My wayward son.
I could protect him from the world most of the time, but I've never been able to protect him from himself. He had better things to do by the time he was two, and he ran off to do them on every available occasion. One fine morning, while I was in the shower, he crawled out the bedroom window wearing nothing but yellow potty-training pants. I spent a half hour screaming for him and peering into parked cars and trash dumpsters, bracing myself for the worst possible sight. The neighbors later told me they'd never heard a more desperate woman calling out to her child. The police found him at the YMCA two blocks away standing on a stool playing an arcade game.
When Mom and Poppy came over to build bunk beds for the boys, Jacob managed to break his arm jumping off the tiny toddler bed. Three adults stood two feet away when he got the idea that he could fly. "Grotesque Deformation" they called it. The radius was broken. The ulna was broken, and my heart was broken. I cried for hours. He didn't cry once.
I think he was three when he tried to ride my cousin's rottweiler like a horse and got his face torn open. While we were in the emergency waiting room, some people brought their little Pomeranian in, and Jacob, of course, had to play with it. "What happened to his face?" the lady asked as she allowed my son to pet her pooch. Jacob's bandage was flapping away from his cheek. You could see clear through the torn flesh to his teeth and gums. He was amusing himself by poking his tongue through the hole.
"He got bit by a dog," I told her, and she pulled her pooch away.
There are so many things I could tell you about Jacob, you'd wonder how the child is still alive. He is alive, I assure you, though only by the grace of some higher power, because I have more than once had an overwhelming desire to ring his neck.
For now, at seventeen, he lives.
I dream about him all the time. In my dreams; I usually hear a rumor that Jacob has been killed doing some terrible thing. That's how it was in this last dream. I heard the news, and ran out to see if it was true. That old familiar feeling crept back in as I was sorting through dead bodies, looking at the faces, bracing myself for the sight of my son lying dead on the burning tarmac. Surely he was the one who had caused this devastation. These other people lying here dead were somebody's children, but I was only interested in the one that was mine. I couldn't find him. I had started to lose my grip on the very thin thread of sanity I had left, when I saw from the corner of my eye, a teenager running past in a black duster. Jacob's black duster.
"HEY!" I called, and the runner turned toward me with her middle finger raised in defiance as she kept running.
A girl.
Not Jacob.
I started after her. I was going to find out where she found that duster. Nobody around here wears anything like that but my son. Surely, she had ripped it from his dying body. She knew where he was, and she was damn well going to tell me!
But strong hands held me back.
"It's not real, you know." It was Old Green Eyes, back for more hero work. This time, I guess he was saving me from myself. What a pal. I turned and looked at him. It seemed so natural to be standing there, looking at his face more clearly than I had ever dreamed it before. I was becoming more comfortable with his presence here in my subconscious. His soft, deep voice resonated in me. Of course it wasn't real.
That's right. I'm only dreaming.
"Seems real," I told him, but even as I said it, the bodies began disappearing, and the sky and helplessness started to roll away. My child hadn't actually caused this kind of damage to the world. Only to me...
"You know you're crazy, right?" he said with a laugh. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and we walked into the next dream together. I laughed too, but not all the way down. I get the disturbing feeling he's probably right. I'm probably crazy.
Normal people just don't have dreams like this.
.
.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Failure
Why do I always go back to that house? It's not there now, you know. They condemned it. It was torn down and hauled away years ago, but it still stands tall in the shadows of my worst nightmares.
Inside that house fear and cold and anger swirl in the air like body-less demons seeping through the cracks. On really bad nights, you can hear them moan against the boarded windows as they force their way in.
One moment, I'm laughing, watching the kids bicker over who gets to stir the kool-aid. I turn my head to look down the hallway. Everything's gone dark, just like that. Sometimes the house has been emptied, free of obstacles. Most times, it seems to be a living entity, complete with internal organs, digesting me.
I'm compelled to venture down the hall. A sound or a light or a feeling beckons me into that room, and even though I know there's nothing good waiting for me there, I push on. My fear is conflicted, shoving me forward, wrenching me backward. I shouldn't be going in there. I know what's there. The whisper in the back of my mind keeps telling me, This has happened before. This is real. There's no escape. Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid.
