What If?

I just left my best friend Nicks place. I’ve got a little wooden table and chairs set in the back of my truck ready to be placed in the area behind my house. With any luck in the future it will be used for card games, BBQs, and drunken arguments about religion, politics, and who has the biggest Wang.

Its dark now and I want to get my daughter home to bed, snug in her blankets.

I have a habit of thinking too much. I have this thing that doesn’t allow me to enjoy company when things aren’t going well because there is this light in the back of my head that is always turned on. Was it a shitty day? Why? Who? When? Why? Why? WHY?

I am driving an old Toyota truck down the freeway thinking about where I am going to throw this table. I am thinking about the conversation that Nick and I had while Emma slept soundly on his bed. I am thinking about the weekend, and hoping that Emma doesn’t freak out when she wakes up and realizes that she is in my new place and not with Momma in her crib/bed combo.

I wonder about life, and how I got here. I wonder what I’m going to wear tomorrow. I wonder when I will be able to eat a meal again, as I have been living off of maybe a meal every couple of days and Cigarettes are the only thing keeping me from hunger pains. I have lost my appetite. I don’t care to eat or sleep well. I don’t really care how shitty I feel, or think about why I have been bruising so easily. I don’t bother with why it’s getting harder for me to walk up the stares or that I’ve lost nearly 25 lbs.

When I am with Emma it all goes away, and I am a super hero. Ready and able to do anything she needs me to do.

I think about these things while driving down the 10 freeway. I am leaving the city of Rosemead, and am passing through San Gabriel. After that it’s on to Alhambra, and then I am in The City of Los Angeles. I have driven this freeway all my life, and all my memories are the same.

I think of the car rides to and from my father’s who had me on the weekends. I think about when it all ended with him, and how much I loved those car-rides. I think about all the times he let me rent Highlander II and Big Trouble in Little China (Jack Burton is God in my eyes). I sat listening to his rock music while he had the windows down, it was cold but I didn’t complain because he didn’t complain. Now I don’t mind the cold.

All this goes through my brain in a matter of seconds. I am paying attention to the road and notice that there is a large Semi in my lane in front of me. It’s the slow lane, second from the first lane that allows you to jump on and off the freeway. Seeing as how I am just a bit faster than him, but not that much faster I decide to pass him on the left. You don’t think about why you think something. Your brain just reacts. “I think I will go left”.

But I don’t got left, for whatever reason I go to the right, on the slow lane. Maybe it’s because there would have bee another vehicle in my lane trying to pass him too. Maybe it was the SUV one lane over to the left of that vehicle. I don’t know. I passed on the right when I meant to go left.

So I do. Just as I pass the Semi truck I hear screeching tires behind me. I do not slow down or move I just glance into my rear view mirror and relax. I mentally prepare myself for what I am going to see. I make ready the clutch in case I need to shift, move, brake, or dart anywhere. The vehicle on the left side of the Semi truck is spinning out of control in what I can only describe as a Ballet. In order to avoid hitting him, the vehicle further left is swerving, and has begun spinning as well. Two SUV’s who have not hit anything (at least, I haven’t heard a collision) but I see smoke from burning tires, and the Semi has not been touched. They are moving at full speed all while spinning 360 degrees.

Traffic stopped and I am alone still driving. I look at the back seat to see my daughter stretch. Music is playing but I cant hear it.

Had I not gone to the right when I did, I would have heard a collision.

Breakfast of Champions

The soles of my feet are black with filth. It doesn’t take much for dust and dirt to adhere to my size 13s. I shuffle over to my television and say “Good Morning” to the local news casters. They accompany the dawn. They make me laugh at witty banter and make me sad that an entire family had been gunned down last night while I dreamt of Vanessa and Emma.

I need to mop this place.

Linoleum covers the entire house making it cold and uninviting. Previous tenants cared nothing for the nice old Mexican Woman in the front house who charged little rent and asked even less questions. Half painted rooms and broken pipes are left. Water heaters need replacing, along with broken tile and rotten wood. I’m home.

