Tuesday, November 22, 2011

I Know, But--

During one of my rounds in the rink with borderline personality disorder, I found myself sitting in a couched circle of complete strangers. We were the kind of strangers that I believe Jim Morrison sings about, "People are strange when you're a stranger/Faces look ugly when you're alone/Women seem wicked when you're unwanted/Streets are uneven when you're down". On the psych ward of a hospital, I sat sipping my makeshift mocha: fat free, sugar free hot chocolate and coffee. I used the awkward silence to barely lift my eyes and scan the room as I blew steam from the top of my paper cup.

Everyone was intensely interested in anything other than being the first to speak. One girl was concerned with a fray in the little-toe area of her left slipper. She worried over it with her ungraceful fingers even when her oily bangs feel over her eyes. She blew at them and kept at her slipper. A thick, tall woman with thin hair wearing a light blue robe sat stiffly, and kept asking where she was and what she was doing here. She'd just come out of electroshock yesterday and couldn't stop crying. Tears dripped off her nose and cheekbones and dried on the breast of her baby blue terra cloth robe. The man who sat next to me shook, and wrung his hands. His hands were bulky, callused and dry. You could hear them scratch together. He kept his hands between his legs that hit together at the knees every two seconds like clockwork. There were others in the group, but I can't picture them. They're flickering Poe-like silhouettes.

The facilitator of the group sat not on a sofa with the rest of us, but in the corner on a folding chair. Other than the badge pinned to her chest identifying her as someone who was sane enough to leave here whenever she wanted, and the pile of papers on a clipboard she'd tucked between her and the arm of her chair, she could've been one of us.

Where am I going with this? I could easily get sidetracked by the surrealism of trying to get well. I started on this because it was here in this room that I came to know Joe: the man who would, two weeks later, call me from a pay phone to tell me he's at the bus station in Lewiston. He'll tell me he's staying the weekend with me, ask me to pick him up. I will allow this because our hours-long phone conversations (against psych ward staff advice not to give out our numbers) have made me trust him (and because I was desperate for the streets to feel a little more even). Still, I was surprised that he'd come down from Spokane, and I was alarmed at his forcefulness (though not enough to hang up on him, or tell him to go home).

When I got out of the car to greet him, like Santa he handed me a full giant Hefty bag.

"Open it," he said.
"What is it?" I asked, opening the sack. There were about ten stuffed animals in there: tiny beanie babies, an oversized elephant, a teddy bear holding an I love you heart..."How sweet," I said, giving Joe a hug, "My sister's kids will love these."
"No, Jodie. They're for you. I love you so damn much.

I'm not sure why I did it, but I let Joe visit me off and on all that summer. I let him believe I was in love with him.

Monga talked about Joe all the time. How sweet he was, and how helpful (he'd installed new brakes on my Oldsmobile, made Monga some wooden lawn ornaments, washed her Cadillac and her and my dishes, and would visit for hours).

If you wanted to score points with Monga you could 1)spend money on her (or not allow her to spend any), 2)do her housework, and/or 3)talk, talk, talk. *

So, even after the night I'd gone upstairs and knocked on Monga's bedroom door, sat on her bed and told her Joe'd triewd to rape me, she remained friends with him. Not long after the night that left me locked in the bathroom, laying in a sobbing mass on the cold linoleum floor with self-inflicted cuts on my arms and legs, Joe knocking on the door every two seconds like clockwork, I walked out to my car after work and found a note tucked under the windshield wiper. It was Monga's handwriting.

Joe came down. He's staying on your couch, so you may not want to come home tonight.

Stunned, I drove to my sister Jessi's house and asked if I could stay the night there. I couldn't stay with Mom because she lived in the green house behind Monga. All Joe'd need to do to find me would be to walk through Monga's back yard. As I lay on Jessi's couch, I could hear Joe a block away out on the street yelling my name. He was walking the midnight streets looking for me!

