A Mans Memories #1
The man closes his eyes. He remembers.
The Boy was very young. It was 1969 and the smell of old shag carpet and moth balls seemed to hover in the air. He doesn't remember when his father left. Only audio snippets and visuals of discourse that led to heated physical altercations between his mother and father . Memories like thumbing through worn pictures in an old scrap book catching odd pieces of his early life. A green robe his mother used to wear..the smell of tobacco and stale whiskey on his father. The Nuclear Family one day and a 60's divorce statistic sometime thereafter. His father was a pharmaceutical salesman who used to pay his drinking buddies in Quaaludes to take acetone and rub the word "SAMPLE" off of his supply of detail bag give aways. His mother a knocked up college drop out from a small town in the Delta of Arkansas. Married because of sexual sloppiness or just stupidity they would in their later lives climb to heights that they could not have possibly imagined then..in 1969...............
A Mans Memories #2
The man closes his eyes, he remembers.... The boy was afraid. He had never seen a dead body before. Shit it didn't matter if it was his Grandfather.He didn't want to look upon him. At age...oh bout 8 the boy was more interested in "livelier" things. But..Oh No...First Baptist Church of Hot Springs Arkansas Matron of all Matrons ..."Grandmother" would have none of it. EVERYONE else would pay their proper respects to the deceased DOCTOR and so would the "Grandson"...Daddy took the boy by the back of his Sears Roe Buck Arny Jr. Black 3 button blazer and ushered him toward the line meandering like a Blue Haired Conga Line by the casket. (The man can almost hear the Funeral March Conga now!...he laughs aloud gently)Here we go...the boy thinks, no no I don't want to remember Papa Doctor this way..NO..closer the lines comes to the Casket...(Mahogany..I bet it was ..The man thinks) ..The boy can smell the putrid sweet smell of gardenias and formyldahyde .they smelled like....death?...of course death ..the first but not nearly the last the boy would encounter. As the boy was preparing to meet the ultimate warped fucked up moment of a young mans lifetime there was a whisper at his ear...it was his father....and daddy said .."Hold tight little man...Daddy knows you don't want to see this..Close those lil eyes and hold on and we'll scoot by..Papa Doc wouldn't care..He knew you loved him...and thats what the boy and his father did..they SCOOTED on by that casket ..the boy was so relieved..the daddy was most likely too...The father took the boy to the rear of that big ole Baptist Church and let go of his hand. The boy watched as the father joined some men and women who watched as the Blue Haired Conga Line continued it's shuffle (off to Buffalo) into eternity. The boy seized that moment. He sprinted out the front door of the church. He was greeted by fresh,crisp,beautiful...air!!! He gulped the air and enjoyed its life. The boy sat down on the steps of the church. He pondered the event. He watched the traffic on Central Avenue wind by the church. He pondered the event. He looked through the windows of the cars as they passed. He pondered the event. He saw the faces of the drivers of the cars as they passed...he saw their concentration....he saw their route in life. Their route which took them by the First Baptist Church on Central Ave in Hot Springs Ark on the day and moments of his grandfathers funeral to their own ultimate destination...He realized that they didn't know who the Doctor was..didn't matter. didn't care....He realized for the first time in his eight long years that no matter WHAT was taking place behind the front door of the Church behind him....THAT LIFE goes ON!
A Mans Memories #3
The man closes his eyes, he remembers....
The Brown 69 Camaro literally flew. The boys mother could drive it like a seasoned stock car driver. Fifty miles from Conway to Little rock in the morning...fifty miles back home that evening. The boy would hum along to Bobby Hebb singing "Sunny" as he lay on his back across the hump of the rear floorboard of the Camaro. The heat from the gears whirling beneath him providing warmth in such an uncomfortable position. They could make the trip in nearly thirty minutes...back to Conway out towards Greenbriar his mother would guide the car to the small rental farm house that the two called home. On this night the house seemed much darker than others. The boys mother left the car headlights on as they unloaded from the Camaro and walked hand in hand to the front door. No key was necessary. The boys mother muttered under her breath something the boy couldn't quite understand. She lit an oil lamp in the kitchen. The kitchen ....usually a place full of sumptuous smells and warmth from the bright colors the mother had painted it looked gloomy and barren. The mother lit more candles and pulled a chair over to the kitchen sink. She lifted the boy on to the chair so that he could see through the kitchens small window out into the drive where the Camaro sat silently its lights beaming from the darkness. "Now..I will be right back" his Mother said.."Do not be afraid I'm just going to turn off the headlights...look you can see me from here...be a big boy." With that she turned and was swallowed by the shadows cast from the candles. The boy felt the all too familiar and terrible distress of the arrival of the panic monster. He stood on tip toe and craned his neck about to see her. She was out to the car and back very quickly and the boy was thankful that the panic monster hadn't taken hold of him on this evening. The mother told the boy that on this night they would be playing camp out. He LOVED to play camp out. He had played many times before. His mother would make a pallet in the Den. She would take all the chairs from the kitchen and arrange them just so around the pallet so that she could spread a large sheet over the backs of the chairs and secure it with books and magazines stacked in the seat of each chair. Together they would huddle on pillows and blankets underneath the "tent" in the "wild" of the den and eat PBJ's and giggle as his mother made shadow puppets with a flashlight . The Boy's Mother always made the boy feel safe and secure even in the darkness that was a camp out night. The next day or the day after the camp out nights would be over and the power lines "fixed". (The man thinks of those times and the electric bills missed. He appreciates how his mother handled those hard times. They inspire him.)
