Tangent #10 - Lovers

Sitting on the porch, cigarette in hand, he looks out into the 3 AM street. Alone in the porch light, drinking a beer and coming down from a 12 AM buzz, he simply couldn't sleep. All the party-goers crashed by 2 AM and honestly, this moment alone felt good. Really good.

He'd stolen the cigarette from a buddy passed out on the living room floor. He'll never miss it. The smoky coils calmed him a bit as he transitioned back to himself.

"I can't believe this is my life," he muttered to himself, sipping the beer.
When it came right down to it, he didn't want to be here. Didn't want to be anywhere. He didn't know himself in these shoes or the ones before or the ones before that. The last time he recognized himself was at fifteen or sixteen years old.

So few and yet so much time had gone by.

Now he was here, stationed on the porch, smoking alone and wondering again who the hell he thought he was.

He hated that he felt unnaturally timid and hesitant in this place; hated that he couldn't open up about the money and the literature stashed in a hole in the wall and covered with a poster. He hated that he had to hide his quiet, sentimental side for permission in bed. He hated that he didn't go to bed much anymore.


When he was fifteen, he fell in love the first time. She wasn't particularly beautiful, but she had blonde, spiky hair and an attitude of "let's just f*ck this place and leave" that he couldn't resist. She wore hemp necklaces and tight jeans with sneakers. She always colored her sneakers and drew curlicues on her hands, arms, and legs. "I want a tattoo," she'd told him in class, "but you have to be 18."

He would sit in algebra watching her tattoo herself and snap peppermint gum. He could smell the mint on her breath if she turned toward him and could smell the hint of more of it on her wrist whenever she reached for a piece of paper, pencil, or book. She had a peppermint cool about her.

Gina, that was her name.

Right before his sixteenth birthday, a Thursday, she turned to him in class. "Hey, I'm cutting biology at the end of the day. Wanna cut with me?"

He looked at her, astonished. Gina rarely even spoke to him at all.

"Come on," she persisted, "I'll give you a cigarette or two. It'll be fun."

He nodded. "Sure."


Six months later, she broke things off with him, turned 18, and finally got a tattoo. She chose a cherry tree, small, on her upper arm. He couldn't stop staring at the newly inked spot as she explained her reasons, her needs.

"I just can't do this anymore, ya know? I mean, I'm just not feeling it anymore."

Standing at the edge of the lake where they first smoked and drank a six pack during seventh period, he stood fixed to the spot. All he could think about was how much he wanted her, how much he could not just not feel her anymore.
She was fresh, intriguing, smart, pretty, and hell on fire. At sixteen, he swore he'd never meet a woman like this again.
Ever.

Weakly, he met her gaze and responded, "But, it's not been that long. I love you."
There - he said it. He felt like a child, a hopeless, desperate child.

Images of laughing, drinking, hiking, love-making, biking, studying, ditching class, listening to music, going to the mall to lift trinkets from the novelty store, actually looking at porn together,...growing up with her flooded him.

And now she wanted to just...go? Where?

"Where are you going to go?" he asked.
"Nowhere," she responded, "We're breaking up. That doesn't mean I leave town or some shit like that."

She lit a cigarette.

He reached out for her hand or for a hug, he now can't remember. She let him hold her.
She felt like wind.
And smelled like peppermint.

He kissed her neck. Lingered. Pulled away.

Two weeks later, she was gone. She left town with her family or a friend and never answered his calls or messages.

A year later, she sent him an email.

"Dude, you won't believe where I am. I came home. It's not the same and it is all at once. I have to tell you this, crazy man, but I love you too."

Gina.


He finished his cigarette and looked out into the street. Maybe his life didn't stop at sixteen, but he felt no older or wiser since then.

And he was still in love.

Tangent #9: God tells her not to worry

He has another coffee in his right hand and is sitting rather comfortably on a park bench. He loves to watch the ducks and geese when the weather outside is fine.

"You can't live your life worrying out it," he said quite directly. She was on the ground cross-legged, picking at the nail beds on her right hand.

She needed to quit doing that someday. Some childhood habits die hard.
And leave scars.

"You have wounded yourself badly," he commented dryly.

"I can't seem to stop. I know it's a terrible, ugly habit," she responded. "My mother says..."

"You're too old for it - for all of it," he reminded.

