This instant photo sort of captures that certain je ne sais quois of mornings around the breakfast table at my house growing up. (Note the bottle of ubiquitous ketchup-required for all American meals.)
Instead of sitting to write my manifesto novel for Nanowrimo, I have been looking at old photos on my laptop. I’m calling it ‘organizing’ them, but what I am really doing is procrastinating wallowing in nostalgia. Some photos are incomprehensible. Why for example did I need to take a picture of my son’s gloves with his library book? Possibly for later identification when one or both got lost? The majority of the pictures, however, besides capturing the whimsical or inconsequential impulses of a shutter bug, seems to feed an insatiable need to record the best moments of life: the trips taken, the milestones celebrated and the triumphs achieved. The purpose of photographic evidence stems from a need to document a life well-lived. But what if it is an illusion? What then?
The Christmas We Beat the Tree with a Broom to Remove the Needles. (We were kids, that’s why.) Hey, Cousin Todd. Remember this one?
I have been that relative. You know the one. The person who carried a camera to all family events, insisting on posing people or worse, snapping natural pictures of people unawares with their mouths open shoving a too-big piece of cake into their pie cake-holes. We are a much-reviled breed of enthusiasts* With the advent of digital cameras and cell-phone pics, we are much harder to spot. In fact, we may now outnumber those irritating people who hate getting their picture taken. Take that you privacy freaks.
You can see the joy of parenting just oozing from my father’s face. It’s as if he is warning of what happens when you gamble with your dna.
What is the source of our obsession? Why do people like me seek to pin the memory to paper? To alter and revise our lives to show only the best? Perhaps, because joy is fleeting, it needs to be recorded so that we know it is possible. That, if after enough time passes, we can believe that we were happy. We are the Kodachrome revisionists—there is no negative we cannot develop into a positive.
I am the chubby little chunk in red-n-white stripes. You can just see how thrilled I am about getting a baby brother. (No idea who the guy to the right is. Ignore his inclusion in this photo. I am.)
I have boxes of pictures that never see the light of day—and probably close to a million pictures stored on my computer of people and places that I have long forgotten except when I run across them. Much like an amateur archeologist discovering a lost civilization, I am forced to sift and wonder who these people are and why they were significant enough to retain forever housed in my limitless archives?
And this is the photo AFTER I have airbrushed the ink marks, random stains, and wrinkles out of the picture. It’s as good a testament of my childhood as any: This is as good as it gets, people!
Following my father’s death, I revisited our mangled childhood photos that, as children, we were apparently inspired to embellish like budding, drunk Picassos. Laden with scratches and ball-point ink pen marks, these images inspire a never-before-awakened fastidiousness in me, compelling immediate photo-shopping. (There had to be a reason I stayed up until 5:00 a.m. manically scanning and airbrushing the evidence of our crimes.)** As if I could improve on life by erasing anything that suggests it was anything but perfect. This definitely falls in the category of a bit barmy, but with as few childhood photos as my mother managed to retain despite the depredation of bored children with scissors and belatedly developed film that all came out pink, I feel it my calling to save as many of these silly moments for posterity.
This is probably the frilliest I ever looked in my life. No wonder I have a lace aversion.
So I will share with you my imperfect life. The moments where I was less than beautiful and the bizarre revelations of the hidden-camera approach to self-awareness. And perhaps, in acknowledging my flaws and letting go of perfection, I can appreciate the imperfect memories that happen when I put the camera down.
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnotes:
*Besides the term ‘Paparazzi’ there has to be a word connoting a group of photographers! ‘Flashers’ seems to already be taken, and while ‘Soul Snatchers’ has a nice ring to it—it might get shortened to ‘Snatcher’ I don’t think it will catch on.
A short note as I am still stuck in the land of Nanowrimo this month.
This image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net/stuart miles
I tried a new method of approaching sleep last night: falling asleep while listening to a book on tape. Typically, I can trick myself to bed early, but it’s getting me to shut off my electronic toys that is the problem. So why not try a book on tape? You listen with your eyes closed! What could be better?
I probably shouldn’t have chosen a short fiction work that turned out to be a horror story about a woman haunted by demons in her sleep. I don’t know if listening to a reader hiss the ghostly words “Leave…leave…leaveleaveleaveleave LEAVE!” in your ear is meant to be restful. But I can assure you, it wasn’t a good night’s sleep for me.
“It’s day five; I don’t know if I’m going to make it out alive. If you are reading this, save yourselves…and send chocolate.”
Much like the Montagues and Capulets, there is a plague upon this house. It started on Sunday.
Day 1—Sunday – Signs of Plague Appear
Drag child to public events, watch in horror his inevitable descent into phlegmy madness. I race through the stages of grief like its an Olympic event and I’m going for the gold.
