A place to put things

It was innocent in its buoyancy. Bobbing on the surface of the water, still tossing and turning as my car slid into a parking spot after I put it in park. At first, I did not know what I was looking at. My eyes were looking, but not seeing; editing out the information that could not compute. “”Oh no, not again,””thought the petunias. Literal-Metaphorically speaking, I mean. There were no petunias, just a mini Twix bar floating among some small ice cubes on the surface of my faded camoflauge emotional-support-water cup. The one that my brother used to keep loose coins in.

After the TBBTM, time stopped flowing. It started rippling, but not one moment, all moments. Like the surface of a puddle as a rain cloud creeps by: drops into ripples into a turbulent ocean of ways to and fro.

She left me to show the images to the radiologist, who apparently did not want to be found, and was mildly annoyed to have left his dwelling and be pulled into the warm and dark room where I had been left. He stood in the corner to observe over the technicians shoulder. He moved the screen towards him, and mumbled towards it. “GoodmorningImDrSomethingorOther” and after a pause, “How long have you felt this thing?”

“A week.” I responded. He mumbled some more, this time about fibrous-something-or-other and says it’s probably nothing, but a biopsy will determine that for sure. He asked if I had any questions, but was already half-turning to leave the room when I shook my head no. The technician dropped a small towel on my chest to wipe off excess jelly and then left the room after him, saying she would lead me out when I was dressed. I took a deep breath and braced myself against the impending falling of my mother's spirits. She was hoping it was a cyst that would go away on its own.

To the thoughts that come from nowhere

Like an echo across time and space

Someone else's radio signal crackling into my own 

It feels like you are mine 

to take 

to use 

to give back to the void

But you often sit there on a page, maybe two, maybe ten, and go nowhere. 

Is this why communication has become static? 

The cavernous darkness of space, that once would whisper to me each day,  

is now holding its tongue.

It has given too much.

“Where is that damned cricket!?” Eli growled, crouched on the front step, holding his sandal in his hand. 

“You okay?” I asked, in that half-hearted way, when you know they are not, but do not want to ask “what is wrong”, for fear the list of troubles will start two weeks ago, and continue on until after lunchtime. That is always how it was with Eli.

“Shhh!” Eli hushed. “He’s about to-” The cricket chirped as if on queue, and Eli spun on his heel, flapping his sandal down onto the roots of a bush. When he did not find a tiny black smudge on the worn out heel, his voice grated against his throat in anger. “I will end you!” He promised, looking mildly to moderately insane, threatening the poor shrub.

“Did he keep you up last night or something?”

“Yes.” He admitted, looking at me for a moment, then pouncing at another chirp, that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. “And he probably will for the rest of my life.” Eli shouted accusingly at the bush again before plopping onto the front step in defeat. “He ruined what could have been the most perfect day I ever had.”

“A noisemaker the size of a nickel ruined your life?”

The fondest memories I have of my childhood, without Marcy in them, were mostly spent in the hammock out back behind my Grandma's house. It was far enough away to not be shoved off to play with other boys, but near enough to hear grandpa play his records. I would lay, baking in the summer sun, swaying lazily, dreaming that I was dancing. Other times, when Grandpa was not inclined to listen to music, and when the winds were blowing through the leaves of the big oak trees, I imagined I was at the beach. With my eyes closed, I could hear the crash of the waves and the pull of pebbles being dragged along the wet sand. I had only been to the beach a few times, but I had liked to imagine it. My mother would be there, sitting on a blanket in a striped bathing suit, squinting at the sun, just as I had seen her once in an old photograph. 

I found it while trying to steal money for an icecream while my father was sleeping. I sat there in the kitchen, staring at the black and yellow square, for a long time. She looked like Grandmother, and Aunt Linda, but younger, and happier.

 My dad woke to find me in a trance and put his hand on my shoulder. He was going to be mad, thinking I was stealing, I could feel it in his fingers, but he softened his grip when he saw the picture. 

After that, I started asking adults all about love and marriage and what it all meant. I remember sitting by the television and asking my father one night. He had just come home after two whole weeks away. 

“Do I snore?” I must have had a more serious look on my face, because he laughed. 

“What's on your mind, you want to go to camp or something?” He paused to take a sip from the can of beer in his hand. “Maybe next year.”

“No, I was just thinking about being in love and how, if I snored, then I might as well give up now.”

“Oh yeah? How's that?”

