Sweet Home Alabama

She ran one hand through her hair and pulled it all to one side, angled her head to keep it in that position, then lifted a burning match to the cigarette already waiting in between her lips. The flame lit up her face and made her eyelashes dance in the shadows beneath her brow. She inhaled deeply, rested her arms on the bar, watched the smoke drift into the room before her as she breathed out, then turned to look at her companion.

“If you could change one thing about me, what would it be?” she asked him.

He sighed, leaned back in his chair, gave her a half smile before reaching his hand toward hers. “The fact that you smoke,” he said as he calmly took the cigarette from her fingers and crushed it out in the ashtray in front of her.

Her eyes widened slightly. “You know I’m just going to light another one in thirty seconds.”

“I’ll put that one out, too.”

She shifted position, leaned forward to place a light kiss on his lips.

“That’s a first,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“We’re in public.”

“I didn’t see anyone I knew,” she whispered as she looked around conspiratorially.

“When are you going to admit that we’re together?”

“When we are.”

“We sleep together,” he told her.

“Mm-hm.”

“So?” he asked.

“So…we’re just not.”

She smiled at him. He didn’t smile back. The jukebox kicked in, making conversation more difficult. As they both sipped at the drinks in front of them, she slowly pulled out her pack of cigarettes. “Sweet Home Alabama” began to play as she lit a second cigarette.

“Last month,” she began. “When you went with Drew to visit his cousin in Alabama? I must have heard this song about three times that week. It was kind of strange.”

His arm paused from taking the drink that was halfway to his mouth. “Did I ever mention the fact that Drew’s cousin is female?” he asked.

She shook her head. “So?” she asked.

“So, that’s why he brought me with him.”

Her eyebrows arched slightly. “Long drive?”

“Because she was female,” he corrected.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

There was silence for thirty seconds. She put the cigarette out and raised her eyebrows. “Are you trying to tell me you slept with her?”

“I’m not trying to tell you anything,” he said.

“How could you do something like that?”

He looked her straight in the eye, took her pack of cigarettes, lit one, and handed it to her.

“Because we’re not together.”

Published in The Iconoclast June 1999

Wish I'd Said It First: Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift's latest album "Fearless" is really striking a chord with me. I have been losing my taste for country music lately, leaning toward the sultry voices of Jakob Dylan, Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz and John Mayer. But Taylor Swift has sucked me back in to the world of country - if only for her.

Almost every song on "Fearless" has conjured memories for me of being 15, in love, and both on top of the world and as low as I could get.

Young love is an amazing thing, and one that I think too many adults forget about. It's easy to dismiss. Kids "don't know what love is." At 30, I've come to think that kids might be the only ones who know what love is.

I had more than my fair share of young love, because I had one young love, and he had an amazing impact on my life. "Fearless" has brought him into my mind as fiercely as if I were fifteen again. I commend Taylor for being able to evoke those feelings, not only with her words, but with her sweet, sexy and sultry voice.

White Horse
I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairy tale
I'm not the one you'll sweep off her feet,
Lead her up the stairwell
This ain't Hollywood, this is a small town,
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down
Now it's too late for you
And your white horse, to come around

This is exactly how I felt when I realized that it was over. Really and truly over. Prince Charming's not coming, the fairy tale never was.

Fifteen

Cause When You're Fifteen And Somebody Tells You They Love You
You're Gonna Believe Them
And When You're Fifteen
Feeling Like There Nothing To Figure Out
Well Count To Ten; Take It In
This Is Life Before Who You're Gonna Be



You Belong With Me
You're on the phone with your girlfriend
She's upset
She's going off about that something you said
'Cuz she doesn't get your humor like I do...
I'm in the room
It's a typical Tuesday night
I'm listening to the kind of music she doesn't like
And she'll never know your story like I do'

But she wears short skirts
I wear T-shirts
She's cheer Captain
And I'm on the bleachers
Dreaming about the day when you wake up
And find what you're looking for has been here the whole time

If you could see that I'm the one who understands you
Been here all along so why can't you see, you
You belong with me

This one actually makes me think of my first love's best friend - a girl. I can see her having these thoughts about him, and about me. She and I were complete opposites, and sometimes she did seem to have more in common with him than I did. Also, ironically, I was a cheerleader. But no one ever seemed to grasp the almost unbreakable bond that he and I had.