Me: “No no no no no. You can’t be sick! We just got here–trampoline adventure awaits and hockey practice starts at 3:00!”
(Bargaining)
Me: “Maybe it’s allergies. Or dust. Or you are just leaking. If you just go in and have fun, I’m sure you’ll feel better.”
Child: (Sucking inhalation of gargling nose noise.)
(Acceptance)
Me: “Well I guess you aren’t going to school tomorrow.”
Child: “Achkrkskhclag!” (Makes noise like a fork going through the food disposal.)
(Depression)
Day 2—Monday – Home From School
Child is not the least bit tired. He races from room to room, stopping periodically to cough directly into my face or into the nearest plate of food.*
Speaking of food, have I mentioned that the microwave has been broken for days now? I eat cold left-over stuffed peppers rather than try to reheat them, because battling to get the microwave to function sends child into a fit of hysteria. I am near tears myself.
In an effort to reign him in, force child to clean room. Discover bed frame has actually warped into a vague ‘U’ shape. Child manages to keep room clean for about a minute.
Purchased this year at Kidz Bedz–really, what they should be called is Cheap-Azz-Bedz.
While I am cleaning bathroom, child turns stove on, past the ignition point, filling house with gas. Discover window I had ‘fixed’ is actually still broken as now it won’t stay open.
Survive day despite child’s efforts. Find bottle of wine saved in basement for a ‘special occasion’. This day has been extra fucking special.
Day 3—War on the Home Front
I have battened the hatches and am maintaining a hostile truce with the enemy. My child is trying to drive me mad…or kill me. He keeps spreading mucous on everything he touches. Every surface is a burgeoning petri dish of bacterial possibilities.
He spends fifteen to twenty minutes running up and down the stairs like a maniac, giggling and shrieking for all he is worth. I am afraid to go downstairs to find out why he is so happy.
I suspect he is just thrilled to be out of school. His new phrase is ‘stay home’. Any communication is pretty big for a non-verbal child. So, I’m ecstatic to hear him talking, even if he sounds like a congested, thirty-year smoker.
Any time I leave him on his own, trouble ensues. At some point, he eats the small, rubber toggle mouse that came with my laptop computer and the grandfather clock is now missing its pendulum. He is like one of the scary, Weeping Angels from Dr. Who—I don’t dare take my eyes off him.
I certainly feel like weeping…
After he floods the bathroom and then sends water pouring down the stairs by overflowing the kitchen sink, I may have threatened to lock him in his room for the rest of his life.
I call for reinforcements. Cousins come—bearing Lysol disinfectant and hand sanitizer, they’re not stupid—to help me eat pizza and drown my sorrows in a game of Settlers of Cataan. I feel human for a very short while. But then, they are gone and I am alone with him once more.
Day—Infinity?—Who the F*ck knows?
It feels like eternity since I have had a break. Now the only break I can envision is a total nervous breakdown. I am randomly shrieking at child and alternately trying to make amends for my horrible behavior. He is fairly oblivious to both my good and my not-so-good efforts.**
Despite being sick, he isn’t sleeping much, as a result, I’m exhausted. Everything is getting on my very last, razor-wire thin nerve. Every time he does something—turn off the fridge, steal my keys, pour the bottle of green dish soap into a garbage can in his bedroom for the second time—my patience is becoming dangerously frayed. Even my son starts to pick up on it because when I shove him in his room with a strangled threat to hang him by his toes and beat him like a pinata, he recognizes that maybe, just maybe, mommy isn’t kidding.
That night, I drive us to the nearby store and pick up some well-earned desserts.*** My son picks out the biggest, sprinkle emblazoned cookie and coughs hard enough to etch the glass with his breath. The clerk doesn’t say a word about the diet coke I buy along with my sugary confections—I suspect the desperation in my eyes is beginning to show—either that, or she wants my child out of her space as quickly as possible.
Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcake–Savor the Sanity.
*****
Friday dawns beautiful—regardless of weather predictions—because I can finally send him to school. He is still coughing, but no longer shooting phlegm so I am calling it ‘good enough’ and shoving him on the bus. I ignore his requests to “Stay home Friday” and walk back to eat my well-deserved cupcake.
As I go to sink my teeth into its sinful, rich, cake-y goodness…I feel a tickling at the back of my throat…like I might have to cough. I suppress the urge and gobble up my treat.
Denial tastes delicious.
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnotes:
* T-minus three days from transmission and counting.
