I want a fuckin JOB. My last work day was July 1, 2002. I was suckered out to LA (CA, not NO) to take the fall on a project a few months ago. It worked; they fired me. The plan was for me to get settled in the job, get an apt, then start looking for a house. We've got equity, and downsizing - well, since the wife fell all the way down the stairs and we couldn't afford the ER, she's kinda down on stairs, so to speak. I used to be pretty comfortable - my mortgage is less than a Bimmer payment here - good reserves in the bank, college no problem and somehow retirement would work out. Besides, you don't really want to do nothing all day, do you? Well, yes, motherfucker, I sure as hell do! I wanta drink some coldies and shoot up some TVs like Elvis if I want to.
I want a shitty-looking primered Chevelle with a fully built crate motor, supercharged, AND running nitrous at 2X - just ease up next to the local teenies in their SUVs and knock 'em over with 800 HP blasting through the pipes. A sleeper. A Q-ship. And, if the old lady kicks before me, I'm gonna do every damn drug that I used to, and we'll just see about this, ooooh, look out, this pot is 2000 times stronger than when you were a kid. Well, it sure as shit is 2000 times more expensive pal, so let's make that ounce RIGHTEOUS, comprende? We'll see who can take that ride.
Is this political speech or just a rant? There's a point. I'll get there. A "young woman" as they say, 21? was the first Air Force female casualty in Iraq and I am about to go Hulk I am so mad. I can literally spit - what kind of reflex is that shit for?? What happens is it brings up the feelings of helplessness (it happened Wednesday, no chance for me to jump between her and the bomb) and hopelessness (what can I do but type?) I experience at times when my brother's murder once again steals up from the shadows and shows me the video loop of the stabbing over and over only now I can see more details, the blood as it flies, stuff you don't want to know and I'll inflict on my therapist. I can see it, but I can't reach in and touch it, change it, undo it - nothing. I am sitting on the couch watching him die as if it's a TV show on a flickering Dumont. I am in Hell.
I am 1,980 miles from the Detroit airport - Northwest spiffed it up, whole new terminal before they went bankrupt. I've got enough frequent flyer miles for two round trips. My wife is very depressed. She is so depressed, she can barely move at times. She has had many times when it was "all she could do" to drive for 15 minutes. It is a deeply embedded depression that is manifested physically. Every drug known to man has been investigated and tried in combination on her by one of the foremost depression specialists in the country. He has a constantly updated database of meds, to crossmatch for side effects - cool! Nothing works. Her weight has doubled, and God help me, but I do not find her attractive now. I love her, I would die for her, but this change came on so fast, it's a shock every time I go home. My weight is much worse; I am 6'2", but even that can't hide 300+ pounds. I don't see how she can see through to the inner me, when I am so blind.
I am in serious trouble, health-wise. My depression meds aren't doing a hell of a lot, and my right hand is starting to cramp and go numb. I went to a clinic in Santa Monica that my GP recommended (do you get the feeling that we pay a lot in medical expenses?), and it was really nice. Pretty girls happy to see me, back massage, workout on the LifeCycle (you're up to 10?! Hell ya, used to ride in the mountains, upstate NY; my legs always come back) and get some nice heat treatments. Except that the jelly that they used to wire my muscles for some elctrostimulation cost $30. Each time. The shitty COBRA package only covered 12 visits anyway.
My wife cannot work. She tried, because she feels that she's not contributing, but she does actually get Medicare and a monthly payment for her and my son. She is 100% disabled. The rule is, you can try going back into the workforce and make a certain amount of money and still be eligible for benefits if you can't work normally. At her salary, it would have been about 6 months. She lasted 6 weeks under a miserable harpy of a boss, filled out the forms to report her income, sent it to IRS. And then a letter came from them saying that she had been "anonymously reported" for not declaring income. Short: the letter gives an Alabama IRS number, and is signed by someone who does not exist in the IRS phone bank. She thinks it may have been one of her friends, a "borderline" who's 52 years old and dresses like Serena the witch. She is bizarre, and describes in detail to anyone who'll listen the utter lack of sex in her life. She had been raped as a teenager, then went on a sport fucking binge for a couple of decades. Her parents were upper middle class, which meant a new Cadillac every year, and steak for dinner every night. Their finances are literally stretched to the breaking point - one paycheck missed, and the mortgage is in jeopardy. And the husband doesn't like his new job because he can't play nerf ball. Yow.
My son has ADHD. With drugs, he was able to keep it together in middle school. In fact, he was awarded a Presidential plaque, with his name misspelled, for scholarship and "moral values." I know what you're thinking; what kind of an idiot would ...? Listen: Option One - City Middle School. Gangs, real ones, knives, sex in the basement, drugs of course. Option Two - Charter School. Clean, new, all the teachers poor Southern women, it seemed, with that too-scrubbed look of the totally repressed Christian wife. No buses, so 350 cars, with a gross tonnage approaching the Atlantic Fleet in WW II judging by all the Suburbans and wannabees (hey, I want the one that Harrison Ford got blown up in, and that's it, goddamnit!) lined up every day. My little Acura appeared to be squinching its eyes and holding its nose, and I wouldn't blame it.
