next part: "identity" or "how to not be beige"

The next morning was D-Day. Rising far too early for a far too mediocre cup of coffee, I stared glumly at my bowl of cereal while my parents discussed that day’s agenda. Well, my father said, I figured we’d get over there around 11 and hang out for a bit. Come back around 4 to rest and take some pain meds, and then go back out around 6 for dinner with them. Sound good?

I was staring at my frosted mini wheats, pushing them down into the milk with my plastic spoon, seeing how long it would take until they quit bobbing back up and became so full of milk that they just sank to the bottom. My mother nudged me with her elbow. Savannah, she said, stop playing with your food. Your dad is asking you a question.

Yeah, I mumbled, sounds great.

The drive over was rather tense. No one spoke, and I was trying to fill the void with a college radio station I found from the UNC campus. It was mainly noise, that avant-garde shit that I felt like I would never be cool enough to enjoy legitimately, but I had to admit that the ambient, chromatic scales and unconventional 7/5 beats did provide temporary escape from the fact that I was about to spend several hours of my life with a man who I wanted nothing to do with.

We pulled up to the house in the rental car, hearing the gravel crack and crunch violently beneath it like popcorn in a defunct microwave. Woken from my brief nap, I was immediately inundated with the collection of red cars in my grandfather’s driveway. There was an SUV, a Cadillac, and some old 1960’s convertible. It idn’t a real car, I remember him saying once, unless it’s red. Bright, fiery red. Mmhm.

My mother turned back to me this time as she unbuckled her seatbelt. Savannah, she said, this man is paying for your college. You’re going to be nice, and you’re going to talk to him. We see him maybe once a year.

Where is the Advil? was all I could muster.

She handed me two berry colored pills. Here, she said, take them and then smile.

And smile I did, at least at the beginning. Susan barreled through the door first like a bull running through the streets of Pamplona. Engulfing my face in her swollen breasts that hung low like the old, tumorous ears of a basset hound, I smelled her musky, mothball scent and thought of Grandpa Bill's underwear drawer. She pulled away several moments too late, and stared at me with her shrunken grey eyes. My, my, she said, you just get prettier and prettier every time I see you.

As do you! I lied. I smiled and entered the house. That kind of smile, as I know my father would have said, was called a ‘shit-eating’ grin.

It had been remodeled since the last time I had seen it. There was new, beige carpet and freshly painted beige walls. Packages of curtains called "American Freedom" sat stacked nearly four feet high on one of the floral upholstered couches. Bill and I have been doin’ some remodelin’ as of late, as y’all can tell, Susan said.

Bill was still nowhere to be found. My parents and I, without much of anywhere to sit, stood in the kitchen as Susan discussed her choice in curtain rods. She chose the ones with the curly ends because they looked like the letter ‘C,’ just like the first letter of my grandfather’s last name! she squealed. A song called ‘Come to Jesus’ was playing on the radio. I found myself wondering what I was being punished for.

Finally (and I never thought I would associate my grandfather’s presence with that word), Grandpa Bill emerged from the back hall. Well there’s the big guy, Susan said, cupping her hands to her jowly cheeks. Bill, Bee-yull! Over here, everyone’s so excited to see you.

I looked to my father, standing reticent. His hazel eyes were revealing nothing. Surely there had to be something to reveal, though. My mother was standing, arms crossed and donning a similar shit-eating grin as mine.

Grandpa Bill seemed a lot older than I remembered. Which made sense, given that I hadn’t seen him since I graduated high school three years ago. He walked slowly, his bald and pocked head nearly skimming the ceiling. In some respects, I felt as if I were bearing witness to some kind of brontosaurus emerging from the gates of Jurassic Park.

Nothing in his clothing appearance had changed, however. He wore Bermuda shorts year round and a Members Only sports jacket to counteract the cold. Non-matching Hawaiian shirts were always tucked into his shorts, and his geriatric Velcro shoes were made only marginally less pathetic with the white tube socks that hung low on his skinny ankles like a windsock in the dog days of summer. I had inherited those ankles. There were band-aids all up and down his scraggy legs from, as he would later tell us, the cancerous moles that had been removed rather recently at the dermatologist’s.

Well now, Bill said, look who we got us he-yuh. Miss P-Pam and Savannah, and young Mistuh Cats. (Bill always called my father ‘Cats,’ even though his name was identical to Bill’s. My father never knew why he had been given that feline nickname and for that matter never cared to ask, given that Bill rivaled Strom Thurmond in his lengthy locution and a nearly identical political ideology.)

Hey Dad, my father struggled, raising his arms mechanically toward his own father. I watched him lean in slightly but not too much, as if his limbs were made of balsa wood and would snap if he put too much pressure on them. How ya been?

My turn was next. I trudged slowly forward to this old man and was reminded of the days when I was little and didn’t like to eat vegetables, and how I had to close my eyes and hold my nose when consuming a single, cooked carrot. The mere thought of them made my insides churn. The act of greeting my grandfather wasn’t much different. Grandpa Bill, I cooed, it’s so great to see you.

I pulled away as soon as I deemed socially acceptable and watched as my mother went in for hers. She was the most patient of the three of us, even though my grandfather still referred to her as Mrs. Cox despite the fact that my parents had been divorced for over ten years and that she had never taken my father’s name to begin with.

