His only weakness was.....madness

Interesting weaknesses make interesting characters. I decided to make a few character sketches based on a character having only one, peculiar weakness. Here's another one.     


    His only weakness was a crippling madness. It wasn’t with him all the time. Only when he ate certain foods, or didn’t get enough sleep, or if his mother called. He had a low grade madness that never went away, but the crippling madness was random and unreasonable. He would still try to function throughout the day, and it would be okay as long as no one looked at him or spoke about him in low tones to someone else. That drove him mad. 

    The world’s weight was too much. There was too much sadness in the world. There was too much greed and grief. There was happiness and joy around, but the balance was out of proportion and he felt it. It was suffering. He was suffering. He understood how all those people felt.  It was like he could hear their emotion or see their thoughts. Not just the people around him, but people around the entire planet. All people. All humans. All living things, even.  Plants and animals, the trees and the bugs.  

     He knew that all things are just atoms and molecules, vibrating, electrons and protons, whizzing around. They all put out a vibe, an energy, and he could feel it. It wasn’t acute, or sharp, or explosions of feeling, but it was a heaviness like gravity, immense, ineffable, inexorable. He could feel the remnant of a breakup in Stavropol, or a violence in Auckland, or loneliness in San Quentin. All of the emotions of the world, from every individual was vibrating at a certain frequency, which vibrated all the air molecules a bit, and vibrated the ground and the water, which caused a giant cloud of vibration across the planet and he was a giant antenna for it. He was an antenna for humanity’s state of being.  

    It was a wonder that he didn’t medicate, or mediate or end the madness himself. It was too much to bear, but it was borne.  True, there were innumerable positive vibrations going on, but those were part of the normal operating system. The positive was a quiet background noise that was always there. But the negative was impossible.  It lessened when he listed to music on his headphones. Music in the open made him think about it more, feeling it more. But when those cushy leatherish headphones snuggled his ears, closing in his world, he found peace. But he couldn’t hibernate forever. 

    He had encountered a few other people that had this same antenna. The conversations were brief and numbers were never exchanged. They had the same problem he did.   Whenever he met one and figured out that they felt the same thing he did, he would always get a sudden urge of relief. Relief that he was not alone. That he was normal, special even, but not an outsider, or alien or a robot. But that relief was always just a few minutes in length. It made his condition concrete.  Seeing his twin, or mirror in this world, caused more belief, more evidence that this was real and it would not go away if some magic pill was taken or he was electrocuted just right. It was not just some part of schizophrenia or bipolar or ADD. It was real and it didn’t have a name.   

Halloween story

I have never celebrated All Hallow's Eve or Halloween or Anything Of The Sort but I admire the creativity and the perilous, insidious madness that adolescents brave as they obtain excessive amounts of processed sugar. 

A co-worker wrote a Halloween story and it was so good that I wanted to write one. Only problem: I don't do horror. While I love Poe, I cannot read King. I don't watch M. Night and have seen only one Friday the 13th.  Even the flying monkeys around Dorothy creep me out enough to turn it off. But I decided to give horror a shot. This is my Halloween story.

Before the Halloween of 2012, I had never believed in vampires. Or werewolves. Or that Taylor Lautner was a good actor. He never had to be.  On that Halloween 6 years ago, I was just hoping to impress everyone with my costume. My aunt,  a sewing spinster of sorts, was a costume designer for Sony Pictures. She still is actually.  Every year she makes the most awkward and amazing and grotesque costumes for all her friends. They become kings at boring parties. Or weirdos at amazing parties.  She does theatrical makeup too and can make everything look like blood and scabs and cholera.  She didn’t do it for her friends that year, because my parents had just split and she wanted to help darn the holes. 
 
She was putting the finishing touches on my decapitated Marie Antoinette when my little brother stabbed me in my side with scissors.  The bustier was so tight that it not only was cut, but it tore as well. But we already spent 70 minutes getting the outfit on and I was late. She was late too and we wouldn’t have time to take it off, fix it and put it back on.   She grabbed a giant, giant needle, put thread on it and pulled me to the door jamb. 

“Hold on and do not move. I don’t want to poke you." 

      She poked me anyway. 

“That is what it will feel like if you move.” 
     
     She started sewing the tear and the first time she poked my skin, my face winced, but I kept my body still. The second time, I grunted. She didn’t look up, huffed and kept working.   She had prepared fashion shows, made on set changes, and put up with pouty models and actors.  She had to be rough. I knew this about her. She was in the zone and I did not want to set her off.  When she poked my skin a third time, the needle went through my skin. I could not see it but I felt it. I gritted my teeth. She made about 30 more stitches and 3 more went through my skin. 

     She couldn’t see the blood because the costume was thick, but I felt the warm wetness beneath the fabric. I was now firmly attached to my costume. My blood was on it, in it. We were blood sisters of sorts. I would never be able to let anyone else use this costume. I would either wear it every day, burn it or be buried in it.     Auntie was irritated because my mom was in a bad mood and attacked Auntie when she first walked in. Then twice after that. That was her gift. That is why dad left. 

I had a tough time walking down the stairs. I tried to ignore the sharp stings that every step induced. But I liked that the real blood was mixed in with the fake blood, since it made the costume more authentic. Fresh blood. Who would've thought it would be so enticing. The thread was in my skin though. I did not know how I would get it out, or even get the bustier off to get to the threads, but I had seen enough television shows to know how to pull stitches out. It would probably be the same. Though, If I twisted my body at all, the wince would pop to a grimace. When we showed my mom the final result, she rolled her eyes. Auntie tugged on my costume and it felt like a chunk of flesh would come out. 

“Is something wrong honey?”  

“No. Auntie. Everything is fine.”   

     My mother chimed in.

“Kim. If you don’t think she did a good job, then you should just tell or, or just thank her properly.  You wouldn’t want her to think that she does crappy work?  Do you want her to think that?” 

   Auntie glanced at me, showing that I did not have to answer. I already knew that, though.  I already put up with 16 years of it. 

“I have to go.” Auntie said. “I have my own costume to try and get these huge thighs into.” 