“Snoring is a “deal-breaker”.” He laughed again. 

“Snoring gets worse as you get older, but so does your hearing, so I think you will be just fine.” He drained the can and opened another one with a soft fsssskp sound. During a commercial, he spoke again. “What are you thinking about love for?” his eyes narrow, sparkling like they do after a few beers. “Has that little neighbor girl caught your eye? Gloria told me you have been off with her most days.” He was smiling, but not at me. “Falling in love already. I guess you are your father's son.”

 “Well, I don’t know yet. I want to think about it before I say yes.” 

“To what?”

“To falling in love with her.”

“No one can fall in love just because someone asks you to.” He burped. “It isn’t that easy.”

“Why not?”

He looked at me, his eyes were misty, and that only happened after a long day; a whole six-pack. 

“When you fall in love, it is like the ground lets go from beneath you, and you just know you will fall into a dark pit forever if they don’t take your hand and pull you up.” Those words haunted me for years. I should not have asked him anymore questions that night, but I didn’t know any better.

“Was that what it was like with my mother?”

“Do you think you’d like to fall in love with me?” She asked, while we were both sitting on her front porch one night. She was staring up at the clouds like she always did when she had big questions. Sometimes she could find the answers up there, if she looked long enough.

“I dunno, why?” We were about seven or eight at the time. Other than the “love you, too” I said to my grandmother, I had no real idea of the word. 

“It would just be nice to fall in love now, instead of later, when there is so much else to do.” I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded. It made sense to me. She kept talking, still looking at the pink and orange clouds as they were swept over the rooftops and out of sight. “People forget things when they are old. But they remember being kids.” She looked at me. There was icecream on her chin. “My grandpa still remembers his old dog,” I motion for her to rub her face clean, and she does so, without missing a beat, “and his best friend Will, who drowned in the lake.” 

“What does it mean, to fall in love? 

“You meet someone, and you decide you're gonna meet again, and again, until you get married.”

“Then what?”

“Then you live in the same house, so you meet each other every morning and have breakfast and then do whatever you want together.” 

“Huh, when you put it that way, it sounds kinda nice. Like having a dog.” She scrunched up her face at me. 

“How is being married like having a dog?” She eyed me, accusingly, awaiting an explanation. 

“You always have someone around, like to go on adventures with. You don’t ever have to be lonesome.”

“I hate to be lonesome.” Her voice dropped down to her shoes. We unconsciously scooted closer together, but not because of the darkening night, but as if we already knew we needed each other.

“Me too.” I said, though I had not felt nearly as alone this summer as I had before she moved in across the street. We gazed at the stars, watching the last bits of light drain from the sky right as my grandmother called for me to come home. She was in the open doorway. I can still picture her silhouetted in yellow. 

“Would you like to fall in love with me?” I asked her. She was still looking up at the sky, searching the stars that began to twinkle beyond the street lamps.

I’ve been trying to be good. To eat good things. To exercise. To drink less -hard liquor-every night, though I have been slowly draining the box of red wine like a guilty vampire in denial that can not look its victim in the eye. But it isn’t my fault that the box sits in the corner of the room and points its spout at me, tracking my movements, like slow moving figures in a haunted painting.

I had been keeping my head clean. Steering myself clear of sad music or otherwise disturbing media. It has been boring, being trapped in an apartment with two people who can quickly become concerned about your mental state. My feet are itching from all the slivers of eggshells that have cut through the skin and begun to fester.

But, I had been content to go to bed by 10, wake up at 7:30. To sit at my make-shift work from home desk for the appropriate number of hours a day, and pretend the world isn't falling apart outside. I have bolstered the wall against reality for the last week by spending my days listening to my favorite audiobooks, with their calm British voices and inconsequential trials of love and fortune.

 Upon the conclusion of a less than romantic romance, I searched for something new to hold my attention. A risk I should not have taken. It is so much better to just stay in a routine. To simply relisten to the calming words and the slow pace of life before something as intrusive as telephones. But, I strayed from my path of Jane Austin and I happened upon a title I had heard many times, even seen main characters pretend to read in movies, but that I had not found a free copy until this moment. I clicked it. I probably shouldn’t have.

 Fast forward 4 hours and I am laying in the bathtub, with a glass of garnet colored guilt sitting on its rim. It is only 4 o’clock, but since the apocalypse is happening outside, time has become all the more irrelevant, and happy hour exists any hour it takes your fancy. But I am not happy. I am thinking about the girl in the story that is talking about warm baths and sharp blades. A girl who is drowning in her own personal hell, despite everything being fine in her life. A girl who wants to be a writer. 

