a stone’s throw

For the longest time now I’ve been trying to figure out a way to tell the story of moving into my new apartment.  It’s a giant thing, with a fireplace and an office and a big long hallway just perfect for flying paper airplanes.  A 1200 square foot one bedroom - sort of a rarity in this town.  But that’s not the story I’ve been figuring out.  While a story about a father and son flying paper airplanes up and down a hall might be an incredible exercise in sentiment, it really wouldn’t be that interesting.  I’d be the first to admit it.

The story that needs figuring is the one about my new apartment being right across the street from my wife’s boyfriend’s apartment.  That’s the story I was thinking would make better reading.  That’s the story with a little potential.  The story that might sum up two years of my life with the words only a stone’s throw away.

But I just can’t seem to come up with the story, which is really a shame because of all the imagery and memory that bangs around in my head.  Last year, at just about this same time, this very street that I now live on would give me a hollow feeling every time I drove by it.  I couldn’t pass it without glancing over to see if my wife’s car was parked alongside the curb.  Who would have imagined that one year later I would be parking my own car in the exact same spot that she would leave hers as she slipped away, thinking that I would never know?  And I didn’t know, for a long time, until one day as I drove by, trying my best to keep up the appearance of working, I happened to turn my head and catch a glimpse of her car.  How can such a small movement lead to such a big irony?

And how do I tell about the time I sat in my car along the curb, outside of that same apartment for more then four hours, staring into an open window at a dim light in a hallway, waiting for her to appear from a bedroom door?  How am I suppose to tell that story?  How will I ever get it right?  I’ve tried writing it down so many times, beginning over and over, that I find myself wondering if I even know myself what happened.  How can the words fight me so hard?  Why would they refuse to come out?  It seems that no matter what I write about that night, nothing seems to capture the moment just right.  When I read what I’ve written, I realize that I’ve gotten it all wrong.  That is not how I felt I say to myself before beginning again.

Maybe that’s the question I need to be asking myself.  How did I really feel?  How does it feel to see your spouse appear from someone else’s bedroom in the early morning hours?  The easy answer might be devastated, but that would be too easy.  It’s not that easy.  A whole list of words might jump to mind - mad, angry, upset, furious, unbelieving, murderous, dizzy, suicidal.  I might go on and on writing that list, thinking of catch words to capture the feeling.  What I do know, when I saw her there in the light, was that a feeling of disbelief passed through me like a wave.  It was like I’d been staring at the ocean for four hours, mesmerized by the sight of the waves crashing one after another on the beach.  Your eyes and mind get used to the sight.  The sound draws you in.  And then, even though you know you are watching waves, you are somehow caught off guard as one particularly large wave sweeps in higher and louder then all the rest and sweeps you away.  You can’t believe it.  How could this happen?

But once that moment of surprise has passed, other things rush in to take its place.  Like sand, shifting all around as the wave recedes, my own thoughts all crashed in at once, looking for a place to settle.  My emotions grabbed frantically for a handhold before anything else came along that they weren’t ready for.  I found myself realizing in an instant that there are some things you just can’t fight; that some things give way and are lost forever.  That is how I felt after disbelief passed through me.  Like something had given way.  Like the months and months of disbelief had finally been washed away from my mind.  Nothing had seemed real for more then a year, but seeing her there, in that hallway, made everything very real.  And I needed that.  I needed something real to hang onto, no matter how painful.

And somehow I felt relief.  My life had felt like I was holding my breath for so long that I couldn’t remember what it felt like to breathe.  The disbelief made me gasp, and I drew in air that I had forgotten was all around me.

But how do I write about feeling relieved when it’s the story of seeing your wife coming out of another man’s bedroom?  What kind of story is that?  What’s that say about my life?  What does it say about me?  I may have lived the experience, but am I sure I want to write about it.  But it’s up there, in my head, waiting to be told.  I just don’t know how to tell it.

I’ve started, several times . . .

How could I sit there for four hours, my attention focused on only one thing?  How could I stare so long at a light in a hall waiting for something to happen?

Another . . .

What goes on in a person’s head as they sit and wait, hour after hour, for their spouse to emerge from someone’s bedroom door?  How could there have been that light, that open window, and a parking spot that lined everything up just right for me?  How could I have sat there, my son asleep in the back, as I looked through the window, waiting?  Why would I do that to myself?

And . . .

Everyone makes mistakes.  I know this.  Sometimes I think that my mistake was to sit there staring at the light of that hallway, waiting for that moment of pain that I knew would arrive.  But I had to see it.  I had to witness it with my own eyes, so that somehow my thoughts would be able to follow.  My life lacked a leader, and somehow, by sitting there until four in the morning, maybe I thought the eyes would somehow finally convince the brain to move on.

Once I tried to write about what I saw, as she disappeared again, this time into the bathroom . . .

And then the light changed and it all happened.  It happened so fast it was hard to believe.  Four hours of staring, hardly blinking, and suddenly the empty hall is filled by my wife, moving down the hall and into the bathroom.  A half a dozen steps at most before she steps into the bathroom, closes the door, and turns on the light.

