katie

This is not a story about true and lasting love. Make no mistake….just because it is played on a large screen and has beautiful scenes staged for the delight of the players and now for you, dear reader…well, that does not make it love. It was lovely all right – take- your-breath-away beautiful, but it was cotton candy, fluff – the stuff daydreams are made of. That does not diminish what it was while it lasted; however, for as they say – “a thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Let’s set the stage for this….well – let’s just say it was something like what you’re about to watch…cinema…played in different places with different backdrops and roles, with violins to make your heart go all aquiver – but not love. As Alfredo said in Cinema Paradiso, “Life isn’t like in the movies. Life… is much harder.” We just pretended, you see…that it wasn’t.

Oh those romantic scenes… they’ll get to you every time. Did you see his face? That’s how I felt about it when it was over – still do. No regrets, no recriminations, no what if’s. It was what is was and while it was, it was glorious! A beautiful man. If I’ve ever seen one who looked more beautiful, maybe I didn’t notice because my eyes were still smitten with him. A blend of Italian and Spanish – with wonderful coffee au lait skin, dazzling smile and warm, twinkly black eyes. He looked just like Erik Estrada did when he was not playing in that TV sitcom anymore – a little fuller, a little older but better. His uniform was not highway patrol – it was Brooks Brothers suits that looked more like they had been hand tailored for him. Even when he looked ‘casual’ he wasn’t frumpy or messy. I had to work to keep up with him. I don’t come easily to being pristinely turned out like that – I tend to get all messy and disheveled – but it was certainly worth the work. Oh, yes it was.

Let’s see, when did I first notice this beautiful man who came up from the barrio? I can’t really tell you…I know I noticed him before he noticed me. He was that beautiful. No one could compete with him. I thought he was just something to look at – eye candy. I never really even entertained the idea of ‘having’ him. You don’t own beautiful butterflies….you can’t even capture them – you’re just lucky if they land on you or stick around long enough for you to really appreciate them.

I was at a large professional conference – at the Arlington Hotel in Little Rock. I told you it was a beautiful story….great backdrops, eh? I was there with a group of people who worked for me. He worked for the feds. My claim to fame lay in that for some reason, we had achieved a certain degree of recognition for our success and innovation in helping people with serious mental illness find a way to return to life in a community as opposed to an institution. That part is not really important except that you should know I was idealistic and passionate about what I did – I did it a little differently, maybe taking more risks than others who ran similar programs. Hell – I lived it. He was idealistic also. He’d come up as a community organizer for Hispanic people and run for office as a young man – before doing what he did now. He was rightly placed in his position – he was smart, learned in the field, dedicated and intense. I don’t think any of what happened between us would have happened or even been possible had we not each been who we were. It was part of the attraction – not just the physicality of it. That only made it better – larger than life – cinema.

Well at this conference – he was a speaker, I was a speaker. We be speakers. After my lectures, in which he had casually appeared, he asked me to join him in the bar. Here is a beautiful man, I’ve had a long afternoon teaching my little lesson and – well, of course I told him ‘yes’. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in the Arlington – it’s an old hotel but it’s beautiful – lots of marble and chandeliers, set on the side of a small mountain. The bar looks like a place that Ernest Hemingway would have frequented – heavy furniture, masculine feeling. Although there are a lot of women in the field, there weren’t a lot who ran programs – so most of my colleagues were men. Perhaps it was the overabundance of men in the bar – perhaps the trappings – I’m not sure, but I felt very much like an intruder in some very masculine space.

We were joined there by some colleagues who worked at the state level and another presenter who was from Pennsylvania. He was much renowned in our field – he had been doing this type of work before any of us. Once, in a workshop that he gave, we were discussing the ramifications of whether to call the people we served, our clients or our patients. You see, in the type of programs we ran, the settings were much more informal than in medical model therapeutic settings. The discussion went back and forth – “Wouldn’t that send mixed messages to them?”….”What about professional ethics?”….it just seemed to me like an exercise in circumlocution. It was going nowhere fast. I have this naughty habit of cutting to the chase when I feel impatient and I did. I stood right up and said “Why call them either…why not just call them your friends?” That sounded fine and noble and then I went and slipped, like I am sometime prone to do and added, “Personally, I think calling them patients or clients would, to them seem something like Lenny Bruce’s philosophy on the use of the word ‘fuck’. It’s only a word. If you keep hearing it enough, it loses it’s intrinsic value to shock – which is why it is so frequently used anyway – and then it just doesn’t have much meaning.” Oh God, why did my tongue run on to say those things before my brain caught up????? You could have heard a pin drop. Those faces – those professional, stodgy, up-tight faces. After that, old Irv – who it turned out appreciated my kind of humor – was always taunting me about that faux pas.

There we sat, me on the side of this beautiful man who had just asked me to join him in this gloriously masculine bar for a drink, some colleagues from my state office and old Irv. I am politely taking small sips of a double scotch, straight up. God knows I had no wish to loosen ‘the tongue’ in front of Irv another time. The two old boys from the state – later I would refer to them as the Bobsy twins of the psychosocial set – start praising me to the beautiful one – Santo. I blush. (Yes, back them I could still do that). This must have prompted Irv to join in….why couldn’t he have just confined himself to business – but nooo – he has to recollect that story. I am mortified and without a second’s hesitation, throw down the double scotch. Warmth in my throat…hurry up, diminished capacity…I don’t know if I can stand this humiliation. Oddly enough – Santo loved the story and laughed and looked at me in a new way that I wasn’t sure about. There was a cocktail party to be held in a few hours after which everyone was to pair off in groups for dinner. I figured I was to spend some time with my employees – having spent the better part of the day with my colleagues. We had another drink and everyone started to get up to go to our rooms – in order to change for the evening’s activity. He turned and asked me if I would be there…I answered, “yes”. Out of the blue, he asked if I had plans for dinner. I told him tentative ones to dine with my employees and he looked at me and asked if I had to do that – would I not dine with him instead? Now, usually I can feel it coming when a man is getting interested in me…or going to ask me out. I had not seen this coming. How do play this game, eh? Letting him think I would cancel something on the drop of a hat for him wasn’t wise. Even though he was beautiful, I never in my life have much wanted to be someone’s sex object d’jour. It’s just not enough for me. So, I told him that I could not cancel with my employees without knowing if they had other plans. If they did – I would be free, if not – I felt obliged to dine with them. He just told me to check with them early enough so he could make reservations. The nerve!

