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Early Summer Grounding

It’s that raw time of year; the days are long and warm (last week hitting 90 most days without flinching), the teachers are putting on videos and handing out snacks instead of assignments, and we are all spent after nine months of worrying about grades and GPAs and making sure the alarm goes off at 6 a.m.

Rosie and Kaelen have been doing a daily countdown to the last day, varying total days between now and the 15th, to just school days, to whole class days only (not half days). Which sounds better? Which will make these last few hours go by most quickly?

Rosie cut all of her hair off and dyed it blue as part of her new and improved Ferndale High School version of herself. Her wardrobe is also suddenly very black and full of jagged edges. Eddie asked out a new girl last week and we have seen almost none of him. He will be a senior next year and is talking about SAT scores and an apartment and his hourly wages at Kroger and collwge applications. We are taking his final driving test next weekend and then he will finally have his license.

Kaelen blossomed as a reader this year and hunts down and devours every YA paperbook he finds around the house. He will be a third grader next year. Ari did so much better in preschool than I could have imagined. I am forever thankful for his teachers this year. He will be disappointed when he understands that school is over for the year. He has learned colors and numbers and how to quietly listen in a group and the shape of his name. He knows ‘A’ and ‘X’.

And June, baby June. She is already strong and silly and curious beyond her 20 months. We all dote on her and enjoy her little own language and affections. She finally says water instead of calling it ‘ice’, but she still calls outside ‘cold’ most of the time. You can watch her brain work to formulate language enough to communicate her desires through the windows of those wide, wanting eyes. I think she is very smart. Today she asked for a popsicle and pizza, unprovoked. So despite the questionable diet, her brain seems to be rapidly developing.  Life isn’t all organic avacados and wheatgrass juice, kid. I’m glad you can thrive in a weedy patch. I promise to throw you some berries and filtered water along with the nachos.

Beyond the kids, what is life right now? Slow things, tedious things. Keeping up with the never-ending streams of dishes and laundry and driving while also watching closely how the vibrant, juicy green grape vine grows over the window above the sink… Smashing ants when they march across the dining room, looking for bits of toast and egg I missed at breakfast clean-up, sorting clothes into piles grown out of or not yet grown into. Sitting in the yard with Melissa in cheap platic lawn chairs, listening to the secret made up world of the kids playing with the hose, threatening them not to tattle.

I am working, but only a little bit. My world feels slow and stunted. Was it always this way? Am I failing?

Nick and I talk but mostly argue. I want to not be around him most days because the arguments disable me further. He doesn’t seem to allow for pleasant, meditative observation. He paces, shouts, picks. Even the slightest prying or rushing is, I think, exaggerated for me right now.

I want more than five hours of sleep a night… I want to listen to the wind move through the pregnant trees in the dark, I want to feel feeezing groundwater from the hose run over my toes until they are numb. I want to center myself.  My greatest delight right now is watching the cottonwood seeds fill up the golden hued sky. I love it every year. When they are thick as snow, I first remember Bernie and his disdain for their habit of clogging up the pool filter (Goddamn Cottonwood!!), and then I remember the dream of the boy under the tree in the field, his conversation, his brief kiss on the lips. And both things make me happy.

 

All of the People Hate Poetry

Oh, Calm Pirate!

I free quiet, lurid dreams:

the acrid taste of your fingers

dry and tight, hands perfumed of tobacco and salt

the oiled air you breathe (in MY lungs!);

the metallic tang of fish and water

 

a million mops saturated in dim light,

valiant, hearty men at your command, steering away from land,

pulling the ship’s bow, your barrel chest, against waves.

 

Restless, now, but shy in a rose-walled box, you push from inside me

(a whisper at my ears, a pressure against my ribs)

you are rolled into new flesh,

hunkered in my shadow,

a subconscious persuasion.

 

the taste of your life lingers.

 

pale, dirty curls

soft eyes          filmed over with fear

filmed over with anger.

years of white sun turned to ink under the pressure of your resentment, the pressure of

my bleeding pen, guided by firm hand, poured onto paper.

