Inertia

The top is spun upon the table. It's a beautiful thing, decorated by hands concerned with craftmanship and balance. Its spin is precise and captivating initially. It balances and glides on a needle point. It rides the edge of the table without ever falling off.

You watch the top spin. The colors and designs whirl together and hypnotize you. Even if there were something else to look at, why would you? Nothing else can match the beauty of what's in front of you.

Later into its spin the top starts to teeter. Its balance gives way as a slow, slight, wobble effect quietly overcomes it. The top is now susceptible to gravity. You want to reach down and set it right, but for some reason, you feel it has to be allowed to follow it's own course. You watch anxiously as gravity takes hold of this spinning curiosity.

Soon, the top is a dervish. Grace and precision are things long in its past. It careens and sputters across the table top. This time when it comes to the edge it nearly falls to the floor. You know it's near the end of it's cycle and there's only one action left.

Still thinking about the beauty it possesses and the grace it started of with, you anxiously await its ultimate fall, so you can pick it up and set it back into motion again.

The boy likes pancakes...

If you grew up in South St. Louis, you know this kitchen. It's in a second floor apartment in a flat one house off the corner of Connecticut and Roger. It's got that ugly green tile on the wall and that ugly beige stove no one wants to move out to the alley. The fridge is a second hand piece of shit that's been spray painted to appear newer than it is. On the floor, the little blonde kid is playing with a few toys -- probably army men or matchbox cars. He makes the sound effects as the toys bash into each other.

It's early evening. Dad is in the living room watching the ballgame. Grandma is in the apartment downstairs. Mom and her sisters are out grocery shopping. The boy's brothers are somewhere in the apartment...hiding in the closet probably...playing some strange made up game with stranger made up rules. Everything's typical. Everything's ordinary.

Mom's home. The boy hears the sounds of groceries being carried up stairs as mom and her sisters chatter away about the crowd at the store, the drive home, and any number of things. Dad doesn't move to help. One of the boy's aunts says something to him about getting up and lending a hand.

"Mind your own business..."
"Don't talk to my sister that way..."

A lot is said. The boy tunes it out. He's good at that. He's been doing it for years already, and he's certain that this won't be the last time he has to do so. Talking gives way to yelling. The groceries are set on the kitchen table. The boy has moved beneath that same table. The yelling has reached it's peak.

"Bitch."
"Asshole"
"Fuck you."
"No, fuck you."

He sits quietly beneath the table, invisible to the combatants around him. He has no idea what this fight is about. He doesn't even think that this behavior is strange.

All of a sudden there's a crash.

His father, during the course of the argument, somehow pushed or threw a one gallon jar of maple syrup to the floor. The bottle shatters into a million pieces. Syrup goes everywhere. The boy immediately starts crying. This was the straw that broke his back.

Shocked by the sound of the boy crying, his mother pulls him out from under the table.

"Are you hurt?" She asks, looking for cuts. "Did the glass hit you?"

The boy shakes his head, still in tears.

"What is it then?" his mother asked him.

"He broke the syrup," The boy says. "Now we can't have pancakes for breakfast tomorrow. " The boy is in full on sob mode now.

His mother lets out one long sigh, pulls the boy to her - unable to respond with anything but laughter.

Self Contained

"Are you looking for a way out?" she asks.

The question jars him. It's not because the question is crazy, but because noone's ever asked him that outright. The man looks around the room, then back at his visitor and shrugs.

"I don't know. It's a very nice room." he finally answers.

"It is," says the woman, "no one said otherwise."

"I mean," he continued, "I have everything I want here. They bring me food. They've made me very comfortable."

"It's not a bad life," confirms the woman.

"And, I've had plenty of chances to get out," he says.

"Then why not take any of them?" she asks.

He looks towards the camera in the corner and whispers under his breath, "I don't want THEM to think I'm ungrateful. They brought me here when I was almost dead. They healed my wounds and nurtured me back to health. Then they protected me from every danger imaginable..."

"The invasion was hard on everyone," she offered.

"I know, but they took care of me." The man looked back to the woman, near tears. "How can I just walk out on them after 20 years of this treatment."

"I'm not saying you should," she said holding her hands up. "But, you don't seem happy here lately."

The man sighed. "I'm not. It has been 20 years. It's not that I don't like it here...I just want to know what the world outside is like now."

"Couldn't you just..."

"No," he interrupted. "Once I leave, they won't let me back. Then all of this will be gone."

"I see," she sat down in a chair across from where he stood and motioned for him to sit too. "Well, we can talk as long as you need to. But eventually, you'll have to decide if you're staying or going."

