Frank, what do you know? It's you and me again tonight.
The rough riders, tearing up the streets, just like old times.
This old bus is a warrior, Frank. I have tried to kill her, but she will not die.
I have a great respect for that.
The rough riders, tearing up the streets, just like old times.
This old bus is a warrior, Frank. I have tried to kill her, but she will not die.
I have a great respect for that.
Tom Wall - Bringing Out the Dead
An elderly man sits in front of a cold television set, the house is warm, but silent this day. There are plenty of homemade meals, frozen and put carefully away and labeled, things his daughter made for him, on hand. But tonight, he just wanted some canned chicken soup and a generous drop of amber liquid, something familiar and warm for his soul.
Outside the wind blows, some tattered leaves still clinging to barren limbs as fiercely as flags. Inside, the phone rings, it's the neighbors, a couple of "kids in their 60's", as he calls them, calling to check up on him across the little white brick fence. For they'd not seen anyone leave the house for a walk in a couple of days. Beyond the simple expression of Christian caring, they were concerned. He was fine.
He was glad they noticed.
Tonight, the wheels are silent and he's alone with his thoughts and the past, hoping the phone will ring. It would be his daughter, who lives so far away, who checks on him daily and visits when she has days off that allow for a quick flight out there and back.
He thinks of her, not as a grown woman, but always as that little auburn haired child who would sit on the couch for hours. Her companions were the books she coveted, books that she did not so much simply love, but crave like an addict, the fire that flowed from the writers mind through fingertips to be burnt upon the page, then doused with the water of laughter or tears, and wrung out again. He always said there was no interrupting her when she was like that, the house could burn down around her as she embraced the words among the flames. She remembers him saying "She'll love everything that hard. That will be both her blessing and her curse". Why does she remember those words now?
He settles down as he waits for her call.
My next door neighbor at the crash pad is a police officer. I have his phone number, he has mine. He's a fine young man with a strong, beautiful wife and two kids. He's a born protector. If anything looks "off" at either of our homes, we would check. If Barkley was barking at length for no reason, if a door or window that's normally closed is open, little things, he would call me. That's not being intrusive, that's being smart.
As I drove home from work tonight, I saw a teenager, a cute little thing, walking along the side of the road in a very isolated area, listening to tunes from the little buds in her ears, head down. I wanted to stop the truck and say "do you know how EASY it would be to snatch you off the road", not that it would change her behavior. Some people don't have to even be snatched, they walk right into their fate with an apology on their lips. Ted Bundy lured women to their death with a cast on his arm and a shy smile, the women feeling too guilty not to help out this poor guy and they were brutalized and died for their efforts.
We are so afraid of getting into any one's business or even looking closely at our own, that we often fail to look around us, to watch for threat, even as we appreciate all the good that is still around us. Tensions builds, darkness threatens, yet there will always be someone, head down, not noticing , with a "lalalalala". It's scary when I see that in a young woman, prey for so many. It's even scarier when I see it in those, that by their power, are supposed to make things safer so when I am ready and willing to defend myself, it's against a manageable target.It wasn't always this way. In my Dad's time, a nation attacked us without warning and we dropped a very large atomic bomb on them. Today, we apologize profusely to those who wish to kill us, closing the shutters so we don't see rogue nations continue to build their nuclear capability. We close our mouths, stopping our protests before they become sound.
Not all of us are like that, we watch, we are concerned and we're not afraid to speak up about it. I think of this blog community, many of you here that I have met, thousands I have not. Yet when a blog goes silent, usually because someone did the ring of salt wrong when setting up their new blogger template, someone always speaks up, checks with others to make sure they are OK. Others offer help if the issue IS technical; well wishes for the new parents, condolences for our losses, support during illness. Some cash in a tip jar for an unexpected emergency in a working family. It is rituals from those who remember the divinity of rituals, a few minutes each day we rescue each other deep in the middle of an anonymous web. When Barkley died, you all were my daily smile, here in this kitchen of sorrow, the pots all too full.
We read the news, we surf the web, just as we walk the streets, motion, stopping, pausing, looking, the whole world moving with the click of a heel, the click of a mouse, so much dependent on how quickly we come into view and move out again, how much we really are aware of in that moment. But we watch, we listen, we think, we prepare to survive, we prepare to defend. We are less strangers than you think, this tribe of bloggers.
