Life is but a dram

I've got the pistols, so I'll take the pesos

2005-05-28T09:36:00.000-04:00

I spent last week down in Reynosa, Mexico at the Josias y Betany Children's Home. This is an orphanage tucked into a bad part of town just by the river. It was named after Keith Green's kids, Josiah and Bethany. After Keith died, his wife Melody donated about $35K to start the orphanage. I learned a great deal of the history of the orphanage and the history of some of the children

I've been there three times. This trip made the deepest impact on me yet. I was sick on the first trip, so my interaction with the kids was minimal. The second trip found me doing a lot of work outside of the orphanage and away from the kids. But this time, I spent a lot of time simply talking to the kids (whom I now know have learned a great deal of English). I became particularly attached to Carlos. Carlos is 15 (though he looks 12), and is in seventh grade. He had a stroke at birth and his right half of his body does not work very well. This trip, I found him without a brace on his leg and making good progress in his studies. But he doesn't get around well at all, and he's behind all the other kids his age. And I saw the flame of hope among the hopeless in him, and that was truly the biggest heartbreak of all. I saw Carlos in the kitchen, being helpful as usual. He was washing dishes singing Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy on me. And that was the straw that broke me open. I saw him there singing along to this CD - Michael W. Smith I think it was - and his head was sort of bowed and his eyes were closed as he was scrubbing dishes. It was this beautiful, sincere prayer. When do we ever pray that sincerely? When do we really need to? It's really hard for me to put into words what I felt at that moment. A shame welled up in me, but also a love for this guy. I mean, I don't cry that often. But when I think about Carlos, it's automatic. When I was around him, it was automatic.

Elisaura was always a strange girl. She had this long blonde hair and a deformed-looking upper lip. I found out that she was born with a cleft pallate. When she was a young child, the previous orphanage director kept her in a dog kennel. They only let her out to play when government officials would visit to see if they needed assistance. That previous owner was later found to a child molester. Anyway, that guy was fired or arrested or something. I don't remember, because the person telling this had limited English. Elisaura now has had three surgeries to fix her cleft pallate. She needs a couple more, but she's doing much better. And I found out that she's only a month younger than me!

But Lord have mercy on us. We pray for so much tripe and ease. This woman who was with us prayed that we would not be stopped at the border going in and out of Mexico. What was the harm of that I wonder. That it would take up time? That people would seem a little suspicious of us, stop us, and find that we were law-abiding citizens on a mission trip? It just seemed like that typical American prayer. Of course I've talked on about how much I dislike the health and wealth doctrine for years now, and this is related I'm sure. So I'm not going to get into it much. The woman who prayed that surely has a beautiful relationship with God, and I am only making an example of her to illustrate what Christians do all the time. A couple people got sick on the trip, but it passed quickly and much hard work was accomplished. We faced some minor trials overall, but I think it was a very smooth trip. But how decadent of us that we lose hope here!

I read this book, A Grief Observed, while I was there and this was a great passage. I wish I could put it better in my own words, or come up with some handy epigram to not bore you to death:

"From the rational point of view, what new factor has H.'s death introduced into the problem of the universe? What grounds has it given me for doubting all that I believe? I knew already that these things, and worse, happened daily. I would have said that I had taken them into account. I had been warned - I had warned myself - not to reckon on worldly happiness. We were even promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accepted it. I've got nothing I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination. Yes; but should it, for a sane man, make quite such a difference as this? No. And it wouldn't for a man whose faith had been real faith and whose concern for other people's sorrows had been real concern. The case is too plain. If my house was collapsed at one blow, that is because it was a house of cards. The faith which 'took these things into account' was not faith but imagination. The taking them into account was not real sympathy. If I had really cared, as I thought I did, about the sorrows of the world, I should not have been so overwhelmed when my own sorrow came. It has been an imaginary faith playing with innocuous counters labeled 'Illness,' 'Pain,' 'Death,' and 'Loneliness.' I thought I trusted the rope until it mattered to me whether it would bear me. Now it matters, and I find it didn't."

"Bridge-players tell me that there must be some money on the game, 'or else people won't take it seriously.' Apparently it's like that. Your bid - for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity - will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high; until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man - or at any rate a man like me - out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs. He has to be knocked silly before he comes to his senses. Only torture will bring out the truth. Only under torture does he discover it himself."

Anyway, I thought that was really a sensational explanation for pain and suffering in our lives. Oswald Chambers suggests that we never pray that one ought to be healed from sickness; rather we ought to pray that God's will be done (whatever it may be) in that situation. Perhaps one should be healed immediately, or over time like nature often does. Or perhaps one should die from the illness. Perhaps the last of these is best at times. Perhaps our own houses of cards must be knocked down. People say here today that the early Christians, being thrown to the lions in the Roman coliseum, were the best. They had true faith. But do any of us want to go back there? I think in our heart of hearts, we all know our answer.