**Putting him in his room repeatedly was for his own safety, I promise you, not just for my sanity.
***Ignore the fact that half the Halloween candy is already gone; I do.
When he comes to call, you might as well invite him in to tea. He’s going to stay either way and it pays to be polite. Art courtesy of Tolman Cotton (Francesco Amadio)
There must be a first step after loss—that moment where you get back up and say, “I guess I’m going to work.” Then there are the dishes, the laundry and the garbage to be hauled. The leaves to rake, the window to be fixed, the child to wrangle. Every motion is dragged from your body like an unwilling slug making its way across glass strewn pavement. One gets used to the sound of their tiny, anguished screams.*
I am an automaton clanking through my day with the occasional grace note of pain as thoughts pass by. “I should call him…oh…” “Dad will laugh at this comic strip…” and finally, I slip into past tense as I buy a Bigby’s pomegranate green tea: “Dad would have grumbled at the expense.” Days spent wondering when he would be gone are now chased by the ghost of that moment.
This seems apropos, if slightly in poor taste. Courtesy of gocomics.com/nonsequitur
In photos, I can revisit the man I somewhat, but not quite, knew. He would smile upon command, but caught unawares, usually was bowed with thought, twisting a strand of his hair so it stood up, Alfalfa-like, a shrubby cockscomb on the back of his head. The pictures are faded, pink or yellowed, erasing the certainty of who he was and leaving me with an afterimage I stare at and wonder, “Is that really him?” And then I will see a hint of that smile. The ear-to-ear, sh*t-eating grin with his eyes closed in pleasure at his own cleverness. The smile I sometimes wear whenever I feel the same.
I will shake this fugue state, I know. It is a sadly familiar road I travel. I plod the path where death greets me like an old friend. “Oh, it’s you again! Has it really been that long? Where does the time go? Shall we go past the park or down to the river this time?”** As I walk, I am cocooned by sorrow. It is like putting on a heavy cloak that I wear to winter the pain. Eventually, the sun peeks out from behind the clouds and I can take it off, basking in the surprise of warmth half-remembered. For now, I await the thaw.
Carl Krueger – Lover of irreverent humor and his equally irreverent daughter.
I spent the day after he died digging a ton of rocks out of the wedge of dirt alongside the house. I planted enough bulbs—seasoned with cayenne pepper to deter hungry rodents—to choke a bouquet. When the sun does finally reappear after a winter that is decidedly too long, I will count the daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths and measure my grief in petals.
“He loved me.”
“I loved him too.”
“He loved me.”
“I love him still.”
Image courtesy of RochelleGriffin.com
ALWAYS
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnote:
*Warning, my metaphors are squishy (like worms after a rain) and make little sense (ditto); it is a common side effect of grief.
**Death is overly chatty and loves to reminisce. The bastard.
[Update: Carl Krueger, born 07-01-1929, died 10-13-2015]
A Memorial to a Man Who is Not Quite Dead Yet
(Warning: inappropriate humor follows. And tears. But mostly badly expressed grief.)
Writing an obituary is a soul-grinding task. Trying to boil a person down to facts and enumerate their import after they are gone is doomed from the start. It is impossible to purely reflect an image—even with the most highly polished mirror. Call it the Hubble effect, if you will. You can use all the technological expertise teams of scientists can provide to accurately reflect the way the universe looks, but a measuring error will leave you with a fuzzy, indistinct picture. Keep this in mind when you read about my father—the reflection comes from an inexact mirror. It turns out, writing this while he is still living isn’t any easier.
My father was born July 1, 1929 to Adolf (Chi) Krueger and Laura G. (which stands for nothing or Geraldine–depending on who you believe) Draper (VandenBosch–which is another long story and involves divorce, abandonment issues, and adoption). In this photo, my Dad would be about 10 years old. Pictured: Chi, Carl, Baby Hale, and Laura Krueger. The dog is not mentioned.
In our phone conversations from his deathbed in a hospice house out of state, I have come to realize my father is already leaving me. He tires past the first two sentences. There are long pauses and moments of silence where I am unsure whether he has fallen asleep or died mid-sentence. It is funny, in a macabre sort of way, to find oneself saying, “Dad? Did you die on me?” And then wait for a reply. When it comes, haggard and incoherent, I am overcome by a mishmash of emotions: relief that he is still here and anguish that he is already gone.
Devilish Good Looks Run in the Family. [Froebel Elementary – 6th Grade 1941I’ve been trying to make the most of our final conversations—to ask the big questions. “What do you want the world to know before you are gone?” Unfortunately, I should have been asking these questions before he started slipping away. And that is the painful reality of the nearly-dead. They are on their way out and what mattered to them while they were alive no longer holds significance. Today’s conversation, for example, primarily revolved around the passage of a blue bird past his window. (Apparently they are not just birds of happiness—they arrive at all kinds of emotional crossroads.)
