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.

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.

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.

So . . . let’s just say for arguments sake that I’m 43 and that I’ll live until the ripe old age of 86.  That would mean I’m half done.  Like a burger on the grill, I’m ready for flipping.

So . . . let’s just say that someone scared me and I yelled out, “Ahhhhh!  You scared me half to death!”  Maybe I’d yell something else, like “You bastard!” or “Jesus H. Christ!” or something like that.  But that’s unimportant for the moment.  What I’m trying to figure out is this half to death thing - the math of life.

So if someone scares me half to death and I’m already halfway dead at 43, does this mean that the adrenalin rush I feel coursing through me is what it feels like to be 64 1/2?  Hmmmm.  That’s not so bad, I guess.

Old age - you bastard.  Bring it on.

I might even whistle while I work today.  A payday has finally arrived!  My first in about two months.  My wallet will howl at the moon.  Maybe I will buy myself a new shirt and stare at myself in the mirror.  Maybe my wallet and I will howl together - a harmony of relief.  We’ll turn on the shower for background music and flush the toilet when we feel like hearing an appreciative roar.

I love working for myself.  I never pay myself, yet I never quit.  I am the company store and financially trapped worker - all wrapped into one.  I am America at its best.  I am a match made in heaven.

f l u s h

Thank you, thank you.  We’ll be here all week.

Hidden within my DNA lies a string of code capable of producing a giant.  My son’s unchecked growth proves everything.  This, combined with poor to very poor shopping skills, resulted this morning in a boy lost inside of a much too baggy of shorts.  Even for this day and age.  Last night’s trip to the store had not been as successful as I had hoped.

Should I send my eight year old son to school looking like a teenage wanna be rapster, or head back to the store for a belt?  I took deep breaths as we drove back to the store.  Mostly, just because mornings are never quite hectic enough.

But the trip was a success, without the conversation collapsing into a contest of wills and him yelling out, “I hate shopping with you dad!” and me saying something witty back like, “Well, I . . . ahhh . . . well . . . come on, let’s get going.”  I refuse to allow my hatred of shopping to unleash itself upon a child. 

A nice belt was purchased.  Only $4.00 plus room to grow.  A real bargain.  As we drove away, I assured him that he had made a good choice.

“Plus,” I said, “With that six or seven inch overhang on the end, that belt should last quite awhile.  More then a year even.”

“Dad!  Are you crazy?  Nothing lasts a year.”

“That belt better.  I can’t imagine you getting seven inches bigger around in one year.”

He pondered that one for a second, before answering.

“That would be disturbing.”

Slow builds and painful beginnings.  Anguish expressed by the pinched but smiling faces of employees, working for free.  Promises and promises.  More promises.  The tempo builds.  The workers build.  Everyone builds.

All at once until the noise is maddening, but then a break.  The sun shines.  Clouds separate and the workers shed an outer layer.  Customers see things take shape and begin to smile.  Promises and promises.  More promises.  What once were only words and dreams have taken shape.

The final week breaks into a quick time tempo.  No more promises, only action.  A final flurry and final arrangements.  Stone and stain, plants and custom latches all arrive with unbelievable precision.  Jaws drop and neighbors gather and everyone steps back to admire.

Except us, who scurry away to begin the song all over again in another place for other people.

The week I moved into my new apartment, seven cars were broken into on the street out front and one was stolen.  My first thought at the time was of course, What the hell have I gotten myself into this time?”  But my work van had been left alone, the vandals concentrating on the little Hondas and Toyotas all around it.  Maybe the thieves were too short to see through the windows of the van.  I don’t know.

But I have two vans - one for work and one for play.  Naturally, the work van is the only one that gets driven, while the play van has been banished to the back parking lot for the last two months, where it sits patiently awaiting my arrival.  One tire is flat, which I like to think of as my security system.

I’m not quite sure why I keep the extra play van.  Maybe in the back of my mind an idea rattles around that someday I may go out on a date or something, and that whoever is riding in the seat next to me might not have as great as an appreciation as I do for the sound of tools bumping up and down on metal shelves.  I’ll admit, it’s an acquired taste.  But I like to think that all of that rolling and clanging is a just a reminder that I’ll be ready for any emergency or situation that life throws my way, as long as it can be handled with power tools and various fasteners.  Wood glue and clamps - sure.  Irrigation controllers - no problem.  A broken water main?  Look no further!  Step aside!  I’ll shut that baby down. 