Breathe
I see your face in my mind as I drive away,
Cause none of us thought it was gonna end that way.
People are people,
And sometimes we change our minds.
But it’s killing me to see you go after all this time.

Music starts playin’ like the end of a sad movie,
It’s the kinda ending you don’t really wanna see.
Cause it’s tragedy and it’ll only bring you down,
Now I don’t know what to be without you around.

And we know it’s never simple,
Never easy.
Never a clean break, no one here to save me.
You’re the only thing I know like the back of my hand,
And I can’t,
Breathe,
Without you,
But I have to

This is how I felt once I had gotten over the fact that it was over. He was the only thing I had known for seven years - what the hell was I supposed to do now? I took me a long time to figure out who I was without him. Thank God I finally did.



The Way I Loved You

He is sensible and so incredible
and all my single friends are jealous.
He says everything I need to hear
and its like I couldn't ask for anything better.
He opens up my door and
I get into his car and he says
you look beautiful tonight.
And I feel perfectly fine.

But I miss screamin’ and fightin’ and kissin’ in the rain
and it’s 2am and I’m cursin’ your name.
You’re so in love that you act insane
and that’s the way I loved you.
And breakin’ out and comin’ undone
it’s a roller coaster kinda rush.
And I never knew I could feel that much.
And that’s the way I loved you.

So true. After you get off the roller coaster, and you find a nice guy, you don't know what to do without the drama. Because the drama meant passion, and you're afraid you'll never see that kind of passion again.

Wish I'd Said It First: Dr. Seuss

"You should be grateful, a whole heaping lot, for the people and places your're lucky you're not." - Dr. Suess, The Lorax

Wish I'd Said It First: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Linus: The Great Pumpkin always picks the most sincere pumpkin patch to rise out of. He's just gotta pick this pumpkin patch. He's just gotta! Look around. You can see that there' not a sign of hypocrisy anywhere. Nothing but sincerity reaching out as far as the eye can see.
Sally Brown: I could have gone to tricks-or-treats! Halloween is over and I missed it! Instead, I spend the night on a pumpkin patch and all that came was a beagle! You blockhead! I could have had apples and gum, and cookies and money and other things! I'll sue! Trick-or-treats only come once a year, and instead I spent all night sitting in a pumpkin patch! What a fool I was! You owe me restitution!

[last lines]
Charlie Brown: I supposed you spent all night in the pumpkin patch.
[Linus nods]
Charlie Brown: And did the Great Pumpkin ever show up?
Linus: Nope.
Charlie Brown: Well, don't take it too hard, Linus. I've done a lot of stupid things in my life, too. Linus: [furious] STUPID? What do you mean "stupid"? Just wait 'til next year, Charlie Brown. You'll see! Next year at this same time, I'll find the perfect pumpkin patch that is really sincere and I'll sit in that pumpkin patch until the Great Pumpkin appears. He'll rise out of that pumpkin patch and he'll fly through the air with his bag of toys. The Great Pumpkin will appear and I'll be waiting for him! I'll be there! I'll be sitting there in that pumpkin patch and I'll see the Great Pumpkin. Just wait and see, Charlie Brown. I'll see the Great Pumpkin. I'll SEE the Great Pumpkin! Just you wait, Charlie Brown. The Great Pumpkin will appear and I'll be waiting for him... [the screen fades out and the show ends]

Wish I'd Said It First: Shel Silverstein

"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be." - Shel Silverstein

Thy Will Be Done

I posted this on the Writing Bridge, and received some positive feedback. I have some editing to do, but I'm putting it out there in its rawest form for now.