My body disobeys. I see myself opening the door. I see the things that have been done.
Why? Why, why why would he do that?
My anger turns to rage, but no matter how much I try, I can never do any damage. I swing the bat, but I never connect, and I wake up to a overwhelming feeling of failure.
Inside that house fear and cold and anger swirl in the air like body-less demons seeping through the cracks. On really bad nights, you can hear them moan against the boarded windows as they force their way in.
One moment, I'm laughing, watching the kids bicker over who gets to stir the kool-aid. I turn my head to look down the hallway. Everything's gone dark, just like that. Sometimes the house has been emptied, free of obstacles. Most times, it seems to be a living entity, complete with internal organs, digesting me.
I'm compelled to venture down the hall. A sound or a light or a feeling beckons me into that room, and even though I know there's nothing good waiting for me there, I push on. My fear is conflicted, shoving me forward, wrenching me backward. I shouldn't be going in there. I know what's there. The whisper in the back of my mind keeps telling me, This has happened before. This is real. There's no escape. Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid.
My body disobeys. I see myself opening the door. I see the things that have been done.
Why? Why, why why would he do that?
My anger turns to rage, but no matter how much I try, I can never do any damage. I swing the bat, but I never connect, and I wake up to a overwhelming feeling of failure.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
He takes.
What is that?
Hmm? oh...that? That's the dead babies.
They're not dead. They're still moving.
Don't worry, dear. They won't live long. They never do.
Hmm? oh...that? That's the dead babies.
They're not dead. They're still moving.
Don't worry, dear. They won't live long. They never do.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Afloat
I was telling you about that apocalypse dream I had. Do you remember? The one where everybody from work got blown up by a bomb- everybody but you and me. You were smiling with your sea-moss eyes and paying close attention to every word I said. You seemed to like the way I used my hands to portray how huge the explosion was and you laughed when I threw in sound effects.
You told me I have the craziest dreams of anyone you know, and I should write them down in some sort of dream diary and take it to a psychiatrist to be analyzed. I tried to tell you about the blog, but for some reason, I stopped short of telling you how to find it, because I remembered what had been written there.
The goblins giggled as they passed us by on their makeshift raft made of a refrigerator door. They teased us with a childish playground song about k-i-s-s-i-n-g. You stuck out your stick to push the annoying little bastards further away. One of them grabbed it and tried to take it from you, but you were prepared for that kind of devilry from them. Two smacks to the head, and that goblin was mermaid food. I never imagined that goblins can't swim, although I seem to recall some rule about not getting them wet. Or maybe that's gremlins.
Satisfied, you nested the stick into the special crevice you'd made for it and asked me to tell you another dream.
.
.
You told me I have the craziest dreams of anyone you know, and I should write them down in some sort of dream diary and take it to a psychiatrist to be analyzed. I tried to tell you about the blog, but for some reason, I stopped short of telling you how to find it, because I remembered what had been written there.
The goblins giggled as they passed us by on their makeshift raft made of a refrigerator door. They teased us with a childish playground song about k-i-s-s-i-n-g. You stuck out your stick to push the annoying little bastards further away. One of them grabbed it and tried to take it from you, but you were prepared for that kind of devilry from them. Two smacks to the head, and that goblin was mermaid food. I never imagined that goblins can't swim, although I seem to recall some rule about not getting them wet. Or maybe that's gremlins.
Satisfied, you nested the stick into the special crevice you'd made for it and asked me to tell you another dream.
.
.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Other people's dreams
I fell into somebody else's dream last night- a man with two wives, one white, one black. He'd kept them secret from one another, but one had discovered his deceit.
The white wife, who'd always demanded the best of everything from him, followed him to his other house and discovered that he'd been keeping another wife with two sons in a small, dingy, inner-city, two bedroom house with only one wall heater and no curtains.
The black wife was beautiful and loved her husband and sons very much. She struggled at a job waiting tables and gazed out her windows when her husband was away.
The white wife saw her husband enter this strange woman's home with a smile on his face and arms open wide to embrace his family. Oddly, this had no effect on her. She spotted the bare carpet, worn down by time; she noted exactly four presents under the Christmas tree; she crinkled her nose at the tuna casserole on the kitchen table.
