Forever Customs

The Mystery: Chapter One- The Beginning (excerpt, author Joseph)

“No daddy, you need a drink of water,” I replied, and him being him, we went to get the drink of water. His right hand in my left, I can still see the half-lit hallway that to me seemed to go on forever. We walked for what seemed to be a mile although in reality was probably 50 feet. There it was in the distance coming closer and closer. In the silence of the half dark corridor you could only hear the sound of his footsteps and the pitter patter of mine trying to keep up. Not a word was spoken to my recollection as I watched us draw nearer to the fountain. Then it happened. The walls in the hallway seemed to disappear and the darkness gave way to light. Not literal light but the intense sensation that light-heat best describes. You could hear a pin drop as the footsteps came to a halt. I turned in desperation looking up to him, with my little had right in his. I watched him fall. Like a giant redwood tree being cut down and the life just swept from it. Hitting the ground with a mighty crash, my guardian became my angel. His hand let go of mine and I looked upon his face that was pressed against the cold hard floor. There was a peace about his look almost as though he was sleeping. Then this feeling came over me that I will never in mere words begin to explain. This feeling was truly the beginning of my life, my purpose and the entire reason for my being.

               I knew something was happening but at four years old you don’t know about death, at least not back then. “Wake up daddy, wake up!” I said. There was of course no response, so I ran back to the gym yelling, “mommy come quick daddy fell down!” She and Dr. Powell, our neighbor who just happened to be there, came running along with everyone else. Immediately Dr. Powell began CPR, but it was hopeless. Our mother was hysterical, and when the paramedics arrived it was her that got the shot. One can only imagine how she must have felt. The only man she had ever loved and had been with since the age of fourteen, gone forever, gone from her life never to have and to hold again.

               As I stood there and watched from a distance although very confused, I felt this strange sense of peace inside me. The sensation was coupled with a kind of joy that overwhelmed me. I could hardly contain myself as I quickly covered the huge smile on my face. I didn’t until now, nearly thirty years later even begin to understand. Something or someone was in control of the situation and it certainly was no one person in that room, but for what had just happened this something or someone had a reason.

(end excerpt)

 Vessels: 1967 Chevrolet Impala (FPA Staff Writer Kelsey B.)

His mother, alone, sat on her bed, draped in black lace, with her head in her hands. Her mind began to drift back to a simpler time, a time when she was never alone:

“Wherever you go, take me with you,” he whispered, soft enough that she had to lean in to hear his voice, but loud enough that the musical tones of it were still apparent. He leaned her gently against the ermine white body of the two door, hard top, 1967 Chevy Impala and kissed her gently on the lips. She opened her eyes to see his and a loving face. Here, she was home, for this man loved her completely, and she could see it in every cell of his being. “Who loves me?” he asked as he so often did in this, his signature way. She began to melt into the door, but they were interrupted by the tapping of a tiny finger on the thick fabric covering his shin.

“Dad,” little Joe, their youngest at four years, questioned walking up in between the two of their legs and gazing up at them. “What are you doing?” His two foot or so stature somehow interrupted the moment abruptly yet still with a playful humor. He was so serious, that it was impossible not to smile and laugh with a bright heart with his presence.

They both laughed, embarrassed, but also in joy at how beautiful and sweet of a boy they had created. He was different than his three brothers, still a baby. As the white paint on the car, both vessel and little passenger glistened. The Impala blended in with the Colorado snow. Soon enough, these would be tinged by the dirt and pavement, but for now, for this moment, they were untouched.

“Little Joe,” his father said in a mock-serious tone, “Your mother and I are talking get in the car, please.”

“You said. You saaid,” the little man pleaded back.

“Yes, sucarene,” she laughed “I promise we will get that ice cream from the place you like when we head out of here. Just give us two minutes,” his mother reasoned with him.

“Yes” his two little fists and elbows pumped back by his side triumphantly, and he practically leaped into the seat after his father opened the door. He was carefree because their love was a net of security for him, a solid ground which he could spring from. He was sure of his place in the world with a strong sense of belonging. The two parents looked at each other with love and knowing in their eyes, he squeezed her hand, and they parted, taking to their respective sides of the vehicle. The engine growled, and they were on their way.

So in this way, the car was their vessel. The family got it when he was three years old, the year it came out. The 1967 had upgrades and new safety features like the fully collapsible steering column, side marker lights, and shoulder belts that kept all that rode within safe. The body style of the Impala was re-designed that year to give it a stronger look. It was less decorated than other Impalas; it wasn’t fancy. With this year, what you saw is what you got. Its hardtop concealed a pristine yet cozy interior.

That day though, as they drove and blended in with the snowy city, he was happy. All he thought about was the future filled with ice-cream. He, and the car, were all love. He felt as if he would never fall because he had the love and trust that every child needs.

Days later, his all-girl cousin clan was terrorizing him around the yard. First they would poke and prod him, then they would start in on his hair, until it was a full on death race winding around the property, Joseph barely at the lead. That is when the ground went suddenly out from under him like a carpet pulled away. It was the first of many falls to come. Into the window well Joseph went.