In that moment, she couldn't decide if he was talking about her, her mother, her mutilated fingertips or hell, life in general. She stared at him. He had a nice smile.

"You're never going to know everything," he told her. "You have to believe me. You have to believe him too. He tells you what he knows. You should believe her too."

"But," she began...

"That was almost ten years ago. I promise you, that's not what will happen to you again. After all, I should know."

She had nothing to say to this. How does one really argue with God anyway? Technically, you can't. He always wins.

"This coffee is delicious," he remarked.

They never spoke of her fingers again.

Spring Memory #1

In real life, it takes less than five minutes to send an email. It seems everyone has access to the big red button on the executive desk. It makes it easier, much easier, to lower the boom.

I really don't have anything to say. Honestly, I think it is best for us to maintain a professional relationship at work and leave it at that. Basically, I'm not convinced your original email was not at least sub-consciously malicious, if not as a result of my party, then something else. I really don't think there is anything that can be done about that. That had a significant negative effect on me at work, and I have yet to receive at least an apology for the effect, even if nothing negative was intended. On a strictly professional level, that's fine, but as a friend, it's hurtful, particularly after everything we have gone through together. I do wish you all the best and am very sad at how things have turned out between us personally. The past few weeks have been very difficult for me. I will of course always continue to be cordial, I just can't bear any more personal relationships that lack trust. And whether or not it's warranted from your perspective, at this point my trust is gone.

The era to break up over coffee or dinner is over, my friend. The John Dear letter died officially when phones went from bags to pockets. (Some believe it died in the 80s, but this is not true.)

Human emotion is now digital. It is high speed.

I think it's true, what they say. The robots are winning.

And I don't know what to do about that.

Insert emoticon.

Profile: Ms. Burgess the Court Recorder

One more down, wrapped up and sealed away, she thought as she collected her belongings. The Weedgrass trial had seemed interminable and her hands were achy from constant typing. That woman never seemed to shut up.

She checked her watch. It was nearly 5 pm and she needed to get home before the rest of the family. It was rare that she ever got peace and quiet anymore. It seemed there was just enough time to transcribe the trial file and take her own copy home.

Ms. Burgess is a young woman, taking college classes in hopes of one day becoming a paralegal or with good fortune, a lawyer. "It's damn near insulting to have to be a court recorder when all the yuppies are making twice as much doing less work and they don't even know how difficult life really is," she often was heard muttering.

She took this job about six months ago. She started keeping her own copies of court proceedings two months in - to be in the know. She only wanted to learn things, after all.

As she exited the courthouse, Ms. Burgess glanced across the street and noticed the woman who had been wearing the hat in court. A sense of familiarity struck her. "I know that woman," she breathed.

Frustration and irritation seemed to flood over her senses as she watched the skirt and heels smoothly glide away from the courthouse. She wanted to follow her, check her out, but stood motionless with the shock of having seen her nemesis right here in her home town.

Gripping her files and recorder, she started for her car, hoping to follow her down the block. She had to know where she was going and why she was again in the picture.

It Happened - Mrs. Weedgrass is free

"Not Guilty."

It echoed inside the court room and collectively a segment of the audience sighed. She was free to live out the rest of her life.

Mrs. Weedgrass clutched her purse, running her fingers over the leather binding, feeling for the Bible she kept inside. Surely this was her redemption. She could retire now without guilt.



She watched as the now elderly, vindicated Mrs. Weedgrass slowly walked away from the court and into the lobby. Her sunglasses warm and likely leaving a mark on her disguised face. She would find no solace, no comfort here.

She walked outside into the sun. Checked both sides of the street, and moved forward.

Secrets

It is incredibly significant - the things we don't say - and the reasons for it.

It is much like all things intangible - love, passion, sadness, grief, strength, perserverence, and all things that can be deafeningly quiet on the surface.

But the reasons...they make us whole and remind us of what is genuinely important about the world in which we live and those who orbit around and inside us.

Begin with the roots, friend, and work your way up, outward, and back around again.

This is you.

This is life.

The thing about love is...

You never quite believe it. It seems too easy, too perfect, when everything else in the world is going to hell.

I mean, who can honestly see the future and tell if it isn't some mirage, some fantastic vision obstructing reality for a period of time.


The thing about love is...

You never get all the answers.



That's the only way you can know.