In the beginning,  in the middle of the Kelly green lawn, the black compact car was simmering, bouncing big shiny heat rays straight back into the blinding cerulean midday.  What she could stuff into the hatchback, brutishly started to heave into the corners.  The best of her best clothes, sorted on good hangers were intended to lay flat and quietly above it all, when everything was neatly stacked within the space.  Instead, her best interview suit, along with the rich silk aubergine draping skirt, and the deep black cotton crochet overlay she'd worn only once, but to rave reviews, were shoved against boxes and bags.  Mangled sweaters and coats awkwardly clung to any open space in snagging drops next to expensive blouses twisting into unrecognizable wads.  She grabbed things back out of the car, things that didn't fit  within the confines and that she, suddenly, couldn't take with her.  Cosmetics fell part way out of poorly tied red, white or black plastic bags.  Reusable gray and black shopping bags of boots and shoes dented in the sides of plastic bins filled with a mere fragment of her books.  Stacks of papers storing a million hours of study, research, and writing, rigidly pressed against the gray upholstery, becoming  form-fitting insulation, until no part of the interior moved forward or backward.  Nothing, except the gear shift, had any freedom.


The only open space was a central tunnel though the hatch, allowing adequate viewing to the wide back window.  "Hopefully," she sweated, pushed, and re-stacked with a prayer after touching each and every belonging, "the site line's enough to keep us safe through the cities, to keep any cops from pulling us over."  Her bare knees almost buckled!  Explain this mess to a patrolman.  There was no explanation.  She'd been awake every night, for nearly a month, plotting how she'd make it happen, imagining the space, how much she could fit inside, what she absolutely needed, what she wanted, and especially, the things that couldn't be left behind.  In the end, she'd let go of everything that meant the most.  It came down to necessity.  A prairie woman's instinct told her this was the way it had to be, the way it had always been for her women; the modern woman, not so deeply ingrained with the wisdom of the ages, thought the whole damned thing stunk.  Like the coulee, on a day like this.  Coated and still, rotting and growing thicker beneath the buggy surface.  Not even the ducks swam in the waters on day's like this.  Too depressing.  Just too damned depressing.


Inside the open flume of belongings, right between the shards of her whole life, that's where she settled the   canary yellow cat carrier, sending up one more prayer, that enough air would flow around and inside the vents of the plastic walls.  In the beginning, there was nothing organized; her best dishes on one side of the carrier, barely wrapped in white paper, on the other side, an extra bag of cat litter and a blue green food bag holding loose flotsam in place.  Behind the carrier, the open litter box reigned; a fresh bottle of water propped up, stood at the ready for the first necessay stop.  They were setting out in a car with no air conditioning, nothing to stop the dashboard from wavering desert-like and mirage laden, ahead of them.  If either of them were to survive the long trip, it would be because of great, unfamiliar luck, a vague nod-of-the-head blessings from someone smarter and more powerful than herself, or most likely, a whole mess stopping at rest areas and fast food places with shady pet play areas.


And inside the canary yellow cat carrier, her best friend began to hyper-ventilate before she even got into the driver's seat.  Tongue out, drool falling, nose drying around the edges.   It crushed her sternum, stole her breath, but he was with her, and they had nowhere to go but forward.  She buckled her seat belt, uncomfortably upright in the immovable seat, she lowered her left leg, pushed in the clutched, and turned the key.  "We have to get to the street, first.  That's easy.  Fifteen feet.  Then, to the highway."  She reached for the vents and aimed them at the carrier, and turned the knob to "high".  The cat started to cry,  yowled as they pulled off the grass and onto the pavement, the cage jostling, startling him.  Nothing major shifted.  It was a start.  She turned on the radio, loudly enough to play over the gushing clots of hot air clinging to their faces, and turned it up another notch to nearly drown out the cat's one note plea to turn back.  They were on the street, heading east, toward the highway exchange.  It had always been a bumpy ride for her; at least, that was something familiar.  The journey ahead didn't seem to offer anything unusual, in that respect.


She looked back once, in the rear view mirror, an offering of good-bye, maybe a moment to welcome the possibility of goodness into their future.  Sam's usually sweet face was blocking the view behind them.  Locked behind his cage door, her gaze settled into the green depth of  fear clouding his saucer wide-eyes.  In time, his face would amuse and beguile her, over and over.  Sam would chase imaginary mice in the knotholes of the kitchen flooring, find infinitely amusing adaptations inside their new surroundings.  At that moment, however, she knew she would  never look back, again.