Dig for clean clothes, dig for toiletries, and dig for answers I’ll never find.

Make a list of things that need to be done. Sometime between work and more work and being Poppa to a little angel I need to do any one/all of the following…

Unpack (never!)
Clean (fuck that)
Buy paint (no wait, I actually want to do that)
Quit smoking (Tomorrow)
Grow up (…)
Move on (TBD)

There is no gas running in this house. Instead of a long, warm, silent shower there is a short, angry, yelling fiasco of soap, shampoo, and obscenities. Laughing at oneself isn’t as easy as it seems when hypothermia sets in.

There is a chill in the air this morning. The sounds of the 5 freeway carry across the wall behind me. The masses flock to the Valley to begin their days as real estate agents and porn stars. I think of this and look up at the gigantic Christmas lights left cracked and dangling in the light. It’s June.

Cigarettes: the breakfast of champions. Grandmother leaves early to water plants. Dog leaves early to scratch and bark. I leave early for work.

They told me to work hard and study. They made it seem like life consisted of tests and interviews. Others told me it consisted of freedom and privacy. Some looked forward to parties and fucking. People who knew what they were talking about told us that life consisted of these things, and maybe there would even be marriages and divorces. Break ups and make ups. Life and death. I always new better though. There is one thing they don’t prepare you for.

All the time in between.

Periplaneta Americana

Tattoos hurt. Anyone who says that they don’t are fucking morons. There is something to be said about a needle that pierces your skin over and over. Sometimes there aren’t a bunch of nerves in that area of your body, and the pain isn’t quite that bad. Other times the flesh is soft and tender like a sheet of plastic covering defrosted poultry. When the needles hit, it’s a bit of a shock if you don’t expect it.

You deal with it. You grit your teeth knowing that when you are done you will have a beautiful new addition to your body that you put countless hours of thought into (considering you’re not loaded).

In that sense, I feel that current situations reflect my tattoos. I love them, even the one I got when I was 15 (a single dull needle ((by needle I mean a long piece of wire my step brother had filed down for me)) did about 2 hours of work on a very large part of my lower back. It is scarred and discolored and fucking huge.)

Wake up.

Replace the pain with thoughts of good things. Tell yourself to STOP. Don’t think of the pain or that which pains you. Force yourself to get through it because you have come too damn far to give up.

I accept pain. I accept the way things are and I accept that they hurt and I accept that this is the way I am supposed to feel. I wallow in it like a pig in shit. I allow this wave of mud and slime and bile to envelope me. I live in it knowing that this is the way I am supposed to feel.

Then

I get up; shower it all off in a bath of Clorox. Look at myself in the mirror and tell myself that this is not what I want. Others want me to fail. Others are doing all they can to see me fall because they are selfish, and they are pain and they are the ones who don’t realize that they deserve to hurt like this.

I can’t imagine what its like to fail. I’d done enough of it really, so all I can do is get over the failure and move. Go. Move the fuck on until its all behind me. It still hurts, it still nags. But what the fuck am I supposed to do?

I bounce back.

I always do in some manner. I am life’s cockroach. Bomb me to fucking hell, leak me some radiation, and flood me with water. When you are gone and your are buried I will remain in some odd, grotesque form. You can’t see me because I’m no bigger than your thumb. I’m an insignificant speck in your eyes. Look closer. Much closer.

Grab me by the antennae for just a moment, and try to fight your urge to squeal in disgust. Put me under the microscope. Hell, pin me down with a needle if you have to I don’t mind. I will bear the pain.

Zoom that microscope on me and focus real hard. I won’t squirm and I won’t run because I want you to see this. I’ve got a little brown body that shines in the light. I’ve got 3 legs on each side and they aren’t flailing, they are waving. Zoom closer. Can you see it now?

It’s my middle fucking finger and its pointed right at you.