Tradition or Legacy? It Doesn’t Matter

Write about a few of your favorite family traditions.

13:15. That’s when I awoke from a sleep corrupted with vile, terrifying nightmares, sat on the edge of the bed and wondered where the fuck I was. My body gave no hint of what it was about to do to my brain. Family, fun, camaraderie of any kind, was far from my beaten mind.

It took several tries to stand. I wobbled, bounced off the closet door, and always ended up right back on the bed, dead on my ass. How demoralizing a thing, I thought, growing old can be.

I made it to the latrine in time to not piss in my pants. (Yes; I sleep in my clothes) That’s at least one blessing. Positive. Excellent, as a matter of fact. Downright stupid to have to mention, but there it is.

Afterward, hand and face washing: I was far too weak to shower. Mental note: remember to buy a new shower chair. My hair, running to my shoulders, white, unruly, tangled. My full beard twisted into something off the portrait of Dorian Gray: oh, fuck, I hate mirrors.

Beard shampooed and brushed, hair combed, mouthwash to freshen up, I discharged myself on my own recognizance from the latrine. I did look at the coffee maker with deep desire, but my hands couldn’t do that yet. Still had no strength beyond what I had needed for taming the beard. I grabbed my jeans jacket and went out to the warmth of a late January day that one can only call by tradition a “false spring”, for that’s what it is. A trick by Mother Earth, the one who claims all bodies in death. But it, perhaps, can be viewed another way: a gift. A respite from weeks of suffering that she inflicted in the first place.

See how far I’ve come since my blog about how positive thinking was for morons who refused to see reality? When was that? 2019? I can’t remember. Although, after a long sleep, drug-induced and full of apocalyptic terrors, it’s really about as positive as I can manage.

Marlboro Man is at his usual post out front. People I know call me various things: “The Sentinel” or “The Cigarette-smoking Man” (like that asshole in the “X-Files” series. Did you know that he was in the very first episode, the pilot episode? “File” that one under “trivia we don’t give a shit about” and forgive my impertinent bullshit).

Out front, clutching my walking stick in one hand and my Zippo in another, I lit up, and the old brain started checking in: pain. Lots and lots of it from every finger, toe, my arms, legs, back, neck, everywhere, and more on the fucking way. Damn it!

It’s not just the extended sleep. Of course, that will leave anyone sore. But there’s more. In the mid-70s warmth, I feel that this can’t last. Looking to the west, the sky is not clear. It’s quite beautiful, really. The dusk will be colorful. To the south, I see the clouds moving up, coming from the southwest. That’s not good. At this time of year, it’s a possibility that the El Niño pattern is bringing up air from gulf states. It may bring storms. I can’t tell for certain, but I’m feeling rain and wind, maybe storms will arrive by tomorrow. Being old, I’ve seen this so many times (and felt it) that I’d bet money on it.

My life, as it has been, is one of war. I just moved from one skirmish to another, with many major battles in between. That’s it. One tragedy followed another. More scars inside than out, but also lessons learned that the more fortunate never did. Or will.

Blue denim jacket and pants, and olive drab T-shirt and boonie hat, black web belt. I look like a psycho veteran from Tennessee. Not the real vets, the ones in movies, so no disrespect to veterans anywhere.

Except I am crazy; there’s no denying that; just fire any gun within 300 meters of me, and you’ll see. Or visit me on July 4th after 21:00.

There are other things I’ve had to learn.

“Above all things, do no harm.”

It is a terrible thing to hurt another living creature. All life is sacred. To harm mind or body is hateful to God, those you injure, and yourself. You may have blunted your heart and mind to the effects, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any. I will never be that person watching someone being hurt on my phone’s camera screen. I have sworn to God to protect people even to the last breath I have. It is a sacred, serious oath that, once given, must never be betrayed. I will use force if necessary, but that’s even more serious. Use of force to save an innocent is a decision that must be made with incredible speed: hesitate, and an innocent may die. Act too swiftly, and you miss other options, but microseconds define the time to determine whether you can or cannot use deadly force. You can’t be a vigilante. Movies about vigilantism are more ubiquitous than slasher flicks. Vigilantism, usually by more than one person, is rarely justified. Take the case of Ken Rex McElroy, for example. A bully, rapist and pedophile, the case of his murder was never solved. He was surrounded by people who hated him but feared him. The law wasn’t helping. Naturally, he was shot to death. Whereas I don’t endorse vigilante justice, this was one case where a man was so evil that he needed to go. Do I think it was a homicide? Absolutely, I do. But I never lost sleep thinking about it.

Someone decided to protect others from a monster.

I once locked horns in a group home with the only man I had known since my father, who scared me to my soul. He threatened to kill me, and I ran. I tortured myself. I was a pussy. A coward. But sometimes you have to run. I thought many times that I should kill him. I knew, and I mean, I knew, that if not me, this schizophrenic bastard was going to one day cause terrible harm to someone else.

When I learned that he had kidnapped a minor and repeatedly raped her, I hated myself. I should have known. I should have killed him. Some schizophrenics are dangerous. It’s a harsh reality. Most, however, are not. There are many types and degrees of this mental disorder, and most can effectively work full careers, have romantic partners, and more, and you would never know them as any different from anyone else. Not this guy.

I actually feel responsible for him causing severe mental injury to a girl, now a young woman, by not killing so vile a man when I could have. But I’m not honest with myself when I feel that way, and the responsibility is not mine to claim. I am not a murderer. I am not a psychic, either, able to see future crimes. Indeed, I knew he was dangerous. Yet it was not I, but the law, who failed that girl. I got his criminal record. There was a definite pattern. Drugs, being drugged in public, drunk in public, indecent exposure, violence, and sexual assault. Yet he was in a rehab program after years of probationary sentences and slaps on the wrist. He even got off easy for kidnapping and rape. He disappeared for a few years. Not all of it could have been prison time. I suspect he was jailed, not even imprisoned. The justice system keeps letting this happen, and sooner or later, he will come to a point of nothing to lose, and God help anyone whom he sets his eyes on.

****

20:00. Just got in from a walk. The moon rose on my way out, shrouded in mist. I was right; something is coming. I checked the current temperature. 55°F down from 74°F at 15:30. Quite a drop. And the air feels cold and wet. I knew it would be cooler, so I wore my winter coat but kept the boonie. Mistake. I should have used my watch cap and gloves; the moist air was raw. I took my kickass flashlight up the dark path, encountering a juvenile red fox, which ran to the nearby treeline but stared defiantly into the bright light. Bold motherfucker, for something smaller than a fully grown tomcat. I admire it but also find it and its kind anathema; not exactly varmints, but a nuisance all the same. Sometimes, they are carriers of rabies, and that line of backing off yet standing ground turns into your worst fear. Imagine some tiny, snarling hurricane trying to kill you, starting with your ankles!

Later on I’ll take a walk. I’ll come back and edit in a video of this flashlight, and beg you to get a couple for yourself and maybe a couple for your family. Danger hides in the dark; perhaps you have some experience with it, or else, I’ll tell you, you do know someone who has.

Charging now. The left light is flashing; when it stops and all 4 lights are solid, it is fully charged. I have never had it drop lower than two lights, and even if unused for two weeks, it maintains the charge.

The paracord is useless because the tiny plastic tie breaks with little cause, and the paracord gets dropped and lost. It is the only complaint I have.

Yes, it does all of this, but on wide beam, it is ineffective at more than a few yards. The man in the picture is close to his target.

Being safe with a good light is essential. I bought this light for $39.55 on Amazon. On narrow beam, I can see up to better than 200 meters, probably more with no lights at all in the area. For the price, it’s a steal.