I was standing near a wall…yes, just like a wallflower – at the cocktail party when he entered the room. Everyone had dressed and things were a little more beautiful. I saw him stop in the doorway and look around the room. I wondered who he was looking for until his eyes landed on me and he began to cross the room in my direction. He picked up two drinks on the way and arrived next to me with his and a scotch for me. He remembered…hmmm. We stood there talking next to a large plant of some type . I kept feeling something on the back of my leg and it would startle me, so I’d move very quickly. A few minutes later – I guess because of the crowding – there it was again. Again I move. This time he just looks down at me and says “You’re very sensitive, aren’t you?” Aw, Jesus. I am not a stupid woman – I know just what is going on now. I manage to attempt a save and say something about the plant. He goes back to sensitive…and says he likes that. Now, I don’t have a verbal move. Check. Right against the wall – I’m in check. So I just look back at him because I always had a good poker face…that’ll get me by, I figured. About half hour later – we’re still standing there – on our second drink when he asks me if I am dining with him. Now, it turns out that most of my employees are going to some burger joint and then going swimming. Feeling that maybe fate has wrought this, I say yes. Good, he says, he already made reservations and it’s time to leave.

So guess where dinner is? In his suite. He’s so clever and smooth. Again, I am determined that I will not be pushed up against the wall. I am not giving in and I am not being desert. Several hours later, while sipping brandy – I mutter something about checking on my employees down at the pool. Anything to leave that room before the inevitable happens. He seems to like the idea and says – great – let’s go soak in the hot tub…I’ll change, he tells me and you do, too and we’ll meet at the pool. Okay, point for me.

After all that drinking and now soaking in a hot tub for an hour – oh God I could hardly walk. I had jello for legs and had to put my hand against the wall for support. Saved by intoxication – that’s an interesting twist. He helps me to my room – which I might add is a room adjoining that of two of my employees – so there is no way anything is happening in that room. That is too risky. I told him as much as he tries to come in with me….but that didn’t seem to deter him. He laid back on one side of the bed while I sat on the other and we talked. Just as easy and naturally as you can figure. He told me about his background, his running for political office – his activism. He asked about mine and we shared confidences. When he got up to leave, I really was sorry. Nonetheless, I figured any man this good looking, with this much machismo – was used to easily having women. A girl has to have some pride – I was not interested in being just another conquest.

Morning – breakfast, then workshops – no time to rest or think. At lunch – which was not a group thing – I again see him in the doorway of the bar looking around. Once again, his eyes find me. We smile. He heads straight for me. “Let’s play hooky and go exploring the town this afternoon”, he whispers in my ear – his lips deliberately touching me, “We’ll have lunch at a restaurant away from the hotel”. I am sitting with employees. What am I to do? He doesn’t wait for me to answer – he just tells them that we have been called by the hosts into a quick meeting – please excuse us and we’ll catch up with them later. Who am I to make a liar of the man? I stood up and left.

We walked the streets – had lunch – had our fortunes told. We browsed some interesting antique shops. In one, I see some lovely antique jewelry and am attracted to it. He picks up the necklace and earrings one at a time and puts them on me. Then, he tells the owner he wants to pay for them and is it okay if ‘his lady’ wears them out? I can’t say a thing, except thank you. In my mind, I am thinking how I am about to become a whore – bought for antiqued jewelry. I’ve known I want this man since I laid eyes on him. I may have welched last night, but I knew that I was not going to do it again – I knew that before the jewelry. I wondered if that was going to salve any feelings of being reduced to his concubine. I surely did not have long to wait.

Returning to the hotel, the strap on my sandals broke – so we had to return to my room so I could change shoes. There was no walking around in those broken sandals. We walked into my room and I went to the closet, kicked off the shoes I had on and pulled out another pair. I went to sit on the bed and change shoes. No sooner was I seated than this beautiful man took one shoe from my hand, knelt down in front of me and took my foot in his hand. Then, instead of putting the shoe on – he was kissing my ankle, my calf, my thigh. By now, I have dropped the other shoe. Clunk as it hits the floor. That momentarily brings me back to reality….Oh my God…. I think the door to the other room is ajar. Oh mercy – I need to get up and lock that door, but I surely don’t want him to stop. I forget all about it as he slowly takes off my clothes and begins to make love to me. He’s the one who heard the noise. Thank God there are two doors between adjoining rooms – and only one of them was unlocked. It was too close of a call. Someone was knocking on the door on the other side – I guess they were looking for me. We snickered like bad children caught with our hands in the cookie jar of delight. We didn’t know for sure if the door on my side was locked, but if either of us jumped up just as they were opening the door – everyone on that side was going to partake of some full frontal nudity – and so we just hunkered down under the covers and giggled quietly and waited. Finally, the knocking stopped – and we quit sniggering and went right back to what we were doing. Somehow, the risk of exposure – the suspense and the laughing made it even better and so we decided to do it again and again and again for the remainder of the afternoon and the evening. Once night had fallen and we started to get hungry – I realized that we could not call room service, nor could we just walk out into the hall together without risking being exposed. Okay. We showered and got dressed – once again all pristine and well turned out. I put on a black dress and pearls and he put on his clothes. We’d have to stop by his room for him to change. As surreptiously as children cutting class – we made down the hall for the stairs – no elevators, too risky. We made it safely to his room to get his clothes. More suspense – more giggling. When he starts to get undressed again, my eyes were hot on him – every inch of him. I felt the groan coming out of my lips and I was embarrassed but he was delighted. When he smiled, I put out my hand to invite him. There went his clothes. That was it. I ate dinner in his room again this night. Room service came and went while I stayed in his bed, wearing nothing but pearls.

After that, whenever we could find a way to meet we did – although never in the same place twice. Never ordinary – always very nice, against great backdrops. In New Mexico, it was the Albequerqe Marriot – top floor. The Hot Air Balloon Festival was in progress. We went up to Sandia Peak on the tram and drank Mexican flags – too many for the altitude. Later, we came back down and went to dinner in the hotel – in his room – me in my pearls. The rooms outside walls are glass…to give you a view of the mountains in the distance. In the morning, we awoke to enjoy each other and then have coffee while watching the hot air balloons rise up past our level. We had to be careful – there were always conferences or business meetings of some kind and we could hardly afford to be blatant lovers. Neither of us much cared what people might imagine – we just needed to be sure they couldn’t prove anything.

In Washington DC, it was the Washington Hilton. A national conference there – we were plenty busy, but found time to visit Georgetown and try out one of the famous bed and breakfast establishments – if just for an afternoon. We dined at La Brassiere’ – a hot French restaurant in the city where the politicos often met. It had ‘private’ dining rooms. You have not lived until you enjoy being desert in a French restaurant knowing that the wait staff is only a knock on the door away. Crème brulee’ was never so good before!

