i despise those people who talk only of themselves. and the second you meet them, you know, just like those mornings when you get out bed, knowing full well you will regret it till you get back in. every question you can ask only leads to a discussion of them or to a story of their extreme wit and heroism. this will be neither. yes you will discuss the duality, the irony, the arrogance, the paradox in your classes talking about hating those presumptuous folks, when i myself write a whole damn book, JUST OF ME. yes you will be forced to write papers on it. and yes, you will curse me years from now. but no matter what you think about as you read this book, write you paper, or walk to class--you thoughts will end up back on you. at the end of they day-they will-they always will. this is what instantly equalizes us, making you-the reader- no better just because you didn't think to write all your selfish thoughts down instead of boring those around you at parties--or dinner.
i just sat there, my arm all stretched out. resembling a plank, that forgotten plank. my hand just looked dead at the end. they couldn't really be dead, which i knew, but i wondered. i thought about getting out of my blue sheets soaking my skin, possibly it could be like a baptism for me. that rebirth we all feel we need sometimes. not the spiritual kind when you think or feel you have done something wrong, no. more like the kind when you only wanted a clean start. to take all the things you have learned and thought and begin life again with them. a belief in reincarnation makes things easy, you have eternity to 'get it right'. then maybe i could remember all the lessons i had learned as a tiny, black, spotted ant, or even as a fishmongers wife, living by a great white sea cleaning and taking lessons from the murky froth of the tide. this seems like a step up, more, much more, than what i was now. maybe i was a butcher and karma was after me now, leading me to sit in this shade drawn room thinking how my life is not as hard as children in africa or even south america, yet, i can't even seem to get myself out of bed.
just then the whole idea of a bath repulsed me. first the idea of sitting in my own filth was not any better than the bed i was in now. second i would be wasting time and water--both of which could be used for those children in africa. what made them so damn special anyways? i could be starving or not have shoes, and even if i did-karma-maybe i saved someone's life hundreds of years ago, so now i have shoes. no that's just not it, just not right, is it?
i have only ever seen two dead people in my life. the favorite grandfather of my given two died when i was eight and his was the first funeral i ever attended. death is much more natural than people allow it to be. i remember two things from that day: the song i sang and the feel of this dead man's skin. the song was a little church hymn, I am a Child of God, which led to tears for years to come, mostly out of misunderstandings--death is not so sad once you take time to look at it. the next few lines will be exorbitant--so if reading this the night before class or a book club meeting--skip to the next chapter.
something in me still expected there to be an agreeable--almost attractive-- look on old Howard's face. instead i found an out of focus- blank stare. up towards the ceiling. i looked up but found nothing so interesting and worthy of his eyes. it wasn't until my second funeral i found out that those really weren't his eyes-but pieces of glass, like marbles from when you are five. at the age of seven, i didn't really comprehend a great deal and faintly i remember either thinking, wishing or actually believing he might just sit up and it was a great joke, or misunderstanding. I stepped up a couple steps on a little black stool, brought out for the little children like me, trying to lead us, upwards towards some new found awareness--that one step leading you up. i reached my hand down-till i found his. now i knew a dead hand. there was a feeling to it--one that was unhuman. it was as though when his spirit left his body it had truly taken everything living with it. which, well, he was dead, i know, but there was this leathery feel to his hands, almost like the very old animal hides brought to school on Native American Day. i could feel the years of dish soap, shoe polish and gun powder--from the war--finally taking their toll. there was also a hardness to his whole hand, like a heaviness left behind. maybe it was all the pain of life- explaining why death is so forgiving. this unsympathetic coldness reached into my skin, it overtook all of these thoughts within a moment leading me to pull away quickly before i could finish any of this. and this is what i most connect with being dead. i think this stiff, gelid hand is what scares people most about death.
i really needed to go see a doctor. i should have gone on tuesday, when i couldn't even get out of bed. but i really, really, hate doctors. mostly when they touch you without even asking, all while they continue to talk, as though there isn't a thing wrong with violating someone's space. just nothing at all.
this forced me to call him, i mean i didn't have my insurance card with me after all. i always dread these calls. he always keeps on the phone as long as he possibly can, with useless chatter about the lawn, his family, and the house. these three things: only. i try very hard not to let him veer into anything more.
then he did.
sorry, i can't hear you hold on.
obnoxious pause
there, there, sorry about that, i am at the car wash right now, i am going on a date tonight.
the nerve he has sometimes.
okay. well. cool, then. but i need my insurance number.
this i can only stammer on, pretending, of course, not to have heard anything he just said. whenever i come back into town we set up a lunch meeting, like old college buddies, or ex-co-workers. it's the only way to keep the history from coming back up. or the present for that matter. here we just talk about the lawn, his family, the house, my school or my truck. it works well. for me at least. the personal, without the connection, no relationship, it's good.
very few people have ever just walked out of my life. i have gotten to be much better at shoving them out instead. you always think about other people walking out of your life, but i am curious now how many times i have just gotten up half way through a talk, or a movie and just walked right out the front door. i feel as though that's happened more times than me just sneaking out the back.
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