Susan decided to show us around the house to see all of the work that they’d put into it. New stainless steel sinks in the kitchen, new granite counters. A new country-Christian song was playing on the radio as my eyes fixated on a large eyesore in the corner: two TVs, stacked one on top of the other. Bill had already planted himself in his recliner and was watching Nascar. Come on, y’all, Susan called, I wanna show y’all the rest of the house. Billy, I wanna show you your old room!

We made our way through the narrow hallway where there was nary a family photo but rather a multitude of framed pictures of Ronald Reagan and various quotes of his. A piece of the Berlin Wall here, an American flag there. But no family. My father twisted the doorknob to his old room. It’s a lot smaller than I remember, he said.

Unfortunately, he could barely open the door all the way before it hit a queen size mattress covered completely with rifles. My father’s childhood wallpaper was almost completely stripped from the room, save for a tiny piece in the top corner of the room. Well, Susan giggled, we’ve kind of turned your room into a storage room, Billy. And right now, it’s holdin’ all of your daddy’s guns. Aren’t they pretty?

I felt like I was in some kind of David Lynch film. I remembered the time after Grandpa Bill had a stroke and there was yet another death scare, so the three of us made a trek to North Carolina. When checking him in from the hospital into his nursing home, we had to unpack his things. While doing so, we discovered three loaded shotguns, a 12-pack of Trojans, KY Jelly, and cologne that was allegedly an aphrodisiac. I was twelve at the time and mistook the tube of lubricant for toothpaste. Thank God my mother swiped it from me before I pulled out my travel brush to remove the cheese gunk that had accumulated in my mouth after a stress snack of Cheeto’s Puffs. The relationship between a man and his penis is one I will never understand.

Anyway, Susan and my mother continued on the rest of the tour of the house, but I remained in the bedroom with my father for a few moments longer. You know, he said, I don’t recognize any of this anymore. It’s like I’ve never even lived here. I always wondered what Mom would have done with the place when I moved out, but I don’t think she would have done this.

I don’t think most people would have done this, I said. I watched my father as his eyes scanned the shelves, just looking for something he knew. After a few moments, I spotted something shining in the distance beneath a holster and an unopened ceiling fan box. Hey, is that your old toy zeppelin hiding up on the shelf? I asked. I climbed on the bed and on top of the guns and pulled it down for my father to see.

Well I’ll be damned, he said, examining it. It sure is.

I smiled. We should probably continue on this lovely tour, don’t you think?

He rolled his eyes. If we must, he said.

I think they’re in Bill and Susan’s bedroom now. I wrinkled my nose. Susan’s probably talking about the beige garters she wears to entice Bill at night.

Somehow, Savannah, my father stated, I don’t think they’re doing much of that.

Why’s that? I asked.

Well, Dad began, besides the fact that he now rivals trilobites in age and sediment composition, right before my mom died, she kind of gave up on those don’t-kiss-and-tell rules she had set in her mind for so many years and started revealing some about her and Dad’s relationship. And that's when I learned that maybe it wasn’t so much that she didn’t kiss and tell, but that there just wasn’t that much to tell. She and Dad would have sex twice a year, once during the holidays and once on his birthday. Merry fuckin' Christmas, right?

That’s it?

Well, yeah, he said. They just didn’t have anything to do with each other. It was probably a mutual thing, but hell if I know. And if you can’t sleep together, what the hell can you do together, you know?

My father held his zeppelin for a few moments more before placing it back on the gun blanket. Come on, Scamp, he said. Let’s go see this love shack.

beginnings of: "identity," or "how to not be beige"

Somewhat recently, my family made a trip to North Carolina to pay a visit to my dad’s side of the family. When I was younger, I never really knew that much about them. It was always my mother’s side of the family we had Thanksgiving dinner with, always my mother’s side of the family we would call first when I received all A’s on my report card, and always my mother’s side of the family who I thought of first when it came that time for my mother to chide me about purchasing cards for my grandparents on Mother’s and Father’s day. Nezzie and Bopper (the names I gave to my mother’s parents) were all I knew and all I needed throughout my childhood, and I was perfectly content without knowing much about fifty-percent of the blood that streamed through mine.

I did, however, remember Aunt Kate, my great-grandmother on my father’s side. I remembered her withered bow legs, the mint green, polka-dotted dress she would wear every time the few instances we would come for a visit, and how she called the refrigerator an icebox. She pronounced it ahs-bawx. I remembered the craft jewels she would glue onto her bobby pins after suppertime, and I remembered how in that icebox there was always a round of cheddar cheese that was larger than an overdue infant. 

I didn’t remember my grandmother at all, though. My dad’s mother, Lurli, had died of stomach cancer when I was barely two years old, and when shown pictures of me sitting on her lap years later, I had to ask my father who that old, sad looking woman was. Well Savannah, he would say after a few moments, that’s your grandmother. She was my mother. I remember him taking the picture soon after and tucking it into his shirt pocket, messing up my hair with his hand and then walking out of the room. Only now do I realize how my words must have affected him.