In the windy city, it was Oprah’s favorite – the Omni hotel. We headed to Second City for laughs in the evening and Chicago style pizza. After a visit to the Hershey factory one afternoon, we spent the evening smearing each other with dark chocolate which was then slowly licked off.

In Atlanta, it was the Marriott again. We visited Buckhead. We dined at Dante’s Down the Hatch – a strange place. They serve fondue – and there is a ship right in the middle of the restaurant – while a jazz trio is playing from the middle of the ship. Memorable and different. This time it was peach pie we had in bed for desert – didn’t want any lights going out in Georgia because we held back. We’d grown accustomed to one another; it was even better than in the beginning. We were more bold, more sure of ourselves and I never spent moment that I would change anything that happened between us. I just don’t think it could have been any better.

I was on a planning committee for an international conference we held in New Orleans. This was over a year in the planning – thousands of people were to attend. I’d volunteered to chair the committee in charge of social events and entertainment. Consequently, the hotel ‘comped’ me a room, since I’d be spending a bundle of the conference’s money with them. We were at the Monteleone in New Orleans – right up in the middle of the French Quarter, facing Canal Street. Again, an older hotel marked with elegance and style the likes of which might be cost prohibitive to more modern day establishments being built.

I had an Administrative Assistant who was a man. He was married, but I could swear he was gay. I really liked him – he had a spirit that lifted you up and was motivating and he took such good care of me and any job I gave him to do. I’m sure he suspected that Santo and I were lovers. Before I left, he told me that he had called some friends (old co-workers) at the hotel and swapped my room for a ‘better’ one, because he had stroke there. I thought it was sooo nice of him and thanked him. Little did I know what was waiting. When I walked into the door behind the bellman, there was a huge, four poster bed. I said nothing, but tipped the man and let him leave. Then I just walked around it and looked. I started giggling right way. It wasn’t until I lay down across the bed to see how it felt that I noticed the piece de resistance. The ceiling, of the canopy part of the bed, was mirrored! I just knew then that Keith knew something he shouldn’t – although I for the life of me couldn’t figure how. I had to wait until the next day for him to arrive. He also was pleasantly surprised and we spent much of our free time at this conference and one night afterwards gazing at our happy reflections.

I don’t want you to think that this was all a frivolous dalliance. It wasn’t. In the time I spent with him, I was probably more productive than any other time in my life. I quadrupled the budget of my business and added on new facets to the program. Some of it was with his help, both in strategic planning and also in helping me become aware of more federal grants available. Had I not been confident in my own abilities and in his integrity, I might have entertained the idea that I got ‘unfair advantage’ from him. Au contrare’ – I know he made me better professionally than I was when we first met. In that sense, he was a mentor to me – he’d probably prefer I said Svengali. In fact, he’d love that description, it would appeal to his machismo – that he-man thing that Latin men always have. I’d just look at him and laugh. I cannot remember how we just stopped seeing one another. It just sort of waned away. There was no big scene – no break-up, no heartache. I think that we just got too busy.

When I entertained the idea of writing this, I wondered what he was doing – if he was still working for the feds? I ‘Google’d’ his name. Nope, he’s not there anymore – maybe he retired. He is however, still active in his profession in a large state and aside from owning his own business – is on many committees and boards involving this field – as well as equality for not only Hispanics, but all Indigineous peoples. I would have never expected less from him. I’m also glad he is still alive. Some folks I know have been killed or died untimely deaths and I did not want to find that out about him.

Chris taught me that you can make love with someone in your heart before giving your body…When you finally do give your body – all that you have to the other – it transcends anything I’d ever known.

Santo was different – but almost as wonderful. I still had Chris in my heart when he came along and so we made love for the joy, the pleasure, the release of doing it. I had missed that. Maybe it was not the nine-course meal – but the desert was so memorable!

I know just how that man feels watching those images on the silver screen – each poignant romantic interlude. We go our way in life, touching others in ways we don’t realize at the time. Neither Santo nor I ‘needed’ the other. We were equally yoked to each other and equally bound to our careers and other obligations. There was nothing but joy and happiness between us – but not love. The memory of that brings warm tears into my eyes, but they stay there – they are contained – and on my face, a smile of contentment with everything there was between us. It was enough.

Sometimes, life is like the tango. Phrasing is everything. The music for the tango is like a story – constructed of paragraphs, sentences and with an ending point. It’s only beautiful if you have a passionate, unbridled connection with the music, the dance and your partner. No hesitation – no holding back – you must give all that you have to each other and the dance until it ends. Mistakes? Oh no – no mistakes in the tango -as they say in the movies “if you make a mistake and get tangled up, you just tango on.”

Last edited by katie on June 6, 2009, 7:46 pm

“After all
The dead ends and the lessons learned
After all
The stars have turned to stone
There’ll be peace
Across the great unbroken void
All benign
In your time
You’ll be fine
In your time”
. . . . . “Bob Seeger

Why is it whenever I think of Chris now I hear Bob Seeger songs playing in the background? Sometimes, I still can feel my part of the earth move beneath him – I can feel him against me – smell him – sense his presence as surely were he still here. Just when I could succumb to that memory and snuggle down into the safety, the warmth – the sweetness of it, I remember the day that we were laying under a tree out in the middle of nowhere. He was stroking my body – my hands in his long, beautiful hair and then – there it was, his hair coming out in my hands. There went my dream. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I met Chris because my friend – the one who helped to save my life – sent him to see me for help in finding a job. I was working at the Dept. of Labor in those days and going to graduate school at night. As he walked up to me, I had to tilt my head back to get a real look at him. He was 6′ 4″ but seemed taller in those boots he wore. He was Scandanavian – like a cross between Odin the Wanderer and some modern day biker. Tattoos on both arms – and long, flowing Titian blonde hair. I don’t know another color for it – it wasn’t blonde – but it wasn’t really red either. The only way to describe it was to reference you to those paintings by Titian – that’s what it looked like. He was so big and his body was rock hard – but the smile, oh God that smile was so warm,so soft, so disarming. I think I noticed it almost before anything else – even before his blue eyes. They weren’t of the cold, ice blue variety – these were deep, dark blue and when you looked into them it seemed that you were looking into some lake that had no bottom. They didn’t twinkle – they didn’t reflect anything – they just were. If they weren’t a part of a face with that smile on it, I’m certain they would have frightened me. Still – even with the smile, one was not quite sure what to make of him. Was the smile genuine or was it like a mockery of everything around him that he only wore like a gambler’s poker face – to deceive the opponents? I don’t know that I ever figured that out – but after a while it just didn’t matter to me anymore.

