Scene: states the family and depression as the antagonists, conflicted as how to break away and overcome; taking place between Southern California and Ohio.
When an X becomes a check
The thing of depression, in this, these far deeper dredges than those of your run-of-the-mill San Diego blues, of what I wrote in Lights at the end of the tunnel, is that I never had a choice. Or a chance. Raised by two joyless, egotistical co-dependents whose only semblance of happiness came from the child, I was not provided the adequate tools to experience anything other. As such, my life, this life, has been nothing but one unending quest to find. An epic journey, always on the move, place to place, cities to mountains to seas, East and West, as restlessness in my endeavor as is the junkie for their fix, it’s the only thing I’ve ever had, that was mine and mine alone. It’s defined me. It’s been my driving force; my guiding light. And now, after finally breaking free, the best thing I ever did aside from the time I loaded up the car on a Hail fucking Mary and sprinted like hell in the dead of December to only place I call home, finally, after so long, my entire life, I can grasp it. It’s not only in reach, I taste it. It’s like drinking from the purest spring in all the lands, not yet sullied by the masses with their fangs and their chains, and I more than prepared, I am honed, to drink from only it for the remainder of my days.
I am finished with them; through with being the object. But … how.
I am fighting; I am drowning; I am living; I am dying. It’s not my responsibility. None of it is. Regardless of who and what—dying siblings, wives, spoiled sullen kids with their irrational, cowardly, disillusioned baby-daddies, and as always, the narcissistic, depressive wolves circling the wagons. I will not yield. I’ve come too far. And it’s not going to be like before, following Chelsea and North Carolina, when it called, this weight that will not abate, the heavy iron mask of my provenance of which I wear like a second skin. I dealt with it then. I made it through. My way. Incrementally, yes, but forward with each day, each step strategically placed. It took all I had. It was the fight of my life. I went to the bottom, all hope lost, ready for the next, of what awaits, I stared the great abyss dead in its eyes, and what happened, I returned. I learned how to overcome. I know how to rise. I just do. Though I don’t with the weight of another attached, pulling us both. As then, the bottle of pills and booze staring me down, I was alone in it. I clung to the solitude and relied on only myself. As for this, the here and now, that I have to be it for both us, it’s the prevailing dilemma of us. My Him and Her. This innate responsibility I feel to shelter those who love me. Coupled with my likewise prevailing hamartia of those beautiful, awful creatures who flock to me to shield—the reason I was brought into being, to lift. When I ask: who is there to lift me. There’s never been a one. And it’s not a thing you can turn off. Or shed. There is no switch. There’s no emptying bottles down the sink and flushing pills. It’s in the blood. It’s intrinsic. I liken it to the draw of the strongest drug. It does have to be exorcised. I am truly not in control of it. I say all the words; I sound like a script. Nevertheless it wakes and it haunts; it keeps me by the throat. It is my chain. And of course, what did I go and do, I chose for my partner one of the same. They are identical. Inimical beasts. A test is what it is—the only way I can rationally reconcile it. Of how. Can I sever and still remain; can she cope in the process. Is she strong enough to be there; and to be on her own, during. To fend for herself while I’m lying naked, covered in blood on the bathroom floor. To not stray and seek, the reflex of each who preceded her, they the weak, but will she remain. Will she stand beside. Will she lie down on the floor with me.
Can I do it. Can I remain. It is the question with which I’m faced. How. We are here but for a moment. A flash. A match: lit. The conflagration dwindles to ash no matter near or far. Young or old. It’s a choice. We have to choose. Even I, I can. And I will in spite of the outcome. I must. I’ve said enough. It’s time now to act.
A surreptitious knock on the door. A feeble rap, one of not knowing. It was late—at least it was for us—after nine o’clock and the third of the disturbances of the night (with even a false entry added to the list) leading us to think this room may have in fact been a lounge of some sort for staff, a single suite saved for those paid to serve, us, the upper crust, the seemingly esteemed echelon who can, five stars and “yes, Mr Harness, what can we do,” twenty dollar tips to valets practicing bare-minimum eye contact and fragmented speech, a place for them to gather and do whatever it is that keeps one sane and focused when forced to bow at the beckon and call of the worst, of people, and I should know, I was one of them once, long, long ago, a reluctant one at that, yes, an imposter, but one of them nonetheless.
