21. Thinking About Not Thinking

And here I am writing I don’t know what, watching a tidal wave of neatly formed letters like boats in the Navy blue sea of ink. In a font resembling Comic Sans.

.

.

Birds twittering have replaced dog barking.
.
Exhausted and exasperated by this out-of-the-blue outpouring, I stare at the page and consider the one’s I’ve just deflowered. Words from a David Lynch movie I saw last week at Mikey’s comes to mind. I can almost hear them now, whispered in stereo, in a begging dark voice conjured up by Isabella Rossellini. ‘He put his disease in me.’ That’s what these pages might say if they could talk.
.
Look at all the words! This has to be a record. I haven’t spoken – or written - more than half a dozen words at a time ever since The Accident.
.
The music on the radio is bugging me. Time to change the channel.
.
This song – it’s familiar. From a movie or something. I know the words and sing along, with a slight change to the lyrics:

.

I feel it in my bowels

.

I feel it in my toes

.

Death is all around me

.

And so the feeling grows...

.

Fountain pen noses forward, struggling stoically across the page, bleeding trails of shiny blueblack blood.
.
I am going to die soon. My number has been called. I’m up to bat, but no three swings this time – I’m already out for the count. Death is in the neighbourhood, and we still have that date. When? I’m not sure, but it feels like it’ll be soon enough. I’d guess that the odds of seeing my 18th birthday – nearly two weeks away – are, at best, fifty-fifty. A toss of a coin.

.

.

A roll of the die.


Tired now. Time for Sleep. Until tomorrow then… if I’m still here.

18. Senseless Ceaselss Sentences

Birdsong and blue light: harbingers of a new day dawning.

.

.

Poked head around Dad’s door a few minutes ago to find him conked out on top of his bed fully dressed - not having bothered to shed clothes or shoes or get beneath covers. He was sawing logs to beat the band: jagged Z’s flying from his airholes like sparks. Even now with head submerged in pillows I can’t seem to drown out the drone...
.
Which brings me back to where I started: here in bed, an outcast from the Land of Nod, writing in this advanced birthday present, auditorally challenged by an intermittent ticking and/or clicking (and often the ragged barking of a dog) that may or may not exist.

Trying to

Time  turns  to Trickery  when
.

the   Sandman’s  on  Vacation
.

Seconds    last    for    Minutes
.

Square Hours  lose their Shape

.
Even thought writing poetry’s not my thing – any wonder? – the four lines above came out of nowhere flashing across mind’s sky like forked lightning. Wrote themselves. Don’t know what they mean. Not quite a poem, really, I guess, but a promising start nonetheless, even though I’ll more than likely never finish it.
.
I have an acute aversion to endings – and a perversion for adorable bottoms. Female ones!
.
Stomach, tight as a steel drum, pangs with hunger. Time to check on Dad, so I’ll grab a snack while I’m up. See if he’s all right, that he’s still breathing and all. Sometimes in his sleep, he forgets to breathe, like he’s dead for about a minute, then, suddenly, Autopilot kicks in, and he gasps. It’s a fairly rare condition he’s got, I read in Reader’s Digest, and supposedly not too serious - not life or death anyway – unless you fail to catch your breath. The grumpiness the morning after a breathless night is the only downside, when he’s so irritable and groggy and you know he didn’t catch a wink of sleep and he has to drink coffee all day to stay awake.

Discovered a device online last week, it comes in a little black case and you hook yourself up to some tubes before going to bed. It senses when you fail to breathe and somehow gives you a kind of jump-start.

.

.

There are pages and pages of glowing testimonials from people all over the world. I’d like to get him one for Christmas, but it’s not cheap. Even if I start saving right away, I’d have to ask for my allowance to be doubled. Either that or get a weekend job.
.
Anyhow, if he’s asleep, I think I’ll relieve him of a cigarette. I’ve got that funny taste in the back of my throat like an itch that can only be scratched with nicotine. Mikey calls it a nic-fit. If there’s more than ten in the pack, I’ll steal two. If I get caught, I’ll tell him that I’m only trying to lengthen his life and to shutup and go back to sleep.
.
God, I wish I could shutup and go back to sleep.
.

10. Where's Judy?

I wonder where Judy is. I miss her so much. I love her. My heart races.

I am in love with her. So there. The dog’s dead, the cat’s out of the bag, and I’m probably going to burn in Hell for the rest of eternity for saying that, but I can’t hide from it any longer. Like Death, the truth of it’s been following, shadowing and, now, finally catching up with me.

I’m looking (damn that dog to hell!)
but I cannot find Sleep. She keeps stealing ahead of me
slippingslippingslipping – like Time –
into the future.
No comfort in the darkness (of the here)

and the silence (bar the dog)

of the now.

,

 .