But it seems that as I drove around saving the citizens of this fine city from all of the various minor disasters that strike every spring, the poor, neglected play van was under attack.  A vandal, it seems, had struck again, only this time it was my play van that was the sole target.  And the sad part of the whole story is that the attack had been going on for weeks under my very eyes.  Each time I walked past the van on my way to the dumpster, I would look the van over and make sure everything was okay.  No broken windows.  No stolen items.  Only the one flat tire and a growing layer of dust.  Everything seemed just fine.  Nothing a new tire and a wash wouldn’t fix right up.

But Sunday my son and I decided it was time to open the thing up and give it a cleaning.  Maybe even get that tire fixed.  Was my subconcious preparing for a date?  Who knows.  But as much of a surprise as that would be, it couldn’t have shocked me as much as what waited for us when we opened the doors of the van and were faced with the work of the two-month vandal.

My play van has been attacked by a mouse!

Little holes in leather seats.  Huge piles of seat foam, shredded and dropped into mounds under small holes in the bottom seat cushions.  Seat belts, chewed through and dropped onto the floor as if in protest of Oregon’s mandatory seat belt laws.

I can just see me now, explaining to the officer that has pulled me over, “Really officer, I’d be wearing my seat belt . . . . but . . . ahhhh . . . a mouse ate them.”  That’s an $80.00 ticket I won’t get out of.

A pack of gum, left in the console, has been chewed.  The glove box is open, rifled through, the owner’s manual relieved of it’s binding.  And of course, there are the droppings.  Little black poops scattered here and there, the aftermath of the destruction.  But they’re not all black.  In fact, about 80% of them are pure white, which leads me to believe that there is very little food value in seat foam.  Maybe that’s why airlines will recommend using your seat cushion as a flotation device, but never suggest that it will also serve as your only food source until help arrives.

So the week begins with yet another thing.  Just one more thing to add to the list of things.  Things that must be dealt with.

My son thinks the van is now haunted by a mouse.  I, on the other hand, am just thankful that mice can’t get their paws on spray paint.  Although I must admit I’m a little curious what mouse graffiti would look like.

I’m beginning to feel like an old mime with Alzheimers.  I can’t remember to pretend to say something important, and all day long I don’t make a peep, thinking, now what’s that thing I do?.

And then it hits me - blog - that’s what it is.  That’s that thing I do.  But then I get here, and I can’t stop staring at that little blue box that wraps around the words as I type them in.  I can’t get past the notion that no matter how big my ideas might be, all of them, every single one of them, will end up trapped inside of this box.

Just look at that big head up there on top.  See what I mean.  In a box.

Is he alive?

I don’t know.

Well, do something.  Poke at him.  See if he moves.

No way.  You poke at him.

Just do it.

No.  Let’s just wait a little.  If he’s alive he’ll move.

Look!  Look!  I think he’s breathing.

I didn’t see it.

Lean in.  Feel for his breath like they do in the movies.

Are you sure.

Yea.  Do it.

I don’t feel anything.

You gotta get in closer.

Okay, if you really think . . .  oh god!  That smells like old rotten pizza.

Then he’s still breathing, which means he’s alive.  No ghost here.  Come on.

Are you sure?

Yea, come on.  Maybe there’s some leftover pizza in the fridge.

Pizza?  After smelling that?  I’m pretty sure I’m not in the mood for pizza.

Not in the mood for pizza?  What kind of communist ghost hunter are you anyway?

Night ended and morning began with a technicolor dream where small things like puppies and squirrels went wild, and inanimate objects came to life with the desire to kill.  The first to attack was the largest, starting off as a huge german shepherd / wolf dog mix, but ending up as a crazed woman with gnashing teeth and a machete.  With son in tow, I ran as far as I could before turning to fight off the inevitable attack.  My only weapon -  a small jackknife I had in my pocket.  I killed the dog / wolf, only to discover after the act that it was really the woman.  I got up, took my son by the hand and began walking away, covered in blood.  People all around just sat and stared, like they couldn’t believe what they’d just seen.  No one said a word.