****

So far I have avoided writing about family traditions. But I did respond to the prompt. Why?

Because our extended family hasn’t any. I have not seen my beloved cousin Martha since 1970. I really do wish I could. She’s the only one who could get me to return to North Carolina and make it a treasured memory. She truly cares about people, and she helps them. There’s no higher calling, nothing more noble or honorable in all the world.

My brothers and sisters, my nephews and nieces, they have their own lives. I am not a part of that. It’s sad, and it does hurt. But it’s life. And besides, on the rare occasion we meet up, I believe we trigger horrible memories from our pasts that ruin the happiness that we should be filled with in the moment.

Yet I love them with all my heart. They’re all great people I’m proud to even know. The one legacy our parents left us that isn’t, I think, something they counted on, is that we, quietly and with no embellishments, just plain care about life. We love people and animals, and we love goodness. We love justice and fairness. We love the weak, and we help them when we ourselves are weak. That’s not a tradition. I’m sorry about that. It’s a lot, though, and I’ll take it. It is treasure, beautiful, rare, and priceless. A wonderful legacy, even now being passed to new generations. In those generations, there is hope.

And really, how cool is that?

Nice Dreams

Lately I’ve stopped taking Prazosin because it seemed to be making my nightmares worse. It’s for the opposite, and in PTSD patients has been effective in reducing both the severity and the frequency of nightmares. But if it did work in the beginning, then it stopped and, in fact, seemed to give me a rebound effect. Horrors awaited every time my eyes closed. I told my doctor, and she said I needed my sleep. I was fighting it. So she discontinued the Prazosin and prescribed Trazodone, a sedative. It’s only a PRN, to be taken as needed only.

Sometimes it works. The nightmares have changed into some weird shit, and when I was given that in the hospital, I remember that my dreams did get more bizarre.

The other night, I dreamed that Kane (the wrestler) had gotten me into the WWE, and since I am old, I protested.

He assured me that Vince McMahon could use me as a gimmick character for a season, and then I’d be done. It sounded like fun. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long enough for me to get into the ring.

But it was nice to have a zany dream instead of a nightmare, and be able to remember it. It’s hilarious stuff.

Last night, I hit the wall early. I tried watching a movie, but I was out minutes after turning it on.

This time, I dreamed that I met Kerry, a teenage crush. She was grown, we hit it off, and I finally got the chance to find out what it’s like to kiss her. My emotions were as if I had been transported to some fairy tale. I told her that all my life, I had loved her.

That’s basically true. Her family moved to the neighborhood in the early 60s and I had been smitten on first sight.

As we grew up together, I never really had much interaction with her. But I was never going to anyway. That wasn’t in the cards.

I’ve loved a handful of women in my life. Some I dated. But the ones I loved the most, I never spoke to often, and I never told them how I felt. In third grade, which I had to repeat, the first time it was Barbara. We were inseparable. We even kissed. A lot. When she moved away, I was broken.

The repeat year, it was Lee Ann. She was beautiful and fun and I dared not go near her. I knew, even then, that I never wanted to feel a broken heart again.

But I also knew that something was wrong with me. The kids in my class never asked me to play ball on recess. They shunned me. Always. And I was constantly in some sort of trouble. My sense of humor never got any laughs; it was macabre and warped, and unless they had been through what I had, they would never understand me on any level.

Kerry was smart and by junior high school, was blooming into an awesome beauty. I knew that she would become somebody, as smart and as popular as she was.

It made it extremely painful to see that I, on the other hand, was sick. That I would never measure up, never be good enough for such an amazing young woman. Not then, not ever. I left her alone. After the end of the last semester of school year 1975, I never saw her again. Knowing that it was better for her if we never met again gave me some weird sense of honor: I’d only have messed up her life. You don’t really love someone if you’re going to put your needs above theirs. That ain’t love. It’s vanity and selfishness.

There would be one more woman that I would meet in my life who was way too good and beautiful and kind for me. Her name was Peggy, and I would have turned a beautiful and delicate flower into a mess. I loved her so dearly that I would have left my wife for her in a second. But I never told her how I felt. First, because the words that describe that kind of feeling do not exist; but more importantly, that love was so unbreakable that to this day, it’s still with me. And I wasn’t good enough. I knew it. I was becoming aware of just how fucked up I really was. I last saw her in the autumn of 1986 when my father’s business finally folded for good. The look she gave me was full of contempt, and I still bear that pain. And the memory of it is stamped in my mind.

Sometimes, things work out for reasons we don’t understand, and sometimes they don’t work out for reasons we do understand, especially if we are honest with ourselves and take the best interest of another to heart, holding their needs above our own. That, dear friends, is love, the best kind, the most pure kind.

The dream about Kerry was passionate, and good, and I’ll take that over my grisly nightmares any day.

As I stood outside today, smoking a Marlboro, I thought back to the days of junior high, when I loved one who could never know, and I grew more sick all the time.

One day in sculpture class, I had some warm wet plaster in my hand for some reason. Ronnie Howell was sitting beside me, and he was instrumental in my delinquent behavior, always knowing when to egg me on. In fact, he even occasionally laughed at my sick humor and stunts.

Watch this vintage commercial:

One version had men in a locker room. One gave the other a “five” and shaving cream was everywhere. The black man says, “Hey, man, that’s real hot lather!”

I turned in my chair, imitating the black athlete, slapped the hand with plaster with my hand that was free, and said, “Hey, man, that’s real hot lather!”

To my horror, that shit went everywhere, and a teacher’s aide was right there!

She was a sandy blonde with a killer body, wearing sprayed-on jeans, i mean, tight, and before the world heard the expression “camel toe”, I was looking straight at one, eye-level, not a foot away.

And I had just splattered plaster all over that camel toe!

Horrified, seeing a suspension in my immediate future, Ronnie Howell roared with laughter. I looked up at the aide to see how angry she was and apologize, but she was laughing!

A dream brought back a flood of memories, none really that bad, about junior high school and unrequited love that, today, lets me see something in my past that was noble and good and not about myself.

And I’ll take it.

Any day, I’ll take it.

A Nice Cup of Tea

Sometimes the best medicine is just a nice cup of Earl Grey

TEA TIME

I’ve had an off-kilter, wonky kind of day. Oh, I managed to get my laundry done and folded, and put away. But little else.

That last bit is usually a tall order. By the end of the folding process, this old man is ready to cry with the back pain.

Somehow I did it. Throw me a parade! Name a holiday after me! Or better yet, give me some money.

Waking up after a nap that made the timing perfect for missing a walk to the store for coffee and milk made tea this night’s drink. It is for the best.

It’s fine. Gives me some alone time with Earl and that’s not a thing to take lightly. But please, come in, have a cuppa, and let us talk.

Americans, that is to say, here in the United States, we never fail to undervalue tea, its healing powers, its seductive flavor and the inner warmth it gives, ensuring that you must have one more cup.

Being a child of English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, Swedish and Danish ancestry, I suspect it runs in my blood: coffee and cold soft drinks are fine, good Scotch or Irish whiskey being a nice treat on the blue moon or something like that, but tea is the one thing we all have in common. Perhaps we agree on little else, but every region has a tea of preference or one which it can grow.

I do not favor green tea, Darjeeling, or Ceylon tea, but any will do in a pinch. Herbal teas are another matter.

I have a pot with a nice infuser. After adding 4 teaspoons of leaf tea (because tea dust is what’s swept up from the floor and put into tea bags which won’t complement the flavor), I add water from the kettle, put the tea towel over it and let it steep for five minutes. And Earl Grey is ready to enjoy. When hurting, or feeling a bit pensive, it’s best enjoyed in solitude. But sharing it with a friend is very easy to do and the conversation should be interesting. That’s why you’re here. Welcome!

