to fall right to the ground, and he must’ve weighed at least three hundred pounds, so if he did plummet he’d shake the whole goddamn world. His face had about three chins and he even had thick bags under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in a week. He’d belt out speeches that the gym class could hear from across the school.
After doodling in my notebook for a half hour I peeked around the wideness of the guy in front of me to see what Cherney was up to. There was a silence in the room, which was totally unlike him, because you could tell he was the sort of guy to lecture for forty-five minutes straight. Kids all over the room were holding their writing hands as if they just preferred them to be cut off. Old man Cherney, on the other hand, was eying one of his many doses of fat intakes for the day. Then he did something I couldn’t believe I saw. He took four peanut butter cups, stacked them on top of each other, opened his chubby little mouth, and devoured all of them with one bite. I thought I was watching Garfield. Then, he raised his 22 oz. cup of water and with one breath of air he took in every last drop. And if it couldn’t have gotten any worse, he attempted to talk before it all settled, and as I passed him on my way towards the door, he belched, and with it came a few airborne drops of peanut-buttery backwash, landing square on the left side of my neck. I made no motion to wipe it off until I reached the hallway.
I immediately walked across the hall to the boys’ bathroom. I leaned over the sink and thoroughly washed my entire face and neck area. Once I gathered my composure I looked at my schedule and re-entered the hallway. English with Mrs. Kubicek was next on my agenda, room 117. When I turned left to walk towards a set of stairs I was instantly face to face with the most gorgeous blonde haired, blue eyed, freckle faced girl I have ever seen. Due to my surprise and lack of space to even move an inch, I stopped.
“I’m Alison.” She reached out and forced me to shake her hand. “Pretty rough first impression,” she said, with the cutest half smile on her face. I just stood there, speechless. “So, you must be new.”
“Yeah, why? Are you gonna beat me up now and take my lunch money?”
Oh my God, I couldn’t believe that those were the first words out of my mouth. I was a total idiot. Worse. I was a dork, with absolutely no communicational experience or skills with the opposite sex.
“No,” she responded amidst a giggle. “Let me see that,” then she grabbed my schedule from my right hand. “Ooh, pretty rough set of classes.”
“I guess so. I didn’t really know what to take…I’ve only ever gone to boarding schools, and they don’t really give you a choice.”
Mrs. Murdock automatically put me in the four basic required classes of English, French, European History, and Trigonometry, and I figured that Journalism, Piano, and Film History would be a lot better than sitting in study halls.
She handed me back my death sentence, so to speak, and added, “You have a couple with me.” It was single handedly the best news I’d received about school since kindergarten, when we were granted time to take naps.
We began walking, away from the staircase I was first headed towards. I didn’t say anything, I figured she knew better than me where room 117 was.
“So what brings you to Brush?” she inquired as she removed the legal pad from my right hand, and began flipping through it.
“I decided to move in with my brother…my dad is in the Marines, and we moved around a lot.”
“So do you play any sports or anything?”
“No, I never really got the chance.” Truth was my coordination skills lacked from the day I was born. Also, my old man couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn when it came to pitching me batting practice, so I just got beaned all the time, and I couldn’t understand, at the age of seven, why anyone would want to play a game where you stood defenselessly, outside of holding a thin tube of wood, as a tight wound ball of string and cowhide was pelting you anywhere from your head to your feet.
“I’m a cheerleader, but don’t go thinking I’m a flake…I hate that.”
“I wasn’t gonna—
“So…what’s this?” she asked, referring to my novel, which was only about fifty pages, and still written in long-hand.
“It’s just some of my writings. I like to write in my free time.”
We kept walking for what seemed like a mile. I watched the classroom numbers gradually increase, and were still on the second floor. The time was rapidly running out between classes, and I could only imagine what was going to happen in Kubicek’s room—after the Cherney incident, that is. So I went to say something, and that’s when she grabbed my hand, dragging me toward a door that looked like a janitorial closet. She opened it, then yanked me in real fast, and shut the door behind me. It was complete blackness as she guided me through another door, and shut it while flipping a light switch.
“This is our little secret,” she said. “Hardly no one knows about it…it’s the second floor dressing room for the Auditorium below. It’s never used anymore, and it’s the perfect place to have a…” she stopped as she dug through her purse. “To have a smoke.” Then she removed a Marlboro Red from its pack, offered it to me, which I quickly accepted, before removing one for herself.
That was the first cigarette I ever smoked in my life, not inhaling a single hit. She talked, mostly about Cherney, and how to skip class and get away with it, and smooth talk your way out of getting detention if ever you’re caught. My heart raced like the Indianapolis 500 on a cocaine overdose, but somehow, knowing I was with her, I felt calm despite of it. We spent the entire period in there, sneaking back out just minutes before the bell would ring. I skipped the first class of my life, with the first beautiful girl I can honestly admit to holding a conversation with, and just minutes after first meeting her.
“Well Bryce, I’ll see you around,” she said just as the bell rang, classroom doors swinging open and kids engulfing us from every direction.
I struggled to keep my mind off of her as I finished the morning. Third period was Piano class, and I must admit, I couldn’t as much as play Chopsticks. There were only three others in there, and two were in my previous classes, so they didn’t pay me much attention. The other kid was a pretty nice guy that offered to show me around town if I wanted. His name was Ashton, and he was also a junior. He was the only kid I had seen all day who didn’t plaster his hair to his head with styling gel. He also looked like he was under quite a bit of stress. Like he hadn’t slept more than an hour or so the night before. He wasted no time opening up to me, explaining his disdain for anything Pop Culture or mainstream. He encouraged me to read Whitman and Thoreau, imploring that no one has thought like either one of them since their respective deaths. By the time the bell rang, and it was time for lunch, I was ready to make a run for the woods, I was just waiting for Ashton to lead so that I could follow.
The lunch period was set up so that the first half of the alphabet ate for twenty five minutes while the second half either went to study hall or the library, and then vice versa. I was always a sucker for books, and I hadn’t had the chance to peruse the library yet. So, without knowing that the cooler half of the high school population would rather read comics and throw spitballs at one another in the auditorium, I found myself in a sanctuary for the popularity challenged—which, I guess you could say, was quite fitting.
My actual lunch half scared the hell out of me. I was just worried that I was going to take someone’s seat, or not find one at all. The sort of stuff that should worry you as a freshman on your first day. Walking over to the cafeteria felt like an eternity. I8 was surrounded by the dorks. I’m not kidding. Seven or eight nerds suffocated me into a small pocket while walking down the hall. I felt like their chosen one. Worst of all, I looked like their chosen one. I had to diverge a plan as we neared the main hallway, which was clogged with kids. Just as we approached the intersection of the hallways I spotted another bathroom. I crossed quickly and entered it. Ashton was standing in front of a mirror.
“Bryce, what’s going on man?”
“Ashton? Do you have lunch now?” I asked, praying for him to say yes.
“Yeah, man, I do.” By this point I was leaning over the sink, splashing cold water on my face. “There’s an empty seat at my table if you want to join me.”
“Sounds great, I’d love to.”
He began walking, and I followed closely behind.
We walked into the cafeteria of about 300 kids, and I was shocked that there wasn’t a goddamn McDonald’s in there. It was probably twice the size of any other cafeteria I’d been in. He led me directly to a table along to far left wall. Three other guys sat a few seats down, but Ashton made no effort to acknowledge them.
“I usually just sit and read, but I can’t turn down company,” he said while placing his books on the table top. “You want something to eat? I’ll buy.”
“You don’t have to, really…I can—
“Don’t worry about it, I want to…you’re not a vegan are you?”
I didn’t know if he would take offense if I said yes, but I was starving, so I didn’t really mind if he brought back a large bowl of guacamole, I would have still scarfed it down. “Not particularly,” I reluctantly responded.
“Just stay here and check out some of these essays by Thomas Wolfe I was telling you about. There’s no need for both of us to wait in line.”
I hadn’t the slightest bit of desire to read any Thomas Wolfe at the time, so I began scanning the cafeteria. Then I spotted Alison. She was about ten tables away, sitting with a group of hormone ridden jocks and desperately anxious to look pretty female socialites. She might as well have been sitting by herself, because she made no attempt to partake in their conversations. She looked so perfect, sitting quietly, reading a book and casually eating one grape after another. I fought like hell all morning to rid her from my head, and when I finally thought I found closure, there she was, right within my vision, absorbing me again. I didn’t want to be caught staring at her, so I began flipping through the hardbound book of essays Ashton had mentioned.
“Here you go man,” Ashton said as he set a toasted turkey club sandwich in front of me.
“Thank you so much…but let me give you some money, I feel bad.”
He just waved me off, and sat down. We hardly talked during lunch. He mentioned that he liked to be as mindful as possible, chewing at least thirty times with each bite, spiritually taking into mind everything from the earth that went into providing that meal for him—a Buddhist practice he started after reading a Thic Nhat Hanh book. He was some guy, hard to get your hands around, but I very much liked that about him.
