portraits of people you never knew iv

          Ryan’s face was grave. “Everything is going to change.”

            I was supposed to leave. Ryan wasn’t. He had a baseball scholarship to pitch at some division-one school, until the school-sanctioned drug-test results came back, a month ago.  They affirmed a truth about marijuana use.  

Ryan lost everything.   

I took a shallow sip. It killed me to see him this way.

            “Nothing is going to change,” I said. I lit another Parliament Light and looked up at the sky. A cloud formed an attack against the sun.

“How’s Heather?” I slipped and held back another secret between friends.  Stupid.

            Another cigarette in his mouth, Ryan whispered, “We broke up.”  

My face itched beneath the skin. Heather and I had slept together. On more than a number of occasions. Recently.  It was a mistake, on purpose.

He gagged down the remaining liquid from the glass bottle as if pouring it down the drain. Ryan hurled the bottle, empty, off of the roof. We didn’t hear it break.  

“She said that long distance relationships never work.   She doesn’t want either of us tied down in college, missing out on the whole experience.” Ryan paused. “That fucking whore!”

Three months later, my freshman-year roommate would tell me, “It takes one to cheat, but two can.” Our laughter would excuse past mistakes.   I wouldn’t ever tell Ryan about Heather. That’s not what friends are for.

 

portraits of people you never knew iii

            I inhaled and then coughed with uncontrollable violence as the carbon monoxide ravaged my lungs. “Jeez man! How can you smoke these menthol things?”

Ryan shrugged with a total indifference followed only by a hard swallow of some Jack.  

I spat. “It’s like smoking fucking eucalyptus or something.”

            We both laughed, I suffered through the mint flavored smoke, and Ryan handed me the bottle to wash out the taste.   As my cigarette slowly burned, Ryan slid his newly obtained running shoes onto his feet and inspected them carefully.

“BECAUSE” was sprayed, in rust-colored paint, upon the side of one of the cement walls. The simplicity of the message held my attention while Ryan laced up the shoes. I formed the word with my lips and thought, “Because what?”

            “It’s almost over, man.” The words slipped past Ryan’s cigarette.

            “What is?” I spat again at the concrete floor.

            “This.” Ryan motioned with his hand at the surrounding office buildings. “You’re gone in a week and a half. You think it’ll be like this when you come back? If you come back.”

            I didn’t want to leave. I stubbed out my cancer-stick and mumbled, “Of course I’m coming back.”

  

portraits of people you never knew ii

The roof was empty like one of those zombie movies, where no one else is left alive. Apocalyptic.

            “No one ever parks up here, Joe,” Ryan mumbled, “and besides, these mall-going vampires hate sunlight.” He popped the trunk and unlocked the doors.  “Don’t mix metaphors.”

“So, what are we doing here?” I asked. Out of the car, I stretched.

            “I say, mix drinks.”  From the open trunk, Ryan grabbed a plastic bag. “Sort of like a last supper.”  

            “A little early for dinner,” I joked.

            Ryan smiled. “I know, man.”

            In the black bag were two bottles of Jack Daniel’s and three packs of Parliaments: two blue and one green.  I thought of the ocean.

            “Looks like a party.” I grinned and snatched a pack.

            The bottle passed between us.  The sun hung high and bright. White clouds spotted the sky like scattered sheep. I don’t remember the last time I looked up at the blue above, without even the slightest fear that something was going to fall from it. Warm beneath that summer sun, I picked the dead skin of week old sun burn. It came off my arm in thin flakes like tiny pieces of tissue paper.

            “It’s the end of an age, man.” He lit a Parliament and took an endless drag. In his smoke, I smelled mints.  Ryan tossed me his Zippo and a Parliament from his green pack.

 

cheat codes i

Kermit sees the look on my face. He interprets it.
“But I wouldn’t worry.”
I lean in. “Why’s that?”
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” he tells me.
Ask, “What’s that?”
Kermit lowers his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose. He stares with red, cloud eyes.
“Most of these things are total bullshit. It’s probably not even real. But people love to imagine.”
I laugh.
“You’re kidding me, Kerm.”
He drops character, intentionally.
“You mean to tell me that you don’t believe these theories?”
Kermit smiles. He straightens the wrinkles in his shirt.
“Nah, but no one else really does, either.”
Study his face. Trace his smile lines with my eyes.
“People want the story,” he says. “The fiction, you know? We crave it, elevate it.”
Kermit, I do not know him. We are not really friends. Don’t forget.
“I guess, I just always thought—“
“What?” the Frog asks. “That I’m cracked?”
“Well.”
“The biggest mistake we make is thinking we know what’s going on inside someone else’s head.”
The song ends. A Modest Mouse song begins.
Nothing new has ever happened.
“We can never know that.”
Take it in. Live with it.
“Sorry, man,” I say.
“Forgiven.” He adjusts himself in the recliner. “You in some kind of trouble?”
“Researching a paper,” I tell him. “You want another beer?”

good mourning, moratorium iii

 

 

So what?  

 

You don’t like the decisions you’ve made, the person you’ve become.  