I sat at my dining room table, clicking my nails on the glass top in repetition: pinky, ring, middle, index, index, index.
I focused on the cordless phone, inches from my fingers, and I heard my mother’s voice in my head.
A watched pot never boils, and a watched phone never rings.
Regardless, I couldn’t help but stare, only breaking the monotony by picking it up every few minutes to check for a dial tone. Then I would hit redial.
Four rings, followed by the mechanical message that came standard with every cell phone, instead of a personal greeting. My mother hated the way her voice sounded on “answering machines.”
I hung up without leaving a message. Again.
Pinky, ring, middle, index, index, index.
Pinky, ring, middle, index, index, index.
Again, I picked up the phone and waited for the dial tone. This time I stabbed out my sister’s cell phone number.
After the third ring I received a breathless, “Hey!”
“Why the fuck isn’t anyone answering their phone?” I demanded, my fingers finally stilling on the table.
“I’ve been calling you at work,” my sister said.
“How in God’s name did you expect me to work today?” I asked, cutting her off. “What’s going on with Dad?”
There was a brief silence. In the hush, all the blood in my body sprinted for my heart, making it so heavy it dropped to my feet.
That morning, 750 miles away from me, my father had gone on for a “routine” heart catheterization. No big deal, my mother had said when she had called three days ago, just to let me know.
He may have some blockage, may need to have a stint put in. All normal, all outpatient procedures, nothing for me to panic about, no need for me to be there.
Yet my mother and my older sister had accompanied my father to the hospital, while my two older brothers remained on call, less than 15 minutes away.
And it wasn’t normal. It was my father.
“You need to get on a plane,” my sister said.
The fingernails that had been rhythmically rapping the table drew blood as they curled into the palm of my hand.
“Why?”
“Dad’s scheduled for bypass surgery on Monday morning.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“No.”
“Where’s mom?”
“She’s right here, hold on.”
There was another pause, some shuffling, and I heard my mother. A very scared, tired version of my mother.
“Hey, babe.”
“You OK?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice shaky and high-pitched. Breathless.
“I’m booking a flight,” I told her.
“Yes,” was all she said, and sighed. “Good.”
“OK. I love you mom. Give me back to Jen.”
My sister got back on the phone.
“I’m going to have to fly into JFK, can you come get me or do you want me to call Adam?”
“I can come get you. Do you have money?” she asked me.
“Does it matter? I’ll call you back when I get a flight.”

At 3:30AM, after reaching near hysteria when my flight was delayed, I finally arrived in New York. My sister was waiting in the baggage area, my mother right beside her. Both women looked burdened and weary, but pleased to see me.
I ran to my mother and clung to her. She didn’t cry. I found that odd, since for the past nine years, she had cried every time I came home to visit, and every time I left.
The two hour car ride from the airport to my parent’s home was silent. Everyone was afraid to speak.

I felt the emptiness the minute I stepped through the front door. Something was missing. Our protector was gone.
My mother gave me a hug in the front hallway, and simply whispered, “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Where else would I be?” I asked, before letting go and shuffling off to my room, which no longer resembled my room at all. It had become a guest room, but still referred to as “Nanci’s Room.” Just as the room next to mine would always be “Jennifer’s Room,” and the two rooms downstairs, in the converted cellar, were “Adam’s Room” and “Paul’s Room.”
Privately, and affectionately, I referred to the rooms as “Chamber of Evil,” “The Dungeon,” and “The Scary Basement.”
I had been born eleven years after Paul, nine years after Adam, and eight years after Jennifer. Jennifer never forgave me that fact. My arrival changed her family status: she was no longer the baby, and she was no longer the only girl. Her disdain only became stronger as we became older, and I forged a unique and unbreakable bond our father; one she had never managed.
I snuggled under the blankets of my childhood. The window above me was cracked so I could smell the Autumn air, and hear the rustling of dry leaves. I would freeze, I knew. I had been spoiled too long by the Florida climate. But other than Christmas, Autumn was the only thing I missed about living Up North. I thought of my father as sleep evaded my bed.

