Sandman redux sample 2

3

November 2010

I return to the beach to unwind after a funeral. A childhood friend has lost his father, and I’m relieved to say my goodbyes to the families I’ve spent the past few days with and take some time to myself. I have listened to others for two straight days and now I will listen to my beach, to myself, and uncoil.

As I sit for a while in my car, I am struck again by memories of my childhood. Perhaps this is the way of it. Perhaps I must play the first few chapters of the story of my life before I am allowed to view the rest, or to put it all away for a while. The beach is like that. It dictates pace as well as content.

This place has always felt like my private sanctuary at this time of year. I can rant, pace, spar, twirl, scream, and go through any and all kinds of maneuvers—in short, be myself here.

No matter what time of year, I feel compelled to remove my shoes when I get up on the sand. There is something so satisfying about walking on beach sand in your bare feet… especially (and perhaps surprisingly) cold sand. It’s a sensation that every human should experience.

So, even though it’s November, I slowly and methodically remove my shoes and socks and place them neatly by the short stack of stairs that lead up from the parking area to the stretch of sand that leads to the water. I walk back and forth, working my toes into the sand, surveying the beach in both directions for anything out of the ordinary that might have drifted ashore.

Rarely do I find kindred spirits. Sometimes I find a “treasure.” No, I don’t mean money or jewelry. One must be willing to patiently comb the beach with a metal detector like some pop culture archaeologist (aka retired person with loads of time on their hands) in order to find that kind of treasure. I mean the treasure that comes in the shape of a perfectly and miraculously unscathed scallop or clam shell, or a smooth, worn stone, or a piece of wood that had been shaped and carved by the sea into something indescribably beautiful. The ocean is an artist. I can still remember a few of the trinkets I have pulled from that beach over the years.

Most notably, and coincidentally the plainest artifact I possess, is a two-inch oval of smooth, white stone. I carry it with me on these excursions to the beach, and today I pluck it from my coat pocket and am immediately pulled into a wave of thoughts and imaginings about how it came to me, its origin, its path, its story. How long had it been a plaything of the ocean, tossed about and flung against rock, ocean bottom, and mile after mile of sand? Where had it begun? Where had it been? I also still have a foot-long piece of driftwood I rescued from the sea when I was eleven. Everyone who sees it thinks it looks like a small dolphin. To me it looks like something alien. These are the kinds of things you keep in your study and occasionally pick up and handle. They are surprisingly powerful in that they can transport you to another time and another place with a touch.

I put my treasure back in my pocket. As the sound of the waves surreptitiously works on my subconscious mind—relaxing my body and soothing my frantic thought patterns—I begin to put words together in interesting patterns and rhythms, to formulate cohesive lines of verse. I’m drifting back to my teen years for a moment now.

Poetry and the beach always seemed like such a natural fit to me. I began writing poetry in my head, and later transcribing it onto paper, when I was a teenager. When I could put the world out of my thoughts for a while—which the sounds of the surf and wind and gulls helped me to do—my mind would work pretty much on its own, seeing and interpreting and deconstructing the world in its own unique way. I just had to get out of the way. The words that arranged and re-arranged inside my head were important to me, yet they could also be as fleeting and as easily cast off as a winter coat when you come in from the cold.

I don’t think I ever really grasped the significance of anything I did at the beach. It never occurred to me that I was doing something creative or healthy or therapeutic. In my mind it all seemed like just another part of my being. It was as simple as that. When I went to the beach I calmed down, I emptied myself, I wrote poetry, I filled myself, I assessed my world, I learned to accept myself, I emptied myself, and so on. And it certainly never occurred to me that one day taking a trip to the beach would be much more difficult, that it would not be an everyday occurrence. It never occurred to me that life would twist and turn as I grew older and pull me further and further away from the beach… inland… to the suburbs.

This, as common sense dictates, makes one yearn all the more for the thing one cannot have. I find myself thinking about the beach all the time. Not in terms of waves or sand or sky, but in terms of the connective memories evoked by thoughts of waves, sand, sky, and the like. I picture dunes and I think of high school senior week. I picture a marsh and I think of riding by on my bike and witnessing an osprey plucking a helpless fish from the shallows and swooping away. I picture rough surf and high winds and I think of that cowboy hat. It’s a sensitive high-wire act. It’s a lesson in plumbing the depths of the mind. It’s a ride through acres and hectares of thought and experience and life lived. The beach connects me to my past and grounds me like nothing else on earth.

So when I return home after a trip like this I am usually overwhelmed with collected memories, some sad and some glad, exciting and mundane, carefree and careworn. I succumb to fits of melancholy. In fact, I dive into them, hoping to wrench from the cobwebs of my suburbanized mind the colorful, hopeful, all-encompassing past—the history that insists on remaining hidden while I live my suburban dream life.

When I visit the home of my youth, I lower my head, furrow my brow, and take it all in. It’s a conscious decision to relive a part of my life. I give in to sorrow and open up to joy. I swallow my youth and spit out only the detritus. Figuring out what that is… that’s the real work. So far, minimal spitting. I think that what happens many times when we try to do this sort of work is we swallow more than we intend. We swallow it and it resurfaces later, at the most unexpected times.

4

A Spy – Summer of 1969

Riding or walking to the beach presents another set of memories. It always seemed to take longer to get there than it did to return. I guess that’s why the trip to the beach was full of anticipation and straining to concentrate. The roads were narrow, winding, and the tar was cracked and aged and crumbling in some places—that special brand of tar that looks and feels like it has been the base component of roads for centuries. I picture the ancient Romans rolling their chariots and wagons over these surfaces millennia ago.

It’s rough, pocked, and has jagged edges. Its blackness has long since worn to a dull gray. It has given way to roots from roadside trees, bulging up like giant worms crawling just beneath the surface. Even the white line in the center of the road (if there ever was one) tends to be faded or grayed. The drivers on these roads need no lines; they simply divide the road in half and (hopefully) stay on their respective sides… and try not to hit kids on choppers.

Scrub pines line all the roads, some large, some not so large, all gnarly. They are interspersed with the occasional towering oak... or not so towering oak. In fall, acorns and pine cones crunch or spin away under my tires. The cacophony of leaves interacting with my tires and with each other is a subtle undercurrent to the click-clack from the baseball cards poked in my spokes.

The slate gray sky backdrop enables me to see every detail of my world. There is no glare. As I round the corner onto Scroll Street, I can see the entire layout of the marsh. It’s the only part of the only road that offers a dominant view of the snug little inlet marsh that stretches a quarter mile to the edge of the parking area of the beach beyond. Its long, thick, mostly straight main channel is like a tree trunk with dozens of streamlets, or branches, wandering off in all directions, stretching inexorably toward the Atlantic.

There are a wide variety of birds that patrol the area; there is good feeding here. Gulls, terns, hawks, the occasional osprey. I found out pretty early on that if you wanted ospreys you had to build a habitat for them. Some communities make it a point to provide space for a bird like that. But here, at and near my beach, this is a natural bird lover’s paradise. It is a young boy’s personal zoo. I would sometimes come here to sit and think (I had found a nifty little hideaway out of sight pretty early on—boys on excursions into nature have a way of doing that); however, I usually opted for the waves and their company at the beach proper.

This marsh is a quiet place. It lacks the white noise and perpetual motion of the shoreline. I discovered that I think more clearly in a pervasive din than in peaceful solitude. So the thoughts that dominated my mind when I rested here were larger, more life consuming, than the poetry and calls to action and strategies I conjured at the beach. Each place has its purpose, I guess. Each environment offers a stimulus, or lack of stimulus, suited to a type of personality or mood.