About midway through the week in Mexico, some of us went to this church service in a park. Around 150-200 people were there, and all of them were there to hear the gospel and receive day old bread and old clothes. Many were sick and afflicted. I saw a girl who looked about ten. I couldn't tell if she was starving or pregnant. It was a rough sight even for me. Our group stood up on this stage and sang a song. Ken, our leader, spoke the gospel message to all of them. When he was done, I stepped off the stage. And immediately, I was caught in this flood of people asking to be prayed for. So I helped this man pray for people. This elderly lady asked me to pray for her, and she put my hand on her stomach. She had a large tumor. So I took some oil in my fingers, pressed them against her stomach and prayed as hard as I could. I was just amazed. I had never seen people so hungry for God or for prayer. And I thought that maybe this was what it was like for Jesus in the temple square or whatever. Praying for people. Healing people. Playing dice with people. I dunno. It was kind of neat to be a part of a place where God was working and where real work needed to be done. It was also that same experience where you get perspective. That's what you get out of a mission trip. Hopefully the people you're serving feel some love and some mercy.

In other news, Mark quit the band. We are currently writing a lot of new stuff and looking for shows.

I quit smoking. Been two weeks. The Life Aquatic was pretty good too.

Let it ride

Tennessee's my brother to my sister Carolina...

2005-05-05T18:21:00.000-04:00

My music is up on download.com. Check it out.

I have Ryan Adams's new cd, which is great. Sort of a Whiskeytown meets Gold-era Adams.

Feeding the Ducks

2005-05-03T00:49:00.000-04:00

Been tired lately. Not a lot going on. Not writing anything interesting. Not writing at all.

Download.com accepted my music. So go to the link ye see over on your right. Not everything is up as I post this. Mainly just the user profile. The songs and picture ought to be up soon. Also, check out Greybyrd lyrics and news

I update shows and lyrics and whatnot. I wrote a new song. You really ought to make a point to read the Greybyrd blog. If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not a writer. I'm a musician. Well, I put some music to some words I had kicking around last summer. Nothing to write home about.

Well, I did have this dream a few weeks ago. So I think I might write a story about it. It's pretty epic - lengthwise. It's called Train Soul. I think the dream had elements of the movies Spirited Away and Masked and Anonymous and the book, Ladder of Divine Ascent, by Saint John Climacus. The story is very post-apocalyptic, yet human and relational. It was a dream, so the whole idea is sort of sketchy at the moment. I'm trying to find some purpose in it. I still remember the dream itself vividly. I feel like I need to say something with it without falling into cheap allegory. I just need to find some time to write it.

I'm also thinking about writing an analysis of FLCL. It's a very strange series. It's a lot of fun. I know there is not a lot of interest to most people who read this. But for my own pleasure...feeding the ducks, in a literary sense.

A self-ordained professor's tongue too serious to fool

2005-04-13T23:35:00.000-04:00

“Let Us Not Talk Falsely Now”

Ryan Leng

Bob Dylan is a pretty weird guy. He showed up in a Victoria’s Secret commercial awhile ago (which is weird, but also unassailably cool). He also starred in the movie entitled Masked and Anonymous, where Dylan acted alongside half the cast of The Big Lebowski. (Believe me. It’s weird.) Last year he published the first installment of his autobiographical Chronicles, which explores everything People Magazine didn’t want to know about him (which is baffling, but probably better in the end). So I didn’t know what to expect when I bought my ticket to see him.

I traveled north to Mount Pleasant, where Bob Dylan was playing with his band at the Soaring Eagle Casino. I met up with my friends, and entered into the auditorium. We waited around until fifteen minutes after the show was supposed to start. I got up and went to the bathroom. Then he started playing. I heard from the stall the announcer saying something. The sound was muffled, but the music started and so did Bob. I nearly tore off my zipper in a rush, grabbed my coat from the hook on the stall door, and took off with toilet paper trailing me like a ribbon of euphoria. Now, I’ve seen both George W. Bush and even Ronald Reagan speak in person. That was cool. But that was only a mere blip of excitement compared to the rush I got from seeing Bob Dylan perform. I suppose if I drank pure adrenaline from a human adrenal gland, I could feel the same amount of raw exhilaration.

I calmed down considerably a couple songs into the set. I leveled out and tried to act a little less like a rabid, twelve-year-old Avril Lavigne fan. Dylan himself was not mellow. He’s sixty-four going on sixty-five, but he bounced around like he was fifteen. He looked good, donning his black suit and black, Stetson cowboy hat. I suspected him to look washed up, strung out and generally broken down. But he wasn’t.

The fourth song into the set really reminded me why I’m a fan. He pounded out a heartfelt performance of his “Just Like A Woman.” Maybe it was the acrid pall of smoke hanging over the audience that got me teary-eyed, but I think I know better. “This man is a true human being,” I thought to myself. He was happy, and excited to be performing. He wasn’t out to change the world. No, he’d done that already. Nowadays he is just trying to have fun. He wasn’t weird either. He was completely normal.

