Death is a Stalker

I ran across this quote yesterday:

“Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one, a moment, in childhood, when it first occurred to you that you don’t go on forever. It must have been shattering, stamped into one’s memory. And yet I can’t remember it. (…) Before we know the word for it, before we know that there are words, out we come, bloodied and squalling…with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, there’s only one direction and time is its only measure.” – Tom Stoppard #TomStoppard

My tattoo. Birth to death.

I knew about death a long time ago. The Catholic religion makes sure of that. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Ashes on my forehead to remind me where I was going. The abundance of dead Jesuses on crucifixes everywhere in my life. Viewing dead relatives in caskets. It was never a shock. The Catholic religion has often been called the religion of death. We spend our whole lives – as Christians – preparing for an “afterlife”.

My maternal grandmother died when I was two. I don’t remember that, or her. But, I had a yellow stuffed bear that I was told she had given me. I always carried it with me. It was in my bed at night. I took it with me on car trips. I still had it when I left home at 18. It was special to me. One day I threw it away. I wanted no more reminders of my childhood. I was an adult, and looking forward.

But that came much later. As an infant, I had pneumonia – ended up in an oxygen tent in a hospital. Two years later, after being taken to a Thanksgiving Day parade in downtown Baltimore, I developed pneumonia again. No hospital that time. Doctors made house calls. I was given medication. Years later, I had another bout. I mostly remember how hard it was to breathe, and the green slime I would cough up from my lungs. My parents got a steamer for me. It was a light green glass thing, shaped like a cake – cylindrical, about six inches high. Filled with water, it was plugged in to generate a column of steam towards me. I was cautioned not to touch it. One time, as I was sleepily turning over, my hand fell on the steamer. I got a bad second-degree burn. I was so careful after that. Eventually, they put it away. I seemed to be better. Then I developed asthma and had breathing problems for years. Close to death, but never quite there.

In second grade my parents told me that one of my classmates had died – he had choked on a glass of water. I couldn’t imagine such a thing before that. Perhaps that was the moment I realized death could come at any time, for anyone, regardless of age. Then my cousin Lucky died of cancer – leukemia, I think. Perhaps a name like Lucky was tempting fate. My uncle still grieves, and my aunt died years ago.

I had my own brushes with death many times. I fell into the freshly dug cellar of a new house once. Me, my brother John, and our friend Eddie Knight were grabbing the largest stones we could find and dropping them down the hole in the floor where the steps would go. My idea. There was nothing down there then, just a pool of muddy water from a recent rain. What fun it was to watch the big splashes! We dropped our rocks and then went searching for more. At one point, Eddie pushed a large rock up onto the floor that was all that existed of the house then. It was about four feet above ground, so we had to climb up. We were about six years old at the time. I wanted to drop that big rock Eddie had, so while he was climbing up, I grabbed it and dropped it in.

The next thing I saw was Eddie running towards me, then nothing. I remembered being carried across the field behind our house – a fair distance from where we’d been. I opened my eyes briefly – my face was wet, but I passed out again. My mother said my face was covered with blood when they carried me in the back door. I had hit my head on something down there – probably the very rock I’d dropped. My brother found a way down somehow and found me unconscious in the pool of water, face down. He saved my life. Eddie had gone for his parents, who had carried me.

Just a bit over two years later, I developed appendicitis after the first day of 4th grade. I didn’t know what it was at the time, and neither did my mom. She put me to bed with aspirin for the pain, but it didn’t help. For a week, I was in intense pain, and getting weaker. She had no idea what was wrong with me. She called a doctor who said to bring me to the hospital. There was no way my parents could have afforded to call an ambulance – they found out what that cost when I’d fallen into the cellar – it had cut me above my right eye. With all that blood and my eye so close to it, they had to do it. My father now had the car at work, quite some distance away. This time, my mother borrowed a car from a neighbor and drove me to the emergency room. She parked on the street parallel to the hospital’s main entrance. There was still a wide sidewalk to negotiate. I couldn’t really walk. My left arm was around my mother’s neck, supporting me. I was too big to carry. She dragged me along until we got in. I can only remember snatches after that.

My stomach was x-rayed, and blood was drawn. The x-ray did not show anything. Appendicitis was suspected, but the appendix didn’t show in the x-ray. My blood, however, was full of poison. Sepsis. At the time I heard peritonitis – an inflammation of the stomach lining. I had to be rushed to an operating table for exploratory surgery. My appendix had ruptured. Later, they told my mom I’d had less than 24 hours to live. Appendix removed, I had a month-long stay in the hospital to drain the infection, during which time I turned eight years old. I was given penicillin every four hours. The incision was huge because of the exploratory surgery. There were a lot of stitches, and six tubes sewn along the incision to drain the poisons. I still have the scars.

Ah, death! Why were you always stalking me? Without penicillin, I’d have died quickly.

I continued to be lucky through high school. I only broke my arm falling from a tree once. It was not life-threatening.

After high school, I operated an X-ray machine used for physics research on silicon & germanium crystals at Johns Hopkins University – America’s first research university, located in Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore was home to the Orioles baseball team, the Colts football team, and blue crabs from the Chesapeake Bay. The Colts skipped town one night to play for Indianapolis. After a few years working at the University, and taking the free classes employees were entitled to, I stopped working full-time to attend UMBC, the University of Maryland in Baltimore County. Oddly, the City of Baltimore is not in Baltimore County – it is its own independent entity.

Anyway, I left UMBC after two years. I learned a lot, but my grades suffered from all the breaks I took to protest the war in Vietnam, and the time I spent volunteering at the People’s Free Medical Clinic, an organization providing free medical care for the neighborhood I Iived in. I had also spent time taking classes offered by the Black Panther Party, who saw themselves as creating a revolution. They had a breakfast program for inner-city kids, and were primarily interested in self-defense and education. Inner-city cops were tough on black folk, and often unapologetically broke doors down on random houses while looking for people. The Baltimore City jail was vastly overcrowded, mostly with young black men. [see: https://wp.nyu.edu/gallatin-bpparchive2021/east-coast-chapters/baltimore-md/ ]

Additionally, I hung out with the Berrigan Brothers, two Jesuit priests who had dragged Selective Service (Draft Board) files out and saturated them with blood (pig’s blood). Then, after they got out of jail, they created homemade napalm to burn the draft files, as a symbolic gesture in memory of the innocents, like farmers and young children, indiscriminately burned with napalm in Vietnam. Most people ended up opposing that horrible war, which I opposed as much as the Berrigans did, inspired by their actions. When the war was finally over, the North Vietnamese re-unified their country, which the French had colonized, leading to war. The Viet Minh eventually defeated the French, but the country was divided into two by the Geneva Accords that both sides had agreed to in 1954. The fighting to remove the French continued, however, and the French dragged the United States into their fight, then abandoned the fight, leaving the USA to clean up their colonial mess.

The Berrigans I Met

And, I was still plagued by bad luck or devilry or something. I lived in downtown Baltimore at the time and rode my bicycle back and forth to the UMBC campus, a twenty-mile round-trip every day. One morning, I was racing down a steep hill on a busy street. I was hot riding in that Baltimore humidity, so I put my feet to the metal (pedals) and enjoyed the wind caressing me. Suddenly, to my left, a car appeared. It had been going in the opposite direction, but was going to turn left into a freight yard driveway to my right. I was in the right lane of two southbound lanes, and cars in the lane to my left had stopped to allow the car to cross. Traffic blocked my view of that, so I was as surprised as the driver when we collided. I went sailing up and forward a ways, due to my speed, which was fortunate, since the huge white Continental crushed my bicycle under its tires as it proceeded across the lane I’d been in. I had time to think: 1. that I’d surely die in that traffic, and 2. that I was going to be late for class. So much for the old story about having your whole life flash before your eyes. The bicycle frame was bent, and the left pedal arm had been bent backward into the spokes. My left foot was just badly sprained. Shortly after that, I decided to leave town.

I was exhausted, depressed, and aimless. Busy as I was, I couldn’t keep up with all my classes. UMBC put me on academic probation, so I split. I had little money, just $100 I got back from someone I had loaned $200 to, so I got on my bicycle and rode. When I attempted to cross the Canadian border, I was searched. They found a bayonet knife I’d picked up for camping, and a few marijuana seeds. Then I was strip searched too. Nothing in my butt. Facing seven years of jail for smuggling a deadly weapon and “narcotics” across the border, I was simply denied entry. A young couple took me in for the night and fed me. I had pulled into a cul-de-sac at the end of a nearby street on the US side of the border. I was stymied – I didn’t know what to do or which way to go. I was full of frustrated energy, so I was riding my bicycle around in little circles, which caught their attention. They invited me in. They were watching the Watergate hearings on TV and making dinner. I regaled them with my border story and a bit of my life. I think we smoked some weed, because it got late, and they told me I could sleep on the couch. One thing they told me surprised me: they thought, at 22, that I was an old man! Between my long red beard, the long days of riding, and the snafu at the border, I was stressed out. They directed me to the best way to get to the next crossing. Before the Canadians had expelled me, a friendly border guard said he would delay sending the paperwork banning me from entering. Before I reached the next crossing, however, I stopped at a gas station to change clothes, and lost $50! I had split the $100 I had into two places – I would have removed my money from my jeans pocket when I changed into shorts, and must have left it sitting on the bathroom sink. I went back to see if it was there, and asked if it had been turned in, but no. So, I almost wasn’t allowed to cross the border, again, because having only $50 made it look like I was a bum who’d end up on welfare. I called an old roommate who had moved to Toronto and he vouched for me to the border guards.

Finally in Canada, I visited my former roommate in Toronto, to thank him. When I left Toronto I traveled northwest to visit a woman I’d known in an anti-war group at UMBC. She was working as a counselor for a kid’s camp. She had a boyfriend who glowered at me the whole time, so I didn’t stay long. A week of pedaling later, after being followed one night by a very large animal on a dark lonely highway, I met a beautiful old Canadian couple who offered me food and a nice outdoor sauna to clean up in. I likely smelled pretty bad. A day later, I visited Sault Ste. Marie during my stay at the hostel outside of that city. I stopped at a very nice park on the banks of St. Mary’s River, but I proceeded to get arrested for public drunkenness, courtesy of a couple local drunks who befriended me. After a night in jail, I was fined. Promising to get the money from the youth hostel I had been staying at, I packed up and left the country. I couldn’t afford to pay the fine and eat too.

Passing through several states back in the US of A, I joined a carnival as an electrician’s helper while crossing North Dakota. I spent the season traveling with them. One time, I deliberately brushed my finger against a 440-volt terminal in a junction box hooked to the giant-sized Big Bertha, one of the gas-powered generators I serviced. I was curious what would happen. I froze in shock for a few moments, almost frying my nervous system, but I survived. It reminded me of the time, barely 5 or 6 years old, when I decided to fix my parent’s alarm clock. I had watched my father fix electric wires by twisting them together and covering them with black electrical tape. Unfortunately, I twisted both wires together – blew the main house fuse. I think Death had been standing over my shoulder, again. One time I got my arm caught in the big steel cables that held the heavy steel panels enclosing two of the other four generators, also mounted on big rig trailers. The cable had almost crushed my arm, but it was only sprained, not broken. When the season ended, my plan had been to travel to Texas to visit Geri, the woman I had shared our first sex with in Baltimore. She had left town suddenly, not long after we met, and checked herself into a psychiatric hospital in Texas. I’d had other lovers afterward, before I left Baltimore, and, later in the carnival, but I wanted to see Geri, not only to find out why she had done that, but if we could reunite. It was not to be.