It’s a horror to add milk to tea, but of them all, this is the worst choice for milk and sugar. A drop of lemon, and a half teaspoon of sugar is as far as I’ll go. Most of the time, Earl Grey needs no additive, but it’s your cup of tea, do what you like best. Because life is too short not to.

It’s also fun to try new things, and trust me, Lipton tea isn’t one of them. I favor two brands of leaf tea: Taylors of Harrogate and Twinings. Tea is the one thing the English always got right, and Yanks screwed up. The British seem to feel that all we do with tea is throw it into harbors. But at least they think we uncrate it first, thus giving striped bass a caffeine high.

I briefly mentioned King Henry VIII in a recent post. What a turd he was, yes? To avoid scandalous relationships, he broke with the Catholic Church and created what became protestant churches of England. He had no idea what he was doing with and to religion, and he knew less of women, and cared even less. What a dick.

But the English are still a fine, proud people. That Royal thing though, is that really necessary? It seems that all they ever to is engage in drama and in-family subterfuge, and mentioning Diana’s name gets you scowled at depending how you use it. Call her out as a whore, or praise her; one will get you your ass whipped and the other might get you a drink at the pub. Hope you like warm ale, good luck and cheery-o.

I’m serious. It’s a very divisive subject and if I found any link at all to British royalty in my family tree, I’d keep my mouth shut about it. I’d rather find the Lestranges in there. Finding Bellatrix would be more reason to brag than any royal.

I’m not taking shots here. Any country you hail from is home, always will be, and it’s in your blood. Take pride from that.

But that doesn’t mean much to other people. If you tell someone a Duke of Avondale was a great great great….cousin, you’re going to get a blank stare in return. I’m sorry, but that’s life.

And as I’ve said, life is short. Let’s enjoy what little we can, shall we?

THE CHRISTMAS CURSE

At this time of year, like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, I’m doomed to tell anyone who will pay heed about how short life really is.

We always have a way of thinking, that could never happen to me, but this is folly. Because yes, it can. And if it does, you’ll be really fucked-up for the rest of your life.

On Christmas Eve, 1994, I was preparing to spend my first Christmas away from my family. My wife kicked me out that spring and I couldn’t find any work except for delivering pizza. It isn’t glamorous in the least. It’s humiliating. You get to see people you hope will never order a pizza pie again. Once I was invited in where adults were all wearing underwear. Long underwear.

I don’t know how, or why, but this was creepy to the point where even the guy on Elton Street who answered the door in his robe would seem normal afterward. They gave me the flying shits, and I stood in the doorway, on the stoop, and even if they’d aimed a cannon at me, I was not going in there. I don’t even know what I was seeing. It was like something out of the movie Deliverance where the guy looks through a door and sees an old woman knitting beside an obvious, horrid example of inbred offspring. There was something I could feel, something unnatural, evil and hungry. The hungry part scared me the most. Fuck you, I’m not coming one step inside your sleazy abode.

On Christmas Eve we closed early, about sunset or a little after. I waited around for a while. Killing time, because I had an eye infection in one eye. It kept crusting over with white like the Pillsbury dough boy had swept in and taken a shit on my eye. I needed it treated. Having no doctor, I’d go to the hospital and I figured around 23:00 was good, because what hospital is crowded at that time on the night before Christmas?

I figured wrong. The waiting room was full, standing room only. I checked in and was advised it might take some time. On this frigid night, the darkness seemed peculiar for the parking lot of a major hospital’s ER.

I went further into the darkness to smoke, wary of security seeing me. I lit a cigarette and jumped a mile when a voice, soft, friendly, timid, asked for a light.

Even in darkness, he was darker. His face seemed highlighted by age, the ravages of a hard life and battles. Lots of them.

He lit his smoke. What a tragic man he was. In Baltimore, the streets were cruel even then. That they’re more so now puts me in a bad place.

He was trying to get committed. Back then, as now, it’s not so easy. He told me how he’d had a good job, a wife and children.

Two cars, a house and a boat. Everything a guy could want.

Until one say when his wife and children were killed in a traffic accident. He went in the bottle, and who can judge him? I never did. From there it must have gone quickly. He lost the boat. Then the job. Then the remaining car and finally the house. He had nowhere to go. He attacked when they tried to evict him. “Been in the bottle ever since,” he said. His voice held a sad quality until he said, “I just want my kids back.”

That line is always audible in my memory. It was so bleak, so full of despair that I wanted to hug him, but back then, it wasn’t done. Such a backward, hung up society, the United States.

What he said taught me a lesson. A big one, and since I had no money for gifts I had not planned on visiting my children for Christmas. Showing up empty-handed would hurt them and kill me inside. But my lesson had been delivered and I never forgot it. My daughter said on the phone next morning, “It’s okay, daddy, your gift can be that you love us.” And I went, and we had a nice visit. And I truly wish the story ended there. But happy endings are for fairy tales and massage parlors only. It turned out that my lesson was prophetic. My children are dead.

Yes, and my daughter left three children behind. She drowned on 4 July, 2012. My son and I grieved, but he was unable to shake his grief, or the burden put on him by his step-father that Elizabeth should have lived and he should have died. His step-father did a lot of damage and for years I wanted to kill him. He does not know to this day how many times he was close to death.

Christmas should be thought of as the time when people are kind, giving, sharing, and, if you are a Christian, of birth.

It is not like that for me. Nor will it ever be again. I think of heartbreak and death.

Christmas Day, 2017 was the last time I saw my son. He had taken something laced with fentanyl twice and both times ceased breathing, both times winding up in the CCU. The second time, I knew I was going to lose him. He felt a deep hunger for the drug. Since it basically killed him twice, I couldn’t understand what he’d gotten out of it. The doctor told him his liver and kidney functions were off. He either knew what that meant or didn’t. It does not matter. By Valentine’s Day 2018, he took his last dose of street Fenny and went off to meet his maker, taking whatever Elizabeth had left of my heart behind with him. My heart is an open wound. I’ve never fully allowed myself to grieve, because crying sucks. It fills my sinuses and gives me a headache. And always, always, there’s more and I’m not going to have more. I’m sick of it. I bear my burden the best I can. But I often tell others about it. I warn them that the pain of loss never ends.

But only once a year do I pass on the story of that poor, broken man who taught me a great lesson, giving me — giving us three — many years of love, adventure and memories together.

I cannot pass on this curse. It is mine to bear. To tell of a man whose battered soul got through my selfish and bitter, vain self and taught me to hold my family close.

What I am offering you is a simple warning. As your friend, because we’ve had tea together.

You must keep your loved ones safe. Give them the things they need. Show your love always, never being afraid of “wearing your heart on your sleeve”, because those who criticize you for it will never understand. Pity them. Pass on what you have learned here. Take nothing for granted. Because life isn’t fair, it harbors Death, a predator always on the prowl.

And know that no matter who you are or where you are, you are always welcome here for a nice cup of tea and a good chat. Remember: we are friends.

Prisoner of the Night

Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.

Above this line you see today’s JP prompt. Well I hardly needed a prompt for tonight. Yeah, it’s after 00:30, so it’s really morning. I know, but it’s dark, and still well before the hour of shadows. Which I think of as the hour I most feel that I’m really all alone.

Why I always revert to an opposition of circadian rhythm I do not understand. I’ve joked about it for years: “I’m a vampire”, “a werewolf”, whatever. But jokes cover up our true selves and lead us into a habit of not letting the worst of us slip out and give others a glimpse of who we really are.