Me: “Dad, I wanted to know, what is the most important thing you learned in life?”
Dad: “A blue bird just flew past, from left to right outside the window.”
Me: “Oh, well, winter is coming. Maybe it is flying south for the winter?” And then I catch myself, “but, Blue Jays stay up North for the winter. So the birds down south must be different?”
Dad: [Garbled, indistinct speech including the word ‘bird’ at random spots.]
The conversation, when it is clear, drifts from how he is feeling, to whether or not he is in pain. There is a bizarre moment when a doctor comes in and dad mistakes him for the pastor. It is a surreal thing to overhear. My dad finds energy to exchange a few words. For a moment, I recognize the man I used to know. But then, he misses the joke the doctor makes about hunting up his bible for the next time he visits. The doctor is kind when he explains he was kidding—but dad has lost the train of thought and drifts away from what he was saying.
Our conversation ends shortly after this moment—talking wears him out.
Dad: “I’m feeling tired. I think I’ll say goodbye now.”
Me: “That’s okay, Dad. You rest. I love you.”
Dad: “I love you too sweetheart. You know, you are my favorite daughter.”
It’s a glimmer of our past, this old joke. (I am his only daughter.) I hang up, crying. I know one of these times is going to be the last. And all we can manage is small talk.
But that is how people talk in real life. We don’t bring up the weighty conversations about the meaning of life and what was our greatest achievement. We talk about birds and the price of gas or some other commonplace topic. It is only when we realize we are running out of time that it occurs to us there are questions left unanswered. But, by then, it is often too late.
If what we keep reflects who we are–my father valued education and his service to his country. Above – Froebel Elementary School (May 1941), Muskegon High School Diploma (June 1947), Muskegon Junior College Diploma (1949), Army Private Krueger with JAG Staff (July 24, 1954).
I am putting together a photo logue to help me compile his life legacy.* I am posting the few that spoke to me here. This will be my memorial to my Dad. It is my way of coping with losing him before he is really gone and acknowledging that knowing him isn’t a collection of facts and dates, but recognizing his spirit whenever I trip over something that reminds me of who he was to me.
Still loved me, despite the hair cut I gave him. Aug. 2015.
My father requests that we not hold a funeral for him or even to publish an obituary; he failed, however, to stipulate that parody songs not be written. This is an astonishing oversight on his part and, as a former lawyer, he should be ashamed of his lack of vision. Please enjoy my tribute to a man who taught me everything I know about being cheap and that what really matters can’t be bought for any price. This is his anthem, his fight song, if you will—feel free to sing along:
But buying Hallmark Cards is a waste and a pain.**
I’ll squeeze a thin dime ‘til my own fingers ache.
There’s nothing that can’t be fixed with enough duct tape.
*
I will dance, I will sing, I will drink Stewball’s wine.
With vast quaffs of Squirt, wine highballs are fine.
I will ask you to find a particular song for me
But I will give you no lyrics, composer’s name, or symphony.
*
Oh, I’ve taught the importance of turning off lights
Of searching the ads to find prices just right.
If you buy me bananas, I’ll bake muffins galore
Just make sure you get them at the second-hand store.
*
I’m a man of my word—and words I have plenty.
For each word of yours, you know I’ve got twenty.
I can argue convictions all the day long—
A palavering opera—a most contentious song.
*
So maybe you’ll miss me, and maybe you won’t.
I’ll not have a funeral, nor monument of stone.
Just scatter my ashes along the creek where I roamed.
For the woods are my temple, my refuge, my home.
Good-bye, Daddy. I love you.
Asterisk Bedazzled Macabre Footnotes:
*Obituary is such a bleak word—when I die please refer to it as “Her Glorious Death Rattle—At Last, She Gets the Final Say.”
**My father took great pleasure in being outraged at the cost of greeting cards. I would send them as a joke to him, goading him into exaggerated offense. Feel free to send them when he dies. He’d be both mortified by the expense and secretly thrill to feel superior to you in every way. In return, I will use duct tape to stick them up In Memorium.
“I tell you, Boss, Dewey’s got to be remaindered.”
I stare at the twitchy face across the desk, assessing what my copy editor has said. Anton is overly pessimistic—it’s his nature. But in this case, I have to agree.
“Yes. He’s gone off book.”
I finger the Mont Blanc I inherited from my father—he was old school that way. He’d have nipped this little rebellion in the nib. A bead of red ink wells and drips on my fingertip.
“Any idea where he’s taking it?” I ask.
“Word is, he’s at a random safe house.” Anton steps back at my expression.