With the carnival season ending, the Murphy Brothers Exposition I’d joined was about to shut down for the winter in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They had already sent some of the big rides off to their home base while we finished up a small gig in Norman, Oklahoma. I met Cindy, a University student there, and with part of my season bonus money I’d rented a motel room – if you stayed the whole season you got a bonus. The “bonus” was actually money incrementally deducted from your pay every week. If you quit or got fired – no bonus. A common use of money as a carrot dangled in front of you to keep you going. I worked days at the small fair with what rides we still had, helping run the Tilt-a-Whirl. Old “Toothless” Lester ran that ride. Nights I spent with Cindy. It was glorious.

The day before the carnival was to move on, I checked out of the motel, saying goodbye to Cindy. We promised to stay in touch. I did visit her a couple years later, on my second bicycle trip west. She was staying in a motel in Oklahoma with a tennis player on tour. Nice guy. I was a bit disappointed, but Cindy asked him to leave us alone for a while, and he did. I was shocked, but the sex we had then was wonderful and sweet. I’d missed her. At one point she thanked me. I asked her, “What for?” She replied, “For all this,” waving her hand around the expensive suite. I assumed that included the tennis player, and a different lifestyle than she thought of before meeting me. She was enjoying her life. We stayed in touch, but at some point after that, she got married and had no more use for me. “I’m married,” she shouted in my ear when I got her on the phone.

But, after stashing my gear in the storage bay of the Tilt-a-Whirl I went back to work helping break everything down, which was how I’d hooked up with them in the first place. When I went back to the Tilt-a-Whirl, Lester was gone. So was my gear, and all of the money I had left. They went looking for him. He would often go on big drunks, they said, when he had money. He hadn’t gotten his season bonus yet, but finding mine, the booze called to him, and he disappeared. Now I was broke again, with only the clothes on my back (a sleeveless “muscle” shirt and jeans), and an old winter jacket Lester hadn’t taken. I asked the office if I could have the equivalent amount of money from his bonus that he had taken from me, but they just laughed. I was told I could continue working for a while, as some rides and joints would continue on to work small fairs. Bill, foreman of the Skydiver, one of the big rides, was going to Texas, and he needed people to set up and run that ride in Houston, and after that, Florida.

Houston offered new discoveries. Death was still watching me. I worked with two other guys on the Skydiver: Skeeter and Cherokee. Skeeter was an interesting tough guy. Well, carnies have to be to survive. He was heavily muscled and taciturn. Didn’t say much, except as it related to the work. Cherokee, thin and wiry, said he was indeed Cherokee, or partly, anyway. We got along. The Skydiver was about the size of a conventional Ferris Wheel but had cars enclosed with steel mesh. Once customers were in, we closed the mesh and locked it in place with a very large cotter key. A cotter pin is used to lock metal nuts in place on bolted items, threaded through a hole. The metal ends are twisted like twist-ties but with a pair of pliers. On the ‘Diver, the metal is shaped roughly like a lock key. It is a curved metal rod, bent in the middle and folded over. The top part is bent with ridges that help hold it in. It looks like a key but is made of steel, and not very flexible. We punched it in with the palm of our hands. To remove the “key” we would stick our middle finger in the opening that was created when the rod was bent, and yank hard. Our middle fingers developed strong muscles from doing that hundreds of frigging times a day.

So, one night, after we shut the ride down, and the townspeople had all left, we searched under the ride for coins. The cars people rode in could be spun using a small steering wheel, so not only were you going round and round, but spinning at a 90° angle to the ride’s rotation. People lost all kinds of things, like combs and pocket change. In fact, they lost so much, the three of us could buy dinner. One night, while walking back from a diner quite some distance away from the carnival, a car pulled up and offered us a ride. We were tired from the long work day, and sated with full bellies, so we jumped in. There were three guys in the one long front seat of those old wide-bodied Chevies. Once the car was moving, one of the guys pulled out a gun, a German luger, (PO4 9mm). They wanted our money and watches. None of us had a watch, and we had no money. We explained that we were carnies, and the guy pointing the luger at us smiled and lowered the gun. They were carnies too. Several carnivals would be set up sharing the same lot, as everyone had fewer rides on the road after the season-close. Then they offered each of us a watch. They had had a good day. I took one, a nice-looking Benrus. I wasn’t going to say no to a guy with a gun in his hand.

It wasn’t the only time I’d had a gun in my face. In the Skokie, IL. fairgrounds the cops had shown up one night after closing. A guy I knew who ran the Shoot-Out-The-Stars for a prize joint was riding his motorcycle around the race track alongside the fairgrounds. The cops had told him he couldn’t do that. He said, “OK,” and headed back to his trailer. However, the cops had meant, but hadn’t said, “Dismount Now!” So they were arresting him. It wasn’t long after closing, so a lot of us were still milling around. We slept under the rides or in trucks that hauled the rides and gear, but it was too early. Carnies protect their own, so everyone wandered over to see what was going on, including me. After all, that was a friend of mine. Well, the cops didn’t like that, so they ordered us to go home. This was our home, so we just stood there. I think they thought we were locals. Well, that freaked them out. Always afraid of the public they swear to protect, they pulled out their guns. The cop in front of me stuck his gun in my face. Damn, that was a big-bore gun! It must have been a 0.45. You don’t argue with a scared cop pointing a gun at you, because they get twitchy sometimes. The gun might go off, and you’re dead. If it’s investigated, they claim it was an accident, and they feared for their lives, so they were just doing what they were hired to do. Legal killing (murder) by the Blue gang.

I call them a gang because they play by gang rules, with a code of silence and closed ranks for anything a cop does. Sure, it’s a dangerous job, but maybe you shouldn’t be a cop if you’re that scared of the rest of the public. Driving is just as dangerous, and commercial fishermen die at a much higher rate than anyone else. So, I ducked behind one of the rides. The carnival protects their own too, so they bailed him out the next morning. No love between the carnies and the cops.

But, getting back to Houston, I will tell you how it went when we packed up the Sky Diver and headed to Florida. There were three semis loaded with gear: one with all the ‘diver cars, one with the hydraulically lowered ‘diver itself, and one with ponies. The foreman of the Sky Diver ride had bought himself a pony ride, one in which the ponies were hitched to a sort of large turnstile that they pushed around. It was a very popular ride with the tiny tots. Bill, the foreman, also had a station wagon that he used to pull the pieces of the brightly colored orange and yellow turnstile in a small trailer. Bill, Skeeter, and Cherokee each drove a truck. I knew how to drive and back up a big rig. But, I wasn’t licensed for that, so I got to drive Bill’s station wagon. I got lost on Houston’s big highway interchange and missed the turn for Interstate 10. By the time I went round and round to make my way east, I sped up to try and catch up to the others. I never did. Just outside of Jennings, Louisiana, a trailer wheel snapped off. The trailer body hit the road on that side. The effect was to spin me around. It also turned the trailer upside down in the process. I’d been doing 70 mph. I saw the pieces of the turnstile in the air all around me. The yellow and orange pieces floating in the air reminded me of fire. When everything stopped, I was facing the wrong way, towards traffic, blocking both eastbound lanes of I-10. I was arrested, again, this time for “Failure to maintain control of my vehicle,” a fineable offense. Since I didn’t have any money, I couldn’t pay the fine.

Long story short, the Carnival got me out the next day, after I’d spent a sleepless night reading a book I’d found in my solitary cell (autobiography of Joan Baez). Since I was in a corner cell, I talked with my neighboring cells. The guy to my left asked if I had any dope. I told him I did, just a few ounces of weed in a baggie I’d managed to smuggle in. While being searched, I had my hands hooked in my front pockets since the one-armed deputy booking me searched my back pockets first, one at a time. Then he told me to raise my arms. That had given me time to slip the baggie inside my fist, so I raised it high while he searched the front pockets, and then I slipped it into my back pocket when he told me to lower my arms. I had money wired to me from the carnival to fix the car. The cops had gathered every bit of that pony ride and put it back into the trailer. I spent the next night sleeping in the break room used by the trustees. I was told to take whatever I wanted from the refrigerator. Nice. On the way to Florida, however, the car broke down on that long section of bridge across Louisiana swamp. A radiator hose had been cracked in the accident. I spent hours letting the engine cool, then driving until the temperature gauge was pinned on high again, over and over, and over, and over. There was about three or four feet of space between the road and the guardrail, so the rigs swooshed by me the whole time, barely missing me.

One hell of a lot of loud truck horns blared at me, but what could I do? There is no exit on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge for 18 miles. There’s only water left and right. Again, I survived. After a disappointing stay in Florida, in which, while Bill went back for his car and trailer, we set up the Sky Diver by ourselves. Scary thing that. It’s huge and full of heavy steel beams. As we raised the ride in sand, it almost tipped over, scaring the wits out of us. We hadn’t spread enough wood under the legs to stabilize them, so we got it right. But there was no money to be made there, so I finally headed on up the coast to visit a trio of young ladies I’d met in Canada. I spent one bitter cold mountain night outside in an empty car on a gas station lot while I waited to transfer to the morning bus. The ride foreman had given me busfare, and driven me to the station to make sure I got on. When the bus stopped to let me off, I was still mostly asleep. The bicycle was still on the bus, which had raced off as soon as I had stepped down. I spent the winter night awake, shivering violently in an old car at a gas station. In the morning the bus returned, with my bicycle. The girls were sure surprised to see me, and I stayed on a bit, chopping firewood and helping out. I finally overstayed my welcome but was being offered a job raising goats on a neighboring farm. I declined. I decided to take a train back to Baltimore, where I’d started. It was supposed to have been a round trip after all.

But, I had hours to kill while I waited for the train. “Desperado waiting for a train….” Really, I was no desperado, but I waited in a pool hall, shooting pool with an old codger who played like a shark. Bang, bang, bang went the shiny numbered balls into the pockets. I had nothing but pocket change, so we played for the table. I paid for several games. I finally got a chance to shoot. I lined up the cue ball and steadied my cue stick on it when bang, bang, bang – gunshots outside. Shocked, I looked up. Everyone in the place was running out the door. Damn, those cats were fast. I was the last one out. I walked out right next to the shooter. One man was down and out on the ground. The shooter didn’t notice me at first because he was busy pumping some more lead into the guy on the ground. The body jerked with each shot. Either the shooter was out of bullets, or he suddenly noticed me. He turned to me. I looked him in the eyes, not in a show of force or strength, but because I didn’t know what else to do. He must have thought I wanted to know why he was doing that, which I was. He said to me, “He deserved it.” Now I’d given that idea some thought in the past, and I don’t think it’s anyone’s job to decide who dies unless they are able to control who doesn’t have to die. The words scrolled across my brain, but I couldn’t get them to my mouth. He stared at me for I-don’t-know-how long. It was probably seconds, but it felt like time had stopped. Finally, he lowered the gun, did an about-face on one heel, and slowly walked off.

By this time, an ambulance was arriving, along with some cops in patrol cars behind it. I waited around. A gurney was produced from the ambulance. A blanket was placed over the quite young guy on the ground, but not covering his face, so maybe he was still alive? They loaded the gurney back into the ambulance, and they sped off, sirens wailing. I had been waiting for the cops to come over and ask for statements from witnesses, especially me, since I had been inadvertently eyewitness to some of it, but they got in their cars and drove away, following the ambulance. After some moment in time, I decided to return to the pool hall. Somehow, most of the pool players were already back. I asked my pool partner from the time before time had stopped if he wanted to continue. He said yes, so I went back to my shot, lined the balls up quickly, and shot. The cue ball flew off the table and rolled crazily away at high speed. My pool partner retrieved it. When he came back, he said, “Maybe we should call it a night.” I had to agree with him. I think my nerves were shot. The train ride to Baltimore was sobering. My thoughts were full of gunshots and daydreams. I didn’t know what to expect in Baltimore, but I wanted to rest.