I could see that the circling gulls had fed; they didn’t squawk quite so much. They had undoubtedly gorged themselves on the abundant shellfish here; they circled incessantly, somehow reluctant to return to the colony that helped shape the personality of the shoreline. These gulls were content to scope the area again and again, focusing on pestering the other birds that attempted to feed. Perhaps this was a defensive strategy designed to inhibit other species from frequenting their favorite dining area. I sure as hell didn’t know, nor did I really care; I simply enjoyed their airplay and dogfights as they circled one another and vied for space in the sky above and around me.

I was just hoping I didn’t get pooped on.

One thing about the beach I have always found fascinating is that, if you spend enough time there, the days tend to melt into one another; the months and years do likewise. I have memories from my teen years that are less vivid than the cowboy hat incident; I also have memories from my thirties that are as clean and clear as though they happened yesterday. Like everyone else’s, my memories tend to be amalgams: multiple incidents fusing into one, or many people melting together to become one character. Perhaps it’s the mind’s way of performing a disc defragmentation, consolidating storage space, or releasing the info in the buffer to make room for more.

Anyway, one amalgam that is particularly meaningful to me involves the snack bar. This wooden structure was (and still is) the centerpiece of the beach. It stands on the equivalent of about a third-of-an-acre of land at the entrance to the beach road. The building itself is gray and weathered, with white trim (quintessential Cape Cod look and feel); it is square and nondescript. Its distinguishing feature is the wrap-around deck that leads to the men’s and women’s dressing rooms and bathrooms on either end. In the center, at the top of five very wide stairs, is the series of openings from which the workers inside take and fill your orders for assorted beach fare: burgers and dogs, french fries, drinks and ice creams, and (a seasonal favorite) clam rolls.

The feature that most struck me then, and still does today, is the wide set of stairs at the front center of the building. Plain wooden plank stairs. Each board is perhaps 25 or 30 feet long. That is a wide set of stairs. It may have been multiple boards placed end-to-end to make each stair, but what child remembers things like that?

Practically everyone going in or coming out of the women’s or men’s facilities, or buying beach food, uses the stairs. What a place to hide and watch the world.

Since the building is at the beach—and essentially built on the most shifting of surfaces, sand—it sits atop pilings driven deep into the ground.  Therefore, it is for all practical purposes built on stilts. This may be common to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, where hurricane driven water encroaches on property on a regular basis, but on the Cape it was a little less common. It seems to have been restricted to beach buildings, like the snack bar, or pier structures. So, to a kid with a healthy imagination, the thing that really sticks out is the fact that the entire underbelly is exposed—especially a kid raised on “The Rifleman,” “Rat Patrol,” and “Mission Impossible.” One look and I heard the whisper “come crawl under me… you can see everything from down here… and the enemy cannot see you!” I heeded the call from about the age of five and was repeatedly found under there, scoping out enemy activity, learning little life lessons, and generally scouting the area. By the time I was seven or so, if my Mom was getting ready to leave the beach and couldn’t immediately locate me, she knew exactly where I’d be: under that snack bar.

This was the 60s, and it was common practice for parents to temporarily lose their kids. On the Cape there didn’t seem to be the ever-present fear of truly losing your child; it was more of a misplacing, a momentary lapse of direct knowledge of where said child might be; he must be around here somewhere; goddamnit, I told that kid to stick close; if he’s under that stupid snack shack again; what the hell does he do under there anyway? The world had not yet devolved into what it is today: a place in which one must keep an eye on one’s offspring every second of every day, for fear that they will be horrifically plucked up and permanently swept away.

Not only was my perch under the snack bar a unique vantage point for viewing the beach world, but it was also a great place to pick up tidbits of some very odd conversations—fathers complaining to daughters about hanging around with the local boys who trolled the beach, or mothers scolding little boys for going off without telling them where they were going. But to me the most interesting snippets of conversation came from the kids when there were no parents around to hear them. That’s when I got a truly unabashed view of the world, from a kid’s perspective. No holds barred. No censorship. In short, what I heard were the unusual spates of truth from kids who learned at a very early age when and where—and how much—to lie to grown-ups.

My sisters treated me fine for the most part, but they filtered everything. They had to. They had responsibilities to my parents. They couldn’t be held accountable for their little brother hearing or saying or doing anything outside the family norm. They would be blamed.

But when I had the opportunity to hear kids say what was on their minds without fear of reprisal, it was exhilarating. It was eye opening. It was an awakening. I was learning. And isn’t that what our parents always told us was important? To “learn something” from what we see or do. My friends and I didn’t talk like the kids I listened to from under the snack bar. We talked about sports, TV shows, how stupid this brother or that sister was, or how this parent or that grandparent or every teacher wasn’t going to let us do THIS or lectured endlessly about THAT.

But mostly we talked about superheroes and mean teachers and goofing around: that inane, innocuous, nebulous banter that kids who are completely comfortable with one another—and know the most minute details about each other’s lives—would share on a daily basis. Things like “I saw a frog with one red eye yesterday down at Rinky Dink.” Or “There’s no way Mighty Mouse can take Superman.” Or “Mrs. Zorgoni poked me in the chest last Tuesday. Hard. When we were lined up to leave at the bell and the bell rang, I started to leave—since I was in the front of the line—and she poked me in the chest with two fingers. Hard. Like this.” Not much more.

By the way, “Rinky Dink” was the small pond/swamp/aggrandized sinkhole at the end of the dead end road on which my family lived. It was a fun place for ice skating in the winter (if you don’t mind the occasional spear of marsh grass sticking up through the ice and sending you sprawling) and exploring in the summer (if you’d rather be ferreting around in the muck than frolicking at the beach). It had frogs, turtles, long-necked and -legged birds, strange varieties of undergrowth, and hedges of thick brush around its edges (excellent for hiding). It rested in a flat bowl twenty or thirty feet below street level, which basically meant it was below sea level. It was a wet place. When you reached the end of my road and looked down into it, you could see the entire pond and take in most of the surrounding growth. It was mysterious while being completely mundane. It offered everything a kid could want for year-round intrigue and adventure, that is, when he or she took a break from the wonders of the beach.

But more on Rinky Dink later…

The kids’ conversations I picked up from beneath the snack bar were completely different from the conversations I had with my friends—one hundred and eighty degrees different. It proved to be an eye to the world for me, a hidden microphone in the locker room of life. I was learning something about the world “off Cape,” you know, where the rest of the world existed. They would say things like “Sally’s boobs are way bigger this summer. She can’t even hide them any more in that bathing suit.” Or “Gail is such a bitch” (this was the first time I had heard the word bitch, other than in the description of a female dog—very exciting). “All she does is sit on her fat ass [ditto for the word ass] all day and expect everyone to wait on her hand and foot.” And my favorite: “Kyle touched my ass yesterday at the Salt Water Taffy. He tried to cop a feel with his elbow after that. I thought I was gonna puke! Who does he think he is? He knows I like David!”

It was fascinating! A whole new world in which other people moaned and complained and, yes, bitched about family and friends.

Once, as I settled in beneath the snack bar with an elaborate plastic telescope I’d received the previous Christmas, looking to scope out some righteous babes sunbathing on the nearby beach, I overheard something that changed my perspective on females forever. (Let’s make one thing clear here: although I say I was “scoping out some righteous babes,” I was not; in my head I was, because that was what I had heard older guys did; but I was mostly spying on whatever caught my eye.)