“I got a call for a loose screw in 904,” the young man said in a clipped accent.
We’d already smoked three rounds by then, way deep into bottles, bins filled-over with clanking glass, tabs carelessly strewn on the floor and spilt weed littering the gaudy rug like crumbs from His Holiness’s broken bread. My, how it must have appeared. Likely the same as every other scene in that box. Some better than others, I’m sure; some with needles and hookers and whips and chains. West Hollywood; Sunset; The Pendry; Friday night and a top floor suite.
Our room, to that, was as pungent as a skunk. Though that was what the young fellow said, eyes down, deferential and subservient, and you know what, what I thought, “of loose screws,” that yes, we sure do. Quite a few of them in fact. Just look at what’s staring back at me from across the table and I’ll tell you a thing or two about a loose fucking screw.
“We’re like a table with a missing leg in here,” the writer then said to they young attendant standing at the door. “Any shift or sudden movement, and bam, the whole mess topples to the ground.”
Trays filled with miniature accompaniments imitating life-sized extravagance. How and why, is there an explanation needed.
This rain, it’s been incessant. Hammering us for weeks on end. And not just with the rain. I needed to get away. To break the cycle. I have a troubling propensity to get lost in the dismal—another of those oh so wondrous, inhibiting traits passed down from the wolves. Agoraphobic; stuck in a moment; lost in routine. Chasing my tail, pacing the floors, walls inching in, afraid of anything that will rock it to the point of collapse. When all I really needed was a hard hand across the face telling me to get up you son of bitch, you ain’t dead yet. Not now. Not today. No matter what else and all the other, you’re still here. Now get busy living and fuck all the rest. And you want to know something: it worked. It did. It’s further realization (and proof). We are stronger than we think. More than the sum of our parts.
I should just be that. Gary fucking Cooper at every fucking turn. With every situation and person, regardless, then bleed it out here on the page and damn the torpedoes and get back out there and go for it. Yes, you’ve dealt with the death of both your parents—even as they still live and breathe. And yes, you’ve dealt with the death of your sister, actually dying in the real, back there; she who committed the gravest of acts, an atrocity, an abomination upon you, then blamed you for it the rest of your lives. So what. Move on. Let go. They don’t matter anymore. Live. Experience. Grow. Teach. Enjoy. Walk on.
And I’m tired of people telling me what is and what isn’t. I think we’ve reached the point in this existence where the rules no longer apply. Don’t you think. With nothing but destruction, death, chaos and uncertainty, abound. So why should anyone give a fuck if a sentence is structured properly. Or how many times you use a fucking adverb. Come on. It’s time to evolve. It’s time to lift the blinders. Read between the lines to see the message. The only way to get better: we must accept.
These clouds, like distraction, they persist. These shadows: a life sentence. No matter how far, how fast, or how much I’ve striven to dull them, through the alcohol and the drugs, the barrage of the nameless and faceless, curves and skin and sex and stranded, runaway love, they are here. More than shadows, realer than ghosts, they are as much a part of me as light is to dark. I should’ve stayed in bed; I should’ve stayed in Del Mar; I should have stayed in Vermont; I should’ve stayed dead.
It was with me yesterday and all through the night, tossing and turning, asleep but not, a churning divide, and it hasn’t left. I hate that I’m as connected as I am to those people, inextricably linked, as what they are, they are the clouds. They are reprehensible. They are my original death, as they are the ones who brought me to life. And now, what am I to do. Every time I try to turn away, it’s five fucking phone calls in less than ten minutes only wanting the same old thing they’ve wanted from the beginning. I woke up angry today, indignant and bitter at the world around, looking for anything and anyone to blame for this unquenchable pit deep in the reaches of my chest. Immediately going to and after her. Every little thing she does is as far from fucking magic as I am from peace. Interminable sirens blast, car alarms blare, the color of the sky above, this weight, this leaden blanket I wear as a cross everywhere I go, to the wind, to my eyes, to the wolves, to the sheep, to the storms, to the coffee not quite the same, money and fame, the renown I’m owed but haven’t earned, my whore of a mother, my coward of a father, my demon of a sister who is knocking on the door, the one who slit my throat and made me what I am today when I was but five years old, why, why, why. Look in the mirror. Take a breath. Let it all wash away. Practice what you preach. Do the thing you say you are. Be the warrior. The might. But be it for yourself. Not them. They’ve taken enough.