My grandfather may as well have been dead to both me and my father, too. When he would come to Florida for visits when I was a little girl, he would speak of three things: cloud formations, niggers, and his Honda Goldwing. He didn’t know how to interact around me, nor I around him, and I grew to fear looking him in the eye. I referred to him meekly as Grandpa Bill when forced to address him by name. My father called him Dad, but each time that simple word escaped his mouth it seemed as if it were laced with acid. Years later, my dad would tell me that he called his father Bill for the majority of his childhood. Never Dad. He couldn’t tell me why.

Anyway, Grandpa Bill is a tall man of around 6’’5 with watery blue eyes and pocks on his head from where he once had hair transplants. Bill enjoys being a Democrat, but only because they did not want to free the slaves. Since Lurli died, he has dated many ‘bitties,’ including her cousin, Viva. His current girlfriend is called Susan, although he refers to her as Lil’ Susie. They collect copper pennies together, and she thinks that cumulonimbus clouds are just the cat’s pajamas. They look like those extra stuffed marshmallows you can buy at Harris Teeter, she’s told me. Susan is a retired nurse who enjoys artificial flowers and the color beige. Susan is also two years younger than my father. Her hair is dishwater blonde with dark roots. She has a porcine face and wears metallic fuschia lipstick that runs off into the cracks of her lips like a faulty pipeline. Her breasts are the size of size-12 bowling balls, and they must weigh close to the same considering their tendency to drag to the floor. Once, when describing a Hispanic driving a motorcycle very fast and nearly causing her to veer off the road, Susan used the words mexi and crotch rocket in the same sentence. I hate Lil’ Susie.

Knowing that these two were in store for me, I was not greeting the decreasing mileage on the highway signs with a grin. Neither was my father. Why are we even going then, I muttered into my magazine, if you hate them?

From the front seat, he turned his head toward mine. Look, Savannah, he said, you’ve got to see your grandfather. He’s not been doing so well lately.

I rolled my eyes and continued reading. They were playing the death card, which is one of only tricks an old person can turn toward the end. I had to comply or else I was condemned to Hell. And I couldn’t go there because that would mean an eternity of Bill and Susan discussing coins and clouds. 

So I complied. I never much respected the man, though, especially when I learned from my mother all the things he had done in his younger days. He never spoke to Lurli, never once played a game of catch with my father in the yard, and although he was a pilot earning a high income, he would never support Lurli financially. And so, as a Sunday school teacher, she had to buy her car completely on her own. My dad told me a story about how once he had driven from Florida to North Carolina to visit him for Thanksgiving dinner, and when he arrived after his 13-hour drive, Bill had already eaten. He suggested instead that the two make a quick trip to the gas station to pick up ham sandwiches and some chips. They were out of ham. And so my father spent his Thanksgiving in a Speedway, chowing down on a pre-packaged cheese sandwich and Ruffles. 

My heart sank when the highway signs began to include Raleigh. That was where Bill and Susan lived. Apparently my displeasure had a sound, because moments later my father told me not to worry, my slow and painful death would not be coming today, but rather tomorrow. Today, he said, we were going to visit the country, the place where he spent many summers of his childhood. We were going to Rolesville.

Initially, my dad couldn’t get over all of the subdivisions with faux-rustic names that had sprouted like wild mushrooms over the past forty years, replacing the hills and farms with identical, 4-bedroom 2-bath homes. How sad, he said, that this kind of shit’s made its way here, too. I thought it would just stay in Florida.

It’s all over the place in Kentucky, too, my mother chimed. You just can’t escape it anymore.

Growing up a generation or two after my parents, I couldn’t really understand that wistful longing for a yesteryear filled with fields of wheat, or since we were in North Carolina, fields of tobacco. True, suburban sprawl did spread like a disease and was a homogenizing factor that made place hard to discern, but the majority of the fields they replaced, in Kentucky, at least, had been out of commission for years, harvesting more weeds than they did product. Different kinds of weeds to replace older ones, I guess.

Once we drove through the identical strip malls and shopping centers that appeared to be the heart of Rolesvillian culture, we began to see more signs of gentle pasture that my parents seemed to love. The clouds seemed to hang low in the sky, as if suspended by an invisible string that God himself did hold. 

The innumerable crosses and Jesus Saves! billboards only confirmed this thought. The six-lane super pass had now narrowed down to two, and farm fields were beginning to replace the once-bountiful drug stores and discount shoe outlets. We drove for some time longer, and all the while you could see mules so skinny that you could mistake their sides for xylophones, just staring blankly at the few passing cars. It was sad, watching them watch a dilapidated road and all the cars that passed as if it were a Sunday feature.

But before I knew it, the car stopped. We’re here, Dad said.

Aunt Kate’s house had burned down a few years ago, he told us. The people who moved in after her death ran a meth lab there and well, accidents happen. All that remained were a few, charred cement porch steps that led to nothing. It was hot outside and I was sweating like a menopausal woman in a sweatshop. Oh my, I said, this is where Aunt Kate used to live. Can we go now?

He pretended not to hear me and my mother responded forlornly, shaking her head at me. This is important to your father, now shut up and deal is what her eyes said.

I watched my father as he continued on the path beyond where the house once stood. Above, there was a kettle of vultures circling and I wondered what the hell they had found to scavenge all the way out here. He stopped in front of a small pond. And I, in turn, stopped a few feet behind him and listened. 

