Secret Georgia Trips

It was 5 a.m. when my alarm went off.  The usual place of my alarm clock was beside my bed, and it had been moved so I was incapable of simply hitting snooze—in fact the alarm was not by my bed at all, it was across the room on my desk.  

In the summer when I was growing up , my father used to come into my room and the crack of dawn and tell me to get dressed.  

My father had a planned a trip, and we both piled into his car and set out form some destination.  Those destinations were usually a day trip.  

We tore across the countryside in his station wagon.  Our destination was some obscure place, an animal show, a fortune teller, or maybe a dilapidated faire that hadn’t run sine the 1950’s,  We bonded a lot in those days.

The noise was incessant and though my bed was comfortable, the alarm’s shrill cry pierced the walls of my brain and it forced me to get up.  With as much speed as possible I stumbled across the floor—barefooted to reach the alarm on the other side of my room.

That was when I met my mother, who had take her position next to my door.  Her eyes met mine—she was already in business mode—she was already ready to lay down the law this morning.  

“You’re gonna look for a job today, right?”  she asked but her tone was not that of a question.  It was more of  command anc I nodded mostly out of fear and less out of desire.

“Good,” she said in her own way which was more, “You will do this,” than “please do this.”  

She pressed a mug of coffee into my hand.  “I’m leaving in 15 minutes, and I’m taking your key from you.” She added, noting I would be pounding pavement today in search of something. 

That 15 minutes was spent in a frenzy, trying to put on a passable suit, and meeting her downstairs.  

In a record time even for me, I showered, shaved and got ready—I was downstairs just as we both left the house and she locked the door behind me.

On Sunday My father wakes me up about 6 am as usual.  He has already mapped out for us our day while I was sleeping—and he pushes a bagel and a coffee into my hand.  The car is filled with a few "things:”  a picnic bag, a first aid kit, a road map and a cooler full of sodas, water and packed "lunches."     

My father plans our trips to the letter, and right now, he seems to be perusing a travel brochure for a place called Oconee, Georgia.  “This will be our best trip yet,” he says and eagerly backs the station wagon out of the driveway.

At 16 this is my first time drinking coffee.  My father goes down to a place called Katz bakery and has the bagels made fresh—these are his gift to me since I am no longer eight or even twelve.  

This is the 7^th year since we started taking small trips together, and I have basically resigned myself to not wanting to see the rarest parts of Georgia…  I was able to sleep when I was younger, my face pressed against the vinyl seat, but now, I sit and drink the warm coffee from the thermos—there are few cups that can handle the weight of coffee in 88.  We drink from plastic—we drive in the early morning before traffic becomes hectic—before it will be too late to drive together anymore.

A few cars drive the road at this time—all of them have one driver—all of them are slower than before.. 

Our car seems to be slowing down more than speeding up.  My father hands me the road map, and I try to make sense of the squiggles and road signs.  I am already sick of this trick.  

We will probably eat bologna sandwiches and drive home disappointed—but I am already disappointed—partially because I am not eight anymore.

I hold that in and refrain from telling my father.  That’s when we approach a roadblock and a county Sheriff asks us to stop.

  

In my earliest memory my father had given me a red plastic mug with a symbol for He-man on it.  It had come from a metallic He-man lunch box which had a distinctive drawing of He man fighting Beast Man.  Skeletor was not in the fight except to point and say hey, "He-Man my stupid troglodyte bitch Beastman will fight you--not me."  

Skeletor always ran away "waah waahing"--even in the cartoons,  but the thermos which despite having He-Man on the cover is very effective at carrying coffee.

So, without to much further in formation, we both would drink coffee in the morning when we went on our trips.  I was no longer eight, but I also needed my mother’s special coffee to stay awake.  So when I went with my father in later years—I drank from my He-Man thermos and helped him navigate the back woods of Georgia’s highway system.  Sometimes I felt a little like He-Man riding along with my adult coffee and navigating. Later I felt more like a schmuck with a He-Man Thermos, but I hadn’t had the nerve to tell my dad I was tired of the secret summer trips.

In one of the last years we made these trips, I can remember an urgency in my Dad’s driving.  It was not enough to just go and see the world’s giant Peanut farm or pick blueberries from some secret grove—he worried that I was enjoying myself—the truth is I had started to hate these trips.  The Truth was hard to say—but all of this became truest the day my father was pulled over by some low-level-Barney-Fife-deputy trying to make his ticket quota.  

The truth happened on a lonely stretch of road called 76.

The first half of my journey 

Canary Yellow Little League

 I.