Only one way out. The same as it’s always been. All roads; each path; each sliver of sun. Is through.
You cannot change a person. Hard as you may try. All that you give. All your surrender; your burden. You should’ve learned this with Chelsea. It doesn’t work. Stop trying. Stop caring. Live and be only for yourself and the ones who truly want the change. The meek and the sheep, they will not. Yet they are ones who seek your strength. That: the weight of it. They will bleed you dry if you let them. Turn the tables, not the cheek. Take what you need. Leave them flayed and gaping for a change.
If you’re too afraid to live. If you can no longer withstand. If you have given up. If you have forsaken. Well, frankly, what the fuck are you waiting for. Do it. Go. Flee. No one’s blaming you. Least of which me. I would. I would have the moment you knew. It’s not feeble to quit, on the contrary, it’s courageous. To end the suffering: it’s noble. It is. It’s the cowards who fear what’s next. Who are unable. Who live to suffer. As suffering, it’s no different than love. They are one in the same. Like obsession, misery, angst. Need, want, desire. The concrete sheath that covers us all. Seals our fate from the day we are born. It’s perception. Choose to live for only the right reasons. To make this world a better place. To make yourself a better person. Give, in that you may receive.
You can’t always get what you want - The Stones. How prophetic. Just tell it like it is. Word for word. Thought for thought. Emotion to emotion. Getting what I need. A good healthy dose. Let it out. Let it bleed.
What did we ever do before these phones. How did we know where we were going. We must have been standing still. Staring off like a loon. And then, at once, as if a bolt of lightening sent from the heavens or of a beast from the sea that struck, the clouds, my torment, they parted. The answers as clear this sound I hear.
The monster is back in town. I wonder how long will this slice of peace will last. As long as I let it, I suppose.
I hold all the power. Sometimes I forget.
“You sore,” the writer asked his lover, the day after they climbed another hill. “I’m sore … Like I may not get back up if I reach down to tie my shoes.”
Welcome back to the world I know.
“Just wanted to say hello … Check in and see how you are.” The writer sent to his oldest friend, Alison Nicole.
Those people over there, they could never comprehend. Not now, it’s far too late. The only thing they know is what’s in front of them. What they see in front of their face.
Breathe. I have to stop living for everyone else. Even if it does go against my instinct; what it is I actually am. If everyone only bled like me. It runs on kinetic energy. Movement is its life. Like us. The day we stop. The next day never will come.
If it does happen, I bet it won’t last long. For when it comes. The us of we and now, we will be no more. Yet another of these tragic tales I live to spin. “How much wood could you chuck,” the writer asks himself. “As much I needed to, to survive.”
If the man took everything but your foolish pride, splayed, opened, left standing, staring down at the palms of your hands, what would you do. Here in the jungle. Where the sheep are the ones who prey. Too much looking over my shoulder these days, waiting around for another that will never come. Enough. Forward and up. The only way I look and go.
You can talk to me if you want. Or leave me to my devices. Skulls and crosses. Bones picked clean. Smoldering skies, pale blue eyes. Your guess is as good as mine. I can do it again. Though it keeps getting harder and I am but a simple man. I have a few good things I like. I like the women. I like whiskey. She likes the wine. I can’t be weak. Not now. I’ve come this far. Might as well see it through. Painting on the walls with a child’s brush. Those lines, they are unmistakable. As infallible as the truth is pure. New York City broke my heart. I’m never going back. That life, as dead to me as is vision in the fog.
“I’ve been reading and writing all day long,” the writer told his girls at bedtime and book. “Why don’t you girls read to me tonight.”