I found a job fairly quickly. I sent money to the Sky-Diver foreman Bill, feeling like I owed him. He wrote back in a shaky hand, thanking me for that, using simple printed words. I used to write letters all the time while I was working on the carnival, so I had to assume Bill never had the schooling I had. A good man. I looked up Judy White, whom I’d been writing to, someone I’d briefly dated before, but there was no chemistry between us. I don’t think there ever had been. I dated some after that, but nothing clicked. I was never good at relationships, just enjoyed the comfort of sex and sharing a bed. When my job suddenly ended, there was no longer any reason to stay in the town of my birth. I gave away what possessions I’d accumulated, loaded my bicycle up with clothes, food, and tools, and headed westerly.

I stopped in Arizona, working for a bronze foundry for about nine or ten months, before heading out on another bicycle trip across the USA, but this time with a group of bicyclists heading slowly eastward towards Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. On the way, we stopped in many cities and towns, including Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I somehow stole the heart of a married woman. Her husband split, but I wasn’t finished with my travels yet. She divorced after I left and wrote to me often. I hadn’t found a good job in Pittsburg, so I went to New York City with my bicycle. I became a bicycle messenger. I had some friends there. They had an organization and a newspaper called, “Don’t Mourn, Organize,” a phrase used by the famous union organizer Joe Hill. Their mission was to organize tenant councils for the working poor and people on welfare, as had been done during the “Great Depression” in the 1930s. One of them let me stay at his apartment since he was rarely home. Riding a bicycle all day in the bitterly cold streets of NYC in winter is no fun, and dangerous. Drivers are insane there. The woman I’d met in Albuquerque wanted me to come live with her. I did. After a year and a half, that relationship suddenly ended one day, but I stayed. I like it here in Albuquerque.

In a flash forward, I am riding a motorcycle near my home in my newly adopted home state of New Mexico, when a Bernalillo County sheriff pulls me over, I don’t remember why. Sometimes they don’t provide a reason. He asked for my “registration and proof of insurance,” of course. I had a hinged seat, so I unlocked and popped it open because that’s where I kept them back then. As I reached for them, he went for his gun. I explained, but he kept his hand on the gun butt – the holster, unsnapped. Cops were quite leery of motorcyclists back then, but he didn’t shoot me. He allowed me to continue. I either have a devil on my ass or a guardian angel.

Speaking of which, I went sailing over a car that pulled in front of me twice, once on my bicycle, and once on my motorcycle. Bad sprain the first time, just bruised and sore the next time. Bicycle and motorcycle totaled. Once I missed the light change with the sun in my eyes at an intersection and plowed into a pickup. Motorcycle totaled. I’d been going about 40 to 45 mph and didn’t have time to brake. Just bruised, sore as hell, and had to wear my arm in a sling for a bit. The driver said I bent the frame of his truck. I didn’t buy that, and neither did my insurance company.

One night, a car ran into me while I was crossing a street on foot. I was three-quarters of the way across and under a streetlight, but she had raced around the corner, going south, steering wide into the northbound lane where I was. She pushed me down the street while I was still on my feet. I didn’t fall down until she suddenly braked hard. Now that threw me down hard, painfully. I was not badly hurt, but one edge of my left shoe was ground down and ruined. I didn’t visit the emergency room or call the cops. I was OK. No damage, just bruised and sore again. I figured out later, from things she said, that she had run out of the art show we’d both been at, looking to stop me. I had bought two small lithograph prints while I’d been there. I’d gone because it was opening night, and there is usually free food and drink at such things. The woman was one of the artists. I’d stopped to browse a small rack of prints by the exit before I left. Realizing how late and cold it was, I stopped browsing and hurried out. I had a short walk half a block away to the side road I’d parked my car on. As I stepped into the street, I noticed a car’s headlights to my left. It was turning into the street I was in, so I rushed into the far lane to get out of the way. She hit me softly, but then she sped up. I could feel the acceleration until she braked. When I got up, she was out of her car, asking if I was OK. I felt OK, and walked over to where I dropped the bag with the small prints. She said, “Oh! you bought something there.” That puzzled me, from the way she said it – something in her voice.

Years later, I read that the local technical vocational college was looking for stories about pedestrian-car accidents. I let them interview me and asked if they wanted to speak with the woman who had hit me. Since they did, I called her. In a high-pitched, shaky voice, she said, “No. I never want to think about that night again.” I explained that I was OK with what had happened, but she was adamantly opposed to meeting with the college people, or ever speaking of that “incident”, as she called it. Then I figured out that she had been after me, angry, hoping to recover whatever she thought I stole, and single-mindedly drove right into me. Having a car pushing me down the street was a surreal experience. The acceleration kept me pinned to the car’s bumper at a slight angle. If only she hadn’t panicked and slammed on the brakes, I wouldn’t have been in so much pain later. Adrenaline temporarily suppressed the pain of that. I had hit my right hip and shoulder hard on the asphalt. Hitting my shoulder aggravated an old motorcycle accident when I’d gone off the road on a sharp curve years before. That still bothers me some days.

I’ve lost two cars to bad drivers too. In Placitas, NM, a driver turned a corner and rammed me head-first. I was braked, about to turn right, west, and had turned my head to look for traffic to my left. I was as far to the right as I could possibly be, with no cars in sight when I stopped. She had been heading east in the far lane, and again, instead of turning into the far lane on the two-way street I was on, she turned into my lane. She blamed me – said I was too far forward. Although the front end of my car was about three feet past the stop sign, there was at least six feet between me and the highway. My brain was sore for weeks – it must have rattled around in my skull. My insurance company spoke with her, and she confirmed that the accident had occurred on the side street I was on. Since it was a front-end collision, there was no way I could have run into her, or I’d have damaged the side of her car. My insurance sided with me, but her insurance claimed it was my fault.

It happened again, of course. I pulled into a center turn bay on Albuquerque’s 4th Street, waiting for southbound traffic to stop, so I could get groceries. It took a while for traffic to clear. I had seen a pickup waiting to come out. When traffic cleared I began my turn, but just then he raced out. I completed my turn and sped up to get out of his way, but he hit me along the driver’s side, still accelerating – I could feel my car being pushed. The whole side was creased badly, and the rear door was crushed shut. Old guy, very old, and a sturdy pickup. He said it was his fault, and that he hadn’t seen me. The accident had occurred in the the southbound lane, and he had been turning north before he reached the opposite lanes, so, clearly his fault. If he had not turned until reaching the center, he wouldn’t have hit me. Later, while waiting for the cops, he stared at my car, then said, referring to my car’s color, “That’s what happened. I couldn’t see that light green.” I thought, “And you’re allowed to drive why?”

Hell, the same thing had happened back when I had first moved to Albuquerque. I was driving my new girlfriend’s car home from a union meeting too far away to have ridden my bicycle, my only ride. A seventeen-year-old with a learner’s permit had followed another vehicle into the intersection without stopping at the stop sign. That first vehicle was stopped in the middle of four-lane Central Avenue, waiting to join eastbound traffic, so the seventeen-year-old had no place to go. I steered that car hard right, but I was too close and hit the other car’s left fender. Same kind of thing. The boy’s mother was with him, and she claimed I was going too fast. The tire tracks I made when I braked proved that I was under the speed limit, not that it mattered. We went to court, but before we got called into the courtroom, they decided to settle. They agreed to pay for the front-end damage to my girlfriend’s car over time. It never got fixed. It just sat for a long time. I don’t know if she ever got the money because she left me for someone else not too long after that. The car actually belonged to her ex-husband, who had moved to France after she’d taken up with me. But, that’s part of another story. He was still angry, and he wanted that car back.

Jonathan Dove, Green Flame, and Dvořák

It’s still Sunday evening (06/26/22) as I write this, and it’s still raining. I made it to Chatter Sunday after all, despite my confusion at 01:47 am as to what day it is. After getting home from a movie set in Santa Fe at 5:15 am on Saturday morning, getting one hour of sleep before my 7:30 am dental appointment, and wasting the rest of the day catching up on messages, packaging a couple items to ship, taking naps, and watching a movie, I suddenly found myself thinking I’d missed the Sunday morning chamber music concert. It takes place 50 Sundays a year. And I’d already paid for my ticket since it often sells out.

I was writing after I’d finished the movie, and never imagined it was almost 2:00 in the morning. So, when I saw Sunday on the computer clock, I really thought I’d been doing all that stuff that same day, until I put 2 and 2 together, and realized I hadn’t missed the concert after all. I posted my previous ramblings around 2:00 am and slept. Woke up around 7:00 am, decided not to get up until 9:15 am, and headed out to the home of Chatter Sunday by 9:50 am. Even though I no longer have coffee every day, I got an Americano (two espresso shots in hot water), two tiny palmiers, and a small apricot muffin. I was ready.

Taking the stage were eleven musicians with two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, three ancient French horns, a cello, and a double bass.

First up was Figures in the Garden by contemporary composer Jonathan Dove. It was superb! I enjoyed it very much. It was based on music from Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro, but with a unique modern tempo and variations.

Next up was the poet Pamela Uschuk. (Spoken Word is always a feature of Chatter Sunday.) She surprised me with her poetry, her background, and her history of surviving cancer. She has a European heritage with family in Ukraine, so she spoke of that and support for the refugees from Ukraine. Sergei Vassiliev, on clarinet, from Ukraine himself, also spoke about the war, his relatives still in Ukraine, and his mother, who not only lives in the U.S. now but was in the audience. We gave her a heartfelt round of applause. Ah, I distracted myself again – I was talking about the poet Ms. Uschuk. She graced us with four poems, including her wonderful poem BULK, recently updated, about many things, including her brother, elephants, bullets, an Israeli humvee wracking Gaza streets, and the bulk of lotus blossoms a manatee hugs to her chest to eat. A fasinating look at things she considered important to tell us about, connected by the common concept of bulk.

My favorite poem of hers is GREEN FLAME. Here tis:

Slender as my ring finger, the female hummingbird crashed

into plate glass separating her and me

before we could ask each other’s name. Green Flame,

she launched from a dead eucalyptus limb.

Almost on impact, she was gone, her needle beak

opening twice to speak the abrupt language of her going,

taking in the day’s rising heat as I took

one more scalding breath, horrified by death’s velocity.

Too weak from chemo not to cry

for the passage of her emerald shine,

I lifted her weightlessness into my palm.

Mourning doves moaned, who, who,

oh who while her wings closed against the tiny body

sky would quick forget as soon as it would forget mine.

There followed Hymnus no. 2 by Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998).

After Chatter’s traditional two minutes of silence, we were treated to the 1878 Serenade for Winds in D minor op. 44, by Dvořák. It was rousing. It was rhythmic. Really, parts of this were based on Slavonic style. And, it was danceable! I happily tapped my right foot and slapped my left hand on my left thigh.

Life can be good, despite war, loss, and pain. And it is still raining! The state-wide fires are going out.