Deep red, the stain began at the center of the cloth, but quickly it was dripping off of the rags into his father’s weathered, thick-skinned hands and onto the interior of the Impala. Joseph looked up into his father’s face for some form of reassurance. Everything was alright, right? Wasn’t it always alright? There was a small inkling that his father was unsure this time, that maybe he didn’t know certainly what was going to happen, an element of his father that he had never seen. What he did recognize though and felt the most strongly was the sense of deep love and concern that seemed to be shining through his olive skin, the truest part of his being. Joseph took a deep breath, and like a marionette that had just been released from its strings, his head fell backwards into his guardian angel’s hands.

There is a certain amount of helplessness that comes with being the only car on the road other than semi-trucks on their mission, aggressive, on the worst pass on the Continental Divide, in a car that was not made for snow conditions: a rear wheel drive 1972 Camaro. This was how Joseph’s mother began to feel, the isolation, the loneliness; a weaker woman would be on the brink of panic. That is when they stopped. The tires needed chains, and the snow was not going to let up to help them put them on. It was up to the little man, 11 years old, to be the man of the house and in this case the car, be the man for his mom and sister: to put the chains around the frozen 70 series radial tires.

Wolf Creek Pass was hairy on its very best days in December. A 6% grade incline led to the summit. That meant at least a 6% grade downhill, on ice, in a Camaro over the Continental Divide in Colorado. This was the Rocky Mountains, and the snow was coming down unusually wet and just as thickly as typical to the point that one couldn’t see their hand in front of their face let alone the curves in the road as they passed beneath the tires. Thinking they were off the road completely, leaving the engine on lest it die in this frigid cold, they exited wearily, chains in his tiny grasp, no gloves, and the semis only inches away as they blew past.

It was Christmas, and they made the journey to Alamosa from Golden even though the family should have been coming to them as Ms. D was the Grandma, the matriarch of the family. Everyone had their own obligations though, so she trekked with her two youngest children and a Lawn and Leaf Hefty bag filled like Santa’s deep red, velvet sack overflowing with presents. The plastic stretched like black, rubber gloves over chubby hands, almost giving way to the contents, the presents showing through the thin material and peeking out of the top.

Joseph, however, was far away in both mind and body from a warm comforting Christmas time fireplace. He stood, shaking, being almost knocked over every time a semi would blow by.

“Pammy!” He yelled, “Help me!”

“You’re gonna get run over! Wait until it stops snowing! This is so dangerous!”

“We can’t wait, so no”

The man began. As his mother made sure that oncoming traffic could see them, it helped that she was donning a lime-green, polyester pant suit, he struggled first to lay the chains out on the ground without them getting instantly buried in powder. His sister was helping now, and all four of their little hands were already beginning to stiffen and ache. They began to wrap the tires. The bungee cords were stiffening just like their tendons and muscles. Suddenly, their mother realized with a stone-heavy heart how cold they really were and made them get back into the car with the heat blasting, unable to figure out what to do but knowing that her children’s warmth was the only priority at this moment. She pressed her forehead against the leather of the steering wheel and began to pray. She turned to the one man who never left her, and she remembered her late husband, who reluctantly did, and his words to her:

“I’m making believe that you’re in my arms. Though I know you’re so far away.

Making believe I’m talking to you, wish you could hear what I say.

And here in the glow of my lonely room, we’re dancing like we used to do.

Making believe is just another way of dreaming, so till my dreams come true-

I whisper good night, turn out the light, and kiss my pillow making believe it’s you”

(excerpt from The Mystery: Chapter 2)

Pam whined, the little man bellowed, their mother waved her hands ferociously, but eventually, the tires were chained, and the Camaro wound its way through the Colorado pines, another journey and the family, if anything, safe and together.

-FPA Staff Writer, Kelsey B. 

Smoke and Mirrors 

The underside of a cup blots out a flame. Controlling the light, making the room move with darkness like the world at dusk.

 “The hairdryer turned on without me doing anything! I’m really scared!”

 A weather vane spins on a vast farmland, far away, yellow normally, the scene turned sepia with the promise of a storm.

 “And you’re scaring me too!”

 A wind-chime sounded outside of a closed window, the sound clear in the summer breeze.

A girl trembled at the top of the tunnel that was the long, narrow flight of stairs in the home leading up to the living room and down into the basement and younger brother’s room. There, he sat on the edge of the bed with wild eyes as if he was physically in the room, but surely not mentally. His fever, 104 at least, was gripping him with hot-coal-hands as the fear gripped his sister.

“JUMP ON ME! JUMP ON ME! WE’VE GOT TO HIT THE CEILING, WE GOTTA WIN THE WAR”

Like the wings of a cloud of butterflies, his eyelashes fluttered.

The world spun and then froze, her face in the center of the frame, eyes wide, mouth ajar, smooth forehead wrinkled, hands at her cheeks. “The hairdryer turned on without me doing anything! I’m really scared! And, and you’re scaring me too!”

Yet he didn’t hear her, not really. Unless he reached out of his “reality”, his hallucination, and heard, vaguely, her words. What he heard, was bullets, grenades, cannon fire. His mind spun with war, while hers spun with questions. What should she do? What was happening to her little brother?

I assure you, he made it out of the fever. She brought him cool washcloths and ice until his mother returned home, and his sickness didn’t last forever.

 Like the calm of a cool night after an afternoon thunderstorm, he returned to his normal self and the cannon fire stopped. Well, maybe not altogether. In the future, it could be heard in the distance, over mountains, hills, and cliffs extending down to the damp earth. Beyond plains where that weather vane spins. To where the thermometer reaches up, over lakes where the depths are cool as well yet black, and, like the night too, darkness is never too far away,

from the light of day.