Because doesn’t that part of us serve to cage our pain and fear? Isn’t it easier for me to let measured pieces of that pain and absolute terror out than to give them full vent and risk what can happen to me? To feel it all, everything, at once, knowing it could kill me, because a heart broken so many times should already have killed me?

And true, raw, pure terror, you can’t feel that all at once. So many years of it, decades of seeing evil, doing and speaking asshole things, but first having all of that done to me….nobody can survive remembering and feeling all that at once. We know that, because sometimes memories get distorted and become unreliable. That’s a built-in protection we have which allows us to survive.

But most of it, the worst stuff, we can never forget. And therefore some of us just can’t heal. Doesn’t mean we can’t move in a forward direction, just means we carry so much of what others would leave behind with us, every day, everywhere. No one knows. They can’t see it. They can sense it, and mostly they leave us alone. Somethin wrong with that old boy. He got hisself baggage, the heavy-duty kind. I ain’t even gonna look that way til he is gone.

For decades, I had big problems relating to and mixing in with anyone. I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not good-looking, not funny, I’m mental. Who’s ever gonna want a piece of shit like me?

Amy loved me. She did everything but throw herself at me, but I wasn’t good enough. I knew that. I let her go. Never even kissed her.

She was the last one. A wild girl who drove a rig for Bob’s Transport, then Keyway, here in Maryland. Being wild, she intimidated me while making herself all the more beautiful to me. I loved her because she was beautiful and wild and free. She could never be told that I loved her right back, but that I wouldn’t ever be good enough. Never be enough. That I was damaged. Terrified. Of everything.

I never loved like that again, and that level of pain I don’t want to ever feel again. I realize that she let me go because I had the power to hurt her with a spoken rejection.

On this night, I go outside to light a Marlboro, exhale smoke toward the sky. I linger. I ask the sky, “What is love, anyway? Is it even real? Is it a lie we invent because we’re so alone in a crowded world? Well? Whattaya say?”

Of course, there’s no answer. If I got one I’d go straight to the fucking hospital, and you know which ward.

Tonight, I’m bitter. I can’t even answer my own question. And I thought I knew the answer. This proves that I am honest when I say I don’t know anything at all.

But isn’t the question important, valid? I mean, doesn’t it deserve an answer?

I reckon not. That black sky is mocking me with its silence.

I went to the doctor yesterday. I told you about passing out, falling. Well I don’t really see a doctor. It’s a nurse practitioner. She’s not friendly and doesn’t give a shit what’s wrong with me. The first thing she did was pick a fight. I’d had an MRI two years back. Degenerative disk and spinal disease. That “Degenerative” part means it gets worse.

Well, it’s worse. She argued that, no, my insurance provider did not deny coverage on my MRI. Look, I’m the one who got the notice after it was done. She said that the imaging (corporation) that performed it had to make sure it would be paid or they would never have done it. Well maybe that’s true, but later I got the paper notice that it was decided that I hadn’t secured permission from them first, then that it was determined I didn’t need it despite the dire findings. They would not pay.

Trying to talk to an NP who thinks she knows everything is like trying to talk to a MAGA republican: you’re essentially talking to a wall.

In spite of passing out and intense back pain, she seemed very unconcerned. She recommended physical therapy, muscle relaxers and a steroid. What a fucking quack. Anyone can see, I need to be cut. But expecting professional behavior, common sense and God forbid, compassion from anyone in the medical field is plain stupid. It’s a stupid thing to do. They don’t care about you. You’re a paycheck and that’s all that you are. If you die, they get a new patient. Maryland used to have world-renowned medical care. I’m telling you, stay away. Just stay the fuck away. You’ll live longer.

III

Another Marlboro. I’ve doubled my consumption of tobacco since yesterday morning and that’s counting the trip to the doctor, and afterward, a stop at at my favorite restaurant, Trattoria E Pizzaeria da Enrico, where you can get real Italian food and New York style Pizza pies that you’ll never forget. I ordered a 14″ double pepperoni, and attacked it like a ravenous wolf. Or werewolf. Whichever you prefer. I think Gianni was impressed. He is a friend, a good man, one of honor and decency and hard work. Makes spaghetti pie, too. Come on, who could do better? To hell with Domino’s. Forever.

The pizza was delicious from the first bite to the last. I began to feel better.

I slept soundly until 22:30. Good, peaceful sleep. But I awoke sore, bitter and in pain.

Asking questions of the night. Questions I want the answers to, especially on this night, when I dare ask them with insolence. With more of a demanding tone than I think prudent. But I’m too bitter to care.

02:48; almost at the hour of shadows. I ask that stupid black sky, “Okay, let’s forget about love. You don’t know shit anyway. But what about honor? Huh? Honesty? Kindness? Decency? What are these things, which I’m starting to believe aren’t real? Tell me what they are. Or that I’m right. That there are no such things. I’ll believe you and be on my way.”

The little girl had survived a gunshot to the head. She was clearly in shock, but the reporters surrounded her like vultures anyway. They barraged her with questions in condescending childlike voices. How did it feel? Did you see your daddy? What did you say to him?

“I said I love you daddy, I hope you’re okay.”

And what did he say to you?

Jesus Christ, lady, you’re a really cold bitch. Leave that child the fuck alone!

I’m outraged. They didn’t just put her face all over the world. No, they showed the world how insolent, cold and sick the American media really is. And they piled trauma upon trauma on this poor little girl. Before long she stopped talking. Just nodded her head. She’d had too much. They were killing her.

A basketball had rolled into some asshole’s drive way. The details are hard to assemble, but someone came along and shot the girl, then shot her parents. Her daddy was still in the hospital. And she was out, not knowing that mainstream journalists had turned into sleazebags like the paparazzi. Scummy, suffocating, relentless, not an ounce of respect or compassion between the lot of them. No ethics, no boundaries, no humanity.

I fucking hate reporters. If they ever try that shit in front of me, they won’t like what will happen. There’s no joy in it for me, saying something like this. It’s dark and it’s wrong. But if we really stop caring about children then we are a doomed society, surely to be consigned to Hell. I would die protecting a child. There’s a big difference between that and what those assholes were doing.

The sky has no answers. It mocks me with a slow, cold wind. The night that I cannot sleep through because that’s when the bad things used to happen has thrown the gauntlet at my feet: join me or die.

It is the hour of shadows, but it’s almost over.

“You haven’t answered my questions. You know nothing. You hide the evil that happens in shadows. You never liked the light. I may be your prisoner, but it’s easy for me to choose death over you. One day I’ll live in the light. God will wipe all of my tears away. My sorrow won’t need to be held back ever again. And if this world doesn’t know love, that’s okay. The next one will.”

New York City Confidential: The Visit

Warning: The following contains graphic and disturbing material and it contains triggers. This is intended for mature readers only and must be read with caution.

Present Day

In a hospital somewhere in the Big Apple lies a young man near the end of his life.

It is just another day in the city that never sleeps: the patient will, without a miracle, die. And it will not matter, nor even be known, to any but the handful of doctors and nurses treating and tending to him.

And one earthly angel who knows how beautiful he truly is.

Because they adore him, these nurses. He is mostly silent, but despite his condition, despite his loneliness, his sadness, he is polite and warm.

And on any given hospital floor or ward, patients like him always seem to affect one nurse, perhaps more. In this case, more. He received no visitors.

There came no calls inquiring as to his condition or prognosis. No one cared. Nurses tend to feel at least some sorrow or anger over such things. For some, their necessity of a disconnect fails. No one should be left alone to face death.