Wow, I heard him mutter, it still looks the same. I watched my father closely as he put his hand to his forehead, the other raised to his side. He stood there for a few moments until he took a stone from the ground, examined and dusted it off, and then tossed it into the water. It made an eerie plop sound that made the hair on my arms stand up. My father watched the pebble as it hit the water, standing there in silence until it was no longer visible among those cattail-filled depths.

(I later asked my mother why the he spent so much time at such an indiscriminate pond, only for her to tell me that this pond was where my father’s cousin, Michael, had died when he was thirteen. One hot summer day, Michael dived into the water and hit a rock smack on his head and drowned. One second he was flying like a bird, my mother said, the next he was dead. Apparently my father had been behind him, eagerly awaiting his turn to jump.)

My father left the pond relatively quickly after watching the stone sink to the bottom and then called my name. Scamp, he said, come over here. I wanna show you something. Over the years, I had grown weary of whenever my father would say this to me (especially outdoors), because it usually meant looking at a dog turd that bore a strange resemblance to Mother Theresa or watching pigeons fuck. Swallowing my breath, I meekly followed.

We continued for some length until we stood in front of this twisted and decrepit frame of a house that looked like something out of a Faulkner novel. Ivy had slowly taken over the walls of this home for what had to have been at least 100 years, and there were few remaining walls. A single shutter dangled from one of the window frames, screeching like a dying bird with the occasional gust of wind. I was afraid to go further, for with all of the weeds I couldn’t even see my own two feet, let alone the venomous snakes that were bound to be lurking below. What is this place, I asked, wiping sweat from my brow.

This, he said, drawing closer to the would-be door, is where you come from. This house has been part of the Hagwood family for years. No one’s lived here, obviously, but man. Isn’t it cool?

Not really, I muttered.

I heard that, he said.

I took one more look at that house, haggard and haunting, before turning around and heading back to the car. I didn’t know if I wanted this place to be where I was from.


Later that evening and back at the hotel, we all got a bit liquored up. My parents sat me down at a table far away from the bar and returned with what they thought was a real delicacy: a single beer. They eyed me, grinning, as I took my first sip from the bottle. I feigned a slight ‘this-5%-alcohol-beverage-is-just-too-much-for-these-virginal-tastebuds’ face. I’m sure that with my underage years they considered themselves ‘modern’ and ‘progressive’ parents. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that this same girl had recently fallen into a glass table and shattered it after a deadly combination of bad pop music and tequila.

There was a wedding about to be held in the atrium of the Holiday Inn where we were staying. My father, a cynical man and an even more cynical drunk, began his rant on the many joys of marriage, one being starting off in immense debt thanks to weddings. All marriages are bound to fail, he said, and it’s all the sooner with these goddamned things. ‘Hey honey,’ my dad imitated, ‘let’s take a big leap together and fall into an infinite pit of loss just so we can eat a fancy cake!’ That remark made my mother uncomfortable. She took another swig of her beer.

I couldn’t help but respond, commenting on the badly-recorded Pacabel Canon that resounded about the lobby, reverberating from the fake palms in brassy pots, and aired my disgust with all the snot nosed children smearing up the glass elevator with their boogers and grime. Par for a great wedding and life together, eh? I said. How long, I asked him, do you think it will take before the music stops and these people see each other without all the mist and veils and for the imperfect people they really are?

He stared down into his now-empty vodka sour. A year, tops, he said. He swirled the ice in the glass and then shoved it down his throat, chomping on it vigorously.

My mother stood up from the table. Well, she began, I’ll leave you two alone to talk. I looked up at her, hoping that I hadn’t offended her, and she waved her hands and smiled. And then she left. My parents had been divorced for years, I thought to myself. What did it matter anymore, anyway?

My father and I stared into our empty bottles for a while until he finally stood to order more. Now, he said, smiling, what do you really want to drink?

I ordered a screwdriver.

Once the vodka had nestled happily inside both of us, my father got to talking more about his mother. 

 Do you know, he said, that before she died she made me go coffin shopping with her?

What’s so weird about that? I asked.

Well, he began, that’s not so strange in itself, but when she started climbing into every goddamn coffin, seeing how it felt and how comfortable it was and talking about how she wanted her dress to match the bedding, I felt like I was watching her die over and over and over again. I asked Mom why she was doing that, and all she did was smile and say that I would understand someday. Well, it’s almost twenty years later, and I still don’t understand. I still don’t fucking get it and I don’t know if I ever will. He took another swig of his drink. She was an odd woman, your grandmother.

I didn’t know how to respond to that. It was clear to me that my father was a human knot when it came to love and death. I wanted to ask about his cousin, but I was scared of creating more mess in this veritable Pollock painting of a mind. So I didn’t. I wish I could have known her, I said.

He stared down into his drink. I wish you could have too, Savannah. I wish you could have, too. All she wanted was to see you go to school. She thought you were the brightest and strangest thing. She loved you, though.

After a few moments of silence, Mom called, asking where we wanted to go for dinner. Mexican, my father said. Let’s have Mexican.

the accident

The woman I hit liked to write in ALL CAPS.

