ofREH

So,
Meet “B”.
He’s a forty-three year old Man that stills lives with his Mother, under the auspices that SHE needs him, he can’t or won’t find work because he’s emotionally, physically disabled. He’s been to a number of rehabs and attributes those experieces to his current state.
He is a loser.
That alone, is not remarkable. We all know him in some form. Perhaps as someone we ran with in our careless days of abandon, and now serves to remind us that “there but for the Grace of God…”, or he’s a member of our own Family, a Sister or Brother and serves to test the bonds of Blood and welcome. He may simply be a poster child for a broken and careless system, the discharge, flotsam jetsam that is the inevitable, sad collateral of great societies.
It could be…but it ain’t.
“B” is a new breed of loser. A mutation of the disenfranchised, the working poor, the hobo or outstreched Skid Row hand.
“B” is driven, motivated.
He is a designer, engineer and marketeer in the field of “get”
“B” will expend as much, if not more, energy. in the pursuit of doing nothing, than it would take to actually produce or contribute.
“B” does not offer any services or manufacture any product. He does not pay any taxes but still somehow get’s a “refund”.
“B” is in the business of taking and that buisness is now under siege, threatened.
“B” is outraged. He is taking to the streets (or internet, as it were) and rallying his forces. The 1 in 3 now on some form of Government assistance, the 1 in 19 that claim some form of disability. Those afflicted with “thyroid” problems camped out on body haulers. The anxiety ridden, emotionally distraught, ADHD, excuse du jour bearing “blue plate” specials…a call to arms!!
“B” will leave his house today, not to look for work, oh no, but to rally against the evil corprate power brokers that threaten his way of life, that mean to dissasemble the fortified nest of entitlements he has worked SO hard to accumulate.
He will pull from his depleted reserves and overcome his crippling hay fever allergies to help mount a defense against this inhumane assault on his livelihood.
He will see the walls manned and in his arsenal will be the ever ready, if somewhat diluted from age and use, weapons of accusation and guilt mongering. He will lob the once affective “racist!!” and the versitile “hater!!” at the enemy but to little effect.

There is a fundamental, scientific truth about parasites that “B” has dismissed, to his peril and ultimate demise…parasites will always exhaust their host.

…and “B”… this host is wore the fuck out.

I don’t want to send you rehab again. I don’t wanna pay for you to sit in your Mommas basement, still in your boxers, playing your $400 PS3, only pausing for Meals on Wheels delivery.
I am sick of your abuse of the Handicapped placard as a means of getting a parking spot at the medical marijuana clinic and thinking that double amputee with “Army Strong” on her wheelchair was just showing off when she went and parked in the regular spaces and wheeling faster than you can run, to the other side of the lot where the GNC store was.

I’m sick of you “B”.
But…though your numbers grew alarmingly over the past four years, there is a reckoning on it’s way and you will either need to put all your resourcefulness into contributing, or revert to putting your hand back out on Skid Row.

You should already be wondering how much you’ll get for a used PS3.

So, When I was seventeen, I joined the Army. While basic training wasn’t especially difficult, it was extremely tedious. It was routine and regiment, day in and day out. So you can imagine how excited my Platoon was when our drill instructor told us we’d be having a guest speaker after chow. A respite from the grind of evenings preparing for the next days grind. When we filed into our old wood barracks that evening, we entered haltingly as we tried to understand the what we were looking at. In the middle, between our racks, on the highly polished floor sat a lone school house record player. Our guest speaker.

Not disappointed in the least, it afforded us the same break, as had it been an actual person. It might have been a parrot, for all we cared, but it was no parrot. It was John Wayne.

Directed to sit on the floor, as close as possible, we settled into an hour or so of ease. I recall thinking, as did most the platoon, that we were in for some entertainment, a ruse or joke of some kind. It was neither. It was an hour of eerie, slack jawed silence as we listened to the rich, languid voice of John Wayne tell us about America.

You see, I’m not cool. I know this, because hearing John Wayne talk about America today, has the same effect it had on me then. It swells my heart with pride for having the great fortune of living in and being a service to, such a great Nation. I’m not cool, because I don’t think that America, it’s history and it’s ideals, are funny. I don’t laugh at the notion that we were once singular and exeptional. Nor am I amused as I wonder at our having overcome such adversity and improbability, to become a destination so envied by the rest of the World, as to invoke a certain ire amongst them.