The candle is completely blotted out in a silent room. All that remains is smoke, unseen in the emptiness, it drifts out a cracked window, into the cloudy, shrouded, night. Against the sky, the smoke seems to be one with the clouds that cover the full moon like a closed eye…for now.

Before there was the cars and the girls, before the need to be accepted and the desire to touch, there was his mother and the Monte Carlo. 1977, blue; it was a “dealer demo” at Jeremy Roth Chevrolet in Lakewood Colorado. It had the first ever standing hood ornament on a Monte Carlo. The revised grill and dual stacked headlights really made it “shine” said the dealer. It shared the body style of American muscle, similar in most ways, even the dashboard minus the wood touches, to the Chevy Chevelle, and now it was the vessel that would carry mother and son across the vast open ocean that is the yellow fields of the Midwest and into Chicago.

He was fourteen. They arrived in the city in the middle of the night. He was drifting in the reclined front seat in that place between asleep and awake where when you are snapped into true consciousness you cannot remember what was so real to you a moment before, when his mother whispered sharply from the front seat, grinning playfully, suddenly almost pre-father’s death, younger somehow.

“Come on, this is what I wanted to show ya.” He toppled out of the huge seat into the frigid, moist air almost thick in his lungs yet still bitingly cold. “This is it”, she pointed to a tight space between buildings in the alleyway. She was fearless; tossing back her head, she half jogged half skipped into the darkness. When he met her, wondering if they were safe, a boy and his mother, she was touching the wall with the palm of her hand. “This is where they got him. The Robin Hood. I was here you know, I heard the shots.”

“Him” was referring to John Dillinger, a Midwestern bank robber shot in that very alleyway in 1934 by an FBI agent after robbing 6 banks in one year. He was the Robin Hood of the thirties, stealing from the people who could afford to thrive during the Great Depression at the expense of the poor. Notorious and loved, some even said that that night the FBI shot a different man entirely. That it had all been a set up between his friend, the “lady in red” and his girlfriend after the friend was threatened to be deported. She said she would bring him to the Biograph Theatre on July 22, 1934 where the FBI would be waiting for him, but some said instead she brought a small-time criminal who bared his resemblance. This man or Dillinger himself depending on which account you believed, took a shot to the back of the neck that exited his right eye. People surrounded the body and some dipped their hankies in his blood as morbid souvenirs. Now, Ms. D had an infatuation with the gangster culture not only because of their Italian heritage and her life in Chicago, but because her oldest brother, Tony, drove for Al Capone when he was a young man.  And here her boy was, sticking his fingers in the bullet holes from the night the notorious John Dillinger was killed.

After they left, he thought about how much he loved his mom. She could be hard, and boy was she tough, but he cherished that moment like most fourteen year olds wouldn’t have. I guess when you lose an important figure so early, you realize what matters early on too. Gazing at his fingers and thinking about the story, about his mother as a child, about how his father had loved her since she was his age, he sat in the huge expanse of the seat of the Monte Carlo and began to drift again, comforted by the love and adventure that he could share with her, taking moments from the pain and confusion and angst that accompanies every teenager, but that permeated the innocence and loving nature of this one especially. He took a deep breath, calm and relaxed, at peace.

-FPA Staff Writer, Kelsey B.

  The children are like little computers and sponges

Be careful what you put into them

They will learn from and absorb everything

Purity at birth

A reflection at death

Give them what money cannot buy

Give them what they came with

Real Love

The Growing Years

…

Coldness is always the worst in the morning. Especially when you live in a cold house and you have to get up from under the nice warm covers, go get in a nice warm shower then get out and freeze. Not to mention the inch thick of steam on the mirror you have to squeegee off in order to see. Anyone who has ever lived in a cold climate can relate to this. But it sure is strange that no matter how extreme the changes of heat to cold are, the physical reality can’t even begin to compare to when this happens to you on the inside. When your heart is warm and content and happy needing only simple TLC to keep it that way. Everything seems to be working right, your heart is pounding, the blood is running through your veins, your lungs are clear and feel strong and you can lay down, relax and even sleep. Then all of the sudden a sharp pain goes right through you cutting deep into your emotional control center-some people refer to as your heart. Sometimes, the initial piercing is accompanied by other slashes that seem to cut through your lungs as well, suffocating you as the blood spills into your lungs. An ice-cold sensation fills your entire chest, your mind tries desperately to repair the problems but it is out of your control. So you just lay there and wait for the pain to go away. But it does not, you can’t get under any covers and make it better. You just lay there letting your heart attempt to mend itself growing harder and tighter every minute of every day. Just then this warm breeze comes along giving just a slight hope of salvation and then again suddenly, sometimes violently before your mind can even begin to sort anything out, another cold rush of pain surges through causing even more damage than before. Then almost like the calm after a violent thunderstorm you are left lying there helpless, exhausted, confused, and bleeding. You look down at your chest, everything looks okay, there are no burns, and there are no icicles yet the scars that you have from falling off your bicycle could never compare to the ones left upon the heart.