The audience didn’t recognize most of what he played. I have a “modest” collection of twelve of his albums, and I only recognized half of his set. But that didn’t bother me. This bothered me: During the encore, Dylan played a scorching version of “All Along The Watchtower.” And this girl on my row asked her boyfriend, “Why is he covering a Dave Matthews song?”... I’ll calmly draw a curtain of charity over the scene that followed. Anyway, that gives you an idea of what the audience looked like. The pouting facial expressions kept asking when he was going to play something they had heard. To which Bob responded by playing “Like A Rolling Stone.” The crowd once again grew ecstatic.

He impressed me greatly with the inclusion of one of his gospel songs. “Saving Grace” seemed like an odd song to throw into the mix, being as he was playing at a Casino for a bunch of drunken gamblers. But this simple, direct expression of his faith once again grabbed me by the throat and throttled me to tears. But for the most part, I just rolled and rocked with his punchier songs.

Dylan played piano the whole set, and he traded harmonica solos with a hot fiddle player and a phenomenal pedal-steel player. Dylan’s voice was on most of the night. Sometimes, I wished he would have enunciated better, because some of his lyrics were lost in the mix. But all in all, it was a solid performance.

Dylan and his band left the stage too fast for my liking, so I flicked my Bic during the encore cheer and shouted until he came back. He re-emerged to play a couple more songs. Then it was over. I had just seen a living legend. I now try to convince to myself that it wasn’t a big deal – that I’m only a moderate fan – but who am I kidding? I ate this stuff up, and it was a “dream come true.”

Dylan is going on tour this summer with Willie Nelson, playing mostly minor league ball parks east of the Mississippi. He is also releasing Volume Two of his Chronicles in the near future. Check out www.bobdylan.com for his May through July tour dates and other news and updates.

To Be Alone With You (Nashville Skyline)
I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (John Wesley Harding)
Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (Love and Theft)
Just Like A Woman (Blonde On Blonde)
Cold Irons Bound (Time Out Of Mind)
Moonlight (Love and Theft)
Highway 61 Revisited (Highway 61 Revisited)
Blind Willie McTell (Bootleg Sessions 1-3)
I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met) (Another Side of Bob Dylan)
Summer Days (Love and Theft)
Saving Grace (Saved)
Like A Rolling Stone (Highway 61 Revisited)

encore
Forever Young (Planet Waves)
All Along The Watchtower (John Wesley Harding)

Greybyrd and The Office Call Sessions

2005-03-28T23:15:00.000-05:00

Today marks the finish date of my album. My showboatin' name is Greybyrd, and the album is called "The Office Call Sessions." Four songs off this seven song EP will be on Cnet Download dot com. So you can wait for them to go up on that site, or if you want to support me, send five bucks for a cd of your own. I'll put up the lyrics somewhere (maybe here) if people want them, and I'll put the link to where you can download the tunes in my link bar on the side.

Musically, the album is very mellow, running in the same vein as Iron & Wine, Nick Drake, Bruce Cockburn and Wilco. The guitar is mostly fingerpicking with some leads and keyboards. The vocals are soft and (dare I flatter myself) adequate. Overall I'm content with it.

Recording during these sessions wasn't that bad. Much of the album was recorded in one take, which surprised me. Special thanks goes out to Z3R0 (a true badass) for engineering and mixing my album for me. Additionally, Z3R0 did some nice vox and keyboard work and kept me on a strict regimen of T-bell and a crap-load of good anime. Also thanks to the Croe and Broker for support in person and spirit.

Tracklist:

Far Too Much
Across The Border
Falling/Ascending
Buddy Lists, Etc.
Break Even
Rainy Day Emily
Lunita

I plan to record some more in June, so I'll keep you posted. I have new stuff I'm working on all the time.

The Gatecrasher

2005-03-21T12:21:00.000-05:00

This was a little inspired by a true story in Gatto’s The Underground History of Modern Education.

John Malanga and I were friends from an early age. We experienced life together, then grew apart as many childhood friends do when adulthood swoops down and peels them apart like the string cheese in their lunch boxes. You grow apart, you know. Growing apart is only half the story, however. Well. Actually, I suppose "growing apart" isn't the story I'm telling here at all, so perhaps I'm spinning my wheels. It's only a cliche deprived of its meaning with repeated use. It has no real application to our particular friendship. So let me say that Malanga and I had never really grown together. I didn’t like him. No, I thought he was a thieving bastard. He thought I was...well, I don’t know what he thought about me. Probably not much. He always seemed glazed over when I tried to tell him something I thought was important. And believe me, I thought I was important. But in reality, he was much smarter than I. Anyway, there wasn’t much between us ever. I’m surprised I spent so much time with him.

But I remember elementary school being rather dichotomous. On the playground at least, you were either athletic, or you were not. I was not. Malanga was not. Consequently, by our affiliation in the “not” group, we became friends of a sort. Yes, yes, I know. In highschool one doesn’t have to withstand such over-simplified social structures. By highschool those two groups filtered down into the usual artists, brains, jocks, etc. But in elementary school, that was the way it was, and that is the only rough and ready way I have to describe to you why we spent any time together. In fifth grade, we had nothing else in common.