But then it began to progress.  First it was other animals.  Small dogs, cats, wild birds - they all began to snarl and become vicious.  And then other things began to come to life.  Things that shouldn’t, like balloons and pictures on the wall and stacks of paper.  The two of us ran, turning and fighting when there was no other choice.  Everything that attacked was small, but dangerous enough to inflict serious injury if ignored.  It was the sheer numbers of these things that was overwhelming.  They were everywhere.  It was as if everything ever created was somehow coming to life.  You could even hear it happening, as the objects sizzled and popped just before coming to life.  Everyone was screaming and running and being overtaken all around us.  As we passed through one building, I could see that it was a pre-school classroom.  A giant snake, one of those made out of colored, construction paper rings, had come to life and was slithering around the room, covering at least two, maybe three walls.  I stopped to cut off the head, releasing some children that were being squeezed in its coils.

We ran out the door . . .

Wait a second, did you show up expecting replies to your comments, only to find my own yesterday manifesting itself as sheer madness?  Oh.  So sorry.  But that’s later today.  Once I get rolling.

But you know, the dream wasn’t all that bad.  I mean, in the dream, my back wasn’t even one bit sore.  It was nothing like real life.  Getting out of bed this morning - now that was the nightmare.

Today I must be busy.  Think of me as a phone call, placed to someone irritating, say like the IRS.  If you call them, you have to wait.  Pure and simple.  I’m kind of like that today.

Thank you for visiting Word Shadows.  Your comments are always greatly appreciated, and will be replied to in the order they were received.

A big project is nearly complete and demands one final burst of my energy.  You have to love the customer who one second asks you why things take so long, and the next asks you to walk around the garden with her and marvel at the rhododendron blooms.

Word Shadows appreciates its readers.  Please continue to hold and someone will be with you shortly.  Your hold time is approximately [in computer generated voice] six hours and fourteen minutes.

After today, things will be different.  By simple definition, today can’t be tomorrow, and that alone makes things different.  Doesn’t it?

Thank you for holding.  In order to expedite your comments, your cooperation is appreciated.  Using the alphanumeric keypad on your touchtone phone, please enter the opening chapter from Leo Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace.  If you make a mistake, simply press *9, and begin again.  Your hold time is approximately [the voice] six hours and thirteen minutes.

There is a place that is not 40 degrees and nonstop rain.

There is a place where forty phone messages are not waiting to be returned, sitting in a neat pile next to an even neater pile of unpayable bills.

There is a place where people are not always waiting for you to show up.  A place where they don’t call every other day, asking, “when will it be finished?”  A place where people are not forced to speak in a professional tone because they need their business to not shrivel and die.

There is a place where refinancing a house, and making rent, and arranging a divorce are not all daily concerns.

There is a place where people want more then just time to close their eyes and sleep.

I know where that place is, but am having trouble getting there.  It’s like looking for myself in the steamed over bathroom mirror.  I’m there, but I’m not.

Imaginary Keith still lives here.  It’s a fact.  And I’m as curious as everyone as to why he hasn’t been talking.  Could it be his dreams?  Can dreams have the power to silence? 

This morning I sat on the edge of the bed, watching my friend as he dreamt about hitting someone on the head with what looked like a bowling pin.  The sound of the pin connecting solidly with the stranger’s head made me wince.  But whoever it was he was hitting just kept coming on strong, and it was then that I saw that Imaginary Keith was trying to protect someone.  He was giving it his best, swinging away with that bowling pin, and as I looked closer, I could see Imaginary Keith cringe each time the pin made contact.  My friend has never been much of a fighter.

Eventually Imaginary Keith just grabbed the hand of the mysterious someone (a woman at this point) and took off running, dropping the bowling pin so he can concentrate on both escaping and some serious mathematical computations that he has begun to perform in his head.  Just what are the odds that they will escape, he thinks.  And what are the odds that the woman would actually have been attacked?  As they race through the streets, dodging people and jumping in and out of buildings, Imaginary Keith does the math.  He arrives at an answer just as the two of them jump a second story balcony rail and fall into a grassy area.

.25%, he thinks.  Not even a 1% chance that this will end badly.  Why are they running?  Why was he hitting someone on the head?

Imaginary Keith stops dreaming after that.  My friend may dream randomly, but he usually wakes like clockwork.  It’s 6:00 a.m.

“Keith?  Was I dreaming?”

“Yes you were Imaginary Keith.  You were on the run.”

“I can barely remember.  Did I get away?”

“You didn’t have to.  There was nothing to run from in the first place.”

“But I think I was scared.  I can still feel it.”