Had a date with Death last week. I was stood up. You’d think I’d be happy. Tell you the truth, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Mixed emotions. Something like that. Probably got my dates mixed up.

.

Rustling whispers outside the window: wind and leaves talking to each other. Shooting the breeze.

Trees.

.

Everything that’s made of wood was once a tree

don’t get the wrong idea ain’t nothin’ free

when you’re laid to rest they weep

when you’re buried six feet deep

you’re not really buried in a coffin

you’re buried in a tree.

.

Here I am, putting trusty fountain-pen to paper. And where does paper come from? Wood. Right. Instead of lying in a tree, I’m writing on one. On unlined loose sheets, to be precise.
.

Close. But close only counts in horseshoes and grenades.

How close can you get without touching it?

What time is it anyway?

.

Punch fists at the sky and try to give it a black eye and watch it bleed the new colors of a bruise in full bloom.

3. Back to Ireland?

Got hardly any sleep last night. Mustered barely enough energy to drag myself out of bed and downstairs onto the couch, where I’m positioned horizontally now. Dad’s not here. Not sure whether or not he came home last night. Hope he did and got some sleep and has gone grocery shopping. There’s nothing to eat.

.

.

The other night… when he gave me this journal… what the hell happened? What had he been on about? Had he really said that we’re moving back to Ireland? Has he lost his mind? Have I lost mine? Is Memory, like Death (and Sleep), now playing games with me, too? And – can this be right? – didn’t he say that he couldn’t understand why I didn’t write anymore? Anymore? It’s crazy! He’s must’ve been even drunker than I’d thought. 

He wasn’t nearly that gung-ho about my writing when - for a concentrated three-month period last summer - I actually was. A strange interlude in which I wrote furiously, Judy’s fountain pen in hand, head down, brow furrowed. The only thing I remember Jack saying about it then was that the time I wasted on writing would pay better dividends invested more wisely: studying for instance. But I paid no mind to his discouraging words and scribbled like a man possessed - or is it obsessed? Something with a lot of ‘S’s’ in it anyway.

This sudden U-turn on the matter perplexes me. Instead of trying to talk me out of it, now he’s actually persuading me to write, enlightening me to the joys of keeping a journal. He suggested that I read a book called Becoming a Writer, by Dorothea Brande. He told me that when he’d read it a long time ago, he got so inspired that he began keeping a journal the very next day. Didn’t stick with it for too long, though - something he puts down to I.D.D. – imagination deficit disorder – hey ho! But, now… Now, he swears, he wishes he’d kept it up.

.

.

I guess I kind of wish that I had, too. Kept up my writing, I mean. But unlike Jack, it was due to S.L.D. – severe lack of discipline - that it all came to a grinding halt. That was November. About a month before 

THE ACCIDENT! Time out: I hate that word! Despise it. Dread the thought that whenever I think back to last December, that I’ll think: The Accident. Just before The Accident. Shortly after The Accident. (Mental NB: Try to use different words for it, softer euphemisms.)

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.

1. Sad Mr Stevens

.

Awake again. No idea what time it is. Clock flashes. Accidentally unplugged it when tripping over it earlier. Didn’t reset it as I can’t be bothered. What’d be the point?

Dark and silent inside. Outside, too, no traffic (not even a barking dog – out there, or in here), so it must be very late. Or very early. Same thing. See, Time can be tricky when it’s dark outside. And I’m beside myself again. Above, actually.

high up

Me-Above
looking down
at Me-Below on bed. Gazing down at shadowy lump sitting hunched over the bright burst of a circle of light punched like a hole in the surrounding darkness, scribbling in the journal. Gone word-fishing.
Not knowing how or when or why I got here.
There.
Now, then.
I’m getting a bite here and there. Words are nibbling.

Hello down there! Could you reach up a hand and help me down please, a little help?

Me-Below, wrapped in blanket, swaddled in night, drowning in a waterfall of words, witnessing. Watersurge more like – coming up fast… a fountain (pen) spraying linked-letters from unknown depths. Words surfacing so fast they’re suffering from the bends. 

Slow down. Calm down. Count down.

999. 998. 997…

Deeeeep breath.

Come down.

Is this what Judy was talking about? Am I travelling astrally? Has spirit separated from flesh and left my body behind? If so, how did I do it? And scarier still, how do I get back in?

Gather thoughts.

Is this what being dead will be like? Floating about like an idea in the ether, waiting to enter the neural-network of a passing-by head?

Sink like a stone. 

Can you feel the silence… 

Damn that dog. Barking again. Oh for a gun – I could shoot it out of my misery. What time is it? The digits 03:49 glow in the dark. I should be fast asleep inhaling sweet dreams not suffocating in clammy crawling humidity thinking how strange it is, the way it envelops you in its sweaty leather glove and grabs hold of Time like a sponge, squeezing each and every second out of it.

