Good Times

“You’re so bad

Best thing I ever had

In a world gone mad

you’re so bad”

-Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

There are people out there that have never been in a fight.

That was immediately evident during our first altercation.

There are people out there that cover their mouths when they cuss.

People out there that have never bought a pack of smokes.

That have never tried pot.

Never been drunk.

or woke up naked, or paid for a hooker, or drove 100 miles per hour, or shot a gun, or been in jail, or set something on fire, even.  

How do you make it to adulthood like that?

I tried to hate Clark, but I felt sorry for him.  It seems like he never had a good time in his life.

Clark was a pansy, but must have been sent to karate classes as a kid.  Maybe, I’ll give him a chance.  After all, he needs a guy like me around.  He won’t make it far on his own.

There are people out there that have never had a true friend.

That was immediately evident during our first altercation.

There are people out there that have never been in love.

People out there that have never bought a bouquet of flowers.

That have never had a pet.

Never been to church.

or held a baby, or smelled a bandaid, or been to camp, or played in the rain, or had wine with dinner, or even enjoyed a good book.

How do you make it to adulthood like that?

I tried to hate Dave, but it seems like he never had a good time in his life.

Dave was a bully, but he could back it up.  Maybe, I should give him a chance.  After all, he needs a guy like me around.  He won’t make it far on his own.

At the same time the two put the fingertips of a flattened palm into the other in the universal “time-out” sign.  Dave was sitting in broken glass propped on one elbow.  Clark’s back was arched in response to the broken coffee table underneath him.  Both had bloody noses and swollen knuckles.  But just like that, the fight was over and their  hands clasped yin to the yang and one pulled the other to his feet.  

“C’mon, let’s go grab a-”  they told one another at the same time,

“-beer.”  Dave said.

“-soda.” Clark said.

“Whatever.  You’re buying.”

“Water, then.”

The sudden realization that they were not alone.  Standing in the doorway__________...

Prophet Margin

"You singers are spineless

as you sing your senseless

songs to the mindless"

-Public Enemy

I am a prophet.

Of God.

I am not boasting, because frankly, I’m terrible at it.  In the “real world” I would have been fired almost immediately.  

Worst job I ever had.

Ok, I take that back. Kinda.  It’s also the best job ever.  But it is terribly demanding.  Everyday is a struggle not to feel inadequate.  That does sound terrible, doesn’t it?

There is a whole lot more to it than that, though.  The highs are infinitely better...and more permanent, more consistent.

And you do improve in time.  Sometimes it feels like that anyway, like maybe it gets easier.  But hey, I am still considered the ‘new guy’.

Seventy-three years old and I’m the new guy.

No, I haven’t been a prophet for seventy-three years.  Maybe five or so.  It’s hard to tell when it really started, because I only realized it yesterday.

It’s true, though.  A minor prophet, for sure, and I don’t know if its a permanent position or not.  I’m trying to hold on to it, but like I said, my work ethic is not what it used to be.  And I’m old enough that being stubborn is a reflex.

But I am also old enough to have met myself and therefore aware of my own quirks.

See, part of my problem with being a prophet is this:

God will give me a nugget, and instead of using it wisely, or sometimes in addition to trying to use it wisely, I’ll climb up on a higher horse, and start looking down instead of across. Sometimes just a little bit so it takes me some time to identify it, but eventually, I always throw my ignorance out there for everyone to see, and off runs the horse without me.

Also, I have a tendency to take the nugget and mess with it so much, and over-analyze it until its bent and faded version of its original majesty.  Its like playing telephone- that game where you whisper to one person who tells the next, who tells the next, and so on.  By the end you can often no longer recognize the original message.

The quest for wisdom is tough for an idiot like me.  I’ll bet it’s worse for them smart fellas.  At my age, thats all thats left, if you’re lucky.  Both knees are shot, left hip is no longer human, but some synthetic plastic ball that makes me limp as a constant reminder.  I can’t see much past the length of my arm, and nothing closer than my elbow.  I’ve heard a few people say my hearing is going, but I don’t think so.  After all, I heard them say that, right?

I don’t mean to complain, but I can barely help it.  Wait and see.

Scratch that last.  Conduct unbecoming of a prophet, penalty, first down.

By the way, God is hilarious.  Sometimes its not funny at all.  Maybe it will be in a few years, I don’t know.

Also, my faith is wavy at best.  And sometimes when I receive an epiphany to share with the world, I later find out it was common sense.  That’ll cause you to doubt your prophet-ness every time.  So, I haven’t completely ruled out that I am utterly and completely full of shit.

Another problem with people like me is that we think we understand that the ego is undesirable, and so we pretend to ignore it.  The act itself has the opposite effect, and actually feeds the ego.  The truth of the matter is that we are incredibly self-centered.  So much so that we will do anything to justify our own existence and often believe that we are destined for greatness.

Naturally, that line of thought also keeps me questioning the sanity of my claim to be a prophet.  So there I am, back at the beginning, circling over and over.  It is my hope that all of life’s rings of paradox will knit together into a tapestry that reveals the truth.

I’m expecting a comic strip.

Year before last, I was on a roll.  It got to a point that whenever I asked for answers, I got them.  Sometimes I didn’t like them.  Most of the time they made me uncomfortable.  And when I found out what He had in mind for me, I lost it.

I tried to quit;  I was hellbent on a cycle of self destruction.  Way old enough to know better, but that didn’t matter.  Actually, I think it made it worse because I was old enough to get away with being crazy.   For instance, one time I...

Final Decision?