“Yes.  But it’ll pass.”

“Keith?”

“Yes?”

“I wish she wasn’t dead.”

When I picked up the phone the other night and reached back across twenty five years of silence, I had no idea what waited for me on the other end.  Time moves so slowly we cannot see ourselves growing grey, yet passes so quickly that the transformation is almost sudden.  It is one of the paradoxes that makes time such a mystery, and one of the reasons that life can feel like a dream.  I sometimes think it is my own mind, an uncrossable bridge, that spans the gap of this paradox.  That it is only in thinking that we lose sight of understanding.  In a dream, time is meaningless, and it is only after we awake that things become confusing and we find ourselves trapped on one side of the paradox.

“Keith, do you think it was an accident?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“She was too smart.  I think she knew what she was doing.”

“I know.”

I just wish I could have seen her.  I had something I always wanted to tell her.”

“I know.”

A list was made of the people who I might have called that night.  The night I began poking at things with sticks.  It was a good list, made by a friend, that somehow added to the mystery and the fun.  Life, let’s admit it, is a guessing game.  Everything from mindless entertainment to higher education revolves around the concept of learning or relearning something hidden from us.  Babies play peek-a-boo at the same moment that scientists try to unravel the universe, but take away time and they are surprisingly the same game, a way to lose ourselves in the excitement and complexity of discovery.

“Imaginary Keith, what would you have said to her?  It’s been so long.”

“I know.  But I always thought that the moment I saw her I would know exactly what to say and how to say it.  That it would all come to me when we were face to face.  I don’t know.  I think I wanted to apologize to her for being the way I was back then.”

“Oh.”

“But I don’t know what I would have said.  How does one even begin to apologize for being a boy?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t think you have to.”

“You don’t have to.  But maybe sometimes you should.”

If I ever decide to attend a high school reunion, it would be to visit with three people.  In my mind, the others might only be a distraction.  Everyone except the three seem to have had little meaning to my life, and it is hard to imagine how this could have changed in twenty five years.  Maybe I am wrong.  But of all the people in my class there were three who did have meaning.  Three who had an enduring impact.  Cindy S. and Scott W., both of whose names made it to the list, and another girl, Valerie, whose name did not. 

Funny, almost, that it is Valerie’s name that was left off of the list.  Valerie - the girl who returned to high school after leaving early and attending college for a time.  The girl who seemed to pass quietly through life, would become valedictorian, and who I would date for a time my senior year.  The same girl who once told me to stop the car in the middle of a desolate, backwoods road, so that she could push back against her rigid, moral Church of Christ upbringing.  So in the dim moonlight, on a small bridge above an even smaller creek, the two of us drew close and slowly danced.  An innocent but important act in my mind, a sin in hers.

“What was she thinking about as we danced that night?  Do you think she remembered it, Keith?”

“I’m sure she did.”

“For so long I was always sure it meant more to her, that dance in the moonlight.”

“I know.”

“But now that she’s gone, I’m not so sure anymore.  Now I’m the one left remembering.  I’m the one left to wonder.”

As I listened to the news of Valerie, and heard the story told as Valerie’s own mother had told it, I heard a story of sadness and mistake.  A woman who ended up, somehow, as a person who drank too much.  A woman who somehow made the mistake of drinking so much that she accidentally falls asleep in her car, parked in the garage with the motor running, before she has a chance to open the garage door.  But those are the mother’s words, repeated to me by yet another.  Words that seem to only say that there is no way for a mother to be able to understand what has happened to her only daughter.

But as I listened, I could only wonder.  How could she do it?  What turns had her life taken that led to that garage, where she sat looking for the strength to end?  As I listened, I couldn’t help but think that Valerie passed from life in exactly the same way I remembered her living it, dying so quietly that twenty five years would pass before I would hear the sound.

I have no idea what it is or where it came from, but it looks like giving up coffee makes me the stuff lead stories are made of.  Or so The World Star Gazette would have us believe.

In other news:  my blog entries are popping up all over the place on surrounding community Co-op bulletin boards.  Farmers throughout the county seem to embrace my philosophical moodiness.  Many of my entries have been translated in Spanish, and the migrant population, beginning to swell with the spring’s warmer weather, have embraced me as their new Cesar Chavez.

And all because I gave up drinking coffee fourteen days ago.  Who could imagine such a thing.