For instance his home life differed severely from mine. He had no real filial duties. Well, nothing ordinary. But let's be very clear here: His life was messed up. One example comes to mind. When he was twelve, his mother had a meltdown. Maybe she was fed up with life. Maybe she just needed some better meds. And as if John was dropping off a movie at the video store, he drove to the hospital and dropped her off for psychiatric care. All the while, he kept a cool head on his shoulders. But, as one can imagine, he didn't go to school anymore. It was two weeks before the principal found out that he was living alone at home. (As you may of guessed, his father was unavailable to him.) At this juncture, a state custodian arranged a new home for John: Ours. So he fell under my mother’s care and boarded up in our basement for an indefinite amount of time. (My mother was and still is in the foster parent business. Why she wasn't happy with her own children currently remains a mystery to me.)

During this period of time, my clean-cut, nuclear family dragged John Malanga to a highschool football game. John and I had no interest in football except on the playground. Whenever the other kids threw the ball into our vicinity, John or I would pick up the ball, shift ourselves 180 degrees from the crowd of kids on the field, and punt the ball away with all might and impunity we could muster. (Which wasn't very far, mind you; but it was fun pissing them off.) Anyway, I digress. Football game. Right.

We were going to a football game, not because we wanted to, but because my dad wanted to. My dad ate, breathed, drank, shat sports and still does. When I told him I wanted to be an artist, I think something inside him died (To use another old cliche, because I'm an inadequate story-teller, and I'm off topic again.), and I smelled it rotting inside his chest for the rest of my childhood. But here we were, waiting in line to get into the stadium. It towered above us, though many things do when you're that age. (And you go back to them when you're twenty, and you go "Oh, gee. That's not so scary.") My parents had entrusted us with our tickets, so I decided to run back to the car to get my sketch pad.

"Stay here, Johh," I said, "I'll be right back."

When I returned, he was gone. My parents were absorbed in conversation about the highschool's new quarterback.

"Yeah, I can't believe they cut our funding though," my dad sallied deeper into conversation with another parent. "Wisniewski's a joke! The kid can't even see straight, and for crying out loud! he's still got baby fat hangin' offa him!"

Blah, blah, blah...I had to interrupt him. "Dad, John's gone."

"Well go find him," he replied impatiently. "The game's about to start."

I trotted off in search of the little punk. I scanned the outer lawn. Not there, where else? I hustled my trot into a jog and then into an all out run. I made it around the stadium twice, and still there was no sign of him. "Why is he my responsibility?" I asked myself. I kept up my search behind the bushes, out in the parking lot, by the concession stand, the cheerleading bus from the opposing team - he was nowhere. My palms developed a film of cold uneasiness at the thought of him running away.

But I found him. I spotted his bleach-blonde rattail haircut, peaking through the back of his ball cap like a snake creeping out of its hole. He was four feet off the ground on the fence by the commentators’ booth, which stood on top of a hill over-looking the field. He was trying to sneak in.

“John! What are you doing, man? Why are you sneaking in?” I inquired of the little gatecrasher. “Come down man! You’ve got a ticket. You don’t need to sneak in!”

He only looked at me. It was the strangest look. He was almost hurt that I hadn’t caught on to what he was doing. But it was obvious to me! Or at least I thought it was.

He climbed down quickly, but said nothing.

“What were you doing?” I repeated.

“Nothing man, nothing.”

“I looked for you forever! I thought I’d lost you.”

“I’m sorry. Dude, let’s go.”

We hurried back to the entrance and proceeded to watch the game. I was confused by his actions for a few minutes, but soon forgot them and became enveloped in sketching some cheerleader. Only now has it really occurred to me the designs of John Malanga’s gatecrashing incident. Though it mystified me at that age, it became quite clear as I began to understand people in my adult life. John was merely thinking ahead. Could the gates by the commentators’ booth be scaled and defeated? And if not, was there a better way inside? And what better way to find out than with a paid ticket in his back pocket. If he was caught, what was anybody going to do about it? It was a perfect plan. Once he found the vulnerability of the entrance, he was free to get in whenever he wanted. But it took me a long time to catch on, of course. Something like that. Anyway, it was cool to finally figure that out. I’ll tell you more about him later. But for the moment, ruminate on that one.

Loaded Questions in an Automatic World

2005-03-16T18:43:00.000-05:00

Hugger: "So how is 'Operation Commuter Girl' going?"

Ketch: "Well, I mobilized the ground forces and made a pre-emptive strike in the hall this morning. She responded by saying 'hi.'"

UPDATE: I'm going to see Iron & Wine at Calvin on April 18th. Check it out on the Web.

