Today would have been her 35th. I spent most of the day comparing my silly ride of a life to what hers might have been. Now, I do not believe in any afterlife, but I do feel that endless rest would be a helluva lot more copacetic than this ratfink existence. I think her frustrated temper would have landed her in prison eventually, or maybe dead by some other means. I hate to admit that, but it is solemn truth.
I had made a pact with myself awhile back, that July 1st I would leave. I liked the symmetry of the middle of the year, and anyhow my reserves are well beyond the state of being fucking empty. I do not even have fumes left. No prospects. Over 250 applications in the past eighteen weeks and I cannot even afford personal copies of the works I have coming out now and in months to come. Living off of white rice and black coffee (the yin-yang diet!), walking everywhere, walking nowhere. Just constantly replaying every moment of the past on a loop in my head, every moment of turmoil and pain. I had found myself at more funerals than everybody I know combined, even before my time as a gravedigger. What the hell am I fighting for? I need so much more than merely a holy grail. I shifted my paradigm over the edge of the Earth. The abyss did not just gaze back at me, it showed me the FNORDS and still somehow I am always too exhausted even to sleep. I wish my memories were a tangible, physical thing, so I could use my trusty hammer to remove each and every one.
Anyway, Rebecca was a tough cookie. We used to joke in our Bukowskian way and tell each other that if you grow up poor enough, then you cannot afford to lose a fight. But she did, eventually. Put up such a fight against her boyfriend Benjamin Mills that she bit off her own tongue and her left eye popped out of her skull.
Before that nightmare ending, she was also exceedingly beautiful. I tossed my copy of the medical examiner's autopsy report ages ago, as it inspired far too many nights of solo binge drinking. She had fire and an incredible voice that she wouldn't really show off unless she had a few mugs of tequila in her. Then of course, all bets were off.
But no matter how much I miss her, I am...glad that she is not stuck here in this mess with the rest of us.
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4 comments:
If you left/leave, I will be mourning you, but also pissed that the good things that will happen were missed. I love you brother.
Night and day, every few hours I have to talk myself out of climbing up to the old derelict train depot and bleeding to death in some manner of solitude.
I am bored and I am angry and I am powerless to do anything for the people who still matter to me. But people around me are scared of me. Maybe scared is not the right word, but how else could one of such smashing demeanor and intellect fail so miserable at winning a steady pay cheque?
I don't have an answer for you. I can say though, that many people right now are going through shit because of the economy. And while I am relatively ok, not abundantly ok but I have food and stuff, I am depressed to fuck about the BP Spill, the continuing wars, and more. I think though, we as a race are meant for more. And I believe in having hope. Hope, if not fulfilled hurts, but without it at all, we become angry and think about suicide.
I've thought and considered leaving many times myself, but, as bad as it is, I think it will be better. And I want to see it when it is.
I know this doesn't help, but I also just want you to know that I will lose a brother, a member of my kin if you leave. And I cannot take more sorrow.
I cannot apply for a replacement social security card without a current drivers license or photo ID, but the DMV will do nothing for me without a social security card.
Unless I find more work that is off the books/under the table, proper employment is denied without both of those pieces of shite in hand.
I want to run through downtown hitting as many strangers in the face with my hammer as I can till the coppers shoot me dead.
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