After lunch I went to my afternoon classes. Just as I figured when Alison told me we had Film History together at the end of the day, I spent an entire forty five minutes just observing her. I was weakened by a high school cheerleader worse than my military father ever could through vicious physical punishments. She drove me crazy. When the final bell sounded, I went to my locker, grabbed my coat and proceeded out of the back doors to my car. I got going after I had warmed it up for at least ten minutes—Nicholas’s orders. I took the same route home that Nick showed me in the morning, and as I turned onto a street I noticed a short blonde nearly shaking her legs off, walking along a snow covered sidewalk. I pulled over out of courtesy, because it was nearly zero degrees outside, no one should have been subjected to such weather. As I rolled the passenger window down, she turned to look. It was Alison. Just as if I had been walking out of the boys’ room to wash my neck from Cherney’s backwash, we were once again face to face.
“Bryce,” she said with a smile. “Nice car.”
“Come on…hop in, it’s freezing out there,” I said as I opened the passenger door.
She took the invite, making me immediately so nervous I forgot how to work the clutch.
“How’d you score this?” she asked, scoping out the interior from back to front.
“It’s just for the day…it’s my brother’s.”
We talked about my day in between the directions to her house, and how I liked Brush, and all that chit chat sort of talk you have with someone you hardly know. It was different, though. She cared, unlike every other stranger you first come across.
“Here it is…on the right,” she said before pointing at the prettiest house on the street. “Thank you so much…I’ll see you tomorrow?” Then she took her left hand and ran it across the top of my head, messing up my hair before she got out.
I wanted to just sit in her driveway for hours, looking at the pretty white fence, and the pretty bare trees, and everything else that was pretty. But I didn’t want her to think I was a lunatic. So I drove home and did it. Nicholas must have thought I lost my mind, sitting in the car, taking in all that had just happened to me.
I was gifted, God had blessed me with chapters of blank pages, and friends who weren’t susceptible to being put on a shelf, hidden behind the cover of a book.
Monday, March 17, 2008
A SHOT OF JAGERMEISTER AND MASS ON SUNDAY
It was Thursday night, and that meant one thing junior year—Zigs for $1 drafts. I was only 20, but I lived next door to four guys, who were all a year older, so we made an agreement—I buy, they fly. It was only a dollar, so I figured it was like paying $3—including a tip. Anyway, we got there around 11:30, and I sent Collin inside with a five spot, while I scoured the front patio for anyone I might know. A few minutes later he came back with the beers, and proceeded toward a small table where two girls were sitting.
It was a golden moment. I didn’t really look at either girl, because it was dark out, and I was a little more concerned with getting my hands on the frosty 32 ounce Coors Light. Collin handed me a beer, but was preoccupied with a guy he ran into on the walk out. He was beginning to sit down, so I sat down, and immediately thereafter, he rose back to a stance, and walked away. There I was, sitting at a table with two girls, who were complete strangers, and I was faced with a decision—get up, without saying a word, and walk away with my tail tucked between my legs, or meet them. I chose the latter, or I should say, Anna chose the latter.
“Hi, I’m Anna,” she said, extending her hand across the table. She was cute. Actually, she was a total bombshell.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Giancarlo…but you can call me G.C. or Gianni, which ever you prefer.”
“Hi, I’m Steph,” her friend said, also extending her hand.
“Hey, how’s it goin’?”
In hindsight I might have been a little rude when meeting Steph, but there was something about Anna I immediately couldn’t shake off.
“So do you always just sit down with strangers?” she asked, putting me on the spot.
“Yeah, I just go from bar to bar until I see a couple of girls like yourselves.”
I wasn’t fazed.
“Good response.”
I was in like Flynn.
“I’ve been known to hold my own.”
She smiled, and held out her beer for cheers.
“So, do you go to OSU?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m a junior. How ‘bout you?”
“I’m a senior. Whuddaya studying?”
“English. You?”
“Special Education.”
“So you like kids.”
“No, they just pay teachers really well.”
I had a wise-ass on my hands, and I loved it.
“So whuddaya want to do with an English degree, teach?”
“Well, I’m not really sure. I was leaning toward being a writer, but I heard they’re paying teachers through the roof these days.”
“You’re good…you know that?”
“I’m good at a lot of things.”
Another smile surfaced. “Oh really? Like what kind of things?”
“First off, get your mind outta the gutter. I’m a good Catholic boy,” I said, lifting my cross necklace off of my chest.
“Do you go to Mass every week?”
“As a matter of fact, I do…haven’t missed a Sunday in years. What about you? Are you Catholic?”
“Irish first, Catholic second,” she said as she lifted her beer and took a swig. I liked this girl more and more with every exchange.
“Do you have any siblings?”
“A younger brother. What about you?”
“I’m the youngest of nine.”
“Wow, you are Catholic!”
“Well, my parents loved each other, and didn’t believe in birth control…you know, one thing leads to another.”
We had chemistry like we had known each other our entire lives, rather than the fifteen minutes it had actually been. She had a sparkle in her eyes, and the cutest button nose I had ever seen. Her wit was quick and on point, and I knew I had to make it go beyond that night. We continued to talk, had a couple more beers, and at one point, she reached across the table, lifted my right hand, and kissed it. Most guys would have run like the wind, but I thought it was the most adorable thing that a girl had ever done to me.
“Let’s do a shot,” she said promptly after we each finished our fourth beer.
“I don’t do shots.”
Nobody loved doing shots more than I did, but that was my problem. One shot was never enough. One shot turned into two, and then three turned into seven or eight, and before I would even know it, I’d be stumbling up Fifteenth Avenue, having completely blown it with her.
“Just one, come on!”
“I’ll make a deal with you.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll do a shot with you, but only if you agree to go to Mass with me on Sunday.”
“Fine. Deal.”
“You have to pinky swear, though. It’s only good if you pinky swear.”
So we interlocked pinkies, and each kissed the spot between our thumb and index fingers. She went inside, and a few minutes later came out with two shots of Jagermeister. I took the shot with her, got her phone number, and we parted ways.
And that’s how I got a date to Mass from a shot of Jagermeister.
It was a golden moment. I didn’t really look at either girl, because it was dark out, and I was a little more concerned with getting my hands on the frosty 32 ounce Coors Light. Collin handed me a beer, but was preoccupied with a guy he ran into on the walk out. He was beginning to sit down, so I sat down, and immediately thereafter, he rose back to a stance, and walked away. There I was, sitting at a table with two girls, who were complete strangers, and I was faced with a decision—get up, without saying a word, and walk away with my tail tucked between my legs, or meet them. I chose the latter, or I should say, Anna chose the latter.
“Hi, I’m Anna,” she said, extending her hand across the table. She was cute. Actually, she was a total bombshell.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Giancarlo…but you can call me G.C. or Gianni, which ever you prefer.”
“Hi, I’m Steph,” her friend said, also extending her hand.
“Hey, how’s it goin’?”
In hindsight I might have been a little rude when meeting Steph, but there was something about Anna I immediately couldn’t shake off.
“So do you always just sit down with strangers?” she asked, putting me on the spot.
“Yeah, I just go from bar to bar until I see a couple of girls like yourselves.”
I wasn’t fazed.
“Good response.”
I was in like Flynn.
“I’ve been known to hold my own.”
She smiled, and held out her beer for cheers.
“So, do you go to OSU?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m a junior. How ‘bout you?”
“I’m a senior. Whuddaya studying?”
“English. You?”
“Special Education.”
“So you like kids.”
“No, they just pay teachers really well.”
I had a wise-ass on my hands, and I loved it.
“So whuddaya want to do with an English degree, teach?”
“Well, I’m not really sure. I was leaning toward being a writer, but I heard they’re paying teachers through the roof these days.”
“You’re good…you know that?”
“I’m good at a lot of things.”
Another smile surfaced. “Oh really? Like what kind of things?”
“First off, get your mind outta the gutter. I’m a good Catholic boy,” I said, lifting my cross necklace off of my chest.
“Do you go to Mass every week?”
“As a matter of fact, I do…haven’t missed a Sunday in years. What about you? Are you Catholic?”
“Irish first, Catholic second,” she said as she lifted her beer and took a swig. I liked this girl more and more with every exchange.
“Do you have any siblings?”
“A younger brother. What about you?”
“I’m the youngest of nine.”
“Wow, you are Catholic!”
“Well, my parents loved each other, and didn’t believe in birth control…you know, one thing leads to another.”
We had chemistry like we had known each other our entire lives, rather than the fifteen minutes it had actually been. She had a sparkle in her eyes, and the cutest button nose I had ever seen. Her wit was quick and on point, and I knew I had to make it go beyond that night. We continued to talk, had a couple more beers, and at one point, she reached across the table, lifted my right hand, and kissed it. Most guys would have run like the wind, but I thought it was the most adorable thing that a girl had ever done to me.
“Let’s do a shot,” she said promptly after we each finished our fourth beer.
“I don’t do shots.”
Nobody loved doing shots more than I did, but that was my problem. One shot was never enough. One shot turned into two, and then three turned into seven or eight, and before I would even know it, I’d be stumbling up Fifteenth Avenue, having completely blown it with her.
“Just one, come on!”
“I’ll make a deal with you.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll do a shot with you, but only if you agree to go to Mass with me on Sunday.”
“Fine. Deal.”
“You have to pinky swear, though. It’s only good if you pinky swear.”
So we interlocked pinkies, and each kissed the spot between our thumb and index fingers. She went inside, and a few minutes later came out with two shots of Jagermeister. I took the shot with her, got her phone number, and we parted ways.
