I was in Albany two summers ago for my oldest cousins wedding. The actual ceremony was done in a large catholic church about ten blocks away from my Uncle Michael’s house where the reception was being held. The day before they erected a huge tent that had a wooden tiled dance floor set in the middle of it and just before we all headed to the church we rolled out the tables and chairs and put everything in its place of the party that was only a legally, potentially for life, fusing of two peoples immortal souls. The ceremony was short, but being in a large church with most of my family made me feel kinda sad as well as happy. I was sad because the last time I saw all of these people was my grandpa’s funeral, and even though the buildings where thousands of miles away from each other they felt very similar on the inside and I always feel uncomfortable in churches. After all that the reception starts and with little prompting all the Malones and people related to Malones start getting fairly drunk, even some of the kids who although technically adults should not have been drinking. Nora and I break into a huge blue tupperware bin filled to the brim with ice and cheap champagne. We drink straight form the bottle and are just enjoying ourselves and start dancing and carrying on with the blood and not blood relatives.
I break off as it starts to get dark though and head into the house, even though no one was really supposed to go inside, and I pass through the kitchen filled with empty trays of food and caterers either cleaning up or preparing more food. and I slip into the side room where at Christmas they keep the tree and the futon that I have slept on every other time I came to visit. Sitting on the fireplace is a picture of my grandpa. Just his face smiling slightly. I sit down on the futon and draw a little from the almost empty bottle of sparling wine and just stare at it a bit. I start to think about him. How he had six kids. How I didn’t know he served in the Korean War till after he was dead. How that I didn’t know him as well as I should have and how much he would have loved to have been there, even if he was tired of traveling. My grandma said he never had a poker night with the boys, and after he became a father mostly worked to support his family or was busy rasing them. That made me sad too. Not sure why.
I sat there and finished the last of the bottle as my uncle Michael walked in. He just took one step inside the room and looked at me and just kinda looked at the picture and back to me. When he did this his tie, now a head band, wagged a little. He got it, he knew.
“You know when me and your Dad were cleaning out his room we checked all the nooks of his closet and all his drawers.” He said. “and in one drawer we found a box with a plastic bag inside. and wrapped in an old rubber-band was every sports card from all of his grand children. I mean cards of Kieran’s that were two decades old. Funny thing was that only the new ones looked crisp, the older ones had slightly worn edges and the nicks that cards get when you handle them. Yours were in there too.”
He turned on his heels and headed back out to the party celebrating his daughters marriage and left me alone again. Didn’t even bother to shoo me out of his house. So I sat there. I looked back at the picture. I wasn’t sad anymore. I just got back up tossed the bottle in the garbage and grabbed another one before meeting up with the ever increasingly rowdy Malone clan on the dance floor.
It was less than a year later when I and the girl I was seeing at the time had a bit of a scare. They happen from time to time with any couple, especially one that had gone as long as we had. I sat there with her on a couch and she asked me a simple question.
“So if I am pregnant should I give it up for adoption or get rid of it?”
“Are those our only two options?” I asked.
“What? You are not thinking about keeping it are you?”
“I dunno, seems worth at least considering. Up to you in the end but…”
“I thought you didn’t want to be a father.” she said.
“I didn’t”
“What changed?” she asked.
“I don’t really know”
She wasn’t pregnant. Thank the maker.
You know I came out here looking for seclusion. I figured everyone else would be running away from a dying town in a 3rd rate state. So thats where I would run. Away from the coasts and their culture and pompous self-aggrandizing bull shit. Like people really give a fuck about anything outside of there tiny insignificant sphere of interest unless it gets them laid. Away from the communities in the south and mid-west that bill themselves as the New York or LA of their tiny back water region. I went as far away as I possibly could from that kind of thinking. The kind of thinking that creates the cognitive dissonance necessary to live in such places and consider it the right and proper way for people to live. I could no longer rationalize my narcissism with my self-loathing. I could no longer pretend I was a living god in a golden city while I was vomiting blood and bile because I could not get my shit together. I packed a bag and left. I packed a bag and moved. I packed a bag and looked for a suitable place to die.
The city, whatever city it is as long as its a real city, is a place full of death. People are killed by accidents, idiocy, with intent, every single way a person can die is there, but is a poor place to go to die. It is not a death destination. The death there is related to the massive amounts of energy and life that pours from every open window. Life is dangerous and always leads in one direction, but going to your unexpected or accidental death does not have the romantic vision of limping away into a rocky and dead corner of the Earth to join in.
I did not simply just want to die, I wanted to cease to live. I wanted to be dead long before my body had a chance to catch up. I wanted that moment when someone heard that I had to died to be followed by that great line “I thought he was already dead.” That is what I felt like I was, like I was already dead. I wanted to fade away into the mists of time and moisture and be removed from the entire equation as much as possible before it had time to work itself out. I was going to commit suicide by the most tried and true way. I would simply wait for death to come and get me and I would do it far away from my friends, family, and fame. I couldn’t take them with me when I went for real so why bother telling them on this practice run.
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I have been a fan of yours pretty literally my entire life. This year has been the most fun to watch since you had the greatest infield in baseball history. Thank you.
zombie me.
(Source: wearethedreamcatchers, via alliswellinhere)
The Malones have been renamed. It will stay this way unless you guys are down to rumble with the other Orlando Malones.
I say we rumble, keep the new name, and then make them give up their name anyway.
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started playing minecraft. so good.
ONE OF US! ONE OF US!
This happens all-too-often.
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
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My very tiny tribute to Elvis Costello.
GPOY?