These stories are double edged swords. I find them addictive- I have read and reread books like Catcher in the Rye and Prozac Nation and Girl, Interrupted. I even picked up a book from my sisters room, out of all the books she has, I picked one about a girl- my sister had said something about it being about a fat girl who overcomes obstacles in life- but I assume she read it a long time ago, because it is about a girl who was raped as a teen and goes into a spiral of over eating and isolation before trying to go to college because it was her dead mother's wish. Her mom was hit by a truck. The girl just tried to drown herself in the ocean while staring into the eyes of a beached whale. I still have half the book to go, but I stopped reading it lately because it was keeping me up past my bedtime, and she was starting to get better, and that is where I always get bored. I would love to write an exaggerated sad memoir type of story, but I hate the endings.

People getting better is a garbage premise for a story. I like the terrible bits. They are the honest parts, even if they are sensationalized. When something seems so hard to do that your body is immobilized, that makes me feel like I am just like everyone else. They make me feel that nothing about perceived misery is unique, it is a privilege. It is nothing special and not worth even writing down. 

Real misery is what people want to see these days- stories about being raised on the streets or in war torn countries. About seeing your parents blown up or living through human trafficking. People want some real gore or sex or violence, so that it can become a movie, because no one reads anymore anyway.    

I am sticking hundreds of white velcro dots onto endless rows of 3” boxes drawn on giant white boards. In the repetition, I find myself feeling this act morph into a holy endeavor. It took 20 repetitions for my wrist to start feeling odd about the angle and general monotony of the task, and it was not until then that I really looked at my hand. It was poised like that of a priest administering communion. Every 4 seconds my hand moves from the roll of white velcro dots in my lap, carefully peels off a disc from its plastic strip, and gently places it onto the next 3” square in the procession. I let my thumb rest on each newly adorned square for a moment, being sure my gift is firmly in place, before returning it to my lap for another disk. I can not stop until I have converted all the heathenous boxes into god fearing, law abiding citizens. 

Suddenly being this close to her felt unnatural- like zero gravity- that second or two while on an elevator where you stomach shifts in your body; was this butterflies? Because it felt more like being thrown forward in a car when someone slams on the brakes. Somehow that thought traveled down to my feet. They then believed that we were, in fact, falling over. I stumbled forward a bit.  Even though it was just a slight shift in my posture, her face twitched- was it surprise, anticipation, or some kind of dread that I would make a move? I shifted back, staring into her eyes because nowhere else felt safe to look. 

“You okay there?” She asked, looking back at me like she was about to tease me. 

“Yeah, I just remembered that the earth was spinning and I forgot to go along with it.” Why do I say such dumb things?

“I love that feeling,” She said love and I felt something stab my chest from the inside. “It works better if you close your eyes.” And with that, the stab wound burst through my chest and took my breath away because she grabbed my hands and closed her eyes. “It’s like being in the ocean.” I looked at her, her face was scrunched up like a little kid waiting for a present, but then relaxed as she took a deep breath. I briefly looked down the curve of her neck and between the top buttons of her shirt, but her voice brought me back to the moment.  

“Are your eyes closed?”

“They are now.” I closed them just in time to see her squint one eye open to make sure. 

“Keep them closed.”

“Okay.” I listened to her take another breath. I could not control my own breathing. I felt like my body was vibrating. 

“I am glad we are friends again.” 

“Me too.”

Something happened today that made it different from the other days of my life so far. It had started normal enough. I was sitting at work, vaguely hungover, so out of it that I left the house without grabbing my backpack. I was staring at my computer screen, my eyes buzzing against the harsh white light, realizing the ibuprofen I carry around was still in my bedroom, in that aforementioned backpack, when it happened. I received my first unsolicited dick pic. 

Well, I guess it was a dick snap, but that just sounds unpleasant for everyone involved.

Anyway, let me go back in time by one day. I was sitting there in that same chair I just mentioned, behind that same computer, and I get a message from this guy from my elementary school. For reference, I haven't seen him since 8th grade, and we were not even friends then. But for some reason, he friended me on facebook the day before and suggested we get coffee sometime and catch up. I vaguely went along with the plan, but I did not trust him. He could be anyone trying to lure me into a trap. Yes I am twenty six, but I still feel like kidnapping is a valid excuse not to meet up with strangers.