Your secrets hidden in attics,

earthen basements,

unknown dwellings out of sight

dusted with sealed mouths and averted eyes

A life carpeted in misgivings, a blanket of regret,

wrings my paper dry and rewrites itself,

over and over, purer, simpler.

Sea Captain,

You Were.

 

 

 

Otto And Eric

A few times, their mother left them in a land city and went out to sea without them.  This was only when they were still young, and couldn’t be trusted to go to a water port that the pirates or other unsavory characters (probably the  Mettes or the Slag, considering the time) governed.  Places like that weren’t safe for children.

So mother would have to leave them with a land port woman wherever they were visiting.  These ladies seemed made of children, didn’t seem to mind a couple more, and always needed money.  So their mother would negotiate a few dollars, and swear up and down that she would come back, and then threaten the life of the woman were the boys to not be ok upon her return.  This was the only part of the discussion to which they paid attention.

After seeing her out to sea, usually a tearful and dramatic event, they they had friends for a few weeks, ones that were more or less their own age.  And land children were exciting, different different than boat children.  Despite (what the boys considered) their confinement, they seemed freer.

During the day, they ran through the city and were excited to show off their friends and the tricks and corners of the town.  Always there was a butcher who would scowl at them until they begged enough, and then he would toss them fat slabs of dried pork.  The farmers were never friendly, but every local boy in every city knew how to crawl under a fence to steal potatoes or radishes or carrots.  They knew every nook and cranny of every street and stone building, like magic tricks.  They seemed sure of everything.

Tuesday 2

“Holy shit.  That’s never happened.”  And then he chuckled.  It was half sigh, words formed on accident before thought had been put into them.  His face was silver and blue in the shadow and streetlight.  It was probably his most genuine moment with her, and the one she always came back to when she needed him.

What had he told her to say?  She was a teacher.  Say she was a teacher and they were for her students.

 

The black man behind the counter was short with a nice face.  His head was shorn, just like Jon’s.  She tried to picture him with his hair grown out.  It would be like an afro, right?  Would it make him look taller?  Or is that the black guy equivalent of a comb over, but for shortness and not baldness?

He had five cell phones in five boxes next to his black keyboard on the glass counter, and he was pecking at that keyboard that was at least 10 years old while he glared intently into the boxy monitor.  She wondered if he was actually a fast typist but the computers were just very slow.  On cue, he shook his head and looked at her.

“Sorry, these things are so slow.  Especially today.  I think it’s worse when it rains.”  He shrugged and hit another key.  She relaxed.

“That’s ok.  These are for my students. They don’t all have their own phones and some of them need extra help in the evening and so I like to give them an option to get in touch with me.  I’m in no hurry.”  She gave her very best patient, sweet smile, the one with genuine eyes that showed affection and interest.

“Mhm.  Ok here we go,” he said, his face relaxing. “You can insert your card and hit the green button.”

She completed the transaction with Jon’s card and the nice man placed the boxes into a plastic bag with T-Mobile on the side and she walked out of the store with her heart in her throat.

Later, she would recall sunlight peeking through the clouds and dimpling the puddles, the smell of wet earth mingling with coffee from the shop next door, and she would wonder why she had just gone home to Jon the way he had instructed.  She could have walked in the opposite direction and saved herself so much trouble.

 

 

 

“That guy only had one arm.”  She raised her eyebrows, hoping someone else was up for this discussion.  Jon and Tony didn’t hear her over the music, but Lisa did and she nodded and laughed.

“Yes, Charlie, YES HE DID.”  She laughed so hard that she went silent.  “He could still sling some mean chili!  Oh my God Charlie you freak out over the weirdest shit.”  Charlie laughed also.

What she had meant to say, to ask, was why do you think this man only has one arm?  She wanted to talk about how he might have come to be the one-armed chili man with her friends, Jon and Tony and Lisa.  She hadn’t had time to ask the man himself, or she would have.