Walking toward my father’s hospital room, I was terrified.
I approached the doorway and stopped. My sister was already in the room, stirring coffee, gathering napkins, and she saw me first. She looked at my dad. “Your daughter’s here,” was all she said, sadness in her eyes. My father’s face lit as he turned. The prodigal returns. I rushed to him, hugged him, carefully making my way around the wires, the IV, the hospital paraphernalia.
“You don’t look sick,” I told him. “There are easier ways to get me to come home.”
He laughed, and his chest rolled and rumbled under me, and I felt ease for the first time since I had heard of the impending surgery.

Sunday morning the phone rang, and I walked toward it before realizing that it wasn’t my phone anymore. I saw the hospital number on the caller ID and snatched it up.
“Dad?” I asked
“Hey, Nanc.”
“You OK?”
“Fine, I just wanted to ask your mother to bring me some things.”
“Oh. She’s at church.”
“You didn’t go with her?”
“No.”
“Well, I got permission to go to mass in the chapel downstairs at noon. You can come with me,” he said.
It wasn’t an invitation.
“I’d like that,” I told him.
I could never tell my father about the quarrel I took with God.
I certainly couldn’t tell him that I was pretty angry with God right now.

Monday, 4:00PM. We had been in the CCU waiting room for seven hours. We had been told the surgery could take eight hours, maybe longer, and we were starting to get restless. My mother and I had both read complete novels, though I’m not sure either of us could tell you what those novels were about. My mother, my brothers and I played Scrabble. We all watched Jeopardy. After eight and a half hours, the surgeon came into the room and addressed my mother. I froze in my chair, registering the phrases, “came through fine,” “more than we expected,” and “quadruple bypass,” “see him if you want, but not advisable.”
It was then I collapsed. I hadn’t cried yet, and it had even started to bother me. I felt cold and uncaring when, really, I was paralyzed. I had been holding it all in, fully expecting my father to die on the operating table. The panic had overcome all other emotion, and now the relief flooded out. My mother and my siblings stared on in shock as I sobbed; I’m sure they had been as baffled by my lack of tears as I had been. Daddy’s little girl, daddy’s favorite - not affected. How wrong that assumption was. I was more like my father than anyone knew.

The recommendation from the surgeon has been to wait at least an hour after the surgery before seeing my father.
“He won’t look like your father”, he had said. “He’s going to be bloated, blue, scary looking.”
No one cared. We needed to see the proof that our father-husband-hero, had made it through this horrifying and complicated ordeal. Two at a time, the surgeon had said, for five minutes, every hour. It was a given that my mother would go first, but who to go with her? The three eyes of my siblings turned to me, and I didn’t argue. I took my mother’s hand and followed the cardiac nurse. As we walked down the hallway, the nurse tried to prepare us, same as the surgeon had. Bloated. Blue. Breathing tube. Warming blankets making his chest look bigger. Machines. Monitors.
As I entered the room and looked at my father, all I could think was that they only needed one word to attempt to prepare you.
Dead. They should have just said, “He’s going to look like he’s dead.” Because he did. He looked like my father, no doubt, but he looked like my dead father. I had seen people in coffins look better. But I could see his chest rising and falling, and I could see the monitors telling me that his heart was beating steadily, that his body did, indeed, have life. So my mother and I, we held his hand, and we told him what a great job he had done, and that we loved him. After a few minutes I left my mother standing at his bedside, and I fetched my sister, who spent two minutes with dad, and then fetched my brothers. And so it went every hour until visiting hours ended.

To fill one of the spaces between visits, my brothers and I trooped out to the parking lot to get some fresh air, and to talk freely, away from my mother. After a while, my brother Adam looked to the sky and breathed, “Thank God.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked.
The exclamation had irritated me on two levels.
One, Adam had been a whole-hearted atheist up until a year ago when he had “rediscovered” God.
The second, I expressed out loud. “This is the shit that makes me not believe in God.”
My brothers looked shocked. “How can you say that?” Paul asked.
How could I not? My father had spent his entire life doing everything that God “asked.” Yes, he had smoked, but he had quit 30 years before.
Thank God for getting my father through the surgery.
Thank God for forewarning my father with the experience of chest pains, which brought him to his doctor, and unearthed the need for bypass surgery. He could have dropped dead on the golf course from a massive heart attack.
Thank God.
However, based on that logic, God was the reason my father needed the surgery in the first place, and how fucking contradictory was that?
Therefore, I leaned toward the “life sucks, get a helmet,” religion.