   Her thighs were lean.  Mom’s weren’t.  She had 15 years more experience than I.  Touché   Mom, touché.

   Auntie left. I did too. 

Jenny’s party was great. And lame. There were a lot of minions running around, but no Gru. The slutty Wonder Woman made her usual appearance and there were too many Batmen for it to be a cool party.  As soon as I stepped in the door, a dorky, dorky dorky vampire could not stop staring at me. He was with two of his friends. They were dressed as Edward, Bella and the Taylor Lautner character, shirt off and everything.  They were sitting in the corner and when Edward saw me, he eyes widened and tried to get up. Bella looked at me and then she gripped his thigh to keep him down.  

     There was great music and stupid teenage conversation. I wanted to dance, but didn’t. Too painful.  So I took some of the anesthetic that was available and then some cheery cowboy caught my eye, and I caught his.  His undersized CostCo costume revealed his extensive workout regimen, as well as his lack of Halloween creativity. I cruised by to get a closer look and, and, and he smelled divine. “My Sharona” came on and I asked if he wanted to dance. It took four notes for me feel my stitches,  until “my motor run” to know dancing was a bad idea, and to the first "My Sharona" for him to put his hand on me.  Little did he know, he grabbed where the needle had entered my body four times.  I shouted in sync with everyone else’s “My Sharona” and no one noticed, even Cheery Cowboy. 

There was more blood inside my costume and the vampire kept staring.   He licked his lips. He tried to get up again, but I saw Bella mouthe, “Not yet.”  The Knack were winding down and I could not handle more dancing or another touch. I don’t know why he was dancing with me, anyway. He probably thought I was trying to do “The Robot” I was so rigid.  I was getting dizzy from the loss of blood, or the punch, or the love at first sight.  As I turned to find a place to sit down, the snotty, slutty, stupid Jenny was standing in front of me. 

“You can’t dance with him. He is my cousin and he has a girlfriend.” 

I refused to acknowledge her or reveal her stupidity to everyone watching. I knew that either action would prevent me from going someplace to lean or sit or lie to stop the pain. 

She was blocking a clear escape. I sidestepped and then twisted my body to get around her, but it pulled on the flesh-threads enough for me to exclaim, “Aaaghch.”  

“What did you call me?”   

   Jenny and I were close friends until 7^th grade when I kissed her brother, then spread some rumor about him and her. We didn’t fight then and I didn't want to punch her clown face. At least not then and there. I took 5 weeks of Tae Kwon Do classes when I was 12, which provided enough confidence to do something stupid.   But I didn’t want to turn around again.  Even when she used an expletive. Even when she threw a throw pillow past my head. Even when she said something about my tart mother.  

   But when that red Solo cup hit my neck and red juice showered me and everyone around, everything came up. As I considered turning around I noticed that Edward was no longer sitting on the other side of the house, but was standing next to me, leaning forward, giving me that constipated look he always gave Bella in the movies. If he really was a vegetarian vampire and was holding himself back from gorging on my blood, that would not be as bad as some strange teenager, dressed like Edward, pale face, lipstick and all, over-pretending to be a fictional character. Maybe he did smell my blood. 

I turned around, punched Jenny in the face. She fell back. I went right up and kissed the cute cowboy. 

“Call me.” 

  I said that without ever giving my name or number.  Even though it felt like my intestines were going to come out, I walked out the door cool as a cat. But the step down onto the sidewalk sent me to the floor in pain. Edward helped me up. 

“I’ll take care of you.” 

   The darkening darkness surrounded me as Edward helped me toward my car down the dark, dark street.  I was even more dizzy and began blacking out.  I never saw that cowboy again, nor my aunt, nor my mother, nor insipid Jenny, because I was never heard from again. 

Such Misery

This is a character sketch that was inspired by some taunting in the halls I saw. 

Such Misery

Gary was tired of being pushed around. He was tired of having his backpack put in the trash can, or his lunch box put in the toilet or his shoes stolen from his locker. He especially resented his nipples being twisted. A worse torture was when other guys grabbed his boobs. Yes. He had boobs. He was a fat kid and they were much larger and much softer than the guy's pecs on the cover of the Muscle  Magazine he was always reading. A few guys even made that his new name: “Tits”.  “What’s up Tits?”
He felt like killing them. Sometimes. Or damning them to Hell with the dogs and the worms and the shadows. Other times he wished they would just wind up dead somehow, without any of his assistance. And if he were watching from a bridge, too far to do anything and without access to a phone, then he would just have to watch.  

He would get mad at them, but was never able to stop them. Maybe that was the reason: he never told them to stop.  “They wouldn’t anyway”. He felt bad that he was fatter than most kids, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that either. His mother always told him he was born that way and he should just accept it. But there was nary a fresh vegetable in the house and the only fruit was once a month when his father would drop off a bag of oranges or a pineapple from the guy on the side of the freeway off ramp.

What really brought on the sorrow was that he was a coward. His hands and his mouth were not capable of doing what his mind impressed on him to do. His mom always wanted him to be a good kid and she did a great job of making him feel bad about himself if he ever talked back to her. That was a skill she had successfully cultivated and then practiced on her child. Gary was unable to say anything to his mother. Even if she were wrong. It was Auschwitz.  Bergen Belsen. Dachau. At times, her behavoir was so grievous that he wanted to run away and be alone, or later as a preteen, drink all the liquor in the cabinet, or later still, cut himself. So he was always afraid of talking back to anyone, even if it was important to him. 
He had been sick for nearly a week and was not sleeping well. Uncle Trent had been crashing on the couch again and he always made it tense and uncomfortable in the house. Gary missed breakfast that morning and before his mom came in, he ignored his report card which had to be signed and returned. He would throw it away when no one was looking.
He had considered how sad his life was all the way to school and the sentiment continued on for most of first period. By time the bell for Nutrition rang, he was at his low spot again. Then, when Charlie Dundleson called him “Tits” and went to grab his breasts, something in Gary caught fire and exploded. But just as he was about to crush Dundleson’s existence with the first time he would ever throw his fist at someone and shout all the curse words he had ever learned, and then scream out an angry laugh, the campus police officer turned the corner and accidentally bumped into Dundleson. "Oh. Excuse me."  His revenge was foiled again. 
He screamed inside. His body’s stress response bumped up to Code Red and he clenched his fists trying to control himself, but also pretended he was choking him. He couldn't restrain himself. So he reached for the officer’s taser (he thought it was a gun) and it slipped right out of the holster.  He was going to wave it and yell in an angry, helpless threat, to gain the attention that was needed for someone to ask him if anything was wrong. He did not mean to pull the trigger.  But it was immediately discharged into the officer’s leg. Both were worthy of dying. Dundleson for being the worst human being ever; the officer for being the laziest, sorriest, sackashit police officer ever to graduate an academy. 
   There was another shot in the taser, so in less than thirty seconds, Dundleson was also on the ground and both were twitching and unconscious. Gary removed the firearm (the one with the bullets)  from the officer’s holster and aimed it at Dundleson’s pectoral muscle. 