She backed away slowly, ignoring the laughter of the children, returned to her Audi and drove home to her mansion. Once there, she instructed the cook to prepare a four course meal, complete with dessert.
Her husband would no doubt be very hungry for some real food when he got home.
The white wife, who'd always demanded the best of everything from him, followed him to his other house and discovered that he'd been keeping another wife with two sons in a small, dingy, inner-city, two bedroom house with only one wall heater and no curtains.
The black wife was beautiful and loved her husband and sons very much. She struggled at a job waiting tables and gazed out her windows when her husband was away.
The white wife saw her husband enter this strange woman's home with a smile on his face and arms open wide to embrace his family. Oddly, this had no effect on her. She spotted the bare carpet, worn down by time; she noted exactly four presents under the Christmas tree; she crinkled her nose at the tuna casserole on the kitchen table.
She backed away slowly, ignoring the laughter of the children, returned to her Audi and drove home to her mansion. Once there, she instructed the cook to prepare a four course meal, complete with dessert.
Her husband would no doubt be very hungry for some real food when he got home.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Determination
Somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear my grandmother's voice shouting out, "You'll fry your balls off!"
I didn't have any balls to speak of, but she said it with such determination, I understood that if I continued with my pursuit, vital parts of my body might become seriously maimed.
This seemed to be of no consequence to me. I needed to get to the other side of that chain-linked fence. I was making good progress, despite the barbed wire curled into the top and the electric wire that ran right through it. This was not a fence designed to keep anything in. No hardened criminals prowled the perimeter searching for weaknesses in the construction. No gun-wielding, sharp-shooting guards were placed strategically in corner towers. This was a fence whose purpose was to keep everything in the world out. Mainly me, I supposed.
My aim was dead on. It took me a long time to figure out how to use the neighboring tree limbs to my advantage, but eventually, I was able to climb up high enough that gravity and a little bit of luck set me down in the middle of the old lady's back yard. I lit on the flat top of the tree stump in the middle of the yard. My toes curled over the edges, as if peeking down and taunting the broken shards of glass that covered the barren ground. I curled my self into a ball and braced for the attack of whatever snarling creature lurked in the shadows. No such thing happened, but I wasn't about to tease the poor thing. I opened one eye and scanned my surroundings.
The creature lay in the corner of the yard in a massive heap of matted black tangles. I knew it would be there. I'd seen it before, from the other side. Although I watched it steadily for what seemed like an hour, I detected no movement of fur, no rise and fall of steady breathing, no quiet grumblings of dreams it might be having. Several possibilities crossed my mind. It could be lying in wait for me to make a move, ready to pounce the moment I stepped off the tree trunk. Or it could have already eaten for the day and wasn't interested in an afternoon snack. Or it was dead from starvation.
I know it's hateful, but I was hoping for Option Three.
After the initial wave of paralyzing fear dissipated from my body, I was able to slowly uncurl myself and stand upright, hands on my hips, chest thrust forward. I'm not sure who I was trying to convince of my fearlessness, the creature or myself. I should have worn a cape. All the best superheroes had them.
But even with a cape, I couldn't fly like a superhero. I was left to my own devices to figure out how to get from this stump to the back door of the house. (Something you may not know about me: I had a lot brothers growing up, so I was a Boy Scout.) I came prepared.
I'd fashioned a sturdy wooden dowel with a metal hook embedded in the end, and I used it to reach out and grab the electrified clothesline that ran the length of the yard. There was no time to speculate whether or not you could actually use that clothesline to hang your clothes. I wasn't able to stop and snicker at the idea of a whole load of crispy undies waving in the breeze. I hooked my big stick onto the line, gave a little jump and I was whizzing off toward the screen door to the mudroom of my grandma's house. The glass shards beneath my feet seemed to come alive as I passed over them, undulating in perfect rhythm, reaching up for my bare toes and all parts connected to them. I'm sure I could identify the unique color of dried blood encrusted on the edges of those razor sharp pieces. I slammed into the screen door, and from the corner of my eye, I saw a bulky black blur rushing toward me. Its snarling was loud enough to vibrate my entire body.