That said, I distinctly remember a tall blond, perhaps fourteen, sitting on the top step slurping an orange popsicle—I knew this because beneath her in the sand was a growing orange puddle of slush. She was racing against time and the power of the sun and talking to a short, pig-tailed redhead with glasses and braces. The redhead had finished her soda and continued to suck loudly through the straw, trying to catch that last drop of liquid from the melting ice—over and over (and over) again.

The blond, Maddy, began, “So, I asked my mother what was going on with Megan [her little sister, I surmised], and she told me to mind my own business.” She looked at Tess, the redhead, with an indignant, then disgusted face. “Sorry, Mom, I thought my little sister was my business. Honestly.” Heavy, exasperated sigh, rolling eyes; you get the picture.

“And so what do you think is going on? Is Megan okay?” Tess seemed genuinely sweet and interested.

“I couldn’t get a thing from my Mom, I can tell you that. So, like, last Saturday when I, like, went into the bathroom I found out for myself. Megan got her period!”

“You’re kidding!?!” Tess was simultaneously overjoyed and astonished.

Quite frankly, I didn’t get what all the fuss was about. I had three sisters, and they all had their periods… and at the same time! What was the big deal? They answered that for me with the next exchange.

“Now she can get pregnant, dumbie! Don’t you see what this means? I’m gonna to have to watch her like a hawk for the rest of my life!” My sisters had never mentioned this crucial little fact in their tiresome conversations about periods.

“What a drag!” said Tess, rather dutifully. “Sucks being, like, an older sister. I suppose you’re going to have to, like, explain everything to her…”

Maddy, dramatic, nearly crying: “Yes, I suppose so. My responsibilities never end. I can’t believe, like, God is doing this to me! Like I don’t have enough to worry about with tenth grade coming up! Geez!”

And on it went. A parade of tears, fears, wonder, and misplaced rage. Absolutely mesmerizing and enlightening.  

Sandman redux sample

1

Preamble – Sand – Eternity – present day, October

Sand runs through my veins. It sifts through my consciousness like it does through my toes when I stroll the beach. Each grain is a memory or an image or a dream of this life. A dream because I suddenly arrived here at this particular time in my life, middle-age, and discovered that most memories are far less real, less palpable, than I would ever have believed as a young man. It’s almost as if I were never here. Where in hell was I? Those lucky few who wade lustily into old age and carry with them a treasure trove of fully re-callable, re-livable, memories are the exception to the rule. And they’re probably fooling themselves. Memories are amalgams, conglomerates, mélanges of bits of our realities. They change and morph in whatever ways the built-in, time-worn filters we possess make possible. Most of us dip our toes in the waters of time, feel its frigid grasp, gasp, and yank backwards. And there are times when this feels like another life, but I’m pretty sure this one’s mine.

As I sit here in the sand, on a Sunday in October, with the wind whipping the remains of my hair and watch grain after grain slowly fall through my fist into a rising cone-shaped mound, I recall many events in my life—some hazy, some crystal clear, most distortions of multiple memories—and look upon my current situation with the commingled emotions of hope and despair. Hell, it seems that hope and despair are the two mighty rivers that pool and form the well springs of my life. Hope because that’s what I do. I see emptiness and try to fill it up. I see a chance for adventure and experience. I hold the pitcher up high and prepare to pour, to fill that proverbial half-full glass whenever and wherever I may find it. This annoys the crap out of many people I know and call friends. I sometimes get the feeling that if I find one more silver lining, if I look on the bright side one more time, and vocalize my findings or feelings, then these people I call friends are going to behead me. One swift, arcing stroke with a devastatingly sharp sword. Plop. It’s over. B’bye. Despair because I’ve had enough. Everyone reaches a point in their life where they feel they have tossed and turned and suffered enough. This is not to say that the suffering is ever over, or that mine compares to yours, or that life and nature and the universe are ever done dealing it out. It’s more of a return to that glass. Okay, universe, it’s full now. Uncle. I’ve had quite enough. Whatever it is that you’re doing, knock that shit off.

I have lived through a cancer scare, spent two years caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s, watched my children grow up and become saturated with and shaped by (and at times sickened by) modern American society and with their parents’ views of how to live a proper life, and now—when I have begun to feel like I’ve experienced enough calamity and tragedy (the glass is nearly full)—I find myself in the middle of an untimely divorce.

Is there really such a thing as a timely divorce? I wonder. I suppose there may be, but exactly when or how that works completely escapes me. And when you’re in the middle of something like a divorce, it is difficult (to say the least) to keep any semblance of perspective. Like my kids with their TV shows, movies, and music, I am saturated with all that is divorce.

Whenever I need to put things in perspective, or to gently pry out thoughts and feelings from within and dissipate their power, I return to the beach or, more specifically, the sand. I take off my shoes, walk around in it, spread my arms wide and arch my back, close my eyes, and drink in the sun and the clouds and the salt air and the breeze blowing in my face. I worship the nature of the beach. I swallow the sea air and relish the senses aroused by all that surrounds and penetrates me. Most of all, I open my soul and my heart to the poetry of the beach. I reach for and grasp and clutch and enfold the succulent words and images that spring to mind when I step foot on the stage of the shoreline.

My life seems to have revolved around and consistently returned to this place. Be it Mayflower or Nauset, Kill Devil Hills or Key Largo, Kauai or St. Johns, or just a spit of sandbar that’s arisen from an exceptionally low tide and therefore not on any maps, it doesn’t matter; what matters is the shoreline, the horizon on the water, the ripples in the sand, and the way the clouds are perched precariously on the blue sky. Over the years, sand has persistently found its way into my clothes, my car, my relationships, my thoughts, my furniture, and every embarrassing crack and hidden crevice of my body. And it’s the same with sea breezes. Let’s not forget those lovely, bracing sea breezes. And I’m not referring to vodka and grapefruit juice here, either. Real sea breezes course through my life like semis on nameless highways. And the waves. The sound of the waves has been a wonderful calming influence, a constant soundtrack to a string of events, another sensation that has had a profound effect on my life and my mind.

Wherever life has taken me thus far, down the tattered and winding roads of government employment and through the sometimes seamy, sometimes vibrant and exhilarating halls of various private corporations, from an anonymous cube in a vast field of anonymous cubes to my own desk and its accompanying window at home, I feel the call of the waves and sand and salty breezes tugging me and beckoning me to let this unique and natural life force sink into and permeate my heart, my mind, and my soul. I feel it calling me to let go and relax, gather my wandering thoughts and perspectives, and let the pieces just tumble into place. There is a part of me that wants to sink back into the sand and let it suffuse my mind and soul, seep into every crack of my existence.

The beach tells me that if I could pull back for just one second, step into another body or away from my own to see where I’ve been and who I’ve become, I would feel some peace. I might even cut myself a break. Sit back and let my ass make a nice deep dent in the soft sand, take a good hard look at myself, and realize that things are never as bad as they seem from inside that hermetically sealed, personally constructed onion I call my “self.”

Sometimes I attempt to gain a measure of perspective without actually going to the beach. I mean, let’s face it; I can’t always be at the beach. I need a substitute of some kind. In order to take a mental step back and see myself as truly and realistically as I can, I recount the beaches and the events, the memories and the people. I recount them with smiles and tears, head shakes and mental handshakes, and contrast them all against my current life. I try to make sense of everything that is bombarding me: the dull ache in my chest, the overwhelming fact that the only woman I’ve ever really loved is slowly leaving me, and the delicious chaos of a life spent with sand in the crack of my ass.

