Train Spotting

On my trip to Missouri, when I was a kid, I saw a dear torn in half when hit by an 18-wheeler. A few years later I saw the remains of a rottweiler that had been hit by a train.

Asterisk used to play chicken with trains, standing on the tracks as they honked in vain. Not truly a game of chicken, seeing as how the train can't swerve. He stopped after one night, rather than honking, the conductor shut off all the train's lights. Risk described it as transforming the train into a bullet of death cloaked in darkness.

I always wonder how people can be hit by trains like you hear on the news. It HAS to be suicide. How can you not hear a train approaching? Even if your headphones are on too loud, you'll feel the ground rumbling.

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You know that feeling you get directly following a traumatic experience? Where it feels like your spirit stepped to the left as your body stepped to the right? A bit like those scenes in Chronicles of Riddick, when the Necromonger tries tearing Riddick's soul out.

Then you're left feeling, not like you're watching a movie or in a movie as yourself, but that you are a deceased actor in an old classic movie. You are not you, You are nonexistent, but there's something going on here and someone should be watching this. Like YOU are Charlton Heston
in the epic Ten Commandments.

I saw a man get hit by a freight train.

I hardly ever mention it. I don't want to mention it again.

Blue Coat

I had several coats growing up. They typically looked military in some way, as this was the unspoken agreement my grandparents had with me concerning coats.

That changed my freshman year of High School. We purchased a blue parka, rather spur of the moment. We were about to exit Harris' Gottschalks, before the Gottschalks, when I sighted it. The price was right. So began the notorious history of The Blue Coat.

It had more pockets than I was used to. depending upon your outlook, that could be good or bad. My grandmother, freak that she was, had emergency supplies crammed into every closet and corner of our property. I, in kind, had survival gear crammed into every pocket of my coat. Regardless of the rules of the schools, Everything from a Swiss Army knife to a butane torch. Dehydrated food, make-shift weapons, first aid, pressure bandages, tools, and a little yellow notebook I wrote all my favorite writings in --Poe to Longfellow-- for entertainment.

When I'd run away and live out in the desert, I would spray deet on my face, glove my hands, use electricians' tape to seal off cuffs, hood my head and bunk on the desert floor. All those supplies were in my coat. In the morning, I'd scratch a hole into the dirt, pour Carbide into it, spit on it to create acetylene and light it. This made fires a lot easier to start than the flint and steel (also in coat) on tumbleweeds. You'd be amazed at how could the desert feels in the predawn hours.

The insulation of this coat was so good that you could remain cool on hot summer days and warm on cold winter days. So why ever take it off? Therefore, I rarely did. I sewed patches onto spots where I wasn't faster than the stray dogs, or where the truck's tailpipe got me, and my coat seemed to perpetually emit a smoky aroma. All those barrel fires! Nate (Innuendo) never ceased to find amusement in the quirks of my coat. It has about as much history tied into it as my chain!

So, it should come as no surprise then, that I STILL possess this coat. When the cold New York winter hits in a couple months, I'll wear it yet again. Only now, my gear is in my Man Bag.

Hitting is NOT Allowed

I've...brutalized... everyone in my family, I think. That time my Grandmother spit in my face, the time my mother kangaroo punched me. I'm sure my Aunt and I went head-to-head. My sister's left wrist was destroyed, most likely from fighting with me.

This behavior refined itself over the years to include anybody, but only when they struck me. I nearly crushed the throat of some kid in school for hitting me. I've attacked people at a few jobs for striking me, raising their hand to me, or insinuating that I would be hit. I scared the holy-hell out of more-than-many of my fellow inmates in "camp".

I always feared that I'd inherit my legacy, and beat my wife or children. After helping to raise my first nephew, I am quite confident that my future children will be safer than most.

Regarding my wife, she's a Sicilian fire-cracker. We've been married for three years now, and I haven't beaten her. But it shames me that I've thought about it. Worse, I have put my hands on her in malice. No punching or man-slaps, but still, it looks as if the dam is leaking. Every time it's happened, she either struck me or seamed to be about to. But that's no excuse. Not every woman is as dangerous as those in my family; my wife could never hold her own against the likes of me.

It troubles me deeply. It takes weeks for my wife to trust me fully after such incidents. It hurts to know that now, in her heart, she at times compares me to her abusive father. If I thought it would do either of us more good than harm, I'd kill him. And my father knows he's still unforgiven, despite our relationship. So what does that mean for me?

I'm not sure what to make of it. Does it stem from my violent upbringing? Is it symptoms of OCD, Asperger's or some other form of autism? Worse? Is it something as rudimentary as the fact that my sister and I felt free to tackle and pummel each other, so that's my default response to heated arguments with my wife?