My evident lameness is even more apparent as I refuse to apologise for Her. For our having brought drive and industry, technology and ingenuity to the rest of the World. For having fed whole nations and helping teach them to do for themselves. For Her many misteps that have taught us to be as diverse and varied, committed to learning from those very mistakes, as any other, anywhere.

I’m no more a patriot than you, to the contrary. It is the very notion of protest and unrest, of us, at our liberty to right a wrong or find a balance, that remains the core of who we are and how we got here. Only, I’m not not sorry for it.

John Wayne may be out of favour. He may seem campy or rehearsed but I wonder, were you to take him for a spin, if you would feel that same little lump in your throat, as I did so many years ago, and still do.

Happy Birthday America.

E pluribus unum.

John Wayne-People. The audio

So,
I am not much company.
What little there is, rarely offered and sought even less.
I do have Friends. A close few, perhaps fortunately, infrequently forced into it.
Those, are very dear to me.
I had begun to wonder if perhaps in these years, the many ingredients that make for that soup of personality, that of friendships are borne, were escaping my loosely held grasp.
Some Men lose their hair or virility…I, any charm.
For some time, I’d thought this a predictable evolution, that with age came discrimination and scrutiny. With grounding came the discard of picayune engagements, thinking life increasingly too short for trivial expenses.
No longer willing to afford others carte blanche in regard to focus, I would insist on, at the very least, what I would offer. Verity of heart and mind.
That proved insurmountable for most.
Talk to me, I will hear you. If I interrupt, it’s to be sure I get your meaning…not to just drive in my own.
Look at me when you do, you’ll see me looking back. Barring any immediate disaster, you won’t find my attention, my gaze wandering.
Prepare for candor, for honest answers to frank questions.
Expect random, welcome inquisition. If not, if I can’t be bothered to wonder at your life, your wellbeing, thoughts or considerations, then what could I possibly mean to you…or you to me?
These, seemingly obvious, prerequisites are what I came to demand.
They proved so elusive in casual or intimate company that I came to doubt the feasability of any continued or future search.
I began to wonder at my own limitations, that my own failings determined the common demominator of inability to furrow, sow and nuture acquaintance. Too high a bar, too much in expectation.
Then, I saw an old Friend.
Torrey Lee and I, at one time, some years ago, were the best of Friends.
That we were, is improbable enough. We sprang from very different walks, ran in different circles and looked to very different futures. That we crossed paths at all, if consigned to fate, was improbable, but remarkable.
Torrey attended LaJolla High School, I hadn’t attended any. Torrey’s Family was of some note and bearing and mine…couldn’t bear me.
What sparked a friendship bewteen us was coffee and the culture it inhabited.
Downtown San Diego, particuraly the gas lamp quarter, in the mid 1980’s had very little to offer beyond the requisite arcades and peep shows of a historically military town.
On the corner, at 9th and G Streets, was a low ceilinged, white building that was home to the cities burgeoning art, coffee crowd. Java.
It was also where, one evening, I looked out a large glass window to see a stranger straddling my brand new motorcycle.
If it was an interest in coffee that sparked a friendship, there was also a measure of audacity on Torrey’s part.
That audacity left me speechless, wondering who would ever think it perfectly reasonable to saddle a strangers bike, without thinking or worse, caring, who it might belong.
“Oh, is this yours?”
Not even offering a conciliatory “nice bike” or “yea, go fuck yourself” in response to my dumbfounded, incredulous discovery. Just a look of bemusement that I might be at all curious as to who the hell he thought he was.
Obvioulsy, my reaction must have been impotent and…fortuitous, for Friends we were.
It was a friendship of epic road trips to Seattle, of chopping tops off cars, clubbing till dawn, accessorized with backpacks and absurd headwear “No one looks in the Bag, man”.
I’m not ashamed to say, Torrey was far more urbane than I. Though I think our Friendship was an equal one, he was in some ways my tutor. He knew about art and was creative. He introduced me to the finer points of a cup of coffee that have maintained an influence through the years. At the time, it seemed my Friend Torrey could do anything.
Then, we weren’t Friends anymore.
I don’t recall the reason. A disagreement.
Thinking back, about who I was at the time or, more importantly, who I wasn’t, the onus of that parting would not have been his.
It proved timely though. Soon after, he went on to have a family with a wondeful Woman, built a business and…remained audacious.
Lacking audacity, I still was able to pursue an adventurous living as well.
These days, Friends like Torrey are not near as commonplace.
I would have readily accepted this as a result of my own disposition, my unwillingness to suffer the inequities of modern aquaintence…but then I got to hang out with Torrey again.
Randomly, I thought to have coffee at his cafe on a recent trip to San Diego.
I hadn’t been before and was both impressed and envious at what he’s done. Owning or running a cafe like it, had been a fantasy of my own for years. He had done just as he thought to, over so many late night cups and done it well.
I’d only seen him twice in twenty years and both times were just in passing.
This visit, in just a very short time, I realized he hadn’t changed at all.
With another Friend, we went for a quick ride ride to the coast and then, accepting a gracious invite to have dinner with his Family, to his home in La Jolla.
If as inept as I had began to think, would I have been able to fall back into  such easy comradrie, after so many years? Would I have been so pleased to be describing to his beautiful, audacious, daughter how her Father and I met. How much she reminded me of him when she took a bite of his eclaire without asking and then looked unconcerned with his displeasure? If somehow I’d become so withdrawn, could I have realized such unexpected pride in my Friends accomplishments?
Could we have been able to resume a long past, yet somehow very familiar, repartee without effort?
Is it only that we had been Friends before that allowed for genuine interest in each others lives, the flow of conversation that used hours like minutes?
I don’t think so.
I am grateful to my Friend Torrey for helping me realize that I am not inept but that I value the worth of good Friends and that I am just not willing to settle for less.
I may be more aware of those essentials than I was, more insistent they exist but after my visit with an old Friend, I no longer worry over them.