2

Early Memory – 1964

There was a time when it was all so easy. I mean that. There was a time when the most difficult decision I made all day was which pair of sneakers I would wear—the green Chucks or the white Keds with the blue stripes and the hole on the side of the left shoe? I suppose it didn’t matter much; when you get right down to it, the socks were all wrong. More on the socks later…

I recall the constant, cool fresh breeze shooting in from the ocean just a half-mile away from the home in which I grew up, or I should say, where my life began; because I never really grew up there. I just passed the early years of my life there. I didn’t really grow up until I had kids, and even then sometimes I wonder. I am, after all, a man. And let’s face it, we men (well, most of us) never really grow up. I recall the fallen leaves that would swirl and dance lazily around on an autumn breeze, a bright distant sun simmering in a slate gray sky, and bikes to ride… football and street hockey and basketball to play… woods to explore… laughing and the sharing of secrets. A thousand things. You name it. But lots of giggling. If there was one defining quality about me as a child, it is that I loved to giggle.

And I remember that there was never time to go to the bathroom. Crazy, I know, but as a kid the last thing I wanted to do was take time out from whatever important thing I was doing—running or jumping or climbing or swinging—and go to the bathroom. I would wait until the last possible second, adjusting and contorting my body so that I could continue playing, and then when it became absolutely unbearable I would race across the field, across the street, and into our house, terrified that I would miss something awfully important or exciting. I never did, of course, but I always felt like I would. Little things were so bloody important. Funny, I never really worried about pissing my pants. No, I worried instead about missing a comment or important factoid spewed by one of my friends.

Then there were the issues around which of my Matchbox or Hot Wheels cars I liked best, or which route to a buddy’s house I preferred—through the marshy area (which had small sand dunes and low-lying muddy areas, both magnificent), or weaving in and about and among the empty cottages in the dead of winter, or rolling across the field of thigh-high grass in Indian summer and watching a squadron of grasshoppers whizz away when I interrupted their meeting. Man, I still remember what a thrill it was the first time I caught one with an impulsive swipe of my hand, only to let it go and find my palm coated with what looked like molasses. And which baseball cards to attach to the spokes of my front wheel. Was I going for sound? Or how good the player on the card was? Most likely, I would be going for Red Sox players. Do I use a favorite, like Yaz? Or a lesser known player like Bill Monbouquette? There were so many important things to think about. And so much time.

As children, it seemed that time was our captive. A good day could stretch out indefinitely; a bad day would dare not show its face. Or so it seemed. I mean there could be a bad moment in a day (quickly forgotten and relegated to non-memory), or a bad event, but seriously there were no “bad days.” A clear sky would beckon us to adventures forged in our pop culture imaginations, or at the very least dreamed up somewhere beyond our dead-end street. When I return to the neighborhood of my childhood today, I can still hear the whisperings of those glowing, endless days in the crispy salt breezes that always have, and always will, pour across the area. Whisperings of a stiffening breeze at dusk through the scrub pines, of tires on patches of sand in the worn gray streets, of skin slapping water in the glinting sun of the beach, of the smell of coconut oil on the simmering bodies of the smiling teenage tourist girls.

Autumn on Cape Cod was my favorite time of year. My childhood was the sixties, and the beaches cleared after Labor Day, when the tourists moved back to their real towns and homes and lives and left behind the temporary homes they had made or shared or defiled or whatever it was they did when they visited my beaches, my realm, my home. As the years went by, the sad reality sunk in that the tourists had begun to arrive earlier and earlier, and stayed later and later before finally clearing out and leaving those of us who lived there to clean up the mess… and begin to get ready to batten down the hatches for the bleak, yet wonderfully vacant, off-season. As I grew, the summer population expanded until it seemed the peninsula would crack off and float out to sea.

But when I was a kid the beaches were pretty much cleared the week right after Labor Day and I could ride my bike there and feel the cool wind in my face. I would weave back and forth across the entire expanse of the blacktop as I pleased and encounter gloriously few cars. I could drink in the salty air, watch the whirling gabbing careening squawking gulls, and listen to the steady lapping of the small, sound-side waves. After Labor Day I could go there alone, be alone, and it all belonged solely to me.

And, generally speaking, autumn was perfect, not to put too fine a point on it. Not too hot, like the middle of August, and not yet frigid, like it was every year from December to March. In the fall, anyone who loved solitude, or the crisp, fresh, pungent ocean smell, or trolling for lost treasures in the cold sand could move about undisturbed, exploring as they pleased, cutting their own swath through their own achingly beautiful beach world. I never really understood the notion that the tourists didn’t want to be a part of this. I always just assumed that the families had to leave because the kids had to get back to school. And that’s true. But what about everyone else? What about the couples without kids, or with kids who had grown up and moved out to start their own families? I figured that they just left when everybody else left. It dawned on me years later that maybe they weren’t in on the secret. And once they caught on, once they understood the beauty of the beaches in desolation, all bets were off.

For me, the ride to the beach was at least as delicious as the beach itself; the ride was a slice of heaven in its own unique way. Upon first glance, one might think it mundane; it was anything but that to a kid who waited for the end of summer to drink in the freedom of solitude and slurp down the joys of childhood like others would ice-cold lemonade on a hot summer day. That short trek to the beach after Labor Day was special for me. I found it to be a quiet world broken only by the wind whistling in my ears and the crunch of sand and leaves and—yes, pine needles—beneath my tires. The gray, narrow streets were somehow comfortable. They were lined with scrub pines and, for the most part, bereft of lines. They were tailor-made for a kid on a bike. And most of the time on these windy, quiet rides to the sand and surf I had the road all to myself. When nary a car was seen for any stretch of time, I would generously fill the other side of the street with imaginary craft of all kinds—spaceships, horse-pulled carts, zombie-driven GTOs, what have you.

My stingray bicycle was equipped with all the latest cutting-edge technology available in the mid- and late-60s: banana seat, fork extensions that gave the rider that “chopper” look and feel, and, of course, the quintessential baseball cards clothes-pinned to the front and rear wheel frames and poking stiffly (at least until they wore out) into the spinning spokes. Clack clack clack clack clack. It was awe inspiring. It was loud. It was obnoxious. It was glorious. Some kids opted for ribbons streaming from the handlebars. Not me.

A friend once told me that a small, well-timed tantrum could lead to a quick trip to the local Western Auto, where you could obtain any color you desired of these bright plastic strips. They came with handle bar grips, so installation was a snap and soon they could be streaming from your fists as you roared down the deserted streets. In my eyes they were a girl’s adornment, like charm bracelets or fringe on your bellbottom cuffs. I wanted no part of them. I had Yaz and Teddy Baseball and Say Hey and Hammerin’ Hank clacking in my spokes, man. They provided all the color and pizzazz I needed.

On a cold or crisp day a trip to the beach would bring tears to my eyes. These were welcome tears, unlike most others that followed either a whack on the fanny for an intentional transgression or accompanied some new and confusing emotional pain—like growing up. These tears—what I call beach tears—signified the entire adventure: the ride, the quiet, the sand, the noise, the freedom, all of it. They were a tactile memory enhancer. To this day, if you get me on a bike and one droplet, one salty beach tear is shed, then I can recall every ride, every sense, every sky, and every treasure found. And being a sentimental old fool, like most of us in middle age, that one beach tear can evoke some real tears. 

Sometimes on these trips to the deserted beach, my hands would become brittle from clutching the handlebars against the frigid air, but that didn’t bother me. I ignored it until I arrived at the shore and then savored the warmth that spread evenly down my knuckles as I pressed my hands into my sweaty armpits, all the while planning my assault and ensuing adventure on the sand.