How do you reconcile in your mind that this big, strapping, Titan of a man had a disease that could cripple him? He’d recently been diagnosed with anklosing spondylitis. Not a lot of people know about this insidious disease – it’s sort of like rheumatoid arthritis. Some of the first symptoms are stiffening and chronic aches – in your hips and legs – more markedly after periods of inactivity. There are drugs with which to treat it – but like lupus it can also go into a sort of remission. The drugs are steroids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs – not nice to your system. He was trying to take medicine and remain active. Unfortunately -his occupation had been as merchant marine. Whether he was going to be able to keep doing that was dubious. In his past, he told me, he’d also had an addiction to heroin, which he got rid of on his own. Addicts can’t take pain killers unless they want to reactivate their addiction. His other, more shady occupation – one I did not find out about until later – was, well I guess they’re called soldiers of fortune – mercenaries. He fought other people’s wars for money. I don’t know why – he never told me. He didn’t take just any job – but he did it. And I never knew why, when or where. He didn’t discuss that readily and I wasn’t into prying him about it. It wasn’t here and it wasn’t when he was around me.

No matter his past or his present – regardless of how he earned a living, he still piqued my curiosity. He was larger than life – he amazed me. I’d never met anyone like him. I wanted to hear all of his story – not just part of it. I didn’t know then that I was going to be a part of it.

He’d come into my office now and then and perhaps several months would pass and I didn’t see him. Then, he’d return and just pop in. We’d talk – whether he was really looking for a job or not – well, I just couldn’t tell you. One day, after this had gone on for a good while – he up and asked me if I wanted to go to the ‘country’ with him. The ‘country”? What the hell was he meaning there? I asked him – just where is this ‘country’? He wanted me to go to his home – out in the boonies and spend the day. Somehow, this seemed like a dangerous proposition to me, but I have never run from dangerous propositions and without asking any further details, I said yes.

He told me how to get there – it was not in the same city I was living in – but in one of the smaller, rural towns surrounding it. It certainly seemed out of character for me to be going somewhere to meet a man. According to my upbringing, that wasn’t ladylike. My head said he was not a person to trust. My heart told my head, “Shut up. ” Damn, I knew better than this, but I was drawn to him like a moth to the flame and so – there I was driving down a back road to get to his house. When I got there, I found that I wasn’t the only person there – a group of his friends had arrived before me. People were mingling about – smoking dope – even outside the air was thick with the smell of it – and drinking beer. Someone was cooking on a pit. I felt nervous, uncertain – like a rat dancing behind the piper and not knowing why he didn’t run the other way. Then, he walked up, flung open the door, smiled that smile all over me and snitched me right outta my car. When he smiled, I knew I was beyond doubts or looking back. “Alea iacta est “ The die was cast and I had crossed the Rubicon in the arms of Ceasar.

His friends were okay. They weren’t college students like me. The were nice to me and although some would label them biker types and renegades, I knew I was among good people. Some, I estimated, lived on the ‘fringes’ of the legal system for sure. I suspected that some others were dealing. A few were married and had children. Most had been friends since childhood and their easy comradarie made me feel comfortable with them.

I was there all day – drinking, smoking,dancing, playing – getting sunburned being outside. It was just one of those wonderful, happy days.

“Stood there boldly
Sweatin’ in the sun
Felt like a million
Felt like number one
The height of summer
I’d never felt that strong
Like a rock” 1

Around midnight, he decided I should not drive – not that I could argue the point. I was not used to smoking that much dope and I had giggled and danced gleefully for hours..now I was just there – like a happy spectator. Right away – I figured he was going to bring me to his bed and I knew I had no will left in me to deny him anything. His conquest of me was going to be a fait accompli’ – before it got started – without a single kiss. I was wrong. He put me to bed – and then he just lay down next to me and watched me. I kept waiting – waiting. Nothing. His eyes gave away nothing. It was semi dark, but I could see them. Those eyes made me anxious and so I tried to talk – to break the silence. When I did, he shushed me and smiled that smile. I’m not ordinarily a woman to be ‘shushed’ – but that smile – that all knowing smile – and his finger laid light upon my lips. “Alea iacta est. “ The anxiety returned a couple times and I tried to talk, to be met with the same response – ‘shushing’ by the smile. I don’t remember being sleepy, but that’s how I fell asleep that night – and in the morning, when I woke up – he was already up and outside.

We had encounters like this for a while. He still ‘came and went’ in my life. When he was gone – he was very gone. No phone calls – no way to reach him – no questions asked – just gone. Then, out of the clean blue sky – he’d reappear just as suddenly as he left.

We were close in heart and mind – but not in the flesh. I’m not saying that he never kissed me. That would be a lie. I would be lying to tell you he hadn’t touched me – he had done that as well. Each time he did, it stopped just as soon as it started – like an impulse he quickly staunched. Because of odd behavior on his part, I contented myself with being his sidekick – the captain and the kid. Sometimes, I questioned silently why he chose for it to be this way – but I never asked him. I had never been with a man who did not try to have me like this. Sometimes, it drove me crazy – but in the end, I just accepted it. I think that because of my unsavory experiences with my ex-husband, being sexual with him was not a priority in my life at that point.

He reappeared – this time with a goatee and a mustache. It made him seem more menacing – until he smiled that smile. Thinking of it still makes me tingle and feel warm. It was that infectious. Anyway – we were at some bar in a little stick town. It wasn’t anything special, just a honkey-tonk bar . No bands played there – just a jukebox. We drank and danced and talked. Then, he said – “Let’s go”. I followed him out of the door and hopped onto the bike behind him. Behind us, through the open doors of the bar, I could hear from the juke box . . .

“Roll, roll me away,
Won’t you roll me away tonight?
I too am lost, I feel double-crossed
And I’m sick of what’s wrong and what’s right
We never even said a word,
We just walked out and got on that bike
And we rolled
And we rolled clean out of sight”

Ninety miles an hour down the two lane highway, then the gravel road to his doorstep. He got off the bike, took my hand like he was some nobleman and I his lady. I thought we were playing a game until he pulled me next to him. We stood there for a second, staring at each other in confusion – questioning the other with our eyes. “Alea iacta est. “ It seemed like a long forever, but was just a second before we both began to struggle – struggling to pull away clothes – to find each others lips. We were struggling to pull away the past, the hurt, the baggage and become one in some act of healing and redemption. We never even made it into the house. Until the day I die – I’ll always associate the stars in the heavens with that night. I felt safe and at peace. It was, I think Odin the Wanderer to whom I willingly gave my body and soul again and again and again under the stars until I couldn’t be sure anymore if there were stars in the sky or if he had performed some other feat of magic that made me see them. I was certain he was no mortal man.