But he needed extra help, and my wife made sure all the proper paperwork was handled. He had to be taken out of regular class sometimes, and he hated it, but it was necessary. No kid wants to be "different." I'm sure he was teased about it. I know he was called a "greedy Jew" by one kid who my wife instinctively spotted as trouble. He looked a little shaggier than most to me, and his old man favored camo - not a good sign, but I wasn't going to be quick to condemn. Well, I am now. You are either WITH ME or AGIN ME. CHOOSE, MOTHERFUCKER. "Adaptive behavior, professor, I don't like the looks of this." "Pfeh - chust anudda monky."
"We don't speak about Iraq" the teacher told me. "Why?" I dumbly asked. "Well, some of us have people there, so we just don't talk about it." The US flag was at half staff at least 3 times when I picked Adam up. Oh. Fucking. Shit. Someone just got a daddy in a box.. Once, it was the husband of a teacher. She collapsed and never came back. And by order of Jennifer Granholm, the only governor I would fantasize mad sex with, the state flag came down when any Michigan serviceman or woman was killed. I know the intent and the tradition, but God, I wish I could have seen that flag up just a little more often. Helpless, and after 2004, hopeless. I stared down one little motherfucker in a Jeep with the paramilitary whip antenna in that parking lot because of my Kerry sticker, which I still keep on just for spite, even driving through Texas. He may have been trained, but I was primed. It's a male thing; you just project that I will not stop until I rip out your throat look, kind of level, steady gaze. Maybe we should just sniff assholes, like dogs - or Rove&Gannon. When someone with PTSD says, "I could kill right now," believe it. I came very close once, when I was nearly rammed broadside.
The school was safe, no drugs, we always knew where our son was because we drove him ourselves. It was a little on the harsh side; some offenses would get you a "silent lunch." You ate lunch in class because they couldn't afford a lunchroom; silent lunch meant no talking. By his last year, 8th, he was doing well, but was also able to blow off stuff like Saxophone, which now he has to practice, and that cuts into his killing time - killing aliens, of course. He saw me break down just once, just uncontrollable sobs and crying, and it scared him; I'm so big and he was just 5. We hadn't talked much about my brother except that he was not going to be able to come back. "He didn't get to say goodbye?" No. No, Adam he didn't, but he loved you very much. And that's a lie. He never said a word about his nephew, at least not to me. Because Adam's Jewish? I'll never know. For some reason my wife, a trained and I would say gifted therapist, told him about the stabbing, that it was multiple wounds. Yeah. Remember "Psycho"? Speed up the stabbing motions 10x, and make the knife a screwdriver. If he asks me some time in the future for details, I will go step by step to see just how far he wants to take this, because this is something you never ever put on people you love. I would dump it on Dick Cheney and all the neoCon bastards seeking to ruin our lives and our country just as fast as their greedy mouths can gobble in a heartbeat (joke). But they are immune. What do you have to go through to become immune to sending men and women to their deaths?
He's entered high school and is now unraveling. He's like me - a "genius" IQ (don't laugh, it was all I had for many years) but lacking in discipline, to put it mildly. He thinks he has to go to Harvard for a combined MBA/JD, to get a Ferrari. And I thought I had to be not just a literary critic, but a grand interpreter. It would be "trffic" as they said on campus to be a raconteur like Hugh Kenner, but I had a shortcut. I cracked the code, baby. I cracked the code on Edgar Allan Poe, and it is so simple you would not believe it. But I'm keeping it, for a while longer. So far, I've kept it 25 years. So I dreamed, smoked dope, and then froze on my qualifying exams, absolutely froze. And I didn't get a do-over. Fuck yer code, son. You're not meant for the Big Leagues. Ironically, I could have stayed at my state university, having already qualified, but I had to get out of town.
I see the same pattern forming in my son, and it is one of my worst fears. I know I have to be with him as much as I can but I can't live there with no job. Michigan is either dying or dead, depending on how optimistic you feel. Cheap housing/no money to pay. All I can do, and stay solvent, is work my ass off here (no job yet) and try to work through agents to get one of the few jobs in Michigan. I don't think we would do very well in a condo. I share a condo with a Black guy from Montreal, nice enough, but always has his eye on the calendar for my half of the rent. He's quite studly, though, shaved head, gold earring, and a 40-lb container of PowerMaxx or some such shit. It must work, because he brings home women of all shapes, sizes and colors and fucks the living hell out of them. He is either hung like a horse (there are several Lexington Steele movies on his PC), has mapped the G-spot to a millimeter, or both, because they all, EVERY ONE comes to a throbbing, moaning, wobbling, SCREAMING orgasm. Sometimes in layers, like plateaus. What have I got? Internet porn. On fuckin dial-up.
