We sneaked kisses in between chopping and marinating and sidewalk chalk and fake plastic bowling. His lips smiled on mine as we stood, lingering, when she called out daaaaaaaaadcomehere! She wanted to show us the giant ant she found, and for me to help her fill the heart she had drawn on the driveway with pink chalk.
We sat on the concrete and she told me all about her day in between directing the grand illustration we were engaged in. He stood at the grill and watched, and when I looked up the held gaze and smile made it too easy to read what was in his heart. And mine, too. Later, later, she wanted me to help her with the nightly rituals and her wiry little girl body gave me a big hug before climbing into the shower. She sang loudly under the tap, and we stood in the living room listening, suspended in each other. A perfect moment. A pause, a slip, a thud, a silence and then crying and I watched as he ran to see what had happened. I watched as he performed a comedic assessment to make her laugh, and listened as his voice went soft as he asked her but you are okay, right? He was so young when his own father died, and I wondered how that influenced this perfect little vignette that I was thankful to be a part of.
I combed her hair when she got out and in her pink pajamas she put on a show for us and then nearly immediately fell asleep. We stayed, after she went to bed, and he put his arm around me and drew me close. Told me stories from his childhood, made plans for us to visit an old friend and said he had told her about me. When I laughed and could not imagine what she must already think based on his exaggerations, he turned serious for a moment and said he had never introduced her to anyone before and what that meant.
He kissed my forehead and pulled me in closer and with his lips next to my ear told me that when it's time for his long nap he is going to sit down on his bench and tell everyone that he's just waiting for me to get there, too. His way of telling me. His hand on my hand and the line where one started and the other stopped was blurred, electric current binding us to each other, blending everything.
My heart is full. Lord, thank You, because I know that I am not deserving of this much happiness on my merits alone.
27.5.10
18.5.10
The glowing green
I read him like that untamed dog, all crazy energy and frenetic movements like the lake when it storms, his mouth foamed when he spoke. More than once I stepped out of my role as cover and in my fiercest Rocky voice condemned him to silence. He is swagger and ego that will pop with the slightest pin-prick. And the explosion will be loud, violent. It is odd to look through someone's eyes, and to see that lying dormant inside. To wonder when not if we will get the call and fly down there with .223s and aggression. It was bile on my tongue that I tasted as I yelled at him. And he knew that I hated him, and I watched him file it away in his mind. A test for later, I thought. And Lord knows, I do not like to lose.
If I had a mohawk (like Etienne) it was certainly standing on end as I walked down the driveway, tail bushy and poised, as if I could make myself look bigger, meaner. A look next door as I cleared the side of the house, and there she was. All nine years of her little kid jeans and pink shirt, and she was waving me over. The smile on my face belied all the steeling of my flesh and I changed direction and went over. She was wide-eyed-stream-of-consciousness excited and after taking a breath she told me to wait right there. Went inside and in a second came out. With a bunch of flowers. That she had picked from their garden. When she saw my cruiser pull up.
I took the flowers and she gave me a big hug and her mom and I talked while she ran around but I could not hear her. The bouquet in my hand sent a warmth through my arm and into my heart and like an electric current through the rest of my body rendering me numb, idiot grin on my face as if there were a perfect moment to life, a tiny microcosm where everything was all in its right place, this was it, and I stayed as still as I could lest that feeling go away.
Jaysus, you hear your grandfather say.
And then the scratch scratch next to my ear called me away, and I wound my way back to my car and away, away. But the feeling remained and I wanted so desperately to call someone, to tell someone, to have them explain to me how my life could encompass such extremes (hate and love being neighbors?!) and how I could walk between the two worlds without going utterly insane. How I would define normal if someone were to pose the question.
There is no normal life, he whispered, again, in my ear.
On station they made fun of me, but it was no joke when, at the end of shift, I told them that today we were difference makers, even though they laughed. And I laughed too. There are people whom we prey upon, they decided to partake in the hunt and it is always open season, always. And there are those whom we protect. And me, in my black and white mind, take it to the extreme and want to put those fragile parts of the world under my wing and snuff out the evil parts until not even the smoke of their existence remains.
The flowers are in my kitchen now. And I have told the story many times, but I don't know how to show anyone what is in my heart.
Lord guide us when our experience out-paces our understanding.