I lean toward the belief that I CLEARLY have some unresolved issues. Coupled with my experience with "problem solving" regarding my sister. Therefore, our children will be FORBIDDEN from hitting one another. As far as us hitting them, I suppose there may be a certain age when a slap on the BUTT may get through more readily than a comprehensive discussion. But again, it's not to be taken lightly.

Disciplining a child in ANY way while in a state of anger is at best futile and at worst abusive (whether it scars emotionally, verbally, or physically.) Too, there is an age when talking things out needs to become the precedent. I know that children tend to respect you more when they feel you talk to them and treat them, not as inferior beings, but as"not-quite-adults."

I wish my wife and I could just wrestle when mad! Rather, it's agreed that physical contact is WRONG. That if either of us ever gets violent, the marriage is over. For both our sakes.

I wonder if we'll ever be healed in this life? I hope so. I'm mortified that these legacies may somehow seep into our children some way, some how. Like a trusted, unsuspecting dog bringing a blood-thirsty tick into the home. Finding that tick gorging itself, not on the dog, but on someone far more precious.

After writing this, I feel just like a rusted spring, lying exposed in the dirt somewhere.

Candy Cane

I hear they banned candy canes in the penal system. Any guesses as to why?

Around Christmas time, when my sister and I were young, after the tree was up and decorated we had this ritual. We'd each grab a candy cane off one of the branches, throw our butts onto the couch beside one another, and race towards a needle point. The first of us to achieve an uber-needle point on the end of our candy cane would shove it into the others arm! Usually the triceps area. The tip would nearly always break off, so we'd continue on this way, back and forth, until the candy canes were finished.

Funny, we'd only use the traditional red-and-white peppermint canes. Never the green-and-purple, or brownish ones of fruity, butterscotch or root beer flavor.

Drinking Acid

When I was too young to remember, there was this incident. One of my first "near-death- experiences", I suppose.

My mother stopped by a friend's house real quick. Just to run in. Grab her purse, or something she had left behind. She didn't leave the car running, nor me in it (we'll get to those stories another time!). The man of the house was in the driveway, using car polish remover on his car. Apparently, I was quite thirsty. Apparently, the car polish remover resembles water. Or juice.

I drank a bit. Screamed. Mom rushed me to the E.R.

The hospital refused to pump my stomach. Two bouts with something so caustic would have killed me. They warned of possible future lung problems. Hmmm.

Obsidian

My wife's brother. I am no fool to think it's nothing special that I have a close relationship with most of my wife's family. The happiness they believe I've brought to their special girl caused them to seemingly adopt me. Again, I'm not so foolish as to push the issue. I don't try stupid things only a blood relative could get away with!

When my wife and I flew out to New York to set up our wedding, years ago, I was holed up with her brother while she with her mother. Her aunt had showed us around town, a good time, until that night. That's when the food poisoning kicked in. No, it wasn't on purpose, even though the family is very Italian. See, I used to like eating the skins on baked potatoes, even in restaurants. If you don't know the risks involved, you really should.

About 2 am, I woke up my future brother-in-law. Indirectly. I was vomiting so violently that my throat was raw, I had pulled a few muscles, and I had passed out twice. Not to mention the terrible sounds woke Joe. Funny, none of the other guys woke up. Their rooms were closer. I think only Joe had a heart caring enough to recognize the sounds of someone in distress.

Joe had to pick me up off the ground and carry me out like he was some kind of hero or something. Now I know why his sister loves him to pieces--wait 'til I tell you some stories! I wasn't emasculated by the experience or anything, I was just happy somebody helped me live through it!

The thing is, just like my good friend Erik (McCoy), Joe grew up thinking he was sub-par. His peers ridiculed his thick Italian accent, his teachers had him convinced that he was "slow", his counselors stigmatized him with ADD, he had a lazy eye, and (of course) his older sister picked on him!!! I know what that's like, man. Only difference is, he didn't relish the change into manhood, when you get muscular enough to kick your sister's ass despite the age difference! Again, he was too bloody nice.

To look at a piece of obsidian, it looks like a chunk of bland, black glass. Compared to other rocks, minerals, stones, and gems you could go as far as calling a raw piece dull. A piece of black glass? We all know the bad associations with the color black. And who would want a chunk of glass when they're looking for stone? It would come as no surprise if any average person were to cast such a rock aside.

But Joe took himself, like obsidian, and chipped away, and polished, and chipped away, and polished some more.

Did you know that nothing can carry a sharper edge than obsidian? Natives used it for arrow heads. In certain procedures, surgeons rely on its incredible sharpness to perform feats a steel edge would find daunting. Polished to a luster, it makes a mockery of the sleekest panther's coat.

Cer Obsidian, today, is one of the kindest, most clever, charismatic GQ-looking men you'll ever run across. I often refer to him as The East Coast Erik. He's got himself a great reputation throughout the city, a list of true friends of high caliber, several college degrees, plenty of oppurtunity, the piercing-yet-comforting gaze of a trusted leader, and a beautiful fiance. Sorry ladies. Maybe you should track down McCoy. Or Window even.