At least that is how Gary imagined his revenge to manifest. 

That was twenty years ago. Gary became the senior vice president of Krakow Foods Corporation.  He had not done any jail time, since state and federal laws do not prosecute the imagination. He rarely did anything bad and broke no important laws. He never actually touched that cop’s taser. He focused on his hobbies, did well in college and advanced in the business world. He got through the bullying and teasing. He lost some weight and gained confidence. He had a nice wife, one really smart kid and one really athletic kid. 
He thought his need for revenge on Dundleson was gone, a castoff of high school days along with an awkward prom, one student of the month award and a 2.8 GPA. Little did he know that a raging beast of revenge hid within him and would be released when he came into the knowledge that Charles Triton Dundleson was just hired as a package sorter in a warehouse he supervised.  

He had hoped Dundleson wouldn’t amount to anything, but didn’t know that karma really was a bitch. Dundleson wasn’t smart and his weekly intake of alcohol diminished what brains were there. He always had a physique, but wasn’t athletic. He got with several women but never had a relationship. He didn’t go to college, not even a community college. Dundleson was a cloud that never gave rain, and now he was 30-something year old who was excited that he procured a job two dollars above minimum wage. 

Gary never thought of himself as mean. As a teenager, he loved pumping bullets into criminals, monsters and terrorists in video games.  He even did the same to villains in the movies, but he never thought we would be able to carry out anything in the real world. He had even considered becoming a vegetarian, hearing his sister talk about how all animals can feel pain and that they have plans of their own.  

But as his memories, tussled and roiled and clawed at his intestines, his revenge molded to a form, and Gary was forcefully becoming aware of his capability to inflict on a fellow human being, such enduring and acute misery. 

HOWW - Drinking Moonshine

This "His Only Weakness Was..." came about when I was thinking about some of the middle-range social vices of humans.  

     Polo’s only weakness was drinking moonshine.  It was a habit he started in primary school, no doubt a result of being related to his father. It caused a delay in knowledge about the world in some areas, but ignited explosions of experience in others. He was able to have a quality to his life, not of mere sustenance and material items, but of adventure, of outlook, of disposition.  After The Accident, he felt so bad and cried so much, and talked himself so down that he up and quit moonshine.  He quit eighty-three times actually. The shortest bit of moonshine sobriety was four hours. The longest streak of not drinking moonshine would have been a whole week, except on that Sunday, the Boon Rascals showed up, so really it was just six-and-a-half days.  But he told everyone it was seven, so it was seven to anyone that was asked.  And there was that time he got a birthday present from Bard Cooney. A jug a’ gin. Folsem’s brand.  Now that’s a drink you can serve to your grandmother.  Polo drank that for a whole month instead of moonshine. And he told everyone in town that he had been thinking about things, had a talk with someone and that he would stop drinkin’ shine and would switch to proper spirits instead. He told all about Bard's birthday gift and everything. Sheriff Tinney said he was right proud of him and that this was a start to a new chapter in his life. The Women’s League even came out and sang him a song, gave him a pamphlet and told him they would be prayin’ on their knees, cryin’ and sobbin' too, so that he would get sober. But we all knew that prayer for other folks don’t work as good unless that person is praying for the same thing. I never seen Polo pray. Never heard him talk about doin‘ it either. And if he did pray up to Almighty God, I’m not sure it would be to stop drinking. During the Folsom's Month, Polo dressed himself up proper, started working and even went to church for the Easter service of 1902.  
      Much later Bard told him that it was bathtub gin that he put in a Folsem’s jug. Why would he do something like that?  Everyone else in town knew that Bard made gin in his other barn and they kept it to themselves. So when Polo come around braggin' about his month, they all smiled and congratulated him and wished him good luck. Polo looked at Bard like his only child was just kidnapped. Things degraded swiftly for Polo, Bard, Tinney and a few others in town. 
     At the end of August in 1908 Sheriff Tinney began talking about jailing him again because something had to be done. Complaints increased.  So, it was on the last day of that month that I went over to Polo's with a string of lake trout as an offering. I had planned to talk  some sense into him and fix him once and for all.   

A Beefy Load

Here's a character sketch that was inspired by a colleague. 

A Beefy Load

Roger was a beefy load of loose fat, repugnant manners and general stupidity. He caused others to gag by his failure to thoroughly clean his folds of fat, underarms and other assorted areas. In addition, his indifference to wearing unwashed clothes, which degenerated into wearing undershirts and underwear up to ten days in a row, caused immediate disdain in the people close enough to perceive these habits. While his exterior was fouled and begrimed, his soul appeared to be of substantial quality, which is a combination not normally found in human beings. Dirty on the outside typically means dirty on the inside.  

     He loved his mother and defended her against even the slightest of attacks. When he spoke about her, his eyes lit up, his physical nature abated, and the beauty of a boy, raised without a father, shined through; he shined through all his repugnance. She loved him too. Too much, actually, in that she did everything for him. Especially the things that he should have done for himself. 