Home from work tonight, I go for a short run, sweatpants and dark blue Citadel sweatshirt, trying to work on getting the knee back 100% and then some It's a work in progress, moving always, finding the composition of lift and motion that will propel me forward, help me get past pain that is more than a knee, scanning the horizon for anything unusual, gun on my hip under my shirt. I live in a little town some miles from the big city but close enough we have to be vigilant. It's relatively quiet, with some nice houses, a young neighbor I recognize walking a lab, his wife, pushing a stroller. But there are still a few homes that look like the only lab that have is of the meth variety. I see an older neighbor and stop and ask her about her grandchild, she asks about my brother and tells me she misses seeing Barkley. I thank her, small connections, small reassurances.I see someone on the bike trail that goes past my road. I recognize her, a city clerk, another volunteer at the food kitchen. She tells me of the volunteer in our group, a working single Mom that didn't show up last time, an illness in the family with an elderly parent that lives with them. I know that person's first name but that is about it. We make arrangements to meet up with some containers of homemade suppers to take over to her as the young lady on the bike knows the woman's address. I don't know her last name, I don't need to, I just know she is a hard worker and needs a little help.
We wave goodbye, and I head out into the open area. I see a movement off in the brush. Dog? Coyote? Now I knew I was in no danger from the coyote or his brethren, but I was in his world. To my eyes, his world was dark, every noise I make a threat or a promise. Where he could see, I was blind, where he could smell, my senses were mute. What he could hear eluded me completely. What drew him in, was as old as time and as uncaring. While I had intellect and size he had the grimness of infallibility, instincts honed through generations of survival in an ever dangerous land. Despite the scientific part of my brain telling me that logically I was in no danger there are primal forebodings that stir softly in our blood. Times, despite logic, that cause a less than subliminal sense of something lurking, watching. Something that stalks quietly, closer to our world than we want.
I see a young man I don't recognize, coming from the direction of town I tend to avoid. His eyes are binge drinking slits, downcast, his hands in his pockets, his whole movement, one of coiled tension and anger, at his parents, at life, who knows. I clear my throat and make eye contact and move across the street towards the gleam of a light in a window, walking head up, hand ready, determined in my movements, even if I still have a bit of a limp when I'm tired. He moves away and past, paying as little attention to me as he does his own grooming, not knowing that had he moved with the intention of harm, I would have dropped the whole world on him.I care, for people, for friends, even for strangers who, having lived lives of work and honor, just need a little support. And, as Dad surmised, I love deeply. But I have a limited capacity for empathy for scavengers and predators, having seen in my travels around the world, some absolute realities beyond the billboard of illusion that the socially and politically naive never imagine.
Arriving back home, I open the garage door, expecting to hear the hiss and click of claws on the tile inside, missing that tremendous WOOF! that was Barkley ready to protect his home from burglars looking to harm either Mom or that 2 pounds of Amish bacon in the freezer. But the house is silent, and I turn on the TV, just to hear some signs of life. There's nothing that's good news. There are parents grieving, and, on another channel, Iran's fearless leader, spouting threats of attack for the world's sanctions even while proclaiming his lack of intent to use his nuclear capability for anything other than good. Words stated with fixed and deadening smile.Maybe I am too cynical. Maybe we should apologize, maybe we should just care more. Send the man some love, a card, a candy gram, a really big bomb.
As I go out to close the garage door. I hear a comforting sound. It's a familiar cop car pulling in to our shared driveway, little kids inside the house, squealing like tires, anxious to greet Dad. I smile and wave , even as I make sure the door is down and secure before I go in.
I go inside my own home, setting down on the table my own sword; one in the form of .45 acp, dropping the badge in my pocket on the table; my shield, one that grants access to grief but does not protect me from sorrow.
I go inside and pull out a photo that's not on display, someone in dark blue uniform, not here, but always present. But I feel comfort in knowing, as I sit in this place alone tonight, that for now, this moment, our world is quiet. There's a certain warmth in knowing that someone you love is safe and well, even if they do not need to be present for that feeling to exist, the feeling, a wet finger on a burning wick, hot, but not scorching, possessing a slow deep solidity of heat that only the tragedy of time's cessation would truly extinguish.
We love with great depth, we defend with great pride, we protect with a generation's honor, even as we always keep our guard up, our eyes open equally to worry and wonder.
-Brigid
