37. Dad's Desk

.

‘Wait until your father gets home!’ That’s what Mom used to say when the trouble I’d gotten into was more than she could deal with. Those 6 simple words always had the desired effect – which is to say, they scared the bejesus out of me. No, it was worse than that – they scared the bejaysus out of me! ‘Wait until your father gets home!’ It’s the sentence that’s been going around in my head for the last half hour, eversince I went somewhere I shouldn’t have gone and did something I shouldn’t have done.
.
What the hell did you do now?
.
Got myself into some trouble. Dad’ll be home soon. It’ll be Big Trouble. Better come up with answers, because that’s what he’ll be looking for. Straight answers and lots of them. I sat behind his desk, plain and simple. Stepped over one of the new lines he’d so clearly drawn and transgressed, as a result, a number of his new rules. It started out innocently enough… but one thing can lead to another…
.
Been minding my own business, reading the newspaper, when the telephone rang. By the time I’d finished and got pants up, flushed toilet, washed hands and got out the bathroom door, it had rung 8 times. Been expecting a call from Rachel for days and, certain she was the one ringing my bell, I shot down the hall like a heat-seeking missile, intent not to miss it. Heading for the phone in the living-room, about to descend the stairs, I saw Dad’s bedroom door was open and the ringing was also coming from in there. We’ve always had just the one phone in the house, the one in the kitchen, and I’d forgotten that Dad had put one in his room a while back, after he had a line put in when he brought home the laptop and required Internet access. (The phone he brought home - also from the office -was installed on his desk beside the laptop: I know he makes calls because sometimes I can just about hear him talking, usually late at night, but I don’t know to whom, can never make out the words.) Standing there at the top of the stairs, I was no more than 10 paces from his bedroom door, when the 9th ring registered. Downstairs was at least 50. Time was of the essence. Dad’s rule about not going into his room when he wasn’t there was not present to mind. I was on Auto Pilot, remember – I was a heat-seeking missile, and in the heat of the moment I chose to answer the nearest phone – thereby, inadvertently breaking the rule.
.
And, of course, the phone being on Dad’s desk and all, caused me to break the other rule, the one about not going near his desk. As I’ve said, it started out innocently enough, no malice aforethought or bad intentions, no immediate awareness of being in violation of the requests he’d made and I’d agreed to. Oblivious to the invisible lines.
.
Dad likes to think of himself as a pretty reasonable guy, practical and logical. I guess he is, too, most of the time. When he hasn’t been drinking, or isn’t under any out-of-the-ordinary stress. So, the reason why I went into his room will be, I think, acceptable to him.
.
But what I’d gotten up to while I was at his desk is another bucket of cockles.
.
There is no acceptable answer.

.

 

26. Creative-writing-juices-flowing

.

I’m getting ready to read the 3rd chapter of the book Dad gave me: Planning. The first was Theme, the second Viewpoint. It’s really interesting, and there’s a lot to take in, so I’m reading kind of slow, underlining as I go. It’s got me thinking again, about writing and all, and I realize I’ve missed it more than I knew.

.

Why did I stop anyway? At the start of my creative stint it seemed that ink oozed blackgoldfluid into a bubblingbabbling brook twinkling beneath High Summer Stars… a stream teeming with schools of words and ideas and how I managed to catch some between the lines. Black and white fully formed sentences innocent of preconception came of their own accord – as though ‘chuting’ down the conduit my arm turns into when fountain-pen's in hand - the link between the place of their origin and the empty sheet beneath pen ... somehow fell into an order of their own design upon the page. It was at times like that (in my opinion) when I did my best writing, or (if you'll allow me to say) the writing did the best me.
.
And when those times came, it was the finest feeling, the biggest buzz, better than jumping 3,000 feet from a plane with a parachute on your back, or 300 feet from a crane in a screaming bungee-jump. And, with writing, when it’s all over and the deed’s done, not only do you have the memory of the experience, you also have a permanent record of it to boot.

.

When it was just happening – the process of writing – happening all by itself – with no force from me – it was the closest thing to perfection, the closest I’d ever gotten to an out-of-body experience (which, by the way, I think I’m having off and on from time to time thesenights). Unwittingly, at the high point of my writing spree, I sabotaged myself by throwing a Spaniard in the works. How? By interfering with the happening… by slowing down to notice the happening - notice the way it was happening without me noticing.
.
Brings to mind some graffiti I read on the bathroom wall in the Ladies room at the Driving Test Centre. 

.

Notice:

By the time you’ve noticed this Notice

you’ll have noticed that this Notice

is not worth Noticing!

.

The quality of the writing eventually grew thin, like water from a faucet just twisted off tight, the steady flow of ideas diminished into a drip before finally running dry. The wonderful words, like the sheep thesenights, scattered, disappearing into the foliage and underbrush. No matter I did could coax them from their hiding places.
.
Writing is not, I’ve sadly come to discover, a process you want to become too fascinated by. (Or is it with? Check that.) To attempt to process the process while it is actually in process… maybe that’s not such a good idea. Perhaps it’s true that some stones are best left unturned. Some balls of yarn are best left unwound.
.
But how do you know until you do...
.
What fascinates me most is the way black marks upon the page, shaped by the tiniest (autonomous) inflection of fingers, capture the meaning of invisible, matterless thought and transmute it to paper. It still gets me to wondering. Is a piece of Time captured too, in the same moment - by default? The Idea frozen in Time. Time frozen in the idea. A disposable snap-shot pressed between hard covers. Safe. Sound. Snug as a bug in a rug.

.
And quite dead. Only to come to life again when a pair of human eyes gaze upon it.
.
By itself, without my attention, the writing went so well: then I showed up, things unplugged, unhinged, went to hell.
.
When my arm and the ink and the paper and the pen became inextricably entwined all in one connected current – that’s as good as it got.