A Mans Memories #4
The man closes his eyes, he remembers....
The memory does not want to come forward .....Slightly singing the man croons.." There you are ...come on "... coaxing now .."Come on out" .."It's OK" .. "don't cry" .. Gasping! .. Retching!.. The boy flails at the air with his small hands .. The lightbulb in the grandmothers utility room sways above his head casting wild shadows upon the walls as his grandmother frantically moves papers from atop the deep freeze to access the ice below .. The boys fever runs wild ...He violently struggles for air ... Crying in the night .. Grandmother holding him .. "shhhhhh"... "shhhhh" she says .."It's going to be all right" ...
The memory recedes .. The man gently commands the memory .. "Show Yourself" .. The boy rides in the rear of the car... blankets packed round him .. The car hurtles through the night .. in and out of consciousness the boy slips tip toeing between life and the other place ....
When morning comes the boy sees the doctors and nurses looking concerned ..they speak to him with kind voices ..they prod him and listen to his heart ... they lance his finger ..the boy cries ..
The days pass by. The boy sees the concern in his Mothers face. She cradles him when the air slips from him. She holds him upright so that he may breath. The hospital is a wicked place, full of pain and needles. The boy is so weak. One day a Doctor sits down next to the boy. He looks at the boy for a long time and then begins to speak to the boy .. His lips move but the boy hears no sound .. The Doctor produces a white paper napkin and a black ink pen. He draws a figure on the napkin. The figure looks like the little boy. The little boy has two oval shapes drawn inside of him. One of the shapes is colored black as the Doctor broadly scratches the pen on the paper. The Doctor draws a small dotted line across one of the ovals. He smiles at the boy.
The next morning the boy is strapped to a hospital gurney. His mother has tears in her eyes as she kisses him goodbye. Unseen hands lay a warm blanket over the boy's body. The gurney begins to roll. The boy sees the ceiling flowing like water. Its as if he were floating down a stream. Later in the boys life he would see this exact visage again.. Flowing ..Once in the operating room the Doctor who drew the picture looked down into his eyes and smiled. The boy was not afraid. The Nurses strapped a small plastic cup over his nose and mouth ... The Doctor told him .."You are Petter Cotton Tail. You are hopping down the Bunny Trail" ....The boy slept.
A Man's Memories #5
The man closes his eyes, he remembers....
The morning was clear and frigid as the young man walked hurriedly down the street. With the Chicago wind blowing across his body he leaned in to each step on his morning jaunt to the Chicago Board of Trade. The wet hair on his prematurely balding pate frozen by the time he covered the five blocks to LaSalle Street. The revolving doors ever turning were full of brightly jacketed traders drawing one last breath of steam and smoke as they approached the doors. Achieving a strange synchronicity the cigarette butts would fly toward the great stone ash bin at the buildings entrance and the traders would exhale the last smoke before the bell. Once within the warm confines of the hallowed old building the man would gulp coffee while he hastily tied a tattered neck tie with one hand. The Tie only needed a cursory knot to be considered tied and thus acceptable under Board dress policy. Walking, drinking, and tying were requisite skills for the young hungover traders of 1986. Riding the escalator to the second floor Trader's Entrance provided a brief staging point in which the man would kill the rest of the coffee, give the tie one final pull, and arrive at the top with identification in hand ready to clear security before making his grand entrance to the new trading day.
Entering the room that housed the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade was like walking to ring of a Heavy Weight Prize Fight ... The man was one of Three Thousand people who gathered daily at eight A.M. sharp to have the bell (fighters bell) ring them into action. Always running late and frequently hungover the man would reach his slotted destination at his phone bank with nary a second to spare. "What's the call?" he would utter to his clerks.. who would respond with the pending best guesstimate on where the market would open. 7:57...7:58.... 7:59....................P A N D E M O N I U M! The sounds of three thousand determined voices would fill the air. Hands reaching to the sky contorted into shapes denoting buying and selling and numbers and straddles and strangles and working orders and filled orders and killed orders ... the roar on this day.. January 28th , 1986 was deafening.
