Today's writing

When we got to the front door my mind locked up. Something shut down inside of me, went hard and flat. An envelope of sorts, mailing thoughts, emotions, fears. Wait a minute, Mr. Postman. The front door itself was a sculpted master class in craftsmanship. The whorls alone could rival a fingertip, the depth, the intricacy. The ugliness was so deep that it was lovely. It was beautiful in that way that six-year-olds regard as beautiful, something gaudy and careless, something without the significance of subtlety or the framing of creative fear. It was simply what it was, and what it was was one crazy piece of shit.

 

I reached for my mother’s hand. She looked at me as if I were a mental disease and she the reluctant lithium. “What’s with you?”

 

Scared, I said. I was scared.

 

“Jesus Christ. It’s a sleepover, not a scalping.”

 

She jabbed at the doorbell with such force that I thought she’d knock off her Lee Press-On. I grabbed that hand, too. We stood there with both hands entwined. It could have been a sweet goddamn moment, but this was my mother.

 

Leslie Morrison came to the door. She was taller and darker than my mother. She held a cigarette. Do parents still do that today? Aren’t they all relegated to puffing in some dark outpost of the backyard?

Cool Hand Luke

 

Yes, I delete posts all the time.

Why do you ask?

Early-morning writing

The take-your-order guy, also known as a waiter in case you forgot restaurant terminology, looks from one face to the next. “You folks ready?”

 

“Yeah,” your father says, “I’ll have the kippers and eggs.”

 

You find kippers disgusting, but what does it matter? You don’t have to eat it. You know your father will try to pull family-style on you, though, lifting from his plate, stealing from yours. Share and share alike, right, Steve? Adam always manages to slip out of this tradition, leaving it to you and your father to share even though you hate sharing food – probably because you grew up on this horseshit.

 

You order the Reuben – a whole, not a half, with a side of matzoh ball soup. You can hear Adam silently losing his mind. You’ll never finish this meal. You’ll never even begin to consume these mass quantities. But they won’t go wasted.

 

“I’ll have two latkes,” Adam says, knowing he’ll be able to tuck into your food. Share, as we say, and share alike.

 

Coffees and waters all around, and take-your-order guy retreats to the kitchen to get matters going. “But,” your father says, “we didn’t order anything for Baz.”

 

“He’ll eat what we eat.”

 

Your father regards Adam as the human equivalent of shit on a shingle. “Will he eat what we eat?” he asks you.

 

You shrug. Of course he will. Or, rather, he’ll eat a piece of toast, nibble on some type of meat or another, maybe deign to try a latke, and all will be well. Your father seems to regard your son as some type of strange space creature with his own set of rules and regulations. He’s just a damn kid. You love him, he’s your heart, but he’s just a kid.

 

Here’s the thing, though: you’re jealous of him, jealous of the fact that your father takes such an interest in him. When he was first born, your father said: “I’d like to come up every few months to watch him grow up. I don’t want him not to know his grandpa.” Touching, true, but also dispiriting. You lived in the same house as him for 18 years and he rarely showed interest in your knowing him. Times change, of course, but let’s face it: our hearts continue to sing the same song.

Deborah sent me this

It's pretty goddamned accurate. 

We're all living so many lies. The work of life is to get down to the fucking truth and do something about it. Starting now. 

The edge

Some days you feel like you're going to fall apart. There's a moment like that in every day for me. I yelled at Baz this morning: "Fuck!" He was pissing me off and I had had it. I've had it with everything. 

"You're good"

Earlier this year, we were thrown out of couples counseling. "I see you two," our counselor said. "You're good."

Adam crows about that shit. "We got thrown out," he says. "Don't tell me we're not good."