This is Joe. Joe Clyde.
Please, say his name. Aloud or to yourself.
Please acknowledge him. Affirm with me, that he lived.
He was kind, generous, funny, reserved, complex. He was my co-worker and he was my Friend.
I normally resist these public expressions of such private revelations but my regard for this Man, and the loss of him, compels me.
When someone takes their own life, we are left wondering if somehow we might have made a difference, if we had could have reached out to them more, possibly stemming the anguish that propelled them. The truth is…probably not, but that the demons that tortured Joe and the too many others, are often entrenched and irreconcilable.
Before working on the Coronado Bridge, where I was to intercept potential jumpers, I had very little understanding of suicide or those that were so destitute of hope or choice. I have little more understanding now but have considerably more compassion for those considering it.
Occasioning within feet of someone ending their own lives, can have that effect.
By no means a mental heath expert, I am still hesitant to assign the ever convenient labels of “sick” or “deranged” to the anguished.
Desperate, perhaps. Resigned, assuredly, but also maybe just tired. Too exhausted to continue the daily toil of convincing themselves they matter, are loved, needed and have purpose.
Of course, there are some that consider the end for spite. To lash out in an unforgettable, irretractable measure to burden some remaining with the guilt of conclusion.
Some consider the opposite. Driven by the genuine concern for loved ones and wanting to save them the trial and grief of watching a slow agonizing wasting from disease. Say nothing of wanting to end the needless physical pain of an already determined end.
As a Catholic, it is not a path I could ever take. As a human being, it is not one I can condemn either.
The choice to end one’s own life invariably touches the lives of so many left behind but ultimately the decision to leave us can only be that of the soul that is faced making it.
Even so, say his name now. Aloud or to yourself and then…someone else’s, someone else you know that might brighten or take heart that you called, asked after them, wondered about their well being.
I pray Joe finds the peace now, that proved so elusive in life.