And that’s how I got a date to Mass from a shot of Jagermeister.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Regarding My Third Novel
I cannot refrain from admitting how naive and optimistic I was when I last sat down to embark on a literary journey. However, I do refrain from apologizing for it. For that is a beauty of this life—growth. You cannot know anything in this world without experiencing it. You may believe in a great multitude of things—from the reading of books and the lectures of college professors, but you can only say so much as I believe that, or I have faith that that is true or factual. The most common misconception of hard work I have ever came across was that provided by my collegiate colleagues. That average student attends no more than 100 lectures, and reads no more than ten books in a ten-week span, and they nearly fall faint from exhaustion. And what have they obtained? Lifeless knowledge. And I say lifeless, meaning: not being able to socially use that knowledge to obtain any productive personal connection with the better part of human beings you will come across during a walk down Main Street.
Life is people. That I have learned, and that I know. I can honestly say the person I have known the least in this world, whoever that may be, had a more important impact on me than any material possession. I also dare to say that I have learned infinitely more knowledge of life by observing people, than any other action or enterprise. So this is where I ultimately seem to stand: Wisdom, Hard Work, People—the three most important elements of life, which I have come to know, by experience.
Life is people. That I have learned, and that I know. I can honestly say the person I have known the least in this world, whoever that may be, had a more important impact on me than any material possession. I also dare to say that I have learned infinitely more knowledge of life by observing people, than any other action or enterprise. So this is where I ultimately seem to stand: Wisdom, Hard Work, People—the three most important elements of life, which I have come to know, by experience.
Friday, March 7, 2008
TENNESSEE WHISKEY
How my hopes came and left
That cool winter’s day
And despite constant efforts
My love would not stay.
She drove a dagger into my heart
Not once stopping before she did part.
She held everything I once had owned,
From my cares to desires and even my car.
She stole it all, it was quite bizarre.
My shirt, my socks, actually my draws
Hey, ain’t there something against this?
Like maybe some laws?
Up and left was I in Tennessee
Now all I have is a bottle of Jack D
I pour shot glasses, six to the top
Damn I’m only seventeen, and here comes a cop.
He grabbed and clenched under my elbow
I was like: “hold up, hold up, let me go.”
He said “Son, we got laws in this town
And your future I cannot let down.”
Ready was I, “Sir hasn’t your heart been broken?
Used, mistreated, spent like a token?”
“Actually it was,” he came to recall
“She was gangly, fat, and tremendously tall
She broke my heart, so I broke her jaw.”
“Now sir, I imagine that is against the law.”
That is when it all went down
And my head and stomach began to spin round.
“Son, I’m your uncle and your father
Hell, it’s Tennessee, don’t even bother!”
That cool winter’s day
And despite constant efforts
My love would not stay.
She drove a dagger into my heart
Not once stopping before she did part.
She held everything I once had owned,
From my cares to desires and even my car.
She stole it all, it was quite bizarre.
My shirt, my socks, actually my draws
Hey, ain’t there something against this?
Like maybe some laws?
Up and left was I in Tennessee
Now all I have is a bottle of Jack D
I pour shot glasses, six to the top
Damn I’m only seventeen, and here comes a cop.
He grabbed and clenched under my elbow
I was like: “hold up, hold up, let me go.”
He said “Son, we got laws in this town
And your future I cannot let down.”
Ready was I, “Sir hasn’t your heart been broken?
Used, mistreated, spent like a token?”
“Actually it was,” he came to recall
“She was gangly, fat, and tremendously tall
She broke my heart, so I broke her jaw.”
“Now sir, I imagine that is against the law.”
That is when it all went down
And my head and stomach began to spin round.
“Son, I’m your uncle and your father
Hell, it’s Tennessee, don’t even bother!”
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Move Over Brando
--This is an autobiography I wrote for the character I performed in
“A Streetcar Named Desire”
I am Stanley Kowalski. I am twenty-nine years old, and I feel like I’m fifty. I stand a little shy of six feet in height, and I weigh an even one-hundred and eighty pounds. I work as an auto parts salesman, here in New Orleans, where I’ve lived my whole life. I’ve seen the horrors of the second World’s war, but nothing more horrible than my damn sister-in-law showing up at my front door. Some people tell me I walk around like a gorilla—swinging my fists and nearly dragging my knuckles on the ground. I say fuck those people—I walk how I walk. Some people think of me as a dud, a big head with no brain inside—those people can go to Hell. I am smart, I am mentally aware, and I won’t have some slut show up, take my wife from me, and live off my wages. I got friends. Good friends. Steve and Mitch and Pablo—good hardworking guys, who ain’t got much going for ‘em. They’re good to hang out with, play poker with. Problem is, I’m going places. I mean, I’m gonna get Stella and our baby a new place, a better place, with a yard, and maybe a garden. I ain’t gonna be no auto parts salesman for too long. I’m gonna start my own thing, and make lots of money, and then all those people can see I got real brains—that there’s something going on inside my head. I love Stella, she’s a real sweatheart. Thing is, she ain’t much when it comes to sense. She kinda takes everyone at their word, believes everyone about everything. Especially that damn whore of a sister she’s got. Oh how I’d like to put her in her place. I ain’t one to be walked on. Nope, I ain’t no doormat, and I ain’t gonna let Stella be one neither. I got two pairs of slacks—one for working, one for going out. I got four shirts—two white undershirts, one flannel work shirt, and another button down for going out. People look at the way I’m dressed and call me unrefined. Or the way I talk, or think, or conduct business, and say I’m unrefined. I happen to think most peoples are just fake. They wear their clothes and talk the way they do to hide their real selves. No one has the balls to just be themself. I believe there is a god, but I ain’t got much to say to him since I seen what happened in that war. Since I seen what kind of poverty some people are forced to live in. I just don’t think he cares too much about us. The year is 1945, and everyone is happy because we beat them damned Nazis. Everyone thinks we got some kinda heaven on earth now. I ain’t seen nothing pleasant since before I stepped on that beach in France. I won’t see nothing pleasant ever again. Even when it’s all sunny outside like today, and those fucking birds are chirping, and the air is pretty cool for it being summer time, it’s still hell on earth. I still gotta get up, go to work, take peoples crap, kiss peoples asses so that I can make goddam business deals. I earned more than this. More than this little dumpy apartment, in this dumpy old neighborhood, with these dumpy old neighbors. I’m damn near thirty and I ain’t got my own home. I ain’t got a shiny car, and I don’t take no damn vacations, either. Some fucking American Dream. New Orleans is a fool’s town. People drink too much, cuss and start fights. It’s a real underground. It’s a place where negros can play sad music they call blues or jazz or whatever it may be. It’s a place where fags can paint and write all sorts of gay poetry. I mean, no wonder every one drinks—you can’t walk five goddam steps without hearing a harmonica, or seeing some homo mark up perfectly good canvas with greasy paint. It’s always hot, too. Some days you wake up and walk outside and you can’t even breathe. The air is so humid and heavy its like trying to inhale honey or something. I ain’t got much for family either. It’s really just me and Stella, and the baby when it comes. My old man used to beat me with whatever was lying around. He’d come home all drunk and angry. Drunk bastard probably got his ass beat at the tavern, and so he’d come home and take it out on me and my mother. She took off when I was just thirteen, and so I left, too. I been doing alright for myself since I was thirteen. Sure I had to lie a little, and steal some food here and there, and do other sorts of bad things, but I survived. Can those things really be all that bad when you are just trying to survive? I’m sure gonna get that dame Blanche. That’s for sure. My buddy at work goes over to Laurel. He told me Blanche was kicked out of town. She was fooling around with the whole town I guess. And she comes here saying she doesn’t know what to do, and that she lost Belle Reve—but she ain’t got no money for us? I’ll tell you Louisiana’s got the Napoleonic Code. Says anything that belongs to someone also belongs to their spouse. I’m gonna put an end to Blanche’s lies and games. She ain’t gonna come here and take my wife and me hostage. She gonna pay for what she did. Soon as I get home I’m gonna tell her a new one, then she can pack her bags and be on her way. I’m Stanley Kowalski. I ain’t no fool.