And sure,

you could describe it as

self-destructive,

suicidal,

passive aggressive

whatever,

but it’s not that simple.  

 

You put yourself in these

impossible situations,

casually inviting disaster in,

and you do it

with a smile.   

These disasters are pristinely orchestrated .  

The same hands

turn the key,

push the button,

delivered the killing blow

to those who you should have been proud to call your

true friends.  

But you didn’t call them that,

did you?  

Wouldn’t allow.  

Is it this you find yourself truly regretting, now?

 

And of course, there’s a reason for all of this.  

No,

it’s not because mommy and daddy didn’t love you enough

or the convoluted fact that the other kids picked on you when you were younger.  

No,

the reason is a much more selfish one.  

 

Every job you couldn’t hold down,

every relationship you’ve let crumble and die,

every sweet, star-struck girl you’ve ever made cry:

it’s all for the same reason.  

 

You see, it’s not that you have it out for yourself,

that you secretly want to see yourself fail,

ultimately.  

 

You don’t consciously booby-trap your life because of a self-loathing obsession with failure.  

 

You do it all to see just how much shit this pitiful excuse for an existence of yours can really take.  

 

Like a kid playing with fire,

you hold a palm over the open flame

to see

just how much

pain

it takes before eyes start to shed tears.  

 

But who’s crying?   Them or you?  

 

It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.   It all comes out the same in the wash.

 

The small cracks interest you not.  

You want to know how many times you can drop something before it finally ceases to function.  

But you don’t really want it to break,

in the end,

even though that is the goal

to which all of this

has

been

building,

because,

                   then,

the game would be over.  

 

And it has never really been about crossing the line, but simply about seeing just how close to it you can get.

Since expectation and reality never meet, you can, instead, expect nothing and, therefore, never be disappointed, never find yourself haunted with this ugly regret.  

 

Let go.  

 

You will only be pleasantly surprised. 

And seriously, who doesn’t like surprises?

good mourning, moratorium ii

 

 

But you can’t enjoy anything. 

                Can you?

Regret never allows. 

 

In this attempt to bid farewell to one thing, you have forgotten to welcome another.  

And so,

the time has come for some re-evaluation,

hasn’t it?  

That regret is rearing its

snot-nosed,

ugly head

again,

     isn’t it?

    

Then there’s this list

of all those hopes,

your dreams:

what

they

are

and

how

        catastrophically

you have failed them,

because in the end it is you failing them and not the other way around.  

Let’s be clear.

     You’ve taken, what, four years away in refuge from this Podunk little town.   Isn’t that enough?   Presidents change in that much time.   Lives are loved and lost in usually less.  

God

needed six days

to do His whole creation

thing.  

Jesus,

think what he could have done

with four fucking years.  

So, it isn’t too much of a leap of faith to expect life to have kept on without you,

for things to have shifted,

altering, the ripple-effect.  

     Why then do you find everything more or less exactly where you left it as though this entire place has been on pause while you were gone?  

The lives of people you’ve grown up with, were raised by, worked for, learned from, laughed with, loved, and hated have simply ceased to exist in your absence.  

 

Expectation versus reality.

     And, well, nothing’s changed.  

Sure, a few houses have been remodeled, some individuals have less hair and some have more, some have gained weight while others lost it,

but fundamentally

nothing has changed.  

The clothes you wore in high school still hang in your closet.   Your backpack has not moved from the spot on the rug on which you dropped it on your last day of classes.  

Parents still eye children with those same fake, nervous smiles.

     Strangely, there is no dust on any of it or any of them.

 

     You’re not the same person,

so why should

they

be?  

 

All you keep thinking is,

“It seems like just yesterday -- ”

and each time the absurdity of this entire situation prevents you from finishing the thought.  

 

Perhaps this regret gives way to a second chance.  

Maybe everyday is a opportunity to vanquish those mistakes of old.  

Are there not some things which cannot be undone or mended or completely forgotten in the wake of time?

 

     Then there comes the realization,

an answer

in the form

of a question:

If everyone acts like they did and nothing’s really changed,

are you then,

by association now,

the same as

you once were?  

Are you unchanged?

     Just as quickly as this moment comes, maybe you notice some more recent scars seem to be faded more than they used to, maybe you breathe a little easier and start to feel young again, maybe the clock starts to turn back to a simpler, more innocent time,

and maybe

this whole thing is starting to

drive you crazy.  

 

     Newer memories are slipping, because everything’s been getting so fuzzy lately.  

 

Was all you’ve done, everything you’ve become for nothing?  

Was your regret misdirected?  

Is it not growing up, never growing up, which you really fear?  

And it’s killing you

just the same.  

This regret

with a different name.  

 

You had your chance at escape and took it, but now for some reason which you’re having an increasingly difficult time remembering,

you came back and staying means a slow and painful death sentence at your own hands.  

 

It’s like ink in your mouth

and it stains

in all the same ways.

    

That woman, middle-aged and unaware of her own imprisonment, sitting across from you at a bar,

asks,

“What’s a boy to do?”

     Do you rebel and leave?   Abandon regret and chase some intangible dream. 

Can you, even?  