Let Us Not Talk Falsely Now

2005-03-13T23:26:00.000-05:00

My hair cut, beard grown, aviators bought...I'm starting to look like the EZB from the Drive-By Truckers. Go to Lost Highway Records' website (look in my links), scroll through the jukebox til you find the song "Let Their Be Rock" by the self-same band.

I know I've committed to not posting daily life sorts of things, but I'll continue breaking that throughout this post.

I should be putting up another short story in the next couple of days. This one I wrote a couple years ago, but I've decided to revisit it. It's a story about a kid I knew in fable, but not in person. His name is John Malanga.

My car, known to some as the "Jolly Green Giant," is back in commission with serious upgrades in pick-up and noise-reduction.

Spring break will be upon me in a few days, whereupon I will enter my friend Z3R0's home studio and record my seven song EP called...well...I don't know what it's called yet. Email me if you want a copy of it when its done. Slip me some currency, and I'll send one your way.

April 11th will be the day when I am privileged to witness two living music legends: Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard. In concert, the latter opening for the former, damaging my pocket to the tune of sixty-five dollars.

Shapin' up to be one of them slam-bam-thank ye ma'am types of springs.

Ketch

Rest

2005-03-10T23:17:00.000-05:00

(These are just some of my thoughts from a couple nights ago. I'm not sure if the conclusion is really tapping into the depth it's really trying to convey. It sounds very sentimental, and I'm not entirely sure how to wrap this up.)

It peeved me to think that he was going to be studying for another hour or so. It was already 1:30 am, and I had to rise that morning at six. My roommate still studied with his light on. Fortunately, he perceived that my stirring indicated that I was not yet asleep, so he turned off his lamp and went into the bathroom to study. “Ah, thank God,” I thought, "Now for some rest."

When I was younger, I had always dreamed about rest in my waking hours. I thought if I could fall asleep forever - with no death at my door or English paper due by the end of the week - that would be true rest. I used to sit in class and wait anxiously for the end of the period, so I could have rest. I realized, however, that as the sun in the desert disappears only to reappear, so was my school day. It would be the end of classes at 2:30 pm, but sunrise the next day was inevitable. So I could never get comfortable. Even on a broader scale, I realized that even when boring high school is over, there is boring college just over the horizon. After that, there is a boring job. After retirement, death? No, that’s not good. Let me sleep, because there’s no satisfaction in being awake.

It seemed though that even sleep had left me empty. Invariably, I'd wake up at noon on Saturday only to discover a third of my day of freedom was consumed by sleep. There is no real comfort in sleep. It only delays the coming of being awake, which as I’ve said already, is not satisfying. In fact, life is suffering, and death looms over us. We are plagued by thoughts of death, longing for rest from them.

My roommate entered the room again, walked over to the window and pulled the curtains open. A piercing yellow orb presently scowled at me from across the hill. It was a monstrosity of a lamp, burning with the glow of a thousand suns, flooding my room with light. In reality, it produced no more light than if I had set my cigarette lighter aflame on the window sill. But damn! It was bright to me.

At this point, I wished my face was rearranged like that strange kid from Family Guy. His entire facial features were turned upside down. If my face were like that, I could pull my covers up over my eyes, while my nose and mouth could be free to breathe above them. (I also realized that snorkeling would be easier with such an arrangement.) As it stood, with my face being normal and all, I couldn’t pull the covers over my head without feeling suffocated.

“Walter. Pull those drapes shut!” I thought to myself, “Please man, have mercy…oh, what’s this? You’re getting into bed? Without closing the drapes? Oh come on!”

“Four hours left until my alarm viciously grabs me by the throat and throttles me out of my unconsciousness,” I thought. “Life treats us this way,” I noticed. “In my estimation, School, work, family – the responsibilities of being awake in general – all demand of us unnecessary and copious amounts of attention. Maybe that’s an overstatement. Maybe school, work, and family are really as important as people say. I don’t really know. It’s too late. It just seems to me that my life revolves around simply surviving boredom. If I can survive the nine to five, I won the battle for that day. If I don’t go kookoo for Cocoa Puffs by the end of the week, I’ve won again, and my reward beckons me to the sofa. There I can kick off my shoes, grab a beer and some Doritos, and fall into a warm, soft, anodyne-drenched rest.

But what the hell are we even awake for? I guess that begs the question of why we are even alive. So maybe that’s really what I should be asking. Why am I alive? Why was I created? To exist, consume, sleep, and then get up and do it all over again?”

And of course the answer had to come to me at some point. It usually does. And every time, this answer reminds me of how truly base and selfish I am. I read a story of two eighty-year-old ladies who died in a car accident while in Columbia. They had served the people there for most of their adult life, living as only a missionary could live: Meagerly, yet rewardingly; in joy, yet with contrition; in hope of Heaven, yet concerning themselves also with the earthly needs of their friends in Columbia. Upon thinking of this, I furrowed my brows and wondered if anyone in America could truly be considered a follower of Christ.