CDX

Death comes for us all

even archbishops

shopkeepers and presidents

doctors and lawyers

mail carriers and drivers

writers and moviemakers

actors and singers

men women children

the bright and the dull

animals trees flowers

planets stars galaxies

The funny thing is

once we accept that

that we will die

that it’s where it is

where we’re going

that

then

nothing else matters.

It is freedom

to enjoy life

enjoy the journey.

It is no matter

no matter what

it doesn’t matter.

Life just is.

it rains- enjoy

Sun shines – enjoy

flowers grow – enjoy

raving mad lunatics – enjoy

tomorrow they’ll be gone

marching in the streets – enjoy

tomorrow there’ll be change.

Life is chaos

terrible

depressing

skulduggery

stressful

dangerous.

Life is joy

children music colors smells tastes feelings

stretching running hiking biking playing

living.

Life is change – enjoy

revolt

change things

make things

embrace all

love all

be all.

We’ll die

so?

isn’t it wonderful?

isn’t it freedom?

because

now

right now

we can do anything we want to

life

is random key presses

meaningless

life is life

meaningful

make it so.

————————————————————

‎Wednesday, ‎June ‎17, ‎2020, ‏‎11:32:40 AM

Cheating Death, Again, and Again, and Again

Got knocked down by a car the other day. It made me think about all those times in my life when, but for one thing, I would have died. As an infant, and later as a two-year old, I had pneumonia. I was saved by penicillin, by science, technology and society, twice. Before penicillin, I would have been dead as an infant.

As a six-year old, I fell into a house under construction. The incomplete basement had no concrete yet, the floor was mud with pools of water. Me, my brother John and Eddie Knight were bringing  the biggest stones we could find and carry, climbing the foundation wall, and dropping them into the pools of water. The object, of course, was to get a huge splash. We dropped in our stones, enjoyed the splash, and set out to find bigger stones. I dropped a nice one in, it hit the water nicely, and turned to see Eddie plop the biggest stone I’d seen all morning on the floor level of the foundation, so he could use both hands to climb up. Somehow, I couldn’t help myself. I ran over, grabbed the stone, and dropped it in. I think it made a big splash. I say think, because all I remember is perhaps a sense of movement. Eddie, pissed off as all hell, had come charging at me, I think. The details are vague. Because I was standing by the edge of the hole in the floor we were using (it was for the stairs to come), I must have gone right over. I woke up some time later. Two adults were carrying me through tall weeds in the huge field behind my house. I had cracked my head against one of the stones, maybe even Eddie’s big one. Lying face down in the muddy water, I would have drowned. My brother pulled me out. Eddie, meanwhile had gone for his parents, who were carrying me home. I never saw Eddie again. He never came by. I would guess that he felt guilty, or his parents simply forbade him to play with us again. Life saved by my younger brother, although medical science repaired my cracked skull.

I turned eight years old during my stay at Lutheran Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland (formerly the Hebrew Orphan Asylum). My appendix had ruptured, and I remember being told later that I had peritonitis (literally an inflammation of the stomach lining), although today the term mostly used is blood poisoning, or sepsis. In septic shock, weak, and barely able to shamble, with support from my mother, who drove me to the hospital in a borrowed car, the staff there knew I was in real trouble from my blood work. An x-ray did not show cause, so I was taken for exploratory surgery. The appendix was hidden behind an organ, and hadn’t been visible on x-ray. Again, medical science, through surgery and chemistry, had saved my life, although I was hospitalized for four weeks, and convalesced at home for another week. Happy Birthday!

Soon after that I developed bronchial asthma, and survived by using steam and a towel over my head, or a prescription inhaler. Sometimes I simply couldn’t catch my breath at all. I didn’t know where it went or why it was running away. The asthma attacks went away sometime after my 12th birthday.

Of course, not everything I did was life threatening. I slipped trying to repair a leaky roof in a tree house and fell to the ground, breaking my arm. Excruciating pain came with that one, and a cast on my arm, and notoriety at school. It was hard to brag about falling out of a tree. I was just embarrassed.

I must have developed an acute sense of caution, because I didn’t get hurt again until I was an adult. I got creamed by a huge beast of a car as I had been pedaling down a nice hill. It hit me broadside, and dragged the bicycle across the street, but I had been thrown forward by my own momentum. I bounced, and passed out. Passers-by thought I was dead. I heard them say so as I came to. They’d already given up on me and were comforting the driver! I was in shock, didn’t know who I was or what had happened at first. I was thoroughly amazed that I’d survived, because my last thought before the impact had been that I was going to die. Traffic had been thick and heavy, and I could have easily been run over by some other vehicle. As it was, my own momentum had carried me in a high arc straight forward, and the car was so big, a Lincoln Continental Mark III,  that it had blocked enough of the lane to keep the other drivers away.  Saved by the eighteen-foot car length. Nothing broken this time. I had a major sprain on the top of my left foot, which had been hit by the car. The heavy Schwinn bicycle pedal arm had been bent, back into the spokes.

Bicycles on highways or city streets are accidents waiting to happen, and I had a few more. Once my shoe was simply ripped off my foot when a car turned into me and I put my foot out to protect myself. Once I skidded on gravel on a mountain road and slid down a long section of blacktop, taking a lot of skin off my chest and stomach. Ouch. Another time, a car side-swiped me as I pedaled down a city street right on the edge of the road. It appeared as though the car had passed another car on the right, illegally, had not seen me up ahead, and clipped me. The impact left a huge bruise on my ass and thigh muscles. I was stunned at first, and lay on my back, staring unblinkingly into the light rain that was falling. I worried that I was paralyzed. The driver didn’t stop, but someone else did after a few minutes, and an ambulance took both me and bicycle to a hospital. Bruised and scraped flesh was all I received then, but it could have been worse. Somehow I had fallen without breaking my neck. Somehow the car hadn’t broken my hip or run over me. Little things.

Given my history, buying a motorcycle was not a very smart thing to do, but at least it put me out into the drive lane at speed, instead of paralleling the other vehicles, riding bicycles in the gutters full of storm-drain grates and broken glass. It didn’t take me long to lay the bike down: the first time taking a corner in the rain, slipping on icy roads, or hitting a crazy dog on a curve. I was never hurt, but I went through a few turns signals and mirrors which stick out to the sides. I learned to anticipate accidents, to always brake the front and rear wheels simultaneously, and even ride on icy or snow-packed streets. I got good. However, as I neared my house one fine day, I decided to pass in front of  a stalled car blocking my lane, and he hit the gas microseconds before I got there. I t-boned him, and sailed over the car hood. The bike was totaled. I was sore and bruised but none the worse for wear after a few weeks. Everyone in the neighborhood said I must have said my prayers. I didn’t pray anymore, so that wasn’t it. Given my moral turpitude at the time, I could have thanked the devil instead, if I’d still believed in such things.

Years passed with my replacement motorcycle. As I was near home again, in a different house with a wife waiting for me this time, I misread a red traffic light. I thought it was still green, but the sun was directly behind it as I topped a hill. I sailed into the large Route 66 intersection at about 40 mph. There was a pickup directly in front of me; I looked up – the light was red. Never even applied the brakes. Totaled that bike too. I was again bruised and scraped up. My arm was a bit sprained, so I wore a sling for a short time. The driver of the pickup told my insurance company that I had bent his truck frame. Really? Well, no matter. I got another bike, number three in a series, and I never wrecked it. Since it was old and leaked oil, and always needed repairs, I finally traded it in.  Success! I had ridden a motorcycle the entire time I had owned it without damaging it or myself. However, the newer bike was not so lucky. Within two weeks I had laid it down, negotiating a turn, I didn’t understand what had happened until it happened again. This time I took it in to a shop. They found a spacer missing from the front axle. Such spacers keep the wheel centered on the axle, but without one, the wheel was sliding to one side as I turned, causing the wheel to lock up.

Of note in all this mayhem is that I paused in June of 2013 to have a minor heart attack. The large descending artery on the right side was partly clogged when I first got to the heart hospital, but within minutes, the clog had moved to completely block the artery (sudden minor pain). Fortunately, I was already hooked up to an IV and heart monitors, and my wrist was prepped for sticking a balloon up to my heart to clean it out and leave a stent behind. They went ahead and did that, and I felt relief immediately. Recovery was rapid and complete. Four months later, I ran a half marathon in three hours exact. A year later I ran it in 2 hours, 46 minutes. Cheating death. Again.

So, I’ve dodged any motorcycle accident for many years now. I am very aware of my surroundings. I always know where other vehicles are, and I keep a constant eye out on side streets and pedestrians. I hit nothing, and nothing hits me. I have a car now also, and my motorcycle habits have transferred. I have no accidents, because I am always acutely aware of my surroundings. So, it came as a shock last Friday evening to find a moving car pushing against my body, again.

I was crossing a street at a slight angle to reach my car. It was a cold night, and I was worried about an approaching storm, so I had opted out of riding the bike. I was in the southbound part of the street as I saw a car approach the intersection from an eastbound lane. I sped up so I wouldn’t be in its path. It was about 50 feet away, so I had plenty of time to reach my car before it even reached me. Wrong. She had turned wide, and sped up as she straightened out, but not where she should have been. She was squarely in the northbound part of the road. Her right fender was pressing hard against me. I noticed the rest of the car was ahead of me, instead of behind me in the empty southbound lane. She never said what she was doing. Was she just turning wide? She later said she only saw me at the last moment before hitting me. Had she tried to avoid me? swerving around me? She never said much else. Liability issues, I’d guess.

Fortunately she did see me plastered against her grille, and stopped. I was thrown forward and hard onto the asphalt. It hurt. So, there I was again, lying in the street again, wondering how the hell I’d misjudged that situation. How the hell had she caught me? I hurt all over it seemed, but I thought I should get up. My right hip area had impacted the street, and it was in considerable pain, but after a few minutes, the pain went away. We exchanged information. She is an artist with the gallery whose open house I’d just left.

I went home, took two Advil Liquid capsules, applied some Blue Emu cream, ate a late dinner with some chokecherry wine, and got some sleep. The pain was back next day, but so far, so good. The hip only hurts to the touch. “So don’t touch it!” I know, I know, but sometimes ya gotta roll over in bed, or ya bump against the side of a chair. It’ll heal. There’s skin scraped off again, but no bruising. The pain seems to be deep, and just behind the hip bone that juts out there. Worked hard yesterday, did a lot of heavy lifting of demijohns of wine, and shoving larger tanks around at the winery, with no pain, so I think I’m OK.

Again.