Constraints

These days, when she was awake, it was a kamikaze hurl into the day, all physical push to do, to work, to breathe, and get past each hour in the most present way. When the power ran out, there wasn't any sputter, she was done when she was done.

Sometimes, she'd read one passage of a novel, a whole book and she'd know why it had to be read.  One thing another person could describe, could slow time down long enough to observe, or do, and retain it long enough to write it down, to remember as much as necessary to describe the moment, invent what was missing, and make it all real.  And when she read that bit of realism mixed with fiction, she felt normal, connected to real people, even if it was through fiction.  He fell asleep with clothes on, forgot to bathe in the morning, ran off to take care of something unwashed, looking the same as yesterday.

This amused her, comforted her when she couldn't get up from the bed because she was too tired, her muscles formed to the mattress.  She'd read it happened to people, that the fuel only lasted so long and then, the stasis took back what the energy destroyed.

She lay down, having soaked too long in the hot bath water, knowing the day was over.  A tinny radio blurted out a song, a girl giggled out there, in the night air, she pulled the down blanket around her aching shoulders, and listened for another sound.  If one drifted in her open window, she was not awake to hear it.  

Vinnie

I met Vinnie working at the burger joint that saved my life, well, saved me the rest of the way...he, Vinnie, had a real name, but it was true, what he said, that name didn't fit him.  Vinnie, in his plaid hat, dark curls jutting out  along the brim, Vinnie who was in motion, every part of him, all the time, came over to the booth in the coffee shop, and we started chatting, like friends, about this, that, work, English, his future, and my own.  If I didn't have a question of my future, I wouldn't have taken the job at the burger place, and I wouldn't have met Vinnie.

Interesting outside of work; he was frustration in motion on the job.  "Breathe" came on Internet radio, and it played with the image in front of me.  I had more in common with the vibrating, almost-man in front of me than anyone else that I worked with, at the restaurant.  I didn't want to club him over the head, out here in public, like I did at work where I had to chase him out to the lobby, to empty garbage cans or pick up trash, to interrupt his stories about everything.  We became, out here, beings with common interests.  And that, all by itself, was incongruous, hard to undertake, so I just left it out there, where it was.  I liked the kid.  If he were a student of mine, I'd have loved his energy, his quirky approach to things.  It was growing on me, as we spoke.  

When I could teach, before faith took it's off shore accounts, packed it's favorite outfits and took off for an undisclosed island location and I gave up trying, I'd have wanted to nurture his success, worked with Vinnie to find shoes that fit him, that he could start walking in, toward a future of his choosing.  My own winding pathway was the foundation for why I loved teaching.  I didn't want anyone else to wander as I had, as I still was.  I wanted them to find a contentment, the money that paid for their freedom to attend family events, go on vacations to Disney-world  and Cabo San Lucas, the south of anywhere, cold or warm, both.

I was in the street, before I got to the coffee shop, before I met Vinnie outside, before he came inside, wandered over, if Vinnie could ever be accused of wandering, or any movement that undeliberate.  No red tee-shirt tonight. The hard work was taking off some pounds, pulling things in that had wanted to fall down.  I saw men look at me, thought about the idea of young men sizing up the older woman walking by, wondered what they thought inside those boy brains.  Not that it mattered.  I just wondered, like in that Mel Gibson movie where he could read women's thoughts.  It might be interesting , for a day, to be able to hear the truth inside a man's mind.   Maybe.  Often, they disappointed, in the end, so the result might not be as cool as idea.

I loved this concept, that a boy took on a different personae in a different place.  I'd try to remember tonight, for Vinnie's sake, for my own.  I'd remember I couldn't read minds, that one moment didn't define a relationship.