“It seems to me,” I thought, “that we pay all too much attention to those passages referring to us being born again, yet ignore those that speak of selling all our possessions. Not that either passage cancels or trumps the other, but what is it with this Christian nation that sells us this boredom with life? It is so unbiblical that I can smell the heresy of it rotting me from the inside out. And yet, what can I truly do about it? It has been so ingrained in me, I don’t know where to start eradicating such thoughts.”

So I prayed a little prayer then and there, asking for forgiveness for wanting to sleep away a life that had been given to me to do something meaningful. And at that moment, I think I perceived an invisible hand moving across the window and shutting the curtains, finally putting me to sleep. It was probably Walter's. Nevertheless, I think that God still gives a blessing or two to the undeserving, perhaps further deepening the mystifying concept of grace to me. But don't let these reels of vomit fool you. If you want any wisdom, don't talk to me. Open up the Bible for yourself and see if what you need is in there.

Lucy

2005-03-09T03:45:00.000-05:00

This needs editing:

“So did you know that there never really was a Brontosaurus?” Dave asked as he blew an immaculate smoke ring and watched it drift across the parlor.

“I think I read it in a book somewhere,” replied Jim through the haze.

“Yeah, it was really an Apatosaurus.”

“But I remember that they looked different.”

“No, no, it’s the same,” Dave said, then explicated, “Well…what they did was they put the head on a different skeleton.”

“So it had the wrong head.”

“Right. So they called that a Brontosaurus, then they found out that, ‘Gee! It’s the wrong skull on this thing.’ And then they took it off and put the other one back on, and said, ‘Okay, it’s an Apatosaurus now.’”

“Well, why didn’t they just keep the same head?” Jim inquired, half out of interest, half out of humoring Dave on the point.

“Because…it had a different skull.” Dave replied, slightly offended that Jim hadn’t caught on yet, “If they buried you with a different head on you, would you still want to be called ‘Jim’?”

“Well, uh, no. But…”

“Exactly.” Dave concluded as he laid back in the couch, surrounded by an absurd amount of smoke.

“I’m cashed,” I said as I yawned, “throw me some vanilla or something.”

Jim tossed the tobacco across the room, creating a trailing wake of smoke that hadn’t dissipated yet. “Well if my penis wasn’t circumcised, I’d still call it…”

“Shut the hell up. You can’t say that here,” Dave laughed incredulously.

“You two torture me,” I said, lifting my head up out of a Cigar Aficionado.

Ring.

Charlie entered in through the front door at a hurried pace. The front of this establishment was a tobacco shop, and there was a smoking parlor in the back where we lounged. Charlie trotted past us only muttering, “I gotta take a piss,” and made his way to the back, disappeared down the storage corridor.

“He can’t go back there!” the middle-aged woman at the counter exclaimed tensely, “Catch him before he goes too far.”

“Okay, I’ll go get him,” I responded bewildered by her sudden anxiety. Her eyes were bulging out of her sockets as if Charlie had dropped a jar of anthrax all over the parlor.

Charlie emerged from the hallway, “Is there a public restroom here?”

“No. No public restroom,” she responded tersely.

“Oh. Sorry about that,” Charlie turned to me, and I could see the confusion in his face.

“Are any of you going to buy anything?” the woman asked impatiently.

“Ah! Yes,” I jumped up and walked over to the counter, while the rest of them gathered their various effects, “Here.”

“Is that it?” she asked.

“Yep.”

“Okay, one $.99 tamper and one pack of free matches.”

“Here,” I produced a couple wrinkled dollar bills, “Hard currency,” I said grinning and winking at her.

She raised her eyebrows, obviously annoyed. The cash register rang, and she dug out some coins “…and ninety-five cents is your change, Big Spender.”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks.” The four of us left the tobacco shop and tripped across the street to the gas station, so Charlie could drain the proverbial one-eyed snake.

Charlie emerged from the gas station where the rest of us were leaned up against the wall smoking in silence. “That was weird,” he said.

“Yeah, you took long enough,” Jim acquiesced.

“No, not that, you mince,” Charlie replied, “Don’t you think that woman was awfully concerned about me going back there in that corridor?”

“Yeah, I did notice that,” I answered, “Seemed like she had something to hide.”

“Something like drugs?” Dave asked.

“Drugs, stolen merchandise, guns for the Michigan Militia – it could be anything, I suppose,” replied Charlie, “I think it’s probably drugs, though. I was talking to the Axis the other day, and he said a tobacco shop would make a perfect front for a head shop. They probably keep their gear in some back room there, and that’s why the lady at the counter freaked out.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” I said, “I mean, why else would she be so concerned? It’s not like we were going to steal something.”

“Heh, yeah, this is cool. It’s not every day you find out one of Midland’s dirty little secrets. You know, they never card you in that place either,” Charlie added.

“Ooooh, dirty!” Jim exclaimed.

Well, later on that afternoon, it occurred to me that the reason this woman had gotten so excited about Charlie’s trespassing was because there were apartments above the shop. That corridor presumably led back to a stairwell, which led to the apartments. That explained the problem in my eyes. But Charlie was unconvinced. So we drove over to the shop late that night to investigate.