The man looked back at the camera. Somewhere down the hall, two beings watched and recorded his every move - wondering if the allowing Earth humanitarian observer on their base
was a mistake. The man looked back at the woman.

"I'm just going to annoy you after awhile. I've had this conversation with myself enough to know all of the possible questions and answers."

She smiled and laughed slightly. "Sit, please. I'll let you know if you start getting repetitive."

He sat. "So...am I looking for the exits?"

The woman replied simply, "That's the question."

The man looked into her eyes, "I don't need look for them anymore. In twenty years, I've identified every one of them."

"Yet," she raised an eyebrow, "here you are."

"Knowing where the door is one thing. Stepping through it is a lot more..." he trailed off.

"Difficult?" she offered.

"I was going to say terrifying."

Actualization

The hardest part of killing someone is admitting that you want to. Once you get over the hurdle of honestly stating that you actually would like to place your hands around someone's neck and squeeze until the breath won't come to their lungs, the act of planning and executing your plan is mere formality. The problem for most people is that they brush away that first homicidal notion as a passing fancy and not a true desire to rid themselves of some annoyance.

“I want to kill that asshole,” thinks John when he sees Fred.

John never realizes that this thought is an honest assessment of his true feelings concerning Fred. No, John chalks up the thought to an extreme emotional reaction that's expressed in a ridiculously extreme thought. John convinces himself that he doesn't actually want to kill Fred. Instead, he is just very angry at Fred and has some issues to resolve with the man who's been his roommate for ten years. John has entered a state of emotional dishonesty merely because he is uncomfortable with the notion that he would actually want to cause someone bodily harm. This lie makes it easier for John to lie to himself in the future about other issues.

Instead of bottling that rage and convincing himself of what he doesn't want to do, John should embrace his true emotion.

“I want to kill that asshole.”

This is pure emotion. It's a visceral reaction to the sight of Fred. Fred the asshole, the man who every morning bores John with details about his mundane life. Fred the asshole, the man who won't give John the common courtesy of staying out of the apartment when John is trying to have an intimate moment with Francine. Fred the asshole, the man who doesn't pass along phone messages, drinks John's milk, eats John's food, and has on more than one occasion tried to catch glimpses of Francine naked. John's desire to gouge out Fred's eyes is an honest desire. It's the true measure of his frustration with a room mate that shows absolutely no consideration for anyone else.

“I want to kill that asshole.”

Of course you do, John. Why not accept that? There's nothing wrong with wanting to kill him. After all, isn't the rage tearing you up inside? Aren't you sick of the taste of bile that rises to your throat every time that fucking asshole enters the room? Even if you move out, what memories do you take with you? Are there any good memories? No. You'll live your days frustrated over the fact that Fred was allowed to run roughshod over you. You'll have to swallow the resentment you feel towards yourself when you look in the mirror and remind yourself of the million grievances you left unaccounted for.

“I want to kill that asshole.”

How does that knife feel in your hand, John? You're perfectly reasonable in your desire to take the knife and plunge it into Fred's neck. He's there asleep on couch. It'd be quick and easy, John. Imagine the satisfaction of feeling the initial pressure of his skin against the knife's tip give way to the easy smooth feel of the blade slicing veins, arteries, muscles, and flesh. It's not crazy to want a life free of this person, John. It's crazy to not want some type of validation for the grief he's caused you.

“I want to kill that asshole.”

I know I'm right. The knife feels like it'll go in so easily. Fred will never see it coming. Hell, even if he did, it'd show a level of perception he's never shown in the entire time we've lived together. Even now as I wave the knife in his face, he doesn't wake up. Slicing him open is just the logical outcome here. He's never shown any remorse for how he treats me. I'm only providing the final lesson to him. No reason not to go through with it.

“I want to kill that asshole.”

There's so much blood, but apart from that...it's amazing how easy this was.

Reality Test

Alice looked at the caterpillar and wondered what had gone wrong in her mind to make it appear in front of her like this.

"Typical," said the caterpillar.

"What's that?" asked the confused little girl.

"Well," he explained, "here I am. I'm here of my own volition and design. I have free will and am in control of all my actions..."

"I hardly see how any of that relates -" Interrupted Alice.

"And you," re-interrupted the caterpillar, pointing all of it's hands at her, "try to take credit for it."

"Oh no," she stammered. "I wasn't doing that at all."

"Dear girl, that's utter and complete bullshit," answered the hookah smoking bug.

"No, really-"

"Bullshit all the same," he finished. "You automatically assume that I'm here because of you. I exist as I am because of something wrong with your head."

"Well, it would explain a lot," she conceded.

"Sometimes," offered the caterpillar, "you have to accept things as they are. Who I am, what I am, or that I am, has absolutely nothing to do with you."

