inherently different

My mouth was full of pennies. Copper fell from my mouth in pregnant drops, each splash a work of art on concrete. A Pollack study in red. My eyesight was failing, but I could still see them. Laughing. Drinking cheap whiskey from paper cups. Mixed with whatever it is privileged kids drink on Friday nights during football games. They really should have killed me, it would have been much less painful for everyone involved.

It took almost three months to heal. I became restless waiting. I’m not very good at waiting. Already the principal and both deans had been at me, alone and in pairs, picking apart my story. They asked their questions, but I’ve years practicing ignorance.

"No, sir. I didn’t see them. No, I have no idea who they were or what they wanted. Yes, sir, you’ll have no trouble from me on school grounds."

I’m not a good liar, but most adults never like to think what kids are capable of when they put their minds to it. I had a four part plan. That there were four people responsible for three broken ribs, a broken nose, two black eyes, a broken hand, and the hairline fracture along the zygomatic bone of my left eye was just a coincidence. Bad news travels in threes, but like airlines, revenge apparently doesn’t like empty seats.

Lucky number one folded the moment he turned and saw me standing at his side at the arcade. He begged. This wasn’t surprising. I knew they all would, thats what cowards do. Unfortunately, compassion was one of many emotions that had long since absconded along with my innocence. I stopped when he passed out. That, at least, was something.

The second took a little longer. Luckily I wasn’t on a schedule. Time was on my side. Sometimes a plan falls together and he fell into my lap. Movie theaters are dark and not watching where you put your ass can be hazardous. Over quickly, word spread then. There could be little doubt what was coming and who it was coming for.

The third was ready for me. A two by four can lay waste to healed ribs. In the end it wasn’t enough though. Without someone to hold my arms behind my back while he beat me senseless, he folded rather quickly. I didn’t care. Like the merchant of venice, I took my pound of flesh, no more, no less.

The fourth was the hardest and the one I wanted more than Oprah wants cake. Took the rest of the school year. He was just trying to lay low. He knew it was just a matter of time and every day that I left him untouched was one day closer to getting away with it. I made promises, but promises are made to be broken aren’t they? I caught him alone in the bathroom. My friends closed off the exits to prevent anyone from interrupting us.

His family moved that summer after he got out of the hospital. I hear he drank out of a straw for six months since his jaw had been wired shut. I had to work painting the school bathrooms all that summer to pay off the cost of replacing the porcelin urinal I had damaged. The piece that broke off is still somewhere in the attic of my father’s house.

No one ever made me taste pennies again.

I’m a pretty easy going fella. Laugh if you must… I’ll wait.

I’m easy going, but that doesn’t mean I’m tolerant. What I mean is that I won’t readily accept being treated like shit if you’re suffering from a nervous breakdown, pre-menstrual syndrome, post-partum depression, scurvy, irritable bowel syndrome, shingles, or calcium deficiency. In most instances my complete disregard for your comfort doesn’t really impact anyone, even if you’re the one afflicted. The one way it might is if you ask to visit me here on Maui and expect me to wait upon you hand and foot.

All I ask of my guests in exchange for a place to crash while they visit the valley isle is that they realize that the sun isn’t the only heavenly body that refuses to rise and set according to their schedule. Oprah will refuse a second helping of cake before I shake my ass according to your commands.

We’ve had a few guests visit and only once has someone broken the rules. Aside from suffering from a lack of consideration, this particular guest wore out there welcome in a little over 72 hours by being so incredibly self-centered that I spent the last 36 hours of her stay locked in my room or at the local starbucks. I had to pull a pseudo disappearing act otherwise I would have gone postal and told her all the things someone should tell her. Things like:

1. You’re alone for a reason.
2. Love doesn’t occur in a vaccum.
3. You need professional help.
4. No one likes a whiner.
5. I can see why your last boyfriend became an alcoholic.

I stick my neck out a long way for my friends. They’ve earned it. The only time I won’t bend over backwards for a friend is when they prove to me that don’t know what being a friend is all about. Knowing when to shut your piehole and listen as well as when to open your mouth and offer advice. When to ask for help and when to strike out on your own. When to not spill a cup of water on a $1800 laptop computer… er, I digress.

I’m not sure about the Red Queen, I don’t speak for her, but as far as I’m concerned, the last guest is no longer allowed to breath the same air as I do. Next time, the gloves are off.

I often wonder why people succumb so easily to the drive to preserve life. Even in cases when the life isn’t their own to save. By now just about everyone not in a coma has read or heard about the fight being waged by Terri Schiavo’s parents to keep what is left of their daughter alive. I won’t get into the fact that Terri has the mental capacity of a bowl of pudding, nor will I bore you with the legal wranglings that have tied up the courts for years. I could point the irony that a man who is responsible for killing more civilians that Osama bin Laden since the 9/11 terrorist attacks is trying to save the life of one who wouldn”t even vote for him if she had the chance. Or I could condemn the self-serving interests of the fanatical Christians who believe they know what Terri wants. But I won’t.

