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See’s Candy

The truck won’t start, and you’re pushing it down El Camino. Running beside it like a winded dog, while the people on the sidewalk stare. But you’ll get there. And you’ll be covered in sweat, but the old ladies don’t mind. The white uniforms don’t mind. And you might have to decline a sample because it would stick in your parched throat like sandpaper, but you’ll get the nut n chews and she’ll be happy. The truck will get fixed. Don’t worry about continuity, because I got continuity for days. In fact, that trip to See’s turned into two children who may take the world by storm. They just might.

The point is that sometimes things matter just because they matter. I don’t need to understand it. You don’t need to understand it. It’s just this thing you need to come to terms with. And accept. And if you do, the keys to the kingdom of Heaven are yours. She might watch you fish for hours and just smile. She might forgive you one more time than she should have had to. She might be waiting to grow old with you, just because you made that trek, covered in sweat, and you brought home the bacon. Which in this case was chocolate.

 

Sacrifice

He wakes up early and drinks bad coffee in the dark kitchen. The sound of the refrigerator is like silverware in a garbage disposal, it would grate on him if he wasn’t so tired. The house is empty, but there is a child in a hospital room across town who calls him Papa, so he wakes up and goes to the first of two jobs, both in kitchens, one Denny’s, one Chipotle.

Two eight hour shifts get strung together by a thirty-minute bus ride most days. He sleeps on break. He sleeps on Saturday, and he is adamant about his Saturdays, and his managers don’t schedule him on Saturday ever, because they know that is the only time he sleeps. And without sleep, you can’t work. Maybe, you die.

He is soft spoken, but he is also young, and he has a simmering anger behind his smile. Nothing to do with it. He knows that the future is full of ground out days and hospital stays. He thinks about his choices and he wonders if he should have come North at all. The hospital is better here. It was the only way, but it is killing him.

He falls asleep standing up. He falls asleep on the shitter. He falls asleep eating lunch, and everyone pretends they don’t notice. They cover for him when he falls asleep sitting on a pile of milk cartons in the walk-in-fridge. They see him struggle, they see the inevitable crash coming, and they cross their fingers that today is not the day.

See Luis. Tired. Works two jobs, but it’s a small sacrifice. His daughter is alive.

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 A love song

You turn the radio up and you smile. Just vibin’ and the sunset is on fire, and the whole highway is open wide. Behind you, there are rest stops and regrets, and it all sits on top of the fence like a hungry egret, hoping something is about to wash down the culvert.

It’s one of those songs you hear, and it makes this deep, soft hurt in your chest. It’s like a lump of ice caught in your throat and it’s killing you. You try to swallow it down, and you hope it will melt, but it just sits there and you think, OK, this is it. I’m going to die now. Here, on this highway. Alone. But you don’t. The ice melts.

And maybe you still think about it when you get home. Maybe it sits with you all night like heartburn, and you pull out old photo albums. You watch a dumb movie you hated. Or maybe you write a song, tell a story. Bomb a country whose name you can’t spell. This is America, no one can tell you how to get your kicks.

Turn the song up. The bend in the road is coming.

 

Nothing.

It’s a whole lot of something, but you can’t put your finger on the pulse, so you just write it off. That’s not fair, and that’s not an OK thing to do, but you do it, and you don’t feel bad about it. Words are blunt instruments for you. I keep mine sharp like scalpels.

It’s easy to cast things aside when you won’t let them blossom. It makes for a succinct and brutal surgery. But here it is.

There is a small girl sitting on the end of a pier because that’s where she used to fish with her old man. He wrapped his F150 about a telephone pole driving drunk after a hard day of work. So, she sits on the pier, and sometimes, she talks, but mostly, she just sits there. Staring at the ripples on the water and the way it breaks up the sunlight. She hears the birds making bird noises.

That may be nothing to some folks. Don’t tell her, though.

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The branches tangle where they enter the water. From the bank, the old tree digs its toes into the silting mud and maintains. Under the water, within the tangle of branches, and, lower, where catfish pack themselves into the rooted system of caves, there is astounding life. There are galaxies and worlds. The air above the water is whipped to a froth by kingfishers and ospreys. Jays and red-winged black birds. There is a hatch on, and the excitable fish will rise to the banquet when the sun sets it right. There is a crunching through the earth from earthworms and beetles and armies of ants. In the dry grass beside the calm pool, a rattlesnake slumbers. Lizards thrash through piles of dry leaves and vultures fan the sun into alternate bands of light and shadow as they cross the sun, never flying too close. The wax that holds their wings stays strong. No hubris for the vultures. The breezes lift the caps of the flowers and bees flit between bursts of color, collecting gold. The water gurgles and dances its way, kissing everything it touches. This is the place that is waiting for you. Will always wait. This is providence. 