I feel better as a person to be able to count him among my friends.

The Proposal

My girlfriend had all the investigative spirit of Lois Lane. She was quite aware that I had received the ring. Thus, my creative genius and intuition was put to the test.

It was February. Being Arizona, it was not cold. The rain that falls rarely hits the ground, and that which does is almost as warm as you'd shower in.

In Lake Havasu, where we met, the London Bridge was reconstructed brick by brick to lure tourists to McCulloch's desert oasis at the hub of Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Barstow. To complement the bridge, The English Village was erected. A quaint series of authentic looking buildings containing myriads of shoppes.

It was here that I invited my girlfriend to spend the evening with me. I had borrowed my giant roommate's (6' 5" tall) raincoat to conceal a large package. My girlfriend was more excited than suspicious.

I told her not to worry, that I was a bit lost and was going to ask the gentleman in the strange costume for directions. After a brief conversation, I called her over to begin our evening. The man was no stranger, and he wore the garb of a gondola driver. Package still concealed beneath the coat, we cast off onto the lake under an Arizona sunset. The man's skills as a gondola driver were surpassed by his skill as a singer of fine Italian love songs.

We drifted beneath the lit bridge in the falling darkness. The gondolier's voice rang off the arched walls. As we glided out the other side, the warm rain commenced, dappling us along with the ever-brightening stars in the near distance.

As we finished the cheese and cider in the gondola's basket, unwrapped the chocolate and wrapped our legs in the blanket provided, I saw fit to reveal the mystery beneath the coat. In truth it was not one package, but three. Each was smaller than the last. I explained that they represented the past, present, and future.

The largest, past, contained our cards and love letters to one another. The dried first flowers I gave her, the rocks she collected from her visit to the Canyon as a gift for me. Our $1000 cell-phone bill!

The middle one, present, contained the most precious thing of all to me. Upon opening it, she found herself looking into a mirror.

The last, future, was to symbolize the most precious thing in my future. In it, she found the ring. As the gondolier stated after regaining control of the craft: "I suppose the bouncing means yes?" Indeed!

I asked our host to guide the craft to the shore near the town's fanciest restaurant, to top the evening off with an equally romantic dinner. Here is where my intuition paid off. Entering the lobby, my new fiance found all her friends waiting. See, I knew the first thing she'd want to do is show all her girls.

Few things have gone as perfectly in life as I plan them in my head. I'm happy that this most important event is among them!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, MY LOVE!

One of My Own Spider Stories

While living with McCoy, I had the experience of tending to his tarantulas.

He had a pink-toed tarantula of his own, quite cute actually, and a desert tarantula from his deceased father-in-law.

We fed them crickets. The gore of their feasting was legendary. The power of their jaws would spew guts inches up and down the sides of the tank. This gore had to be periodically cleaned.

Over the months I progressed form exiting the room to walking the individual tarantulas over my gloved hands. From there, I learned to appreciate the fuzziness of their hairy barbs on my bare hands.

One day as McCoy and Solaris were cleaning the pink-toed tarantula's cage as I held it, it became agitated. Perhaps because my hands were sweaty. It kept increasing speed as I, faster and faster, spun my hands as if preparing pizza dough. Finally the spider jumped.

I always knew spiders could jump, especially tarantulas. But, mercy! How far they can jump! McCoy was around four feet away, bent over the tank as it rested on the floor. When I yelled out in alarm, he looked up in time to see a pink-trimmed black hairy mass flinging itself at his face! It's front legs grabbed his nose, but lost their grip dropping the monster onto the floor. The damage was done. McCoy was peeling his lungs and dancing about like a girl who's seen a mouse. His horrific screams set his fiance and me into histaria all our own.

Meanwhile, the spider had made his way across the carpet and was making his way up the drapes! I threatened to expire if the spider made it's way to the strategic advantageous locale of the ceiling, and so, in a moment of brave brilliance, McCoy hefted the semi-clean tank toward the drapes and slapped the spider home.

We never cleaned the tanks the same way again. We bought a third tank. For prisoner transfer and holding.

Spit

When we were kids, my sister and I had this awful habit. We thought it was funny to spit on one another. Our abusive grandparents simply did not approve. After two or three beatings for spitting, they finally went so far as to beat me bloody and senseless. My sister had clumps of hair ripped out of her head.