  So after a few back and forth pleasantries, and him having revealed he had broken up with his girlfriend a while back, his comments and questions got dirty. He revealed to me that he was a private investigator for a private company, and again, I did not believe him, but I did start to refer to him as Detective. For his privacy, that is what I will call him. Detective asked why i called him Detective, and then without missing a beat, asked if I would let him arrest me, followed by some vaguely sexual emojis. I just told him not to be gross and figured that would be the end of it. But oh boy, was I wrong. 

After he found out I was not in any position to accept his advances, seeing as I have a long term relationship I see no reason for destroying, he appeared to take it on as a quest of sorts to get me to follow him down this salacious path. 

And I know I could have just stopped responding, I could have blocked him, but I was so intrigued by whatever was going on in his mind that made him feel so desperate for someone to witness him rather than let him continue to scream into a void. I did not find him in any way threatening- he is a skinny polish ginger by the way, or at least he was impersonating the skinny polish ginger from my elementary school class. He was a half-decent manipulator though, he definitely felt like he was in control of the whole situation, kept trying to bait me with things, claiming he always thought I was gorgeous way-back-when , or saying he touched my boob one time in school.

 I knew he was lying about at least one of those two facts,and when I asked for an explanation, he would just keep telling me we would have to talk about it over drinks. For the record, I was a very physical tomboy in school and played hard- even more so after class- with the boys playing tackle football or even just some sort of last-man-standing wrestling match, so the boob touch was probably a result of that if it ever happened. Though I do not think I would have let him get away with it without leaving some sort of bruise in protest. 

So, the next day, this life-changing day, after a few more suggestions that we should get together to catch up over drinks, I told him I wouldn’t even consider it unless I had proof he was not, in fact, a bridge troll under an assumed name of a skinny polish kid I knew 11 years ago. Proof of identity these days revolves around cameras, so we became snapchat friends. I also reassured him that nothing would come of any advances, repeatedly, and that seemed to continue to fuel him. He tried to convince me otherwise, and I quote, because there is no other way to relay this information,  “I’m telling you- Get to know me- I do not fuck like every other guy out there- I will make you feel every emotion- Emotions you didnt think you knew” How in the hell could I just leave that alone. I must find out more about what happened to this poor creature to make him think this is okay. I found him fascinating and repulsive. I still told him there was no chance, but he still kept talking.

He had been provoking me with dirty talk, wanting to stir up an erotic fiction, and I sat on the sidelines, letting him weave this somewhat lacking sexual tapestry; one you might find in a grubby bathroom of a chinese restaurant. Whenever he asked if he should stop, or suddenly if he had overstepped and tried to half-heartedly apologize and say he was just “hot and bothered” I said I was not perturbed by it, because I really wasn’t. I was mesmerized by his complete lack of filter. I was a complete stranger. Why was he gushing sexual attraction all over my screen. What is the cause of this severe lack of judgement?

Once Detective and I were established snapchat friends, his name literally just being his last name which made me slightly more sure it was him, the first thing he asked was if it was ok to be dirty on that platform as well. He was at work and he was bored. I simply continued my chosen profession of psychotherapist and said that people can and will do whatever they want. I will not be partaking, but his actions are his own. Call me naive, but I was not anticipating what happened next. 

From what I gathered, Detective was in some guys house, the guy appeared to be on vacation, and Detective was just supposed to be waiting around and paying attention.  I thought he just wanted to continue spewing his filthy language and let it wash away down the snapchat drain rather than be catalogued forever within facebook messenger. Nope. Before I am allowed to confirm his identity, there is a rather unimpressive penis chilling on my phone. The fact that it was unimpressive made a bit of sense, but the fact that he was just loitering in a strangers house when he was supposed to be “working”  with his pants down only further proved that there was something seriously wrong with this man. 