  

Beginning Again

Drunk again, he missed the alarm, never heard his call to work, ignored the phone, lay on top dirty sheets, sheets he hadn't laundered in months.  Shade had begun covering more of his brain, these days.  Maybe he was dreaming, hallucinating, or maybe he was standing on a plank bridge spanning a narrow, rocky stream.  Wide, uninterrupted sunshine ran the hill beside him, stopping at the edge of the water's skin, leaving the entire channel -- rocks, gravel, sand, and grass -- a monotone charcoal gray.  Beneath his pant legs, the air below the bridge was a cool spiral wrapping around his bare flesh; the air above him, warming, quickly descending, dried of early morning's nighttime wetness.  He was standing somewhere in-between.  This terrain was unfamiliar.  The rough tumble woods, tall tough grasses covering the slope were nothing like the flat earth of home, where the wide expanse of constant land was only broken by the river bed and sparse trees that rooted along its banks.  Here, golden greens stood against thicker greens, more growth rolled out of the shadows, until a sudden spike of brown seed head from a wild grass rose between them, high, erect, tossing a frothy head on the quiet breeze, arching on the back of the late morning heat rising from the soil.


Just as Jack thought he'd taken in account every type of plant, he'd spot another hue of green -- pale as mint julep, another dark as winter spruce.  He put his hand on his forehead to block the sun from his pale hazel eyes and stared upwards, feeling unsteady from the colors that multiplied, washing over him.  He was only slightly aware that the boards of the bridge were narrow, that he didn't have much room to put a foot out to re-balance himself.  He couldn't stop staring at the hillside.


The sound of creek water was rising in waves of vibration, up through the soles of his boots.  Jack focused on the easy sound of flowing liquid, trailing around rocks and stones, over the sand and silt and found instant comfort.  Finally, something familiar.  The constant sound of water made the queasiness from too much greenery easier to take.  He felt steadier on his feet as he listened to the ashen water talk to the blueness.  The creek asked the edges of the sky to quiet down, stop moving, scaring Jack.  Everything stood still and Jack stood, still listening.


Jack had grown up next to the Red River and its creeks as they cut through the flattened-out glacial lakebed.  Their house, the one he grew up in, sat on the edge of potato fields lying to the north.  The river running northward was only a quarter of a mile to the south.  The view of the water was, partially, blocked by trees, bushes, and shrub, but it was always there, just as the unforgiving landscape of unbroken field never disappeared into itself.  Heaven and Hell.  Depending upon which room of the house a person stood in, the view outdoors was completely different.  Maybe that was why he was the way he was.

She Said ...

She said she knew it, but how did she know anything, when a year ago I still thought I'd be dead, that cowardice would have lost out, finally?  How could she know anything about a triumphant return to mediocrity, when for so long breathing sucked up all energy and force available, leaving me pissed off, worn out, done in?  Why would she believe I'd make a comeback when the world had stopped for so long and like a child pushing a heavy steel merry-go-round, getting the spinning started, the red, yellow, blue, green quarters to meld into a streaky blurrrrr took a gargantuan effort beyond imagining, giving up, and forgetting how much freedom the heady ride gave, was just easier than moving the damned thing?  What did she see where a massive crater kept me looking down, thinking that the drop to the bottom wasn't so far down?    


I took a breath of long winter ice, huddled between snowstacks in black insulated sweats and a pink down parka, zipped over my chin, the hood tied closely around my forehead, leaving almost no face exposed to the deep sighing of the dying midnight wind.   It was just me, looking at high piles of dander that had fallen continuously for days and nights, until the flood of white was sickening, painful, omnipotent.  I thought of his photos, the blacks and whites, off colors of gray's and charcoals, tonal lines of jagged edges forming pictures of land, abandoned buildings, pieces of lives left behind--coats, dresses, suit pants deserted, formally left on hangers in old houses, fifty years ago or more, as if someone thought when times got better, they'd be back for good clothes, the "Sunday Best" we all had before it was all right to wear jeans and shorts to church on Saturday night at the movie theater, when congregations wore thin as work pants and everyday cotton shifts and anything called "church" was better than no one in the pews on Sunday morning.  That rat bastard!  He saw light, or shadow, and knew from instinct made perfect through practice, how to make pictures without color, but they were pictures that made more sense, stopped time, made time open wide enough for thinking, pondering, wandering, without any effort.  He was an artist, had made himself an artist, but he was in real life, an ordinary rat bastard.  A user with artist appeal.  I always disliked the man.  Always, loved with my whole average gift, loved the artist.


He was nonsense to me.