And it did look bad; his kidneys had failed. His recovery from a coma was a great development, but the young man was in critical condition. He still is. He had HIV or AIDS before, but treatment had made the virus undetectable in his lab work. Then he contracted COVID-19 and the virus returned. Now, but for the Grace of God, he would already be dead.

But who knows? Perhaps God keeps the dying alive for a reason, because there remains a chance that they can find peace before death. And, just maybe, He plans on a miracle because He loves us all, equally, and does not want us to perish in the Pit.

I cannot say, but without speaking for God, I nevertheless have faith in His unfailing love and forgiveness.

If ever a young man needed a miracle, it’s surely this young man.

His story begins in Texas, where far too many horrible stories seem to start.

His father was the pastor of a church, and his mother was a nurse. Neither should have been so employed, for the father was far more evil than good, and the mother was his carbon copy.

His father the preacher man sodomized him while his mother held him down.

She held him down.

And there is more. When he came out as gay, his father called him a “faggot” and beat him. Whether he was kicked out or ran away is unclear but it does not matter.

Eventually the young man wound up in New York. In his ears it must have reverberated, his father, who routinely sodomized him, calling him a “faggot”. The damage was no doubt extensive. There is no reason given for his attraction to New York, but many gay men move there, most seeking acceptance and some type of human compassion.

But for him, if ever he found it, nothing good could last. Haunted by his past, he could not find lasting friendship nor any other relationship. At one point he wound up in a mental health facility. It is easy to see why. What is more difficult to see is that some part of him, despite loneliness and severe depression, wanted help, wanted to survive.

While he was there, a young woman was also a patient. She had clearly been through a hell of her own, and she was still in it. He decided to not only befriend her but to watch over her as well. And this he did, because his own broken heart hurt even more to see someone trying to fight back from a break, from loss, from addiction, from too much time spent hounded by demons.

The two bonded, improving over time, each very much a part of the other’s recovery. Then, she went home, and although they exchanged phone numbers, and did talk from time to time, the miracle girl he had watched over began getting very serious about finishing her recovery.

The system of replacement therapy is rigged, as I’ve said before. Rigged to keep you dependent on methadone so the clinic keeps getting funded. She emerged from a life-threatening breakdown to realize that the only way to regain her life and her soul was to fight the battle of a lifetime. And she argued with the clinic about stepping down her doses. They would alternatively encourage and discourage her and, with most, that strategy of manipulation works.

But the young woman was never going to be tricked again by the system that would not let her go.

Consulting a doctor not affiliated with the clinic, she did receive support, but also caution. Yet, in all his years of practice, he had never seen anyone so determined who might actually be able to do what she claimed she could, and would do.

Just like she said, exactly as she had said, she stepped down her doses rapidly. The clinic fought her but she was not having it. Finally she had had enough, and got her intake of methadone so low that despite her doctor’s concern, she ceased taking it. Silencing every critic and every rule of the system, what she did would not seem astounding to you or to me, but for her it was the drug equivalent of jumping from a second story window, landing as gracefully as a gymnast, and getting the winning score. And her doctor was astonished. What she had done, in the time in which she did it, with no lasting effects, was something he had never seen before. He was proud, but not of anything he had done; it was all her, she who possessed the fighting spirit of a tigress.

And that analogy is not off: a tigress is among the fiercest fighters in the animal kingdom, an apex predator with almost no fear of humans. The young woman had put up a fight, the like of which few have ever survived.

That fight was not short nor did it come without pain.

She continues to fight. Every day. But the entire time she was suffering, prayers came from all directions including her priest, who lit the tapirs and said the rosary in her behalf.

Her past was known to the priest. A violent multiple rape while a young teen. Comfort sought in hard drugs. Dysfunctional relationships that only lowered her closer to the abyss. Until death and shock and trauma piled upon trauma broke her and she met the lonely young man in the hospital.

She had lost her way. Lost everything she was, everything she thought she knew. The lonely man was there to help her get that back. These things are never chance meetings. God knows when two lost people need each other. He leads them to the quiet waters but never forces them to drink. That’s always up to them.

I always found in my worst stays in hospital that there was one person I could be comfortable around. It’s funny, that. And it always helps.

But as time went on, the young woman began grabbing her life back. An awesome man came into her life and a romance began. She made fast friends with his family and his friends. She had begun to live after decades of being a prisoner.

Then came a day when she found an unknown number on her phone. A number she did not recognize. Usually she would let such a thing go, but not this one. She felt strongly about it and knew she had to return the call.

It was the lonely man she had been watched over by in the hospital and he’d come out of a three-week coma and was very weak. It was difficult to speak because of the tube he had been sustained by, but she knew: he needed to see her and she needed to go to him.

Her boyfriend made a stop along the way, took her to the hospital, but because of covid protocols had to remain in the car.

Upstairs, the lonely man lay, withered, 60 pounds lighter, weak, fearing death. His friend walked up to the nurse’s station and one nurse smiled and said, “I’m so happy to see you. He’s had no one come in or even call and he’s so sweet.”

She went into the room, greeted him, and had to lean close to hear him. Clad in protective gloves, mask and gown, she listened.

He said he was happy that she was here. She gave him the stuffed unicorn she had bought on the way over. He loved it. Bending low she heard him say, “I’m scared of dying. I’m scared I’ll go to hell.”

She assured him that it wasn’t true. He would not go to hell. God knew the kindness of his heart, and would never allow such a kind soul to descend to the pit.

She asked him if he would like to talk to the priest they had both met before. He said yes, he would, and he seemed comforted by the suggestion. She said she would get the priest to come and see him.

After a few more moments that I will leave private, he thanked her for remembering him, for answering his call, and said, “I think I can sleep now.”

Before leaving home, someone had asked her why she had to go see this guy. “Because,” she said, “he’s my friend. He looked after me and protected me, and now he needs me.” It wasn’t about owing him or feeling obligated; it was love that drove this extraordinary woman to go. And nothing on this earth is more powerful than love.

This truly heartbreaking story is also a reminder to us all that no act of kindness, no show of friendship and loyalty ever goes unnoticed by God or under-appreciated by those we give the kindness to. We were given a command: love each other. When we fail, things happen that hurt. When we do it, the world is better for it. You and I may not feel it, but I know it’s the truth.

Have a great week, and God bless.

Death Is A Cruel Transient

It goes where it will, never resting, never needing sustenance except for the one thing it does to those left behind. Life is taken by Death; it is the one true constant in our world. Grieving souls feed its cruel appetite.

It loves the pain and after it takes away from us, we never forget that our time too will come.

I’ve written about death here, and it always hurts me. There is no value in keeping pain to oneself; doing so makes everything worse.

Yet letting it out has often led me to question the value it holds as well. Does anyone read, do they hear the words of the grief-stricken people left behind? Do the wails and sobs fall to deaf ears?

The true story is always going to end in tragedy. If we admit to being mortal, that is. Fictional heroes that never die are written about all the time and always have been. Those mighty men of old who did pass on always seemed to do it on their own terms, with courage and honor.

Literature does what it is intended to do; it distracts, entertains and allows us the occasional dream.

And if it is true that cheating Death is a staple of yarns old and new, I must point out that the opposite is also true. Death cannot, in the end, be avoided after all. We have long loved the sad tale too, the last words spoken, the final kiss, the closing of the eyes forever. To deny this is to deny our humanity. We love the comedic and the noble tale, but a good tragedy, yes, we open our arms and beg for them.

I can’t remember the grade I was in. Fourth or Fifth. An announcement over the PA system before the school secretary announced bus numbers assigned everyone at Bodkin Elementary to watch a made for TV film that night. We weren’t to be given marks on it, but the principal wanted us to watch it.