.

I’m not feeling it anymore.

Goodbye, Muse

Miss you already

Stare at walls

Rub pen
Magic-lamp

Summon her back

Wayward Genie

Abandonment abounds

Whole parts
My life

Lining up on deck

Jumping ship

Losing them

Losing

It

2. Roadkill

Barking. Oh please, for shit sake, not again! Incessant and persistent, as though it’s been taped and looped.

Maybe there is no dog.

Maybe I’m dyslexic and there is no god!

What if the barking is not out there in the neighborhood, but in here – in your head?

What if I’m really fast asleep and only dreaming that I’m awake? Dreaming and can’t wake up, or awake and can’t fall asleep? Or lost. Somewhere in between.

Stuck in a moment that you can’t get out of…

.

.

… late. In a panic. Hair sticking out wildly from my half-asleep head. Late again. Moving swiftly, passing through kitchen door, swiping brown bag-lunch from countertop as I go, tripping over sneaker’s loose laces hurriedly falling out into acrid Miami morning air, headlong, beneath baking sun, catching myself from falling, straightening up, increasing pace, hurtling into the oppressive embrace of hot dead air. Late, late, for an important date. A test. Oh jeez, please… can’t be late again. If I run… if I just run as fast as I can… it’ll be okay. Everything will turn out fine. Just have to keep running.

… faster… sshh-sshh-sshh-sshh whisper Nike Air’s gliding along the pavement like skimming-stones... Whoosh of cars passing on right, smell of carbon-monoxide making head feel light, varied shades of green (hedges, leaves, lawns) blurring by on left, chest getting tight, and somewhere up ahead in the distance, the sound of a dog barking. Relentlessly.
Running faster still. Unexpected turn right and I find myself beside myself at odds with one another. Being aware of them both brings back the feeling of being In Between. Middle of the road. In the midst of honking horns-screeching brakes-skidding tires. Mist fogging brain. Like the green lawns and manicured hedges that featured a moment ago
... moment? felt like a day!
everything’s a blur.
Running again. Blindly. Breathing hardfast: lungs aflame. Each inhalation fanning the fire, depriving me of oxygen.
Just like that
! – in less time than it takes to print an exclamation mark – everything stops. Abrupt halt. Period. Including me. It’s as if the sun-heated concrete has melted the soles of my sneakers, sticking me to the spot. Wind, traffic noise, barking dog, my own heavy breathing – all swallowed up in the shock of suddenly showed-up silence
Stuck in a moment you can’t get out of
a dusty needle stuck in a scratched groove on a warped record. Looping. Why can’t I move? What’s holding me? Who’s been messing with the controls? Turning down sound. Adjusting contrast: intensifying color and brightness, zooming in for closer inspection, pushing pause button killing movement. Gazing into the luminous blue sky for answers. Something – a feeling – suggests I look down, and looking down is the last thing I want to do, but the stomach-churning dollop of fear hooked to this idea isn’t strong enough to stop me. Unable to help myself, I lower head and cannot believe the sight in front of me.
Judy! Is it? Could it be? Judy, my 15-year old baby sister and only sibling, standing before me in her pyjamas, shimmering like an oasis in the scorching heat, defiant and indignant with hands on hips and legs akimbo, her big furry Betty Boop slippers on her feet… no. Frantic, I wonder – this bizarre hallucination – where it’s come from and why. And the look in her open-wide eyes: blame or forgiveness, love or hate? The light’s so bright I can’t really see eyes winking wildly in the sun
and in the blink of an eye, it's done, she’s gone.
Eyes wander lower. Feet, way down below me miles away distant wear her slippers. Only, I gather on a second, closer look, that it isn’t Betty Boop’s shiny black hair at all: its fur, and it’s not black either, but a saturated shade of red, the deep color of a pool of blood. Other glistening wet colors stimulate my rods and cones – purple, yellow, green, beige, black – and I’m beginning to understand that I’m not standing in Judy’s slippers at all, but something else entirely.
Heart sinks as gorge rises: I’m standing in the middle of a dead dog.
It’s all too bright and vivid.
Eyes smart and slide shut.
Head shakes to scatter the dream, but eyes open to find me still here, in the middle of the street, stuck in place.
The dog my feet are buried in is a young Golden Retriever, lying on its side, ribcage squashed flat against cement. The imprint - a tattoo of the deep-treaded tires responsible - is plainly and horrifically visible.
A twisted, steaming mess of entrails spill out through popped-open stomach and ooze from broken-jawed snout.
Attempt to lift feet but nothing happens. Scream but no sound comes out. Try to look away from the dog’s broken body, but can't stop staring into its bulging eye.
Oh Jesus, Mary and Holy St. Joseph, I say to myself, it’s looking back at me.
But you said it was dead… my self (or a voice purporting to be my self, or the me-beside-myself) counters.
I know I know but look, see, it’s turning its head. Its pop-eye is peering into me - and did you see that? Its mouth moving?
But you said –
I know I said its jaw’s broken and it is - but its mouth is moving. Black lips, pinkredyellow tongue, talking to me without words, in my head, saying its all my fault, I can read its lips - if I hadn’t been late, if I hadn’t run out into the road causing that car to brake, skid and swerve out of control, that this dog wouldn’t be like this.
‘Look at me,’ it says, its one good eye a hernia ready to burst, ‘look at me would you? I’m not supposed to be like this. I’m not supposed to be dead. It should’ve been you. You’re the one!’
Teeth dripping blood and bile, its shrieking howl tearing the silence apart, the dog lunges for my throat.

.

.

Must've woken up then. Popped up like burnt toast.
Still hear barking.