In the back of the dugout, Ricky was already using the "f word."  Jerry Jackson spouted a string of f-bombs and was laughing every time he said the word..  The whole team had started cussing until the coach came in and told us to in no other words, “Shut the hell up/”   We all looked at him, our canary yellow baseball uniforms glistened in the night air--each covered with a few stains--each yellow in the color we hated--and each of us were. waiting for the umpire to yell, “Play ball!”  The coach pointed to me, and I got up, grabbed my favorite bat and left the dugout.

The field had a long distant haze over it.  My parents, who were in the stands cheered for me, but the parents didn't understand.  In our canary yellow uniforms--our names were the giants--but by some fluke or cosmic joke--we always got the yellow uniforms.  Every other team wore a solid not piss hued color--and they looked tough.  We looked like the reject bad news bears, but the worst part of it, is we had somehow made it to the championship, against the other team, a team called the Colts, and if we knew one thing, we knew the Colts were "the best."

Well. we thought we knew--we knew all the other kids on the other team were big--the stunted growth kids that lined out team were full of "pluck" which out coach Steve was fond of saying (when he wasn't smoking or trying not to cuss at us) was that we were "plucky."  

One thing growing up in the eighties taught me, is that the "plucky" kids had a shot--watch any movie--"plucky" kids were great--"plucky" kids could beat the odds--"Plucky kids could win--this was so in the movies--this was not so in real life. 

Every kid on the Colts was big--I mean muscular, tall, steroid-induced tall.  Most had some kind of caterpillar-like growth on their lips (which clearly steroids had caused), and each of them was a grade a dillweed--not joking--in the eighties kids got picked on--there were no tall, adam Baldwin types that would leave you alone--every kid taller than you got off on bullying you--there was no zero tolerance anti-bullying movement to protect you--there was only you and the bullies.

The biggest kid of all was Sean Daniels.  He stood at least 5'4, and had been given a weight set at age three--there was no other real explanation for how he was so big, but it had nothing to do with him being big.  The issue was, he thought was the best, and he hated anyone who challenged his notion?  Who challenged that notion?  Anyone who did anything.  Anyone who played baseball, just by playing against him. Because of this, he hated you.

He was their pitcher, and just going up against him meant he hated you.  Sean was watching me as I crossed toward home plate.  At 12  I did what all tough guys do and swung my bat around a bit.  Sean Daniels, mouthed out the words, “F--- you.”  After that I gave him a bit of a “Yeah, right” look.  The Umpire looked at me, and said, “Today, Kid.”  Tense from the idea of Sean's pitch I pulled the back bat and prepared for the first pitch.

The ball came straight at me, and I could feel the wind as it went straight past my head.  I turned back and gave Sean Davis this look of "what the F---man?”  See we said Man a lot in the 80's.  His face was a strict, "what are you going to do about it" look.  “Cut that crap out, Sean” the Umpire said, “One more like that and you are out of here.”  As he said this, I doubted the would remove him, but one could hope.

“You better watch it, Sean will take your head off,” said the weasilish, little catcher below me. “Cut the crap Chad,” the Umpire said and gave the kid below him a gentle little rap on the head.  By now, I had tensed up on my bat and was ready for any other dirty balls thrown at me.  Sean looked at me again and let his next pitch go.  It, the pitch came barreling down the towards the plate and came right across my sweet spot.  The bat in my hands seemed to cut the air like a knife, and I heard the familiar aluminum clang of metal hitting canvas.

Dead End Avenue

In a small corner of Plano there is a spacious place I like to call “Deadend Avenue.”  It is roughly a mere four blocks from 14^th street, and surrounded by dull, industrial malls ever built.  One might walk one’s dog in the middle of the night and see the rare person doing slightly shady repair work on a vehicle, or unloading unmarked, non-descript packages into a small warehouse, where you then will be met with either dirty looks or the rapid closing of a warehouse door—with no explanation what-so-ever or care.  One then should merely make one’s way home to either the prospect of safety or at least paid security.

This place, is often marked by couples, who dress beyond their means or feelings.  The houses are spacious, given there are no nearby amenities for four blocks in all directions.  Overpasses abound where the streak of a yellow dart streams through and no signal warns or is present that could keep you from becoming a splat on the back roads.  The nearest convenience store little more than a in-and-out liquor where one could buy the cheapest of spirits available.

 

           Perhaps the most unique aspects is the wasted area of grasslands where chiggers roam freely waiting to bite into your legs and backsides at a moment notice—where neighbors will turn their heads to your presence and where dish or cable is the only saving grace available to the boring drab existence that is present among these places.  This barren waste of a place is more akin to places  dogs or the elderly go to die—where any dream you might have is immediately quashed in actual sleep or in the distinct rot you feel forming inside your soul. 