I didn’t know what I was in for. Brian’s Song was about the last two seasons of NFL football played by Brian Piccolo of the Chicago Bears. It was about his unlikely friendship with Gale Sayers, his roommate, who was African American. It was about their closeness and Piccolo’s diagnosis of cancer, the useless treatment that followed, and his death.

Although the main actors, James Caan and Billy Dee Williams, looked nothing like Piccolo and Sayers, the screenplay was well written and the entire cast knew what they were doing. The music and the acting combined to form a tear-jerker I’ve never been able to forget. I’d seen screen deaths before, but I cried my eyes dry that night. The saddest part was that I didn’t cry at all when real death struck a couple of years later. My paternal grandfather passed in 1976 from cancer. I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral but even if I had, I may not have cried very much. Oh, I loved him. It just felt remote and he’d lived two states away. I’ll bet I could count the number of times we had visits on my fingers.

Over the years, Death crept closer. My grandmother was a harsh loss. I had adored her. Then I got married and had two children. Neither one lived to celebrate their 30th birthday. Death comes as it will, for whom it will. Angels and doctors cannot stop that.

COVID has given so many of us that harsh lesson. Death still stalks the world armed with it; vaccines and masks help, but the weapon remains deadly. How many have had to say their final farewell to an intubated loved one by a video connection? The meanest deaths accompanied by a cruel lingering vision the survivors are inflicted with.

Recently I’ve been as many people have been, out of the loop, unaware that certain parts of life had resumed, missing things that I’m either happy to have missed or very disappointed that I did.

I used to be a dedicated fan of the crime procedural NCIS, but when COVID hit, everything shut down. I wasn’t aware of the show going back into production.

I was aware of the story arc in which Tobias Fornell’s daughter had gotten into street drugs. This season, Emily died of an overdose. NCIS has never shied away from death. The team investigates death almost every week. Cast members have had their characters killed off since the end of season two. Sasha Alexander was first. Kate’s death is still complained about to this day. Mike Franks was killed by the Port-to-Port killer at the end of season eight. His ghost showed up a lot and even grew a beard, but that’s okay; the show had already jumped the Shark so many times that few people even noticed. Recurring characters get the worst of it, though. Director Jenny Shepherd was killed offscreen, opening the door for Leon Vance. But the recurring cast, sometimes their exits hurt us the most. The death of Fornell’s daughter Emily was occasioned by serious viewer outrage. They cried foul and called it unnecessary. Mainly because we had sort of watched Emily grow up and partly because earlier this season, ME Jimmy Palmer lost his wife Breena to COVID. Everyone loved Breena, beautiful, sentimental and strong, and during the continuing epidemic, we question why she had to go that way.

I’m glad I missed those episodes, but I know I eventually will have to see them. When Emily is found dead, Gibbs finds out by getting a phone call.

That is exactly how I learned of my son’s overdose and death: a bloody phone call.

That day, February 14, 2018, and the day my daughter was removed from life support, July 5, 2012 are the absolute worst days of my miserable life. Death had come for them and left behind something I don’t like when I look into a mirror. Not that I ever really liked myself much anyway. But since 2018, the mirror shows me the worst of humanity: a failure at everything, the worst of all being a parent. I was supposed to go way before them. They should be here. They should be here!

What’s left? What are we supposed to do now that those whom you and I loved so much are gone?

I’m glad that tragedy is dealt with in our culture, whether in literature, film, television or documentary. Without the tears we shed for others and ourselves, we would never be able to see, to learn, to grow stronger, to pass on what we know. As a species, we cope with loss the same way even if different religions and cultures have their boundaries and rules. We cry, we ache inside, we scream to the heavens that it isn’t fair, it isn’t right, and we demand to know what is the point of it all if Death steals away with our own children.

Death is a cruel transient, stalking, ever stalking. Seeking the weak and strong alike, and it makes no difference how good or bad a person is, or how old they are.

As I’ve been mentioning, I’m doing an epic playthrough of an epic game on the PS4: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. It could be the greatest game ever made. I’m over 400 hours into it, which would make hardcore gamers laugh at me. Nobody takes that long to finish a game, right?

But the story is indeed epic and there are two DLCs to add to it. They’re worth it. I didn’t buy the game because I wanted it to be over in a few days. I knew it was deep and that I’d want to wring everything out of it that I could.

It deals at times with untimely death, which the ancient world knew better than we do. A child is killed early in the game, and it did get to me. There are definitely triggers in Odyssey, but right now my character is stuck in the Underworld, in Hades. It’s a horrible place, rendered so well that suggestion makes you catch yourself having trouble breathing, as if hot ashes were really getting into your lungs.

The worst thing is that you constantly hear babies crying. Not in hunger or pain; every parent learns that there’s a difference. And those can be soothed and the crying made to cease. These cries are of terror and torment. I could tell when my kids were babies if they cried out of fear. They might have had a bad dream. They may have been scared by sensing that they were alone. But you learn the sound, and hours of cuddling later, they’re fine. These cries get to me. They distract, they trigger memories, they fill me with hopeless pity. Who the hell recorded this?

I don’t believe babies get sent to Hades, or Hell. Never could I believe anything so cruel and unjust as that.

Death makes us all think about an afterlife whether we want to admit it or not. In the end it just leaves us with broken hearts. Pain enough to last until our time comes.

We can console and we can pity the survivors, and we always should.

Those I pity the most, however, are all those who refuse to or are incapable of love. They cannot feel the sting of a broken heart. The pangs of first love. The horror of their baby crying in the night but refusing the teat or bottle. To know something is wrong but to be helpless before that something.

It isn’t our intelligence that makes us human. Grief, fear, the emptiness of loss…those are proof that we have loved freely. That is what truly defines us.

One Time, I Helped A Neighbor Change A Tire…

People are travelling for the Christmas holiday. They do this against the advice of experts, doctors and their local officials. They are lonely and don’t want to be lonely on Christmas. After being lonely for most of this year, I understand the feeling. It can be a sad thing to feel like you’re alone. Sometimes people who are alone hurt themselves and I understand that too, because I’ve done things to hurt myself. Bad things, bad enough to die. I don’t like it when people feel so alone and sad that they hurt themselves, sometimes not ever living another day because of it. It’s sad and I can’t help. That’s another bad feeling. Being unable to help someone who is in danger. Who just needs someone to make them see that they’re priceless and can’t be replaced.

But there have been times, too few, I fear, when I did help someone. Sometimes we help but we don’t know what happens after that. Sometimes I think about them, and I hope they’re okay. I hope that they are happy.

What really does happen after we’ve helped another person?

Only they and God can know that. We don’t. All we get is the feeling, which never seems to last long enough, a feeling that feels nice. It comes from neurotransmitters that hook up with things called “receptors” in our brains. These cells get to soak in dopamine and serotonin and give almost a “high” of goodness. Better than any drug, at least to me.

One day in early 1981, a neighbor in the apartment next to mine was trying to change a tire, and I felt sorry for her. She obviously needed help. So I changed the flat for her spare, put away the jack and lug wrench and she thanked me and I hurried back inside.

Because I wasn’t really as nice as I should have been. She was not pretty but we were both single and I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea.

Sometimes, at night, I used to hear her crying. She must have been very lonely. I felt sympathy for her. But I avoided her.

A kind word, a simple greeting, could have helped to make her feel better, but I didn’t want to do those things. Looking back, it shames me. Maybe I always felt ashamed because that was a long time ago, but I can’t forget that. I hope she found someone to love who would love her back. I hope she’s still out there, that she’s happy and healthy.

I’ve never really regretted being nice to or for helping someone. I’ve very often regretted turning my back on someone in need. Or being very mean to others. That wasn’t part of my soul. It was because I was hurt and I was very sick. My help had meant nothing.