I look down. I’ve broke the reservoir. Ink bleeds down my wrist and pools on a manuscript tossed over the transom this morning. Red obscures the cover page but you can just make out the title: Betrayal by the Book. After Anton’s report, it feels eerily prophetic.
I’d known about the missing product for a while. At first, it was just a few shorts here, an anthology there, but with Dewey’s departure, taking the much-anticipated final installment of his series, a book aptly titled Everybody Dies, with him, it’s clear. Someone is trying to take us down.
“Thank you, Mr. Nym.” I dismiss him.
I pull the black, rotary dial phone nearer, tossing the massacred manuscript on the slush pile for later disposal.
My fingers move automatically, the number is so familiar.
It may not be fashionable, but I like the feel of a rotary phone. The heavy handset, the hypnotic pull of the wheel as the round, plastic windows spin like slot machines to dial a number. In days where digital piracy rules, an old-fashioned landline with a scrambler built-in provides just as much security and is impervious to digital surveillance. Plus, I have never accidentally run one through the laundry.
“Hello?”
The voice at the end of the line brings me up.
“Mr. Quick, I have a job for you.” I explain the problem and wait. He is as good as his name.
“Mr. Dewey is contractually obligated to write a finale to the Better Off Dead series. He can’t sell to another publisher until he’s met his obligations and he can’t take his characters with him.” Quick says.
As he talks, I frown, swiping at the red ink that refuses to come off. My mind races to piece together where a coward like Dewey would get the balls to face us down. It made no sense. Finally, I give Quick his head.
“I hate to pull a Penguin, but put the screws to the bastard until his royalties bleed.”
“Madam, I’ll have an injunction to you by the end of the day.” Quick says. His voice is clipped, as if he’s already mentally dictating the reams of legal palaver he will bury Dewey with.
Speaking of burying…
I hang up the phone and push the speakerphone.
“Psue, track down your brother, Moe, for me?”
I almost miss her answering: “Yes, Ms. Dox.” Her voice is almost as soft as the silent ‘p’ in her first name.
“Thanks. When he gets here, just send him in.”
I don’t bother to wait for a reply. Odd first names aside, I have utter faith in the Nym family’s ability to follow orders. It’s one reason Paradox Publishing has kept pace with the bigger book giants. Loyalty. Or, at least it used to be.
While I wait, I open the file Anton brought and review the contract the family took out on Dewey. Scanning the tome, I chuckle at the nearly invisible amendments to the boilerplate language. Is it my fault the idiot didn’t read the fine print practically selling us his literary soul? A minimum ten books with a denouement that precludes a resurrection or continuation of the series. Dewey had been dodging Anton’s calls for weeks. I’d sent him an invitation to meet me or to expect Moe. Dewey begged for a month’s extension, citing artistic exhaustion. I gave him a week and a promise to break a finger for every day he’s late. Writer’s block is an excuse as old as time itself, but I recognize the noxious stench of treachery—Dewey reeked of it.
“They say a pen is mightier than the sword. I say it depends on how well you use it.” M. Dox
I’m reviewing our erratic circulation numbers—trying to find a pattern—when there’s a thump at the door preceding Moe’s arrival. Moe is hard to describe—you’d have to use short adjectives that pack a punch. Words like ‘thick’ and ‘meaty’ spring to mind. It probably comes from the name his mother gave him. Heaven rest her soul, but nobody could understand why she’d picked it. Least of all Moe who lived to pound flat anyone who made the mistake of using his full moniker.
I can sympathize—having the last name Dox isn’t easy, especially for a girl. You can imagine: “Dox sucks…” I shake my head, exorcising old ghosts, and get back to the business at hand.
“Have the copy boys deliver a message to our friends at the Arbitrary Abode.” I murmur, careful not to name the corporation directly. “Make it elegant. Something Dickensian would be appropriate: A fire sale in a set of first editions, I think.”
Moe nods and he turns to leave when he stops, turns back.
“That’s sale—with an S.A.L.E.? Right?” His face contorts with the effort of thought but smooths out when I nod.
After he’s gone, I try to imagine how he would have interpreted fire sail?
Probably would have torched the marina just for good measure.
The phone rings. That isn’t unusual, but the fact that it’s coming in on the unused, second line is. I hesitate, then pick it up before a fifth shrill ring abrades my nerves.
“Hello?” I pause. Maybe it’s a wrong number? The muffled voice on the other end kills that hope dead.
“Ms. Dox, I hope you are enjoying the fruits of my labor. Again.”
“Who is this?” My voice is steady, ignoring the insinuation.
“How quickly she forgets the little people she’s trampled on along the way.” The man—for I believe it is a male voice—chides, tut-tutting for good measure.
God, how predictable. I bet he twirls a fucking mustache when he ties a women to the railroad tracks. I know I’m following a damned script—a formulaic victim-to-villain exchange—but I can’t help myself.
