Fear

I just woke up sitting at the computer desk. I looked at the time, which read 7:39. I didn't know if it was morning or evening. I didn't know if I was late for work or had just fallen asleep while sitting at the desk for a little while, while the little one goes to sleep in the next room. I have not felt terror or confusion like that for some time. I was so scared. Now, my mind is slowly piecing back together.

While Standing In Line

While Standing in line at Safeway, I poured lavender scented dish-soap on my jacket and pants.

I was just waiting, holding both bottles upside-down, and one of them was open.

There was a splattered puddle of dish-soap on the floor, next to my soap speckled shoe.
I didn't tell anybody. I internalized guilt and moved to a different line.

That line was shorter- I had realized only once the cool soap in my pants had woken me from my stupor, my soap-spilling daydream. Being in this new line reduced my risk of slipping on soap- soap that had pooled in the middle of the aisle like some liquidy monster, waiting for the unsure step of some frail old lady- to make her fall, undramatically and quickly, and crack her thin skull on the otherwise sanitary floor, killing her instantly.

Con-Man

We are not victims. We are perpetrators.

On a lonely night last week, I let a man convince me he needed help. He told me his wife and two year old child were in their car. He showed me his cancerous stomach, and this seemed relevant. He wouldn't shut up. He made me smell his breath, and look at the veins on his arms, and told me how relevant this all was. I walked with him to his hotel and paid for his room. He heaved like an obnoxious man having an asthma attack. He told me how amazing I was. I did not feel good. I wished he would shut the fuck up and just let me get back to being lonely.

He asked me for one more favor, and it was the first strike of realization. He asked if I would get him some food, you know, for his family. It took the wind out of me. I told him I had to pass. He apologized. I asked him for a favor- Let me take his picture. He looked suspicious. I thought- fuck you.

I kept my hand on my camera-bag. He asked to see it. I stepped back from him and lifted it out of it's case. I put it back in a very short time. I was still trying to operate as if he were not a lying creep. He told me he was superstitious about having his picture taken. He was speaking more quickly by the second. He told me he didn't know what I would do with the pictures. I thought- how dare you you pathetic, fucking pathetic crook?

I spent the next morning talking with the hotel manager. He said the man had tried to get another night at the hotel on the same credit card. I told the manager that if he could not eject the man by check-out time, I would have the police out there to make sure it happened.

I am not a victim. I walked up to the counter with my feet. I handed the incredulous Indian gentleman my credit card, with my hand. I signed the receipt with my pen. I went home and explained to my wife that I had paid for a criminal to stay the night in a hotel. This did not go over well. I don't imagine there is anything ridiculous about that.

I am a perpetrator. I am an accomplice. I feel guilty about this. I don't want to dupe anybody else out of their hard-earned money. I don't want to take any more money from my children or my wife, only to hand it over to strangers, to have them do with it as they will. I am a con-man in my own house. I am glad that I have at least warned my wife.

Protecting my Family

Last night my wife asked me if I've been leaving the basement door unlocked. Yes I have.
We hang out there now. We've set up a sweet little youthful oasis in our basement, escape from the perpetuity of parenthood, where the music is always loud, the air is sweet and damp, sin is condensing and forming mold somewhere.

It's funny when I think about it. One of us will go downstairs for a little bit. The kids will be hanging with the other of us in the living-room or sun-room. The floor will begin to vibrate, and if you were an adult, you would recognize the faint tinny hum of heavy metal, of hip-hop, of 90's grunge, as if a car were passing. The speakers are huge. I love to feel the ground shake. Love to itch the inner-most reaches of my ears with noise just barely painful.

Last night my wife asked me if I've been leaving the basement door unlocked. Yes I have.
It makes it far more convenient to get to the basement after I've been reading outside.
Upon answering, I understand immediately how idiotic this is. We have invested headache-inducing amounts of time and money to get the house alarm installed, then to have the phone fixed, then to have the alarm fixed, then to have the phone fixed. It is silly to give all the roaming serial murderers a free way in, one which leads to a great stereo system that they would probably like to blast painfully (it wouldn't wake us) in order to get pumped up. I would recommend Eminem's new album. It would probably get them nicely in the mood if they needed it.

So I went downstairs, naked. The basement is creepy. I poked my head in, making sure the murderer was not already in the house. If he was just about to come in, I would see him open the door, and his jig would be up. But by now, he could have easily hid himself in the pillows on the couch, in the massive pile of crap we have to sort. There was a noise that probably was just the rats upstairs trying to eat each-other. The murderer was well hidden. I locked the basement door. If he was there he had no escape. Now he would have to kill us brutally just to leave. The alarm had effectively become an alarm that we were now safe. Why would a murderer want to trip an alarm just to leave everybody unharmed? He wouldn't. He would want to kill us, brutally of course.

I placed a bag of cat-food on the top step. If the murderer tried to walk up these steps in the dark, it would fall down the stairs and spill cat food. It would make enough noise for me to get up and find a chair to hit him with. Every time I think of something like this a fight scene will play in my head, starring me. I lose frequently. I wonder what this means. Just writing about it, and there goes that fight scene again.

I lay awake for a while last night, listening for the sound of cat food on stairs, somebody saying "What the hell!?"