An Explosion of Blackberry Wine

I feel like this is my last night on Earth. Almost one year ago I had a heart attack – on that day, I felt doom, oddly like the end of the world, or at least my world. I honestly felt like my life was finished, like I was going to die. If I hadn’t gotten myself to the heart hospital, I’d have been dead – so they say. At the hospital, I was shown an echocardiogram of my heart. The main right artery was nearly completely blocked. Only a trickle of blood was making it past the clot. The doctor convinced me that I needed balloon angioplasty, where they would break up the blockage with the balloon-tipped catheter and leave a stent in place. I asked about options. He said I could undergo drug therapy, but he didn’t recommend it. He seemed amused that I was unconvinced that angioplasty was my best option. I said to go ahead. They decided to insert the catheter via my arm, instead of my groin, after they shaved both areas. My groin may not have been the best choice since I hadn’t showered since the morning of the day before. They asked my if I’d taken Viagra. I had, on Saturday night – it had been a nice night of sex with a woman I knew at the time. It was then Monday. They probably thought I’d not showered since then. In actuality, I’d showered on Sunday morning, but masturbated Monday, that very morning, and washed up, but had not had time to take a full shower. I had had to rush off to pick my stepdaughter up and get her to work on time.
I felt fine that morning, and, in fact, donated a pint of blood after I’d dropped my stepdaughter off. My blood pressure was OK, and my pulse steady, and all seemed fine; my cholesterol levels have always been good. They told me to go eat a big breakfast. Taking them up on that, I stopped at a breakfast buffet. I had a pile of bacon, a little bit of scrambled eggs, some carne adovada, a small waffle, some fruit and coffee. I felt great. I went home and relaxed, played around on my computer: checking the status of things I had for sale on eBay, reading email, looking at my blogs on WordPress. I picked up a book and read for a while. It was then that I felt the weird pressure in my chest that wouldn’t go away and kept getting worse. Nothing I did helped. The feeling of doom crept in. Death. An ending. It’s over. All that went through my mind. No pain. No numbness. No nausea. Nothing but the most unusual sense of impending doom, and the pressure in my chest. I survived.
No heart attack now. I’m off most of the medications. I’m supposed to keep taking aspirin every day for the rest of my life. I’m still taking a statin drug to keep my cholesterol down. It’s lower than it’s ever been in my life. I also take a drug to fight off acid reflux. It helps. However, I don’t feel like taking any more drugs. I checked my blood pressure the other day, and it was higher than it’s ever been in my entire life! Way higher. I never had a problem with hypertension before. I started training for a half-marathon shortly after the heart attack, and ran it in October: 13.1 miles in three hours. Slow, but I made it. I had never run before. I’ve been running since, but not lately – I’ve had too many conflicts, what with work at a winery, and being on a movie set, and hiking sometimes in the mountain. Somehow I am busy, even five years after I retired from my day job. All is well.
Psychologically? I don’t know. I came back from visiting a friend who just had cancer surgery a few days ago. She had her thyroid removed, and her parathyroid relocated. We visited a bit, and she said she was tired, and wanted to nap. I left, but later saw that she was on Facebook, and at dinner with friends. She hadn’t mentioned that. I’d offered to take her out, or pick something up, but she’d said no. Well, that felt odd.
Watched a movie tonight: The Secret LIfe of Walter Mitty. Great movie. Easy to identify with the main character. Just before it ended I heard a muffled explosion from my kitchen. I was engrossed in the movie and didn’t want to get up. But then, I heard the sound of water running, and dripping, and I had no idea what it could be. I paused to see what the hell it was, and discovered my kitchen cabinet leaking. A bottle of Blackberry wine that came from the winery I work at, but had been opened by my stepdaughter, and recorked, had exploded and was pouring out over the countertop. She hadn’t liked it, and had given it to me. I grabbed some towels to mop it up, left them in place and watched the rest of the movie. Since then I’ve cleaned up a little, taken most everything out of two shelves and wiped up all the wine. I still need to wash it out. My whole house smells like wine now. It’s past time I should be in bed. I need to get up in 5 hours to drive to Santa Fé to work with the film crew. It’s the last day, day 13 of filming. It is a Sci Fi TV pilot. Whether or not it will ever be seen by anyone but ourselves, I can’t say. It’s an excellent concept, and everyone has worked hard. Very low-budget. Most of us worked for free. As extras and crew we’re not paid (except coffee, donuts, fruit, cheese, water and pizza). The actors are paid, although not much.
It feels like the end to me. Running through my head is the idea I can’t shake: that this is my last night ever, that tomorrow is my last day, ever. I don’t know why. I’m being melodramatic. I’m foolish. I know better, but not much inspires me to write anymore. This does. What if this is my last night?

Killing is NOT the Same Thing as Murder

Why is that?

It is so, because murder is a legal term for killing not sanctioned by society. If all killing were murder, then executions would be murder. If all killing was murder, then any death in wartime would be murder: killing the enemy? murder, friendly fire? murder. Because we sanction those things, we do not define them as murder. Recently I came across the comparison of the fines and penalties for harming the eggs of protected species, like Eagles, and human fetuses.  The argument appears to be that if it’s wrong to destroy eagle eggs, then it is wrong to kill human fetuses as well. This does not follow logically. The Eagle, for one, although recovering, is an endangered species, and the fine is an attempt to allow that species to continue. Does anyone, really, anyone, believe that abortion is killing the human race? That we are in danger of dying out as a species because of abortion? No, of course not. Hell, we continue to proliferate, for now. What does threaten the survival of the human race is pollution of the air and water, and eradication of too many animal species. Life on Earth is a balancing act.

When we kill off entire species, we remove an element from the balance. For example, animals are usually either prey for some other animal, or prey on some other animal, or are both. If a species goes, its actions in the balance of things go too. The result can be overpopulation of that animals prey, or an absence of prey for others, whether it was mammalian or insect, or aquatic in nature. Sometimes, another animal can fill the void, sometimes not. Sometimes, the death of a species results in the death of many other species. Some argue we are in the middle of just such an effect now, where the death of so many thousands of species has reached a point of cascade, wherein it is impossible to stop, and we will be left with only humans, for a short time. For, regardless of whether one is vegetarian or not, humans are dependent on animal life for our survival.

There are so many interactions between animals and plants, between animals and insects (another animal, but I’m making a point here), between animals and the air we breathe and the water we drink. Humanity would cease to exist long before the last animal species was wiped out, because it is a codependency A good example of codependency  is that between wolves and deer. Too many wolves, and the deer are removed. Not enough wolves, and the deer overpopulate, then overgraze the available resources and die out en masse from starvation. Hunting laws help keep that balance, but hunting laws are not going to keep us alive when all the predators are gone, or when all the prey is, or when all the bugs are gone. There are billions upon billions of interactions in the world that result in life for humans, and we can’t imitate them all.  That’s the reason for endangered species laws.

Be all that as it may be, however, I’ve strayed too far from the point. The point is that killing is not murder, legally. Abortion is NOT murder, legally. There is a movement among Evangelical Christians to define life as beginning from the moment of conception, frivolous and stupid idea that it is.  Does the world celebrate conception days, or birthdays? Most of us know that life begins at birth. No one wants to see a baby killed. However, killing living, breathing human beings is almost universally illegal, except for executions, and in war, or self-defense, or by accident. Killing is not and cannot ever be considered murder in all cases. Killing a fetus is just such a case.

Killing a human fetus, is not, for the time being, murder. There was a time when it was. Murder is a relative term, depending entirely on what the society making the laws believes.

For, if killing a fetus is murder, regardless of the law, then so is execution, war, and accidental death. We don’t seem to agree on this. Those who want life defined as beginning from the moment of conception, can then justify making all abortion illegal. However, almost all of them accept execution, and war, and do not want those things to be illegal. It is a very inconsistent, illogical and convenient. Is all killing murder? or not? Does a woman who slips and falls murder her fetus? or a woman who is involved in a car accident or other such incident that results in the fetus’s death murder that fetus? Are they murderers? How many exceptions will the true believers accept in order to make abortion illegal again?

But then, there is that other question. If one is opposed to all killing, and all killing is murder, then eating animals is certainly murder, for animals are often cruelly killed, tortured and abused in the process of becoming what we refer to as meat.   MEAT is dead animal flesh. The animal had to be killed for that. If killing is murder, than eating meat condones murder. Hah! you say? animals are not human. Why is that? Very convenient. We can kill, that is, terminate any life we want, as long as it isn’t what society defines as human. Funny how most animal fetuses, including human fetuses, look exactly alike in the womb at some point. It is in the development that a fetus becomes an animal or a human. So somehow, people argue, animals and people are not the same, and it is OK to kill animals for food, even if they resemble us, because well, they are not human – by law. Again, it is a legal fiction that animals and people are not protected from killing in the same way. There are animal cruelty laws, but those usually apply only to pets, and ranch animals like horses, which often are a kind of pet. Slaughterhouses kill every day, and we don’t blink an eye at that.

So again, I have to ask, why is a human fetus, unborn, not yet even breathing, more important than a living, breathing animal? The historical answer has always been: the soul. Biblical teachings have it that human beings are special, are endowed with souls by their creator. Animals, according to organized religion, are said to have no soul, therefore, it is legal to kill them. And, kill them we do, in the millions every day, and yet it is not murder, because we do not define it as such. So it is with abortion: when it is legal, it is not murder.

So, the whole question of abortion as murder comes down to this soul, a religious belief that sets humans apart from animals, for the purpose of allowing us to kill animals without shame or repercussion.

Some people do not believe in the concept of souls.

Some people believe that all living things have souls.

Some people selectively believe that only humans have souls.

So, what life-begins-at-conception laws and anti-abortion laws really are, are an attempt to impose, legally, the belief on all people, that souls exist, that a human fetus, alone of all creatures, has a soul, and therefore cannot be killed. This attempt is only possible if one does not care what other people believe. Lately, I see all these complaints from the politically-motivated-religious right that they are being persecuted for their beliefs. Somehow, it is persecution to resist their attempts to force their beliefs on those of us who do not share those beliefs? This has happened throughout the history of organized religion. Those who believe have killed those who do not believe the same things, or believe in the same way. “That was in the past,” they say. Bull. It is happening again. This same group of self-righteous religious fanatics want to make providing access to abortion, or having an abortion a Capital Crime. Again, those motivated by their belief that they are right and the rest of us are wrong, want to kill everyone who does not accede to their beliefs, and they want it to be legal to do so.

That is the essence of organized religion: do what I say, or you will die, for I am right, and you are wrong. And you seriously think I shouldn’t be offended by that? You seriously think I shouldn’t fear your blatant attempts to legislate your particular brand of morality? to make everyone follow your beliefs by law or die?

THINK AGAIN.

And think about this: you have no soul, no Christian compassion, no love — if you have someone executed for having or assisting an abortion.

Sometimes it takes a good swift kick in the heart

There have been many times over the last five or six years when I thought I was ready for death. My life didn’t have much meaning, but it didn’t have to, I thought, since I had lived a good, and a long life already. I mean, what’s the point of just living? Life needs to be lived, and I mean lived, enjoyed, relished, savored. It doesn’t matter what the mix of good and bad is. A really good week makes up for a bad day anytime. An exceptional day makes up for a bad week.  However, since my days were one long string of bad, mediocre, or really crappy times, I couldn’t figure out why I was still alive.

Sometimes, I felt like I was dying. It seemed to me, day by day, that my life was winding down. Sometimes I had trouble hiking, and I could feel my lungs struggling to bring air in. Sometimes I felt pain in my chest. In my mind, I suspected I might have a heart attack anytime, or simply stop breathing. I was old enough. The idea didn’t bother me. We all have our time, and it seemed mine had passed. A few times, after I’d fallen asleep in my recliner, I’d awakened to find myself half dead, my brain fuzzy, my thoughts chaotic. It was as if I hadn’t been breathing for a few minutes. I would get up and walk around, but even though my lungs were moving, there was no oxygen in my brain. My brain felt dim, and dark, as though I was trapped underground. I mean, what is more symbolic of death than that?  I asked my doctor about it, and she said those were panic attacks. Well, you’d panic too if there was no oxygen going to your brain. I believe I actually did stop breathing each time, probably not for long, but long enough to trigger my body’s desperate attempt to reboot. I envisioned a time when I would be found dead at home, probably days or weeks after the fact. Who would check?