“What do you want?” I grind my teeth.
“Do you hear them yet?” The voice is garbled but the sneer comes through loud and clear. “Can you hear them clucking? Those’re your chickens coming home to roost. Ms. Dox.”
Great, now I get to suffer through moronic metaphors. Just kill me now. I wait in silence, because I won’t stoop to clichés. And anything I have to say to this man would likely qualify.
“I expected more of a fight from you, Ms. Dox,” he goads.
Tell me who you are, you bastard and I’ll give you a fight.
Okay, I will grant myself a little melodramatic license in private. But, I won’t give the caller the satisfaction. I won’t blink first.
It takes him a few minutes to realize I’m not following the script. So he moves from insulting taunts to veiled threats.
“Go ahead, play dumb, Doxie. You’re so good at it.” His pitch drops to a guttural snarl now. “If you won’t play, I’ll just let my work speak for itself. Let the Times bring you down. I hear there’s a best seller in the works; too bad you threw it on the slush pile.”
I’m left with a dial tone and hollowed pit in my gut. I haven’t heard that damned nickname since I worked after school as a novice copy editor in my father’s cosa nostra.
“Don Dox doesn’t raise sissies.” He used to say. And he expected his kids to fight their own battles.
It had taken knocking a few teeth loose to keep people from using the name in my presence. But I knew it still floated around behind my back. I’d had to grow a thick skin—and hard fists—to put up with it. And here it was, being thrown in my face along with the specter of past mistakes. What could he mean?
I strain for a memory, anything to place the mystery voice. Wait. What had he said about the slush pile?
I sit back, relieved. It’s a reject. It has to be. Some poor shmuck writer who thought he’d written a fucking Pulitzer. I want that to be it. But something else tugs insistently at edge of my consciousness, nagging me. Something else the guy’d said. What was it?
Then, my stomach rumbles. I laugh.
It’s just hunger gnawing at you, idiot.
I stand to go when the flash of red staining my fingers reminds me I’d first have to get some solvent to get the ink off. Reaching into the drawer for my bag, I freeze.
“Playing dumb.” That’s what he’d said.
I drop back into my chair, the leather protests and the wheels squeak, rolling back to hit the cabinets behind me. I review everything—everything that’s happened this morning—everything that’s led up to the phone call. My brain ticks the seconds past. Playing dumb. Fruits of my labor. Chicken’s coming home to roost. Cliché’s! The man had spouted a glut of clichés.
The slush pile!
I snatch up the ink-spattered manuscript—feverishly pouring through the opening pages:
“She never thought the past would catch up with her. She thought she’d covered her tracks. She thought wrong.”
I hadn’t been able to get past the first page. It was so predictable. A story of betrayal and revenge. That it hadn’t been slated for the top ten was apparent from the tired storyline…but what about the phrasing was so familiar?
I scan down the page, until I get to the last paragraph of the prologue:
“The woman ignored the pigeons cooing on the ledge outside her office. She was oblivious as she took off her shoes, climbed out of the ten-story high office window. It was only as she jumped that it occurred to her, they sounded just like chickens—chickens coming home to roost.”
It takes me an hour to skim the work. I turn to look out the nearly floor-to-ceiling windows. There are no pigeons, not today, but I am ten stories up. The publishing house located on Second Street overlooks a busy sliver of New York real estate. Below, traffic clogs the FDR and the East River sullenly shuttles water taxis and tourist boats to and fro. My father’s empire, built by him and his father before him. My empire now. And someone wants to bring it crashing to the ground—bring me down.
I walk to the window and look out. I know someone is watching. He had to be to know I’d tossed his work on the reject pile. His manifesto of hate—of lies twisted into barbs of near-truth.
I could take the hit, but the business would be hurt by it. I won’t let that happen.
I hold up the battered manuscript—looking for all the world like I’m waving a white flag of surrender. Grabbing a Bic™ my dad left behind when he retired, I hold the book by a corner and light it on fire. He likes clichés, I hope he likes this one.
I can take the heat. Can you?
I hold it until flames scorch my fingers. The hate burns like white phosphorous. I throw the mess into the nearest metal trash can and walk to push the button on the speaker phone.
“Psue. We have a small fire that needs to be cleaned up.”
Seconds later, my assistance rushes in, waving a fire extinguisher looking for a target. When she hones in the trash can, I hold up a hand to stop her.
“Let it burn.” I tell her. “Let it all burn.”
“My advice to writers? ‘Try not to earn a Kill Fee.'” M. Dox
If you ever wondered what a Macy’s Day Float would look like in a closet…
I’m skyping with my friend late one night, yakking it up, when I hear a sound from my son’s bedroom.