So,

For those that might have seen “The Adjustment Bureau”, an amusing little movie in which Matt Damon portrays a Man who meets his soul mate but who’s fate is thwarted by the Universe’s stewards of fate. Supposedly, Angelic bureaucrats in suits and hats that keep us all on our own tracks of destiny, they carry out various means of subterfuge to ensure certain paths are kept to and that others are not crossed. Doors that inexplicably close, things that appear randomly to block your way, objects that fall from your hands and make you stoop and possibly miss the passing of another etc etc.
They can also, if inclined, just ‘cuz…fuck with you.
I gotta say, after watching that movie, I am now forever wondering if I am not a pet project or favourite pastime of those bastards in the funny lil hats, when they’re bored. Just ‘cuz.
At the risk of sounding “woe is me”, my life seems to be inordinately lopsided with “butter side down” occasion.
So much so that I have chanced to impress an unbeliever with it’s predictability, leaving her with an “Wow, you’re not kidding” posture after having been presented with multiple scenarios with two possible outcomes and the frequency that mine will invariably be the most troublesome or tedious.
If pressed and having to choose from a set of just two keys to unlock a door…I have yet to pick the right one on the first attempt. Rope or wire entangles in ways that could NEVER be replicated in need. Things get caught on other things that are so improbable that I couldn’t ever hope to do on purpose if my very life was held in the balance. Things spill from my hands at the most inopportune times and if of the paper variety, the wind will suddenly pick up to have me perform ritualistic dance to retrieve it.
This is well beyond the confines of Murphy’s law, this is the hand of Providence.
I used to think, hope, it was God trying to teach me patience, and perhaps He felt as frustrated in the results, but now I think I am the plaything of celestial dickheads in a cafeteria lunchroom.
Get a life!
Of course, I have tried the reverse. To anticipate my first intuition and suddenly turn and pick the other. I can almost hear the laughter above at my silly, futile attempts…I still ALWAYS grab the wrong shoe, in the dark.
Crafts or projects are the worse and seem to be a particular focus for my cherubic companions. The simplest of tasks are made impossible by the breaking of tools or unexplainable failing of software.
A different tool, another approach…forget it. No matter what I try, once the shift is in place, it’s a debacle.
So, short of my wanting a private “chat” with one (Matt get’s his!!) or just begging they leave off for a minute, I fear I am destined to be at the tender mercies of bureaucrats, both at home, work and…above.
Ok, I can deal but seriously?…shit gets old.
Don’t ask me to change your oil…you’ll regret it, trust me.

So, here’s the rub…
I’m just not that exceptional.
I don’t think that I am exempt from the myriad of complaint that dissolve marriages, the increasing, absurd number of personal failures.
I don’t believe, save the very few, that those approaching whatever manner of union they’ve mutually agreed, planned and bargained for, dreamt of and often precariously indenture themselves financially to…do so with the premonition that they will fail miserably, that their failure will touch the lives of many others, and most noticeably, of those that are tied to, dependent on, success. The very legacy of that failed, regrettable, miserable mistake…the Children.
“My Children are the only good thing that resulted from it, I wouldn’t change a thing!”…Yea?…how incredibly, if predictably, fulfilled you are…and them?, how are they faring? How would they prefer it?
I can’t imagine that my own march to an altar would be any less filled with wonder, at hope for a future with the one I am destitute without. Or, would it’s demise, it’s inevitable crashing around my head, be any less vociferous.
I have no romantic illusions of the process, quite the opposite.
It seems to me that it has been the unions without the burden of passion, of romance or ideology, that have stood the test of time. Our trees were once seeded with Clan or Familial concordance.
That ain’t me.
This is me. Preferring a life of single obscurity than that of a marital reckoning.
I prefer to cling to my childish mirage, the illusion of the Woman of my heart, the ethereal victual of my soul, my reason to exist.
I would insist. To express those very sacred vows, I’d have no less…only to see it collapse. To be a party to such great personal tragedy and failure, to have a partner of that caliber and worth, ultimately despise me, and I, her?…miss me with that.
Of course I have my own thoughts on why modern matrimony is such an increasing societal blemish but in the end, I’m just not any better, any less susceptible to what ails us.
Just not that exceptional.

So, as it happens, I do believe in Angels. Angels in general, but specifically, Guardian Angels. I can’t say where exactly they fall in the celestial hierarchy, be they Cherub, Seraphim, Archangel or, most likely in my case, Apprentice, but that they do exist and exist among us…I’m sure.

I should have guessed. The receiver had been destroyed in some other callers rage. I might have laughed, had it not been for the panic that was beginning to overwhelm me.

A bus. A Trailways bus. “Travel at it’s Best!!” Sacramento, emboldened with light and white lettering, on it’s marquee.