I saw him coming down the thin hallway and I realized that I was beyond the point of no return. There was not enough room for both of us to pass by without making some sort of physical contact. We made eye contact. He perceived the impasse. I determined that it might offend him if I turn around and clear the corridor calling focused attention to his tremendous size. Instead, I sacrificed my need to not touch strangers, my need to be germ free and my need to not talk to people that were gross. I took a deep breath and continued down the hall. 

     Within 12 feet of him, I could tell his shirt was soiled with more than ones day’s activity. Within four feet of him, I could smell his lack of washing out the fatfolds, underarms and other assorted areas. Without making it obvious, I held my breath.  As I turned my body sideways to make the pass, and within two feet of his mouth, I saw that he had recently eaten lunch.  He had obtained exclusive rights to everything physically repulsive.  Little did I know, that he would save my life, and I would save his, and we would become best of friends. 

HOWW - Uncontrolled Urination

Interesting weaknesses make interesting characters. I decided to make a few character sketches based on a character having only one, peculiar weakness. Here's the first one.

His Only Weakness Was  --Uncontrolled Urination

His only weakness was uncontrolled urination. It started after the tractor accident. He tended to not drink any more than he had to, which meant never. And if he was going to be someplace nice, then he wore a diaper. He didn’t want the diaper to be noticeable, so he pulled out some of the stuffing so it wouldn’t stick out so much. They were easy to change. People thought he was straight edge, since he always refused a beer or a cocktail. But he made up for it in other ways. He was not straight edge. He just didn’t want to piss his pants in front of everyone. He had seen more than a dozen specialists, all with the same confounding disappointment. In  a rash moment of frustration he threatened himself to cut off his device, knowing full well that that was not the problem.  He, and the doctors, knew full well that the problem was in internal sphincter that governed his ability to write his name in the snow. They knew it, but had no way of fixing it. One doctor suggested that the problem was neural and that the nerve to the valve was fried and he should have an experimental surgery. Another prescribed drinking tons of fluids in order to retrain the valve. That turned out to be a messy idea that required him to change all the carpets in his apartment.  A third suggested that the problem was in his psyche, that he needed to regain control of his life, since he always felt a victim:  his parents, three older brothers, several bossy girlfriends. He was a pushover. He knew it.  Though, knowing it is far worse than not knowing it. He wished he didn’t believe that he was a pushover.  He wanted to believe that he was powerful, courageous, in control. One time, he tried to act that way. Nobody responded. They were used to not taking him seriously, so they didn’t.  He did not have control. Not at work. Not with his family. Not with his own body. His body was his, wasn’t it? He owned it, or at least was given custody of it. But he could not stop the leaking even if he focused, or prayed or cried. 

Anne Lamott Sighting

Anne Lamott's book on writing Bird By Bird is a must read for all writers. I wrote the following as a review of her book signing event in Pasadena.

Anne Lamott Sighting

So I did a real grown up thing on Wednesday. I went to my first author book signing. I feel so old.   I know it was no rite of passage, like getting a first kiss, a driver’s license or a life insurance policy, but it was definitely a sign that my youth is no longer with me. I am 35 years old, now. I am no longer a kid. What was more indicative of this terminal condition, is that I really enjoyed myself at a book signing, far more than that teenager in the back did, playing Temple Run on his iPad the whole time. 

I went to see Anne Lamott talk about her newest book, Some Assembly Required: My Son’s First Son.  It is a follow-up, or sequel of sorts, to the book she wrote about her son’s first year two decades ago. 

Turns out she feels she needs to promote her newest book, even though it is rumored to open at #9 on the Bestseller List. I am sure her entertaining all of us on Wednesday has no direct impact on her book sales, but it impacts the indirect sales since on Thursday I told close to a hundred people that I saw Anne Lamott.

The event was held at the All Saints Church in Pasadena, it was the most beautiful church I’ve been to outside of Europe. Lamott spoke from the same podium the clergy would, and it really felt like church, though the object of our worship was slightly lower  in the ecumenical chain of command. Since she and I are both openly Christian, it was  a nice place for both of us to be. 

She spoke. It was great. Turns out the narrator of her non-fiction works is the same person who writes them; the same one who lives in Marin County with her lovely pets, cornrows, and wit.   I heard that some actors who play amazing roles on the screen are shy people and in reality are actually quite boring. They make such great actors because they get to let loose all the personality that they don’t have in real life. But this is not Anne Lamott. Who she was on that stage, speaking into that microphone, is the same lady in her books. Same wit, same charm, same comic timing. 

The crowd laughed, including me, at every joke she said, because she is funny. She is a genius of sorts, though she would always deny not it, but secretly be thrilled.  We are so over-excited and so wanted to please her and made sure she enjoys herself, so we laughed every time it was appropriate to laugh. She talked about being on tour, on writing a book with her son and her trip to India.  She read a bit from the new book and then answered some decent questions. 

The service broke up so Lamott could sign copies. Most of the audience got in an organized line like the adults they were, but they looked more like kids at an amusement park, waiting for an adrenaline rush, tightly holding on to their copies, checking and rechecking to make sure the book will open to correct page so Lamott will not have to be inconvenienced with 200 nervous pairs of hands flipping to the title page. Fans were given a few seconds, or for some, a full minute, to interact with her. She looked dog tired. She was loopy from being a mile up in Denver the previous night, and in sundry other cities over the last few days, ferried to and fro by agents or assistants or book store clerks.  It is mostly women there. I tried to find some bond with the few men there, but I was too giddy to see one of my favorite writers. I thought condescendingly about the ridiculous private thoughts of the other fans and how they were too geeked to meet her, but I was embarrassed by my own geekedness, so I feigned apathy. I very calmly rejoiced then rejected all the things I might say to her. I met her. It was cool. I sounded like a gawky, pimply freshman trying to be debonair to the prom queen. I shook her hand, she signed my book and I headed home. 

Yeah, yeah. The book is great. All her books are great, even the bad ones. She is so smart and wise and caring, and most of all, real. She accurately describes Life. Not Life for all of us, but for her. She invites us into all her yearnings and fears, all her strengths and weaknesses. She writes lucidly about all of the things she should be hiding so that we have some hope. Some hope that we will be Okay and will make it to the end. 