Since that’s the obvious choice, the one everyone expects you to make, do you then rebel and stay?  

Abandon regret and learn to see the things right in front of you.  

The things ahead.

Decisions, decisions.    

Expectation versus reality.  

The fate of your parents and their parents.  

 

Are you mature enough to make the difficult choice, the selfless choice, the stupid choice, the utterly and completely idiotic one?  

My God,

can you be any more

melodramatic?  

 

It’s really that simple.  

Start a fire and walk away.  

Watch it burn from a hillside or at a safe distance, on a TV in a different bar somewhere.  

Stay.   Go.  

What difference does it make?  

No matter where you go, your life will ultimately reach the same outcome.  

Will there always be regret?  

Is it, then, something unavoidable?  

 

You’ll be miserable here in much the same way you are miserable everywhere else.

Because you see,

it’s not them,

you

self-centered

little fuck.   

You 

are the problem.  

It’s you and your own self-destructive flaw of which you have now and forever condemned yourself.  

 

Misery loves company and company, thy name is

you.

good mourning, moratorium i

You get through it all:

 high school,

college,

and ultimately find yourself spending an increasing number of sleepless nights looking back, wondering

what happened

and

at which point

you

went

wrong. 

 

You cannot quite put your finger on it, but the entire experience closely resembles what the others might call regret.

Where were all the parties, the countless, faceless, drunken co-eds waiting and willing to be taken to bed?  

The expectation and the reality never seem to meet.  

The books and movies have been so misleading.  

All stories are lies, not to be trusted on some level.  

Nothing is ever as good as you build it up to be in your head.  

Nothing ever prepares you for this heartbreaking disappointment.  

 

And maybe that’s the problem.

 

Now,

straddling

this line

between

two worlds,

with one leg

in childhood

and

the other

in the land of adults,

you’re faced with nothing

but the subtlety of regret.  

One foot

past,

one foot

future,

while

the present is

fucking you

up the ass

because suddenly, there’s no more time remaining to make

bad decisions,

choices without

real consequences,

the free-bees,

the do-overs.  

 

The time to say goodbye to what it truly means to be young has arrived, bursting through a window and not the door through which you were expecting.  

The personal catastrophes you’ve been saving up for, experimentations with strange new drugs and multiple sexual partners have all been missed, some how, while you were

waiting,

stalling, 

biding time.

Your designated “fuck-up years” have come and, just as quickly, have gone by without you even noticing.  

 

Given the chance, what would you change?  

Because, of course, now, life matters,

your choices affect the future,

and nothing you ever

secretly wanted

to do

can be

done.

 

Your choice was a path, the safe one, and you traveled down it, hoping all the while that something better, something far more exciting would stumble upon you.  

 

Making no moves,

taking no risks,

you planned,

hoped,

and prayed

for the universe’s great revelation,

when the sky would open up at sunset and rearrange the cosmos of your pathetically bland existence

without you having to even so much

as lift

a finger.

 

Sure, you only chose this life out of spite towards parents, teachers, and everyone else whoever made the mistake of expecting anything other than banality from you.  

You did it all,

though you’ll never admit it,

to yourself.

Patience is a weakness.  

Expectation

versus

reality. 

Coasting creates a trap,

this snare of misery tightening around your throat.  

 

So, enjoy what you end up with:

 

buried

in a job

you hate,

married

to a person

you do not love.  

 

It’s your life,

your mess,

your neat little pile of bullshit.

 

And

you are so fucked.

 

Enjoy.

 

moon boy

“Andy-man,” I call up at him. “Where are your clothes?”
e says nothing. He’s a shadow.
turn to Jefferson. tell him, “Let me get this one. I’ll find you if he’s too much.”
He nods and trudges back towards the party. I look back up at the figure in the tree. “What are you doing?” I ask in vain. “Come down from there, man.”
othing.
“Andy!” I bark. “Get the fuck down.”
inally, Andy looks at me. He’s white as a ghost. His mouth moves slowly. He says, “The moon…” and then turns his view back towards the sky.
“What?” I don’t hear him.
“The moon…” he repeats in this very calm and peaceful voice. He points up above him.
look up. “It’s the fucking moon!” I yell explanations at him. “Get the hell down here!”
ndy is oblivious. He crosses his legs. Thank God.
“Don’t make me come up there.”
ndy looks at me like I’m missing something quite obvious. “The moon…” he says it like he’s trying to convince me.
“Yes, yes. The moon. I get it.” I’m losing what little patience I once had. “Now get down here and put some clothes on for god sakes.”
his goes on for a good, solid fifteen minutes before Andy finally climbs out of the tree. I give him my jacket. He puts it on like pants. 
All the while, Andy keeps mumbling about the circle in the sky. I get him back into the house and find him some clothes. People in the house are all staring when I hobble by with Andy. They all are asking each other who he is. 
I put Andy in his own bedroom and debate whether or not to leave him there. He thinks he gets his face stuck to the wall. He mumbles, “The moon…”

vacattac#write #writer #writing#notallvampiressuckblood #newyork #nyc#college #party #nudity #tree #truth#moon #face #god #sky #drug