“A Streetcar Named Desire”
I am Stanley Kowalski. I am twenty-nine years old, and I feel like I’m fifty. I stand a little shy of six feet in height, and I weigh an even one-hundred and eighty pounds. I work as an auto parts salesman, here in New Orleans, where I’ve lived my whole life. I’ve seen the horrors of the second World’s war, but nothing more horrible than my damn sister-in-law showing up at my front door. Some people tell me I walk around like a gorilla—swinging my fists and nearly dragging my knuckles on the ground. I say fuck those people—I walk how I walk. Some people think of me as a dud, a big head with no brain inside—those people can go to Hell. I am smart, I am mentally aware, and I won’t have some slut show up, take my wife from me, and live off my wages. I got friends. Good friends. Steve and Mitch and Pablo—good hardworking guys, who ain’t got much going for ‘em. They’re good to hang out with, play poker with. Problem is, I’m going places. I mean, I’m gonna get Stella and our baby a new place, a better place, with a yard, and maybe a garden. I ain’t gonna be no auto parts salesman for too long. I’m gonna start my own thing, and make lots of money, and then all those people can see I got real brains—that there’s something going on inside my head. I love Stella, she’s a real sweatheart. Thing is, she ain’t much when it comes to sense. She kinda takes everyone at their word, believes everyone about everything. Especially that damn whore of a sister she’s got. Oh how I’d like to put her in her place. I ain’t one to be walked on. Nope, I ain’t no doormat, and I ain’t gonna let Stella be one neither. I got two pairs of slacks—one for working, one for going out. I got four shirts—two white undershirts, one flannel work shirt, and another button down for going out. People look at the way I’m dressed and call me unrefined. Or the way I talk, or think, or conduct business, and say I’m unrefined. I happen to think most peoples are just fake. They wear their clothes and talk the way they do to hide their real selves. No one has the balls to just be themself. I believe there is a god, but I ain’t got much to say to him since I seen what happened in that war. Since I seen what kind of poverty some people are forced to live in. I just don’t think he cares too much about us. The year is 1945, and everyone is happy because we beat them damned Nazis. Everyone thinks we got some kinda heaven on earth now. I ain’t seen nothing pleasant since before I stepped on that beach in France. I won’t see nothing pleasant ever again. Even when it’s all sunny outside like today, and those fucking birds are chirping, and the air is pretty cool for it being summer time, it’s still hell on earth. I still gotta get up, go to work, take peoples crap, kiss peoples asses so that I can make goddam business deals. I earned more than this. More than this little dumpy apartment, in this dumpy old neighborhood, with these dumpy old neighbors. I’m damn near thirty and I ain’t got my own home. I ain’t got a shiny car, and I don’t take no damn vacations, either. Some fucking American Dream. New Orleans is a fool’s town. People drink too much, cuss and start fights. It’s a real underground. It’s a place where negros can play sad music they call blues or jazz or whatever it may be. It’s a place where fags can paint and write all sorts of gay poetry. I mean, no wonder every one drinks—you can’t walk five goddam steps without hearing a harmonica, or seeing some homo mark up perfectly good canvas with greasy paint. It’s always hot, too. Some days you wake up and walk outside and you can’t even breathe. The air is so humid and heavy its like trying to inhale honey or something. I ain’t got much for family either. It’s really just me and Stella, and the baby when it comes. My old man used to beat me with whatever was lying around. He’d come home all drunk and angry. Drunk bastard probably got his ass beat at the tavern, and so he’d come home and take it out on me and my mother. She took off when I was just thirteen, and so I left, too. I been doing alright for myself since I was thirteen. Sure I had to lie a little, and steal some food here and there, and do other sorts of bad things, but I survived. Can those things really be all that bad when you are just trying to survive? I’m sure gonna get that dame Blanche. That’s for sure. My buddy at work goes over to Laurel. He told me Blanche was kicked out of town. She was fooling around with the whole town I guess. And she comes here saying she doesn’t know what to do, and that she lost Belle Reve—but she ain’t got no money for us? I’ll tell you Louisiana’s got the Napoleonic Code. Says anything that belongs to someone also belongs to their spouse. I’m gonna put an end to Blanche’s lies and games. She ain’t gonna come here and take my wife and me hostage. She gonna pay for what she did. Soon as I get home I’m gonna tell her a new one, then she can pack her bags and be on her way. I’m Stanley Kowalski. I ain’t no fool.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Buon Giorno Principatia
If you go there, wait for me. And remember that night, that one night in which the stars were lit in the sky. And all around, the smell of honey engulfed your senses. Everything was pure and innocent, and just upon the happenings of all surprise, a love was born. Don’t happen to forget the look in his eyes when his world before him turned upside down.
Just around that corner of shops, a handsome, yet gentle man came into glance. Initially he was taken off guard and fell at the hands of uncertainty. Then upon looking further, he recognized an angel of his past. She was provocative, seductive, and led his imagination crazy. Not only her beauty, which far surpassed any blossom or Azalia, but the unending mystique which drove a merely unstable mind crazy. He’d been fighting for weeks to escape the thought of it. Even taking to the sea, with high spirits and an empty canvas. But as he subconsciously wished, his dreams came true. He received another day of experience with the most stunning and surreal of individuals he had ever met.
For it had felt like an eternity to him since they last exchanged fancies, and uncontrollably his heart beat; overjoyed for such an unexpected opportunity to arise. So he set foot onto the dusty road, imbedded with rocks, and his sandals loosely kicked them as his hands turned to a glistening shadow of sweat. Never before had he reached a level of anxiety such as that, and not once in his young life did he feel as confidently dismantled. It was the sole impulse with which he acted upon; an array of ambiguity and amaze. It was descriptively ironic—He, a man, charismatic and cunning, found in a spiraling tunnel of unknowingness, all because she, young and beautiful, possessed the power to arouse every one oh his senses, with just one look. And characteristically that’s all she had given to him, to that point. But his imagination ran wild with it, and many nights did his weary mind stay awake, burdened by the thought of never again experiencing it. Over and over, and unintentionally, he’d picture her smile, hoping that one day he could be the reason for its existence.
He continued across the beaten dirt of tire tracks, avoiding those who traveled their own routine. As he neared her, he had not the faintest idea what to say. Their relations to that point had been a sunny day, surrounded at a table by many contrasts. And even then, he did not speak beyond several words to her. So his words ran dry, and all he could do was imagine. Imagine a life, which his dreams proved true. Bushels of flowers, magic, honeydew. A life of simplicity, not idolatry. Kisses, embraces, affectionate fetishes.
With that, he proceeded the last strides, before a moment of predictably profound persistence. She stood there, directing a couple stray shoppers to their destination. Her back was to him, preventing an early unattached awkwardness. He waited patiently for her to finish. And rather than preparing an opening line for conversation, he fell into a trance of romantic optimism. She wore the purest white dress he had ever laid eyes on, and her figure was struck just shy enough by the sun to add depth for his perception. He watched, enchanted by the movement in her hands. As she turned around, he remained in a state of admiration. She looked up, and in the sudden recognition, she smiled. Then they kissed.
Just around that corner of shops, a handsome, yet gentle man came into glance. Initially he was taken off guard and fell at the hands of uncertainty. Then upon looking further, he recognized an angel of his past. She was provocative, seductive, and led his imagination crazy. Not only her beauty, which far surpassed any blossom or Azalia, but the unending mystique which drove a merely unstable mind crazy. He’d been fighting for weeks to escape the thought of it. Even taking to the sea, with high spirits and an empty canvas. But as he subconsciously wished, his dreams came true. He received another day of experience with the most stunning and surreal of individuals he had ever met.
For it had felt like an eternity to him since they last exchanged fancies, and uncontrollably his heart beat; overjoyed for such an unexpected opportunity to arise. So he set foot onto the dusty road, imbedded with rocks, and his sandals loosely kicked them as his hands turned to a glistening shadow of sweat. Never before had he reached a level of anxiety such as that, and not once in his young life did he feel as confidently dismantled. It was the sole impulse with which he acted upon; an array of ambiguity and amaze. It was descriptively ironic—He, a man, charismatic and cunning, found in a spiraling tunnel of unknowingness, all because she, young and beautiful, possessed the power to arouse every one oh his senses, with just one look. And characteristically that’s all she had given to him, to that point. But his imagination ran wild with it, and many nights did his weary mind stay awake, burdened by the thought of never again experiencing it. Over and over, and unintentionally, he’d picture her smile, hoping that one day he could be the reason for its existence.
He continued across the beaten dirt of tire tracks, avoiding those who traveled their own routine. As he neared her, he had not the faintest idea what to say. Their relations to that point had been a sunny day, surrounded at a table by many contrasts. And even then, he did not speak beyond several words to her. So his words ran dry, and all he could do was imagine. Imagine a life, which his dreams proved true. Bushels of flowers, magic, honeydew. A life of simplicity, not idolatry. Kisses, embraces, affectionate fetishes.
With that, he proceeded the last strides, before a moment of predictably profound persistence. She stood there, directing a couple stray shoppers to their destination. Her back was to him, preventing an early unattached awkwardness. He waited patiently for her to finish. And rather than preparing an opening line for conversation, he fell into a trance of romantic optimism. She wore the purest white dress he had ever laid eyes on, and her figure was struck just shy enough by the sun to add depth for his perception. He watched, enchanted by the movement in her hands. As she turned around, he remained in a state of admiration. She looked up, and in the sudden recognition, she smiled. Then they kissed.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The King's Castle
Magnificently hung,
Were the stars that night
Tiny beams sung,
Bursting with light
The moon stared,
Horizons expanded
Enormity declared,
Human grasp disbanded
Might winds refrained,
Coldness paid its due.
Hope damned by pain,
Now saw a way through
To count them all would take his entire life,
He'd rather look into the eyes of his wife
Were the stars that night
Tiny beams sung,
Bursting with light
The moon stared,
Horizons expanded
Enormity declared,
Human grasp disbanded
Might winds refrained,
Coldness paid its due.
Hope damned by pain,
Now saw a way through
To count them all would take his entire life,
He'd rather look into the eyes of his wife
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
We'll Take What We Can Get
Their first date, as they would call it, was late in the fall of 1964. Frances, along with her sister Margaret, attended the first basketball game of John’s senior year. She would not miss another home game, always watching him and cheering him, and deep-down-inside insatiably waiting for him to walk her home, singing to her the entire way, as they walked along the snow draped front lawns of Fairmount Boulevard.