I guess it had been Option One after all.
No worries. I was in the door, and I shut it in his face just as he reached me. The handy 2"x6" nested into its brackets just as the beast was throwing itself into the door, determined to have his meal. I watched and waited for the thumps to subside. The deafening snarls eventually faded away.
"You're late," Aunt Mary accused me. I turned to see her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking down at me with a glint in her eye.
"And you're dead," I reminded her. She threw back her head and laughed at me. We hugged and sat down around the kitchen table with the others.
Somebody handed me a beer, and Aunt Mary dealt me in.
.
.
I didn't have any balls to speak of, but she said it with such determination, I understood that if I continued with my pursuit, vital parts of my body might become seriously maimed.
This seemed to be of no consequence to me. I needed to get to the other side of that chain-linked fence. I was making good progress, despite the barbed wire curled into the top and the electric wire that ran right through it. This was not a fence designed to keep anything in. No hardened criminals prowled the perimeter searching for weaknesses in the construction. No gun-wielding, sharp-shooting guards were placed strategically in corner towers. This was a fence whose purpose was to keep everything in the world out. Mainly me, I supposed.
My aim was dead on. It took me a long time to figure out how to use the neighboring tree limbs to my advantage, but eventually, I was able to climb up high enough that gravity and a little bit of luck set me down in the middle of the old lady's back yard. I lit on the flat top of the tree stump in the middle of the yard. My toes curled over the edges, as if peeking down and taunting the broken shards of glass that covered the barren ground. I curled my self into a ball and braced for the attack of whatever snarling creature lurked in the shadows. No such thing happened, but I wasn't about to tease the poor thing. I opened one eye and scanned my surroundings.
The creature lay in the corner of the yard in a massive heap of matted black tangles. I knew it would be there. I'd seen it before, from the other side. Although I watched it steadily for what seemed like an hour, I detected no movement of fur, no rise and fall of steady breathing, no quiet grumblings of dreams it might be having. Several possibilities crossed my mind. It could be lying in wait for me to make a move, ready to pounce the moment I stepped off the tree trunk. Or it could have already eaten for the day and wasn't interested in an afternoon snack. Or it was dead from starvation.
I know it's hateful, but I was hoping for Option Three.
After the initial wave of paralyzing fear dissipated from my body, I was able to slowly uncurl myself and stand upright, hands on my hips, chest thrust forward. I'm not sure who I was trying to convince of my fearlessness, the creature or myself. I should have worn a cape. All the best superheroes had them.
But even with a cape, I couldn't fly like a superhero. I was left to my own devices to figure out how to get from this stump to the back door of the house. (Something you may not know about me: I had a lot brothers growing up, so I was a Boy Scout.) I came prepared.
I'd fashioned a sturdy wooden dowel with a metal hook embedded in the end, and I used it to reach out and grab the electrified clothesline that ran the length of the yard. There was no time to speculate whether or not you could actually use that clothesline to hang your clothes. I wasn't able to stop and snicker at the idea of a whole load of crispy undies waving in the breeze. I hooked my big stick onto the line, gave a little jump and I was whizzing off toward the screen door to the mudroom of my grandma's house. The glass shards beneath my feet seemed to come alive as I passed over them, undulating in perfect rhythm, reaching up for my bare toes and all parts connected to them. I'm sure I could identify the unique color of dried blood encrusted on the edges of those razor sharp pieces. I slammed into the screen door, and from the corner of my eye, I saw a bulky black blur rushing toward me. Its snarling was loud enough to vibrate my entire body.
I guess it had been Option One after all.
No worries. I was in the door, and I shut it in his face just as he reached me. The handy 2"x6" nested into its brackets just as the beast was throwing itself into the door, determined to have his meal. I watched and waited for the thumps to subside. The deafening snarls eventually faded away.
"You're late," Aunt Mary accused me. I turned to see her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, looking down at me with a glint in her eye.
"And you're dead," I reminded her. She threw back her head and laughed at me. We hugged and sat down around the kitchen table with the others.
Somebody handed me a beer, and Aunt Mary dealt me in.
.
