$3 Makers

Three stools down, to my right, is John.

He won’t drink it if it’s not Absolute, he informs me.

Next to John is a nameless man, hands stained with paint,

who came in with him.

He’s on the phone apologizing for a septic tank that’s backed up.

He’d installed it last month.

 

To my left is another John, white and beardless

and old and leathered.

He’s driven a truck the last twelve years.

Half the time while drunk, he says,

but he’s never had a ticket, he says,

and that’s the trick, he says,

but he never says to what.

 

I’m in the middle but not in between, and

that’s  important. They’ve got the radio

on: Koko Taylor, and I’m halfway through a second beer.

The bartender’s eyes are sagged from marijuana.

Last weekend he said he jumped off a bridge

for no reason except that it was there.

“Pickled sausage isn’t on my Wake-Me-Up Stuff list.”

Glory be.  I’m back.

I imagine I’ve been put right on the cusp of being completely forgotten. I could hardly blame you. I almost forgot myself.

Insert appropriate Elton John song here.

First, my laptop (which oddly rarely found its way to my lap) was struck by lightning. This is not , I’m sure you’ll agree, all that conducive to a blogger’s life.

I was still able to access my poetry, scripts, musings, etc. but was unable to connect to the Internet. The techies were no help either, over the phone, as on their end of things it registered as “connected.”

Heck, even on my end, the blame thing was saying “connected.” The truth, though, was it wasn’t. Connected.

Then, as tends to happen, time gets the better of us. I got caught up in this drama camp that I direct each year, and it is a wonderful, all-encompassing event…but leaves little room for other things.

I get so encapuslated with the camp that I’ve been known to neither sleep nor eat for several days in a row: the camp occurs over three weeks, involves high school theatre students from all over the country. They write, produce, and star in their own musical. I’m only in charge of the production side of things. This year we had, roughly, nine days to stage a four-act musical with 52 campers.

Blog, anyone?

I finally couldn’t take it anymore…I mean once you start sharing pieces of yourself on the WWW, you kinda don’t know what to do with yourself when you can’t.  So, I broke down and purchased an Acer Netbook, which is both a) a novelty of great purport, and b) a new aggravation for my thick, nimble-less fingers.  Also, c) the screen is taking some adjusting to, but d) I’m more happy than frustrated…

This post might not make much sense, and I’ve avoided my typical obsession with over-the-top details and analysis…but I was too eager to wait until later…I had to post something.

So, to compensate for my usual memoir-antics, I’ll leave you with a brief story and a poem. Both of which, I’m sure, need an edit.

This afternoon, my second-oldest nephew, A.K., insisted that I take him to the church parking lot so he could show off his bike-riding skills. He just turned 5, and because of the camp, I was unable to attend his birthday party. I was more than happy to watch him ride his bike. He was thrilled, and told me, more than once, more than, like, eight times, that he no longer had training wheels…he’d been on a “real bike” now, for ten days, he said.

Close enough.

While sloshing through small patches of water that had collected in the lower parts of the parking lot (it had rained all morning), he began to get a little thirsty. I had a bottle of lemon-flavored water with me; it’s a treat-for-the-road that U.L. offers me, every Sunday. I’m not sure why it’s becoming so steadfast a tradition, but at any rate, I was grateful for having a bottle with me today.

A.K. pulled up, quick as a bee, skidded to a halt, pleased with the sound the small back tire made…and reached out for the bottle of water, claiming he was in “real, real need for gas.” That’s what he called the water.

He took a long, gigantic swig of it, handed it back to me and said, “Thanks, it tastes like the good kind of Airheads.” (A candy I was not aware he ate that often).  Then, he got back on his bike, prepared to take off, turned back to me and said, “That there’s good water. I’m going to need to get more of it. It’s a lot better than what my daddy gives me anyway.”

“What does your daddy give you?”

And his answer was one I doubt I could have ever been ready for.

“Pickled sausage.”

I tried to get him to explain in full, rich detail but all I managed to get out of him was that pickled sausage was nasty, and not on his “wake-me-up” stuff list.

Kids, huh.

And now, for something entirely unrelated, a poem:

I

Every now and then a Word pursues me.

When it does, I run — either back to bed, or

to the basement, with my books — but, feel free,

I mean this!, to go, do, whatever you can before

 

your Word catches up to you. Because, then,

legs will be useless, fingers cracked, hands spun.

The zeal that comes when Words pursue can

easily rend the burning white from any sun.

II

I think language is chief among Horrors. Its reach

such a precipice that it has no Scale, no Height.

And, what, exactly, can you say, without Speech?

How would you sleep, if you couldn’t know Night?

III

A few races are fine when you’re young enough–

the 100-yard Dash from his bleeding Heart —

other Words, though, won’t surrender a syllable,

unless you give up the Whole for the sake of a Part.

The philosophy of Frogism.

One time, when I was small child, a friend of mine and I beat frogs to death with red, plastic shovels after a rain storm, mid-afternoon on a Saturday. It was just one of those things that you do when you’re a kid.