“I dunno, dude,” Charlie said, “I’ve looked up there before. It’s always totally dark, and the blinds are closed. Still seems like a shady place to me.”

“Oh come on, this is Midland. Of course it’s kosher.”

“Yeah, kosher as Christmas. What are you doing?” Charlie inquired when I produced a tennis ball and ball glove.

“Well, I’m just going to toss this up there at the window until somebody comes out,” I responded.

“I see. You should be careful. If there really are a lot of drugs up there, you’re done,” he warned.

“Ehn, relax.” I started throwing the ball against the window. It bounced off with a wham, and landed back down in my glove. I repeated this procedure a couple more times.

“I guess there’s nobody up there,” Charlie said rather resigned at this early juncture in our investigation.

“Maybe. I kinda like doing this, though. It’s good practice for fielding.”

“You play baseball now?”

“No, not really,” I signed, “I can’t run fast enough. I’m in horrible shape.”

“Yeah you are. I’m surprised Ashleigh still puts up with your flabby mass.”

“Pft. Look. Just because my manly figure has fallen into oblivion, doesn’t make her want to up and leave me. She has scruples. Yes, I know this. I guess she likes me for my personality, though.”

“Ehn…they either like you for your looks or for you cash. Or both, if you’re blessed. That’s been my experience,” Charlie put in.

I chucked the ball up again, “O ye of little faith. I am the sultan of sweetness. I was the one who put the ‘gentle’ in gentleman.” I threw the ball again.

SMACK!

“What was that?! That wasn’t a window.” A loud shout and groan emanated from the window. Lo and behold, the window had opened, and someone had stuck their head out to see what was going on only to be cracked by a tennis ball for their pains.

“Oh my! Oh dear God, my eye is out!” came the voice from inside. It sounded like an old woman. The moaning and crying out continued, and Charlie and I frantically tried to figure out what to do.

“Are you okay?” I shouted up to her.

“What the hell do ya think, ya goddamn kid! You put my eye out!”

“Eye out? Can you do that with a tennis ball?” Charlie asked in disbelief.

“I don’t know!” I said flustered, “I guess if it’s thrown with enough pressure…oh shit!” I shouted up to the window, “Look! Do you need to go to the ER? We can drive you.” The moaning just continued. “Hey! We’re coming up.”

“Okay,” she managed, as she was now sobbing, “I’ll unlock the door.”

Charlie and I ran around to the back of the building, up the stairs. Two doors. Crap. Which one? We turned the knob on the first, opened the door, and three cats ran out.

“Yeah. This is it,” I said. We entered and saw the old woman sitting in a rocking chair, bleeding all over the shag carpet and holding a wet cloth over her eye.

“Hey. God, I’m so, so sorry! Here. Let me look at it.” She complied and I pulled the cloth away to see a swollen, bloody mess. Thankfully, I perceived her eye to still be in the socket. On her forehead above, however, there was a gash, which was bleeding all over the place. The blow must have toppled her over. At least her eye remained, but the cut needed some attention.

“Here, let me help you up,” Charlie and I got on either side of her and lifted her out of the rocking chair. The place smelled of cat defecation and generic, unscented lotion. The only thing I could think of at that moment was, “Gee. Unscented lotion really isn’t unscented at all. It stinks like ass.”

We walked her across the room to the door, and Charlie asked her name.

“Lucy,” she replied.

“Okay, Lucy, we’re going to see that you get taken care of,” he said as we staggered down the stairs. She seemed almost in a daze at this point, and she leaned her whole weigh on the two of us. She wasn’t much to look at, and I reckoned her at under a hundred pounds. But man! She sure weighed a ton. That, or I really was more out of shape than I thought.

At any rate, we managed to get her into the car, with Charlie in the back and myself driving, breaking land-speed records trying to keep the blood that was spilled on my father’s car at a minimum. We arrived at the ER, helped her in and resided in the waiting room while she was getting stitched up.

Charlie snickered.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re pretty rich, you know that?”

“What, because I smoked an old lady with a tennis ball?”

“Yeah. I can’t believe you did that.”

“Well, I didn’t see her!” I exclaimed defensively, “Besides, you were the one who wanted to know if there was some kind of a drug hideout there.”

“There are other ways around that. You don’t have to play baseball,” Charlie pressed, obviously greatly amused with the entire situation.

“Yeah, well go find them, and get back with me, alright? Stop crushin’ my grapes.”

“Alright, alright. Man,” Charlie laugher died into a sigh, “It’s funny that we didn’t see her, though.”

“I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. I guess it could have been worse, eh?”

“Yeah. I guess.” Silence ensued for the next twenty minutes, and then Lucy came out in a wheelchair.

“Hey. That was quick. How are you doing, ma’am?” I asked.

“Oh, all right. The doctors have me pretty hopped up on morphine for the time being, so I reckon I’ll be fine,” she replied calmly.