A word about sounds. The sounds along the way and at the beach were a collective garble, a cornucopia of aural delight. On the way it was the soft crunching sound of sand under my tires as I rolled through tiny drifts at the end of driveways I passed. The pine trees gently brushing up against one another in the steady, usually stiff, breeze. The hushed squeegee sound of my bike tires as I skirted the edge of a puddle or the rhythmic thumping when I mounted a short wooden sidewalk bridge over a stream or inlet. The clunk of a wooden fence gate swinging freely in the breeze. The confounding roar of a car engine from the other end of a tree-lined, tunneled road. The ululating calls of the gulls. The whoosh of my back tire swinging around in a long, exaggerated, sliding, death-defying, halting skid. The quiet, persistent whap-slap of mellow waves against the flat shore. The empty swings at the beach swaying on their chains, their rusty links squeaking and squawking and moaning beneath the volley of swooping gulls.

Time seemed to slow down while I explored the cold sand. It was as though the whole scene was waiting for me and my imagination to dream up what we could, anything at all. Dark green lumps of stringy seaweed dominated the landscape, scattered up and down the shoreline as though some sea giant had risen from the depths and shook his mighty mane, spraying clumps of his gelatinous hair across the strand. Empty horseshoe crab shells lay strewn about like discarded bomb shell casings. Clam shell shards of every shape and size littered the sand everywhere you looked, like chunks of shrapnel on a battlefield.

And that’s how I imagined the seashore at times like this, as a miniature battlefield. As a child I watched John Wayne war movies with my dad, and they stuck with me. The heaps of seaweed were soldiers’ dead bodies strewn about, the gulls were dog-fighting war planes diving and screaming up and down the expanse of the battlefield, and the foamy froth at the very edge of the waves became amphibious landing vehicles crawling upward to discharge troops. I would stay for hours, my bike left leaning and forgotten against the pilings that separated the beach from the parking lot.

A car would meander by every thirty or forty minutes. A senior citizen would lean out to wave if I happened to glance in their direction. (A side note about the senior citizens. Other than the bitch crone that lived next door, I found them to be painfully friendly. They would always wave, always smile, always say hello. I think it was less from loneliness than from the era in which they were raised. They were brought up to acknowledge everyone, friend or stranger, and they seemed to garner added delight if the person they said hello to was a child—especially one at play. Their persistence taught me to wave back. I enjoyed it. It was like a little game we played. They were passing on a minor, but important, little nicety of civilized life, and I was complying by learning it and hopefully passing it on. Now, living in suburbia, I find this little nicety has been all but forgotten or discarded. People no longer consistently wave or acknowledge one another. Instead, they relish their anonymity and persist in cutting themselves off from their community. Ignoring other people is one of the sad truths of modern suburban society.) Waving back and seeing the joy it would bring to their faces is a memory I will always cherish. But like everything else, it was woven into the story running through my imagination at the moment. They weren’t friendly senior citizens passing by; they were loved ones waving to the soldiers as they passed through town on their way to the railroad cars that would carry them to war.

I ruled the beach with an iron fist. My orders fought with the winds, punctuated by my feet pistoning into the sand. My marching and dodging and diving and carrying-on left twisting ruts and trails everywhere in the sand. And the gulls knew to keep their distance. I had a deadly arm and was always prepared with rocks and shells. My pockets bulged with ammo. My mission was a simple one: hold this beach for as long as possible… at all costs. Well, hold the beach until supper time. But definitely at all costs.

When the sun began to sink, it left long shadows that enhanced the shapes of the beach; this further charged my imagination, and my antics and tactics and (imaginary) pyrotechnics would reach their climax. The colors of the sun-soaked sky became the tinted ribbons of explosions, wispy trails of descending bombs, and smoky tails of high flying fighter jets. What a colorful, cacophonous, magical world.

Twilight signaled the slow, meandering ride home. I walked and rode a fine line then. While stretching the day as long as I possibly could, the lowering sun tended to darken the narrow, winding streets. Drivers clicked on their headlights, and little boys on their choppers were much harder to see. Furthermore, I’d better not be late for dinner.

Side Note – present day thoughts

One bright November day not so long ago—before the recent marital troubles—as I quietly sat, breathing deeply of the ocean air and staring off into the distance at the whitecaps, my memory drifted back to a fateful day when I was four and came to this beach with my mother and grandmother. It was a memory cocooned loosely in another memory, like a warm shawl around Grandma Hazel.

The day was gusty, a prelude to a promised (and much discussed and anticipated) Nor’easter, the edge of what had once been a hurricane that had battered Florida and North Carolina on its way north just days ago. The wind blew in heavy sighs, bending the sea grass in the marsh behind the beach, and howling its presence between the jutting, jagged rocks of the jetty, then out over the sand and into my young ears.

I grabbed my mother’s hand in my left, my grandmother’s in my right, and pulled them away from the dark blue ’67 Fairlane and onto the beach. I had to see the big waves. Had to hear them up close and feel their power. They were terrifying, beautiful, mesmerizing, and totally cool. Everything a four-year-old could ever ask of nature. I stalked toward the waves, turning into the stiff breeze and pulling my captives along with me. I remember not worrying about the sand, because my cowboy boots were too high for the sand to breach.

As I sat there dredging up this memory and picturing every detail in my mind, I paused and turned my head, closed my eyes; I recalled how utterly convinced I was that they loved this as much as I did. It was all so big, alive, and tactile to me—the way the salt air was forced into our lungs, the constant fight to gain ground as the sand gave way under every footfall and the wind pushed persistently back at us (not unlike Marcel Marceau on the Ed Sullivan Show, my mother once said), the roar of wind and surf rushing in our ears, taking complete control over all our senses. It was work for the ladies, especially Grandma Hazel, I later learned. But they were happy to oblige such an enthusiastic soul, at least for a little while. Every time I looked up to gauge their moods, I was greeted with a smile.

It was not long after Halloween, so I still had my costume. As a boy, I looked upon Chuck Connors, “The Rifleman,” as my personal hero. He taught us a sense of right and wrong, of family, and of loyalty. And he was so cool shooting that rifle. So here I was, decked out in my Halloween cowboy regalia: suede vest, cowboy boots, six-guns strapped to my hips, and cowboy hat proudly jammed on my head. Throw in the Sears’ Toughskins jeans and the Rat Patrol t-shirt and you’ve got the picture postcard of little boy cowboy (and 60s pop culture) regalia. I loved everything about that outfit. It was a cowboy dreamer’s heaven... with a little Desert Fox combat thrown in for good measure.

My Mom always watched me with eyes that sparkled with love. And she got that trait, or gift, depending on how you looked at it, from Grandma Hazel. Most days when she brought me to this beach, she would stand, cigarette precariously dangling from her lips (Tareyton—“I’d rather fight than switch!”), leaning against the hood of the old Fairlane, arms folded across her chest, watching her little boy mount the stairs to the beach, smiling and inhaling, smiling and inhaling, smoke billowing above her head. Her cheap polyester pants and light quilted coat screamed of her selflessness.  ‘Don’t worry about me; make sure the kids have the things they want.’

Grandma Hazel was a sweet old woman who exhibited a sense of care in everything she did. My memories of her are truncated, a little fuzzy, and mostly tactile; she lived only until I was six. Her face was deeply lined, but they were lines that somehow evoked a sense of love and gentleness, wrought of decades of smiling and caring and worrying. Her breath was always minty. Her hands were soft and worn, perfect for cupping little faces and pointing them up to hers for Grandma kisses.