She is also tends to be rude, disgusting and base, and that is the only way to tell the truth about life. My brother, the lawyer, said that being a lawyer is like making sausage: if you saw how it was made, you wouldn’t touch it again. She displays the example of her life in a way that leaves nothing back, though she does hit the reader on the head with it. She does it quite humbly, and with enough caring that we don’t lose hope. To think about Life in depth requires a strong constitution and if not handled properly, could lead to despair. Turns out, life is harsh. It is tough and at random can leave the strongest lying in puddles of their own fluids. 

Exaggeration is a technique Lamott uses to make her stories funny and approachable. It actually makes them hilarious. Laughter can be a release of fear, and as the fear is leaving, it provides a lightening, which effects the release of inhaled air in short powerful bursts, in a similar manner that crying does. The shared symptoms are shaking, crying, staccato-like breaths involving both high and low vocal tones. 

But this is not just a gimmick Lamott uses in her writing. It is a life gimmick that gets us through our fears. She is quite aware of the catastrophe of life, of how unbearably tragic it can be and sometimes is, and therein lies the genius of the exaggeration. The exaggeration helps to cope with the tragedies in her own life, or at least the faux pas, the slips and falls, the errors in judgment, etc.  

From the starting point of what really happened, she takes it to a place where it could be real and quite tragic and painful, but is obviously not possible given the context and the tone. 

About her son Sam from Operating Instructions:  “Please, please, God, help him to be someone who feel compassion, who feels God’s presence loose in the world, who doesn’t give up on peace and justice and mercy for everyone. And then one second later, I was begging, Okay, skip all that s--t, forget it—just please, please let him outlive me.”

This is a chance to laugh, but this fear is real for her. Her father died. Her friend was dying during Sam’s first year and that makes the kid-dying fear all the more real her. It proved right in her face, in her living room, that death can really happen, even if you love someone and they are a good person.

Another story in Operating Instructions is when her son fell down the stairs. She exaggerated for effect.  “I absolutely knew in those first few seconds that he had a spinal cord injury and that his head was going to swell up.”   We get instant relief of our fears when we become aware that he did not have a spinal cord injury. We already know that because there is nothing in the book title, the introduction or preface, the back cover, our time the Internet, a friend’s comment, that tells us that she wrote a book about when her son got a spinal cord injury.  We actually know he is fine immediately. It gives us a reminder of how bad life can be, how cruel nature is, and how consistent gravity is. 

Our memories are instantly accessed during this moment and remember all the spinal cord injury stories, television specials and the real people we have seen in wheelchairs.  It is in this moment that we are terribly afraid of life and terribly appreciative that her son did not actually receive such an injury. And for those of us living without spinal cord injuries in our lives, we are able to rejoice, even if it is for just a slightest bit, that no one in our lives has had this tragedy. Now I cannot speak for those living with spinal cord injuries, or those around them. If they are fresh injuries, it would be painful to read those words, and be derisive that Lamott could be so careless and wicked to mention something like that. But if the people have recently acclimated to their new world, then it is less careless of Lamott, though still  insensitive. And if the person has lived for decades and jokes with their friends about “not standing for the anthem” or “I won’t be pushed around”, then they might just read through it, or even possibly smirk.  

I cannot imagine that a personal who lives with a spinal cord injury in their life would ever get the same enjoyment that I got out of her little joke. It is really insensitive of her to do this, messing with our memories and our fears, all to help us release something and cause us to appreciate who we are in the very instant we read her writing. All my son has ever done is smack his head on the concrete driveway after falling off a step. He bled and cried, but none of his brains leaked out. 

So to read her new book, Some Assembly Required: My Son’s Son, kinda requires a reader to read her first book Operating Instructions: A Journal of my Son’s First Year.  It details the harsh reality of adjusting to the new world of taking care of a newborn, which from experience, is equally harsh and soft. Equally life-sucking and life-filling. Equal disaster and utopia. Catastrophe and splendor. But it also the journal of a single mother, ex-addict, who was on the edge of financial ruin, with her best friend and child-support staff member dying from cancer. Lamott was not ready physically, emotionally, financially, socially ready for the worst roommate ever: an 8-pound, illiterate, selfish crier whose ego pressed against the stratosphere. My son was much the same.  But at least I had a spouse to hand him off to. But Lamott’s kid made her a better person. It was the worst trauma of her life, but it was exactly what she needed. That was clearly communicated in that book. 

In the new book. Some Assembly Required, she chronicles her son’s illegitimate child, which was against her grand schemes for him, and the efforts of his girlfriend whose rocky relationship causes a separation between the parents, giving the newborn two homes to live in. Though it appears the dead-beat dad gene was not passed down to Sam Lamott, the circumstance are far from what she hoped would be.   

A Dangerous Place

After being a coffee-aholic for a long time, making recurrent trips to Starbucks, Peet's and Coffee Bean I wondered what it would be like to have a mental condition, induced by tremendous amounts of coffee and sugar. This is the result.

A  Dangerous Place

By

David  Orloff

I have a problem with these people around me and I am not sure they know about it, unless there is someone secretly observing me from a camera hidden in my apartment, or from that spy satellite above my house, or from an infrared scope in that van across the street. I don’t use a phone anymore. Too dangerous. I can’t see facial expressions. They could be lying or rolling their eyes or making a sandwich while they pretend to talk to me.  No one knows about my episodes of instability and I hide it pretty good, though I nearly screamed out loud during a dinner at a crowded restaurant eleven months ago because I was on the edge and I couldn’t pretend anymore. I don’t want to pretend anymore. I can’t keep it up. 

Ronald might have figured me out yesterday. He was pretending to be preoccupied with his pastry and notebook, but he was observing me, analyzing me, and developing a strategy to get me busted. I don’t like him anymore. I think I saw him at our house before, talking with my mom. I ran into him at the park one time and I saw him sitting across the street from the deli at the bus stop. But he never got on any of the buses. He just kept looking towards me or his notebook.  It is like he is following me or keeping tabs on me, like a poorly trained babysitter. 