A new light to watch, I think.  A thin, bright strip of light along the bottom of the door.  Something I’ve seen many times, but in different circumstances.  I see the shadowy movements of her feet as she moves back and forth behind that door.  This is familiar, I think.  I’ve seen her move around behind bathroom doors so many times that this time the door seems almost transparent.  I know her movements.  I know what she is doing.  There is no mystery here.  It is four in the morning and she is cleaning up.  I know what this means.

I watch the shadows of her movements, then watch as the thin line of light disappears, the door opens, and she takes the few quick steps back into the bedroom.  I think about getting out of the car.  I think about confronting them.  I think about waiting for her to leave.  I think about so many things.  But mostly, I think that I have finally seen what I needed to see.

I start the car and drive away, returning to the tiny apartment that wraps around me like a womb.  My son, still sleeping, is tucked into bed and I crawl in beside him, wondering if I will sleep.  The smallness of the room seems to shield us both from the pain outside.  I listen to his slow, steady breathing until finally I remember no more and fall asleep.

I even tried to write about the song that seemed to play over and over that night, its lyrics looping endlessly through my head . . .

It’s 4:30 a.m. on a tuesday

It doesn’t get much worse then this

In beds in little rooms in buildings in the middle of these lives

Which are completely meaningless

Help me to stay awake

I’m falling

I guess someday I’ll understand what the story is all about.  Time has a way of making sure all stories get told, one way or another.  I don’t know why mine would be any different.  All I know for sure is that everything changed one night and I’m looking for some words.  Only a stone’s throw from here, maybe closer.  And I still can’t see it.

mouse ghost :: day 7

Just how long can a dead mouse stink?  It’s a question I’m afraid I’m destined to learn more about.

I suspect my little vandal mouse chewed his way to the end of an air conditioning duct, where his little jaw, exhausted after the long meal of three seatbelt straps, one bench seat cushion, various tasty hard plastic snacks, a large roast bone (who knows where that came from?), and one thick owner’s manual, finally stopped moving and gave up the ghost. 

And a mouse without the ability to chew is really no mouse at all.  A non-chewing mouse is commonly referred to as a dead mouse, and a dead mouse in an air conditioning duct is commonly referred to as . . . well, I’m at a loss for quite the right word. 

But on the bright side, the smell only lasts for about a minute after you’ve turned on the fan.  So I have that going for me.  On the other side, however, I get to drive around thinking that I’m breathing dead mouse air.  So I find myself taking small, shallow breaths.  Barely breathing as I drive around town.  This could be a problem.  I’m a decent size guy, after all.  I need my air.

But maybe its not dead mouse air.  Maybe its only mouse poop air, which in some strange way of reasoning, is a step down on the ladder of disturbing thoughts.  But I don’t know.  It’s really hard to say.  I’m just a coarse man relying on an untrained nose.  A nose, I might add, that never has been good at distinguishing between life’s finer differences.  I even have a brother who has no smell at all.  Wait, that’s not quite right.  What I mean to say is that he has no ability to smell.  That’s what happens when you fall into the dump pit and land on your head.  But that’s a different story.

On the other hand, maybe I should just sell the van to my brother.  With the exception of holding up his sunglasses, his nose is useless.  He’d never suspect a thing.

back in my days

The only thing standing between me and a perfect Friday is a red light blinking the number 10 over and over.  Ten phone messages waiting to be listened to.  It may be nothing, or it might just be the gates of hell waiting to burst open.  You never can tell.

Most people are under the impression that the gates of hell need a key.  Or maybe you’re one of those who think the gates are watched over by a big shiny devil guy with a red twisted smile and an oversized fork.  Nope.  The whole evil thing seems to open and close with the push of a little, innocent looking button on a vTech answering machine.  It’s hard to believe, I know.  I couldn’t believe it myself when I first discovered it.  But I assure you it’s true. 

Sometimes I wonder where evil hid when there weren’t any answering machines.  Has being a devil gotten easier?  What was it like, back in the good ‘ol days of evil?

You young devils just don’t know how easy you have it!

Oh grandpa.  Not another one of your old devil stories.  Spare us.

Why . . back in my day a devil would have to walk half a day just for the chance to torment a soul.  Through two feet of snow, mind you.  There weren’t none of these electronic gizmos.

Grandpa, they save time!

Time?!  Time?!  We have eternity for crying out loud!  You don’t need to save time.  The whole hell business has just gone to hell, if you ask me.

Well no one did, grandpa.  Now come here and leave a message.  His machine’s about to pick up.

Oh hells bells.  I just left one an hour ago.

Well leave him another.  It’s Friday you know.  Give him something good to hold him over until Monday.

It’s still early.  Maybe I’ll just push the button and hope for the best.  If you’re religious, you know what to do.  If you’re not, well, then I guess you’re on your own.  As for all the rest of you who ride the fence and ponder the options, I might suggest going with the slightly more expensive voicemail.  Or maybe a secretary.  Anything to help with the filtering process.  One low tech solution I’ve heard about is as simple as poking out your eardrums with a sharp pencil.  But that sounds like it might hurt, so I haven’t tried it.  As a matter of fact, the whole poking thing has a bit of that devilish ring to it.  I’m thinking it may be a trick.

I’ll let you know if I hear anything.