When my step-daughter had experienced her brain tumor, surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and more radiation and chemo, that had been really troubling. I didn’t want her to die. She survived, and the joy I’d felt then had been true joy, unbelievable happiness.  However, my marriage ended shortly after that. There was no further contact, no hope of reconciliation. I had a friend I’d known for years, and asked her out. She was horrified at the idea, and gradually pulled away too. I retired from my job of twenty-five years. I lived alone. It all seemed pointless right then. Was I depressed? Sure. But, eventually that passed, but I could see that I wasn’t really living, I was just marking time. It was as though I was in a waiting room, killing time, only I was just waiting for death to tap me on the shoulder, even though I was occasionally having good moments.

Stent

So, a week ago, I did have a heart attack. I suspected it might be a heart attack before it had hardly begun. I had felt something odd in my chest, a tightening, or pressure, on and off for months. It never lasted long, and I could simply sit down and rest a bit and I was fine. I don’t exercise enough, so I attributed it to my less-than-perfect stamina. Hiking in the mountains here, once a week, even for 5 to 9 miles, is not really enough to stay in good shape when you’re old. When the day came and the pressure wouldn’t ease off, and I felt anxious, was sweating like a pig, and foggy in my head, I thought, yeah, maybe this is it. For years, I’d believed that I would welcome it. I debated going to see my doctor, the newer one who had diagnosed exercised-induced asthma. I was breathing OK. I had no pain. However, something was wrong. At first I thought I would get over it. I took two aspirin. I tried to relax. Increasingly, I felt worse. Suddenly, I had to make a decision: do or don’t. I decided to act. Got help. Heart attack verified. Angioplasty performed. Clot destroyed. Stent placed in right coronary artery.

For someone prone to hypochondria, this was actually vindication. I knew I was sick, and I was. More importantly, I made the decision to live. If I had just sat down, or gone to bed, I would have reached the point by myself, as I did in the cardiac lab, where my heart went into arrhythmia. I would have died, painfully, all by myself.

So, I had decided to live on. I took steps to get help. I survived. I am on drugs for a while to help get my body through this experience. I signed up to train for a half-marathon. It feels good.

He was survived by two cats

I have such an odd feeling, as though I have no future. I have cleaned up my house, put things away, and find myself thinking that it is ready for the estate sale after I die. It keeps running through my head that I haven’t much time left. Last night I even thought that my due date is coming up sooner than later. All bills are paid for the month. The rent check, the book I sold, and the Netflix movie are all in the mail.

I watched The Man Who Wasn’t There last night.  Perhaps it influenced me too much. In identifying with the protagonist, I ended up being depressed. Of course, I never have to dig too deep to find such feelings. Been that way for some time now. I don’t feel sad as such. I just have this gut feeling that I will die soon. I kept getting the idea running through my head last night that once I leave my house today I will never return. That could mean different things, but it’s hard to imagine not returning to my house if I’m still alive.

I hope someone takes care of my cats.

---

UPDATE

Someone read this post today, so I pulled it up. I’d forgotten about it. Well, here I am 12 years later, still alive, on August 5, 2023. The cats, however, are gone. The orange one actually disappeared. I suspect he is one of the orange-striped cats that live a mile and a half from me. People on Next Door posted photos of the cats, which live outdoors, and are fed by people in the neighborhood. I’ve been through the neighborhood recently, and one of them is a dead ringer for my old cat. His markings are identical, but more to the point, he acts the same – looked at me, and appeared disinterested. I called him – no response. I whistled for him which he had always responded to, but it’s been many years since he disappeared one night at dinnertime. He was sitting on the porch of a house, so I didn’t want to just walk up to someone’s porch unannounced. If they were home, they hadn’t noticed me calling and whistling. A few years after he disappeared, I saw what looked exactly like him, behind a fence behind the Senior Center a little further away. He had immediately stood up when I called him, then lay back down and crossed his front legs – very typical behavior for him. I was blocking the street with my car, so I circled around to look for him and try again, but he was gone. I looked many times because it’s close to the Post Office I go to, but never saw him again, unless it’s the one living down the road from me.

I had already picked up a companion cat for the lonely black and white cat. She became listless after the orange one disappeared, always scanning for him, staring into the spaces he might appear from. The new cat, a white one, was male. The black and white was female. They ignored each other, at first, and didn’t seem to want to cuddle or play or screw as the missing cat liked to do. Eventually, I caught them chasing each other around the house sometimes, but that was the extent of it. She would go out, and he mostly stayed inside on the bed. The female developed a skin problem, losing some hair from biting the area on her back. The vet prescribed an ointment that cleared that up, and her hair returned. She seemed fine. But shortly after that went into a fast decline, not eating or drinking. She recovered a bit, and was drinking water, but suddenly died. I suspect it was the rabies shot the vet gave her while she was sick when I took her in, or she picked something up while she was there. She became stiff in her walk and was falling down one night, but moving around. When she plopped down in the bathroom entrance for a long time, I picked her up. I knew she was dying. She would never have let me pick her up otherwise. I put her on my lap and petted her, continuously. She looked at me from time to time. I wetted my finger to wet her tongue since it was hanging out, but it didn’t help. She died at some point and was already stiff with rigor mortis.

The white cat walked by and had no interest in her. Months later, he died in much the same way one night, getting stiff, and having trouble moving. I helped him stand to drink water. He drank often, with my help, but died that same night while I was out briefly. I should have stayed with him until he was gone.

So, no more cats, now or ever. I loved that orange-striped cat, and his mate, who had shown up at my house a year after he had. They were a loving couple. I loved them, and they stayed with me, never straying far even though they had a cat door to come and go. The white one was OK, and I treated him well. When he died I took him to the city shelter for disposal. They asked me if I wanted a cast of his pawprint as a memento, but I certainly did not.

I still miss that orange and white striped cat. I raised him from a kitten. He was the best. The black and white one never sat on my lap or let me pick her up, but she slept in the bed with me and him until she died. I gave away all their stuff: litter box, catnip, cat toys, food, food bowls, and water feeder. No more cats.

pɐoɹ ǝɥʇ ƃuıssoɹɔ ʇsoɥƃ ǝןɐd

˙ǝɯ punoɹɐ sɯɹɐ ǝsoɥʇ ɟo ssǝuʇɟos ƃuoɹʇs ǝɥʇ sı sɹǝʇʇɐɯ ʇɐɥʇ llɐ ˙uǝʇʇoƃɹoɟ sı ǝɔuǝıɹǝdxǝ ɥʇɐǝp-ɹɐǝu ɹno ˙ɯlɐɔ ɯɐ ı ˙sǝɥɔuı ʎq ǝʇoʎoɔ ǝɥʇ ssıɯ ǝʍ ˙ǝɯ sǝʌɐs ʇɐɥʇ ǝɔuǝsǝɹd ɹǝɥ sı ʇı ˙ǝɯ sɹoɥɔuɐ ǝɥs ˙ʎʇıɹnɔǝs ˙ʇlǝq ʇɐǝs ɐ ǝʞıl ʇsǝɥɔ ʎɯ punoɹɐ sɯɹɐ ‘ǝɯ puıɥǝq ɐʎɐɯ ˙ɹǝʇsɐsıp ɹɐǝu ˙ɥdɯ ǝʌıɟ-ʎʇɟıɟ ʇɐ ǝlɔʎɔɹoʇoɯ ˙puɐs ɟo ɹoloɔ ǝɥʇ ‘ǝʇoʎoɔ ɐ ˙pɐǝɥɐ pɐoɹ ǝɥʇ ƃuıssoɹɔ ʇsoɥƃ ǝlɐd

Back to the Mainstream

Fishing is religion to many people.  Fishing in New Mexico is like that – it’s a spiritual experience.  Rick loved fishing.  He also liked to drink, and he liked to party – “Ajua!” – and he liked to grow and eat the hottest chiles you’ve ever tasted – “Yesss!” – but he loved just a few things: his wife, his sons, and fishing.  There probably isn’t a river or lake in the whole state that he hadn’t fished.
“Rick’s dead.”  That’s how I got the news.  Linda repeated it, because I just stumbled out a “What?”  “Rick’s dead.”  “Yeah, but, but, you mean, Rick, Hilda’s Rick?”  “Yes.”  “But, how? when?  Was he in another accident?”
Well, anyway, Rick was dead.  The deal was this: he was at home, “evaluating,” a friend’s gun to give his wife, Hilda, for her protection.  The reason she needed protection is a family secret.  Rick didn’t know if he would buy it yet.  The story we were told was this: while Rick was loading the gun, Hilda left him to call Damien, one of her sons, and ask him about the value of the gun.  Rick didn’t know if he would buy it yet.  Rick, who had just the month before wrecked their truck, and who had broken an arm here and a leg there, having a habit of being not quite careful, dropped the gun.  The problem with an automatic, however, is that, as it’s loaded, that action cocks the gun.  The gun went off when it hit the floor, and the bullet, well, the bullet found Rick’s heart.  It had to pass through the sofa cushion, then it severed Rick’s scrotum, and traveled up through his stomach, where it managed to hit a valve in his heart, and no one could save him.
Hilda was devastated.  I don’t recall ever seeing a woman’s face so utterly deflated with sadness.  All of the skin in her face seemed to droop.  She cried, sobbing between spasms of crying.  Of course, her family was soon with her, as were Rick’s and Hilda’s friends: those that fished, and those without that particular religion.  Everyone came, and we all brought food and beer.  You come together to try to accept what has happened, you sit together, you talk, you eat, you drink.
Just days before the accident, Rick had one shot from a new bottle of tequila.  He had said he wanted to save it, to make it last.  Now, since he was gone, everyone crowded into the living room, the room with that bullet-holed sofa cushion, and shared the rest of his bottle.  It was our last chance to share a drink with him.  Martín, Hilda’s brother, sang a corrido in a great full voice laced with sadness.
Curious, I looked at the cushion.  Someone had turned it over so the hole was not so visible, but it was there.  I put my finger in it. I couldn’t imagine how it had happened.  I didn’t know at the time that Rick’s huevos had been blasted off, or I wouldn’t have touched the sofa at all.  There was, curiously, no blood, as if the cushion had not been under Rick for long after the bullet passed through it.  Perhaps he fell over onto the floor.  If there had been blood on the floor, it was gone now.
Eventually people hugged, and cried some more, and went back to their own homes.  There had been a church service earlier, but Rick had long ago insisted that there be no funeral, and no coffin for him.  He was cremated.  His ashes had been brought from the church, and rested in a jar in the hallway.  In the morning his family and friends took the ashes to Rick’s favorite fishing spot in all of Nuevo México.
It was a long drive from Albuquerque, past Bernalillo, traveling highway 550, through Cuba, through Aztec, and on and on near the Aztec ruins, almost to Colorado.  Five trucks convoyed behind Hilda, in the lead, because only she knew the place.  We pulled off the road, and plunged down an embankment to a sudden stop near the water.  There was a short hike along a thin, almost overgrown path.  Damien poured Rick into his fishing hole, a slowly revolving eddy alongside the swift flowing San Juan.  The ashes whirled round and round and round, some of them heading briefly upriver, where they slowly sank.  We all tossed flowers in the water, and watched, and waited for Rick to join the mainstream.
As the ashes and flowers slowly spiraled towards the deep rushing water, Rick’s family stood on the yellow sandstone rock that balanced over the eddy.  I thought the whole thing might just topple into the water, and the entire family drown, what with the aunt, the cousins, the sisters, the sons, the dog, and the friends standing or sitting on that cantilevered rock.  The sun is mercilessly bright when there are no clouds, and creates silver highlights on the surface of water.  The swift splashing water has shadows between the ripples.  Perhaps that helps explain what we saw.
Damien saw it first – a fish, probably dead, swirling with the ashes and the flowers.  It listed in the water, but wasn’t clearly dead, so Damien poked it with a stick.  It swam away! but only for a few feet.  It remained there, lazily pulled this way and that by the competing currents in that watery grave.  Someone said, “It’s drunk,” and it was almost certainly true.  The ashes and flowers had been followed by brandy, and beer, and tequila.  Rick was known to take a sip from time to time, well, probably more times than not.  The fish was drunk.
It wasn’t long before someone decided that the fish was Rick.  It made sense.  Rick had been coming to this spot for a long time, and he had just returned for the last time in what was left of his human form.  The fish wouldn’t go away.  It kept reappearing at intervals, and drifting, drifting, drifting, like it was waiting for something.  It seemed to be watching us watching it.
The fish told us that Rick wasn’t dead, that he would travel the San Juan now.  That he would hang around the fishing holes, drinking the beer and tequila that slipped from the hands and lips of  fisherman down the length of that river.
Gradually, the tears dried, and the sobs quieted.  People laughed about the fish.  The dog barked at it.  The shadows were creeping down the bank, moving over the edges of the water.  It was time to go.  The fish became more animated, swimming faster, reappearing less, and moving closer to the central current.  Finally, he disappeared into the shadowy, reckless middle.
Rick had joined his compadres in the water’s mainstream, and we felt relief.  Rick was free.  Rick was home.  I swear I heard something in the splashing, gurgling water, as we watched the river flow.  I swear I heard, “Ajua!”