I used to like him a lot. He’s not like the other people that come in here. He’s gets just coffee. No cream. No sugar.  He just stirs it twenty to thirty times, then drinks it.  If you want coffee, have coffee. If you want milk froth, eat milk froth. If you want sugar, eat a sugar packet. Don’t destroy the coffee. That’s why he is a respectable American.  But now, I don’t want him to be within a hundred feet of me.   I definitely don’t want him in the coffee shop. 

I think he figured me out yesterday when I was thinking about how black coffee contrasts the white cup. Why don’t they serve coffee in black cups, so it all looks the same? Less tension. A smile came to my face when I thought that all human conflict can be reduced down to coffee and the cup it is served in. I considered milk’s insidious role in the metaphor. When the thought came back to me three minutes later, I smirked. When it came the sixth time, I laughed out loud. I knew, at that point, that since I was not talking directly to any humans, or reading anything, or doing anything where laughing could be seen as a normal response, that the laugh could be a sign that I was unstable. I am not unstable. I am normal. I want to make sure people know that. 

No one perceived the first laugh, or so I thought.  The baristas’ heads did not move. Laptop Guy had rowdy music pumping into his ears, but he could have perceived me over his music, because I also had a physical reaction. He should have seen my body move and shake and looked up to see what the fuss was. I would have looked. The kids in the corner were oblivious. The man with the newspaper did not stir even though I was obviously in direct range of his peripheral vision. 

The second time I audibly laughed, no one noticed. On the third laugh, Ronald looked directly at me. Not with the expression of, “Oh.  Somebody laughed. I should try to perceive what the comedy is about so that I can enjoy it”, but with inquisition. Evil hellfire, daggers and darts, chop-up-the-bodies medieval inquisition. In that one blink, his eyes burned and I had to look elsewhere. I would rather stare at the sun and go blind. 

I am a master at averting my eyes. I’ve practiced numerous ways to make it look like I wasn’t distracted by the thing that distracted me.  So, I immediately coaxed the table as if I had spilled some coffee and looked intently at the invisible spill.  Then I transferred my attention to my stack of notebooks. He knew better.  Most people don’t pay attention. Cleaning up a spill is a great distraction. People think I am industrious and accountable. Ronald knew. I hate him even more now.  Why is he always in my coffee shop? It is best when people don’t notice me or at least look away when they do. 

Ronald came into the coffee shop today eighteen minutes after I got there and just before my first refill. He is always here. He gets here before me or he arrives shortly after.  I needed to get out of there, but some great thoughts were coming to me at the time and I usually like to spend the day here writing them all down. I don’t know if it is the vibrant and varied colors on the walls, or the subliminal, propaganda-filled classical music, or the Pixie dust they mix in with the coffee grounds, but I always have great thoughts come to me at that coffee shop. 

Ronald needs to go. I tried other coffee shops, Lasko’s Deli, Bonham Park, the movie theater, the police station. I don’t like the thoughts that come to me in my apartment. No Pixie Dust. This is my place. I don’t want to terminate him. I am still too sane to try something like that.  I would prefer to throw my hot coffee at him. It would be to punish him for busting me, but also just to get him to go away. But then I would need another cup of coffee, and I might be arrested. Any one of those things might alert these people and they would find out about me. 

I think that kid knows. Kids know all kinds of things. You can’t fool them. At least I can’t. You can fool adults because they are always in a hurry. But kids are never in a hurry. They want to do whatever it is they are presently doing. But they cry a lot too. They make messes and don’t clean them up.  Their parents sometimes clean up their messes.  But parents are getting lazier too. This lady is a lazy parent. She isn’t even watching her kid. Her back is to him and she’s more worried about her hungover friend with the dark glasses. I can’t see her eyes, so I don’t know if she is watching me. The mom is talking non-stop and Hangover is slouching and looking at her phone every 45 seconds. 

The kid keeps kicking that straw and trying to pick it up. He needs some hand sanitizer. I’ve seen people spit and vomit on this floor. I’ve seen food crumbs in the corners that were still there the next day. In the last eight months of coming here every day, I have only seen one cockroach, which is one cockroach too many. That kid kept playing with that bacterial trap of a straw. The mom wasn’t even paying attention. No one was. That kid could have put salmonella or smallpox into his mouth. It was on his hands. He didn’t know how dangerous his actions were.  I would have kept facing him, but I didn’t want anyone to see a strange 45-year old crazy man watching a three-year old play with a dirty straw. The mom was oblivious.  I could have just grabbed the kid and walked out of here and she would never have known. Hangover wouldn’t know, or better yet, probably doesn’t care. What’s worse than that, is the kid put his left hand into his mouth and sucked his fingers like a lollipop. A warm, fleshy, smallpox-flavored lollipop.

I thought I was the only one who was observing the kid. But turns out, Ronald was watching him too. So, I couldn’t kidnap the kid, even if I wanted to. But why would I want to kidnap a kid? They are messy and I would have to feed him and change his diaper. Ronald looked at the kid and looked at the mom and then said something to her. The mom looked at him, but kept talking. He looked back at the kid, looked at the mom and got back to his notepad. Just then his phone rang and he answered, “This is Mike.” Mike? Yeah right. What a liar.  His name is Ronald. His friend said it on the phone three months ago, “I’m with Ronald”. And Ronald didn’t correct him and say his name was Mike. He’s obviously even paid some of the baristas here to call him Mike. I know his name is Ronald.  It is too much. No one names their kid Mike. Maybe Michael or Michelangelo, but not Mike. 

When Ronald is here he always gets a phone call and then looks between his notebook and me during the conversation.  It is really peculiar. I think he needs to see a psychologist or at least get a job. I mean, really, who hangs out in a coffee shop all day. I could have sworn that I heard his voice talking with my mother at our house. That was eight months ago. After that is when Ronald started coming to the coffee shop to sit here all day, just like me. I also heard my mom talking with a guy named Mike about taking care of me. I thought she was going to put me in a hospital. I am glad she didn’t. Eight months ago, she stopped hiring babysitters for me. I am not a baby. I don’t need anyone watching out for me. They are easy to get rid of. Biting chases the rookies away. If that doesn’t work, then soiling myself and asking them to clean it up is pretty effective. But that didn’t work for the last babysitter. She was tough. And mean.  So I started undressing, staring at her the whole time while singing a song with all those people around.  Bye bye babysitter. After that, I had to find a new coffee shop. 