The “66 Nuthin” (From The Christmas Gift Part 1)

(excerpt M1, Chapter 2, Joseph)

I see the scars from my childhood fumbles, how is it they can heal but the ones inside seem to hurt forever? So many people have asked themselves this question, so many people can relate to these feelings of hot and cold that are not of the physical realm. We know that my mother felt these things when my father left us. I personally know these feelings far too well. Much more than I can even begin to explain. Is there a way to heal these scars? Or is there a way to ease the pain of the initial cuts? Which are of course the hardest hurdles to cross. Well maybe we can take a journey together in this book and try to find the answers together. Maybe somehow we can find the clues, we can explore the depths of true feelings, true “real” love, and the way to see deception and know the truth. Maybe we can even find the keys to unparalleled emotional bliss-Love, Joy, and Happiness sought after by so many but found by so few. Maybe, just maybe, we can find a wonderfully incredible love so powerful, deep, and true that no matter what this world throws at us, whatever obstacle that comes in our way- it just won’t matter because nothing and no one will be able to chill the burning flame inside our hearts, ever.

Now, still being a child, I never experienced these things. I don’t think there is a child who has. I’m not saying there aren’t many children who haven’t had hardships and felt pain. My heart surely goes out to the many children in the world living with hunger and homelessness. But for the most part no matter what is thrown at a child, they seem to adapt and you can still see them smile. That’s because the happiness they have does not come from external sources. External happiness is something that a child learns as they grow up in this material world. The true happiness that they embrace and radiate is the happiness that they came with. The happiness that is the only true happiness. It is the out of reach false happiness that is what destroys that which is real and true.

So where is it that change takes place? When is it that we cross over from the innocence and Joy of childhood? I believe it is the minute we are thrown into this world, it just takes a few years for the things of this world to infiltrate our minds and hearts. Children don’t just naturally hate someone. Children do not hold grudges, and they don’t try quickly to get revenge or hurt someone.  No, these are all things that they learn to do by the conditioning they receive growing up.

(break in excerpt, Poem by FPA Staff Writer Kelsey B)

They inhaled at birth with something that would be

Ripped from them and

Changed into rust.

The rust forms as knowledge is gained, ironic?

They came with real love.

The love that was in their parent’s eyes for each other

Unless it was lustful, greedy-

They still would be born with real love,

But maybe it would be converted more quickly

To what can I have for me?

What can I take from him or her to satisfy my needs?

We all strive for happiness

Even those of us who are the most decayed,

Either it’s the zing in our bellies, the excitement we crave

But more authentically,

It is our heart sitting on a concrete base.

It isn’t the butterflies, or the racing pulse,

It is the knowing

The peace-

How?

Children have a light shining from within

Without material

Without external need

They simply are

How can we be?

How can our rusted souls

Become luminous again?

Our hearts have been subject to a selfish bitter winter

Sometimes, we find a home that is secure, but the cold can still break in,

When we scrape the ice off the inside of the windows to see out,

What is our world colored with?

Are we empowered by the love within us?

Or are we grasping and fiending for something to fill the holes inside us?

Or is our heart burned instead of iced over?

Has it become tight and black?

When it has, maybe it is like crusted lava fields, something still shines out.

How can the lava melt away the

Blackened crust?

R ealize that

E ach and

A

L

L

O ur V essels need the

E ssential

  (resume excerpt M1, Chapter 2)

Well, by now, I’m about fifteen years old, cruising through life. Cars and girls are the only motivation. Get a killer car, and you can get a fine girl. After years of no progress in the weight room and not much more on the guitar, I noticed that the guys with girls always had a car. I had only a learner’s permit and my Schwinn bicycle, a three speed on the column that I converted to a BMX. Yep Kmart was my auto parts store, and the trails at Terra Village apartments were my cruising grounds. How could I change this?, I thought as I cruised shotgun in my brother in laws 66 mustang. West Colfax Avenue, was the big boys cruise strip and Super Shops was the toy store. I’ll never forget how my sister’s boyfriend now my brother-in-law became my best friend. He would come ever to taker her on a date and would end up taking me instead. It was great. We would hit Wendy’s first off. It was always the same thing, a triple, large fries, and a frosty. I loved the way he used to eat his frosty like a push up without a spoon or straw. Then it was off to the strip, either west Colfax or 16th street down town Denver which now has been converted to an outdoor mall.

               I’ll never forget one night when we were down on 16th everyone was hanging out of their cars yelling at other cars and people walking down the street. You would see guys chugging beer as they revved their engines and squealed their tires. The girls just giggled and flirted then would take off and try to elude the guys. Then it happened, two very pretty girls in a souped up VW bug drove up next to us. They were on my side of the car. I pressed my feet to the floor and wriggled myself in the seat in an attempt to look taller. Resting my right arm on the door while my left reached across the seat in a desperate attempt to get Mark’s attention. “Mark, check it out” I tossed out of the side of my moth trying to keep my cool composure. Then slowly I began to turn my head. It seemed like slow motion. The adrenaline rushed through my veins and the butterflies were going crazy in my stomach. My eyes opened as my head came to rest pointed right at the girl in the driver’s seat. She was looking right at me, our eyes met and she smiled. I don’t remember for sure but I think I screamed. I know I did on the inside anyway. Before I could gather my thoughts the light turned green and they were off. Sitting there completely in awe and baffled by the whole ordeal. I looked at Mark and said “Mark I have got to get a car!” Yes this is the one and only way to get chicks. I convinced myself. Not hearing something Mark said, I turned “I’m sorry, what did you say?” I said. “Are you OK?” he replied. “Yeah, I’m OK” I said, as the sound of the finely tuned V8 exhaling through the dual turbos purred through my heart. I discovered the rush of the connection between boy and girl, male and female, man and woman, and the vehicle in which I was to travel to make the physical contact that my heart had been longing for. As I looked into Mark’s eyes I was lost in the feeling of the control he had over this vessel as he sailed through the streets of our hometown.