Swapped sweating in bed for staring out open bedroom window and playing I Spy.
I spy with my little eye… something beginning with… S.

My next-door neighbor, Mr Stevens. What’s he doing up so late? The damn barking, probably. And why is he standing perfectly still in the middle of his backyard in boxershorts and flipflops? Squinting to I see, I think I make out a Frisbee in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. Behind him, a long, skinny shadow stretches across the lawn like a narrow grave: above, a fingernail moon looking like an incomplete question mark hangs over his bowed head.

Now he’s bending an arm, saying a word - (straining to listen)… I can’t… quite… make out… (but guess to be: Ready) - tossing the disc gently into empty space.

A quick glance over shoulder at bed makes sure I’m not in it and dreaming all this. I mean, come on, what’s going on? What’s the story with Mr Stevens thesedays? I suppose that’s the question on everyone’s lips. Who really knows? I sure as hell don’t.

Gossip around town (tunes on the Devil’s Radio) has it that he’s ‘gone off the deep end’ ever since his beautiful young wife of five years just up and hit the road one day last Christmas, without hint or warning, reason or trace. Made like a banana and split, is how Jack put it. Sadder still, she took their one and only child. A pretty blonde-headed girl of four - four and half maybe. The light of her daddy’s life: the apple of his eye.

Stevens’ moving again, walking dazedly towards the spot where the Frisbee lays, bends over with a grunt, spilling a splash of suds on his feet, picks it up, gazes at it dumbly.

A conspicuously quiet couple were the Stevens’, kind of hard to get to know you could say. Kept themselves pretty much to themselves most of the time. Now that he’s alone, he keeps pretty much to himself all of the time, practically a recluse. Works from home, it’s whispered. Internet related activities, some voices say: drug-running, others counter. There’s a lot of traffic at his door, I suppose - he gets all his groceries and beer and videos and pizzas delivered. He used to be a manager in some bank down the mall. He used to be a husband and a father. I wonder if he knows who he is now.

.

.

Look: He’s putting the bottle down, throwing the plastic saucer again. Soft. Low. Its sailing steady on the still night air… soaring… 10, 12, 14 feet… hitting the grass like a pebble on water… skipping three times. Coming to a halt.

‘Great catch!’ he calls aloud, clapping with a delighted and approving smile.

What’s that? Run that by me again. A sad, strange idea bubbles up and surfaces while a shuddery feeling like a feather-duster brushes my insides as I watch him retrace his steps.

‘Who’s favorite little girl are you?’ he seems to be asking the Frisbee. ‘Daddy’s. Yes, that’s right. And who loves you the most in the whole wide world?’ He smiles and nods his head. ‘Yes. Daddy does. Daddy loves his little girl so very much.’

A neurological pathway lights up, drawing a line that connects my idea to my intuition to what I’ve just seen and heard and Understanding, like a jet, comes in to land. I understand now. Take a nauseating turn for the worse and feel so bad for him. So very sad. Poor sod. He’s playing make-believe, the way a child does, making out as if it’s not today but another, a happier one from the recent past: his little girl on the lawn with him, tossing the Frisbee back and forth, laughing and clapping and being silly. Just like a children’s game.

On knees now. Shoulders rising and falling, head slumping, face falling into cradled hands. Skin on back slides up and down ribcage.

Can’t hear him but I know he’s crying. A shiver runs through me, leaving a trail of deeper feelings: helplessness, horrible hopelessness. But are those my feelings, or am I somehow picking up on his, like a radio picking up soundwaves?

As though receiving orders from outer space, my hands go into motion, tear a page from the back of this book, and on it print ten simple words in purple magic-marker. Folding it quickly into an airplane, my right hand pushes the window open wider. My left, taking care to get the aim right, like a master darts player propels it

… and just look at her go…

                                        on a mission to deliver a spur of the moment message that I hope will help Sad Mr Stevens as it has me in recent times:

TO WEEP IS TO MAKE LESS THE DEPTH OF GRIEF.

Shit!

Aim’s a little off. The plane is going to hit him square on the back of his conk…

but no… wait - 
                      a gust of breeze picks it up, steers it with an invisible hand over the fence and – plonk - into next yard’s swimming pool. Stevens doesn’t notice a thing. I go to make another, but stop before I start. It was a spontaneous action, an off-the-cuff gesture. Doing it again, I feel, somehow, wouldn’t be sincere.

.

.

Try to sleep now… let mind wander…

Wonder if the plane will eventually become sodden and sink to the bottom of the pool, ink trailing behind like purple smoke. And what if it somehow survived and Old Ms Izzard (a skinny, 70-year old spinster who used to be my kindergarten teacher and taught me how to remember the colors of the rainbow in the correct order) found it there in the morning – what would she make of those words?