One time I was in my father’s dispatch room routing deliveries. It was very early. A young man came in from the parking lot with flowers in one hand. He began to speak with a lisp and asked if anyone would like to buy flowers. At the time, Moonies were still around and that means he could have been in a cult. I didn’t like Moonies or their leader, a fake “reverend”, and I was mad that he was in there. I was also a conservative and had a problem with the stereotypical mincing, lisping man who must have gotten up very early to try to sell flowers just so he could eat. I yelled at him, “Get the fuck out of here!”

He was shocked, probably as much at the implied violence in my tone as by what I said. He stammered, frozen. I stood up and walked toward him and this time shouted something even worse. The truck drivers were also shocked. It wasn’t the me they knew. It scared them. When the young man fled through the door a couple of them asked weakly, “Why’d you do that, Mike?”

I said something about the guy that was so awful that I’m not going to say what it was.

To this day I regret the words. It would have taken seconds to hand him some currency and take a flower. But my hatred and bigotry prevented it. I gave full control to that hatred and bigotry and it haunts me still.

One time I saw an older black man outside the supermarket just opposite a liquor store. He asked for some spare cash. I could see in his face–on his face–why he had asked. He needed a drink or he was going to drop. If he made it to the hospital alive, I knew they would give him small doses of liquor. If he didn’t get it he could die.

I did not judge him for being an alcoholic. Or black. Or asking for what he needed. I gave him fifteen dollars, which came close to cleaning me out, but it was plenty for a pint. I never saw him again but I remember the tears of gratitude in his eyes as he thanked me and said, “God bless you.”

I’ll never forget it. That…was a good day for me. Did I help him to live another day? Probably. But he wouldn’t live much longer and I knew it. That hurts. He was a good man, I could tell. He was just as nice to me before he got the money as he was after. I recognize gratitude when I see it.

One day I ate a meal in McDonald’s and was going toward the trash can on my way out. A woman with a child beside her came in, and of all the people in the lobby, she walked straight to me. She had even more kids in the car as well as an elderly man. I believed that they lived in that car. She asked if I could help feed her kids. I had no cash but told her to order what she needed. It was strange. She ordered a lot of food. The total cost was 19 dollars and change and I swiped my card. I left but as I turned around she said “thank you” but returned her gaze quickly to the people getting the order together. She was starving. I had gladly helped, but I oftentimes have thought about her. I put a band-aid on a gash and felt good about it. I don’t feel very good about it now. I hope she got help. I hope they have a roof over their heads, pillows to lay their heads on, and full stomachs.

The misery in this world can swallow you alive. And I’m very grateful for the people who taught me these many years that cruelty is evil, compassion divine, and all we have to do to learn the difference is to make mistakes, usually emotional ones. Mistakes that haunt me helped to keep me from turning into a monster; which is what I once was becoming. I’d been so unloved, so demeaned and so violated that I began to fear everything, hate everyone and I had no idea why I felt so much awfulness all the time.

But feeling worse when I hurt someone never left me. And sometimes good people crossed my path and taught me how satisfying it was to be treated with kindness, liked for who I was in times that I needed it most. God knew that I was hurt. He knew how angry I was. How sick I was. He never reached down from heaven and cured me, but he gave me the miracle of being able to learn in spite of the things standing in my way. To learn what to do with the better part of ourselves is a true miracle, a gift. The kind of gift we can share with each other.

One very important way we can do that is to not travel this Christmas. Stay at home, do video calls, and avoid putting family and friends at risk for Covid. It will hurt you for the rest of your life if one of them died and you think you may be the one who made them sick. Ask yourself if it’s really worth the risk when you could wait and everyone can celebrate next year, happy, healthy and whole. Ask your higher power what’s right.

I love and appreciate my followers and my friends. This morning I got to help some of my friends work through a problem. Maggie had her phone freeze on her and didn’t know what to do. I texted her daughter while she used Messenger on her tablet. I merely acted as a go-between but it was very touching to see this family of three come together to solve a problem. They are truly a close family and I’m so blessed to know them. They live in New York but are all far apart. Even if they weren’t, they will not be getting together on Christmas. As a close family I can see that this makes them very sad. But they love each other so much that they refuse to put each other at risk.

That’s love.

That’s caring and compassion.

That’s sacrifice.

They set examples for me even when they don’t know it. They are some of the people who shaped what I am and made me think back on mistakes and learn from them. Every day I learn from them. Every day I love them more.

Be a family like their family.

Stay safe, and may God be with you in your lonely times.

Like A Blind Man In A Chess Tournament

Science likes to play with our heads. You know that, right? It tells its students shitty things that they then must pass on to us, the little people. The uneducated, unsophisticated, the workers who have no time or will to do their kind of legwork. So we do weird things in turn, mocking everything they say and dismissing it all out of hand.

Memories, they say, are unreliable. On that single premise of something that is really far more complicated and much more deep, courts of law have believed or disbelieved, and it’s always been a problem, but now, much worse. If a witness for the state can be taken apart sufficiently to cast reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury, a guilty rapist or killer goes free. Or an innocent man goes to his death because doubts as to the memories of defense witnesses have been used with great success.

One night I went somewhere with a friend. I cannot remember the year but I can place it in the autumn or winter for certain. It was 1974, or 1975. A dark night I can never fully remember or forget, nor will I dishonestly fill in the blanks. There are names I remember but will not use. It’s just because somewhere in this dissipated soul of mine, I keep finding something good that won’t let me do certain things. I won’t say I’m a good person. I just have my limits.

What prompted me to open with a few observations about memories and science is that this night haunted me for years. And, I suppose, if I’m writing about it now, the haunting continues.

All I can tell you is, a close friend in my neighborhood had a big brother. Not blood; a volunteer from some non-profit organization called Big Brothers. The volunteers were given a young man who had no father in his life, paired with him on the goal of mentorship. It was a time when we had naive and altruistic idiots who worked for free to get brownie points for college education and credits.

This one cold night, I was invited by my friend to go along with him and his big brother to a weenie roast. Some place called Benfield Park. I don’t know if that was a real name. It was in Benfield, near Severna Park. If such a park existed then it’s had a name change, or, more likely, been bulldozed for the Interstate 97 freeway, or the fucking business parks that are a blight to once peaceful and green suburban hoods or forest land. Either way, no such park exists today. Have to admit that I did at least check before writing this; such a horrible night deserves to be researched, as I would hate to disappoint any sensitive fucker out there with letters behind their fucking name. That’s not a nice thing to do, and besides, I’m already ceding to their demands by admitting this night is a brief fragment of memories broken with blanks between them.

I don’t know what I was thinking. Perhaps it was autumn, not winter, because my mother would never have allowed me out without a coat if she’d known how cold it was going to be. But I had nothing but T-shirt and jeans. And in the dark, I sat on the top of a picnic table, feet on its bench. Cold and shivering, pissed because people I did not know were there, and in a situation like that, I didn’t function well. I said nothing and I did nothing. And I shivered. My teeth clattered. And I was full of fear, full of anger. I did ask to go home. I was ignored. Now, hate filled my soul. In the darkest of nights. In the bitter cold.

The truth is that even had I worn a ski parka, I’d still have wanted to go home. These people alternately ignored me or looked at me like I was some fucking idiot, and when, finally, the big brother decided it was too cold to remain there, he drove us to some house. I supposed he lived there. It was bright and warm. I was more pissed, felt like a prisoner, because that meant I wasn’t going home anytime soon. Someone popped some popcorn. They didn’t have that carcinoma-inducing microwave shit from Conagra back then, and I didn’t care for any no matter what. I wanted away from all these people I didn’t know. And I don’t remember when I finally did go home.