Five days later we were able to take my father home.
It had been, and continued to be, excruciating watching my father perform the simplest of tasks. He would struggle to sit down, to get up. He held a pillow to his chest each time he needed to cough, or move, because the pain of his cracked sternum was excruciating. It was unfathomable, and it broke my heart. Yet, all the while, my father persevered. He did not get depressed. He did not feel sorry for himself. He refused to falter on the path toward recovery. He would not allow himself to be defined by this temporary disability.
At home, my father chose to sleep in his recliner in the living room. It was a little easier for him to get out of on his own, though he needed some help getting back in.
The first morning that my father was back in the house, I woke to his silhouette in my bedroom doorway.
“Dad?” I asked, groggy.
“Want to help me for a second?”
“Sure.”
I didn’t say anything else, just stumbled out of bed and followed my father to his chair. I knew how hard it had been for him to even ask. I wondered how long he had been standing in my doorway, waiting for me to wake. I stood aside while he clutched his pillow to his chest, slowly sat into the chair, and scooted himself back. I carefully raised the footrest, guiding it with my hand so that it would not snap up.
“Good?” I asked once he was settled.
“Good.” he sighed. I could hear the pain in it, the weariness, and I felt like my own chest had cracked in half.
I leaned down to kiss him, and went back to bed.
I didn’t go back to sleep. I lay in the dark, waiting for the sounds of my father’s snoring, knowing that he was as comfortable as he was going to get, and asleep.

That Monday, I booked a flight back to Florida. I had been in New York for 10 days. I had been neglecting my job, my friends, and my life. I had to go back. I desperately wanted to stay.
That night, my father sat at the dinner table and ate with my mother and I. After the meal, as my mother cleared the table, I sat with my father, and asked him the question that had not left my own mind over the past 10 days.
“Are you angry?” I asked. My voice cracked, and tears began to stream down my face, because I was angry. “Don’t you wonder why this had to happen to you?”
I saw pain flicker through my fathers eyes, but he only paused a moment before responding.
“No.”
I wiped the tears from my face and stared. He took my hand. “Pray with me?” he asked.
I stared. My father nodded.
“Our Father,” he began.
I chimed in, the words engraved into my memories from childhood.
“Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,”
My father tugged on my hand to stop me. I gazed at his calmly smiling face until I got it. Thy will be done.
“Billy Taylor called yesterday,” my father told me. “He scheduled a physical. So did your uncle. So did your brothers. If this happening to me saves it from happening to one of them, then it was worth it.”
I took a deep breath, and banished the rest of my tears. Suddenly, everything was different. How could I be angry? The man with wire holding his sternum together was not only not angry, but was grateful.
It didn’t exactly restore my faith in God, but it strengthened my faith in my Father.

Wish I'd Said It First: Jakob Dylan

"It's feast or famine, you eat what you kill, there's no need to bring God into this" -Jakob Dylan

"Daughter you wear my name, those are my eyes, keep 'em raised. I may have scars, but I give more than I take." -Jakob Dylan

Wish I'd Said It First: Friends

"It's an electric drill. You get me, you kill me!" - Chandler, Friends

Wish I'd Said It First: Jason Mraz

"If it's a broken part, replace it But, if it's a broken arm then brace it If it's a broken heart then face it And hold your own Know your name And go your own way" - Jason Mraz

WIsh I'd Said It First: Albert Einstein

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the earth." - Albert Einstein

Wish I'd Said It First: Fall Out Boy

"I love you in the same way there's a chapel in a hospital. One foot in your bedroom, and one foot out the door. Sometimes we take chances, sometimes we take pills. I culd write it better than you ever felt it. So hum hallalujah, just off the key of reason. I thought I loved you, it was just how you looked in the light." - FOB

All Over Mystery

I hook my left thumb through my belt loop as I precariously hold a beer with my other four fingers. The bottle sweats, allowing droplets of cold water to slide down my bony fingers toward my bonier wrists. The wetness is stopped by my watch. I look. Midnight? I Sigh. Survey. Drink. Watch the boys watch the world. Watch the girls watch the boys. Some things never change, no matter how old you get.