She never ate the chili.  The clumpy meat looked like the end of his arm.  You could see it poking out of his sleeve, the pinched, purple flesh at the end of his forearm.  He wasn’t born that way. That was a nasty car accident, or a fight with some animal, or someone ignoring OSHA in a factory.

 

 

Electric green vines grew up the brick walls of the walk to their apartment.  There were ten steps for each level.  She counted 20 steps, including the platform at the second level.  Their door was unlocked, which she found interesting, considering  how wound up Jon suddenly seemed about security.  A cursory inspection of the potted plant next to the door confirmed that the spare key was still in its hiding spot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring Break Book Break

It’s a snowy spring break day here, with a cold wind and intermittent sunlight that isn’t doing any kind of job warming things up. The house was full of kids this morning, all of ours and Sarnia too. The girls were on a futon mattress on the living room floor and on the couch. I had to make two pans of scrambles eggs along with raisin toast and blueberry muffins to make everyone happy.

I just dropped the littles off with Christina and the older girls at the movies and Eddie is visiting with Adam, and so I snuck off to the used book store that is across the street from our old place in Clawson for a little alone time. Honestly, I was surprised to see the open sign lit up. Back in the day we always assumed it MUST be on the verge of failing. If Barnes & Noble couldn’t hack it, how did this dark little shop lined with dusty paperback (mostly romance) novels stay in business??

Not only is it open, but it has changed owners and ‘rebranded’ and is now called The Grey Wolfe Scriptorium. They accept credit cards (that was always a hurdle before) and there was music playing, and the whole vibe was friendly and open and youthful. Call me sentimental, but I almost started crying. To smell a good book store was FABULOUS.

They host all kinds of writing and reading events, book signings, writing contests and the like. I had assumed that this great little place was just going to disappear like so many CD shops and video stores. Instead, it has evolved into something more modern but just as wonderful and filled with hidden treasure.

They even still had my trade-in card, in the same old wooden drawer. But they put me ‘in the system’ so no one has to dig through the old notecards when Rosie and I bring in a batch of books we no longer want, and they honored the trade-in discount price. And they gave me a punch card where I can work my way up to a free paperback.

I’m making this place a regular stop now, just to stay a part of the community and to support the biz. Maybe I will even try one of their hosted writing nights.

 

 

 

Recovery

Well, I 100% chickened out. I memorized my monologue and recorded myself performing it, and it wasn’t even bad. I mean, not TOO bad. But the thought of having to go in front of people to perform it was paralyzing. I made it about halfway to Royal Oak and just kept driving north instead.

I’m at the bar, after a strong pep talk about how if I want to be a writer instead I need to buckle down and actually write regularly. So here I am. Writing. Drinking light beer. Thinking about how I have been unraveling.

I’m exhausted all the time, seeing everything through a fog, changing my clothes five times a day but not washing my hair. I compulsively clean the house, like inner peace is right under that layer of smashed crackers. I barely see my friends or anyone else. I can feel my furrow lines cementing between my brows. Clay skin hardening.

Instead of visiting potential daycares for Ari, I went to IKEA to buy silverware for Stephanie today. Steve is moving out and apparently he’s taking the flatware with him. I also picked up candles and plastic dishes for the kids, and some cable you stretch across the wall to hang pictures on. You know how that place is. It took up most of the usable day, until I had to do school pick ups.

But I’ve been putting off setting up daycare for a couple of weeks. Probably longer, actually. I don’t mean to. I just can’t focus. So everything is weirdly stagnant.

I feel haunted. Jordan is everywhere. He comments on everything I do, mopes around the house when we should be sleeping, laughs when the kids laugh. Teases Rosie when she acts silly. Maybe my grip on reality was never great and this assault on it is too jarring right now. I feel like I need help but I don’t know how to ask for it, or what it would be. The only thing that sounds comforting is quiet, time to reflect and focus. Consider things. Realign. My circumstances do not, unfortunately, allow for peace and quiet. Ha! Not right now. JD used to blend right into our hyperactive household so seamlessly. I miss my brother, man.

