Soaring

Ellen watched the plane glinting in the sunlight across a wide and clear summer blue sky. She was laying on her back in her grandmother’s yard on an old plaid blanket she found on the back porch. Ellen squinted as the plane moved through the sky and away from her. She imagined all those people on board, maybe a mother taking the kids on vacation, perhaps a business man meeting his mistress for a weekend tryst, maybe a college kid wide-eyed and optimistic about the future. She rolled onto her right side and looked back at her grandmother’s house.

Grandma Jones had passed away nearly a month ago and had left the house to Ellen. Ellen wasn’t sure what she was going to do with this little brick and wood bungalow her grandmother had lived in for nearly 48 years. Ellen had lived there herself for the last ten. She had been through a pretty bitter divorce and didn’t have anywhere else to turn. Grandma Jones immediately offered her a place to stay. Ellen’s own mother couldn’t be bothered it seemed, what with her life at the gallery and the newest young lothario to entertain.

The house was a place of contentment for Ellen. It was where, as a small child, she first went for a swim in a little plastic pool. It was where her First Communion party was held. It was where her Grandfather taught her how to garden.  She had her first kiss near the back yard fence with Robert Kowalski. It was where she got high for the first time and her grandfather just stared and laughed at her. It was always the safest place in her life and memory.

Grandma Jones had lived nearly another lifetime by herself after Grandpa Jones had a heart attack and died, far too young. Ellen’s own mother was inconsolable, but Grandma Jones just accepted it, mourned and then moved on with the business of life. She knew she had been lucky to have had love with a wonderful man and cherished every moment. Ellen’s mother never got over it and seemed to go through her life trying to find another man just like Grandpa Jones but she never realized that they don’t make men like him anymore. So it was divorce and marriage and divorce and marriage and divorce all of Ellen’s life.

Ellen felt the warm sun on her exposed arms, legs and on her face. She sat up and reached for the bottle of water she had brought out with her and took a long cool sip. Grandma Jones wouldn’t go outside in the summer without a cool glass of water or lemonade within arm’s reach. She had been thirsty as a little girl and seemed to always worry, in the back of her mind that the dust bowl would happen again and she’d be left without something to drink. Ellen had pointed out to her that it seemed silly and Grandma Jones had laughed about it too. But she was too set in her ways to change it and could laugh it off as one of her foibles.    

There was another rumble in the sky above as another plane ascended into the high atmosphere. Ellen looked up at it. She and Grandma Jones would sit in the yard and watch the planes taking off from the near-by airport. Grandma once had worked in an airplane factory during the war and then in the offices of an aeronautics firm, so she had an affinity for planes. She always said that it was the greatest feat of mankind to see a bird and think, “why not me?” It was something Ellen had come to admire so much about her. It was the thing that she would probably miss most.

A car alarm started blaring in the distance and it disturbed the peace Ellen had been enjoying in the yard. She realized that she had to get up and go back inside and continue sorting through her Grandmother’s things. It would take her a long time to examine every little shred of her Grandmother’s life and wonder if she’ll ever be as lucky as her. It was a journey she was looking forward to. She wondered what Robert Kowalski was up to these days.

Ellen chuckled to herself and picked the blanket up off the soft grass and headed back inside the house. She knew at that moment she’d keep the house. She smiled and opened the squeaky screen door and stepped into the cool comfort as another plane soared overhead. 

Villains

“So I’d like to discuss your work performance issues with you Greg”, said Mr. Undertow.

Greg looked up from his computer screen in his little shoebox size cubicle.

“Sir”, asked Greg.

“Yes, Greg, we would like to discuss some of your work performance issues. Please come with me”, said Mr. Undertow.

Mr. Undertow walked away and Greg stepped out of him tiny cubicle world and followed. Greg could only imagine what terrible thing he had done now. It was always something. Either he wasn’t working hard enough or he wasn’t focusing his energy on the right tasks or the client didn’t like him. It was always some kind of bull.