               I sure envied him, so big and strong and sharp looking. I could truly see all that my sister did in this man, Colorado State University engineering student about to be the next Nuclear Engineering Consultant. Oh how proud I was when my sister announced their engagement, and “to my best friend!” I shouted to everyone making sure they knew. He just looked at me and smiled, grabbed me, roughed up my hair and said “shacker” the name we called each other. For a moment I forgot about the girls. I forgot about the cars, I forgot about all that I thought love was as I embraced a moment of real love, real admiration, and saw with eyes that only now have come to understand. That smile, that gleam in his eyes, that wonderful way he would look at my sister as though he was going to cry with joy. That image truly outshined the brightest star leaving the most impressive forms of transportation paled rust in comparison.

71 Ford LTD - AKA Henry and Wilbur Ford-Wrights First Future Flyers Car

You don’t know me! You can’t judge me! You don’t know what I’ve been through and you don’t know why I’m here!! I didn’t break those windows at that car lot you will come to accuse me of in later ages writings either!! I’m so angry!! Leave me alone!!!! From now on…I’m going to be someone else! Someone better than me ok!! Someone my family would want me to be! An Albert or Ralph or, or better yet.…a Mark…or Maybe one day after all these future things, only true heroes will have access to reading and will understand! After this only they will see with vision the statue of the angel….an angel purchased for a once little angel as in one with my father then to him in me….and this loud voice I was given…and the research that revealed that spirit to me….So, So, So….from now on I will be.…Timothy!!

The first of real driving vessels ever piloted by little Timothy and used not only to succumb to his self-taught first go at bodywork, but the superliner that would get him through his learners permit to his first driver’s license, first traffic offense and first ever court fiasco. It was a 1971 Ford LTD 2 door.  Little Timothy’s mother was so proud of him and the way he fixed up the $500 family purchase that she would later sell for five times her investment due to his insane obsession with rolling steel and firepower. Timothy loved tanks because his father was on the front line in WW2 as a bazooka man who took out German King Tiger tanks in the final Battle outside of Cologne.  Timothy’s mom was proud indeed, that was until that fateful evening when her little knight finally fell into the hands of the taskmasters whips. The tough wanna be a cowboy kid who failed at pleading his case to the officer who ticketed the young fiery lad for passing on a two lane bridge now had to face what would come to seem as the great and powerful wizard of Oz. As he walked his half framed bones and 120 pounds of skinny self into the courtroom he looked like a featherweight Joe Cartwright who thought he would kill it by striking old west style fear into the would be grim reapers of traffic law. Well the only fear that was struck in that room was that in little Tim himself as you could hear a pin drop in the courtroom as the bailiff said “all rise for the great and powerful Judge Jehudiel”. As if this didn’t create a large enough lump in our boys throat what came next drove it down like an avocado pit that choked him to his knees when the judge said….”Excuse me!! You in the back there!! How dare you wear and not remove your COWBOY HAT IN MY COURTROOM!! Take if off NOW or you will be removed immediately!!”  In those days, there wasn’t such a thing as an entitled teenager and people of authority like the great and powerful wizard of Wheat Ridge, had no shame in screaming this freshly out in the world, young emaciated stallion into submission.

The End....of The Beginning

For the next M1 Mystery “Vessel” Excerpts

And may brothers always love their brothers

Before the night of his father’s death, he was excitable, sweet, and even innocent. He pleaded with his father on what would turn into a tragic night to play volleyball at the parent teacher event because he loved him. He would end up scorning himself and scorched into a fiery anger because he had pleaded with his father to go that night. It was the night that he died.

He thought, had he not pleaded, maybe his father wouldn’t have left. The boy blamed himself. He was marked, not only by his own teeth on his hand where he would gnaw in anxiety after this, but on his heart.

You are to blame he told himself.

With the blame came the intense, brain-shrinking shame, and with that came the anger. The anger that hurt himself most poignantly but struck outward to whoever crossed into its trajectory in blunt blows. Inside, he was still the boy who had pleaded, even though now a man stood in front of the mirror. Between boy and man stretched crusted, blackened layers of pain, of hatred, of resentment, shame, and turmoil

Whenever someone would cross him, any innocent bystanders’ insides would quickly tighten up into a ball kind of like the feeling you get when you go off a jump or over the first hill on a roller coaster, yet more painful. It was the knowing manifested. The knowing that whoever had made the mistake didn’t know- they were about to feel the pain that this man felt, only physically

This particular event had started out innocently: two brothers, the younger one excited to have the opportunity to bond with the older. They were riding around the city in the older brother’s cobalt, 1979 Trans Am. They had even laughed together. The anger, at least for a moment, seemed to be at bay. Things were looking up. The layers seemed to be pulled back and the boy that the younger brother had once known was shining through.