I will bore you with my thoughts on the right to die issue though.

Before Terri Schiavo suffered brain damage in 1990, she was pretty. While many of the right-to-life zealots argue that she would want to live, they fail to recognize that medical experts believed her heart stopped briefly from a chemical imbalance brought on by an eating disorder. So poisoned was her self-perception that when she looked in the mirror, the face and body that stared back wasn’t attractive to her. I wonder what Terri would say if she did awaken and saw how her vanity ravaged her face and body over the last 15 years. No one knows, but I can imagine she’d look in the mirror, then look at her parents and tell them to mind their own fucking business.

Everyone has a right to live free. So important is this right that it is part of the bedrock that built this nation. But what of our right to die? Without a living will, Terri’s fate is left to people who have their own motivations, their own hopes, and fears. It is unfortunate that Terri’s parents are so passionately connected to their daughter that they refuse to let her go. Just one more example of how passion without understanding is a dangerous thing.

A cold wind swoops down off the mountain, like a seagull feeding from the open ocean, taking small bites from the skin not covered by my thin jacket. There is nothing that can be done about it, and I can’t even say I would if I could. It’s part of the user fee. Pain, or at least discomfort, is currency on a journey like this. If broken bones are dollar bills, surely the wind and cold are the nickels and dimes.

My father used to tell me that the destination is the least important part of a journey. He also used to say that no matter where you go, there you are. In addition to being the king of non sequiters, he is still my benchmark when it comes to telling tales.

I go off alone often enough to know the dangers of what I’m doing today. This mountain is familiar though. The canyons and ridges greet me with wide arms, like old friends. It is a climb I often made with my father, first at his side, then on his back when the incline became to steep. The first time was when I was six and he was the strongest man I knew.

Though his grasp no longer folds over my hand like a magician palming a coin, he is still a giant in my eyes. He is older, wiser maybe, but not the Hercules of my youth. Like a Renaissance masterpiece buried under layers of paint added later by lesser artists, the strength is still there, hidden under the grey hair and loose skin. Knowing that fills me with a false belief that he’ll live forever.

At the top I look out over time and space. The green carpet stretches back a few hundred miles and a dozen or more years. After that first climb we’d come here, sometimes with his buddies, sometimes alone together. He’d tell me stories as we climbed, partly to pass the time, partly to keep me from thinking about how tired I was becoming. He was good at that too, keeping me from noticing when something was unpleasant.

He’d title his little stories: Gus & the Giant, Gus & the Pirates, Gus & the Bear. It was always Gus and something or other. What his titles lacked in imagination, his stories more than made up for it. Fascinating tales of adventure, sacrifice, and conquest one and all.

The worst of situations, the lowest humiliations, could all be endured with one of these tales occupying my mind while the world swirled around me. Imagination is a painkiller. Like any drug though, imagination isn’t free.

I start back down the mountain, darkness chasing the sun toward the horizon. Mentally I count the nickels, dimes and dollars that have paid for my imagination. It’s my way of passing the time. My way of not thinking about how tired I’ve become.

The pale light from the window above my bed tried valiantly to banish the shadows that filled the corners of the room, but never quite succeeded. I didn’t mind the shadows much. It gave me a place to hide. I learned to love the shadows in my room, especially when there were strangers in my house. Each time someone I didn’t know came calling, it sent little shockwaves of fear down my spine.

I was always sure that I would be sent away to live with another family at any time. When new people invaded my immediate environment, I was pretty confident they were discussing terms for my purchase. If money exchanged hands, I was out the door and down the street faster than you can say rent-to-own. As you can imagine, even the 16 year old kid who delivered our newspaper would send me screaming down the street.

Friends of my father would often stop by our house while he was at work. They’d chat with mother about the weather, the price of gas, the latest Charger game, but I was always sure they were talking about me.

“No, he doesn’t wet the bed, but he tends to wait until he’s dancing before he’ll go. He’ll probably grow up to be fruit,” I imagined she told interested parties. I hoped this information would turn them off, willing them down the street where the O’Tooles and their 17 children lived. Surely a better bargain could be found among the towheaded children.

Once, on a shopping trip to FedMart (the 70s answer to WalMart), my mother drove away while I was still in the store, standing in the waiting line for an ICEE. It would have been much easier to believe my mother’s contention that she had simply forgotten me if my brothers hadn’t been in the back of our brown 1964 Ford Falcon screaming my name as she drove away.

Another time, my brothers and I were left in the car while my mother went shopping at the grocery store. We waited in that parking lot for about three hours, any number of scenarios of abandonment discussed and discarded in turn by my brothers and I. My father finally picked us all up and brought us home without my mother. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I found out my mother had been arrested for attempting to shoplift a roast she had stuffed up her dress.

This isn’t a pity party. I don’t mind that my mother was nuttier than a squirrel’s digestive tract. Hard as it is to believe, these experiences formed my sense of humor, my strength of character, and my understanding of right and wrong. They also helped me develop as a writer. The stories I could tell you… and through this blog, I will.