My brother told me that I need some help and I need to get a therapist and I need to help mom with her gardening and that I should help him with his gardening. They said I might hurt someone. But I don’t want to hurt anybody. I don’t hate anybody.  “You might hurt yourself.” But I don’t want to hurt myself. What is wrong with everyone? My brother also told me that I should stop drinking coffee and eating sugar packets. My mom had the exact same words. They might be conspiring against me.  

They keep telling me I need a shrink, and I know what a shrink is, but I don’t know why them call them shrinks. It is a bad name. Therapist is much better. It makes sense. Therapy. Therapist. Many people have told me to get some help. Some in nice ways. Some in mean ways. Some have done it with a look on their face that I do not like. I don’t like it at all. It is too serious. I would rather it be angry. This way, they can get out their anger and be on their way.  The serious people keep trying, even after I start throwing things. I needed to get outside for some fresh air and to clear my head after seeing that kid put his filthy hand in his filthy mouth. 

I went outside, leaving my bag behind. No one would want a bag full of notebooks and pens anyway. And as for someone taking my coffee, I have a hundred  empty cups in my bag and can use those to get my free refills. I stood outside for a while and there was a guy out there taking a breather as well. I guess I am not the only person having it rough.  He kept looking over at me and then looking away. The first couple of times he did this, I turned and looked him in the eye for a blink. He kept turning his head toward me and I could see him in my peripheral vision, but I just kept looking ahead at the Toys ‘R’ Us and pretended to be interested in the cars passing by. I even pretended to look into some of the cars as if I was waiting to be picked up. But he didn’t get the hint. As I was ready to go back inside, he approached me. Why would he do that?   He smelled like urine and marijuana and had on a lot of clothes. He said that if I needed some help, that he could help me. He said he could get what the doctor ordered. But I told him I don’t need a prescription. I am fine. 

I went back in and my coffee and bag were still there. I ate two more sugar packets. Ronald looked at me eating them and then wrote something down in his notebook. He’s crazy and needs a doctor.  I mean who keeps track of the sugar habits of a stranger?

A barista came by and she asked if I was done with the dish of sugar packets. I had already finished all the pink ones and the yellow ones and I was saving the sugar ones for last, like I always do. She went to grab them, but I put my hand over them and then looked down at the floor. She crooked her neck to get me to look at her. Like I was going to fall for that.  I slowly began pulling the sugars back to me. I could tell she was getting upset. She looked at Ronald. Ronald looked back to his notebook. She gave me the austere face of a bitter nun. That’s the most common expression they give me: The serious face. I hate it. I prefer the nicey nice face. 

But these serious-faced people have to lighten up. One of these days, I am going to do something about it. I think it is great that they care about me and want to help me, but they don’t know how to let it go. Fine. Tell me once and be on your way. Thank you for the lovely advice. Now you can go away. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. But they keep trying to look me in the eyes, crooking their necks to get a better view. Those serious people need to take the prescription from that guy in the street.  Some of them try to walk with me as I try to get away from them. 

My mom keeps saying, “I love you,” as if that is going to get rid of my problem. I wouldn’t mind seeing a therapist, as long as I didn’t have to look him in the eye or have to talk about anything, or let him give me any advice. I already have all the advice I need. 

But a therapist could be good. I might need one. It could help if I got the right one.   I don’t know of any and don’t know how to find one, but I am sure they are in the phone book. You can’t trust anyone in there though. The ones with the big advertisements paid extra, which means they have to charge more for the same service. The ones with witty names or catchy slogans are trying too hard and once you are their loyal customer, they will stop trying hard. You definitely can’t trust the ones with stupid names, or whose company name is also their last name, because they have never been to business school and never learned that to be successful and become a regional or national brand, you should never use a family name, unless your name is Wendy or McDonald. And you definitely can’t trust anyone in a phone book who has typos or errors in their ad.

I tried finding a therapist. After eliminating all those buffoons and charlatans, I had to narrow it down to a few and then choose at random. I don’t like random. I don’t do random. It is too dangerous. The only way I choose something out of the phone book is if after I go through the buffoons and charlatans, there is only one option left. If there are two, then I close the book. But if there is one, then it is meant to be. Me and him. I did this with therapists. After the eliminations, there were still 22 names left. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t. So, no therapist for me, unless someone I can trust refers me to one. Mom gave me a list of three therapists. I can sometimes trust her, but I can’t trust random. “Just try one. Or try all three and see which one is best,” she said. Thanks Mom. I got it from here. I am Okay anyway. I don’t need a therapist. 
  

I finished one more sugar packet and had to go to the bathroom. After ten cups of coffee, I had better urinate at least once. I always wait until the baristas clean it. I hate using a dirty toilet, even if I never touch the toilet. The barista came out of the bathroom with a cleaning supplies bucket and filthy rag in hand and continued on to clean the front door. He propped it open. I hate when they do that. It lets in flies and smog and street noise.  When I got back, that kid was standing near my table. I shooed him away and he went to his mom for a minute then went directly for the barista and the open door. He watched the barista finish cleaning the glass door, who then tugged on it to close. But he was not successful, so the door stayed open. He seemed rushed and just left it. The boy stood at the door for a minute looking outside and then went back to his mom. He went back to the door and put his hand in the gap created between the door and the doorjamb and played some invisible game. He looked out at the traffic passing by and did not notice the guy outside. But that guy noticed him. The mom was still chatting away with Hangover. Ronald was busy watching me and writing. The boy walked out to the curb. He went straight to where the cars would smash him like a cantaloupe. He would be dead and that dumb mom wouldn’t even know. 