The man had phones. A phone on one shoulder, a phone in his left ear, and a phone in his right ..."five bid at six" he would chatter.. "sixes trading" he would yell into the phones calling out a first hand account of what his customer would see in little green numbers flashing half a world away on the Telerate Monitor ...."sixes trad.....ahhhh FUCK...seven bid" ..... The trades would be consummated. The ebb and flow of the market was like huge schools of fish swarming back and forth violently. The electricity in the room seared it's way through the air from one traders mouth to the next.
The morning opening and its brisk activity began to abate two hours into the day. At 10:00 AM as the markets slowed the room began the process of checking and double checking . Clerks and runners hurriedly scurried about papers in hand to verify this or that trade.. The phones ringing slowed. The man wiped the alcohol laden sweat from his head and shaking from the adrenalin release sat down on his stool to wait for the next onslaught that might or might not come.
In the United State Treasury Bond Pit and the other Trading Pits in the room were dozens of television monitors. These monitors displayed lines of black and white numbers and letters denoting contracts and securities of varying types being traded around the world. On this morning one of the monitors in each pit was tuned to a local television station. This had been and was the protocol any time there was breaking news, and in 1986 the nation was captivated by the Space Shuttle program. Today's launch would propel the first Teacher into space, and it seemed that Space travel was within the grasp of the masses.
The faded screens projected images of the seven crew members as they paraded to the ship ... Space Helmets in hand they marched..
The trading rolled on as the minutes to launch rolled by. Phones ringing .. the shouts in the room never stopped until the final bell. There was always the roar of human voices engaging in open outcry trading.
11:37 AM.. The necks began craning to see the monitors ... to gaze in wonder at the power and might of Space Flight. The trading rolled on. Just shy of 11:38 AM the countdown initiated and T-Minus 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1...Liftoff! "Lift off of the Space Shuttle Challenger!" ....Applause erupted throughout the room and cheers echoed from the ceiling tiles as the craft rotated and soared towards the heavens. Thousands of eyes stared in wonder as the gleaming bird flew away from our Earthly grasp. When the man looked back to his phone bank and began to pick up a ringing phone, there was an epic gasp sounded throughout the room. One huge vocal inflection that jarred the mans eyes back to the screen where a billowing white smoke? was forming a "Y" (why?) in the blue sky. The room that was never quiet lost it's voice. Silence permeated the entirety of one of America's major markets. The silence was surreal. The "Y" became a scribble of smoke snaking into different directions in the sky. Disbelief was tattooed to every face, and tears flowed down many. Life had STOPPED............................but only for that moment. For in the gaping maw of that silence were two small voices that uttered but four words that shook the human mass from it's horror and allowed TIME to march on ....The first two words were ..........."seven bid"..........the next two words were "at eight" .. and a sea of voices joined the fray and the Trading proceeded without seven astronauts ............Once again in the mans young life he was struck with the reality of how fast LIFE GOES ON.
The Man Looks Into the Mirror...........
The Man looks into the mirror............
The visage in the looking glass stares back dully. He lets his eyes rove over the features of the human form staring back at him. He puzzles over the reflection like a simple primate at the zoo., curious about that fellow who moves when he moves..blinks when he blinks ... goes this way and that when he does... The man studies the creases around the reflection's eyes.. an image that he has seen numeral times but at once alien to him. "Is that really me?" he wonders aloud. Lips moving synchronized ........ How does anyone take THAT fellow there seriously? I know him .. I know where he's been... What is the purpose in that aging things being? This exoskeleton of pinkish skin and sparse hair is surely but a host for the voice and its voices.
The man stares ever harder into the pupil of the left eye of the face that stares back at him. It twitches and shakes within its glassy confines. It amazes the man that this very representation of his own pupil is a pathway that has allowed every waking moment to pass into his consciousness. All that he has seen has passed this gate keeper first. The man is at an impasse. Standing in the dimly lit lavatory of his home, he is stuck. He will have but no choice but to bend before the "other" him. It will not leave before he does. It seems to mock him. It smiles broadly at him. It frowns...
The man allows his gaze to look at the space around him...the negative space. He sways to and fro wondering if he is moving the space. The man's stare fixes the reflections stare and the man laughs. "I'll see your sorry ass tomorrow", they say to one another......."Goodnight"
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