You can do all the Psych 101 you want, but would you mind me saving you the trouble? You take a sheltered, controlled, abused kid and without warning throw him into a situation like that, and you’ll get nothing good from it. I was too dysfunctional. Too traumatized. Too fucked up. And no matter how traumatic that night was or wasn’t, I never forgave. I never forgot. And if the story ended there, I’d really like it; I’d be happy to to leave it alone.

But none of my stories ever end well. In North Shore on the Magothy, the uppity neighborhood I grew up in, I never forgave. I never completely forgot. The back yard where I’d once played with plastic soldiers and dinosaurs and steel Tonka trucks, unaware that the fucking neighbors all let their cats out at night and I was sitting in a litter box, was landscaped, an in-the-ground pool was put in, and grass was finally grown. It was prettier, but still Hell. The neighborhood became a place of hell even outside of my yard. The bullying at school went on and on. Bullying in my neighborhood was replaced by avoidance. My friend with the big brother was the last I would ever have there.

Once my anger could no longer be contained, when calling the Mr. Softee man’s sexual habits into question no longer provided an outlet, I embarked on a mission of revenge. My favored method was property damage. Vandalism. Hit people back in their wallets. But somehow I always fucked up. I was seen. And that frustrated me more because you can guess how my father reacted. In a state of frustrated anger, it’s a bad idea to even leave your bedroom much less the fucking house. At my friend-with-the-big-brother’s house I stood and threw a rock through the plate glass patio door of a house occupied by a family I hated for no particular reason. He told on me. The neighbor came round to my house one night telling my father to fork over half a grand to pay for the door. If I had dared speak, I’d have called bullshit on the amount. I got called to the porch, my father asked if I’d done it. I said no. I blamed my friend, who of course ratted on me. That didn’t sit well with the neighbor, but my father didn’t like that fucker anyway. He was adamant. He told the guy to get off his porch and never set foot on it again. Or else.

Inside, my father did a funny thing: he failed to question me even once as to my guilt. My father never brought it up again. And he was like that, and he may have been a monster and he may have fucked me up for life, but when it came to defending me against another person, he fucking took up for me and he never left a doubt that if they persisted he was going to throw down. I’m grateful for that.

Still, the story goes on. I never saw my friend with the big brother again. But life is a real motherfucker. I did run into the big brother again.

Two years passed. He shows up at my church, and he’s my Sunday school teacher. And I grew to like him. That’s absolutely ridiculous. Soon he finished God college, became a pastor, moved away.

Stories like this, you know, can’t end there. He left his church on the Maryland Eastern Shore, came back to his old home, became the pastor of a church near Millersville, north of Severna Park, where I’d spent that night freezing in some park that no longer exists. I passed the church one time and saw his name on the sign. I stopped in to see him. He was, I imagined, an old friend.

He was a kind and decent man. But I was by then no longer a minor. I had a stormy relationship with a girl I used for sex and affection, because I didn’t know what to do. I was lonelier than most. More terrified, more haunted than most. I didn’t want to be alone. Somehow, she loved me. She wanted me to be better. She really cared. One day we were in my car and a song that was still hot came on.

“Listen to this. It’s you,” she said.

“You see the world through your cynical eyes,

You’re a troubled young man I can tell
You’ve got it all in the palm of your hand
But your hand’s wet with sweat and your head needs a rest

And you’re fooling yourself if you don’t believe it
You’re kidding yourself if you don’t believe it

Why must you be such an angry young man
When your future looks quite bright to me
How can there be such a sinister plan
That could hide such a lamb, such a caring young man

You’re fooling yourself if you don’t believe it
You’re kidding yourself if you don’t believe it
Get up, get back on your feet
You’re the one they can’t beat and you know it.”

And she was right. She loved me. Enough to have watched me go through inner pain and let it out in anger. Enough to see me in the lyrics of a song by Styxx released a year earlier. We had great sex. We loved kissing and holding hands and going to movies and watching Saturday Night Live. But I don’t believe I was capable of loving her. At least, not in a healthy way. The relationship was doomed.

She asked me to seek help. If I didn’t change, she knew she couldn’t have me. I went to the pastor who used to be my friend’s big brother. I trusted him to do things that couldn’t be done.

In the end, even he grew frustrated with me. He drove me to Crownsville State Hospital so I could commit myself. It was a betrayal I never forgave. He drove away and left me. I hated him. And if the song by Styxx applied, then it was incomplete; I was worse off than that. I never saw my girlfriend again. Never saw the pastor again. I’ll never trust a pastor ever again, either, and I won’t even go to a church for a fucking wedding.

I left them behind. I didn’t know what I was doing; I was surviving but without any idea how to survive, like a blind man playing chess. It can be done with a computer these days, if the player can remember where every piece is on the board. And memory, that’s a transient and mischievous thing.

If you were shown a Fibonacci series of 50 numbers on a paper, and given seconds to see it, could you remember it one second later and repeat it? Of course you couldn’t. But a mathematics professor could, because a few remembered numbers at the beginning would tell them what comes next. They would know.

But if you go wading into the poison of the internet, memory is often discussed as infallible. The most notorious example is the Mandela effect. People swear Nelson Mandela died in prison and that they remember it clearly. But he didn’t. They remember a different spelling for the cartoon series “Looney Tunes” and swear the Berenstain Bears children’s books used to be the “Bernstein Bears”, and that some inter-dimensional event occurred which deposited us in a parallel world.

People believe strange shit, while ignoring established facts, empirical scientific data. Climate change is an imminent threat, but people still claim that it’s either a lie or a natural phenomenon. I’ll get a lot of satisfaction if I live to see waterfront property sunk like fucking Atlantis; I’ll watch the news and roll over laughing as the rich fuck themselves and realize it too late, because I’m an asshole and that’s what I’d do.

It’s amazing, though, that science questions the reliability of memories, yet those memories are often cemented forever by unlikely chains of events we couldn’t see coming even if we were especially gifted with precognition. I judiciously contemplate my memories. I do. My mission here is to let you see me as I was, as I am. To be as vulnerable and honest as can be. Hopefully you learn, and never wind up like me. Hopefully you see something in yourself that you can change. If you want help and you need it, go find it. Don’t be like me. It’s okay to ask for help. It wasn’t when I was young.

These days it’s hard to muck out what’s going on. We’re in an existential crisis as a country and a species. Lies surround us like a Dolby system. Our lives depend on many things. I’m not optimistic. I’m still cynical. Still doubtful. I see evil everywhere.

But if I can give you hope, then today I choose to say this: the death of an American legend always hits us hard. That’s because we have the amazing capacity of love and deep despair. If there can be no appreciation of the light without the darkness we all face, then I give you the shocking and heartbreaking loss of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna this past weekend. I see people mourning. Honoring him with shot clock violations, wearing his jerseys, leaving mementos at an impromptu memorial outside Staples Center. I see people from all walks of life in grief, sharing memories. Shedding tears. Heartbroken, devastated. You know, as hard as it is to even think about, people are showing us all what makes humanity better than racists and other evil people make us believe we are. There is hope. There is. As long as we can love and grieve such a loss, we can overcome any evil.

And don’t worry so much about memories; I believe that there’s a good reason for their capricious nature. We don’t remember everything wrongly, mistakenly. Some details may become obscure or muddled, but so long as we’re honest, it doesn’t matter. If you’re asked a question you can’t answer, then do not try to. We’re all just surviving. Nowadays that’s hard enough.

And yes. Blind people do play chess.

And yes, they’ll kick your ass.