If I had a mohawk (like Etienne) it was certainly standing on end as I walked down the driveway, tail bushy and poised, as if I could make myself look bigger, meaner. A look next door as I cleared the side of the house, and there she was. All nine years of her little kid jeans and pink shirt, and she was waving me over. The smile on my face belied all the steeling of my flesh and I changed direction and went over. She was wide-eyed-stream-of-consciousness excited and after taking a breath she told me to wait right there. Went inside and in a second came out. With a bunch of flowers. That she had picked from their garden. When she saw my cruiser pull up.
I took the flowers and she gave me a big hug and her mom and I talked while she ran around but I could not hear her. The bouquet in my hand sent a warmth through my arm and into my heart and like an electric current through the rest of my body rendering me numb, idiot grin on my face as if there were a perfect moment to life, a tiny microcosm where everything was all in its right place, this was it, and I stayed as still as I could lest that feeling go away.
Jaysus, you hear your grandfather say.
And then the scratch scratch next to my ear called me away, and I wound my way back to my car and away, away. But the feeling remained and I wanted so desperately to call someone, to tell someone, to have them explain to me how my life could encompass such extremes (hate and love being neighbors?!) and how I could walk between the two worlds without going utterly insane. How I would define normal if someone were to pose the question.
There is no normal life, he whispered, again, in my ear.
On station they made fun of me, but it was no joke when, at the end of shift, I told them that today we were difference makers, even though they laughed. And I laughed too. There are people whom we prey upon, they decided to partake in the hunt and it is always open season, always. And there are those whom we protect. And me, in my black and white mind, take it to the extreme and want to put those fragile parts of the world under my wing and snuff out the evil parts until not even the smoke of their existence remains.
The flowers are in my kitchen now. And I have told the story many times, but I don't know how to show anyone what is in my heart.
Lord guide us when our experience out-paces our understanding.
12.5.10
My rose
I wanted him to be my Holden Caulfield, but he didn't know. Didn't know, and I did not tell a soul, lest my heavy heart be some kind of sign of weakness. When we got the call and flooded the area, and after I spoke with the complainant and got a better description of who exactly we were looking for, his image flashed in my mind and I could not let it go. Went to his house and like a tidal wave banged on the door and when his small boy frame opened it wide, I realized I had forgotten to plan out what I was going to say. Mother provided a cheap and easy alibi and I left after making him promise he would be at school the next day. And he did go, but left halfway through. I guess he found a loophole in our contract. And I drove around for the next several hours wondering what in the hell I was going to do.
You are responsible for what you tame.
The words pressed in on me and I sat there on my perch, and pondered. I did not want to be one of countless adults whose words promised a lot but whose actions would only disappoint. A wayward country mouse he is, with his too long hair hiding his vulnerable chocolate-brown eyes, and he has managed to find the weak spot in my armor. And for all my over-thinking I can't figure out how or why.
It was surprising to me that he could sense my heavy heart through sanitized and distant texts. Said, you are being soft tonight, what is wrong and the blinking cursor staring back at me would not allow me to lie. The world breaks everyone, and most of the time I can get by with the steeled exterior and heart like a black hole. Most of the time. But some nights the sky coalesces with ether and in my bones I feel the entire weight of everything, the changing of tides, ship lights on and distant, the curling of leaves before a storm. And for a moment, it is too much to bear. And then it passes.
Last night he stopped and I was staring at him and his gaze pierced back into all of the tiny holes. We stayed suspended in time like that and he kissed me and I did not let him go. Later I woke to the two of us entwined like puzzle pieces and I drifted back into sleep to the sound of his soft, warm breathing. And I drifted back into sleep with a prayer on my lips of how grateful I am, and how lucky.
You are responsible for what you tame.
The words pressed in on me and I sat there on my perch, and pondered. I did not want to be one of countless adults whose words promised a lot but whose actions would only disappoint. A wayward country mouse he is, with his too long hair hiding his vulnerable chocolate-brown eyes, and he has managed to find the weak spot in my armor. And for all my over-thinking I can't figure out how or why.
It was surprising to me that he could sense my heavy heart through sanitized and distant texts. Said, you are being soft tonight, what is wrong and the blinking cursor staring back at me would not allow me to lie. The world breaks everyone, and most of the time I can get by with the steeled exterior and heart like a black hole. Most of the time. But some nights the sky coalesces with ether and in my bones I feel the entire weight of everything, the changing of tides, ship lights on and distant, the curling of leaves before a storm. And for a moment, it is too much to bear. And then it passes.