Our union did not really change anything in terms of how often we saw each other – not for a while, at least. He still came and went and came and went. I kept working and kept going to school. When we got to be together – in the Biblical sense – we were. It was never enough. We both were insatiable. Then, he noticed a knot of some kind right next to his collarbone. He’d been feeling tired and haggard so he went to the doctor figuring it was an infection. That began round after round of tests. In this middle of this -the doctor thought he might have picked up some odd parasite or something overseas. It took about three weeks, but the results were conclusive – he had Stage IV Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. That’s cancer of the lymphatic system – and stage IV is as bad as it gets before being fatal. Of course, he responded by being in denial. I knew better – but started making some calls and doing some research. Stanford had some promising results with those who were in stage IV. Can we get him to California in time? He just continued to deny what the doctors told him until the second knot came up – under his arm. By then the one under his collarbone was the size of a small egg. That’s when he knew he had to do something besides just give up or continue to lie to himself. He began very aggressive chemotherapy and radiation. They don’t remove those lumps – they seek to shrink them with treatment.

He was so sick. He’d do chemo for a few days at a time. Then, the chemo did him. Vomiting, weakness – could not eat or drink a thing. Radiation wasn’t any better. It just made the effects of the chemo even worse, if that was possible. This went on for months.
One day – he’d actually felt well enough that we had gone to watch some people mud racing. We’d come back to his house and were laying in the shade under a tree. He was stroking my body and I was running my hands through his hair. . . his wonderful, Titian hair ….until it started to come out in my hands. I shook the first part off – thinking I must have caught my fingernail in his hair. Then, it happened again. This one was a big hunk of hair. He didn’t even feel it. My heart sank. Oh God, no. For a minute I just lay there, staring at a handful of hair while it dawned on me that this was some evil omen. After all this chemo and radiation without losing his hair – why now – why now when he seemed to be feeling better? When I showed him – for I could not make my mouth say the words – his reaction was swift.

We got up, went into the house and he got out a razor and a pair of scissors. “Get rid of it” he told me. I could only look at him in disbelief at first. “Not your hair”, I thought. I looked at him quizically to be sure he really meant this. “Do it” he said. So, with him sitting on a stool on the porch, I took the scissors and cut it off so short, then finished the job by shaving his head. I handed him the scissors and the razor and I offered up my own hair – if he was to be so mutilated, I wanted it also. He refused me. This broke my heart so badly – because at that moment, I think I knew it was indeed an evil omen and the real fight was over. I kept a stiff upper lip – I only cried a little and not where he could tell. He seemed very pleased at the results . . . barked that it made him look like a pirate. I couldn’t argue that point, but I still missed that hair. Little did I know that within four months, I would be missing more than his hair.

More chemo, more radiation. Days of hope, days of despair. He was around all the time now – no more trips away. He hadn’t the strength, or the time. There were always the side effects of that poison that they were trying to use to kill the cancer. Nausea, vomiting, diminished blood counts – you become prone to infections. He was at his mother’s house now a lot of the time – not his house. Next, his kidneys started to be erratic. He was retaining fluids. He called me one night. He was laying in a tub of warm water – trying to relax and started to get short of breath. The fluid was starting to fill his lungs. I told him to sit up straight. That seemed to help some. I stayed on the phone with him while he got out of the tub and then I told him he had to go to the hospital. He needed diuretics and he needed them now. He might need some oxygen. I asked him if he wanted me to meet him at the hospital. He said, “No”, he’d call me from there. Hours later – it must have been 3 or 4 in the morning, the phone rang. He told me they had started him on IV Lasix and oxygen. He said that he felt much better. He sounded better. Then, he told me “Go to sleep” – so I did. I didn’t think anything was going to happen. Everything seemed under control. In fact, when the phone rang hours later – I was sleeping hard. I remember saying “hello’ several times and getting no answer. I couldn’t hear anything in the background. I remember thinking it was a crank call because they did not hang up nor talk. Then, I went back to sleep.

They didn’t call me until that afternoon to tell me Chris died. How was a kid to know that the stars were about to fall from the sky – that a mountain was going to crumble? There should have been signs! There should have been more time! I should have been there with him! I should have had a chance to tell him …Aaargh…how would I have said goodbye anyway, I thought? How do you fix your lips to do that? That’s when I remembered the call and I knew it was him.

“When you’re riding sixteen hours and there’s nothing much to do
And you don’t feel much like riding, you just wish the trip was through.
Say, here I am, on the road again. There I am, up on the stage.
Here I go, playing star again.
There I go, turn the page.”2

For me, there weren’t any stars left in the sky. Not then. Chris wanted a Viking funeral but his mother and immediate family objected to that. It would have seemed more fitting to me than putting him into a box in the ground – but that’s what they did. There was some talk amongst his friends of stealing into the cemetery under cover of darkness to retrieve him and fulfill his wishes. His mother would not have much liked that – but it was what he wanted and I hope they did it. I just could have no part of it. Having the stars go out once was once too often for me.

In the beginning, I tried to pretend that he was off on one of those trips again and that he would be back. I dreamed of him and he was so real and it was so sweet. I’ll never forget the night that a big Norse god came down to earth to shelter me against the wind. He’s somewhere just out of sight for now – probably on the sea. No matter what else happens to me in life – no matter if I ever love anyone else – I know that when I die, he’ll be waiting for me – and once again when I give myself to him, I’ll see all the stars in the heavens light up at once.

Last edited by katie on May 31, 2009, 10:22 am

Let’s see. I said there was another story – did I not? Not ever being one to disappoint, I think I’ll tell it now. This is not a story for everyone. If you are too sensitive – or if you think bad things can’t happen to you – or if you wonder why women put up with abuse by men – perhaps you should stop here.

This is a story of ten years of systematic, calculated, unmitigated and well executed torture. I know because I was the subject – the one to whom the lessons were taught.

I’d been married before for a whopping six months. I just checked outta that as easily as you do express check-out from your room in a hotel. I never even went to court – he went to Vegas and spared me.