Turns out, the tide of anger was just simply out at the moment. It would be high again in time. Just like the roller coaster, as soon as those things were looking up, they sharply began to look straight down. At concrete.

A white, lifted Ford pulled up, towering above their window filled to the brim with drunken bullies. The truck was wobbling down the road as if the car was as drunk as its passengers. That was their first mistake: being aggressive and looking for someone to pick on while in the same hemisphere as the older brother. Revving their engine, one craned his neck in a poultry-like manner and hooked an empty beer bottle onto the hood of the Trans Am.

“FIRE CHICKEN!” He drawled ironically, loudly referring to the signature bird that marked the vehicle. The beer bottle hit the bird center and bounced diagonally. The v path it made seemed to hang in the air, visibly. The second mistake was made.

Thinking they were innocently being the jerks they normally were and having no consequences, the truck sped off. The Trans Am however, followed tightly behind. First it was through the straight away like an arrow. Then a series of tight turns, he stayed on them. It was a blue streak sideways drifting through an intersection. Finally, whether they thought they were free or they just were that stupid, they pulled into a parking lot. The Trans Am wasn’t far behind, and neither was the brother. They seared in his mind like a cigarette ash into car upholstery. His insides felt like that material, burning. He took out the driver first so they couldn’t split.

The younger brother’s stomach tightened. He knew what was coming. His brother was in the car, and then wasn’t. There. By the door. Their door. Pulling. They were on the pavement. He saw his fist- covered in deep red liquid. The bully’s face. Muddled. Bloody. Broken. Swatting at his face, the man grasped for something to hold onto and pull himself back into a more conscious reality. The brother’s knee struck him in the face. Shattered cheekbone. Broken jaw. Lips coated like red oil. And his final move was to grab him so he was super-maned in the air, spin him around, and jar his face into the side of his own truck. There was no movement after, except for running to the next victim.

The layers were back on in all their masking fury. Their seams were being welded together with each blow. The tide of hatred was high. The roller coaster was going off the tracks downward towards that concrete, and no one, no matter how much they hoped and pleaded in their heart, could stop it.

-FPA Staff Writer Kelsey B.

VESSELS

77 Firebird Formula - Nick and bad boy buddy Michael

Meeting Cass for the first time at the Mall’s Cruisin Arcade - 16 years old 

Back Story “Thinking Back Memory” Adaptation for Wings

From “The Mystery” (M1) Chapter 3

Still seeing through the eyes of this child he was, Nicholas had not yet discovered these things spoken of in the end of that last chapter.  Oh yes the seeds were planted but the soil had not yet been tilled. The rain had not yet fallen and the sun had not yet shone down upon him.  “Lets Go!” Michael yelled jumping back in the car. A shiny white Firebird Formula with 400 cubic inches of solid power under the hood. The license plate held down by the gas cap so it couldn’t be read. The second Michaels butt hit the seat Nicks foot hit the floor and they left two black patches and a cloud of thick white smoke in their wake as they performed their “fill-and-squeal” as Michael so proudly called it in his north Denver outlaw drawl. “Yeah!” they yelled as they high fived, popped in the Boston tape and opened another beer. “Let’s munch” Michael prompted as he looked at Nick and said 7-11 without uttering a single word. So there they were a twelve pack of Michelob and a giant box of Twinkies. As Nick shoved the last sponge cake down his throat and chased it with the now warmed over beer, low and behold to Nick’s surprise it all came right back up. He was a living, breathing, sixteen year old beer fountain. He tried to focus but all that he could see was the 4x9 Jensen speaker in the box on the floor between his knees bubbling out “More Than a Feeling” through the audible beer batter. Michael looked at him, then down at the speaker then again back up at him and blurted out as he would often do “Aaaaaahhhh Ha Haaaa!” laughing in that way that only Nick’s best, there and present for him friend in the world could.

               Skip to later in Chapter 3>>>  “Nicholas Angelino!” his mother yelled that typical first and last name call when you know someone is in trouble, snapping him out of his memories. “Don’t you have school today?” Still not able to move from the alcohol induced train wreck that he was, he uttered the first words that came to his mind. “A fever, I think I’m siiiiiiick.” Immediately she was there with a cool washcloth and 7-Up. As always she was there for him even if he was bending the truth a little and she knew it as mothers always do. Somehow mothers just have a way of knowing the truth. They just know but they play along out of nothing more than real genuine motherly love. Nick’s mother had tons of this motherly love and he knew it because he was still alive to tell about all the insane things he had been through as a child. Without her, Nick never would have made it to his current age of sixteen.

               Standing on the running boards of the Cyclone roller coaster at Lakeside Amusement park in North Denver, holding on with one hand and taking the bottle of Jack Daniels from Michael in the other, down the hatch it went, no chase! Yeeee-haaaaw they would yell while hanging out of the coaster car and riding it like a steel and wooden mechanical bull charging 45 miles an hour into “bad boyz curve” over the lake.  Jumping back into the car from the slalom water ski like running board outside the coaster car, Michael yelled “let’s go cruise the mall!” The common sensical translation of this in Nicks case would have been “your mother needs help because you are totally out of control and she can’t handle you on her own”. “You guys are crazy!” a few girls said as they exited the coaster…”That’s rght! We are crazy” they yelled right in the girl’s faces laughing and running off to “the real ride”.