Greg was led into one of the small conference rooms and he sat down in one of the uncomfortable, second hand office chairs that seemed to have been lovingly plucked from some pile of slightly fire damaged garbage. Greg could swear he could smell brimstone. But then thought he didn’t really know what brimstone smelled like having never been anywhere in the world because he was always at work.

“Greg”, began Mr. Undertow, “we want you to know that we think you’re not doing enough to make the client’s perception of you change”.

“I’m sorry? The client’s perception”, asked Greg.

“Yes, you see, they seem to think that their priorities are not your priorities and frankly we feel the same way. You know our company motto, that we’re all in this together as a team, and we just don’t feel like you’ve been a real team player lately.”

Greg thought for a moment.

“Well, you see Mr. Undertow. I have been going through a lot of personal issues and I’m not inclined to talk to you about them. I have been going to therapy to try and work out my frustration with this job and I’m hoping to have a breakthrough real soon”, said Greg.

“Oh, I wasn’t aware you were seeking any kind of, help”, said Mr. Undertow.

“Yeah, you know how this company values a healthy home life. Well, I decided to try and follow through with that philosophy”, said Greg.

“I see”, said Mr. Undertow, “Well, I would think that in order to have a healthy home life you should try to have a healthy work life too. So I just want to stress to you the importance of having those reports to me no later than the end of the day. If we can be a bit more proactive with the client’s priorities then it’ll go a long way toward changing how they perceive you”.

Greg was seething under his skin. He wished he had superpowers to crush all the corporate evil doers into a pasty mush. Those reports. Those stupid reports. The reports that took two days to compile but we wanted by the client in mere hours.

“The reports you pulled me away from to have this meeting about making sure the reports were ready for you by the end of the day. Those reports?”

“Yes”, said Mr. Undertow.

Greg sighed and said he would make sure to have the reports to Mr. Undertow before the end of business. The meeting was over. Greg was dismissed and returned to his shoebox.  He sat in his chair and wondered what he did to feel so miserable every damn day. Those criminals had stolen his life.

Greg’s phone rang. He answered it out a sick sense of duty instead of just getting up and walking away and never coming back. 

Ooh that smell

When I was in seventh grade I went to a Halloween party at a young friend’s house. I was dressed as Indiana Jones and thought my costume was basically the greatest costume ever. The party night didn’t go very Indiana Jones for me though as I recall crying and begging my mother to come and pick me up and take me home. (Something about it belonging in a museum). But actually, it was the smell that drove me out of that place.

There was a kid there who used some kind of body pant to cover himself in green so he could be the Incredible Hulk. That paint smelled so terrible I could hardly stand it. It was just awful. It made me want to puke and pass out and piss myself all at the same time, that’s how awful that smell was. It was like garbage rotting in the sun under a peed on tarp under a peat roof that was mostly held together by manure. I’m can’t stress to you enough how badly it smelled.

I could smell something similar last night and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It smelled like hot balls being munched on by a wet cat that had rolled around in the feces of dogs that had eaten the rotting corpse of a possum that had been baking under the porch. Let’s just say it was an unpleasant odor. It wasn’t coming from my apartment, or my hands or my shoes or anything that I could find. There was just a stink.

This morning the smell was gone and I started to wonder if I had imagined the smell. Maybe my mind had conjured up some horrific smell just to mess with me. I thought that maybe it was my brain telling me that the heartache and misery I live with on a daily basis is starting to rot and I should bury it in the yard. In the middle of the night, Under a full moon. Wearing a black cloak. Maybe say something in Latin when done.

Smell is a very powerful thing; in fact it’s the sense that is most closely related to memory. It’s really quite amazing how a scent or just a drifting wafting odor can send the mind reeling back through hallowed antiquity to some strange moment of childhood. Like the first time you ever smelled bread baking or drove through Wisconsin on a summers day. Maybe it reminds you of that blanket at grandma’s and how it smelled right after she took it out of the dryer or how grandpa smelled like tobacco and whiskey. It’s really the smell of things.

I suppose that’s one way to actually define reality. By the way it smells. I know that when I’m dreaming nothing smells like anything, but in the real world there’s an abundance of smells. The blue line smells very metallic to me, almost like blood and sweat. The Metra train smells like wet socks. My car smells like hot dust. My clothes smell like cigarettes. My breath smells like booze.