Looking back, she is a blur to me now. That beach memory is my clearest, oldest of her; her death came not very long afterward. Not enough time… never enough time. I’m not even sure if I remember her real face or have transplanted the face I’d seen in photographs over the years. Strange. Thankfully, the soft hands were passed down to my Mom. And that memory, that collective synthesized memory of soft hands, is one that I will lovingly carry with me to the grave and share with my own kids. Those soft hands represented everything female in the world to me... and in some way still do. But I digress…

The waves were belligerent on that cowboy day, roaring into and slapping the cowboy shore, an unmistakable precursor to the heavy cowboy rains and high cowboy winds that were not far off. We slogged along, my two lady captives exchanging indulgent, knowing glances with each other and then to me and to the angry ocean. Suddenly, and without warning, a fierce gust buffeted us, stopping us in our collective tracks, and ripped the hat from my head. The string that loosely held it on my head by wrapping under my chubby chin held for a brief instant, then succumbed to the force of the wind. I could feel it dig in for a moment, and then slip off the end of my chin. The hat swirled momentarily and tantalizingly above us: ten, then twenty feet, then higher, before taking an abrupt turn and heading directly out to sea as though Neptune himself had wanted that hat. Cowboy hating bastard. It landed fifty feet off shore and remained there, bobbing on top of the white-capped waves, mocking my cowboy existence, denying my cowboy dreams, bringing me to cowboy tears.

I remember reaching, grasping the cold salty air. I remember pointing and crying, helpless energy seething inside me, powerless to do anything but watch that hat float further and further away, until it sank sadly into the waves. My hands hung limply by my sides, then rested lightly on the handles of my trusty six-guns. I was tempted to fetch them with lightning speed and dispatch the criminal ocean, but pushed down the urge with great effort (I knew that Chuck Connors would not have done so; therefore, neither would I). It was the right thing to do… or not do. That’s what “The Rifleman” had taught me. Never draw your guns in anger. Instead, I buried my head in Mom’s and then in Grandma Hazel’s soft shoulders and just sobbed.

But looking back on that day all these years later, I had to laugh. I had done nothing but complain about that hat: it never fit right, the string that was supposed to keep it securely on my head looked stupid and pinched into my fat little neck, and it didn’t look anything like The Rifleman’s hat. Geez. It matched my vest and pants and boots, for crying out loud. But it was mine, goddammit, and the sea had taken it away from me… and ruined my cowboy day.

The six-guns had been another story altogether. I remembered being completely satisfied with those molded pieces of metal and plastic. They fit my hands perfectly, they looked real, and perhaps most importantly, they were cap-ready: when and if I ever got my greedy, sweaty little hands on a roll of caps, those six-guns were ready to make some noise. It was a very satisfying crack-bang. It annoyed grown-ups and scared my sisters. Those guns were perfect. I kept them in a box somewhere in the attic for a long, long time afterward. Sometime between then and now they disappeared... gone to that place where such things go.

Crazed and Defused - Part IV

Since this is Part IV, you might want to read Parts I-III, below, first...

~~~~~~~

At 11:15, just as Mitch was thinking that maybe Toby and his boys had forgotten about Sam or moved onto the next distraction, a nondescript, dark blue Ford pulled up under his tree. Nobody got out. Mitch could hear the ticking of the car as it cooled. He could hear them talking.

“That’s his car!” said Toby in a hoarse whisper. He sounded a little too excited. Mitch just couldn’t figure out why this joker had it in for Sam. Had Sam said or done something to him? Mitch doubted it. Sam kept pretty much to himself. Was there a girl involved? Had Sam dated someone that Mitch considered “his?” Mitch thought about it. He’d seen Sam with Pam Dabney a few times. Had Toby ever dated her or expressed any interest in her? Not that Mitch could remember. How about Melanie Cooper? Sam had dated her for more than a year, from April of their sophomore year to the end of their junior year and into the summer. Did Toby have the hots for Mel? Hmmm. In Mitch’s estimation, that would be enough for Toby to want to “take care” of Sam. Maybe that was it. He listened some more, thinking all the while about what he would do when or if they made a move on Sam.

“Toby, what is it with you?” asked Jake. Mitch could almost see the smirk on Jake’s face as he probed Toby for some sanity. “Whatta you got against Sam anyway? I think we all want to know.”
Mitch heard a “yeah” or two from the other guys in the car. He guessed there were at least four, perhaps even five, guys in the car, including Toby and Jake. The full contingency.
“Where do I start?” said Toby. “I could start with his overall dickishness, I guess.”
“What?” said Jake.
“Jake, if you don’t want to be here, just leave, okay?” said Toby. Nice misdirection, thought Mitch.
“No, really, Toby. What did he ever do to you? Did he look at you wrong or something? Did he pork your girlfriend? Oh! I forgot! You don’t have a girlfriend!” Mitch could hear Toby repositioning himself in the front seat, the gentle squeaks of leather on vinyl. He sounds uncomfortable, Mitch thought to himself. Wonder if anyone has ever asked him a direct question like that. Or confronted him like this.

“Is he seeing someone you’ve claimed in your godhood, Toby?” continued Jake. “Is that it? Did you claim his current girlfriend, whoever that is? Or did you secretly want Mel for yourself last year? What is it? We’d all really like to know.” Mitch could sense the tension in the car. The driver’s door opened and Toby’s boot touched the ground outside the car. He was ready to vacate the uncomfortable air of the car.

“No, Jake,” Mitch heard him say as he put his other boot outside the car as well. “I can’t stand this puke because he thinks he’s such hot shit, that’s all. I lay no claim to anything or anyone, past or present. Happy? Satisfied? Anything else?” Toby completely vacated the car and stood beside it cupping his hand over a cigarette he was having trouble lighting. Mitch watched closely. Toby was shaking.

Jake stepped out of the passenger side and peered over the roof of the car at Toby. “He thinks he’s hot shit?” Jake asked scornfully. “You gotta be kidding. I thought you actually had a reason. You’re a fuckin’ idiot.” Jake began to slowly walk around the car toward Toby, looking in all directions as he came.

Toby finished lighting his cigarette, forcing himself to be cool and stand his ground. Jake was a tough dude. Not like Toby. Toby just thought he was tough. Jake could hand him his ass in a heartbeat. Toby inhaled and held the butt in the coolest way he knew. The only thing Toby had going for him was that Jake really didn’t give a shit. He didn’t give a shit about Sam, about Toby’s misguided rage, about any of the guys in this group, about the school for that matter. He only hung out with Toby because it amused him sometimes. Jake approached Toby and Mitch could see that Toby was already in a fight-or-flight mode. His footwork was subtle, but Mitch was watching for it. He could see that Toby had turned slightly away from Jake, his right foot pointed toward his escape route. Toby also crossed his left arm over his chest, the cigarette in his right hand up by his mouth and the elbow of that right arm resting on his left hand. It looked casual, but it was a defensive pose. If Jake struck him suddenly, Toby could, theoretically, block it with his cigarette hand. Theoretically.

Jake stopped a few feet from Toby. “I think I’m sick of your shit, Toby. Sam’s a good dude. I don’t really care about either of you, but you’re acting like a dickhead. I have a good mind to smack you for dragging us out here.” Then Toby did something that Mitch did not expect.
He turned toward Jake and said “Then beat it, Jake. If you don’t want to be here, then beat it.” Mitch could sense the tension in Toby’s words, how much guts it took to say them. Jake studied him. One move and he could silence Toby, theoretical block and all. It was all up to Jake.

Just then the screen door at the side of Town Pizza whacked shut and Sam took a few steps toward his car. He looked up and saw Jake and Toby twenty feet away. He looked puzzled, tired. He waved meekly and got in his car. Toby didn’t move. Jake waved back. And then Jake swung a short, direct, heavy punch into Toby’s face. Toby’s head jerked back, struck the roof of the car, and he dropped to the ground.

“Put him in the back seat, would ya, Neil?” Jake asked. Neil got out of the back seat, stuffed Toby in, and went around to get in the front seat. Jake hopped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

“See ya, Mitch!” Jake called as the car peeled away.

the end

~~~~~~~~
'til next time...