“God. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. Please, forgive me,” I petitioned.

“Well, at first I thought you were some o’ them urban youths – you know, hoodlums – but you seem to be a nice couple of boys. Besides, you helped me in my time of need.”

“We were the cause of your time of need. I’m surprised you trusted us,” I said.

“Well, what else was I going to do? Drive to the hospital with my eye out!” she laughed.

I chuckled, “Yeah, well, I’m just glad to see you’re okay. Can I cut you a check to cover the bill?”

“Oh no, I don’t take checks.”

“Okay,” I replied, bewildered at the idiosyncrasies of the elderly, “I don’t have any cash, and I feel like I need to repay you.”

“Well, you’re out of luck, bub!” she exclaimed half-seriously. I felt a bit distraught at this point, and she, being perceptive of that, suggested an idea.

“I know. I clean houses. It’s my own little business that keeps me and my cats fed. All I ask is that you hire me for the next year or so. I could use the work,” she said.

“I guess that’d be cool,” I replied, “I’m sure my place could use a little work.” So it was settled. Lucy was to work for me for the next year.

Getting to know Lucy over that time was one of the strangest experiences I had ever had. I suppose one could term it “rewarding,” but that sounds like what you’d call a situation like this in some sit-com on ABC. It was just weird. I would come home after work to her cleaning, and she would be upstairs talking! To whom, I had no clue, but she would we chattering on. The phone didn’t stretch to the upstairs, so it wasn’t that. So I plodded upstairs and entered the bathroom.

“Ketch, you know what I mean? It just makes me so sad,” she said.

“Yeah…uh…yeah, definitely,” I answered, my mind devoid of what she could possibly be referring to. I walked back down the stairs, and she kept on talking.

“Strange woman,” I muttered to myself. She was indeed strange. Not only did she talk to herself presumably for hours on end. She also was utterly paranoid that the IRS was going to repossess her home if they found out that she hadn’t been paying taxes. That was why she didn’t accept the check. By some fluke, the IRS didn’t consider her to be alive. So she received no social security. But according to her, she made more money on the side not getting taxed than she would have drawn from social security. Of course, that begged the question of why she didn’t pay taxes on the money and receive social security. I chose not to dwell too much on that inconsistency. Anyway, I felt guilty letting her prattle on so much without an audience, so I went upstairs again.

“My husband,” she said, “was an alcoholic until the day he died.”

“Man, that’s too bad,” I responded empathetically.

“Yes, it was bad. He would have diarrhea all the time. It would be all over the kitchen, the hall, the bedroom, the basement, the porch, the dining room…”

“Yeah! That’s real…bad,” I interrupted, fighting the urge to wretch.

“And it’d be all over the sofa, the furniture, the carpet. See these arms? They look pretty thin, I know. But they got strong wipin’ up his mess all the time!”

“Yeah, er…I see that. I’m going to make some coffee, do you want some?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Got any whiskey?” she asked.

“Um, no. Just coffee and water.”

“Damn, I could use some whiskey. Talkin’ to you is boring as hell, and I’d rather be drunk! It’d make the conversation more interesting. You never say anything or tell me about yourself,” she exclaimed.

“Lucy, I was at work. Were you talking the whole time?” I inquired, trying not to sound patronizing, but realizing how bad it really was.

“Oh,” she replied, embarrassed.

“Hey look, what do you take in your coffee?” I asked, pursuing the least delicate conversation I could conceive of.

“What’s that?” she asked, seemingly in a bit of a funk, staring off in the distance shocked at the revelation that she had been alone all afternoon.

“Your coffee? How do you take it?”

“Oh, black’s fine.”

“Great, I’ll be back up in a few minutes.” As I was preparing the coffee, she continued speaking. Only this time, she spoke louder so I could hear her on the first floor.

“Well, this weekend should be pretty good for the ol’ cash flow. Got this new job, and on Saturday morning, the church is havin’ a bazaar. I sell sock monkeys and can make a hundred dollar thare pretty quick.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty cool,” I said.

“Well, I figure knittin’ sock monkeys and cleanin’ toilets ain’t the most prestigious line of work, but it sure beats the hell outta doin’ nothin’ an’ playin’ bingo with the women from the church. All they do is gossip this and gossip that. I ain’t gonna look down my nose at ‘em, but it’s a sorry existence, if you ask me. Ha! Yeah, that’s what I want written on my tomb! ‘Played bingo and gossiped with her friends.’ At least I’m keepin’ active.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” I said as I walked over to the stairwell, a cup of coffee in either hand.

“Catch!” she yelled.

“What?” I looked up and SMACK! A baseball hit me in the eye.

That’s all she wrote.

For To Make My Name

2005-03-05T23:38:00.000-05:00

I think my main objective here is to write about things other than the regular events of my life. Some essays, commentaries, poetry and songs perhaps will materialize on here before I lose them in the ether. But it usually is a long fall from my head to my fingers, so I guess I'll just play this by ear.

Ketch