June 2 2018

 

 

Today’s thousand words

There is a type of therapy that takes into account all these things that are wrong. James is going to the doctor today. Getting fixed isn’t as difficult as you think. It’s pills, sure, but that’s just the start.  The dances and the nights running down the street with your friends, that’s what you aim for.  That’s what you come for. 1966 at sundown. Come out of the house and connect with the big brothers and sisters from up and down the street. It’s easy – they make the decisions and the rules, but you know it’s going to be fun because you’re outside and the air smells like that, and the sun is gone and soon the streetlights will check-in with their veils and tornadoes of moths and bugs. What is it tonight? Track down? Joey’s brother has a spotlight – they mount it on the balcony on nights like this – you have to go out in the dark, no farther than Boothmans house – and hide. They’ll countdown and when it’s time you have to sneak from bush to steps to bush to tree and finally you have to wait until the light is looking for someone else and run up under the balcony and ring the bell before you get lit-up. Last one out loses –  you have to try, you can’t just hide in the spot you chose. You have to advance with the swing of the light. And no one tries to cheat anyway because it’s such fun.

So you take the pill.

I was talking with Brent over coffee today and he told me about Frank – down in Arizona with his girl – got run over on the street – just like that. Fifty six years old and knocked down on the pavement and killed.
‘Life is precious’
I said, ‘yeah. It is’.

And we went on and he told me about all the people at the celebration of life. It used to be funeral. Now it’s celebration of life. Because funeral is shitty I guess. No one wants a funeral, but sure as hell – you’d do just about anything for a celebration of life. Doesn’t make sense though when it’s the same thing.

And then we talked about something else and then we were talking about taking morphine for pain and then we talked about a pill for general malaise for the general piss of it. Just take it and change everything.  So James went to the doctor. Jim went to the doctor. Brenda went. Tracy too.  Melinda said she’d never go – that there was always someone to talk to – someone you could trust instead of resorting to pills.

Nobody knows everything. This person knows these hurts. This other person knows some of your hurts as well.  No one person knows all of your problems, hurts and the wishes that come from them. You don’t tell one person all the things.

This pill – two years. Go back to before that job fucked up and your daughter got pregnant. Two years. A summer and another summer, and a bus trip, a bad hotel room. Three meals out for birthday dinners. Two of yours, one of hers. That fucking speeding ticket just this side of Revelstoke – the discussion in the car about how fast you should be going with kids in the car. Someone else’s kids – camping and guess who was going to tell their dad when they got home and then the whole neighborhood would know.

This pill – five years. A missed opportunity at the firm that wanted a Project Manager. Doesn’t matter that the whole thing blew up three years later anyway when the bottom fell out of oil. But, there would have been enough time for a couple of years on top. Savings. A pretty decent savings account can happen in two years.

Here’s the pill; twenty years. How big is that fucker? Remember Adrienne? Maybe she’d still be around. I’d like to go back to that night after the movie and the time spent talking at her apartment. We sat on the couch talking. Facing each other. I went home. I just said goodnight and went home. She was surprised.  What a Goddamned fool. Hurt so many people. Arrogant Goddamned fool. No pill can fix that. No one can forgive that.

How about a handful of pills? How about fifty of these? Fifty of anything will fuck you up though.
That artist girl. Maybe you could have saddled up with her for a while.
Dawn. That was her name.
Doesn’t matter.
What kind of pill takes care of that? What’s the drug? What’s the active ingredient? Side effects?
These are new – they’re not advertised on T.V. Inside of it is time. Pills filled with time. Time that could have been spent better. Time that you missed entirely because you were somewhere else. Or time denied entirely. There you go – that’s it. Pick the time. Pick the place.
There they are. Walk in. Pay the doctor and off you go.
Time pills. Place pills. Person pills. Trouble pills and out-of-trouble pills. Food pills. Sex pills.
Join the fun pills.
Most of what happens in there you wouldn’t believe. And it’s just a matter of money.
You got money? You can get the pills.
Your sorrow saw the light of day.
Today’s one thousand words;  didn’t happen.

I spoke to a counselor today after work. She is a shrink I think. And I said a lot of stuff. After the call I was tired; really tired. And I fell asleep. I slept so soundly that it feels now as if I slept for a whole day. And when I awoke the thought occurred to me that the two potential suicides that I’d mentioned might have already happened and I began to cry. I thought of calling her to ask if I am really alive – but I don’t have her number – it was blocked when she called. Medical professionals do that.