It seemed I'd been holding my breath.  Breathing in, again, dark air tore through my lungs.  I imagined smashing, breaking the lenses on his sweet cameras, dropping the boxes into acid baths, breaking into his computer files, corrupting, evaporating traces of his true existence,  a massive life elimination, rendering him, the artist, completely impotent.  I wondered how he'd feel, if he could feel the terror of being left behind without the sacrosanct objects that projected his passion onto an unforgiving landscape?  Without the things that made him feel alive?


After all, she said she knew I'd bounce back, start again, pick up, piece together.  How could she think I'd have the strength?  My nose ran from both nostrils; I wiped away the trickle with the back of the brown and tan rag wool mitten.  Anyone who lives up here knows better than to expose skin to that razor air in some civil attempt to use a tissue.  Civility, totally, dies at -20, exactly the same as fashion sensibility.  We dress to survive, if we don't look completely dysfunctional, in a traditionalist style sense, the price to pay is being uncomfortably cold.  There isn't a choice, really.


I turned back to path leading to the car, reached into the deep pockets of the coat, .  I reached in the deep right pocket of my coast for the the small bottle of pills and the pint of sweet, spiced rum, heard the pills rattle inside the container, knock against the plastic bottle of anesthetic.


I stared up, into the clearing sky, the swarm of stars buzzing above that had been hidden by snow and creamsicle clouds for weeks and weeks.  Now, the clouds were clumpy balls, drifting fast to the east, lifting the last protective cover of warmth.  I fell into the moving sky, lost my balance standing still, as if I'd just jumped off that merry-go-round after hours spinning 'round and 'round, and nearly fell down, into the dirt.  I got my balance, looked around, and started walking back up the hill, the path slippery and not packed down very well.  Someone had been here, a few people, but it was isolated, even though downtown was only a few blocks from where I'd parked the car.  I used my hands a few times to keep me from slipping, losing my footing on the way back up.


Once I got back onto the pavement where the car was parked, I didn't know what I was doing, and suddenly, I was running back down the path to the water's edge.  The effort of running in the absence of warmth was bringing me to breathlessness, quickly, my heart beating hard, lungs rasping with cold liquid.  My breath fogged around my eyes, coating my eyelashes with tiny ice clumps, until the river's edge grew closer, until I did what I'd  come here to do, in the first place, until cowardice almost got the better of me, this time, too.


Lifting my right hand, still holding the pills and the booze, I hurled them into the Red River and waited to hear the bottles land on the frozen crust, shatter out there, somewhere far beyond my reach.  I knew more could be gotten, but I knew, I'd never go looking for more.  There was a sound, faint and not so far away, but far enough from the water's edge.  Far away enough that no one would get to them and by spring, when the viral thaw would make them disappear.


Shoving my thick mittened fingers into my other pocket, I reached for the car keys, looked back out at the abyss of iced water and sin, turned around, and started the climb, back up the path, to my car.

   

2011 - One month In

Changes:  one happens every second of every day.  Thought dictates that days, years are static; that somehow, we can stop the tracks from going forward.  The same house, the same car, the same people, but every second of every day, something changes.  A trip to the kitchen for water, a new roll of toilet paper.  Different shampoo, another box of hair color.  Changes.

Sal, in "On the Road" says, "Only a few days ago, I'd come to Denver like a bum; now I was all racked up sharp in a suit, with a beautiful well-dressed blond on my arm, bowing to dignitaries and chatting in the lobby under chandeliers.  I wondered what Mississippi Gene would say if he could see me."  Winter changes drift, accumulate, until relief is a desperate yearning; spring changes in a hit, a flash flood snapping everything under, no time to breathe.

For months, alone, inside the apartment, unemployed, thinking, healing, processing, nothing seems to have changed, but everything, every quark has altered.  I wish everyone had a chance to be safe, contained, held while making sense of the misses, the missed objectives, catching up on what in the World's going on and for, finally, letting go, trust falling will happen, no matter how tightly we hang on ...

Erased

He smudged lines in shadowscapes
away
fainter with forceful, silent
arm strokes;
perfectionist photographer's eye
lightening a pixel
blending out the horizon

He did his best.

Eyes pushed shut
squeezing
down tears she
could point at shadow light
where his line
wouldn't erase from
her heart stuck open.

His best would've been good enough.