The screen was blurry. I wasn’t really watching it but I could hear the screaming voices around me, knew what was on the screen. My head was down and tears started to flow. I looked up. There was Albert Pujols, slowly crossing from 1st to second base, hands waving in front of fireworks. The scoreboard said 6-0, the Cards won.
I lay in a hospital bed, it seems I had been there for some time, and Hitler walked in. He grabbed my IV bag and said, “The nurses must be scared of you. Do you think it’s because I’m always in here?” I smiled. He said, “I’ll tell them to give you your medicine twice a day, as prescribed, no matter if I am in here or not.”
Samson, Aunt Missy’s white German Shepard, died yesterday. It was odd that she called me considering I never had any real relationship with him. He would spook any time I walked in the room, bark like a maniac, until he found the quickest escape. If cornered he would pace towards me slowly, never letting his eyes drift from mine, getting ever closer… and dart out of the door as fast as his bad hips would take him. At Arikka’s & Co.’s graduation party Samson circled around the drunken bonfire suspiciously, wary of the fire and loud music. At some point Jared stumbled up the stairs, trying to find a place to sleep and he found Samson. Samson chased him out of the room, waking Bruce who laughingly described Jared as “that moron, pussy-kid” over cereal the next morning. We came back in the house to find Jared naked at the bottom of the stairs, eyes closed and mumbling something no one could hear over my laughter.
——
Day 6 of my FutureSearch Trials visit is starting to wind down. I’ve been given a placebo, or so it seems, so I’ve sat around bored for $200 a day. It will spring me out of my money slump and get me back on track to living how I like to live: drunk and full of seven-dollar diner food. My mind keeps floating to the idea that is Australia. I say idea because it seems to be some mythical land, a new reality as tangible as Narnia. In my mind’s-eye, an unreliable predictor, I see sand, tall-blonde women, wine, smiles and a terrifying sense of newness. I think that sounds just fine.
The morning was scatter-brained, my hands moving quickly from activity to activity, never really getting anything done. My dreams were strange. One involved police in my bedroom, finding something incriminating with a shit-eating grin on their face. In another, I was in a club drinking something potent wearing a white tank-top with purple palm trees circling my nipples. My friends kept asking what I was wearing and defensively I said, “You’ll be wearing these next weekend. Just you watch.” And the final dream had me behind a synthesizer with a great, white beard covering Kraftwerk tunes.
Support these guys (http://icometoshanghai.com/) Their first album rocked and this one, the first part of a greater series, is pretty amazing. If you like it ou can get it for free but do the kind thing and throw them a buck or ten. Also, Robert Ashley’s podcast (http://alifewellwasted.com/) is a must-listen.
“I have a 31-year old and a 26-year old. I have a third one who passed five years ago but I like to think that he’s still with us. Do you know the community college about three and a half hours east of here? It’s right above Elgin. Well, anyways, if you go east about three or so hours you’ll hit it and that’s where my son played baseball for two years. He made it on the team right after high school. We was all so proud. I remember in high school, his senior year, he was playing against— what is that black school right across 35? Well, anyways, his senior year he was playing them and the pitcher was striking everyone out for three innings. Well, my boy came up and said, “Throw something straight and I’ll knock it out of the park.” The pitcher got cocky and he threw him a perfect fastball, just right down the middle. And my boy, on the first hit, knocked it right out into the service road. His whole team started cheering, even though it was a single homer and they were down by three, and I remember how happy he was that day. That day was funny because it fogged in the morning, rained in the afternoon and snowed at night. His team still played through a double-header.
The day the Lord took him he was working the night shift delivering medical supplies for a company here in town. He came back from college, said he didn’t like it that much, and got him a job. It was a good job and he was happy so his mother and I were happy. So he was driving down in those winding roads south of Slaughter one night and he lost control. The guy behind him said it looked like he dropped his cellphone and went to grab it. He over-corrected and flipped over a fence. The person behind him that saw all this was a nurse and he grabbed his supplies out of his car to go help him. He said by the time he got there he was trying to talk to him but he knew he was already gone. He still cut him loose and did everything he could. I’m thankful for that man and I’ve called him every year since. He still answers, even though I just start crying. I’m just glad he didn’t die in no coma, maybe burn to death. I’m just glad the Lord took him quick.”
Absolutely nothing interesting. I bet you thought I was going on some crazy vacation to some new continent that hasn’t been touched since primordial ooze scraped together the means to form themselves into something a little more sentient. And really, what was the point of just sitting on those damn rocks all day anyways? Maybe in a pool. Some of them were lucky enough to be in a pool. Off they went to swim the oceans, never looking at that damned rock again, that spot be damned, we’ve got consciousness and intelligence and opposable thumbs and Playstations to get started on. Time’s a-wasting! Something happened, of course. Eventually they wanted nothing more than to be back in that pool, on that blessed rock, when the realization set upon them that this grand universe swirled not around them but everywhere else. Man felt lonely on his island Earth. There were no metaphysical beings swirling around, watching, waiting, testing, prodding, reiterating. A drop in a bucket in the sand left lonely waiting by the child’s feet in a salted sea.
A blog about the great things that punctuate everyday life.
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