11/30/2011

 

hey mom, hey brother...

 

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I am closing my eyes again, in my truck, moving at an incredible rate of speed. It is something about the blind motion of it all, it feels good, it feels worthy, and it feels just.

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I take one last good look at the road, and then I imagine myself driving on it, I take in account the speed, and some how it mentally works itself out. I like to try this when passing cars. You have to estimate everything, just give yourself to estimation, to chance, to guess work, educated guess work, a hypostasis for driving. You have to feel it… can you feel it? I like to pass cars like this, with my eyes closed, blind. I wish I could see the look on their faces when they glance over at me to see that my eyes are closed… they could speed up, but they mostly slow down, and everything goes smooth.

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I am now holding my breath and closing my eyes at the same time. If I crash I wonder what will happen to my heart, to my lungs. I like to imagine just sort of going airborne, a slow motion spiral of a roll through the air, like I am taking me and my truck and just sort of screwing myself into the air above the summer pavement. Still with my eyes, closed still holding my breath. The air bags going off, glass shattering. Violence. And I explode my lungs, my heart, and my truck all exploding at the same time.

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I mostly remember things; I can’t help but remember things. Your brain works this way, it is always remembering things, no matter how hard you try to delete it, whether you drink it away, or watch comedies, of talk to friends, there are always those times, those times alone, times like these where you are left alone with your brain. That is why I hate fucking airplane flights. And it is better, it is more fun to hold your breath and imagine chaos, then to remember those times. But I can’t help it, and I am remembering the coffee cup, those coffee cups. It is a brown plastic container with a lid, sort of like the ones they would hand out at gas station promotion… there is yellow writing on the side with a design from the http://www.sundown.org/ I hate this place, I hate the people, I hate every thing.

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There is a basketball court in the back and a Mexican man that is a recovering coke addict, he is showing me how to shoot the basketball, “You have to get the ball in front of you, square up to the basket, get that right arm behind the ball… and push it into the net.” I have this weird soccer thrown shot that I have developed, since I am not as strong or as tall as the kids my age, (my growth is stunted) I have to throw the ball towards the basket with two hands, with both arms, with all my strength… it is difficult to block this shot, because I release it behind my head, it is a soccer throw in, and I am good at soccer. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31…

Later we are in the game room, there is ping pong and billiards, I am playing a game of pool with the Mexican coke addict. “Always take your best shot, don’t think about it, if you think about it you will miss, your mind has an uncanny ability to just sort of line up and knock it down, it is all automatic, don’t think about.” but I think about it, I am always thinking about it. We have three more days in this place, I haven’t seen my mother for a month, and she looks different, she looks reborn she looks biblical and I don’t trust it, I want to talk to her or see her, but don’t… I don’t want to think about it, but I do… every thing reminds me of where I am, there posters, everywhere with the sundown m ranch logo on them, there are slogans on large banners that hang from the wall, and pictures that are supposed to be god, the kind of pictures where giant beams of sunlight are stabbing their way through clouds, and that is god and he is telling us something, he is telling my mother something, the Mexican coke addict something, he is telling them all something, but he hasn’t told me anything…he hasn’t showed me anything.

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They all drink large amounts of coffee. In ever room there is a hot coffee dispenser. Every one has their own brown plastic lidded coffee cup with a drinking receptacle at the top that is always stained that is never clean. Every cup is marked with the individual’s name by a black sharpie marker… John, Jimmy, Paul, Kathleen, Ellen… Our game of pool is interrupted by a voice coming through an over head loud speaker announcing Morning Prayer.

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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference…. I memorize this by the second day; everyone does because they all chant it like a mantra 20 times a day… I hate these words, and hate that they are coming out of my mouth 20 times a day, I have to say it though, I have to chant along, I have to look like I am trying, like I care. I do care about things, I did care about this, but it is too late now, and I don’t believe in it, besides I am not the one with the problem, I am owed.

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Everyone picks up another vice… there for everyone smokes, every one drinks coffee, they all drink coffee and smoke hence the individual plastic coffee cups all donning the owners name. they drink and smoke and their teeth and skin lungs, instead of their livers, begin to turn brown, this is some how better then what they did before they came here, but this group of people must do everything in extremes, whether it is drinking or smoking, or heroin, or coke… they are people of extremes… nothing in moderation, everything extreme.

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in two weeks my mother will get out, there are a lot of group counseling sessions that we will attend as a family, I am suppose to tell her how I feel, but I lie, and instead tell them all what I think they are expecting to hear… we learn the family members and their different rolls, and I don’t want to fit into this problem, it is not my problem, I am owed. But they are pushing me into this, we are suppose to be grieving, we are suppose to be healing… we are suppose to have hope in tomorrow, that it will be a better day, we are suppose to forgive and pretend like nothing ever happened but something has happened… if my mother died of cancer, of course it wasn’t her fault, but I would still be affected by it, and the people could come up to me, and hug me and pat me on the shoulder, or show me how to shoot a basketball or how to play pool, they could love me, and then love me some more, but I would still be affected by it, it will never go away, it has never gone away….

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And maybe I will flip this fucking truck over, or ram it into a tree… I will dump it into the canal…I can see this now, me flipping my truck into the canal, the disorientation, maybe I am knocked out, maybe my legs are pinned beneath the dash board, crushed and broken, or my seat belt is stuck, the locking mechanism is jammed… the water is filling up inside the cab… and I am suppose to remain calm, I am reminded of seen from the movie, Officer and a Gentlemen and I hold my breath and close my eyes… because I want to forget, to forgive and be forgiven, because I want to love and be loved, but most of all… I want to understand the feeling, I want to understand the word…

Hope.