Then, Frances, at the young age of 18, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. The doctors performed the most up-to-date radiation procedures, ridding her of any traces of the ailment, but in turn, severely damaging her heart in the process. They told her, in their best wisdom, that she would be greatly fortunate to live to see the age of 30. Upon hearing the news John asked her to marry him. She declined, urging that she could not bear to love him not knowing when she would be forced to leave him.
John simply said to her, “We’ll take what we can get.”
Frances’ parents vehemently objected to the union, due to Frances’s age, and instead offered Margaret as a substitute. A week later, John and Frances eloped to Michigan. When they returned forty-eight hours later, they went on their honeymoon—a trip to the grocery store—and did their best, with what money they had from John’s graduate student stipends, to fill the fridge and cabinets of their first home, a small studio apartment on the lower East side of downtown Cleveland. John began his Master’s work in Chemistry at Case Western Reserve, and promised Frances every night he would provide her with a better home, even if it required building it from the ground up, with his own two hands.
By the fall of ’66 Annibella Marie was born, eight pounds and two ounces, brown hair and John’s hazel green eyes. They lived day to day, barely surviving on the stipends and student loans, but meagerly saved enough to upgrade to a one bedroom flat by the time Clifford Lemay arrived in the late summer of ’67. John received his Ph. D from Case in 1970, and accepted an assistant professorship position at his alma mater, John Carroll. The following Mother’s Day, 1971, John surprised Frances when he took her to see their first real home—a dinged up, weather-beaten, two bedroom Bungalow in South Euclid, which he was secretly ashamed of. Frances was floored with excitement, demanding that the house was all she could want, and continually dismissed John’s constant nightly promises to build her one better. A month later, on Father’s Day, Frances had a surprise of her own—Joshua Brian was due by Christmas. By the turn of 1973, John found himself building dual bunk beds for the expected Patrick James, who would join his three older siblings in the already overcrowded second bedroom. By the time Thomas Athanasius was born in June of ’75, John surprised Frances and their little contingent of five, with another house, this time a four bedroom brick manor on Belvoir, in University Heights. Again, the house was a work in progress, but it grew with the family, and by the time John obtained professorship in 1981, Frances had carried and given birth to Sarah Ann, Alison Mary and Jonathon Paul—the house had done its due. So, John purchased the most beautiful plot of land in Gates Mills the bank would lend him the money for, and built a five bedroom palace, as he promised, with his own two hands, Frances helping late at night once the kids were tucked away, bearing the cold as she held logs for John to saw. He sang to her as the snow fell, draping the front lawn of their much awaited estate.
Thirty four years after her diagnosis, Frances was 52, and heavily beating the odds. She had married, raised a family, helped build a house she had longed for from the ground up, and saw her first seven kids go on to higher education. However, years of bearing and raising so many children had put a great strain on her heart. By the time Jonathon Paul was graduating high school, she was taking seven different medications a day. Then, at the age of 53, she had a major heart attack. She was rushed to the Cleveland Clinic, and sustained two triple bypass surgeries within a week. All eight kids came back together, and in between the solemnity of prayer, they joked and laughed in the waiting room, recounting the stories which would come to define their family.
Only John was allowed to see Frances after the surgeries. She was in intensive care, fully conscious, but her heart was fading quickly. John didn’t sleep for the last three days. He read to her. He sang to her. He made faces which made her laugh. He told her things that made her eyes well up with tears. He held her hand and promised her that he did all he ever could have done.
By the very end—the last day—Frances couldn’t muster the power to speak, and in turn had to write down her responses to John on a small notepad.
The last thing John ever said to Frances was, “Who would have thought we could have created all that we have…the kids, the house…”
Frances took her pencil to the small notepad one final time, and slowly wrote, “You always said we’d take what we could get.”
Then, Frances, at the young age of 18, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. The doctors performed the most up-to-date radiation procedures, ridding her of any traces of the ailment, but in turn, severely damaging her heart in the process. They told her, in their best wisdom, that she would be greatly fortunate to live to see the age of 30. Upon hearing the news John asked her to marry him. She declined, urging that she could not bear to love him not knowing when she would be forced to leave him.
John simply said to her, “We’ll take what we can get.”
Frances’ parents vehemently objected to the union, due to Frances’s age, and instead offered Margaret as a substitute. A week later, John and Frances eloped to Michigan. When they returned forty-eight hours later, they went on their honeymoon—a trip to the grocery store—and did their best, with what money they had from John’s graduate student stipends, to fill the fridge and cabinets of their first home, a small studio apartment on the lower East side of downtown Cleveland. John began his Master’s work in Chemistry at Case Western Reserve, and promised Frances every night he would provide her with a better home, even if it required building it from the ground up, with his own two hands.
By the fall of ’66 Annibella Marie was born, eight pounds and two ounces, brown hair and John’s hazel green eyes. They lived day to day, barely surviving on the stipends and student loans, but meagerly saved enough to upgrade to a one bedroom flat by the time Clifford Lemay arrived in the late summer of ’67. John received his Ph. D from Case in 1970, and accepted an assistant professorship position at his alma mater, John Carroll. The following Mother’s Day, 1971, John surprised Frances when he took her to see their first real home—a dinged up, weather-beaten, two bedroom Bungalow in South Euclid, which he was secretly ashamed of. Frances was floored with excitement, demanding that the house was all she could want, and continually dismissed John’s constant nightly promises to build her one better. A month later, on Father’s Day, Frances had a surprise of her own—Joshua Brian was due by Christmas. By the turn of 1973, John found himself building dual bunk beds for the expected Patrick James, who would join his three older siblings in the already overcrowded second bedroom. By the time Thomas Athanasius was born in June of ’75, John surprised Frances and their little contingent of five, with another house, this time a four bedroom brick manor on Belvoir, in University Heights. Again, the house was a work in progress, but it grew with the family, and by the time John obtained professorship in 1981, Frances had carried and given birth to Sarah Ann, Alison Mary and Jonathon Paul—the house had done its due. So, John purchased the most beautiful plot of land in Gates Mills the bank would lend him the money for, and built a five bedroom palace, as he promised, with his own two hands, Frances helping late at night once the kids were tucked away, bearing the cold as she held logs for John to saw. He sang to her as the snow fell, draping the front lawn of their much awaited estate.
Thirty four years after her diagnosis, Frances was 52, and heavily beating the odds. She had married, raised a family, helped build a house she had longed for from the ground up, and saw her first seven kids go on to higher education. However, years of bearing and raising so many children had put a great strain on her heart. By the time Jonathon Paul was graduating high school, she was taking seven different medications a day. Then, at the age of 53, she had a major heart attack. She was rushed to the Cleveland Clinic, and sustained two triple bypass surgeries within a week. All eight kids came back together, and in between the solemnity of prayer, they joked and laughed in the waiting room, recounting the stories which would come to define their family.
Only John was allowed to see Frances after the surgeries. She was in intensive care, fully conscious, but her heart was fading quickly. John didn’t sleep for the last three days. He read to her. He sang to her. He made faces which made her laugh. He told her things that made her eyes well up with tears. He held her hand and promised her that he did all he ever could have done.
By the very end—the last day—Frances couldn’t muster the power to speak, and in turn had to write down her responses to John on a small notepad.
The last thing John ever said to Frances was, “Who would have thought we could have created all that we have…the kids, the house…”
Frances took her pencil to the small notepad one final time, and slowly wrote, “You always said we’d take what we could get.”
Monday, February 25, 2008
Unexpected Intervention
Cameron was close to giving up. He had given his best effort, but he wasn’t quite made out for the bright lights of Hollywood. He was a midwestern boy, having grown up on a farm in Western Iowa, plowing and tilling fields of wheat and corn. He was supposed to be the heir to a couple hundred acres of soil and livestock, once his high school football glory days came to a close. He did not have the money to go to college, nor did he want to. Cameron wanted to make movies.
His earliest attempts of theatre came in the rafters of the Dennison family barn—putting on one-man acts for his two younger sisters whenever they could find a few minutes away from their daily work. He had a natural talent and he could sense that from his audience—although it was small and biased. Most of all, Cameron had a dream, a burning desire inside, to pursue a life under the bright lights.
So, against his parents’ wishes, he packed everything he owned into two suitcases and hopped a train westward at the age of 18. He did not have much money, but enough to get started. When he arrived in Los Angeles, though, he lacked the necessary skills and trades to survive, and he had to learn on the fly. He got a job bagging groceries at a small market in East L.A., found a studio apartment he could afford, and set out on a dream.
He was in over his head. He did not have headshots, a resume, even a car. But every morning he would wake up and write. He did not know the proper way to write a screenplay, so he walked to the nearby library, and took out every book he could find on the craft. He read them cover to cover—only taking time away for sleep and his shifts at the market. With every penny he could save, and they were few and far between, he bought paper and ink cartridges for his very out-of-date typewriter. He wrote and wrote, script after script, and hand delivered them to the various studios in town. Not a single one made it past the secretary’s trash can.
After five years of this routine, Cameron was finally feeling defeated. He had tried every imaginable thing to break his way into the business—none reaped any reward. The closest he had come to making it was his move to the West Hollywood Ralph’s as an assistant manager. Then, one day, he was ready to give it all up—move back to Iowa, and continue doing the work he was destined for. He packed his two suitcases again, walked down to the bus stop, and was en route to the train station for a one-way ticket home. As he was sitting, waiting for the bus to arrive, a man sat down next to him. The man appeared to be homeless—wearing very ragged clothing, hair clumped and greasy, and a stench prevailed off of him that vaguely reminded Cameron of his days cleaning out the pig’s pen back in Des Moines.