The dog, a golden retriever I named Proudfoot Avenger because it was the WASP-iest snootiest fuck you I am so rich name I could think of, aka Ruff, may have a brain tumor. Drugs for seizures working ok now. The vet said, well, we could do an MRI to be sure, but it's $1200 and we couldn't do anything anyway. My son has grown up with that dog in his bed. And I had to be the Dad and tell him why I might have to kill his dog. We have the pet cemetery and procedure down, just in case. He's nine, and they say the big breeds don't last very long, which I wish someone had told me before I paid $500 to a breeder my wife insisted was the only one to use. What the hell, it's only money, and he's obviously from champion stock - because he looks like every other fucking golden retriever on the planet, thank you very much, Arlene. Business is good, and except for occasional runs down to Florida at the state's expense while I put in an appearance every goddamn minute that little fuck was in view in court, hey not bad. I was workin the Al-Anon steps, I prayed only for God to do what he would, and voila, God spared the bastard's life. But not my brother's. Mysterious ways, Old Fuck, you and I should talk about those mysterious ways. Let me put it to you Old Fuck, that maybe you make mistakes sometimes. And I'm not much, Mister, but I'm here and James isn't so you give him back. Give him back. Please give him back. But You don't. You never do, and I always capitalize Him and You like a good boy and you never show. I know. No do-overs.
Well. A once-proud intellect shattered in an LA condo with two pools and a 5 foot plasma with Tivo. Not to mention the most-stolen car in America! Stolen most often in - LA! Good thing I got the "bad" parking spot on the roof, `cause they hit ole Studley underground. You know, they sell Dewar's in gallon jugs here for $33? That and a case of whatever's on sale at Ralph's oughta get me through the night. Hey - are you a guy? Maybe 30-35 years old? Watch what happens over the next decade as you slowly become invisible. No, Ralph Ellison's got nuthin on you, because almost everyone will start to call you sir, and the girls at the checkout counter won't look into your eyes. In fact, the girl at Ralph's handed me a Senior Discount card automatically. What the? Hey, 17% off, OK, Sis, it's a deal. I probably look like Santa Claus to her. Note to self: how to get sex as Santa Claus? Kidding! I kid! I'm a joker, I'm a verfluchte is what I am, you shouldn't know such filthy words, you.
But please, Old Fuck, you bastard who's shot me with 52 steaming arrows, if you can't give me Jim back, keep Adam safe. Don't let them kill Obama, because I swear Old Man, you have pushed me too fucking far too many times and if that happens, all bets are OFF. We are talking violence in the streets - I'm just on the fringe, the flames are coming over the ridgeline now. Others will follow.
"Well, Jack, I just don't know. It's really all over the place."
"I'm bleeding for you, asshole! What more do you want?"
"There's just no central theme."
"'Central theme'? What is this, seventh grade? You know, I wrote a book report in seventh grade and the teacher didn't like it. You know why?"
"OK, why..."
"'Too bookish', she said. And at that very moment in Vietnam, Gary Fawcett took a VC mortar right in his gut, just exploded, well, everything."
"All right, now that's the kinda shit I'm talking about. You didn't know Gary Fawcett, you knew Bradley Fawcett, the little guy who got shoved into lockers and had a cat that could turn on a water faucet. His brother got killed and you don't know exactly when, where, or how."
"I know his name's on the wall. I touched it. Why can't I find it online? It's in the Big Book there. That's how I found his sector."
"OK, now, let's go a little slower. How long have you been up?"
"I don't know."
"Have you eaten?"
"Oatmeal."
"That's it? Oatmeal? We last talked on Thursday, remember?"
"Not really. Eggs."
"Eggs?"
"I ate some eggs. WHERE IS GARY FAWCETT? What did they do with Gary Fawcett?"
"Jack, there's a lot of hits on Gary Fawcett. It's you."
"Whaddya mean, `it's you' Mr. Brentwood Crewneck Sweater?"
"They're all by you, posting about this Gary Fawcett."
"I TOUCHED IT. I CRIED. MY WIFE WAS THERE. HE'S ON THE WALL, ASSHOLE!"
"OK, now, little less tempo here, just sit back and think. Just be calm. Did you ever see Gary Fawcett in person?"
"Well, shit, I saw his little brother everyday. He talked about him."
"Did you ever see Gary Fawcett in person?"
"No, I did not see Gary Fawcett in person."
"Do you know anyone else who would have known Gary Fawcett?"
"Well, no, he was 2 or 3 grades higher. OK, no. But don't tell me he's not real."
"I'm not saying he is or isn't real now. We're just exploring what you know for sure when you knew Bradley."
"This isn't going to work, you know. We'll see who's real or not. I'm gonna find Bradley. I've got triple prescriptions here, y'know. I'll bet any three of these combined with that Dewar's would put me under. Fuck Dewar's, I want some Highland Park."
"OK now -"
"Do you know how often you start your sentences with `OK now'?"
I'm out. I'm out, damnit, I need some ammo. Where the fuck is the ammo man?
Sarge, he's dead.
HE IS NOT DEAD MOTHERFUCKER AND WE WILL EMERGE ALIVE!!