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You ever see a group of kids split up a windfall? Doesn't matter what it is. Candy. Games. Most of the time, the kids will find a way to split it equitably. Sure, maybe one little asshole kid wants to take it all, but they shame that kid. I've watched kids split ice cream cones they didn't have to. I've watched them include every kid in the game so no one gets left out. Around age nine or ten, we start conditioning kids to be competitive. Then, we encourage the kids to exploit opportunities. To look out for themselves. We set them against each other and sit back and watch the breakdowns. The suicides. Some of these kids will make it through high school. Some will rebel. Some will go about accumulating as much as they can, even at the expense of others. 

Ain't that a damn shame. 

A lot of folks go to churches, put money in the offering plate. They feel good about it, this kind of sanitized charity. You don't actually have to get involved. Don't have to actually smell any homeless people. Don't have to see any old women crying. You just put a fiver in the plate and leave pure. Maybe twenty. I don't know. I ain't been in a church to worship in thirty years. I guess I should account for inflation.

All those ruthless CEOs making money for their shareholders and feeling good about it. Surely, that trickle down goodness gonna work. Surely. Doesn't matter anyway. The shareholders don't know about the dirty shit, and the CEO feels good as long as he is creating profit. That's a side-run around morality if I've ever seen one. 

But go ahead and keep letting hate lead the way. Keep separating yourself from your actions and your neighbors. Keep smiling, Jack. This is all about you. Pay attention. That's what they're telling you.

Fuck everyone else. YOU matter. 

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The silence is thick, deafening. You got a voice-box and a heartbeat, right? You gotta have at least a teaspoonful of empathy in you somewhere, or were they fresh out when you got pushed out the factory? There's only so much injustice you can ignore. There are only so many times you can keep your head down before people are going to assume that you ain't ever standing up for nothing. 

Seems real sad. Seems empty.

I may be full of frustration and a little anger, but I'm in here swinging with my heart, man. I'm not making safe decisions and watching my stock options. 

I see you there with your safe thirty-year career plan and your compromises. I hope the bonuses buy some of your soul back, if you had one to start with. I hope the new car distracts you from the vacuum in your chest. I hope your kids call you out when they get old enough to see what a hypocritical, safe, clown you are. 

You think you're polite, and that's the funniest part. You excuse your cowardice by keeping up appearances. 

Hitler depended on people like you, and Trump does, too. 

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You better be here when we need you, but don't talk too loud or act too interested. Don't express concern or expect us to share it. We're just trying to get from point A to point B without encountering too much resistance. Look, thinking is hard. Questions lead to more questions, and who the fuck wants that? 

Or talk loud and carry no stick at all. What we don't need are folks who want change. Change is hard. It takes work, and it gets messy. We don't like messes unless they're the kind that put you in your place. Storms. Fires. Civil unrest. All gravy. Equality? That shit requires compromised capitalism. How you gonna stay wet without that sweet trickle down.

Don't look at all the old folks dying. Don't worry about the colored folks. We are a country chosen by providence. This is the purity of the American, white, race. Ask not what the confederacy can do for you! Do not let them have their wombs! They will breed weakness into the great, Christian homeland. They are like Jews. The great masses of the people will more easily fall victim to a big lie than a small one! The victor will never be asked if he told the truth! Blood and soil!

Blood and SOIL!

2 Minutes. Go!

The day the sun burned out, no one cried. No one was cold. They were shocked and angry. The simulation was revealed, and the people's wrath was pure and beautiful. They hung the Governor from an old oak tree down by the Civic Center. They burned cop cars. They took what they wanted, justice for what had been taken from them.

The buildings burned, and they would have provided heat if it was necessary. But there was no need. The sun was up and running within a few hours. The weather machines never stopped. Hunting parties set out to look for them. No one was in the state-run bars. The buses did not run.

The churches boarded up almost immediately. The gig was up. They burned with the rest of the lie foundations. The harbor was poisoned out of spite. People burned the forests just to see if the trees would catch fire. 

When the gas was released, most everyone died immediately. Those who were spared, by circumstance or evolutionary advantage, felt themselves fracture. They could not handle the death - the corpses. Only the puppeteers in their fortified offices made it through the purge unscathed, licking their teeth, and waiting for the populace to forget. 

And on and on and on and...