Crazed and Defused - Part III

Since this is Part III, you might want to read Parts I and II, below, first...

~~~~~~~

“What line is that, Toby?” asked Jake. He smiled. He knew that Toby was rolling now and the answer would be ludicrous. Mitch got the impression that Jake was amused by this group. It wasn’t that he shared their hate of everything that was ‘not them.’ It was that he thought it was funny and misguided. And he didn’t really care. You could sense that in Jake’s voice. He didn’t care one way or the other about any of this or these guys. He was going to get his full ride to college and take it. He was going to leave these fools in his wake and never look back. And they had no idea. He moved his big shoulders underneath the sweatshirt. Toby noticed.

“The line that separates pukes like him from us. The line that keeps dickwads like him from polluting the world with his offspring. That’s the line I mean.” Toby was working himself into a frenzy. He wasn’t really even speaking to anyone in particular. He was espousing his own personal brand of bullshit to whoever would listen. The funny part was he didn’t really care who (if anyone) listened. And it looked like nobody did. Mitch thought that perhaps he was working at convincing himself that whomever they were planning on “taking care of” was a bad guy, had somehow wronged him, whatever. Guys like Toby were always looking for a “them” to play against their “us.” They liked belonging to a team and fighting for that team. It gave them a sense of worth. Guys like him usually didn’t much like themselves.

Mitch decided to arrive early for the little outing. He got to Town Pizza at 10:30 and began scanning the area for a good spot to watch it all go down. The kid in question turned out to be Sam Harris. A good guy. Figures, thought Mitch. He knew it was Sam because the delivery guy arrived at about 10:40 in a maroon ’75 AMC Pacer and out crawled Sam. He was singing along with the chorus of “Proud Mary” by Creedence and smiling from ear to ear. The music stopped when he shut off the car, but he kept on singing. Kept on burning… Must’ve been a good tip at the last stop.

He watched as Sam entered the pizza shop and the loose screen door slammed behind him. He could hear loud, good-natured responses to Sam’s entry from his perch in a large tree just off the rear parking lot.

"Sammy!" bellowed Mr. Francesco, the owner of the Town Pizza. "From Alabammy!"

"Eggs and hammy!" screamed Jimmy Kline. "Toast and jammy!"

Then, in chorus, as though they'd rehearsed while he was out, "Sammy!"

Sam was well-liked at Town Pizza. Geez, as far as Mitch could recollect, everyone liked Sam… except Toby. Mitch surmised that was exactly why Toby didn’t like him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
'til next time...

Crazed and Defused - Part II

Since this is Part II, you might want to read Part I, below, first...

~~~~~~~

“Jake, my man, we are gonna take care of business,” he said, grinding his right fist into his left palm. “Now, as I was saying, Slot left, 21 Y absolutely rules.”

“No, man,” interrupted Sean Peppers. He was the tallest of the group. And he resented his height. He just wanted to blend in, and his height made him stick out. So his shoulders stooped and his knees bent. And he was usually quiet. But a slip regarding football meant something to Sean. “You were talking about Slot one, Y package, dude. 21 Y is when Mallarky hooks in between the linebackers. Get it right, dude.”

“Whatever,” hissed Toby. “Anyone see Sarah Cluney’s little skirt today? Sweet. Reminded me of Kitty.” Now Toby had a misty look in his eyes. “Remember Kitty? Man, she had the most incredible body ever.”

“I heard she goes to Cornell now, dude.”

“Yeah, whatever. She’s probably making some dude very happy up there. I sure do miss her.” Toby had a far-away look in his eyes.

Mitch kept listening. He knew they’d brag about one thing or another before too long. He wasn’t disappointed. He shifted his book as he switched the crossing of his ankles to make himself more comfortable. He scratched his back a little on the tree. Still listening.

“That puke is in for a big surprise tonight, man,” began Toby. “My brother says he works over at Town Pizza, over off Lancaster Street. You guys know where I mean?” They all nodded. Here it comes, thought Mitch.

“His buddy Tee told me that puke delivers all night starting at seven. He goes out. He comes back. He goes out again. And –”

“Sounds like you’re doin’ the deed, man!” shouted Neil King. Neil was constantly thinking about sex. Anything you said could be construed to have a sexual meaning or contain sexual content. And when the connection, real or fictitious, was made in Neil’s head, he blurted out his findings for all to hear. “In and out and in and out. Awesome! Momma’s got a squeeze box! Daddy never sleeps at night!”

“Shut up, Squeal,” said Toby. Neil shrunk back to where he had been sitting. If he’d had a tail he would have pulled it between his legs. But he was still quietly humming his little tune.

“Anyway, this dude starts at seven and delivers all night. He usually finishes up around eleven, except on weekend nights, when he goes ‘til one or so. I say we catch up with him at eleven tonight and take care of business.” Toby was seeing it all in his mind now.

Mitch made a mental note of the address and time. He kept his head down and kept reading.

“What’s the point, dude?” Jake asked. Jake was shorter than the rest of the guys, but made up for his lack of height with sheer power. He was a wrestler and nobody messed with him. He was powerfully built and slow to anger. He always asked what the point was. His wide face belied a calm soul. Mitch could never quite figure out what he was doing with these morons. He seemed like a good guy.

“The point, numb nuts,” began Toby. Jake slowly turned his eyes to Toby. Toby backed up a step.

“Sorry, dude. What I meant to say was… the point is that this a-hole, this bucket of puke, this piece of garbage has crossed the line.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~
'til next time...

Crazed and Defused - Part I

The following is an excerpt from a story called "Crazed and Defused":

Mitch wore long, baggy pants that barely clung to his butt cheeks. Why he even bothered to wear a belt was beyond me. I guess it was just for style. Or maybe the belt buckle doubled as a bottle opener. Or just maybe it was a utility belt, you know, like Batman’s. Anyway, he wore those pants low, so low that the cuffs scraped the ground when he walked. They scraped and scraped until they’d been worn to a cool fringe.

Mitch spoke with a slow deliberation. He took his time when all around him people rushed and tripped over their own tongues. His speech came out at a steady, unhurried pace. He spoke in complete sentences. That in and of itself was a miracle. Considering that no one he knew spoke in complete sentences. Or much more than a grunt, for that matter. No, Mitch’s friends couldn’t be bothered with complete sentences. They were busy texting LOLs and IMHOs and joining the latest social network so they could let everyone see their inane lives in full, living color. Mitch walked slowly; he spoke slowly; he even ate slowly. Mitch took his time in life. He tasted things. He savored things. He watched and listened.

One fine, cool afternoon in mid-September, as he and all his classmates were becoming re-acclimated to another year of high school, Mitch strolled slowly, quietly, and alertly through the quad. His radar was working perfectly – as usual. He was catching sumptuous bites of conversations, surreptitiously eyeballing the girls in their scant clothing before they covered up for the fall. He was scanning, probing, looking to all the world like a quiet dunce. He was anything but.