Yes, I'd told him to stay away from me, not send me mail, and not to call me. Nevertheless, I changed my number and kept it from Monga. I didn't trust her to keep it from Joe. I thought he had finally stopped sending me mail until one day I saw a stack of mail on Monga's kitchen counter all addressed to me, in Joe's handwriting.
"What's this?" I said.
"They're not all for you," Monga replied as she stirred a pile of corned beef hash on the griddle. "There's a bunch there for me."
"He writes to you?"
"Yes. I like Joe. He's nice. He's funny."

*or 4)make her laugh

I stormed out and found myself a low-income apartment. I moved that week, withholding my address from Monga. For at least a year, I didn't speak to her except on holidays. After arguing a few times about why I shouldn't give her my address and phone number, I decided I trusted her. She never did give my information to Joe.

Though, once in a while over a meal or during a TV commercial, she'd say something like,

"I know you don't want to hear anything about Joe, but--"
"--This sausage casserole is good. Just the right amount of peas. I don't really like cooked peas."
"Oh, I do."


Smooth Ride

After college and still living up in Moscow, working three jobs, I found myself without a car. The Subaru I'd purchased two to three years prior had finally decided it was through with the strain of pistons, injections, shocks, and sudden stops. Its control panel on the left side of the steering wheel was tied to the wheel by an old shoelace. It overheated, so in the summer, I drove with the heater up full blast and the window down. One morning, I turned the key and my decrepit Subaru clicked an apathetic click: the last sound it ever made.

"I told you not to buy that Subaru," Monga reprimanded through the phone when I called to tell her my stranded-in-the-desert story. She had, in face, warned me. I didn't listen because the Subaru had headlights that flipped up when you turned them on, and a gear shift that looked right out a spaceship.

I knew better than to not listen to her. Monga took annual jaunts to the Cadillac dealership and paid cash for a brand new crowning emblem to announce her arrivals. She talked the dealers down, down, down and left lifted up. She'd pull in the driveway beaming, her rings and eyes in a contest to out-shimmer each other.

"I talked them down 5,000. They tried to sell me a coupe for a lower price, but I don't want that little hunk of junk. I talked them into this for the price of the coupe." There'd be an allotted pause designed for us to soak up the glory that was Monga's. "Who wants a ride?" she'd ask, jingling her keys. We'd run to the car and fill up the Cadillac, the leather seats squeaking under our denim jeans.

I sighed on the phone with her; I sighed the next morning as I walked twenty blocks in the Palouse wind to Wendy's Restaurant. To distract myself from the cold, I counted my steps and thought about Monga taking me down to the DMV.

She showed me how to register my Subaru and paid to get my insurance started. I told her I'd pay her back. "When you can," she said.

For over a week, I walked more than the average Moscowvite, and floundered for rides.

One afternoon, hot and sweaty from working the grill, I re-tied my apron and approached a customer at the counter, who I'd noticed out of the corner of my eye.

"Can I help you?" I asked without looking up.
"I don't know. Can you?" a familiar voice fired back. Monga.
I looked up, smiled. "What're you doing up here?"
"Some grocery shopping," Monga answered, "When you get a second, come out with me to the parking lot. I wanna show you something."

To be honest, I was a bit annoyed. When I got a second? We'd been swamped all day, and I was the only person covering the front of the store for the next hour, until shift change.

"I'll see what I can do," I said, "Want to sit down? I'll get you a root beer. I need to clean all these table."
"I suppose. But no ice in my root beer. You don't get-"
"-As much pop that way. I know."

I handed her the lukewarm root beer and went around the counter to do tables. Monga followed me around to each one.

"You have to do all this?"
"Yep."
She made her yuck face. "I wouldn't like that."
"I don't like it, Monga. It's my job."

As I scraped gum from the bottom of a table, I remembered Monga telling me she'd once held a job at a candy factory...for one day. She stood there watching chocolates pass her on that belt, and just couldn't do it another second. She said all that circular motion made her sick.