Again he tried to express that he had me in his grasp, that I was now also “hot and bothered” when in reality I was staring at his genitals like I was studying some sort of homeless mollusk. I informed him that he was not quite that impressive, because hey, I think he needs some honesty in his life. Detective then asked if I considered him to be small, and I said no, because I have seen my fair share of micro-penis documentaries and I know some men would kill for his equipment. I also informed him his cinematographic technique was lacking and he should stick to detective work. That, instead of being discouraging, prompted him to send a few different angles of him petting the poor, homeless mollusk. It was kind of boring, I was wondering what he was getting out of this whole thing, if this was some kind of kink,  but the last snap he sent while trying to spread his wings and really embrace the art form of dick snapping included his face. Detective was, in fact, the skinny ginger from elementary school. I pictured him back then, pale as a sheet of paper, wide blue eyes and slightly buck teeth  that I fondly associated with Spongebob, and I just wondered what path he had gone down for this to be his life. How am I even on his radar as someone he thinks is even slightly interested in severely amature, slightly public,  pornographic mini-movies? The last physical memory I have of him was at our last school dance - it was mandatory- and we went to catholic school, i haven’t mentioned that yet- and he was jumping up and down in a button up shirt,  screaming along to that Journey song, you know the one. He looks so similar still, though now with some facial hair and his once wide eyes are now lustily squinting into the camera like it is his lover. 

While I was busy walking down memory lane, Detective is just sitting on a stranger's couch with his pants down. He asks if I want to see “how much he can grow”. I guess I made him feel like he had to prove himself. He did not even wait for a reply, but at this point I am in it for the long haul. And to his credit, it helped him level up a few notches. I asked if this was normally how he spent his time at work, he said that this is only the second time, and I really did not believe him. 

Anyway, this went on for another minute or so, and when he was done, and yes, he captured that surprisingly anti-climactic moment at well,  he pulled a complete 180 and started asking me about his cat and how he is thinking about getting a kitten for it to have around when he is at work. I had a lot of barn cats when I lived back home, and he apparently remembered that and thought I was a cat expert. He just went on and on about his concerns about getting a new kitten. I told him each cat is different and kept it vague, but demanded images of the cat, because why not, I already had seen his penis, why stop there. So he sends me some saved snaps of the furball, also ginger by the way- literally- his name is ginger in polish-  and then at the end he “accidentally” sent a picture of his topless ex-girlfriend. I assumed that was because he wanted to talk about her, but after some brief talk about breasts, he seemed to become embarrassed, like his actions suddenly caught up with him,  and went quiet, says we would talk later. If trying to start a conversation by saying “pssst” after 11pm counts as talking, then he did follow up on that matter, but I told him to hush since it was bedtime, because I am an old lady in a seventy year-old body.

 Maybe I will hear from him again, maybe he just had to get that out of his system, but in any case, I feel like a changed person. My eyes have been opened to a new form of interaction with strangers I had never experienced. Maybe it is because I interact so little with people outside of work and family life, but I did not think this is how the world worked.  After two short encounters with Detective, I know what his dick looks like, the name of his cat, and that his ex girlfriend had pierced nipples. 

I want to hurt someone- I just happen to be close by.

I don't feel bad about it - i am easy to hurt- and I wouldn't feel OK if I hurt someone else- so i'm the perfect target.

I think I can pinpoint the beginning of the end. A five hour car ride with a burning question that was making my tongue itch. Insecurities bubbling up after a year, two, three, of people asking me what I was about to ask him. I had spent the last few months trying to put the words together in the proper order, thinking I had it right, then tearing it down and starting over. Don’t sound naggy, or bitter, or pushy. Don’t over emphasize a strict ultimatum. Don’t make him feel guilty. Don’t cry. But why did this all feel so delicate? Why was I afraid to know his reasons? 

I guess it was because I thought he had reasons. He is organized. He sets goals. He makes plans and I am the embodiment of chaos. I was scared that I did not quite fit into some master plan of his. Not in the way I currently was at least. And I thought that maybe he was hoping, in time, I would rearrange myself into the place he left open for me. But that was when I thought I had a place. 

I thought we were in sync and moving towards the same thing, that milestones along the horizon were getting closer. How long did I look into the sun to have gone so blind to the fact that he had no plan. No reason. No thought at all whatsoever of why, after 6 years, we were not engaged. 

But I wanted to ask so I had something to work towards, or look towards. I wanted something to tell my mother, or his mother, my grandfather, my siblings, his aunts and uncles; anyone who has seen the way we have been carrying on as a couple; when they all asked the same, inevitable, question at any family gathering.

 They all, as well as myself, thought there were blueprints for the future of the foundation we had been building. I thought there was even a vague timeline. Some evidence that I had not spent the last few years in some sort of dream land. But I was left mystified by his complete lack of a response. He had not thought anything of it. We are young. He is not ready. There was no timeline.