August to September

It is hot outside my car, and there is no wind to speak of in Texas.  Once Year has passed and my car is hot.  One year took what I thought was my heart and reconditioned me to the coldness of reality.  When I left the center I was so full of hope and promise.  

(Don't get me wrong I still am, but the hard reality was that I was working on myself too, not only my partner, who I am no longer with.  With the skills left me by the center, I settled into a life that was changing.  My significant other at the time, was growing spiritually, and I was growing further from her.

Eventually, I left her, based on her wishes, and ultimately my own, and I settled into a new life.  I set myself up in a new place with some old friends, and I started to grow stronger.  Not to brag, but I was really really confident with women--more so than I had ever felt.  

I wanted to find a new love, and to bury the old.  The plan was to continue strongly in the new me that had been established.

Vinegar and Oil

In my mother’s second house, she has a pantry which she fills with staples one might refer to as traditionally southern. These staples include, Dixie crystal sugar, arm and hammer baking soda, and a large, healthy supply of vinegar. Rarely have I ever not seen vinegar in the household, and my mother gets this from my grandmother who swore by traditional things, including mason jars (a kind of Antebellum Tupper-ware container perfect for sealing many types of foods) and good old fashioned mop heads for cleaning.

My mother’s second house seemed even more like my grandmother’s house, for over the archway to the pantry was a newly framed picture of my grandmother. If any part of my grandmother’s house was particularly her domain it was the pantry, and us foolish males and mortals were nowhere near as home as she was in the pantry, the intersection between cooking and cleaning.

My Grandmother’s world seemed utterly mundane and insignificant when I was younger, but as I look through my mother’s pantry in her retirement years, the image of my grandmother at forty, framed in shiny bronze seems to point the way to something old fashioned but of immense value that maybe I can teach someone in these words.

When I look at my grandmother’s picture, the nearest I can remember her looking like this is when I was 12. One day she was visiting and in her usual manner, she pointed to the windows and said, “We’re going to clean these.”

At 12 I had no interest in doing anything like cleaning and this was the middle of summer. My father was out at teaching summer school and my mother was working at the VA, so from 9 am to my parents got home at 4 I was my grandmother and grandfather’s errand boy. Where is this? Or how about this? And that is what I did.

Today, my Grandfather had taken an interest in my father’s workshop and he was in the backyard about 20 feet from the covered deck. My Grandmother’s interest were the largest windows in the house, the back sealed deck. With a wave of her hand I had been instructed to go outside on the deck and wait. From left right, my parents had installed 30 foot windows that curved up to the back of the house. My eyes widened at the thought of washing those windows and that’s when My grandmother brought in a huge bucket of water and began pouring a healthy dose of vinegar into the bucket.

“Why are your eyes so wide?” my grandmother said. She began to dip the large mophead in the very pungent water and to soak it thoroughly. “Answer me?”

Um, “ I said but knew that wouldn’t go over, so I blurted out something, “Those windows are big.”

“Big?” My grandmother had a way disliking most things I said and even now she looked like her only grandson was mentally deficient, so she just shook her head.

“I mean I uh, yeah we can wash those.”

Waiting for the Drop: A Year of Dubstep, Electronica and Recovery

Figure 1:  Example Image from his Video "Stay Awake."  (Example)

1.

Room for Rent:

Measurements:  40 feet by 60 feet.   Window with view of a similar house—Korean residents who stack their yard trimmings up like a barricade.  The room is very small, and cold but that warmth you once felt inside, and that you have suppressed when you were "alive" will come back to you if you live here and try.

Neighbors:  One alcoholic divorcee, one male nurse, and one grandfather with a grumpy sheep dog. Spacious room over Garage, so sudden cold drafts will freeze you in winter. 

Amenities:  One closet--one spacious wall facing east--one wall in disrepair--perfect for posters. 

Zen existence, though room for a TV is possible if mounted on the wall. 

Four roommates:  Expect your food to be eaten, your cutlery dirtied and your dishes stacked in a pattern resembling the tower of Babylon.  Loud music will be played; communal eating displayed and parties will happen whether you want it or not. Groups of sex hungry 20 to 30-somethings will crowd your house, in a fevered frenzy and dance in the common room, until the room is crowded and loud, exhibiting mass chaos, or a mosh pit.   These  "guests" will seek sex, oblivion,, malaise, ennui and you to listen to them.  You yourself will often join them in the frenzied dance where you will be forced to lift your hands above your head whether you feel you have earned it or not.  