"I'm gonna go see if I can take my break," I told Monga. When I returned without my apron, Monga's eyes lit up. I followed her to the parking lot, where she stopped next to a white Oldsmobile.

"Yes?" I said. She just pointed at the white car. "What?" I said.
"I bought it for you this morning. It's got a brand new engine, new tires and brakes. I drove it up here. Smooooth." She said smooth like she was talking about a tall, handsome cowboy.
I was shocked. "You drove it? Then, how will you get back home?"
"Cecil's here. He's out in the car." He'd been sitting out there by himself this whole time. I looked around. There he was, sitting in the passenger side of Monga's maroon Cadillac. We waved at each other.
"Take it for a drive," Monga said.
"I can't. I'm still on the clock."
"Oh, pooh. Just around the block. They'll never know." Monga raised her eyebrows. I looked around. The manager wasn't outside smoking. Monga handed me the keys and we fled salt and grease, feeling like bandits. It was a smooth ride.

After work, she went with me to the DMV (Cecil in the back seat) and signed over the car, then to the insurance place where she again paid to get me started. I drove Monga back to the Wendy's parking lot, walked her and Cecil to the Cadillac.

"Well, I'd better get back. I've got groceries in the trunk," Monga said. She unlocked the car and stood in the open door, clinking her rings.
"Well, thank you, Monga. This is amazing. I don't know what to say."

We both stood there looking at the ground. Cecil got in the car and sat looking straight ahead with hands folded neatly in his lap. I don't remember a hug or I love you. She backed out of her parking spot, her car beeping with an installed beep like semi trucks have for safety reasons when they're in reverse.

I sighed.

As she signaled left, I could hear like I still can now, the tinny Elvis song Love me Tender, installed to play when a blinker was flipped. It wouldn't stop until she was half a block down the road.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Reiterating Monga

just a mention of her or seeing her
name in print is enough to evoke
a dream with her in it
i wake up, hands clenched (fingernails making crescent moons in my palms) and sweating, but when i

open my eyes all i
see is the dark of 3 in the morning

Monday, October 10, 2011

Little Pictures Everywhere

There are little pictures everywhere...
A single red wildflower framed by
rocks & dead pine cones
Acres of deep-rooted trees still standing,
ghostly and smoky,
masterfully lit by a sun who hasn't been able to
spotlight much for days: a quilt of dense
clouds has kept all heat to themselves; but
this sun: glows w/a blue backdrop, silhouettes a hawk circling for supper & the waves of mt.tops in the horizon, exaggerates
the stark crystals of new snow on the
summits, & evokes the steam from Burgdendorf
that cleanses my skin and deflects trailing
evidence of the cold I've had for the
last 2 weeks...
The angle at which an old stump juts from the
wild earth
The arc of a clearing
A cacophony of colors created by seasonal change
How moisture glistens on a loved-one's lips that are
smiling beneath the chatter of a chipmunk
Night & day trading shifts
& how Payette Lake apparently feels quite serene about
both sun & moon at once reflecting on its surface


No camera does these little pictures justice
Which is why you must see them first
Know these artistic miracles existed before you ever saw--
they are, for the sake of being
You're being honored--the guest of honor--for a moment,
to Creation


No camera does these little pictures justice;
but if you don't capture them,
even superficially,
you'll forget them...
the same way you do: an electric glance
revelations on forgiveness
or to take your vitamins


You return to the photos
minutes
months
years later
& the intensities aren't right,
but you still sigh when
you see & remember


that there are little pictures everywhere
Little pictures made so small by the vastness of
the Universe
& so vivid for existing in
that eternity...


If those little pictures exist (as they do) everywhere,
can't then we as people
be as rugged, fragile, resistant,
honoring each other...


Can't we, too, be indicative of our Creator,
be, in fact,

little pictures everywhere

of
love?