If someone could read your thoughts, would you be frightened?  If they knew you inside and out, would you think of them as a soul mate?

And does this mean that we refer to half-assed telepathic ability as love, but full-fledged telepathic ability as scary and just plain freaky?

Does this bother anyone other then me?

And I wonder how two telepathic people would argue.  Would any of us “normal” people even know, or would we just think it was a stare contest?

I’m wondering what percentage of human behavior is a direct result of restlessness.  Randy is correct in thinking that I will poke and prod until my restlessness is pacified.  But pacified?  Is that even possible?  I’m full of theory, ask anyone who knows me, and I will tell you that pacification is not possible.  I didn’t invent poking with sticks, I’m just following human nature.

Restlessness.  Poke.  Restlessness.  Poke.  Restlessness.  Poke.  An endless cycle.  Everything else is just make-believe to dress life up pretty.

One well-meaning reader asks if I’ve tried drinking tea.  A logical suggestion, but one I respectfully decline.  You see, giving up coffee for the moment has nothing to do with the twitching eye side-effects of caffeine.  But it does have something to do with control.  I hate physical control.  I don’t like the idea of one thing having power over another.  And let’s admit it, caffeine has that power.  However small and insignificant that power to control may be, it exists, and once in awhile I find the need to slip from its grasp. 

But slip away from not just the controlling power of caffeine, but the controlling power of repetition.  I recently mentioned the idea of coffee filling a need for ritual.  Only an offhand thought, but one that I began to think could use some further contemplation.  Not because of coffee.  This isn’t about coffee.  This is about our lives and how we move through them. 

Think about all of our rituals and the roles they play in our lives.  Scrape away the many layers of ritual and think about what would be left.  Surely something.  Humans are more then ideas, aren’t we?  Shouldn’t we exist outside of our definition.  Shouldn’t we be able to visit some sort of base level of existence void of the rituals that our minds have created?  Rituals that we so carefully define ourselves with? 

Is there something peaceful at our core?  Or just more of the restlessness, poke cycle?

You know I just make this shit up as I go along, don’t you?
Restlessness.  Poke.  It translates here as: Think.  Type.  Think.  Type.

Someone else thought I should look into the idea that this energy I talk about existed all along, and that it didn’t appear because of no coffee in my life.  That it was the energy itself that said stop, and that perhaps something transpired just days before I made the decision to stop drinking coffee, and that this event was the thing that triggered this pre-existent energy that set everything in motion.

That was a mouthful

Of course.  I couldn’t agree more.  Something did happen.  But not something just days before, but something years before.  My whole lifetime before.  Aren’t all of the decisions we make based on a whole lifetime of experience?  Nothing ever happens one day that doesn’t directly reflect back to the day before it.  Everything is linked.

But finally, getting back to Randy, and his thoughts on my poking around in the past.  Randy is a man of history, and does have an advantage when it comes to reading between the lines of my last post.  He knows much of my history and has offered a list of the people I might have called the other night.

Do you see how everyone is restless to know?  Poking around.  Looking for answers.  Even a man who already knows the answers is curious.

I offer his guesses, along with the briefest of explanations of who these people are.

1. Scott W : Scott was a high school friend and college roommate.  He disappeared in college the very moment he got married.

2. Loren F : Loren was a man I worked for in high school, who for some reason, had a big influence on some of my own thinking.

3. Cindy S : Cindy was the girl who stole my heart in high school.

4. Cowboy Keith : Cowboy Keith was the boy that stole Cindy’s heart in high school.

5. Cecil : Cecil is much harder to explain.  He stole the heart of a different Cindy, who in return, both stole and broke the heart of an even different Keith.  Cecil wore very thick glasses.

And as much of a historian as my friend Randy is, there are a couple of names that he might have added to his list had he known about them.

6.  Carl V : Carl was a good boy of German heritage, living in Iowa in a depression-era built farm house with seven foot ceilings and six foot doorways.  Carl and I once thought we would set the world record for drinking water in a twenty four hour period.

7. Fred M : Fred hung out with Carl and me, and was perhaps my best friend early in life.  He married his high school sweetheart, is still married to her, and began sending me a photo-Christmas cards about four years ago.

For the record, all of the above is true, as well as the following.

One of the people from the above list is now dead.

Twelve days ago I stopped drinking coffee, knowing that a terrible headache was just hours away.  And once the headache set in, I knew that it would last for days, accompanied by an ever increasing need to sleep.  An insatiable desire to sleep.

