2 Minutes. Go!

The mask smells like a midget’s rectum. Sweat, soaked in sweat. Your eyes glint out from the small holes cut into the vinyl and you smile. It is time. The reckoning. You belch into one satin glove and you’re ready. The first thing you hear is vast silence. When you step into the ring, the entire world disappears. The crowd is a voiceless monster thrashing in the close oblivion. You are in a vacuum, and your mouth is dry. Your tongue is glued to the roof of your mouth, so you smack your gums. Your tongue taps the top teeth. 

The chair hits the back of your head like an explosion. Three toddlers tied to sledgehammers, sent down the falls to scatter in pieces on the shore. You see a quick blackness and hear the sound of tearing metal. The crowd comes back in a symphonic wave. You taste blood and money. The laughter erupts from your crocodile throat. 

The bar is empty, but for two old men sleeping and the barkeep. The whiskey takes the pain away as long as you never stop. Just like wrestling. Everything is OK just as long as you keep GOING!

Ding ding ding.

 

_____________

The darkness is cold and absolute, and screams belt the star-quilt – you are undone by it. You are left groveling in the sad, gritty realization that nothing will ever profit. Nothing will change. You will die a simpler creature than you are now. You are getting simpler by the day. The craven need is unstoppable and you shout it into the universe with hand on heart and moms tut-tutting and people serenading through your life until you think, fuck man, they’re all just waiting around for you to die. They want ringside seats or a brownine badge for saving you. Right. Go into the December darkness if you must, but I don’t want to see it. You can give my ticket to the next sad woman who liked your band in high school. I will be here, ear pressed to the tepid shore, tasting salt and brine. Whose place is it to judge?

Not mine.

 

You look at me with wide eyes and the thing that falls out of your mouth turns around; I find myself staring from an animal much lower than horse high – I start to look like the bad guy. Suddenly, I am NOT angry. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want any of it. I want to talk about this show and what happened today and we can pretend like it never even got spoken. There’s no rewind on knee-jerk reactions though. You live in that moment because you  have to because you created it. Sucks, I know.

2 Minutes. Go!

(done slacking)

I handed you the book, like, hey, here is something I care about – something that’s important to me. You took the olive branch and stuck it in my eye. You belly laughed about it. What a fucking nerd.

I tried to think what you cared about. What sung inside you with such beauty and delicacy that it HAD to be shared. And I thought, if there isn’t something … Jesus. If’s there’s not a book you love or a show you worship or a song that touched you, well, hell, that’s so sad. 

And then I felt like you wanted me to cry, but I was too sad to cry. I was empathizing with your meek, passionless life. Too cool to care. You should listen to Ian McKay. He was a blowhard, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t right. 

So, I tucked my nerdy trump card and skated. Back home where my big Sis waited. And he’d called her. Told her what I’d done. Super freaking nerd shit. Your brother is such a dork. How could anyone care so much about something so retarded?

We were sad for him together. As sad as you can be for an insecure pile of clichés and self aggrandizement. He’s a lawyer now. 

Still don’t care about shit.

____________

She was a little older than me, and she smelled like cinnamon gum. She smoked cigarettes while she waited for the bus. My friends and I broke stuff. She stood to the side and smoked cigarettes. 

One day she sat beside me on the bus, and I swear I died. My heart exploded. Our knees touched and I felt a shock. Literally. That’s not just lazy writing. 

Long, blonde hair. The only blonde I’ve ever loved except family. 

She was nice in a detached way. I thought she must have been 27 really and there to observe the middle school boys in their natural environment. Laughing hyenas. She was worldly, which is a cliché, but screw you. I’m trying to be honest. I’m trying to be open. What are you trying?

I was 115 pounds of straight nervous heart attack. I was writing stories in my head, and they were all about her. 

The day I decided I loved her completely was one of the last times I saw her. School ended. She never came back. I’m 42 and I don’t regret much, but if I could go back I would have kissed her. Asked her out. Asked her to marry me in a sketchy cult ceremony.

She would have said no. And it would have been amazing.

___________________________

Daddy’s hands were black, but his chest shone like a beacon. Like a man whose job it was to guide ships in during a storm. His face was grey. White on Sundays. Black at the end of the day. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes and coughed. He sang songs in the choir. He made homemade ice cream, and he liked to fish. 

His anger was righteousness, like God was pissed. When he was happy, he was a pal. When he was down in the mine, he never watched the canary. He didn’t think like that. 

When Ma died, he shattered. He lived in the mine and at the rail, drinking rye whiskey and telling bullshit stories and bragging how he had the best job on earth. He pulled his paycheck from the earth. He tapped it out with hammers and a chisel. He fucking breathed it inside of him. It killed him. He’s dead. 

Coal raised me. Every bite I ate was black. Every pair of shoes left black grit on my soul. I did not brag about Daddy’s job. Everyone had a daddy worked in the mine. He was nothing special.

Nowadays, I sit on the big rock at the Y in the trout stream, and I think about him. Cigars, rough hands. Skin always cracking. He could never get clean. And I think. That’s it, man. That’s it right there. The poor bastard could never get clean. Not even when he tried.

 

2 Minutes. Go!

Her wings are a blur - pure speed. She blasts the sunlight outward, green and red. Brilliant red. The air tastes like panic, but that's on you, not her. You don't have to worry, hero. She'll be fine without you. Just listen to her song and smile.

Warmth. Tickle of grass under your feet and sun-baked hair. You walk over kingdoms and civilizations without wondering. There is no profit in wonder. What's the point?

I wonder.

The Jay holds my secrets tight, and I am a good and noble servant. The Blue Jay wears no clothes, but I would never tell him that. 

The whole world smells like a flower shop. The cute girl working there has multiplied by the millions. She's everywhere. Don't touch her. Don't say a word. 

Just be glad it's Spring.

2 Minutes. GO!

Man, those are some pretty eyes. Filled with marzipan and lies; sweet confectionary bullshit oozes out of the corners of your mouth. Beautiful, like blood. You can tell me all about the black escape, and I will understand. I've been there. I built a summer home there. Tell me all about it, darling. I got nothing to offer, but you can bounce anything you want off me. I'll absorb it - set you free.

My skin hurts like it's being torn.

I swore I wasn't going to write emo existential bullshit, but here we are. My eyes are only tiny slits, my throat feels like an ashtray. And I don't smoke. 

I'm sorry. Alright. I know some people like plot and character and whatnot. I don't feel like forcing it, and I'm out of spontaneity. Don't worry; it'll come back. I think.