back to Niagara Falls Reporter archive
The world is mostly night. Some of us know it and accept the pain. We push through the night. We know about the game we play -- how we pretend, how we make believe, how the days don't make sense. It's nice to watch the children -- smarter than us because it is their nature to wonder, to wonder without judgment, without presupposition. It is only when we answer their questions that they become like us and pretend to know the answers. They forget how to wonder. And that's normal, I think. I've stopped wondering how I got here, but I want what's left behind.
The beginnings of life are memories, reflections of past beginnings. What's worse is that I focus on periods of my life during which I've reflected, which makes finding the beginnings impossible. So now it's too late. I stand naked for trial. For my sins. For my life. I'm the judge. I'm the jury. (I'm not cunning like Fury.) My consciousness holds me prisoner. I've pleaded guilty but I look forward to my sentence, to my judgment. It's odd how our system mimics the Bible. I guess I'm in Purgatory. I've been here six months.
The movie keeps coming back. It's a word, a word that defines my life.
The more I talk about it, the more sense it makes.
I told you about the movie, right?
Well, that's when things started to make sense. The movie ... Maybe I didn't properly explain it. I'm trying to sum it up in my head.
The girl, Gretchen ... we were in the car, and I started having this anxiety attack, which is normal, but the point is that she
she understood me ... understood my fear
she ...
i was kind of tripping out
after we walked into the theatre
i started tripping out ... really scared.
and i'd always felt responsible when i took a girl out, so
i tried to get my head together in the men's room, but all the mirrors and lights
they just made it worse, so ...
i came out, and she was standing there, by the entrance door to our show
and i told her to wait, that i couldn't
that i couldn't go in.
and she looked at me
and she was smiling, kind of laughing
but not laughing at me. she was laughing because she was excited
excited to get into the show, like.
but i kept telling her to wait, and
i started to see that she knew that i was tripping out
and she kind of took my hand
she just touched my hand at first, and then kind of took it,
and she kept saying, "i know. it's alright. it's okay. i know."
and she knew, but she didn't dismiss it, dismiss my fear
she just kept smiling, and
i let her lead me through the door
and she picked some seats and sat us down
and she talked to me, but she wasn't worried. she just knew
knew that it would pass
And I was safe.
"Safe?"
I was safe, and that's what I want. Safety. That's all I want. So I can say ... I can say ... that if there was one time in my adult life ... one moment ... to which i could return ... It would be then.
Everybody dies, but two plus two will always equal four. That's what sucks about the truth. You have to believe it. If it's raining, you can't believe that it's not raining, and vice versa. You can pretend to believe, but deep down you know. Sometimes there's a drizzle, and you're not really sure, but usually it's one or the other.
One thing's for sure: to see is to believe, and to believe is never to forget. On Veteran's Day I saw it. I was 28. For 17 years I'd been waiting, waiting. And deep down I wanted to see it. I could have avoided seeing it, but now it's too late. It's always too late. That's what sucks about the past.
The good thing about the past is that it's over. I'm not the first to say it: there's only present thought.
I remember the day my mother died. I stayed with her, alone at the hospital. As the hours passed I wanted to leave, but I stayed and stayed. She stayed for me, long ago, to bring me into the world. So I stayed for her, with her, to watch her out of the world, to talk to her, to talk her out of the world, to tell her it would be okay, not to worry, to tell her she would never suffer again, never feel pain again. She heard me the first day. I know because her finger twitched while I held her hand. She may have heard me the last day. When I said goodbye. When I kissed her forehead and said goodbye -- at the last heartbeat -- a blip on a screen, the end of her life.
She slept on a mattress on the floor. I saw it that night, on Veteran's Day, in the little carriage house she rented. I've been sleeping that way since I left home at the age of 18, and I'd probably seen it in her apartment before. I visited a few times in the two years she lived there, but I think I only had one tour of the place. I had gone alone to visit her one day when my father was in England, and I took her out to lunch.
It didn't mean much to me at the time, seeing the mattress on the floor, and it didn't mean much to me that night when I was searching the house, horrible memories fresh in my head. But now it means something ... it means something that my mother slept alone on a mattress on the floor. Just like me.
I checked her medicine box. It's the kind divided into little plastic boxes for days of the week: morning, noon, evening and bed. On Veteran's Day, the Thursday morning meds were gone, so she probably took those in the morning. She didn't keep any in the afternoon row, so the next bunch of pills she would have taken were in the evening row in the Thursday box. So much evidence.
I still wear the rope around my neck, the rope she was wearing when she got hit. The rope that held the key to her carriage house. I had to give the key back to her landlord, but I still have the rope, with the original knot. There's another knot now, the knot I tied to patch the rope after they cut it off her. I remember how she would take the key to unlock her apartment, head bent down slightly so the rope would reach. I want to say cute, like the way she used a broom to sweep the snow from the back steps of the house before she left home. Real quick. sweepsweepsweep. out of the way, snow, out of the way. Have to get you out of the way, clear a path just wide enough to walk through so daddy won't slip and fall. I don't like doing this because you're so white, but you're light and I can sweep you and I have to anyway. I have to whisk you with this yellow broom so daddy won't fall. He has to take care of us. I'm so worried. I'm cold and my mind hurts but in a way, I like this because it means daddy will be able to take care of ronnie and davie, and maybe me. There's medical bills to pay.
Sweep.
I'm sure she never saw me watching her from out back, out back in the garage and from the big room above it where I did teenage things and watched her sweep.
I keep the rope around my neck. It felt better when the key was still on it, the weight of the key to that little cottage I'll never forget.