.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Mood Swings
My first get-together at the new place on a warm night with a light breeze. A few friends from work and a few friends from out of town. We were all having a good time sitting in a circle in the garage with the overhead door open so we could enjoy the beautiful weather. Some edgy, raw music played in the background in contrast with our unified laid-back mood. Each guest had his favorite drink in hand.
Bubbles floated by, and we realized that as they popped the music became louder. We made a game of this, reaching up and popping as many as we could. Amanda used the cherry on her cigarette to stab them. When she did this, the song changed, and then the mood changed.
Something was wrong.
My guests started to hustle about and crowd around the edge of the garage, looking at something out in the neighborhood. I pushed through them. Bryan grabbed my arm to hold me back. His black eyes met mine with a fear, not of the scene he saw, but for my reaction to it. I pulled away from him, now desperate to see what had caught everyone's attention.
A freezing gust of wind shot through the garage and we pulled our heavy coats around us. About two inches of snow blanketed the ground, giving the neighborhood a false sense of peace. The world was dark and silent. I stepped into the snow, and then I was alone.
My house was gone. My friends were gone. There had never been a party. There had never been music or bubbles.
There was nothing but snow and silence.
Until I heard the gurgle. A familiar sound that I couldn't quite place, but soon enough I saw the man unconscious in the snow. The crunch of my shoes in the hardened snow echoed in my ears like the beat of my heart as I approached him.
I fell to my knees, distraught at the condition of my son. Blood pooled into the ice around him. Steam rose like fog, obscuring us from the rest of the world. A bestial, guttural roar ripped through the air, and a moment went by before I realized that the sound had come from somewhere deep within me.
My son lay lifeless on a freezing blanket of ice. When I scooped him into my arms, his pieces fell away. Somebody had chopped him up and now his arms and legs were rolling away like discarded shoes and socks. I grabbed at them and tried to put him back together in my arms. He could be fixed if we acted quickly enough, if I could scoop all the blood back into him fast enough, everything would be okay. Blue steam shot from his mouth, and one last gurgle rose from his throat. All the life escaped him then, but there was no convincing me.
I woke in the warm darkness of my bedroom, scooping the blankets toward me, scooping the blood that wasn't there, grasping at air where my son's lifeless body had been.
.
.
.
Bubbles floated by, and we realized that as they popped the music became louder. We made a game of this, reaching up and popping as many as we could. Amanda used the cherry on her cigarette to stab them. When she did this, the song changed, and then the mood changed.
Something was wrong.
My guests started to hustle about and crowd around the edge of the garage, looking at something out in the neighborhood. I pushed through them. Bryan grabbed my arm to hold me back. His black eyes met mine with a fear, not of the scene he saw, but for my reaction to it. I pulled away from him, now desperate to see what had caught everyone's attention.
A freezing gust of wind shot through the garage and we pulled our heavy coats around us. About two inches of snow blanketed the ground, giving the neighborhood a false sense of peace. The world was dark and silent. I stepped into the snow, and then I was alone.
My house was gone. My friends were gone. There had never been a party. There had never been music or bubbles.
There was nothing but snow and silence.
Until I heard the gurgle. A familiar sound that I couldn't quite place, but soon enough I saw the man unconscious in the snow. The crunch of my shoes in the hardened snow echoed in my ears like the beat of my heart as I approached him.
I fell to my knees, distraught at the condition of my son. Blood pooled into the ice around him. Steam rose like fog, obscuring us from the rest of the world. A bestial, guttural roar ripped through the air, and a moment went by before I realized that the sound had come from somewhere deep within me.
My son lay lifeless on a freezing blanket of ice. When I scooped him into my arms, his pieces fell away. Somebody had chopped him up and now his arms and legs were rolling away like discarded shoes and socks. I grabbed at them and tried to put him back together in my arms. He could be fixed if we acted quickly enough, if I could scoop all the blood back into him fast enough, everything would be okay. Blue steam shot from his mouth, and one last gurgle rose from his throat. All the life escaped him then, but there was no convincing me.
I woke in the warm darkness of my bedroom, scooping the blankets toward me, scooping the blood that wasn't there, grasping at air where my son's lifeless body had been.
.
.
.
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