“Whirrrrrrrrrrr, hisssss, Whirrrrrrrr, hissssss…”
Friend: “What’s that noise?”
Me: “Oh, that’s a video my son took of inflating an air mattress. For some reason, he finds it hysterically funny.”
Friend: “Do you want to go check it out?”
Me: “No, I’m sure it’s just his video.”
We continue talking, ignoring the odd whooshing noises from the other side of the wall, when all of a sudden…
“Clunk, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.”
Me: “Wait. That’s not normal.”
Said friend laughs as I dash to check out the ominous sound coming from my child’s room. I fling open the door and it’s all I can do to get it open. I wish I had a picture to show you, but I was too busy rescuing my child from his predicament to grab a camera.*
[Update-News Flash: Child has since repeated the offense and so I have photographic evidence of the claustrophobic effect. Enjoy]
The guilty has been masked to hide his identity–that and his eyes looked raccoon-in-headlights spooky and it creeped me out.
Apparently, while I thought he was being a good boy and bringing his blankets and pillows from the basement, what he’d actually been doing was smuggling a queen-sized, double thick air mattress into his room—a room just barely wider than said mattress. He had inflated it on the narrow space between his bed and his dresser and the gargantuan mass was crushing him to the wall while trying to devour the furniture around it. The motor objected greatly to the compact restrictions.
Despite child’s objections, I removed his ‘toy’ and hid it some place new. I have no idea how he snuck the keys to the laundry room where this was stored, but obviously, I’m going to have to get clever to outwit my child.**
Beware…Boy Genius at Work!
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnote:
*Anyone possessing a photo of an inflatable stuck in imaginative (uncensored, g-rated) places may feel free to post them here.
**Although, the odds on me becoming smarter are incredibly low. That, and I’m tempted to let him do it again, just to take the picture. It was that funny.
I am the proud owner of a new Toyota Prius V. Or rather, I’m very close to being a proud owner. Unlike horseshoes and hand grenades, being close to owning a car isn’t very satisfying. (Although, one could make an argument that having hand grenades explode isn’t desirable either. I guess it depends on whether you are on the receiving end of that exchange.) This is why I am grateful for pastries. Allow me to explain.
Last week Wednesday, I’m anticipating the joy/terror of getting a brand new car.* I am giddy after finally making up my mind (despite the pressures of family and friends to pick almost any other vehicle) to buy a Toyota Prius V. Blue. It must be blue. In a delighted state of anticipation, I walk to the nearest bakery on my lunch hour to indulge in taste-testing a champion cupcake. Chocolate. It must be chocolate. Cakabakery won awards** for being able to stand the hot lights of fame and produce magical muffins on the Food Network Cupcake Wars bake-off. I had to try these puppies. Victory never tasted so sweet. As it turns out, I celebrated a bit too prematurely.
Taste Testers Agree – Chocolate Merlot is a Winner!
It’s Thursday, I’ve just signed over the contents of my checking account and put a hefty balance on my Visa when the nice car guru takes me out to teach me all the confusing knobs and dials I need to learn to be able to drive my car***
Guru: “And this button here will interface with the satellite to allow you to revisit 70’s music.”
Me: “Why?”
Guru: “Why does it need to interface with a satellite?”
Me: “Why would I want to listen to 70’s music? Living through that era was bad enough.”
Do not let its location in the repair shop dissuade you from buying this baby!
As you can see, it was going swell. Then she tried to swipe the magic screen developed by Hogwarts School of Engineering when…nothing. The screen locked up. For the next two hours, the fine folks at the Toyota dealership tried to figure out why. Time passed…slowly. I was dropped off to buy the car so I have no way of demanding my money back and stalking out, not unless I want to walk the sixty or so miles home and my phone battery is nearly dead. My blood sugar drops as my ire increases. To save the lives all around me, I walk to the nearby Rykse’s Bakery and Restaurant for lunch. After enough chicken salad to pacify a slavish horde, I purchased a cookie for my son. This bakery makes great things, one of which is iced cookies that they number with frosting (for no real reason I can see). My son loves numbers. I pick out a six—at least one of us will be happy. I’m walking back to the dealership, cookie balanced atop my leftover, when it happens. The cookie flies off and hits the ground. The cookie cracks; the number six is now just a sad suggestion of its former numeric self and I learn my brand new car will need to be fixed.
After the fall!
I really want to cry.
Broken pastry in hand, I finally leave the dealership with the loaner car and a strong longing to never return. Except they have my car. My blue, blue car. Sigh…blue, blue me.