Funny how malleable children are, huh? Years later, my grandmother walked in on the end of a movie, Diabolique, I believe. It was a thriller with a plot twist at the ending in which she had just walked in on. She was in a flurry: "Quick! Quick! It's an emergency!" Whatever the emergency was, Kathy Bates--as always-- was a gravitational force. My grandmother turned to the movie and stood, watching. "Emergency" forgotten. Now, as a kid, I learned the hard way to never ruin a movie ending for people. So, my sister and I were quickly up in arms: "You're ruining the movie for yourself! Get out!" An argument ensued. My grandmother and I were in each other's faces. She was yelling and some spittle flew from her mouth onto my cheek. I rebuked her with the saying that was trendy at the time: "Say it, don't spray it."

You already know what she did next. She spit in my face. So I strangled her. I had the first "red out" of my life. My fingers and toes tingled quickly, and then a burst of red flashed from all four corners of my vision until I saw only RED. When the rest of the spectrum returned, it was like looking through a telescope. Far down a dark tube I could see my grandmother's cold, confident gray-blue eyes staring me down like she was killing me. But there were hands around her throat. My sister was standing on the bed in the background. It looked like she was screaming, but everything was so far away nothing could be heard.

Suddenly, reality snapped back in full. My vision. The screams of my sister. I dropped my grandmother. Some how I had lifted her girth off the ground by her throat. I was quite young, far from 18 years old.

I let go, cast my eyes to the floor. Said sorry as I pushed passed her out the door. She had the mocking smile of a Sith lord smeared across her face. Not the look of horror we would have expected. This turned the full force of all the horror of the situation on to me with the power of a fire hose.

I escaped to the chicken coop out on the acreage. Scratched another mark into the metal trim to signify how often I'd fled there. The scores of marks reminded me of old movies where the prisoners would track time much like this.

Fast Driver

McCoy's father, before opening a couple restaurants in SoCal, was a detective for San Bernardino County. In Arizona, McCoy never ceased to find amusement in seeing his retired dad get out of countless speeding tickets, traveling between his homes in Arizona and California. He'd flash his old badge and use the same excuse every time: "It's tough getting out of the habit. I used to have to speed all over this county. Sorry, officer! Thank you for your concern. You're doing a fine job!"

Solaris

Solaris was the wife of my close friend McCoy. She is American-Indian, I forget form which tribe. Her parents moved to Arizona from Nebraska when she was about...14? She almost immediately took a liking to Erik (McCoy). Her parents loved him almost as much as she. And his parents treated her like a prized daughter. Her parents and his parents discussed it, and came to the conclusion that they'd allow Mandy (Solaris) to marry Erik at 17. Seems a little crazy, but you had to know them. It was beautiful. Then something terrible happened.

Mandy and her parents went Wedding Dress shopping in Phoenix. She drove out in her car. After all the excitement of the long day, Mandy was tired. Her dad, a guy as genuine as Erik, insisted on driving them home so she could sleep on the back seat. It was raining that night.

I was living with Erik at the time. I was home to take the call. Mandy was calling from the hospital. She was a bit confused. She'd been in an accident.

The only reason she lived is because she was lying down in the back seat. Her father had been impaled on the steering column. Her mother died on the helicopter.

Solaris took pride in her Native roots. She loved how her dad was so stoic and spiritual. He was tough, not afraid to roll up his sleeves and get dirty. Every one in our congregation loved the venison jerky he'd make after a hunt, especially me.

After burying her parents, she had to fight the remainder of her family for her right to everything. Especially to marry Erik. She prevailed. She had a good teacher.

On the trip to the Pacific for the wedding, I realized my love for Glass. It was a special trip.

Over the years, Solaris never talked about it. Never cried. When they came of age, she and McCoy began hitting the infamous club scene of the Southern California area. Ultimately, Erik regained his senses, opting to commence his pursuit of a more respectable life. Mandy didn't pull out of the spiral. She kept going out alone, coming home drunk at odd hours. Left the job my wife got her at the bank. Lost a few other jobs.

When Erik confronted her about it, she admitted to having an affair. She left after that. He kept the house, and when she was turned out elsewhere, he let her back in. He kept the door open, even in his heart.

The economic slump has been carving chunks out of Erik's business. Recently, his father went in for surgery. Erik caved. He left his business behind, sold his cars, foreclosed the house...

My wife never got to meet Mandy's parents. She moved to Arizona later in the year. But, coincidentally, while I was living with Erik, she was living with Mandy. They were about as close of friend's as Erik and I.

My wife has been devastated by this. Everybody keeps blaming it on Mandy's age. I think that's stupid. That opinion lacks insight. She never dealt with her tragedy. The party scene, an entertaining phase for Erik, was for her a way of coping. An escape.

Last I heard, McCoy's doing alright. He just went scuba diving and spear fishing in Cali. As far as Arizona, we don't talk about it.

Cer

Cer is a word from my language. Basically it relates to people who now have, or have had, a profound influence on your life. Cers, Cera in my language for plural, can also be the people tethered to your Cera. Not to be forgotten is the fact that a Cer can be a very negative person in your life.