Kyle’s hand is on my back. His fingers snake around my waist to make a trade. Corona for keys. He slides the chain inside my pocket as he swipes the beer and says please with his eyes. I come very close to laughing. Until I realize that I am staying sober. He ambles toward the guys at the bonfire, looks back once to make sure I am behind him. Hasn’t he gotten it yet? I have always been behind him. Always lost to the girls, always one of the boys, never quite a woman.

The bonfire. Rocks in a circle, flame in the middle, surrounded by muscles and musk. I settle into one of the lawn chairs, slip my shoes off to feel the grass under my feet, and sip the wonderful taste of testosterone. I hold out my hand to Kyle, palm up, fingers twitching, and he reaches into one of his pockets. Slowly, almost secretively, he hands me a pack of Marlboros. I take one, light it, and place the pack back into his waiting hand so that he can hide it back in the depths of his jeans. How ridiculous, trying to monitor the progress of death.

I settle back to breathe it in and tune it out. A newcomer soon breaks the pattern of the sexes. She looks at me, the lone female. Shifts her gaze to Kyle. Rests it there. Asks an idle question. Kyle tells her that, no, I am not his girlfriend. Obvious pleasant surprise is followed by obnoxious purring before she strolls back to her corner.

Then, from one of the guys, there was a slow why isn’t she? Kyle reaches back into his pocket and retrieves the red and white box, silently holds out his hand to me. I wait until the cigarette is to his lips before I flick the lighter. He only smokes when he is distressed. Or when he is avoiding particularly distressing questions.

The one who unsettled Kyle glances at me from the other side of the flames. He has a certain look about him. It is the look of the drunk-turned-philosopher. Mix alcohol with testosterone, and the limits of understanding become boundless.

Kyle continues to ignore the question. The scrutiny is forgotten as drunk gains the advantage over knowledge. I am the only one who truly wants his answer. The night keeps moving on.

Seventeen cigarettes later, three of them his, fourteen of them mine, Kyle hands me his beer and reaches inside my pocket. I shift and allow him to free the keys. He hands them to me and smiles. He's ready to go. We're ready to go.

Walking across the lawn I feel a hand on my arm. It is the perpetrator of the perplexing question. He whispers something in my ear.

Is he worth driving home?

I smile. He continues.

Is he worth waiting for?

I glance at Kyle, wondering how obvious it really is.

Published in The Sunflower Dream, June 1999

An Explicit Haiku

Long work day
Unwind with hubby
Curl my toes
Bliss

B Train Dissonance and New York Lullaby

On rural Route Nine just before twelve,
Lights wound around the airport road,
But covered in slippery spring rain,
Hyde Park had darkened before ten.
One apartment was the only thing awake,
And really alive.
(All of the above surpassing the alphabetization of Boston’s Back Bay.)
When she’s home,
She’s really home.
Corona in one hand,
Marlboro in the other,
Sprawled across the lap
Of any of the seven guys
Who were never
"Those"
Kinds of guys.
(Interesting, though, she had kissed five of them.
A dare.
A mistake in judgment
Too many shots of Goldslager
Desperation and temporary insanity
But one,
One had almost been love.)
She smiles,
Sighs,
Pleased
To be away from the screeching halt of trains.
Content
To let cigarette smoke seal cardiac fissures.
Happy
To let barley and hops empty her brain.
Ecstatic
To be "one of the guys."
She reaches above her to crack the blinds and stare at the rain.
On the back of the couch
Just near her elbow
Almost within her reach
Is the needle and thread
Belonging to the fabric of fate.
It hums with the desire to weave a new and defining stitch,
But it goes unnoticed among the beer, the smoke, the testosterone.
The sounds of the
New York Lullaby.