Often roommates will raise their hands in celebration for no reason at all--their activity will range from controlled to pointless, but they will stay awake all given they wish to eat life hard, rather than conform to anything the "man" wants of them.

Rent: 300 dollars.   Common room shall be filled often.  Laundry services available a block away—college atmosphere present.

Bonuses:  Pizza will be eaten.  Loud sex will be heard through the walls, in rhythm sometimes to loud music.    Arguments will ensue.  Nerf-gun fights will escalate quickly--pranks may be played.  Roommates will conveniently turn their heads to your feelings.   Roommates will drag you to strange clubs smelling of sweat, testosterone, bad cologne, and endorphins, where you might be tricked into a mosh pit and go home with quite a bit of bruises, and an adrenalin high.

Obsessions will exist over PlayStation, burgers, beautiful women (and who is the most beautiful) sexual positions, rank humor, abundant flatulence, and general depression.   

Ideal for college student, or someone who has lived in their parent’s basement for years on end-this will literally be the most interesting time of your life, and you will laugh and cry experiencing the full range of human emotions. 

 Fig 2.  "Flashing Lights."  Video by Chase and Status.  (Chase).

2.
Shopping List

One bed

One room

One McDonald’s hamburger

One order of small fries

One bookshelf

One warm blanket

One pillow

One walk in the park

One television

One sunset

One sunrise

One Sunday morning sleep in until noon.

One Nerf gun with extra Nerf darts

One toothbrush
One tube of toothpaste

One bar of soap

One bottle of cologne

One candy bar

One window with a view

One stiff drink
One or two moments when you rage for a bit before calming down.
One box of tissues

One friend to listen

One day without the phone
One moment with the strength to lift my hands above my head triumphantly.
One renewed spark inside your heart and belly.

Fig.  3  Calvin Harris from "Feel So Close."  (Harris).

3.
I feel so close to it

There’s an edge to music that is produced by English artists, which is different from that produced in the states-- for one thing. it moves me to an aggressive and active enthusiasm, that few others do. 

English Dub-step is life affirming, to the point that it needs no reason to be life affirming.

Its beats are visceral in their tempo. Its lyrics have harmonious hooks that catch like lures on the skin to adjust the listeners’ posture.

In truth I was raised on a diet of country music, bad rap, and the Beatles, and though something can be said for the Beatles, it might be as easy as comparing apples to oranges—current music in the UK makes me want to rip the orange open, devour it and let the juice dribble down my chin.

One can occasionally see the in roads that British MC’s have dropped on unsuspecting states. 

Producer Calvin Harris’ Electronica themed music enhanced Rihanna’s “Love in a Hopeless Place.”  His visuals and musical interludes sound like a man making the electronics cry out for mercy as he puts the harmony through a P90X workout--and he doesn't let the music rest until he is ready.

Harris's own singing is sultry and slightly upbeat, and his videos show people with dreams, struggling against the notion of mediocrity, and alive, dancing and loving in the most barren and mundane ruins.  The current of brotherly connection moves through the dilapidated rodeo cowboy, the girl abandoned at the truck stop, the blonde child living in what I can only assume are slums, and the young men and women who have gone out to the woods to live, and love one another.  Muscular defiance wins out, and acts of destructive and affirmation roll through this.  Garbage is transformed into art-piles of napkins dance in the wind. Litter and garbage are thrown triumphantly--both acted upon and expelled.  Graffiti is sprayed on lifeless rock.  Clothes are shed in a frenzy of needless and needful sex.  In every instance life forces itself forward amidst a vast landscape of open distance and nothing.

All of them, though separated in time and space are connected by a charge of life, a spark that has renewed them and the human condition is as "Close" as it has ever been despite any looming depression of judgement.

At the time I discovered Dubstep, I had been waiting for the bottom to fall out on my life--I expected it and believed my life would continue on a downward spiral, that I would lapse into a depressive codependence with alcohol or drugs.  After moving in with my enthusiastic roommate, I had started a daily regiment of dub-step.

At the time, I moved in with him after a particularly swift and brutal breakup.

On my end, I had conceded many of my possessions in order to share a house with my ex-girlfriend. So, when my girlfriend dumped me, shortly after attending about a month of intensive therapy in Seattle, the woman who I thought was the love of my life, left me high and dry with a futon mattress, my books and my computer.

And at that time, apart from being painfully giddy, I found I was crying a lot. Among all the names I called myself, “Beginagain,” “Rebounder,” “ Captain Hindsight,” the phrase I kept returning to in all my time, was that this was going to be a new beginning for me, and even though I was several months from finding myself—dub-step gave me a “glimpse of what the future holds” (Sheeran).