Work has a terrible smell. It smells like so much death and defeat. It reminds me of the way a gym smells after the home team loses the big game. Sweat and tears that seem to have permeated the walls and with every day gets stronger and more powerful until everyone realizes that the walls have to be torn down and rebuilt.

It’s almost so bad it’s hard to breath.  

Baked Goods

“Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot”, said Anna Mae. She pulled the baking pan from the oven and quickly placed it on the stove top. She tore off her oven mitts and blew on her slightly singed finger tips.

“I always forget how hot that gets. My word”, she said to the empty kitchen. She wiped her recovering hands on her apron and checked the thermometer sticking out from the edge of the tin foil wrap. She read the gauge and smiled; being satisfied with the results.

“I do believe that’s just right”, she chuckled to herself. She turned to her counter and surmised the baking damage. Two large mixing bowls, the mixer, the hand mixing, the egg shells, the sweetener, the powdered sugar, the flour, the knife, the cocoa, the vanilla, and the milk all spread out in a long chain of creative destruction.

“Now for the special ingredient and it’ll be all done”, she said. She turned to the cupboard behind her. It was a special cupboard with a large heart shaped padlock holding its contents safely locked away.  Anna Mae reached down the front of her blouse and produced a thick black skeleton key on a string and put it into the padlock. She mumbled a few words of prayer and then turned the key in the lock. There was a clicking noise and a heavy thunk as the padlock released and came away from the clasp. Anna Mae returned the key to its safe place against her heart and took the padlock off the cupboard.

The cupboard was empty except for a very small blue vile placed on the center shelf. It had a slight luminescence to it and there was the faint sound of children giggling with each shimmery wave. Anna Mae took the small bottle from the shelf and pulled the tiny cork from its mouth. The air became filled with the scent of roses and lilies and dirt after a spring rain. It made Anna Mae smile and took her back to her earliest days in the kitchen when she would make this special recipe with her grandmother.  It always took her there no matter how many times she made it.

Anna Mae turned back to the now cooling creation on the baking pan and pulled back the tin foil. She started humming a small tune, the same tune her grandmother used to hum. It didn’t have any words but sounded like an old spiritual song from the darker days of their past. She gingerly sprinkled a few drops from the blue vial onto her baked goods. Each drop had a faint sizzle as it hit the crust and seemed to evaporate in. The aromas released swelled in the little kitchen and Anna Mae marveled at how much it smelled like love. In fact, it was just an overpowering happy smell she couldn’t help but wrap her arms around herself and give herself a happy little hug.

“Perfect”, she said.

She re-corked the blue vial and returned it to the cupboard. She reattached the padlock and locked it up tight. She was already looking forward to the next time she got to use it. There was a murmur behind Anna Mae and she smiled again.

“Just a second darling”, she said.

She fixed her hair a little and wiped her hands on her apron again. She closed her eyes and turned around to face the stove. A quiet cry from the baby on the stove. Anna Mae picked the child up and held her close to her bosom and started humming a lullaby and rocking the small new baby.

“You’re made out of love my sweet child, and love is what will sustain you all of your days”, said Anna Mae. She rocked gently as the little baby girl gently fell asleep. 

Back Breaker

It's been a busy morning. I've had two bosses hounding me to, "Re-Prioritize", some of the tasks I have ahead of me because clearly they think I'm a moron. I'm not sure when they got that impression. No wait, that's not true. I know exactly when. It was when the client said their perception of me was that I didn't seem to care about them. My employers sided with the perceptions of a client instead of using what then know about me after seven years at this stupid company.

Seven years and they don't trust me to do my job. That's the biggest insult there is. So I must re-prioritize my tasks because they told me to do it, even though I don't agree with the bosses or their claims handling abilities. One's a complete micro-manager who is nearly half blind and types with two fingers and the other has never handled a liability claim in her life. But they know better.

This is why I want to quit nearly every day of my life. It's a job. It's never been a career. So I can't devote this time to entertaining you, or myself, so I can do things I don't agree with and hate.