It happened as I was leaving the local grocery after an unsuccessful search for a good planner, and an equally unsuccessful run-in with an ex-boyfriend. He was sporting the same red cheeks that I had grown to loathe over the brief stint of our relationship, and after seeing them I thought immediately of the day in my dorm room when I rolled to my side after thirty minutes of listening to him yap incessantly about his inclination to return once again to the Eastern Orthodox Catholic Church and leave his angst-ridden agnostic ways behind. This ninety-degree rotation was done with the naïve hope that a catnap would make him grow bored and leave. Instead, he stayed, trying to sneak his fingers one by one like grains of sand in an hourglass to my right breast. How orthodox of him.

Continuing this veritable dance of body parts, I took my turn and feigned a mid-nap jolt, straightening my legs suddenly and arching my back severely. Perhaps I was falling off a cliff in the Grand Canyon or being electrocuted. I don’t know. To me, it didn’t matter if I plummeted to my death, eventually resembling old chewing gum that rests inextricable from the pavement, I was determined to brush his sweaty fingertips off of my side. And then I remember how, despite my repeated efforts to mimic the dead, he remained behind me like a shadow and whispered I love you, Savannah to my spinal column with slightly different inflections and cadences each time, some to evoke more sincerity, and others to create a more playful tone. Either way, I wanted to hurl (preferably on him), and found it increasingly more difficult to continue this act of sleeping. The truth of the matter was that after a toxic past relationship that consisted primarily of lies and a few dollops of deception, I was merely seeking air and attention. By no means did I desire to be smothered by a blanket with a penis. And by no means did I wish to take his virginity, either, and then end things after two months when I feared complete suffocation. But what would life be without getting fucked?

Anyway, after the encounter at the soft drinks and bottled waters section, I hurried out of the store, hackles up, sans planner but with migraine. I could think only of his stupid clammy hands and the terrible sounds his lips made when he licked them after expelling the word love all over my frame like a machine gun. I needed to get home. I walked anxiously toward the parking lot, and soon found my car sitting happily between a depressing, tomato colored mini-van and some bumper stickered Volvo, eager for my fingers to grasp the wheel and be driven. Sanctuary. Clutching the dark steering wheel with my fingers, I rotated my right wrist to start the car, and then immediately afterward made the fluid motion from keys to volume control, breathing in deeply as pitches and rhythms washed over me like a tidal wave. And then I was drowning.  Air and rotten memories were sucked out of me as if each eighth note were part of a large vacuum. I sank deeper and deeper, and soon enough everything was replaced with water. Minor sevenths and thirds flooded my eardrums, and all of a sudden I was no longer in a dingy parking lot, but rather was floating in some kind of abyss. Now numb, my right foot released the brake, and I continued slowly, allowing my car to do most of the driving for me.

And then, crunch. I was catapulted from my swimming dream and hurled back to life, landing on some cigarette-butted and bottle-capped beach, sand in my nose and salt in my eyes. I smacked the volume button silent with the bottom of my palm and rushed out of my car. And there I found her, an old woman lying supine on the ground with gravel clinging to her kneecaps like leeches. Dream over.

Oh my god, I cried, rushing to her side. Are you OK?  What a stupid question. Of course she wasn’t OK. She had just been groped by my bumper and then thrust carelessly to the concrete like a sexual assault victim.

However stricken she did appear, the good thing (if that so exists) was that there weren’t any cuts on her body. Despite the gravel and the car exhaust that blanketed her waif-like frame, she seemed to be fine. I quickly gave her my hand, praying that she wouldn’t grab it only to bite it off like a piranha.

Yes, I think so, she said. She placed her liver-spotted hand in mine, and I watched them closely as her phalanges began to flex rigidly against her paper-thin skin. For a moment, I was fearful that her most severe injury would occur only when I tried to help her up.

After establishing that she was essentially unmarred, I reached into my purse and scribbled all of my contact information onto the only piece of paper I could find: a gum wrapper. I had never been in this kind of situation before. What was I to write? Insurance information, my fondest condolences, my address so she could come to my house and kill me or my dog? I’m so sorry, I said, scrawling out the final digits of my driver’s license number. So what do we do now?

The woman shook her head at me like a horse’s tail does when flies get too close to its rear. Well, she began, I feel fine but I’m calling the cops. She had a New York accent, and when she said this I could see the dark lining on her gums that resembled power lines made droopy by years of perching pigeons and dangling tennis shoes. She had eyeliner on only one of her eyes, and squinted them so harshly that they became asterisks as she handed me her information. Angry and in block letters, I found out that my victim’s name was DOROTHY REICHART and that she lived three blocks away.

Do you think the police are really necessary, I asked.

I felt more and more like a fly with every passing moment. Of course they are, she squawked. You hit me in your little sports car.

I wanted to tell her that in addition to having all of my necessary information, the fact that she was both standing and able to be rude meant that there wasn’t much work left for the police to do. But I didn’t. I didn’t say anything. Instead, Dorothy yanked out her phone and began punching the buttons as if she were Muhammed Ali and they were Sonny Liston. I couldn’t concentrate. All of a sudden, I felt another wave begin to swell from within, this time covering my body with tears and an anxiety rash. Maybe it was because the authorities were on their way, and information on a wrapper wouldn’t suffice. Maybe it was that I couldn’t escape this time, or roll over on my side and pretend to sleep. I’ll never really know. Though before I was able to realize it, the wave peaked and I was out of control, and I soon began to release snotty sobs onto my new dress. I’m so sorry, I cried. I just didn’t know what the hell I was thinking, or why I wasn’t more careful. Dorothy looked at me, bony arms now crossed, and from the corner of my eyes I could see those familiar red cheeks making their way to a nearby car. They stopped in their tracks and faced me.