To assuage my grief, there were more cupcakes to be had. This time, I hit the Cupcakes by Design people in Grandville, MI. These confections had a ratio of at least 75% frosting to 25% cake. If you like frosting, this place is for you. I snatched a caramel, mocha chocolate and a chocolate brownie cupcake to taste test at home. (Some crises call for a double-chocolate antidote.) If I have to suffer, the upside will come glazed or slathered in frosting. That’s just the way I roll. (Emphasis on roll.) Defeat has never tasted so good.
Tuesday I went to yoga and discovered the downside to a combination of cupcakes and Netflix binging.
Evil-Good by Design’s more like!
Today, I have survived nearly a week of car nebulosity and will be returning to the dealer to—hopefully—pick up the newly repaired, blue beauty. And if it isn’t fixed? Well, sometimes, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnotes:
*New car smell is immediately washed away by the stench of anxiety waiting for that first dent.
Google Parenting Fails – You’ll find a world of images to made you feel better about your choices.
I try to see the humor in existence—even when sometimes it is hard to find and masquerades as a horrible life experience. (Anybody else have a car muffler that sounds like a congested, forty-year smoker? That will teach me for running over that deer.) Sometimes that humor cuts sharper than a scalpel and hurts as much as it heals. And sometimes, what looks like failure, is actually a win.
This past weekend I had a moment where I tried to figure out what kind of parent I am. (I’ve been meaning to get around to it; it’s been eleventy years now and it seemed about time.) We all think we know what kind of parent we are going to be before we ever set a foot in the baby aisle or pee on a stick.* We know we are going to be kind, patient, and fun, in other words, nothing like our own parents. Then reality hits.
Strangely, I haven’t photographed my disastrous parenting moments. Instead, I rely on others to provide appropriate images. Thank you daily-fun-pics.blogspot.com-500
Forty-thousand diapers later and about two-thirds of me going grey, I now approach parenting as a mostly hands-off, break-glass-in-case-of-emergencies involvement. Hear a crash upstairs followed by a total absence of any sound? Immediately investigate! Discover grandfather clock which has mysteriously moved from wall to couch on its own. Child plays nearby, innocent of any involvement. As no one is concussed and the clock still works, avoid pointless lecture and hope he’s learned some sort of lesson about gravity.**
It’s sad when your gratification in a job well done is based entirely on realizing how much worse you could be doing. Thanks to daily-fun-pics.blogspot.com-500 for this life lesson.
This pretty much sums up my parenting skills—except for in those extraordinarily rare moments when I pull my head out of my…places unmentionable…and actually pay attention.***
So Sunday, when my son is losing his ever-loving mind for the thousandth time about who-knows-what and was beating himself and the area furniture in frustration, I try to be the lonesome voice of reason amidst the chaos: “What’s wrong, sweetie? How can Mommy help?” (Subtext: I will give you anything—you name it, A mountain of bacon? A vat of ice cream?—if only you’ll shut up!) But, my non-verbal son can only cry incoherently and continue his self-destructive rampage. I cannot fix what I cannot understand. I try to leave him to ‘calm down’ only to be drawn repeatedly back by his anger and tears. I am the tide to his disconsolate moon. I finally force him to try and explain what is wrong using his iPad. (A communication of last resort—he hates typing and is just as likely to hit me as to tell me anything when we use it.)
iPad Communication = now your child can tell you he hates you with pictures!
I type as I talk:
Me: “What’s wrong? Why are you so mad? What do you want?”
(A tumbleweed rolls past and somewhere a coyote howls.)
I repeat this message despite his attempts to shut down the device and snatch it away. I persist. He finally gives up fighting my efforts and writes:
Son: “I want you to be really…”
Me: “Really what?” I say and type. “I don’t understand. You can’t be ‘really’ without a verb. Really happy? Really sad?”
I am often stymied by his word choices and I think, he is equally confounded with expressing any feeling beyond pain or hunger; but after a moment, he answers.
Son: “Really sad.”
Me: “What are you sad about?”
Son: (No answer.)
Me: “What can mommy do?”
Son: “I want you to be really.”
It feels like a communication failure and then, I realize, he wants me to be really. Whatever really refers to…he wants me to be it with him…fully focused and engaged. He can’t really explain how he feels and I can’t entirely understand. But I can ‘be really’ for him.
And really, that’s all he’s asking me to be.
Asterisk Bedazzled Footnote:
*Or hand, in my case.
**You can spin most accidents into a real-time study of scientific principles—not the least of which is how to tie a tourniquet in an emergency.
***Moments when I am a clued-in parent are as rare as Haley’s comet, but not nearly as predictable.
****AFTERWORD****
[Remember: Parenting is like gambling, if you want to feel good about it, only count the wins!]
TheDustSeason 