I was never a particularly violent child. Though, perhaps I skirted the state line of crazy for a band of years during my adolescence, like, ages Birth to Present…but, believe me, it’s in our blood.  I’ve managed to escape, cleanly enough so far, and that’s it’s own definition of success.

To this day, I pray for those frogs’ souls, though.

And, for good measure, I will not eat frog legs.  (But, that’s hardly penance since I wouldn’t have eaten them anyway).

I’m not even sure why I even thought it would be a good idea to kill those frogs, in the first place; I felt the same about Karyn White’s one hit single and tight-rolling jeans, but all the same, I bought the cassette tape and locked my denim firmly above my ankles every day for an entire year. And, of course, I picked up that shovel.

The things we do just to do them.

The opposite now has become a personal truism: I adore animals, all kinds, to the point of choosing them often over people, even in fictional terms. For instance, I felt so sorry for Jenny (the mule) in Richard Wright’s short story, “The Man Who Was Almost a Man,” that I ached for her as if the story were true, as if she’d been my mule. I began to question why I should even make my students read this story.  Despite it’s beauty and local color, why should they be subjected to such a piteous, if accidental, murder?  What was the point?

Uncle Larry said, “Because that’s what happened.  And happens still.” 

I said, “I don’t know of one person who has killed a mule. Ever.”

“Mules, men, what’s the difference,” he said.

And that right there is the hook. There really isn’t a difference, is there?  Except this: Wright’s lesson was made up, or at the least, embellished to achieve, elicit, a response from the reader.

But, I killed those frogs, that Saturday, without any point at all, without any reason whatsoever.  Just because.

It’s been a haunting flaw in my personality ever since, so entrenched a flaw that even publishing a poem about it didn’t erase the memory. 

frogism 

when we were fat

but never full,

& eleven years old

with cartoons,

& jelly,

& biscuits,

& sugar

& molasses

& butter

after Saturdays that

were just as fat

& never full

with rain,

the frogs

would pop up

& sit

on top of rocks,

in the drippings

& we would,

in our sugar high,

drag the shovels

from the mower shed

& sneak up

on the frogs

& beat them

flat until the

metal had gone

through the frog

& was only

hitting rock,

it’d be that

certain racket

that drove

Momma mad,

but she’d say, oh

boys are

being boys,

& that Christmas

is when Daddy

bought

us guns,

I never knew a shovel could do that to a kid, that such a rudimentary yard tool could carry so deep a scar, but this one did. I grew up in and at the speed of one swing of a shovel, and years later, when I realized that’s where the callouses between my thumbs and forefingers had come from, I saw that it was ugly and made handshakes just too difficult, and prayer nearly impossible.

Whatever thy hand findeth to do.

I didn’t want to be that kind of man. I wanted to be able to shake hands; to wave, at will; to be forgiven.     

For the longest time, I thought I’d simply have to keep writing until that happened.  I thought, Maybe that’s why we write at all – we’re driven to prove our worth, and what makes us worthy of being forgiven. I thought, Or, maybe that’s just me. 

Sometimes, it’s the art of retrospect, which for me comes with writing, that puts things in clear and plain perspective, regardless of where those things originate: whether in childish fancies, or neglect and abuse, or in innocent game-playing, or in absolute, all-out, and terrible sincerity.

I’ve learned what matters is that you know enough to recognize the origin, the root.

Like, today. 

Today, I’m sitting in a hospital, the cancer wing, with one of my favorite people on this earth, as she endures, with a grace and patience that must come directly from the laughter of the Good Lord Himself, is my hands-down best guess, yet another chemo treatment.

Me, I sit in over the corner, speechlessly typing this day’s blog, surrounded by several IVs and boxes of hypoallergenic gloves and needles and biohazard receptacles as red and plastic as that shovel was, sitting with every medical fear of the ages one could imagine, underneath the TV, the one, mechanical hand held out to anything I recognize beyond these white walls, I’m sitting here observing in her a soft and quiet strength that is so holy it causes me to pray, instantly.

Nothing I’ve ever done is as important as this moment, and it’s not because I’m here, in the role of a friend, but because she’s allowed me to see the price her plea for Job has cost.  She’s letting me see where it comes from, and my God, it’s a lot:  the loss and pain, the fear and worry, the reminder. 

I’m sure she’d rather you could get it at Target. 

But, it doesn’t ebb her peace of mind. 

And that’s when I’m truly reminded of the Whole Point , as the second IV bag empties, and she wonders what would work for a late lunch?, and I ask her if Mexican food for a late lunch would work, it hits me:  When all else fails, and you can’t write yourself to forgiveness, you can always ask.  I forget that, time and time again. Because,  if you’re like me, you feel awkward talking out loud in a hospital. If that’s the case, though, remember – you can just sit quietly in the corner and watch it in action, too. 

It’s going to hurt your eyes, at first, know that upfront. But after the glare of the panegyric fades, what you see, finally, in the end-glow is fairly nearly Damascan. 

It’s what you’ve been looking for all along – redemption.