Deep Creek Youghiogheny

With nothing left to live for, no joy in my life, no pleasure in waking, breathing, eating, or even being, I knew I had to just get it over with and die.  I went through all the options: gun placed in my mouth to fire upwards, blowing the top of my head off – way too messy.
Razor along my vein, for maximum loss of blood – too slow, and painful.  What of pain? I shouldn’t care, but, it’s because I tired of pain that I no longer feel anything at all. No sense having pain be my last memory.
Jumping? What if I survive? What if I’m paralyzed? unable to die? kept alive for nothing?
Pills? so I can wake up choking on my own vomit?
Jumping in front of a bus? Same problem as jumping.
I really couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t involve some kind of pain, slow death, or public display.  I didn’t want anyone to know I died, or how I died. I had no one to impress, no one to feel sorry for me, no one to send a message to.  I just wanted it all to be over.
I found a solution: drowning.  I knew it would be unpleasant.  I had a plan for that. Nitrous oxide.  I would feel myself drowning, trying to pull air into my lungs, trying to breathe, but I wouldn’t care.  I’d laugh my way into death, gulping in whole lungfuls of water.  Then peace, with a smile on my face.
The water was deepest near the dam, about 75 feet, so I’d plunge deep into the numbing cold water. I wanted to sink, and sink fast.  I found four twenty-pound ankle weights.  It was hard walking with them, but I practiced until I managed to just look like I was just drunk or high or old. And jeez, was I ever old. Too old for life to hold any interest anymore.
With a small canister of nitrous oxide, I crossed Deep Creek’s concrete bridge leading to the dam.  It was 3:00 am.  I walked, slowly and silently. There was no traffic that time of morning.  I’d been there often enough to know.  I climbed the fence to the dam, clumsily, but without making a sound.    There was a maintenance ladder on the dam itself.  As I grabbed each rung, my legs felt dead.  It took a lot of effort to pull them up with me.  I was sweating in that nearly freezing air.  Those weights got heavier with every breath.
The water was calm, and inviting.  I opened up the canister and let it fill me with gas.  I had a small mask to cover my mouth and nose.  It took longer than I thought.  I hung there on the ladder, a few feet from the top.  My legs were tired. My feet were hooked uncomfortably in the rungs.  My hands, wrists, and ankles ached from the climb.  After awhile, I didn’t care much about the slight pain anymore.  I didn’t care much about the cold night air.  I was really happy, for the first time in many years.  I didn’t feel like laughing, but I was smiling.  I dropped the canister into the water.  The splash was reassuring, calming, a funny preview of my own fall.
I threw myself out as far as I could.  I was taking no chances, but there was little danger of hitting the dam wall, as it curved inward at this point, near the long tunnel that takes water to the powerhouse.  The water flows past the turbines, back into Deep Creek lake, back into the Youghiogheny river, continuing on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.  I hit feet first, as I expected. There was pain, pain to my feet, despite the thick hiking boots I’d worn, pain to my knees, pain to my hips.  But the water was so cold, and I was so excited, it didn’t matter.  I sunk quickly.  I opened my eyes, surprised that I’d had them shut so long, surprised that I was holding my breath.  There was not much to see. It was dark, but some light from the power plant was reflected down into the depths.  I had expected to touch bottom, but I seemed to be drifting down incredibly slowly.
It was time.  I pushed my stomach in with my fists, expelling a lot of air.  It blooped out of my mouth and nose.  When it seemed I had no more air left, I held myself still, trying not to breathe until the last possible second, when my reflexes would kick in and force me to.  It was peaceful.  As I faced death, I realized I was ready.  She was gone forever. There was no one left to care for, no one to mourn my passing, no reason for my existence.  I was now useless.  I’d had a good life.  I’d loved, and lost, and loved again, and again.  I’d worked many jobs, some I’d enjoyed, some I hadn’t.  I had done all that I had set out to do, and I was content with my lot in life.  Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t want to die out of regret.  Hell, if I’d still had any regrets, I’d have wanted to keep on living, kept on trying to overcome those regrets for the rest of my life.  No, I had no regrets. It was just time to go.
My lungs burned with the beginnings of pain, so I opened my mouth and swallowed, deeply.  I sucked greedily at the water, blowing some residual water out my nose.  Then, then there was only water, and I was afraid. Fear stabbed at me like an ice pick through my heart.  I wanted to breath!  I wanted air.  My brain felt funny.  It was hard to think, but I kept trying to breathe. There was a heaviness in my head, a feeling of darkness.   My lungs struggled, again and again, for air.  The water was too heavy, too thick. I kept choking.  I started retching, water into water, and water back in again.  It hurt.  It hurt bad.  Worst of all was the feeling of panic, of absolute fear.  I thought I’d wanted to die, but now I wanted to breathe, to live, to think again.
Too late.

Am I dead?

What? where? who? slipped vaguely through my barely conscious mind as I came to. There were no answers available.  As I started to lift my head, I couldn’t imagine where I was.  I was lying down; I might be dreaming.  I saw sky above.  I was outside.  I wasn’t in my bed.  I wanted to get up, find out.  In a sudden panic, I realized I didn’t know who I was. I felt like I was still dreaming.  A name, I must have a name.  Now that was scary.  I was awake and thinking, but I didn’t know anything.  I remember telling myself: Just lay here.  Relax.  Let it come. It was like trying to remember something on the tip of my tongue: think of something else, don’t think about what it was I’d forgotten.  I closed my eyes.
I remembered the construction site, being pushed into the hole above an unfinished cellar, waking up to pain, being carried across a field, blood on my face, getting stitches above my eye.  I remembered standing outside the tree house, trying to cover a hole in the roof on a rainy day, slipping, falling, coming to with a terrible sharp pain in my arm, the visiting relatives in our house, the ride to the hospital, the plaster cast.
It came back to me.  Pumping my bicycle down that hill, hell-bent for speed.  Traffic.  Lots of traffic, rush hour traffic.  A whole lane to myself.  I had been keeping up, moving fast.  An unseen car on my left was trying to cut across traffic into a driveway I don’t know was there, just to my right.  It was practically touching me as I looked into a woman’s face: wide open eyes, slack mouth.
So, I was – in the street, still.  Somehow I’d survived.  I opened my eyes to a grey-blue sky.  I knew who I was, forgot that I’d forgotten.  I saw firemen sitting in lawn chairs outside the firehouse across the street.  They appeared to be laughing at something, but I couldn’t hear them.
But, there were vague noises and voices, somewhere else, behind me, yes, and yards away.  I was alone in an empty circle of asphalt.
“I saw the whole thing,” I heard a man say – I could hear an eager concern in his voice – “It wasn’t your fault.  I’ll testify in court for you.”  Now, why would someone say that? I wondered.  I’d had the right of way.
Someone else – I remember a deep gravelly voice – asked, “What about him?”
“Him?  He’s dead,” another voice answered, flatly and certainly.

Winding down, dow, do, d….

Emo warning.

Do you know that odd feeling in your throat when you get emotional? It tightens up, you find it hard to breathe, and maybe your eyes water.  Happens from time to time.  Sometimes I watch a sentimental movie and feel that.  There was a time when I felt deep regret over a lost love and I’d get that way.  Doesn’t seem to happen much anymore.  It’s an odd feeling, and only seems to occur with a sense of great loss, or empathy with someone’s loss or near loss.  I remember when my step-daughter survived cancer.  If it had been something I was watching in a movie, I’d have choked up like that, with my throat tensed and a feeling of  being overcome by emotion, regardless of outcome.  However, when Maya survived the surgery, and then again, when I found out the tumor was gone, after a whole lot of radiation and chemo treatments, I felt joy.  It was the purest joy I’d ever felt.  I was happy.  My throat did not tighten,  I did not cry, I did not feel overcome with emotion.  I was, instead, blissfully happy.  I stayed that way for a while.  I am, of course glad that she is fine today, and in complete remission, and it is not the type of tumor, being so rare, that she is likely to experience ever again.   The joy I felt back then was for her.  I love her so much.  I don’t need anything from her, don’t need to have love from her, or anything at all.  I wish her a long and happy life.

Mine is not so happy.   I experienced depression for a time in my life; got counseling, and medication.  It may have made a difference.  There was a change from that deep hopeless depression.  I was sad a lot.  It was sometimes overwhelming.  There was an almost physical pain, tightness in my chest, sighing.  That part is over now.

As always, I stay busy, even though I’ve retired from work.  I hike, I snowshoe, I read, I watch movies.  I buy things online and in junk/antique stores.  I don’t feel sad.  I eat a lot, which is not good, but it hardly seems to matter anymore. Nothing does really.  It’s not the way I ever thought I’d be: just drifting along.  No sadness, but no joy either.  It is hard to enjoy a movie, a good book, a good sleep.

Sometimes I nap and I wake up nearly suffocating.  It is dark and terrifying.  My throat feels like it has been closed up.  My brain feels oxygen starved.  I feel like I’m dying.  It happens more and more often.   I don’t know what it means for sure.  I’ve no known breathing problems.  I had pneumonia as a child a couple times, so perhaps my lungs are not all that strong, and I had asthma until I was twelve years old.  I don’t feel like there is anything wrong with my lungs now.  My hikes take me up over 10,000 feet above sea level sometimes.  It’s not all that easy, but I survive.  I hiked near that altitude once for 20 miles.

I don’t know what to make of all this sometimes.  I think I will drop off to sleep one day soon and I will just stop breathing.  That doesn’t seem to scare me.  It’s just the waking up unable to think straight and feeling like I’m dying that ever bothers me.  When I couple that with my lack of joy in living, with a loss of interest in companionship or love, and with no enthusiasm for the sex that always made me happy, I wonder if this is it?  Is my life over? Not in any figurative sense, but really.  Is this what it feels like to die, or just to grow old?