But I’m fairly certain I won’t see him again. I mean, I saw him there, contorted, so uncomfortable looking, I couldn’t wait for the ME’s to get there and just MOVE him already, lay the poor kid flat. How many hours was he stuck there like that? In that stink? Was he hoping someone would show up and help him at the end? Why didn’t he call me? Could he call? Did he realize this time was different?

It’s a loop, starting with that sleepless night. Hearing noises on the baby monitor, hearing a little boy talking down the hall. Rolling around in bed with stomach cramping like something was eating me from the inside. Right up to laying my hand on his stomach and feeling a room temperature body through that thin white t-shirt. I might forget everything else, but I will never forget how he felt under my hand.

How long is it before that loop quits? Or if it won’t, when will I be able to pull it together and focus regardless? Functioning at 60% will only keep life support going; this ship will never reach its destination point unless we repair the broken machinery.

CAPTAIN! FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT! WE ARE AIMLESSLY STAGGERING INTO THE NETHER REGIONS OF AN UNCHARTED UNIVERSE AND THE CREW IS TERRIFIED.

Charlie – The Start

The heat enhanced every feeling, but reduced clarity.  And it was hot.  The bare mattress, a surprising and wonderful find, was damp with sweat. At 15 floors up, a sympathetic breeze from the windows brushed her cheek now and then, but it was more of a tease than anything. She slowed her breathing and tried to focus.

Every other quarter inch of fabric in the mattress was silky. She ran her fingers back and forth over it, rough to silk, rough to silk, and repeated her name like a mantra in her head:  Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie

– and then a break to listen. After floor 10 the building was empty, from what she could tell. There were rats or something around that size on 11 or 12. Their primal, hungry urges were tickles at the edge of her mind. If she listened hard enough, she could hear even insects.  But that took unnecessary effort.

A person was a substantial feeling. Especially Henry. He was 6’2” and meaty, and more importantly, almost always on the verge of rage. When Henry got close, it was like a fist gripping her whole body. He could be in the next room and her jaw would clench in anticipation of his arrival.  But he didn’t feel things like she did, and so she had to antennae out her name so he could find her.  Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie

–  and listen.  The distant itching of the rats.  The swaying and creaking of the building itself.  Old (maybe 100 years?)  Brick, cement, soaked full of the vitriol and heartache of hundreds of people.  Also their happiness, and passion, but people were mostly shit.  Take away those social mores and plastic smiles, and you’re left with raw human.  Pretty much different colors of raw shit.

They had met in this same building before. It was cooler, and more full of people.  Up the stairs she’d gone, floor after floor, each heavy brown door with its heavy steel handle at each landing an invitation to another set of misery.  She’d gone up to 17.  The swaying of the building was unmistakable.  Through their entire conversation she was distracted, trying to figure out how the building would fall.  Would it crumble beneath them in a heap so that they were only halfway buried?  Would it topple sideways like dominoes?

– and then Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie 

And listen.  Under her fingers, rough to silk, rough to silk, resist the urge to pinch them together, rough to silk.  What a good find, this mattress.  It wasn’t too gross.  The nibbling & itching of the rats below.  The maudlin, bitter feeling of the mattress and the walls around her if she listened too hard.  This time would be the last time.  She shifted to be more comfortable but only moved into a slightly cooler pools of sweat, which made it worse.

– Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie 

And there he was.  Right into the front door, far below. She felt his hand grip the door frame, his foot stamp into dust and dirt on the first step of the stairway.  For a moment she just listened and felt.  He wasn’t alone, but that was ok.  He had another man with him, about his size, but walking behind him.  She could feel their silence.  They walked quietly one floor up and she felt Henry’s hesitation as he listened for her.

–  CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE 15

It felt like screaming at a child, but they started walking up again.  She kept it up (CHARLIE 15 CHARLIE 15 CHARLIE 15) and waited, sprawled out on the mattress.  It would take them a minute to get to her. She didn’t want Henry to doubt where to go, so best be loud.  His buddy didn’t have any touch at all and didn’t hear a thing.  Wasn’t there a way to improve your skills?  There had to be a way to become more sensitive, exorcises for your brain to get at least a bit better at listening.  What kind of person were you to not hear a thing when someone so close was screaming inside their head? Or was he blocking like a champ?