               Feeling no pain and feeling indestructible, they thought they were teenage gods as they made the rounds at Westminster Mall, the other cruising place besides Colfax or West 38th in Denver. ‘This is where the babes are” Michael would say, “and we’re the baddest dudes in the baddest ride” Nick would reply. “Let’s go inside” Mike suggested. Nick quickly began to moan “awe man, and leave my car out here, you crazy?!” “Crazy? Me? Ahhhhh!” Mike jolted his trademark response. Next thing Nick knew they were steppin’ inside the mall or in this case you could have called it the hospital where he was led to for the help he needed. “Let’s play some air hockey” or translated “the psycho ward is this way” Michael said as he led Nick to the game room. Lights were flashing and the place was a zoo for kids not yet old enough to stagger out of a bar but only to stagger into the then only “social media” zone they had. At that age their bar was a dashboard and the bar tender was whoever wasn’t trying to drive. Lucky for them at the ripe age of sixteen, Nick was about to be saved from having to experience a real bar and looking back later in life, he was glad. The thought of sitting on a stool and drowning sorrows in a smoke filled, neon lit bar, with ragged dart boards and the moldy smell of rotting beer with a bar tender who was a sad excuse for a shrink made the four wheeled version they had a far less depressing memory.

               So there they were, a couple of juvenile delinquents who thought they were just the coolest “car dudes” on Earth walking in to the teenage, street version of the Top Gun bar scene. Sporting that first pair of Levi 501’s that Michael sold him used for full retail, Nick ignorantly paid sixteen bucks to his offline supermall buddy back then. Their shoes were the mandatory Nike high tops that if you didn’t have you were surely considered someone with a mental problem or worse, you must be on welfare and your mother purchased your middle school triple striped, black, Trax brand football cleats at K-mart so you were sure to get beat up by the rest of the football team on your way home from practice.

As the two wanna-be hood rat super hero’s began to “Stayin Alive” strut over to the air hockey, then teen tinder tables of their time, all of the sudden Nick was stopped dead in his tracks. The whole room changed in an instant. Everyone else disappeared and there he was in the “help my son lord” clinic and the nurse was a girl dressed like an angel in white just standing there smiling at him. She held up a thermometer that in real life was her signaling finger gesturing “come over here so I can check your temperature.” Nick immediately snapped out of it as Michael nudged him. Obviously noticing the in shock state his former plaid pant turned Levi’s novice was in. “Michael I love you bro” Nick said to him, his then EMT. “I’m really glad you decided we should come in here” he whispered through his well hidden perma-grin. “Oh shut up Nick” he barked as always “just go talk to her!” Turning his head slowly back to her, something that seemed to take every muscle in his head and neck to do, there she was. The sweetest, most darling, beautiful, charming thing he had ever laid his eyes on in his life, opening her clear bright eyes in slow motion, this is what the Nickster saw. A nurse? An Angel? A dream? Yes all of these things. An angel with golden hair, the biggest blue eyes he’d ever seen and a set of wings made from a red and gray letter jacket that at that moment dawned a “J” that didn’t stand for Jefferson High but pure Joy! The dream became his first love reality when she opened her eyes in what seemed like ultra slow motion and said... “Tell me something.” Nick’s mouth opened but nothing came out as she continued….”look me in the eyes and tell me this” she paused….”tell me you won’t let me drive your car.” Nick shook off his frozen face, snapping out of the I’m dreaming coma that he was in and woke up immediately, got right in her face and laughed. “Ahhhh Haaa, sorry, no I won’t let you drive my car! Mike did you hear that? haaa haaaa she asked to drive my ride! dude! Lets Cruise!!”  Nick backed away laughing at her “Ha ha that is hilarious, you want to drive my car! That is sooo funny….Michael did you hear that?”

               As they began to leave laughing hysterically, that angel’s voice yelled out in disbelief “hey wait a minute.” She grabbed her friend and dragged her to follow them. In Nick’s ignorant innocence, fully and completely without knowing in the least, he apparently said the exact right thing. Because what other guys only dreamed about and painstakingly stuttered mumbles of numerous pick-up lines to get….was his! The relief nurse that his mother needed so badly had arrived. The angel that he needed so desperately to put his feet back on the ground and his butt back in the seat of that coaster, grabbed his life by the sleeve of his shirt and said these words that he would never ever in his lifetime forget….”Aren’t you forgetting something?” As Cass and her best friend, Julie Christine, followed them to this “car”, this “chariot”, this forever life changing steel time machine “vessel” these teenage “vessels” of flesh and bone, energy and spirit, would enter, and never be the same again.

VESSELS 

True Story >>ffwd>> from above (71 LTD Vessel Post) continued here and to come, will all come together in the end.