Marking Time

Heel up, ball of foot pressed down
Knees straight ahead, bending slightly
Marking time

Eyes and nose directed by the knees
No looking around, no diagonals
Hold your instrument at ready
Keep that tune in your mind: no cheats
Marking time
There's a cadence you can feel
It rumbles up between your toes
Let this drive you
Marking time
Listen for that whistle: 1 long, 4 short
Then, little by little, with focus and
Deliberate heel-to-toe steps
You'll march

Observant

O scillating fan that
B lows to every corner, over every
S urface: cooling frustration & testing
E ach inch of space for
R oom to breathe, and believing in a
V ision for themselves
A nd I'm this not just for them, but them for each other &
N ot just us for this community, but
T he world for the world

.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

A Newer Model

Last night, the television set Monga bought for me almost twenty years ago started to hiccup. It had never before even so much as blinked.

Now it sits patiently by the door, waiting to be tossed into a dumpster, its blank face staring at me.

Technically, it hasn't flat-lined. There's still a little life left in it. When I turn it on, it lights up and shows a picture for about ten seconds. Then, it turns itself off. That's all the energy it has: all the juice it can muster sustains the few seconds it takes to awaken and look at you. Then, it is done.

I remember going to visit Monga at Life Care and wondering what was keeping her alive. No longer able to walk, speak, eat, swallow, she sat in her wheelchair or lay in her bed moaning and drooling. Those moans could almost make me believe she was about to say something. "What?" I'd say anxiously. I'd take her hand in mine and caress it gently. "Monga. Did you say something?" But she'd look at me with a stare I'd only before seen from a wax sculpture, and then close her eyes. I'd sit there with her on the edge of the bed (or in the chair next to hers)holding her hand, staring at the cold, hard linoleum floor. Monga was always afraid of death. Was that what was keeping her alive? She was also very stubborn. Was it that? Was there something more she wanted to say, percolating inside her: that rattle in her breathing the sound of all her hopes and fears bubbling away now? I hated seeing Monga like this: alive but not really living, and thought
If I ever get like this, don't let me get like this. Pull the plug.

So, last night, as I could only get the TV to stay on for ten seconds at a time, I did just that. I pulled the plug.

Well, not right away.

First, I tried forcing it to stay on by holding my finger on the Power button, thinking that if I kept it held in, the TV would stay on against its will. Guess what? It clicked off. I told it to come back on about ten times. Flick/Click. Flick/Click. Flick/Click.
It's no use. She's gone.

There was still a little life left in it, but it was clearly finished. I pulled the plug while it still had a little dignity. It was still able to awaken and shed a little light on things.

So, as I write this, the TV set Monga bought for me almost twenty years ago has been replaced already by a newer model. It's sleeker, brighter, has more definition. I'm still a little skeptical. Monga's gift was bulky and heavy, but it had a built-in VCR and has entertained me through a lot of illnesses. It had a friendly green light when you turned it on; this new one, even Off, stares at me with one red eye. I'm skeptical. And I feel a little guilty.

I could put it outside so I don't have to look at this symbol of my loss of Monga staring blankly at me by the door (like she did so many times as I left her behind at Life Care). But, it seems rather harsh to punt it that way. She certainly never kicked me to the curb. I'm sick with a cold right now (as I was when I moved into Monga's basement all those years ago) and don't have the energy to take it to the dumpster for its proper departure. Who knows how long it will sit out there! And it's Fall, so it could rain. I don't want Monga's gift to sit for days out in the cold wet of early dying. At least it's warm and dry in here...At Monga's viewing, my 9-year-old niece said Monga was cold and needed a blanket. We all agreed; before she was sealed in the coffin, she was covered with an Elvis blanket...It doesn't seem right that the TV should get such flip treatment as being dropped into a public dumpster with all the soggy pizza, used tissues, and coffee grounds. But, the TV isn't her, after all. However I rid myself of it is not indicative of my love for Monga. At least, that's what I've told myself.

In the meantime, I have a serious chest cold and ear infection. I'd love nothing more than to lay under a pile of blankies and watch a movie. This new television set and I have some serious ground to break...