As they rounded the last corner on her floor she felt a bump, a jarring, brilliant bit of life, maybe two floors down.  But right beneath her!  Immediately beneath her!

She jumped from the mattress and took a squatting stance, one knee toward the pebbly floor.  What was that?

And the door opened – that heavy brown door.  Henry was 15 feet away from her, near what must have been the kitchenette when running water was still a thing, but she sank like he was pushing her down at her shoulders. For someone with such dark hair he had such light eyes, she thought, just like every time she saw him.  She could see the silhouette of his friend in the hall behind him.

Charlie Charlie Charlie

Was he listening?

CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE CHARLIE

What was downstairs?  Who was that?

She sank until her haunches were flat on the cheap linoleum and grit.

And Henry spoke.

 

Kid, I Still Need You

Riverside Park

Riverside Park

My Brother

Nothing is as loud as grief. In your ears, in your mind’s eye, when you try to settle.

I love you. I miss you.

Rosie made this for you, because you asked her to, and you forgot to bring it home. Every second I look at it I just want you to hold it and have it. It is the kind of thing you would deeply treasure, it would never be just paper and wax.

You were more loved than you will ever get to know.

I love you.

Mia

She could see why Baby preferred Mia. It didn’t matter that Charlie wad the one that had found her, didn’t matter that without Charlie, Baby would undoubtedly be dead on Shuck Street, or, best case scenario be wandering the giant building’s halls living on food scraps and sleeping with feral dogs. It didn’t matter that Charlie had introduced her to Mia, cautiously, to protect her.

Within hours of meeting, Baby was trying to sit in Mia’s lap, curling tiny fingers around Mia’s thick black tendrils of hair with curiosity. Mia was instantly and without hesitation warm and motherly. Charlie was mesmerized by her transition into a cooing, baby-talking mommy, all smiles and shushes, delicately pulling Baby’s fine hairs out of her face. She could have sworn Mia’s breasts even grew into more voluptuous, and more comforting, as she snuggled Baby into them.

Drawing in a breath of cool air, she watched them sleep. The orange glow of the dying fire made both of their faces look flushed and young. Mia looked almost as sweet and tender as Baby. Maybe that was the kinship they had. Maybe Mia seemed so young that she felt like a sister.

Baby’s face puckered as she sucked her thumb in her sleep. A bead of drool collected under her protruded lip. Mia’s dark curls fell around both of their peaceful, sleeping faces.  Charlie pulled the surplus jacket she had kept for herself tighter around her shoulders.

Had it been a month? The weather hadn’t changed much from hot days and warm nights, but the light hours were shrinking. In a month she had become almost an outsider from the two people she felt responsible for.

It would be getting cold soon. Unless they were further south than she thought. The landscape had turned from a dirty city scape into a trash strewn, barren landscape. They were following an old highway, but in some act of nonsensical vandalism, every sign had been removed. A few had been moved to the wrong location (thankfully it was obvious in each instance.)

And some days, particularly when Baby was cranky, they only made it what she guessed were a few miles. Other days it felt like they covered five times that, alternating carrying Baby every few hours. But as every day became more similar they all started to blur together. It was impossible to gauge how much ground they were covering, and at this point, she wasn’t even sure how much time had passed.

But they were headed in the right direction. The pull of The Compound was stronger every day. Mia swore she couldn’t feel it. But Charlie felt it like a swelling in her chest and throat, sometimes it made it hard to catch her breath. And she thought Baby could sense it too, in ways Mia didn’t notice. It seemed likely that Baby was modified like Charlie. She didn’t want to bring it up, but that would be an issue they would have to deal with as they drew closer to the border.

But for now, she was wrapped safely in Mia’s warm arms. Turning to the sky, she drifted into a restless sleep.