“What do you have there?” the man asked, referring to Cameron’s final screenplay, which rested face down on his lap.
“Oh nothing…just a screenplay I wrote,” he said.
“Really?” the man responded, “I’m a writer myself.”
Most people would not have spoken a word to this homeless man. Not in West Hollywood, not in South Central L.A.
“What’s your name?” Cameron asked.
“Patrick,” the man said but did not ask for Cameron’s in return.
Patrick began rambling on and on about the children’s book he was desperately trying to finish. As he did so he began pulling out random scraps of paper—restaurant receipts, unwanted credit card envelopes, anything Patrick could have dug out of the nearby trashcans.
“The bigger problem is finding a pen or a pencil in those dumpsters,” Patrick replied.
Without thinking twice, Cameron removed two pens from his pocket and handed them to Patrick.
“Have mine,” Cameron said.
“No,” Patrick refused, “I can’t take those…you’re an artist and those are your tools.”
“I’m meant to be a farmer,” Cameron replied.
“What do you mean?” Patrick asked.
“I’m not cut out for this town. I’ve tried. I chased this dream with all my heart, but you can’t force luck.”
“It’s not about luck,” Patrick replied.
“Well, I don’t know what it’s about, but I do know what farming is about, and I can be good at that.”
Then a man and woman walked up to the bus stop, hand in hand, looked at Patrick and the man said, “Get out of here, bum…this bench is for people who are waiting for the bus.”
“Wait a minute,” Cameron intervened. “His name is Patrick, and he’s my friend…if he wants to sit here, he’ll sit here.”
“It’s okay,” Patrick said. “I have to go somewhere for a moment, would you mind watching my bag?” he asked, referring to a brown grocery bag full of folded up newspapers.
“Sure thing,” Cameron replied.
“I won’t be long,” Patrick insisted.
Then Patrick walked down the street and out of sight. The next bus pulled up and Cameron faced a dilemma. If he did not get on that bus he surely would not make it to the train station in time. But he did tell Patrick he would watch his bag until he got back. He decided to let the bus go. It was not his nature to put himself before others—whether it was a queen or a homeless man. It might cost him a small fee but he was sure he could trade in his ticket for a later one.
A few minutes later Patrick returned.
“Thank you for watching my bag,” he said. “Most people will not even talk to me. I owe you…I really do,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Cameron replied, “I told you that I would.”
“Well, I have to go,” Patrick said, lifting his brown bag off of the sidewalk.
“It was nice meeting you, Patrick,” Cameron said while shaking his hand.
“Yes it was…you will do very well, Cameron. You will do well.”
One of the small note cards Patrick carried fell from his pocket to the sidewalk. Cameron bent down and grabbed it. When he arose, however, Patrick was not there. Cameron rapidly scoured everything around him, but there was no sign of Patrick.
He looked at the card and it said, “Give it one more shot, Cameron: Your Guardian Angel, Patrick.
Cameron realized he had never given Patrick his name, and when he looked down at his screenplay he confirmed it was face down.
So Cameron gave it one more shot. He took the next bus to the nearest studio, walked in, told the secretary he had a meeting with the vice president of production—his name was miraculously on the schedule—and he went in and pitched his script. Two years later, Cameron’s first movie was on every Cineplex screen across the country. Three years later he directed his first movie. Just three months before turning 30 he sat anxiously at the Kodak Theatre awaiting the results from the stunningly beautiful actress’s mouth, “Best Picture goes to…Cameron Dennison for Empty as a Pocket.”
Cameron walked up the steps, took the Oscar in his hands, and removed a small note card from the inside pocket of his tuxedo coat. It was old and weathered, but he could still make out the words.
He said, “I want to thank God, first. I want to thank my parents. And I want to thank my best friend Patrick, if it wasn’t for his words to me one day many years ago, I would never be on this stage.”
Before Cameron put the card back into his pocket he looked at it one more time. Right before his eyes, he watched the words change to, “You did well, Cameron: Your best friend, Patrick.”
His earliest attempts of theatre came in the rafters of the Dennison family barn—putting on one-man acts for his two younger sisters whenever they could find a few minutes away from their daily work. He had a natural talent and he could sense that from his audience—although it was small and biased. Most of all, Cameron had a dream, a burning desire inside, to pursue a life under the bright lights.
So, against his parents’ wishes, he packed everything he owned into two suitcases and hopped a train westward at the age of 18. He did not have much money, but enough to get started. When he arrived in Los Angeles, though, he lacked the necessary skills and trades to survive, and he had to learn on the fly. He got a job bagging groceries at a small market in East L.A., found a studio apartment he could afford, and set out on a dream.
He was in over his head. He did not have headshots, a resume, even a car. But every morning he would wake up and write. He did not know the proper way to write a screenplay, so he walked to the nearby library, and took out every book he could find on the craft. He read them cover to cover—only taking time away for sleep and his shifts at the market. With every penny he could save, and they were few and far between, he bought paper and ink cartridges for his very out-of-date typewriter. He wrote and wrote, script after script, and hand delivered them to the various studios in town. Not a single one made it past the secretary’s trash can.
After five years of this routine, Cameron was finally feeling defeated. He had tried every imaginable thing to break his way into the business—none reaped any reward. The closest he had come to making it was his move to the West Hollywood Ralph’s as an assistant manager. Then, one day, he was ready to give it all up—move back to Iowa, and continue doing the work he was destined for. He packed his two suitcases again, walked down to the bus stop, and was en route to the train station for a one-way ticket home. As he was sitting, waiting for the bus to arrive, a man sat down next to him. The man appeared to be homeless—wearing very ragged clothing, hair clumped and greasy, and a stench prevailed off of him that vaguely reminded Cameron of his days cleaning out the pig’s pen back in Des Moines.
“What do you have there?” the man asked, referring to Cameron’s final screenplay, which rested face down on his lap.
“Oh nothing…just a screenplay I wrote,” he said.
“Really?” the man responded, “I’m a writer myself.”
Most people would not have spoken a word to this homeless man. Not in West Hollywood, not in South Central L.A.
“What’s your name?” Cameron asked.
“Patrick,” the man said but did not ask for Cameron’s in return.
Patrick began rambling on and on about the children’s book he was desperately trying to finish. As he did so he began pulling out random scraps of paper—restaurant receipts, unwanted credit card envelopes, anything Patrick could have dug out of the nearby trashcans.
“The bigger problem is finding a pen or a pencil in those dumpsters,” Patrick replied.
Without thinking twice, Cameron removed two pens from his pocket and handed them to Patrick.
“Have mine,” Cameron said.
“No,” Patrick refused, “I can’t take those…you’re an artist and those are your tools.”
“I’m meant to be a farmer,” Cameron replied.
“What do you mean?” Patrick asked.
“I’m not cut out for this town. I’ve tried. I chased this dream with all my heart, but you can’t force luck.”
“It’s not about luck,” Patrick replied.
“Well, I don’t know what it’s about, but I do know what farming is about, and I can be good at that.”
Then a man and woman walked up to the bus stop, hand in hand, looked at Patrick and the man said, “Get out of here, bum…this bench is for people who are waiting for the bus.”
“Wait a minute,” Cameron intervened. “His name is Patrick, and he’s my friend…if he wants to sit here, he’ll sit here.”
“It’s okay,” Patrick said. “I have to go somewhere for a moment, would you mind watching my bag?” he asked, referring to a brown grocery bag full of folded up newspapers.
“Sure thing,” Cameron replied.
“I won’t be long,” Patrick insisted.
Then Patrick walked down the street and out of sight. The next bus pulled up and Cameron faced a dilemma. If he did not get on that bus he surely would not make it to the train station in time. But he did tell Patrick he would watch his bag until he got back. He decided to let the bus go. It was not his nature to put himself before others—whether it was a queen or a homeless man. It might cost him a small fee but he was sure he could trade in his ticket for a later one.
A few minutes later Patrick returned.
“Thank you for watching my bag,” he said. “Most people will not even talk to me. I owe you…I really do,” he said.
“It’s okay,” Cameron replied, “I told you that I would.”
“Well, I have to go,” Patrick said, lifting his brown bag off of the sidewalk.
“It was nice meeting you, Patrick,” Cameron said while shaking his hand.
“Yes it was…you will do very well, Cameron. You will do well.”
One of the small note cards Patrick carried fell from his pocket to the sidewalk. Cameron bent down and grabbed it. When he arose, however, Patrick was not there. Cameron rapidly scoured everything around him, but there was no sign of Patrick.
He looked at the card and it said, “Give it one more shot, Cameron: Your Guardian Angel, Patrick.
Cameron realized he had never given Patrick his name, and when he looked down at his screenplay he confirmed it was face down.
So Cameron gave it one more shot. He took the next bus to the nearest studio, walked in, told the secretary he had a meeting with the vice president of production—his name was miraculously on the schedule—and he went in and pitched his script. Two years later, Cameron’s first movie was on every Cineplex screen across the country. Three years later he directed his first movie. Just three months before turning 30 he sat anxiously at the Kodak Theatre awaiting the results from the stunningly beautiful actress’s mouth, “Best Picture goes to…Cameron Dennison for Empty as a Pocket.”