I suppose I should have known that you don’t just get back on the proverbial horse without some more riding lessons – but you know how impetuous I am. Along comes this big – very big and seemingly really nice fellow. I actually met him at a protest type thing I was covering for the news and he was a cop. I guess I trusted him right off, because you know how they used to teach kids to trust the pO-lice? I was one of those trusting ones. He never, ever was harsh or bad to me in any way while we were unattached. I suppose he was wooing me, spinning his sticky web all about me like a spider does to entrap its prey. I never felt those silken threads at all – not even when they began to tighten.

He was older than me – I knew that upset some folks, but I was always determined to do it ‘my way’ and I married him. It seemed like a fine idea at the time. I quit everything else to focus on him – he wanted it that way. I figured since I was under 21 and already had a divorce under my belt and he was older and a cop and all that he knew best. So I went along. Well – that was an almost fatal error. Where was that persistent little microsoft sound “fatal error “, “fatal error ” ? Why didn’t it go off in my head – why weren’t there warning signs?

I was like his little kept pet. He didn’t much like me to go out with my friends – even when he was working and I was at home alone. His rationale was that we should leave our past behind and have ‘our friends’ now. Only trouble was – ‘our friends’ were really ‘his friends’ and we only did things with them when he was available and wanted to. He was in charge of the detective division, so when there were big cases – I might not see him for a few days. I was to serve by only watching and waiting – at home and alone. Step 1: Isolation

Okay, I never professed to be a great cook – I’d grown up with hired help in our home and when they weren’t there – my mom did not let me do much – she figured she knew better and did better. Hmmmm ..seems like a recurring theme, eh?

He got mad about that – a lot. Finally – he just forbid me to cook. We would eat out. Okay – that’s fine by me. Then, he did not like the way I kept house, or washed clothes or ironed his shirts. Damn, all of sudden, I am really becoming a mess here. Where did all of this come from? I need to get myself together – I am fucking up bad and I don’t want to do that. I never was a flop at anything I did before and I was not about to start now.
Step 2: Constant criticism

As time wore on, if I dressed nicely or made an effort to fix my hair and make up really nicely – dress in a new outfit – thinking that would please him – he got angry. What was I trying to do – attract men to myself behind his back? Why did I put perfume on to go to the grocery store? To seduce the produce manager? Well, this was really mystifying. I had never imagined myself as any ‘seductress’ or ‘adultress’.Why was he thinking this? What had I done? I was getting more and more confused and feeling more and more depressed and hopeless. What was I going to do?
Step 3: Verbal abuse

I felt so blue – no matter how hard I tried or what I did to make an effort to be a good wife, all I did was fail and he was getting more and more angry and upset with me. Now, I cried a lot. After he berated me I cried. He said he was doing it for my own good…and then he would comfort and pet me. This really confused me. Little did I know that the real fun and games had yet to begin.

Finally, one day – I cannot remember what he claims I did, but he got tired of just yelling at me.

Crack.

Damn, what was that? I have this horrible pain across my cheek, but I never saw a thing – what happened?

Crack.

There it goes again – now I’m on the ground. Was there an earthquake? What did I . .

Crack.

Again, this time across my back. Was that someone’s foot? Had I been kicked?

I wanted to try and get up and to figure out what happened, but I was so dizzy. I tried to focus my eyes – to see and get my bearings. Oh, look he’s trying to help me up. Maybe he can tell me what happened.
I take his hand – relieved that someone is helping me and then

Crack.

Damn – this is no earthquake, he hit me! I saw that one coming full face. It was him hitting me all along. What the hell is going on? Why? Why is he beating on me?

And thus began my initiation – my lessons. I knew nothing about domestic abuse or domestic violence. Nothing. Men did not hit women in the world I grew up in. It just wasn’t done.

After each lesson – each beating, I tried to buck up. He’d say I provoked him to it because I was so ‘no account’, not good at doing anything. I had no one left to talk to but him. I was too ashamed to tell the few friends who still talked to me. I surely was not confessing this to my family. So, more and more, I took his word for it. I was no good – I was wrong – I asked for it. And more and more I tried to be better – I tried to do right and I tried not to ‘ask for it’.

Those lessons take on such perverse twists. As it turns out – he likes to drink too much. He likes pills, too. Where was all this before, I wonder? He also likes to do things to me that make him feel like a big strong man and me his ‘little girl’. He likes to knock me around when he is high or drunk and then he wants me to do what he wants me to do.His cruelty is unbelievable. No quarter. As if everything else wasn’t enough, this fiend demands that I tell him how I long for him and what only he can give me. And I better be convincing – or else. He gets on top of me and I feel sick and I don’t want to be here. I want to hurt him so badly that pain echoes in caverns of his hollow soul. I want to be gone. Stop. Oh God, I can’t breathe – I want to be dead. Please, I don’t want this anymore. I want to be – I want to be gone.

Now, he even talks about killing me with one of his guns. One.
He could pick, you see. He has a collection of them. On the bedside table each night – his revolver, a shotgun and and AR 15. Each gun has rounds and rounds of ammunition. Some are even armor piercing bullets. He makes of point of telling me what they do to you. One day, when I tell him I don’t want to go out because I have a sore throat, he feigns concern and tells me to open my mouth so he can see if I have strep throat – blisters in my throat. Okay – I do that and tilt my head back. Then I feel something cold and hard between my lips and I start to pull back from it, but he grabs my head with his other hand so that I cannot move – not backwards, not sidewards – not any way. My eyes had kinda closed when I opened my mouth – always the stupid, trusting one. They shoot open to see- he’s holding that revolver in my mouth and he cocks the hammer ever so slowly and then…I think – okay – it probably won’t hurt – just a second and then be over. He looks in my eyes and when he knows I know, he pulls the trigger. Now he’s holding me up with one hand around my neck because my knees start to buckle. He’s laughing and laughing and laughing. Then, he tells me that since I don’t want to go out to go into the bedroom, get undressed and get into bed. That – it always ends like that.

He never left marks on me in the open – he had a black belt in martial arts and attributed it to his ‘expert’ knowledge – he bragged about it. Also bragged about how he and his friends could torture suspects into confessing and never leave a mark on them. I could give witness to that ability.

After a while – I don’t now when exactly, I started getting up at night. Not that I was sleeping – just laying there after he was through and went to sleep all drunk or full of pills. I would imagine at first, that I got up, went around to his side of the bed where the guns lay on a bedside table and pick one up and then –
well, I would end my misery.
After I had imagined it enough times, I got a little bolder. I would get up – and actually walk around the bed and put my hand on the gun. I held my breath. What if he wakes up – can I undo the safety and pull the trigger quickly enough to get him before he gets me? I pulled my hand back. Walked into another room so I could breathe.

