All Is Continuity

Offensive

Ice straight
from the freezer
chinging, ringing
while settling
into a 12 ounce
Coca-Cola glass.
But I’ve no drink
other than Pepsi
with which to fill
the glass.

My Father. The Squirrel Slayer.

My mother claims to have tried to raise good boys.

I like rock music. Like my father before me. I like Big Macs and Whoppers and Coca-Cola and eating piles of yet-unbaked goodies. Like my father before me. I drive at ungodly speeds down the street, tires squealing as I pull into the driveway. Just as my father does. My father’s quips and one-liners I repeat to those around me. Spiders still do their pushups on the mirror. My father sits in the backyard, BB gun in hand, smile on his lined face, waiting for squirrels at which to shoot.

I’ve improved on his methods. Today I ran over a squirrel.

Twelve.

Years of age, that is. She grabbed a couple of ice cubes out of the ice maker and plopped them into a glass of sun tea, her third glass that day. Her mom warned her after she gulped down her second glass not to have any more, Drink water if you’re still thirsty. But her mom was, at the moment, napping.

She stepped outside, barefooted. It wasn’t too warm, but it was bright, as though the sun were a three-way lamp light and God had decided to use the highest setting. She decided to sit on the front stoop and wait. For her older brother, Michael, who was supposed to be finishing his second year of University. But he’d just been kicked out and was due home at any moment now. Her parents were furious when they were informed. The juicy information, why Michael was kicked out, was kept from her. Though from overhearing whispers of phone conversations, she’d been able to pick out the words drinking, prank, and streaking.

In any case, she wasn’t too thrilled about Michael moving back home. He was, as she’d heard relatives describe him, uncouth. Acquaintances said he was a ’70’s tree-hugging hippie. There’s just something plain wrong about that boy, Uncle Ted summed at the family reunion last summer. Her mom and dad looked at each other from across the picnic table, each cracking the slightest amused smile that others always mistook for a nervous twitch. But Uncle Ted was certainly one to call someone else uncouth. He’d been arrested twice for disorderly conduct, was known for sitting on his roof late into the night watching for aliens, and was rumored by some of the neighborhood kids to be growing marijuana in his backyard. In the end she simply wished for a better brother, sometimes dreaming she could trade him in.

“Did I not tell you to drink water if you’re still thirsty?”
She jumped in surprise. “I don’t remember.” That was a lie.
“I want you to go clean up your brother’s room before he arrives. Put clean sheets and a quilt on the bed, vacuum the floor and open up the windows to air it out.”
“But why do I have to clean it? He’s the one who got kicked outta school. Make him clean it.”
“Because I told you to clean it…and no one said anything about Michael getting kicked out.”

She balked while her mother stood holding the front door open for her. “Hurry up! I haven’t got all day!” Her mother was exasperated. Probably more so at Michael. It had to be at Michael. She hoped it was at Michael.

Heading into Michael’s room, she flipped on his stereo and turned the radio to the oldies station. She walked over to the front window. Michael had pulled into the driveway. Her mom walked out to his car, arms flailing. Michael popped out of the car, his arms flailing. My whole family is uncouth she thought to herself while tossing the clean bed sheets in the middle of the floor. She walked out of Michael’s room leaving the radio on. He hated it when she used his stereo and most of all, he hated the oldies.

She went over to the fridge and poured herself another tall glass of sun tea. Thanks to Michael, her mom would never know.

Remember

Blackbirds in the field.
Count them, a baker’s dozen.
Quiet, so quiet they are.
Too quiet for April.
But then April is a
rather quiet month.
No one remembers
April. Thirty unremembered
days. Eleven other busy
months, so many noisy
months. Thirteen birds
standing quietly in a lonely
field in April.

In the quiet month of
April wars rage. Starving
children die. Murderers
and rapists and thieves
live alongside the rest of
society, governments
stab each other with
rhetoric. No one
will remember any of this
when the quiet month of
April passes.

People pray noisy prayers.
They cry Heal the infirmed,
oh Lord! and
Save us from distress, dear God!
God is quiet in the month
of April. God is quiet because
he remembers. The prayers
will be forgotten next month.
In the month of May, the
faithful will forget their
noisy prayers. Maybe someone
died. Maybe they drowned in
their distresses.

In April, in a quiet and lonely field,
thirteen blackbirds stand quietly.
I find myself standing
still, too, thinking of those blackbirds
and how maybe they remember
during this month of April.

© t.m.d.
24 April 2008

Another day in paradise.

Who needs tickets? It’s free. Keep your window open throughout the night and let the birds sing you awake. The weather is warm enough now where I debate wearing jeans or shorts to work. I really don’t want to wear shorts yet for I am the son of the great white kahuna.

I’m gearing up for a bike ride tomorrow.

Spring is my time to lament winter’s death. I like bundling up with long-sleeved shirts and jackets and hats. But then summer is the time for road trips.

I love road trips.

The kids have their Earth Day posters hung up in the hallway. Liberal humanism mixed with Jesus makes for a sad travesty. But then again I am the cynic. It’s what I do best.

And oh, here’s some kickass news. Slick Shoes is getting back together, with all original members and putting out an album. Sweet.

Ten bonus points to the person who can identify the song referenced in this post.

Mannerisms.