Cameron walked up the steps, took the Oscar in his hands, and removed a small note card from the inside pocket of his tuxedo coat. It was old and weathered, but he could still make out the words.
He said, “I want to thank God, first. I want to thank my parents. And I want to thank my best friend Patrick, if it wasn’t for his words to me one day many years ago, I would never be on this stage.”
Before Cameron put the card back into his pocket he looked at it one more time. Right before his eyes, he watched the words change to, “You did well, Cameron: Your best friend, Patrick.”
Saturday, February 23, 2008
A Crime That Paid
Had Thomas Chance never tried robbing the old man at the end of his street when he was fifteen years old, he may have never become the world’s greatest photographer; an explorer and mountain climber; a husband and a father. He was a lost child, a product of a broken home, with an absent father and a mother who was severely addicted to alcohol and painkillers. Thomas fell in with the wrong crowd at school. The misfits naturally seem to gravitate toward one another. He was a constant problem with his teachers and authority figures of every sort. His grades were satisfactory at best, but he greatly lacked motivation. He liked football but he was never able to play, because what little money his mother had she spent immediately at the liquor store. Thomas was lost, to say the very least.
When summer break had finally come around following his freshman year, Thomas planned on never returning to school. He failed ninth grade, and being that he would turn sixteen before the start of the next school calendar he was legally allowed to drop out. His best friend, Jimmy Foley lived down the street. Jimmy was a year older, and he was from a similar background. Jimmy was not going to drop out of school, he just wanted to play football, as well. However, Jimmy could not play for the same reason that Thomas was unable—money. So, Jimmy conceived the plan while sitting on his front porch one evening.
Mr. Carver lived in the house across the street from Jimmy. He was a very old man, appeared to live alone, and was the perfect target. Jimmy figured there would have to be something of value inside of the house. At least enough valuable things he could take down to the pawn shop to come up with the money to play football. He wasn’t sure he could do it by himself, so he called on Thomas for help. Thomas had been talking about getting some money together to skip town. He did not have any destinations, but he knew it would be somewhere very far from that small town. Thomas agreed to help Jimmy as long as they split everything right down the middle.
On the night they were going to break into Mr. Carver’s home, Jimmy bailed on the plan. He was not too coward to do it, though. He was the lucky benefactor to his uncle’s passing, and in return, would inherit four thousand dollars. He had no need to rob Mr. Carver. Thomas, on the other hand, needed to do it for more than one reason. He had to go through with the plan. He watched Mr. Carver’s house all day, and saw no movement. No one came, no one left. When the sun went down no lights were turned on in the house. Thomas was positive that no one was home.
When the clock struck three in the morning he decided to do it. He climbed over Mr. Carver’s backyard fence, and began his search for an open window, a broken door lock, anything that would give him a way in the house. Then he found it. The kitchen window had been left open. He popped the screen out of the frame and climbed through. He began casing the first floor of the house, grabbing every small little thing he could put in his pockets.
Mr. Carver laid in his bed. He was not asleep, despite the late hour, because of a condition he developed during his tour in World War One. He could only sleep an hour, maybe two, before the night terrors would set in, waking him in a state of panic and fear. After 50 years of nightmares Mr. Carver had discovered ways to get his mind off of the horrors he had seen first hand, horrors that revisited him on a nightly basis. He would think of every beautiful thing he could imagine—flowing rivers, snow draped mountains, fields of flowers on a warm Spring day. Thomas was not even in the house when Mr. Carver heard him. Despite his old age he had an acute sense of hearing. He did not call the police until he was certain that Thomas was in the house.
Just as Thomas reached the landing, between the front door and the stairs he saw the red and blue flashes in the driveway. He froze for a moment, and then made a break for it through the back kitchen door. Before he could begin climbing the fence he was hit on the back of the head by the police officer’s billy club. He knew it was all over. He was handcuffed and thrown in the back of the police cruiser.
The police officer went inside where he talked to Mr. Carver. Then the police officer came back out to the car and said, “I have two options for you, kid. I can take you down to the Juvenile Detention Center, or you can call Mr. Carver every night and talk to him for a half hour.”
“What?” Thomas was perplexed. “What do you mean, talk to him?” he asked.
“Just that,” the police officer responded. “He said he wouldn’t press charges if you called him on the phone once a night for the next week, and talk to him for a half hour.”
“Okay,” Thomas said, “Can’t be worse than going to jail.”
“Here is the phone number…you better call him, son. I’ve advised Mr. Carver to call me the first day that you don’t, and I will be at your house to take you to Juvenile.”
“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, and took the small piece of paper.
The next day Thomas took out the piece of paper, and called Mr. Carver at six o’clock. Mr. Carver answered the phone on the first ring, and began talking to Thomas. He did not ask him why he tried robbing him. He did not ask him anything at all. He just began talking to Thomas like they were old friends who had not spoken in a while. The first day he talked to Thomas about football. He said that he played when he was young, and may have played in college had he not been drafted to serve in the army. Thomas asked him why he did not play again after the war. Mr. Carver simply said he had other things to worry about. They talked for a half hour exactly on the first day.
Thomas called Mr. Carver at six o’clock on the dot the following day. Again, Mr. Carver did not ask Thomas any questions. He began speaking to him the same way he had the previous day. They discussed Mr. Carver’s death defying trek up Mt. Everest when he was young. Thomas was blown away, he could not believe Mr. Carver had summitted the tallest mountain in the world. On the second day their conversation last forty minutes.
Once again, on the third day, at six o’clock, Thomas called Mr. Carver, who picked up on the first ring and began talking. This day he told Thomas all about the time he sailed around the world—starting in California, going down around South America, across the Atlantic Ocean, down the Coast of Africa, up through the Indian Ocean, and finally across the Pacific to California. Thomas was even more interested than he was the day before. He could visualize every sentence, every description that came from Mr. Carver’s mouth. Their conversation lasted an hour on the third day.
Everything began exactly the same on the fourth day. But instead of mountain climbing or sailing, Mr. Carver talked about when he ran with the bulls in Pamplona. He talked about the entire trip with very vivid detail. He talked about how he nearly did not make it because he lost his passport, but that he snuck across the Spanish border on a fruit train, carrying the biggest and most delicious grapes he had ever tasted in his life. Thomas was floored once again, and pressed the phone against his ear for an hour and a half.
The fifth day nothing changed. It was six o’clock, Thomas dialed and Mr. Carver started talking as soon as he picked up the phone. He had shifted from Spain to the Caribbean. He told Thomas about the year he spent living as an island hopper. He said he would wake up early in the morning, before the sun came up, eat his breakfast on the beach, watch the sun rise, take a morning swim in the bluest and most beautiful water he had ever seen, and then would take tourists on a small plane from one island to another all day. During that year he gave a ride to all sorts of people, including JFK, Joe Dimaggio and Marilyn Monroe. Thomas listened with disbelief for two hours before hanging up.
On the sixth day Mr. Carver immediately started talking about Paris. He said that it was still his favorite place in the world. He talked about the buildings, the people, the way the Eiffel Tower looked at dusk, the way the flowers bloomed and smelled in May. He talked about the love of his life, too. The woman he met there and fell in love with. For the first time in Thomas’s life he became very interested and open talking about love—his heart opened. At the end of the conversation on the sixth day Mr. Carver made a request.
He said, “Don’t call me tomorrow. I want you to come visit me. I want to talk about you.”
“Okay,” Thomas responded without a second thought. “What time?”
“How about six o’clock…I’ll make dinner,” he said.
“Sure thing, Mr. Carver. I’ll come by at six.”
The following day Thomas walked down the street to Mr. Carver’s house. He knocked three times on the front door, and Mr. Carver opened it. Thomas looked at Mr. Carver for the first time. Mr. Carver was tall and thin, with wrinkled skin, a left hand that shook from the Parkinson’s, a right hand that loosely held a long white stick with a red tip. Mr. Carver was blind.
“Sit down,” Mr. Carver said, leading Thomas to the kitchen table. “I hope you like soup.”
Thomas was dumbfounded. He could not help but ask, “How long have you been blind, Mr. Carter?”
Mr. Carter replied, “Since I came back from the war…Eighteen-years-old.”
“But what about Mt. Everest, and Pamplona, and sailing around the world? What about Paris? What about island hopping? What about everything you told me you did?”
“What about them?” Mr. Carver replied.
“How could you tell me you did them? How could you describe all of that if you have never really seen it?”
Mr. Carver simply said, “One does not need eyes to see…he only needs his imagination. I did do everything that I told you I did. I saw everything I told you I saw. I did it in my mind.”
Thomas was not bothered or upset; he did not feel that he was misled. Thomas was completely and utterly at a loss for words.
“You see, Thomas…life does not always go the way you want it to go. When I was a young kid, not much older than you are now, I had set my mind to do everything that I described to you. God had other plans. I came back from that war without my eyesight, but I never lost my dreams. They could not be taken from me. You have the opportunity to do anything at all that you want. You have youth and health, intelligence and aspirations. Don’t let anything get in the way of your dreams. Don’t let anything stop you from imagining and then doing.”