And that’s when I collapsed. No longer able to breathe, I fell to the floor like a wad of paper that just missed the wastebasket. For once, I wasn’t seeking attention or sympathy. From my crumpled state, I saw the feet that belonged to the cheeks pause for a few moments and then continue on their way. And then to my horror, I saw four more wheels and the flash of red and blue lights. I heard the click of a car door, and then saw not two, but four feet rush to my side. Soon, I felt Dorothy’s tiny hands cup my shoulders, and then felt the hot, smoky breath of the cop who was now squatting and looking into my face, and asking how badly I was hurt in the accident.

Sobbing, I said that I wasn’t the one who was hurt, that I did the hurting. The shocked officer looked to Dorothy, who at this point was rubbing her hands on my back and cooing that everything would be OK. And to my even bigger surprise, I let her hands stay. The cop looked to Dorothy and asked if she was fine. She said yes, that it was just an accident and that I wasn’t going fast at all.

Have you all exchanged contact information, he asked.

Dorothy nodded, responding for both of us. Seeing that I was still heaving and making a fool of myself on the concrete, the cop lingered for a few moments more and continued to kneel by my side. Listen, he said, accidents happen. Even to cops. I remember once I was on duty and accidentally hit another vehicle. Except this one was filled with an elderly couple and they weren’t as lucky as Ms. Reichart. There were ambulances and everything. He paused, and from my now clearer eyes, I could see him wince a bit. I didn’t mean to do it, he said, but you know…after stuff like this happens, there’s only so much you can do. Perhaps venturing too close to a part of his heart he preferred to keep a little more dusty and dark than the rest, he stood abruptly and brushed off the dirt from his knees. Look, he said, my point is that everything’s gonna be OK. You both are gonna walk away from this, and everything will be fine. OK?

I nodded, propping myself up with my now mascara-covered hands. Dorothy looked at me and smiled. He’s right, you know, she said. I’m fine. I’m not hurt, and I’m fine. She grasped my hands once more with her papier-mache ones, and smiled. Look, she said, I’m gonna go get my groceries now.

And then she flew off, leaving me to watch in silence as she made her way from the accident to the store. And instead of resembling a grim smoker from the city, I saw a slight, yellow-toothed angel. Sitting in my former sanctuary again, I clasped my steering wheel and began to drive.

commentary: a church by any other name is just as sweet?

As of late I have tended to steer clear of discussing current events here, however with the recent and disgraceful behavior of Americans reacting to the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero in New York City, a fire has been lit inside me, and with each letter I type I consider it one shot at the ignorance of each American who has used this potential building as an opportunity to expel their hatred and bigotry toward those from the Middle East and those who practice the Islamic faith.

As a human, I am embarrassed. But as an American, I am even more so. Being brought up in a country that ensures me the right to practice whatever faith I choose (or to be more accurate, what faith I do not wish to choose), I have been able to embark on my own spiritual journey: beginning with an infantile understanding of Christianity and God, to rising early every Sunday and wearing pastel-colored dresses to church, to growing older and more cynical, favoring science to Jesus, and then to my current rest stop, favoring the power of the human good to the inhuman god. I had never really considered this journey as a gift, or that practicing and experimenting with different theological thoughts were uncommon in the life of an individual. However, upon boning up for my first US Constitution test in the fourth grade, I quickly learned that this right to find or forego faith is something quite uncommon (or has been, at least) in many places outside of the United States and something that I should not take for granted. This right is something that is and has been unique about the United States of America since the get-go, and arguably is the most important given its implications and place in the Bill of Rights. Why then, when persons of a particular faith desire to construct an area where they may practice their respective faith, is there such a harsh, national outcry against it?

Looking at the situation objectively, it is quite puzzling to observe this reaction. Christians want more space to worship, they build a church. Jews want more space to worship, they build a synagogue. Muslims want more space to worship, they build…nothing? It makes no sense. True, the United States is culturally Christian with its Salvation Army Santa’s congregating at the automatic doors of our superstores like moths to a flame, annoying everyone with the incessant ting of their bells, however the Establishment Clause states perhaps even more clearly than those bells that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That’s right; despite the Super Wal-Mart Santas and commonplace-called “Christmas” vacations we look forward to at the end of each year, we are by no means a Christian nation. And given the influx of immigrants who practice different faiths, Christianity’s days of cultural influence are numbered.

Whether that is good or not is not the question at hand. While it is obvious that a dying animal screams loudest before it perishes in the proverbial fire, it is necessary to examine why we are screaming and what we are screaming at, and furthermore, if there is a need to scream to begin with. There are two reasons, mainly: one being that the traditionally WASPy face of the US is getting a facelift and a tan, and two, that we happened to be attacked by several Islamic men one terrible day in September.