I should do something, right? I try.  I have a meeting tomorrow with people who want to change the world of politics.  That used to excite me, but it’s more running on inertia now. I do the things I used to do, and new things too.  I tried out to be a VJ ( a TV announcer/spokesperson), and it was good to try.  Didn’t happen.  I went to a local winery and I will be working there a couple days a week, with flexible days and hours.  I might be serving/selling wine, or helping clear the ditches, or helping with new construction. I may be able to help with some of the tedious paperwork stuff, since I have some experience with maintaining inventory and budgets.  It’s a new place for me. Something to do.

I don’t know if my life will change again.  I tried the guitar, but I’m not doing much with that anymore.  By now I thought I’d have a few dozens songs down.  My photographs never sell, so I don’t know how much I will keep that up.  My stories never sold, and I know they’re not that good.   My poems pale next to most everything I hear or read.  You’d think that would make me sad, but I don’t feel sad so much as tired.  I don’t know what the point of it all is anymore.  Going through the motions, eating, sleeping, doing things, watching things, reading, writing, working.  I just don’t know.   I know that people say, even when they’re dying, that life is a joy, and we can just enjoy every minute.  Can’t say I feel like doing that.

In reality, I think my life is winding down.  I think it may be ending soon.  I can’t say why.  It just seems like it.  Sometimes the brain knows things we don’t consciously admit to, or recognize.  Animals have been observed doing that: preparing themselves to die.  They sometimes seem to know.  Are people any different?

There are lots of things I can do: volunteer to help kids with their homework.  Ask someone out.  I have tried to get interested in other people, but the spark is just not there.  It’s not here in the sense that perhaps there is no need anymore?  If my life is going to end soon, then there really isn’t much point in anything.   I look at that in the reverse direction, and I think, if there isn’t much point in anything anymore, then maybe that’s the sure sign that I am going to die soon.   I have no regrets, no bucket list, no things I need to resolve. Death doesn’t scare me.  Nothing scares me.  Nothing excites me either, so that seems the same as death.

Well, tomorrow is another damn day.  Who knows what will happen?

I had a dream last night: I was moving.  I didn’t want to move. There were other people I was living with, and I didn’t want to go with them.  I stayed in bed while people finished packing.  I got up after awhile. There had been a very young kitten hanging around for awhile, feral, skittish.  I didn’t know where it had come from.  I saw it now, asleep by the bed.  It looked so sweet and happy there.  I went into the bathroom to pee and noticed little bits of cat shit around the toilet. Seems the kitten had decided to stick around.  I thought about sticking around myself, just by myself.  I heard a truck horn.  There were to be two vehicles going. Four guys in one big truck and the two women in a car.   I remember thinking it odd that the women and men were going separately, fearful that the women were going to disappear.  That it was deliberate.

I went back to the cat, stared at it.  I decided it was my cat.  I could stay.  Then I decided to go after all, but the cat was coming with me.

Moon Watching, Watching Watchmen

The moon, low to the horizon and huge, has a reddish tint to it tonight.  I tried to take a picture when I got home, but it was behind the trees already.

I watched it heading west on my way home at 3 a.m Friday morning, in the western hemisphere, North America.  It was not full, but the light it reflected on a clear night was spectacular.

It reminded me of the scenes on the red surface of Mars in the movie I had just watched. Watchmen.  The only movie I’ve watched in a theater in over a year.  The only movie I’ve ever gone to see the first showing of, and at midnight to boot.  I read Watchman, the graphic novel, many years ago.  Still have it lying around.  Impressed me then, and the movie impressed me even more.  Damn, that was a spectacular movie.   Special effects aside, the graphic depiction of human nature qualifies it as literature, in my opinion, so it ought to be hailed as such.  That was one movie that surely tapped into the words and made them even more visual than the two dimensions of the flat page.  Of course, imagination has no bounds when reading, so the pictures, the colors, the artistic vision are not necessary, and so neither is the movie. Nevertheless, this is how we entertain ourselves, and ideas must be presented as entertainment.  The story, the book, the movie: all are superbly murderous, bloody, violent, tragic, lusty, depraved and, yet, somehow more than that, and much more than entertainment.

Such a story.  Is it a tragedy? It ends with horrible destruction, then hope, and finally, a theme that runs through the entire movie ends it: mankind sucks.  We could do better, but we don’t.  Even the noblest among us would sacrifice millions to save billions, and lie about it.  And the lie provides the hope for humanity, and, in the movie’s ending,  the lie is about to be exposed.

Of course, I had hoped to have seen the movie with K.  She’d heard about the graphic novel, but it was out of print.  She hadn’t tried to read it sooner because it was DC comics and, not Marvel.  Growing up, of course, I knew about the superior writing in Marvel comics, the multifaceted characters, the gray areas of truth and right and wrong, and the real life, love and rejection, paying bills, death, and jobs and tiny human dramas on the sidelines of every larger action.  The stuff that goes on even if you’re a superhero. K admires that about Marvel and doesn’t care for DC comics. I told her it was worth reading.  By the time I found my copy, it has just been reprinted, and she had already bought a copy.  She hadn’t read it last time we spoke of it, so I’m not sure what she thought.  We have similar ideas about war and peace and science and fiction and religion. We’ve read many of the same books, seen many of the same movies, and admired the best of humanity in all of it.  Unfortunately, the difference in our ages prevents us from seeing something like Watchmen together.

[aside: ran into K at the coffee cart later this very day.  I had to have coffee to stay awake after getting maybe one hour of sleep after this movie.  She smiled and forced a wave to me when she got in line.  I was talking to someone, so I waited until she come over to  sprinkle cinnamon on the whipped cream on top of her iced mocha. Told her I’d seen Watchmen, and she asked me about it. Told her how exciting it was, and the crowds there.  Asked her, since it was Friday, after all, if we could meet for lunch later.  She said she was having a working lunch.  Said she had to go.  The oddest thing of all was that I asked her if she had ever read the copy of Watchmen she had bought.  She got real defensive; said she’d read it two years ago! But I know she bought it only recently, when the second printing came out, and I had even asked her if she’d read it, and she said no, that she hadn’t had time yet.  Now, suddenly she read it two years ago?  That doesn’t make sense. Something is very odd here.]

When I asked her if we could see Silver Surfer together – that’s when she let me know.  She said, “That would be like a date!” with a look of horror or disgust on her face.  “Inappropriate.” That’s the word she used many times.  Inappropriate for me to ask her out, to want to meet her after work, see a movie, have a drink, give her flowers.  Even leaving aside my romantic interest in her, she can not even think of me as friend outside of the workplace.  I rarely see her anymore; we work in different buildings, for different departments, but, occasionally have lunch still.

As intriguing as Watchmen is, I still found part of me wishing I could watch it with K.  I didn’t ask her.  I know it’s beyond her to imagine going somewhere with me.  She’d rather go to a play, like Monty Python’s Holy Grail, with her uncle than with me.  I guess old men are OK if you’re related to them.   It’s not even sad anymore to think about. It’s something I’ve had to accept, like my former wife telling me I had to move out, or she’d call the police, tell them her life was in danger.  Very effective.  Very legal.  I could have challenged it later, but by then, I’d have been out, and why would I want to live with someone who’d done that to me?  And K.  How nice it would have been to tell her about all that, to have a friend I could talk to, who would listen. She wouldn’t listen – it was also inappropriate to speak of anything personal.  I’m not really sure why.  I could understand a woman not wanting to hear about my disintigrating marriage or the end, when it came.  But, even later? Long after the divorce, she wanted to hear nothing of it.   Of course, sometimes I think it was just because she didn’t want to encourage my inappropriate feelings for her.

But, life goes on. Sort of.  In Watchmen, life goes on, but the underlying tensions are not gone.  Even the deaths of so many millions can ultimately have been for nothing.   I understand the characters in the story who speak of the pointlessness of it all, that we have exactly the society we wanted.  We are violent and selfish and greedy and murderous.  Perhaps we’ll never change.  We cringe at horror, but do little to stop it.  We even participate in our own little ways.

And me? I go on for some reason. Inertia? I don’t know.  I move along with work, with my union activities, with reading, and movies, and guitar, and hiking, and it’s not doing a whole lot for me.  If it were doing something for someone else, perhaps I could accept that as my motivation.  I’m just not really sure I care about anything anymore.  I was happy enough being married to someone I loved, even if not every day was a good one.  I could have gone on that way for a long time, maybe forever.  When it fell apart, and, abruptly it was over, I found myself insanely in love with K.  I felt so good, so alive, so ready to fall in love all over again.  It was exhilarating to believe in love, to think I could actually have the “in love” feeling again. That would have given me a real reason to enjoy life and want to go on.  The chances seem slim now.  I feel a great sense of accelerated aging, of death coming soon, but  I don’t fear death.  I would like to be happy while I’m alive, but perhaps it’s just not possible anymore.  I don’t even know what would make me truly happy.  K. Well, there’s her, and my feelings for her. I’d certainly be happy being with her, but it cannot be.  So, I seem to be rejecting all possibilities that come my way: the old girlfriend back in my life, the other former lover living close by, the union sister who tried to interest me in dating a friend of hers, or even herself – why am I so withdrawn, so quick to misunderstand, so quick to push people away?

THREE

In two thousand and three

three thousand dollars

bought three weeks in China

two 23-hour plane trips

meals hotels and travel

buses, trains, and boats

five more plane rides

Beijing and Shanghai

Gulin, Xian, Hong Kong

Rivers Yangtze and Li

the Grand Canal in Suzhou

markets and pandas

and cormorants too

small concrete towns

terraced hills

and fish ponds on roofs

lacquerware silk

acrobats motorcyles

museums and gardens

flowers and ponds

temples and factories.

Thousands of

the national bird

— the construction crane —

are everywhere.

Curious white masks

more and more we see

worn on bikes in shops

in cars on buses

an epidemic – SARS

Meanwhile —

the USA invades Iraq

no weapons are found

bloody pictures posted

on walls, fences, bus stops

of Iraqi children.

Chinese express sympathy

for us poor Americans

our country is at war.

I wear my peace symbol

on my lapel as I travel.

A soldier stares at it

under Tianamen Square

But, returning home

brings anxiety —

will they let me return?

will SARS close US borders?

is peace treasonous?

But

all they ask is

did I have contact with

anyone, anyone with SARS?

and I have to remove

my shoes

pass through x-rays

and my bag is searched.

I’m home.

O’Maolchaithaigh 2008-2017

THE DAY I TURNED 50: Dad, a Cat, & Death

THE DAY I TURNED 50

I awoke on my birthday
The day I turned 50
Cat asleep under the bed
I saw my father
Standing in the corner
Next to the open closet
I was surprised.
He was years dead.
I called to him
Asked him how he’d been
What he’d been doing
He smiled at me
The old superior smirk
He didn’t speak
Moved away quickly
Watching me watching him
Passing by.

I woke up again
Staring at the empty corner
The open closet door.
Under the bed the cat stirred.

I dreamt one morning
I held my cat on my lap
He’s dead too
Died that same month
The month I turned 50
I felt his purring weight
Knew he was dead
Two feet under
I spoke softly to him
Glad to see him
Felt the muscles rippling
Under striped orange fur.
He spoke to me
Said he was fine
The only thing was
He wished he’d lived
In the rain forest.
I didn’t think this strange
Even though his eyes
His eyes were blind
At least he had eyes now
They’d disappeared that day
That day he slept
On the bathroom floor
Trying to get up
His eyes were gunked shut
I tried to clean those eyes
But they were gone.
He went back to sleep
I held him felt him
Stroked him missed him.

He used to be my father’s cat.