Still – it was exhilarating. Just for a second – no matter I could not breathe – for one second to dream of being free of him beating me, cursing me – being on top of me.

I practiced it so many times and took it to the point that I pulled the hammer back on the revolver – quietly, slowly – so it made no noise. The only thing left was to kill him. Now, I could, in my mind say that word. Kill. I knew it was going to be him or me eventually. I didn’t want to die, not really. I did not want to do murder, either. But, I did not want to keep going like this.
I start thinking – will they electrocute me or hang me or something for killing him? Well – still I would be free of his torture.

After this went on for long enough, one day I think I just broke. I had become someone alien to who I really was. I didn’t know nor like myself too much anymore. I wasn’t sure who I was – but a dam in me just broke – something in me broke. I told. I told my friend that I worked with – I told him over the phone what my dear and caring husband had been doing to me. I was crying, I was scared and I was so, so ashamed. Right away, he said it wasn’t my fault. What’s that? How do you mean that? Please tell me you aren’t gonna tell anyone else. I couldn’t take that. He tells me he won’t tell – for a second I don’t trust him even — why did I say anything anyway? Now, he is tells me I got to trust someone enough to get help and get outta there before something worse happens to me. I am incredulous that someone believes me – they think he will kill me, too. My mind was reeling. I still could not do anything that day. It was soooo weird to go home that night. I was terrified he could read my mind. I wanted so badly for him to eat some pills or get drunk real fast so I didn’t have to think of him touching me or beating me or worse yet – worrying he could read my mind….and know what was in it.

I never slept a wink all night. This made three or four nights now with no sleep. Things are getting mixed up in my mind. My heart is beating outta my chest. My skin in burning. Finally, morning is there. He goes to work. I go to work – woodenly, one foot tenuously in front of the other. I know I have to do something – to get away. I’m not going to make it if I don’t. Okay, Okay. I called my Pa and told him – just spit it all out in a rush. He said he knew already – he just didn’t want to hurt me by asking and making me feel smaller. He said he would call a lawyer for me. He did and called me back. The lawyer said to call the police to go with me to my house for my things.

Wait – I can’t call them – they will tell him. Jeeesus. This is not a plan. Yes – call them. No charges, just ask them to preserve the peace. I had visions of them coming with him and watching while he executed me – the errant, offending wife who crossed the thin blue line. I just could not go on, though – so I called. They come. They take all the guns and put them in a cop car. I throw my things into black trash bags and into my car. I flee from this place of torture and terror and nightmares – out of the dark and into the light and a new life.

Do you know what it is like to have no sleep for a week? Every beat of your heart sounds like something outside the door coming for you. No matter that hired cops were now watching over me! If they moved, I jumped and fled to a closet. When a cat knocked over the trash can outside and the cop went out with his gun drawn – I crouched into the fetal position in the corner. I don’t remember anything after that for a while.

Do you know what it takes to suck the will to live from you? Even the will to fight back – to defend yourself?

Months later – therapy three times a week – pills – learning, relearning little teeny tiny steps at a time how to live again – I started to come alive. I could feel the sun on my face again. I didn’t assume the position every time a cat knocked over a trash can. I started to do things – to go out again like I had before. I was making friends. I got a better job. I went to graduate school. I quit thinking of myself as a ‘victim’.

But I’m not who I was. In a New York minute, everything can change. And its true – you can never go home again. For a long while, he sort of ‘stalked’ me. He would watch me, you know – like a cat toys with a mouse before it kills it.

Sometimes, when I am backed into a corner – if I feel helpless or smothered – I react the same. Once in a great while, it may be just a smell or a sensation or something that you’d never think could evoke that response – but it does. That’s PTSD – his life-long gift to me. If you threaten me, you will, I assure you be shocked. I have no starting or middle ground – I go from zero degrees to ‘on fire’ in 2 seconds flat.

I have to remind myself that was then and this is now. I have to ground myself in the present -in reality.

That’s the way I came to know that you have to lose your fear of death – or anything just as horrible to be able to truly live. You can’t stand outside the fire – you have to jump in and hope that you either burn or get purified.
And you cannot do it just once, you have to keep doing it over and over again for as long as you want to live.

Last edited by katie on October 2, 2010, 8:36 pm

My best friend just broke my heart – if I remember what it’s like to have a heart breaking -betrayal – confusion. I wasn’t ‘in love’ with him – don’t know how to do that. I saw him for who he was – broken by life’s battles, addictions and heartbreak, but noble nonetheless. He made me laugh and God help me, I’ve loved him in spite of all I knew about him.

An unlikely pair – the ladylike, useful,do-gooder and the cowboy grifter. It doesn’t even sound like a good title for a country music, tear-in-your-beer song.

I always knew I wasn’t to be Sadie – Sadie married lady with 2.4 kids and a safe little life. I did not come into this world to play small. Early on, I developed an attraction to dangerous men and larger-than-life scenarios. Always the thrill-seeker. No settling for less – I want it all.

The first time I got married, I run away to another state because I was only 17. I remember thinking of jumping from the car when we got to the town in the other state where we were to marry. I should have jumped. Six months later – it was all over – except that he was all angry at me – like I hurt him. I never understood that. I was honest that it did not seem like it was really working out between us. I said what I wanted out in the open. He lied – said he loved me, wanted me, then had an affair with and ex-girlfriend. Isn’t that talking outta both sides of your mouth?

That was it for me for sure….until the next one came along. Another high adventure into romance and matrimony. The first was a youthful mistake…this one a huge, raw, egregious error that lasted almost ten years and taught me lessons in pain no person should have to learn. I changed. My new rule was “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em “. Men, I mean. If you cannot beat them at their games, play them better than they do. And I proceeded to do just that.

Monday’s guy was fair of face. Tuesday’s guy had a get-away place. Wednesday’s guy said he loved me so…Thursday’s guy had lots of dough, Friday’s guy was loving and giving, Saturdays’ blue collar guy worked hard for his living. But the guy I saw on Sunday, well he was nice enough – but I think he was gay.

Since one with all the requirements wasn’t forthcoming – I heeded the song, “If you can’t be with the one you love -love the ones you’re with. ” Plural.

Made sense and worked for a long time. I was careful to never mention one to another and since I had a ‘career’, I could always use business obligations as an excuse to not be available if I was tied up with another. Ouch – I can feel those who are men judging me already. Stop it. You ‘ole boys are the ones who taught me the rules of engagement.