Mr. Carver and Thomas ate dinner for the first of many Sunday nights. Every week Thomas would walk down to Mr. Carver’s house to talk and eat soup. Thomas did not drop out of school, and after a year of getting his grades to good standing, Mr. Carver paid for Thomas to play football. Mr. Carver never missed a game, either. By the time Thomas’s mother had gone to rehab at the beginning of his senior year, Mr. Carver adopted Thomas, and had him move in. Thomas graduated in the top ten of his class, went to college, and took a job with National Geographic. Mr. Carver passed away shortly after, and Thomas lived every day to keep his promise. He did everything that Mr. Carver had told him about the first week they began talking. He even fell in love in Paris, married the woman, and had five kids with her. Every night that he tucked his kids in he thought about Mr. Carver, and what his life might be like had he never tried to rob the old man down the street.
When summer break had finally come around following his freshman year, Thomas planned on never returning to school. He failed ninth grade, and being that he would turn sixteen before the start of the next school calendar he was legally allowed to drop out. His best friend, Jimmy Foley lived down the street. Jimmy was a year older, and he was from a similar background. Jimmy was not going to drop out of school, he just wanted to play football, as well. However, Jimmy could not play for the same reason that Thomas was unable—money. So, Jimmy conceived the plan while sitting on his front porch one evening.
Mr. Carver lived in the house across the street from Jimmy. He was a very old man, appeared to live alone, and was the perfect target. Jimmy figured there would have to be something of value inside of the house. At least enough valuable things he could take down to the pawn shop to come up with the money to play football. He wasn’t sure he could do it by himself, so he called on Thomas for help. Thomas had been talking about getting some money together to skip town. He did not have any destinations, but he knew it would be somewhere very far from that small town. Thomas agreed to help Jimmy as long as they split everything right down the middle.
On the night they were going to break into Mr. Carver’s home, Jimmy bailed on the plan. He was not too coward to do it, though. He was the lucky benefactor to his uncle’s passing, and in return, would inherit four thousand dollars. He had no need to rob Mr. Carver. Thomas, on the other hand, needed to do it for more than one reason. He had to go through with the plan. He watched Mr. Carver’s house all day, and saw no movement. No one came, no one left. When the sun went down no lights were turned on in the house. Thomas was positive that no one was home.
When the clock struck three in the morning he decided to do it. He climbed over Mr. Carver’s backyard fence, and began his search for an open window, a broken door lock, anything that would give him a way in the house. Then he found it. The kitchen window had been left open. He popped the screen out of the frame and climbed through. He began casing the first floor of the house, grabbing every small little thing he could put in his pockets.
Mr. Carver laid in his bed. He was not asleep, despite the late hour, because of a condition he developed during his tour in World War One. He could only sleep an hour, maybe two, before the night terrors would set in, waking him in a state of panic and fear. After 50 years of nightmares Mr. Carver had discovered ways to get his mind off of the horrors he had seen first hand, horrors that revisited him on a nightly basis. He would think of every beautiful thing he could imagine—flowing rivers, snow draped mountains, fields of flowers on a warm Spring day. Thomas was not even in the house when Mr. Carver heard him. Despite his old age he had an acute sense of hearing. He did not call the police until he was certain that Thomas was in the house.
Just as Thomas reached the landing, between the front door and the stairs he saw the red and blue flashes in the driveway. He froze for a moment, and then made a break for it through the back kitchen door. Before he could begin climbing the fence he was hit on the back of the head by the police officer’s billy club. He knew it was all over. He was handcuffed and thrown in the back of the police cruiser.
The police officer went inside where he talked to Mr. Carver. Then the police officer came back out to the car and said, “I have two options for you, kid. I can take you down to the Juvenile Detention Center, or you can call Mr. Carver every night and talk to him for a half hour.”
“What?” Thomas was perplexed. “What do you mean, talk to him?” he asked.
“Just that,” the police officer responded. “He said he wouldn’t press charges if you called him on the phone once a night for the next week, and talk to him for a half hour.”
“Okay,” Thomas said, “Can’t be worse than going to jail.”
“Here is the phone number…you better call him, son. I’ve advised Mr. Carver to call me the first day that you don’t, and I will be at your house to take you to Juvenile.”
“Yes, sir,” Thomas said, and took the small piece of paper.
The next day Thomas took out the piece of paper, and called Mr. Carver at six o’clock. Mr. Carver answered the phone on the first ring, and began talking to Thomas. He did not ask him why he tried robbing him. He did not ask him anything at all. He just began talking to Thomas like they were old friends who had not spoken in a while. The first day he talked to Thomas about football. He said that he played when he was young, and may have played in college had he not been drafted to serve in the army. Thomas asked him why he did not play again after the war. Mr. Carver simply said he had other things to worry about. They talked for a half hour exactly on the first day.
Thomas called Mr. Carver at six o’clock on the dot the following day. Again, Mr. Carver did not ask Thomas any questions. He began speaking to him the same way he had the previous day. They discussed Mr. Carver’s death defying trek up Mt. Everest when he was young. Thomas was blown away, he could not believe Mr. Carver had summitted the tallest mountain in the world. On the second day their conversation last forty minutes.
Once again, on the third day, at six o’clock, Thomas called Mr. Carver, who picked up on the first ring and began talking. This day he told Thomas all about the time he sailed around the world—starting in California, going down around South America, across the Atlantic Ocean, down the Coast of Africa, up through the Indian Ocean, and finally across the Pacific to California. Thomas was even more interested than he was the day before. He could visualize every sentence, every description that came from Mr. Carver’s mouth. Their conversation lasted an hour on the third day.
Everything began exactly the same on the fourth day. But instead of mountain climbing or sailing, Mr. Carver talked about when he ran with the bulls in Pamplona. He talked about the entire trip with very vivid detail. He talked about how he nearly did not make it because he lost his passport, but that he snuck across the Spanish border on a fruit train, carrying the biggest and most delicious grapes he had ever tasted in his life. Thomas was floored once again, and pressed the phone against his ear for an hour and a half.
The fifth day nothing changed. It was six o’clock, Thomas dialed and Mr. Carver started talking as soon as he picked up the phone. He had shifted from Spain to the Caribbean. He told Thomas about the year he spent living as an island hopper. He said he would wake up early in the morning, before the sun came up, eat his breakfast on the beach, watch the sun rise, take a morning swim in the bluest and most beautiful water he had ever seen, and then would take tourists on a small plane from one island to another all day. During that year he gave a ride to all sorts of people, including JFK, Joe Dimaggio and Marilyn Monroe. Thomas listened with disbelief for two hours before hanging up.
On the sixth day Mr. Carver immediately started talking about Paris. He said that it was still his favorite place in the world. He talked about the buildings, the people, the way the Eiffel Tower looked at dusk, the way the flowers bloomed and smelled in May. He talked about the love of his life, too. The woman he met there and fell in love with. For the first time in Thomas’s life he became very interested and open talking about love—his heart opened. At the end of the conversation on the sixth day Mr. Carver made a request.
He said, “Don’t call me tomorrow. I want you to come visit me. I want to talk about you.”
“Okay,” Thomas responded without a second thought. “What time?”
“How about six o’clock…I’ll make dinner,” he said.
“Sure thing, Mr. Carver. I’ll come by at six.”
The following day Thomas walked down the street to Mr. Carver’s house. He knocked three times on the front door, and Mr. Carver opened it. Thomas looked at Mr. Carver for the first time. Mr. Carver was tall and thin, with wrinkled skin, a left hand that shook from the Parkinson’s, a right hand that loosely held a long white stick with a red tip. Mr. Carver was blind.
“Sit down,” Mr. Carver said, leading Thomas to the kitchen table. “I hope you like soup.”
Thomas was dumbfounded. He could not help but ask, “How long have you been blind, Mr. Carter?”
Mr. Carter replied, “Since I came back from the war…Eighteen-years-old.”
“But what about Mt. Everest, and Pamplona, and sailing around the world? What about Paris? What about island hopping? What about everything you told me you did?”
“What about them?” Mr. Carver replied.
“How could you tell me you did them? How could you describe all of that if you have never really seen it?”
Mr. Carver simply said, “One does not need eyes to see…he only needs his imagination. I did do everything that I told you I did. I saw everything I told you I saw. I did it in my mind.”
Thomas was not bothered or upset; he did not feel that he was misled. Thomas was completely and utterly at a loss for words.
“You see, Thomas…life does not always go the way you want it to go. When I was a young kid, not much older than you are now, I had set my mind to do everything that I described to you. God had other plans. I came back from that war without my eyesight, but I never lost my dreams. They could not be taken from me. You have the opportunity to do anything at all that you want. You have youth and health, intelligence and aspirations. Don’t let anything get in the way of your dreams. Don’t let anything stop you from imagining and then doing.”
Mr. Carver and Thomas ate dinner for the first of many Sunday nights. Every week Thomas would walk down to Mr. Carver’s house to talk and eat soup. Thomas did not drop out of school, and after a year of getting his grades to good standing, Mr. Carver paid for Thomas to play football. Mr. Carver never missed a game, either. By the time Thomas’s mother had gone to rehab at the beginning of his senior year, Mr. Carver adopted Thomas, and had him move in. Thomas graduated in the top ten of his class, went to college, and took a job with National Geographic. Mr. Carver passed away shortly after, and Thomas lived every day to keep his promise. He did everything that Mr. Carver had told him about the first week they began talking. He even fell in love in Paris, married the woman, and had five kids with her. Every night that he tucked his kids in he thought about Mr. Carver, and what his life might be like had he never tried to rob the old man down the street.
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