Last night he stopped and I was staring at him and his gaze pierced back into all of the tiny holes. We stayed suspended in time like that and he kissed me and I did not let him go. Later I woke to the two of us entwined like puzzle pieces and I drifted back into sleep to the sound of his soft, warm breathing. And I drifted back into sleep with a prayer on my lips of how grateful I am, and how lucky.
4.5.10
Chain maille
Going into the small white room I instantly hated how the fluorescence reflected off all four walls, ceiling, and floor. Sanitized and unfeeling; institutional. The dad had a mullet and he smelled of sweat that had dried on dirty cotton. The diminutive son did his best to shrink into his corner and be absorbed by the white of the cinder block walls, to disappear. In my mind I was a kid again and had to do my best to remember that of the three of us, I was the adult and had to play my part.
The dad flapped his gums and soon it was just sound reverberating against my eardrums, words obliterated into tiny syllables of meaninglessness. I stared at him, the son, with his too long hair hiding his eyes, almost but not quite buried in his arm resting on the table. A lapse, a silence, and I listened to myself part the air with look at me. No, look me in the eyes, look at me.
Tears wetted his childish cheeks and I held his gaze until it became awkward. I thought about the story at Grandpa J's wake, and the junior detective league, and I wondered how that would translate into the present day with drugs and sex and no parents and so much pressure. All I could think was that I am responsible for you now, and you need to tell me what to do. I am going to help you, but you have to show me how.
A day later and I heard that he had run away again. They did not report it this time because, well, why bother. I filed it away and looked for him on every side street and playground, and wondered, what would it be like? I thought about growing up with E, and what it felt like to be beholden to someone else, and to be raised with strong ideas about what was right, and what was expected. We had a bonfire that night and after too much whiskey the war stories poured out and I thought about all the things my dad said around camp fires in the middle of the night as we stared into the flames. Some kind of purging, you just need someone who wants to listen.
It is a heavy burden to bear.
Today at work they told me that he had attempted suicide the night before. They found him in time and took him to the hospital to be evaluated. He is a child, he is tiny, he has a mom who comes home drunk, a sister who was molested, a father who has thrown in the towel and...... what else?
I remember homemade cookies in grade school, mom and dad being at every game, family vacations to the ocean where E and I made ten-thousand lifelong pacts, band boosters, holidays, Sunday dinners, and an untold number of moments where I knew, I knew that I was loved and supported and that nothing bad could ever happen. That, like she said, our bond was stronger than space or time and that nothing would ever change that.
Whoever you are, if you love someone or are grateful for someone, let them know.
The dad flapped his gums and soon it was just sound reverberating against my eardrums, words obliterated into tiny syllables of meaninglessness. I stared at him, the son, with his too long hair hiding his eyes, almost but not quite buried in his arm resting on the table. A lapse, a silence, and I listened to myself part the air with look at me. No, look me in the eyes, look at me.
Tears wetted his childish cheeks and I held his gaze until it became awkward. I thought about the story at Grandpa J's wake, and the junior detective league, and I wondered how that would translate into the present day with drugs and sex and no parents and so much pressure. All I could think was that I am responsible for you now, and you need to tell me what to do. I am going to help you, but you have to show me how.
A day later and I heard that he had run away again. They did not report it this time because, well, why bother. I filed it away and looked for him on every side street and playground, and wondered, what would it be like? I thought about growing up with E, and what it felt like to be beholden to someone else, and to be raised with strong ideas about what was right, and what was expected. We had a bonfire that night and after too much whiskey the war stories poured out and I thought about all the things my dad said around camp fires in the middle of the night as we stared into the flames. Some kind of purging, you just need someone who wants to listen.
It is a heavy burden to bear.
Today at work they told me that he had attempted suicide the night before. They found him in time and took him to the hospital to be evaluated. He is a child, he is tiny, he has a mom who comes home drunk, a sister who was molested, a father who has thrown in the towel and...... what else?
I remember homemade cookies in grade school, mom and dad being at every game, family vacations to the ocean where E and I made ten-thousand lifelong pacts, band boosters, holidays, Sunday dinners, and an untold number of moments where I knew, I knew that I was loved and supported and that nothing bad could ever happen. That, like she said, our bond was stronger than space or time and that nothing would ever change that.
Whoever you are, if you love someone or are grateful for someone, let them know.
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