“You left your tired family grieving

and you think they’re sad because you’re leaving,

but didn’t you see the jealousy in the eyes

of the ones who had to stay behind”

-The Smiths

“You’ll do it, won’t you?”

That was the last thing he heard her say, and it was a struggle.  That was the last thing she had the strength to say to him or to anyone, and she had known it.  He wondered how carefully she had chosen those words, and why she had said them to him.

Her hands gnarled and the lines in her face deepened.  The pain is returning.  The pain never really left and had been there for years and years to some degree.  Now it racked the brittle body sunken into the dip of the worn mattress.  She was covered with an afghan she had knitted herself thirty years prior.  A relic of the past well on its way to becoming a memory.

The staticky light from the television gave the skin of her face a transluscence.  Bones draped loosely in flesh.  She looked like she could be dead already if not for the squirming mask of pain.  It held on to her, prolonging the inevitable with torture.

That’s a hell of a way to go, he thought, loosening and tightening his grasp of the pillow.

His eyes suddenly swelled and tears streamed over his cheeks and off of his chin.  Some dripped onto her face and the pain melted for a second.  She almost smiled.  He gasped automatically and choked out, I love you, grandma.

He held his breath and held the pillow.  For a moment he shared the place where she was: a teetering place exactly halfway between clinging to life and letting go.  It didn’t seem that there could be an in-between.  It was one or the other.  It came down to this most final decision.   And he helped her,  Just let go, grandma.   And she did.  He felt her let go- he hoped into a peaceful place that she had not known in a long time.   It didn’t take long for her hand to relax, and he fell back into the chair that had been his home.   

The world snapped back:  the chair was hard, the room was cold, a moonbeam fell through the curtain, the television flicked at the darkness, and there was an awful sound.

He clamped his mouth closed in realization that the stuttering squeaky wail came from the back of his throat.  

He cried into the pillow for a long time and woke up the next morning with a stiff neck.

Prior to today, Kyle was only vaguely aware that the Funeral home building had been there since he was a kid and probably long before.  It sat inconspicuous in the background as an ominous reminder- largely ignored.  That is, until you were forced to go.  Then it crept under-skin, never to be forgotten.  

In spite of its age, the interior was brand new, spotless with crisp lines and soft accents.  The air was floral antiseptic, and although the spaces were wide and open, you knew it was a vault.  Chairs seemed to keep appearing as the crowd grew.  Twice, Kyle had to switch seats as new back rows materialized behind him.  It seems grandma was loved.  Or at least, heard of.  

Where were all of these people during her last weeks? he wondered.

The service was unremarkable.  People mulled about within small groups and without aim, sometimes reacting to one another.  The mood might have been controlled by a man behind a curtain who piped in loose melodies in low octaves and low volumes.  He had switches and dimmers for lighting and temperature.  He was the wizard of death.   In his house, anything above a forced smile and nod made you feel guilty.  

So why was it that the woman in the hat with plastic flowers on it was allowed to continue.  She bounced from group to individual, a little too loud, and a little too happy.  She was too generous with hugs and blissfully unaware that the static cling was causing her skirt to stick to her substantial frame in awkward ways.  The black suits at the entrance had her in their sites as she headed his direction.

“Kyle?  Well, you have grown into a handsome young man, haven’t you?”

He turned to face lady-cling, who froze into a comedic statue actually waiting for an answer.

None came and so she continued, “How is college?  You have just one more year, right?”

What?!  Who is this woman?  Maybe he’d might have met her once before.  One of those ladies who was everyone’s aunt.

“S-school?”  he stuttered, his eyes narrowing and lips flattening.

Who gives a crap?!  I gave my grandma a pillow sandwich! he wanted to say,  but instead he just pointed to the box in the front of the room and replied, “My grandma just died.”

She looked toward the casket in slow motion, “Of course she did, dear.”  Before he could act, she had him in the clutches of one of her hugs.

Her breath was tepid, “Of course she did.  Oh, but she’s in a better place.”

Kyle went limp into the invasive hug.  Is she? He had heard that from at least a dozen people- she is in a better place.  Like them, he had grown up believing that when people die, they go to heaven.  But, as he sat across from grandma’s bed that final night, he had to be sure.  He had to know she would be alright.  However, some quick research on the web revealed__________________             

Tamon hadn’t been away for long, but he had gone very far, about as far away from this place as you could get.  Where he went, the waters were a soft green and the skies were huge and the kind of blue you can only find in a crayon around here.  Where he went, the forests were thick and lush and filled with amazing creatures, the mountains were sharp and it was hot at the bottom and cold on top, and the land met the ocean in soft places.  

Sand...kids know enough to crave it.  The sand here shares a big plastic bin with die-cast cars and clumps the cat left.  Tamon said the sand there was perfectly smooth and white here and there.

When Tamon returned, he didn’t bring his whole self back.  His mother would say that his mind was a million miles away when he’d sit on that lumpy couch and stare out the window.  I’m not sure if the window had anything to do with it or not.  Maybe he just stared that direction because that’s where the sun was.  He always smiled at the light and frowned at the darkness.

His mind wasn’t all he left in that beautiful place.  The tip of his index finger was gone.  It shocked his friends and family when they first noticed, and thier reactions surprised Tamon, as though they were mentioning a haircut he had forgotten about.  He waved his nub and smiled, shrugging.  What can you do?

There were no doctors in the family, but it didn’t take one to see that the cut hadn’t been a clean one.  It was ugly and discolored.  Burned so that the small scar ridges overlapped.  When it heals it might resemble a tiny brain at the end of his knuckle.

Whenever anyone asked what happened, it was the same, “A small sacrifice.” he would reply, and change the subject. Often the subject was____