While the latter is something that I do not by any means wish to trivialize, it is important to realize that the men who did such a horrendous act were not acting like many other Muslims; these mean belonged to a minority sect of jihadists who interpret the Qu’ran much like a Christian fundamentalist would interpret the Bible. Suffice it to say, I wouldn’t want either of them to be given a gun. Yes, there are nasty things in the Qu’ran, but it is naïve and ignorant to think that there simply aren’t any violent passages in our gilded copies of the good ole Bible (check out Numbers 31 for a good, bloody read). Likewise, we think of those few Christians who interpret what is written literally as out of touch with the times and neglecting to shed light to the Bible’s metaphorical meaning, so why would we assume that all Muslims interpret the Qu’ran as the 9/11 terrorists? The logic just doesn’t add up, and at the end of the day, it’s safe to say that those who attacked us are no more Muslim than Timothy McVeigh was a Christian.

I understand the sensitivity toward the mosque’s potential construction site. Yes, it is close, perhaps uncomfortably so, to the place where thousands of Americans lost their lives due to the actions of a few Muslim extremists. However, one must realize that the people who did such a terrible thing were not the type of Muslim who would go to a community center Mosque. Sequestered by extremist Islamic terrorist groups at an early age, many of today’s jihadists have little to no choice in their lives and interpretation of their faith, given that violence and hatred (themes that are shared among many religions) are drilled into their heads for years. And please, do not think that there are no Christian terrorists (just read up on the history of Northern Ireland. Talk about tumultuous.). Additionally, it is important to note that on that day in September, 300 out of the over 3,000 who died were Muslim, too, and furthermore, it was not the Islamic faith that flew planes into American buildings, but rather the actions of few inspired by their own interpretation of an ancient text.

My main concern, however, is with what effect the legitimate concerns and feelings of those in New York City are having throughout the country. The Muslims that wish to build this mosque are breaking no law, but rather merely constructing something that the United States Constitution entitles them to do. That said, many Muslims throughout the country who have nothing to do with the construction of the mosque in New York City are being mercilessly persecuted by many Tea Party members, many of whom happen to be both white and Christian. There are protesters in Tennessee, for instance, who describe a planned Islamic center in Murfreesboro as "an Islamic training center" that is part of a political, not religious, movement "designed to fracture the moral and political foundation of Middle Tennessee."  Many of these people also preach to their ignorant choir of the dangers of the “Islamization of America.” They squawk of its intolerance and violence and how dangerous it would be for a religion to have a hold on a country, yet they pay no mind to the fact that Christianity has had a veritable chokehold on our nation’s culture for centuries, and all of the intolerance and violence that has been done in the name of Christianity for thousands of years.

In addition to this hypocrisy on the parts of many ignorant Americans, it is perhaps even more sickening and troubling that there are those who know better and who are manipulating the noggins of the nescient, preaching to their ignorance and igniting the figurative flame to set their bigotry ablaze.

And for what? Votes. To take back of the House and Senate, and take back of the old face of America. For example, Newt Gingrich has recently taken to saying that a mosque being built at Ground Zero is akin to a Hitler memorial being built next to Auschwitz. That’s great, Newt. Mention the Holocaust and Hitler and everyone’s scared shitless. The obvious differences between a place of worship and a memorial for an evil man are staggering and far too vast to count, and are honestly just propaganda that appeal to the mass number of uneducated citizens we have in the United States. And if we’re really going to make comparisons, a more fair one would be that building a mosque next to Ground Zero is like stationing US troops next to the many “Ground Zero’s” we have caused in the Middle East. That manipulation, implanted bigotry, and that aim and shoot attack on an individual’s own fears and ignorance is perhaps more damaging to the United States’ future as a tolerant and free nation than the terrorist attacks themselves.

The face of the United States is and has been changing for years, and in this evolution comes additions and alterations in culture, especially religion. That said, these changes are natural and nothing to fear. What I love most about being an American is that despite all of these changes, the law acts as a string to which all of these changes do tie, giving consistency, balance and freedom when things are in flux. The law has no race or religion, so don’t apply them to it. We’ve come too far as a country to revert back to familiar tactics when we’re scared of how quickly things do change. The earth is always moving, people are always being born and dying. Life happens, change happens, and there’s nothing we can do but accept it. We do, however, have the great gift of living in a nation founded upon freedom, and freedom that unifies us all because it applies to everyone. And the unfortunate day that we deny these freedoms to certain individuals marks the beginning of our demise.

glass

Watered down, it's lost its taste. I've watched it fade from red to pink to nothing but a pale memory. Tear-like sweat's built on the glass, made it hard to see what was left.

Oh, the bitter end. When that small, stubborn pool of "was" is all that remains. But it's not that bad, really, because it's just so hard to be bitter when there is simply nothing left to taste.

Clarity reveals itself at the bottom of a bottle, clinging beneath those few, ghostlike drops like a bottom feeder: sweet and bitter's ends are always the same. Nice flavor, but a slow and inevitable fade.

It's breaking down. Ice to water, water to gas. Yesterday's solutions are no more, only problems remain. And we've had those for a while.

My dear, what we've got is vinegar on ice; and I'm thirsty.

we need to be more honest with ourselves

...death happens.