Even then, with Dubstep behind me, I didn’t believe I would recover from the drop I had already taken, and which Sheeran assured me was ”just another day” (Sheeran). 

 I was waiting for the drop, which I feared would be a permanent fall.

Fig. 4.   Devolution video "Good Love." (Devolution).

4. "You know you're only in it cause its hot right now"--Rita Ora. "Hot Right Now."

My room-mate has shown me videos. One video takes my breath away. This girl with an angelic face dances in front of a computer screen, and she's just jamming out hard, while it appears the boy who she has been talking to via video chat is frustrated. His frustration has a little something to do, with his attitude. She ignores him, and for a moment, throws her hair back, just as the dub-step makes its drop. What follows is a complete moment of innervation, lights flash, snow falls, confetti explodes. The world becomes visceral and alive, and all he can do is watch her and frown like a whiny school boy.

Her body becomes the music, turning in it, as if the world has melted away and there is only the rhythm, sound and her dancing. For weeks, I have been the boy, but right now, when the song moves through me, i want to be the girl. She cannot be held or broken, her joy is energized on a subatomic level, and she has the fire inside her, and nothing will stop her.

And then I hear the words. "Back in control of my life" (Devolution). The song is my anthem. It is the strange, sacred truth of my situation. I am in control, and I have the fire. For a moment, I can hear Rita Ora say something else, but right now, I'm in the heat of the moment, and I want to let it go and go and never turn back.

Fig. 5  Rita Ora.  "Hot Right Now."  (Ora).

5.  "Throw your hands up if you think you've got it.  /  Going crazy we've not even started."--Rita Ora. "Hot Right Now."

Dub-step continues to run through my head, even three months after the move in.  Each day is a new day, filled with challenges.  Sometimes I find myself like so many of the youthful people of the videos, lifting my hands up, or throwing my hands up simply enjoying myself, and then realize, I am still living in a one room cell, over a garage with no female in my life, other than the lovely Ms. Ora, who sneers at me mostly through the video screen.  "Throw your hands in the air if you want it right now" (Ora).  There's no doubt I want to be alive as the kids dancing on my screen who seem to be able to celebrate at a moments notice, but even prematurely throwing my hands in the air seems fake, but for now I guess you fake it until you make it.

There are many good days.  There are many bad days.  the music has helped me, but like Rita says, strongly, there's a limit to its power.  Indeed what was yesterday and seemed cloud nine, has become  fraught with problems.  Sometimes, I'm strong enough to resist her emotional support, and with my roommate sending me new dub step to watch.

As I slowly rebuild my bank account, I realize that Ms. Ora is correct--there are too many up and down moments in my life to fully ignore and fail to learn from.  

The truth is, my depression can still take hold in a moment's notice; I keep it at bay by staying busy.

The poster wall, by the way is filled only with the stuff that "won't be bringing me down" (Devolution).

 Fig. 5.  My room and the wall suitable for posters.

All over the walls are many things. Reciepts from failed dates.  Pictures of life affirming ideas.  Verses from poems.  Trinkets.  Charms.  Notes from girls with phone numbers that sometimes I'm afraid to call because I believe I'll blow it.  Piece after piece opens something new in me, building up like fire for kindling--at The Centre a place I went, they called it a vision board, which I transformed into a vision wall--each day something new goes up on it.  Each day I refine my vision of the future, with both what I want and what I hope represents me.  If you put a lot of hard work into something it becomes sacred,  My vision board is sacred.

It’s 7 o'clock in my small room, about the size of an office. One closet.--one used mattress--one old desk, and below me a garage full of my old books, that I can’t fit into the room.  

It’s been 3 months since I left her.  What was first a smile that covered my face has now morphed into an explicable down turned frown, similar to the one grumpy cat wears on a constant basis.   

My rent is 300 dollars.  My room has a walking strip of about 3 feet, but 12 feet, and one of my bookshelves takes up a third of the room.  Rent is due on the first of every month, no exceptions, and I am expected to throw in Twenty dollars for groceries.  My bank account has a question mark in it, but at present my smile fluctuates between a half frown and a half smile.

Thought I have several roommates who are at times hilarious, and energetic, they are not females.  Whether or not I can be with a female again is something I question  from time to time.   

At times, I wonder if I'm completely damaged.  Occasionally I tell my friends that I might have met someone--they return that with the words, "Oooooh, do you think you're ready?"

I resist the urge to scream at them.  At times I wonder if I can date again normally without telegraphing the same mistakes that landed me here in Garland, to which at times, I have been labeled by all my old friends, the title James of Garland.  