It’s in the way they act. This one cries. With a heart on the sleeve for everyone to see. Reacting as how everyone thinks. That no no no, this cannot be. That one loses reality and for a moment slumps to the floor. Staying long enough to regain composure. Another just is. And perhaps the others think jealous thoughts. Who is, who just is, no no no, this cannot be.

There’s yet one more, headstrong. They all are. We all are. It is the way we are because we all have that mannerism in common. We butt heads more often than not, but we laugh and carry on and know. We know, we just know.

It’s because we all know. We know this is the final act. Afterwards we’ll glance once more through the show’s program to glean any pertinent information, little or grand. And then we will head home. Everyone drives home and we will be no different.

Maybe one of us will keep our program. I know one of us will. It is, after all, how we live.

Scene: An early Spring day. Early afternoon, maybe around 1pm. A small town. The main road lined by large oaks. Storefronts behind the oaks. Two miles down, on the left, a small house. Inside, a small living room.

Action: Father fumbles with his paper. Junior lies stomach-down on the floor, his chin held in his hands. He dreams. A boy’s dream. He dreams while father continues to fumble with The Daily paper. And the guests draw their faces long. It’s a boy’s dream and long faces think sad thoughts. Sad thoughts draw long faces longer and yet the boy dreams.

An early afternoon’s dream. A happy dream, really. Something happy amidst a father who can’t manage his newspaper in a room of guests with long, sad faces. The boy is running through a field while grandfather watches. The boy runs and grandfather smiles. Off in the distance kites dance in the air. The kites and the boy mimic each other’s movements. Grandfather laughs, pleased.

The afternoon wanes. Guests drip here and there and so the house eventually empties. It’s time for dinner. The boy is hungry, but he’s too busy dreaming. Father put the paper down long ago. It sits creased on the floor. The house empties and breathes heavily, sighs heavier. Long faces drawn by sadness saddened the house. Father turns on the television. The boy looks up and stares.

Another soldier died today.

Youthful Indiscretions

Say again
say never
never again
drive around
the bend
as if death
nips at your
heels.

I was
I admit
I admit I was
as scared as
I’ll ever be
scared as
you’ll never
again see me.

The wind
the radio
the wind
blared like
the radio
as our hair
blew in the
breeze and
I swear
I swear
you’ll never
drive around
the bend
that fast
ever again.

Mr. Matthews
was singing, I
heard him on
the radio and
he was singing
and I was fearing
and you were
smiling, laughing,
Mr. Matthews
was Crashing
and i thought we
would, too, and I
swear, I swear
never again.

But you, I know
you’ll swear with
me, you swore
under your breath
and you’ll swear
again with me
never again,
because when
your life flashes
by through a
twinkle in your
eye then you’ll
swear never again.

And the tire
tracks on the
street around
that bend are
you, they’re me
and we, we should
spend the rest
of the summer
by the pond.

It’s sin, I know, but it is my music.

Sensually.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. Deem me a heretic. Brand me a child of depravity but I am in love.

Lyrics, a dime a dozen. They only add to the mystery of what I was raised not to touch. And I must confess, as confession is good for the soul, I’ve heard the call from the door at the house on the corner of the street, and I’ve lost count, but inside the smoke and the warm colors titillate the senses like only dreams could hint.

Sensuality. It is sin, I know. But it is mine. Through music.

I seek no forgiveness.

My housemates live quite contrasted lives compared to the majority of the U.S. population. Affiliated with Athletes In Action, they literally get to travel the country, and the world, to spread the Gospel through the language of sports.

I often wonder what it’s like to be able to come into contact with so many different ethnicities and everything which revolves around that.

And then, every once in a while, I get a taste of it myself. Three Cameroon natives are eating dinner [spaghetti] at my house. [I jested R earlier why he didn't make pancakes.] R went to pick them up in his old Volvo that has no front passenger seat.

Esther, Serge, and Joseph.

As soon as they’d sat down on the couches in the living room R told them to follow him back to the kitchen to ‘dish up’. Before leaving the room, Joseph turns to me, with an ear-to-ear grin, and states in his accented English, “I’m the father of the group!” Joseph wants to get his M.A. in Economics and get a job in Cameroon. Two of them have been training here for Olympic trials since January, receiving some coaching from the University of Dayton. They’re set to leave the States in two days.

Outside the thunder speaks. I hear no rain pelting either the roof or my lone window. My window which looks out from my second story room and directly at the neighbor’s stained glass window.

It is presently 1:26a.m. and I should have gone to bed hours ago. Especially since I felt pretty blah since about 2:30p.m. yesterday. I usually never think of Thursday but feeling blah makes for an agonizing day.

So no, I am still not asleep under two and a half bed spreads of pure warmth. Instead I watched yesterday evening’s American Idol that I DVR’d and was quite surprised to hear the contestants, on stage with a full Gospel choir, open the show with a rendition of Shout to the Lord. Usually I delete the show as soon as it is over. But I will hang on to this one for a while. If anything, it will keep the first eight episodes of this seaon’s Lost a bit of much needed company. [Along with The Matrix, Gladiator, and a few of my housemate's ESPN sports shows.]

A new housemate will be joining us later this month. It has been rather quiet since B went off and got himself married in December. The toilet seat broke at its hinge the other day. I think it broke out of spite. We have all been nothing but gentle with it.

I have not turned the pages on my calendar since January.

Goodnight.