But about three days ago the headache finally began to fade, along with the need to sleep.  In fact, it seems like suddenly I hardly need any sleep at all.  Five hours suddenly seems more then enough.  Life is different without a coffee cup in my hand.  I’m constantly aware that something is missing.  I find the need to hold onto something.

Is that what coffee does?  Fill a need for ritual?

So what do people do when they stop drinking coffee?  I don’t know about other people, but I have begun poking at things with sticks.  The more awake I become, the more I want to poke.  I think I’m becoming more curious, if that is even possible.  I think I’m planning on going places that I’ve never been.  I think I’m going to stir things up a bit.

Last night I picked up the phone and made a call.  This is the kind of stick poking that I’m talking about.  Suddenly doing things that I have only thought about for years and years.  Passing back through time without a care in the world.  Not worrying about what it means.  No thought of reason.  No coffee cup in my hand.

I called someone I had not spoken to in twenty five years and the call was easy.  I reached back into my life with that old stick and gave the cage a good rattle.  It felt good.  Free.  I talked a little and listened a little.  I learned things I could not have learned from anyone else.  I found out things that I would never have imagined, and I suddenly knew why I had thought certain things at certain times.  Time seemed confirmed somehow, both good and bad, as the death of some were given to me right along with the rediscovery of others.

The stick still seems alive in my hands, like I am still shaking.  But it is all on the inside.  I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about it, and when I did, my dreams would twist around until I was thinking about it all over again.

I have poked at things with sticks and now I cannot sleep.  I think that if I keep poking I will somehow turn back into myself, just like a dream, all over again.

In my attic lie two shotguns.  I can close my eyes and see the rust slowly forming along their barrels and triggers and levers.  Without climbing the ladder, I know that they are like everything else in my life right now.  Neglected but not forgotten.  Things in need of attention.  I have no need to see them to know that a layer of dust covers their stocks, and that the grain of the wood, worn smooth beneath my grandfather’s hands and the feel of his cheek more then seventy years ago, now grows faint and disappears.

Would he have seen the irony of this?  When I see his grave, will my thoughts travel up to that attic, even though my head stares at the ground?

There are other things in my life that are neglected.  Reminders of things that I should do, but don’t.  Reminders that life will always separate and leave us with only memories.  Leave us alone with memories that sit in our heads and gather dust like bits of history sitting in an attic.  I can close my eyes and think of the times that I held the shotguns throughout my life.  In one moment I can see myself silently struggling to follow my grandpa through fresh snow under a canopy of leafless birch.  Thirty years later and I can still hear the silence of those woods, the only sound the crunch of boots against snow, as one small boy struggled hard to match the stride of the much larger man so that his feet might fall into the prints left in the snow ahead of him.

Did he know that it would take thirty years for the silence of those woods to resonate into something different?  Did he even know that he made no concessions for my small steps?  It has taken me thirty years to begin wondering whose steps he silently followed through those woods?

I have begun to think that any man can withdraw into his own mind.  I have begun to think that memory both saves us and kills us, all in the same moment, without our even knowing it.  Connecting us while it separates.  Comforting us while it hurts.

I wonder how some people can stay with the same job for so long without going crazy.

For fifteen years now, I’ve done the same job, and crazy now has a better office then me.  Fifteen years that seem like forever.

And the people I meet, most of them very nice and very pleasant, always want the same thing.  They call me to their home and expect me to convince them of what they want.  Sometimes they have ideas, but they are always cloudy.  I am there for clarity.  I am given the pleasure of trying to read their minds.  I am there to settle their disputes.  A contractor is nothing more then a diplomat and therapist and mind reader all rolled into one.

Who would ever believe that landscapes would cause so much tension between husbands and wives?  That battles of will could be fought over the placement of something so small as a tulip bulb?

Inside of us there is a void that imagination will never fill.  There is a sound so quiet, buried so deep, that it can only be heard by a handful of people.  Few, if any, will ever listen, and of those, even less will feel the need to follow the sound.

Allow me to let one of mine introduce himself.

There is a certain logic to declaring war upon oneself.  Although not an action of utter necessity, I am a firm believer that such inner conflict and turmoil will ultimately lead an individual to, shall I say, climb the heights of a mountain in order to reach an enlightened apex called understanding. Whatever it is that brings one to satisfactory conclusions, it’s safe to say that an amount of struggle does take place. In the immortal words of Friedrich Nietzsche, “What does not kill us only makes us stronger”.