Often I mock them behind their back stating, "I am not a Lord, looking over the hills and non-existent Valleys of Garland, surveying my landscape and standing noble on a horse," to which they respond, "It's just an expression."

"It's just bullshit," I retort.

On most days I lay on my futon mattress and read poetry, Edna St. Vincent Millay is one of my favorites, especially her poem, "Love is not All."  Millay states, "Love is not all.  It is not meat, nor drink” (Millay 1-2).  
Millay states that the feeling of love, though not substantive, still feeds the human soul, even if lost.  She also states I would not sell your love, even if it isn't mine, and I'm in agreement with her.  This thing that has torn apart my insides is like a fire, and now, I have been scared of it too long.

Speaking of selling, here are some things I probably should sell.

FOR SALE:

One carat and a half diamond ring.  Brown stone.  Silver band.

Never taken out of the box--Make me an offer.

WANTED:

One friend-- must have patience and the ability to listen constantly.  Must know that I will talk constantly and must understand that healing process is going to take a good goddamn while.  Must never mention my Ex's name.

The house I live in is on Duffy Street in Garland Texas, and I’m told by my excited neighbor is that Garland is the model they use for Arlen in “King of the Hill.”  

My neighbor’s name is Doughtry, and I smile as he sits on his lawnmower, a beer in his hand, and  he wipes the sweat off his bald head.  

Sometimes, I wonder if he knows, there is a singer named Doughtry, or is he actually the character from King of the hill, Bill Doughtry or is it Dautreux, whatever the case, he is 56 and has lived in Garland all his life—his wife left him in 1997, and I left the woman who I thought would be my wife about 5 weeks ago.

Bill is far from a stickler about where he throws his beer cans, so when he goes inside, I pick them up.  Thus far, my days are a continued run of doing exactly what I want, and eating what I want.    My roommates drink quite a bit—lapsed in their own comatose sadness, but thus far, I  have only rarely felt like crying.

Each day is the same, Bill drinks, I mope, and each day we both start over.

 Fig 1.  Example.  "Won't Go Quietly."  (Example).

6. "Can't see the end of this or who survives / It's just another case of do or die." --Example. "Won't Go Quietly.

I compare my life constantly to my dub-step regiment of music.    So, let me make this clear, there are a lot of metaphors here.  It seemed quite clear that I would forget my ex-girlfriend after a while when I started dating, six months down the road.  This video reads two ways--for the longest time, I felt guilty even looking at another woman, after my break-up, and low and behold, from time time my ex would insert herself into my business, as if it were her businesss, when it was none of her concern at all.

When I heard the lyrics "She's the current running through my veins" I knew that was the metaphor for my ex. (Example, "Won't Go Quietly").   Her ghost exists in all I do.  This video speaks to me on so many levels, because its unclear if it is the male's thoughts on the situation or the females.  The male is the one talking about how he willingly goes back to her, but it is the female who wakes in terror at the thought of being ignored.

For at least a year :"H" was like a current running within me.  Whether it was guilt or fear or insecurity, I told myself I might go back to her.   For a while I harbored the idea I might reconcile with her.  This was a very brief notion, but my break-up with her was not simple--it was complex, and even sometimes at my most bitter state, I cared about her--foolishly.

The funny thing about current is that Electricity also kills, and her memory, ghost or image usually killed any chance I ever had with a female, killing my confidence in the process.  Sometimes I find it hillarious that the girl in the video finds herself in the middle of the mosh pit, being shoved around by the same people she was earlier bullying.

Things at the house were also troubling.  My roomates encouraged me to have one night stands.  They encouraged me to go after girls, all the while shaking their heads and saying behind my back that I was "not ready."  

There's a finite art to recovering from a breakup. Sometimes I felt like my roommates would rather I drank so much I simply ignored lingering concerns inside of me.  

The video "Flashing Lights" resonates in my head from time to time, with the two girls drinking.  Before the one girl can even have a moment to think about things, the other girl shoves a drink down her throat.

That is what it felt like in the house sometimes.  

They are "effing" tired to hearing about my ex.  Some days, I am with them, and woe be to anyone woman who is with me for five seconds, because I will bring her up as usual and there will go any chance I remotely had of meeting someone.  There are times I dream about being with her--I wake up screaming because I haven't lost her--we're still together.

She deigns to email me from time to time, and I delete them, though sometimes, I open then and find she has something of mine she wants to give back: my soul, my genitalia, my dignity, the last year--any of these things would be wonderful, but mostly she meets me, with a popsicle stick and a lecture.  

"You dropped this on the floor a while back, and I thought you'd want it."

What I wanted most were several things she hasn't been able to locate.  