Recently, my family had some sort of "welcome home" cookout for me. As the meal was dying down, my uncle, Gary, and my father were loading plates and kitchenware into Gary's car. I followed behind, carrying the remainder of the potato salad. As I approached the car, I saw the two men place the dishes into the trunk and then pause. It seemed as if they were having a "guy talk." As I drew closer, I honed in on the fact that they were discussing their fathers. A man's relationship with his father is something that I feel like I will never be able to fully understand, and something that I feel most sons and fathers never do, either. Will my father ever understand why, when he drove up from Florida to North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with his father, he ended up eating a pre-packaged sandwich and chips from Speedway? Doubtful. Will he ever understand how he's spent many birthdays without receiving so much as a simple phone call from his father or why he didn't call his father "Dad" when he was a boy, but rather "Bill?" Doubtful again. And perhaps more importantly, will he ever understand why, when his father has never been there in any sense of the term, he has such regret and such overwhelming guilt for not being the most perfect son he could be?

Unlike my father, Gary's relationship with his father seemed to be filled with more certainty and less doubt, however I say that with a shallow-at-best understanding of their unique dynamic. His family is from the country and are very humble people. But for whatever reason, it struck me as odd when, as I was placing the potato salad in the car, Gary described his father's death the way he did. "Well, Billy," he began, "my father i-was from the country...well, you see, he's just di-he's just passed away." And there it was: a grown man with children of his own, unable to say a simple word, unable to admit one of life's only guarantees.

I walked back to the house, leaving those two to discuss their Kafka-esque dilemmas. While I accept that I will never be able to understand what truly transpires between fathers and sons, I would like to know why we speak in euphemisms. Sure, they are easy to say, and for that matter, easy to hear. However, what's easiest is very rarely what's best, and if you can't handle something as easy and natural as dying, what can you handle? Euphemisms are nothing more than opiates, really. When we use them, we inhibit the sensation of truth for a few moments of numbness, a few moments of sleep. And if you'd rather feel dead than say the word "dead," then what's the point of living?

...life happens.

As I've been at home recovering from only God knows what (I blame it on bad Indian food, my mother blames it on jet-lag and recurring mono), I've been able to root around a bit more. I love looking around in my mother's room the most. You might call it snooping. When I was younger, I considered her bedside table to be a veritable treasure trove, and I always considered it a great accomplishment when I was able to decipher her handwriting in her journals. That came with consequences, though. I was 8 years old when I read of the problems that led to the divorce between my mother and father, and I was 10 years old when I learned that my mother has had an abortion. She still believes I don't know, and sometimes I like to believe that I don't know, either.

Anyway, I have always been fascinated with the way one decorates their room, and especially how it changes over the years. I've never really understood the re-arranging of furniture unless it serves a functional purpose (a chair is still something on which you sit, if it's next to a window or by a potted plant, after all), but the evolution of a room (or devolution, for that matter) over time is very telling. Not much has changed in my mother's room, she still has dried flowers in frames, a framed letter of Eleanor Roosevelt's, and the majority of her furniture is green or floral. There have been a few additions, including a piece of art I bought her in Granada, more books, more DVDs, but that's about it.

The one thing that has found feet of its own is the scale. When my mother was dieting, it rested shiny and clean on the bathroom floor. And after a few months, it began to collect dust. One day when I decided to weigh myself, I went into the bathroom and the scale was nowhere to be found. I searched her room and found it hidden under her hunter green armoir. And on this most recent examination of her room, I've found it nestled under her bed along with my dog's chewed up play things. And for whatever reason, I wanted to cry. What happened between its home in the armoir and the bed, I do not know. What I do know is that a woman's relationship with an inanimate object should not be more tumultuous than a relationship with something that actually lives. Life is too short. 

...change happens.

My friends had a welcome home party for me yesterday. I don't know if it was because I had just puked up my pathetic meal of the day moments prior, half an apple, or because the heat made me feel completely nauseated, but something was off. There was a certain element of disconnect among the guests and myself. A month's absence in the grand scheme of things is nothing, but it is quite interesting to see how relationships can change in such a short period of time. I came there, excited to talk about my stories in Spain, but upon my entrance, that excitement vanished quickly and entirely. Generally a more outspoken member of a group, I spent the majority of my time there listening and watching. They were regaling all kinds of things: parties, potentially dangerous situations that they encountered, various nights of drinking and drugs. At first, I found them to be entertaining, but as the stories continued and seemed to grow longer in duration, I lost interest. I felt out of place and in some sort of limbo. I felt like I was outside of my body, watching myself listen to a conversation, knowing what was going on but unable to respond, unable to move. Thumb-printed pictures they had taken were being shoved into my face, and all I heard were shouts of "Look how stupid _____ looks!" I stared down at my plate of food and felt like I was going to puke again.

The problem isn't with them, it's with me. Although, I sometimes wonder if it is even a problem at all. I feel as if we slap the title of "problem" onto situations that we don't like, when really they are just a quick and inevitable jab at our homeostasis. Well, my friends are changing in their own right, but unfortunately I am as well. That's the real problem with people--not that we can't change, but that we can and that we do. I've felt these changes growing in my mind for awhile now, but I guess a flight across an ocean gave them wings. I don't consider myself the same person I was yesterday (and technically, I can't), but I certainly don't consider myself the same person I was months ago. There are a few key threads that remain, but ultimately they're weaving a different blanket. And while in some respects the ability to change is exciting, it is equally saddening. I look forward to my many new forms, but I can't help but wish that I could hold on to the pieces for a little while more.