Find me another job public. Save us both.

Cucumber Man

I’m Cucumber Man.

I pretend to be cool

but I’m not.

My cape flaps in the

summer winds as I

hang on for dear life

on the ledge of things

suddenly seeming

out of my control.

My battles are epic

in the landscape of

my mind’s Metropolis.

I’ve laid waste to

years of potential and

productivity through cold

and hot wars with my arch

nemesis, Count Anxiety and

his Legion of Doubt.

The fights pitch between

confidence and cowardice,

honor and stupidity,

patience versus impatience,

all while wreaking havoc

through the innocent lives

of the city dwellers.

It’s a stalemate most of

the time, with neither side

claiming victory or defeat.

Usually Drunk Man appears

to mediate a peace, but his wise

words are quickly forgotten once

Super Drunk Man crashes in.

Cucumber Man just leaves because

he doesn’t have time for that and

Count Anxiety has turned back into his

alter-ego, Fuck It Man.     

Either way, they’re all wearing

masks and they’re

all me. 

Stealing Glances

It’s not as if anyone can claim any ownership of glances so I’m not exactly sure how they can be stolen, but I know that I’m guilty of it quite often. I’m usually a full on glance stealer on the train in the morning as my squinting eyes try to find the most attractive woman rider. It’s a little bit of an evolutionary compulsion to find a suitable mate for the promulgation of my genetic materials (romance!) as well as the old eyes seeking out the things they like, to covet. Perhaps that’s why it’s called stealing; coveting is a sin.

I’m not actually all about the whole “sin” thing. I’m not the most pious or Godly man. I simply can see the logic of a nomadic people cruising around the desert for forty years deciding that watching your neighbor’s half naked wife wash the lambskins in the stream was probably a bad thing. It could only lead to trouble within the tribe and therefore, as a practical measure, they decided that to covet was a sin and there was a punishment for it.

I suppose it’s very much like the laws on the books our society has against Peeping Tom’s or more recently, Stalkers.  I don’t think stealing a quick glance at a pretty woman or a handsome man while riding the train is a God’s wrath worthy sin. Lightening doesn’t rain from the sky to smite the cute girl in the cubicle across the office for mildly checking to see if I have a fourth head.  We don’t drag the coveters out into the street and stone them to death (well, in the United States anyway). Ultimately, we’re not murders for merely checking out a woman’s possible breeding potential based on the size and shape of her ass. (Cough).

The real punishment for stealing glances is getting caught in the act. There’s something slightly humiliating about looking at a woman, her shape, the cut of her chin, trying to see how she might look smiling or laughing, what a fun summer day in the park would be like rolling around in the tall grass by the pond when she catches you looking. That face you imagined being so pretty a moment ago turns into a subtle scowl of sorts and she moves from your field of vision without fully betraying how uncomfortable you might have made her.

I know I try to pretend that I wasn’t actually looking at her but somewhere past her, perhaps right over her shoulder. My eyes take on a fuzzy, glazed look, as if I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t even really notice that she was there. I’m pretty sure the girls never fall for it though. There’s just too many subtle male tells that ruin any attempt at being completely covert. 

There are those rare occasions when the theft of a glance is a mutual experience and both parties look away with muted embarrassment. Some of us actually act on it and say hello, others of us chalk it up to a “what if” moment and go about the rest of our days because we know that while we both looked at each other and imagined life together in the retirement home after a 60 year marriage there was something that told us that our kids would have started a war with Jupiter or something.  So it was best to leave it as a stolen glance and move on.

I do like an actual shared glance though, that leads to a smile, which leads to a conversation, which leads to a date, that leads to a kiss, which leads to a second, third, and eighth date. It turns into a relationship which might lead to marriage and then kids and then jealous looks at other men that are stealing glances at your wife because let’s face it, she’s pretty hot.

I’ll go on stealing glances until I do find that one woman that I can’t take my eyes off of and she can’t stop smiling at me. It makes me feel more like a fine art thief than a glance poacher.

I am a romantic dreamer aren’t I?