And it is in this context that I must pay homage to this tidbit of unequivocal truth. I must confess that a war rages within as I debate with myself. I am being swept away like the spirits of March. Shall I enter Keith’s “new” website like a lamb or a lion?  I know that the lamb would appease our pastoral friends. But there’s something undeniably righteous about “being a lion”. Maybe it’s “pride”. Maybe it’s “king”. Sounds reasonable. For those who know absolutely nothing about me, I WAS the homecoming king of Dawson (my hometown in Minnesota) for a day.

Or maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe it’s all in the lion that I do not possess. I am, by profession, an instructor. Image my desire in possessing a thunderous roar so that my voice might resonate throughout the classroom. Terror has a way of getting ones attention. Or better yet, how about a pair of sharp retractable claws?!  Imagine my unabated power!!  George Bush, strolling through the sands of Iraq, crushing the skulls of earth’s scourging infidels, destroying all that was God’s creation. I am Randy, and “I approve of this message”. Pomp. Ardor. Horseshit. 

But who am I trying to kid. I am nothing more than a middle aged lamb. My bleat is weak and my hooves are worn, chipped from endlessly writing instructions and assignments upon an equally old chalkboard, amounting to nothing more than a reflection of what I am becoming. It’s all futile and meaningless. I have been left behind, just as the advent of March’s brief foray with spring has already succumbed to the turbulence of April. It is a time that March will never know. I wonder if she really cares. I don’t.

I am Randy. I prefer to be known as Keith’s good friend.

Still busy days here in the west.  Full days, where I limp around like a Festus Haggen wannabe because of a sciatica nerve that is driving me crazy.  You know the nerve - that big one that makes its move by literally being a pain in the ass.  And you know Festus, even if you think you don’t. - that no-account hillbilly deputy that follows Matt Dillion around like a loyal pup on Gunsmoke.  I know, no one watches Gunsmoke anymore, but they should.  James Arness played a tough but fair lawman, which I contribute to the babysitting he received at the hands of my very own Grandma.  I kid you not.  Grandma Viola, a tough and fair Norwegian woman herself, enduring the hardships of early twentieth century rural Minnesota life, her then young hand gently guiding a then even younger man.

I’d like to say there’s more to the story, which I’m sure there is.  But I don’t know it.  But someday, when there’s more time, I’ll at least imagine it.

There is also rumor that one of my oldest friends has finally found his way to these words.  We both spent time growing up in Minnesota, where we followed each other around loyally like Matt Dillion and Festus.  I’m not sure who was who.  I think we took turns. 

But an email this morning clearly stated that he has something to say.  Something that he thought should move straight onto these pages, with no editing, for everyone to see.  Naturally, in true Gunsmoke style, I agreed.  It’s called friendship and playing nicely.  If it was 1928 and we were being babysat by my Grandma, she would nod approvingly and hand us a freshly baked cookie.  Or maybe she would make us muck out the barn, I don’t know.  But something character building, I’m sure.

What I’m not sure about is what my friend, the mystery guest writer, will have to say.

It would appear I am much too busy for clear reflection.  But even busy people get hungry, so close your eyes and imagine me standing in the meat aisle of the local grocery store, face to face with a shelf of buffalo meat.  A sale: $5.49 per pound, wrapped up nicely in roughly one pound packages, which makes me think that this one buffalo would have served the entire population of almost every small town I ever lived in growing up.  This one buffalo would have made an entire week of lunches at every small little high school I ever attended.

It seems like one buffalo would fill a big void in anyone’s life.

But I’m not eating buffalo tonight.  I’m waiting for an Indian to shoot one and then hand me the heart so I can take a big bite and then pass it around with a bunch of new found friends.  You know, just like Kevin Costner did with the Indians in that movie where he danced around in the prairie all by himself.  Or maybe he danced with the Indians.  Or was it coyotes?  Oh yea, wolves.  Dances With Wolves. 

Well, I’m waiting for that kind of moment to eat buffalo.  A moment that will stand out.

And I already know that I don’t apply this same logic to the other kinds of animals I eat, so there is no need to brow beat me.  Just remember that life is filled with flawed logic, and that mine is no exception.