My bed--my grandmother's china--my confidence.  

"I found one of your childish toys yesterday.   I threw it away."  

Bitch.

7. 
"I got a couple of skeletons in my closet.  I got a couple skeletons in my head.  Couple Skeletons in my wallet.  Couple Skeletons in my bed."  --Example "Midnight Run."

For 8 months I spent every Sunday and Saturday taking care of her child.  Once I asked H's mother could she take her grand daughter while I went and hung out with my friends.  

The child occasionally sleeps over at her house, but her mother met my eyes with her cold stare and asked. "So you'll be back at 9 p.m.?"  It was already 7, and I had wanted to spend most of the evening with them.  

"Ya see it's seven o'clock now, and..."

"So 10?" she responded.

She was not going to allow me until morning.  Her daughter could of course ask her on a moments notice and get anything she wanted, but I wanted a little peace with my friends, and it was unthinkable.  Eventually, I told her 10 and returned at 10 a.m, saying I misunderstood her--the truth is I understood her fine.

After dropping the child off I would get in my car and drive.  All I wanted was to put so much distance between the house and me.  What happened at that time period, was that like example stated, I was making the midnight run, and in the process becoming a different person.  The truth was, my hands shook completely as I drove, wondering if I would turn back at all, wondering if the road would somehow stretch on beyond me, and into infinity.  The real truth is that I knew that was not the person I was, nor could I abandon a child that in some ways, I started to regard as my only chance for fatherhood.  So many people had stated that she looked like she could have been my own.  

That hurt the most from time to time, and I started thinking of ways to stay even though it was painful.  The hard truth is I began to harden into someone I wasn't sure was "Actually me" and "I thought more about having an affair" rather that doing the right thing and simply breaking up with her.
 

Watching Example's "Midnight Run" video over and over, all I could think about was the imagery.  This was me--I would escape to the bathroom, stare in the mirror, and watch as the water rolled down and around, circling the dark drain.

Time to time, I would forget that she was not in my life--surely she must be just within reach, a ghostly apparition on the edge of my eyesight--in the corner of my eye, but no--she was gone.

All the lyrics from "Midnight Run" rang in my ears, including the lyrics. "All the things you said you didn't like / were helping me get high as a kite"  (Example).

 All I could think of was how she wanted me to give up things that brought me joy, and that I would do them, whimper and wonder if  she was going to sacrifice anything for me.

"On another midnight run.  /  Sniffing for trouble keeping some"  (Example, "Midnight Run").  Everytime, I heard these lyrics I wondered if Example was saying. "key for some" or "keeping some," but I knew in my heart that it didn't matter, there was nothing in our relationship that was remotely alive anymore, and I had become the safe bet (Example, "Midnight Run").

All I craved was to make the "midnight run," and all I wanted to do was lie to her, get to my car, so I could be alive again, and away from her.  All I kept seeing was him leaving his car with a crowbar, symbolically to dismantle the memory of him and her, and all I kept seeing was myself "dismantling" her.

Fig. 8.  The face of pain.  Example. "Midnight Run."  (Example.)

8.      “All the Things you hate I find fun. /
Things you want to see are just done.”  -- Example, “Midnight Run.”
 

 At the dinner table, I am already ready to leave.  Your friends have watched me for an hour, after an hour of taking care of her daughter, before putting her to bed, when "H" decided we were having guests.  She pushed through the door with a large grocery sack in hand and stared at me. 

“You are always behind,” She said, dropping the sacks on the table, “We’re having guests, so change that stupid shirt and pants and put on the new shirt I bought you.”

“It’s 9 o’clock, and I got home at six and you didn’t tell me we we would eat with your deuschey friends.”

 “I deserve some fun and you never take me anywhere,” She said, and then she looked at me, “Get dressed, or spend the evening alone.”

The fact she claimed I never took her anywhere was complete bulls—t.  She knew it too, but she wanted some kind of dinner party, and I had had to come home at six, feed Amelie and then get her out of the tub and in bed.  It didn’t matter to her that I had been working since 8 a.m. and she had spent the morning in bed until noon, and her afternoon at Starbucks.

"So, did you paint anything, or draw anything, because I wrote two articles, and two poems today for publication,"  I said.

"Poetry doesn't pay you know that."  she said flippantly.

As I finish the last dish, I feel something burn in my gut, almost string of heat that seemed to move up to my chest, so I stumble for a minute, and bump one of the plates.

"Don't you dare break my china, idiot!"

I look at her for a moment and pure joy comes out of me as I say, "Dishes from Wal-mart aren't fine china and you are far from refined..." I say with a pure smile on my face, and the spark in my belly starts to feel warm.