Things were fine until some started looking for something more. Can you imagine the nerve? Them -looking to me for something more. That wasn’t in the rule book they’d handed me! I started breaking off entanglements. If they made demands – like I was their property, I was outta there.

I played the field again – serious with none. Make no mistake – it was not sex I was trying to avoid. I had no problem with yes or no depending on how I felt. It was their trying to possess me I wanted none of. Enough on my plate – no room for the angst, negotiations and recriminations that entailed.

Along comes what’s his name – a rather high placed official in government. Not the best looking one I’d had, but funny, interesting, intelligent and he understood that I did not want to be ‘attached’ to anyone. Figured I got lucky. Not until the tables turned and I started really feeling something for him did I find out he was married. Life is so bizarre. Just when I start to want anything more from anyone – I find out that will never happen. Oh he’d hint – after this or after that happened. . . Once, he got into a big fight with his wife and I was so damn noble – I told him to be sure about what he wanted to do. He chose all right – years later – and not me or her. T’was himself he chose . She didn’t get no prize. When the chance came in another place for advancement, he took her, but he’s still cheating on her. I handled that comeuppance pretty well – better than my friends handled breaking up with men they had been seeing for a lot less time. I just never really got seriously involved again. I withdrew what little was left of my heart and did not share it – suited me just fine. I was still interested in experiences – not commitment, you see.

Around a year ago, I bump into this cowboy who I was telling you about. Funny, we’re so different and still just alike. Rotten apples, the both of us. This guy had been one of everything. He’d been a rodeo cowboy and written country hits. He’d done comedy. He’d done all kinds of other jobs while working his way up in the industry. That didn’t impress me – but his humor and his heart did. I knew he was a grifter of sorts. He’d admitted as much to me once. Said he ‘kept company’ with some widow because it afforded him companionship and a better lifestyle -referred to her as his ‘mark’. Not being the jealous type, I cared less. He had to do something if I wasn’t around – why should he be lonely? I didn’t see her as a threat because of the many close similarities between he and I. We could finish each others sentences. I knew what he was doing – even if he was miles and miles away and I didn’t talk to him.I just ‘felt’ it. He could read me like a book. It was so ‘comfortable.’ All hot and heavy, then that and more intense.

I’ve sensed something coming. Damn that sixth sense that I’m cursed with. I knew it was her – but what do you do, eh? I don’t want anyone with me unless they are there freely.

Now, he’s so busy,so stressed & conversation is so civil. He’s too spineless to say a thing to me and I’m feeling disgusted with him. How can someone who was my anam cara – the yin to my yang – the other half of my soul have cruelly hidden this callous part of himself from me so well? How did I miss it? I want to feel all warm and squishy again or at least hurt -some feeling- but all I am is cold, numb & disgusted. I’m just the pieces of the woman I used to be. Too much love will kill you every time.

Last edited by katie on May 18, 2009, 12:13 am

funky, what a word. the first time i heard it, I think was in ‘funky meters’ – you know, the band that aaron neville and his brothers and cousins started ‘fore they called themselves the neville brothers. it was ’cause they kinda started that music they describe as ‘funk’ – you know the sound that many associate now with the ‘new orleans sound’ – a mix of jazz, blues and southern soul with a heavy, syncopated rhythm and a repetitive bass line – almost sounds like more than one beat going at once. “well, i-yi-yi-yi wanna spread the news – that if it feels this good getting used, just keep on using me, ’til you use me up. ” i’ve also heard it to mean something hip and unconvential – some might wanna say bizarre – more ‘artsy’ than bizarre. somewhere right smack dab in the middle of hip and downright dirty. hmmmm. if you’re into etymology – pinning the wings of a word into a cardboard box to study from whence it came – it derives from the french dialectal funquer . . . to give off smoke, from old french fungier, from latin fūmigāre – and you realize, of course that makes it a french kissing cousin to fumigate? the first recorded use of the word was in the 18th century – when it was used to describe something musty or moldy smelling – like strong cheese, incense in the church, or perhaps the smell of mother earth when you scratch and claw at her surface on a warm spring day – like patchoulli. ahhhhhhhh. i’ve also heard it used to describe tastes acquired – like blue cheese or earthy and natural like some of the creole dishes. ummmm i think al pacino used the word in ‘scent of a woman’ to describe how folk feel right after hot, steamy, satisfying sex – ‘all sweet and funky like’. yessssss Another possiblity is the 1959 suggestion by F. Newton in Jazz Scene “”Critics are on the search for something a little more like the old, original, passion-laden blues: the trade-name which has been suggested for it is ‘funky’ (literally: ‘smelly,’ i.e. symbolizing the return from the upper atmosphere to the physical, down-to-earth reality).” is that it? is that what the voice sounds like after many trips up and down the scale from the upper atmosphere to down-to-earth reality? all funquer…hip, all around a trip to high camp . . but ‘all sweet and funky like’ as it descends from the upper atmosphere penetrating the down-to-earth reality of mere mortals?

if that’s the sound – how does it feel when spat out at a staccatissimo against you on a frosty morning, “come out ye black and tans ” – does it strike fear in the heart of foe (or the faux) that hear it and gird up yer loins to do battle with all mortal enemies? Does it flail and tear like bullets or shrapnel into the flesh of those what have offended you? how does one offend – by small or large things? when that voice works its way from your mouth to the air on a laugh – what’s it feel like then? natural like,skippy, happy and warm or is it cold, hard, dripping with icicles of sarcasm? what’s it feel like, you reckon, when it escapes the lips with barely a breath – stifled by loyalty, a whisper of sound waves clouded over with whiskey undulating and modulating on the flesh? Is it soft and slow then or is it rough and fast like the tongue of a cat rapidly licking milk away?

what does that voice taste like? is it all rich and oaken tasting or has it the salty taste of being steeped in unrepentent tears and blood? is it an acquired taste – that taste for bitterness, salty and warm with life? or do the frequent trips into the upper atmosphere dilute that for the keeper of the voice?

its not fitting for a southern girl to be handling and examing anthin’ like this especially on a sabbath morning. I know I should stop and yet I cannot. It’s like being told to stop when you are on right on the precipice of ….and so I continue, peeling back wave after wave after soundwave in my quest for the mystery of it.. my nerve must not falter and even when i am spent, I can not let go. what stripes will i receive for my curious union with this. . . this funky voice? for now, i’ll put it back where i found it – no one will know I had it out if I am coy enough. I can do this without betraying myself, although curiousity is a strange taskmaster and the quest for satisfaction is unrelenting, n’est-ce pa? i think i’ll just go outside and look towards the sky and listen.