If ever you get lost, here is where you always end up.
Green.
Yellow.
Green.
Yellow.
Green.
Yellow
Green
Yellow
Green
Yellowgreenyellowgreen
The straining stirs of the remote clicking channels down the hall, sports, news, sitcoms, so quiet you can only make out the canned laughter, filter into the room like thready fog, the only light in the whole downstairs coming from the television as I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling watching the walls spin around me, green, yellow, green, yellow, each wall painted a Hallmark-y pastel version of the primary:
Green: Orchard Pear
Yellow: Pale Plantain
Green: Lilypad
Yellow: Butter Creme
...and Roenick takes the puck around the net...
...fair and cloudy with a high of 45...
...what'chyoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?...
This room used to be ours, then it was hers and I moved next door and it was hers forever, then it was no one's, now it's mine again, her color scheme still attached, I haven't slept here since 2nd, 3rd grade, my stuff feels clumsy in here, had to fight with the outlets to get everything placed right, underneath the two transom-like windows which look out ground-level with our driveway sits my altar, a small bit of nothingness which I barely sit at, and then assorted appliances and lights circling the perimeter with my bed facing away from the hallway, using the wall as a headboard, both sides of the bed away from any other walls which I've never done with a bed before, floating like an island, untethered and spinning like a turd circling the drain...
Green
sweet pea
Yellow
...can be yours for 3 easy installments of $49.95...
autumn sunrise
Green
irish spring
...things you can say to your dog but not your girlfriend...
Yellow
golden shower
Green
...shot at the buzzerrrrrrraaaaand IT'S NO GOOD!...
leprechaun puke
Yellow
stale urine
...six were killed in the brutal fire. More to follow...
I am waiting, I am waiting for my father to go to sleep, waiting for him to turn off the TV and go upstairs to bed so I can sneak out to the patio and smoke a cigarette or a bowl or finish my drink or all three, usually all three, my feet hanging over the side shuffle about and hit the spent beer and wine bottles underneath me, my hand shifts under the pillow and knocks into the well-used lube and cock pump, the wallet jutting out of my back pocket with a razor blade digging into my ass, I can't get to sleep yet all I dream about is grade school and weird stories with people I haven't known in years, and her, always her, every hour, awake or not, always reviewing the events of last year, what happened, why, how could I have been different, better, perfect for her, why wasn't I perfect for her, how did it all go wrong, life was so perfect so perfect everything was going to work perfectly but it didnt why didnt it why why why cant i get it out of my head why cant she see her mistake why did i lose everything why did i end up back here why isnt she going through the same shit why do i have to do this all on my own why
...USA Up! All Night...
green biting envy
...starts tomorrow everywhere...
yellow crippling jaundice
...sponsored in part by...
green rotting carrion
...Act now!...
yellow sebaceous pus
...fair and cloudy with a--
*click*
Or maybe it's not like that.
Maybe the TV's off, been off for hours. Maybe I drifted off already, stirring out of an alpha-wave nap. Maybe I had a real busy day, worked a double-shift or hit the gym for an hour or two afterwards; couple miles on the elliptical, kicking ass on the rowing machine, some weights, abs. Maybe I kept myself to less than 5 cigarettes today and passed up the liquor store on my way home. Maybe I meditated to stave off the jonesing and fell into a trance. Maybe I sat up waiting and fell asleep of my own accord. Maybe I can drift back off with no provocation, without the thoughts, and get a natural night's sleep so I can start tomorrow with a fresh new beginning.
Maybe.
It doesn't really matter.
Since it's still now I walk out to the kitchen downstairs, find my father's hidden bourbon bottle, pour myself a healthy glass and pour water into the bottle. I tell myself I am helping him. No lights on but I don't bump into anything, a practiced swerve, as I move to the sliding glass door, unlatch it, and flow out onto the patio. Over to the seldom-used gardening hutch, open a drawer, and pluck out the half-filled bowl. And then it's me and the patio. I look out over the prairie land stretching beyond and beneath the developing subdivisions and golf courses. And I think about what it might have been once, the busy street bordering our backyard like some tributary of the Mississippi. And I'll venture onto the lawn, littered with cigarette butts like mutant snowflakes. And I lay down staring up. And I bellow and scream. Drink way too much. Recite π to 45 places, the alphabet backwards, my own poetry. Break bottles. Hurl lighters. Curse the world and everyone on it. Sometimes I go up the stairs. On the deck. It's just a short hop to the roof. And I'm on. Every inch of it. Fixing the dent in the chimney. Dancing right above my sleeping parents. Jut right against the edge like Stallone in Cliffhanger. Blearily looking out onto the crisp clearness, the night so beautiful it sucks everything in and never says a word.
But only sometimes.
Usually I just sit silently on the steps rocking. And I think. And wonder.
Why.
Her.
Why
why why
for hours.
Just like leaving Iowa.
I'm so strung out.
My circadian rhythm's gone to shit.
I'll be hungover bad tomorrow for work.
Probably still drunk.
The staff'll know.
So will the kids.
This becomes what I look forward to every day.
I'll come to base my schedule around it.
When I've had my fill outside I'll come inside the patio doors and cool down in the living room watching some TV. The only television in the house with cable is downstairs, and I used to spend childhood evenings waiting for my Dad to go to sleep so I could surf the channels after hours. I would grab the cable guide right when it came in the mail and search the movie listings in back for anything marked Brief Nudity, Nudity, or Strong Sexual Content. Then I'd stay up until 3 in the morning waiting for flashes of boobs or soft-core grinding, and exploring myself. But always wary, always anxious, thumb forever circling the Power button, ready to strike at the slightest sound of a floorboard creak upstairs. At any second Mom or Dad could come down those stairs. "Kevin, honey, is that you?" Heavy breathing, flesh on-screen, me holding parts of myself; how could I explain that? So, every time, the volume hovering over nothing, blanket strategically in place, ready to shut off at the slightest sound.
Even though I know better.
Back in high school I was playing with a candle late at night when I threw a spent match into my garbage can and set it on fire. In a panic I tried to bring water from the bathroom down the hall to put it out but it just got bigger, so I brought the garbage can to the bathroom. Smoke alarm goes off. I extinguish the flame and cut my finger snapping the 9-volt battery out of the casing. Then I shoved the can in my closet and sat, rocking, shuddering, wondering what I was going to say to my parents when they arrived. But they never did. Nor did my sister sleeping next door. Didn't mention anything the next morning, either.
Every day since, whether I'm getting blitzed under the deck, dancing on the rooftops, or touching myself in the living room, the same thought pops into mind:
Thank God they sleep like logs.
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