Alice thought long and hard about this. The concept frightened her. She was fine accepting that the world she experienced existed solely for her. The thought that things would be the same regardless of what she thought or did was more than a bit disconcerting.

"But," she meekly offered to the caterpillar, "this is MY dream isn't it?"

"Maybe," said the caterpillar, "but that doesn't mean you get to be in control."

I have not come here to testify
About our bad bad misfortune...

The cigarettes are passed between us as we listen to the guy on stage. Old, black, spry, the singer is a frenetic one man show. Across his chest is a bandoleer of harmonicas and he blows into them for hours without missing beat. It's a sight to be seen. Whiskey is poured and the glasses practically empty themselves.

And I ain't here wondering why...

The guitar player plays the standard patterns. Pentatonic scale. Key of B. It sounds a lot less mechanical when he does it than when I do. The drummer feeds off of the guitar. He keeps the beat but isn't a slave to it. The bass player is a cute younger woman whose fingers manipulate the strings with ease. The songs range from funky soul bits, to standards. Their version of Hootchie Kootchie Man is amazing. The crowd sings along. We're halfway through the pack and probably two thirds of the way through the bottle.

But I'll go on
And I'll be strong

The conversation's weighty, but it's easy going - two people who don't have a lot of pretense with each other. Maybe not everything that needs to be said is said, but everything said is understood. Sometimes that matters more.

The harmonica is a beautiful instrument. The sounds it makes lie somewhere between a human's crying and and a guitar's scream. It's soulful and mellow. It's upbeat and a call to arms. The range of emotion this guy conveys will break your heart and piece it back together in the same instant.

We listen, amazed. It's midnight before we know it. The night's just beginning though. The heavy lifting's been dealt with. We've been reminded that there are people who've seen worse than we have and lived to sing about it. We stumble into the street. Tonight we'll check out that other club. It's smaller, with less room to roam for either your body or your mind.

It's just not my cross to bear...

For Jason, on this his 31st Birthday...

Congratulations my friend
On the course your life has found
Where you drink the beer you want
And your life's lived above ground

Now...let's get some strippers and coke...

Same Club...Different night...

T-Del plays the skids. At least, I think that's the hip way to describe drums. He sits across the table from me watching the drummer on stage. He's criticizing, but not in the snotty way some musicians tend toward. T-Del's excited about music. Listening to him talk about drums reminds me of the way some nerds talk about Star Wars. Even if you don't understand the technical details, you can't help but be affected by his energy. He loves the drums, and it shows. This drummer we're watching, he never opens his eyes. He doesn't smile. He also never makes a mistake. It's a weird balance.

It's funny how when the band gets funky, we hear every song from Play That Funky Music White Boy to We Want the Funk hiding in the background. Muddy Waters is hiding in there somewhere.

The woman singing is incredible. She's got a range that you wouldn't believe if you didn't hear it yourself, and with very few exceptions, she can work a crowd. I down the Maker's in my glass and let her guide my journey through the poetry of the moment. The show goes on and I'm enthralled.

We're leaving later, making our way toward the door, and the number of conversations going on around the woman singing surprises me. No one leaves their life at the door of the club. No one escapes the need hear their own voice.

In the street, from across the bar, more music. We wave it off. Next time, we say. The night's done for now.

Four Chords. Twelve Bars. An old man.

I'm listening to the guys on stage, but I'm watching him. He's in the back of the bar, sitting alone. Right, the old guy in the suit. His white curly hair contrasting with the dark hat and jacket. I'm profiling him, for sure, but I'm betting you 10 to 1 odds that this guy has held more than one guitar in his life time. As he listens to the music, there's a look on his face that says he knows what the guitar player is trying to say.

My buddy F-Stop sees it. She's into moments and she can tell that he's seen more than his share. She's into backstories and she can tell that his is worth knowing. She captures time for a living, and she can tell that this man isn't in the here and now...he's in a different reality.

My buddy K-Del sees it. She's forgotten more about the blues than I'll ever know. She's stood side by side with guys like Buddy Guy and John Lee Hooker, and a number of people I only know as names in liner notes. She can tell that this guy has witnessed his share of history.

I can see it. Not because I'm very insightful, or because I'm particularly observant, but he gives off a vibe that I'd have to be blind to miss. He sits there smiling as the kid on stage sings an old field holler. Next, he hears the guitar wail on the notes between frets 5 and 9 and he's remembering something...something far away and way above my head.

I sit here now holding my own guitar. I sit here stroking these strings. I sit here wondering what that old guy would play. What does he hear in his head that I'll never understand? He's lived this music. I'm just a spectator dreaming about living in his world.