Toby Grant and his band of muscle-bound misfits were planning something. He could tell by the way they acted like nothing was going on. They made a forced show of nothing. Greek gods stretching their shirts, looking like the mindless prats they were. As he sat himself down next to a tree and pulled his hat down a half-inch further to shade his eyes, crossed his ankles, and took out a book, he blended in with his surroundings. Everyone knew he was bright. Everyone knew he was focused. Everyone knew he read. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to see here.

He opened his book and tilted his head down, never giving the impression that he was doing anything but reading. Never giving the impression that he was doing anything but focusing on his own little world and shutting out the bigger, more confused and confusing, one. He tilted his head and sat alertly taking in everything around him. Toby was expounding on two of his favorite topics: the football team and the cornucopia of girls he found worthy to be on his list of desirables. In between Toby’s brilliant one liners “Sherry’s got the best ass I’ve ever seen, man” and “Slot one, Y package left is definitely our most potent weapon, man,” Jake Martin was chiming in, asking annoying questions, and disrupting Toby’s serene and Zen-like flow.

“Toby, what are we gonna do about this guy?” Jake asked. He didn’t seem to particularly care. He just asked. Toby smiled indulgently.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
'til next time...

The Breakup - Part II

You can break up with anyone, anytime. You can get over a breakup. Anywhere. Anytime. Anyone. Sometimes it will take time; other times you can move on like you just squashed a bug with your shoe. Done. Bye. I was ready to move on, but didn’t know how. Thoughts of Sasha, of missing Sasha, of what it used to be like with Sasha, clouded my mind. I was lucky to be able to put two sentences together. Beer helped.

I had a pothead English teacher in community college who introduced us all to the glories of Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. Mr. Panosky. I’m forever thankful. One day, after a particularly draining Bio 101 class, I trudged into his classroom ahead of the rest of my classmates. He smiled and said “I have some really neat stuff today.”

I wondered what the hell he was talking about. He kinda creeped me out a bit. He was very excited. A little too excited. He saw the look on my face. He continued.

“I’m getting divorced,” he said with another creepy smile.

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. I really didn’t know what to say to that. This was 1979 and I didn’t know anyone that was divorced. The concept was totally foreign to me. Besides that, I was 18 and could care less. I was still trying to figure out what I really liked better, boobs or butts, Canadian beer or American swill. What did I care about some English teacher getting a divorce?

“No. It’s no big deal. It’s actually kind of freeing. Never mind. I’ll explain to the class when everyone gets here. It’s kinda cool.”

Okay. Kinda cool. Doubt it, Mr. Panosky. Good luck with that.

The class filed in. Everyone was typically apathetic. Nobody really got it. Everyone had a look on their face like “why are you telling us this?” I was leading the way. My face was a mask of apathy. His comings and goings and relationships and broken relationships and grading and teacher discussions were all a mystery to me. A mystery I had no interest in solving. He looked out over the sea of blank stares and cleared his throat. He was clearly – in his mind – going to share something momentous with us. We waited.

“As I’ve said, I’m getting divorced. Not that big a deal, I assure you.” He looked around the room. He seemed to see something I did not see. Interest. He continued.

“It is actually very freeing. I’ve been unhappy – I should say we’ve been very unhappy – for quite some time now. Neither of us is really sure when the relationship started to go sour. It just did… over time. That’s how it works. Life moves on, you have kids, you get jobs, you change jobs, the kids grow, the relationship takes a back seat, and the marriage goes south.”

Now I surveyed the room. Eyes were glazing over, yawns were popping up all over the place. Jeremy Kantner was just about to drop off. Mike Sullivan was leaning in talking quietly to Debbie Lowe and her 38-Ds. But Panosky wasn’t done yet. I turned my attention back to him. He now had a slightly crazed look on his face. I was beginning to get worried.

“I’m here to tell you something I realized in the last week or so. I’ve been thinking about this whole broken relationship-divorce-end of a lifelong commitment thing for months now. We’ve been separated for three months. I started really taking stock of life about two months ago. I gave myself a month to mourn the death of our marriage… anyway, I’ve discovered that” … and now his voice got a little edgy, this was the crux of this whole diatribe, he was close to peeing his pants with excitement … “there is truly no one you cannot live without.” He closed his mouth and scanned the classroom.

John Mays was two knuckles deep in his right nostril. Kathy Wells was adjusting her bra strap. Mary K. Neil had her compact out and was making tiny corrections to her makeup. I shifted and got a little more comfortable in the hard seat.

“There is truly no one you cannot live without,” he repeated. He was looking for a reaction. No one was reacting.

“What do you mean, Mr. P?” I asked, figuring I’d come to the rescue, earn a point or two, maybe even impress Debbie and her chest along the way.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “parents and teachers and ministers and movies and TV all tell us stories about heartbreak and romance and how there was this person who couldn’t live without this other person. I believed it. You probably believe and don’t really think about it. I’m here to tell you it’s bullshit.”

The class was now officially paying attention. I know I was.

“That’s right. There is not a single person in this world that you just can’t live without. I thought my wife was that. I thought my Mom was that. I thought my this person or that person were that. It’s bullshit. You can live without all of them. You can carry on your life without them. You can take one day at a time, less pain and anguish than the day before, one step closer to freedom and clarity, one step further from freeze-dried bullshit.” I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. Did he just say “freeze-dried bullshit?”

“That’s right,” he added, trudging forward undaunted. “Freeze-dried bullshit. The bullshit the media and parents and ‘real world’ (he put it in finger quotes) have been feeding you. It’s a load. A great, big steaming load of horseshit.” Now which is it, I wondered, bullshit or horseshit? I was nearly giggling now, incredibly uncomfortable. The chair was suddenly biting me on the ass. I opened my mouth.

“And?” I asked, almost apologetically, as if to say 'I don’t get it.' My classmates were nodding in agreement, whatever that meant. I took it to mean that they didn’t quite get it either.

“And,” he blurted, eyes bugging from his sockets, nostrils flaring like a heated horse, “and it’s a lie. There is no one you cannot live without. That’s what came to me over the last few weeks. It came to me like a bolt out of the blue.” I never really understood that metaphor, but he was on a roll and I found myself nodding like an idiot. “It came to me like a hot kiss at the end of a wet fist.”

Now a few of my classmates were grinning just like him. They got it. They had latched onto his manic episode and were riding him like a demented donkey at a lunatic rodeo.

“Think about it people! Do you honestly believe that if Sally or Jody or Mel or Tim dumped you today or – sadly – kicked the bucket that you would not be able to go on? Do you really believe that given some time to grieve and pass the feelings like so many kidney stones you wouldn’t eventually get on with life? Nobody is saying any of this is easy. Trust me,” he smiled, “passing a kidney stone is NOT easy. But it can be done. You can carry on with your life. You can come out the other side. There is truly no one out there that you cannot live without.”

“That is my message for today.”

I looked up. The entire class period had elapsed. I was astonished. Where did the time go? It took him an hour to tell us that? My classmates were equally befuddled, but they were gathering themselves and their books and pencils and rising from their seats one at a time. As we filed past Mr. P, who stood watching us go, I smiled to myself. I smiled to myself all the way out of the building. All the way to my car.

Thanks, Mr. P.

I finally realized that I could live without Sasha. It was that easy. All it took was an English teacher going through hell and coming out the other side to tell me I could. So I did.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

'til next time...