 I said “hey” to the mom a couple times. Ronald looked at me and I looked away. A barista whirred a machine again and the mom couldn’t hear me when I tried again. The outside traffic contributed to the noise. I said “hey” to the boy to get him to come back, but he stepped off the curb. For every step that I took toward the boy, he took one toward the street, so I had to burst into a full run. I must have looked like a madman to all those people in there.  I grabbed him from behind as he was about to step into the first lane. Luckily, there was a red light and no cars were in the street. It was still stupid. I lifted him up and turned around. 

Ronald was at the door and had a strange look on his face. I walked right past him and took the boy to his mom. I pushed him into her lap. “What the hell are you doing? Your kid has smallpox and almost ran into the street. Why don’t you pay attention? He could have gotten hurt.” She looked at me as if she hadn’t understood a word that I said. Hangover gasped and asked the boy if he was Okay. “Oh. Mikey. Mikey. You can’t go outside. You have to stay here with Mommy.” She adjusted his position on her lap and started to talk. I interrupted. “Even a nut like me knows better. You should get your head checked. And all that coffee and sugar will make you crazy”.  I sat back down and grabbed the last sugar packet. Ronald closed the door and sat back down. He replayed the scene in his head and looked back and forth at me and the kid. He looked at the faux grain in his plastic table and nodded his head several times. Then, he looked at me with a very different look. I had not seen that look in a long time.  

Ronald is still here. The dirty straw is still on the floor. The kid keeps looking at me but is now clinging to his mother.  I should get a medal for saving that kid’s life. But they don’t give medals to unstable people. They don’t even give them to legitimate heroes anymore. 

I decided to meet a therapist, and we agreed it would be good to meet someplace I was comfortable, so I told him to meet me today in front of the coffeehouse. He said I have a lot of problems but if I had a plan and kept to it, then all my problems would go away. He also prescribed me some medicine and gave me a sample to try. Not sure I’m going take it. It will probably work. I would like to get over this someday. But I am not sure I want to take a prescription from a therapist that smells like urine and marijuana and wears dirty clothes. He asked for payment and I gave it to him. Just some spare change.

If you are feeling like the character in this story, maybe take a crazy test to see if you really are. 

The Undertaker's Daughter

I wrote the following character sketch after reading James Joyce's "The Dead" a 5th or 10th or 20th time,(I don't keep track anymore). I wondered what Lily was like. 

The Undertaker's Daughter

Lily was having a rough day. The rash on her shoulder continued to itch every 18 minutes, as scheduled. Her heart was still broken from the year before. Her future had been sold away while she was busy serving her family. To make matters worse, that morning, she dropped her breakfast on the floor.   

She stared at her eggs and toast and potatoes and tried to recall in her memory of what transpired in the last forty-five seconds that led to such a tragedy.  Was it her inattention, her imagined palsy, her greasy fingers, her self-destructive tendencies? Or was it some trickster ghost or spirit or fairy?  She didn’t care enough to search for the truth about her eggs or herself or whether ghosts were real and had the capacity to push a plate off of a table.  Towards the end of her stare, she realized that she was not depressed enough to eat food off the floor again.  But she was far too miserable to make a proper breakfast again.  She could not conceive of how her food ended up on the floor. But it was there.  Eggs, toast and frozen-in-the-middle hash browns, staring up at her, with a smirk created out of splattered ketchup. 

She had decided months ago, after seeing a program on television, to make a real breakfast every morning as a way to cherish herself, to give back to herself, to nourish herself. It would replace the daily donut that ate into her once good health. Like anything good in life, she fought it. The program said to set goals. In full self-defiance, she dared herself and set a goal: One breakfast a week. Then, after a month of that, she would bump it up to two a week. So forth and so forth until Month Seven completed her chrysalis and she would break forth and fly, a butterfly caught in a hurly-burly gust of pancakes and smoothies, muffins and omelets.  This story takes place in the third week of the second month of breakfastmaking. 
She had already made two breakfasts that week.  This would have been the third breakfast. Two weeks ahead of schedule.  She did not have to think about making a third breakfast, and she did not plan it.  It sort of happened. When the toaster dinged she had an inkling about her great progress in life.  Her plan would take care of itself.  She smiled. She felt some kind of happiness. There was a change in the air. A change in the empty cavern that she fancied was within her. Things would finally be working out.   

But, then, it was three o’clock in the afternoon and the food was still on the floor of her kitchen. She was in her office downstairs. She had abated her hunger with coffee and breath mints and stupid magazines. The lack of sugar in her blood combined with a decade-long adrenal fatigue, put her on edge. She had not been rude yet, though no one had come into her office. She was slow on her feet and slow to answer the questions coming through the phone. The world was fortunate that no one had entered her office that morning. 

She was ready to snap. She wanted to snap. She wanted her resentment to be released from her body in the form of a short, loud and witty reply to another human being. She needed to release it. 

She did not care about the customers. She had enough customers. And they were part of the problem. Every customer through the door, every phone call, every invoice took time away from her conceiving and planning her other life.  But, they just kept coming. Day after day, year after year. Procession after procession. She heard a thousand eulogies, passed out a thousand tissues. She had seen thousands of black suits and veils. They just kept coming. Even if the flowers were wilted. Even if the orientation was insufficient. Even if the price was too high. They kept coming and kept paying. And no one ever haggled or asked for a discount. It just wasn’t done.  Some people said, “Wow” or scrunched their brows in shock as to what a funeral would cost. But they always paid. They always paid.  Her family had done the job for thousands of people over the last forty years and competition was scarce. 

         On this afternoon, Lily did not care about the customers or the respects they needed to pay to the corpse, the deaf, blind, and mute shell of some Earth-wanderer. And she did not want that smelly kid to keep asking questions about the hearse, or the bathroom, or the stale candy in the dish. She always had empathy for her customers, but, upon her father’s prudent instructions, she refused any sympathy. They were just bodies, not people. The things with heartbeats and breath and tears were the people. Her father also told her, before moving on himself, to always maintain a prudent decorum.

        But today, she, as the funeral director, was about to completely ruin the final social event, the celebratory funeral of Gerald Russell Orion Peabody, and there was not a singular thing anybody, living or dead, could do about it. 

For more info on one of my favorite writers, go to The Modern Word.