Sincerely, The Writer

Actual Post Date: 11/29/2018 @ 9:29PM

The Vessel: 1948 Willys CJTWOA: On The Road to Wings

So here he was, wondering what the hell he’s going to do now. Melody, who was the melody of his latest song and the beginning of a character created with the same name, “Real Love” was gone. “only disbelieving”, the bridge of that song, came to be. So what the hell happened, “we were there” he thought, the best job ever, division designer for TCI Central (now Comcast) an amazing story (remind your writer here of the “Dallas Powell Incident” in case he forgets to share that incredible story with you all) and recovery from the actual best job ever, as design engineer for Chronicle Cablevision and the entire Hawaiian Islands systems there based on the best island of them all…Maui. Of course this was the home of M1, The Mystery and the “beginning” of why you all have access to this writers stuff in the first place.  A little confusing so far? Maybe but this is the way I or is it he? writes! Ha ha lol, Yea me, but seriously did I just shift from first to third person or is my name Timothy and I’m actually him writing in first person or am I the creator of Timothy or am I the spirit of who Timothy was working for? Or something like that? Crazy right? Not to the deepest end of the deep in humankind but questions? Questions! Of course!! It’s all good oh peeps of the new masterpieces of lit! Damn I miss my lit professor who swore he was from the fifteenth century! That one ell come later in the M2 writings but for now let’s just relax and forget all that and just get back to our crazy off-road Jeeping story.

So there I was completely heartbroken and writing the “cold hearted empty and freezing breeze cutting across your heart” part of The M1-stery some of you may have “captured” (briefly posted on the FPA “official” IG page) when the vision became way too powerful and the script for Wings was born. Yeah, riding in that bucket truck that was the landing place for this central US states design engineer turned contracting designer in California where on that second spree through CaliforniEl-Toro with the birthing of Timothy’s imaginary but “real” he thought, love on a lifeguard tower and the first pen to paper beginning of the then five year scientifically justified procrastination leading to the writing of the mystery took place. This “real” true everything…hang on folks….with a name as near to the melody she was written for and melodic as the polar opposites in one person can be to the Earth’s magnetic fields, who went caving into the San Andreas fault crevice and erupting up upon their Laguna Beach departure that’s energy left half that 1993 city in flames….was created. 

This inside that she contained and protected was as another altogether. With these same qualities yet not quite as frightening as those of the one hissing in the corner…don’t blink or she will be gone over there…where? There in their soon-to-be on films lair chills to come. A seemingly innocent kitten of cats, yet an entire culture in one person….no not her in this speaking yet, for she will come later although birthed in this same dark matter carnival less her just one in the entire of the “M” Theory’s full spectrum creation as revealed in that term paper of Astronomy 101, “The Unified Theory of All Things” turned in just before these scientist spoke those words....”Maybe the M stands for Mystery.” Wait...hold that thought for later discussion and return to the corner where she dwells.

No it is not her we see here that blood thirsty feline, but her caretaker, she being the best friend and confidant of Melody. Confused? Good! Sometimes your writer here is too and must hang on tighter than he did as that lad on the coaster in the growing years fire-bird story to come. But hold on yes and we must for this all will lead to the most important story of the millennium. So yes, like her house-pet but no...Her, a spirit of many spirits in one this character of darkness that Melody so bravely protected, yes, that’s right….some of you are sharper than the end of a razor knife covered in real life and history’s blood….only maybe for these few in you that have been followers from the first of these excerpts shared, though so few over many years, but in those few are not only many as desperate efforts to share this, but many are the levels of human evolution unhindered that shall now be fully and gratefully credited to you. 

So rewind quickly for the sake of this confusion....this is difficult and as always a struggle with the need to share, clashing with the desire to run to the love of the light and stay there forever caring not and no more for this paradise you all so greatly must return to yourselves. Okay!! Let me finish!! Here...This, person, her, a caretaker? Yes, a caretaker. The unhindered know...right! Angeline!! Angeline was truly the queen of not that in the first scenes flight of Wings where Nicholas and Michael begin…Desperate climbing technicians training at this pole farm of another kind splintered in gruelings work.  But those left hanging from a glistening un-splintered version of this above…here now again returning for your temporary home run…the “pole farm” where she ruled and rules to this day. The one you waited and are still waiting for. The one here within these readings to come and where those of the dance floors she created….shall soon be found.

Yes that side of life on planet earth is difficult and sometimes ends in a writers rage and a mental wall of writings frustration....let’s STAY in reality for awhile....

Let’s stay in a space of love and light for awhile where it is so much easier to exist and be light in body, mind and spirit! Thank God and The Universe both.

This above difficult trail intrinsic is and MUST be...CONTINUED LATER. So please, for now, lets just go wheeling, climbing, sport flying, sport fly rappelling, snowboarding, skiing and all the other wonderful gifts this, our world has to offer. Amen! In every language and belief on Earth <3

photo credit: wallpaper mania

actual postdate: 11/26

Frantically, I unpacked the 20th century flesh and blood eating T-Rex from its packaging and set it up with ten times the enthusiasm I had for the same non-internet form of the beast I had unpacked a few years earlier in Maui at Chronicle Cablevision.  The one that housed AutoCAD release 10 and hundreds of CATV designs I would program into it as their “Rocket Scientist” they would introduce me to visitors as.  Melody just watched as I put it all together bragging about the system we had in Maui…an “incredibly powerful 486 processor with dual 5 ¼ inch floppy drives, a top of the line 3.5 inch disk drive and a pen plotter and JDL engineering work station” I bragged.  She was a nurse and worked around multi-million dollar medical equipment and so must have thought it cute to watch me like a kid on Christmas morning. Well I got it all connected together and after what I’m sure was several hours on the phone with Qwest we had the internet.  We had a Pentium 1, a top of the line monster with all of the necessary appendages, teeth mouth and spine to take down even the most motivated David and his frail little sling against a goliath that was growing at a rate ten times that of any monster that Calvin and Hobbs could ever have dreamed up.

Colosseums 1