"At least I'm not a failed artist." she says.

"Sitting at Starbucks where you used to work and whining about art you do not make does not, nor will it ever, make you an artist." 

So, there I was at the table, Bryson, who she called “Brysypoo” affectionately, but somehow this made me want to vomit every time she said it, and Bryce’s flavor of the week, some guy named Vincent, who would probably empty Bryce’s bank account, steal his silverware, and leave him a shell of a man was already drinking most of our good wine and opening another bottle.  It was almost 10:55 and I wanted to Watch Doctor Who, but the look on her face, curled into a snarl.  

  

“Stop being such a child.” She said.

Fig.1  Ed Sheeran, "You need Me I Don't Need You."  --Ed Sheeran

9. "I can't, no, I won't hush, / I say the words that make you blush.
 I'm gonna sing this now / Ow! Ow!"

At 2:00 o'clock on a Friday, I shove the last of my shirts into the car.  For a moment I stare at the house, then get in the car and peel out in the drive way, leaving a long, dark permanent tire mark.
  
At this moment, my eyes are tearing up already, but I am laughing like a mad man, and for months I will pass this house on the way home and I would turn up Ed Sheeran's, "You need me I don't need you." on my CD player.  Rocking out, I raise my hands up, concerned lifting them in celebration is premature, but I do it anyway.  I feel like celebrating wildly, flailing around uncontrollably till I pass out from gidyness.

Leaving the house in a cloud of regular gas, and I look back into the back seat of my car where my pile of books are, and where all my journals are and I think I can write again.  My plan is to write again, and become the artist I had put aside for a year.

I was going to be sleeping on a couch for about 2 months before I had money again, but I was going to write, and live, and read and do the things I had been afraid to do.

For her art was something she wanted to ignore, and when she couldn't produce she stifled me.  But now I felt a returning rhythm, which was consuming me.  

The heat inside me as already moving through me, already on its way through me in a fever pitch, and that spark was growing.  There was definitely something strong and stirring inside me.

10. "We got the fire, fire, fire /  And we gonna let it burn."

It's November 3, when I wrap my arms around the girl of my dreams, who I affectionately call "Rocket."  

It's Friday, and we sit on the bed next to each other--my hand softly tracing lines down her back.  She whispers into my ears, "You're going to miss the part where Blue Beetle does something cool," she says.

"I don't care," I say before touching my nose against her cheek.  

Around me , the room is filled with her drawings, and the new poem, I wrote her and  the notes for some essay I have to finish my students, on Dub-step, which is taking a while.

Occasionally a heat grows in my chest, that used to burn in my stomach, and I scoop up my notepad.  

"To be continued, "I say with a grin, and start to write the essence of the ad for the house I lived in a year ago.  

"I remember that place, it was a shit-dump." she says.

"Language." I say.

"Pardon me, shit-hole." she says and the both of us laugh.  My hands move over the paper, tracing the lines of memory with a pencil.  "Get on my computer if you need to,"  she says, and I pull up the internet, move past a picture of us, and start to type on the keyboard. 

"It's like you have this fire in you lately." she says.

"You have no idea, " I say.  "It's lucky you're here to help me put it out.  I suppressed it for too long."
She smiles, and for the rest of the night, she watches me as I burn the keys into words and life. "There's no sleeping now" (Goulding).

Works Cited

Chase and Status.  “Sub Focus - Flashing Lights.”  YouTube, uploaded by Chase & Status, 8 

November 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbsjY4vfbcg.

Example.  “Stay Awake.”  YouTube, uploaded by TMRW Music, 1 September 2011, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMekH3_5h6g.

—.  “Midnight Run.”  YouTube, uploaded by Example,  21 October 2011, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwYGi7YG4Js

.—.  "Won't Go Quietly."  YouTube, uploaded by Embassy One, 14 October 2011, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGrw1ERws28.

Devolution.  "Good Love."  YouTube, uploaded by weareDEVolution, 4 August. 2011, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWC2cMLoNk4.

Golding, Ellie.  "Burn."  YouTube, uploaded by Ellie Goulding, 7 July 2013,  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGyEd0aKWZE.

Harris, Calvin.  “Feel So Close.”  YouTube, uploaded by Calvin Harris, 14 July 2011, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGghkjpNCQ8.

Ora, Rita.  "Hot Right Now."  YouTube, uploaded by DJ Fresh, 14 December 2011, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7OPZOBJZyI.

Sheeran, Ed.  "You Need Me I Don't Need You."  YouTube, uploaded by Ed Sheeran, 19 July 

2011,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXvzzTICvJs.