"You have to be trained to have the right mindset about the way life works," they tell me, "otherwise, you'll just be another failure; another rat in the dump. Another idiot on food stamps."
My alarm is ringing. It's still dark outside.
"Sleep isn't important when there is work to do," they say.
Summer is days away. I can taste it, I can smell it coming in from the screen in the open window. I can smell the rain from last nights storm. The birds begin to stir in the tree right outside my window, not yet chirping, but a few have already begun to rustle feathers and hop from branch to branch. I notice this while I'm half asleep.
The alarm is going off.
My roommate kicks my mattress, "Turn your fucking alarm off!"
I reach for my phone and turn the alarm off. Sitting up I realize that my alarm is really my roommate, not my alarm. I don't let too many people get away with talking to me like that, but I like her southern accent. It doesn't matter what she's saying I can usually only concentrate on her full, red lips-even if they are yelling obscenities at me-and they normally are.
I don't blame her. I'm not the best roommate. My alarm sounds at five every morning, even weekends, and my insomnia kicks in regularly three to four days a week; those are the nights when I don't sleep at all. Sometimes I watch her sleep. Envious, yes. It's probably been so long since I snored like that. But, I more watch as her hair falls in her face, and I watch how her lanky arms stretch above her head, and I watch how her hips tilt when her leg falls out to the side. She's a true masterpiece. It's like watching a work of art dreaming.
Last night I only got in about two hours of sleep. I wanted to make sure my essay for English class was perfect before handing it in. It counts as 80 percent of our English grade this semester.
"Don't just play the game, KC" they say, "own the team! Hell, own the whole league!"
They want me to write my essay on Emily Dickinson, on Susan B. Anthony, on some old dead broad that has done nothing for me. Old dead broads who used to wear pinstripes and suspenders and men's socks. Poetry, sure, it's inspirational. Virginia Woolf, sure, she's done a lot for feminists. But to me, there is only one answer to the essay question: What or who is your life's biggest influence.
I wrote:
My Life's Biggest Influence
Music has been around since the beginning of time. In fact, no one really knows where music originated or who the very first musicians were. Scholars say that cavemen made instruments and held concerts in pleasantly acoustic caves the size of Heinz Hall.
The Big Bang must have sounded like a million drums exploding our world into existence. The flying meteorites must have sounded like thousands of screaming violins whizzing through the air. Our world began with an orchestra of amazing sounds. Before there were people and animals, there was the static of the ocean rhythmically crashing, pulling quiet sand down into it's depth. There were constant whirling winds whistling songs through the trees. And soon, through the beauty of song and sound, our souls were manifest in the heavenly blue skies of a new world. Our souls are made of the music, it's our connection not only to one another, but to everything on the Earth.
Birds knew their songs before we knew what birds were. The crickets of the night vibrate perfect notes into the nighttime breeze and carry their songs across the land and up toward the everlasting silent moon. How do these sounds make us feel so greatly? How do they speak to us without having to say any words?
Even today, the sound of traffic is it's own song. The different pitches of each engine, it's loudness, it's softness. Squealing brakes and honking horns, both in the distance and nearby, and every bird and wind gust adds to the bravado of boring, daily human life. We should be wild and free. Music can get us there and make our days feel like magic. Music makes it feel like home is in the heart. Makes it feel like you are a part of something real.
I have to run. I have to stay mentally fit. I pop up and go into the bathroom to put on my running clothes and shoes. They buy me all the best performance and latest fashions in athletic wear. I'm dressed in a florescent blue shirt and black shorts. My shoes are black with lines of florescent blues, yellows, and greens.
I plug my ear buds into my phone and turn on my playlist. Mysteries by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs plays and it gets me off and running at a good pace. I love the snare sound on this song. I feel like I'm moving the earth with my feet when pushing back the pavement. Like a needle on a record. I feel like the song may not play if I stop. I feel like I am turning the world on it's axis.
Running in the summer is best. There are fresh smells and it feels so good to sweat so much. Early morning worms slink across damp sidewalks and stretch for the grass. There are more worms than usual this morning because of last night's storm. I have to maneuver around them in some places. Other places, I have no other choice but to smash them between the rubber souls of my shoes and the wet concrete. There are too many to spare them all.
I run along my usual path around the entire campus, around the school, the church, the dorms. There are no other runners out, no other overachievers. There are a few nuns peppering the campus, walking toward the church for early morning prayer. They are easy to spot in their white blouses and black slacks.
Past In Present by Feist plays in my ear buds and I've got a steady pace going. I'm light as a feather. My legs are springing and I don't have to put in much effort. The song takes me away to a different place even though the campus lies still and flat in front of me. I wait for my runner's high, but it isn't coming.
Maybe I just have too much on my mind: Grades, my essay, my parents, my roommate, spending the entire summer back home.
I run back to my room.The sun is barely pulling itself over the horizon. I'm trying to be quiet. I go into the bathroom and there she is wearing nothing but a towel. Her dark hair is dripping water onto her naked, freckled shoulders and her cheeks are rose red and flush from the steam. I stand in front of her for a moment staring, but it seems like an eternity. She gives me a dirty look and tries to push past me. I couldn't help myself. I've been tortured by her perfect figure, her perfectly manicured fingertips, her perfectly plucked eyebrows, and her slender neck. I've been tortured all year.
I must be possessed because my lips are pressed against hers and they're just the right consistency of wet and her body is accidentally pressed against me. But it isn't an accident because my hands are around her, gently pulling her into me, until I feel a jolt and I'm shoved back. It's as if suddenly taken from my body. When I come back to reality I rejoin my body in the middle of a fall. I grab the handle in the shower to catch myself, but it breaks and I take it down with me into her dirty bathwater. This feels like a fitting analogy for my life right away. I go off into a daydream, a playback of those few seconds, and before I can say anything her back is facing me and she's storming away. She yells for Sister Mary to come.
Sheer terror comes over me and my body is suddenly trembling. I quickly pull myself out of the tub sloshing water everywhere and my clothes cling to me as I drip from head to toe. I dart out the door without wasting any time. My shoes are soaked and heavy.
It's all ruined now. Everything I have worked for is ruined. How can I ever go back there? How can I turn in my essay? Will they allow me to graduate? What am I doing? Maybe I can say it was all a joke. She would know. She would know that wasn't a joke. I just couldn't hold it back.
God, she was so soft. Her skin was so clean and her face smelled like expensive soap. It's nothing I've ever encountered. Not even a kiss from a cleanly shaven face could compare. I feel like there is electricity running through me.
For a second I thought she was kissing me back, but no. She was just moving her lips to yell at me. She needed her lips to tell me I was a dyke. To tell me to fuck off. And rightfully so. In my defense, it snuck up on me just as quickly as it snuck up on her. Something took over me, it was unavoidable.
It probably won't take much to convince them that something really did take ove
r me. To convince them to exorcise the evil spirits out of me. It probably won't take much convincing. Then I can just go back and graduate. But my parents, Sister Mary; the humility they will make me face, I'm not sure it will be worth it.
I wish I could become the smell in the woods after a heavy rain. I wish I could become part of the night sky. I wish I were anything else but human. I wish I could become a sound. I wish I could be a music note. C sharp. A minor. I wish I could just be a single leaf on a tree, a pebble in the dirt, a summer breeze, the heat rising from beach sand.
I have never run without music before. It's tiring. I have nothing to push me along, just my burning muscles. My lungs are tight and send shooting pains to my side. I keep running. My blood is pumping. I'm aware of my struggled breath. I realize it is the music that makes me go. It's the music that gets me out of bed at 5. It's the music that makes me continue.
There is silence all around me and I can only hear myself now; everything sounds like a drum beat. My feet on the pavement go:
"Boom, tap. Boom, boom, tap."
And my breath struggles in time, "Haah, Haah."
"Boom, tap. Boom, boom, tap."
"Haah. Haah."
"Boom, haah, tap. Haah, boom, boom, tap."
"Boom, haah, tap. Haah, boom, boom, tap. Haah, boom, haah, tap. Haah, boom, boom, tap."
Instead of making my way around the front of the building I turn left into the woods. The grass is soaked and slunky. It sucks my feet down and they suction themselves out on every step. I'm still running fast, but the trees slow me down. I don't think anyone is chasing me. I guess I just run from my realization. It won't stop following me. If I run fast enough the truth may fall from me and be left behind. Instead it follows me like a ghost. Instead, it's forever embedded like a hot poker brand.
The basement window to the library is open, I squiggle down in and collapse to catch my breath. I look up at the ceiling and lean my head back far to look behind me. And as my heart pounds I think of her. Funny how sometimes the muscles in a smile are too strong to hold back. Even as I sob, the smile doesn't stop.
I take some deep breaths and try to clear my mind. I lay there on the cold marble floor like a dirty dishrag, like a wet mop. I sit up and my shoes squeak quietly. I hear someone on the stairs.
Frizz
Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros plays on the radio and it makes me miss home. Missing home only makes it that much better to go back to. I've already driven a hundred miles, so there's no going back now, but I do miss my bed. Lucky I got my pillow with me in the front seat. I pulled off the turnpike a few miles ago to find a hotel parking lot to sleep in. I don't need the hotel, just a pillow and a back seat. But now I'm pretty sure I got off track because this road has no streetlights and has thick woods on both sides.
The song still plays and it reminds me of when I left earlier today. As soon as I hit the highway I caught a perfect glimpse of the sun setting in my rear view mirror. I could feel excitement in my soul. That was hours ago and I'm getting tired. I slow down and do a three point turn in the middle of the blacktop road. There aren't any cars, haven't seen one since I've been on this road. My gauges all of the sudden start climbing from cold to hot and smoke starts to seep out from under the hood of the car. I pull over right away and shut the engine off.
It's the middle of the night, hardly a good time for my radiator to start hissing. I pop the hood, which is hotter than the Devil's fire. I nearly scald my fingerprints off just trying to lift the thing. It isn't smoking too badly this time-just needs some water to cool off the engine. I grab an empty water jug from the trunk and cut the top off with my pocket knife. I can smell the rain in the air and hope I can gather enough water to cool out the radiator.
When I told my parents I wanted to go to California to play guitar they gave me three things: this multi-colored junkyard car, a wad of money from the backyard jar, and a pocket knife. They said the money is for room and board, not booze and women. Ha Ha very funny. And the pocket knife is for protection, but also, they said, when you leave home for the first time it feels sort of like camping. You think you have everything but you are usually unprepared. Sometimes you need to rely on basic survival skills.
My parents are sort of like permanent campers, hippie farmers, Grateful Dead Heads.They raise their own chickens, plant their own vegetables, grow their own pot, they don't own any televisions, and they only sometimes use electricity powered by a generator. They don't believe very much in technology, but I had a computer for school, which I did from home. Any time I needed the internet I went to the coffee shop.
They were right about the camping thing because now that I'm stranded, I guess I'll have to just pee in the woods. That would be embarrassing if another car happened to drive by while I was squatting. Aside from my car hiccuping and hissing, the woods around me are eerily quiet. I can't see anything and I hope the tickle on my butt is just some tall grass.
I start singing Mercedes Benz by Janis Joplin as I pee in the dirt and I'm stopped mid-verse when I look up to see something standing in the shadows in front of me.
My body clams up and hot fear rushes over me. My ears ring a little and I feel like I might pass out. This is it. My worst fear manifest right before my eyes. There she is right in front of me, the runaway panther. I remember going to see the panther when I was a kid, it looked right into my eyes, poor thing. They called her Pinky. I wanted to free her but I knew she was too young to survive on her own.
I must have been nine or ten when we went there to help build the cage. Jeb lived in a tiny, rusty trailer on a huge farm. I knew he couldn't have had a wife because his entire trailer was filled with exotic snakes, some were in aquariums, but most were just stacked on top of one another in Tupperware containers. The containers had strips of masking tape, labeling each one.
So, how does he come across owning a black panther, my dad asks.
"Won the dang little thing on a game show in the Netherlands," he says. "Not the question asking kind," Jeb says, "the what's behind door number two kind."
He took care of Pinky for the better part of five years until the dang thing attacked him. Jeb went in the cage one morning and didn't come back out until the guys got there with the body bag. They said maybe Jeb wasn't feeding her enough, or maybe she somehow contracted rabies and went mad, or maybe she was just tired of being in that dang small cage. That morning she got Jeb, and she got him good.
A group of people put on a search for the panther and trudged off into the woods with rifles in hand, but came up with nothing everyday for two weeks straight. That was a hundred miles from here and she stands before me like a myth. Gorgeous and black as ever. If she weren't so sleek I might not have even noticed her in the darkness. She's staring right into my eyes. I don't know how I can shake and be perfectly still at the same time but I am. My breath goes shallow and my lips and mouth are dry, I dare not even move enough to close my mouth to gather spit.
I should have read my horoscope before I left the house. Dear God, I didn't even flip a tarot card today. What was I thinking? I don't usually make big decisions without consulting the cosmos. Now look where it got me. I suddenly feel naked.
Our eyes are locked tight, hers have caught a glow from the moon. For the first few moments it seems we are both assessing our own situations. I'm literally caught with my pants down, and even as warm trickles run down into the leg of my jeans I pull them up slowly when I stand. I wonder if she remembers me from our encounter years ago. I pet her as she ran her body along the side of her newly built cage. But no, I don't think it matters.
I sense my body doing something it isn't supposed to, and that is run like hell. I am trying to figure out whether or not she can read my mind. It seems like she can. It seems like she can penetrate through my mind just as easily as she did Jeb's jugular. I don't dare look anywhere but right in her eyes.
I'm pretty sure neither of us has blinked for an entire minute. Now her tail is swinging back and for
th and fear is poking me in the back, saying, "run, you fucking hippie, run!" But all I can do is freeze.
When I hear the first bang from the clouds thundering above us it makes me jump and boosts my adrenaline by a hundred percent. Must have been that year my mom let me join the track team, for socialization. When that gun went off I took off. The thunder is loud enough to distract her for a moment. My entire body shakes, but I take off anyway in the opposite direction as the cat, as my car, further into the woods.
My body runs on without me and before I know what's happening I go off to the left. She's on my tail, I can hear her shuffling, sprinting right behind me. I zig zag around the trees and grab hold of their trunks to help pull me around. My heart is pumping so hard I might choke as it makes its way into my throat. I'm so scared I can barely breathe.
A sudden purple flash of heat lightning brightens the night and it's the first time I have seen the ground since I've been in the woods. I'm not wearing shoes, but it doesn't matter, I never wear shoes. I have calluses on the bottoms of my feet so thick I can walk on tiny pebbles or probably across a bed of nails or hot coals if I had to.
Thunder booms over the trees and clouds billow in quickly to block the moon. A sweet smelling breeze blows and I feel fat drops of rain fall on me, kissing my skin, which has been suffocating all day from the humidity. Soon one drop turns into millions, even billions and the cat and I are drenched.
Lightning cracks like fireworks and it feels like the Fourth of July. The storm's power is so apparent. All those times I wished for God to strike me dead with lightning, I wish I could take those back right about now. Life isn't that bad, I actually have it pretty good. This is the ultimate test, I guess. The ultimate test of trust. Will you kill me today, God? With the cat, the lightning?
Salvaging Grapes (Playlist) Page 2
